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brawltogethernow · 4 years

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How much can you tell about a fan from how much they like Raimi Spidey

Who you are based on your Raimi Spider-Man opinion:

1. The best Spider-Man adaptation! You don’t like new things and don’t adapt to change well. You’re probably an older Millennial or Gen X. You respect an iconic scene and cheesy drama and don’t retract your enjoyment of something when the pressure is on you to do so. You like adaptations of superheroes more than the comics.

2. The most comic-accurate Spider-Man adaptation! You have never read a comic these films were based on. You may have never read any comics. You read or heard this opinion somewhere and are parroting it, and may think you can verify it’s true because you read one Avengers issue from after 2002 where Peter Parker cameos. You have high potential to become a deep comic nerd someday who will be embarrassed you ever said this so watch out for that.

3. Revolutionary for its time, paved the way for later comic book films, pared down the source material out of necessity - respect without enthusiasm You’re a little jaded but you’re trying not to let it get you down. You’ve gained immunity to MCU hype. You were happier before you did, but you can never go back. Analyzing fiction is second nature to you.

4. I just hate them Toby McGuire is consciously on your list of celebrities who could not get it. You turn over interests fast and see disliking things as its own activity, a dark mirror of fandom. You have strong negative opinions of properties you have not personally checked out and you’re happy that way because dissing stuff with people makes for good conversation.

5. Must a movie be “good” to like it? Is it not enough to have colors moving on the screen very fast. I respect you. You’re the better timeline version of the first category. Self aware and witty, a little insecure.

6. They’re bad because [thirty minute list of flaws] Wow you’ve thought about these movies a lot. You like review and analysis series like CinemaSins. (You may have a flaw list for CinemaSins specifically: It’s just an example.) Possibly an aspiring writer. You’re very plugged into pop culture and it doesn’t really occur to you to avoid media just because you don’t think it’s good.

7. I liked the first two when they were newer but they didn’t age well. Your persona is very go with the flow, not very opinionated. You consume media casually. In school you liked whatever bands your classmates did.

8. I have a soft spot for them but the effects are bad. You like MCU Spidey. You overestimate how empathetic and discerning you are. You don’t judge quickly but you do judge heavily.

9. I can’t hear you there’s only room for one Spider-Man movie in my brain WHAT’S UP, DANGER?

10. The third one ruined the whole trilogy! THAT’S what ruined it for you? You’re not wrong but your taste is unreliable.

11. I love [ship]! You’re very resilient. The weird kid. You glom onto stuff you like and don’t let go. Natural resilience to acting because of peer pressure, though you can take emotional hits from it. Probably internet friends with the three other people as deeply invested in this version of this ship as you are. Excitable in both positive and negative senses. You still use ff.net a lot. Above average vintage and otherwise lesser known comic knowledge but your attention is divided. The rare media targeting you is the 2017 cartoon if you’re a Parksborn and the Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane comic series if you’re a PeterMJ.

12. Uh I saw one or two in theaters? I don’t really remember them. You only read this list this far down because you like seeing people discuss their pet topics regardless of whether you understand them. May have to hit up a search engine to be sure what “Raimi” is.

13. Directly responsible for a lot of bad 616 trends, weird storylines, and character assassination. You’re a dyed in the wool comics nerd. Don’t get so mad you forget why you even like superhero comics. Go drink some water. You pirate media because capitalism can’t sustain how much you read.

14. Directly responsible for a lot of great 616 storylines!!!! Also a dyed in the wool comics nerd but all your favorite storylines are in the early aughts (and maybe late nineties), which was a formative time of your life. You like dropping niche comic trivia as talking points, also from this era. You not only actually go to comic shops but also have a pull list. Pour one out for the Ultimateverse amirite?

15. Peter sure turned into a giant spider and gave birth to himself because of this movie lmfao. You embrace the humor and weirdness in situations to stay sane. You know weird history or science facts and like to pepper them into conversation. Your ideal history rant is arranged to be reminiscent of that meme with the guy knocking over a giant domino with a row of successively smaller dominos. You feel the most enjoyable parts of comic community are online. You might be on Twitter. You could beat the above category in a trivia-off but would probably flub the execution due to being put off by them. You vibe with nihilism memes but you care just under the surface.

16. My blurry half-remembered impression of them isn’t negative You’re nice. You like cute desserts. I feel like you had an anime phase and go to cons.

17. Garfield Spider-Man sucks!!!!!! That’s not actually a Raimi opinion but you think it is. Low humor is just humor to you and you don’t see that as a problem.

18. I’ve been waiting for you to PRAISE the Amazing movies actually? You like Taylor Swift and would be super down for it if Kindred turned out to be Gwen Stacy. You’ve been screaming for years. You don’t like the Raimi films but don’t have time to get down on them while defending your own maligned property. You know Fant4stic was objectively not great but you’ll defend it. Emma Stone and Andrew Garfield live in your head rent free. You like to curl up and watch some good looking people having a tragic romance okay.

19. Spider-Man 3 is a cinematic masterpiece. You like shock humor and stoke attention from internet trolls on purpose. You discern your own opinions and don’t give a damn about anybody else’s.

20. I’m very two cakes meme about Spider-Man content! Raimi good! MCU good! Webb good! All the cartoons are good! I see a red mask and a thwip and I riot. A pure soul. I don’t understand you, but that doesn’t reflect well on me.

#raimi spiderman #spiderman #horoscopes #spidey #marvel #i'm a 3 with a little 6 13 and 15 #mirrorfalls #asks answered

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majicmarker · 4 years

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so i’ve had a lot on my mind lately — the good, the bad, the ugly, you know the drill. i’m used to the bad and the ugly, but i think (and ofc by my therapist’s rec) i need to give a little credit to the good, too. not to mention the good is largely comprised of people, and those people deserve a sports stadium wave, yk? idk shit abt sports, whatever, but i know what the wave is and it’s like the grandest gesture i can think of, SO

listen, y’all. to get real here, i hate fandom. my time spent therein has been hit-or-miss, but the misses got me hard and contributed to some major self-loathing, etc etc. we’re not gonna get into the specifics, i don’t owe that to anyone, but suffice it to say things got Rough.

but so much of it can be so, so good. and rn i want to keep on my rose-colored glasses, and the rosiest parts for me have always been @kitten1618x and @mygutsforgarters

(quite a few others, too, but i no longer have everyone’s info. and some ppl are newer friends, or relationships that have moved more slowly. i have mad love for u guys too, obvs, but ik melissa and gus irl so we know each other More and they’re who this post is rly about atm. pls know i don’t want to harsh on anyone’s feelings)

the tl;dr version of events is i met them both via fanfic. i happened upon theirs like “bitch!!!! **i** wanna do this, they’re bomb as hell” and then i made them be friends w me. they’ll tell you they wanted to be friends w me first, but that’s not important bc **i** am the one making this post, so they can both like,, suck it.

ANYWAY.

@ melissa : so bitch listen. here’s the thing abt melissa…… i found her while browsing jonsa fic back when i cared abt GOT, and she brought me back to what i loved so much abt romance when i first started, way back in junior high, what’s up. i bad a fascination w historial romantic epics for a loooooong time — those formative yrs, amirite ladies??? — but girl i could never write it so well as melissa. immediately she struck this balance between the drama you expect from historicals and the levity of a good romance, and i was just like, “hand to god this woman must be published already, surely???”

(she’s not, but that’s ridiculous so we’re gonna skip that)

(also she’s busy?? we’ve been friends for like six years and i will never know how many kids she actually has, but the point is she’s a goddamn superhero and i’m obsessed w her, MOVING ON)

i just Had to be her friend for two reasons: 1) she’s too talented, and b) i have said that abt 2 ppl my entire life and she was the first, so i was like, “AH YES MY HOLY GRAIL”

so ofc i slid into her DMs just as effectively as that one guy i had a crush on when i was sixteen and he’s still shooting me texts every valentine’s day bc of the societal pressures i guess (it is Far Less Effective these days, he’s my age and therefore too young for me, gross, but i digress), except me and melissa go way stronger.

she reminded me of why, half a lifetime ago, i started writing romance — bc it’s fun, bc i want to. bc i can do absolutely anything i want, bc who else is gonna read it but me and whoever i share it with? it was all up to me what i wanted to do with it, and i could do anything. nothing really mattered but what i wanted, and i hadn’t felt that way abt anything in such a long time — let alone abt something i used to love so much.

melissa’s writing is so beautiful, it’s everything i wanted to achieve when i was fifteen and never got around to perfecting. and i’m totally okay w that now, bc what do i need to do myself that she’s not already doing/wants to do in the future? when i found melissa’s writing i found a missing part of me — a part i’d maybe lost, maybe i gave it up, idk, but it was totally gone until i found her fics and they fucking clicked. i had to reach out bc there was a part of me that was a part of her, and she helped me find that again w/o even knowing it.

so i found melissa via GOT, and from the start she’d been trying to get me to write some bethyl. years and years, she dropped not-so-subtle hints — and by “hints,” i mean legit directives that i watch just enough TWD to write her some beth/daryl fic. real crafty, she is.

eventually the stars aligned: i was bored w the same dynamics i’d been writing for years, i wanted smthn new, i was restless, i was line editing a bethyl fic she’d written, and — again — this shit clicked. her fic made me want to explore this dynamic i’d never done before, so i watched the prerequisite episodes (no more than that tho, i super hate the show and i’m begging y’all to not @ me abt it anymore). i found smthn that i’d been missing, smthn that challenged and excited me and brought me back around to why i love romance and, more importantly, why i want to write it myself.

so as i was starting to write bethyl, i was poking around the ao3 tag to get a feel for what had been done, what hadn’t, anything i might be missing. and goddamn BAM —

@ gus : this is where u enter dramatically thru a red velvet curtain that i don’t wanna touch (Metaphorically bc you do romance better than me and i’m cool w that bc your talent simply Cannot be touched, and Literally bc i hate velvet) — i was like, “please for the love of god let her want to write contemporary romance, i need some good fckin food”

i happened upon “doo wah diddy diddy” first. ofc the summary hooked me, forget my usual hard no against pregnancy fics (i have issues w pregnancy and that’s all anybody Needs to know, back off), but This Bitch !!!!!!! has a way with words and i wanted to be friends w her straightaway. lmao too bad for her, now she’s stuck w me

gus’s fics gave me what i wanted without having to write it myself. her style is so distinctive, she hits the notes between porn and Actual Affection that is missing from uhhhh, every romance i’ve tried?? (why is everyone so intent on the sex part?? fckin chill. at best it’s unrelatable and at worst u sound like u’d rather wear someone than fuck them, check urself)

she writes w such care, she wants you to know what she’s doing here, and what she’s doing here is combining the physical and emotional needs of both characters w/o infringing on anyone’s comfortability. you root for these characters bc they simply want to be together, no strings (and if there are strings, damn, they talk abt it).

gus makes you believe in love in the modern age. like, not to sound like one of those ppl who post fckin “no one in this generation knows how to love!!!1!!11!!” memes on facebook, those are dumb, but gus’s writing made me think “yeah man, love ain’t dead, it’s just abt how we approach it.”

(if y’all haven’t guessed yet, i have some hang-ups abt relationships. i’ve goddamn earned those. but melissa and gus both brought me back to where i needed to be — in this place where, yeah, we’ve got some shit to deal with, but we all still deserve the things we want, and those things are achievable. i could not have gotten here without them, so jot that down.)

gus is Real, she’s funny, she’s unapologetic in the way she writes. ofc she has her personal hurdles, but who doesn’t?? and tbh nobody writes a sex scene like gus does. physical, realistic, but balanced w the emotional depth that makes you root for these characters bc you can Feel how much they want each other — not just sexually, but in the less-erotic aftermath of that passion. it continues to blow my mind, bc i’ve never seen anyone do what she does. i can’t even pinpoint the specifics, bc she just… Does It. and you’re reading it like “yeah bitch that’s it,” and That’s It.

it’s fckin wild.

these two — my best friends, the lights of my life, both of whom always make me crave chicken tenders at THE most inconvenient hours bc somehow we always talk abt chicken or ice cream or ultimately DQ, but they're both so hot idec — have something special.

i really, really want them both to know that: it’s not just in how they’ve treated me as a friend, but who they are as people, in their creative pursuits. i’ve never known support the way they’ve shown me; i’ve never known this much enthusiasm or investment or belief that i can do what i want with my talent. i want them to know that i feel the same way abt them and their works.

sometimes, when i look back at their writing that completely kicked my ass, i still can’t believe that they’ve become two of my best friends. it’s totally bonkers. they’re This Talented, and they wanna be friends w my spastic ass? GIRL. i’m out.

i’m not always the best at being present, at giving people what they need when they need it. but with everything that melissa and gus have given me in the past few years, i need them to know this — honey!!! i need all y’all to know this, bc i know fandom shit is hard, but you should know some of these friendships are so, so worth all that bullshit, so —

they have so much to give, so much to say, so much to offer. i could not have kept going without them. i couldn’t believe in myself without the faith they’ve given to me. i hope that i can always give that same faith right back.

and that, babes, is what real soulmates are all about.

#i just love them whoops my hand slipped #the majnificent adventures #gus tag #@ melissa wtf is our tag we had like five #how do i not remember five things #anyway i got into my feelings tnt don’t @ me

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patrickztump · 3 years

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☕ camping, the TV show Monk, standing-only concerts? (+ ☕ bonus freebie beverage for Any Opinion)

camping well i've never been camping* so my opinion could change should i ever do, but over all i think it could be fun. really my biggest hiccup with the idea is bathrooms. either camp sites with them (ideal) or having a way to go comfortably (second best) thats not just... peeing in a bush. i’m picky i know, but bathrooms are a Big Deal for me lol. bugs (ticks and mosquitoes specifically) would also be a problem, but not so much as one as off deep woods is my preferred scent in the summer. oh, snakes too. simply Do Not want a copperhead working its way into my tent.

*assuming camping is in a tent, in the woods, maybe at a campground or just ~out there~

monk monk reminds me of my middle school friend; she was a huge fan of monk and tried to get me to watch it, but i just wasn't interested in it at the time. lately i've kind of watched it off and on when i stumble upon it, and it's like a lot of crime dramas - leans more to the goofy/comical side (not that bones doesn’t lmao but is has booth amirite). it's okay, still not a favorite. but i find the theme song terrible lol

standing-only concerts HATE IT. provide chairs. i especially hate them in the dead of summer and it's 80º at night with no less than 80% humidity. the amount of times i've felt lightheaded and like i was going to pass out from fatigue/heat exhaustion and dehydration and didn't have a seat? numerous. a seat would have helped me recover/regain strength much faster than i actually did. so yeah, i really think seats should be available.

anything? well, since you asked..

toxic simmers. the sims 4 is deeply flawed right now with bugs and glitches and lacking depth for basegame alone. we all know this and want it fixed and revamped - it is a seven year old game after all. but simmers (twitter specifically) HARP on the issues, what they want, and how “no one asked for that” when new packs are released (albeit valid for the star wars pack), they are never happy or satisfied with anything. i don’t follow any simmers on twitter but do follow the sims, so twitter shoves tweets pertaining to the sims, ea, and video games in general down my throat. and every. single. tweet. about the sims is someone complaining about something. it makes the community look angry, bitter, and downright unpleasant. i don’t engage with it much past sharing a build i made every now and again because of how unhappy everyone is. i’m unhappy! my game on ps4 literally lags, freezes, and crashes, it’s borderline unplayable as of late and it irritates me - but i don’t sit around b*tching nonstop on twitter.

