#let's see if the fandom factor will grant this thing some notes

[gentlebeardsbarngrill]

02/21/2024 Daily OFMD Recap

TLDR; Cast & Crew Sightings; Rhys Darby; Samba BTS; Vico Ortiz; Ruibo Qian; HowToHelp; Petition Embed; Queerties Last Day; IRL Outreach Assets; New Watch Parties; Visual Rep of SaveOFMD Effort; Fan Spotlight; Collages; OurFlagMeansBooze; Articles; Morale; Love Notes; Daily Darby/Tonight's Taika;

Wow everyone, crazy day again. Day 2 of BTS Darbygeddon. I'm actually going to set a google calendar reminder for tomorrow between 1-2 in case Samba decides to drop another doozy on us. Hope you all had a good day. Here's the highlights-- there's more I would have liked to add but I need to get permission first, so I'll hopefully have them up tomorrow. As always, please let me know if I missed anything <3

== Cast & Crew Sightings ==

= Rhys Darby =

Back again with another Cameo is Rhys for our lovely crewmate @Kellykat53 over on twitter! Thank you so much for sharing this with us Kelly, it's a lovely little inspirational video, definitely gives us plenty of Vitamin RD (as @scorpiostarseed would say). Check out the Cameo

= Saint Samba Schutte =

I've seen several people mention that Samba is a Saint (sorry not sure who started it to attribute it) so going forward, that will be his name. SO MANY BTS pictures and videos. My goodness. Has it even been a day since the last Merstede dump? It has, but damn, here we are with the BOYFRIEND video, and the nipple scratching, and oh look it's Buttons from the Cryptid Factor! As always, if you have access to instagram, please check out these posts on Samba and Rhys' posts/stories.

Videos on Tumblr:

Boyfriends - ty @blakbonnet!

Merstede - ty @kiwistede!

English Jacket - ty @kiwistede!

Cursed Jacket - ty @kiwistede!

Steard Nips - ty @kiwistede!

Rhysently Granted Reunion - ty @kiwistede!

= Vico Ortiz =

Vico voiced the new novel "The Diablo's Curse "by New York Times Best Seller Gabe Cole Novoa! I know some of you are huge Vico fans so wanted to mention it, you can purchase the audio book here. Src: Vico's IG

= Ruibo Qian =

Are you in New York? Our Pirate Queen will be at the #TonyKiserTheater NEXT MONDAY, FEBRUARY 26 at 6:30PM for a one night only reading of On The Evolutionary Function of Shame, by D.A. Mindell - For more details visit here.

== How to Help ==

Hey all! We're adding some things to the daily task lists (and taking some off). Here they are!

= Petition Embed Code =

Looking to easily embed the petition link in your AO3 fic, or maybe your email? @sonnetforbonnet was kind enough to provide us with some embeds you can use! Please visit the repo for the codes!

= Last day for Queerties! =

Please remember to vote! Today's the last day!

Best TV Comedy

Best TV Performance

= IRL Outreach Assets =

== New Watch Parties Coming Up! ==

The Pirates! Watch Party! This is a family friendly movie so bring the kids! Or the adults-- or anyone you know, really, as long as it's not against their will! Sunday March 3rd, 3 PM EST, 12 PM PST, 8 PM GMT!

Watch Party Hashtags:

#OurPirateCaptain

#SaveOFMD

#AdoptOurCrew

== Visual Representation of Fandom Efforts to SOFMD ==

Remember our friends that had the in person Matelotage Processional? Well they're back with a funny video illustrating the fandom efforts of Save OFMD!

Fangirlfoto's Instagram Don't have instagram? See the video on the repo here.

＝＝ Fan Spotlight ＝＝

Thank you once again to @wndrngnomad on twitter for all their awesome collages dedicated to the Cast and Crew! Day 21: Calypso's Birthday! Perfectly timed considering the lovely Boyfriend themed BTS we got today! Catch-Up: Day 2: Madeleine Sami!

= Our Flag Means Booze! =

Our absolutely brilliant crew-mate @quiet-compassion over on tumblr has been designing OFMD Themed Drinks since the show was dropped by Max!  These not only have super fun and creative names you'll all recognise, but an amazing array of flavours too! If you're 21+ (in the US) or the appropriate age for drinking in your country, feel free to try them out! As always, please drink responsibly! Are you celebrating with Moonglow Manifesting? Why not try the "Moon Glow" cocktail for the end of the event! Want to see ALL their concoctions? Head on over to the repo, they're all there!

== Articles ==

17 Facts and Easter Eggs about OurFlagMeansDeath That will Get you On Board - 17 Fakten und Easter Eggs zu „Our Flag Means Death“, die dich ins Boot holen - ty @AddieH on twitter

Max: The 34 Absolute Best TV Shows to Watch

==Morale ==

Hey crew. I've been hearing some scuttlebutt around the deck that people are starting to worry again about whether or not s3 is going to happen. The love notes section is already pretty long so I'm not gonna go too crazy up here too -- instead I'm going to just point out that David Jenkins, while not active and posting things for us right now, is sneakily poking around in Samba and Rhys' BTS comments. He's still there, he's still watching, and I think he can tell we're all feeling the high from Samba's releases. Don't give up hope, these things take time. They're gonna get there. I'm gonna add the trends to this section today because I think it's important to see what we did today:

== Love Notes ==

Hey Lovelies. I know I've said it before, but it bares repeating since I know a lot of you are struggling right now.

Just a gentle reminder that if your brain is telling you that there's something wrong with you, or that you've done something wrong or embarrassing -- it's lying to you.

There's been so much dopamine from all the excitement lately with the BTS, that it has to come down at some point, and when it does, your brain will sometimes over-compensate and you start feeling maybe worse than you did before.

This is totally normal, it really is. Our brains are glorious complex pathways of unmeasurable brilliance, and yet a simple hormone change can make that same brain tell us that we're not enough, or we're not worthy.

I am here to remind you, you are so very much enough.

No matter what is happening in your life-- in your job, in your personal relationships, in your family, in your school, anywhere--

YOU ARE ENOUGH, EXACTLY HOW YOU ARE.

If you feel like you've failed, or you've let someone down, just know you are STILL enough. We all fail, it's how we learn.

We pick ourselves back up and we try again, and if we fail again--

We're STILL enough, and we are still worthy of love and comfort.

Eventually you will succeed. You will get there, and all the while while you work on it, YOU. ARE. ENOUGH.

I know it's so hard to see when you're feeling small, but I see you all every day, and I am awe-struck at your constant ability to band together and not only find love and support, but give it so freely and lovingly.

A simple @ to someone, alerting them to something they'd like

A love note in dms or on a tumblr post

A gif or picture or video brought to tumblr from some other platform so others can see them.

Writing a fic or drawing a picture.

A reblog with tags, goofy or not

Anon Asks showing people you support how they feel about a given topic

Liking a post.

These are all love notes. No matter how public or private, they're all there and they all add up eventually to form this wonderful community and you've been kicking ass at love.

I know we all look like we're having a good time, but a lot of us are struggling silently, and yet we're finding ways to reach out to one another and spread love to help us all get through. Love isn't always positivity, it can be commiseration, or frustration on behalf of someone. You all are finding the best ways to help your crew, and I'm so very proud of you.

You all are capable, creative, gifted, beautious piles of stardust smooshed together into one wonderfully unique package, and you are so very loved.

You are enough,

You are loved,

and THINGS WILL GET BETTER Lovelies.

Get some rest <3 You got this.

= Daily Darby / Tonight's Taika =

What can I say, I literally can't not include this Rhys gif today. It's physically impossible, please forgive me. Good fucking lord, I'm going to Costa Rica now. Also, sorry I tried to get a matching Taika gif, but I have run out of brain cells. Hopefully this one will suffice.

Rhys - Courtesy of @bizarrelittlemew

Taika - Courtesy of @studiomoon

[desceros]

i don’t think you have to apologize at all for not having a symphony update tbh! it’s very gracious of you to do so but i hope people remember that it’s your passion project first and foremost and not anything any of us readers (regardless of how involved or invested you allow us to be) should feel we have any say over, schedule wise. i love your writing and will always wait for it, and know a lot of your other readers will probably say the same!

(as an aside: something i noted when i first started following you in december was how prolific you were… like the fact i could check your blog every day and there was some food?? i was floored. but even your current posting sched impresses me—the fact that you say you’ll have something out one day and on that day IT IS OUT. idk maybe i am used to my old fandoms being more casual or being interrupted by life, as fandoms with adults tend to be like. so you writing and sharing as much as you do is not something i take for granted. thank you as always.)

(i hope this message reads as appreciative / friendly as i intend it to be hhhh… i’m sorry if not…)

thank you for your kind message! i have a rather long one in return, i do apologize, but it is me, so we should probably have all seen it coming! :D

so, i've kind of talked about it here and there, but i have a wrist that is pretty sensitive to overworking. in high school, i would practice music for hours and hours every day without properly stretching or taking breaks, because no one told me i should do so. as a result, i really wrecked the tendons, and my ulnar nerve in particular has a tendency to flare up. it's quite painful when it hurts, and before it starts properly hurting, i experience i kind of buzzing numbness that is distinctly uncomfortable. it's not severe enough for surgical intervention, but it's definitely a limiting factor in what i'm capable, mechanically, of doing in a day.

back around november/december, i was posting a lot more. but that was with me disregarding my wrist and pushing through the pain, such that for the first couple of weeks in january it was nearly impossible for me to write. this was emotionally agonizing, because i love writing so, so much, and i wanted to share everything in my head with all of you! i felt like i was failing on a precedent i had set for myself, and it's very irritating seeing my mountain of projects getting bigger because i can't write quickly enough to put a dent in it and not just because i was coming up with more ideas (which is, to be clear, still suuuuch a problem haahahhaa).

it got to the point where i started confiding in my partner and my friends about my issue, and they all insisted that i start slowing down. and they're right! i was being reckless with my health, knowingly this time, and they're absolutely correct that i need to take breaks. take days where i don't write. days where i rest, and stretch, and let my wrist heal and recover.

i know it sucks as a reader, i really do, especially if you came on board during that time when i was being super active. and i'm not apologizing, per se, since i'm certainly not going to apologize for prioritizing health over hobby. but i do understand the... hm. i'm going to say frustration, but perhaps i mean the disappointment, or the whiplash maybe, from having someone going from posting very very frequently to less so. i'm still what i'd categorize as an active, prolific writer, but it is infuriating to know that, without this injury, i'd be capable of much more. it annoys me to no end, i swear! but i am purposefully stepping back, for my health, and for the worry of my friends and love ones.

all that said! nothing is on hiatus, nothing is being cancelled, none of that. it's just going to take me longer to work through things than any of us would like, hahahaha. so i really do thank you for your sweet and encouraging message, and i appreciate all of you for every thoughtful wish you send, all of your funny comments on my fics, and your support. i'm actually getting to the happy problem that there are so many that it's not quite feasible for me to respond to all of them individually, but i do read and treasure each one. this is the most uplifting, positive fandom i've ever experienced, and it really does make a difference as a writer knowing that people are filled with joy when i share my art and then go and spin that joy back out into the world.

[happilylovingchaos]

Post-ep Thoughts:

*: for plot points that might need suspension of disbelief

“I’m so fired.” On-nose, I like it. (What? It’s called levity)

Conflict of interest is probably gonna be one of those plot points where you have to suspend your disbelief— for instance, no way would Grace be allowed to take point on a call involving Judd. *

Oh god, Judd…

That’s some weird advice to give, making grand gestures. Also was this what TK talked about later, with the guy hanging off the tower? (“Y’know, I once rescued a window washer from the 44th floor of the Chrysler building.”)

I thought that Owen said, “Gotta love NY” but the Hulu captions say “God, I love NY”. ???

Honolulu’s Chinatown is probably up there with New York’s Chinatown in terms of apartment rent costs— but TK lucked out in his living situation. His unit looks nice, for how little it’s been shown. (And… I wonder if his OD would have happened the morning or so after he met with Alex?)

Side note on this: “Were you trying to kill yourself?” (From how TK acts later in the series, I think… yes but also no? I get some passive suicidal ideation from that previous OD).

Not that anyone cares much after 4 years, but looked up the actor who played that character— he’s Harrison Grant.

Now I get why some of y’all fanfic writers present Alex as low-grade ass. He was really just used as an inciting incident.

I don’t say much about Mateo, but I had no idea his character shared an actor in common until after. Also, I really wish I had your tenacity when it came to the JLPT, man.

Boy, I wonder if the ep director/ creators asked Liv to portray Michelle with a troubled vibe? I mean, I’ve heard that some fandom members think her character is not all there, or shallow… IMO it is kind of a unexpected but welcome play against her more pure-/ ethereal-/ wise- esque character types. (But, as much as I respect the missing-sister issue and grief, Michelle… you are really not helping your own case with that guy’s neighbors.)

With the benefit of hindsight, I think I see why some of you guys were caught off-guard with the Blakes being mentioned again in season 4– I did get the feeling that Carlos’ scene with Michelle was something you had to read between the lines to find context for. (Plus, aside from the interaction that shows he’s been her arresting officer long enough for both of them to treat it like routine, and his calling her constant searching “a rut”… maybe he did try, too, to look for Iris until the non-leads piled up too much for him. What is certain is that another party had a role in the disappearance but to what end, unclear.)

Related to the portrayal type: Michelle does have a soothing presence when she and her team have to treat patients. So… character is like

Marjan might need an agent at this point?? I wonder how long she’s been Firefox, or if she’s been allowed to film on calls.*

Paul sounds like he could be a Hero of Another Story, with the commendations he received, his gender identity, and how he dealt with the mean streets before joining Chicago FD.

TSP (Time Skip Passing): I’d guess it takes much longer IRL (edit: RFMarch mentions at least 1 year) to rebuild a damaged/ nonexistent firehouse, let alone assemble a new team. Since the old 126 hadn’t been touched for 6 months but presumably already most of the main appliances and furniture were functional… okay, that’s six months grievance + hiring processes of the new team + construction time + extra factors.

I’m using TSP for my own reference to figure out how much time passes between plot developments in this show. Note: I’m going with my gut and wits on this, so just know this is not a reliable thing. If you don’t agree with this, then that’s okay.

Adjusting to fit, I’m assuming the show’s timeline starts sometime in August 2018 (factory explosion around then in Austin, with Strands’ arrival occurring in March 2019 give or take a few days). 38 weeks + 6 weeks max hiring + expedited firehouse rebuild of 6-12 months (~52 weeks or 364 days)… and. Came out to 96 weeks.🤨🤔Pretty sure the showrunners aren’t gonna confirm, I just wanted to start somewhere.

I think Jim Parrack didn’t get enough mention for his acting. He plays off of Rob Lowe’s dead seriousness and goofy side so well, that their interactions really felt like a budding friendship (with Michelle? Let’s just say… she’s not as demure as she appears).

Emergency Notes:

Nice call forward to 4x15, but GOOD LORD. You men should just sell those peppers and stick to Tabasco from now on if you’re so set on vitriolically resolving your issues.

The logistics of the car accident aside, I’m just really grateful that that baby seat saved the baby’s life.

Episode 1x01 Pilot Discussion Thread

Please feel free to use the comment thread and tags of this post throughout the week as a place to liveblog while watching the episode, discuss with friends, post your metas and thoughts etc. Anything you’d like to discuss while watching the episode is welcome!!

Please reblog this post for visibility!!

[marijane-akuma]

“the cherubim walk with him and him and Jesus says it’s cool” my dead gay son, heathers I kinda wanted to do this for months now since I first heard the song and the idea popped up in my head; had a lot of fun with this one

[earlgreytea68]

Heyyyyyy, I bet you were DYING to know stuff about that Google v. Oracle decision, huh?

You may have heard recently about a big deal Supreme Court decision called Google v. Oracle, a litigation that has dragged on for many, many, many years and focuses on Google having copied some pieces of computer programming owned by Oracle and known as APIs. Most of the write-ups I’ve seen about it have focused on its enormous repercussions for the technology sector, which makes sense since it’s a case about computer programming and APIs and other tech-y things.

But the thing about the decision is that it’s a fair use decision. The Supreme Court could have found that the APIs weren’t even protected by copyright. But instead, the Supreme Court used the doctrine of fair use, and this means that the case potentially has ramifications for all fair use situations, including fanfiction!

So, if you don’t know, fair use is a main defense to copyright infringement. Basically, you can use somebody else’s copyrighted work without their permission as long as what you’re doing with it is considered a “fair use.” E.g., you can write a story in somebody else’s fictional universe or draw art of somebody else’s fictional copyrighted characters without their permission as long as your use is a “fair use.”

“What’s a fair use?” is an incredibly complicated question. The long and tortured history of Google v. Oracle illustrates this: a jury found Google’s use was a fair use; an appellate court found that it wasn’t and basically said the jury was wrong; and now the Supreme Court says no, no, the jury was right and the appellate court was wrong. Like, this is not unusual, fair case rulings are historically full of disagreements over the same set of facts. All of the cases reiterate over and over that it’s a question that can’t really be simplified: every fair use depends on the particular circumstances of that use. So, in a way, Google v. Oracle, like every fair use case, is a very specific story about a very specific situation where Google used very specific APIs in a very specific way.

However, while every fair use case is always its own special thing, they all always debate the same four fair use factors (these are written into the law itself as being the bare minimum of what should be considered), and especially what’s known as the first and fourth factors. The first factor is formally “the purpose and character of the alleged fair use,” although over the decades of fair use jurisprudence this has come to be shorthanded as “transformativeness,” and the fourth factor is “effect on the market.”

