#it's just. occurred to me that in the rehearsal video they say some important things abt the harkers that could maybe tie into other stuff

[mothocean]

I've started thinking abt tying together some common motifs from yaelokre songs and trying to figure out what they more or less represent and what they tell us about the characters they're connected to. Would anyone like to hear my thoughts

[winxanity-ii]

⌜No Hoods Attached | Chapter 18 Chapter 18 | big fat phony⌟

╰ ⌞🇨‌🇭‌🇦‌🇵‌🇹‌🇪‌🇷‌ 🇮‌🇳‌🇩‌🇪‌🇽‌⌝

❘ prev. chapter ❘༻✦༺❘ next chapter ❘

You sat at your desk, enjoying a rare moment of calm during your lunch break, scrolling absentmindedly through Facebook when your phone buzzed.

𝐒𝐄𝐎𝐑𝐀 please where are you?? im scared

You sat up at the text, brow furrowing in confusion; quickly you send a reply.

𝐘/𝐍 ????

Instead of getting an explanation, she just sends a quick 'no time to respond' before plugging in her location.

You don't waste a second, springing up to your feet, urgency propelling you forward, your meal long forgotten, your only focus on reaching Seora as quickly as possible.

A thousand scenarios raced through your mind. What could possibly have gone wrong? Was she in some sort of trouble?

As you darted through the building, your heart pounded not just from the physical exertion but also from concern for your friend.

Gasping for air after your sprint across the building, you finally regained your composure and tapped on the door to the press conference room.

A woman with a headset cracked the door open, peering out at you.

"I'm... I'm here... for Seora," you managed to say between breaths.

With a nod, she ushered you inside, revealing a set meticulously designed to mimic Yoongi's dorm room, complete with a bed and walls adorned with posters. A wave of familiarity washed over you as your eyes landed on a Kumamon poster, reminiscent of images you'd seen online from fan-pages.

As you absorbed the uncanny resemblance, Seora's voice pierced through your nostalgia. "Y/N! Over here!" she called, her hands waving frantically from across the room.

You couldn't help but notice her transformation, now clad in high-waisted shorts and a large black hoodie, her hair styled in a playful ponytail, allowing her curls to fall behind her head like a waterfall with tendrils framing her face, a stark contrast to her usual attire.

Approaching her, you couldn't contain a "Wow," impressed by the makeover.

"I get to keep these!" Seora beamed, spinning to show off her new look.

Your attention was diverted as a familiar, gruff voice chimed in from behind. "How long is this gonna take? I'm ready to get this shit over with," Yoongi grumbled.

You watched as the two of them get shuffled onto the set. As the make-up artists fixed up any last minute things, a countdown is being shouted out.

You quickly took out your phone, and opened up VLive. Deciding to watch them there to see the comments.

"Be sure to read what you rehearsed because once we go live, we can't stop," Someone tells Yoongi and Seora before exiting off the set.

"In 5...4...3...2...Go!"

Immediately, Yoongi's demeanor shifted seamlessly into his public persona, greeting the audience with his signature gummy smile. "Hello ARMYs! I decided to make this VLive to deliver you all an important announcement as well as clear up some misconceptions."

You stared at the scene in front of you, if you didn't know this was a set up, you would have thought this was real.

"So, recently, there was a meet-up here at HYBE headquarters to deliver lost items to previous volunteers we've had at our most recent fan-meeting a couple of weeks ago. It's here that a peculiar incident occurred," Yoongi began, maintaining a calm demeanor. "Some of you might have heard rumors—and even seen the video—about this, so I'm here to clarify what actually happened."

Despite the numerous comments rolling in, stating how the girl that hurt him deserved to die or needed to go to jail for laying a finger on him, Yoongi's delivery was flawless, his expression earnest as he recounted his rehearsed lines.

"The person you saw tackling me wasn't a sasaeng fan, nor did she cause me any harm," he continued, skillfully weaving the fabricated story. "Actually, she's an old childhood friend from Daegu."

Internally, Yoongi wanted to scream out how everything was a lie, but he knew that it was not just him at stake if the truth were to come out; BTS as a whole could be in jeopardy from his careless actions.

"I recognized her and was so surprised to see her during the meet-up that I tackled her into a hug," Yoongi elaborated, his story painting a picture of a harmless reunion tinged with a dash of unexpected comedy. "It was something we used to do when we were kids, but I think I might have frightened her, and she ended up hitting me on reflex, but once we cleared everything up, she apologized."

The change in the comments were immediate; they all began turning positive, some even awing at how soft Yoongi was being to see his old friend.

Yoongi eyes scanned through the many comments pouring in on his phone. One of them immediately caught his eye.

Instead talking some more about his childhood friend, Yoongi skipped it and went right into the next step.

"I see that a lot of you would like to meet her. So, if it's okay with you guys, I'd like to introduce you to her," Yoongi stated, a genuine smile growing on his face at the happy comments popping up. "Seora," he said, looking over to the right, like he practiced, and waved her over.

Seora bounced into the frame, casual and bright. "Hey there, Oppa!" she greeted, her casual tone throwing Yoongi off for a split second.

Yoongi's eyes briefly narrowed at the unscripted name, but he quickly masked his reaction with a smile, encouraged by the positive viewer response.

"Everyone, this is Seora, my old buddy from back home. And Seora, say hi to the amazing ARMY, the people who inspire me every day," Yoongi improvised, adding a personal touch.

Grinning, Seora waved at the camera. "Hello ARMY~! Oppa always shares how much joy and motivation you bring into his life," she said, her enthusiasm genuine, her eyes twinkling with delight.

The excitement in the comments grew as fans lavished Seora with compliments on her beauty and charm, flooding the live stream with heart emojis and compliments; you even saw some asking if she was single.

For the next few minutes, Seora and Yoongi communicated with those commenting live. Sometimes, as he delved into the rehearsed tale of their supposed childhood friendship, you could see the occasional scowl cross his face, quickly smoothed over by years of practice in the limelight.

All-in-all, you were certain everything was going to work out.

Well, that was until one certain comment popped up.

Isn't that Yoongi Oppa's favorite black hoodie?

You watched as Yoongi read the question, his whole body freezing up, before turning his head to look at Seora. His mouth dropped open in shock when he saw that she did, in fact, have his favorite hoodie on.

"You have my favorite hoodie on?" he asked, going off script.

"Yeah, so?" Seora said, eyebrows arching in a challenging way.

"Alright, fun's over. Hand it here."

Seora clutched the hoodie tighter, a hint of mischief in her eyes. "Not a chance," she retorted, clearly enjoying the tug-of-war over the garment.

"No."

Yoongi's attempts to maintain his cool demeanor were slipping as he reached for the hoodie's sleeve, tugging on it. "Seora, I'm not kidding. That's my favorite one. Give it to me. Now."

"I said no. Plus, it's cold, and I like wearing it," she snapped, snatching the end of the sleeve away from him.

The staff around you grew nervous; both Seora and Yoongi were going off script. No one could go over them or tell them to stop because if they were seen, ARMY would realize everything was just a fake set-up.

"I could really care less. Besides, who even gave it to you to wear it, I thought it was put away?" Yoongi asked, tugging on the hood of the hoodie.

"Dee," Seora stated, smacking his hand away from the hood.

"Dee who?"

"Deez Nutz. Now stop tugging on it, you're letting out all of the heat," Seora whined, nudging him away from her.

"Seora," he spok in a low, almost threatening growl, her name practically hanging in the air.

"Yoongi," she mimicked, her voice dripping with mock seriousness.

You found yourself glued to your phone screen, no comments popping up on the VLive feed; even the usually chatty ARMY held its breath, as if waiting to see what was going to happen.

"Oh, no," you nervously chuckled to yourself as you saw Yoongi's trademark eye twitch kick in, a sure sign he was nearing his boiling point.

"Seora," he growled again, this time through gritted teeth.

Seora, oblivious (or perhaps deliberately pushing his buttons) wrinkled her nose in mock disgust. "Eww, stop winking at me, Gramps," she chirped. "Dating isn't really on the agenda for this princess."

Yoongi's eyebrow shot up in surprise. "That's it!" he roared, lunging for the oversized hoodie that engulfed Seora. "Give me that thing!"

A yelp pierced the tense silence as Seora scrambled back, swatting at his outstretched hands. "Not a chance, grumpy grandpa!" she shrieked, her voice laced with playful defiance.

A back-and-forth tug-of-war ensued, Seora's head whipping from side to side like a ragdoll caught in a whirlwind. "Ack! Let go, Yoongi-oppa!" she commanded, her laughter tinged with breathless exertion.

Then, in a move that defied all expectations, Seora struck.  A swift, precise pinch landed right on Yoongi's unsuspecting nipple.

The room fell silent, the only sound a strangled gasp escaping Yoongi's lips. His eyes bulged, his previously fierce expression dissolving into one of pure, comical pain.  "Ow!" he yelped, clutching at his chest like he'd been struck by lightening. "What the— What was that for?!"

Seora, eyes wide with mock innocence, batted her eyelashes. "Self-defense, obviously! You were practically strangling me with that hood."

Yoongi scoffed, his eyes narrowed into tiny slits. "Yeah, right. More like grand theft hoodie. Give it back, thief." He rubbed his chest dramatically through the fabric, milking the pain for all it was worth before attempting to make another grab for the jacket.

Seora, unimpressed, was quick on her feet, dancing away laughing, "You'll have to catch me first, Min 'Can't-Catch-Me' Yoongi!"

The chase was on. Yoongi lumbered after Seora, his movements more akin to a grumpy bear than a stealthy predator.

Seora weaved around furniture and props, her laughter echoing through the room. Just when Yoongi—with a surprising burst of speed—managed to corner Seora, she ducked behind a giant cardboard cutout of his alter-ego, Agust D, leaving him flat-footed and fuming.

Suddenly, a mischievous glint sparked in Seora's eyes. Before Yoongi could react, she darted out from behind the cutout and launched a surprise attack. Not with fists or kicks, but with a barrage of tickles aimed squarely at his exposed midriff.

Yoongi, caught completely off guard, let out a high-pitched squeal that would make any dolphin blush. He writhed and squirmed, his previous scowl replaced by a wide, gummy grin.

The staff, initially bewildered by the turn of events, couldn't help but crack smiles as Seora unleashed her tickling fury.

The previously tense atmosphere dissolved into a cacophony of laughter, with Yoongi's booming guffaws echoing through the room.

The VLive comments section exploded in a frenzy. #TeamSeora and #TeamYoongi were locked in a digital battle, showering the screen with heart emojis and fire symbols.

"Don't make me get my brother to beat you up!" Seora threatened, puffing out her cheeks like a defiant hamster. "He knows Judo! He'll whoop your pasty butt with his black belt!"

Yoongi snorted, a playful glint in his eyes. "Oh, yeah? Well, prepare for him to be swept off his feet by the taekwondo master himself, Jeon Jungkook!" He swooped in, aiming a tickle attack right for Seora's giggle zone.

Seora shrieked, tears welling up in her eyes – tears of mirth, of course. "Okay, okay! Truce!" she gasped, doubling over with laughter. "Just... just give me a sec... to breathe!"

"Only if you surrender the hoodie," Yoongi bargained, a wide, mischievous grin splitting his face.

"Never!" Seora declared, dodging a lightning-fast tickle attempt and launching herself onto the bed with surprising agility.

With a dramatic flourish, she grabbed a pillow and launched a feathery projectile at Yoongi's unsuspecting face.

"Hey!" Yoongi yelped, momentarily stunned. He narrowed his eyes at the traitorous pillow, then back at Seora, who wore a look of mock innocence.  "You did not just—"

"Did what?" Seora interrupted, parroting his earlier words in a sing-song voice. "Cry about a little pillow fight?"

Yoongi's competitive spirit flared. "Oh, it's definitely on now," he declared, snatching a pillow of his own and charging towards Seora.

The room transformed into a whirlwind of feathers and laughter. Pillows soared through the air, narrowly missing valuable equipment and unsuspecting staff members.

All thoughts of the script and the VLive audience were forgotten as they descended into a glorious battle of fluff.

"Who even names their kid Seora? You're not even Korean," Yoongi taunted between throws, narrowly dodging a sneak attack on his ankles.  "Sounding like you fell out of a K-drama!"

Seora, ever the quick wit, flung a pillow right back. "Hey, it's not my fault my mom went through a boy band phase! Blame DJ DOC and Sechs Kies for this mess!" she shouted, blurting out two known K-POP groups during the 90's.

You couldn't help but chuckle, watching the adorable chaos unfold in front of you.

You looked back down at your phone a only to see everyone commenting how compatible the two are.

At first, I thought that this was just a fake get-up, but now that I look at them, I'm able to see how friendly they are with one another! I wish I could have a best friend like Seora-ah.

"Ugh, fine," Seora grumbled, flinging the pillow across the room with a dramatic sigh. "You win, grumpy grandpa. Take your stupid hoodie back." She flopped back onto the bed, chest heaving dramatically as she tried to catch her breath.

Yoongi, his competitive spirit sated, dropped his own pillow with a triumphant grin. He couldn't help but chuckle as he watched Seora.

Her carefully styled hair was now a wild mess, strands plastered to her forehead with sweat. Her face, flushed a rosy red, held a pout that somehow managed to be both adorable and defiant.

Then, just as quickly as the pout appeared, it was replaced by a tired smile that sent a jolt through Yoongi's system.

Wait a minute, a traitorous thought wormed its way into his mind, She's actually kind of... pretty? He quickly shook his head, trying to dispel the unexpected feeling.

Seriously, Min Yoongi, where did that even come from? Lack of sleep? Man, I need to get laid, out here thinking bugs are cute, he thought with a grimace.

Pushing those troublesome thoughts aside, he straightened up and addressed the camera, a playful smirk returning to his face.

"Alright, folks, it looks like playtime's over for today," he announced, wincing slightly as a barrage of comments flooded the screen begging for more. "Seems like some of us have a lot of pent-up energy to burn," he added with a side-eye at Seora, who just smirked innocently.

"Don't worry, ARMY," he continued, his voice regaining its usual playful lilt. "We'll definitely do another live stream soon. Maybe even convince some of the other lazy bums"—he shot a playful glare at the camera—"to join in the fun, huh?" he mused, running a hand through his now messy sandy hair, a testament to the unexpected wrestling match with Seora over the hoodie.

Just as he was about to wrap it up, a new wave of comments caught his eye. They were all asking the same question: would Seora be joining them next time?

Yoongi started to formulate a reply, "Well, I don't know, Seora might not be able to—"

A mischievous glint flickered in Seora's eyes as she cut him off, plopping herself down right next to him on the bed, the stolen hoodie draped nonchalantly across her arms. "Yoongi-oppa, was just saying I might not be able to do what?" she asked, batting her eyelashes innocently at the camera.

Yoongi, momentarily surprised by her boldness, sputtered out, "They were asking if you'd be available for the next VLive." He stole a glance at her, a hint of amusement dancing in his eyes.

