#like this song is funny enough about more healthy relationship with problems

[stinkyhyena9000]

oooooo for the playlist thing, what about #52, 25, and 5?

You got:

C'etait toi - Billy Joel [ x ]

Monitor - Siouxsie and the Banshees [ x ]

The Glacier House - The Crane Wives [ x ]

[canthelpit0]

Skinny

Pairing: bf!Chris sturniolo x Reader

Wordcount: 700

Summary: you talk to your boyfriend about the internet (literally just the song skinny, by Billie Eilish)

Warnings: really short, angst(?), body image, the internet, hurt/comfort (?), direct quotes, idfk

(Litterally wrote this during a 1h car trip, so it’s rlly short. I was listening to the song while writing this. Hope you guys like it tho <3)

I recently met the triplets in LA. We quickly became friends, but I always felt drawn to Chris the most.

Sure they’re all considerably hot, but there was just something about Chris that made me feel something..

Turns out I wasn’t the only one that felt it, and soon enough Chris confessed to me. Wich meant a lot, considering he has commitment issues, but he was willing to commit… for me?

We dated for a while until I realized,

I fell in love for the first time.

I may only be 20, but those 20 years felt so eternally long. Chris was everything I’d been waiting for all my life, being the hopeless romantic.

I started to go to the gym more often, and eat healthier. Not for any other reason then, I was happy.

I also started to notice that Chris’ Pepsi habits got better, and he started to eat healthier as well.

We were talking one day, both of us sitting on opposite sides of Chris’ bed.

“People say I look happy, just because I got skinny.” I sigh.

The only reason why I look happier is because I have a working healthy relationship, because I’m in love. Not because my body changed.

Chris tilts his head to the side his eyes slightly furrowed as if asking me if I’m serious.

But the ‘old’ me was still me. Maybe even the real me, my actual personality when I’m on my own, And I think she is pretty.

I never really had body image issues. I never struggled with eating.

I got famous pretty young, like 17 or so. And back then I was a kid, of corse I liked to eat. I wasn’t even that big really. I was just a kid, I didn’t care about it too much.

I’m not magically happier than I was before. I still cry.

“People say I’m acting my age now.” I sigh. “Am I already on the way out, am I ‘falling off’?”

Chris tilts his head not saying anything just trying to process my words. As if my words are outlandish to him.

“I feel like a bird in a cage, you know. With all these expectations and rumors.” I sigh softly. All these things have been bugging me for a while.

“I’m sorry.” He looks at me with not pitty but understanding. “You were my secret,” when we started dating we hadn’t told the internet. “- and I didn’t get to keep it”

But like couples do we would go out on dates. With both of us being touchy people, PDA was big. But a random fan took a picture of us kissing and it spread like wildfire.

I sigh heavily at the memories. How betrayed I had felt by those so called fans looking into my business.

“The internet is hungry for the meanest kind of funny, and somebody’s gotta feed it.” I purse my lips closing my eyes briefly.

“I suppose that’s true” Chris breaths out his eyes locked on mine.

“People really think suddenly all my problems are gone and I’m all happy, not because I’m in a healthy and stable relationship but because i got skinny.” I huff working myself up, and getting angrier and angrier at something that seems like nothing.

“Do you still cry?” I ask rhetorically, my previous breathy and small voice now loud and clear. “I mean I do.” I reply to my own question.

I look at my boyfriend and the way he looks back at me with such understanding.

We look at each other in silence. “I love you. And I’ve loved you for so long. And that’s not going to change.”

Chris says firmly a small gentle smile forming on his lips. Chris opens his arms waiting for me to come to him.

I’m not upset per se, it’s just annoying seeing people comment on my body and happiness and whatnot. It’s none of their business.

I’m a content creator. I didn’t ask for them to criticize me.

I sit up shuffling over to Chris. I let myself fall into his embrace.

But in Chris’, the love of my life’s arms, like this, it doesn’t matter anyway.

Masterlist

A/N: hope you guys like this style of writing. If h goys want to be on the taglist comment. Asks & requests are open 💕

‼️please don’t copy my work/idea‼️

Taglist: @muwapsturniolo , @sturnad , @iluvm4ttsturni0l0 , @evie-sturns , @me09love , @fratbrochrisgf , @spideylovin , @chrissgirlsstuff , @stunza , @whicked-hazlatwhore , @sturniooolos , @ecliphttlunar , @orangeypepsi , @klaus223492 , @char112244 , @sst7niolo , @slut4chriss , @mattsturniololoverr , @th3-3d3n-g4rd3n , @st7rnioioss , @t1llysblogs , @nonat-111 , @blahbel668 , @rockstarchr1s , @sturnsintrouble , @nayveetbhh , @tillies33ssss , @sturncakez , @strnilo , @somegirlfromasgard , @mattslovelygf , @sturnsmaeve , @sturnstvr , @lucianastrun , @jnkvivi , @jamiesturniolo , @chr1sgirl4life , @h3arts4harry , @whosthislyssbitch , @jamiesturniolo , @sturniololover-09 , @zayyluvz , @sturnzsblog

[balillee]

my unpopular dsmp opinions, some of which genuinely should be popular

c!dream has crossed the moral event horizon and is irredeemable. once you cross that threshold, you're no longer a 'morally grey' character.

pre-recorded, heavily produced lore killed the lore. it was cool, sure, but you completely misunderstand the magic that the smp had when people watched it initially. the story is improv and that's how we like it. we can tell the cc's have lost interest in it, you can admit that to us, we'll understand, just stop lying to me.

c!dream's pov isn't necessary to understand his character or his motivations. if you've watched literally any c!primeboys stream he's basically spelled it out for you.

i don't understand how fans can dislike l'manberg or have claimed to be against it since the beginning. i honestly don't get it. what's so bad about wanting your own spot where you make your own rules and skirt accountability that has been used to technically oppress you before - and, before someone who never saw the earlier streams tries to disagree with this, the og l'manberg crew were imprisoned for shit that everyone else on the server was practically encouraged to do. also, what do you have against fun and happiness?

i think some of you forget that 'hybrids' aren't a thing, discounting c!ranboo. there's no piglin hybrids, c!techno is just a pig. there's no avian hybrids, c!phil is just a man with wings. there's no creeper hybrids, c!sam is just a creeper who's indecently exposed from the hips down. canonically there's no hybrids, and therefore no hybrid discrimination. people ran with that concept too much.

the loss and the fanon rewriting of the early lore up until pogtopia has ruined fandom perception of c!dream and the og l'manberg boys. c!tommy is more morally white than you think he is, and c!dream has always been a villain - he massacres and he kills and he destroys and he schemes and he always has broken his own rules. no wonder the boys wanted their own space after how they were treated.

i think ranboo oftentimes forgets his own lore. he brings stuff up that c!ranboo may have done, such as exploding the community house to frame c!tommy, holding onto Cat, and it goes absolutely nowhere. we've gotten all of these developments in his story but they have never been expanded on, and we're nowhere closer to figuring out his relationship to c!dream and what his other side is and honestly i see no hope that we'll be any closer to knowing even by the end of the year.

your characters don't all have to be morally grey for the story itself to be morally grey. this is fiction - some people can be nothing but evil and others can be nothing but good. being purely good or evil doesn't mean that you're one dimensional, either.

c!dream apologists have ruined c!dream for me. he's not a good person. how about you let me enjoy a villain for who he actually is, rather for than your percieved woobified ragdoll you pass off as c!dream.

the story was better when there was a central writer. it was brilliant back when wilbur wrote it to be that the environment drives the characters and the story, and it was really good in early s2 up until techno's execution day when it was more character driven. since then, the amount of autonomy people have over their characters without any central 'director', as it were, has been a detriment to the story overall. there needs to still be one overarching figure or director or writer.

not everyone is a main character. just because they have a pov, doesn't mean they're a main character. some characters have such little impact on the overall plot and describing everyone as a main character oversaturates the story and makes some characters seem more important than they are.

the egg lore had so much potential up until it didn't. all that built up threat that we were expecting and we still don't even know what the egg wants really other than just controlling people. does it hatch?

genuinely, if there's no major plot developments by the end of the year (and let's be honest, it's a very big possibility at this point), a few of the more prominent members of the server should do a podcast style stream talking about where the story would have gone, because at least then we would have gotten somewhat closer to a conclusion.

c!techno is a villain and an asshole and a bad person. he stops caring for people once their interests don't align with his or if they look at him funny. he makes meta-jokes about his own tyrannical and oppressive nature. stop taking that away from him. he's a bad person. cc!techno does a fabulous job portraying that in a comedic manner and the balancing of him being a deeply flawed person with deeply flawed morals and ideas with his comedically-portrayed stubbornness and lack of willingness to hear out opposing viewpoints is incredible. i want to like characters who are arseholes for the sake of being arseholes, and who refuse to take into account the hurt they've caused either out of self-righteousness or because they don't care, so let me. he's the anti-peacemaker, LET ME HIM ENJOY HIM FOR THAT!!!!

i think tommy and wilbur's way of doing lore is my favourite. relies heavily on improv, voice acting, sprite acting and facial expressions. really shows off the acting props and they pull off the emotional moments well for the insanity of the creative medium.

i'm not a fan of fan-music. i find songs about media i'm into difficult to listen to. coincidentally i'm also not a fan of shit like slam poetry or live music/musicals/pantomimes.

the death of l'manberg killed people's motivation to go on the server casually. i've talked about it more in depth before, but destroying what was a central, driving environment for the story killed momentum and motivation. imagine in an episode of she-ra, the princess alliance just nuke the freight zone and all of the members of the horde just have to deal with it. that would be shit.

until season 3 has some momentum, i'm counting the end of the smp as january 20th. that had a conclusion. season 3 has... whores, technoblade and tommyinnit. that's about it.

i wasn't a fan of the development of c!tubbo joining las nevadas. i preferred snowchester and the walled city conflict. give c!tubbo some backbone and some badassery. also tubbo where's the fucking nuke bro if you're shelving that plotline just tell us on like an alt stream what the plan was i beg

add like 2 or 3 new people to the server so that michael mcchill has someone to talk to and so that there's something always happening on the server. it gives the og's more motivation to return if things are happening in and out of canon and it'll help with momentum, and who knows? maybe they can write their own story/stories.

i really think that c!sam is an underrated character. he's multilayered, extremely interesting, and the dichotomy of his loyalty to his job and how far down the rabbithole that's taken him versus the genuine love he has for his friends that drives him to do what he does out of wanting to do right by them is brilliant. i don't talk about c!sam enough.

STOP HAVING FUCKING VILLAIN ARCS!!! I'M FUCKIN SICK OF IT!!!! i want to see more characters who see everyone else being absolute selfish, abhorrent cunts and go 'if nobody else is going to be a good person, i fucking will'. GIVE ME SOME MORAL WHITENESS!!! IT'S INTERESTING AND MORALLY GOOD CHARACTERS ARE FUN!!!

let tommyinnit build cobblestone towers. everyone bullied him too much for how ugly they were and the one he built outside of the prison looked genuinely really nice. it gives the boy something to do.

i'm a fan of the revive book and the canon lives system. don't ask me why, but i think it might just be the morbidity of it. it adds to c!dream's god complex persona, and i think the fragility of death itself is a really fun concept. not enough fan cc's have made connections with that and c!mumza, and it could make for cool fanfic.

ranboo your house is fucking ugly. it's an eyesore

c!niki, and to some extent now c!jack and c!fundy, are boring me and ruining my mood. i think c!jack is the closest to being an actually interesting sympathetic villain, mainly because nobody else seems to realise that c!niki is a villain. not a good one imo, but she's a villain. c!jack just has the problem of starting a new project over and over and over and over again and because of the slow in momentum for the primary cast, there hasn't been a lot of recent development for him.

not really a dream smp opinion, but if philza went full geordie accent, i would love it. i want him to, in canon, say shit like 'me n ye' instead of 'me and you' and use geordie dialect. i want him to be physically unintelligible because it's funny.

i don't really know what's up with c!foolish but i think he's a dumbass. he had a while to think about c!q's proposal and then changed his mind about joining the guy to admitted to letting him die just because. moron

i wish there was more c!eret lore. i wish he was an actual king with an actual kingdom and actual subjects and royal advisors. c!eret is far too fucking cool to be the king of nothing and nobody. fatten up the kingdom and the castle with people who work with c!eret, and don't just make it tyrannical and dictator-y to prove the point of the server's 'anarchists'. make it a healthy working environment, please - if you want moral greyness, have 'anarchists' who claim to care about the welfare of the server oppose a kingdom of happy people under a fair and just ruler because their ideologies clash.

the server needs more characters who oppose anarchy in more peaceful ways, or passively wish for systems to be a part of. i think a chaos vs order conflict ending only in mutual understanding where everyone understands that they should just leave each other alone would slot nicely into the story that's been created so far.

you need to have watched all of the previous arcs to understand the story. i've seen people argue that they don't need to know about earlier lore to understand the prison, but that's the equivalent of only watching the final season of pretty little liars and expecting to understand the context of what's going on.

some characters aren't that morally grey. some characters, take c!tommy for example, are definitely on the whiter side for the morality scale, he's just an asshole. he's abrasive and rude and a dickhead but he also doesn't agree with terrorism, he's patriotic, he strives for a better world, he's apologetic, but he's also a fucking BITCH.

you can add onto this if you want, but not if you're a c!dream apologist. nobody likes your opinions

[emchant3d]

Can I have more thots on Maroon being a Steddie song pls?

I'M SO GLAD YOU ASKED ACTUALLY

So first of all to get the angstiest part out of the way: "And I wake with your memory over me / That's a real fucking legacy to leave" is, to me, Steve about Eddie in canon after his death. Pining after a man who he could have had a connection with, a man who deserved better and never deserved the mess he became tangled up with, Steve being one of the only people who knows the truth about Eddie Munson - that he was a good man, a sweet kind funny weird man who never wanted to hurt anybody, who loved fiercely and ended tragically because he believed he had to prove himself when he never did. Steve is haunted by this, the memory of Eddie, feeling as if he has to hold onto these thoughts and feelings because so few people know this truth and it's Steve's job to preserve it even at the cost of his own heart, realizing just how much of an almost Eddie truly was for him. He almost knew him. He almost had his friendship. And maybe, someday, if they'd had the time, he would have almost had his heart - and that's the legacy Eddie leaves for Steve.

And on a canon-divergent note, if Eddie HAD lived, if Steve HAD been able to reach that level of care and love with Eddie that he was so so close to having, to me Maroon tells the story of two people who clung to one another after saving the world. Living in a world that doesn't know how close it came to ending and latching on to the few people who know the truth, building these trauma bonds together that accelerate their relationships, that land Steve and Eddie in a messy, tangled, intense relationship where they fall hard and deep and feel as if they've always known one another - "When the morning came, we were cleaning incense off your / Vinyl shelf 'cause we lost track of time again / Laughing with my feet in your lap / Like you were my closest friend" showing the happy beginning of it, ""How'd we end up on the floor, anyway?" you say / Your roommate's cheap-ass screw-top rosé, that's how / I see you every day now" being together constantly, maybe even moving in with one another to escape the bad memories and becoming way too codependent.

