#in other news i have a mild dilemma where when i make stupid posts here that aren’t abt this show i want to tag it like that

[ourflagmeansgayrights]

all my opinions are correct but also if i look at older posts i made on this blog or things i was writing in the tags im like “ehh idk abt this one anymore” and that is because every opinion i have is correct when i have them and when i form a new opinion that new opinion becomes correct. i am never not correct at all times everything i believe is true and thatis because i am incredibly sexy my brain is massive. as is my meat. thank you for coming to my tedx talk

[vtforpedro]

medical update - long post, TWs in tags

my head is as bad as it's been since the beginning of it all. it's been seven months since it's been at this level. nearing the end of my rope here anyway. so the only thing that's keeping me from getting the official IIH diagnosis is a lumbar puncture. I was gonna do one cause my neurosurgeon wanted me to get one and as he was on the way out of the door (in april 2020) he's like 'oh yeah if you read anything about death/emergency surgery from getting a lumbar puncture with a chiari malformation don't worry about it' me, who had not been googling things anymore cause it was making my anxiety really high, now very worried about it: haha ok!! yeah so there are numerous documented cases of people with chiari malformation having an LP done and for whatever reason, the sudden decrease in spinal fluid causes the chiari (cerebellar tonsils have herniated into the spinal cord opening in the base of the skull) to 100% herniate and results in immediate life-saving full-on brain surgery right then and there so!!! I never got an LP because I was like, fresh in the middle of the worst of the medical trauma, three weeks out of the hospital where my intense phobia of IVs came from, no one was believing me about any of it etc etc lmao goddd I wish he hadn't said anything cause my anxiety brain is stupid but when I saw him in late october and he finally believed me and started talking about IIH, the actual diagnostic tool (the last one anyway) is a lumbar puncture. to rule out anything in the spinal fluid (which is pretty much already ruled out for me because it's been 19 months and I would've had other stuff happening if it were something in the fluid) and check the pressure in my brain. IIH is intracranial hypertension for who knows why. I asked my neurologist yesterday if I get it, since we have ruled everrrrything out, and my pressure is high, will I get the IIH diagnosis and he said correct. like it's the only thing I'm missing!!! but the problem with getting the diagnosis is there are legit two medications they use to treat IIH and they are not without potentially severe side effects (they lower spinal fluid production and fucking with your brain when they don't really know Why can. fuck your brain) and I am already terrified of new meds. I don't want to go through all this shit just to have horrible things happen when I try to treat it, you know? but weight loss is clearly not working, at least not yet and I don't know if it ever will. if it doesn't, I'm going to have to have surgery. that's the only way to fix this :/ I talked to my neurosurgeon in october about the risks of herniation with an LP and I think he got frustrated lmao because he's like 'it's like the biggest myth out there! I've never seen it in my entire career' but it's not a myth because it HAS happened. I would say him being a renowned neurosurgeon means that it's probably a really low risk? but it's not a fuckin myth and with him being a renowned neurosurgeon I have no doubts he knows that. because I saw a neurologist team shortly before I went back to him that said 'oh no, we never order LPs for chiari patients. it's taught in school because the risk is too high' so I'm like ok my neurosurgeon is fantastic at what he does but he was playing fast and loose with the truth, so do I want to trust this guy? I'm being told they teach it in school to not do this because people have died. I'm being told by my new neurologist that he thinks the benefits far outweigh the risks, my chiari is so mild, it'll be done in the hospital under the right settings with monitoring, etc etc, and that he considers my neurosurgeon the true expert on the matter and to maybe listen to him and himself and not what a different neuro said WHICH WOULD BE OKAY if the risk wasn't fucking DEATH in a horrible way during a fairly common procedure!!! like it's considered 'invasive' but it's still done often enough my brain is at a complete standstill. I am living in such horrible agony that I want to end my life. if I get the LP, I could actually experience relief for a while because

of the removal of some SF resulting in less pressure in my skull. or I could just straight up die lmao but also I don't want to be on meds to treat it even if I do get the diagnosis!! I am in the middle of applying for disability (not even 50% of the way through and it's a long process ._.) so if I get this diagnosis and I add it to my claim, this, along with everrrrrything else, gives me an even higher chance of getting approved and if this doesn't go away from weight loss, I will be forced to do an LP anyway because I will have to confirm the pressure in my skull so they can perform surgery. but that would be months away, maybe even late next year, because I do still have to lose all the weight first so my dilemma is, do I just go ahead with the LP despite the risks (no matter how low they are and I genuinely don't know how low from getting so many mixed answers from doctors) because I could get relief and because I could get the diagnosis to add to disability? what happens if the Worst™ happens and I never walk out of the hospital, you know? it's scary. it's genuinely so terrifying to me. I'm having traumatic nightmares about this shit my cognitive function has been declining enough that I have zero recollection of a few things happening. it's not just forgetting, it's a complete blackout. I'm mixing up meds and a couple other things. and it's scaring me. neuro referred me to a neuropsychologist to evaluate this stuff my head is so bad I am in a constant heightened state of extreme anxiety and depression and stress. I'm starting to get heart palpitations again. like something's gotta give, right? I don't know what to do if you or someone you know has had a lumbar puncture, please please please do NOT tell me any horror stories about it (I legit can't handle it). if you've had one and it was easy peasy lemon squeezy, can you tell me about it, please? hanging on by a fucking threeeeeeead. love you all very much

[silkylious]

Pro heroes Katsuki , Deku, Kiri trending on Twitter after posting a video of them and their s/o doing the baby mama dance how they react and

A/N: Thank you for the request! since you didn’t specify if you wanted a scenario or headcanons, i’ll do headcanons since they're easier for me to write, hope thats okay!

also i have a todoroki oneshot in the works, so stay tuned for that!

Kirishima Eijirou

Kirishima was probably the one to bring up the dance in the first place. A toothy grin stretched his face as he leaped over the back of the couch, where you’d been enjoying a quaint read, a dainty hand caressing your engorged stomach. His hand snatching the book right out from your grasp, he didn’t give you a chance to respond before he practically shoved his phone in your face. An eyebrow raised skeptically at his antics, shifting your gaze to the screen in front of you. 

“Eiji, what’s this...?” He explained the challenge, his sharky smile only widening the further he explained. You were a little hesitant at first, and as you were about to voice your apprehension, your eyes caught sight of his smile, childlike and boyish. Fuck. How could you say no to that?

You spent a good half an hour trying to get the dance moves right, Eijirou cheering you on while fucking up his own moves. 

Kirishima can’t dance to save his life. You can’t convince me otherwise. But did that stop him? Nope.

He adjusted the camera on make-shift tripod, consisting of boxes and other random objects. he started the timer and you two began busting out moves, Eijirou still lacking all the skill needed for this exercise, his moves choppy and uncoordinated, though his enthusiasm made up for his amateurism. The precious grin adorning his face made you glad you took him up on his offer.

By the end of the routine, both of you were left panting for oxygen. He heaved a breathless chuckle before pulling you into his grip from behind, his large hands gingerly stroking your tummy, his lips pressed lovingly to your cheek. With his signature million watt smile ever present on his face, he sighed out words of tranquil, “Thanks for doing this, babe,” he pressed another exaggerated kiss to your face.

The video was posted on his official Twitter, right before you went to bed.

The next morning, no words could articulate the sheer affection you felt bubbling up in your chest when you opened your eyes to the sight of Eijirou’s pure jubilation. Just the look of unbridled happiness on his face made you fall head over heels for him all over again. While you were busy ogling him, his own heart accelerated with uninhibited pride and love as his eyes scanned the screen in his hands.

Kirishima loved to show you off, how could he not? you were amazing in every sense of the word, and you were all his, to love and to cherish. So you can only imagine the utter joy he felt when he saw #TinyRiot trending on twitter.

