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iwanthermidnightz · 7 months ago

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*excerpts below — but I highly recommend reading the full article in link above*

Hit Me Hard and Soft dunks us headfirst back into that universe, from the deepest wallows of depression to the exhaustion that comes with the world speculating about her every move. There are no arachnids where they shouldn’t be, but getting in touch with her darker side has Eilish finally feeling like herself again. “I feel like this album is me,” she says. “It’s not a character. It feels like the When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? version of me. It feels like my youth and who I was as a kid.”

Although 2019 felt like a whirlwind of madness at the time, she has found herself missing it. “It was the best time of my life,” she says. “This whole process has felt like I’m coming back to the girl that I was. I’ve been grieving her. I’ve been looking for her in everything, and it’s almost like she got drowned by the world and the media. I don’t remember when she went away.”

The title Hit Me Hard and Soft derives from a conversation she had with Finneas, when she mistakenly thought the name of a synth in Logic Pro was called Hit Me Hard and Soft. “I thought it was such a perfect encapsulation of what this album does,” she explains. “It’s an impossible request: You can’t be hit hard and soft. You can’t do anything hard and soft at the same time. I’m a pretty extremist person, and I really like when things are really intense physically, but I also love when things are very tender and sweet. I want two things at once. So I thought that was a really good way to describe me, and I love that it’s not possible.”

Eilish and Finneas call Hit Me Hard and Soft “an album-ass album.” It’s not a concept record, but it is a self-consciously cohesive set of songs, inspired by auteurist works from the past 15 years or so, like Coldplay’s Viva La Vida, Lana Del Rey’s Born to Die, Tyler, the Creator’s Goblin, Marina and the Diamonds’ Electra Heart, and Vince Staples’ Big Fish Theory.

“Lunch,” a complete 180 in both sound and subject content. It’s a sexy, bass-heavy banger where Eilish is crushing on a girl so hard she likens sex with her to devouring a meal. Finneas remembers playing this moment for Interscope and witnessing the team shift in their seats. “What’s funny about starting the album with [the opener] is that it is a total false promise,” he says. “If you’re remembering ‘What Was I Made For?’ and then you hear [it], you go, ‘Oh, OK. I understand this world.’ Then the drums come in [on “Lunch”], and it really is the kill-the-main-character-type beat. It’s like Drew Barrymore being in the first five minutes of Scream and then they kill her. You’re like, ‘They can’t kill Drew. Oh, my God, they killed Drew!’”

Eilish and I spend a lot of time talking about the new era she is about to kick off, and how she’ll promote Hit Me Hard and Soft while prioritizing her mental health, privacy, and well-being. With all of that in mind, I wonder if she’s ready for journalists to pepper her with questions about the album’s subject matter, particularly the sexual nature of “Lunch.” “That song was actually part of what helped me become who I am, to be real,” Eilish says. “I wrote some of it before even doing anything with a girl, and then wrote the rest after. I’ve been in love with girls for my whole life, but I just didn’t understand — until, last year, I realized I wanted my face in a vagina. I was never planning on talking about my sexuality ever, in a million years. It’s really frustrating to me that it came up.”

Eilish is referring to her interview with Variety last fall, in which she mentioned she was attracted to women. The quote — “I’m attracted to them for real” — became a national headline. The following month, Eilish attended Variety’s Hitmakers event in L.A. While on the red carpet, she was asked if she intentionally came out in the story. “No, I didn’t,” she told them. “But I kind of thought, ‘Wasn’t it obvious?’” Eilish then posted about it on Instagram, with a caption that read, “Thanks Variety for my award and for also outing me on a red carpet at 11 a.m. instead of talking about anything else that matters. I like boys and girls leave me alone about it please literally who cares.”

Looking back, Eilish admits she overreacted with the Instagram post. “Who fucking cares?” she says. “The whole world suddenly decided who I was, and I didn’t get to say anything or control any of it. Nobody should be pressured into being one thing or the other, and I think that there’s a lot of wanting labels all over the place. Dude, I’ve known people that don’t know their sexuality, or feel comfortable with it, until they’re in their forties, fifties, sixties. It takes a while to find yourself, and I think it’s really unfair, the way that the internet bullies you into talking about who you are and what you are.”

As for that red-carpet quote that made all the headlines, Eilish says she tried to think of a response that would be entertaining for her fans and the internet. “I went into Billie Eilish interview mode, [like], ‘Oh, I don’t care. Yeah, I’ll say whatever. Wasn’t it obvious?’” she says. “And then afterwards I was like, ‘Wait. It wasn’t obvious to me.’”

Thinking about it now, she draws a bigger lesson from that moment. “I know everybody’s been thinking this about me for years and years, but I’m only figuring out myself now,” she says. “And honestly, what I said was funny, because I really was just saying what they’ve all been saying.” She adds that she liked the journalist she was talking to and didn’t want to be rude. But she still felt exploited. “Bro, I have asthma out here,” she says. “I fucking can’t take a breath.”

If Eilish had the opportunity to do it over again on the red carpet, she says, she wouldn’t have answered the question. But she acknowledges it could have been worse. “I’m lucky enough to be in a time when I’m able to say something like that and things go OK for me,” she says. “And that’s not how a lot of people’s experience is.”

Eilish has officially decided to make some changes to the way she presents herself to the world. “This album, to me, feels like a way to restart, in terms of my sharing,” she says. So let’s take a second to reintroduce Billie Eilish, the home-schooled bohemian who captured our attention as a teenager. She’s 22 now, yet she’s more self-aware than people twice her age. She would like some space to grow, to figure out exactly who she is — no label required. She is not the poster child for anything. And she is not, she’d like to note, a TED Talk speaker. So where does that leave us? Eilish sums things up with four simple words that point to her desire for normalcy and acceptance.

“I’m just a girl.”

#please read the whole article from this link #she really went there #billie eilish

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cyberbun · 7 months ago

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An anon asked me what my top 10 favorite anime are and I agonized over this question for months but I think I have an answer. Then I accidentally published this without finishing it so I have to write it again

In no particular order:

Gatchaman Crowds (2013) and it's second season Insight (2015):

Hands down, my favorite anime of all time. As a fan of the superhero genre this has to be the best deconstruction/reconstruction of it I've seen in terms of how it reevaluates the concept of heroism in a digital society and how well it handles its themes of futurism along with personal identity and construction of the self in virtual environments. It is a series with a central thesis about the inherent goodness of humanity expressed through the language of superheroes and social media, and it's one of those stories that really gets the way people engage with the internet in a way that other similar sci-fi stories about fully online societies fail to do even to this day.

The first season's almost naive optimism is then thoroughly torn apart by the second's darker, more introspective tone, which makes the entire show play out like a series of political essays arguing back and forth with the backdrop of colorful superhero action. What makes it particularly good, though, is how it handles this darkening of the narrative, as it asks tough, incisive questions of its own story and still comes out parading genuine optimism about the future of its world and ours.

Because, at its core, it's a superhero story about how everyone has the capacity to be a hero and better themselves and each other. It's a truly transformative experience and, while a lot of its themes can seem... tragically over-optimistic, its datedness almost makes it feel like a time capsule of a time where we were at the cusp of using mass internet penetration to better ourselves as a society, and perhaps remains a reminder of how these technologies may still have the potential to make us all into heroes. Also Rui is a hot gender black hole and I want to be them so badly.

Samurai Flamenco (2014)

In a lot of ways, Samurai Flamenco is sort of the anti-Gatchaman Crowds; it's a straight deconstruction of the tokusatsu genre that's less interested in analyzing the role of superheroes in a society and more about using its own genre to examine the ways fiction allows us to project ourselves as something greater than what we are, while also commenting on said genre's iterations over its history; so ultimately it comes across as both a tribute to it and a deep examination of what exactly makes its fans tick.It is also bat fuck insane and I can't tell you a single thing that happens in it because it goes places. Watching this as it aired was an incredible experience.

Slam Dunk (1993-1994)

The best sports anime ever made. Dead serious. Not only is this a love letter to the game of basketball as a whole that manages to capture the intensity and adrenaline of every single thought that goes through the head of a player in the final minutes of a game, it is also a touching love story with one of the most compelling central casts of characters I've ever seen.

The anime was largely inferior to the manga for a long time on account of it being left unfinished, while the manga remains largely remembered for having one of the most bittersweet endings ever put to page; an equal parts tragic and triumphant culmination of the main character's journey from delinquent layabout to passionate athletic prodigy. Then, last year, we finally got one of the best looking anime films I've seen in my life adapting the final volume of the manga while also expanding the backstory of one of the secondary protagonists of the series.

Part of my love for this series is highly personal. I grew up watching this on TV back in the old country, and seeing it finally be finished after 20 odd years brought me to tears. A lot of it might be outdated by now, but there is yet to be a single anime I am so comfortable watching over and over and over again. I will go to the grave singing its praises.

Soul Eater (2008)

It's Soul Eater, you know Soul Eater. Probably the single most stylish show I've ever seen, visually; and to me still at the peak of the shonen genre as a whole. It's got both some of the best action ever put to animation and some of the most engaging core casts of characters I've seen despite how small its ensemble is. If it seems like I have less to say about it than others in the list it's mainly because it's already popular enough I don't feel like I can contribute much to the conversation; everyone likes Soul Eater. You like Soul Eater. Explaining why Soul Eater is good is like explaining why it is good to eat. Every time I watch Crona's episodes I cry a lot.

RahXephon (2002)

Talking about RahXephon is difficult because conversations surrounding it are usually centered around its relationship to Evangelion; and this is partially because it is, in many ways, a response to it and a reformulation of a lot of the questions that it asked about its story. This is not wholly unfounded, as director Yutaka Izubuchi is a longtime friend and collaborator of Anno's who did do some work in Evangelion prior to this, so the influence is definitely there. For a lot of people, this was rebuild before rebuild. I personally prefer the adage "Evangelion on antidepressants".

I do, however, overall feel this is unfortunate, because taken outside that context, RahXephon is one of the most complex and deeply layered reconstructions of the mecha genre I've ever experienced, with a beautiful score and haunting visual design propping up a story that's equal parts impenetrable as it is deeply layered; made up of so many small character arcs woven into each other completely seamlessly that you always feel like you're watching but a tiny fragment of a large tapestry of stories coming together into a single complete whole. It makes the world of the anime feel simultaneously small and huge, which fits the melancholic post-post-apocalypse visual aesthetic of the narrative It's one of my favorites not because of what happens in it, but because it is one of the most enriching experiences I've had with an anime or any other form of visual storytelling; I always feel like rewatching it makes me take something new away from it that I didn't notice before.

Ergo Proxy (2006)

Part of me has to admit I like Ergo Proxy less as a story and more as an aesthetic. If I had to put a name on how it feels to watch this show it'd definitely be "contemplative"; it's a slow going, compounded puzzle of a narrative which at times borders on self-indulgence with how many layers of things happening at once you're keeping up with. To give you an idea; the seemingly random text crawls during the opening of the show are key pieces of understanding what exactly the plot is by the end of the story. Peel away those layers, and you get a much simpler narrative than it might first appear, with one of my favorite one-sentence summaries: "what if three different Ends of the World crashed into each other at once".

While that seems reductive, one of the things that makes Ergo Proxy feel rewarding to watch, then rewatch to fully understand, is how it does ultimately completely nail the landing with the story it's trying to tell, despite having a complete non-ending that somehow manages to feel satisfying all the same. It's a story that explores themes of identity and human nature through the genre of ecological horror with one of the most stylish depictions of a bleak, dead world I've ever seen put in any narrative. So long as you're okay with a story that doesn't give you a full sense of narrative closure and one where a single watching won't give you all the pieces of the story, it is one of the most rewarding experiences to go back and pick apart, in my opinion. Like a puzzle, you will be left wanting to put all the pieces together by the end.

Ouran High School Host Club (2006)

Don't fucking look at me like that. I watched Ouran at an impressionable age and now I'm bigender. It has a place in my bunny heart. It is foundational to the person I grew up to become.

