#black friday was. not as good imo. it’s okay

[terriblelizbians]

love when life/school gets a little too busy or stressful and i have to go back and pick a random hyperfixation media from several years ago to consume my mind again to calm down

[i-drop-level-one-loot]

You watch slasher movies? I haven't done so in years (much to my disappointment), got any recommendations, classics, popular, underrated, anything really?

I knew I hadn't watched them in a long time, but it wasn't till I had to try and write something based on classic slashers, that I realized how long its been since I consumed that kind of content.

My only plan so far is that I need to watch The Texas Chainsaw Massacre

Alright, Pandora, it depends on your tastes, and what you look for in a "slasher" ❤️

As you may remember, I fucking love the OG the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and when I got pretty bad last month emotionally I watched it on repeat for two weeks straight. However, if you go in for a regular slasher film you will be disappointed. The first movie is incredible, focusing on amazing shots and atmosphere for nearly the entire first half. It's less of a slasher as we would come to know the genre, and more of an artistic film centered around the horrors of humanity. The series is a wonderful mess of multiple timelines and little continuity, but the sequels better fit the slasher archetype. The best sequel (imo) is the one directly after the first, and it's a black comedy slasher, focusing more on the kills.

Now, slashers ❤️

If you're a nerd and want to experience the slasher history, then before Halloween (which still holds up) there was Black Christmas, and before that the Town that Dreaded Sundown.

The Town that Dreaded Sundown is based off a true serial killer, and unlike TCM which is loosely inspired by Ed Gein, a lot of the kills (except the trombone scene) are based on actual murders, with his mask accurate to the only real world survivor's testimony of her assault. It's very slow pace, and with how desensitized we are as a society you might find it boring, but if you ever get a phonecall from Ghostface, then you have to know the Town that Dreaded Sundown. Fun fact, his mask also inspired Jason's mask from Friday the 13th part 2!

Black Christmas is awesome! I'd recommend it more than Sundown, because of pacing, characters, acting, and overall atmosphere. I love my second wave feminism horror (Stepford Wives (mwah)), and it did a lot better with it's feminist themes than the loose remake from 2019 that tried to be intentionally feminist (ignore the 2006 remake entirely, so bad, so lame, so gross). It did the first person perspective of the killer nearly four years before Halloween's iconic opening. It introduced the idea of the final girl, but she wouldn't become a sexually repressed younger woman until Halloween solidified the trope. It has some great kills that still hold up, and Billy is iconic. I really feel the only reason why he isn't more well known in non-horror spaces is because he doesn't have a mask or outfit that can be replicated and sold in Spirit.

After that we have our most well known slashers, and they're popular for good reason ❤️

A Nightmare on Elm St, Friday the 13th, and Halloween spawned sequels that spiraled off into varying degrees of madness, but still have fun moments.

After the success of Friday the 13th (and the realization of the franchise-ability of slashers) there were a lot of slashers that tried to capture the money magic of the first few success stories. Not all of them were great, but a few notable slashers imo are My Bloody Valentine and the Dentist.

Although Candyman is often lumped in with slashers, like the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the first movie is more than a traditional slasher. I recommend the first one as a beautiful love story about the horrors of American racism. It's score is still incredible, the behind the scenes are so interesting, and Tony Todd is absolutely beautiful. Such an amazing actor. (Not so) Fun fact: Tony Todd said in the behind the scenes that there originally was a romantic scene where Helen proclaimed her love for Candyman, but they were forced to cut it, because "they were okay with a tall, black man covered in bees.. but, mm, when it came to a kiss, or something like that, it was a little bit too risque..." ( :/ )

(Please please please watch Candyman)

Then the best, or worst (depending on your views), thing happened to the genre; Scream.

One of the best slashers there is, it isn't the first self referential, meta horror (see Wes Craven's New Nightmare), but it did change the slasher genre for a very long time. It was a revival for the genre, since it was declining in popularity by the early 90s. However, post Scream horror was very meta. See Chucky's personality changing from the occasional funny quip, to Bride of Chucky levels of silly (still love him tho). Of the terrible horror trying to copy Scream, I'd recommend Urban Legend over I Know What You Did Last Summer. It was a shame, just how silly a lot of scary movies got back then, trying to be as smart and self aware as Scream was.

But my favorite (outside of Scream) meta horror slasher film is Behind the Mask: the Rise of Leslie Vernon ❤️ took meta to a whole new level, mockumentary style, a camera crew follows a wannabe slasher killer explaining how to be a slasher icon.

I've watched too many slashers to remember all of them right now, but if you want really meta black comedies, Tucker and Dale vs Evil isn't a slasher but a loving joke on the genre, and the Final Girls made me laugh and cry like a little bitch.

A lot of slashers since the late 90s have drifted closer to the black comedy sub genre. Killers that kill for the sake of killing are often B-rated blood fests, that can be great for mindless fun but not so great for box office gains, especially in our current horror renaissance. Slashers don't fit in to the current horror culture. Serial killers aren't scary for desensitized audiences, and the mindless gore expectations set by older slasher films have created a pretty specific genre setup and pay off (dumb people who only exist to die get brutally murdered). It either has to be B-rated mindless fun (Laid to Rest 1 and 2 had terrible camera work and directing, making even incredible actors like Lena Headey feel lackluster, but the practical effects are so impressive I'd recommend it just for the blood and guts (and bewbs)), or comedic (the Hatchet series has great cameos, genuine laughs, and more impressive practical effects, but with good cinematography and directing (still bewbs)). Slashers that don't lean in to how ridiculous the concept of slashers are and try to take themselves seriously often end up falling short, either creating boring killers with no personality or trying to force a plot into a generic slasher shaped hole.

This does include most remakes of slasher movies, as a lot of slashers were remade in the early 2000's with less interesting characters to be killed off by the slashers. The remake of Candyman was an exception, because even though it wasn't as good as the original, it did go back to it's non slasher roots, learning from the mistake that was the third Candyman.

TLDR:

Non slashers that are considered slashers because of the slasher sequels/iconic murderers:

the Texas Chainsaw Massacre

Candyman

Child's Play

Best Precursor to the genre:

Black Christmas

Popular Classics:

Halloween

Friday the 13th

a Nightmare on Elm St

Pre 90's Slashers that I recommend:

The Dentist

Sleepaway Camp (it's divided on whether it's problematic or interesting representation)

Alice, Sweet Alice

My Bloody Valentine

Post 90's meta commentary/black comedy:

Scream

Behind the Mask: the Rise of Leslie Vernon

Hatchet

The Final Girls

Tucker and Dale vs Evil

There are obviously a lot more, but these are a few off the top of my head ❤️

[lab-trash]

hi!! aplogies if this is pushing but i really really really love your michie fic titled “H̶e̶r̶” and i was wondering if you’re planning on updating it at some point?? no pressure i just love the premise a lot and i am HOOKED

[also i really hope i have the right blog lol]

Okay, so first off. Right blog? Yes and no? I am the person who wrote Her, but this is more of my... sci-fi, supernatural blog? Which I suppose NPMD could key into, but it's much more sitcoms and movies. (Also just my personal rants, vents and other bullshit)

That being said, I've gotten a confused person looking for my musical theatre blog enough times that I definitely should create a pinned post including my other blogs.

My musical theatre blog, for future reference, is @im-not-a-l0ser . Very fitting if you ask me ^-^

Anyway! About your question! I do plan on updating it at some point, I just don't know when that point will be. Something that keeps me on top of my stories is writing chapters in advance so I don't get burnout. Example, I'm writing Beanies right now and there are nine chapters posted. Chapter 10 is complete, but I haven't yet finished chapter 11, so I'm not posting Chapter 10, and Chapter 11 won't be out until Chapter 12 is complete. (This also allows me to double-post chapters when I'm finishing a book, although this has not actually happened yet.)

I did not start doing this until after starting Her. I'm stuck with Her, because I don't know what direction I'm going into, and I don't know where to start. Also doesn't help that my parents were never formally divorced (they have 6 kids and had been married for over 20 years by the time they separated; can't blame them) so I really don't know anything about the process. I know it's long and gruelling and stuff, but I don't know how quickly I'd be able to just gloss over it. But I suppose maybe Gary Goldstein (Attorney At Law) is a good enough lawyer to get it wrapped up real quick lol.

I understand that Her is more of an angst and trans-comfort gold mine, but feel free to take a peak into my other books, which are updated slightly more frequently, such as Beanies or Zeek: The Fighting Nighthawk. Beanies is more building friendship secretly between them, while Zeek: The Fighting Nighthawk has them becoming friends with one under false identity (obviously, that's Zeek.) Beanies does also include the same character being trans, but it's not a major plot/talking point (yet). I really appreciate the support, I'm just going to be very busy between planning for pride and writing for Beanies (I have a trio of chapters coming out that I want to get out of the way before I pick up something else; I don't want burnt out on this before I even finish the pride event stories.)

If you want something of mine that's complete, I have a handful of one-shots, such as Dance with Death (spoilers for Workin' Boys and Abstinence Camp), Max Jagerman's Socks, r/TrueOffMyChest (you can actually find some backstory for that on my blog under an ask @/24-guy sent in), and Max Jagerman's Private Story.

I also have an ongoing porn saga but we're not gonna talk about that right now

Hi! If you follow me for LREF, Stranger Things, It, etc. and you for some reason read this whole thing. You should totally go watch the Hatchetfield musicals! If you like musicals (some people don't lmao)

If you're interested, they have a rich lore, many meta-jokes, and a currently active fandom which you might enjoy (looking at you LREF fandom. That is to say, like six people.)

If you are interested, it's The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals, Black Friday, and Nerdy Prudes Must Die. They're all free on YouTube, recorded by the creators and they're all absolutely fantastic IMO. Watch them in that order though! If you don't, you'll be really confused! This is a trilogy (kinda), the world is the same (kinda), the previous shows give context for world building and jokes.

If you do watch them, please please come talk to me about it over on @im-not-a-l0ser . I do highly recommend blocking the tags though before you've finished them. Spoilers can happen really easily, and when it comes to Hatchetfield, something that might seem small or insignificant (or maybe just extremely confusing) probably means something pretty big overall.

(Ps, there's also a 'mini series' called Nightmare Time. It definitely gives some context and it expands upon Hatchetfield as a whole, but it's not technically necessary to watch. I'm not gonna force anyone to watch it, just because there's so goddamn much of it.)

[farfrompleasant]

Happy Freyja Friday!!! 💖🎉😘

It's almost your actual one year anniversary with the freyby! What a beautiful journey and union you two have had 💞💞💞 to many more!!!

TWO sheds in two months?! Miss Thing is back to doing the most I see! How are you two faring these days? How's school treating ya?

Philly actually planted a lot of honey locust for beautification/urban green planning, and I've read/seen that you can take the seed pods and boil the sweet um goo (??? I'm not a scientist lol) out of them to make a natural plant-based sweetener! But, obviously all the seed pods I see have been crushed by cars and feet and rained on and peed on etc etc so that's a no go 😢

One day, my foraging dreams will come true lol have you seen Alexis Nikole Nelson's (aka the Black forager) content on social media? She's super awesome.

A feeble attempt was made to revive the book club but it's still pretty dead lol at least we have this 😘

I made a dog fort out of our bed when it was really cold last month and Nova was hogging it the other day 😂

Happy Freyja Friday!!!

I’m actually on time chdhhdhdhdjskendbjdjf, absolutely insane!💀 it will be an entire year I’m just two days and I can’t cope! It feels like we’ve been with each other for a much longer time, and I’m just baffled at the fact that she grew to love me in just a year😳 it’s giving fall in love at a certain amount of time trope, if you know what I mean then you know! (I hope you do…) but still, thank you friend… you’re the sweetest evers!🥺❤️ and I want you to know that with every union, you’re also apart of it as you were there during the early days of my journey with this scaly girl c;

I still can’t get over the back to back shedding, and apparently neither can Freyja. Her beard has been dark during the process😅 anywho, I am doing okay. Between school, work, and having minor health issues going on I think I’m tackling things rather well. As for our girl, she’s a lot happier these days; we’re expanding her diet, and gathering accessories for her enclosure in hopes of sprucing it up! And she’s always warm despite the bitter winter biting us all in the rear before it’s officially spring. Seriously, thank goodness for ceramic heating!

