#that doesn't leave any room for real life or for a dynamic situation where you can be on one year and off another

[jlf23tumble]

Always found the they never broke up tag rlly stupid tbh, their discographies exist. From the first albums to the last, there’s always mention of heartbreak, a split, the joy of getting back together sort of (thinking of lucky again and tbsl here), but then again I could be reaching

I don't think it's reaching when you read those lyrics and think, huh, wonder what this repeated motif across five albums is all about, huh, wonder if it's possible that two people can have a tumultuous relationship and document it ALL OVER the place. You wanna see a reach? I've got some unhinged chess posts for ya lmao

[vorfreudevortex]

arguments part 2 was SO SO SO SO GOOOD!! like you wrote the nuance of complicated relationship stuff and that’s hard to do in traditional writing styles. but in smau???? where you’ve gotta work in a really limited viewpoint??? AMAZING STUNNING SHOWSTOPPING

you’re so good at capturing different dynamics like!!!! and i personally LOVED that the apologies where clearly only the start of longer conversations and not an easy wrap up of part 1. has me daydreaming about what they say and how they treat reader after 🥰

standing ovation for a reader that refuses to not be valued by the beautiful anime man 👏 always room for different types of reader and stories about diff types of relationship ofc! but these are prob my personal faves 💕

choso’s punched me right in the chest oml 😭😭 he’s a sweetheart he totally would let yuji do and say anything to him and not have any boundaries 🥲 but he’s learning how he wants to be loved!!! aaahhh!!!! 💕💕💕

oh my god thank you so much i will cry rn (threat) ??!! okay so:

thank you SOOO much for this. making smaus make sense in a limit of a screenshot or two is so hard sometimes for me and other times super easy, and i try so so hard to make them make sense !!

i try my best at making sure the relationship dynamics and viewpoints are all in character as well as making the reader's "personality" a little different for each one while trying not to be too vague!! i had so much trouble coming up with a good way to wrap them up until i realized that these are literally just fake text messages, of course the real conversations are going to happen in person and they can be left unresolved over text if i need them to be.

YES THANK YOU!!! SO MUCH!!! i had mentioned it before in that post but i wanted these arguments to be actual, believable ones over real-life problems. i also didn't want the resolution to just be "it's okay ily!" and act like nothing ever happened. it's really tempting to do sometimes but i want my smaus to be somewhat realistic even though they're literally made up lmao. couples have arguments all the time and i wanted to create a situation where the jjk boys were less than perfect (they're still perfect, thank you gege).

choso's ALSO punched me in the chest ;((( like he just doesn't know any better!! he's still learning!! boundaries and things!!! but it's okay, yuji didn't realize he was hurting choso's feelings, apologized, and won't do it again. i would die for both of them.

thank you thank you thank you for reading my works and leaving me your feedback and thoughts :')))) i literally LOVE hearing these things and they help me feel validated that i'm producing good content for you all!!! ILYSM ANON!!!! <333

[ikill3dlaurapalm3r]

do i look like some kind of monster?

mentions of rape + SA + spoilers

barbarian (2022) is as delightful as horror comes. i've seen it in the cinema twice already this week and i'd jump to see it again. if film is a medium made purely for entertainment, then barbarian is perfect. writer/director zach cregger is unapologetic when he jerks his audience around, striking and jabbing us with unconventional twists at the most jarring times (not to mention this is his solo directional debut). it's sublimely scary. but barbarian excels beyond its jumpscares and ominous setting with its playfulness in gender dynamics, truly stabbing their female audiences with a stake through the heart.

"she's not even the worst thing in there."

barbarian has a lot to say about belief and pain - who we believe. who we trust. why some believe others and why some have to see it for themselves. no, believe me! you don't have to go down into the tunnels under the house and see the rape dungeon for youself to know something is wrong! perhaps believe the distressed women in front of you?

barbarian began as one simple scene. cregger explained in an interview with Yahoo! that an idea came to mind while reading book, 'the gift of fear', about the 'red flags' women have to look out for when interacting with men to essentially avoid being assaulted or worse. he says: "this is not apart of my life. as a man, i dont have to divert any of my mental energy into identifying potential threats on a day-to-day basis. and that sucks. that's a real bummer." thanks zach, super progressive. (cont'd) "i didn't want to write a movie, i just wanted to write a scene for myself to just ruminate on this idea and just put a woman in a situation that i could load with as many of these red flags as possible. so, i came up with a double-booked air b'n'b and i just took it from there." this scene flourished into keith (bill skarsgård) and tess' (georgina cambell) first meeting at the very beginning of the film. keith insists on doing favours she didn't ask for. he offers to make her tea, when tess says no he does it anyway. he compliments her out of nowhere. he's adament to portray himself as an understanding guy; this is such a weird situtaion, you must feel so freaked out and a do i like look some kind of monster? cregger truly did 'ruminate' on this idea. this scene and a cleverly crafted trailer sets us up to believe skarsgård's keith possesses malicious intentions. with a lingering shot of him watching tess from a distance, we're coaxed into believing keith is a predator. which is all the more excellent when we're proved wrong, that keith is an angel compared to the monsters underneath the house.

belief and pain. a consistent flaw of the barbarian men is their lack of belief in women and their self-righteousness. and, blissfully, it's always their downfall. they possess an it's not happened to me therefore it can't be true, i haven't seen it for myself therefore it can't be real attitude. when tess first discovers the ominous tunnels spawning off the basement, where she finds a dank room with a tripod camera pointed at a grimy bed and a bloody bucket, she tells keith of the sinister happenings under the house. but a frantic, distraught tess is met with a confused keith. she uses the word dungeon, yet still keith doesn't comprehend why a room with a bed, bucket and a camera would be anything but a storage room. "it has a bed... and a bucket?" note how keith more than once leaves out the fact that there's a camera in the room, the most sinister element. keith decides to go down to the tunnels and see this for himself, and insists tess stay, and pays for this with his life.

