#i can be that person who nobody thinks is awesome but actually they're kind of fucking awesome

[awkwardcourage]

I find Hughie's list of his top three musicians incredibly fascinating. Also just the fact that he refers to them as musicians and not artists, like, it's just- why use that term? It's so outdated in todays vernacular and I don't get the feeling he's trying to be a certain type of way or annoying by saying musicians bc a) that's just not his personality at all and b) bc when he discusses it with butcher, he's incredibly stressed and using his top artists as a way to prove that he is incapable of infiltrating Vought.

But anyway, onto the actual list. 1. James Taylor. What the fuck. Whose top artist has ever been James Taylor, no offence to Mr Taylor but I don't feel like he's an artist who is many people's number one.

2. Simon and Garfunkel. I'm totally biased when I say that this is a bang up choice bc I think they slap, but again, still, an interesting choice.

3. Billy Joel. The most important and iconic choice in terms of Hughie's character and how associated with each other they become- and yet, he is third on Hughie's list. He's not even second, when he has a poster of him on his room (potentially on his ceiling if Robin's quip about "staring up at that dumb Billy Joel poster" is anything to go on). He listens to "You're Only Human" incessantly when he's in an extremely dark place mentally in season 2, Pressure, Only the Good Die Young and Uptown Girl are played in his scenes in the Season 2 opening, closing and Season three opening respectively.

So, why is Billy Joel number three, when clearly he is far more important to Hughie than James Taylor or Simon and Garfunkel, neither of whom we have seen him listen to or make reference to again (besides the t-shirts he wears and he doesn't even wear a Simon and Garfunkel t-shirt- and yes I know because I made a list and if it turns out that he actually did I am setting myself on fire)?

I think it all comes back to Hughie's mom. She is the reason he ever started listening to Billy Joel in the first place, his fondest memories (he doesn't say they're his fondest, but they seem to be pretty important to him) are of her and him dancing to Billy Joel. Not moments after telling Annie this does he follow it up by saying "I don’t wanna be like her."

Hughie can't help but love his mom. He can't help but love Billy Joel, even though the association with his mom is so strong; yet he tries to distance himself from both. He both clings and pushes them to him and away from him with equal measure. Perhaps him adding on two other artists before Billy Joel is his way of distancing himself from that association, even though he can't deny that he does greatly enjoy Billy Joel's music.

It's fascinating because it doesn't matter, at least not on the surface. Even when conversing with someone who, at that point, is a complete stranger to Hughie, he still has this need to distance himself from something so heavily associated with his mom. I think it's one of the many instances in the show that reveal just how deeply Hughie's mom abandoning him affected him. Even though he barely talks about her, even though she's only being introduced as an actual character in season four, her influence on him and the effects of what she did to him can be seen rippling throughout even the smallest aspects of Hughie's character.

[theloganator101]

The Great BNHA Review: Potential

So I'm actually gonna be splitting this into four parts and then one more wrapping up how I feel about the ending and the overall series. The topics I'm going to talk about are the following.

The potential the characters had and how Hori squandered them.

The world they live in and how things are done in society, only for nothing to really change in the end and for things to not make sense.

The morals and messages it tries to convey.

And then (REDACTED).

Anyways, let's get going with Potential.

With a cast of characters as interesting looking as they were and the glimpses of personality we saw, like Jiro thinking she has to choose between being a hero or a musician, or Shoji and mutant discrimination. You would think that with how interesting the class looks, that they would get some role in the story or their own respective arcs to expand on their characters.

Except that's not what happened.

The main focus most of the time either falls on Izuku, Bakugou, Shoto, and sometimes Ochako. So that's four out of twenty students that gets the spotlight while everyone else is regulated to minor characters who are only brought in to fights.

Which is honestly kind of disappointing because many of them look to have stories waiting to be told and can be good characters! Because I wanna learn more about Sero, I wanna learn more about Hagakure, I wanna learn more about Shoji. But now that the manga's over, that's not gonna be possible.

This is especially terrible since in the final war arc half of the fight is just fucking flashbacks to expand on some of the characters fighting when it should've been something covered earlier in the manga instead of hyping Bakugou up. It all just feels too little too late and makes things cluttered and unorganized.

And then we have the villains.

They were kind of cool when they got introduced and had a lot of potential to challenge the heroes. To really make them open their eyes to how flawed their society is and why it needs to change. They could each have an upbringing that brought them to where they are now and why they wanna join to make a difference. They could be some compelling and intriguing antagonists for the heroes to face.

... Except we don't get any of that.

What really hurts the villains in this series is how Hori tends to flip flop between making them sympathetic and their heroic counterparts wanting to save them, and making them so cartoonishly evil that the villains from the POWERPUFF GIRLS comes off as more compelling compared to them!

And it's like... pick one or the other Hori! Either they're victims of society or they're just irredeemable! And what sucks the most about this is that they HAD something going on! They could've rise from losing AFO and promise to make a change for the better! The My Villain Academia part shows how this was possible!

But instead they ended not in a bang... but a whimper. they all pretty much died in the end or confirmed to the very society that hurt them so what was the point of trying to redeeming them?

Then finally... we have the main character himself. Izuku Midoriya.

Oh how Hori utterly failed you...

You started off so promising in the first two episodes, You could've been a quirkless hero to make the message of anyone can be a hero really have an impact. You could've rose from your pain and suffering and show everyone what you can really do.

But sadly that's not what happened. You were given a quirk that hurts you, nobody really helps you with it, you're forced to work with your bully and never grow out of the mindset that he's awesome, every adult you associate with has failed you in some way, you're forced to distance yourself from your friends so Hori can have his Cash Cow Triplets, you're never really challenged in any unique way other than "just punch your problems away", and ultimate... you just became a watered down version of what you started off as with no introspection whatsoever.

I have never seen a character so stagnate in their arc and development in such a series before, only beaten recently by Vaggie in terms of just never growing or learning anything else.

Izuku really deserves to be in a story with an author that can utilize his potential to the fullest and give him the love and attention he deserves, because this series and Hori just wasn't it.

As for the Pro Heroes, they really were nothing in the end. All they can summed up as them just saying.

"Our society is bad, it's up to the next generation to make things better in the future. We need these teenagers to fight in wars because only they stand a chance compared to us bumbling adults!"

That's all that I get from them.

Stay tuned for next post where we'll look into society and how it's flawed, and what the characters do to change (not really) any of it.

[peachjagiya]

As another baby Army in her 40s, what do you think of the “omg it’s so romantic when taekook gets angry/pouty jealous because that’s real love and don’t worry baby bear he’s all yours and fear the double bunny and nobody better touch what’s his!” narrative that seems to run deep in so many edits and ‘proof’ videos?  To me, an Old, this is kind of a messed up take. Someone getting angry because you interact with others (in this case, others that you’ve grown up with like brothers!) is NOT this ultimate show of love… it’s controlling and not what young men/women (or any age!) should be holding up as the ideal. I admit I love watching the pouty JK moments because they can be adorable, it’s the comments that make me pause. And, I think (hope) that’s not actually what’s happening in these videos.  I just don’t think these men who have been in such close proximity to each other most of their teen and adult lives would be freaking out about, say, one of them ruffling their leader’s hair or standing next to a bandmate other than each other.  

Oh awesome ask. Hi fellow Old.

It freaks me out.

I think they both like to know they're being paid attention to, certainly, but I would reject 99% of "jealous" clips. Usually I can't even see the facial expressions they supposedly have?

