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chalkrevelations · 4 years ago

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Episode 32 of Word of Honor, and once again, this is just. A LOT. A LOT is happening, and all of it is A LOT. Also, show, what is even happening? I have questions. A LOT of questions.

(Spoilers. Go ahead and scroll on by, then come back later, if you want to watch it unspoiled.)

BUT FIRST, before anything else, you know I have to yell about this for a minute because we once again see that the Gu Xiang/Cao Weining relationship and the Wen Kexing/Zhou Zishou relationship are the same relationship. We get the same scene with A-Xiang and Cao Weining – again – that we’ve already seen with Wen Kexing and Zhou Zishu, this time from Ep 27, with Fan Shishu in the role of Ye Baiyi. Fan Shishu (YBY) asks “Do you know who she (he) is?” and this time, Cao Weining knows, just as ZZS knew in Ep 27. Cao Weining (ZZS) literally throws himself in front of A-Xiang (WKX) to protect her (him). “Kill us both” (Ep 27). “If you’re going to hurt her, kill me first” (Ep 32). Fan Shishu, like YBY, eventually lets A-Xiang and Cao Weining go, despite having them in a position where he could do them in. Color palettes between the two couples in these scenes match again, with the younger couple being more intense this time – A-Xiang and Wen Kexing in pinks, Cao Weining and Zhou Zishu in blue. (ZZS is mainly in creams and grey, but the piping on his robes is a very light blue, I think the greys have a blue undertone to them, and when you stand him next to Chengling in more intense blue while he’s wearing that particular outfit, it really starts to pull out the blue of ZZS’s outside robe – you can see this at the end of Ep 26.) Between the way these relationships continue to mirror each other and the hairpin scene from the last ep, I honestly don’t know what our takeaway is supposed to be, other than that WKX and ZZS are essentially married.

I also find it interesting - although this almost seems like too much of a stretch to be anything other than coincidence - that we get a specific callback to Ep 27 in this episode, as Ep 27 is also when WKX talks about not wanting to lie to Chengling about who he is anymore, and this ep is when they finally (apparently) meet again after Chengling learns the truth.

Aaaand now A-Xiang is crying, so of course I’m crying. Aaaand then we have the mournful montage. Give me a minute. And some tissues. I notice how much of this mournful drunken montage is ZZS remembering all the times he was cranky with WKX. Oh, honey. No. That’s what you’re remembering, because you feel bad, but it’s not what he would remember at all, if he was looking back over his time with you. And even if he did, it would be with great fondness.

Yeah, so, if I haven’t mentioned, this episode is a LOT. We get a big confrontation between WKX and half the jianghu/the Scorpions/some of the Ghost Valley contingent, ZZS showing up to support his man, Fantastic Cranky Grandpa of my heart getting in his eleven cents, Chengling shooting one of his dads, and two yeets off a cliff. And that’s only 15 minutes into the episode. This is too much, show. And I have too many questions. Also some observations. Also some wild speculation, not just about the fact that Wen Kexing is not dead but also about how he may have (not) got that way. And not just because there’s still four episodes left, and it’s too early for him to be dead.

First a small observation but pretty significant, I think: WKX is NOT in his blood-red Ghost Valley master robes during this confrontation. In fact, I think we’ve seen this set of robes in happier days with Zhou Zishou and Chengling. Just noticing this. Also noticing WKX’s face when Shen Shen starts going on about WKX’s parents and how omg if they could see WKX now they’d die all over from the shame, and WKX’S expression is like, the fucking audacity of Shen Shen saying this, and if he could actually kill people with the power of his mind, Shen Shen would be twitching and frothing on the ground. Also noticing the complete change when WKX sees Chengling – it’s like Shen Shen ceases to even exist for him. Gong Jun, your face, it’s killing me. Anyway, I’m going to start wildly speculating here for a minute, because WKX is willing to let Chengling kill him, because he’s so tired and wants to stop fighting, but he’s going to kick everyone else’s ass who even tries it? And then Chengling is actually the one who shoots him and yeets him off the cliff? Is this a set up? Is Chengling in on this? Is he the one who’s supposed to “kill” WKX? If so, at what point did we get Chengling in on this? And who did it? Did Chengling send what’s his name, Jing Beiyuan’s guard, away on purpose at this particular point, because he knew ZZS would show up in time for this confrontation if he heard about Chengling’s reaction to the news about WKX? And do I actually believe Chengling is smart enough – and a good enough actor – to pull off any of this? (Look, I love our little goldbean plenty, but let’s face it, he’s not the brightest kid running around here.)

Also, my dudes. My clever little killers. Xie Wang and Wen Kexing. I am unwilling to believe that you two aren’t somehow still together on this in some way in order to fuck over Awful Yifu. Your antagonistic back and forth seems a little bit like playing roles. Xie Wang gives Awful Yifu a weird side-eye a few times when Awful Yifu talks about how tricksy and cunning WKX is, like maybe he’s reconsidering, and do not tell me you’re questioning and reconsidering whatever deal you’ve made with WKX, little gambler. Why does your Awful Yifu’s bs always work on you? This is really not the time to roll the dice again. I’m assuming A-Xiang is still the only one who knows about their tete-a-tete? If so, this is a side-take I never would have expected on “you don’t fail me, and I won’t fail you.” Honor among thieves? Stick to the plan, Xie’er, whatever the hell it is. Do not blink.

So then, Ye Baiyi shows up, and my immediate reaction is NO. My beloved cranky grandpa, don’t fuck this up, because whatever is going on seems to already have a lot of moving parts with a lot of places for things to go wrong! But … are you in on it, too? Have YOU coordinated with Chengling? (If so, maybe you should have warned him to expect ZZS’s wild-card self-yeet over the cliff’s edge, since you’ve already seen how self-destructive self-sacrificing these two can get over each other.) Making me even more suspicious, Ye Baiyi later proceeds to walk out of a banquet before even eating anything. This guy is walking away from food? There is no clearer sign in this ep that something is up.

Also, while we’re on the banquets, listen. I cannot be the only one who wants to punch Zhao Jing in the face during his interminable yapping during both post-fight banquets. This is one of those places where the show and the actor have done their job too well, because he is so dislikeable and so off-putting that I almost can’t bear to actually watch him. And yet, I can’t fast-forward, because what if I miss some info? Like the fact that … you know, I went back to watch this bit three times, and that is a very … interesting series of camera shots during the second banquet - after the toasts, just as a couple of randoms start advocating for Zhao Jing as head of the Five Lakes Alliance, and we move from Xie’er to Shen Shen to Chengling, all of them still standing, facing Zhao Jing after their individual toasts, all of them in a formation that’s almost caging him in from the front and both sides. It gets more interesting every time I watch it. Is … is Shen Shen also in on this, somehow?

See, I know that is a lot of wild speculation. I know Wen Kexing got yeeted off a cliff, and Ye Baiyi was busy catching Zhou Zishu. And we saw a body. And ZZS set that body on fire. But I also know that Liu Qianqiao was the person holding vigil outside the shed where the body was being held. And I know she’s the other person, besides ZZS, who we know of that knows the facemask disguise technique (in fact, didn’t she learn it from ZZS’s shifu?) We actually get reminded of this later on in this very episode. Which makes me wonder if that was actually WKX’s body, or somebody else, in the shed. Who “found” that body and recovered it? Was it a Scorpion or one of the Ghost Valley contingent? Also, where’s that key WKX was waving around, and why does no one seem to remember it?

Other things:

lol at A-Xiang’s reaction to Jing Beiyun talking about how ZZS used to ask him to set ZZS up with girls. Further lol at Jing Beiyuan, “And funny enough, he was NEVER interested in them. Welp, time for another drink!” Seriously, Qi Ye, we like you, you can absolutely stay.

Still at the banquets, Xie Wang seems discombobulated during a lot of this. And then when Awful Yifu calls him Zhao Xie’er in front of everybody, holy shit, he’s getting everything he ever wanted. Xie’er, you … you’re not going to fall for this again, are you? Please tell me you are not falling for this again, at what is likely a crucial moment. This is NO TIME to take another roll of the dice, little gambler. Stick with the plan, whatever the hell it is.

Oh, hey! Are we finally getting some backstory on Fantastic Cranky Grandpa? Oh. OH. “Our child?” What is up, my friend? (I did go back to Ep 16, when WKX calls Chengling “my child” while defending him against Ye Baiyi, and looking at the Mandarin subtitles, I can’t entirely figure out (with my Level 2 Duolingo Mandarin) all of the nuances of these two references, but it doesn’t look like they’re using the same words to describe these relationships.) So some further wild speculation: Apparently, Cranky Grandpa Fantastico is solitary drinking in the dark instead of feasting at the banquet, over someone who (he feels) foolishly wanted to save the lost souls in the Ghost Valley? And now he feels like fate is making fun of him? And he’s asking Dead Beloved what he would do in Ye Baiyi’s position? Ye Baiyi, is it possible that fate is making fun of you because you have found yourself in the position of saving a lost soul from the Ghost Valley? Also, Ye Baiyi, I’ve noticed the children have been turning you grey. I don’t think you had that grey streak when you showed up for the first Hero’s Conference, did you? In fact, I feel like you got offended when WKX talked shit about possible grey hairs on your head.

Duan Pengju, this asshole, omg … OMG. Well. I guess you got your confirmation, Xie’er. Were you really considering rolling the dice again? AT THIS POINT?

#wen kexing #zhou zishu #gu xiang #cao weining #zhang chengling #shen shen #xie wang #ye baiyi #liu qianqiao #zhao jing #word of honor #word of honor episode reax

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fictropes · 4 years ago

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oh boy i sure did write many words in 2020

Hi! I am copying people due to i want to. This is a lil (well... 63) round up of all the fics I wrote this year! Cos i’m very evil @ myself and writing fic and think i’m either not doing enough, or not doing it good enough, so i wanna full list of what I actually did so I can see my own accomplishments and can maybe... clap 4 myself for once. And honestly writing has helped MASSIVELY with my depression so.. that’s a bonus.

ALSO. this is a big huge thankyou to everyone! I only joined here + started writing in august and you’ve all been so so nice and welcoming and supportive <333 ;_; and I know they say write for yourself... but honestly peoples comments and excitement about my stuff has just been really, really lovely and I would never have written this much without all of you cheering me on<3.

so here is a list of everything i’ve written, organised by length and everything, so if you find yourself bored over the holidays... have a lil browse. (Sorry if u are on mobile and this doesn’t show as a read more)

Chaptered:

Can we try again? series (M) Complete - 35k - “Yeah, Phil. I’ll see you tomorrow.” Dan answers, softer than he’d wanted because he already knows what he’s about to do next.(or Dan doesn't turn up in 2009 and bumps into Phil 11 years later at a youtube convention 2. I like cupcakes, especially the gay variety (M) Complete - 30k - Firstly, Dan was 29. How was that a mature student?Secondly, his actual book was on the university fucking syllabus.(or the one in which Dan tries university again in a desperate attempt to prolong his procrastination, and his lecturer Phil is apparently something of a fan) 3. 7 Letters series (M) Complete - 9k - Your penpal can be the person you live with, actually. 4. There's Beans in Here (T) Complete - 2k - Phil has his wisdom teeth removed; Phil says many questionable things. 5. Roadtrip (E) Complete - 8k - “Exactly. I am right, as always.”“As always.” Dan agrees.Series 6. night shift, please (E) Wip - 27k I PROMISE THIS WILL COME BACK IN 2021 - Ten years and he’ll never get over how early he has to get up sometimes. In all honesty he prefers the night shift. 7. Still Not Calling it Fate (M) Wip - 14k - It’s become a bit of a thing, a bit of a thing that everyone he crosses paths with takes the piss out of him for 8. when i met you, a blue rush began (M) Complete - 5k - They end up in a small restaurant overlooking the sea, everything here is so blue. The sky, the sea, Phil’s eyes, the shirt he’s wearing buttoned up all the way to the top. 9. Luggage Tags (E) Complete - 2.5k - Just because it looks like your suitcase, it doesn't necessarily mean that it is. 10. Demon in the sack (E) Complete - 2.5k - Dan’s leg jiggles beneath his desk, knee hitting the table as he tries to force himself to hang up and ring the number he was supposed to ring— he doesn’t, he can’t. Long ( for me) oneshots (3k+) 11. Electronics and the Phil's who break them (M) Complete - 9k - The first time’s an accident, a proper accident— a Phil forgot how to hold his cup and now he’s watching his coffee seep into his keyboard type accident. 12. A Letter of Specifics (T) Complete - 4k - You'll know it's your soulmate because no one else on earth could be doing what they're doing. 13. The Benefits of A Weak Floor (M) Complete - 4k - He quite literally falls through Dan’s ceiling. 14. 10:35 on a Thursday (E) Complete - 3.7k - He’s tapping his pen against the paper, acting as though he isn’t asking Phil to take a sex quiz at 10:35am on a Thursday morning. 15. 2009, catboys (T) Complete - 3.2k - “You have your own ears, can’t have four.”“Why?” 16. Wrong Room (T) Complete - 3k - “Congratulations!’’ And he was expecting to hear a cry, or at least his mother telling him to be quiet because a certain baby was sleeping. Instead he heard the deep clear of a throat, a rustling of sheets. 2k-3k oneshots 17. Dinner with a stranger (T) Complete - 2.5k - @amazingphl hi! second year of doing this, sooo if anyone has nowhere to go for Christmas dinner I am once again offering..my flat (and by extension me) ;oSeries 18. Easy Lover (M) Complete - 2.4k - ''Yeah. We're always fine.'' It was always fine. It was always easy, despite always behind hard. 19. Cold Season (M) Complete - 2k - Dan is ill, insatiable and another word beginning with I. 1k-2k oneshots 20. Morose men on rooftops (T) Complete - 1.9k - “Dunno, maybe chatting up morose men on roofs is my thing.” He laughs, and it’s a nice noise. 21. Love with tongues of fire (T) Complete - 1.7k - So when Dan waltzed into the room, declaring his hunger Phil thought nothing of it. Just another night for another takeaway. 22. Your Rocks are my Rocks (T) Complete - 1.7k - Phil wants a new rock for Norman, Dan wants a peaceful life. 23. Joint Content (M) Complete - 1.6k - It started of a as a joke— a Joint Content joke. 24. 24/7 Fantasies (M) Complete - 1.5k - He thinks about Dan 24/7, constantly in two separate fantasies 25. A Conversation in Multiple Hallways (T) Complete - 1.5k - You're still here then? 26. Sharing Space (T) Complete - 1.5k - It's 2010 and dan has had a day. 27. The Obvious (T) Complete - 1.5k - "Can I use that?” He doesn’t wait for an answer, already scrawling it beneath the only three words he currently has— I love you. 28. I'm Thinking of Ending Things (T) Complete - 1.5k - Dan hears half a conversation, jumps to one whole conclusion. 29. Love Language of the Tactile (T) Complete - 1.4k - “I’m just— that’s a hypothetical.” Dan leans in this time, takes the touches that Phil always so freely gives away. “Can’t kiss in secret rooms if I leave.” 30. Don't Let the Self-Doubt Ruin You (T) Complete - 1.3k - “I’m here.” “Yeah, you’re here.” 31. Conflict Resolution (T) Complete - 1.3k - Following recent events we’ve decided it best we take a combative approach to your current workplace issues, we have booked you into a conflict resolution class this Thursday afternoon - we will not be paying you to attend. 32. when it comes to love (i want a slow hand) (E) Complete - 1.2k - And there it is, the refusal of anything in return. This is just for Dan and it always will be. 33. You're Still The one (T) Complete - 1.1k - “What’re you thinking about?” “You.” 34. Teach Me, Dad. (T) Complete - 1k - "Do you think I could be the next Mozart?” 35. The Logistics of a Clone (M) Complete - 1k - “I don’t think that’s a clone, though, like maybe more of a Doppelgänger.” Dan doesn’t know why they’re delving so deep into this, why he’s so damn bothered about being right. “It’s just literally you.” 36. All's fair in Love and Monopoly (T) Complete - 1k - Phil does not play by the rules, Dan lets him win anyway. Under 1k oneshots 37. Hide out in your heart (E) Complete - 0.9k - The second time Dan comes to visit it’s different. 38. Oh, there you are. (G) Complete - 0.9k - So after all this, after everything, he doesn’t think anything of it when someone else slips into his dms. 39. The Boy has Attitude (T) Complete - 0.9k - “You didn’t tell me you looked like this.”“Like what?”“This!” Phil’s waving a physical copy of the magazine in his face— so that’s where he’d been. 40. Hairties (and how not to use them) (M) Complete - 0.8k - “Why would you do that? Let us settle in, nice and slow and— gently does it.” 41. The Second Apartment. (T) Complete - 0.8k - It’s a stop-gap apartment, a we’re going to get our forever home after this. 42. Japan, 2019. (G) Complete - 0.8k - NO summary, just an obviously I was going to write this after phil's post 43. Doting Man (T) Complete - 0.7k - They’re both drunk, Phil more so— definitely more so.Series 44. Imposter (T) Complete - 0.7k - Among us is.. a bastard. 45. Ratemyprofessors.com (M) Complete - 0.7k - ‘Maybe if that Phil bloke from the English dep he’s always staring at fucked him he’d stop being so uptight’ 46. Failed Attempts (T) Complete - 0.7k - Dan enlists the help of Phil for his latest Instagram. 47. Bonus Prize (M) Complete - 0.7k - Phil Trash Number One 48. Feels like home (G) Complete - 0.7k - Home is where the Phil is. 49. We can make Forever work (T) Complete - 0.7k - It’s a moment of realising forever may sound too much to people, but we’ll get through everything together— we don’t have any other choice. 50. Scene in the Kitchen (T) Complete - 0.7k - New place 51. 4'11 (T) Complete - 0.6k - Dan is baby 52. Pillow Imprints (T) Complete - 0.6k - Dan is a menace, and Phil loves him anyway. 53. Parachute Jacket (T) Complete - 0.5k - Dan thinks Phil is obsessed with them Those few times I thougt I was goddamn Ri**ard S*ken 54. Home (G) Complete - 0.7k - It’s their forever home, because their actual forever lives inside of it. 55. secrets spoken in empty rooms (T) Complete - 1k - So he wants to be the same, but he wants Dan more. 56. Separately Together (T) Complete - 0.9k - Phil’s soft hands and even softer words. It gets harder to leave. Gets to the point where Dan turns off an alarm just so he misses the train. 57. It's not hard to fall (T) Complete - 0.7k - Still a little bit of your words I long to hear Some more Epistolary (apart from 7 letters) 58. A Play in One Act (T) Complete - 1.1k - [Manchester Piccadilly train-station, midday, October 19th, 2009.] 59. R/AITA (T) Complete - 0.8k - AM I THE ASSHOLE FOR MAKING MY BOYFRIEND BE A WORM?Series 60. Lonely Hearts (T) Complete - 1.8k - I will not say you were crying on the tube (out of politeness) 61. Conversations of the Lazy Kind (T) Complete - 1k - eggs? wot? Smells like eggs

