#and any shitty male character thats supposed to be good

[wolvebonez]

so many wc discourse problems could be solved if people questioned the authors intent instead of the characters intent (and subsequently realize that characters =/= their actions and you can like shitty, intentionally or otherwise, characters and think how theyre written/the things they do is Bad!)

[blueiight]

I don’t like to criticize writers. But I get annoyed reading IWTV fanfiction and they make Louis a top. Every time we see him and Lestat have sex, he’s in a submissive role. Perhaps it’s hard for fans to see a black male character in that position. Louis isn’t the mandingo stereotype they want him to be.

i think its fair to have opinions lol. ur not harassing any particular artist or creator just noting a preference in fictional content.. idk if its there or not but i do honestly do not read no iwtv fanfic outside of ppl’s recs & what ppl im cool w/ write for this reason lol. call me a crazy lady in my echo chamber🤷🏾‍♀️ have zero interest in seeing those dynamics & i honestly think the typical fanbase drawn to vampy shit or w/e amc puts out is not used to seeing black charas in relevant positions. most fandom concepts of a black lover is like mandingo if not mandingo then the one always pursuing coveting & shit. not to mention anne rice is the granddaddy of the modern western conception of vampire & has a shitty track record w racial dynamics herself lol likeee book!louis is supposed to be the desired the loving vampire yet u check interview & hes rambling on how freeing slaves is bad & them niggas shuck and jive in their weird african talk ooo them new orleans niggas different. booooo. boring dry moldy pussy. but making that same character black? im very moved. call me a hypocrite idc i was raised by ppl who did 1 good thing & taught me pride in my ppls lol. amc louis turns all these fonky stereotypes associated w black males in fiction over on their head — being the desired, the pursued, the loving vampire (“all his victims adored him”) despite his insistence the human was destroyed as he was turned on the verge of suicide he represents the human in all the horror opportunism desires & beauty of that perspective… (& thats what makes him such a deadly vampire!!! like akasha said). sorry to get offtopic but i agree idk the wider trend but it would be boring beyond all belief if fans would see all this& make him a 20 inch dick roided up mandingo daddy off Blacked

[itsbait]

i think one of the big things that contributed to the absolutely insane popularity of the matsunos amongst women is that a lot of anime guys even in otome or shoujo media are attractive and fanservicey but EXTREMELY unattainable. they are TOO perfect. even when theyre supposed to be assholes or have bad traits they still tend to err towards redemption or overwhelming positive traits to balance it out.

the matsunos on the other hand SUCK. they have no job, theyre virgins at 26, no friends, barely any individually-owned worldly possessions, women in the show are repulsed by them. more often than not theyre motivated by selfish reasons and have no problem turning into a completely destructive unit for whatever meager goals they have. BUT!

theyre attractive in their universally appealing, extremely average designs. you can literally imagine them to look however you want because while they do have key features the art style is so simple that you can basically fill in the blanks with your own preferences. the f6 designs flopped so hard in terms of fan preference because they take this away; the art style is typical now and the characters look too perfect again, as anime art styles tend to cause. There is no room to interpret anything because everything has already been spelled out for you, and if your type isnt tall, skinny dudes with M-bangs in different colors youre just shit out of luck, arent you?

their flaws are HORRIBLE and all consuming, but they manage to be endearing because theyre not only REAL but comically shitty. your cat knocks over an expensive glass, that sucks. your cat does it every single time you replace it and looks you in the eye while he swipes his little paw? that little shit knows exactly what hes doing and now its hilarious. osomatsu is a beligerent pervert alcoholic with a gambling addiction, karamatsu is so desperate for attention that he takes to grand, flashy, extremely hollow statements and fakes a personality that's been out of style since the 60s, choromatsu is an extremely prideful nagging know-it-all thats just as perverted and shallow as the rest of them, ichimatsu not only wallows in depression and self-hatred but takes it out on others as well and frequently goes out of his way to spoil everyone else's mood just because HES unhappy, jyushimatsu is loud, extremely careless, and still acts like a child, often incapable of taking anything seriously, and todomatsu is a completely fake brat whos been spoiled rotten due to being the youngest in a group of 6 men who are quite literally all exactly the same age. yes, some of them suck at varying levels, but the bottom line is that all of them have flaws that are so heavy that instead of being overshadowed by their good traits, their good traits almost PERFECTLY balance them.

what i think holds the most importance though is that because theyre so shitty and so worthless and so socially exiled, all of them are ABSOLUTELY DESPERATE. you think that 5'11" bishounen wants a bitch from appleton, wisconsin? its just not attainable. a 26 year old virgin neet with no friends? as long as youre even MODERATELY attractive, you have a shot. fat, skinny, tall, short, young, old; if you have a hole (and i repeat, a hole, no adjective, because i will not put a certain crime past some of them, speaking completely honestly) you are a goal. you don't have to have any kind of specific personality, hobby, interests, you don't even have to be particularly likeable.

theyre worth something, but they should be worth nothing, so they ask nothing of you. for the typical male-inclined otaku, people who tend to be self-critical or otherwise deemed by society as flawed in some way, this situation is ideal.

women do not want the matsuno sextuplets because theyre attracted to muppet beatles, or because theyre blind to the numerous red flags they all have, or because theyd rather water down their negative traits and pretend theyre all smol cinnamon roll beans who definitely respect women. the matsunos are highly customizable, trope-based but not trope-dependant, and completely and utterly attached to anyone who would even give them the time of day. women want the matsuno sextuplets because the matsuno sextuplets will ALWAYS want them.

[greenpanda-djg]

Lets talk about Shen Jiu

Okay it's just a fictional character- I'm just assuming some things from the scant amount of info I've read and came to this realisation. If you want to decide that Shen Jiu just plain sucks, that's fine. Just because I think he's an intesting character doesn't mean I condone the things he did in PIDW [the fact that I have to write this is sad. but hey covering my bases]

So again any Anti-Shen Jius good for you for knowing to hate a scumbag character, I just think morally grey and evil characters are neat ^^; This is just a character analysis- it's not a positve OR negative review it's just a whole "I understand why he acted this way."

So the way I see it there is TWO Shen Jius.

The CANON Shen Jiu and the DRAFT Shen Jiu. The canon OG from Proud immortal demon way, the lazy fanservice product from Airplane himself. From the [Extras] Of Airplanes pov, he stated he 'scrapped' Shen Jius and Luo Binghes father just for money. So the Canon pidw is of course a scumbag etc.

So what about the second Shen Jiu? The DRAFTED one.

From the parts I got the Draft story of PIDW was supposed to be about two opposing characters Both Shen Qingqiu AND Luo Binghe BOTH cut from the same cloth, Shen Qingqiu was supposed to be Luo Binghes warped funhouse mirror of who Luo Binghe could BECOME. Shen Jiu faced abuse, so did Luo Binghe and near the end once his past was revealed was supposed to be Luo Binghe seeing himself BECOMING Shen Qingqiu that abuse creates more abuse. [This was what airplane was going for but thanks to fandom decided to just AXE this concept for fanservice and lame low level Iq villains]

But in the Extras of Scum Villain from Airplanes POV. Then we have Airplane seeing Shen QIngqiu becoming flustered making Liu Qingge snap at him and saying he tried to kill him on purpose, Shang tries to tell Liu thats NOT what happened Shen Qingqiu was trying to help-

But Shen Qingqiu told him wasn't he supposed to be dead? [Since shang was pretending to feint so airplane shut up and flopped back down] Shen Qingqiu doesn't defend himself and accepts what others say, and everytime Liu snaps at him- even when he said that Shen Qingqiu was behind because he started his cultivation late, Shen said nothing.

Shen Qingqiu was so bothered by this, wasn't even reading his book...that was upside down. Airplane saw that the villain had his book upside down. That it bothered him that much.

Him the great Shen Qingqiu! The peak lord holior than thou who made no mistakes was flustered to have his book upside down..^^;

And Shang Qunghua told him "Hey when someone has a Qi deviation, don't panic okay?"

...Shen Jiu killed Lui Mingyan by ACCIDENT!?

This is airplane the author! He knows everything about Shen Qingqiu and how he opporates and instead of avoiding this villain and even making it easier to blacken his reputation he tries to help him?

And another was Meng Mo, he absoletly HATED Shen Qingqiu esp since Luo Binghe has such favour over him. But Meng Mo saved Shen Qingqiu and seemed so different as if he changed his opinion and even spoke of Shen QIngqius past [Shen Yaun had No idea of Shen Jius past and was like- tell me] Meng mo was like

??? Maybe you shouldn't? Some things are best left forgotten? Meng mo geniunly cared and didn't want to show Shen Qingqius shitty past. His past being that he was abused by the huitangs, that the elder brother abused him, told him he couldn't be a cultivator and would never escape would be married to his sister and forced to stay in the clan his whole life to play pretend loving husband then getting beat up ruthlessly by all of the male clan members.

"This isn't a certain fact BUT given that Shen Jiu only murdered the male members and left the women/children alive cause to speculation that maybe he was abused sexually as well." [This is just speculation or left to interpeatation so feel free to ignore this as irrelevant or strike it from the record if you don't agree. I just think it adds to his character.]

As I've said before, we are looking at Scum Villain as a warped tale of events- PIDW and from how Shen Qingiiu POV and how he advances the story believed that 'Shen QIngiu' murdered Liu Qingge on purpose. BUT From Shang Quanghua POV he says that it was an accident because Shen QIngqiu panicked.

Makes you wonder how much is different but even Airplane admitted to Shen Yaun that Scum Villain was going in the same direction of his FIRST DRAFT.

I think the whole concept was making the audience of Proud Immortal demon way- [Not us the audiance of airplane] -TO be unable to determine which was was the villain. A blackened anti-hero protag and and evil Scum Villain who also had a tragic past backstory and tried to do good but everything was taken out of context. What I'm trying to say is, looking at the two characters objectively and with nuetrality the point was to make it unclear of who the villain or who the hero was as both of them are SO similair you couldn't tell.

I absolutely love Shen Yaun- I think he's the coolest for someone like any type of hardcore fan who wasn't even raised in a xiania world was so adaptable and went through so much BULLShit, believe me if I was in his shoes I could never I would've died or NOPED so hard like fuck Luo Binghe I'm just gonna live in a cave until this is ALL over. It's also really sucky that Shen Yaun pays for Shen Jius crimes.

But I can't help but be objective and think, if hypothetically Shen Yaun transmigrated earlier could he still be the soft Shizun who was polite to everyone?

If he actually faced all of Shen Jius trauma firsthand of being left behind having to claw his way out of hell his first time, had to put in so much work and effort into becoming a peak lord only to still be looked down on as a servant making all of his effort pointless- would he still be trusting and vunerable? Shen Yaun tends to throw his life away and get along with everyone, while Shen jiu's motives comes across as selfish and close off but thats just self -preservation the mentality that no one will save you- you have to save yourself.

Shen Jiu is like an abused dog and yet people act confused of why he's still scared of out reaching hands and bites. They care more for how he reacts then WHY he reacts.

His past was SO bad that when his ex-wife saw his past thanks to Meng Mo she ran away screaming.

Does that excuse child abuse? Absoltutly fucking not BUT if someone is treat a certain way, they probably have no idea of what IS and Isn't abuse.

There are people in IRL [One of my managers at work thinks it's okay to take harrasment because she herself was harrased so she has no symptathy when people in higher power takes out their frustrations on their staff so when I said "This SO is being mean. whats her problem?" Was told to deal with it because of out of work reasons, so she's BIASED] For example the Lan Clan beats the shit out of their disiples and guests for breaking curfew?

There's also Liu Qinggeclan that fights against all the Disiples of Shen Qingqiu but there was talk that even Liu Qingge beats up his own disiples rather than teaches them.

I'm just saying, Shen Jiu only harmed people who harmed him then fell into the cycle of abuse and harmed his disiples. Which is more than you could say for PIDW Luo Binghe-ge. A psyopathic murderer, who kills indiscimentaly, like his grievences was only Shen Qingqiu- maybe the palace master because of what his mother went through, he may not have abused kids- but he made EVERYONE suffer in PIDW, merging the demon/human realm wouldn't defiently killed non-cultivators, Yue Qingyuan also murdered, why what did he do? Okay he was trying to save Shen Jiu of course but impaled by arrows? Like in the most goreyst way??? All of the sects were probably demolished so Luo Binghe just made the whole world burn because because of one master. Shen Qingqiu only destroyed one clan. Luo Binghe destroyed the world. Makes you think which is the worst one?

And before people start, even Shen Qingiuq [Scum-villain] Even admitted to the infighting and all of the abuse that his wives are taking because of the little palace princess and her wip. Luo Binghe is ignoring this, and even compliant for the infighting meaning he [just like Shen qingqiu] is also slipping into the cycle of abuse not knowing whats normal and what is problemmatic.

I just think Shen Jiu is neat as a character study- when people do something wrong you always want to know why? What caused it what was the reason? And does the reason justify the means?

Is this whole post pro-Shen Jiu? Heck NO I just love knowing what makes characters tic- the thing about Mo Xiang Tong Xius works is that all of her characters even background ones have agency- as a writer I want to understand what a characters goals, reasoning are to understand how they would act, react in a certain scenario.

Most people believe they are the hero of their own story, so seeing Shen Jiu as a protag and how he survived his story and even reason why he does such things is a great way to understand villains and create my own multi-dimensional characters.

Just saying Shen Jiu is a villain in PIDW don't forget that? I wasn't forgetting or even thinking that it's justified. If I ever think of Shen Jiu as completely innocent that that is just way too OOC even for him. I just don't see this character as just black and white.

Black and white, good or evil, Villain Hero is just childish and boring, real people are contradictory, we're hypocritical, we don't make sense and I can be of two minds I can hate and like something at the same time.

The reason why Shen Jiu is cool is because he has elements of being a misunderstood villain- but we will NEVER know because the dude was ripped from his body and replaced with a hardcore fan who did it better. That he and Yue quinyaun will NEVER get closure.