Honey locus? I have to look that up, friend! I didn’t know that was a tree 🥺 very mesmerizing tree with a cool base and warm, autumn favored leaves… I want to see more of those! Philly has good taste. Got me romanticizing a type of tree 🤭 wait— so you’re saying that with this sweet goo that is extracted from these pods, you can make an organic sweetener?! That’s amazing 🤩 I hate that there’s no real opportunity to do that given that you’re living in a city where plant life/resources aren’t necessarily considered(?) Like, if it was cleaner and plants weren’t looked at as embellishments, then that it would totally be doable imo 🥺

I can’t wait to witness your foraging, I just know that it would bring me so much joy as a) you are doing your hobby and b) you’re sharing it with me and teaching me a few things along the way c; I can’t say that I heard about Alexis Nikole Nelson or any of her work but I’ll check it out whenever I can find some time ☺️

And 😭 rip to our bookclub! It was initially productive, and I loved being apart of it along with just hearing everyone’s perspectives on the material c: not to mention I totally bragged about it to my therapist at one point 🤭 it’s a flex, okay! I feel that there may be a revival period if someone finds a really good read 😂

That is soooo cute friend! A doggie fort sounds so cozy and I know for a fact that some cuddles took place 🥰 and of course Nova is basking in the comfort of it all, I really love that for her❤️ I hope Abbie and Lizzie are getting their turns whenever they can lolol and that Wallace and Heller are experiencing great comforts as well in their own feline way c: I feel like they probably squeeze their way into certain nooks and crannies that would incite a war if bothered or removed 😂😅

And of course, I hope Philly weather is being kind to you my good friend 🥰 hope you are feeling well and will continue to prosper in any way you see fit!

This is a day after her second shed, she’s obsessed with resting here again for whatever reason c:

[tamarakkoarchive]

SMT5 livetweet thread

Originally written from Dec 21 until Feb 5, 2022

*pretends i didn't buy this on a black friday*

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considering everyone says this game is even more cryptid than nocturne regarding plot, i might not have much to say 🤷‍♀️

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okay guys i'm turning it on. let's see how long it takes until i put the voices on mute

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there isn't any kind of canon or semi-canon name so i'll just use the VA like how i did back in p5

just the switch default keyboard instead of a more interesting design??? this is so cheap

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me after going through cock and ball torture from 20+ yrs old smts and seeing a game being actually resourceful with info like :0

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smtv: you can run in this game! me: :0 smtv: you can also jump! me: 80

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one hour in, i muted lol aogami's voice is super nice but the moment i heard how the shop seller demon sounds i instantly gave up also since you move nahobino a lot i'd rather spare my ears from a million grunts

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since it’s obviously a title done to grab nocturne fans i’ll use it as a parameter most of time (and occasionally smt4) the way the story progresses indeed feels too abrupt. nocturne was guilty of this too ofc but to a lesser degree

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i can’t blame them going the extra length on the tutorials but imo i feel they could’ve make them less… idk, walltexty? instead of separating in parts and making it easy to read they literally cover the whole screen like a grade schooler making slides for the first time

smt4a also showed tutorials like this but it was bearable since it was for only a few features and they separated paragraphs with a screenshot example on the bottom so it wasn’t this big chore to read

smtv barely lets you have a feeling of wonder over tokyo turning into a desert and it’s already tutorial tutorial sidequest tutorial oh you can battle fiends now tutorial tutorial like CALM DOWN

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me: me: me: huh, smtv is open world??

all my feelings of “mm exploring seems more fun than progressing the story” make sense now

~

the most surprising factors from smtv that i could already feel this early 1- despite overworld being the nicest in the series to travel and explore around, i wouldn’t… call the battle system the fastest or easiest to understand.

the actions take longer than usual to be done with specially when enemies escape from the battle, when they are in groups it takes foooreeever for them to exit the screen, and girl, for me to notice sluggishness after playing all the goddamn snes era of smt like...

2- for a positive: they’re self aware of where nocturne had its flaws regarding some aspects of the worldbuilding, special note on they *gasp* doing a job similar to smt1/smt2 when writing abt chaos and acknowledging demons can go stupidly overboard w hierarchy

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my girl looks fantastic she's so expressive in her battle animations, atlus being an ass and not letting us record videos tho

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at lvl21 rn, the difficulty has been Very Very first dungeon of smt4 idk if this is specifically bc i'm in the hard difficulty but you don't gain much exp even from bosses and the item drop has been very scarce, the game is basically screaming at you to use the macca/exp dlc

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things that have been objectively easier from smt4

1- shop/save point/healing point/terminal are all on the same place (and same menu)

2- you have an infinite-use item that teleports you to point above

3- demons are super friendly. very easy to avoid and attack from behind

besides those, they put several changes on the skill/fusion system. they made things from before both easier and harder lol imo it has been very well balanced so far, plenty of good stuff but enemies still fuck your ass so you gotta be careful from beginning until the end

~

the most ??? aspect of smtv is that the cutscenes are too reliant on voice acting, like, when you turn it off not only they become overly silent but you're often not sure whom the subtitles are referring to because they don't use the "name of person talking: blablabla" format there

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omg the ainu critters' special dialogue...

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aogami's dynamic w the mc is SO hilariously opposite to dagda's with nanashi. terapheutic uncle vs abusive stepdad

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aogami: do you want to help your classmate? he shouldn't feel bad for feeling weak and running away. not everyone can endure the same. whatever you want to do, i'll respect your choice dagda:

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since i decided to go all out on hard i'm trying to do every little thing as chronologically as i can and the sidequests have been the most fun and comfy to do in the series but nevertheless 50 hours and i'm still on lvl38 fbdnjrbfn open world games Man

~

not whining though, compared to the likes of legends arceus the level of stuff we have to look on our own is very small... they give so much extra info for everything, i don't think you need to see a guide at all even for fusions or the compendium

they even tell you what a demon drops or where they are found!! like what the fuck!! that's the shit!!! that's the shit i deserve after suffering for so long!!

~

~

I Have Entered Platform Hell

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me 85 hours ago: wow jumping is so fun! me now:

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okay folks i reached endgame... i gave them the benefit of doubt for a while but yeah i understand now what people meant when they said the game felt kinda unfinished

smtv has been the equivalent of this

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dgdvgnh mother harlot took over an hour

the new skill system is the easiest to recover in case your party gets killed but the fights take loooooong... but the fun kind of long ngl

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FOR FUCK'S SAKE NOT ONLY FILMING BUT SOME PARTS CAN'T EVEN BE SCREENSHOT EITHER it's been a goddamn year already you dumbfucks, the whole game has been all over youtube for ages

particularly mad because i could take a zillion pics of nocturne cutscenes so i could piece together later plot points that i didn't get at first but here i can't even do that

what's the point of a switch if i'm just gonna need to take ass phone pics again like i did for the 3ds era

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i was already feeling this way in early game and near the end my opinion didn't change much. as someone that has nocturne as their favorite mainline, i think smtv's alignments are way better written

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the open world areas are where the ost shines the most compared to other titles, i like that they have an edginess yet feel soothing at the same time

my brain as i was tweeting this: it's representative of aogami's bond with you. the protagonist is terrified by the truth of the world he's in but aogami inside him assures the mc he's under his protection me: 🥺

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mom said it's my turn on the xbox now

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nocturne 🤝 smtv "What In God's Fucking Name Is This Dub"

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i turned the voices on again just for demifiend and i swear i'm not being subjectively a hater here, the battle grunts sound super awkward!! like imagine demifiend's model going ape using gaea rage and all he says is "huh" in a bored voice

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demeter grew on me in this game. she has a sorta tezuka-esque charm to her, the way she falls down with comic effect stars after getting hit is cute

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even with all the quality improvements regarding fusing, trying to change even a few skills is still time-consuming as hell man…… should’ve included a dlc where every essence is available or some shit so at least we could do trial and error in a stress-free way

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"raishura walked so nahoshura could run" you SURE about that fam? you sure?

i'll give that raidou's addition in nocturne must've been seen as shameless fanservice back in the day too but he had several levels of more substance than demifiend simply waiting to beat nahobino's ass without any sort of interaction beforehand

raidou had cutscenes and npcs talking abt him across the entire game and EVEN HAD A SPECIAL ROLE IN THE TDE ENDING. demifiend in smtv is literally dlc-locked and only there for a fight. come the fucking on

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i'm not even against nahoshura only specifically bc raidou is better (he is), i'm also counting the fact that nahobino is, well. using steven universe terms, it's like trying to ship garnet with any of the other gems

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sorry i also can't stop thinking abt how frickin unfair his fight with demifiend is. you literally have to TRICK HIS AI and make him HOLD BACK. demifiend engaging with raidou was two guys on the same level. demifiend with nahobino is basically a dog playing with an insect

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k guys got the neutral ending. around uuh 30 hours of my gameplay was focused trying to beat demifiend (and failing) so removing this part i guess it was around 100 in total

me: 130 hours on a first run... this is so much my switch: oh sweetie...

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i was prepared to write a lot of things about this game but uh. i think nothing beats the precision of that togashi chicken. it's literally this. smtv is the togashi chicken

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as i played i wondered whether this'd be a better game than nocturne for beginners and aside the obvious technical improvements i'm at a loss for what to say tbh

like, i think newbies would forgive some stuff better as we know people come mostly for the 3d visuals big openworld pretty femboy nahobino yadayada but the general feeling i have is that newcomers would get hit awfully more with the lackluster worldbuilding

i feel i could enjoy it a good portion of it because i had fresh knowledge of the shortcomings of previous games and was finding interesting the different take smtv did for some aspects (and it IS fun to play), but now that i reflect on it as a whole, while it tackled the backstories and the reasons behind their alignments much better than nocturne, when late game reaches you couldn't help but feel "...wait, is that it?". like. stuff barely happens in the game. 40 hours or 100 hours in, no difference. everything felt the same

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i was specially shocked by how they made your partner silent and devoid of reactions once again like YOU GUYS???? DID YOU MAKE THIS GAME ONLY FOR PEOPLE TO STOP SHITTING ON SMT4???? LMAO????

i can't get over this, man i chose neutral because it felt like the alignment more fitting to how the story developed and was curious on what kind of interactions i was gonna see from aogami and [redacted] and. here i am receiving dead silence as gratitude.

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tldr yea i get a lot of choices done here was because it intended to be a spiritual sucessor to nocturne (or sequel? they didn't make it clear) but i feel nocturne ultimately did a better job at using minimalistic storytelling in its favor and had a more concrete identity than smtv

anyway it didn't live up to its potential but imo it did have appealing aspects there. nocturne had three versions so who knows, maybe smtv could get expanded into something more interesting in the future

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an insanely funny tidbit about smtv is that... i think it's the first time ever you see shirtless male characters in the series being drawn with nipples

re-checking the art all over again and huh while smtiva's 2d art was all nippleless i guess nanashi's 3d model somehow... somehow if you squinted enough you could see some dark circles so maybe he's been the nipple blueprint

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did a chaos run ...and once again... THAT'S IT?!

a speedrun takes around 10 hours similarly to smtiv but their weight in plot is nowhere barely comparable lmfao smtv basically compensates its lacklusterness just by having maps that are more time-consuming to walk and remember where you're supposed to go

since now it's confirmed i'm not gonna get mindblowing endgame info or interesting dialogue whatsoever (HOW could you fucking do this to me aogami) i'll rest on this game after all and play something else

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aogami had it all to be an interesting character mannn whyyyy did they make him silent in the end. it happens regardless if he agrees to the route or not. at very least the snes heroines still said something but he literally feels non existent in the worst part of the story to do that wtf

i guess for smt standards they're still interesting enough for fans but me seeing furinana or dagunana artists jumping to aoshu and going "oh! let's see what we have here!" and them ending up being so minimal in the end.... the equivalent of a donut fan switching to dry crackers

fine. i get it. maybe it's not that aoshu is lackluster. flynn x nanashi was just too damn good. it'd take a lot from devs to beat or even replicate it ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[fanfic-inator795]

Favorite big city greens episodes?

Oh man, where to start? There really are just so many good ones!

I really love a lot of the Bill-focused ones, if only because he's my favorite character, so I'm gonna gravitate towards episodes that either spotlight what makes him so great or have him go through a character arc/learn a lesson.

Some of my favorite Bill episodes include "Backflip Bill", "Photo Op", "Fill Bill", "DIY Guys", "Level Up", "DependaBill", "Takened" and "Stand-Up Bill". Tilly also has some great eps imo, like "Tilly Style", "Okay Karaoke", "Pen Pals" and "Jingled".

I also love plenty of the comedy-focused/adventure of the week eps like "Gridlocked", "Big Deal" (more shows need Black Friday episodes tbh), "People Watching", "Trailer Trouble", "Gramma Driver", "Friend-Con", "Times Circle", "Bleeped" (REALLY love the lesson in this one, for such a silly ep it actually take a pretty mature stance on 'cuss words' plus I love the Bill and Cricket dynamic in it), "Listen Up", "Handshaken" and "Iced". (Those last two I've probably watched at least half a dozen times during this hiatus, haha).

The show also does a REALLY good job with its half-hour specials. Like- both Halloween and Christmas eps, Chipocalypse Now and The Move are all just peak BCGs, and for as much as I still love the slice-of-life/adventure-of-the-week eps, I'm also looking forward to what exactly the show has in mind for Chip and his 'grand revenge plan'.

