#its okay to have citations baby!

[wrishwrosh]

something very charming about pop nonfiction written by substack people. always think its fun to read culture criticism written by people vastly more online than me in the exact style of a high school persuasive essay

[waiting-on-a-dream]

My Milgram ocs as long palette names because making the twst version was fun

Based on this post from @.fivepointpalettes + later palettes. Let's go!!

Just Friends But We Kiss Sometimes - LITERALLY DAISUKE AND RYUTO I DON'T KNOW WHAT ELSE TO SAY

Let Me Be Your Unreliable Narrator, Baby! - Every prisoner lmao

Focus On Me (Ignore The Blood) - Suzume, Haku

I Touch You And My Hands Burn My Hands Burn My Hands Burn (What Have You Done) - Daisuke, Suzume

Well First Of All I Am Positive What You Did Is A Criminal Offense / And Second Of All Why Didn’t You Invite Me - Suzume (She seems like the kind of girl who would feel left out when it comes to activities like this)

What’s A Little Murder Between Friends - Rin (This is kind of mean but its funny 💀)

I’m Sorry I Chewed Through Your Walls But You Must Understand I’m Calcium Deficient / Please Be Mindful Of The Evil Yoghurt Demon In The Freezer - I don't know why but these reminded me of Ichiro

Being In Love And How It Sucks Sometimes - Daisuke, Suzume, Rin, Noa (Sad little meow meows)

Do You Remember When You Told Me That You Love Me When You Told Me That You Love Me When You Told Me That You - Suzume

I Loved You I Did So How Did We End Up Like This - Daisuke, Rin, Noa

This Will Hurt You More Than It’ll Hurt Me - And That’s Okay! - Akane, Daisuke, Haruto (They're vibing guys)

I Need You To Understand That I Really Do Want What’s Best For You - And That Simply Isn’t Me - Noa

I’m Always At Least A Little Bit Scared Hopeless And Frustrated - Akane, Yui, Noa, Mayumi (This is the opposite of girlboss)

Can You Help Me Find What’s Wrong With Me / An Unhealthy Relationship With One’s Own Identity - Ichiro, Daisuke, Suzume, Yui, Rin, Noa (They are not having fun)

Biting Into A Rubber Ball Like An Apple While Maintaining Full Eye Contact - Haruto (I think he would do this just to spite someone)

I’m Just A Normal Functioning Member Of The Human Race And There Is No Way Anyone Can Prove Otherwise - Kiyoshi, Mayumi

The Magical Princess’s Strawberry-Scented Battle Axe Of Infinite Bloodshed - Suzume

I Hate Citations Why Can’t You Just Trust Me - Suzume, Noa

Doctors Say You Need A Consistent Amount Of Sleep To Be Healthy So I Consistently Sleep For 4 Hours A Night / Too Cool To Sleep At A Reasonable Hour / I’m Sick But The Bags Under My Eyes Are Sicker / Who Needs Sleep When I Can Just Drop Dead For A Rest - Haruto (I can't- Giving him these palettes are so funny 💀💀💀)

Lonely Sewer Cryptid Looking For Love - Ichiro

The Privilege Of Being Born Somebody Else - Ichiro, Suzume, Yui, Kiyoshi (I don't like what this says about them)

Look At Her Go Biting Everyone Who Comes Near Her Like A Champ - Akane, Mayumi (One day they're gonna snap)

I Apologize If You Found Finding This Place Difficult But You Must Understand I Am Currently Evading Detection And Arrest For Crimes Undisclosed - Daisuke

And If You Thought It Was A Threat It Might Have Been - Daisuke, Suzume, Haku, Mayumi, Haruto

Putting On A Show To Seem Alive / When I Don’t Feel Alive - Daisuke

Time Has Stopped Passing A Long Time Ago - Everyone in Milgram should be getting cabin fever by now, right?

Once Again A Cold Rainy Winter Gives Way To A Cold Rainy Spring - Rin (Him and his seasons theme)

Here’s Cheers To The Man Who Stole My Heart Away - Suzume, Noa

The Sort Of Love You Only Feel When Drunk - Daisuke (Yes another 'On love' reference I can't stop)

It’s Past My Bedtime And I’m Thinking Of You - Rin

Oh Baby Don’t You Know Our Sort Is Locked Out Of Heaven - Haku, Mayumi (I REALLY don't like what this says about them)

You Have To Stop Making So Many Enemies - Haruto @ most of the prisoners (Its actually just the guilty prisoners lmao)

Keep All Body Parts On The Inside Of The Vehicle At All Times As Failure To Comply May Result In Having Them Unwillingly Removed - Haruto (This sounds like something he'd say)

Drowning In A Coffee Cup (What An Awful Way To Go) - Noa

My Overconfidence Is Astounding And It’s A Surprise I’ve Never Been Killed - Haruto (He's lucky my prisoners are all so chill)

I Understand Where You’re Coming From But Where Did You Get The Gun - Daisuke

Well That Was A Little Unnecessarily Brutal Don’t You Think? - Sender: Daisuke (He said he wasn't cut out for his work), Receiver: Akane, Suzume, Haku, Kiyoshi

Tender Words And Hellish Screams - The entirety of Milgram

You Smell Like Nonsense With A Hint Of Melancholy - Noa

I Live In A Room With No Windows / I Haven’t Left The House In Months - People are getting depression from being cooped up in Milgram for so long, right?

Forever Dizzy In This Lonely World - Ichiro, Akane, Suzume, Rin, Noa

Summer Lasts A Week At Best But My Dedication To Sweater Vests Is Eternal So Look Me In The Eye Little Teacup And Melt If It Bothers You So Much - Mayumi

You Can’t Just Ask A Guy Why He’s In Love - Daisuke

Can’t Let It Slip That There’s More To Me Than Little Old I - Kiyoshi

I Know I May Look Like A Real Person But I Am Actually Not A Real Person At All - Ichiro (I don't know what kind of mental illness he has but he sure has one or a few)

You Know How Sometimes An Unwanted Guest Comes Over And You Do All You Can To Make Them Leave While Remaining Polite / Fizzy Brained Children Are So Troublesome - Mayumi (They both apply to her so I'll put it like this even though the palettes have nothing in common)

You’re The First Descendant In A Line Of Workaholics Utterly Convinced Your Willingness To Sacrifice Your Own Health Determines Your Worth As A Human Being And Promptly Working Yourself To Death To Provide Unto Others What You Never Had A Chance To Understand You Deserved Yourself - Kiyoshi, Mayumi

I Am The Mirror In Which You Can See All The Evil In The World - Ahaha, everyone in Milgram

My Brain Operates On Frequencies You’ve Never Even Heard Of - Again, whatever Ichiro has going on /pos

Being Told I’m Allowed To Make My Final Class Project About Any Topic I Want Awakens A Demon Inside Me That Makes Me Subject My Classmates To Only The Finest Of My Obscure Interests - Noa

The Only Thing Greater Than My Ego Is My Impostor Syndrome - Daisuke, Haruto

The Cons Of Being My Friend Greatly Outweigh The Pros - Rin

You Are Who We Say You Are Because Public Opinion Beats Self Worth Every Time - Kiyoshi

Murder And Other Expressions Of Love - Daisuke, Suzume, Haku, Rin

You Locked Me In A Cage And Threw Away The Key And When You Found Someone Better I Was Left To Gnaw On The Bars For My Freedom - Suzume, Rin

What Do You MEAN There Was A Fire - Haruto (Poor warden-san)

A Little Weirdo Driven By Consumption - Ichiro

Your Love Has Brought Me To The Point Of No Returning - Suzume

Go To Sleep In The Morning And Wake Up At Noon Only To Go Back To Sleep Till Evening And Wake Up Full Of Regret And With A Headache - All that sleep deprivation finally caught up to Haruto

A Toast To Our Special Little Brand Of Sin - Milgram~!

The Man Of Wine And Cigarette Smoke / You And All Your Money That You’ve Stolen From The Poor / Thank You For Your Loss - Daisuke (His mafia side makes an appearance!)

Learn To Forgive Yourself - Noa (The only true innocent prisoner here /j)

I Don't Know What's In Your Head Why Are You Asking Me - Haruto (I can imagine the prisoners asking him what went down in their MVs and him going: does it look like I know?)

[racksonjoss]

BEFORE YOU READ THIS, PAY ATTENTION TO WHAT I SAY. IM NOT TRANSPHOBIC OR ANY OF THAT SHIT.

Now please enjoy my little response to this post. :)

I get this, I really do. But I feel like one of the main points of a gender separated bathroom is that it makes them a lot quicker. For example if you have an Applebee's with a man's bathroom that can have 6 people in it going and a women's bathroom that can also have 6 people you got 12 people that can go to the bathroom at a time (simple baby brain math)

But the way bathrooms are designed in this day and age, a single person gender neutral bathroom can only take one person at a time. So say you remodeled the bathrooms to each be a gender neutral one, now you can only have 2 people in bathrooms compared to the previous 12. And now that Apple bees has a line of people out the door waiting to use the bathrooms, which is a big no no.

This idea works in theory for shit like a Starbucks, where people aren't always going to the bathroom like other places. But the world isn't all Starbucks. It's full of Walmarts, McDonald's, Fred Myers, Bars, Nightclubs, Waterparks, and every little other place that requires big gender separated bathrooms to keep the place going as before. Not saying there's a world where gender neutral bathrooms couldn't be made to be just as or more efficient, but that's not the case.

The other thing about gender neutral bathrooms are that they are expensive! It's hard and pricey to remodel or build an entire room for a single person use gender neutral bathroom. And frankly for a change that costs a hell of a lot but appeals to the 1% (yes its less than 1%, check bottom for source) it doesn't make any company really want to make the switch. I sure wouldn't if I owned a company.

Also in @redbuddi 's reblog they say this "They ignore the fact that women are just as capable as assaulting men as the other way around." Which I 100% agree with! Women are just as capable as assaulting men as men are to women. The key word here being CAPABLE. See Humbolt State University give us these stats: "An estimated 91% of victims of rape & sexual assault are female and 9% male. Nearly 99% of perpetrators are male. " -see citations page. (See Tumblr I did the minimal amount of research that everyone should do to back up a claim) Although women are just as capable of committing a crime of some sort that would full under the category of this conversation, they are nowhere nearly as likely to do one of those said crimes. The info from Humbolt University proves this by just bringing up one small part of the peice of the pie. It's not sexist to say that men in society are much more likely to a. Commit a crime like r@pe, and b. Commit torward a person of the opposite sex. So why the fuck does this matter torward gender neutral public or non public restrooms? Well I've been referring to gender neutral bathrooms this whole post as single person bathrooms that only one person can use, but let's imagine multi person gender neutral bathrooms. And let's for a second imagine that nobody has a problem with the people inside of them, everyone on the earth just accepts multi person gender neutral bathrooms as okay. Okay you got that image in your head? Now image the amount of violent crimes that would happen in that environment, the amount of men (and women!) That would do something fucked up to another cis person specifically of another gender. That is so clearly a reason that companies and places keep bathrooms gender separated.

Okay. *phew* that was a lot of stuff you guys might either agree with or not. Let's take a break to discuss what I've brought up so far, okay?

What I've covered:

Gender neutral bathrooms are extremely inneficent

Gender neutral bathrooms are expensive and provide little to no incentive for companies to use them

The majority of places where the use case of a single use gender neutral bathroom would be okay is not the majority of the world

The amount of violent crimes that would be committed in gender neutral public bathrooms would skyrocket

Another thing @redbuddi says is this "The bathroom issue is just another whatabout-ism that they carry around to scare and recruit anyone vulnerable to believe them" Which I also agree with! To an extent... See I'm avoiding using examples of trans people being violent to a person of a same gender in the restroom (trans male attacking a trans female) for a reason, because you can generalize an entire group of people based on a few stories. That would be a "hasty generalization" fallacy and would not be okay to use in any discussion for any side.

Another reason these companies that are claimed as "bigoted" use gender split public bathrooms is as the old adage says "if it ain't broke then don't fix it" this means that the companies don't want to get into the argument at all, so they just continue with the social norm that is already set. Say a company named "Green Jeans" puts out a statement saying this "we here at green jeans have heard your concerns about the split gender bathrooms issue and we would like to say that we will not be allowing trans identifying people into same sex bathrooms and we will not be converting our restrooms into gender neutral bathrooms" If Green Jeans did this, they would be called transphobic and people would get mad at them for taking a side.

But let's look at a different reality, one where Green Jeans said this "we here at green jeans have heard your concerns about the gender split bathrooms and would like to say that we are going to change all Green Jeans locations rest rooms into gender neutral bathrooms to support the lgbt community" Now suddenly the tides have changed. The half that used to hate them loves them and vice versa. You see the problem here? The only way to appease everyone is to appease nobody. Not saying that this is the sole reason why companies love same sex bathrooms, but it's sure as shit one of the reasons.

Let's take this idea of consumer opinion to another level. Backing up the subject of safety concerns, a lot of American folk wouldn't be comfortable with gender neutral public bathrooms (I personally wouldn't give a shit but that's just me) And the company has to appease the large part of our country who would not like that. There are thousands of everyday folk who would be uncomfortable if they were in a 7/11 bathroom and someone they perceived as another gender came into the 7/11 bathroom. And by proxy I'm sure that that random midwest Christian mom would not go to that 7/11 again. Boom, lost consumer.

I feel like the post I'm reblogging is trying to argue a humanitarian view in an capitalist discussion. The poster of the repost I'm reblogging talks a lot about how this whole gender split bathrooms thingy is a big scam from "the man". But what is the scam giving "the man"? Split sex bathrooms are cheaper so it's not giving them money. It's not giving them power that I know of. It's not giving them joy or satisfaction. So what is "the man" trying to accomplish with single sex bathrooms? Maybe it's not "the man" and just how society is going right now. Maybe it's not all transphobic rich white assholes talking about this in a conference room. Maybe it's just how it is. And please please don't take this whole thing as me talking about how I'm on the company's side, I'm not and fuck like 2/3 of the companies we have here in the USA. They are all corrupt money sponges sucking our hard earned dollars.

To get it out into the air, I'm all for gender neutral bathrooms in America. The current bathroom system needs to be innovated and changed to fit the need. But this is really where I disagree with @redbuddi. They say this near the end of their post "While we should continue to criticize them, try not to fall into the trap of smug liberalism..." I think that this is a very messed up way of requesting change. I do think there is deep-rooted transphobia and homophobia in almost every major corp or chain, but at the end of the day, political opinions or not, gender split bathrooms are without a fucking doubt the best choice for a lot of places, big corporations, small mom and pop shops, almost everywhere in America. So what are we critiquing? What are we criticizing? Are we mad about the fact that society won't conform to gender neutral bathrooms? Because if that's the case then I feel that the Lgbt community has a lot more pressing issues to get frustrated over; and complaining about how gender split bathrooms are some sort of "Quanon, Charles Manson" "bigoted agenda" is not the way to change shit. We need innovation not misplaced frustration.

Citations section:

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/06/lgbt-gender-identity-ipsos-2021-survey/

Humboldt State University. (n.d.). Statistics. Retrieved from

the idea of public restrooms as "women's spaces" continues to confound me. you know who I hope is in a public bathroom when I go in?? no one. I would prefer no one else be in the bathroom. and if someone else is in the bathroom I am going to ignore them as much as possible. I did not go into the bathroom to connect with other women. I went into the bathroom to piss and/or shit. it's a toilet's space, not a women's space. shut the fuck up and let trans people piss and shit in peace. let's all continue to avoid eye contact with each other and any and all interaction in the toilet's space.