all of the barbarian men die, keith being the first to go. yet whilst they all suffer doomed fate, simultaneously all pain in barbarian is deritive from men. we see this especially in characters AJ (justin long) and frank (richard brake): AJ is an in-denial rapist, he shot tess with a handgun and threw her off the water tower to save himself. and frank was serial incestuous rapist for decades. they seem to radiate violence. and yes, men experience pain in this movie, but it's a consequence of them not listening to women. see this in keith's death, as a result of not listening to tess; AJ got taken by the mother, again as a result of not listening to tess; AJ's 'cancellation' over sexual assault accusations, as a result of not listening to megan say no; the homeless man's death, as a result of ignorance. sure, mother is the one who killed all of the men - but mother would never exist if it weren't for male violence. she is a product of incestuous rape, implied that frank raped the children of his orginal rape victims: "you make a copy of a copy of a copy, you get that." the male lack of belief in women results in their death every time, no matter if they're a rapist or just a seemingly normal guy. this punishment, nevertheless, is cathartic. cathartic for us, seeing the mother gouge AJ's eyeballs out. but ultimately cathartic for the mother, killing men wildly and wrecklessly, just as frank raped dozens of women wildly and wrecklessly, proving all violence in barbarian can be circled back to male-inflicted violence.

frank and AJ are the most imporant men in barbarian. two abusers, rapists, generational opposites but ultimately one in the same. a really important scene occurs during the second half of barbarian, when during AJ's momentary escape from mother, he discovers a hidden room in the tunnels. the mother sees him enter, but she backs away, as if even she is scared of what resides in the room (remember "she's not even the worst thing in there"?). enter frank. he hasn't left the tunnels under the house for 30 years or so, rotting in his bed, now an old man. AJ is originally concerned for him until he finds dozens of frank's VHS tapes. 'gas station redhead' is lined up in the VHS machine, the leftovers of frank rewatching his homemade rape films in his spare time.

AJ is disgusted: "what is wrong with you. what the fuck is wrong with you? hey, i'm talking to you, you fuck!". he's apalled when he holds a third-person perspective of rape, yet was relaxed and in-denial when he was the perpretrator. when the tape finishes, the television flicks off, where we can now see AJ's refelction in the black screen. a mirror. he's looking at himself. a rapist is a rapist. AJ threatens to call the police, that the place is going to be "swarming". moments later frank shoots himself in the head, right on the temple, an immediate death, almost a cop-out, when he realises he might be caught. he didn't kill himself out of guilt over his decades sexual violence, but only when he was held accountable by another man. and his death is a painless one at that, an unsatisfying ending to frank's character. yet when the mother finally gets her hands on AJ and kills him by gouging his eyes and cracking his head open, this can be seen as the mother recieving her cathartic revenge on frank. AJ and frank are parallel characters, he acts as a modern day extension of frank. two men who use and abuse women out of their selfishness and for their own gain. it's thrillingly sweet to see the mother put an end to all that is frank and all that he represents through AJ's death.

the ending brings me to tears. after AJ throws tess off the water tower to save himself, the mother leaps down after her, using her own body to save tess. the mother has such a tender moment with tess, seeing her injuries from AJ, and saving her from being murdered by him, wanting to take her back and nurse her for herself. she reveals herself for what she truly is - a mother. this moment is so special, seeing the strong, loving maternal insticts of a creature created from such heinous violence. female alliance amongst the hateful men around them is so moving. but alas tess cannot go back, she must continue with her own life, "i can't go back, i can't." the mother is understanding that tess cannot come back with her, even understanding when the barrel of a gun is pressed against her cheek. understanding that it's the right thing for her baby, tess, even if it means she must die. be my baby by the ronettes plays as tess staggers away, the true embodiment of a final girl, perhaps the only girl who managed to get out of that house alive. isn't it funny that in the end she was more likely to die by the hands of rapist AJ than the monster of the story?

[brawltogethernow]

How would you, personally, go about writing a plot where twenty-something Dick Grayson has to take care of suddenly-deaged-to-just-after-his-parents'-deaths Bruce, who doesn't remember anything of his adult life? (I mean, other than Necessary Alfred.)

Well, the part of this concept that can really sock you in the face is. Dick knows exactly what Bruce needed to hear right after Martha and Thomas died.

Bruce, though not lacking for people trying to take care of him, did not get what he needed after becoming an orphan. He grew up, and he made the best of things, and he thought about what he needed from the world and didn’t get, and he became that, and that’s Batman, and that’s Bruce Wayne. When he saw a kid go through trauma very similar to his own, he had an entire playbook written by his own suffering and fixer tendencies ready to go. It wasn’t perfect, but it was the best thing in the world for Dick Grayson short of his family spontaneously coming back from the dead, and things were good for a long time.

And now Dick Grayson, age, I don’t know, maybe the same age Bruce was when they met to intensify the parallels, has this playbook memorized. So.

Brief, miscellaneous scenario that’s about to cause the de-aging, to establish adult Bruce’s voice. He is motivated and capable with a strong sense of deadpan humor, and there is a large mishealed wound at his core. He is aware of this. He is used to working around it. He isn’t even that bitter about it, most of the time. Basically any supporting cast members filling out the scene could be interesting, so lacking an established roster to pull from you can use anybody. I think I'd use heroes who aren’t in the Batfam - characters with their own concepts of Batman but who don’t all know Bruce’s entire life story from a personal or Gothamite perspective. Dick is not present.

