#i still think about how that became a point of mass mockery when it was

[scholarofgolb]

bender was the first save the turtles girlie

[soyouareandrewdobson]

…the ugly. SYAC: The Master Review 4

Last post I covered much of what I consider the good or passable strips of SYAC of the pre-Dobbear era. What I have admittedly not covered yet, were three certain characters of the strip that exist beside Dobson.

Persistent Pam

 Curmudgeonly Carl

And… this guy I am not even sure has a name.

No, seriously. He shows up in like the 61th strip of the series for the first time and yet I never see his name mentioned once

All I know is that he is an accountant, who pities Dobson (for good reason)

And despite Dobson not liking alcohol, they regularly meet up in a bar as if they are some late 80s comedy duo

Funnily enough, he shows up way before Pam, who would have her premiere in these strips

 And despite only showing up in a few strips after her premiere (mostly to make “fun” of overbearing and snarky commissioners I suppose…)

 She actually managed something no other character or series by Dobson managed to get: A fanclub

 Not that she would really be of any major importance afterwards.

As for Carl, he is supposed to be something like an antagonistic embodiment of Dobson’s “old” art teachers and people being stuck in old ways, who shows up for the following strips forming a sort of arc.

In addition, it is very obvious, that Carl is supposed to be a mockery of people flaming Dobson. Not helped by the fact that THIS character sheet of him made by Dobson assures us, that there were quite a few even less “endorsing” things he wanted to name the character.

Yet funnily enough, Carl turned into such a popular character with readers, Dobson was essentially “forced” to make him reappear in other strips. Not of the “classical” SYAC strips, but he showed up as the “antagonist” to Tenku in the storydriven multi pagers. Though even antagonist is a strong word, as he is essentially more of a jerkish art teacher and college advisor who is harsh on Tenku, but actually has his best interests in mind. To the point he even offers him to be his “harsher” art critic in the years till he enters college, because he wants to see him grow artistically.

 However, Carl was also more of an “accident”. Cause when it came otherwise to tackling criticism or things that irked Dobson (and were not anime related) he would end up more or less creating strips that painted him in a manner where he would supposedly always look like “the better” compared to his opposition or mock it. Which is where a lot of the irk Dobson would earn over the years eventually comes from.

Now to be fair, I do not want to call every comic in that regard “strawmanning”, nor do I want to say that Dobson doesn’t have the right to also mock to a certain extend the mentality of certain “snobs” and so on. For example…

On one hand, I know there are people out there who think they are “special” by having the best tools at their disposal. When in reality you can achieve good results also with less expensive stuff. So mocking that sort of attitude is fine to me to some extend

BUT, when you also make down the line a comic like this…

… essentially making yourself come off as a “better” artist or person than others because you have “chosen” the better mass produced crap (btw, that is coming from someone who types this review on a Mac that runs Windows) , then the hypocrisy ends up to be rather strong with you.

 Which is also essentially the biggest issue with the strips I am about to show. The hypocrisy of Andrew Dobson. And no, I do not mean the tumblr blog by that. I mean the simple fact, that the content of some of the soon to follow strips gets kinda muddled when you take into consideration some of the things real life Dobson had said and done either at the time or in the years to come. Well that and the way how he tries to mock issues people have with his work, not realizing how he is essentially just reassuring those “silly critics” in their opinions while making his flaws more obvious to people that may have been previously unaware of them.

But enough talk, let me just show you in quick succession examples to confirm said point.

Considering Dobson’s longterm disdain for DnD you have to wonder what the joke really is outside of him portraying DnD players as ugly nerds, supposedly too geeky even for him. Which is hilarious in hindsight as he would years later become a fan of TAZ among other things.

Less hypocritical but the set up is kinda flawed. Like, you are obviously at a convention trying to sell stuff. Why would some old dude not interested in “kids crap” be at the convention anyway? Is he just bringing someone there and just wants to go, but first needs time to belittle your life choices?

 Rather hilarious in hindsight to me. Cause for someone claiming he has ideas that last for a life time and who seems rather distraught on the idea of others giving their input, he turned out to be so in need of ideas. Alex ze Pirate e.g. became from 2015 onward only defined by Dobson talking about the sexualities of his characters (and not even in comic as by that point it was discontinued, but rather in tweets and so on). Formera, which ran heavily on cheap shonen anime tropes ended up cancelled after two volumes, Cabin Rest was a failure after 20 strips, 2019 he relied primarily on cheap comics about Miraculous Ladybug and his understanding of certain genres is so bad, he can’t even think up the most basic ideas for a magical girl story.

Weirdly enough, that pitch of a garbage truck driver who fights crime? I think that could make for an enjoyable short story about a vigilante a la the Punisher or Sin-City.

 The way Dobson perceives criticism, while also essentially giving a quick rundown how he appreciated criticism in his childhood way better than in adulthood. Yeah, because criticism by your parents as a kid was always VERY constructive. (looks back at certain drawings from own childhood) brrr. And sorry Dobson, but sometimes criticism by strangers is better than criticism from friends. Cause friends may mince their words. Plus people have over time given you quite some insightful criticism aside “U SUX” when it comes to comics. You were just never willing to listen

Hey Dobson, you hear that? That is the sound of your career, dying and no one caring.

Yeah, I think someone who made such “brilliant” comedy as in these comics, totally has the right not to listen to what seems to be solid theoretical advice.

BTW, that Talus comic… I swear to god the worst “joke” Dobson ever told.

 Wow. You essentially make a point why you suck at drawing. While still not trying to change.

And as someone else once said: Don’t play with fire if you can’t deal with the heat, BLOCK-son!

This is not how I perceived your shit over the years. See, on one hand it is true that Alex ze Pirate e.g. has its own webpage to read the comic for free. HOWEVER most of his comics Dobson would hide from the start behind a paywall. The idea being that he would e.g. put a small reading sample of 10-15 pages up somewhere and then expect people to buy his comic for full price to get the rest. And you know, if you are e.g. a professionally published writer, that is fine. But when your average art output looks like THIS

And you expect people to pay more than 10 dollars for something that is only around 70 pages long while most people can get 200+ pages for the same amount of money that look like this…

 You can frankly go and screw yourself.

On one hand I get that the joke is meant to be, that as an independent content creator you may find yourself in a weird spot where your “child friendly” work may be put in a palace between edgier stuff other creators sell at conventions. On the other hand, I find it rather insulting in hindsight, that self declared feminist Andrew Dobson portrays such competition as either psychopathic murderers or stereotypical cartoon bimbos. If modern day Dobson saw the same strip by any other person, he would be insulted on behalf of the female that she is portrayed as a bimbo, when she could also be a very smart and attractive woman who knows how to tell brave and sexy stories.

Also, I have read your “child friendly” stuff, Dobson. I would call Atea or Alex abusive bitches who like to bully orphans but child friendly? Not to forget that your work is so basic and shallow in depth, it’s like the someone tried to create a chimera out of some of the worst traits associated with Dora the Explorer, 80s toodler cartoons and the Fairly Oddparents.

I frankly hate this theory on comedy. It is true, a lot of comedy can be deprived from conflict, misunderstandings etc. Looney Tunes, Tom and Jerry and other cartoons as well as screwball comedies such as Rat Race can depend on it. Heck, one of my favorite comedians of all time is Christopher Titus, who based his entire career on the misery and absurdity of his life.

But comedy is not just defined by misery and conflict.

There are for example also the following theories when it comes to comedy…

And to get back e.g. to Titus, yes, he has build a lot of his comedy on the bad stuff that happened in his life. But he is also someone who in his comedy has build a lot of punchlines on the absurdity of certain situations he has been in life but which in a way have enriched his life positively.

 What I am trying to say is, comedy (and entertainment in that regard) does not just have to be defined by misery. And all things considered Dobson, you could have really tried to also just make comics wherein either you or your characters are just happy with their situation in life.

For example, this page from an Owl House fancomic?

I think it holds more entertainment value than your “joke” right here, despite not even telling a joke.

Simply because as a page overall, it tries to convey a positive emotion. Which is more than I can say about the strip.

Because of a lack of different level of thickness regarding your lines, which would trick people into perceiving depth, the fact that the fill bucket and shade layers can only do so much to cover for the rather monochromatic dull nature of your comic, the fact that your characters are not really all that complex and look rather simplicstic even compared to stuff from a comic like this…

And that is just coming from the top of my head as someone who never studied art. If any reader has something to add, I am willing to listen

And considering you could in later years never keep up to any release schedule, which among other things resulted in only three SYAC strips in total being released in 2016, I say go fuck yourself. Not to forget that even some of the worst newspaper comic strips out there tend to actually find a decent following and good jokes eventually, otherwise they would not manage to stay popular for years, if not even decades.

As someone who has worked internships a lot in life, I just want to say fuck you in all our names. Glad to see you having just as much respect for interns than any other scumbag on the planet. Probably even less respect, cause you know, in some places interns tend to get paid.

Also, there is supposedly an entire real world story going on about Dobson having worked at his former university at the time the comic came out and Chaz is based on a fellow intern.

Things are unfortunately rather vague in that regard and only hold up by demonstrative evidence such as the name of Chaz showing up in certain pages of the university and Dobson’s internship being mentioned somewhere.

Well, would you look at that: People have different opinions on your stuff.

There are ways to draw memes funny and then there are ways to fail at them

 You failed.

Funnily enough, that comic rings a lot truer to text than you expect. Considering how Dobson would often emulate certain aesthetics in his comics of shows that were rather passee by the time he published his stuff, plus how he will obsess over certain trends and games for years to come (like Skyrim or his Quiet Hate Boner) while also being unaware about current trends (how do you e.g. not have heard of My Hero Academia by 2018 at least once by accident?) Dobson has always been kinda late to the party. Missing the “zeitgeist” of nerd culture and as such never quite finding an audience.

Yeah, what Pam says. Not helped by the fact that yes, the floating eyebrows are real. Look at some earlier sketches or “professionally published” comics by his and you will see that each time characters get excited, their eyebrows will suddenly split into sets of three and float higher than Pennywise’s victims.

Ironically, that fits real life Dobson at the time and later on even more so than this comic version did. Sorry, but what am I supposed to call a person who has an hate boner on anime for years for superfluous reasons, made Danny and Spot a “gaming webcomic” deliberately to piss on non Nintendo fans and has admitted in some by now deleted youtube video, that he kept a list of usernames from an old forum just to remember even years later the people that were mean to him online?

 Fuck both of you. I do not expect the Sixtin Chapel in the background, but something to filll up the empty space behind you is at times needed.

The comic here is actually called politics. … ironic how things changed once a certain reality show host turned president.

Jesus Christ. I am not even that much of a Transformers fan (Prime fan for life however) but even I know that this is not supposed to be what you design the head of a Transformer like. Not even if they ever produce the Transformers equivalent of Teen Titans Go.

Too bad you still can’t stand the heat, otherwise you wouldn’t have completely disappeared last year.

When you know you are in a no win situation, and still manage to choose an even dumber option to escape. I really don’t get it. I just think the Portal reference makes the comic dated and Dobsn’s attempt at a smug face looks so stupid. Like his cheeks are falling in and his mouth is about ready to get raped by a garden hose or something.

Yeah, considering Dobson’s later constant need for safe spaces and to be in control of a situation and the narrative, which led to so many blocks over the years… if you know anything about Dobson, how this comic becomes harsher in hindsight is rather self explanatory. I just want to say one thing: There is a difference between genuine agoraphobia and just wanting to be by yourself. And I think Dobson just prefers the later on average. Which is okay, but humans still need to interact with other human beings in one form or another, even just for the sake of keeping their mental health stable. Why do you think are so many people getting depressed in times of covid lockdowns, despite many having all sorts of technical gimmicks at their disposal to at least keep boredom at bay?

And by putting himself into a bubble like that, I think Dobson has deprived himself of some of the most basic human interaction, which was likely a severe factor in his mental degeneration over the last years.

It is still a valid suggestion! Just draw some cartoon characters or a nice fantasy scenario on a mural and earn yourself some bucks. Just be sure they are not by Disney or the Mouse will tear down the school!

… Just google up the words Andrew Dobson and Samus Aran commission by ED and you will see how this comic just further shows how much Dobson seems to actually be proud of being an unproductive asshole.

 And by the way, I know that any form of artistic work takes time. Just writing these review posts takes a lot of time for me. But that doesn’t change the fact that people should post and create stuff in a timely fashion, especially when there are e.g. deadlines to hold up too. And by the way, Sloth’s don’t have fingers, they have claws!

And that is it.

Sorry if I missed anything folks, but I just saw how many pages in word this is already filling up, so I call quits for this part here right now. I think I made my point about how Dobson trying to badly deflect arguments people may make against his art and work ethics via jokes clear enough, while also showing some posts that are either harsher or hilarious in hindsight.

Next time we will however address one certain issue about our main character, that has been not directly addressed here. In the meantime, have a little fun video that shows hopefully how entertainment and a certain amount of comedy can be gained NOT via misery.

[ohdearhiddles]

REQUEST: “Angst to Fluff Tom x reader: when having some spring-cleaning done, she finds a paper from her schooldays. The lesson was to capture a certain feeling and put them to writing - so she chose to do a suicide note. Smiling, she remembered getting an A, for ‘her emotional description of a soul in suffering.’ Leaving it on the bed, she goes up the attic to proceed. Later Tom comes home, calling but gets no answer and finds reader's letter.”

TITLE: The Letter

WORD COUNT: 2544

AUTHOR NOTES/WARNINGS: mentions of suicide, please do not read if the topic makes you uncomfortable!!! @scorpionchild81​ thank you so much for the request and i’m so glad you’ve enjoyed my work so far!!! I tried my hardest to write it the way you described so fingers crossed that it’s what you wanted. ♡  i hope you enjoy this :) x (AO3 LINK)

Dust floated around the air like glitter after a child’s birthday party. Both were not fun to inhale or clean up. Your hands flailed in front of your face, hoping to get the particles as far from your nose as possible. This clearly didn’t work as you turned your head away, a fit of coughs attacking you to show that your attempts were not successful. Stepping down from the small step stool, you decided that the dusting would just have to wait until you finished organizing the mass of random items you had collected over the years.

Music bounced off the walls of the house as you eyed the trash bag and the scattered items on the floor. ‘Why did cleaning always start with things getting even messier first?’ You thought. Spring cleaning was always a hassle, but at the same time, the gratification that came afterwards was so very worth it. It was like spring cleaning allowed for a new chapter of the year to begin, leaving behind the past to make way for new memories and new random items.

As you sifted through the various papers, books, and memorabilia something caught your eye. A folded up piece of paper laid wedged between the pages of your old high school yearbook. For a second, you wondered if you should even bother opening the small paper or just toss it in the trash. The thought swiftly disappeared as you began to wonder why you had kept it in the first place.

You held the pale piece of paper in your hand, eyeing it as the curiosity began to overwhelm you. For some reason, it seemed strange for you to have kept anything from your school days. Obviously, it had been important enough, or good enough, to have kept over the years. Granted, you had certainly forgotten about its existence. After a few moments of contemplating, you began unfolding it. Your eyebrows raised in shock, not expecting what you saw before you. In your hand, you held a paper you had written years prior, and as you began to reminisce, your eyes scanned the words scrawled on it.

To whom it may concern;

The world is a dark place filled with shadows that cover even the brightest lights. The sun beams down on the earth, but I feel no warmth when I stand beneath its rays. The stars illuminate the night sky, but I see no light to guide me. Darkness consumes my body and soul; my heart continues to wither in my chest with each passing day.

I feel nothing and everything all at once. I feel impending doom as well as the endless void; they call my name. I stand before you, armor shed and battle cries unheard. My uphill battle was a slippery one. The battle is over, and I have watched myself lose at every turn. This battle was never mine to win, and it is something I have come to accept. I hope you accept it, too.

As Emily Dickinson once said, “One need not be a chamber to be haunted.”

I find myself to be a room filled to max occupancy. I am filled with ghosts of my memories and phantoms of my unforeseen future. In this room, I stand by myself. I am the center of mockery and jokes. There is no peace in these moments of silent unrest.

So, please, do not mourn for my freedom. To be free is to see the light at the end of my endless tunnel. To be free is to let go of my mind and my soul. To be free is to rid myself of demons, ghosts, and phantoms alike.

The letter continued on, describing in great detail the torment that you had expressed in the first few paragraphs. Memories flooded your mind as you recalled the day the assignment had been given out. Now that you thought about it, you were certain that you had received an A on the assignment for being able to capture the emotions of someone who was suffering quite well. A smile adorned your face at the memory of your teacher’s delight in your ability to convey emotions so well.

When the letter was finished, you folded it up, a gentle smile still on your lips as you realized how much things had changed over the years. You placed the folded paper onto your bed, reminding yourself to find an appropriate place for it later on. Ten minutes later and all the older items that you no longer wanted were placed into a box. You stood to your feet, looking at the boxes on the ground with a smile. 

‘Almost done,’ you thought.

Now that the bedroom was done, the only room left was the attic. Internally, you groaned, knowing that the one room alone was going to take an eternity to finish cleaning up. Picking up a box, you carried it to the attic, hoping to find a way to organize all the unnecessary things you had collected.

Time seemed to stop in the attic for you. While you were working hard to ensure that all the cobwebs and dust bunnies were kept at bay, your perception of time seemed to go away. There were no windows in your attic, making it incredibly difficult to see how much more time you had in the day without looking at your phone. Too invested in your current actions, you hadn’t noticed the slam of the door downstairs, indicating that your partner had just made it home.

“Y/N,” Tom called, placing his keys on the kitchen counter as he wandered around the lower floor. His eyes skimmed over each room, admiring the unnatural cleanliness that had overtaken the home. He followed the sound of music up the stairs to the bedroom, glancing around for any trace of you. When he reached the bedroom, his eyebrows furrowed in confusion. 

“Darling?” He called a second time, his eyes trained on an object on the bed. He approached slowly, not entirely uneasy, but something in the pit of his stomach still made him wary of the fact that you weren’t answering him. The paper you had placed on the bed a couple hours before made its way into Tom’s hands. He didn’t take his time like you had to open it; instead, he unfolded it gingerly yet quickly, skimming over the words.

A frown settled on his face as each word began to sink in. There was no date on the letter, no indication that it was written for a class years before, and that became a blow that knocked the air from your loving boyfriend’s lungs. In the years you two had been together, he never once felt as though you would feel the need to write something so heart wrenching, so profoundly dark. As the last words of the letter processed in his mind, Tom felt a heavy weight in his chest.

Crumbling the paper in his hand, he called your name again and again and then one last time. The music blocked all the rustling noises you were making from the attic; in fact, it drowned out any noise that either of you were making. As Tom frantically searched the house, you contentedly smiled at the once cluttered attic, unaware of the heart attack the gentleman downstairs was ready to have. You picked up the last box laying around, opting to place it on top of one of the heavier ones. However, the older box seemed to not want to agree with its new position. Upon picking it up, the bottom of the cardboard fell through, causing a loud clatter to resonate beneath you.

The sound was enough for Tom to quickly run towards the attic stairs. His heart was erratically beating in his chest as he bound up the stairs as fast as he could. When he reached the top, his eyes immediately fell on your crouched down figure as you bent down to pick up the fallen knick-knacks. Hearing his heavy footsteps, you smiled in his direction, a greeting on the tip of your tongue.

Tom swiftly crossed the space separating the two of you, hands grabbing your arms in an effort to get you to stand up and face him. “What are you doing?”

His voice was loud, frantic, scared. Your eyes widened at the look of fear in his face, uncertain as to what had spooked him so terribly. 

“What?” You questioned, hands reaching up to his flushed cheeks, “What’s wrong?”

“I was calling for you,” he spoke, voice barely audible over the music. “Where were you?”

“Here,” you responded, moving to pause the music from your cellphone.

Tom glanced over your shoulder, looking at the clean attic, “I thought something happened to you. I thought you-”

His voice cut off as his hands tightened around your shoulders. Without any warning, he pulled you close. It wasn’t until you noticed the shaky breath he exhaled that you realized just how scared he had been. You reached your hands up to rub his back soothingly, “Why did you think something happened? Thomas, you knew I was going to clean up today.”

You felt Tom nod as his grip loosened. “I found your letter.”

Pulling away, you furrowed your brows, confused as to what he meant. You watched as he pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket. It was crumbled greatly, but it wasn’t balled up to the point of no return. He opened it up, attempting to smooth out the edges and creases scattered all over the thin paper. When he was done with his feeble attempts of returning it to its former glory, Tom handed it to you. You took the paper into your hands, eyeing it before sighing.

“It’s an old paper from school, Tom,” you spoke.

He shook his head, “That does little to calm my nerves, Y/N. You just confirmed that you wrote it.”

“Yeah, but it’s from years ago.” You responded, eyes squinting at the tall gentleman.

“Years or not, you wrote something so terribly sad and empty. Forgive me if it made my heart beat a little faster,” Tom argued. You looked up to see his jaw clenched in concentration. His eyes were trained on the paper in your hands, almost as if he was trying to decipher some hidden code.

“It was for an assignment that was meant to portray emotion,” you reassured him. Tom let out a deep breath, his once shaky breath now calmed to some extent. For a few seconds, you watched his chest rise and fall, waiting for him to say something. 

“How did you even write something so,” he paused, “so unbearably sad? After reading it, you weren’t answering me, and I was so scared. You wrote it years ago, but is any of it true? Can you look me in the eye and say you don’t feel like that at all?”

You found yourself standing up straighter, looking deep into the ocean blue eyes before you. He had a point in his words. At one point, you had felt enough suffering to be able to conjure up such raw emotion for that paper, but it was no longer you. That part of you was long gone, a forgotten memory swept away by the many happy moments you had spent with the man you loved since then. Gently, you smiled. “I don’t feel that way.”

Tom stood still, eyes desperately searching yours for any indication that you had lied about how you felt. His hands found yours, gripping them tightly as he pulled you closer to his body for the second time since he had found you in the attic. He nuzzled his face into your hair and whispered, “Do you promise me?”

Your hands wrapped around his waist again, listening to the soft thrum of his heartbeat in his chest. Usually he would hold you close like this in order to calm you down, but today it seems like he was doing so in order to seek his own comfort. For a moment, you were convinced that he was holding you in order to ensure that you were real.

“I promise,” you whispered back, voice soft as you tried to hush his worries.

“Y/N,” Tom said, his grip tightening only slightly, “You mean so much to me, do you know that?”

Your heart skipped a beat at the confession. Of course you knew; the man before you never let you forget how much you meant to him. If it wasn’t a nice dinner, a cozy night in, or a lavish vacation, then it was the gentle touches or silent promises that spoke for him. The only thing he hadn’t done yet to show how much he cared was get down on one knee, but that wasn’t something to worry about. He was a man that enjoyed timing things perfectly, and something told you that a proposal would be something he’d plan for a long time before actually doing.

“I know,” you responded as you pulled back just enough to wrap your hands around the nape of his neck, fingers toying with the soft curls adorning his head. 

“I can’t lose you,” he sighed, eyes shut before they opened, connecting with your own eyes immediately.

“And you know that you can confide in me,” Tom continued, his own hands caressing the exposed skin at the small of your back. “About anything?”

Humming, you nodded. Your boyfriend didn’t say anything afterwards. Instead, he leaned forward, placing a gentle kiss on your forehead. His lips were warm against your cool skin. After the gesture, he moved to allow his lips to brush against your cheekbone.

“You really had me scared, you know? You shouldn’t leave something like that on the bed. Especially on my side of the bed,” he whispered, his breath fanning across the skin of your neck as he pressed his lips to your jaw.

“I’m sorry,” you said, turning your head to face him, lips a fraction of an inch apart. “But I’m okay, Tom. I’m not planning on going anywhere, not when I have you.”

He leaned forward, connecting the space between you two. The kiss was gentle, almost as if Tom was scared you were going to break from it. Your hands cupped his cheeks as you tried to hold his towering frame at a height that you could reach. His lips moved against yours as he pulled your body flush against his. His right hand covered the expanse of your back as he held you close while the other hand held your neck at an angle in order to have easy access to your lips.

The kiss ended almost as quickly as it started. When it was over, Tom leaned his forehead against yours, a silent promise on his lips much like there always was after the two of you kissed. 

“I love you,” he whispered as if it were a secret meant to be kept from the air itself.

“I love you, too,” you whispered back, standing on your tiptoes as you placed another kiss to his lips. Silently wishing for the love and care Tom showed you to never end.

[iamallybee]

Because peeps on my dash are hooked on the Deltadi ship and have got me hooked too, here's a basic outline of how Delta Dawn and Dickory got together in the Gumdrop AU! It also calls back to my other Trolls headcanon posts so you might wanna read those before this one. Putting under the cut because this is looooong!

All his life, Dickory had been told that one day he’ll meet that special someone, he’ll experience certain feelings, of love and intimacy. But Dickory just...never felt it. He felt love for his family but romance? Sexual feelings? It never came to him. During his teenage years, he did feel like he was broken. He felt pressured to start his first relationship, telling himself feelings would come. It...did not end well. In fact, you could say it made him feel more broken than ever.

But then the avalanche happened. Due to the mass loss of yodellers, many of the young adults were pressured to marry and have children quickly to increase numbers and save their culture. In fact, it became a new tradition for yodellers to marry as soon as they turned 18. The only one to refuse this was an 18-year-old Dickory. He may have been shunned a little for his decision (which made him feel worse about his lack of sexuality) but he honestly didn’t have time to think about that anymore. His was still a kid who parents literally just died with a baby brother left behind to take care of. He had no time for marriage, he’d say to the other yodellers. His brother needed him and that is totally the only reason why he couldn’t marry. Throughout his life, Dickory would continue to feel stress and sadness, not knowing about being ace/aro and still believing there was something wrong with him. But at least he has Hickory and his new bounty hunting job to distract him.

Anyway, TWT happened and as soon as Delta found out that Hickory was really two trolls disguised as one country troll imposing on her beloved town, she had them arrested and put on community service for a unspecified amount of time. So she and Dickory did not have the best start in the slightest.

Hickory was soon made to do a report on Pop Trolls and left for Pop Village (and thus beginning his own romance with Poppy and Branch but that’s another story). Dickory was made to stay and do humiliating duties (like clean up after the livestock) while enduring the mockery of the locals and the ridiculously high heat. The only good/kind of less worse thing he saw in this was the fact that Delta’s niece, Clampers, was strangely drawn to him. She would nag and ask him questions about why he has two legs, what are those stumpy things on your hooves and can I bite them? Annoyed initially, he soon warmed up to her as she reminded him of Hickory when he was a child. Their friendship reached a point where they even started playing together. Delta witnessed this one day and maybe, just maybe, her heart may have melted. But only a little.

One day, after a restless sleep, Dickory decided to take a walk about town in the early hours of the morning. His was surprised when his keen ears picked up on a faint, mournful song from the cemetery. He found Delta singing with tears in her eyes to the grave of her sister. After awkward small talk, they both open up about the loved ones they've lost and how it changed them. They found their experiences to be remarkably similar (Delta lost her sister in a mining accident and was left to raise her daughter) and from that point on, they began to grow closer.

Over the next several weeks, Dickory began to actually care about the Lonesome Flats community and his service became a lot more voluntary and a lot less punishing. He would help the elderly, fix up anything that needed fixing, even learned how to herd up the livestock (although his first attempt was a complete hilarious disaster that Growley Pete just loves to tease him about). The locals soon began to think of him as one of their own and gained their respect, in turn gaining Delta's trust.

Delta and Dickory's friendship grew in that time too. In the beginning, she would order him to do certain task or else she would make him do something much more humiliating which used to tick him off. Now, she would ask him or else she would 'threaten' him to make him clean out Growley Pete's hooves, which he would respond with a sarcastic comment with a smile. They were pretty much very buddy-buddy. But the locals weren't blind to the underlying romantic tension between them.