I would like to see an [extra] chapter of Scum Villain of having Shen Jiu watch the whole events of Scum villain, his own sense of hell of seeing people think Shen Jiu lost his memory and no one even thought of telling him because they liked his amnesiac version better? Of seeing what his actions had done, that if you abuse someone to the point of breaking don't be surprised that they kill you, seeing what Shen Yaun went through, and realising that he was the problem but he can't do shit about it?

If it wasn't for Shen Yaun- Luo Binghe wouldn've became exactly like Shen Qingqiu.

Compared to other villains by MXTX Shen Qingqiu doesn't seem that bad comparing...

If you hate Shen Jiu thats fine, my whole post here isn't trying to twist the narrative and say he's just a misunderstood boi who needs protecting.

Bad things can happen to bad people and bringing up the truama that someone went through doesn't absolve them because it is their choices that shape them after, but only listening to truama for a 'good' person and picking and choosing to excuse one persons behaviour for truama then immedietly start victim blaming because they don't 'act' like a good person is even worse. You can still be empathetic towards a character but that doesn't mean you forgive the character/person and allow what they've done.

If anything with this take you can say that Yue Qingyuan is WORSE because he knew what Shen Jiu was going through and was complacent in his abuse and letting Shen jiu get away with [murder] If Shen Jiu wasn't in his right mind then Yue Ginqyuan was the real villain for letting Shen Jiu hurt others and take his problems out on everyone over some twisted sense of guilt.

The dude who claimed to be a 'good guy' who had no history of truama akin to Shen Jiu ALLOWED disiples to get abused by someone in his care. He's an enabler.

Oh also the fact that Luo Binghe had to suck out and even disabled cultivators because of Xin Mo, his demon sword a fate WORSE than death makes me think how nit-picky some fans are to easily dismiss Shen Jiu but then be fine with other characters thats also morally grey and insidious.

The whole Point is that ALL of them have issues, and problematic because their human, their weak, a real person has ugly sides and most make mistakes that was paved with right intentions but does more harm.

A/n : Either way this is still fiction work and a character that doesn't exist, and remember this IS an analysis, and I never use this mentality against IRl people because people are not cartoons and no matter their reason outside of fiction I will judge them on current actions not on their past, if they share their past I'll admit they have a reason but still doesn't give them a free pass into being a dick.

[Also I am dyslexic so all the names for Scum Villain is a nightmare but I'm still figuring them out- If I spelt anything wrong thats my bad ^^;]

[antiloreolympus]

13 Anti LO Asks

1. ok but thats seriously what bugs me so much about LO, it never actually lets serious moments be serious, it's always lampooned by rachel's insistent need to force in her juvenile "humor" and never actually depicting how pressing things are. even the following moments from persephone's r//pe was undercut by hades making stupid puns! i understand if rachel cant write something more serious than "[x] is bad" but if thats so, then dont try it? because thats how you end up with this pretentious mess.

2. since when did lo hades have earrings??? i legit do not remember this ever being a thing??? is he trying to be hip with the kids 😭my man you still look like a crusty old man the earrings arent helping 😭

3. lo hermes looks and acts like flaky from happy tree friends and no thats not a compliment (TW for gore, blood, and violence if any of you google it)

4. Even though the earlier art style was better there are still some cursed panels from the earlier pages that still haunt me. Especially the way Persephone was drawn differently in so many of the panels.

5. lo hades has such "how do you do fellow kids" energy and im not sure why

6. im also confused on the fertility goddess stuff because how stupid is persephone if she didnt notice? she can create life and nature without even thinking and shes implied to be a genius in biology, so how would she not even notice this? if RS really wants to go with this plot, then why have her professor bring it up in class? why not show persephone going to her uni's library to research the topic and pouring over it? that's an easy way to show persephone's intelligence, yet LO doesnt even try.

7. What I wanna know in LO was how Demeter and Hestia were compensated after the war. The three brothers got to be kings and Hera is queen, but what we know of Demeter is that she had a millionaire dollar business that’s probably made it on its own (unless she was helped out) and then Hestia all we really know about her is that she runs that TOGEM and idk if there’s only 4 of them, Hestia really had a group by herself for a bit since Athena is Zeus’ (assumed) daughter, Artemis (Zeus’ assumed daughter) and persphone (newest member) which seems shitty since they won a war together

8. I think what happened with LO’s art style was RS got “lazy” (I’m lacking the right word). I feel like without the colors all of the men in LO have the same body type, and Hermès and Apollo may even have the same face if they smile the same. So to compensate for that lack of body diversity, RS doubled down on Hades’ features to make him stand out more to really show he’s the male lead. However, even in her own words he looks like Persphones’ “dusty ass dad”

The women use to be a little different but they’re all starting to blend with body types. Her was small, but now she’s short and busty like Persphone. RS makes Persphone look short and busty all the time but almost childlike. Minthe was skinny but her last moments she was busy. Aphrodite I feel was just busty but then tried to make her look small also with Ares and Hades beside her. Hestia stayed the same but is still small and busty. Athena was tall and thin (?) but now she’s tall but busty (and her relationship with Hestia looks like it mirrors HXP). Idk I just feel like the longer screen time the female characters get the more they start mirroring Persphone’s look. Like even Artemis was getting empathized on being small next to her brother Apollo. Like all the girls gotta look small but curvy as the story goes on. 

9. Demeter: watched her friend get ripped in half. Watched her friend get continually cheated on, paying the price for not hiding a mistress , watched metis get eaten, her back clawed, fought in a war. Later made a daughter who’s a fertility goddess (probably an accident) and now has to raise her. That same daughter then went on a rampage and isn’t really remorseful

Fans: Demeter is such an overbearing mother who gets in the way of our ship.

10. on regards to ace characters, asexuality is a spectrum like everything else, so a lot of asexuals actually do enjoy and have sex, so the maidens doing so isnt inherently a problem, its the fact rachel is clearly viewing it through a strict binary where she assumes asexuality is something that can be "fixed" over time/when the right person comes along. its also a bad modern reading of it, as "virginity" in an ancient sense meant via marriage, not via sex, but I doubt rachel cares to factcheck it.

11. Imagine an elf is given a job to do at a human institution. The humans think elves don’t need bathroom breaks, since they know they can hold it for days, but this elf has been traveling to reach their job, and has already been holding it to the point they are in pain. They ask for a break, but their job is important and time sensitive, so they admit they can still hold it when asked. After a full day of work, the elf tries to reach the bathroom in time, but they were never told where it is.

From OP: I think this might be a nymph allegory? Anon never specified so I'll put this here anyway.

12. ya know if hades has to lie to make apollo seem worse (who does not need much in this comic) its like??? why is he persephone's lawyer then?? lawyers are literally told not to lie, this is basic law 101. thats why they dont want their clients to mention to them if they actually did the crimes because then the lawyers have to say it in court. if hades lies so casually just to keep persephone away from justified punishment, then thats bad actually!  both in being a decent person and as a lawyer!

From OP: Hades didn’t lie but he was definitely out of line. RS liked a tweet saying that the wife thing was “subconscious” so it probably was. (Still doesn’t make it right but I doubt he’d say those things on the stand.)

13. I know Minthe was written in a way she was suppose to be unlikesable, she’s rude, she yells and she doesn’t hesistate. HOWEVER RS wrote her character badly. Minthe is so unliked? How was she able to be a bad gf to hades and Thanatos? Like yes it’s an affair but how was she able to pull 2 gods?! We don’t hear Hades or Thanatos say what they like about her BUT they both still had a fling with her. (Honestly I feel it’s cause RS can’t bare writing one nice thing about the female anatangoist without trying to make Persphone look good)

The other thing bothering me was everyone knew about her relationship with Hades after she put it on fatesbook, but everyone talked about the kiss in such a positive light IN FRONT OF HER. Aren’t they suppose to be scared of her? Why did the girls in the yoga class/dress shop had so much to say about that kiss? Because they knew persphone? Did they know every other detail too? What was their actual beef with Minthe?

I feel like realistically some more characters would have sympathy for Minthe if they didn’t know her that well because of Hera. Everyone knows Hera is a pill to deal with and she’s the goddess of marriage who hasn’t really tried bringing Minthe and Hades to the alter. That right there should let everyone know that Hera probably doesn’t help the situation.

Idk, I feel like RS could have gone deeper and made the character not such HXP shippers cause most people wouldn’t cheer for cheating nor an old ass guy getting with a 19 year old. (Idk how fast the news of the slap spread, but I doubt it made it to every place in their fictional world)

[casually-slips-into-coma]

An Essay (sort of) Explaining the Many Grievances I Have With Debbie Gallagher

Once again, Debbie is the fucking worst.

I’ve been wanting to write out my feelings towards her character for a fucking minute now just so that I have a full concise list. Now, I can talk about how Debbie has a constant need for attention, or how her character has become someone unrecognizable in the past few seasons, or how she’s a terrible mother, but what I really want to focus on is the center of my issues with her: her sexuality. Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t about to be a homophobic rant or anything. I just think her queer development has been written terribly and that should be addressed.

Too often I see people praising queer characters or relationships based solely on the fact that they are queer, and as a member of the community, I get it. I am also starved for representation. This, however, does not mean I’m going to settle for annoying, poorly written characters.

Why Make Debbie Queer?

The first thing I want to address is why suddenly develop a WLW storyline for her. Given that Debbie started as a little girl on the show, this gives the writers a lot of opportunity to give a character like that interesting storylines because she does not yet have a solid personality. It gives writers the liberty to take her story anywhere they want to without the constraints of established character because she, as a person, is still developing into adulthood. The show runners unfortunately dropped the ball with this.

From season 4 and onwards was when Debbie began showing interest in dating, sex, and romance having just turned the corner to puberty. From then up until season 9, she has shown exclusive interest in men. It isn’t until Alex the welder that Debbie deviates from this path. Alex is portrayed as a stud who confuses Debbie. I am inclined to believe that Debbie was originally attracted to her because she was masculine and therefore close enough to the people Debbie had previous experience with.

This arc was treated very much as Debbie experimenting with her sexuality, something that Alex also ends up realizing after Debbie tells her that having sex with a girl is “not that bad” and “like having sex with yourself” (S9E4). Once this storyline wrapped up (with Debbie shouting “you make me want cock again”) the writers powered through, adamant about Debbie now being a lesbian.

I have two theories as to why they’ve been fighting so hard for her queerness.

1) This was around the time that Cam was leaving Shameless. This obviously didn’t end up happening, but I was under the impression that the writers were freaking out at losing their token gay character and needed to fill that position. When Cam ended up staying, they were stuck with a queer Debbie storyline and decided to just go with it.

2) Shameless was planning on doing a WLW storyline regardless of Cam’s choice to leave and were originally going to give it to Fiona and her lesbian tenant that she had a close relationship and a lot of chemistry with, but Emmy Rossum wanted to move on from Shameless, and so they pivoted and gave the arc to Debbie, a character that was not supposed to be moved in that direction and so her new sexuality seemingly came out of nowhere. Fiona as a bisexual character would have made sense. Debbie still does not.

Shameless’s Awkward Relationship With Bisexuality

One of the biggest issues I have with Debbie is her insistence on being a lesbian. Lesbianism doesn’t come out of nowhere. Bisexuality, however, can. When you grow up being told that you are supposed to feel attraction to men, and you genuinely do feel attraction to men (which Debbie has expressed in past seasons/episodes) it’s easy to ignore your attraction to women and write it off as something that either isn’t a big deal, or something that isn’t there. It’s a lot more confusing than being strictly at one end of the spectrum. It would have been so much more believable if they had simply made Debbie bisexual. Unsurprisingly, they didn’t because the show has a history with bi erasure.

Bisexuality has been treated badly all throughout Shameless, used as a vengeful plot device back in the earlier seasons where Monica was only ever with women when unmedicated. Then in Season 7 when Ian’s boyfriend Caleb cheated on him with a woman (enforcing the stereotype of bisexuals being unfaithful) Ian, possibly acting out of anger or ignorance, said things like “only women are bisexual. When a man says he’s bisexual he’s really just gay”. The only semi positive bisexual representation on the show was Svetlana and Vee when they were in a poly relationship with Kev (though I also think that storyline wasn’t handled as well as it could’ve been).

This fight against the bisexual label in media is not a new one but it is also a harmful stance to take when writing a sexually fluid character. Debbie declaring that she is, in fact, a lesbian after waxing poetic about how Matty had a big dick and Derek had a great body and knew what he was doing is not the way to go. 

You could argue that Debbie, like many other queer women, is an unfortunate victim of compulsory heterosexuality, but frankly I don’t think the writers are well versed enough in queer theory for that to be a possibility.

Debbie as The White Feminist

Debbie is the pinnacle of white feminism. It’s an unfortunate thought that has occurred to me a few times throughout the show. She talks a big game as a man hater and someone after the equal treatment of women but she herself participates in a lot of problematic and anti feminist behavior.

For one, she r*ped Matty back in season 5 when he was blacked out and unconscious. This was a point in the story that was glossed over and one where she suffered no repercussions other than Matty no longer wanting to be around her. It was explained in the show that Debbie didn’t realize what she did was wrong until after she was explicitly told so because she was maybe 14 when it happened (not 100% on the age Shameless is very inconsistent about timelines). It was treated as somewhat of a punchline, something that Shameless has unfortunately done more than once when referring to male sexual assault (Mickey’s r*pe, Liam in season 10 ((i think??)) and in this latest season, Carl) but that is a different topic. 

There was also the time in which she lied to her boyfriend about being on birth control so she could trap him into a relationship with pregnancy (which also counts as r*pe!!) Good on Derek for getting out of that.