So something goes zam or zap or “Go back to your beginning, hero!” —Actually yeah, I like someone using magic to try to turn Batman into a baby but the symbolism catching wrong and rewinding him to when Batman was “born” instead. Some heavy-handedness is good with DC.

Elementary age Bruce Wayne is deeply unsettling. He intuits most of the situation without assistance or effort. He also doesn’t care. You can’t expect a pile of shattered glass to care about some sci-fi nonsense suddenly happening. He is a million years old. He hates you. He should be dead, they shouldn’t be dead, nothing is right. Breathing hurts, or, doesn’t, but should. It’s unconscionable that it doesn’t hurt to breathe. This child's despair is actively uncomfortable to be around. The grit of a nascent Batman grants him immunity to being comforted by the surrounding gaggle of semiprofessional child comforters. —I’m of the opinion that Bruce Wayne was probably a weird child to match the weird adult he grew up into, just initially happy about it, which I’d gun to make clear in his reactions even with the bottomless agony.

You could also snug a very traumatizingly timed identity reveal moment in here if somebody was tagging along who can go, WHY do I recognize this face from old news... WAIT.

Now Dick can show up. To a JL workroom, or the batcave, or maybe the manor, because I would want to demonstrate that Alfred is well versed in this and is sent back to a not great mental place by it. The old coping methods rise easily to hand even after decades, but he feels he never properly figured out how to fix the problems Bruce had in this period instead of just working around them. Eventually Bruce started working around Alfred’s inability to help. —But anywhere you put that sequence seems like it would drag the pacing.

So Dick shows up, and he crouches down with his characteristic gymnast’s fluidity, and he puts his hands on this kid’s shoulders, and he says...something. It’s not going to be okay. How could this ever be okay? The people assuring you it will aren’t trying to lie to you, there just aren’t words for this. But you can stop this from happening to anyone else. Opening with a conscious deployment of Bruce’s own words from a decade and then some ago, because Dick has always understood this element of their dynamic.

Except then he’s touching this real child who is warm under his hands and small. The shoulders under Dick’s hands are bony, which is a brain-meltingly irreconcilable detail with adult Bruce Wayne the meat slab. When Dick says, “My parents were killed when I was your age, too,” it’s a completely unintentional verbatim quote that crawls up out of his throat like a toad in a fairy tale. He hates that; he has a whole snarled up capital-T Thing about unconsciously parroting Bruce. But also it’s not like he’s going to stop comforting the actual child who now has a complicated look in his eyes—like he was drowning and then Dick threw him a life preserver and told him to hang on until they get to land because it’s impossible to reel him back up to the boat.

So then we go to the manor, and finally get to do some domestic nonsense, but hideous. Ugly conversations about coping and grief in your socks in the kitchen—when your parents just died, the sentence “The weather looks bad” is about your dead parents—because Alfred is coping by airing out whatever rooms Bruce used when he was smol he doesn’t now so hard you’ll never know they were shut up, which leaves Dick free to feed the child a fortifying dinner of instant oatmeal. (Mourning and food have a complex relationship, and I don’t feel food you actively enjoy is always a good choice!) This process involves Dick walking on the counter unnecessarily, which entertains Bruce for a quarter second before he’s swamped by guilt at having the audacity to enjoy something.

It’s miserable, but there’s a distinct glimmer of something promising under the murk. There’s this building surety that this could lead to something good. Bruce gave Dick the tools he needed to heal once, and as an adult Dick could repay that to this version of Bruce with interest.

And then Bruce pops back to normal, because that’s not how time works, with all of the ways that his emotional wounds healed wrong and healed open intact. But also with this Escher-like doubled recollection of the most formatively terrible point of his life, a short new version layered over the original that was pointing distinctly in a direction that would have sucked less.

[daddywright]

I have only recently got into the ace attorney fandom, and this story was the first story I read, and I feel spoiled! I absolutely loved every chapter, so I'm gonna word vomit here and tell you everything I love about this!

"She offers him a smile. It’s small, tentative, but it possesses a strength that makes a hidden part of him twist and burn with quiet envy." the first time we see nick's wish to be as strong as mia!

Considering the fact that nick didn't have any prominent figure in his life, it makes sense that he would look up to gregory so much

"Phoenix looks up, and starts walking towards Mia Fey

He doesn't stop for two years."

THE RELATIONSHIP THAT MIA AND NICK HAD WAS PRECIOUS AND DESERVES MORE THAN WHAT THE FANDOM GIVES THEM

"Larry’s arms wrap around him, squeezing almost too tight" People forget that Larry and Phoenix were good friends too, and Larry would help his best friend

"Nobody believed him, nobody but Mia" Maya is what Phoenix is to Mia and I adore that

"He wishes, desperately, that he’d said it while she was still alive. I loved you. For everything you did." Not you absolutely breaking my fucking heart

Also the first AA game felt unnatural in the sense of how seemingly unaffected Phoenix seemed at Mia's murder so I'm really glad you wrote it this way

"Expensive. Thoughtful. Too much." SHUT UP NICK YOU DESERVE ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING

Also quick break to mention how I absolutely fucking love your writing style and i wish I was literally half as talented as you cuz the last time I read something that made me feel this multitude of emotions was ocean vuong. And I practically worship Ocean Vuong. So now I worship you too

"You're a stranger to me // When will I stop hoping?" I never really realised just how badly nick musta been hurt by good ol' bratworth before this fic, but now that I have read it, it would have hurt him so bad

"Is this why you never answered my letters? Because I was a reminder? Because it hurt too much?" Honestly what happened to miles and phoenix's friendship hurts so much because it should have never happened, and miles didn't deserve that.