They're so, so happy together that they let the relationship carry them in a way they shouldn't - they allow the relationship to become their focus, lose themselves to it and push aside the things about themselves that they do need to work on because they're clinging so hard to one another. It keeps them from growing and moving on. Everything is fine because they have one another, but that's not realistic. It's not healthy, and that's how we land at "When the silence came, we were shaking, blind and hazy / How the hell did we lose sight of us again? / Sobbing with your head in your hands / Ain't that the way shit always ends?" and at "You were standing hollow-eyed in the hallway / Carnations you had thought were roses, that's us". Eventually, things fall apart because love, as important as it is, just isn't enough when there's such a shaky foundation beneath it.

They love each other, desperately and intensely, but their trauma leads to them fighting and lashing out and not communicating, and eventually, it all comes crumbling down, resentment builds and they don't even know how they got here, arguing all the time, angry at one another, the distance that feels entirely uncrossable between them - "The mark they saw on my collarbone / The rust that grew between telephones / The lips I used to call home / So scarlet, it was maroon."

It leads to a painful, messy, but necessary breakup, forces them to confront their own demons, and makes Steve deal with his tendency to throw love at the people he cares about in the desperate hope that they'll accept it and love him back and makes Eddie deal with his urge to run or turn away from the difficult conversations and tough problems he hates to face.

They end up growing within themselves in a way that is vitally necessary for them personally, and then eventually, somehow, someway - they work back to one another, to the loves of their lives, and they become SteveandEddie again.

sorry for the essay about them I just have a lot of feelings about them hopefully this makes ANY SENSE AT ALL

[b0rista]

i don't really know how tumblr reqs works but you write for marco right ?? 🤩 can you write some hcs for him 😟😟 ( sorry if I sound rude or dry 😭😭😭 )

— 𝐃𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐂𝐎 𝐁𝐎𝐃𝐓.

WARNINGS: language.

AUTHOR'S NOTES: NONFOGNO it wasn't rude or dry at all!! lowkey i got super excited reading this because LAWD i've been wanting to write some marco dating hcs 🥺 i love him way too much like this isn't healthy bye

"you don't get it— you had my heart before i was even given the chance to refuse."

without a doubt, marco's shirt was tailored with the utmost boyfriend material. this may anger some of y’all, but out of the men of the 104th, this man has to be one of the best when it comes to relationships. the epitome of perfection, dare i say. beautiful boy. 

there was probably a lot of pining going on before the two of you decided to get together, if we’re being honest. during your three years of cadet training, marco’s crush on you was absolutely and utterly hopeless. at least, that’s what he thought. the guys didn’t do much to help, either. instead of encouraging him, they teased him. after all, who the hell’s dumb enough to fall in love in a place like this? after all, you’re practically training for your own death. and while marco knew that, that didn’t make his feelings toward you any less intrusive. even while watching you swing from tree to tree during ODM training, he still caught himself gawking at your absolite effortless beauty, earning himself quite the scolding from his own conscious. hell, one time, you caught him staring at you during training, and he face planted into a tree. that time, it was commander shadis that gave him the scolding. which,, is always terrifying. 

before and during your guys’ relationship, marco’s love language is an endless amount of consolation. of course, this goes for everyone, but especially you. seeing you hopless is something that he doesn’t ever want to have to say, so with that being said, he does everything in his power to keep your spirits lifted. and if you’re ever down, he’ll know. you can’t hide your feelings from this man, he’s far too intuitive for his own good. and even if you’re fine, he’ll still go above and beyond with his words of affirmation. it’s who he is. 

during your trainee days, you spent a lot of time with him, jean, sasha, and connie. no matter the circumstances, that was your crowd. really, it was just a huddle of idiot teenagers half-assedly working to become soldiers. even so, they were the ones that got you through it. 

^ honestly, if it weren’t for marco’s constant encouragement, you likely would have quit the training to go work on the farmlands. whenever you tell him that, though, he sheepishly shuts you down, contradicting his own denial through the very thing that made you a shoulder.

“you’re giving me too much credit, y’know. i may have chipped in, but it was you that got you to where you are now. it always was, and it always will be.” 

yeah, this freckled bastard is your go-to therapist. half of the time, you don’t even go to him for help; he comes to you. it’s like he has this sense, or something- no matter how far apart the two of you are, he can feel whenever it is you’re unhappy. perhaps his intuition is just that good, or the two of you are simply soulmates, linked together through delicate intertwinement. quietly, marco believes the latter. back to the main topic of discussion, though. one of his main objectives is to solve whatever problems you may have, even if they have absolutely nothing to do with him. no matter the circumstances, it’s his duty to keep that sweet, soothing smile on your face. without it, his world is dull. 

love letters. yeah, that’s right. for his safety within the boy’s barracks, he’s asked that you keep them a secret,, but marco writes you one to two love letters a month. it isn’t a dramatic amount, and they aren’t all that lengthy, but they never fail to get you to swoon. he’s got a way with words, and when it comes to the likes of you, they’re as passionate as ever. really, he could go on and on about you, page after page, and never find himself getting bored. with every fiber of his being, he’s absolutely smitten over you.

of course, though, the letters don’t start making an appearance until after the two of you establish your relationship. which, as always, i’ll leave that up to you! however, it was probably some time during the end of your time as cadet trainees. after three whole years of helplessly pining for you, i can see him gathering enough courage to actually confess to you. with jean’s encouragement, of course (even though it was more like pRessurinG plspls). 

it can get a little overbearing at times, but marco likes to try and help you with everything and anything. you can’t quite reach that top shelf? don’t worry, he’s got you. struggling with your gear? alright, what’s the problem, he’ll fix it. you’re taking an extra moment to count horses, and he’s already rushing to lend a helping hand. at some point, you’ll have to communicate that although it’s sweet that he’s always trying to make things easier for you, he’ll have to give you the chance to actually learn a thing or do. once you do, he’ll take literally everything into consideration, and try his hardest to stop himself whenever there’s a possible learning exercise in your way. 

cheek kisses! an endless amount, at that. out of everywhere on your body, marco favors your cheeks, if he could, he’d pepper them in kisses all day long. unfortunately, though, he can’t, so he’ll stick to sneaking in little pecks in between every other hour of the day. the two of you live for those moments where he cups either side of your face, plants a sweet kiss onto your cheek, and rushed back to finish whatever it was he was meant to be doing. as expected, they always manage to leave you craving more. 

ah, jean. the third wheel you never fucking asked for. he’s such a pest, and marco refuses to get rid of him, literally ever. with that being said, he’s practically an honorary member of your guys’ relationship. the amount of times you and marco have been cozied up together on the sofa only to be very rudely interrupted by jean sLipping in between the two of you is ridiculous. you and your boyfriend have cancelled dates for this man, simply because he doesn’t want to be alone. typically, it’s jean giving marco the puppy dog eyes, and then in suite, marco giving you the puppy dog eyes, which you simply cannot resist. 

honestly, it’s nearly impossible to get this man jealous. you’ve tried, it should not be as difficult as it is. of course, i said nearly impossible. really, marco’s funny when he gets jelly. he isn’t overly edgy, or agGressive with you- he’s more,, chaotically conflicted. one night, you were feeling a bit more committed to the cause, so you mindlessly sat on reiner’s lap during dinner in the mess hall. marco, who was busy rough-housing with jean, choked. 

"iSTHATCOMFORTABLEORSOMETHING-"

reiner: 🧍‍♂️

during the quiet of the night, you enjoy tenderly kissing each and every one of his freckles you can see. starting with the ones dusted along his face, to his shoulders, to his arms, and so on. usually, marco's far too tired to fully react, but he's always softly smiling, silently admiring you while a hand tangles itself within the locks of your hair.

it's been confirmed that marco's a big brother, so that's definitely a thing. even if you've only been together for a short amount of time at this point, marco would want you to meet his family. after all, he's quite literally in love with you. why not start the formalities earlier than necessary? even if you don't make too good of an impression, he's sure that one day, his family will be one that you're apart of. he wouldn't have it any other way.

he's flustered easily. the smallest thing could happen, and he's red in the face, stumbling over his words, all of it. of course, you only find it endearing. rake your fingers through his hair while he's a blushing mess, you'll never get enough of it. beneath your touch, he crumbles.

one night, after a rougher session of training, you took hold of marco's busted and blistered knuckles, which had been dirtied on the field. while he thought nothing of it, you moved them to your lips, planting a sweet kiss along the bridge as a form of comfort. he absolutely melted, and it was the birth of a beautiful pattern. whenever his fists are battered, your kiss mends them right back together.

during chores, you and him tend to hum together in sync. it's a surprisingly pleasing harmony, and it's become a shared habit to make up silly melodies to hum to whenever you run out. and whenever you're in need of comfort, expect to hear him quietly humming one of the songs the two of you made up while softly rubbing your back. vice versa, as well.

one time, you raspberried his bare stomach. he's never felt so violated in his life. another time, he did the same to you, and the fact that you laughed? yeah, it's an often occurrence. raspberries are real in this relationship, bitch.

[spaceorphan18]

I read with interest your view and that of @hopefulobjectmiracle about tumblr Klaine fandom. Is there more shipping these days than 2010-15? I ask because there seems to be a smaller group that only ship Kurt with Blaine but there seems to be a huge rise in Kurtbastian and Hevans shippers. Likewise, there’s many more pezberry or faberry shippers. And a lot more of those shippers trying to discredit Blaine or Brittany as OTP for Kurt and Santana. There seems to be new younger people joining Tumblr declaring a love for all things Klaine, and then a week later shipping Kurt with everybody else!! Has there been a change since the show aired?

Hi Nonny! :)

Hmmm.... There's not really a clear answer to this because the way shipping evolved is different than people just finding things now.

There are kind of two different things going on here -- Kurt related shipping and non-Kurt (blaine/klaine) shipping. I can't tell you much about non related Kurt things -- however, I will say that Faberry was HUGE when the show was on. It's a subsection of the fandom I never interacted with but it was around in season 1, and loud enough that the show makes nod to it from season 2 forward. Brittana was always around, too, and the reason Brittana became a thing on the show was, partly, due to fans crying out that they should be a couple -- and more than the throwaway joke the writers made in the first season.

I don't know what happened to those ships over time, or how the evolved since the show ended -- I'm sorry :/

But now, I will tell you the epic history of Kurt shipping. (Again. i should really dig out my old notes on this, lol)

Here we go long post...

I found it! I'm going to quote myself so I don't have to write it out again, lol. This was originally from an ask about the BBO (Better Boyfriend Olympics), but it'll work here, too.

Okay, so let’s go back to 2010 when there wasn’t a Klaine fandom, there was a Kurt fandom.  A lot of the BBO stemmed out of the Kurt’s Boyfriend Shipping wars of 2010.

Back then, there was just a Kurt fandom, and a lot of opinions about who he should date.  Believe it or not, Kurt was shipped a lot with the other guys on the show, there was a healthy dose of Kurt/Finn, but Kurt/Puck was huge, and there was a smattering of Kurt/Mike (I never really did see much Kurt/Artie now that I think of it, which is kind of funny in retrospect, but I’m sure it’s out there.)  Anyway - when the show announced Kurt was getting a boyfriend – well, things began to get heated up.

Three big ships emerged

Kurt/Sam - because the rumor was that Sam was originally supposed to be Kurt’s bf (probably not, but that rumor was big at the time).  Btw, they were the canoe ship (I have no idea why) and was also known as Kum (rolls-eyes).  This ship’s fanbase was so huge and lasted so long, that the show felt the need to address it head on in Season Two’s Rumours (not a joke).

Kurt/Karofsky - Also known as Kurtofsky, they were also called themselves the Pirate ship (god, Idk why, shipping wars are weird, yo).  These people were also really passionate, mostly about Dave, but liked the whole idea that Kurt would save Dave and they would have this weird - enemies to loves love affair or something.  I don’t know, I could never get past the squicky assault aspect, but whatever.

Kurt/Blaine - which. at the time, was… the biggest possibility? It’s funny cause the other two ships were just as big as the Klaine ship, and really the fighting became over who was going to be the best option for Kurt.

And that’s the thing.  Fans of Kurt were so passionate about who was best for Kurt, because everyone had seen him go through hell and back on the show, so his boyfriend needed to be perfect for him.  And you know who was perfect (at first) – Blaine.  More on that in a second…

However, Blaine brought his own bit of baggage – namely fans of Darren Criss (and/or Starkid fans).  Unlike Chord Overstreet or Max Adler, people knew who Darren was before he was on Glee.  So his own fandom joined in on the Klaine of it all.  At first it was all fine – as the shipping wars continued, it was less about Kurt vs Blaine and more about Klaine vs the other shippers.  Well, that was going to change….

Original Song happened and Kurt and Blaine got together ending the question of who would ultimately be Kurt’s boyfriend.  And things were nice and cozy headed into season 3.  You’d think the Kurt/Sam and Kurt/Karofsky ships would die out, but not really, they stuck around for a long time, and kinda morphed into something else.

See, The First Time happened.  And for the first time Blaine wasn’t the perfect prince that he was in season 2 – he had more of a developed personality, and more flaws.  And… some people didn’t like it.  (Also added to the mix was Sebastian – and the Seblaine and Kurtbastian ships were born, but those kinda go off on their own thing and I’m not really going to bring them up much here.)  Anyway, what really got fandom split was Dance With Somebody.

You had two sides of an argument, people who saw Kurt’s POV and people who saw Blaine’s POV – and guess what happened.  The two sides began to fight with each other over who was “right” in the argument.  (My god…) And thus started what fandom started referring to as The Better Boyfriend Olympics.

See - for reasons I don’t fully understand - instead of seeing that each of the boys have a fault and each were wrong in the episode, each side wanted to say that their side, and their POV was the correct way – that one boyfriend was more oppressed and the other was not as good a partner.

On the Kurt side, though, you had a lot of the old Kurt fans and ships who didn’t like Blaine (and/or didn’t want Blaine as his partner) so they vehemently decided that unless Blaine was the perfect boyfriend again, he didn’t deserve to be with Kurt.  Meanwhile, you had the Blaine fans, many of them Darren fans who wanted Blaine to have more depth to him than just being Kurt’s boyfriend, and not being Kurt fans first (or originally) they were going to push back at the Kurt fans who were lashing out at Blaine.

Compounding this was the fact that during season 3, there were so many cast members and characters that unless you were Finchel, you were begging for scraps and your featured episode to come along.  Meanwhile - Kurt got a ton of screen time, but didn’t sing much, while Blaine sang a lot more, but didn’t get much story.  The Kurt fans resented that Blaine was always singing.  The Blaine fans were annoyed that the Kurt fans resented it, and tried to remind the Kurt fans that Blaine barely got any development.

Either way, a war had begun.  And then The Break Up happened.

Now Kurt fans had a specific reason to point at – Blaine being a terrible boyfriend.  He cheated.  He’s terrible.  The end.