Overall, the show definitely has it's high points as well as some middling/slightly low points admittedly - I feel like each season has at least a few "pretty alright/okay but kinda predictable" eps in a row before getting back to the really fun and the standout eps, which is completely fine and understandable since no show is going to have 100% bangers all the time - but I really do love how the show has continued to develop its characters and switch up the status quo, keeping things feeling fresh and fun while still always keeping what makes it so enjoyable in the first place.

Save for maybe like... three episodes that I genuinely don't care for, I feel like I could watch any ep of this show and still enjoy myself, getting at least one smile/chuckle. It's just a show that always makes me feel happy ^v^ Not to mention that when it hits - either with a damn good joke, great character moments, or a fantastic story/lesson - it really does hit everything I want in a cartoon.

[south-park-meta]

Kenny!!

Why I like them I think Kenny's a sweet character. He acts out a bit, but really doesn't hurt people the way the other boys can. There's truthfully not a lot of meat to his character in some ways, but I think he genuinely loves his friends, despite knowing that Stan and Kyle will always pick each other and Cartman doesn't really care about him most of the time. There's something soft, sweet, and a bit sad about him being the odd man out in his friend group.

Why I don’t He's another character I don't really dislike even when I roll my eyes at him. But a criticism for his character is that imo he's kind of petty/passive aggressive. It's one of those things that's kind of hard to really critique since his characterization isn't as developed as the other boys, but I do think if he was just kind of annoyed with his friends he'd roll his eyes but say 'nothing' was wrong and then complain about them to the other friends (Cartman if he's mad at Stan or Kyle, Stan and Kyle if he's mad at Cartman).

Favorite episode (scene if movie) Black Friday/ A Song of Ass and Fire/ Titties and Dragons/Coon vs. Coon and Friends/ Coon 2: Hindsight/Mysterion Rises

Favorite season/movie Bigger Longer and Uncut

Favorite line Okay this is a long one but: Kenny My dearest friends,:I am living amongst the natives in the remote and tiny island of Kava'i. What can I tell you of this mysterious island and its people? It is a place of wonder, and yet to the outsider like me, a place of odd tradition. The people here are peaceful and joyous, and seem to care little for the rush and worry of the outside world. Their diet is mostly an odd mixture of coconut milk, pineapple juice, and vodka, which they call the chi-chi. As for Butters, he is quickly learning the ways of his ancestors, and seems to be feeling better with every passing day. He still seems quite angry at times, but luckily his ceremony will finally take place on the morrow. The sheer dramatics plus Stan's "On the morrow"? What the fuck is wrong with Kenny? Really gets me.

Favorite outfit

OTP If I had to pick I'd go with Stenny, more in the capacity of fwb than real dating, but I've read a few fics where I like them as endgame. That said, I don't particularly ship him with anyone and tend to see him as being more into girls than boys.

Brotp Stenny

Head Canon Most of his acting out is to get the attention of his parents. He really, really wants them to take care of him, but is getting more and more resigned to the fact that they won't. He tries to induce a miscarriage in his mom to keep from sharing attention, when he experiments with sex or drugs it's often in his home where his parents SHOULD be the ones noticing, when he acts out in school the pranks are the sort that would probably get his parents called.

Unpopular opinion Tbh idk what the popular takes on Kenny are right now lol. I guess I disagree with Kenny being too good for the other three/that he'll hate it if he finds out about the custody arrangement. I think he'll actually like them treating him like their kid if they keep up their custody roles because it's giving him attention that they usually don't. That said, I also think treating Kenny as completely blameless oddly enough ties into the problems he tends to have in canon. The ways he acts out are regularly ignored by both his parents and his friends-- even when Stan gets pissed at Cartman for the period prank they pulled on their teacher, he's solidly on Kenny's side the entire episode instead of just being done with all three of his friends despite the fact Kenny did it WITH Cartman. The lack of acknowledging when Kenny does things wrong is a problem in the canon to the end that it feeds into him just being straight up ignored entirely, so ignoring them in fandom, interestingly, has the similar problem in that it prevents him from being seen as a whole person.

A wish More character development.

An oh-god-please-dont-ever-happen Killing him off for keeps.

5 words to best describe them Caring, forgotten, silly, theatrical, lonely

My nickname for them None

[forcebook]

Helloo, so I finally managed to watch the new not me episode after a day of procrastinating and wow there's so much to unpack, this show is truly a gem and I can tell it's only gonna get better. Totally supportive of how yok was just absolutely smitten by vandalism guy after seeing him for like 2 seconds. I'm also loving all the theories behind sean having a crush on black and being jealous of gram, but personally I think he might've teared up because black said he quit, like think about it, none of the guys even thought of exposing the corrupt government officials until black ignites a fire in them and like sean says himself, he gave them hope and isn't gonna be there anymore to see it through, it definitely would make me cry, but again, that's just me. Anyways, what's your thoughts about this ep? I feel like I'll need to give both ep's another good watch because I might've missed plenty of things due to the excitement lol.

Also, can't wait for bb this friday, I need to know if I was even remotely close with my "in-depth analysis" of wai's shitty behavior. We're in for a ride with these last few episodes I think, but it'll be well worth it!

- anti-wai anon :)

hi awa!!! so glad you’re back!! and that you watched the new not me episode 🥰🥰🥰

ahhh yes! that’s the same feeling i have, that not me is a Gem™️ that is only going to get better. genuinely hope we’re right!!! 🙏🏼🕯🙏🏼🕯🙏🏼🕯

me too!!! in this house we 1000% support yok’s random crush and more than that, we absolutely ship him and dan. they’re gonna be a legendary side couple, i can feel it!!!!

i even saw a meme that was like:

me watching wai falling in love at first sight with pa: unrealistic! ridiculous!

me watching yok falling in love at first sight with half of dan’s face: THAT’S TRUE LOVE OKAY!!!!

yep. that’s me! no shame here!

and nope! that’s not just you, i also believe sean cried because “black” quit. i mean, do i think there was jealousy in there when he saw gram taking care of “black”? yes, absolutely. but that was just an extra stabbing to his already bleeding heart.

sean is clearly passionate about the cause, he excitedly asked the girl if she thought that the people who burned down tawi’s house were heroes, he thinks that what they did was right. and this all happened because black started it and then suddenly “he” wants to quit? like none of what they believe and did matter? that must have felt like pure betrayal. and yeah, that shit hurt him a lot!

rewatching is always a good idea!! i rewatched both episodes just hours after watching them for the first time lol just in case i missed anything but i’m still very much confused about everything and that’s fine! i want them to tell me anyways, instead of theorizing like crazy 🤣

i LOVED the episode. genuinely got me obsessed with those stunning shots, it’s like the director has a very specific vision and they do it so well??? amazing music, cinematography on point, gun making it look like acting is as easy as walking down the park, off really is surprising me, his acting has improved and the depth he’s bringing to sean with that underlying warmth he so desperately tries to hide from “black” DRIVES ME INSANE. i never thought i’d have sean feels and yet here i am!! i loved all the discussions, the pacing was much better than the first episode imo, am ready for the side couple, and have i mentioned how great the music is in this show? so yeah.

i like it so much i started editing again and plan to follow through until the end which is not easy because i’m not a good editor, i just struggle until i eventually quit lmao but BOY THIS SHOW!!!!! just makes me want to edit it at all costs.

and about bb. i both desperately need and desperately fear next ep lmaoooo idk i have this Feeling inside my chest that i can’t name but it’s not really good. i’m praying it’s just anxiety talking.

i do believe your wai analysis is at least 50% correct, if not a lot more lmaooo which has me nervous as well but it’s pointless. gotta just face how it is. i know we’ll get a happy ending anyways!

yep!!!! these last four episodes are going to be insane in one way or another but so so so worth it. i have zero doubts about that!!

so let’s stay strong and go through the storm because a beautiful sunrise is waiting for us on the other side ❤️💙

[salvejoon]

Life is Beautifully Ugly (At Times) - pjm | 02

⇒ Warnings for this chapter: Not much for this chapter, some cursing but that’s about it.

⇒ A/N: Happy New year lovelies! 

Namjoon let himself into the apartment and he was met with silence. He glanced at his watch on his wrist. Usually, by now the apartment would be full of noise and life. Han would be on his 3rd cup of coffee, ready to drown himself in paperwork and Charlotte would be busy tidying the place up with soft music playing in the background and Hyejin would be running around, probably with a Superhero toy in her hand, making weird noises to assimilate flying sounds.

He hung up his coat and glided a hand through his still-damp hair. He had barely gotten any sleep last night, regretting how he let you go home by yourself after the hospital but you had insisted that he simply drop you off and he should go home and get some rest. 

You shouldn’t be alone in this. You needed support as much as Hyejin. 

He walked into the living room, glanced at the turned-off TV as memories of Han and Hyejin watching cartoons flashed by in his mind, and proceeded to walk into the kitchen. 

Standing still, he spotted you. You had your back to him and were still dressed in your dress from last night. His heart constricted when he saw you lift a trembling hand to your face, wiping away tears no doubt. Your hair was a mess too, sticking out in various ways. 

“Y/N?”

You jumped slightly at the sound of his voice and turned around, a soft sigh escaping you as you saw him, “Joonie. You scared me.” 

“Sorry.” Namjoon walked over to you. 

“Do you want some coffee? I was just making some.” 

“I’m fine.” He said and you nodded, turning around to fumble with the coffee machine, “How are you?” 

“I lost my little sister and my brother-in-law last night in a car accident and I had to tell their 4-year-old daughter that they won’t be coming home ever again and then I had to watch that break her tiny heart while trying not to break down myself. So far, so good.”

“Y/N-”

“I haven’t slept in over 24 hours. I’m still in the dress I wore last night. I haven’t showered nor brushed my teeth. I feel like crawling into a hole and cry and scream. I don’t want to deal with the people that have been blowing up my phone since the news came out. I don’t want to deal with the tabloids. I don’t want to… Deal with this…” You paused off as tears began to trail down your cheeks, “I feel so lost, Joonie.” You ended with a murmur. Strong arms enveloped you in a tight embrace and you clung onto him like he was the only thing keeping you together. 

Your sobs were muffled by his shirt as he comforted you, “You’re not alone in this. I’m here. Our friends are here. You and Hyejin won’t go through this alone, Y/N, I promise.” 

His words only made you cry harder, “Whatever you need, I will provide it.” 

“Can I have them back?” 

Namjoon blinked and felt a few tears roll down his cheeks, “I wish I could bring them back, sprout. I truly do.” 

Jimin stared at the picture standing on his desk. It was of himself and Han a few years ago. Han was holding up a large fish, flashing that signature Park smile while Jimin held the fishing pole. He smiled too but not as big as his brother. He remembered having been bored on that trip his big brother had dragged him on to. He remembered having said to Han that he didn’t care about fishing. 

Right now he wished he could go fishing again with Han.

Sighing, he ran a hand down his face. 

His heart hurt. His stomach growled. His head pounded. Everything just hurt. But he didn’t have time to wallow in the hurt. He had people to call.

The drunk man that had killed his brother and Charlotte wouldn’t know the taste of freedom ever again.

He would make sure of it. 

You left the bathroom feeling a little bit better after having changed out of the dress and taken a shower. You could hear the deep timbre of Namjoon’s voice coming from the living room and you guessed he was on the phone with someone. Deciding to leave him alone, you walked the other way and found yourself at the door to Hyejin’s bedroom. You carefully opened the door ajar and peeked inside, expecting to see her sleeping still but instead you saw her sitting on the edge of the bed, her small frame trembling. Then she sniffled and hiccuped and you walked into the room. 

“I-Imo?” She looked up at you with wet eyes, bottom lip twitching, “I had a nightmare.” 

“It’s okay, baby. I’m here.” You sat down beside her and pulled her onto your lap, rocking her back and forth as she cried into your t-shirt, “It’s okay.” 

“I-I’m s-sorry.” She hiccuped and you glanced down at her. 

“For what?” 

“Because I know you are sad too.” Her small hands grasped your t-shirt tightly, “And I don’t want to see Imo cry. It hurts.” 

You tightened your hold on her and kissed the crown of her head, “I know baby, but we’ll be strong together, okay? It hurts me too to see you cry but that’s okay.” 

“I miss them.” 

“Me too, sunflower, me too.” 

There was a knock on the door and Namjoon popped his head inside, “Thought I heard someone whispering.” 

“Boon!” Hyejin exclaimed weakly when he approached you on the bed and bent down, ruffling her hair lovingly. 

“Hey sprout. You okay?” He asked softly, wiping away the wet streaks on her cheeks. She leaned into his touch and shook her head, “How about we go make some breakfast, hm?” At this, the small girl smiled a little and made grabby hands towards him, “Okay, up we go.” 