Seora, sensing his amusement, simply grinned and met his gaze directly. "Oh, well, if the lovely ARMY wants me there, then of course I'd be happy to join!" she declared, her voice dripping with mock seriousness. Her smile widened as the comments section erupted in a flurry of "yeses" and "please dos."

A slow, genuine smile spread across Yoongi's face. This chaotic day had definitely taken an unexpected turn, but seeing Seora's infectious enthusiasm and the positive reactions from the fans, a warmth bloomed in his chest.

Before the comments could explode with suggestions (and demands) for other guest appearances, Yoongi dropped another bombshell. "Oh, I almost forgot to announce some exciting news!" he said, a mischievous glint in his eyes, "Taehyung and a super talented upcoming artist will be featuring on the OST for a new K-drama called 'Threads of Destiny: Love Beyond Time.'"

The comment section erupted in a fresh wave of excitement, a mix of heart-eye emojis and questions about the upcoming artist. Seora, ever the opportunist, leaned into the microphone.

"Maybe it's me!" she chirped, a playful wink at the camera.

Yoongi's eyes widened in mock-horror. "Don't even think about it, Seora. You can't hold a tune to save your life!"

Seora just stuck her tongue out at him, the playful banter causing the comments to go wild.

As the live stream wrapped up, one thing was certain: with Seora around, things were never going to be dull.

"Alright everyone," he addressed the camera once again, "we gotta head out now. But before we go, I just want to say thank you, ARMY. You guys are the reason I keep going, the reason I keep making music. You inspire me."

Seora leaned in and chimed in playfully, "And don't forget to eat healthy and get enough sleep! We don't want any ARMY falling sick, now do we?"

With that, Yoongi winked at the camera and ended the live stream.

"And... cut!" a voice boomed from somewhere off-screen, signaling the end of filming.

The room buzzed with activity as the crew began dismantling the set and packing up equipment.

You made your way over to Seora and Yoongi, who were now surrounded by a group of staff members.

"Yoongi-ssi," one of the managers called out, waving him over. "Bang Pd-nim wants to see you in his office."

Yoongi nodded and turned to leave, but Seora grabbed his sleeve before he could take a step. "Hey, wait a minute," she said, holding out the black hoodie. "Don't you want your precious hoodie back?"

Yoongi grabbed it, staring down at the hoodie. Finally, with a barely-there shake of his head, he tossed the garment back at Seora with a playful smirk. "Nah, you keep it. Looks better on you anyway, shrimp."

Seora yelped, fumbling to catch the hoodie before it tumbled to the floor.

A surprised laugh bubbled up from her chest. This little prank war had taken a delightful turn.

"Besides," Yoongi added, a glint in his eye, "I'll need to contact you later to finalize that song, right Y/N?" With that final, playful dig, Yoongi sauntered off towards the manager, leaving Seora holding the hoodie and a smile that could rival the sunshine.

You couldn't help but nudge her playfully. "Looks like someone's got a case of the hots," you teased, your voice barely above a whisper.

Seora's eyes widened as she stammered, "N-No way! It's just... hot in here, right?" She fanned herself dramatically, hoping to cool her burning cheeks.

As if on cue, someone from the crew yelled out, "Hey! Can someone turn off the air conditioning? It's freezing in here!"

A slow smile spread across your face. "Oh, really? I thought it felt a little chilly too," you replied with a playful wink.

Seora scoffed, but a hint of a smile peeked through her blush. "Whatever, Y/N! It is hot!" she insisted, following you out of the room.

"Sure, sure," you chuckled, leaving Seora to stew in a delightful mix of fluster and amusement.

***sorry for not updating this friday, so to make up for it, today will be a double update 💗 also i had TOO much fun with this, loool. We stan a comedic queen like seora...

[imo-chan-imagines]

『 Haikyuu!! Week 2020 | Day 5 』

· Sept. 29th → Habit is Second Nature ·

Characters: female!reader, Kageyama Tobio, Hinata Shouyou, Tsukishima Kei, Yamaguchi Tadashi (+ bonus characters: Bokuto Koutarou, Kuroo Testurou)

Prompts: A. best character development + B. patterns and habits

Tags/warnings: Haikyuu!! (anime), PG, fluff, headcanons, patterns and habits, best character development

A/N: I haven't done any character x reader stuff for this challenge yet because I tend to do NSFW stuff. But I thought I'd do some fluffy stuff about the characters with the best development and their habits as your boyfriend! (Plus a couple of bonus boys, because I couldn't help myself!! 🥰)

All my Haikyuu Week 2020 posts will be SFW, but I have NSFW stuff on my blog too. Feel free to take a gander. Thanks for reading! Please enjoy ♡ Imo~

Haikyuu × reader / patterns and habits

☆ Kageyama Tobio ☆

Gets up at 5:30am to go for a run every morning but forgets to send you a 'good morning' text don't be upset, it just doesn't really occur to him

Gets all giddy when he receives one from you, though literally cannot stop smiling. Doesn't know what to do with himself

Often forgets his pencil case and comes by your class to borrow stuff

When he buys milk from the vending machine, he will start buying some for you as well without you asking he's trying to show he cares

Milk makes him happy, so it should make you happy too, right? 😭

Frowns and blushes when you start hugging and nuzzling him in public he'll start stammering, too, if you took him by surprise

But then he pouts when you stop 🤭

Is embarrassed about asking you to touch him my poor touch-starved baby 😭

Blushes and looks at the floor whenever he talks about something romantic or intimate

Leans his forehead against yours when he wants to express how he feels but doesn't know how I might be crying...

He loves hearing the sound of your voice, so he often falls asleep while in the middle of a late-night phone call with you you can hear the soft sound of his breathing through the receiver 😭😭

Writes down important dates you tell him because he just knows he's going to forget them

Discretely interlaces his fingers with yours when he feels vulnerable prOTECT HIM

Lots and lots of hugs from behind because eye contact can be a bit much for him, and he's sometimes nervous about you seeing his face

Can get angry and shout at you without warning when he's stressed or upset, and he feels terrible after

Writes out his apologies on reams and reams of paper and rehearses them a million times in front of the mirror but somehow still forgets most of it?

Smiles like a literal angel when he does something to make you happy that's all he wants, y'all 😭

Will try his best at everything, whether it's trying new things with you or doing the same old stuff he's always done

Nuzzles the back of your neck when you're spooning, and kisses his way across your shoulders and down your back as a way of saying, 'I love you and you're mine'

☆ Hinata Shouyou ☆

Says the cheesiest, most romantic things to you with a straight face, but blushes and hides his face when you return the favour

Bounces around the room when he's excited

Always asks you how your day was and is genuinely interested

Rests his head on your shoulder when you're sitting together

Shouts really loudly at random moments because of surprise/frustration/excitement/any sudden emotion, really 😅 gives you mini heart attacks

Always sneezes really fucking loudly??

Sends you adorable cat videos when he knows you've had a bad day

Subtly presses his leg against yours whenever you're sat together, especially when you're both supposed to be studying 👀

Wipes your cheeks and kisses the end of your nose whenever you've been crying

Sings in the shower because he thinks you can't hear him

Will give his gym towel to you with a smile whenever you get soaked in the rain rather than dry himself off

Treasures every little gift you get him

Is fine becoming a human hot water bottle by little-spooning every month when your period comes around he runs at a really high temperature, and actually really enjoys it. So cute 😍

Runs down the halls to your class every break to bring you your favourite drink from the vending machine

Loves sharing cakes with you and feeding each other it sounds cringy, but he makes it so cute and natural

Always pulls goofy faces when he Snapchats you

Leaves you cute voicemails when he wanted to talk to you but you're busy

Shows up unannounced at your house when he's troubled because he just really needs to see you

If he just sees your face, then he knows that it's somehow going to be alright

Y'all, I can't 😭😭🤧

☆ Tsukishima Kei ☆

Teases the crap out of you on a regular basis just to see you all pouty and frustrated

Pretends not to remember your birthday/anniversary/etc. every year so he can drop by your house later that day and surprise you with a gift

Pulls your cheeks when he thinks you're being too cute

Kisses the ends of your fingers when he wants to show affection but doesn't know how

Flicks your forehead whenever he thinks you're being stupid or irritating 🙄

Lowkey blushes every time he sees you cheering for him in the stands I SEE THAT LITTLE SMILE, TSUKKI

Makes you sit on his lap all the time for no good reason other than to tease you bruh

Often ends up taking the teasing too far and winds up feeling rotten because you're now genuinely upset

Sucks at applogies, but will always try to set it right if he's at fault, even if it's awkward

Gives the biggest, warmest hugs when he wants to which isn't much, but hey. Take what you can get

Always sends you a text to make sure you've got home safe, but it's never in those words. It's always under the guise of something else Tsukki, pLEaSE

Grumbles to himself out of jealousy whenever you show attention to other guys, especially his brother

Deliberately gives you his sweaters and hoodies to wear after a shower because he thinks it's super cute, but acts like it's nothing you ain't slick, Tsukki 🤣

☆ Yamaguchi Tadashi ☆

Reaches for your hand first whenever you're together

Nose and forehead kisses when he sees you in the morning

Hand-picks a bunch of flowers for you every Monday because he knows you hate Mondays 🥺🤧

Waits for you at the gate after school every day

Always stands up for you, no matter what he may be soft, but he's not a WUSS 😠

Asks to borrow your other earphone whenever you're listening to something

Wants to spoon with you whenever he's feeling down and you'll never refuse

Always arrives 15 minutes early for every date despite changing his outfit several times out of nervousness

Blushes in pride whenever he lends you his jacket because you're cold adorbs

Sends you little pick-me-up messages when you're busy so you can read them when you're free

Helps you tie up your hair for gym class, and is surprisingly good at making pretty hairstyles

Traces his fingers over your palms and other body parts whenever you're curled up together

Has your name saved on every social media and contact list as something cute like 'My Sunshine 💛' or 'My Honeybee 🐝'

Twiddles his hair around his finger a lot, especially when he's daydreaming about you let's hope he doesn't start balding 😭

Will rush to your class with an umbrella on rainy days in case you forgot one

Loves sitting on the swings with you whenever you pass them on the way home, and making you giggle by pushing you higher and higher

(Bonus boys)

☆ Bokuto Koutarou ☆

Sends a stream of soppy hype-texts every morning for you to wake up to

Will stop by your house and pick you up for school, even if you live literal miles away from him he just wants to see you

Grabs you by the waist and picks you up at least once a day, often in front of a crowd of people he's a fan of PDA

Peppers you with kisses when he sees you for the first time each day

Hypes you up to no end. Literally cannot sing your praises enough

Is constantly looking for compliments, and is not-so subtle about it

Gets easily depressed when you don't notice he did something differently etc.

Will kiss you in front of everyone when he wins a game and you come down to congratulate him literally doesn't care. He's too proud of you

Is constantly asking for massages, whether or not he needs them, because he enjoys the contact

Sometimes you want to staple his mouth shut because he has a habit of getting too excited and talking with his mouth full 🙃

Doesn't stop texting you and sending you Snapchats

Is kind of oblivious if he's done something that upset you, and starts freaking out when someone Akaashi finally tells him

Doesn't plan or rehearse his apologies, because he literally just says exactly what he means 100% of the time

May start choking up and crying if what he did was bad enough, because he just feels so, so guilty

Constantly reminds you when you said you would make him a lunchbox because he loves it so much and wants to boast to his friends

Likes you sitting on his lap while you do stuff together I mean...👀

Calls you 'puppy' and 'kitten' etc. unabashedly in public boi, pLEASE

Insists on giving you piggyback rides whenever your feet hurt 🐷

Saves every single selfie you send him. He treasures every single one, and tears sometimes come to his eyes when he scrolls through them he's so whipped for you, my gal

☆ Kuroo Testurou ☆

Stays up all night texting you he might be getting bags

But it's fine. It just adds to the emo look

Takes your bag and carries it for you without you asking him to

Facetimes you randomly

When you ask what it's about, he says he just missed you/wanted to see your face smooth mf

His hand always finds its way around your waist whenever you're walking together

He scrolls through your old conversations when he misses you

Will ruffle your hair to tease you just so he can spend the next 20 minutes brushing it for you

Steals food from your lunch every day he's lucky he's pretty

Stands outside your house with a boombox blasting love ballads like a giant nerd when he wants to surprise you just imagine it for a second. Let the image sink in

Ends up stroking your hair when you're cuddling together

And subconsciously cradles your stomach a lot because he really wants to start a family with you Testu!!! 🥺😭🤧

Always sends you 'Send This To Your Crush Without Context' videos, despite the fact that you guys have literally been dating for years no caption or anything, either. Just the video

Will probably continue to do it even once you're married, tbh

Always, always, always walks you home

© imo-chan-imagines 2020

[inked-out-trees]

⭐ for The Keep Going Song? Thanks! :)

(anh i would die for you)

Thank you for asking! I am going to be talking about the whole thing because it's fun, and because there's not really many ~secrets~ within the text to ramble about, just little fun snippets!

I'll do it under a cut because I will definitely ramble. Woohoo!

I came across The Keep Going Song (the song) after my Lookout 3 Companion Playlist (& my spotify discovery) introduced me to the Bengsons. The effect was almost instantaneous - it's the kind of warmth I try to encompass in everything I do, and for the next few days I had it on repeat as I worked. This was around the time I was finishing my Lookout script, and I had been toying with the idea of writing a Cornleyverse fic after absolutely devouring all 10 fics in the tag. What I knew was that I wanted it to be sweet, I wanted it to pull them all together, and I wanted it to be a progression. Despite only having seen the Goes Wrong Show, jumping into the fandom made me want to dimensionalize these characters and give them a story beyond everything that had already occured.

I also watched Christmas Carol before / during the writing process, but to date I have not watched Peter Pan or the full-length TPTGW. My prior knowledge comes from Wikipedia, the delightul amateur TPTGW production on YouTube, a friend's excellent transcription of the Haversham Manor script, and tumblr meta analysis. I think I did a reasonable enough job pretending I knew what I was doing.

Let's get going!