Debbie has also been pro-life in the past. Now I understand this was when Fiona was pressuring her into aborting her pregnancy, and as a pro choicer myself, I believe that Debbie was fully in her right to have bodily autonomy and go through with the pregnancy. This isn’t where the issue lies. It’s when Fiona finds out that she too is pregnant and tells Debbie that she wants an abortion that Debbie accuses her of “killing her baby”. Again, her behavior could be explained by her age given that Debbie was still a young teen during this time.

When her actions as a White Feminist become less excusable is mostly in the latest season. Her relationship with Sandy is one that I’m not really happy with because Debbie doesn’t deserve her.

Recently, it has been revealed that Sandy is actually married to a man and has a son. It’s explained that she was basically married off against her will at the age of 15 to a man twice her age. This implies that the product of the marriage, her son, was most likely conceived through dubious consent (or worse) at the hands of an adult when she was just a kid. Just because Debbie thinks that Sandy’s husband “seems nice” does not give her the right to try and make a victim of grooming feel bad about not wanting to be with her abuser. While I understand that Sandy’s son has no fault in how he came into the world, I’m still gonna side with Sandy when it comes to having to take care of a child she didn’t want and who is most likely a source of trauma for her. It’s not difficult to sympathize with Sandy and see that she’s clearly gone through something fucked up and Debbie, despite claiming to love and support her, AND despite her dumb white feminist arc about wanting equal pay and all that jazz, turns her back on the girls supporting girls aspect of feminism.

This isn’t even mentioning how shitty it was to just leave Franny by herself and assume that one of her siblings would take her to school and pick her up and stuff as if they don’t all have separate lives. She talks a lot about being a good mother but decided to “let off some steam” by fucking off to a gay bar to get loaded on coke and fuck a gay man (which wtf thats not a thing that really happens with casual coke but whatever I guess). Once she realized she fucked up, instead of taking responsibility she decided to paint herself as the victim as well as spew offensive bullshit about how she “probably has AIDS now” because of her sexual encounter with a gay man. No lesbian in their right fucking mind would ever say that because as members of the LGBTQ+ community, you are at least a tiny bit informed as to how devastating and tragic the AIDS crisis was for queer people.

(I also have an issue with how Debbie capitalized on her felony as a sex offender and her sexuality to start her Hot Lesbian Convict business but I think that’s enough said.)

Blame the writers

The show got almost an entirely new cast of writers after season 7 which is why the show feels more like a sitcom with low stakes and no consequences rather than a drama, but if there is a queer writer on the team it’s not very evident. Even the better half of the queer relationship story, Ian and Mickey, I don’t feel has really been done justice since the change in writers. It’s just become painfully obvious that the actress is a straight girl playing a gay character (not to mention I have never seen any chemistry between her and all of her female love interests). I don’t fault Emma Kenney (the actress) for this. I actually really like her as a person and I like the videos she makes about the cast and such, and I think she does her best with the script she’s given. My complaints with Debbie are targeted entirely towards the writers.

This brings me to my final point. I need them to let Debbie be alone. Her whole thing for the second half of the season has been that she clearly has abandonment issues and is afraid of being alone. It’s why she’s so adamant about keeping the house and fighting with Lip about it (I’m actually on Debbie’s side for that one but that’s besides the point). They had her and Sandy break up which leaves Debbie to spiral further into her loneliness. From a writing point of view, it makes sense to take this opportunity to give her an arc in which she can overcome that and feel comfortable with herself so that she can move on as an adult instead of jumping into a new relationship. This is especially true since this is quite literally the last season ever of the show and any character development needs to be wrapped up. Introducing a new character out of nowhere does not give the viewers enough time to actually get invested in the new relationship. It’s also unfair to Debbie’s character because her arc is going to feel incomplete.

Anyway,,,,,,uuuhhhhh,,,,,feel free to add on if u want lmao

[rat-father]

You said you could rant about hero x villain for a long time and I'd love to see that

The biggest issue I have with the majority of hero x villain stories I have is that its all very bland with nothing to call it a plot. Especially with prompts, all of it just blends together with no originality to any of it. And even though the writers often use exclusively gender neutral terms and just call the characters [hero] and [villain] so that the reader can imagine them as whatever they want, its very clear that they were written by a white straight cisgender person with white straight cisgender characters in mind.

And when they do give genders to the characters, the woman is either; the hero, small and petite, skinny, strong headed and independent (until she meets the villain) OR the villain, tall and petite, skinny, strong headed, independent, and flirty. They always fall into either category one way or another I hate it so much. And the male is always big buff, tall, and either nerdy or flirty, same thing whether hes the hero or villain. I don't know if they're trying to win an award for most basic couple in fiction but they're sure on their way there.

Somehow just as bad theres the superpowers. And they're just as bad because its either the most basic superpower you would think of or its nonexistent like my attraction to men.

Take a shot everytime the villain isnt actually a bad guy but is actually doing bad things for a good cause or they refuse to genuinely harm people. Don't. You'll die. Villains in the hero/villain genre are the only villains that aren't actual villains despite that being the whole point of the story. They're just some regular person named Joe that for some reason is getting harassed by heroes body slamming them on the street because they wore a black cape or happened to be chilling out on a rooftop on a starry night.

The whole point of it thats its hero/villains but instead its just man and woman fist fighting for two seconds and then going on a date afterwards. Unless you're looking at hero/villain whump I doubt you can find anything thats above wattpad quality. And even with the whump I have some issues, more specifically sidekick whump.

As much as I love whump, yall are really overdoing it with hero whumper, sidekick whumpee and villain caretaker. The dynamic doesn't make all that much sense, first of all, seeing as the villain is supposed to be a VILLAIN (going back to my point of the villains never being villains) and the hero never having a clear reason to torture a kid other then to try and make them work harder, or punishing them for not doing a mission correctly or whatever. Let me sum up practically every villain caretaker story ever; hero absuses sidekick and hides it, sidekick gets captured by villain, they think they're going to get killed or tortured, the villain finds scars and goes :0 "how dare they" and swears to kill hero.

Step the game up at least, bring something new to the table for once. Treat the villains like villains. Instead of the villain feeling bad for the sidekick, how about they laugh at them instead? Tell them that they deserve of being such a shitty hero and mock them. If they're supposed to be a villain then make them act like one. Im tired of seeing it because its all the same. None of it is original anymore.

[yulmoldauer]

some things are better left unsaid (Tyson Jost/Male OC): Chapter 2

part 1

Chapter 2

Summary: Mason has to deal with the events of the previous night.

Warnings: uh as you can guess if you read the first part, there’s gonna be homophobia/transphobia talked about. Otherwise, there shouldn’t be anything that needs a warning? If I’m wrong just let me know :)

Words: 2,319

Notes: I don’t think I have much! This is like a lot of flashbacks and I’m sorry but that's character building baybee!!! I promise after this it’ll be more present-based stuff. I just love the character and wish I could spew out my brain and make it understandable lol

Fuck.

That was the only thought Mason had upon waking up. The implications of the previous night hit him like a ton of bricks. His hangover was just an added bonus.

The party had been fun, obviously, but Tyson was still here. Tyson had seen his top surgery scars.

“When did you have surgery?”

Fuck, fuck, fuck. A medical degree and some knowledge on what other surgery would leave these scars would be helpful. Mason really did not want to lie, but he wasn’t sure what else he was supposed to do.

Being drunk wasn’t helping, either. In his mind, the world was ending and his career was over after the last fuck up that got him traded…

Rationally, he just burst into tears. Not a dramatic scene or anything, he just felt his eyes watering very quickly and suddenly the tears were rolling down his face.

“Oh, shit. Okay,” Tyson set the water down and hurried to his friend. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know this was- here, will you feel better if you get a shirt on?”

Mason only nodded, allowing Tyson to help him get the shirt on and pull him for a hug.

This just made Tyson think that the scars were from some shitty, traumatic event or something with extremely bad memories. Note to self: don’t fucking ask about them again was written in large letters in his brain.

He did factor in the extremely likely possibility that Mason was drunk and--as anyone with a brain knows--Mason was a hundred times more dramatic when drunk. Still, though, if he was crying, it couldn’t be a good thing.

At least Tyson had been nice enough to leave him some meds and water after forcing him to go to bed.

“You hungry?” Tyson asked softly from the doorway. “I heard you rumbling around in here, I wasn’t watching you sleep,” he clarified quickly.

“Didn’t think you were,” Mason chuckled. “No, I’m not hungry. Thank you, though. You can help yourself to whatever. You know that.”

“Yeah, I made some toast earlier. Fun birthday last night?” Tyson smiled and sat on the edge of the bed as Mason laid back against the headboard and dug the heels of his hands into his eyes.

“You could say that. Thanks, though. Seriously, I had a ton of fun.”

“Yeah, of course. I didn’t stop you from posting anything on social media, though. I dunno why you like taking videos so much.”

“Then I can save them and rewatch them later,” Mason scoffed like Tyson was an idiot. After a few more seconds Tyson moved to get up mere milliseconds before Mason started talking.

“About last night…”

He hesitated, waiting for some kind of confirmation that Tyson was willing to talk about this. There was no sense putting it off, right?

Tyson just raised his eyebrows. “The scars?”

That earned a nod and Tyson sat back down.

“They’re… shit. Okay, sorry. I never meant to lie or anything--fuck that, I never lied. I just... “

“Dude, if it’s something you don’t want to talk about, that’s fine.”

Mason groaned quietly and shook his head. “No, it’s just… I don’t know how to explain it.”

“If you wanna talk, just say it. I’m not gonna freak out or anything. If you don’t wanna, that’s okay too,” Tyson reassured gently.

Truthfully, the curiosity was killing him. It was rare that an injury happened and they didn’t share it with each other. Mason took a few more breaths before nodding. Psyching himself up.

“They’re from my top surgery.”

Silence.

More silence.

Mason officially wanted to die. He was going to have to request another team change, go through the legal battle of making sure he didn’t get outed--

“Like…?” Tyson asked quietly with raised eyebrows.

“Like I had tits and got them removed the summer before I went to college.”

That may have been a relatively vulgar way to put it, but it was true. It was the simplest and least-awkward way he could think to put it.

“Oh,” Tyson nodded a few times. “Thats--I never knew--I mean, I couldn’t, like, tell or anything…”

“Yeah, that was the point,” he sighed and took a sip of the water on the nightstand. “Noone was supposed to know or be able to tell or whatever.”

“So literally no one knows?”

“Not literally, no. My family knows, obviously.”

“But the league?”

At the defeated sigh that escaped his friend, Tyson quickly backtracked. “You don’t have to get into it, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be prying--”

“No, it’s fine. It’s just… a long story that I don’t know if you actually want to hear or if you’re just being nice.”

“Of course I wanna hear, stupid. I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t.”

Mason narrowed his eyes at the name, but it was quickly followed with a small smile.

It did take a bit to explain everything, though. How he was drafted into his previous team, everything was fine, and then someone had taken an ungodly amount of time to hit the showers at the same time Mason had been in there.

“Oh, fuck! You scared me,” Mason huffed when he heard the water turn on just across from him.

“What’cha being jumpy for?” the taller guy laughed.

“I’m not jumpy,” Mason grumbled, turning the water off quickly. He wasn’t even sure all the soap was out of his hair, but that didn’t matter. He just needed to get the hell out of there.

“Are you okay, man? You’re being weird-” the other man asked genuinely and glanced over his shoulder. This had been at the same exact time Mason had been trying to just leave as quickly as possible.

There was a few moments of silence that felt like years as the younger grabbed for a towel to cover himself up.

“Are you--?”

“Please, just forget--” Mason tried, but the guy was already turning his water off and grabbing his own towel.

“No, I’m not fucking--are you kidding me, Wright?” he nearly shouted as he stormed out of the room with Mason in tow. “Are you actually kidding me? How the hell have you gotten away with this--”

“I haven’t ‘gotten away with’ anything, you dickhead. It’s none of your business in the first place.”

“It doesn’t matter, you don’t belong here. You know they’ve got the women’s league now, right? It’s not like-”

Mason just shook his head, staring at the floor of the changing room while they were both yanking clothes on as quickly as possible. He didn’t want to hear what was coming next, all the awful shit he’d say.

It wasn’t even what he was saying that was the issue. Mason had heard just about everything at this point and had always had a pretty thick skin. It was the fact that someone he trusted--someone he’d considered family at this point--was saying it.

Didn’t he realize that it wouldn’t be like this if Mason could help it?

“Hey, what the hell is going on?” the head coach cried over them, walking into the room. He hadn’t been concerned about the loudness until it was unbearably obvious that the shouting was getting increasingly angrier and angrier. He wasn’t about to bring up the fact that Mason looked genuinely scared, as if worried about his safety.

The other guy was pissed, going off about how he’d been lied to, he’d been sharing a locker room, dressing room, and showers with a lot of unkind names, and that he wouldn’t keep playing for the team while acting like this never happened.

They ended up in the coach’s office, Mason attempting to towel dry his hair while the other blew off steam. He just didn’t want anyone to see him upset.

Once they were separated, lawyers were brought in with papers and agreements, and the head coach asked Mason if he’d like to request a trade or anything. It wasn’t like he had the option to say no, but he wasn’t exactly upset to go somewhere where he wasn’t worried about going to the bathroom without getting yelled at or beat up by a guy way bigger than himself.

He remembered to thank management before he left for working overtime, it seemed like, to figure out who would take him on such short notice and mid-season.

He was a good defenseman, sure, it just wasn’t easy on such short notice. But what the star player wants, the star player gets.

Colorado was the quickest to take the young defenseman about a year ago, and the rest was history.

“Holy shit,” Tyson murmured after a few quiet moments.

“I thought I was done. I honestly didn’t think anyone was going to pick me up, I thought my career was over. Can you fucking imagine that? Retiring at, like, 22?”

“Yeah, no, that’s… fuck, dude. I’m so sorry that happened.”

“It’s fine, I don’t even really care. I’m happier here, anyway. Especially since it’s not like you’re saying I’m a creep or a fucking… whatever.”

“Does anyone else know? In the league, I mean.”

