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jjmaybanksbaby · 4 years ago

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Where It Leads (Rafe Cameron)

Summer IV

Part 07: Crashing Down

series masterlist | previous part

summary: A jarring family emergency forces you to consider the future of your relationship with Rafe Cameron.

a/n: I'm a little bit emotional about this series ending because I've had so much fun writing it! Enjoy the last part and, as always, please come share your reactions with me in my inbox. Okay, that's all from me!

word count: 2.1k words

Rafe Cameron knew how to text. He was somehow witty, charming, and hilarious all in less characters than a single tweet. Texting with most boys was like talking to a brick wall: single-syllable answers, unironic uses of punctuation, asking “What are you wearing?” before even listening to how your day went. Though, to be fair, Rafe had asked that same question a few times, which always earned him a sarcastic answer in return. Well, except for that one time.

You’d been forced to spill the beans about your dreamy summer romance to Alice and Kensie after one of Rafe’s funnier texts almost made you pee yourself laughing at the lunch table.

“Oh, so he’s a stud muffin,” Alice announced, peering over Kenzie’s shoulder at the photo on your phone.

“Please god don’t call anyone a stud muffin ever again Al,” Kenzie replied.

“What? The 80s are like making a comeback.”

“Yeah, not that,” you countered and Alice huffed.

“He’s totally hot though,” Kenzie said, handing the phone back to you. “And I kinda hate you for not telling us about him.”

You looked down at the picture. Rafe was kissing your check while you grinned up at the camera, the golden hour lighting made the whole thing look rather enchanting. It was your favorite picture of you and him.

“Oh shit,” Kenzie said causing you to look up from the phone. “You’re like in love in love with him.”

“What? No,” you protested. Yes, your brain corrected.

Kenzie glanced over at Alice for backup.

“Besides, I wasn’t hiding him. I just didn’t know if there was anything there to...tell,” you finished.

“I wish I had a handsome summer fling with spectacular cheekbones,” Alice sighed.

“Don’t let your boyfriend hear you saying that.” Kenzie chucked a fry off her tray at Alice who dodged it expertly.

“Oh, please. Matty knows I would dump his ass for someone who looks like a young Chuck Bass any day of the week. Gimme your phone. I wanna see the photos again y/n.”

“I seriously don’t know how you and Matthew have been together for two years,” Kenzie replied.

“Are you kidding? They’re practically made for each other,” you added.

“The phone, please,” Alice interjected. “I wanna thirst over your mans while my boyfriend is sucking up to his English teacher so she doesn’t fail him. Of course, I told him he needed to actually read Wuthering Heights and not just sparknotes it. But did he listen? No. I picked a real winner y’all,” she finished, taking the phone from your outstretched hands. “You sure Rafe doesn’t have any brothers? Not even like a half-step brother?”

So yeah, going great. Against the odds of three thousand miles, the whole thing was somehow working. Long-distance friends with benefits? Check. Well, except for those moments when that nagging feeling in your stomach came back and you’d start overthinking everything. His texts would sit, unread in your phone for days or even a whole week, slowly sinking to the bottom of your messages.

Then came the call from the Kildare Country Hospital in the early hours of a foggy April morning. You should have gone to sleep hours ago but were still up, desperately trying to cram Maria’s lines into your brain while also texting Rafe. The Sound of Music opened in three weeks and your director had already chewed you out twice for not being off-book, something about being an upperclassman and the lead, and what kind of an example were you setting for the rest of the program. Big speeches were kind of your director's thing, you learned to just ride them out.

Around 1 a.m. your phone ran with an incoming FaceTime call from Rafe. You pressed the green acccept button, a smile spread across your face as Rafe’s own filled the screen.

“Hey Broadway Star.”

“Hi Rafe.” The dim lighting of his bedroom made his feature especially striking. “What are you still doing up?”

“Can’t sleep. Plus you’re up too so. How’s the memorizing going?”

“Shitty,” you replied, closing your binder with a sigh. “I’m too tired to do anymore of it tonight anyway.”

“You know, I was thinking I could come to Oregon for your opening night?”

“Really?” The possibility of Rafe sitting in the audience made your heart race.

“Yeah, why not? I’ll ask Ward if I can borrow the plane that weekend and I bet Sarah’ll want to come too. I wanna see my girl kill it. I miss you.”

“I miss you too, Rafe. You know my friends think you’re hot.”

“Oh, do they?” Rafe replied, rolling over onto his back in his bed.

“Don’t let it get to your head, Cameron.”

The home phone ran but you ignored it, much more invested in your conversation with Rafe. The second time the hospital left a message. Your Nonna’s heart had given out. The prognosis wasn’t good. She had barely any time left.

Your heart dropped as the words echoed over the speaker of the answering machine.

“Rafe,” you said, cutting him off momentarily. “I gotta go. I’ll call you back later. I gotta-” you ended the call before Rafe even had the chance to respond. You dropped your phone on the kitchen table, dashing up the stairs to your parents’ bedroom. Your father was booking a flight for your mother back to the Outer Banks minutes later.

The end had come so quickly, so unexpectedly. It was almost like that made it harder. There'd been just enough time for your mom and uncle to get to the Outer Banks, sitting on each side of your Nonna as her final breaths passed through her lungs. Now, everyone was there to say goodbye one last time. Uncle Austin and his fiancé. Your mom and dad. Both your siblings. The entire population of Figure Eight.

☼☼☼

Rain drizzled down from the dark, gray clouds looming overhead. It was as if Mother Nature was mourning your Nonna too, hiding the sunshine away.

Three baby ducks followed their mama into the man-made pond at the edge of the cemetery. You watched their tiny feet kick up small waves disturbing the peaceful water and the tears silently slipped down your face.

The cars were waiting to take you back to your Nonna's house for the wake. The same house with the for-sale sign now stuck in the front yard. The for-sale sign with Rose's patronizing grin that you were starting to really hate. Your dad had handled that. Listing the house. He'd handled most of the funeral arrangement's actually because your mother had been too sunken into her grief to make any decision. Sending out the invitations, picking out your Nonna's casket, choosing the flowers. Your mother clung to him during the entire funeral, weeping into his shoulder.

“Y/n?” Rafe's voice called out from behind you and you turned to see him walked toward you. He’d stood at the back of the church with his family during the funeral. You had longed for him to be sitting in the first pew next to you, to have had his hand to hold onto to ground you, but it hardly would have been appropriate. Your Nonna would have sooner risen from the dead than have had a Cameron front row at her funeral.

As soon as he was close enough, Rafe reached for you, pulling your body tight into him. Your head landed on his chest and the sobs came moments later. God, he always smelled the same. He just let you cry, holding you close, smoothing his hand over your hair.

“I know you’re selling your grandma’s house but I was thinking you could stay with me for the summer," he said as your tears began to slow. It was hard to imagine that you wouldn't return to the Outer Banks once school let out. It was the first week of May already and you could feel the tourist-attracting town waking up. But selling the house just made more sense. Your older sister was already living her life in New York, a real adult life. Next summer, you'd be moving out too, headed to college. The house would sit empty for eight months out of the year, your family couldn't keep it and your uncle certainly didn’t want it. Selling it just had to happen.

You stepped back, slipping out of his embrace. “I don’t think that’s a good idea, Rafe.”

“Why not?”

“Cause we’re like Romeo and Juliet.”

“I copied Cleo’s notes for that unit," he joked, trying to lighten to damp mood. “Plus I was never a fan of Leo DiCaprio so I didn’t finish the movie either.”

“It means we’re not supposed to be together, you and me. And whenever we try, the universe rips us apart. We hurt each other.”

Rafe shifted awkwardly on his feet, clearly wanting to reach for you again but stopping himself from doing it. “But I can't lose you.”

You reached your hand out, brushing away a strand of hair that had fallen in front of his eyes. “Oh Rafe, don’t you get it? You never really had me.” You stood up onto your tiptoes to kiss him just like you had the first time three years ago. Rafe barely parted his lips, kissing you back gently. Your hand cupped his face, your thump stroking over his cheek. It was a goodbye. Both of you knew it. It was an ending and this was your closure. You pulled away, your hand falling away from his face.

You couldn’t bring yourself to say the actual words. Your eyes fell to the ground. You needed to walk away now. You side-stepped Rafe but he grabbed your waist, turning you back around to face him.

“So that’s it? You’re not even gonna try to fight for us?”

“What even is there to fight for, Rafe? I’ve been fighting for us for the past four years. If we were supposed to be together that car wouldn’t have crashed into ours, I wouldn’t have fallen for Evan when I did, we wouldn’t be having this conversation at my Nonna’s funeral. What? Are we supposed to do long distance for all of college? I hardly know who I am right now. I have no idea who I’ll be in the next four years. Our future selves might not even like each other. I’m not gonna wait around for you Rafe and I would never ask you to do that for me.” You twirled the small, star charm between your fingers, a nervous habit you'd developed over the past year. His eyes dropped down to your neck momentarily and his adam's apple visibly bobbing as he swallowed his next weeks.

“You were it for me, you know. I tried to give a fuck about anyone else but I couldn’t get your gorgeous, stupid face out of my mind. I only wanted you.” Rafe paused gauging your reaction “I was falling in love with you.”

Your eyes wandered over his stoic expression. “The feeling was mutual, Rafe Cameron.”

He dropped your wrist but you both stood, not moving or saying anything. “Do you wanna walk me back to the car?”

“Yeah.” He reached for your hand, interlocking your fingers. Your other hand held onto his bicep so you walked together through the graveyard back to the parking lot.

The moment felt precious and delicate, like the fragile china your Nonna used to collect. You wondered what would happen to all that china.

Rafe placed a chaste kiss on your lips before opening the door of the car.

“I’ll miss you,” you said, the words hanging in the air meaning so much.

“Me too,” Rafe agreed.

You wanted one more kiss, one more passionate declaration of how much this all had meant but that would make leaving Rafe so much more impossible.

You climbed into the car, dropping Rafe’s hand in the process.

“See you around Cameron.” You knew it wouldn’t happen but it felt better than a goodbye.

He smiled back. “Maybe so.”

Perhaps Rafe was right and you’d both end up at a small liberal arts college in California taking the same second-year Econ class with a professor who always smelled like weed. Perhaps the stars would align and two of you would realize the universe wasn’t trying to keep you apart. It was just waiting for the right moment to show you that the love you had for each other was the soulmates, forever and ever kind of love. Perhaps you would get married and Sarah would be your maid of honor, of course. You’d buy back your Nonna’s house to raise your troubling-making kids in. Perhaps, you would find your way back and wake up each day and choose each other again and again.

Or perhaps, he'd always be your right-person-wrong-time. And, in the end, the passing days will steal away your memories of the blue-eyed boy from the Outer Banks.

taglist! @oreoenthusiast13

#outer banks #outer banks fanfiction #rafe cameron fanfiction #rafe cameron x reader #rafe cameron x y/n #rafe cameron series #obx netflix #obx #obx fanfic #where it leads series #where it leads

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piduai · 4 years ago

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this has been on my mind for a while, i feel like at this point women mangaka are generally just better people than their male peers. id love to hear some manga ud recommend by women, or even counterpoints, but series like Dungeon Meshi and Full Metal Alchemist (among others) handle almost every concept way better and with more tact, from writing complex stories and compelling characters, to treating women like people and not literal naked rubber dolls colored in and posed like p*rn

you are so correct and right and speak the truth. female mangaka are superior. the only thing i’d say women don’t do inherently better is technical skill, there’s a ton of men who are very artistically talented, but arts such as drawing and music are sexless because they come from within and aren’t influenced by external factors such as upbringing and culture like storytelling is. everything else though is done better by women.

the problem with female mangaka is that they’re gatekept in the industry big time. if you google ‘top selling manga of all time’ and go to the wikipedia page, there’s only one woman (kimetsu no yaiba) and she’s hiding behind a male pen name just like arakawa hiromi did when fma was publishing. neither of these are a coincidence. women are generally discouraged from pursuing writing, and if they do so they’re supposed to be kept to female-catering genres such as shoujo, josei and BL, which are all much less mainstream, aka much less known and much less money making, than shounen. women having to go behind male-sounding pen names just so men don’t feel emasculated when consuming their stories has been a thing since forever across many different cultures. misogyny is universal.

however since i personally am more into grittier stuff and i love gratuitous violence and other Mature Themes i just naturally gravitate more towards manime with all its faults. my favorite genre overall is comedy though and women ARE much funnier and wittier and more clever. female mangaka also typically avoid drawing gore, which i guess is cultural but a shame.

i’m not a manga person, i prefer watching anime, so i compiled a list of my favorite anime based on manga written by women a while ago. i am VERY picky and nitpicky and very, very difficult to please so keep in mind that the list is not comprehensive in the slightest, it’s just things that i personally liked. there’s tons of non-shoujo stuff written by women that generally have a good reputation (ao no exorcist, gangsta, kuroshitsuji, noragami, d gray man, magi, xxxholic etc etc etc) that didn’t stand out to me at all so again, short as it may be the list isn’t comprehensive in the slightest, i’m sure that people who are more easily entertained than me could come up with much more names. anyway everything else is copy-pasted, i know you know of fmab but it needs to be included because fmab is my favorite series of all times:

anime based on manga created by female writers that is in fact not heterosexual shoujo/BL garbage and i liked (bc i saw a post talking about female mangakas and all of the examples were in fact heterosexual shoujo/BL garbage that i unfortunately do not like and my anime opinions are super important obviously):

fullmetal alchemist: brotherhood (adventure/action) any comments on why fmab is the best product the anime industry has ever put on the market that will not be outranked ever is tired at this point. fmab is a masterpiece through and through. most of the cast including the mcs is male tho, which is sad

saraiya goyou (historical/drama) if fmab didn’t exist it would have been the best title out there. the word masterpiece was invented solely to have a concept to describe it. the ost makes up about 40% of its greatness and was also written by a woman. too bad all the characters are also dudes

acca: 13ku kansatsuka (drama/political) not quite as good as saraiya goyou but from ono natsume as well. pleasant is the word to describe it. relaxing. most of the cast is male.