I knew off the top that it was going to be vignettes - they would give me room to spread the story over the long period of time it takes for a group of people to grow into something resembling a family. Like I said in the original author's note, there was supposed to be more of the early, snippy days - but I got so focused on making them kinder that I found I couldn't properly write a fight. In hindsight, it probably would have been easier if I tried writing that first, but, well. Once I realized that it was too late. The alphabet idea came later, once I had them all finished: I wanted to organize them somehow, but numbers felt too open, too infinite - closing the story on an organizational endpoint was just really satisfying.

a - Every good story needs a good beginning.

c - Starting with the end of Peter Pan is my sneaky way of slipping past the fact that I haven't seen the earlier shows! The Max and Sandra storyline is just so sweet, and I wanted to let it exist a little bit in between our jump from Peter Pan to Christmas Carol. This vignette came so easily when I wrote it and I love love love the feelings and the tentativity about the whole thing.

f - This was actually the last vignette I wrote. I realized I needed some front-end padding because otherwise my angst plot came rather abruptly, and what better way? At this point, too, I was trying to bring in POVs from each one of our characters, and when deciding on Trevor's POV I thought the exasperation-excitement combination would be an excellent choice. It turns out Trevor is my favourite to write, mostly because I can find his voice a lot easier than some of the others - and probably also because I hold a lot of fondness and nostalgia for stage crew work. Also, I wrote most of this one on a long evening walk in the notes app on my phone. Fun fact.

h - I did my original idea slam in a draft tumblr post, and this one just says "birthday party but one without all the drama of christmas carol". And what do you know, that's exactly what it is! I definitely took the birthday party (in CCGW as well as in this fic) as a kind of proof that they really do like each other, if they're doing things like this and if they want to do things like this - and that theme of okay, they want to be here formed the basis for this part. I think it's exceptionally sweet that Dennis came looking for friends and ended up finding, well, something. And I popped in a little MMNI reference with "one of the Janines" - Backwards Janine? Frontwards Janine? Original Janine? Who knows! It's one of them!

l - The thing about this plot is that it's actually one of the first ideas I had when dreaming up this fic, and I couldn't quite let it go. The point was, what if I somehow split them up? How can they get on when half the society is out of commission? And the most reasonable way I could find to actually get half of them out of commission was the car accident. To be honest, this one is mostly filler - it's also the second vignette I wrote, and it found its birth in the email drafts of my work laptop.

m - Trying to map out this little plotline without overdoing it might have been the most difficult part of this fic, and I'm still not 100% sure I succeeded. This is our explanation for the unease from the vignette above, and it took me 3 rewrites before I finally found something that settled in my brain. "Dennis gets chased by a goose" might be one of my favourite lines in the fic though.

Also, putting these letters right next to each other made me feel really clever for no reason.

n - My Jonathan perspective also took a few stutter-steps in its beginning, but this one ultimately came from the promo video's reveal that Robert and Dennis live together, and me playing with the continual idea of the remaining cast members being rather unmoored in their injured castmates' absence. Robert in particular because I love his character and I love making him Feel Things(TM) (fun hint: this will also be a small theme in the new cpds fic I have in the works!) and I want to see so much from this odd relationship between him and Dennis. Obviously they have to tolerate each other if they are willingly roommates - how far can I go with that? I love how this one turned out.

o - All I have to say about this one is that I still really love the sweetness between these two, and they deserve the world. Also, at some point during writing this I was really caught up with how striking Dave's face silhouette is (don't ask) so that ended up making it in somehow.

q - Girls' Night is SO important to me. After all the work they've done to make these gals friends I needed to capture it, and a pleasant night in just made a lot of sense. This one is the home of a few of my headcanons - Annie has a chef roommate and Max does a lot of the cooking, thus the "neither of us are the usual household cooks" comments, and I also think they're at the point where they can joke about their previous failures (especially with these three together) so the nod to A Trial To Watch (my favourite gws episode) was so fun. Also, Waking Ned really is a silly pick-me-up of a movie - would recommend. Special thanks to CBC for giving us Canadians quality British TV alongside our occasionally questionable homegrown programming.

r - It wouldn't be a fic about progress and growth with this crew without a disheartening moment turned into gold. I wrote this one while barbecuing, another fun fact, and no joke the hardest part was figuring out what to name the play they were doing. I kept pace with the whole "Jonathan can't get onscreen" gag, which was personally hilarious and made me cackle as I wrote it, and the rest of it just felt good. I will always have a soft spot for comfort and reassurance in a story and getting to write it has just been an absolute delight.

t - This was one of my other unplanned vignettes. It was originally to fill out Robert's POV, but also to express a bit of how things have changed in Chris's attitude towards his cast - if there's one thing I would change from Mischief's characerisation thus far, it's this brand of almost-kindness that I consistently need to write him with. It takes the aftermath of the car accident and uses it to kind of make him understand - this is a valuable group of people and I don't want to lose it. But of course he's not the type of person to actually express that in any way, so I thought the frenetic hovering was a good way to get the point across. As well, the kind-of-bonding between Chris and Robert - the two of them are such powerhouses of insistent personality that conflict so easily but they've also got a more secret kind of friendship that deserves to be explored a little more. I really like this vignette and how it ended up portraying how they are around each other, how they really do know each other, especially when they're not fighting. Makes me soft.

w - This is the first vignette I wrote! I honestly didn't realize until writing this just how much I identify with Annie - best of both worlds re. crew and cast, a bit of tenacity regarding getting through things, overall personality - I just love her so so much. She also seems like the most sensible of the cast, so the collective "why are we really here?" moment with Trevor really spoke to me. I love their friendship, I love the kind of quiet vibe this vignette gives off - this is one of the ones I can feel most strongly, the one I can step into and exist inside. I also spent most of my old drama rehearsals and classes without shoes, so that had to make it in just by virtue of the sock brigade (me).

z - One thing I knew for sure since the inception of the fic was that it needed to end on a victory. I took the images I had of this victorious adrenaline, everyone together having a good time, kind of getting smashed, and karaoke (I really wanted the karaoke, for some reason) and went the obvious route: the wedding. Ending on Chris POV also felt so right - possibly because he's the one with the most growth in this fic - and getting to finally feel this triumph with him after all these other trials and tribulations was an absolute joy. The wedding hall, in my head, looks like the one my cousin used (it was at a zoo... my sister and I went on a night walk and heard a lot of screaming peacocks) and I definitely threw all my wistfulness, all my love for the characters I'd developed, and all my love for this fantastic fandom into this part. The incorrect lyrics that Annie sings are exactly what I think every time I hear that song, because I've never looked up the lyrics before and my brain likes to play Mad Libs with my super-questionable auditory processing. And the image of the ballroom staff getting really exasperated with them and shutting all the lights off came to me at night and is hastily scribbled on a sticky note (it's a wonder it's legible) but I still strongly believe that it's the perfect, perfect way to end. I still get the warm feelings when I reread this part, even now, after so many reads.

And, finally - our end quote is exactly what started this whole thing. What is this drama society if not a rough beginning? But the concept that we'll make it through, that we can just take a step and then another and it'll be okay because we're together... it's hard to describe just how much it means to me, to my place in the world, to the world itself. I think one of my rather consistent aims in writing, no matter what it is, is to be able to have this collective - characters that become family, people that are important to each other, this constellation to lean on - because it's all I can say for the human experience. It's probably quite a bit of wishful thinking (as I said to another friend, "I am apparently letting loose on all my repressed social feelings of the past year and shoving them into fics") and a sort of subconscious confirmation that if I write it, I can be it. So this force of understanding and kindness and ultimately good people helping each other through the world is something I can't help but include, something that means the absolute world to me.

I'm so glad to have been able to share this fic with everyone, and extra glad that it's been able to touch some people along the way. I've found such an incredible community in Mischief and coincidentally I think The Keep Going Song represents that warmth, too - the community I've been so lucky to exist inside, how we're helping each other along, step by step. What a beautiful thing to be a part of! Thank you for reading and allowing me to give you a bit of my heart. 💖💖

[aion-rsa]

The Nevers Star Laura Donnelly Answers Burning Finale Questions

https://ift.tt/3uSp933

The following contains major spoilers for The Nevers episode 6.

The star of HBO sci-fi series The Nevers has never shied away from the fact that the show’s sixth episode would be a big one.

“Six is an extraordinary episode,” Donnelly (who plays Amalia True) told Den of Geek prior to the series premiere. “It provides a lot of the answers to the questions that the audience might have. It seemed like a very natural cut-off point.”

Whether episode 6, titled “True”, is a natural cut-off point remains to be seen. Due to the coronavirus pandemic suspending production, the show’s initial 10-episode first season order was shortened to six and “Part 2” (containing six more episodes for a total of 12) is set to arrive at a later date. It’s hard to argue though that episode 6 is anything but extraordinary. 

Read more

TV

How HBO’s The Nevers Explores a Very Different Vision of Victorian Girl Power

By Lacy Baugher

“True” doesn’t merely provide some answers to long-running Nevers questions – it basically upends the premise of the entire show. It turns out that creator Joss Whedon’s initial vision for The Nevers wasn’t merely Victorian ladies with supernatural powers, but that of a much larger story about the human race on the edge of collapse and a dimension-hopping alien species intent on helping us.

Whedon departed the project during the production delay so when the show returns it will be up to new showrunner Philippa Goslett to shepherd this bold new vision. To get ready for that, Den of Geek spoke with Donnelly about the many revelations of episode 6 and what the future of The Nevers entails. 

For those looking for a more complete rundown of just what happened in this truly wild episode, check out our explainer over here. But here Donnelly does an admirable job of unwinding “True’s” many twists. 

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Den of Geek: I participated in the press day interviews before the season premiered. Now I’m wondering what was that press day experience like on your end? People ask you “So what’s your show about? What’s going on?” And then you just kind of have to sit back and lie!

Laura Donnelly: It’s the most frustrating thing ever. I wanted to go into some details but honestly it felt like I could say nothing without unraveling an entire six-episode arc. People would ask me “How did you research to get into the role?” I can’t say that I researched what it might be like to train in the army, what combat would be like with PTSD, things like that. So I’m left going, “Oh, I just read some books on what it’s like in Victorian times.” It made me sound like a really lame researcher. 

You mentioned back in those pre-air interviews that when you first had the meeting for this show, Joss gave you kind of the “whole picture.” Was this episode what that meeting was referring to? And what was your reaction like when you first heard it all?

Well, it was obviously then that I realized I was not dealing with Victorian X-Men. (That meeting) introduced the idea of having an entire backstory of somebody who has been through so much and then gets thrown into this situation and has to deal with it. I just knew that that was going to be such a deep dive into this character and that there was going to be so much to be able to explore with it. Then it was bringing in the elements of how the show is relevant to today, not just in an allegorical sense, but literally – how they are trying to go back in time to make sure that humans do better.

I couldn’t believe that a mind or a show could hold that much. And I knew that I had to be a part of it. What blew me away about (episode) six was that I didn’t know the details, how the story would be told and everything. Now I just can’t believe that with this single hour of television, they managed to tell all of these separate stories with such beauty and nuance. And not just with a ton of exposition, but instead, showing these things in the most clear way possible and that you find out so much in such a short period of time. 

Definitely. The first chapter in this episode is really filled with futuristic sci-fi jargon and there is very, very little expository dialogue. Maybe this is a non-sequitur, but have you ever seen the movie Primer? It kind of reminded me of that in that sense.

No.

It’s a time travel movie made by Shane Carruth a while back (Editor’s Note: 2004). And all of the dialogue is just complete jargon that only an expert in theoretical physics would understand for basically the whole runtime, but the audience is still able to pick up what’s happening for the most part. This episode just reminded me of that.

Yeah. I love it for that. I love it for the fact that it rewards intensive viewing. It’s not the show that you can watch while you’re scrolling on your phone. If you are willing to just buy into that, you realize that on first watch you get the important information: the Galanthi are an alien race that are here to help humanity from itself, and that Stripe is Amalia. Then everything after that the more passion you bring to watching it, the more you get out of it.

I finished my first re-watch right before this interview and I think I finally understand just now how and why Stripe got sent back in time by the Galanthi. Because things are too far gone now. The Galanthi are finally going to really help and their version of really helping is just “We’ve got to go back. Humanity needs a fresh start.”

Yeah! I loved that there were things that I realized from watching it that I hadn’t picked up in the reading of the script. When they suddenly realize that the portal is an exit one and not an entrance one, that makes Knitter (Ellora Torchia) in that moment lose all hope. But what you come to realize is that that is not a moment of despair actually. You realize that the reason that they had an exit portal was because they had a plan and they weren’t coming back. You see that with the Victorian artifacts in the room. In fact, this plan was brought together with the scientists. They were working on that together. That was only something that I caught from watching it.

What was it like watching Claudia Black play your character?

I thought she did a really, really beautiful job. It was strange for me because I wanted them to shoot that before I shot my Stripe stuff, so that I would have a lot more to go on to replicate when I first land in the asylum. But it just couldn’t work out that way and they had to shoot all of Claudia and the future stuff after I’d already shot in the asylum. I went in and watched a lot of their rehearsals and got some video footage of their rehearsals and stuff so I had a good idea of what it was that she was doing with that, but it was just amazing to watch the whole thing put together. It’s like the final piece of a puzzle that I didn’t even have any say in. I was just kind of glad really that it matched up to what I had in my head, because I’d been having to make a lot of guesses when it came to playing Stripe in the asylum. 

It occurs to me now that for five episodes you’ve been playing a woman with a North American accent doing an old-timey Victorian British accent. What was that process like?

It allowed a little freedom actually because, on her part, it’s a learned accent. I didn’t have to be hugely strict about the rules of what would be particularly Victorian. I allowed myself to bring a little more modernity to how she would phrase something. I kind of hoped that people would pick up on the idea that Amalia seemed, in some indistinguishable way, slightly anachronistic. I also then kind of hoped that there would even be the odd person going, “Oh, well her accent’s slipped there, she got it wrong there” or whatever, because I kind of felt once you then see episode six, they’d see why. 

When you think of the character in your head, what name comes to mind first: Molly, Zephyr, Amalia, or Stripe?

Amalia, actually, but the second one that would come would be Stripe. It’s funny, “Zephyr” is the last one I think of and I think that that is probably true of Amalia as well in that it is so far pushed down. It is so far into her past for so many different reasons. It would be too painful to have all of the implications that the Zephyr name carries in the forefront of her mind. In her soldier way of being, she just needs to constantly move forward. 

Again, back before the season premiered when I spoke to you and Ann (Skelly), my first question was about characters’ names and how they were a little odd. Perhaps that was a bit prescient because in the far flung future names are sacred. What was your impression of that concept and why do you think names have become sacred?

I wonder if it’s just the idea that it’s the only little bit of recognizable humanity left for them. I think that people will always find a way of making something sacred. You need what is sacred to you at times when things are most difficult. You’re looking at a human race that doesn’t even have real food. Everything is engineered and they can’t even breathe the air outside. The sacred can be very important in moments of deep, deep despair like that. A name is something that everybody can have, and a name is something that everybody can therefore keep for themselves.

At the same time, it also speaks to the idea that everybody then is involved in that war on one side or the other. It doesn’t seem to me that you’ve got the army and then you’ve got citizens. It seems to me like everybody at that point in humanity as they’re coming towards the end is on one side or the other and is fighting. That means that everybody is being called by their rank, and so Stripe is known as Stripe That also makes a name more sacred because it’s the part of you that isn’t involved in this war. It’s the last vestige of true humanity that you might have left.

Any updates on the production process for part 2? I believe last time you had yet to see any scripts. 

I’ve had lots of conversations with (new showrunner) Philippa Goslett and with Ilene (Landress), our producer but I have as yet not read a script. I’m just waiting, but I’m in prep. I know enough about the next couple of episodes to know what fights I need to learn and things like that.

I cannot imagine being in Philippa’s shoes right now. Showrunner changes happen all the time but this is one of the more unusual narrative circumstances to fall into, I think.