[fdcwasright]

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Is this the Bee Movie script?

[birindale]

Etymology: Adora

As I’m sure you’ve gathered, the vast majority of names in She-Ra are like, 80s toy names. However, as you may have gathered, I am a huge nerd that loves etymology, and so I’m going to subject you all to my notes. I imagine most of these will be in batches, but Adora is... a special case, in that her name is kind of complicated and I maybe went a little overboard.

Now the natural conclusion is that it’s derived from adore, right? Nice and easy, let’s start there. Ultimately from the Latin adōrō, the prefix ad- (’to’) + ōrō (’speak’ or ‘beg’--as in Modern English ‘orate’). Its primary meaning was a sense of negotiation, which gradually became superseded by the sense of entreating the gods for something, evoking a reverence or gratitude.

There, in fact, originates the bulk of our collection of meanings. The Old Irish ad·ora, the Romanian adora, a whole heap of Romance languages’ conjugations of various iterations of the verb... This is what most baby name websites will provide you with--”Adored, beloved”, and, almost invariably, “a gift”.

But there’s the rub!

Because Adora doesn’t mean gift. That prescription is based on a false conflation with names like Dora & Dorothy (I confess I myself fell into this trap, mostly because I couldn’t wait to make a friends of Dorothy joke) which is derived form the Greek δῶρον/dôron (’gift’), seen in names like Pandora.

The problem with this is that Greek has this thing called an alpha privative, a prefix of a-/an- which cancels things out, as in ‘atypical’ or ‘anarchy’. So a+dôron is in fact an un-gift. Enter άδωρος/ádoros, whose neuter nominative, accusative, and vocative cases are all ‘adora’. It means ‘useless’, or more specifically a white elephant--i.e., a gift given with the intent to burden the recipient. it is precisely the kind of backhanded shit Shadow Weaver would have eaten up.

okay, now before I get into this next part I want you all to remember: you’ve seen this blog. You know what I‘m like and this behavior is actually very predictable and so, so normal for me.

... so I found this woman’s blog.

a woman named Adora, who left a tantalizing clue about the etymology of her name:

Most people don’t know it, but Adora is a Biblical name. It is the name of a town found in 1 Maccabees 13:20. The reason most people don’t recognize it is because of the many names given to this town, including: Adurim, Adoraim, Dura, Dora and Adora.

she cites it as meaning “a pair of knolls”, but is that truly the case? She disclaimed her own accuracy as being based on her memory, and so I set out to verify.

Right off the bat, the 1 Maccabees reference is corroborated. There’s even explanations for its variant spellings--the sound conversion from Hebrew to Arabic often dropping soft initial consonants. And from 1 Maccabees, there it is in Greek: Αδωρά.

Now the easy version of this would have been pulling the correct spelling from the credits of the show, but like... okay. I’m going to level with you. I am fucking abysmal at reading the Hebrew alphabet. I did not trust myself to pick it out or transcribe it from a Hebrew text. So I broke out the dictionaries and tried to work backwards from Greek.

My meatiest result did think I meant Aδωμος, an occasional name for Edom (אֱדוֹם‎) which led to a very unfortunate ten minutes where I thought there might be a cognate of Adora with Adam (אָדָם‎‎), since those both mean ‘red’, only to realize the digitization process had misread μ as ρ and I was in fact looking at “Adomos”. Greek, am I right?

After a brief trip down the rabbit hole opened by a reference to Adrammelech by the name “Hador/Ador”, I abandoned the Greek angle and just... found a dictionary that wasn’t photocopied to googlebooks. and like yeah I had to read it the old-fashioned way but an alphabet’s still in its own alphabetical order so it was way easier than I’d been anticipating. Found this fairly quickly:

The citation is for 2 Chronicles & not 1 Maccabees, because that’s part of the Tanakh & 1 Maccabees isn’t--it still mentions the city, it just doesn’t feature as heavily. We could be confident that this is the same location, and that this is a reputable source backing up what the blog post already told us: two knolls/hills. Except... there’s a question mark there. And at this point I was kind of... lost in the sauce. 

A definition isn’t an etymology. We’ve hit the meristem, but where’s the root?

(please take another moment to remember that I am normal)

so there’s this thing called nonconcatenative morphology. There are a few different types, since it’s just modifying the root ‘directly’ instead of stringing phonemes together, but. we’re gonna focus on the consonant sets that make up most Hebrew words. everyone always uses K-T-B to explain this to beginners, probably because it has so many derivatives, but I’m not here to teach you linguistics, I’m here to pick apart cartoon minutiae.

take then our earlier example of Adam (אָדָם‎‎). there’s some disagreement as to which came first, but one way or the other it’s related to adamah (אדמה), “[red] earth/clay” and they share an ancestor in dam (דם), “blood”. Edom (אֱדוֹם‎) is actually related too, being named for Esau’s red hair. It’s a similar principle as we see in Greek or Latin roots, except instead of preserving phonemes, Hebrew preserves those consonants--in this case D-M.

SO. 

If we take a look at our city name (אדורים), and shave off the masculine plural suffix (ים), we get ADWR. Now, most roots are have three consonants (yes the ‘vowels’ are also consonants, it’s called a mater lectionis, don’t worry about it), but not invariably. So there’s a few possible roots. We’ll start with the likeliest.

dur (דור): to dwell, (to) pile, ball, generation. As a root it evokes circular motions--cycles and rhythmic movement. Rolling a ball, constructing a (probably circular) home. It’s the likeliest etymology as with the plural suffix it could indicate two heaps or piles--as in two hills, which is what everybody keeps saying they think it might be. The city of Adoraim/Dura was originally built on two hills, Dura al-‘Amaira and Dura al-Arjan if this account is to be believed (it seems legit to me), so like... yeah. it’s plausible. but nobody’s sure.

a‘or (אור): light, illumination (both physical and metaphorical), in some cases ‘fire’. unlikely candidate--D is a pretty strong sound to add with no precedent.

adar (אדר): literally wide, but thence great, powerful. The source of ‘addir (אדיר), majestic, and ‘aderet (אדרת), glory. BCB (a trio of christian linguists whom I do not trust) cite this as the source of the town’s name. They liken it to the Akkadian adru--to darken, to be worried/afraid or threshing room floor--which is one of the proposed etymologies of the month Adar, given its Akkadian spelling of 𒌗𒊺 (literally grain-moon, grain month), but. It doesn’t have a demonstrable relation to the noun outside of that context so we’re going to ignore it!

[clears throat] tl;dr, it could mean two hills, or it could mean (at least) two powerful, which--and this is really a stretch, if this is the case there’s no way in hell it isn’t coincidence--is funny because Adora and Adam are known collectively as the “twins of Power”.

TL;DR:

Adora can mean a whole lot of things, some of which are contradictory. Adored, beloved, useless, burdensome, and circular-motion OR powerful.

now since this is already like, 1300 words, I’m gonna pack it in, but. I’ll have more on Adora once I can track down some primary sources. To Be Continued, Eventually

[osakanone]

I read and agree with 95% of your post.

Prefacing: You're great. You are wonderful, I am now following your very good posts and I am a ball of weird neurotic energy that has to get this off my chest.

Why?

TheHorrors™ as of late have made me need to explain this like five times in four days.

Writing it like this means we can discuss it, i can link a post and people who need to see it can see it and I can get on with my life instead of having a redundant talk.

I might add citations pictures, etc etc later but I've already spent 45 minutes writing and re-writing this and I need to get this out of my system.

Once again, you're great and the fustration inside the response is not directed at you but at the issue itself.

You? Wonderful. Glorious poster. Evil baby. Delightful. Much love. Excellent Blorbo choices.

Issue? Shitty. Fills me with outrage. Paradoxical. MurderDeathKill.

Okay? Okay: rant begin:

The problem is "atomized individualism"...

1) Has a really well known and distorted meaning in libertarian circles you're probably unaware of which says "we're very rational and we never get emotional, and if I've got mine fuck you" coming from John Locke who quietly leaves out the "equality" part. 2) Actually self-defeating and paradoxical (I'll explain this)

Atomism claims everybody is

self-interested, self-sufficient and that altruism (being nice for the sake of being nice) is purely performative -- and that in functinal applied practice, asking for help or having systems to fall back on is inherently not-ok because you're not being the platonic ideal of the atomism (this is actually how familial orders emerge, instead of socialized safety-nets).

The fine text is also supposed to state that every member is equal which kind of contradicts the idea that the individual is pushed first; if you have more resources than others, your ability to execute on your individuality is inherently unequal.

It boils down to "the individual" vs "every individual" which gets very very messy.

It should mean freedom from bad things (over-exposure, abuse, starvation, etc, etc) not freedom to do bad things -- but this is where things start to get dicey.

Individualism claims the individual is the primary source of all value, and that the individual is always rational -- with the applied caviat that if anybody is acting irrationally, they lose their individuality.

You're gonna see a lot of applied caviats. Things which sound good on paper, but play out in really really messy ways in real people as side-effects of value-systems which then become the main goals of said systems when they benefit the people upholding those systems.

Combining atomization and individualism, you get...

"I am entirely rational, I am the only source of value, I am self-sufficient, and I am concerned with myself, and anybody who disagrees with me is irrational, because I am rationality defined"

So to go over the freedom part again:

This plays out as...

"uhhh yeah its a philosophy that means its good for me to not pay my taxes, because taxes are evil because they hurt me personally and specifically as an individual by subtracting my explicit capacity to execute on my self-interest (eg, get thing)"

This the mentality of your Peter Thiels, your Elon Musks, and your Donald Trumps. People who only see the "the divine right of kings" as wrong because they themselves are not the kings.

Wait, this is a lot, how did we get to this???

Their definitions ignore that most social definitions and benefits come from implicit attitudes and behaviors we do unconsciously (since humans spend most of their time running in a kind of autopilot called automaticity).

We learn this implicit automaticity from being raised, cared for, socialized, taught, and forgiven. They are hard to measure with a utility function mathematically, because they're hazy and vague and are often the root of interpretations of words (as we've experienced here, with this very thread).

Explicit attitudes are those which happen at the conscious or aware level: Its when you know you have to do something, or you haven't engrained something so you do it performatively out loud. This is significantly easier to measure with a utility function and is a huge part of how the legal system functions, and why the legal system assumes all actors (people) are rational.

Spoilers: All "rational" decision-making neurologically speaking originates from urges and feelings, and is then packaged and organized into "rationality".

Nobody human is rational; there are only rationalizers. Anybody who claims to be rational and calls anybody else emotional is both lying and projecting. If nobody felt anything, nobody would do anything: That's what depression is, even high functioning depression.

Going further, communication and implicit attitude learning and how explicit attitudes become implicit attitudes is the human skill.

Its why its inherently nonsensical to try and atomize us from eachother. We are all disturbingly susceptible to propaganda.

It isn't our tool-use (corvids molluscs, diatoms and arachnids have us beat there up until the last 80 to 15,000 years when we did metal properly afaik) -- its not our intelligence or short-term-memory (primates have us beat there, as genius level counters, strategizers and selectors): Its communication and sharing out strategies.

This is what we mean when we call humans "social organisms".

Seperating individuals truly leads to brain damage, which we see in those who undergo extended solitary isolation -- and likewise those who are placed into extended sensory deprivation such as white-room torture.

So, returning to our point:

What actually happens to our self-interested agents?

They refuse to concede that they can be irrational (which they scientifically and verifiably are: we are all irrational most of the time running on habit and memory, not pure decision making).

Result?

Self-interested agents who will not concede always compete -- whether towards singular or group-goals, and as resources collapse the group goals become singular goals.

Why?

Conceding that you are capable of irrationality and understanding what this means and the consequences and trusting that you can feel safe doing this requires emotional insight.

To develop emotional insight, you need to be a skilled communicator or have had excellent social training either through direct social contact or secondary social contact (social and cognitive stimulus creating cognitive simulations, aka media you consume).

The venn diagram of properties producing ultra-competitors is...

Dysthymia (being unable to create enjoyment or satisfaction without external validation, such as scoring, numbers or from another perosn)

An insecure/avoidant attachment style (eg, you depend on the numbers system because forming trust is compromised for whatever reason)

This produces an arms-race of ultra-competitors all trying to maximize whatever society sees as the most valuable (eg, money) -- who quickly figure out that the optimal strategy is to limit the number of competitors they have.

They do this by tricking the other members into playing "other games" or to collect "other things" as a distraction to sate them while improving how well they achieve their own goals.

These are your time vampires like the internet, your endless merchandising of ownership/consumer status, your religions to sate existential status needs, your abusive families playing for membership approval status needs, etc.

Rant End.

Okay, so now what?

So I agree with 95% of what you're saying, and I'm a pedantic bitch basically.

I love betraying nation and bloodline. I love rejecting the social order. I love being able to pursue my own goals even when the world around me wants me to adopt theirs instead. I love blasphemy and queerness and getting to choose who my family is.

I love this.

Everything you want is good, but atomized individualism is not the descriptor for those things because pure atomized individual reinvents the problems it seeks to solve for the individual by externalizing them to maximize its own returns.

Its why libertarians always create government again, but with extra steps where they are the leaders, which is apparently fine for some reason.

"I love atomized individualism" is not a statement you can make in a void, especially given current events.

What you mean is

"I love equitable atomacized indivividualism"

And by adding just one word that clarifies your statement and nullifies so many MANY problems, I 100% agree with you.

Okay got that out of my system.

Phew.

May your self-loving-vampire and may all of your self-loving be glorious and your Kohaku pleantiful.

Take care! :3

I love atomized individualism. I love betraying nation and bloodline. I love rejecting the social order. I love being able to pursue my own goals even when the world around me wants me to adopt theirs instead. I love blasphemy and queerness and getting to choose who my family is.

[higheldertala]

spyfall pt2 salt commentary

can someone please tell me if this episode makes sense to anyone cos i do not get it at all

don’t know why this episode doesn’t have an unique title like usual two parters, especially as this episode has definitely a lot less of the spy theme (again obvious that this was originally a single episode).

the fact that the writing is on the plane floor is a gamble that they’d see it

ADA!!! 🥰🥰🥰🥰 i love ada.

why do the kasaavin take ada again?

im sorry but the master’s tardis console is so ugly, baby you deserve so much better.

another Gender Joke™️! very funny ch*bnall, i laughed very hard i promise(!)