Mason nodded. “Took a different approach when I got here. Bednar, bare minimum management, and PR knows. PR because if someone ends up outing me, I thought it would be a good idea to have some sort of plan on what to do. And medical staff always has, obviously. I think they know more about me than I do.”

Tyson nodded along, looking at his friend again after a few moments.

“You want this to stay between us, then? Or…?”

The fact that Tyson was even asking made Mason want to cry again. After being fucked over god-knows how many times when it came to being trans, Tyson was the one confirming he’d keep the secret. He wouldn’t give anyone any kind of hint unless Mason wanted him to.

“Yeah.  Between us, please? I dunno, I might come out to the guys eventually, just so they know. I just… I don’t know what I’d do if they react badly--”

“They wouldn’t,” Tyson said quickly. “I promise you they wouldn’t. And even if someone did have an issue with it, they’d just fucking stay quiet. They’d be in the tiny minority.”

“I just don’t know if I can take being traded and going through everything again, Tys.”

At the wavering in Mason’s voice, Tyson reached out and squeezed his friend’s hand.

“You’re not going to get traded over stupid shit like that. Not here, at least.”

“You don’t know--”

“I mean, yeah, I don’t know a lot. But you already said that the most important people who need to know do, they’re okay with it, and it sounds like they’ve got your back. I’ve got your back, too. And if you end up telling the rest of the guys, they’ll have your back too. Even if you end up not telling them, I’m still here for you, man.”

Mason felt about eight tons of weight fall off his shoulders at that. How did he end up with such an amazing friend?

“I just can’t really come out publicly for… I dunno. A while. Ever, maybe? I don’t know.”

“That’s gotta suck. I mean, everyone’s got their shit they want to keep private but… I dunno what I’d do if I literally couldn’t talk about something.”

Especially with how amazing it would be if Mason was able to be that representation for kids like he was who want to play hockey, Tyson thought. The amount of LGBT kids and teenagers who get driven out of hockey is immense, that’s never been a secret. To see an LGBT guy do so well would be amazing, it just sucked it wasn’t possible for Mason to talk about.

And he did want to talk about it. It would suck to come out and deal with that, but if it helped other people he would do it without hesitation. That’s the kind of guy Mason had always been.

“You’re sure you’re not mad that I, like, kinda lied to you about this up until now?” Mason asked, breaking Tyson out of his train of thought.

“Lie?” Tyson furrowed his eyebrows. “Not telling someone something isn’t lying, first off. Second, its none of my fucking business unless you wanted me to know. Even then, this would be a stupid thing to get in the way of being friends with you. I know you call me an idiot all the time, but I like to think I’m not that stupid.”

“You’re definitely not,” Mason chuckled, flipping his blanket off of him and swinging his legs over the side of the bed. He shot Tyson a genuine, appreciative smile before downing the painkillers with some water. “Let me get dressed and I can drive you home, if you want. I feel bad making you wait so long,” he murmured. It was well into the afternoon, and even though Tyson constantly reassured that it was fine, he didn’t care, Mason still felt guilty.

It was very clear Mason was hungover when he and Tyson left the building and got into his car, but that was fine. It had just confused Tyson when Mason unbuckled in front of his apartment building.

That is, until he was pulled into a tight hug.

“Thank you so much,” Mason whispered. “Seriously. I… I dunno how to actually tell you how much I appreciate you being so chill.”

Tyson hugged him for a few moments before shaking his head. “It’s really not much to just… I dunno what to call it. Not be an asshole?”

Mason laughed as he let go, allowing Tyson to open the door. “You can text me if you have any questions about… anything. I don’t tell a lot of people, but the people who do know I’m pretty open with.”

“Yeah, of course. See you later, man. Go get rehydrated, okay? You look like shit.”

“Fuck you!”

[ladyculebras]

ALL THE WAYS THE PET SEMATARY REMAKE IS BAD

SPOILERS OBVIOUSLY FOR EVERYTHING

1. This movie blames Rachel for EVERYTHING. This is the big main thing that bothers me throughout the film. Rachel is at fault, either directly or subtly, throughout the film.

First off, Rachel is the one who fears death so much she cannot bear to prepare her daughter for the possibility of Church dying, while the original actively had them trying to get Church fixed so he wouldn't wander around so much and thus, less likely to die. This wouldn't bother me so much, but LOUIS is the one who okay talking about death and wants to talk to Ellie about it and wants to not shield her from the truth that Church could die. This...ruins the whole narrative thrust. Louis is supposed to be fearful of death, shying away from exposing his family to it in any capacity, to the point where he avoid any kind of confrontation and causes the whole problem. Louis and his inability to handle death when it hits home is the whole POINT.

But furthermore, Rachel is the one who doesn't want to tell Ellie about Church dying! Louis WANTS to tell her but Rachel convinces him to tell her that Church ran away and tells him to go bury Church in secret. So inadvertently, it's all Rachel's fault. If Louis just talked to his daughter about death, and her dead cat, none of this would have happened. It completely removes accountability from Louis, when that is his whole tragic flaw.

Look this wouldn't bother me so much if Rachel were the main character instead. You want to make it her fault this happens, that's okay! But make her drive the story then! Don't do it as a way to absolve Louis of further responsibility!!!!!!

FURTHERMORE!!!! YES THERE'S MORE. After Ellie's death, Rachel is the one who decides to go away and leaves Louis behind...for reasons. Like yes I understand why she would want to get away from this awful place, but the movie completely cuts out the subplot of Rachel's parents hating Louis, so there is no reason for him not to go. But this also removes Louis actively conspiring to get Rachel to go away so he can go do a bad thing. It's a small thing but a really important thing that means Louis just doesn't come off as badly as he did in the original. The original movie is about grief but it's also about the folly of a man who is unable to let go or listen to anyone around him, and making terrible decisions that he hides from the female members of his family that ruins them all. It's so clearly obvious the male directors did not want Louis to look TOO BAD. Trying to remove accountability from Louis ruins the whole point and the tragedy as well. If Louis doesn't make these choices, if held held back from accepting death because his wife asked him too, how can this be his fault.

2. BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE ON RACHEL'S HANDS.

In the original, Rachel recounts her sister Zelda's death in a scene with Louis and explains that she wanted her to die and she felt awful for wanting that. Louis comforts her and tells her she did nothing wrong and her parents were awful for putting her through that. Then insists she takes a valium for her anxiety because LOLZ THE 80s AND CASUAL DRUG USE, MAN.

Here, she tells Louis the story but explains that she ACCIDENTALLY killed her sister, by forcing her sister--who can't get out of bed--to crawl to a dumbwaiter to get her food where she falls in, because Rachel was too scared.to go up to her and give her the food herself. Now, I don't have a problem with this, this doesn't make her a bad person in my eyes, but the change itself puts some responsibility on an EIGHT YEAR OLD KID for her sister's death in a way that the original movie and book didn't.

Then later, reanimated Ellie says YOU PRAYED YOUR SISTER WOULD DIE like it's an evil dark secret that she's revealing. AS IF THATS SOMETHING A EIGHT YEAR OLD NEEDS TO FEEL BAD ABOUT. AS IF THAT MAKES RACHEL ACTUALLY TERRIBLE.

God I hate this change the most because I adored the original for going there with the themes of grief and exploring all the ugly messy emotions involved in grief and not just dead children but prolonged illness. And demonizing those emotions for a cheap shocking reveal at the end is not dark and mature storytelling, its childish.

3. Also holy shit this movie mishandled Zelda so badly. They have Zelda straight up threaten Rachel and say she hated her and she was going to end up just like her. Her NEVER GET OUT OF BED AGAIN line is an actual threat to her. It was a weird demonization of an ill woman, when the original was already sketching the line in its portrayal of meningitis, but this was so much worse. Those words are manifestations of Rachel's anxiety!!! THEY ARE NOT ACTUAL THREATS. IT'S JUST RACHEL THINKING HER SISTER MUST HATE HER.

The whole scene is played for weird jack in the box jump scares instead of the existential horror of watching your sister be ravaged by disease when you are too young to understand what that is.

4. Ellie is this weird perfect angel child, and it bothers me. In the original story, she's scared of the pet sematary at first. She has a great speech about how Church is her cat, not God's cat, he can't have him! She cries and storms off and throws tantrums and says SHIT. She is a regular kid, basically. In the book, she actively annoys Louis! Here, she's just...boringly perfect. Everyone loves her. She never gets angry. She never cries. She doesn't even seem upset when Church attacks her. Jud is enchanted by her, literally saying he is under her spell, WTF. This wouldn't be so bad in general, bad writing for a child but not necessarily awful, but it bothers me the most here because it's all set up for when Ellie dies and comes back as a total monster. Ellie cannot actually be her own character but a pedestaled symbol of a child for Louis to cry over, and for the audience to feel horrified by when she returns as a shell of herself. At least when the original did that with Gage, it made sense, because he is a TODDLER and they have no real personalities. We as a whole tend to over idealize babies and the only thing you can really do with Gage narratively is make him a symbol.

5. Speaking of Zombie Ellie, I wanted to be open to the whole Ellie dies and comes back thing! I hated the idea of it initially but I was hoping it'd be interesting. I liked the beginning, with Ellie being set up as fascinated and drawn to the pet semetary to begin with, and I was kinda hoping the movie would follow her pov instead. After all, I love a good monster girl story and I was really intrigued by the idea of Ellie being AWARE she's been reanimated, and angry about it, upset about it. But tbh, I think the movie in general seemed to go with the idea that Ellie is not Ellie at all but the wendigo, acting through her.

But it was BAD, partly because the actress was not good--not her fault she was given poor direction and shitty material and she's just a KID--but also partly because these dudes just don't know how to write women and don't know how to write girls and didn't really grant the reanimated Ellie any actual humanity or depth. She existed to torment those around her, like she was seeking revenge, rather than coming back wrong as something monstrous like child Gage in the original. She came off as a generic creepy girl child who was possessed.

HONESTLY just having Ellie speak was a terrible idea. I sort of get what they were going for, after all,in the book, undead Gage speaks and knows things he should not know, and Elie as an avatar of...the wendigo *TAKE A FUCKING SHOT* would do the same, I get that they were doing that. But oh god the batman voice they gave her and the terrible lines sounded so OFF. She would have been creepier if she didn't say anything or at least, spoke in a regular little girl voice. It would have been creepier if she was clearly not Ellie and Louis didn't care--they kept going so back and forth on Louis in these scenes, first he is scared of what he brought back and uncomfortable with her and yelling at her, but then he is all HUG YOUR DAUGHTER!!!!!!! GOD CAN HAVE HIS OWN CHILD!!!!! And then he is back to wanting to kill her. But honestly, I don't need the movie to have done things my way, just...not this. This was terribly executed. 

6. Speaking of, they were doing some weird...psychosexual Elektra complex with undead Ellie and Louis. First the shot with both of them in the bed together is mirrored earlier with a shot of both Rachel and Louis in bed together....okay then. I mean. That doesn't mean anything. Maybe I am just misinterpreting. But then Ellie is like SHE DOESNT WANT ME HERE AND I DON'T WANT MOMMY HERE (but she still...reanimates her...for reasons. Why. I don't understand).

Then Ellie attacks Jud and wears the face of his WIFE TO DO IT and torments him like that.

Why. Why would you do this. I hate these writers. These are the worst choices.

7. THEY GAVE ELLIE'S PSYCHIC POWERS TO GAGE I'M SO ANGRY ABOUT THIS.

8. This movie legit single perfect tears Louis during Ellie's funeral. Are you kidding me. A single perfect tear. FOR REAL. THIS IS A MOVIE ABOUT GRIEF. 

9. A lot of the promo material before the movie came out made a big deal about staying truer to the book than the original and it being an adaptation of the book, not a remake of the movie. Sure, but they barely do anything with wendigo and I'm kinda glad, because the whole INDIAN BURIAL GROUND is a bad trope and King's depiction of the Wendigo is soooo wrong and misinformed and terrible but like..this movie didn't do anything with the mythology except name drop it.

10. I AM ACTUALLY MAD THEY MADE CHURCH EVIL. Like this is nitpicking I know but!  In the book, Church (and the reanimated dog) isn't actually evil, he's a zombie. Hes described as not quite how to be a cat anymore. And even in the movie, Church doesn't do anything sinister. He only attacks Louis and who could blame him, and he never hurts Ellie at all. She still sleeps with him in her bed. So I am honestly annoyed they had Church actively attack Ellie jklasfasda

11. Oh my god let's talk about Pascow. WHAT THE FUCK HAVE THEY DONE TO PASCOW. They completely neutered him and made him just a generic ghost, for the most part. Pascow is cheerful in the original, while also being creepy yet relatable. You can really emphasize with his sheer helplessness to stop the tragedy from unfolding. But none of that comes across here. Maybe they wanted to maintain the completely SERIOUS tone, but ultimately Pascow is supposed to be a soothing presence. He is there to remind people that death isn't evil and something that needs to be accepted. He isn't supposed to be there for jump scares, and then completely disappear for the most part.

12. Also the optics of casting a black man for Pascow , and then completely and grotesquely fucking up his face so bad his brains are exposed in his scenes...while Ellie also gets hit by a truck and she looks completely okay, like a perfect corpse angel is just. Gross and bad and racist and sexist ALL AT ONCE, AMAZING.

Like look, I don't WANT to see a mutilated gored up child, sure, but it's so shitty that both these characters get hit by trucks and the black man looks like....he got hit by a truck but the white child looks fine. She looks fine. Her head is stapled and her eyes are a little mismatched but fine.

13. THE EDITING IS SO BAD. It feels like they couldn't WAIT to get to the ending fast enough so scenes will literally smash cut to the next right in the middle of an action. There was a moment where Church is hissing and then it just CUTS immediately in the middle of hissing, he doesn't even get to finish hissing! Just cut to the next scene! There is no lingering on a moment to just process. Things just happen.

