#i guess i should start adding that hashtag to my shit

[missnotstarry]

[chalkrevelations]

Huh.

Well, this is not the next episode reaction you were expecting, but a while back, in the middle of the night, while I was ready to cry from working on a pharmacology paper, out of nowhere, Youtube threw up Street Dance of China S3 Ep1 at me. And yeah. I am, admittedly, f’kn weak for a dance show. (There are enough SYTYCD episode reax on my old Livejournal that I feel there’s no point denying this.)

So – no, actually, wait. FIRST of all, I do NOT believe the “towel vote” we ended up being given for the opening routines from the four captains. That was the most blatant bit of bullshit chicanery I’ve seen in my LIFE, and I say this as a person with a ton of SYTYCD episode reax on my old Livejournal, and I also say this not because Wang Yibo ended up last (well, not entirely), but because I saw Wallace Chung’s routine. As someone closer in age to him than to the other three captains, I have to give him props for trying, but come on, man. The critique that Yibo got from random contestants – if the subtitles are to be believed, so I realize this needs a grain of salt - basically boiled down to “it was too good for the stage lighting.” :hands: Also, I saw your face at the reveal, Wallace, and you were as shocked as I was. No way you got more towels/votes than Wang Yibo. Not unless there’s some super wild undercurrent of nostalgia propping you up, which, I guess could happen, because literally all I know about pop culture in China, current or otherwise, is filtered through Tumblr and Youtube, both notoriously suspect, but … anyway. There’s got to be a TON of behind-the-scenes manipulation going on for Yibo to be rock-bottom with last pick of teams but then also to end up with THAT pool of possibles. Are you kidding me with this?

ANYWAY, what I wanted to say is that I actually really like Wang Yibo here, and it’s not just because he’s the only captain I have even a sliver of familiarity with, and it’s not just because Lan Wangji was banging Wei Wuxian. I do realize all of this is influenced by whatever edit they’ve decided to give a particular captain or contestant, but I’m impressed with the way Yibo immediately starts team building by getting his group into a warmup, getting them dancing together, getting them dancing with him before they have to worry about dancing for him. (I mean, come on, Jackson Wang. The way to get people to stop being nervous is not to say “Stop being nervous! It will make you fuck up!”) The way Yibo immediately recognized and responded to his group’s concerns about that one dude copying someone else’s routine probably also bought him a lot of return investment. He’s dressed to work it, in his sweats and his flannel (what IS that fake-leather TAC vest and random leg holster-looking thing, Jackson Wang?). He’s convincing me he really loves to dance, he can’t hold still while he watches the contestants, he’s wandering over into other captains’ turf when it sounds like there’s a dancer performing who he might like to see, he’s being the best Yibo he can be, and I’m grooving along, wind in my hair, totally down for this ride. He’s also adorable at the beginning when all the other captains are like, my goal for this season is to slaughter the competition and dance on their graves! And he’s like, well, I’d like to … make some friends? And learn some new stuff? I don’t know if the perpetual Humble Student schtick is natural or persona, or whether it’s general or specific to dancing, but it’s working for you, my dude. This is also made better (read: ironic), by the fact that it’s immediately before the towel reveal, when he flips over to utter disbelief and gets all sulky for a while over the “fact” that his dance routine got the least votes.

Also, OH WAIT. This is where that clip of Yibo dancing with his crew ALL OVER HIM came from that I saw floating around a few months ago, isn’t it? You’re telling me those guys had never danced together before and had like, three minutes to throw together that routine? I’m even more impressed than before. Meanwhile, the towels symbolize courage and challenge, Mr. Emcee? OK, fine, cheesy reality show blah blah whatever. Can we get to the dancing now?

I’m going to put the rest of this behind a cut, because it got super long, because it turns out, when you watch in 5-minute increments, it takes two and a half weeks to get through a single episode, but you actually can see and have opinions on all 5,328 contestants, plus every single one of the captains’ battles. Meanwhile, I’m trying to convince myself this is not going to be another series of episode reactions, but 1) I do have the benefit of not having a ton of hometown media giving me a next-day play-by-play, so even though this is six months old, everything’s a surprise; 2) I am, admittedly, f’kn weak for a dance show; and 3) it’s easy to watch in 5-minute increments between researching drug interactions in hypothetical hypertensive patients with stable ischemic heart disease, erectile dysfunction, and seasonal allergies. So, I guess we’ll see. It’ll be slow going, though, because I don’t ever have two and half hours to sit down and watch an ep cover-to-cover – if it happens, it will likely keep happening in 5-minute increments. Meanwhile, there is a metric shit-ton of nattering below the cut, so caveat lector. No, seriously, I kept adding to this little by little until it became a monster. Hashtag long post (remorseful).

OK, I am generally out of my depth here, as this is not at all my area of dance not-really-expertise, but some reactions:

Team Wang Yibo: I can see why he didn’t want to choose between Colin and Dian Men – Colin might have been a touch better technically and a better showman, but Dian Men didn’t seem to have a single wasted move – but, also, my dude. Yibo. You maybe should look a little bit less stunned and overwhelmed by the mere presence of Colin, it’s giving me ideas about your taste in men. Continuing with the powerhouses, I probably shouldn’t even attempt to critique Klash, but I did feel like he was a bit stiff in some of his footwork; that final V kick, though, shit, that’s what having that kind of upper-body strength is for. Bouboo … I mean, excellent flexibility and control, of course, but mainly I’m just terribly amused that Yibo got last pick of teams but somehow ended up with the guy who’s literal world champion, and who’s just as useful for getting into the other captains’ heads – without even trying – as he is for his talent. And then there’s a montage of Yibo giving out towel after towel after towel, and my dude, you cannot keep up this pace. There are still too many dancers to see, and you don’t have that many towels. AAANNNND Towel Battle #1 (See Footnote 1).

Team Jackson Wang: I do like Gai Gai, although that may be influenced by the fact she’s working in the twilight area between hip-hop and contemporary that I have more familiarity with - but also, I suspect she’s pretty good in her genre. I thought Xiao Jie was inconsistent and didn’t stick the landing on his initial attempt, so I have to give you that hesitation, Jackson, even though you’ve somehow ended up the villain in my inner narrative for this show, for no particular reason I can yet discern. Maybe it’s that you’re the direct competition for Yibo’s team in the towel battles. Good enough. Anyway, Xiao Jie definitely stepped up his game for the battle with Bingo, so I can kind of see why both of them got a towel, but we’re not even halfway through this, and most of y’all are giving away towels like you have an endless supply. Yang Kai is a fucking menace with fantastic musicality, and I’m just gonna say it and take the fallout - I think he gave a better performance first time out of the gate than any of Yibo’s powerhouses did. Whatever power Klash has got, whatever skill Bouboo has got, Yang Kai feels more explosive and engaging, at least in these initial showings. He’s going to be one to beat, I’d hug him too, if he was on my team and was going to help me WIN. Yibo’s probably lucky that happened during his little stroll over to check out the competition, so that he can see they’re definitely competitive and be prepared for it. Also, Jackson, I have to admit - that face you made when Chao really kicked in? That was the same face I made, because wt actual f, you have a literal secret weapon – secret because he CAME FROM NOWHERE and NO ONE EVEN KNOWS him, how is that even possible, how did he get that good – fluid, creative, controlled, incredible musicality - without anyone having any idea who he even is? And then there’s a montage of Jackson just giving out towel after towel after towel, and my dude, you need to slow down. You can’t just be like, “THEY LOVE DANCE WITH ALL OF THEIR WHOLE HEARTS!!!!1111!!!!11!” I get it, but everyone there loves dance with all of their whole hearts, and there are not enough towels to send all of them on to the next round. ANNNND, Towel Battle #1 (See Footnote 1).

Team Lay Zhang: lol at how diplomatic you’re being, Lay Zhang – your team’s fierce roar startled you, OK. At this point, I suspect you’re the street most likely to have a knife fight break out before this is all over. I do like Alex, I think he’s got a lot of interesting, super-clean details in his moves, and he’s engaging - I cannot BELIEVE you made him battle that dude whose moves were so mushy, Lay Zhang, it leaves me doubting your ability to judge this thing. At first I thought maybe you were just looking for an excuse because you wanted to see Alex freestyle, but then you actually said something about both dancers being equal, and my estimation of you plummeted, and also sadly, my sound dropped out for the actual battle, including the part where the clearly inferior dancer fell over and then accidentally POPPED ALEX ONE IN THE EYE, and I TOLD YOU SO. I do agree it’s a good idea to make dancers in the same genre do some battling, so you can kind of plan out your towels and put together a team with broad strengths, instead of giving out towels like you’re making it rain for the first 20 contestants, and then you have 1,375 more people to get through, with 3 towels left, as EVERYONE ELSE seems to be doing, so it’s nice that at least one of you guys is thinking – if not actually acting - strategically. That was clearly not even a contest, though, GIVE ALEX HIS TOWEL and send him to the next round. Xiao Bao is hilarious, with his concern that his team captain, who’s into krump, which is “beating,” isn’t going to appreciate his waacking, which is “slapping.” I also don’t know a whole lot about waacking, so thanks for the primer, Xiao Bao, and don’t worry, your performance is just as engaging for those of us who don’t know what we’re watching as you are generally. You deserve that towel for your ability to interact with and engage your audience, alone. Lingo is a good solid performance, although he’s got his team captain strategizing edited over some of it, and here’s the thing: we are 1:56:00 into this, at this point, with another half hour to go, and all of you are starting to disappear into the sea of dancers who are very good at what you do, but at generally the same level? Anyway, Lingo, I approve of your ability to interact with your audience (read: your captain) to ensure engagement, too, so keep that up. Annnd, we actually haven’t seen that much of you guys, but it’s time for Towel Battle #2 (See Footnote 2).

Team Wallace Chung: I’m glad Su Lian Ya insisted on performing, I thought she started off slow but warmed up, and that ending was creepily fantastic and had me spontaneously grinning at the screen in delight. Then we lose sight of this group for a really long time, actually. We go back to find Wallace putting through a couple of urban dancers who we barely see, but who apparently claim to have some choreography experience, and he really likes that. TI shows up, and they’re solid, but honestly, not as good in this performance as they were in some of the stock footage the show threw up to introduce them, but Wallace remains super-excited about the idea of choreography and sends at least choreographer Zhang Jiang Peng through to the next round. And then, we really haven’t seen that much of you guys, either, which maybe doesn’t bode well, but it’s time for Towel Battle #2 (See Footnote 2).

FOOTNOTE 1, aka TOWEL BATTLE ONE, Team Yibo vs. Team Jackson, 3V3 freestyle: First of all, I have to say, I love Yibo - Mr. I Just Wanna Make Some Friends And Have Some Fun - being all, “I have three crappy white towels I’m stuck with for coming in last place that I can’t use to send dancers to the next round and that I DO NOT DESERVE, and I am getting BACK the colorful towels that ARE RIGHTFULLY MINE. I am coming for whoever is in my way.” Team Yibo is Bouboo, Klash, Dian Men, and OK, given what we’ve seen so far, that’s the safe choice, but honestly, I think we’re just taking some things for granted right now, and I’m not sure they actually have given the best performances so far. Yeah, I said it. Team Jackson is Yang Kai, Chao, and Xiao Jie, and … ok, on that last one, I think you probably could have substituted Bingo, but all right. Yang Kai is a definite yes. Chao will be great if he can stay out of his own head and not psych himself out, but given what we’ve seen so far, he’s an obvious pick. First round, Yang Kai vs. Klash, and Yang Kai is still a fucking menace, with super lines. Klash definitely stepped up his game for the battle, and I can’t get over the upper body strength he’s got, to get that kind of airy bounce in his moves, but to be honest, I can’t even be mad the first round went to Yang Kai and Team Jackson. Second round, Yang Kai is still … y’all, the beautiful lines from this guy in his poses, I can’t get over them, but I think he doesn’t have the stamina, his footwork is getting sloppy. Bouboo also steps up his game for an actual battle, his fluidity and control is amazing, and yeah, round to Team Yibo. Round three, Xiao Jie gives it a decent effort, but the polish isn’t there; meanwhile Bouboo is still in champion mode, and I was kind of surprised this was a split vote and went to another round. Xiao Jie absolutely surprised me, coming back stronger on his second try, although I suppose a more familiar genre helped, but Bouboo continues in champion mode. Round four, Chao looks like he’s going to throw up right before he steps out there, and then as soon as the music starts, it’s like, he doesn’t even think. The music just moves him. I feel like his dance vocabulary is more limited than Bouboo’s, though, and Bouboo’s flow is amazing at this point, so I feel like the judges just want to drag this out and see more dancing when we go to one more round. Strong effort all around, but yeah, round four and two towels to Team Yibo. I can’t really complain about that. I do feel like Yibo’s powerhouses have been holding back until now, though, and I’m not sure how I feel about THAT.

FOOTNOTE 2, aka TOWEL BATTLE TWO, Team Zhang vs. Team Wallace, 3V3 w/ captain: lol, Team Zhang really wants someone to pick the Sailor Moon song because they know Xiao Bao and his waacking will tear it up. Anyway, Team Zhang includes Lingo and Xiao Bao, who does not get his Sailor Moon song and continues to be hilarious in his disbelief about being chosen to participate in this battle, when he’s not looking almost as sick as Chao from Team Jackson before HIS performance. Team Wallace includes Su Lian Ya – and honestly, despite how I’m getting ready to bag on him for the entire rest of this battle recap, I like that Wallace put one of his female dancers up there for the battle - and some dude named Ba that they haven’t given us any footage of, up ‘til now, at least that I can remember and who I … don’t even know has been formally given a towel and sent on to the next round, yet? Oh wait, he must have, because there’s talk in the pause for choreography about somehow using the towels during the battle. Wallace relies on Su Lian Ya and Zhang Jiang Peng to choose Ba, and then Ba ends up choreographing a lot of the performance, at least from the edit we see. I continue to feel you may be in over your head, Wallace. This feeling … is not assuaged by your performance in the first round, which is fine, but not really up to the level of almost anyone whose name I’ve bolded so far in this entire recap. Also, using the towels was a cute idea, but it doesn’t translate well, and Team Wallace has a lot of wasted time throwing the towels around instead of actually. You know. Dancing. Lingo gets a credible solo during Team Zhang’s performance, and even though Xiao Bao is clearly lost during a good bit of his backup dancer duties, he manages not to throw up, which – given this team’s general skill level – should be enough to give them the first round, EXCEPT SOMEHOW Team Wallace gets the point from the judges, who then try to justify this inexplicable decision by saying Team Wallace had better interaction, I guess because of the hot mess with throwing the towels around, but adding that Team Zhang was more scattered, which what? More scattered than the hot mess with the towels? I’m not buying this. I can’t tell if they’re propping up Wallace or fucking with Lay Zhang’s head, but I’m having bad acid flashbacks to the many and varied ways dance show judges will try to gaslight you, telling you that things you just saw with your very own eyes did not actually happen when it’s right there! On camera! Visible, despite whatever edit bs you’re pulling! ANYWAY, they’re definitely managing to fuck with not only Lay Zhang’s head, but Xiao Bao’s, and Xiao Bao still doesn’t seem to have his choreography down, but they manage to pull it together enough to take the second round, which to be honest is kind of a muddled mess on everyone’s part. The only one who really stands out to me on this go’round is Su Lian Ya, but OK, Team Zhang might have had it slightly more together as a unit. And then, yeah, OK, I think they were fucking with Lay Zhang’s head, because we then find out that, holy shit, the song the show powers-that-be chose for the tie-breaking third round is that gd Sailor Moon song, and we can all see the writing on the wall. Poor Team Wallace is no match for Xiao Bao, who frankly, carries this entire round on his shoulders without breaking a sweat and barely needs any backup dancers to do it. There’s some ridiculously dramatic reveal of scoring, with the judges dragging out their decisions like this was any actual contest - I’m beginning to suspect that some of them grew up with Wallace Chung posters on their bedroom walls - but finally, round and towel to Team Zhang.

Cut to a little bit of Next Time On, and wow, the first two-and-a-half-hour episode is over, and we aren’t finished with the initial round yet. It’s gonna be Christmas before I make it halfway through this season.

[shera-dnd]

Face Turn - Tag Team

It’s once again time for some more Face Turn!

I hope y’all are liking Weiss and Yang’s dynamic, because their fans sure do... a bit too much in fact

this chapter is definitely not just me roasting real people shippers lol

ANYWAY here’s the AO3 link and on with the fic

While Weiss and Yang’s relationship progressed outside the ring, so did it do inside it as well. Though they haven’t directly had any rematches yet, they have insulted and challenged each other constantly and Weiss had to admit that shit talking her friend was one of the best parts of her job.

The other great part was kicking people’s shit in and then hearing their fans boo her out of the ring. 

She had made a big deal of ‘putting all of them in their place’ and she was doing her best to make good on those words. It truly seemed that only Yang would be able to beat her now and the build up for their rematch was fast approaching.

Poor Yang on the other hand just couldn’t catch a break and had to deal with so many heels coming after her while she was still ‘recovering’. One of those vultures happened to be a man by the name of Mercury Black, and Weiss was on her way to ruin his day.

So the plan here was pretty simple. Yang would be exhausted from all those fights she hadn’t fully recovered from and Mercury would take that opportunity to take her down, but before he had the chance, Weiss would interfere and beat up Yang too, disqualifying Mercury and saving Yang once more. 

She was Weiss’s rival after all, she couldn’t have someone else beating her up.

She got her cue and made her way to the ring, unannounced. Casually she leaned against the structure and threw in some insults as she watched the fight unfold. It was only when he had Yang backed into a corner that she grabbed her by the hair and slammed her head against the turnbuckle.