The fandom was not firmly split into sides - you were either a Kurt fan - a lot of them who HATED Blaine - partly because he was getting more attention at the time, partly cause he did sing more, partly because they were made up of Kurt ships that didn’t work out, and partly cause they saw so much of themselves in Kurt that they projected onto him their own feelings, and loving Blaine was not a part of that projection.  Or you were a Blaine fan - who spent a lot of time defending Blaine to the point of exhaustion, and became so resentful of Kurt that they wished Blaine could be with anyone else because Kurt (fans) didn’t understand Blaine and should just stop trying.

Weren’t there any Klainers you ask? Ha, well…. Klainers, people actually liked Kurt AND Blaine were stereotyped into two categories.  Category A) the really really loud fanbase (usually on Twitter) that harassed the creators, RM, Chris, Darren, various crew about Klaine every second that they got – to the point that it started to feel embarrassing (that’s probably my own projection).   Category B) People who thought (think) that Chris and Darren were (are) in a secret relationship.  (Spoiler alert they aren’t, never have been, and never will be.)  The two of these categories overlapped A LOT, and many of the fans of one boy or the other just disassociated completely.

You could still be a fan of the Klaine relationship, but you had a preference to which boy you were actually a fan of – you couldn’t like both, or else you were a Klainer, and that was not cool.  (I spent a long time NOT identifying as anything, and trying to make sure everything I did and said was equal – a) cause I was new to fandom and b) cause I hated that either one or the other of these characters were villainized so frequently.)

Anyway - Season 4 continued.  Adam showed up, and Kurt fans got all excited, but the problem was that a lot of them saw him as the perfect boyfriend again – not a real character but a prop that could make Kurt look good and be everything for Kurt.  Look, I liked Adam, I did, but he was underdeveloped, and this weird idea that your boyfriend needs to be perfect in order to be a functioning relationship is just unrealistic.  I digress.  Meanwhile, we didn’t get a lot of Kurt POV, which didn’t help things, and meant even more projection over his character.

Meanwhile, the Blaine fans had formed their own community, which became viciously defensive of him.  I think the whole fandom was toxic during this time for a lot of reasons, and I really wanted to quit it.  Many people did – the show wasn’t being fun anymore.

Season 5 came along, the boys got back together, tempers simmered, but the whole idea of the Better Boyfriend Olympics came back every time a conflict happened.  Arguments about who was the better boyfriend ensued, gatekeeping as to why their pick was best and why your opinion sucked still ran through the fandom.  Not helping was the fact that Cory had died, and the creators, actors, and crew – as well as media – was tired of Glee.

The one nice thing, though was that a lot of the old crowd had moved on by then, and there was an influx of newer people coming in during season 5 (and season 6) – they weren’t here for the season 3 droughts and season 4 wars, and brought in a newer and fresher perspective.

But still - we had the end of season 5 and the summer of spoilers and season 6 to get through.  At this point, the Kurt and Blaine camps had moved to their parts of the internet and really not speaking much to each other if they could help it.  When an argument happened on the show, the same kind of Better Boyfriend Olympics came up again – one boyfriend was worse than the other, and unless they changed xyz they were not good enough for the other.  But at this point, it was incredibly tiring.  I know that I was just ready for the show to be done with.

I should say, as an aside, not helping things were the rise of some rather vocal BNF-ish fans, who dug their heels in about their own opinions.  The refusal to even acknowledge that one side or the other might be right, or have valid points was not helping anything.  A lot of people on both sides refused to even listen to the points on the other side – and instead of being frustrated at the show, the creators, or whatever, they took it against each other, which wasn’t fun to watch either.

Season 6 happened - Blainofsky happened, and that killed enthusiasm for the season on both sides, most people just kind of wanted it to be over.  And then the ending came quickly, and I think a lot of people who were just plain unhappy about everything left for good.

The Better Boyfriend Olympics, or this weird competition that always pitted the boys and their fandoms against each other in the name of one being better than the other, leveled off after this.  I won’t give myself /that/ much credit - but one reason I created @todaydreambelievers was to give fans of both Kurt and Blaine a safe place where we could enjoy and discuss both boys without the BBO rearing its head.  And you know what – it did mend a few hearts.

For the most part, it’s been pretty quiet since.  Fandom is quieter, but I think the people who have come into it after the show has ended are a lot less judgmental and argumentative.  (I suppose it helps if you know how the story is going to end.)  And the cool thing, for me, is finding a group of people who enjoy Kurt and Blaine equally (or respectfully) – and reclaiming the name Klainer as a good thing.

I’ll end by saying this – it’s been relatively peaceful, even with the influx of new people throughout the years, but I have been seeing shades of BBO pop up again.  Look, you don’t have to like Klaine to be a fan of one or the other of them.  But there are a lot of terrible things going on in the world, a lot of things to be angry and get indignant about.  How a fictional couple was written ten years ago is not one of them.  Be respectful of people, and know that maybe the side you understand better isn’t the only side worth listening to.  ;)

////////////////////

So, I suppose that's part 1 of this full picture. Onto Part 2.

Here's the thing -- I've stayed, mostly, in my little tumblr buble over the past five years -- blissfully unaware that I suppose things were going on around me. Except... they really weren't. Until the pandemic happened, and Glee went to Netflix internationally, and a whole bunch of young kids grew up and started watching the show.

By the time I ended TDB in 2019, there weren't many of us left. I knew there was our small, dedicated group of fans. The tinhatters (the group who thought Chris and Darren were in some kind of relationship. spoiler alert -- they're not). And I know the Kurtbastian fans have been kicking around for a while. But no one was around in huge numbers.

And then boom - pandemic, and I'm shocked (not in a bad way) that this show has already seen a resurgence. The weirdest part, for me, is the fact that not only is history repeating itself -- seriously, people are bringing up old conflicts that have been dead for ages, and old shipping wars I never thought I'd see again -- but I think this new group's relationship with the show is much different.

I think that Kurt is a character whom a lot of people can still identify with. And because he's on his own in the first season, it's still easy to project yourself onto him. And then shipping goes from there. Blaine went from being the exciting option, omg are they really gonna do Klaine?? to -- hey Klaine is the boring canon choice, we can choose who we want for Kurt.

Layer over that years of Blaine hate still circling the interwebs. The echo chamber that Twitter and Tiktok create. And the fact that neither Chris or Darren seem to have the army of fans they once did (well -- Darren does, but they don't really watch Glee anymore). And you get this varied landscape of shipping.

No, some days it doesn't feel that different from the BBO days. The fact that I still get asks about Blaine and TFT car scene or Tested makes me feel like I'm back in 2013. Other times I'm perplexed by resurgences -- such as Kurtbasitan and Kurt/Sam. (Please don't bring back Kurtofsky guys)

But there's a saying -- Same Shit, Different Day.

I think there is an entirely different group of people than the original people watching, and their reasoning for shipping whatever is much different. But they've certainly come to a lot of the same conclusions that brought about the shipping wars in the early days.

At the end of the day - I think Kurt will always been a fandom mattress. But ship what you like and be nice to everyone else. There's enough hate in the world -- no need to dump on people's escapism.

[strawberry1212]

Asian drama female lead passivity

I feel like a lot of aspects of female lead (FL) passivity is discussed (the fish kiss being the most famous example), but I wanted to systematically analyze each trope under the theory of female passivity and its feminist implications.

This topic has been stuck in my mind ever since I read a blog years ago (literally like six years ago so I’m sorry I have no idea where it is, I can’t link it) talking about how intimacy in Asian dramas is always portrayed as something women relent to giving up half-heartedly, and men one sidedly pursue. Women are chaste, men are lustful, and women are yielding to men, that is the essential message.

This dynamic plays out in Western media as well--the movie Don Jon is a super interesting analysis comparing how women are indoctrinated by romcoms, to how men are indoctrinated by porn. So women attach grand romantic gestures and romantic commitment to their self worth, because that’s what the girl gets in her happy ending, while men attach it to sexual prowess/having women do kinky sexual favors.

This dynamic is super harmful because it works to suppress female sexuality, as well as male emotionality. People are always surprised when a woman would rather just want sex (or a career) over a romantic commitment. And men are applauded for having the bare minimum of emotional awareness because it’s so rare.

I think a form of Asian drama female lead (FL) passivity that is most talked about is the infamous “fish kiss.” See exhibit A:

The guy initiates the kiss on the usually unsuspecting girl, as if the girl ever going in for the kiss herself would be too sexually aggressive. And as if even enjoying the kiss would be too much, they have her just stand there eyes wide open. It’s awkward, and even slightly funny to watch, but our critique often ends here. But I think the fish kiss is a symptom of a much deeper problem. 

You will notice that female lead passivity is present in all physical interactions between the romantic interests.

The pull in hug:

Which sometimes the FL looks uncomfortable to frightened in:

I even found a meme, so I know I’m not the only who thinks this is weird:

(meme/photo credit: https://goliath1357.tumblr.com/post/27115253892/kdramareasons-awkward-one-sided-hugs-k-drama)

What I don’t like about this trope is first of all, it makes female consent seem less romantic. It romanticizes this idea of male pursuit/female passivity, the man will protect her, the man will pursue her (basically like an object), the man will do all the work in making the relationship progress, etc., and it romanticizes this dynamic to women--this is easy to romanticize for us, because to the most of us that aren’t being constantly pursued by two hot men, this pursuit dynamic seems like a dream boat. Often the kdrama female lead (due to the Initial Misunderstanding trope) will even dislike and push away the male lead--and yet he still pursues her, how romantic! -_- Except in real life, the guy aggressively pursuing you and ignoring you disinterest is not romantic.

And the issue is on both sides, because it teaches women to just stand there, not express consent, and not express sexual/intimacy enthusiasm when we’re feeling it (that would be ~unladylike~). And on the other side, it teaches men to do all the pursuing and to assume that a girl standing frozen, wide eyed, and often looking scared as you kiss her, is consent. Sometimes the guy even interprets a clear “no” as consent. (Honestly I’m not even sure if these Asian drama writers are thinking along the lines of “xyz is consent,”...like I’m not sure how often they even think of the concept of consent tbh.)

But anyways, passivity. is not. consent!!!! That’s why we have the slogan “Yes mean yes,” meaning both parties must have enthusiastic, clear consent, for respectful intimacy. Asian dramas discourage women from expressing an enthusiastic “yes,” and it teaches men not to expect this “yes,” so they can steamroll past passivity and even rejection.

And I know some people will be boohooing me on this. “But sudden kisses and hugs are so romantic!” people will say. But what is “romantic,” like many things, is a social construct. We think things are romantic because they’ve always been presented to us as romantic, with swelling music in the background and the implicit understanding that anything is ok because they are Soulmates(TM) that end up happy together. We construct our idea of what is romantic largely out of media.

But that is not real life, and carrying those messages over to real life (as we inevitably all do), is dangerous. I just moved to Japan so this especially hits close to home for me: I dress conservatively by American standards, but I couldn’t bring a quarter of my clothes when I moved because I worried men on trains would interpret them as revealing, and therefore I would be “asking for it.” I, and I’m sure many women will feel me on this, think about and fear sexual assault very often. And when we don’t enshrine active consent, we perpetuate rapist culture.

Since “romantic” is anything our society constructs it to be, let’s romanticize enthusiastic consent! (like this NCT song!!) I think sudden kisses can be cute when you’ve established boundaries that it’s is ok, but it scares me that men and women are watching this and thinking suddenly kissing a person you haven’t discussed boundaries/intimacy with at all is cute. It’s all fun and games when it’s the hot male lead kissing the girl you know he’s going to end up with, but it’s not cute when it’s real life men thinking they’re entitled to women’s bodies.

Other examples of female passivity:

I stopped watching Moonlight Drawn over the Clouds at precisely this scene:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6I0WXeD-dc&ab_channel=KBSWORLDTV

because it was so painful to watch her sitting there like a fish as the guys got these cool fight scenes. Like girllll literally do anything, throw a rock, something! First dramas routinely disable the female characters by making the male characters the able fighters, but even if you’re not an able fighter you can do more than just sit there like a lame duck -_- Especially the parts of these scenes where someone is standing over the girl with the sword and the writers don’t give the girl the presence of mind to simply run away, but they give the guy the presence of mind to somersault into the room, jump over ten monkey bars, slash the antagonist, and catch the girl bridal style on his way down. I guess the damsel in distress trope is as old as the book, but just the complete passivity so many female characters show in fight scenes as they need to be saved is really annoying and disempowering.

I think the worst part is their faces, they’re all like omg! this is so sad!

well girl you could have done literally ANYTHING other than sit there as he took ten bullets for you lmao. Women don’t exist to stand by and be saved!!! This is a historical drama but the modern drama version is when the guy is getting beat up by bullies or whatever and the girl just stands by and does nothing but look upset.

Another good trope that is under this passivity theme is the double wrist grab, where we not only have ONE male lead (ML) manhandling the FL, but TWO MLs. Ahh yes the only thing better than forcibly ignoring consent and the FL’s wishes is TWO men doing it.

I heard this recently even happened in True Beauty...which...that drama...truly I thought Kdramas were progressing until I saw how much people were hyping up that mess of misogyny (not to mention how boringly predictable it was). 

I can’t quite express this next trope in a screenshot, but something I also see a lot of is the ML professing his love to the FL and she sort of just stands there like O_O. Like she’s just sort of this object that sits there being admired? It’s just such an unnatural way to react to someone professing their love for you, and these scenes drag on for many minutes of just the ML’s dialogue so the female actress, having no lines, has no choice but to sit there O_O. Like give her lines! Give her reactions! Give her anything other than being wide eyed!!!!

And these physical interactions represent deeper emotional passivity in the female lead.

I’ve noticed it’s almost always the trend of the male lead falls later, but falls harder, and ultimately he puts more energy into making the relationship progress. Again, this buys into female fantasy, but it is an unhealthy fantasy that is grounded, I think, in our insecurities, and our fear of putting ourselves out there (so we would rather have someone pursue us than put ourselves out there and meet someone halfway).

This emotional passivity is why, weirdly enough, sometimes I will really like the drama because the girl is very stubbornly, openly, and aggressively pursuing the guy. A case of this is Itazura na Kiss, or Mischievous Kiss (there’s a Jdrama, Kdrama, and anime--I only watched the anime). Now the guy is downright meannnnn in Mischievous Kiss, this was not a healthy relationship at all, but there was something refreshing about the girl. Sure her aggression was in pursuing a man, but at least it was aggression, and I’d always only seen any hint of female sexuality/actively pursuing as something very stigmatized. 

I think a sister trope to the passivity trope is the innocence trope. The guy will literally take the initiative to profess his undying love to the FL and she’ll be like “what?? omg stop teasing you’re joking ahahha.” Why do FLs need to be so oblivious/innocent? I think it caters to the way media is seen through a male gaze but that’s a trope to deconstruct another time.