The other 1% seems innocuous to me, the kind of silly pouting and interplay that forms part of the flirting and chemistry of a real relationship.

If any of them was as controlling as these videos suggest, I would honestly not even be a fan of the group.

But as you say, it's not about them. They don't even know what someone is going to edit together from their random facial expressions. It's the comments romanticising a super toxic dynamic. If I may contextualise, I was in an abusive relationship for four years. It's not cute. It's damaging and leaves mental scars. So I do have real concern for what's being celebrated here and the ideas that are perpetuated.

I wonder if it's cultural because it's quite a prevalent behaviour in K-dramas too, I noticed. Jealousy being painted as romance. Often k-drama leads just seem like controlling man-babies to me and that's not sexy or cute or hot. It's the last kind of person you'd want your daughter or son to end up with.

I think it's mainly used as shorthand for demonstrating a depth of feeling where in Western media, we might use a sex scene for that. Which arises it's own set of issues, to be honest! No way am I criticising Korean TV. There's plenty of manipulative man-babies and troubling portrayals of romance in Western media too.

We know how media influences our expectations of the world. And these jealousy compilations just seem like an extension of that.

Especially annoying when there are positive examples of "romance" to highlight. Domesticity is ROMANTIC! Caring for each other is the real sexiness! 😂

Thanks anon. 💜

[ben-talks-art]

Why I like Nimona

There are a lot of reasons to enjoy Nimona's character.

Her spunky nature, her fast-talking, her awesome design and powers, her charming personality and chemistry with other characters... Everything about her just screams "perfect character" to me. She's the kind of main lead I can just watch for hours and never get bored.

I was going into this thinking she was going to be like, say, the Genie from Alladin, or Bill Cypher, or The Mask, or Beetlejuice, you know, one of those fun characters who act like they're in their own little world while spitting some sassy funny lines and basically taking full advantage of the fact that they're cartoons by using shape-shifting to have some cool shenanigans.

But then I saw her motivations and her backstory, and started to look back at the way she behaved through the movie and... Yeah, no, she actually has a lot more depth and weight to her character than I was expecting, and it's handled in a surprisingly simple way.

(Possible spoilers for the movie)

The thing that really intrigued me about Nimona, which I don't see often, was the fact that she's basically a character who already learned the big important moral of the story but is stuck in a world where nobody else has.

The big message of the movie is that there is nothing wrong with her but people refuse to see that and keep making up problems that don't exist in order to justify creating distance from her simply because she's different.

And she knows that! She knows that they are the problem and not her, she knows she has done nothing wrong, she knows that they are the ones that need to change, she knows that being different isn't a crime... But it doesn't matter because that's still what everyone else thinks.

Her big tragedy is the fact that even though she has all these amazing powers to turn into anything, which basically makes her the most overpowered being in this whole story, and even though she knows she is on the right side of the situation, she still can't always change how most people feel about her, and even though she knows that she shouldn't let these negative feelings get to her, they still end up affecting her in a way she can't do anything about.

The whole movie is basically Nimona trying to convince us and herself that she's happy about who she is and about her life because she knows what the lesson is, she knows that she has all the reason in the world to love herself... But she just can't, because everyone and their moms keep telling her that there is something wrong with her, and after so long listening to this over and over it starts to pile up inside of her and becoming a part of who she is, a pain that she fights back against every day of her life.

Something that took me a while to understand was why she wanted to be someone's sidekick and not the boss herself? Why is she trying to make the movie about someone else when a story solely focused on her would be more than enough? Why when she gets an arrow to the leg she doesn't flinch in pain and just endures it in silence?

Why is she trying so hard to not be a bother? To not steal the spotlight? To let her pain show?

Because she wants to be accepted that much... Because the pain of being rejected hurt her that much.

Her going around being all "I have super useful magical powers that can greatly help your situation! I'm on your side! I accept you the way you are! I understand you!" are all a desperate cry for help in the hopes that her last chance at a true friendship won't end up ruined again.

She's doing everything she can to not give her one friend any reason to cut her off from his life because he's all she has.

Even though she's powerful enough that she probably doesn't need anyone in order to survive, she still needs others in order to be happy.

Nimona is that one friend who we think has everything they need to be happy, but for some reason, they don't have the one thing they want because it's out of their control whether they get it or not.

We can't make people love or like us, not unless we change who we are in order to fit their tastes, but she knows that changing who she is isn't the answer.

We see her trying to go from animal to animal in the hopes of finding one other animal she can get along with but they all keep finding problems with her since she doesn't match what they're used to.

And when everyone keeps acting like there's something wrong with you, you start to wonder if maybe they're right, even if you're not hurting or causing trouble to anyone.

I love how they make her look like this young child even though she's meant to be this immensely powerful being who's been alive for several years and who understands human nature better than humans themselves, showing that no matter how skilled or wise you are if you don't have anyone on your side you can still end up feeling empty inside, and that just because you have the ability to be strong doesn't mean you don't also have the ability to be vulnerable.

Nimona reminds me a lot of Lake in the sense in the sense that I feel you can write a whole book about how many themes her character explores.

Isolation, need for validation, discrimination, understanding, insecurity, sympathy, empathy, acceptance, self-hate, self-love, need for control, need for accepting that there are things you can't control, and probably many more that I didn't even think of.

I like Nimona not only because she's a fantastic and enjoyable character to follow, but because she shows why we need to try our best to be better as well, so that innocent people like her don't end up getting needlessly hurt due to the most idiotic of reasons, showing how harmful ignorance and groundless hostility can be.

She's the kind of character that makes me go "I want to be more understanding. I want to be more accepting. I want to try harder to embrace other people's differences." because it teaches me that if I do, I might get to hang out with a girl that can turn herself into a dancing shark!

And I would literally have no complaints in life if I was able to achieve that!

Favorite Character List>>

[apoli-meow]

..Don't be suspicious, don't be suspicious.. I didn't just disappear for a week!

~~~

High School!Hater is in the houseee! While peepers might be my favorite to draw, hater is my favorite personality wise.

Also, just saying, I can and will add and change details in the au. I definitely didn't change things on peepers' post and you definitely shouldn't check it out again. Yep.

~~~

Name: [REDACTED] 'Hater' Sani-Diaz

Age: 16

Sexuality: ✨boy bi✨, demiromantic

Pronouns: trans ftm, he/him

Race: Mixed (African & Puerto Rican)

Height: 187 cm (6'1)

Personality: himbo himbo himbo. Loud, kind of obnoxious, can be kind of an asshole because he talks without thinking a lot. Sweetheart to Peepers because I Hate (capital H) their power dynamic in the show (season 2 made it better, but season 1 was just painful).

~~~

Random facts!!

• The Rich Friend ™ of the group

• Also the "attention starved because his parents emotionally neglect him" ™ friend of the group

• Forgot to say this on Peepers' post but they're in the same class cuz Peepers skipped a grade

• Plays the guitar (actually pretty well.. Occasionally)

• My favorite to analyse psychologically... He is very loud to cover up the fact that he is terribly insecure about himself & his masculinity. Very overdramatic, because a lot of times his emotions are kind of.. Off. Dull (Not me projecting onto cartoon au characters 😭😭).

• Started testosterone pretty early

• Diagnosed depression, undiagnosed autism (masking goes yayy)

• Closeted trans, openly bi

• His special interests are plushies and dinosaurs!! (I have a friend that is obsessed w/ dinos so I have an expert)

• He is actually pretty good at explaining things, but his vocabulary and grammar just suck (writes like walls of texts. Paragraphs? We don't know her.)

• Used to be friends w/ Awesome, toxic friendship, we don't stan 😤😤

• Picked up most of his asshole traits from previous friendships (doesn't really know how to be a good person since nobody taught him)

• Reluctant buddies with wander? We love tsunderes

• Gym bros! Gym bros! They call each other 'bros'.. Dorks..

• SO OBLIVIOUS WITH PEEPERS!! Mutual pining my beloved.

• It's basically just him and one (1) housemaid, since his parents are pretty much always away. I mean, at least he has the space for sleepovers.

• Got kinda lucky with genetics, he's tall and he started working out really early so he passes easily. (Not enough for himself, though 😔...)

• Straightens & bleaches his hair (Terribly)

• I had a playlist with his songs and I didn't know how to describe them... Cavetown. It's just cavetown. (+ Numb Little Bug. That song had no right calling me out like that istg.)

• Writes love letters that he never sends. Would be a shame if someone found them........