dorohedoro (horror/gore/comedy) the best title since like 2006. everything about it is great. i don’t have a single criticism and that’s rare. the cast is actually balanced and the Female Characters™ all 3 of them are like, written like people and are also queens

hachimitsu to clover (slice of life) saddest shit i’ve seen in my whole life in a colorful packaging. heterosexual as hell but not in an obnoxious way. cast seems diverse but it’s predominantly male

3gatsu no lion (drama) from the same great umino chica who is a master at writing uncomfortable truths and playing on emotions. she’s great truly, her character crafting is genuine but it gets under your skin, it’s filled with melancholy. 3gatsu is actually better than hachimitsu to clover but 1) i have history with the former so i like it better and 2) it was produced by shaft which is a sin in itself. they did a great job and all, i just hate the studio. has 3 speaking female characters in total but all 3 are great.

hoozuki no reitetsu (comedy) it’s hilarious it’s fresh it’s pretty it’s original it’s creative it’s clever. i love everything about it. the whole cast is male with like 2 exceptions and a rabbit (best girl).

saiunkoku monogatari (historical) i know it LOOKS like heterosexual shoujo garbage but it in fact isn’t. fits the reverse harem trope solely because everyone is in love with mc, but there’s next to no actual romance in it. unironically a feminist power fantasy. i’m still shooketh at how incredibly pleasant it turned out to be. the mc is a young girl but the rest of the cast is almost exclusively male.

arakawa under the bridge (comedy) surprisingly… by shaft again. maybe i am prejudiced. anyway, hilarious to a fault. is technically centered around a str8 romance but it’s not too invasive so whatever. cast is pretty balanced and the women are written smartly.

saint oniisan (comedy) THE funniest thing i’ve ever watched, or nearly. it’s just great. same author as above. cast exclusively male

doukyuusei (gay romance) which i refuse to categorize as BL simply because it’s not BL. it’s a good gay story, arguably the best one yet. cast is exclusively male but i mean lmao

gekkan shoujo nozaki-kun (comedy) straight to A FAULT but funny nevertheless. is, technically, heterosexual shoujo garbage. but SOME heterosexual shoujo garbage can stay i guess. cast is balanced, there’s still more male characters tho

gokusen (comedy/action) which i don’t remember much about except kumiko being best girl and me liking it. if i remember liking it it means it was good overall just not memorable. cast is exclusively male except mc.

kaleido star (sports) which is the ONLY good, or like decent, or like watchable sports anime, the rest don’t exist. not based on a manga but the writer is a woman which is strongly felt through and through. good story about perseverance and will and optimism and competition. cast is predominantly female and all of them are wonderfully written

michiko to hatchin (adventure) again no manga but main writer is the woman known for creating the skating BL people pretend isn’t BL. michiko to hatchin is way better than the skating BL, but i’m just a humble girl. tons of sexy sexy i could have lived without but otherwise good shit. cast predominantly female.

mushishi (mystery/fantasy) mushishi is just unique. it has similar vibes to saraiya goyou and natsume sure, but ultimately it’s one of its kind. it has what ghibli wants. again no criticism about it at all except that it’s SO chill that binging it is super tiring. cast is predominantly male but it has few reoccurring characters so who cares.

natsume yuujinchou (mystery/fantasy) again similar to mushishi but less grim. chill story, the definition of wholesome unproblematic etc whatever kids are into these days. cast predominantly male but not memorable in the slightest

petshop of horrors (horror) watched it a million years ago so don’t remember shit but i do remember liking it. cast is probably predominantly male

sakamoto desu ga (comedy) well THE actual funniest thing i’ve ever watched, it licherally had me in tears, i watched the new episodes like 3 times on the days they came out, including watching them on tv in real time at like 3 am or whenever it aired in shinya. just really really funny. cast predominantly male.

#anon #ppl have recced me dungeon meshi so many times bc it's similar to gk one day...... one day i will check it out #then again ppl also say that vinland saga is similar to gk and boy it is not i fell asleep like 509 times while watching it so

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wearethewinx · 4 years ago

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fate episode 6 spoilers below

admittedly that opening shot slaps. like that immediately makes me curious

bloom why are you looking. everywhere but at the glowing pillar in front of you

LOL WHOOPS

AISHA ARE U FOR FUCKING REAL. WRITERS ARE U FOR FUCKING REAL. THIS IS NOT MY GIRL

lol dowling thats what happens when u liiieeeeee

jfdlsfjlds terras dad being so stumped by her completely correct rebuttal that he just says 'you need to cool down'

'sorry you have to be visible to have a point of view' that line really made it into the script huh

theyre REALLY gonna make aishas first and only autonomous act in this entire show be to snitch on her friends

oh so there are witches huh. is that how were doing this huh. oh my god this is so unnecessarily complicated and confusing? this is. ridiculous? why wouldnt anyone else know about the witches? how does them being witches give rosalind the right to murder them all? HOW IS BLOOM OK WITH THIS LADY JUST SAYING 'yeah i lied and killed them all because only fairies are allowed to do magic' HWAT THE FUCK

*sky voice* i am literally so fucking stupid and boring its unreal

lol even sam is like 'terra shut up'

see i dont wanna be so mean to terra but shes explicitly written to be as annoying as humanly possible? people keep telling her theyre not interested and she just mows right over them completely not caring EVERY time

oh bloom is growing a braincell now huh

'only vanessa and michael could give you love' YOU CALL THAT LOVE? YOU CALL THAT SHIT LOVE? WHERE ARE THE WRITERS ILL FUCKING KILL THEM

me, every time: weve gotta be getting close to the end now right weve been here at least forty minutes

the timestamp, every time: 21:30

HOW is it possible for a show to drag this much? six hours feels like 18

nobody told the caption writer that rivens name is riven not 'riv'

stella being like 'WE shouldve never gotten back together WE are codependent and toxic' gurl,,,,,,,, You

rly have to stress that bloom listened to rosalind talk and was like 'oh genocide? well thats totally understandable, i trust you implicitly. here i was thinking you were just a regular mass murderer!'

WHY ARE THERE NO MAGIC PAINKILLERS. WHY IS THE ONLY WAY TO EASE SOMEONES PAIN FOR MUSA SPECIFICALLY TO TAKE IT ON

ALSO TERRA FUCK. YOU. FOR EVEN THINKING THAT, MUCH LESS SAYING IT OUT LOUD

how does the solarian royal family have a magic teleportation ring but they cant move troops across their country in less than 2 days

*bloom voice* come on sluts im gonna put you all in danger

PLEASE let sky miserably wail 'YOU KILLED MY FATHER' please god let it happen PLEASE

damn ok i actually REALLY like skys reaction here. unironically well written, very believable. even a stopped brain has good ideas twice an episode i suppose

love that musa only gets dignified with the slightest sliver of backstory in this, the final episode

STILL only HALFWAY THROUGH THE EPISODE. THIS IS SICK TIME DILATION FUCKERY

flora isnt supposed to be the loose canon of the winx for fucks sake

ok but WHAT ARE THE BURNED ONES. WHERE ARE THEY FROM. WHY DO THEY CARE ABOUT BLOOM. EVEN SHE HASNT ASKED YET! ARENT YOU CURIOUS ISNT ANYBODY CURIOUS

bloom: yeah rosalind unleashed the burned ones to attack us all but i totally trust that she told me the truth about how to stop them

blooms wings look FUCKING STUPID those arent even wings theyre just random red blobs with a mesh pattern

i guess im glad we actually GOT wings but my god is this a disappointment as wings go

also @ everyone in the tag calling this a 'transformation': are we watching the same fucking show lol. having fire swirl around you isnt a transformation. TRANSFORMING. is what makes it a transformation. absolutely nothing changes about her except having a couple blowtorches on her back

CANT STRESS ENOUGH THAT BLOOM KEEPS HEARING PEOPLE ADMIT TO MURDER AND RESPONDING WITH 'OH it was just MURDER lol thank god'

'bloom transformed' nO SHE DIDNT THAT WASNT A TRANSFORMATION OH MY GOD

ok but why WOULDNT rosalind reveal exculpatory information when it benefited her lol. why are you idiots believing her. why are you accepting that as a justification

'ive been a brat' OH SO YOU ADMIT IT

'can we hug' very normal request bloom especially considering the circumstances /s

my mom would flip her lid if i invited four friends over w/o asking in advance and then put her on the spot abt whether they can stay the night, and thats WITHOUT the added context that BLOOMS MOM THINKS THESE ARE HER SCHOOL FRIENDS FROM S W I T Z E R L A N D AND THAT THEY WOULDVE HAD TO FLY ACROSS THE OCEAN TO GET THERE

this bloom family montage is 1: unearned (i remember the door, assholes) and 2: TOO long and cheesy

i love that stellas mom still hasnt admitted shes missing or come looking for her lol. the HEIR to the THRONE has been MISSING for WEEKS and thats just Okay

lmao what the fuck. how is andreas wearing the same clothes as 16 years ago. anybody care to explain what the goddamn hell is going on here

dragonflame namedrop huh? interesting

LOL EVERYONES JUST ACCEPTING ROSALIND BACK WITHOUT QUESTION? SHE DISAPPEARED AND WAS PRESUMED DEAD FOR 16 YEARS

HOW STUPID ARE THE PEOPLE IN THIS WORLD

THE KING OF ERAKLYON. ABANDONED HIS SON. TO RAISE BEATRIX

WHAT IN THE GODDAMN HELL

omg she just fucking killed her

absolutely metal

ah HERE are the hideous outfits from the promo image. hate

final thoughts: this show is dumb

#netwinx #winx club #spoilers

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borisbubbles · 4 years ago

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17. CZECH REPUBLIC

Benny Christo - “Kemama”

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So first off, thank you for the nice commens. 😇The past few months haven’t been the happiest time for me, so thank you for your patience as I scraped my bearings together for another post! 😁

So I will now extend that same sympathy to Benny Christo, whom I think I damn fucking underrated. Let’s jump in~

ENTRY ANALYSIS

As one may expect i INSTANTLY liked “Kemama” because you know, it’s a fun, laid-back, tropical afro-breeze, completely different from anything else we would see in NFs and the year. EXACTLY the type of song I was hoping the Czech NF would deliver (and deliver they did, see NF Corner). This level of mild like swung into strong unironic like upon realizing that the title is a contraction of “Okay Mother” 😍 and the song deals with the subject of overcoming racially-tinged discrimination and rising above the hate. That just feels very poetic and apt? “Kemama” felt like the entry that had to overcome the highest odds in order to earn the respect it so fully deserves, and still hasn’t fully reached it.

.In our Western European bubble, comprised mostly of gays and left-liberal straights, we have a very grateful and universal acceptance of many different kinds of [lizard] people that make up Eurovision casts. Yet with “Kemama” we may have reached an unusually grimy undercurrent of coded racism.

Of course nothing I read was outrageously rancid, than Cod for that. The worst statement I read was a double-whammy of “EWW THIS ISN’T CARIBBEANVISION” and “WHY WOULD SOMEONE FROM *KENYA* WANT TO REP CZECHIA IN EUROVISION?”, and yes they first got the continent wrong and then *also* got the country wrong in the follow-up post and then they were torn limb from limb by a pack of aformentioned left-liberals. I’m sorry but i can’t not have any other response than laughter in the face of yet another fucking MORON faceplanting themselves with words like a... racist JK Rowling if you will?

Still, while I never read something outright vile about Benny doesn’t mean I found his deniers really annoying and they were! Think “Ew Solovey is ‘Too Aggressive’ it will NEVER DO WELL IN ESC”, a statement that isn’t coded nor racist (and yet extremely false and misguided), functioned as a similar idea by the same minds. A statement borne from the same breed of narrow-minded stubbornness which has caused elitist morons to be all “there is **SOMETHING** about “Kemama” i do *NOT* like and I cannot lay my finger on it... but I **DO NOT** like it at ALL. It won’t ever qualify because everyone will think the same way I do” -- Eurovision snobs, tiptoeing around racial coda in January 2020.

They would also insist that Benny was “arrogant” because he was seemingly impervious to their (de)constructive criticism. Like, if you were a biracial butterfly living in a slavic country who had to deal with statements such as the above on a regular basis, you WOULD block out the noise. And if you heard them often enough you will start to block them out pre-emptively. DO YOU NOT KNOW HOW COPING MECHANISMS WORK?? (oh wait you’re white-privileged. Nevermind 🙄)

So naturally, when Benny decided that he would revamp “Okay Mother” by adding in MORE African elements it only made me love him even more lol. 😍 Was it a bull-headed, contrarian and possibly really stupid decision? Yes, yes and absolutely yes. Was it worth it? Well he managed to incite even more meltdowns in a group of people I feel nothing but contempt for, so hell yeah? Eurovision was cancelled anyway so who cares how much ‘worse’ “Kemama” actually got.

Okay, so we’ve arrived at the revamp.