“Missed you, Boon.” She said as she was picked up and nuzzled her face into his shoulder. Namjoon chuckled and kissed the top of her head, “I missed you too, sprout.”

You smiled at them and stood up from the bed, “Okay, let’s go make some breakfast.” 

“Do you need help?” You heard him ask behind you as you walked down the hallway. 

“You stay as far away from the kitchen as possible, Joonie. I don’t need a burnt down apartment on my hands either.” 

“Alright, alright.” 

His father sat by his desk, on the phone, as usual. Jimin waited patiently for his father to finish up the call. 

“I see. Since Mr. Hakimura doesn’t agree, can you ask him if his wife will appreciate being shown pictures of him and his secretary last Friday night? Mhm. Mhm. Call me back once you have his signature.” 

And as usual, his father was ruthless. 

“Ah, Jimin.” His father said as he hung up, “Have you talked with Mr. Kim?” 

“I have, sir.” 

His father leaned back in his leather chair and folded his hands on his lap, “Good. And what did he say?”

“He told me to talk to her myself.” It was more like ‘How about you talk to her yourself, idiot’ but he couldn’t tell his father that.

“I see. I trust you will have it handled?” 

Jimin bowed, “As soon as I’m done here.” 

“Good. Call me once it’s over.” 

“I was on the phone earlier.” 

“Mhm.”

“It was Jimin.”

“Oh. How was he?” 

“Alright, given the circumstances.”

“Did he want something?”

There was a knock on the door and you lifted your head from the stove and glanced towards the living room, “Mind getting that?” You asked Namjoon and the man nodded, patting Hyejin on her head as he sat her up on the counter. 

You heard the door open and two deep muffled voices but turned your focus to the omelet in the pan. You glanced over your shoulder when you heard your niece move and stand up on the counter, panicking slightly, “Hyejin, sit back down.” 

“But I was just getting a cup. I’m thirsty.” She pouted but stood still. 

“Sit down, sweetie. It’s dangerous.” You moved the pan away and went over to her, lending her a hand as she sat back down onto the counter, “You could have asked me to get a cup for you.” 

“I’m sorry.” 

You kissed her cheek before opening the cabinet to get a cup, “It’s okay but don’t do that again, okay?” She nodded and you walked over to the fridge to grab a water bottle. Someone cleared their throat and you looked over the door of the fridge. 

“Good morning.” Jimin greeted, looking at you and then at Hyejin. He looked as sharp as ever in a white shirt and black khakis, his hair swept back neatly but you noticed the dark patches under his eyes, “I’ve brought breakfast.” He announced, putting a white plastic back onto the island. 

You huffed, “Thank you but as you can see, I’m already making breakfast.” 

“It’s donuts.” He stated. 

“I love donuts.” Hyejin mumbled as she stared at the plastic bag. 

“That’s why I brought some for you.” He smiled at her and ruffled her hair. Hyejin looked at her uncle, contemplating for a second before she turned her attention to you and you sighed, the look on her face already melting away your annoyance. 

“Fine.” You grumbled and closed the fridge, “But only this once.”

“Yes, Imo.” The way her eyes lit up made you smile a little and you poured the water into the cup. Namjoon grabbed a plate from another cabinet and put it next to the bag, pulling out the container.

Hyejin could barely contain her excitement as the multitudes of colors were revealed to her hungry eyes, “I want that one! And that one!” 

Namjoon chuckled, “What about the chocolate one?”

“There’s chocolate?! Give me!” 

The tall man put a chocolate donut onto the plate and took it with one hand while he swooped up Hyejin in his other arm, “Let’s go watch some cartoons.” 

“Can we watch One Punch Man?” 

“Anything you want, sprout.” 

The pair left the kitchen, leaving you and Jimin in peace. The latter leaned against the island and glanced at his watch, making you raise a brow, “Do you have somewhere to be?” 

“I have a board meeting in an hour.” 

You scoffed and walked over to him, hungrily eyeing the donuts, “Of course. Do you ever not work?”��

“It’s important.” 

“More important than you taking some time off to grieve?”

“Y/N.” 

You rolled your eyes as you grabbed the blue donut, “Your brother died last night, Jimin.” 

“I am perfectly aware of that which is also why I am here. Do you have plans for the funeral?” He asked, looking at you as you shoved the donut into your mouth. You had dark patches under your eyes, indicating you had gotten no sleep like him. Your hair was damp and cascaded down your shoulders, making your black t-shirt wet by the strands. You wore a pair of sweatpants, no doubt Namjoon’s, with how big they seemed on your body.

You chewed and scowled, “It’s on the top of my to-do list but I haven’t really had the time nor energy since I had to console a 4-year-old and accept the fact that I won’t ever see my sister or your brother again. It’s been less than 24 hours but I’ll get to it later today.” 

Jimin nodded and you kept on munching on the donut, his eyes following you as you walked over to your half-cooked omelet and picked up the pan.

“Our father wants to do the funeral arrangements.” He blurted out. He heard the clicking sound of the gas stove, the pan hanging midair as you froze.

“Does he now?” You asked and put the pan onto the stove. 

“Yes.” 

“I see.” 

Jimin knew that tone and prepared himself for a fight, “Let him do what he wants, Y/N. It’ll be easier for everyone.” 

“Oh, if your father thinks I’ll just roll over…” You paused and grabbed the handle of the pan tighter, trying to contain your anger, “He’s wrong. If he thinks that he can just waltz back in and act like he actually cared about Han, his son whom he cut off, by the way, in case you forgot, just because he’s dead, then he can think again.” 

“The expenses-”

“The cost doesn’t matter.” You whirled around and glared at him, “I have my own damn money, Jimin, so I don’t need his money.” 

“Y/N.”

“Don’t ‘Y/N’ me!” You yelled, “He hasn’t been a part of their lives for years and now he suddenly wants to act like a father? Act like he’s heartbroken by the fact that his eldest son is dead? Fuck off.” 

“Don’t be selfish.” Jimin said stiffly and flinched when you slammed your hand onto the countertop. 

“Don’t you fucking dare calling me selfish. He can participate in the service but he is not going to plan anything. You can tell your father that and if he has a problem then he can call me himself.” You were breathing heavily as you tried to reign in your emotions, “I know it’s your father, Jimin. But he hasn’t been a father to Han for years, don’t forget that.” 

“Am I allowed to help plan the funeral arrangements?” He asked, voice softening slightly and watched as you nodded and turned back to the stove. 

“And let me pay for half of it?” 

“If you insist. Han was your brother. Now, do you want omelet or donuts?” 

“I am not eating anything that you have cooked. You might try to poison me.” 

“You know, you really are an asshole.” 

“Noted.”

[sxfterhearts]

scarred

29. [11:04 am]

➳ pairing: yugyeom x reader

➳ genre/warnings: slow burn, fluff + slight angst, slight bad boy!yugyeom, triggers; mentions of violence, injuries, physical abuse, bullying

➳ word count: 3,027 words

➳ summary: 29. “Well, what do you want to do?”

➳ author's note: once again, thank you to @jinyoungot7​ for this beautiful gif :”) and guys!! i’m so sorry for the delay, but here’s part 2 of wounded/24/7:25pm!! 🤗 i’ve decided it’ll be a 3 part story hehe i hope this is a good continuation of the 1st part!!! thank you for showering me with love and as always, any feedback is welcome + appreciated! feel free to drop me a msg or an ask if you’d like 🥰

wounded // scarred // healed

“Wait up!” You yelled, your thighs burning as you tried to jog up the steep, narrow alley. Just twenty minutes into your walk and you were huffing and puffing as though you ran a full marathon.

“Come on, Y/N!” Came Yugyeom’s voice from far ahead, growing more and more distant as the black puppy tugged and pulled on its leash, leading him further and further into the winding maze of streets and back alleys. “You can do better than this!”

“I’m trying,” You muttered to yourself, taking a deep breath before going full steam ahead in an attempt to catch up with the boys.

It was a miracle that you three got this far, really. It took you nearly three weeks to convince Yugyeom to volunteer at the dog shelter run by your best friend’s mum. Every time you brought up the topic, he would either ask you about homework or fake a wince, prompting you to inspect his latest injury. He finally agreed last week. Your birthday was coming up soon, and he asked you what you wanted as your birthday present and how you were celebrating, in the bluntest way possible. “Well, what do you want to do?”, were his exact words.

One thing you learned in the past month since you sat with him in your family’s restaurant was that Kim Yugyeom was not one to beat around the bush. If he wanted to know something, he would ask about it without batting an eyelash. If he had an opinion, he would state it in the most straightforward, yet nonchalant way possible. You supposed it came with years of being labelled the quiet kid. It made sense that he was awfully efficient with his words.

Naturally, you had asked him to fulfill your birthday wish of visiting the shelter together. “Don’t you want something more substantial? Like a present that could either be useful or memorable?” He wondered curiously.

“This is memorable, Yugyeom.” You told him, looking him square in the eyes. “You won’t just be doing me, or the dog shelter, a favour. You’ll be helping me create a happy memory. Nothing is more valuable than that.”

Sweat trickled down your back as you jogged the final stretch towards Yugyeom who was taking a rest on a bench in the neighbourhood’s park. Charcoal, the black Pomeranian puppy you two were responsible for this morning rested comfortably on his lap, thoroughly enjoying all the attention Yugyeom was giving him. You watched as you slowly approached the pair, trying to commit the peaceful scene into your memory. The morning sun casted its brilliant glow upon them, and you could just make out the beginnings of a fond smile gracing Yugyeom’s features as he smoothed his hand, the one with just a lone plaster on the thumb, repeatedly over the puppy’s soft fur.

It was nearly picture perfect, if not for the sudden yelp the boy emitted when the puppy licked across his wrist. There was a shallow graze from when a piece of glass sliced through the skin from two days ago, which had just started to heal. If not for that Friday nearly a month ago, you wouldn’t have insisted on staying at the restaurant until closing time and would’ve left around dinner time like you always did. Ever since then, you always waited until Yugyeom came in with his order just in case he needed someone to patch him up. You distinctly remembered how relieved you were that night because the glass missed a vein or an artery. Yet, the thought left you disgusted. You shouldn’t be feeling any form of relief at all. Regardless of how shallow his injuries were, his uncle was still being abusive. You shook your head to clear your spiralling thoughts.

“I think he tired himself out.” Yugyeom said in a slightly strained voice when you arrived by his side. The boy was flapping his injured wrist repeatedly in the hopes of alleviating the stinging pain.

Without a word, you kneeled and took his wrist in yours, blowing on it with earnest. While it was true that a dog’s saliva had potential healing capabilities, you didn’t want to risk an infection. Especially judging from Yugyeom’s earlier reaction and the way his skin was just starting to clot, you figured it was best to leave it alone. The newly formed scab looked pink and tender, but it was on its way to healing properly.

Unbeknownst to you, Yugyeom started to squirm in his seat. He was getting flustered by the way your dainty fingers danced across his skin, and the cool air that soothed and blew his pain away. From this vantage point, he could look down and watch the glistening beads of sweat as it rolled down the side of your face, your soft lips pursed tightly in concentration. It was distracting. “I… It’s fine, Y/N.”

You released his hand and handed him a packet of tissues from your pocket, already missing the smooth feel of his arm under your fingertips. “Maybe I should take over?” You cocked your head towards the dark little ball of fluff lying on his lap, its tongue stuck out in an adorably goofy way. “Scooch over, Kim.” Scooping up little Charcoal in your arms, you moved to sit beside Yugyeom. You marvelled at the tiny creature lying curled up atop your legs. He was barely five months old and took up nearly three quarters of your lap. Just as your hand moved to pat his head, the puppy looked up and playfully gnawed on your fingers.

“Treats?” Yugyeom suggested, producing a brown paper bag from his pocket. “He could be hungry.”

“Here, I’ll do it-”

“Charcoal, do you want some treats?” Yugyeom spoke in a high-pitched tone, as though he was playing with a baby.

Before you could stop him, the boy had already reached out his palm full of treats for the puppy. You breathed an audible sigh of relief when you realised it was his relatively uninjured hand. “Look at you, Kim Yugyeom. You’re a natural when it comes to puppies. Who would’ve thought that you were so reluctant to visit the dog shelter just a week ago?”

He quickly shushed you, his fingers enveloping the puppy’s flappy ears to prevent him from hearing you. “Charcoal doesn’t need to know that, okay? Besides, this little guy changed my mind.” Yugyeom let out a fit of giggles when the puppy gobbled up all the treats and ended up licking his palm instead. “It tickles,” The boy squealed.

You watched, amused at the softer side of Yugyeom that was surfacing in the presence of the black puppy. “You know, the Imo at the shelter always talks about having way too many puppies. You could always adopt one. I think it’ll be good for you, you know? Having a furry companion can be a huge source of comfort and emotional support.” You suggested, your tone as gentle as possible due to the sensitive nature of the topic.