14. The story of Timothy, the person who was brought back one time, is just a footnote in this movie. It's barely relevant. That was a such a great creepy moment that underscored the whole movie and it's themes, and it's just gone.

15. Why is Jud so creepy. He literally looks at Louis and the family from a distance and ominously smokes a cigarette and he's so mysterious for no reason and even his first meeting with Ellie he yells at her and then is like WHAT, CAN'T YOU READ about the pet sematary sign. WHAT ARE THESE CHOICES. For a moment I thought Jud would be evil but no he's just weird and creepy for reasons? The movie sacrificed his and Louis' relationship to build one with him and Ellie, which is cute but also kinda bothers me because it's really to just make Ellie look like she is SO IMPORTANT TO JUD and that's why he tells Louis how to bring her cat back and it's…weird. Jud seems overinvested in the family and kids that aren't his rather than like,being friends with them all.

Jud is CHARMING. You fall in love with his kindly old man gentleman nature. He feels like everyone's grandpa. He is warm and delightful and it's such a shock and horror when he dies in such a brutal way. Trying to frame him in shadow with an ominous cigarette reduces the warmth of the character for no reason!

Furthermore, Jud's warmth is meant to obscure that he's ultimately rather weak himself, in character, just like Louis. He's not entirely at fault for the events but he cant help himself in telling Louis about burying church, rather than implying that the dark power is literally ensnaring him to make Louis do it jaksfsadfasdfa

16. LOUIS LITERALLY DRUGS JUD LIKE A DATE RAPIST WHAT THE FUCK

17. Guys, you can't just turn on a fog machine on your set and say you're an atmospheric movie. HAVING FOG IS NOT A SUBSTITUTE FOR GENUINE DREAD.

18. The ending is just bad. I REALLY WANTED TO LIKE zombie family but its filmed like for cheap shock, rather than genuine horror. I love dark endings, but it didn't feel like a tragedy the movie should be, it just felt like the hand of the writers were trying to do a different ending to say SEE THIS IS DIFFERENT! LOOK AT HOW DIFFERENT AND DARK WE ARE. I just...hate the whole framing. I love the idea of the whole family being reanimated but I CAN'T UNDERSTAND WHY. Ellie wanted to torture them like she is being tortured? That's a great concept but it's not really a thing in the movie. You can't tell if Zombie Rachel or Zombie Louis feel any kind of horror or torment at their own state, which undercuts the whole reanimation.

Ok in the interest of being fair, here are some things I liked.

1. I do genuinely love Ellie in this movie at the beginning. I liked the idea of her being drawn to the cemetery. I really liked the scene where Louis is giving her a bath and he sees the staples from the autopsy. I loved the bits when it was sort of suggested that even she didn't know why she was back and where she had gone and did not understand why she could feel the woods inside her. I wish we just expanded on that more.

2. Church. Church is great. Church is always great. Best cat, did no wrong. This movie did not kill the cat off for good, so that is a bonus.

3. There's a moment where Louis is trying to justify bring Ellie back to life and Rachel is just staring at him agog and horrified and Louis is wild eyed and shaking and it's the most terrifying moment in the movie for me. Not Ellie or the wendigo, but LOUIS, having completely lost it and not giving a shit that he has an undead monster daughter right now. SO GREAT. The movie undercuts it later by having him realize he ~needs to kill Ellie~ again and like...no, go full steam ahead with that.

4. SOME SHOTS LOOK GOOD I GUESS

In conclusion MEN ARE DUMB AND SHOULD NOT BE GIVEN WOMEN'S FILMS TO REMAKE

[anti-marxistcult]

SJW’s “Diversity” dogma and Tokenism comments

same with me

YES!!! THANK YOU!!!

good point

same, entertainment is for escapism, not propaganda but this is what happens when ideologues control any business

Pretty much.

muthafucken TRUTH ^

they do because 1) it is their “selling-pitch” and to guilt/shame you into watching/liking it and 2) it is so if you dare criticize it they use the women/POC/GLBT card on you and call you names to smear you and deflect attention away from the criticism that it is a shitty poorly constructed film, game, series, comic, etc they use “diversity” to protect their mediocre propaganda from negative reaction, backlash, criticism

yup, that is why feminism is a sham, by looking at the people in the movement, their mentality and hatred of femininity and healthy women, it is no wonder feminists indulge in fandoms to bash classical feminine characters and project themselves into male characters by stripping them of their masculinity and making them go against their original identity by screwing other male straight characters. Feminism is for self loathing fugly women who are anti femininity and anti masculinity in their natural forms.

exactly, they know they have to get them while they are young, the younger he better because they are at their most vulnerable and impressionable. it is very much like a cult, they’d groom their children too.

True, it is feminism that makes women turn against themselves and each other. it conditions them to hate their femininity, hate being healthy and attractive. It is these land whale types that attack classic and traditional femininity and want to make women more butch and masculine because they think that since masculinity is men’s strength then women should emulate it, when in truth femininity is women’s strength, but feminism views femininity as a weakness, thus they emasculate men to weaken them in society’s eye and promote women to be masculine under the dumb belief it is supposed to give women some magical strength that men possess, lol or in other words: ‘cock envy’. This leads to both men and women being unhealthy, depressed, miserable, they develop self-image issues, and instead of taking responsibility for their lifestyle and their gullibility for buying into feminism and anti-gender norms dogma, they blame attractive people or the air brushed celebrities and models (friendly reminder sex sells for a reason, human beings generally prefer attractive healthy partners, people that a obese is a turn off - unless you have a fetish for it). another fact is women are prone to jealousy, envy, (I’m a woman, I know, and every other women with an honest bone in her body knows it is true too) again it leads back to human nature and our hard wired competitive streak. Majority of society’s problems, men and women, where personal issues and self-image and all that are concerned stem from the backwards ideology of feminism attacking our natural behavior because feminism and its flawed theories attack gender norms for its own interest, not for the majority of people’s interests. it causes more problems than it fixes, the only people that benefit are the ones that are devout followers of that dogma...except they aren’t really because they’re still jealous and resentful to those that are not conforming to their ideology. this is why they are now pushing it onto younger people more than before.

yup, sad but true, this is what happens when they are exposed to conditioning through media for decades and pass it down to the next gen and peer pressure them to hate the natural norms of women, her femininity and nature. feminism is communism in a skirt and marxism in drag. feminists are their own oppressors.

well that is one way of putting it. a channel I watched explained that too with a remarkable collection of articles, studies and polls and surveys and all that stuff and not to mention just observing that behavior by living and experiencing the real world, which these snowflakes dont do, they live on the internet in their safe bubble echo chambers believing the opposite about human nature and then get triggered and shocked and outraged when it doesnt mirror their fantasy expectations

personally I like watching attractive and healthy women, I can identify better with a person of any race, gender, sexuality, creed, etc that takes care of their health and appearance, not an unhealthy smelly thing that makes me feel sick :\ the agenda to promote ugliness and force acceptance of it is truly sad and gross

that is a great point actually, it is why the activists first hijacked online fandoms when the internet began because it was the perfect platform to shove their politics down teens and apolitical people’s throats and peer pressure them by calling dissenters all the usual buzzwords if they didnt re-”interpret” characters to virtue signal and appease the oppression stack.

yeah that is true, that is the women’s jealousy showing itself (and in some cases their control-freak tendencies), tumblr showcases their hypocrisy too with the double standards of sexual objectification

omg ... I have found my soul mate !!! ;D

Yeah and that is racist and sexist, once again SJWs are the thing they claim to hate. Personality and who you are matters, not what you are. for the people that think their entire being revolves around their race, gender and sexuality - that is pretty pathetic, that means they havent discovered themselves outside a group. One is supposed to let go of the ‘group’ after highschool. I think because millennials were given social media while they were still in highschool is why they havent grown up, they use it as an emotional crutch. Naturally a dependent person is going to feel helpless and confused because they arent thinking and evolving outside their surface traits that they cling to and use as victim cards. identity politics is cancer.

yeah... -__- yeah they eat themselves, this is a move of virtue signaling to gain more minority followers, they really are bigoted to think minorities want to be used as their fucking pawns in their self serving agenda

truth. the best a girl can hope for is a best friend and a sister. rumors, gossip and backstabbing is huge problem among girls/women, it is the result of being emotionally driven, lol 

because feminist/sjws double standards and jealousy, and their dogma of “not please the male gaze” lol it is not up to them to tell people what to do and dress and be attracted to, but they do because they and their ideology is totalitarian

yup and they get their activists running rampant on damage control to ridicule people who point this out, who do they think they are fooling?? their strategy and co-ordinated efforts to brainwash the youth is fucking blatant at that point, we get students reporting the ideological bias bs they endure in the classrooms 

thats why i find the romantic comedies of the past 20 years unbearable lol

there is nothing wrong with liking characters that all fall into one demographic due to great writing. I like characters for their journey+personalities+quality, gender and race is just the wrapping paper they come in. Badly written characters are the types that only focus on their race, gender, sexuality and nothing else, which are boring tokens and unrelatable on personal level. that why im resentful to fanfic writers that change characters recognizable identity traits (race, gender, sexuality), they prove they cant create a character and have no respect for established characters, even though those traits are what i called the “wrapping paper” it is still their image and a part of them. people that change canon characters are the bigots for changing them in the first place and would be the first to screech if a minority character was changed to be a different demographic. hypocrisy is the SJW game.

exactly, they build it up first, gain the following and support and devotion and then flip the switch. Jim Jones did the same thing. He gained his following by enticing a church, and then after filling them up with joy and hope and hoax miracles to convince them he was legit he then threw the bible onto the floor and said “did lightening strike me down?” and then began pushing his own marxist twisted beliefs and because the followers had been duped to sell their homes to donate to the Jim Jones church and live with the rest of the followers, (note it is easier to create a cult when they are isolated and exposed to the dogma all the time, like modern days ppl are hooked up to social media 24/7) it made it harder for them to just walk away. This is what these zealots do, they lure you in and once they have you they make you feel obligated and dependent on it and then switch the dogma an further poison your mind to reality. it is sick but they use this trick so often it is not hard to spot it, and it is always by the same brand of ideologues using the same methods.

[valentineblaze]

Endgame Spoilers

Listen up people I am here to rant.

Tony Stark is effing amazing and I love every second of his gilded trashbag life. But this was just a killer. Dad Tony was everything I wanted and more let me tell ya. I love you 3000 is freaking heartbreaking. I have no issue with his arc in the movie at all even if the end does cause me to break out into back breaking sobs because fuck you. If Tony is going to die by gauntlet then you had better be damn sure everyone he even peripherally gave a damn about is going to make it through this fight. Natasha, Gamora, Loki, and every single Asgardian Tony could remember would have been brought back because that man is the definition of all or nothing.

What I have issues with is the sheer lack of world building we get in this movie. Honestly its the Snap and the only glimpse of this Post apocalyptic world is group Therapy and Remembrance walls. As well as several miscellaneous flashbacks to Hawk-eyes surprise family? That not even comic fans are super attached too because they were literally made up probably for male man pain. Where was the atmosphere? Where was the drama? Where was the angst? Post snap was quite honestly not heart wrenchingly rendered into a suitable level of grief. It just wasn't. I expected break downs and rage. All I got was three seconds of Natasha tears as she has let someone else tracking down her soulbro. And a Tony Stark screaming at Captain America. This movie just told us what was happening didn't show us what was happening. It was piss poor story boarding.

Then there was the character development. Like wow. We get all these new and amazing side characters in which you could have fleshed out and made us root for and you just throw them to the sea like chum. -Captain marvel is just not there at all, she gets a gratuituous girl power scene which was random and then she gets slapped to the ground never to get up? Right after she take a head butt without a single flinch. You can small Thanos's fear right then. -Rocket gets to slap Thor? Thats it thats his most memorable moment other the holding Nebula's hand. -Rhodey has some of the best lines but no development or follow up. -Nebula there is so much happening off screen that it physically hurts me. She is amazing. I adore her. I want a series of her. Nebula is my bitch bea. I found a new hoe to die for and it is she. She is my new ride or die. Found family and redemption arcs come at me. -Sam and Bucky both get maybe two lines a piece and that just irks me.

Time travel... yes bitch I am always there for time travel hijinks and drama but honestly five minutes of a single episode of leverage had more heist feels then this three hour train wreck. It might have been the lack of a great soundtrack but it just wasn't that compelling to watch. I'm also really confused about the time travel thearory in this shit because they kept going back on thier own writing through out the movie (cough cough STEVE cough) I'm a fan of we rewrite the future by affecting the past. Butterfly effect is my Jam. This alternate reality thing is fun yes but it can't really be that because they may create alternate realities okay? then if there was the need for pym particals for time travel to occur how did Thanos's big ass army get enough to travel through time to the future? Because the avengers were out or at least low regardless of Steve's thievery and Nebula only had the one from my understanding. Also if changing the reality makes a new reality how the fuck was Steve in this reality.

Bruce , Bruce, Bruce. My beautiful green rage monster and yoga doctorate what have they done to you. What is going on. Why are you so cheerful. Why are you at peace. I hate to say it but go back. Why are we still doing this Nat/Bruce ship? It is so random. I just can't see it. Fandom can trick me into it for a few chapters but not forever.  Ya'll should have taken a hint from Ragnorok give me that personality and it would have been a win. Shock and dismay was my only emotions when it came to this mess.

My constant rage with this series is pick up an effin comic book. Sit down watch a cartoon. If anyone is going to become a human disaster post Snap its going to be effin Hawkeye. Like yay Ronin cool but what the actual fuck. Why did you come at me like that? Hawkeye is not your edgy overlord. He probably would have died ages ago with out the female influences in his life. He has regular dates with dumpsters.  I'm sure he even has a ranking system for prefered dumpsters to end up in after a beat down. Yes he is startlingly competent but even he doesn't know how he does it half the time. He eats food off the floor and thinks expiration dates are guidelines.