Most of the energy and verve of a fair use case is usually in the transformativeness analysis; the more transformative your use is, the more likely it is to be fair (this is why AO3’s parent organization is called the Organization for *Transformative* Works – “transformative” is a term of art in copyright law). To “transform” a work, btw, for purposes of copyright fair use doesn’t necessarily mean that you have edited the work somehow; you can copy a work verbatim and still be found transformative if you have added some new commentary to it by placing it in a new context (Google Image Search thumbnails, while being exact reproductions of the image in question, have been found to be fair use because they’re recontextualizing the images for the different purpose of search results). The point is, transformativeness is, like fair use itself, built to be flexible.

Why? Because the purpose of copyright is to promote creativity, and sometimes we promote creativity by giving people a copyright, but sometimes giving someone a copyright that would block someone else’s use is the opposite of promoting creativity; that’s why we need fair use, for THAT, for when letting the copyright holder block the use would cause more harm to the general creative progress than good. Google v. Oracle recommits U.S. copyright to the idea that all this is not about protecting the profits of the copyright monopolist; we need to make sure that copyright functions to keep our society full of as much creativity as possible. Google copied Oracle’s APIs to make new things: create new products, better smartphones, a platform for other programmers to jump in and give us even more new functionality. The APIs themselves were created used preexisting stuff in the first place, so it’s not like anyone was working in a vacuum with a wholly original work. And, in fact, executives had thought that, the more people they could get using the programming, the better off they would be.

Which brings us to the fourth fair use factor, effect on the market (meaning the copyright holder’s market and ability to reap profits from the original work). There’s a lot of tech stuff going on in this part of the opinion but one of the points I find interesting from that discussion is that the court thought that Google’s use of the APIs was not a market substitute for the original programming, meaning that Google used the APIs “on very different devices,” an entirely new mobile platform that was “a very different type of product.”

But also. What I find most interesting in this part is the court’s explicit acknowledgment that sometimes things are good because they are superior, and sometimes things are good because people “are just used to it. They have already learned how to work with it.” Now, this obviously has special resonance in the tech industry (is your smartphone good because it’s the best it could be, or because you’re just really used to the way it’s set up?), but there’s also something interesting being said here about how not all of the value of a copyrighted work belongs *to the copyright holder* but comes *from consumers.* Forgive the long quote but I think the Court’s words are important here:

“This source of Android’s profitability has much to do with third parties’ (say, programmers’) investment in Sun Java programs. It has correspondingly less to do with Sun’s investment in creating the Sun Java API. . . . [G]iven programmers’ investment in learning the Sun Java API, to allow enforcement of Oracle’s copyright here would risk harm to the public. . . . [A]llowing enforcement here would make of the Sun Java API’s declaring code a lock limiting the future creativity of new programs. Oracle alone would hold the key. The result could well prove highly profitable to Oracle . . . . But those profits could well flow from creative improvements, new applications, and new uses developed by users who have learned to work with that interface. To that extent, the lock would interfere with, not further, copyright’s basic creativity objectives.”

This is picking up on reasoning in some older computer cases (like Lotus v. Borland, a First Circuit case from decades ago), but I think it’s so important we got this in a Supreme Court case: if WE bring some value to the copyrighted work through our investment in it, why should the copyright holder get to collect ALL the rewards by locking up further creativity involving that work? Which, incidentally, the Court explicitly notes is to the public detriment because more creativity is good for the public? This is such an important idea to the Supreme Court’s reasoning here that it’s the first part of the fair use test that it decides: that the value of the work at issue here “in significant part derives from the value that those who do not hold copyrights . . . invest of their own time and effort . . . .”

This case is, as we say in the law, distinguishable from fanfiction and fanart. APIs are different from television shows, and this case is very much a decision about technology and computer programming and smartphones and how old law gets applied to new things. Like, fair use is an old doctrine dating from the early nineteenth-century, and here we are figuring out how to apply it to the Android mobile phone platform. That, in and of itself, is pretty cool, and it’s rightly what most of the articles you’ll see out there about this case are focusing on.

But this case isn’t just a technology case; it’s also a fair use case that places itself in the lineage of all the fair use cases we look at when we think about what makes a use fair. And, to that end, this has some interesting things to say, about how much value consumers bring to copyrighted works and where a copyright holder’s rights might have to acknowledge that; about the fact that there are in fact limits to how much a copyright holder can control when it comes to holding the “lock” to future creativity building on what came before; about what part of the market a copyright holder is entitled to and what it isn’t. Think about the analogy you could make here: Given the investment of fans in learning canon, which is what makes the creative work valuable in the first place, allowing enforcement against fanfic or fanart would allow the canon creators to have a lock limiting future creativity, which would be highly profitable to the original creator (or, let’s be real, to Disney lol), but wouldn’t further copyright’s goals of promoting creativity because it would stifle all of that creativity instead. And just like Google with the APIs, what fandom is doing is not a market substitute for the original work: they’re “very different products.”

This is not to say, like, ANYTHING GOES NOW. Like I said, fanfic and fanart are very different from APIs. Fictional works get more protection than a functional work like the APIs at issue in this case. And there’s still a whole thing about commercial vs. non-commercial in fair use analysis which I didn’t really touch here (but which obviously has limits, since it’s not like Google isn’t making tons of money, and their use was a fair use). But this decision could kind of remind a big media world that maybe had forgotten that the copyright monopoly they enjoy is supposed to have the point of encouraging creativity; we grant a copyright because we think people won’t create without a financial incentive. (Tbh, there’s a lot of doubt that that is actually a true thing to believe, given all the free fic and art that gets produced daily, but anyway, it’s what the law decided several centuries ago before the internet was a thing.) Copyright is a balance, between those who hold the copyright and the rest of us, and the rest of us aren’t just passive consumers, we have creative powers of our own, and we might also want to do some cool things. And this case sees that. None of us are starting in a creative vacuum, after all; we’re all in this playground together.

[jazzytriestowrite]

Date night | Takami Keigo (Hawks) X Reader

Fandom; My hero academia

Pairing: Takami Keigo (Hawks) X GN Reader

Synopsis: Late nights and long mornings, quarantine has made it hard for y/n to see anyone, more or less their boyfriend hawks. Feeling bad for leaving his s/o alone in their empty home, hawks plans a date night for the both of them to relax and enjoy the little time they have together. 

Warnings: A bit of angst at the start, but after that bone rotting fluff. 

Word Count: 4,778

A/N: This lovely fic is apart of quarantine fluff collab that the discord server crackhead sanctuary put together. Thank you Sof @myherowritings​ who hosted this, and I can't wait to read everyones fics!! Also this lovely banner was made by @sanurrwrites​ and I'm very thankful!!! 

♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡

It hit us unexpectedly.

The drastic change in how we did everything was overwhelming, and many of us didn’t really think it would be such a big deal at first. It was a silly virus that would be cured within weeks, nothing to really worry about. So everyone continued about their normal lives, happy that the virus wasn’t in their country, happy it wasn’t them. It simply wasn’t our problem right?

Wrong.

Everything flipped and turned upside down when the unknown and mysterious virus finally hit Japan. While earlier we thought it wasn’t our problem, what are we supposed to say now that it's at our front door? Affecting our neighbors, our friends, our students and our heroes who protect society. No one really cares until it's your problem.

The first death the virus caused made everyone realize just how serious this was. This wasn’t some joke, people's lives were actually in danger and things needed to be done to protect the citizens from a virus that was on a killing spree.

That meant no more social gatherings.

Someone might ask- Well that doesn’t sound too bad? What's wrong with not having to see people?

It was a problem to you, and many others.

Laying in bed day after day, letting the loneliness set in and the worry skyrocket about the current situation. You had taken the simple act of seeing someone in person for granted, and realized just how texting and calling wasn’t the same. You missed going out with friends and doing random things that made you happy. You missed going to the ice cream parlor down the street that would sell you ice cream and soothe all your sad and depressive feelings. What you missed the most was your boyfriend.

The sudden thought of him already made your eyes water and your heart clench. ‘’I miss you Keigo’’ You whispered to the darkness, pulling your warm blanket closer to your body for comfort. The bed that was made for two, suddenly felt way bigger than it needed to be without your boyfriend. ‘’I’m just being selfish, he’s keeping us protected’’

Keigo or Hawks as most society knows him, had been quite busy since the virus broke out in Japan. You’d think villains themselves would stay inside once they heard a virus could kill them, but it was quite the opposite. With no one outside to stop them from their wrongdoings, it was easier for them to commit their daily crimes. So that meant heroes never really got the break they thought they’d get.

While they risked their life everyday to protect citizens, the risk factor was now doubled because of the virus. Heros would continue to go out and protect homes, stores and people who needed it, not letting the virus keep them from doing their job.

It made you happy to know that your boyfriend was doing his job, and probably saving many lives with his patrols. It just hurt that you couldn’t really see him anymore. He was gone before you woke up, and back away after you’ve closed your eyes. You had tried multiple times to keep yourself awake, but never seemed to make it.

You missed his laughter, the way he grinned after getting on your nerves and the stupidly cute smile that would make your heart flutter. You missed his bear hugs and his butterfly kisses all over your face. You missed everything about him down to his annoying antics and crazy eating habits. You had taken it all for granted and now all you had was yourself and the little notes he would leave behind.

‘’I love you Keigo, goodnight baby, stay safe’’ You whispered to the darkness, hoping your words would get to him. Closing your eyes, you snuggled into your body pillow and fell asleep within minutes.

♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~

A couple hours later, the front door of your home creaked open. A blonde male entered quietly, or what he thought was quiet. His posture was slouched, and the eye bags under his eyes gave a clear giveaway that he was tired. ‘’Shit’’ He glanced at the clock and saw it was around 3 am, meaning you had fallen asleep some time ago. His red wings felt heavier than usual, and the thought of sleeping by the front door so he wouldn’t have to climb the stars to the bedroom, was seeming like a good idea.

Keigo shook that idea out of his head, if anything, he wanted to see you, even if you were already sleeping. He felt filthy, so maybe a shower before he got into bed. Even though he was sprayed with every cleaning spray known to man before coming back to your shared apartment, he still took extra precaution when coming home to you. Constantly checking his temperature, and wearing a mask and goggles to keep you protected. You were his little dole, he’d never get over the regret if he passed a virus on to you.

Slugging upstairs, he yelled in fright when he felt himself falling forward towards the steps. At first he didn’t even fight it, trying to save himself from marks on his face from steps seemed like too much work. However, his wings spread out as much as they could, leaving the males face hovering over the steps he was just about to kiss. ‘’Oh’’ He mumbled, the simple thought to use his wings had flown out of his head. God he was so tired. Standing back up, he carefully treaded up the stairs, trying to be more quiet now that he was getting closer to the bedroom.

Opening the bedroom door as quiet as he could, his yellow eyes found your body first. Walking closer he stared down at your sleeping form, a small smile appearing under his mask. ‘’Hi baby, I’m home’’ he said softly, before he frowned. He noticed the tear lines on your face and his heart suddenly felt heavy. Just the thought of you crying without him here to comfort you was truly heartbreaking. You weren’t the only one who missed their partner, since he was surely feeling the same loneliness as you.

He teared his eyes off of you finally, walking away and into your shared bathroom. Shutting the door behind him, he turned on the light and let gaze find the mirror. His rough appearance made him cringe. His golden blonde hair was matted down poking in every direction, eye bags were prominent and his gorgeous smile was covered by this stupid white mask. Reaching up, he ripped the mask off his face, cringing at the red lines he saw of having to wear it so often.  All of this sucked. Yet if it meant keeping you and others safe, he would wear this mask for eternity.

About an hour later, he’d showered and dressed in the clothes he’d be sleeping in. All today's grime and cleaning products washed off his skin leaving it spotless. As he stood in front of the mirror, brushing his teeth half heartedly, the thought of you crying earlier was still fresh in his mind. While you wouldn’t tell him you were lonely and wanted more, he knew better. He had been with you for some years now, he knew you inside out. He knew that whilst he had it hard, you were equally suffering.

Within the first two weeks of Covid 19, your student Bakugou Katsuki had caught the virus and was hospitalized due to it. You had cried for 4 days straight, and nothing he said made you feel any better. Being a U.A teacher meant you had worried even more for your students, who were still kids and had places to go.

Keigo felt terrible that he was putting extra stress on you since he still had to do his duties, and that everything wasn’t easy on you just because you were home and hopefully safe.

‘’I’ll make it up, we’ll both have some fun soon’’ He said to himself in the mirror, before spitting out the nasty toothpaste and rinsing his mouth out with some cold water. Finally finishing up, he turned the bathroom light off and trudged towards the bed. Climbing in lazily, he wiggled under the comforter you were hogging to yourself. As his head hit the pillow, he had to keep himself from falling asleep on the spot. The soft fluffy pillow almost sent him to heaven. Scooting closer to you, he wrapped his arms around your body and pulled you closer to him, his head resting in the crook of your neck. Your hair didn’t even bother him, if anything the smell of your shampoo calmed him.

‘’I love you y/n, goodnight dove, I’m home and safe’’ Keigo whispered to you before finally letting his eyes slip close, knowing in a few hours he’d be gone again. Yet getting to hold you before he went to sleep always made his mornings and days easier.

♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~

Sometime before the sun came up, you had felt the bed move, and the warm arms that were keeping you secure left again. You wouldn’t lie, the disappointment you felt hit harder than anything. And when you heard the bedroom lightly shut behind Keigo, you simply wrapped your arms around yourself, hoping to mimic the arms of your lover. Yet his arms and presence were unique, so of course you couldn’t replace his embrace.

You don’t remember falling back asleep, so it confused you when you suddenly felt the bright rays of sun on your face. ‘’Oh, Good morning I guess’’ You mumbled as you sat up, trying to rub the sleepiness out of your eyes.  Shielding your eyes from the sunlight with your right hand, you looked around for the one thing that always made your morning.

‘’There it is!’’ You say happily as you roll out of bed and towards the dresser that was next to the bathroom. On Top of the wooden dresser was a handwritten note covered in chicken stickers, and a red rose next to it. Grinning you grabbed both items and jumped back into bed, excited to see what the dumb bird had wrote for today.

Ever since the pandemic started, and since Keigo had been having long shifts, he’d always left letters for you to read in the morning, and a different coloured rose everyday. It made him leaving easier, and the fact that he spent time writing and putting his feelings into them always sparked joy.

Carefully opening the note, you were met with Keigo’s chicken scratch handwriting. You loved him, but one day you were going to give him writing lessons. You shook your head in amusement, ignoring the bad handwriting, you began reading.

‘Good Morning Chickadee,

I hope you had a good sleep baby, I came home late again but as soon as I had the chance you were in my arms. You cuddled up to me instantly, what if I was some intruder? I guess even in your sleep you recognize me and my godliness.  

Anyways, I apologize for once more coming home late beautiful. Work has been a bit stressful, but I believe we’ve put a dent on the villains plans. Only small time villains are really causing trouble, and were handling it pretty well. I think sooner or later we won’t need so much patrolling anymore. Hopefully soon, I wanna spend time with my lil nugget.

Oh! I have some news.

Someway or another, I will get off early today and spend some very much needed time between the two of us.

Not to be too sappy in this letter, but, I really miss you y/n. Way more than words can describe. It’s lonely patrolling instead of being home with you and having fun, and honestly just the thought of coming home to you at night is the only way I’m getting through my days at work.

I miss you and the weird laughter you let out at my god awful jokes, I miss you and the way your eyes sparkle when you look at something you like, I miss you and the way you love me unconditionally even when i’m being a weird asshole.

I love you y/n, and I’ll see you tonight dove.

-The best boyfriend ever

ps. You mumbled my name in your sleep.. Having some good dreams huh ;)’

‘’I hate him so much’’ You say while grinning and holding the note towards your chest, your heart beating like crazy. It was weird he still had this affect on you despite dating for a few years, but you hoped this feeling never went away. Neatly folding the note back to how it was, you crawled to the edge of the bed and pulled out a container that was hidden under the bed. Popping the lid off, you placed the note from today alongside the other notes you’ve received over the weeks.

‘’I love you Keigo’’ You whisper lovingly before closing the box once more, sliding the box back under your bed. Picking up the rose you abandoned, you smiled at it. The red rose was beautiful, and it seemed your lover had taken the time to cut the thorns off it.

Shaking your head with a smile, you stood up and walked out the bedroom, your feet padding against the cold ground. ‘’God it’s freezing” You mumble out loud shivering physically, before heading into the kitchen. Opening the window above the sink, you see a cast of 7 different colored roses from this week alone. ‘’Here's your new home’’ You say softly to the red rose before placing it in the vase next to the others.

Leaning against the sink, your gaze wandered to the window or more specifically what's outside the window. The beautiful flowers that were blooming outside made your mood feel lighter, and hearing the kids laughter who was next door made your heart clench in joy.

You couldn’t wait to start a family with the love of your life.

Now that you were up, you would start your daily routine of going with the flow and seeing where the day would take you. Hoping that Keigo would keep his promise in the note and come home early so you could shower him with much needed affection

♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~

Sighing, you turned off the tv with the remote, eyes getting tired of staring at the same screen for hours. Looking over at the clock, you read it was currently 8pm. While your boyfriend said he’d be home tonight, it was starting to get late and you were questioning if he’d actually show.

Not that it’s his fault or anything, you knew his job could get stressful. Yet that wouldn’t stop the disappointment that started to set in, which was a very valid feeling.

Standing up you begin to head towards the bathroom, planning to simply take a bath before getting comfy in your bed and reading, a hobby you picked up after quarantine.

‘’HONEY I’M HOME’’

A voice shouts after forcefully kicking down the door, startling you and making you flinch. None other then Takami fucking Keigo was standing at the door, wings tucked neatly behind his back, huge grin on his face and two grocery bags in both hands.