"Maybe Miles Edgeworth is not the man he thought he’d be, either." yo when I tell you this hurt I mean this huRT

Fun fact! My birthday is on the same day as DL-6 anniversary. Gregory Edgeworth died on my birthday. I feel horrible now

"monster. You were nine years old and he's a monster. " No one has made me feel this much emotion for what happened to Miles in a single sentence other than you. I commend you for that

"I love you," he says quietly. He has never said those words to anyone, except for Dahlia Hawthorne.

Maya sniffs in his ear, crushing him tight. "I love you, too."

He has never heard them back.

PHOENIX HAS NEVER HEARD THE WORDS " I LOVE YOU" COME BACK TO HIM ARE YOU FUCKING WITH ME WHY NOW I'M SAD

"Tell me everything. Every detail—" Miles is worried bout nick and why wouldn't he? gods you're so gay miles but tbf if I knew someone like nick irl i'd go ballistic too

"He determined the motive for his own assault...with amnesia. Naturally." My man's smart af and he is king

"Is that what she thinks of me? That I'm like that? That I don't care about who the bad guys really are?" Gumshoe noooo you're hella precious! Also this particular chapter was so well written! loved this soo much!

Also taking a minute to appreciate the pacing! Rarely do I ever come across an author who just hits that sweet spot of perfect pacing and you did! so thank you!

Alright so here are a few thoughts that I felt capcom needed to do which you did for us!

no. 1 - Address the trauma phoenix faced with not only dahlia but also with mia's death

no. 2 - Actually fucking flesh out a good relationship dynamic between larry and phoenix

no. 3 - actually! have! phoenix! be hurt! in bridge to turnabout! istg my man would not have dropped from a burning bridge to a freezing river only to have a cold

AUNT FRANZY AND PEARLS MAN!

THEY CUTE

ok so I have a LOT of feelings for bridge to turnabout and HOO BOY BUCKLE UP

So I always thought that in this fic, miles must have felt fucking awful! I mean he very clearly hates who he was and what that has led to but that must have been doubled over with this case! Phoenix would have died if not for mia and it would have been indirectly miles's fault. I think about that alot

Like he said that he very much regrets whatever he did as bratworth in the phone call with gumshoe but i don't think he anticipated this. poor edgeworth

Also I think this was the final nail in the coffin for miles. Phoenix forgave him, after all the fucked up shit miles did, and that made that man go "how is this guy so fucking compassionate awwwww shit I'm in fucking love with this idiotic brave man".

my main thoughts were "holy shit phoenix must have been feeling awful." like to learn that you were in love with a person who turned out to be a murderer but then not a murderer cuz everything you felt about that was real and just...... it must have hurt. He never fell in love with dahlia. it was iris, always. and WHAT ABOUT MILES DURING THIS!!! Like to learn that the man you love was falsely led to believe that he was in love with a person he rarely met and then learn that his ex who is not murderous might still be in love with him because "that was real. that part was real." like damn. people just gloss over this

also I feel terrible for iris F in the chat for iris lads.

Dahlia literally haunting that courtroom scene. I felt mia's power. I felt her desperation. I felt everything and I am once again in awe of the absolute power your writing holds.

also godsdamn pearls had to go through all that shit huh. also FRANMAYAAAAAA THANK YOUUUU

I too, am a hoe confused as to what I should feel towards diego.

Ok anyways we jump to disbarment now

"He just winks at her and says Maya has other talents, and if Mystic Maya overhears, she puffs up at him like the fish from the aquarium she saw once, the one with all the spikes and silly eyes."

you know what constantly amazes me? your ability to change tones so effortlessly. When writing from edgey's pov, the language is sophisticated. precise. when writing from pearly's pov your language is simplistic, child-like. from phoenix's pov it's natural. grounded

"She never knew anybody who made faces like him, growing up in Kurain, and it’s one of the things that makes him special." Yo phoenix is the most amazing uncle ever and we all know it ok he's brilliant

I'M RUNNING OUT OF CHARACTER LIMITS

PEARLY CALLING EDGEY AT FIRST SIGN OF TROUBLE I'M SOFFFFTTTT

“I think I did something really bad." trucy baby no it's not your fault

pearl and trucy bonding supremacy. my girls would fuck shit up

"She’d meant to do this properly, one day." Thank you for giving importance to maya's feelings. thank you for treating her like a real human being. thank you

“Everything that happened...for what? It’s only gotten people hurt. Pearly. Our mother.” Me. Me." I felt so bad for maya here. I wish I could tell you in precise words about how this exact framing of the sentence is what broke me. "me. me" maya deserved more, but mia did all she could

"What do scared kids need? ...Food." not you breaking my godsdamn heart again. phoenix just knows what's it like being a helpless child, and he'll be damned if he ever lets anyone face that again

“‘Course, Pearls,” he says reflexively, before frowning. “What for?” reflexively. if every man in the world could be like phoenix wright then the world would be worthy of the gods

"Another one?" give it 2 years edgey she'll be your daughter too

"after countless hours creating the man’s living space in his mind from the background snatches he’d seen in the man’s ridiculous video calls." NOT ONLY DO THEY VC FOR NO PARTICULAR REASON BUT ALSO MILES ACTUALLY SPENDS TIME TRYING TO RECREATE HIS ROOM?? BECAUSE HE WOULD ONE DAY LIKE TO BE IN IT??? good gods these bitches gay. good for them

"because just as day is light and night is dark, Phoenix Wright is an honorable man." damn straight. you love to see it (it being a 27+ year old man pining for another 27+ year old man)

also hey miles! how do you feel about the fact that the man you love changed his fucking major and degrees halfway through college just so he could see you again only for you to be incredibly rude to him and make him end up in jail! (i bully edgeworth cuz i love him)

"Wright finishes, shrugging like it’s nothing, like his commitment and belief isn’t the most extraordinary thing that Miles has ever faced." it's more than pining at this point. it's incredible faith and trust. Miles had someone who cared about him even after all those years despite him having changed so drastically, ofc he would be surprised. Miles loves phoenix and so do i.

also HOT DAMN YOU WRITING IS JUST * MWAH *

Also the whole segment where they kiss is just !!!!! miles wants! it's beautiful! THEY'RE IN LOVEEE

receiving poisonous bottles which your ex tried to kill you with. My man can't get a break huh

Miles being chivalrous and protective and absolutely stealing my godsdamn heart (and phoenix's too)!

