#editors: are YOU sure?!

[btstulip]

So much to unpack about bedtime in Are You Sure?! Episode 4

First, either it was already talked about or Tae just assumed, but he knew Jungkook and Jimin were going to share a bed. That was “supposed” to be Jimin’s bed and Tae was meant to sleep on the floor. But why leave a perfectly good bed empty?

The way Jungkook said “let’s go” twice to Jimin only to follow it up by saying “let’s go together”… that was not subtle. Lol. Jungkook was tired and Jimin had suggested they go to bed, so Jungkook was not going without him.

And then they literally jump into bed together!

Did they discuss sharing a bed? Maybe, or maybe it was assumed and automatic. But the comfort at how they hopped into bed together, at the same time like it was freaking choreographed, and Jimin instinctively threw his legs over Jungkook, screamed of familiarity and needing to be close to each other. Also, I died, because wtf? that was so precious!

And how funny was the convo about getting hit in the nose. I love them so much.

Side note: I think the editors are F-ing with us. Come on… ��Jimkook”?!? I can’t believe the stuff they are including, but I am loving every second once I recover from the shock! Also, thank you editors for not just showing the shot of their feet in bed. I don’t know why you’re including all this, but I am grateful for all the extra bed footage we have been getting. Oh right… “fan service”.

🫣🥰🫣

[merlinemryspendragon]

I’ve been fighting with one hand tied behind my back. What happens when... I’m finally set free? Captain Marvel (2019)

[jorvik-gazette-archive]

""Realistic""HorseController Update quote:

"Something something horse something, later versions are better as along we go, yes design will be open source at some point, this version allows jumps :DD yay, pedals are somewhat templates for stirrup-like components"

[drbatsponge]

Some very sisterly stuff going on here guys, definitely what was intended. :)

I swear this editor is the definition of this meme.

[madwomansapologist]

i would give everything to read lotr when it came out. like imagine you read the hobbit, amazing book and oh here comes a sequel. hmm alright never thought this ring would be so important but go on. plot goes on, we finally reach moria, it will be so great to see balin, oin and ori again, how i wish bilbo came with the fellowship too so they could have a little reunion. wait. thats a grave. oh. frodo only survived because of thorin's gift. oh.

[jmdbjk]

Cannot wait...

Still a month away from watching these two be their adorable goober selves together:

I keep telling everyone around me I'm going to be insufferable for a while, with Jimin and Muse coming soon and then these two together, week after week ... makes me giddy. Sorry, not sorry.

We'll get teasers. I'm going to squee over all of those as well. Again, sorry, but not very sorry at all actually.

All of it takes me back to when I realized JK's 2022 Vlog was going to be centered around camping. Honestly? I was a little surprised. He has never come across as the outdoorsy type to me. But he'd never had the chance to express much of what interests him outside of BTS and outside of what we saw on various content through the years either!

This series of vlogs helped us see each member doing things they chose to do on their own and helped kick off the "solo" era in 2022.

Jungkook's delight in stopping at Korea's version of Buc-ee's and buying gas station food and eating to his heart's content was oddly satisfying. Maybe because I take great pleasure in doing such simple things too, after all, the best part of a road trip is stopping to buy snacks along the way, am I right? The service area where they stopped is called the Gapyeong Service area on the Seoul-Yangyang Expressway (60). These places are like a food court/mini mall. Just like Buc-ee's.

I am already laughing at the thought of he and Jimin stopping at a grocery store to buy deli pizza in Connecticut... IT'S GOING TO BE WOEFULLY SUBSTANDARD I FEAR!

In his 2022 vlog, Jungkook helped set up the camper he slept in and cooked and sat around the campfire drinking. And we know in past Bon Voyage seasons and other content, they've pitched tents and slept outdoors. All of these things he must have immensely enjoyed if we might be seeing them again soon with Jimin.

Then there's the recent story going around about someone spotting he and Jimin returning their rental car in Japan and learning Jungkook was driving... Jungkook got to drive on the "wrong" side of the road in Japan! He put that international driver's license to use finally!

From the preview clip the other day, it appears Jungkook also got to practice his motorcycle handling skills. Handling a Harley Davidson is a bit trickier than handling a smaller motorcycle. Those things are heavy. And it's a little different when you have a passenger sitting behind you. The two Harley helmets we saw sitting on the edge of his sofa last year... yep, he's had practice.

TMI: I was today year's old when I learned that motorcycles are banned on major roadways in Korea.

Are we going to see how Jimin scraped his knuckles while snorkeling on Jeju?

And that nekkid-in-bed live when Jungkook was begging him to come over and Jimin told him to look at the photo he sent... did Jimin get a black eye from being elbowed when they were sleeping?