‘’Keigo, you scared me’’ You say with an angry look before everything set in. ‘’Wait.. Keigo..’’ The light bulb in your head turned on and before your brain could process it anymore, you were flying across the room and jumping into your lovers arm.

Keigo let out a grunt at the sudden attack, but smiled at your innocent gesture. He placed the bags down and wrapped his arms around your body, spinning you around as he bear hugged you. ‘’I’ve missed you too’’ He says, kissing the top of your head. ‘’I told you’d I’d be home tonight, I hope you didn’t lose hope’’ He says as he grins down at your sheepish expression.

‘’No worries though’’ He comments before picking back up the backs he previously dropped. ‘’So, I have a whole plan in mind for tonight, which I am very excited for’’ He says before kicking the door shut and walking into the kitchen. He places the bags on the counter, ‘’So just sit back and relax and I’ll make this a date night you’ll never forget.’’

You tilt your head in curiosity, now wanting to know what this bird brain had planned, but you couldn’t help but get excited along with him. It had been a while since the two of you properly hung out with each other. ‘’So Mister ‘’I have everything planned out already’ what's on the agenda right now?

‘’Well Chickadee, we are gonna make dinner together’’ Keigo says with a bright smile, but cringe when he see’s your deadpanned expression. ‘’Don’t look at me like that dove, I promise it isn’t what you think it is’’

You saw through his desperate attempt to lie. ‘’Kiego did you plan on making chicken again’’ You say while staring him down, and when you see his head hang in shame you laugh. Stepping closer to the male you lift his head back up and press a quick kiss against his lips. ‘’It’s okay, I don’t mind having chicken for the seventh time in the row. Your cooking is actually pretty good’ You comment before stepping away, tying up your hair so you could help as well.

‘’WOO!’’ Keigo winked as he gave you finger guns, ‘’Chicken never gets old babe, thought you knew this’’ When you responded by throwing said bag of chicken at him he screeched before catching it and laughing.

You pull out your phone and play your favourite playlist, so the two of you could bop while cooking. ‘’Oh we can make cookies as dessert! It’s the one thing I can actually bake’’ You say sheepishly, sticking out your tongue when your lover nods in agreement.

With that, the two of you jammed quietly as you began the preparation of dinner.

While you were pouring the cups of flour into the big mixing bowl, you suddenly got the idea to terrorize the male who was singing quietly behind you. Scooping some in your hands, you turn around and innocently call out his name. You wait until the perfect moment. Which is when he turns around fast, a small smile on his face as he quirks his brow. He immediately see’s what you're about to do, but it's too late anyways.

You blow the white powder in your hand right at him, watching as he closes his eyes and screams. ‘’Y/N!! IT'S ON NOW’’

And while you thought this was a good idea at first, when you saw Keigo open his eyes and reveal the determination within them, you mentally cursed. And from there started the flour war, with the two of you giggling while throwing flour at each other.

It ended when you were running to throw some flour at him, but ended up instead eating shit and busting your ass on the wooden floor. Keigo, who was concerned, couldn’t help but start laughing as he helped you off, dusting the flour out of your hair. ‘’Oh gosh, we’ve made a mess of the kitchen’’

Looking around he was right, everywhere you looked there was flour, and now the two of you regretted ever touching the damn powder.

♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~

After some cleaning, and a mini dance session to a couple of songs, the food was finally ready and the two of you sat at the table eating together.

‘’Yeah there was this big spider and I was so scared, I yelled for you and then realized I’d have to get rid of it myself’’ You spoke between bites, your eyes lighting up as you continued telling the story of how a huge spider made its way inside your home.

Kiego just stared at you silently, his mind not even processing your words anymore. You were so cute when you started to ramble, he honestly missed the way you would get so into your stories. Sometimes he didn’t think you were real, you were too perfect. But he was glad you were his, because at the end of the day, he was wholeheartedly yours and he was glad you shared the sentiment.

You two continued to chat as you ate, nothing too important just random chatter to fill the silence. The two of you had so much to tell each other that you didn’t even know much time had passed. Two hours had passed by in the blink of the eye, and you didn’t notice until you glanced at the clock behind you. ‘’Wow it’s getting late’’ You comment, putting the dry dish where it was supposed to go, stepping away from the sink.

Keigo nods, ‘’Time sure does pass when you’re having fun’’ He says with a soft smile, before taking your hand in his, ‘’Come on, I have one more activity I wanna do before sleeping’’ He said as he picked up the last bag that was still sitting on the counter.

You nod, trying to get a peek inside the bag only to be met with him pulling it closer to his body. Letting out a pout, you followed as he pulled you upstairs, nearly sliping as your socks slid across the wooden stairs. ‘’Jeez, the stairs are trying to kill me’’ You complain, glad when the two of you reach the bedroom.

Kiego then whips around, ‘’You should go clean up, you know to get the flour out of your hair’’ He says nervously, and while you wanted to ask why he suddenly started acting weird, a voice inside your head told you just to listen. You simply nodded and gave him a grin, ‘’Okay I will, better not run away while I do’’ You say before going inside the bathroom, shutting the door behind you.

Keigo lets out a deep breath, his eyes drifting to the bag in his hand. ‘’Don’t fail me now’’ he whispered  to himself as encouragement.

♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~

Finally done with washing your hair, and getting the flour out of random places you stared at the door in front of you. It was obvious he was doing something out there since you heard his hard footsteps running all around the place. Yet you wanted to give him all the time he needed, and the fact that he was trying to surprise you was cute.

Suddenly, you hear music start to play, making your brows furrow. It sounded like that one song..

‘’Dove you can come out now,,’’ You heard the slight panic in his voice, which made you nervous too. Pushing those feelings aside, you open the door and slowly peak out.

‘What would I do without your smart mouth?

Drawing me in, and you kicking me out

You've got my head spinning, no kidding, I can't pin you down

What's going on in that beautiful mind

I'm on your magical mystery ride

And I'm so dizzy, don't know what hit me, but I'll be alright’

You stand in shock as the lyrics start to reach your ears, which was the song the two of you danced to when he first confessed his love to you. The next thing that almost brought you to tears was the sight in front of you.

Standing in the dim moonlight, your lover was standing proud and tall in the balcony, a nervous smile on his face. Leading up to him were red and pink rose petals, some thrown on the bed as well.

‘’Keigo’’ You whisper as you start walking in his direction, not even caring that the petals stuck to your feet as you walked.

‘My head's under water

But I'm breathing fine

You're crazy and I'm out of my mind’

You finally reach your lover, who in fact still has some flour in his hair. Yet that didn’t matter, because all you could see was his beautiful face, the way his blonde locks flowed in the wind, and how his golden eyes sparkled with an emotion you knew all too well.

Love.

‘’Hi my love, I wanted to end the night really special’’ Keigo whispers as his hands find their way to your waist, pulling you in as your arms wrapped around his neck.

’Cause all of me

Loves all of you

Love your curves and all your edges

All your perfect imperfections

Give your all to me

I'll give my all to you’

The two of you start to sway to the song, your eyes staring into his honey coloured ones. You were caught in a trance, a trance you didn’t really mind at all.

You loved this man more than anything and anyone you knew. Even when he was being a weirdo or saying unfunny jokes, you always found him entertaining. You loved him and all his imperfections. Arguments never tend to last long between you guys as of the unconditional love you had for one another.

As the song started to come to an end, you laid your head on his shoulder, embracing this moment and engraving it in your mind. Tonight was simply perfect, and while the two of you didn’t do much, you still had a blast with your boyfriend.

’I give you all of me

And you give me all of you, oh oh’

You pulled your head off his shoulder when he started to sing the final lines of the song, a genuine smile on his face. ‘’Kei-’’ As the song turns off, he suddenly lets go of your waist and bends down onto one knee, his hand reaching inside his pocket.

‘’ Ah, so here I go’’ The male says as a blush covering  his face and running up to his ears. You stand there shocked, your hands coming up to cover your mouth.

‘’Quarantine has been pretty rough haha, but it has taught me a lesson. The world is a scary place, and when this virus pops out of nowhere, I’ve noticed that anything can happen. It’s scary to think that villains aren’t are only problems, but some killer disease could sweep over and take away our happy lives’’

Keigo takes a deep breath, before putting on a nervous smile.

‘’These last few days that I’ve been apart from you made me realize that I never, NEVER, want to be away from you again. I realized that I want to spend all my time that I have left here with you. Y/N, I love you so much’’ He laughs, ‘’I’ve been nothing but happy with you, and you bring out the best in me, and without you I wouldn’t have found myself. I never thought I’d find love, If anything, I just thought I was made to be a hero and nothing more. But I’ve figured out that I can be a hero and also love you.’’

‘’You are my pride and joy, my dove, my chickadee, my beautiful lover...What I’m trying to say is, I love your last name, But I’d prefer if you’d take mine’’

You giggle at his words, tears slipping down your face. You were speechless, and honestly couldn’t even compel yourself to say anything.

‘’Y/N L/N, will you make me the happiest bird every and marry me?’’

You can’t help the shit eating grin on your face as you stare down at your lover, your best friend and the best thing that has ever happened to you. ‘’Keigo’’ You say as more tears fall down your face, your voice shaking as your brain processes everything that just happened. ‘’Yes duh! Who would say no to you’’ You yell, your bottom lip trembling as he stands up and slips the gorgeous diamond ring onto your finger, kissing the ring after he placed it.

‘’I love you’’ The two of you whisper at the same time, both of you gazing into each other's eyes. The both of you were crying, and it made it more special to see him showing so much emotion.

Keigo leaned in slowly, ‘’I’ve loved you for many years Y/N, and I’ll continue to love you until my dying days’’ He says softly before pressing his lips against yours, one hand holding your cheek and the other bringing your waist closer to him.

And with that, moonlight shined on the newly engaged couple, who still had their whole life ahead of them.

[lindstromm]

Simplified Bookbinding:  Font and Text Ornaments

In the first post in this series, How to Make a Cheap First Book, I set out the four steps of bookbinding:

1. Format the text and print it. (This post is all about this step.)

2. Create the text block.

3. Create the case.

4. Attach the case to the text block.

In this post, I’ll give some pointers to get your story from a word processor, or an AO3 story, to a printed page. There are two main formatting sections: (1) the intro pages like the title page and the “about this book” page:

And (2) the text of the book, which may include specialized chapter title font and text separators:

Formatting tips and pics under the cut.

I use Microsoft Word for formatting and printing. I know one method and I stick to that, and I use basically the same formatting process on every story. I get overwhelmed if I have to do something specialized every time or have too many choices. So look at this tutorial as your starter pack, and once you get comfortable, branch out and get as fancy and specialized as you want.

In the Simplified Bookbinding method, we print on A5 pages, which makes the pagination a whole lot easier than printing signature booklets. I have two separate files per book - the intro pages are one file; the text is a second file. This way I don’t have to figure out how to suppress page numbers on part of a file. The intro pages file does not have page numbers; the text file has page numbers.

Page Setup in Word

1. Open a new document.

2. Click “Layout” then “Size.” You need to tell Word that you’re printing on A5 size paper. If the dropdown menu doesn’t include A5, then click on “More Paper Sizes” at the bottom of the menu and fill in the A5 size manually. It’s 5.83 wide by 8.27 high:

Click ‘OK’ and let’s get started putting text on the page.

The Intro Pages

Go pull a professionally published book off your shelf and look at the title page. You’re going to format your title page basically the same way. It’s going to have the title, the author and maybe a text ornament. Center it on the page.

I googled the name of the fandom to get a text block that says “The Old Guard.” A recognizable symbol for that movie is the main character’s labrys, so I googled “labrys line drawing” and snipped it. I titled my story “The Next Job” because I lack the fanfiction ability to select beautiful lines of poetry for story titles. Not as lovely, I’ll grant you, but it fits better on the spine of a book. Anyway, play around with your formatting until you like how it looks. Print a test page.

This is a good time to find out how to print on A5 paper. My printer has a paper size option in the menu, in which I could select “A5″ and then just push the paper holder in the tray for the smaller paper. If you don’t have a printer or can’t connect it, then . . . um, problem. Some bookbinders send print jobs to Staples or other office supply shops. You would have to ask them about printing on custom sized paper and see what they charge. (If you’re going to have it printed at a shop, don’t use easily identifiable text ornaments unless you want to explain to the print shop employee why you aren’t violating copyright laws.)

Depending on your fandom, you may be able to find a fun text ornament that identifies your fandom, like the Avenger’s symbol, a Star Trek symbol, Star Wars, whatever fandom you’re in, I’m sure there’s a graphic you can use. Things like these:

Now we’re going to format the “about this book” page. Look at a professionally published book. This is where you have the copyright information and publisher information. I put in basic information in a list format. In most of my books, I put in a word count and which font I used, just so I can keep track of about how many pages a word count will be. You can put in different info.

On a third page, you can format the author summary and any author notes you want to include. I keep author notes that talk about what the story means to the author. I don’t keep author notes that are basically apologies for not updating often enough. That’s entirely up to you.

So those are your intro pages. It’s 2-4 sheets of paper. I always set 4 blank pages in front of the title page. You’ll notice that professionally published books have a few blank pages before the title page as well. I also put 4 blank pages at the end of the book.

Story Text Pages

Now we’re going to format the actual story. There is a page limit to how much you can bind into one book when using this Simplified Method. You’re limited by the size of the binder clips used in perfect binding. Yep, true, binder clips are your limiting factor. The most I can usually get into big binder clips is about 225 sheets of paper. It varies depending on your paper weight. Take out about 12 sheets for intro and end pages, and that leaves me about 210 printed pages, which double-sided is 420 pages of text. The max word count I’ve bound in one book is 140,000 words. You can bind lengthy works but you will have to play around with margins and font size to keep the number of pages to something that fits into the binder clips.

1. Open a new Word document.

2. Set the paper size to A5 the same way you did for the intro pages document.

3. I always set all four margins to 0.7 just to get more words on a page. I wouldn’t go much smaller than that. You can keep your margins at 1 inch if you want, and I would recommend it if you’re printing less than 50,000 words.

4. Insert page numbers.

5. Go to the story on AO3. Make sure you’re in the “Entire Work” view because it’s a pain to cut and paste chapter by chapter. Press Ctrl-A to “Select All.”

6. Navigate back to your document. Press Ctrl-V to paste the entire mess into your document.

7. Save the file. Save often. You don’t want to lose your formatting.

8. Delete all the stuff that isn’t story text. The “Select All” will have picked up all the buttons and the kudos list and comment box and everything. Just delete it all until you only have text left. The text will have spacing between paragraphs, no indents, chapter headings in the middle of pages, and so forth.

9. When you’ve got nothing but text, press Ctrl-A again to select all the text and we’re going to do some basic formatting. With all the text selected, make these changes:

     a. Change the font to Gentium Book Basic 12 pt. (There are hundreds of fonts to choose from. I stick to Gentium Book Basic 12 pt or Book Antiqua 12 pt for the text of the story.)

     b. Get into the paragraph format menu. Change the spacing Before and After to 0, and add a first line indent of 0.3. On an A5 page, the standard indent of 0.5 is too deep.

Click out and your page count should change drastically to something pretty close to what your finished page count will be.

10. Now we’re going to format the chapter headings. If you’re in a highly merchandised fandom, you’ll be able to find custom fonts that you can use for chapter headings. Some are free to download. I’ve got the font for Frozen and another one for Star Trek.

Fun, right? If you don’t have a fandom-specific font, I recommend using Narkisim or Baskerville Old Face for chapter heading text. Both are included with Word.

     a. If you have more than a couple chapters, it’s easier to set a Heading to auto-format your chapter titles than it is to select text, change font, and center for every single chapter. To do that, format Chapter One the way you want it. Select font, font size, center it on the page (you’ll have to turn off that 0.3 first line indent for just the chapter heading text). While you have your chapter heading text formatted and selected, go to the Home menu and right-click on Heading 2, then select the top option: “Update Heading 2 to Match Selection”. I couldn’t get a snip with the right-click, but this is what you want to right-click on:

Then for your next paragraph, just select the text of chapter number and title, click Heading 2, and it automatically applies all the formatting for you. Yay!

     b. With the copy and paste we did to get the text from AO3 into Word, the chapters may start in the middle of a page. Make sure you press Ctrl-Enter at the end of a chapter to start the next chapter on a new page.

     c. If you want to insert a text ornament at each chapter heading, that can be fun. If that’s too much right now, don’t worry about. I didn’t start using text ornaments until I had done about 15 books. You’ll have to work to get the text ornament the right size and positioned under the chapter heading text.

Are you done with chapter headings? Moving on!

11. Scene breaks. You know those places inside a chapter where there’s a scene break? Go look at a professionally published book. Many will just have a double space between paragraphs to mark a scene break. That’s probably the easiest way to mark a scene break. Go right ahead and do it that way.

12. Text separators at scene breaks. If you want, you can put in a text ornament to mark a scene break. There are full line text ornaments, or tiny text ornaments:

I found all my text separators by googling ‘images text ornaments’ or ‘text dividers’ and then snipping from the screen. Here are a few I haven’t used yet, which aren’t quite as blurry as everything I take a photo of (sucky camera phone):

To get a text ornament on the page of a Word doc, you go to “Insert” and click on “Pictures” and then select your image file. Then you have to resize it and position it, plus curse because it knocked all your text out of alignment, wonder what the purpose of image anchors are, drag, accidentally drop it in the middle of the paragraph, discover that Word has green guidelines that appear at random. I tell you what, text ornaments are a real treat. I just like them, okay? I like the way they look, I mean, they are annoying to work with. I did discover that once I have it resized, I copy that image, and then paste it into the next scene break rather than inserting the image from file again. That way I know all the text ornaments are the same size.