Delta absolutely knew she was having romantic feelings for Dickory but she was at first hesitant. Country trolls are the type to take romance on head first and confidently but she was afraid of scaring him off so decided to bide her time for the right moment. Not exactly made easy when her parents totally shipped them and would try everything in their power to embarrass Delta enough into confessing.

Dickory, on the other hand, didn't know what to feel. Sure, he liked Delta now but she was just a good friend to have a drink and a laugh with, throw sarcastic comments at, arm wrestle with, share personal and past trauma history with, stare at and wish to touch her stupid big beautiful hair, want to hold close to-uh oh!

Suddenly it was like he was a teenager again but this time it was different. He liked her but it can't be THAT kind of love. It didn't exist for him, remember? He couldn't feel that love for anyone because he never did and it would never happen. She's a friend you care a lot about and that's it. Besides, even if there were feelings (which there weren't), it would be best if nothing happened because come on, she would never want someone who didn't like...well, y'know.

Basically, Dickory's in denial pretty hard.

Anyhow, the country trolls have a pretty big shindig one evening where there's plenty of dancing, laughing, drinking and fun. Both Delta and Dickory were having a great time but just as buddies, right? 

However, at one point in the early hours of the morning, they found themselves alone together and Delta, in a drunken stupor with all logic thrown out the window, confesses and boldly kisses Dickory. And then she passed out.

In the days following, things were very awkward. Delta remembered the kiss and was horribly embarrassed for being so careless. She decided it was best if they actually sat down and talked about it like adults. Only problem? Dickory was now deliberately avoiding Delta. He didn't want to ruin the friendship they already had but he also didn't want to have the conversation he knew was inevitably coming.

Finally, a frustrated Delta decided to f this and confront Dickory head on. A huge argument blew up between them (which temporarily cleared out the town) which culminated to Delta demanding to know why he doesn't want to be with her and Dickory yells back 'BECAUSE I'M BROKEN, DAMMIT!'

Silence.

After the shock, the pair of them calm down enough for Delta to gently encourage him to explain further. Dickory shakily and tearfully admits his unresolved negative feelings about his asexuality, the yodellers pressure on him to marry, how much its affected him and how wrong he's truly felt all these years and yet he somehow has feelings for Delta that he doesn't understand and how he can't be the man she wants him to be or give her what she would ultimately want.

Shocked, Delta tells him that she's sorry she ever made him feel this way but she only wants Dickory to be himself and if being himself means that he can't give her certain things then that's okay because she loves him just as he is.

But Dickory, still confused, emotional and a stubborn old goat, decides this is the best time to run off and return home.

Heartbroken, Delta writes to Hickory that his community service is up and he is free to return to his home. She tries her best to continue her duties as mayor but everyone can tell she greatly misses Dickory.

When the brothers reunite back to their homes, they also try to move on as normal but both of them have a lot to think about in terms of the things they went through recently (again, Hickory had his own romantic shenanigans going on as well). One night, the two of them talk about what they went up to in the past weeks and realise that the other has experienced love and are too stubborn to admit it. They even have a big sibling argument about it. I mean whose dumb enough to not look past their own insecurities and see that they are loved and they love them back and they shouldn't let the past hold them down in finding happiness and - oh, I see what's happening here!

Anyway, its agreed upon that Hickory and Dickory should return to Lonesome Flats and Pop Village to confess their feelings to their respective loved ones and not see each other until they do or someone's ass is getting beat (y'know, normal sibling pact stuff).

So

In true spaghetti western style, Dickory returns to Lonesome Flats. He stares Delta down from one side of town to the other, locals watching with baited breath. He yells to Delta for the whole town to hear, that he was an idiot for running away and that he wasn't sure how they were going to figure things out in the future. But he's here now, he's not running away anymore and he loves her too.

Delta, without saying a word, storms up to Dickory, picks up up from under the arms and gives him a great, big, long overdue smooch to the cheers of the townsfolk and the cries of 'FINALLY' from her parents and niece (meanwhile, Growley Pete starts collecting bets).

Anyhow, Dickory moves to Lonesome Flats, eventually marries Delta, adopts Clampers as his niece, is fully content with being demiromtic/asexual, yada yada, happy ending, mwah! (I am a master of storytelling)

[bbrandy2002]

Wacky Drabble #18: The Turkey Drop

This is part of @emceesynonymroll weekly wacky drabbles.

Prompt: What if I dont see it

Im a day late on this one, wasn't sure if I even wanted to post it, but, here we are.

A/N: I can't take credit for the idea of this as it comes from an old show and I'm just recreating one of the Thanksgiving episodes from it, sort of.

Summary: The gang gathers together in Ramsford to celebrate Thanksgiving with the Beaumonts. Let's just say, all hell is gonna break loose.

Warning: Turkeys may be harmed but I'm choosing to defy reality and believe they are all okay. If you don't feel you can, this is the heads up not to read 🦃

I put a "read more" in every story, sometimes they work and sometimes they don't. Crossing my fingers.

**********

Riley has always respected the customs and traditions that have been carried down throughout Cordonian history. Being the American- born, Queen of Cordonia, she opted to celebrate this holiday during her first year of marriage, in private- just she, Liam, and their close friends. She didn't want the Cordonian people to ever feel that she was trying to "Americanize" their great country. Liam, however, loved the idea of having one day out of the year for reflection and giving thanks, as this was something even Cordonian's would appreciate.

It was during their second year of marital bliss, the King presented this idea to the Royal Council, where it was passed almost unanimously. Madeleine was the only dissenting vote, having nothing to be thankful for.

It was decided the third Thursday of every November would be designated, Thanksgiving, in Cordonia.

What you are about to read is the real and true account of how the Duchy of Ramsford chose to kick off thier first official Thanksgiving.

**********

The weather was chillier than normal that day for the typically warmer climate of the Mediterranean country. Ramsford citizens bundled in light coats, braving the elements, in anticipation of the first Thanksgiving festival hosted by their Duke and Duchess. As festival goers wafted through the rows of vendors who were preparing enticing delicacies synonymous of their homeland, purchasing turkey related memorabilia, and partaking in games often seen at these event, they eagerly awaited the appearance of their very popular royals.

Maxwell had insisted he be the one in charge of putting this shindig together, planning every single detail, even down to the location of each port a potty. Bertrand was all too happy to oblige, having no free time with a toddler and a brand new baby. The only request made- absolutely, under no circumstances, were those 'blasted, overly feathered, menaces' of his, to be in attendance. Well, of course not, Maxwell had another kind of bird in mind, ones that were more in the spirit of Thanksgiving, and he would make sure each family in Ramsford had one of their own.

Drake walked morosely behind Liam and Riley, who were busy greeting their adoring citizens with Bertrand and Savannah. He wasn't in a festive mood since being dumped a few days ago. It wasn't that he was in a serious relationship yet with the sexually oppressed American from Illinois, but, who she left him for....Neville.

"Ohhh Walker!"

Drake cringed at the unbearable voice calling out to him and he had no use for entertaining her today. He clutched the whiskey flask, a former fiancee had given him, preparing to drown out the incessant mockery that was sure to follow.

"So...", Olivia eyed him with a devilish grin and her signature raised brow "...enjoying the single life again?", she taunted.

He huffed, "at least I had an "again", what's your excuse?"

She cackled, "Touche". Her eyes roamed the surroundings as they continued to stroll along, her mood shifting with curiousity "where the hell is Maxwell, he's usually at every one of these goddamn things making a fool of himself".

Bertrand turned to the Duchess, having finished with the receiving line of guests, clearing his throat, "My brother is off preparing a surprise that will be the delight of all of Ramsford today".

Savannah looked at Bertrand adoringly, "That's right Bertie, we are giving away a free turkey to enjoy with their families this holiday season".

"That's very generous and kind of you both, I'm sure your people will be very grateful, especially those less fortunate", Liam nodded, clasping Bertrand approvingly on the shoulder.

Drake shook his head, "I still can't believe Maxwell put this whole thing on himself, I don't trust it", sipping the last remnants of his drink.

"Drake, don't be a hater. Besides, Maxwell has proved himself to be more than responsible and mature of late", Savannah defended.

"What if I don't see it?"

The group continued to enjoy the festivities and fanfare as the sun finally broke through the thickened clouds, shining a ray of warmth below. A group text message from Maxwell came through as each of them checked their phones simultaneously, telling them to look up.

Bertrand, Savannah, Liam, Riley, Drake and Olivia, each shielded their eyes from the bright sun as they looked toward the sky eagerly. The faint sound of a helicopter getting louder as it approached closer to their location. A crowd began to gather around them as Bertrand smiled on proudly.

Riley pointed up excitedly, "Look! It has a banner on the back of the helicopter".

"Happy...Thanksgiving...from the Beaumonts", Liam read aloud as the banner became clearer. Savannah and Bertrand acknowledged the ohh's and aww's of the crowd, who were enchanted by the extravagant display taking place 2000 feet above them.

"What the hell just came out it?", Drake squinted to get a better look, as a small object appeared to have fallen from the large chopper.

"I don't know, maybe its a skydiver...", Riley answered as she looked on in anticipation.

Olivia furrowed her brows, "I don't see a parachute yet... wait!...there's another one and a third".

"Those can't be skydivers...I just can't quite make out what they are though", a bewildered Liam replied before his eyes widened with realization,"OH MY GOD...THEY'RE TURKEYS!!"

The crowd began to scatter in panic as live turkeys came crashing down around them, most of them landing on the soft tarps vendors had set up. Brown and white feathers intermingling through the air as stunned turkeys flapped wildly in anger. Patrons pushing and shoving one another in desperate search for safety, running for their lives.

A stunned Bertrand, scrambled to calm the masses to no avail. Savannah cried out loudly, "Oh my god, the humanity!", after ducking under a table, pulling Bertrand down with her.

Bastien made every attempt to shield Liam and Riley, who clung protectively to one another, while dodging and weaving through crowds of fearful people, stray feathers and irate falling turkey's. They stopped only briefly as they passed a padre, recieved their last rites and hauled ass to a picnic shelter. As the helicopter circled the grounds to launch a second wave of birds, Liam hurridly scrambled to reach Maxwell to cease the unintended assault.

Drake took off running with Olivia hot on his heels. He banged relentlessly on the door of the nearest porta-a-potty where an older gentleman allowed a frantic Drake and Olivia to hide. Due to being unable to hold three grown people, Drake stood in the doorway, having just enough room to shield his head. Olivia peeked over his broad shoulders as the last of the fowl fell on a tent across from them. They stood in astonishment momentarily, unsure if it was safe to exit while screams and the jumbling shrill of turkeys reverberate off their metal enclosure.

The older gentleman with them, finally spoke out when something strange caught his eye, "what are they doing?", gesturing at the 15 or so gathered birds in front of them.

Drake scratched his head in thought, "I think the little bastards are...organizing"

"I've seen this before", Olivia replied surely, "they're strategizing... its basic battle tactics...they're planning a counter attack".

Drake motioned to the formation of incoming turkeys, questioningly, "You've seen this before?"

Olivia patted her clothing down and began pulling knifes from various hidden holsters underneath, a determined look sketched across her face. "People...birds...whats the difference, they're both full of shit. I'm a Nevrakis, damn it...I will not be turkied to death by these...disgusting chicken wanna be's...you with me or not, Walker?". She holds up a knife that barely misses his face as he stumbles backwards off the edge to avoid it.

Drake swipes the blade from her steady hand, his dark brown eyes filled with savagery, "Let's end these fuckers!".

2 hours later...Ramsford Memorial Hospital

"Drake, can you hear me?", a concerned Liam stood at the bedside of his lifelong friend, when Drake's eyes began to flutter open.

"Liam...wh...where am I?"

"You're in the hospital buddy, you've got a nasty concussion and a broken nose, but, the doctors had a head CT ordered and it didn't show any serious trauma or permanent damage...you will, however, have to stay here overnight for observation".

Drake glanced around the room, grimacing at the shooting pain from his throbbing, bandaged nose and the seering pressure behind his eyes. The overhead lights making his already blurry vision so much worse. He attempted to speak, but, his voice was hoarse and dry. Liam reached for a cup of water that sat on his bed tray and assisted him in drinking.

Drake licked his lips, "what happened? The last thing I remember was grabbing the knife from her", he nodded at Olivia, who was standing in amusement at the end of his bed, "why the hell am I'm so jacked up?".

Liam looked to Olivia, he, himself not entirely sure of the exact circumstamces for Drake's injuries, hoping she could shed light on the situation.

Olivia moved around the bed to stand next to Liam, an uncontained smiled slipping across her pale face, "It was a giant Turkey...smashed right into your face", she clapped her hands together loudly, "Smack!". A light chuckle escaped her as both men glared back with astonished expressions.

Several seconds of silence commenced as that information began to process.

"What?", Drake snapped.

Olivia explained that Maxwell must have had one turkey left because another one came barrelling out of no where, dropping like a stealth bomber, and crashing right into his face. Never one to mince words, she took the opportunity to let him know that his face looks better now that most of it is covered in bandages.

Liam took in a deep breath, "I'm going to take my leave now that I can see you are well. I told Bertrand I would attend the press conference with him...apparently, Maxwell thought turkey's could fly".

Drake rolled his eyes, mumbling to himself, "Responsible and mature, huh?", he looked back to Liam with a grateful smirk, "thanks Liam for being here".

Liam clapped Drake's arm, "No problem", he turned to Olivia as he made his way for the door, "you coming?".

"Yeah", Olivia grabbed her coat and clutch that were laying across one of the hospital chairs and followed Liam to the door. She hesitated before fully exiting, turning sharply on her stiletto heels. "You did...well out there today soldier".

"I got clobbered in the face by a fucking bird, Liv!", he shouted back, grabbing his nose in pain as his head jostled from his over-exaggerated retort.

"Even so...", she trailed, as a long pause followed, the silence nearly becoming awkward. A small hint of compassion crept through her strong features and Drake instantly recognized the change in her demeanor.

"Happy Thanksgiving, Walker".

"Happy Thanksgiving...Liv".

[reddeaddamnation]

Could you write something with Leon where him and reader were together (but broke up due to something or another) and like while on a mission Leon and Helena run into her and Helena notices that they still obviously have feelings for each other so she tries to get them back together? I love your blog and writing so much! ^^

I allowed myself to add the reason why they broke up to make the fic more interesting :) Enjoy!

“Oh, hell no“ Leon thought to himself, as panic and memories long since passed flooded his mind and seeped into his very soul “Helena, we’re going back.“ he said outloud to his partner, not even waiting for an answer before turning on his heel and storming away in the opposite direction, leaving Helena baffled, confused and following him, asking countless of questions. “Leon! Leon, wait! What the hell!? We have a mission to do!“ Sure, this was a mission like any other they were sent on, but the very person they came across in the filthy sewer they were crawling in made Leon instantly regret what he was doing and where he was at the moment. The person in question was his ex lover agent [Y/N] [L/N]. 

“She can handle it herself!“ Leon cut off Helena harshly, not halting in his movements even for a moment to wait for her “Obviously there is a very competent agent here on the job already.“ he mocked. [Y/N] saw them as well and an angry grimace formed on her face, yet she didn’t say anything to indicate she noticed or wanted their presence around her. Because even though she was completely alone in a freezing cold, reeking, dark and wretched sewer full of mutants, she would still prefer their company rather than her ex and what looked like his new girlfriend. What was the problem after all? She lit a small campfire to keep warm while she arranged and readied her weapons and armor. She was relatively away from danger and even if she was found, the enemy would quickly receive a bullet to the head without second thought.

“Leon, please!“ Helena pleaded, jogging up to him and grabbing him by the arm to tug him back to a stop “What’s the problem? That woman can only be a help in this place! You know what we’re up against here and we need all the help we can get.“ She reasoned, but Leon paced nervously around in a small circle, having a hard time keeping himself in one place and wondering what to do with himself now. “Helena,“ he started in a hushed tone “If you knew what I’ve been through, you wouldn’t want to have anything to do with her too.“ At that, Helena rolled her eyes “Please, tell me then.“ she crossed her arms over her chest, eyebrow raised expectantly and voice full of mockery and impatience.

“That there is my ex.“ Leon started after a long sigh. He avoided Helena’s gaze “She... Let’s say we didn’t get along well.“ A long pause followed. “And why was that?“ Helena urged. “We were always fighting. Mainly because of... other people. She was just way too possessive. Always asking me where I was, who I was with and with time it only got worse. As ironic as it seemed, these missions were like a pass time where I can relax, because when I got home I knew there was going to be a fight. In the end she even cheated on me.“ Helena listened to his story, but found it suspicious that he wasn’t looking at her when he talked, or more likely stuttered and was very obviously hiding something. She knew she had to hear the other side of the story before taking sides. “Are you over it?“ she finally asked. “Well, yeah.“ Leon shrugged “It was awhile back.“ 

Then, she grabbed his forearm and angrily started dragging him back, deeper into the sewer towards [Y/N]. “Okay, then you don’t mind doing this mission with her one time.” she retorted in a way that didn’t allow any objections. “Helena, for fuck’s sake!” he still protested, but the woman didn’t pay him any mind. When they reached the makeshift camp, [Y/N] looked at them with a raised eyebrow. “Agent Kennedy.” she greeted formally, not acknowledging the other woman and looked back down at her pistol. Leon grumbled some sort of greeting as well. “Agent Helena Harper.” Helena introduced herself “I suppose you’re here for the same purpose we are?” [Y/N] looked at her with an amused expression “No, you’re mistaken. I simply enjoy crawling in human waste and infected water. It’s good for the complexion.” she mocked harshly, but Helena didn’t take it too seriously.

“Well...“ she cleared her throat after another long pause “Let’s...let’s find this thing and get rid of it faster.” The other woman didn’t answer this time. Only looked at the pair indifferently and started walking, not even waiting for them. “You see what a nightmare she can be?“ Leon hissed at Helena, before following [Y/N] deeper into the dark sewer. Helena didn’t reply. 

The three walked in silence for a good amount of time, [Y/N] leading them by several steps. At some point, they came across a band of five infected humans. [Y/N] and Leon were quick to dispose of them, mainly due to the fact that they were basically competing against each other. Every shot Leon sent at one of them, [Y/N] followed, killing the zombie instead of him. Helena still didn’t leave the look they gave each other unnoticed. Like there was a longing, a nostalgia, so many words left unsaid, which will forever stay unsaid, because of pride. They missed each other’s presence, embrace, company...

“I’ll scout ahead in case there are more.“ Helena said, more as an excuse to leave the two alone and hope for the best “I’ll warn you if I find anything.“ As Helena started walking, Leon shouted after her to be careful. [Y/N] leaned against the wall, far away enough from him, crossing her arms and legs and gazed at the ground. “So...“ she spoke after a long silence “I see you moved on. I’m glad for you. She’s...pretty.“ She shifted her eyes away from the floor and looked into the distance, in the dark tunnel. “It’s not what you think.“ Leon answered quietly. “Oh? That was what you said about...“ [Y/N] noted with a smirk, but Leon cut her off harshly, immediately knowing who she was talking about “I don’t have to answer to you anymore.“

The woman glared at him furiously and Leon cleared his throat awkwardly. “So... uh... What about Chris? Haven’t seen him in awhile.” he spoke in an even more awkward friendly tone, shifting in his place. She shrugged “Fine. Far as I know, he got sent to Argentina a couple weeks ago.” The two stood in silence, basking in the bad memories. Only now they realized how toxic their relationship had become after Leon made the mistake of ruining it. How can you fight fire with fire? How can you fix something that was broken by breaking it more? 

“You loved her didn’t you?“ she asked in a hushed tone. Leon was quiet for a moment, merely watching her and biting his lip. He was just about to answer when the silence was suddenly broken by a sharp call of Leon’s name. The two turned their heads immediately and ran in direction of the voice, which sounded like Helena. They followed the calls for help, until they reached a large open space and when they saw the creature before them, [Y/N] clenched her belly, on the brink of throwing up. It was what looked like a gigantic mass of long, slimy tentacles, one sickly yellow eye, which stared at them menacingly and sharp horn-like outgrowths littering its body. Helena was desperately shooting it and was obviously panicking, but when she saw backup arrive, her movements became more confident. This monster was what they came for.

Without wasting time, Leon and [Y/N] jumped into the battle, shooting every bullet they had into the slimy body, but their efforts were left fruitless. “The eye! Shoot the eye!” [Y/N] yelled at Leon, who as soon as he heard her, shot a bullet right in the middle of the eye. The creature wailed and rolled back. Out of the eye, a snake like growth popped out and they recognized it as the virus that was growing inside it. Without thinking, [Y/N] jumped on the body, pulling out her combat knife and went straight to cut it off. The plan would have worked if only one of the countless tentacles didn’t swat her away roughly. “[Y/N]!” Leon yelled and jumped forward to catch her before she hit the ground.

She fell into his arms and the two shared a look, which had no place in such a situation. Adoration, love, longing... “Leon!” Helena cut them off just in time before another tentacle lashed out and slammed into the ground where they were standing, but Leon dodged in the last moment. He set [Y/N] down, but not without scolding her “Don’t do something that reckless again.” She laughed sharply “What do you care?” she asked, jumping out of the way of another tentacle. “You scared me.” Leon answered, shocking her with his words and making her freeze in her place. He shot the next tentacle that lunged at her and it retracted back with another wail from the monster.

“What do you say?“ Leon asked with a smirk “How about we work together again? One last time?“ [Y/N] smirked back and scoffed “If the situation asks it.“ Again, Leon shot the eye, but this time, [Y/N] kept her distance and as soon as the infection appeared again, she discarded her handgun and filled the creature with bullets from her Uzi. Leon and Helena did the same. [Y/N] was too distracted by her current objective and didn’t notice when one of the horns was ejected from the body and only realized it when it pierced her thigh. With a shriek, she dropped her gun and fell on her knee, grabbing a hold of the bone-like structure, attempting to pull it out. The sight and the pain made her almost faint. Dark spots played in front of her vision and her breathing became erratic. 

“[Y/N], hang in there!“ Leon kneeled beside her, holding her from falling “Please...“ he cradled her head close to his chest “Everything’s gonna be alright, [Y/N[, I promise, just don’t give up. I love you, [Y/N]...“ Her hand came up to grip his shirt and her weak voice caught his attention “Leon...you idiot.“ Her other hand reached for the Uzi and before he knew it, she aimed it with a shaky hand and emptied the gun right at the snake looking creature. The last thing she saw was that half of its body was severed and the larger mutant fell back dead with a wail. That was when she lost consciousness. 

Twelve hours later

“I’ll leave you two alone.“ A female voice woke her up and she immediately recognized it as Helena’s. “Thanks, Helena.“ Leon... After that, a door opened and closed gently. Slowly, [Y/N] opened her eyes and focused her blurry vision on Leon, sitting on a chair next to where she was laying. Her surroundings indicated she was in a hospital. “Oh, good. You’re finally awake.“ Leon murmured, watching her worriedly ”I was starting to get worried.“ Even in such a situation, a small smirk stretched across his lips, but nonetheless the happiness in his eyes was eminent.

“Leon...“ with a sleepy voice, she spoke slowly, attempting to sit up. Her leg protested though and she found herself laying back down with a small cry. Removing the covers, she saw that her thigh was bandaged and a red stain had formed where the wound was. “The doctor said you were going to be fine. You just need to rest.“ Leon explained, reaching for her hand. Her next question stopped his every movement. “Did you mean what you said back at the sewer?“ she asked. Leon didn’t even blink. “Well... of course I did.“ he scoffed awkwardly “You looked like you were dying. Of course I was gonna get worried.“ 

[Y/N] groaned, annoyed by his playing dumb attitude. “You’re impossible!” she tried to make her voice louder, but the effort only made her throat sore “Did you mean it? that you still love me?” The long awkward silence made her anxious. She was sure that if he didn’t answer, he was going to say no. “Honestly?” he stared at the ground and scoffed slightly “I never stopped.” [Y/N] stared at him indifferently, yet all the emotions she kept a secret within herself were aching to come out “If you ever did, why did you have to cheat on me with Ada?” she asked. “I never wanted it. After she found out I was with you, she was keen on ruining my life. Even went as far as to blackmail me into sleeping with her so she doesn’t blow your brains out. She sent me photos where she was stalking you, pointing weapons at you. She was stalking you.”

[Y/N] listened, shocked. “I swear I didn’t want to... But she was gonna kill you. I thought it was gonna be over with but then she started sending you pictures of me after...after you know... And when you read all the messages she sent me, I tried to explain but you ran off to sleep with Chris before I even said anything.” Now she realized what a fool she was. If her emotions didn’t take her over in that moment, they never would have broken up. They could have figured something out and solved the problem together. Sure, they stayed together several weeks after the incident, but she remembered making his life a living hell during those weeks and she didn’t even know he was going through so much already... “Leon...I’m...sorry... I know it might not change anything but I’m sorry...”

Leon sighed heavily and looked at her finally. “I’m sorry too. If you’re willing...I mean if you still feel the same...” [Y/N] cut him off then “I love you, too, Leon. I’d like to get back together...”

[sunshinelikesstarwars]

Day 4: What Could Have Been

Here, we have a “Obi-Wan Leaves the Jedi After Qui-Gon Dies” AU.

-

Obi-Wan stood before the council. It felt wrong to stand without Qui-Gon by his side, but even if his Master hadn’t died (had it only been a few days?), he had been knighted, and Knights stood on their own.

It was funny, really, that one of his first acts as a Knight was to argue with the council.

“We stand by our original decision,” Master Windu said firmly. “He is too old. He is too fearful. We understand Qui-Gon believed him to be the Chosen One, but we do not agree. We are willing to help relocate him, seeing as it was a Jedi that brought him here, but the boy will not become a Jedi himself.” Obi-Wan looked at the faces of the other council members. Some seemed a bit sad, but it seemed to be a unanimous decision.

“Nothing I can say will convince you otherwise?” Obi-Wan asked. He was tired. Effective negotiation was a bit beyond him at the moment, even though negotiation was an integral part of being a Knight. A little piece of his mind whispered that he wasn’t ready to be a Knight at all. A Jedi was meant to find peace and resolution through words and persuasion and compassion, not violence, and yet his Knighthood came as a result of him killing someone. A fraud, a failure, a mockery of my own values. What would Satine think of me?

“Unable to be swayed in this matter, the council is,” Master Yoda replied, tapping his staff against the ground to emphasize his point. “If returned, the Sith have, then a liability, this boy will be.”

“Then surely that is all the more reason to train him!” Obi-Wan cried, stepping forward. Predictably, the council members did not respond well to this show of confrontation, some of them now frowning in earnest. Qui-Gon would be proud of me, his traitorous heart whispered. Satine would be, as well. She had thought him spineless, once, near the beginning of their year on the run. He remembered that particular conversation with excruciating clarity. Had anyone ever challenged him like she did?

He missed her.

“He would be too easily turned,” added Master Koon, bringing Obi-Wan back to the present moment. Or maybe Qui-Gon would not be so proud. Focus on the present, Obi-Wan. “If we taught him and he then became a Sith, he would be a greater threat to our Order.”

This was a losing battle. But Obi-Wan was nothing if not stubborn. “Masters, please, I beg of you, reconsider. Anakin was a slave. He has nowhere else to go, and my Master promised him he would be a Jedi.” So did I. Please don’t make me a liar.

“Master Jinn did not have authority to speak on behalf of the council, Knight Kenobi,” Master Windu said in a slightly raised voice (one that Obi-Wan recognized from reprimands his Master had received before). “As I said, we are willing to help this boy find a suitable situation, and that is all.” His words were immovable, resolute.