Thor was a new one. They threw me for a loop. One this man needs a hug. Two, why is no one hugging him? His rampant depression and weight gain shouldn't have been the butt of jokes. There should have been some honest concern and meaningful conversations with the living not the dead. Thor never doubted his mother's love. That was never up for debate. Thor is not to blame for the snap. Thor will give no fucks if he messes up the timeline if it means his family is alive and together. Especially post Ragnarok. Also I could have sworn Thanos killed every asguardian on his ship at the beginning of infinity war? How is Valkyrie alive? Why would Thor decide to go to space?

I’m not even gonna touch on the Black Widow for this one. I’m just not gonna go there. Blind rage doesn’t even cover it.

Howard Stark. Wow just wow I thought I was having some weird ass delusion. That man is scum. Comic canon scum. One of the smartest men on the planet yes, revolutionary war hero technically yes, great father and overall good human being? Hell to the no. Tony literally named his A.I. after Jarvis, cried over the death of J.A.R.V.I.S,  I would have expected a quiet chat about fatherhood and marriage and how it can make the best out of any man (he hopes)  before I got a conversation with dear old dad.

Why can’t Tony and Steve have one friendly conversation? A sense of camaraderie? Anything? Why is that so hard?

Steve "fight me" Rogers what has MCU done to you? I'm supposed to believe that you would have left Bucky Barnes to Hydra's hands for over 70 years. Im supposed to believe that you would have been in the past and had no interactions with Howard Stark. Im supposed to believe that the you married the Director of Shield and you didn't wax poetry about the amazing woman that diegned to marry you every damn day of your life? This woman on her deathbed told you she lived a long and fulfilled life and that you should move on to have the same happiness as she and you did what? That he wouldn't have dismantled every last bit of Hydra. That he would just let Natasha and Tony die because of that shitty delusional grape? The disrespect STEVEN the disRESPECT! I am a Stony stan for sure but hell if I don't respect Peggy Carter. So yay steve gets his happy cis gendered ending but what about the rest of em?

[curly-q-reviews]

VALENTINES DAY SPECIAL

Below Her Mouth, 2016 (dir. April Mullen)

WARNING SPOILERS AND LOTS OF SEX TALK AHEAD TREAD WITH CAUTION

HEY Y’ALL we interrupt the regular programming for a special feature!!  i always like to do a lil valentines day special viewing for the sake of being festive and for once ive actually gotten some dating action in my life so i was in the mood to watch some sweet romance and then review it for ur reading pleasure (emphasis on the PLEASURE ehugeguehgehgeugeghe) (assassinate me now i deserve it)

to preface this, i am VERY gay.  well uuhhh bi but a very GAY bi u know??  basically i curse my attraction to men every waking moment of my life.  ive known about this since my last few years of college and am out to basically everyone whos important, and a lot of my friends are lgbtq+ so u know its official and everything.  i dont really claim to be a Gay Expert  cause i actually am still lacking a lot of uuhhh physical experience if u catch my drift HOWEVER like a true scholar i have done my fair share of research.  which mainly includes watching really shitty lesbian movies and mocking them (and every so often watching a rare Good Lesbian Movie and crying A LOT). 

if u are of sapphic inclination as well then u probably already know the kind of reputation lesbian romance movies have overall, the prime examples of which would be movies like Room in Rome and Loving Annabelle.  these movies all seem to have one thing in common, and its that the directors and writers have no goddamn clue about how to write a convincing and authentic lesbian romance.  u also always get the sense that the male gaze is the one being prioritized cause theres always PLENTY of gratuitous sex and the romance part itself is uuhhhh never really developed well or thoroughly enough at all.  these movies are usually about a straight girl who discovers her affinity for the feminine when she meets a total stranger and suddenly cant stop thinking about how much she wants to bang her.  and then in-between all the banging they somehow find the time to fall madly in love with each other but the straight girl just CANT cause shes STRAIGHT or she has a FIANCE or her PARENTS wouldnt approve or whatever the fuck the conflict of the day is and either it ends with them never seeing each other again or with the straight girl coming to terms with her not-straightness and ***follow her heart*** or whatever

really the only lesbian movies i can recall actually enjoying would be Pariah (PLEASE check this movie out its so heart-wrenching and beautiful and its like a majority-black cast!!!) and Blue Is the Warmest Color (this one i loved at first but the more i reflect on it the more problems i find with it, ESPECIALLY with how much sex is in it).  and then The L Word is a stellar tv series up until like the last few seasons which are trash but otherwise it was a great watch for me, especially while i was still figuring things out.  i feel like there are more that ive seen that were pretty good but i cant think of them at the moment WHOOPS LOL

so with Below Her Mouth i was apprehensive but hopeful going in, although i had heard rumors that it was Real Bad.  and u know i shouldve listened to those rumors and not bothered with this movie cause WOW its bad!!!  script is TRASH, acting is TRASH WITH FEBREEZE SPRAYED ON IT, and it looks like an artsy pretentious film student shot it.  natalie krill had maybe one good acting moment in the whole 90-minute run time and erika linder is really really hot and those are the only two good things i can think to say about this

fuck ok uuhhh i guess ill talk about the main characters cause OH WOW theyre basically two walking talking cliches.  jasmine (yes her name is jasmine that totally doesnt sound like the name of a character in a porn at all) is our Token Straight Girl who has a fiance and is a fashion editor.  she first sees our other romantic lead while working on the roof of a house next door to hers.  shes ur typical Lesbian Romance Movie Butch, too cool for school and unable to commit to anyone ever and is kind of an asshole but somehow this is supposed to endear u to her.  oh and guess what her name is.  just guess.  ill give u a few minutes.

DALLAS ITS FUCKING DALLAS HOOWEE WHAT A SHOCKER

the first thing we see of dallas, and this is also the first fuckin shot of the movie, is her uuhhh scissoring her girlfriend???  humping her?????  i really dont know what shes trying to accomplish but shes clearly not having any fun while doing it and her girlfriends like “i love u” and shes like “im moving out bye” and thats it

real compelling i know

so jasmine and her bff manage to stumble upon the lesbian bar in town (which dallas calls a girl party???  why??????) where dallas meets her and proceeds to be completely and utterly creepy in ways ive only ever seen men be which is the first indicator that the person who made this movie, april mullen, is maybe not gay at all (or maybe she is and just has horrible taste?? idk man).  but somehow the creepiness is a real turn on for ol’ jazzy and they start making out IMMEDIATELY but then jasmines like “i have a fiance gotta go!!!!” and yeets herself out of the situation

but of course this is a lesbian romance so u know they meet up again and proceed to have like half an hours worth of steamy gratuitous porn-style sex.  there was a lot of strap-on action involved and a lot of bizarre scissoring that i dont even think i can call scissoring cause it was more like they were just weirdly bumping their vagoos against each other and somehow that was getting them both off.  like sometimes the sex scenes in this movie bordered on tommy wiseau levels of weird. 

oh and of course the fiance finds out about this secret love affair but WOW do they really do this in the most dramatic and unintentionally hilarious way possible.  he literally comes home early from his business trip and walks in on dallas going to town on jasmine with a strap on in the bath tub, like theyre ferociously going at it.  i swear to god i felt like i was watching a comedy at times with this movie

piggybacking off of that, jesus christ this script is bad.  ooooohhhh its so bad.  dallas is given the cringiest tough guy lines, like shes drinking beers with a friend and the friend is like “oh man i gotta catch up to u” and, hilariously, dallas is like “you cant catch up cause nO oNe WiLl EvEr CaTcH mE” and i almost choked on my own saliva.  oh god wait heres another zinger, so when she first meets jasmine shes like “do u come to girl parties often (again why the everloving FUCK is she calling it a girl party????)” and jasmines like “i don’t come at all” and the next thing to come out of dallas’s suave sexy mouth is “TeRriBLe NeWs CaN i ChAnGe ThAt FoR yOu” OH my GOD

and good god shes so creepy.  like some of the shit she pulls is borderline sexual assault.  her and jasmine are just at a bar chillin and dallas reaches down and im like “oh ok shes gonna like put her hand on her knee classic move” but NOPE OH NO she just makes a beeline STRAIGHT for jasmines crotch IN THE MIDDLE OF A BAR!!!  THERE ARE PEOPLE AROUND!!!!!!  OH MY GOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!

at one point after another round of passionate lovemaking dallas brings jasmine back to her house and theyre in dallas’s truck and they just??  slap each other???  for no reason?????  except for True Love i guess????????????

jesus.  just.  this was an experience.  i would say dont bother watching it but i did at least have fun making fun of it so if thats ur sort of thing knock ur socks off, its on netflix.  but wow this basically fits the stereotype of a lesbian romance movie PERFECTLY, and when u really break it down its just a fancy porn.  i wouldnt even say its a porn geared towards actual wlw cause theres so many elements about the sex scenes that reminded me of the kind of lesbian porn thats made for straight men to jack off to.  0/10 BAD BYE

well shit ok i hope u all had a great valentines day!!  im gonna go start a roofing business in the hopes that i end up working on a roof of a house thats right next to a really hot straight girl with a fiance so i can try to finger-bang her in the middle of an occupied bar wish me luck!!!!!

[gaarfielf]

k im gonna throw in my hot take on part 5 now i think the time has come where i’ve watched enough of the damn series i can make a coherent essay on whats what on what (putting it under a read more bc this shit is gonna be long and i dont want my followers to suffer too much)

I’ll do this character by character starting with the new ones

Ami: I’m having a hard time deciphering whether she’s being underutilized or over utilized because number 1) her character isn’t interesting enough to have her keep coming around, especially when her only connection to the group is Lupin. She hasn’t had any interaction with Goemon or Jigen that i know of and she hates Fujiko for ??? reasons. That being said, I would’ve preferred if she was fleshed out more because 2) literally having her be the distant girl that is quiet and doesn’t understand social norms is..... really boring. It’s almost as boring as having a female character whose only there as a set of boobs... (coughs). She isn’t interesting because they didn’t make her interesting, yeah? It’s hard to hate a character based on the fact alone they were clearly written by a man but I mean it very literally when I say she could’ve been something great. Having her confess her love to Lupin was straight up disgusting and I really expected more from tms in that vein. Putting romance where romance doesn’t need to be is bad enough let alone when you jack knife it in between a child and an adult. And for those of you saying ‘Oh hhhh she’s like nineteen’....look into your heart. Even if she is 1) she sure as hell doesn’t look it and 2) Lupin is like 40-50. In the wise words of me, children loving adults was a myth made up by pedophiles in support of the devil. Npot to mention pitting her against Fujiko because they both like Lupin?? I ain’t even gotta explain why that’s a pathetic excuse at writing. But I will. Fujiko is a grown ass woman so why the fuck would she care and Ami is a child who shouldn’t be in love with him anyway. She has truly been nothing in the series except a tool and even at that not a likable one.

Yata: Do I even have to say that I can’t write anything about a man who hasn’t had more than 4 minutes of screen time in the last 24 episodes? He was hyped up before the series started and he’s done nothing but be Zenigata’s personality in the place of Zenigata y’know. Actually speaking and having one for himself BUT WE’LL GET TO THAT LATER. He’s done nothing but yell and cry over literally nothing? Like he fights Zeni’s fights because for some reason Zenigata got super lazy this season (again, we’ll get into that later) and he’s just a pointless character.

Albert: Gay rep for life haha just kidding he was bad at that too. I think they literally introduced him as faux-gay rep because they know the fans wanted more sensitive interactions from their already existing male cast members and they were like ‘well that’s gay so we’ll give them this guy’. And speaking on behalf of myself - ‘I don’t want these’. So Albert shows up, supposedly having a HUGE connection to Lupin’s past and then............we never see him again. And they literally tell us nothing about him except he’s gay and works in the government. Apparently when we say ‘we want gay rep’ they hear ‘very minor gay character??’ and didn’t hear us say ‘no’ back. And every time I hear anyone say 1) ‘well, his connection to Lupin is supposed to be a mystery!’ I can feel hives growing on my skin because i’m allergic to bullshit like if they weren’t gonna tell us the connection, and whatever the connection is didn’t reveal anything new about the character outside of ‘Lupin knew somebody that wasn’t Jigen when he was younger’ then why?? mention it?? why make an entire arc dedicated to not telling us something if the end result was ‘it doesn’t matter who he is’? 2) ‘well they’re obviously cousins’ except they obviously aren’t. if they obviously were, they’d say that they were cousins. like if y’all are digging up bits of the manga from 40 years ago to say ‘there was a character who had the same last name’ but are also out here saying ‘Jigen doesnt have a sister bc they said that over 40 yers ago and haven’t mentioned it since’ then I ain’t got nothing to say to y’all, you’re just dodgy and ain’t worth the stress of talking to. 3) ‘they’re maybe gay’ well the cool thing about gay rep is that we don’t give honourary mentions out for series that were too cowardly to actually come right out and say it. So in conclusion, Albert was written by cowards who couldn’t decide what to do with him.

Enzo: Boring. That’s literally all I have to say. Trying to give him depth by making Ami his daughter was predictable and not at all interesting. To be honest I completely forgot she was looking for her dad anyway because she didn’t seem to care that much about finding him either (or seem to care about anythign really). He’s a shitty villain and every time he speaks I got my finger on the right-key because I don’t care what he has to say and so far I haven’t missed anything good so yeah. Just disappointing.