The judge called it there, disqualifying Mercury for outside interference.

“I didn’t need your help!” Mercury shouted, right up to her face.

“Oh please, like I care about you,” she scoffed, “now be a nice loser and go sulk backstage.”

They sized each other up and braced to fight right then and there, but the judge interrupted them again and made Weiss leave the ring.

“Do try to make a better show of it next time,” she taunted Yang on her way out, “it wouldn’t do to have you lose to every punk with an attitude.”

Yang could only sneer through her bloodied face. Lilac eyes stared at her, promising revenge in front of the whole camera crew. She had to admit, Yang was a fantastic actor.

Her taunting grin never left her face as she walked back through the booing crowd, not offering any of the fans even a glance as she made her way backstage.

That is until she noticed the one person cheering her heart out. It was a younger person with a sign that read ‘Freezer Burn 4 Life’. Weiss had no idea what that meant, but the fan kept cheering her and pointing at the sign.

Didn’t matter, she did her job and it was time to go back to the changing room.

“Schnee,” Mercury called as soon as he saw her, “that was the biggest dick move I’ve ever seen.”

He marched up to her, studied for a second and then offered his fist.

Weiss punched it.

“Nice!” He laughed, “think we can talk Blake into scheduling a fight for us?”

She chuckled, “I’ll see what I can do.”

On her way out she stopped by Yang’s side, just to give her a slap on the first non-bruised surface she could find and say, “see you at the Fang tomorrow.”

And so they did just that, but what she didn’t expect was for them to have a visitor.

Weiss nearly jumped on her seat when she heard a noise coming from her left and turned around to glare at the person, just to recognize her favorite writer sitting down and ordering a drink.

“Right, forgot about the blindspot, sorry” Blake apologized.

She didn’t really say anything back, just shook her head and turned back to her drink. No point in bringing attention to the humiliation.

“Hey, Blakey,” Yang greeted, “is it your turn to share your tragic backstory over some drinks?”

“There’s no amount of alcohol that can get me to share that mess,” she joked, or at least they hoped she joked, “actually I was more interested to hear from you. Have you two been checking your social media lately?”

“Eh,” Yang shrugged, “not much outside of the usual promo stuff.”

“And I have better shit to do than scroll through twitter all day,” besides, it strained her eyes too fast for her to enjoy it.

“So I take it neither of you have seen the hashtag ‘Freezerburn’ before, right?” She asked, already pulling out her phone.

“I think I saw someone carrying a sign about that yesterday,” Yang commented.

“Yeah it was some random fan during your last match,” she elaborated, “they seemed really intent on making me see it.”

Blake took in a sharp breath through her teeth as she looked awkwardly between the two of them.

“I don’t know how to say this but,” Blake braced herself, before turning the phone towards them, “your fans started shipping you.”

There was a moment of silence as they tried to process what had just been said. This was made entirely more difficult by the fact that what Blake was showing them was simply surreal. 

Hundreds of tweets under that stupid tag, ranging from short messages in all caps about how they were meant for each other, to long and elaborately edited videos of just about every second they’ve spent together in public.

It was bizarre.

Worse still was the knowledge that their match from the previous day had only added fuel to this fire they had no idea had been burning in the first place. It all filled Weiss with a profound discomfort that she couldn’t quite put into words.

“What the fuck?” Was her only response.

“Not this shit again,” was Yang’s.

Blake just sighed and ordered another round on her.

“What the fuck!?” She repeated, much louder this time.

“I should have seen this coming,” Blake said, “I should have taken some sort of precaution to make sure this wouldn’t happen.”

“Do they fucking know how disrespectful this shit is?” She was nearly shouting now, “Do they know how fucking creepy they look?”

“No and no,” Yang sighed, “and trust me, Blake, there’s nothing we could have done. If they get it in their heads that we're a couple then nothing in the world is gonna convince them otherwise.”

“You sound like you have way too much experience with that,” Blake said.

Yang took another long sip of her drink, before she could answer.

“It was back when I was doing Indie stuff,” she began, “it wasn’t nearly as big as this, but back then I had been in a tag team with this girl called Neo. People would hound us for info on our relationship and shout that we should kiss any time we won a match. It was really creepy, especially considering Neo was already in a relationship at the time. It was just…”

Yang shuddered.

“Okay that’s fucking it, next time I see someone with a Freezer Burn sign, I’m ripping it in half,” Weiss declared.

“Don’t actually do that,” Yang pleaded, “they’ll just take it as confirmation that we’re secretly crushing on each other or something. The more you bring attention to it the worse it gets.”

“So should we change the plot line maybe?” Blake offered, “keep the rivalry, but tone down the ‘only I get to beat you’ aspect of it?”

“I guess that could work,” Yang shrugged. With a gesture towards the three of them and the bar in general, she added, “maybe we should tone this down as well.”

“What!?”

“You know, they haven’t found this place yet, but every time we meet outside of the arena we’re risking just fueling their weird shit,” Yang explained and Weiss was having none of that.

“Fuck that!” She interjected, “I’m not sacrificing this shit over some internet weirdos. If they wanna be creepy then that’s on them, but I get to decide how I spend my free time and I’m gonna spend it with my fucking friends!”

This had been the best thing to have happened to her in well over a year and she was not letting it be hijacked by some obsessive creeps.

“D’aww, you see me as a friend?” Yang teased, and suddenly Weiss agreed that maybe they should spend less time together.

[moonlightchn]

𝖂𝖊𝖗𝖊𝖜𝖔𝖑𝖛𝖊𝖘, 𝖜𝖔𝖑𝖛𝖊𝖘

and basic shit you should know before interacting I guess~

*Disclaimer: all the information this post contains will be based on things I’ve learned over the years and my personal modifications are NOT to be taken as the general rule. This is MY abo concept for this bot in particular. Yall are free to agree, disagree, take ideas, adapt to your own bot, etcetcetc. Bye. Also sorry this doesn't have a read more;;;; I tried :(

Hello, this is (not) JYPe,

and welcome to the first episode of “Admin’s abo concept isn’t probably what you think so we gonna go in dept on this shit hehe ”. This was originally going to be a one part documentary but I realized I would probably keep coming up with or remembering stuff and these would be so LOOONG so I decided to just do it as I go and I’ll use the hashtag “admins abo tmi ” for this yeah. But also remember you can ask questions if you have any or if you don’t understand something because I usually ramble a lot.

Today we’ll be talking about 3 things that seem to be the most important since they’re the most brought up on my RP’s and they are:

Turning/Transforming.

Heat vs Rut.

Mates.

So let’s begin!

🌙 𝕿���𝖗𝖓𝖎𝖓𝖌/𝕿𝖗𝖆𝖓𝖘𝖋𝖔𝖗𝖒𝖎𝖓𝖌…

There’s two meanings to this concept, one is the concept of turning from human form to wolf form, and the other one is being transformed into a wolf by different means (these usually depends on which story you’ve heard, it can be being the 7th boy child in a family, it can be a bite or a scratch, it can be eating raw meat, etcetcetc).

*This change has now also been added to the Chan’s pack introduction.

What are the definitions of this words? Cambridge Dictionary defines them as:

Turn: to (cause to) become, change into, or come to be something.

Example: “Chan turned into his wolf form”

Explanation: Chan, already a werewolf, turned and changed into his wolf form.

Transform: to change completely the appearance or character of something or someone, especially so that that thing or person is improved.

Example: “Changbin was transformed into a werewolf.”

Explanation: Changbin, a regular human, was transformed /by a wolf/ into a werewolf.

𝕿𝖚𝖗𝖓𝖎𝖓𝖌…

In the classic folklore, turning consists of 2 phases, human with NO wolf characteristics whatsoever, (which is what makes it so hard finding out who the werewolf in town is) and fluffy wolf with some human like characteristics (being biped, having arms instead of four legs, body structure humanlike. The best examples I can think of are the underworld lycans mmm tasteful). Another general rule for classic werewolves was that the person and wolf were two different minds, the person never remembered turning and had no idea they were the werewolf terrorizing town. While being human, the person didn’t even have the wolf skills like hearing or strength. They were just regular boring humans. Another thing was that they had no control whatsoever and ONLY turned during full moon, but I’m not getting into that yet.

Here are some examples (it’s basically furries oop).

Moving on to my concept, I decided to have 3 phases of turning, consisting on:

Human: Basic, simple, boring human. No presence of wolf features whatsoever. YET they can still make use of their skills such as sensitive hearing, smell, extra strength among others.

Half-turn: Heavily inspired by Teen Wolf tbh, SOME features are present and can generally be controlled, such as eyes, ears, tail, fangs, claws. Can even be confused for hybrids. (sumn like this please appreciate my art)

Full-turn: they become big scary fluffy puppies. Let’s remember how they look like.

Channie Chan Chris

𝕿𝖗𝖆𝖓𝖘𝖋𝖔𝖗𝖒𝖎𝖓𝖌…

As mentioned before, transforming depends on which story you know and what you’re settling for. Generally we always talk about bites and deep scratches. Some of the most known stories about how to become a werewolf are being the 7th boy child born in a family on a full moon, or in Greek mythology, Zeus transformed some dudes into wolves after they tried to feed him human meat. There’s many different stories you can pick from, they’re just one Google away~

On my concept, though, the only way to transform is through a bite, even though I always keep options open.

I will probably be talking about the 3 types of wolves and deepening this a bit more later on.

🌙 𝕳𝖊𝖆𝖙 𝖛𝖘 𝕽𝖚𝖙.

Imma give you a wolf biology class because I know too much useless info and I WANT TO.

Rut: The rut is the mating season of certain mammals. The rut is characterized in males by an increase in testosterone, exaggerated sexual dimorphisms and increased aggression and interest in females.

Heat: The estrous cycle or oestrous cycle is the set of recurring physiological changes that are induced by reproductive hormones in most mammalian therian females. Estrous cycles start after sexual maturity in females and are interrupted by anestrous phases or by pregnancies. This cycle presents four phases, the one known as “heat” being the second one, estrus or oestrus, that refers to the phase when the female is sexually receptive.

What are seasonal breeders and what is mating season?

The breeding season is when seasonal breeders reproduce. Seasonal breeders are animal species that successfully mate only during certain times of the year. These times of year allow for the optimization of survival of young due to factors such as ambient temperature, food and water availability etcetc. Male seasonal breeders may exhibit changes in testosterone levels, weight, and fertility depending on the time of year. Female seasonal breeders will have one or more estrus cycles only when she is “in season” or fertile and receptive to mating.

Wolves fall in all of these descriptions.

What does all of this shit mean and why do I care lmao?

This means that if this was a logical bot I should only be doing NSFW like one week during 4 months a year LMAO no frfr

This basically means that RUT and HEAT are the seasons when the MALE and FEMALE respectively are ready to mate with each other to reproduce.

I’ve seen many male idol hybrids having heats instead of ruts, which I have no problem at all with and am sure no one else does really, but I think you should KNOW that a heat would not make them want to fuck, but get fucked. Heat would be the need to be filled and not fill others. A heat and a rut does NOT have to equal dominance or submissiveness in bots, anyway, that would be like saying being top or bottom determines who is dom/sub and that’s wrong, so just a PSA I guess.

Now, how does this affect my CB and ABO concept?

I’ve never, anyway, read anywhere of classic werewolves reproduction, which leads me to believe that they’re probably sterile. So I will stick to real life wolves rules but on my own way. Wolves are even monogamous and I dont go by that one lmao.

Reproduction rules on my ABO are really simple, ruts are once a month, around 5 days, and each of the guys have different characteristics for them. They’re only capable of getting someone pregnant during ruts, too. I just generally believe all girls are on the pill tbh and I never really use condoms but guys irl please practice safe sex wrap your or your partners willy before going freaky and stay safe.

Not sure if there’s something else to mention here? Let me know.

🌙 𝕸𝖆𝖙𝖊𝖘…

Mates are the wolf equivalent of soulmates, but that’s bullshit. I mean, I’m not gonna say they’re not real, I just mean that the general idea of only one person for the rest of your life and if it’s not them you’re miserable is dumb when we’re talking about beings with feelings. Did you know wolves irl are monogamous and mate but if their mate dies they just look for another one and move on? Now you know.

The thing with mates and marks, in my humble opinion, is that they don’t mean anything. Peoples hearts change, feelings come and go, and my wolves are NOT about to drop everything they have for some person they don’t know who happened to be their true mate. In fact, Channie is the only one who believes in them. The mates issue is a bit complex if we think about it over each of the Chan’s, but on a general idea, the mates are not exclusive for the guys, and I’ll probably make a tmi on the boys at some point, but Chan met his mate and it didn’t work out, for example. Mates go further than the marking, btw, mates are a special, cosmic bond. Marks are just that, marks.

And talking about that, we do not vibe with marks. The original folklore states marks as the way a wolf has to claim their partner as theirs and keep away others, especially from an alpha, and they’re supposed to go both ways, so marks between human/wolf, for example wouldn’t be possible. There’s also two marks.

The first bonding mark is generally given during sex between mates and heals, and the second one in front of the pack (there’s a whole social status thing involved here but were not touching that yet) and its permanent. Also marks are literal WOLF BITES so no, they’re neither small nor cute. Just look at these teethies and picture the scar in a neck-shoulder. That’s your bonding mark.

(they're cute tho I uwuuu)

What I’ve been reading around in fanfics and seeing around is that bots have been mated and claimed with marks, which is ok if you’re into that. My chan’s, though, find physical marks archaic, possessive and toxic. And honestly I personally do too.

You may have noticed by now that even though the boys are quite possessive, they’re never trying to scare away others and their sole way of marking is love marks that heal eventually and scenting. Permanent marks are a nono.

They will NOT mark anyone as their mate. Especially Channie plz he’s baby.

This is a personal decision and it does not mean that marking is RIGHT or WRONG. I just personally see marking bites as marking your partner with fire or something and I dislike the idea a lot.

ALRIGHT I THINK THAT’S ABOUT IT FOR TODAY I FEEL LIKE I WROTE TOO MUCH ALREADY??? Feel free to ask questions or request certain topics! I think next topics will be Social Structure, Skills and maybe Self control or Moon Cycles.

If you read all of this WOW CONGRATS??? I LOVE YOU EXTRA MUAH

One question I got on the asks was “since their fur color seems to correspond with their hair color, what happens if they dye their hair?”

Nothing happens babe! When they’re half turned they will have really funny colorful hair, but when they fully turn their fur stays the same! hehe Don’t worry, Chan won’t be a clown red wolf heh

OK BYE MUAH MUAH

Tags (hmu for removal:] if you don’t care about this hehe)

@yandereminholee @bunjihyo @shinhaneul-oc @sub-chungha @song-mingi-cb @grungeyuta @yourhwaa @bunny-woong @princess-yeji @xash-axx @7deadlysins-chan @camgirl-jihyeon @hybrid-wooyoung @vampirehhj @ghoulxbaekhyun @mafiaxnct127 @deadly-skz-gods-cb @mafia-chaeyoung @vampiresanha @sub-minho @starsirah-oc @femboy-minho @subbyhyunjinchatbot @weeb-wonwoo @yandere-wendy @musiclovermino @galaxy-ateez @chanlix-koalas @vampirechangbinnie @mafiafelixlee @madmanwoodam @sweetandsleepyjamie @yanderedahyun @hunter-chaeyoung @hwangyeji-cb @artsydahyun @gamer-yeji @yourminju @seulgi-foxy @kittensua-cb @softbabieinnie @softboyfriend-cb @iceskater-sana @irregularchatbot @yandere-miya @doll-seungmin @skz-cb @subbylino @babie-sanie

[minjoonie-song]

0:00 “Hello! Welcome to Minjoon’s Kitchen.” “Who’s fucking kitchen?” Brandon’s voice off camera startled a laugh out of Minjoon, loud and squeaky; and that was it for the theme of the live. “Welcome to uh... Welcome to Minjoon in a kitchen.” “Welcome to not Minjoon’s Kitchen.” Brandon added, finally coming into view. “Welcome not Minjoon to Minjoon’s Kitchen, not in Minjoon’s kitchen.” “Featuring Minjoon.” “Welcome to Brandon’s kitchen!” “Welcome to Brandon is trying to get his car home because she’s parked in fucking central LA after we went for brunch and had so many mimosas that I legally wasn’t allowed to drive us home.” “Hi MTV. Welcome to Brandon’s crib.” “Look mom! I‘m on MTV and I didn’t have to be 16 and pregnant to do it!” The pair started cackling again, uncontrollably hysterical in their inebriated states. 8:14

“You should make that a thing.” ”What?” ”Not Minjoon’s Kitchen. Once a month you just show up at a random fans house, streaming and giving them no time to prepare for you to cook whatever they have in their house.” ”Absolutely not. You know I like to be organised when cooking.” ”You’re literally squinting at lettuce in the fridge, I think you’re past that.” ”That’s lettuce?” “Oh my god, Minjoon. You can’t cook like this.” “I can’t see properly. I don’t know where my glasses are.” “This is going to be the most disappointing episode of your show ever and it’s live. We can’t cook, it’s gonna be dangerous and messy.” “In the words of the awesome Jake Peralta. Title of your sex tape.” “Oh my god. No, mine would be called uhh.. Put that thing back where it came from or so help me.” “Nope. I already claimed that for mine.” “Joonie! I hate the accuracy.” The laughing continued, even as the pair complained that they couldn’t breathe.