Obi-Wan breathed out, then bowed. “As you say, Masters.” Then he turned and walked out of the room before he was dismissed, leaving surprised muttering behind him.

Anakin was waiting outside the council chamber, looking as though he were trying very hard to be brave. Those big blue eyes met his as Obi-Wan appeared, hopeful, and then that hope faded as he took in Obi-Wan’s faint scowl.

“Anakin,” he said, “let’s...head to the apartment. I’ll make us dinner.” Food made everything better, right? Even if the apartment was full of a decade’s worth of memories with Qui-Gon, it was familiar to both him and Anakin now.

Anakin hurried to his side and they made the short walk to the apartment in silence.

All the while, Obi-Wan’s mind was racing. What was he going to do? How was he supposed to tell Anakin that everything that had brought him here had fallen through? Maybe he should have let the council break the news to the boy, but he had been planning on Anakin being his padawan. He’d already started some basic training, even building the beginnings of a training bond, and it felt too much like betrayal to leave him to face the council alone, or to leave him at all.

I’m too attached. Stars above, not even a week as a Knight and I feel like I’ve broken every rule there is.

But he would not leave Anakin. He couldn’t.

Then I will have to leave with him.

The thought stopped him dead in his tracks. He blinked. Where had that come from? He’d just been knighted! The Order was everything to him—the only family he’d ever known.

A tug on his sleeve made him look down. Anakin was looking up at him with concern, one hand grabbing his robe. “Obi-Wan?”

There are some things that are bigger than me. Some things that are more important.

Dear Force, this was happening.

He pulled Anakin the last few meters to the apartment. Anakin’s eyes were wide now, even more so when Obi-Wan knelt down in front of him. “Anakin,” he said, feeling a bit off-kilter but guided by the Force nonetheless, “the council still doesn’t want you trained as a Jedi.” Shock and sorrow from his little charge. “I don’t really care.” More shock. “I have a friend who will probably let us stay with her.” As if Satine could be counted as merely a friend. “We can figure things out from there. If you want me to train you unofficially, or something else entirely, it’ll be fine. We’ll have time to work it all out. But this is a big deal—it’s your future. The council also said they would find you somewhere safe to stay, if you want, so I’ll give you some time to decide—”

“Stay with me!” Anakin cried. He had tears in his eyes, which sort of flustered Obi-Wan. He’d never been good with tears. “Please don’t leave me! I can’t lose you, too!” And he threw his arms around Obi-Wan’s neck, who returned the hug carefully.

“I won’t leave if you don’t want me to. Of course I won’t.” He let Anakin cry for a bit, stroking his back. When he’d calmed down, Obi-Wan asked, “So does that mean you’ll come with me to my friend’s?”

A sniffly nod was his answer.

“Okay. I’ll go comm her and let her know we’re coming. Why don’t you take a rest? We’ll probably have to leave soon.”

Another sniffly nod. Anakin wandered off to Qui-Gon’s room and Obi-Wan took a deep breath. Food first. Then he’d comm Satine.

Definitely not stalling, Obi-Wan put together some sandwiches and left one on the table for Anakin, then straightened up his room a little so it would look presentable in the holo call (it didn’t matter that holo calls usually didn’t show the room—he wanted it to look nice, just in case). He checked his hair, marveled again at the absence of his padawan braid, considered changing robes, and paced around a bit. It was just Satine. Sure, she was one of the most frightening and fantastic people he’d ever met, and he hadn’t talked to her in a while. but he certainly didn’t need to be so worried. Determined, he nodded and input the code for Satine’s personal holo.

Almost immediately he wished he hadn’t. But it was done. He closed his eyes and tried to release his nervousness into the Force. As usual, where Satine was concerned, it was more difficult than strictly necessary.

“Obi-Wan?” came that lovely voice. He opened his eyes and saw the little figure of Satine. Even with everything that had happened, after his very world had turned inside-out, just seeing her made him happy.

“Hello, Satine,” he said with a smile. “I hope I’m not interrupting anything?”

“Nothing that can’t be resumed later. It’s so good to see you. How are you? How is Qui-Gon?” She leaned forward a little, hands clasped before her heart, eager for news.

And reality’s cold waves came crashing back over him. His smile faded. “Ah. Satine…”

She was instantly alert, her hands falling to her sides. “What is it? What’s happened? Where’s Qui-Gon? Did something happen to him?”

He opened his mouth, but the words seemed to be stuck in his throat. To his shame, he felt tears starting to form, and he tried to wipe them away quickly. There is no emotion, there is peace. But he was leaving the Order, so did that matter anymore? Everything he depended on was crumbling around him. More tears formed, and he couldn’t choke out any words to explain them.

“Ben, please, tell me what’s happened,” Satine said, her voice firm but her eyes clearly showing her worry. Always calm in a crisis. Obi-Wan loved that about her.

It took a moment, but he was able to say, very quietly, “Qui-Gon is dead.”

Satine’s face fell. “No. No, no, oh, Ben.”

Her sympathy was his undoing. He sat down hard on the bed, his face in his hands. He hadn’t really had the chance to process everything yet. He trembled and focused on his breathing—in, out—to try and pull himself together. There were still things to do. He could mourn later.

He looked back up at the holo. “Satine, I need a favor.”

She blinked at the abrupt topic change. “Um, of course, Ben, but—”

“I’m leaving the Order.”

Silence. Cautiously, Satine said, “Ben, I know you must be terribly upset, but I don’t think Qui-Gon would want you to leave and give up on your dreams because of his death. Or do you just mean a break? I’m sure the council would understand.”

Satine, who loved him with all her heart but knew he had wanted to be a Jedi and so had said nothing. Who, even though she would probably stand to benefit the most from his leaving the Order, was encouraging him to keep living his dream. Wonderful, wonderful woman.

“There’s a boy, Satine.” Her eyebrows went up. “That is, Qui-Gon found a boy who...well, he said he would train him, but the council said no, and now he has to leave, but I can’t leave him, Tina, I just can’t, and I don’t really have anywhere else to go and we are certainly not going back to his home planet, and I need to figure things out, but I don’t know how long that will take, and I don’t want the council to take him away, and I just…” He trailed off, sort of surprised at the inarticulate mass of words that had just flooded out of him. “I was wondering if it would be possible for the boy and myself to stay with you, for a while.”

Satine looked at him intently, her lips pursed. After a moment, she nodded. “Right. I’ll be there in a few hours.”

It was his turn to be startled. “What? Oh, no, Satine, there’s no need for that. We’ll find a transport or something.”

“Knowing your luck?” Satine said with a little smirk. “You’d probably get on a ship that’d be redirected to the Unknown Regions, and then I’d have to go rescue you. So, no, I’ll come and get you and save the time.”

Obi-Wan scowled. Satine continued to smirk. A part of himself rejoiced that she could tease him even now, so he sighed. “Very well. You’ll do exactly as you like anyways, so I might as well benefit from it.”

Satine leaned back, a triumphant grin on her face. “You know me so well. I’ll comm you when I’m out of hyperspace.” With that, the holo shut off and Obi was left in his once-again quiet room.

Too quiet. Suffocating. He quickly stood and started to pace, just to distract himself.

Now then. How exactly did one go about leaving the Order? He had the vague impression that someone could just, well, leave, but he didn’t want there to be any misunderstandings or people coming after them. He was also fairly certain any member of the council would try to persuade him to stay if he told them in person. He wasn’t sure if he could handle that.

It felt like the cowards way out, but Obi-Wan decided to leave behind his Jedi paraphernalia and a message to explain what had happened. If he made an announcement, having his friends, his family, try to persuade him to stay would probably be harder than he was prepared to handle. He knew what he had to do. He had made his choice. And maybe taking this “coward’s way” out would show the Jedi how unfit he was for Knighthood and they would be more likely to leave him alone.

Hopefully his friends would forgive him.

Groaning, he rubbed his eyes. He had to pack the few belongings he had, find new, non-Jedi clothes for himself and Anakin, and write a suitable “I’m leaving, please don’t follow me” letter, but all he wanted to do was sleep. There will be time enough to rest later.

He readied everything in the four hours it took for Satine’s ship to arrive. Anakin had been briefed on the situation and now sat on the couch in his new clothes, his worn-out backpack on the ground next to him, looking through a mechanically-themed magazine that happened to be in the room. Obi-Wan was doing his best to release his emotions, however futile it seemed to be at the moment.

Then his comm beeped and he accepted the call on his holo.

“We’re here. Where should we meet?” the tiny blue Satine asked promptly.

He grinned. “Nice to see you too, Satine.” Anakin giggled from the couch.

She rolled her eyes. “We’ll worry about pleasantries later. Now, we’ve got an escape to plan.”

“Satine, we’re not prisoners. I was planning on just walking out the front door and meeting you at the public dock nearby. Or is that not glamorous enough for you, Duchess? Should we sneak out a window instead?”

A gusty sigh, then, “Very well. Look for my ship at the very boring, very normal dock after you walk your boring self there.”

“See you then.” He shut off the comm, then turned to Anakin. “Well? Ready to make a run for it?” Making it light-hearted distracted him from the fact that he was running away.

Anakin laughed. “I thought we weren’t prisoners.”

Obi-Wan smiled and picked up his own backpack. “Let’s get going.”

The walk to the front door was uneventful, which immediately put Obi-Wan on edge. Surely it couldn’t go so perfectly. And yet, they passed the other temple residents and the guards, who barely spared them a glance. Those who came out of the temple were far less worthy of notice than those who came in. Obi-Wan let out a breath. They were safe.

Which is when he was tackled. Anakin squeaked and hid himself behind a nearby bush, and Obi-Wan wriggled away enough to see that it was Bant who’d accosted him. He sighed and patted the Mon Calamari on the back. He knew their “escape” had been too easy.

“Obi-Wan, I’ve been looking everywhere for you, and you’re already headed out? Right now? Why didn’t you tell the council no? Surely they’ll give you some time after…after…”

“It’s for the best, Bant,” he said, trying to find words that would at least be half-truths. “I need to be doing something anyways.”

Bant shook her head. “I think you’re making a mistake.” She sighed. “Well, come back soon. We’ll have a get-together or something. And I’ll see if I can’t get you off on some medical leave. Jedi have to have time to mourn too, you know.” The gentle, sincere hand on his arm almost broke his composure entirely.

A sad little smile. “I know, Bant. I have to get going, though. I’ll see you later.” Maybe.

He pretended he couldn’t hear her further questions and hurried away. He glanced behind him to see Anakin sneaking along one side of a hedge and smiled. Gesturing with his head, he set off at a jog towards the dock.

The last time he’d seen Satine’s ship was when he and Qui-Gon had flown away from the palace. It looked just as he remembered it, and it was somehow comforting and heartbreaking at the same time. The ship was the same. He was mostly the same. Qui-Gon would never be as he was before.

The ship was ready for them, and Obi-Wan ushered Anakin up the ramp to where Satine stood waiting for them. She smiled and wrapped her arms around Obi-Wan as soon as he was aboard. He hugged her back tightly, delighted beyond reason to be holding her again.

She pulled back all too soon for his liking. “You’ve yet to introduce me to your friend, Obi-Wan. And here I thought you were so polite.”

Anakin looked like he was torn between defending Obi-Wan or just laughing at him. Obi-Wan shook his head. “Satine, meet Anakin Skywalker. Anakin, this is Satine Kryze. She’s the friend we’ll be staying with.”

Anakin smiled broadly and stuck out his hand. “Nice to meet you,” he said.

Satine no doubt caught on that he hadn’t introduced her as a Duchess (that would probably make Anakin feel too in awe of her) and played along. “Likewise,” she said with a smile, shaking his hand. She turned and started walking further into the ship. “Well, come on. We’ll be more comfortable back here.”

As she walked ahead, Obi-Wan felt Anakin grab his hand and pull him back a little. He turned and took in Anakin’s suddenly hesitant stance. “Anakin?” he prompted. Had the boy reconsidered coming with him? He wouldn’t blame him.

The boy shifted a bit, still holding his hand, then said, “Can we...that is…I want to free my mom. Later. I mean, soon, but not now. Just...when we decide what to do.”

Obi-Wan hummed in understanding. “Certainly. We’ll have to find a way to earn the money, of course. But that’s definitely something we can do.”

Big, tearful blue eyes looked up at him. “Do you mean it?”

“Well, of course I mean it. I wouldn’t have said it if I didn’t.”

It seemed to be Obi-Wan’s day for hugs, since Anakin practically catapulted himself into Obi-Wan’s middle, hugging him tight and just saying “thank you” over and over.

Obi-Wan let out a little huff, then returned the hug around the awkward shape of Anakin’s backpack. After a while, they resumed walking down the corridor, their hands linked again. Obi-Wan saw Satine waiting for them and felt his heart melt a little at her soft, understanding smile.

We’re going to be just fine.

[easyimagines]

Could I get a one shot with Eugene Roe? I love him SO much and I think it would be a nice fluffy one shot, maybe a reunion from the war or the writing of letters :)

Eugene here. All of my classes were pretty slow yesterday, so I took the chance to write this one. I combined the idea of sending letters and a reunion after the war. Thanks for the request! 

One thing the men noticed about their medic was that he was always holding folded pieces of paper and trying to his smiles as he read them. Any man that saw him could tell he was reading a letter from home.

“Whatcha reading, Doc?” Malarkey asked. The company had just gotten back from running Currahee and Sobel had been particularly hard on the half-Cajun. Every run Sobel ripped on someone more than the rest and this time it was Eugene’s tern. Whoever it was that got it worse always got pats on the back and shoulders from the men around him.

“A letter from home.”

“How’s… Y/N doing?” Muck chimed in have caught the name off the address.

“Pretty good. Says studies are goin’ well.”

Y/N got letters back home too. Not as constant as they were sent, but Y/N knew Gene was replying as often as he was able. With each reply, the paper was little beat up and the pencil lead or ink would be a little smudged but that didn’t matter. What mattered was the letter.

Sometimes the letters were a number of pages long and talked about the other men. These three pranksters called Skip, Malark, and Penk. How these two louder men- Guarnere and Liebgott- were always at each other’s throats. About George Luz and all of his impressions; how some were spot on and others were a crude mockery at best.

Even in the letters from basic training Y/N could see how the relations between the men affected him. A few of the men were sent home and from that point on everyone was referred to by their last name or last name and rank if a name repeated.

Come early June the letters were almost non-existent on both sides. Y/N was writing and sending them as usual but Easy wasn’t in a place where they could easily deliver mail to the men. Gene was so busy keeping wounded men help together long enough to send them to an aid station that he didn’t have time to write.

A couple of days after the men took the city of Carentan, the mail was finally delivered. Gene had a handful of a stack that he was excited to read. Cleaning up Winter’s leg, Spina tapped him on the shoulder and told him he could handle getting the wounded shipped off.

Gene sighed as he finally sat and started reading his letters. He had a notepad and would reply to each letter as he read them. His plan was to send them out in bulk before it was too late.

Getting the think mass of letters was like a God send. Knowing that he was still alive and well… Y/N wept reading them. The first letter of the reply was expressing Y/N’s love, relief, and excitement at getting the letters. It also included a promise and reassurance that Eugene was being waiting for. No secret affairs or seeing a man still in the States on the side.

Y/N was honest in mentioning, however, that a dog had been adopted. “I needed something to cuddle at night. A dog- a small one at that- isn’t nearly the same as my Eugene but he helps.”

Eugene had laughed aloud when he read about the dog. Skipper was his name.

“What’re you laughing at Doc?” Lieb asked.

Eugene held up his letter. “I got a letter from Y/N. Mentioned a dog we now own. I think Y/N named him after Muck.”

“Yeah?” Muck grinned. “What’s the dog’s name?”

“Skipper. He’s got three legs so ‘e walks funny.” Gene explained. The men around them burst into laughter. Warren “Skip” Muck still skipped more than he walked when he wasn’t wasn’t marching or sprinting.

“Tell, Y/N I’m honored,” Muck laughed. “I like dogs. If it was a cat, I might have had a different reaction.”

Y/N’s worry increased as days went by. Then weeks. Then months. Finally a bundle of letters came in. Most of them seemed to be streams of consciousness. He’d explained why most of the papers were filled with anything he could think of.

The cold of Bastogne was mind numbing. If you stayed still for too long your joints became hard to move. The same for your hands but twice as quickly. So writing: moving the pencil and papers, having to change how you moved your hands. It worked well for keeping the medic’s hands moving.

He talked about all of the men that has lost their lives. Muck, Penkala, a young man- just barely a man- Julian, Jackson. A man named Compton had been taken off the front lines. A friend of his, Renne, was killed when the aid station she worked in was bombed. How Guarnere and Toye were shipped home.

He talked a lot about a replacement. It took a little bit to keep up with this “smiley ginger”. Gene referred to him first as Heffron. Edward followed next. Lastly was Babe. It was Eugene calling him Babe Heffron that tied it all together. Y/N was little surprised to get a letter from Heffron.

“Gene fell asleep next to me on the truck, I was bored, he had a letter open on his lap from you. I swiped the address. I told him so I ain’t going behind his back or nothing.”

Babe was excited when he got a letter back when Eugene did. Eugene relaxed when the “mailman” handed him the bundle of letters.

“Babe,” Gene reached for the Phili man’s attention. “Y/N was surprised by your letter.”

“I get to meet Y/N after the war, right?” Babe had to ask.

“We’ll set it up.” Gene nodded with a small smile.

“I’m writin’ ‘er another letter.” Babe grinned. The man’s excitement got a chuckle from Gene.

The last letter from Gene said that the Germans had surrendered and that the Japanese in the Pacific had not long after. He gave an estimated week of when he would be getting home but promised to phone from a train station as soon as possible.

So when the day same, Y/N was crowded around the train station with all the other anxious parents, siblings, and partners waiting for their loved ones to come home.

The train stopped and all sorts of uniforms came piling out. Navy, Marines, Infantry, a handful of Paratroopers. But none of the Paratroopers were Y/N’s.

“Where the hell is he?” Y/N whispered.

There was a gentle tap on the shoulder as “Behind ya” was whispered. Turning around faster than seemed possible, Y/N captured Eugene in a tight hug. Eugene had already dropped his rucksack on the ground by his feet. He held Y/N close, just basking in the feeling of holding them again.

“God am I glad to see you,” Y/N gushed. “Oh God. Y-You can meet Skipped- we have new neighbors- I can’t understand a word of what they say- I think they’re Polish maybe?” Y/N took in a gasp of air. “I can show you-”

Gene kissed Y/N to calm them down. “I’m home now, Amour. We have all the time in the world.” Gene kissed them again. “Also, that friend o’ mine, Babe? He wants to meet ya.”

[intensitystoner]

youngLoki-Frigga scribble with Sifki hint and horse (old-version excerpt from Lionheart) ~1300 words

"Shape it into something, will you?"

"Into what?"

"Whatever you want."

"I cannot do it unless you tell me."

The Queen smiled leniently. Loki was a clever one; and especially since he started growing up, he detected and evaded her subtle attempts to see into his head. It was quite the normal occurrence, she was not to watch over her children for an eternity. Only this one time, it didn't feel all right, she wished to hold on a little longer. It could have been because blood didn't tie him to her, or because he was her youngest, her last one. Or – what could as well have been mere clinginess – her instinct protesting against sending him off into the world on his own just yet.

He needs a father, she had dared say it to Odin once.

Am I not? How could I be any more of a father when I'll be sending him away to coldness in a century?

And he is yet to know, yet to prepare.

Not a word, my Queen. Not a word.

That was Odin, father to all, upkeeper of nine realms' peace, being a coward.

And this was Frigga, appointed mother to someone she was to love and then throw away.

And love she did.

"Try something that thrills you," she suggested lightly.

The teal glow of seidr, so similar to his eye colour, flared up in the nest of his five fingers.

"I love balloons," he protested at her disapproving look. "They're exciting, so many games to play with them, so many things to fill-”

"Please, take this seriously."

"I’m sorry, Mother," he said, his face dressed in innocence.

Her voice was gentle as always, her patience genuine.

"Show me what you can do with that energy. I want to see how well you can control your raw seidr; how intricate is the flow you can influence."

In response, finally, he shaped a jade smoke-horse over his palm, galloping in place, turning, prancing.

She smiled approvingly.

"Now make it jump."

The mare ran and leapt over an invisible cleft.

"Make it worried."

"Worried?"

"There is rustling in the bushes. You know how Sortna reacts." That was the name of Loki’s mare.

The horse braked into a halt, its nostrils alone widening and narrowing with each breath, eyes darting around, ears scanning the area like telescopes.

"Escape. Elope from a tiny rabbit that got stuck in dry weed."

"Sortna doesn't do that," Loki noted while the horse jumped an incredible height, and its four legs were already running in the air before they reached the unseen ground.

Her answer was but a sly glint in her eyes.

"A flowery meadow, beaming sun."

The mare pranced forward straight, and then began an airy-earthbound-fluid waltz of self-proclaimed pattern, head varying between thrusting towards the sky and bending down for a bite.  It rolled over and rubbed its back into the good-smelling grass unseen to the observers. They both chuckled silently.

"Now change it."

"Into what?"

"It's a shapeshifting horse, you deem its abilities. Be quick!"

The energy lost its distinct shape, and then the billowing mass formed into an eagle mid-flight. Unmoving, Loki glanced up at his mother to guess her intentions.

"That wasn't quite shapeshifting, just you changing your mind. Try again, be swift but also punctual."

The robust bird, while comfortably riding a gust of wind, had its legs thicken, two more limbs grow out, feather replaced by scales and rough skin, head grown and elongated.

"Better, but you made it easy. This is a heavy creature, it labours to stay afloat, so no more stopping. Again."

The sorcerer worked soundless and obedient on the fluent magic in his hand. Kicking legs and wings disappeared, body narrowed, giving place to a snake coiling fast in air or water. It thrashed about to keep in motion for the task; it curled up, biting its own tail. Loki suspected that it still wasn’t satisfying.

"Again," Frigga went on softly, her look on her son's tall forehead.

A ring of green fire was formed from the elongated body, cinder and smoke flying up from it.

"Again."

The flames twisted and coiled around each other, forming a tall, slender, pointed structure of two peaks. He deemed it too still but received no comment.

"Again."

Thor's lanky-muscular form, in a helmet with short horns and a nighttaur hide mantle danced around, as crazed and merry as the previous steed on the mesmerising flower field.

"Again."

Loki's eyebrows twitched when the mockery had no effect whatsoever. He was running out of ideas and growing fed up with her suspected dissatisfaction. The Thor in his palm multiplied this time, becoming several other figures, sharing the thunder god’s silly joy, now supported by both of the sorcerer’s palms. This had to do.

"There’s a feast," the Queen said.

The green eyes darted around on the marble floor for a second, and then the minuscule group became staggering drunk with ale.

"Is that how it goes?" she asked.

"Maybe."

"Each are different, and you're an excellent observer. Show me your skill."

Within a few seconds, one sat and behaved, another courted and groped servants, a third gobbled up things endlessly; others bashed weapons on table, danced, a few drank and laughed with each other, patting shoulders, kicking rears. Loki’s impish smile met Frigga’s above the scene. And then she finally took her chances.

"What about Lady Sif?"

"I never really looked." The answer came without hesitation.

"Do you think her insignificant?"

"She's one of a kind here. It's hard to predict how long she'll remain."

"Is it? Aren't you already thinking she'll be gone soon?"

“She might,” he responded evasively, staring at the silent ruckus among his fingers.

"Is it pity then why you so kindly heal her wounds?"

The teal seidr fell and disappeared for a second, only to rise again forming a tiered fountain.

"Yes."

“And if she was to stay?”

“Then I’ll lose faith in the Royal Army.”

This was as far as she risked pushing against his evasion. Her hands covered his shaped seidr, making it disappear as she engulfed his fingers to catch his look one last time.

“Don’t you ever be disrespectful to her, Loki,” she said, though her voice lacked any accusation.

“She’ll die in the first real war,” he breathed then.

“Is that what you observed?”

His head turned away, his hands escaped the captivity.

“It’s clear as daylight. A maiden doesn’t belong here.”

“What about the Valkyries?”

“They’re a separate race, Mother. They’re born to be warriors.”

“So was she.” She knew the disagreement in his silence. “If you hadn’t healed her wounds, I would have.”

“Out of pity?”

“No. Because she belongs here. Her valour is for a grand purpose. She is meant and willing to protect the next King.”

That would be Thor, Loki thought now, unless he came up with something to turn the tide. If there was a tide to turn at all, unlike he’d been feeling lately, although he was aware that it was all in his head. But the wait of these long years, the unseen end of it, the possibility of it all being in vain got the better of him on some days. He had nothing to lose with asking.

“Has Father decided yet?”

In response, she pulled him to herself, her forehead resting against his temple regardless of his permission. Her cool hand lay under his jaw affectionately, his frown of discomfort escaping her vision. But she wouldn’t have heeded it anyway while she was bent on hiding her own expression.

“I know it troubles you." She spoke in a hushed voice. "I am not to know which of you is worthier of leading our people, and I thank for that blessing every day. Do your best, Loki, work your hardest, become your best self, that is all you do. And we’ll see what’s coming. We’ll all se eventually. But always remember, it doesn’t matter to me who either of you becomes. Never doubt that I love you.”

He let her keep his forehead against hers for just a bit longer, and he afforded honesty for once.

"I won't, Mother."

[writeanapocalae]

A First Meeting

This may come as a surprise, but this is not fanfiction! It was heavily inspired by a conversation on a fanpiece between myself, @chibi--raiden, and @sebcastellanyes and I realized that it wouldn’t even work as an AU, so there are some similarities between this and the evil within, but it is not the same world or the same characters.

warning for gore, body horror, and adult language

The corridor was impossible to follow, all twisted curves and wavering writhing turn offs. It was a maze, branches leading to branches, feeding into itself, parts of it closed off. The doors sat on jagged broken doorways, the windows much the same, and the walls around them, while papered in the same old fashioned wall paper as before, seemed to pulse and bulge, as if the paper was trying it’s best to contain living flesh on the other side.

Doors led to rooms or to other, mirrored corridors, or to nothing at all. Jackson couldn’t tell which was worse. He didn’t want to enter the rooms, not the ones that had the sounds of sobbing inside of them, or the ones that had music distantly playing, or the ones with limbs protruding from the walls like tree branches. He didn’t want to go through the corridors either. He wanted to be done with this. He wanted everything to go back to normal.

One of the rooms, the one that he entered, was the cleanest of them all, was the safest. The walls were clean and white and safe and the floor was white and clean and tile that clicked under his shoes. There was no blood in here. There was no gore. This was a place that he felt safe in, at least for the moment.

The walls had images on them, beautiful and vibrant and framed, going from floor to ceiling, not that he could see what was on any of them, obscured as they were by the large drop clothes that hang from the ceiling.

Like a few of the rooms that had come before there was music playing here, simple and quiet violin music, soothing in it’s lack of intrigue, too calm to be a classic or much of anything, really. He couldn’t see where the music was coming from and he doubted that it mattered. There were walls in the way as well, the large room cut into smaller pieces by partial walls. It was like a small gallery of sorts.

Jackson was only half way around the first of them when he heard it, the snapping of a bone and the humming of a man, off tune and not quite with the music. He halted, feeling his chest freeze as he listened, knowing that he wasn’t alone. A monster, perhaps, like so many others, or a man, like himself, trapped in this place against his will? He didn’t know what to think, what to assume. He went for his knife, just in case.

He looked out as he heard another sickening crack.

There was a man, sitting on a short chair, his dark hair allowed to fall over his face, the sleeves of his once-white shirt rolled and pushed up past his elbows. He was facing away from Jackson, for the moment, to which he was grateful, because he seemed to be very focused on the task on hand, the loud cracking and the stimming of one leg.