Absolutely. I mean, the show is wild, but I think that, whatever else happened, we were so fortunate that episode six became this very natural break point in the story for obvious reasons. So much has been wrapped up. I feel like the world is built and the characters are established, you know. It really could go pretty much anywhere from here and it just needs somebody’s brilliant imagination to do that.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

Now that the real plot behind the curtain was revealed, does the name “The Nevers” have any more added significance?

Not that I’m aware of, no. I think the only thing that I have to go on about the name is something that Joss said several years back about the idea that these people never should have existed. They’re anomalies or even the more pejorative term – abominations.

Do you think future seasons and storylines of the show will take things past Victorian England and inch closer to that dystopian present?

I mean, I would love for it to. It makes sense to me that it started in Victorian times because that was a key moment of change in so many different ways in how the world communicates. There are kind of several revolutions going on at once, technological being one of the main ones. But it would be really interesting then to see how that progresses, and the issues at hand get dealt with, depending on the social aspects of different countries or different decades. The key to all of that is can you find a really cool way of doing it? Because my head isn’t able to come up with that. Whatever keeps the storyline the most interesting, keeps the characters true to themselves, and doesn’t jump the shark, I’m well up for.

The Nevers season 1 part 2 is awaiting a release date at HBO.

The post The Nevers Star Laura Donnelly Answers Burning Finale Questions appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3uUOxF8

[xtrashmammalstefx]

Stupid Kissing Thief

Douglas Booth x Reader 

Requested By: @courage-grace-rose

WARNINGS: Smut, mild cursing

I met Douglas at the start of Secondary school. He was the first person to be kind to me, unlike the others who were cruel. We were a duo almost immediately and we wound up sharing so much with each other. But there was one thing that wasn’t shared so much as stolen.

We were twelve and the atmosphere among our peers began to change. It became all about who was dating who, who was getting kissed, and all that nonsense such young children find important. I didn’t much care about that sort of thing; mum once said it was because I was a late bloomer, but my Auntie Neve claimed it was because my soul knew what it wanted and thus chose not to worry. One night Doug came over to my house so that I could help him rehearse for a play the school was putting on.

“We have a door you twat!” I hissed at him as he climbed through my window.

He smiled. “Just getting into character is all.”

“By risking falling onto the pavements and killing yourself?” I snapped at him, my heart racing a mile a minute. “How the bloody hell am I suppose to live with something like that?��

He sighed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“Just don’t do it again,” I said sitting back down onto my bed. “Now which scene are we doing today?”

“Um I dunno,” he said nervously sitting down opposite me on my bed.

“Well, which one are you most nervous about?” I asked flipping through the book.

“The meeting scene I guess,” he said looking down awkwardly.

I nodded and flipped to it. I read through it first in silence; pausing when I realized why he was nervous. “Oh…”

“Exactly,” he said.

“Lucky for you Penny Heatherwell is very pretty,” I said trying to ease his nerves. “I highly doubt you’re going to forget it.”

“Uh...right…” he said. “Shall I start or did you..?”

It started off well. We began where Romeo and Juliet step away from the party since that is when Juliet speaks most in the scene. All the while Doug kept looking at me weird. Finally came the fateful lines that started it all.

Juliet:

Saints do not move, though grant for prayers’ sake.

Romeo:

Then move not while my prayer’s effect I take.

And that’s when he abruptly leaned in and crushed his lips to mine. I was shocked, stunned frozen, and pissed. Shocked for obvious reasons, stunned because he didn’t stop, and pissed because that was not how I thought my first kiss would go. I panicked and smacked him on the side of the head with the book.

“OW!” He screamed breaking the kiss.

“What the hell was that?!” I snapped at him.

“A moment,” he said rubbing the side of his face. “A moment I’ve been thinking about lately.”

“Did it ever occur to you that I wanted that moment to go a certain way?” I said. “That I wanted it to be with someone I trust more than anyone else in the world? That...that I wanted to have my favorite song playing in the background or...have some semblance of it being romantic and unforgettable? Or to at least be asked permission first?”

“Do you not trust me?” he asked.

“I did…” I said.

“I-Is there any way I can earn that trust back?” he asked. “You’re my best friend Y/N and...and I just… I can’t lose you.”

And I can’t lose you…

“You’ll have to earn it,” I said.

He smiled at that. “I will earn it and so much more.”

“Whoa down boy,” I laughed. “Now how ‘bout we move on to another scene eh?”

“Sure,” he said.

I flipped further into the book. “Stupid kissing thief,” I muttered as I did.

“That’s not part of the script love,” he said. I held up my middle finger and continued to find another scene.

That was many many years ago. Doug and I are grown now and sharing a flat. He was famous, as I always knew he would be, and I well...let’s just say my YouTube channel is at a humble subscriber point.

I wasn’t working on a video on the night everything came to a head. No, rather I was readying myself for a date with my boyfriend Deacon.

“Wow, you look…” Doug began when I stepped into the sitting room.

“Horrendous right?” I asked. I was wearing a new dress that did not fit me as well as it did the mannequin I’d seen it on. It was far tighter and revealing.

“Never,” he smiled. “You’re beautiful Y/N.” He said putting his latest script down. “So what’s the occasion?”

“One-month anniversary dinner with Deacon,” I said.

“Ah,” he said. “Should’ve known it was for the twat.”

“Doug,” I said in a warning voice.

“Sorry,” he said. “Not my fault he has wanker written all over himself.”

“Enough,” I said. “He’s a decent guy alright? Probably the best I’m ever going to meet considering my luck in the past.”

“Oh trust me, love,” Doug said. “That git is anything but the best; especially for you.”

Just then there was a knock at the door. I swiped my phone from the coffee table and ran to answer it. Deacon smiled at the sight of me. “Hello dear.”

“Hi,” I said kissing him on the cheek.

“Hello Doug,” he said playing nice. Doug who was passing by on the way to the kitchen looked over and nodded once.

“Come on let’s go yeah?” I said practically pushing Deacon out of the flat.

We went to this restaurant in town that I’d never ventured into (mostly because the patrons were mostly wealthy and snobby) and managed to get our own private table. “Does Doug hate me for some reason?”

I shook my head. “He just has difficulty trusting people.”

“Except you,” he said.

“Well we sort of went through puberty together so we’re sort of in this for the long run,” I said. “He’s my best friend and I honestly cannot picture my life without him. Which is why I wish you two would get along.”

“I’m trying to but,” Deacon shook his head. “He’s just so standoffish. Was he like this with your ex’s?”

“Only the ones who wound up breaking my heart,” I said. “I have an ex who broke up with me because he was gay. Doug was absolutely amazing with him.”

“What about the lucky ones?”

“Lucky ones?” I arched an eyebrow at him.

“You know the lucky lads who kissed you first and loved you first,” Deacon said making it obvious what he meant by loved.

“Uh well funny story actually,” I said nervously. “It was the same lad both times.”

“Oh really?”

I nodded. “It was… Doug.”

He nearly spat out his wine. “WHAT?!”

“Deacon relax,” I said.

“Why the hell haven’t you told me this before?”

“Because it isn’t any of your business,” I said.

“Were you both at least drunk or something during both?”

“Okay first off we were twelve when we kissed,” I pointed out. “And secondly I didn’t want my virginity going to just any old twat so I asked Doug to...why the hell am I even telling you this. It’s ancient history!”

“Oh darling you are completely daft if you think it’s history to him,” Deacon said. “God it all makes sense now.”

“What does?”

“Why he bloody hates me so much!” Deacon snapped at me. “Look just tell me something.”

“Alright.”

“Do you love him?”

“What? I’ve told you, me and him are just…”

“Y/N I need you to move out of the flat,” Deacon said.

“What?”

“If we are going to work then I need to be able to trust you,” he said. “I can’t trust you with him.”

“Is that how you think of me?” I said. My voice flat.

“No…,” he said. “But it’s the only choice you’ve got.”

“Like. Hell. It. Is,” I stood up and stormed out of the restaurant.

I took a cab home and stormed into the flat.

“Y/N?!” Doug looked up from his script.

“NOT NOW!” I snapped stepping out of my heels.

“What did he do?” Doug asked. I couldn’t even look at him. Instead, fuming, I darted for my room. I took off the dress (determined to throw it in the rubbish bin when I had the chance) and changed into a pair of shorts and an oversized Boy George t-shirt.

I sat on my bed and buried my face in my hands. It’s how it always ended; with me crying and calling myself a bloody idiot. Nothing’s changed and nothing ever will...or so I thought.

I didn’t hear him come in. One minute I was sat in bed sulking and in the next, I was in his arms. “I hate it when you’re right.”

“Me too love,” he said. “Me too.”

“I’m such an idiot,” I whispered.

“No, you’re not,” he said. “You’re brilliant.” He rubbed my arm. “So what was it this time.”

“He made me do something I absolutely hate,” I said.

“What?” Doug looked at me concerned.

I looked up at him, at his crystal blue eyes, and suddenly I knew what Deacon meant. “He made me choose.”

“And..?” Doug asked. “What choice did you make?”

“I’d rather Romeo be my love than that rotter Paris any day,” I said just as I did years ago when he loved me first.

“Love, by yonder blessed moon I vow,” he began. “That tips with silver all these fruit-tree tops⸺”

Damn him.

“O, swear not by the moon, th’ inconstant moon,” I recited as I did twice before.  What can I say Doug is the one true Romeo. “That monthly changes in her circled orb, Lest that thy love prove likewise variable.”

“What shall I swear by?” he whispered.

“Do not swear at all.” I brought my mouth to his. His lips were warm and soft. He kissed me back hungrily. As though freeing an emotion he’d long since held back. We lied back on my bed after a while and I snaked my hands up his shirt. I palmed his abs; going further up until he got the hint and shrugged it off tossing it to the floor. He then helped me off with mine.

“You’re beautiful Y/N,” he whispered bringing his lips to my neck. He kissed downward reaching my breasts. He kissed and played with my nipple until a moan escaped my lips. He looked up and smirked.

“Stupid kissing thief,” I muttered.

He laughed and continued to kiss down my body finally gripping the edge of my shorts. He looked up silently asking for permission. I smiled and nodded. He pulled them off along with my panties. “So beautiful,” he muttered before bringing his lips to my heat.

It sent a shiver up my spine. He kissed and sucked at my core making need him more. “Mmm Doug,” I moaned as he continued to kiss and lick. “Doug I’m going to…” My body tensed up as a wave swept over me. Pleased with himself Doug climbed back up to me as I collapsed from my orgasm. Panting I reached down and started to pull at his sweats. He stood up and pulled them off. I absorbed the image of his body and admired it for what it was: a thing of beauty.

He climbed back on top of me and kissed me gently on the mouth.

“I love you,” I whispered.

He smiled down at me. “I love you too,” he said. “I always will.”

He then pushed himself inside me. I gasped having forgotten the size of his length.  “You okay?” he asked. I nodded bringing my mouth to his.

As we kissed he began to move. The first time we made love was almost magical. Not just because it was the first but because after that...no other lad could make love me as he did. This time was no different. He held me as if he didn’t plan on ever letting me go. He moved inside me as though I were the only one he would ever make love to. And he loved me...he genuinely loved me. And I loved him. God did I love him.

After what felt like an eternity my body began to tense up again. “D-Doug...fuck!”

“It’s alright,” he groaned. “I’m close too.”

His thrust became sloppy as I grew tighter. Finally, the wave came over me again making me scream his name to the heavens. He moaned and painted the inside of me with his seed. He held me close until the last drop left him. He reached down and pulled himself out.

We crawled under the covers and I placed my head on his chest. “This is one of the best nights of my life,” I said. “Is it one of yours.”

“Absolutely,” he said. “But I know a way it could be made better.”

“Oh?”

“O, wilt thou leave me so unsatisfied?”

I sighed and rolled my eyes. “What satisfaction canst thou have tonight?”

He slid a small diamond ring onto my finger. I gasped and looked up at him.

“Th’ exchange of thy love’s faithful vow for mine.”

“I gave thee mine before thou didst request it,” I kissed him hard.

We drifted off to sleep soon after. Just me and my stupid kissing thief.

[headachebrain]

I’m 33 and Obsessed with BTS

Change scares me. I react to change by completely escaping from reality, becoming fixated on something or someone. The summer I was 17 and didn’t have a job, I danced Janet’s All For You tour from top to bottom every day. When I started university and had a tough time adjusting, I fell in love with my hip hop dance teacher, spending each day looking forward to when I could be back in his class. When I was 25, I worked at a bookstore doing 5 a.m. shifts and became obsessed with a character I created in one of my novels. It made me feel like I was living for something, that I was part of something and I wasn’t alone.

Then I got older, got in therapy and on meds, got a full time job and obsessed over things in moderation. Nothing got out of hand. Until now.

Now it’s BTS.

This year has been full of change. I got fired unexpectedly, was unemployed for two months and recently started a new job. The amount of change occurring in my life in four months has been dizzying and to cope, I have fixated on BTS.

I’m 33. I grew up in the golden age of boy bands. My first concert was seeing 112 and New Edition in 1997. In the prime of Backstreet Boys, NSYNC, O-Town and B2k, I was in middle school and high school. I grew up loving cute, non-threatening young men that could sing and dance and the first time I saw BTS perform, that’s exactly what I saw – that’s what drew me in. They remind me of the groups I grew up loving but are completely different because they aren’t buff white American boys singing R&B, or young Black boys with abs singing about sex. They’re slim, slightly androgynous Korean men who sing in Korean. And I am in love.

I’m from the era where the only time you could see your favourite boy band was when they were on the VMA’s or in music videos or if you spent the small amount of money you had on Word Up or Teen People magazine so you could get pictures of them to post on your bedroom wall or in your locker. Now, I can see and hear everything about BTS whenever I want. I have spent hours watching performances, interviews, dance rehearsals, fan made compilation videos, music videos, reaction videos, concert footage, Instagram videos – there is so much.

I want to see it all.

I listen to their music all day at my new job. When I go home I watch more YouTube BTS content until I go to bed. It has become all consuming. It’s a coping mechanism. Every day I walk in to a new workplace with new people, doing tasks where I feel like I have to prove myself. Then I turn on a BTS song or scroll through photos of them and it relaxes me. It takes me out of my body, puts me into a fantasy world for a few moments until I have to go back to the real world.

There is something that imprints on you if you were a young girl that grew up loving a boy band. It’s why New Kids on the Block can keep touring and have women in their forties and fifties screaming like they’re children again. It’s why the Backstreet Boys are selling out shows in Vegas. It’s why the B2k reunion tour has women in their 30’s showing up to shows in their finest early 2000’s fashions. The music of our childhood holds a special place in our hearts and boy bands hold an even bigger space. There is something special about remembering how you felt when you watched a music video and it felt like the cute lead singer was singing just to you, for you, about you. That feeling doesn’t go away. And it’s a feeling that me and other women want to hold on to.

And during this intense time of change in my life, it’s a feeling that’s keeping me going. I’ve been told my fixation on them is an example of me wanting to go back to being a child. The absolute last thing I want is to be a child again but I do miss that childlike feeling that anything was possible. That a group of young boys doing choreography and singing about love was the most important thing in the world. When my only concern was standing in front of my TV trying to get the “Bye, Bye, Bye” choreography down. I think it’s a feeling a lot of adults chase. It could be why we all love the music of our childhoods.