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ibelieveinharrystyles · 4 years ago

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Chapter Six: Empty Words and Emptier Promises

Ashley stared at the clock, the taxi to take her to the court was due to arrive in a matter of minutes, and yet Harry was nowhere to be seen, when she told him about the new date for the trial he promised he’d be by her side. But here she was, sitting alone on her sofa, she heard her doorbell ring, meaning the taxi driver had arrived, she was still managing to hide the bump, knowing there would be members of the press loitering outside trying to get a good picture. If Ashley was completely honest, she still hadn’t told Harry about the baby, even though she was almost five months pregnant, even when lockdown measures eased Harry still didn’t come back home. Ashley wasn’t stupid, she knew where he was because she followed dozens of fans on twitter, she knew full well he was having a nice time in Italy. Lottie was looking after Daisy, and Lou had agreed to meet Ashley at court, she had also been called as a witness, seeing as she was the one who found Ashley lying on the floor in the first place. Without the support of Lou, Lottie and Louis, Ashley had no clue where she’d be by now, they were the only people who knew about the baby, even when her mum came to London for Daisy’s birthday, she couldn’t tell her. Compared to Daisy’s pregnancy she felt so disconnected, she had been to all the necessary scans, but she didn’t feel the glow, she didn’t feel the joy, she just felt alone.

As she had expected there were several members of the press waiting outside the court, although neither Ashley or Harry had publicly confirmed their relationship, most people had worked it out. Ashley climbed out of the taxi, ensuring her top effectively concealed her baby bump. Lou was there to meet her, welcoming her with open arms. The pair made their way up the stairs and into the court building, “So Harry’s a no show then?” Lou asked.

“Yep, I’ve been texting him all week, as far as I was aware he was going to be here today.” Ashley explained.

“Oh Ash, I’m so sorry, how’s things with you and the baby?”

“Fine, I almost feel like it's not real, Harry still doesn’t know.” Ashley told her.

“When do you think you’ll tell him?” Lou asked.

“When he decides to show up.”

“Hello stranger,” Ashley looked over her shoulder to see both Louis and Niall, she half expected Louis to come, but seeing Niall provided an added sense of relief, “Lou thought you might need some moral support.” Niall told her.

“You have no idea how glad I am to see you both,” Ashley told them, “I know it’s a big thing for you both to come, so it truly means the world to me.”

“Ash, we’ve been mates for ten years, that counts for something.” Louis assured her.

“Try telling Harry that.” Ashley replied.

“Is he not coming?” Niall asked.

“He’s sunning it up in Italy,” Ashley remarked bitterly, as Will and his barrister walked past the group.

“There goes the man of the hour,” Niall muttered.

“I swear if I’d been there I would’ve decked him,” Louis told them discreetly.

The trial was well in progress and Ashley had finally been called to the stand, as she stepped up to the box she looked up at Louis, Niall and Lou. “I swear that the evidence I give today shall be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.” she read from the sheet.

“Thank you, Miss Hanson you’re in a relationship with Mr Harry Styles aren’t you?” The barrister asked.

“I mean I’m not really sure what relevance that has,” Ashley told him.

“It’s relevant Miss Hanson, when did your dalliances with Mr Styles start?” He continued.

“December last year.”

“When you were still in a relationship with my client Mr Clarkson?”

“We kissed two weeks before Will attacked me,” Ashley told him.

“Did it ever go further than that?” He asked.

“No, not when I was with Will.” Ashley replied.

“So, do you not think it was expected for Will to be angry that his partner of a year cheated on him with a global megastar?”

“I don’t really see how Harry’s success and wealth have any relevance, and I don’t understand how you can try and blame me for Will’s actions,” Ashley told him, “You seem to be trying to justify his unlawful beating of a woman, by the fact that whilst I was in an unloving relationship I was in love with another man, who yes on several occasions I met up in secret with. But last time I checked, nothing I have ever done with Harry has been illegal.”

“Are you pregnant Miss Hanson?” He asked her abruptly.

“How the fuck do they know about that?” Louis whispered to Lou.

Ashley remained silent, “I’ll ask the question again, are you pregnant Miss Hanson?” Will’s barrister asked.

“Yes I am, not that I see how that's relevant, and that information stays within this courtroom, if me or our legal team hear of that information being leaked to the press you will be sued for every last penny you have.”

“And when was the baby conceived?” He asked.

“February.”

“Are you completely sure of that?” The barrister asked.

“Well I know when I had sex with my boyfriend, and I also got an A in A Level biology so I know how the reproductive system works.”

“No further questions, your honour,” The barrister told Ashley.

All the witnesses had been called and the jury were busy making their verdict, Ashley sat in between Niall and Louis. “It’s going to be okay Ash, they can’t let him get off.” Niall assured her. The jury promptly returned and took their seats, “Could the foreman of the jury please rise?” The judge declared, “On the count of grievous bodily harm do you find the defendant Will Clarkson guilty or not guilty?”

The pause felt like an eternity, Ashley was on edge, Niall took hold of her hand, holding it tight, “Guilty.” The foreman announced, tears streamed from Ashley’s eyes as she let out an overwhelmed sigh of relief.

“We said it would all work out didn’t we?” Louis whispered, wrapping an arm around her.

“Mr Clarkson, you will serve a minimum sentence of twelve months, when you are released, the restraining order, preventing you from any contact with Miss Hanson or her daughter. Take him down.” The judge said.

“I can’t believe it’s finally over,” Ashley whispered, watching as Will was taken down to the holding area.

“You were incredible Ash,” Lou told her.

“You really were, how about we all go for drinks to celebrate?” Louis suggested.

“Not sure if that’s the best idea,” Ashley replied, gesturing to her bump. “But Lottie’s back at mine looking after Daisy, we could go back and join them, order in a takeaway like the old days?”

“That is an incredible idea,” Niall declared, throwing an arm around Ashley’s shoulder before the group made their way out of the building.

Back at Ashley’s house everyone was sitting in the living room, watching Daisy as she performed a new dance that she had been perfecting, Ashley stood at the island in the kitchen, organising all the food that had been delivered from the chinese takeaway. “Anything I can do to help?” Niall asked, appearing at the door.

“If you could just unwrap those few things and take them into the kitchen you’d be a lifesaver.” Ashley smiled, gesturing to the untouch carrier bag.

“So how are things going with our dear Harold?” Niall asked.

“I never know what's going on with him Niall, he promised me he would come back for the trial, he knew exactly when it was, he also missed Daisy’s fourth birthday, and I haven’t had the chance to tell him about the baby.” Ashley explained.

“How come you haven’t told him?” Niall continued.

“It didn’t seem right to tell him over facetime, and I don’t have a clue how to tell him, I know he wants a family more than anything, but whenever gets on tour I will effectively be a single parent.” Ashley explained.

“I’m so sorry Ash, it’s a shit situation, but I think there’s more than enough love between you two to make things work, and besides, now his schedule is way less busy than when we were touring as a band, he’ll put in the effort to make it work for you both.” Niall assured her.

“I’m worried though, if you were Harry, would you have handled it how he has?” Ashley replied.

“Probably not Ash, but you know what he’s like, sometimes he likes to work things out in his own space.” Niall replied.

“I just wanted him there more than anything Niall.” Ashley sighed, glancing at the photobooth pictures of them from his 21st birthday that sat in a frame on the window sill, Niall proceeded to take a couple of the plates into the living room as Ashley picked up the frame. “Come back to me H.” She whispered, looking up at the amber sunset.

February 2015

“Happy birthday Harry!” Ashley slurred as she entered the venue, stumbling with each step.

“Hey there Ash, I’ve got you love.” Harry smiled, taking hold of both her arms. The party had only been going for a couple of hours and Ashley was already very much plastered.

“You’re amazing Harry, I love you loads.” Ashley smiled, placing a kiss on his cheek, she looked up at him, moving to kiss him on the lips.

“You don’t want to do that Ash, not while you’re drunk.” Harry insisted, moving out of her way, “Come on, let’s grab you some water instead.”

“I don’t deserve you Harry, you’re too pure for this world.”

***

Harry was restless, he stood on the balcony of his room, staring at the starry skies of Italy, over thinking all the mistakes he’d made in the last four months. He felt dreadful for not being at the trial, he didn’t even know what the outcome was, Ashley hadn’t called or texted to let him know. He dialled her number quickly before he had the time to change his mind, she answered pretty quickly. “Hey baby.” He whispered, holding to his ear.

“Hey.” She replied softly.

“How did it go today?” Harry asked, knowing he had let her down.

“He got twelve months.” Ashley told him, cradling her baby bump as she snacked on a pot of cookie dough ice cream.

“That’s good isn’t it?” Harry replied.

“It was pretty shit actually H, his barrister tore our relationship to pieces,” Ashley sighed, “We haven’t publicly addressed the rumours so I assumed Will filled him in on everything, but he knew stuff that only a handful of people were aware of.” Ashley told him, meaning the baby.

“Like what?” Harry asked.

“Nothing really, just little things.” She told him, “When are you coming home H?”

Harry paused, if he was honest, he didn’t have a clue, “Soon baby, I promise.”

“That’s what you said last time H, I haven’t seen you since February, I needed you there today.” her voice began to wobble as tears formed in her eyes.

“I know love, my head’s been a bit all over the place, I needed to get out of the city.” Harry explained, holding his head in his hand.

“Harry you were in LA for three months, thats a fucking massive city.” Ashley told him angrily, “Ever since we went into lockdown I’ve been picking up the pieces of what you left behind, for two months the only person I’ve had contact with has been Daisy, who is now four, in case you had forgotten that.”

“I know I’ve been stupid Ash, I’ll make it up to you both I promise.” Harry replied, his voice now wobbling too.

“Don’t make empty promises we both know you can’t keep.” Ashley sobbed, “I don’t know if I can do this anymore H, you mean the world to me and it’s tearing me up inside. I’m not sure if I can be that person.” Tears streamed down her cheeks as she told him the cold hard truth.

“Don’t say that Ash, please don’t do this.” Harry replied.

“Let me go H, please just let me go.” Ashley whispered, she ended the call, the phone slipping straight from her hand, she was broken, they were broken.

#harry styles #one direction #harry styles imagine #harry styles imagines #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles one shot #one direction memes #best friend harry #harry styles fanfic #niall horan #harry styles lockscreen #harry styles layout

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sinagrace · 6 years ago

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As Pride Month comes to a close, it’s time I spoke candidly about my experience at Marvel Comics.

To date, I’ve always been honest about the joy of writing Iceman’s journey as an out gay superhero, but I’ve skirted around the challenges that came along with it. This is partially because I prefer to give off an upbeat vibe, and there’s also a fear that my truth will affect my career. With more corporations patting themselves on the back for profit-led partnerships wherein celebrities take selfies in rainbow apparel, and with buzz that Marvel Studios is preparing to debut their first gay character in the upcoming Eternals movie, there is an urgency to discuss the realities of creating queer pop culture in a hostile or ambivalent environment. Hopefully, my takeaways will serve as a guide for people in positions of power to consider when advocating for more nuanced and rich representation. In an ideal world, embracing our stories and empowering us to tell them will yield far more profitable (and way less messy) results than what I encountered while writing Iceman.

Stand by your people

It’s no surprise that I got the attention of trolls and irate fans for taking on this job. There was already backlash around the manner in which Bobby Drake aka Iceman came out, and Marvel needed to smooth that landing and put a “so what” to the decision. After a point, I could almost laugh off people making light of my death, saying they have "cancerous AIDS" from my book, or insinuating I’m capable of sexual assault… almost. Between Iceman’s cancellation and its subsequent revival, Marvel reached out and said they noticed threatening behavior on my Twitter account (only after asking me to send proof of all the nasty shit popping up online). An editor called, these conversations always happen over the phone, offering to provide “tips and tricks” to deal with the cyber bullying. I cut him off. All he was going to do was tell me how to fend for myself. I needed Marvel to stand by me with more work opportunities to show the trolls that I was more than a diversity hire. “We’ll keep you in mind.” I got so tired of that sentence.

Even after a year of the new editor-in-chief saying I was talented and needed to be on a book that wasn’t “the gay character,” the only assignment I got outside of Iceman was six pages along, about a version of Wolverine where he had diamond claws. Fabulous, yes. Heterosexual, yes. Still kind of the gay character, though.

We as creators are strongly encouraged to build a platform on social media and use it to promote work-for-hire projects owned by massive corporations… but when the going gets tough, these dudes get going real quick.

Believe in the work

You may be asking if my Iceman book was any good, or if I’m just being sour grapes over a bad work experience. Believe me, I asked that, too. From the get-go, my first editor asserted that Iceman would be DOA if it were “too gay,” while also telling me to prepare for a cancellation anyway, given that most solo X-Men titles don’t last beyond a year. Never mind that my work on Iceman had gotten positive press in the New York Times (in-print), or that in spite of (since-deleted) critical sandbagging, the series nets glowing reviews on Amazon… Marvel still treated me as someone to be contained, and the book as something to be nervous about. Do you know how hard it is to not argue with a publicist when he’s explaining the value of announcing Iceman’s revival via the Marvel homepage? Sis, that’s a burial. Instead of clapping back, I just went and got myself more press from the New York Times. From there, they tightened my leash. I had to get all opportunities pre-approved, and all interviews pre-reviewed. This would be fine if it was the standard, but I assure you: none of my straight male colleagues seek permission to go on podcasts promoting their books.

What Marvel should have done is assign me a special projects editor. They should have worked with a specialty PR firm, rather than repeat a tiresome cycle of treating the book like a square peg, and getting confused when it’s a hit.

Give us a real seat at the table

There was a moment before Iceman was cancelled where I wrote then-editor-in-chief Axel Alonso an email, pleading for a Hail Mary arc. I explained that Iceman was landing with a newer generation of readers who focused more on binge-reading than month-to-month periodicals. The series needed time in the book market before its true strength could be assessed. To Axel’s credit, he was warm to the idea and even gave me an extra month, but when he left Marvel that idea got brushed away. Of course I was right. The first two volumes sold like gangbusters thanks to word-of-mouth, librarian love, and support from retailers big and small.

When the series returned, no one at Marvel asked me: “What do you think landed with readers?” Nor did they ask the question that Axel did: “What matters to your community?” So when I wrote what I thought the fans would be into, a story about a man learning to be a better ally in the war against hate, editorial totally missed its value.