He skimmed through the countless replies and comments of people congratulating the couple and clowning on his less than impressive choreography, some were from his coworkers, some were from his fans, he replied to them as best as he could with delight radiating off of him. He continued going through his mentions until he eventually felt the heated stare on his face. Turning to his side, he finally met your eyes, your rounded figure peacefully nestled beside him on the bed, your stare so full with love and mirth it made his chest tighten, almost suffocating him.

Kirishima has always been good with words, and people in general but in that moment no matter how hard he tried to speak nothing would come out of his mouth, captivated by your adoring gaze. You looked at him like he was your entire universe. And he couldn’t handle that, the feeling building in his gut becoming too much for him.

 He had to let it out, less he spontaneously combust. Since he knew his voice would fail him if he tried to speak, he settled for pulling you in for a passionate kiss, hoping it would convey all the words he couldn’t say.

Midoriya Izuku

When you first approached him with the idea he had been a bit apprehensive. Don’t get him wrong, heaven knows he’d do anything to keep you content. But being in the position he was in, Izuku was painfully, sadly aware of the target put on not only his back, but his family as well. 

He didn’t want to expose you and his child to the danger that came with his blinding spotlight.

Izuku wears his heart on his sleeve. No matter how hard he tried to mask it, the boy was an open book, so you could immediately sense the reluctance on his face when you mentioned posting the video online.

You knew of the complications that came with dating a Pro-hero, the number one Pro-hero, so you were perfectly understanding of his hesitance and didn’t push it further. Though you couldn’t help the disappointment that flooded your features either.

The look of mild discontent on your face didn’t sit well with him, his conscious already conquered by guilt. As his green irises descended onto your pregnant belly, something in him snapped.

He wanted to provide his unborn son with a normal childhood, well as normal as someone like him could. And he wouldn’t be able to do that if he kept barring his family from enjoying the simple delicacies of life in fear of getting them hurt. He was a hero, for god’s sake! The arrival of a new addition in his tight-knit family only meant that he’d have to work harder to forge the perfect world for them, for his son.

His habit of mumbling his thoughts had you fully aware of the dilemma going on in his head, and you knew if you didn’t stop him now nothing else would. His forehead was flicked by dainty, soft fingers, snapping him out of his trance, “It’s fine, ‘Zuku, don’t worry about it.” too late, he’d already made up his mind.

Now with his previous dread thrown out the window, he grabbed your hands and hopped off the couch where he’d been previously watching some All Might docuseries, a determined look in his wide verdant eyes.

You spent a good hour practicing the moves, Deku was holding up just fine, the dance classes he’d taken with Mina during the Cultural Festival doing a good number on him. With enough effort and unrelenting obstinacy, he’d mastered the routine in record time. Now with the camera set up, it was time to preform.The whole dance, a gentle twinkle lit up his face, he truly couldn’t be more content watching you dance your heart out without a care. 

The clip was posted, and you two were off to prepare dinner, ignorant to the fucking storm of notifications blowing his phone up. 

Now hear me out; Deku absolutely fanboys over All Might in interviews or in public. His fans had already noticed the striking similarities between their quirks and they were well aware of his love of the retired Pro, so he was dubbed “All Might Jr.” His heart almost went into cardiac arrest when he saw #SmallMight trending on Twitter. Poor boy had just finished washing the dishes, he went to check his phone only for all colour to leave his face before he was red as a damn tomato.

You peered over his shoulder to see what had gotten him so flustered only to bring your fist to your mouth in a fruitless attempt at silencing your fit of giggles.

Now as blissful as it was to have a combination of his fans and colleagues (who had already known about the pregnancy) congratulating him, he knew it wouldn’t take long for the media to scrutinise his decision, bringing unwanted discourse into his personal life. But he was more than ready for that, after all, he had vowed to himself that he would protect you and his child, whether from villains or from mainstream media, he would let you both live your lives without any inhibitions.

Bakugo Katsuki  

Katsuki flat out refused when you initially asked him. Which was to be expected. Katsuki is private person when it comes to personal matters, you literally had to beg him to tell your friends about the pregnancy (honestly you were about ready to pull up a PowerPoint presentation on why Friends Matter and They Deserve to Know Important News™) 

The rejection didn’t stop you from nagging him about it though. 

He was in a similar situation to Deku, being the number two Pro-hero and the symbol of victory shined a light on him, for better or worse, he didn’t want to expose you and his daughter to the dark facets of his career. That and he did think it was stupid. He didn’t understand the appeal of sharing something so special with the general public, it was your private lives dammit! 

“Why do you wanna do it so bad?” it was a valid question, though phrased with overbearing aggression, he was getting fed up with your persistence. He immediately dialed down his abrasiveness when you flinched, your gaze descending to the floor, your hormones making you more susceptible to his harsh mannerisms.

“I just thought it would be cute to do...” Your voice trailed off, and his mind berated him as he watched your bottom lip quiver. He just couldn’t resist you, could he?

Eventually, he gave in, but he made it a point to spend as little time as humanly possible on the dance. Which was honestly very easy for him, the guy is a natural at almost everything, fucking figures he can dance. It made you a bit jealous how good he effortlessly was.

Bakugo did nothing half-assed, this was no exception. As the routine progressed, he loosened up more, almost enjoying the exercise, wouldn’t admit it though, he’s very adamant about making this seem like a chore even though he relished in that bright smile of yours. Tsundere headass.

The recording went by without a hitch, Katsuki putting his all into the choreography and slipping you a few gentle caresses here and there. Overall, the cheeky grin on your face made it worth the trouble.

He spurned posting the video on his account, so it ended up being posted on yours, you had a decent following and in minutes the #MiniSplosion was trending. 

Even he couldn’t deny the wave of pride that puffed up his chest, reading the influx of comments bleeding in. He loved showing you off, but his position made it damn near impossible to do that. He wanted to protect you, he figured after this he’d just have to work harder to keep his family safe.

You totally teased him about being a softie on the inside, but you didn’t push it too much, not wanting to tarnish the mood. He’d reply back with some empty remark but the soft tug at his lips, the tenderness in his stare and absence of his usual frown betrayed him, god he was such a sap for you. Pulling you in for an abnormally sweet peck, vastly different from his usual ferocious, passion filled kisses, he flicked your forehead and muttered, “You happy now?”

The surmounting adoration in his heart partially scared him, he couldn’t believe he fell that hard for someone. Yet he wouldn’t have it any other way, he couldn’t even imagine the idea of being without you, without his daughter. He was lucky to land himself such a strong, patient and kind partner, one that would stick it out with him through the end, and now he was undoubtedly going to flaunt it.

@Ground_Zero: My babygirls <3

...

Let’s just say it didn’t take long for #SoftGroundZero to go viral too.