Granted, it wasn’t the best ‘vamp, I’d be a fool to deny it. The new elements threw a wrench in the melodic balance of the song. Out went tropical laid-back fun, IN went that fucking guitar oh my god this is some Hotel FM piano levels of overbearing I swear. (nb: this still didn’t stop me from ironically stanning Hotel FM’s lame asses anyway 😍). However, it made the personal backstory that I loved and savoured take a backseat to the now inferior composition. 😭

Regardless, New Kemama was fundamentally the same song, and I fundamentally liked Old Kemama, so whatevs, it made no different to me. In the eyes of many Eurovision diehards we were experiencing WORST PRESHOW SEASON EVER (after three songs... lol) and nothing clinches this brainworm more than a revamp announcement. “OH MY GOD HE WILL RUIN IT! I CAN GUARANTEE YOU I *WON’T* LIKE IT”. Self-fulfilling prophecies, ya know? It certainly didn’t help when the official channel accidentally uploaded a vid with broken soundmixing (‘OMG HORRIBLE LAST IN THE SEMI!!!!’ calm the ever-loving HELL down) and took another FULL WEEK to upload the correct vid. The damage had already been done. Typing "SEE I TOLD YOU THE REVAMP WOULD BE SHITE HA HA HA” in the Kemama comment box really just is the ESC equivalent of reponding with “Actually, *all* lives matter :smug:” to a BLM support pamphlet, isn’t it?

NF CORNER

While not my favourite NF of the bunch, I found the Czech NF to be lowkey epic. Not epic enough to remember its name but regardless Czechvision or whatever marked the end of an era because it was also the last selection spearheaded by Jan Bors :o

I think I’ve made it clear enough in the past that I’m somewhat mixed on Bors Era Czechia - Lake Malawi were a toetapping good, Ickolas was a pockmarked, skin-crawling evil and the other three inhibit a purgatory somewhere between “moderately nice” and “moderate timewaste.”

Still, I have great respect for the man who orchestrated Czech’s comeback after scoring NINE POINTS TOTAL across three years with the mindset of “So what? Why says we can’t win?” so ofc I was all into the idea of the “EIGHT INDIE ANGELS, HAND-PICKED BY BORS HIMSELF” NF that would serve as his swan song.

Naturally things went down the drain the second Bors left, with one of the eight peacing and his successor cancelling the live broadcast (does anyone remember what exactly happened? I vaguely recall one was the cause of the other but lol it’s July can’t be bothered to factscheck (Factsczeck?) anymore, bitches.

Anyway, ON TO THE GOOD STUFF, and yes, there was plenty.

We All Poop - “ All the Blood (Positive Song Actually)”

youtube

Yes, as you can imagine I ofc IMMEDIATELY fell into like when I saw that chyron and invisioned the inevitability of the Czech Rep’s Rep immediately alienating every parent just based on their name alone <3 😍 w/e WAP quickly became that “Good but not great” song you find in every NF that everyone gushes over because it’s the whitest option available. Like, yes, “All the blood” is good, but musically it’s identical to Green Day and Twenty-One Pilots and god name ANY 90s-early00′s American Punk Rock band. For me the enjoyment came from the fact that WAP were openly crazy vegan fundamentalists and the VC clip actively condemns the use ANY animal protein by replacing the cattle and game with LITERAL HUMAN BEINGS. 😍 :fusedmarcintensifies: :kasiamosage:

Pam Rabbit - “Get up”

youtube

Ohhhh YES a glorious experimental Synth-Trap song only I could love and ofc I did. God what is there even to say; the provocative darkness of the verses combined with the swirling amorphousness of the chorus gives me LIFE. LUFF THIS SHIT <3333 Ftr, this was also the fave of Slovene Juror duo / synth angels / Boris faves ZALAGASPER, further proving their pathetic naysayers that they own all things music and the haters can suck a series of-

Barbora Mochowa - “White and Black Holes“

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Lol, yes even with a “Get up” existing, there was a song I liked even more. Barbora proved a very competent Lana del Gay last year, but I was a YUGE fan of this year’s... Kate Bush-Björk blend of ethereal awesome. It is so soothingly beautiful and the rare example of a song that I find completely free of flaws. Were the competition not such a hard place, I’d be pissed she didnt win (at least she won the jury vote MASSIVE KUDOS to every alum on that) but w/e this selection had opions and I’m rather robbed of a “Kemama” than I am of a BRILLIANT IRREPLICABLE AETHERBALLAD. ~Danse balance sûr les white and black holes~

Elis Mraz & Cis T - “Wanna be like”

youtube

I *VERY* strongly felt that if the Czech Republic wanted to win ESC, they should have picked Elis and even now I STILL believe she could have won. That isn’t to say I gushed over “Wanna be like” because I find it kind of annoying lol. Yes, I LOVE an annoying female voice (:Tones&Icackle:) but Elis’s reaches a Camilla Cabello sort of place for me (good lord get Senorita OFF the fucking radio) and the Scat + White Guy Rapping middle-eight. 😬. However, the second I opened up the video clip for this paragraph and was immediately BLASTED by Elis murdering a ukelele and wearing a “schoolgirl” outfit straight from a Japanese tentacle porn movie and OH MY GOD THE AGGRESSIVE TWERKING made me reconsider that hey, this min-sized Meghan Traynor actually kinda highkey owns, yo! Yet, I’m not at all bothered we lost her in the Czech NF because we got UNO DOS QUATRO CINCO SEIS :fatmansplit: fill up the megameme slot instead, so...

Eurovision 2020 vs Eurovision 2021

BENNY RUINED HIS SONG AND NEVER WOULD HAVE QUALIFIED. jk I’m not a moron. Sure, “Kemama” wasn’t an easy sell because you know AFROBEAT in a contest where half of the people watching are fash (ie: all of Eastern Europe, who watch out of ~Nationalistic Sentiment~ 😬), but there are Kemama live renditions out there and he owns them SO hard lol. A few soundmixing issues really would not have stopped Benny from qualifying in that RIDICULOUSLY WEAKSAUCE SEMIFINAL are you fucking kidding me. He probably would’ve bombed in the Grand Final, but I mean it’s Czech and it’s not Ickolas so ofc it would have.

And Czech renewed him for 2021 regardless of the sceptics, woohoo! I think part of it was due the Czech not wanting to re-organize an ENTIRE NF from scratch without Jan Bors, but probably also because Benny owns live when he isn’t engaged in psychological trench warfare with actual human detritus <3 and also because the Czech fucking CARE about their artists and don’t drop them like a sack of rotten potatoes wtfshitprus.

Can’t wait for the moment when he qualifies and Efendi does not, etc, etc.

FREAKY! FRIDAY! FACTOR!

I’d say that the core around which the Ben Drama spun was pretty standard fare: niche fave beats out the concensus fave, meltdowns ensue, people convince themselves it was the WRONG decision because it wasn the result they wanted, try to disown the song and make a fool of themselves because the song slaps, sorry. Even the revamp drama felt more of less generic for me, because yawn fantards melting down over a revamp of a song they don’t even like what else is new.

However, what I do take away that the revamp was ENTIRELY Benny’s idea which he told no one about (cue to JAN BORS having a social media meltdown like he’s Caesar at the Ides of March 💔) added MORE afrobeat just to troll his haters even more <3 God, I’d say it was bad from a musical perspective but this level of in-your-face defiance is fucking iconic and hilarious, sorry. This entire this year is so batshit bonkers that the concept of a someone potentially shooting themselves in the foot and “torpedo’ing” their qualification chances (not rly, he would’ve Q’d anyway lol) JUST to take the moral high ground in a racially coded argument only HE took seriously may not even be the craziest concept in the year! (lol it definitely isn’t. Look at the pics I haven’t greyed out yet)

This and more yield Benny some well-earned Senheads! Yay!!

Score: 3 Senhits out of 5.

#Eurovision #Eurovision 2020 #Eurovision Song Contest #Czech Republic #Czechia #Bohemia #Ben Christovão #Benny Christo

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thejudgingtrash · 5 years ago

Note

Percy and Annabeth would 100% do their own version of the Halloween Heist every year. Annabeth obviously wins year one but as more people are pulled in the Title of Best Demigod/Satyr/Centaur gets passed around a lot.

You know what? Fuck it! Mini Fanfic time! Annabeth winning hmmm? I’m actually busy with not going crazy during quarantine and working on my feature length Percabeth fic (coming out in 2025, I guess). And it’s way too early (or late) for Halloween. But let’s do this! One shitty fic - hot and fresh out of the oven!

The Halloween Heist

The plan was ready and set. They all would do it one last time together before their paths separated and all of them drifted apart like gusts of wind. The heroes of Camp Half-Blood reunited one last time before college hit the last of them. They wanted to relive a normal holiday together, just this once.

Annabeth and Malcom set up different routes; A, B and C throughout New York City, Manhattan specifically. Those that could, joined. And would the little kids that were on the streets going to be respected? Definitely not. Of course, it would be a competition – who would turn out to be the one most successful? Whose group would be candy lords or ladies of the night? Who looked the most horrifying?

Everyone agreed that in the last part they all lost. None of them dressed in the true horrifying manner of the Halloween tradition. The Stolls’ were dressed as super heroes, Connor as Batman and Travis as The Flash. Katie joined them as Poison Ivy. Clarisse pulled off a solid Sarah Connor and her boyfriend Chris stood proudly next to her as The Terminator. The only person that looked slightly scary was Malcom. He was dressed as a zombie and his eye bags stemming from the latest project he had been working on through the entire night added to the nature of his character.

“Well!” Percy exclaimed and tapped the floor with a wooden trident. “Let the games begin!”

Annabeth rolled her eyes. He wore khaki shorts, flip flops and a Hawaii themed shirt and those stupid pink window blinds sunglasses from 2012. “That’s just purely lazy! You dress up like your father every time on Halloween.”

“And it works just fine every time,” he said after sharing a soft kiss. Not only that, his outfit was unironically super comfortable. His hair tickled her. The only good thing was that he had actually grown out a beard which hugged his handsome face very tightly.

Percy raised a black eyebrow. “What are you going for?”

Annabeth looked like she had raided Paul’s wardrobe. Light dress shirt, ugly green sweater vest, tight black jeans and goddamn Birkenstock shoes. Her blonde curls were gelled back and put into a tight bun. The dark frames of her glasses oozed sexy librarian but the expression on her face only said shhh!

“Sexy Chiron with a third eye and without the horse ass end?” Chris and Malcom grinned, Katie snorted whereas the Stolls’ and Clarisse shared a loud cackle. Annabeth looked like she wanted to murder him.

“No! I’m Cecil from Welcome to Night Vale,” she corrected him.

“Cecil?”

“You’ve got to be kidding me. We listened to the first 100 episodes together! The lore, the intricacy, the little pieces you have to put together,” Annabeth looked very adorable whenever she was nerding and ranting about her passions.

“Well, The Weather is quite nice.” That was all Percy had to add.

“That means we have to re-listen everything!” Annabeth decided. Percy simply nodded. Yes, they would re-listen.

“We?” Katie raised a red dyed eyebrow. “Don’t tell me that you’ve become a we couple.”

“Of course not!” both denied. “And don’t be so sarcastic, Percy! We will re-listen!”

Clatter. The group turned to their right. Grover appeared wearing a flower crown on top of his horns, a torn green dress shirt… and nothing further down below. “That’s just unfair!” The Stolls’ yelled and pointed at his dark hairy goat legs.

“No, this is a way of nature saying, Grover you got this. Also be nice! Me taking off time as a Lord of the Wild should be considered a blessing,” the black satyr grinned.

The brothers huffed and Malcom rolled his eyes. “Where’s Juniper?” Annabeth asked.

“Couldn’t make it unfortunately,” the Grover pouted.

“And Will and Nico? Will promised us 90s Justin Timberlake with a puka shell necklace, meanest frosted tips and Donald Trump tan!”

The satyr shrugged. “They have decided that re-watching Corpse Bride for the millionth time was more important. Anyway. Annabeth, you got the straws?”

“Of course, I do. We have three groups á three people. Red is A, blue is B and green is C. Biggest candy stash wins, got it? Ultimate bragging rights, the last prank idea on Chiron and blue cupcakes from Sally. Let the Fates decide!”

“You sure about that?”

“Percy, shut up! Let’s just do this.”

The participants nodded. Team A consisted of Percy, Clarisse and Travis. Team B were Annabeth, Chris and Malcom. Lastly Team C was made up by Grover, Katie and Connor.

“Two Athena kids in one group is just unfair,” Clarisse huffed.

“Deal with it,” Malcom grinned. “You know the routes? Let’s begin! You’ve got three hours!”

*****

Percy rang the bell. A middle-aged woman with curlers opened the door. “Yes?” she mustered him.

Percy cleared his throat. “Lord Poseidon demands all of your candy!” he said with a deep booming voice.

The woman stared at him weirdly. “Poseidon as in the god of sea? Since when does a Greek god look like homeless person wandering around the beach?”

“Uh…Since always?”

“Alright, fair enough.”

*****

A young man opened the door. Annabeth was greeted by the smell of grease, Cheetos and bleach. The meanest hotbox fumes smacked her across the face. She coughed and felt her eyes tearing up. She wanted to experience the rush of winning, not feel that kind of high just yet.

“That your Halloween costume?” She simply nodded.

“Fucking sick, dude! You look like my college professor!”

“Well in that case hand your assignments in or give me all of your candy,” she grinned.

*****

A young mother and her daughter opened up for Grover.

“Wow! I want that costume mommy!” wailed the girl.

“Ellie, you’re already a witch. But how did you create those legs? They look so real?”

“They came off pretty naturally,” Grover shrugged.

“And the horns?!”

“I can’t spill all of my secrets, I’m afraid. I am but a humble servant of nature asking you to give something sweet back to us.”

The woman giggled. “Oh, and he’s a poet as well!”

“Uhh no?” denied Grover.

“Here take some of our candy!”

“Okay! Nature won’t forget your service, ma’am! And neither yours, Ellie!”

*****

The nine gathered at the Jackson’s hours later. Each team piled their candy stock. It was a clear-cut victory. Annabeth and Malcom looked proudly at their stash.

“We did it!” Katie yelled behind them. Team Grover won, they nearly covered the entire floor with chocolates and packs of sour patches. Satyr bonus probably. The Athena siblings lost their victorious smiles immediately.

