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bloodyshadow1 · 4 years ago

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Beauyashaweek 2021 day 2 Classical Art: Birthed from Stone

Beauyashaweek 2021 day 2 Classical Painting Art

Technically, the prompt is Classical Painting, but I couldn't really think of anything to write for that so I decided to do Classical Art as the prompt and thought of this. There's more to it, but I decided to cut it short because it was getting too long and not ending. I hope you enjoy my story, if you do please leave a comment, they help more than you know.

It was Saturday, there were a million things Beau would have preferred to be doing on her Saturday, one of the few days off she had, than going to the Zadash Museum of Art. That wasn’t fair, she liked the Museum, she liked the artwork, but she hated that she was here on an assignment for school rather than because she wanted to which meant she hated the Museum currently.

Beau had only taken Art Appreciation 110 on her best friend Jester’s suggestion. The blue tiefling art major thought it would be fun to have her best friend in the class she was TAing and assured Beau that it was an easy class being a 100 level. Beau didn’t mind an easy A, she was a double major history and sports medicine in her senior year, she figured she might as well since the rest of her course load was killer.

Unfortunately, unlike most of the classes Beau had taken though her time at Z.U. Art Appreciation 110 wasn’t a blow off class that she could just take the tests and write papers to pass with an A. The teacher Mr. Artagan was more eccentric than most of the faculty at Z.U. full of new age ideas how to run his class. No tests at all and only a few papers, which would be fine for most people, but the fact that participation was worth 60% of her grade made the class a living hell for Beau. He thought that children (despite them all being college students) should be rewarded for showing initiative, not just memorizing facts, something that Beau relied on. She was a smart girl who read the assigned reading before the class had even started hoping it would mean she didn’t have to show up for class only to have Jester’s hippy mentor ruin that dream the first day.

Artagan, as he liked them to call him, no mister for him, was one of those ‘cool’ teachers who thought they were changing the world in their 100 level course that contained mostly freshmen trying to get their gen ed credits out of the way. The teacher who wore an actual green cloak to class everyday that clashed horribly with his tangle of reddish orange hair, but went well with his inhuman green eye, knew he was put on this earth to reach the kids. Beau hated him instantly and thought if not for his laziness, his biggest weakness other than a wicked case of ADHD that no amount of Adderall would fix, he would probably be a cult leader. Luckily for the class, Jester took her job as his TA seriously, or at least as serious as Jester could leading a class taught by Mr. Artagan about appreciating art, so she was at least a competent teacher when the actual teacher decided to take a nap in the middle of a lecture or jump out the window to chase a bird. She would call on Beau whenever she could because she knew her best friend at least knew the information even though she wouldn’t volunteer the information willingly. It saved Beau’s average from tanking in class, but by the time the semester came to a close it didn’t look good, Beau was sitting at a low C which again, wouldn’t be bad for most people in their blow off class, but was horrible for Beauregard Lionett, the disgraced daughter of the Lionett wine family in Kamordah.

Without getting into it, Beau’s relationship with her family, especially her dad Thoreau, was horrible to be kind. She was only at Z.U. due to both academic and athletic scholarships, and losing one would mean she wouldn’t have enough money for her final semester, and she needed at least a B in all her classes if she wanted to graduate. Technically she would still be able to graduate, but her diploma would remain as property of the school until her debts were paid up, which meant she couldn’t get a job with her diploma unless she lied on her resume. And while, no one could say Beauregard Lionett was against lying, she wasn’t a self destructive teenager anymore she knew it would only hurt her in the long run.

Luckily, having her best friend as her T.A. meant Jester begging Mr. Artagan to let Beau have some extra credit so she could pass. Artagan agreed and told her to write a paper on how a piece of art makes you feel. If Beau didn’t desperately need to pass this stupid class she would have thrown it in his face, but instead as a self destructive adult who at least was aware of her money problems, she gritted her teeth and took the extra credit assignment.