I latched on to BTS after seeing them on Saturday Night Live. Before that I’d seen some of their live performances, thought some of their songs were catchy and was impressed by their dancing but didn’t pay much attention to them. When they were on Ellen, I watched the interview just to see what the hype was about. They didn’t make any kind of impression on me and I went about my life. Then one Saturday afternoon, I was bored on YouTube and clicked on their SNL performance of ‘Boy With Luv.’ That was all it took. I don’t know if it was the song (which is great), or how they all looked in those sleek black suits (amazing), or the perfectly in sync, intricate choreography but I totally fell in love with them. The timing lined up. When I watched the SNL performance I had been unemployed for about a month and then a few weeks later I got a new job and my obsession with them only got deeper.

When I feel vulnerable, I try to fill up the holes with something. And when I’m around brand new people and situations, like I am now as an adult at a brand new job, I have a hard time opening up and talking to people. What has helped is telling people I stan BTS. It’s an unusual quirk in my personality that I’ve found people have clung to. It’s been a great conversation starter and has been a good way to connect with my new co-workers. I don’t have children or a partner to bring up in casual conversation in the office kitchen, but I know a lot about the biggest boy band in the world.

The more I learn about them, the more I admire them. I watch compilation videos of them doing interviews in English when only one member is fluent and think about how brave that is that they even try. I respect that not all of them are natural dancers but you’d never tell because they all put in the work to look flawless. I love how they speak to each other and care about each other and are open with their feelings. The boy bands I grew up with always seemed to have to prove that they were hyper masculine and were straight, even if we learned later that they weren’t. They never touched each other or talked openly about their relationships with each other. BTS members openly weep on stage. They hug and touch each other. They have videos where they sit around a table and reflect on their year, their feelings towards each other and dreams for the future. As a fan it makes me love them more and as a grown lady it makes me happy to see these young men reject toxic masculinity and portray themselves as full human beings. I’ve thought a lot about what it is about these seven men that has catapulted them in to the international spotlight and I think it’s their vulnerability. They are not afraid to say that they’re hurting or they’re struggling with mental illness. When doing interviews in English they’ve talked about having “a boyfriend or a girlfriend”, rejecting heteronormativity. Their message is encouraging fans to love themselves. Even when it comes to hip hop and Black culture, I watched a 2014 reality show where they went to California and learned from Coolio and Warren G about the origins of hip hop. They’ve done the work.

When I was watching clips from their recent concert in London, Jungkook, the youngest member, sang his solo song while zooming through the air around the arena above thousands of screaming fans and I started to cry. I thought about stereotypes of East Asian men, about what men are supposed to be in order to be attractive to women and that two minute clip shattered all of that. It was beautiful.

After being a fan for only a few months, they already mean a lot to me. I hope they continue to share their music and their art with the world. I know I’ll look back and think of them fondly for getting me through a confusing time in my life.

[lesbeet]

long post ahead

ive been thinking nonstop about the possibility of me having adhd since my sister and her boyfriend brought it up to me last week (i’m FINALLY seeing my therapist today so we can talk about it) and i’ve been doing a lot of research and i found the howtoadhd channel on youtube

and literally the number of times in the past 2 hours alone that i’ve teared up or started legitimately crying because of how much i relate to things that these videos are saying is ridiculous, like some of them are word-for-word things i’ve said that i had NO inkling of an idea could be related to adhd

like this one video of this guy who was diagnosed at 43 and said that prior to his diagnosis he had just accepted that he would feel dissatisfied for his whole life, that he would never feel content, i’ve been saying that for YEARS and just was resigned to it and chalked it up solely to my depression

and just like. having been able to do well in school as a kid but constantly being told that i’m “not living up to [my] potential” and now that i’m in my early 20s and my intelligence can’t compensate for like....not being able to regulate my emotions and not being able to organize my life and not being able to motivate myself to do things, which is supposedly why a number of people get diagnosed around this time, because metrics for success are different in adulthood (you can’t just take a test and rely on being smart to compensate for all the other problems), and i was always just. thinking that i fucked up and wasted my life through laziness or whatever the case may be

i’ve always considered myself to be “crafty” and “resourceful” in the sense that i may not go about doing things in the typical way but i can almost always find a way to accomplish what i need accomplished, even if it’s unconventional -- apparently that’s common with adhd too! like i’ll say “oh i couldn’t figure out how to do [x] so i did [y and z]” and someone will be like “why didn’t you just do [thing everyone else does]” and usually i either couldn’t figure out how, or it didn’t occur to me, and my way was weird and unconventional, but it worked for me!

and then of course i’m just recognizing all these signs that have always been there that i either didn’t notice or attributed to other things -- i’ve been trying to observe the way my attention functions this week and literally i space out and miss things SO much more often than i ever realized, like i miss so much information because i’ve drifted off. or i get really stuck on things in conversations and even after everyone else has moved on i have this urge to bring it back so i can say that last thing i’ve been rehearsing over and over for the past 5 minutes so i didn’t forget it, and now it’s in my head and everyone is talking about something else and it’s SO inconsequential but i have to forcibly drag myself away from whatever the thing is (yesterday my sister and her friend and i were talking about early 2000′s fashion and i wanted to make a comment about wearing ugly scarves as belts and they saw a dog and moved on to talking about cute things our dogs have done and i just couldn’t stop thinking about the scarves as belts thing for like 10 minutes until i just had to sigh and be like...well i can’t bring that up again now)

when i was younger i would rush through tests so i could go back to whatever book i was reading and i just thought it was a silly quirk like “oh i just like to read lol” but i realized i still do similar things -- if i’m reading a book or watching a show or working on something, THAT is what i’m doing. anything else, whether it’s work or sleep or eating or hanging out with a friend or fulfilling any sort of responsibility? that’s a break from the thing i’m doing. if i’m reading a book, even if it’s the 3rd time i’m rereading harry potter for the year, for example, then in my head, i’m reading harry potter. i have to go to work all day but then i can read harry potter. all i’m doing is thinking about reading harry potter. i rush through my responsibilities so i can go BACK to reading harry potter, because that’s what i’m doing and anything else is just taking a break from reading harry potter. (you see how this can negatively affect the accomplishment/fulfillment of important tasks and responsibilities)

and my sister has pointed out things that i didn’t really notice, like she said it’s really difficult to hold a conversation with me when i’m excited about something because i can’t calm down enough to let the other person talk. and i’ve always known that i tend to finish peoples’ sentences for them during conversations, which i always thought was a way of showing that i’m listening! but ive realized it’s actually that, if i already know what you’re going to say, and you’re saying it too slowly, i get impatient and i need to blurt out the rest for you so we can move on and i can say my next thing before i forget it

and like obviously all people experience some symptoms some of the time, daydreaming isn’t exclusive to adhd, neither is walking into a room and forgetting what you’re doing there. but this week as i’ve been paying attention, i notice i do it CONSTANTLY. the other night i opened up my phone before bed because i remembered i hadn’t set my alarm, so i picked it up from where i place it for the night (i was about to go to sleep). 15 minutes later i put my phone back down and decided to turn in for the night again, and then realized i still had never turned the alarm on because i got distracted and did other stuff. and things like that happen with almost comical regularity, now that i know to look for it.

i’ve known i have executive dysfunction issues for a long time so i won’t go into those, but like we’ve known i have problems with directions and organization and spatial processing and knowing how to complete tasks for a long time

the rejection-sensitive dysphoria is something i didn’t really realize was part of adhd, but it makes SO much sense. i think it’s part of why i thought i had bpd for a while, because a lot of the symptoms were similar and i knew i was dealing with something more than just depression and anxiety but didn’t know what, and a lot of the symptoms i experienced also seemed to fit the bpd diagnosis even if my actual behavior and personality didn’t seem to

there are so many more things i’ve noticed this week and thought about differently but i literally can’t remember what they are lmao i think i’m gonna try to write stuff down so i don’t forget to tell my therapist today but like. 

so many of these things i didn’t realize had anything to do with adhd, like emotional dysregulation, i’ve always known i have horrible mood swings and trouble regulating my emotions, i’ve always noticed a lot of these different symptoms but it never occurred to me that they could all be part of the same thing??

like i haven’t been tested or diagnosed yet and i’m worried i’m getting carried away but the only time i’ve ever felt this sort of relief was a few months ago when realizing my dad is a narcissist. like the feeling of “oh my god, i knew this was something i experienced but i didn’t think i could attribute it to anything” and “oh my god, this is word for word something i say all the time, i didn’t realize it was part of a pattern”

and it genuinely made me cry! hearing people talk about things that describe me that i never would have guessed might have to do with adhd, finding something that seems to encompass a very broad range of symptoms that i previously thought were unrelated or results of a myriad of things (and obviously they all play off of one another but that’s a whole separate issue)

but it would explain so much of my behavior and challenges -- why i struggle with finishing up a task or project once the big, complicated part is done; why i get super obsessed with something and then once it wears off i never mention or think about it again; why i’ve always needed my mom’s help to clean my closet or pack for a trip, even though i felt like i was way too old to need help with that; why people constantly are like “i know you heard me say this because you said ‘ok’” about things i genuinely have no recollection of

but i just can’t stop thinking about that guy talking about how he was just resigned to thinking he would never been satisfied or content with his life because that is something i have been feeling and saying FOREVER, for years ive just been like “everything is so hard, the idea of spending the rest of my life struggling to get up in the morning and going to work every day, dealing with all my responsibilities, i feel like i’m exhausted and underwater just thinking about it, i’m never going to feel fulfilled or satisfied, it’s always just going to be slogging through my responsibilities and it’s never going to end” and apparently that’s....a normal thing, and i just thought it was depression and maybe part of it is, but maybe the reason i struggle so much with those every day things is because my brain is wired differently?

and maybe i’ve fucked up because at this point i think i’ll be really disappointed if i don’t get the diagnosis because i’m not really sure what else could explain these issues, it certainly makes sense and i feel like it fits and i feel relieved just thinking about having that answer, and it certainly negatively impacts almost every aspect (if not every aspect) of my life. so like if i don’t get diagnosed idk what i’m gonna do and i probably fucked up by spending the last week obsessing over it lol

but like....the relief i feel every time i read or hear or see someone with adhd say “i experience [x]” and i’m like holy shit??? me too???? and it just. feels like maybe there’s an explanation for all this horrible dissatisfaction and unhappiness i thought i was going to be stuck with for the rest of my life, and there are other people who experience these things and there are things that can be done, medication and therapy and strategies and...my whole life doesn’t NEED to feel like a challenge, maybe it’s not an indisputable fact that i’m just going to have to live with forever.

if you read this far and you have adhd (especially if you were diagnosed after childhood) i would love to hear your thoughts on this, obviously i didn’t list every single symptom and experience and i know there are more but these are all i could think of at the moment, if i seem like i’m way off base obviously please let me know

[veliseraptor]

this alternate pov of this fic is courtesy of @portraitoftheoddity because she mentioned wanting to see it and, well, who am I to deny such enabling? (yeah, I totally wanted to do it, so sue me.)

this is the closest I’ll probably get to writing something that would be tagged “Not Team Iron Man Friendly” on AO3.

cw, as with the original, for character death and hella angst.

There was a letter from Steve sitting on the table in front of him. Though calling it a “letter” was probably generous: no salutation, no signature. One handwritten line.

Loki’s dead. Don’t try to contact me.

He’d been staring at it for about a half an hour, now.

“What’s that?” Tony half turned to look at Rhodey (Rhodey, legs in braces, what a fucking disaster) and just picked up the piece of paper, holding it out wordlessly. He raised his eyebrows at Tony but made his way over and, adjusting his crutches, took it.

“Shit,” he said, concisely.

“Don’t really need to ask how,” Tony said. His voice sounded strange. What’d he said to Steve in Siberia? Ross won’t touch him. He won’t dare.

Apparently he’d misjudged that one.

Rhodey put the letter back on the table. “There’s nothing you could’ve done, Tony.”

“I could’ve guessed,” Tony said. “Fuck. Fuck. Ross actually…”

Guess you don’t have to worry about that vision of yours anymore. He didn’t like Loki. Sometimes Loki straight up scared him, and with what Vision had told him about Thanos fucking possessing him that made him even more dangerous. But...Jesus.

Ross must’ve killed him practically right after Tony’d left. Maybe as he’d been telling Steve that Ross wouldn’t do it.

How’d they even manage to kill him? Loki had always seemed practically invincible.

“Tony?” Rhodey said, sounding like he’d repeated it a couple of times.

“I need to call Steve,” Tony said abruptly, standing up. Rhodey gave him a look like he was insane.

“The thing he specifically told you not to do? Come on. You’re upset, I get it, but - and you need to remember that he’s a vigilante now. A fugitive. If you get caught corresponding with him…”

“Ross can go fuck himself,” Tony said. He reached for his phone only to realize that he had no idea how to call Steve. And fuck, he was mad at Steve, he didn’t want to call and offer condolences that his psychotic boyfriend was dead, Steve owed him an apology for keeping secrets it was not his business to keep-

Yeah, but you did throw Loki in a shark tank without looking back. Guilt made his stomach feel like it was full of rocks.

“And the UN?” Rhodey asked. “Are you going to tell them to go fuck themselves, too? This isn’t on you-”

Tony rounded on him. “You think Thor’s going to buy that when he gets back? I can just tell him yeah, I put your brother in the prison where they killed him but it’s not my fault, I’m sure that’ll go over great.”

Not just Thor, he realized with a chill. Loki had called Bucky Barnes his friend, and they did get along like two peas in a murdering pod. Barnes had a pretty good reason to hate him now already.

Steve wouldn’t let that happen, Tony thought a little desperately, but Steve had already proven he couldn’t control Barnes and even if he could...would he?

“I’m calling Ross,” he said finally.

“Tony,” Rhodey said lowly, “be careful.”

He wanted to call Steve. Tell him...Jesus, what? Sorry I got your boyfriend killed. Whatever Tony thought about Loki, Steve loved him. Like crazy, you could see it in his face. Tony tried to imagine what it would be like if someone murdered Pepper.

He’d never forgive them.

Steve was never going to forgive him.

**

“What the fuck were you thinking,” he said the second Ross picked up.

“Stark,” Ross said.

“You killed Loki,” Tony said. “You just made the stupidest move you could possibly make-”

“I had a dangerous war criminal executed,” Ross said. “And where did you get that information?”

“I have good sources,” Tony said. “You don’t understand, do you? You just permanently alienated Captain America, made an enemy of a master assassin, and invited the wrath of a literal god. Did you think this through? At all?”

“I did what was necessary for the sake of the world,” Ross said. “I thought you would understand that.”

Tony hung up and almost threw his phone across the room. You screwed up. You screwed up hard and you can’t fix it.

He remembered Loki snarling at him: You think you can wave your hand and throw some money around and fix everything. He couldn’t fix this.