And as I was running through my blog posts, I realized all of these things I previously said last year:

Me wondering if their trip to Japan was unstructured and spur of the moment...

I wondered if Closer Than This was a pre-release to an upcoming album...

I'm thankful to Tae for bringing JK along with his Wooga friends to that ski resort back in 2022. We can't know if JK had ever snowboarded before that but it appears he loved it enough to want to stick around long after they left him there. And now he had the chance to do it again with Jimin! I know they had so much fun together. At the beginning of this year, I pointed out some fun facts about Sapporo...

Skiing? Snowboarding? All of the above?

And save this for future reference, it's the onsen resort image we heard about and I mentioned in a weekly Bangtan report this past February....

Maybe none of the above will be accurate, but thinking about how much fun they had anyway has me very excited for August 8.

[btstulip]

Are you kidding?!?

While playing “WHO”?!? AND “Seven”?!!! This is getting ridiculous.

If jikook isn’t real, then Bighit is delulu too.

Full video:

THEY SHOWED THEM BRUSHING THEIR TEETH TOGETHER, like a fucking K-drama! IN MATCHING PJS!

I feel like they must be trolling us because not in a million years did I imagine a fucking TEASER like this! I am not okay. I must have snapped under the stress and am imagining things now because this CANNOT be real!!!

Check on your jikook friends because they are not okay.

[thelassoway]

Jason Sudeikis as Ted Lasso Season 3 » Casual Sweaters/Jumpers

[isuggestforcefem]

Woah...

[cuz-reasons]

Summary: Emmet begrudgingly agrees to a break.

I hope yall didn't forget what the first tag on this fic is!

[star-temeraire]

"the mainstream media isn't talking about this!"

is your perception of the mainstream media solely based on what your parents recount from fox or sky news? has enough time passed between the event and now for professional journalists to verify sources? are you reading beyond the headline and the lead? do you understand why journalists phrase things in the way that they do?

don't get me wrong, there are certainly cases where that statement is true, however, I routinely see it applied to events that I later read about in an honest-to-god physical newspaper

[pink-flame]

You're my neck of the, neck of the woods Leave you, babe, I never could Ginger and gestures of goodwill go forth, let go Of sorrow and sadness and spite I'm somebody taller tonight

Neck of the Woods - Maisie Peters

[oathkeeper-of-tarth]

This is what I was referring to when joking about Isobel getting the "Florida man treatment" in the epilogue Baldur's Mouth Gazettes and it genuinely makes me feel bad for her.

Even after everything, will she ever escape being Ketheric Thorm's Daughter? Her whole arc of being the beacon of resistance against him, while keeping to herself and hiding her identity from her closest allies. Grappling with the undeserved guilt of all he did in her name and "for her". Mourning the man she knew as her father whom she calls wonderful, and having to reconcile that with the monster he became without her. This man who wanted to bring her back to "life" so badly that he twisted and tainted and violated and destroyed every single bit of her life in the process - her home, everyone she ever knew and loved - himself included, and the love of her life, and even the family dog. Along with, as we see Isobel fear, her own self, body and soul.

I'm also fascinated by this little compare-and-contrast:

Ketheric Thorm: She was always stubborn. She clung to Selûne even after her mother's death.

Isobel: He raised me to serve Selûne, as my mother, rest her soul, had wished. He was everything to me, all my life.

He says it with such disdain. Is this twisted hindsight after a century of bitter hatred, or were you slipping even then, Ketheric? Puts me in mind of the persecuted Selûnite masons theorising he only ever converted for Melodia's sake and showed his faith through very grand flashy gestures, such as, you know, building giant towers and temples. Ketheric, very much a capital P Paladin, changes gods and causes with such fervour and goes to such lengths every time, it's fascinating.

Meanwhile, Isobel with her quiet "task of steadfast faith" that she claims few can understand, her adherence to her beliefs and principles even when everything seems to have been taken from her (talk about loss!), even when she, too, is angry at her goddess for not interfering to stop a slide into greater evil, and when she fears herself corrupted and unworthy. Every time I think about Isobel for more than a minute I am absolutely stunned by the sheer strength and resilience she so subtly and quietly displays.

[codenamesazanka]

might be tasteless/inappropriate/overstepping boundaries of me to wonder, but iirc Horikoshi has talked about how making a successful manga felt like a dream come true.