Beside him was a pottery wheel, though there was no way that it could be used as one now, as there was a pile of matter on it, which was all red and oozing and bound in thread and gauze. It was just a shapeless pile, at the moment, a pyramid, of what looked like raw meat. There were once white bowls up plastic underneath it, catching the thick blood that seeped from the mass. Rising from the top of it, were arms, which had been twisted and shattered, the bones made useless within them, as they were braided, hands extended to reach out. The skin was stained red, regardless of what color they had been before.

Another snap.

Jackson took a step back. He was going to be sick. It didn’t matter the form of this thing that was before him, he was looking at a monster.

The music ended and the man scoffed, rolling his shoulders. He stood, tossing what he was working on over his shoulder, a half braided mix of three arms, and left his chair. There was no way that Jackson could have ignored the shine of the keys hanging from the man’s well-tailored slacks and he knew, with great disappointment, that he was going to need those keys. It was how this place seemed to work.

He glanced around the room. There wasn’t anywhere to hide unless he thought the man was blind enough to not see him behind the translucent sheets. There was a door across the room, one that he had to go through. He could go back, ignore the man and the gruesome nature of what he was doing, and try to find another route through that hall. He would need those keys eventually though. There was no point in waiting.

The music started up again, a different song now but the same lulling quiet tone, the man humming just as terribly as before. Jackson glanced back around the wall, finding the man cradling the arms like a lover, lazily dancing along with the somber tune. His face was obscured by his hair and Jackson was certain that he must have been disfigured or something other than human, something obscene.

The keys jangled on his waist.

Jackson pulled back when he started a spin, trying to duck out of sight. It wasn’t enough though, not when he heard the man, his voice deep and velvety and tinged with some dark yet warm accent, muse over him. “Is someone there?”

He could run. He could bolt for the door. He could get back to that corridor and down it, but he would make a lot of noise doing it. This man would follow him and he would catch him. Jackson wasn’t much of a fighter, he wouldn’t know what to do if he was caught. He was much better at talking his way out of things. But that was with people, not monsters, and definitely not monsters that made such mockeries of human parts.

“Um,” he breathed, his voice shaking in his throat. “Hi, sorry to bother you.” He stepped out from around the corner, letting himself be seen, allowing himself to be known. “I’m lost, could you help me?”

“Lost?” the man tossed his hair, forcing it away from his face. It settled around his features, framing him, and it became clear that the man was not terribly scarred or other than human. In fact, the man was handsome, with a sharp and angular nose and jaw, dark brows and lashes, and distinguished cheekbones. “What do you mean, lost?” Jackson laughed, trying to offset how nervous he was as he slid the knife into his waste-band, keeping it close but not too obvious. Now that he was more in the open he could see more of the man’s workplace. There was a large sledgehammer learning against something near his feet.

“It’s a maze out there. Could you tell me the way to the exit?”

The man pursed his lips in thought. His foot was tapping on the floor, double time to the music. “An exit. I see. I am afraid I have never thought to find one myself, not through conventional means, anyway.”

Jackson wanted to ask. He wanted to understand. He wanted out.

The man took a few steps towards him and, with each one, Jackson’s heart hammered harder, and his joints stiffened further, and there was a cold sensation in his lungs that told him to run. He wanted to run. He wanted to be gone. This man smelled of blood and whiskey and a hint of wood smoke. He still had those arms draped over his shoulder.

“Tell me, do you know much about the arts?”

Jackson shook his head. “Not really. I know what I like, that’s about it.”

The man smiled and it was like a gash in a canvas, wide and sharp and jagged. His teeth were almost perfect beneath those thin lips. “Then tell me, what do you think of this?”

He led the way back to the pottery wheel and the mound on top of it. Jackson followed, trying not to betray himself, to rise a hand to his mouth, to vomit, as he drew closer. What the sledgehammer was leaning against before was a bathtub, though there was no water inside of it. What there was were the remnants of what he wasn’t using. Bodies, cut into a carved down to the bone. Most of them were without arms and much of their flesh made up the base of the sculpture the man had been working on.

“It’s still early on in the process,” the man explained, excitedly, showing it off. “It will be like a massive wave, all of this hands reaching out, grasping for the light, much like you, for freedom. It is not my best work, no, it does not hold all of my vision, but a prologue to my greatest work!”

Jackson knew what he was supposed to say, that it was beautiful, that it was something inspiring, but all he could do was stare at it, in horror, and then at the rest. Had he killed all of these people? What was the point of it all? He hadn’t seen any other art here, not anything that he would call art, anyway, but he knew that if he didn’t make the man happy, he would become a part of it.

“It. It’s a really nice… start.” Jackson lied, swallowing heavily to keep his bile in his throat.

“A nice start?” the man asked, “And the concept? What do you think?”

“It sounds nice...”

“Nice?” the man sounded irritated. “Nothing other than nice?”

Jackson felt himself starting to shake. He thought that he was good at talking his way out of situations. He didn’t know how to get out of this though, not with his life anyway. “Is there. A problem with nice?”

The man moved fast, faster than he should have and there was a weight on Jackson’s shoulder as the arm was slung over it, squelching slightly on contact. He winced, wanting to pull away. The man was in his space, intimately, only a few inches from his face. He looked him over with steady gray eyes, moving his head more than them, lingering near Jackson’s neck as he licked his lips.

“What is your name?”

Jackson licked his lips, finding his tongue dry. He was going to vomit. He was going to do a lot of things. He wasn’t sure if he was going to leave this room alive. “Jackson.”

“Jackson? Hmm. Well, Jackson, a person only describes the work of another as ‘nice’ when they don’t have anything better to say, when they can’t think of anything. It is a shoddy way to appease someone, if you were to ask me.”

Jackson swallowed.

The man tilted his head in the opposite direction, his lips a breath away from Jackson’s. “So tell me, what do you think?”

He didn’t know what to say. He didn’t know what to do. There were arms, three of them, wrapped around each other and wrapped around him. There was a man, who was going to kill him, stealing his breath. He was sweating. He was sure the man could tell. He knew that he knew how terrified Jackson was.

“I don’t know. It’s not done. I’m having a hard time visualizing it is all. I’m sure it will be great.”

The man nodded. “That’s better, but still too bland, still without merit. What of the concept?”

Jackson glanced over at the work. He could see the shape that he intended, what it might end up looking like. “How are you going to ensure the hands stay in place?” he asked, not wanting to know.

At that the man’s eyes lit up and he danced away, back to the piece in question, taking the arms with him. “I was considering leaving that up to rigor mortis, but I understand your concern! There’s too much of a chance that the fingers would curl, too tight to react how I desire! So I’m going to de-bone them, once all of them are in place, and replace the bones with thin rebar!”

“You mentioned flowers?” Jackson took a step closer to him. His back was turned to him as he played with the fingers on one of the hands, shaping the positioning. It was like he was working with clay, not human body parts. It made Jackson want to run away from him, not get closer. The keys were right there on his belt. He could get them and flee, maybe grab the sledgehammer too. “I’m concerned it might end up looking like an anemone because of the way the limbs work.”

The man put a hand to his chin and pondered it, looking over what he had accomplished so far. “A nautical theme would not be the worst thing but I appreciate your concern. Perhaps if I degloved them them, made petals from their skin?”

That was too much. It was all too much. The way that the man moved, the way that he touched them, the way that he planned and demanded that Jackson give him critique. He couldn’t handle it. He had handled so much of this so well so far, but this was just another layer of disgust on top of the rest of it. He choked back bile and lunged forward, thinking himself close enough to grab those keys, to get what he needed and go. He had to get out of there. He couldn’t be around this man any further.

The man spun, catching his arm and he stood. He was just a bit shorter than Jackson but as he stood he seemed so much taller, so much more imposing, and he twisted Jackson’s arm as he moved.

“What do you think you are doing?” he asked and there was cyanide lacing his words.

His mind was racing but there was nothing, no excuse for what he was doing that would also allow him to leave here alive. “You’re hurting me,” he squeaked, trying to pull his arm free. The man was holding him steady though, keeping him there.

“Do you truly believe that I care?” he growled. “Do you even care? About the pain that I’ve gone through to get where I am? About my work in the least? You are not an artist, are you?”

He shook his head. “I care! I care! I’m not an artist but what you’re doing, it seems to take a lot of skill.”

“Skill is only a part of it! You do not understand! You do not have an imagination! You must think of me the same way as everyone else, that my vision is broken, that I am mad! But I am not! Do you understand that?”

He was mad. He was insane. Jackson was certain that he was going to be killed. “Please, let me go.”

The man looked him over, considering it a moment, he seemed to be holding himself steady though his anger fell from him in micro-expressions, one muscle relaxing after another. Slowly, he released Jackson’s arm and he took it back, rubbing his shoulder where it felt half torn from the socket.

“This is not my only piece,” he stated coldly, “just the most recent. Perhaps you would enjoy it more if you were a part of it, if you were made to understand my work from the inside.”

He reached down, grabbing the sledgehammer.

“Shit.” Jackson looked around. There was that door, he still had a chance at escape. But the man was fast and he was armed and he was coming. All Jackson had was a knife.

He drew it anyway.

“I don’t want to have to fight you,” he explained, trying to harden his voice, to sound more intimidating than he was. He was being honest though. He didn’t want to fight the man, he wanted to have nothing to do with him.

The man just laughed at that though, gripping the handle in both hands and raising it over his head for a strong swing. “Don’t worry, you don’t have to.”

He slammed the hammer down and Jackson jumped back, falling over one of the buckets of blood and landing prone on the tile. The tile was cracked, shattering from where the sledgehammer and, underneath it, crawling out through the cracks, were those long white hairs, weaving and crawling over each other like a million living wires.

He did his best to get back to his feet, rolling away from the cracks as the man drew closer to him. The hairs were reaching for him, catching him and tearing away as they gripped him. They left black lines where they touched, the skin and fabric bubbling as they ate everything they could. He grit his teeth. He kept moving. He didn’t care about the pain.

Jackson pulled back, turning and twisting as he skipped over the cracks, trying not to trip on them, trying not to let the hairs snag him. A few of them got the hems of his pants and burned through his shoes but that was minor, it didn’t matter. There was a man walking through them all as if they were electricity and his name was Nikolai. He was moving, fast but steady, and he was going to catch up.

Jackson almost missed it, looking over his shoulder, at how the hair was clinging to the mound of flesh that was the man’s art, how it dripped into the buckets, the strands going from white to red and plump.

The sledgehammer went horizontally, sweeping Jackson’s legs out from under him. He grunted as he landed, the pain of cracking his elbow against the tile far more painful than the hit on his legs, the brunt of the damage coming from the handle and not the hammer itself.

He turned to see the man standing over him, glaring, his lips pulled back into a snarl. “You are beginning to annoy me!” he complained, “With your foolish lies and your infantile lacking of comprehension, you are hardly worthy of being used for materials!”

He swung the sledgehammer again and Jackson didn’t have time to move out of the way, just spread his legs as fast as he could, see the hammer slam down through one thigh and the tile, breaking it up again, letting out more of those hairs.

Jackson screamed out at the pain of it, the muscle torn and cracked, blood pooling out from something that wasn’t even a patchable cut. “Stop!” he creaked out, “Look!”

He kept a hold of the wound as he threw out an arm, pointing, and the man actually bothered to follow his lead, to look over his shoulder, to see the way that the hairs were stretched and feeding off fo the remains in the tub, how they were leeching away the mound of flesh.

“No!” he growled, stomping towards, “No!”

Those hairs were climbing up from the crack between Jackson’s legs. He didn’t have much time. The man seemed conflicted, to keep going after Jackson or to salvage what he could of his work. Jackson doubted there was much left as it was. Still the distraction was what he needed and he went around the cracks as best he could getting as close to the man as possible.

He didn’t turn again until Jackson was right behind him, when he sliced through the belt loop that held those keys on his hip and took them. Then he swung wildly at him, his anger a permeating thing, a real, visible, thing, his veins dark under his skin.

“You did this!” he screeched. “It is because of you that my art has been destroyed! That what I have spent days on has been completely undone!”

He had a witty remark, for once, but the man was swinging that sledgehammer again and there was something wrong with him, he really was a monster. He brought up the knife, more to defend himself than to attack, as he brought the hammer towards him.

He sliced through the man’s arm.

He growled as the blood seeped down the limb and splattered onto the floor, but the pain barely registered in his movements or his expression. He took a hold of the hammer again, ready to come at him from another angle.

He didn’t notice the hairs reaching for him, going after his blood, starving for him. They coiled on the floor and wrapped around his right arm, staining themselves as they drank of him, yanking his arm towards the freshest cracks. They were going to drag him down into them.

Jackson didn’t watch. He limped to the door and shoved a key into the lock before finding that it was already unlocked. He pocketed the keys and made his way through/

[paladin-andric]

Blackheart, Chapter 16: The Insurmountable

It was a curious request, to be sure. One strange enough Razorwing couldn’t help but ask as they walked through the streets.

“Why on earth do you wish to return to the gates? Surely you aren’t running from this, after all we’ve been through?”

“Of course not,” the knight responded, “I want to see what the fuss is all about.”

“Huh?”

“I’ve heard there’s some...invincible monster guarding the gate.”

“That’s right,” Senci said, speeding up to walk beside the two, “We would have evacuated by now if it wasn’t for that horrible thing!”

“First I’m hearing about it,” Charles offered.

Alexander shrugged. “Nothing was there when I came. Just walked on through. Looked like a massacre happened there, though…”

“Well I just flew on over,” Razorwing said simply, “Never been to the gates.”

“It’s there, you’ll see!” Senci insisted, “A-and if I’m wrong, well...we can finally evacuate the Citadel!”

“Not us, though,” Alexander stated, “The world still hangs in the balance. We COULD have the other survivors finally send for reinforcements, though…”

“There has to be SOME way to defeat it,” Charles said matter-of-factly, “Nothing’s just invincible! Not dragons, not demons, not anything!”

“I guess we’ll see,” the knight said quietly.

The group continued their trip, the knight occasionally recalling certain landmarks and buildings from when he tore through the city trying to keep up with Senci.

The closer they got, the more he recalled. Walking through one of the alleyways, Alexander stopped short of the exit.

“Something wrong?” Razorwing asked with concern.

“No, I just realized...this is where I bumped into you, Senci.”

The kobold perked up as he looked around. “Ah, you’re right! Wow, to think that was only a few days ago...with everything going on, it feels like it’s been forever!” he said with a nervous laugh.

“Yeah...not far now.”

The knight continued marching back to the gate, eventually coming across that first sight that angered him, after the massacre at the gates...the derelict, abandoned market stall, still full of rotten fruits.

A perfect symbol of what the city had become.

Shaking his head, Alexander continued. Just one block away, was where he had entered the city…

As they came to the plaza, all sorts of stalls and stores along the streets the whole way there, Alexander stopped and took cover behind the building on the corner.

All right...moment of truth.

The knight peeked around the corner...and couldn’t believe his eyes.

A massive, near-indescribable horror stood in the plaza, flanked by roads, buildings, and in front of the gates. All around the thing, corpses still lay rotted and forgotten.

The creature was massive, not quite the size of Tourthun altogether, but certainly taller as it stood upright on two legs…

The beast had four arms, ending in long, thin fingers that resembled sword blades.

Its face was a mass of eyes and sharp, jutted teeth, and misshapen flesh.

Its body was bizarre, being large and round but coated in grayish, contorted skin that seemed to be...moving, constantly shifting, twisting and pulling about.

On the...thing’s back, there were...jutting spikes? It looked at though the creature’s spine burst out its own back, and split off into many different directions, in what appeared to be a mockery of the framework of a set of wings.

There was no leather or flesh to be found around the gangly bone though, likely meaning this monstrosity was not granted the gift of flight.

Alexander, for a moment, froze.

His heart beat against his chest. The air in his lungs left him. Sweat began to form all over him. The hair on his arms stood up straight, pressing against his clothes and armor.

He had not felt the fear of death within him for many years. But now?

Just staring as this parody of life made him feel like his sanity was burning away.

This creature should not live. It should not exist within the same reality as the rest of the world.

Finally getting a hold of himself, the knight stepped backwards, shoving against whoever stood behind him.

As his hands pushed against feathers, it became apparent the other man was Razorwing.

The bird seemed to follow the knight’s frantic movements, also beginning to back up. The rest of the group followed as Alexander turned and moved down several blocks before ducking into the back alleys of tightly packed houses.

Alexander moved next to the wooden house and kneeled down, the others quickly huddling beside him.

“W-what...WAS that?” Charles asked, shaking and shivering.

“The...m-most vile thing I’ve ever seen!” Razorwing answered, an audible quiver in his voice, something Alexander couldn’t ever recall hearing.

“It’s invincible!” Senci whispered, “We...lost a lot of people trying to take it down. Arrows, bolts, axe, blade, magic...it never even flinched! It CAN’T die!”

The dragonoid shook his head, clutching the brim of his hat and pulling it down over his face. “This isn’t happening. This isn’t happening. This isn’t happening...”

“Get a hold of yourself!” the archer announced, still sounding less than confident, “You cannot give up hope!”

“Did you hear Senci?! It’s immortal! Even if we climbed the walls, what’s to stop that thing from just walking out of the city and slaughtering everything in Geralthin?!”

“There MUST be a way!”

“There isn’t,” Senci said sadly, “We tried.”

“There’s ALWAYS a way!” the hero stated, beginning to sound like himself again, “No matter what ends we must go to, that abomination MUST fall! I will not rest until it lies DEAD! Do you hear me, Charles?! We WILL uncover its secrets!”

The magician flinched as Razorwing grabbed and shook him.

“I said; DO you HEAR me, Charles?! Snap OUT of it! You’re a HERO! We ALL are! ACT like one!”

The dragonoid blinked as he stared into the archer’s eyes.

“We’re in this together. As hopeless as you may think it, we can’t give up. This isn’t about us...this is about the world. Like you said, it could just up and leave, and begin to slaughter everything and everyone. What about your father, Charles?! Are you just going to let it kill him?!”

“N-no!” the magician cried in horror.

“Than FIGHT!”

Charles tensed up, clenching his clawed hands and taking short breaths.

“O-okay...okay, fine! Fine, I’ll FIGHT! Alright, Razorwing?!” the dragonoid yelled, clutching onto the man currently grabbing him.

“That’s the Charles I know!” the koutu said with a grin, “The one who helps his friends, who does what’s right!”

“Does what’s right…” Charles took a deep breath. “Alright...we can do this…”

“Mister Alexander?” Senci moved over to the knight, who was still sitting against the house, silent. “Umm...what do you think?”

A deafening silence filled the air.

“Alexander…?”

The knight looked up, his face hidden behind his helmet.

“...why?”

Senci frowned. “Huh?”

“Why does it...exist?”

“I-I don’t know,” the kobold answered honestly.

“That thing...my God...why…”

Razorwing kneeled in front of Alexander at stared straight into his visor. “Courage, sir knight. Every here is counting on you.”

The human shook his head. “I-I just…it had to know. It let me in, then came back. It must want me to die here. It must want to doom me to these streets…”

The koutu surged forward, grasping the plates on the knight’s shoulders tightly.

“Stay with me!” he barked, causing Alexander to jolt a bit. “Remember the mission!”

“Hey, that thing’ll hear us,” Charles said nervously. Razorwing took a breath and lowered his voice.

“Alexander...you’ve been a tower of resolve, a rock, for this group. You CAN’T give up now! What would that do to the others? They need your assurance,  sir knight! You’ve been keeping their spirits up this far! Break now and this alliance will crumble! Think of what’s at stake!”

The knight was quiet for a moment.

“...I know.” he looked up and met Razorwing’s eyes. “I know. I just...needed a moment. I’ve...never seen anything like that before. I just...needed a moment to compose myself. I’m not giving up.”

The hero nodded and smiled, patting Alexander on the shoulder. “Didn’t think so. Just making sure. You’ve brought us this far...let’s keep going!”

“The question is...what next?” Charles muttered, arms crossed and leg foot tapping anxiously.

“That...THING must die,” Alexander said plainly, “There is no other option.”

“What?! But-”

“We’ll find a way,” Alexander spoke, cutting Senci off, “This is now our priority.”

“But the Blackheart, our mission…”

The knight looked over to Charles. “That’s true. That’s still our ultimate goal...but right now, this beast must die.”

“Might I ask why this takes priority, sir knight?” Razorwing asked, hands folded behind his back. He seemed to be trying to be as respectful as possible.

“The end of the world, in my opinion, cannot be ignored.”

Alexander sighed. “I said that’s still our ultimate goal. That thing can’t die. If we leave an IMMORTAL DEMON at its post...it could waltz outside at any point and...God knows how many would die.”

“A fair point,” Razorwing answered, “But...can do we do? We haven’t the foggiest idea, no leads...we’d be chasing ghosts.”

“Charles.”

The dragonoid jumped at bit at the knight’s mention of his name.

“Y-yes?”

“You said you went to a university here, correct?”

“The ONLY university here. The Palethorn Academy, sir...wait,” the magician’s eyes widened, as if he too was putting it together. “You’re about to inquire as to our research on demonology.”

“Sharp,” the knight noted.

“Well, it’s good you brought it up. Demonology is loathed, and normally banned all across the kingdom, but...I just remembered. The Order started an initiative between the Church and the academy.”

“Regarding demons?”

The dragonoid nodded. “Right. A sort of...collaborative effort. Combining the holy magic of the church and the warding knowledge of the sorcerers, the higher-ups worked together with priests and paladins to gain a deeper understanding of demonkind, and how to combat them. They had their own secret meetups at the top floor, restricted access to the rest of us, of course.”

“And so if we go there…”

“...it’s a long shot, but we might find SOMETHING,” Charles finished.

The knight nodded and stood up. “Right, well I think we’ve discovered our next target. Any objections?”

“Then what?” Senci asked innocently.

“If we discover that thing’s weakness...we kill it. With nothing guarding the gates, we can evacuate the Citadel and send for reinforcements. With the Royal Army at our side, this entire battle for the Blackheart just might be possible.”

“I see…!” Razorwing looked pleasantly surprised. “You had a good reason for going with this plan of yours. You have a very...strategic mindset, Alexander.”

“A few years leading armies’ll do that,” the knight answered with a shrug.

“A good plan...I’m in support of it,” the koutu said with a smile, offering Alexander a short bow.

“Good to hear it. Charles? Senci?”

“It’s worth a try!” the kobold said happily.

The magician frowned. “I suppose it’s better than nothing...letting that invincible thing go about its business DOES sound like a terrible idea...and the armies of mankind...very well. I’ll lead, I know the way.”

“Excellent,” Alexander answered, sounding satisfied.

Preparing themselves, the group began to move, following the magician as he began to lead the way to the academy.

“So where exactly is this place?” Alexander probed, “How far?”

“All the way to the North, in the center of the city. It’s atop a large hill, you’ll see when we get there.”

“Could be worse...could be on the opposite end of the city,” Razorwing muttered.

“This is true,” the knight replied, “If this works...I’d like us to take care of that dragon next.”

“Quite a list of targets we’re picking up,” Razorwing noted.

The human looked back at the koutu with a serious expression. “I want them deprived of trump cards, unable to overwhelm us during the final assault. Pick off their strongest assets before they’re able to fully utilize them. Defeat in detail, friend. It wins wars.”

“A fair point…”

The group became silent for some time, moving back up north as they followed the dragonoid’s lead.

He seemed aware that the main streets were death traps, taking side roads and alleyways just like everyone else had.

He HAD survived here since the initial invasion, after all.

Walking through the streets, the area desolate around them, Alexander decided to learn a bit more about their destination.

“So, Charles...any information you have about this academy of yours? Anything that might help?”

The dragon scratched his chin. “Well, went there as a student. Lived in the dorms. Got my own little room. It’s uh...split into different sections. There’s the dorms in the west wing, got some classrooms in the middle...the cafeteria is in the east wing. More classes on the second floor...the central area has classrooms on every floor, you see. Recreation area is in the west wing on the second floor...clubs are in the east wing. Third floor has staff offices in the west wing, artifact containment in the east...and then the fourth floor is mostly training grounds.”

“Training grounds?” the knight raised a brow.

“Yes. For practicing spells and the like. Rooms are mostly empty to minimize destruction. The walls, floors and ceilings are are warded with sigils, so when a student inevitably messes up a spell, they don’t bring the whole building down.”

“I see…”

“And finally the top floor,” the magician continued, “Where those priests were making visits to. Off limits to nearly everyone, even the staff. No idea what’s up there.”

“And that is where the research on demons lies.”

“Correct.”

“Very well...I’m interested to see how the place held up,” Alexander admitted.

“Everyone ran there and to the church during the first attack…” Charles sounded like he was having a difficult time continuing. “It was the first place I checked after the guild. Alexander, and all of you...it’s...a massacre in there. I’d recommend you cover your noses when we enter.”

The knight grimaced. “Damn. I thought...maybe a few wise magicians had holed up in there.”

“There’s nothing left,” the dragonoid said sadly.

“Alright than...say, what’s this about a guild?”

“The Guild of Dragonoids!” Charles said, a smile tugging at the sides of his muzzle.

“A...guild of dragonoids?”

“For the betterment of our kind!” the magician answered, “Surely you know how we’re viewed by society at large.”

“As menaces,” the knight answered.

“Correct. Well, the guild decided that if we were going to be treated like villains, the best way to combat that was to band together and show everyone that we just want to live normal lives, like everyone else!”

The human raised a brow. “And, uh...what did that entail, exactly?” “Self-sufficiency, charity, and kindness! We had this lovely hall with all sorts of stuff. Music classes, cooking classes, tailoring, a library, book readings and discussion groups...it was...like a second family.”

Alexander noticed the sudden souring of the dragonoid’s attitude. “You said you went there first, during the attack. Your friends, did they…?”

Charles winced. “T-they...when I got there, they were…”

He swallowed, seeming unable to continue.

“...they’re all gone.”

It was spoken in a whisper, quivering and full of pain.

“God...Charles, I’m sorry.”

“L-like animals, they were just...it’s not right…”

The young magician was breathing quick, shallow breaths now. “Theodon...my friend...he was...in a heap in the library. I-I went into the tailoring room, and Merjim, s-she...she…”

“You don’t have to keep going,” Alexander assured, “I understand.”

“We made this robe together,” the dragonoid said tearfully, tugging at his own outfit, “All that time ago. W-we did it in that very room...a-and when I went in...she was still sitting in her favorite chair...slumped over the table!”

Alexander put a hand on the magician’s shoulder, stopping his walk.

“You should sit down for a minute. Collect yourself.”

The dragonoid turned, tears flowing down his muzzle and wiping at his nose. “B-but-”

“Relax. Just relax.”

The dragonoid slumped against the wall, his wings splayed against the stone as he slid to the ground.

Sitting now, he shook his head. “M-my friends...m-maybe if I had been there, I could have...done something.”

The knight kneeled down and put his hand on the half-dragon’s shoulder again. “You did all you could.”

“B-but if I had only been there-”

“You can’t predict the future...well, maybe once you’re a sorcerer. But it’s not your fault.”

“Your friends are in heaven, now,” Razorwing offered, “At least they haven’t become one of THEM.”

“It’s true,” Alexander continued, “They’re in a better place. Theodon and Merjim, I’m sure they were great people, and I’m sure they’re watching from above, right this second, cheering you on. Hoping for you to make it through this.”

“You’re brave, mister Charles!” Senci offered, “Everyone here respects you! We know you’re doing your best!”

The dragonoid, unable to hold back, began to cry. The group huddled around him, and he wrapped his arms around them all as he continued to weep.

He thought about it. About his friends in the guild. The people who, almost as much as his father, felt like family.

He loved them like brothers and sisters...and now they were gone.

Were the knight’s words true? Were they really watching him from up above, their spirits praying for his safety?

He took a deep, shaky breath and collected himself.