#ask #sometimes-i-talk-a-lot #ask game #so it sort of finished off as a rant #oopsies #but it is incredibly annoying to see anything from a 'passionate' simmer

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kinetic-elaboration · 3 years

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August 5: 3x02 The Enterprise Incident

After several weeks of being in like a TOS desert (Assignment: Earth; Spock’s Brain) finally we get to The Enterprise Incident, one of the best episodes, possibly of all time. Why was D.C. Fontana so good??? How??

McCoy narration! How unusual. I like how it contributes to the generally jarring opening, with Kirk acting so out of character and so on. All of the crew being fooled and the audience too.

I’d say this scene is the only one Kirk haters have ever seen--where he’s all arrogant and impatient and mean--but he’s not being slutty enough.

When you need intel, you go to Uhura.

This is an interesting ep because the Enterprise is being uncharacteristically sneaky. Usually, they’re obviously doing the right thing in the straightforwardly right way, but this really is an espionage mission, which includes, in addition to the garden variety lying, major stuff like uh treaty breaking.

Wow, a Romulan with a name. Unusual. Is he the first named Romulan?

They want the Enterprise. They want his lady!

Hmmm, you have a Vulcan on board, do you? Very interested in that. It’s pretty funny that the Commander calls up as soon as Tal mentions Spock,like she has a sixth sense that picked up on a potential hottie on the enemy ship.

Oh no, Kirk and Spock aren’t getting along. Trouble in paradise...

Spock looks very disapproving. And Kirk is acting downright despotic. Hot.

Imagine being the Romulan hostages lol. That’s awkward. “Go their ship and uh sit in their brig, nbd, we’ll bring you back.” (And then later one of them is unceremoniously stripped naked.) (And then later still they’re completely forgotten about!!!)

Scotty’s face when he sees the hostages is very funny. Like “oh I know what to do with YOU.”

I love the Female Romulan Commander already.

Wow Kirk is such a liar. Just say it loudly enough and it will SEEM true. Navigation error etc.

“It’s no myth that Vulcans can’t lie,” Spock lied.

“It’s not a lie to keep the truth to oneself.” Feel like I gotta outright steal that.

Oooh, the Commander has a temper.

Kirk is “a highly sensitive and emotional person.”

He’s living for the drama.

This must be all very confusing for the crew.

I love Captain Scotty. He’s so intense.

“You make a brave noise.” Burn.

Spock’s been an officer for 18 years. I’d do the math on that but I’m not sure when one becomes an officer specifically.

“Do you like Captain Kirk?” (I don’t even remember why I wrote this down, but uh, yeah.)

...Damn this whole scene is so good.

“I don’t make house calls.”

Except for Kirk.

It’s bizarre that the Romulans are in Klingon ships (that look like Federation ships on the inside) for pretty much no reason but I do like the design of them in general.

Funny how “Attend me” sounds an awful lot like “My wife, attend.”

Lol at the crocheted board shorts on the male Romulan officers. The Commander is MUCH more stylish.

“Are the guards invited on our date?”

“It would be illogical to assume that all conditions remain stable.” What a F L I R T.

Very bold of her to basically declare “Spock, you’re Captain now.”

Kirk looks like the drunk friend, swaying in the background, gearing up to something.

“Vulcan death grip” lol. Sounds like made up Vulcan nonsense to me! (And it is.)

Even if it weren’t, Spock is an adult Vulcan and a trained Starfleet officer, he would never just accidentally death grip someone.

And now it all comes out. Because Chapel was nosy. Love that she just casually knows all this stuff about Vulcan abilities.

They told Bones pretty late about this whole plan. I feel like Scotty and Bones should have been in the original loop.

“You’re lucky they didn’t start an autopsy.”

Love that part of Kirk’s transformation into a Romulan was putting on eye shadow.

Also love Scotty’s face journey when he sees Romulan!Kirk.

Look at these decadent Commander’s quarters. Spock must love them.

Recruiting inducements lol--is that what the kids are calling it these days?

“Don’t beam me into a bulkhead.” Don’t even joke.

Spock hasn’t sent the coordinates because he’s DISTRACTED while on his DATE.

I love their little square drinking glasses.

“I do... appreciate it.”

“If you don’t tell me your name, I’ll have to make one up for you.”

TOS Spock apparently more smooth than AOS Kirk.

When she stood up, that mini-skirt basically became a shirt--barely.

His lady leaves the room and he immediately call his man--what a slut.

The Commander’s “casual” outfit is easily one of the best TOS costumes. So pretty! 10/10 would wear today.

“Stimulate...our discussion.” Sure. Your discussion.

He’s been moved emotionally.

Dammit Tal! Stop cockblocking the commander.

Love how obvious it was that she and Spock were hooking up--she's dressed up, he appears dramatically from behind the flowing white curtains in her frankly huge quarters.

The cloaking device looks suspiciously like Nomad again.

“How could you do this to me?” Girl, you’ve known him for an hour. Calm down the drama.

Also love the earrings.

That was a weak slap. She should have sent him sprawling with her Romulan strength. I guess her heart wasn’t in it.

Romulans are Vulcans but with unfiltered Drama.

I like her jellyfish chair.

Now Spock shall fillibuster his own death by reading a very long prepared statement.

She hears the phrase "historic tradition" and sighs like "this is gonna be the longest 20 minutes of my LIFE.”

Silly of Kirk to assume they wouldn't fire on the commander and/or that she wouldn't ORDER them to fire.

“Alien contraption.” Scotty enjoying himself.

Hmmm, the Commander was bragging to Spock off screen about the cloaking device--what else might she have said that we didn’t hear?

Mr. Spock will escort you to your quarters--more like Mr. Spock will escort you to HIS quarters amirite?

She would like his weaponry.

“Military secrets are the most fleeting of all.” Well that line didn’t have to go that hard.

“It was the only choice. You would not respect any other.” Where’s all the talk about loyalty and oaths now?

“They do not look aesthetically agreeable on humans.” Textual evidence for my theory that Vulcans, though humanoid, have some sort of indescribable Alien Aura quite apart from the eyebrows and ears.

That was such a good ending. Last major dialogue scene was a serious one between Spock and the Commander, but then there’s a little humorous coda, too--a good shot of Spock looking pensive, but also the peanut gallery having a little laugh.

I love that episode so much. I love how... difficult Spock is to read. On the one hand, I do think he was really attracted to the Romulan Commander. I also think he was hiding a lot of the truth about why he didn’t join the Romulans--I mean yes, that was never a real option and it would certainly be wildly out of character for him to do it. But he also talks exclusively about loyalty to Starfleet, his oath, his uniform, as if but for the happenstance of these things, if he were making a decision for himself instead of following his duty, he might prefer to be with her and the Romulans. But what about the obvious other factor--Kirk himself? What about “A starship runs on loyalty to one man, and no one can replace it--or him?” I feel like his connection to Kirk is like the unspoken undertone to all of this. Especially because, as Captain and XO, they were the only ones to know about this plan from the beginning, and probably came up with the details of it themselves. But we also know that Spock takes the mean things that Kirk says to heart, even if they’re only said as part of a mission or larger ploy. And we also know that he truly desires belonging, and that being part one thing and part another often makes him feel as if he belonged nowhere. But the Romulan Commander didn’t seem to care about his human heritage. She asked him what he was, and only mentioned the human part one other time, not in a negative way. I do see the temptation for him.

It’s also interesting that Kirk initially refers to the Commander as “he,” implying he didn’t know specifically who was in charge of the ship. That means that while he and Spock clearly planned for Spock to undermine and then “kill” Kirk, and almost certainly to play on Romulan/Vulcan cultural connections, they probably did not plan on Spock seducing anyone. He did that on his own.

This would reboot so well. Like, aside from the S/U aspects, it’s a perfect candidate: a spy narrative that has a little bit of the gray morality they’re so attached to; Kirk and Spock tension; Kirk being Dramatique; cool aliens--and it would have been very interesting to see this story play out in the context of the destruction of Vulcan. (More generally, I think completely forgetting about the Romulans after the first reboot film was a huge mistake but whatever.)

Mmmm, I just... I want to watch it again lol. D.C. Fontana was truly the queen of alien world building. That sense of alien-ness that I get in the Spock and Commander scenes is like what I’m going for in some of my own stuff.

#the year 2021 #2021: fandom thoughts #2021: star trek #star trek tos

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verai-marcel · 4 years

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The Things That We Could Be (Charles x F!Reader, Biker AU, 18+, 1 of 3)

Summary: You’re a freelance writer, trying to bust into the world of journalism. While the local paper gives you a few assignments here and there, you’re looking to catch a big break. When you start sniffing around one of the local motorcycle clubs, you find more than you can handle, and it leads you to discovering secrets about the owner of your favorite cafe, a man with warm brown eyes and the kindest smile.

Author’s Notes: This story has been in my head for a while. Hope you like it. Also disclaimer: I did some light research on motorcycle clubs, but I really don’t know a whole lot about them, so this may come off as pretty generic. That’s fine, we’re here for the Charles smut, amirite? Also, can you guess what song I took the title of this fic from?

Tags: plot, drama, violence, cheesy 80s vibe, bathroom sex, doggy style, smut, romance

AO3 Link is here, sweetie.

Word Count: 2567

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Chapter 1 - New Girl in Town

“C’mere Natasha,” you cooed at the calico cat that had walked towards you as soon as you had entered the cat area of Crafty Cats. This cat café was your haven, your home away from home, ever since you had moved to this area two months ago. Pursuing your career of news journalism, you worked for a local paper, hoping to get enough experience to break news left and right. It was the hunt for the story that drove you; the search for truth kept you going even when your boss cut your articles time and again. You dreamed of one day crafting the words that would move hearts around the world.

But for now, with your crushing student debt, you settled for any job that would keep you afloat. Even though this town was small and relatively quiet, there were still stories to be told. Pulling out your laptop, you started typing away as Natasha leapt into your lap, curled herself into a ball, and purred loudly. Patting her absentmindedly as you hemmed and hawed over your word choices, a soft chime of the bells tied to the door heralded another visitor.

"Your hour is almost up."

You looked up at Charles, the owner of the café. His long black hair was loosely tied up in a queue, but shaved on either side of his head. Tendrils too short to be tied back fell around his face, framing a strong jaw and a gentle smile.

And that voice? Ooh, it was like sinking into a hot bath. You could listen to him talk all day.

Unable to stop yourself, you pouted. "Already? It feels like I just got here."

Charles laughed softly before looking through the large window that separated the cat area from the café. Then he turned to you and placed a finger to his lips, winking at you.

"Maybe you still have another thirty minutes left," he said with a smile. "I won't tell anyone if you won't."

You grinned. "You're the best, Charles."

He just shyly shrugged as he began to reach down toward Natasha. He paused, looking at you for permission to get closer. "May I?"

"Of course," you said, leaning back to give him room. He gently pet Natasha's head, a smile on his face as she lifted her head to rub against his palm.

You envied the cat so much at that moment.

With Charles so close, you could see the profile of his face, so beautiful to you, and the lines of scars on his cheek and jawline told a story that filled you with a burning curiosity. You wanted to ask, but you also got the feeling that it would be overstepping some boundary and the warm aura that surrounded him would disappear.

So you swallowed your questions and continued to watch him pet Natasha for a few more moments. When he got up, he looked at you, almost as if he was going to pet you next. Or maybe it was just you projecting your fantasies onto him. He walked away, heading out the door and entering the cafe again. You looked through the window and watched him talk to the barista who was working at the bar, and then he headed through the back door, presumably to do manager things.

You turned back to your laptop. He had given you an extra 30 minutes. Better make them count.

***

“I thought you quit smokin’.”

Charles shrugged as Arthur came up to stand next to him, leaning against the back wall of the cat café. It had been a long day, and even though he rarely smoked anymore, today just seemed like that kind of day. He took a long drag, blowing out the smoke slowly as he looked up at the crimson sky.

“Who’s the girl?”

Charles turned to look at Arthur, an eyebrow raised incredulously. “How’d you know?”

Arthur chuckled. “You used to smoke a lot whenever you had your eye on someone.”

Charles let out a short laugh. “Am I that easy to read?”

“Nah, I’ve just known you long enough.”

Charles smiled as he put out the rest of his cigarette. “She’s a writer. Watching her work in my café… It’s nice.”

“You goin’ to make a move then?”

Charles turned to him, a wry grin on his face. “I’m not letting this one get away.”

***

You were packing up your laptop just as you saw Charles and another man come through the back door. It was sunset on a Saturday, and Charles always shut the cafe down early on Saturday nights to give him and his barista a break. Spotting the barista grin as she saw the other man, you were suddenly intrigued by the way they looked at each other, a heat to their grins as she reached for him, pulling him close. He kissed her forehead gently, his head tilting to one side slightly to gaze at her, and you felt as if you were watching a much more intimate moment. Heat flooded your cheeks as you quickly looked away, continuing to pack.

Once you had everything put away in your laptop bag, you moved to get up, but a small paw attached itself to your leg.

“Sorry Nattie, I can’t stay.”

The calico meowed and dug her claws in.

The door opened and closed. You could hear Charles laughing softly. “She really likes you.”

You managed to pry Natasha’s claws out of your pants and stepped out of the way before she batted at you again. “I’d adopt her if I could, but my apartment doesn’t allow pets.”

Charles nodded. “I understand. Arthur over there is in the same situation,” he said, nodding towards the man who was now holding the door for the barista as they exited the cafe. Arthur looked up and waved goodbye with two fingers as Charles waved back the same way.

He looked back at you. “If you ever move into an apartment that can have pets, you’ll have to fight him for her,” he joked. “Natasha only likes the two of us and Arthur.”

Your shoulders sank. You were stuck in a 6 month lease for the only place you could afford, a dinky studio apartment in the next town over. “It’ll be a long time before I can move,” you lamented.

Charles stepped closer to you. His concern was pouring out in waves; when you had told him during a previous visit about where you lived, he had immediately told you to go home while the sun was still out. You were still trying to figure out what places were safe and what places weren’t, and when he had talked about how the motorcycle club in that area had a tendency to harass new people to the town, you started to keep up your guard and to play it safe, getting home before dark and locking the door. So far, so good.

But you were also curious about this motorcycle club; were they really as bad as Charles said they were? He was just a cafe owner, what would he know about this? Had they threatened him in the past?

Your train of thought stopped when he placed his hand on your shoulder. His warmth was inviting, his touch was gentle. You wondered for a split second how it would feel to have his hands all over your body.

“Charles?”

“Just… stay safe, alright?” He looked away for a moment, thinking over something before looking back at you. “I don’t want to see you get hurt.”

Your heart skipped a beat. “Alright,” you said, a little breathy. “Thank you.”

As if your heartbeat wasn’t erratic before, the smile that bloomed on his face made your cheeks warm and your breath quicken. You nodded at him and headed for the door, trying to hide how he was making you feel.

But as you walked past him, his hand brushed the small of your back, and he quickly caught up with you so he could hold the door open like a gentleman. “See you tomorrow?”

You smiled. “Yeah, see you tomorrow.”

***

Back at your place, you took a deep breath. You were going to do this. You were going to start investigating the local motorcycle club.

***

A week had passed. While you were churning out articles for websites and the local paper, you were also asking around about the MC. Most people just knew to steer clear of them, that if you didn’t bother them, they didn’t bother you. Some suggested you stop investigating them, to stop sticking your nose where it shouldn’t go. But of course, you couldn’t do that. You wanted to know what they were about, what was their motive.