Cardcaptor Sakura

I watched this dubbed into Spanish back when I was young, and admittedly I don't remember 60% of it, but that doesn't mean I don't think fondly back on it moreso than any other show I ever saw back when I was a child, and one that I've had a lot of joy in going back to it as I've grown older.

I don't have as much to say about it as I do some other shows, and like with Soul Eater, it feels like everything there is to be said about it has already been said elsewhere and better; it is one of the foundational texts for the modern magical girl genre, it is one of the most beautifully animated and designed shows I've ever seen, and the best at keeping the distinct house styles CLAMP is recognizeable for intact in animation as far as I'm concerned. It's my personal choice for what other people would call a "comfort" show; but I do not wish to diminish the story or reduce it to an aesthetic the way a lot of people do for shows like this, considering just how strong the character dynamics and their progression throughout the story are, and the wealth of emotional depth that can be found in just about everyone's arcs.

While the overarching plot and the world of the story aren't as interesting as some other shows of its type, its strengths lies in how it uses that as a solid foundation through which to explore a distinct aspect of the human condition through each of its characters - love, grief, loneliness, devotion to another and many others.

Kekkai Sensen (2015)

This is one of those cases where I feel like I'm going to repeat myself. Take everything I said about Soul Eater, put it here. It is stylish, it's got a strong central cast of characters that are all equally fun and contribute the same amount to the narrative. It's got some of the most intense, lovingly rendered large-scale action scenes I've seen, along with some of my favorite small, touching narratives; thanks to one of the best urban fantasy settings ever put together.

The first season's storyline is a blend of manga chapters with an anime-original plot, while the second season mostly adapts the manga much more closely so it doesn't come together as tightly as the first does, but it is more of the best show of its type of the past decade as far as I'm concerned; and nothing takes away just how incredibly tight that first season feels, even if the final episode was months late and had to go double length while the animation melted a little. And yet, it all comes together beautifully in the end.

Angel Beats

What a surprise this show was. I'll always feel a little bittersweet about it, due to the circumstances that led me to see it, but I'm forever grateful I did. Angel Beats' greatest strength is the way that it disarms the viewer by presenting a fun, albeit somewhat dark supernatural comedy about kids in the afterlife, letting one get comfortable with the silliness of the world before really taking the "children in the afterlife" premise to its logical conclusion: This is a story about death, trauma, tragedy, and moving on- Quite literally, in this case- from the things that weigh us down.

I make no hyperbole when I say that this show has the single strongest emotional climax I've ever experienced, and every time I watch it again I am moved to tears, sometimes more than last. I can't say much, since a lot of what makes this show fun is experiencing it, and realizing the depth of the world along with our point of view character; but the biggest endorsement of it I can give is how gracefully and tactfully it deals with complicated subjects such as abuse, disability and addiction in stories where you know how they all end, and yet give you a satisfying emotional conclusion while also keeping the mood balanced between cheerful when it has to be and heartbreaking, with the latter becoming more and more common by the end of the story.

It's a story about growing up, as much as it is a story about dying. It knows the tragedy of its premise and it chooses to ask the viewer to find joy in the time they have with its cast - a beautiful metaphor for life itself woven deeply into the narrative and never once stated out loud. We know where this story is going, but we're here now, so we might as well have a little fun along the way. That is ultimately what youth is about.

#ask #anon #technically #i lost the original ask

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hyunlixsbbygirl · 2 days ago

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The Heart Killers - Episode One

*Insert Mariah Carey voice here* ITTTTSSSSSSSS TIIIIIIIIIMMMMMMMEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am obviously going to be live blogging my watch through of this drama so buckle up butter cups, this one might be a long post, don’t forget to peep the bingo card below this and at the end to see what this episode has brought us!!

Damn! Already getting hit with Khaotung just being absolutely gorgeous as always and being an escort like sign me up please?

Joong is so hot omg I can’t already! Who is the costume designer for this?!?!?!

“We’re the guys that will take you to heaven” Okay!!!! Hot as hell even though they literally unalive him right after but still so hot

AHHHHH First and Dunk are literally so hot omg like someone please pinch me to ensure I didn’t die because there is just no way these two look this good! First with tattoos is a kink I didn’t realize I had until now.

THE CROP TOP EXCUSE ME?!?!?!?!?!?!?! Seriously who is the costume designer because I need to give them the biggest forehead kiss ever!!!

Side note: I just know this bingo card is already filling up like there is no way it’s not

Ooh feisty Bison - yes I am here for it!!!

I would like First to also teach me how to bowl please? That was so hot omg

Ima need Style to call Fidel daddy at least once in this drama like there is no exception

Oh shit!!! Here we go, a classic FirstKhao kiss but you just know it’s going to be so much hotter than usual like there is just no way these two aren’t going to make this kiss one of the hottest ones yet. I am already clutching my non existent pearls

I should not have been watching this in the living room where my mother and grandmother could have seen the absolute sin that just went down or the me squirming and screeching like the animal I turned into just now Jesus………

THE MOANING!?!?!?!

Okay, Khaotung in a backwards hat is literally the most hottest thing I’ve seen so far, I need more of that please and thank you

Ah shit, Kant having to take out his one night stand. That would literally be the worst ever but I kind of get it

Damn Joong is really good with this character, like I actually believe he’s a hitman by night like someone did his research for this role and it shows.

FirstKhao are so cute I literally can’t handle it, their smiles and everything are just adorable - I know they’re supposed to be playing hitmen but like come on! You can take the boy out of a cute character but you can never take the cute out of the boy

BINGO!! 39 minutes in we have a bingo! I will post the finished board below my commentary though but damn that was faster than expected LOL

The gay panic that just ran through Fidel when he saw Style unbuttoning his jumper was amazing LOL Joong really played that so well like those workshops must have been insane!!

Ooof Fidel is so hot! I love how intimidating he looks like he just screams “call me daddy” like for real

Ghost shipping FirstJoong - I’m just saying this now so that maybe the universe will be kind to me in the further?

Not Fidel literally dragging Style out of the restaurant! Like I said, Joong is absolutely amazing in this show so far like seriously not only is he super hot as hell but he just plays this character so freaking well!!

Holy shit! That episode was honestly incredible! Each of the boys did absolutely amazing and the storyline so far is just amazing. I literally cannot wait for next week now! As promised though, here is the final bingo card:

#the heart killers #firstkhao #joongdunk #fadelstyle #kantbison

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tyrantisterror · 6 months ago

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top ten favorite Elves? (specific characters, a given setting’s take on the species, or even some variants from folklore like Huldra and Nuckelavee.) I know you’re more a fan of Orcs and Goblins, than of Elves, but I’m still curious to know.

Um... hmm... yeah elves really aren't one of the fantasy creatures that gets my imagination going for the most part, so this is going to be pretty half-assed.

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Gotta give credit to Galadriel first and foremost, specifically as played by Cate Blanchett, if only because she awoke something in me as a teenager - something that had been seeded throughout my childhood, and which I didn't recognize fully until several years later when Cate Blanchett stepped into a very different fantasy role.

Dungeon Meshi has very quickly grown to one of my favorite fantasy things so I HAVE to give a shoutout to my girl Marcille, who's just a great fantasy character PERIOD, but also is a thorough exploration of how elves can be very interesting as a creature concept.

Not a complete exploration, though, because one of the other great things about Dungeon Meshi is that it keeps finding new wrinkles to put in its world-building. I distinctly remember when I got to the introduction of The Canaries in the manga because I immediately thought, "Holy shit those are the coolest fucking elves I've ever seen." And they are indeed super cool, with a great deal of variety between them in terms of skillsets, personalities, moral compasses, and exactly how they showcase what elves and their society are like. Each Canary brings a better understanding of Dungeon Meshi's world and take on elves specifically to you, the reader, and they also double as a pretty great team of quirky minor antagonists.

I have only vague memories of seeing Record of Lodoss War when I was younger, so I don't really remember much about Deedlit's personality, but she has the best fashion of any elf, and I love those ears.

That's ten, right? I'll be charitable and give some honorable mentions since this is a pretty undercooked answer:

Does Midna count? Her imp form feels more goblin, but her true form feels like a spin on dark elves to counter the hylians' "Elves in all but name" status.

There are other elf characters from fiction I like - Shadowheart and Astarion from Baldur's Gate 3, Fenris and Merril and Seras from the Dragon Age franchise, a good number of the NPCs in the Rune Factory Franchise, Legolas, etc., but for all of them the fact that they're elves is pretty much incidental to me. I like them as characters, while the fact that they're elves feels more or less surface level - you could swap "elf" with "Italian" and their stories would play out the same.

Finally, shoutout to Fantasy High subverting expectations of elves with Gilear, and then dunking on those same cliche expectations with lethal accuracy later on:

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rubberduckyrye · 2 months ago

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IT MEANS SO MUCH THAT YOU LIKE MY REJECTS AU TO THE POINT OF TAGGING THANKS SO MUCH, THIS MADE MY DAY

٩(ˊᗜˋ*)و ♡

This idea sprung up from a mix of desires: I’m just suuuuch a sucker for the spotlight being shone on those who were “left behind” or “forgotten” in some way. Those who were rejected! Those who nobody really considered or thought about until it was slapped in their faces, and they’re forced to finally notice them.

In this case, while canon rightfully showed how the Ultimate system crushes the talentless, what about those with talent who just weren’t good enough? Those who tried hard and were good at what they did, but juuuust missed the mark due to circumstances outside their control? “You tried so hard and come so far, but in the end, it doesn’t even matter”.

Another desire was the inclusion of a lucky student, because you can go crazy with luck talents! Also a desire to just dunk on HPA lmao.

Again I haven’t developed much yet since I only recently thought of this, so for now I’ve mostly just been thinking of who would have been in which class (77 or 78), and of the OC. She does have a luck talent, but I’m thinking the way it works is that she’s essentially a lucky charm. Her presence brings good fortune to others (it mostly affects minor, short-term everyday things), but when she’s alone, her luck is kind of standard. Sometimes she gets lucky, sometimes she gets unlucky, other times it’s somewhere in between, same with most people. This means she's almost never won a game in her life. Online games that she plays by herself are a different story though, and that's why she prefers them.

Her luck has led to her being taken advantage of her whole life, but eventually she decides that if people are going to use her, she might as well get something out of it, so she ends up turning her luck into an underground business of sorts at her school. For a price, she’s upfront about her luck and is willing to accompany someone or be in the presence of someone else when they’re doing something luck-based. The “business” ended up successful, but she’s unhappy that many people see her as an object rather than a person all her life, and would rather people see her for who she is rather than what.

So lots of luck when she’s with others is second-hand luck. If she needs to undergo an extremely risky surgery, it’ll be successful, since the surgeon got lucky. But if someone is trying to kill her? They’ll be successful!

Yeah, she’s terrified in this killing game, needless to say. Who knows which person/people her luck decides to favor? She’s aloof and stays away from others, but she’s intent on surviving and wants everyone else to do so as well, so slowly but surely she eventually trusts the “protagonist” character enough (haven't decided who that is yet). That’s how she became the “sidekick”!

Obviously I gotta develop all this way more and everything is bound to change, but again, thank you for your kind words and for allowing me to info dump! I’ll share more about RejectsV3rse if I develop more if you’re okay with it!

👀👀👀

I'm so into this AU rn??

Okay but also??? I recently was talking about Umeko (The Ouma Twins Mother) and what if she was an HPA student--And she would have been the Ultimate Luckster--But she also would have been the "Lucky Charm" type! Her luck is a bit more extreme though, and it got her looking into the supernatural and occult stuff/witch stuff to try to make sense of it. She resents people who try to use her luck so she scares them off. It's part of the reason why she was easy for a Young Kenzo to prey on.