[hiimsociallyawkward]

Dear Lara Jean,

HI. so i watched TATBILB: A&F a few weeks ago, and I have some words. Before I begin, i'd like to preface that i'm literally 17 and have no film experience, and that I've read this book once maybe 4 years ago but here it is.

ps. if you haven't gotten it already: there will be spoilers. Heavy spoilers.

first of all, i'm sorry but i really didn't like the little edit things. Maybe I've reached that point in my life where I don't f with that anymore. Like when theres a drawn house and it slowly fades so it's real life?? no thanks

the music choice... I honestly didn't have that big of a problem with it, but my korean friend kept going "wtf is this music choice" so i'm quoting her on that.

the filming and editing. well maybe it's just me but I didn't really like it. yk when you're watching a youtuber and they do those zoom in things and it's sort of fast and funny? I think there were a few times the movie did that and i didn't like it.

literally, lara jean looking directly into the camera?? it feels like it's breaking the 4th wall and maybe they're doing it to be edgy but no thanks i didn't like that either.

WHY???? Her breaking the 4th wall added NOTHING to the movie. It just took me out of the experience. I especially didn’t like it when they did it in PS I still love you when they temporarily broke up.

THEY SET THE MOVIE IN OREGON. WHAT WAS THE REASON. THE BOOK WAS SET IN VA, AND I LIVE IN VA SO I FELT A CONNECTION TO THE BOOK. AND THEN THEY GO AND SET IT IN OREGON. WHAT. WAS. THE. REASON

OREGON DIDN’T HAVE TO DO ANYTHING WITH THE COLLEGES. THEY’RE STILL PRETTY FAR AWAY FROM STANFORD. IN THE BOOK, UVA WAS CLOSE BY SO LJ WOULDN’T HAVE TO BE TOO FAR AWAY FROM HOME. NO OFFENSE TO THE STATE BUT WHY OREGON. THEY COULD OF PUT THEM IN CALI AT LEAST

ONE OF THE REASONS WHY LJ WANTED TO GO TO UVA IS BECAUSE HER FAMILY WOULD BE CLOSE BY. BY PUTTING THEM IN OREGON, YOU TAKE AWAY THAT REASON. i just want to 👊 whoever’s idea this was

FURTHERMORE: THEY CHANGED UVA AND UNC TO STANFORD AND NYU. I AM INFURIATED. THE WHOLE POINT WAS THAT THEY WANTED TO GO TO UVA BECAUSE IT WAS LIKE 10 MINS FROM WHERE THEY LIVED AND IT'S A STATE SCHOOL. LARA JEAN FELT LIKE THE WAS GAURANTEED TO GO TO UVA AND WHEN SHE DOESNT, IT ACTUALLY HURTS THE READERS.

in the book, LJ was waitlisted from UNC, rejected from UVA, and accepted to W&M. I’m sure you can find like 40 people at our school who can relate to this situation. I doubt 40 people in our school can relate to being rejected from Stanford BUT accepted to NYU. dear writers, please give teens across the nation (your target audience) realistic expectations for college admissions.

YOU'RE GONNA TELL ME THAT PETER AND LARA JEAN WERE ACTUALLY QUALFIED ENOUGH FOR STANFORD. LEMME JUST SAY, I'VE APPLIED FOR COLLEGES THIS YEAR AND I FEEL LIKE I HAVE A PRETTY GOOD GRASP ON WHAT IT TAKES TO GET INTO CERTAIN COLLEGES. YOU'RE TELLING ME THE TWO OF THEM. REALLY. GOT. INTO. THOSE. SCHOOLS. pls.

DON’T GET ME STARTED ON THE KISSING BOOTH. ELLE AND NOAH ARE POSSIBLY THE DUMBEST CHARACTERS I HAVE EVER WATCHED. I DON’T SEE THEM DO A PAGE OF HOMEWORK AND I DON’T EVEN THINK THEY ATTEND CLASS. LIKE MAKING A KISSING BOOTH FOR ONE FUNDRAISER FOR A CLUB THAT CONSISTS OF 2 PEOPLE DOES NOT COUNT AS ENOUGH TO GET INTO HARVARD. but that’s a different movie...

this is literally the idea that television and movies have in making it super easy to get into ivy leauges. as if some in state college isn't up to society's standards of where or where not it's ok to go to college. it's when gabriella montez goes to stanford, troy goes to berkely, ryan evan goes to julliard, teddy duncan goes to yale, cody martin is accepted to princeton, HANNAH MONTANA does to stanford.

and lara jean wants to study english lit. she never says “i want to go to stanford because of their great english lit program”. it’s only “i want to go to stanford because my boyfriend is going and i have no other life outside of him

fine. make your characters seem awesome by making them go to awesome colleges. but still. this is upseting.

you know how awesome it is to hear UVA, the college I've always wanted to go to, in a published book? and for them to just rip it away- espeically when UVA is so attainable?? Yea yea movie directors, i get it, UVA isn't good enough for you. whatever.

They had AT LEAST 5 MONTAGES. 5. FIVE. WHO NEEDS THAT MANY MONTAGES. To quote my friend "the movie is all montage and 30 mins of plot" AND I CAN'T FIND IT IN MYSELF TO DISAGREE WITH HER.

AND THE DANCES. I REALLY DIDN’T NEED TO SEE NOAH CENTINEO DO WHATEVER HE CALLS “DANCING” IN 2 MONTAGES. I know everyone fell in love with noah in the first movie, but i’m pretty sure everyone fell out of love with him in this one.

again, i know nothing about movies, but 5 montages?? it seems like you're just filling space and trying to make everything seem ✨awesome✨ and ✨amazing✨. SURE. everything might be awesome and amazing, but this movie was 1 HR AND 55 MINS. and you decided to add 1 HR of montages? WHy. AND. one of them was in slowmo. i can't

THEY HAD VOICE OVERS THROUGHOUT THE WHOLE MOVIE. sure. 1 at the begin and 1 at the end, I think that's cute. BUT THE WHOLE MOVIE?? WHY. like bruh- have a focus.

literally did anyone read the freaking book? Remember how- in the book right? Margot was actually really not ok with Trina bc she's sort of replacing their mom? and Margot is rlly not ok with it but gets over it?? see how that was summarized in like 5 seconds in the movie? Oh i'm sorry you used all your time for the movie making STUPID MONTAGES but can we get some actually emotionally beats next time?? thanks.

ok this is a big problem i have with the movie. in the 3rd book, peter tries to have a relationship with his dad who ran away from him years ago. He struggles with that relationship the whole book. This is good stuff. people can relate to this. the scene in the diner where peter “confronts” his dad was CRINGEY. It could be noah’s acting but i couldn’t take him seriously. AND HE FORGIVES HIS DAD AFTER 30 SECONDS. the movie tries to include these smaller storylines but can’t because of the time limit. i’m no screenwriter, but i’m sure there could have been a way to subtly move that plot line during the entire movie rather than that one conversation in the diner

and in the book, peter has to train for lacrosse so he has to eat healthy which stresses him out. i specifically remember him getting mad at someone (maybe it was john ambrose, i don’t remember fully) for EATING HIS CARROTS. this just shows that peter has a life too. he has to worry about lacrosse along with losing lj. but no, the movie makes him look like the perfect boyfriend who has no other worries in life except for the girl in front of him

remember how- in the book (right?? bc they had a book to go off of???) Stormy was a part of the 3rd book? like a BIG part?? They LITEALLY just used her as John Ambrose's grandmother (WHICH IM PRETTY SURE THEY DIDN'T EVEN DO IN THE MOVIES). literally, stormy and john ambrose were throw away characters in the second movie and i am infurriated. BUT ALSO I LOVE JOHN AMBROSE HOW COULD THEY DO THIS TO HIM??

and remember, how in the book, how the dog's name is "Jamie Fox-Pickle" and they changed it to HENRY??? where is the flavor. what was the reason. SERIOUSLY.

BUT ALSO. CORRECT ME IF I'M WRONG BUT THERE WAS A POINT IN THE PLOT WHERE PETER'S MOM TOLD LARA JEAN TO BREAK UP WITH PETER. DOES NO ONE ELSE REMEBER THAT?? AND THEY CUT IT ALL OUT OF THE SCRIPT?? LIKE WHY. WHAT WAS THE REASON.

ok those are my biggest book grievances I think. but lemme just say, they NEVER went to NEW YORK. They literally wrote that in for the purposes of NYU. in the book, Chris and Lara Jean DRIVE to UNC because that's ATTAINABLE. BC THEY'RE STATE UNIVERSITIES. ANYWAYS

LJ’s and Chris’s spontaneous trip to unc showed their friendship in a good way. I never really liked chris as a friend to lj but during the trip, they are besties and it shows. the movie tries to do that in ny but peter is also in ny for some reason. she should have fell in love with ny WITHOUT peter at her side nagging her to sneak out and go on a date. she should have spent more time with chris rather than thinking about peter while she was watching the band.

the scene where Lara Jean is in New York and at the party and she sees the band? To all the boys I've loved before: Always and forever?? more like To all the boys I've loved before: gay awakening time.

when they moved the pink couch to the subway? WHy? They wanted snazzy pics.

when Lara Jean and Peter were making up and it was a really cute sequence AND THEN THEY MADE HER LOSE HER V CARD. FINE. I GET HOW THAT'S REALISTIC BUT IT WAS A CUTE SCENE. MY FRIEND ALMOST STARTED CRYING AND THEN LJ LOST HER V CARD AND WE COULDN'T STOP SCREAMING.

this is different from what was in the book (for the 100th time). In the book, they don’t do it and it shows that you can be in a high school relationship without being physical. I strongly appreciate that message. This darn movie had to have her lose her v card. WHY. IT ADDED NOTHING TO THEIR RELATIONSHIP. THE YEARBOOK SIGNING WAS SYMBOLIC ENOUGH

the montage where it's a montage of all of lara jean's and peter's cute moments?? ok fine. that was cute. but they literally just took scenes from past movies. imagine the impact if we like hidden moments from their relationships. maybe they're laughing in the car together. maybe they're watching they sunset. maybe peter is looking at her lovingly while she sleeps. WHAT IF. it WASN'T a montage of all the "bigger" moments of their relationship, and we got to see them just exist.

UGH. THE VOICE OVER AT THE END OF THE MOVIE IS SO CRINGEY I CAN'T

"WE AREN'T LIKE OTHER COUPLES. NOT US, LARA JEAN AND PETER KAVINSKY. BECAUSE WE HAVE SOMETHING BETWEEN US. WRITING LOVE LETTERS" please. b freaking s

Some redeemable qualities

while i didn't like most of the songs, "like me better" by lauv will always be loved. especially since it's a call back from the first movie?? I can ftw

WHY WASN’T “LIKE ME BETTER” THEIR SONG???? I really thought it was a good song to be their song and they referenced it in the beginning. No offense to the “beginning middle and end” people, but i felt no attachment to that song.

they customized her phone. it looked like it was a 7 (idk rlly, i don't know crap abt iphones) but they customized it. Granted, I KNOW lara jean would be the one with the aesthetic background with color coded folder, but still- they did give her relevant apps. some to note include; tiktok, spotify, instagram, netflix, notes, messages, facetime, maps, whatsapp and the STANFORD APP?? whatever- i'm chill.

they did make lara jean make choices so that was good.

the prom ask?? That was cute. with the pancakes??

at the end when Peter played the song even though earlier he didn't like it?? I liked that. i liked that a lot. ok fine i more than liked that a lot. There are multiple texts where my friends are screaming at each other. In fact, 26 separate messages.

chris in general. granted, she was more present in the books, but i'll take what i can get.

some notable quotes by her, the queen

"I'm dead inside"

not wanting to do a gigantic walk down from the stairs and asking the boys not to turn around

peter said he liked lara jean's forehead kisses and that reminded me of emma chamberlain so that's a positive only bc of emma

I remembered that they were the class of 2021, and I'M class of 2021 and it just hit for a second.

my friend cried over their graduation but i felt nothing bc we're literally living in a pandemic and chances of me getting a real graduation?? we'll see

again, these are all just my opinion. my friend doesn't like the movie bc she says she's sad and bitter and seeing these cute couples makes her feel lonely but i'm just diappointed. the books were GOOD. they were gold.

there was so much they could’ve done with the movies, and i just feel like they didn’t deliver on anything. Jenny Han, i’m sorry. The movie overall, ik someone who cried about it and someone else who gave it 7/10. props for them but jeez i just wish for more.

ok but that’s the show folk. i mean, obviously everything i said was opinion and literally don’t listen to anything i’ve said. BUT. feel free to add what you hated or loved abt the movie too. thanks. i love you guys. “always and forever” :,)

p.s- omg not them ripping off taylor swift. jk jk. ok bye

[msgrumpygills]

Submission

I want this as anon please. I am new to this and found you while searching for something that wasn't P.R B.S. I was a Sam fan at 1st but on 2nd watch definitely switched to Dean. Looking for something to binge and found SPN. Love it. So around my 2nd or third watch I realized that Jared really only has 3 expressions in his acting repertoire. Puppy dog, constipated and I smell poop. I am not saying that Jensen is DeNiro but definitely better. I have been fascinated watching things play out with fans and cast. My 1st question is what is a stanz ? My 2nd question is can we talk about the elephant in the room?starting roughly around season 12 or 13 Jared/Sam looks like death warmed over. As someone in recovery from looking like death warmed over I was alarmed. I also have a mental illness. I find his behavior repulsive. Being drunk and assaulting and bribing police is not cute or funny. Using mental illness as a panacea for bad behavior is insulting to people with serious problems. Most people take meds, have therapist and carefully monitor their speech and actions, correcting when necessary. I am in recovery and don't claim to be sober while spending weekends in bars. Sorry Jared recovery really doesn't work that way. So my question is does Jared have no one that cares about him enough to sit him down and say WTF? Does no one suggest to him that shitting all over the people who made your success possible is not a good idea? How about that he might want to tone down his narcissism a bit, just a tad? For me the prequel fiasco was the final straw. I cannot believe a grown ass man would stoop to that level of bratty, petty selfishness. You mentioned he should check his emotions first before posting shit, not it's not emotions. It's called drunk dialing/texting/posting. Believe me I've been there, done that. I feel sorry for him that apparently he has no one to tell him to sit down, shut up, and for the love of god get help. I am sure people have tried and ultimately just had to walk away. I just hope Jensen has the sense to end an obviously toxic relationship. The whole situation is just sad. On a positive note I love The Boys and can't wait to see Jensen. Yes in case it wasn't obvious I am biased

First of all, I commend you for being in recovery and wish you continued successes and wins in that! <3

When people are referring to someone being a “stan” it’s a type of super fan. I only found out what the term meant like a year or so ago to be honest. It’s a reference to Eminem’s song “Stan” and how he was a superfan who took it too far. Now if you’re a super fan of something, you can be considered a “stan”. It’s not always a bad thing though! For instance, I stan Adam Driver and I stan him hard. It’s just another term for super fan. 

I don’t remember what season it was, but I do remember Jared busting his arm and how thin he got around that time. Now everyone just chocked it up to him not being able to workout, but it seemed like it was maybe something else. I don’t want to try and diagnose people, but now that I’ve got the love goggles off, it seems sketchy.�� I do agree though that he doesn’t look healthy. A lot of people outside of the SPN bubble think that Jared is older than Jensen and that he’s aging horribly. I think that has to do with whatever he has going on. I try not to harp on looks too much, but Jared’s drastic weight loss and general gaunt demeanor is a bit alarming. 