~~~

Ig that's it?? Idk tell me if I completely messed it up.

But fr, as a white person from a country that doesn't teach us any history outside of our own like at all, doesn't talk about mental health and is very ableist, I'm lowkey scared of adding diversity cuz I might mess it up 😭😭

If you see any issues or anything plz let me know, I'm trying to learn here.

But anyways, who should I talk about next? Wander or Domi? (plz respond.. I will say that every time.)

[lesbianrobin]

i think no one in their 20’s should get married tbh like it’s kind of crazy the idea that someone can find their forever one so early in life and that is why so many people get divorced

yeah personally i think that like. there's no telling when you'll meet The Right Person yknow maybe you will meet when you're young and that's awesome but i think it's like... kind of concerning when young people are in a rush to get married yknow? like if you love this person and feel secure with them what do you have to lose by waiting until you're both more established in your lives?

idk obviously there are people who get married young and stay together happily but i feel like so often people who get married young do it because they either have like unrealistic ideas of what it means to be in a relationship or they're doing it for like. some reason other than just love. like i know a lot of girls who were anxious to get married young so they could have children as soon as possible and people who got married at eighteen because one partner was in the military. and i think that some people are also like afraid of being left and they think that getting married will insulate them from loneliness. and like young people often don't have the life experience to navigate shit like combining finances with somebody else or having children! they aren't actually in the right place in their lives to Be Married or they aren't actually in it for their partner but for something else, and that's why shit goes wrong.

i do wanna say though that i don't think divorce is necessarily a Bad Thing like i think divorce is always gonna happen at some rate because people like. change. and grow. and just because you were committed to somebody for awhile and that commitment ended doesn't mean that the commitment was pointless or that it no longer holds meaning in your life. obviously nobody gets married expecting they're gonna get divorced later but i do think that maybe it would be good for us as A Society if we kinda like... came to accept that marriages end and divorce happens and it doesn't necessarily mean that the people involved failed or that the marriage was a mistake.

all that said. people who get married in their early or mid twenties are insane

[toyzoneofficial]

ohhhh okay thoughts on npmd (warning for spoilers ofc!) (also warning for like. anti max/grace if that is something that upsets you)

-i couldn't see and hear everything super well on the digital ticket so there's probably a lotta stuff i missed and i definitely wanna see if there's more stuff i can find when the youtube version releases...

-ohhh pete and steph were really sweet <3 they were always sweet but not like hugely standout characters to me previously? i like them though. they're very cute together. their relationship felt like it moved really fast but idk. maybe that's how highschool dating works.

-grace was a HIGHLIGHT. god i love her she is sooooo messed up and SO entertaining. her scene with the cops was maybe my favorite scene in the whole thing (either that or the lords in black scene. or maybe max getting scared in the whalen house). still mourning what could have been with lesbian!grace though. i literally have a whole unpublished fic about her gay repression that will never see the light of day now. i have to believe she's still a girl liker in some sense but it will take forever for her to even begin to unpack any of that.

-max i am like...conflicted on. sort of. he was a REALLY fun character who had some really good lines and was very entertaining as a villain but i can just tell people are already tipping the line into woobifying him. guys he's really fucking bad. i mean his scene in the whalen house was kind of cute but his initial interaction with grace was literally sexual harassment. if she wasn't into it and he was portrayed as less charismatic people would be completely up in arms about that.

-maybe i'm just biased because "popular jock boy could have any girl he wants but is into the weird nerd girl because she doesn't want him and he likes the hunt" is one of my least favorite tropes in the whole world. like i don't think there is any story in the fucking world that could make that interesting to me. there are ways you could have done their dynamic that would actually interest me but straightforwardly shipping them is NOT it. major squick for me. i'm not going to go so far as to say that nobody should be shipping it but i don't want to see it lol

-i am ALSO biased because whenever a female character shows traits comparable to a traditional "mean girl" fandom shits all over her forever no matter how bad the actual stuff she did is and make up bullshit excuses for it. but when there's a guy character like that people just adore him without fail. this isn't a hatchetfield fandom specific thing though it's just general fandom misogyny and i am a Hashtag Mean Girl Defender

-dirty girl was a banger though.

-ruth was another highlight!! i mean we didn't get grace with a yearny crush on steph like i was hoping but we got a girl with a yearny crush on steph so that is still pretty good. she was such a sweetheart i think her death scene was i think one of the saddest for me personally in literally any hatchetfield property.

-richie was okay but he's on thin ice because of the attack‏‏‎ ‎on‏‏‎ ‎titan‏‏‎ ‎comment. BOOOOOO. WATCH BETTER ANIME.

-the lords in black scene made me CRAZY!!!! i love how insane the audience got too i think it made me even more hyped. so so so so awesome i loved their outfits i loved the dialogue i loved their creepy ass song i loved literally everything about it

-um. yeah. all i can think of for now. even if it wasn't a perfect show to me (black friday is still number one in my heart) i had a really really good time with it and i'm excited to see the fan content people will make!!

[zapgraptrash]

42, 4 ocs of your choice :)

as in 42 (x4) times? i'll do that and do number 4 just in case i misread lol

42. Let them vent for a second, without the fear of being judged. What would they like to say?

slyger: WHY is it that OTHER ANIMALS can eat their own kind and it's accepted as part of NATURE, but when I do it, i'm A CANNIBAL and a MENACE TO SOCIETY? i'm not even fully human by the arbitrary standards! i'm sure PLENTY of other people would think this is STUPID if they too were to eat another human. it's not like i even do this ALL THE TIME either??? it's all STUPID, FUCK SOCIETY, HANNIBAL LECTER WAS RIGHT.

zapper: YOU KNOW WHAT REALLY GRINDS MY GEARS? grappler: taking multiple dicks at-- zapper: WHEN PEOPLE DON'T PUT THE LIDS BACK ON THINGS. HOW HARD IS IT TO DO? YOU WERE JUST USING THE THING, YOU WERE ABLE TO REMOVE THE LID JUST NOW, WHY IS IT SOOO DIFFICULT TO PUT IT BACK AFTER? grappler: is this because of the toothpaste or the pringles? zapper: YOU LEFT THE FUCKING CAP OFF THE TOOTHPASTE AGAIN??

dom: why do Hot Dogs come in Package of 10 but the Buns come in Package of 8? for the People who don't have a Bun with their Hot Dog people might say. but a Hot Dog with no Bun is just a Sausage. if you want Sausage, why would you buy Hot Dogs? there is no Substance to a Hot Dog Sausage alone. the Bun and the other Filling is part of the Dog as a whole. if you want Sausage alone, that is when you get Bratwurst or something. it makes no Sense to Dom why Buns come in 8 and Hot Dogs come in 10.

jeffrey: it's sooooo hard to be surrounded by MORONS all the time! in fact i have dedicated a paragraph of crticism to each of these empty headed freaks i am forced to be surrounded by, day in day out-- thaddeus: nobody has time for that. jeffrey: babe no i need to-- thaddeus: send post.