Klavier being the absolute king that he is we stan

The hostage situation section? gods miles must have been terrified.

Phoenix not being able to promise pearly that he'd always come back home and miles hearing it and like... ouch. my heart. you didn't need to do that (but i love your for it)

GODS THE CLIMAX WITH KRISTOPH WAS SOOO SATISFYING AND LIKE MY MAN PHOENIX REALLY PUNCHED THAT BITCH HUH

klavier baby I am so sorry

ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL!

and thus my comment ends. I believe I have almost used up all of my commenting limits and i leave with these few parting words : HOLY SHIT YOUR AMAZING AND I LOVE YOU!

also I made a playlist on spotify for this fic! here's the link : https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3k8lRHiO8ZXQDLpiTUL7SN?si=fc3b35b4ab064867

gods this was long huh

GREAT GOOGLY MOOGLY....WHERE DO I BEGIN...THE FACT THAT YOU BROKE THE CHARACTER LIMIT ON AO3 AND MADE A PLAYLIST? WHAT DID I DO TO DESERVE THIS?

thank you so much for all the amazing things you said....i am crying on a Wednesday morning knowing my writing was appreciated this much. thank you!

[sizzlingpatrolfox]

what I don't get about JK is his inconsistency.for example, what you mentioned in the LA concert where Jm put his arm around him and he immediately turned around. but then was it the night before, at the ending of so what he put his arm around Jm. also him going to jm's room whether out of boredom or not means out of the 5 members he's most comfortable going to Jm's room. then going back to SK it seemed like he waited for Jm bfore exiting the airport. is he giving mixed signals to jm, even as a friend?

I think it only comes across as "mixed signals" for some people watching them (me included), but not everyone, and certainly not Jimin. Jimin knows Jungkook better than anyone, I'd say, and he knows Jungkook when there's no one else around, and it's a Jungkook that we don't know. I'm pretty sure Jimin is used to Jungkook leaving him like he did in the concert. It doesn't seem like those type of moments affect their relationship, otherwise I think Jimin would stop doing it.

We're kind of playing a game of perception when it comes to them, (well, when it comes to Jungkook, mostly, because I don't doubt that Jimin is the same affectionate caring person in private and for me, there has literally never been any inconsistency in the way JM treats JK) in which we are only observers of what they do and gauge their personalities and dynamics from the way they act and our own mindset and that's why one person can see it a way, and another one will see the same situation in a different light. Some things off camera might be exactly how they seem to us, and some others might be completely different. The only ones who know the truth, is them.

I don't think also that any of us overthink our own relationships the same way we might overthink theirs, at least not relationships in which we feel secure in, and I believe that right now, Jimin is fine with Jungkook and none of that would come across as mixed signals for him. It might've felt as mixed signals a few years ago but not really now.

The "final judgement" about their relationship shouldn't be put all over Jimin's shoulders but it has always been like this, you will often see people saying "Jimin looks happy with JK, Jimin wouldn't be so kind to him if JK was bad to him, etc". I don't think it's entirely okay but I guess it works if/when people are not seeing certain things from Jungkook, so in that case it does help to kind of try to see through Jimin, and if Jimin seems happy with JK, then he must be okay with whatever JK is like in real life.

[miss-kittys-magical-library]

Teenage Dirtbag

(Cormac x Jeanie)

Warnings: fluff and smut

A/N: Cormac feels bittersweet about his abnormal teenage years, but a tryst at the abandoned O'Keefe's College with Jeanie changes his mind about what never was.

The last of my birthday weekend self-indulgent drabbles. I dug deep and pulled Cormac back to the front of the closet to wear just for today.

Jeanie inhaled the scent of moss and rain that filled the air around the abandoned boarding school. If it weren't for Cormac, Hannah and Brett this was surely how her own building would end up in a few years. She didn't mind the dynamic it created between her and her boyfriend, or that the purchase was for some ulterior scientific motive. She got to keep the kids and her job, and he got to maintain one of the last untapped portals.

Now they were in Galway where everything started. Or, as Jeanie pointed out once she knew the stories, Cormac’s friends gaslit him for an entire semester.

“That's how comic book villains are born,” she watched as he turned on the power grid and fumbled around with his necklace.

“I suppose,” his catch phrase, “But even Tony Stark created a murder robot. He scrunched his nose and scratched his head in the most adorable way. Then something clicked.

“Tony Stark is a murder robot.”

A calming female voice responded before Cormac had the chance. “Tony Stark is more closely related to a cyborg than a robot. Good morning, Cormac. Jeanie.”

“See how she uses disdain when she speaks to me?! Jarvis doesn't speak like that.”

“Silvia doesn't have disdain for you. She's a computer program.”

Jeanie and Silvia spoke collectively, “I'm an artificial intelligence system.” The schoolteacher pointed at nothing as if to say even they can agree on her being beyond just a program.

“I'm also not female or male, I am a sexless non-binary system. You decided to gender me when you were fourteen years old based on the voice modulation you placed inside of me. I have no body or sexual organs.”

“You just got out Cormac’d!” Jeanie teased as his cheeks grew rosy.

“Come on, I'll show you around.”