Some men wanted power & money. Others just wanted to watch the world burn.

You were hoping it wasn’t the latter.

***

A banging on your door woke you up late at night. Startled, you grabbed the metal baseball bat near your bed and slowly walked towards the door, only for it to suddenly burst open.

Three big, burly men poured into your doorway, the light outside making their silhouettes even larger.

“Heard you been askin’ about us.”

You swallowed.

One of them walked up to you. You swung your bat.

He dodged it and grabbed it, pulling it easily from your grip. “We don’t want to hurt you, baby. Unless you keep asking about us.”

“Why?” you asked. It was the first thing out of your mouth, and once you asked, the rest came out. “Why is this town so afraid of you?”

One of the other men stepped forward and grabbed you by the throat as you tried to step away. You clawed at his arm, but he was strong as steel, his fingers digging into your neck.

“We don’t owe you an explanation, lady,” he said. “Stop askin’ about us.”

“Or else,” the third man threatened.

You hated being told what to do. But you saw the danger in your situation. You clamped down on your urge to question them. It’d be hard to write a news story if you were in a hospital. Or dead.

So you kept your mouth shut and stared them down.

“You goin’ to stop?”

You nodded, just to get him to let you go.

The man let you go, pushing you backwards with a hard shove. You staggered back, but stayed on your feet.

“Don’t think about calling the cops,” the leader said, taking a practice swing with your bat. “They can’t protect you all the time.”

Then he swung the bat into your TV, smashing it into bits. Tossing the bat onto the ground, he and others laughed as they walked out the door and into the cold, dark night. As they left, you caught the symbol on their jackets: in large letters, ODB written across the top, with a green skull inside of a four-leaf clover below it. The letters MC were on the right of the symbol.

It was the O’Driscoll Boys.

You fell to your knees, shaken and scared, but also filled with an all-encompassing anger, burning-hot and laced with frustration.

You had a feeling you weren’t the only one who had dealt with this. And you also had a feeling that you couldn’t stay here while you investigated further. As if this was going to stop you.

You just had to find another way.

***

You stared at apartment listings, trying to figure out a new place to stay. Unfortunately, so many things were outside of your budget. Maybe if you skipped a meal every other day?

“Tell me what happened.”

You blinked and looked at Charles, who had managed to sit next to you without you realizing. You were so deep into your house hunt that you hadn’t paid attention to what was around you. Perhaps it was because you felt safe here.

Perhaps it was because Charles was here that you felt safe.

He slowly reached for you, his fingers touching your shoulder. “Who hurt you?” he asked, gentler this time.

You reached up to your throat; your scarf had slipped down a bit, revealing the bruises around your neck. Looking down, you answered him in a soft voice. “The ODB MC.”

“Fuck.”

You looked up quickly. He had spoken with such hard anger that you were surprised to hear it from him.

You took a deep breath and told him what had happened last night.

At the end of your story, he took your hand in his big ones, making you feel small, but protected in his grasp.

“Do you have a friend you can stay with? You can’t stay there, it isn’t safe.”

You shrugged. “Not really.” The few friends you had lived far away. Family was far away too. You were stuck.

He squeezed your hand. “Stay with me. I can sleep on the couch, but I’ll sleep better knowing you’re safe.”

You blinked. He was offering his room for you? “Charles, I couldn't impose—”

“You wouldn’t be imposing. Please.”

Looking at his serious face, you nodded, accepting his offer. You had the feeling that if you refused, he was going to pick you up right there and then and keep you in his room anyway. There was an intensity to his protectiveness that stirred your heart, made you want him to lock you away.

He smiled. “Thank you. I’ll help you when you’re done here.”

***

That afternoon, he had his barista hold down the fort while he helped you pack up some of your essentials; you weren’t planning on staying with him for more than a week, but he let you know that you were welcome to stay for as long as you needed to.

You had told your landlord that your place had been broken into and that the lock would need to be fixed. When he saw your bashed-in TV, he said nothing, solidifying your theory that he had turned a blind eye to the MC when they had walked through here. He knew, and he wasn’t going to do anything about it, which pissed you off even more.

***

Charles carried your two duffel bags full of your stuff up the stairs in the back of the cafe to his apartment. On the way to his place, he had told you a little more about the downtown area where he and his friends lived and worked. One of his friends, John, was happily married with a daughter and owned a flower shop close to the clock tower that served as the town center. His other friend, Arthur, worked at the local tattoo shop, but lived elsewhere. A lot of the businesses in the renovated part of downtown were live-work spaces, so Charles had his little loft apartment above his cafe.

“Makes the commute pretty nice,” you remarked as you followed him up the stairs.

“Yup. Have to be sure to at least put a shirt on though, or I get yelled at,” he said with a laugh. He had mentioned his barista was like a little sister to him, and that he was lucky to have her. He mentioned having put the idea in her head to go out with Arthur, and was happy they had gotten together. You wondered at his observation skills, to see to the heart of someone and what would make them happy.

Would you make me happy?

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

Chapter 2 is next!

Tagging @mrscharlessmith @fangirl-ramblings @eeeasyguuurl

#Charles Smith #charles x fem!reader #rdr2 #rdr2 fanfic #biker au #writing #fanfic #modern au #lemon fanfic #nsft

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komatsunana · 4 years

Note

I was really disappointed when I found the real reason for Nana’s mothers leaving in chapter 77. I was hoping she would have a good explanation for why she left, not that it makes it any better. But at least I could try to understand her choices. Finding out that the reason was her wanting to be with a man more than her own daughter made me disgusted. Maybe I’m just taking my own parental problems into this hahahaha. What were your thoughts when you read that chapter?

Anonymous said to komatsunana

I meant the part about what Nana’s mother said, not the whole chapter, just wanted to clarify that

So sorry to be getting back to you so late! Life in a pandemic, amirite?

We, as a fandom, don’t tend to talk about that part of the chapter much, because it’s overshadowed by the other big things that happen that chapter.

But yeah, it’s fair to be disappointed. Not just because we crave drama (but also that) but... we just want to hear an explanation that will explain to us... how a parent can just abandon their child. You want to hear something that makes you understand. Like Minoru assumed was a possibility, that Misuzu abandoned Nana because of an abusive boyfriend. Even if I crave the drama and the possibility for reconciliation, I’m relieved for the underwhelming reason (that Misuzu’s current boyfriend didn’t like kids and she wanted to be with him more than be Nana’s mother). It means that Nana won’t feel like she has to forgive her mother, or make anyone feel like Nana should just “get over it.” Nana’s feelings of abandonment are valid.

That said, even IF Misuzu’s reasons were valid... If she’d abandoned Nana to Miyuki because the alternative was worse... Nana feeling hurt and abandoned would still be valid. Because it doesn’t matter what Misuzu’s reasons were in the end, Nana was hurt regardless of what they were. An explanation does not undo years of pain, growing up with an abusive grandmother.

NANA as a theme of motherhood and maternal instinct. It’s something Hachi obviously has, not even just for the child she is pregnant with. It’s something that Nana worries she lacks. In part because her own mother lacked the maternal instinct... which it later turns out that Misuzu only lacked the maternal instinct to love and care for Nana while she was a mother to Misato, feeding into Nana’s feelings of abandonment and rejection.

If the one fan theory that Satsuki is biologically Nana’s daughter is correct then... inevitably Nana would abandon her own daughter too, following in her mother red high heeled footsteps. Even if Satsuki was left in a much more loving home than Misuzu left Nana in, even if Nana’s reasons of being in so much grief that she cannot bare to care for her child... No one could blame Satsuki for feeling hurt and betrayed by Nana, if Nana truly is her bio mother.

That doesn’t mean that we don’t understand why Nana would leave, because we do. We spent many volumes coming to understand Nana.

And so we can understand too, why Misuzu abandoned Nana for seemingly no good reason. Misuzu ran away from home when she was 18 years old. If the NANA wiki is to be believed and Misuzu is 40 years old, that puts her at 19 when she gave birth to Nana. That’s two years older than Hachi is when she gives birth to (assuming) Ren jr. 19 is a young age to give birth at, especially when you take into account she likely got pregnant almost immediately after running away from home. Miyuki wasn’t a good guardian to Nana, I hardly doubt she was any better to Misuzu. At 23, Misuzu abandons Nana. She tried to raise Nana for 4 years... We have no idea how those 4 years went... did she love her daughter? Try her best for her?

Being a single mother is hard - it’s why Hachi had to make the hard choice to stay with Takumi who promised to marry her. Were those 4 years Misuzu tried to raise Nana hard? Did she provide Nana adequate care? Maybe Misuzu plans on telling Nana those things, when she finally reached out to have a conversation with Nana in the last chapter. There’s just so many unanswered questions.

The sad thing is that... It’s reality that most people’s first trauma in life is caused by their parents. It’s often times the most defining trauma of a person’s life. Do parents intend to cause those traumas? Almost always, no. But it is what it is.

Misuzu didn’t intend to leave Nana with life-long abandonment issues, but she did. But maybe if Misuzu had kept Nana, it doesn’t mean that the trauma she gave her daughter would be any less. Maybe she really would have let her child-hating boyfriend abuse Nana. Maybe she just would have continued not loving Nana, but dragging her along anyway. Would it have been better? Would it have been worse? Impossible to tell.

Not to get into themes that NANA almost definitely isn’t getting into but this is the reason that the obsession with the nuclear family is so harmful. It’s hard to be a child, at the mercy of your parental guardians to make every decision in your life. But it’s also hard to be a parent and sacrifice your entire life and wellbeing for a child that is entirely dependent on you, with absolutely no help from a community.

So yeah, it’s disappointing on Nana’s behalf that Misuzu had such a weak reason for leaving Nana with a lifetime of abandonment issues... But those reasons were important to Misuzu at the time time she made the decision. And that’s the sad reality of it, that reasons outside of Nana’s control happened to her and put her on the path she ended up on, feeling scared of trusting anyone and letting them in, scared of anyone she let in leaving her in any form.

idk, maybe I’m too sympathetic with Misuzu, or maybe I’m too hard on her. I really don’t know.

Regardless, I do think Misuzu has more to say about her choice to abandon Nana and she was finally going to come clean with it, before the hiatus.

#nana #osaki nana #uehara misuzu #i scream #my nana feels #Anonymous #ask #long post

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trashlord-007 · 5 years

Note

What is strangers from hell? I’ve seen it a lot on your blog and it looks rlly interesting 👀

Ohohohoho it's a treat, lemme tell you.

Strangers From Hell (sometimes known as Hell Is Other People, or by its Korean title 타인은 지옥이다) is a Korean drama starring national treasure Lee Dong Wook and ZE:A member qtpie Im Siwan. The drama is actually based off a Korean Webtoon of the same name. They did take some liberties and change some of the characters and plot, though, so it'll still be worth the read (once it has an English translation).

The story focuses on Yoon Jong Woo (Im Siwan) as he tries to adjust to life in Seoul. An old friend offers him an internship, allowing him to move to the city. This brings him closer to his girlfriend as well. Unfortunately, Seoul is expensive so he has to look for an affordable goshiwon (고시원, where you rent a very very small room for a few weeks or months) within his budget... which leaves him with very few options. This brings us to the main setting of the story.

The Eden Goshiwon is the one he decides to stay in. It's quite rundown and isn't ideal and the other tenants are... quirky, but he just needs to stay long enough to save some money. He's planning on just a few months but... plans usually have a way of falling through.

It is inside this Goshiwon that we meet the a fair portion of the cast, including the mysterious Seo Moon Jo (Lee Dong Wook) who is a little too fond of the word 자기 (jagi; darling, honey, dear) and the amicable but pushy landlady Eom Bok Soon (Lee Jeong Eun, who you may remember as the original housekeeper in Parasite). It is also due to the actions of certain tenants that we get to meet So Jung Hwa (Ahn Eun Jin), a perceptive and determined police officer.

I won't say much else because, like, spoilers but every episode escalates. There's never a lull in the content. There's never a boring moment. You're left on the edge of your seat questioning just how much more one can take before they snap, and how bloody it will be once they do.

Every character has a story to tell and has their own motives, whether good or bad. Most characters are looking out for themselves and no one else. It provides an interesting social commentary and a look inside the minds of several mentally imbalanced individuals. It is due to this mindset of looking out for only one's own interests that pushes the story to greater and more terrifying heights with every episode.

There's also a decent amount of violence, so swerve on it if you're not into that.

Lee Dong Wook really brought his A game with this one (but when doesn't he, amirite?). I believe it was one of the first roles he's played that possessed this rather creepy and ominous vibe, and he absolutely nailed it. While he starts as a charismatic dentist who is well-liked and respectable, you'll soon find yourself on a rollercoaster of twists and turns as his true character is revealed.

Honestly, I could say the same for Im Siwan. There's much more hidden beneath his soft, almost pathetic exterior. It truly is a testament on how much any one person can take before they decide to take action. Learning about Jong Woo's past truly opens your eyes to the possibilities of his future, and trust me when I say you won't be disappointed with his character development.

This is one of the few shows, Korean or not, that I would recommended wholeheartedly. It's a 10/10 both story-wise and performance-wise. If you're interested in psychological dramas / thrillers with a dash of horror, this is the show for you. There's so much going on that it leaves no room for you to be bored. I mean, the stuff I touched on was just the first episode or two. You're always left wondering what will happen next, who will make the next move.

Truly a masterpiece if I've ever seen one.

Edit;; I just want to add that the ratings dropped at one point as it aired because it creeped people out! It was airing late at night and they found the show too scary to watch! It did such a great job conveying fear and terror and horror that people tuned out! It was actually a news article about this that alerted me to the show and made me wanna watch it in the first place. There is no better review for a show of this type than people having to turn it off because it scared them. What a legend of a show.

Edit;; it's come to my attention that I should probably include where you can watch it! Last I checked, it wasn't on Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, or Viki. It is on OnDemandKorea and that's where I watched it! There are ads though. I'm honestly not sure where else might have it. Please let me know if there's other places and I'll add them to this post!

Edit;, STRANGERS FROM HELL IS NOW ON NETFLIX!! GO WATCH IT! ♡

#WOW I rambled #i'm so so sorry lmao #bbinie ♡#strangers from hell #hell is other people #타인은 지옥이다 #Lee Dong Wook #Im Siwan #lee jeong eun #ahn eun jin #seo moon jo #yoon jong woo #kdrama #long post #again I'm sorry but I really like this show!#10/10 recommend #kdrama recommendations #kdrama review

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erinptah · 5 years

Text

The Secret Commonwealth review: It was...pretty underwhelming, mostly

Finally got the audiobook of The Secret Commonwealth checked out from my local library!

(Here’s my review of its predecessor, La Belle Sauvage, if you want to start there.)

It’s 20 hours long. Whoof.

As for the contents…look, it was well-written prose. I didn’t get bored while listening. (Rereading that last review, I realized I’d written the same thing about the previous book, too.) But in retrospect, there sure was not a lot that happened in those 20 hours. Some notable action bits, in between a lot of padding.

And my reactions mostly consist of…complaints. Not “this is hideous, time to ragequit the series, this is an unqualified anti-rec” complaints, more a low-level churn of frustration.

(There’s one scene I know has made someone else outright refuse to read it, though, and I think it’s totally reasonable. More on that later.)

