#cool almost 2000 words of bullshit

[sureokyeahwhatever]

i finished vampire the masquerade bloodlines after chipping away at it for a couple weeks after work. Those first 2/3rds of the game are a genuine masterpiece, but man, that last third gets really, really weird and racist.

The thing is, is that I actually have very little to say about that first 2/3rds. It's just good. The design is great, it's well balanced, it's open ended, it has great characters. It's wonderful. This part of the game feels like a real, worthy successor to Deux Ex. There's just nothing more to say, I think.

...

And that's why I almost have a hard time believing it's written by the same people as the last bit. The whole game up to that point (up to just before chinatown) is pretty darn smartly written with some relatively cogent social commentary. The quality of the missions also takes a really, really steep dive in that section too (lots of run and gun hallways, lots of extremely buggy areas, shitty boss fights, etc. But that's honestly understandable because balancing the endgame of an ImSim is practically impossible). Idk, it feels like a totally different game. I could almost just forgive all of that though, if it weren't for the ungodly and seemingly genuine racism with regards to the east Asian vampires.

Like. Ok. If we're being VERY charitable and we just flatly forgive all of the misguided-though-not-malintentioned 2000s era attempts at humor-via-stereotype (dialogue options referencing "tentacles" directed at a young japanese woman; old chinese guys who are always loud and drunk; jingoistic WWII-surviving japanese soldier; Chinese businessman speaking in riddles and mentioning the I-Ching; so on and so on) the whole handling of the "chinese vampire" storyline is psychotically racist.

You first hear of these guys -- the Kuei-Jin, which I learn from the wiki is a portmanteau of the Mandarin word for ghost and a the Japanese word for person, which... ok. -- as being basically like animals. They slaughter who ever they see, lots of people in the bourgeois faction see them as a nuisance, the people in the anarchist faction see them as "invaders from the east," which already had me like "Jesus fucking Christ, maybe these anarchist guys aren't cool after all". But anyway, you go to Chinatown to talk to them and -- by my estimation -- they were basically the same as everyone else. They're protective of their territory, they're secretive, they're paranoid of outsiders... I mean, yeah, they're fucking vampires and apparently all the other vampires see them as sub-human, so yeah, I'd be paranoid and secretive around me too.

The thing is, is that you have this anarchist friend who you tell everything to -- Jack -- and I wanted to go tell him "hey, I don't think these guys are so bad. Maybe we misjudged them" or something like that. And there was a dialogue option along the lines of that, but when I said it, his response was something to the effect of "don't let them sweet talk you with their 'spiritual path' bullshit. That stuff ain't for /us/". Which, I heard and again, said "ah! Interesting writing decision! We're learning that Jack ALSO has flaws like everyone else! he's not just some perfectly cool, levelheaded badass -- he has unjustified prejudices just like everyone else!" So I continued the story under the assumption that, yes, while the surface level of the whole "Chinese vampire" thing was being handled in a really immature, racist way, and in-universe all the other factions seemed to see them as exactly that -- racist stereotypes of conniving, backstabbing Chinese mafia goons -- this was all setting up an interesting "let's all learn to put our cultural differences aside and defeat those rich assholes who want to rule LA"-style ending. This would not be the case.

There was a moment towards the end that I THOUGHT confirmed my suspicion. You are told by the leader of the bourgeois faction to convince the anarchist faction to ally with them so they can, together, take down the Kuei-Jin. Around this time you also are intercepted by the leader of the Kuei-Jin who straight up warns you "hey, that bourgeois guy set me up. He's about to set you up too. Be careful. I hope we can be friends in the future." So I get this information and go straight to the anarchist faction with the intention to say "Ok, bourgeois guys are obviously doing a power play. Now's the time to join with the Kuei-Jin and take them out. We'll settle our petty differences later." (Side note, yes, I understand they were recently at war, but war happens in these situations. The best way to prevent another war is actively making peace. Not by just constantly threatening to go BACK to war). But no such option was available. Instead, all the options were different variations on "Let's join with the bourgeois faction and kill those Chinese guys!" What? But I don't want to kill those guys! And I don't really trust either of these other factions either because the anarchists are racists and the bourgeois guys are, well, bourgeois guys.

So eventually the "ending-tron 3000" comes up in the form of a conversation with a taxi driver which, as far as ending-trons go, is pretty cute. If you decide to ally with the Kuei-Jin two things happen: one, everyone hates you because it's completely impossible to convince anyone that they are anything other than parasites, and two, they kill you in a cutscene and you die in the ocean, which, all things considered, is probably the worst possible way this whole story line could have been handled. There was an opportunity here to have an exceptionally interesting moment where you bring people together to fight in solidarity against those who seek to concentrate their power over the city and all it's inhabitants. There could have been an ending where you work together with the Kuei-Jin and the anarchists to get rid of the bourgeois faction, render the "anarchist" faction system redundant, and allow LA vampires to establish their own federated society where people can live where and how they please without the iron fist of some Ivory tower pretty boys telling everyone how to live their lives. You could establish a system of vampire democracy across LA, with all the benefits and negatives that it brings. Would LA then be crushed under the heel of the bourgeois faction coming in from other cities? Or would it be able to stand the test of time and serve as an example for other cities to rise up and do the same? There's some interesting stuff here, both politically and for individual characters as perhaps you have to work extra hard to get Jack and the rest of the anarchists to believe that the Kuei-Jin are, despite superficial differences, just vampires like they are and that they all share common interests.

Instead, the game goes hard in the other direction. It calls you an idiot for trusting those eastern invaders and basically says "you should have listened to everyone else when they were mumbling under their breath about how you can't trust those Kuei-Jin as far as you can throw them". i.e., you were an idiot for not being racist enough. Like, I can understand the general theme of "trust no one", since it permeates through the whole game, but to literally introduce a faction of "conniving foreigners" who everyone hates, and then to have that hate be perfectly justified just feels boring, hateful, and honestly like a waste of a third of what was otherwise a great, great game.

Anyway. The game is good. Great, even! It's really hard to make an ImSim, so even though the last third has some rough (ROUGH) design flaws and bugs, I'm happy to look past that. However, it's really easy to not just put Chinese people in your game and make them evil stereotypes that everyone rightfully hates, so that's harder to look past.

I would say the ideal way to experience the game is to marathon the first chapter up to downtown, play less and less frequently from downtown up until the end of hollywood or so, and gradually lose interest around the time that you're asked to go to Chinatown. I think if you did that, you'd end up remembering the game very fondly.

[m39]

Doom WADs’ Roulette: Revenant Awards 2009

REVENANT AWARDS 2009 EDITION (I’m not mixing the names of the most popular movies of the previous years with Doom stuff anymore; I got sick of it)

We are almost at the end of the journey, folks. We are just mere steps to say goodbye to the 2000s and its roster of WADs. We still have a couple of WADs from that decade that weren’t mentioned by the Doomworld guys, but we aren’t focusing on those today.

Today, we will be looking at the 2009 roster of WADs, and choosing (providing there are more than one in a category) which one gave me the most fun. Starting with-

FULL DECK OF DIAMONDS – BEST 30-32 MAPS LONG MEGAWAD OF THE YEAR

Okay, let’s be honest with this one people. There is no actual choice for this one since we are putting NewDoom Community Project II against fucking Killing Adventure. Guess which one gets the award?

NDCP II has its own share of problems, starting with many of its maps getting tiresome if you decide to marathon them, inconsistency in the difficulty sliding, and two new enemies that are an unintentional annoyance at best; but on the other hand, it gave me much more fun than its predecessor, not to mention being miles better than that.

Killing Adventure, meanwhile, boils down to the mediocrity fest that fails in what it aims to be – a joke WAD.

So there is no surprise that the former WAD wins this category in the source port section.

BIG FUCKING WAD – BEST 33+ MAPS LONG MEGAWAD OF THE YEAR

Now, this case is kind of another conundrum for the lack of better words, since we have two winners by default – Whispers of Satan and Plutonia 2; both winning this award in a source port and vanilla sections respectively. I just want to talk slightly more about these two WADs here and choose which one gave me more fun (spoilers – it’s Whispers of Satan).

On the one hand, WoS is a more accessible WAD than P2, has less-mangled maps, and is much more diverse with themes than the latter. On the other hand, Plutonia the Second has much harder maps (if you’re in for a greater challenge) with next to no copy-pasted areas, and its plot feels more self-aware than WoS’.

In my case, it all boiled down to preferring getting annoyed by copy-pasted areas rather than by getting mobbed from every side of an area with next to no cover that isn’t the previous safe haven-turned room.

OFF THE WALL – BEST PARTIAL/TOTAL CONVERSION OF THE YEAR

This is where it gets interesting. We have six WADs in this category, and half of these felt like a waste of my time. Happy Time Circus II and Cheogsh II, despite both being declared runners-up by Doomworld, felt like a slap in the face due to the former being annoyance incarnate and the latter being a massive disappointment as a sequel to the not-perfect but still really good map. Legacy of Suffering had its cool moments but I would recommend taking a look at this WAD out of curiosity sake rather than for being really good.

Harmony is a definitive step up when it comes to fun factors compared to the previously mentioned WADs, but it still has questionable decisions; particularly the original soundtrack and hitscanners being more bullshit than the Doom ones. Demons of Problematique 2 looks great and has interesting mechanics, but the boss encounters tend to be annoying, along with the music tracks related to these. Lastly, Tribute might be an old, janky WAD that requires Skulltag of all source ports to properly play and has moments of outdated humor, but if you manage to make it all work, you might realize that this WAD is a shit ton of fun to play, greatly utilizing the source port's exclusive items, while also doing its own things on the same level of quality.

So, yeah, there is no more arguing here, Tribute gets the award. I can only hope that my (partial) bias towards this WAD being made by a Polish dude won’t sour my taste to it in the future like it did with Hidden Mountain Factory.

If I could choose only the WAD that can be played on GZDoom, I would give it to DoP 2, which I mark as an honorable mention in this category.

OTHER AWARDS

And now for the moment, you didn’t wait for – the default winners.

Starting with Pug of Pink (2-7 maps) and its winner – Hell Ground; probably the best WAD out of the entire 2009 roster. Almost everything in this WAD is great IMO.

And as for the Golden Spider (8-9 maps), we have Mapgame, one of the better Doom I episode replacements.

CONCLUSION

Well… this is it, people. That’s basically all that I have to say about the 2000s Cacowards. Time to take a look at some of the leftovers from the 2009 roster, and then one, last WAD from that decade before taking a break and choosing the best WADs of the 2000s after that. And after selecting the winners of that decade… well… let’s just say there are two, final WADs to discuss. One that will be talked about more likely in terms of my memories with it, and the other mocking things that were popular with the WAD community back in the early 2000s (especially the ones that were like the just aforementioned former one).

But until then, I’ll see you next time.

Bye!

[loggedbylily]

written and edited by lily hayashi. made in relation to 'small girl, big thoughts' podcast, hosted by lily hayashi.

‘Guys’ is out; ‘girls’ or ‘girlies’ is the new it word, used gender neutrally and gender un-neutrally, both ironically and unironically, and as a feminist political comment and a method to endorse traditional femininity. As the iconic Mina Le said, ‘hot girls are walking, girls are blogging, dinner is girl, 47 year old men are baby girls’. We are in an era of the girl. With Barbie in 2023, the huge amount of female artists representing countries in Eurovision 2024, and TikTok discourse of the concept of ‘girlhood’, it’s interesting to see how a term that was for so long very gender-specific and in a way, almost neglected for the term ‘guys’ as a way to create gender neutrality, has come back with such force. So, babygirls, girlypops and girlbosses, settle in for a very confusing history and analysis of the very complicated concept of ‘girlhood’. 

To provide a brief history of the term ‘girl’ (as a noun), in the 2000s, we had the era of pinks, both baby and hot, in metallics, glitter and leopard print. This almost aggressive femininity was embraced by icons like Paris Hilton and Britney Spears, and heavily represented in the media in movies like Mean Girls and Legally Blonde. However, this bubblegum-coloured cloud was a breeding ground for misogyny, harmful stereotypes and sexualisation. Traditional femininity has always been seen as a way of distinguishing women from men, and also increasing their sex appeal. As females, the stereotypes believe we’re dumber than men, very beautiful (and infatuated with maintaining our appearances), and the bimbocore aesthetic in ways reinforced this, although it also reclaimed sex appeal for women individually. They were wearing short skirts ‘the size of a belt’, as Paris Hilton famously said, for themselves, and repulsing mothers, fathers and guardian figures galore. However, unfortunately in the world we live in, embracing your sexuality and femininity often attracts male attention regardless of intentions, and whilst these girls are now referred to as icons of the 2000s and pioneers of the Y2K fashion movement and culture, at the time and even now in hindsight, there was a lot of toxicity. The infamous article showing Lindsay Lohan, Britney Spears and Paris Hilton titled ‘Bimbo Summit’ helps sum up how these women were represented in the media and viewed by society. On the other end of the Juicy Couture tracksuits and pink miniskirts, there was also a rejection of this hyper feminine aesthetic. Being a ‘tomboy’ was also a big trend, and often in movies, these sparkly, tanned blonde girls clad in pink were represented as ‘the enemy’ (as seen in Mean Girls and High School Musical). Being a tomboy was seen as ‘cool’ and ‘edgy’, pulling away from traditional views of femininity. However, it created the idea that to be strong and independent, you can’t express your femininity, which is absolute bullshit. It added to the idea that women have to choose between being smart/strong or pretty/hot, which literally isn’t a decision anyone has to make, ever. This contrast and almost within-gender war between tomboys and girly-girls further reinforced this toxic view of women embracing this type of femininity as dumb, mean and worthless. It also further categorised women, and both ends of the spectrum had high expectations and stereotypes. Tomboys were criticised for not being ladylike or pretty, and girly-girls were thought to be dumb, self-obsessed and manipulative. Ew. 