All done? Got it all formatted? Looks so great, doesn’t it?

Take a deep breath. Take a few days off. The hardest part is yet to come.

Printing

You’ll have to figure out how to print double-sided on A5 paper. I have very little advice here. It’s going to be you figuring out how to get your printer to cooperate. I’ve discovered that auto-double sided printing does not work on A5 paper. The print rollers just aren’t designed for little pieces of paper. My inkjet printer would auto-double-side on A5 paper, but it would offset the text on the front and back by a centimeter. My laser printer won’t auto-double-side at all on A5 paper. I manually double-side the pages. I can do it in batches of 20 pages at a time, so it’s not so bad.

If you are manually double-siding, make sure you know how to orient the pages when you stick them back in the printer. Instead of practicing on your actual book, just print pages that are blank other than the page number. Print pages 1-10 double-sided and see if you have to rotate the pages 180 degrees, or flip them over before putting them back in the paper tray.

Printing is a pain in the butt. Especially if you run out of toner partway through, or your printer starts printing a black line down the middle of every page. WHY??? It just does. It takes me about an hour to print about 80,000 words. I hope you will someday be more efficient than I am, but that’s how long it takes me.

Phew. Okay. Formatting and printing are done. Yay!! I’m very proud of you. That’s a huge job.

[klutzyzombie]

Image Impaired

Summary: From a young age, Bakugou Katsuki is told his hearing will continue to fade with use of his explosive quirk. He's given hearing aids to help when he reaches high school but refuses to wear them because what pro hero wears those? It takes some red-headed courage to convince him otherwise.  Characters: Bakugou Katsuki, Eijirou Kirishima, Ashido Mina, Denki Kaminari, Sero Hanta Pairing: Bakugou Katsuki & Kirishima Eijirou (KiriBaku) Rating: General Warnings: N/A Words: 6,701 Notes: So this is my first official fic for this fandom and I don't exactly have anyone to proofread this so I sincerely apologize if it's out of character and for the errors! This was written from my own experiences with going deaf and requiring hearing aids and how I felt about it when I was first told. It seemed like something Bakugou may have also felt so you'll have to excuse me projecting~

**Please note that when a character is signing, it will be italicized.

Ao3: [click here!]

He started losing his hearing in grade school. He had been about eight when his family took him to get his ears checked when his grades slipped and he continued to miss things said at home. From there he was bounced from doctor to doctor but the general consensus was the same; his quirk was causing him to go deaf. It made sense really; continued exposure to loud constant boom’s. Like playing a rock concert next to the amp turned up all the way. It was bound to happen the second his quirk manifested and the decision to be a pro hero was made.

They recommended easing down on use of his quirk unless the situation called for it to try and put off the inevitable, but that wasn’t about to happen. Pro heroes in training needed to have master over their own quirks! So they also suggested hearing aids which Katsuki was against. What pro hero wore those tacky things?! For now, his hearing loss was manageable, but if Katsuki was keen on becoming a hero (and he was; even eight year old Katsuki knew this) then the doctors expected his hearing to be practically gone by the time he was in his late teens.

So the Bakugou family learned sign language as a safety net and as he grew, his hearing faded more and more as expected. It became Katsuki’s new normal for things to be a little jumbled and almost like people were talking underwater if they weren’t close enough or if they soft spoken. Maybe that was why as got older he had a tendency to yell constantly, his voice growing a little more gruff with age as well. He’d also picked up on lip reading which was immensely helpful in middle school as he refused to tell a teacher he couldn’t hear them or ask to sit in the front. It wasn’t going to be the future he imagined when he was a kid, but hey, he was Bakugou fucking Katsuki! He wasn’t about to let something like hearing loss stop him from becoming the next number one hero! He was nothing but goal driven from a young age, refusing to tell anyone about what he deemed to be his biggest weakness, preferring to make due with his lip reading. When his acceptance into U.A. was announced, his parents made a decision and while he fought tooth and nail – literally – he was fitted for a pair of hearing aids.

U.A. was everything he had hoped it would be as a child (though he could have done without the damn nerd also getting in and sitting right behind him) and much to his utter chagrin, he even made a few friends despite the fact that he’d never refer to them as such. They were more like a few idiots who wouldn't know how to fuck off if their lives depended on it. One such of these idiots and the biggest offender was Kirishima who, from day one, seemed to latch on to Katsuki. It was annoying at first; sure he had ‘friends’ in middle school but they were more afraid of him and only followed him as some sort of leader or popularity magnet. Kirishima just- liked him. For him! There wasn’t any fear and he damn sure wasn’t getting popular by hanging around Katsuki. If anything that was reversed since the stupid idiot seemed to be friends with just about everyone to varying degrees.

And Katsuki wanted to hate it- hate HIM because he didn’t need friends let alone overly enthusiastic idiot friends and with Kirishima deeming him ‘friendly’, the rest of the idiot brigade followed suit. Before Katsuki knew what had happened, Kaminari had wormed his way into his and Kirishima’s study sessions, Ashido had started tugging on his arm in her bubbly excitement at something or another, and Sero had taken too confining in him about whatever trouble had been on his mind. Bakugou Katsuki had actual honest to god friends and it was Kirishima’s fault. It hit him one night after moving into the dorms after he’d been dragged to watch a movie in Kirishima’s room. Like, forcefully dragged and as they sat there, watching as Iron Man and Captain America did some epic team up move on some aliens, he realized he was actually enjoying himself around these idiots.

He wasn’t supposed to be fond of the dunces. He didn’t need anyone and after the hero exam he and Todoroki failed, he tried to go back to how things were. Katsuki didn’t need friends and Kirishima and Kaminari passing while he failed was proof of that. So he separated himself from them. Well, he tried to at least. It wasn’t easy to do since the clingy idiots couldn’t take a hint if he stapled it to their faces. It was exhausting and when he did finally manage it, about a week into his granted alone time he was miserable and angry and ended up back on Kirishima’s bed while he and Kaminari played some game on Kaminari’s Switch.

He couldn’t shake the idiots he unwillingly befriended and he whole heartedly blamed Kirishima for all of it. On a rare weekend home, he was bitching to his mom about the annoyances who kept blowing up his phone with their stupid ‘Bakusquad’ group text. Mitsuki was sitting at the kitchen table with designs and fabrics spread out while Katsuki ranted on. She hadn’t known her comment about him being popular due to his phone’s continued dinging would lead to this, but now it was hard to stop the small smile building as he went on and on about them. Something he pointed out to her with annoyance.

‘Sorry, it’s just nice to know you have actual friends! Finally.’

“I can fuckin’ hear you, hag!” Katsuki snapped.

‘Are you sure? I don’t see your hearing aids in.’

His response to that was to simply flip her off as he marched out of the room. “I’m not going to wear those fuckin’ things.”

“Katsuki!” They had this argument so many times now he could almost recite it word for word. It was what she always said since the moment they picked up the stupid devices. 'Wear them!' 'Are you wearing them?' 'How is training with the hearing aids working out?' Every damn time she called it was the same song and dance and it was getting more and more irritating every time she brought the damn things up! He could picture her pushing away from the table and marching after him so it wasn’t a surprise when her raised voice shouted after him. “We spent good money-“

“’-on those things so the least I could do is wear them’! Get a new speech! I don't fuckin' need them because I can still hear just fine!” There was an uncharacteristic pause after that and he wheeled around to glare at her, to see what she was trying to prove, only to see Mitsuki giving him a pointed look. “What?!”

‘I said if that was true, then you would be able to hear me.’ She signed while speaking. Well, he assumed she was. Her lips were moving and he could hear a faint sound that was in teh same tone as her voice, but couldn't quite make out the words. Katsuki stood there, red eyes narrowed at her which was a look she was mirroring back at him for all of a few seconds before she sighed, expression softening. ‘Katsuki, it’s gotten worse since you started high school. I’ve been practically yelling at you just so you’d hear me since you got home.’ The look on his face must have been horrified because his mom’s melted from fond annoyance to one of almost-pity. She lifted her hands to sign something else but he quickly turned and marched back up to his room to finish getting ready to head back to the dorms. He hated that look on her. Hated that look on anyone and he didn't need her to see that she was right. That his hearing really had gotten worse. It would make sense that it had, he guessed. He went from only training with his quirk a few times a week to preserve his hearing to using it about daily for hours on end.

So then why hadn’t he noticed it?

He guessed the whole ‘it’s a gradual process’ thing could be a factor and if he thought about it, he was having a harder time hearing Aizawa now. Deku’s muttering had also seemed to bother him less as of late and it damn sure wasn’t because the nerd had suddenly stopped the habit he’d had since they were kids. His hearing really had faded drastically in just under a year and that was a reality check.

One he also apparently wasn’t great at hiding because a few days back in school had Kirishima draping an arm across his shoulders in the locker room. He had a habit of doing that no matter what murderous look was on Katsuki's face and today when he went to shoot a glare at the red head - one he knew would just be ignored- he was met with a concerned look on Kirishima's face. “Yo man, you good? You’ve seemed kinda…”

“Extra murder-y.” Kaminari supplied.

Katsuki and Kirishima shot him a look, Katsuki’s much more threatening, but he went on. “Is everything alright? You know you can always talk to me!”

“Fuck off, I’m fine.” Was his eloquent reply and he knew Kirishima wasn’t convinced, but the red head knew enough about him to know to drop it. The look that now shifted across his face was proof he knew something was up, but he turned back to talking about some new show with Kaminari and Sero to make sure nobody else tried to take the opportunity to ask Katsuki about his oh so chipper mood. Kirishima was good at reading him like that. He seemed to always know what Katsuki meant or needed in the moment. It would be endearing if it wasn’t also equal parts annoying. Sometimes he wished the idiot would remember how damn powerful Katsuki was! But then again, Kirishima was also the perfect foil to him.

He watched as said boy grinned and laughed at something Kaminari had said, head tilting back slightly from the force of it. He was so stupidly friendly and he seemed to really want to be Katsuki’s friend if not his best one. He liked to proclaim as such at least and he guessed it was true to a degree. Kirishima knew him better than anyone else probably did and just how that happened should be concering. Just when had he allowed the idiot to figure him out so well?

Katsuki looked back at his locker with a huff, not about to give Kirishima another reason to ask about his mood again. He looked at his mask and the orange and black wing tips behind it. Looked at the orange X crossing the otherwise all black uniform. Looked at the matching heavy-duty boots and belt that housed mini versions of his quirk. Looked at how the entire ensemble represented everything he wanted to become and how his stupid hearing was likely to take all of that away.

He slammed the locker shut with more force than needed, meeting Kirishima’s gaze as he glanced over at the sound. “Meet me after dinner.” He said simply, walking off before he could see or hear the red head’s reaction.

---

Katsuki was a proud person and that was a fact that was well know. He never needed and never asked for help. He was self-sufficient and refused to lean on others to get to where he wanted to be. So reaching out to Kirishima about this was going to be a challenge. Said teen had been in his room for going on ten minutes, silently watching and waiting, sitting in his deskchair backwards as Katsuki glared daggers at the ground. It would be unnerving to have the talkative bastard so quiet if it wasn’t once again proof how well Kirishimia knew him; knew whatever was on his mind was heavy enough to make him clearly agitated and extra moody. This fact had him glance up so red eyes could meet red and at Kirishima’s concerned but patient face, he sighed and looked away.

“I can barely fuckin’ hear.” He admitted like it was the biggest secret he’d ever be forced to admit because to him, it was.

“Yeah?” Kirishima sounded confused but not in the way he had been anticipating. He was confused like you had just told him Ashido’s favorite color was pink. Like what Katsuki had just said was common knowledge.

This had Katsuki whipping his head back to look at him. “’Yeah’?! The fuck does that mean?!”

Kirishima tilted his head like he did when he could tell Katsuki was upset with him but didn’t know why. “It means yeah? Like, yeah I know?”

It was Katsuki’s turn to be confused now. “You know?”

“Dude, if it was supposed to be a secret, your awful at hiding it!” Kirishima laughed and he glared at him for it. This was supposed to be his close kept secret! His weakness nobody, except for maybe Deku, knew! Kirishima seemed to understand his inner turmoil (because of course he would) and gave the teen a small smile, moving to rub the back of his neck. “Well, maybe it just was to me? I dunno, man. I noticed from the quirk assessment we had on the first day.”

“How?!” His voice sounded more confused than annoyed.

Kirishima shrugged and moved his toe against the floor a bit to slightly spin the chair he was sitting on. A nervous habit he’d get when he was the center of attention, Katsuki noted. “You just weren’t responding to anyone. First I thought you were just kinda an asshole and ignoring people, ya know?” He looked back up at him with a grin. “But then when Aizawa-Sensei would repeat something louder and you’d respond and I saw your quirk in action, I guess I just put two-and-two together. I didn’t know it was some big secret though.”

“It’s not!” Katsuki was quick to snap but that wasn’t really true. It clearly was or his heart wouldn’t have dropped when he realized Kirishima had figured it out within hours of meeting him. He huffed to himself, not wanting to snap at Kirishima over his own overlook and looked away again, scrubbing a hand over his face. “Does anyone else know?”

Kirishima hummed in thought, looking up at the ceiling. “I think all of us kinda know somethings up to varying degrees.” He must have heard the speed at which Katsuki whipped his head around because Kirishima quickly clarified, “I mean those of us in the squad. Kaminari talks louder when he’s around us. Ashido and Sero started too as well after they hung out with us for a while. I suppose it also helps that the four of us are naturally loud anyway, but they definatley talk up and more clear when they're with us.”

Katsuki just looked at him stunned. They had all figured it out? And they hadn’t ever commented on it? Made it a point to make a joke about it? Tease him about it like they endlessly teased him about everything else? They had just started to talk louder for his sake?! Here he thought they were just obnoxious assholes…

Kirishima seemed to notice his lack of anger and response and crossed his arms over the back of the chair he was sitting on, resting his head on them as he studied Katsuki carefully. “Is this what’s been bothering you?”

Katsuki shot him a glare before huffing and looking away again. A nonverbal yes before he sighed, eyes closing. His mind was still reeling from the knowledge that not only did the other idiots figure it out, but that they had all apparently silently just decided to not talk about it and simply speak up and clearer so he could hear them all better. He had a plan going into this. He was going to tell Kirishima he was hard of hearing, tell him he’d known it was coming, and how he was supposed to wear hearing aids. He had planned for questions and for almost snapping at Kirishima for giving him a pitying look before quickly covering it up because Kirishima knew he hated pity. He had expected this conversation to go the opposite direction it had gone and now he was at a loss.

“They…" How was he supposed to proceed now?! "I’m supposed to wear hearing aids.” He blurted out quietly, almost hoping Kirishima didn’t hear him.

But of course he did. “So why don’t you?”

“Are you stupid?!” Kirishima frowned. It wasn’t pity on his face but almost like disappointment? That look was somehow worse and Katsuki quickly looked away from him again. “I can’t be number one like that.”

“So you’d rather just not be at your best then?”

Wellp. Anger was back. Least that was familiar over the weird sensation knowing his friends never brought up his hearing had left him with. He jerked back to face Kirishima, on his feet before he even registered he’d moved. Kirishima just looked at him with same look he had on earlier. “What?!”

“You can’t be your best if you aren’t even going to work with something that improves your skills.” Kirishima repeated, apparently oblivious to the absolute inferno of anger his words had lit. “Dude, you can’t stand there and tell me with a straight face you’d be at your absolute best going into situations as you are when you could be going in with your senses heightened. That would be like fighting with one hand tied behind you back all the time! It doesn’t make any sense, man!”

Katsuki stood where he was, keeping Kirishima’s gaze which had narrowed. It wasn’t anger, but the look he got when determination had set in and he wasn’t about to even think about budging on something. Katsuki liked to imagine it was the look he had when he tried to convince their classmates to come to Kamino Ward. What made it worse this go around was that, well, Katsuki knew he was right. “Tch.” He turned and stalked back to his bed before slumping down on it, glaring up at the ceiling as if it had personally wronged him. “What pro hero do you know wears hearing aids, shitty hair?”

“You?” That answer had Katsuki turn to shoot him a ‘stop bullshitting’ look but Kirishima’s face was so purely earnest the words died on his tongue. “Sure none of the current pros do, but that doesn’t mean you can’t be the first! I bet they’ll even make some with little orange X’s on them! That would be so cool!” He gave Katsuki one of those toothy grins that rivaled the sun in brightness and it took all Katsuki had not to smile at him in return.

He scoffed and looked away instead. “You’re an idiot.”

“Maybe, but I’m right about this!” Kirishima stood up and moved to sit beside his feet on the bed. “You always are the first and best at everything. Wouldn't it be super manly to be the representation to little kids you want now?” Katsuki didn’t say anything, afraid speaking might betray how hot his face was starting to feel at Kirishima’s unbridled admiration. “Besides think of all the cool ways you could make them look! I bet you could get them like, orange to match your uniform or-!”

“They’re already orange.” Kirishima turned to look at him and Katsuki rolled his eyes at the awe on the red heads face. He knew what was coming without Kirishima even asking so he sat up to pull a small box from the far corner of his nightstand. He tossed it to Kirishima who caught and opened it, eyes growing wide.

“Dude, these look so cool!”

“No they fuckin’ don’t. Don’t lie to me-“

“I’m not, man! Dude, picture this.” He picked one of them up and held it so Katsuki could see before splaying his other fingers out behind it. “You could have them as part of you mask! I bet support could even make some super badass ones that could have another dual factor! Maybe even like Mic’s speaker thing? No, I guess that wouldn’t make sense. But maybe they can block out certain things? Like Shinsou’s quirk! Oh man, you’re an even better match for him now! Just turn them off and you can’t even hear him!” Kirishima went into a rant about all the things he thought the stupid device in his hand could be used for and honestly Katsuki wasn’t hearing any of it but not because of the hearing loss. He just watched the idiot talk, watched his lips move and hands gesture. Watched as he’d occasionally laugh at something he’d thought of and how his smile reached his eyes when he did. How he was so excited just to sit here and come up with dumb ideas and how happy he was that Katsuki was potentially going to be an even better hero.