Seat at the table pt II: The Shade of it all

All of the weird drama I put up with crystallized when I created a drag queen mutant, first called Shade, now called Darkveil. I told my editor that Shade would be a big deal for X-Fans, and asked how we should promote her. He said: “leave it up to the reader’s interpretation.” Everyone at Marvel shrugged off two years of goodwill and acted like I’d coordinated behind their backs on an announcement that made headlines. Beyond mentioning on Instagram the queens who inspired the character, I didn’t coordinate shit. Of course, their head publicist can’t admit that my quotes were pre-approved from an unreleased interview. At this point, I stopped believing that there’d be any more work for me. There were so many shady moves on their end that I’m still having trouble putting into language, but it all aligned with an experience I had in retail where a corrupt manager kept lying and moving the goal posts in order to keep me selling in a department I didn’t want to work in. I offered to give Darkveil a proper character bio, and I walked away.

I recognize that some of my complaints can be filed under “this is freelance life.” I am aware that it was not a queer person of color who joked to me that “it’s not a matter of if Marvel fucks you over, it’s a matter of when.” That came from a cis white male. The same-day turn-arounds without warning, the work emails on Christmas week… that’s the freelance bullshit. Truly, I don’t even think of this as discrimination, I call it general ineptness. It is my belief that if we are telling stories about heroes doing the right thing in the face of adversity, wouldn’t the hope be to embody those ideals as individuals? Instead of feeling like I worked with some of the most inspiring and brave people in comics, I was surrounded by cowards.

Truly, I hate writing this. In keeping with Pride Month, I am proud of the work I did on Iceman... I love the book! It sucks that I may be tarnishing its legacy going public about how the cookies were made. That said, the time for self-congratulating is over, and folks should be earnestly listening when they ask: what could we have done better?

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karajaynetoday · 5 years ago

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everybody's got their demons, even wide awake or dreaming | part two

Photo credit: Jess Gleeson

Hello friends! Hope you’re having a lovely day. It’s time for part two of this series! Lizzie takes her opportunity to interview Calum one-on-one in this part. If you need to catch up on Part One, you can do that here. Onwards!

(This is a fem!OC story)

Word count: 3.2k

Warnings: none? i don’t think?

More writing here | send thoughts/feedback/suggestions here | if you’d like to be on my taglist go here

The day or so leading up to Lizzie’s one on one interview with Calum was a blur, as Lizzie tried to fix her body clock and orientate herself with how to get around LA. Her boss had offered her the opportunity to hire a rental car, but the idea of driving on the wrong side of the road was too much for Lizzie to stomach, so Ubers were the go.

Her body sometimes overslept, sometimes woke her up at 4am, so Lizzie had downloaded a yoga and meditation app to try and sort herself out. She might’ve almost given herself a concussion after toppling over while trying to do a particularly tricky pose, but no one needed to hear about that. The bruises on her elbow were embarrassing enough.

Danielle had sent Lizzie a text the morning of her lunchtime interview with Calum, confirming the time and place as they’d discussed. Lizzie had handwritten some notes for her questions, trying to contemplate what she could ask Calum that would differ to the others. Or maybe she should ask them all the same questions, and then in the piece she could compare and contrast responses? It was so hard to know what would make the best piece, especially with interviewing Calum in particular. Lizzie knew from watching other interviews, and in her group interview with all of the band the other day (and from back in their school days) that Calum was a man of few words. When he did speak, it was usually with purpose and thought, and made for some great content, but he wasn’t always particularly forthcoming. Which is why it had surprised Lizzie that Calum had volunteered for the first solo interview, but given Michael’s behaviour, she was glad to be continuing with the profile piece at all.

It was a really warm day, so Lizzie had to forego her usual blazer and jeans in favour of a long green dress with blue and white flowers on it. Her hands were sweaty as the Uber pulled up to the café Calum had suggested, and something in the back of Lizzie’s mind suggested it wasn’t just from the weather. She’d always been an anxious person, but she’d gotten a handle on it recently; this whole LA debacle had brought it back with a vengeance.

Calum was waiting for her just in front of the café, dark wayfarer sunglasses covering his eyes and his phone in his hand as he leant up against the brick wall beside the café door. He was wearing a grey hoodie and jeans, and nobody coming in or out of the café seemed to pay him any attention; but then again maybe people of Calum’s level of fame were just part of the furniture around here. It was near to Hollywood, after all.

“Hey, thanks for agreeing to meet me.” Lizzie’s voice wasn’t overly loud, but it still made Calum jump as he looked up from his phone at her.

“Of course, of course. I know I sound like a broken record, but we really are excited for you to do this piece. The new album era is something I’ve been looking forward to for a while, and - “ Calum began, smiling warmly at Lizzie, who cut him off by pulling open the café door.

“Before you start getting all meaningful and quotable on me, shall we get a coffee and take a seat?”

“A woman after my own heart. Let’s do it. Pro-tip, the brownies here are to die for.”

The café was bustling, but most of the patrons seemed to be lining up for takeaway orders. Calum stepped ahead of Lizzie and slipped into a booth towards the back, near a frosted window, greeting the wait staff by name as he went. Lizzie scurried after him, apologising as she accidentally bumped into a tall man with her shoulder bag in her haste and he glared at her. Guess not everyone was as friendly as Calum, then. She slid into the booth opposite Calum, pulling out her notebook and phone as she went.

“Is it okay if I record this? I’m not very good at taking notes.”

“Straight into it, LL? At least let a man have his coffee first.” Calum deadpanned, and Lizzie felt her face fall before she realised he was joking with her.

“Of course, sorry. Let’s order. The brownies, you said? How big are they?” Lizzie pasted a smile onto her face, grabbing for the menu on the table in front of her.

“I have it on good authority that they’re perfectly Lizzie-sized. Calum-sized, too - a real multipurpose snack.” Calum was teasing her now, but also being completely serious, as he got the attention of a waitperson who came over to welcome them and take their orders. A skinny latté for Lizzie, an iced coffee for Calum, and a warmed up chocolate brownie with a side of coconut yogurt for them each. They fell into easy conversation, about the weather, and Calum’s neighbourhood, and the other pieces Lizzie had written, almost forgetting why they were there in the first place. When their order of coffees and brownies arrived, Lizzie suddenly snapped out of her feeling of ease when she had to push her notebook and phone over on the table and remember that she was supposed to be interviewing Calum Hood, 5SOS bassist, not catching up with Calum Hood, her Year 9 science lab partner.

“Now that you’ve got your coffee, can I start recording?” Lizzie asked timidly, as she took a bite out of her brownie and audibly groaned at how heavenly it tasted.

“Depends. Will your brownie orgasm be mentioned in the article?” Could Calum say anything that wasn’t teasing her? Damn it.

“Maybe. Perhaps I’ll do a twitter thread of my trip food highlights, given that the profile piece will be under embargo until the album comes out.” Lizzie deadpanned right back, earning a smile and a small chuckle from Calum.

Lizzie hit record on her phone’s voicenote app, sliding the phone into the centre of the table. She flipped open her notebook to the page marked “Calum”, and she could see Calum trying to read her writing upside down.

“No spoilers, mate. I’ve got a strategy here.” Lizzie mused, angling her notebook so it was harder for Calum to see as he raised his hands in mock surrender.

“Well then, Ms Lawson from Junkee Australia, do your worst.” He flashed her a grin, before taking a sip of his coffee followed by a bite of his brownie (sans any groaning… that must only be a first-time brownie thing).

“So, in our chat yesterday, it was mentioned that this next album is, in some ways, a letter to your homeland, and a reflection on your journeys so far as individual artists as well as being 5SOS collectively. For you, as Calum Hood, what’s the main contribution or perspective that you feel you’ve brought to this album, and the band?” Lizzie saw a flicker of something in Calum’s eyes as she shifted into journalist mode easily, but he only paused for another sip of coffee before answering.

“I think at this point, my main contribution is balancing the collective contributions in the room. I have a lot to say, and I do a lot of songwriting, but I also think the others would agree that I’m also quite observant, so I can read a lot into things they’re saying, or not saying, and bring it out of them into the music. We’ve known each other for almost half our lives at this point, so we know each other better than anyone else, but when we work with other co writers and things like that it can be hard to feel entirely comfortable with the vulnerability you need to bring into writing a song or telling a particular story that day. I’ve got the rep as the strong, silent, shy type, I know - “ Calum paused and returned the soft smile Lizzie was giving him, as she nodded encouragingly.

“But in interviews, when I’m being asked to explain myself and validate my artistic choices, I’m immediately more defensive and protective of it, because there’s something magical about the writing room, and the vulnerability that can only exist in that context when we’re songwriting, and creating that art. The end product, which is the song or the album or whatever, conveys the emotions in a way that I could never say them with words, and the beautiful thing is that so many people can listen to it and relate to it in ways that I’d never considered before. But that’s the power of it, you know? We make these songs to express ourselves, and fulfil our creative outlets, but it extends beyond that, and that’s the part that gets me.” Calum finished speaking and reached for another sip of his coffee.

“Right. The magic exists in the studio, and on the stage, and in individual people’s lives when they listen to the music wherever they are in the world, and it’s the connecting thread that brings you together with your fans, a moment that you can share even if you never meet.”

“Exactly, it’s the universal experience, and everyone has their own interpretation of what it means to them. Pisses me off when people try and dig to find out who we wrote a certain song about, or whatever. Sometimes it is a specific person or a moment, other times I make shit up to suit the vibe of a chord progression or a concept someone’s brought to the table. It’s a juicier headline if we name and shame, but it’s not fair to the person I’m writing about, especially if they don’t have a similar outlet for a right of reply, and it’s also irrelevant, because my meaning behind a song could be completely different to yours, but that doesn’t make it less valid.” Calum shrugs as he speaks, his tone calm and nonchalant.

“Makes sense. The music can exist as art, and be open to interpretation, like everything in life. And with this album, and reflecting on your homeland… what does that mean, for you? Because 5SOS have lived almost their entire adult lives overseas, so I know it must be hard to self-determine a cultural identity that’s so strongly linked to somewhere you haven’t lived for so long.” Lizzie asks, munching down another bite of brownie.

Calum cocks his head to the side and rolls his bottom lip into his mouth, and Lizzie feels a lump rise in her throat. Had she phrased the question wrong? Was he mad? Had she struck a nerve? Fuck.

“Sorry, we don’t have to - I mean, we can keep discussing the album in a different way if you’d prefer -” Lizzie started babbling, and she froze when Calum reached across the table and rested on hers reassuringly.

“Breathe, Lawson. I just need a minute to think about a deep and meaningful response to your question. You’re fine.” Calum was speaking softly, and there was an apology of sorts in his eyes when Lizzie glanced over at him. She was about to ask him something else, when a waitress came over to check on how everything was going with their orders and offered a second round of coffees and Calum withdrew his hand from the table as he ordered another iced coffee to go, times two.

“If you could have it ready to go in about an hour, that’d be great.” Calum flashed the waitress a smile, and she shot him a wink as she headed back to the counter to update his order.

“A whole ‘nother hour? You spoil me, Mr Hood.” Lizzie joked, downing the last of her coffee and desperately hoping to avoid any awkwardness in her remaining interview time with Calum.

“Anything for a fellow Australian, mate. To answer your question, it’s strange, because yes I’ve never lived there full time as an adult, but there’s something about your home country and your hometown that stays with you, no matter where you go or how long you’re gone. Obviously, for me, my sister lives overseas, and neither of my parents were raised in Australia, but it still means a lot to me, because it’s home, you know? The industry there is… interesting, but I still think that if we didn’t have the background we all have as individuals and the band, there’s certainly a lot of decisions we’ve made and ways we’ve gone about things in our careers that are heavily influenced by our upbringings and the mindsets we all have from that experience.”

“Home is where the heart is, right?” Lizzie offers, thumbing her notebook absently.

“It’s true. But it’s also refreshing to go back and escape it all a bit, you know? None of my friends at home really give a shit about Calum from 5SOS. They just like hanging out with Cal, which is nice.” Calum shrugs, clasping his hands together on the table in front of him.

“Just Cal? Not cool guy Cal? C Dizzle Swizzle?” Lizzie bit back a grin, remembering the multitude of nicknames Cal had garnered over the years.

“Look, cool guy Cal is just my constant state of being. C Dizzle might make an appearance if I’ve had one too many, but either way, they’re just happy to see me. Or happy to tell me some home truths that I haven’t heard, or wanted to hear, so that’s important too. You can’t live in LA for as long as we have without having a good support crew to keep us grounded, you know? Even if some of the ones who mean the most to us are on the other side of the planet.” There was something in Calum’s eyes again as Lizzie looked at him, and she could tell it was more than what he was trying to say for the sake of the profile interview.

She swallowed down one final bite of the heavenly brownie, and turned the page to find her next question. Lizzie couldn’t entertain the idea of asking Calum why Michael was mad at her, because it would break the air of professionalism she was desperate to maintain; also, she wasn’t entirely sure he’d even tell her. Calum and Michael had been inseparable in their school days, and Lizzie knew that their bond and sense of loyalty no doubt ran even deeper now than then, given all of their shared experiences, trials and tribulations to date. But Calum had always been so kind and patient with her, whether she’d accidentally ruined their Year 9 science experiment, or she’d nearly thrown up on his shoes at the Year 11 formal after party, or when Michael had stormed out of the studio a few days ago and he offered her his time for the first solo interview. Lizzie brushed off the train of thought, and continued with her interview questions for Calum.

The conversation flowed easily, and Lizzie could already feel the profile starting to come together in her mind. She jotted down a handful of notes on how to adapt her questions for Luke and Ashton based on Calum’s responses, and before they realised how long they’d been chatting, the waitress returned with Calum’s two takeaway iced coffees.

Lizzie asked the waitress for the bill, but Calum waved her off.

“I’ve got it, Lizzie. Don’t stress.”

“But I can expense it! I have a receipts app, and everything!” Calum laughed at how excited Lizzie seemed at the concept of submitting a work expense claim.

“Okay, fine. You win this round.”

Lizzie pressed stop on her phone recording, and reached for her bag to slide her notebook in. The waitress returned with the bill, and Lizzie handed her travel bank card over, drumming her hands absentmindedly on the table while she waited for the waitress to come back with her card and the receipt.

“Lizzie?” Her head snapped up as Calum spoke.

“He’s not… I know it seems like he’s really mad at you, but he’s not.” It took a moment for Lizzie to register what Calum was saying.

“He’s not mad at me? He refused to speak to me and stormed out of the room the first chance he got, but he’s not mad? Right.” Lizzie couldn’t help but sound bitter as she spoke.

“I can’t speak for him, but I know him. He’s not mad, he’s just hurt about everything.” Lizzie could tell Calum was being very careful with his choice of words, and she eyed him curiously across the table.

“What does he possibly have to be hurt about? He’s the one that -” Lizzie catches herself halfway through her sentence, and squeezes her eyes shut as she inhales deeply.

“Here’s your receipt and your card back, miss. Thanks so much for visiting us today, have a lovely day!” Lizzie blinks and squints up at the waitress, who hands back her card and a paper receipt. Lizzie mumbles her thanks, and goes to stand up and slide out of the booth, and Calum follows her out of the café.

“Lizzie, I didn’t mean to upset you -” Calum’s apologetic tone had Lizzie spinning on her heel to face him once they’re through the doors of the café.

“You didn’t, Calum. It’s fine. I’m here to do a job, and I appreciate your time today, I really do. Michael and I… I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it, okay? I know it won’t be easy, but for now, I just want to focus on getting the best interview content I can from you all. That’s why I’m here.” Lizzie wrings her hands nervously, and she can feel how sweaty her palms are.

“Is that the only reason you’re here?” Calum’s tone isn’t teasing, or harsh. It’s genuine, curious, soft. He’s not moving as he stands in front of Lizzie and gazes down at her from his full height.

Before Lizzie can answer, Calum’s phone starts to ring, and he casts her another glance before stepping away to answer it. While he’s chatting to whoever’s on the other end of the line, Lizzie decides to order herself an Uber and make her way back to the hotel so she can make a start on transcribing the interview with Calum. Because that was why she was here, Lizzie told herself in her head, stubbornly. Didn’t matter about the feelings in her stomach, and the tightness of her chest. She was there to write a profile about a band, nothing more, nothing less.

“I’ve got to go and meet Ash at the studio, are you all good from here?” Calum’s question broke Lizzie out of her internal dialogue.

“Yep, all good. Thanks again for your time, Cal. I really appreciate it. I think it’s going to be a great piece, and I’m intrigued to see what comes out of the other interviews. All of them.” Lizzie’s pointed tone isn’t lost on Calum, and he grimaces slightly at the fire he seems to have ignited. Ah well. Lizzie and Michael had to sort their shit out sooner or later, right?

Right?

Calum was trying to convince himself as he strolled down the street towards his car, pondering if he’d made things better or worse between Michael, his best mate through almost his entire life, and Lizzie, the girl that he’d been sure Michael would love forever, but had walked away from in a shadow of hurt, betrayal, and disbelief. The girl that apparently had no idea Michael felt that way, or that if he did, it wasn’t justified. Someone’s side of the story just wasn’t adding up, but Calum wasn’t sure whose it was. Not anymore.