----

The next few hours were like visiting a museum of Cormac’s memories. He admitted that he had the ability to go to university much earlier than most anticipated, but he hung around because he actually enjoyed the small group of friends he accumulated his years at O’Keefe’s. Even if his relationship with Martin, the resident Draco Malfoy, was contentious. Even if they were understaffed, underfunded and simply unable to accommodate any real science program. He felt a sense of duty to the school that kept him safe when his Nan could not.

“I could have gone with my mum’s side in Dublin if I wanted. My aunt was just worried what I might just get up to if I did.”

“What, like a criminal?” Jeanie burst into a fit of giggles picturing Cormac in a life of crime. Although.. “That's the Delaneys, right?” Jeanie pondered. “Gordon and I knew some Dublin Delaneys.”

“That's like knowing a Smith.”

They had circled back around to his old dorm room where they had dropped off all their gear for China. Jeanie lingered on the old desk having perched on the corner. Her arms hugged around herself against the draft. Cormac sat comfortably on his old bed stretched out with his arms towards the wall behind him. An aged and browning poster of a full moon above his head.

Jeanie grimaced at the water stains underneath him and tried to hide her disgust. “At least I hope those are water stains,” she joked.

Cormac moved his knees apart and stared down at the bed, “Jaysus, love, what kinda stains d’ye t’ink t’ey are?!”

Jeanie raised an eyebrow. Cormac’s eyes nearly rolled back in his head. “If you need t’know, I was a shower wanker.”

He was so matter of fact, like he was about everything, Jeanie snorted. Still he made a big production of unpacking his massive sleeping bag and rolling it out along the mattress. He smoothed out the nylon, and presented it to his girlfriend for her to sit down finally.

As Jeanie settled in, Cormac stuffed his hands between his legs and his face flushed. “Do you have a boner right now?! Wait, because I'm on it bed? Is this some.. Puberty regression? AM I THE FIRST GIRL WHO SAT HERE?!” Jeanie couldn't help but squeal.

“NO! Hannah and Tara have sat here loads of times.”

“Yeah, but have you touched their vaginas?”

“JEANIE!”

“CORMAC!”

Jeanie played along and stole a kiss. Her lips pecked his briskly, but then again. They lingered longer so her tongue could sneak just inside his welcoming mouth. She may as well have waged war.

Cormac pushed his own tongue deep inside of his girlfriend’s mouth. As their tongues battled for the upper hand, Jeanie clung to his shirt and laid back on the bed pulling him along with her. She ran her hands under his tee-shirt up his back to dig her nails into his shoulder blades. His forearms on either side of her to prop himself up.

Cormac situated himself inside of Jeanie's legs that drew up alongside his hips. Still fully clothed as they kissed heavily. His belt buckle got trapped by the button of her jeans as they fought to come undressed. Both laughed at the absurdity of acting like horny teenagers simply because they were in a childhood bedroom.

Still, Cormac finally undid Jeanie's pants and tugged them over her hips to her ankles. He was clumsy at the laces of her boots which he gave up on and just yanked off and tossed somewhere in the room. Up on his knees, he threw both shirts he wore over his head. He fumbled with his belt and pants, standing only to strip them off before climbing back on top of Jeanie now in her bra and panties.

The cold air pimpled their flesh, but they ignored it when their kisses commenced. Jeanie’s hands were enmeshed in Cormac’s soft, dark hair. His lips and tongue started to wander to the base of her throat which he nipped and sucked where he could feel her pulse beat under his warm mouth. A brief moment she thought he would bite harder for fun; then he did. All the while he palmed the fabric of her panties in quick succession.

Jeanie’s breath caught at how brazen Cormac was being in broad daylight. Out in the open on top of the sleeping bag instead of in it. The static from portaling that ran through his nerves just under the skin passed on to her. Her brain was too fuzzy with desire to tell if the heat on her sex and clit was from the rapid friction or just the electricity Cormac emitted.

Jeanie couldn't even focus beyond the sensation. Her fingers and hands with a mind of their own drew his boxers down to expose his bare ass to her touch. She used it to draw his no longer secret erection into her entrance. Cormac’s hand and her panties in the way. He happily let her go so he could start pushing into the fabric with the head of his cock. Her ankles locked on his waist so her heels could dig into his lower back. They urged him to rut faster in spite of their underwear.

As klutzy as Cormac was with her jeans and boots, his long fingers were experts at undoing Jeanie’s bra. He kissed her shoulders and arms behind the straps he pulled off to expose her breasts. Breasts his mouth consumed hungrily. His tongue circled and practically inhaled one of her nipples before alternating to the other. He sucked in time to his bucks.

Jeanie deigned to speak, her words punctuated by Cormac’s movements. “I'm.. really..” she moaned “Cold.”

She was, he realized all of a sudden. With more laughter and flourishes, the two managed to zip themselves snug inside the sleeping bag. Jeanie's panties and Cormac’s underwear discarded in the process. Their bodies pressed to each other while his cock pushed into her thigh. The heat was immediate, in more ways than one.

They laid on their sides and faced one another. Cormac’s leg tangled around Jeanie's lower one. Her leg closest to the ceiling wrapped around his hip. Her calf draped along his ass while her hand reached between their bodies and took hold of his shaft. She positioned it just outside her entrance that ached to be filled. All the blood in her body swelled there.

Cormac gazed downwards at her hand, his breathing uncontrolled as Jeanie guided him again inside. Without any more instruction, he thrust inside of her so far and sharply that his pelvis collided with hers. Then he pulled almost completely out and sheathed himself to the hilt again. He repeated this over and over until they found a rhythm. Hips and sexes crashed like meteors with each powered motion.

Jeanie could only hold on. Her nails felt inches deep in Cormac's muscles along his shoulders. she had fleeting thoughts that yesterday wasn't his first time. That he lied perhaps out of embarrassment thinking he was no good.