So I’m gonna try to unpack a bunch of it here. Hopefully in enough detail that, if you haven’t read it yet (and don’t mind spoilers), it can help you make an informed decision about whether it’s worth spending 20 hours of your life on.

Spoilers start here!

The Story

We open with Lyra as a 20-year-old student at St. Sophia’s, a women’s college in Oxford. She’s made some kinda-friends, including former booty calls that she’s still on good terms with, but she’s badly estranged from Pantalaimon.

Their rift is exacerbated by a couple of books she’s read that are popular with young intellectuals lately. One is a philosophy book, one is a novel, both of them seem broadly Ayn Randian in the sense that “teens/college kids get really into these books and decide it’s smart and fashionable to adopt their moral framework, ignoring both the logical failures and the ways in which this turns you into a horrible person.”

She’s been staying at Jordan between semesters, but political drama forces her to move, and that’s when Oakley Street swoops in to make contact. They’re the secret Magisterum-thwarting spy organization that Hannah Relf worked for in La Belle Sauvage. Employees now include Alice Lonsdale and Malcolm Polstead, who fill Lyra in on the events of the previous book.

Lyra crashes at Malcolm’s parents’ inn for a bit, but her fighting with Pan gets so bad that he takes off, leaving a note. He’s going to confront one of the authors of the fashionable/terrible books — who lives in Germany, so this could take a while.

Since Lyra can’t just hang around and go through the motions of a normal life while her daemon is visibly missing, she takes off too. First on a detour to the Gyptians, then on a sorta meandering cross-continental journey of her own.

Along the way, both Lyra and Pan keep uncovering new details about this ongoing side plot:

It turns out there’s a place, I think somewhere in the Middle East, where daemons can’t go — same as the area in the North that witches use for separation ordeals. If a human crosses that area, they arrive at the growing-place of a type of rose that won’t grow properly anywhere else, whose oil has the same effect as the seed-pod sap used by Mary Malone in the mulefa world — you can use it to make a Dust-viewing lens.

This rose oil can also be used to make all kinds of super-cool products, like the World’s Best Perfume and the World’s Best Rosewater, so it’s valuable for lots of reasons. But a few researchers have caught on to the Dust-viewing power, and the Magisterium has caught on that some dangerous research is happening with roses, so they’ve started destroying every rosebush they can find in the general region — wreaking havoc with the global economy in the process.

(They’re also trying to convince the general population that God Says Roses Are Immoral now. If this book had come out 5 years ago, I could’ve made some great connections with “there’s widespread successful Magisterium propaganda about how nobody should like or respect the work of botanists.”)

And there’s a related plot where Lyra’s uncle (she actually has one! Mrs. Coulter had a brother!) is playing a long game to re-consolidate as much Magisterium power as possible under a single individual. It gets us some good dramatic sequences…which I feel no need to break down here, because they’re exactly the ones you would imagine, with exactly the outcome you’re already expecting.

One of Uncle Wannabe-Pope’s employees is Bonneville Junior, the son of the miniboss from La Belle Sauvage. He’s a trained alethiometrist, but is more interested in his personal vendetta against Lyra than his actual job. Takes after Dad in that he’s not very deep or complex, just a straightforward fun-to-hate villain.

Pan eventually makes his way to the Terrible Author’s home, where he discovers that things are weird and creepy, but not very specific. Doesn’t achieve anything in particular, either. Disheartened, he sets off for the Region of the Weird Roses, with the idea he’ll meet Lyra there.

Lyra, meanwhile, has a notebook they recovered from an explorer who went to the Region of the Weird Roses. It includes a list of other (non-witch) people across the world who’ve been separated, because apparently they’re more common than you’d think, and have a secret support network. So she visits a few of these people along her trip, with an endgame goal of Weird Roseville.

Malcolm also makes his own journey toward Weird Roseville. I think it was part of an Oakley Street investigation into “what does the Magisterium have against roses these days?” In the middle of it, Bonneville Junior confronts him (Junior is having trouble finding Lyra, but has a secondary vendetta against Malcolm for killing his dad, so this is almost as good). Malcolm talks him down.

At last Lyra, Pan, and Junior all hit the same “creepy deserted town in the general area of Weird Roseville.” But none of them manage to interact before the book ends.

…In my LBS review, I said it had serious middle-of-the-trilogy syndrome, a whole lot of setup for no payoff. TSC spends very little time following up on any of it. To be fair, the Original Trilogy has happened in the meantime and this book also tries to address some of the events from that, but the vast bulk of it is even more setup for no payoff.

Complaints, Broadly Organized By Theme, In Loosely Chronological Order

Lyra at St. Sophia’s:

I really like how the opening sequence involves Lyra noticing a friend is in distress and helping her out! (Friend’s dad is in the rose-using business, and his company is going under.) And then…that’s the last we see of any connections with female friends her own age. In the entire book.

One of the Terrible Rationalist Books is spreading the idea that “daemons are a collective hallucination.” This is not a “rational” idea in this world! It would be like saying that faces are a collective hallucination!

And Lyra is the least likely person in this world to buy into it, because she’s visited a world without visible daemons, and got empirical proof (via Will’s and John Parry’s separation ordeals) that even under those conditions, they still exist!

I can appreciate the idea of Lyra and Pan being traumatized and scarred and having trouble, but this, specifically, is a nonsensical thing for them to argue over.

The book also gestures (not very hard, thankfully) toward the idea that Lyra is doubting the existence of magic in general. Which, again, is the equivalent of someone from our world deciding it’s rational to doubt the existence of weather.

Also, it seems like Lyra/Pan haven’t had any contact with witch society through these years. Why not? If anyone’s going to have sympathy and understanding and support groups for their separation-related trauma, it’s the culture where every single member formally goes through the same thing! And I’m sure Serafina would be delighted to see them! But they don’t even consider the idea.

Lyra and Malcolm:

Yes, they’re being telegraphed as a future couple, and yes, it’s just as creepy and unappealing as the internet has been saying.

And, look, I’m not going to say “20-year-old Lyra is too young to date anyone she wants.” Not after we got through all of Original Flavor HDM without saying “12-year-old Lyra is too young to go on an interdimensional journey with no adult supervision and save the multiverse.”

But he was one of her teachers when she was 16, and his POV includes remembering how he had to actively shut down sexual interest in her then, and here in the present Lyra still thinks of him as kind of a distant authority figure, and that’s weird, okay?

They only have a couple days’ worth of actual interaction before being apart for the rest of the book. That’s not enough time to believably develop their dynamic into something believably-potentially-romantic. So the narrative doesn’t try.

…but it still has multiple people ask Malcolm if he’s in love with Lyra afterward.

The foreshadowing on Lyra’s side is all in how she keeps thinking about how similar he is to Will. (Cat daemon, killed someone when he was a tween, etc.) Because that’s what we all want for Lyra’s romantic future, a knockoff Will-substitute, amirite?

Separately: Malcolm and friends tell Lyra the whole backstory about the magical boat trip from La Belle Sauvage, but it doesn’t seem like she tells them anything about “that time I went on an interdimensional journey, built a group of allies from multiple worlds and species including literal angels, killed God, and permanently rewrote the nature of death.” I feel like that should’ve come up!

General daemon stuff:

There’s a moment in the early chapters when Pan, wandering alone at night, considers eating some small critter (the kind that an ordinary pine marten would eat). It’s not like he’s going through a species-identity crisis, either. It’s just written as…a thing a daemon might do. So that’s weird.

In the original series, daemon separation is a major, improbable ordeal. Under normal circumstances, a human and a daemon being dragged apart past their distance limit will just kill them. At Bolvangar they figured out a severance method that would leave you physically functional, but dead inside. Witch-style separation only happens at this special daemon-repelling place in the North (you don’t have to be a witch to use it, see John Parry, but they usually don’t tell non-witches it exists), or on the shores of the World of the Dead. So far, so good.

In this series, we find out that there’s another place on this Earth with the same daemon-repelling properties. It’s also remote and isolated and associated with Cool Weird Stuff (the cities in the Northern Lights vs. the Dust-revealing roses). Again, so far, so good.

…And then we find out that random people can just kinda do a separation ordeal anywhere. Okay, it already happened to Malcolm in La Belle Sauvage, but now it’s all over the place. Lyra keeps spotting people on the street without daemons! Pan teams up with a kid who got dragged apart from her daemon in a shipwreck, and it didn’t kill them! It’s too easy. It’s unsatisfying. It undercuts so much of the monumental feeling separation had in the original trilogy.

It also makes it even weirder that nobody was able to hook Lyra and Pan up with a support group. Oakley Street couldn’t suss it out? Her friends among the Gyptians couldn’t catch an underground rumor and pass it on?

Related: when we saw daemonless kids in The Golden Compass, they were treated like horror-movie monsters. Like zombies, ghosts, bodies walking around without heads. But when people clock Lyra as being daemonless here, they treat it like it’s something immoral. Like she’s walking around topless and needs to cover it up.

There’s just a general pattern of rewriting HDM’s established rules about daemons, and not for the better.

And speaking of rewriting established rules…general alethiometer stuff:

There is a New Method for reading the alethiometer. It involves pointing all three hands at the same symbol, which already seems like a gimmick, not a useful way to frame a question.

And somehow, that gets you the answers in the form of…magic visions. No intuition or interpretation needed! The sights and sounds just get funneled directly into your brain!

The reason this isn’t a Plot-Breaking Hack is because it makes the user super-queasy. You can only use it when you’re in a position to be sick afterward, and people would rather not use it at all.

Lyra spends most of the story with the alethiometer, and without all the symbology books that go with it. She avoids using the New Method because of the nausea, but she also avoids using the Classic Method, on the grounds that it apparently can’t get her anything without the books.

She’s been studying these books for years now! Couldn’t she at least try to read it, and make her best guess at the interpretation? Maybe sometimes she gets it right, maybe sometimes she’s wrong and things go sideways and she realizes in hindsight which of the symbols she misread, maybe sometimes she gives up and gets depressed and puts it away without drawing a conclusion at all…but nope, she just flat-out doesn’t interact with it.

Midway through the book, Lyra gets a tipoff about a kind of truth-reading cards. That’s fine; we know there are other methods of truth-reading in the multiverse, including the I Ching and Mary Malone’s computer. Makes sense as a new tidbit of worldbuilding.

But towards the end of the story, someone helpfully gifts Lyra a deck of the cards. And she spends some time trying to infer answers from how the pretty pictures on the cards fit together. More time than she spends trying to infer answers from how the pretty pictures on the alethiometer fit together.

The alethiometer didn’t need a New Method or a total replacement in the narrative…but apparently it’s getting them.

And what was the point of Lyra dedicating herself to studying those symbols, for years, if she can get better and more-accurate data from a set of symbols she’d never seen before until this week?

Pan’s international voyage:

This all started when Pan got the idea that Terrible Author had “put a spell on Lyra and stolen her imagination.” Which sounds like a figure of speech at first, but no, apparently Pan thinks this guy is literally magic.

And yet, somehow, not magic enough to be dangerous, even for a single lone daemon whose only plan is “confront him directly and demand that he fix it”?

Most of the trip is uneventful, since it’s a long string of Pan successfully keeping out-of-sight.

There’s one clever part where, once he’s in Terrible Author’s hometown, he finds a school for the blind to ask for information. That way he can say “my girl is totally standing right over there, don’t worry about it, now, any chance you know where Terrible Author lives?”

…of course, the first person he asks has exactly the right answer and is happy to share. Convenient, that.

As mentioned, Terrible Author’s setup is suitably creepy and off-putting, but Pan doesn’t figure out anything about why. Doesn’t investigate. Didn’t come up with any kind of plan beforehand about how to coax Terrible Author into undoing his evil spell. Pan just confronts him, demands he fix Lyra, realizes this hasn’t fixed Lyra, and leaves.

There’s a bombshell much later on when Lyra finds out that Terrible Author is separated! And, although there’s a daemon who hangs around with him, they don’t actually belong to each other! This is fascinating and disturbing and would’ve been so much more satisfying if, you know, Pan had figured this out and was actively trying to bring the information to Lyra. Or, heck, if anything had been done with it at all.

Shortly afterward, Pan runs into this girl who just happens to be separated from her daemon, and is available and happy to team up with Pan, so they can head off to Weird Roseville together. Convenient. Again.

Lyra’s Bogus Journey:

Lyra has a much harder time staying out of sight than Pan, so she gets a lot more interaction along her trip.

Most of it is a long string of the same convenient “running into people who are helpful and friendly and have exactly the information she needs to move the plot along.” (More details on that below.)

When this happened in the original trilogy, it was the alethiometer deus-ex-machining her in the right direction, which worked! But here it seems to keep happening by accident. (She brings the alethiometer, but, as mentioned, she doesn’t use it.)

The Conveniently Helpful People also keep telling her (with minimal prompting, and what seems like total honesty?) whole backstories. All of which are more interesting than the actual narrative she’s going through.

They also occasionally mention God/the Authority, and Lyra doesn’t have much of a reaction. I wish, just once, she had snapped “it doesn’t matter what the Authority thinks! Or rather, what he used to think, since my boyfriend and I killed him when we were 12!”

The convenience also could’ve worked if Oakley Street agents were being cool and clever and actively tracking her journey in order to help. She does run into a few of them, but that seems to be by accident too.

And it could’ve worked if there was other magic steering her along — she keeps dropping the phrase “the secret commonwealth,” meaning the world’s hidden population of faeries and other supernatural creatures — but as of the end of the book, none of Lyra’s friendly helpers have been revealed to be anything other than human. (Some are modified in exotic ways, but they were human to start with, at least.)

Even farther towards the end of the book, after this long string of people being Conveniently Helpful For No Reason, she ends up in a train car with…and I wish I was making this up…a bunch of soldiers who are Inconveniently Attempted Rapists For No Reason.

That record-scratch moment your brain just did? That’s how it feels in the book, too. The attack comes out of nowhere, there’s suddenly a big action sequence with Lyra fighting back, their CO shows up and makes them let her go, and then she leaves the train and heads almost directly to the next bunch of Conveniently Helpful People.

If anyone wants more detailed spoilers, either to be prepared before reaching the scene or to decide whether you’ll read it at all, let me know.

To be blunt about one thing: from the in-scene descriptions I would’ve said none of these guys actually managed to get their dicks out, but a few days later we get the book’s first and only reference to Lyra having periods. And she doesn’t think “oh, thank republic-of-heavens, I’m not pregnant,” which suggests she knew it wasn’t a risk, but the whole Narrative Reason you write that in after an assault scene is because someone is afraid it’s a risk, so, what are you even doing, Pullman??

Okay, switching tracks.

Some of the people Lyra encounters, usually with personal stories that are way more interesting, and I wish they’d been [part of] the actual main plot:

A guy who meets her at a train station, says he has a friend who needs her help, leads her out into a maze of city streets where she explicitly thinks about how risky this is because she’s totally lost…but she does the mission and it’s fine and he leads her right back to the train station afterward.

The friend is a human who’s been modified by “a magician” to be some kind of fire-elemental person, and wants Lyra to help find his daemon, who was modified into a water-elemental form — a mermaid! This is cool and fascinating and scary and raises so many questions —

— and they get killed immediately after Lyra reunites them, and we never find out anything more about it.

The killer is the magician, who had been holding the water-sprite daemon captive. (And is possibly also the guy’s father? Finally, someone who can beat Marisa and Asriel in a “Bad Parenting Juice” drinking contest.) Which, again, is fascinating and evocative — how do you become a magician? Or are they born, like the witches? How many are there? What kinds of things are they doing in the world? —

— yeah, we don’t find out anything about that either.