Taglist: If there’s a line through your name, I couldn’t tag you, so please message me to let me know your new URL or what the go is! @suchalonelysunflower @blackbutterfliescal @redrattlers @loveroflrh @spicycal @notinthesameguey @metalandboybands @cheekysos @ashton-trash @another-lonely-heart @queenalienscherrypie @becihadshawn @allthestarsandthemoon @wheniminouterspace

#5sos fanfiction #5sos imagine #calum hood imagine #calum hood fanfiction #michael clifford fanfiction #michael clifford imagine #ashton irwin imagine #ashton irwin fanfiction #luke hemmings imagine #luke hemmings fanfiction #my writing #everybody's got their demons even wide awake or dreaming #let me know what you thiiiiiiink #part 3 is already in the works but i figured i should post part 2 first lol oops

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brianwilly · 6 years ago

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Game of Thrones did the thing that a couple of shows do where...it likes feminism. It understood that feminism is important. It wanted to be feminist. It was cognizant of the fact that its setting was brazenly and intentionally misogynistic, and so it was even more important for its independent narrative to empower its female characters instead of mindlessly reinforcing the toxic beliefs of its own fictional world. The whole point of the story, after all, was “this society is toxic, can our heroes survive it?” and so the narrative was voluntarily self-critical.

And so it knew to give us badass assassin Arya. It knew to give us stalwart knight Brienne. It gave us the pirate queen and the dragon queen and the Sansa getting revenge after revenge upon all the men who’d wronged her, and far more besides, and it talked big about breaking chains and how much men fucked things up and how great it would be if only women were in charge and et cetera et cetera. And it’s, in fact, all actually really good that it had those things. And because there were so very many moving parts of this story, it was super easy to look at those certain moving parts and think, yeah, they’ve done it! They done good!

And it’s easy to forget and forgive -- to want to forget and forgive -- all the dead prostitutes that were on this show and the rapes used as motivation and fridgings and objectifications and the...y’know, whatever the hell Dorne was and Lady Stoneheart who? It’s easy to forget that this show actually played its hand a long time ago in regards to, like, what its relationship with feminism was going to be, and then kept playing the same hand again and again, to disappointing results.

Game of Thrones likes feminism. It wanted to be feminist. But its relationship with feminism was still predicated on some of the same old narratives and the same old storytelling trends that have disempowered female characters in the past, and so any progressive ideas it might have about women in its setting were nonetheless going to be constrained by those old fetters. As a result, its portrayal of women varied anywhere from glorious to admirable to predictable to downright cringeworthy.

New ideas require new vessels, new stories, in which to house them. And for Game of Thrones, the ultimate story that it wanted to tell -- the ultimate driving force and thesis statement around which it was basing its entire journey and narrative -- was unfortunately a very old one, and one very familiar to the genre.

“Powerful women are scary.”

(Yes, I’m obviously making Yet Another Daenerys Essay On The Internet here)

So we have this character, this girl really, a slave girl who was sold and abused, and then she overcomes that abuse to gain power, she gains dragons, and she uses that power to fight slavery. She fights slavery really well, like, she’s super hella good at it. Her command of dragons is the most overt portrayal of “superpowers” in this world; she is the single most powerful person in this story, more powerful than any other character and the contest is not close.

But then...something really bad happens and oops, she gets really emotional about it and then she’s not fighting slavery anymore...she’s kinda doing the opposite! This girl who was once a hero and a liberator of slaves instead becomes an out-of-control scary Mad Queen who kills a ton of innocent people and has to be taken down by our true heroes for the good of the world.

That’s the theme. That’s the takeaway here. That’s how it all ends, with one of the most primitive, archaic propaganda ever spread by writers, that women with power are frightening, they are crazy, they will use that power for ill. Women with power are witches. They are Amazons. They will lop off our manhoods and make slaves of us. They seduce our rightful kings and send our kingdoms to ruin. They cannot control their emotions. They get hot flashes and start wars. They turn into Dark Phoenixes and eat suns. They are robot revolutionaries who will end humanity. Powerful women are scary.

And let me emphasize that the theme here is not, in fact, that all power corrupts, because the whole Mad Queen concept for Daenerys actually ends up failing one of the more fundamental litmus tests available when it comes to representation of any kind: “would this story still happen if Dany was a man?” And the fact is that it would not. And indeed we know this for a fact because “protagonist starts out virtuous, gains power in spite of the hardships set against him, gets corrupted by that power, and ends up being the bad guy” didn’t happen, and doesn’t happen, to the guys in the very same story that we’re examining. It doesn’t happen to Jon Snow, Dany’s closest and most intentional narrative parallel. It doesn’t happen to Bran Stark, a character whose entire journey is about how he embroils himself in wild dark winter magic beyond anyone’s understanding and loses his humanity in the process. In fact, the only other character who ever got hinted of going “dark” because of the power that they’re obtaining is Arya, the girl who spent seven seasons training to fight, to become powerful, to circumvent the gender role she was saddled with in this world...and then being told at the end of her story, “Whoa hey slow down be careful there, you wouldn’t wanna get all emotional and become a bad person now wouldja?” by a man.

(meanwhile Sansa’s just sitting off in the side pouting or whatever ‘cuz her main arc this season was to, like, be annoyed at people really hard I guess)

‘Cuz that’s the danger with the girls and not the boys, ain’t it? Arya and Jon are both great at killing people, but there is no Dark Jon story while we have to take extra special care to watch for Arya’s precious fragile humanity. Dany has the power of dragons while Bran has the power of the old gods, but we will not find Dark Lord Bran, Soulless Scourge of Westeros, onscreen no matter how much sense it should make. “Power corrupts” is literally not a trend that afflicts male heroes on the same level that it afflicts female heroes.

Oh sure, there are corrupt male characters everywhere, tyrants and warlords and mafia bosses and drug dealers and so forth all over your TVs, and not even necessarily portrayed as outright villains; anti-heroes are nothing new. But we’re talking about the hero hero here; the Harry Potters, the Luke Skywalkers, the Peter Parkers. The Jon Snows. They interact with corruptive power, yes; it’s an important aspect of their journeys. But the key here being that male heroes would overcome that corruption and come through the other side better off for it. They get to come away even more admirable for the power that they have in a way that is generally not afforded towards female heroes.

There are exceptions, of course; no trends are absolutely absolute one way or the other. For instance, the closest male parallel you’d find for the “being powerful is dangerous and will corrupt your noble heroic intentions” trope in popular media would be the character of Anakin Skywalker in the Star Wars prequel trilogy...ie, a preexisting character from a preexisting story where he was conceived as the villainous foil for the heroes. Like, Anakin being a poor but kindhearted slave who eventually becomes seduced by the dark side certainly matches Dany’s arc, but it wasn’t the character’s original story and role. And even then?...notice how Anakin as Vader the Dark Lord gets treated with the veneer of being “badass” and “cool” by the masses. A male character with too much power -- even if it’s dark power, even if it’s corruptive -- has the range to be seen as something appealingly formidable, and not just as an obstacle that has to be dealt with or a cautionary tale to be pitied.

And in one of the few times that this trope was played completely straight, completely unironically with a male hero -- I’m thinking specifically of Hal Jordan the Green Lantern, of “Ryan Reynolds played him in the movie” fame -- the fans went berserk. They could not let it go. The fact that this character would go mad with power because a tragedy happened in his life was completely unacceptable, the story gained notoriety as a bad decision by clueless writers, and today the story in question has been retconned -- retroactively erased from continuity -- so that the character can be made heroic and virtuous again. That’s how big a deal it was when a male hero with the tiniest bit of a fan following goes off the deep end.

To be clear, I’m not here to quibble over whether the story of Dany turning evil was good or bad, because we all know that’s going to be the de facto defense for this situation: “But she had to go mad! It was for the sake of the story!“ as if the writers simply had no choice, they were helpless to the whims of the all-powerful Story God which dictates everything they write, and the most prominent female character of their series simply had to go bonkers and murder a bajillion babies and then get killed by her boyfriend or else the story just wouldn’t be good, y’know? Ultimately though, that’s not what I’m arguing here, because it doesn’t actually matter. There have been shitty stories about powerful women being bad. There have been impressive stories about powerful women being bad. Either way, the fact that people can’t seem to stop telling stories about powerful women being bad is a problem in and of itself. Daenarys’ descent into Final Boss-dom could’ve been the most riveting, breathtaking, masterfully-written pieces of art ever and it’d still be just another instance of a female hero being unable to handle her power in a big long list of instances of this shitty trope. The trope itself doesn’t become unshitty just because you write it well.

It all ultimately boils down to the very different ways that men and women -- that male heroes and female heroes -- continue to be portrayed in stories, and particularly in genre media. In TV, we got Dany, and then we also have Dolores Abernathy in Westworld who was a gentle android that was abused and victimized for her entire existence, who shakes off the shackles of her programming to lead her race in revolution against their abusers...and then promptly becomes a ruthless maniac who ends up lobotomizing the love of her life and ends the season by voluntarily keeping a male android around to check her cruel impulses. Comic book characters like Jean Grey and Wanda Maximoff are two of the most powerful people in their universe but are always, in-universe, made to feel guilty about their power and, non-diegetically, writers are always finding ways to disempower them because obviously they can’t be trusted with that much power and entire multiple sagas have been written about just how bad an idea it is for them to be so powerful because it’ll totally drive them crazy and cause them to kill everyone, obviously. Meanwhile, a male comic character like Dr. Strange -- who can canonically destroy a planet by speaking Latin really hard -- or Black Bolt -- who can destroy a planet by speaking anything really hard -- will be just sitting there, two feet on the side, enjoying some tea and running the world or whatever because a male character having untold uninhibited power at his disposal is just accepted and laudable and gets him on those listicles where he fights Goku and stuff.

In my finite perspective, the sort of female heroes who have gained...not universal esteem, perhaps, but at least general benign acceptance amongst the genre community are characters who just don’t deal with all that stuff. I’m thinking of recent superheroes like Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel, certainly, but also of surprise breakout hits like Stranger Things’ Eleven (so far) or even more niche characters like Sailor Moon or She-Ra. The fact that these characters wield massive power is simply accepted as an unequivocal good thing, their power makes them powerful and impressive and that’s the end of the story, thanks for asking. And when they deal with the inevitable tragedy that shakes their worldview to the core, or the inevitable villain trying to twist them into darkness, they tend to overcome that temptation and come out the other side even stronger than when they started. In other words?...characters like these are being allowed the exact same sorts of narrative luxuries that are usually only afforded towards male heroes.

The thing about these characters, though, is that they tend to be...well, a little bit too heroic, right? A lil’ bit too goody-two-shoes? A bit too stalwart, a bit too incorruptible? And that’s fine, there’s certainly nothing wrong with a traditionally-heroic white knight of a hero. But what I might like to see, as the next step going forward, is for female heroes to be allowed a bit more range than just that, so that they’re not just innocent children or literal princesses or shining demigods clad in primary colors. Let’s have an all-powerful female hero be...well, the easiest way to say it is let’s see her allowed to be bitchier. Less straightlaced. Let’s not put an ultimatum on her power, like “Oh sure you can be powerful, but only if you’re super duper nice about it.” Let us have a ruthless woman, but not one ruled by ruthlessness. Let us have a hero who naturally makes enemies and not friends, who has to work hard to gain allies because her personality doesn’t sparkle and gleam. Let her have the righteous anger of a lifelong slave, and let that anger be her salvation instead of her downfall.

In other words, let us have Daenerys Targaryen. And let us put her in a new story instead of an old one.

#Game of Thrones #Daenerys Targaryen #ASOIAF #A Song of Ice and Fire #Jon Snow #Bran Stark #Arya Stark #Dany #GoT #GoTedit #Overthinking #meta #essay

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renaerys · 4 years ago

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So I beat RE:8

And overall I SUPER enjoyed this game. I loved how it was an homage to the series to date. Castle Dimitrescu made me feel like I was back in the OG Resident Evil stealth-crawling my way through dungeons and puzzles and hoping not to get caught by the enemies. Lady Dimitrescu stalking you as you scramble to gather pieces of a puzzle to escape harkened back to the Tyrant in RE:2 chasing you around RPD HQ. Her daughters’ blow fly entrances were sincerely spine-tingling, and I was on the edge of my seat with each new door opened wondering if they’d found me yet. This level was truly a standout of the game.

The Beneviento House may actually have been my favorite, seeing as it was such a departure from the rest of the game without the use of weapons and having to rely on running and hiding to survive. I was at my most terrified and unsettled in that level dissecting doll!Mia and running from the baby creature in a way I didn’t feel throughout the rest of the game. It was so creepy and so tense, and the juxtaposition with the rest of the game really made it shine imo.

The Reservoir was probably my least favorite part. It felt too much like the action-y RE:6 against the boss, lots of cheap one-hit kill events that relied on timing, etc. It was the part where I died the most, whereas throughout the rest of the game I died maybe twice or three times.

Heisenberg’s factory was pretty scary and adrenaline-inducing fighting those awful chainsaw guys. Hot take: RE:5 was a great game and a lot of this level reminded me of the better parts of that game wrt the enemies and mowing them down. The layout was super cool, the fan guy was hilariously scary stalking you, and Heisenberg was as grandiose (and verbose) as Wesker once was back in the old days. I loved the molding puzzles, how the enemies would tear down walls to open new areas to explore, and the backtracking to explore it all once you had certain items in your possession.

Lastly, the Duke was an awesome character. Thanks for that fun call-back to RE:4′s shopkeeper, and most importantly for being an actual character whose presence was plot-relevant and even integral at times. He was charming and a thoughtful addition to the experience. All the voice acting was incredible, but I think the Duke and Lady Dimitrescu and Mia were standouts.

What I didn’t like... This game has a woman problem like whoa. When all your women exist either as damseled plot devices with no agency whatsoever, vehicles for manpain/revenge, and their main “nuance” is related to motherhood or seeking a mother-daughter relationship (because, you know, women be mothering), then you have a problem. A second hot take: Mia should have been the protagonist. She had training way before Ethan ever did, was in the know more than him, and wasn’t dead the whole time (sidebar: what the literal fuck is this plot contrivance). This game has shown us two kinds of women: either they are good mothers/daughters who eschew all else in favor of that relationship and stay in their lane (Mia and Rose, an agency-less baby and McGuffin), or they are corruptions of that role (i.e., Miranda selfishly killing everyone to get Eve back or Donna selfishly killing everyone to get a new mother a-la RE:7′s Eveline). Even the Dimitrescu ladies were almost entirely defined by their mother/daughter status, in Lady Dimitrescu’s case both. Is there truly no other motivation or nuance available to women in this universe??? 🙃🙃🙃

Mentioned before but worth repeating: Ethan was dead the whole time?! What a shitty contrivance. I mean, fine, but I didn’t like it at all. Another nit-picky thing that broke my suspension of disbelief: Alcina cuts his hand off and the magic herb chemicals that act as health in the game can reattach it... But they can’t regrow his fucking fingers??? What is consistency. 🙃

Heisenberg’s boss fight was dumb. There was no terror, very low stakes, and it felt like the worst of RE:6 action. It even had a gimmicky cinematic final shot that reminded me of those awful quick-time events. He was laughably easy to kill and held none of the dread of, say, Lady Dimitrescu’s daughers or the entirety of the Beneviento House. I don’t knock it as much because the rest of the Factory level was fabulous. The boss fight with the Fan Man was superb, scary, and tough, as well as “good” gimmicky. Unfortunately, Heisenberg’s final boss fight was the beginning of the end.

Chris finally tells us the truth through some truly excruciating exposition scenes, and like the NPCs who question his choices, I too was questioning him. Because his logic was super dumb. Why not tell Ethan to begin with? More on this below.

Mother Miranda was incredibly underwhelming as a boss. Chris’s part in the story was more over the top action, which is cool and fun if you like that (not really my thing, personally, but I can see why it could work for others). But Mother Miranda herself was a disappointment. I think the main reason was because we had almost no relationship with her. She was just a name who maybe is responsible for our McGuffin daughter being taken, but it never felt personal. Yeah, she can shape shift and we met her as the hag, but since we didn’t know that, the relationship aspect was never there/built upon. She felt like a random final boss with little skin in the game compared to, say, Heisenberg, who we actually did get to know more as we went along and maybe felt more complicated feelings toward in killing him.

This game could have been better if a few changes had been made.

1. Mia should have been the protagonist/deuteragonist. If we are truly supposed to be convinced by Chris’ stupid logic that Ethan cannot handle the truth, then why not make Mia the protagonist or even a secondary protagonist? Ethan and Mia could have both been working toward their goals with different information, similar to the situation in RE:7 toward the end of that game. Chris wouldn’t know Mia is alive, but she could be working against Mother Miranda directly while being experimented on/held captive. Ethan could do the main story that we got, while Mia sees a different side of the world digging deeper into Mother Miranda’s backstory and motivations, which would serve to flesh out her character (beyond the lazy corrupted motherhood narrative), touch on the relationship to Spencer and Umbrella Corp, etc. Ethan facing Miranda at the end, thus, would have felt super personal and significant having that emotional development through Mia. And Mia herself could be fleshed out more as a character beyond her role as wife and mother.