[moviegroovies]

oh my go d i swore to myself i would stop until at least tomorrow with the headcanons but now that i’ve opened up the floodgates they just keep coming so here we go, part 2!!!!

out of all the lost boys (other than michael, obviously), paul is the one who would get along the best with sam, if the vampires and the emersons ever figure out how to make peace with one another. in fact, they have pretty similar interests; paul’s into mtv, too, and he hangs around stores with tvs all night trying to catch a glimpse of it, probably running into sam once in a while without even noticing when sam’s out doing the same. plus, he’d never admit it, but he thinks sam’s clothes are pretty cool...

not that he’d give up his rocker style for it

or that david would LET him ruin the group’s aesthetic by giving up his rocker style for it dshgfdhg

in general paul’s pretty good with kids, but in like a “fun uncle” way. he’s DEFINITELY not suited to be a child’s main caretaker, but he likes things they like, so he’d be good at having fun with them: taking them out for ice cream or the arcade, palling around, that kind of thing. he’s probably the kind of guy who dares kids to do dangerous shit without ever considering whether or not they’ll, you know, be okay.

dwayne on the other hand is intensely cognizant of that stuff, to the point of anxiety; even if he doesn’t actually stop the goings on he’s just Super Aware it’s happening and he won’t relax until the kid’s feet are on the fucking ground, thank you. 

which isn’t to say that kids don’t think dwayne is fun. really, all of the lost boys (including star) are more suited to be fun uncles + aunt (or more accurately, fun older sibling types) than actual parents. the whole group is mostly about having good times forever, so it’s not like them to get bogged down in responsibility and adult stuff. that’s not on their radar. 

marko and paul goof around together a lot. you know how i said paul would unthinkingly dare human children to do dangerous stuff? IMAGINE the kind of shit he tries to get an invulnerable immortal to do. half the time they spend with each other is just spent trying to think of increasingly awful things to wish on the other until one of them finally backs down from a dare, which can take weeks.

other people can get dragged into these battles; dwayne is the most frequent victim until michael shows up and does so many dumbass things because he doesn’t quite realize he’s being hazed. 

david HATES it

he thinks they’re all being dumb and immature as hell, but at the same time, he’s no more mature than they are, no matter how much he likes to act it. if one of them goes “i triple dog dare you,” he’s going to hold out for about three seconds before his pride gets the better of him and oops, there he goes, off to do the stupid thing

michael figures this out about him fairly quickly, and one such dare is the way he finally gets his revenge for getting tricked into giving up his mortality and that whole incident with the train on the bridge

one fought shark and two weeks of watching david regrow partially missing limbs later, nobody fucks with michael anymore. go figure.

ok honestly i have even less to go on with jasper than i do for the rest of the lost boys, which is already fairly sparse, but i want to think about him so I Am.

based on the lost boys: the beginning script (what little there is of him in it, honestly--he’s definitely got the least lines, never mind that he isn’t even in the real movie), my characterization of him would revolve around him being a bit of a dandy. kind of thinks of himself as a gentleman thief, the montparnasse of the group, if you get what i’m saying. he’s not actually all that slick (never mind the bad poetry he writes), but he tries to dress a little better than the others, and they let him think he’s a wine connoisseur when they really suspect he’s just teetering on alcoholism. 

underneath the prettyboy poet thing, he has the capacity to be kind of nasty if the opportunity presents itself (on the sliding scale of control to bloodthirst from my last post, i’d put him below dwayne but above marko, making him semi-controlled, but still liable to go vicious on a hunt), but when he was human, he mostly preferred to run from fights rather than fight them--he was the fastest of the group (after his death, david briefly took that place, until star showed up), and had the best hands for pickpocketing.

he’s also a little bit of a dork underneath it all. when he’s had a little too much to drink he’s liable to gush about his affection for his friends, or a stranger, or anyone who gets within gushing distance. everybody gave him a hard time about it, but once he’s gone, they secretly feel like they should have appreciated it more when he was around.

on the other hand, he could be somewhat prone to bouts of melancholy. 

dwayne said Gay Rights. 

when jasper was alive, the two of them were the closest, having a pretty steady (though not entirely monogamous) relationship over the course of about a year of their human lives and around three or four solid decades of vampirism. the other guys knew, naturally, but apart from some mild teasing, they mostly just let it be. it’s not like any of them are particularly straight--if anything, they were probably just jealous that they found each other and had a relationship that made them that happy. not that they’d ever say that, of course.

the end of the prequel script almost made me think that jasper died then, somehow? but then he said something new a few lines after the line that made me think that, so i’m just going to work off the assumption that he lived through that and died later.

instead, i think he was killed by grandpa emerson and some other vampire hunters when grandpa was in his prime.

in the wake of jasper’s death, the whole gang kind of falls apart. even after all these years of killing, none of them have ever dealt with real loss, the loss of a blood brother (or, in dwayne’s case, a dude he’s been in love with for a much longer stretch of his life than the part where he wasn’t) before. the only thing they can all agree on is that they have to get revenge immediately. 

even though he’s never been on the front lines of these hunts, it’s a unanimous agreement that dwayne lead the charge to find the hunters who killed jasper. for once, when they get to the group, dwayne isn’t feeding, he’s just annihilating every single person even tangentially involved. the only person who escapes the massacre with his life is grandpa emerson, who just barely makes it out unnoticed in the aftermath of the thing, when david finally has to physically remove dwayne from the corpses and take him back to the cave for his own good. even then, he’s in no condition to hunt vampires for months, and even when he recovers, he never gets his full health back. instead, he lies low, the thought that the vampires will one day realize what they missed eternally ringing at the back of his mind, and moves his wife and young daughter outside of the city limits, staying away from santa carla as much as he can. 

that’s pretty much it on hunting for grandpa emerson. at least, for the next few decades, that is...

after a few years, things go more or less back to normal for the lost boys, except with the loss of the relatively quiet, subdued jasper, the group’s dynamic takes a little bit of a turn for the worse. dwayne’s more nonverbal than ever, and also a little wilder, a little more inclined toward violence when he remembers the last humans who got too close to their dwelling. marko, seeing the opportunity, tends toward more extreme violence in those days, and paul, who gets easily drawn in by the smell and sight of blood, tends to follow suit. even david finds himself lost in the kill sometimes, coming to hours afterward and realizing that he’d been clumsy, even reckless, in his hunting the night before.

they’re all making mistakes and egging each other on, and david doesn’t like it. he’s got the presence of mind (not to mention the eternal protective instinct regarding his friends) to realize that they’re spiraling, and if they keep it up like this, more hunters are going to rise in the place of the ones they killed. this starts a search for a more level-headed member of their group to replace jasper, a search that, naturally, leads him to star.

her inclusion to the group definitely helps things. the guys, having lived in pure testosterone for some 60 odd years, are a little awkward in her presence, and for the first year or so, they’re quieter when she’s around, trying to impress her. 

they all go out and get the canopy bed especially for her (they do like her, from the beginning) when it becomes obvious that star’s penchant for long skirts will only make things awkward if she tries to sleep upside down with them, not to mention their mutual unease regarding a co-ed bat cave. 

they have no idea what girls, especially girls in the 70′s, like, but they try to dress it up and they’re very proud when they present it to her.

from the beginning, star doesn’t trust marko all that much--she refuses to be alone with him, and forms a habit around being on the other side of the room from him in group settings. it sort of pisses marko off (mostly just because he doesn’t understand why), but david sees this and understands, intervening in such a way that leaves marko no room for argument whenever he tries to confront her about it.

star doesn’t like david, either, mostly due to the growing resentments she builds over the decade and a half she spends with them for him letting her become a vampire. her hatred, given that it was her decision (that she’d asked him specifically to make her a vampire) pisses david off a lot, but he lets her get away with a lot, too, because he remembers how much he fought against being turned, and can understand her moral dilemma. 

star feels the safest when dwayne is around, but she had some fun times goofing off with paul and dancing to the radio. those times were probably the ones where she regretted her decision to join the lost boys the least. 

dwayne’s residual anger and bloodlust from the incident with jasper finally starts to fade when she shows up, which david notices and appreciates

still, her inner conflict over joining them is obvious and leads to a different kind of tension in the group, so he has to keep searching for another member to cool things down. 

hence: laddie

honestly i can’t tell what i think about the origin of his inclusion. part of me thinks it could be a claudia in iwtv situation, where david tries babytrapping star, banking on the idea that she won’t be able to leave if she knows there’s a little kid there that she has a duty to protect. on the other hand, david intentionally condemning a little kid to a kind of stunted half life where he can’t grow up and is taken away from his parents sort of conflicts with the david that unrobbed a dude because he saw that the guy had little kids relying on him, and anyway, up until this point, david had only known star as a somewhat reckless teenage girl; banking on her having a maternal instinct he’d seen no proof of seems like an awfully big gamble. 