God I love how we came up with a similar idea but two very different characters and reactions to that idea~

#danganronpa v3 #kokichi oma #drv3 #danganronpa #RejectV3rse

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stevetown · 7 months ago

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Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth

Playtime: 59h 29m Completed: April 17, 2024

I put off writing this entry because I didn't want to admit to myself that I really did not care for Rebirth. Remake was my favorite game of the last decade, and I rarely get hyped for new titles nowadays, so to swallow the bitter pill and admit the last four years of hype were wasted...hurts.

It happened sometime around Costa Del Sol. After a lengthy chapter involving a card tournament, which itself was followed by a chapter whose climax hinges on a rhythm game parade segment, here was another chapter where you had to complete multiple required mini-games to get tickets to dress our favorite cast of destiny defiers for the beach. On its face, Rebirth should have been exactly what I was looking for. I love these characters so much that just hanging out at the game's equivalent of Atlantic City should have been an easy slam dunk for me. And there are good, if fleeting, character moments to be found here!

But at this point in the game, it became apparent there's no pathos and no forward momentum pulling the party forward other than "I guess we'll bumble around looking for black robed figures." It's a confusing approach to the middle chapter considering even the original was so clear about the stakes for each character and what they were after once they left Midgar. Remake was also so keen on engaging with our knowledge of the original's plot. "You can't fall in love with me" sent me reeling. Rebirth offers no such assurance that it knows nor cares about what's coming.

Emotional catharsis is nowhere to be found. Character moments like Barrett and Dyne's reunion and Red XIII's Cosmo Canyon homecoming are offensively brief, having little to no lead up and no follow through indicating those events had a lasting impact on anyone. The few beats where the game does take swings and add new material are almost never talked about amongst the cast, leading to narratively clashing moments that left us scratching our heads and screaming at the screen for anyone to talk about anything of importance. Whenever the game begins to build any kind of emotional crest, you can count on it falling short of a satisfying conversational resolution if it wasn't interrupted by Yuffie screaming about materia for the thousandth time this chapter.

It's not all bad. There's good stuff here with Cloud and Tifa's relationship. Vincent and Cid's character introductions are highlights that got some good belly laugh's and felt like old school Remake character magic. The second visit to the Gold Saucer got the waterworks going. The combat is more of the same, which is to say fairly good, but it's hard to keep all of the character play styles straight in your head and the Folio system is the worst character upgrade system since Final Fantasy II.

Then there's the climax, which I'm honestly too exhausted to get into. It's not that I hate the idea of what they're going for here, but during the moment where the game needed clarity the most it decided to muddle the message and leave us shrugging more than salivating for part III. It's clear this Final Fantasy VII remake experiment wants to have its cake and eat it too, offer titillating change and remain faithful to the original, but instead offers neither. I'm not left with confidence that Hamaguchi, Nomura and co. know how to wrap this up and deliver a satisfying conclusion to what they kicked off with aplomb and intrigue in Remake.

I did have fun with Rebirth! I put a lot of hours into it, despite the game's incessant efforts to make me hate it at almost every turn (I never want to hold down triangle for three seconds every time I need to do anything in the environment, thanks). There are good nuggets buried deep within the expansive nothingness that is the game's take on Ubisoft map design. But this is a game that is impressively all fat with little meat to chew on. Golden moments are spread too thin, not explored to satisfaction, and at worst become utterly confusing. I know in a year I'll still be pining for the last installment, which is more of a testament to how enduring these characters are than anything Rebrith itself did. I might as well see this through, but I'm left feeling disappointed that Square has shown this experiment to be what I wasn't looking for after all.

#ffvii rebirth #2024 game journal #final fantasy #video game review #ffvii #I got Tifa for the gold saucer date btw. They knocked that scene out of the park.

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multismileee · 7 months ago

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BRUTALLY HONEST GMMTV 2024 PART 2 RATINGS, BASED ON HOW EXCITED I AM FOR IT (only the ones I might watch):

Osan's Love -- 7/10, I know this is a remake, but truthfully I haven't watched the original. Therefore, this is solely based off of the trailer. I love EarthMix, but ngl I was hoping for a more advanced and mature theme for them, they absolutely DEVOURED in Moonlight Chicken. I'm also not a fan of love triangles so yeah, that also played a factor in my rating. The overall plot seems okay, it seems like a silly light show.

Leap Day -- 9/10, OKAY POND AND WIN, I am so excited to see Pond's acting in this, and I already know Win is going to kill it. The overall plot seems so interesting, I am intrigued. There's mystery, thriller, action vibes and I'm here for it. ALSO GUN??? His character seems so interesting, and I just know his acting is going to be A1!! It's reminding me of when he acted in The Gifted, which I absolutely loved. I don't know the girl actress, but her acting all seems excellent! Anyways, super excited to see how this one goes.

Heart Killers -- 9.2/10, FIRSTKHAO + MAFIA???? We all cheered, Jojo the director you are, always hearing what the fans want. They're giving me Yok and Ayan vibes, and I absolutely here for it. Joong and Dunk's series were usually not my favorite, but I'm so glad they FINALLY moved on from the college campus stories. 😭 The trailer is enticing, I feel like all four of them are going to eat up this concept, it is just so good.

Perfect 10 Liners -- 7.5/10, The cast is super good, I love all of the couples. The trailer kind of makes the plot look basic and boring ngl. Out of the three couples, surprisingly I find PerthChimon's characters to be the most interesting. I'm hoping that the show is more interesting than the trailer is making it. Just like EarthMix, I was hoping ForceBook showed a mature character, especially since we just got that in OF. Then again, this is giving me ABAB which is not awful. I was also looking forward to JuniorMark after Cherry Magic, so I hope they do amazing.

Hide & Sis -- 7.5/10, I can't really explain this one. I think the plot is interesting, it's giving me murder mystery which is drawing me in. However, I hope the show gives us more than the trailer because the trailer was kind of mediocre. I am super excited for my girly Lookjun to be in this, hopefully she kills it (ha ha, pun intended).

Thame Po -- 7/10, I don't know how I feel about this one. I think it's cool that they're using the members of LYKN, and I recognize one of the members for being another drama but the overall plot seems kind of basic? I don't know, I'm not sure if I will watch this one.

Break Up Service -- 5.5/10, this one just doesn't seem interesting to me, I'M SORRY. I wish Off was in another series that really showed off his talent (Preferably something like the masterpiece that Not Me is). This is giving me the same vibes as "Catch me Baby" with NetJames, and it just doesn't reel me in like the rest of the series.

Revamp -- 7.8/10, BOUNPREM AND SANTA JOINING GMMTV AND GETTING A SERIES RIGHT AWAY??? I am a sucker for vampires so this was already pulling me in, but I do hope that they don't go with a basic vampire story and add some extra elements. I feel like because vampire stories have been done before, it will take a lot to impress me, but I have high hopes. I also hope that BounPrem get to show their talent, because ngl Between Us was not doing it for me. Excited to see Mark in something a little more mature than Cherry Magic and Perfect 10 Liners.

Sweet Tooth, Good Dentist -- 7.5/10, Everyone expected MarkOhm to get a series, and I'm glad they both seem so happy. (I haven't watched Last Twilight so idk how their chemistry is, so I'm excited to see it). The plot of the show seems lighthearted and cute, but it also seemed a little basic? There was nothing that was making me want this series to come out quicker. Excited to see how the show goes though!

The Dark Dice -- 8/10, I'm so excited to see Gemini and Prim's acting!! The plot being centered around being trapped in a board game is so interesting!!! Pr*m (idk how to feel about him) looks like he is going to be a good villain, and the other girl seems like a good actress too. I'm excited to see how they pull off this genre!!

The EX-morning -- 6/10, everyone is freaking out about KristSingho (I don't really know about them, all I know is that they are returning after a long time) but the overall plot seemed boring imo. Idk maybe it will be more interesting after the first episode, I don't mind giving it a try. I do like second chance romances, so that element of the plot is interesting.

Scarlet Heart -- 10/10, I know that we got absolutely NOTHING in the trailer but the genre and cast? This cast with this genre is *chef's kiss*! TU THE WOMEN YOU ARE, She is finally back. Win, Nanon, Phuwin, Fourth, Force!!! I'm super excited to not only see a mini F4 reunion, but also to see how Fourth acts in this. I know this show a remake, but I haven't read the book, watched the chinese drama, or the Korean one; I'm going in completely blind (other than the fact that it's heartbreaking? I'm not going to focus on that, for my mental health LOL). I can't wait to see how this goes. I also think that the trailer showing us absolutely nothing, is a hightale sign that we're about to get a masterpiece.

And before you guys say "What about _______" blah blah, I was not interested in the others. I don't usually watch GLs and the other drama just didn't speak to me, and I don't think i'll watch it.

Also about the people who are sad that Gemini and Fourth have separate series, I think this is good for them! They can grow as actors and then come back together. I feel like romance/ couple dramas limit how much they can expand their experience tbh. Same goes with Pond and Phuwin, I'm glad they have their own dramas.

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absolutebl · 1 year ago

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This Week in BL - There's so much airing even I'm struggling to keep up

That's why I'm late.

Aug 2023 Wk 3

Ongoing Series - Thai

Laws of Attraction (Sat iQIYI) 6 of 8 - Oh no. I am totally in love with the escaped young master & his smitten bodyguard. How did that happen? (Be careful P’Thee the broken ones are the most tempting. Tin understands.) NO SINGING! Trust Thai BL to destroy any moment of sentiment I might have by picking up a damn guitar. And we finally get Charn’s Batman villain origin story. Good use of back hug! This is a GREAT show. Melodramatic as fuck, but GREAT. Gotta say this pair in NOT Thailand’s best kissers but not everyone can be Zee++. Still I think that + singing + a touch of overacting is likely to keep this out of the 10/10 club.

Dangerous Romance (Fri YT) ep 1 of 12 - Rich /poor dynamic with characters & set up exactly as expected. Chimon is great. Perth is good too. A real rich-kid bully, Heirs level or Japanese F4 evil. All the teachers are also corrupt (that’s kinda a Thai thing, I think because they can't call out the government). I gotta say, Marc is doing a bang-up job as the jock friend, too. And the kiss twist was fun. All in all, this is good. And you know me, I love a high school BL.

I Feel You Linger in the Air (Sat YT) ep 1 of 12 - The time travel historical romance many of us have been waiting for. Adaption of y-novel by Violet Rain, from the producers of Lovely Writer. Heartbroken architect is transported to the 1930s. Nonkul (actor playing Jom) keeps reminding me of Cho Han Gyeol from Love Mate. It’s a bit slow to start but interesting when it hits its stride. The pacing feels like a Chinese historical (makes me wonder if this with be 4 or 6 act structure). Nonkul is a wonderful actor. They weren’t sharing the screen for long, but the leads seem good together. I’m in.

Only Friends (Sat YT) ep 2 of 10 - Well. It’s entertaining, I'll say that for it. Addiction. Manipulation. Queer as folk & all that jazz. (No jazz for you, Thailand. Oh no! I’m giving them ideas.) I would like it to turn out that Mew is actually manipulating everything. This is his revenge con on Top. Mew is, after all, supposed to be "the smart one." Gotta say, this is darn near perfect casting. But honestly? This show could just be about Ray & Sand. Their story (and them in it) is easily the most riveting. Sand better be careful, the wildly broken ones are always the best in bed, because they don’t care ao they have no shame and that's HOT.

Hidden Agenda (Sun GMMTV YouTube) ep 6 of 10 - I like how soft Joke’s version of seme flirting is. It’s mellow, like his voice gets with Zo. I also liked Zo casually chatting to his friends about how he feels about being flirted with. His friends gave good advice & were supportive. Oh no! A boy in a BL went into the rain ALONE. What ON EARTH will happen next? The argument was interesting, because it gave us insight into Zo’s maturity & ability to handle a relationship. I’ve been wondering why anyone would like him, and now I know. Joke & Nita’s backstory is fun. I like the gay boy protecting the straight girl reverse beard action. On a complete aside, I really like Dunk’s makeup in this series. It’s very Kdrama.