That thought alone made Katsuki’s heart jump again. Kirishima had really meant it about being an example. He really did think wearing the stupid devices would make him a better hero. Didn’t think it would make him any less of a person or any less of a pro. Kirishima genuinely didn’t think less or pity him for it and it actually seemed like he was furious that Katsuki would risk throwing his own dream of being a hero away just because of two tiny devices that would help him.

It was almost too much for him.

“You’re an idiot.” He repeated. Kirishima stopped talking and looked at him. He was still smiling and Katsuki was willing to bet that he was too if the slight tug at his lips was any indicator. “Fuckin’-! Fine, you rambling moron. I’ll wear the damn things tomorrow.”

The grin he got in return had to rival the brightest light in the galaxy and before he could open his mouth to warn against it, Kirishima tackled him back on the bed. The curses and explosions he sent in return were simply laughed off and otherwise ignored.

---

True to his word, Katsuki stood in front of his mirror with the small devices in his hand. He looked at his reflection without them, took in the way he looked one last time as if he could never go back to this look before sliding them in and turning them on as he remembered the doctor demonstrating. He winced at the resistance he was met with as they flickered to life but looked back at his reflection once they were snugly in and properly adjusted. His hair hid them for the most part, ash blond strands hanging low enough that unless he really looked, he couldn’t see them. Maybe that meant nobody else would since he was actually looking for them. He let out a sigh and turned to grab his bag. He doubted that severely. He swore quietly to himself, ignoring how it actually wasn't as quiet as he thought, and started the trek to class.

The walk out of the dorms and into the school was… different? He could hear things he hadn’t otherwise heard before. He could hear birds chirping in the trees he walked under, bits and pieces of conversations of the people he passed, that one weirdo from 1-B saying something and even the faint smack that followed as that orange haired chick apologized for him. It was almost like he’d been listening to the TV volume only turned up to 2 and now suddenly it was changed to 10. It would be overwhelming if he were anyone else, he guessed. Katsuki imagined this is what those videos of colorblind people wearing those special glasses was like. To experience the world with a sense that was dulled for so long only to be informed that said sense could be much better.

He’d spent so much time glaring at the stupid things and then fiddling with them to get them adjusted that he’d been beaten to class by the self proclaimed ‘Bakusquad’. Kirishima was sitting on Sero's desk facing the door and when he spotted Katsuki, broke back out into that same grin he did that rivaled the light flickering in from the windows. “Hey, Bakugou!” He raised an arm in greeting, grabbing the attention of the other idiots who all turned to greet him though not as enthusiastically as Kirishima. Not much of a surprise considering the red head was very clearly the only morning person among them.

Katsuki tsk'ed in greeting but Kirishima seemed to be studying him harder than usual and it was pretty clear what he was searching for. So with a roll of his eyes, Katsuki turned his head slightly so Kirishima could see the small bit of orange poking out from under his hair and if the smile he was greeted with was bright, this one was blinding. He didn’t say anything much to Katsuki's relief, just looked back at Kaminari despite his grin not fading as Katsuki walked over to his desk and tossed his bag down. Such a stupid little thing and Kirishima was grinning like he'd won the lottery.

Class was almost night and day.

He could hear Aizawa’s lazy tone easily, better than he had ever remembered being able to. He didn't need to rely on his handouts and the board to take notes. It was considerably easier to understand Ectoplasm now too and, much to his sheer and utter annoyance, he could hear Deku muttering to himself again. It was annoying, sure, and he almost considered taking the stupid things out to prevent it, but the fact that he actually could stopped him. Even Deku's muttering couldn't quite distract from the almost wonder he had. He could also pick up on Kaminari and Kirishima whispering though he coldn't make out what. (Probably about the math problem Ectoplasm just wrote down.)

The lunchroom was another experience. He hadn’t ever heard it this loud and he muttered to Sero if something special was happening because of the noise before Sero eyed him confused and said it was always this loud. Huh. He knew it should be considering the amount of teenagers cramed into it, but the thought hadn't really ever crossed his mind just how loud it should be. It was almost painful. Their usual table was at least a little quieter since it was in the far back. Katsuki was actually able to hear Kaminari approaching without relying on the slight ting of electricity in the air that usually was his give away. He looked up and watched as he and Kirishima stepped over towards them, caught up in some conversation about something, only stopping when Kirishima moved away and took his usual spot beside Katsuki while Kaminari went to sit in front of him.

“Hey, Bakubro! You look-“

Katsuki winced. “Fuck, can you maybe not talk so damn loud?!” He brought his hands up to his ears, wincing as they gave off feedback which he assumed was due to the mentioned static Kaminari gave off. Maybe he really should speak to support about upgrading them if he was going to start using them more. Wait, was that going to be a thing? He'd told Kirishima he'd wear them today; not from then on. When had he decided this was going to be a permanent thing?

He was lost in his own thoughts about if this so he missed the way Sero, Ashido, and Kaminari looked at each other, then at him, then back to one another. “Uh? He’s talking like he usually does. Which yeah, it’s loud, but it’s his usual volume.” Sero defended, looking all the world like Katsuki had just started sprouting a second head.

Shit.

Katsuki huffed and looked down pointedly at his lunch, taking a bite of rice to further avoid meeting their gaze. “Well tone it the fuck down, dunce-face.”

Kirishima was pointedly quiet while the three others sat in silence for a joyous and nerve wracking moment. He wondered briefly if they would just drop it, but no, he was never that lucky. He heard a gasp, knew it was Ashido, and jerked his gaze back up just as she leaned across the table and reached over to move his hair aside. “You got hearing aids!”

“Fuckin’-! Don’t touch me!” He swatted her hand away but the damage was done.

She was grinning from ear to ear and practically bouncing in her seat. “Oh my gosh, they look so good! That color is going to match your uniform perfectly!”

“Nice, dude! When did you get those?”

“Does this mean you’ll answer when I ask you for help now?”

“I think he was just always ignoring you, Kami.”

"What? No! Why would he do that?"

"Because you ask him for answers on every problem rather than how to solve it?"

Bakugou watched the three teens in front of him suddenly turn on Kaminari, laughing at the other blond’s expense. They hadn’t even flinched at him wearing them! No jokes, no sympathetic looks, nothing! They just took it in stride as if he’d said the weather outside was cool. He looked over at Kirishima to get confirmation that he wasn’t insane and they had really found out what he deemed his weakness. Kirishima met his gaze with a knowing grin and a shrug of his shoulders, a silent ‘I-told-you-it-wasn’t-a-big-deal’ look on his face. Katsuki shot him a glare but turned back to his meal to try and hide the smile he knew would betray any small amount of anger it may have had.

They didn't seem to care. He'd spent so much of his life dreading the day he'd have to wear these stupid things. Dreading the way people would look at or perceive him. He was Bakugou Katsuki and the only way he should be looked at was with admiration or fear; not pity or sympathy, and he whole heartedly believed that was going to be the outcome wearing these would bring. He expected the three idiots in front of him to make a huge ordeal about it, but they just seemed relieved and excited. Just like Kirishima had been.

Maybe having friends wasn’t such a bad thing after all.

---

After that, Katsuki wore them daily. They became second nature from then on and he wanted to be surprised that nobody seemed to even flinch at them, but after seeing his friend’s reactions, he really wasn't. What was supposed to be a weakness was nothing more than another area he could work with. Something Katsuki could train and hone like his quirk. He’d even followed Kirishima’s idea and got a pair that would work with his mask. They got upgraded to protect his remaining hearing from his explosions while enhancing it. His regular ones got an upgrade as well so they’d stop sending him feedback every time Kaminari got within a foot of him which spared Kaminari getting threatened and snapped at so it was a win for him as well. (Both pairs were returned black with an orange X printed on them and Kirishima swore he knew nothing about it.)

Months passed and it was hard to imagine he’d ever put up such a fight to wear the stupid things. They really did make a difference and it was even better knowing nobody felt the need to shout at him. Part of him wondered just how many people did but also didn’t think his pride could risk asking. It was like nothing had changed and while he wouldn’t ever admit it, it was apparent he had worried and put this off for absolutely no reason. His friends rolled with it like nothing had happened and that alone, while he refused to admit it, was the real reason he continued to keep it up after the first day. The idiots seemed to be full of surprises, especially Kirishima.

So it really shouldn’t have been a surprise what happened one night during the middle of their second year. The pair were up late in Bakugou’s room going over the latest math homework they’d been given. Well, more like Katsuki was going over Kirishima’s since his was already finished. At some point he’d taken his hearing aids out figuring he wouldn’t really need them in the quiet of his room.

He marked one last problem Kirishima needed to look over and handed the paper back. The red head took it then asked ‘Do you want to go get something to eat?’

“Yeah sure.”

He pushed himself up and brought an arm back behind his head to stretch it out and then it dawned on him. Kirishima hadn’t spoken. His lips hadn’t moved.

“What?!”

Kirishima startled at his yelling. “I asked-“

“I know what you asked!” Katsuki was pretty sure he must look strange because Kirishima was looking at him with sheer, utter confusion. “It’s- it’s how you asked it!”

The red head blinked at him in confusion, clearly not understanding why Katsuki was suddenly so upset. “What about it?”

“You signed!”

“Yeah?” He held the ‘ea’ sound out as if the pause would help him figure out what had happened. Katsuki could feel his face heating up. “Dude, I’m so confused right now. What’s wrong?”

“You-! You fuckin’ signed to me!”

“Yeah, you covered that part. What about it?”

“When the fuck did you learn it?!”

Kirishima still looked at him baffled. “Dude, I’ve known for years. My mom is hard of hearing.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?!”

“Because I didn’t think I’d need to? I sign to you all the time, man!” Now it was Katsuki’s turn to look lost. He looked at the red head for a few minutes as if he’d just told him some world altering view, which he kinda did. “You good, bro?”

“No I’m not ‘good’! When the fuck have you ever signed to me?!” Though as the question left his lips, memories started replaying in his head. One’s of Kirishima casually signing ‘lunch?’ while verbally saying they should head to grab a bite to eat. Memories of Kirishima signing ‘that was awesome!’ after Katsuki did some impressive move in training. Of Kirishima’s fingers moving to ask him to pass his notes back over. Vision after vision of Kirishima slipping it into such casual setting from the first weeks he knew him and wow, okay that did something to his heart.

Why hadn’t he ever noticed it before? When the hell had Kirishima become such a casual part of his life that him speaking in a language hardly anyone knew became second nature? How had he learned so much about Katsuki without him ever knowing the red head was close enough to figure him out? Why did he decide to dedicate so much of his energy and time to be around him?!

“Dude?” He looked over at Kirishima who was now looking at him worried. “I was kinda kidding when I asked if you were good but now I’m actually worried. Are you alright? You look, like, sick."

Katsuki dropped to his knees in front of the red head who was looking even more concerned now. He opened his mouth, probably to once again ask if Katsuki was okay, when Katsuki put his hands on either side of his head and pulled him into a kiss. It wasn’t anything spectacular on the outside, just a chaste kiss, but it was an awakening for Katsuki who avoided feelings and distractions. Katsuki who had mentioned romance was the furthest thing on his mind when Ashido asked him back in first year if he was interested in anyone. So yeah, it wasn’t the most romantic of kisses as Katsuki hadn’t exactly kissed anyone aside from one or two people back in middle school and Kirishima hadn’t exactly moved or leaned into it let alone reacted.

Wait, shit. Kirishima hadn’t reacted.

That thought had him pulling back immediately, apology already forming but going unspoken as Kirishima mirrored the gesture of grabbing his face and pulling him into a kiss. Now it was Katsuki’s turn to be shocked but it faded in seconds, eyes closing on instinct as he moved to rest his hands on Kirishima’s hips. Kirishima in turn gently cupped the side of his face, guiding Katsuki’s head to tilt to the side slightly so he could deepen it. Alright, this one was much better than the pitiful one Katsuki had just done. Kirishima’s lips slid against his like they were meant to be connected and his hands lit Katsuki’s skin on fire. The feeling was like wearing his hearing aids for the first time. Like reawakening a sense that had been muted for years. He didn’t want it to end but after one last slow kiss, Kirishima pulled back, lips parted as he breathed.

Katsuki opened his eyes and blinked down at him, no doubt looking as kiss-drunk as the red head. Kirishima beamed back up at him, cheeks tinted red which Katsuki could feel his own face mimicking. He glanced away as if that would hide it, ignoring the way his heart rate picked up when Kirishima’s arms moved to wrap around his waist, head resting against his chest. He had about a billion things he wanted to say, knew Kirishima had about a billion he probably wanted to ask, but of course the red head knew him well enough to know he needed a minute before he spoke. Kirishima knew him so well. How did he not ever connect these dots and do this sooner?!

“So you like me.”

Alright, maybe not the elegant response he wanted but he earned a laugh from Kirishima. He shrugged and looked up at him so Katsuki could see his lips, smile still present. “What finally gave that away?”

Katsuki could feel his face flush anew. “’Finally’?”

“I haven’t exactly been trying to hide it from you.”

“You never fuckin’ said anything!”

“Again, never thought I’d need to.”

And alright, that was fair if he thought about it. He frowned but it was more at himself than at Kirishima and he ducked his head down to rest against the red head’s shoulder, the red head pulling him close. “You have awful taste.�� He muttered to which Kirishima just hummed, lightly resting his head against the side of Katsuki’s.

They stayed like that for a while longer before Kirishima’s stomach made them remember what had started this whole ordeal in the first place. As they stood up and started to head out, Katsuki paused and turned grabbing his hearing aids and sliding them into place, ignoring the way Kirishima’s face lit up at the simple motion. He didn’t comment on it though, only taking Katsuki’s hand for a whole second before dropping it. Katsuki arched a brow, about to ask what was wrong.

‘I really, really like you, Katsuki.’

Katsuki was pretty sure his face was currently redder than the idiot in front of him’s hair and mumbled a quiet “Fuck you” as he lightly punched his shoulder. Kirishima laughed and caught Katsuki’s hand before it fell away. He went to lace their fingers together and tug him down the hall but Katsuki stayed rooted to the spot. Kirishima looked back at him, head tilting in the ‘whats-up’ way he did before Katsuki pulled his hand back.

‘You are an idiot, but I like you too.’

It shouldn’t be a surprise the way Kirishima’s eyes lit up. It shouldn’t be breath taking the blinding smile such a simple statement was met with. It shouldn’t make his heart skip when he was rewarded with another kiss. None of it should be but here Katsuki was, arms wrapped around this dumb, red headed ray of sunshine who managed to do the impossible.

[esseegg]

egg theory.

this occurred to me after i saw leaks from Ch. 290 of the My Hero Academia’s manga. it’s not really a theory, just speculation.

warning: contains manga spoilers, Dabi, the Todoroki family, and suicidal implications.

another warning: my thought process is very lengthy and a tad repetitive for the sake of evidence in reasoning. i also get a tad bit “Let’s see what’s in Dabi’s head today” at the end. writer instincts.

I don’t have any images of the manga to pull from, nor am I going to bother with grabbing them. This is more of a psychological analysis, anyways.

For those who’ve read the manga’s most recent chapters, or perhaps even stumbled upon manga snapshots of Dabi, we’ve all noted a few trends: Dabi’s uncharacteristic smile and his uncanny, ecstatic hysteria. At first, we believed this to be a result of potential grieving for Twice’s death and/or the anticipation of finally facing off with Endeavor (for the last time, per se) and/or the thought of seeing Endeavor finally being crushed by Shigaraki’s current rampage.

However, upon seeing Ch. 290′s leaks, I don’t quite believe in such speculations. If anything, these possibilities are not alone. In general, the leaks contain these things: a confession to his mother and the consequent reveal of his Todoroki identity to both his mother and his father.

Setting aside Rei for now, most people have interpreted these details as signs of a final showdown between Dabi and Endeavor. I don’t discredit this. That idiot can’t waltz in with that much drama and not expect a fight in his head.

My problem with all this is that, as we’ve noticed, this energy is entirely opposite of what usually defines Dabi. Dabi is stoic. Dabi is cold. Dabi is not one to go searching for the limelight. Granted, there are a few exceptions to this, but none alike Ch. 290. Here, and as of recent chapters, his carefree attitude is unhinged, fueled by a thrill, an anticipation, a blind excitement, and pure, raw joy.

Now, let’s factor in Rei again. Rei received the news in clearly a much calmer, civil, more sensitive format. You see his body language, and you can see that there is a tenderness in posture alone. He doesn’t even try to put up a front with his expression. It’s plain and simple: a broken, irreparable son giving the last sliver of good he can offer to his mother... The truth.

In summary, Dabi has displayed two things: the giving away of something precious (his identity, tied to his goals and crimes and ongoing life) and blind elation. Most interpret these things as a complex display of vengeance, built atop the foundation of a still human heart. Now.. I do believe the man has a heart. He is certainly human. But humans are scary sometimes.

I don’t think Dabi expects to live. I think he expects to die on that battlefield when he confronts his father. He might not expect to go any further than that. He gave some sort of solace to his mother (as nice as it might’ve been to think him dead, rather than a lost criminal), the possibly last precious person to him in this life.

When suicidal people have finally made the choice, the plans, the preparations for death, they become happy. It’s a misleading thing, actually. They give away what’s important to them, spend a little more time with whoever is most precious to them, then they move on.