so what i’m thinking is more like: david kept looking for a sixth member, but he was looking at the young adults in their age range on the boardwalk, not children. instead, some unforseen event happens around the same time as he’s looking (i’m thinking maybe the boys go too far when hunting one night and laddie got seriously injured in the crossfires, leading dwayne or star or david to take him back to the hotel for blood to save his life), and bam: sixth member.

i think his inclusion kind of does what david wanted it to do and kind of Doesn’t. 

like, as soon as he shows up, star completely lets go of any notion of leaving the group and running away, which is good. at the same time, though, she resents david even more for turning laddie, even if it saved his life (naturally, it was the boys’ fault that laddie was in danger in the first place, so she kind of has a point) and now she’s always preoccupied with questions about turning back and she spends a lot of time mourning her humanity.

so david is still fucking looking for another person to even this new mess out.

i think laddie and star both have instincts on some level (or, if laddie doesn’t, he’s guided by star, and star does) about the safest place to be in the semi-volatile vampire den at any time. like, star visibly doesn’t get along very well with david, but she still knows that he’s got the most self control and at least some semblance of a moral code, so when it comes down to it, she hovers around him. they’re definitely not dating, and never were, but it could easily seem that way to an outsider; on the boardwalk, when she’s with the boys, she sticks as close to david as she can, and if she’s riding on the back of anyone’s bike, it’s his (she also only lets laddie ride with either david, if she’s not riding, or, more often, dwayne. paul and marko are strictly off limits). 

david is also possessive of her, because to david, she’s one of them, and he can tell that half the guys he’ll find her with (the way he found her with michael), she’s just throwing herself at because she wants out of the group, away from the lost boys, and he feels like he’s got to remind her where she belongs. 

it’s pretty toxic, really. over the tense year or so the group exists as we see it at the beginning of the film, david, dwayne, marko, paul, star, and laddie, things only get worse as david’s temper starts to heat up and star clashes with him at just about every opportunity. things are getting to the point where they HAVE to break, and finally they do:

michael moves into town.

at first, david sees him as just another escape for star (the same way star sees him, really). when david issues a challenge and michael responds to it, and not only that, for a split second, he’s winning, beating david’s bike despite being indisputably outclassed, though, david starts to see potential... a potential which shines through when michael shows his anger, picks a fight (and what passion!), and still follows them back to the cave, not because star is going to be there, but because david is. 

on the way there, he decides that michael is the final missing link they’ve been needing. he doesn’t know, yet, about max’s infatuation with lucy, or the plan to put the blood sucking brady bunch together. he just knows, in that moment, that his boys are teetering on the edge of irreconcilable dysfunction, and michael is the final piece he needs to fix it: he’s calm enough that he won’t add to marko and paul’s mania, but still fiery enough that his voice will come into play in favor of more thought-out decisions. plus, he can tell the boys are starting to like him (of course, they like anyone who takes a swing at david, even if they’d be tearing the perpetrator to pieces in seconds if they thought the swing was taken with legitimate malice behind it), and he knew from the first second that star did. michael is one of them.

with this thought in his mind, david is the one who becomes reckless in his need to convert michael. he gets sloppy.... but, since these are my headcanons and i get to choose the rules, i’m just going to say that eventually, things work out, michael becomes the final member of the gang, and everyone lives happily ever after.

holy shit, i just wrote a goddamn timeline.

i mean. wow, i think i’ve written less intricate fanfiction, fuck.

well, if you’ve made it this far, i’ve got a few more fun and low-stakes (ha, ha) headcanons as a reward for you, before i give this post the mercy killing it is begging for

david likes movies.

not just good movies.

david and the gang sneak into the cinema pretty much every time they get something new, and no matter how cheesy the dialogue or how predictable the plot twists are, he’s totally entrenched. it makes sense on a certain level, probably, if you consider that when he was growing up even silent films weren’t so much as a whisper on the horizon, but still, there’s a definite element of cognitive dissonance involved in watching the strict and intimidating leader of their gang clap and cheer at the end of every shitty b-movie that comes to their local theater. i mean, really.

it’s after he goes on a few of these movie nights with everyone that michael finally starts to really warm up to david. he wants to still be mad about the way things went down, but at the end of the day... it’s kind of hard to be scared of a guy you’ve seen cry at the end of working girl. 

marko and paul really like action flicks; paul gets into action-adventure, while marko is more into the slasher genre (although secretly, he’s more than a little intruiged by pretty, indie movies they show in the art house... not that he’d be caught dead there in a million years). dwayne, on the other hand, goes to those movies with them, but in his heart he just really likes comedies. they’re fun. sue him.

david would say he prefers horror, but it’s only barely the truth. he does like horror movies... but at the same time, he likes every other genre and practically every other film he’s ever seen. vampire movies are always his favorites, though, for personal reasons. 

star doesn’t go to the movies with them a lot, but she enjoys the occasional blockbuster with the guys, and she takes laddie to see more family-oriented films when he asks. 

michael..... likes romances. he’s always so embarrassed to be there with all the ladies his mother’s age, but there he is in the audience, hiding his face behind his hand, totally fucking loving this. hey, at least david is there too,  throwing popcorn at the horny couples making out in the row ahead of them and getting just as horrifyingly into the plot as he is. 

they never talk about those movies after they’re over. what happens in the santa carla movie theater stays in the santa carla movie theater. 

not that this is any particular place for a good end for this post, but this is the last thing i have for now: when michael moves into the hotel with everyone else, he elects to sleep in the canopy bed with star, rather than hanging from the ceiling with the guys. they start ribbing on him constantly for this--saying that the main room of the cave must be reserved for women and children--but the joke’s on them, in michael’s opinion--not only is he not hanging by his feet from the alcoves, but he’s also the one who sleeps holding a beautiful girl every day. things could be a lot worse.

[licentiousladylunafreya-blog]

Trivial Things

Rating: Nsfw

Content: Language, Mild Angst, Smut

Words: 4,000+

Minutes to read: 15-25min

 Entry for:  @ffxvnsfwweek

A/N: DAY FIVE, coming in a little late I’m sorry! Honestly gotta thank Lee Taemin for this finish, if it weren’t for listening to “All About You” by him, I would not have finished this > >...Again, including the links to my previous days.

Day 1: https://licentiousladylunafreya.tumblr.com/post/167384964166/detention

Day 2:https://licentiousladylunafreya.tumblr.com/post/167444372956/indulgence

Day 3: S k i p p e d

Day 4: https://licentiousladylunafreya.tumblr.com/post/167505087786/sweet-lying-behemoth-cont

The four Chocobros weren’t ones for getting involved in domestic spats, or having them…Well….Maybe sometimes. Especially with the groups self-proclaimed married couple. Gladio and Ignis. The two were having a hell of row, and all over the one little thing Gladio had done...Not little to Ignis though...

“C’mon Iggs…You can’t be that upset?” Gladio followed after Ignis, who was storming up the stairs of the inn in Lestallum. Prompto and Noctis bringing up the rear with shitty little sniggles.

“Yes I can- And the least you could do is focus on the task at hand before resorting to your-! Your...!”

“My what?” Gladio challenged.

As Ignis reached the door to their room, and whipped around to look up at Gladio. “Your infidel!”

Gladio scoffed. “My infidel!? I barely spoke to the woman for two minutes?!”

Ignis ranted as he fumbled with the keys to unlock their door. “Yes, while I collected the bounty and we all had injuries that needed tending too ASAP.” He finally got the door open, swinging it open.

“I wasn’t even flirting. She had asked me about our mission!” Gladio argued as he followed Ignis inside.