Beau had been to the museum at their school a bunch of times, she had given tours for a bit as a work study gig until the people in charge realized how bad she was with people. But there was something about being forced to go there for an assignment that soured the whole thing for her.

“Let's check out the Emon exhibit first Beau,” Jester said taking her and dragging her to the Tal’Dori section. Beau didn’t mind it, but there was too much…, cleanness in the artwork of their neighbors to the West. Tal’Dori was really similar to Wildemount in a lot of ways, without the whole equally large enemy neighbor country that you’ve been in a Cold War with forever. Emon had its own set of problems, but propaganda or not, whatever Beau read made the other continent sound like a less shitty version of the Dwendalian Empire.

Still, the paintings and sculptures were nice enough to look at even if she didn’t have Jester’s excitement. There were a lot of paintings of naked people in some of the exhibits, which Beau enjoyed since there weren’t a lot of men as the subject. She had to hand it to the old masters, they might have been a bunch of old pervs, but they painted a pretty dame without her clothes. Even if they did give their works pretentious names like, “the Sin of Sarenrae,” or “the Seducer of Nations,” as if the women who were the subjects were at fault for being beautiful enough for men to want to paint them naked.

Eventually Jester got bored, it didn't take long, and they moved on to the other wings of the museum. “I’m gonna check out the Xhorhasian exhibit for a bit Jester,” Beau said, needing some alone time. She loved her best friend, but the girl could talk forever on her worst day, a day surrounded by hundreds of years of artwork around her meant she hadn’t stopped since Beau mentioned her paper.

The Xhorhasian exhibit was small and quiet, they were technically at peace, legally and all that, but two powerful countries can’t be neighbors without a lot of animosity. With only the Ashkeeper Peaks between them, there had been a long cycle of wars and ceasefires between the two nations that could break at any moment. That meant not a lot of people congregated in this out of the way exhibit. Most of the artwork and relics were probably technically stolen. Beau wasn’t happy about that despite being a citizen of the Empire, born and raised in Kamordah, less than a day from Zadash.

Maybe after she graduated she could break into the museum and somehow send the stolen goods back home where they belonged. Jester would probably be into it, and Veth wasn’t exactly opposed to petty theft or grand larceny. But that was for Future Beau with her bachelor’s degree to think about. For now, since they were here, Beau was going to enjoy the things from the Empire’s oldest enemy and learning about them, despite how they were procured.

Technically, the Empire wasn’t enemies with Xhorhas, they were enemies with the Krynn Dynasty, the country that had been the dominant power in the Wastes of Xhorhas for thousands of years. There were other people living in Xhorhas that were roped into the conflict, or so Beau heard, most of the stories from the East were about the Cricks or Krynn and the rest were hardly mentioned at all.

As Beau walked around the empty exhibit, for the most part it was bleaker than the other exhibits. Xhorhas seemed like a dreary place, all their artwork lacked the color of other nations artwork. Most of the paintings, few of them as there were, tended to be battle scenes of Drow soldiers in their dark insect like armor tearing through Empire soldiers like paper, it's a wonder citizens of the Empire never come to look at this exhibit. The rest was mostly pottery or weapons, the placards said they were souvenirs from survivors of perilous expeditions into enemy territory. Beau had read them all before.

But surprising her, there was something new in the exhibit. In the center of the exhibit, in a place of honor was a statue with lights pointing down on it. It was made of white marble and depicted the most beautiful woman Beau had ever seen. She was large, tall and wide, if she wasn’t made of stone she would tower over Beauregard, with arm muscles larger than Beau’s head. Long wild hair that the sculpture had managed to get across in the marble. She wasn’t just standing still either, she was swinging a sword like some goddess of battle. The massive feathery wings exploding from her back, that almost looked soft to the touch despite being made out of rock, made her seem even more divine. But even more than the wings, Beau was drawn to her eyes, they were perfect. Despite being just another part of the woman carved from the white stone, they seemed so dark, holding so much anger and sadness that it made Beau’s chest hurt to look into them, but she didn't have the willpower to look away.