‘thats what the doctor would do’ see yaz has had her what would the doctor do moment here, why it’s made a point of in war of the sontarans confuses me.

the master’s 1834 outfit is very sexy, it’s a shame the directing doesn’t give many full shots of it.

lol the master’s top hat disappeared in between shots, where does it goes?

one thing i definitely don’t like is how little this doctor cares about the master and how out of character this is. i feel like sacha is giving a lot more to this but honestly don’t feel much coming from jodie, the doctor seems to only look at the master with disgust/ contempt, which is not their relationship at all.

obviously this goes without saying that this completely ignores missy’s arc and the doctor and master’s dynamic in s10 which is a real shame. i don’t know if ch*bnall has given his opinion on this but i guess he obviously didn’t like it idk.

yesss!! ada shooting the master is so badass i love her, finally a character who isn’t all passive. she is much more interesting as a character in 10 minutes than the fam are in 2 seasons.

also i hate the doctor’s moral high horse here. like she doesn’t say anything when the master kills 3 people unprompted but tells ada off for shooting the master in the arm when he was holding them all hostage, rescuing the doctor in the process, like can we please get a bit of perspective here.

i don’t understand why the silver lady is brought to 1834?

the fam being on the run is a blantant rip off of sound of the drums. honestly ch*bnall should use citations when he copies other people’s work.

also that generic ass ‘wanted’ poster is so funny

‘what if the doctor doesn’t come back?’ god some of these line deliveries are so deadpan. how i suppose to believe that they are a ‘fam’ when even the actors don’t even believe it.

it’s really funny that the fam’s reaction to the doctor and the master is like ‘bit awkward innit?’

why is the doctor so secretive towards the fam? is this ever explained why?

it’s really funny that graham is trying to reassure the others that the doctor is okay, because honestly they don’t actually seem to give a shit about her or whether she’s actually alive or not.

‘you know what she would ask now? what do we have at our disposable?’ see yaz is questioning what would the doctor do in this situation again. see she doesn’t actually need it written on her hand to ask herself these questions!

also it’s funny that yaz phrases this as what would the doctor ask. like im pretty sure yaz, a c*p, would also be able to ask these questions on her own. but then that would give her actual agency and would act like an actual character and ch*bnall can’t allow that.

like i don’t know what to call it, infantilisation? general lack of agency? but ch*bnall’s incessant need for the companions to only follow the doctor and be completely lost and unable to save the day without her is so annoying. like obviously it’s done worse in revolution of the daleks but yeah i hate how pointless ch*bnall made the role of companions to basically be reduced to background furniture who only exist to spout exposition and follow the doctor round like cheerleaders. like its the most shallow interpretation of the companion role ever to exist in the show (honestly i could rant on for hours about what ch*bnall did to the companion role and i’ll never forgive him for that).

‘ada are you okay?’ oh my god the doctor can ask this question to people! why does she literally never ask her companions this??

honestly why are there so many lense flares? the directing in this era is the worst.

so why do the kasaavin need to infiltrate multiple point of time? i don’t understand what they are gaining in the past that they couldn’t just get in the present day.

no idea what this stuff about barton and his mum is about? did ch*bnall ever elaborate on this?

i get the feeling that the master says something to noor but this has been cut/ edited out? this would explain ada’s line about hearing the master’s voice from under the floorboards.

also why wouldnt they check under the floorboards afterwards?

i don’t really see how ada tagging along would cause them to land in the wrong time (and specifically this time period/ location), again it’s just another excuse to do location hopping.

so the master tracks the doctor down to 1834/ 1943 through the kasaavin, is that right? honestly i don’t know how else he would be doing this.

‘two pacifists and a 19th century descendant of byron’ im sorry but its really rude to just refer to ada as daughter of byron when she accomplished many great things of her own accord.

it’s beyond words that ch*bnall sees nothing wrong with putting a poc in that uniform. i hate it him for it more than words can say. i’ll literally never forgive him for what he does in this episode.

‘ryan don’t tell them the plan!’ again! if ch*bnall is so aware of his shitty dialogue then why doesn’t he stop??

the fam don’t contribute anything this episode, they just have a run around? basically same as in survivors of the flux

why is the silver lady left in the warehouse on its own where it’s vulnerable. what if one of the fam just decided to smash it or something. honestly the silver lady thing isnt set up very well, it’s just a generic mcguffin thing.

okay talking out loud here, so when kasaavin ‘attack’ people it’s kills them, except they can’t kill the doctor and yaz because of their artron energy and also they don’t kill ada because they’ve been studying her for years. so were they meant to attack the doctor and yaz (like the master implies) or did they intentionally transported them to their dimension? (and if so why? to be studied?) like the teleporting thing has to international because they transport ada who doesn’t have artron energy. i am a bit confused on these kasaavin powers. it doesn’t help that kasaavin don’t really show up in this part until the end. i honestly feel like we don’t learn any more about them except they want to change humans into hard drives for… some reason??? nah i don’t understand this plan.

this plot falls apart in the second part and honestly i can’t make sense of it. maybe im being dumb but if anyone wants to fill me in that would be greatly appreciated.

like i think the hardest part is trying to follow all three antagonists plans, the master’s, the kasaavin’s and barton’s.

wasn’t the idea of gallifrey in a bubble universe is that it shouldn’t be easy to get in and out? obviously this was m*ffat’s idea and im not sure how clara and doctor get out of gallifrey in hell bent and m*ffat doesn’t explain how the master got out either. yknow what im already confused, let’s not bring m*ffat concepts into this. my point being is what’s the point of the bubble universe if the time lords can just come and go as they please?

the annoying thing is that there probably is a lot of potential to do stuff with gallifrey and the time lords but none of the nuwho writers have ever been able to do much with it and yet still they keep messing around with it. like destroying gallifrey again was literally so pointless because ch*bnall does nothing with it, when rtd destroyed gallifrey at least there was a character arc for doctor, here the doctor barely reacts it (onscreen at least). and also the whole flip flopping of destroying gallifrey, bringing it back, destroying gallifrey again is so childish and just looks like the showrunners fighting like children over their toys. like destroying gallifrey again is just shitting on m*ffat’s work which in turn was originally shitting on rtd’s work and just uuuuhhhhhhh!!! the audience is so tired of this!! it’s pathetic. why did ch*bnall destroy gallifrey again? for what purpose did this serve? honestly im putting gallifrey on a high shelf until these male writers learn how to behave.

i won’t insult anyone’s intelligence by going over why the that eiffel tower scene is awful and bad and honestly i skipped this because no one needs to see that scene more than once.

all i will say is ‘never be cruel, never be cowardly’…

the master’s tardis exterior not changing is so stupid and contrived!! the master may be arrogant but he isn’t stupid. my eyes cannot roll any further to the back of my head.

and honestly the doctor leaving/ stranding the master is so fucking stupid and out of character. the doctor would be smart enough to know not to leave the master on earth knowing the potential untold damage they can do. the master was stranded on earth (kinda) for 18 months and end up enslaving the planet. who knows what the master can do in 77 years. ahhhhh god i hate this so much. why? why would you do this? you are literally endangering the planet so much doctor

also wait why didn’t the master just use the kasaavin to get back to 2020? they can time travel right? that’s how the doctor is moving through time rightttt? why can’t the master do the same?

nah serious question do the kasaavin have time travel abilities?

so what does barton get out of this plan? i don’t feel like this is clearly established.

i don’t understand, why did the kasaavin target significant figures surrounding computers through time? were they needed to influence them or something? why did they need to go back in time to do this? couldn’t they just use barton in the present day? nah even when the doctor is explaining it straight to the audience im lost. i don’t understand the time travel part of this plan at all.

the master’s sexy purple outfit is so iconic and it’s an actual crime you can’t see it because of the awful ‘only close ups allowed’ directing.

the resolution of this story being ‘i just went back in time and undid what you did’ is the laziest example of time travelling. it’s cheating. as soon as ch*bnall wrote this someone should have taken the pen from him and told him sci-fi isn’t for you mate.

the way the doctor forgets about the fam being in a life threatening situation 💀

so fun that barton never gets resolved. also does the fam being on the run ever get resolved? you think that would have some sort of effect, especially for yaz.

ah yes the bit where the doctor take two women’s memories without consent and with absolutely zero repercussions for these actions. clearly ch*bnall missed the bit where this was established not to be an ethical thing.

and also the doctor removing ada/ noor’s memories when this has literally never happened to any other historical figure is so weird. ‘oh but we need to keep the timeline in check’ it’s literally fucking fiction it doesn’t matter! it’s not real ch*bnall! shakespeare never actually fought witches, agatha christie never actually encountered a murder mystery with a giant wasp, doctor who is fiction ch*bnall! it’s so unnecessary and makes the doctor out to be just cruel

what happened to master’s tardis? like where does the doctor leave it? this is literally never addressed.

a pet peeve of mine is definitely when they show flashbacks of something that happened in the same episode. your audience isn’t that dumb i assure you

i don’t understand how ‘the time lords lied to us’ is suppose to be some sort of revelation. like yeah they’ve been shady bitches from the start, this isn’t new or a surprise for their MO.

i don’t understand why the doctor is now so secretive towards the companions compared to in the past. this is never given a motivation or reasoning.

i love how the fam asked the doctor who she was and she just gave a wikipedia entry of herself.

concluding thoughts: honestly i get very lost watching this episode, like i said part two takes a massive detour from the plot and i don’t fully see the point of it? trying to keep track of three antagonists in a ch*bnall story seems excessive, as he can’t pull this off well (the timeless children and flux both suffer from multiple antagonists also). this also doesn’t help when the majority of the time they are kept separate. how the master, barton and the kasaavin came together isn’t very clear, i guess it just happened off screen and it doesn’t matter. also i don’t understand what barton’s motivations were/ what he gets out of this plan. he is just Evil Tech Guy™️. i guess i understand the kasaavin a little bit more but they do just become generic we want to take over the world baddies. them being from a different dimension is their most interesting point yet this hardly explored any further. the master does not do a lot in this part except chase the doctor through time, anything they do for main plot all happens offscreen which is dissatisfying as it makes it harder to see how much the master contributes to the plan. the companions also do nothing this part and don’t affect the plot in any way, honestly seemed like a waste of screen time to keep cutting to them. our pseudo companions ada and noor do contribute more to the plot which is nice. i really like ada, who seems like an actual character with agency and actually does things, but in end feels like she and noor are punished by having their memories taken away without their consent which has been established multiple times in dw to be a bad thing, here the doctor gets away with numerous unethical actions and is never punished nor called out on this behaviour. i really like sacha as the master i think he gives a great performance, he definitely deserves a lot more (russell please im begging you). the climax/ resolution for this story is awful, literally the laziest way of writing time travel there is (im pretty sure the curse of fatal death makes a joke about this use of time travel! and that was a parody! although i have never actually watched curse of fatal death and im very happy continuing my existence without seeing it).

[supernaturalnovelsandmore]

Supernatural Novel: The Unholy Cause

Welcome to my review of the fifth Supernatural novel, The Unholy Cause

Author: Joe Schreiber

Timeline: Set after Episode 5.08 Changing Channels but before Episode 5.16 Dark Side of the Moon

Location: Mission's Ridge, Georgia

Synopsis: As the pressure mounts for the upcoming apocalypse, Sam and Dean head to the historic town of Mission's Ridge, GA, where the Civil War is less about the past and more about the present. With interference from Castiel, demons, and Judas Iscariot himself, how can Sam and Dean prevent a major catastrophe from befalling this small town?

Review: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Warning: Spoilers abound!

After the last book, I was really hoping to see an improvement in this one, and boy did I! I've finally hit the Supernatural tie-in novel I was hoping to read from the beginning! It read like an actual episode, I could hear the actors speaking through the character's words, and I really couldn't find anything that contradicted canon.

In addition, the actual storyline was compelling and the side characters interesting. With the other novels I've reviewed, it's taken me most of the day to read them because I kept getting distracted. This one, I read straight through without stopping. I love reading a book like that!

Side note: This novel does dive in to Christian theology and the story of Judas Iscariot (who betrayed Jesus). If you are uncomfortable delving into that portion of Christianity, you may not want to read the book or this review (though my review notes about that will be minimal).

Now, since I don't have any canon vs. non-canon comparisons to make, today's review is simply going to be a list of my favorite scenes and how certain scenes relate to what's going on during this period in Season 5.

Cameo!

Sam and Dean are informed of the case by one Rufus Turner! He's only in it for a brief bit, but he's still funny as heck asking the police to pay his dry-cleaning bill.

We get a nice character introduction of enigmatic (clueless) Castiel who's trying to heal Civil War reenactors who are understandably frightened of him. He's still searching for God at this point, but we also get this nice character beat for him:

"I walked the battlefields of the South a hundred and sixty years ago," Castiel replied, a faraway look entering his eyes. "I moved among the men and brought their souls to glory. And now..." Something moved over his face for just an instant, so rare and brief that Dean almost didn't catch it; a flicker of hope. "And now," he repeated, "I'm healing again."

Of course, Dean has to explain that none of the reenactors actually need healing and he goes back to being determined to find a 'First-order witness' - someone who broke bread with Jesus Christ.

I found this part surprising within the book, but as I thought about it, it made more sense. The TV series has to tread a very careful line with Christianity so as not to offend a bunch of viewers, but the books have a much smaller audience and can take these liberties. Personally, I was fine with it. They didn't go too deep and stuck with the witness being Judas (who doesn't exactly have a great reputation to begin with).

There's a fantastic brotherly moment where Sam shares the sheriff's name (Jack Daniels) and they then go back and forth trying to guess what this Jack person is like i.e., fat vs. skinny, bald vs. hairy...

Dean: "Nam vet. Buford Pussar type. From Walking Tall." Sam: "Deliverance refugee. Civil citations all over his desk."

One of things I love about this book is the brother's relationship. This banter and other character beats really feel authentic as opposed to the prior novels. (I won't spoil what the sheriff is actually like - needless to say, they play a major role in the book.)

Just a few pages later from this great banter, we're back to the drama as Sam and Dean argue about a nightmare Sam had that he can't remember, but which could be relevant to the case.

"What's this about Dean?" Sam demanded, "Is it about you not trusting me? Because if it is, there's not a whole lot of places we can go from there." "Yeah, you're my brother," Dean said. "But you're also Lucifer's prom dress, and if he's seeding your dreams with hints about the master plan, then maybe it might be a good idea for you to look at 'em as close as possible. That's all I'm saying."

And of course, Dean gets concerned about Sam as they split up to cover more ground. It's music to my ears! There are a number of other conversations like this that really emphasize the strained relationship Sam and Dean display in Season 5.

Another surprising character beat is the influence of Lucifer on Sam because as he's doing research at the local historical society, Sam (and the historian) are surprised to find out he can read Coptic, an ancient Egyptian language. It startles Sam and once again emphasizes how different he is.

At a particularly gruesome crime scene (a mass grave), there's a brief moment with Dean that really shines as he looks down on the skeletons in the mass grave and finds a similarity to what he did in Hell:

Because that was what he did after spending years down there, doing what he'd done... Through sheer force of will, Dean shoved those notions aside...Now more than ever he didn't want that experience contaminating the way he looked at the world... not that he had a choice. Hell had been his Vietnam. It had stamped its mark on him for all eternity, and no amount of denial or self-imposed ignorance was going to change that.

There's an additional moment of traumatized Dean that I wish they could have shown in the tv series:

Sam: "Are those bloodhounds?" Dean didn't answer... When Sam finally caught a look at his brother's face, he saw that Dean's cheeks and forehead had gone absolutely white, as if every drop of blood had been sucked away... "They're not hellhounds, Dean, they're just dogs..." Dean didn't answer. He was still listening to the barking and howling noises coming closer, crashing through the undergrowth. He seemed paralyzed by the sounds.

There are more to these Dean passages, (too much to copy), but I really like that we see actual effects of past experiences.

There's also a nice scene with Sam and a young teenager that really highlights his ability to connect with kids around that age (of which we see later in the TV series):

"My brother and I grew up without a Mom, too," Sam said... "It wasn't always easy... Not everybody gets that." "I still dream about her sometimes, you know? Even though I was young when she... when it happened," Nate blinked at Sam. "Weird, huh?" "Are they good dreams?" "Yeah." "Then it's good. That's your way of remembering her."