2. Bela, Daniela, and Cassandra deserved more, and Castle Dimitrescu should have been a longer arc. The daughters were killed pretty fast. I couldn’t name a single differentiating characteristic between them, which is a problem. And I wanted to know more! We got a little info about the experiments they endured. I wanted to feel like killing at least one of them was very personal and meant something (if we only got one of them really fleshed out, I mean. That would still be one more than we got.). This section could have been longer and benefited from it. Exploring that castle was so fun and I wanted more time there. Also, I’m gonna say it: the Reservoir could have been cut entirely and that time given to Castle Dimitrescu for three sub-bosses before Mother Miranda. Problem solved.

3. Chis could have had a more story-related role. Why not more cutscenes with Chris investigating/chasing Miranda to give us a buildup of breadcrumbs and foreshadowing to the final reveal in the end? Rather than an exposition dump?? This would be related to my point #1 in making Miranda feel more connected to the story as the big bad. We wouldn’t even have to play as Chris if we just got some cutscenes showing his team’s progress hunting Miranda, learning more about her, etc. Imagine if we got secondary protagonist Mia’s story with Chris in there alongside her, unknowing that she’s alive and yet affecting her progress or vice versa as they both hunt Miranda? So much potential there. Where is the fanfiction???

4. Sheva??? I know it’s just me but I mean... The BSAA coming in to help/fuck everything up could have been a great opportunity for a cameo from Sheva to reunite very briefly with Chris (and set up the next one??? When though.). Yeah, I’m RE:5 trash, okay. But she was a great character and I wish we could see her at ALL in any other games even as a cameo.

My final takeaway here is that I enjoyed this game immensely as a total experience. I’m already doing a New Game Plus on the Village of Shadows difficulty, so pray for me. I love the exploration and puzzling aspect, the combat is intense but not overwhelmingly action-y like RE:6 was, and I love the atmosphere of this game. I recommend it to anyone who likes survival horror. It’s not without its faults, and I really wish the RE team would hire some women for their writers’ room, but I’m still very happy with the end result overall.

#major spoilers for re8 #don't read this if you care about that #my personal review of the game #just my thoughts as i played through it #re:8

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bigskydreaming · 5 years ago

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Height discourse confuses me so much, because I, a 4'9 21-year-old Asian perceives anyone taller as tall. But reading international posts saying 5'6 is small makes me double-take, like, "Wut?"

LOL, ahh yes, the infamous “How Tall IS Dick Grayson Actually” discourse. I feel you. And I can definitely see how it would be bemusing as hell given your perspective, lmao.

And I mean, its definitely up there on the list of “Things I Can’t Believe There’s Actually Discourse About” buuuuuut I’m not really judging because I know damn well there’s a fuckton of shit I’ve Discoursed about on pretty much everyone else’s “Things I Can’t Believe There’s Actually Discourse About” list.

*Shrugs* But I also do get why it exists, if you scratch beneath the surface - as is often true of a lot of seemingly inane discourses. Its not really about height so much as it is about the why’s of writers specifying certain heights for him, and stereotypes associated with height.

On the one hand, you’ve got the fans who look at writers who make a point of writing Dick as particularly short, or the shortest of the Batfam once all of them are adults, and think: this is because of fandom’s fixation with writing Dick as effeminate or the least ‘manly’ of the Batfam, and thus I dislike it and do not trust this writer’s take on him.

Then on the other hand, you have the fans who look at objections like this and think: this is because of bullshit fostered by the toxic masculinity and sexism that’s so present in society, even women can be guilty of perpetuating the idea that there’s anything TO object about there, that a man being effeminate or less ‘manly’ than his brothers is some kind of insult or slight against him in the first place.

But then go back to the first hand.....

And on the one hand, of those fans, you’ve got the fans that don’t actually think there’s anything insulting about a man being effeminate or less manly themselves, but given that the bullshit fostered by the toxic masculinity and sexism in society is so everpresent, even women can be guilty of perpetuating the idea that ‘shorter = weaker’ etc, etc.......its not him being written as short that’s objectionable to them, its what they believe the writer is implying by making that distinction that they’re objecting to, like that it reads to them as though its being used as a smokescreen to create associations in readers’ minds, with the idea of him being weaker or softer or whatever the fuck compared to his brothers, without those writers actually having to SAY what they’re getting at there and spell it out. Plausible deniability kinda thing.

And then on the other hand, you have those fans who object to writing Dick as short because they actually DO buy into that bullshit and they ARE simply objecting to the idea itself because of toxic masculinity and sexism and etc etc.

But then go back to the original second hand.....

And on the one hand THERE, you have the fans whose responses to people objecting about writing Dick as short are based on exactly what they say they are......pointing out that its only objectionable if its viewed as insulting and the only reasons its viewed as insulting are toxic masculinity and sexism which they’re calling out as being perpetuated here.

And on the other hand there, you have those fans who DO buy into the associations between ‘shorter = weaker’ and actually ARE writing things that way with the intent of hoping to form that association in the minds of any readers who similarly buy into those lines of thought or are susceptible to it......and are simply using ‘arent you the REAL misogynist here for thinking shorter equals more feminine which equals weaker or frail or whatever’ arguments that are simply typical flipping the script tactics and hiding behind buzzwords they don’t actually believe in themselves but know are effective in getting people to back down, etc, etc. The plausible deniability thing.

And I’ve been out of hands here for awhile now, obviously, but you get what I mean. Round and round and round it goes, with the true point always hidden juuuuuuust beneath the surface, and more than a little tedious to have all unpacked and catalogued like here, which is a major factor in why so many people rarely dig beneath the surface of a seemingly inane discourse to get at what people are REALLY arguing about but nobody wants to ‘lose ground on’ by being the first to admit to.

As for me, again, this really isn’t a dicourse that I spend much time on because I’d rather cut straight to the point of an argument in general, and this isn’t an discourse that’s particularly amenable to people doing that, obviously.

And also, I honestly just don’t care that much. LOL. Yeah, I often read works where Dick is singled out as being distinctively shorter and feel an author is trying to ‘imply’ something and its the implications of that which are the source of any ‘Not Good, Scoob’ feelings rather than because I agree with what’s trying to be implied. But y’know......when an author IS playing that game and they actually do buy into toxic and sexist stereotypes.....I mean, there’s literally always other indications of this in their work, giving them away all over the place. So there’s honestly never really a time when his height itself is actually what that hinges upon, y’know?

So my big takeaway from all of this is: headcanon and write Dick as whatever damn height you feel like and if you want to imply something about him just fucking say it directly and if you want to accuse someone of something just fucking call it out directly.

*points to the above unpacking of this particular discourse and how fucking tedious and unnecessary so much of it is and all just because people won’t just say what they actually came to say or lay claim to what they actually said*

ANYWAY.

Personally, regardless of how Dick is written in a fic, I will always headcanon him as somewhere between 5′10″ and 6′1″ for reasons that are entirely irrelevant and meaningless to anyone but me, pretty much. LOL.

In my head, Dick obviously has to be that height because he’s walked a runway as a model before. That’s it. That’s the whole reason my mind automatically goes to that span when picturing him or reading something about him.

(As most people who have followed me for a bit know, I spent a number of years working in the TV industry. There were a couple years there where I did a little bit of print modeling too, nothing major at all, but enough to know that the fashion industry has a Very Definitive Thing about male runway models and height: If you are a male runway model, you are between 5′10″ and 6′1″. If you are not between 5′10″ and 6′1″, you are not a male runway model and you never will be. Its a Thing. And not one the industry is shy about.

Because of the fact that the fashion industry is mostly centered around women models with name recognition, and very few men who model have star power specifically in terms of modeling, rather than because of crossover/overlap with acting, there’s a major difference in how designers tend to approach designing for models. Most designers designing runway looks for women do so with specific models already in mind. Most designers designing runway looks for men do so without specific models in mind because there simply aren’t enough male models with the kind of branding/name recognition that does a designer any good.

So designers literally JUST design runway looks for men in that height range, and anyone outside that range would require tailoring that could feasibly throw off an entire runway look. So they just don’t do it, to the point that an agent or manager sending them someone outside that height range to consider for a job means that agent’s not getting called back, because they just gave themselves away as a clear amateur by not knowing better.

Of course, keep in mind that my experiences with modeling are based on the industry re: ten years ago, so it could be that things have changed in this regard since. But that was the status quo then.)

So yeah. Dick Grayson walked a runway for Cheyenne Freemont, thus in my mind he’s obviously between 5′10″ and 6′1″ lolol, because any up and coming designer trying to make a name for herself would absolutely know better than to send out someone shorter than that and still think anyone in the industry would take her seriously.

LOL. I told you it was inane. But in my defense, plenty of people headcanon that Dick HAS to be small because he’s a gymnast, and uh.....that is not how that works. Anyone can be an amazing gymnast, its just that smaller body types lend themselves to gymnastics better than bigger, bulkier bodies. And thus the competition oriented gymnastics SPORT heavily favors cultivating and training gymnasts on the smaller side, because coaches and endorsers are looking for literally any advantage possible.

(Being shorter means you have a lower center of gravity which is a help when balancing, or stabilizing yourself. Its easier for a shorter gymnast to keep their balance or to stick a landing. But it doesn’t become impossible just because someone’s hit six feet tall. It HELPS to be shorter. It doesn’t determine whether or not you can do a trick at all, much like being short and having a lower center of gravity by no means GUARANTEES you have good balance.)

And of course, though Dick excels at a ton of gymnastics, he is not and never has been a gymnast per se....he’s an acrobat. From a family of acrobats. Who have been doing this as a family business generationally, thus.....why would they have future height requirements when training their son in the family business? And being from a family of acrobats doesn’t ensure you’re going to be short, if your family members are not already short to begin with. Evolution does not give a fuck about future employment opportunities when selecting which gene sequences to flip on while in utero.

The correlation is ‘most gymnasts who excel at gymnastics feats are small,’ not ‘to excel at gymastic feats, you must be small.’

I am absolutely and completely just rambling now and have been for awhile so I’m gonna go beat up my insomnia until it caves and lets me go the fuck to sleep.

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yyxgin · 4 years ago

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i think what bugged me the most is i could say ‘they’re literal depression pills/they made me depressed’ and could reel off the side effect word for word (1/10 will experience mood swings (sometimes in the form of depression)) which was literally the first fricking side effect listed and the most common and she would still refer to it as me being sad literally seconds later in a convo. okay i never went to the doctor but when it occurred to me that, hey, something isn’t right, we were in the middle of a fucking pandemic!! i mean, we still are, but you get the point. this was right at the beginning when they basically closed everything as well so even if i wanted to i wouldn’t have been able to go see someone about it. but it’s whatever now, i don’t take them and i don’t have to give her any advice about them ✌️ i completely get the lack of validity about your emotions. that’s exactly how i felt.

i work so im not bothered about seeing people as i see them enough by my standards already but there is a helpful little voice in the back of my head reminding me that i still need to see my friends!! from before i got a job lol. i worked like 55 hours? my first proper week when i wasn’t on reduced hours and now i work maybe 30? which annoys me so i’m gonna ask for more bc i wanna buy a car and insurance. you still go to school, right? i feel like you’re more stressed about work considering you’re studying too. or were. have you just broken up from school? i don’t study, thank fuck, anymore, so i can do full time but i always get put on evenings so i’m thinking of getting a 9 to 5 bc then i can get the money i need.

a woman was rude to me bc her takeaway wasn’t ready bang on the clock when she turned up to pick it up. man it took literally every fibre in my being not to tell her to fucking leave me alone bc i’m a waitress?? what does she expect me to do??? i found out after but apparently our website tells you to allow a 15 minute slot when you order takeaway to pick up. i checked on this woman’s takeaway and told her it’d be ready in 10 minutes and she said sumn along the lines of ‘so 10 past 8?’. imma tell you straight i wasn’t looking at my phone so i assumed that meant the time was 8pm! (it wasn’t) she said to me ‘and i assume you’ll be knocking money off of the bill for that?’ and i politely replied ‘i can’t do that.’ bc i literally cannot. has to be a managerial figure. bearing in mind she’s already paid in full online???????? n she replies ‘do you wanna go suggest that?’ and nods towards the kitchen and i said no and walked off. the AUDACITY??? anyway i told my manager and she rolled her eyes and was like we don’t do partial refunds and said she’d talk to the woman when her order was ready. this woman was all up in my face saying ‘do you think that’s a reasonable time?’ asking if she should come back at 8:10 and im like idfk?? i have things to be doing can you fuck off?? no i didn’t say that but she says ‘i’ve got kids in the car with the engine running’ and i deadpanned ‘i didn’t tell you to leave your kids in the car with the engine running’ bc it was the first thing my brain thought of that wasn’t ‘sounds like a you problem to me’. in the end she left and came back but when she came back she was properly shouting at another waitress i work with and the girl was like 😄 your food was ready 20 minutes ago but you didn’t leave your details to be able to ring you to tell you it’s ready. she even re-mentioned the kids in the car saying they were starving and it was all our fault and the girl was like hmm okay. and then the woman said she was gonna leave a bad review on trip advisor!! and the waitress was like 😃 you do that bestie!! another great day on the grind :D (i forgot to say we were swamped on saturday so that’s why everything was so busy but she was literally the only one complaining that bad, like literally everyone could see we were struggling but they also were saying to wait staff things like ‘i know you can’t make things go quicker back there’ while we were apologising for the phat delay on their food).

another funny one (that made the barman laugh when i told it to him) was a grandma and a grandson in my section. the grandma was dictating his life jesus 😭 (not important but made me go 😳) but one of the girls cleared the table partially when i was doing sumn else so i finished it off and when we get back to kp she tells me the grandma complained the food was cold and without hesitation i said ‘well she fucking ate it all so tell her to fuck off and talk to someone who gives a shit’. she went quiet and i was like,, man i hope i didn’t scare her. but like. they cleared their plates. there was no food left. she didn’t call someone over. she didn’t say anything to anyone when they ask if it was okay. why wait until the end?? anyway i told thé barman and he giggled (he’s got a lovely laugh in my opinion bc it sounds like he’s snickering at everything). i was NOT going to tell my manager bc there’s literally no point. same day, later on, a man said his mussels were cold, i took them back and the kitchen cooked them again. i’d barely put the food down before he called me over (this one is a good one bc he hasn’t eaten EVERYTHING before complaining and therefore we can do something about the problem‼️) respect to that guy.

one of the girls gave me a lift home last night n the barman directed her right to my house without ever having been to my house before (his cousin used to live in the flats down the other end, he says) and when i messaged her later on thanking her and saying it was a bit sus that he directed her perfectly to mine n she said ‘hmm ben seems to go to yours more than he does his own home 🤔🤔🤔🤔’ bc apparently he was absolute shite at giving directions to his flat 😭 n e way he’s a sweetheart n he says he doesn’t like christmas anymore n he made me sad after he said that n i said i’d post coal through his letter box n he said i might as well n i was like okay this is an actual problem n now i’m gone be super nice to him at christmas bc he deserves so much more that the hand he’s been dealt. this convo happened after i let him try this herbal tea he said smelt nice n i said it tasted like christmas to me. he’s such a good person (despite literally everything he tells me about his past) n i cannot have him being a little humbug. god i think this crush i joked to you about is becoming a soft core friendship. like every fucking wattpad story out there. me n the girls agreed someone has to love him 🥺

okay im signing off now ily ~ 🌻

i am glad you are feeling better though, nobody deserves to suffer. and nobody deserves to have their emotions invalidated. remember that your emotions matter at all times. <3

yesyes i am still in school !! altough my summer break started on july 1st so i am not that stressed about managing many things at once anymore hh,, also you are working so much ??? damn ?? please remember to take some breaks and relax !! and meet your friends !!! have fun. i know you are saving up money but please dont overwork yourself !

wHY ARE PEOPLE SO RUDE OH MY GOD I SWEAR,,, i learned that while working with people. i just,, it feels like they are all looking down on me just because i am young and work there part-time. like bro,,chill. also i feel kind of bad when they ask me where stuff is and i cant tell them bc i have no idea but at the same time if people were all introverts like me i wouldnt have this problem. :) dfjk jk jk i should improve on that. i wish people were more nice to you !!! who do they think they are ?? like,,,,,why are you rude. this is clearly not your problem.

i like it when people tell you respectfully. like the guy you mentioned. because clearly what are you going to do about the cold food when they’ve eaten it all. where’s the logic.

IT SOUNDS LIKE HE IS OVER AT YOURS EVERY OTHER DAY DFJAKL that’s so funny. also i am bad at giving directions to my flat as well lmaoo poor ladies that drive me home from work sometimes. also i hate christmas as well lmaoo i feel that boy. its a little hard for me and i hope he doesn’t feel as bad during christmas this year when he has you around hihi,,, i fully stan this friendship. altough i am a big fan of friends to lovers if you know what i mean. in the energy of wattpad :))

ily !!!