I don’t believe that Dabi is looking to die. However, his life’s purpose, which he had been building up to for who knows how long, has finally fallen into place. Once he witnesses or reaches a certain point, I don’t think he will have any complaints about death. And that scares me.

Think about it. His acclaimed ideology is a replicate of Stain’s. Aside from hero society being absolute filth, he believes that if one person has the will for it, they can inflict the change they want to see in the world. And quite frankly? Dabi is very well-equipped for such a thing.

He is a confirmed Todoroki son, son to society’s Number One Hero. Endeavor’s career, fame, prosperity is all at its prime. In public, at least. And Dabi knows this.

Dabi is arguably a perfect candidate to change all that, to inflict the destruction on the world that is his father’s dream. It’s that very dream that chained Rei to Enji, that gave birth to four children, that gave three of those four children complete neglect from their father. That dream, as we all know, has finally been recognized. Without the children. Without the mother. All Endeavor needed was the fall of the great All Might. Now, Endeavor is at the top. And the only direction you can go, after you’ve reached the top, is down.

I wouldn’t put it past Dabi to label himself the manifestation of his father’s corruption and mistreatment of the family. After all, what’s more life-shattering than the Number One’s son turned criminal, killer, and conspirator against society itself? What’s more slandering than the knowledge that the son was not born this evil? That it’s the father’s fault for planting the seeds of long-awaited vengeance?

What’s better than the disgusting climb for morals and virtue, as your old man tries to cry out heartbreak over what you’ve become? What’s better than being the one to kill him? What’s better than forcing him to mayhaps kill you by his own hand? What’s better than letting him know that this is a part of his past, his regrets, his guilt and grief and self-loathing, that he’ll never be able to redeem, fix, and glorify? What’s better than maybe... exposing your old man for what he really is? 

Dabi doesn’t necessarily need to do it himself. He just needs to walk up on the stage that is the battlefield, wash his hair dye out, do a twirl, and reclaim the name he had left for dead. Shout it to the world. Go on monologues and maniac speeches for all the heroes to hear. Let them know what Endeavor’s done to his son, to his wife, to his children, to innocent people he didn’t view as humans, but as stepping stones to a dream he didn’t even attain with integrity.

It doesn’t matter who dies. It doesn’t matter who lives. As long as he gets to crush his father’s world, to inflict the change he always wanted to see... he’s happy. Truly, blindingly happy.

disclaimer: i have no idea what the leaks say, only that Dabi’s shirtless and a little dramatic. all my reasoning is based on recalled information, with no check for accuracy. i’m just scared that Dabi is going to canonly die, and the fandom will need to collectively feed itself with coping mechanism fanart and fanfics to pretend our burnt chicken nugget is still with us. have a nice day.

[yikes-strikes-again]

my thoughts on “Ho Yay“

i want to talk about something that’s been bothering me about TvTropes. i love this site; it is an incredibly expansive resource for understanding common tropes in western media and developing a framework for critical analysis. what i’m going to explain requires some background if you’re not already familiar with TvTropes. to try and be brief, there are two main types of pages on the site (three if you count indexes, but they aren’t relevant right now):

trope pages. these are pages that explain a common literary device or concept and then provide examples of its use in media. basically the backbone of the site.

media pages. these pages introduce the reader to a piece of media and list various tropes that it uses along with explanations of their appearances. media pages also contain links to YMMV sub-pages at the top of the page (important): these pages are extensions of a work’s YMMV (”Your Mileage May Vary”) sub-page, which every work has as a place for subjective interpretations written by tropers, site users with the ability to edit and add to pages. when a trope on the YMMV page of a work has too many examples, it often becomes its own YMMV sub-page. the specific sub-pages a work has depend on its popularity as well as its content.

i wanted to talk about a particular kind of YMMV trope that commonly appears as its own sub-page on media pages: Ho Yay. Ho Yay is a category that refers to aspects of a work that fans interpret as gay subtext. it’s generally agreed upon that for something to qualify as Ho Yay, the relationship can’t be canonically romantic. in many cases, the gay subtext was not intended by the creators.

it’s not hard to understand why this trope exists. when positive queer representation was so taboo as to be unheard of, the only gay subtext was fan-interpreted subtext. people only had the same-gender platonic relationships they found in television and books to see themselves in. and that’s what Ho Yay was: queer interpretations of the same-gender friendships in media that gave them a new, personal significance.

on TvTropes, Ho Yay appears as a YMMV page on, basically, any media page of a popular work that features close same-gender friendships. which is... a lot of them, to say the least. there’s got to be, collectively, hundreds of thousands of words solely about gay subtext on this site. and that’s a really good thing, I think, especially for old works with decades of gay fan interpretations, like Star Trek. for many people, it’s a very important aspect of their enjoyment of the work, and it deserves documentation.

however, after years of lurking on TvTropes, and reading Ho Yay pages in particular, something began to irk at me. something I’d seen glimpses of in the wording of certain entries. and, slowly, it began to bother me more and more, until i finally decided it was worth addressing.

you see, there’s something about the concept of having an entire page dedicated to speculation on potential gay subtext in a work, to the exclusion of all other relationship subtext. understand that Ho Yay pages are not places to discuss headcanons regarding a character’s gender or sexuality, or the nature of any relationships they might have with other characters, regardless of gender. it exists to point out romantic subtext only, and i mean only, if it’s gay.

this... bothers me somewhat.

i’d be sooooo much more comfortable if there was also a type of YMMV page that existed for people to talk about all non-canon romantic subtext, or just romantic subtext in general, without characters’ genders being a factor. because, honestly, it feels incredibly othering to have a page dedicated to fan speculation on the potential gayness of something at the exclusion of all other types of relationships. as if being gay is exotic and inherently worthy of note. that’s such an icky sentiment to me, and i can’t ever shake it when i read Ho Yay pages now. and i’m not even getting into all the examples of Ho Yay that are about real people, that’s disgusting for an entirely different set of reasons

i want to emphasize that i don’t want to get rid of Ho Yay; as stated above, i think it’s incredibly important to document the literal decades of fan speculation on the queerness of canonically straight characters. but to have gay subtext be the only kind treated with this amount of attention seriously rubs me the wrong way. if our goal is the equal treatment of all types of relationships, then it should start with us not granting this exceptional quality to gayness and just make a page for all relationship subtext!

you know, maybe what Ho Yay has become is just a symptom of a much larger problem: fandom treating gay relationships as inherently different and special. if that’s the case, i’d like everyone reading to take a moment to examine their biases.

my point to all of this is that, unlike in Ho Yay’s heyday, it’s rare, but not unheard of to see canon queer relationships of all kinds. even though there’s still a long way to go in that department, i think it's time to let go of the need to use a YMMV trope whose historical necessity has been, in many places, rendered obsolete.* the needs of fandom are changing. we don’t just want representation, we want our existence to be treated as mundane, and that means unexceptional. 