Low Frequency (Sat iQIYI) ep 7 of 8 - The house ghosts trying to help are cute. The plot is at least... a plot? I don’t know. Dias Ex Mafia is a new one on me. (COME ON THAT’S A GREAT PUN, PRAISE ME!) I’m ready for this show to be over.

Be Mine Super Star (Mon Viki) ep 7 of 12 - Honestly, the whole time I’m watching this I’m just thinking I wish JaFirst got better scripts. Speaking of, I don’t object, but these characters sure moved into sex fast. I really don’t quite understand how Daddy & Hot Doc got together so fast either. It feels like their story was meant to be spread out into the other episodes but didn’t get cut in properly, so it ended up all in this one? Or is it just the pacing is particularly bad in this show?

Dinosaur Love (Sun iQIYI) ep 8 of 10 eps - I have no idea what is going on. What are all of Dino’s friends doing? What do they want? what’s their point in the story? I’m even annoyed by Peak, and love him. Sex scene which they tried to make sexy. Operative word being tried. Although, there was some interesting after sex discussion about mechanics. And there was a cute bathtub chat about pet names. But this show is a lotta work for very little pay out.

Wedding Plan (Wed YT & iQIYI) ep 5 of 7 - I like the sunshine sides? PUNCH LOM 2023! Trash watch here!

Love in Translation (Sat iQIYI) ep 1 of 10 - Pushy older bro is Earn from Love Sick, yay! And he’s the hyung of a side couple, which is "best friend’s older brother" trope! My favorite!!!! Have we seen this in BL before? I don't think so. Anyway, DOUBLE YAY! The main couple… eh. You know I loathe stalker characters. And I viscerally HATE this one. Almost as bad as SCOY, not sure I can take it, actually. The squealing of "Tammy!" is worse on my ear than any off-key guitar strumming. I may have to DNF or fast forward through all his parts… but he’s the lead. What to do? I do like the “Chinese” businessman actor. He very cute. (On an aside, I was just reading about commercial real estate as the loophole for foreign property investors in Thailand. Cool plot point.) I’m getting a Taming of the Shrew vibes from this. Just me? For now it's living at the bottom of the list for sheer unadulterated loathing of Phumjai. Not the actor, he was my favorite and only good thing about Our Days. But this character? NO.

Ongoing Series - Not Thai

Jun & Jun (Korea Thur Viki) ep 5 of 8 - This is basically the gay Boys Over Flowers of my heart. Or as close as I think we’ll get from BL. I like both of the 2nd leads, even though I suspect Simon of actually being into everyone’s fav hyung. Cute to see the Mr Heart boys back on my screen, oh so briefly. Such a Taiwan trick, reusing a beloved couple like that. Nice gimmie to the fans. Meanwhile, Choi Jun - boy sure knows his angles but his motives? Please don’t let this be another arranged marriage beard situation? I can’t take 2 in the same month.

Stay By My Side (Taiwan Fri Gaga) ep 8 of 10 - The boyfriends ep! JC is biggest simp spoiling his baby EVER. Taiwan = the sappiest of saps. “Owning the same key” is such a cute way of putting it. Also I love the "knew all along" twist, made me happy. The angst is silly but that's normal in Taiwanese BL.

Love Class Season 2 (Korea Fri Viki) eps 3-4 of 10 - Pair 1: Lee Hyun is such a wide-open, bleeding, no-shame romantic. It’s kinda great. Boy has a poet’s soul & NO artifice. J-Min is startlingly good, very nuanced. I know I keep saying that, but I’m v surprised by his skillz. And… add in creepy stalker, goody. Pair 2: The "other student couple" I’m not into, also NO SINGING. Pair 3: The underwear gift was so fucking funny. “I’m going reap the boxers I sewed” is next level script excellence. These two are brilliant at gayest-of-gay flirt-negging, I'm INTO IT. One of my housemates said, in response to my audible cackling, "You seem to be enjoying your shows extra much tonight."

My Personal Weatherman AKA Taikan Yoho (Japan Sat Gaga) ep 2 of 8 - Oh I love love love them. It’s so old school yaoi and SO JBL. No other country could produce this kind of show. I love this little feminist aspect where the weatherman treats his boy like a 1950s housewife & said boy thinks that makes him an indentured servant. Clocks. But also, the way our weatherman LOOKS at his boy. He is so in love. (It looks like we skip next week for holiday reasons?)

Sing My Crush (Korea Wed iQIYI) eps 5-6 of 8 - It remains enjoyable.

Minato's Laundromat Season 2 AKA Minato Shouji Coin Laundry Season 2 (Japan Thu Gaga) ep 6 of 12 - At least we know Minato actually desires Shin, he just won’t do anything about it. Also, Minato chose the perfect person to come out to. That's nice for him. Finally, Shu & Asuka are glorious. Sides are winning these days.

Stay Still (Hong Kong Tues YouTube) ep 3 of 5 - A proper faen fatal has entered one of our couples. She won too, since she ended up marrying the boy. Still not sure about this show (and it should have convinced me by now). I definitely like the tattoo couple better than the reunion couple. Still, not a lot happened in this episode and this is short series, they don’t have time to waste. It remains intriguing but not... erm... good.

In case you missed it

River Knows Fish Heart is leaving Gaga soon. It's a decent little bully romance Chinese BL (pulp) - yes, you read that right. Actual CBL. Not great, but if you're into the CBL stuff, especially the early stuff, this has some of that tenor only made in 2018 (I have a feeling it was shot in 2017 and skated through). Anygay, just staying. Catch it before it disappears because with CBL once they gone, often, they gone forever.

Friend. Boy Friend a new Thai BL pulp was supposed to start airing on Aug 19th. I can't find it. Neither can MDL.

Next Week Looks Like This:

Everything from Thailand seems to be dropping on Sat & Sun this month. It's a good thing I got quiet weekends for a while. Also the BL firehose is upon us, so much content.

Starting this week:

8/20 (tomorrow) My Universe series (Sun iQIYI) 24 eps - This is sampler pack BL, 12 pairs, each pair gets 2 eps, not sure on the order they’ll drop. Known couples include EarthBank from Destiny Seeker and KaownahTurbo from Love Stage!!!, fresh faces otherwise. Jane to direct.

8/22 Kisseki: Dear to Me formerly known as Miracle (Taiwan Tues Viki & iQIYI) 13 eps - From screenwriter Lin Pei Yu (We Best Love, H3: Trapped) features a student doctor forced to take care of a gangster. I love the premise and like the writer.

8/23 Why R U? (Korean remake iQIYI) 8 eps - I find everything about this hilarious. I mean if Korea remakes it, we lose all the sexy and then... would we have a story at all? No we would not. Not even for 8 short eps. It’d be like one of those mesh shopping bags.

8/24 Man Suang (Thailand movie, domestic cinema release) - historical drama about Thai burlesque with KP’s MileApo.

2023 forthcoming BL master post (see comments, some are inaccurate, NOT KEPT UPDATED).

THIS WEEK’S BEST MOMENTS

Another show reviewing itself. (Dino Love)

Don't insult bastards, Lom. (Wedding trash)

I would like this adorable romcom GMMTV, please and thank you.

See what I mean? Trixy.

Thanks boys. (All Only Friends)

(Last week)

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haloguyfttp · 1 month ago

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Welp after giving at a try after at least 5 years, I have now re-quit HI3rd.

That's about it. I never mentioned it because I was never sure if I'd even continue and sure enough here I am. I started because of the HI3 X HSR thingy, and thought it was a good time to try it out again anyway. If you're curious why I dropped it, under the read more. Time to get all this out of my system.

To put it as shortly and simply as I can, the main issues for me were (and for the love of god this is all in my opinion. With how some more "hardcore" HI3 fans are I feel obligated to remind you of that right now at the top)

Lack of future direction. Nothing to build or farm that I can see, and while there's weapons and stigmatas I did not find how to get them besides gambling. Either way, the next point is why i didn't even bother looking.

Lack of content. Specifically, a lack of any reason to want to build anyone. Allow me to mention my favourite one, Star Rail's progression. In HSR I wanted to build characters to survive the increasing Equilibrium Level. After that, wanted to tackle Simulated Universe, then the endgame modes like MoC PF & the new Apocalyptic Shadow. Even after all that, I just wanna build characters because I want to use their unique kits and play around with them. Clear progression of targets. "I need ST DPS", "I need AoE", "I need Harmony". HI3rd just had trial characters for every story quest, and no real goal outside of spamming the Main Story. Sure there's other modes but the game never even tries to ease you into them, they're just... there. Besides that, there's nothing much to build. Every character you have is ancient so unless you skip straight to Pt 2 story there's no reason to build anyone except maybe the free Herrscher of the Void. Anyways next point.

Story didn't connect. I'm gonna get crucified for these last two points anyway, but to be brief, the only character I was interested in (especially in Ch 9) was Fu Hua. And upon starting the game you are greeted with "You can spend some money and get a Herrscher of Sentience", which you promptly find out is Fu Hua. On top of that the remaining Fu Huas are all mild variations of her basic form. Pretty obvious what happens. Kiana and the rest's story never connected with me, a lot of it just felt like I was missing a chapter between every... well chapter (eg. Bronya talks about Seele in a few parts despite Seele literally never appearing in the story until AFTER these reminiscing mentions are long forgotten). While WuWa suffered from too much exposition, HI3 did the opposite and threw every term and faction at you and never explained any of it. By Ch 9 with That Part, it just felt like anything fucking goes. Yes it was emotional, but on a greater view like... Who cares if a Herrscher is super OP if apparently someone in a really strong Battlesuit can take them out anyway. Why do I care about any stakes if the universe lies in the hands of macguffins. Gives me bad shonen vibes where there's like infinite power scaling.

And finally, the gameplay was mid. Ch 10 - 12 was just... so incredibly slow because the combat was just spamming left click until it finally ended. Punishing Gray Raven was way more fun.

These last 2 in particular suck, because HI3rd fans have been universally praising how good their story and combat is (and often trying to dunk on the other games simultaneously), but really HI3rd had combat only mildly more complex than Genshin, while HSR provides far more interesting teambuilding and progression. ZZZ is far closer to the difficulty I expected from HI3rd. And this is obviously personal preference but I much prefer HSR's story over all the others.

Maybe my expectations were too high thanks to how much the HI3rd loyalists praised it to the moon. But that's that. I tried to stick around but I just... don't have any reason to. The only character I like has no other versions, and out of everyone combat wise I only like Dreamweaver cause her Ult is extremely cool to me.

HI3rd does have 1 advantage, which is it has the flashiest in-game animations of all the Hoyos. But that's the only thing I concede. Anyways that's my ramble over. Sorry HI3rd fans, it just didn't hit right.

I should mention I did not play Part 2. I want to do shit chronologically, but even if Pt 2 is super good, having to skip almost 40 chapters from the 1st chunk "to get to the good part" doesn't exactly sound like a good pitch.

#rode's rambles

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woneuntonzz · 8 months ago

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torn and folded .ᐟ (1/2)

📞 ; “respectfully, you're disgusting.”

𖹭 : bully!seunghan x bl reader, amab!reader

💭 you loved your free time in manga reading websites, not him though, he thinks you need your senses sorted out for you, and so he would...

⤷ contains: mlm pairing (this is pure fiction and is in no way

made to assume the idol's sexuality!!), angst, bullying,

homophobia towards mc (i myself have struggled with), fluff,

humor (kys/kms jokes), mention of other idol names for world

building

⤷ wc: 11.2k!! (not proofread :p)

-ˋˏ under the cut .ᐟ ✄┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈

Attraction has always been a tough concept that fiddled with your mind, and for years you found it hard to figure out where you lie in this aspect. For a while you thought you were just like every other guy, too afraid to fall for a girl.

You would meet your best friend’s sister quite often whenever you visited their home. You’ve always thought she was so pretty, with such an innocent face and a sweet and wee voice. She was almost this perfect character, fair and bright, nearly unreal. She had such nice hair that fell like waterfalls, long and wispy lashes, plush, pink lips and eyes that took the shape of an almond. No wonder why she was the talk of the neighborhood —and she was just as beautiful on the inside as you saw her in her countenance.