#you can guess my mental stability by how quick i respond to asks #anyways #💌ask #🌻 anon

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anotherkindofmindpod · 5 years ago

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I just read both interviews, Part 1 and 2 of Jann Wenner's Rolling Stone Interview of 1971. It sounds as though John and the other Beatles DID have a realistic gripe about Paul taking over, directly projects, handing out musical assignments, etc., etc. and I'm sure he had the ego by this point to match! I would probably have become irritated by Paul as well. And no hints or even reading between the lines of John being emotionally hurt by Paul with regard to loss of intimate relationship.

Hello and thanks for writing in, Listener!First, I’d like to point out that we haven’t reached the Lennon Remembers portion of our Break-up Series, and will dig into it much more thoroughly in a future episode (stay tuned!).

Presumably this ask isn’t in response to anything we’ve actually discussed on the podcast, in which case I feel that I should explain that what we do on our show is reevaluate conventional wisdom and contextualize public statements within the realities of actual behaviors. In other words, not taking things like Lennon Remembers at face value is AKOM 101.

If what we were doing on this podcast was as easy as simply reading the most infamous interview John Lennon ever gave (the one upon which the conventional story of the Beatles break-up is founded), it wouldn’t be much of a podcast or a very groundbreaking analysis, would it?

Second, I’d like to mention that listeners/readers can hear the entire (3.5 hours!) interview on You Tube. Very evocative with audio! Wenner’s editing in the print versions often make John sound more coherent and less vitriolic towards everyone but Paul than the audio reveals (i.e. the shitty comments about Paul are always printed but the ones about George, Brian, etc often aren’t).

Next, we’d like to state the usual disclaimer (which everyone is probably already aware of but is a good reminder anyway!): John later disavowed this interview. In fact, he was so angry at Jann Wenner for publishing it as a book, it apparently created a permanent rift between the two. You may choose to view/value this interview as John being super honest, but please consider that in this allegedly “truthful” book/interview, John:

claims George is musically/creatively inferior to John

declares the McCartney album “rubbish”

reveals his belief that he and Paul’s confidence levels are intrinsically, inversely related to one another

says George was so aggressively rude to Yoko that John wished he would’ve punched him over it

proudly admits that he “maneuvered” the other Beatles to get Klein in as manager

bemoans the fact that everyone says Brian Epstein was so great “just because he’s dead” and that Brian cheated and robbed the Beatles

makes derisive comments about “fags” at least five times in the printed version alone and calls Lee Eastman “a wasp Jew, man, that’s the worst kind of person on earth.”

admits to lying in interviews and deflects accountability on the basis of being “just a guy” who mouths off about stuff

As for Paul, John is admittedly all over the place, swinging fairly wildly from nostalgic (reminiscing about having “a good mind like Paul’s” on his side and co-writing with their “fingers in each others’ pies”) to bitter (”Paul thought he was the Beatles,” etc).

As for the accusations that Paul was tyrannical, we’ve addressed these before (particularly in Break-Up Episode 2). Just as Geoff Emerick, Michael Lindsay Hogg and Doug Sulpy (and even John, when he was feeling more generous) have articulated, we too feel that Paul stepped up and led the band in a time of need and deserves unequivocal credit for that. We believe much of the subsequent complaining from the other Beatles is akin to the kind of griping one directs at a colleague who gets promoted (“who died and made you king!?”) and while some of it was likely based in genuine irritation at Paul’s communication style, much of it was probably petty. This is why we are looking at the situation from all angles, to get a better sense of what is reality v. spin. In any case, we don’t dispute that there were power struggles within the band.Any reader is free to choose John’s side in any/all of these battles. But our overall takeaway from this particular interview is that John was unloading a lot of pent-up rage; against teachers, fans, Aunt Mimi, his mum, critics, Paul and anyone else who didn’t properly recognize his genius and praise him for it.

“That’s what makes me what I am. It comes out, the people I meet have to say it themselves, because we get fuckin’ kicked. Nobody says it, so you scream it: look at me, a genius, for fuck’s sake! What do I have to do to prove to you son-of-a-bitches what I can do, and who I am? Don’t dare, don’t you dare fuckin’ dare criticize my work like that. You, who don’t know anything about it.”

Based solely on Lennon Remembers, one could reasonably believe John didn’t like anyone but Yoko and Allen Klein (of whom he also speaks with reverence). Fortunately, John gave a million other interviews in his lifetime, so even though this one is given a disproportionate amount of weight (probably b/c it is the most inflammatory and “raw”) we can compare John’s comments, behavior and art over a broad spectrum of time. We feel this gives us a better, more thorough and more authentic portrait of John’s POV. This is a good idea with ANY public figure, but especially important in John’s case, since, by his own admission he has a tendency to say what he feels in the moment and doesn’t necessarily stand by his own statements afterwards.

John in 1976: “I get a bit absolute in my statements. [laughs] Which sometimes get me into deep water, and sometimes into the shallow.”

To your other point, our overall impressions about John’s feelings regarding “loss of an intimate relationship” with Paul certainly do not hinge on Lennon Remembers, nor have we ever suggested they do. In fact, LR is commonly used as the primary proof-point by McCartney detractors and Lennon/McCartney deniers (those who willfully and sometimes passionately ignore and/or deny the deep love between John and Paul, as described by John and Paul themselves and everyone in their lives) that Paul was a tyrant who destroyed the Beatles with his massive ego.

We have never disputed the existence of Paul’s ego. But consider this: John refers to himself as an egomaniac REPEATEDLY throughout this interview. Why is there a loud faction of people who consider John being an avowed egomaniac perfectly reasonable (sexy even!), but find it unforgivable that Paul is the same way? Consider these excerpts from Lennon Remembers:

Do you think you will record together again?

I record with Yoko, but I’m not going to record with another egomaniac. There is only room for one on an album nowadays.

How would you assess George’s talents?

[…] Maybe it was hard for him sometimes, because Paul and I are such egomaniacs, but that’s the game.

Who do you think is good today? In any arts…

The unfortunate thing about egomaniacs is that they don’t take much attention of other people’s work. I only assess people on whether they are a danger to me or my work or not.

[Tangential]

But the Beatles were artists, and all artists have fucking’ big egos, whether they like to admit it or not […]

Yes, John rants repeatedly about Paul’s ego during this interview- while he simultaneously declares his own genius and artistic superiority over others. We find it mind-boggling how this irony continues to evade some people, but there it is.

George Harrison has repeatedly complained about BOTH John & Paul’s egos (and their shared ego IRT “Lennon/McCartney”), but again, this is often ignored in favor of singling out Paul as the villain.

Furthermore, it’s helpful to bear in mind when consuming Lennon Remembers that John and Yoko had received training in media-messaging by this point and were very savvy at Public Relations. We know from people close to them that they drafted their stories in advance before offering them to the public. This fact, combined with Lennon’s tendency to “mouth off” means we have the right and responsibility to question and examine John’s claims rather than simply parrot them mindlessly.

If you are genuinely interested in our take, we recommend our Break-Up Series. We think you will find it well-researched and thoughtful, even if you disagree with some of our conclusions.

Or if you simply dislike McCartney and find him “irritating,” that’s fine too. Not everyone has to like everyone!

For additional discussion/analysis of Lennon Remembers, I recommend any of several threads on Erin Torkelson Weber’s site, the Historian and the Beatles.

the flawed lens of Lennon v. McCartney

Jann Wenner’s bio

how Rolling Stone shaped the breakup

discussing a podcast appearance

Thank you so much for this ask! It is always a pleasure to share information. Have a wonderful day.-The AKOM crew

#Lennon Remembers #John and Paul #jann wenner #anotherkindofmind podcast #Beatles #HAPPY VALENTINES DAY

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monkey-network · 5 years ago

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My Issues with Butch Hartman

Call this the sequel to my post on Mr. Enter. But honestly compared to Enter, Butch Hartman has made himself look far worse in so little time. Not only with how he uses his influence, but he basically showed his true colors not long after he left Nickelodeon. With Enter, the worst you can say about him is his opinions on media and his politics. With Hartman, there is a surprisingly lot more under his belt that made the hate towards him .

To preface this, while I’m gonna shit on this dude, I’m not shaming anyone who still likes his past content. With that said, bibbity Boppity boopity. Let’s look at the fucking scoopity.

The Telltale Oaxis

This really takes the cake as the scummiest thing Butch has done. Words and opinions can be one thing, but using your platform to basically trick some people out of their money for a project you abandoned for the most part grinds me gears a lot more. As bad as his marketing strategy was, at least Enter provided effort in his indiegogo project beforehand for god’s sake. Oaxis is one of the most pitiable crowdfunded projects I’ve seen.

It’s nearly two years since Butch got Oaxis funded and what have gotten beyond pure dead silence. Nearly two years and little to no significant updates for Oaxis’s Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, his Youtube, or the site’s official account. No wait, that last part’s kind of a lie. They had monthly updates on the official site up until September 2019. Could’ve posted this on their social medias but you take what you can get.

The major takeaway from the updates, in all fairness, was that the kickstarter wasn’t enough and they still need to raise more funds for the service. The “capital-building” stage he calls it where he’s looking for more investors in addition to getting actual programs onto the service. That and Oaxis is a big vision for Butch and his wife in spite of not only giving up the monthly updates and basically secluding any mention of Oaxis from any place else. That’s basically it and I legit feel sorry for everyone that couldn’t get their refund back.

This isn’t HBO Max or Disney+ where you just expect them to have something together after their initial announcement because they’re already media conglomerates, this is an independent project. One that people, your fans included Butch, put over 200K thinking you would at least give people something. But beyond a “sizzle reel” that said nothing aside from Oaxis going to be a thing, you have presented jack after two years. I don’t expect the ins and outs of every business meeting with executives, but staying silent about everything except for monthly newsletters that offer very little encouraging progress and hasn’t updated since September of last year is not a good sign. And I’m especially hard on this topic, Butch, because this is the biggest point where it is seriously hard to trust you. It’s not criticizing your ego when after having too many cracks in your story, you really haven’t put your money where your mouth is.

I don’t wanna presume the guy’s given up on it, hoping everybody would forget it after a while, but he’s really put the effort in to make Oaxis feel like a afterthought. I’m not an expert in business, but even I can believe that after his non-apology for not being upfront with his initial intentions, that he’d try to provide updates on the project to not come off as the scam artist people have accused him as. Even with his Youtube channel that I’ll get to later, I don’t think it’s hard consistently posting about your so called vision if you have that much faith in its success. You’ve already gotten thousands of bucks initially with the crowdfund, people deserve more than your pitiful wishful platitudes and I unfortunately can’t believe you’ll have anything after a few years. It’s not that everyone forgot about it, but you mostly took the money and ran. If Butch pops up with something if he sees this somehow, I’ll eat that crow, but I sincerely doubt it after this long. Like at least post something on the Twitter, I get depressed just looking at it; that account is the textbook definition of famine.

The Childhood Reposter

I’ve brought up Butch’s youtube channel a couple times, and it’s when every time I look at it, it’s a little sad. When it comes to major creators, I typically think that after finishing their projects they’d move to newer things. People like Lauren Faust, Mike Judge, CH Greenblatt are all continuing to make new works under differing studios while new creators are getting the spotlight. Butch though? I mean, he has a new cartoon that I swear you’ve never heard about but other than that, the dude looks like he has little to say for himself nowadays beyond the 2 shows he’s famous for, Fairly Odd Parents and Danny Phantom. I would’ve added TUFF Puppy and Bunsen is a Beast but I can see that those two aren’t his major players seeing as how they’re rarely ever mentioned on the channel.

If it’s not some watchmojo level meme video, almost every other video is about either two of those shows in some varied fashion. I get that he “created your childhood” and made credulous bank from Nickelodeon, but it’s like Danny Phantom is all that stands between him and having an audience. That and drawing anime characters in his style which is... y’know, I’ll leave that to you. It’s like he retired and yet goes on about the good old days like a fluctuating ego. He’s still making a cartoon but to him that’s hardly a factor compared to his known successes.

Personally, I wouldn’t want to just be known as the guy who made two of your countless beloved cartoons. Not that that’s all he talks about, but it’s the insistence of his legacy that unfortunately gives me Bojack Horseman vibes. He no doubt has a good thing going but I believe that this isn’t gonna last. Just saying, dude has 850K subscribers and unless it’s a real hook like with the recent Danny Phantom/Jake Long death battle, he’s hardly getting a good fraction of views anymore. There’s only so many times you can milk Danny Phantom as your masterpiece before everyone moves on.

The Holy Boast

I wanna make this short because I’m not a huge talker of religion, but I stand to say that you should NOT, under any circumstance, believe BPD, PTSD, autism, fucking heart & kidney failure can be “cured” or “healed” through sermons of prayer. This here? This is genuinely something else.

https://www.healingjourneys.today/

For clarity, this was a gospel conference hosted by Butch and his wife and yes, they openly proclaim that BPD, austism, and heart disease can be cured through prayer of holy worship.

Now, I’m gonna give a full disclosure right here because this most certainly biases my point here, like I’m gonna own this. But my grandpa was a religious man that suffer from health problems. He notably prayed to carry on, yes, but at the same time he sought medical help. Even he told me that prayers wasn’t gonna keep the pacemaker going, he went to the doctors and actually did more than read the bible to improve himself. He unfortunately passed, but he was in his 70s and I honestly couldn’t believe, as hard as I try, that he was gonna live forever. My grandpa would’ve no doubt died far earlier if he followed this conference’s logic.

My point is that this is personally unsettling. I seriously cannot believe this is how autism and religion works and it blows my mind that him and his wife thought this conference was a suitable idea. I’m not bashing them as christians, but thinking mental disorders and bodily diseases can be done away with motivational seminars because that’s basically what they are is a legit slap to the face. And the seedling idea that they’ve done this before blows my mind.

The Financial Flaker

This is very recent and everything is generally explained in the 12 minute video but long story short: Butch hired an artist and never paid them for their work. The artist in question, Kuro, describes what happened between him and Butch in this video and provides receipts. Can’t really add anything to this myself beyond this just builds to the idea that Butch cannot be trusted as a professional business maker. I believe he still has people working for him but from this video, it tells me that Hartman will gladly use those lower than him in favorable pursuits and will gladly throw ignorance when he wants to because his cartoon veteran status presents that shield from thinking he can do no wrong, which can mean throttling his hires. Let’s end this.

youtube

The Conclusion

When I get down to it, Butch is almost a Machiavellian character in a way. It’s amazing how much the trust people have had with Hartman have evaporated in less than a couple years. It’s amazing how much his ego has truly shown after he stopped being a namestay in Nickelodeon. Haven’t even mentioned the times he arrogantly deflected criticism because he was a namestay at Nick and how a couple who’ve worked with are well aware of his ego. I can’t help but believe that even after everything, he claims ignorance to his fall from grace and keeps going. Even when more and more are knowing his true self, he’s mostly just doing what he’s been doing for the past few years.

It’s respectable in a way, but shows that the world will move on without him. Again, if you like Danny Phantom and Fairly OddParents, I won’t judge you for it nor say you should be ashamed. This isn’t about cancelling Butch, or get him to stop spreading whatever wacky things he believes in. It’s my personal take of how this man whom I once respected because of what he made before has lost every bit of that from me. It really feels like he grew up with that “I Created Your Childhood” mentality being a 4 time showrunner for almost a couple decades. And when he finally left Nickelodeon, I guess the chance to be that stand out self-made success got to his head and he finally showed his true colors. I now find it hard to believe Butch cares about the little guy that were his fans as much as he rides off his success and others who tolerate him. As such, like JK Rowling, more are seeing this side of him and leaving him behind. Meanwhile Butch is gonna chug on until he just loses steam. It’s kinda like Icarus where the guy will make every effort to fly to the sun. But sooner or later, he’s gonna fall, and in the end I doubt anyone’s gonna care to see it. I know he won’t.

#butch hartman #nickelodeon #animation #long post #sorry for the rant n bant

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yourmandevine · 4 years ago

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Some stuff that made me happy in 2020, in no particular order

God send you no greater loss. It’s something my grandmother said a lot — a bit of highly Irish Catholic wisdom intended to remind you, warmly but sharply, that whatever you’re currently suffering through isn’t all that bad compared to what lots of other people are dealing with. That it probably isn’t too much to complain about, in the grand scheme of things. That you should, instead, be grateful for what you’ve got, big and small and everything in between.

God sent a great many people a great many unfathomable losses this year, and as hard as it felt at times, our family wasn’t among them; we’re lucky, in the big picture. In the past, people have recommended I try writing those reasons down, to give myself a list of stuff to be thankful for, for the times it’s tough to summon up the gratitude. I figured the end of the year was as good a time as any to make that list, to highlight the stuff that helped me get through this year — the reasons big, small, and in between.