As Prompto and Noctis went to go inside, Gladio had turned around in time to stop them.

“Hey, maybe you two should wait outside?” He put a hand up, gesturing for them to stop.

“Nooo way I’m missing this.”  Prompto insisted and managed to slip past Gladio. As Gladio went to grab after him, Noctis then slipped past. “You two-!”

‘You two’, were now sitting on the edge of the bed, looking to Ignis who was obviously still fuming, then looked to Gladio like ‘Well?’. Gladio groaned, giving the two of them a slight glare. He didn’t want to argue with Ignis over something so stupid he thought, in front of Noctis and Prompto. He’d just have to suck it up and deal with it. As he looked up from them, Ignis was giving him a very displeased look from within the kitchen.

“Ignis, you’re blowing things way out of proportion.” Gladio paced over into the small kitchen with Ignis.

Ignis remained silent, only rummaging around for ingredients and bowls and whatnot. Slamming a cabinet here and there.

“Ignis will you quit being so stubborn-!” Gladio reached out to grab Ignis by the shoulder and got his hand smacked away.

“I’m not the stubborn one. I’m not the selfish one. What I AM, is ignored.” Ignis said now looking to Gladio, his voice now breaking into a low whisper. “It has been an entire month Gladio and this arguing is all the attention I’ve received from you…Even at camp you haven’t as much as even thrown me a glance or at least asked what I’m preparing…”

Gladio had nothing else to say at the moment. The look in Ignis’ eyes was palpable and he now understood why Ignis got so worked up over him chatting up that girl.

“Now, if you’d excuse me.” He spoke up. “I’ve got lunch to prepare.”

Gladio hadn’t felt this guilty in a long time. He had his reasons for the way he was being, but it wasn’t intentionally to hurt Ignis. He let out a small breath, and turned away, letting the man have his space in the kitchen. He then looked over to Prompto and Noctis who could also feel just how heavy the situation had gotten.

“Hey, uh, Noct?”

“Y-Yeah?”

“Maybe we should take a walk? I mean. I saw some new stands I think, let’s go check them out.””

“Right. And we’re out of…Stuff.”

“Mhm, let’s go.” Prompto said between his teeth now pushing Noctis along to the door. He knew Ignis and Gladio were gonna need a minute or two to sort things out, and he felt like it was best if they did it without an audience.

Gladio watched the two of them leave, waiting a moment before turning back to see Ignis. His brows were furrowed in either concentration or frustration as he added some ingredients to a bowl. As Gladio watched him, he began to think about the last time they were actually alone like this, and it seemed in been forever. But apparently Gladio had had any a opportunity. He could understand Ignis’ dilemma, but it’s not like he was trying to show that girl any more attention than he’d showed Ignis. She was literally cringing about their scars, and Gladio was just teasing her a bit. It must’ve been all the nervous giggling that set Ignis off and made things look bad. He let out a groan, and shuffled over to the kitchen.

“Do you want to talk about it, or keep moping?” Gladio asked as he propped against the doorframe.

“I’m not moping.” Ignis insisted. “I’m quite alright.”

“She was just asking about our scars Ignis.”

“I didn’t ask.”

“And I just made light of the situation and teased her a little.”

“Tsk, a little-…”

“Anything after that, wasn’t anything. It was brief, and I don’t think you should be that upset about it-“

“Where’s my brief moment?” Ignis suddenly interrupted. “Hm? Suddenly you don’t want me upset, well I’ve been upset this entire fucking month, and I missed you. I wanted your attention and when you do show some kind of attention I see you chatting up some girl and flexing your muscles at her…” Ignis says with a swallow, feeling a slight ache in his chest. He took a moment, taking a deep shuddered breath, and continued mixing.

“You missed me…?”

“Well we’re the self-proclaimed married couple, aren’t I allowed to miss my husband, even if he acts like I don’t exis-“

As Ignis had went to rant on, Gladio forced him around so quickly, and pulled him into a deep kiss. Muttering apologies over and over into the kiss. Ignis couldn’t help but return them, but his reciprocation was more heated and hungry. Gladio caught up, and started gliding his tongue into Igni’s mouth, feeling the man now lean his body against his with a soft moan-

“No-“ Ignis suddenly pulled away and darted away from him before he could touch him any further. He was now at the other side of the small kitchen. “Unless you’re going to assist me, get out of the way.”

“Iggs….” Gladio sighed. But seeing how small the kitchen was and how big he was, he could give Ignis little to no room to actually escape again. Saying nothing else, he braced his palms on the counter on either side of Ignis, leaving him trapped against him, and the counter. He noticed the sudden stutter in Ignis’ actions with a bowl he was grabbing, and was glad to see he was making some progress.

“I’m sorry okay?” Gladio nuzzled into the man’s neck, now kissing up to whisper against his ear. “What can I do to make it right, huh?” He nibbled down on his earlobe, giving a small tug. He felt Ignis twitch against him and gave a little hearty chuckle.

“G-Gladio, this space isn’t big enough for all that…”

“No, it’s not…But I’ve been in tighter places.” He teased, Ignis giving a breathy sigh in response. He gave Gladio another opening as he tilted his head to the side, completely abandoning his work with adding contents to the bowl.

Gladio slid the bowl to the side easily without spilling any of its contents, grasped Ignis by his hips as he spun him around to face him once more. He lifted the man up with ease, sitting him on the counter, amused by the surprised looked on his face.

“Wh-what are you-?!”

Before he could finish his sentence, the larger male hushed him with a kiss, rough hands still gripping Ignis’ hips. Gladio gave his hips a slight squeeze, and Ignis reluctantly let out a deep moan in response, before pulling away.

“No. I have to finish lunch before Noctis and Prompto return…And you are in no place to be making such demands may I remind you.” Ignis glared daggers at Gladio, who shot them right back.

“You do realize you’re being jealous over nothing? And I told you why I’ve been withdrawn for the last month. Now I’m trying to make it right and make-up for lost time…”

“You do realize you’re getting in my?” Ignis shot back. “Now let go of m-me…St-stop that…Gladio…”

As he went to protest and attempt to push the man away, strong hands quickly traveled up his body again, thumbs playing under the apron at his nipples through his shirt, and Gladio’s tongue licking at his neck.

“Let me make it up to you Iggy…You know I don’t care about the women here, or anywhere else for that matter. You don’t ever need to get jealous, there’s no competition. Just you.”

“N-Not on the counter….” Ignis muttered.

Gladio pulled away with a hopeful look. “What?”

“I said…” Ignis finally shifted free, enough to pull the apron over his head and toss it aside. “Not on the counter…” He still had a defiant look on his eyes, but Gladio knew just how to fix that. “That’s what the bed is for.”

Without another word, Gladio pulled Ignis into him, and lifted him up off the counter, Ignis instantly gripping onto his shoulders. He watched the smile playing at Gladio’s lips as he carried him over to the bed, still trying to hold his defiant little stare, but his blush and the curious little look in his eyes behind that defiance was evident. Before he even knew it, the two of them hit the bed with a heavy bounce as it creaked loudly. Ignis gave a sharp inhale suddenly feeling the bulge in Gladio’s pants pressed against his own growing erection.

“Well you’re not that mad at me…” Gladio smirked.

Ignis immediately looked away, an evident blush across his face. “It’s only a reaction…”

“Oh really?” Gladio barely grinded down on Ignis, the small of his back arching off the bed for a moment. “Because you’re pretty hard and I barely even touched you.”

“You’re not putting up a very good defense.” Ignis immediately argued, finally glaring back up at Gladio softly. Besides, Ignis had gone a whole month without much needed attention from Gladio, so his body had become a little needy, and may or may not have been aching for something to make him feel…Full.