I’ve touched on the mental illness thing before, but I totally agree. It’s damaging for him to claim to be a “mental health advocate” one minute, and then when he wants to deflect blame the next minute, he claims “depression” or “anxiety” and it’s bullshit. I know that mental health in general has come a long way and isn’t as stigmatized as it used to be, but there are still so many hurdles to overcome and he’s not helping it. 

As sad as it is, and as dramatic as it is, I don’t think Jared has a good support system around him. Look at his wife, she’s just fine with letting him do whatever he wants as long as she gets access to his credit card. His “friends” are expendable and enable him continuously. Jensen, who seemed to be a good level-headed friend for him, isn’t around him anymore. Obviously work, the pandemic, and general life gets crazy, but maybe there’s a reason that Jensen isn’t trying to be there anymore, you know? 

I can’t say whether or not the prequel tweets were drunk tweets, but I do think that Jared has a huge issue with tweeting before he thinks. I used to be TERRIBLE at that, and I still have my moments where I just emotionally tweet or post on Facebook and then delete it later when I’m in a more stable mindset. No one is perfect, but it doesn’t help that Jared has a loooong history of just running his mouth. It also doesn’t help that he won’t take responsibility. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I wouldn’t harp on Jared as much if he would just APOLOGIZE AND STOP DEFLECTING BLAME. But no, homie wants to be an ass and the perpetual victim. 

I hope that Jensen took that as a learning experience and distances himself even more from Jared. 

I also am excited to see The Boys and how Jensen brings Soldier Boy to life! 

[codylabs]

Wall-E

Bro there’s so many things I love about that movie. Ima gush for a couple minutes here and assume you’ve seen it and know what I’m talking about. If you haven’t, uh, go away.

Anyway, Wall-E wasn’t my favorite movie as a kid (that distinction belongs to Treasure Planet or the Incredibles), but I’ll say that it’s one of my favorite movies now, and as for child-me, this movie was the first movie that really disturbed me.

To start off, it really is a very pure breed of scifi, something along the veins of Star Trek and Asimov and Orwell, that doesn’t just tell a fun story with spaceships, but actually uses the future as a lens to examine present, relevant social and technological trends. A lot of people praise it for vilifying capitalism and corporation, because that’s hip nowadays, but it’s really so much more damning than that, because capitalism hardly has anything to do with it; the movie is confronting consumerism itself. People, you and me, we don’t buy things that we need, things that are healthy and fulfilling, no, we buy things that we want. And so often what we want is to make our lives easier and more pleasurable. But pleasure and ease aren’t always good for us. A person needs action, labor, work, and all the passions that arise from it. We humans have labor and rest, struggle and triumph, hate and love, dirt and grass and blue skies, written into our very souls, and when you take those things away, we start to become less human. Extrapolate a civilization-wide greed for leisure and effortlessness out hundreds of years, take consumerism to its logical extreme, and we can see how the world of Wall-E could perhaps come into being, and we can see the problems with it, and see the monstrously lethargic thing it becomes. Never have I seen a more poignant and frightening portrayal of a post-scarcity society than in that movie, and the philosophical implications of it all make me question progress as a concept itself.

And now that I rewatched it recently, I realized there’s so many DETAILS in the movie! There’s so much of the story that’s not explained but that you can see just by looking. The derelict incinerator cranes that broke down in the middle of cutting through the garbage towers that the Wall-Es left. When EVE gets to Earth, she goes from scanning bare ground, to scanning plant-looking objects, to scanning hidden compartments and sheltered places, she literally has a whole on-screen, unspoken character arc of increasing desperation that takes her to the point where she’s even willing to spare a few minutes from the mission to talk with Wall-E. The shuttle that brought EVE has a bridge where human crew would go, but there’s no human crew. The overcomplicated mechanisms aboard the ship are built with spectacle and bureaucracy in mind rather than efficiency, almost as if materials and parts had become cheaper on Earth than competent engineers. And in the Captain’s quarters where there’s the line of profiles showing all the previous captains and their dates of service, you can see their lifespans are unnaturally long but getting shorter.

And then the SYMBOLISM. The MOTIFS. The plant is stored through the movie in a old-fashioned working boot, representing the sort of lifestyle needed to care for it. Wall-E is the only living thing in the universe that still loves and thinks and dances and sings, sings songs about unbridled, optimistic passion and joy, and the song and dance are the very methods by which he connects with others and wakes them out of their stupors. For most of the movie EVE cares about Wall-E only insofar as he either helps her or stays out of the way of her mission, and it takes a movie’s worth of friendship and kindness (and a security recording of all the things he did for her during her hibernation after she’d thought her mission was over) for her to come around to seeing him as worth something on his own. The Captain is the first human to realize the full error of mankind, and the first to once again make decisions and tough choices on his own, and his character arc climaxes in him wrestling with mankind’s steering wheel, and then being the first human to walk again, which (I don’t care how funny it is) is a scene powerful enough to cry at.

It just

IDK man.

Wall-E hits hard.

(And of course there’s the other great things about the movie, like the romance and the relationships and the ingenious wordless dialogue and the dancing scene and the great character designs including dirt box, sexy egg, and angry dice, but everybody loves those already so I’ll just gush about the story for now.)

Someday I’ll draw a sequel comic or something because this movie man.

[katierosefun]

I’m baaaaaaaackkkk! Once I finally got through all my ✨medical problems✨ (I’m a specialty cuz they couldn’t figure out what it was) I went home and was pretty depressed bc I had to quit my awesome seasonal job earlier than planned and move back home and but for my birthday my parents adopted two kitties and that helped me so much! I named them Loki and Bucky! But then I got covid (and even lost my taste AND smell 😭 my mom is an amazing cook and loves spices and flavors so it was so horrible to eat the food and it being like a family who dont use spices) and it went through my family so when I was out I was so sick I didn’t even want to watch stuff but than once I was healthy enough but still sick I finally started watching my kdramas again (I started rewatching Goblin)!

I finally finished ‘Weightlifting Fairy, Kim Bok-joo’ and I enjoyed it so much! The only problem I had was them using skinny actors when they could’ve used plus size actors! And how they used baggy clothing to make them look bigger. It was kinda annoying when I’m sure there are plenty of plus size actors that would’ve been great at that show! Also when they were lifting the weights it was really hard to take it serious when they were obviously fake or light. But that’s just me being nit picky.

It was such a different storyline not a lot of action but it was so nice to see family and the aunt and uncle basically adopting their nephew and him calling them mom and dad. Also Bok-joo and her relationship with her father was really nice to see. And I craved fried chicken every time they showed them at the restaurant. It was really nice show to watch when you’re sick and don’t have to worry about a major storyline to follow. I loved how she went to a weight loss dr just bc he was cute 😅 it was also fun to see the dr and his brothers relationship. Definitely fun to watch and the whole weightlifting team was hilarious. And I also enjoyed the roommates storyline that was cool tho she was a real bitch at first but her character definitely turned around at the end. I loved the two main characters and their relationship it was so cuteee! I give this a 7/10 just because of what my problems where above. If those two main problems it would definitely be a 9/10.

I also finished Vincenzo! That was really good show I enjoyed that but I also watched it when I was coming out of brain fog so I really don’t remember much 😅 but I do remember when V’s mom died and he went crazy and that was SO sexy! Also the entire apartment family where so funny and hilarious. Definitely recommend this one 9/10 (a LOT of violence)

I’m baaaaack and I’m so happy!

oh wow, i'm so sorry about everything that's happened--that all sounds like quite a lot, but i'm glad you're hopefully on the road to recovery? (and being at home and having cats! that's exciting and sounds like a brighter spot.)

ha, i also love the enthusiasm for the kdramas you watched! i remember how cute weightlifting fairy was (and i absolutely agree, i know that the main actress lee sung kyung gained some weight for the role, but like...? i wish they chose a plus-size actress for the role. definitely a huge critique i have of the entertainment industry especially in korea is how there's not a whole ton of body size diversity, which ://// but! yes, the family, friendship, and whole college/school love themes are very cute, even if i also wish that there was more diversity in body size. it was such a good drama to showcase that too, given that like? weightlifting?? sports??? but :///).

and oh, vincenzo! i still need to watch it, but song joong ki is such a great actor (i recommend one of his earlier kdramas, sungkyunkwan scandal...he's not the lead in that show, but it remains one of my favorite roles of his. also, his character likes guys), and i've def. been curious about jeon yeo been's works too (i heard she was in the kdrama save me, which is another hit available on netflix, although i've heard it's very dark).

glad you're enjoying yourself!

[spiffyspuffy]

My Mystic Messenger Opinions

(That no one asked for)

Zen

Character: 8/10 I know a lot of people think Zens annoying but I find him endearing. One of the best things about this game is the complexity of the characters and I love that Zen’s cockiness is actually how he hides his insecurities. Even though he’s egotistical about himself, he’s never shallow with MC. He says multiple times that he doesn’t care about MC’s looks. He loves her for who she is and shows this in how he makes an effort to get to know her and be her cheerleader everyday. An underrated thing about Zen is how emotionally intelligent he is. He’s great at helping the RFA members when they need emotional support (Yoosung’s grief over loosing Rika, Jaehee crying from the stress of her job and MC’s shock at almost being kidnapped). 

Route: 2/10 Zen is a great character and he deserves a better route. The false rape accusation plot is horrible and offensive. Also, his route functions as an introduction to the game’s plot, so it’s exposition heavy and lacks action. The creators said that the lesson of his route is that when our insecurities are handled in a healthy way, they can push us to be better people. I love this message and I wish it had been highlighted more in his route.

Romantic Potential: 9/10 Zen is arguably the most dateable of all the characters. He’s a bad boy without being sketchy. He’s protective without being possessive. He’s kind without being a pushover and he’s smart without being pretentious. His biggest drawbacks are his overconfidence and and how busy he is with working. There aren’t any glaring red flags. 

~ More under the cut ~ 

Jeahee

Character: 7/10 I love this adorable theater nerd! She comes across as formal and stuffy at first, but reveals herself to be passionate and funny the more you get to know her. I gave her a lower score because she does have a strong personality that rubs me the wrong way sometimes (her jealousy of MC in Zen’s route, her lack of sympathy towards Jumin in her own route and her general rudeness towards Yoosung). She is the most mature of the RFA though, so her exasperation is warranted. Being mature and grounded also makes Jaehee the least complex Mysme character. I’ve got a lot of respect for her though!

Route: 5/10 Getting to engage in discourse about capitalism and the patriarchy? Amazing and hands down the best part of her route. It’s really inspiring to see Jaehee stand up for herself and choose to follow her dreams. I think it’s important for every young person to hear that they should have a positive work/life balance and demand that their employer supports that. Other highlights are Seven helping Jaehee by making the Power Point presentation for Jumin’s cat project, getting to fangirl with Jaehee over Zen and the creepy stalker plot. I thoroughly enjoy her route and the only reason the score is so low is because some of the other routes are seriously incredible.

Romantic Potential: 8/10 Jeahee doesn’t have any red flags either. I think she’s perfectly capable of having a healthy, romantic relationship with MC. The biggest issue standing in their way is Korea’s bias against lesbian relationships. As a fellow coffee lover and theater enthusiast though, I could definitely see myself or someone similar having a happy life with her, even if it might have to be in secret.

Yoosung

Character: 6/10 I can’t stand people who aren’t competent. Yoosung is a terrible cook, he barely cleans and he doesn’t pay attention to his studies. On top of that, 80% of his personality is that he’s a gamer AND he’s in love with his “dead” adopted cousin. Yuck. ~ But ~ I understand that he’s depressed and depression can seriously effect someone’s executive functioning. Taking all of those negatives away, we’re left with a young man who’s trying to his best to be taken seriously, which is something I can relate to. It’s nice to see imposter syndrome represented and I admire his loyalty to his friends. 

Route: 8/10 This route is sooo good! Who can forget the night when the RFA starts being aggressively stalked by Minty Eye? And the pic Zen takes of a believer looking at him through his apartment window...chills. His route only gets better from there when he infiltrates Mint Eye with Seven. This is the first time we get to see the twins interact and damn, is it confusing. But in a good way!!   The biggest drawback is that MC is stuck in Rika’s apartment and doesn’t play much of an active role in the story. 

Romantic Potential: 7/10 Despite all the negatives I listed about Yoosung, I do think he’s capable of have a healthy, romantic relationship with MC. Yoosung is also the only true sub of the RFA men, which is a definite plus for some players. Yoosung’s yandere side is a huge red flag though. MC better watch out if she doesn’t dote on him as much as he wants. Once he falls for her, he’s all in. 

Jumin

Character: 5/10 Unpopular opinion, but I hate Jumin. I understand that he’s some people’s guilty pleasure though. Jumin’s good aspects are that he’s intensely loyal, an animal lover and has a dry sense of humor. I appreciate how devoted he is to the RFA and it’s members. He offers to help Zen multiple times (albeit rejected), sends everyone body guards in his route and pays the hospital in the SE to keep Saeran’s identity top secret. What I’m not a fan of is the way he obsesses over MC and traps her in his house. This isn’t the first time he’s shown obsessive tendencies either. Seven explicitly states that Jumin acted this way with Rika in the past. Huuuge red flag.  

Route: 3/10 His entire route is fraught with rich people problems. I’m supposed to sympathize with him for an arranged marriage? All he had to do was say no. His father couldn’t force him. He’s possessive of MC because women have only ever wanted to be with him for his money? Not an excuse. Elizabeth going missing was a vaguely interesting story line, but Jumin’s relationship with his cat was cringey enough to overshadow the drama of it for me.

Romantic Potential: 3/10 Jumin has some serious issues. He’s never had a good female role model which has given him a deep seeded hatred of women. Remember when he tells MC that respecting women goes against his core beliefs? Yikes. Then, after meeting a woman who respects him and he actually likes, he locks her up and tries to change everything about her (cutting her hair, buying her a new wardrobe, teaching her the ‘proper’ way to walk, etc). We’re supposed to believe Jumin learns to be better by the end of his route, but he still proposes to MC after only a week of knowing her! I’m having a hard time picturing Jumin in a healthy relationship. 

Saeyoung

Character: 10/10 I’m not saying Saeyoung is a good person. Far from it actually. But he IS very well written and extremely interesting. In the other routes, Saeyoung is energetic and funny, bringing much needed humor to heavy moments. It’s always a joy being in a chatroom with him. Then you have the reveal that he actually hates his job and that he was faking his personality, all to a sad and slowed down version of his theme song. This plot twist shook me to my core. What makes him so well written is that the devs did a good job dropping hints to his real personality in the other routes that players might not notice during their first play through. 

Route: 9/10 This route is a wild ride from start to finish. This is when the plot threads from the other routes come together and start make sense. This route has secret agents, assassins, a deadly bomb, kidnapping, an evil twin, a powerful cult... It’s action heavy while still carrying enough emotional weight to make me cry every time. Saeyoung’s route is heavy and emotional and sooo worth playing. 

Romantic Potential: 6/10 Saeyoung has a shady job and a complicated past. Choosing to be with him means putting your life in danger every day. If you’re okay with that, he’d be a decent romantic partner. He’s a little rough around the edges, but I do think he has potential to become more like his ideal self (God Seven) after reading his AE. He’ll always have that mean and serious side to him, but I don’t think he’s hopeless. 