---

4. What is the thing they like the most about their friends and what is the thing their friends like the most about them?

grappler can answer this since blah blah his colour is the Harmony colour in the pride flag

i mean what's not to like about me right. i'm a fuckin riot, i'm the coolest person they know.

do i gotta give a reason for all of em? well ok i guess. they're not listening right? this shit is so lame.

uhh granox. he's hilarious and he doesn't even try to be. just the way he says shit and when it takes like 3 seconds for his brain to catch up that's hysterical.

ricky now that she isn't like our boss anymore, she's actually cool as hell. ultimate wingman. wingwoman whatever. she'll literally big anyone up and make em believe they can do anything. everyone needs someone like that in their life y'know.

dom, if you like ever wanted a friend who will dish out the physical affection, she's the one. i know it sounds big cringe but her hugs rule. and she like hangs on to your every word, she like remembers the smallest of things

thaddeus i mean uh have you seen him? yeah he's hot as hell and oh my god he sure knows how to [REDACTED]. ok but like fucking aside, he like knows a ton of shit? once you get him talking he'll talk your ear off about something and it's like, so cool to listen to? always the quiet ones.

does masuyo like consider me a friend? well i hope she does i guess. she's badass. like in the effortless way. not many people can pull that off.

slyger sucks ass hahaha he's a big fuckin baby. (is he listening? no? ok well you know the animal people he draws? what the fuck that's awesome man.)

i'm not gonna talk about zapper fuck him haha. he like knows how annoying i think he is already.

[awkwardcourage]

Hughie + food headcanons

Hughie is just one of those guys that can eat and eat and eat and it has zero effect on his weight. His metabolism is out of this world. The downside to this is it's hard for him to put on weight when he loses it.

He has a terrible sweet tooth. Donuts are his favourite thing to snack on, but he'll take anything with sugar.

He'll eat pretty much anything, especially if it's free. Carbs are his favourite. He loves anything involving bread. That being said, he did grow up in NYC, so he can be a bit bougie when it comes to food. He knows the good stuff when he tastes it.

Hughie is actually a decent cook. Most of what he knows he learnt from Robin, though his dad did teach him how to make spaghetti bolognese. He's picked up a little from watching Frenchie cook, but he's not yet asked him for a proper lesson.

Pizza rolls are still one of his comfort foods. He just won't admit it.

[m00ngbin]

Movies I think that everyone should watch but also probably read the warnings for:

1. The Menu (very funny, fucked me up for a week, good commentary on how the rich ruin passion and also everything)

2. Don't Look Up (what can I say I'm a sucker for movies that talk about how corporations and billionaires and the government are going to kill us all with their greed and ignorance and stupidity. This movie is terrifying and hilarious and I think you should only watch it if you're in the right headspace)

3. Any movie by Laika Studios (I Love stop motion animation and the movies that this studio has created are absolutely breathtaking)

4. Paranorman (this is one movie by Laika Studios that I think that you should watch. The style is gorgeous and it's funny and cool and Norman and his dad made me so miserable)

5. Kubo and the Two Strings (another movie by Laika Studios, can't tell you much cause I don't want to spoil anything but it made me bawl my eyes out what I was like 11 and fhelsofjskks it's really good and the style is gorgeous and the story is awesome)

6. Wendle and Wild (it's another stop motion movie, I'd be shocked if you haven't seen it. The main character is a punk afro indigenous girl who ends up killing two millionaires who are trying to decimate her town to build a giant prison and exploit the system for profit. The cast is really diverse and it's awesome and if you haven't seen it you should watch it)

7. Game Night (this movie is NOT animated this time, it's a live action comedy about a man (very competitive) who can't get it up because he feels like always he's being bested by his brother. During one of him and his friend's weekly(?) game nights, his brother gets kidnapped and they think that it's a joke for a while so they're trying to solve where the brother got taken to and it is SO. FUNNY. you have to watch it I beg of you)

8. Princess Mononoke (absolutely GORGEOUS. My personal favorite Studio Ghibli movie. So madly in love with Sen, Ashitaka and Lady Eboshi everyone in this movie is so hot. Loved the message that nobody was truly a bad person. Lady Eboshi was killing the forest but she was also kind and taking in lepers and women who otherwise would have had hard lives working in brothels. Anyways the forest spirit is creepy as fuck why does it have a man face)

9. Fantastic Mr. Fox (I don't feel like I even have to say anything. It's Fantastic Mr Fox. I think that by now you all know how much I absolutely adore stop motion movies, and this movie is so silly and heartbreaking and ughjhjhhhhhhh. This movie scratches just the right itch in my brain. I hate that fucking coach btw. Fuck that guy what was his problem)

10. This is just gonna be a shameless plug for all of my favorite TV shows I think you should watch (I don't even need to say this but mob psycho 100, the last of us, adventure time, Fionna and cake, Hannibal, Grey's anatomy (don't actually it's horrible and mind numbing,) bobs burgers, what we do in the shadows)

[the-firebird69]

This is how cool it looks and there's only a couple things they did and they didn't do a complete job but you can see it's a supercar and it's the same vehicle it's a Bradley GT2 they didn't even change the window out or modify the wheel wells they put wheels in the fit and tires and painted it and color it looks great but we're going to make the wheel wells perfect. We are also going to make it a wide body but the panels are going to be 100% formed there won't be anything attached to the car and we're also going to make the rear look correct and this is going to be awesome this is what he's been looking for and I guess it's none of your business and he doesn't want you doing it he wants to have people in the Midwest because you don't have any leadership it will be just you suckers they can try and take over by getting rid of leadership and we hear that going around we're not inspiring it or encouraging it but they have the idea and it's not dumb then they would be the ones trying to get at us and that part is dumb but really it's a clever idea and Brad is heading up part of it yeah and there's another bja type person who doesn't care for bja

He constantly embarrass him and mess with him but he's getting his way he thinks and this is awesome this car is awesome and there's a whole bunch of plays and rules regarding having someone as well that doesn't it's doing things and no one out here knows about it at all and a cork at all and he says I've seen this kind of thing before with Max and they make some surface and they call connections and they feel comfortable so I do get it and the back property back proper see you and I have experience with them but this is just a huge doldrum and a swill hole and they're making it worse and what they're talking about us ridiculous and what happened is gross and what we're seeing is disgusting and we know about why it's happening a little the guy is out of control and he is injured and nobody will take him out of there and they can't move him but he is threatening terrorist activities we want to go ahead with this car and I'm going to go ahead and try and find you and yours and he says you found it and we help out that way eventually we might try and make a deal to fabricate tons of them and you know the order of succession and I do understand and probably make this one the other is too small and he's saying what the hell's going on out there with all that milk and beef that's very funny kid I don't think it's cute give me a break it's baby yeah that's ridiculous this is so stupid he's like us a lot stronger is a baby it says started a fight but it was an accident cuz babies kick sometimes and move their arms real fast and we're kind of weak and you can figure the rest out. But that could be true. so I want to make the car I get what you're saying this is a start and I'll tell you what it looks great and I'm going to do it and start one like this and the color is probably not what makes it look cool and I do see what you're saying and although they're cool colors and some super impressive dumb colors I know how to modernize the window area and you see it on a lot of them hey just make it blank and that rear fin would be interesting and the rear ends is very unique wait this sounds like fun and boy that sounds like fun Volkswagen might be a bit slow but front wheel drive I don't think we can get a Malibu to work and the wheelbase is the same as the new Volkswagen and he says it's the symbology about the fleet and so forth so I think I might do that and it's really rough this involves is tough but the max want you to attract attention and I think that the pseudo empire will be targeted and it's probably true and they don't want me to talk to you anymore so I get that I'm going to try and go ahead with it and yeah we're not really after people that much cuz we suck at it that's actually true. A cork says. And that was him a cork and we're going to head and we're going to prep this is what it looks like when you do just a little bit you painted a different color and put rims and tires on they're different and people are amazed they look and it does work it does fit and you get the right wits on the tires and it works they say it hasn't touched anything and really the wheel well needs work it needs to be widened and a couple other things modernize the window there and the doors and everything needs to be modernized a bit and the bumper system is wrong but really it's close it looks really cool