“Looks like Team Athina kids lost!” Grover exclaimed with a smirk.

Annabeth looked like she’d all of a sudden love to possess Chiron’s horse ass to give him a massive horse kick. “Wait! Do we count the total mass or the individual candy because in that sense we would have won?” she questioned.

“Everyone saying that Annabeth would never cheat can now clearly tell that that was a fucking lie!” Percy shook his head.

“Well, work smart not hard,” Annabeth stuck her tongue out.

“There can always be a next time if we coordinate! And we will crush you!”

The End

#they're all ooc because they're essentially me. also this shit's wack. why am I posting this. well too late I guess #pjo #pjo fanfic #halloween au #percy jackson and the olympians #annabeth chase #grover underwood #katie gardner #malcom pace #percy jackson fanfiction #clarisse la rue #chris rodriguez #travis stoll #connor stoll #mel writes

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stina-is-a-punk-rocker · 4 years ago

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becky albertalli’s ‘simon vs. the homo sapiens agenda’: a review, amongst other things

I walked into Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda fully prepared to hate it. I’d read it a grand total of one (01) time before, way back in December 2019, with very high expectations that were dashed to smithereens halfway through. On my first reading, I found it terribly cliché, vapid and utterly undeserving of the multitude of four- and five-star ratings on Goodreads.

I’m still iffy about those ratings (it’s a solid two-point-five, three at best for me), but I didn’t hate it as much the second time around. Maybe it was because my expectations were so low that the only way it could go from there was up. You could say that I almost… enjoyed it.

That didn’t stop me from scribbling a page of complaints, though.

I’ve seen many reviews hailing the book as a win for the LGBTQ+ community, for BIPOC, for YA fiction. And Albertalli’s certainly done a better job of writing the character of a homosexual male than certain others. Simon’s whole coming-out crisis is definitely relatable, and it’s definitely a relief to have a character who’s accepted their sexuality instead of one who spends roughly 200 pages whining, “bUt HoW cAn I LiKe BoY wHeN I aM bOy??”

And yet it can be so tone-deaf in other parts.

The most glaring example is at the start of the book (I doubt this constitutes as a spoiler), where Simon says (lmao), about lesbian and bisexual girls: “I think it’s different for girls. Maybe it’s easier. If there’s one thing the Tumblr has taught me, it’s that a lot of guys consider it hot when a girl is a lesbian.”

Yes, the really says ‘the Tumblr’. And it’s not the last time, either.

I find it hard to believe that Simon, a gen-Z if my calculations serve me correct, has a Tumblr account and doesn’t know about Phan, Drarry, Destiel (RIP), Larry Stylinson (yikes) and the other staple gay OTPs of gen-Z Tumblr culture. If there’s one thing the Tumblr has taught me, it’s that there are way too many gay male ships with a brunette and a blond, with predominantly female fans.

Granted, Simon’s talking about their school’s gossip blog in particular, but that can’t be the only blog he follows.

Because fetishization is so easy, am I right, ladies?

You might bring up the ‘death of the author’ paradigm; Simon’s views ≠ Becky Albertalli’s; Simon is a teenage boy and teenage boys are generally idiots- and yet it feels like this is something the author genuinely believes, because she’s also included Simon being A-okay and even flattered by his friend Leah’s gay fanart and fanfic obsession. Yeah… no. Fetishization of queer people is creepy and dehumanizing and I’ve yet to meet a single queer person who’s on board with the idea of cishets doing so.

Also, the fact that he warmed up to Martin even while he was being blackmailed is something no actual closeted queer would do, ever. I’m pretty sure I’m speaking for loads of queer people when I say that being out to someone you don’t trust is a literal nightmare- even worse when they use that against you. And this motherfucker’s all like, “Well yeah, he’s threatening to out me to everyone if I don’t set him up with my best friend, but he’s kinda funny :) I think we could be friends.”

Simon- fuck you, you smoothbrained numbskull.

Another thing I found cringey was how many pop culture references were thrown in. Why, on god’s green earth, would you name a dog Bieber? For one, that’s a godawful name; for another- Justin Bieber? Really?

I consider myself a pretty avid fan of Harry Potter (here I will insert the obligatory ‘fuck you, JKR’), and whenever I see a reference thrown in, I feel like that one Spider-Man meme. And yet there were way. too. many. in this damn book. Seriously. We get it. Simon’s a Potterhead. That’s enough.

Also, I’m obligated to cancel anyone who likes Reese’s cups. They’re fucking vile.

Other attempts at gen-Z-ing that made me want to fling myself into the nearest black hole: every time Simon said ‘I can’t even’; a pop-punk band called ‘Emoji’ (!!! the way I cringed !!!); ‘the’ Tumblr (yeah, I’m never letting that go); Nora unironically saying ‘OMG’ in a verbal conversation; the absolute LACK of One Direction references (see, this is why I love John Green); amongst others.

Simon’s got zero personality outside of his sexuality. In case you didn’t catch it the eight thousand times it was mentioned, Simon is gay. And… that’s about it.

Leah’s annoying and yet I’m ashamed to say I can sort of see where she’s coming from (I’ve had a long and illustrious history of being left out and ignored by my friends, but this is neither the time nor place to discuss my childhood trauma, so I’ll leave it at that). Her enmity with Abby was unnecessary and uncalled for. Nick’s… a Jewish guitarist? And that’s about it? Abby’s cute and quirky and lovable and I love her. Martin’s a bag of dicks plus more. It was pretty obvious to me who Blue was; if you’ve read a YA book, ever, it’s the easiest thing to guess.

The characters were painfully one-dimensional. I can imagine them existing in that particular story, but I couldn’t tell you a single thing about them outside of it. It’s like they don’t exist outside of those pages- they couldn’t be actual people, if that makes sense (it probably doesn’t, but humor me).

The family dynamic between the Spiers was believable and pretty well-written (says me, who has zero siblings). I liked how the diversity didn’t feel contrived- just enough information to tell you that Abby and Bram were black, Nick was Jewish, Blue was half-Jewish, amongst others (funnily enough, when I first read it, I thought the exact opposite). The dialogue between characters felt pretty natural, too.

In conclusion: was Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda a perfect LGBTQ+ novel? I’ve read objectively better works on Ao3 (seriously, those of you who look down on fanfiction are missing out on some quality stuff), but it’s a pretty standard Wattpad-worthy story. It has its issues, and it’s far from the best thing I’ve ever read, and it’s not going on my favorites list anytime soon. You’re not missing out on anything if you choose to not read it, I can guarantee you that. But it’s a decently fun read, and perfect if you want something to while away an afternoon- it’s hardly going to take up too many hours to get through.

And would you look at that- I finally managed to write a review without a single spoiler (admittedly, there’s nothing to spoil outside of Blue’s identity, but let me have this).

#simon vs thsa #Becky Albertalli #love Simon #book review #lgbt fiction #lgbtq #lgbt #lgbt literature #gay #gay fiction #gay books #romcom #young adult #gay teen #teen fiction

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thegreatwhiteferret · 7 years ago

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I Won’t Hesitate No More, I’m Yours

Summary: Bill wants to keep his relationship with Richie a secret from the other Losers. Richie just wants to jump Bill's bones, but he settles for being a sweet boyfriend instead.

A/N: For my Anon who requested Bichie being in a secret relationship, and Richie being a sweet doting boyfriend to show Bill he cares, and Richie smut. Lots of Richie smut. I am sorry that it is late, but I hope you love it!

Obviously NSFW, so it’s under the cut. 💖💖💖

Richie was jumping out of his skin. He had officially had Bill all to himself for three weeks and he couldn’t tell anyone. Bill fucking Denbrough. The stud among mere mortals. Baseball star and all around average everyday superhero. He had also been Richie’s best friend since they were in Kindergarten, and Richie had had a crush on him for almost as long. They were now seniors in high school and Bill was all his.

Obviously Richie absolutely adores Bill, which makes restraining himself around the others an absolute fucking nightmare. He understands why Bill is apprehensive about telling them. Richie has known that he’s gay since he was in elementary school. He thought George Michael was pretty when all of the other boys were fawning over Madonna. It wasn’t that hard to figure out. Bill was different. He was straight laced, had dated Beverly for a while and then had a few other sweet girlfriends, emphasis on the girl. Richie had been shocked when Bill had hauled him up in his arms and kissed him for the first time, so he can only imagine how the other Losers would react when they found out that not only was Bill not straight, but that he had a thing for none other than Richie Tozier.

He understands. He really does. That doesn’t stop him from wanting to hold Bill’s hand in the hallway. Or wrap his arms around him at random times, or kiss him in public. He really just wants any form of physical affection. He craves it.

Richie knows that he has to be patient. That Bill will come around to coming out. He can handle the waiting for physical affection in public, but that doesn’t mean that he can’t be a super sweet and caring boyfriend in other ways.

The Losers usually attend Bill and Stan’s baseball games as a group. They do the same with Mike’s football games in the fall. They are a family and support each other as much as possible. It’s not unusual to find Richie sitting on the metal bleachers while the Varsity Derry Baseball team is playing. It is however unusual that rather than making lewd jokes and chain smoking with Bev, Richie is one hundred percent focused on the game in front of him. He cheers unironically, even though he has to ask Mike about the proper terminology and to explain what some of the calls on the field mean, because that guy’s foot was totally on the base first, how can he be out? He cheers for Stan when he throws a good pitch, and complements Bill on his powerful throwdowns to second base. He also really loves seeing his boyfriend’s ass when he’s squating down in his catcher’s position. Richie damn near loses his mind when Bill hits a grand slam and cements Derry’s win over West Lake. Ben and Mike cheer along with him, but Bev and Eddie think that there is seriously something wrong going on.

“Rich, are you feeling alright?” Bev asks, pulling him aside while the other Losers walk down to the dugout to wait for Stan and Bill.

“Yeah, Bev. I’m fine. Just feeling in touch with my school spirit and the good old American pastime today.” Richie gives her a big goofy smile, and she playfully punches him in the arm. They rough house as they walk over to meet the others, laughing the whole way.

“W-what’s so f-funny?” Bill asks, a wide smile etched on his face, positively glowing from the victory.

“Nothing much, just telling this one that I think I have come around to liking baseball.” Richie winks at Bev who dramatically rolls her eyes. “Hey, congratulations though Big Bill, and Stan the Man of course. You were on fire out there.” He is thankful that he threw Stan in there instead of all of his focus being on Bill. He’s got to keep his cover.

“Y-you like b-baseball? As m-more than a t-time to goof o-off with B-bev?” Bill raises his eyebrows in question, wondering what his boyfriend was up to. Richie slowly nods, sweet smile on his face. Bill is shook. “M-maybe we c-could go to the b-batting cages l-later? You c-could show m-me your s-swing.”

“That could be fun. I’d like to mess around with some balls.” He deadpans, and Bill almost chokes on his saliva.

“Okay, what the fuck is this? Invasion of the Body Snatchers?!?” Eddie squawks. He snaps his fingers in front of Richie’s face. “Richie? Richie, is that you in there? Blink twice if your brain is being held captive by some alien race.” It’s Richie’s turn to roll his eyes, and they head to Mike’s truck. Bill and Richie sit in the bed, and Bill lets him rest his head on his shoulder as they ride to the diner for shakes and burgers.

He counts it as a win, and later on Bill drags him back to the batting cages and they make out for a long time. Richie’s legs wrapped around Bill’s waist and back pressed into the metal fencing. Richie leaves with messy hair, kiss swollen lips, and a few seriously impressive hickies on his neck. Bill looks just as disheveled and that’s a win too.

At lunch the next day he makes sure to save the seat next to him for Bill. It irritates Eddie who usually sits there, but Richie claims it’s so Bill can proofread his essay for English while he checks over Bill’s Trigonometry homework. Eddie finally relents, and Bill smiles when he sees that the seat is open for him. They help each other with their work and bump their elbows together, loving the contact, even if it’s small. Bill splits his giant chocolate chip cookie with Richie too, which definitely means that this is love.

Richie is incredibly advanced and intelligent when it comes to both science and mathematics. He loves the concrete formulas that aren’t subjective. Bill does not love these subjects as much, he excels in the humanities courses. Richie checks over his homework and corrects it for him when he needs Bill’s help with an English assignment, but Bill thinks that he needs some actual tutorials. He mentions this when they are all working on homework in the library one day.

“I can help!” Richie volunteers immediately, drawing more eyebrow raises. He’s not known for volunteering to assist with other people’s problems very frequently. “What? I like math. It makes sense.” He says shaking his head.

“I would really appreciate that, Rich. I can help you with something for your Lit class in return if you’d like.” Bill offers.

“I think I’m squared away with that right now. Mrs. Jenson has finally given up on the Shakespeare crap and come to the more contemporary side. I’m sure we can figure something else out that I need help with, but I’m genuinely good with just tutoring you.” Richie is flipping through his physics notes so he doesn’t see the looks from the other Losers, Bill shrugs his shoulders in response to them, acting like he doesn’t know the motivation behind Richie’s offer. He just figures that Richie is being nice, they’re all a family he would do it for any one of them.

Richie ends up staying the night at the Denbrough house, because it is so late when he has finally managed to drill Soh Cah Toa into his boyfriend’s brain. Richie is flopped with his face in one of Bill’s pillows when the other boy comes back from getting ready for bed in the bathroom. He smells like minty toothpaste and face wash and clean laundry, and Richie flips over so he can look at Bill when he comes over to the bed.

“D-do you w-want to borrow a s-shirt and p-paj-pajama pants?” He asks already pulling a shirt out of his dresser.