“You can have my umbrella, don’t worry about it —go home! and if your dad yells at you again, tell me. I’ll give you something special tomorrow.” —the sweetest girl, isn’t she?

“Thank you, Chaeyoung.”

She lent you her Hello Kitty umbrella, the cat imprinted all over the canopy, and her little bow on the handle. That day you were spared from your ill-tempered father, and Chaeyoung would never see that umbrella again.

The next day, you came back to their house, ecstatic to finally watch another episode of Slam Dunk on their tv.

“Hi Y/n!” —oh right, you were there to see Chaeyoung too. “Can you come to the kitchen real quick?”

From a distance you could smell sugar cookies, freshly baked, hot out of the oven. The scent only led you to briskly nodding to her question, following closely behind her as you scuttled to the kitchen together.

“These are for you.” you were sure the cookies were just as sweet as her smile as she extended the plate of sugars towards you.

“Oh, thank you.” for a while, you hesitated on fully carrying the weight of the plate, but looking at her beaming face assured you, and soon you were stuffing your face with the cookies.

“Let’s play a little game!” you were a bit startled at her exclamation, mouth still bearing chunks of sugar.

You had to take a painful swallow to ask, “Right now?”

“Mhmm~”

“Should we go outside—”

“No, no!” her giggles made you shiver, it was so innocent, yet so… eery. “Just here.”

“What game are we playing?” you asked again through your soft chews.

“Let’s guess each other’s crushes.”

Your pupils would move to the side as you got to thinking, a crush, do I have one of those? —the thought of it had never even crossed your mind. Maybe because it was unclear to you what a crush is meant for, or what it takes for you to crush on someone. Chaeyoung? —everyone else seemed to have a crush on her, but you're no train-hopper.

“Guess mine first.” she urges, and you scurry around in your head for answers, Jaeyun? Wooyoung?

“Is it… Wooyoung?” —and to that she emits a sound of a buzzer, like the ones you’d hear in a game show after an incorrect answer.

“No!”

“Oh, Jisung?”

You laughed at the exaggerated pout that played on her lips, and she’d only frown at you. For a minute you were worried that she was getting annoyed —good for you for being worried, because you’d find out she’s been restless all morning, itching to tell you, “I have a crush on you, dummy.”

Suddenly you were inhaling thick air, your breathing pattern shifted tremendously as your eyes looked for something to rest on. In that thirty seconds of silence, you wished it was that easy to just sink into the ground beneath where you stood. Her? crushing on you? seemed like a dream, and it truly is for the boys that admired her, unfortunately for her, you aren’t a part of that population.

“Me?” you pointed at yourself as you questioned what you had just heard. “Are you sure? Are you joking?”

She was quiet for about seven seconds —and you were able to count for the sole reason of being anxious. The sole of her right foot was pressed firmly against the ground, and within those seven seconds she moved it around, drawing small ovals on the ground. “I’m sure.”

You wished you were as sure as she was, whilst she eyed the lines on your shirt, you were thinking about your feelings, what you felt about her. While you’ve always been in awe of how graceful she was at any given scenario, it’s all been just a thought and nothing more, nothing special, nothing for you to act on.

“How about you?”

You swore you the ticking of their wall clock got louder, and louder, and louder. But eventually, you’d tell her the truth.

She told you it was okay, but you saw the shift in her eyes, the pair that was once innocent and inviting now terrified you like the wretched pit in your darkest nightmares. How was that even possible? —you’d ask yourself, trying to open your mind to the possibilities. What are the chances that you’d become the person she hates the most?

“One hundred percent.” —now in highschool, you’d bury yourself in that horrid pit everyday, you had no choice, no means of escaping.

“You’re sure that’s the answer?” you hiss at the pain inflicted by her hands that dug into your hair, pulling each strand, her vigor intensifying by the second. “If this turns out to be wrong…” fate is truly, “I will out you to your dad myself.” cruel.

That day you told her that you did not reciprocate her admiration is the day you’d see her for who she truly was. Wolf in sheep’s clothing, a phrase you’d often hear even as a child. You just never thought you’d encounter it ever, especially in her.

You stood up from your desk, huddling your textbooks and notebooks as you took wary steps —would usually be to the library, but Chaeyoung had already caught up to that old routine of yours, so you resorted to an empty, but rancid room at the back of the building. It was dark, even darker than that pit.

Though that room was not entirely pleasant —it smelled of mold and chemicals you could only make out as cleaning materials— you learned to deal with it for your own sake. You’ve been threatened over and over by a certain group of people in your class that they’d out you, and you had every right to be scared, especially when they almost succeeded in the dawning of your anguish.

In that room, you hummed to yourself, did the work you had to in peace, and most importantly, you read —the pieces that you related to the most.

You remember being caught swiping through it on your phone, within seconds it was snatched away from you. They —two of them— took a quick look at it, smirking and soon guffawing at what they saw. “Who knew you’d be into disgusting shit like this.”

“I mean, it only makes sense. He’s a—” it was the first time you were called the slur.

If you were being honest, as hurtful as they were meaning to be, you were not much fazed by it, still, you were surprised to hear such a word, even from them.

“Yeah, you’re right. People like him are really like that huh?” like what? —you could only dare them with the little voice in your head for if you had spoken out it might be your last day in that classroom.

“Stop looking at us like that.” —and they repeated it again, that word.

From then on, you’d avoid being seen reading, or having your phone out at all. There were times where you had the freedom, so you’d make the most of it while they weren’t there, in the classroom. But this deserted room, despite its grimy interior, would serve as a safe space for you.

“This is not too bad.” you mumbled to yourself, eyes lingering on your faint reflection on the dust-layered window panes.

It truly was not too bad to have your peace in such a place, this school, the shithole you were forced into.

The truth is, you haven’t outed yourself to anyone, no one in school, not even Chaeyoung, not even her brother —and your childhood best friend— Seunghan. After that one fateful afternoon at their house, Chaeyoung felt devastated, how could you not like her back? she could only think of one reason, you must be gay, crazy enough to not return her likeness for you. She didn’t even get to confronting you about it, she just told everyone she knew, everyone close to you —with the exception of your family— that you’re insane, or in her words, “He’s gay, he told me himself! it’s better to stay away just to be safe!”

You’d end up being the one to stay away, just to be safe. Though you could say not everyone was mean to you, they were not nice enough to acknowledge you or what the others have been doing to you either.

It was an unfortunate turn, and it would ultimately lead to the fallout of your friendship with your one and only sport —you used to call him all sorts of names, and he’d call you, well, what you could only describe as the cutest alias you’ve ever heard. You had something quite special, and didn’t take a while for you to see it differently —to see him differently. Maybe you were being a little too irrational, or maybe it's because of the way his face is always close enough to press onto yours, or the way he smiled at you, the way he used to take care of you without you asking, and the nickname.

“Hey bunny!” —is what you’d always hear every morning then, when he called you out to play, or take bike rides around the neighborhood.

“Hi Seung-gunk!” and he’d playfully headlock you, ruffling your hair.

The farthest you’ve gone with your matching bicycles was the park —you even had your own tree, a hiding spot if you will. It’s where you two would babble on about everything, even the most nonsensical things.

“Don’t you ever get bored of this park?” you asked him, and you would move a little, feeling some of his sweat touching your skin because of the proximity.

You two were sitting under your tree, leaning against its trunk. Your sides were slightly squeezed against each other as you went on with your venture-talks.

“Not really.” he looked at you, reaching on top of your head for a stray leaf that fell on it, “Not when I’m with you.”

You believed him, only at that moment, because soon his actions would contradict his words.

It all started in middle school, the summer before it started, you have already discussed about how excited you were about entering this new phase in your life, talking about how you two would go to lunch together, find ways to skip class and sneak out —it was a joke of course— and making new friends, and the rumors.

seungsseung 💥��

i can’t believe we’re finally middle schoolers

can u believe it?

y/n 🥕

i’m kinda scared

what if they hurt me more

seungsseung 💥💥

tsk

those stupid rumors

you know what

i’m actually gonna tell my sister to stop it

y/n 🥕

you think it’ll work?

seungsseung 💥💥

don’t worry bunny

i know it didn’t work before

i’ll make it work

It didn’t work, obviously. You were bewildered with how he avoided you, like you were carrying some deadly parasitic disease, the root of an upcoming apocalypse. At first he wouldn’t even look in your direction, even when he really needed to, even when you were already sobbing from your classmates pushing you around, with the lead of his own sister. As time progresses, he’d watch your agony, but you could never really tell what lies in those watchful eyes. He’s changed, and he would change even more.

You were in a rush to get back to the classroom after checking the time, but you wouldn’t be inside without bumping into him.

“Watch where you’re going.” like a reflex, you’d use the papers you held to shield yourself, by the way he looked at you, you thought he was about to jump you. He scoffs at this, finding some sort of amusement out of it, “Fucking pathetic.” he says, kicking the papers out of your hands.

You tried your damndest to fight back the tears in class, not wanting to draw any more attention than you already have outside of class hours. It was only when you were able to lock yourself within the confines of your dim lit room that you were able to release all the tears. It hurt even more that you were not allowed to make a single sound at that time of the night.

Wasn’t he being a bit too much? —you were crying out loud in your frail mind, perplexed by this situation. You were too afraid to even message him anymore, to ask him why, and what caused the sudden shift. Then, he protected you like he owed you the world, the next day you were suddenly prey for him to feed on. And he’d only get worse in highschool, bonding with the same people who caused your torment, and still, with his stupid, pretty sister.

“Look who’s back!” you tried your best to maintain your composure as you entered the classroom, you had just gotten out of your secret hideout. “We missed you, Y/n.”

“Class isn’t the same without a freak like you.”

You’d flinch, feeling someone rush past behind you. Feeling the back pocket of your pants become lighter, you panicked, and soon your phone was being held close to your face.

“Open it.” Seunghan —he taunted, looking at you the same way he always did. “Deaf? I said open it, fucking idiot.”

Your hands were shaky, taking your phone from him. It took you three attempts before you could successfully unlock it, and when you did, he clutched on it, forcefully taking it out of your hands. You already felt the after effects of his insults that hadn’t even come out of his mouth, but you knew it would very soon. You had left what you were reading open, it was not like you knew he’d be up to snatching your phone away from you to poke fun at you, but then again you weren’t surprised.

“You make me gag. Do you guys see this shit?” he was already scrolling through the whole thing, and his friends would peek from behind him making you gulp and freeze on your spot.

You came home with wet hair, a wet uniform, and it was all to mock the fact that you were up to reading something that erotic. When they got your phone, you happened to have left it on a chapter that had a rated eighteen scene. They took turns at throwing water at you, repeatedly uttering how wet you were getting. It was disgusting, but so were you in their eyes, in his eyes.

bunz

hey

can i ask u a question?

it’ll be vv quick i promise

saxyguy1002

oh hi

how’s school?

bunz

awful

anyways

what do u think abt homo ppl?

saxyguy1002

i mean

as long as it’s not me it’s cool ig

they aint causing a world war so

yea

they haven't killed my family

so idc really

bunz

that’s interesting

saxyguy1002

r u gay bunz?

bunz

…

what if i am?

saxyguy1002

i told u idc

unless ur planning to kill my family

bunz

no ur tweaking

i’m just not into girls

but into guys

that’s all

saxyguy1002

like i said

don’t

care

bunz

well fuck u

saxyguy1002

kidding

don’t go offline yet :((

i have no one to talk to

my friends are idiots

all of them.