The only flaw Beau could find in the sculpture of the beautiful woman, was the smile. Unlike the rest of the statue, the smile was just off. It was just too plain. The rest of the work from the woman, from the way the marble simulated how her arm muscles tensed like a real person would when swing a sword to fight, to her large soulful eyes, to the massive two-handed sword that looked like it was a real metal blade turned to stone, was the work of a master. Yet the smile was clearly the work of an armature, it looked like the smiles Beau had drawn on posters to look extra goofy to passersby. It didn’t fit such a beautiful woman, especially when the rest of her was clearly ready for battle.

It looked so off Beau immediately looked at the placard to find out if it had been damaged in shipping and the archeologist or smuggler did their best to fix it with a smile. The sign didn’t say anything about the smile, just that the sculpture had been found 3 years ago in an ‘expedition’ in the south of Xhorhas. The title of the piece was ‘Angel of Beauty,’ which made Beau gag. Sure the woma-, the sculpture was beautiful, but it was such a boring shitty title for such an awesome bitch. She was wielding a sword ready to chop someone to bits and ready to take on a whole army, Angel of Beauty was such a generic title for a real work of art. Skimming the rest of the paragraph for any more info, Beau learned the locals called the work ‘The Orphanmaker,’ before the archeologist procured the work.

Beau thought it was a bit better, at least more metal and fitting for such a bad bitch, but it still didn’t fit the woman or the sculpture in Beau’s unasked for opinion. Still, Beau couldn’t let her dumb lesbian brain that made her have a crush on the only more unattainable woman in the world than Jester, stop her from getting her paper done. She took a picture of the placard to get a reference and took a few more of the statue itself from as many angles as she could. You weren’t technically supposed to take pictures of the artwork, but no one was around and Beau needed the pictures for her project…, and nothing else.

Still, the more time she spent with the statue the more Beau was enthralled. The more she stared at it, from every angle it felt like the woman was ready to come alive at any second. That one second Beau would be staring into eyes of white marble and then she would blink alive the next. The skill of the sculptor had practically tricked Beau into thinking the woman would have a pulse if she touched her, like she wasn’t carved out of stone.

It got to the point where Beau, who would never break the law, especially when it came to stolen art, got so fed up she decided to touch the statue just to prove to herself it wasn’t a real live person. Just a quick tap on the arm to prove to herself that the woman wasn’t alive, that’s all it would take to make her crazy thoughts quiet for a bit.

Unfortunately, or perhaps very fortunate given the outcome, Beau was wrong, very wrong. The moment she touched what would be the flesh of the woman, not her sword, or hair, or clothes, the moment her finger touched the skin on the woman’s arm, it felt warm. So warm that Beau couldn’t believe it, until the woman’s pulse woke her up. She tore her hand away like the statue was made of fire, but even as she did, she could see cracks forming in the sculpture starting from where she touched the woman on the arm.

“Shit,” Beau yelled, as she slammed her back into the wall, she didn’t even know she had backed away that far. She desperately tried to search for glue or anything that she could use to fix the crack she made, but the cracks only got bigger. By the time Beau looked back, they had shot down the woman’s arm and were coming down her body, and Beau only had time to swear every curse she knew in the five languages she spoke fluently (which you would think would take a while, but Beau had always been quick with her mouth and was well practiced with it and cursing) before the statue exploded.

The room was full of dust clouds and the only sound other than the hammering of Beau’s heart was the sound of a large woman breathing heavily. It only took a moment for the dust to clear and give Beau a good look at the Orphan Maker. On a whole, she was pretty much the same as the statue, same massive frame, same gorgeous face that Beau had gone gaga for, same strong arms holding the now sharp steel blade, and older Xhorhasian garb, not from the Krynn Dynasty. Now that she wasn’t a statue anymore though, there was a big change, even if she was mostly the same, there was a big difference between a beautiful woman carved out of white marble and a real gorgeous flesh and blood woman.