Murderous Magician Dad just gives Lyra some helpful plot information, then sends her and the train-station guy off on their way.

A couple of guys who intervene when Lyra is being harassed at a bar.

They steer her outside, she’s prepared for a fight, but they hold up their hands and say they’re friendly, and also, they noticed someone steal the alethiometer bag off her earlier, so here, would she like it back?

They give her some helpful rumors, too. Don’t remember which specific ones, but they lead her to the next plot point.

A rich elderly princess who’s on the Daemonless International Support Group list, because her daemon fell in love (!) with another woman (!!) and eventually ran off with her (!!!).

Lyra thinks to herself that she’s seen other situations where a daemon and their human have different feelings about a romance. Just thinks it in passing, and then it’s gone. I want to see these situations! I want on-page exploration of multiple ways they can work! How do they correspond to the feelings of people in worlds where all the daemons are internal?

As for the princess, I already knew it was going to be a big scandal — two human women in that day and age could never be a couple, at least not in public, and A Literal Princess is a very public figure —

but then, in spite of the scandal, the princess moves in with the woman! And they travel together, they work together, they share a bed, she explains to Lyra that she played the role so thoroughly she made herself fall in love with the woman!

…and then it falls apart for some reason, and the princess leaves, but her daemon insists on staying. So that’s how they get separated. Deliberately walking away from each other.

There’s a brief reference to the idea of him wishing he was the other woman’s daemon, instead of the princess’s. How does that work? How do you get so disconnected from yourself, and in such a skewed partial-match with someone else, that you end up with that kind of yearning?

In case you can’t tell, I want to read this novel. I would trade the entirety of The Secret Commonwealth for this novel. No question, hands down.

Instead: Princess says “if you run into my daemon, tell him I’d like to see him again before we die?” Lyra says “sure, can do, thanks for the brunch.” And then, you guessed it, that whole scene is over and done with and we never get any follow-up on it again.

A pair of agents from Oakley Street, who say “hey, Lyra, have you considered using some basic disguise techniques, like dyeing your hair and wearing glasses?”

And then they give her a lovely haircut and a dye job and a spare pair of fake glasses.

This isn’t anywhere near the beginning of Lyra’s journey, by the way! This is more than 80% of the way through the book. There’s no special reason she needs it more after this point.

It’s like Pullman suddenly realized a disguise might help, wrote the scene at the point he had reached, and then never went back and edited to put it in a more meaningful location.

The stranger on a train who shows Lyra the deck of “exactly the same as an alethiometer” cards, gives her a demonstration of how to use them, and then leaves the whole deck behind for her to keep.

A married couple who don’t share any languages in common with Lyra, and don’t seem to have a lot of money…but feed her and let her stay at their house overnight, for free, even daemonless as she is. They also give her a free niqab so she can move around less conspicuously (she’s still injured from the fight with the soldiers).

A priest who invites her into his church, isn’t bothered when she takes off the niqab, helps treat her injuries, and gives her a motherlode of useful details about highly-illegal dealings he’s not even supposed to know about, but will unveil to this total stranger who just wandered in, because she needs them for the next plot point.

This when Lyra finds out that someone in this region has resurrected the Bolvangar method. But this time they aren’t kidnapping random children for it. No, they’re paying for it. If you’re poor enough, and desperate enough, and can’t spare any more kidneys, these people will buy your daemon to sell on the black market.

The city has a whole secret underclass of illegally-severed people working in the sewers.

Meanwhile, rich people who’ve been deserted by their daemons can purchase a stand-in. This is what Terrible Author did. Of course, it’s not a true replacement, but the dealers boast about their ability to make an excellent match.

There are also people who buy separated daemons for other scientific/experimental purposes. Details left to our imaginations.

This is a horrifying sinister mindblowing discovery, as much of a bombshell as the original Bolvangar was. I mean, it would’ve hit harder if Lyra had uncovered it by spying, or tricking someone into revealing the information, or anything more elaborate than “asking straightforward sorta-related questions and getting this whole sordid story infodumped by the first guy she asked,” but it’s still big.

So it’s gonna shake things up something fierce, right? Maybe Lyra won’t go full-on “calling in the cavalry to tear the place down” until Book 3, but this would be her new “stepping through the doorway into the sky” moment — where the horror of what she’s learned galvanizes her into making a pivotal decision, where she starts laying the groundwork for the revolution —

— no, of course not, this is where she starts going around to the hideouts of various undercover daemon-sellers and asking if they can help her find Pan.

Come on.

And this brings us to the end of the book. One of the black-market daemon-sellers guides Lyra to the creepy abandoned town where the final scene takes place.

In these last moments, the audience (but not Lyra) finds out that this guy has ulterior motives. Which would make it the first time in the whole book when “Lyra or Pan takes a Conveniently Helpful Person at face value with total credulity” turns out to be a bad idea.

(And, I mean, he’s a black-market daemon-seller. If anyone on that list was obviously an unethical scumball who shouldn’t be counted on….!)

Finally, a few things that don’t fit into any neat lists, but annoyed me enough to mention:

1) People curse in this book. Which is notable because they didn’t in HDM, and it wasn’t just the adults watching their mouths around tween Lyra — we got plenty of scenes that only had people like Mrs. Coulter and Lord Asriel in them. Those two would definitely be dropping f-bombs if it was a routine part of their world’s language, and this book reveals that it is.

So every time it happens it breaks your immersion, pointedly reminding you “this isn’t a real world, it’s a fake story where the author can switch the profanity-filter on and off at will.” Does it enhance the narrative in a way that’s worth the tradeoff? I don’t think so.

2) Before I read the book, I’d heard vague spoilers about “a character with a mermaid daemon,” and figured it was someone from a cool magical species — hopefully more expansion/exploration on the fairy from La Belle Sauvage whose daemon appeared to be “a whole flock of butterflies.”

But no, it’s a magically-modified human. His situation doesn’t get explored that deeply before he dies, or connect with anything else in the story. The fairy, meanwhile, does get mentioned when Malcolm tells Lyra about meeting her, but she doesn’t reappear or get any kind of follow-up.

In spite of the title, the only explicit appearance of any members of the “secret commonwealth” is some little glowing spirits, basically wights, that Lyra watches over the side of a gyptian boat one time.

3) There’s a scene where a bunch of people gather in a meeting hall to protest the Magisterium sabotaging their various rose-related livelihoods. A couple Magisterium reps are there. Malcolm is also there, and his POV basically goes “huh, looks like all the exits have gotten the doors shut. And barred. And suddenly they each have an armed Magisterium agent standing in front of them. That’s weird. Gonna keep quietly observing to find out what happens next.”

This guy is supposed to be a cool experienced anti-Magisterium spy! This is basically a giant neon sign flashing COMING UP NEXT: MASSACRE! (It is not a misdirect, either.)

And Malcolm sees it, but doesn’t read it, or take any action to try to subvert it, or even move to defend himself — it’s just like any cheesy horror movie where the audience is shouting LOOK BEHIND YOU at the unwitting character who’s about to get murdered.

Wrap-Up Thoughts

Whatever happens in the final volume of this trilogy, it might reveal things that redeem some of the problems in this book. But I’ll be honest, I’m not holding my breath.

And when I think about reveals that would address these problems, everything I come up with is stuff that should’ve just been in this book.

For example: let’s say the Fair Folk are directly involved after all, intervening to steer Lyra and Pan down the most convenient paths. In particular, the guy on the train who only appears long enough to give Lyra a set of alethiometry cards + a tutorial on how to use them — I really want him to be Fae. It’s so contrived and random if he’s not.

But the readers should know about it! Back in HDM, we would get scenes about the plans and activities of all the other factions at work. It might take a while to discover the exact details of (for example) the witches’ ultimate goal that Lyra was part of, but we knew they had a goal, and were supporting her in service of it. If the Secret Commonwealth is actively involved in the plot, we should’ve gotten that by now.

Semi-related: I feel like, if the rest of the book was better, then I’d have no trouble explaining a lot of the Lyra-specific issues as “she’s super-depressed, not in a place to make great choices or take a lot of decisive action.”

But it’s not like she’s drifting around in a trauma fog that hampers her ability to get things done. Her journey, while not perfect or threat-free, still comes together with improbable smoothness — as if the writing hasn’t noticed that she’s not being proactive and prescient and well-coordinated and overall super-competent about it. Meanwhile, other characters are underwhelming in the same way. (Looking at you, Malcolm “I Can’t Believe It’s Now a Bloodbath” Polstead.)

So it doesn’t seem like a conscious narrative choice to write Lyra this way. It just seems consistent with the complaints I have about everything else in the writing.

…let’s be honest, I’m almost certainly gonna read the third book anyway. I’m enough of a completist that it’ll bother me not to, I don’t have a lot of hard-stop dealbreakers that would make me bow out anyway, and, well, I do a lot of work that requires time-passing listening material. The Secret Commonwealth is nowhere near the most-frustrating audio I’ve used to fill that time.

But it hasn’t left me excited or optimistic or Shivering With Anticipation, either.

Mostly I just anticipate getting some useful stuff done while I listen, and then having a final set of reactions to work through in another one of these posts.

#His Dark Materials #HDM #The Book of Dust #The Secret Commonwealth #tsc spoilers #review

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imagines-mha · 5 years

Note

May I please request Kuroo, Ushijima, Kenma and Oikawa relationship and proposal headcannons please? Thanks, my Irish beauty!

Omg Irish beauty hahahaha ur so sweet!! Also of course u can^^

Kuroo

❤️ A relationship with him is two words: never boring. He’ll literally be ALWAYS filled with conversation and different things for you both to try- there will never really be a dull moment between you both

❤️ You guys would travel a lot, and he would make it his priority to travel the world with you by his side

❤️ You’d love adventure- and you would 100% be the type to go on really wild safaris etc just to experience all you can

❤️ He would be such a teasing, playful boyfriend. Short? Be prepared to be BULLIED. Wear glasses? BULLIED. Clumsy? BULLIED. It’s all playful tho and u know he only does it cus he loves these things abt you bro

❤️ Prank wars ALL THE TIME LITERALLY 24/7 BASICALLY. Includes a side of Bokuto. Sometimes you and Kuroo will go against Bokuto and Akaashi and it’s so chaotically perfect plus you guys always win

❤️ He CAN be so romantic when he wants to be, and has chivalry hidden in every crevice of his body he’s clearly also a daddy lmao but behind his dorky, sciencey exterior lies a romantic nerd who will sweep you right off your feet

❤️ When he wants to propose- he does it right. Romantic Kuroo takes the reigns. He’ll definitely take you out somewhere you both know very well- like where you guys went on the first date. He’ll have a little speech planned and everything it’s so cute

Ushijima

💜 Big confused babie??? In a relationship??? This only means 1 thing= adorable

💜 He is sO caring and polite. A true gentleman: he will call during your breaks at school/ work, he’ll bring you home things that remind him of you, he’ll spoil you when he can. He’s amazing

💜 He’s still quite stoic, but lets himself talk more and smile a little wider around you. You make him happy and he’s comfortable showing that to you.

💜 Very loving. He’ll hide ZILCH of his feelings (“why should i? I love them- so they deserve to know how i feel inside”)

💜 Lots of missing common sense though. He’s so intelligent but damn he will stare at the microwave for 3 minutes straight wondering if he can put a fork in there or not PLEASE BBY

💜 When he wants to marry you, he knows how to go about it properly and enlists help from the Shiratorizawa Angel™️ Reon Ohira, who helps him plan out everything

💜 It’d be a simple proposal- and he would do it somewhere you guys were alone so he didn’t cause a huge fuss. He loves you and he only wants YOU to hear the words he has. He’ll be soooo nervous tho but it’s adorable

Kenma

🐱 Quiet boy. When you get him into the relationship he’s like a cat: very weary at the beginning but as time goes on he becomes your other half

🐱 Whenever you guys get super close, he’ll show his humorous side a lot more. This is basically him making sarcastic puns and dry, borderline offensive humour all said with a blank expression. He has you in fits of laughter

🐱 You guys are the relationship with 937 inside jokes that only you could even begin to understand. Even if you tried explaining them it’d still sound so confusing but that’s what makes them golden

🐱 Video games galore- y’all would just sit for days and play together while eating junk food and not caring about your health

🐱 He’s so snuggly though. When he begins to get tired he sprawls out on your lap and snuggles into your side and u just wanna tuck him in and kiss his little head omg he is babie

🐱 He’ll propose to you AND HE’s SOOO SHY. It’s like small, timid kenma from before rises to the surface and you haven’t seen it in so loNG so ur confused until you realise

🐱 He just looks at you, sighs a bit, runs a hand through his hair and then presents the ring Kuroo helped him choose (and it’s beautiful). You know it’s real when he proposes, because he’s never usually the type to make such a move so he’s in it for the long run bro 😎

Oikawa

💙 A relationship with this man just screams drama amirite so make sure you can handle....him

💙 He’ll always be so flirty though, and will leave you blushing after every single conversation for at least the first year like he has skill™️

💙 Really romantic moments: going out for dinner, dancing around the kitchen at 3am, twirling you and kissing your cheek. It’s something straight out of a movie

💙 However he’s also sooo super dorky. Late nights watching buzzfeed unsolved? Yes. Alien conspiracies while sitting on the roof of your house at 3am? Check. Binging stranger things until morning? Boom

💙 You’ll see his dorky side and he’ll trust you with everYTHING. He’ll also flaunt you as much as possible all over social media, and will be your no. 1 supporter as long as you’re his

💙 When he wants to marry you he wants to make it as glamorous and memorable as possible. He considers doing it during a match, but then realises it would maybe be a little TOO MUCH (thank u iwa for telling him tht)

💙 He proposes so sweetly though: getting down on one knee, taking your hand in his, looking up at you with those large, chocolate eyes and telling you exactly what you mean to him. The ring will be so beautiful and you just CAN’T say no to this boy

#haikyuu headcanons #haikyuu!!#oikawa tooru #kuroo tetsurō #kozume kenma #ushijima wakatoshi #haikyuu imagines

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psycho-slytherin · 6 years

Text

Strangers ch. 27

Your dizzy spells have gotten worse, but it’s time for you and Yoongi to shine.

Pairing: Yoongi x (female) Reader

Word count: 1.6k

Genre: Floof

|mlist|

<–– Prev Next ––>

Okay. Okay. It’s fine. Everything is fine. Fine fine fine fine. Fine. Fine–

A knock at your door interrupts your whirlwind of overthinking, and when you open it you see your downstairs neighbor tapping his foot impatiently.

“Oh, hi there, Soobin. What can I do for you?” You’re cautiously polite, reasonably sure that by this point your neighbor despises you– when you flooded your apartment, his was also damaged, and your obnoxious alarms at all hours have probably driven him crazy.

Soobin yawns. “It’s two in the morning, y/n. I understand if you’re stressed or something. However, your pacing is making it hard to sleep.”

“Oh.” Your cheeks turn red. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to keep you up.”

“Get some sleep,” your neighbor advises. “I’m not trying to pry, but it’s hard to ignore when you’ve been pacing for the better part of an hour.”

“Yes- I will.” You apologize again before saying goodnight, and once you close the door you sigh and lean your forehead against the smooth wood. You’ve never felt so nervous in your life– just thinking about tomorrow raises goosebumps on your arms and makes your heart stutter.

You’re going to kiss Yoongi.