“Just the shirt, Billy. I can sleep in my boxers if that’s okay. I don’t want to add to your laundry.” Bill nods, throwing the shirt to him and sliding into bed. Richie doesn’t bother going to the bathroom to change. He unbuckles his belt and jeans and slides them off of his legs. His boxers are black and red plaid like a lumberjack, and he loves them. He slides his flannel off and then his t-shirt. He can feel Bill’s eyes raking over his body from where he’s lying behind him. “Like what you see, Denbrough?” He asks, and turns to wink before sliding Bill’s way too big t-shirt over his head. Bill blushes.

“S-so. I think I k-know how I c-could make it u-up to you. It d-did take y-you a long t-time to help m-me.” Richie cocks an eyebrow at him, he was serious when he said that it wasn’t a problem at all.

“Bill. I don’t need you to make it up to me. I got to spend time working on my favorite subject with my favorite person. I’m good. It was no trouble.” Richie shrugs, but Bill looks pensive, like he’s trying to put words together.

“C-can...can I b-blow y-you?” Bill looks up at him through his eyelashes and Richie could have busted a nut right then and there.

“Whaaaat? Bill are you serious? We’ve never done that before, you’ve definitely never done that before period. You really don’t have to.” He rambles, but Bill is already pulling the covers off of Richie’s hips and working his boxers down. Richie is already getting hard, he strokes himself a few times to get his dick the rest of the way there, Bill watches the whole time. “I’m serious Bill, you really don’t have to.”

“I w-want to t-try.” Richie nods and props his head up as Bill leans forward. The first swipe of his tongue is tentative. Careful. He brings his hand up and begins jerking Richie off a bit, they’ve done this before a few times. They usually stick to making out, but Bill gets handsy when he’s had a bit to drink, and Richie just really likes making the taller boy cum..

Bill slides the head of Richie’s dick in his mouth, tonguing the underside a little, and then slides his mouth down Richie’s length. He can’t take him in all the way, but the wet heat of Bill’s mouth and the twisting pleasure of his hand jerking what he can’t take has Richie spiraling. He bites his fist so that he doesn’t moan out too loud, and let’s the pleasure take over his body. It might be Bill’s first time giving a blow job, but it is breathtakingly amazing. Richie can feel his orgasm building and he taps Bill on the shoulder.

“B-Bill. I’m gonna cum, you need to pull off.” He moans, but Bill stubbornly keeps him in his mouth. He can’t hold on any longer and then he’s cumming into the heat of Bill’s mouth. Bill sputters, choking on the abundance of jizz, and Richie feels awful. “Oh my God, Bill are you okay? I should have insisted that I pulled out.”

“I-it’s o-okay.” Bill coughs out, “It w-was just a-alot.” Richie blushes. And ducks his head down a bit. “W-was it okay f-for you?” Bill asks sheepishly.

“Fucking. Amazing. You’re a Goddamn natural, Denbrough.” He pecks Bill on the cheek. “Did you want me to return the favor?” Bill nods frantically, and Richie gets to work.

Pizza is one of Richie’s most favorite things in the entire world. Particularly pepperoni pizza. He could definitely eat a whole pie by himself. The Losers usually cut him off at four slices until everyone else is done eating. They’re all in Ben’s basement watching a movie on VHS, lounging around and eating pizza. Bill’s mom calls, and he has to run upstairs to make sure that it’s not anything important before he gets to have a single bite of pizza. Richie notices that there is only one piece of pepperoni left, he brings the box with him over to where he and Bill were sitting but doesn’t open the box. This time it’s Ben that questions him.

“Are you planning on eating that Richie, or are you just going to stare at it?” He asks, taking a bite out of a piece of cheese.

“Oh. No. It’s not for me. Bill’s favorite is pepperoni and there’s only one piece left. I figured that I would save it for him since he hasn’t gotten any.” Richie shrugged, distracted by the images on the screen.

“You’re saving a piece of you favorite food for Bill?” Mike asks slowly. It’s another very uncharacteristic thing for Richie to do.

“Yup.” He pops the ‘p’. Bill comes back down a few minutes later looking flushed. He slides two pieces of plain cheese on his plate before sitting down next to Richie.

“W-what’s this?” He asks, motioning to the pizza box next to Richie. Richie snaps out of his daze to answer.

“There was only one piece of pepperoni pizza left and I know how much you love it so I saved it for you.” By the look on Bill’s face you would have thought that Richie had just handed him the most precious thing in the world.

“Y-you save m-me the last p-piece?” Richie nods in response, why is everyone making such a big deal out of this. “Y-you are s-something else, R-Rich.” Bill smirks, and Richie feels warm and fuzzy about it inside. They don’t talk about it for the rest of the night.

Something is going on with Richie, Bill knows that the others are picking up on it too, he’s being so sweet. Bill’s never seen this side to Richie. He’s being more helpful to everyone, he’s more pleasant to be around, it’s been a big change since they...well since they started dating in secret. Bill knows that it has something to do with it, but decides that he needs to ask Richie to be sure.

They’re over at Richie’s house, his parents aren’t home, they’re never home but this time it’s been longer since the last time they were. Richie didn’t want to be in the house alone so he asked Bill to come over, Bill happily agreed hoping to get to talk some things out with the other boy. They’re sitting on Richie’s bed listening to music when Bill can’t take it anymore.

“H-hey Rich?” His boyfriend looks up from his notebook and waits for Bill to continue. “W-why have y-you been b-being so….s-sweet?”

“What do you mean, Bill. I’m not being sweet. Why are you and the others acting so weird. I can be considerate.” Bill raises his eyebrow, a universal sign to cut the bullshit. “Fiiiiiiiiiiiine, I guess i just like doing things for you. I can’t exactly jump your bones in public, on account of you wanting to keep our relationship a secret, but I still want to show you that I care...that I…” He drifts off, eyes wide, catching what he was about to say.

“T-that you w-what?” Bill inquiries, he’s not going to let Richie get away with cutting that thought short.

“That I...that I…” He’s stumbling over his words. “Ugh. Fuck you, Debrough! That I love you! There I said it, are you happy? I love you.”

“I l-love you t-too, Richie.” A grand smiles comes across Bill’s face. “C-can I s-show you?”

Richie nods. He’s been dreaming of this moment for twelve years. Bill closes the distance between them and presses a sweet kiss to Richie’s lips. Richie really leans into it, he wants everything that Bill has to offer. Bill swipes his tongue across Richie’s lower lip, asking permission, and Richie happily grants it to him. They fall back on Richie’s bed, Bill slots himself between Richie’s legs and lifts them so that his pelvis is pressing right into the crease of Richie’s ass. Richie can feel how hard Bill is through his jeans already, and he moans into the kiss at the thought. Bill reaches down and palms the bulge in his boyfriend’s pants. Richie feels tingly all over.

“Less clothes now!” He mutters out and Bill leans back enough to begin unbuttoning Richie’s jeans. Richie wiggles his hips so that Bill can pull them down, and then he kicks them off. Richie is tenting in his boxers, and he would probably be more embarrassed about it, but Bill is licking his lips just looking at it. Bill hooks his fingers in the bands of the boxers and pulls them down. He scrunches Richie’s shirt up until Richie gets the hint and pulls it off. He’s completely naked on his bed, legs spread and lifted to his chest, presenting his leaking hard cock and tight pink hole while his boyfriend stares hungrily at him. “You too Billy, you can’t fuck me with your clothes on.” Richie’s mind is tingling, his filter gone, and Bill groans at the bluntness of his words. He stands up from the bed and pulls his shirt over his head. Richie really wants to run his hands up and down Bill’s abs. He then undoes his own jeans, pushing them and his boxer briefs down. Richie’s eyes get really wide, he’s seen Bill naked before, but never like this, never with the possibility of Bill actually fucking him lingering in the air. Bill looks like a fucking Adonis, He’s all lean muscle, and so tall. Richie thinks that Bill standing there naked looking at him, is just about the most beautiful and perfect thing that he’s ever seen.

“G-god Richie. Y-you look so g-good.” Bill says, moving back to the bed. He’s back between his legs, this time when he presses his groin into Richie’s ass, Richie can feel his dick pressing between his cheeks. “What d-do you w-want, Baby?” Bill is less experienced in this field. Richie is the first man that he’s ever been with, he’s enjoyed the learning curve so far, but he’s terrified that he will do something wrong and hurt Richie.

“Gah, Bill. Can we...can we 69?” It’s the only time in his life that he has ever been completely serious while talking about that number. “And then, Billy, I want you to fuck me. I want you to fuck me so hard that I feel your huge cock for days.” Richie is whining. He wants everything all at once. Bill nods, he wants it too. He moves so that his hips and cock are hovering over Richie’s mouth and he’s positioned to take Richie’s dick in his own mouth. Bill makes the first move, he licks a stripe up the side of Richie’s cock, then swirls his tongue in the slit, collecting the beads of precum and moaning at the taste, then he’s taking Richie in, encasing his cock in wet heat. He pushes down until the head is hitting the back of his throat. Richie groans, and grabs handfuls of Bill’s ass. He uses this grip to lift himself up and slide Bill’s dick into his mouth. It takes a few tries for him to get warmed up enough for him to take his massive dick all the way in, but when he allows Bill to thrust down enough to slide into his throat slightly he’s rewarded with godly sounds. They pull each other apart with their mouths. Bill rolls Richie’s balls in his hand, and Richie thinks he will come immediately if they didn't stop. The student has obviously surpassed the master. “Baby, if we don’t stop, I’m going to cum and I won’t get your dick in my ass.” Bill pulls off with a slurp and moves off of Richie.

“D-do you h-have stuff?” Bill asks, face flushed from the previous activity, the flush is spreading down his chest and Richie can see that his cock is red too, painfully hard and ready to fuck until release. Richie nods and pulls a small tube of lube out of his drawer, he stops and looks at Bill.

“Do you want to use a condom?” He bites his lip, he’s nervous. There’s just so much that they haven’t discussed, but he’s been waiting for so long for this, he doesn’t want to wait to have sex until they’ve had those conversations.

“I...I uh. I d-don’t know. D-do you?” Bill’s priority is Richie’s comfort, and he doesn’t know what to say.

“I want to feel you. All of you. I trust you, Bill. I love you.” Bill nods in agreement.

“I l-love you t-too, Rich. I w-want to make y-you feel so g-good.” Bill pulls Richie in for another kiss. Richie hands Bill the tube of lube and then flips over so that he’s on his knees and elbows, sticking his ass in the air.

“You’ve got to stretch me out good, Big Bill. That cock of yours is massive, I can’t take it without prep.” Richie glances over his shoulder, and sees Bill gripping the base of his dick with his eyes shut tightly. Richie giggles, and Bill is not amused.

Bill lubes up his fingers, and kneels on the bed with Richie’s ass right in front of him. He runs his fingers down Richie’s back to the top crease of his ass, he watches in aw as Richie’s tiny hole flutters at the sensation. Bill doesn’t know what comes over him, but he leans forward and licks a stripe right across Richie’s hole.

“Holy fuck, ahhhh, Bill, yes.” Richie cries out in pleasure and Bill does it again, letting the tip of his tongue enter the hole in a teasing way. Richie moans out again and Bill pulls back and circles the hole with his index finger, rubbing Richie’s ass cheek with his hand soothingly as he pushes in to his first knuckle. “Gahhh. Mmmm.” Richie thrusts back, taking the rest of Bill’s finger in. Bill laughs at Richie’s eagerness. “I swear to God Bill if you don’t start moving your fingers…” Bill starts thrusting his finger in and out, shutting Richie up. If only he had known years ago that it could be so easy. When Richie is getting really into it he adds another finger. Spreading them apart and loving the sounds he’s pulling out of his boyfriend. He rubs his finger tips on Richie’s walls until he finds the spot that has his back arching and curses tumbling out of his mouth. “Yes, Bill, yes, Jesus fuck. Fuck me. I’m ready. Stick that fat cock on meeeeeeeee.” He half whines, half moans.

Bill pours a generous amount of lube on his cock and spreads it around, groaning at the feeling of his own hand touching his sensitive dick. He flips Richie so he’s on his back.

“I w-want to s-see you.” He says bashfully, but Richie is giving him the biggest smile. He helps Richie hook his legs over his shoulders,leaving his hole wide open for Bill and presses the blunt head of his cock against it. Richie moans at the pressure, and then Bill is slowly inching in. He has to screw his eyes shut, the tight heat better than anything he had ever felt in his life. “H-holy shit, R-richie. You f-feel so g-ggod, you’re s-so t-tight.”

“Mmmmm, you fill me up so good, Big Bill.” Bill growls at the nickname and slowly pulls his dick out of Richie and then slams his hips forward. Richie’s eyes damn near roll back in his head. Bill starts gaining more confidence and momentum, rolling his hips into Richie’s ass repeatedly. “Fuck yes, ugh, yes, fuck ugh. Harder, Bill. Oh my God.”

Bill is getting close, Richie is absolutely mesmerizing. He reaches a hand in between them and gets Richie’s cock in his hand, stroking in time with his thrusts. It takes less than ten tugs for Richie to tumble over the edge with a shout of Bill’s name, tingles taking over his whole body. As soon as Richie clenches around Bill’s dick his cumming too, pumping his load deep inside Richie, only stilling his hips when he’s completely spent. He pulls out carefully, still worried about hurting Richie. The other boy immediately makes grabby arms and Bill folds himself into them.

“W-was that o-okay?” Bill asks, feeling incredibly self conscious. He hopes that he was good enough for Richie.

“Okay? Bill, that was fucking amazing. You are fucking amazing. Like a sex God I swear, and you don’t even try!” Richie squawks.

“Y-you’re fucking a-amazing.” Bill says from where his face is tucked into the crook of Richie’s neck. “Y-you’re the s-sex God.” Richie laughs, and it’s a beautiful sound, one of Bill’s favorites.