I think that’s it??? For new characters?? So I’ll move onto the main cast

Jigen: I 👏 WANT 👏 JIGEN 👏 TO 👏 DO 👏 SOMETHING like good fucking God the man hasn’t done anything this whole series up until 24 where he got  5 minute scene dedicated to him killin’ cops (direct action) but like?? As a character he hasn’t progressed he has BARELY spoken and we’ve learned one new thing about him the whole series in the episode where he meets the daughter of a woman he used to work with. And that one thing that we learned was: he used to work with the mother of this girl. That’s it. Episode 24 he got a little bit of dialog with Lupin that I guess was supposed to be like character development but it was so weird because it was kind of directed at the audience?? So it’s like is he talking to me or to Jigen because if I was Jigen I would not have one goddamn clue what he was talking about. Also, he’s so depressing this season?? Right up until now we’ve seen very little personality from him aside from Angry and Complains a Lot. He smiles sometimes sure but like he doesn’t exactly have a lot to smile about this season considering he’s not really in the limelight anymore and is only brought back to foreshadow how much he hates technology and wants to retire. Personally, Jigen is one of my favourite characters and the fact he hasn’t achieved much this series is a big let-down

Goemon: I can’t even imagine how let down Goemon fans feel because again, up until Episode 23 he did nothing. He had an episode where he fell in love?? With a girl?? Disguised as a woman?? For some reason?? It was in one of the throwbacks and I’ll admit that maybe the episode made sense and I probably missed something but to me I had no clue what was going on. ANYWAY like his big scene in the spotlight is 3 episodes before the end of the series (its not like he’s a main character or anything) and he cuts Lupin. Because he thinks that he isn’t really his friend. That’s it that’s the only reason he almost murders his friend. Just kidding the other reason was that it was a half ass attempt at shock value to make sure the audience was still paying attention. They can’t seem to decide this season whether they want Goemon to be edgy or stupid but I think we’ve gotten a greta big helping of both so thanks tms /sarcasm/. They’ve really just dragged his character through the mud this season because he used to be stoic, mysterious, traditionalist but lowkey clumsy guy and then now he’s. I don’t even know how to describe it he’s just become so cutesy and edgy at the same time so we get him cutting Lupin in half right in front of UwU i eat my fish skin first ! I’m quirky ! like what am I supposed to feel about this grown man? He’s really too back-and-forth for me this season

Fujiko: I’M GONNA GET HEATED ABOUT THIS ONE SO BUCKLE UP I’ve never seen Fujiko written this poorly since TWCFM (yes i’m outting that as a bad series too so don’t @ me about that lil tidbit). She’s there as a piece of eyecandy bUT SHE IS SO POORLY DRAWN IT MAKES ME WONDER IF ANYBODY AT TMS HAS EVER SEEN A WOMAN IN THEIR LIFE TIME. Seriously her proportions are so off and outwardly repulsive looking it makes it hard not to skip anything she says in the series on account of how half-ass her character looks. Not limiting herself to being visually repulsive, she also has a half-ass personality. Suddenly Fujiko isn’t the come-and-go as she pleases, mysterious woman that gives Lupin intel on very high security operations she’s just. There. At some point in the series she said ‘a woman’s body is just a tool to get something she needs’ and I wanted to puke this is NOT Fujiko’s character at all and I’m disgusted that they’re brushing her off as a pair of walking talking boobs. Also her absolute lack of empathy is just mind numbing because they’re somehow trying to convince the audience that Lupin broke her heart due to wedding related reasons that still haunt her but? Seeing him cut almost in half does nothing for her? And then she deadpan ‘This is just how it is’ like this is just putting her in such an evil light that I hate because I love Fujiko! In every other season she’s fighty and sarcastic and witty AND NOT JUST THERE FOR EYE CANDY. And going back to the wedding thing, why is this being made into such a big deal? There’s literal episodes in other seasons called ‘Fujiko Doesn’t Look Right in a Wedding Dress’ ‘Fujiko Doesn’t Want to Be Married’ ‘A Ring Is Like a Trap’ like she 👏 don’t 👏 want 👏 to 👏 be 👏 married 👏. And the preview for the next ep shows her in a wedding dress so I’m ultimately preparing myself for the big season finale being them getting married.

hurray.

Final thought on Fujiko being, the episode where she picks up Lupin to save him from succumbing to his crossbow wound (easily the funniest thing thats happened all season) I mean. Yeah it’s kinda cool. I don’t really have any strong feelings about that like I’m not about to praise them for something like that when it was immediately followed by her and Ami slap fighting over him again.

Lupin: In my days of watching Lupin movies/specials my slogan was ‘if the ratio of screen time in the movie between characters is 10:0 in Lupin’s favour then it ain’t a good movie’ and it’s ringing true to this season where it’s all about Lupin. I understand obviously it’s a series called Lupin III like I’m not stupid but the amount of ass kissing to his character is something else like they’re putting him on this huge pedestal like he’s a do-no-wrong kind of guy to the point where he’s boring because he’s done nothing wrong. Ever. He doesn’t argue with anybody he doesn’t have any strong emotions really (outside of that episode where Zenigata loses his memory we see him outwardly angry for a minute). It just makes him such a dry character when they try to mold him into being absolutely flawless and admirable. Also the amount of faking his own death and ‘oh no is he gonna die’ moments are just not entertaining. Like I said earlier when he got shot with the crossbow that was the hardest I’ve laughed in a long long time. It played like an SNL skit (you know what one). And again we aren’t learning anything new. Whose Albert to him!? We never got to know, What’s his relationship to Fujiko!? We’re probably gonna find out they’re getting married last episode after all the touching moments they had together this season like.... like uh.... when they uh... oh right they’ve barely spoken to each other all season. And when they did they were arguing. Love is in the air huh?

Zenigata: AI’ll try to keep this brief but Yata’s taken over his character this season. He’s barely spoken, he has like, NO energy or determination. After the episode where Lupin faked his death (the first time, not the proceeding 90 times) Zenigata just stopped appearing and stopped doing anything productive. If anything his character became an excuse for an info dump. Like oh we see a war torn area whats going on? Zenigata is conveniently nearby to say ‘these people are at war!’ and then outside character will tell a 18 paragraph history on him of whose at war and their history and then Zenigata says ‘okay’ and doesn’t appear again for the next 2 episodes.

Now for the closing thoughts I guess

i don’t know why they’re looking at Lupin having plot as separate from Lupin being episodic. Like they’ve separated him from adventure so he’s just doing the same things over and over again. Not to mention like I said earlier, the fans wanted to see more sensitive interactions between the already existing characters, and if anything, they’re farther apart and just really confusing and contradictory. It’s hard to get through an episode when every week its another ‘great time for another plot arc they’re never gonna finish’. When I watched episodes of Part 1 and 2 and 4 (not so much 3 because i can’t find anywhere to watch it lol) I’m pretty attentive all the way through because the series drops tidbits of information about the characters and they make the episode enjoyable to watch. This season is so dreary and dry I can’t find anything to enjoy about it because it’s just one disappointment after another. I’m trying to to sound bitchy as I type all this out but I mean I’m speaking as a fan who is just really disappointed. I know I’ve said ‘disappointed’ a lot in this whole thing but there isn’t another word to describe it because that’s really the way that I feel about part 5. Seeing my favourite characters on screen is supposed to make me feel happy and excited to see where they’re gonna go and what they’re gonna do not make me think “I hope they don’t ruin this character for me’ in every. single. episode. This season has been underwhelming, unenjoyable, inconsistent and just really exhausting to me overall.

i gotta go eat now so peace out and if you read to the end of all this then hopefully i’m not the only one in this boat but if you don’t agree with me then i guess thats just how it is yeah?

EDIT: I forgot to mention that the callbacks were cool at first but now I just find they’re baiting me into thinking i’ll enjoy the episode because i’ll find something I liked from one of the better seasons in it. They’re just really overused at this point because these callbacks aren’t being used for anything. like ‘lupin is making his plan at the cagliostro castle!’ like. why. ‘detective melon is also angry at lupin!’ but if she isn’t like teaming up with zenigata or actually doing anything to find him why should i care. 

[antiloreolympus]

7 Anti LO Asks

1. How long is the time line in LO? Hades says Apollo’s been harassing Persphone for months, but hasn’t it only be like 2 months max? 

From OP: Hades is overexaggerating. At most, it’s been a month and a couple days.

2. Idk how LO can even TRY to claim being progressive. Persphone is the “born sexy yesterday trope” with the audience being told she’s a high achiever yet lacks a lot in that department.

Is it cause Hades had a chance to be shitty and gross and then didn’t completely be shitty and gross for not harming Persphone when he found her in his car? He knew Artemis was her friend why didn’t he call her to let her know she has her friend? (There was a whole plan to distract Artemis so he could talk to her if I remember right). Hades is still a shitty make lead character (in progressive/character way) we have slave labor, firing employees for small things, getting involved with Minthe his PA/ EX GF and then wanted to TRANSFER HER so he could basically have Persphone replace her. Was the story suppose to be progressive because we got to see a male victim POV? Because the Minthe/Hades dynamic is written so weirdly. Hades has control over her rent/job/utilities, but she has smacked him and says a lot of insults. Minthe shouldn’t abuse but I don’t really have sympathy for Hades. Are we suppose to feel bad for Hades because of Kornos? The story is written in such a way that I lowkey forget about it. Idk sure we get to see Hades be a “good guy” but the way a lot of characters are around him I don’t believe he’s truly a “good guy”

Hera was never much of a feminist icon, but idk if RS is trying to rebrand that or not. Sure she helps Persphone greatly BUT that’s really who she’s willing to help. She finds Minthe to be “nymph trash” and Artemis was something unpleasant, and when she first met echo she didn’t like her right off the bat until she made her tea. She’s basically that meme where it’s like “diversity wins that mean old lady might cheat on her husband with a young lady”. Hera X Echo the next HXP boss/employee couple 🤪

Pysche kinda had a cool plot, and I wish we saw more of the human’s perspective of Olympus hanging out with Aphrodite, BUT WE DONT, and Pysche who hardly knows Persphone is ready to out her assault to Artemis but ends up outing her to Daphne and I assume has her to face ANY consequences for that. Also her character and purely defined by Eros.

There’s more but I feel like I’m going too much on it. 

3. oommmmg even the anatomy got worse??? why are the backs of their heads even smaller now??? you know thats where their brains go right?? rachel where are their brains?? is that why they act so stupidly now??

4. I still can't get over how absolutely disrespectful the ace characters “slowly turning gay over time is.” Like yeah, orientation can change over time but the way asexuality is presented as a phase is disgusting.

Only LO characters turning gay are Minthe and Persephone when I enter my little queer time machine.

5. you know, ive read a fair few long running webtoons and all of them have style changes, but it's always for the better because the artists are refining their senses of anatomy, to push poses, to become more confident in their work. LO is only one i've seen where it's actually gotten worse, with that Hades example being a prime example. Even beyond the worse character design, look at the previous use of interesting colors and light! those are all tone now for blank voids and flat neon colors!

(previous anon asking about the art getting worse) also note that early Hades actually looked reasonable aged? he looks to be maybe at most mid-30s, but he looks regal and attractive with normal but unique proportions (also pretty hair! i miss it!), while current Hades looks like an old man with a ridiculous nose, greased down hair, and looks at least 40 years older than Persephone. OG Hades looked like he made sense with her, while current Hades looks like he needs a visit from Chris Hansen.

6. you know, i still thinks hes a creep but early lo hades at least looked attractive enough to justify persephone getting horny over him (esp bc she didnt know who he really is), but now? nah man, he somehow went into negative sex appeal with an even worse personality. idk how thats even possible to make your romantic lead somehow less appealing, but here we are.

7. i honestly wonder if the art team are playing a joke on rachel but how increasingly stupid they draw hades' nose. it doesnt even look like an styled hook or aquiline nose like it was in the beginning, it just looks like a clown prop. even stylized versions of the joker dont do that. its honestly distracting over looking unique or handsome (which i personally find big and/or hooked noses to look). idk why they had him look half way decent in the start only to make him up looking like /that/ now.

[depressedsightwitch]

A list of things that annoy me in the book community

- mackenzi lee being a white feminist and also remember that time was trying to tease people that some MC in one of her books /might/ be asexual and people were like it's a yes or no question like???? She implied it was a spoiler or something I think. Also I'm pretty sure i saw she tried to police someone's bisexuality or something to that effect and idk if that's true but even if it is yikes. (*add on* the original wording was bad, so it was changed, I thought I'd saved the thing I saw about this and as far as I can tell I haven't. This is also not trying to say she's evil and antibi (she's bi I'm pretty sure) but in case she pulls the classic messy queer move as she's been pulling a lot of messy shit 🙂)

- the annoyance at Jodi Meadows having the first YA fantasy book (that we know of) published with a black girl on it, knowing full well other POC should've gotten that honor first and then saying nothing about it or any of the issues in the book (ive heard that most of the males- who are black- are aggressive and it mostly just features the mc being fucking tortured in a prison cell but yay for a white lady writing a black character)

- maggie stiefvaters constant racism

- i still feel awful that cclare is so fucking big, like i enjoyed tid (obviously) but hot damn she fucked a lot of ppl over and that whole copyright situation, meaning she copyrighted herself not the darkhunters lady is Yikestm. Also all of her books kinda read same? But thats more a me thing 🤷🏼

- oh right people still stan sjm and I'm????? She's racist, sexist, ableist, and probably more! Not to mention her books go on for too long with virtually no content (im looking at you empire of storms) and are so fucking similar literally empire of storms and court of mist and fury had the same ending. Also, can we talk about how people were seeing lines not just from other people's books but from HER OWN books that were in ACOWAR (which still looks like 'a cowar (d)' to me, coincidence, i think not) and wasn't there that whole thing were she was a asshat to her closest author pal (s), and to her fans and shit? Like, IDK she was nice to me when I met her but the fact that she ran from social media when people criticized her was telling and I wouldn't put that past her.

(Side note, I don't hate her or want her dead or harmed, that's awful, I just want her to have virtually no sales, like therw is no reason this person should be famous)

- harlequinteen and their messy ass needs to go home like? Stop with The Continent and The Black Witch and Zenith.

The Continent is racist and anti native, with a healthy doce of white savior.

The Black Witch is every kind if -ist, -ism, anti-, you can possibly think of, but it's passed of as okay/funny/progressive for the sake of our very white, very allocishet, and able MC.