You. Are going. To kiss. Min Yoongi.

Well, your character is going to kiss Yoongi’s character. But still.

The first time you saw Yoongi, back when he called himself Agust, you’d fainted. Just seeing him was enough to overwhelm you entirely and make you lose any semblance of dignity. And now, that man, your idol, your dream, is going to kiss you.

As you climb into bed, you pray that you’ll be able to at least keep your balance tomorrow. Today. Whatever. You need sleep.

“Fame, flashlight– gi-give it to me!”

You shoot upwards, jolted unpleasantly out of an equally unpleasant dream. “Son of a bitch,” You groan, rubbing your temples. Your head hurts terribly, and the comments you’ve been reading online followed you once again into sleep.

@captainkookie21: hey throwback to when @yourname was a no-name who didn’t sleep her way to the top, amirite? Our boys are too good for her lmao

@seventeengoingonseokjin: im so conflicted about #MoonOverTheSea like?? Do I stan because Yoongi? Do I hate because @yourname? What’s the protocol

@namjoonforpresident: Y’all there’s a rumor that there’ll be a #MoonOverTheSea footage leak lmfao didn’t they barely start filming

@bangtan-uwus: unpopular opinion but fuck @yourname and everything she stands for. I’d understand if she were actually famous but she aint and she doesn’t deserve yoongi

@captainkookie21: @bangtan-uwus lol you mean popular opinion

“Ugh.” You bury your face in your hands, squeezing your eyes shut tight, tight enough to keep everything out. There’s an emptiness in your chest so heavy that it hurts to breath, and you’re dizzy again– these spells have been happening more often lately.

Suddenly, your phone rings. The noise makes you jump and scramble to answer.

“Hello?”

“Y/n~ how are you, darling?” Lisa sings in your ear.

You force yourself to relax, force your voice to lighten for your friend’s sake. “Yeah, I’m great. How ‘bout you?”

“Tut-tut. This isn’t about me, hon. Second day of filming! How are you feeling?”

“Yeah, um– you know, good. Fine.”

“Convincing,” Lisa replies dryly. “Well, I’m downstairs. I can give you a lift to the set if you want?”

“Thanks, I’ll be right down.” You rush to gather your things and join Lisa in her car.

"We’re not going to film in the studio today,” you tell her. “We’re going to some outdoor location.”

“Ah, tell me the address?”

You read it to her off your phone and spend the rest of the car ride anxiously tapping as Lisa chatters. Yoongi. Yoongi. You’re going to kiss him, just like in your dream, the one you can’t even force yourself to forget.

“By the way, I’ve been noticing some mean stuff on Twitter lately...” Lisa says cautiously, and you freeze.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Lisa scoffs. “You need to tell me if it’s getting out of hand.”

“I’m fine, Lisa.”

“I’m feeling just fine, fine, fine,” Lisa sings as she parks. “If you say so, girl. Have a good day, yeah? Tell me everything!”

“You know I will.”

Lisa’s eyes narrow. “Do I know that? I’m just kidding. See ya!”

“Bye...?”

You turn and walk to where the film crew has set up tents and trailers. You spot Avery, and judging by her frazzled expression she’s clearly somehow slept less than you.

“Oh, thank god, y/n. Please tell me you’re the one decent member of this cast,” Avery exclaims when you approach.

“Uh... what?”

“The two leads aren’t cooperating because they’re jealous you and Yoongi have been in front of the camera most,” an assistant supplies. “And since the schedule changed and we have to film your outdoor kiss first, they’re both refusing to be onset today.”

Right. The kiss. Almost on cue, Yoongi shows up, moving through the star-struck crew.

“Are we getting started?” He asks Avery, not looking you in the eye.

“Yes. Yes! We are. Hair and makeup, both of you. I want you onset next to those trees in half an hour. If we have to do more than ten takes for any scene, I might go crazy. It’s fine. Everything is fine.” Avery says in a very not-fine way. Unwilling to provoke your director, you scurry off to hair and makeup, only relaxing when Yoongi is out of sight.

But you’re friends. And you’re only acting. This tension isn’t normal. You’re just friends. Why are you so damn nervous?

The period clothing is heavy, and too warm in the noon sun. Because your clothes and makeup are simpler, you trundle onset before Yoongi arrives, and spend the extra few minutes reviewing your lines.

Avery stands next to the camera along with the cinematographer and several assistants. At last, Yoongi walks up to you. You want to tease him about how dashing he looks, but for once the words fail you: how can you joke when it’s the truth? Yoongi is undeniably handsome, but now... he looks royal. He looks perfect.

Avery quickly walks you and Yoongi through the scene, including where you’ll move and when. “Y/n, we’ll start with your line, okay? Take one. Ready, and... action!”

“Isn’t the sunshine lovely today, Mr. Moon?” you sing sweetly as you walk with Yoongi across the field, cameras surrounding you.

“Not half as lovely as you, Miss Kim– though I do wish you would call me Sung-Min.” Yoongi looks at you for the first time today and you feel your cheeks heat up.

You laugh off the sudden rush of affection. “Then I am Ji-Woo. Even though it is hardly appropriate–”

Yoongi grasps your hands in his, and you nearly gasp. This wasn’t in the script.

“I no longer care what is appropriate, Ji-Woo. After all...” he pauses, the corners of his catlike eyes crinkling. “I fell in love with you, didn’t I?”

You giggle modestly, but the intensity of his gaze combined with your intertwined fingers makes you feel like something inside you is falling apart.

“I suppose you did,” you reply, keeping your voice level as Yoongi leads you to the large flat rock Avery pointed out earlier. With a swish of your skirts you settle yourself upon the rock, spine straight, hands folded in your lap. Yoongi stands in front of you.

“Won’t you sit down, Sung-Min?”

“What? Oh, yes.” Yoongi becomes more agitated, and begins pacing in front of you. Much like, you think bemusedly, your own behavior last night. “Y/n, I–”

“Cut!” Avery hollers, and you’re brought back to reality. “Yoongi, she’s Ji-Woo, remember?”

“Ah, yes. Sorry.” Yoongi nods quickly, looking embarrassed.

Your director sighs. “It’s fine– it’s going great so far. Why don’t we keep going from Yoongi’s line? Ready, and... action!”

“Ji-Woo, I’ve been meaning to ask you...”

“Yes?” You’re only supposed to look nervous, so why do you feel your heartbeat quickening?

“I love you, Kim Ji-Woo. I love you truly, fervently, and with every part of myself.” Yoongi takes a breath and with a start you realize you’ve been holding yours. “I think I was besotted from the moment I met you, and every day since has done nothing but intensify my affection. And so, I must ask you– will you do me the honor and privilege, on this day and all days hence, of becoming my wife?”

The tears are there before you have to summon them: Yoongi is kneeling before you, his eyes wide, pleading, hopeful, beautiful. You press your lips together and nod happily and Yoongi’s face lights up with euphoric disbelief and he rises, and he hugs you tightly, so tightly, and when he at last pulls away you’re left looking at each other, eyes wide, mouths inches apart, and you don’t dare breathe.

It’s for the drama. Just friends. Just–

And you have no more time to think because he’s kissing you, Min Yoongi is kissing you and he’s kissing you gently, lovingly, his lips are so soft against yours and he tastes like mangoes for some reason and you reach up to rest your hands on his shoulders and he cups your cheek as though protecting a flower and all this goes through your head in about two seconds because he’s kissing you and there’s nothing more distracting in the world.

After perhaps an eternity you break apart, and Avery once more yells “Cut! Great, we should do another take just in case.”

But you can’t hear her too well: your head hurts again, and you feel another dizzy spell about to hit you, but this one much stronger than the ones you’ve been experiencing lately, and your balance feels off and you’re tired, so tired–

Yoongi must notice. “Y/n, are you oka–”

“I am going to faint,” you announce, before your eyes flutter shut and the world turns to black.

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ravensroundofrobins · 6 years

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Since most of y'all Don't seem to Know her.... Let’s DO THIS BRIEF HISTORY OF ROBIN!STEPH BUCKLE TF UP BITCHES

(Note: For the most part, Steph’s time as Robin is included in the War Games TPB, especially because it serves as a catalyst for said event. Highly recommended the read, but mind, like, everything about it) ((also also tumblr only allows 10 pics, so I'm cherry picking my fav panels/most important ones. + offering a bit of meta. take this with a grain of salt and Please read War Games and draw your own conclusions blah blah))

So to start with, a little Context to Steph’s Start as Robin:

Tim’s dad found out about his Robining & made him hang up the cape+mask. As any Concerned and Reasonable parent would. Steph is still operating as Spoiler at the time, despite many attempts by many members of the batfam (but especially Batman) to dissuade her from crime-fighting.

Due to a gross misunderstanding (as these things tend go in comics *sigh*) Steph, who is dating Tim at the time, sees a girl who was interested in him make a move & thinks that Tim is cheating on her. She channels this grief/mourning/anger into making her own homemade Robin costume and convinces Batman to take her under his wing (he sets the conditions that she must follow every order, with a ‘one strike, you’re out’ kind of policy). She undergoes an unspecified training period to get in Proper Shape For Crime Fighting and Batman starts taking her on various patrols and investigations.

During this time, she also teams up with Batgirl (Cassandra Cain) on more than one occasion (one of my fav panels below, just bc its so stylized lmao. its Cute)

During this time, in true Robin Tradition, Steph builds up quite the rapport with Batman, providing a lighter/comedic side and being a general breath of fresh air and foil to the Dark Knight. (just LOOK at this banter & Bargaining for the batmobile!!! a TRUE ROBIN)

There’s a couple cases that I won't get too far into (but one i want to briefly mention involves Zsasz and Steph going almost a bit too far when trying to subdue him. its a very clear parallel to Jason & serves as foreshadowing for how War Games will play out i.e., Steph’s fate)

Now during this time, there’s an assassin/merc who is killing off teens who were suspected to be Robin (Tim Drake), which Batman catches wind of and the Dynamic Duo moves in to put an End to. (look at this smug lil robin, catching the Bad Guy™ off guard. ADORABLE)

Another thing to note now, is how Eager Robin is to jump onto the case and into the fray. and how carefully she toes the line when following/questioning batman’s orders. this is touched on many times often either with her able to juuuuust reason with the caped crusader enough to Bend his own orders or even to change his mind on occasion.

(a thing i want to note here with this panel and with this particular time in Steph’s career as Robin is that the writer had her referring to Batman as ‘Boss’. whether this was intentional or not, it most closely resembles, to me, Carrie Kelley’s mannerisms as Robin. i.e. another Robin that the writers may have been using as inspo/to parallel. Carrie’s time as Robin is also defined by Batman’s grief from losing Jason, and is given a very similar probationary status that Steph is given during her time as Robin. coincidence? maybe. but i think not.)

While they lose track of the villain initially, Steph’s quick thinking to place trackers on her is what saves the mission. at the Moment at least. Batman makes a decision to bring Robin along when tracking their prey, but orders her to stay behind in the batplane & ‘not touch anything’ unless ordered to do so. which is where we get the Defining Moment:

When Steph, against orders, jumps into the fray. its something to be admired, and very Typical Robin Behavior (bc where would they be if they weren't impulsive and, well, KIDS, amirite?) but unfortunately, her decision costs them the chance of apprehending the villain, and Batman stays true to his word...

and she's Fired (g o d I'm not the biggest fan of damion scott’s art but this look BROKE MY HEART. i can practically HEAR those choked back tears and see that quivering lip like... G O D BRUCE NO. GIVE HER ANOTHER CHANCE. ANYTHING ELSE THAN WHATS GONNA HAPPEN)

here’s where I'm gonna TL;DR War Games for y’all bc.... holy shit its a LOT. and Steph’s involvement really only begins it, and essentially ends it. (literally lmao. she's featured a little throughout but like. its a Crossover Event™ for a reason. everyone gets a little bit of the spotlight, which means a bit of shuffling around ofc) but Anyways

tl;dr - steph takes one of Batman’s contingency plans on her way out of the cave & implements it w/out being aware of a few Key Details. all out War breaks amongst the different gangs of gotham, with Batman & company trying to regain control of the city & maintain order. Black Mask resurfaces, catches and tortures Steph to learn details about the plan and makes his own grab for power (fun fact, for those of you paying attention to the Big Picture: this essentially sets up for his position later on in Under The (Red) Hood when Jason starts wrestling that control away from him) Steph manages to escape, Batman takes her to Dr. Thompkins clinic, and Leslie reveals that her condition is critical. bruce makes it back in time to be by steph’s side for this:

and then she dies ;-;

BUT THIS IS COMICS- so its revealed initially that Leslie withheld treatment to save Steph’s life to Make A Point and try to dissuade Gotham Youth from following Steph’s path. BUT-BUT WAIT THERES MORE BC THIS IS ~*C O M I C S*~ so its ALSO revealed later on that steph DIDNT die. Leslie helped fake her death and blah blah blah, Steph comes back, gets to be spoiler again, then batgirl and the rest as they say is history

anyways. STRAIGHT FROM THE BAT’S MOUTH THANKS. Steph WAS really™ a Robin™ and as much as DC wants to pry that from my gay goblin hands they WONT be able to. and anyways... She Earned It. okay. give this girl the Respect she deserves.

(now since I'm a Shipping Blog™, ima add some thoughts regarding her parallel to other robins and how Theoretically a relationship with raven might work out)

Again, the biggest parallel that DEFINES War Games and Steph’s time as Robin, is that to Jason Todd. (fun fact/sidenote: they’re both Leos, so like. Another Connection btwn the two lmao) They’re both impulsive and eager to prove themselves, and follow Batman with unwavering faith and loyalty (up to a Certain Breaking Point that is). They’ve got especially cheeky attitude and flair for drama, and hey. Narratively speaking, writers seem to have a penchant for drawing a few connecting lines between them (again, by starting the WG TPB off with Bruce mourning on Jason’s bday & setting a Tone for the overall event. and then again, by having a major character for UtRH be the very same villain that killed our former girl wonder)

Now with those lines drawn, and with an understanding of how Jason has interacted with Raven in-canon (with mostly cordial interactions and for the most part respectful analysis of each other’s abilities & strengths), & no known connection between Steph & Rae as of yet, we can really only assume a few things:

-like most of the batboys, Raven is very likely to get along with Steph and to respect her abilities given that Steph respects her in turn.

-Steph’s bright, extroverted personality could again work as a good foil/compliment to Raven’s more introverted/muted one.

-theyve got what i like to call the Bad Dad™ connection (with Steph’s being a former Gotham Rogue™, and Raven’s... well.. y'all Know) Steph’s already shown great Morbid Humor regarding this part of her life (shown in her interactions with Cass) and is very willing to bond with others over Sucky Parents

-while stephanie has a canonical Love™ of Waffles, and raven (at least in regards to her Most Popular fanon from the 03 cartoon) has a fanonical love of them as well. Hence, they ARE the Waffle Queens (embrace the ridiculousness, guys. DO IT)

-Since steph is not an Adopted member of Bruce’s family (& again, more often than not they have attempted to dissuade her from vigilantism) and similarly, due to Batmans Dislike of meta-humans/outsiders messing with Affairs in His City, as well as some of his canonical Distrust™ for Raven due to her mysterious background/nature. this could be another minor/potential bonding point between the two

-likely more??? its getting late, and not much else I can think of off the top of my head, but i might add more to this later.

as a ship StephRae has as much potential as any other, and since there’s not a lot of canon to really go off, fans can really take it.... wherever and i think thats beautiful

#randywrites #steph meta #long post #<- for mobile users in case that cut doesnt work bc OMG THIS DID GET LONG IM SO SORRY #I'm still So upset abt war games and i could probably move on & start reading her 09batgirl run but like.... I'm not Emotionally ready yet #she's FUN and she's GREAT and there's a very Obvious Reason why the fandom ignores her as a Robin and i WILL be bitter until they start #giving her the respect she DESERVES DAMMIT #its a Read so be sure to grab some popcorn kids

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neverwatchedonepiece · 6 years

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529-530: "The Fish-Man Island Will Be Annihilated?! Sharley's Prophecy!" and "The King of the Fish-Man Island! Neptune, the God of the Sea!"