Yugyeom peeled his eyes away from Charcoal and connected his gaze with yours instead. You couldn’t really articulate it or fully understand it, but there was something in the way he looked at you that struck you as inherently sad. “Listen, Y/N, there’s something I need-”

“Yugyeom hyung!” A boy exclaimed from the general direction of the playground. The two of you whipped your heads around and followed the voice until finally you saw a boy, probably a middle school student, with a long fringe identical to Yugyeom’s, waving enthusiastically.

“Bambam!” Yugyeom waved back, beckoning the younger boy over to where you sat.

He sprinted across the field in a matter of seconds, giving Yugyeom a typical bro hug as a way of greeting. “What are you doing here, hyung? And who is this? Is she…?”

Yugyeom hurriedly clasped his palm against the younger boy’s mouth, muffling his words. He pinched Bambam’s cheeks teasingly instead. “Behave, kid. This is Y/N, and this is Charcoal.” With the younger boy distracted by the little puppy, Yugyeom took this chance to give you a brief explanation. “Bambam is our neighbour. We play soccer together with Mark hyung.”

“Hello, Bambam!” You greeted with a wide smile as you watched the younger boy coo at the puppy. You never met any of Yugyeom’s friends before, so this was a first for you. It seemed that beyond his tough exterior and bad boy façade, he was just a normal boy who loved puppies and playing soccer with his friends.

Just as Bambam reached for Charcoal’s tiny paws, to your dismay, you noticed that his knuckles were a familiar shade of black and blue. “Bambam, your knuckles…” No way, you thought, was he like Yugyeom?

“Bammie,” Yugyeom started in a scolding tone, sounding far more mature than he usually did. “Are those rascals still bothering you? I thought you told me that they stopped.”

“Yeah, well,” Bambam looked like a deer caught in headlights. “It was just, you know, a small fight, nothing too serious. I swear! I’m completely fine. It doesn’t even hurt, really!” The younger boy scrambled to explain himself.

“Where are they? Are they here?” Yugyeom seethed, his tone dripping with dangerous venom and his eyebrows forced together in a frown.

Bambam peered over his shoulders briefly at the playground before shaking his head profusely. “No, just forget it, hyung. It’s fine.”

“Take me to them, kid. Right now, and I’m not going to ask twice.” Yugyeom moved to stand before directing his words at you. “I have to go take care of something for a bit, I’ll be back.”

You nodded, speechless. Sure, you’ve seen Yugyeom mad before, but hardly to this extent. The only incident that came close was when he stopped that classmate of yours from striking you across the face. As the two of them walked away, your mind began to race with irrational thoughts. You pondered the list of possible scenarios as your hands absently stroked Charcoal to calm yourself down. Was Bambam getting into fights? But why? Could he be the target of bullying? The young boy seemed so innocent and harmless though, why would anyone do that? It just didn’t make sense. Those long agonising minutes seemed to stretch out as you waited and waited for them to return, praying that they would still be in one piece.

After what seemed like a lifetime, you felt Yugyeom’s presence once again as he collapsed onto the seat beside you. “Oh, hey.” You muttered, voice small and uncertain.

“Hey yourself.” He replied with a small laugh, intrigued by your worried expression. A few moments passed, and then, “Are you going to ask what happened?”

You turned your head to face him, quick enough that you felt a slight strain in your neck. “Are you injured?” You started prodding at his body, mainly inspecting his fingers, his palms, his arms and his face.

The evident worry written across your features amused Yugyeom to no end. He wanted nothing more than to iron out the creases on your forehead and turn your frown upside down. “Of course not. The little rascals who bullied Bammie are nearly half my size. I could’ve taken them out like a light.”

You flinched slightly at the unwanted imagery that filled your head. “Please don’t say that, Yugyeom. Please don’t tell me you got into a fight. I don’t want you to get hurt any more than you already do.” You confessed.

“Not to worry, I just gave them a stern talking-to and sent them on their way, unharmed. They scattered like little mice, honestly.” He was met with your confused stare. “Basically, Bambam is Thai. His classmates picked on him because of that. The kid’s parents don’t know about it but I’ve seen what they did to him. I had to stand up for him and protect him. I couldn’t just watch from the sidelines as my friend got hurt over and over again.”

His words left you stunned once more. You had heard rumours of him getting involved in fights with bullies in lower grades before, but this was the first time you got confirmation from the boy himself. You never thought that the cuts and bruises he showed up with in class were actually battle scars he suffered when defending someone else. He stood up for the kids who had no one, just like how he wished someone would stand up for him. So much for that bad boy façade of his.

There was a sudden urge within you to give Yugyeom a big hug for what he’s gone through and what he’s done for others, and so you did. It was more of a side hug, due to the puppy now napping cosily on your lap, with one arm coming around his middle and holding him close to your side.

Yugyeom didn’t know what to do at first. Should he stay still? Should he say something? He decided on reciprocating in the end, his other arm resting securely on your petite shoulders. In those few moments, the two of you were enveloped in a calming silence, filled only by Charcoal’s soft snores and the rustling of luscious leaves above your heads. Yugyeom could only hear his own heart beating thunderously in his ears.

“I’m sorry for all the pain you’ve experienced, Yugyeom.” You started, causing Yugyeom to shake his head in response. None of this was your fault, yet you felt the inexplicable need to apologise. “Thank you for being so brave and so kind to your friends and to those other students who got bullied.” You paused to sniffle, hot tears already pooling in your eyes, blurring your vision. “I’m… I’m sorry that, all this time, all these months, I could only watch from the sidelines as you got hurt, over and over.”

"No." He replied resolutely. "You didn't just watch from the sidelines, Y/N, you need to… Wait, no, are you crying? Why…? Don't… don't cry." Yugyeom panicked, trying his best to quiet you down. He didn't have a clue on how to comfort a crying girl. He tried to rub his palm soothingly over your back, but you didn't stop.

It wasn't until Charcoal, who had been woken up by all of the fuss, moved around in your lap and began pawing on your stomach. He even tried to lick your face, but he could only reach the bottom of your chin. You broke out into a giggle, and Yugyeom finally let out a breath he didn’t even realise he was holding.

“Don't cry anymore, you're an ugly crier.” Yugyeom said just as you were beginning to calm down. Before you could retort, he continued, “In my case, there was no way for you to shield me from my Uncle's punches or tell him to bugger off. You did the best you could for me, I don't even know why you're doubting that. You didn't have to patch me up when I was injured. You didn't have to be kind to me when I've never even spoken a single word to you. And yet week after week for the past semester you would sit there beside me, silently cleaning my wounds and covering them with those cute yellow plasters. You didn't have to, but…” He reached into his backpack and produced a yellow handmade card. “You didn't have to, but you became my friend.”

“What’s this?” You accepted the card gingerly while wiping stray tears off your wet cheeks.

“Your birthday card. Happy early Birthday, friend. Don’t read it until you get home, yeah?”

You inspected the yellow card, with Yugyeom’s signature chicken scrawl and random stickers of smiley faces littered all over the surface. There was even a Rilakkuma plaster, identical to the ones you would stick on him, at the top right corner. It was one of the most heart-warming cards you had received.

“Yugyeom, I…” You turned to face him. The scar right in the middle of his face, the one you first saw when you met him at the restaurant, caught your attention briefly before you finally met his eyes. You held his gaze, trying to convey a whirlwind of emotions through eye contact alone. Gratitude, happiness, fondness, touched, awe-struck. “Thank you,” You uttered sincerely, as it seemed to be the most appropriate response.

//

You read his card the minute you got home, sitting cross-legged on top of your bed.

Dear Y/N,

Happy Birthday! I wish that you will celebrate your birthday well with your family and friends. May each year be happier than the last.

I’m not good with words, as you always remind me, so I will just cut to the chase. First of all, thank you for being the light amongst the darkness of my life. There are not enough words in my vocabulary (or the dictionary) to express what you and your family has done for me. I will never forget it and I hope to repay this huge debt in the future.

Secondly, there is something I need to tell you that I cannot bring myself to say out loud. I am not brave, which is why I have to say this through a letter. Mark hyung got a job two months ago at our local football club as an assistant. Perhaps your mother has told you this, but his increased independence has resulted in the greater severity of my Uncle’s violence. Last week, after watching hyung play, the coach offered to get him transferred to Incheon United FC. Incheon is a distance away from Namyangju, which means we won’t be able to come back for frequent visits, but it is a good chance (and perhaps our only chance) to get away from Uncle.

This is what I keep telling myself whenever I think about leaving this town; about leaving you. As much as I would like to stay beside you, I have to break free from him.

I leave the second week of school holidays. If you find it in your heart to forgive me, let’s have one last bowl of naengmyeon together, okay?

Your friend, always,

Kim Yugyeom

For the nth time that day, the boy had left you speechless.

[borisbubbles]

28. ITALY

Diodato - “Fai Rumore”

And we’re back to our usual disconnect, where everyone pretends to love Italy and I don’t. I cannot wait for all the Italian crazies to be OUTRAGED by this ranking (28/41 is fine for an entry I don’t care about...?) and reblog this all over the tumblrverse and inflate my reader stats. 😈 but first, let’s discuss what we have on our hands here. 

Song Analysis

There’s no way this post *won’t* end up offensive to every Fai Rumore fan, so I will resort to brutal honesty. I never, ever, *ever* cared about “Fai rumore”. In fact, I’d even say it’s strongly overrated by the gross of the Eurovision fandom? 

Okay so here’s the deal. I will not deny that “Fai Rumore” has several things going for it. The song has emotional gravitas, Diodato has a great voice and acts very well. It’s technically precise and well produced. It is very competent at what it sets out to be, which is a very standard HQ Sanremo Power Ballad. 

But here’s where I feel like I deviate from the norm: You may think “wow Fai Rumore! How brilliant, meticulous and poised”, but I think “how expected, overtly earnest and unfun?” 

The problem is, this is Boris’s Bubble and Boris doesn’t enjoy songs that feel like they belong inside a trophy cupboard, and “Fai rumore” is exactly one of those songs, don’t lie. So “meticulous, poised and brilliant” you say, well *I* say “how overtly earnest, unfun and aloof”? I have a Spotify - if I wanted to listen to good music, I’d just use that? Or one of my like 15 Youtube Playlists containing non-ESC entries? Why would I watch Eurovision, or Sanremo for that matter, for the good music when there are so many other (and easier) options available for me that align better to my tastes?

The fact that “Fai Rumore” is *too* perfect for me (and therefore very hard to empathize with imo) is one thing, which leads to other thing I need to point out. I’ll let my friend Matthew take over here, who wrote this paragraph on ESCUnited right after Diodato’s selection: 

That final sentences is bone-chilling because it’s so, so true. “I AM A SOPHISTICATED MUSIC FAN BECAUSE I FOLLOW ~FESTIVALE DI SANREMO~” is such a common trope of elistism (like, replace “San Remo” with any quality newspaper, nobel prize winning author or classical music composer and you’ll find to be nearly universally applicable to snobs across the globe), but I find it specifically ugly in Eurovision.

You see, would the same courtesy be extended to a country of lower prestige if they got a Fai Rumore? Would the same courtesy be extended to a person of colour? or a woman? How about others songs that, like Fai Rumore, emulate their country’s musical traditions (Fai Rumore is SO italian you can smell the basil), except those traditions fall outside of the western European bubble? See, it doesn’t bother me that Italians like Fai Rumore and are proud of it. They’re Italians. Of course they are! I don’t judge them for it. I don’t rly care if the odd introvert finds solace in a song of this calibre. But as soon as Matthew made the aforementioned post, people who had previously rated Diodato as a 5/6 already started adjusting their scores to 10s and 12s and, well...

It bothers me that the same fanbase that DEMANDS cultural diversity (Diodato) and/or MOAR ETHNOBOPS (Efendi) refuse to accept a Solovey or an Origo -which are a thousandfold more layered, sophisticated and daring- as an equal. 

It bothers *even more* me that people are willing to immediately give Italy a plethora of chances (especially when they choose men! fuck institutionalised sexism!), while not doing the same for a Belarus. Belarus HAS no clear musical scene or funds to really produce good music, yet produced a ridiculously good NF (with a VERY righteous winner - yes, Chakras, but also: Chakras) I’ve seen snobs SLAM VAL, mercilessly despite being an excellent left-field pick (god imagine if Yan had won Eurofest for a sec. What a nightmare). Italy, otoh, also delivered a sterling NF, have *a VERY* rich musical tradition, tons of talent and money and production value... and they still went the lowest common denominator available, and yet they receive praise, without so much as a whisper of protest from our so-called “value seekers”. This level of hypocrisy and double standard wielding, all in the name of wishing to be taken seriously delivers *such* a toxic undercurrent to Eurovision and has absolutely soured me on Diodato. This isn’t his fault, but sadly he’s become a weapon of mass misconstruction and well just because I hate the guy who pressed the big red button more doesn’t mean I automatically like ICBMs. As we come near the songs I actually give a damn’ about, I will start calling the shitpociries out. Brace yourself for it, when I rank Solovey and Da Vidna inside my top five.