“You’re only saying that because I just let you totally wreck my ass. I’m going to be so sore tomorrow.” Bill frowns, and Richie immediately calls him on it. “Oh hush. I wouldn’t trade the feeling for anything. I love you William Denbrough.”

“I l-love you t-too, Richard T-Tozier.” Bill smiles at him and kisses him again. He wants this forever, wishes that he had admitted his feeling to himself much sooner. There’s only one thing left to do. “H-hey Richie...w-what do y-you think about t-telling the o-others?”

“Really?” Richie’s eyes are wide, searching for some hint on Bill’s face that he’s joking or still has reservations, but Bill just nods. Richie attacks him with more kisses. They don’t have to keep it a secret anymore. Bill pulls away, and looks Richie right in the eye.

“I’m y-yours. I w-want the w-whole world t-to know.”

#Bichie #IT Movie 2017 #Stephen King's IT #Bill Denbrough #Richie Tozier #Eddie Kaspbrak #Mike Hanlon #Ben Hanscom #Beverly Marsh #Stanley Uris #Stan Uris #Smut #Slash

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bronzeflower · 7 years ago

Text

Who The Fuck Writes A Ten-Page Rant?????

Chapter 12: Two Future Visits???

Also on ao3

-- apocalypseArisen [AA] began trolling turntechGodhead [TG] --

AA: dave!!! AA: youll never guess what just happened!!!

TG: yo ara lay it on me TG: if you say ill never guess then i guess ill never guess but youve piqued my curiosity here and ive absolutely got to know what you want to tell me TG: although presumably youre going to tell me regardless of whether or not i actually guess

AA: you would be correct

TG: ara im dying TG: i need to know this sweet ass thing that just happened TG: i might die if i dont find out soon TG: there i go TG: on my deathbed TG: struggling for breath and doing my goddamn best to make words come out of my mouth TG: and you of all people know exactly how much i talk TG: holy shit that last moment at my death i can barely speak TG: but i manage it just enough to say my last words TG: put a whoopie cushion on dirks seat at my funeral TG: everyones in tears TG: the most perfect last words

AA: alright! ill tell you!!! AA: sollux proposed to me!!!

TG: holy shit!!! TG: thats fantastic!!!! TG: what do people do when someone proposes TG: do we celebrate TG: should we celebrate TG: that certainly seems like something worth celebrating TG: should we have a party TG: just TG: holy fuck TG: when did he propose how did he propose TG: lay all the deets on me

AA: so remember when i told you he had something he was working on that he couldnt show me because it was a surprise for me AA: it turns out that it was a video game AA: it was really cute and sweet and it was a game about finding fossils AA: it was at the very end when the fossils spelled out will you marry me AA: and thats how sollux proposed to me!

TG: thats absolutely adorable oh my god TG: i dont think i can handle this cuteness TG: satisfaction may have brought me back the the cuteness killed me again

AA: dave! AA: you cant die yet!

TG: well i wasnt planning on dying quite yet because i still have shit to do TG: and if i died i would start wandering the world as a ghost because i had unfinished business TG: youll have to burn my body TG: or put it in a museum TG: that would be kick ass TG: thats where i want my bones to be when i die TG: ill make a museum and then all the little kids will be able to see the creators bones scattered about in a glass case TG: it will even have my shades on my skull TG: and the kids will go TG: woah thats one sick ass skull what a cool dude

AA: the coolest AA: but i wanted to tell you that im coming into town for the wedding! AA: im going to take some time off of work so that i can have a proper wedding with all my friends and stuff

TG: !!!! TG: holy shit!!!!! TG: what are we going to die i have no idea TG: i just i havent seen you in person in so fucking long TG: oh my god TG: aradia im so excited holy shit!!!!

AA: im also very excited!!! AA: however the wedding is going to take a while to plan and i will still be working during that time so im not coming for a few months AA: i just wanted to tell you that i will be there eventually

TG: i honestly cant wait

AA: i cant wait either AA: i do have to go now AA: afterall my work is never done AA: i will troll you when i have some free time <>

TG: sounds great <>

-- apocalypseArisen [AA] ceased trolling turntechGodhead [TG] --

You wonder who you gush to first about the news.

-- turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering tentacleTherapist [TT] --

TG: rose rose rose rose rose rose rose TG: guess what

TT: Did you perhaps learn how to use punctuation?

TG: no and your girlfriend didnt either

TT: That’s cold, Dave. That’s really cold. TT: But, please, do tell this secret that you have been withholding from me for so long.

TG: aras gettin married to sollux!!!! TG: isnt that fucking some fucking fantastic shit TG: like holy shit my moirail is getting married

TT: Your moirail?

TG: its a recent development TG: anyway shes getting married and shes coming to town in a few months and rose TG: rose TG: im so fucking excited rose like holy shit TG: i havent seen ara in ages and now shes getting married TG: im just so fucking happy for her

TT: I’m happy for her as well. TT: Please, tell her congratulations for me. TT: Who’s she getting married to?

TG: shes getting married to her boyfriend of like five years i think TG: i know theyve been dating for a while but i dont really know exactly how long who knows TG: but his name is sollux and i dont really know much about him outside what aras told me but he seems like a pretty cool dude TG: and i trust her judgement anyways

TT: Be sure to give her my congratulations.

TG: ill be sure to do that TG: now if youll excuse me im gonna tell literally everyone about this

-- turntechGodhead [TG] ceased pestering tentacleTherapist [TT] --

-- turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering gardenGnostic [GG] --

TG: jade youll never guess

GG: im going to take a wild guess and say that someones getting married!

TG: holy shit i guess you did guess TG: never mind then

GG: no! GG: dont go! GG: i dont know the details yet!

TG: well if you insist TG: shes getting married to sollux who ive never actually met but he seems like a pretty cool dude from what ive heard from him TG: and shes coming to town in the next few months after planning the wedding and finishing up the job she has right now TG: and so well get to see her!!!! TG: jade ill get to see aradia!!! TG: holy shit you might actually become friends!!!

GG: !!!! GG: i cant wait!!!!!!

TG: anyway ive got to relay the news to john now TG: hes the last to know

GG: i wont spoil the surprise for him GG: but if you wait to too long rose might!

TG: oh shit youre absolutely right TG: i gots to go TG: be sure to tell me about those cars youre working on later k cause they seem cool as shit

GG: will do!

-- turntechGodhead [TG] ceased pestering gardenGnostic [GG] --

-- turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering ectoBiologist [EB] --

TG: john TG: john TG: john TG: hey there johnny boy

EB: i’ll listen to whatever you have to say, dave, but you have to promise to never call me “johnny boy” ever again.

TG: alright alright i promise TG: but i also promise that what im going to tell you is going to blow your fucking mind

EB: try me.

TG: aras getting married!!!

EB: what! EB: holy shit, dude! EB: god, i haven’t even talked to her in such a long time. EB: and now i’m hearing that she’s getting married? EB: just, wow.

TG: yeah i know right TG: shits groovy

EB: did you really just use the word “groovy” in a completely unironic context, dave?

TG: yes TG: ive moved passed liking things ironically egbert TG: you got to enjoy things as they come and let no one shame you for liking them

EB: that’s some solid advice, my dude

TG: anytime

-- turntechGodhead [TG] ceased pestering ectoBiologist [EB] --

Welp, you’ve messaged your main best friends about the wedding, and you’ve mostly got the excitement out of your system, at least until Aradia gives you more details about the planning of her wedding, and you're also going to assume that Aradia is going to message her other friends about the wedding.

Might as well do some work, and, by that, you mean it’s time to review some stuff that you may or may not have been procrastinating reviewing. But it’s time to take action! Make yourself a better person and stuff like that. One destruction of the thing you’re supposed to be doing at a time.

“Now, everyone wants to know how well these nail polishes work, and I am clearly the person to go to if you want to know about nail polishes because I paint my nails all the time, which you would see if you’ve watched my other videos.”

You make a mental note to put photos of your clearly not painted nails over the screen during the editing process.

You first start out doing what you always do in your videos, which is describe the object you’re reviewing in great detail.

“Okay, so this nail polish is kind of liquidy, like all nail polishes I’ve seen are, and this one that I’m holding is a blue one. Like, a blue that’s one of the prettiest blues you’ve ever seen, like the feeling when it’s slightly rainy outside, and you’ve got all your work done, so you’re just sitting there, listening to the soft rain, holding your favorite warm beverage and a feeling of calm washes over you, and everything is okay. You know. Like that.”

You turn the nail polish bottle around to see what else you could describe.

“There also seems to be bits of glitter hanging around in there. They look silvery like the sound of rain. Or the sound of a coin clanking against the ground. Mmmm, no, that would be a gold color, so let’s stick with the sound of rain.”

You then describe the bottle the nail polish is in, including what the font looks like and the color of the lid (white).

“I do have these other colors that came in the set, so I have a total of five. One for each finger. All of them have the same silver glitter as the blue one so that you know that they are from the same set or brand or whatever.

“The other colors are green, red, pink, and orange. Honestly, they could have gone for the complete rainbow, but they didn’t because they’re cowards. Where’s my yellow? My purple? With the colors they gave me, I can’t do the full gay rainbow. How are people supposed to know how bi I am without purple?

“Anyway, let’s get to describing each of these colors. This green- like a grassy meadow. It’s the smell of flowers, but then you sneeze because you’re allergic to pollen.” You pick up the green polish and hold it up so the viewers could see it. Then you put down the green polish to pick up the red one.

“The red is firey, and it’s probably my favorite out of these colors. It looks like someone shouting encouraging words at you but in an aggressive way, so you’re not really sure if they’re insulting you or not. Spoilers, they’re insulting you while telling you how much they love you because they can’t let anybody know they’re emotionally vulnerable.”

You then pick up the pink nail polish.

“And the pink- prettiest fucking pink you’ll ever see. Like a song that makes your heart thump and burn from thinking about the one you love, you know? Kind of also makes me think of cookies. Like, sugar cookies, especially the ones shaped like hearts. It’s a very lovey-dovey sort of color.”

And then, at long last, you pick up the orange polish and gazed at it.

“And, finally, we have this orange polish. Now, it looks exactly like an orange smells like. Or like salty orange juice. Why would you put salt in your orange juice? A prank? That’s the only conceivable reason I can think of, but I’m not here to judge people for their eating or drinking habits. But, now that we’ve looked carefully at all these polishes, it’s time to actually get to the painting part.”

You open the orange polish because you were already holding it, and you examine the consistency of the nail polish.

“Yep, that’s nail polish alright. Let’s put that shit on our nails and see what happens.”

You proceed to messily paint your nails. There’s nail polish everywhere. You somehow get nail polish on your face. You have no idea what happened. You look later- there’s nail polish on your foot. You don’t know how it got there.

You do, in fact, manage to paint all your nails, however messy the end result ended up being, so you are proud of yourself for managing to do that much.

After recording the video and making sure you actually recorded all that, you uploaded the footage and decided to edit it later.

After an hour or so of scrolling through mindless memes, you get a message on pesterchum.

-- tipsyGnostalgic [TG] began pestering turntechGodhead [TG] --

TG: guess who the FUCK is comign to town next week TG: *coming TG: that’s right TG: me TG: ur fav sis

TG: oh shit this is fantastic TG: dont tell rose that youre my favorite sister though TG: i would never hear the end of it

TG: ur secret is safe with me TG: *wonk* TG: anyway TG: i was just here to tell you that. TG: dont be a stranger

-- tipsyGnostalgic [TG] ceased pestering turntechGodhead [TG] --

Holy fucking shit. You can’t believe you got news of some of your favorite people coming to visit in the same day. Granted, they weren’t arriving in the same time period, but still.

You can’t believe Roxy is coming next week!! You are so ready to spend time with Roxy. It’s going to be a blast.

#davekat #dave strider #aradave #arasol #aradia megido #john egbert #rose lalonde #jade harley #roxy lalonde #homestuck #hs #pesterlogs

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the-questionmark-kid · 8 years ago

Text

Once Upon A Fuckin Time

Probably gonna post about it now, so if you dont’ want to see this awful thing, just blacklist ‘ouat’ or ‘happy beginnings’ (i’m trash i am actual trash dear fucking god)

I finally finished this hell show and I’ve got a lot of thoughts so yes there’s spoilers this entire post is spoilers i’m so angry-

Alright in all honesty, I truly unironically enjoyed watching Once Upon A Time. The idea is wonderful, it’s everything a younger me would have wanted; fairytales existing in the ‘real’ world, their memories locked away until a fated day, magic existing all around us if only we know where to look. I love it. So many of the characters enchanted me, whether because of their strength, their intelligence, their kindness, or their cunning. The plot WAS interesting, for a time, some arcs better than others, some storylines falling flat while others reignited my interest in the show as a whole. But there was a lot of unnecessary mucking around in some ways, I feel.

So to start, let me just say I began watching this show last year, it’s literally been over a year since I began this due to my fucked up attention span and work and sleep schedule and personal projects. So my memory of the storyline has always been a little disjointed. However: I did just marathon the last two goddamn seasons so I remember everything with near perfect clarity (aaaand I needed to watch some happy Rumbelle scenes so I went back over those episodes). And there are things I have issues with that like…aren’t even just my opinions, they’re just structurally bad for the series? I suppose that’s still an opinion, but I’m quite positive they’re opinions shared by many.