In the 2010s, there was the era of hustle and ‘girlbossing’, which came hand-in-hand with pyramid scheme and MLM culture (I recommend listening to the High Brow podcast episode ‘get in loser, we’re selling tupperware’ hosted by Mina Le), where emblems with the phrases ‘girl boss’, ‘boss babe’ and ‘boss lady’ in shades of pink, black and silver reigned supreme amongst the younger generations of women entering the workforce. ‘Girl’, which was positively seen as a fluffy, soft, cutesy term, was reclaimed as a badass name by combining it with other words seen in the male-dominated workforce, like ‘boss’. This was an attempt to create a middle ground between the two opposite ends of the ‘girl spectrum’, combining femininity with being smart, strong and hardworking. But this ‘girlboss’ culture did mean that women were pressured (and pressured each other) into overworking themselves as a way to prove their strength against the male race, and has a lot of complexity within the culture to unpack as well. Ideas of soft femininity were rejected and seen as weak, when softness can actually be a great strength. Women who chose to be stay at home mothers were criticised for ‘going against feminism’, when in reality, feminism is fighting for equality and autonomy, which again gives them the right to choose what they would like to do with their lives. Girlboss culture is still semi-present today, but predominantly in millennials, who experienced this culture firsthand throughout adulthood.

Now, in the 2020s, the word ‘girl’ is so interchangeably used, with negative connotations and positive, that it’s pretty difficult to figure out what exactly is going on. As Chappell Roan said, "it's a Femininominom.”

So, a big question that I (and a lot of others) have been considering is has the word ‘girl’ actually been fully reclaimed? It really depends on your definition of reclamation, and also your perception of feminism as a whole. 

Whilst the primary uses of ‘girl’ have had seemingly positive connotations, there’s an undertone to be considered. The words ‘girlie’, ‘girlypop’ and ‘babygirl’ all have a very bubbly, cheeky and silly feeling to them, which serves their purpose. They’re used as a way to stop us from taking everything so seriously, to lighten up a little, because you're ‘just a girl’ and the world will keep spinning! I think this is a great thing, and as a society that has (especially in recent years) had to deal with so much seriousness, it helps us all feel a little lighter. In particular, I think it’s like a coping mechanism for Gen Zs, who are now having to navigate the seriousness of adulthood and want to break up their monotony and just be a bit silly. However, it’s worth considering the fact that giving terms featuring the word ‘girl’ a sillier connotation does enforce an unconscious stereotype that women are not supposed to be taken seriously; although, in my opinion, this can be counterbalanced, as the word being used is ‘girl’ and not ‘woman’, and therefore does refer to a younger audience, and is not necessarily undermining adult women as much. The same can be said for the word ‘boy’, which also has a more childish connotation.

There’s also negative connotations of these words, though. The term ‘pick me girl’ refers to any girl that wants to set herself apart from others, and usually brings down other girls in the process of trying to make herself stand out. Whilst I do believe that girls shouldn’t bring down others in the process of creating their own identity, I think making a whole phrase for it makes it equally too serious and not serious enough. Now this phrase is being used as an insult for anyone who wants to appear different, regardless of whether they’re affecting others or not, and I think that isn’t okay. Even without the ‘girl’ at the end, ‘pick me’ is still used as an insult, but only when referring to females. 

So does girl still have gendered connotations? Of course it does, and it probably always will. ‘Girl’ is literally the younger version of ‘woman’. However, the difference is whether these gendered connotations carry toxic gendered stereotypes. Again, stereotypes often change and morph, but aren’t always fully eradicated. As for now at a glance, ‘girl’ has relatively neutral connotations, but the history is far from neutral. Even now, one may argue that the word carries many gendered stereotypes. I’m keen to hear other opinions on this topic, as it’s pretty complex, so please let me know what you think!

[aussievriska]

Like

I barely remember everything but so much happened.

I went to a random public school. There was friendship drama so bad everyone hated my moirail, I had a polycule of 4 people dissolve in one week, I had a relationship of 3 years got cheated on and now we're best friends, I dated the same guy TWICE, I spent a night researching the exact sentences of specific crimes in order to threaten one of my friend's exes with legal action for their bullshit, I skipped classes with my friends, I waited outside my boyfriends house to walk him to school everyday for half a year. Shit got violent for no reason. My friends used to do huge cuddle piles and lay on eachother like cats. I talked people down from hurting themselves. I was in school plays I was on the tech team, I had my art put up in the school entrance. I came second in a drama eisteddfod, my team came first for an improv competition. The tech team and the drama kids fought on the day of the show, I WATERBOARDED SOMEONE ON STAGE. On the night of formal I walked around town and parks with a friend until 7 in the morning the next day. For fun. I got into so many fandoms and met so many people and did so much dumb stuff. I had a crush on a girl so bad I apologized to her. Someone admitted they'd liked me since they moved to the school. We roleplayed characters we liked fighting eachother on school emails, and then we roleplayed warrior cats too. I was called cool, people found me intimidating. I played DND. I made OCs. I adopted a group of younger queer kids, I had 5 people come out to me first, I was 4 peoples bisexual awakenings. I was stabbed in the back. I was in therapy for 3 hours a week for 2 years. I got hammered at a party and had to act sober. I snuck out to go to queer meetings in the city and I panicked when my dad said he was on his way to pick me up from friends houses. I wrote a 2000 word assignment on The Hunger Games. We found our teachers social medias and youtube accounts. I did facepainting for an in school pride event and watched my friend punch a kid who tried to steal our paints. I had good teachers, I had terrible ones too. I was a model for a wearable art parade, twice. My first kiss was on a balcony overlooking a city I was on holiday in, it was beautiful. I got drunk and made out with people, I danced in the park with my girlfriend and had rocks thrown at us, I was almost hit by a car, I learnt steven universe fusion dances, I designed fursonas, I got diagnosed with ADHD, I broke down crying and I had panic attacks and I changed my name 6 separate times. I went on school camps and slept on the floor. We handed out Homestuck pins at a pride event. I had sex in weird places. I had an eating disorder and I healed from it. I sat on the swings in parks, I got my first job. I got hooked on energy drinks and then stopped drinking caffeine. I was a drama teacher briefly. I was part of the most amazing tech crew and got an award for it. I did extension classes. I didn't hand in my assignments during COVID lockdown. I was on discord in class and I was a bad student and I got decent grades. I watched movies. My friends put on kmart fursuit heads and wrestled on halloween. The boys got dressed in drag. I cosplayed, we did the fairy tail salute for school photos. We flew the pride flag the whole month of June. We bullied people we didn't like and ruined peoples lives for good reason. I was trans and then I wasn't and then I was and then I wasn't. There were birthday parties. Kareoke. There was a phone ban. Teachers let us use our phones in class anyway. I got diagnosed with autism. I learnt how to cry. I almost started hormones. I fell in love with film. I did work experience at my primary school. I had terrible relationships and I wanted them back. I was CONSIDERED COOL? The school flooded, every single year, and kids swarm in the flood waters, every single year. I brought stim toys to class and dyed my hair. I loved, I cried, I made the best friends of my life and I made so many terrible ones too.

It wasn't Mean Girls but damn it was not Boring and I excluded stuff that was too bad or too embarrassing and I've forgotten so much. It's a disservice to my old self to pretend that this was tame.

I had until recently been of the opinion that my highschool/teen experience was, boring. Tame. Fairly normal. I thought this while I was in highschool and I thought this during all of last year. And then very recently a very good friend of mine said something to the effect of "Oh my GOD I can't believe highschool was real." And yeah, oh my god, when I think about it, my teen years have been absolutely fucking insane. Like sure I was never nominated for student council, and I didn't get an award at formal (prom), it wasn't Mean Girls. But fucking hell Highschool Was Insane. The idea that my teenage experience was normal and boring and tame is basically something I could only hold if I look through a version of my life as my Parents know it.

It was traumatic and amazing and the bullshit and drama and everything meant so much and so little at the same time, I could write 10 movies and then 10 more books and STILL have things to talk about. I had all of this shit going on while still doing my schoolwork, maintaining a part time job, therapy, hobbies outside of school and I still then had an entire online life I was maintaining.

HIGHSCHOOL WAS INSANE!!

[softlyfiercely]

im sorry i couldn't let this go, i've seen this come across my dashboard THREE TIMES NOW and you all need to grow some critical thinking skills, please, i am begging you...anyway i just screenshotted this cause i really don't wanna get into it with anyone but this is the stupidest most ignorant thing i've read regarding religion in a long ass time.

placing this under a cut to be polite and save everyone's dashboards - I'm a Jew who converted to Christianity, so i guess my Jewish desire to be polite and considerate managed to override my christian religious mandate to be an asshole on this day...you're welcome everyone

first of all, judaism is a culture and faith that is six thousand years old, and christianity is two thousand years old, and both have spanned entire continents, so it is impossible for any quick rambly tumblr post to be able to remotely capture the reality and nuances of either one.

for example! claiming that in "judaism," divorce is totally accepted and acknowledged and women are free to just up and leave their man and it's some kind of feminist utopia is laughably bullshit! structures of patriarchal oppression use Jewish divorce law to control women - there's even a word, agunah, which means "chained woman." there are currently, as you read this, Jewish women in America who are trapped in this system, and it often leads to all sorts of violence and other nonsense!

also...the story of Leah and Rachel and Jacob is part of Jewish scripture and it isn't exactly a "rah rah women aren't men's property" moment, is it? it's almost like this is a complex subject with lots of nuance!

what about christianity? this brilliant theological scholar claims that divorce is a sin in christianity, just, flat out, period, end of sentence. it's good and allowed in judaism but bad and forbidden in christianity. is that true? of course not!!! most contemporary branches of christianity currently recognize divorce and accept divorced members in their congregation. Jesus is cited multiple times in the Gospels making statements about marriage and divorce that are, let's say...open to interpretation (see Matthew 5, Matthew 19, John 4). hell, we have an entire branch of christianity that partly started because some dude really, really wanted to divorce his wife.

so it makes no sense to say that judaism is totes cool with divorce but christianity is super mean about it. in reality, both religions have believers who use their laws/traditions to oppress women and uphold patriarchal structures, and followers of both religions have found their way to more progressive understandings of marriage and divorce.

also, love the citation of "puritans" as an example of what "christianity" is. puritanism was a small, radical offshoot of christianity - they were run out of entire countries, as you may remember, for being weird and extra about stuff. plus puritanism only appeared in the 1500s, so christianity had been bopping around developing some other theology for a while until then. and while much of american christianity can be traced back to puritan roots, you won't exactly find many practicing "puritans" running around in the 21st century.

so using "puritans" as the platonic example of What Christianity Is just makes no historical sense. if you want to talk about puritan ideas, go ahead. if you want to compare puritan thought to a specific era or sect of Jewish thought, that would be interesting! but you can't just say "some dudes in the 1600s did stuff, and that's what all christians do and believe"

it is also absurd to claim that christian faith makes no room for questioning. again, this person seems to be either citing very specific contemporary evangelical attitudes, or ahistorical caricatures, as a broad strokes representation of a 2000 year old, global religion. in fact, there's been a LOT of excellent christian thought and writing about wrestling with God, struggling with doubt, and asking questions. don't believe me? check out this overview in a popular contemporary christian publication.

also, it's silly to say that asking questions or challenging one's faith is 100% encouraged and accepted at all times "in judaism." google "off the derech" or check out some of these sources. Neither christianity or judaism, as a whole, is a pure perfect innocent cinnamon roll uwu of a religion.

the thing is that people use religion and religious institutions for their own purposes. power, wealth, control, etc. they will use the one most convenient and relevant to their purposes. it is not a feature unique to christianity.

and i can't even TOUCH that last bit. the notion that everything we find yucky about various historical iterations of christianity were nowhere until a bunch of jesus freaks just thought them up? what??? the idea that the entirety of christian thought and belief came about because some Very Nasty People just woke up one day and decided to be cruel and destructive? are you for real???

that's not...how things work. that's not how anything works. you are not "stating the obvious" because you are making such an absurdly false statement that it just...have you ever read, like, a book?

the history of western christianity is thousands of years long, and it includes hundreds of different influences, from plague epidemics to corrupt rulers, and there have always been a ton of people writing, thinking, talking, and arguing about what it means to follow Jesus.

there is a LOT of christian thought and history that does exactly what this person claims never happens in christianity - celebrates the body, honors the dignity of every person, upholds joy and pleasure as sacred, etc. OP i think is referring to the ideas of thomas aquinas who was JUST ONE DUDE in the 1200s and does not represent everything that every christian has ever believed, done, or taught. check out the writings of St. Teresa of Avila, Gerard Manley Hopkins, or Julian of Norwich.

there are some christian practices and beliefs that arose from people's good faith efforts to follow a loving God. there are some that arose from people in power trying to cling to their own privilege. and most of them come from a combination of both! guess what - this is also true of judaism! turns out, both christianity AND judaism have really messy, complicated, nuanced backgrounds! one is not just a bunch of people saying Let's All Be Cool And Make The World Nice And Good vs. a competing bunch of people going Let's All Be Dicks And Ruin Everything. that makes no sense! think about the things that you are saying!!!

if you're curious about this, or if you want to be able to have a more nuanced opinion about whatever you think "christianity" is, i'd recommend a book called Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality. It's a great place to start for an in depth, heavily sourced study of exactly how christian thought about a specific issue changed, developed, and solidified. there, you'll see that there is no way to summarize what "christianity" does, believes, or says, because it's wide ranging and ever changing. you'll also see that certain problematic attitudes or beliefs don't just spring up because Christians Are Assholes, but because of competing pressures and influences from inside and outside the church.

if you want a free copy of that book, PM me and I will send you one. seriously. even if you hate christianity, had terrible personal experiences with a contemporary church, etc. it's a great read. there are sexy love letters between gay monks. im serious.