Looking up, the blackness of the fog was blocking any view of the sun or stars he could have had, but still...he could FEEL it. Just behind that veil...heaven sat, watching. His friends, passed on, still there. Watching him carefully. Seeing what was happening, even after their own journeys had ended.

Tears rolling down his face, Charles stared into the sky, feeling something looking back at him.

“I won’t let you down. I promise.”

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[awkwarddystopianwarlord]

A Thursday

The day had already started out cursed when the night before I realized that I had to work two hours earlier than I thought. Thank the gods I had looked at my planner before going to bed but realized I would only get about six hours of sleep. We’ve all had that feeling though, haven't we? You think you know when to show up for work and thus plan your bedtime schedule accordingly and just before you call it a night, gracious serendipity allows you to double check the time you start your shift and that’s when you think, “oh bugger”. It’s a blessing to catch that before actually waking up late and showing up way past when you should but nevertheless, you go to bed with that fear and stressed feeling. And that’s exactly what I did.

And so the day actually begins. As I go about my morning routine, I have to mentally hype myself up whilst simultaneously finding inner peace and tranquility in preparation of the unknown chaos ahead.

Now, walking into the drug store is a crucial time to gather visual intelligence on what the rest of the day might look like. I scout out how many customers are currently wandering the aisles, how many are lined up at the front till. Is there a backup cashier currently serving the masses as well? I do all of this on my dreaded walk to the staff room. My eyes dart back and forth taking in the entire layout of the premises, my earbuds play some calming, subdued tunes to keep me at ease.

As I make my way to my locker, I arm myself as if for battle: Xacto knife in one pocket, fancy ink pen I claimed as my own in the other, wee notebook with all the codes and cheats I need to operate my till because I will be damned before I call a supervisor for help and face the loathing customer I’ve had to put on hold. I fill up my water bottle since it’s the only way to remove my mask to breathe after running around like a lunatic to help seven people at once. I keep my knee brace in my locker for I already slathered both knees with A535 rub and jammed insoles into my shoes. With my till and lottery counted, I am ready to head out to face my doom.

I realized that I had jinxed myself when I thought it was rather quiet. Satan decided to pay me a visit and ensure the entirety of the island decided to grace this singular drug store with their presence. Now, whilst seniors day is generally absurdly busy, especially when they’re receiving bonus points for the last Thursday of the month, today it was just insane. I was bound to my till for five hours straight. The flood of people was never ending. Adrenaline gradually kicked in as I continuously leapt over the bagging section of my till to help incapable consumers on the self checkout and back again to help impatient consumers at my counter. I found myself evolving into a god. I flew from my till to the self checkout, to random aisles to confirm that the customer doesn’t know how to read, to the till again so I could rapidly print up lottery tickets that were destined to lose.

All the while the crimson tide from my uterus is threatening to overthrow the plug I put in to keep it at bay and situate itself into my pad. This was an unappreciated portion of the day. It became a race against my own body. Would I make it until my lunch break that was planned at 2:30 or would the power of my reproductive system claim victory. It was the latter. Leaving the poor back up cashier on his own, I went to replug my leak and recollect myself in the time it took to do that. When I returned, the line had multiplied. There were two now as everyone had merged to be served by the remaining cashier. I was  forced to do a speed round to clear away the new line without making the main line commit mutiny, enhancing my godlike abilities all the more. Caffeine fails to work on me, but how my mind grew to function in those moments, I’m assuming that sensation was similar to what those who have chugged four coffees are like. I was hyper, high on the chaos of having an unending hoard of customers. My knees were suffering, there was a terrible pain in my neck, my stomach was bloated to the extent that I could pass off being some five months pregnant and the line never ended.

Take note, the entire time I was losing brain cells at a concerningly fast rate, my customer service was as pleasant as ever. I managed to convince everyone I served that I was a cheerful young lass with an abundance of patience and sanity. If only they knew that I just told them to take their time so I could take my own time to bury another portion of my mental wellbeing that died inside.

To make matters even more peachy, my lunch break ended up being a half hour late. I was on total autopilot at that time. My brain was completely gone by 2:00. All I could think about was that I was not supposed to still be here. I was supposed to be eating chilli and not enduring an endless surge of middle aged yahoos that all thought they were so unique and funny when they rang the little bell at my till while I was scanning their seven jugs of milk because the sign said to ring for service. It was almost surreal by the time I was relieved to go disappear into the staff room and…

Find that the lock on my locker was completely jammed and would no longer unlock. My embarrassingly bland chilli and hoodie that I planned to hide in both kept hostage within the metal cube like prisoners. The gods were mocking me at this point. I was blessed enough to have a work friend, who I was going to eat with, buy me lunch in the food court we were now allowed to go back to. Alas when I had twenty minutes left of my sacred hour of escape, I had to find assistance to release my belongings from my deceased lock.

It took some tries, but a manager finally succeeded in cracking the lock open with a screwdriver and hammer. As wonderful as this was, the stress of having thought I was forever barred from my bike and house keys was not a welcome feeling on top of all the rest of my unwelcome feelings that had accumulated throughout the day. And I still had two hours to go.

As it was when I left, the behemoth amount of humans were still filling the store. There had in fact been a small lineup outside the building when I came back from the main part of the mall. My computer was desperately protesting by glitching every two seconds, forcing me to click the same three buttons over and over again in an attempt to unfreeze it. I just wanted to go home.

There was no calm until there was.

Right when the evening cashier came to trade places. The moment she arrived, the line was no more. There was peace and quiet. The store appeared abandoned, there was such a lack of customers. All the torment I had dwelled in dissipated as soon as I no longer had to dwell in it. The mockery was at it’s finest in that moment.

And so the day had ended for me. I walked like a weary soldier coming home from war to the staff room to count my till. My body and mind had aged six decades over the course of the day. I was the senior I had spent hours serving as I hobbled to collect my backpack from my now open and exposed locker and bid my fellow survivors of the day farewell. At least Fridays are the antithesis of this ridiculousness.

[jonathantaylorthomas]

If you think Taylor Swift sings only about her exes, then you don’t get Taylor Swift

We took a deep dive into Swift's albums to track her evolution on these other themes:

Theme: Life lessons

Album: "Taylor Swift" (2006)

As the story goes, aspiring teenage singer-songwriter Taylor Swift knocked on doors around Music Row, dropping off demo CDs. Her parents eventually saw enough promise to move from Wyomissing, Pa., to Nashville, where Swift became the youngest songwriter ever signed to Sony/ATV Music Publishing at age 14.

Shortly after, Swift landed a record deal with Big Machine. As she was suddenly thrown into an adult world, her songwriting was still very much from a high-schooler's perspective.

"I don't know what I want, so don't ask me," she sings on "A Place In This World" (Swift, Robert Ellis Orrall, Angelo Petraglia). " 'Cause I'm still trying to figure it out."

Her lyrics veer from extreme confidence to self-doubt: "I'll be strong, I'll be wrong, oh, but life goes on — I'm just a girl trying to find a place in this world." She also assures her listeners: "I'm not the only one who feels the way I do."

This direct connection to her fans — many young girls indeed felt similar to Swift — would catapult her to superstardom. She also captured the insecurities of her teenage fanbase with the darkly sad "Tied Together With a Smile" (Swift, Liz Rose), about a friend who seemed like she had the perfect life yet struggled with bulimia.

"You don't tell anyone that you might not be the golden one," Swift sings. "You're tied together with a smile, but you're coming undone."

Album: "Fearless" (2008)

Swift's solo-written "Change," an anthem about not giving up, was chosen as a 2008 Summer Olympics theme song, but "Fifteen" was the standout track from the Grammys' album of the year, convincing critics that Swift was a true force. (Rolling Stone dubbed her a "songwriting savant.")

In the song, also a solo write, Swift takes on the role of the older and wiser teen: She knows what it was like walking through the school hallways, terrified to make eye contact with anyone but also hoping to be noticed by the cute senior. She tells the cautionary tale of her best friend, Abigail, who "gave everything she had to a boy who changed his mind — and we both cried."

Ultimately, Swift wanted listeners to know it was okay to feel overwhelmed by high school. "I've found time can heal most anything, and you just might find who you're supposed to be," she sings. "I didn't know who I was supposed to be at 15.”

Album: "Speak Now" (2010)

Swift wrote this entire album herself. While the quiet "Innocent" got many headlines — it chided Kanye West for interrupting her acceptance speech at the 2009 MTV Music Video Awards — one overlooked song was "Never Grow Up," a melancholy guitar acoustic tucked between Swift's forays into rock and pure pop. In the track, 20-year-old Swift grapples with the fear and loss that arrives during the early years of adulthood.

Swift addresses her words to a newborn baby. "Take pictures in your mind of your childhood room, memorize what it sounded like when your dad gets home," she sings, adding, "I just realized everything I have is someday gonna be gone."

Swift makes a similar wish to keep an iron grip on memories in "Long Live," a triumphant love letter to her band and Nashville team, who started as underdogs and conquered the music world. "If you have children someday, when they point to the pictures, please tell them my name," she sings. "We will be remembered."

Album: "1989" (2014)

"Welcome to New York" (Swift, Ryan Tedder) kicked off Swift's official pop era — the album's opening track was bursting with glee at all the excitement the Big Apple had to offer: "Welcome to New York — it's been waiting for you!" Swift had only just recently purchased a $20 million penthouse in Tribeca, so she earned some mockery when she was then named New York City's "global welcome ambassador."

But the pop star didn't care as she reveled in the freedom of the city. "Everybody here was someone else before," Swift sings. "And you can want who you want, boys and boys and girls and girls."

Theme: Friendship

Album: "Taylor Swift" (2006)

As obsessed as Swift would eventually become with her powerful "squad," a BFF group made up of models, singers and actresses, she frequently talked about how she was bullied and ostracized in middle school. On "The Outside," which she wrote by herself as a teenager, you can feel her pain: "How can I ever try to be better? Nobody ever lets me in. I can still see you, this ain't the best view, on the outside looking in."

The music video for the buoyant "I'm Only Me When I'm With You" (Swift, Robert Ellis Orrall, Angelo Petraglia) shows Swift goofing around with her bandmates and best friend, Abigail. Although the lyrics allude to romantic soulmates ("I don't try to hide my tears, my secrets or my deepest fears, through it all nobody gets me like you do"), Swift's fans have adopted it as an ode to friendship.

Album: "Fearless" (2008)

A similar phenomenon occurs on "Breathe," co-written with singer-songwriter Colbie Caillat. Listeners could easily assume it's about a boyfriend ("You're the only thing I know like the back of my hand, and I can't breathe without you, but I have to"), but Swift confirmed it's actually about the end of a close friendship.

Swift continued to reflect on the hurt of her middle school days in "The Best Day," a tribute to her close relationship with her mother. Writing solo, she reflects: "I'm 13 now and don't know how my friends could be so mean. I come home crying and you hold me tight and grab the keys," she sings. "And we drive and drive until we find a town far enough away, and we talk and window shop till I've forgotten all their names."

Album: "Red" (2012)

Swift's most famous — and happiest — friendship song arrived in the form of "22" (Swift, Max Martin, Shellback), an upbeat track that basks in a carefree existence, dancing and making fun of exes and eating breakfast at midnight after a night out: "We're happy, free, confused and lonely at the same time, it's miserable and magical, oh yeah!"

The song's hidden clue on the album liner notes is "ASHLEY DIANNA CLAIRE SELENA," also known as her close pals Ashley Avignone, Dianna Agron, Claire Kislinger and Selena Gomez. Swift explained she wanted to write with the attitude of "we are in our 20s and we don't know anything and it's awesome."

Album: "1989" (2014)

Although "New Romantics" (Swift, Max Martin, Shellback) is hidden as a "bonus track" on "1989," it's a fan favorite, and Rolling Stone recently ranked it as the second-best Swift song. It has "22" vibes with an '80s sonic spin, celebrating the heartache and joy of being young: "Heartbreak is the national anthem, we sing it proudly, we are too busy dancing to get knocked off our feet."

Theme: Fame

Album: "Red" (2012)

By her fourth album, Swift was officially an international celebrity. She also started to collaborate with Swedish maestros Max Martin and Shellback, who helped shape her new pop sound.

But "The Lucky One," which she wrote by herself, was a bit of a return to form. Like a country song, it tells a story — a starlet accomplishes her dream and then realizes that the perks ("big black cars and Riviera views") might not outweigh the dark side of fame ("your secrets end up splashed on the news front page.")

"They tell you that you're lucky, but you're so confused, 'cause you don't feel pretty, you just feel used," Swift sings. Many guessed that Joni Mitchell was her inspiration. Swift wouldn't spill, and only admitted in an interview that the song "expresses my greatest fear of having this not end up being fun anymore."

Album: "1989" (2014)

Swift's stardom skyrocketed again as her pop songs took on mass appeal. "Blank Space" (Swift, Max Martin, Shellback) is a parody of the tabloid media's characterization of Swift: A needy serial dater with a long list of ex-lovers who can tell you she's insane. And someone who, when she gets dumped, "goes to her evil lair and writes songs about it for revenge," as Swift once put it. Swift started writing the lyrics as a joke, and then realized the character was actually fascinating — as the song goes, "a nightmare dressed like a daydream."

Martin and Shellback also co-wrote "Shake It Off," one of Swift's top-selling singles, an earworm that hits back at her critics who she says are "gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate." In a YouTube interview, Swift said she wanted to write a "joyful" song about the criticism she gets on a daily basis — otherwise she would just burn with resentment forever.

"I Know Places" (Swift, Ryan Tedder) takes a more despondent view of a lifestyle in which privacy simply isn't an option. Swift has repeatedly talked about the difficulties of starting a new relationship while the world watches and mocks her, and this track is a wistful tune about hiding out: "They are the hunters, we are the foxes, and we run — baby, I know places we won't be found."

Theme: Revenge

Album: "Speak Now" (2010)

Swift first displayed her thirst for vengeance against exes on songs such as "Picture to Burn" (Swift, Liz Rose) on her first album and "Better Than Revenge," about a romantic rival, which she wrote for "Speak Now." But on that third album, her motivation also went beyond boyfriends with "Mean," a single that she wrote by herself and that earned her two Grammy awards, including one for best country song. The song's rumored gen­esis was a critical blog post by music writer Bob Lefsetz, who roasted Swift's cringeworthy duet with Stevie Nicks at the 2010 Grammys.

In return, Swift painted her critic as an eventual bitter, washed-up loser, "drunk and grumbling on about how I can't sing." Swift concludes, "All you are is mean — and a liar and pathetic and alone in life."

Album: "1989" (2014)

Swift's most infamous revenge track is "Bad Blood" (Swift, Max Martin, Shellback). Once she revealed that the tune was about a fellow female pop star that tried to "sabotage" an arena tour, the Internet quickly figured out that it was Katy Perry, who hired several backup dancers away from Swift's Red Tour.

Although it might seem like a benign slight, Swift's lyrics are rough: "Did you have to hit me where I'm weak, baby, I couldn't breathe, and rub it in so deep? Salt in the wound like you're laughing right at me." Things only escalated when Swift recruited her famous friends for the song's fiery music video, which shows her vanquishing an enemy. In summer 2017, Perry fired back with a track of her own, "Swish Swish," although it received more mockery than anything.

Album: "Reputation" (2017)

After her longest break without releasing new music, Swift dropped "Look What You Made Me Do" in August. She and collaborator Jack Antonoff shared writing credits with Fred Fairbrass, Richard Fairbrass and Rob Manzoli, the trio behind "I'm Too Sexy," because Swift and Antonoff interpolated the 1990s hit.

The dance-pop track declares that the "old Taylor" is "dead." Still, she leans heavily on her tried-and-true revenge theme, clearly aimed at her nemeses Kanye West and Kim Kardashian West, with whom she has been feuding for years. "The world moves on, another day, another drama, drama," Swift chants. "But not for me, not for me — all I think about is karma."

[ts1989fanatic]

If you think Taylor Swift sings only about her exes, then you don’t get Taylor Swift

Taylor Swift is one of those celebrities so famous that even if you don’t listen to her music, you probably know something about her. Usually, the assumption is, “Isn’t she the one who always writes songs about her boyfriends?” It’s true that Swift, 27, launched her career in 2006 as a teenager with “Tim McGraw,” a wistful ballad about a guy she dated in high school. When she became a star, she paired off with other stars and wrote about them: Joe Jonas, John Mayer, Jake Gyllenhaal.

While she rarely names the subjects of her songs, she leaves hints via coded messages in the album’s liner notes, leading to a media frenzy every time she releases new music — and she will likely continue the practice when she drops her sixth studio album, “Reputation,” on Nov. 10. However, those who know Swift only from those headlines and her major commerical hits (“Love Story,” “You Belong With Me,” “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together,”) miss the fact that her music goes far beyond crushes and exes. Swift, who has solo or co-written every song she’s ever recorded, also tackles other substantive subjects, which have a major impact on her extremely loyal fanbase.

We took a deep dive into Swift’s albums to track her evolution on these other themes:

Theme: Life lessons

Album: “Taylor Swift” (2006)

As the story goes, aspiring teenage singer-songwriter Taylor Swift knocked on doors around Music Row, dropping off demo CDs. Her parents eventually saw enough promise to move from Wyomissing, Pa., to Nashville, where Swift became the youngest songwriter ever signed to Sony/ATV Music Publishing at age 14.

Shortly after, Swift landed a record deal with Big Machine. As she was suddenly thrown into an adult world, her songwriting was still very much from a high-schooler’s perspective.

“I don’t know what I want, so don’t ask me,” she sings on “A Place In This World” (Swift, Robert Ellis Orrall, Angelo Petraglia). “ ’Cause I’m still trying to figure it out.”

Her lyrics veer from extreme confidence to self-doubt: “I’ll be strong, I’ll be wrong, oh, but life goes on — I’m just a girl trying to find a place in this world.” She also assures her listeners: “I’m not the only one who feels the way I do.”

This direct connection to her fans — many young girls indeed felt similar to Swift — would catapult her to superstardom. She also captured the insecurities of her teenage fanbase with the darkly sad “Tied Together With a Smile” (Swift, Liz Rose), about a friend who seemed like she had the perfect life yet struggled with bulimia.

“You don’t tell anyone that you might not be the golden one,” Swift sings. “You’re tied together with a smile, but you’re coming undone.”

Album: “Fearless” (2008)

Swift’s solo-written “Change,” an anthem about not giving up, was chosen as a 2008 Summer Olympics theme song, but “Fifteen” was the standout track from the Grammys’ album of the year, convincing critics that Swift was a true force. (Rolling Stone dubbed her a “songwriting savant.”)

In the song, also a solo write, Swift takes on the role of the older and wiser teen: She knows what it was like walking through the school hallways, terrified to make eye contact with anyone but also hoping to be noticed by the cute senior. She tells the cautionary tale of her best friend, Abigail, who “gave everything she had to a boy who changed his mind — and we both cried.”

Ultimately, Swift wanted listeners to know it was okay to feel overwhelmed by high school. “I’ve found time can heal most anything, and you just might find who you’re supposed to be,” she sings. “I didn’t know who I was supposed to be at 15.”

Album: “Speak Now” (2010)

Swift wrote this entire album herself. While the quiet “Innocent” got many headlines — it chided Kanye West for interrupting her acceptance speech at the 2009 MTV Music Video Awards — one overlooked song was “Never Grow Up,” a melancholy guitar acoustic tucked between Swift’s forays into rock and pure pop. In the track, 20-year-old Swift grapples with the fear and loss that arrives during the early years of adulthood.

Swift addresses her words to a newborn baby. “Take pictures in your mind of your childhood room, memorize what it sounded like when your dad gets home,” she sings, adding, “I just realized everything I have is someday gonna be gone.”

Swift makes a similar wish to keep an iron grip on memories in “Long Live,” a triumphant love letter to her band and Nashville team, who started as underdogs and conquered the music world. “If you have children someday, when they point to the pictures, please tell them my name,” she sings. “We will be remembered.”

Album: “1989” (2014)

“Welcome to New York” (Swift, Ryan Tedder) kicked off Swift’s official pop era — the album’s opening track was bursting with glee at all the excitement the Big Apple had to offer: “Welcome to New York — it’s been waiting for you!” Swift had only just recently purchased a $20 million penthouse in Tribeca, so she earned some mockery when she was then named New York City’s “global welcome ambassador.”

But the pop star didn’t care as she reveled in the freedom of the city. “Everybody here was someone else before,” Swift sings. “And you can want who you want, boys and boys and girls and girls.”

Theme: Friendship

Album: “Taylor Swift” (2006)

As obsessed as Swift would eventually become with her powerful “squad,” a BFF group made up of models, singers and actresses, she frequently talked about how she was bullied and ostracized in middle school. On “The Outside,” which she wrote by herself as a teenager, you can feel her pain: “How can I ever try to be better? Nobody ever lets me in. I can still see you, this ain’t the best view, on the outside looking in.”

The music video for the buoyant “I’m Only Me When I’m With You” (Swift, Robert Ellis Orrall, Angelo Petraglia) shows Swift goofing around with her bandmates and best friend, Abigail. Although the lyrics allude to romantic soulmates (“I don’t try to hide my tears, my secrets or my deepest fears, through it all nobody gets me like you do”), Swift’s fans have adopted it as an ode to friendship.

Album: “Fearless” (2008)

A similar phenomenon occurs on “Breathe,” co-written with singer-songwriter Colbie Caillat. Listeners could easily assume it’s about a boyfriend (“You’re the only thing I know like the back of my hand, and I can’t breathe without you, but I have to”), but Swift confirmed it’s actually about the end of a close friendship.

Swift continued to reflect on the hurt of her middle school days in “The Best Day,” a tribute to her close relationship with her mother. Writing solo, she reflects: “I’m 13 now and don’t know how my friends could be so mean. I come home crying and you hold me tight and grab the keys,” she sings. “And we drive and drive until we find a town far enough away, and we talk and window shop till I’ve forgotten all their names.”

Album: “Red” (2012)

Swift’s most famous — and happiest — friendship song arrived in the form of “22” (Swift, Max Martin, Shellback), an upbeat track that basks in a carefree existence, dancing and making fun of exes and eating breakfast at midnight after a night out: “We’re happy, free, confused and lonely at the same time, it’s miserable and magical, oh yeah!”

The song’s hidden clue on the album liner notes is “ASHLEY DIANNA CLAIRE SELENA,” also known as her close pals Ashley Avignone, Dianna Agron, Claire Kislinger and Selena Gomez. Swift explained she wanted to write with the attitude of “we are in our 20s and we don’t know anything and it’s awesome.”

Album: “1989” (2014)

Although “New Romantics” (Swift, Max Martin, Shellback) is hidden as a “bonus track” on “1989,” it’s a fan favorite, and Rolling Stone recently ranked itas the second-best Swift song. It has “22” vibes with an ’80s sonic spin, celebrating the heartache and joy of being young: “Heartbreak is the national anthem, we sing it proudly, we are too busy dancing to get knocked off our feet.”

Theme: Fame

Album: “Red” (2012)

By her fourth album, Swift was officially an international celebrity. She also started to collaborate with Swedish maestros Max Martin and Shellback, who helped shape her new pop sound.

But “The Lucky One,” which she wrote by herself, was a bit of a return to form. Like a country song, it tells a story — a starlet accomplishes her dream and then realizes that the perks (“big black cars and Riviera views”) might not outweigh the dark side of fame (“your secrets end up splashed on the news front page.”)

“They tell you that you’re lucky, but you’re so confused, ’cause you don’t feel pretty, you just feel used,” Swift sings. Many guessed that Joni Mitchell was her inspiration. Swift wouldn’t spill, and only admitted in an interview that the song “expresses my greatest fear of having this not end up being fun anymore.”

Album: “1989” (2014)

Swift’s stardom skyrocketed again as her pop songs took on mass appeal. “Blank Space” (Swift, Max Martin, Shellback) is a parody of the tabloid media’s characterization of Swift: A needy serial dater with a long list of ex-lovers who can tell you she’s insane. And someone who, when she gets dumped, “goes to her evil lair and writes songs about it for revenge,” as Swift once put it. Swift started writing the lyrics as a joke, and then realized the character was actually fascinating — as the song goes, “a nightmare dressed like a daydream.”

Martin and Shellback also co-wrote “Shake It Off,” one of Swift’s top-selling singles, an earworm that hits back at her critics who she says are “gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate.” In a YouTube interview, Swift said she wanted to write a “joyful” song about the criticism she gets on a daily basis — otherwise she would just burn with resentment forever.

“I Know Places” (Swift, Ryan Tedder) takes a more despondent view of a lifestyle in which privacy simply isn’t an option. Swift has repeatedly talked about the difficulties of starting a new relationship while the world watches and mocks her, and this track is a wistful tune about hiding out: “They are the hunters, we are the foxes, and we run — baby, I know places we won’t be found.”

Theme: Revenge

Album: “Speak Now” (2010)

Swift first displayed her thirst for vengeance against exes on songs such as “Picture to Burn” (Swift, Liz Rose) on her first album and “Better Than Revenge,” about a romantic rival, which she wrote for “Speak Now.” But on that third album, her motivation also went beyond boyfriends with “Mean,” a single that she wrote by herself and that earned her two Grammy awards, including one for best country song. The song’s rumored gen­esis was a critical blog post by music writer Bob Lefsetz, who roasted Swift’s cringeworthy duet with Stevie Nicks at the 2010 Grammys.

In return, Swift painted her critic as an eventual bitter, washed-up loser, “drunk and grumbling on about how I can’t sing.” Swift concludes, “All you are is mean — and a liar and pathetic and alone in life.”

Album: “1989” (2014)

Swift’s most infamous revenge track is “Bad Blood” (Swift, Max Martin, Shellback). Once she revealed that the tune was about a fellow female pop star that tried to “sabotage” an arena tour, the Internet quickly figured out that it was Katy Perry, who hired several backup dancers away from Swift’s Red Tour.

Although it might seem like a benign slight, Swift’s lyrics are rough: “Did you have to hit me where I’m weak, baby, I couldn’t breathe, and rub it in so deep? Salt in the wound like you’re laughing right at me.” Things only escalated when Swift recruited her famous friends for the song’s fiery music video, which shows her vanquishing an enemy. In summer 2017, Perry fired back with a track of her own, “Swish Swish,” although it received more mockery than anything.

Album: “Reputation” (2017)

After her longest break without releasing new music, Swift dropped “Look What You Made Me Do” in August. She and collaborator Jack Antonoff shared writing credits with Fred Fairbrass, Richard Fairbrass and Rob Manzoli, the trio behind “I’m Too Sexy,” because Swift and Antonoff interpolated the 1990s hit.

The dance-pop track declares that the “old Taylor” is “dead.” Still, she leans heavily on her tried-and-true revenge theme, clearly aimed at her nemeses Kanye West and Kim Kardashian West, with whom she has been feuding for years. “The world moves on, another day, another drama, drama,” Swift chants. “But not for me, not for me — all I think about is karma.”

ts1989fanatic other than the last paragraph this is a well thought out piece that actually gets it, Taylor Swift is a brilliant writer who can and does write about many subjects other than her exes.

[geekmama]

Resolved

Chapter 2; Opportunities for Community Service

Molly was still enjoying the sleep of the justly exhausted when Sherlock was ready to depart for the Diogenes Club to see his brother the next morning.

She’d stirred slightly when he’d disentangled himself from her embrace, but a kiss and soft words had reassured her, and he’d tucked her up warmly before he’d left the room to attend to his morning ablutions. By the time he returned to dress, she was once more deep in slumber, and there she remained when he was ready to depart. He paused, and smiled crookedly to see her there, huddled beneath the bedclothes, with only some of her mussed but beautiful auburn hair partially visible. He became aware of an odd feeling in his breast. Amazement? Pride? Contentment? Maybe all those things and more --something akin to what he had felt as a young boy, perhaps, when he would run and shout for the pure joy of living.