Want some examples specifically pertaining to the Diodato fandom? Sure, I’ll give you some:

EJEMPLO UNO: 

Diodato fanboys openly coddling him on social media post-lockdown all “PROTECT OUR POOR MUNCHKIN FROM THE CORONAVIRUS”. Like... he’s a *thirty-eight year old adult* he can take care of himself, BACK UP OFF HIM you freaks. 

EJEMPLO DOS: 

The relevant media having baptized Diodato as THE SAVING GRACE OF THE LOCKDOWN, ITALIANS SINGING ‘FAI RUMORE’ FROM THEIR BALCONIES IN DEFIANCE OF COVID-19, which is such a bullshit narrative it’s turned my hair from black to brown.  Yes, the Italians sang “Fai Rumore”. What they don’t tell you is that they also sang many other Italian and non-Italian songs, including humanitarian anthem “Roar” by Kety Perr (cue to Katy Perry being like “OMG I’M SO HONORED TO INSPIRE SO MANY ITALIANS ::hungarianflagemoji::” on twitter.). CNN Like, Eurovision related media LOVE portraying it as a ~life-chaning confort anthem~ - the reality is that “Fai rumore”, while playing its part, was merely a tiny spoke in a giant wheel. 

EJEMPLO QUATRO:

Well take a look at how many people will reblog this post and slam it for daring to point out, what I think are really obvious truths to anyone who doesn’t suffer from musical myopia. 

In the end, the song is okay and it’s okay to love it. But if you ‘love’ it because you’ve convinced yourself that you must, and not because it genuinely means something to you, I don’t think you have grounds to criticise to criticise anyone but yourself.

NF Corner

As I said, I didn’t follow San Remo live (I never do! *gasp* blasphemy, I know), but I did plan to check it for this write-up except RAI deleted every live performance? And they won’t let me embed the few remaining vids either? 

Anyway, this happened so right-click-open this a new tab and then return once you’ve finished it. 

Backstage feuds being fought out LIVE on the stage in front of millions of viewers 😍 Apparently Morgan and Bugo were at loggerheads for a while, and had a massive row RIGHT before their performance on the second night, which caused Morgan to stray from the script and sing all the insulting things Bugo told him *to Bugo* instead of the actual lyrics of their duet. 😍 😍 😍 Bugo IMMEDIATELY stormed off the stage to the point where Amadeus had to like... literally tell the gobsmacked audience that Bugo had left the building 😍 😍 😍. This is some god-tier pettiness and I’m completely in awe of it. DEITIES. 😍

aside from Sincerogate, I would’ve embedded vidoes that contained the DRAMA (Rancore), CAMP (Achille) and UNABASHED WEIRDNESS (Levante) of this year’s line-up, but I guess RAI really doesn’t like for people to have fun. Oh well. 

Italy 2020 vs Italy 2021

Diodato is male and Italian, so yeah, guaranteed top 10 in Rotterdam, no matter what happens. Search your feelings, you know it to be true. Cynicism aside, televoters WOULD have flocked to it without thinking twice (for exactly those two reasons), passing over many better entries in the process and well... I’m tired and exhausted and I think you can guess I am not very impressed by this likely outcome. 

Not sure what RAI’s strategy for 2021 is (lol it’s RAI - they don’t have a strategy. besides Italy have bigger fish to fry than the Eurovision Song Contest as you know), but I’m not very invested either way. I could imagine them internally selecting Diodato if he’s willing to do ESC in 2021, but if this was a one-off deal (which I think it was), they will probably select another plain white bloke for you to obsess over, so no worries :-) #TuttoVaPene

FREAKY! FRIDAY! FACTOR!

I’m sort of conflicted? On one hand, god Fai Ru*snore* is SO typical of “Italy in Eurovision”, not just from a musical perspective but from a point of reverence as well. On to the other hand, when are the fanbases *not* acting insane w/r/t Italy?

San Remo was  really crazy this year, enough for me to award Italy a couple Senheads. However... if I wanted to see nice and inoffensive triumph over a bunch of deranged, gimmicky, ott masterpieces, I’d just rewatch #London1977? (offensive take #16: “people that like Marie Myriam the most in 1977 do not understand Eurovision”) Ehhhh whatevs.

Score: 2 Senhits out of 5. 

[fulltimeviking]

I SAW HOMECOMING

THERE’S SO MANY THINGS I LOVED I HAD TO DO WHAT I DID AFTER HTTYD 3 AND MAKE A BIG LIST OKAY LETS GO 

(in no particular order) 

- Nuffink sitting all attentive and listening to his Dad talk about leaving food out for Toothless 

- ‘we all like trout!’ 

- NUFFINK’S VOICE IS THE MOST ADORABLE THING I EVER DID HEAR, but also I swear he had a somewhat scottish accent? Idek. It said in the credits that he’s voiced by Liam Ferguson and I tried to look him up but found nothing. Whether Nuffy was putting it on and being all cooky and cute (because he sounded american in some parts to me too idk why) I honestly couldn’t tell but it’s kind coincidental how i literally made this post last week:

...and I guess I was a little onto something? spooky

- Zephyr is absolutely her fathers daughter - making traps? inventions? Looking at random books she found in the attic? We love to see it 

- THE TOOTHLESS TAPESTRY IN THE HADDOCK’S HOME 

- “three if you don’t count Black Plague Friday” “Yeah, nothing gets done, everyone’s just shopping and coughing” EYE-

- “and then it hit me” *gets knocked out by his kids* A+ gag 

- The nightlights drawing Hiccup with wings because they’re like ‘nononono. here dad let us fix it’ that made me go aw

- Astrid having to take a step back because her husband’s flailing arms are literally going to knock her out if she doesn’t. 

- The nightlights being chaotic. again. we love to see it 

- Gobber thinking Hiccup has a fake nightfury head just for personal reasons and not for the pageant 

- “Zephyr designed the whole trap herself!” SHE SOUNDED SO PLEASED. PEAK MAMSTRID 

- Also “What did I say about using the good nets? Kids!” and just going off after them whilst leaving Hiccup hanging from a trap. Domestic parent hiccstrid is on POINT

- Toothless and the Lightfury having a melt down when their kids went missing, also Toothless going OFFIT when he finally finds them and threethless and fourthless putting all the blame on poor fivethless lmao

- “I do not run like that!... Do I run like that?”

- idk why but just the way he fucking smacked his lips and was like “um I read the script Gobber and i have some notes-” idk idk it’s just funny 

- “da da da! we’re doomed” I UNDERSTOOD THAT REFERENCE 

- NIGHTLIGHT NOISES

- one word. “HONEY” 

- “I touched one! I touched a dragon - that’s hardcore!” along with “I would say I was a lot more heroic” yeah yeah hiccup we know you were a cool kid. absolute badass 

- THE PART THAT LITERALLY MADE ME CRY - ZEPHYR GOING BACKSTAGE TO FIND HER DAD AND JUST HAVING A MOMENT WITH TOOTHLESS. HER REFLECTION IN HIS EYES!!!!!!!! I’M TEARING UP JUST TYPING IT WAS THE BEST PART OF THE ENTIRE THING ISTG. 

- Hiccstrid walking with their arms intwined as their kids play and run ahead of them before having a sweet hug. made my heart do a flip :’) 

- The haddock’s inviting Gobber back because he’s a member of their family :’) would’ve been great if y’know..... Hiccup’s mother was there... grandmother to his children and all..... maybe even his good pal Eret..... I’m not bitter I swear

- *zephyr holds nuffink and gobber back so her trap can go off and they don’t get caught* “Okay you’re good” and Hiccup going “So proud :)” !!!!!!!!!! ME TOO I LOVE THIS CHILD 

- “maybe it’s our turn to visit them!” 

- The end credits being to the ending scene from httyd 3. literally the best way they could’ve ended it 

That’s all I can think of at the momennt but all in all I ABSOLUTELY LOVED IT. If I had to rank it I’d say (imo) it’s either on par or just a teenie tiny bit below gotnf would’ve been easily above if there was some nana valka and uncle eret but whatever, 10x better than dotdr. I loved it :’)

[klarolinedrabbles]

What are some of the tvd to fandoms greatest hits so to speak... I was only in it for a short time and then jumped out because I couldn't stand to

Oh, well allow me to be your guide. This will be under a read more because I already know, I’m gonna write a whole essay. Shout out to my ride or die @hellsbellschime.

I don’t think any overtly crazy happened during the good!TVD years. No wait, I’m lying.

The year the spin-off got announced, I believe it was tvguide, that posted an article with like info tidbits for currently airing shows. And one of them, was that Hayley was pregnant with Klaus’ kid. I remember this shit so clearly, man. Everyone was so confused. And then they were like SURPRISE, APRIL FOOLS. Because it was in fact April 1st. So ha-ha we all had a laugh, great. Fastforward to what, late April? Episode 4x20 airs, and it’s exactly what happened???

That whole day btw, the day the backdoor pilot for TO aired was just insanity. I’ll say that about a lot of days in this answer, but that day was really just something else. Like we were delirious, that’s the only way I can explain what happened on here. It was a nightmare but also one of the funniest night’s I’ve ever spent on here. I gotta go back for old time’s sake and reblog some of the shit from that night because we all snapped. And not in the good way. 

The TVD 100th. Now, we knew Joseph was coming back for that episode so they hype was real. Because up until that point, we’d gotten a huge load of nothing in regards to Klaroline. They released a trailer, a short one, that’s still in my favorites folder on youtube to this day. I rewatch it all the time because it’s iconic. And there was literally .002 seconds of Klaroline. It’s Caroline standing and then Klaus says “hello, caroline” and everyone lost their shit so much when it dropped that ‘hello caroline’ trended ww on twitter. 

THE DAY THE NETWORK THAT AIRED TVD IN AUSTRALIA AIRED A PROMO WITH THE KLAROLINE KISS IN 5X11. ICONIC. I literally woke up, logged on at around 11 AM my time, and my dashboard was on fire. It was the BEST. We didn’t know wtf to do, it was amazing. 

Paleyfest. Ohhhh buddy, lemme tell ya. So TVD/TO got chosen to have the CW panel’s at Paleyfest that year. Everyone was on a bit of edge because TO to that point was what, almost done with S1 and Klaroline had been given the mega cold-shoulder despite being the very thing other than the Mikaelson’s that got used to lure people in? After the pregnancy plot from hell, everyone was ready to peace tf out, but we got halted because it was a ‘ohh of course it’s gonna continue’ then they tried to nip Klaroline in the bud with 5x11 and no one was having it. So Paleyfest was where we were gonna get some ANSWERS, DAMMIT. I live on the east coast and the festival was held in the west coast so I wasn’t awake when it was happening. I remember making a post about how ‘going to sleep, and hoping when I woke up the answers were good.’. So I went to sleep, woke up a few hours later like 2-3 AM my time, and checked my blog and the first message I had was ‘don’t wake up stephanie, everything is a mess, stay asleep where everything’s fine’ I—

The gist of that was, they basically set JoMo up to be the bad-cop in shutting down Klaroline. He gave this long answer that made absolutely zero sense. The girl who asked the question about Klaroline, who was like 13 at the time, got called a bully for even asking a question at an event she paid to be at. A mess. And JP was like NO CROSSOVERS, ORGANIC, BLAH BLAH. And Paul was sitting next to her going “why can’t the show’s just intersect”, he was right and he said it. 

I can’t remember if this was S1 or S2, but somebody tweeted something and Carina replied ‘when you’re found dead in your basement with klaroline written on you this is why’ or something like that, that was a ~fun~ night. And then like half an hour later she was like “I’m sorry, I’ll never tweet about Klaroline again just leave me alone” if you’ve ever seen this fandom refer to ourselves as basement dwellers, this night is why. 

NARDUCCI. Can’t forget him. Talk about a man who just didn’t get it. And I don’t mean Klaroline, he just didn’t get anything, nothing in his head has ever clicked, I’m convinced. He used to pick fights on twitter repeatedly. Admitted once that he missed his flight because he was on twitter…arguing with a fan. AND ONE DAY, he decided to just—snap. Went on this hours long tirade against the Klaroline fandom, essentially calling everyone stupid because no one was appreciating the ‘art’ of the show. So when I say it lasted hours, I mean that. Now, you’d think, that he would be done, right? WELL, apparently that wasn’t enough, so the next day, he continued. I remember because I was in this gc on whatsapp, and I remember Erika sending a message to the gc going “omg, Narducci vs KCers round 2″ when I tell you I screamed. The man went on a two-day rampage against this fandom and it was insane. 