[abimee]

your avergae episode is like opening shot to ryder on the couch in their shared apartment on her blackberry and ruyan comes hauling ass from a hallway in a nice dress but obviously fresh out of a shower getting stressed out about a date shes about to go on and ryder trying to calm him down with positive affirmations and grandeous body language that often ends with her standing on top of the couch (sandals ON). it doesnt fully work but ruyan gets calmed down enough to finish getting ready and ryder absolutely says some goofy bullshit like ''go get em tiger''

the A plot is literally just ruyans date that night at a nice restauraunt and how even though shes having a nice time her body refuses to let her feel good and she just feels hollow and empty despite Knowing she's enjoying herself and thats just working her up even more on this date and the whole conflict is just ruyan trying to get through the night hoping her ''disinterest'' isnt showing as he tries to get through the night and not come off as a manic weirdo to his date (you know who. but in like a modern sitcom setting. i think him still having blue hair would be funny. he'd be built and tan like a surfer dude). its not totally serious though because while ruyan is having her inner panic she thinks about how calm and suave her date is until it cuts to a scene where he goes to the bathroom and one of his brothers is literally hiding in there trying to help him not look like a fool on this date and this is revealed by him calmly saying he needs to use the restroom and walking in calmly, but as he approaches a stall he quickly opens it and his gay brother is standing there on his phone chewing on a breadstick he brought to him and doesnt even look up as he goes ''so whats the situation now?" and the guy just goes on a sudden tangent about how amazing ruyan looks and how pretty she is and how he is FREAKING OUT (words he uses exactly) that hes just coming off like an idiot cause hes struggling to make conversation or even make a move. this is he running gag of the A plot is the brother hiding his gay brother in the bathroom as he helps him on his date

the B plot is probably smthn like ryder going over to a basement show her band is performing at and she brought her guitar and its all cool and fun until ryder goes upstairs to get a glass of water and finds out the person whos holding this show is supposed to be babysitting her little brothers but shes just making them sit upstairs and ryder is like woah. thats a jackass move. and decides that she has no moral obligation to do what the house owner says and nvites her little brothers down to the party, and the hijinks keep building until eventually someone calls the cops on them for a noise complaint and ryder is like SCRAM and realizes in the commotion the boys ALSO LEFT THE HOUSE and finds them trying to hop a fence and ryder is standing there with her hands on her hips like my god you two are like hobbit sized this wont work. and helps the boys hop the fence and decides to indulge them in their first night of ''rebellion'' and takes them into town and while theyre off doing random bullshit she gets a call eventually from her drummer like ''bro where is this girls brothers'' and ryder is like HA i have them. were taking a cruise dont worry ill have them back before their parents are there. and they go and do your basic 2000s rebelious bullshit like spraypaint and skateboard at night and it climaxes when ryder gets pulled over by a cop for speeding and she looks to these boys now fresh with a taste of rebellion and goes ''you know what to do''. and they SCRAM out of the car and run off back home while ryder just takes the ticket and laughs knowing she has cultivated something in those boys which is going to be a headache for their parents but is hilarious to ryder. the episode ends with ruyan being returned to her apartment and almost sharing a kiss with her date before two random boys sprint across their front lawn yelling ''REBELLION!!!!" and hooting and hollering and it makes them snap out of their moment of bravery and instead they just awkwardly wave goodbye to each other and plan for a second date. and ruyan goes inside and falls onto the couch and the last shot is a ceiling shot of of her closing her eyes and taking a deep breath before smiling. end episode

when monday comes around and the ruyan and ryder sitcom get a new episode

[revenseventyr]

What is Kebab Norwegian?

Original article by Marianne Nordahl can be read here in Norwegian (bokmål).

Translation by revenseventyr.

We ask the youths who speak it.

We are in Tøyen in Oslo, speaking with friends Zahra, Zahra and Lubna. They use words like 'lø', 'tert' and 'sjmø'.

This is Norwegian. At least, a type of Norwegian.

"We're born and raised here in Tøyen, where everyone speaks kebabnorsk [Kebab Norwegian]," says Zahra Ayad (15).

"It's super fun to speak it," adds Lubna Mahnoor (14).

Youth language is changing quickly

But what is Kebab Norwegian? It's almost ten years since scientists carried out a study on this youth language.

Bente Ailin Svendsen, a language professor, is one of these scientists.

The scientists interviewed youths in Oslo about how they spoke.

"What we figured out already seems a little old-fashioned. You could definitely say that when I understand what they're talking about, it's not a youth dialect any more," she jokes.

Dialect or street language?

Kebab Norwegian can be called a dialect or a sociolect.

We use the term 'kebabnorsk' in this article. But not everyone thinks it's a good name.

Bente Ailin Svendsen calls it 'ny norsk' [New Norwegian], but thinks it's fine to say 'kebabnorsk'.

A study in the mid-2000s showed that many youths disliked the nickname 'kebabnorsk'.

But in 2013 Svendsen asked youths in the square at Holmlia in Oslo. All the youths she asked called it Kebab Norwegian. So do the youths forskning.no are speaking with now in Tøyen in 2018.

But it doesn't mean that they all like the term 'kebabnorsk'.

Changing around the words

This way of talking resembles ordinary Norwegian, but some say it sounds choppier. More staccato, as scientists would say.

And the words you use when you speak Kebab Norwegian come from many different languages.

You also change around the order of some of the words. For example:

Instead of saying "plutselig vinner du halvparten" [suddenly you win half], you say "plutselig du vinner halvparten", with the same word order as English.

Zahra Raad (14) does it when Lubna Mahnoor starts talking about what she did the day before:

"Wolla, I don't know what to say, bro, I didn't do anything," says Lubna.

"She was with us," explains Zahra Ayad, and says to her friend:

"Honestly, Lubna, you came."

"Yeah, true that, now I remember! I was there," says Lubna.

"When we arrived, she wasn't [note: word order 'hun var ikke' instead of 'var hun ikke'] there," says Zahra Raad.

"But when you arrived, I jetted," nods Lubna.

To 'jet' [jette] means to leave or run away, explain the girls.

Still saying 'schpa'

Youths who speak Kebab Norwegian also use ordinary Norwegian.

Bente Ailin Svendsen and the other linguists noticed it. The youths spoke ordinary Norwegian with them.

But when they spoke to each other, they used other words such as 'wolla', an Arabic word meaning to swear by Allah.

When the film Schpaaa came out in 1998, words such as 'kæbe' (girl, woman) and 'schpa/sjpa' (good, pretty, cool) were popular.

But in 2010, Bente Ailin Svendsen claimed in an interview with Aftenposten that these words were on the way out.

But the three girls in Tøyen happily say 'schpa', eight years later.

What about 'avor' (to run away, to leave)? They think that's far too old-fashioned. They use 'jette' instead.

New Kebab Norwegian

Ten years ago words like 'flus' (money), 'habibi' (friend, sweetie) and 'sjof' (to see) were normal.

The scientists don't completely know how Kebab Norwegian changed in the past few years. Bente Ailin Svendsen can only guess. She reckons some new words must have been introduced.

"There is a new generation of youths now," she says.

The new generation doesn't want to speak exactly like the previous one.

Zahra, Zahra and Lubna use older words like 'sjpa' and 'lø'. But the girls also use some new words. For example 'karni' (bullshit).

Linguistic style is about identity, explains Svendsen. Language shows that you belong. Or that you feel like something more than the traditional Norwegian.

"When youths switch to Kebab Norwegian, they're showing a global identity," says the linguist.

Polish in Kebab Norwegian?

At the same time the language feels like Norwegian for the girls in Tøyen.

"Do you know where the words come from, which language they come from?"

"Norway," answers Zahra Raad questioningly.

Zahra Ayad wonders what the question is really about.

Then Zahra Raad figures out that the word for money, 'flus', is taken from Arabic. It's a language she also speaks at home.

Kebab Norwegian words in the Norwegian Academic dictionary:

wolla: from Arabic, basic meaning is 'I swear (by Allah)' = I promise, I swear

lø: adjective, believed to be from the Arabic for 'no' = stupid, boring

sjpa/schpa: adjective, from Berber, basic meaning is 'good' = good, pretty, cool, see: tert

tert: adjective, from Urdu = good, pretty, cool, see: sjpa

sjmø/schmø: adjective, of uncertain origin = good, pretty, cool

avor: verb, from Berber, Persian, Kurdish = flee, run away, leave

In Kebab Norwegian there are many words from the most-spoken immigrant languages such as Arabic, Turkish and Urdu.

But it is not immigrants who speak Kebab Norwegian. It is their children.

It is mostly Poles who have immigrated to Norway in the past few years. And their children are beginning to become youths. Has Polish entered Kebab Norwegian?

"I want to believe it. It would be exciting to study," says Professor Svendsen.

Sofa comes from Arabic

Scientists have studied Kebab Norwegian on the east side of Oslo. But do youths speak Kebab Norwegian in other areas of the country?

Scientists don't know so much about that, but a study done by a student suggests that maybe some youths in Bergen speak in somewhat the same way.

Kebab Norwegian is a mix of languages. When people in the same environment speak several different languages, such special language mixes can be created.

It happens mostly in cities, but can also happen in other places where people use multiple languages.

Incidentally, did you know that Norwegian is already a blended language?

Around 30% of the words in the Norwegian language come from other languages," says Bente Ailin Svendsen.

"From German, Danish, English — and Arabic. 'Sofa' and 'madras' come from Arabic.

[gayenerd]

Interview with Billie for the Kerrang Yearbook. Sounds like this took place around 2000-2001?

Hello Billie Joe. A bit pissed at the Kerrang Awards weren't you? "I was drinking with Papa Roach the night before. Everybody went to see The Cult in Brixton. All the American bands like Papa Roach and Queens Of The Stone Age were there. I felt terrible when I got out of bed to go to the Kerrang Awards." Who ended up worse off - you or Coby Dick? "Sometimes Coby can't even hold it together when he's sober! He's super-hyper all the time. You have to say, 'Coby, turn it off for 2 minutes - I'm in my bunk!' Then he'll turn it off and you can get into a decent conversation." You experienced some difficulty in getting off the stage after accepting your Kerrang Award. "Award's shows freak me out - I'm so scared shitless of those things so I end up doing stupid things. I never theought I'd ever win an award for playing music. Watching all our videos being shown up on the screen, I just looked at Mike and Tre and said. 'Does this mean we're old now?' I can be such a self-conscious freak. I just don't know how to be cool." What's the healthiest thing you've done this year? "I like to keep myself fit. I run, I skateboard, and i'll hit the weights every other day. You reach a certain age when you've gotta start looking out for yourself. I'm staring down the barrel of 30, you know? My dad really let himself fall to @#%$ and I don't want to end up like that. Theres a preconcieved idea about musicians and punk musicians in particular that we have to self-destruct, and I can't buy into that. I like to breathe. Like like it when my heart beats - Its a really cool thing." Have you cut down on your drinking recently? "When i'm on tour I drink all day long with the guys. There's nothing else to do. But i've been at homea while. There are many, many moods to Billie Joe. There's drunk me and theres not-drunk me." What have you learned about being a father during the past year? "You learn new things every day as your kids' characters and personalities are building. Joey is 6 now, he's not a baby at all, he's a little boy. And Jacob, who's 3, is a maniac. The one rule I have is that I never expose them to television." What have you learned about Tre and Mike this past year? "Wow (long pause). I learned that Mike is a Bob Dylan fan, which was kind of suprising. I'm not the biggest fan but I definately appreciate Bob Dylan. And Tre is becoming really fluent in Spanish. His wife is Nicaraguan." What color has your hair been this year? "I shaved my head when I got off the road. Its been black. I haven't really been changing it. When the boy groups started dyeing their hair, I had to stop." Any fashion tips you'd care to pass on to Kerrang readers? "I've been wearing the same pants since High School! Never been into the Versace thing." Best punk rock song you've heard this year? "Last Nite by The Strokes. They're not really a punk band, but those guys have a really cool outlook and a good sensibility about how they present themselves. All the rap rock metal bands have lost that rock'n'roll element, and i'm just a sucker for good rock'n'roll music." What song has been stuck in your head this year, even though you hate it? "Smooth Criminal by Alien Ant Farm. It was bad when Michael Jackson sang it, but it's even worse second time around! Y'know, I think Michael Jackson should join Slipknot. His face looks so bizarre now, its like he's wearing a mask." Are Slipknot still the scariest dudes in rock? "In about a year from now, if they're still as popular as they are now, they'll be as American as apple pie. That's sort of what happened to Marilyn Manson. When he came out he was really scary looking, like 'Jesus Christ! This guy is a maniac!' But now its, 'Oh, theres Marilyn, mowing the lawn, no big deal.' I like Manson, but it's funny how the most normal people end up being the most threatening, and the people who are scariest at first end up kinda normal. That's the dissapointing thing about shock value. Neil Young is more threatening than Slipknot just because he's smarter and has more of an opinion." How much fun did you have on tour in 2001? "It's really exciting at first because you're in different places every day, but after a while i'd rather be home. I get into really long conversations with my wife, I talk to my kids a lot, I'll write little notes and draw pictures for them and fax them to the house. Our sets are getting longer, sometimes we'll play up to three hours, and its because there is no rock'n'roll lifestyle for me other than that. I'm a devoted husband and a devoted father, and so all that decadent bullshit is not my thing. You start to wonder, 'Is this the life for me?' But then I get home and I dont know what the @#%$ to do with myself because i'm not playing music. People have looked at us and gone, 'Obviously these guys have no place to go after the gig because they're still on stage!'" Where were you on September 11? "I was on West Coast time, so it was really early in the morning for me. I saw the towers fall, and it felt like the world was gonna end. What amazes me is that Tony Blair is almost heading the coalition by himself! Does he realise what he's getting his country into? This is @#%$ serious! There's been a lot of shocking words used: the 'crusade against terrorism'. The las thing you say to someone from the Middle East is the word 'crusade'." After September 11, do you share America's renewed sense of patriotism? "No way. I can't really see myself as a patriot. I don't see what happened in New York as an act of war, it's an act of terrorism. Every country has had to deal with terrorism in some form, and this is the first time America has ever seen it and they dont know what to do, so everyone is clinging to these war slogans. All the flags is people's cars and homes - it just seems kind of gross to me." Has American learnt from the tragedy? "I hope some good stuff comes out of this. People have become so self-absorbed and dedicated to their careers. I'm not a person to wave a flag for family values or anything like that, but there comes a time when your relationships and your family is the most important thing, not whether you're making $100,000 every year. Thats what I hope comes out of it - that people realise the important things in life." Six Of The Best Best Friend: " Valium. Lots of plane flights, man. Valium only lasts four hours, so if you're on an 11 hour flight take two and a half." Best advice: "Put your head between your knees if you think you are gonna pass out." Best Ass: "Tre Cool. Not only because he has one, but because he is one." Personal Best: The pinnacle moment for me this year, musically, was playing Reading. It was a great show. There's so many bands nowadays who can't play live, but to actually do it and have people singing along and getting something sentimental out of it at the same time, thats rare, and we achieved that at Reading." Best Night Out: "The furst night I went out after september 11. I really went for it. American has these feelings of its days being numbered. It's like a country that has just got cancer, but the cancer's in remission. A lot of people are doing all the things they've always talked about doing. I hadn't partied really hard in a while, so that's what I did. I went to a couple of bars with Mike and Tre and our producer. We got loud and had a good time." Best Buy: " My cellphone. The ring tone is just a goofy tune. And it vibrates well in my pocket."