Her skin was pale, almost as pale as the white marble, but the rest of her and her clothes had splashes of color, mostly black, but not white stone. The biggest change though, other than being a living person of course, was her wings. When she was a statue the wings on her back had been white and feathery, now, they were black and skeletal. As if they had been burnt to cinder’s but still attached to her. She has heterochromatic eyes, one is light green, the other is violet, they are filled with rage, but it’s not directed at Beau, the woman who burst from the marble is just angry.

“Where am I,” the strange woman demanded once the dust cleared enough to see Beau.

“The Zadash University Museum,” Beau said trying to stay on the good side of this strange Amazonian goddess that just flexed out of a statue.

“Zadash,” the woman said slowly, like it was a foreign word. “That is a is a name from beyond the mountains,” she asked more than said.

“Yeah,” Beau nodded, “or I mean I suppose. We’re on the other side of the mountains from Xhorhas if that’s what you mean.”

“Then I am a long way from home,” the strange woman said seeming to calm down.

“Are you a spy from Xhorhas,” Beau asked, immediately realizing how stupid that sounded. Beau could handle herself in a fight, but this woman was massive and had a sword almost the size of her. It would be really hot if it was in a movie or a book instead of real life.

“No,” the woman shouted, “I am from Xhorhas, but I am no spy.”

“Alright,” Beau said, throwing her hands up to show she meant no harm, “I believe you.”

“I think…, I am lost,” the woman said calming down, her voice was a lot softer than Beau would have guessed when she wasn’t angry. “I was in my homeland, I was fighting something and then…, nothing.”

“Well, maybe you could start with something you do remember,” Beau asked, trying to keep things calm. “Do you remember your name?”

“Yasha,” Yasha apparently answered after a moment, “Yasha Nydoorin. And I think I need your help.”

It probably wasn’t a great idea to agree to this, she didn’t know Yasha much other than she was big, gorgeous, and popped out of a marble statue. But despite her well above average intelligence, she was also a lesbian with a dumb lesbian brain sometimes, and all she could say was “sure.” Maybe she’ll let Jester drag her off to the museum if this happens all the time.

#critical role #the mighty nein #fanfiction #beauyasha #beauyashaweek2021 #beauregard lionett #yasha nydoorin #my work #cracklepop #modern au

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macaronnya · 4 years ago

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So I just saw the announcement about the EN server shutting down or at least dicontinued (hopefully just for now) and I might just burst into tears 🥲 I want to put my thoughts or rather feelings of the journy up until now on here to come down but maybe also as some form of comfort for anyone who needs it? It's very long and might have some broken english as it's not my first language so do keep it in mind please 😅

Anyways, I started A3! last year on march 7th because I saw a youtube video of people cosplaying Sakuya and Sakyo. At taht point, I already knew of A3! somewhere in my distant memories back when it was JP only. I decided to try out the game since I was getting bored of my current mobile games and the few reviews I could find of it were relatively positive. I had no idea just what a big part of my life this game was about the become 🤧

Btw I'm listening to some A3! songs right now, specifically Sakuya's 2nd character song, and it's not helping me 😢 So at the time, lockdown just started 2 days ago, which left me with a lot of time playing it and, I kid you not, I gulfed the main story down like it was the last slice of cake at home. I have 2 siblings. I think I finished it in a week or so despite it being only unlockable through leveling up, and if my memory serves me right, you need to be around lvl 75 to unlock all 4 episodes. As one can see, I was VERY invested in the story. It was just so....nice? I don't know how to exactly describe it but I was surprised by how likable everyone was. Of course I didn't hold such strong feelings for everyone back then as I do now but I was intrigued enough back then of nearly everyone, which is kind of rather rare in such types of games, no? At least for me it is, although I haven't played terribly a lot (Love Live, MLQC, Mystic Messenger).