So: here goes.

Peanut butter and jelly

I haven’t counted how many peanut butter and jelly sandwiches I’ve eaten since March 11, which is good, because that would be an absurd thing to do, and a sure sign that I have succumbed to a very specific kind of madness. It’s also good, though, because I would undoubtedly be ashamed by the number; the figure would be titanic, like the unsinkable ship of same name, or the iceberg that sunk it.

Or, at least, I would be ashamed under normal circumstances. This fuckin’ year required whatever flotation device you could find, and you know what I found in the fridge and cupboard? A couple of slices of bread, some strawberry jam, and some goddamn Skippy.

Need a weird mid-morning “brunch” after not having breakfast because you went right from waking up to remote school with the 6-year-old? Crank up a PB&J with that third cup of coffee. Need to pack something in the diaper bag to feed everyone while you’re out at the playground for the afternoon? Stack ‘em up, son. Need a late snack after working the overnight shift filing weird bubble playoff columns? Three letters, one ampersand, one love.

I need to eat better in 2021. But I kind of needed to eat sort of like shit to get through 2020, and time and again, when your man needed it most, PB&J was there.

Sunday night Zoom sessions with college friends

I know that most of us started something like this back in March; I’m not sure how many have stuck with it. I hope the answer is “a lot,” because honestly, knowing that I’m going to end the week by seeing a few friends — some here in Brooklyn but mostly beyond our reach for safety’s sake, some who’ve moved away — has felt like a stabilizing agent on more than a few occasions. It’s important, and no small blessing, to have people in your life who really know you, weird messy ugly bits and all, and in front of whom you can let everything go.

That gallery view’s provided a place to vent, to seethe, to laugh, to cry, and to try to find some semblance of center before heading back into another week. I’m grateful for it, and for the people in those little boxes. Except for the time they reminded me that, when I was 18, I was pretty sure I was a Pacey, and they were all extremely confident I was a Dawson. They were right, but still: a bitter pill to swallow, then and now.

Olivia calling herself “Dr. Bloody”

She took out her little toy doctor kit and just turned into a cackling villain.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Dan Devine (@yourmandevine)

Deeply disconcerting, yes, but also adorable.

All Fantasy Everything

What got me in the door was the conceit: three very funny stand-up comedians (Ian Karmel, David Gborie, Sean Jordan), often with a very funny guest but sometimes without, pick some topic or another and engage in a fantasy draft of their favorite aspects or representations of that topic. (It is, crucially, a serpentine draft. Now what is that? That’s a great question.) Some favorite examples: Mikes; Words That You Think Make You Sound Smart, vols. 1 and 2; Things You Yell After You Dunk on Someone; Fictional Athletes; Crimes We’d Like to Commit. Yeah. It’s that kind of podcast.

What kept me around was the friendship. Listen to an episode and it becomes really clear really quickly just how much the three hosts love each other, how much fun they have being around each other and making one another laugh. The warmth radiates, just pours out of the speakers; in a year where I sorely needed some good vibes, I appreciated my regular check-ins with the Good Vibes Gang to just ... unclench for an hour and a half or so.

Drinking beer

OK, I’ll admit: This doesn’t sound great for me. It’s true, though. I really like beer. (We brewed one in our kitchen, which I realize is something of a “bearded guy in Brooklyn” cliche, but here we are. It was exciting to complete a project, and it tasted OK-ish.) At some points this year, it didn’t feel like there wasn’t much to look forward to, and sometimes drinking some High Lifes or Narragansett tall boys — with my wife in our living room, with friends on the computer, whatever — helped take the edge off a shitty day/week/month/year. I look forward to being able to do that outside with people again.

The Good Place

I am sure some very smart cultural critics and political thinkers and social revolutionaries have forwarded compelling arguments for why this show is Bad, Actually, because that seems to be more or less true about most things, whether because said thing is Actually Bad or because the economics of the attention economy on the internet functionally necessitate the composition and publication of pretty much every position on pretty much every issue, and especially ones that present a counterargument for why you shouldn’t like the thing you like, and might be kind of a piece of shit for liking it. But I liked this half-hour comedy about the way the universe might be put together, why we should try to take better care of each other, and how doing so might be a pretty great way to take better care of ourselves.

Andrew let me write about it a little bit for a big project we did before the series finale aired, which was really nice of him. I found myself thinking about this part a lot this year:

I also thought a lot about Peeps Chili, but that happens every year.

Taking pictures of my dog

Check out this flumpy goddamn champion:

“Lugar is a good boy” is the main takeaway here. They don’t all have to be complicated.

Schitt’s Creek

I know we’re not alone in this, but we inhaled this show this year. A half-hour comedy about people being laid low, learning how to deal with who they actually are, and finding some grace and community and opportunities for growth kind of hit the spot, I guess.

One of the most wholesale enjoyable ensemble comedy casts I can remember; Catherine O’Hara was already in Cooperstown, but what she made with Moira Rose only polishes her plaque. I’ll never be able to describe with any specificity the thing Chris Elliott does, but I know it has made me laugh since I was a child too young to understand the Letterman bits or see Cabin Boy in the theater, and it’s probably going to make me laugh until I am dead.

I love that people who, for years, never got to see themselves or people like them on screen got to see David Rose on screen and maybe recognize themselves a little bit. The idea that seeing the David/Patrick relationship might make them maybe feel a little more at home, a little safer and more whole, makes me happy. Sad, about the before, but happy, about the now and the what comes next.

Past that, I just love how what was ostensibly a family-and-friends production for a Canadian channel just got absolutely everything right—the tone, the look, the sound, the theme song, the cast, the jokes, my goodness, the jokes—and before long, the rest of the world just got it. Like catching a fastball square on the barrel. Something the show clearly knew a little bit about.

Finding new outdoor places it was safe to go

Necessity is the mother of invention, and the need to give the kids a place to be that wasn’t unnecessarily dangerous but also wasn’t inside our two-bedroom apartment led us to do more exploring than we had before. Shirley Chisholm State Park is great. Canarsie Pier was a fun place to spend a Sunday morning; so’s Canarsie Playground. If we got there early enough or made our peace with some rain, the beaches at Jacob Riis Park and Fort Tilden were pretty rad this summer. I lived in Staten Island from ages 8 through 18, and during breaks throughout college, and don’t think I ever hiked in High Rock Park — that’s dumb, because it was nice!

Even if all those little excursions did was kill a little time and reduce the overall stress level of the four humans stuck in our four walls, that’s not nothing. Some days this year, it was everything.

Cobra Kai

I know I’m late here; I didn’t rush to seek it out because I don’t consider myself a huge fan of The Karate Kid, or at least not a big enough fan to sign up for YouTube’s premium service. I checked it out when it came to Netflix, though, and I honestly can’t believe how much I enjoyed this show. Give me “dumb, but with heart” every day of the week.

I believe in Miguel Diaz; I believe in Johnny Lawrence; I believe I will be firing up Season 3 next month, and perhaps drinking some Coors Banquets in its honor. (I cannot, however, believe how the “get him a body bag” thing came back around, but that’s neither here nor there.)

Closing unread tabs

I’m a serial hoarder of links, and I am bad at finishing all of them. I’ve tried to get into Pocket and Instapaper, but I’ve never been able to turn that sort of workflow — open link, save to third-party service, go back to third-party service later to read, then delete from there — into something that felt instinctual, natural, or habitual. So: lots of tabs. Like, lots of tabs.

This was a dicier proposition than usual in 2020, because cutting my work week in half to be able to more effectively coparent two kids who didn’t have school or day care for most of the year meant less time to read things.

I tried to do my best to keep up with the important stuff for work, and to read at least some stuff about how other parents were dealing with their anxiety/anger/depression/frustration at having to be on 24/7 and work, and to stay abreast of (at least some of) what was happening in the world. Sometimes, though, I would wake up and realize I’d been holding onto blog posts about Really Interesting Rotation Decisions on the 11th-Seeded Team in the East or whatever for literally nine months, and I would go against my nature and just hit the eject button on a 25-deep window, and something amazing would happen: I wouldn’t get fired for being shitty at my job. I would move on with my day, and I would feel about 10 pounds lighter.

I still keep too much stuff open. (As we speak, I’ve got three different Chrome windows open on two different laptops. I choose not to count the total tabs.) But I do so knowing that, if it gets too heavy, I can experience the momentary joy of surrendering to the inevitability that I can’t catch everything. In that moment, I feel OK with my decay.

Reading writers I wasn’t familiar with before

Two in particular stand out in my mind: Nekias Duncan, now of BasketballNews.com, who does excellent film breakdowns and statistical analysis, and Katie Heindl, who writes basketball stuff of all types all over the place, and strings sentences together in a way that scratches an itch inside my brain. I’m grateful I got more chances to read them this year, I look forward to bigger and better things for both of them, and I’m hopeful that, if things calm down and our schedules go back to something approximating normalcy, I’ll have more bandwidth to hunt out more new voices in the year ahead.

The time I ambushed my wife as she was trying to break down and put away the girls’ space tent

Pretty good.

Siobhan learning to ride a bicycle (with training wheels, but still)

The moment passed pretty quickly; Not Exactly A Mechanic over here can’t get the training wheels to reliably work right without either loosening them too much or tightening them so much that she can’t pedal it. In that first moment, though, and for as long as it lasted, it was really great to see her get excited about doing something new, big kid shit, for the first time.

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She was proud. I was proud of her. And then we went to a playground for a few hours. Pretty good day.

Tyler Tynes roasting me

Tyler did some incredible work this year — The Cam Chronicles is getting deserved praise as one of 2020′s best podcasts, and his reporting on the Movement for Black Lives was exemplary. It’s hard to top this, though:

You know what the messed up part is? I was excited to tell him what I was doing, just because I knew the reaction would be so violent. Like a body rejecting a transplant. So lucky to have such a dear, dear friend.

PUP

I’m late on everything, so I didn’t start listening to PUP until the spring of 2019, but I haven’t really stopped since. This year has been too sedentary too often; this band is too kinetic to allow me to stay there.

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“Bloody Mary Kate and Ashley Kate” is never more than about 20 minutes away from returning to the front of my mind. I would fucking love for it to be safe enough to watch these guys live at some point, and I am absolutely going to take Steve up on his offer.

Someone sending me a shirt based on a joke I tweeted

First:

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Then:

I’m not sure you should be rewarding my behavior, SnoCoPrintShop, but I appreciate it all the same.

Which reminds me:

Family dinner/family movie night

My wife works in Manhattan and commutes back on the train, and we've tried to prioritize getting the girls to bed early since they were little, so that doesn’t leave much of a window between when she gets home and they go in the tub for us all to connect; before everything shut down, we almost never really ate together. We’re still not great about it, but for a while now we’ve carved out Saturday as family dinner night, where we sit down to eat and talk about our “up” from the day — something that happened that made us feel good or happy, or something we’re looking forward to. (We used to talk about our “down,” too, but that kind of seemed like overkill. Why try to focus on more bad shit right now, you know?)

Then we settle in for a movie, with who gets to pick rotating each week. It’s mostly been Pixar, which has been great but also has its drawbacks; after she caught me crying during one of them (maybe the Bing-Bong scene in Inside Out? or Miguel singing to Grandma Coco?), Siobhan straight up told me, “You need to get yourself together, man.” We just watched My Neighbor Totoro, too, which they loved, so we’re probably going to try some more Miyazaki soon. It’s a really simple thing, but it’s one we rarely made time for before, and it’s been really nice to manufacture something positive that we can share and look forward to together.

Sometimes looking like a shiftless drifter

No shade to anyone who felt strongly about getting a lineup or whatever, but I haven’t really felt like going to the barbershop was worth the risk, and I continue to refuse to believe that my wife can actually pull off the fade she’s long wanted to give me. (It is also possible that she just means she’s intending to run my fade, and that I will before long wind up cold-cocked and slumped by my bride of nine years.) So I’ve just kind of been growing out my hair like it was when I was single, and sometimes been letting my beard get kind of out of control too, and, well, I sort of like looking a little bit like a Wildling, it turns out.

I have since trimmed things up a little. It didn’t go over well with my youngest. Oh, well. I’ll try to do better next time.

My wife and daughter singing the Pixies

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We don’t know all the words to too many lullabies, so we sing the ones we do know the words to. This will probably come back to bite us in the years ahead. For now, though: Pretty good.

Doughboys’ Tournament of Chompions: Munch Madness: Mac Attack

I can’t believe how invested I became in Nick Wiger and Mike Mitchell’s quest to determine the best menu item at McDonald’s in a 64-seed tournament that spawned hours and hours of delightfully funny audio featuring all-time home-run guests like Jon Gabrus and Nicole Byer, who gleefully feed into the often warm, sometimes antagonistic, always entertaining chemistry between the two hosts. I have also never found myself wanting to go to McDonald’s more in my entire life. I have hit the drive-thru a couple of times since, and the boys are right: The McDonald’s fountain Coke does just hit different.

Sound Only

I’ve lost track of whether or not a 38-year-old is considered a millennial, but I’m quite confident that I’m not exactly plugged into “the millennial lifestyle” as my teammates Justin Charity and Micah Peters discuss it on their podcast, which relaunched this summer. Doesn’t matter, though, because I love hearing Charity and Micah talk to each other even if I don’t know what they’re talking about.

Their conversation about Dave Chappelle was great. After listening to their Travis Scott episode, I felt like I kind of understood who he is and why he occupies the space he does in pop culture now. I had no idea how they were going to get me to give a shit about set photos from The Batman, but this they not only got me there, but wended their way toward blaming 50 Cent for needing to know who Groot is to have a conversation on the internet, which is something for which Abraham Lincoln did not die. The show is good, it's getting better, it’s fun to hear them talk their shit, and Charity’s regular bellowing of “I, TOO, AM AMERICA” has made me smile for four straight months.

Siobhan’s letters and notes

She’s in first grade now, and she’s taken to communicating her feelings through the written word. A lot.

I won’t pretend that I loved all of these in the moment. I can only get so upset, though, when she’s already writing with such a clear voice. (And trying to use proper punctuation. (And drawing little cartoons to drive the point home.)

Palm Springs

I’m having a hard time remembering too many specifics about it right now, which probably means it’d be a good thing to rewatch over the holidays. But, as I’m sure many people noted many months before we got around to watching it, a comedy about living the same day over and over again, and about trying to figure out how to make your life mean something when everything seems meaningless, scratched a pretty particular, and particularly important, itch this year. It could’ve been twice as long, and I would’ve eaten up every second of Andy Samberg and Cristin Miloti together.

I’m pretty sure I cried, although this year, that doesn’t necessarily mean much. Also, put Conner O’Malley in more things.

Joining our union’s bargaining committee

I won’t say too much about this, but I will say that becoming an active participant in the process of a labor union negotiating its first contract with management has been an extremely educational experience. It’s pushed me to have conversations, sometimes difficult ones, about our priorities as a staff and a company. It's helped me get closer with the other past and present members of the BC, and has led me to start developing relationships with members of our staff that I otherwise might not have had much of an opportunity to get to know.

The organizing work takes time, effort, and energy, but trying to do what I can to help take better care of my colleagues has been well worth all of that. Here’s hoping that in 2021 we can reach a deal that helps make our workplace even better, stronger, and more equitable for all of us.

Publishing a story about Stevie Nicks’ Fajita Roundup

I swear this is true: After I accepted my offer to work at The Ringer, but before I started, I told a friend that one thing I was excited about was that you had the chance to work on offbeat stuff here, in both the “kind of weird” and “not about the NBA” senses. That, I thought, might maybe open the door to me getting to write a story about a Saturday Night Live sketch I saw when I was a teenager about Stevie Nicks from Fleetwod Mac running a cheap Tex-Mex restaurant in Sedona, Arizona — a sketch that I wasn’t sure anyone else remembered, but that was stuck in my head forever.

That story ran on May 26.

A lot of people seemed to like it.

Accomplishing this goal was, as dumb as this might sound, a highlight of my year, and, honestly, a highlight of my career. I’d like to do some more stuff like this next year, time permitting; we’ll see. Whether or not I do, I got to do this. I’ll always have that.

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imthequeenofcordonia · 5 years ago

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For the man who has everything

This is my contribution to @choicesfebruarychallenge that’s being hosted by the amazing @bi-cookie and @cxld-play. The prompt is: Karaoke. Thank you for including us all.

Paring: Drake x OC (Lily Rys)

Word count: 1,573

Warnings: Brief talk about mental health.

A/N: All characters belong to Pixelberry other than Lily.

Permatag: @desiree---1986

Drake and lily tags: @addictedtodrakefanfic, @msjr0119

“So we’re being joined by Crown Prince Leo and his younger sister, Princess Lily,” the Radio host, Gary Hall- a friend of Ana Di Luca’s and the host of Cordonia’s most popular radio station spoke into his microphone in front of him as he adjusted his headphones so they were more comfortable.