[thundergrace]

I might not agree with your opinions sometimes (nothing big), but I really admire how you are open to being corrected and to discussions but still draws the line when the unpleasants come to knock on your page with bullshit.

I absolutely am. I think the reason people get confrontational when they are corrected is because they have really oversold their opinion almost as fact. As an absolute. If I've built something with stone I'm quite confident in it and it really would be such an affront if you knock it down with a correction lol. But I know there's a chance I'm wrong, no matter how strong my conviction. I can fall prey to misinformation and certainly bias, just as anyone else. I cannot possibly always be right and guess what if I'm wrong and I'm corrected, I've now learned something new. I've added to my knowledge base. It's a beautiful thing. The best part is I won't continue spreading bad information. I have 11000+ followers, I'm sure only 2000 are active and maybe only 1000 pay attention to what I say - but that's a lot of fucking people to be lying to so I feel guilty if I get something wrong.

I think we can all respect each other. Disagreements do not have to become arguments, they can become discussions. Disagreements that become discussions are productive. Those discussions can change your perspective or teach you something new. Or not. That's cool, too.

But there's never a reason to come at people with all caps and swear words out of nowhere. That will never be okay and never be tolerated.

[oneweekoneband]

To Leave Or Die In Long Island

Of course, BTMI! was just getting started. Less than a year after the release of the debut, Jeff came out with a second album (well, at 8 songs, it’s more of an EP, or mini-album, or, in Jeff’s words, a digital “10-inch”). Though To Leave Or Die In Long Island is shorter in length than Album Minus Band, that only seems to have helped to focus the sound and songwriting on it. In some ways, it’s more conceptually ambitious, too – the album begins and ends with the same melody in a kind of parallel structure. Almost everything that was great on Album Minus Band is honed to a finer point here. (Strangely, according to this interview, this is apparently Jeff’s least favourite BTMI! album; while I understand his reasoning why, it easily ranks as one of my favourites.) As on that album, for example, Jeff continues to criticize the state of the 2000s punk scene. But instead of simply lashing out at obnoxious trend-chasers, his targets get more specific and his lyrics more potent as a result: opener “Happy Anterrabae Day!!!” takes aim at the overly-violent culture that can still be observed at hardcore shows. Between the first verse to the second, Jeff moves from jeering at the guys who threaten “some fourteen-year-old” to suggesting ways to improve the situation: “If I kissed you on the nose or offered you a hug, / How could you possibly still wanna fight?” He ends with a reminder of the positive possibilities of punk rock: “Think about the reason you went to shows at twelve years old, / We all felt alone, it was not to kick my ass!”

Whether it’s the inside-joke about a bandmate’s ladder-climbing career offer to join a more successful band (that didn’t work out in the end) on “Congratulations, John, On Joining Every Time I Die!” or the under-a-minute hardcore punchline of “Showerbeers!!!”, the album really shines on the lyrical front even when it feels like Jeff isn’t trying (which he admits he wasn’t on “Showerbeers!!!”). Then there’s the more serious stuff: “Dude, Get With The Program” is one of Jeff’s best songs about the paper-thin quality of that bullshit facade upper-management types put on when trying to soothe class antagonisms in their workplaces. Inspired by an experience he had at a job in which a company’s managers started lecturing workers on being part of their “family” right before the paycuts and firings began, he vents his frustrations: “You’re working on your first million, / I’m on my first thousand, / And bills are due tomorrow.” There’s the emptiness of the rhetoric fed to those who get the short end of the stick under capitalism: “You didn’t get fired, you’re ‘laid off.’” The chorus clears it all up: “You could have figured out a way to help us out, / But you just said: / ‘Hey, go ahead and get fucked!’”

By contrast, the less-oppositional “Stand There Until Your Sober” has been a long-running fan favourite possibly due to its confessional quality. It’s a song about drinking too much, feeling like you’ve fallen behind in life, like you’ve missed your chance to grow up, and being generally miserable with nothing to look forward to except the awesome party you have planned for your friends at your funeral (because “mourning is for suckers!”). Over a relatively sparse 3/4 groove with some nice musical flourishes (those backmasked acoustic guitar chords that open the song always get me), Jeff sings about the city’s ambient lights blocking out the stars, making out with a stranger on a boat, and earning only “a hundred and ten bucks for twenty hours” while watching his friends achieve a comfortable stability in life that always seems out of reach for him. It’s the ultimate loser’s anthem, and maybe some of the most poetic stuff to come out of BTMI! Even in the midst of the despair, a ray of positivity breaks through near the end of the song: “You’ll finally know that life’s okay, / Even when the bad things happen.”

The music, too, takes a giant step forward on To Leave Or Die. Though Album Minus Band already showed signs of breaking free from the confines of ska-punk, Jeff signals his ambitions to fuck with the formula as much as possible right off the bat with the cheesy fake-out synth-rock intro to “Happy Anterrabae Day!!!”, gradually revving up the tempo until it reaches the hardcore intensity that kicks off its first verse. Remember what I said about Jeff’s harmonies on Album Minus Band? Here’s the thing: he might not be a great singer (something he’d address directly on the band’s final album), but he sure knows how to layer his voice in his wall-of-sound production to trick you into thinking he is. Of course, he pulls back the curtain at the end and mutes all instruments for the final chorus’s last couple “na-na-na” sections, revealing a chorus of Jeffs screaming vague harmonies and polyphonies at the top of their lungs, barely staying in time with each other, let alone in tune. He knows exactly how absurd it sounds and works that to his advantage perfectly – it never fails to make me laugh out loud. I actually first got my sister into this band by showing her this part of the song, which she couldn’t believe would be left in an actual studio recording. It’s both incredibly funny and incredibly punk; what could be more so than a guy going “Yeah, I can’t sing, but how about I make a whole goddamn choral arrangement out of my voice anyway?”

The peak of the album’s musical ambition arrives at its climax and final song, “Syke! Life Is Awesome!” A tour-de-force of multi-section songwriting, Jeff describes it relatively accurately on Quote Unquote as being composed of “20-second blasts of different genres whether it be alt-country, post-punk, reggae or synth pop.” What that description doesn’t quite capture is the progression of the song, from an acoustic-strummed folk-punk intro into a kind of freak-folk chorus strung out on its own silliness, from there to a classic hardcore punk tempo interspersed with a couple bars of ska, building to an unstoppable outro with a horn section that sounds like a Motown track’s backing dialed up to light-speed. That excellent “na-na-na” vocal melody from “Happy Anterrabae Day!!!” is reprised here through the horns at the end of the song, a motif for the observant listener to enjoy. Lyrically, too, this might be one of my favourite BTMI! songs; Jeff says this one was about a time he got to talk with the lead singer of Squeeze and realized how cool it was that his life had turned out in a way that such a thing could happen. It’s the end of the song that really gets me: sprinting across the album’s final stretch, Jeff begins a long, uninterrupted phrase following an instrumental break that details all the weird things that happened in his life in the chain of events that got him to where he was at the time of writing that song. It evokes a sense of wonder at the simple mechanism of cause-and-effect: “And if I knew how to throw a football, / I would have never played any music, / And if never got my heart broken, / I would sing ‘blah blah fucking nothing.’” It’s a celebration of the uniqueness of the timeline that makes your life unequivocally yours, as it could never be any other way. In philosophy, we might call that a “haecceity.”

[hiccanna-tidbits]

Hiccanna--100 OTP Questions, Part 2

So I said I would finish this OTP question meme someday--and I decided, entirely on random impulse, that “someday” is today!!! My Hiccanna-centered account has not been producing enough Hiccanna content lately, and this simply WILL not do.

QUESTION SOURCE: https://the-moon-dust-writings.tumblr.com/post/159857601812/100-otp-questions