The last third of the book is very action-oriented and has multiple instances of hurt Sam and hurt Dean, with the requisite caring from each brother.

Once again, I've gone on too long, but I'll end with a couple of favorites: Humor:

The sheriff glanced out the window, (referring to Baby) "And haul that piece of crap car to the impound lot. I don't want it cluttering up my street." "Woah!" Dean snapped, a sudden rush of anger rising in his face. "Watch your damn mouth. You can't just---"

Drama:

"This is blood money," Sam reached into his pocket and pulled out the Shekel. "Bobby says the only way anybody gets their hand on this..." The rest of the sentence was getting stuck in his chest, and he made himself finish it, "is by betraying someone you love." Dean stared at him. "Dean..." "Look," Dean broke in. "Don't get too hung up on it, okay? It doesn't necessarily mean anything," he stood up and brushed off his jeans. "Whatever happens between us, we'll deal with it then..."

Thanks again for reading! I'll be back again next week with War of the Sons!

[bananatonn]

Angerly ranting about Yandere Simulator in the middle of the night

In honor of the upcoming 10 rivals update, I want to take this time to review some bits of the narrative of the game as it is now because HOLY SHIT it looks like it’s going to be a fucking mess.

Okokok, so a critique I see in a lot of reviews is that the game doesn’t know what it wants to be. Is it an edgy anime parody, or is it a dark and serious game that deals with serious subjects?

I believe that the game started off as an anime meme game, but after seeing the success and fan content of serious, lore heavy games, our dear pal Alex decided to make YS more serious and add all this “deep” lore and backstory to replicate that success. However, that transition was definitely not smooth as I can listen to some journalist guy ramble about how his life was ruined alongside a student literally named Mai Waifu.

(It’s really late at night so I want to keep this short. I’m using the wiki (and its sources), official website, and an FAQ google doc found on the official website as my sources.)

The Worldbuilding

My biggest issue with the worldbuilding is that the not so important bits have more detail than the really important bits. One example is Magical Girl Pretty Miyuki, a fictional magical girl anime in YS’s world. Now, you would think that the only purpose of this anime is to give the world a little bit of color and flavor. Apparently, this little anime has a manga series, a TV show, a movie, 2 games, and a plot synopsis on the wiki.

(Why is this here? Why is this anime more fleshed out than half of the characters in the game? Does Alex want to see all this come true? I don’t want to know.)

This game is about killing girls to have a boy all to yourself. I don’t see how this or the secrets of a big ass tech company would be important to the protagonist. All that should matter is Senpai. Actually, that’s kind of hard considering that the background section of his wiki page says this:

And his in-game description says this:

Uhh… he likes reading and Mozart? I guess that’s it. What is it about him that makes him so special? Is it the fact that he’s supposed to be a harem anime protagonist? Maybe. Kinda makes it hard for me to care about him though.

(On a side note, on the official website, the Wife character has a longer description than the protagonist and she doesn’t even have a name. I find that both hilarious and tragic.)ANYWAYS MOVING ON

The “Aishi Condition”

So the protagonist, Ayano Aishi, has this weird condition where she can’t feel emotions and she just has this hollow feeling 24/7. And apparently her mom and all her female ancestors had this condition too. (It’s also an excuse to make her a blank slate for maximum audience projection.) The only cure for this is a love interest. Yes really. Here’s a fun little fact: Apparently Aishi babies don’t cry right after birth. Doesn’t make much sense but okay. Anyways, this condition leads them to be really dependent on their partner until some undefined amount of time. There’s a very long explanation.

My thoughts? This feels quite wrong. Cliche? Yeah. Problematic? Probably.

Feels like an incel alpha male’s dream, to be depended on by an anime girl.

Also, is this a condition, a curse, or just a “type”? I don’t want to accuse Alex of anything until the game gets finished, whenever that will be. I think I’ll stop here…

Miscellaneous stuff I found interesting/funny

My favorite part about this is how many citations it has.

Thoughts?

Conclusion

This goddamn game has been weighing on my mind for over a year, dear god. I have been writing this all night and I’m tired. It is currently 8:42 AM at the time of writing. Feel free to crucify me.

[vintagedolan]

genius (egd)

when college goes online, ethan gets to see you put your mind to work, and he realizes that maybe he can’t keep up

word count: 2.7k

warnings/tags: fluff, insecure!ethan, just lots of fluff okay

ps: this is my first imagine on this blog, feel free to send in requests! i’ll write most things! hope you enjoy :) 

When you had to go to campus for school, it just seemed like you were going to work for Ethan. The schedule changed each day because of your classes, but you always managed commuting back and forth well; after all, why live on campus if you could live with him for free. You usually gave yourself a few extra hours around campus - nine times out of ten, your favorite coffee shop - to get your work done. E and Gray respected your need to work on school, but sometimes it was hard to focus if they were filming a video around the house.

But with the switch to quarantine and therefore online school, everything had been turned on its head. And Ethan was acting... different

The biggest change had been your location. As soon as quarantine was beginning to shut down travel, Ethan begged you to come back from California to be with him and his family in New Jersey. 

It had only taken a few “Baby please, I can’t focus if I don’t know when I’m gonna see you next” type of pleas for you to succumb, and with online classes you had no reason not to. But that wasn’t the only change...

Your mornings started per usual - you were trying, no matter how futile, to stay close to your original schedule. When you woke up, you’d roll over into Ethan (if you’d strayed that is, sometimes you woke up wrapped up in his arms) and run your fingers along his cheek. It was always just enough to stir him so you didn’t startle him, but not enough to wake him up fully. Grayson had been nice enough to give the two of you their old room, and you soaked up the privacy while you could. 

“Morning baby,” he would always mumble, pulling you in tightly to his chest for a minute and nuzzling into your hair. You’d be content there for a little while, pressing gentle kisses to his skin until he loosened up a bit and you were able to get free. Then, he would lull back to sleep fully, curling up in the covers when you got up. You’d pull on one of his hoodies, a sports bra and some pants, then head downstairs, laptop in hand.

Since you didn’t have to commute, you gave yourself about an hour more of sleep, which meant you actually got up around the same time as Grayson. Most the time, even he wasn’t up as early as you during normal school back in California. But seeing him in the morning now was actually really nice - you and Gray had bonded so quickly when you met them, and he was instantly like a brother to you. You weren’t sure it would have worked out if you weren’t as close as you were.

Wednesday morning, he was headed out on a run, but was eating his breakfast in the kitchen before he left.

“Morning Y/N,” he smiled, passing you a plate with a piece of avocado toast and some cut up apples that had been sitting on the counter.

“Gray you didn’t need to make me breakfast!” You exclaimed, but your heart warmed at his thoughtfulness. 

“Early bird gets the worm. Besides, isn’t it almost finals week? I know that’s supposed to be hell, might as well get some good fuel in.” He said it casually, but you wanted to cry - it meant so much that he even knew that it was finals week in the first place. 

“Thanks. It really means a lot,” you said, throat a bit tight. 

“Don’t mention it,” he smiled, passing you and ruffling your hair as he headed out the door.

You ate the toast, grateful for something on your stomach as you started looking at the assignments you still had due this week. And as you expected, it was a lot. Lots of studying was a given, but you had a 30 page paper due by Friday, and you’d only made it about a third of the way through. You wanted to knock the rest of it out by the end of the day, but it was going to be hard, with lots of research involved. 

And so you made another trip up to Ethan’s room, snagging your backpack and smiling at his curled up form and quiet snores. With a sigh you left the room again, curling up on the couch by all the tall windows, trying to at least enjoy the view if you had to be stuck by your computer all day. 

Then the real work began. Website after website, journals, textbooks, citations; over and over and over again as you began to chip away at the paper. The world kept moving around you, mostly in the background. Grayson got back from his run, getting a glass of water from the kitchen. Lisa waved her good morning, leaving you to your work and not wanting to interrupt. 

Your attention shifted around 10am, when Ethan made his way out of bed and into the kitchen, wiping the sleep from his eyes. He looked so soft in the morning, and you knew exactly what was coming before it even happened. You moved your laptop backwards, waiting.

Sure enough, he shuffled his way over to the couch, curling up on the cushions and laying his head on your lap, mumbling a bit as he got comfortable. You leaned down to kiss his head, running your fingers across his scalp and feeling him hum at the sensation. He was still tired - he always got up earlier if you weren’t still in bed with him - so it was no surprise that he dozed off again beside you. You simply reached over him, typing away on your computer as best you could. 

If you had it your way, you’d spend the whole day doing nothing with Ethan. You’d be content to lounge out with him, doing nothing. Since the boys had switched from their vigorous schedule, they’d both become so much more relaxed, and it was so nice to enjoy the free time you had. 

But you didn’t get your way. And the paper wasn’t going as easily as you thought it would.

So you wrote. And wrote. And wrote. It was like pulling teeth trying to piece it all together, and it was taking forever. The frustration mounted, and Ethan could tell you were stressed so he let you be, knowing that when you were doing school stuff it was better to just leave you to your devices. 

But come 6pm, he couldn’t take the look on your face anymore.

“Baby. Babe. Y/N.” It took three times to get your attention, but you peeled your eyes away from the screen, looking up at him. He looked sad, but you’d known him long enough to realize that he was worried.

You slid your laptop over to the arm of the couch, signaling that you wanted him to join you for a minute. You hadn’t even noticed he had a cup of tea in his hand, which he sat down on the table for you before he sat down next to you.

“You alright? You’ve been working all day.” His voice was soft, and his skin was cold. You realized suddenly that he smelled like a mixture of pine and saw dust. He’d been outside with Gray. 

“I’m okay. Just stressed out. This paper isn’t as easy as I thought it would be, but I’ve made it this far and I’m gonna finish it today if it kills me,” you explained, rubbing at your eyes. They were sore from staring at your screen for so long. 

“Which translates to ‘I love you but I’m not taking a break no matter what you say’, huh?” Ethan offered you a soft smile. You leaned into his shoulder, nuzzling up for a moment and breathing him in.

“Once I’m done I’m all yours. Promise,” you whispered. 

“That’s not what I’m worried about love. I just don’t want you in here all stressed out. I hate it,” he explained. 

“I’ll be okay,” you reassured him.

“I know, and I know you’ll kill it, like you always do. Doesn’t mean I like seeing you upset. What’s this one about anyways?” He gestured to your screen.

“Spinal cord injuries. It’s a case study about a 16 year old, focused on paraplegia, and patient education about autonomic dysreflexia.”

“Well, as usual, I’m fucking useless,” he mumbled. Usually when he said something about your intelligence in regards to his, he was joking. But there was something else behind this one that made your heart tighten a bit. 

You were about to ask him what was wrong, but Grayson came back in from outside - the workshop, no doubt - and made his way to the kitchen. 

“Y/N, you up for two Grayson meals in one day? I’m making veggie burgers,” he offered, already pulling out pans.

“Yeah that would be great actually,” you smiled at him.

“Alright, 3 burgers coming up,” he replied, not having to ask Ethan if he wanted one. 

“You got this. I’m gonna work on the video for a while, okay?” Ethan kissed your temple before getting up and leaving you to it.

With the quiet rustle of Grayson cooking in the background, and the warm tea waking you up a bit, you got to work at a much faster pace than you had before. Even so, you didn’t beat Grayson and he stopped by with a plate as you typed away.

“More brain fuel for the genius of the family,” he teased, sitting it down next to you. 

“Thanks Gray, love you!” You chuckled, immediately starting to eat, not realizing how hungry you were. 

It was good, as most things that Grayson made were, and it gave you the final boost that you needed. 

By 7:30, you had submitted the paper and felt like a huge weight had lifted off your shoulders. You hopped off the couch, scooping up all of your things and heading back to Ethan’s room. 

As usual, he was on his computer with his headphones on, editing away. You sat everything down, coming up behind him and putting a hand on his shoulder, a non-startling way to let him know you were there. 

He kissed the back of your hand before taking it and gently pulling, spinning the chair around with the momentum and pulling you down so you settled in his lap facing him. Like this, you were taller than him, and he reached both hands up to cup your face, one moving to take your hair out of the bun that it was in, strands falling around the both of you as he kissed you.

His scruff tickled you as your lips moved together, making up for the lost time of the day. His hands moved down to your waist, large and warm as he squeezed, his fingers moving under your hoodie until he found your skin. No matter how many times he did this, it always took his breath a bit, and he pulled back for a second to look at you.

“You finished your paper I assume?” He smiled, freeing a hand to tuck some hair back from your eyes. You rested your cheek in his tattooed palm, gazing at him.

“Yep.”

“Feel better?”

“Mostly.”

“Mostly?” He countered, confused. 

“What were you upset about earlier?” You asked. 

“Nothing.”

It was a knee jerk reaction, and he knew that you weren’t going to take that as an answer. You simply waited, settling on his lap and tucking your forehead up against the side of his neck, tracing over his collarbone tattoo while you waited for him to find the words. Sometimes, he found it easier if he wasn’t looking right at you to say what he felt. 

“You’re out of my league,” were the words he finally found, and it took all your power not to scoff. 

“Why do you feel that way?” 

“You’re so much smarter than me. You’re about to finish college, and I barely have a high school diploma to my name. You just wrote a paper, god knows how long, and I didn’t even know what you were talking about. I wouldn’t even understand it, much less be able to help you with it like I should. I just feel stupid, all the time.” 

There were a million different things you wanted to say, but you’d learned something while dating Ethan. For him, he thought anything you said was out of obligation. He felt like you were ‘just saying it to make him feel better’, not because you meant it. 

So instead, you’d learned you needed to show him. 

You got off his lap, ignoring the panic on his face as you sat back down, now facing the same way as him, the computer screen lighting up your faces. 

“What were you doing before I came in here?” You asked, keeping your tone neutral.

“Editing, you know that,” he said, even more confused. 

“No, what exactly were you doing?”

“Importing footage, splicing, adding transitions, text overlays. The usual,” he explained.

“Do you realize that I have absolutely no idea how to do any of that?” You said, turning to look at him.

“You could learn, I could teach you easily.” His eyebrows furrowed. 

“Just like I could teach you about spinal cord injuries.”

You let that sit for a minute, knowing he wasn’t going to have an argument against you.

“You are smart Ethan. You put your energy and your knowledge into your work, and I put mine into school, which I’ll eventually put into work as well. And besides, if anyone is out of someone’s league, you’re definitely out of mine,” you smiled.

“Well, maybe you aren’t so smart if you believe that, even for a second.”

There was light in his eyes again, and you knew the storm had passed. 

“Now then, when does that video have to go up?”

“Whenever.”

“Then I think we’ve both spent enough time staring at a screen today. Cuddles?” 

His answer was given by wrapping a strong arm around your waist as he stood you both up. You knew the drill; he was about to pick you up, pull the covers back and put you down in bed, but he paused. 

“Too many clothes,” he mumbled, a mischievous grin on his face. He quickly pulled his shirt off over his head - a fresh one, you hadn’t even noticed that he’d changed from what he’d worn all day. He tossed it on the bed before turning to you, fingers toying at the hem of the hoodie you had on.

He quickly pulled it over your head, and then he groaned.

“What?!” You giggled, looking down at yourself. 

“Regular bra’s I can handle, but those things are a death trap. I always feel like I’m choking you,” he gestured to your sports bra. You laughed a bit, pulling it over your head yourself and tossing it to the side. Ethan reached past you to snag his shirt, pulling it over your head. Once your face cleared the collar he kissed you softly, smiling as you tilted up to meet him. 