18:58

After they’d finally calmed down they took the camera with them to the couch, after the executive decision that the pair were definitely in no state to try to actually cook anything and a too large order of pizza. “We have like half an hour to kill. What are we going to do now?” “Remember when I asked for a Q&A way back in the past when I thought I’d be sober at four in the afternoon? We’ll do that and then I guess I’m writing a formal apology on my notes app to anyone who was hungry and eager to learn. Just like a real celebrity.” Minjoon fished around in his pockets for his phone, handing it to Brandon once it was unlocked so he could read it aloud. “I just figured out the greeting. Welcome to the last ever episode of Minjoon’s Kitchen.” “My biggest mistake this time was too much Minjoon and not enough kitchen. Some people come just to see my organised spice rack.” “You’ve both upgraded and downgraded to Brandon’s Couch.” “Love it. I’ve re-branded. Put it on a T-shirt. Every episode I’m just going to show you how to order different pizzas. We’re a podcast now.” “You’re a dumbass. Alright! Let’s see what we got. Minjoon.. What is your favorite thing to cook?”  “Everyone I see with how hot I am.” The laughter started up once more, even despite their previous attempts to calm down. “I fucking told you! I knew you’d get that one.” “You owe me $50 for saying it!” “I’ll buy all the pizza you just ordered, how about that?” “Catch me outside?” “Stop! How have you made it this far in life as a meme?” “I wasn’t always like this, it’s part of my rebrand. Brandon’s Couch: Meme edition.” “I can’t believe we failed cooking and now we’re already failing the Q&A.” “No! No, I got this. My favourite thing at the moment.. I love making risotto. Mostly because I get to eat it afterwards and I love eating risotto but yeah! That’s my favourite right now.” “I don’t think that’s really answering.” “It’s my answer. This is still not Minjoon’s Kitchen featuring Minjoon for this last episode. Shh. Next question!” “This one asks if there is anything in particular that gets me inspired for designs? Yes! I love art so as soon as my bank account hits below a mil, I’m like.. Shit! Gotta doodle. No, I find inspiration everywhere. Sometimes it’s just a particular mood I’m in, sometimes I’ll see a net curtain blowing a particular way in a breeze and design an entire dress from how it falls. Sometimes I’ll see a colour that I’ll want to make an entire wardrobe out of. I’ve been painting a lot recently, not designs just.. things I like and I’ve been able to work from those. Gross, I know but yeah. Inspiration is everywhere. Disgusting. Unacceptable. I refuse to be inspired again that was too mushy.”

23:37

The boys were a giggly mess. Almost everything bringing them to hysterics even if it was just something said with the smallest hint of sarcasm, they were grabbing onto the couch and each other’s arms for support as they hiccuped their way through another bout of laughter. “Anyway! Next question is top 5 celebrity chefs. Mine of course is Joonbug and that’s it. Wait, no that dude from that thing we saw in England. Gordon’s friend.” “Oh! With the road trip?” “Yeah, the really funny one.” “I loved that. Mine is obviously Chef Ramsay, Remy.. Gotta give my boy a shout out. Chef Baek Jong-won. Oh! The um.. I discovered that dude during fashion week in London that time. The sciencey one. Hus.. Hes..? I don’t remember his actual name but he made some amazing things. I was in awe. I’m also throwing in whoever invented bulgogi. That’s my top five. I actually met Chef Ramsay recently!” “You did! You called me after. How was it meeting your hero?” “Oh, I cried. Like a big baby. Ugly sobbing and lots of I love yous in the middle of a cupcake shop.” “Classic Minjoon behaviour.” “He signed my T-shirt and I cried some more. I would have proposed through my tears but I was crying too much. Like the shaky inhale, full on breakdown kind of crying? I can’t even be embarrassed because he still talked to me.” “You’re a baby!” “I am a baby! 달콤한 아기. That’s what my eomma and momma call me and then they pinch my cheekies.” “Cute! Ooh! How does it feel.. no, fuck. That’s not.. shut your face. I can read. How does performing feel on stage versus cooking on camera? How did it feel being on stage?” “I refuse to acknowledge what that means. Stage? What stage?” “They’re talking about your big, gay musical re-enactment of your love for me.” “I wish I could use memes like in real life? Just the I do not see meme but my face. Honestly though? It’s different because I can cook. This mess obviously doesn’t count but I can edit everything I post and I know what I’m doing? I’m confident when I’m cooking. I know what I can and can’t do. Being on stage was just.. I was terrified. It was terrifying. I had fun though and I did work hard. Like.. I decided last minute and I had to learn choreo and remember lyrics to things I wrote years ago. I was scared I’d trip up and face plant the whole time. Like the entire time. I wanted to be included though and I couldn’t go to the festival because it was terrifying being around so many people. I just kind of listened from the side lines but it sounded good and you said you had lots of fun being up there.” “I did. You know me though. I’m that one line from that Mike Posner song about needing everyone’s eyes just to feel seen.” “Woah. Hashtag deep.” “Oh my god. You’re ridiculous.” “I did need the entire weekend to recover though. It’s.. it’s a lot to open yourself up like that.” “You mean serenading the town with love songs about me?” “You suck so bad.” “Is that how you talk to the former love of your life?” Minjoon snorted, slapping at Brandon’s arm. “You were so in love with me. It’s my greatest achievement, you know? I put it on my resume under my skills. Has given Minjoon boners.” The reaction was instant, Brandon’s loud laugh failing to cover Joonie’s shriek that soon turned into a laugh but even his amusement couldn’t mask how red he’d gotten. “No! I hate it here! You suck so bad! So bad! I can never show my face in public or make eye contact with another human being ever again!” “It’s a good job I put the age restriction thingy on this stream. I knew I’d be a fucking menace after the second drink.” “You’re not a menace! You’re a gremlin! God, end the stream before you really do end my YouTube career. Goodbye everyone! I’m gonna go eat my body weight in pizza and become a cave hermit.” “Bye little Joonie fans! Sorry about the.. Fuck it, I’m not sorry about anything. Peace out, bitches!”

[imanativeofswlondondahling]

Hidden in Plain Sight (3)- Tom Holland X Reader

A/N: This story is fun to write, but school is taking over little by little so sorry if this gets delayed more than I mean for it to be! Enjoy Chapter Three!

Word Count: 2165

Warnings: Swearing? Maybe? To be honest I can’t remember if I swore or not but knowing me I probably did. But there is mention of a killer moth so if that’s as trigger as it was when it was flying around my room then I’ll mention it here.

You had the absolute worst day. You were hoping it was going to be a good day since you had put on one of your favorite outfits to wear to work. But as soon as you got to work, everything turned into a shit show. A project you thought was finished didn’t save the last days edits, your boss got on you for something that was your coworker’s responsibility, and someone ate your lunch, which you’re not entirely sure how that happened, but it did. Add to it you have the start of what you think is a migraine, the last thing you want to do is anything work related, but because you’re behind on the project that is due tomorrow, you’ll probably be up all night working on it before going in tomorrow to continue working on it at the office. So heating up some soup to eat while you work, you decide to scroll through Tumblr while you wait for it to heat up. 

The news of Spider-Man, and therefore Tom Holland, staying in the MCU still hasn’t died down, which let’s be honest why should it? It’s fantastic news. Out of all the Spider-Mans, Tom’s portrayal of it is your favorite and you would be so sad to see him taken from Marvel just because Sony, Marvel and Disney couldn’t come to an agreement on things. It’s only been a couple days since it was announced, but you wouldn’t be surprised if this was talked about for weeks at least. You reblog a couple of photos, adding some of your usual hashtags. Honestly, you want to be distracted by asks, but you know that the likelihood that people will respond is low, plus you shouldn’t let yourself be distracted by Tumblr when you have the project due tomorrow. 

Hating seeing notifications, you click on the second icon from the right on the bottom of your screen. You clear off the notifications from reblogs and likes but notices your app is still showing a notification, on the messages side. It’s probably just from one of your friends. You flip over to the other screen and see a message from none other than Tomholland2013, who you’ve been messaging on and off over the past couple of days, ever since you sent him that edit.

You haven’t been super active on tumblr lately. Everything ok?x

Been super busy at work lol. Big deadlines coming up.

You don’t expect to get a message back since you figured from your messages where he mentioned he was in the early hours of the day while you were only in the late afternoon, that he was probably asleep since you got home later from work than you had planned. So you set your phone aside as you pull the broccoli cheddar soup from the microwave. However, you’re pleasantly surprised to see a message waiting for you when you pick your phone back up to head back to your computer to keep working.

Ah, big deadlines. What kind of work do you do, if you don’t mind me asking?x

Hm, this new tumblr friend of yours is awake even though it’s probably the middle of the night for him?

I don’t mind. I work in graphic design. Isn’t it the middle of the night for you? 

It would be if I was at home. I travel a lot for work. I’m currently in New York, so it’s only 9pm.x

But it definitely feels like I should be asleep. I’ve only been in New York for a few days and my mind is still on London time.x

What kind of work do you do? 

You set your phone down and boot your computer back up. You know you have shadows to deal with and layers to add back before even getting to the stuff you were meaning to get on today. This project was going to be the death of you. 

Tom stares at the message. How does he respond to that? He can’t very well tell you he’s an actor. That blows all of this. He likes being able to be open with you and the moment that it comes out that he is actually Tom Holland, well you might not be open with him. Could he tell you he works in the movie field without having to admit who he is? Could he play it off that he’s still a fanboy, because he will be a marvel fanboy until the day he dies, without blowing this whole thing up? There’s just something about you and being able to connect with someone who has no idea who he is that is different. 

Even on your blog today, you shared things from months ago and still reacted like it was your first time seeing them. Your whole blog just radiated positivity, even though your messages sounded like you had a lot on your plate outside of the internet world. He wants to be able to know you without the pressure of having to be, well, him. But you’re not asking him to spill everything about who he is. Just a snip-it. 

Film production. Getting ready to head off to a new project actually.x

Must be fun to travel for it. Anywhere fun?

Cleveland actually. Haven’t been there before, so maybe I’ll find something fun to do outside of the project while I’m there.x

Maybe you’ll run into Tom. He’s supposed to be there shooting a project I think. Especially if you’re also in the film industry, you’d already have more of a way into things than say I would lol 

I don’t know if I’ll have that much time off to look for him.x

Well if you happen to run into him in said little time off, tell him there’s probably half a million if not more tumblr users willing to marry him, should he be in need of a wife, husband, or nonbianary pal.

Would you happen to be one of those said half a million?x

He shouldn’t have sent it. You have been pretty good about responding, but after sending that message, he hasn’t heard from you in over twenty-four hours and he’s beside himself. You also haven’t posted on your blog. Which makes him think you’re avoiding him on the site all together, which is even worse. The flight to Cleveland, wouldn’t have been half bad if he wasn’t worried the whole time about what you might have been sending while his phone was on airplane mode. And of course the one time he would have paid any amount for on flight wi-fi, it was down and no one could use it.

As soon as the plane lands, he’s flipping the switch to connect his phone again. He needs to see if you’ve messaged back. He’s ignoring all the other notifications that pop up, looking for only on apps notifications. And while you haven’t posted again, you have messaged back. Which makes him suddenly feel like he can breathe again. 

I’m not the one who took Tom’s name on here. I feel like you might propose to Tom before I even have a chance to meet him IRL.

I don’t think I’m Tom’s type.X

And what do you think Tom’s type is? 

And it takes everything to not just describe you. It wouldn’t be hard. He had spent a lot of time deep diving through your blog. He had looked through your #me tab on your blog. It was filled with everything from selfies to posts about things you had done. And you were the kind of person that he was into. It wasn’t an only physical attraction thing. It was the things that you found important enough to post about. The little things about your day that you shared about. But instead of typing back you, Tom decides to type something different.

I think he would be into someone down to earth. Someone who is into sharing time with friends and family equally and someone who has a great sense of humor. Oh and they would HAVE to love Tessa. That would be a must.x

Wow you’ve thought a lot about this.

Do you disagree?x

Surprisingly no. But I thought you’d say something more… I don’t know physical I guess.

Why’s that?x

I don’t know. I just did.

What do you think he’d be into?x

He can’t help but ask. He wants to know what you think he’s like. There’s enough speculation out there about what he’s like, but for some reason, knowing what you think about him, it means something to him.

I would say, similar to you- family, friends and Tessa would definitely be at the top. Sense of humor would be important. I also feel like with there being so much he can’t talk about to the public, having someone he can trust with stuff would be important. I also think trust would be important so that he has a space he can just be himself too. 🤷‍♀️

Pretty spot on. All of those are important to him. He wants to ask if those things are all important to you, but asking that would come off weird, so he takes a different approach.

Honestly if I wasn’t such a div when I was making accounts I would have just made a Tessa fan blog. I’m a bigger fan of her than of Tom. x

SO TRUE. How can you not be?! She’s the purest thing in this world (sorry to Tom) and every time he shares more of her with us I melt a little.

Paddy had sent him that picture of Tessa this morning, maybe sharing it would brighten everyone’s days. Especially knowing that you were such a fan of her too. Adding the picture to his Instagram story, with a quick caption of missing this sweet girl, he quickly uploads it.

APPARENTLY TOM CAN READ OUR THOUGHTS?!

What do you mean?x

Cute Tessa content just uploaded to his Insta story. Apparently he’s away from her and missing her 😭

She’s just too pure for this world x

I needed that right now.

Something wrong?x

Work project might kill me. 

It’s due by the end of the day, but photoshop keeps crashing and I might scream. 

I’m sorry love x

I’m restarting my computer for the third time today and it’s not even noon yet. 

You know he’s English so the love thing shouldn’t throw you. Plus he’s a boy on the internet. But for some reason, it feels like something more. So instead of saying anything about it, you just keep messaging like nothing happened. A small part of you is hoping that by not mentioning it though, it might happen again.

Tom spends the rest of the day messaging you when he can. He knows you’re working on a project that has a deadline, so he doesn’t expect you to be at his beck and call. But when he gets a notification at almost eleven o’clock at night his time from your blog, he hopes it’s one of your personal posts to make him laugh. He isn’t let down.

THERE WAS A MOTH FLYING AROUND MY ROOM AND NOW I CAN’T FIND IT IM GOING TO DIE. IF IT EATS ME YOU ALL KNOW WHO THE MURDER IS

#me #killer moth #save me #if i die i leave everything to tom

He can’t help but send you an ask about it.

Tomholland2013 asked: You know moths don’t eat people right?x

Y/T/B: You didn’t see how big this one was. This one was definitely of the people eating variety with how big it was. And now it’s hiding in my room waiting for me to close my eyes and then it will sneak up on me, kill me, and devour me whole. 🖕

Tom laughs at your reply before sending another ask. Sure he could do this in your message thread, but he’s betting the asks are helping distract you from the moth.

Tomholland2013 asked: That’s a quiet defensive response from someone who is going to be eaten. If you want me to come save you from a killer moth, maybe be a bit nicer.x

Y/T/B: If you will race over here, find this moth, and release it into the wild so that it can’t kill me in my sleep I will make you as many Tom edits as it takes in gratitude. 👏😘Just come save me please. I swear I can hear him laughing in the distance. 

Tomholland2013 asked: If he’s laughing in the distance, I’ll be over to take care of him. No one gets to disrespect my favorite blog and get away with it.x

Y/T/B: Thanks darling. I really, really appreciate it. Now I must be off to hunt this moth, before he hunts me.

Tags: @serendipitous-amor​ @im-still-tryin-to-find-it​ @tomfiction4​ @im-deeply-shallow

[theastrophilearchitect]

Falcon and the Winter Soldier series commentary.

It’s currently 07.28am on Friday the 19th of March 2021, and the first episode of Falcon and the Winter Soldier is now on Disney+. For WandaVision, I re-watched the series for a review when it ended, but for this one, I’m going to go as I watch them the first time.

This isn’t going to be run-down, or a play-by-play, just any comments I happen to have. I’ll give some context, but this will generally make more sense if you’ve seen the show.

I’ve actually avoided most of the trailers for this show, but it follows Sam Wilson (AKA Falcon, played by Anthony Mackie) and Bucky Barnes (AKA the Winter Soldier, played by Sebastian Stan) after the events of Avengers: Endgame, after the (death?) of Steve Rogers, the original Captain America, who passed the title to Sam.

Let’s get into it.

Episode One: ‘New World Order’ I hate this title, and I’m scared. This episode is 49 minutes long, and I’m expecting the series in total to have roughly the same six-hour runtime of WandaVision, but that’ll be in fewer episodes because WandaVision started in a comedy format, with shorter episodes. Let’s go.

Cue the Marvel intro.

No, no, no, no, no, no. He’s dressing for a funeral. Fuck.

Nope, no funeral. At least not right now.

And he jumps out of a plane with no parachute. Steve Rogers who? I mean, at least he has wings. Steve’s just an idiot. Where’s Bucky?

Okay, this plane break-in is a really fun sequence. Yes, shields, thank you. Sam’s already smarter than Steve. He’s rescuing a Captain Vascant, and I honestly thought he said Captain Croissant. It would make sense. The people on the plane French.

This sequence, flying through a gorge, really reminds me of a game I used to play at a bowling alley arcade. These damn swerves. They’re so satisfying.

I can’t get the WandaVision episode three theme song out of my head. This show was meant to come before WandaVision, but I saw a chronology timeline that claimed this takes place after it.

I’m really not into huge action sequences--I find them to be the most boring part of any superhero movie, but this is a good one. It is, however, ten minutes long. Still no Bucky.

Ahhhh Rhodey!!! Rhodey’s here! (From Iron Man, but then he’s also in the Avengers movies, so you should probably know who he is.)

Oh, Sam’s giving the shield to the Smithsonian. 

Excuse me, he chose not to become Captain America??

Welp, there’s Bucky. Being murderous. EXcuse me??? What did he just say???? Fuck off. I thought the Wakandans helped him :(

Never mind. It was a nightmare. So he’s meant to be being a law-abiding citizen, and failing. He’s in therapy, and she is calling him out. 