“Didn’t realize I was on trial, your honor.” Gladio says sarcastically, as he played with buttons on Ignis’ shirt, eventually undoing them. Slowly as he watched Ignis became just a little darker shade of pink over his cheeks.

“Well you are…So I better be convinced.”

“Convinced of what, exactly?”

“Convinced, that you don’t go around flirting with these Lestallum broads.” Ignis spoke absentmindedly. He’d deprive himself of something later for using such language against the hardworking women of Lestallum.

Gladio on the other hand, found it hilarious, his head dipping down a bit as a laugh vibrated through Ignis’ neck, making him tremble.

“Ignis, it’s been just as long for me as it has for you, and the ladies haven’t exactly been on my mind…” Gladio admitted, now sitting back up as he gave Ignis a certain look, hand now stopping to grope over Ignis trapped erection.

Ignis swallowed, forcing back the moan that left him. “Well it doesn’t appear that it’s been me as of late.”

“It has Iggy. You have no idea. We’ve been nothing but injured and exhausted with our missions this past month and not being able to touch you because of it, has been killing me.”

The look on Ignis’ face was now a little more hopeful. Seems Gladio was actually aware of him. But still, it wouldn’t have been the first time that they engaged in rough sex because one or both of them were injured. They took advantage of the cuts and bruises sometimes. Then again, it was nice of Gladio to give him space, but he didn’t have to make it seem like Ignis didn’t exist. As that thought came back across Ignis’ mind, he was feeling disgruntled all over again. But his thoughts were cut short. He hadn’t noticed when, too lost being distracted in his thoughts, but Gladio already had his pants open, and a hand stroking at his now exposed shaft. He gave a sudden gasp, as his hips bucked slightly, only once, into the strong callused hand around him. He knew Gladio wasn’t being rough, yet, but gods the grip was still strong and firm and Ignis realized just how much he really missed those hands on him. Reluctantly, he reached up wrapping his arms around the larger male’s neck, and pulled him down into a deep kiss. Gladio reciprocated passionately, earning a small moan from the man below. There was never a trading of lips, just hot, open mouth kisses. Their tongues would tease at the other every now and then and both of them had Gladio had about reached his point with all these tongue teasing. As Ignis had flicked his tongue over Gladio’s bottom lip, Gladio shoved his tongue into Ignis’ mouth, making him give a startled moan. Gladio hungrily explored his lovers mouth, not really giving Ignis the chance or opportunity to fight back. The strength of the kiss alone was enough to make Ignis tangle his fingers in Gladio’s hair, and arch his back to press himself closer.

After claiming the man’s mouth, he broke away, both of them giving a pant, and moved to his neck, and down straight to his chest. Ignis trembled at the familiar feeling again Gladio’s mouth over his nipples. Ignis closed his eyes, and hands immediately trailed to caress the back of Gladio’s head. He arched his back, pushing up to Gladio for more, and felt him smile against his skin as he sucked with a light tug, pulling back on the bud a little. A soft whimper left Ignis and pushed Gladio’s head down, urging him on to leave more of the lovely bruises elsewhere. Gladio followed, moving down, and taking his time as he left wet kisses, sucking here and there and attacking with sweet little love bites. On his belly button especially, being rewarded with that keen he knew was going to follow.

Gladio looked up to see watch Ignis, and saw that he  was no longer wearing his glasses, and was looking down at him with half-lidded, clouded eyes. He knew that was more than enough approval. Usually by this point, if the glasses stayed on, it was a no-go. But they were off, and the look on Ignis’ face was a needy one. Gladio moved back up quickly, kissing him in a rough frenzy, but Ignis kissed back with just as much passion. He glided his hands over chiseled abs and chest, no to his shoulders where he started shoving off his jacket. Gladio shimmied a little shuffling the jacket down more, now breaking from the kiss for just a second, to throw it aside. No sooner than the jacket had left Gladio’s body, Ignis was pulling him down into another heated kiss. While letting his mouth be claimed again, Ignis trailed his hands down the front of Gladio’s sculpted body, and stopped at the edge of his pants. He fumbled around with the button and zipper, hands bumping around against Gladio’s bulge. He growled, bucking his hips into Ignis, wanting him to quit messing around already, the man under him smirking to himself a bit. But he wanted the same thing too, and unbuttoned and unzipped his pants. He slowly reached into Gladio’s pants, now blushing into the kiss that suddenly turned wet and slow as Gladio let out a small groan feeling Ignis’ hands on him. No matter how intimate they had been, Ignis had always found his cheeks heating up at Gladio’s impressive length. He’d never said too much more to Gladio it than that it was impressive, not wanting to say all the other things that swirled around his head, fearing he’d sound a bit ‘undesirable’.

“Gladio…Off…”Ignis panted in-between their kissing, now nudging at his pants and boxers, pushing them as far down as he could.  

Gladio obliged, lingering with the kiss a moment before pulling away, and sitting up to take off his pants and boxers, kicking them away. Ignis’ cheeks dusted over red as he watched, Gladio’s proud erection sway as he finished undressing. Gladio then smiled up to the blushing man, slowly pulling away his pants and boxers. Ignis shifting his legs around to help.

“Blushing over me again are we?”

“I-It’s just a reaction.” Ignis looked away from him once again.

Gladio just gave a hearty chuckle as he tossed Ignis’ pant aside. “Sorry…Guess it’s all just a reaction?” Gladio teased as he took ahold of Ignis’ thighs, spreading his legs apart.

Ignis was silent, huffing lightly as he still looked away. Honestly Gladio knew he was getting somewhere, but he couldn’t believe that Ignis was still going to try to act like this while they were together. That’s not what he wanted. Yeah, Ignis was reciprocating, but he wanted all of it. Not just some and a huff. He wanted his Ignis that loved him without hesitation.

“Really though, Ignis…I am sorry.”

Ignis acknowledged the sudden tone and would’ve felt bad if he didn’t look back over to Gladio.

“But don’t act like you want me then huff about that woman. I can’t even remember her face and don’t care too.”

Ignis felt a little smile laying at his lips. He pushed himself up, now just a scoot away from straddling Gladio.

“You of all people should know Gladio the reason I’ve acted this way is because I do want you. All of this is mine.” Ignis spoke as his hands glide up  the front of Gladio. “And mine alone. Just you and nothing more, nothing less…With that I’m satisfied.”

“So you forgive me?”

Ignis chuckled, flashing a smirk. “I only said satisfied--…!?”

Ignis suddenly gasped finding himself lifted onto Gladio’s lap, and falling back onto the bed with man on top of him, grinding their erections together.  He failed to bite back an embarrassing moan, and lolled his head to the side as he now panted and sighed out in pleasure. He moved his hips back up against him, wiggling his arms free to wrap them around his neck and engulf him in a quick kiss. Gladio kissed him back, just before pulling away, and quickly moving back down his body with more sloppy kisses, and spreading his thighs apart once more. Ignis slowly curled his fingers into the fabric of the sheets knowing what was about to come next…And sure enough, Gladio’s tongue graced his hole with its presence. Ignis arched up from the bed, letting out a deep groan of pleasure, practically falling back onto the bed with a small whimper. He felt Gladio’s tongue freely just swimming around without hesitation and he couldn’t control the twitches and shivers that erupted through his body because of it. Those, nor the embarrassing sounds he failed to hold in. Not that he really cared. All that mattered is that he was getting much needed attention from his lover. As he closed his eyes to officially get lost in the pleasure of Gladio’s tongue, he pulled away moments after. Ignis’ eyes came back open as he frowned, now looking down to gladio who was climbing back up between his legs. He looked up into GLadio’s eyes, still with the small pout, but knew GLadio knew what he was doing. Them an leaned down, Ignis thinking it was for another kiss, but before their lips could touch, Ignis let out a small strangled moan, tilting his head back into the pillow.