A rare image of Hordy Jones stepping on a lego.

Only had time for two episodes tonight. Luckily, there was enough in them to write about: including the reveal of a villain (always exciting!)

His name is Hordy Jones. He is angry, he is a Fishman, he looks oddly like the guy from ACDC and he has... a dog slung round his neck?

Not to mention the prophecies, designer boutiques, royal invitations and awkward questions.

Dreams Do Come True in Fishman Island

The episode opened with Luffy, Usopp and Chopper rushing around the harbour town, looking for a human - any human - who could donate Sanji’s blood type.

Luckily, a pair of nice okama stepped up and saved Sanji’s life. Of course, when Sanji regained consciousness, he freaked out. Usopp and Chopper both had to remind him to thank the okama. Come on, Sanji. Not cool. They saved your life in a place where donating blood is an act of great political significance. Show a little gratitude, eh?

While taking a break from Sanji’s fool antics, Chopper examined a strange mark on Luffy’s arm. Turns out it was poison! Luffy took a hit from Hyouzou (how did I miss that?) Chopper declared it very potent and wondered how the hell Luffy survived it. He asked if Luffy had ever been poisoned before.

Oh boy, Chopper. Does Luffy have a story for you. It can be told in one word: Magellan.

(Seriously, though, did Luffy not tell the Strawhats what happened to him while they were sailing, or was it all so next level that being poisoned to near death was not one of the major highlights?)

Camie, who had come to see how Sanji was doing, took Luffy and Usopp back to the Mermaid Cafe dorms. On the way, they called in to see Madame Sharly: a beautiful shark mermaid with premises at the back of Mermaid Cafe. (I think she might own the cafe because she gave Camie the day off to show the Strawhats round Fishman Island?)

Not Unless You Play the Lottery

Oh, and she is also a dab hand at crystal ball fortune-telling and has been since she was little. She has correctly predicted a few cataclysmic events, including the war in Marineford and Whitebeard’s death. Recently, she’s stopped using the crystal ball because she can’t stand knowing bad things will happen. I suppose Whitebeard is the kind of guy that would go to war no matter what. I can’t see anyone convincing him otherwise, even if it was someone like Sharly, who knew he’d be killed in battle.

I wonder if she’s been burned before by using the crystal ball? She was all dramatic and stared off into the middle distance when she said, “It’s better not to know the future.” Something has clearly gone wrong in her life that she has that attitude to such a strong power.

Luffy, who seems to be living on another planet at the moment, said, “All very well and good but do you know how mermaids poop?”

That’s right, Luffy. Always asking those important questions!

It was round about then that Camie realised she’d forgot to deliver the clams to Pappagu! So they hurried off to find him at another, fancier cafe up in Fishverly Hills (lol), where they found Brook, aka Soul King, living it up with Pappagu and a couple of mermaid fans. (I love how famous Brook is in his own right and not just as a member of the Strawhats.)

There was a lot of good world-building here. Courtesy of Pappagu, who tried so hard to be a Good Exposition Starfish (why won’t anyone listen to him?), I now know that Merpeople don’t eat meat and fish (but Fishmen do). That King Neptune runs the Island. That, if a Merperson and Fishman marry and have kids, any children they have will either be a Merperson or a Fishman, not a harmonious amalgamation of both.

And the good news is that the Flying Dutchman/Captain Vander Decken stuff was not a random encounter character to be used once and disposed of! Not sure what his role will be yet, but Oda seems to have something planned, as he has been given backstory. Turns out Brook was right about the original Flying Dutchman crew being several hundred years old, but the original Captain Vander Decken reached Fishman Island and died there. The one manning the Flying Dutchman now is Vander Decken IX, his descendant. Apparently, the guy has a bounty and the whole island’s been looking for him for ages because he started sending unwanted love letters, packages and threatening marriage proposals that scared the princess to the point a warrant was issued for his arrest.

Looks like someone can’t take no for an answer, eh?

But the most interesting thing was this.

Big Momma’s House

Luffy noticed the sign on a candy factory. Pappagu explained that when Whitebeard had shuffled off his mortal coil, the role of Fishman Island Protector became vacant.

The position was filled by Charlotte Linlin (or Big Mom, to the rest of us): one of the four (now three) Yonkou. She hasn’t been mentioned since Thriller Bark, so I was excited for that miniscule teaser Oda gave.

Big Mom demands loads of candies as a fee for her protection. This confused Luffy. “But she’s protecting this land after old man Whitebeard died? Isn’t she a good person?”

Pappagu shrugged, as only starfish can. “Whitebeard didn’t demand anything, but maybe Big Mom sees protection more as a business.”

Interesting... she’s definitely a different kind of Yonkou.

But I didn’t have time to think about it for long because the action switched to Sharley, who had burst out onto the street, freaking out about Luffy, begging everyone she could grab hold of to “find Strawhat Luffy and throw him out of this country!”

Wait, what...? Wasn’t she happy to see them ten minutes ago? Why? What had caused the change of heart?

Apparently, she saw a vision of Luffy in her crystal ball: an image of him surrounded by fire. “At Strawhat’s hands, Fishman Island will be destroyed!”

Eh? Surely not. There has got to be some mistake here. There is no way Luffy would sink Fishman Island. Or at least not on purpose. That is the only way I could believe Sharley’s vision would ever come true.

Hmm....

This Guy Is So Hard, He Puts Sharks in Sweaters

Cliffhanger over, I steamed straight onto episode 530. After a dark and mysterious opening (more on that later), the action cut back to the Strawhats. Pappagu was explaining his job. Turns out he’s not just an adorable starfish on land: in Fishman Island, he is a Super Influencer: a rich designer and president of the Criminal Brand clothing company - a famous fashion line.

As they approached one of his shops, the Strawhats heard some serious, weapons-grade haggling within.

Of course it was Nami!

The harassed shopkeeper was pleased to see Pappagu. This lasted until his boss told the Strawhats they could have as much free clothing as they liked in return for saving his ass at Sabaody.

Pappag, that was a rookie mistake. Never tell pirates they can take as much free stuff as they want. THEY ARE PIRATES! xD

But that was not the only drama going down in Fishverly Hills. Outside, there was a commotion. The Strawhats, Camie and Pappagu went to check why everyone was shrieking.

King Neptune had arrived. The big, bearded, booming-voiced ruler of Ryugu Kingdom and Fishman Island. Golden rays of light bathed the spectators. I wondered why he kept mispronouncing the word “ham” in Spanish.

It was the first time Camie had ever seen him. The King only descended from the Upper World if there was trouble. He hadn’t brought guards. Very strange! Ryugu Palace is a sacred place for Fishmen. A celestial place where ordinary people aren’t allowed to go. Where the princes and princess live.

The King turned and said, “Oi, Megalo. Are you sure these are the guys?” When the cute, sweater-wearing shark popped out of nowhere and confirmed (I love that it has a name), King Neptune invited the Strawhats to Ryugu Palace.

“Is there good food there?” Luffy asked. Priorities, amirite?

“Of course. We’re planning a banquet,” Neptune answered.

Luffy couldn’t have accepted any quicker. He piled onto Neptune’s fishboat with Usopp, Nami and Brook, then looked back. “Aren’t you coming?” Camie and Pappagu were frozen in awe.

“We don’t deserve to go to Ryugu...”

That was the Wrong Answer. Rank and status does not impress or intimidate Luffy (and that’s one of the reasons I like him so much). He told them to stop being dumb and get on.

It’s funny how the rest of the Fishmen and Merpeople are so awed of Neptune, yet he was completely unbothered when Luffy invited some commoners to his house. Neptune is either more chilled than he seems, or he is up to something.

But not everyone is as enamored with King Neptune...

This Guy Is Not A Fan

This is the Fishman behind the New Fishman Pirates: Hordy Jones.

Now, I can’t help but compare this guy to Arlong. He’s a shark fishman and he has similar views to Arlong.

Hell, Arlong was the first real villain I took to in One Piece. The first real threat. He did horrific things. I’ll never forget that black and white scene when he shot Bellemere in the head. When Nami broke down and Luffy laid his straw hat on her head. Then there was the walk to Arlong Park. All those iconic moments.

Hordy Jones has big shoes to fill. It’s early yet, so I’ll wait until I’m further in to make any judgments. When I first watched Thriller Bark, I was kinda bemused by Moria, then he ended up one of my favourites.

This guy has got a hold of some Fishman Roids and likes necking a ton to gain super strength. Apparently, the Roids shorten lifespan but Hordy does not care. When a bunch of escapee human pirates were reported for desertion (they must have met Hammond and enlisted. Now I think I know why there haven’t been many visitors to Fishman Island lately!) Hordy ate a meaty fistful of those Fish Roids like they were candies someone had packaged up for Big Mom.

Then he swam off and deliberately crushed the deserters while handcuffed to show how strong he was. It was cool the way he punched through the ship like a cannonball. He also let the hapeless crew live because: “Humans killed Fisher Tiger and shattered Arlong’s dreams. The dark and tragic history of Fishmen Island will end with us, the New Fishmen Pirates. You humans, survive with cuts and bruises to show the people on earth what happened to you in the sea, and who you met. Tell them how horrendous it was. We’ll capture the centre of the world, Fishman Island, from the gutless god of the sea, Neptune, and drag you humans down to the dark sea bed. You’ll all learn that the Fishmen are the superior race.”

I can tell he’s ambitious, is this Hordy Jones.

Unfortunately, the very same humans who crushed Arlong’s dreams have just landed on Fishman island. And he knows it. I wonder what he’ll say to Luffy when he meets him. That should be an interesting conversation.

Oh yeah, and Caribou has escaped the barrel because some mermaids opened it. No idea what he’s up to now, but it won’t be anything good.

Say yes to drugs on Fishman Island!

#one piece #neverwatchedonepiece #nwop #never watched one piece #monkey d. luffy #usopp #tony tony chopper #sanji #brook #nami #hordy jones #camie #pappagu #sharly #king neptune #vander decken #big mom #charlotte linlin

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sole-cuore-amore-e-droga · 6 years

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Tel Aviv 2019: Straight outta Spain to Eurovision with whole lotta fun

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Dare I say Operación Triunfo is a little bit of... a Choice?

I mean, you got yourself a format that a bunch of young-aged/teen/late-teen aged droolies follow for the drama more than the music, at least that’s what I suppose it is because it’s one of those singing reality shows where you’re oh so very welcome to follow the lives of all the 20-somethings that were unfortunate to sign the contract of the show, not being able to read all the fine-prints in the contract and later regretting not doing so because things like Eurovision. In Israel. But more on that later.

But this is Espain, and this is the sad state of television that is today - if they like your shitty talent show with 24/7 followship of the contestants, and if they watch that, and if they eat that with a spoonful, chances are you’re going to prolong its post-mortem revival state in order to maaaaaybe attract a new audience and acquire a new shippable couple people will vote “a Eurovisión”. Even if your last couple sucked. And even managed to break up unceremoniously sometime before the 2019 show’s Eurovision final <3 god bless them for finally breaking the chain and breaking the hearts of thousands who were ‘dying’ for the ship. It was never EVER meant to last.

So is it a no surprise that Operación went thriving for another year? Certaintly at least it’s no joy to bear with another amount of subpar desperates from every other corner of Spain, but only because Spain deserves a better NF format. I mean, with these other NF formats we can at least have a variety of artists with their own (or composed by others) songs, and it doesn’t matter an inch whether the public’s big fave gets rigged out to me - as long as it’s just a NF I can get easily over with, it’s all fine to me! And of course OT is also fine for me, it’s just that people are begging for it to get axed for some reason. Maybe because of all the ships?

I don’t want to put too much more thought of what happened in the reality show other than the Eurovision Gala, BUT I seemed to notice something rather crazy. You see, at first we had Natalia (or was it Alba Reche or Sabela even?) heavily speculated as the winner pre-show, but in the end the OT glory was all handed to some Dutch-born boy of Nigerian origin named... Famous. Not shitting you, it is his name. But what’s the saddest part about this? Famous CLEARLY wanted it all to himself just because of Eurovision being included in the contract. Yet his only victory in life is being the best among the rest of these stars that were watched over 24/7. Unfortunately, Mr. Oberogo couldn’t make this out to be in his favour in the Eurovision-special gala, to which the “triunfitos” can attend if they have songs chosen for them in the lineup, and yes he was admitted, but then he was given a SUCH DISAPPOINTING SONG EHMERGERD!!!!!!!! :’(

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(lol calm yer ladyhormones, “No puedo mas” wasn’t THAT bad, it’s just that given Famous did songs like “Nobody but You” (yes THAT one) on the show, you’d expect something contemporary soulful, not just blatant radio filler that could have easily been an EYD reject?)

So how did it all happen that the girls were rooted for to win OT, but in the end the one that wanted Eurovision the most won? And how come the one that wanted the Eurovision the most was given a song that paled in comparison to that one song that was performed by someone who was blatantly against going to ESC because “nuuuuu Israel stop hurting Palestine” and that one being favoured to win? AND HOW COME ONE OF THE BIGGEST SHOW’S VILLAINS GOT HANDED ABSOLUTE SLAYAGE OF THE SONGS?? Honestly it’s for the best if Spain is just there to subdue everyone’s expectations, just like they did when choosing Manel (be it because of a corrupt juror or whatever). They did it every single turn of the time this year during OT’s run.

And of course I’ll forever love them for that, as the end result was AN ABSOLUTE FUCKING FIESTA BANGER. Courtesy of Miki (Núñez).

Ngl, the first thing I went in for about “La venda” before listening to it was through this first impression tweet on Miki’s ‘eliminated’ song from the selection, “El equilibrio”:

BITCH HOW WAS SHE NOT READY TO SEE THAT COMING AT HER.

Granted, the sudden start of happy sounds rushing right at me was a little startling, but I was able to cope with it and jam to the song in the end.

I completely adore this one, it’s so powerfully joyful with all its instruments and the Spanish language, the interesting turn of events in lyrics, the incredibly easy probability to sing along to this (LO QUE EEEEERE! LO QUE ERE ERE E!), the authenticity, the cultural roots (tbqh Eurovision countries should be welcome to embrace their culture rather than stray further away from it! also this is why more native languages other than English are encouraged)... mmm-mmm.

And like I said, for some reason Miki was seen as a grand villain to the show, and even if I didn’t follow OT all that much, I was constantly questioning why, and after seeing him eliminated I only wanted to know if people in Espain were rejoicing about it. The against-agenda turned up onto him again when he happened to have the most songs in the internet selection bunch handed to him (THREE!!! Two solo tracks and a duet.), but nothing there was to worry, as instead other favourites were discovered, therefore Miki ended up in the dust for a while. Up until something happened that got him a big surge of votes at the end. Go figure.