Bucky just asked out a girl, and it feels so wrong, but that just shows how immersed I am in the #stucky ship.

So Sam’s widowed sister is trying to get a bank loan, and they’re real idiots. The bankers, that is. They’re having a go because Sam didn’t have any income in the last five years--gee, I wonder why.

Sam just got a text from Torres--a member of the air force, who he’s working with--and the text ends with ‘#important’. I get the feeling the writers don’t understand no-one uses hashtags in texts.

Newsflash, and the mayor’s announcing a new Captain America, and it’s...  show me the face. Show me the face. Who the fuck is that?

Alright, well, and cut to seven minute-long credits. Well. I have questions. A good episode, though nothing exceptional. And just like the early WandaVision episode, no credit scene.

Episode Two: ‘The Star-Spangled Man’ Released March 26th, this episode also has a 49 minute runtime, and the title is clearly referencing the ‘new’ Captain America. I say ‘new’ because even though I don’t know who this guy is yet, fuck him. Anyway.

There’s a guy in some kind of locker room, who I’m assuming is the new Captain America, who was apparently a football player. I just want to know if they pulled more super soldier shit. The captions say his name is John Walker.

Cue the Marvel logo... with some weird-ass music. Okay, it’s just a... dancing marching band, at the Captain America presentation. They’ve given him a new symbol, like an A turned into a five-pointed star. Apparently he’s the first person to ever receive three Medals of Honour, run missions in counterterrorism and hostage rescue, and he has some fancy-ass physicality. This guy seems alright, but I’m just mad they didn’t tell Sam what they were going to do with the shield. At least he likes Steve.

God, Steve would be pissed. Ay, Sam and Bucky are finally in a scene together!

My favourite trope: ‘I’m doing this with you!’ ‘No, you’re not.’ [cut to them doing the thing together]. 

Bucky followed Sam on a mission to Munich, Germany, to do with the Flag Smashers, a free border organisation mentioned in episode one. They’re just glaring at each other, and I love it. God, I love their dynamic.

This has ‘What’s our plan of attack?’ ‘The plan? Attack’ vibes. And Bucky just jumped out of a fucking plane without a parachute. Steve Rogers who? (I think I made that joke in my episode one commentary about Sam. They take so much after their father.)

Sam made a joke about Bucky becoming White Panther after Wakanda, and apparently he’s now the White Wolf. I’m pretty sure that’s a comic book alias, but this is its first MCU mention.

OOOOh, the action sequences in this are fun. And there’s a kid in the back of the bad guys’ truck. Why’s she smiling?

And she just blasted Bucky out onto the road. Wonderful. She’s also a Flag Smasher. Yes, Sam! Yes!

Maybe don’t drive your lorries side by side in the same direction on a two-way road? Just a thought?

And roll in John Walker. You’d think they’d be having a harder time staying stood on lorries travelling this fast.

And Captain America has a fucking gun. No. No. Steve just used a frisbee! Don’t do this, Walker, you bastard.

So apparently the Flag Smashers are all super soldiers. That doesn’t bode well. I don’t think Walker is, though. 

And this suit does nothing for his ass. It just isn’t America’s.

So they all rolled off the lorries, and the bad guys got away. Walker rolled up beside Sam and Bucky in a military vehicle, and they’re just refusing to get in.

‘Just ‘cause you carry that shield, it doesn’t mean you’re Captain America.’ THANK YOU.

‘You ever jump on top of a grenade?’ ‘Yeah. Actually, I have. Four times.’ You fucking what? Why? That doesn’t sound like Steve’s dumbassery, this sounds like genuine heroics. Disgusting. 

And they finally got in the car. So the Flag Smashers want to put things back how they were during the Blip.

‘Does [Bucky] always just stare like that?’ ‘You get used to it.’ !!!!!!

‘I’m not trying to replace Steve.’ Really? Because it sounds like you are.

I hate that the subtitles are calling him Captain America. He seems like a fine guy, but really?

So apparently there was a super soldier in the Korean War. 

Great. Police racism, demanding to see Sam’s ID but not Bucky’s, until the other policeman points out they’re Avengers. Wonderful. And they’re now arresting Bucky for missing his court-mandated therapy.

Also, I didn’t even acknowledge the fact Bucky got a haircut somewhere before the show stars. I was conscious of it, but I didn’t even think to say anything because I’m just used to seeing Sebastian Stan with short hair.

So John Walker got Bucky out. And Bucky’s therapist is forcing him and Sam into a session. HA, she’s giving them couple’s therapy. This is intense. She made them do some soul-gazing shit, and they started having a staring contest!

AND they’re going to go see Zemo, the villain from Captain America: Civil War. I knew he was in this show, but they’re just going to willingly have a conversation with him?? And again, no credit scene.

This was definitely a better episode than the first--the first honestly felt kind of unnecessary, and I think they just wanted to put the new Captain America at the end of an episode to build tension as a cliffhanger, which is a little annoying but does make sense.

I’m going to be constantly comparing this show to WandaVision, but it’s a lot less mysterious than WandaVision. Mystery isn’t necessary for a show to be good; there’s just a stark contrast between the two shows in that aspect.

Episode Three: ‘Power Broker’ Released April 2nd, this episode has a 53 minute runtime. We open with an ad for the Global Repatriation Council, apparently an organisation focused on helping those who were Blipped reintegrate, though I’m really confused what this has to do with anything--it’s not like the ads in WandaVision, because this is the first we’ve had. I guess the GRC must show up in this episode, but I don’t really think the ad is necessary.

I don’t want to give a rundown of this show like I did with WandaVision, so I’m just going to mention which scene each comment is for.

They’ve really given Zemo an atmospheric cell. Also, this bitch, saying the words that turned Bucky into the Winter Soldier. This bitch and his audacity. Now he’s sorry? That’s hilarious.

Why in fuck’s name does Bucky want to break Zemo out??? I’m really with Sam on this one. What is Bucky’s point here?

And now they’re breaking him out. Wonderful. Nope, never mind, just a... imagining? Nope. He did it. Zemo’s out. This seems like a bad idea. He’s going to betray them. That’s just how stories work.

Ah. Snake gut cocktail. Lovely.

I hate that Bucky’s pretending to still be the Winter Soldier. Hate it. And now Zemo’s trying to sell him. No. Good writing, sure, but still.

Love the ‘kill them’, then gets shot. Love it.

SHARON! YAY! I don’t even like Sharon that much, mostly because her romance with Steve was weird, but yay!

Sam: *takes off his shirt* Sharon: Much better.

‘The bionic staring machine.’ I mean, Sam’s not wrong, but still.

I can’t tell if this song, where they’re walking through this place with pistols, is just background music or actually playing, but I love it. Okay, it’s real. It has Umbrella Academy vibes.

Nope. Zemo has his mask. I don’t trust this. There he goes. Wait. He didn’t betray them? Why? It might just be poor comprehension, but I’m confused.

‘You’re not gonna move your seat up, are you?’ ‘No.’ Bucky gets his revenge on Sam. 

So a woman showed up at the end, head shaven, and, according to the subtitles, spoke Wakandan. I think it’s the woman who came with T’Challa in Captain America: Civil War, but i’m not completely sure.

But, hey, that’s episode 3. I didn’t enjoy it as much as episode 2, because, mad as I am they replaced Cap, so far, I quite like John Walker’s character, and I think it’s a really interesting plot line. This was still better than episode 1 though, which just felt like set-up.

Episode Four: ‘The Whole World is Watching’ This episode was released April 9th, this morning, with a 53-minute runtime, and I’ve already been told John Walker does something unredeemable in this episode, so I’m scared. Let’s go.

And we have an explosion, kids. It’s a previously on, never mind. I don’t remember the explosion, but it’s fine. Okay, yeah, the woman at the end of the last episode was the woman from Civil War. I need to look up her name.

Oh, yep, her name’s Ayo, and she’s a member of the Dora Milaje. Lovely.

Jesus, we’re in Wakanda. Why am I scared? Six years ago. Bucky in Wakanda. Right. With Ayo. I hate seeing him cry, God. 

Back to present day. Of course she’s mad about Zemo. I’d also be mad about Zemo. I am mad about Zemo. She gave him a time limit--I think time limits are fun. Build tension. They’re great.

God, Zemo walking down a street full of children singing Baa Baa Black Sheep is so... 80s. Maybe don’t offer sweets to children you don’t know?? Like?? I mean his tactic’s working. Unlike Sam’s. This bitch just turned the children against Sam and Bucky. As you do.

And they have more serum. I’m going to be honest, the supersoldier thing’s pretty elitist, unless they intend to make everyone in the world a supersoldier. I can’t help but see a capitalist versus socialist metaphor here, but then I find those in literally everything.

I do like Walker’s character--he’s entertaining--but as a person, no thank you. I also really like the fact Karli Morgenthau is British, but not quite in the way most British characters in US shows. I fit the stereotypical accent, but you don’t really see other English accents in American shows.

Walker you little bitch, you said he had ten minutes. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Don’t guilt-trip Bucky, you shit. And here we go.

I hate the fact this episode mean’s we’re already 2/3 of the way through the series.

And Zemo’s absolutely going to take that serum. Nope. He’s smashing it. I mean, that’s one way. Not the way I expected, but still. And he missed one. Walker’s going to take it. I know he is. And he pocketed it. Yep.

Okay, I would absolutely take the serum if I were offered it. I bet Walker’s going to take it at the end of the episode, though. Who has a bow??

And he’s the Dora Milaje. Pff, it wasn’t even an arrow; it was a spear.  I’m with the Dora Milaje in this scenario, absolutely. Love that Sam and Bucky are just stood there, doing nothing. What’s the point of Lemar Hoskins? He doesn’t do anything.

Don’t unbolt Bucky’s arm, you ass. 

And Zemo’s gone. Now, who could’ve seen that coming? 

Why the hell is Karli calling Sam’s sister??

Sharon put a tracker on Walker? Smart. 

Well, we found Zemo. God, I miss Steve. 

Did Karli just kill Hoskins??

And Walker just smashed this guy’s head in. Lovely. What a Captain America thing to do.  Ooh, the bloody shield’s kind of a vibe though.

So that’s episode 4, and oh my lord.

Episode Five: ‘Truth’ 16th April, and... crap, it’s 07.26, of course, the episode’s not up yet. Will return in like half an hour.

Okay, it’s past 8am, and the episode is...up. Lovely. It’s 60 minutes long, and I’m terrified, because someone told me about a theory that Bucky was going to die in this episode.

Lemar does seem to be dead, which is disappointing, because that would mean his entire character existed solely to motivate Walker to kill that guy, which isn’t very satisfying. Lemar Hoskins is a comic book character though, so who knows.

I mean. At least murderous Captain America is in anguish. He deserves it. Serious credit to the actor, by the way. Wyatt Russell got a lot of hate about his character, and I get why people don’t like the character, but he’s hugely interesting and Russell plays him so well.

So Lemar Hoskins is not dead. Doesn’t exactly put Walker in a good light. He’s obviously not going to give Sam the shield, for God’s sake.

Bucky just looks amazing with the short hair and the blue coat. It’s great. Love it.

And now Walker’s trying to kill Sam. Great idea. Did he take the serum already? Because that would explain why he’s become so brutish. Hold up. No, I don’t think he has. But who knows. Clearly not me.

Yep, trying to choke Sam. Very Captain America of you, John. And he tried to smash his head in. Thank God for Bucky. And Sam got the shield. Good.

There’s cat hair everywhere around me right now.

Well, that intro was very, very fun.

Did Sam just give up the wings...? Why...?

Glad, at least, that Walker’s no longer Captain America. Yep, yelling in a courthouse. Great way to warrant lenience. It’s the good-man-perfect-soldier balance again: Steve was always a good man first, where Walker’s first a soldier.

So Walker did take the serum. That makes sense. It exaggerates personal qualities, so Walker’s anger and... vengefulness.

Is Bucky actually going to kill Zemo? No. No, the gun’s empty. I’m not sure I get why Bucky would take out the bullets intentionally, but alright. 

Hope Zemo has fun with the Dora Milaje.

This storyline with Sam’s sister is so wholesome compared to the rest of the show. So Bucky brought Sam something in a case, and I just want to know what is is. He said is was a gift from the Wakandans, so obviously tech of some kind. New wings?

I’m really confused as to whether or not Lemar Hoskins is dead. He seemed dead. Walker thought he was dead. Then this woman said he isn’t, but now Walker’s going to his family, so... yeah, I guess he is, and I just have really poor comprehension. 

Sam’s nephews playing with the shield is adorable.

Aww, Sam’s learning how to use the frisbee. I know it’s more intense than that, but it’s literally a frisbee.

Soooooo the Flag Smashers are attacking the UN. As you do. 

Credit scene! Credit scene! Walker’s hammering, making... something. A shield. Great. Wonderful. love how he thinks he can make a better one than Tony Stark. Sure. And that, my friends, wraps up episode 5, and marks us as 83% of the way through the show.

Episode Six: ‘One World, One People’ It’s April 23rd. And the last episode is up. Just going to finish the chapter of my audiobook first.

This title is very exciting, and the episode’s 51 minutes long. Let’s go.

Honestly, I’m not huge on shows this intense, but I am enjoying this, which I think is because a) I know the characters, and b) it’s only one episode a week.

Oh, hell yes. Falcon America. Honestly, costume looks kinda dumb. Awww, the subtitles are calling him Captain America. 

This show hasn’t been nearly as exciting as WandaVision, because it lacks the mystery aspect. It’s definitely more for Marvel fans than the other series. What’s next? Loki? Yeah. I just googled it, and Marvel’s really putting out a lot this year. Which is probably because we had a year of nothing, but we’re getting four shows (WandaVision, FatWS, Loki, Hawkeye--which doesn’t yet have a definitive release) and four movies (Black Widow, Shang-Chi, the Eternals, and Spider-Man 3, which I wasn’t expecting until at least next year).

I feel like I just don’t have much to say about what’s happening, because it’s basically just a battle, which I’m never hugely interested in. I’m not really an action person.

Oh, and apparently Ms. Marvel’s this year, too.

Going through a list, clearly, and you mean to tell me we’re not getting Guardians Vol. 3 until six years after Vol. 2??

And fuck. Hey, Walker. In a costume that isn’t yours. Christ, Karli. 

Honestly, I’m really fidgety because all I want to do is watch Shadow and Bone, because the entire series has been out for nine damn hours--I could’ve watched it all by now--but I’ve been busy, and I promised I’d watch it with somebody, and godddd.

We got a far-out shot of Walker dressed as Captain America just then, and I honestly thought it was Nebula. Anyway, offended that Walker dares to think he gets to wear that costume and follow up Steve Dumbass Rogers. Uh-uh.

GOD I just want to watch Shadow and Bone. Christ. I’m desperate. it’s on my Instagram, it’s on Tumblr... that’s it, but oh my God. I so hope it’s good. If it’s bad I’ll literally be distraught.

Oh, thank god. It has 94% on Rotten Tomatoes. Good.

No. Christ. God, I just want to watch it.

Screw it. I’ll finish this episode tomorrow. Byeeee.

Okay, I’m back. I watched all of Shadow and Bone. Let’s keep going!

So I did get about halfway through, yesterday, bar credits, so there’s that.

I love the symbolism of the new Falon/Captain America costume, but that doesn’t stop it from being really, really ugly.

Appreciate the speech about society being screwed up.

Why are they showing the prisoner transport? Something’s clearly going to happen. Did they just blow up the prison van??

And Walker got a new costume. That’s concerning. Give me the name, honey. US Agent. That’s bullshit.

So it is apparently his actual comic book name, but it’s still terrible.

And it said Captain America and the Winter Soldierrrrrrrr. Which is already a film. I mean, the film doesn’t have ‘and’ in it, but still. Anyway. Positive symbolism. Shall we check for a credits scene?

They’re pardoning Sharon. Huh. Nice.

There’s something ominous at play here. Great, so Sharon really is a villain here. That’s fun. 

And that, my friends, wraps up Falcon and the Winter Soldier. I didn’t enjoy it as much as WandaVision, partly for the mystery, but mostly for sheer tone--this was much more your typical darker action film, where WandaVision was more light-hearted, even towards the end.

Regardless, this was a really interesting addition to the MCU, though may not be worth it if you’re not already invested.

[girls-scenarios]

The Statement

Idol: Wonyoung (IZ*ONE)

Prompt: Izone Wonyoung and idol reader is at isac together and while idol reader is interacting with fans, fans notice that the reader and wonyoung have matching rings and everyones like "tHeYRe dAtInG ThEY hAvE tO bE dAtInG HhHhHHhHHhH" and in the end the couple admits theyre dating uwu thank youuuuuu

Writer: Admin Kiwi

A/N: I am seriously SO excited that we are FINALLY getting an IZ*ONE comeback! I was so sad when my pre-order was canceled back in November, it was the one refund I never wanted to get, but finally! Our girls are back! I can’t wait to see them again, I’ve missed them so much. Anyway, I hope you all enjoy, and please support IZ*ONE and their comeback!

You hadn’t really been thinking when you slipped the ring on your finger that fateful morning. It was more out of habit than anything else as you sleepily got ready for the long, taxing day ahead of you. The Idol Star Athletics Championships were never easy. You’d been training for weeks leading up to the championships, before and after your normal promotions, so you were to tired to think about what the simple ring on your finger could ignite.

“Don’t be too obvious when you interact with IZ*ONE,” your leader warned you as you got in the car, sending you a look. “In fact, probably don’t interact with Wonyoung at all in front of the cameras.”

“Yeah, yeah.” You were pretty used to this by now, so you yawned and leaned your head against the window, pulling out your phone to send a text to your girlfriend. “I’ve got it. Don’t worry.”