His fingers tucked into your sweatpants, guiding them off your hips until they fell down in a puddle at your feet. You stepped out of them quickly.

“Much better,” he smiled, hands going to your hips as you jumped up onto him. Your legs wrapped around his hips and his hands moved around to your ass, holding you up. You kissed him again, running your fingers through his short hair. 

“Cuddles?” You poised again.

“I could stay here all day,” he grinned, kissing you again. 

“Suit yourself,” you smiled. It wasn’t hard for you to just hang there. 

“Alright fine, I’m cold. Dismount.” 

You smiled at the code word, climbing down off of him and crawling into bed, opening your arms. 

Ethan was right behind you, crawling under the covers and wrapping you up in his arms. 

“I can’t wait for your semester to be over so we can do this all day long,” he mumbled, breath warm on his skin.

“Hmmm, maybe I’ll make you teach me how to edit so I can be double smart,” you grinned.

“Oh shut up.” You could hear the eye roll in his voice, but he just pulled you closer, so tight you could barely breathe. 

“I love you, lil genius,” Ethan said into your hair, loosening up a bit and settling into a comfortable position. 

“Love you more, big genius.”

[worldwidemochiguy]

Angel (Yandere! Hoseok)

Summary: Hoseok is your best friend. You’ve gone through thick and thin together, he’s always been there for you. Sure, sometimes he’s a little over-affectionate, but its normal to be tactile with your friends, right? He’s very protective, but that’s just how all guys are with their female friends, right? And sometimes, he can get to where you are so quickly it’s like he was following you, but that’s just coincidence, right? Right?

Warnings: Yandere behaviour, drugging, weak reference of violence

Word Count: 2.5K

Masterlist :)

a/n: in response to an anon request for prompts 8 and 11 with hoseok. I hope you like it !! (also pls don’t let this get less notes than my other fics just bc its hobi bc come on guys he deserves more than that he’s our hope 🥺🥺)

8. “Look, this is for the best. You don’t understand now, but you will.”

11. “Let me see that pretty smile.”

Angel

 You sigh, slumping onto your couch, relieved to finally be back at home. You got a paper graded and returned to you today and… you haven’t done as well as you hoped you would. Sure, your grade is ok, but that almost makes it feel worse. It isn’t bad enough to complain about but it isn’t good enough for you to feel justified after spending all that time studying. Basically, you feel really shitty. But luckily, you happen to have the human personification of Sunshine as your best friend.

You pull your phone out, dialling his number and, as usual, he picks up after the first ring.

“Angel?” You smile when you hear his nickname for you. That’s what he has called you since the day you two met. At first, you found it a bit strange but by now you’ve grown used to his affectionate ways.

“Hobi!” You exclaim, already feeling better for talking to him, but he can still note a sense of remaining sadness. 

“What’s wrong, baby?” Another one of his nicknames for you. He really is the nicest person on Earth.

“I just-” you sigh, almost not wanting to tell him in case he thinks less of you. “Never mind. I feel better now I’m talking to you.”

“Angel,” Hobi coos down the phone, “I love talking to you too, but you really should tell me why you were sad. That way, I can help you fix it!” His phrasing, though joking, holds an inherent command in it. Hoseok has always been that way though, so you don’t really mind.

“I got my paper back and… I got a B.”

“That’s amazing, angel!” He immediately replies, and you pout, not realising he can’t see you through the phone.

“It’s not~” you whine, “It’s ok, sure, but I stayed up all night studying for that test! Don’t you remember?”

“Ah, yes.” Hoseok says, sounding nostalgic. “You drank like five cups of coffee and almost threw up. I did tell you your stomach was too delicate for that stuff, angel.” 

“That is besides the point! I just mean, I spent a lot of time preparing for that test and I still only got a B. I even thought I did really well after I wrote it.” Your voice becomes quieter towards the end, betraying your feelings of insecurity and disappointment. 

“Oh, angel,” Hoseok says quietly. “Don’t worry, I’ll fix it for you. I’ll fix everything.” 

“How can you do that?” You ask tiredly. A knock sounds at the door, and to your surprise, it’s Hoseok at the door with a box of Doughnuts. 

“With dangerous amounts of refined sugar.” He answers solemnly. You can’t help but fling yourself into his arms and laugh. 

~~~~

“…no, but-” You try to reply, spraying crumbs as you try to speak through your mouthful of doughnut. Your fingers are sticky with glazing and wildly articulating as you try to find your point. 

“My point is…!” You finally decide, and Hoseok drums his (also sticky) fingers on the coffee table to build suspense.

“My professor sucks!” You finally burst out. “He hates me! He always grades me harshly, even though the kid in front of me got an A, and he submitted one sheet! One sheet! He didn’t even use citations!” Hoseok is not displaying the appropriate outrage you believe your declaration merits. He doesn’t even look like he’s listening to you anymore, he’s laughing too hard to even breathe and his face has gone all red. You suddenly worry that he’s not getting enough air and lurch over the couch to reach him, ending up sprawled over his chest with your nose inches from his. 

He has been pushed onto his back, and you’re effectively pinning him down. His face is certainly a lot redder.

“Are you okay?” You whisper loudly. 

“I forgot what you’re like on a sugar high.” He mumbled. 

“Am I being annoying?”

“No,” Hoseok immediately replies, “You could never annoy me, angel.” His arm curls around you, keeping you where you are, and to be honest you don’t mind. Your best friend is a very comfortable pillow. You tell him as much, and his smug ‘thanks’ are the last words that chase you off to sleep. 

~~~~

“Wake up, angel.”

You open your sleep-crusted eyes to see your friend’s smiling face shining down on you. You scowl. Hoseok is the most obnoxious morning person.

“Be quiet. Sleep.” You mumble before burying your face in his chest again. You feel his hand run soothingly over your hair, petting you, and you let out a happy sigh. 

“I’m sorry, angel. I would love to just stay here like this all day, but you have class in an hour and you need to have time to properly wake up and have breakfast.” 

“Mmmh, no.” You mutter, stubbornly nuzzling your face into his collarbones. He lets out a sound resembling a groan and you freeze for a second, before reassuring yourself that you two are best friends and its normal to be tactile.

“Angel, you really aren’t giving me another choice here.” You hear Hobi say, and suddenly he’s twisting around beneath you and planting his feet on the floor, somehow rising to stand up with you in his arms. You let out a cross between a squawk and a scream, clinging to him desperately as he laughs. 

“Hoseok!” You yell, which only makes him laugh harder. “Put me down!” 

“I don’t know, angel.” He muses, “I might just carry you to class like this. Would you like that?”

“No!” You reply indignantly, “…I mean, at least take me to my room.”

“As my angel commands.” Hoseok smirks, doing as you ask.

You get changed into fresh clothes, and part of you wonders why Hoseok didn’t just wake you up after you fell asleep and tell you to go to bed. It can’t’ve been comfortable for him to lie on the couch all night with you on top of him. Also, how did he even get to your apartment so quickly? He doesn’t live anywhere near you, and you’re pretty sure he had no classes in the area yesterday. In the kitchen, you can hear him making breakfast so you decide to just ask him.

“Hey, Hobi?” You call as you leave your bedroom.

“Yes, angel?” You hear, coming into the kitchen to see Hoseok cooking something on the stove with an apron tied around his neck. He turns to greet you, and his eyes widen.

“Angel, you look beautiful today.” He compliments, and you blush like you always do when anyone says anything remotely nice about you. 

“Thanks, Hobi.”

“Anytime.” He sounds strangely sincere, and you remember what you were going to ask him.

“Hey, uh, how did you get here so quickly yesterday?”

“…huh?” He’s turned back to the food, and you can’t see his reaction.

“Yesterday? When I called you? You got here pretty quick, and you don’t live anywhere near me. And I’m pretty sure you had no classes around here?”

“…I had a meeting with a professor so I was in the area. I was kind of planning to drop by anyway.” 

“Oh.” You nod in understanding, missing the way Hoseok’s shoulders relax, just like you missed that obsessive gleam in his eyes when he saw you enter the kitchen. 

He watches you keenly as you cut out a piece of the omelette, so keenly that you laugh and put the fork down, feeling too embarrassed to eat while someone looks at you so intensely.

“What, you aren’t hungry?” Hoseok laughs, though you can detect an undercurrent of hurt in his words.

“No, you’re just… watching me like you’re expecting something to happen when I eat it. Have you put anything in this?” Hoseok gasps in mock outrage.

“Like I’d do anything to ever harm my angel!” He exclaimed, before shoving a forkful of the breakfast in his mouth, chewing quickly and swallowing. “See? Nothing wrong with it. Will you eat it now?” You laughed and nodded, starting to eat it as well and moaning at the taste. You see Hoseok stiffen out of the corner of your eye, but he relaxes after a second or two so you think nothing of it. Meanwhile, Hoseok can think of nothing but that sound you just made, and how he can get you to make it again, over and over until it’s the only thing he can hear. 

Two days later, your professor — the one that hates you — approaches you after class. 

“M-Miss Y/n L/n?”

“Yes, sir?”

“It appears I graded your paper incorrectly, you have achieved an A*. C-Congratulations.” You are so ecstatic you don’t notice how nervous the professor seems, his eyes continuously darting around him as if he’s scared someone will jump out and attack him. As if someone already has. 

You dial Hoseok’s number the second you leave the college building. As always, he picks up straight away.

“Hobi!” You squeal, excitement leaking through your voice, and you hear his warm laughter on the other side of the phone.

“Yes, angel?”

“I got an A*!!” You tell him and he gives a cheer, and you can just imagine him pressing the phone to his shoulder with his ear so that he can raise both his hands in celebration — Hoseok was just enthusiastic like that.

“See? I told you it would be ok!” 

“I know, I know, I should listen to you more often. Come to my place! I want to have a celebratory dinner.”

“Ok! I’ll be right there angel.”

“Bye Hobi!”

The second you get into your apartment, you are greeted by a squealing Hoseok with an armful of balloons. 

“Hoseok!” You yell in surprise as his arms encircle you tightly. “Where- how did you even have time to get balloons?” Hoseok grins sheepishly.

“Let’s just say… I predicted this celebration.” 

You shrug and move further into your apartment. Hoseok has set it all up for a dinner, complete with mood lighting and even a red velvet tablecloth so that the two of you could dine across from each other like you were at a real restaurant.

“Oh, Hobi!” You squeal, “I love it!” You run to him and throw your arms around him. Immediately your hug is reciprocated and he tucks you into his chest where you feel most safe. 

“I’ve laid out a dress for you on your bed, go and get changed while I set the table.” Hoseok instructs and you nod, doing so without protest. The dress he has laid out is beautiful, a short red silk slip covered by layers of delicate lace. You put it on and even take extra care with your hair and make up. It has been a while since you felt pretty, and you want to put the effort in tonight, even if you aren’t going out.

When you step out of your bedroom, you are greeted with the sight of Hoseok turned away from you, placing the cutlery on the table. He cleans up nice, wearing a fancy, fitted suit and you aren’t ashamed to say that, if he wasn’t your best friend, you’d climb him like a tree. He turns around when he hears the sound your heels make across the floor and, when he sees you, a brilliant smile spreads across his face.

“Angel,” he breathes, stretching a hand out to you, which you take. He guides you into your seat, pushing it in for you like a proper gentleman, causing you to giggle slightly. “You look… wow.”

“Thanks Hobi,” you blush, “you look wow too.”

He brings out the food, and it smells so mouth-watering that you don’t even waste a second before tucking in. Hoseok just sits there, seemingly content to watch you eat with a dreamy smile on his face.

“God, Hoseok,” you moan through a full mouth, “this tastes so good. How long did this take you?”

“Oh, only a couple of hours. It was nothing, I did it all for you, angel.” 

“You spent hours?” You gasped, “Hoseok, that’s so- I didn’t even call you until, like, an hour ago.” You pause, confused, but Hoseok doesn’t seem to mind.

“I know, but I knew that you would be getting the news of your grade today, and I knew you would want to celebrate with me, like you always do. You’re so adorably clingy, angel.”

You feel like you’re missing something. There is something very real and very important, but it just keeps slipping out of reach. Hoseok notices your grip on the stem of your wine glass loosen slightly, and he gently removes it from your lax grip so you don’t drop it.

“But… how did you know about the grade. Also-” You come across another realisation, “How did you even get into my apartment? I haven’t given you a key.”

“Oh, that was easy, angel. I just copied your key while you weren’t paying attention. Honestly, you’re so clueless. If I weren’t around to take care of you I don’t know what would happen to you.”

“Hoseok-” you slur, your head suddenly feeling incredibly heavy. He rises from his chair and moves over to your side just in time to allow you to slump against him. He gently guides you until you’re lying on the floor.

“As for knowing about your improved grade,” Hoseok continues, unperturbed, “I knew you had a class with that professor today, and after the threats I gave him, he was definitely going to tell you as soon as he could that your grade had changed. What a coward. It won’t be hard to get rid of him.”

“G-get…rid of him?” You mumble, with barely enough strength to part your lips. 

“Well, of course, angel! He can’t be going around with that kind of knowledge about what I can do. It would be a danger to both of us.” He explains in a condescending tone, hushing you when you try — and fail — to roll away from him. “Hush, angel, don’t struggle. I know you’re confused, but this is for the best. You don’t understand now, but you will.”

“W-What’d’you do to m-me?” You half-sob, tears leaking lazily out of your droopy eyes. He shushes you again, leaning in to place a kiss to your temples and brush away your tears. You only cry harder.

“It’s just a little sedative, angel. Don’t worry, it won’t hurt you. I would never hurt you, you know that, right? This is just for… ease of transfer.”

“Transfer?” You can barely keep your eyes open anymore, everything blurring and swirling in your vision. 

“Yes, I’m taking you to my home. Our home. You didn’t think I’d just let you go now that I finally have you, did you? Now, come on angel, don’t cry. Let me see that pretty smile.”

[anothers-trash-my-treasure]

Procrastination

okay Idk what happened I went to edit the post and the whole thing disappeared so?? here we go again I guess.

Pairing; Josh Washington / female reader

warnings; 18+. dirty talk, oral sex male receiving, unprotected sex (don’t be dumb)

Word Count; 2k

tags: @r-ahh-mi @sherlollydramoine @txmel @moon-stars-soul @ramimedley @alottanothing @ramisgirl512 @diasimar @xmxisxforxmaybe @sassypants1251 

~

I can feel his gaze on me from where he sits on the other side of the couch. His laptop perched on his lap but there’s not a doubt in my mind that he’s not paying attention to a damn thing that’s on it. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see his legs propped up on the coffee table, crossed at his ankles and he’s leaning back against the cushion, arms crossed while one hand fiddles with his bottom lip. I’m certain he’s not even aware of his staring, zoned out and in his own little world. 

I try to stay focused on my essay in front of me. It's absolutely crucial that I finish this tonight and with only 500 words to go, I’m feeling that swirl of motivation, desperations and boredom that threatens to pull me away from the nearly finished document. And with Josh’s stupidly pretty blue eyes staring at me, I feel like I’m losing the battle. 

“Stop staring at me,” I mumble, glancing at him quickly before turning my attention to the notebook that sits beside me, flipping through it to find my reading notes, “It’s distracting.” 