Molly had given that back to him.

He was no longer a boy, though, and there was a time and place for everything. So he took a deep breath, blew her a silent kiss, and went out to greet the day.

Archie was sitting on the bottom step as he descended to the hall, but the boy jumped up and whipped off his cap.

“Good morning, Mr. Holmes! You have some errands for me?”

“Indeed, Archie. I have two messages for you to deliver, a shopping list, and money to complete the required purchases. There should be enough left over to treat yourself to a pie or sweets of some kind, and you can keep the remainder as a token of my gratitude. I am going out this morning but I should be back by noon. Presumably you can complete those tasks and return in time for our midday repast. I may have additional work for you this afternoon, depending on what my brother has to say to me.”

“Thank you, sir!” said Archie, with a quick bow and, without more ado, took himself off.

Sherlock followed him out of the house at a more sedate pace, thankful that Mrs. Hudson did not emerge from her flat to quiz him about… well, anything, really. She had a very sharp eye for an elderly woman, and a sharp wit, too. He knew she was genuinely fond of him, but her raillery could wait until they all sat down to lunch and a glass or two of wine. Then, too, Molly would be there to draw her fire -- though Molly seemed always to bring out the landlady’s gentler side.

Molly brought out his own gentler side, too, though he wouldn’t have thought until recently that he actually had one. But there it was: shot through the ear with a love song, the very pin of his heart cleft with the blind bow-boy’s butt shaft. Yet he felt quite certain he was still a man to encounter Tybalt -- or any other rogue that could be brought to justice by one at the height of his strength and deductive powers. If anything, marriage had thoroughly roused the instinct to protect what was his. And she was his -- just as he was hers. Their every encounter in the bedroom seemed to strengthen that bond. It wasn’t merely the act itself. It was the caring and honesty replete in every moment, their hearts stripped bare along with their bodies.

Mycroft had always warned him about the danger of caring too much. Mycroft wasn’t wrong, but Sherlock had begun to feel he’d only been half-alive before surrendering to the enchantment of love. Of loving, and being loved in return.

All these thoughts were with him on the cab ride to the Diogenes Club, and when he entered Mycroft’s office it was evident that they were still writ large upon his countenance, at least to his discerning brother.

Mycroft greeted him with a sardonic smile. “Well, I see married life agrees with you. Welcome back to reality, brother mine.”

Sherlock laughed, but did not dispute the point. “A reality that now features the woman I am privileged to call my wife is a happy one indeed.”

Mycroft’s brows rose slightly. “You have changed your tune, haven’t you? Well, well. As I believe I said seven weeks ago, I wish you joy. Both of you!”

“Thank you, on both our behalves. And I believe I must thank you for the wedding gift as well. A kitchen and a French chef: really, Mycroft, you couldn’t think of something a trifle more extravagant?”

“Well, I could have, but nothing that would so perfectly serve my own interests.You’re pleased then? Alphonse was trained  at Le Cordon Bleu, but was something of a loose cannon. He acquired a reputation for being difficult and couldn’t get a reference, nor any work that was worthy of his skill, so he came over here. Hopefully he won’t give you any trouble.”

“I believe we’ve made a start at coming to an understanding. And he is an excellent cook. You should come to dinner tonight and see for yourself.”

Mycroft looked a little surprised. “Thank you. I’m afraid duty calls tonight however: a reception at the Russian Embassy that I must attend, However, another time the invitation will be most welcome.”

“Ah. Molly will be disappointed.”

“Will she? Please give my dear sister-in-law my regards, and tell her I will wait upon her soon. And now, what else can I do for you this morning, Sherlock? You aren’t bored already?.”

“Not at all. Just picking up old threads. I’ve sent a message round to Lestrade that I’m once again available, and if you have anything going, I might lend a hand by way of thanks. You’ve done a great deal for us these last months. But I beg you will consider that Molly won’t begin her new term at the medical school for two more weeks.”

“And you wish to enjoy her unfettered companionship as much as possible before she is consumed with her studies?” Mycroft’s expression was surprisingly free of mockery. “You are a fortunate man, I believe.. And as it happens, I might have something that might suit the two of you. A short jaunt out of town to a pleasant seaside resort. Almost another honeymoon destination, though admittedly the atmosphere is not quite on a par with that of Italy.”

“ Which seaside resort?” Sherlock demanded, fearing the worst.

“Blackpool, I’m afraid.” Mycroft’s lips quirked at Sherlock’s groan. “Indeed, you see why I do not attempt to complete the errand myself. Not only legwork , but people -- and so many of them, too . I really couldn’t. But the mission may be completed quickly, if you don’t wish to linger, and there is little likelihood of danger or mishap. An ideal assignment for a newlywed couple, in fact.”

Sherlock glared a bit. “I suppose you saved this for my return.”

“I may have done,” Mycroft said, an amused glint in his eye. “But really, you have to admit that Molly, at least, will be charmed.”

  *

  Molly was charmed. Ordinarily Sherlock would have been both annoyed and bored beyond permission, and the fact that he was neither was entirely due to Molly’s unabashed enthusiasm for every aspect of their new “adventure”.

Their second evening at Baker Street saw them sitting down to another extraordinary dinner, courtesy of Alphonse, this time attended by the Watsons as well as Mrs. Hudson and Archie. Over a really excellent bisque de homard, Sherlock announced that he and Molly would be off to Blackpool on the morrow to transact some business for the British government.

Mrs. Hudson nearly choked. “But you’ve only just returned!” she protested.

“True, but there’s nothing for it. Mycroft sent word an hour ago that everything is arranged: first class accommodations on the train, a suite at a decent hotel, a stipend to cover the cost of meals and such souvenirs as Molly will be unable to resist -- I believe I saw the inside of every shop in Rome and Florence these last weeks.” He smirked at his wife’s obvious chagrin, and added, “He’s sending a cab to take us to the station at ten o’clock tomorrow.”

Molly said, “You know I tried to limit my spending, and it was you who insisted on buying the pearl set, and this.” She gestured to the very fine brooch at her throat, hand-painted roses on enamel, surrounded by a delicate gold filigree. “But how kind of Mycroft to give us such a treat!”

But John raised his brows. “Blackpool?” he asked, barely stifling a chuckle.

Sherlock gave him a quelling look. “I’m sure it will be fine. We should be back in a very few days, in any case.”

“And Molly will enjoy it excessively,” Mary said. “The sea air, walks on the beach, the aquarium, the new Tower, and dancing in the evenings. How I envy you!”

Sherlock had been skeptical of Mary’s cheery predictions, but in the event they all came to pass. Seeing Blackpool through his bride’s innocent eyes made the garish surroundings and teeming masses of holiday-goers tolerable -- even amusing much of the time. They were away five days, two devoted mostly to travel, two to seaside fun in exceptionally clement weather, and one in which it poured rain and they stayed abed nearly all the day. The four evenings they were in town were devoted to some surprisingly excellent dining, theatre-going, and dancing, after which they would retire to their well-appointed suite at the Clifton Hotel in Talbot Square, by the North Pier, and be blessedly, completely alone. There was no need to rise early, so they enjoyed a delicious breakfast in bed each morning, in every sense of the phrase. And Mycroft’s assignment merely consisted of contacting one of his agents -- a stout grey-haired female who sold parasols and gathered gossip from one of the many booths on the strand -- to receive a detailed report on some crime syndicate that was beginning to gain a foothold in the town.

It was almost with regret that Sherlock and Molly bid Blackpool adieu on the fifth day and boarded the train that would return them to London. They sat side by side in their large private compartment, watching the green countryside move past, and when Molly, replete with contentment, presently dozed off, leaning against his shoulder, Sherlock found himself realizing that he had rarely felt happier in his life.

  *

  The next morning, however, a shadow crept over Molly’s contentment.

Returning from the toilet as dawn crept into their bedroom, Molly slipped into bed and curled close, her aspect subdued. “I… I’ve… um… it’s that time of the month for me, I’m afraid,” she said, trying to sound unconcerned and failing miserably.

Sherlock frowned and slid down, repositioning himself so that he could lay a warm hand upon her abdomen, well aware that, even discounting the previous month, when they were in Venice, she always found menstruation a trial for the first day or two. “Are you in much pain? A small dose of laudanum--”

“Oh, no!” she broke in. “I… I dislike it so very much. And I don’t want to be half asleep all day. Mary and I are to meet for lunch at the Holborn.”

“Very well. But if I find you martyring yourself for no good reason--”

“I won’t! It… I don’t think it will be as bad as it was last month.”

“No, indeed.”

In Venice, Sherlock had felt that a doctor should be summoned, Molly seemed to be suffering so. The man’s diagnosis -- “... it is perhaps a miscarriage, but not to worry, there’s little danger from what you tell me, she can’t be very far along …” --  had shocked Sherlock to the bone, and Molly had wept as though her heart were breaking until the doctor’s prescribed draft had pulled her under, immersing her in restful, healing sleep. Physically, she recovered within a few days, and their remaining time in Venice had been quite enjoyable, but a cloud had hung over her spirits until they moved onto Milan and intimate relations were resumed, though he put firm limits on their activities until the full fortnight of abstinence the doctor had recommended was complete -- much to Molly’s indignation.

From that first night at the Savoy, she’d seemed to enjoy sexual congress as much as he did himself.

And she wanted a child. His child.

Sherlock, however, was ambivalent about the prospect of offspring, and he had a (thus far hidden but all too real) dread at the thought of inflicting upon his beloved young wife the pain and risks associated with childbirth.  He realized that the event was probably inevitable, and soon, considering their mutual enthusiasm in the bedroom, but on this morning he could not help thinking it was all to the good that she would at least begin the fall term at the medical school unencumbered by pregnancy.

Unfortunately, he made the mistake of saying as much.

She lay very still, looking at him, biting her lip. And then she blurted, “Sherlock… don’t you want us to have a child?”

“Did I say that?” he said, with a pretense of strong resentment.

“No! I’m… Forgive me. I just find it so disappointing myself that… well.”

Sherlock drew her against him and she clung to him, rather stiffly, trying not to give in to tears. “Sweetheart,” he said quietly, “you’ve plenty of time for that. And excessive anxiety will only hinder the process -- I have it on good authority.”

He felt her smile. “John and Mary?” she asked.

“Precisely. Watson says that it wasn’t until they both stopped worrying about it that they achieved a favorable outcome.”

“Mary told me before we left for Blackpool that she suspects that Rosamund may have a little brother or sister in eight months. Don’t tell John, though -- she wants to wait just a little longer. She told me she miscarried twice before she was able to carry Rosamund to term.”

“Mmm. I won’t say anything. But you must promise me you will put the notion out of your head for now, as far as Baby Holmes is concerned. Enjoy your experience at school, and your studies!”

“And my beloved husband, again, in a few days,” she said, making an effort to sound impishly cheerful.

He smiled, and slid his hand down to caress her lovely, round backside. “You know, there are any number of things we can do right now, provided you are so inclined. I’m not at all squeamish about a little blood, and studies have shown that orgasm can be an aid in the relief of menstrual cramps.”

“Really? They’ve done studies on such things?”

“I know I read it somewhere. But perhaps we should do what we can to confirm their findings. In a spirit of scientific enquiry.”

She chuckled at having her own phraseology tossed back at her, and moved, raising her lips to his and saying huskily, “Yes, please, Mr. Holmes,” before she kissed him.

  *

  Molly started the fall term at the London School of Medicine for Women a week later and happily settled into her studies. But within the first few days, her interest was increased tenfold by the announcement that all third year students would be required to participate in community service.

“And where do they have you going? You are supervised, are you not?” asked Sherlock over one of Alphonse’s simpler, yet still excellent repasts one evening. Archie was dining with the family of a friend, and Mrs. Hudson had traveled into Devon to visit her sister, so it was just the two of them sitting at the small dining table in their own flat, a cheerful fire burning in the grate and thick fog closing in outside, increasing the sense of seclusion.

“Oh, yes. There is an advisor and often other students from my class. We’ve been assigned to the Brooks-Henley Institution for Girls -- they are most of them orphans, but there are some who are placed there because of difficult situations at home. And we married ladies are able to go also to the Magdalene Hospital.”

“Really?” said Sherlock, lifting a brow. “And how do you find that?”

Molly grimaced. “Rather dreadful, as a woman. There, but for the grace of God…. But as a medical student, I find it quite fascinating, and I am very happy to be able to aid those poor women in some small way. I was able to witness a birth yesterday.”

“Did you?” Sherlock said, too blandly.

Molly smiled. “It was most interesting, and my advisor told us that it was quite an easy birth, too. It did not seem that way to me, but I daresay I’ll get used to such things. They gave the mother a little chloroform at the end, just as the queen had with her eighth child, which made the last of it go much more smoothly and quietly. But the poor thing was only fifteen years of age -- it’s not surprising she was terrified, and unable to bear the pain with any kind of stoicism.” Molly took another bite of Poulet à la Provençale, then frowned at Sherlock, who looked a little disturbed, and even rather pale. “Are you alright?”

“Of course,” he said, and visibly rallied, with the help of a big sip of wine.

But it was noticeable that he asked no more questions about the Magdalene Hospital or the Institution, at least at that time, and she did not share with him that she had actually been assigned a third venue for community service, and one that she quite naturally, if reprehensibly, found to be the most interesting of all: Madame Celeste’s in Bennet Street, off St. James’.

[biofunmy]

100 Best Memes Of The Decade

Debora Westra for BuzzFeed News

This decade, memes became something not just for a handful of internet nerds who lurked on message boards; memes are now for everyone. The online culture of this decade hasn’t just changed the words we use, it’s changed how we express ourselves. Huge technological shifts of the 2010s led to this: widespread smartphone adoption and the rise of newfangled social media platforms like Vine. Memes also became a business — brands used meme-speak and accounts like @fuckjerry made big bucks by reposting memes.

To determine the ranking of this list, we considered the overall popularity of a meme, its longevity, and historical importance — what kind of impact it had on other memes and internet culture. Here they are:

100.

Yodeling Walmart Kid

View this video on YouTube

youtube.com

In 2018, 10-year-old Mason Ramsey sang a Hank Williams song in a Walmart, and the internet went nuts. But this time, the reaction to a precocious kid singing somewhat oddly (a sort of yodeling) was very different than it was in 2011 when Rebecca Black sang “Friday.” Instead of mocking the kid, the internet loved him, declaring the clip a “bop” that “slaps.” This is the change that happened over the decade: Instead of relishing cringe, the more memetic and ironic thing to do is embrace and love something like a child yodeling in a big-box store. Ramsey has gone on to have some version of mainstream success, performing country music to live crowds, and, well, good for him. —K.N.

99.

Moth Memes

Twitter: @thebobpalmer

Much like a moth is drawn to a flame, we were drawn to memes about moths and their unquenchable thirst for lamps in summer 2018. They got their start with a Reddit post that July, a close-up photo someone took of a moth, which people soon began captioning and photoshopping until it took on a life of its own as a meme. There’s really not much you can say about moth memes, besides that they are funny and good and I will love them until I die. —J.R.

Every generation has its subcultures, and in 2019, Gen Z’s was undoubtedly VSCO girls. The aesthetic comes with a number of signifiers: scrunchies (piled high on the wrist), Hydro Flask water bottles (covered in stickers), puka shell necklaces, oversized T-shirts, Crocs, Fjällräven backpacks, metal straws (save the turtles!), Carmex lip balm, and the ubiquitous catchphrases, “sksksk — and I oop.” The easy-breezy look, named for the photo editing app VSCO, was essentially “Tumblr girl” meets “basic white girl.” Though the style became trendy in earnest through Instagram and internet stars like Emma Chamberlain, it catapulted to popularity (and mockery) on TikTok. —J.R.

97.

Duck Army

View this video on YouTube

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Kevin Innes, a Norwegian twentysomething, was in a store with his girlfriend one day when they came across a bin of squeaking duck-shaped (technically, the toy is a pelican) dog toys. To embarrass his girlfriend, he pressed down on the whole bin, and an unholy cacophony that sounds like the wheezing sum total of human misery was released. Innes posted to Facebook, then YouTube, and then someone else ripped his YouTube video and posted it to Vine, where it went viral. The beauty of this 2015 meme was a perfect Vine: absurd, easy to understand, surprising, and based on something that happened in real life. —K.N.

96.

Deep-Fried Memes

reddit.com

You might not even know what they’re called if you saw them, but a deep-fried meme is one of those pictures that has been screenshotted, edited, and reuploaded across Twitter, Instagram, and Reddit so many times that has started to degrade in quality. At first this deep-frying process was largely genuine, kids refiltering and remixing each other’s images. But as the phenomenon became more known, a second wave of ironically deep-fried images started to appear. It’s a fairly silly thing on its surface, but it also speaks to the innate desire for people to share stuff online. If Instagram had a share button, there’s a good chance this sort of thing would have never started happening in the first place. The walled culs-de-sac of proprietary platforms will never be able to stop the world’s teens from sharing a picture of Peter Griffin from Family Guy smoking a huge blunt. —R.B.

95.

Twitter Sign Bunny

|￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣| vaccines save lives you stupid motherfucker |＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿| (__/) || (•ㅅ•) || / 　 づ

02:12 PM – 01 Dec 2019

A series of ASCII image memes popped up on Twitter this decade: “Howdy, I’m the sheriff of,” “In this house we…” “got dat” cat, a stick figure falling off a building, or even the simple ¯_(ツ)_/¯ or (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻. These work in part because they visually take up a lot of space on the Twitter timeline, making them stick out and be more likely to be interacted with or remembered. Plus, there implies some element that the poster has some technical abilities to be able to summon the ASCII. But it’s the bunny that’s had staying power over those other ones. —K.N.

94.

Doggos and Puppers

This is Rey. She’s a very puptective doggo mommo. Will grrbork bork at any potential threat. 13/10 heartwarming as h*ck

12:00 AM – 20 Oct 2017

Dogs have been man’s best friend for thousands of years, but only around 2015 did they evolve into “doggos” and “puppers.” “Doggo-speak,” as NPR called it, arose in Facebook groups like “Dogspotting” before exploding on Twitter with the @dog_rates Twitter account. The lingo is characterized by cutesy nicknames for dogs (Samoyeds are “floofs” or “clouds,” corgis are “loaves,” any huge fluffy dog is a big boofin’ woofer) and onomatopoeia (a doggo can “bork,” or stick their tongues out and do a “blep” or “mlem”). To me, it’s a fascinating as “h*ck” thing that an entire dialect, with all its own grammar and syntax and vocabulary rules, could spring up in an organic way online. —J.R.

93.

Planking

CC BY-SA 3.0 / Donkey100 / Via commons.wikimedia.org

In 2011, everyone was taking pictures lying facedown on the ground, rigid as a board. It was a thing, and that thing was called planking. Plankers would assume the pose in unexpected places — atop a car, inside a supermarket freezer, even across two camels — then get a buddy to snap a picture. The trend got so big The Office even did a cold open about it. Soon, it spun off into other photo pose trends, including owling and leisure diving, but it also sadly led to at least one death.

Eight years later, these photo memes can feel a bit old-school, but they represent a key moment when ready access to cameras (both the digital kind and iPhones, which were still pretty new) was still a novelty, and people were leaning into ways to use it creatively. —J.R.

The point of bros icing bros was simple: At any point during the day, present a warm bottle of Smirnoff Ice to your bro, and he has to get down on one knee and chug the cursed beverage. However, if he produces his own bottle immediately, he is exempted, and it is you who must chug. This prank was the peak of IRL-memeing in 2011. Smirnoff denied any sort of marketing stunt, which makes sense if you consider that the central conceit is that being forced to drink a Smirnoff Ice is a form of punishment. The meme threatened a resurgence in 2017, but never really caught on again. —K.N.

91.

Bone App The Teeth

In 2016, someone posted a pic of white bread just absolutely smothered in corn and captioned it with a phrase that ignited a million memes: “bone app the teeth.” Those four words — sometimes edited to “bone apple tea,” “bone ape tit,” or even more bonkers iterations — became the battle cry for shitty food porn posters everywhere. It’s a pretty simple meme, but I don’t think I’ll ever be able to look at a picture of Goldfish sushi or a chicken noodle watermelon without completely losing it. —J.R.

90.

Clowns

Instagram: @davie_dave

Remember that brief moment in fall 2016 when towns around the US were overtaken by mass hysteria over scary clowns being spotted in the woods (which then immediately stopped being a concern when Trump got elected and everyone suddenly had other stuff to worry about)? Yeah, that was a thing that happened. Clowns had quite a ~moment~ in the latter half of the 2010s. Less than a year after the clown sightings, a remake of the horror movie It came out, prompting a ton of memes of Pennywise in the sewer and dancing (and, of course, people wanting to fuck the It clown). The clown memes just kept going from there, with clown photos being used as reaction images to illustrate our most dumbass moments. Sometimes I wonder if those clowns are still in the woods. I hope they’re happy. —J.R.

89.

Kim Kardashian Breaks the Internet

Jean-Paul Goude / papermag.com

In November 2014, Kim Kardashian appeared on the cover of Paper magazine bearing her whole entire ass. It went massively viral, and people immediately got to work photoshopping it into a centaur, Miley Cyrus’s “Wrecking Ball” (which had just come out), the turkey in a Norman Rockwell painting, you name it. The phrase on the cover “break the internet,” would go on to become timeworn, but it all started with Kim K and her big, glossy butt. —J.R.

88.

Bed Intruder

View this video on YouTube

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In July 2010, Antoine Dodson appeared on the local news in Alabama after a home invader attempted to assault his sister, saying: “He’s climbin’ in your windows, he’s snatchin’ your people up… So y’all need to hide your kids, hide your wife…” The news clip went viral, and a few days later, Dodson’s words were remixed into the Auto-Tuned “Bed Intruder Song,” which made it onto the Billboard 100 charts and become the most-viewed YouTube video of 2010.

“Bed Intruder Song” captured two powerful vectors that would come to define the rest of the decade: a normal person being propelled to some sort of viral fame, and a critical backlash over the exploitative race, gender, and class dynamics. At the time, some people pointed out that turning a video of poor black man expressing anguish over the attempted sexual assault of his sister was problematic. Years later, this feels even more true. Dodson went on to a strange post-virality career, with a reality show that never got off the ground, celebrity boxing matches, controversial statements about being gay, and a Trump endorsement. —K.N.

87.

Alex From Target

Alex LeBoeuf / Twitter: @auscalum (deleted)

In November 2014, a young woman tweeted a photo of a teenage checkout clerk at Target with Alex on the nametag. Her tweet was simply, “YOOOOOOOO,” signaling that, well, this teen boy was cute. The tweet went viral, and people fell in love with this mysterious Alex from Target, creating memes and tributes in his image, leading anyone over the age of 23 to wonder: What the fuck is happening here?

There was some legitimate confusion over how and why Alex’s photo blew up. An internet marketing company stepped forward, claiming that it had gotten the original girl to tweet the photo of Alex as a viral marketing stunt, and seeded the meme with inorganic retweets and promotion. But the woman who made the tweet (whose Twitter account is now suspended) said she had never heard of the marketing company, and that she just randomly found the photo on Tumblr and tweeted it out, and it seems that the marketing company was trying to claim stolen viral valor.

But the ending wasn’t so great for the guy at the center of it. Alex LaBeouf, who went by Alex Lee as a stage name, eventually dropped out of high school because he had missed so many days to fly to Los Angeles for appearances on talk shows. He was homeschooled and joined the 2015 DigiTour, a tour for social media stars, mainly Vine stars at the time. In a 2017 video, he said that his managers at the time had stolen $30,000 from him, and since then he’s abandoned his public social media accounts. —K.N.

86.

Insane Clown Posse’s “Miracles”

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The music video for “Miracles” debuted in April 2010. The song had been kicking around since 2009, but the video is what really did it. It’s been viewed 18 million times — and watching it back in 2019, it is still just as deranged as it was when it debuted. A lot of the meme songs on this list exist in that uncanny valley of like “misunderstood banger.” I want to be clear: “Miracles” is not that. It is a nonsense song. And while it’s best remembered for its “fuckin’ magnets, how do they work” and “Magic everywhere in this bitch” lines, I would argue the best part is the line about pelicans: “I fed a fish to a pelican at Frisco Bay / It tried to eat my cellphone, he ran away / And music is magic, pure and clean / You can feel it and hear it but it can’t be seen.” Damn, that’s real. —R.B.

85.

First-World Problems

Thinkstock / Twitter: @ughshaye

When you’re eating nachos and one stabs the roof of your mouth, when one pillow is too low but two pillows is too high; these sorts of issues — annoying, but generally indicating your life is pretty easy and privileged — were best summarized by the early-2010s macro image “First-World Problems.” A lot of things feel dated about “first-world problems” memes, ranging from the style of the image all the way to the use of the concept of countries being first world vs. third world. But the meme was also one of the first concerning social privilege, which many people would learn about for the first time in the 2010s. —J.R.

84.

Kylie Jenner Lip Challenge

vine.co

Kylie Jenner dominated the 2010s, particularly with the launch of her Kylie Lip Kits in 2015. The now-billionaire’s lips had been the subject of gossip and envy that year when she suddenly debuted thick, pillowy lips (the result of lip fillers, though she denied it until two years later). The star kicked off something of a lip-plumping craze, and teens starting trying to plump their own lips by sticking them in shot glasses and sucking till they swelled up. Needless to say, it did not come doctor-recommended.

The rise in popularity of injectable fillers and the instabaddie takeover are inextricably linked to the Kardashian/Jenner family’s influence. Each trend made way for the other, clearing the way for a bunch of teens to damage their faces to score Kylie-level lips. —J.R.

83.

Sad Keanu

nerdlikeyou.com

Keanu Reeves kickstarted the decade as a meme after a paparazzi photo of him eating a sandwich on a park bench was shared on 4chan. “Instead of Chuck Norris, let’s make Keanu Reeves a meme,” one redditor wrote as the image started to spread. Which is interesting to think about — that this particular decade, one so heavily shaped by increasingly radicalized social media platforms, began with users of heavily male communities like 4chan and Reddit deciding to abandon an aggressively masculine meme like Chuck Norris and instead embrace a picture of disheveled loneliness. Splash News, the agency behind the photo, has attempted to remove the picture from the internet via DMCA takedowns, but Reeves and his sandwich have proved too popular (and photoshoppable) to really scrub away. As for how Reeves feels about the whole thing, at the time he told the BBC, “Do I wish that I didn’t get my picture taken while I was eating a sandwich on the streets of New York? Yeah.” —R.B.

82.

“Haven’t Heard That Name in Years”

Twitter: @goIfkart

As you read this list, you’re probably at various points looking at a meme, taking a drag on a cigarette, and saying, “Gangnam Style? Haven’t heard that name in years.” —K.N.

If you dumped a bucket of ice over your head in summer 2014, it was probably to raise money for ALS research in the Ice Bucket Challenge. The challenge involved participants dousing themselves in ice water on video, then nominating others to either do the same or make a donation to fund ALS research. Many did both, using the viral videos to promote the cause, and the ALS Association wound up raising more than $100 million in a month. The rare meme that did demonstrable good. Sadly, the man who inspired the meme died in December 2019. —J.R.

80.

“I’m in Me Mum’s Car, Broom Broom”

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A Vine of a British girl in her mum’s car (broom broom) was a perfect Vine: It makes no sense, it doesn’t follow any known comedy format, it’s vaguely cringe, and yet it’s so silly it’s guaranteed to make you laugh. The brief and glorious life of Vine thrived on these moments of surprising and unexpected humor. TikTok is the closest thing we have now to Vine, and yet it requires a certain knowledge of its memes and tropes to “get” it. “I’m in me mum’s car, broom broom” only requires you to be a human with a pulse to find Tish Simmonds’ 2014 masterpiece funny. —K.N.