Thor Freya

Yeh man ok

Ken

Olympus

[barbatos-sama]

small ocs i have in my head with no real story i just like churning different romances around in there: guy who is into crime (organized crime is part of my mindscape at this point) who's well known for being 'ugly' by his peers. he's got fucked up teeth and a huge gnarly scar across his face, blind in one eye due to the injury that produced said scar, greasy shoulder length hair. all his colleagues (for lack of a better word) call him ugly in good faith bc they think he's embraced the title. spoiler alert it still upsets him a little inside since it's hard for him to get girls and everyone is immediately intimidated by him bc of his appearance (which, isn't entirely a bad thing in his line of work, makes people more scared of him and matches his personality since he's a mean ass cunt)

anyway he's in a situationship with a girl(non biney), she lives in his house and sex is rent. shes blind, not fully blind (everything is just extremely blurry, she can see colors for example but good luck knowing what the thing she's actually looking at is) and they have kind of a toxic relationship at first since he's not exactly a conscientious lover. very much a no strings attached no feelings thing happening for a few months. he finds out later though that the reason she's doing sex work is that she needs to pay for a super expensive surgery for her cataracts and she'll actually be able to see if she can get it, and it kinda makes him see the situation differently. he's bad with feelings and introspection so he doesn't immediately jump to "am i exploiting her" because he just is not that self aware, he does start to feel icky about it and can't figure out why for a while.

a while later he overhears her crying on the phone to one of her friends about her life and how she wishes she could have a normal relationship and how he's so nice sometimes and wishes he could see her as something more than that and he's like ohhhhh uh oh. uh oh. how do i navigate this situation. and he decides that he wants to give it a shot and try to be something more with her, even though he has kind of a traumatic history with girls and trying to persue relationships with feelings.

he doesn't actually Tell her this though because communication is for pussies and he just starts acting more touchy feely with her and shows her lots of affection he didn't before, takes her out places and buys her stuff, just gradually starts introducing more couple shit into their routine and the entire time she's internally like what the fuck this is awesome. they just kinda fall into being a couple without saying anything about it. she asks to feel his face one day to map it out in her mind since she can't really see it, and he's reluctant and tries to tell her she's not gonna like what she feels. she does anyway though and she's able to outline his scars and says she thinks she has a good mental picture of them. he has a rare feelings drop where he says that once she gets her surgery and sees him she won't want to be with him anymore, that nobody who can see him has ever stayed, and obviously she's like nuh uh bitch you are stuck with me now

when she does get her surgery she needs really thick glasses afterward but she can See and of course his face doesn't matter to her and she was actually kinda proud of herself because she Did get a pretty good idea of what it looked like by feeling it so she had a cheeky >:3 moment about that. he helped pick out her frames, huge round ones that are very cute. and for a while afterward none of her friends will believe her when she said he changed like that and they're waiting for him to fuck up again, but he doesn't. they settle into a life together, that still can't really be considered normal given his career, but she's always there waiting for him when he gets home to tend to his wounds

[fall-out-boytoy]

Midtown (Rob Hitt) interview From supersonicmag.com November 13th, 2001 via email

Where did the name "Midtown" come from? We wanted a name that was pretty much ambiguous so you wouldn't be able to hear the band name and all of the sudden be able to classify who we are. Ya know, ska bands for example, say, Skaskank Redemption, right there, without a doubt you know what kind of band you're dealing with. We're nothing near ska, but still we wanted the music to speak more than the band name. Gabe was in NYC in 1998 and looked up and "voila", saw "Midtown" and then brought the name to us and we knew it was what we wanted.

How has the band changed, since it began in 1998? It's funny you ask that because just the other night we watched one of our first practices from my basement in December of 1998. We saw ourselves making the same dumb jokes and acting pretty much the same as we do today. As much as we would have hoped we'd be more mature when we got older we haven't seen it yet...

Musically I think we've mainly become better songwriters. Hopefully on the new album the songs will be a bit more cohesive and rock a bit more.

I think it's really great to see more than one person in the band singing lead vocals. Aside from that, what else makes Midtown a unique band? I don't think that it's just that they switch singing lead vocals, but the fact that everyone sings different parts of the songs going back and forth. In addition to just singing alone everyone contributes in three part harmonies so in essence the three lead vocals act like one at times. It helps a lot to have 3 different vocalist because it keeps the songs from being stale since everyone draws from different influences.

I read on your site that you guys are "four college kids." What was your major in college, and did you ever finish? Oh man, I had a totally nerdy major in college. It's called Management Science and Information Systems. Total nerd shit. It's basically setting up networks for businesses and building them databases they can use.... So yeah, is anyone board yet? It was actually kind of cool but we're not gonna go there... Did I ever finish? Ummmm.... no, I was actually about 14 credits short, I'll go back one day but who knows when that'll be.

"Save the World, Lose the Girl" is an awesome cd. How do you plan on topping that with your next album? We're almost done recording right now, I just hope that everyone likes the songs a lot more. I know we're all super stoked on it so it will be fun once it finally gets released. Our only guess right now would be early 2002.

Which do you prefer? Touring or recording? I like them both a lot. Touring is probably more fun but recording is an amazing experience to hear a song from it's first stages until it's finally finished. Kinda like having a baby... Well, I've never had one, but ya know, I'm sure it would be similar.

How do you think you have changed since joining Midtown? Didn't you kinda ask that question already?

Do people treat you differently now? Nah, not really. They no were still poor mofos so they're smart enough not to ask want anything from us.

Do you have a favorite band to tour with? See below but yeah, there's another band too. There is this band from Germany called The Donots, they're so amazing. There website is http://www.donots.de/ They're on this label in Germany that hasn't licensed their album anywhere out of their country so nobody has had a chance to hear of them. They're sooooooo good!

I see that a few of you love The Movielife. ME TOO! Are they close friends of yours? Totally, if I grew up with those guys they would have been like my best friends growing up. If anyone ever meets them they'll know what I'm talking about.

What is the most frustrating thing about the music industry? Being poor and being taken advantage of. There are some absolutely amazing people in the industry that would blow you away but on the opposite side there are the people that pretend to be nice to you just to get something from you. It's pretty much life, ya know, there are always good and bad people.

What can we look for from Midtown in the upcoming year? THE NEW ALBUM. Seriously, we're really excited for it to come out. Please go to our website and sign up on our mailing list. http://www.midtownrock.com/ We'll keep everyone up to date with what's going on with the album and when it will be released.