Then why’d you leave me? —you shook your head at your computer screen, at the conversation you were having with this ‘stranger’ you met in a game. You knew it was him, but he was oblivious towards the fact that it was you who he’s been talking to every night after school, and you prayed he hadn’t suspected you either.

bunz

that’s tough lol

sucks for u

saxyguy1002

says the one who has no friends

how’s being lonely? :p

There was this urge to tell him, I miss you, but you were too afraid. He was already treating you like a stray in school, what more if he finds out who you were behind this persona you’ve built for him.

bunz

i have one more question

saxyguy1002

hit me

bunz

do u know bl?

saxyguy1002

**bbl

and yes i do ofc

bunz

ew perv

not that

boy’s love

saxyguy1002

yea

apparently it’s a genre now

there’s this guy in our school that reads them

You couldn’t quite understand if you wanted to cry or laugh.

bunz

really?

what do u think abt him then?

saxyguy1002

that bl shit gives me the creeps

all that dirty shit?

two disco sticks?

bunz

um???

not the disco sticks 😭😭

saxyguy1002

do u read?

bunz

what if i do…

saxyguy1002

i’ll make an exception

just don't mention it ever again 😁

bunz

kys :3 (jk, but i still hate u)

saxyguy1002

i will :p (jk 2, but i don’t hate u so deal with it)

You shook your head again, water brimming on both eyes. You ran your fingers through your hair, knowing you could never go any further from this. You could just stop talking to him, block him even, but your heart wouldn’t allow you to. Everytime you tried, you were brought back to that little spot at the park, under the biggest tree, the tips of your noses almost touching.

Thinking about it makes you think about what he thought about everything, about you, then and now. You thought maybe at some point in time he saw you the same way, maybe he did, and he got scared so he started bullying you too. You’d sigh heavily, slapping a mental note onto yourself —you have got to stop letting the manga get into your head Y/n.

In a blink, you were back in your hideout. Your leg got restless, shaking continuously as you read. Earlier you thought you had seen someone following you from the corner of your eye. No one came in after you after waiting for twenty minutes, so you sat down where you’d usually be. Your eyes momentarily watched for the door, afraid that they might burst in and beat you up, or lock you in.

Suddenly what you were reading got more interesting. You were fully immersed with the scene that played before you, acting out the expressions drawn on the characters. And his eyes dripped with honey as he got closer, allowing his desire to win him over, and soon their lips met and clashed with so much—

You jumped at the sound of the door being slammed wide open. You’d curl into yourself, dropping your phone. It was like the walls were closing in on you, already feeling the humiliation, the suffering.

“Oh, sorry, are you okay? I was just here for…” it was an unfamiliar voice, “...I actually don’t know why I’m here either. I guess I needed some space away from those people.”

You’d warily lift your head up, being met with a cautious stare.

“Wait, are you Y/n? from the neighboring class right?” your nod was only subtle, but he’d beam at you so brightly. “I’m Matthew, can I come in?”

You nod again, freeing yourself from your own restraint. You’d sit yourself properly, watching him scan around the room for a place to sit. You moved over a bit, and that was enough to tell him to sit next to you. It was an awkward few first seconds till he bent down to reach for your phone. You grew nervous when his eyes stayed a little too long on your phone screen as he handed it to you.

“You’re in that chapter already? you must be an avid reader.” your eyes dilated at his words, and he’d chuckle at your reaction.

“You read?” you were evidently hesitant, your volume would only be that of a mouse.

He’d hum a response, nodding at the same time. “Sometimes for the story, sometimes for the art. The author of that manga is great as fuck, and the artstyle too!” he was able to crack a smile out of you, it’s been a great while. “But, I am curious, why are you here?”

You shrugged at first, not really knowing what to say. Besides, no one has ever bothered to ask you about anything if it’s not to mess with you. “My classmates hate me.”

“Hmm, I heard.” of course he had, everyone has. “Is it really because you’re gay?”

Your eyes would shift to the side before you nod your head.

“That’s crazy. I’m bi, I mean, I haven’t come out yet, but —I think it’s ridiculous. It’s the 21st century, are we seriously still about that.” he’d sigh like he’d had the biggest dilemma of his life.

And it made you laugh, it was very little, but it was enough.

“Hey, we should hang out some other time, how’s that sound?”

You were still cautious about the whole thing, afraid that it might be a trap of some sort. All it took was another smile from him, and you’d finally say, “That sounds cool.”

You two walked out of that room together, and he kept chattering on about things you couldn’t quite remember at the end of the day, and in the same hallway, you stumbled upon your nightmare. He was boring holes into your soul, making you stop in your tracks.

“Y/n?” Matthew called for you when he noticed that you were no longer beside him. He noticed the way your eyes dropped dead, staring ahead, he turned his head to where you looked, but when he did, Seunghan was already walking away.

Matthew took a few steps back, meeting you again. “Does he bother you or something?”

“No.” technically, you were telling the truth. You were still so tolerant with him, because you still liked him. “You should get away from me.”

He was clearly taken aback by your request, and he could sense you meant well. “Is it that bad?” he’d ask you, concern painted well on his face.

You shrugged once again, still not figuring out how to properly convey what you wanted to say, “They might get you too, because of me.”

“Don’t think so. You think they’ll touch anyone from the pilot class? —no offense, I think you’re great, but your class is a cluster of utter garbage.” he was right, and you’d subconsciously nod at him. “So I’ll stick around, see ya!”

You didn’t even notice that you were already near your classroom. You stood still, watching him as he walked back to his own classroom, just next to yours. You weren’t quite ecstatic about going back to that room, so a hand to your shoulder granted you the favor, stopping you from taking another step.

“Who’s your new owner?” you gulped at the all too familiar voice that crept behind you.

“Owner?”

“Huh, so you answer now?” you didn’t bother turning your head, instead, Seunghan would move himself in front of you, “Matthew —you know what you looked like? you looked like his pet.” he laughs at you, but you’d keep your eyes on the floor. “Do better Y/n, geez, at least fix yourself first before trying to hang out with actual people.”

Because you’re not an actual person, he saw you as an animal, a joke. “At least he wasn’t a liar.” you might’ve been speaking too soon.

Too soon. “What the fuck did you just say?”

You’d shake your head at him, just like all the nights you’ve spent chatting, and you’d walk past him.

He just stood there, unsure of what to do with himself anymore.

“Bro, Seunghan, what the hell was that?” he couldn’t avert his eyes from his shoelaces, tracing the pattern it made with his gaze.

“I could’ve beaten him to a pulp if I were you —you know what, we’ll do it for you since you’re being such a puss.” the others’ words went into one ear and out the other.

He can’t help but think if it was all worth it. If avoiding the consequences, the pain, did it actually do him better?

“Seunghan, what are you thinking about?” his sister sat on his desk, tapping on it with her fingers.

He could only give her a blank stare, that would soon trail off into the distance. Chaeyoung just eyed him, and smugness was written all over her face.

“Y/n?” she scoffed. “You’re thinking about him?”

Seunghan only glanced at her for a brief moment, and she’d slam her palm against his desk.

“It’s not like that—”

“I’m not that dumb, Seunghan.” she truly wasn’t when she was able to ruin two lives, and probably more outside his scope.

“I promise it’s not what you think.” he kept his voice monotone, and his sister would roll her eyes at him.

“Just keep up the act, and maybe, I’d consider not telling our parents just how disgusting you are.”

Disgusting —was a word you’d often hear from him, how ironic. It was those times when he’d ridicule your love for reading bl mangas, just snatching your phone whenever he felt like it.

“I can’t believe you actually enjoy this, disgusting.”

Yet, that still wasn’t enough for you to see him as your enemy.

saxyguy1002

hey bunz

bunz

what

saxyguy1002

how r u?

being lonely and miserable and all

bunz

lol

ykw i have a friend now

and he reads bl too

go fuck yourself

saxyguy1002

woah woah

i was joking 😢

but

respectfully, you’re disgusting

for that

bunz

kys :>

saxyguy1002

not until we meet

bunz

you want to…?

saxyguy1002

i mean

ig?

i just wondered if u were just as much of a twink irl like you are in chat

bunz

fuck you, actually

saxyguy1002

u cant fuck me

i’m not gay

bunz

blocked

saxyguy1002

NO PLSSSSSSSSSS

😭😭😭😭😭

begging on my KNEES rn

don’t

if this makes u feel better

i meant to say cute

not twink :p

Again, you were double guessing whether this was true, this whole conversation, the situation, if this was even Seunghan you’re talking to.

bunz

i need to sleep

night

saxyguy1002

and i’ll be outside ur window

better close it now 👹

bunz

nahh bfr my bedroom is at the second storey 😬

saxyguy1002

now who said i cant float

you’ll float too 🤡

bunz

bye pennywise

kys :3 (not fr tho)

saxyguy1002

i will :p (i won’t dw)

You leaned back against your desk chair, a tired exhale escaping your mouth as you turned off your computer. To say that you didn’t look forward to getting home just to talk to him would be a complete lie. You were even a lot more enthusiastic, though it doesn’t show through your messages that much, you just wished it could be like this in real life too.

If he was genuine about wanting to see you, and if he finally did, what would be his reaction then? Would he keep himself away from you? hurt you even more? —your thoughts kept running, until they got too tired and the running turned into crawling, creeping, and soon you were fast asleep.

“Y/n, off to where?” you were startled, hearing your name for the first time that day, and from a new voice that you had been waiting for the whole day.

“Matthew. Just going to the library, I have to pick something up.”

“Just a quick trip? we still have…” he pauses for a while to look at his wrist watch, “About thirty minutes till class. Do you have something to do?”

You consciously tapped on your sides, thinking about how you were only getting what you needed early so you wouldn’t have to run into trouble later in the day, “No, not really, not yet.”

“Oh, so then would you wanna stay in the library a little longer? we could read there for a while.”

It really was that hard to decline, so in a span of minutes, you were both seated in the library, not on books, but on your phones.

“You think you could pause reading that for a while?” he whispered so closely to your ear that you almost cringed.

“What? this?” he nods at you, and you’d ask again, “Why?”

“So we can read it together. You’re only three chapters ahead of me, maybe I can catch up by the end of the day —or now.”

His request had caused you to blink repeatedly for a few seconds before you got to respond, “The chapters themselves are pretty long…”

“Please?”

You could only stare at him, trying to search for your next words within the lines of his face. “Okay, but you better start reading now.”

“Will do!” you’d give him a silent laugh, and in return he exudes a low chuckle, it was such a pleasant sound that you felt ashamed for wanting to ask him to do it again.

Both of you have grown oblivious of the people entering and leaving the library, and the one that watched you from the distance, he had almost forgotten what he was there for. He was preoccupied with how you seemed to no longer care or be cautious of your surroundings.

He saw it, the way you smiled. He’d been denying it for so long, but he missed it. He missed you. He missed when it was him you used to smile at like that. But there was not much he could do. If only you knew he was just afraid as you were of the world the two of you lived, so cruel, but he could only imagine just how cruel the world has been to you.

Somehow he thought he should be thankful that Matthew had followed you to that room, but it should’ve been him opening that door, he had to back out when he saw Matthew, because just like you, he had an ephemeral suspicion that he might be someone to look out for. All those thoughts flew out his mind like a fly when he saw you at that hallway with the other guy, it’s his first time in a while seeing you be yourself, at ease. It seemed so surreal, but he couldn’t get over seeing you like that with someone who wasn’t him. It used to be him, but then again, your severance was the bearing of his own mistakes. He didn’t mean to have such sharp eyes pinned at you when he saw you, it was a mask. He felt so close to losing.

His friends weren’t any better than him. He knew he was just around to please them. He never really got off of bullying you, it was all orders. If he even dared to go against them, he might never see you again. He’s got himself wrapped around his sister’s pointy fingers.

That summer before middle school, he confronted his sister about the things she’s been doing, the crude things she’s been saying. “You need to stop. Just because Y/n didn’t like you back?”

“Why do you care shithead?” he was caught off guard with the words that came out of her sister's mouth.

“He’s my best friend, I care about him —and do you not understand that he just didn’t like you that way? and he doesn’t even hate you either, so I don’t get why you’re being like this.”

What he didn’t understand was that a hurt ego hits back harder than a heavy loaded truck, “Maybe because he liked you.” he found himself playing with his own hands, “Never thought about it huh? well I have. That’s gross, Seunghan.”

“So what?” her sick laughter came attacking him right as he spoke.