S6/S2 of TVD/TO was not a fun time. I can genuinely say it was borderline a chore to come on here during that time. It wasn’t fun, every day someone was in argument with someone from production on twitter. Truly the worst year of the fandom, imo. So S7/S3 rolls around and that’s where shit went nuclear. 

Hillary and I, are minding our own damn business, when someone come’s to us with information regarding the new seasons. This was post-SDCC, so it’s like the lull of September, waiting for the seasons to start in October. And we get approached with information, talkin bout how Caroline’s gonna be pregnant with Alaric’s twins in S7. When I tell you we didn’t know wtf to do. And we had to like wait on confirmation about it but then we found out it was legit and we were pissed. Literally ask us if we wanted to be in the spoiler game, the answer is no tf we did not. And she and I basically spent two days complaining. LIKE UGHHHH WE DON’T WANNA DO THIS, BUT ALSO THIS IS DISGUSTING, WE CAN’T JUST LET THEM SPRING THIS ON EVERYONE, BUT AGHH WHY US. So we chose collectively, as a duo, because das my other half yo, to blab. 

That went over as best as anyone could hope for it to go. Now, flashforward yet again, this time to around late Novemeber/December. I had been sent word that something was going down. TVD/TO lost their Thursday slots and got bumped to Friday’s, so a plan was going on, and they made one. We’d heard that they were rearranging something mid-season because they were gonna make a crossover work, publicly we found out it would be Paul and JoMo that crossover back-to-back. THEN ONE NIGHT—I call it black friday bc  that day was a fucking mess—, a friend of mine was friends with an SCer, I wanna say, and she was hearing word that the crossover did have Klaus and Caroline interact via phone call, but that it was very definitively an ending. Because they spoke about Camille and Stefan, etc, etc. Like a closing of the book type thing. So okay, we were like devastated, everyone on twitter was losing their shit. Everyone was pissed, and @-ing the writers all these crazy, sad things, we were a wreck. Ask Hillary about this night because she, I remember, describes it as ‘logging on and reading what everyone else had and not understanding why tf everyone was mad about it’. It was the first and last time that our roles were reversed, and bless her for it. 

SO WE’RE SITTING THERE, it’s Saturday, and we kept getting more information and we were like…something isn’t right here. So we did a bit of digging, spoke to a few people and waited it out. LO AND BEHOLD, everything we’d heard about the phone call was false. There was a phone call but the CKers and SCers were so mad about what was actually said in it, that a few of em, ring leaders of the feeble minded, made up a version and passed it around their fandoms as legit till it eventually worked it’s way over to us. So we all jumped the gun on fake information, lmfskdnknsks. Rumor has it, you can still hear Hillary yelling ‘I told you so’ at me through our group chat. 

So all was well, I couldn’t tell everyone why not to panic, just that they didn’t need to. Until, this account popped up called tvdspoiler or something on twitter, also saying false information about the phone call. Sending everyone into a panic yet again. I remember this because I was at  kmart with my mom, and the kmart by my house was in a basement so I had no cell service. I was able to send like a couple of messages, and was basically like ‘tell everyone to chill, I’ll clear it up when I get home’ did that in like a couple of hours cause then I had to leave to the midnight showing of the force awakens with my friends. So that day was chaotic, but fun. It was the first time I reached 99+ messages on my inbox, lmao. 

So that all happened like a good while before we actually saw the episode. But cut to a few weeks later. I woke up at 1 AM my time to drink water, was on tumblr trying to go back to sleep. I checked my inbox and there was this bizarre message talking about ‘got some scoop’ and they were like ‘Finn dies in 3x17, Aurora gets put into some weird sleeping spell in 3x18, Camille and Davina die in 3x19, Lucien dies in 3x20′ and I quite literally laughed??? Literally who wouldn’t. Like who tf would ever believe TO had the balls to do all of that when they never killed anyone off. AND, WHO WOULD BELIEVE THAT SOMEONE WOULD JUST STOP BY, SHARE IT AND LEAVE. So I sent a screenshot to Hillary and was like ‘yo did you get this because wtf’. We often got duplicate messages. And we often got messages of people who were pissed about the two previous times we, from the klaroline fandom of all places, had legit info that wound up being true, that they were just waiting for us to fuck up. So we used to get messages of people pretending they were sharing info, and it was just antis trying to make us look stupid. 

SO, Hillary says ‘just answer it because it’s obviously fake’ top ten moments before disaster. I answer it and am like oh haha, and where did that info come from. And they came back like a minute later, saying ‘I have a source’ THEN THEY ELABORATED. They mentioned that Lucien drags Freya and Vincent to Mystic Falls to do this spell with some bullet and etc. So at that point we were like fUCK because that same day we’d found out was in 3x16, which ended with Lucien and this white-oak bullet, having kidnapped Freya. And that’s when we knew, that someone showed up in the middle of the night, spoiled the whole back-half of TO S3—and then left.

The back-half of S3 was so fun??? Every week the info just kept coming true. On the wikia everyone hated me, probably the most anti messages I ever had was during that time, honestly it was great, 10/10 would recommend. 

THEN, at some point in our blog history, Hillary had been getting quite a few messages about PT. And she had this fucking line in one of the messages about Phoebe’s pronunciation with her accent for the show, or lack thereof. And she said “weeches and woves will always have a place in my heart” SO THEM PHOEBE TWEETED IT. THAT EXACT LINE, and we were like was she...? So we shrugged off okay. A few days later, she tweeted “hellsbellschime enough, there’s plenty of other things to watch on tv, I hear mad men’s great.” And I—

THIS WAS ON SOME RANDOM ASS SUNDAY. Like I was lounging around, waiting for the new episode of game of thrones and then WHAM, chaos. AND AS IF THAT WASNT ENOUGH, Leah joined in too. Putting a target on my friends back...about her blog that no one was making them read. You can’t make that shit up. And Jenn actually replied to Phoebe’s tweet and got a reply back, and she was all “you’re right, I’m sorry” and then deleted the original tweet, which I still have a screenshot of btw. And then Leah showed up in Hillary’s inbox with this ridiculous three part ask about how she shouldn’t criticize women in the acting industry because of how hard it is for women in that industry which is true, but it doesn’t make you exempt from criticism??? So not sure where she meant to go with that one.

SO THERE WE HAVE IT, our fandom’s greatest hits. I’m sure I can elaborate and insert more, but I’ve been typing for a good 40 minutes. 

Told ya, I wrote a whole dissertation, lmaooo.

[toddandersvn]

okay so i said i’d write this on friday and then i didn’t but i really wanted to so i’m doing it now

not to be a cinnamon tography nerd on main but i have things to say about vrijdag 21:21, nobody asked for this but here they come:

(spoiler alert this got long so it’s all under the cut, enter at your own risks;))

first off the lighting in the lobby: pure gold (*finger guns*). there is a warm yellow golden light around the door due to the street lights outside, so when robbe walked further, he was in the colder whiter light from the building. Then. when sander came in, the shots of him were in this golden light, which creates such a heavy contrast. i mean look at them side by side, do you see the difference? It could show that the two characters are not in the same head space and that their feelings coming into the scene are very different. Reminder that at this point and time they have not spoken since sander kissed britt and he never answered robbe’s messages either. Sander walks in this scene with the purpose of telling robbe that he chose him, not Britt, but robbe is lost and has “colder” feelings towards sander.

but thennnnn when they both come together in the same frame, the colours fit together so well that robbe blends into the golden light and the background, like he was meant to be there. Whether it’s his hair or his coat he just melts into the set and your focus is instantly drawn to sander who immediately stands out.

also, all of the shots from the beginning are very warm, until we see the “cold ‘robbe’” shot (im calling it that but you know which one i mean i’m bad with words sorry). so not only does it represent their feelings and creates a contrast, it feels very unsettling to the watcher because up until this shot, all of the shots were rather warm and yellow-toned, even the close ups of robbe’s face because the coldness of the shot comes mostly from the white wall behind him. So, having scene all of these golden-lit shots before, when seeing robbe in colder, bluer light it feels surprising, much like robbe felt seeing sander.

sounds in the lobby: not one. there is not one sound but the creaking of sander’s boots and his leather jacket, their breathing and the *yearning noises*, and yet i know for a fact those doors dont block sounds at all, and especially not all the sounds you can hear when robbe is outside walking in, meaning they were cut on purpose. In other clips there is always some background sound to represent their surroundings, to make it feel more real, and cutting that out really shows that this right there is 1) all you should be focused on and 2) all that really matters in the story and in each of the characters’ life at this point. facts also strengthened by 1) the fact that all sounds go quiet the second sander closes the door and is officially in the building and 2) the fact that you see a red light flashing passing by (see picture below) and you don’t. hear. a. thing.

continuing in the sounds in the lobby category is the synchronization of the song with their kiss and most specifically sander’s jaw (because it’s taking up most of the frame). at 1:36 and 1:37 between the lyrics “take it” and “how you want it” there is a cymbal or sound of some sort that resembles a breath in, and that sinks in perfectly with the movement of sander’s jaw that indicates a breath as well (see picture below). If you grew up doing a choreographed sport, you know how important it is for you to do moves on certain cues in the music to show that you were perfectly in harmony with it or else you could get points deducted, and if you didn’t grow up doing those types of sports and you didn’t know music is important, well now you know and it is soooo important because of the harmony. You being in sync with the song you’re choreographed to truly shows that everything is where it’s supposed to be, when it’s supposed to be there, not a second earlier, just like their reunion.

twirling transition from the lobby to the bedroom: *chef’s kiss*

photography in the bedroom: 13/10. they move on to the bedroom with the overhead shot, which is so effective. this shot placed above their heads actually detaches you from the scene because you are placed above them, like an omniscient overwatcher, so yes, you feel like you are intruding, being kind of like a peeping tom, but this shot sold the clip to me because it visually changed things up, but it actually reminded you that you’re just a watcher and that this is something between them, and you aren’t part of the scene. Yes, you feel like you’re intruding, but let me tell you if all the shots we had were ground shots or eye-level shots you would feel the intrusion feels even more.

okay! next! this shot:

this is very much shot with a wide angle lens and you can tell by the disproportion of robbe’s face (how big his forehead is compared to his chin). WA lenses are often used in films and photography to how the surroundings and the world around a certain character or thing. A fairly common shot is a character in the middle of a frame with all of his surroundings to make him/her/them feel small compared to the world around them. Basically, all i’m trying to say is, to me, this shot felt like they were using the WA lens to represent the world around them but it only showed robbe and his chain, or sander’s world in that moment, nothing else matters, it’s just him and robbe, alone, in a universe of their own, much like the outside sound or lack thereof in the lobby.

then when they’re kissing and they intertwine their fingers, the shot goes from having them kissing in focus and the hands out of focus in the foreground to having them out of focus in the background and their hands in focus. I feel like this is pretty self explanatory, but it really shows that they are together, on the same plane, as physical proof. Yes, the lighting and the angles were showing that before in the clip, but in that moment, that physical touch shows that they really are one and in sync.

and then that last overhead shot where it spirals and gets higher and higher plays on that intimacy again, it’s the reminder. Since the last ‘overhead’ (even though it wasn’t *technically* overhead but you get it) shot all that we got were very close, specific or WA shots that made you feel like you were part of the scene. You easily noticed and focused on the details, and that last shot starts like that, focusing on sander’s back and moving to robbe’s hand, bringing your focus from his back that took up most of the frame to robbe’s hand, a very specific element of the frame, until it starts to spiral away, moving higher. THIS REMOVES YOU FROM THE SCENE IN THE MOST PERFECT WAY. Essentially, the focus change from the back to the hand gathers your glances. It makes sure that wherever you were looking before you are now solely looking at robbe’s hand and then the shot moves backwards still focusing on the hand and withdraws you as a watcher from the scene, and basically wraps that scene in a perfect bow. It reminds you that you saw what they were doing, but in the end it really just is all about them and you were only witnessing it. And this is only strengthened by the last two seconds.