Except he was, she was out of practice. The last time she had sex this good was.. She didn't want to think of him now. He was gone, Cormac was here. His forehead pressed into her jaw and cheek as he pounded into her. It only just dawned on her his glasses were on, bent at an unnatural angle in the crook of her neck. He didn't like to travel with his contacts in.

At this angle, Cormac hit Jeanie's clit every time he lost himself in her tightening walls. He was silent except for snorts of heavy air like a horse that escaped his nose. Both of them covered in a sheen of sweat until that lightning shot through Jeanie’s body. She coiled and recoiled and drew her boyfriend to her as she came. Cormac’s name echoed off the empty walls.

Not much longer until he did the same with a shudder and a muddled, husky “fuck” in Jeanie's shoulder. Cormac's body trembled which took her aback. Whether it was from the post-orgasm rush, or emotions, she didn't ask. Instead they held onto one another and babbled mindlessly until they fell asleep in the sleeping bag.

It was loud thunder and SILVIA through the old PA system that startled the couple awake.

“Cormac. Jeanie. May I suggest you leave as soon as possible? There is an approaching electrical storm that will surely affect the magnetic field produced by portal travel.”

They rushed to get dressed and repacked. Cormac was annoyed, “If you knew. SILVIA, why the hell didn't you tell me before?”

“Coitus interruptus. Perhaps Ms Turner feels I dislike her, but I can't imagine how much animosity she would display towards me should I interfere with your sexual intercourse. She's already jealous of our long-standing relationship”

Jeanie felt highly uncomfortable at that moment, watched even. Cormac was incensed. “SILVIA.” Then he shut her off, and they were bound for China.

Tag: @robertsheehanownsmyass @elliethesuperfruitlover @super-unpredictable98 @forenschik @slutforrobbiebro @frogs--are--bitches @nightmonsters @bisexualnathanyoung @bwritesstuff @rob-private

[seducing-mr-perfect]

So I passed the test, right? Let’s meet up at the hotel bar at 7 for the real lesson. Oh! Enjoy the lunch box - June.

The note. The thing that starts it all. The thing that starts out at as one of June’s heavy botched operations - only that it hasn’t failed the way she thinks it has. The thing that shows us for certain that, despite everything, Robin isn’t completely immune to June’s charms.

It is clear that while June may not particularly admit to liking Robin, things have changed between them after the Brighton deal. Which is why in the scene where she prepares the lunch box, in the dead of night, she seems to shake herself and say The operations must go on. No matter what. Almost as if her new dynamic with Robin is distracting her from her goal.

June seems to slightly miss the mark here too. As with Operation Angel, preparing a special lunchbox personally for him calls for a certain amount of intimacy that they haven’t reached yet. The movie has given us enough indications of how he feels about having his space invaded, for him to comfortably take what June is giving him. Preparing lunch for someone at work is a very intimate, taking-care-of-a-loved-one thing to do, and for a hoarder who doesn’t like to even have his office touched, partaking of that lunch (especially if he nursed secret feelings for the person who made it) would definitely feel like too much too soon. It’s no wonder then that he takes the note, and passes the box to Yoon Mi.

June sees this differently. She sees it as yet another rejection of her efforts, yet another reason to believe he wants to have nothing to do with her. She assumes that since he’s not even opened the box, he wouldn’t have noticed the note either.

Su-yeoung Tries To Help

We don't see Su-yeoung much in the film, even though she is June's best friend. A phone call in the beginning of the film, and two scenes where she is seen aggressively pushing to get June back into the dating scene.

What we do know is that Su-yeoung has had her fair share of disappointment in her own relationships. She has been married once and by the way she speaks of love in this scene, she seems to have changed to a more 'practical' mindset in contrast to June's, which is clearly more emotional and romantic.

However, having being brought up in a culture that does value both love and marriage as an eventual goal (for instance, one does not bring one's significant other to meet the parents unless they're certain of getting married soon), Su-yeoung controls the situation the way any Korean friend would - by arranging a sogeatting.

A sogaetting (소개팅) is a kind of introductory meeting that's often set up between strangers through a mutual friend. Approaching someone you do not know is not very common in South Korea, so it usually falls on a third person to introduce the couple and to stick around in case the meeting isn't going as well as planned. If the two hit it off, the mutual friend leaves them to decide how to take things forward.

Su-yeoung's motives are very straightforward: get June to move on from Ju-yeoung, with someone. Anyone.

Ju-hyeoung may have receeded far, far behind in June's mind, but there is a part of her that clearly isn't completely over him yet. June isn't the kind of let go of her relationships that easily - she tends to not give up on a person unless there is no way even she can ignore the red flags. That's just the way she is. So when her best friend insults Ju-hyeoung, she is immediately defensive.

This is an important distinction to make, because it gives us a better idea of why June would agree so easily to getting back with him later on, just as she has begun to realise her feelings for Robin.

The Note

The scene splits into two halves: one that shows us June's disastrous date with Jin-guk, and another that shows us Robin waiting for June for an entire hour. We don't get a lot of opportunities to see Robin's point of view on certain things, but the film teases us with enough to recognize that what he feels towards June and what he shows are two different things. It's in this scene that we learn that Robin didn't completely ignore the lunchbox, that he kept her note with him...and most importantly, that he's very, very happy to see her that evening.

We also don't get many scenes of Robin shedding his impenetrable sheild and being vulnerable. The times that we do are mostly associated with his past - his grandfather's belongings and occasionally his bullet wound. Robin is depicted as a hoarder; someone who holds on to his memories and keeps them to remind himself of how far he has come, and why his present is what it is.