Society Marches On.

~~~

*in some places, homophobia is much more pervasive and queer representation is even farther than where it should be than in my country. I’m from the U.S., so if my sweeping statements don’t apply to your culture, please feel free to disregard them.

[festivegrant]

You said 4A finale fell flat and I agree but I’m just curious in which ways did it fall flat for you? To me, I guess I was expecting some type of cliffhanger. Didn’t have to be scary or intense, I just expected something. And yeah that could have been Maddie going into labor. And I know people can debate until the end of time about Eddie and Ana but personally I have no problem with them like overall, if you stand back and look at the big picture. Eddie is trying to move on and Ana seems sweet and smart and nice but when you step closer and look at it, Eddie to me seemed so out of character in that episode. He was doing things that he wouldn’t normally do. Like, ok you went on maybe 2 or 3 dates with her and even after your son throws a fit you still think it’s ok to introduce her to him that soon? And also in the middle of a pandemic?? When his son is high risk and his son hasn’t even seen his friends or other family (I’m assuming). It just seems out of character. And before anyone comes for me, I’m fine with Eddie moving on and getting into a relationship. He could literally date anyone and I wouldn’t care as long as he’s happy. And maybe that’s the point of all of this- to show he’s trying to move on but Ana isn’t the one. Maybe she is and I’m a clown but I don’t personally see it. She’s lovely but I don’t see it. Buck and Taylor was interesting though. I’m all for them being friends because both of them seemed to have matured

glad you asked! my response ended up longer than i’d anticipated so i’ll put it under the cut:

i FOR SURE expected some sort of cliffhanger. i mean, tbh overall the episode didn’t really stick in my head that much? the most cliffhanger-y thing we got was hen and karen not being able to adopt nia (heart-wrenching but good narrative choice) although i would have liked for them to really dig it in and indulge us in more wilson family moments before ripping it from our grasp. i love to suffer <3 and i just think that if we had had a scene where the madney baby is born that would have been such a bittersweet contrast?? like actually watching it would have destroyed me and i probably wouldn’t have liked it bc it would have made me sad but since im playing god on this website it WOULD have been fantastic narratively and i WILL pretend i wouldve liked it.

buck and taylor was cute (and I LOVE their banter), but i kind of feel like the sudden friendliness came out of nowhere?? @benjji2795 made a post about this a little bit; taylor never apologized for what she did to bobby, so it doesn’t totally make sense for buck to be so nice to her?? however i love taylor and im glad she’s on the show. one of two things should’ve happened: she apologizes to bobby and wham bam now her and buck are besties with a fun dynamic (note FRIENDS, not romantic partners, because they have different priorities and are canonically not romantically compatible!! and thats okay!!) OR her reoccurrence on the show is established as some sort of antagonistic ally. i think that would be so fun.

okay okay i have my own thoughts on eddie and ana and that whole situation. let me split this up to make it legible:

on eddie being out of character:

something was definitely wrong this episode. him introducing ana to chris does not sit right (for ALL the reasons you mentioned, which I completely agree with). As far as i’m concerned, there are two possible reasons:

eddie was just plain ooc and it was due to bad writing. it makes me disappointed, but i think this is the one that’s most likely.

eddie was in character, but he was jsut the worst side of his character. someone made a post about it that i found pretty interesting. idk if i completely agree with it bc to say that eddie introduced ana to chris so she could fill what eddie thinks is an empty space in their lives sort of undermines the whole talk he had with bobby the scene prior. 

HOWEVER this interpretation also gives ana the opening to have narrative agency and set boundaries for herself and tell eddie she likes him but she didn’t sign up to be a mom. but i don’t think the writers (or r*an, because he sucks and is also not that great of an actor) are thinking that deeply about his character (but maybe they are. who knows).

on ana:

i’ve said this before and ill say it again. the way she’s set up to be both disliked by the audience (because she’s so blad) and disposable to the narrative (because she’s so bland!!) makes me upset. she literally doesn’t deserve that and it’s disturbing to watch (both onscreen and in fandom reactions). i don’t know what else to say except i hope she either gets a well-written, significant story arc or she leaves the show soon. i don’t want to see her being a romantic accessory anymore. 

also i think she’s cute but that’s just gabrielle walsh kjdsfl

on eddie and ana together:

okay i agree that a relationship is necessary for eddie to be able to move on. like i get that. i agree. it’s part of his growth. here’s the problem with that though. 

the WAY the show handles eddie moving on is very blatant. it is very streight forward. ‘oh, he’s moving on? new girlfriend!’ the thing is, they kind of forgot to give said girlfriend a personality (see above). and BECAUSE OF THAT (or, at least, it’s a contributing factor) they have no chemistry and are terrible to watch onscreen. 

i tried to like them. i really did. i tried to frame it as ‘hey, theyre jsut two people who have crushes on each other and we can watch them flirt and yadda yadda and itll be cute, right?’ ive made posts about their dynamic together and trying to find an angle to make it fun. but i cant. i literally cant do this anymore. i actually cringed at nearly every scene they had together. it was unpleasant and boring and i would love it if it were over soon. if the creators are seeking to both produce a good/entertaining and moving show AND keep eddie and ana together, i’m curious to see how they do it because i truly have got nothing for them. 

anyways. In conclusion, I’m only emotionally investing myself in the wilson family, the grant-nash family, the buckley-han family, and fanfiction-based buddie :) <3

[ambarto]

Time for a post on my thought on that one thing everyone in this fandom had Opinions about, aka: the Elf marriage matter. Keep in mind I haven’t read LaCE but just summaries of it around, so I might have missed stuff here and there.

We know that Elf marriage involves an actual union of the couple’s feas. The degree and implications of that connection is mostly a matter of interpretations, but there is one. Forming that marriage bond as far as we know requires sex, but are the two things necessarily mutually connected?

Could a marriage bond be formed without sex? Well, for the sake of any asexual and/or sex-repulsed Elf, I would hope so. The question is what exactly is required to have the two fea join together. If the only thing that can do it is the “union of bodies”, then maybe sex is the only option. This could make me go on a tangent about just what counts as union of bodies, if extramarital sex would technically be possible as long as it’s just oral, and what about gay Elves, especially wlw, because if two cis male Elves could theoretically “unite in body” there could be additional issues in “uniting” if no penises are involved (do strap on count, is there a matrimonial strap industry), but maybe it’s better to stop this specific tangent.

If, instead, sex was only one of multiple sets of circumstances that could lead to this kind of bond? Now, sex has physical closeness, but while that surely helps it cannot be a sufficient factor, or Elves would just be forming marriage bonds with whoever got too close to them. Sex can also be a very emotionally charged experience, especially if we have two people who are in love and want to marry. Could a sufficiently emotionally charged situation still lead to the intended results without the sex? It could be sex is simply one of, if not the, easiest way to get to the intended results, but in the right condition it could also be achieved by other acts. Intimacy isn’t just sexual. We could even argue that some people might see other forms of intimacy as being more intimate than sex, although this post isn’t really the place to start discussing this. Perhaps cuddling or kissing or idk a sensual bath could do the trick, if the couple is in love enough. I mean, Thingol and Melian presumably stared at each other in the eyes for a couple centuries and came out married, although admittedly we don’t actually have an account of what was going on there and they could have been doing wild kinky stuff every day for those centuries.

Anyways. Let’s say, then, that sex is only one of multiple ways Elves could have to make their feas join together. Maybe sex simply became the “traditional” thing because it was the most immediate and easy way to do it, while the others required some more working to achieve the bond. Plus, Elf marriage was all very Catholic-coded and geared towards having children, having the literal act of making babies as the symbol for marriage made sense. And granted, it was something written in LaCE, but it could also be not all the Eldar had the same exact customs, or that they kept them identical forever and ever. If we admit that “Marriage does not require Sex”, does it also work the other way, and say “Sex does not require Marriage”? Leaving aside all considerations of what constitutes sex and whether or not everything was fine as long there was just some fingering, seriously “union of bodies” does not answer a single question

Well. We said that a marriage bond would require some kind of physical closeness + emotional closeness to form, right? We can’t take the physical part out of sex, but we can absolutely take the emotional part out. Casual sex, for starters, doesn’t really require any emotion in particular aside from being willing to get down to it. If we have two Elves who don’t know each other and don’t feel any particular way for each other fuck, does the lack of emotional closeness prevent the feas from getting close and tied together? Sex is cool and all, but if the physical thing was enough to make a marriage bond I’d be worried about any Elf that spent too much time hugging. It could be possible for things like one night stands to exist without too many problems.

It becomes more messy if we move on to sex between friends or romantic partners that don’t want to be married yet. In that case we do have an emotional bond present, and there’s no saying that feas might not just do their thing. Maybe not in the case of friends if we want to say only romantic love is the emotion that makes the bond happen, but that’s honestly one hell of a stretch and making that assumption feels a bit too much. In the case of an established emotional bond between the involved parts, there is no way to say a marriage bond wouldn’t be formed. Do the Elves have a way to prevent their feas from reaching out to one another, or at least from bonding together? I don’t know. Probably, given they are as a whole very attuned to their workings of their own souls. I like to think that they would be able to keep their feas in check, especially the older and/or more powerful ones, but I don’t really have a strong argument to make for it other than it being my personal preference.

My conclusions are, in short: there are more ways than just sex for Elves to marry, and Elves can at least in some circumstances have sex without being married for it. Why is that specific law/custom a thing? I have some thoughts on that too, but I think I might make another post on that because this one is already getting long.

On a side note, when it comes to marriages between Elves and other races (Men, in canon, Dwarves, in my heart) I find it interesting to think that the bond may also be formed, if with a lot more effort on the Elf’s part. It could not be an entirely mutual process, of course, but maybe if the Elf was skilled enough in manipulating their fea they could have also formed some form of bond, even if a weaker one than what would be formed by two Elves. This is entirely headcanon land, but I feel it fits well with the post. If an Elf can exert enough control over their fea to form a bond one-sidedly, surely they could also form it with another Elf in a different context than a sexual one, or prevent a bond from forming unwanted during sex, no? But that’s just my own preferences here, and I don’t have anything to prove it except liking the idea a lot

[monotonous-minutia]

my brain will not let me do my reading until I put this out there, so:

my thoughts on the ending of the SFO 2015 Nozze

(note: relates to thoughts on the 3rd Beaumarchais play, so if you’re not prepared to get your heart broken multiple times, I advice you skip this. Under the line to make that easier.)

(also contains spoilers for that production, so don’t read if you haven’t seen it yet, unless you want to know before you do, or don’t plan on seeing it)

For those of you who may not know much about the 3rd Beaumarchais play(and if you don’t, I advise you keep it that way; stop reading and go about your day), it takes place many years after the events of Nozze (or Le Mariage de Figaro in the original French). Susanna and Figaro have been married for several years, and the Count and Countess have each had children by different people. Yeah, I know. Most of the plot is that these two children fall in love (because of course they do, it’s Beaumarchais). There’s this whole long convoluted plot about that involving the author’s signature insane plot twists and Figaro being all clever and the Count being an utter d-bag. Aside from the fact that none of it is as clever as the first two, I think the play’s rarity is defined by 1) the fact that even though the lovers don’t share the exact same parentage, they’re still technically siblings so it’s kinda weird even for Beaumarchais, and 2) the reason the play is entitled The Guilty Mother (La Mère coupable). The father of the Countess’s illegitimate child is Cherubino.

I know--what was Beaumarchais thinking?

To top it all off, after the events that result in the Countess’s pregnancy, Cherubino becomes depressed and suicidal and lets himself be killed in battle (because yes, the Count stood by his word and sent the kid to war, as promised, even after the concluding events of Nozze).

so, yeah, I think we can all agree on two things: it is a very good thing this play is never performed, and it also does not exist.

However, though it’s pretty rare, it’s a little hard to avoid if you’re invested in the Figaro canon and want to learn more about the original plays and look them up and see there’s a third one and read the synopsis because you’re curious and want to know why you haven’t heard of it and then you read the synopsis and throw the book across the floor and try not to scream because you’re in the library and then go into the stacks where no one cans see you crying. (this is just an example; it may have happened differently for you, idk, this was just one that I thought of, just giving some random person’s reaction as an example).

or maybe you’ve found out about it by reading this, in which case, I’m sorry to be the bearer of your misfortune.

Anyway, equipped with this knowledge, watching Nozze can have a bit of a different aftertaste. Most productions I’ve seen don’t make reference to the future events. It’s trickier to foreshadow an entire play than it would be, say, to make references to Barbiere in a Nozze production. But some directors are motivated (and evil) and find away.

With this, I am going to break your heart with one picture:

yes, that is the Countess going back to the Count after he has been a terrible person and a terrible husband; and yes, that is Cherubino staring at her with a tragic expression on his face. In this production, he appears to be the only who is not happy with this development. He sees how the Count treats her, and he doesn’t want her to go back to that, to continue to deal with the abuse.

When I first watched this, I thought: Yeah, Lindsey has obviously read the third play.

Barbarina tries to go to him, but he’s wrapped up in his concern for the Countess:

even as everyone else is celebrating, he can’t bring himself to smile--

He tries to go to her but she walks away with her asshole husband. To top it all off, note how Cherubino is the only one not with someone right now. Even Basilio and Curzio are getting chummy (pretty sure they are an item, but that’s another story).

and as the curtain goes down and everyone else is walking away happily, Cherubino literally falls to his knees in despair, still looking after the Countess:

and at this point I am thinking: the director has definitely read the third play too.

I’m not going to blame them for it. If you’re going to encapsulate, interpret, and portray a character onstage, you’re probably going to want to do as much research on that character as you have available. Unfortunately, in the case of this child, that includes La mère coupable.

As you have probably gathered, if you’ve known me for any length of time, I am very, very particular with how Nozze is staged. And the biggest factor for me is that you gotta be nice to Cherubino.

Granted, I have seen worse things happen to this child at the end of the opera (DO NOT WATCH THE SALZBURG 2006 NOZZE), but this is still very painful for me.

Why can’t we have nice things? Why can’t we give Cherubino all the love in the world?

This isn’t (to me) in the same vein as my Idomeneo critique from earlier; that was a device that made reference to events that had occurred in the canon of the opera at hand. For Nozze, something like this makes reference to a part of the story that has yet to occur, and currently doesn’t have a place (literally speaking, but imo metaphorically too) on the current stage.

I am frustrated at how difficult it is to find a performance that is not mean or damaging for Cherubino. That’s one of the big reasons I love the Garsington 2017 one so much: it’s the only one I’ve seen where no one is mean to Cherubino (except the Count, but that’s written into the story). Even my favorite Cherubino (in the ‘98 Met production) gets pushed around more than I want him to.

One could argue that such an interpretation--a nice ending for Cherubino--is idyllic and unrealistic. But given the majority of the opera fandom agrees (as far as I’m aware) that the third Figaro play does not exist, I feel like I can be very angry at productions that insinuate otherwise.

I won’t begrudge the director for making a dramatic choice that is in reference to canonical events. On principle, that’s still much better than portraying interpretations that have nothing to do with canon, if said interpretations don’t add something meaningful. (Whereas the ax in Idomeneo, while it is not in the stage directions, and is disturbing, highlights a very valid part of the current story. So, it’s a very different concept for me.)

So nothing against the director or the production in general. But I am still an emotional wreck after seeing this and wish it could have been staged differently. Up until the very last 3 minutes, this was seeming like one the the sweetest, most cheerful, and overall one of the best-quality productions I’ve seen. It still is, but some of the sweetness and cheerfulness dies along with my heart when Lindsey gives us a tragic preview into what is going to happen to Cherubino, a few years down the line.

anyways Beaumarchais can suck it, sorry (not sorry). How dare you hurt this child.

[psycheswritings]

Finally - Thomas Shelby x Reader

Title: Finally

Fandom: Peaky Blinders

Pairing: Thomas Shelby x Reader

Warnings: Swearing (as always) and my bad writing. I think that's it.

Word Count: 1493 (someone stop me, please)

Author's Note: A lovely anon asked me to do something with the prompts 45 and 51 from the kiss prompt list and you can be sure that I'm gonna hella deliver. This is kind of a sequel to "Caught", so I suggest you to read it first.

(Y/N) = Your Name

Prompts form this list:

45. Passionate kiss

51. Public kiss

“Bloody hell, of course you would say something like that to him.” Michael was stretched on the couch opposite from her chair, a cigarette dangling from one of his hands, looking at her as she heard the story of how her and Tommy had been caught by John and Arthur.

“Well, did he?” She took a sip of her whiskey and he looked at her a little confused. “Did he told you something about us?”

“No. Not yet, at least, but he haven’t had many chances.” (Y/N) just murmured a ‘hum’ under her breath, looking outside through the window. Michael noticed the subtle distress in her demeanor and sat up straight. “When are you two going to go public?”

“We never really talked about it.” She paused for a moment, lowering her eyes to observe the drink on her hands, a finger tracing the rim of the glass. “I know he is afraid to because of how it may affect his political career and everything.”

“Tommy Shelby afraid of what people think about his life?” Michael leaned back on the couch, scoffing as he took a drag from the cigarette. “That’s new for me.”

“He is not all wrong you know.”

“What do you mean?”

“Look at me, Michael. I’m not exactly the role model for a politician’s…” She trailed off and the young accountant noticed the panic crossing through her eyes.

“Wife.” (Y/N) frowned at the word. Damn, she wasn’t even sure what they were.

“Whatever. I’m younger, always in confront with social conventions, partaking in protests about women's rights, working as a lawyer and living alone in London…”

“Shaming rich old men in gala dinners.” He smiled, mocking her, and she just rolled her eyes.

“You got my point. I’m not some rich posh girl who will be all smiles and pleasantries while hanging on the arm of a man. I’m not…” Grace, she wanted to say. I’m not Grace. But the words got stuck on her throat, making her sigh. “And, for fucks sake, I’m sounding ridiculous like a fifteen years old girl with a crush.” Michael smiled at the scene - he never had seen her like that. Not even when they were, in fact, fifteen in the country and one of the boys from school had tried to ask her out.

“You are in love, it’s kinda expected.”

“Not from me. I promised myself that I would never let love get in the way of my plans. That I would never let a man change who I am.”  She was exasperated, he could see that by the way she downed the rest of her whiskey, sinking into the chair.

“You know that you can be both a successful woman and a good wife at the same time, don’t you?” That was that word again. She looked up at him, there was a smile on his face when he spoke. “Tommy fell for you exactly for all these reasons you think make yourself unsuited for him. I think I know my cousin well enough to say that he doesn’t need a… what did you call it? Posh girl hanging from his arm. He need someone who knows how to protect themselves, how to hold their ground. With business in the company and politics, none of these woman that you think are a better fit for him would last a year.”

(Y/N) said nothing, she didn’t had nothing to say after hearing him. She always thought off marriage as just one more way to be owned by a man, another way to have her dreams of being a successful lawyer going down the drain. She never thought of it as a partnership, as a way that both people could grow together, helping each other, like he was describing.

“Come on, you’re thinking too much. Let’s go to the Garrison, have some drinks, let the boys cheer you up.” He got up, putting his cigarette out on the ashtray and approaching her, standing a hand for her to catch. She took his hand, letting him guide her through the room, help her with her coat and leading her outside.

They had been on the pub for a while when Tommy arrived and her eyes instantly felt draw to him. She and Michael were sitting at one of the tables with the rest of the Shelby clan, some of the Blinders around them, everyone laughing and drinking. (Y/N)’s mood had lightened up a little after she let herself be distracted by the boys, like Michael had said, but seeing him just made all her insecurities wash over her again. Somebody approached him before he could take another step towards them.

“Come on, let’s dance.” Michael didn’t waited for an answer, he just pulled her from her seat and dragged her to the dance floor. He wasn’t a terrible dancer and by now (Y/N) was more than used to dancing with him. What she was not used to was being interrupted by Tommy putting a hand on Michael’s shoulder and asking him if he could steal her away. Her best friend nodded at his cousin, letting him pull her closer, smiling like the cat who got the cream.

“What’s gotten into you?” She asked as he twirled her around and sprawled his hand on the low of her back when pulling her to him. Taking a look around (Y/N) noticed that most people on the pub were looking at them. She kinda expected that, granted that she was dancing with the leader of the Peaky Blinders who never danced with anyone. He didn’t answer her right away, just swaying with her at the ritm of the music and when he did he wasn’t looking into her eyes.

“I heard something interesting today.”

“Really? What was it?”

“About what kind of woman is better suited to be a politician’s wife.” (Y/N) was sure that if he hadn’t been leading her around the dance floor she would have stopped dead on her tracks. He couldn’t have heard her conversation with Michael, could he. “Apparently, they are just decorative.” He looked at her then, piercing blue eyes urging her to hold his stare.

“Aren’t they?” It was kinda of her thing to be able to argue even when in disadvantage, she was a lawyer, after all.

“Well, mine for sure won’t be.” Her mind was having a battle with her heart right now and she was really trying to think rationally but it seemed almost impossible. “You know, when I first met you the first thing that crossed my mind was how much I wanted to have you. Because you were this pretty little thing that looked all innocent at first sight but you put a bunch of old men in their places when they tried to outsmart you and that was… enticing and I just had to have you, I had to know what you were hiding underneath that cold facade. Then Michael recognized you as his best friend and you got closer to the family, I realized that you were so young and had all your life ahead and that you didn’t needed to get yourself tainted by me.”

She was surprised by his sudden confession - Tommy wasn’t a man used to let people know how he felt about things, even his family had to read between the lines to try and figure it out. Now, it seemed like he was really invested in having a heart to heart with her. In the middle of his pub, of all places.

“You were having none of that, though. I really tried to pull it away like it was just sex, nothing more, but I failed miserably and it seems like I failed to let you know that too. But we’re changing that now.” He stopped dancing, still holding her close, and looked at her for a moment before crashing his lips into hers. Her body responded to him before she could register anything - like the fact that they were in a very public place with all of his family a few meters away from them. In a very Tommy fashion he didn’t shy away from any of this factors and lose no time in tangling his fingers in her hair and deepening the kiss.

It took a moment for (Y/N) to register the cheering of the people around them but it didn’t matter for her anymore. All she could think about was him, all she could feel was him and she almost protested when he parted from her, a smirk on his face when he touched her forehead with his, making her smile. He guided her back to the table his family was in, all of them with smiles on their faces, Arthur and John teasing them about the kiss but it was Michael who said what all of them wanted to for a long time.

“Finally.”

[lemonsandstrawberries]

Two Hundred and Ten Roses

fandom: Stony (Steve x Tony), MCU,

summary: Steve is away for a secret mission during Valentine's day and Tony definitely isn't pouting about it, so seeing a surprise from his husband definitely didn’t improve his mood.