“G…Gladio…Aghn…”

Gladio had slowly started to press himself inside without warning and was steadily moving in deeper. Ignis gritted his teeth together for a moment fighting back the moan he knew for sure would’ve been the most feminine sound he’d made that evening. Gladio knew the sweet moan that he was holding back, and gave a quick thrust, fully sheathing himself, and forced the sweet sound he wanted to hear.

“Don’t hide your voice from me…” Gladio demanded, licking across his neck as he kept he head thrown back into the pillow, nails tearing through the sheets a little at all the clawing and pawing at them he’d been doing already.

Sitting up now in a better position to see Ignis’ face, with his hands braced at either side of his head, he looked down at him. His eyes closed, cheeks flustered, and trying to hide his face and moans into the pillow. Gladio’s eyes never left him as began with slow thrusts and let out soft groans, watching Ignis’ mouth fall open to let out hot moans, his back arching a little with each thrust. Ignis knew he was missing Gladio, but he didn’t realize just how much until now. He moved a hand up to grip his back and hooked a leg around his waist beckoning for more. Gladio dropped down to prop on his elbows, and Ignis now had both his legs wrapped around his waist. Gladio began thrusting into him faster, feeling Ignis’ nails lightly dig into his back and the soft noise from him right in his ear rushed straight to his erection, making him just want to fuck Ignis down into the mattress until he couldn’t take it. His steady pace he’d started slowly starting to turn into rough quick thrusts. Ignis’ grip on him tightened even more and a filthy moan erupted from deep in his throat.

“I-I’ve missed this…” Ignis moaned out, a sharp gasp following as Gladio was near his prostate. “I’ve missed you.” Ignis moaned out purposefully right against his ear. He still knew how to get just what he wanted from Gladio without having to directly ask or tell him…

Gladio let out a lascivious growl into Ignis’ neck, now balling a fist into the sheets as he now hooked his arm around Ignis’ waist, raising his hips a little. And with that little change in position, Gladio’s thrusts were coming right down into his prostate. He instantly came unwound, desperately keening as he threw his head back into the pillow. Everything else melting away as he felt the heat of his climax approaching. Gladio could tell by his reaction and how tight he grew around him that he’d just gotten the side of Ignis he wanted. That part of him that was a wallowing mess that complied with all his feelings.

“Can you …Forgive me?” Gladio panted, grinding against the bundle of nerves.

Ignis let out a porn worthy moan, lolling his head to side against the pillow, a small curse escaping under his breath. He barely heard Gladio, lost ina haze of lust, seeing stars the more Gladio grinded into him.

“Iggy…Say it.” Gladio now gave shallow thrusts into his prostate, each one becoming less and less shallow, using more force to ram into him. “Ignis…” Gladio moaned into his neck, feeling himself coming close.

“I-I…” Ignis couldn’t form the words. He knew what he wanted to say, but the only thing that would come out were groans and high moans and just mixed noises of pleasure.

“Talk to me Ignis…” Gladio’s voice was low and almost in a growl, as he now lifted Ignis’ legs to hoist them over his shoulders.

This only made things worse, Ignis giving out a small cry as he was feeling Gladio thrust right into his prostate with each snap of the hips. All Ignis wanted to do, was yell ‘yes’, when his mouth came open. When Gladio was sending him through those rushes of pleasure, he wasn’t even himself anymore. But he needed to say something or else…He put his arms back around Gladio’s neck, who was still making the man tremble, jerk, an release embarrassing sounds while he abused his prostate.

“I-I…” Iginis cut himself off with another little cry. “I-I forgive you!” His words came out in a desperate moan as he gripped the sheets near his head, other hand now gripping Gladio’s shoulder. “A-And I’m sorry-Ahah~…” Gladio was practically shoving himself down into Ignis with each thrust, grunting with each one. “It was such a trivial th-thing to be-!!!”

Failing in an attempt to speak when he was already about to burst, he cut off his own words with a loud cry as he came. Gladio delivering a few more final rough thrusts before exploding inside him with a low growl, keeping down a moan. Ignis trembled at the sensation of the warm thick fluid invading his insides, and was more than aware of the mess he had made. He still gripped the sheets painfully and panted gutturally with Gladio as he gazed at the ceiling, his vision fading back to him. He swallowed and felt the shift of Gladio’s weight as he slowly pushed himself back up onto his palms to gaze down at him.

“I…Love you.” He panted out, watching the tired smile that formed at Ignis’ lips.

“I know… I lo-“

Knock Knock!

Gladio and Ignis froze.

Mr. Gladio? Ignis? Arou two alright in there?

The voice was obviously that of Talcott’s, and Ignis gasped lightly, Gladio only giving a ‘snrk’, tempted to laugh.

“W-We’re fine!” Ignis yelled over to the door, now watching as the knob twisted. “G-Gladio move-!”

TALCOTT!

NO!

DON’T DO IT!

The stampede and voices of Iris, Prompto and Noctis suddenly came to the rescue.

You dooon’t want to go in there right now buddy!

“U-Uh yeah! Uhm, how about we go-

Ice cream! Let’s go get ice cream! Ice cream sounds GREAT right now! Right Talcott?!

But we just had-

Come on Talcott!

The two were hushed, still listening, and only heard everyone’s footsteps fading away…Ignis let out a giant sigh of relief, Gladio only wilting to laugh into his neck.

“I don’t know how I’d explain to Talcott what’d he seen if he opened this door…” A weak chuckle left Ignis.

“You could always tell him the truth…”

“Please, that’s nowhere near my place…Only his guardian should have such a conversation with him…”

“If you say so.” Gladio pushed himself back up to look back down at Ignis. “So, you were saying something before we were interpreted?”

“Hm? Was I…?” Ignis played, giving Gladio a look.

“Yeah.  You wanna say it now?” Gladio gave a small groan.

“Tsk, I can’t say I remember what it was.”

“Ignis…”

“Was it something important?” Ignis wrapped his arms around Gladio’s neck.

“Very. One of the most important things to me.”

Ignis swallowed at the confession, but smiled charmingly all the same. “I love you, too.”

Gladio smiled back down at Ignis again, and went to lean in for another kiss.

“You guys done yet!?”

“Prompto!?”

The two froze again as Prompto swung the door open on them, Noctis being the one yelling at him now for doing so.

“What, I didn’t hear anything I thought maybe they were- O-Oh!” As Prompto noticed the scene before him, he blushed. Noctis noticed he didn’t hear anything though either, and peeked around into the room.

“…Are you done? ….Can we eat?”

Gladio only glared at the two. “Last I checked, we’re still naked and I’m still insi-“

Ignis suddenly cut Gladio off with a laugh. Mainly a laugh of embarrassment and frustration, but a laugh all the same.

“It is about that time isn’t it? Gladio I should be finishing up…Can you two wait outside just a moment- Prompto!?”

“What- !?”

Prompto had snapped a picture second before Noctis quickly shut the door. They could hear the two bickering outside, Noctis wondering what Prompto could honestly gain from the picture, and he argued that it was ‘romantic’. Ignis and Gladio only sighed. If they didn’t know any better, Prompto and Noctis were more like pesky little children than adults…

[nofomoartworld]

Hyperallergic: Case Studies in Musical Hooks: Father John Misty, Galantis, Ed Sheeran, Ashik Reza

Catchy hooks, theoretically the most wonderful thing in the universe, are meaningless without a context; they must be deployed discreetly and pointedly. Magnificently hummable constructions can turn monstrous when repeated too often, repeated in the wrong places, or used as bait to trick listeners into accepting loathsome performers. The albums reviewed below function as case studies in the deployment of hooks or the lack of them.