V

Character: 4/10 He’s low-key the worst. I sympathize with his trauma from being abused by Rika, but I don’t understand why he feels the need to fix everything by himself. Rika might be the source of most problems in this game, but V is partially responsible for standing by and letting her get away with everything. 

My first issue with him comes from encouraging Saeyoung to join the agency. I know Saeyoung didn’t have many options, but how was encouraging him to train to become a hacker and assassin the best option?! On top of that, he stalked Zen per Rika’s request and took creeper photos of him, failed miserably at protecting Saeran and don’t get me started on how he loves Rika unconditionally. V has some good characteristics but I really don’t care about those when he’s so terrible otherwise. 

Route: 10/10 This route is *chef’s kiss* the BEST. I wouldn’t call it a romance since Vs barely in it but damn is it riveting. Saeran is the perfect amount of loving and unhinged, MC get’s to know Rika on a personal level and V finally gets to be active instead of just reactive like he is in all the other routes. It’s also  satisfying to find out how much V has been keeping secret and to get a glimpse into Rika’s psyche. But what really makes V’s route stand out among the rest is that there are spy action scenes like in Saeyoung’s route, but the player also gets to spend time in Mint Eye.

Romantic Potential: 7/10 I’ll be honest. I don’t think V will ever be able to move on from Rika. He’ll always love her, as evidence in his AE. Besides that drawback, I do think he’d be a good romantic partner for MC. V was never the issue in his past relationship with Rika. She was the abusive one and he was 100% the victim. I think he would treat MC just as well in their relationship as he treated Rika. 

Saeran

Character: 7/10 I know I’m not the only one who loved the suave and cunning Saeran of the main routes who, after getting the therapy he needed, became an adorably shy and awkward man. Sadly, that’s not the character we got in AS. Instead, we met Ray, the split personality of Saeran’s psyche. Ray is charming and sweet as well as possessive and manipulative...which is something I’m into. But it’s not for everyone. Saeran’s real personality in AS is revealed to be angry and abusive and not at all similar to who he was in the main routes. I’ll give Cheritz props for writing a fairly accurate portrayal of disassociative identity disorder, but I think Saeran’s characterization is inconsistent. I get the impression Ray was an afterthought when creating AS. 

Route: 7/10 A mixed bag for me. I really enjoy any chatroom/scene with Ray. He’s undeniably creepy, but those scenes were entertaining in a dark romance kind of way. On the other hand, the Saeran scenes had a lot of unrealized potential. Abuse is never cool. All his route needed to fix this was a scene where Saeran explained to MC that he was pretending to hate her to appease Rika and the other believers. While this fake hatred is implied, I think it needed to be outright stated. It’s also hard to believe that Saeran overcame his DID in the course of one night. I know all routes are limited to 11 days, but this one needed more. Highlights of this route are Saeyoung being kidnapped by his father and of course, dark Yoosung with Elizabun. 

Romantic Potential: 7/10 I truly do believe that Saeran could go on and live a happy life in any of the endings where he escapes Mint Eye and receives therapy. While we only get a glimpse of what an emotionally stable Searan looks like, we know that he was kind and attentive with MC. Saeran is a giver and would do anything to make MC happy. Red flags are that Searan is still clingy at the end of his route. Yoosung makes a comment that he’s always holding MC’s hand when he sees them together. Also, his DID is something that will occasionally return and that’s something MC has to go into their relationship knowing. 

[violetwolfraven]

Some Kind of Disaster

A song fic that is part 2 to this. Basically, it’s an angsty sprace fic to Some Kind of Disaster by All Time Low. Mostly cause I felt guilty for breaking Race’s heart a little bit. Enjoy, y’all.

...

I'm a liar, I'm a cynic. I'm a sinner, I'm a saint. I'm a loser, I'm a critic. I'm the ghost of my mistakes. And it's all my fault that I'm still the one you want. What are you after? Some kind of disaster?

Spot felt numb as he walked back to the Lodging House.

It was Race.

They both had to be the stupidest sons if bitches who ever lived, because they’d known each other since Spot was 13 and Race was 12 and it had never registered in Spot’s mind that he knew most of his friends’ soulmarks, yet Race was his best friend and he’d never seen his. Never even considered that it might say his name.

I woke up from a never-ending dream. I shut my eyes at 17.

It had been 4 years.

How were they just finding this out now?

Probably because they were stupid. They were goddamn idiots and now everything was messed up.

I lost every moment in between. I felt the sun rise up and swallow me, yeah.

Replaying every interaction they’d had in the last 4 years, Spot guessed he wasn’t particularly surprised.

He’d started spending time with Race because he found him intriguing. No one else risked crossing a King of Brooklyn if they didn’t have to—even one who hadn’t been king very long—and then here came this cocky little shit who’d apparently been selling at Sheepshead for years and somehow managed to talk every Brooklyn kid who found out into not reporting him to whatever king happened to be in power.

When Spot did find out about him, he hadn’t been scared. Not even a little.

Even Jack Kelly, three-time Refuge escapee and all around badass (Spot would never say it to Kelly’s face, but he actually respected his fighting skills.) had a healthy respect for the Brooklyn crown. He knew that Spot could kill him if he needed to, and was understandably wary, even as the best fighter in Manhattan.

Race hadn’t shown any respect beyond the normal kind decent people showed other human beings.

And it's all my fault that I'm still the one you want.

So, Spot had always figured that was what had drawn him to Race. What had kept him running back to this gutsy Manhattan kid no matter how annoying he was sometimes or how many other friendships Spot had ended for his friends’ own sake.

And Spot had ended many friendships over the years. People close to you were just people for you to cry over when they inevitably left you, one way or another. Or they were people who could be used to manipulate or hurt you, and either way, it wasn’t worth it.

But he’d never been able to bring himself to push Race away, because Race treated him like he was any other kid. Because Race laughed when Spot asked him if he was scared of him. Because Race could be annoying and sarcastic at all the wrong times, but he also could be so considerate and caring when something was genuinely wrong. There was no one else Spot trusted enough to talk about feelings with.

I'm a liar, I'm a cynic. I’m a sinner, I’m a saint.

And yet he’d never thought of Race in the way a soulmate bond was supposed to imply. He’d never daydreamed about what it might be like to kiss Race, never thought about how nice it felt just to hug him. Never. Because being queer was dangerous when you weren’t leading the bloodiest borough in New York and besides, Spot didn’t have time for any relationship.

He’d never thought about it. Never. He couldn’t.

Because even if he had, there was the fact that Spot was a killer, he was objectively a terrible person, and Race deserved someone good. He deserved someone who it wasn’t dangerous to be with, and if he couldn’t want a girl, he deserved a nice boy who could give him an easy relationship. Or, as easy as two boys could be.

I'm a loser, I'm a critic. I'm the ghost of my mistakes.

That would never be Spot. He could never give Race what he deserved, which was why, despite the look on his soulmate’s face when he pulled back from that kiss, he had to do it. He had to push him away—had to finally force himself to push Race away—because if he didn’t, Race would end up stuck with a broken, complicated killer who didn’t deserve him.

And it’s all my fault that I’m still the one you want. So what are you after?

That didn’t mean the pain on Race’s face hadn’t been agony to witness. It was Spot’s fault, he knew, for not pushing him away sooner.

He kept all his other friends at arm’s length for a reason. It was his own damn fault that Race was hurting right now, because if he’d just pushed him away when he should have, Race wouldn’t have developed any kind of feelings for him.

Some kind of disaster?

And he knew that Race did have feelings for him, because Spot knew Race, and Race wasn’t the kind of dumbass to kiss someone just because they were soulmates.

God, Spot wished he could wish that never happened. In truth, he couldn’t stop thinking about it, because it had been full of uncertainty but it was good. He totally hadn’t imagined kissing Race before, but if he had, it still would have been better than anything he could imagine. He hadn’t wanted to stop even as he pushed him away.

I crashed down from a high that felt so real.

Spot was fighting a smile over the fact that Race had kissed him, which was stupid because he wasn’t a goddamn teenage girl.

I never knew how much it would hurt to feel.

Thinking again about how hurt Race had looked when he pushed him away, it wasn’t hard not to smile anymore.

Even without the fact that they were soulmates, even if you disregarded them being best friends, Racetrack Higgins was one of the few genuinely nice people in the world. Spot genuinely couldn’t imagine wanting to hurt him.

You gotta hurt sometimes to learn to heal.

He would recover. He’d pick himself up and find some other boy and Spot could pretend it didn’t ache to even think about seeing him with someone else.

Well, imagining Race happy with someone else was better than imagining him hurting.

You gotta get back up and learn to deal. Yeah.

And Spot would be fine. Love wasn’t something that had ever been in the cards for him. He would be lucky if he lived to 20 as it was, and honestly... well, he couldn’t imagine what his life would look like when he was anything other than a Newsie. He knew he’d have to move on eventually, but...

Well, wherever he ended up, Spot was sure it wouldn’t be with a bouncy boy with a blue-eyed smirk that could melt anyone’s heart.

Nope. It hadn’t melted Spot’s. It definitely hadn’t. He couldn’t think about that.

And it's all my fault that I'm still the one you want.

“Why do you look like someone spat in your sandwich?”

Shit. Spot hadn’t expected anyone to be waiting up for him, but a couple of his friends had.

Or maybe Hotshot and Joey just felt like playing cards in the common room at 9:00 at night when they had work tomorrow. Who knew?

I’m a liar, I’m a cynic. I’m a sinner, I’m a saint.

“I’m fine, Hotshot,” Spot mumbled, heading for the stairs.

“That ain’t super convincin’, Spot,” Joey remarked, “If you’s gonna lie, can ya at least do it well?”

Hotshot slapped her in the arm, “Spot, what is it?”

Screw it. Spot had to talk to someone about this, and Hotshot was his second. He trusted him more than just about anyone.

“Hey, Jo, can you go upstairs?”

Joey looked up from her cards, registered that Spot was serious, and put the cards down, standing up and heading for the stairs.

“Guess I can kick Hotshot’s ass in poker tomorrow,” she said, “Have a good talk, boys.”

I’m a loser, I’m a critic. I’m the ghost of my mistakes.

Spot sat down in the seat Joey had been in, waiting until he heard her get to the top of the stairs to untie the fabric covering his wrist.

“You remember this, right?”

Hotshot nodded, untieing his own, “So, this is ‘bout Anthony?”

“I guess.”

“Wait, did ya find him?!”

“Did you find Isaac?”

Hotshot hesitated.

“Wait, did you? When?” Spot demanded, “Did ya find your soulmate and not tell me?”

Hotshot laughed nervously, “Maybe?”

“Who?”

“Um...” Hotshot looked at the floor, “It’s... it’s Ike. He’s a Manhattan boy. We found out maybe six months ago. We’s been meetin’ up in secret for a few months, but... well, so far it’s workin’.”

Spot realized that... well, Hotshot was an angry, defiant 12-year-old when he first came to Brooklyn. Now, he was an angry, defiant 15-year-old. He ran hot. They called him ‘Hotshot’ for a reason.

But a few months ago, he’d started cooling down a little. He was calmer. Happier. He still was a bit too confrontational for his own good, but Spot hadn’t had to bail his little brother (because Hotshot was his little brother, blood be damned) out of a fight in a while. He’d noticed the smile that came out more often, but just... hadn’t asked about it.

“That’s...” Spot forced a smile, “That’s great. I’m happy for ya, kid.”

“So, what’s the story with Anthony?” Hotshot asked, “I takes it by the look on your face, whatever it is didn’t go well.”

“It... it’s complicated.”

“Well, what is it?” Hotshot urged, “What happened?”

Spot’s instinct was to not tell him. His instinct was to just run away and talk to someone he was more comfortable with talking to.

But he wasn’t comfortable with anyone more than Hotshot. No one except Race. And his head was still a little hazy from the alcohol, so he could blame it on that.

“I pushed him away.”

Hotshot nodded, “Okay. I did the same thing.”

Spot didn’t expect that, “Wait, what?”

“I pushed him away when I found out—relationships are messy and dumb, right? Only the little shit wouldn’t leave me alone. He kept findin’ any excuse to come see me. It took him gettin’ sick and finally stayin’ away for a few days for me to realize I didn’t want him to.”

Well, that wasn’t Spot’s problem. He wasn’t pushing Race away because he didn’t want him. He was pushing him away because he knew that confident, funny dumbass deserved better than him.

Spot took a deep breath, “It’s Race.”

“Oh, shit. Wait... haven’t ya known him for—“

“Years, yeah,” Spot admitted, “And we’s just figurin’ it out now. We’re stupid. I get it.”

“Still... Race is your best friend. Why would you push him away?”

Spot scoffed, “Hotshot, ya know what kind of person I am, right?”

“Yeah..?” he looked confused, “This is a problem because..?”

“I don’t deserve him.”

Hotshot was silent for a second before banging his head on the table.

“What—“

“Ya think I deserve Ike?” he asked, rolling his eyes, “You had to pull me off a Harlem kid before I killed him, once, Spot.”

“Yeah, but—“

“I ain’t a good person, either. Hell, most of Brooklyn ain’t. But do ya see the rest of us mopin’ ‘bout not bein’ good enough for our soulmates? Do you actually know what ‘soulmates’ means?”

“Yes,” Spot growled, “It means fate made a goddamn mistake, cause Race is so good, and he deserves better than me.”

“But you’re his soulmate,” Hotshot argued, “That means nobody can make him happy like you can and... dammit Spot, even if ya don’t deserve him, he deserves to be happy. So if ya really care, just... the best you can do for him is to suck it up, accept you’ll never deserve him, and love him, anyway.”

“I.... I don’t...”

The words stuck in his throat. He couldn’t say that he didn’t love Race.

He couldn’t say that he did, though, either.

“I thought you was supposed to be the wise one,” Hotshot muttered, “Bein’ leader and a couple years older than me. Thought you’s supposed to have more figured out.”

Spot shrugged, “I probably am.”

And it’s all my fault that I’m still the one you want. So what are you after? Some kind of disaster?

Spot stalled until the next day, waiting until after selling time and then hurrying over to catch his soulmate before he left for Manhattan.

Race looked like... like someone had blown out a candle inside him. Sad didn’t quite cover it.

When he saw Spot, he froze, somewhere between afraid, angry, and hopeful, but thankfully not trying to run as he watched him approach.

Spot took a deep breath, “Can we talk?”

Race seemed to be pondering the options before he nodded once, jerking his chin towards his usual hangout place under the stands.

Well I've sung this song a thousand times.

“So, what is it?” Race asked, kind of annoyed-sounding.

Spot knew him well enough to know that he was using faked anger to cover up his real feelings, though he wasn’t sure what said feelings were. He decided not to point that out.

“What?” Race asked again, an impatient edge in his voice as Spot struggled for words.

He had no idea what to say. This was... he usually knew what to say to Race. Race was his best friend. Things were easy and safe with Race.

Race was his soulmate. He didn’t know what to say about that.

I wore the crown, I sold the lie.