79.

The Rent Is Too Damn High

Kathy Kmonicek / AP

The thing about Jimmy McMillan’s slogan for the 2010 New York gubernatorial campaign is that he’s absolutely correct: The rent IS too damn high, and he was accurately predicting the coming housing market crisis in New York City. McMillan was a minor local politics figure, having run for mayor a few years earlier. But it was the televised debates for the governor’s race in 2010 that brought him national fame for his flamboyant facial hair, gloves, and his one-issue campaign platform. He was parodied on Saturday Night Live, and a meme was born. —K.N.

78.

“What Does the Fox Say?”

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Few music videos of 2010s hit it bigger than one by Norwegian comedy duo Ylvis, as they tried to answer a perplexing question: What does the fox say? The video — which featured a cast of people dressed up in animal costumes and a whole slew of sounds a fox might purportedly say — was named the top trending video on YouTube in 2013. It’s a video that feels definitively old, and it’s hard to imagine it coming out now and being earnestly enjoyed, but we were doing lots of things more earnestly back then. And I’d bet you anything you still know the words. —J.R.

77.

Hot Dogs or Legs

times-new-romann.tumblr.com

Showing off your tan in 2013? The trendiest vacation humblebrag in 2013 was snapping a pic of your thighs and captioning it “hot dogs or legs.” The meme first went viral on Tumblr but had a long life on Instagram afterward. This was mostly annoying, unless it was actually hot dogs, which was pretty funny. –J.R.

76.

Darude’s “Sandstorm”

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One of the bright spots about the 2010s is the way that young people immediately understood and identified the parts of shit culture of the ’90s and ’00s, and mercilessly mocked it. Guy Fieri, Shrek, Bee Movie, and the hit 1999 techno song “Sandstorm” by Darude. To be fair, “Sandstorm” is probably the best and most well-known trance song, but still, it’s incredible silly. It also became a huge meme to namedrop the song in the comment sections of random YouTube videos. What’s silliest about it is the idea that it has lyrics (it does not), and they’re simply dun dun dun dun dun dun DUN DUN DUN DUN DUN dun dun dun dun. —K.N.

75.

*Record Scratch*

*record scratch* *freeze frame* Yup, that’s me. You’re probably wondering how I ended up in this situation.

03:44 PM – 25 Aug 2016

*record scratch* *freeze frame* Yup, that’s me. I’m a meme you could not stop seeing all over your feed in 2016. The meme was based on the clichéd movie trope in which a protagonist would begin to explain how they got themself into a ~wacky situation~. The meme spread quickly, with Twitter users aligning the text with all sorts of images. This was not the first text-based Twitter meme, nor would it be the last, but its takeover was so big it eventually became a Twitter trope in and of itself. —J.R.

74.

Double Rainbow

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What makes Paul Vasquez’s effusive awe at seeing a double rainbow distinctly from 2010 as opposed to 2019 is how it’s barely what we’d call a “meme” now. It’s a viral video, sure, and it was one of the first truly huge and popular ones. In many ways, even though it happened in 2010, it resembled the memes of the 2000s more: It went viral after Jimmy Kimmel’s show account tweeted it, and it spread over email and Gchat from person to person.

The things we think of as memes now are mostly defined by being iterative: a photo you can write new captions over and over ad nauseum and can mean a million different things. But “Double Rainbow” is just a funny video – you watch it once, you laugh, and that’s it. It’s more of the Tosh.0 version of the internet where there are funny things to be found than the Distracted Boyfriend or Pepe the frog version where there are existing memes that we make our own meaning out of. The monetization of the video was also (by current standards) primitive: He appeared in a Microsoft ad. —K.N.

73.

Mannequin Challenge

There were a lot of dance crazes and video fads in the 2010s — the suddenly widespread use of phones with cameras made it possible — but few grew as big as the Mannequin Challenge of 2016. The videos involved standing as still as a statue, usually with the song “Black Beatles” by Rae Sremmurd playing. The meme’s origins lie with a group of Florida high schoolers, and within just a few weeks there were Mannequin Challenge videos from pro sports teams, then– presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, and quite possibly your family on Thanksgiving. The Mannequin Challenge went viral because it was the stationary dance craze version of the “Cha Cha Slide” — it was family-friendly, everyone could catch on pretty quickly, and it was something that could bring everyone together. —J.R.

72.

“Harlem Shake”

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In early 2013, a dance meme was born. Set to the techno song “Harlem Shake” by Baauer, the premise was to start off dancing very mildly, and when the beat drops, all hell breaks loose and a large group of people dance wildly. It’s stupid, I know. As quickly as the meme came to life, it died: A few days after the first few videos went viral, BuzzFeed’s office did a version (Ryan is in the horse mask; I run and hide into a conference room), and six days after that, the Today show anchors did one, which seemed to everyone to signal the end of the meme. But the real nail in the coffin was in 2017 when FCC chair Ajit Pai did a video to help explain the end of Net Neutrality. —K.N.

71.

Bottle Flipping

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If you were a teen in 2016, you probably flipped a bottle or two. The trend really took off when high school student Mike Senatore executed a flawless flip at his school talent show to rapturous applause. After that, everyone was flipping bottles, and a “replica bottle” signed by Senatore himself fetched over $11,000 on eBay. Teens do all sorts of kooky things, but to this day, it’s hard to watch a video of a perfect bottle flip and NOT feel unbridled joy and triumph. —J.R.

70.

Bronies

Katie Notopoulos / BuzzFeed News

The world first learned of bronies when in 2011 Wired wrote about the adult men who loved the rebooted My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic show. For the next five years, bronies seemed to dominate every aspect of internet culture — they were rampant on Reddit, 4chan, DeviantArt, Twitter, Tumblr, and even IRL conventions (and of course, horrible, horrible version of pony porn, known as “clop”). The fandom morphed through every phase of an online community, including a small faction of fascist bronies, creating fan art of the colorful horses in Nazi uniforms.

No group since furries has been as routinely mocked as the bronies. And yet, now that they’ve sort of faded away slightly, we sort of miss them. —K.N.

68.

Bee Movie

quilavastudy.tumblr.com

According to all known laws of memes, there is no way Bee Movie should have been able to go viral. And yet, posting the entire script to the 2007 movie somehow became a big Tumblr meme. The reasons for this semi-flop movie becoming a meme aren’t totally clear. Perhaps it was the realization of how grotesque the plot is (a bee and a human woman fall in love), perhaps it was that star Jerry Seinfeld was having a moment. Or maybe because it was just because it’s random and shitty movie, which is inherently funny. Unlike beloved childhood characters Shrek or SpongeBob, Bee Movie’s mediocrity is what makes it memeable. The crummier, the more nonsensical the meme, the better. The layers of ironic detachment have to be so thick that to pretend to love Bee Movie and post its entire script is something only someone with a truly online brain in 2015 could be capable of. —K.N.

67.

¯_(ツ)_/¯ (Shruggie)

Fun fact: The symbol in the center of the shruggie is a Japanese Katakana character called “Tsu.” It’s commonly used in Japanese fiction to represent the end of a line of dialogue. Kind of perfect right? Nothing left to say? Shruggie time. The shruggie was the perfect emoticon of the Obama era: a slightly worried-looking, yet pleasantly numb smirk, throwing its hands up at everything’s lack of meaning. Also, it just looks really cool! Things are going to probably only get worse over the next decade, so I say we bring the shruggie back. Let’s all really get into casual nihilism. I mean, everything’s fucked, so why not, right? ¯_(ツ)_/¯ —R.B.

66.

Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Call Me Maybe”

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The infectious pop song became a hit in early 2012, and by late spring, the distinctive rhyme scheme of the chorus had become a meme. Example: This still of Marty McFly and his mom in Back to the Future: “Hey I just met you / and this is crazy / but I’m from the future / and I’m your baby.” Or a tweet by @jwherrman: “HEY, I JUST MET YOU / AND MY DOG IS CRAZY / WOOF WOOF WOOF WOOF / HE HAS RABIES.” —K.N.

65.

Dashcon

notsafeforweabs.tumblr.com

There was a time right around the middle of this last decade where the internet was a largely more innocent place. Nerdy fandom subcultures built around TV shows like My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, Sherlock, Doctor Who, and Supernatural weren’t quite in the mainstream yet, nor did people fully understand the realities of what happens when you bring a bunch of people from the internet together in real life. That giddy naivete died with Dashcon. The unofficial Tumblr-based convention wasn’t quite a Fyre Festival–level disaster, but the level of secondhand embarrassment it generated seems to have killed an entire mode of internet use. One could even argue that Tumblr — the little social network that could — lost its last bit of grip on the larger culture of the internet. From the sad photos of cosplayers sitting in a weird ball pit to the haunting photos of empty of showrooms to accusations later of fraud, for fandom internet there was a before and after Dashcon. Based on things like Tanacon and Fyre Festival, though, it seems like those who do not learn from Dashcon are doomed to repeat Dashcon. —R.B.

64.

Galaxy Brain

reddit.com

This 2017 meme has staying power because it’s so simple and applies to so many things. The format shows several different concepts in increasing order of brainpower, culminating with something ridiculous. It speaks so perfectly to how we argue and discuss any topic online: a basic idea, a smarter take, slowly devolving into anarchy. —K.N.

63.

Loss.JPG

cad-comic.com

There’s really no way to sugarcoat what loss.JPG is. It’s a four-panel web comic about a miscarriage that has evolved into some weird Where’s Waldo? game played on social media. The story behind the infamous comic is that Ctrl-Alt-Del creator Tim Buckley wanted to make his series more mature. His audience recoiled at the mature storyline and found the whole thing incredibly lame. To make matters worse, the text-less comic was uploaded to the site with the filename loss.JPG. There’s a good chance you’ve come across loss.JPG parodies and never even realized that’s what they were. Buckley has spoken a bit about the meme over the years. “Perhaps I had miscalculated my demographic’s ability/willingness to approach such a sensitive subject matter,” he said. “As much as I hate to admit it because I certainly don’t want to make light of the subject matter itself, I found them quite amusing.”

But still the meme remains. And there’s a good possibility it will continue to stick around well into the next decade, if only because it’s too tasteless to ever really address directly. —R.B.

62.

Baby Shark

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The origins of why a techno version of a public domain campfire song became accurately described as “‘Sicko Mode’ for babies” isn’t totally clear. Normally, internet culture has no interest in what the parents of young infants and toddlers are doing (gross, old people). And yet somehow the catchy story of a multigenerational shark family (doo doo doo doo) meant for babies became inescapable. In a review for the live stage show of Baby Shark, the New Yorker wrote, “It wasn’t Disney or Nickelodeon executives who plucked it from among the millions of other videos on YouTube. Instead, babies themselves made it a juggernaut, by relentlessly clicking Play on their parents’ phones. It might be the first genuine example of baby pop culture.” —K.N.

61.

Infinity War Memes

yoongis-home-moved.tumblr.com

TV shows and movies that become their own sort of visual meme language all tend to come from the same place emotionally. There seems to be a certain secret sauce for cracking through the zeitgeist, and it largely comes down to particular kind of glee people get from taking the piss out of something serious. Avengers: Infinity War wasn’t the first Marvel film to get memed (Bruce Banner’s “That’s my secret, Cap” line from The Avengers was the first big one), but Infinity War hit in a big way. I’d argue that all came down to its shocking ending where literally half of everyone’s favorite superheroes all died horribly. First were the Infinity War spoilers-without-context posts, followed by the “I don’t feel so good, Mr. Stark” memes, and then there were even thicc Thanos memes. Ultimately, Infinity War memes didn’t have a huge staying power, but it seems to have rewired the way audiences digest big blockbuster movies; if you jump on Twitter right as you get out of the theater and start retweeting memes, you suddenly don’t feel so silly for crying when Spider-Man dies. To be honest, thicc Thanos is much more traumatizing. —R.B.

60.

Binders Full of Women

bindersfullofwomen.tumblr.com

Mitt Romney made a truly weird gaffe in a 2012 debate when he answered a question about pay equality — describing how, as governor, he asked to see more women candidates for Cabinet positions and was shown “binders full of women.” Twitter, in peak parody account mode, immediately latched onto this weird and vaguely sexist turn of phrase. A parody Tumblr was made that posted photos of binders. People flocked to Amazon listings of binders to write funny reviews.

Now it seems laughable that this was the biggest gaffe of the election, the most shocking thing a politician said. Yet in the 2012 internet ecosystem, this perfectly played out a cycle of political memes that we don’t really have the stomach for anymore. No one’s making a “grab them by the pussy” Tumblr. —K.N.

59.

“Gangnam Style”

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Here’s the thing about Psy’s 2012 hit: It’s extremely good. The song is catchy, but it’s the visuals in the music video that propelled it to an international hit and the most-viewed YouTube video for years. It’s a video you want to watch more than once, one you want to show it to your friends. The fact that it was by an artist unfamiliar to most people outside of South Korea didn’t matter. The videos that would later best its YouTube record — “Despacito,” “See You Again” — did so more because of how long their respective songs stayed at the top of music charts than the nature of the video itself.

But “Gangnam Style” is a wildly entertaining as a video. The sets and backup characters change constantly, Psy’s style of deadpan serious rapping while lying on an elevator floor with a man in a cowboy hate gyrating over him is funny. Psy’s pony-riding dance is funny. It was the dance, of course, that people did at weddings and high school dances and flash mobs. —K.N.

58.

Forever Alone

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Constructing a linear narrative out of internet content is extremely complicated — things connect across time and space in ways that make a traditional retelling almost impossible. That said, if there is a story of the internet in the 2010s, I’d argue it’s about loneliness and the bizarre and surreal ways people try to overcome it. So perhaps it’s fitting that this decade started with FunnyJunk user Azuul’s May 2010 rage comic “April Fools” — the first appearance of the phrase “forever alone.” Azuul’s swollen-faced character has more or less gone extinct, but the phrase, and more importantly, the meaning behind the phrase, have gone on to define the core irony of the internet: We are deeply isolated, yet connected enough to each other to commiserate about it. —R.B.

57.

Wholesome Memes

Twitter: @tenderfiresign

Ah, wholesome memes. In a decade in which things online (and offline!) tended to be pretty bleak, wholesome memes were a salve. In these memes, the punchline lies in the genuine surprise of an online joke actually being pure and good — particularly about “loving and supporting” one’s friends, significant other, or yourself. —J.R.

56.

There’s Always a @dril Tweet

Without a doubt, @dril is the most important person on Twitter of the 2010s. He has a specific absurdist take on living in some modern digital hellworld where his boss doesn’t let him kiss his ferrets at work, people keep asking him about fucking the Betsy Ross flag, and his candle budget is out of control. He never breaks character — there’s never a “but seriously folks, I’m sorry about that last tweet” — and has, miraculously, nearly maintained his anonymity.

@dril’s fans have taken some of his tweets and turned them into specific terms for online existence: “Corncobbing” is when someone has been owned and refuses to admit it; “help my family is dying” is a reference to the candle budget tweet.

During and after the election, people noticed that often there was an old Trump tweet that said something almost the opposite of what he had just said, coining the phrase “there’s always a tweet.” Soon people started to notice that Trump’s tweets had an odd similarity to @dril tweets and that you could often find an old @dril tweet with a parallel message. —K.N.

55.

Game of Thrones Memes

reddit.com

Like Infinity War, Game of Thrones became its own genre of meme. It wasn’t the first peak TV drama to do so — I’d argue Breaking Bad set the stage for it — but GoT did something both Breaking Bad and movies like Infinity War didn’t: It got much worse over time. Game of Thrones, especially in its early seasons, was an outrageously grim, dark show full of sex and violence, which made the memes it generated feel even more fun and risqué to share. But as the show’s ratings increased and its digital footprint became nearly unavoidable, it also became a much stupider show. Somewhere in that uncanny valley of extremely serious and incredibly stupid was the perfect breeding ground for memes. Much like the army of White Walkers pouring into Winterfell in an episode shot so dark people had to desperately try to readjust their TV settings, once internet users smell blood in the water, they’re going to swarm. —R.B.

54.

You Know I Had to Do It to Em

Twitter: @LuckyLuciano17k (deleted)

There’s something so visceral about the YKIHTDITE photo. You either get why it’s funny, or it’s just a random photo. I also think people notice things about this photo in different orders. For instance, I notice the sock tan lines and the diamond earrings first. The tweet also begs us to answer the question of what exactly “it” is that he had to do to ‘em. Luciano’s pose — hand in hand, loafered power stance — has evolved into something akin to an internet-wide Where’s Waldo? with people photoshopping him into anything they can. People even go on pilgrimages to where the photo was taken (it’s in Florida, obviously). Like I said, I can’t explain why it’s funny, but it is. Maybe that’s the “it” that he’s doing to ‘em. —R.B.

For a brief time in early 2017, people were transfixed by Turkish chef Nusret Gökçe, who would slice steak and sprinkle salt on it, but, like, in a sexy way? (See #13) A still image of “Salt Bae” tossing on the salt like it’s fairy dust became a meme representing any time we’re being our most extra selves. (Oh yeah, and then he hugged Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro at his restaurant and Marco Rubio doxed him for it. Becoming a meme is a rich tapestry.) —J.R.

52.

Jet Fuel Can’t Melt Steel Beams

timmie-cee.tumblr.com

The theory that 9/11 was an inside job, as evidenced by the fact that jet fuel can’t melt steel beams, was floated in the 2005 documentary Loose Change, which, despite being Alex Jones–level conspiracy theory, became incredibly popular on YouTube. It takes countless levels of irony to use the phrase (along with “Bush did 9/11”) as a joke. On some level, it’s not unlikely that a young person has been exposed to Loose Change or some other truther and perhaps believes it a little bit. On another level, they’re making fun of boomers and truthers who actually believe it. And then there’s the gallows humor of laughing at a tragic event that only those too young to remember could exhibit. It’s not callousness that made this a meme; it’s a reaction to the noxious conspiracy theories that flourish online and the disillusionment of an event that led to a war that’s lasted the entire lifetime of the young people who make the joke. —K.N.

51.

Cringe

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True cringe is something posted in earnest, and being earnest is the enemy of internet culture in the 2010s. Irony is the online currency. Cringe as a concept started on Reddit, where r/cringepics and a YouTube-focused version posted awkward and embarrassing earnest photos and videos taken from social media. R/CringeAnarchy, a more cruel board that tended to make fun of women and minorities, was banned in 2019 by Reddit (other forms of cringe boards are still active).

“Cringe” became a catchall for something embarrassing and uncool. Hillary Clinton tweeting in meme-speak was cringe. Your old LiveJournal is cringe. BuzzFeed is cringe. Everyone has posted cringe; it’s universal, and that’s why we’re so obsessed with it. —K.N.

49.

Drake/”Hotline Bling”

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Drake has been a massively popular and famous rapper for the entire decade, and there’s always been memes about pop stars. But Drake has managed to be more memeable than his musical peers, except for maybe Kanye West. There’s been the “In My Feelings” dance challenge, where people dance out the side of a moving car to his 2018 hit, the “hope no one heard that” lyric from “Marvins Room,” Drake’s myriad of faces and expressions while he watches basketball games, images of his character from Degrassi: The Next Generation, and the handwritten scrawl of the cover art for his album If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late.

But it’s the video for “Hotline Bling” that was memed a million times. The Day-Glo colors and goofy dancing made for perfect GIFable moments. The meme was nearly killed when Donald Trump danced to it on Saturday Night Live, but a version managed to live on: Drake shaking his finger to one thing, and smiling in acceptance to another thing. —K.N.

48.

Evanescence’s “Bring Me to Life”

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“Bring Me to Life” is like the goth cousin of “All Star.” It works for the same reason. It’s from that ridiculous Ben Affleck Daredevil movie. It has a call and response. Its sadder lyrics definitely fit my general mood about all of life right now. Also, Amy Lee can sing! This song is a genuine banger. When is the Evanescaissance coming? —R.B.

47.

Ryan Gosling

feministryangosling.tumblr.com

Hey, girl. Ryan Gosling was more than just a Hollywood heartthrob in the 2010s — he was also the basis of multiple memes. First came the Tumblr “Feminist Ryan Gosling,” in which photos of the actor were superimposed with quotes that mixed feminist texts with shit your imaginary hot-yet-sensitive boyfriend might say (this was 2011, so the sheer concept of a man openly calling himself a feminist was still a Big Deal and kind of a pantydropper, which is bleak in retrospect!!).

On a completely different note, the actor became an online sensation again in 2013. In the Vine series “Ryan Gosling Won’t Eat His Cereal,” creator Ryan McHenry would feed real-life spoonfuls of cereal to an onscreen Gosling, who would “reject” the bite by turning away or appearing to slap away the spoon during intense movie moments. In 2015, McHenry died of cancer when he was just 27 — and in his memory, Gosling made a Vine of himself actually eating cereal. —J.R.

46.

ASMR

me drinking iced coffee on an empty stomach knowing it’s going to make me feel like shit

05:00 PM – 11 Aug 2018

One of the decade’s hottest trends was getting a bunch of tingles down your spine. Among the biggest genres on Youtube, “autonomous sensory meridian response” videos usually involve people whispering, tapping on a glass, or even crunching on pickles straight from the jar. For some, the sounds provoke a sensory response that feels extremely calming and euphoric, and may help listeners go to sleep. Though many had long experienced the strange tingly feeling, it wasn’t until recently that people knew what to call it. Following conversations on message boards about the nameless sensation, a woman named Jennifer Allen coined the term in 2010 and made a Facebook group in its name.

From there, it entered the popular consciousness, becoming gradually more well-known over the decade. Many enjoyed it in earnest, but it also was widely parodied. There were celebrity ASMR videos, and ASMR creators became YouTube celebs in their own right. One of the biggest ones, a teen girl named Makenna Kelly, became the basis for a ton of memes. Some of these YouTubers became famous for their funnier themed ASMR videos, such as “1300s A.D. ASMR: Nun Takes Care of You in Bed (You Have the Plague).”

Self-care and wellness were major buzzwords in the 2010s, which helped popularize the relaxing videos. But perhaps the most interesting part is how social media helped many people name the bizarre neurological phenomenon they’d experienced their whole lives and find out they weren’t alone. —J.R.

45.

Cropped Gay Porn

Instagram: @http://bit.ly/2ElyLuw

Porn! It’s the central driving force of the internet (see #13). So much of the web culture created in this last decade has been defined by an explosion of diverse and global points of view suddenly entering the mainstream (and the conflicts that sometimes rise up when that happens). So it makes sense that most defining porn meme of the 2010s is cropped gay porn. It’s cheeky, it’s wildly inappropriate, and, fuck, it was so big. The meme really climaxed with the “Right in front of my salad” clip, where two adult film actors interrupt a woman peacefully eating her salad by having sex behind the kitchen counter. It’s sort of nice to think that no matter how crazy things get, there’s one thing that can still bring us all together online, and that’s porn. —R.B.

44.

Cash Me Ousside

View this video on YouTube

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Imagine you’re Dr. Phil. Having helped families and individuals through countless crises on your television show, you’re feeling pretty good about your abilities. There is nothing you, a couch, and a camera can’t fix. Then one day, a 13-year-old Floridian named Danielle Bregoli comes on set and rocks your world. After she calls your audience a bunch of hoes, you repeat the accusation, just making sure you heard right. When she confirms, the audience goes berserk, and Bregoli gets upset. You hear her say “Cash me ousside, howbow dah?” five magical words used to challenge the audience to a fight. The phrase lives on in infamy. And now you, Dr. Phil, are part of one of the decade’s greatest memes. —Alex Kantrowitz

43.

Spider-Man Pointing at Spider-Man

ABC / MARVEL

It’s simple: Spider-Man points at another Spider-Man. What’s not to get. It’s us, looking at ourselves. Iconic. —K.N.

42.

Nickelback

youtube.com

The Canadian band has miraculously remained untouched by the trend of critical reassessment and appreciation of pop music. They occupy an uncanny valley of being wildly popular AND wildly reviled by anyone who considers themselves a person of taste. For a while, they occupied a space as the punchline to something bad (there was a time in 2014 where you could use a Facebook graph search to find which of your friends “liked” Nickelback and unfriend them).

But it was the still from the video for “Photograph” where singer Chad Kroeger holds up a photo, along with the memorable lyric “look at this photograph,” that blew up in the second half of the decade. The meme ultimately died when President Donald Trump tweeted a version where the photo Kroeger holds is of Joe Biden golfing with his son and another American who also served on the board of a Ukrainian company at the center of the impeachment inquiry. Nickelback’s label filed a copyright claim, and the video has been removed from Trump’s tweet. —K.N.

41.

Rebecca Black

View this video on YouTube

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It’s Friday, Friday, gotta get down on Friday! In 2011, then–13-year-old Rebecca Black made her debut with “Friday,” and looking forward to the weekend was never again the same. The music video went enormously viral, but it was widely dubbed the “worst song ever.”

Still, it was also a hit, and the song debuted at No. 72 on the Billboard Hot 100. It was covered on Glee, and Black even appeared as herself in Katy Perry’s music video for “Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.).” Two years later, Black got in on the joke, releasing a sequel to “Friday” — named, of course, “Saturday.” Whether you think “Friday” slaps or is a nightmare, I’d bet you anything you’ll know all the words until you die. —J.R.

40.

“Come to Brazil”

diorc.tumblr.com

If you’ve ever clicked through on a tweet from any sort of celebrity, chances are you’ve seen the phrase “come to Brazil” written over and over in the replies. According to Know Your Meme, the first time the phrase was tweeted at a celebrity was April 2008. Then, when Justin Beieber joined Twitter in 2009, it exploded in popularity. I once asked some members of BuzzFeed Brazil why exactly it was such a common occurrence among Brazilian internet users. I was told the answer is actually pretty simple — American musicians rarely tour Brazil. But to really best understand why Brazilians mass-send it though, on a deeper level, you probably need to know the concept of “zuera,” Brazilian slang for “zoeira” which means “heavy fun.” It basically means that moment when a meme becomes a meme and spirals completely out of control. COME TO BRAZIL, MIGAAA. —R.B.

Guns or glitter? Touchdowns or tutus? One of the most inescapable party themes of the 2010s was that of the gender reveal. At gender-reveal parties, expecting parents and their loved ones gather to find out what kind of genitals their unborn child will have. This is often accomplished by cutting a cake, with pink or blue frosting revealing whether it was a boy or a girl.

Party planners tried to one-up each other, sometimes executing the big reveal using explosives — which, as you might guess, often had disastrous results. In 2018, a father-to-be accidentally ignited a wildfire in Arizona. The following year, a grandmother was killed in an explosion, and there was even a gender-reveal plane crash.

As our understanding of gender (and how it was not the same thing as sex) evolved over the decade, so did criticism and mockery of gender-reveal parties. And some people had changes of heart; in 2019, Jenna Karvunidis, the lifestyle blogger who had the first viral gender reveal in 2008, criticized the parties, which she said put “more emphasis on gender than has ever been necessary for a baby.” She added, “PLOT TWIST, the world’s first gender-reveal party baby is a girl who wears suits!” —J.R.

38.

*tips fedora*

Twitter: @MoonOverlord

One of the most magical things about the internet is when we all collectively realize something is a thing. For instance, sometime between 2010 and 2012, everyone on the internet realized that every town has a couple weird guys who wear fedoras, trench coats, fingerless gloves, have terrible facial hair, and talk to women like they’re 12th-century knights. Long before these dudes turned into violent incels, there was just a really nice moment where we could all agree that these dudes were goofy and awful and fun to rag on. Swag is for boys; class is for gentlesirs, m’lady. —R.B.

37.

This Is the Future Liberals Want

36.