-Good morning and good luck! I’m sure you’ll be amazing as always

Wonyoung’s response was almost automatic.

-Good morning and good luck to you too! I can’t wait to see you!

You smiled at the long list of emojis she added to the end of her text, then laughed softly when she sent you a selfie of her and a sleeping Yena, the other girl’s mouth half open.

-She’s gonna kill you for that

-But it was just too funny kekeke

-See you soon! Maybe lol

Your manager started to talk, probably saying something important, so you put away your phone and tuned in, trying your best not to fall asleep.

-

The building was crowded, teeming with life despite the early hour, and as your group shoved through the back area, you caught sight of IZ*ONE walking towards you. A smile spread across your face and you ignored the snickers from your group as Wonyoung smiled brightly back, waving her long arms at you in greeting.

There wasn’t enough time for a proper talk in the rush of preparations. As the two groups politely (and a little awkwardly) greeted each other, you quickly reached out, catching Wonyoung’s hand and laughing as she blew you a kiss. Thankfully, there were no cameras back here before the competitions started, so this wasn’t against the rules. You touched the familiar ring on her finger affectionately before letting go, turning back to watch her pass.

“Good luck!” She called, waving again, and you waved back.

“You too, see you later!”

“You’re so whipped,” one of your group members said with a laugh as they turned back to look at you, and you shrugged, used to the teasing by now.

“Okay, but I’m dating Wonyoung. Of course I’m whipped for her.” Energized by her touch, you moved forward with a quick step, throwing an arm around your member’s shoulder. “Let’s get ready to win some competitions!”

-

Most of the day went by uneventfully. As soon as the cameras were on, you avoided IZ*ONE and pretended you were much more interested in the competitions and fans. All ISAC recordings went by mostly the same, so you knew the script. You had all of your best reactions in store, and you knew exactly what groups to interact with to make your fans scream the most. You’d also trained enough to be confident in winning your competitions, and even if you lost, it wasn’t that big of a deal to you.

This was just ISAC. It didn’t matter that much.

Eventually, you found yourself bored enough to leave the circle of your group and wander over to the area where your fans were seated. As you approached, they began to cheer, and you grinned, waving your arms excitedly and jumping to make them cheer louder.

You would just entertain yourself this way for a while.

-

The night was almost done when your leader let out a surprised hiss and caught your wrist.

“I thought I told you not to even look at IZ*ONE,” they whispered, pulling you aside, and you raised your eyebrows, confused.

“What do you mean? I haven’t done anything.”

“Look what’s trending.” Your leader pushed their phone into your face and your mouth dropped slightly, your heart stopping.

There on the screen was your name, trending right there beside Wonyoung’s name and the names of your groups. But why? You were sure you hadn’t done anything. Had someone who worked there exposed the two of you?

“What’s going on?” You asked, feeling a little lightheaded.

“That’s what I wanted to know.”

Hesitantly, you clicked on one of the hashtags. Then your heart sank. It wasn’t an employee. It was fan photos of the matching rings.

“Well, shit,” one of your group members said, peering over your shoulder and wincing. “That’s going to be hard to dispute. Those are obviously couple rings.”

“Why would you wear a couple ring to an event like this?” Your leader said, looking a little pale, and you shuddered, shaking your head.

You really weren’t looking forward to what your manager was going to say.

-

Surprisingly. your manager actually didn’t seem too upset. Instead, he just sighed and ran his hand over his face like he’d seen this coming for ages.

“Figure it out,” he told you, “the company is breathing down my neck because they want to make a statement.”

“Aren’t they going to deny it?”

“I don’t know. They said they wanted to consult you. Plus, they’re also talking to IZ*ONE’s company about the issue.”

“Oh. I guess I’ll call Wonyoung tonight then.” You couldn’t help but feel some anxiety as your manager nodded and walked away, leaving you alone to walk into the dorm. Your members decided that the teasing could wait for the night and didn’t say anything as you headed for your room. Your roommate even settled down onto the couch, allowing you some much-appreciated privacy.

Wonyoung answered the phone after the first ring.

“I’m guessing you saw the news,” she said, her voice shaking slightly. “The fans saw our rings.”

“I saw,” you said, falling back onto your bed. “I didn’t even think before I put the ring on this morning.”

“Me neither. I didn’t think fans would notice.” She sighed and you could hear the nerves in her voice. “My manager is upset with me. But the company said it’s up to me if we want to reveal it or deny it.”

“It would be hard to deny it,” you admitted, feeling horrible. You wished there was something you could do to make her feel better. “My company said the same thing though.... What should we do?”

“I don’t know. I’m really nervous.” She sniffled on the other end of the line. “I’m too afraid to check the trending tags to see what people are saying.”

“I know. If you want, then we can deny it,” you assured her. “I’m not going to make you do anything you don’t want to do.”

For a moment, the both of you were quiet. Then she sighed. “I don’t think anyone would believe us if we denied it. And plus, I love you. I don’t want to deny that.”

Your heart swelled with affection and you bit your lip, conflicted. “I love you too. But I don’t want to do anything that might hurt you.”

“Yeah.... How do you think our fans are reacting?”

“I don’t know. I’ve been too nervous to check too. But what I saw when we looked at the hashtag earlier was all positive. And I know that people have been more accepting of idol relationships recently.”

“You’re right....”

Swallowing, you made your decision. You loved Wonyoung, and you didn’t want to hide it. And your real fans would understand that. “I’m okay with revealing it if you are. I love you so much, Wonyoung. And I’m willing to take responsibility for whatever happens in the future. I don’t want to be forced to leave your side.”

“I love you too,” she said, a slow smile showing through in her voice. “I’m scared, but I think I’m ready. Since I have you, I’m ready. Can we see each other soon? Please?”

“As soon as possible,” you promised, smiling again. “I can never stay away from you, you know that.”

She giggled. “I know. So should I tell my company to confirm it?”

“Yes.” You were confident in your decision. “I’ll tell my company too. And whatever happens we’ll brave together.” You were nervous, yes. But it would hurt worse to pretend. You were ready to face the truth, and so was she.

“Now that we have that settled, I just want to talk to you. You did amazing today,” she said, and the pressure lifted off your shoulders. You smiled and settled into your bed, feeling much more at ease. You couldn’t have asked for a better girlfriend.

“So did you. You’re always amazing, though. My wonderful, brave, amazing girlfriend.”

[heartshapedcreaturefromcriptoon]

Today in ‘Hazbin Hypocriticals’:  If you put the word “anti” in front of a tag name for a show and expect the fans not to get angry when you @ them... It was never “your” tag to begin with.

I’ll stop when “antis” stop bullying people for no reason.

 You’ve failed to keep out of the Hazbin Hotel tag already on literally any social media platform and now you wanna bully people and claim that’s it’s YOUR tag? No. That’s not how this works.

https://heartshapedcreaturefromcriptoon.tumblr.com/post/615126231163322368/stop-putting-anti-neutral-because-you-know-not 

https://heartshapedcreaturefromcriptoon.tumblr.com/post/620770927062466560/id-twotrucksonadate-started-following-you-so-i

https://heartshapedcreaturefromcriptoon.tumblr.com/post/620844266247323648/okay-so-not-only-did-that-one-person-with-a-neil

https://heartshapedcreaturefromcriptoon.tumblr.com/post/621654012301869056/insert-un-captured-shot-of-the-quip-i-had-made 

https://heartshapedcreaturefromcriptoon.tumblr.com/post/621693252094001152/inky-the-alien-im-not-sorry-that-i-assumed-you

https://heartshapedcreaturefromcriptoon.tumblr.com/post/621922255803465728/actual-antis-with-edited-hazbin-hotel-icons-are

https://heartshapedcreaturefromcriptoon.tumblr.com/post/622303703384408064/so-today-in-hazbin-hypocriticals-being

https://heartshapedcreaturefromcriptoon.tumblr.com/post/622320483106439169/the-main-blog-of-the-critical-who-made-that

https://heartshapedcreaturefromcriptoon.tumblr.com/post/622406773952905216/hazmat-stans-can-you-fucking-stop-with-the-it

Keep your own fucking cross tagging that you started under control and stop bullying and baiting people to “interact” with you and then bullying them for that too when they try and then maybe, one day, I won’t. The Hazbin Hotel tag is NOT your tag just because you put the word “Anti” in front of it.  The term “anti” shouldn’t even exist in fandom spaces to begin with, nether really, should the use of Pride Flags unless it’s an extension of an expression of gender/sexuality/marginalized status for ones own comfort: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVJNOKLBylg

What Anti’s do is just an extension of applying the use of a political language that they don’t understand to fandom spaces where they usually get to be the bigoted majority anyway and then now this particular one is telling me that I’m not allowed to ironically use a slam variation of my own tag that they use to bully me anyway just because they put the word “ANTI” in front of it and try to tell me it’s their tag now even though people like this KNOW that that they have a million other more hurtful. harmful, variations of slam tags they could use to bully me that they KNOW I’d never use AND THEN THESE SAME PEOPLE THINK THEY’RE ENTITLED ENOUGH TO FOLLOW ME AND BLOCK ME WITHOUT WARNING ONCE THEY “REALIZE”, COME INTO MY IMs, AND COME ONTO MY POSTS TRYING TO TELL ME HOW TO FEEL ABOUT HASHTAGS THAT THEY USE TO MOCK AND BULLY ME, because the modified tag of this show, that they use to mock and bully the fans of this show, is “theirs” and now this one is “annoyed” that I’m using something they made to mock me, to mock them right back.

Good to know it’s working, bud.

Good to know how much you don’t care about how you’re harming disabled people unless it’s convenient for you ether.

For context (Full post that they added their unwarranted commentary to): https://heartshapedcreaturefromcriptoon.tumblr.com/post/618564495669886978/first-screencap-a-twitter-user-making-fun-of

You’re only adding fuel to the fire of my Lame Flame.

@zeds-shipping-safehaven�� They put your post on their blog with those tags so I think it’s only fair you see this too. ^ ^’

But yeah, so it’s like ... So far I’ve been blocked by:

1. An anti with an Ace Attorney Icon

2. A “SU Critical” with a Lemon Demon URL who only ever made posts in defense of Lars and literally absolutely nothing else.

3. (And this one I blocked by myself) A straight up Hazbin Hotel Hate Blog with an “anti” URL, whose icon was an edited or rather “fixed” ( in their own words) picture of the character of Mimzy, and this anti got angry with me in the end because I neglected to use the proper third person pronoun that was not provided out of the two I had used that were provided and were correct and she tried to call me out for misgendering her I guess on a second blog that this person felt the need to point out to me was her main blog in the first place, because she was upset that I accidentally made the mistake of calling them a girl when they used an edited picture of cartoon a flapper girl from a show they claimed to hate as their icon and they presented their cartoon avatar on their main blog that I also had no way way of knowing about unless I checked, as feminine, and only she/her/they/them pronouns were listed there too and I had no way of knowing they weren’t actually comfortable being called a girl or even if they were a girl to start with because non-binary women exist but I didn’t have the time to ask them about all that because she was too busy telling me how much she hated the cartoon that I love and for some reason expecting me to engage in a civil , “mature” (her words not mine) conversation with her about this and then I blocked her for being obnoxious and then she contacted me on her main, that she felt the need to specify was her main, just to make a passive comment inferring I had misgendered her and I had blocked her then there too, for being obnoxious.

And fancy that, all three of you had “interacted” with me first.

I think that this just goes to show that you people have no sense of taste or tact.

And I guess I’m just to much of a stubborn bisexual of the crippled variety to keep my mouth shut when an “anti” comes onto my posts and starts meme-ing off to me about how apparently I’m not allowed to hi-jack a tag based on the (most basic) slam-variation of a show title that I love, that you coined to use specifically as an excuse to talk shit about this show that I love and bully the creator and the fandom because it’s “yours”, when I’m just trying to spread awareness of the dangerous ableism and hypocrisy that anti’s have on this post that you decided to meme off on that you’ve just proven that you do not care about unless it effects you.

Meanwhile, there’s a reason that the post you meme-d off on has had 58 notes so far and most of them are likes.

Nice try, bud.

You are not allowed or entitled to make space just to bully and harass people who are trying to enjoy a piece of media just because you put the word “anti” at the front of the original title of that media .

 If I’m really annoying you that much you know that you can just go, somewhere else like, say into...One of the a million other insult hashtags that you coined that are more blatant if you think that I’m too much hell or radio active to be around... And since you probably don’t get the jokes, I’m saying you should just go slip into your hazmat suit if you feel that much entitled to a safe space.

Oh wait, no!

As I was told by tumblr user “hazshithotel”, during a one-sided “interaction” that I did not ask for, “that’s just absurd”.

Maybe it’s absurd because it’s bullying!

As for myself I’m sorry for not captioning this, I’ve been insulted enough and I haven’t showered (Oh no, I’m currently befitting of a stereotype in a game of “anti” bingo tag, how ever do I live like this?!) and I just started my monthly and I’m hungry and I haven’t eaten all day because I’ve been writing this!

You have a certain ( I’m assuming, otherwise they’d have compassion)    abled-bodied bi sexual ace attorney to thank for their ableism and why I’m posting in the anti tags again, directly this time!

After this it’s back to watching Dragula.

[theuniversitychallengereview]

UC 49.28-32, QF Mega-Blog

What better thing to do, when forced to stay at home during the outbreak of a global virus that threatens not only millions of peoples lives but the very fabric of society as we know it, than catch up on watching and writing about the quiz show whose previous four episodes you had missed for various reasons, all of which seem frivolous following the outbreak of a global virus that threatens not only millions of peoples lives but the very fabric of society as we know it. Also, I kept seeing that Twitter meme about Shakespeare having written King Lear during the plague quarantine and fancied getting involved.

Its also the only sport of any kind that can be found on TV for love nor money (apart from the Turkish Superlig, which for some reason thinks itself immune). Maybe the Premier League should try out pre-recording like the Challenge, for precisely this kind of situation. Just get Salah, De Bruyne and all the boys together for a few kick-abouts, film a few goals and slide tackles and all that, and keep the footage for a rainy day. Or send a camera round Serena Williams’ gaff, log a couple of serves and forehands, cut it together - BOOM, there’s your Wimbledon final if Greta decides tennis is too carbon-heavy.

All I’m saying is, you’ve never seen University Challenge postponed due to a  global virus that threatens not only millions of peoples lives but the very fabric of society as we know it (although, as I write this I’m realising that the recordings of next years show will probably be delayed. Shit)

Episode 28 - Courtauld vs Imperial

Whenever I’ve not written one of these for a while it takes me a while to figure out what the heck it is I’m doing. Like, what do I usually write about? How have I managed to put out 118 of these? Do you reckon Shakespeare felt the same way when he was between plays - would he sit down with his quill and parchment and wonder aloud, ‘What the fuck is an iambic pentameter and how do I find one?’ (If I 1: knew the answer to that question; and 2: could be bothered, then I would have written that question in iambic pentameter, but you should know by now you’re dealing with one lazy blogger).

Anyway, Imperial had blazed aside all before them in the opening two rounds, thanks in no small part to the efforts of mercurial star Brandon, whose laconic style has drawn unfair criticism as arrogance. Thats how it always goes with the social media juries though - if a contestant displays any level of confidence above the bare minimum then they’re too big for their boots. But then if they grin and seem really happy when they get an answer that’ll probably annoy some people too. Almost as if they can’t win and there’s no point playing this game to appease the kind of people who get annoyed at kids on quiz shows.

The Courtauld side fall into the grinning category. They all four of them seem genuinely delighted to be on the show, and even more delighted that they managed to win two matches and make it to the quarter finals - their second round defeat of Glasgow a particularly impressive performance.

Glasgow were a good side, but Imperial are a different gravy, and Courtauld, after a neg on the opening question, seem like rabbits in the headlights (when they should have been at home, the whole country’s on lockdown, dammit Peter!) as Brandon sycthes down question after question, fearful to fall further below zero in case they can’t make it back up again.

For a while it looked as though that might end up being the case, as Imperial pranced into a hundred point lead within six questions, but Haigh finally stopped the rot, and Courtauld would add some respectability over the rest of the episode. In truth, it was clear from that point onwards that the race had been run, and Brandon seemed to relax from thereon out, and his teammates picked up the slack, though that seems like doing them a disservice, as they all seem very accomplished in their own right.

Final Score: Courtauld 75 - 240 Imperial

Episode 29 - Trinity, Cam vs Corpus Christi, Cam

Right, on to the next, and for Ep 29 we had our first Cam-Cam slugfest of the series. There had already been plenty of Ox-Cam derbies of course, you can’t move for them half the time, but no inter-collegiate battles thus far. Whoever won would become the first side to reach the semi-finals, with Trinity having beaten Manchester and Corpus Wolfson in their respective opening quarter final clashes.

Stewart, who doesn’t look like he would be out of place in the Byzantine Empire, gets Corpus off the mark with ‘Byzantine’ (I have basically no idea what this comparison would actually mean, or if it is in fact a sick burn, but I feel like he has an old-timey medieval look about him and felt like this should not go unaddressed. Like, he wouldn’t look strange wearing a tunic, would he?).

Russell and Wang increased the lead before Hughes got Trinity into the game with what looked like a semi-guess on a maths-y starter. Paxman, who clearly enjoys toying with the Corpus captain, then gets Wang for the second match in a row with a double serving of Boomer sarcasm. When Wang rather dejectedly says, ‘Its not Isaac Asimov, is it? No’, the quizmaster further interrogates him as to whether he was giving a question or an answer, much in the way an irritating geography teacher would parrot ‘Of course you can go to the toilet, the question is whether or not you may’. He’s right though, and Corpus gobble up two more bonuses on sci-fi writers.