LINK TO PART 1: https://hiccanna-tidbits.tumblr.com/post/635744326176129024/hiccanna-100-otp-questions-meme-part-1 51. Does either of them know how to fight? I mean...canonically yeah, they both do??? Lol I mean Hiccup has his fire sword and obviously would know how to fight with the weapons he makes/invents, and Anna literally just instinctively grabs a sword to protect her buddies in Frozen 2 and I mean we all really love Sword Anna anyways and also she PUNCHES A MAN OFF OF A BOAT so long story short yes they can both fight 52. What do they do for Valentines Day? Anna rents a rom-com and pulls Hiccup down onto their couch to watch it with her, and he kinda internally groans because he figures it’ll be something super sappy and cheesy and Anna will just be squealing with delight the whole time. Legit as soon as the first scene begins, Anna begins brutally roasting the main couple. Turns out it’s a really terrible rom-com and Anna rented it solely to make fun of it. Hiccup is like “aight this definitely wasn’t what I was expecting but I’m on board” Also Hiccup gets Anna like 3 boxes of fancy chocolate because...do I really need to explain? Anna gets Hiccup a particularly aesthetic floral arrangement for their kitchen table, something she knows damn well he secretly likes but would never admit XD 53. Who swears more? Anna, for sure. This tends to surprise people, but Anna is actually a notorious pottymouth when she gets comfortable XD Hiccup has a pretty big and borderline pretentious vocabulary, and so he tends to express his frustration in more...articulate ways when things don’t go his way. Like he’d stub his toe and just say “wow, I’d literally rather saw off my other leg than have to deal with this right now” while Anna, in the same situation, would let loose every curse word known to man XD 54. Who has the better comebacks? Hiccup, absolutely. His smart-ass comments to every conceivable situation on earth go absolutely unmatched. Anna can’t help but envy how he can almost instinctually pull out a near-perfect snide remark within seconds, whilst she, at best, thinks of the ideal comeback in the shower 3 days later. 55. Who would start a fight with another parent at a bake sale? I feel like Anna would seek out the most passive-aggressive, bitchy, entitled Karen and just wait with barely-concealed anticipation for her to say something super awful so Anna can just nail her in the face right in front of all the other moms Hiccup and their kids, meanwhile, can’t help but be awed at their wife/mother’s impressive Right Hook 56. Who reads buzzfeed? Anna. Hiccup keeps being like “you know half the stuff on there is total bullshit, right?” and Anna just shrugs like “who cares? It’s entertaining!” 57. Who is the hopeless romantic? Anna, good god, ANNA. After the whole Hans debacle I imagine she’s a bit more subdued about so openly showing this part of her personality, but at heart she just can’t stop being a romantic. Once Hiccup catches wind of this, he naturally makes a point of frequently surprising her with Grand Romantic Gestures and such, which makes Anna’s entire face go bright fuckin red as she cries out “NO STOP WHAT HAVE I DONE TO DESERVE THIS YOU’RE TOO NICE” 58. Do either of them know how to do a handstand? Nope! They’d both fall on their faces and it would be hilarious. 59. Who can rap better? I love the idea of them both being looped into a rap battle somehow and Anna just dreading it immensely because she figures they both really suck and then when it’s their turn Hiccup comes out and busts out the BEST, MOST SAVAGE RHYMES Anna has ever heard COMPLETELY ad lib and the poor girl just goes completely catatonic with shock for like 10 minutes. 60. Do either of them want to go sky diving? See initially I was gonna say Hiccup definitely would not because it would give the poor boy an anxiety attack, but then I remembered he basically skydives in canon??? And Anna strikes me as a bit of adrenaline junkie too, so fuck it--yeah, I think they’d both enjoy it. 61. What do they usually text about? They talk a lot about movies, games, books, and shows they both like, I imagine--Hiccup especially likes to overanalyze them to ridiculous extents and Anna thinks this is adorable. The rest of the time, they send each other dumb memes and talk about random animal fun facts. Anna likes to brag that her boyfriend knows more lizard trivia than anyone else on the planet, and how many lizard facts does YOUR boyfriend know? Probably little to none, you big loser. 62. Who is the dramatic one? Anna is INCREDIBLY dramatic. Although Hiccup certainly does have a “dramatic flair,” as he puts it, I still think Anna can out-dramatic him, at the end of the day XD Although perhaps admittedly not by much. 63. Is either one confrontational? Anna certainly can be. She’s usually pretty friendly, but if she ever feels like she’s being challenged, demeaned, mocked, or generally not taken seriously, she’s ready to go to WAR. She certainly not as soft as she might look! I imagine there’s situations where someone is being a dick to either Anna or someone else and Hiccup has to physically hold her back to keep her from just decking them XD 64. What is their favourite cuddle position? Probably just good old-fashioned spooning. Hiccup actually really loves being the little spoon (because Anna just makes him feel so damn safe), but he is loathe to admit it. They also have one I like to call the “Needy Cat,” where Anna just goes and completely drapes herself over Hiccup when he’s sitting on the couch. He’s usually in the middle of doing something else, and is forced to find ways to play video games/read his book/watch his show around Anna XD 65. Who are their favourite musical artist(s)? Hiccup has exactly 3 music moods--pretentious classical stuff (to listen to while working on inventions), obscure underground 90s hipster bands no one’s heard of (to play air guitar to when no one else is home), and some more well-known emo/alt rock stuff (to sing along to in the car dramatically). I can see him liking Panic! at the Disco, The Killers, Fall Out Boy, Linkin Park, that kinda stuff. Anna, meanwhile, likes the trashiest, most generic-sounding pop music and refuses to apologize for dancing to it in the car XD She is most DEFINITELY a Swiftie, no question. She also likes some “edgier” bands like Paramore and Hey Monday. She went through a hardcore Avril Lavigne phase in middle school and she still totally listens to her but is embarrassed to say it. Also I feel like Anna would be into 90s/early 2000s boy bands??? She relates to the boys’ endless pining and just flips the genders in her head so the songs are about Hiccup (before they start dating obs) XD I AM DEFINITELY NOT SPEAKING FROM EXPERIENCE HERE, NO SIR 66. What are their parenting styles? Anna would probably be like...kind of stern, when she needs to be, but intensely nurturing as well, if her relationship with Elsa is anything to go by. Hiccup would be a pretty laid-back, chill dad who would probably try too hard to be cool and make no end of absolutely horrible dad jokes XD They both lowkey seem like the kind of parents who would end up letting their kids get away with a lot though lmao 67. Who would be the more laid back one? Hiccup probably. I mean, he IS the pacifist/diplomat guy, besides have you MET Anna??? Girl absolutely has NO chill. 68. Who listens to more vulgar music? Anna, surprisingly! Hiccup just kinda enjoys what he enjoys and doesn’t really feel the need to “prove” anything by listening to songs that swear a lot. Anna purposely listens to vulgar music to feed her hidden rebellious side and because it makes her feel badass XD She honestly kinda hates being written off as 100% wholesome and innocent all the time and will readily pull out the “I’M NOT A SWEET LITTLE FLOWER I SANG ALONG TO THAT SONG THAT JUST SAID FUCK SEE” line whenever given even the slightest chance XD 69. Do either of them have secrets even the other doesn’t know? Kind of depends on when in both their timelines they meet. If they meet in the middle of HTTYD 1 or Frozen 1, they probably wouldn’t tell the other right away that they have a dragon and an ice-powered supersister, respectively XD I definitely think they would as they came to trust each other, though. Also I read a headcanon that Hiccup has burn scars from the Red Death incident where he lost his leg, and that’s why he wears so much armor and generally long sleeves--and I kind of love that. So maybe Hiccup would be cagey with Anna about how he lost his leg and that whole incident for a while before he finally opens up to her about it. Other than that I feel like they’d be pretty honest with one another, other than maybe trying to hide the more embarrassing parts of themselves to impress the other person XD 70. Who is their go to couple for a double date? Jackunzel, obviously! They’d probably all go to an arcade or an amusement park or something else pretty fun and high-energy. 71. Do they tip the waiter/waitress on their date? I mean yes, they’re not huge assholes????? 72. How do they work out a fight? I imagine Anna tends to get more worked up and yelley and loud, while Hiccup doesn’t raise his voice much at all but can say some damn cutting things if he wants to. Since Anna probably gets angrier, I imagine she apologizes first, whether or not the fight was actually on her or not--it’s just kinda this girl’s default to apologize for everything XD She’d probably say sorry for yelling and probably overreacting, while Hiccup would also be EXTREMELY apologetic if he realized he crossed a line with one of his jabs at her. I imagine a lot of what they fight about is Anna doing some impulsive Dumb Shit^TM and Hiccup just being like “oh god DAMMIT that’s DANGEROUS you can’t just go WORRYING me like that!!!” and Anna getting offended because she kinda views this as him being a little overprotective and not trusting her to make her own decisions. Ironically, Anna occasionally also gets mad at HICCUP for doing Impulsive Dumb Shit, so he’s not always nearly as much the Voice of Reason as he thinks XD Hiccup also sometimes gets mad at Anna for not taking better care of herself (take it from a fellow ADHDer--we tend to Wallow in Despair sometimes, or straight-up forget to do basic care things like eat lunch XD)--I have an IRL friend who reminds me a lot of Hiccup and he’s ALWAYS getting on my case about not eating enough, not drinking enough water, constantly berating myself, stuff like that. I imagine Hiccup sometimes slips into Mom Mode with Anna when she gets in a bad spot, which she appreciates after the fact but kind of annoys her at the time because she wants really badly to be independent and all that. Basically TL;DR most of Anna and Hiccup’s fights can be resolved by Anna and Hiccup agreeing to next time Use A Brain Cell before they do a thing, or Anna agreeing to take better care of herself XD 73. Who brings home an illegal pet? In literally every AU possible I like to think that Hiccup brings home some variation of illegal pet XD I mean, it’s probably just a dragon (”just a dragon” is never a string of words I imagined myself using in that order like what do you mean JUST a dragon lmao) in a standard crossover timeline, which he basically does in canon, but I do love the idea of a modern AU Hiccup showing up to their apartment with some kind of weird exotic monitor lizard from Bali and being like “I found him in an alley, he’s gonna live with us now” and Anna is like “D: Is someone gonna arrest you???” And Hiccup is like “Nah, no cops followed me home” and Anna’s like “Okay!!! :D” and then goes to PetSmart to buy a big fluffy bed for her new scaled friend XD 74. What side of the bed do each of them sleep on? I honestly don’t think either would care much, and they usually sleep in a tangled-up mess anyways so by morning you can’t really tell who started on which side XD 75. What is their favorite photo of them two together? One from before they got together: I’m just imagining a big group photo with the Entire Squad (Rapunzel, Jack, Merida, Moana, etc.), and Anna has her arms laced around Hiccup’s neck and her chin on his shoulder and a GIANT smirk on her face. Meanwhile Hiccup is laughing and trying to push her off, but his cheeks are BRIGHT fucking red and he’s trying really unsuccessfully to hide it because he’s a pale boi. Anna loves it because you can so CLEARLY see Hiccup’s blush, and she loves to tease him about how flustered he got around her. Hiccup loves it because it reminds him of what was probably the first time Anna was THAT openly cuddly with him, and how exhilarated and giddy he felt the first time he had her that close to him. 76. Who takes longer in the bathroom? Probably Hiccup, if only because I HC him as a bit of a germophobe who is a tiny bit obsessive about washing his hands sufficiently. 77. Who has more songs on their ipod? Anna, mainly because literally every time she hears a song she likes she’s like “!!!!! Gotta download it!!!!” LITERALLY EVERY TIME. And she wonders why her ipod is always running out of space XD 78. What movie did they first see together? As of the Modern AU Hiccanna one-shot I wrote ages ago, Revenge of the Ancient Dragon Masters! XD If we’re talking movies that actually exist, I imagine it would be a Marvel movie, a Star Wars movie, or some super-fancy-CGI high fantasy epic. 79. What do they like to see each other in? You mean like...which of the other’s outfits would they find the sexiest??? Aight, I’ll take a stab at this. Anna gets literally SO fuckin thirsty every time Hiccup wears his dragon rider outfit (the one from HTTYD 2), like it shows off his cute skinny body in the most perfect possible way whilst making him look like a badass and oh how Anna DREAMS of feeling him up in that! (One day, she finally gets to! XD) She’s also very into the scale armor from HTTYD 3 when she’s in...a very different kind of mood XD As for Hiccup, his favorite outfits of Anna’s are probably her coronation dress and her queen dress, mainly because he loves how she looks in green. He also really likes her travel outfit from Frozen 2, mainly because it’s sexy AND practical and damn, he’s gotta admit, that’s a nice shade of purple and she absolutely SLAYS in it XD 80. Who makes jokes during inappropriate times? Honestly both of them??? Like neither are great at picking up social cues, and Anna canonically DOES do this in Frozen! (Remember her comment about ice-selling being “a rough business to be in right now”???) I can see both of them attempting to lighten a tense mood by making an ill-timed joke, hoping to make things less uncomfortable, and they end up making everything MORE uncomfortable XD Honestly sue me, I love the idea of these two idiots bonding over how terrible they are with social cues in general 81. At what age do they discuss the possibility of children? I imagine not til like...their early 30s, if ever. Like I mentioned in the first part of the questionaire, I actually am not sure if they would even want to have kids at all, but if they DID decide to, it definitely wouldn’t be until they’re older and have settled down a bit, and have (somewhat) gotten both of their lives together. 82. What do they love about each other the most? Hiccup loves Anna’s energy and optimism, and how she’ll basically cheer him on and believe in him with all her being no matter how high the odds are stacked against him. And oh boy does he LOVE how hard she can kick ass when push comes to shove, and how goddamn overprotective she is of him. The sword skills and the general willingness to punch problematic people in the face are definitely up there as well. She’s like the perfect blend of fun and badass, and there’s never a dull moment with her for him. Anna adores Hiccup’s connection with animals and general animal skills, especially with the more less-loved and “scary” of the world’s creatures (i.e. dragons lol). She also loves and admires the shit out of his intelligence and inventiveness, and wishes she could make contraptions half as cool as what he turns out. And, of course, she loves that he’s a pretty humble dude who's actually pretty insecure about his accomplishments, and isn’t some cocky guy wanting to shove them in everyone’s face. And, of course, she loves his sarcasm and his dry sense of humor, and few people can make her laugh as hard as Hiccup can. Before she met him, she had no idea pessimism could be this entertaining XD 83. Who is the one that sees the big picture, while the other focus’s on the small details? Hiccup is very detail-oriented--he has to be, in order to make any of his contraptions work! Anna is very much focused on the big picture and gets stressed and exasperated trying to keep track of details--she figures she’ll either sort through the details as she goes, or Hiccup will help do it for her XD 84. What would they write on their partner’s social media’s for their anniversary? One of my IRL friends wrote “Happy anniversary bro, you’re pretty great” on his girlfriend’s instagram for their anniversary, and she wrote back “Happy anniversary, you’re a good buddy, I love you” and I just XD That’s the EXACT kind of weird dorky nonsense I can see Hiccup and Anna doing for their anniversary tbh 85. Who is bad at math? Anna, bless her soul, needs a calculator for literally EVERYTHING. Hiccup kinda trained himself to be decent at doing math in his head, since he often has to calculate measurements for his inventions and whatnot, but Anna is absolutely atrocious at it and generally would like overly-complicated numbers to not be anywhere near her. 86. Who googles everything? Probably Anna, mainly because she’s pretty forgetful and doesn’t trust her own memory half the time so she feels the need to verify everything on the internet XD 87. Who does stuff on impulse? Anna 100% canonically does, although Hiccup has some shades of this too more than he would ever admit, in fact, for someone claiming to be the Voice of Reason 88. How do they comfort each other when they are helpless to do anything about the situation? Hiccup’s approach is probably just to try and distract Anna and take her mind off of it, which he’ll do by either trying to make her laugh, telling her a story, or explaining one of his inventions to her (which she never gets bored with btw, because everything that boy gushes about is fascinating to her <3). Basically he figures if he entertains her enough, it’ll take her mind off of whatever is freaking her out and she won’t fixate on it as much. Anna’s approach is more to accentuate the positives in a bad situation (although like I mentioned in Part 1, not really in a condescending “count your blessings, it could be worse!” kind of way, but more in a “I hope he’ll feel better if he focuses on happy things” kind of way, if that makes any sense?) and also focus on when Hiccup DID do great and utterly kick ass and tell him he’s always better than he thinks he is. 89. What is an inside joke they have? If anything, him calling her “Tiger” as a pet name (which I think I mentioned briefly in Part 1??? Can’t remember) is this, because in my mind it developed because whenever Anna is about to do some Dumb Shit, or punch someone she really shouldn’t in the face, Hiccup has to physically hold her back like “Whoa, slow down there, Tiger!” This happens so frequently that eventually it just gets shortened to him nicknaming her “Tiger” and all their friends are kind of baffled as to why XD 90. Who makes the other smile with almost no effort at all? Hiccup barely even needs to start talking in funny accents or imitating his dad before Anna is just DYING laughing. She thinks he’s the funniest damn person on earth. He honestly gets a kick out of her impressions too--she can do some pretty amusing ones, if that deleted coronation dress-up scene from Frozen 1 is anything to go by. So the feeling is mutual!!! They’re super good at making each other smile and laugh with little to no effort!!! 91. What is their favourite holiday? I feel like Anna especially would get REALLY into Christmas/Yule, mainly because of how much Elsa can spice it up with her powers. And judging by the OFA short, Arendelle gets very hyped for the holidays in general, so it’s probably hard NOT to have a good time. Anna probably also like Mayday a lot because the dancing, the spring cheeriness, and the flower-related festivities are definitely to her taste. Hiccup just likes the energy and general vibes, and would rather sit back and relax and watch Anna dance around and have fun XD Also dun best believe they BOTH get hella into Halloween, because they’re dramatic motherfuckers who loves to dress up, and it gives Anna an excuse to buy a shitton of chocolate and eat all the leftovers XD 92. Who is the one that is calm and collected while the other is angry and destructive? Lmao Anna is definitely the “berserker” of the two of them. She DOES tend to get destructive when she’s angry, if being ready to fight a giant-ass snowman and smacking a wolf in the face with a lute is anything to go by. Hiccup is definitely the calm and collected one, and very rarely gets genuinely angry. 93. What is their favourite board game to play? Does Dungeons and Dragons count??? I can totally imagine Hiccup being hyped up over that or some other super nerdy RPG game and being so enthused to show it to Anna, who just falls even more in love with him after seeing how EXCITED he gets about it. Of course he’s super eager to teach her, and TBH Anna has a really hard time getting it at first because DAMN these rules are COMPLICATED, but after she finally gets the hang of it, she realizes she absolutely LOVES DnD and RPG games in general (I mean...have you SEEN OFA??? Girl gets just a little TOO into reminiscing about her old play-pretend toys XD) and she and Hiccup constantly geek out about it together. 94. Who accidental sets something on fire? Anna, 100% also this is an ever funnier question if applied to Hiccanna in my Fire!Anna AU 95. Who has the car ready while the other is robbing the store? Anna is waiting while Hiccup robs the store, if for no other reason than that Hiccup is much better at Stealth Mode than Anna is XD Anna’s uncoordinated ass would probably knock over like 5 shelves’ worth of merchandise before reaching what they were actually trying to rob XD 96. What artist/group did they go to for their first concert? I M A G I N E  D R A G O N S lmao Look what can I say Anna likes the Imagine and Hiccup likes the Dragons 97. Who sleep talks? Hiccup. He mumbles about dragons a lot. Sometimes he jolts awake randomly and just yells out “THE DRAGONS ARE IN TROUBLE!” and Anna has to calm him down after she dutifully manages to not burst into laughter at this. Doubly funny if this takes place in a Modern AU. 98. Who is the more social one? Anna! Hiccup generally prefers to either keep to himself or hang out with animals. 99. What are their karaoke songs? For some reason I feel like anything by P!nk??? Idk why, but I can see them like rocking out and singing along to p!nk songs together and getting really into it. Also basically anything by The Killers and, at Anna’s request, The Chainsmokers (Hiccup thinks this is very basic music indeed but goes along with it for her sake XD). AND “Whatever It Takes” by Imagine Dragons. And they sing it LOUD. 100. Who would get up on stage and make a fool of themselves just to make the other laugh? Highkey both of them??? I kinda feel like Hiccup moreso though, if his little comedy routine imitating his dad in HTTYD2 is anything to go off of. He definitely wouldn’t be averse to making an idiot of himself to amuse Anna, especially since she’s so damn cute when she laughs. Anna, for her part, loves returning the favor, and is all about trying to do all sorts of Goofy Antics to amuse her boyfriend. And she’s overdramatic af, so she gets WAY too into it XD

[forgive-me-your-highness]

Amphibian chaos!