He’s quiet for a few seconds and I know he’s faking shock, “I’m not even doing anything!” he lies, a small smirk tugging at the corner of his lips, “Honest.” 

“Honest my ass.” I shoot back, enjoying the playful banter while I scan my notes, thinking of what else I have left to discuss. 

“Speaking of your ass,” he says, his voice shifted into a near growl, moving his laptop to the cushion beside him, preparing to move into my space.

I hold my hand up, not looking up from my notes, finally seeing the bit of information I need, “No,” I say sternly, “I am finishing this.” my hand moves, pointing at him now, “You will not distract me.” 

“But-”

“Joshua,” I warn playfully, glancing up to meet his gaze, barely stifling a laugh at his puppy dog eyes, bottom lip pushed out in a soft pout. 

“I will not distract you,” he mumbles grumpily.

My hand returns to my keyboard, fingers wiggling over the keys as my brain decides what it wants to say, “Thank you.” 

He tries his best to keep his eyes to himself, focusing on his own laptop, which has taken its rightful place on his lap again. And now that his eyes are, at least for the most part, not on me, I can focus a little more on the subject at hand. I work almost on autopilot, switching between tabs to work on my citations as I go and my notes. By the time I’m editing and revising, he’s growing restless again, squirming in his seat and huffing to himself and I know it’s only a matter of time before -

“Babe,”

“Yes, Josh?”

“Are you almost done?” 

“M’editing.” 

“Can you hurry up?”

I look up, a startled laugh bubbling from my chest at his bluntness, “Why?” I ask through my laugh.

His head falls back on the couch and his hands cover his face before he gives me his answer. 

“I'm so horny.”

And then I’m laughing again, and he’s pouting and sulking and scowling at me and that only makes me laugh harder, “poor baby,” I comment, pulling my face into a pout to mock him just a little. 

“Don’t laugh, I’m serious!” He exclaims, slamming his laptop shut, “You’re over there looking like a whole snack-”

“I’m wearing sweatpants.”

“And all I can think about taking you to the-”

“Don’t say it.”

“-Bone zone, and christ babe, can you just be done? It’s not even due tomorrow.” 

I shake my head at him fondly, “Give me 10 more minutes.” I try.

His head falls back on a loud groan that makes it sound like I asked him to wait a month for it. But I’ve turned back to my laptop, scrolling to the top of the page to look over my words carefully. It couldn’t have been more than five minutes before he closes his laptop, and begins to slide closer to me on the couch.

“Josh,” I warn half heartedly as his lips find my neck.

“‘M not doin’ anything.” he assures, “Keep working, I’m not even here.”

I try, focusing on a sentence that doesn't quite sound as intellectual as it could, but his lips are hot and wet against the sensitive skin on my neck that the words on the screen don’t seem so important anymore. A hand leaves my keyboard, opting instead to run through the short hairs on the back of his head, up to the top of it so I can run my nails along his scalp.

“Baby,” I sigh,

He hums in response, one of his hands moving to shut my laptop sliding it off my lap so he can grab my hip instead. I let him, all of my focus now on him and my burning need. He uses his grip on my hip to pull me onto his lap, lips trailing up my neck and jaw until he finds mine. And then he has me captured in a searing kiss, breathing me in deeply as his hands immediately drift down to the globes of my ass. He pulls a hand back, bringing it down with a sound smack that fills the near silent living room. The sensation pulls a gasp and a laughing growl from my lips.

“You’re such a fucking asshole,” I mutter against your lips.

He grins cheekily at me, noses brushing together roughly, “Don’t act like you don’t love it.” 

I hum, biting his lip just enough to draw a breath from him, flicking my tongue out to soothe the pain over, “Know what else I love?” 

He hums, capturing my lips in a dirty, wet kiss in reply. My hand drifts down his chest to the bulge in his sweats, gripping it in my hand and palming it. His jaw drops, corner of his mouth twitch up in the shadow of a smile, hips arching up into my touch with a small shudder. 

“This.”

It’s urgent after that, kisses turned desperate with a sharp edge of hunger as his hands work mine and his pants off as quick as he can. I scramble backwards, kicking them off before sinking down to rest between his parted thighs. I don’t waste a moment, giving his hard length a few pumps before taking his tip into my mouth. His reaction is instantaneous; a punched out, breathless moan and a hand tangled in my hair, encouraging me to go deeper. 

I take him in as deep as I can, holding him there for a moment before pulling back, letting my hand pump his now slick shaft while my mouth works the tip, sliding the tip of my tongue against his slit and enjoying the twitch of his hips it earns me. 

“Oh baby, yes.” he moans, head rolling back on the couch but not taking his eyes off of me. 

I hum at the praise, pleased at his reaction. He doesn’t let me suck him off for long, pulling me up after a few more moments and kissing me, almost apologetic, “Sorry, babe, I need you now.” 

He makes quick work of my panties, sliding them off my hips, down my thighs and letting gravity handle the rest before pulling me onto the couch to straddle his lap. He kisses me, deep and dirty, pulling my hips closer so that the tip of his cock, still slick with my spit, brushes against my folds. 

“Josh,” I breathe after a moment of neither of us making the final movie.

“What?” He asks, readjusting his grip on my hips, “What do you want?”

“You,” I sigh, grinding down just enough that the tip on his slides into me, “Want your dick.”

“Take it baby.”

And that’s all the encouragement I need. 

I sink down onto him, with the help of his hand gripping the base of his cock. He enters me, inch by oh-so-satisfying inch, our heads falling together, forehead pressed against forehead, breathing out sharply in pleasure. I sink all the way down until my ass reaches his thighs, clenching around his periodically as I lower myself. His fingers grip my hips, head rolling back against the couch, eyes half lidded and trained on me.

“How’s it feeling?” I ask teasingly, knowing by the crease in his eyebrows that he’s barely holding back. 

“Fuuuck,” he groans, teeth digging into his bottom lip, “So fucking good, baby girl.”

“Wanna fuck it?” I ask, grinding down in a slow, circular movement that has his teeth grinding together with the effort of keeping his control. 

He doesn’t answer, instead adjusting his grip on my hips and maneuvering me into raising my hips up and down, thrusting up to meet me in the middle and punching a gasp from my lungs. I follow his movements easily, pushing down every time he thrusts up, creating a delicious push and pull between our bodies. My head falls back and his lips attach themselves to the exposed skin of my neck as my fingers grip at the fabric of his T-shirt at his shoulders. 

“Fuck, Josh,” I moan.

He replied with a moan of his own, fingers flexing against my hips and teeth nipping at the sensitive skin of my neck. My senses are filled to the brim with him; his scent, his skin, his actions. They overwhelm me completely and it doesn’t take long until the pleasure begins to build. He bites down particularly hard on the juncture between my shoulder and my neck and I can’t help the sound that leaves my throat.

“Mm, you like that huh?” He asks, lips quirked up in a coy smirk, “Like knowing I’m marking you up?” 

“Only like it because it makes you go - fuck - feral,” I tease back, voice wobbling with my movements. 

He growls, capturing my lips again and thrusting up harder, “Fuck,” he groans, “Baby, I’m not gonna last.” he warms, pressing our foreheads together and looking into my eyes as he grabs one of my hands, guiding it down to my clit, “Touch yourself for me.”

His hand finds it way back to my hip, helping me guide my movements as I begin rubbing tight circles on my clit. I breath out in pleasure, my jaw dropping, gaze never breaking from his.

“That’s it princess,” he encourages, “Make yourself feel good.” 

“Yes,” I breath, feeling the pleasure building at the base of my spine begin the crescendo, “Yes, fuck Josh, yes, I’m gonna~” 

My eyes roll back, hips slowing to a grind as I ride out the waves of my orgasm, low whines and whimpers making their way out of my throat as I clench and spasm around him. He doesn’t stop, hips thrusting against mine still, jostling my whole body with the force of them and drawing sharp cries from my lips as he brushes my G-spot with every thrust. 

“Josh,” I gasp out, hands gripping his biceps, a plea for a break from the seemingly endless waves of over stimulating pleasure.

“Just a little more,” he breaths, one arm wrapping around my waist to drag me closer to him while the other reaches up to first in my hair, “God, feels so fucking good, princess, I’m gonna fucking cum,” 

He thrusts a few more times before stilling, letting out a series of breathless groans as he fills me up. It’s a feeling that never gets old, and it sends a low pulse of arousal through me. We sit in the aftermath, breathing heavily but kissing despite our breathlessness.

“God, that never gets old.” he sighs, chuckling a little. 

I hum in agreement, “Too bad we made a mess of the couch.” His eyes glimmer with mischief, smirking up at me, “Josh,” I warn.

He wiggles his eyebrows, “Let’s see how dirty we can really get it.” 

[mirkwoodshewolf]

You’re still the smartest girl I know; John Deacon x daughter teen reader

*Author’s note*

Hey guys wow my final crunch time at college has kept me REALLY busy with all these final projects that I need to do, so my thanksgiving break is gonna be INSANE with doing all this work that I need to do BUT the good news is is that I had this request done in my downtime that I had, so to the anon who requested this awhile back, I’m SOOO SORRY for getting it to you so late but I hope you love it either way.

I also have updates on a few of my series so I may end up making a post about my writing updates and what all I plan to work on to try and get more organized with all that I have to do. So I’ve got two updates for you guys so I hope you all like this fic.

Warnings: school, mild angst, failing school, FLUFF, Dad!Deacy (cause let’s face it its a warning because he’s FREAKIN ADORABLE!!!) and my unknown knowledge of how Catholic schools work, so if I’m wrong about something, PLEASE send me a comment or an inbox to correct it. 

Taglist:

@plethora-of-things​

@psychosupernatural​

@ixchel-9275​

@waddles03​

@queendeakyy​

@platawnic​

@kairosfreddie​

___________________________________________________________

I just don’t get it.  My dad graduated with 8 GCE O level and 3 A level in electronics, he’s designed his own amp, and helps with not only the family finances but the band finances too. He’s the smartest guy I know and I share half of his genius, or at least I should.  

I needed to sustain at least a 3.50 average to stay in my current Catholic secondary school but with my failing classes I’m barely at a 2.50.  It’s not that I don’t try to do the work I do the homework and attend the lectures, it’s just that some of my classes like Geometry and Ancient religions, the teachers make the assignments so confusing.

Even when I would write the papers, they always found something to pick at and I end up with either C’s or even D’s on my papers, even when I would stay up all night skimming through book after book to get the required aspects they ask for. Also their quizzes and exams are so unfair, they would tell us this or that would be on the test, but by the time the test came around, absolutely NONE of the stuff they said would be on it, is on it. Hell they’ve put things down that we haven’t even learned yet.

It was currently Fall break and I spending some time with my family for the holiday trying to get my mind off of school.  I was watching over my brothers rough house in the backyard.  God they were so lucky they don’t have to deal with the harsh school life just yet.

“So (y/n) how’s school going love?” I heard my mum say.  I quickly looked up at her and said quickly.

“School’s fine.” She looked at me skeptically.

“Are you sure?” she asked.

“Yeah mum, everything’s fine.” Then fortunately saved by the bell, the doorbell rang and I immediately shot up and said. “I’ll get it!” I quickly raced to the front door and cracked it open.  And there at the door was the mail carrier.  He took out of his bag our mail for the day and he said.

“Here’s your mail ma’am.”

“Thanks Gardner, have a good day.” I said.  He nodded and walked off the curb and continued down the road with his route. I closed the door and skimmed through the mail.  Most of it was bills, some Queen stuff for dad to sign and look over, but then there was a letter from the school sent to me.  At this point my heart was racing.

“Who was that?” Oh shit dad.  I turned around to see him coming down the stairs holding my baby sister who had probably just woken up from her nap.

“Oh just the mail. Mostly bills this time, but then again what else is new. And there’s some Queen stuff for you to look over dad.” I handed him most of the mail but kept the letter from London University for me.

“Well what’s that?”

“What? Oh this oh it’s just junk mail. Something about 20% interest rate on life insurance from a different company. Damn things are just scams anyway. I’ll shred it dad.” I walked up and kissed his cheek then my baby sister before racing upstairs.

As soon as I reached my room, I closed the door and locked it and leaned against it in a panic.  Nervously I opened up the envelope and it read the worst thing I could imagine.

To Miss (Y/n) (M/n) Deacon,

It has come to our attention of your low grades. It is required that your parents come in for a meeting with the Headmaster in regards to your low grades.

At that point my mind went blank as I ignored all that the letter said.  Tears formed in my eyes.  Goddamnit why did they send this letter? Cause first comes the letter, then the phone calls will follow.  I’ve tried so hard to keep my struggles in school away from my parents because I didn’t want them to get involved, that all I needed to do was try better since that’s all teachers seem to push onto me, if not then I’ll make it up in summer school.  

I just wanted to prove that I was as smart as my dad is.

So I hide the letter in the folds of my diary knowing that my parents don’t go snooping around it and putting it in the secret place where I know my snoopy brothers can’t get to it (thank god I change places every week) and tried to forget about it.  It was then a knock was heard at my door.

“(Y/n)? Poppet is everything okay in there?”

“Uhh—yeah dad everything’s fine.”

“Then why is your door locked?”

“I’m changing clothes dad, I’m meeting Stacy and Courtney for a movie later tonight.” There was a brief moment of silence before he said.

“Alright but at least unlock it. We’ve talked about this before, plus your brothers think girls are gross so I doubt they’d pop in on their sister changing.”

“Okay dad sorry.” Thank god he bought it.  I then went over to my phone and tried to make my lie seem real as I called both Stacy and Courtney to meet me at the theater in 15min.

Thankfully since it was the weekend, my parents let me go out later than usual so long as I was back before ten.  My dad gave me some money for the tickets and food and we kissed each other goodbye and I drove off to the theater.

I soon met my two best friends and we decided to just walk around the mall instead going to see a movie.  It was there I told the girls everything.  As they were trying on new stuff from a new store called The Gap, I said to them.

“What am I gonna do girls?”

“Well you know me girl, if I were you I’d just come clean.” Said Courtney.

“Are you crazy?! No way can she tell them about this. Okay chick this is what you do. You answer any calls the school makes and come up with any and every excuse you’ve got.” Stacy said as she peeked over her changing room into Courtney’s.

“Stace, no offense but your parents may buy into that but I’ve met her mum and dad and they aren’t stupid like yours are.”

“Yeah you got a point. Hell I could go to prison for murder and my parents wouldn’t care.”

“Guys hello! Back to me.” I begged.

“Sorry. Well looks like your screwed chickadee.”

“Oh gee thanks Stace.”

“Look (y/n). All I can tell you is that you won’t be able to hide this forever. Just—show them the note and tell them the truth. I’m sure they’ll understand if you explain it to them. And I can back you up about Mr. Crowley. Guy’s a right up arsehole if you ask me. Gave me -20 points because I used the wrong citation for the Bibliography page. And it was only one source that was labeled wrong” Said Courtney.

“Yeah and our Geometry teacher Miss. Ringo, I can barely understand what she’s saying with that thick Dutch accent of hers. Gave me a 30% on our last exam.”

“That’s because all you did was doodle and call her an old bat.” I said bluntly.

“Oh yeah. But oh man you should’ve seen the look on her face on the last homework assignment we had.”

“I don’t even wanna know.” Said Courtney.

“Trust me you don’t.” I vouched.

“Hey come on, let’s forget about school, get you to try on some clothes. We’ll go to the food court and get your mind off of things. Sound good?” Stacy said as she came out wearing a new jean jacket with suspenders underneath.  I nodded and said with a smile.