After the overhead shot is first moving backwards, it’s lowered again and you’re closer to their heads, and yes you’re still close to them, but not with the level of intimacy you had before because you’re now not part of the scene you’re just a witness floating over them. Fun Fact: it is also the exact same shot that we first get of them on the bed, just lifting up instead of coming down (see picture below) and it just finishes the clip beautifully imo. tl;dr the overhead shots are basically a way to remove you from the scene and imo they were very effective and beautifully done.

geometry in the bedroom: diagonally amazing. As humans, our eyes love geometry, and studies show that if there is some form of geometry in a photo, we’ll tend to like it and appreciate it more. It’s not the geometry from elementary school with squares and triangles, but stuff like the rule of the thirds and multiple lines that all lead to one specific point. What i noticed a lot in this clip particularly was the diagonal lines. First example: sander’s back in the last few shots of the clip: it goes from one corner of the frame and even though it does not reach the other corner of the frame, there is nothing that is particularly blocking it, meaning your eye elongates it and creates a coherent line, which is very appealing to the eye and very easy to follow. It is also part of what makes the shots so ~aesthetially pleasing~, but there are multiple examples of this throughout the clip (see picture below) like the movement of the focus from their faces to the intertwining of their hands, which brings me to my next point.

movement in the bedroom (it sounds so sexual omg i promise it’s not): smooth. One of filmmaking’s golden rule is to not move the camera unless it is absolutely necessary, which is why i was absolutely floored when it happened on three major occasions: 1) at 1:54 when robbe removes sander’s shirt the camera moves along with his hand, essentially keeping robbe’s watch in the centre 2) at 2:09 when the shot goes from sander’s boot up along his leg to robbe climbing sander like a tree and 3) at 3:08 when the focus moves from their faces to their hands holding (but i kind of already talked about that one).

Not going to lie, i have no particular analysis for 2 apart from the fact that it might have been used for contrast because of the black jeans and boots compared to the skin, but it looked so good that i am not mad it was included in the final cut. As for 1, to me, it symbolized their emotional stripping? like they are physically stripping but being in the movement of it meant something more and made it a symbol of how they are committing emotionally to one another after all this time, stripped of anything else, kind of like their first kiss. just them and their *in love noises* and nothing in the way.

All i’m saying is that this clip was so incredibly easy to watch because all of the geometry and movement does all the work for you, it makes your eyes move from one corner of the frame to the other with ease, and the lighting set the mood perfectly with such a warm colour.

and that’s all i have to say! thank you so much for reading up to here haha i am forever thankful🌻 i’m not studying media in any way shape or form i’m just very interested in it so all of this is purely from my amateur point of view but i really wanted to scribble all of my thoughts somewhere so here they are:)

[aspenthicket]

now that i have some time, i’m gonna talk abt my thoughts on Black Friday. It’s below the cut and i should warn y’all that it’s just going to be random trains of thought. there will be criticism, but also lotsa praise! 

overall i liked it, though it’s def far from my favorite musical of theirs. I’d put it level with TTO (which is funny when thinking abt how different they are)

Dylan, as always, steals the show, although everyone was just???? so good. everyone was suited to their roles perfectly and the vocals were A+

don’t get me wrong, I wish Jeff would sing in his lower range more often (like in “America’s Great Again”) because it’s beautiful, but i personally thought he killed the falsettos and that his higher range sounded much stronger than in TGWDLM. especially that one note. you know the one.

i think the decision to heavily focus on so many characters was a poor choice and that’s why the musical feels incomplete. it’s not the vague ending, it’s that we barely got to know the characters to any depth.

on that note, it prob should have stuck to McNamara, Tom, and Lex as main characters (at least based on the beginning) & possibly had McNamara somehow working them instead of the president

honestly i was just not very attached to any of the characters except sorta Tom, and that’s mostly because Dylan could make me cry even if he was singing the phone book

i def agree with people that the superpower reveal sucked and then?? only existed in this musical to give Lex a gun

the creep factor was tight and i was actually a little freaked when the president went into the black and white

the political commentary? the anti-capitalism commentary? beautiful

anyway joey should play villains always. i mean i love him in any role, but he is so good as a villain

also that was, as of now (having seen the show once and not listened to a single song again), the only song to really stand out as one i’ll def listen to more. but it’s typical of me to not love musical’s songs the first time i hear them/grow to love them, so

Jaime was given a, frankly, terrible character to play and i’m lowkey bitter she didn’t get a decent and larger role because she’s soooooo talented

although she had some Iconic lines, i just wasn’t feeling Linda. I mean i adore Lauren, but i remember feeling distinctly disappointed when i realized that Linda would be her main role in the show. she was funny for a scene, but too bland as a villain

so i know the theory is alternate dimensions and all but i cannot stop thinking about the last song seemingly implying groundhog day and the idea that like..... the creatures/aliens/whatever are not only resetting the timeline over and over, but that they’re tweaking “settings” (relationships to one another, for example) and trying different things to control people with. it could be for fun, but what if they just aren’t getting the outcome they want? which is strange, because they won in TGWDLM and the ending to Black Friday is vague.

it’s only a game, i guess it’s only a game, Black Friday is nothing but a—

there’s also the whole “Black Friday is a musical made by the aliens from TGWDLM” theory that, while i don’t like, does make sense given Paul’s singing in the end

no but really, we gotta discuss Paul singing

speaking of the vague ending, i do think our questions will be answered in the next show. but let’s be honest, that doesn’t make the vague ending less disappointing

despite any criticism, i genuinely enjoyed watching it and that’s what matters

personally, less humor didn’t bother me. in fact, outside of Starkid, i usually avoid stuff labeled comedy and prefer drama, including other musicals. I usually prefer drama with a small dose of humor, but never 50/50 (or worse), tho Starkid has always been good about finding a balance. This musical leaned more into my typical preference, but i literally wouldn’t have complained either way! I love that they took a step into trying something a little more serious

I def agree with some people saying the camera was too pulled in at times. i would rather have a static camera just showing the stage than miss out on choreo tbh

Jon as the lawyer was fjdsakfhjfkhsfdjksfhskjf

this show really gave us some Feminist Icons

the TGWDLM references being super obvious and heavy honestly just made them funnier imo. like half of them had no subtlety at all and i love it

“i’ve met god, he had nothing nice to say about you”

maybe if the audience and i both gasp loud enough about emma and paul we can create a portal to another world and go into it

the man in a hurry made me cackle every time tbh

okay but did joey take the apple back

[jyndor]

paul krugman and the art of doubling down on shitty takes

so on september 11th, famed nyt editorial writer, keynesian economist and fave of your racist liberal uncle, paul krugman, wrote one of the shittiest takes I have ever seen on twitter, which is SAYING SOMETHING.

krugman famously tweeted this:

and got a million virtual shoes thrown at him for being so ignorant, because anti-muslim hate crimes did actually escalate after 9/11, and the bush administration eagerly fanned the flames of islamophobia in order to make their illegal wars in afghanistan and iraq popular with the public. muslims, sikhs, indians, literally anyone vaguely brown, and lots of black ppl too, were terrorized by their neighbors, (former) friends, classmates, coworkers, etc. and anyone with a muslim friend knows this happened because they've told us about it. and these attacks were reported on. they were, I remember reading about them when I was a kid.

(paul krugman works for the new york fucking times, and while I think the nyt is warmongering centrist garbage, they do actually report on things that happen in the world. he writes editorials for them, surely he reads the damn paper once in a while).

so today, I log on to twitter and see he has decided not to apologize, but rather do the ol' double down, which always works out well.

here are some highlights:

okay so first thing's first, no apology (obviously) since this is a double down. but we got a chart, and liberals do love a good chart when they are being racist and ahistorical.

he admits that the chart is actually inaccurate because it excludes all the other victims of anti-muslim hate crimes who weren't actually muslim (read: the innocents). okay. so already he is losing credibility because he is using an inaccurate chart as the basis of his double down, and really, we love to see it.

after this there's some shit about how he didn't say there wasn't an outbreak of white americans attacking muslims and people mistaken for muslims, but rather that it could have been worse. lol well anything can be worse than it was, as 2020 has taught us. it’s a pedantic mess and I didn’t feel like that was the meat of the double down.

so first off, the iraq war was definitely started for many reasons, but islamophobia was part of it. the bush administration wanted to invade iraq and depose saddam hussein, and steal iraq’s oil for multinational oil companies lbr, and so they exploited americans’ fears about muslims by propagandizing about how it was important for us to attack them over there before they attacked us over here with their weapons of mass destruction, and of course they would attack us over here if given the chance. why? because they hate our way of life here, our freedom. those things were LITERALLY said by bush people and also by their stans at fox news and the wsj, and yes, in the editorial pages at the nyt.

so to someone like paul krugman, who knows lots of conservatives who don’t seem racist, or are educated and distinguished and just... like war? idk but to him, he sees people like them and says, well... they’re not like uneducated filthy poors in west virginia, not that kind of racist.

but what he doesn’t get, or he is being deliberately obtuse about, is that in order for the bush people to dehumanize muslims the way they did, they had to personally place less value on the lives of iraqis than on the value of that sweet crude oil. they were willing to go to war, sacrifice hundreds of thousands of civilians in the process (as well as thousands of american soldiers, but this isn’t about them) because they didn’t see them as anything but collateral damage. and that is fucking racist.

and while I have no interest in playing the “which racist is worse” game, when the west virginia uneducated racist endangers those around them, the politician rich harvard educated racist writes policy and lies us into illegal wars that endanger millions. both are bad, both are racist.

and by the way, him “sticking his neck out” to speak up against going to iraq was brave and necessary, especially because the nyt was pushing the invasion. but when you put it like that... you just sound like a tool. like it was a burden to call out the liars and imperialists. bitch, you’re paul krugman, a nobel laureate and renowned economist. I do not want to discount the IMMENSE pressure and blacklisting that opponents of the bush administration experienced, because showing any opposition to the wars at the time was risky. but idk the way he put that just irked me, especially since he didn’t even lose his job like many in the media did when they spoke up.

usually what liberals do when they fuck up publically is a fake ass apology and a few hail marys, and I assumed he would be on twitter begging for forgiveness on this one since his garbage take went so viral and pissed off so many people. and of course was wrong.

but then he does this:

yeah. your eyes are not deceiving you. that chart is measuring anti-black, anti-lgbtq and anti-”islamic” (lmao who says that bro just say anti-muslim or islamophobic) hate crimes. shut up leftist twitter, black people have it worse than muslims according to my inaccurate chart. so stop attacking me, a rich white man who doesn’t really care about anything other than my reputation.

there is a lot to unpack here, namely that paul krugman is using faux concern for black people as a way to deflect from his shitty ahistorical take about how much restraint white americans showed after 9/11 towards muslims. maybe krugman doesn’t know any black muslims, but they exist. also oppression olympics is stupid even when used by well meaning essentialists, let alone by milquetoast academics.

not to mention that he has already discounted his own shitty chart by saying it doesn’t show the full picture of what happened in these anti-muslim attacks. but even if we take this chart seriously, it actually does not really support his point. look at how many more hate crimes there were against muslims in 2001 than there were in 2000. there are significantly more black people than muslims in the united states. I am not good at math, and surely I am no nobel laureate, but it seems to me that hate crimes against black people increased a little, and hate crimes against muslims increased a lot. and this chart only takes into account three years, and only two of which are post-9/11. so... idk man maybe we should look at what happened in, say, 2003? 2004? how about all of the 2000s?

(source: https://www.pri.org/stories/2016-09-12/data-hate-crimes-against-muslims-increased-after-911)

oh, that is actually pretty consistently bad! yes, there was one spike in 2001/2002, but it isn’t like we went back down to pre-9/11 numbers afterwards. and I am not sure if this information includes non-muslims targeted for “looking muslim” but I would say it is unlikely, since the data seem pretty similar to krugman’s olympic shit.

I am not writing this because paul krugman is particularly shit-for-brains, or because I hate him more than like... idk any other moron on twitter. there were plenty of anti-muslim takes on twitter friday like there are every 9/11, and every day. but krugman is actually someone liberals respect. he is, after all, a nobel laureate and a keynesian economist, and fairly mild mannered. when people in the media like krugman write these ahistorical shitty takes they are, as chomsky wrote, MANUFACTURING CONSENT. it is a deliberate tactic, and it works. and if you want to learn more about this theory, check out this short clip by al jazeera narrated by amy goodman (of democracy now). the media manufactured american consent when they pushed the wars. they continue to do so when they try to rewrite george bush’s history by making trump seem uniquely terrible to muslims.

elites in the press and in government have been trying to whitewash and rehabilitate george bush’s reputation for YEARS, and they are succeeding. and why would they want to do that? well, there are a lot of reasons. one, a lot of people in washington are complicit in bush’s crimes. two, democrats think they need to appeal to moderate republicans (lol) in order to win elections, and I guess they think there are moderate republicans left (lol!), and that those moderate republicans like george bush (LOLLL). three, they want to make trump look uniquely terrible. if they do that, then no one but trump needs to be held to account for his government’s failings. but these are just my speculation.

do not let them rehabilitate george bush any further than they have. it is a fucking shame he will never be held to account for war crimes, but an extra slap in the face to all of his victims when we act like he didn’t do things he did. like stoke anti-muslim hate. he invaded muslim countries with a smile on his face, and that is pretty fucking hateful.

paul krugman doubled down and tried to use Black Lives Matter like a human fucking shield. seems a bit racist imo.