A frog and a toad sitting on a warm rock in the sun, what crimes will they commit

Espresso - What motivates you to work hard? This question assumes I work hard

Oolong - What did you want to be when you were small? LMAO it sure as hell ain’t a job but I wanted to be a mermaid because I was a lil shit

Mountain Dew - Have your ever disliked something and then changed your mind? I used to hate talking on Discord servers but the 2 I’m on I will not shut up. Toad you never get a break from my bullshit

Banana Milkshake - What “Old Person” things do you do? I’ve started complaining about my back hurting because I sleep in wack ass ways

Black tea - Do you sleep with a top sheet? Why or why not? FUCK NO! I hate top sheets, only fitted sheet and some fluffy blankets for me, top sheets feel suffocating to me

Latte - What did you think was cool then, when you were a kid but isn’t cool now? Having a lot of friends, I have my handful of online friends who I love dearly, and 2 irl ones

Coca-Cola - How long would you last in a Zombie Apocalypse? Maybe two days if I’m lucky. I am dumb as all fuck.

Mango Milkshake - If you could live in another century, what would it be? I want to say plague times but that’s too fuckin dangerous so I’ll say the 1900′s because it’s the closest to the 2000′s

Cappuccino – You only get 3 words to describe yourself – what are they? A Sweet Fool

Dr Pepper – Which habit are you proudest of breaking? Being clingy, I still am but I hope not too much

White Tea - What’s one thing that can instantly make your day better? If someone calls me a nickname/pet name or even a small compliment

Apple Juice – If your life was a movie, what would it be called? “Shit’s Fucked, Volume who knows anymore”

Mocha - What’s your favorite sleeping position? Side, I have a pillow for my head, one pressed against my back, and one to hug like a sloth

Schweppes – What do you wish you were really good at? Socialization, someone is nice to me and then I cling to them because I’m lame

Chocolate Milkshake - If you could ask advice from any book character, who would it be? Diego from We Are The Ants

Orange Juice – What is your favourite item of clothing? I have a black shirt with a metallic gold design of Wind Waker Link + the Triforce

Flat White - Which of your personality traits has been the most useful? uHHH it’s not a good one but I can make my self disassociate so fucking fast if I need to, and I get such bad anxiety sometimes that I almost seem manic which helps to get away from bad situations-

Sprite – What’s the most spontaneous thing you’ve ever done? I decided fuck it and started to post my favorite ships on main. Best decision I ever made

Red Bull - If you had a theme song, what would it be? Either Edge by Rezz on bad days or Sunshy by Dresses on good days

Nutella Milkshake - The house is on fire, but everyone is safely out, the pets are safely out, and all wallets/cash are saved. If you could make one last dash to get something, what would it be? Some sentimental stuff

Irish Coffee – What is your least favourite thing about your best friend? We got different time zones

Grapefruit Juice - When you have 30 minutes of free-time, how do you pass the time? I usually waste time on Youtube or Ao3

Water - What is the silliest thing you have heard people say about you? I think someone called me a screw up, and they were right

Pepsi – What is your worst childhood memory? UUUGGGGHHHHHHH OKAY WHICH ONE? High key tho I wont share my worst one because it has to do with um bad stuff fuck that it doesnt feel good to write that but I guess a more tame one is having a really bad morning with my step mom and I ran out of the house losing my god damn mind crying Gotta love my childhood

Cherry Milkshake - What cartoon do you still like to watch?

Ninjago, Race to the Edge, and Gravity Falls

Carrot Juice - Remember one of the dumbest things you’ve ever done

UGGHHHHH WHICH ONE AGAIN?? I once sent vore to the wrong person and I fucking died (im not into vore, but my friend and I were trying to hurt eachother with really cursed shit)

Cold Brew - Using one word, how would you describe your family?

Wackass

Mirinda - What food combination do you want to ban?

Uncooked top ramen + the season powder

Hot Chocolate - What would be the absolute worst name you could give your child?

Dee which is short for Deeznuts

Milk - What Simpsons character are you?

Anyone that is the weed cousin, gay, or a dumb fuck

[illshowyourhurricanes]

Heat Wave

This drabble turned 2000+ word one shot is brought to you by this fantastic request from @the-blind-assassin-12​:

This took forever and took a completely different direction than the one I had planned. Thank y’all for reading, and I hope you enjoy!

Image prompt 8: Ryan Brenner x reader (related to Bah, Humbug and In the Line of Fire (part two) which can both be found in my masterlist)

Rating: PG for slight language

Word count: 2167

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When you’d left home at the crack of dawn for a job interview— which had gone surprisingly well thanks to Starbucks and an extra shot of espresso— you’d needed something far warmer than the lightweight blazer you’d grabbed on your way out the door. Now, just before noon, you had shed your blazer that had proven to be insufficient earlier, yet you still felt hot in just your sleeveless blouse and pencil skirt. You thought a perk of moving farther up north would be the mild, temperate climate. It was your first Indian summer, though you’d lived in the area for a year, and you had decided it was bullshit. What had happened to the cool, crisp autumn you’d fallen in love with a year ago?

When you pulled open the heavy glass door of the post office, a cold blast of air  but your skin, and you stepped inside quickly. The air conditioning felt absolutely fantastic, and you briefly wondered if people would notice if you lingered for awhile, just to soak up the cool temperature, maybe until you were even a little chilly.

You smiled at the thought as you arrived at your box, smack in the middle of the wall of post office boxes belonging to other people. There was a wall of boxes on your left, another on the back wall— yours on the right—and there were more just down the corridor. You rummaged in your bag to find the tiny brass key for P.O. Box 257, tucked away in a zippered compartment in your purse. After the third time it had fallen off your key ring, you decided to hide it away in a more safe, reliable place. 

After locating your key and unlocking your box, you stared at the unexpected abundance of envelopes that had piled up over the last week.  Who knew so many people still send paper mail?  It took two times reaching into the small box to pull out every piece of mail, mostly tuning out to be junk or credit card companies offering you low interest rates. Only then was the box empty— almost. Retrieving the one remaining piece of mail at the bottom of your box, you smiled as you realized who it was from, locking the box back before giving the postcard a good look. It was rare that Ryan sent you postcards.

They were usually letters tucked away inside envelopes, words hidden for only you to see. The decorative side of the card displayed a vintage style print, a drawing of a wooden fence leading out onto a beach of white sand bordering sky blue waters. Welcome to Orange Beach! it boasted in a series of light green block letters, fading into yellow. 

You flipped the card around to see Ryan’s familiar handwriting, a mixture of print that sometimes led off to a few letters of scrawled script:

Just passing through. All the sunshine brings you to mind. See you soon. 

You could hear the cadence of his voice, the dropping off of the G at the end of certain  words, the slight twang that tugged at his pronunciation of vowels. Your smile grew into a grin as you glanced at the postmark, reading September 3rd. Your eyes widened into saucers as you recalled today’s date. Ryan’s postcard must have gotten lost in the shuffle of the mail circuit— the post date was over two weeks ago. 

You shrugged it off and secured your key back into the small pocket on the inside of your purse just before tucking Ryan’s postcard inside. With an armful of the rest of your mail, you braced yourself for the assault of the inevitable sweltering  heat.

 Fucking Indian summer. 

                                             ***          ***          ***

Ryan was just passing through after a rousing five days in Virginia,  where he’d met up with Georgie. Where he was going next was still on the table. Instead of restless, he felt fulfilled, still riding the high of busking with his close friend, both of them splitting the money they’d made halfway. He and Georgie played well together, and it usually paid off. He’d shedded his coat and hoodie, managing to stuff the hoodie into his pack and hang the thicker layer around one of the straps of the large bag. His ever-present guitar case, the black leather wearing off around the edges, was clutched tightly in his right hand as he paused near a crosswalk. Squinting in the sunlight, he was grateful for the small shadow the bill of his cap provided.  With the transition of the streetlights from green to yellow to red, he crossed the street and walked one more block to reach the post office. 

He was low on stamps, had just two left to be exact. Ryan kept in touch with a handful of people and had a flip phone, but he preferred writing letters. They felt more personal, gave him the time to think about what he was saying and write them in a way that he’d stumble on while talking. There were also times when his phone would be dead for days. 

It was mid-July, the thick of the summer, and he could feel beads of sweat forming along his forehead, though it was before noon. The old government building was once red-bricked, but had been washed with white in order to modernize the place. The upkeep added a nice touch as well, neatly trimmed bushes contrasting against the bright paint. He pulled at the metal handle on the right of a set of non-paned French doors, the temperature of the air inside bringing instant relief. The building was eerily quiet, the only sounds lowered voices at one end of the building, the light scraping of paper against metal as patrons picked up their mail. Turning toward the sounds of conversation, he walked down the corridor and turned with the layout of the building. 

He was surprised at the line of people waiting, a few solitary people in casual attire, one or two dressed in clothing appropriate for the workplace littered between. There was a mother with a stroller holding a sleeping toddler, an elderly couple, and one woman alone in front of him. He nodded politely as you turned your head to the side in curiosity in order to see what type of brave soul had come up behind you to patiently wait for their turn. You saw a man who was about your age, and offered him a friendly smile, turning around to face him.

Ryan instantly found you absolutely stunning. Your smile brightened your entire face, your features all striking, as if they’d been hand-picked specifically for you.. 

“Good morning,” you said, greeting him casually as if the two of you had been acquainted a long time ago, old friends. “How about that heat wave?”

Ryan chuckled, surprised at your unaffected manner and genuine friendliness. He noticed the way you surveyed his clothing, eyes quickly glancing to your guitar case before lifting to  his face again. Your expression hadn’t changed or faltered a bit, that smile still in place. That was a rarity, something Ryan hadn’t come across in quite some time. 

He returned your smile with a slightly crooked smile of his own. There’s some thin’ about this woman, he thought to himself.  She’s authentic. A good heart, a kind soul. A fire burning within her. Ryan thought that if she was burning bright, he’d volunteer to stand a bit too close to her flames and would pay no mind to the sharp sting of a burn. 

“Mornin’,” he replied good-naturedly. “I think I’m used to all sorts of weather, but then a heat wave hits and reminds me I’m wrong.” Ryan looked at you with warm eyes, spoke with a low drawl that made you weak. “Name’s Ryan, pleasure to meet you.”

                                          ***       ***         ***

It was eerily quiet when you got home, but the silence was just what you needed. You felt like you needed about three showers to wash away the sweat and sticky humidity that clung to your skin, and the only thing that delayed you was the kicking off of your shoes and dumping your purse and mail onto your couch. 

After your shower, water temperature lukewarm at best, you felt human again, revitalized. You’ve mulled around ideas for dinner in the back of your mind, made a quick detour into your bedroom, and returned to that couch you’d tossed your things upon, holding a shoebox. Opening the box as you sat and balancing it in your lap, you reached for your purse, pulling out the postcard you’d received, albeit two weeks too late. 

Lifting the thick stack of envelopes that were quickly outgrowing their box, you slipped the postcard picture-down into the bottom of the shoebox. Smiling softly, you brought your legs up, crossing them like a child, and plucked several envelopes from the middle of your stack, devouring the letters that you’d read dozens of times before. 

Y/N, 

Made a quick decision to hop off in New Orleans before heading off toward Chicago. The train station here is directly connected to a streetcar line that leads straight into the French quarter. Maybe I’ll take a ride next time. Maybe you’ll take one with me. 

I thought about you most of the day, the way you’d stop to listen to a three-piece zydeco band in Jackson square. I imagine how you’d look with powdered sugar on the tip of your nose from beignets, and the slow nod of approval when you taste real, authentic gumbo. 

I heard the roaring of a streetcar clacking over its tracks and knew that I needed to write to you that very  second. I miss you, Y/n. Wish it was me & you riding that streetcar to wherever it would take us. 

                                                                                           Ryan 

Have you ever been to Vegas, Y/N? Beyond all the neon lights, the ritzy hotels and big-name shows, the electricity of the city shifts. Contrary to what other people might think, it’s a great place to play music, beyond the strip, along a street lined with benches and a slight change of pace..  more of a scenic, less chaotic feeling. People stop, and they listen. Really listen. Sometimes I’ll get accolades instead of money, but that’s what it’s all about— telling stories with hope that people can enjoy them and relate.

It’s time for me to go out for the day. Can’t wait until you’re the audience I’m singing to. 

                                                                                          Ryan

Y/N, 

I’m just writing to tell you that Memphis not only has the best bbq, but also the best peach cobbler. Georgia’s got nothing on Tennessee. 