“Thanks guys, you’re the best friends I could ask for.”

“Hey divas in diapers remember? The three musketeers. The triple threat angelz.”

“With a Z because…..”

“We’re bad bitches!” we all exclaimed as we held our right hands out in a fist touching each other’s in a triangle shape.  And so that’s how it was, the girls helped me get my mind off of the letter and the stress of school with a good Girl’s day out.

A couple days later I was back in school in my Ancient Religions class. Mr. Crowley of course barely allowed any time for me to fully write down what he had on the board because he immediately went to the next thing.  He never once asked if anyone had any questions and if someone stopped him, he’d slam the ruler down on the student’s desk and either ask them to meet him after class, or just give them detention.

“Alright students; I’m going to give you your final assignment for the semester for you to do just before winter break.” Everyone groaned.  He had just give us a 10 page paper on how Christianity as a whole effected the Global conquest, and now he’s giving us another essay to do. “Hey, hey, hey, hey! No complaints you miscreants!”

But just before he could continue, the intercom beeped above us.

“Mr. Crowley?”

“Yes?” he said annoyedly.

“Will you please send Miss. Deacon into the office.”

“She’s on her way.”

“Thank you.”

“(Y/n) Deacon.” At that point everyone but Courtney all made the ‘oooo busted’ vocals. I flipped them off as Mr. Crowley made me my hall pass so that I wouldn’t get caught by a teacher patrolling the halls.  I grabbed my bag and left the classroom.

I walked down the second floor staircase, down to the main level and turned towards the entrance where the main office was.  I walked in and I said.

“I’m (Y/n) Deacon. I was told to come here from Mr. Crowley’s class.” The receptionist said.

“Ahh yes Miss. Deacon. The Headmaster would like to speak with you.” Oh shit. This is probably about that letter.  I swallowed nervously and hung my bag further up my shoulder and walked down the corridor towards the Headmaster’s office.  It felt like the walkway was getting longer as I walked towards that dreaded office room, that was until finally I arrived at it.

Slowly I reached up and knocked on it.  There was a brief period of silence before a low voice said.

“Come in.” I opened the door and there standing at the grand desk was Headmaster Byron.  He was a fairly older man (if I had to make a guess I’d say currently around Miami’s age). He was a bit—you now stout shape wise. He was going bald and he wore glasses over his hazel eyes. “Ahh Miss. Deacon please sit down.” I walked in and nervously sat down at the chair in front of me.

“You—wanted to see me sir?”

“Yes. I’ve called you down here regarding a letter I had sent over the fall break. I expected to hear a call from your parents but I hadn’t heard anything back from them. Is there a problem?” Oh god what do I say to him?

“Well I—I guess the mail service was just a little slow. Because we haven’t received the letter just yet.”

“Hmm well that’s unusual. Usually the mail service is properly on time. I mean at least we’re more organized than the American system at least to my knowledge.”

“Yeah guess they must’ve lost it.” I said nervously fiddling with my fingers, anxiously picking at my nails.

“In that case; I can send you with another copy of the letter. But if I don’t hear anything within 24hours expect the first phone call.” I nodded as he handed me the same letter that I had gotten in the mail over the break.  I thanked him and quickly headed out of the office. On my way back to class I ripped the letter up into as many pieces as I could before discarding it into the nearest bin and returned to class like nothing happened.

After school I was in my room trying to make sense of the math homework I had to deal with and that’s when a knock was heard at my open door.  I looked up and there stood my mum.

“Hey love. So you’re dad’s working late tonight with the band so I’m ordering a pizza for dinner. What would you like on yours?”

“Get me a full cheese and my toppings are sausage and pepperoni.”

“You got it. Doing homework?” I nodded solemnly. “Which class is it for?”

“Geometry.”

“Oh yeah, I remember taking that class. Hardest thing I ever knew. In fact all math was difficult for me. Thank god for your dad though, he was always better at finances than I was. That’s how we met as a matter of fact, I was struggling with my Algebra homework and he offered to help me since we were in the same class together.” Lucky her that she at least had dad to help her, meanwhile I on the other hand had absolutely no one to help me.

Everyone was in it for themselves, not even the teacher was willing to give us tutoring sessions if we didn’t get any of the stuff taught in class. He just expected us to memorize and do everything correctly.

“Say, speaking of geometry did you get the midterm results back yet?” Oh god that’s right. Dad actually skipped out on Queen rehearsals to help tutor me for the upcoming fall midterm exam.

Unfortunately for all that hard work, nothing we had practiced was on the midterm, half the stuff was gibberish to me so I just wrote random answers that I could and I ended up with an F.

“He uhh—he got super busy grading our other stuff that he didn’t have time to look over the midterms. But he said hopefully in the next week or two he’ll get to it.”

“Are you sure?” I nodded and she looked at me skeptically.

“Okay, if you say so. I’ll call you when dinner arrives okay?”

“Sounds good mum. Love you.”

“Love you too.” She kissed the top of my head and left my room.  I turned away and tossed my books and homework off my bed and buried my face into my bedsheets and softly began to cry.

Why? Why does this have to happen to me?! Why can’t I just get the damn work? Why do I have to be such a fucking idiot!?!?

Days passed and I still didn’t have the heart to tell my parents that I was failing school.  And when the phone started ringing I tried to make an effort to try and answer it before they did, fearing that it was the school.

Some calls it was to which I would make excuses for the school and then tell my mum and dad that it was just boring telemarketers trying to sell us stuff. Other times it’d be Uncle Freddie or uncle Roger calling for Deacy about some Queen business stuff (and of course I chatted with them, I’ve known them ever since I was a baby, plus Freddie was my godfather—or I should say fairy godmother).

But it wasn’t until one day when I came home from an afterschool football game Stacy and Courtney invited me to, that I would pay dearly for the lie that I had been trying to keep.

“Yeah I know and when Bobby finally scored the winning goal I swear it was a one and a million shot he got that!” Stacy exclaimed as we got out of her car and walked up my driveway before stopping at the gate.

“I tell you you’ve got one lucky man right there Stace. Your boy’s gonna go far in football.” Said Courtney.

“All I know is that for the first time in decades our school is finally in the playoffs and that we might have a shot of winning the district championship since 1971.” I said.

“Well we definitely have the best team to get us there. Not to mention the cutest.” Courtney said before snickering towards the end.

“I’ll drink to that.” I said taking a shot of my water.

“(Y/n). Can you come in here please?” I looked up to see my dad standing there by the door.  His arms crossed over his chest and I could tell something was wrong.

“Yeah dad I’ll be right there. See you girls Monday then?”

“We’ll save you a seat at the cafeteria before homeroom.” The girls then walked back to the car and they drove off.  I opened the gate and trotted up the stairs before standing in front of him.

“Is something wrong dad?”

“Come in the house and let’s talk.” He placed a hand on my shoulder and guided me inside.  As we walked through the house towards the kitchen, I could feel the tension in the air. It was so thick, you could cut it with a knife.  My mum sat there at the kitchen table looking distraught almost. “Have a seat.” Okay now I was getting a little freaked out.

I sat down and that’s when dad stood behind mum placing his hands on her shoulders.

“(Y/n), has something been going on at school that you’re not telling us?” asked my mum concerned.

“No—why do you ask?”

“Well we caught Robert and Michael reading your diary and—”

“They what!? MICHAEL! ROBERT GET YOUR ARSES DOWN HERE RIGHT NOW YOU LITTLE BUGGERS!!!”

“Hey! Hey! Hey! Language and lower that tone in your voice!” dad snapped at me. “We handled the boys, but it was then we found this.” He took something out of his pocket before unfolding it and placing it down right in front of me on the table.  My heart sunk and my throat grew dry.

It was the first letter sent in by my school.

“So we called the school and they said they’ve been trying to get in touch with us. And that you said we didn’t receive any letter the first time around so the Headmaster gave you a second letter.” Mum stated more in an interrogating tone than the concerned tone she had earlier.

“Have you really been failing your classes? And this time don’t. Lie. To us.”

“No!” I exclaimed.

“They said you’re barely holding a 2.50 GPA.”

“Well I—I just….I don’t mean to I-I-I-I….the teachers they’re…..” I kept rambling as I felt tears in my eyes and my throat clenched. “I don’t get why I’m being target.”

“The better question is why did you lie to us!? You’ve known about your grades for what weeks? And you lied to us every time a grade was mentioned! Do you have any idea the level of betrayal you’ve given to me and your mother!?” my dad’s voice slowly raised up in anger.

I tucked away in fear at his intimidating voice.  He rarely and I say this with a big emphasis that my dad rarely gets mad, but when he does—oh god help us all.  I didn’t answer.  Couldn’t answer him.

“(Y/n) (m/n) Deacon answer me when I’m talking to you!” he snapped.  I looked up fearfully and ashamed and I did the only thing that was running through my mind.

Run.

I got up and as quick as I could I raced out of the house and down the street.  I fucked up. I know, but at this point it was too late. Just seeing my dad get angry with me, I knew he hated me now.

I ran all the way down the street and turned left and ran towards old widow Johannsson’s back garden.  I opened the gate that stood around her AC vent and locked the door so that no one could open it.  I leaned against the corner of the gate and just sobbed as hard as I could.

All of my fears and sorrow came out as I wept hysterically and choked on my sobs, that’s when I heard my dad’s voice calling out my name.  I held my hand over my mouth to try and keep quiet as his voice got louder and louder.  I soon saw him through the cracks in the fence as he looked around.  Unfortunately a sniffle just had to come out and soon dad turned towards the fence.

“(Y/n)?”

“Please just go away and let me cry in peace.” I choked out.

“That’s not going to happen, now c’mon open the gate.”

“No you—you already hate me.” He scoffed out a sigh.

“Wha—what makes you think I hate you?” he asked in disbelief.

“You only yell when you hate someone. And now you hate me. You hate me that I lied to you. You hate me for keeping secrets. And you hate me because I’m stupid.”

“Hello? What—what is going on out here?” widow Johansson came out on top of her deck and looked down towards us.

“I’m sorry Valarie but—could you give us a few minutes?” she must’ve looked down and saw me because that’s when she slowly backed off and allowed my dad to talk to me again. “(Y/n), love I—I don’t hate you. Yeah I’m upset because you lied to your mum and I but I could never, ever hate you.”

“But you do dad don’t deny it. I kept this from you and you’ll never forgive me. You’ll never love me again because I’m a stupid bitch who can’t understand anything!”

“First of all you are not a stupid bitch. You are a brilliant, smart, beautiful young girl. And I will always love you no matter what.”

“Stop saying that. Please just go away please…..” I trailed off before pleading out one last time. “Please.” With that I didn’t hear another response from him as I continued to softly weep.  I could hear footsteps walking up widow Johansson’s back deck and then the back door closed.  I looked up and saw my dad as well as widow Johansson gone.  I wiped my tears and just curled myself into a ball.

I don’t know how much time passed but I knew it wasn’t long, maybe 5-7 minutes because the next thing I hear are footsteps walking back down the deck and my dad sitting himself down against the gate.  It was then I heard a guitar being strummed before a familiar tune was being played.

It was strange to hear it on guitar instead of an electric piano like it was on the record but the tune was easily recognizable, especially when my dad softly began singing the lyrics.  And sure he didn’t have as good a voice as my uncles did but—he still made the song count.

Oh, you're the best friend that I ever had I've been with you such a long time You're my sunshine and I want you to know That my feelings are true I really love you Oh, you're my best friend

While it is true that my dad wrote this song for my mum back when a Night at the Opera came out, he also written it for me as well.  Because when he first played it for us, he said he wanted a song dedicated to his favorite girls.  

So taking the electric piano he practiced and practiced till he knew how to play the tune and since then the song’s been like a comforting lullaby to me.  And he’s played and sung it to me ever since.

Ooh, you make me live Whenever this world is cruel to me I got you to help me forgive Ooh, you make me live now honey Ooh, you make me live

You're the first one When things turn out bad You know I'll never be lonely You're my only one And I love the things I really love the things that you do Oh, you're my best friend

Ooh, you make me live

I'm happy at home You're my best friend

He stopped playing and slightly turned towards me.  I wiped away my tears and just like it always did, it made me stop crying.

“Guess I still got it huh?”

“Shut up.” I muttered which made him softly chuckle.

“Can you please open the gate love? Let me see my best friend.” He asked.  I slowly scooted towards the gate and slowly reached for the handle.  I held onto it for a while and I pulled one side down which caused the other side to lift up.  The gate slowly opened and there sitting a few feet away from me was my dad.  “There she is.”

I sniffled and wiped away the tearstains but I was still afraid to look him in the eye for more than a second.  I felt his hand cup the side of my face wiping away the tears.

“Do you think you can talk to me now?” I nodded. “Okay. Now (y/n) please explain to me why you lied to us about your grades?”

“Because I—I wanted to prove myself.”

“Prove yourself about what?”

“That I could be as smart as you. You’re the smartest man I know and you never seem to get stumped about anything. You graduates college with the highest in your major, you’ve built your own amps from old junk, and you handle both our finances as well as the bands. But—the schoolwork I’m given is so beyond hard. I tried my best dad it’s not that I don’t do the homework because I do. I really do, it’s just that…..”

“Hey, hey poppet. Shh, it’s okay. It’s okay.” I sniffled and harshly wiped my tears away but my dad stopped me and replaced my thick sleeve with his gentle but calloused fingers.  “I know you do the homework. I’ve seen you do it and so has your mum.”

“But the teachers make it so unfair to learn. They say this or that will be on the test but then something we haven’t even learned yet is what ends up as majority of the questions. Or they’re not consistent with what they want on the papers before giving us a bigger paper the next day after the previous one. Dad I—I’m a failure. And I didn’t want you to be ashamed of having a stupid daughter like me.”

“Oh (y/n),” he scooted closer to me and cupped both sides of my face forcing me to look up at him with teary eyes. “I am in no way, nor will I ever be ashamed to have you as my daughter. You’re my first baby girl and I love you soo much. You don’t have to be a genius like me to be my daughter, because you are smart in your own clever way.”

“But I—I’m failing my classes, how can I be smart when I’m failing?”

“You’re still trying, are you not?” I shrugged.

“I guess.”

“Then that proves your smart. Oh my sweet girl I wish you had come to me about this sooner instead of feeling like you had to hide this from me.”

“I’m sorry daddy.” I softly choked out.

“It’s okay love. Now come here, you deserve cuddles and kisses right now.” I immediately fell into his arms and buried myself into his shoulder.  He rubbed my back in soothing circles and stroked through my hair. “We’ll get this sorted out okay? But promise me that you’ll never lie to us about school again, okay?”

“I promise…..never again.”

“I love you.”

“I love you too.”

And they did just that.  I showed my parents everything regarding exams, homework and showed just how unfair the work was for me.  I showed them my notes and told them what my teachers were really like.

The next day they scheduled a meeting with the headmaster and they talked about how the teachers are treating me and my fellow classmates unfairly with too much work and not unfair teachings of not asking for help.

Now one would think after telling you this I got off scot-free right? Wrong. I was grounded for the same amount of time that I had lied to my parents about school, so that meant over a week and a half of no TV, no after school activities and no phone privileges.

But after getting the teachers fired and currently dealing with substitutes for the rest of the year, whenever dad wasn’t busy with Queen; he made a promise to sit down with me and if there was anything I was stuck on, he’d help me with it. No matter how long it took.