His first two series got axed early on, and he said that depressed him, he was ready to give up, but he was encouraged by his editor to try again. My Hero Academia, his third series, became a smash hit. But after years of working on it, he started to really burn out - health problems, sleep deprivation, overwork. He works 36 hours straight and when nearing breaking points, his editor would pat his shoulder and tell him "it'll be okay." He calls his editor a Hero for this, for helping him keep drawing, and credits this to changing his concept of what a Hero is. Still, the writing of the 3rd Act ends up feels like a complete mess with an even messier rushed ending.

My Hero Academia starts with Deku getting to realize his greatest dream. But then things get complicated. And then the war ended how it ended. All the saves the Heroes tried to do for the Villains end up only half-successful. The conclusion of Heroism we get is holding someone's hand and telling them it'll be okay, even if the problem is something like horrific child abuse that involves sewing a kid's mouth shut and locking him up in a basement for years. Nothing really changes except things are said to be 'nicer'.

And now in the final chapter Deku ends up feeling lonely and resigned and sad. The end of a dream...

(until All Might showed up again to give Deku a gift like in the first chapter so he can be a Hero and live his dreams again. Also Tagline says to look forward to Horikoshi's next work.)

[superfluouskeys]

scorched earth (9/11)

Note: This story is set in the world of my very long Maleficent/Aurora fanfiction The Prisoner (which you can read  here if you want), but focuses almost entirely on original characters.   There is no need to read The Prisoner to understand what is going on--this story stands on its own and will give you all the background info you need.  Please also note the general content warning; I will not give specific warnings by chapter.

--

Sometime in the early hours of the morning, Kinsale finds Senna asleep on the beach.  Senna doesn’t know when or how she could have possibly fallen asleep.  She and Joy talked for a long time. After Joy left, Senna’s mind was overwrought.  The last thing she remembers is staring up into the boundless sky, wondering how she would ever begin to wrap her mind around all she had learned.  Then suddenly it was morning.

Kinsale leads Senna back to the road.  She explains, apparently unfazed by Senna’s utter inability to comprehend, that the sand makes it hard to get her footing, which apparently has some bearing upon her ability to rip a hole in the fabric of the universe.

Once again they are nowhere, and then they are somewhere again.  Senna’s stomach turns and her head spins, but at this point she can’t decide whether it’s from the magic or…well, everything else.

“Oh, stars above, you must be very tired!” Kinsale exclaims at last.  Senna guesses this must be true, even though she doesn’t exactly feel tired.  She picks herself up off the ground and greets Ruthie, and then she allows Kinsale to usher her inside and up the stairs to bed.

Just like it was on the beach, Senna lies in bed for what seems like a very long time, feeling as though she couldn’t possibly go to sleep.  Then suddenly the light through the windows has changed, and Senna realizes it must be late in the afternoon.

Read More (AO3)

[batsplat]

do you have any favorite tennis matches? what's your favorite player and rivalry if you have one?

(note, I will be leaving both agassi + sampras out of this post as they have already been discussed in a fair bit of detail on this blog, though I might at some point make a post specifically about their matches. obviously they'd be pretty high up in all three categories with regards to favourite matches, players, and rivalries)

I have a lot of favourite tennis matches!! I'll throw a few of them under the cut, but honestly give me half a chance and I'll go on forever. my all time favourite tennis match is the 2003 us open semifinal between justine henin and jennifer capriati. it is available in full on youtube and I think you should watch it even if you have only the slightest interest in tennis. this is a match you need to experience for yourself and I will not spoil the result, but it features basically everything you could ask for:

very high stakes, both in terms of being a slam semi and for both players involved. it's an interesting stretch of henin's career, plenty of controversies that season and the potential for a rematch with countrywoman clijsters in the final. capriati during her noughties career revival had FINALLY managed to overcome her issues in late stages of slams and had won three of them... but her home slam at the us open was the one she wanted to win most of all. a history of semifinal choking she was attempting to conquer in front of her home crowd - fighting a woman six years her junior who had already tasted slam success that year

two very different personalities, the cold and calculating henin against the ferocious and passionate capriati... both not strangers to a little bit of gamesmanship, and of course you see that on display in this match too. keep an eye on the poor line judges

two contrasting but similarly engaging playstyles, the boisterous force of capriati coming up against henin's lethally elegant all-court game. henin's one handed backhand better than sex question mark. it's a great stylistic match-up, and produces some excellent tennis across the entire span of the match. just SUCH a great watch, like I really cannot speak highly enough of the level on display

a highly involved crowd who want their home favourite to win SO BADLY and are more than happy to do anything to help her cause. gets a bit wild, like the best us open matches tend to do

some truly insane momentum switches, many prompted by psychology and some prompted by physicality. one player's body starts letting her down in the final set in pretty striking fashion. one player's mind plays havoc with her, possibly even more memorably so. a very dramatic finale

the cruelty of tennis on full display. a match where you suffer for both players, who both want it so badly and are visibly fighting demons on the court. truly, truly brutal for the loser

I love this match so so much. I know it's very on-brand to direct you to a match from over two decades ago, but I promise you. it's worth it. sometimes the old stuff is the best

and do I EVER have a favourite player and rivalry!!!!!!