“I think I owe ya an explanation,” he said finally.

Race snorted, “What’s there to say? Soulmates ain’t always a guarantee. Sometimes fate makes mistakes, and I ain’t gonna try to make you want me, Spottie, so—“

“I do,” Spot interrupted, “Or... I don’t... not.”

“What?”

There was hope and fear in that word.

I lived the life and paid for every crime, yeah.

Spot took a deep breath, shoving down his nerves. Race deserved the truth.

“There are things I can’t say, Racer, but don’t think for a second that I pushed ya away because I don’t have... feelings. Believe me, it’s frustratin’ that I do, but... I don’t deserve you. Plain and simple. I’ve got more blood on my hands than you should have to deal with.”

Race looked at the ground as he took a step closer to Spot.

“Ain’t that my decision to make?”

His voice was softer, now, but Spot still knew he needed to choose his words carefully.

It's all downhill 'til it's a climb. Through blood and tears, but I don't mind.

“I can’t give ya everything you deserve,” he said, “I can’t. It’s a fact. You deserve someone who isn’t a damaged killer who’s angry all the time.”

“I don’t give a fuck what I deserve,” Race said quietly, “I already know everything you’ve had to do to survive, Spot. I ain’t ran yet and I ain’t gonna. If ya don’t want me, you can just say so. But if you do, you need to say it right now.”

“I don’t know if I can,” Spot admitted, “Race, I push everyone away because it’s... it’s safer.”

“So let me be the one person you don’t push away. Ya never have before we found out ‘bout this.”

“This is different. Havin’ a friend is one thing. A lover... a soulmate... that’s different.”

I'll just keep singing on and on and on.

“I don’t care,” Race insisted, “Spot, it’s my choice what I want to take on. And I know bein’ with you, I’d be takin’ on danger and a whole lot of complications, but I don’t care. I’ll take it all on if you’ll let me.”

Spot took a deep breath. He replayed Hotshot’s words in his head, knowing that he didn’t deserve Race, but Race deserved to be happy. He was terrified to let someone get that close to him, but...

Well, to be honest, Race already was that close. Race had been breaking down his walls since he was 13, and if they got together, not that much would actually change because they already knew every part of each other.

And it's all my fault that I'm still the one you want...

“I don’t deserve you,” Spot said slowly, “And there are things I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to say to you, but... I’m willin’ to try. I want to try.”

Race smiled, “Is that the truth?”

I’m a liar, I’m a cynic.

Spot realized right then how close together they were standing.

Maybe it was still annoying to him how he had to look up a bit to look Race in the eye. It wasn’t fair, considering Spot was actually a little under a year older.

I’m a sinner, I’m a saint.

“Yes,” he mumbled, “That’s the truth.”

It was. Because even if it was hard to admit it to himself, Spot did want Race, and he was glad he was his soulmate.

I’m a loser, I’m a critic. I’m the ghost of my mistakes.

Race looked around, checking that no one was around. It was late enough that no one was. They probably wouldn’t be walked in on here.

Spot was a little nervous about what that meant, but a little excited, too, as Race turned back to him with a cheeky little smirk.

“May I?”

And it’s all my fault that I’m still the one you want.

Spot nodded, grabbing the front of Race’s shirt, himself, to pull him into a kiss like the one he’d been too scared to return last night.

Yeah, it’s all my fault that I’m still the one you want. So what are you after? Some kind of disaster?

[ermbabyel]

hi hi hi !! may i please request a personality ship with bts and ateez !! i apologize in advance bc it's super long </3

I’m a 5’9.5 (basically 5’10) girl with dark skin, jet black hair (currently in long twists rn!!), and i’m on the curvier side (esp hips and my thighs) !! some of my favorite features are my plump lips (and i have a beauty mark on my bottom lip!), my long legs (that look so so so so good in skirts and dresses), my kempt and pretty fingernails, and my eyelashes !!! i’m a virgo (and surprisingly i get along with all the signs, i cant think of a sole zodiac sign i DONT mix well with), and i am an i/enfj (i got 51% extravert 49% intra the first time, then 50% for both the second time!! ) and i honestly agree—i’m an ambivert all the way! i often come off as cold/shy when meeting new people (one of my closest friends avoided me for a month before meeting me because i looked so intimidating LMAO), but once you get close to me i turn into a bundle of warmth and love: i will never stop texting them the <3 emoji every morning or buying my friends/s/o their favorite starbucks order when they need a little cheer-me-up.

  i’m extremely passionate about the issues and people i care about and the goals and dreams i have. I’m creative, patient, an extremely good listener, caring, a social butterfly, and extremely hardworking. my friends always told me of my heart of gold and how perceptive i am of the people around me—noticing immediately when something is wrong and trying to make them feel better. I’m also very headstrong, detailed, and determined!! my friends also call me a nerd since i’ve had all a’s since kindergarten—i LOVE school and would describe myself as intelligent. i really like that i’m empathetic and motivational to those around me. it’s really easy for me to show my affection, adoration, and support for someone because i just want everyone to feel loved and safe :( i HATE seeing my loved ones sad, and when people usually have problems about anything (from family to just school), i’m the one they come to talk to because of my warm and openminded heart. I love sharing happiness with my friends in their goals and always hype them up no matter what, and it makes me so so so so happy seeing my loved ones content. im also really, really funny (my fave personality trait of mine tbh)!! I’m always cracking jokes and laughing (sometimes for no reason LMAOO). i would be in the library at like 7 am with my friends and struggle with stifling my laugh from jokes i told </3

  I also love to go out and explore—whether trying out a new restaurant in the city or a newly opened amusement park or trying something new, like skydiving (or some other crazy but fun idea), trying recipes from around the world, or trying sledding for the first time! at the same time, i like really chill, mellow spending-time-alone-or-with-one-other-person activities like baking (my favorite treat to bake is red velvet cupcakes and cheddar bay biscuits) and dancing !! (i’ve been a dancer for more than 12 years!!). i can also speak more than 5 languages (including korean!) and i’m always saying random phrases (like thank you, i love u so much!, gtfo my face, that sucks ass) in a random language too LMFAOOO. i often think being a coffee/cafe lover is a personality trait (i love love love love love coffee) i also love accessories (earrings, necklaces, bracelets, anklets, rings, etc) and would die of happiness when the day i can wear matching accessories with my s/o comes.

besides being my bestfriend who i can kiss and whatnot (hehe), my ideal type is a TALL (THEY DONT HAVE TO BE but 5’9+...i’m already tall but pls .5 of an inch taller would be enough) man who has eyes for me and only me !!! they may look cold/cool/mysterious/laid back at first glance (like “i dont like u lol” or “yeah haha 🙂" to any other girls but “hi baby what can i do for u today to please the loml” with me <3)  but turn into the sweetest, warmest, cutest honey bun once i get to know them! (kinda like me)!! ALSO a man who can pull off all black outfits like those are my FAVORITE omg. he needs to have a BIG sense of humor (like i want to laugh every second i’m with him and laugh so hard that our stomachs start hurting and we beg each other to stop making jokes type of humor), fashionable (so i can learn fashion pls and wear coordinated outfits with him). i just want a boy who i could talk to and listen to for HOURS. like i would follow him into the bathroom as he showers and sit on the toilet and just listen to him talk about his day or vent to him, but also a boy that loves comfortable silence!! like just cuddling with each other or im studying, and hes working on a personal project so that just being with him makes me feel warm <3 i want a s/o who’s willing to go out and travel with me so i could take off guard pics of him and make him my wallpaper until he begs me to change it. im also not good at conflict so if conflict arises, id love a boy who knows how to talk me down and open up the room for conversation and make me feel safe and not as if im confronted or wrong, someone where we can just talk, resolve our problem, and make it up with a hug or night out!! this kinda leads to me wanting a relationship where we both help improve each other and our flaws (for example some of my flaws are callousness, taking things to heart sometimes, and not opening up easily, etc), so i’d really appreciate a relationship where my partner and i can help each other grow as people. i also love love love to cook, so i’d love an s/o that loves cooking with me and teaching each other how to cook each other’s cultural foods (i would love to teach my bf how to cook jollof rice and have a cookoff one day). I like ALL 5 of the love languages but my top 3 tied for 1st are quality time (THIS i want to spend everyday with my bf at chinatown or a new city exploring), words of affirmation (someone who reaffirms me of their love continuously, supportively, and in sweet ways), and acts of service (cooking my favorite food when i’m down, doing chores that i cant do when tired). men who are really expressive through touch are also ideal <3 i'd shy away from pda, but inside the house i’d be so happy yet so shy and flustered when they express their love through touch (like laying in my lap so i can play with their hair, holding my hand while watching tv, cuddling while talking about whatever). OR like the SLIGHTEST compliment or act of love (LIKE BACKHUGS OR HOLDING HANDS OR KISSING MY BEAUTY MARKS OR FOREHEAD KISSESJSJSJSJ). i love a man who's goal oriented, know what he wants, and makes the move first (kinda like taking control of the relationship!!) in all, i’d just love to be really appreciated and loved and also show the same love, support, warmth, closeness, and happiness to my bf <3 tysm <333

Hi hi~! You sound like such a sweetheart and so cute 😍💕 I’ll be super happy to ship you~!

Bts

Yoongi 🥳

I thought of Yoongi right away while reading your submission. You sound like such a sweet and supportive person that I think Yoongi would benefit from being in a relationship with you. You also remind me a lot of hobi when I was reading your description so I think you two would be best friends too~! Yoongi would be intrigued by your appearance, your intimidating aura around you would make him want to know you more. Surely there’s more than meets the eye...and Yoongi was correct. After getting to know you more. He soon learned how such a happy and sweet person you are. He would love the duality of you. It’s keeps him on his toes and yearns to learn more o about you~! Yoongi is a very passionate person as well, especially with his career and his members. And I’m sure he’d be passionate with you too, but he’ll show you in his own little ways. For example, writing songs about you for bts’ new comeback, getting you your favorite foods and drinks when you both have had a long day...he just loves you so much. I can see you, and sope being the three musketeers of bts, you three would do SO much together. Yoongi can be a silly and goofy person as we’ve seen, but only certain people can drawl that aspect out of him, so you and hobi would do SOO well at making him feel comfortable to let loose and have fun~! I can see you and hobi goofing around at the studio with each other and Yoongi would shake his head and act unimpressed, but we all see right through him and he truly adores you in that state~! Yoongi would also think it’s super adorable how flustered and shy you get when he gets touchy with you 👀💜. Just a very cute and wholesome relationship~! 🥰

Ateez

Seonghwa 🥳

You love when your partner takes control? You don’t need to tell Seonghwa twice! The boy would LOVE to take care of you and take the lead in the relationship. I think he’s also naturally dominate, so it would be no problem for him~! I can see you two going on cute coffee dates to local cafè shops close by. Seonghwa would absolutely adore how excited you are about coffee~! He would also think it’s hella attractive that you’re a dancer 👀. He LOOOOVES to watch you dance for himself maybe he would create a dance for only you two to perform. Your legs and lips are how absolute favorite physical traits of yours. Seonghwa would always have a hand on your leg or knee whenever you guys are sitting down. And if you’d let him, Seonghwa would kiss you all day long~! He just loves the feeling of your soft lips against his 💜. Seonghwa also adores how happy and cheerful you are. Especially on hard long days full of practices and performances, your cheerful and loving nature always makes him feel better and soooo much more relaxed. I can see both of you mothering the other members too~! He appreciates you taking care of him at times, but he’s also take opportunities to take care of you too~! Overall a very sweet and loving relationship~! ❤️‍🔥

Again, I am very sorry for the long ass wait 🥺. I hope you enjoy your ships love~! Stay happy and healthy~! 🤗💜

[spaceorphan18]

I'm new to fandom - what are the better boyfriend olympics? I've heard that phrase being used a lot to talk about Klaine but I'm not really sure what's going on.

Hi Nonny! Welcome to fandom :) Pull up a chair as I give you a history of the BBO and how it started.  I actually think it’s kind of fascinating now that I’m not living through it, lol. 

Okay, so let’s go back to 2010 when there wasn’t a Klaine fandom, there was a Kurt fandom.  A lot of the BBO stemmed out of the Kurt’s Boyfriend Shipping wars of 2010.  

Back then, there was just a Kurt fandom, and a lot of opinions about who he should date.  Believe it or not, Kurt was shipped a lot with the other guys on the show, there was a healthy dose of Kurt/Finn, but Kurt/Puck was huge, and there was a smattering of Kurt/Mike (I never really did see much Kurt/Artie now that I think of it, which is kind of funny in retrospect, but I’m sure it’s out there.)  Anyway - when the show announced Kurt was getting a boyfriend -- well, things began to get heated up.  

Three big ships emerged

Kurt/Sam - because the rumor was that Sam was originally supposed to be Kurt’s bf (probably not, but that rumor was big at the time).  Btw, they were the canoe ship (I have no idea why) and was also known as Kum (rolls-eyes).  This ship’s fanbase was so huge and lasted so long, that the show felt the need to address it head on in Season Two’s Rumours (not a joke).   

Kurt/Karofsky - Also known as Kurtofsky, they were also called themselves the Pirate ship (god, Idk why, shipping wars are weird, yo).  These people were also really passionate, mostly about Dave, but liked the whole idea that Kurt would save Dave and they would have this weird - enemies to loves love affair or something.  I don’t know, I could never get past the squicky assault aspect, but whatever. 

Kurt/Blaine - which. at the time, was... the biggest possibility? It’s funny cause the other two ships were just as big as the Klaine ship, and really the fighting became over who was going to be the best option for Kurt.  

And that’s the thing.  Fans of Kurt were so passionate about who was best for Kurt, because everyone had seen him go through hell and back on the show, so his boyfriend needed to be perfect for him.  And you know who was perfect (at first) -- Blaine.  More on that in a second... 

However, Blaine brought his own bit of baggage -- namely fans of Darren Criss (and/or Starkid fans).  Unlike Chord Overstreet or Max Adler, people knew who Darren was before he was on Glee.  So his own fandom joined in on the Klaine of it all.  At first it was all fine -- as the shipping wars continued, it was less about Kurt vs Blaine and more about Klaine vs the other shippers.  Well, that was going to change.... 

Original Song happened and Kurt and Blaine got together ending the question of who would ultimately be Kurt’s boyfriend.  And things were nice and cozy headed into season 3.  You’d think the Kurt/Sam and Kurt/Karofsky ships would die out, but not really, they stuck around for a long time, and kinda morphed into something else.  

See, The First Time happened.  And for the first time Blaine wasn’t the perfect prince that he was in season 2 -- he had more of a developed personality, and more flaws.  And... some people didn’t like it.  (Also added to the mix was Sebastian -- and the Seblaine and Kurtbastian ships were born, but those kinda go off on their own thing and I’m not really going to bring them up much here.)  Anyway, what really got fandom split was Dance With Somebody. 

You had two sides of an argument, people who saw Kurt’s POV and people who saw Blaine’s POV -- and guess what happened.  The two sides began to fight with each other over who was “right” in the argument.  (My god...) And thus started what fandom started referring to as The Better Boyfriend Olympics. 