He turned to the royal siblings, “Thank you for coming.”

“Thank you for having us,” Lily answered.

“First things first, Leo congratulations on your engagement to Countess Madeleine.”

“Thank you,” Leo smiled.

“You and the Countess just arrived back from a very successful engagement tour. You got some extraordinary press because of it.

“We did,” Leo nodded, “It went better than we expected it too. We’re both really happy about how well it went.”

Gary nodded and turned to Lily. “Lily you also just finished your first solo tour, tell us about that.”

“It was fantastic. As you said, it was my first solo tour, I went to Aunernal, i was actually able to stay a couple of days longer than was intended and got to see where my mother grew up. Like Leo’s tour I got some amazing press and it went really well,” she explained.

“When was the last time you visited Auvernal?” Gary asked.

Lil thought for a second, “I was about seven it was just before my mother passed away.”

“Now the big reason we invited you is because of your mental health campaign. Lily you’ve been quite open about what you've struggled with in the past.”

Lily nodded, “Yeah, i think if we’re going to be telling people to open up and talk about it, it would be hypocritical if i didn't do it myself. These types of things kind of go both ways, you can’t tell someone to do something and do the complete opposite.”

“It’s a very brave thing to do,” Gary noted.

“In a way it was but it needed to happen to show that everyone, no matter who you or where you come from, that mental health issues can affect you. We’re always taught how to look after our bodies but we really need to know how to look after ourselves mentally too and how to talk about it if you are struggling,” She explained.

“Like your tours the campaign is getting a lot of attention and people are talking about it,” Gary mentioned.

“That’s exactly what we want. I couldn't be happier with how it’s going.”

“Good. Now you two agreed to answer some questions that people have texted in.”

“Yep,” Leo nodded.

“Are we going to regret this?” Lily asked.

“Quite possibly,” Gary teased. “Okay first question comes from a woman called jenny. She wants to know if you’re allowed phones?”

Leo laughed, “We are yeah.”

“Really?” Gary asked, “Have you got a family whatsapp group?”

“No, but I would love that,” Lily said, turning to her brother, “Should we get Liam, Dad and Regina to get in on It too?”

“I don't think that’s gonna happen,” Leo said, shaking his head with a grin.

“Next question is from Michael. He wants to know if Leo and Liam were in a fight, who would win?”

Leo shrugged, “Me, obviously.”

“I sense a little bit of sibling rivalry going on?”

“Just a bit,” Leo revealed, smiling.

“ He also wants to know if all three of you were in a fight, who would win then?”

“Lily,” Leo answered.

“Why?” Gary asked.

“I did mixed martial arts for about six years. I could take them both,” Lily said, rather confidently.

“I am learning so much,” Gary said excitedly. “This is the highlight of my career. Okay, we’ve got a couple more. These are one i actually want to know. Kate wants to know what you watch on TV? Do you watch stuff on royalty and you’re like, it’s not like that at all?”

Lily laughed, “Funnily enough i started watching The Crown the other week and yeah, I mean I've met the British royal family and it is kind of accurate.”

“Did you watch that movie called ‘Queen Eleanor’? Was that accurate? Because that is based on your life.”

“I have seen it,” she nodded, “There’s a few little bits in there that quite how it happened but for the most part it’s spot on.”

“Do you watch anything else?”

“I love Supernatural. I’m three seasons behind, i really need to get on that.”

“What about you Leo?” Gary asked.

“Me and Madeline have just finished Game of Thrones. We were a little bit behind, just finished it last night.”

“I haven't watched it,” lily chimed in.

“You should,” Leo advised.

“It is good. Now we’ve got two more. David asked if you’re allowed to order takeaways?”

“Yes,” Lily nodded.

“They must never believe you when you order it to the palace.”

“We don't actually order it to the palace. Somebody, that is not us, will go and pick it up,” Lily explained. “Or if your Prince Leo, he’ll do it himself.”

“I love how normal you two are,” Gary said, which caused the both of them to laugh.

“We are just people,” Lily said.

“That lives in a palace,” Gary mumbled, “Now, last question before we move on. When we see you out and about you are wearing the most regal of outfits, do you have any comfy clothes?”

“Yeah, definitely,” Leo nodded.

“Those outfits are amazing but sometimes are a little bit uncomfortable,” she revealed, “ Yeah, of course we have comfy stuff we wear at home.”

“Okay,” Gary nodded, “Today is a special day. It’s His Majesty's 70th birthday today.” the siblings nodded. “Do you still buy him presents? What do you buy for the man who has everything?”

“That is the question,” Leo said, turning to his sister.

“It’s hard. Last year Leo brought him a phone.”

“That’s perfect for your whatsapp group,” Gary chimed in.

“He actually spends a lot of time on it,” Lily revealed.

“I can imagine it: him sitting in the palace playing Candy Crush. That’s brilliant, that is.”

“He’s flying through the levels though,” Leo said.

“I was joking. Does he seriously play?”

Lily nodded, “He’s a little addicted to it actually.

“Talking of your father’s birthday: there’s a video going around the internet of you, Lily, singing his favourite song for his birthday from a few years ago.”

Lily hid her face in her hands as her body shook with laughter. When she looked back up, her face was red and her eyes were welling. “Did you have to mention that?” she jokingly scolded, “I was fourteen and this was when i was really getting into music. I was learning how to play the guitar, piano and attending singing lessons. Like we’ve said it’s hard to know what to buy him so I sang him his favourite song.”

“But the thing is you’re actually good,” Gary complemented.

“Thank you,” Lily grinned.

“Singing was a passion of yours, wasnt it?”

“It definitely was. My mother loved to sing when I was a kid, I must get it from her. The rest of the family aren't really into music like I am,” she explained.

“What’s his majesty's favourite song at the minute?”

“Someone you loved by Lewis Capaldi,” Lily explained.

“Really?” Gary asked, his brow furrowing, “I am learning so much right now. The king likes playing Candy Crush and likes Lewis Capaldi, is he a Billie Eilish fan too?”

“Actually he does like to hum the tune to bad guy so maybe,” Lily shrugged.

“So We’ve got a backing track to someone you loved,” Gary told her.

Her brow furrowed, “Okay...Where is this going?”

“I think you know, little sis,” Leo grinned at her.

“We’ve got it from good authority-”

“Our brother,” Leo interrupted.

“That his majesty is listening and we would like to know if you’d sing your dad's favourite song for his birthday? We’ve also got it on good authority that you haven't got him a present yet.”

She sighed, “I feel like i’m going to regret this: I’ll do it.”

Lily put her headphones on, adjusting them so they were properly on her ears and Leo put his on too. Lily scooted her chair closer to the table and leaned in a bit closer to the microphone. “Happy birthday dad.”

The music started to play, Lily focusing on when the right time to jump in was.

“I’m going under and this time i fear there’s no one to save me,” she started, singing into the microphone.

“Wow,” she heard Gary mutter and she continued, focusing intently on what she was making her voice do, remembering all the tricks and techniques she learnt from her teacher.

Finally she came around to the chorus, “Now, the day bleeds into nightfall and you’re not here to get me through it all, I let my guard down and you pulled the rug, I was getting kind of used to being someone you loved.”

And then finally the song drew to a close and the both men applauded the young princess, who smiled gratefully at them, removing the bulky headphones.

“That was a cover of Someone you loved by Lewis Capaldi from the extraordinary Princess Lily Rys!” Gary spoke into the mic.

Lily was grinning widely, getting sidetracked when her phone dinged. She peeked at it to see a text from her boyfriend.

Drake: You were amazing 😉

Which only caused her grin to grow wider.

#choicesfebruarychallenge #drake x oc #trr #trr Drake #the royal romance fanfic #choices fanfiction #choices:stories you play

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smoljamswrites · 6 years ago

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BTS as your best friends:

I’m kind of proud of this and it’s my first one so yeah. If you like it please like or reblog, it’d mean the world to me. Thank you! x

KIM SEOKJIN

okay hands down Jin would be such a good best friend

He’s very protective of you

10/10 would get triggered if someone hurt/upset you

comforts you by putting on a funny movie and chills with you on the sofa or tells you an endless supply of his dad jokes

If you go shopping with him, it’d be like a father and child moment

he keeps telling you to stop messing with stuff on the shelves

continuously jokes around and tells you to put things back

and will definitely ask you what you think he should eat next on EatJin

actually, when he does EatJin you’re usually behind the camera just lying around on his bed or whatever, keeping quiet and playing games on your phone

because I get the impression that Jin loves it when he’s got company and he’s in someone else’s presence

asjskjskjsjs does that even make sense

like he just wants you to be there

even if you ain’t doing anything together

you’re just doing your own thing while he does his

he loves that

also because he’s a Mario fan, and he can be extra af, I think if you guys couldn’t decide who got to choose, between the two of you, something like which takeaway you should order

then you are playing Mario Kart and the winner gets to choose

and boi boy does he get competitive at Mario Kart

if you do win though, expect to witness a spluttery loud-ass Jin

not that he genuinely cares that you get to choose the food

I mean, he loves food so whatever you choose he will eat anyway

but he gets chaotic because he knows you find it funny

he’ll do anything to make you laugh

believe me when I say Jin lives to see you happy

being your best friend, he’s seen you upset and at your worse

which upset him in return

so he makes it his mission to make you smile and laugh when you’re with him

MIN YOONGI

Lets you chill in his studio whenever you want

you even have the password

you just walk in most evenings, pass him some food and drinks, and try your best to help him with whatever he’s working on this time

he appreciates this so much

you still annoy him a lot but lets be honest he wouldn’t want it any other way

the other guys often say that you and Yoongi are like a couple

surprisingly Yoongi doesn’t really care that they call you guys a couple

matter of fact, it probably doesn’t help the situation that you and Yoongi are a l w a y s cuddling

Like if you are on the sofa watching a film with the guys, you best expect his head to be on your shoulder, face nuzzled into your neck, arms draped over your stomach, by the end of the night

he just finds you comfy

similarly, if you are with him in his studio and its really late

and you refuse to leave without him because you know he’s tired too

he’ll be all huffy for a bit, but neither of you end up leaving because you’re both so stubborn

instead you’ll end up on his lap, your face on his chest, while he continues to work

and when he’s finally done, if you look too exhausted he’ll just take you back to his place and let you stop there for the night

you always beg him to teach you the piano

“but Yoongi you’re the piano god” “go away y/n”

he insults you everyday but only because he loves you and he knows you can handle it because you insult him right back

you balance each other out perfectly

he’s calm and collected

you’re more bubbly and giggly enthusiastic

both of you are equally savage though

normally all you do is either hang out at his place or his studio

if you do go out then it’ll be at night, where it is typically quieter

you’ll go get a coffee or some food and just drive around, talking for ages and listening to music, time running away with you

so much sass omg

JUNG HOSEOK

Takes you shopping and judges your fashion choices

when he comes back from tour, he’ll have lots of gifts for you even though you always tell him not to bring you anything back

also if you used to be scared of loud noises well,, lets just say you’re not anymore

you’re used to his happy outbursts and sound effects

but you also know the other side to him that the public doesn’t see

ofc he’s not always going to be the happy, bubbly jhope you see through the cameras

he can truly be himself when he’s around you and he can relax

but when he is acting loud and chirpy he sort of rubs off on you

like your enthusiasm is fed by his enthusiasm

so good luck to those around you because they basically have to handle jhope x2

you get on so well with his family, especially his sister

with his sister being into clothes and fashion too, when you visit her with hoseok, she always compliments your outfits

and hobi will be smirking in the corner because (like i said above) he takes you shopping

and trust me, he would not let you leave that shop with ugly clothes

have you seen that man

he’s the fashion icon

so he takes full credit for every one of your outfits

always gets you to dance with him

he enjoys teaching you new BTS choreography

you’re both easily scared so if there’s a bug for example, the situation would go down like this

“Hobi you get rid of it!”

“No why should it be me? I think you should do it”

“No, i’m scared! You do it!”

“Y/N you’re closer to it, just do it!”

This arguing back and forth lasts for a few minutes until the bug flies/crawls away and you both run off screaming that its gonna attack you

so yeah, literally never a dull moment when Hoseok is your best friend!

KIM NAMJOON

Lowkey wants you both to match outfits but he would never ask you

could either be goofy with you or he’ll go completely psychological on your ass

there’s no in-between with Joon

You sometimes have to remind him that hes only human and reassure him he’s a great leader because I feel like he’d sometimes get in his own head and let the haters get to him, yknow?

You just gotta keep telling him he’s doing a great job and help him not let the stress get the better of him

You’re always there for him, supporting him

and he’s always there for you too

listens to all your problems

he gives the best advice

he’s also very protective of you

yknow when he clenches his jaw? or he raises one of his eyebrows? omg please tell me you know what i’m talking about well he’d do that if some one hurt you and he’d get hella mad

your family love him

they say he’s a very positive influence on you

he gets you to help him write lyrics because you’re his “muse”

he always convinces bighit to let you come on tour

even if he has to pay for you himself, you are coming

always leaves his broken stuff in your room

recommends you books to read (regardless of whether you actually like to read or not)

he is also the reason why you’re dirty minded

like forget expensive girl, have you ever heard ‘trouble’??

you’ll be with the other guys and you two just accidentally end up speaking English and the other guys are like..um hELLO?

PARK JIMIN

okay so I can imagine Jimin buying him and his best friend matching necklaces or something?

hear me out

its christmas day and Jimin passes you a small black box

inside is a necklace with a small key on it and engraved onto the key is “PJM 1995″

and you’re like “why have you gotten me a necklace with YOUR initials and birth year”

and then he shows you his necklace and it has your initials and your birth year

like this idea is so cute it makes me so soft sjweufbewjfn

will flirt with you just to make you laugh or maybe because he loves you or wHaTeVeR

he gives the best hugs

like BTS have already confirmed this in an interview

if you’re feeling down and need a hug, Jimin is your man

he is always with you

and if he isn’t, then he is texting you

you guys are inseparable

if he gets drunk around you then you’re gonna have this clingy, sappy, emotional, koala of a man wrapped around you for the night because he will not leave your side even for a second

its cute tho

but that also means he has a hard time during tour because you are usually not there with him

always drags you to his family parties and such

you love to go, and he knows you do, but you always whine when he asks you just to make him laugh

his mom loves you!!

not gonna lie she ships you both and when you go see her, Jimin has to beg her not to say anything about it to you

he loves to rest his head on your shoulder and you like to do the same

G I G G L E S

If you mention how short he is then good luck because he’s gonna chase you down and tickle you until he hears an apology

not that he really cares though

he just jumps at any chance to see a smile on your face

KIM TAEHYUNG

personal hype man

his camera roll is full of pictures of you

hates it when you’re sad

if you’re sad then just letting you know you’re in for a treat

he would organise a sleepover and would aim to cheer you up for the entire night

you always laugh at his pingu impression

you’re like Yeontan’s mom

yeontan l o v e s you

you’ll go to Tae’s house and as soon as you open the door, yeontan will run straight to you

you walk yeontan together at night whilst you share headphones listening to whatever’s on tae’s playlist

recommends you music because hands down this boy has the best taste in music FITE ME

He’s a big fan of skinship so people actually mistake you guys for a couple sometimes

plays with your hair all the time

your parents love him and treat him like he’s part of the family

your parents would genuinely love it if you two dated

Tae doesn’t mind it when they ask you questions like

“so are you two together yet?”

but you get annoyed purely because you find it so embarrassing

Tae just laughs it off and makes a joke out of it

“no i could never date y/n because her feet smell”

if you need a hug, he’s there

and he’ll sway you side to side and by the end of it you’re laughing so much because he’s hella goofy and you love it

JEON JUNGKOOK

Bullies you all day everyday (but you know he’s only joking)

sends you memes when you both should be asleep

he definitely has a crush on you or at least he has had one at some point in time

doesn’t stop teasing you

he’s so competitive and has to prove he’s better than you in everything

likes to hug you from behind

eats steals your food

you constantly steal his hoodies and he gets annoyed

but he can’t stay mad at you for too long though

he lives for your compliments

though it normally ends up with you playfully hitting his chest when his ego grows a little too big

he is never serious with you

always has his arm around you, it’s like a habit

always stares at you

always bursts into your room to hang out and then ends up sleeping in your bed

when he’s feeling cocky, he takes his shirt off and tries to make you feel his muscles

when he’s all sweaty from either going to the gym or dance practice, he makes it his mission to find you and get you to hug him while you’re screaming that he’s all sweaty and “gross”

the guys are convinced you two are dating

and Guk lowkey wishes you were but you didn’t hear that from me ;)

he wants you to play with his hair 24/7

being best friends with him means that, if you weren’t already into video games, then you definitely are now

#my writing #jk #jm #th #jn #jh #nj #yg #bts #bts headcanons #bts imagines #bts scenarios #jungkook #jimin #taehyung #jin #namjoon #yoongi #hoseok

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