                                                                                             Ryan

Sometimes, when you really thought about it in retrospect, it was wild. In the space of time that you and Ryan shared as a unit, an entire human could be born; the biology of. growing from cells into a living, breathing, viable human being. An entire new life could be created. 

And throughout the last nine months, you, with Ryan’s help, had created a new life of your own. You had a boyfriend, one who was absent far more than he was around, yet managed to never weaken his connection. No matter where in the country Ryan’s trains took him, he’d write. There was no way for you to write back to a man with no address, not in a manner of space and time anyway. But in your new life, none of it was liner. The only time that mattered was when Ryan was there with you, and that was when he got your letters. You always responded, saving your words to give to him next time. 

Next time. You slid folded paper back into envelopes, a grin breaking into your face as you heard the sound of heavy boots over your wooden porch. Dropping Ryan’s letters back into the shoebox right on time, you replaced the lid as the door opened and shut. There was a soft thudding of his guitar case being set into a corner, and you stood to pad through the house in bare feet. 

You met Ryan in the kitchen, watching him down almost an entire cold bottle of water. You adored this man who had needed to buy stamps while stopped in your town, stepping into the post office you’d been waiting in, all by chance. You had never been happier than when Ryan was home. 

“Good afternoon,” you greeted him. As he set aside his bottle of water, you rose to your tiptoes to give him a kiss, his lips chilled from the water. Snaking your arms around him, you leaned back and looked at him, a playful glint in your eyes. “How about that heat wave?”

[theda-rison]

Camp Nano July 2020 - Results, Discussion, and Conclusion

the Like, wow, Scoob! 

Camp Nano July 2020 is done, and here are some thoughts:

I always knew that writing a comic script was going to be a learning experience - I’ve never written a comic script so it really couldn’t be anything except for a learning experience - but hoooooo boy, was it ever!

Before starting I couldn’t find anything on how long comic scripts normally are; I don’t know why, that just seems information that isn’t really shared? (If anyone knows of a resource, please send it to me!) I’m guessing it has a lot to do with there just being less comic writers than there are say, book writers and movie writers. That’s probably what happens when your interests are niche in some way, it’s just harder to find anything about them.

FORTUNATELY, I have the fancy library-bound volumes of The Sandman, and there’s excerpts of the scripts in the back. Which like… thank you @neil-gaiman​, or whoever made that decision, because being able to look at an actual script and see how it’s formatted and what’s included has been the biggest help. Even the “How to Write a Comic Script!” videos I found on YouTube didn’t have example scripts which... I don’t know, I don’t get it. Please include examples, comic YouTubers. I am confusion.

Now is the time for a sexy graph, because we are the kind of people who keep Excel spreadsheets of word counts and make graphs for fun.

Anyway, let’s look at…

[Good. I was listening to As The World Falls Down by David Bowie over and over, and now this is stuck in my head again. I don’t know why I do these things to myself. Also, I love Peter Tork’s face during some of the “AAAHHHH”s lol]

I can’t remember if I stated this before or during Camp at any point, but my goal was 60k words. I dislike aspiring for un-round numbers like “1667″ every day. Any number I could possibly pick is arbitrary, but for some reason the classic Nanowrimo number of 1667 seems even more arbitrary. “2000″ is a much better number. And, I can generally write 2000 words in two hours before running out of steam, so it works out well. It also divides better.

Having said that, you might be thinking, “Theda, the end Actual number on your graph is a lot closer to 90k than it is 60k,” and you would be right, good eyes. Were I Brandon Sanderson and you were one of my students, I would toss you a gummi bear. As it is, you’re not my student and I have no gummi bears and I’m not even Brandon Sanderson… so life is just upsetting I guess.

[But I am back to listening to As The World Falls Down, so I suppose it all works out.]

Back to the graph: The Actual. Look at this wavy-fucking-scalloped-fucking progression. Look at it. I can’t tell if it makes me happy or angry or what, but I know it gives me some kind of feeling. I think I like it from a purely aesthetic point of view, but from the point of the view of the person who made it, it annoys me.

I had a couple of days where I - in my infinite stupidity - didn’t really elaborate on what was supposed to happen in some of the scenes in my scene list and so I spent my “Writing!” time (as it’s labeled in my planner) not writing, but looking at the page cursing myself for not having written any directions for me, a directionless person.

You may also notice that the Goal bars suddenly jump up on the 24th day,. That’s because - in my infinite wisdom - I redid my goals after reaching 60k. It just makes more sense to me to be like, “Well, I punched that goal in the face. Let’s try and go WAY overboard,” because I have the Too Much gene and as Henry Rollins says: “Don't do anything by half. If you love someone, love them with all your soul. When you go to work, work your ass off. When you hate someone, hate them until it hurts.” I wouldn’t say that’s a personal philosophy so much as a Thing I Am Compelled To Do Or I Will Die.

But that’s just me.

As for the trend line, I prefer it looking more steep because that’s way more gratifying, but that’s what I get for writing parts of my scene list like, “That’s okay, Future Me will take care of it!” Past Me, you are a dick and you need to stop doing these things. You are a bastard.

Now for the table! 

[I’m sorry if that’s very small.]

And this time I’m showing you the actual table I use to write down my words. Complicated? Yes. Sexy? Very yes. A little annoying? Also yes. Do we get a little worried that she works too hard and refuses to take a vacation? We do, but we also know that she does it because she loves her work, and we love and support her and bring her snacks throughout the workday to keep her going. What a great table.

First of all: Yes, my first writing block is at 4am. It’s because I have a day job and if I write from 4-6 I can use my brain right when it’s freshly slumbered instead of using it for nonsense at work all day and being unable to write and aggravated because my mental capacity is nil and I no longer know what words are. In an ideal world I would be able to write all day but, here we are.

You might notice there’s a lot of 0’s in the 4am block, especially in the fourth week, and that’s more so because - in my infinite infiniteness (infinity?) - I am secretly an ice giant (but like, smaller) and it’s summer and the northern hemisphere is Too Hot and I literally will not be able to sleep at night until about December. Until then, I am forced to understand what it’s like to be a jacket potato for half of the year so I can empathize with their starchy pain because this is, for whatever reason, Important.

It me. (Recipe)

Anyway,

My record day was 7519 on the 10th, which is just sexy and fun and cool and everything we want, and my lowest was a big fat 0 on the 16th.

I felt super motivated for reasons I don’t remember on the 10th. This is because I didn’t have my planner yet and was not keeping notes anywhere else at that time. (It’s an undated Daily Passion Planner, in case you’re also a slut for planners and wish to know ;) ). I think I was trying to do a 10k day just for funzies? Which, technically, at 2k words in 2 hours I should be able to do 10k in 5, but cell phones exist (and are too distracting), and until I shed my corporeal form I still have to do things like “make food and eat it,” and “get up to pee,” and “experience all the vagaries and horrors of human existence.” I’m hoping it clears up soon. 

The 16th was the day that Future Me took Past Me by the hand and said, “My good bitch, you need to stop doing that thing where you leave shit for me because you run out of motivation or executive function or whatever the fuck is happening where you decide you don’t want to do something anymore, seemingly at random. You deciding to leave school before the day even started because you were bored may have been cute when you were a kid - and also annoying for everyone around you, and just alarming that time they had to pry your hands off the door molding as you held on to it and screamed - but as an adult you are both the cause of and the person who has to deal with this bullshit, and you need to stop.”

On the 16th I went to the Shrine of the Self (sorry, I’ve been reading a lot of manga lately) and made an offering for forgiveness, and then hunkered down and added a TON of notes and partially written scenes to my scene list. You can see how much that helped; it’s almost like having direction is actually useful, lol.

BUT, despite all that direction and despite punching my goal in the face, breaking it’s glasses, and taking it’s lunch money, the script is not finished!

Here’s some math as of the 23rd:

There are 124 points in my outline On the 23rd, I had completed 44 of those points, at 363 pages or 59,601 words 124 / 44 = 2.81 Now we check: 44 * 2.81 = 123.6 (close enough) So as of the 23rd, the projection for completing the script was: 363 * 2.81 = 1,020 pages 59,601 * 2.81 = 157,479 words

Now, I don’t know what the fuck that means because I don’t really do numbers, but at the time of the 23rd it looked an awful lot like I wasn’t going to finish this Camp project. And uh… hey, that was correct.

So I’m going to be continuing Camp Nano July 2020, but also in August 2020, over about 20 more days (providing I hit my goal every day.)

So:

IF -> I need to get up to 158,000; 158,000 - 86,000 = 72,000 words need to be written. (I'm rounding the total up because I canNOT imagine this script being somehow smaller than that at this point, and I’m rounding my Camp total down because who cares about 72 words?) I divided 72,000 from a few numbers until I got a word goal I was okay with, that I think I can do, here’s that one: 72,000 / 20 days = 3,600 words a day (This would mean I can either do 2k in the morning and then 1600 later, or the reverse. You know, whatever way I feel spicy that day.) THEN -> I need to write 3,600 words a day for 20 days to (hopefully) finish this script before work picks up at the end of August.

And then I’ll chill from the end of August - October (except for maybe some short stories or essays. I have a lot of Thoughts and they need to be purged from my brain for my own good). And then I’ll use Nanowrimo Classic (November) to edit this fucker.

SO… that’s some stuff.

As I said at the beginning this endeavor was only ever going to be a learning experience. Having to write 158k words total doesn’t scare me, the longest thing I’ve written yet was something like 190k words. Trying to finish it before the end of August is the daunting part. Especially since being able to be creative right now just keeps making my brain puke out more ideas, and then there’s too many ideas and I’m just writing them all down and hopefully I can get to them later.

Anyway, good job on Camp Nano July 2020 everyone! We did it!

And if you didn’t do it: don’t worry, you’ll do it next time :D

[alwaysahiccupandastrid]

Hello! If you don't mind me asking, why don't you like Rachel? Like, is she problematic or do you just not like her? I personally do like her - no hate to you for not liking her, to each their own! - so I don't know of her being problematic, but if she is, I'm gonna Not and I haven't seen anything, but I'm not that good at, like, looking for problematic stuff, I guess? Sorry if this is word vomit and makes no sense, but have a good day and I love your blog, okay sorry bye.

Hi! First of all, I’m glad you like my blog, so thank you!

As for Rachel...I don’t think she has done anything inherently problematic, so don’t stop liking her on my account! Sometimes you just get a vibe about people or you just don’t like them, I guess. I’ve always got the vibe that she was kind of self centered and a bit shallow, and the relationship just seems sort of staged/PR?

For me personally, I don’t like that she comes across as kind of vapid and attention seeking. On her instagram for the past two months, she’s been posting little “crumbs” to try and allude to her relationship without actually saying it, like she wants Bill fans to take notice?

Recently there was an article that came out that was saying something like “Rachel Bilson is so sorry about her breakup with Adam Brody” - a relationship that was like 10-15 years ago. He’s now married to Leighton Meester and they’re expecting their second child, she’s supposedly dating someone...why bring up a long ended relationship? Why is she talking about it? If it were more recent, I might understand, but the fact is that it was over a decade ago and both have moved on?

Someone also pointed out that all of the pap shots of her are from the same people, backgrid I think, and I swear to god I have NEVER seen someone papped as often as her. Not even the Potter or Stranger Things kids have been papped as often as her, and they are DEFINITELY more famous/sought after than her. Quite a few people think she’s probably calling the paps herself, since it seems that it’s every time she goes out to any store ever.

Let’s be honest for a second - she’s not exactly A-list. The highlights of her career were early 2000s. There’s no way paparazzi are that desperate for this many shoots of her.

Like the staged grocery shopping pics with Bill - Bill has been in the business for roughly 15 years, and in those 15 or so years he has RARELY been papped. He doesn’t like attention, he has anxiety, and it’s clear he doesn’t want his kids to be papped either. He is an extremely private person, which so many of us respect. Literally, I’ve seen like one pap photo of him and one of his daughters. It seems fishy to me that there were more pap photos taken of him with Rachel in the course of a month than there has been the rest of his career, as if people care that they’re grocery shopping or whatever - and they looked angry/mad at each other to boot. Then the photos halted completely after the Golden Globes in January, before social distancing and quarantine was even a thing to be thought about.

Ah, the Golden Globes. It seems weird to me that she only went with him to the GG, but didn’t appear at the Directors Guild Awards (which he won) - it’s like it wasn’t nearly a high profile enough event for her to turn up to. And they looked so awkward and uncomfortable on the red carpet together, like they didn’t want to be there. There’s a video where at one point on the carpet, she’s asks him if he’s smiling and he seems to say “I am, it makes it more real” or something? So much about it is fake and off, like he looked happier hugging Paul Rudd on the carpet than he did standing next to his “girlfriend”, and she looked like she didn’t want to touch him.

I also don’t like how miserable she looks around her daughter, how her daughter is in several paparazzi shots (like the valentines one of her getting cake... no one cares if you’re picking up a cake, hon), and it just seems like she drags the kid out from time to time so she can be seen as a good mom. I truly hope that Bill’s daughters don’t get dragged into that bullshit, I truly do.

Someone on twitter (and this could be bullshit, could be true, take it at what it is) said that their friend lives in Tulsa, and that they were there the day of the “coffee date” pics - apparently Rachel turned up for like an hour or so and then went back to LA. Again, it’s not 100% factual evidence, so...you know.

I know gossip sites are never to be taken seriously but there’s a conversation on a site called Lipstick Alley that sort of sums it up a lot, and there’s someone who’s friend supposedly has worked in the industry/knows about all three parties involved (Bill, Maggie and Rachel). There’s a lot of people discussing it over there, and general consensus seems to be that Bill is a super nice guy, Maggie was a bit of a wifezilla, and Rachel is almost like Bill’s way of saying “look, I CAN get a pretty girl to have sex with me!” Because apparently Maggie made a comment about how the only way Bill could have sex with someone like Rachel was if it was in the film they did together, “The To-Do List” - which Maggie directed and both Bill and Rachel were in. It’s not like it’s a site made up of “jealous fans” who want to date him either, like I know a few who have said they don’t really like Bill anyway, and that they haven’t for a while because he’s done some problematic stuff in the past (the one that comes to mind is blackface on SNL).