See - for reasons I don’t fully understand - instead of seeing that each of the boys have a fault and each were wrong in the episode, each side wanted to say that their side, and their POV was the correct way -- that one boyfriend was more oppressed and the other was not as good a partner.  

On the Kurt side, though, you had a lot of the old Kurt fans and ships who didn’t like Blaine (and/or didn’t want Blaine as his partner) so they vehemently decided that unless Blaine was the perfect boyfriend again, he didn’t deserve to be with Kurt.  Meanwhile, you had the Blaine fans, many of them Darren fans who wanted Blaine to have more depth to him than just being Kurt’s boyfriend, and not being Kurt fans first (or originally) they were going to push back at the Kurt fans who were lashing out at Blaine. 

Compounding this was the fact that during season 3, there were so many cast members and characters that unless you were Finchel, you were begging for scraps and your featured episode to come along.  Meanwhile - Kurt got a ton of screen time, but didn’t sing much, while Blaine sang a lot more, but didn’t get much story.  The Kurt fans resented that Blaine was always singing.  The Blaine fans were annoyed that the Kurt fans resented it, and tried to remind the Kurt fans that Blaine barely got any development.  

Either way, a war had begun.  And then The Break Up happened.  

Now Kurt fans had a specific reason to point at -- Blaine being a terrible boyfriend.  He cheated.  He’s terrible.  The end. 

The fandom was not firmly split into sides - you were either a Kurt fan - a lot of them who HATED Blaine - partly because he was getting more attention at the time, partly cause he did sing more, partly because they were made up of Kurt ships that didn’t work out, and partly cause they saw so much of themselves in Kurt that they projected onto him their own feelings, and loving Blaine was not a part of that projection.  Or you were a Blaine fan - who spent a lot of time defending Blaine to the point of exhaustion, and became so resentful of Kurt that they wished Blaine could be with anyone else because Kurt (fans) didn’t understand Blaine and should just stop trying. 

Weren’t there any Klainers you ask? Ha, well.... Klainers, people actually liked Kurt AND Blaine were stereotyped into two categories.  Category A) the really really loud fanbase (usually on Twitter) that harassed the creators, RM, Chris, Darren, various crew about Klaine every second that they got -- to the point that it started to feel embarrassing (that’s probably my own projection).   Category B) People who thought (think) that Chris and Darren were (are) in a secret relationship.  (Spoiler alert they aren’t, never have been, and never will be.)  The two of these categories overlapped A LOT, and many of the fans of one boy or the other just disassociated completely.  

You could still be a fan of the Klaine relationship, but you had a preference to which boy you were actually a fan of -- you couldn’t like both, or else you were a Klainer, and that was not cool.  (I spent a long time NOT identifying as anything, and trying to make sure everything I did and said was equal -- a) cause I was new to fandom and b) cause I hated that either one or the other of these characters were villainized so frequently.) 

Anyway - Season 4 continued.  Adam showed up, and Kurt fans got all excited, but the problem was that a lot of them saw him as the perfect boyfriend again -- not a real character but a prop that could make Kurt look good and be everything for Kurt.  Look, I liked Adam, I did, but he was underdeveloped, and this weird idea that your boyfriend needs to be perfect in order to be a functioning relationship is just unrealistic.  I digress.  Meanwhile, we didn’t get a lot of Kurt POV, which didn’t help things, and meant even more projection over his character. 

Meanwhile, the Blaine fans had formed their own community, which became viciously defensive of him.  I think the whole fandom was toxic during this time for a lot of reasons, and I really wanted to quit it.  Many people did -- the show wasn’t being fun anymore. 

Season 5 came along, the boys got back together, tempers simmered, but the whole idea of the Better Boyfriend Olympics came back every time a conflict happened.  Arguments about who was the better boyfriend ensued, gatekeeping as to why their pick was best and why your opinion sucked still ran through the fandom.  Not helping was the fact that Cory had died, and the creators, actors, and crew -- as well as media -- was tired of Glee.  

The one nice thing, though was that a lot of the old crowd had moved on by then, and there was an influx of newer people coming in during season 5 (and season 6) -- they weren’t here for the season 3 droughts and season 4 wars, and brought in a newer and fresher perspective.  

But still - we had the end of season 5 and the summer of spoilers and season 6 to get through.  At this point, the Kurt and Blaine camps had moved to their parts of the internet and really not speaking much to each other if they could help it.  When an argument happened on the show, the same kind of Better Boyfriend Olympics came up again -- one boyfriend was worse than the other, and unless they changed xyz they were not good enough for the other.  But at this point, it was incredibly tiring.  I know that I was just ready for the show to be done with. 

I should say, as an aside, not helping things were the rise of some rather vocal BNF-ish fans, who dug their heels in about their own opinions.  The refusal to even acknowledge that one side or the other might be right, or have valid points was not helping anything.  A lot of people on both sides refused to even listen to the points on the other side -- and instead of being frustrated at the show, the creators, or whatever, they took it against each other, which wasn’t fun to watch either.

Season 6 happened - Blainofsky happened, and that killed enthusiasm for the season on both sides, most people just kind of wanted it to be over.  And then the ending came quickly, and I think a lot of people who were just plain unhappy about everything left for good.  

The Better Boyfriend Olympics, or this weird competition that always pitted the boys and their fandoms against each other in the name of one being better than the other, leveled off after this.  I won’t give myself /that/ much credit - but one reason I created @todaydreambelievers was to give fans of both Kurt and Blaine a safe place where we could enjoy and discuss both boys without the BBO rearing its head.  And you know what -- it did mend a few hearts.  

For the most part, it’s been pretty quiet since.  Fandom is quieter, but I think the people who have come into it after the show has ended are a lot less judgmental and argumentative.  (I suppose it helps if you know how the story is going to end.)  And the cool thing, for me, is finding a group of people who enjoy Kurt and Blaine equally (or respectfully) -- and reclaiming the name Klainer as a good thing.  

I’ll end by saying this -- it’s been relatively peaceful, even with the influx of new people throughout the years, but I have been seeing shades of BBO pop up again.  Look, you don’t have to like Klaine to be a fan of one or the other of them.  But there are a lot of terrible things going on in the world, a lot of things to be angry and get indignant about.  How a fictional couple was written ten years ago is not one of them.  Be respectful of people, and know that maybe the side you understand better isn’t the only side worth listening to.  ;) 

[surveys-at-your-service]

Survey #384

“watch your tongue or have it cut from your head”

Do you post to say happy birthday on other people’s walls? Sometimes. Depends on my mood and the person. When was the last time you saw a rainbow? Idr. What’s your favorite television commercial? I don't watch TV enough at all to have one. And who has a favorite commercial, anyway? Do you trip a lot? I don't really trip a lot, but kinda fumble over my footing and stray a bit. I'm horrible at walking straight, and it's gotten worse as my legs have. How old is your television? The one in the living room is god knows how old. My parents were still together when they bought it. When did you last talk on the phone with someone? A couple days ago for my appointment with my psychiatrist. Are you currently sleepy? I'm quite convinced I'm permanently tired. Are you hot or cold natured? I am ALWAYS fucking hot, ugh. Do you take any advanced classes? I took mostly Honors classes in school. Do you have weak upper body strength? My body is just weak as a whole. What is the worst insult someone can call you? Emotionally weak. Are you good at sketching? If we're talking meerkats, haha. They're the only complex thing that I can freehand no problem without needing a reference, honestly. Ever play Angry Birds? Nah. I thought the movie was cute, though. Have you ever been to the zoo before? Yeah. Has anyone ever been weirdly obsessed with you? No. Are you afraid someone might steal your identity someday? It's not something I actively worry about at all. Like, you don't want my identity, I promise. Do you have any talents that come naturally? Growing up, adults always told me I was a "gifted" artist and writer. Also that I seem to have an unnaturally strong connection with animals. I've always been that person where a pet's owner is like "omg ____ never lets people do that" and whatnot. Have you ever had plastic surgery before? I haven't. It's funny though, how opposed to it I used to be... Like goddamn, I was such a fucking stupid and honestly judgmental teenager, regarding many things. I look back on her and cringe. Like damn dude, if you have a safe surgical procedure to help you enjoy the body you're stuck with the rest of your life, you go for it, boo. Are you afraid of airplane rides? Not really. What’s the best Valentine’s Day gift you’ve gotten? There was this one year where Jason had to go to work on Valentine's Day and I was super bummed, yet he still surprised me with a heart-shaped box of chocolates, roses, and a game I really wanted, Heavy Rain. I thought it was the sweetest. What is something you lose often? My phone. ;-; Do you enter a lot of sweepstakes? I don't enter any. Do you consider yourself physically active? *chuckles nervously* Do you have Netflix? Yeah. Favorite salad dressing? That Olive Garden replica you can buy at the store. Do you enjoy dancing? Once upon a time I did. My body could never handle it now. Have you ever considered writing a novel? Many times. Snow or sand? Snow, by twenty thousand miles. It is VERY hard for me to walk through sand, and I also hate hate hate hate HATE the sensation. Do you like sour candy? Heeeeeell yeah man. Have you gotten any injuries lately? If so, what & how? Nothing notable. Are you a clumsy person? Like you would not fucking believe. Last male you talked to in person? I think my primary physician's nurse. Are you thinking about asking anyone out? No. Pink lemonade or regular lemonade? Pink lemonade, for sure. But I love both. Chocolate or strawberry milk? CHOCOLATE. Strawberry milk is disgusting. Have you ever won a contest on the radio?No. Is there a song that reminds you of your best friend? There's quite a few. Has a book ever made you cry? Yes. Do you automatically check your phone when you wake up? Yes, for the time. Do you know anyone who has a pet bunny? Not that I'm aware. What store or website would you most like a gift card for? Rebel's Market. How do you feel about wolves? I adore wolves. Beautiful, majestic creatures with very interesting social dynamics. Name your top 3 favorite musical instruments. Electric guitar, violin, piano. What was the last book(s) you bought at a bookstore? At an actual bookstore, I think it was The Fault In Our Stars, which I never actually read. Do you use Pinterest? Yes. Do you know any sign language? No. Do you have a favorite poem? No. Do you have a dog? No. The one we were pretty much stuck with has a home now. Have you ever read The Little House on the Prairie series? I haven't. Have you ever gone on a service trip to an underprivileged country? No. Have you ever performed in front of more than 100 people? Yes, for dance. When (if ever) was the last time you went to church? Forever ago, I don't even remember the last time. What's a quote you think is really powerful? There's a whole lot. The first one that came to mind was, "An eye for an eye will leave the world blind," which I do believe has great depth in it. Have you ever had to do your laundry at a laundromat? Yes. Are you the oldest person who lives in your household? No. My mom is turning 60 (... I think?) this year. If you have tattoos, how long have you had them? I got my first the day I turned 18. Do you and your dad have similar personalities? We're alike in some ways, imo most notably in that we have NO fucking common sense, embarrassing as that is to admit. We're both kinda slow at understanding things, too. What were the last three things you had to drink? Mountain Lightning, milk, and water. What did your family usually do for Easter when you were a kid? Us three kids all got Easter baskets full of stuff, and we'd go egg-hunting when we were all awake. My little sister Nicole would always wake our parents up in excitement, haha. My parents hid plenty throughout the house, and there was always this one "special" egg that was actually from Mom's childhood and was extremely intricate and beautiful. You basically "won" the hunt if you found it, and it was extremely well-hidden. When you have house guests over, where do they sleep? Historically since living here, my two half-sisters and their spouses (the only people who've stayed over) slept in what is *technically* Mom's room, but for whatever reason this woman still insists on sleeping on the couch in the living room, I guess because she's used to it after all the years she didn't have her own room and bed. Are you emotionally stable? LOLOOLOLOOLLOLOOLOOLOLLOOLOLLLLLLLLLLL Do you still talk to the very first person you had sex with? No. Are you an atheist? No. I don't quite know how to define what I am, but since I believe there's SOME higher power, I don't think it's fitting to call me an atheist. What’s the largest bug you’ve ever found in your house? Hm... I'm unsure. Probably a male mosquito, 'cuz them bitches are big'ins. Would it annoy you if a stranger called you "sweetie?" If it was a man, I'd be creeped out. Are you into fashion design? Not really. What’s the worst thing you’ve gone through in the past year? My leg muscles continuing to degrade, honestly. I have to do something about this shit. How did you get your last bruise? I fell when stepping over the stupid dog gate. Have your parents ever forgotten your birthday? Yikes, no. Would you rather have some bacon or beef jerky? Bacon. Do you like your orange juice with lots or no pulp? NONE. Do you wear skinny jeans? Back when I wore jeans, they were the only kind I wore. What projects are you doing now for school? I'm outta school. What’s the most number of comments you have on a Facebook picture? What is the picture of? I have no idea. Do you like coconut flavored things? No. Have you ever met a famous author before? No. Do you know anybody who has been raped before? No, thank god. I know someone who might've almost been, though. I don't know what the fucking pig was going to do to her if my sister and I weren't there. Have you ever wished for bigger boobs? No. Being overweight, I just want smaller ones now, haha. Have you ever gone a full day without interacting with another person? I've gone many days without it. How many relationships have you been in that lasted less than a year? Four, if you're counting everyone that had the "boyfriend" title. Where were you going the last time you were on a plane? Home from Illinois. Where were you going the last time you were on a train? I've never been on one. Have you ever been significantly more physically fit than you are now? Holy fuck, yes. You would never guess now that I was perfectly healthy in high school especially, yet I still thought I was kinda fat. It hurts so much to look back on. When growing up, did you parents keep the house very tidy? I mean not excessively, but Mom was pretty dedicated to keeping the house in decent condition. With three kids though, of course the house was somewhat messy with toys and all. When you shop at IKEA, do you always stop to eat a snack/meal in the cafeteria? ... There's a fucking cafeteria in a furniture store? o_o I've never been there before. How many watches do you own? None, save for one in my "treasure box" from when I was a kid. I was SO SO SO obsessed with Finding Nemo that I kept my broken one. I did the same with my horribly aged sneakers, like the soles were coming off and Mom finally made me stop wearing them, ha. Are there any ways in which you greatly differ from everyone else in your family? I do fucking nothing and am useless to society. Should teenagers be allowed to have their cell phones with them in class? Yes, because emergencies happen. I personally think it's best to maybe have your cell phone flipped over on the corner of your desk or something and on vibrate, that way the noise isn't too disruptive and the teacher can see you're not just using it for other purposes. Do you have any gay relatives? Yes. Have you ever had to have a pet put down? Sigh, multiple. Have you unfollowed, deleted, or blocked anyone on social media recently? If so, what was the reason? Not recently. How many cups of coffee do you typically drink per day? None. Do you know what your vocal range is? No, but it's not very broad. What’s the biggest financial mistake you’ve ever made? I haven't been in this position before. Have you ever been in a relationship where there was a large difference in maturity levels? No. What’s the longest you’ve ever stayed as a guest at someone’s house? I wanna say over a month while we were technically homeless. How bad was your acne when you were a teenager? Oh dear, it was rough. Like there were people who had it worse than me, but ya girl was lookin preeeetty rough lmao.