length: 1 767

a/n: Happy Valentine's day!  Please accept this fluffy piece as an expression of my love to you all! 💜 

——————–

Two Hundred and Ten Roses

A romantic dinner in a fancy restaurant. An evening spent wrapped in blankets and watching TV. Maybe a special breakfast served in bed. There were many ways to celebrate Valentine's day with your loved one.

Tony didn't get married to spend Valentine's day alone.

Granted, he never really cared about Valentine's day. He and Steve showed each other plenty of affection on a daily basis (Tony was sure of it, they both heard complaints from various team members) and Valentine's wasn't an exception of it.

Just seeing the romance pouring out on him from every corner, was reminding him, that this day he would be spending alone as his stupid husband had been sent away for some stupid classified mission to a stupid secret location. That was another reason why Tony felt so bitter - he and Steve didn't make their relationship official and on paper to still have withheld information about their spouses' location. Stupid safety protocols.

The whole day was stupid.

But Tony definitely wasn't petty about it. No, he was a man of science and had work to do, and was above such trivial thing as Valentine's day.

So, when he entered his workshop and was hit with an overpowering smell of roses and saw the biggest bouquet ever standing in a vase in the middle of his workshop, Tony didn't know what to think of it. There was a note attached, simple and to the point.

'Happy Valentine's day, sweetheart. Love, Steve'

Tony ran his hands over the not fully bloomed roses, feeling the delicate petals and breathing in the sweet smell, reading the note over and over again. There was some fuzzy feeling growing in him and a sarcastic remark about the sappiness of it all to mask his true feelings, but there was no one he could deliver the snappy comment to. Before Steve had left they made a deal, that Steve would be the one calling Tony. So, Tony put the note aside, made sure that roses had plenty of water and got to his work, occupying his mind and thinking that, that maybe today won't be so awful after all.

It was well into the afternoon when Tony’s back started to hurt from hunching over the blueprints and saw an icon with Steve’s name flashing in the corner of one of his screen and a characteristic melody of an incoming call.

“Friday, connect me,” Tony sat back in his chair, waiting for his husband’s face to show on the screen.

"Hi, babe!"

“Hiiiiii - dear God, you look awful,” Tony blurted out, the sight of Steve’s close up face taking him by surprise. Battles were not glorious, and despite the healing factor, last rough days were taking a toll on his husband's face - his eyes were circled, hair hung miserably, and as usual, in extreme conditions, Steve didn’t have time to shave, a dark, thick beard covering his jaw.

"Happy Valentine's day to you too," Steve laughed in good humor. Even his laugh sounded strained and tired.

“Sorry,” Tony said quickly, trying to fix his earlier outburst. It was always comforting when Steve managed to find time to call him during his secret missions, but seeing Steve all worn did worry Tony. “Happy Valentine's!” Tony smiled, finally sounding properly happy.

Steve’s smile dimmed into something subtler before his face became serious.

"Before we talk, I have to inform you that this conversation is wiretapped."

“I know, I know,” Tony said dismissively. Safety protocols, yada yada. He knew the drill. “Is Gary listening to us again? Hi, Gary!”

"No, Gary quit after last time," Steve chuckled, referring to the agent who was assigned to the infamous wiretapping on the superhusbands, something all agents dreaded. Cleaning sanitary facilities was easier. "Now he can’t look me in the eye. Today it is Karen’s turn."

"Hi, Karen!" Tony waved at the screen, "happy Valentine’s!"

"Oh, I am sure she is having a blast. We had a flood this morning and I ate breakfast from a tin can."

“Sorry to hear that, baby,” Tony cooed. Maybe Steve was used to rough military life, but it didn’t mean he enjoyed it. If anything, it was getting harder and harder to sleep on the cold ground, while he had a comfortable bed and a warm husband to snuggle with back in New York.

"I am gonna survive," Steve smiled and Tony hoped that he better, as he didn't plan on becoming a widower any time soon. Or ever. Just for now, he would keep that thought to himself, to not tempt fate. “I wanted to ask, did you find your gift?"

“It is hard to miss,” Tony laughed. Two hundred and ten crimson red roses on long stems in a crystal vase. The whole bouquet took over a square meter out of his workshop and was easier to jump over than walk around. Just to be sure, Tony made Friday scan the roses and count them three times. He had tried asking for a fourth count, but Friday put herself on mute. The reason was that, that the number didn’t add up for Tony, he couldn’t think of any reason why Steve chose that number of flowers. “They are beautiful, thank you. Just why two hundred and ten roses?”

Steve folded hands together under his chin and looked at his husband with love, Tony could feel all the way from the screen. Steve liked symbolics in their relationship. His favorite flowers to give to Tony were daisies because he claimed that Tony was cute and small like a daisy but also was resistant and stubborn, just like the innocent looking white flowers able to grow in harshest conditions. Their wedding rings had hidden gems, Tony’s had a blue sapphire, Steve’s had a red ruby, to represent their superhero colors. There was no way Steve ordered two hundred ten roses on random.

"I got you two hundred and ten roses to represent each and every pound of you I love and cherish."

Tony stared. And stared. And started some more before losing it again.

“What the hell, Steve?!” Tony yelled in outrage. Steve just smiled brighter, as if enjoying this situation. Well, he always claimed that angry Tony looked like a puffed out cat. So cute.

"I know I might have been a little off with your weight -"

“Damn straight, you are,” Tony hissed.

"-so I added an extra ten roses to count in your winter weight."

And it became tense again. Tony pinched the bridge of his nose, knowing that Steve was just teasing him. It was working beautifully. Years of marriage meant that they knew exactly how to push each other buttons.

“If you weren’t God knows where and I wasn’t sure when I see you again, I would totally hang up on you,” Tony gritted out through his teeth.

"I love you too, butterball," Steve cooed, blowing him a kiss.

“Steve!” Tony protested, feeling that his face became heated from embarrassment. Tony knew he wasn’t overweight. Chubby at most. He was thick in all good places. Places Steve seemed to enjoy on a daily basis. “Don’t embarrass me in front of Karen!”

"I am pretty sure that at this point Karen hung up on us," Steve laughed.

“Good, because I planned to give you all of this,” Tony motioned to himself, “once you will be back, but now you won’t get any.”

Steve narrowed eyes. "Like you will be able to resist this," Steve slowly raised his eyebrows and pressed lips together, jutting them forward. Tony tried hard not give up and let the playful jab be forgotten so easily, but he had to admit that his husband’s seductive face was quite a success. "Uh, hold on, babe," Steve said, leaning out of the camera view, exchanging a few words with someone, before coming back into view. "Sorry, Tony, I have to go."

“Is everything alright?” Tony asked, alarmed that Steve wanted to cut him short so abruptly.

"Yeah, it’s fine, just a meeting about strategy," Steve smiled, trying to ease his husband. "Will talk tomorrow, okay?"

“Okay. Stay safe!” Tony added hurriedly.

"I will."

“You would be safer if I was there with you.”

Steve’s eyes softened. That was true, but Steve was glad it wasn’t happening. Tony was safe back in New York and didn’t belong out there on the battlefield. This was good.

"I know, babe," Steve agreed.

“And not just because it was scientifically proven that a sufficient layer of fat can make one almost bulletproof -”

Steve laughed, interrupting Tony’s ramble, not expecting his husband to poke fun at himself.

“I love you, babe," Steve smiled, grateful for the short moment with his husband. It was good to see him, even briefly.

“I love you too,” Tony said and the screen turned black, the connection cut off.

Looking at the empty screen, Tony sighed, sinking into his chair. The smell of roses was strong and all around him, and became a painful reminder of his husband stuck somewhere far away from him in a state of constant danger. He needed something to fill up the void in his heart and remembered that before Steve had left for his mission, he prepared an array of homemade food and stuck in the freezer, saving Tony from constantly ordering takeaway or burning the pots. A tray of lasagna sounded especially good. He could save his work, go back to his quarters and mope over layers of pasta, cheese and tomato sauce with meat, or he could do something even better.

“Hey, Fry,” Tony looked at the ceiling, where one of the cameras to Friday’s system was located. “Let the team know that I am putting one of Steve’s lasagna in the oven and if someone wants a piece, they should come to the shared kitchen.”

“Okay, boss,” Friday replied, passing the message to the Avengers currently present in the compound and Tony could almost hear Thor and Clint sprinting in the kitchen direction. Tony stood up, thinking that he should get some nice bottle of red for him and Natasha to drink, Bruce was all set up with his weird, green teas. He could always count on Vision and Wanda to prepare something sweet, as the pair went through cookbook after cookbook, trying all kinds of recipes. Maybe he could reach Peter and invite him to swing over for a piece. Wonder what Pepper and Happy had planned, he should call them too.

After all, even if he couldn’t spend Valentine’s day with his husband, nothing was stopping him from spending it with his family.  

[panharmonium]

stranger things 3, a visual summary:

more coherent thoughts under the cut, because wow.

......okay.  that was a Trainwreck.  an absolute mess.

i remember when my coworkers were watching S3 (and still urging me to start season 1) and they were saying how amazing the latest season was, and honestly i think there must just be a difference in people who watch tv just to be entertained and people who watch tv and automatically evaluate the story (aka fandom veterans and English majors, lol - cue Me twice), because WHO could watch this critically and praise it that way?

it's honestly hard to know where to even begin; i've been sending frustrated notes to @brambleberrycottage ever since episode three and now that i'm done with episode 8 there's just......so much more to say

first, good things:

erica is a great character.  she's what max should have been (aka, uh.......interesting!)  i liked the realization moment where dustin was like "you're a NERD!"

that entire sequence where will is so upset with lucas and mike for not being engaged with the dnd game was very well done, especially the conversation he has with mike out in the rain.  i loved that moment where mike asked him "did you think we were just going to hang out in my basement playing games forever?" and will said, "yeah.  yeah, i guess i did."  i really felt that.  [edit, now that i've finished: this was never resolved.  will giving away his dnd books at the end was not an actual resolution to this conflict.]

steve is still a good dude, and robin was pretty cool.  i'm down for them being super friends.  but i'm still mourning the steve+nancy+jonathan trio that was a thing for like 5 seconds and then never returned.

i loved how genuinely excited steve was to see dustin when dustin came back from camp.  that was adorable.  "HENDERSON!!!!"  "how many children are you friends with?"

and uh. yeah.  i had more problems with this season than praise-bestowing moments, so.  here goes that bit.

OVERARCHING PROBLEMS:

1. keep it simple, stupid

remember in the office when dwight quoted the above advice to ryan as michael's rule for making a sale?  the same advice applies to storytelling.

season 1 of stranger things is so simple.  there is One Monster.  that is the danger.  and somehow, that single monster manages to be a thousand times more terrifying than all of these new "bigger, scarier, more epic" threats crammed into the second two seasons.

how goofy is the stranger things season 3 plot, seriously?  russians are blackmailing a small-town mayor so they can buy up land to steal power from the town while operating a secret lab under the mall to open a gate to the Upside Down (WHY?), while simultaneously a remnant of the malevolent force that was "defeated" last season has reanimated itself and is making people scarf chemicals (WHY?), and then it possesses one of them and uses that person to possess a bunch of other people in order to build itself a body made out of melted people, in order to kill el, whose only story this season is breaking up with her boyfriend, and we have to infiltrate this russian base in order to close the gate (same endgame as last season - BIG NO-NO) to kill the goo monster, except last time the "mindflayer” survived the gate being closed, so why would this even WORK, and -

the fact that there are so many "round-up/info dump" scenes where characters summarize what's going on and make implausibly accurate connections/guesses about what it all must mean is a red flag.  the characters shouldn’t have to tell your story to the audience.  if it's too complicated for us to keep straight on our own, it's too complicated.  

the amount of energy that goes into trying to lash together a Chaos Plot with too many shaky legs leaves nothing left over for nuanced character development or mood establishment.  you're constantly running to catch up to your own flimsy story before it collapses on top of itself.

2. the horror!

S1 of stranger things was the scariest thing i'd ever seen.

granted, i don't watch a lot of horror, because i don't like it.  i get scared too easily and then i legitimately can't sleep.  i watched a horror movie five years ago that i still think about every time the lights are off in my house.  but still, ST1 was something i had never experienced before.

it wasn't creature horror, and it wasn't just suspense.  it was the UNSETTLINGNESS of it all.  it wasn't really about the monster.  it was about the Upside Down.

the reason ST1 is so successful is because of how much we don’t know.  it's the horror of not understanding what is happening, and the terror of knowing that nobody thinks it’s real.  feeling like you're going crazy and being cut off from all assistance.  the conspiracy and the cover-up.  and the sheer unsettlingness of the whole parallel worlds things just tipped me over the edge - the idea that you can take one wrong step and then be suddenly and without warning completely off the map, simultaneously right next to the people you want to get to and also utterly beyond their reach.  that was fucking scary!!!!  

and they do it all with so little.  i have literally never been more scared in my life than when i would see those christmas lights start flickering.  and they're just LIGHTS!  yes, we see the monster later, but it's the uncertainty that's most frightening.  we don't understand how it arrives in our world, and we don’t know where it will show up next.  it could be right next to you - on the other side.  you could be standing on top of it.  you just don't know.  it’s like what jonathan says to nancy in her bedroom - “it can’t get us in here.”  and she says, “we don’t know that.”

the later seasons of stranger things, by comparison, did not scare me at all.  season two was like a zombie movie - hordes of weak enemies that you can just shoot with a gun.  and season 3 was even less frightening - upping the ante and making things gorier, more explosive, and bigger just isn't the vibe they set in S1.  i'm not scared of that giant goop monster.  it's like godzilla.  it's not horror; it's just a lot of noise.

the unsettling, "creep" factor that made season 1 so effective was gone.  it just turned into a regular old monster movie, and i didn't find that particularly interesting.

3. illogical, captain

a while ago there was a wave of pushback against people complaining about plot holes, but you know what?  there is, in fact, an appropriate place for us to talk about plausibility, as well as the point at which our suspension of disbelief collapses.

ST3 is a bona fide plausibility disaster.  i did not believe half of the story, because it was not unfolding in a believable way.

half of the plot points in this season would not have happened if the characters had been behaving with any kind of sense.  it is absolutely impossible for me to believe that none of these children IMMEDIATELY went to joyce or hopper the minute they knew something weird was going on.  it makes no sense.  after the shit they've seen?  it makes sense in season 1, because the kids are still so young that they have that kind of magical thinking that makes all of this seem kind of like an adventure.  but they're teenagers now, and developmentally, they’re past that stage.  they know the evil creature is back and they're pretty sure it's possessing billy?  for some unfathomable reason, they don't go to an adult, but try to trap billy in the sauna and just see what happens.  the other group has actual proof that russian soldiers are up to something shady in the mall?  they don't tell an adult; they send a TEN YEAR-OLD in through the AIR DUCTS to investigate the secret room guarded by MEN WITH GUNS.

this is ridiculous.  none of this should have happened.  none of this WOULD have happened.  it breaks the boundaries of disbelief.  it completely sabotages the audience’s engagement with the story - joyce and hopper's whole detour with alexei and murray is so dull, because its entire purpose is to bring hop and joyce up to speed on something that we, the audience, already know.  the other characters already found out this stuff, but did not communicate it - the gate is being opened again in a russian lab underground.  there's no suspense for us.  nothing new is revealed.  we're just waiting for them to hurry up and finish finding out so we can move on to the next thing.

moreover: there are so many other problems besides just "these characters would have talked to each other."  why on earth would murray, whose sole characteristic is extreme paranoia, take alexei wandering around the festival for hot dogs and carnival games.  why would hopper be so virulently against the possibility that weird shit might be happening again?  does he remember the past year or what?  how on earth would the kids be able to fight off that massive monster with an ax and a hunting rifle?  it's made out of dead guts and bones; why does it care if they shoot it?!  how in the WORLD is this russian facility so penetrable?  i'm sorry, it's just - beyond believable.  it doesn't have cameras?  the russians guards really can't tell that murray isn't a native speaker?  they don't check his id when they don't recognize him?  joyce and hopper really just got that lucky, to be asked a question and have “smile and nod” be the right answer?  nobody ever got shot?  it's silly.  it's just silly.  so many things - erica uses the "Open" button to open the elevator door in order to let steve and robin and dustin inside, but once the elevator is at the bottom of the shaft, robin explains the door's inexplicable non-opening because......you apparently need a keycard to use the buttons????  THAT MAKES NO SENSE; ERICA JUST USED THE BUTTONS A SECOND AGO.

even the entire endgame of this season is a contradiction!  if the mind-flayer survived el closing the gate last time, it doesn't make sense that closing the gate this time would kill it.  literally the entire plot of last season was "we need to get this thing out of will, because the creature will die once the gate is closed, and we want to make sure will doesn't die with it."  but apparently the creature didn't die upon closing the gate; it just got trapped in our dimension.  but now apparently it WILL die upon closing the gate.  for whatever fucking reason.

i'm sorry, but that’s a mess.  that’s a bona fide mess.

4. watch your tone

i honestly think the tonal change is the thing that made me the most frustrated about this season.  it's possible to have a terrible plot and still stay relatively true to your characters - you'll still have a bad season, but at least you didn't bastardize your characters in the process.

i had issues with S2 and i definitely was not as impressed with it as i was with S1, but at least in S2 joyce and hopper were recognizable.  in S3, i felt like i was watching strangers.  the tonal shift was bizarre and off-putting, more so with hopper than joyce, but it affected both of them.  

even as early as the very beginning of this season, i was feeling weird about how often hopper was being used for comedy.  and as the season progressed, this trend only became more pronounced.  almost every scene we had of him felt silly - and not like there was just something funny in the scene for me to laugh at, but like the audience was almost being asked to laugh AT him.  like he was constantly the butt of the joke.  

this really bothered me.  from that incredibly sincere and heart-wrenching portrayal of him in season 1, when they kept him rooted in the trauma of losing his daughter and the breakdown of his marriage, and then how that same trauma made him so driven to save will and protect the kids - what a change.  even in season 2 i was frustrated how the throughline of his daughter wasn’t touched again until the very last episode, and now in season 3 we’ve left that part of him so far behind that he's just there for us to laugh at.  we're supposed to laugh at scenes of him being drunk and a mess.  every scene he's in is either him arguing with joyce for comedic relief or being way over the top with alexei or the mayor.  he was like a caricature of himself, and i didn't recognize him.  

joyce suffered from the same thing, just by virtue of proximity.  she spent almost all of her time in this season with hopper, and virtually all of that time was taken up with silly shenanigans or comically overblown arguing.  what a departure from the desperate mother of season 1, who was maligned by everyone in town and only taken seriously by the audience.  now it’s the audience who are supposed to be chuckling at her.  

i dunno.  the tone shift was very dramatic, very obvious, and it impacted the entire season.  are we supposed to be taking this seriously or is it supposed to be a joke?  a little bit of humor to break tension can be a good thing, but when it's constant, it confuses the mood.  

and i personally don't think it was appropriate or respectful to either of these characters, in this case.

SMALLER THINGS THAT BOTHERED ME:

this show has 100% hit maximum character saturation.  by the end of this season there were 13 core characters onscreen at the same time, in the same scene!  it’s too many people!  they cannot reasonably develop that many people in the space allotted.

i still am not interested in max.  i don't feel anything for her.  she doesn't feel real.  i don't hate her, but she's just an empty vessel, and i really do think she's superfluous to this show.  i think you could remove her with very little reworking and the show would be stronger for it.  (they TRIED to do something interesting with billy, and i might have cared if we had been given literally any reason to care about him previously, but there was no investment earned there.  they didn't do the front-end work to make him somebody we were interested in.)

weird relationship sunderings from previous seasons.  i felt very strange about jonathan barely even seeing will this entire season.  i felt very strange about steve having almost zero contact with nancy.  i felt very strange about joyce hardly ever interacting with her kids.  all of these were core relationships - the characters were BUILT on those relationships, and they don't feel real outside of them.  not seeing these characters devote time to these relationships makes it feel like i'm watching a slightly different show.

the VIOLENCE.  apparently this is a beat-em-up now???  i really felt like every other scene somebody was getting beaten to a bloody pulp.  there was SO much smashing and bashing and throwing people into walls and fistfights and head trauma like - first of all, i find that stuff pretty boring, and second of all, all of these people should be in the hospital.  

the GORE.  other people’s mileage may vary, obviously; i just didn't like that.  i looked away at the scene with the rat, and all this...goopy dissolving human shit, and the stabbings, and just...general grossness level - season 1 managed to be bloodcurdlingly terrifying without any of this stuff.

i know this borders on nitpicky, but yet more medical malfeasance - another example of someone receiving an injection via the mysterious 90 degree angle neck route, plus - was anyone else losing it at the fact that steve and robin “puked up” a drug they received……..via injection??????  IT’S NOT IN THEIR STOMACHS, FOLKS!  THEY CAN’T PUKE IT UP!  IT DOESN’T WORK LIKE THAT!

the complete lack of follow-up to last season.  the whole S3 plotline (such as it is) feels like a weird side quest.  last season seemed to be furthering the mythos and setting us up for "there are other children like el/brenner is alive" - but this season, that fact appears to have been forgotten by everyone (even el!!!) and has nothing to do with the story that we're given, which is a goofy and redundant story about russians opening a secret lab under the mall which requires us to solve the exact same problem as last season (closing the gate).

this show's inability to keep certain throughlines in its headlights/keep things visible on the periphery instead of dropping them completely and then bringing them back whenever they feel like they need it again.   i already talked about hopper’s daughter as an example of this (done well in S1 and poorly in S2 and S3).  another example is that scene with nancy and her mom - it’s such a good scene, and yet it misses out on so much resonance, because they completely dropped the plotline of karen feeling locked out of her kids’ lives and desperately wanting to connect with them.  if they had continued to reference that throughout season 2, then this scene would have been so much more powerful.   as a third example, season 3 starts with a clear context/premise, and it’s INTERESTING - the town landscape changing because of the mall, business slow to non-existent, small town discontent over big corporations moving in, hopper pressured to break up the protest against mayor kline when he should have let it proceed - and then the show just drops that entire context.  you expect season 3 to stay rooted in the "our small town is being strangled by this mall" and then to eventually deal with the revitalization of hawkins, but nah.  it's never mentioned again.

LASTLY:

i'm not really gonna get into hopper "dying," because he's, like...clearly not dead.  but the whole situation was stupid and contrived (i was so sick of that arnold schwarzenegger lookalike by the last episode, god that whole thing was so dumb) and it's even cheaper knowing that he'll obviously be back.

what i AM gonna say is that i was livid that they brought back that peter gabriel cover of "heroes" to end this season.  their use of that song in S1 blew my mind - it had me stunned with how GORGEOUS it was and just, the way it worked in that particular scene - absolutely incredible.  floored me.  gave me chills.  to recycle it at the end of such a poorly constructed season made me so mad.  yOU CAN'T MAKE ME FEEL THINGS JUST BY REUSING THIS SONG.  I REFUSE TO HAVE EMOTIONS JUST BECAUSE YOU PULL OUT THIS BEAUTIFUL TRACK THAT YOU ONCE USED TO GREAT EFFECT; YOUR STORY WAS STILL TERRIBLE THIS TIME AROUND; DO NOT TRY TO TRICK FEELINGS OUT OF US THAT HAVEN’T BEEN EARNED.  

and that's it.  i’m sure later i’ll think of other things i neglected to mention here, but...yeah.  i was not impressed.