“Don’t tell me you like him too.”

“So what?” he repeats as he stands assertive.

The irked girl tilted her head, raising a brow whilst her lips rose to a smirk, “I’ll tell, and you’ll see just how ridiculous you’re being.”

“Tell?”

“Our parents. You know I will. Fix yourself, or I’ll do it for you.”

Fix? —the thing is, if their parents ever knew, they’d do everything in their power to get him out of that town, away from you. He lived in a religious household, one that’s conservative, believes a man is only for a woman, and a woman is only for a man.

He still kept messaging you, secretly. He knew that once middle school started, he’d never be able to be the same with you again.

seungsseung 💥💥

hey

i’m gonna miss you

y/n 🥕

why?

we’re literally seeing each other tomorrow

seungsseung 💥💥

take care of urself all the time

can u do it?

y/n 🥕

seunghan?

ur scaring me

seungsseung 💥💥

sorry

It was the last conversation you had with him. You fell asleep, not foreseeing your unfortunate days ahead of you.

It hurt to remember, but he would never forget. Then he was too terrified of the consequences, but now he was learning to be more capable, and maybe he could release himself from the chains that trapped him in this dark, secluded place. He wanted it to become a reality, him not having to torment you for the sake of getting closer to you, or hearing your voice.

onto the next? >> part 2

#riize #briize #riize fanfic #riize x reader #riize au #riize seunghan #hong seunghan #riize angst #riize fluff #boy's love

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cdyssey · 2 years ago

Text

Abbott 2.19 Thoughts:

Finally getting to sit down and watch Abbott. 😭 Lots of errands this morning. Alas.

Sad cold open with everyone either panicked or resigned to what’ll happen if Legendary Charters takes over. :(

“I’M GONNA BUTTER UP DELISHA SLOSS LIKE A HOT DINNER ROLL AND SEE WHAT SHE CAN DO FOR US ON THE SCHOOL BOARD LEVEL.” BARBARA HOWARD, MA’AM, MARRY ME SKWJDIWJWJSAJ.

The way Mel was looking at her during that sequence!! When she bit her lip!! LAW just makes the most sapphic looks, lmfao.

“People always open the door for me because they think I’m a lost child.” AKQKQNSJDIWIENDNS. Quips about Janine’s height are always my fave bc I’m literally Quinta’s height.

AVA DOES LOOK GREAT. THAT DOUBLE-BREASTED BLACK BLAZER. MA’AM?

Ava said I’mma show all the ladies of Abbott how hot I am and walk off. And she’s so right.

“Oh, hey, you’re the mom with the bi—“ KAKQJWJSDNS. Love that green eye shadow. So pretty.

“EXTRA PETITE BITCH.” AKQKQOWJDJSJ. I love her.

Obsessed with Barbara being obsessed with buttering up metaphors this episode.

JACOB SAYING SON OF A BITCH AND SLAMMING THE FRIDGE DOOR. OMFG.

“I’ll do it with you after school Janine.” / Barbara: “Oooooooh!” HELP WOQOQOWJDJSJIWWJDJ.

“I’ll get engaged with you.” KQQOQOJWWIIED. Goddammit, I love Gregory Eddie.

Melissa turning a random yt dude into “Jacob” when that angry parent confronted her, lmfao.

Erica!!!!! I’m so glad that Abbott has leaned into recurring characters this season. They really add to the life of the show.

Melissa: “I get it. I wouldn’t sign anything I handed me.” That line is actually really sad. What the fuck

Ava going for a job interview?! 😭

Ava listening in on her neighbors arguing is so fuckjng funny lmao.

Loving Jacob’s energy in this episode. Chris Perfetti is having a lot of fun playing angry and stressed.

Barbara slapping her wife when she makes a mean quip towards Allie, lmfao.

Ava knows tons of names. “Barbara, Melissa, Jason, Marge…” AKSNDNS.

Jacob getting ready to FIGHT Mr. Morton.

BARBARA HOWARD GOING “WE HAVE TO TRICK THEM.” HELP ME?! DID I JUST HEAR THAT OUT OF MY FAVORITE WOMAN OF GOD’S MOUTH?!

Melissa, agreeing immediately: “No, let’s trick them.” JAKQKWSJDJWJSJ. Mel and Ava have rubbed off on Barbara, and it’s just really glorious, huh? This is not the same Barb from “Ava vs. Superintendent” or “Fundraiser.”

“Why can’t you ever give me credit for a good idea?” / “Stop making everything about you, Janine.” PLEASE. I love Ava and Janine’s push-and-pull dynamic. I think it would be fun to have them in a bottle episode, where they’re like trapped in a closet or car or elevator together or something.

Ava’s face being on the A.V.A. banner. WNDJWNS.

“Barbara’s working on a motivational speech!” / “And to them I say, this is how you Abbott!” [To Ava] “I’m thinking about ending with a song.” / “We welcome your vocal acrobatics.” BARBAVA ENJOYERS, RISE.

It will be a genuine travesty if they done let SLR sing for real on the show sometime before it’s over.

Also, I’m loving Ava’s walk-and-talk with the camera. It’s such a pointed reminder of how much in the public eye this all is and how the characters are so aware of that.

Gregory is sooooo pressed that Janine suggests calling Tariq, lmao.

Jacob dropping his phone trying to look up Jazmine Sullivan, lolololol. Chris is killing the physical comedy in this ep.

MR. J PRETENDING A CURLING IRON IS A METAL DETECTOR HELP ME WMWJKEWJSJ.

“Guilty. Serving a life sentence as an educator.” ☠️

“Listen, lady. I’m just tryin’ to dunk a white dude.” AKQKWKDJWJSJSISJ

Ava lying about Jazmine S. bc Barb said to trick people. Omfg. Oh, how the tables have turned!!!

Hulu is showing me a Jennifer Coolidge commercial, and that makes me happy. She deserves the world.

TARIQ!!

Gregory: “Get on the stage.” AKQOQOOWOWJDIEOWIEIDJD

Barbara Howard’s mouth falling the fuck open when Tariq first starts rapping. I’m laughing so hard. I love Sheryl.

“Never have I ever been so happy to hear such explicit content.” AJSJWJW

DRAEMOND!

“Did y’all get a youth pastor to do standup during my set?” AKWNDNS, Draemond does look like a youth pastor, lmfao.

MELISSA GETTING READY TO THROW A BASEBALL AT BARB, WAITING FOR HER SIGNAL. WAIT, IT’S A CUPCAKE. EVEN BETTER.

“This man is playing the Powerball wit’ our kids!” QKQKQKQOOQOWRODOEJEJDS. I fucking love Tariq.

I’m going to have “Abbott on Abbott on Abbott” in my head all week, lmao.

“Bless your soul, Draemond.” THAT WAS A BARBARA HOWARD FUCK YOU!!!!!!!

“AND THIS ONE DECIDED TO BE A JACKASS.” HELP ME HELP ME HELP ME WOWOQOOQWNEOWOWOOWKSDJWJWJS.

BARBARA HOWARD, I LOVE YOU.

“What in the Immaculate Reception?” KQKQKQKWOWOQOEIFIEJWIDSJ

“JANINE, DON’T TRY AND FIX THAT.” AKQOQKWDNSN. SHERYL WAS ON IT THIS EPISODE.

Looks like the end stinger is setting up a Tariq return to Philly!

Biggest Laugh: Everything Sheryl Lee Ralph did in this goddamn episode, but specifically JACKASS.

Favorite Scene: All the teachers in the library. That scene was so chaotic, and we got Barbara Howard proposing chicanery!!

Final Thoughts: I’m really hoping that this isn’t the end of the charter drama even if it’s a temporary resolution! It’s such an interesting conflict, and it’d be fun to see it played with a little more. Loved the camaderie between the teachers in this episode—how they were all on the same page and working together for this cause and school that they believe in. This was a very feel good episode for our favorite work family. ☺️

#maggie blogs #abbott elementary spoilers #s: abbott elementary

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stardusttshowers · 4 months ago

Note

*heelys in a few days late with a smoothie* hi can i get uhhhh 6, 25, and 13 specifically abt dim (dunk him into a lake do it do it >:3)

heck yeah!!! >:3 never too late for salt!!

6. Has fandom ever made you enjoy a pairing you previously hated?

OH this is a good one!! going into the spm fandom for this one but i can name one pairing i think!! that pairing is d*mentio/nastasia!

i didn’t used to like it before because i had no idea how they would work out and the portrayals i saw felt out of character compared to their game selves; but my spm fandom friends changed that!!

while that pairing isn’t one i tend to ship myself, seeing my friends in the spm fandom explore their dynamic in a “rivals and lovers” way made it all the more interesting and absolutely delicious; and now i enjoy seeing the d*mentio/nastasia ship! and thinking about their potential sometimes >:3

25. How would you end XXX/Would you change the ending of XXX?

this question made me think a lot!!

there is one ending to a certain show i watched that infuriates me really bad; but it’s mainly because I watched it for specific themes and things it pitched… that didn’t come through in the final execution? i really dont want to invite its fans to my post so i shan’t say what it is but that ending was really unsatisfying and frustrating to me and not for ship-related reasons, and id definitely change that!! the main character got the short end of the stick and I really don’t like that :(

I guess an ending that also infuriates me really bad that I can talk about is the ending to pokem*n ultra sun/ultra moon!! ive never played this iteration (only played the originals) so shoutout to my friend luke for giving me the gist but i would change SO much about it!!

they did lillie’s whole story so dirty here!! and instead of having her go off to kanto like the originals did, they made gladion leave for kanto!! they made her mother lusam*ne, who in the originals was an amazing villain and awful mother; into an anti-hero and the people in the games called her a great person - and SHE STILL HAD THE FROZEN POKEMON RIGHT THERE!!

the ultra games had cool fun concepts with necrozema and rainbow rocket, but yet they shafted lillie’s whole arc and story, something that gave the originals heart and warmth for these concepts they put in the ultra games. i guess id say keep lillie’s story like it was in the originals but find some way to integrate all that stuff into the postgame or in a way that doesn’t interfere with her story

13. Unpopular opinion about XXX character?

HEHEHEHEH TIME TO DIMMADUNK >:3

i have so many unpopular opinions on this clown and i’ll try to keep them concise because this post is getting Long as im full of salt today but here’s my top three!

- regarding the popularly theorized backstory: if you agree with this theory and have it as your d*mentio’s backstory that is okay, the different takes are interesting!! but my unpopular opinion is that.. to me; he’s literally just some dude. i never really connected the dots to that master magician story being d*mentio’s backstory in the game; and ended up making my own for my headcanons!! he is just some dude who happens to be a magician to me

- regarding d*mentio hurting nastasia at the end of the game: idk how common this opinion is but ive seen it around a few times where people have said that he hurt nassy intentionally and they think that’s why a ship with them together would be considered bad. my unpopular opinion is that he didn’t intentionally hurt nassy and make her fall unconscious! he aimed that bullet for the count, but nastasia took it.

yes, he hurt her and laughed at her “adorably hopeless gesture”!!! but it wasn’t his intention! it was meant for the count!! now what was intentional was d*mentio putting a floro sprout in o’chunks and luigi’s minds.

- ships with d*mentio: my unpopular opinions are that i don’t think that all ships involving d*mentio are bad!! i feel like he should be able to love somebody like everyone else can. but they’ve really gotta be written right to really hit with me i think, and a lot of the more wholesomely written d*mentio ships don’t really do it?? like.. he’s a messy person and does some deranged stuff; I feel like those ships can get messy and interesting if done right; which there’s a lack of that I think.

also this post got long, but I still wanted to link this!! salt ask meme here if you want to hear more salt!

#artnerd1123 #ask #kat speaks #WHEW this got so long!! just got very salty today

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sketchy-rosewitch · 2 years ago

Text

It’ll Be Alright: Bobby Cobb x f!reader

Warnings: shitty boyfriend.

A/N: Bobby Cobb! Bobby Cobb! I love this mans

Other BvH Character Masterlist

“Come on Bobby that’s not fair!” You shout, huffing into the hot air.