You do not even comprehend what you will face, and your folly might well cost you your realm.

He might be right, Tony realized. The Avengers were already fractured, and this...this just about killed the idea of that ever changing. Which made him realize he’d kind of been expecting it would. That this wouldn’t last, eventually the band would get back together again, things would work out.

Not anymore.

And without the Avengers…

“Fuck,” he said under his breath. “Fuck, fuck.”

**

Tony locked himself in his lab, shut off all the cameras, and called T’Challa. “Can I talk to Steve?” He asked, fingers crossed, guessing.

“No,” T’Challa said. “He isn’t here.”

“T’Challa, please,” Tony said. “It’s important.”

“I am sure it is,” T’Challa said evenly. “But he isn’t here.” And he hung up.

Maybe an hour later he got a call back.

“Fuck you,” said Sam Wilson.

“Uh,” Tony said, taken aback.

“You think you get to just call up and ask to talk to him? After what you did? I don’t care what you want. You’re on your own. You don’t have the fucking right to ask us for anything.”

“I wanted to say-” Tony didn’t know what he wanted to say. The raw anger in Sam’s voice caught him by surprise.

“Save it,” Sam said, sounding disgusted. “I hope you’re happy being a government stooge, Mr. Stark.”

“Wait!” Tony took a deep breath. “I wanted to apologize. I didn’t actually think that Ross would kill him.”

“Really,” Sam said. “You didn’t? Cause I remember people telling you exactly that several times. You just didn’t listen. Or didn’t care.”

“Where’s Steve,” Tony asked.

“No idea,” Sam said, deadpan. “Gone. He took off about a week ago on his own. I guess he figured enough was enough. And you know what? I can’t even fucking blame him.”

He hung up. Second person in two hours to hang up on him. Tony stared at his phone. Gone. So Steve had walked off, Loki was dead, Natasha was missing. T’Challa had pulled back into Wakanda. Rhodey was injured and Vision was moping.

He’d just been trying to make things right. How had it gotten this bad?

**

He went digging in Ross’s files, looking for...something. When he realized what he was looking for it almost made him stop.

He wanted to know where they’d taken Loki’s body.

The first thing he found, though, was the video of the execution. He made himself watch it and threw up in a trash can afterwards. Was that what Steve had seen? How he’d known?

Tony kept trying to rehearse what he was going to say to Thor, but nothing he thought of sounded good enough as sorry I got your baby brother killed apology.

Maybe a month later Ross died from a severe case of bullet-to-the-head. Point blank range. Barnes didn’t exactly leave a calling card that said you’re next, but then again he didn’t exactly have to.

It occurred to Tony that his vision had come true after all. Loki had destroyed the Avengers from within. All he’d had to do was die.

[cutsdatflo]

We spoke with Mike Pappa, a rising filmmaker and previous collaborator at CUTSDATFLO.  Now based in LA, he crafts beautifully epic films, such as his recent sci-fi short, A Crimson Man.  

Mike’s unique history in video game design, led him to working in visual effects and production design, and ultimately directing.  He previously wrote and directed acclaimed short film, Frankie.

Check out our interview below, which details his love of process & storytelling throughout the making of A Crimson Man.

What’s the inspiration behind A Crimson Man?  

The inspiration was the worlds from Philip K. Dick stories, PTSD accounts from veterans, and the childlike wonder and curiosity that a young protagonist brings to the sci-fi/fantasy genre. And naturally, films I had watched growing up that hold a special place in my heart:  E.T., The Iron Giant, The Never Ending Story, Time Bandits, Star Wars, The Empire of the Sun and so on.  I grew up as a military brat so I related to a lot to these characters' sense of awe and wonder of discovering new fantastical friends and exploring mythical and often dangerous worlds that the filmmakers had created. 

In terms of writing the lead as an Asian kid, that was because of my three young nephews who are mixed-race.  I wanted them to see themselves up on the big screen. That, and there's a lack of Asians leads in American sci-fi films. Regarding the character's personalities, there's always a bit of the writer in them, no?  

What was the seemingly massive post-production like, and did it influence the way you shot? 

The biggest influence post had on production was in scouting for exterior locations. We couldn't afford to shoot on an actual pier, a boat, or some super remote foothill. So, pulling from our bag of tricks, we chose locations that multiple scenes could be set in, would work for the planned set extensions/matte backgrounds, and we could turn the camera around to get plates of landscape and atmosphere. Basically getting the biggest bang for your buck. 

When it came to VFX, the original plan was for me not to handle a majority of it. However, due to budget and schedule, I ended up taking on 75% of the 125 shots myself.  And there were new challenges for me as a VFX artist; creating and compositing massive set extensions into footage shot with anamorphic lenses. These shots had to look believable. No exceptions. But, there was a point where I had to accept I'm just not skilled enough to make the shots look any more realistic. I mean, this is why you always hire people who can do the thing better than you can do the thing. So, it was definitely one of the hardest things I had ever done on a film -- but, I had wonderful guidance from VFX Consultant Nitant Karnik and help from CG Artist Jordan Sariego & Roto Artist Andy Rajput.

When it came time to do our color correction, we were lucky to do it at Company 3 and with a very talented colorist, Bryan Smaller.  So, for each scene, you discuss color and mood. But, I was also breathing a sigh of relief every time a VFX shot passed "the test." Wearing VFX and Director hats became stressful.  Anyone that's worked on low-budget and indie films, especially as a director, knows wearing many hats is just part of the deal. Just wasn't very fun.

Like most projects I have worked on, post influences a lot of the production. My traditional animation and production designer background shines through here. When you have a child actor, a practical robot suit, a night fight scene, and mostly exterior locations, everything must be planned to a T.  I storyboarded scenes, created animatics, mocked up VFX shots, we had stunt rehearsals, and of course the expected planning of camera setups.  On set, there was always storyboards displayed on foamcore so that all departments could be on the same page. The cast and crew could focus more on performances and now be a little more prepared for any unseen challenges and hiccups that always occur on the day. It was a very ambitious five-day shoot, to say the least -- but with the guidance and diligence of Producers Jordan Lietz & Tracy Wu and AD Dan Hartney, we got through it.

The lead was played by a child actor - did this change the logistics of the shoot?

Shooting with Maddox Henry (Wei) was a great experience. Having a practical fx robot on set was rewarding. Maddox and Dan Clarkson (Red) played off each other well. My only regret was not having more scenes with Maddox, Dan, and Craig Stark (Bunker Sentry). The three of them worked extremely well together and each brought some good ideas to the table.  I've been on many sets with child actors before -- but, always as a Production Designer. A mixture of good and bad experiences. So, Crimson Man was my first time directing a kid actor.  Plus, he's with a 7ft robot in every scene.  I was very nervous, scared even. Thankfully, the aforementioned planning allowed me to concentrate more on the performances on set.  

Logistically,  the hardest challenge was the limited hours with Maddox. The whole when they're allowed to work vs. being with the teacher ordeal. The clock is always ticking! This led to having to make many compromises in the script, to the schedule, and often on the day.  But again, the extensive planning, as well as me knowing what I wanted and needed to get, allowed the crew to handle these challenges and lessen the blow some. 

You originally come from the gaming industry.  How does this influence your filmmaking?   

I was an Art Director at video game company for 5 years. As mentioned above, my background is film & traditional animation. Storyboards and animatics have been forever embedded in my brain. Plan, plan, plan! I would also add that in animation you have to do your own performances, layouts & design -- these all come out when working on a film.  

In terms of video games, I worked at a company in NYC where I managed two art departments in our Canadian offices as well as any outsourcing companies we hired. These experiences taught me three very important things: hire people that can do the thing better than you, learn the ins and outs of other departments, and be able to give very precise and clear notes. Maybe a film's post-production is the closest to video games. You have similar things like pipelines for creating assets, computer graphics work, etc.

There’s an emphasis on the sweeping landscape in A Crimson Man.  How important is the visual landscape ultimately when originating an idea?

Most definitely the variety and color palette of the southern California landscape has influenced me and the film's setting. However, it's also a combination of taking advantage of the landscapes' accessibility/closeness to me and to create a look & feel similar to the adventure films I grew up on. Whereas Frankie was shot where I lived at the time. Hoboken, NJ.  This was my frame of mind. I think the visual landscape is paramount to a film's design. To me, it's no different than approaching it like you would design and fabricate a set. I wouldn't go as far as to say it's a character in a film, but in rare cases, it can almost feel that way due to the obstacles it may throw in front of a character.

What happens now?   Are you developing this project?

Find a job, ha!  I'm half joking. Well, just like the millions of other filmmakers in this industry, I'm working toward developing this short into a feature. A Crimson Man was first written as a feature. Then, I took a small section of the story and created the short. After I finished the short, I begun creating more assets for a pitch package, as well as taking all the things I had learned from the short and then rewriting the feature. Now it's all about getting this package in front of the right people.  I have also been writing new scripts. Always be creating!

 A dense, final question -- what's the point?  Of filmmaking, telling stories, seeing these ideas through?

The point is a selfish one. If I don't get these stories and ideas out of my head and onto the screen, then I feel my brain will eventually explode Scanners-style. Cause otherwise, what was the point of all this madness? I love making movies. Love it. Creating art for people to watch and hopefully enjoy -- well, that's what it's all about. And without the support of family and friends -- especially from my very, very patient wife (Kate, I love you) -- I wouldn't have even got to make A Crimson Man. 

However, I tend to create ambitious stories. I'm well aware it's not a wise thing to do. I'm trying to get better at this. But, it's hard for me to write the two-people-in-a-room-story. My mind starts wondering what or who else is in there. Was time-travel involved? Wouldn't it be fun if it was set in 1898? Why yes, this needs a goblin! I just can't do simple. Whether this is me wanting to increase my odds of creating something more interesting or making up for my lack of writing experience, I'm not sure.  And don't get me wrong, I love watching the two-people-in-a-room movies. Some of my favorite films are like this.  But then again, maybe not simple is me. My voice. A part of me always feels if I am gonna spend all of this time, money, as well as other peoples time & favors, then why not go big?  

[katiesrunning]

Health Care Spotlight: Kendall

This is a segment of the blog that I am incredibly excited to introduce to all of you.

In this post and in similar posts once a month, I will be featuring individuals who desperately need their health care to survive.

I am a few days behind, but I had no idea exactly what it would take to put a post like this one together and, now that I know, I will be more prepared.

So, let’s get started.

This is Kendall.

Kendall  loves his dog, Penny.

Kendall is happily married.

Kendall enjoys playing video games, watching TV, reading science fiction and spending time at home. Though, when he was younger, he enjoyed having many friends, now that he is older, he enjoys the company of smaller, more intimate groups. He would choose the comfort of his own home over the noise and chaos of a bar or club.

“I'm an optimistic and positive person,” he says,”but you might say I have a short fuse. I'm very much a Libra and have always identified with the balance and the need to help and lead. I've always been a  leader, and frankly I don't do well in subordinate positions. But I make do.”

Kendall attended college and studied political science, stage management and acting. Finances eventually got in the way, however, and he did not complete his degree. Though he tells himself (and others) that he will get back into it one day, “I don't know. More and more I don't see it as worth it, as expensive as everything is. Anyways, my husband has an MBA so we'll hopefully be fine.  I really enjoy theatre but it's been years since I felt the drive or need to work backstage. It might be a hobby I used to have that I hold on to, despite not truthfully being interested anymore. ”

Side note: I feel you, Kendall. This is a fascinating phenomenon for me - the way humans hold on to things that used to bring them joy whether they continue to do so or not. The nostalgia and the fascination there once was combine to make us feel like the object is still providing us with everything we need from it. Yet, we leave work, rehearsal, class, etc. some days feeling empty and wonder why. I struggle with this often. I imagine we all do - as, in some cases, we have identified ourselves using the object to describe who we are. I love that Kendall describes himself here as someone who loves theatre, but admits openly that it may not be him anymore. It’s beautiful and honest.        

This is Kendall.

Kendall was diagnosed with HIV on January 3rd, 2014.

This is Kendall.

“I've definitely come to terms with it. It wasn't too difficult, because I've always had a very solid support system. My friends, family, and romantic relationship. My boyfriend at the time I was diagnosed was toxic and hellish towards the end, but he was always supportive of me and my diagnosis.

I was actually diagnosed at first at C-Street at CUPHD mobile testing facility. Since that is a rapid test, once it came up positive, I had to get the real test - the 2 week wait test.”

“So after I waited two weeks, they called me, and I avoided going in. Honestly, I spent the next two weeks reading about people who are inherently immune to HIV, some super-Aryan people in Europe or something. I always thought of my heritage as super white and super English, so I'd convinced myself I was gonna get rich - that my blood was the cure. It was dumb but it was better than sitting there stewing for two weeks.”

Kendall avoided receiving his diagnosis for two more weeks. Laws prohibit doctors from giving you your diagnosis over the phone since some patients react - understandably - rash upon receiving it. When he finally went in to get his diagnosis, he was lucky enough to be accompanied by his sister as well as by his best friend.

Fast-forward to four months later - he began Anti-Retroviral Treatment (ARV). Though his numbers weren’t bad, he and his doctor decided it was best to avoid waiting.

He took Atripla first. Atripla is known for being very good when you are first starting treatment. However, after prolonged use, it can cause damage in your liver and kidneys. So, three years later, in 2017, Kendall switched to Odefsey. Both drugs can have crazy side-effects - including dizziness, crazy dreams, weight loss/gain, etc.

In regards to these side effects, Kendall states that he has been very lucky, “ Thankfully I only ever experienced one side effect once. I woke up one night, around 2am, and I felt like I'd been spinning for hours - I was so dizzy I fell back onto the bed. Honestly, I woke up the next morning and thought it was a dream, and it was not a negative experience, but I'm glad it's been the only occurrence of any side effects.”

Other long term side-effects can include losing fat in the arms and legs, gaining weight in the upper back, harming organs later in life and heart-disease. While Kendall states that he worries about these side-effects as well, he has enough on his plate already. Aside from being HIV+, he also takes medication for high blood pressure and wears a mask when he sleeps so that he doesn’t stop breathing (a common treatment for those who have sleep apnea).

“I'm basically a mess, but I also rarely get sick otherwise - no flu, colds, headaches - maybe because, after so many years of ARVs, my T-Cells are very high. Who knows.”

Odefsey (a daily perscription) costs Kendall $88 a day - $2640 a month. He stated that Atripla was cheaper, but not by much. This medication treats merely one of his afflictions.  

As part of his treatment, Kendall sees his doctor once a year and must have blood work completed at least 11 days beforehand, “and it has to be Monday through Thursday, which sometimes I forget, and then have to reschedule.” The blood work is particularly expensive - costing him right around $400. Usually his insurance has covered this, but there have been a couple instances where he has paid this bill out of pocket.

He also sees his case worker at CUPHD once a year.

Unfortunately, Kendall’s current employer does not offer insurance, so his coverage is through the AHCA - costing him roughly $275 a month. This is the cheapest plan with the worst coverage. The upside is that paying for this coverage allows him to be eligible for various grants, co-pays and other helpful resources when it comes to his meds, visits and lab-work.