[incorrect-ace]

love u love u luv u luve you love u lov u love you mm whats your favourite thing about each member from this era?

hahaha I think I know who you are obs- 

But, my favorite thing about each member this era:

Donghun: HOW HE IS SPEAKING ENGLISH! Like he always refused to say any word of English what so ever. If they did English interviews he would just laugh and say “well seems like Im not participating in this one” while stepping back. But this era he really tried to speak English and work on it. And it is making me very happy to see him try his best. Everything from speaking during concerts, fansigns, vlives or Twitter replies. Lets get it Dongdong!! Its not necessary the English in itself. its just endearing seeing him try so hard outside of his comfort zone for Choices.Also I LOVE the concept he has this era, it fits him insanely well. He is really the kind of stage presence and expressive face.

Chan: HIS CONFIDENCE!!! Like I dont know about you guys, but after he got the black hair and his recent stage outfits.... lip ring.... crop top... leather jacket... He has just been absolutely stunning. The fans have really been hyping him up extra because of it. And i find that extremely precious. Its also how he kinda is stepping back from the “cutie maknae” title and venturing out to show different sides of himself. Its absolutely beautiful seeing Chan happy and more confident like that. He is still our cutie baby, but its also nice seeing different sides of him. I’ve also spent a good amount of time focusing on subbing Chan’s solo vlives as of recently, bcz he is REALLY working hard on them and conveying his sincere thoughts. If you havent watched any Chan solo vlives, please do! Its an eye-opener for how intelligent he actually is. Random citations from different vlives:

"Don't take precious things for granted just because you are deceived by the familiarity"  

Or him reading a poem and then saying this:

Sehyoon: HIS SOLO VLIVES??? Like bitches are sobbing, and yes I’m bitches. If someone told me back in 2016/2017 that Sehyoon would hold over 1h solo vlives I would have laughed at them and told them they were crazy. But he is really out there being comfortable infront of the camera and talking about how he accepts himself more and is okay with the fact that he isn’t as expressive as the other members. He shares his arts and thoughts and its so beautiful. (Yes Ive been majorly bias wrecked by King Wow this past month due to his solo vlives) a random citation:

And I really like to make plans for the future on my own or dream of something. But I don't do all those plans in reality. When I make plans I think" "I have to do this like this, like that, etc" But in the end, I don't do it in real life. If I could turn all of these plans into reality, I think I could become a perfect human. (aka no one is perfect and we shouldn’t beat ourselves up for not following an idealized version of ourselves)

Junhee: Prbs the fact that he actually got to rap. Junhee is a little gangster wannabe and the fact that he got to pull through with rapping prbs made him happy, even if he doesnt admit it xD i found it precious~~

Byeongkwan: MC BYEONGKWAN IN ALL ENGLISH!!! Im so proud of him??? Like WOW. I was having a tiny mental breakdown over it. Yall need to check that out and support him!! >:(

[dreaminterlude]

Hey do you know what is going on with one of the new SuperM song and people being offended because of desi stereotyping or something? I was asleep so. it’s okay if you don’t want to answer!

hi baby, so the performance in question is from this clip. i just wanna say that yday i literally told myself to exercise silence as a form of self care but then you came to me like a revelation and so i can’t not talk about it LMAO

so basically desis on twitter have called the moves cultural appropriation and offensive. but i think we really need to ask ourselves what it means when we say that something is culturally appropriative (this goes back to our kick it conversation)

second, the lines of religious and cultural life are constantly blurred, and the relationship between cultures are also. it gets tricky when you’re in a place like east asia/korea bc even though there’s a sizable christian population there, its cultural memory is rooted in buddhism. someone can’t imply that there’s a firm line between the religious and cultural and a country where people’s great grandparents converted to christianity erases everything cultural that could be tied to buddhism. the relationship between culture/religion is dynamic and can’t be boxed/separated/made into black and white. likewise, the way christianity functions in korea can’t be compared to how we, for example, witness christianity in the united states, of which there are so many kinds even regionally and how it interacts with different american “cultures”/trends/histories

so the argument of trying to separate these two spheres and say that because mark/taemin are christian they somehow get cut from that cultural lineage is. not to be dramatic but how puritanist/radical religious/cultural trends/phenomena even begin

there’s also a question of how much desis are even aware of korean/east asian/seas traditional music. my friend iman (who i was talking to about this to double check myself/validate my onions lmaoooooo) said: “[re: traditional music] i didn’t know that drums are a very big part of it, SIMILAR TO those huge punjabi dhols.” this is also similar to the flute situation going on in the song that people say is desi but like. other cultures including arab, east asian/seas have very similar sounding flute patterns. (let’s not even talk about how many different cultures the “snake charmer” trope is associated with, also including arab). iman again: “like whom amongst these people is well versed in the use of the flute in korean music” LMAO

iman again (listen i got like less than 4 hours of sleep let me plagiarize): “but aside from all that cultures ARE permeable and do borrow from each other and so is it entirely wrong to use desi inspired beats in a song? i mean then you can extend that argument to latin beats or the whole HOST of matters associated with appropriation with black culture. [which we both have talked about is so much more serious because appropriation of black culture is rooted in literal slavery and violence that continues against black people to this day.]

both iman and another friend birjis have argued (and i wholeheartedly agree) that bollywood has been marketed and exported internationally under the umbrella term of “indian culture” and bollywood has diluted a lot of things like bharatanatyam to the point where it has become an aesthetic for bollywood dance culture. and i think it is completely valid to find this wrong but important to note that this is the product of packaging indian culture through the export of bollywood globally and is only one of the things that’s messed up with that industry

i just feel like the performance really blew up to something it probably isn’t, and most importantly, makes it more difficult to distinguish from more serious forms of cultural appropriation. and this might be a controversial take but AS a south asian (really feel like i need to emphasize this) and someone entrenched in diaspora twitter culture (this is such an embarrassing sub genre) desis have the tendency to marginalize/victimize themselves to get a piece of that cake and talk about histories/cultures that they actually know very little about but associate themselves with bc it’s interesting. meanwhile (as birjis talked about last week re: chungha) when there’s any talk about kashmir, violent hindu nationalism, etc. there are just resounding crickets

and again, (this is iman) “a homogenous society’s understanding of culture let alone cultural appropriation is gonna be different than even a desi one”

i think it’s also stupid and dangerous for people to speak up as a “desi community” and slap on a stance like we’re some kind of organization (whereas black people/native americans CAN do this because they share a collective memory of where their appropriation is rooted). so if you’re desi and find it offensive that ten/mark/taemin did this then that’s your prerogative and of course your feelings are valid from whichever personal experiences you have that feel illegitimized through this. but it is not a systemic erasure. so “a white girl wearing a vague native american headdress to coachella [is not akin to this because] people who looked like her actively persecuted indigenous peoples and still do systematically today.” (iman (do you love my citations))

also i sent iman your question and she said “that’s an interesting way to frame the question! what does desi stereotyping mean? and where? for instance you can’t put this and white people doing an apu accent in the same category” (she’s also an academic lmaooooooo) and you also can’t ignore other forms of racism against south asians in east asian cultures like korea (and also. vice versa but we won’t even talk about that rn)

[hegglespeggles]

How to write an essay you could not care less about in 10 steps

Hello. I have an essay to write.

I am also, (unfortunately) the kind of lazy, apathetic burnout who will only do my FUCKING work if I get really worked up. Usually that ends up meaning all of my papers are spite-fuelled tirades but my profs seem to like them so fine. I hope you find this particular raging tirade useful.

Today, I would like to educate the 4 of you that will actually see this on a fine art I have perfected over the years. Writing a paper, about which, you do not give a single, solitary, crumb of a fuck about. This is (you may have guessed) and excellent way for me to procrastinate doing a paper that *I* do not give a single solitary crumb of a fuck about. For best results, I recommend doing this NIGHT-BEFORE-PANIC like, a week in advance so you can fix all the NONSENSE that your more reasonable brain will undoubtedly find. But if it’s the night before and you are shit outta luck, this will get ‘er done. And with practice, you can even pull good grades outta these bitches.

 Dissociating? I gotchu. Woke up the day of the deadline to feel like absolute utter garbage? Search no more friends.  

  FAILING GRADES ARE BETTER THAN ZEROS JUST FUCKIN DOOOOOO ITTTT

1.    Go get the prompt.

I fucking mean it. Even if you are like 1000% sure you know what the prompt is asking, go to the FUCKING assignment, and copy that shit into your word document. Got the assignment on paper? TYPE THAT SHIT UP MOTHERFUCKER.

(Do you see what I fucking have to deal with)

Boom?

BOOM.

Congratulations, you now have a document, and whats more, there are WORDS in it!! You aren’t starting from scratch anymore kiddo. Fringe benefit, you always know EXACTLY what the assignment wants because its fucking Staring You Down. Not saying you have to do exactly as it says, mama didn’t raise no BITCH and I aint scared of fuckin CALLING PROFS OUT but if you wanna break the rules you gotta know what they are first

(Disclaimer: I have also been kicked out of class on numerous occasions for fighting with the prof and had full classes where the lecture WAS me arguing so maybe take my opinions of conformity with a grain of salt.)

2.    Math THE FIRST

I know, this is an essay and not a fucking calculus test. But some of this shit is USEFUL OKAY

Take the paper in question. How long does it have to be? Mine is 5 pages. A page is generally accepted to be 250 words (double spaced because we FUCKING LOVE OURSELVES) so 5 x 250 = 1250 wds. That’s the goal. That’s the pinnacle. That’s your new holy grail.

Time to split this bitch up

  3.    Yarrrrrr, CONTENT

And finally, we get to the part that is the reason why you are being an absolute bitch baby about this essay (maybe. I might be projecting. Your life is your life and im sure youre doing your best.) I Hate this part, but now with our magic number we don’t need to pull 5 pages out of the ether.

This part really requires you to know your vibe. Is this something that you have a lot of little opinions (read: evidence) about or like, only 2 or 3 big bois? Look deep into your soul and figure out which is the easiest for you to shit out, a rant or a list. a  great way to do this is to WRITE ANYTHING YOU GOT OUT

Here you can see I’ve put all of the thoughts I have about the question into a list, slapped some standard “opening” and “closing” shit around it so I can FUCKING FIND IT AGAIN and given it a good hard look. Whats the common thread in all of my opinions? That the prompt is fucking stupid and makes no sense is asking 2 different questions. Congratulations: you found your thesis. This essay, like many of my essays, bears the thesis “this is a weird question to be asking” (which falls under my broader category of “bitches aint shit” essays.)

Congratulations you have the bare bones of your skeleton.

  4.    MATH THE SECOND

 The magic number returns. All hail our glorious leader. 1250 right?

So heres how I break this down. Break off a small chunk at the beginning. For this essay im gonna split off the 250. Split that baby in half. Congratulations, now you have a word count on your opening and closing. Personally, I know I like a lil extra space at the end to get all ranty, so Imma split this puppy up 100 for my opening and 150 for the closing. WARNING: You will think that you will be able to write enough in your opening and closing to take up lots of space. You will feel the urge to give them both the same amount of words that you give your points. This is misguided and foolish. Not only will you 1) not be able to do it but 2) even if you did, that’s like getting a sandwich which is all bread. No one wants that. Don’t be that dude. Fight the urge.

 RIGHT SO. We’re still left on the other 1000 words.

If you have an idea that like, is bigger than the others, go ahead and give that puppy more of the word count than the others, fractions are your friend here and you wanna think about how much of your final product each of these babies will be. If you, like me, are an utter buffoon with no clue what youre doing, open your calculator up. Divide the remaining word count by the number of points you have. Congratulations. Youre doing the essaying.

If this is enough to get you started, GREAT! See you at step seven. BEFORE YOU GO I would like to give you this tip

5.    CITE YOUR INFORMATION AS YOU ADD IT IN.

It doesn’t need to be a full citation, just literally a footnote with something that will help you remember where its from and for the love of god WHAT PAGE IT IS ON. The you of 3 hours from now will thank you.

  6.    Filling in the skeleton

 I don’t know about you, but I cant exactly riff off of a single sentence. Like, I know what the VIBE of my point is, but like, I cant pull it out of a hat. The name of the game here is whittling down your arguments into thinner and thinner chunks that are easier and easier to bullshit. This is how you avoid that “burning building found in flames during Brooklyn fire” bullshit that memes. You don’t wanna meme. You wanna pass. So, figure out what the things you are gonna say and in each bit, keep track of how many words you are gonna write. EITHER

a)      You put how many words you think you can write on any point beside the point as you go and just keep developing points and shuffling word counts around until it matches the total for that section

or

b)     You evenly breakup the word count between all the points and keep breaking them down until you look at a subject and a word count and go “yeah that’s doable. I can do that.”

I prefer the second so LEGGO.

Ta-Da!

7.    Write ‘er up

Ahhh glad to see we’re all back together again. Try-hards who can ACTUALLY bullshit papers, glad to see you’ve rejoined us! This is the part where you take all that shit you’ve broken up into nice little chunks and you turn it into something worth reading. You can do it. I believe in you. Try and keep your citations in place.

I like to do this as a question answer thingy, like an exam, so halfway through writing mine is gonna look like this

 The handy part about the numbers is that it gives you a frame of reference for how your bullshit is going. Realized you had a lot more to say here than you thought? Dope! Less bullshit somewhere else, take it out of a weaker point. This point didn’t give as much as you thought it would? Split the difference elsewhere! This way you have checkpoints and you can see how your essay is going

And then you can go ahead and delete your skeleton work. Its time. Its served you well. For extra drama, whisper menacing nothings to it as you send it into the darkness. Personal favourites include “no one will mourn you,” “your fate belongs to me,” and “so this is what you have come to”

  8.    Citations

Theres like a million ways out there to find out how to do your citations and its gonna depend on what kind of a paper you are writing. I use Chicago most of the time, including here. My advice? Use a site like, bib.me or something to do your bibliography, and then plaster that in the bottom of your document. Use that as the building blocks to do your footnotes. Let Purdue Owl be your guide. Purdue Owl Style Guide Is A Mighty Friend Indeed.

 Also your welcome for that, “putting the page numbers in as you put the info in” shit. That took me alarmingly long to figure out. It’s a wonder theyre giving me a degree.

  9.    Proofread that shit, ya bougie bitch.

If you wanna be time effective, getting a friend to proofread while you do your citations is a great way to go. If you have a few days, put your paper away and come back to it. If you are out of friends and time then https://www.paperrater.com/ is your last hope.

  10.       Slap a title page on that shit and GET IT SUBMITTED

 No joke, I have been using the same template for a coverpage all through highschool and my undergrad. There is only one title page and every time I write an essay I take the title page from the last paper I wrote. There is no beginning. Only title page. Title? Topic of paper: point of paper. For example, If I had to title this screed I’d call it Essay Writing: An exploration of mediocrity. slap the date and your name and the course and instructor on there and BAM. YA DONE.

 Anyway submit that shit an go to bed youre done goodnight

EPILOGUE

I’ve gotten this essay back, and when I wrote it, I was barely a human being. Barely capable of human speech let alone a coherent argument. I would forget the end of the sentence by the time I typed out the beginning. But I still for a 70%! is it the best mark I’ve ever gotten? no! but it is a hell of a lot better than the 0% I would have gotten if i hadnt done this. I get it. And i hope this helps.