MY GIRLS. okay, look, they're both extremely retired and had their last match in 2010 BUT it is still my favourite rivalry!!!!!!! here, have another bit of my output for them:

wE hAvE aLwaYs ProTEcTEd tHis iMAge oF friENdShip tHat nEVeR eXistEd istgggggggg NOTHING WAS BROKEN BETWEEN US BECAUSE THERE WAS NOTHING TO BREAK

if you've ever heard someone be extremely annoying about federer's game, you probably can imagine what I sound like talking about henin. she's got my favourite backhand of all time, I genuinely think it is a work of art. I love how she moves, the way she unleashes on balls on the run, I love how she gets into the court in such a lithe and precise manner to pick up the next ball. I love how effective the serve is despite her height (number one commentating cliché for her lol, she's short we get it). the slices, the gorgeous drop volleys, the laser straight forehand... and again, the backhand. when she takes a swing at that thing and fucking pummels it past her opponent, stretches her wings to make the ball soar, it's just truly my favourite shot of all time. there's a specific backhand crosscourt on-the-run pass she hits in that aforementioned us open semifinal where... yeah. what can you even say. better than sex full stop

and well... okay, look, I am AWARE a lot of fans still hate her and I do get that she won't be everyone's cup of tea. but y'know. sometimes you just have to support women's rights and wrongs, and I do think some of the criticism of her is also a bit overblown. she's a cheater, yes, I won't argue with that. but I think sometimes cheating is interesting!! she really really really really needed to win, she was cold and ruthless about it - but also, I'm sorry, people would NOT have hated her quite so much if she were a man. and I'm also not saying a sad life story justifies cheating etc etc, but I do wish people were a bit more interested in why she needed to win so badly. she also has the number one athlete attribute that makes my brain go crazy - a deeply conflicted relationship with the sport itself. always caught between running towards and running away from tennis... yeah. god

the single best resource in tennis is a website called tennisabstract, it really is fantastic, I've contributed a bit to their match coding project before and definitely will again when my schedule's freed up a bit. I have a lot of time for the guy who runs it, I really do. there's this series he did, tennis 128, where he listed the top 128 players of all time according to his metric and wrote a piece for each of them... and I think they're all very interesting, it's a great project. but. there's a good chance henin got the most negative write-up of the lot, in a way I have to admit I take issue with. some excerpts:

well, tough luck. I don't care. the lgbt community has forgiven justine henin. look at what a cute tomboy she was as a teenager:

look at her holding a bird trophy:

wifey

the other half of that rivalry is her fellow belgian clijsters. very much a case of two narratives haunting each other!! do not separate!! anyhow, she's another player with a game I absolutely adore, these big scything groundstrokes but ALSO plenty of variety, like we're not talking a dull baseline basher here. and the movement!! sliding on a hard court is STILL pretty rare in the women's game, so it's very much seen as something associated with clijsters and clijsters alone:

life changing thighs is what I'll say

clijsters was everything henin was not - warm, popular in the locker room and with fans, a cheery outgoing personality who always had plenty of people rooting for her. she was also seen as too nice to win. and there are few things on this planet that get me going more than a choker. than somebody who just... freezes in the most important matches of her life. which for a while there had a nasty habit of involving henin, because of course they did

clijster's another one with a really fascinating career arc, one that is inextricably linked with henin's story - and thing is, she did get her happy ending. she's the feel-good story, proof that even chokers might be able to make it in the end. she conquered her demons... one of the very, very, very few to do so. she changed the narrative of her career completely. now I DO hate how this kinda... low key gets implicitly used as another stick to thwack henin with, this kind of, ooh!! look!! you can be a good person and be successful too!! which! idk. god forbid we root for a flawed athlete now and again. but I think this does a disservice to clijsters - not least because she WAS pretty nasty about henin in a way she wasn't about basically anyone else. henin and clijsters are more than just sinner and saint... don't let tennis fans tell you otherwise

and yeah, the two of them obviously had a bit of an emotionally tortured rivalry. belgium cooked up two insanely good tennis players born exactly one year and one week apart, the only two players of that stature the country has ever produced. they made each other better and they made each other worse. friends and enemies and something in between... and in the end, fundamentally inseparable. citadels have been built on less