Despite all this, I think it’s the right direction for Spain songwise! Me gusta mucho, and not only personally, but also objectively, honestly. Miki’s got a right enough good song for the nation and provided the revamp doesn’t make it crash and burn (yes, the good friend of a Eurovision song - the revamp! It’s happening), it’s safe to say that Spain can stand a chance. Not win, for now, but stand a chance. Yes.

Before I repeat myself some more I’d probably have to add this part for no reason as it came from my Twitter review for “La venda” this time, as I heard songs 1 day before the NF as when I expected the NF to go on Saturday but it was on a Sunday:

BITCH HOW WAS I WRONG. Well mostly thanks to the fact the fanwank-ess of OT ESC Gala actively asked to direct her votes to Miki’s song (Monika Marija teas amirite), but still, WRONG!

Now that I finally composed my thoughts I guess, let’s all go and read the below verdict I’m putting this up for:

Approval factor: I’m giving this a big fat SÍ!

Follow-up factor: Of course I like it way better than “Tu canciYAWN”, there’s no doubt in it :) and after Almaia’s romance advertisement they’re doing a great job by coming back to their great Spanish roots of music, honestly. And it’s better that way than forcing a ship onto a Eurovision 2018 ship, so yeah

Big 5 factor: As of this time Spain lowkey fizzled out with everyone now that a big wave of other faves arised, BUT I don’t think that Spain’s drowning in misery this year, not at all! With right kind of energy of the staging and uplift Spain can totally woo them televoters this time around, making them “lo que ere” their worries away to the sunset. And this is a positive thing - as if juries decide to drown this sometimes and televoters don’t, it will still soar somewhere up high enough in top 15.

NATIONAL FINAL BONUS

Now, I don’t quite think this year’s OT was quite as memetic as I expected, but we still have had some pre-NF gems, just like this:

• “THEN POLKA”. That one moment was also brought up to her on her OT Eurovision Gala postcard.

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• and this one contestant’s gloriously accidental butt-shot

Though we did have a handful of these kind of moments on the Gala itself (and surrounding it), such as:

• NF’s biggest favourite to win songwise not even trying. Yes, there are those NF winners which underperform but only because they don’t seem to know better, but did you know that there are THOSE like María Villar who decide against it? Basically, she was one of those opposing against the situation in Israel with Palestine, so out of protest towards all this, she voluntarily went against doing Eurovision in a nation like this by encouraging her fans to vote for Miki the night before and sacrificing any slightest grains of trying with her performance - by barely dancing on stage and not outselling anything vocally. And it worked to some extent, as she came SECOND only, and shortly after Miki won, she spoke out loud that she was satisfied to not have become the victor (I mean she just thanked everyone for not voting her to ESC lol). But you know what, for situations like these I really do love ESC NFs - where everything predictable is upturned by some sort of events like these. I mean, I like "Muérdeme", it’s catchy, Latino-appealing enough (for those whores thirsty for Luis Fonsi and similar fucks who sing in Spanish on English songs these days), has a cool breakdown and what not, but it would just probably bring back another disappointing result from Eurovision much to fans’ dismay, especially if the Tel Aviv (oh wait sorry... for Maria’s case this would have probably been Limassol or Vienna) edition was to bring many bops for this time around that are BIGGER and BETTER than this one. It’s just happening that it’s unfortunate to be Spain...

• Yet again, putting Famous up on here, but of course he was disappointed to not get that win. I know I’m not the right person to judge considering I’m WHOLE THREE DAYS YOUNGER than him, but I’d still tell him he only had RTVE to blame for giving him THAT in the end and putting him through online voting rounds... and speaking of:

• Like I mentioned before several times, there was an online voting round for to pick-pocket the songs that sounded the best out of the demo-ic snippets of a minute or less. Its top 3 was of course dominated by ladies and their own bangers/just likeable enough songs, with poor Famous being 4th in it (and the top 3 is a must on there to be automatically admitted to the show without any higher-ups shuffling the other competitors ‘round later on and toying with their fates). I liked the complete final cut of the Gala for the most part, but boy did they miss out some, like this male laidback-acoustic pop bop “Sale”, courtesy of Damion Frost. I can at least forgive the loss of “El equilibrio”, but this? Nah siree. And yeah I know this whole shtick is a tire, but I like some of it, and I saw a worse track from the same shtick collection qualifying through higher-ups and that’s NOT boding well with me.

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(yes of course Manel happened but still)

• Miki joining the glorious wall of epic NF victory reactions with his O face of total cartooney awkwardness <3

• and Eleni Foureira being able to rock a trashbag as a dress during her guest performance of both “Fuego” and her ‘new’ ‘smash’ hit in partially more Spanish than “Fuego” was - “Tómame”. Granted the juxtapose transition was a little too jarring, but hey - 2 songs for a price of 1. Go get them Spanish audience people acknowledging your pop art Elli <3 (also her chitchat with the ESC Gala host about what do you need to do good in Eurovision <3)

At this point I’m too not fucked to remember more of them but I’m really sure I missed a lot of the OT lulziness that happened before the Gala, during and after it (such as Natalia (who also sang one song in the NF with Miki himself) not wanting ESC but still trying better than Maria). I don’t want to be reminded of them, as my review’s as long as it is. But I’m sure someone else remembers, so I’ll let them judge.

#eurovision 2019 #tel aviv 2019 reviews #spain 2019 #miki núñez #la venda #spain

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sujus-girl · 7 years

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Disclaimer: This is just for fun, so please don’t take it too seriously. This is not an official profile or anything like that!

A GUIDE TO PENTAGON

I actually had a lot of fun making my guide to JBJ, so I was like?? What other group do I love that doesn’t get the attention they deserve? …. PENTAGON

Are y’all ready to cringe? To sigh? To question what is going on with these children? Then, without further ado, I present to you: Pentagon: My Shitty Guide to 10 Toddlers

Group Name: Pentagon

First appeared on a show called Pentagon Maker, which was called a survival show, but SPOILER ALERT: Cube decided to do the right thing and debuted all 10 members together

If I’m going to be 100% honest, I still dk where to find the full episodes, but there are a ton of clips on youtube, and, honestly, I was satisfied with just watching those

ALL OF THEM HAVE REALLY GOOD VISUALS? LIKE, I SAY THIS WITH EVERY GROUP, BUT SERIOUSLY, PENTAGON HAS SOME A+++ VISUALS

Beware because they’re very. Very. very. Loud

The fandom name is universe and i just think that’s so cute OKAY?

Ofiicial Music Videos: Gorilla, Can You Feel It, Critical Beauty, Pretty Pretty, Run Away, Like This, Violet

Personal Favorite Non-Title Tracks: Thank You, Beautiful, You Are, Spectacular, and Lose yourself

Aight, we have ten members to go through this time, so BUCKLE UP, MY FRIENDS

Members:

Jo Jinho

The oldest member of pentagon

Vvv smol baby. Is only 5’6”

Is scared very easily lmfao

May be smol but has A HELLA SET OF LUNGS

High note king that leaves almost everyone shook

Used to be in SM the Ballad, but left and became a trainee again under cube entertainment

Had trained for EIGHT FRICKIN YEARS, DO NOT SLEEP ON MY BOI

I guess he gave vocal lessons to cube trainees like Yoo Seonho (someone pls KINDLY let me know if i’m wrong)

Drops a bunch of covers and spoils Universe with his voice, thx boo

Usually gets paired with hongseok for stuff?? Idk

Has a room by himself in the dorms, lucky boi

ALSO A MUSICAL THEATER ACTOR?? ALL SHOOK UP REALLY HAD US ALL SHOOK UP

Videos to Watch: (1) (2) (3)

Lee HwiTaek (Hui)

The leader of this mess

Got pretty popular after the song Never was released, then continue to leave people quaking after Energetic was released

Is an A+ Singer and Producer, we love a talented man

Is vvvv scared of everything and also has a lot of tears (we love a man in touch with his emotions)

A former JYP trainee

Got7’s JB said that one time, Got7’s Mark got into a fight with him, Hui, and B.A.P.’s Youngjae and Day6’s Brian had to translate the argument LOL

Also in a subunit called Triple H that consists of him, E’Dawn and Hyuna

Also has a room to himself

HONEY SOCKS

Has a fanboy named Yoo Seonho that loves him vvv much, and they even went to vietnam together

also appeared on this variety show called hyena’s on the keys and flaunted his composing SKILZ

Videos to Watch: (1) (2) (3)

Yang Hongseok

A former YG trainee

Was on the show that created iKon, and it was…. Oof

He was new at the time, so it was kinda awkward and tense, but it got better

Is obsessed with working out, and has the abs of a greek god as a result

Reads books in his free time, and enjoys studying foreign languages

He moved around when he was younger, so he can speak Mandarin and English (we love an intelligent man)

Apparently the mom?? Cooks and cleans for the babies in the dorm

Shares a room with E’Dawn

Also really likes Iron Man… and Jinho

The members say he’s the worst at dancing in the group LOL

It’s okay though, cause he’s vvv talented in other aspects

Videos to Watch: (1) (2) (3)

Kim HyoJung (E’Dawn)

“I have no fear” not even two seconds later *HIGH PITCH SCREAMING*

Can reach an octave i didn’t think human possible

A little weird, but that’s okay!

Is also in Triple H with Hui and Hyuna

Hongseok’s roommate

Is really good at dancing, wow

Kinda looks tired 24/7, but we’re pretty sure that’s just his face. Like you know how some people have resting bitch face? E’Dawn has resting tired face.

TATTOOS!

Sry, i just really like tattoos, lol

But yeah! E’Dawn has multiple tattoos! Since it’s like 1 in the morning and I’m kinda tired, I’m not gonna try and think of all of them, but they should all show up if you just google e’dawn tattoos lol sorry

Videos to Watch: (1) (2) (3)

Go Shinwon

Has trouble keeping his clothes on apparently

Like for real, just casually pulled his pants down and took his shirt off multiple times in pentagon maker

Is scared of animals because one time because… um…. let’s just say that there was an unfortunate incident with his pet hamster when he was in like middle school... yeah

Was eliminated during Pentagon maker, but four remaining members broke into cube late at night and put up posters saying they wanted pentagon to debut as ten

Gets mad real easily

Has broad shoulders… Like real broad. Edawn and yanan fell asleep on his shoulders and they were comfortable

Shares a room with Kino

Also really likes Mcdonalds?? Like, this boy put on a burger hat and ate a mcdonalds burger.

Really hates bugs LOL

Videos to Watch: (1) (2) (3)

Yeo Changgu (Yeo One)

Has a visual that a lot of foreigners seem to really like? That’s just something I noticed, I know it’s not the general consensus

Is also an actor, he appeared in a webdrama called Spark and was the main actor for a historical drama not too long ago

Shares a room with yanan

Is yanan’s biggest fan

Has a laugh that can revive wilting flowers tbh

Talks a lot too

Sucks at table tennis

He and hui put ducktape on their legs and ripped it off

GIVE HIM MORE LINES PLS

Videos to Watch: (1) (2) (3)

Yan An

“MADE IN CHINA!”

“Annyeong chingudel”

He’s from Shanghai

Hella model vibes, amirite or amirite

He injured himself when preparing for the Ceremony album, and he had to sit out and everyone was vvv sad and vvv worried

Got better and is back, and more random than ever

Sometimes says things that are real funny, even if he doesn’t intend for it to be

“What are you talking about, this is plastic”

“You… You’re in big trouble!”

“Korean name is Yanan. Chinese name is Yanan. English Name? Yanan.”

Also once called Jinho a foreigner, even tho Jinho is Korean and they were in Korea?

May be tol and handsome, but he’s really just a big toddler

Scared of roller coasters

Roommates with yeo one who loves him v much (yeo one has the right idea, y’all)

Videos to Watch: (1) (2) (3)

Adachi Yuto

“YUTODA”

A japanese prince

AN ATHLETE! Played baseball and used to do soccer

A former JYP trainee

Good friends with Yuto (U) from ONF because they both used to be JYP trainees and also NCT’s Yuta

Shares a room with Wooseok and will laugh at anything he says

Milk couple

Can’t eat spicy food for shit

Hella tall

Also appeared predebut at ISAC 2015 for futsall

A bby that is afraid of many things. Especially the dark. On pentagon maker, the crew turned off the lights and he real cutely went “pd-nim~” and i almost cried it was so cute

“What’s your favorite ice cream flavor?” “Ice cream.”

Says he can’t do aegyo, but he hella cute already, so it’s okay

Also once danced shirtless and i almost sued, you a child Boi (i say as I am younger than him)

Videos to Watch: (1) (2) (3)

Kang Hyunggu (Kino)

A whole cutie

I legit that he was my age or younger cause he was just so adorable

Only 4 days younger than yuto and 4 days older than wooseok, but he a whole baby

They did a vlive for wooseok, yuto, and kino’s birthdays and when they were getting into teams, hongseok was chosen to be in kino’s team but he said it so emotionlessly that kino got all pouty LOL

A dancing king

“I was going to go easy on you, but you called me Hyunggu”

Has a lot of friends in k-pop, he vvv popular

Shares a room with shinwon

A laugh that motivates me to be a better person

Saved the entire world by eating watermelon in front of cameras BLESS

“Get it Kino Beauty”

Proceeded to destroy yanan’s face with makeup RIP

Makes funny faces that i sometimes screenshot and send to my friends at 2 in the morning

ALSOALSOALSO, he had this little dance solo in Critical Beauty and I was LIVING for it

Videos to Watch: (1) (2) (3)

Jung Wooseok

The baby of the group

HELLA TOL??? LIKE WTF, IF YOU LOOK AT PHOTOS OF JINHO AND WOOSEOK STANDING NEXT TO EACH OTHER HE LOOKS LIKE A FREAKING GIRAFFE

He was sleeping backstage once and yuto put a chocopie in front of his mouth and he sleepily tried to eat it and i was :((((( he was so cute

Really likes yuto, they’re usually paired together for stuff. Like dorms

Really likes anime, legend has it that if you play samurai heart at exactly 1:23 AM, wooseok will appear behind you and sing along

Imitates an opera singer and achieves an octave that i would imagine isn’t humanly possible for someone with a voice as deep as his

Has a fanboy names Lai Guanlin from wanna one, and he will not let anyone forget about his precious Wooseok

Once did an eating broadcast with super spicy food and accidentally got some in his eye and the rest of pentagon thought it was the funniest thing ever RIP

Videos to Watch: (1) (2) (3)

That was a journey! We’re almost done, though!

Videos Of Pentagon to Watch! Weekly Idol with Victon and Momoland! (X) This crack (?) series that I live for (X) The VLive that was all sorts of mess (X) Triple H Weekly Idol (only Hui and E’Dawn) (X) This clip from Pentagon Maker that was all sorts of mess, even with only 4 members (X) Hui, Wooseok, and E’Dawn trying to cook (X) This other VLive that was all sorts of mess (X) Pentagon Heyo TV (Mafia Game Cut) (X)

AND THERE YOU HAVE IT! A VERY SHORT, SHITTY GUIDE TO PENTAGON! I hope this helps anyone wanting to get into Pentagon, or even just makes an Universe smile! Now go and bask in the glory that is Pentagon’s craziness! Bye!

#pentagon #jo jinho #lee hwitaek #hui #kim hyojung #e'dawn #yang hongseok #yeo changgu #yeo one #yanan #adachi yuto #kino #kang hyunggu #jung wooseok #triple h #cube #mine

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