It’s just also super fucking weird - the whole fact they were in a sex scene together a few years before they both got divorced, and now they’re apparently together in real life? Fucking yikes. I don’t think Bill is a cheater, he really doesn’t seem the type, but if I were married to someone and this happened after we divorced, I would have SERIOUS questions and doubts.

I may be completely wrong about her, and I fully accept that. I don’t know any of the people involved, and I never will, and I don’t kid myself into thinking that I’m 100% right or that I’ll ever know these people, even if I were to have a career that took off in either acting or writing (my two goals in life). I still like Bill’s films and I think he’s funny, but that’s the extent of it - it’s like I said in regards to Darren Criss and his wife. I love Darren and have since I was a 13 year old Gleek, I think he’s a cool dude; I don’t like his now-wife and haven’t for a while because...well, that’s a different post entirely. My point is that just because I stan someone, doesn’t mean I automatically have to like the person they’re married to or dating. 98% of the time, I’m like “aww cute” or I’m a fan of the other person in general, or if they’re private/not in the business, I respect that and them and wish their relationship well. I still respect that Darren is married, all the luck to them, I hope they’re happy, but it doesn’t mean I have to like someone. It’s the same for Bill and this situation, like if he’s happy then fair enough, it’s just I don’t really like Rachel anyway.

I’m explaining stuff poorly, I know. Sometimes you just don’t like a person though, even if they haven’t done anything, you know? As my nan would have once said “you can’t be everyone’s cup of tea” - it’s impossible for you to like everyone and for everyone to like you.

I hope you’re well, anon!

[succinct-assbutt]

Spitfire||

pairing: dean x reader

warnings: cursing, mild angst

summary: you’d think they’d be used to butting heads at this point, but after an incident on a hunt riles Dean up, Y/N storms off into the woods with elder Winchester going off to find her.

wordcount: 2000+

A/N: This wasn’t proofread, but it finally drew me out of my writer’s block and I’m oddly proud. This is a trope I very obviously am a fan of and will for sure be exploring more in the coming weeks, so expect more posts.

                                                         ~*~

Jaw clenched, eyes ablaze: this is how you will always remember Dean Winchester.

He gets like this sometimes: callous and unforgiving and steely eyes digging into you in hopes of breaking your resolve. It’s expected at this point. Anticipated. Something inside you believes it’s front to hide from how threatened he feels whenever any kind of challenge steps up to the plate, and you’re just about to say this when he opens his mouth to speak.

“Get in the car.”  He grits, yanking the door open.

You stare him down from across Baby’s hood, fists clenched, shoulders squared. Neither of you say anything nor move. The wind picks up and courses over you, reminding that it’s 2am and freezing and you’re halfway across town with your only chance of getting back home being those leather seats, but your ego drives you to only cross your arms and scoff.

“You couldn’t handle it.” You say, fighting the waver in your voice.

“I had goddamn gun aimed right at his head and Sam for backup—if you’re going to try that bullshit at least make it believable.”

“Sam with that gaping hole in his shoulder?” You counter, chancing a quick glimpse at the younger Winchester perched in the backseat. A trembling hand rests over the makeshift tourniquet round his arm. It’s not too much blood, thankfully. He’s got his head tipped back against the seat and a scowl gracing his lips but he’ll live, you’re sure—in the end that’s what matters.

Dean’s words.

After all these years it’s hard to forget the mantra he’s fed to you for as long as you’ve known him. He’s never forgotten to remind you of it, a sequence of memories lined up in your mind’s eye. Pre-hunt, gun tucked into your holster. Piercing green eyes that worry that would be your last mission. There’s always weary buildup with each hunt that never goes away. Each time could be your last, you know this, all of you—and for a second you wonder if maybe he has every right to be mad, in a way? The rational side of you argues yes. Maybe. Soon enough, though, it’s overcome by your pride that suffocates any empathy, and you turn on your heel, ignoring his calls.

“So you’ll be walking home then?” Dean shouts after you.

Anger seeps into your stride and you pick up the pace. “I’ll find my way.”

“Reckless and stupid, huh? That’s what you’re going for tonight?”

Tears well in your eyes but you keep walking, ignoring him. You lift your hand and practically scrub them away. Fuck. Bloody Winchester. Your vision clears up a little, making it easier to chart the path leading through the woods and out to the highway. Stocky trees tower over you from every direction, a labyrinth of green and brown.

“Y/N, come on!” Sam’s voice reaches you after a few feet and you spare a glance back; he’s gotten out of the car, hunched over in obvious pain. A pang of guilt shoots through you, seeing him hurt. Something inside you screams ‘your fault’, but you shut it out and keep moving, the sound of their shouts slowly dwindling as you walk…

~*~

If Dean wasn’t going to kill her before, then he definitely will now.

Sam watches him rifle through the trunk before slamming it shut with a huff. He checks his gun, tucking an extra set of bullets into his pocket and then turning to his younger brother. “Wait for me here. I’m gonna go get her.”

“It’s getting late, Dean,” Sam says, “Maybe we should just…” His voice dies out when he notices the twitch in his brother’s expression, but it’s too late.

Dean picks up on his sentiment, brow furrowing further. “You think we should leave her?”

“Dean…”

“Is everybody losing their goddamn minds today?” He roars, gaze flickering between the younger Winchester and the path. His jaw clenches, but the hardness in his eyes seems to dim. There’s a flash of reluctance right then—worry.

Sam understands, even without his brother saying it out loud.

A sigh leaves him as he casts his eyes downward. “I know you care about her.”

Dean’s eyes immediately flicker back to him, and the way his brow knits together and his lips part tell the younger Winchester he’s definitely going on the defensive, but then Dean stops himself.

Instead he swallows, looking down at the gun in his hand. The metal feels cool against his heated skin.

“I just think it’s stupid and reckless to go after her.” Sam continues gently. Dean shakes his head, eyes leaving the weapon in his grasp to settle on his brother’s.

“I can’t leave her alone when she’s like this.” He states, “Do you know what will happen?”

“She’s always like this.” In a way, he’s right, but it’s never too big of a struggle dealing with Y/N’s outbursts. It’s sort of what makes them work.

Dean’s never been one to take the easy route and everyone knows it by now; he likes the push and pull, the way her tide swallows and then spits him back out again. It’s been like that for as long he’s known her—Y/N, all brazen and spitfire eyes, iron sharpening iron. She makes him better and he knows it, even if she doesn’t—yet he finds himself at his wits end every damn time.

His frustration, formerly reduced to smolders, sparks up right then and Dean sighs. Y/N. The death of him, he’s sure. Tossing Sam the keys, he nods back at the impala. “Watch the car. I’ll be back”

~*~

Finding her way back to the main road proves harder the darker it gets.

She stumbles through the thicket of trees, branches reaching out like nimble fingers that scratch at her cheeks, the moon doing little to nothing to help her make out her path. It’s been ten minutes, but her anger has already been reduced to an icy fear that settles in her belly. This was dumb.  Maybe she’s dumb—no doubt about the reckless part. She knows and she hates it, but it’s proven an asset on many occasion so it’s not that easy letting go.

This, of course, not being one of them.

Y/N curses as another branch she pushes aside flings back and smacks her in the face, her hand immediately flying to the spot by her eye. She stops moving. The squeak of bats sounds overhead, followed by a flutter of wings. She spares a glimpse up at the sky right in time to catch sight of a cluster of them setting off, and a chill runs down her spine.

Dean’s words ring out in her head. Stupid, reckless. Stupidly reckless and all because of an ego—even now, something holds her back from admitting he’s right. She trudges further into the wood, until she hears leaves crunching behind her.

Drawn to a stop, her senses seem to heighten; stiff-backed, hand immediately almost flitting to her holster before she realizes she’s unarmed (she was too mad to think about taking her gun with her when she’d stalked off).

Fuck. She waits, eyes darting around. It’s too damn dark to see anything, but she follows the sound of footsteps approaching, apprehensive, almost like they’re lost—the possibility of it just being an animal crosses Y/N’s mind, but it’s immediately brushed away when she feels a warm grip around her wrist.

She whips around, throwing a punch before she can think. They dodge it and try to reach for her again, but she tackles them to the ground.

The two of them collapse onto the ground in a fit of curses and groans as they struggle against each other. Her hands flit to their throat. Calloused hands she recognizes as men’s fly to her arm, trying to pry them away.

“Y/N,” The stranger chokes, her hand already snaking to the side to grab a nearby rock, but she stills right away.

Her hand hovers in the air, unmoving.

“Dean?”

“What the fuc—ow!” He curses when she tries to slide off him. Her eyes dart to his leg; twisted and pressed up against a boulder.

An iciness settles in her right then. If she’d only knocked him over a few feet closer, then he could be dead, she realizes. She could have killed him.

“I could have killed you!” Y/n shouts. Dean ignores her; his hand flies to his leg and he hisses in pain, Y/N quickly climbing off of him. She helps him sit up, but it doesn’t do much, the pain still pulsing in his knee.

The elder Winchester searches for her face in the dark; the only tell that she’s right beside him is the hand on his thigh and the blurry silhouette he tries to blink into focus (he’s definitely concussed from a fall that strong.)

“Dean…” Y/N’s voice wavers as she finds his hand. She holds it up to her chest and he can feel the thrum of her heart beneath his palm, practically hears the way it bats against her ribcage. Scared—she’s scared, he realizes.

And then he’s pulling her into him before he can think of anything else, his arms winding around her waist as she presses flush to his chest.

For a moment they forget about their fight. The hunt, Sam nursing a gaping wound in his shoulder somewhere out there, the ashes of both their anger slowly settling around them because at the end of the day they’re both alive.

Dean realizes it then: she’s stubborn and hotheaded and yet he loves her more than he’s ever allowed himself to love.

“You’re an idiot, you know that? I told you not to come out here.” He says into her hair, Y/N’s heartbeat slowly evening out as she pulls away to look up at him (for the first time she’s grateful for the darkness blanketing them because the last thing she needs is him seeing the tears welling in her eyes).

“I told you not to follow me.” She replies.

“Yeah, well,” his hand settles on her cheek, finding a wet trail leading down to her jaw, “looks like neither of us are good at following orders…”

“Dean—“

“Y/N, I’m sorry. I mean—that wasn’t smart what you did back there, I stand by that. But sometimes the bravest things to do aren’t smart. And that’s what you are—you’re so damn brave, kid.”

Dean cradles her head in his hand and oddly enough, somehow, he can feel her gaze trained on his, a heavy force settling between the two of them.

“Sometimes I can’t keep up with you. And I…I’m okay with that, y’know? I just want you to trust me to brave for you sometimes.” He feels her hand on his, small and trembling. “You don’t always have to put up a fight all by yourself.

“Dean, I love you. And I’m sorry. I…I just can’t lose you.” Y/N whispers.

And there’s a lot that goes unsaid with that single statement, he knows; an oath hidden in the tremble in her voice and the warmth of her fingers trailing along his jaw.

“You couldn’t get rid of me if you tried.” He says, and before she can say anything else his lips are on hers.

It’s a tentative kiss at first, the uncertainty of blindness having the both of them reaching for the other until the heat licking up their insides consumes them. She cards her hands further into his hair as he draws her close. Y/N crawls back on top of him, careful not to hurt his leg (not that he can feel anything other than the swell of his chest at this point) when suddenly a voice draws their attention.

“Guys?” Someone interrupts. Both their eyes shoot open.

A beam of light cuts through the trees around, cast against the earthy ground in random slants and growing brighter, and it doesn’t matter that the light is soon enough too blinding to figure out who’s behind the flashlight because his voice alone brings a wave of relief crashing over them both.

Dean lets out an audible sigh once he sees his brother. “Sammy, thank goodness.”

“What the hell happened? Your leg, it’s—“

The elder Winchester cuts him off with a wave of his hand. “Doesn’t matter. She kicked my ass—again, so I’m gonna need your help getting back to the car.” Y/N stands to her feet, helping him up onto his steady leg. There’s a look of confusion plastered across the younger Winchester’s face, but he moves to help regardless.

The walk back to the car is silent save for the crunch and crackle of leaves and twigs beneath their heavy steps. Dean hobbles along, both his brother and girlfriend’s arms slung around his waist. Y/N won’t stop apologizing for drop kicking him, even though he insists he’s fine. Hers isn’t the conventional “I’m so sorry” paired with kisses peppered to the side of his face, though; instead she tsked and rolls her eyes and scolds him to be more careful. in the end, though, he can trace the concern in how tightly she grips his hand or the way she keeps adjusting his collar or picking out twigs from his hair, her fingers lingering longer than they need to (not that he’s complaining).

“What if you hit your head on that rock? Huh?” She muses.

“I didn’t, did I?”

“To be fair, it was pretty stupid coming after her when she’s pissed.” Sam supplements with a shrug. “You shoulda known better.”

“Gee, Sam, tell me how you really feel.” Dean rolls his eyes at his brother’s statement and a round of soft laughs follows. Despite himself, he can’t help the smile that tugs at his lips then. His eyes dart to Y/N. The closer they get the road, the better the lighting, and he’s grateful to find a wide smile spread across her face as they walk.

He snakes his hand into hers, giving it a little squeeze while Sam goes on about what they’ll have for dinner. Her gaze catches his briefly. Notes the smile on his face, and she rolls her own eyes before giving him a slight jab in the side with her elbow.

And Dean only chuckles, because yeah, she’s definitely not one of the easier things in life, and it’s definitely, definitely worth it.

                                                            ~*~

In case you haven’t noticed I suck at summaries lol :)

Like I said, I love this trope of butting heads but still coming back to each other in the end because yeah you’re both headstrong and fighters but that doesn’t erase the fact that you need each other? I don’t know, I tried to capture that, but like I said, I haven’t written in a while.

Regardless, thank you so much for reading: likes, reblogs and follows absolutely make my day, and feel free to message me if you’d like to be added to my taglist for any future Dean oneshots.