This is the only time perhaps we see Robin actually show some attachment to something he has received in the present, that he keeps to himself, that he allows himself a private moment of joy (for instance, he tilts his head slightly while reading it, an action we see him do only with his grandfather's photograph). He first looks around to see if no one is looking, and only then gives himself the luxury of letting his guard down. And this is especially surprising given that he always chooses enclosed settings where he is completely alone - like his room or the office - to reflect on these things.

I think it's a mark of how deeply June has affected him that this intensely private man can't help but fondly re-read a casual, friendly note she has sent him, in a setting as public as a hotel bar.

Sogaetting

By sogaetting standards, the meeting between Jin-guk and Min-june is an unmitigated disaster. Su-yeoung only knows him as a friend of a friend, and June herself has her doubts even before the date has begun.

Marriage in Korea is usually a topic reserved either for when a couple have become really serious, or when it is a matsun (맞선) which involves matchmakers/relatives and where the entire aim of the meeting is marriage itself. While there are people who do date with marriage in mind, a sogaetting is hardly the appropriate place to jump into discussions about weddings, especially with almost no input from the potential "bride".

But Jin-guk? Goes straight for the jugular. Starts talking about wedding preparations: how their families will travel to the venue, the perfect place for venue and stay, consulting a family Taoist. He goes as far as to speak of the money the bride should be spending on their travel, reminding her of her potential place in his life and what he thinks her duties are. He presumes this is what she wants, presumes he is a good enough catch that it doesn't even occur to him that she may not want this, and in fact doesn't even care. June barely gets to even speak in this "conversation". She is so uncomfortable, in fact, that she has to hide in a restroom to escape him.

To make things worse, Su-yeoung enables his behaviour, fawning over him and agreeing to everything he says ("oh, a hotel? That's just fabulous!" "I love having my fortune told!"), eventually encouraging the match and calling June crazy when the latter states that she isn't interested. It's clear that by this point June has found herself in a tight spot.

Blind Date

There are two reasons the blind date/bar scene is so important:

1. It is the first of many misunderstandings in their romance. It works to keep the couple apart, keep them from even guessing that the other person might love them: so that when Robin tells June how he feels in the end, the revelation is that much more emotional.

2. More importantly, it highlights a pretty huge cultural gap between Robin and June.

For the most part Robin has fit in rather well to his new environment, despite his struggle with the language. He is respected by his peers and subordinates in the office, is able to navigate his work space without too many hiccups, seems at home with the way his juniors address him. He seems so at home, in fact, that it would easy to assume that he would know a great deal about Korean culture outside the office as well.

However, the film gives us enough hints of his struggle to understand certain aspects of Korean culture. One is the usage of certain slang words, such as piksari and tungchigi, which June has to explain to him. Another is his lack of knowledge about how marriage and meeting the girl's family works, leaving him to commit a huge faux pas in front of her father.

Robin has no idea what a sogaetting is. When June translates the same into a word that seems more accessible to him ("blind date"), she unknowingly leaves out the cultural context of how a sogaetting works and who facilitates it. "Blind date", for Robin and June, mean very different things. For June it is an arranged meeting that mostly just allows for further casual interactions to test the waters. To Robin, it could range from being merely introduced by a common friend (who won't be as involved as someone facilitating a sokaetting would, possibly?) to an actual date, which involves flirting and possibly sex if both parties are interested. This is possibly also why he assumes straightaway that she spent the night with her date as well.

This is where Robin gets not only angry, but also confused. This is someone who has gone to great lengths to get him to wait at that bar, including cooking for him and slipping in a note that specifically mentioned a time and a place. This is also someone who, he assumes, ditched her plans with him to date someone else, and didn't so much as give him a head's up about doing so (part of this is also his fault: he never lets June know that he received the note, even though he was aware that she found out Yoon Mi had the box). When the truth, really, is that she agonized over having her meticulously prepared lunch rejected, worried about losing the note, was tricked into spending an evening with an overenthusiastic friend and a man who bored her to tears, and spent the night wrestling with her brother over the takeout bill.

A lot of what Robin does here is pretty alien to the character we know thus far. He gets starry-eyed over a note, waits an entire hour for the woman who wrote it, calls her twice to find out why she didn't make it, and is tense and angry enough to warrant letting off some steam on the treadmill. None of this works, so he calls her again, unable to just let the matter go.

Let's remember that so far, Robin has been all about control. He exercises control over his relationships and over his feelings, because he knows the consequences of letting someone else have power over him. He views relationships as a game - which means he would prefer to detach himself emotionally from the other person involved, and not be affected by their actions. So when June "ditches" him, he's immediately riled up, instantly jealous, and just as instantly frustrated that he's giving her this much power over him. Part of his anger lies in the fact that she's affecting him in a way that's making him break half his rules.

He is also angry because, for the first time in possibly a long while, he was genuinely happy about something, genuinely looking forward to meeting up with someone, and her (supposed) lack of concern has ruined that moment for him. He is still thinking on the lines of what he thinks a date would look like, and assumes June's actions by those parameters. Owing to the issues he carries from his past relationship, Robin definitely seems like a man doesn't like feeling like he doesn't matter, and that's how he feels around June right now.

June never gets the opportunity (until just before their cruise trip) to clear this up with him, owing to multiple assumptions: that he never got the note, that he was calling her from some random place just to ask the time, that he thinks she is pathetic. First because she thinks the note has gotten lost somewhere, then because her cell battery died out on her. So she is left thinking he doesn't particularly care, and Robin is left thinking that he means nothing to her besides a man who can teach her the rules of the game. It's an impression of himself that makes him even more reluctant to admit how he feels about her - both to himself and to her. It's an impression of himself that he carries to the rest of the film.

--

*A lot of what I said about sogaetting I picked up from whatever I had read and watched. Korean readers, if I've gotten any of this wrong, I'm really sorry. Please do not hesitate to point it out so I can make corrections.