Now my biggest issue is honestly with how the writers handled Rumpelstiltskin, he himself but also his relationship with Belle, his sons, and his overarching destiny. But that doesn’t truly bother me that much until probably the middle of season 5 (that’s a lie, but this is how I’ll present the argument. I guess.), so we’ll skip that for now. First, I want to talk about the AMAZING opportunity they had to work with “the Moms” and how they threw it into the gutter:

1) Emma and Hook -Okay just….what the fuck. What was the Point. Captain Hook was one of my favorite villains as a kid, and honestly I was on board with this scrappy pirate and Rumple being the bane of each other’s existence. I enjoyed the feud for a little while, and the Emma not being swayed by Hook’s ridiculous attempts at flirting was a refreshing reminder of her true purpose in the show: she is the Savior. She has more important things to worry about than a romance. -Hook’s purpose was… Frankly, he felt expendable during the last two seasons, and when he died, I was thankful that arc was finally over. But beyond his practical uselessness, having to move on from Hook would have been very good for Emma, for reasons I was going to explain but I’m too fired up to get into right now. Point is, Hook’s presence stopped meaning anything beyond giving Emma her boy toy love interest. Given the fact that it’s a show about fairytales, okay whatever, that’s fine, but Emma is SUCH a badass! I actually LIKE this character! But by season 5, by the time Emma is as fallible as she can get as the Dark One*…most of her reasons for doing things are because of Hook. And frankly? That’s boring. Even Snow and Charming**, with their constant sleeping curses and “I will always find you” lines, still manage to be more engaging and keep me invested far more than Captain Guyliner trailing after Emma like a lost puppy. -**On that note, can I just express my disappointment over David’s total lack of involvement in Emma’s life until season 5?? It felt like up until that point, David was just a side character that Emma never really spoke to and had barely any desire to be around, which I feel is a real disservice not only to the characters but to the phenomenal acting Josh Dallas provided when he WAS allowed to play as Emma’s father, not just Snow White’s Prince.

2) Regina -I didn’t like Regina until well into the third season, I’ll admit. She was a bad person who did bad things for very little reason, and it didn’t seem like her character was going anywhere. But I’m glad she grew. I actually have very little issue with the overall way her story went; she learned to love herself, which I feel was the most important thing for her to learn. That being said, that business with Robin Hood? Pretty unnecessary. Once again, it felt like a pointless romantic subplot meant to create drama and throw another snag in any potential plot building or character dynamic.

3) Emma and Regina - On that same vein of thought; I didn’t understand why my friend shipped Regina and Emma at first, but I sure as HELL do now. Jesus christ, what a missed opportunity. So much about them becoming a couple makes sense, would bring the series full circle; what could be more ideal than the product of true love, destined to defeat evil, falling in love with the personification of said evil? That is…the whole point of the show, I feel. That love and faith in those you love will always triumph over the darkness in the world. -Having them end up together also reinforces the central theme of family, as well as family found in unlikely places, which I got the sense was extremely important to Regina, Henry, Snow, Charming, Rumple, Baelfire, and Belle in addition to (obviously) Emma. -If Regina were a dude, they would have gotten together. Enough said.

4) Rumple -The series spent a great deal of time setting up Rumpelstiltskin’s tragic backstory, making his rage and his pain and his despair relatable, only each time his redemption seemed at hand, it was ripped away from him one way or another. -As frustrated as I am with Emma’s forced romances, Rumple’s actually make me cringe. Holy shit why are all the witches after the Dark One. Like, it’s not even Gold that they want, it’s literally scaly, deranged, conniving Dark One. And it’s not like Belle, who legitimately wants the man she sees struggling within, the witches are quite literally after the mad dog they see. And I am SO disturbed by this. Cora’s entire life did not need to be dictated by her obsession with a madman. Zelena did not need to be tossed away because she became infatuated with someone incapable of love. And that whole business with the Evil Queen in season 6? When he’s MARRIED? When he’s MARRIED to the woman he ACTUALLY LOVES, the woman he has a SON with???? I am. Actually disgusted with the writers for that cheap little drama. It just seems so incredibly out of character? Especially for how Rumple is in that particular moment when the Evil Queen approaches him. -Forcing Rumple to walk the line between light and dark even after he makes decisions that, for any other character, would be a decisive moment of positive growth. The struggle with the dagger and his ultimate decision to give it to Belle, the loss of his power on numerous accounts and the realization he could be strong without it, pulling Ex-fucking-calibur out of the stone and throwing it away without asking for a single thing in return (an act that only someone with the heart of a true hero could undertake and yet he still reverts completely????), finding out he was predestined to be a fucking SAVIOR. My god. You cannot give someone all of this growth, all of this struggle and positive reinforcement, and then insist he’s still the ultimate form of evil in the world. That’s. Incredibly hypocritical. Even when he’s still technically a villain and Isaac writes him his happy ending, Rumple’s deepest desire is to be seen and revered as a hero; he WANTS to be good, to be admired, to know his wife and son are proud of him. Even during this reality where he never became ‘evil’, he struggles with morality, something no other villain in that alternative story did. I am beyond disgusted by this character’s treatment. -You know what, there’s so much that dissatisfies me about Rumple’s treatment, I might have to rant about it in a different post. I was given a fallible character with an intriguing backstory whose reasons for doing evil were the best of intentions; who when approached with any sort of honest kindness or love, struggles daily with concepts of morality, humility, and selflessness; whose deepest wish is for family and heroism, a place of belonging and deep, unbreakable love; but there was no redemption arc. Correction: there were THREE redemption arcs, and each one of them fell flat for dramatic plot defects that served no purpose but to STOP this delightfully complex character from coming full circle and getting the arc he deserves. -I’m going to be salty for a long. Long time.

#ouat #thatdorianguy #once upon a time #analysis #most of this is rum #rumbelle #snow queen

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hypnoticharlequin · 8 years ago

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Hypnotist Posters (Again!)

I’ve done this once before, but there are so many interesting old hypnotist posters around I couldn’t resist showing off some more I’ve come across.

I covered the Flints in my previous post but I wanted to show this one off. I actually unironically love this poster as it reminds me of Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s works due to the floral pattern and the lush skin tone used on Miss Flint.

What I have found out since the last installment was that Miss Flint was heavily advertised as a solo performer, getting her own posters and other things. According to one source I found, she was famed for her dress collection and women would attend her shows, just to see what dress she was wearing that night!

Also, she had the cutest nickname a hypnotist has ever had. Seriously, “The Little Hypnotic Subeam” is just fantastic and would actually make her stand out amongst her contemporaries who went for much more formal and authoritarian titles.

I think this poster is from the 1890s. At least that is the date I see linked to this poster when it is mentioned and the art style sort of fits that date.

Obviously, the first thing that draws your attention is Kennedy and his pose. Where a lot of hypnotists went for a more intimidating or solid pose, Kennedy seems rather fancy-free.

Also, it’s nice to see the moon from Majora’s Mask getting work. This was one of it’s earlier appearances while it was still young and fresh faced. The people on the moon are pretty cute, I like the woman in the middle, I mean it takes a lot of effort to be having so much fun you almost fall off the moon. This poster seems to fit in with a tradition that saw magicians hanging out with various magical beings on their posters. Seriously, the sheer number of posters that feature magicians just chilling with Satan is pretty mind blowing.

If I could sum this poster up in one sound, it would be never ending screams.

Now, I can’t find much about “The Amazing Ormond” but I do wonder if this is Ormond McGill, better known as Dr. Zomb. He wrote the book “Encyclopedia of Genuine Stage Hypnotism” which is still considered to be the bible of stage hypnosis.

This poster is honestly terrifying. I’m not sure if it’s partially due to the reproduction, old paper stock with a black background is notorious for its inability to scan well. But the black eyes mixed with the uplighting give this a seriously creepy vibe, Ormond’s face having an almost uncanny valley look to it.

But, I can’t deny it worked, I’m not able to go through my folder of hypnosis posters without this one catching my eye. In fact, one of the main reasons I am writing this post is so I can delete this image from my hard drive.

I don’t know why, but this poster reminds me of a perfume ad. I’m not sure if it’s the color palette or Miss Brandon’s slightly wistful look.

Joan Brandon is pretty famous in magic circles for being the first televised female magician. She was famous for combing her magic with orchestra music (played by her own orchestra) and was very well known for her signature trick, a magic cocktail bar (a variation on the Think-A-Drink trick.)

In hypnosis circles, she is most known for her books, The Art of Hypnotism, Successful Hypnotism, The Science of Self-Hypnosis and Help Yourself Thru Hypnotism and Self Hypnosis which are all still good reads even to this day.

The Art Of Hypnotism is also known for its rather amusing photographic illustrations. It’s easy to find online but quite often turns up for a few dollars on eBay or in second-hand bookstores and I thoroughly recommend it.

This poster is one of those I see around a lot and only recently bothered to look into the history of. It’s from 1966 and I always thought it was from later on. This poster looks just so very 60s I really had it down as a later parody of the style as opposed to actually just being of that era.

It actually took me a long time to find out even the most basic things about this guy but Merlin (real name William Joseph Rawle) was from Australia and was Australia’s oldest performing hypnotist.

I want to zoom into the text under Merlin for a moment, as it is rather glorious.

It really is a throwback to older posters to have a description of the acts performed front and center, but compared to some of the older hypnosis posters (which promised utterly insane things) this seems rather restrained. In fact, these are now considered stock hypnotist tricks.

What makes me chuckle is the onion eating trick. It’s done all the time but it always interests me to see which fruit is used as the replacement taste. In the UK it always tended to be an apple, and I’ve seen orange used a bit in the US. I wonder if you could do a chart of “onion taste replacement fruits” arranged by geography.

Being the oldest performing hypnotist, Merlin has several other posters over the years.

This one focuses more on his mind reading as opposed to his hypnotism, but I utterly love the design. It has this almost 3D effect which makes it look like the poster has a few actual physical layers, but I do suspect it might be the issue with scanning black ink rearing it’s ugly head once more.

While the last one was pretty joyous this one is practically metal, with its skulls and very industrial images in the crystal ball.

This poster seems very old school compared to the other two, mostly due to how text-heavy it is. But unlike some posters, the claims all seem pretty normal by today’s standards. The only one that sticks out to me is the one about treating children for nervous complaints while they sleep. All the methods I have seen for this involve just standing and whispering to your child while they sleep because nothing helps the nerves more than an adult looming over your bed whispering at you in the deepest, darkest night.

Virgil and Julie were a big magic act in the 1950s and 1960s taking shows containing a few hundred illusions around the world.

Hypnotism played a part but it was nowhere near the focus of the show, but this poster is something to behold, it really is a mish-mash of everything that was hip in the era. The B-movie Esq UFO and the almost eerie-cutie spacewoman flying around it.

Julie’s costume is very similar to that of the Jeannie from the Tv series I Dream Of Jeannie which debuted in 1965 and went a long way to putting the “harem” costume we know today into the public consciousness.

I want to end on this poster which became quite the rabbit hole for me and I’m frankly not 100% sure I’m correct on all of it.

I had a real good laugh when I saw the Reveer because he looks like every stereotype of a magician and hero cowboy got thrown into a blender. The turban and the Lone Ranger mask just look so silly together.

I also found it funny that his name was close to that of Reveen, the hypnotist famous for his performances in Canada who would have been performing at around this time.

Then I got to digging and found I could find hardly anything on Reveer, apart from some poster seller listing him as Tony Cole, a magician who apparently worked sharpshooting into his magic act which does explain the Lone Ranger mask.

Tony Cole also apparently had posters of his own, but all I can find of them is the following:

And no, Tumblr isn’t going weird, that is the only image I can find of one of his posters. I did, however, turn up a news article on him from 1977 from “The Independent Record from Helena, Montana” advertising a show he was going to do.

As you can see the resembelence is there so I presume this is the same guy.

As an aside, you might realize this picture is totally and utterly unreadable. The place I found it had the plain text of the article, unfortunately, it was made by OCR copying the document and the results are an utter mess.

Some highlights include:

To be able to make someone do what another person desires carl brln^a gleam .into the eyes of ambitious people.

This impression oF hypnotism's power is one of the mast fallacious and dangerous, according to Cole, who when pressed will admit bis lull name is Tony Colo, a hypnotist, magician ami entertainer.

In between all the weird OCR errors, we can see a recurring theme that Tony Cole doesn’t like to use his first name, which means he is the Cole from the latter poster and would explain why he would make a stage character.

M PEOPLE L'NDEH HYPNOSIS won t do anything they wouldn't do normally, " ttie Canadian-born entertainer said In an Interview In Helena.

Cole recalled ihnl a Groat Falls A A W manager had been hypnotized and was told he was Elvis Presley. The man began gyrating and singing, dulng spills and performing in the late-lfloOs style (bat endeared Presley lo the teen set. Cole said. He added that the shy A & W manager would not normally rarry 1 don't think a person has to put someone in an embarrassing situation or use anything smutty or not in clean family fun in order to entertain.

I’m sure we can all agree that Elvis’ late-LfloOs style was by far his best style and one that really became his signature. And all of the teen girls were into Elvis for his pet bat.

He tries, to Tony Cole, a hypnotist, magician and all-around entertainer correct any misconceptions about hypnotism, anri he hypnotizes willing members of the audience.

He tries to himself? Is that some artsy way of saying he tries to be himself?

On his stage, people might shiver In Ihc arctic temperatures he has described or away In Lhc breeze like palm trees.

And his chauffeur and helper, Wayne Adolph, emphatically added In his gravelly voice. "It's real."

I don’t know why that bit made me laugh so hard, but it really did. I’m not sure if it’s the fact the guy is called his “helper” or just the fact he decided to just randomly join the interview.

MORE AND MORE PEOPLE are believing in Ihr authenticity of hypnosis, contends Cole, who has certificates from at least three schools of hypnotism and who has been licensed to leach hypnotism Physicians, dentists, psychiatrists, pollliuUnH, ministers, entertainers, teachers, lawyers, salesmen, atnletes and pilots are among those, who are studying or using hypnosis, Cole said.

Some beneficial uses for which hypnosis Is being sLudled include easing childbirth, treating alcoholism, slopping smokers from Indulging and treating empbysemn and asthma victims to breathe properly.