Another starter went to Stewart, and a first for Gunasekera. Corpus were starting to look comfortable, but a brief flurry from Trinity around the music round looks like it might bring them into contention. But that’s all it was, the briefest of flurries, like that random day in April or October where someone says ‘is it snowing?, and you all look out of the window, but before you can actually work out if it really was snowing or if it was some sort of white rain, its stopped.

Corpus stretch their legs now, and find themselves beyond two hundred points before Trinity turn themselves back on, which they eventually do, building up to a not-disgraceful 80 before the gong.

Final Score: Trinity 80 - 245 Corpus

Episode 30 - Manchester vs Wolfson, Ox

Because I do this on Tumblr, one of the most annoying things about doing this (and I know its dumb), and something that I think might subconsciously play into me not doing these more regularly, is that when I try and add the pictures of the teams to the post it quite often takes ages and sometimes causes the page to freeze so that I can’t save/post it. This problem is exacerbated when there are multiple episodes to get through, which makes it one of those snowballing problems that only gets worse the longer you leave it - like when you put off repying to an email until it becomes almost a monolithic entitiy in your mind. 

It only takes a few minutes to fix this - you copy and paste the text and then add the images in a different window (though there is another annoying thing where the hashtags don’t save anyway, so you have to retype the hashtags - and for some reason I always add loads of hashtags, including #JeremyPaxman - which also feels like it takes an epoch) - but its one of those few minute periods that feel like fifteen minutes. So basically, what I’m saying is that I can’t be assed adding the pictures to the post at this point. I might add them later, but for now you’re just getting words, so, so many rambling words. 

Manchester are back in the last eight for the first time in donkeys, but they stand on the precipice following a trouncing by Trinity in their QF-opener (I’ve already mentioned this in the last review, which normally wouldn’t matter, but since its directly above this one then it might seem a bit repetitive, but I don’t know if I can rely on your having remembered). Wolfson were likewise (likewise were? Are both okay) baeten by Corpus Christi (which is also referenced above, sorry) so this one was an ELIMINATOR!

Neither side seemed to realise this from the off though (I say though too much don’t I? If I had more time I’d probably edit a few down. But I’m doing a 5-episode mega-post so I don’t, though. Shit. Actually, that one was on purpose winky face) and sort of stumble through the first few questions with some atrocious work on the bonuses. 

Green thought he’d pulled a great answer out of the bag to kick start the match, but Fanny Burney Fanny Burnett is not, and Paxo decries the crowd for being amused at how close Green had come (they having let out a collective ‘oooh’, much in the same way their footballing equivalent may have done at a smashed crossbar). 

Even Jones, so electric in her previous appearances, was a bit slow off the mark tonight. On one occasion she even overruled her teammates conferred and agreed upon answer at the last moment, giving her own guess which they had dismissed, but fortunately for her they had both been wrong, so she did not look a fool.

Manchester were ahead, but couldn’t get far ahead. Wolfson were within touching distance, but couldn’t touch. Not until the very end that is. Caple took the final starter to draw them level and the gong sounded before th first bonus could be asked. DEADLOCK.

A #DEADLOCKELIMINATOR no less.

Paxman explains that a Neg on this question would hand victory to the other team without them lifting a buzzer-finger. He starts reading, no one buzzes. He continues to read. Everyone continues to not buzz. He carries on r- BUZZ. 

Manchester Rogers. Three words left on Paxo’s lips. He better be right. Kaiser Wilhelm. He isn’t. Otto Von Bismarck. An easy mistake to make, says Paxo. 

I reckon Wolfson would have picked up the drop anyway, but you can’t be sure.

My fellow UC blog, jacksonlinewritings, says that its the first time a neg has lost a tiebreak since 2002/03. 

Final Score: Manchester 125 - 130 Wolfson.

Episode 31 - Durham vs Imperial.

I don’t know if this is the first time I’ve written about the same team twice in one post before, but it may well be. Either way, you can (and probably already have) read everything I had to say about Imperial Brandon, my favourite contestant this series, further up this very page, so I don’t need to reiterate.

Durham’s Tams beats him to what I thought was a relatively easy starter on the Magna Carta (just spent a few minutes trying to come up with another word to rhyme with carta, thought it would be easy, but it was a bit harda). He gets the next one though (though) and his Captain Rich the third to give them the lead. Their opponents proved a tougher nut to crack than Courtauld though (though, and I’m not doing this on purpose. I’m just not removing them when I probably should be. They’re all coming up naturally. This is just how much I apparently use the word. If there are any others then please let me know) and cling on whenever Brandon threatens to zoom away.

Please forgive me for going on about Brandon, by the way. He’s just (I think ‘just’ is probably one, and probably ‘probably’ too) so captivating to watch. There were several times in this episode when I stopped watching the whole screen during a starter and focussed on him, expecting him to buzz in, which he duly did. Especially on the starters which are that bit more important, when Durham were (I need to do something about my tenses too, they’re all over the shop) threatening to make a comeback, you could feel certain that he was going to get it.

When the game has been won, he relaxes, so his personal scores haven’t been as high as those of others in past series, but he hasn’t needed to get more than he has done, so why would he bother? I expect if a team were to push Imperial close over a whole match then he’d easily post double figures.

Imperial join Corpus Christi in the semis. Durham live to fight another day.

Final Score: Durham 115 - 185 Imperial

Episode 32 - Jesus, Ox vs Courtauld

Phew! I’ve never written four in a night before. That was quite something. Wait, whats that, I have another one to go? Okay, lets do this - an advance warning, this one will probably (probably! Why do I feel the need to never be absolute about anything. I know for certain that this will be very short, so why must I try and placate some imaginary reader who might scold me for its being so?) be very short.

So, another ELIMINATOR. Courtauld were my favourite team of the series, but I harboured little hope for them, after such a crushing defeat by Imperial last time out, and Jesus were quick to crush what little I had left. Lucy Clarke, who absolutely relishes a buzz on the opening starter of a match, came in with an early buzz, as is her wont, and fortunately for the Oxonians she was right this time. She got the next one too, and Jesus were 45 up.

Three in a row for Courtauld captain Prance, who looks shocked every time he gets a starter correct, despite the fact that when he got the third of this hat-trick, he had quite clearly proved to himself that he knows how to answer starter questions by the fact that (the fact that Ducks, Newburyport) he had got the previous two. They were ahead now. Dare I dream?

No, I daren’t. Jesus quickly stole it back, and did not let it go. Courtauld stayed fairly close, but could never again broach the gap, struggling on the bonus questions whenever they got in. Perhaps on another night they might have stood a better chance (with a bonus set on collage art, which Paxman reckoned they would have knocked out of the park, going to Jesus), but tonight (its not tonight at all is it, not for me and not for you) was not their night.

And breathe...

Final Score: Jesus, Ox 135 - 90 Courtauld

If you’ve stuck with me through all of this, I’m frankly amazed. Thank you, and if you need something to do during self-isolation, there are like 6 whole series of the Challenge on YouTube. I haven’t reviewed them all, but thats probably for the best though.

[blapisblogs]

Oh god... Yeah, right after the in-video ad break, we’re hit with this: Doug Walker dressed like a Nazi with a smudged dotted line around his face and the words “person you hate” written on his forehead in sharpie. Dude, if this moment didn’t make you stop and wonder what the fuck happened with your life to bring you to this moment, then it damn well should’ve been.

Before you ask if this was based on something from the film or album, yes, but as usual there’s context for it. It’s difficult for me to explain, but in short the idea is that Pink’s attempt to build a metaphorical wall between himself and everyone else is making him more and more mentally unsound, right up to the point where after he’s forced to be drugged up for one of his shows he hallucinates himself as a fascist (the very thing his father died fighting against), the fans his zealous followers, and his concerts rallies where he encourages violence against marginalized groups. This goes on for a few songs with the violence and threats escalating in each one, and by the end of the last one he’s ranting and raving incoherently on a megaphone until the hallucination ends as he shouts for it all to stop, finally realizing how dangerous the things he’s been doing to himself are. It’s disturbing, and intentionally so. That’s what I got out of both the album and the film anyway. I have no clue what Doug Walker got out of this part of the film, though, because these next two parody songs have almost nothing to do with it. The first one mentions it so people will know that it’s a parody of something from the film, but that’s about it, and the second one doesn’t mention anything about the film or album at all.

The next two parodies are of “In the Flesh” (the reprise), and “Waiting for the Worms”, neither of which I will post links to based on what I explained earlier, but if you want to look them up yourself I will warn you that there are things said there that are identical to things the Nazis have said and done, and use words like “queers” and others that I dare not say nor want to. (Also, yeah, they didn’t include “Run Like Hell”, presumably because Doug couldn’t think of another full parody’s worth of “fuck you, haters” for it.) In the parody of the former, Doug addresses his crowd of followers, which are the same five people copy-pasted onto the screens of multiple devices (I can’t tell if that’s supposed to be intentional commentary or Doug didn’t have enough people willing to work with him to pull off what he wanted for this), in a place called the “Echo Chamber”.

Yes, really.

It’s supposed to be commentary on how bad callout/outrage/cancel/purity/whatever-we’re-calling-it-this-month culture can be, but considering who this is coming from, what his own fans are like, and the rest of the presentation in this “review” it comes off more like “technology bad” and “social media bad”. Worse than that, the latter parody song is still about callout/outrage/cancel/etc. culture, only now it’s even more apparent that this is his way of commenting on the Change the Channel movement. This isn’t just me saying this either, other people have taken note on it as well, including people who didn’t even completely hate Doug Walker after the Change the Channel thing happened. I’ve seen one person try to (rather weakly) argue that it wasn’t trying to mock the Change the Channel movement, but even if one were to give them the benefit of the doubt and they weren’t making fun of that, then 1: they still should’ve known that doing something like this was going to get people to draw comparisons to said movement whether it was intended or not, and 2: it’s still absurdly over-the-top and out of touch with why “outrage/cancel/callout/whatever culture” has become a thing. It’s about as subtle as, well, a hammer to the face. (Speaking of which, the hammers for this parody are used to make hashtags instead of an ‘x’ and instead of chanting “Pink Floyd” or “Hammers” the fans chant “hashtag”. I’ve been sitting here for five minutes trying to think of how to comment on this, but all I can do is put a hand up to my face like Captain Picard in those memes, I think that says it all.)

This message of “technology and social media bad” is so ridiculously passé at this point that it’s laughable, and yet it seems like Doug Walker is under the impression that he’s saying something new and brilliant. This is also a truly bizarre message to be hearing from a guy who had so much success with his internet career that he quit his previous job to pursue it full-time. You know, that career that’s dependent on technology. (Also, Doug, social media itself didn’t cause those problems with said internet career: that was all you.)

The sad part is that for this sequence we get some brief scenes with actually good CGI of things like marching smartphones (identical to the original’s marching hammers) and a decently-animated 2-D(-ish?) sequence of a six-fingered hand coming up from the ground and forming into a hammer much like something that happened during part of the film (not this part specifically, but a part). It’s weird in context, but these animated parts look far better than any of the other effects that were used earlier. I’m guessing the guest person who made the effects I’ll talk about later also animated this (at least the CGI bits; as I said earlier, the 2-D-ish parts look so suspiciously close to the original that I have to wonder if they were traced over for this). While it is good, that just makes me wonder that if they were hired to make the animation in this part then why didn’t Doug let them animate the black eagle scene for the “Goodbye Blue Sky” parody section too? He clearly had the time and budget to get a talented animator to do this stuff for him, so why not fully use them?

Also, I swear one of the visuals looks more like a mashup between something from the opening of Phantom of the Paradise and The Wall than anything actually from The Wall alone. Maybe Doug and/or the person animating this got their rock operas momentarily mixed. Maybe they did this on purpose to mess with people. Maybe my brain’s making up this shit because a Phantom of the Paradise/The Wall double feature sounds infinitely better than this “review”. Maybe the headache I’ve gotten while watching this dumpster fire is fucking with me. I don’t know.

[Lyrics (and snark) below the cut]

Oh yeah, I’m the P-Person you all think you know That sucks up all your angst and confusion I’m that nameless foe, huh!

[Oh, so you are trying to do an impression of Bob Geldof. ...It shouldn’t take me over half-way into the “review” to figure out for sure that’s what you’re doing. Or did you choose to only actually do an impression of him for just this one part? I can’t even fathom almost any of Doug’s thought process for this “review” anymore.]

I’ve got some weird news for ya, sunshine, This was dissin’ Thatcher’s administration

[So I have seen Wikipedia mention that at least some people have either interpreted or used this part as commentary on Margaret Thatcher, and I don’t know enough about UK politics to dispute whether it was intentional or not. What bothers me is that if this was intentional, then how did Doug pick up on this? That would mean that he either caught this but somehow didn’t pick up on any of the other, more obvious things in this film that doesn’t have “the slightest bit of subtlety”, or he researched this and only this. Or it was a random guess he made that happens to coincide with what some others have interpreted from this part. Who knows.]

But it’s vague enough to put anyone you fear - Politician, showman - just put their face here!

[Uh... Are you talking about how someone edited this part of The Wall so that it was Drumpf in there because of how much he talks about his stupid wall? ...You are aware that the entire point of the film and album is that those kind of walls aren’t good and should be broken down, right? You know that Roger Waters himself openly despises Drumpf, right? ...Right?]

Are there any authority figures in the crowd tonight? Well put them in The Wall! (Get. Them. All.) That one’s looking stressed, he wants to feel oppressed Put him in The Wall! (Post. His. Balls!)

[Oh yes, The Wall - a film about the cycle of abuse and the effects it has on people and how taking self-isolation to its most extreme is unhealthy for the health of one’s self as well as those around them, among many other things - is something that adults don’t take seriously, not like this web video that has lines talking about people posting some dude’s balls on social media for shits and giggles. (In case you couldn’t tell that was sarcasm.)]

And that one looks sheltered, like she never leaves her room I’ll be that friend that you can blame for all your gloom That one looks like he really wants to be outraged! Now with social media, you have the stage!

[...You know, as awful as the previous songs in this “review” were, at least they were about the film and album. This, however... What even is this?]

(This is the part where the five-person audience starts chanting “hashtag” which goes on until Doug and his two goons run outside, run back inside due to it being too bright out, and then start the next parody. There’s not much to comment on for that, it’s just stupid.)

[End “In the Flesh” parody, begin “Waiting for the Worms” parody]

(One, two, three, post it!) Ooh, you can’t convince me now Ooh, I’m too far on my side Goodbye, nuance I never will abide

[You are not one to talk about nuance, not regarding this film or album, and certainly not about the Change the Channel movement, which this parody is pretty transparently about as we’ll see soon enough.]

It’s us vs. them, I don’t even know who us or them are

[“Us and them, and after all we're only ordinary men.” Come on, man, I know it’s not from The Wall, but the opportunity was right there. Actually, since Rob Walker is there as the Charts Guy (a recurring character in Doug’s reviews), you could’ve even thrown in a “Have a Cigar” reference if you wanted (also not from The Wall, but still). I know at this point I’m nitpicking, but I’m forcing myself to watch a “review” where a guy dressed himself like a Nazi to make a blatant “take that” statement against his “haters” without understanding and/or caring why the Nazi comparisons were there in the original; if Doug Walker doesn’t give a shit about those kind of details, then why should I.]

I just wanna be angry so I can be (Tweeting) About those who hate me (Tweeting) I need their attention (Tweeting) Love me or hate me, just look at me more

[Sadly one can’t say that this train wreck of a “review” didn’t make at least some people look at Doug Walker again even after they didn’t want to.]

(Tweeting) Whatever side you choose, just don’t ever wane (Tweeting) Waiting for the point

[I’d joke about how that’s how most people felt about the video at this point, but everyone has made that joke already. Everyone.]

Don’t fear that you’re wrong Just fight until the end, my friend

[At this point I could just say “Okay, Boomer” at every line in these two parody songs and it’d be about as meaningful as all of Doug’s comments about the actual film. Remember, the film he’s parodying here and supposed to be reviewing (allegedly)? The film he’s not mentioned once in this particular parody?]

All you need to do is fight off something Don’t worry! As long as you don’t see me as human, You can hate me all you want! Because remember, this can never happen to you! I’m bad! You’re good! The more extreme you can get the more happy you’ll become! They’ll put that person whose face you hate here, and tweet, tweet, tweet, tweet, tweet!

[...Doug, please tell me you didn’t have these parody songs in mind first as a sort of rebuttal against your detractors and then used it as an excuse to make a “review” for the actual film in this style as well as a whole parody album of it...

Also, this may be another nitpick, but towards the end the guys aren’t even “marching” in time to the music. Because of course they’re not.]

[starlight-parkers]

The Report Card (Avengers x Reader) {Chatroom}

Author’s Note(s): I wrote this back in october and forgot about in entirely. I hope you enjoy x

Warning(s): just swearing tbh

Summary: Dogs are great but your dads Steve and Tony don’t agree.

you have created a chatroom

you have named the chat “dear fathers whom I love so very much :)”

you have added Tony

You: hello father who raised me from a yOung one whom to which I love very much :)

Tony: no

You: no???

You: I didn’t say anything ???

Tony: it’s paternal instinct

You: at least hear me out

Tony: nO

You: daAAaaAAD

Tony: (Y/nNnnnNn)

You: I’m gonna tell you anyways

Tony: I had a feeling you would

You: so I got my report card back

Tony: I can already see where this is going

You: and I got all As…

Tony: I was not prepared for this part of parenthood

You: so I was wondering…

Tony: gEt To iT CHILD

You: if I could get a puppy?