“Not my fault you couldn’t reach it Cricket! Gotta be quicker than that!”

You put your hands on your hips and crunch up your face. “Only Ellie can call me that B-team!”

You look over to Ellie, Jules, and Laurie sitting under a canopy and wink at them. Ellie sticks her tongue out.

“I’ll show you B-team!”

Bobby comes barreling towards you and grabs you swinging around. You laugh.

“Hey! You better be careful with my girl!”

Bobby stops and you two look up to see your boyfriend, Jared coming down to where you guys were throwing a football around.

Bobby let’s go and you feel his mood change a bit but ignore it. Your heart rate picks up as Jared gets closer and you run up to him, hugging him tightly. “I’m so happy you made it baby!”

Your hands run through his blond hair, he leans down to kiss your lips, you smile into it.

A foam ball hits your back, you turn around seeing the guys waiting for you.

“I’m gonna sit for a minute!” You look at Jared. “You go ahead. They love you!”

Jared hands you his beach towel, sunscreen and cooler he brought and you walk over to the canopy where the girls were, setting down his stuff you lounge in your fold out chair.

“I’m so happy everyone got the day off so we could do this.” You say. The women around you hum in agreement and a wine cooler is placed in your cup holder by Laurie. You open it and sip on it as Laurie leans on your thigh. You play with her hair soft blond hair and watch the guys trying to pummel each other, smacking and shoving. You snort and shake your head.

“Chicken!”

You roll your eyes. “You wanna play Laurie?”

The blonde smiles and nods her head. You set down your can and grab her hand to haul her up. You two run to the guys.

“Yeah I’m out.” Travis points towards the shaded area and starts walking over to it.

“Pussy move Trav!”

You and Laurie giggle at each other and playfully hit one another.

“Me and Cricket, G-string and Bubbles, and Jared and Andy!”

All of you run into the water, Bobby dunks underneath and you nervously get on his shoulders, the rest of them do the same. You laugh at Andy on Jared’s shoulders.

“Quit movin’ so much Andy! And grabbin’ my hair!” Jared swats with one hand and holds onto Andy’s leg with the other one.

“Okay okay!”

Andy finally gets his balance and the six of you get into a circle.

“READY?”

“GO!”

You push Laurie and she shoves you harder, but Bobby keeps a good hold on you. You look over at Andy and tilt your head towards Laurie. He smirks.

“Get them!” You scream, pointing to Laurie. She screams and you swear Grayson’s eyes come out of his head. Andy and you take them down and watch as they flop into the salty water laughing. They pop out and start cheering. For who? No one knows!

You lightly shove Andy and Bobby then starts backing up, light waves hit you. You then hold your arm out and as fast as Bobby can run in the water you take your arm and swing back and forward smacking right into Andy. Him and Jared fall into the water.

“AH CAHM ON!”

You and Bobby laugh and you punch the air and clap. “B-team and Cricket win!! Haha! Losers!”

Bobby puts his arms up to and you drop into the water and swim around until you’re close to Jared. Moving his soft, wet hair out of his face, you kiss him gently.

“You wanna go lay out for a bit?”

Jared nods and you take his hand and leave the water into the windy beach. You wipe each other off and put your towels out to sit on. You and Jared hold hands and he kisses your wet hair.

“I’m so happy you could make it. I wasn’t sure with your work schedule.”

Jared squeezes your hand. “Couldn’t miss you in a bathing suit. Also you know I had to watch over you.”

You shake your head. “No one else is here. Also I got everyone else too. You know I’m in good hands.”

“Just.. can’t be too sure.”

You nod your head and lean it on his shoulder, watching as Grayson, Bobby and Andy dick around in the water, screeching like kids at each other.

“I’m going over to Jules’ house.” You say, picking up your purse from your small coat rack.

“Bobby gonna be there?” Jared asks, you shrug your shoulders.

“Probably. Why?”

“I’ll come with you.” Jared goes back into your shared bedroom and gets on a pair of pants and a t-shirt. You furrow your brows.

“Okay? What are you like in love with him or something?”

You snort and make your way out to the car.

You enter the house and wave seeing everyone hanging around the kitchen island. “Hey!” You smile and hug everyone (except Ellie and Grayson). Jared holds onto your hips and wraps his arms around your shoulders as you converse with everyone. He gently kisses you every five seconds and you can’t help but giggle softly.

“I’m gonna go use the restroom real quick baby.” Jared mumbles, kissing you one more time before making his way upstairs. You breathe out, it seems like everyone else does too.

“He seems really all over you lately.” Laurie makes a face. “Honestly I’d be asking for space. Way too close.”

“Haven’t said anything to him about it cause I know he’ll end up building up some sort of wall between me and him and get pissed.” You shrug. “He was already weird about me coming over by myself. I mean isn’t that strange? I’ve known you guys longer than him, he can trust you guys. We do stupid adult shit but we get out of it.” You shrug and sigh. “I love him though. I know it’s gonna be okay. He’s just protective.”

“You know what will get him off your back for a bit?” Jules grins. “A game! We can play sardines again! You’ll be it first!” The black haired woman punches your arm lightly. You smile.

“Okay! Yeah let’s do it!”

Everyone else agrees to it.

“Okay, Grayson, my house and Ellie’s are on limit. Everything else is off limits! We can use flashlights since it’s dark out.”

Jared comes back down the stairs and you explain what’s happening. His face falters but he continues smiling and nods.

You do a thumbs up. “Okay I’m off! I’ll call when I find a spot!”

You giggle like a little kid and start running out the door.

You end up in Grayson’s giant ass walk in closet and look at all the pretty boy shit he has. What a guy. Colognes, briefs, tight pants. This man does it all. You even managed to find a pomade stash before Bobby found you first.

“Hey bestie!” You say, setting down some of the honest to god best handmade jewelry you’ve ever seen.

Bobby shuts the door softly and stands next to you, starting to look through Grayson’s shit too.

“Jared really likes you Bobby.” You smile up at him. “That’s who I wanted him to like the most.”

Bobby raises a brow. “Really?”

You nod your head. “Yeah he asked if you were gonna be here. I said you probably would’ve and he got ready so fast.” You snort. “Here, help me put this on.”

In your hand is one of Grayson’s necklaces. “That’s nice to know.” Bobby takes it and you turn. Then he puts it around your neck and clips it. The door creaks open and you two jump.

“Wowie, love birds found each other first.” Jules and Ellie come in.

“Jules, this is Bobby not Jared.”

“She knows.”

“Whatever, we’re best friends. Not lovers. Ain’t that right B-Team!”

“Yeah!”

“Now help us snoop through more of Grayson’s shit.”

Jules’ eyes light up and she shoves through you and Bobby.

“Jared‘s being such a baby out there. Didn’t want Bobby finding you first. Little does he know.” Ellie says, sitting on a chest between his clothes.

“Awh, well Bobby is usually good at finding me. Should see him in a busy crowd. He always sees me before I see him. Maybe Jared should’ve teamed up with him instead of..”

“Laurie.”

You shake your head. “Rookie mistake.”

Laurie and Jared are the last to find each you in Sardines and you swear Jared’s about to throw a fit.

“We should probably get going. It was great seeing everyone! Bye!”

Jared’s arm is around your shoulder, he takes you through the house and to the car. You two get in, he drives this time.

“So who found you first, Bobby?” Jared huffs.

“Yeah, he’s pretty smart when he wants to be.”

You smile out the window and wave as you two leave the cul de sac.

“You two cheat? You text him where to find you?” Jared’s grip on your thigh tightens a bit.

“No? I just told you he’s smart when he wants to be. He knows how to find me is all.” You explain, the mood changes quickly. Anxiety rises in your throat almost like bile. You look out the window. “Thought you liked Bobby.” You say, frowning. Jared laughs, it’s cruel. Your chest tightens.

“Are you serious? I hate him! Do you see how much he’s all over you? He knows we’re dating right?”

You look at him. “Yeah, everyone does. You’re all over me too.”

Jared sighs, rolling his eyes. “Are you dumb? We’re dating! I’m supposed to be! Shit I hate when you go over there. I bet you they put some sort of subliminal messages in your head to get you and Bobby together.”

You stay quiet. Instead letting Jared rant all the way home and more. You don’t let tears well in your eyes. You just stare into space and stay there. Not even listening to what Jared has to say.

He sleeps in the guest bedroom that night. The next morning he comes into the kitchen.

“You can’t hang out with them anymore.”

You look straight into Jared’s eyes.

“What?!”

“You. Can’t. Hang. Out. With. Them. Anymore.” Jared crosses his arms. “They’re ruining this relationship.”

You roll your eyes. “I’m not a child. I can hang out with who I want. Also they’re not the ones who are having a tantrum over my best friend finding me before them.”

“I wasn’t having a tantrum. I just didn’t want Bobby around you.”

You cross your arms and look down before looking back up at your boyfriend. “I don’t know why you think we’re going to do something. If you can’t trust him you can at least trust me.”

Jared shakes his head. “Don’t you get it? He’s in love with you! Do you just ignore everything he fucking does to you. Holding you, hugging you, picking you all the time over anyone else! I see the way you look at him too! You let him touch you like that. It’s not friendly either!”

Jared circles your island and stands about a foot from you. “It’s me or them.”

“I can tell him to stop. I didn’t realize it bothered you so much. Don’t make me choose.”

Jared’s eyes get glassy. “Me or them.”

Silence falls on the room. It stays that way, you and Jared having a stare off. Jared sighs and unfolds his arms.

“I’ll make this easier.. I’m breaking up with you. You clearly don’t love me.”

Jared walks towards the bedroom. Probably to pack up his things. You let him, time seems to go by fast. He’s out the door before you know it and you’re laying on your couch.

The tears don’t come immediately, but once one falls, they all do. You sob into a pillow on the couch.

“Hey, Laurie told us what happened. Why don’t you come over!” Jules’ peppy voice makes you smile slightly.

“Okay..”

Immediately a blanket is thrown around you and a wine glass is given. You stare into the Merlot liquid before sipping it.

“He broke up with me because he thought that Bobby liked me and that I liked him and that I’d cheat on him. He also thought you guys were a shit influence on me. He made me choose but I couldn’t. Jared I guess knew what I really wanted.”

Ellie fake gasps, you look up at her with a raised brow.

“What?! Jared was kinda right. Bobby is so bleh in love with you and we are a pretty crappy influence. Also you choosing us. Wooof. Good decision. Good girl Cricket.”

Jules and Laurie hug you gently. “Everything is going to be alright okay?”

You look at Laurie and nod sadly.

Jules’ front door opens and shuts.

You can tell who it is, all of the girls get up and start walking up the stairs as slow as they can.

Bobby rocks on his feet awkwardly with his hands in his pockets.

“Is it true?”

“Yes.” Bobby mumbles. You nod your head and down your wine glass before setting it down, then open your blanket, inviting Bobby in to sit next to you. You lean your head on his shoulder.

“I guess I read him wrong. Jared was beyond jealous if you Bobby. Imagine that. Jealous of an older man who lives on a boat that’s not even in the water.”

Your chest hurts and you let out a small sob. “Made me choose. I couldn’t not choose you and Jules and Laurie and quite literally everyone else. I’ve know you guys forever and he’s only one person. He isn’t much. Shitty man. We argued after we left last night.”

Bobby puts an arm around you. “Yeah I expected him to start somethin’. Buncha hoos shlooot.”

You giggle. “What’s a hoos schlooot?”

“You know, hooploot!” Bobby huffs at his gibberish.

“Frazzer dazzle.” You mock Ellie who always mocks Bobby. He smiles and hugs you tightly.

“Sorry your relationship ended.”

“You don’t mean it.”

“I do! Cause I hate seein you sad n stuff. Makes me sad.”

“Maybe I’ll get over it sooner rather than later.” You look up at him. He leans down and kisses your forehead gently.

“I’m countin’ on it.”

#bobby cobb x reader #bobby cobb #brian van holt #cougar town

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