anyway tbh I'm not going to pretend like anyone is summoning up that kind of narrative juice these days, but obviously I still have my faves. as regular blog readers may be aware, my favourite current player is this washed string bean who mostly just loses to more talented players and throws tantrums these days. I'll support him until his time runs up though. medvedev's got this fantastically unorthodox game that I could dissect all day, he's the smartest top player, he's funny as shit. his game should never have worked and he has no right to be as successful as he is. I could hold a lecture series on his forehand. I'm very much a pusher-inclined fan... I like counterpunchers, I like players who run around a lot and defend, and I also like tacticians. I was a pretty early adopter because I love a quirky playstyle and weird technique, which was then affirmed with the miami 2018 debacle (iykyk). but there was a moment I knew I would be his fan for life, and if you are a tennis fan you can probably guess what's coming:

"so I want all of you to know, when you sleep tonight, I won because of you" I fell in love

never ever has he let me down on the drama front. his "oops I did it again" basel 2018 instagram post, his "I think I killed someone? my apologies" from us open 2020, "if I die, who'll take responsibility" from olympics 2021, the "it's easier to enjoy life when you have no brain" paris 2021 monologue, the yawn at turin 2021, stomping on the ground davis cup 2021, the "his father can talk every point" ao 2022 rant, "I'm gonna pee as slow as this court" from iw 2023, when he got rid of the singles stick monte carlo 2023 plus the "look at yourself in the mirror" press conference comment, "vamo vamo vamo" from uso 2023... I could keep going. "shut your fuck up" has become a part of my vocabulary icl. I love his press conferences and watch a lot of them, just consistently a very interesting guy to listen to. he is unfortunately sort of hellish to follow as a fan, but y'know. sometimes it's not just trophies that make the journey worth it (cope)

women's tennis, my actual faves have basically disappeared from the scene this year so I'm not even gonna dignify them by mentioning their names. I am pretty ride-or-die for dasha kasatkina, a useless pusher who's also the wta's highest ranked lesbian and makes a vlog with her girlfriend I definitely recommend. I like her tennis a lot in all its horrendous pushing, she's very sweet and fun and produces an obscene number of cute photos with her girlfriend. beyond that, I suppose I am basically a swiatek and sabalenka fan this year, I find both of them highly engaging in different ways, I love how they're like... actually very good but are also seemingly constantly fighting demons. basically the two most compelling players in the game currently TO ME. I'm really really enjoying their rivalry, my main complaint is that I wish they played more (praying iga's new coach fixes her during the off-season). they produced by far the best match this year, madrid final, which I'd also absolutely recommend. but yeah, I generally vibe with all the top players of the women's game, if to differing extents!! really strong era at the minute that also promises to keep getting better. we pray

anyhow. a few more favourite matches - I'm going to try and hold myself back, because I really could go on forever. a lot of the old matches I watch are from noughties wta, but I'll limit myself because I'm aware this really is probably of interest to nobody and give just a further two - sharapova/henin wta finals 2007 and venus/davenport wimbledon 2005. both pretty normie picks, but sometimes the normie picks are normie picks for a reason

for my sins, I do have a few big three matches in fairly regular rotation, typically on in the background when I'm working. main ones are djokovic/federer us open 2011, djokovic/federer wimbledon 2019, djokovic/federer wimbledon 2014, and djokovic/nadal roland garros 2021. I also have a bunch of murray matches in rotation but I tend to mix it up for him more... my other go-to run is all of leylah fernandez's pre-final us open 2021 matches, which are just consistently bonkers in the best possible way. there's a few other recent-ish matches I really like to revisit, like iga/sublanko madrid 2023, fernandez/osorio monterrey 2022, kerber/juvan strasbourg 2022...

and then, of the more recent-ish men's matches, pretty obvious where my biases lie. medvedev/djokovic cincy 2019, med/wawrinka uso 2019, med/nadal atp finals 2020, med/thiem atp finals 2020, med/djokovic uso 2021, med/sinner atp finals 2021 (conceptually hilarious match), med/faa ao 2022 (go-to flight match, this one), med/tsi ao 2022, rune/djokovic paris 2022 (and honestly that whole rune run), med/zverev monte carlo 2023 (don't feel great about including this but I'd be lying if I said I didn't love it), rune/sinner monte carlo 2023, rune/foki madrid 2023, med/alcaraz uso 2023 (I promised I'd sing the american national anthem if he won that match so that's a voice note that still exists out there)... and so on

I could keep going, but I'll cut myself off here. and end things with my personal favourite instagram post tennis has produced. from after the aforementioned rune/foki madrid match:

'personally I hold nothing against the Spanish people' dw king I'll do it for you