Father John Misty: Pure Comedy (Sub Pop)

By some improbable twist of fate, Father John Misty, the folk-rocker and Fleet Foxes drummer formerly known as Josh Tillman, has become Indieland’s most prominent social critic, directing pointed metabarbs at Internet culture and its new generation while hiding behind various satirical masks to assure the worried listener. Aren’t you eager to hear his big concept album about the political situation under Trump and all his thoughts on what’s wrong with the world today?

Lyrically, Pure Comedy is among the year’s knottiest albums, deftly weaving together alternately sincere and/or obscure and/or cynical speech acts intended to convey the queasiness of, say, scrolling through Twitter.

Hipsters, outrage culture, capitalism, class struggle, political polarization, virtual reality, Plato references, global warming, who the president is — look, all the issues! Tillman writes like a man tired of the hot-take cycle, tired of the subcultural petri dishes, tired of all the useless commentary piling up endlessly and bouncing around the echo chambers, a process the dense, imaginative overflow of his lyrics deftly simulates.

He notes that his own album contributes to this process, of course; what kind of self-aware edgelord would he be if he didn’t? If you consider “Eventually the dying man takes his final breath/but first checks his news feed to see what he’s about to miss” a profound lyric, you may be just the exegete Tillman needs.

Otherwise, rest assured that musically, he’s a much nicer guy than his sarcastic invective (ironic invective is beyond him) suggests, specializing in mildly pretty melodies and midtempo acoustic ballads. Dolefully strummed guitar and vibrantly plinked piano provide a fairly empty sonic minimum that he occasionally augments with drums, strings, horns, and such. Vocally, imagine James Taylor imitating Rufus Wainwright. Perhaps he considers the familiar nature of such perfunctory folk-rock a comfort in the world described above.

The first four songs are the liveliest, after which the tempos slow down and the record gets gradually sleepier. He’s a thoughtful presence; few singer-songwriters have so examined their own performative stance. His musical aesthetic remains unexamined. .

Galantis: The Aviary (Big Beat/Atlantic)

One doesn’t expect solid albums or even singles from EDM groups these days, but the notoriously anonymous Swedish duo Galantis’s ebullient second album, The Aviary, occupies corporate dancepop’s golden mean: that perfect prototypical space where shiny hooks come together with surging beats and gleeful melodies to soar in unison, free of the individual ego and subjectivity’s icky trappings. Delight in formal mastery for its own sake is the pop producer’s great gift to civilized society.

They scored bigger hits with their debut, Pharmacy (2015), which will probably go on to sell more than The Aviary; by now the Chainsmokers have monopolized the market for this particular brand of triumphalist maximalism. Pharmacy’s giant fist-pumping climaxes, sharing space with breathily sensual admissions of vulnerability, produced a nauseating confluence, as two distinct forms of sentimentality irritated and inflamed each other.

That album boasted several keepers, but the sequel is a clear improvement: sleek, elegant, a texturally delectable technological marvel. With aerodynamic efficiency a given, they’re aiming for maximum catchiness, with sharper and fuller songcraft sparkling brightly. Previously, their hired singers would murmur a platitude or two before disappearing into the sweeping synthesizer uplift, but here they belt verses, choruses, prechoruses, and fully resolved melodies that spin and dazzle. Whooshing, glistening, buzzing, gushing keyboard hooks glide alongside chipmunky pitch-corrected vocals, bliss point after bliss point.

The effect is to formalize and desentimentalize, to code the album as dance-functional rather than dance-cathartic. The chirpy children’s rhyme “Love on Me,” the zippy, exploding loops on “Tell Me You Love Me,” and the tropical bubblegum of “Hunter” initially sound expedient before sinking permanently into your brain and skittering joyfully round and round.

They’ve specified their formal approach and become more exemplary simultaneously: a classic pop paradox. Craft in itself means nothing unless it reaches total flawlessness, its surface gleaming, with each detail perfectly calculated, each song complete on its own while simultaneously epitomizing its own genre. Then it means everything.

Ed Sheeran: Divide (Asylum/Atlantic)

English folkie troubadour and Taylor Swift pal Ed Sheeran is so nice, so unassuming, it’s odd to consider his long string of platinum singles, as if such success were unbecoming of a man so gentle. In a long tradition of newly crowned King Sensitives whose airplay is incommensurate with their ambition, Sheeran’s album fails to reconcile his mild manners with his status as a commercial fixture.

What’s so horrifying about Sheeran is how he’s genuinely talented, charming even, within the strictures of an awful genre. Moreover, he applies his talents most attentively to everything awful about the genre, magnifying their awfulness, so that all his theoretically good qualities are actually net negatives. Glistening confessional folk-pop, whose automated beats and slickly compressed keyboards barely disrupt its tortured ache, will not improve if the dopey cornball singing the songs also happens to be a master hooksmith. Such music made louder and more obtrusive illuminates the familiar contradiction between sensitivity and its use as a manipulative substitute for macho; Sheeran’s soaring hooks flex their muscles with triumphant solemnity, as if asking you to applaud their grandiloquence.

There’s one exception: “Shape of You”, a veritable electrobanger, slinking mechanically over a pitched percussive bubblesynth. Otherwise, several stylistic experiments stretching from white soul to Irish folk fail to mitigate his reliance on pealing waves of strummed acoustic guitar as a token of moral authority. He makes his big statement with “Castle on the Hill,” a tale of childhood nostalgia whose chiming U2 chords and Sheeran’s wailing, inarticulate, Bono-style falsetto rouse adequately until the quiet bridge, after which he revs back up into the cathartic chorus, bellowing “I still remember these old country lanes/when we did not KNOW THE ANSWERS,” pumping a metaphorical fist to congratulate himself on the romance of his youthful confusion and innocence.

Simultaneously gratified and burdened by commercial success while trying to hang onto his soul, Sheeran’s dilemma illustrates a pop truism: authenticity moves are crasser than actual crassness. Feeling emotions deep in your heart is hardly an aesthetic advantage if the emotions are stupid.

Ashik Reza: Pashani Priya (Protune)

Despite consensus among fans, dissenters, and the industry itself, I’m hesitant to classify Bollywood soundtrack music as kitsch — usages that in themselves sound outrageous can rapidly morph into received conventions, and anyway, the style’s garish beats and swirly strings convey athletic persistence as often as they do romantic despair. This marvelous album, by a singer whose online presence is close to nonexistent, inhabits both modes with supreme confidence.

As with much Indian pop, what startles about Ashik Reza’s album is a demented collision between abstract form and physical recording: grandiosely melancholy ballads meet the harshest textures available. Crunchy metallic percussion, pungent electric strings, squealing keyboards, fancy riffs on guitar and sitar shredding past their breaking points, and Reza’s own keening voice — all abrasive in theory, instead conjure a garish warmth suitable for a particular brand of melodic pathos designed to linger on every drop of suffering. Compressed into a tight space, the various sharp sonic elements construct a surface that’s electric rather than electronic, hooks crackling, beats rattling, although sometimes he daubs on small gurgles of Auto-Tune as a token sweetener.

Lyrics are immaterial; the shiver in his voice on “Amar Ontorai” bespeaks woundedness and resignation, and each time the jittery beats give way to the constantly returning circular hook, sweat breaks out on his forehead; he has to keep up the pace. Theoretically the textural harshness acts as a deadpan mask for the singer’s feelings, but the melodies are sufficiently grand and Reza’s vocal delivery sufficiently demonstrative that the album’s emotional weight matches its weight as a whomping blast of sound. They just coexist.

Ardent throughout, the hooky onslaught peaks in the middle with the mechanical guitar solo on “Koto Nishthur” and the fierce guitar/string dialogue on “Obhimani Priya.” Don’t call it a dialectic — call it a kickass rockesque album.

The post Case Studies in Musical Hooks: Father John Misty, Galantis, Ed Sheeran, Ashik Reza appeared first on Hyperallergic.

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