Alright...time to get some dirt on your band members... Who is the messiest? The messiest... we're fairly clean but our van is a mess, it's so dirty on the inside, there's always old magazines and garbage everywhere.

Who gets picked on the most? Yours Truly. So you better be nice to me when you see me at shows!

By who? Everyone has their fair share.

Which memeber is the most neurotic? Damn, we're all neurotic in our own different way. We're very interesting people.

Does Heath get sick of hearing that he looks like Dave Grohl? Heath looks like Dave Grohl?

Which member gets stuck doing most of the dirty work? What do you consider dirty work? I know a cat took a shit in Heath's shoe once and he had to clean it out of there so yeah, in that case Heath.

Gabe does a lot of the paper work stuff , I do a lot of online stuff, and Tyler looks works really hard on his hair, we all pitch in a bit.

What's the funniest prank that you've played on someone in the band? A friend of mine filled in for me on drums for a tour and let's just say a bowl of his cereal and a hot dog were involved.

Which member do you think the girls go crazy for? Me of course, come on, like they'd go for anyone else in the band, jeez, like you even had to even ask.

How do you decide who drives? We switch off in shifts. We usually each drive as long as we can and then the next person in the shift drives. Sometimes Heath likes to drive so of course we're not gonna say "NO."

Do you guys get along well? Absolutely, I think a lot of the reason we don't have a lot of problems is because before we started touring we all lived in a house in New Brunswick when we were still in college. That helps you learn a lot of the things a person does and how to deal with them.

Were you friends before the band began? Totally, that was one of the main reasons we formed the band. When we were in our old bands we always played local shows together so we knew each other pretty well.

Finally, can you describe each band member in one word...including yourself. (TWO WORDS) Heath: Louie Anderson Tyler: Keith Hernandez or Bush Gabe: Fernando Valenzuela ME: Brad Pitt, DUH!

Thank you so much for the interview. Is there anything else that you'd like to add? Yeah! Check out our website http://www.midtownrock.com/ and please if you have time check out http://www.veganoutreach.org

[whereonceiwasfire]

Alright, I've been musing on The Writing Thing™ and at the request of literally nobody, I'm going to just ramble something I've been thinking about here. Disclaimer: I have one brain cell (and he's a-tired), and I'm pretty much of the mind that like, do what you want. If words are on the page, congrats, you've succeed at writing. That said, here goes, welcome to The Innerworkings of My Brain, and proceed at your own risk.

So, I kind of just think a lot of writing advice ends up boiling down to the fact that writers can get in our own way by trying too hard to convey something very specific to readers. While, of course, part of the point of writing is to paint a specific word picture, I also think there's something to be said for letting that go a little bit. Making your peace with the fact that, most of the time, readers probably aren't going to imagine/picture/experience exactly what you want them to when they're reading. I am 95% sure that every setting, character, or description I have ever read was not intended to look the way they do in my head. Part of that is because I have the attention span of an overcaffeinated hamster and will just picture something immeadiately upon its introduction in the text (and continue to picture that throughout, actual desciptions be damned). But part of that is also because there's ambuiguity in language. And that's okay. Freeing even. Dare I say, kind of magic? The idea that we could all enjoy the same story, go on the same journey, love the same characters, but that, for each person who reads, a new, subtle variation of this experience now exists? It's little universes. And why would you want to stifle that?

How does this apply to writing advice, you ask? So glad you brought that up, since I was getting distacted.

Basically, I feel like so many of those pedantic things that get critqued with writing "shoulds" are naturally addressed when we get more comfortable with ambiguity. For example, take clunky, awkward, or over description. These things tend to be a result of just trying too hard to create a very specific picture in readers' heads. You want them to know exactly what the layout of this room is, precisely what the character looks like, specifically what this random gesture they're making is, definitively what move/attack they just used on their enemy, etc. More often than not (though, again, it's not a one-size-fits-all thing, do what you do, and if it works, it works), I think these awkward/over descriptions tend to be hard to follow and slow the pacing down because we're taking such time to focus on something that probably isn't that necessary to make the story go. And isn't it kind of awesome actually that we can be satisfied with giving vague structure to some of these things, and letting readers fill in the blanks, instead of feeling like the fabric of this reality we're creating will break down if we don't describe things 100% perfectly? If we can't convery exactly what this random, shadowy, wirthing portal into the nether dimension looks like? I don't know, maybe I just think so because I'm lazy.

But truly, I think some of the most powerful descriptions are ones that don't even tell you what exactly you're looking at, it tells you what that Thing makes character Feel. "Her lips were red as cheap merlot and I ached to drink to the dregs", "He looked like too many late nights and a hundred bad decisions", blah blah blah, *insert less tropey and cliche example here.* Regardless, what I'm getting at is that a dozen different readers will probably picture a dozen different shades of red lipstick in that first example, no matter how many sentences you devote to describing it, but that's not really the point, is it? The point is that Character wants to kiss the crap out of them.

Likewise, I think this is part of the reason fight scenes can be such a struggle. You want to show exactly what's going on, how Character A is dodging Character B's attacks, each parry and thrust of the sword, etc., etc. However, a real fight is fast, and adrenaline-fuelled, and disorienting, and ask anyone involved to recount what happened afterward, and they probably won't do a great job of it. You lose so much of that urgency, that confusion, that chaos, when you focus on trying to get readers to imagine exactly the perfectly choreographed fight scene you have plotted out, beat for beat, step for step. Which, like, fair. You put a lot of effort into making that scene exciting and dynamic. But I think a lot of the time that's not the pont of the scene, the point is "omg, they're in a fight!" Giving up some of that control and being free to make a fight scene a bit choatic and overwhelming, focuing on the sensations and the ways this fight impacts Character and Story, is often going to make the read so much stronger. Leave some of those fussy details to the individual readers to interpretat since chances are good they were going to do that anyway.

Also, as another example, the whole, oft repeated "show don't tell" advice relies hugely on being okay with readers perceiving subtle things differently. Sure, maybe you want readers to get that your character is sad, and while you can come out and tell them Character A is sad, showing Character A being subdued and quiet instead, forcing a tight smile when addressed, swallowing hard, dismissing themselves from others as quickly as possible, etc., gives you so much more to work with and brings the reader in on the experience. But that means being okay with the fact that maybe some people aren't going to track this as "sad." Maybe they're going to think Character A is upset with the characters they're not talking to, maybe they're going to think Character A is angry instead, maybe they're going to read grief where you meant remorse. And maybe that's okay, because maybe there's a little bit of all of that going on underneath the surface, or maybe it'll become clear later as more of the story happens, or maybe it's just really not that important that the reader gets that the character is "sad" maybe they just need to know that the character is feeling something.

And, in the end, no matter how hard you try to make something you've written exact and specific and yours (the themes, the story, the characters, the setting, the world, the magic, whatever), the second you put that into someone else's hands, it's theirs now too. It comes alive, it changes, it grows, it breathes, and I think, just, let it. Working within that ambiguity, letting the story be something that can exist outside the confines of the words you've written it with, that's powerful, and when we use that to inform our writing, I think it's just naturally stronger.

So...yeah! I guess we're here now, the end of the ramble. Not really sure what to do with that, so, I'll just like, see you all next time?

Signed, Your Friendly Neighbourhood Fanfic Writer

[marmotish]

If that's something you'd like and if you have any story or fact to share, I'd like to see more or Freyja's metamorphmagus enemy... they're so cool, in a terrifying way. I never even had the idea of being frightened about metamorphagus before - they're Tonks, they're the embodiment of nice and awesome. But since I read about yours I regularly think about it and the very idea creeps me out like a real chicken muggle 🐓💦 (<- dats me and my cold sweats)

when i tell you i nearly bit through my fist getting this ask !!!