Tony: lmao NO

You: fudGe yOU

You: you’re the worst dad ever

Tony: I’m going to pretend that my pride isn’t wounded and say I love you too kiddo :,)

You: I bet Steve would get me a dog.

Steve has joined the chat

Steve: no he wouldn’t

You: pleaSe dad?

Steve: nope

You: how can anyone call you the man of dreams? Freedom? Liberation?

You: you’re both the worst

Steve: correction…Tony is the worst. Who makes you cap’s shield shaped sandwiches everyday?

You: you do…

Steve: damn right I do

Tony: hey I mean I totally don’t pay your phone bill… not at all… please do continue to insult me as if I’m not here.

You: you know what fudge you both, I’m asking peter.

Tony: oh god no not the kid

Tony: you know I can’t say no to him

You: exactly ;)

You have added Peter

Peter: Hey everyone!

You: hi Petey <3

Tony: hey underoos

Steve: hello

Peter: what can I do for you?

You: oh y'know

You: we just need you to settle a family disagreement

Peter: oh… okay, what seems to be the problem?

Steve: (Y/N) got all As in her report card

Peter: Aw well done baby! :)

Tony: I am resisting the urge to throw up (:

You: and I want a puppy as a reward but AnthonY and SteVeN wont let me get one.

Peter: well that’s a shame

Steve: it sure is…

You: shuT UP Steve

Steve: thE DISrESPECT

Tony: asjajaja

You: anyways I need you to convince them that I should get a puppy

Peter: uHhhh

Steve: I’d chose my words wisely kid.

Tony: or don’t say anything at all, y'know.

Peter: umm

You: if you don’t help me convince them I won’t let you do my homework for a month

Peter: I…shouldn’t…be doing… your homework… anyway?

You: shut up you know you enjoy it

Peter: I do :(

Tony: what…just…happened?

Steve: I don’t know but is this how dating works nowadays?

Clint has joined the chat

Tony: oh no

Clint has added Natasha, Bruce, Thor, T'challa, Bucky, Sam, Wanda, Scott and Vision.

Clint: we heard talk of a dog

Steve: well you heard wrong

Sam: how can anyone call you the man of dreams? Freedom? Liberation?

You: I SAID THAT

Thor: I FOR ONE AM IN FAVOUR OF SMALL AND FEROCIOUS BEAST RUNNING AROUND THE TOWER!! IT SHALL BE MOST ENJOYABLE :) :) :)

Natasha: Thor, caps lock sweetie.

Thor: *whispers* oh yes, I apologise widow of black :) :) :)

Peter: is bad that I actually heard him yelling from the other side of the tower or?

Peter: and are we just going to ignore the fact that he added in *whispers* ?

Clint: LeT hIm LiVe pETer

Bucky: yeah! Sit down you little asshole

Peter: I… am…confused.

Sam: oh somebody get him a juice box, little Peter is confused.

Peter: w h y  a re  y o u                       a t t a c k i n g  m e ?

Sam: oh shit someone’s having a tantrum.

Natasha: go sit in a corner sam, you’re being uneccesary.

Sam: stfu woman come back when you can spell unnecessary.

Bucky: #ROASTED

You: WE ARE GETTING OFF TOPIC

Wanda: what were we talking about again?

Tony has cleared the chat

Tony: I think were talking about getting pancakes for breakfast today

Steve: oh yes, Tony’s treat :)

Tony: of course it’s my treat I’m the only one with money.

Scott: I’m down for pancakes

Bucky: yeah I could go for some too

T'challa: if Tony’s paying

Thor: I TOO WOULD ENJOY THE CAKE OF THE PAN.

Natasha: as mentioned before, only if Tony’s paying.

Wanda: same

Steve: then its settled, pancakes at 10

Clint: WHAT ARE YOU TAPKING ABOUT

Clint: WE WERE TALKING ABOUT GETTING A DOG YOU FOOLS  

You: T H A N K  Y O U

Tony: fuck yOu clint

Steve: LANGUAGE TONY

Steve: there are children present

You: all in favour of getting a dog say aye

Scott: aye

Wanda: aye

Bucky: aye

Sam: aye

Peter: aye

Clint: AYE FUCKING AYE CAPTAIN

Bucky: too much Clint too much

Clint: sorry

Peter: well it’s decided,  I guess we’re getting a dog

Tony: Vision, T'Challa, Bruce and Natasha haven’t voted yet.

Steve: not to mention Pietro

Pietro has joined the chat

Pietro: I vote for the dog, they’re better than people and I hate everyone.

Pietro has left the chat

Wanda: sorry about that, he’s still salty because we invited Scott to the Civil War and not him.

Scott: how were we supposed to know? he’s meant to be dead

Clint: RIP that speedy guy 2k15, you shall not be missed

You:  I am physically sobBiNg

Bucky: she’s not kidding, I am three floors down and I can still hear her.

Scott : it sounds like she’s dying

Peter: then it’s nothing new.

Bruce: ARE WE NOT GOING TO TALK ABOUT THE FACT THAT YOU HAD A CIVIL WAR?

Bruce: I THOUGHT WE WENT THROUGH THIS

Tony: no brucie, we’re talking about the possibility of (Y/N) having a demon spawn to call their own

Bruce: I hate all of you

T'Challa: I agree, you are all beneath me

Sam: sit yo ass down and drink some milk, cat man

Bucky: #LIGHTLYBURNT

Wanda: IM WHEEZING

Scott: you guys gotta stop roasting each other, (Y/N) is going to D I E of laughter.

Peter: let her  

Tony: what

Peter: f r e e  m e

Steve: moving on…

Thor: yes…please proceed.

Steve: Bruce? Natasha? Thoughts on the dog.

Natasha: I’m against it

You: WHY?? YOURE SUPPOSED TO BE THE AWESOME AUNT NOT THE ASSHOLE AUNT

Natasha: cats are cooler

Clint: Natasha we can no longer be friends

Natasha: fine by me

Bucky: #CHARED

Tony: science bro?

Bruce: I’m also in favour of a cat, they’re more peaceful and less…like you guys.

T'Challa: I agree

Bucky: leave cat man

T'Challa: call me that again and pietro won’t be the only avenger to have died

T'Challa has left the chat

You: well then…

Peter: I don’t know what to say

Thor: what about brother vision? He has yet to cast his vote.

Wanda: I’ll admit Vis has been very quiet.

Vision: I apologise profusely for my lack of presence.

You: HE JUST PHASED INTO THE COMMON ROOM AS HE TYPED THAT IM W H E E Z I N G

Tony: Steve is your child asthmatic

Steve: she’s  not my child, she’s yours

You: wow what a loving family I have

Thor: indeed, much like my own, at least you are not a murderous pathetic excuse for a villain :)

Wanda: is it me or does the smiley face make it worse ?

Natasha: it’s the smiley face.

Tony: anywho vis, vision, partial creation of mine

Tony: what do you think about getting a dog?

Vision: by my calculations getting a dog would perhaps increase the physical activity of (Y/N) as we have come to realise, She only moves to retrieve a food source before returning to her room. Having a dog would lead to (Y/N) leaving the compound more, in order to walk the animal.

You: I’m sorry I didn’t know asking for a dog would include roasting me

Bucky: #BARBECUED

Peter: what’s with all these hashtags ?

Bucky: I’m running out of synonyms for roasted

Vision: Additionally, having a dog would decrease the stress levels of the team and perhaps everyone’s mutual hatred towards Mr Stark.

Tony: you all hate me?

Steve: its less of hatred and more like a preference for avoiding you :) nothing to worry about.

Tony: oh okay then :)

Clint: how did that go over his head?

Bruce: I have no idea

Vision: to conclude getting a puppy would be most beneficial.

You: YAYAYAYAYAYAYAY

You: HAHAHA SUCK IT STEVEN IM GETTING A DOG

Bruce: (Y/N) is definitely Stark’s child.

Thor: aye

Natasha: no doubt about it

Loki has joined the chat

Clint: ew who invited him

Wanda: why so salty Clint?

Clint: he tried to take over my mind with some voodoo shit

Sam: VOODOO SHIT IM SCREAMING

Peter: he actually is

Peter: it’s very loud

Loki: you foolish midguardians. I always said that you would be responsible for your own demise.

Scott: what are you on about reindeer games?

Loki: I’m sorry who are you?

Bucky: #OVERCOOKED

Bruce: these hashtags are getting out of hand.

Peter: remind me to teach him how to use them properly.

Thor: brother! :D

Loki: NOT NOW YOU BLONDE HEADED FOOL

Thor:  D:

Wanda: yikes

Loki: I HAVE COME TO WARN YOU.

You: warn us of your presence? Because none of us actually like you.

Thor: I do

Thor: just a bit

Loki: purchasing the vile beast known as man’s best friend will only result in the destruction of the Avengers. We all know (Y/N) would betray us. She would raise this animal, to become a beast. Multiply it and use it to destroy us from the inside.

Steve: is Loki… afraid…of dogs

You: oh my god

Loki: NO YOU IMBECILE I AM HERE TO SAVE YOU

Natasha: Loki? Saving us ?

Vision: in all my years on earth I have never heard such an entertaining tale

Peter: sit the fuck down bish you’re like 2 years old

Bruce: peter omg

Sam: THERE ARE  T E A R S FLOWING FROM MY EYES

Thor: please send help it sounds like he’s choking

Bucky:  l e t  h i m

Steve: what is it with everyone and wanting to kill each other?

You: don’t act like you haven’t wanted to kill any of us, you golden child

Steve: …

Steve: proceed.

Bucky: #

Scott: don’t even start I beg

Bucky: D:

Loki: you mortals will all perish

Tony: so I think we’ve established that Loki is afraid of dogs, and since none of us like him I propose we get one.

Steve: agreed

Loki: NO YOU DENSE HEADED INFERIORS

Tony: all in favour of a dog say aye

Steve: aye

You: aye

Thor: aye

Peter: aye

Scott: aye

Wanda: aye

Vision: aye

Natasha: aye

Bucky: aye

Bruce: aye

Sam: aye

Clint: AYE MOTHER FUCKING AYE BITCHES

Bucky: Clint pls

Natasha: you are an embarrassment to this team, no wonder pietro is always running away from you.

Natasha has left the chat

Clint: damn

Bucky: #SCORCHED

Peter: well now that this has come to end, Let’s go Bucky, I gotta teach you the ways of the hashtag

Sam: oh I have got to see this

Scott: I’m definitely filming this

Bucky has left the chat

Peter has left the chat

Sam has left the chat

Scott has left the chat

Loki: you will all die

Loki has left the chat

Thor: it appears that Loki is having a tantrum

Thor: I must tend to my brother, his feelings have been hurt.

Tony: lolol I don’t care

Steve: same tbh

You: SE E YOU ARE NOT SUCH A PURE GOOD WILLING PERSON AFTER ALL

You: SUCK IT STEVEN

Tony: why do you have such a disrespectful child Steve?

Steve: biologically she’s your creation, you do the math

Clint: LMAOOO

Bruce: brb I’m totally not sobbing with laughter

Thor: I must depart from you friends (: goodbye

You: bye (:

Thor: (:

You: (:

Thor: (:

You: (:

Thor: (:

You: (:

Thor: (:

Clint: ISTG JUST LEAVE

Thor: be careful who you yell at brother Clinton. I am always watching.

Thor has left the chat

Bruce: well then

Tony: moving swiftly on

Clint: AHAHAA

You: im finally getting a dog WHOO

Clint: WHOOO

You: WHOOO

Steve: why are you both simultaneously yelling ‘whoo’ whilst typing it at the same time?

You: it’s for effect

Bruce: looool

Tony: anyways since you’re getting this dog, they least you could do is name it after your favourite dad

Steve: I agree, this debate has gone on for too long

Steve: which one of us do you like best?

You: sure why not

Bruce: this is going to get interesting

Clint: I’m ready to take screenshots

You: I’m naming my dog peter

Steve: why?

You: because he’s my favourite daddy

You: duh

(Y/N) has left the chat

Tony: what

Steve: pardon

Bruce: AJAJAJA IM SCREAMING AND WHEEZING AT THE SAME TIME I CANT

Clint: OH MY GOD BYE

Bruce has been disconnected

Clint: I’m totally… going to… see if he’s okay… and not laugh about this

Clint has left the chat

Steve: I can’t believe this

Tony: …

Steve: you have your suit right?

Tony: already putting it on

Steve: the shield?

Tony: it’s right where you left it

Steve: it’s time to go squash a spider

Steve has left the chat

Tony has left the chat

[namelessblacksheep]

WHY WE NEED A REVOLUTION

Growing up I recall a soft drink advert where they used to make the claim ‘the revolution will not be televised’. Given all the crap we see on TV these days I kind of hope that it is.

Don’t get me wrong, a revolution does not have to be a long series of riots or violence. It could be something completely different, but something that leads to a shift. Who knows maybe something akin to a revolution is actually taking place.

The reason I feel we need something akin to a revolution is that bubbling away under the surface of life is deep unhappiness. In the past decade or two so many things have been surfaced that have shocked us.

Across the globe, politics has quite frankly gone bat shit crazy. Unrest and discomfort in daily life are becoming the norm.

We had a global financial crisis that didn’t correct any of the wrongs that underpinned it.

On a weekly basis, we are learning that the people we celebrate and reward so highly, flout their positions and commit heinous harms. Justice is never likely to be served.

Huge corporations and powerful individuals continue to increase the divide between the haves and have nots.

It’s as if all of the rich and powerful have totally forgotten the concept of ‘with great power comes responsibility’. Failure is richly rewarded for some, irrespective of the cost it brings.

The masses though are placated with toys and avenues to keep them from rising up. I have never witnessed such a monumentally awesome age of great television. Fuck the real world problems out there, I’ve got several hundred hours of Netflix marathons to get through.

Then you feel a bit guilty that you are failing in your civic duty, so you decide to send an ironic GIF to Donald Trump – you know doing your bit.

You could cancel your Amazon Prime account and vote with your feet, but then you’d have to wait a few days for your deliveries.

You’d use a search engine to find a different provider, but you like Google. Google knows you so well that when you start typing shit it predicts what you want and you don’t need to hit another key.

It doesn’t scare you at all, not even the fact that you clearly have an Asian babes obsession or some of the suggestions are a bit worrying.

Sure, someone else could get right on that issue. Politicians for instance. They should be sorting this shit out, except they are far too busy trying to pretend to rule the world and avoid answering difficult questions.

Be honest. We are quite simply fucked right now. A revolution might be exactly what we need.

You may be in need of a little more convincing. You know as you are sat there skipping words and sentences for a quick fix that tells you whether this is worth your time or not.

5 minutes of your time, taking you from your busy life. The one where you're a battery plugged into a system that is fucking you every day. At least it all fits conveniently into your phone, I guess.

So, here it goes.

People have become weak

Everybody seems to be offended, like, all of the time. You can’t say shit anymore without someone either correcting you or reminding you of the new rules of engagement that nobody agreed to.

If you are one of these people, don’t be offended when I say that you are total Thundercunt. Seriously, I mean that from the bottom of my heart.

If you came here hoping to find something to annoy you, then you aren’t paying attention. Unplug your earphones and look at the world around you. It’s fucked. You could focus your efforts on doing something productive even if that’s being a better person, or a little less sensitive.

There’s plenty to be pissed about. People don’t want to focus on the big stuff that matters. They’d rather freak the fuck out about inconsequential nonsense that bruises their fragile egos.

We need a revolution so that we can all ‘man the fuck up’ (sorry feminazis) and start fixing shit like we’re Bob the Builder (or Betty if it makes you feel better).

We need to change the news narrative. Anyone else bored to tears with the daily Brexit coverage? Seriously, this storyline is more drawn out than the whole Ross and Rachael will-they-won’t-they saga.

For all the super-intelligent University educated geniuses that just graduated and have no fucking idea who Ross or Rachael are, go check out a TV show called ‘Friends’. It’s probably on the History channel these days anyway.

Brexit is like an un-flushable turd. A repetitive narrative that papers and broadcasters trot out every day. Seriously, this shite is more convoluted and contrived than the X Factor. It’s the epitome of the lowest form of entertainment and we need to change the record.

Whether you are for a Sunnyside-up Brexit or a Brexit with a side of Unicorn steak, I couldn’t give a damn. A revolution might at the very least give us all something new to get excited about and something we could all rally behind.

We need unity not division

Issues like politics, sport, and even mild banter have become so immersed in the underlying anger we're silently drowning in that no one seems able to have fun anymore.

I cannot remember a time when so many comedians couldn’t make a decent joke about the moronic state of the world and instead make sniping remarks to canned laughter.

Every decent sporting event seems to get overrun with people’s inability to enjoy the spectacle for what it is. Social media and chat forums are littered with petulant hatred and jingoistic tribal bullshit. The Brexit ‘have your say’ plays out like an anthem of bitterness with new vitriolic names invented every day.

We are descending into a bunch of spoiled children who express their pent up feelings through sending passive aggressive memes, angry hashtags and all manner of confusing emojis to make some innocuous point.

We are slowly becoming a mathematician with a broken calculator to solve all our problems. It can’t always be about division (see what I did there).

This diversity bullshit just isn’t working, let’s try something new like a bit of unity. You know: adding shit up to something bigger. I’m fairly sure Einstein would approve, and he was a smart guy.

Some folks need something better to do

If you spend most of your life sitting on your butt. You have all your stuff delivered to your door and your thoughts delivered to your phone or through your TV or laptop – you need a revolution.

We can call it a hobby or a social bonding activity. It’ll be a bit weird because all your new ‘friends’ might not look exactly like you, but you might learn a thing or two about the real world you live in.