Zenith is like some mess they tossed together at the last minute but it's okay, apparently they have "diversity". Despite no character ever being describe one of the characters is a WOC? Also that book is just a fucking joke, i think theinsanereader on youtube puts it best, plus literally just goodreads it.

- also epic reads needs to chill with continuing to rec books that came in 2012 that the WHOLE WORLD KNOWS ABOUT okay, Throne of Glass, The Hunger Game, Cinder they've come and gone, move on please. Also stop with messy books like Carve The Mark it looks bad on you.

- and can we please talk about how authors will drop issues of suddenly become indifferent to criticisms once they get a deal. They could be screaming about problematic people, protect the teens, more diversity but it's like the second they sign with some big company. Not that the company matters, all of the self pub authors I know of/followed where pretty sketchy or asshats, so there is that.

ADD ONS

- im also still annoyed about that tristina wright shit, like 1. She was cancelled when her book fucking sympathized with colonizers, 2. She was double cancelled when her apology wasn't even an apology like???? Also, I HATE how much that highlighted ppl having to pick, like the shitty race and coloniser narrative for queerness? Alright, will do? But now she's a sexual harrasser too, so triple done with her. I wonder how Entangled Teen is handling this?

- authors who suddenly have diversity in there books? What the fuck was with the sudden diversity in King's Cage? Why wasn't all that there before? Likely because the author didn't think to put it in until people criticised her for it. Same with SJM, people criticised her and instead of actually doing anything about it she "actually-ed" in her books by plunking rando queers into the story, but i doubt she takes the poc thing seriously because "but she has the summer court!" Okay jan, yes the queen of diversity love 👀

-also wtf is it with the "here's a black nation and my nation is all white" in fantasy, what is that why do people do that, why is your fantasy world segregated, at SJM and Sara Raasch, like I loved Snow Like Ashes but it has that in it. I think I've heard of other fantasy books having it too, like Kiss of Deception but I could be wrong.

-how little the YA community cares about the demographic these books are written for. I joined as a teen and literally everyone cared about the opinions of adults more than us? If you don't like or value teens then go somewhere else? These stories are supposed to be for them and about them and y'all are out here speaking over and attacking them? Yikes.

(Add on) because this isn't apparent this is me being annoying and annoyed. This are all things I've heard about/read about at some point and I'd dare say a good portion of these you could look up and read more about!

If any of this pisses you off feel free to fight me (i hope you read in that 13yos viner girls voice) and if you think I'm wrong feel free to challenge me 🙂)

[jae-bummer]

A lot of Thoughts

Request: Ello! Can you do a number 5 with Jungkook please?

5) “if you actually ran as well as you run your mouth, you’d be in great shape.”

Member: BTS Jungkook x Y/N

Type: Fluff

You stifled a yawn as you slid into your house slippers and shuffled across the living room. You dropped your bag near the arm of the couch before walking the extra four feet to collapse into the waiting arms of your plush office chair. Heaving a sigh of relief, you relaxed into the cushions, slowly letting your tired muscles unwind from your hectic day at the coffee shop you worked at part time. On an ordinary evening, you would usually heave your tired sack of flesh into the shower to scrub away the smell of stale coffee, but tonight was not one of those nights. 

You would have to deal with the stench of a day’s work. 

You had some emotions to work out. 

On an especially bad day, anyone in Seoul could catch you planted right where you were, before your computer screen, and logging into Overwatch. 

You tugged out your headset from a nearby drawer and placed it tightly atop your head. Adjusting the mic to sit perfectly parallel to your mouth, you cleared your throat before logging into Skype, and beginning to search for any friends that were online. 

Well, your most favorite online friend to be honest. 

You scanned the list with relative disinterest until you hit his screen name. “Kook the Gull.” Smiling, you moved your cursor over to confirm the small, green dot placed next to the text. You double clicked out of instinct and let your hands linger over the keys. 

y/n (9:14pm): what’s up booger face?  kookthegull (9:14pm): booger face? thats a new one. what are you? in middle school? y/n (9:15pm): nope. i am a very sad, very tired college student who doesn’t need your shit right now.  kookthegull (9:16pm): now i feel bad.  y/n (9:17pm): you should.  kookthegull (9:17pm): ...are you going to call me or...? 

Y/N Calling...

“You have fingers made for clicking just as I do,” you grumbled, finally hitting the small phone icon on the Skype messenger. 

“Nope, they’re all broken,” he sighed, his familiar, tired voice filling your ears. “No clicking for me.” 

“I literally hear you rapid fire clicking,” you muttered. “Holy shit, did you start without me?” 

“Wouldn’t dream of it, sweet cheeks,” he chuckled. “I’m playing against some bots. Trying to get better to impress you.” 

“Right,” you scoffed. “I’m so sure.” 

“I live to please,” he hummed. You could hear the smile through his words. “Now let’s get started, yah?” 

You smiled as well, closing your eyes for a moment. In the darkness, you had hoped to dream up any vision of him, but your imagination continued to conjure up blurry images. It was a fact that left you unsettled. You had never actually seen a person who had become one of your closest friends. Kook was someone that you spoke to on a near daily basis, but clearly knew nothing about. You had met him through one of your first forays into online gaming, introduced through another friend in a chat. Instantly getting along, you two found yourselves in more of the same games and eventually sought after one another. From what you did know, Kook worked an inordinate amount, enjoyed spending time with his friends, and loved composing music as a hobby. Aside from that, you couldn’t even admit to knowing his full name. You had always called him Kook, a shortening of his screen name, and he never provided more than that. 

You opened your eyes, sighing as you saw the group invitation Kook had created. 

“Hey,” you sighed, clicking the invite. You were instantly placed in the lobby, waiting for Kook to queue up and find a game. 

“Hey,” he whispered back, his voice trailing as the map screen began to load. 

“What’s your real name?” you asked, wincing as the words escaped your lips. 

“My real name?” he chuckled. “Because KooktheGull couldn’t possibly be a name given by my mother?” 

“Shame on her if it was,” you laughed. “Which, just as a side question, is Kook part of your name or are you actually cooking a gull? Is that some obscure gaming reference I’ve never heard?”

“Oh yeah, you know me,” he murmured. “Play so good I cook the gull.” 

“I hate you,” you grumbled. 

“You don’t.”

“Okay, but you still haven’t answered my question,” you sighed. A new screen had popped up, prompting you to select the character you would be playing with. “Are you going with Widowmaker?” 

“If you’re going with Torbjorn,” he hummed. “Otherwise, no, I’ll pick someone else.” 

“I’ll play Torbjorn,” you muttered, clicking through the screen. “But you still didn’t answer my question.” 

“Yes I did,” he whined. “I told you I was going with Widowmaker.”

“That wasn’t the question I was referring to, smartass,” you grumbled. 

“I have a terrible short term memory,” he teased. “What was the question?” 

“You know, if you actually ran as much as you run your mouth, you’d be in great shape,” you muttered, selecting your own character and progressing to the next screen.

“How would you know if i’m in great shape or not?” he gasped. “You’ve never even seen me.”

“I just assume every male I’ve ever met online is a 400 lb. predator of some sort. Is that the incorrect assumption?” you laughed. 

“Would it make you love me any less?” he joked. 

“Well, yes,” you nodded to yourself. “But that’s making the pretty big assumption that I love you in the first place.” 

“I’m the most lovable person I know,” he muttered. 

“I suppose you don’t know many people then,” you teased.

“Hardy har,” he croaked. You could hear miscellaneous clicking and typing on his end. “You’re too funny.”

Your back and forth banter trailed off, leaving nothing but silence and another loading screen between the two of you. 

...well, that and what would probably be an excessive amount of miles if you ever had the courage to ask. 

“Hey, uh, Y/N,” Kook sighed, clearing his throat. 

“What?” 

“Jungkook,” he said. He spoke softly, his name coming out more nervously than anything he had ever said to you. “That’s my name.”

kookthegull (7:52am): shouldn’t you be in class?  y/n (7:53am): shouldn’t you be in bed?  kookthegull (7:53am): well...i asked you first. kookthegull (7:57am): ??? y/n (7:58am): my class was cancelled kookthegull (8:00am): and so was my schedule for the day kookthegull (8:00am): overwatch?  y/n (8:00am): i’m not in the mood kookthegull (8:01am): pubg? y/n (8:03am): meh kookthegull (8:03am): you wanna talk about it? 

KooktheGull Calling...

“You wanna talk about it,” he said finitely. 

“But do I?” you sighed. 

“I think so,” he chuckled. “So get to talking.” 

Listening was Jungkook’s strong suit. He wasn’t much for talking. To be honest, you were unsure if he had ever taken the time to explain how his day had gone or indulge you with his interests of his own free will. On occasion, he could get a little eccentric or strange, but it was part of his quirks. He was a determined young man who enjoyed being a friend to you, so who were you to remain silent? 

“I just...” you trailed, digging your nails into your desk chair. “I just have a lot of thoughts.” 

A lot of thoughts about Jungkook. 

You would be lying if you said you had never fantasized about the great love that could occur between you and him. Late at night, as you logged off from your computer and found the solace of your bedsheets, you would close your eyes and create fantasies in your mind. You would think of all the possible futures ahead, all of the fantastical love stories that could never happen. You would lull yourself to sleep every night in the ease of your dreams. 

You were unsure when it began, but most nights you would imagine Jungkook’s voice. His laugh radiated through your mind and you constantly shook the etch-a-sketch of your imagination to determine what he could possibly look like. He was tall, you were sure of it. And his jaw would be chiseled and strong. His hair would be soft, but messy. He would constantly have it tousled around his face as if he were in an eternal state of just waking up. 

He would be perfect. 

“Wow, that’s...profound,” Jungkook chuckled, shaking you from the thoughts you had mentioned. 

“I told you I didn’t wanna talk about it,” you sighed. 

“No, technically you didn’t,” he laughed. “Technically you asked me if you wanted to, and I answered for you.” 

“Shut up,” you grumbled, crossing your arms with a pout. You leaned your head back into your chair and rolled your eyes, knowing he actually would as silence filled the Skype line. “But like...not really.” 

“Not to sound completely greasy,” he whispered. “But, you can tell me anything, you know that, right?” 

“I do now,” you hummed, uncertain if you should actually take him up on his offer. 

“And that’s not enough of a guilt trip to make you talk?” he laughed. 

“Kook,” you sighed. “Do you ever wonder about me?” 

“Why do I need to wonder about you?” he muttered. “I talk to you every day.”

“No...don’t you wonder about like...real life me?” you asked. 

“This IS real life, Y/N,” Jungkook chuckled. 

“Ugh, you know what I mean,” you groaned. “I swear, sometimes your difficult just for the sake of being difficult.”

“So you’re asking, do I ever wonder about you? Like what you’re doing when you aren’t online? What you look like? If you’re okay?” he said, his tone serious. 

“Uh...well...” you stammered, caught off guard for a moment. “Yes.”

“Nope, never once crossed my mind,” he sighed. It was one of those moments when you could tell he was smiling.

“You’re an asshole,” you hissed, ready to hit the red phone icon and blast him into lonely cyberspace. 

“Of course I think about you,” he said quietly. Your cursor hovered over the option to hang up, uncertain if he was joking again or not. “There is rarely a moment when I’m not thinking about you, Y/N.” 

“If you’re messing with me, that’s really shitty, Jungkook,” you croaked. 

“I’m not,” he sighed. “I know, it’s shocking, but I’m really not.” 

“...you-you think about me?” you whispered, trying to keep your voice even. 

“More than I’d like to admit,” he chuckled. “And I’m guessing...you might think about me too?” 

“On more than one occasion,” you laughed nervously. This was insane. This whole thing was insane. You could think about each other all you wanted, but that didn’t mean you would ever actually be together. 

“Where are you?” you asked, almost afraid of an answer. 

“Home,” he answered simply. 

“Try again,” you sighed. 

“Seoul,” he chuckled.

You swore your heart had stopped beating in that moment. Opening your mouth to speak, you could only close it again, the words escaping you.

“Y/N?” Jungkook asked. You could hear him begin to click rapidly, checking all of the sound settings on his computer. “Y/N are you there?” 

“I’m here,” you said quietly. 

“Y/N, where are you?” he asked, his voice suddenly serious. 

“I’m...uh...I’m in Seoul,” you breathed, your voice barely a whisper. 

“Holy shit.” 

You felt like a fool. 

A well-dressed fool, but a fool nonetheless. 

You tugged at the bottom of your shirt, attempting to straighten out any wrinkles you had acquired in the short walk to the cafe you worked at. 

Biting your lip, you nodded at the familiar faces of your coworkers, most of them having heard through gossip your plan for today. Normally you would hate the attention, but not in this moment. You needed all of the support you could get. 

You set your palms on the wooden table you were stationed at and took a deep breath. 

You searched your hands as you nervously picked your nails, finally deciding to chance a glance away from the table. Your eyes followed the wood grain of the surface, slowly analyzing each natural pattern. Out of your peripherals you could see a figure approach. Looking up slowly, you first made contact with a pair of dark washed, ripped jeans. Your focus lingered upwards, noticing an oversized t-shirt hanging loosely from a fit frame. Swallowing loudly, you finally glanced up, making eye contact for the first time. 

He was perfect. 

He was tall. And his jaw was chiseled and strong. His hair was messy, but in a orchestrated way. He was stuck in a constant whirlwind of bed head. 

Oddly familiar, but nothing quite the same as you had imagined. 

“Kook,” you whispered, your eyes wide. 

“Y/N,” he smiled. 

“W-well, are you going to sit down or do you plan on taking your coffee while standing?” you stuttered, the nerves bouncing through your body. 

“Depends, if I sit I won’t be able to block you from running away,” he grinned. 

“Now, Jungkook,” you sighed. “Judging by the shape you’re in, you must run as well as you run your mouth.” 

“You’re right,” he laughed. “So I guess you aren’t going anywhere then.”