All of these arc medical uses or hypnosis and "the practitioner must by certified as a hypnolechuician and receive a doctor's prescribed order before he hypnotizes someone. Cole said.

Yes, everyone remember to become certified as a hypnolechuician, that is a very important qualification to have.

But ask him about himself and the answers dissolve in shrugs and evasiveness. He doesn't like to use his first name.

Again, some more information that works with the idea that Cole had a few side characters he played sometimes.

He makes good money at hypnotism and his oilier entertainments as he travels across the country and into Canada.

However, I do not wish to see Mr. Cole’s oilier entertainments.

"I know I have a talent but that talent should he scared. ]f pc0pte |,ave a latent and don't share it they re ripping it elf."

And your guess is as good as mine on this last one.

So there we have it, The Great Reveer, hypnotist and fiction all rolled into one oddly costumed package. I wish I could find more on this as there seems to be an interesting story in here, but unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be any records I can find.

However, if this taught us anything, it’s that if I get bored of hypnosis, I can just turn this into a bad OCR blog.

#hypnosis #hypnotism #stage hypnosis #posters #design #hypnotists #ocr

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caladblog · 8 years ago

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*drags hands down face* ughhhhhh

so.

this whole time i been writing bits & pieces of my SCATHINGLY NITPICKY review of The Black Tapes, really digging the fuck into it, and then i just HAD to go and listen to the season two finale and it just HAAAD to be FUCKING AMAZING, DIDN’T IT. i am so offended. i am so offended!! when the fuck does season three start!!!

continue reading for my full review of The Black Tapes with only minor spoilers, but let me warn you that there is some unfair criticism here. well. i think the criticism itself is fair, but i feel like i make it a bit too harsh, perhaps? at the end of the day i’ve subscribed to the podcast and i count myself a fan, so, think of that what you will.

anyway here goes. it’s long as hell.

i was correct in the prediction that my first stumbling block would go away with time, as the podcast found its feet. if you can’t be assed to click that link, the thing i disliked the most at the beginning of the show was that the episodes were a little disjointed and didn’t end in any kind of satisfying way. it definitely got better on that front throughout season one, and season two was WAY better, with everything starting to weave together.

storywise, i’m definitely intrigued. i think i’ve mentioned before that one of my major #aesthetics is Christianity Sandbox--Good Omens, Something More Than Night, the first five seasons of Supernatural, Lucifox, and to a lesser extent Sleepy Hollow, We Know the Devil, Evil You Know, one of the strips from Subnormality i’m always passing around--i like stuff that gets all up in the bible and starts rearranging the furniture. blame my catholic-agnostic upbringing in the deep south. this shit’s in my bones and it just... resonates.

despite the hardcore christian plotlines, The Black Tapes doesn’t really pull at this thread for me, very much? i think because it’s played straight--god is good, the devil & his minions are the incarnations of pure evil. i vastly prefer when that’s subverted, like in Good Omens & We Know the Devil & Evil You Know where the demons are slightly good or at least chaotic neutral, like in Good Omens & Something More Than Night & Supernatural where the angels are kind of dicks or at least just as manipulative and flawed as anyone else. there are actually several moments in the series where the hardcore christian themes actively rub me the wrong way, mostly whenever christians are positioned as Those Stupid Backwards Superstitious Children while atheists are The Only Ones With The Power Of Reason(TM) but i could write a fucking dissertation on how much this kind of attitude pisses me off, so i’ll leave it there. there were far fewer of those moments in season two and overall strand was slightly less insufferable.

on the subject of dr. strand’s insufferableness, i will state up front that his voice is fucking hot as fuck. it’s a pity about the actual content of his speech. i have had it Up To Here with dudes who are perpetually convinced that they are right about every goddamn thing and therefore they don’t have to observe any basic social graces, and narratives that reward those dudes by making them face ZERO consequences for bad behavior. there was a fucking line in s2 that had alex saying something like ‘dr. strand may seem smug and arrogant, but from a different angle it’s a kind of courage’ and i’m just like no. it’s straight-up fucking arrogance. nothing courageous about it. just the smug douchebaggery of every iteration of That Guy who Knows He Is Right, and You Are Wrong, and the fact that you’re getting emotional is further proof of his Rightness because he is the only one with Cold Logic And Facts on his side.

fuck that guy.

i mean if alex were a nonfictional woman there is NO way she’d be seeking out strand’s opinion on anything, ever, after like the first or second episode. honestly if alex were a nonfictional woman there is no way she wouldn’t have decked him on at least two separate occasions. maybe three.

let’s keep this angry militant feminist train chugging along by pointing out that there isn’t a single recurring female character who doesn’t revolve around a man. alex is supposedly the main character, but when she’s not basking in strand’s insufferableness she’s off being insufferable with nic, whose whole demeanor just kind of vaguely pisses me off. coralee is Strand’s Wife. charlie is Strand’s Daughter. cheryl is Strand’s Sister. amalia, who’s supposed to be alex’s best friend or whatever, spends all her time fucking around with nic. i guess the sleep doctor sort of counts technically, but i can’t imagine her being important to the plot. i seriously only think that one episode out of twenty-four and some supplementals has passed the bechdel test. that’s not the end-all be-all but that is significant in a show with a female main character.

okay i think i’ve exhausted this topic for now. no promises tho

actually one of my major complaints about the show is the way they handle their ads. i am NEVER gonna begrudge a free, independent thing their ads or sponsorships or whatever--bitches gotta eat--but you can put ads on a thing in a competent fucking way, that’s all i ask. right now they’re just. in the random middle of the episode, with no audio cues or anything, read by the same lady who voices the main character, and EVERY SINGLE TIME it breaks my immersion in THE MOST FRUSTRATING WAY. like when you’re watching tv and you come up on a commercial break, there’s usually a frame or two of nothing, and then it switches to something that is totally different in tone & aesthetic to the rest of the show in order to signal This Here Is The Price Of Entertainment, which, y’know, i am willing to pay. if you don’t pay for something in money you pay for it in time and attention. that makes sense. but the way The Black Tapes does it is like, what if joan watson just suddenly turned to the camera and started unironically shilling Office Depot or whatever for five solid minutes, then dropped back into character like nothing happened. that’s obnoxious! ads in general are obnoxious but there are ways to make them less obnoxious and this is the opposite of those ways. jesus. it’s particularly obnoxious because the show is explicitly supposed to be taking place in The Real World(TM) and in The Real World(TM) people don’t usually go off with a repetitive script about stamps dot fucking com in the middle of vital conversations. augh.

back around to positivity. to be completely honest with you, right up until episode 11 of season two i was fully planning to finish up the show, cross it off the list, and let it drop off my radar. that’s how hard the season finale hit it out of the park. i fucking love that kind of twist and i cannot wait to see where they go with it from here. i hope they get their ad situation sorted out a little better in s3, i hope they expand their female characters, i hope they continue softening their Mocking All Believers stance. s2 began in mid-january sooo fingers crossed for some more content soon?

#text posts #the black tapes #caladblog goes bump in the night #caladblog reviews

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avoresmith · 8 years ago

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@bigyepper put metal gear on my dash and I was reminded all I ever want to do is talk about metal gear.

so here are some RANDOM METAL GEAR THOUGHTS/PROBABLY UNPOPULAR OPINIONS BUT WHATEV

spoilers for whole series!!! stop reading if you care about that shit!!!

Eli basically fits the profile of a child soldier. As in, raised from a very young age indoctrinated to a specific world view that encourages violence and strength and loyalty. But not so stupid that he can’t engage with the world outside this view. Rather, when people show him kindness he has been taught to perceive it as either attempted manipulation or disrespect (because it implies he is weak enough to need it). There is no one in thei game remotely equiped to help Eli, and everyone who tries only makes it worse because they think of him as a kid instead of a dangerous enemy combatant (which he absolutely IS and the game TREATS him as such and he treats HIMSELF as such).

This also fits perfectly with what we know of Paz’s background, and while Paz wasn’t really 16, her ‘education’ probably began fairly young (tho older than Eli I would think, she seems to have a better grasp on the potential for a normal life).

So basically. Zero just has a history of raising children to be fucked up murder tools is what I’m saying.

to that end, I kind of think the Las Enfantes Terribles project was Zero tried to create the Perfect Soldier via his manipulation bullshit network, fucked up in some way (or someone deliberately fucked it up, since as seen by Skullface Zero doesn’t actually have eyes on everything), so we get Eli, the Better Twin, raised by the Patriots, and then David just sort of dumped into America, kept track of but not deliberately constructed for a specific purpose.

I’ve never really interacted much with the deeper fandom on MGS tbh, but lately it kind of weirds me out that ‘Otacon is definitely a sexist creeper who co-opts the death of women around him into plot elements for his Big Deal Hero Story’ is not a meme that seems to come out of this fandom. Like. He does this CONSTANTLY, and okay at least with Emma and Naomi we can claim a certain amount of relationship there. Though his obsession with Naomi, who he barely knows, is certainly ALSO creeper behavior. But Wolf?? She gave half a shit about him and his response to her death is to treat it like a hurdle in his personal growth whereupon he is now ready to undergo the Figure Out How To Love Again stage of his personal anime fantasy. It’s creepy as fuck. And yes, it’s not how the narrative is intended to be taken but when did we ever let that stop us? According to the NARRATIVE, Rose is a flawless and caring girlfriend that Raiden is lucky to have (MORE ON THAT LATER). In point of fact Otacon is an entitled weaboo creep who if told Wolf was gay would probably regret having woke up that morning.

WHICH. I am COMPLETELY FINE WITH. It’s good character shit! It fits REALLY WELL with his connection to Huey who is one of the best portrayals of an abuser I’ve ever seen. He grew up with an entitled asshole dad it is no surprise that Otacon, growing up media that ALSO loves to portray and reinforce those entitlements, would also come to see women primarily as actors in the dramatic story of his life.

OKAY ON THE SUBJECT OR ROSE. DO YOU KNOW WHO IS THE BEST? ROSE IS. The girl who got everything she wanted in life with no exceptions! Who was raised by and single handledly manipulated her way out of the thumb of the patriots! Who manipulated her boyfriend into being completely devoted to her, had his son, lied about his death, drove him to alcohol abuse, faked breaking up and moving in with another man. The Patriots have a lot and IMMEDIATE history of stealing babies to manipulate events and she just noped the right fuck out of that and encouraged key players from the sidelines until the bodies that governed her entire life were turned to dust then slid back in with a cute little ‘I lied, =)’ and regained her perfect idyllic family with her hot cyborg badass husband. NAME A SINGLE MGS CHARACTER WHO MORE GOT EVERYTHING THEY EVER WANTED THAN ROSE DID. NO ONE. ROSE GOT EVERYTHING SHE WANTED AND SACRIFICED SHIT (*due to being too crazy to consider the severe psychological harm she did to Raiden as much of a ‘sacrifice’).

Like if Ocelot had dreamed of a happy marriage to a total badass with a kid and a successful career instead of destroying the structures that govern the world to reduce society to a lawless wild west anarchy where his bae would be the biggest badass around, he would basically just have been Rose.

So yea obvs Rose was unironically intended to be a good portrayal of a capable woman in a loving relationship or something. Whatever. I don’t care. Kojima is a sexist trashfire. Correct.

What I’m saying is my love for Rose also makes me want to go down armless and screaming under a beached submarine adorned with the faces of my father figures.

I am STRONGLY of the opinion that Ocelot manipulated Big Boss into abandoning Kaz. In the Truth tapes Ocelot VERY MUCH makes it sound like Kaz is basically aware of and onboard with the general plan, and the ‘plan’ explained to BB is to replace him with a Phantom so he can disappear off of Zero’s radar. So BB has been in a coma for 9 fucking years and when he wakes up the two people most loyal to him in the entire world have been conspiring to do the nearly impossible and make him invisible to the hyper vigilant spy network that manipulates events worldwide. Who the fuck is he to be like ‘nah?’ While ostensibly The Boss, BB has always been heavily guided and influenced by others and fairly amoral. That’s how Kaz was able to manipulate him into starting MSF, even though BB grumbled constantly about having no particular desire to do anything that grandiose. He doesn’t respond heavily to ethics but he responds to empathy (which is why Zero and Kaz use Paz to manipulate him) and REALLY RESPONDS to personal responsibility (why he clings so hard to the Boss but abandons her when he perceives she has abandoned him and all LIKE him, I.E. all of MSF).

So while he is definitely still responsible for Venom, it’s not really any more so than Zero, Ocelot, and Kaz, all of whom knowingly used him.

When Ocelot lights BB’s cigar and sends him off, he has Kaz’s glasses in his pocket ;D He was fully aware Kaz was captured and being tortured and says N O T H I N G, and he KNOWS what effect it would have because he USES IT TO MANIPULATE VENOM. The very fact that this information would motivate Big Boss to save Kaz is pretty undeniable in light of the fact that it is used to manipulate a dude brainwashed into THINKING he’s Big Boss.

What im saying is Ocelot broke up their marriage on purpose and I love him?? Im telling u Ocelot and Rose are soultwins.

I think it is charming that Ocelot likes to pretend that he is not a crazy joyful sadist, but I also like to imagine that he got his reputation as an amazing interrogator by just torturing people for funsies, then pulling out information he already had due to being a super spy.

I headcanon that Kaz’s daughter, Catherine, was an adopted war orphan who he left behind a sizable inheritance of dirty war money which she uses to start an Anti-PMC PMC corp, and fueled by a desire to unravel the war economy her father, if not created, put on a fucking steroids, she funds Raiden in his efforts to murder a shitload of PMC CEOs in Metal Gear Rising 2, the game I will never get because Konami is terrible

#op me #metal gear solid #mgs #musings #I CARE SO MUCH #JUST FOREVER #AND ALWAYS #TOO MANY METAL GEAR FEELIOS #CAN'T LIVE

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