If he is able to get his hands on better insurance, Kendall states that CUPHD is capable of covering his monthly premiums. Unfortunately, they won’t cover the $275 that he is paying now, because it is “basically worthless.”

Despite all of this information that Kendall is constantly swimming in, there are bright spots.

One of his close friends posted a GoFundMe for Kendall last month during the lapse between his insurance coverage (he left one job and his coverage through the AHCA didn’t go live until January). Not only had his assistance programs expired, but he had also waited too long to receive assistance from his case worker - someone he had just switched to. During this time, he purchased about $1200 worth of Odefsey over the course of two weeks - going in every two or three days and hoping his coverage would kick in soon.

His parents, grandparents and cousins all donated to the GoFundMe to help Kendall purchase a supply of his daily medicine. Now that his meds have been covered, he has used the GoFundMe money to purchase an extra month’s supply of them, so that he is always a month ahead in case the same situation should occur. He is incredibly grateful to the friends and family who supported him in his time of need - and every day.

A figure from Kendall’s Walgreens bills states that the insurance he had between January and September of last year saved him $32,468.93. Yes, for those of you in the back (over the course of an entire year) that coverage would save him the cost of some American’s yearly salary.

Kendall’s husband takes PrEP (Truvada) daily to prevent being infected. He also has a yearly appointment at CUPHD. His pills cost him $66.80 per day - $2004.90 per month.

This is Kendall.

Kendall’s health is very important to him. On one of his arms, he has seven tattoos that are dedicated to his health conditions.

“Most of my tattoos on my health arm are by Keith Haring. He died of complications from AIDS and was a big activist in the fight against HIV/AIDS in NYC in the 80s. He died in 1990.”

He is in the process of planning more.

In fact, when I first asked him about his HIV diagnosis, he stated “I was diagnosed 1/3/14. I have it tattooed on my arm. Wait. No I don't. Just typed that, looked, and saw it was a lie. Well, I will have it tattooed on me.”

And, remember Penny?

She was a big part of Kendall’s coming to terms with his diagnosis. He adopted Penny the November before he was diagnosed. During this time, Kendall stated that he would often be at home, feeling alone but that Penny would come around and always made him feel better - feel loved.

This is Kendall.

This is the life of someone who, without insurance, would be choosing between living and dying every day.

This is Kendall.

Kendall has a right to coverage that will keep him alive and well.

This is Kendall.

Those of you who have been following my running might know that I have a GoFundMe as well. It is dedicated to raising money for Planned Parenthood - a company that provides affordable healthcare to those in need. The link is listed below. Please donate to help protect our right to affordable healthcare.

No one should have to choose between health and life.

http://www.gofundme.com/katie-runs-2018

[solarpunksoftie]

Mark Isn’t Dead

(step-by-step spoilers ahead!)

Y’all. Y’all. 

My bro and I, the theory sibs, had a 5 hour jam sesh and have been pouring over the last 3 chapters and have come to the conclusion that Markiplier isn’t dead. This is gonna be a really long post, but basically we got a plot, a scheme, and the staff and detective are in on it.

Ok, So I guess I’ll go as chronologically as I can with my evidence, but there may be some mobius double reach-arounds.

so going in TRUE chronological order. I’ll start with the security tapes. The eye is drawn so quickly to the Time Stamp because, obviously we’re looking for time, but watch:

on the footage that ACTUALLY MATTERS the TIME doesn’t mean anything at all. It’s the DATE that should matter. 3 days before the party and subsequent murder. Mark discusses the trustworthiness of the staff that will be at the party. Note he doesn’t bring up the groundskeeper at all, presumably because he shouldn’t be present.

WHY DOES MARK FALL FROM THE CEILING. GENUINE QUESTION. I DONT UNDERSTAND.

Anyway, from there, the lightning upon discovering the murder draws THREE people to the scene, specifically the three discussed in the scene from 3 days ago. They all react rather similarly. YOU are then immediately accused of murder. The only wild card in the room? trying to wrap things up quickly? Hm.

There’s then a lot of talk between the three of them, mostly confirming each others validity in their positions and agreeing. You’re made the partner, possibly to keep a better eye on you so you don’t wander off on your own.

Damien doesn’t discover the scene until after the crime scene has been established properly, and seems realistically distraught. He has the most genuine response in this situation imo. I’m convinced he’s at the very least not guilty. 

From the time the crime scene is established onward, we don’t see the body again. It’s under a very bulky sheet. could be anything under there

This seems like such a lazy and obvious slip-up??? There is only one guest not present and that is the Colonel. Seems like he just needs an excuse to leave,,, after the detective disbands them. Why would he really need an excuse? Why would he lie so poorly? is it code?

Again, a genuine distraught friend. Not suspicious. A bean who needs a hug and a cry. I’ll stop talking about this genuine man. The only person actually acting like an old friend just died. Just know in my book he’s clean.

So now we get some repetition, to drive home an idea, only it seems to be completely disregarded. But its not. It’s deliberate as hell.

He leads us to the wine cellar. And he doesn’t just lead us there, he makes a show of it. He narrates the whole thing, talking about evil and seeming afraid of the cellar. Why? The chef is right next to us in the kitchen, just off screen.

 He knows every inch of this house, the Colonel says you’ll find answers in the house, and you’re shown a room exactly once immediately after. He makes such a show of running down the stairs, wailing “If only he was still alive!!” loud enough for half the house to hear, probably.

He’s giving us hints, serious hints, but if the others find out he’s telling us he’ll be in deep shit, so he has to make a show of being emotional and opaque. 

So we creep out of the basement, bump into the cook who says some vaguely incriminating stuff, probably to distract us from the house and get the focus back on the people. He shows us the security animatronic (theres no way you can convince me thats not what it is), likely expecting us only to look at last night and find nothing, not to flip back several days and find conspiring. 

Now in the middle of all this I’m gonna jump to the first chronological Jim short, Suspect With a Shooty?!

On our timeline, this is the longest stretch of time we are away from the Detective while the body’s whereabouts are still presumed. As he leaves the living room onto the balcony, he keeps checking over his shoulder. Presumably to be sure he could be weird in peace. Jim babbles on as he has his private weird moment (which he is later loathe to discuss as to why he wasn’t watching the body and why I place this Jim first in the sequence). At the end of the video, something seems to alert the Detective that he may not be alone, and he runs off very specifically away from the eyeline of the area where you meet Damien. One can presume what alerted him was Damien exiting onto the balcony.

Next we take a wander outside and get some NPC conversation from Damien, leaving us on “We’ll talk later, I need to think.”

And then we see this:

Why hide behind a bush? Why sneak around away from Damien?

Why Colonel, what an advantageous spot. What a lovely overlook to spy on Damien and y/n’s conversation. What a good distance to talk to someone down on the porch below. Maybe warn him that company was arriving?

But Gene, you ask, i thought the conspiracy was between Mark, the detective, and his staff? Yes, reader I did, just bear with me a little longer. Or a lot. It’s gonna be a double reach-around, don’t worry.

Then as you know, we find the lack of body in the living room and the chapter ends.

So chapter two begins with just us and the Detective standing around the missing body. And then, in the same order as before, with just as much rehearsed regularity, the Butler and Chef enter. Once again, none of them act distrustful of eachother.

But then, right on our heels, the Colonel (its so hard not to call him wilford) pops up, with the same pacing and obfuscating energy as the other’s entrances. He says some mystifying things regarding re-murdering a decidedly mobile corpse before excusing himself to go zombie hunt. 

The Butler points out the fact that the Colonel and Mark are the same age. So they do acknowledge that they look the same. The Detective follows the Colonel’s exit by blatantly saying he doesn’t trust him, or anyone for that matter. The Butler and Chef make some... odd reactions.

The Detective asks us to walk with him, presumably so he can give us some insights in confidence.

“Why Tonight”???????? That could be a writing slip-up, a mistake, but knowing what we know now about the events later that evening, I don’t think so. Sure I think the character made a fruedian slip, but I don’t think the writers did.

This whole monologue. Why give it to us? To tell us he can’t be trusted.

This one line alone tells us a few things. He’s lying to us to get us to stop asking questions. He doesn’t trust us. There is ONE (1) other person he doesn’t trust, who can be considered a wild card or meddlesome. Well, headcount, we have the Butler, the Chef, Damien, yourself, and the Colonel. So other than you, who has the Detective been avoiding? Damien. Hm.

So as you walk he continues to blow smoke up your ass until you get to Mark’s destroyed room.He leaves you to look for evidence when suddenly,

the Colonel pops up. My, my, how does he get around so quickly? Hm.

The Detective hands you over to his vaguely threatening conversation that runs and rambles and utterly distracts you from looking for anymore clues or finding any answers, always conveniently disappearing when Damien appears. Why is everyone avoiding Damien? Or is he trying to lead us into a private conversation with Damien? A conversation he knew would have to happen, since spying earlier revealed that Damien had more to say?

Eventually Damien pulls us away from the Colonel and finally has a very important conversation with us. One where he starts to hint at some suspicions of his own, regarding the Detective And The House.

Hiding in the house? Hm.

So we hear gunshots, run inside to see the altercation between the Detective and the Colonel, and in the frustration and heat of the moment we get this golden gem:

in my own home

In My Own Home

IN MY OWN HOME.

Mark IS the Colonel. At least sometimes. He made a plan with the Detective and his staff to fake his death. The Colonel never interacts with the dead body in any way, and once the sheet is down we can’t even visually verify there’s a body under it. He repeatedly tries to stop the investigation by shouting it down and defaming himself to dishearten us. 

But how does he get around so fast? Well, what does every good Mansion have? Secret passages. Ways to pop up unexpected in your own home. He’s been in the house the whole time. In the walls, spying, corralling us and Damien for something. Maybe the Real Colonel is tied up in the basement somewhere. Who knows?

So we start off with the entrance of Selene. And the Colonel responds very uncharactaristically soft.

He sounds more like himself, like Mark, for a moment, in his surprise before composing himself and acting erratic again.

Selene starts dishing out exposition, the Jumanji line drops giving us a possible explanation to the space-time bending ways of the Colonel, the boys play with lightning.

Flash Forward to the Oracle sight sequence. Its prefaced with “Keep your enemies close.” A phrase we’ve heard a few times. I think the visions warn us of not only things to come, but of our “enemies.” And who is featured in not one, not two, but Three of these visions as the point of interest?

THE COLONEL.

At this point we haven’t seen the Colonel in person since the round table scene, but one more interesting thing occurs between the plotting three. Once the groundskeeper is revealed the Detective loses all of his cool. Flashback to the first point, Mark and the Detective had a conversation about this days ago and Mark didn’t tell him about any groundskeeper. This is a wildcard who could ruin whatever they have planned. Then he and the Butler have a weird exchange specifically regarding the Colonel.

The way the Butler’s lines are delivered is everything here. “Well,,, he appeared Tired... and went back to his room.” Tyler gives a lean and a nod and everything short of a wink wink nudge nudge. They’re talking around something right in front of you. A way of telling each other “he’s doing what he should be, he’s safe and out of the way.” without giving away that something more covert is happening. I only caught it because I’ve watched this 12 times at minimum.

I dont know what they’re planning, maybe it was for Selene, maybe it was different and Selene has thrown a wrench into things, who knows. Maybe Damien is the true wildcard, knowing them all so well it threatens the plan and he must be avoided. But something Is Going Down And Mark Is ALIVE.

[barbara-costa]

9. Human-Animal Interaction Kit

Reflecting upon the relationship between humans and animals I have been thinking of ideas for facilitating this connection. 

The insights shared by Michelle Westerlaken about ‘Designing playful engagements with animals to find, imagine, or emphasize non-speciesist practices are very useful because she touches on important aspects of human-animal interaction such as empathy, playfulness, human imposition and superiority among others.

While I was reading some pages of Despret’s (2016) book: What would animals say if we asked the right questions, I begun to think of human’s relationship to animals and made a list of all the bad things that humans do to them that I could think of and shared it with the group.  At this point I felt keen to explore ideas related to Veganism, which research suggest it is not only healthy but ethical and better for the environment.  I wondered how would it might fit in the context of the smart city, but the group didn’t want to explore this area as they felt it would stir us on a complete different direction. 

Inspired by the work shown in class (the kit for listening to plants), websites on the colours that animals can see, smells that animals feel attracted to and insights from Westerlaken and Despret, I toyed with the idea of creating a kit to interact with animals.  I drew up a sketch for The Human-Animal Interaction Kit and made a video interviewing my 5 year-old daughter about attracting and interacting with bees. 

The kit could be used by adults and children.  It includes a camera/smartphone, a couple of bottles with essence for attracting certain kinds of animals (different smells for different animals), a recorder with animal sounds, some food (seeds, fruit, nectar, animal feed), some cloths or t-shirts of colours that animals can see and a music player.  The kit could be created by anyone such as teachers, individuals, community groups, be owned by these groups and available for people to borrow.

The person wanting to connect with the animal would display the colour and smell, play the sound and when the animal would be near, the person would play their favourite songs to the animal to see and record their reactions by making notes on a sheet created for this purpose and filming them. It could be used for research, but mainly as an experience on its own.  

After some time gathering data from a number of interactions it would be interesting to observe any patterns that may have occurred with particular animals and the colours, smells and music they might have reacted to.

The goal of this experiment is to try and attract the animal in the same way we try and attract other humans, by inviting and offering something and then showing them something special to us.  I would like to think that this interaction would create empathy, connection and would open up space for self reflection as some people may experience some awkward or uncomfortable feelings when trying to attract the animal using the kit and when playing songs to them.   Also it’s important to consider that some people may experience some fear or mild anxiety as the animal comes close to them, which might help them identify and face their fears or it might hinder the experience altogether.

Even though the experience of setting up the equipment to attract the animal may feel quite childish, I imagine that both adults and children would enjoy seeing a animal’s reaction to a particular colour or smell and a preference for rock over classical music, for example.

In the film I made to speculate and gain insights on the potential for creating the kit, it was reassuring to generate so much interest and excitement at the prospect of interacting with bees.   We did not rehearse or discuss in advantage what I wanted her to do or say on camera. I just asked her some questions and allowed the conversation to develop spontaneously.   I didn’t feel that I needed to edit the video as everything that she spoke about was useful for this purpose. 

Unfortunately due to time and social distancing constraints I did not manage to create and test the kit with bigger animals such as dogs and animals from he local farm, which I would’ve liked to do. But I feel it was still worth mentioning here for the purpose of the thinking and processes I went through.

The group did not feel that this Kit would be a good replacement for what we had worked on up to this point, and one team member felt it was too ‘low-tech’ and basic, since the group had been quite invested in making an AR experience. 

From this point onward I consider my ideas as attempts to shake up the group and get us to move forward.  Every time we reject each other’s ideas, we come up with more ways to tweak and change our existing idea, which is our ultimate aim.  

In addition to contributing to our group work, my ideas are enabling me to experiment with the skills taught in this module for my own development.  It is reassuring to do so without worrying about whether they are good, bad, right or wrong. They are opening up new possibilities and I am feeling very inspired.