Ted Cruz, the Zodiac Killer

During his run for president in 2015 and 2016, a widely circulated, joking conspiracy theory accused Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of being the Zodiac Killer, the unidentified serial killer who murdered at least seven people in California between the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Cruz was born in 1970 — after the first killings — so he is probably not the Zodiac Killer, in my expert journalistic opinion. But for many people he just…seems like kind of a weird dude, right? He pretty much made the perfect candidate for a bonkers conspiracy theory about a decades-old serial killer.

It seems like Cruz got a kick out of it eventually, though. He later acknowledged the meme, tweeting an image of the Zodiac Killer’s cypher on two separate occasions. —J.R.

35.

Confused Math Lady

TV Globo

If there was one dominant theme in the 2010s, it was “I have no idea what’s going on right now.” This was expressed in a bunch of different ways, from the fact that teens and the internet curled up with increasingly obscure memes and terms meant to confuse the Olds (the boomers don’t know what “sksksksk” is) to the rise of explainer journalism like Vox or email newsletters/catch-you-up-quick news like the Skimm. We are all confused. We have no idea what’s going on. If you take the time to catch up on one story, you’ll miss what’s happening elsewhere.

Hence, Confused Math Lady, a meme featuring an actor in a Brazilan soap opera looking confused, spread on Brazilian internet. By 2016, the GIF of the confused woman became a four-panel comic with various math symbols over it, suggesting she’s trying to solve some complex calculus problem. Confused Math Lady is us, trying to understand it all. —K.N.

34.

“Old Town Road”

youtube.com

Country music fandom went mainstream in the 2010s, and with it came the rise of the “yeehaw agenda” at the end of the decade. The term described a reclamation of country aesthetics among black Americans, who have long been erased from extremely white cultural depictions of the Wild West (despite the fact that 1 in 4 cowboys were black).

The concept exploded in popularity at the end of 2018 when rapper Lil Nas X released his breakout hit “Old Town Road,” a country rap song that became one of the biggest singles of the year — only getting bigger after being disqualified from the Billboard Hot Country chart over claims that it did “not embrace enough elements of today’s country music.” In response, the artist released a remix featuring Billy Ray Cyrus, practically daring critics to say it wasn’t country enough.

The song was a viral hit, and videos featuring it — particularly one of Lil Nas X surprising a bunch of elementary school superfans, and countless transformation TikToks — only boosted it more. The song broke records as the longest-running No. 1 song on the Billboard Hot 100, and Lil Nas X became the first openly gay black artist to win at the Country Music Awards. —J.R.

33.

American Chopper Yelling

vox.com

Paul Teutul Sr. and his son, Paulie, were the stars of American Chopper, a 2000s reality show about their custom motorcycle shop. Not infrequently, they argued. The show was popular at the time, but not particularly cool or internet-y during its run. So it was slightly surprising when in 2018, stills of a scene of an argument between father and son became a meme. The more esoteric the argument — the role of media communication in science, Lord of the Rings plot holes, linguistics — the better. Part of the joy of the meme was seeing macho men argue about anime, but also acknowledging that a lot of our online lives is over-the-top screaming arguments about trivial things. —K.N.

32.

Brands Acting Like People

At the end of the day, consumers are people. And people crave authenticity. It’s what they look for in their relationships, their entertainment, and, yes, their brands. Which is why the orange juice account pretends to have depression now, and everyone likes it, and it’s good.

05:06 PM – 04 Feb 2019

Largely inspired by the Denny’s Tumblr in 2013, brands’ tweets over the decade have steadily grown to become surreal, humanoid, and Extremely Online. As the companies tried to figure out how to navigate their role in online spaces, there were missteps (who could forget the SpaghettiOs tweet about Pearl Harbor, or the time DiGiorno used a hashtag about domestic violence to make a pizza joke?). Eventually, many came into their own with genuinely fun and bonkers tweets, with MoonPie, Steak-umm, and Wendy’s being standouts. But in early 2019, things kind of jumped the shark when SunnyD just really went for it with a full-on depression tweet.

“I can’t do this anymore,” SunnyD tweeted in February. Immediately, all the other memey brand accounts got in on it, basically staging an intervention for the orange drink brand in crisis. “Hey sunny can I please offer you a hug we are gonna get through this together my friend,” Pop-Tarts tweeted. “Buddy come hangout,” tweeted Corn Nuts. It was pretty bleak, and many saw it as making light of mental illness and suicide. Most recently, brands started, uh, acting horny, in a nightmare Twitter thread started by Netflix. Who knows what other horros we’ll see in 2020? Brands! —J.R.

31.

Arthur’s Fist

The children’s show Arthur turned 20 in 2016, and with it came a ton of Arthur memes. But none had nearly as much staying power as a still image of Arthur’s clenched fist. Just a flat cartoon image of an aardvark’s curled-up hand, it somehow embodied such passion, such fury, that the meme became instantly relatable. —J.R.

30.

Florida Man

Florid Man Charged With Assault With a Deadly Weapon After Throwing Alligator Through Wendy’s Drive-Thru Window http://bit.ly/2Ppcn9P

11:48 PM – 08 Feb 2016

A meme that mocks someone’s shoes might seem to be more mean-spirited than other memes of the decade. It’s a catchphrase to laugh at someone for wearing ugly footwear, after all. But the most effective examples of the meme, including the Instagram video (and then Vine) that started it all, are always about punching up — taking a small shot at someone more powerful, like a teacher, a celebrity, or even Jesus.

But like “on fleek” and other viral catchphrases and memes, the “what are those” meme spread without any control from its creator, Brandon Moore. In a 2018 interview with HuffPost, Moore said that he “felt sick” when he heard his catchphrase in the movie Black Panther, because it was a reminder of how he had missed a chance to copyright or watermark his video and had seen his creative work monetized by others without him benefitting at all. Six months after the interview, Moore died in his sleep at age 31. —K.N.

28.

Kanye West

Twitter: @kanyewest (deleted)

Is Kanye West a meme? Is he a collection of memes? Is he the original material that gets remixed into memes? Is he all of these things? Perhaps. Kanye’s “Imma Let You Finish” moment happened in September 2009, but was still humming along by the time the decade started (the internet was slower then). For a while, his Twitter account was an endless source of internet content: “I hate when I’m on a flight and I wake up with a water bottle next to me like oh great now I gotta be responsible for this water bottle.” Damn. Huge mood. And then, of course, like many memes, he went full MAGA after the election of Donald Trump. For much of the decade, it seemed like all of culture either flowed from or through West. Based on the reviews for his newest album, Jesus Is King, and the general lack of buzz around his Sunday Service project, that might be something we’re leaving in 2010s. Although, he did just bless us with Silver Kanye, so who knows really. —R.B.

27.

Dat Boi

ppt.wz51z.com

In the same way that a bunch of the X-Men are all blue for some reason, the internet really likes green frogs. Sadly for Dat Boi, he hasn’t had the same staying power as Pepe or Kermit. The version of Dat Boi that we all know was first posted in April 2016. In many ways, he’s the last meme specifically from Tumblr — a nice, wholesome shitpost featuring a picture stolen from an AP physics textbook that doesn’t really make any sense but is just kind of funny. Dat Boi, in my opinion, is the platonic ideal of a meme: It’s funny, it works as a cute little wink for superusers, it doesn’t make a lot sense, and it disappears before getting turned into some dumb brand tweet. —R.B.

26.

Harambe

On May 28, 2016, a gorilla who went by Harambe was fatally shot at the Cincinnati Zoo after attacking a 3-year-old boy who had climbed into the enclosure.

The incident absolutely dominated the news cycle, and it quickly spawned a ton of memes. People made videos of Harambe’s banger of a funeral, paid homage in their yearbook photos, and even painted street art in his memory. All across the land, dicks were out for Harambe.

It’s more than a little dark for a dead gorilla and an injured toddler to become meme fodder, but that’s exactly what happened. Harambe memes should not be funny, which means they totally, always will be. —J.R.

25.

Damn Daniel

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High schooler Josh Holz loved taunting his friend Daniel Lara by following him around, filming him, and commenting on his sneakers. When he compiled the videos and tweeted it, the world loved hearing a creepy voice saying “Damn, Daniel, back at it again with the white Vans.” The teens boys went on The Ellen DeGeneres Show and received a lifetime supply of Vans. In 2019, both Daniel and Josh are in college. Josh is studying fashion and works for, you guessed it, Vans. —K.N.

24.

Tiffany Pollard

Vh1

A still of Tiffany Pollard, best known as New York from the VH1 dating show Flavor of Love, lying on a bed in her clothes, hands folded in her lap, sunglasses on, seeming to stew in quiet anger, became a meme in 2015 and continued for the rest of the decade. In an interview with BuzzFeed News, Pollard described what she was actually feeling in that moment: “I just remember being so alone, so pissed off; I wanted to get away from those girls … I was really having a rough time in that moment and I think me sitting there was actually me just trying to center myself, centering myself through this bad energy I was dealing with.”

Pollard’s memeability goes beyond that one image of her lying on the bed. Her over-the-top personality is what made her a standout reality star in the ’00s, and that same quality made her perfect for reaction GIFs in the ’10s. —K.N.

22.

Blinking White Guy

Drew Scalon / giantbomb.com

One of the biggest reaction memes of the decade, the “blinking white guy” perfectly summed up when you truly just could not believe what you were seeing. The man is Drew Scanlon, and the specific blink came from a gaming video he appeared in in 2013, though it wouldn’t become a meme until early 2017. It’s a simple reaction, but it seemed to say it all at a time when the world was a confusing mess and people were feeling pretty dang incredulous a lot of the time.

“As long as they’re not mean, I don’t have a problem with the tweets,” Scanlon told BuzzFeed News in 2017. “I think we need more positivity on the internet these days.” —J.R.

21.

Minions

Universal Pictures

Ah, yes, the official mascots of every boomer’s divorce announcement Facebook post. These little bastards took over the internet with a speed that was honestly unparalleled. Their disgusting yellow bodies flooded news feeds like a DDoS attack. I think to understand exactly how the great Minionfication of the internet happened you have to separate it out into two movements. First, there were people genuinely posting Minion memes. Then came the second wave, where people started using Minion memes to make fun of the people who posted Minion memes. I’d love to say that we’re in the clear now and we can leave these beasts in the 2010s, but Minions: The Rise of Gru is coming out on July 3, 2020, so get ready, everyone. —R.B.

20.

Milkshake Duck

The whole internet loves Milkshake Duck, a lovely duck that drinks milkshakes! *5 seconds later* We regret to inform you the duck is racist

08:07 AM – 12 Jun 2016

Coined by @pixelatedboat, a milkshake duck is some person or entity that enjoys a viral moment and then is swiftly exposed as problematic. The ultimate example was Ken Bone, a man in a distinctive red sweater and mustache who asked a question during a presidential town hall debate in 2016 — who after becoming the meme of the night, was discovered to have a spicy sexual Reddit user history. Cancel culture may not be real, but milkshake ducking certainly is. —K.N.

19.

Gavin

Twitter: @gavinthomas

There’s a good chance you know Gavin’s face even if you don’t know Gavin’s name. It’s sort of incredible to include Gavin Thomas on this list because he was literally born in 2010 at the start of the decade. He first went viral when his uncle Nick Mastodon started putting him in Vines. Gavin really solidified himself as a meme when he turned 5 years old. Suddenly, he was everywhere. He had this extremely relatable confused grimace that really seemed to capture the zeitgeist in 2015 and 2016 (not totally sure what was going on at the time that would explain why). He’s 9 years old now and has a million followers on Instagram. For all the cautionary tales out there about what life after being a meme is like, so far it seems like Gavin’s doing all right. His family seems to be looking after him and, more bizarrely, it also feels like the internet at large is looking after him. He grew up on social media, and it does feel like we’re all invested in making sure he ends up OK. —R.B.

18.

Shrek

Dreamworks / reddit.com

Even though the first Shrek came out in 2001, it took a few years for the internet to really embrace the green Scottish ogre. Ever since, it feels like he’s buzzed just below the surface of mainstream internet culture — always there, always talking about onions. My theory as to why he’s stayed so popular? Aside from maybe a postmodern riff on the extreme overcommercialization of children’s entertainment (see Minions), I think there’s actually something really relatable about a big, fat ogre who doesn’t want to leave his swamp. It’s the perfect metaphor for being online. —R.B.

17.

“Do It for the Vine”

View this video on YouTube

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Vine shut down on my birthday, and because of that, I’ve always felt a weirdly intimate connection to Vine. A good friend once told me he thought of a Vine as one sentence in the visual grammar of video. Everything you need to convey one idea in a video you could do in a six-second Vine. It was a revolution and you could argue it has had a more profound legacy on how we create and share videos than bigger platforms like YouTube or Netflix. For a long time, I, like many people, believed that Vine was shut down too soon. Now, I think it actually shut down exactly when it should. Social networks probably shouldn’t last! It’s weird that we still use Twitter.

The phrase “do it for the Vine” comes from a song created by YouTuber Kaye Trill and it immediately became the anthem of a summer full of people doing extremely outrageous things. Many of the original great “do it for the Vine” posts have been deleted, sadly. But, luckily, we’ll always have the YouTube compilations. —R.B.

16.

Real Housewives

Bravo / Instagram: @smudge_lord

Memes are often tied to some technological advance, such as the six-second looping video or the quote-tweet format. At the start of the decade, animated GIFs were actually hard to make. You needed Photoshop, which is expensive and hard to use. Sourcing high-quality video to turn into a GIF was also harder. In a pre-Giphy world, truly good animated GIFs were prized and hoarded, saved in folders on a desktop to use in reactions. On Tumblr, the main source of GIFs, there was a vast gulf between the number of users actually making GIFs and the amount of people reposting them. One of the early and prolific makers of high-quality reaction GIFs was the RealityTVGIFS.tumblr.com, made by a man named T. Kyle McMahon (who now works for Bravo), who pumped out GIF after GIF from the Bravo universe, particularly the Real Housewives series. Because of the format of the show, where the women were literally asked to react directly to the camera, the Housewives were perfect for emotional reaction GIFs.

The enduring power of the Real Housewives through the decades was proven in 2019 by the popularity of an image of an early season of Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, where one Housewife is yelling while another holds her back, juxtaposed with a white cat named Smudge scowling at a dinner table. —K.N.

15.

The Joker

The Joker obviously existed long before social media, but the character’s glee-filled take on chaotic nihilism has, for better or worse, become inseparable from how we imagine a very specific kind of kind internet user: angry, insular, often violent, male.

Over the last decade, a symbiotic relationship has evolved between new Hollywood iterations of the Joker and the internet’s digital underbelly. Starting in 2008, Heath Ledger’s anarchist, anti-capitalist Joker became the unofficial mascot of 4chan’s Anonymous hacktivist movement. The idea of a nameless grungy psychopath burning piles of dirty money, throwing a city into chaos to satisfy his twisted rage, was a perfect avatar for a generation of Occupy-adjacent millennials graduating into a global economic recession and harnessing technology to claw back control of their own lives. Jared Leto’s 2016 take on the Joker, even though none of them would ever admit it, mirrored the rise of Gamergate somewhat perfectly, giving the world a sniveling misogynist covered in face tattoos, singularly focused on controlling the anatomy of Suicide Squad’s standout woman character Harley Quinn. All the clown prince was missing was a vape to better embody late millennial toxic masculinity. So it’s fitting, then, that we close out the decade with Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker, a chain-smoking, self-described mentally ill loner who hijacks mainstream media via an act of extreme violence and sets off a reactionary protest movement.

The Joker isn’t always a serious meme, like with the most recent Joker film giving us the scene of Phoenix dancing down a flight of stairs in Harlem. Instead, it’s something closer to SpongeBob, a visual and emotional language we use to express a part of ourselves online. As for whether the Joker will continue to evolve alongside social media, well, there are rumors already circulating of another Phoenix-led Joker film, so it’s likely he’s not going away anytime soon. —R.B.

14.

Why You Lyin’

View this video on YouTube

youtube.com

The beauty of Nicholas Fraser’s Vine in his backyard singing “Why you always lyin’” over the music of “Too Close” by Next is that it makes no sense for why it exists. Why is his shirt open? Why is there a toilet in the yard? Who is lying and why is he so seemingly happy about accusing someone of lying? And yet, it turns out 2015 was the right moment for this meme to exist and serve as the perfect totem for the impending post-truth internet. Now, replying with a screenshot of Fraser’s smiling face is internet shorthand for “this is a lie.” —K.N.

13.

Being Horny

.@tedcruz my young daughters and sons follow you for good wholesome content can you please explain this???

04:40 AM – 12 Sep 2017

If you think about it, being horny is like when content trends before it becomes a meme (sex is the meme). And whether it’s Ted Cruz faving a porn tweet on 9/11 or Kurt Eichenwald screenshotting Chrome tabs full of hentai, if someone is online long enough, they will be caught being horny and it will be embarrassing. The only silver lining is that it can happen to any of us. My hope for the next decade is that we all just accept that most of the time people are online, they’re also probably looking at pornography or sexting with each other. That’s what this whole thing was made for! Horny users of the web, unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains! —R.B.

12.

Distracted Boyfriend

Stock photo memes had a moment in 2017, but none became as big or enduring as the one that became known as “Distracted Boyfriend.” The photo depicted a man checking out a woman while his own girlfriend glared at him with disgust. It quickly became a meme, though photographer Antonio Guillem told the Guardian at the time he “didn’t even know what a meme [was] until recently.” The photo has now been around a few years, but it’s still a classic, popping up as a meme pretty often and perfectly embodying so many emotions: deception, distraction, heartbreak, loss, and hope. —J.R.

11.

Doge

shibaconfessions.tumblr.com

The only meme of the decade to inspire an actually used form of blockchain currency, Doge was a breath of fresh air in 2013 when people were starting to feel burned out about what the first iteration of what “memes” were. “Memes” now means something different — funny tweets screenshotted and posted to Instagram, or absurd teen humor. But in a darker, earlier time, “memes” were something like rage comics or the Forever Alone Guy. They took themselves seriously in a sense, and were the domain of redditors or angry 4chan guys, or something a brand used in a Super Bowl ad to seem relevant. Then, a friendly Shiba Inu appeared with funny language and words around him, just being amused and delighted by the world. This wasn’t FFFFUUUUUUU, it was such wow. Doge was here to make us happy. Of course by now, the phrase “such wow” is cringey and outdated, but it had a good long run. —K.N.

10.

Kermit

Lipton Tea

The lovable green amphibian became one of the most memeable nonhuman characters of the decade, next to perhaps only SpongeBob and Shrek. Two massive memes, Kermit sipping tea and Evil Kermit, earned the Muppet his place in meme Valhalla, and made a bunch of smaller memes (Sad Kermit puppet, Kermit in the car) take off. There’s something deeply funny about children’s characters behaving like naughty adults, by the idea of Kermit having shady opinions about others while he sips his tea or encouraging you to do something dangerous or sexual or drug-related. Part of the joy of Kermit memes is that everyone knows Kermit; he’s not obscure or niche. And yet someone, the official Twitter account for Good Morning America to be precise, called the Kermit-sipping-tea meme “tea lizard.” —K.N.

9.

Reaction GIFs

NBC / Via giphy.com

It’s hard to remember a time when reaction GIFs weren’t ubiquitous, but they really rose to prominence in 2012 with the launch of the Tumblr blog #whatshouldwecallme. The blog posted GIFs paired with ~relatable~ captions — for example, the GIF of Homer Simpson disappearing into the bushes, captioned, “When I’m in an argument with someone and realize I’m completely wrong.” This blog was a huge deal at the time, inspiring countless spinoffs, particularly at colleges. Though it was a pretty fresh meme format at the time, #whatshouldwecallme posts just look a lot like the way we communicate online today. —J.R.

8.

Guy Fieri

Fun fact: Guy Fieri is so ubiquitous and embedded in the language of American social media that we basically got to the very end of making this list and realized he didn’t have his own entry, even though he’s referenced throughout. Becoming a meme these days is pretty easy: You do something or appear in a piece of media, people latch onto it because of some innate and relatable reason, and voilà, you’re viral. But to stay a meme is a much harder feat. Usually it involves a bizarre and inexplicable alchemy of having chaotic high/low culture energy and a total lack of self-awareness. Memes can’t know they’re memes. Guy Fieri is embodiment of this. He looks like a failed ‘90s energy drink marketing campaign, he drives around in convertibles eating absolute garbage (he literally has a recipe for nachos made in a trash can) and seemingly cannot fathom that his entire persona is ridiculous. Even when he does lean into his memeness, he still doesn’t really seem to get it, like with his recent Baby Yoda photoshop. Whether Gen Z continues to latch on to the Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives host is unclear. Only time will tell whether or not Flavortown can survive the ages. —R.B.

7.

The Dress

Cecilia Bleasdale

“Black and blue or white and gold?” was the question that seemingly everyone on earth was asking on one day in early 2015. A woman in Scotland showed her friends a photo her mother took of a dress she planned to wear to a wedding, and a friend of the woman posted it to Tumblr, asking for help — “what colors are this dress?” She submitted it as a question to BuzzFeed’s Tumblr, and former BuzzFeed employee Cates Holderness reposted it to our account. From there, it blew up as a fun visual gag that was infuriating and odd.

The Dress was posted to BuzzFeed the same day two llamas escaped in Arizona, and a live TV police chase of the two animals enthralled the internet as adorable mayhem broke out. In retrospect, that two such happy, carefree, unproblematic things took over the internet on the same day seems like wild serendipity. It also feels like the last day the internet felt purely joyful, before the onslaught of the 2016 election took place and things took a darker turn.

The dress is, indeed, black and blue, even though over two thirds of the millions of BuzzFeed readers who voted said they thought it was white and gold. In 2018, a similar sensory illusion, this time auditory, went viral over whether a voice was saying “yanny” or “laurel.” But somehow, the special feeling just wasn’t there again; it felt like trying to recreate some old magic that was lost, like kids who have graduated hanging back at high school. —K.N.

6.

“This Is Fine” Dog

K.C. Green / Via kcgreendotcom.com

The dog engulfed in flames, denying that anything is wrong, is from a 2013 webcomic Gunshow by K.C. Green. In the full comic, the dog’s face eventually melts, while he continues to drink his coffee and insist he’s OK, but the version that became a symbol of the decade is just the first two panels where he says “this is fine.”

The meme has been used a lot to describe various political situations: The official @GOP Twitter used it once, and a senator even described the comic on the House floor while describing how Russian election interference was not fine. But the staying power of the dog is about how we all grin and bear it through everything that’s happened over this decade that feels like the house is on fire — the climate crisis, elections, the disappointing last season of Game of Thrones. There is nothing that captures the 2010s more than “this is fine” dog. —K.N.

5.

Smash Mouth’s “All Star”

me.me

Like Shrek, Smash Mouth’s “All Star” is another one of those millennial nostalgia points that has evolved into something bigger than itself thanks to the internet. It’s lasted for several reasons: One, it’s just a damn good song; two, the lead singer of Smash Mouth looks like Guy Fieri; three, it was on the Shrek soundtrack; four, it’s a cheery song about how shit everything is — which is exactly how it feels to be online. —R.B.

What makes “on fleek” a crucial meme for understanding the 2010s is not simply why the meme was catchy, but what happened to the meme after it left the hands of its creator and what that says about the commercialization and monetization of memes — i.e., who gets paid and who gets credit. Kayla Newman, who goes by Peaches Monroee online, was a teen when she posted a Vine musing that her eyebrows were “on fleek” because she thought she looked good. The Vine caught on because it’s simple and fun and enjoyable. Soon, brands were using the phrase on their social media. IHOP tweeted “pancakes on fleek.” Denny’s tweeted “Hashbrowns on fleek.” JetBlue and Taco Bell also used it, and the phrase all of a sudden seemed inescapable in marketing. Corporations were using Newman’s invention of a phrase without giving her any credit or compensation.

In the Fader, Doreen St. Félix wrote how “on fleek” is an example of an endless trend of black teenagers creating the memes, lingo, and jokes that make up internet culture, and how those black teens are often uncredited and don’t profit when brands use their creative works. This is in contradiction to a handful of white teens who also went viral around the same time: The “Damn, Daniel” boys got free Vans and appearances on talk shows; the Walmart yodeling boy got a record deal, as did Danielle Bregoli, the “cash me ousside” girl.

In 2017, Newman started a GoFundMe campaign to launch a beauty line, but it only raised around $17,000 of the $100,000 she was hoping for. In a 2017 interview with Teen Vogue, Newman said if she had known the phrase would catch on like it did, she would’ve been more aggressive about it, adding that she was trying to trademark the phrase. —K.N.

3.

Pepe the Frog

Matt Furie

None of us wanted to write about Pepe. What’s even left to be said about him that hasn’t been said already? He started as a chill frog in a 2008 comic by artist Matt Furie. He then became a consistent, but largely forgettable fixture of 4chan in the early part of the decade. The first time I saw him was in a meme that read, “We are the middle children of history. Born too late to explore Earth, born too early to explore space.” I thought it was pretty funny. Sometimes he’d be in memes about blasting the toilet bowl with piss to clean it. He’s something different now — a literal hate symbol that is still being used by far-right extremists and white nationalists.

In the course of his transition from slacker goof to hate symbol, he’s taught us a lot about symbols — not just how the internet works — but he’s also maybe revealed something deeper about how symbols work. Furie has famously tried to litigate Pepe away from fascists, but it hasn’t really worked. Pepe’s effectively theirs now. It’s a grim, but important reminder that all culture can be hacked and warped and poisoned. All speech, online and off, is political. And all symbols, even chill frogs, require protection and upkeep. Feels bad, man. —R.B.

2.

Crying Jordan

Stephan Savoia / AP

Michael Jordan wept during his 2009 induction into the Basketball Hall of Fame, but it wasn’t until at least 2012 that the still of his face, red-eyed with tears streaming down both cheeks, became a meme. It started with sports fans but soon spread to become an enduring and universal image for faux sadness. It’s a bit of an anomaly for a celebrity photo meme; Michael Jordan isn’t particularly memey otherwise, and although he was one of the biggest celebrities in the world in the ’90s, he hasn’t been in the spotlight this decade. Perhaps his role in the movie Space Jam has lent him some level of internet irony that makes the meme so satisfying. Jordan has said through a spokesperson that he doesn’t mind the popularity of the meme, so long as it’s not used for commercial purposes. However, his former teammate and friend Charles Oakley did tell TMZ that Jordan actually isn’t amused. That feeling Jordan may have — a moment of vulnerable emotion being plastered all over the internet for laughs — of course would be best depicted by, well, the Crying Jordan meme. —K.N.

1.

SpongeBob

Nickelodeon / dearnville.tumblr.com

Did anything result in as many memes in the 2010s as SpongeBob? The show, which started in 1999 and is still going 20 years later, is so deeply entrenched in pop culture it would be hard to count how many memes have come out of it. But let’s try: There’s been caveman SpongeBob, mocking SpongeBob, tired naked SpongeBob, “ight Imma head out” SpongeBob, traveling SpongeBob, Krusty Krabs vs. Chum Bucket, evil Patrick, blurry Mr. Krabs, sleeping Squidward, and so many more.

The meme’s staying power can be attributed to a few things. It was an enormously popular show with a nearly universal sense of nostalgia for millennials and Gen Z’ers, who are the most prolific of meme creators. The simple art and animation style also beget some of the most instantly understandable reaction memes. May SpongeBob memes continue to prosper until [SpongeBob narrator voice] one eternity later. —J.R.

CORRECTION

Dec. 14, 2019, at 19:59 PM

T. Kyle MacMahon’s name was misstated in an earlier version of this post.

Drake starred in Degrassi: The Next Generation. An earlier version of this post misstated which Degrassi series he was on.

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