((AI-generated art from WOMBO Dream App - because Procreate is unusable right now))

i’ve been thinking on and off about this character for the past few months and have written down a bunch of stuff about them but i’m not going to dump it all here because tbh i’m still refining it but i can give you some bits and pieces

I wanted to make a character who shared some similarities in life circumstance with Freyja, but was also her opposite in many ways which meant they would never be friends. I also liked the idea of trying to make a Ravenclaw villain - like “knowledge is power” in a mind-games sense

Lior was a Ravenclaw in the same year as Freyja. Who remembers them? Nobody.

reasonably academically gifted but nothing newsworthy. being “adequate” infuriated them.

MASSIVE SUPERIORITY COMPLEX

could psychologically destroy you but would probably also go down like a sack of spuds with one good solid punch

remembers everything (negative) about everyone. that one time you bumped into them and didn’t say anything? written in stone

spent most of their school life just silently hating the “popular and powerful” kids like srsly just go outside and smell some flowers or make a friend

drawn in by pureblood elitism ideology during their later years at hogwarts. less for the idea of blood purity, more for the idea of enforcing a hierarchy where they would never be at the bottom

evaded capture at the end of the second wizarding war - relying on the fact that nobody knows what they look like or what their real name is

shrinks back into the shadows post-war, more bitter than ever.

kind of inspired by shapeshifters in general sci-fi media, and the terror about not knowing whether the person with you is actually who they appear to be

combined with their ability to probe through thoughts and memories, they’re able to convincingly act as the person they’re appearing as

they’ve learned to push the limits of Legilimency. They can appear in dreams and manipulate them to a certain point, induce visual hallucinations while their target’s awake, and with enough time/effort, manipulate memories.

your mind is basically their playground.

[tinyboxxtink]

"Not My Yacht" *Chapter 2*

Yes, for two days this is a semi short chapter, but I had another long today and have one more tomorrow and I wanted you to have SOMETHING. Weirdly though I had an entire different chapter written in my head, but when I started typing this came out instead. My original idea is still coming, this just added a fun little bonus getting there. I promise, tomorrow you will get a longer chapter.

Thank you loves for sticking by me through everything! I love you all.

Also, I'm finally using CHAPTER. I kept wanting to use it instead of PART but I just kept writing PART and was like WELP. But they're chapters, right?!

Ok I'll shut up.

Part 1 Here

Part 3

Tag List

@madamsnape921

@lolliepopsicle

@chasingeverybreakingwave

@milkshqke

@wanniiieeee

@word-scribbless

@gibbs274

@sassyada

@aprildecker-blog

@bookishfanfic

@stars-in-the-skies-world

@stars-trash-18

@omgsuperstarg

@objection-argumentative

And @storiesofsvu for Rita check. lol.

----------------------------------------

When five o’clock rolled around, Rita came walking out of her office with a stack of papers and her briefcase, balancing her purse on her barely free arm.

“Y/N, Why are you still here? Did I not unlock your chains?” She laughed.

“Haha….no, ma’am” You nervously laughed. “I um, I think I’m waiting for someone,”

“You think?” She raised a curious eyebrow. “If you’re waiting on Barba, you’re going to waiting a long time, sweetie,”

“Wha-? How--? Why, exactly?” You asked her totally flabbergasted by the insinuation that not only had Rafael asked you out, but was bailing already.

“He tends to get a little...involved, in his cases. Poor man is a workaholic,” She feigned pity for him.

“Right,” You nodded to her comically overflowing briefcase and papers. “Something you know nothing about,”

“Touché,” She winked. “I’d give him a call, make sure he hasn’t forgotten about you, dear. Before the cleaning staff shows up,” She laughed and sauntered out of her office, leaving you alone in the dark.

You glanced down at your phone. He hadn’t really specified a time, just-- “Tonight”. What did that even mean? Tonight. Like early evening dinner, or a midnight snack after he was done with his cases? You should probably text him. Or call him. Or text him.

TO BARBA: Heyyy….

Wait. Was three y’s too many? Wasn’t that a rule? You show affection by how many y’s you use? Is that a thing kids do these days? Wait, no you’re not a kid. And he certainly was NOT a kid. No. Be a grown up about this.

TO BARBA: Hi I’m just...checking in.

Checking in? What did that even mean? And why the ellipsis? There doesn’t need to be a pause in a text. That’s why it’s a text. You pause in your mind before typing. Idiot.

TO BARBA: What’s up?

Ok. Short and simple. To the point. No pressure, no demanding. Just... ‘checking in’. You hated yourself. Alright fine, good enough send it. SEND IT. HIT SEND NOW.

MESSAGE SENT.

Your phone shook in your trembling hand as you waited for the ellipsis of him writing back. That was too much, no no just put it back in your pocket and he’ll text you when he--

BARBA CALLING

Oh god, a phone call? Who calls people anymore? Grown ups, that’s who. Answer the phone like an adult.

“H-Hello?” You answered it as if he had the wrong number.

“Hey, Cinderella,” His smooth voice came through your earpiece. “I’m so sorry, I should have been more specific about the time,”

“Oh, yeah no-- no big deal, I’m just here at work….alone, in the dark…” You muttered the last words to yourself as you looked around the dark office.

“Right. Well, I’m kind of wrapped up in this case right now--” He started, making your heart drop. Well, Rita called it. He’s just married to his job, no time for women, let alone you. Time to just--

“....Would you hate me if I asked you to come help me?”

“...I’m sorry, what?” You blinked in confusion at your phone. So, was he actually asking you out or trying to snake you as an assistant from Rita? Is that what he meant by ‘dinner’? “Hey come bring me food and help me file these cases, because I’m so sexy and cocky and--”

“You know what, I’m so sorry I just heard how that sounded. You’ve been doing this all day, the last thing you wanna do is come--”

“Sure!” You cut him off a little loudly. What were you doing?! You’re just going to lay down and let him use your services for free? Well, when you put it that way it sounded pretty skeezy about yourself.

“....Are you sure? Because we can just have dinner another night--”

“....Yeah I have a feeling that will never happen,” You cut him off with a laugh.

“Wha--no, it will! I just--”

“Your wife comes first, I get it,” You cut him off again.

“My wife?”

“Yeah you’re married to your work,” You smirked into the phone.

“Wow, quippy Cinderella. Guess you’re more confident on the phone without my gorgeous face tripping you up now, aren’t you?”

“Do you want my help or not, Casanova?” He was totally right; without those green emeralds staring into your soul you were actually a pretty funny and smart person. Maybe it would be better to just have this date on the phone.

"Yes, absolutely," He sighed with a smile.

“Did you want me to bring food, or am I just supposed to eat paperclips and vending machine leftovers??”

“I’ll order some pizza, do you like pizza?”

“....I live in New York Barba. Obviously I like pizza,” You teased.

“Right,” He chuckled. “Well I’ll be here--”

“I know where your office is,” You cut him off for the third time.

“Oh, do you?” He asked in a sneaky tone, as if he thought you’d been googling him or something.

“Um, yeah,” Your voice fell an octave softer. “Actually I’ve been there several times, dropping off stuff from Rita for you,” Of course he wouldn’t remember that. Why would he remember that? You weren’t anything special.