[my-matthew-greenhillkkb285-blog]

Week 12 Reflection 

This week was the week for the presentation. In preparation for the presentation we rehearsed the pitch on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday before the actual pitch. We also made sure that all the documentation and presentation was polished and ready to go. On Sunday we practised our timing and wording of the presentation as well as finalising the PowerPoint and references which were included in the PowerPoint. On Monday we practised the pitch more, ensuring we where in the time limits. We used a stop watch on our mobile phones to record how long each part of the presentation went for, from this we managed to ensure that each member had roughly the same time speaking. We also used this as a guide to ensure that we continued to speak for the same/ or similar time each practise. On Tuesday before the class we practised the pitch while standing and using my computer mouse to click the buttons and change slides. This helped us to ensure that we where able to stand in a way which helped to put the person speaking at the forefront, as well as to ensure that we where not relying on the PowerPoint to guide what we where saying. I did struggle a little when we first did this, however with continuous practising we managed to polish off our presentation practises. This did reflect in our final presentation, however, there where still some errors that occurred and some improvements which could be made.

In regard to improvements which we could have made to the presentation there are several key improvements which would be highly beneficial to the success of the pitch itself. Looking firstly at the PowerPoint slides there was a slide (The Tank slide) which had a video, however we had accidentally left the volume on the video, which in turn impacted the ability to present the slide to the class. This noise from this slide luckily didn’t impact Clara’s pitching to the class which was very professional and fluently handled. Additionally, with the physical prototype of the project we should have made it clear that the cut out (to see the inside of the tank) was just for demonstration purposes and not an accurate representation of how the tank would be renovated. To correct this issue we could have included the cut out segment and then removed it during the presentation to demonstrate this, or we could have made a note of this on the model/ prototype and made a verbal note of this in our pitch. Additionally, perhaps we should have included a budget breakdown on one of the slides as to ensure that the client knew that this project fell within the budget without having to ask the question. Another aspect of improvement could be the answering of questions at the end of the presentation. I do believe that I could have addressed my question better, and/ or answered it in a way which also highlighted more aspects about the game itself. I do think I need to work on my ability to answer questions correctly and fluently while also ensuring that the answer is enough to suffice the question.  Finally, I do believe that my pitching skills do need to be improved upon in the sense that I did stutter, speak fast and slur some words. With the fast speaking, that is largely due to the time limitations, however it would be beneficial to have perhaps shortened my speech and kept it to the most important parts which would have allowed me to speak slower. In regard to my stuttering and slurring of words, I do believe this was largely due to nerves and stress. I suppose that working on this would be the only way at really improving this.

Last night the Nanimal team was contacted by Sophie to tell us that we had been shortlisted to pitch to Northshore. With this in mind there are several things that we already know that we will have to improve and fix in order to perform a much more well-rounded presentation to them. The before mentioned parts will need to be corrected and hopefully improved upon, however there are also a few additionally things which may be beneficial to the presentation. This would include some more research into who we are pitching to and what exactly they are looking for and/ or wanting in a pitch and a project. We should also do some additional field research as to gain a better understanding at who would play this project, why they would play it, and how we can reach out to them.

Overall, this project has been successful so far and as a team we have stuck to our team mission statement (Week 4) and managed to get shortlisted to pitch to Northshore. We are unsure if we got a 7 or not, but half of our goal has been met so far. For the future of this project we are hoping to get this project up and running and learn from this experience and gain as much as we can from this experience.

[amreshjha]

How To Use Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) To Change Your Life

The NLP approach was created out of the displaying of human practices. Richard Bandler and John Grinder watched and watched the practices of fruitful psychotherapists, and separated the dialect and the procedures that they utilized, so as to make a change in individuals.

The idea of displaying signifies that on the off chance that somebody is getting an outcome that you want, you can accomplish a similar outcome on the off chance that you separate and model one's dialect examples, convictions, and practices. That is basically what you are doing when you are expending my substance; you are demonstrating the achievement techniques that I have utilized in my life and applying it in your own.

I was first acquainted with the universe of NLP when I was 17 years of age. I used to be exceptionally modest and I needed confidence and social aptitudes. When I was acquainted with crafted by Paul McKenna and Tony Robbins, who both used NLP rehearses in their work, my enthusiasm for the methodology became considerably more grounded.

NLP standards and procedures have improved shape, assemble different organizations, pull in an astonishing accomplice, and beat constraining convictions and fears, to give some examples things.

A couple of years prior I chose to take things to the following dimension, and I experienced a 9-day NLP specialist training program, which showed me how to utilize neuro-linguistic programming to transform me. NLP has had a major effect concerning how I mentor my customers, and by the way, I move for a mind-blowing duration.

Neuro-Linguistic Programming Principles

There are numerous NLP standards and methods, however, I might want to impart 3 of them to you:

1. The guide isn't the domain

As individuals, we don't react to the real world. Or maybe, we react to our disguised guide of the real world, since we as a whole have distinctive discernments and implications of individuals and the world on the loose. What you see superficially isn't really the truth.

2. Tying down

A grapple is an affiliation that evokes a specific feeling inside you. We can inspire any feeling we want by changing how we speak to the world. For instance, in the event that I needed you to encounter satisfaction, I could evoke that feeling inside you by saying to you, "Do you recall a period in your life when you encountered bliss?"

By asking it, you need to recollect this experience, which takes you back to that passionate state. You would then be able to stay that feeling to whatever you want. The way to tying down is ensuring that at the pinnacle of your enthusiastic force you take part in a signal, such as siphoning your clench hand or applauding.

Why? When you do, that inclination of bliss will get connected to the exceptional signal that you take part in. In the event that you take part in tying down on a reliable premise, it will move toward becoming modified into your psyche.

3. Reframing

This includes taking the edge and turning it, with the goal that you change the manner in which that you take a gander at it. In the expressions of Wayne Dyer, "When you change the manner in which you take a gander at things, the things you take a gander at change."

For instance, suppose that somebody shouted at you when you were a kid, and from that encounter, you related hollering to the importance you aren't adequate. That significance depends on the discernment or edge that you are the creation of that encounter.

What might occur on the off chance that you saw that encounter as a blessing? Since that individual shouted at you, perhaps it constrained you to develop, making you less receptive and more grounded.

NLP Sensory Modalities

NLP trusts that we procedure data, learn, and encounter the world by means of three unmistakable tactile modalities, also called illustrative frameworks – visual (see), sound-related (hear), sensation (feel). Despite the fact that we utilize the majority of our faculties, contingent upon the conditions, we may concentrate on one methodology more than the other.

Research has discovered that there are sure feelings or practices that will enable or sabotage you, in light of comprehension of these tactile modalities.

For instance, suppose you are carrying on something throughout everyday life. If you somehow happened to close your eyes and ask yourself, "Would could it be that I'm carrying on?" and make a picture of it, there are sure submodalities that will enable you to comprehend why you are feeling a specific way.

For instance, a great many people that are unmotivated to accomplish something will picture a picture that is little, diminish, and still. It is nothing unexpected why somebody would feel unmotivated, on the grounds that they are encountering something in a sabotaging way.

On the other hand, on the off chance that you consider something that rouses and energizes you, and you close your eyes, NLP finds that there is an alternate technique of submodalities that individuals use so as to make a visual part. Periodically, that picture will be near you – it will be huge, brilliant, vivid, and may even be moving. Just by utilizing this procedure alone, you can change the manner in which you comprehend something.

I trust I have possessed the capacity to reveal insight into how to utilize neuro-linguistic programming to completely change you. Generally speaking, my involvement with NLP training and methods has been ground-breaking. In the event that you need to work with me on a more profound dimension, I have a couple of assets that I have made that incorporate component of NLP inside them.

In my month to month coaching program, Life Mastery Accelerator, I plunge profound into various everyday issues. I likewise have a course called, Morning Ritual Mastery, which shows you how to re-condition routine feelings, emotions, and practices into your everyday life utilizing amazing NLP systems and standards.

On the off chance that you are prepared to change the manner in which you speak with yourself as well as other people, I urge you to study NLP training and systems. You are characterized by your activities. Pick shrewdly.

Amaresh Jha is one of the most popular and top Motivational speakers/Life Coach/Corporate trainer/NLP master Trainer in India. He has many motivational stories in Hindi for students and professionals. He also Delivers motivational video in Hindi.

[jimin-jungshook-over-literalbae]

BTS Reacts to You Talking To Yourself

Hey guys! Unless I think of something, this may be my last post for today. I guess I can just be happy that I made about four posts today for Valentine’s day. Send in any requests you guys have and I’ll do my best to try to do them today. It depends though, since I have plans with friends with tonight. (I DON’T OWN ANY OF THE PICTURES OF GIFS USED IN THIS REACTIONS, I SIMPLY FOUND THEM ON GOOGLE!)

Request:

     Anonymous:  Hi , can you do bts react to their gf talking to herself ( laughing to herself , getting hype bc of that ) ? I do that & then I get emberessed 😡

To be honest, I do this a lot. Especially when I’m reading a book or have been alone for too many hours. So, I think this will be one where I make every situation slightly different. 

1. Jin

     You decided to cook for Jin that evening, as a surprise for when he got home. Whenever you cook, you always talk out loud. Sometimes its simply you reciting the recipe, and other times, you would just talk about everything happening. It was something that helped you relax and relieve some of your stresses about life. You didn’t want to bother Jin with any of your problems since he had so much he had to deal with with the upcoming comeback. While you were talking about an issue you were having at work, Jin came in. He stayed just out of sign, listening. Since you didn’t express your problems to him, he worried about how you were doing sometimes.

     “I didn’t know you felt this way, Jagi. You really should tell me these things,” Jin finally says, surprising you. You squeak in surprise before turning to him.

     “Jin! How much did you hear?” You look down, biting your lip.

     “Don’t you trust me, Jagi? How come you never talk about what bothers you?” He walks up to you and pulls you close, lifting your chin to meet your eyes.

     “I... You have so much you have to worry about, Jin. I don’t want to burden you with my problems when you have so much to do for the comeback,” You admit, chewing on the inside of your cheek.

     “Silly Jagi. Everything about you is important, even your frustrations,” Jin presses a soft kiss on your lips.

2. Suga

     You have this tendency to talk to yourself when you do something embarrassing. It tends to lead to you having a discussion about how you could have possibly gotten into this situation. Most of the time, the discussion was pretty simple, but that depended on your mood. You liked to entertain crazy possibilities for how something could happen, simply to get a laugh out of the situation. One day, you were discussing one of your more crazy theories when Suga came in. He looked at you in complete shock, unsure of what was going on.

     “Jagi....?” Suga looked so shocked that you immediately looked away, blushing.

     “Oh, um...... Hi, Yoongi,” you say demurely, crossing your arms.

     “Pretend it didn’t happen?” he asks, sitting on the couch.

     “Yes, please,” You say, swallowing and sitting next to him. Suga switches on the tv and wraps an arm around you. Neither of you discussed what happened.

3. J-Hope (So, it’s Valentine’s day and Literal Sunshine has stolen my heart so, this one is a little okay, a lot, geared towards my interests.)

     It’s hard to find you without a video camera in your hand, and if you don’t have a camera, you’re planning your next video. Sometimes, without meaning to, you start planning these videos out loud. J-Hope noticed that you do this occasionally, and he thought it was adorable if he came into a room and heard you doing that. You always blushed and looked away when he caught you.

     “That’s a good idea, Jagi. You really should be in charge of our music videos,” He smiles brightly at you,” You’re be good at it. You always have the best ideas!”

     “How long have you been standing there!” Your face goes red and you look down at the floor, suddenly finding it very interesting.

     “Don’t be shy, Jagi. Your ideas are good,” He grips both of your cheeks and kisses your forehead, his smile bright.

4. Rap Monster

     When ever you work on any kind of assignment at home, and you get stuck on a problem, you tend to discuss them out loud in hopes of clearing your confusion. This method doesn’t always work, but it might work this time. You run a hand through your hair and begin to discuss the different aspects of the problem out loud. Rapmon sticks his head through the door, an amused expression on his face.

     “Baby, if you needed help, you could have just asked,” He says, pulling you from your thoughts.

     “Oh, umm..... I’m kind of stuck,” You admit, blushing and looking away.

     “Here, let me see. Maybe I can talk you through it,” He smiles and leans over your shoulder to look at the screen.

5. Jimin

     You had the day off today, so you decided to do some reading. Jimin had rehearsal, so you were home alone. That was okay with you, because whenever you get to a super intense part you put the book down and discuss your frustrations out loud. Saying it out loud helped you deal with it better. At one point, you were expressing the quickened death of one of your favorite characters. You didn’t notice Jimin come in at some point during your shouts of anger. Jimin sat there, watching with an amused expression.

     “I didn’t know it was possible to get so angry over the death of a fictional character,” Jimin can barely contain the laughter in his voice.

     “Jimin! When did you get here,” You quickly lock your kindle and put it away, your face flaming. You look at his face before quickly looking down in embarrassment.

      “It’s alright, Jagi. It’s kinda cute,” Jimin teases, leaning down to kiss the tip of your nose.

6. V (So, this may not be the most fitting thing, but I keep thinking he’s saying: “What? What? What? What?” and it cracks me up.)

     Whenever you had a full schedule to take care of the next day, you made a list out loud of the things you have to accomplish that day. This helped you remember everything that had to be done and made you less likely to forget something. This planning usually occurred in the early hours of the morning, before V even woke up. This time, your discussion pulled V from his sleep. He groaned quietly.

     “Jagi, what are you doing?” V asks sleepily. You jump and blush, biting your lip.

     “Oh, um, just planning my schedule out loud,” You admit. V nods sleepily and sits up to pull you against his chest.

     “Come back to bed, Jagi. You don’t have to leave for a few more hours and I sleep better with you beside me,” He pulls you back down to cuddle with him, holding you close as he falls back asleep.

7. Jungkook

     You had a presentation coming up within the next couple of hours, and you get really nervous talking in front of people. In an attempt to boost your self confidence, you were talking to yourself. You were hoping that if you kept saying positive things to yourself, you would begin to believe them. So far, it wasn’t really working. You were so distracted by talking to yourself that you didn’t hear Jungkook come in to the apartment using the spare key.

     “What are you doing, Jagi?” Jungkook’s voice would cause you to squeak in surprise. You duck your head in embarrassment, not meeting his eyes.

     “Ah, uh, you’re home early,” Your face is bright red.

     “I told you I would be home at this time. And you didn’t answer my question. Were you talking to yourself? Why?” Jungkook’s expression would be curious more than anything. (I don’t see him judging you for it.)

     “...I have a presentation today, and I’m trying to calm my nerves,” You bite your lip, still not meeting his eyes. Jungkook tilts your chin up, making you meet his eyes.

     “Next time, talk to me. I have no qualms with telling you how amazing I think you are,” Jungkook murmurs, his words catching you off guard. He gives you a quick kiss,” You’ve got this Jagi.”

Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed it! My inbox is open and empty, so send any suggestions you have!