Echo chambers are nice and safe because everyone in them thinks the same stuff. However, the real world is full of people ready to blow your mind in more than 140 characters or a 5-minute blog post. It could be exciting.

If you need convincing, watch the Matrix. Neo was simply sad old Thomas Anderson miserable as fuck, then he met Morpheus and learned to fly and loads of other cool shit.

If you already know what you think and it makes you comfortable to surround yourself with other people just like you, perhaps you should just join a cult and be done with it.

The system is broken

Seriously, guys, we have seriously screwed the pooch with the world at the moment.

The system’s broken and we are all just standing around waiting for inevitability to prevail.

The Avengers won't be coming to save us. Anyone who saw last year’s movie knows they are a bit down on their luck at the moment.

Thanos’ minions seem to be running the world and we all need to step up and become superheroes in our own right.

If you want to whip out the Lycra or Spandex – go for it. But do something, even if it’s just being better or not throwing hate out to the world because someone is different from you.

I don’t care if the revolution happens or even if it is streamed on Netflix or some other site. Change needs to happen and often that is as simple as everyone trying to be less of a douchebag than they might have normally been.

The only thing I can offer as a ‘reward’ or promise is that we might actually get some decent music back on the scene.

Revolutions tend to come out best in song. There has been no truly great era of music for decades now, and if ever there was a more compelling reason for a revolution this would be it.

Music is the anthem of the soul. It’s time for it to wake up and belt out something beautiful.

[filmfreak1994]

Change the Channel

A lot of people have been talking about their experiences with Channel Awesome in the wake of the 60+ page document released by Allison Pregler and several other former content creators for Channel Awesome. I figured I might throw my own experience with the site and its people (mostly Doug) too while the topic is relevant, even considered dusting off the old camera I got for Christmas to film a video but allergy season is upon us and I’m coughing up my lungs so the written word it is.

I was a frequent user of YouTube in the early days of its inception, mostly to look up viral videos and just go on a stream of pointlessness for hours on end with each recommended vid in the sidebar (mostly consisting of parodies to Star Wars, LotR, and entire Simpsons episodes uploaded before the great purge of early 2008). In all that time between 2006 and 2007, reviewers like the Angry Video Game Nerd and The Nostalgia Critic eluded me. I saw plenty of the 5 Second Movie clips and thought they were hysterical but didn’t even make the connection that they were made by a “Nostalgia Critic” until around the end of 2009, when a friend of mine at school told me to look up NC’s review of Sonic the Hedgehog (the weird TV show and the futuristic evil Jim Cummings one). I finally gave in which led me to watching some of his other, recent reviews like the “Star Wars Holiday Special” which was freaking hysterical (and still brings a warm smile to my face just thinking about it). By the time the new year rolled around and I had discovered That Guy With The Glasses I was hooked.

For a while I stuck to watching reviews on YouTube when fans would rip them from the main site, but decided to eventually support the site itself where I mostly stuck to NC videos but also watched content from the other producers when it interested me; Spoony and his Final Fantasy reviews, Linkara and any comic with a subject material I was familiar with, Marzgurl and her Don Bluth retrospective, so on and so forth. Like many other people, I wasn’t keeping up with every producer’s videos weekly like I was with NC, but when I decided to watch something else their content was worth it, being funny and informative all at once, even creating new branches of my interest and giving me new perspectives on media criticism.

I watched Nostalgia Critic religiously every week and, sorry to say, started to take his opinion as gospel, and the opinions of other reviewers as well, treating certain movies and shows as bad just because they said so and didn’t have an opinion for myself for the longest time. It was when I started to pay attention to Doug Walker himself and his philosophy that you should like what you like and every movie is a miracle that I started to chill out and even disagree with his opinions at times (I remember his “Little Nemo” review made me seek out that movie and I actually quite enjoyed it).

TGWTG was a formative site for me in my high school years, developing much of my sense of humor and how I look at movies. I watched all the anniversary specials, started to watch a greater portion of producers that included Lindsay and Kyle’s more analytical reviews and Brad Jones’s and Matthew Buck’s mix of cynicism and snark with genuine analytical praise and criticism. I even started to look at music critics like Paw or Todd even though I can’t judge music for shit (if it has a catchy beat I’ll more or less dig it, I’m not picky). I always imagined when I moved out for college (yeah, how’d that work out for ya, younger me) that I would start my own review series in the vein of these online personalities and even be picked up for the site where I too could join in on the anniversary movies and have a swell time and make friends with the people I looked up to and have a good time filming huge crossover events with them (in hindsight I can only imagine what role Doug would have me play in them, if I was even deemed important to be in them at all). Whenever people criticized the anniversary movies I just shrugged it off and said, “Yeah, they’re dumb, but I like em anyway,” and when rumors starting going around about some upside down crucifixion going on I shrugged them off as just rumors (and to be fair it wasn’t upside down but the real thing isn’t much better).

Anyway, around the time when To Boldly Flee came I enjoyed the movie a lot (I only saw it the once and I was eighteen, eighteen-year-old me and present me don’t get on anymore) and thought it was a bittersweet conclusion to The Nostalgia Critic but was excited to see what new projects Doug and the company would do after its conclusion. Plus the other contributors still had their content to keep TGWTG going strong into the foreseeable future. At least I thought.

I didn’t hate Demo Reel, but I didn’t like it all that much either. I only caught around a few episodes before losing interest, saying I’d get back into it eventually but never going out of my way to see them. By accounts they got better as they went along and I was interested in the episode that paid tribute to Elizabeth Hartman (which I think is the same episode that had Mara Wilson and Arin Hanson? I might be wrong (I didn’t even know who Arin was at the time but hindsight is 20/20)), but I just put off watching them until, oh look, NC’s back. At the time I thought this was interesting, there was plenty he could still do with the character given his new ground rules and the emphasis on skits gave the show a different tune that I felt, at the time, kept it fresh from what it was before. I missed the simplicity of the earlier reviews but I happily stuck with the NC again, as well as the same creators I’d happily watched before and plenty more I started to watch like Phelous (around the time he did that weird Aladdin meets Pagemaster movie, I used to rent that from Hollywood Video all the freaking time).

It was around this tumultuous time that Doug actually kinda started to annoy me. Never to the point where I stopped watching NC, but he sort of seemed to forget his whole “Like what you like,” message and outright attacked fans who disagreed with him. Certain jokes in his reviews rubbed me the wrong way (if Irate Gamer can’t get away with blowing up Ubisoft cuz they wouldn’t let him into a conference, you can’t get away with pretending to blow up Happy Madison just because they make shit movies) and he had a general vindictiveness to those who liked movies like “Man of Steel” or “The Lorax” that just seemed mean spirited and not a funny little video meant to entertain (though I guess the signs were always there like when he added in a dig at “Avatar” in his “Conan” review for no reason). But by and by he seemed to mellow out (no doubt dealing with problems letting go of Demo Reel and how big a success he thought it would be) and I still watched his stuff, including the vlogs he did with Rob regarding “Avatar” (the good one, hey I did it too!), “Korra,” “Adventure Time,” and any recent movie that came out. I started to agree with them less and less but they were still entertaining guys and I liked what they were doing.

Some of the shadier stuff going on at the site more or less flew over my head. The game show they did was pretty much “Demo Reel” part two for me in how much interest I had in it and that faded from public consciousness pretty quickly, and it was around the time the site switched from TGWTG to just Channel Awesome that a real shift began to become more noticeable. People were leaving. People I may not have watched all the time, but they were leaving, often times unannounced and seemingly unprovoked (because quite a few of them were). I read about what happened to Allison, aka Obscurus Lupa, who I had watched on and off again and thought that was pretty shitty, and got a general grasp that the management of CA itself wasn’t very good from what she and Lindsay alluded to (or just straight up said, they really should’ve had some NDAs if they cared so much about how they look) in some posts on Tumblr or Twitter but I still carried on watching NC and the other creators on the site mostly because I just figured what every fan figured at the time, Doug was mostly innocent and it was Michaud and Rob who were the real strings behind big decisions like who stays and goes (I liked Rob fine, but even back then I knew he could be kind of an ass).

More and more people from the classic era of TGWTG were leaving or not producing as much for the site as they did and that was a shame. CA was never what TGWTG felt like to me, even if the purpose was to put more focus on the other producers (supposedly (hell, TGWTG did a way better job of featuring producers in my opinion even if it wasn’t perfect)). But whatever, I carried on every Tuesday watching NC, watching other creators when their stuff interested me, but it still wasn’t quite the same as before, and I had become more aware of the general bad experience most people had filming the anniversary movies even if the full extent of that didn’t come until a few days ago.

It was really when Lewis announced that he had left and I found the Change the Channel hashtag that I started to take notice of these stories, finding plenty of them on my own from the links to Twitter conversations many of the former contributors were having before reading them on the Google doc. I was torn, wondering if I should boycott NC with all that I had read and decided to make it a temporary one until the doc came out and to see if he or CA would provide a statement. Well, the doc came out and the apology not long after. And yeah, I moved it to a permanent ban after that bullshit.

I’ve given up watching people I loved before, JonTron and his racist bullshit was the last straw in supporting anything he did, and even with the Me Too movement I’ve given up any kind of support for people like Kevin Spacey who I used to love as an actor (now it’s pretty easy to see how he was able to play such scumbag villains over and over again). I know Doug isn’t a Nazi or Nazi sympathizer, and to my knowledge he hasn’t used his position to sexually take advantage of anyone (though he has turned a blind eye to others doing the same and the same can’t be said for taking advantage of people in other ways), but I just couldn’t watch stuff directly made by him and for Channel Awesome with all this information. It wouldn’t be right, even with an adblocker. 

I don’t mean to threaten the livelihood of people on his team like Malcolm or Tamara, I like them a great deal and they’re very talented, heck I even enjoyed the skits on NC a lot more than most because of them (and Rachel, she was great too). But I said to myself until an actual apology is listed and some form of action is taken to truly better the site, I wouldn’t watch them. Others have suggested and I have thought the same, that the best thing to do would be to fire Michaud, though I realize this would create a slew of problems given that he owns the IP for NC and is the founder of CA. Still, some form of acknowledgement from the Walkers would go a long way to bettering the public response to all this. More and more contributors have left in the wake of this document, either out of fear for their own image or to show solidarity with the many complaints levied toward the site (and their reasons are completely valid no matter what, they’re trying to make a living), looking at the site today it’s practically a ghost town. I don’t blame those that have stayed for anything, but the reputation of CA is tarnished and at this point, especially with that piss-poor “apology,” it’s going to take several huge leaps to get it back.

I realize the purpose of Change the Channel was never to create a boycott of NC or any of the Walker’s content, at least by the majority of those who contributed to the docs, and those who choose to boycott do so of their own volition. Well, that’s my volition. No matter how much NC shaped my sense of humor in my younger years and inspired me to look at movies critically myself, I can’t deny the damage that Doug and Rob have been complicit in nor turn a blind eye to the shady practices they, Michaud, and past executives on the site have done. 

I really do wish that what was seemingly apparent in front of the camera, that this was a site filled of talented people who were also good friends having a good time, was true behind the scenes as well. People have been hurt, assaulted, taken advantage of, and tossed aside when they were no longer useful to the site. It’s not right, and I’m literally changing the channel until actual change is made.

[electric-weirdo]

Kinda irrelevant, I guess, but I made this meme thinking about how some people always find something, even a little detail, to pick on Cheritz, even though they worked hard on a specific route or a dlc. For example - there's no cg from Saeran's route that goes to Jaehee's album. And what people did? On Twitter, a fan from Korea started a hashtag about Jaehee not being appreciated or some shit. Girl plays a huge role in the route and I genuinely love her, but man, your main subject of interest should've been Saeran as it's his route. Saeran and Jaehee are my babes from MM, while Seven being my favourite. I'm upset about Seven going missing, but I don't go attack Cheritz that we haven't met him near the finale of the good ending. I'd also love to have a romantic route for Jaehee, but I don't decide about which things should be added to MM and which shouldn't. Please guys, Cheritz has already made a lot of things for us. All of the staff, the artists and the voice actors are always working hard to give us their best. Please, appreciate Cheritz and their amazing work. Thank you. And thanks for reading this long post, if you did.

[nomoregraydays]

Under The Stars (G.D. Fanic) - Part 7 Gray’s Girl

POV: First Person

Word Count: 1157

****

“I have come to the conclusion that this was the best decision I ever made.” I announced as Chanelle and I entered our place. We’ve been settled for a couple weeks now.

“But you do know if I hadn’t said anything about my work having positions opened, you wouldn’t be down here?”

I shot Chanelle a look with raised brows. “You think so?”

She actually thought about it and nodded. “Mmhm. Although, I do think Grayson would’ve got you out here anyways.”

My cheeks burned and I rolled my eyes in a way to try to ignore her statement. I went to the fridge to grab a Mike’s hard cranberry lemonade and then I pulled out my phone to scroll through my media feeds; mainly to pass some time. I don’t post much anymore these days; I don’t see the need for it.

I nearly spit out the sip I just took seeing one of the trending tags in the Dolan twins fandom.

“Chanelle, have you checked Twitter recently?”

She erupted in laughter from where she sat on the couch and was trying to set up the TV for YouTube. “So, Gray’s got a new mystery girl, aye? No one knows it’s you. This is awesome.”

I shook my head. “Is it though? What happens when they do figure out it’s me? He hasn’t even asked me to be his girlfriend officially.”

“But you want him to?”

“No shit Sherlock.” I flipped her off with the hand that held the bottle and took another drink before walking over to sit down next to her.

She smirked. “Maybe this is the push he needs to finally ask. “

I bit my lip and held a hand over my mouth to stop myself from laughing hella loud. I don’t know if this is going to help or not, it’s not like I asked for the fandom to start this up. If anything, I would’ve preferred I stayed out of the fandom’s hashtags and new quests.

The green notification light went off in the corner of my phone and I hit the lock button to brighten my screen. It was Twitter, and the number jumped from two to twenty real quick. What the fuck?

I unlocked my phone this time with fingerprint recognition, pull the notifications bar down, and hit the Twitter ones. They were a bunch of follows and @s at me asking if I was the right girl. I knew better than to reply back to any of them. Now a flood of questions asking if we were dating and about our relationship came through; more than I was anticipating.

“What do I do?” I showed my notifications to Chanelle.

She shrugged and shook her head. “I don’t know, my dude. Ask Grayson.”

I sighed, but had to swallow my own nerves down right after. My anxiety caused a tightness in my chest and my body started to ache slightly. I sighed once again that mixed with a deep breath before messaging him.

Kat: Been on Twitter lately?

Gray: Yeah.. but don’t worry, they don’t know it’s you

Kat: *Screenshot attached* think again

What should we do?

Gray: We?

Kat: I mean..yeah..it involves both of us, but it’s not exactly like we’re dating, so what should we say?

Gray: Are you at the apartment?

Kat: yes

Gray: Good

Stay there

My lips left the top of my bottle and I sighed heavily again. This is either going to be bad or going to be bad. I’m not feeling entirely optimistic at the moment.

***

There was a long honking sound and yells coming from outside, right in front of the apartment complex. What in the hell…

Chanelle and I both got up and went to the small balcony we had. It was Grayson. What the fuck is he doing? Real good, Kat, why don’t you ask that aloud this time?

“What are you doing?”

“Come down here and I’ll tell you.”

I huffed lightly and looked at Chanelle. She shot me a look. “If you don’t go down there, I will throw you over this balcony.”

A smile spread on my lips and I shook my head. “Fine.”

I made my way down and as I walked outside I noticed he was blasting ‘Yours To Hold’ by Skillet.

“Why are you playing this?”

“I...It’s one of your favorites. I don’t- this was short notice.”

“What was?” I cocked a brow.

Suddenly, Ethan popped out from the trunk of their trunk, holding a sign that had “Kat, will you be my gf?” on it. I wanted to slap Ethan for scaring me, but I was more overwhelmed by the question.

“That.” Grayson laughed. “I.. Uh, will you?”

Why was this sort of thing making me want to cry? I don’t get it. I bit my lip and nodded. “Of course, you idiot.”

He smiled big, rather than a shy one, and pulled me in close to him with his hands on my waist.

I leaned in close to his lips and smirked. “Not gonna run away this time?”

“No.” He closed the gap and my arms instinctively wrapped around his neck as he whisked me up in the air.

“Stop being so fucking extra!” Ethan whined lightly.

I held my finger up in his direction. “Shut up, E. You’re always beyond extra.”

Grayson belted out a laugh, but then pulled his phone out and squished his face really close to mine. Basically resembling from the first photos we’d taken together, but this time he smashed his lips on my cheek too.

“Watcha doing with those?” I looked at him curious as he typed away something on his phone.

He pocketed his phone now with a sly smile.

I knew to just check my phone. I looked at it to see he’d tagged me in photos on Twitter. He picked out two, one of our faces squished and the other of my face still squished with my eyes closed and his lips on my cheek, then he added on “She’s a mystery, but mine<3”.

To be honest, this was crazy but amazing. I retweeted his tweet but did nothing else. My notifications seemed even more insane to the point I felt slightly delusional that it was happening. I muted all notifications coming in.

“I’m a mystery to you?” I questioned.

Ethan retorted, “All girls are mysteries.”

I pointed a finger at him. “Touche.” Then gestured at inside. “Would the boyfriend and his brother like to come inside? We’ve got food.”

“Since you’re offering food.” Ethan jumped out from the back, flicked his hair, and walked inside.

Grayson laughed under his breath. “I guess we’re coming in...girlfriend.”

The word leaving his lips felt foreign, yet when I had said boyfriend it felt so natural?? Maybe it was the same for him, but the words switched around. I took his hand in mine and tugged him towards the building.

Next: Paint War (Part 8)