“Shit,” He muttered as if chastising himself. “Y/N I’m so sorry, I--”

“It’s fine,” You assured him as you headed down to the subway. “I’m uh, I’m getting on the train so I’ll see you soon,” You hung before he could reply.

--------------

It wasn’t that far to Rafael’s office from Rita’s, just a few stops away. You quickly hurried up the stairs back into the Manhattan air as you swiftly walked through the sea of people leaving corporate America to go home to Suburbia. Finally you reached the building, went for the door and-- it was locked.

Well of course it was locked, nobody else in their right mind would be here this late-- so clearly you and Rafael were out of your minds. Shit. Should you call him? Was there a buzzer? Before you could think of another solution a pizza delivery man was walking up to you. Maybe ‘man’ was too generous, he was probably around 16 or 17.

“Delivery for Mr. Barba,” He handed you the pizza. Did you look like a “Mr. Barba” to him?!

“I um,” You stammered as the hot pizza burned the sides of your arms you were holding it on. “I’m not Mr. Barba,”

“Are you taking it to him?” He asked you with a slight attitude.

“I um,” You thought a moment. Well you were going to see him, so yes theoretically you would be taking the pizza with you to him. “...Yes,”

“That’ll be 46.57.” He whipped out a credit card scanner on his phone.

“E-Excuse me?” You were taken aback. Now Barba had you buying him dinner? And what kind of pizza costs basically 50 bucks?!

“2 Large pizzas, an order of cheesy bread, a dessert pizza and delivery fee,” The kid read off the receipt from his phone. “I only accept credit or debit cards, and please tip generously,”

“Yeah right,” You muttered with a roll of your eyes as you pulled out your credit card and swiped it across his phone. The light turned green and a receipt printed off an attachment to his phone. He ripped it off and handed it to you, then nonchalantly walked back down the stairs to wherever he was parked.

“Awesome,” You sighed. You still didn’t know how to get inside, and now you were carrying all this hot food. All of this for a pair of green eyes?!

To make matters worse, your phone started going off in your purse. You groaned and tried to put all of the boxes down softly, but the night wind blew them onto the pavement, HARD.

“Shit!” You groaned louder as you tried to salvage the food while pulling your phone from your purse. Of COURSE.

BARBA CALLING

“I can’t get in,” You simply stated as a greeting on the phone.

“What?”

“I can’t get in the building, Barba,” You grumbled, now on a 8 on the annoyance scale.

“Oh! Oh God,” The line went dead. Awesome.

After a few minutes while you were trying to rebalance all of the boxes in your arms, one of the big glass doors swung open right into you. The boxes all pressed against you, their hot, saucy, cheesy and chocolatey goodness smearing all over your work outfit.

“SHIT!!!!!!” You screamed in horror.

“Oh my god, Oh god Y/N I am SO--” Rafael started to apologize profusely, but you noticed he was trying his best not to burst out laughing.

“I’m sorry, do you think this is funny?!” You asked angrily while you peeled a pepperoni from your hair.

“No, not at all,” He shook his head vigorously, but kept giggling behind his eyes.

“You do!” You stomped your heel, causing marinara to roll down your legs. “You are absolutely laughing at me being covered in all of your stupid food that I had to pay for by the way--”

“Oh no, really?” He suddenly turned sincere.

“No, Rafael,” You scoffed as you tried pulling cheese from your skirt. “I just had sex with him in the parking lot and we called it square,”

“Really--?!”

“NO NOT REALLY!”

“Okay! Okay I’m sorry, really I am,” Rafael tried to show you sympathy, but you looked so damn cute covered in a tasty meal.

“Yeah I can see that, you’re grinning like a five year old,” You rolled your eyes.

“I’m sorry, Y/N I really am,” He gave up trying to hide a laugh. “But you have to admit it’s pretty funny--”

“I DON’T THINK--” You started to scream at him again, but his smile made these cute little crinkles in his eyes, and his laugh was like an angel’s chorus. You might have been covered in food, but you would be covered in manure if it made him laugh like that.

“For what it’s worth, you look delicious,” He teased you, pulling an actual full piece of pizza from your chest and biting it.

“Oh my god, you’re so gross,” You did your best not to laugh, you were still supposed to be angry.

“Yum, Y/N flavor, my favorite,” He laughed for a moment just as you both realized what he had said. “Uh, I mean--” He looked away in embarrassment, and you swear you saw his face flush red.

“Um no counselor,” You bit your lip with a smile. “I’m pretty sure I taste better than a mix of pizza sauce and chocolate,”

“I’m sure you do,” Rafael bravely retorted, now that he knew you were in the playing mood.

“....But seriously, now I have to go home and get this shit off--”

“I have a shower in my office,” He blurted out.

“....Excuse me?” You blinked, not believing you heard him right.

“I...I have a shower in my office,”

“Oh my god, Rafael Barba are you that addicted to work that you live here?”

“No!” He rolled his eyes. “It’s for emergencies,”

“Emergencies? Like what?”

“Like a beautiful woman covered in pizza toppings and chocolate,” He smirked. “Now come on, I don’t want anyone around here thinking I’m dating a crazy person,” He opened the glass doors again and escorted you into the lobby of the building.

Your mind didn’t know what to focus on first; the fact that he had this mysterious office shower, that he had offered for you to use said shower, or the fact that he just referred to you as a ‘woman he was dating’. You just followed him silently into his office with a smitten grin on your face.

He wasn’t lying when he was in the ‘middle’ of something. Papers were strewn all about his desk, a white board with bullet points for arguments and cross examinations scribbled on it. You finally got a good look at him without the anger of having food all over your judgement. He looked tired, not the usual smooth and pristine Rafael Barba you were used to. But when he looked back at you to show you where his shower was, his green eyes sparkled gazing into yours.

“So, I have some spare suits in a closet here, would you mind hanging out in one of my dress shirts while I wash...these?” He gestured to your dirty clothes. Wait, wash?

You suddenly realized he had led you into a secret room to the side of his office, behind a bookcase.

“Wha…” You looked around the room. There was a shower, a wardrobe, a washer/dryer combo, and a suit steamer. “Jesus Barba, are you sure you don’t live here?”

“No I promise I don’t,” He shook his head with a laugh. “...But I may have on occasion fallen asleep here enough to invest in this,”

“And what happens when this office is passed on to a new ADA?” You raised an eyebrow.

“Then I’m sealing this place off like a mausoleum,” He stated very seriously, causing you to giggle. He loved your giggle, it was so small and soft, just like you.

“Anyway,” He shook off his momentary daze at your giggle hoping you didn’t notice. “Like I said-- Shower, dress shirt. Just put your dirty clothes in the washer and we’ll pop them in the dryer later,”

“Right,” You nodded, definitely having noticed his dreamy stare at your giggle. How had you gone from completely under his radar to making him giddy like a school boy in two days?

“Right,” He nodded back. “I’ll just be out here...ordering another pizza,” He smirked. “By the way, I’ll totally reimburse you for the one you’re wearing,” He stuck his tongue out at you with a huge grin.

“Oh you better,” You gave him the same face back. “Or I’ll cover you in it,” You lightly pressed a marinara sauce covered finger into his perfectly white dress shirt. He glanced down at it in horror.

“Oh that was so--” He started to tickle and attack you, but realized that would only make his outfit dirtier. “This isn’t over,” He wagged a finger at you as he pointed you to the shower. You gave him one last cheeky smile as he walked out and shut the door to his secret room.

What was happening? Why were you getting to him so easily, so fast? How could he have not even remembered that he had ‘met’ you several times? Well, one thing was for sure. He was never going to forget this night.