I really like how the story actually continues through the events and how it alternated between stories exploring certain characters more (show events) and stories focusing on just them having fun. Getting to know everyone bit by bit and seeing how everyone grows closer to each other, not only within their respective troupes but the whole theater, makes me really all warm and fuzzy and it's found family, what more could you want?

Also, I really like Izumi, our dear MC 🥰 Even though she's supposed to be our self-insert, I found myself really enjoying reading her thoughts, observing her reactions to other characters' shenanigans (like her 'I do not see' to the members plan of faking their identity to bail Citron out lol) and just....her personality. Trying not to digress here but she has a lot more personality than other MCs in these joseimuke games and it makes her interactions with others not only bearable but even enjoyable. I'm not saying that this is what a perfect MC looks like or that she's superior to bland self-inserts. After all, it depends on the story, gameplay and other things. It's just a nice bonus I'm very grateful for. I mean, I got really emotional when Izumi performed with the other staff members all of the plays the actors have put out so far for the first anniversary. Her realizing she gained a new dream for her lost one just really took my heart, broke it in thousand pieces and then mended it again.

I also love A3! songs ❤ I did wonder how they would work in this franchise since it's not about idols but actors, though I guess there was nothing to worry about. I really like the duets because it's always a different duo and hearing them singing together, harmonizing with each other, complimenting each other, just fills me with undescribable joy. Of course the songs also slap pretty much every time. Even by limiting my options to 1 troupe, I still wouldn't be able to pick only one favourite (I like the majority of Winter's song tho, like Shoutai is just 🤌 and my sibling blasted Unmasked non-stop so I can't get it outta my head anymore). Gosh, I was so excited for 'Double Solitaire' since it would complete trilogy of the Hyodosakas singing together. I was really looking forward to getting all the songs and I was even saving up for Summer Troupe's 6th play.

If I had to describe the game A3! in one word, it'd be "charming". Coming to game itself, there are so many little quirks, that on their own aren't anything groundbreaking or big but together give the game its own flair. Live 2D is pretty common to see nowdays in games because it brings the characters to life through movements like 3D models. But I think A3! is able to illustrate it just as well, if not even better with their 2D sprites. Citron moonwalked by flipping the image over and sliding across the screen, Hisoka appeared out of nowhere by coming from above the screen, they do a little jump when they're happy, they go down a bit when they're sad. And that's just things with their whole sprite. The little drops when Tsuzuru finds himself in an awkward situation or is worried, the little note when Sakuya is happy, the hearts when Kazunari is lowkey flirting with Izumi, it's so cute! Or Omi's O.O face, Taichi's crying face (the usual one, not his face when he cried out of guilt of betraying Mankai), Yuki's done expression, H O M A R E AHA! They each have at least one personalized expression and also quote. Can you hear Kazunari's Yoropiko~☆, Citron's humming, Taichi's loud ass whining and scream of terror, Tsumugi's awkawrd laugh? It's brimming with life.

But also the UI (?how it looks) is joyful. The main screen's background cascading shapes changes depending from which Troupe your current character is from, the loading screen has sakura petals and a bird, the colors are very bright and saturated fitting to the overall color palette of the whole game, the little notebook during practice showing all the necessary infomation and a little sketch by the characters. It's just really charming.

As frustrating as it was, not getting halloween Tsuzuru after 110 pulls or Valentine Omi after 120, it was my first time ever understanding why gachas are called hellholes. Through my strong connections to the characters, their cards automatically appealed to me more. But the art is also so good???? Azuma is always looking flawless obviously but Omi's unbloomed Wolf card, where he is standing in the sunset looking at his camera or Kazunari's Shinobi card, unbloomed all concentrated on his panting and bloomed all shiny smiling like the fireworks in the background? Breathtaking everytime. I also appreciate it not needing multiple copies to unlock the whole backstage story.

I think I'm slowly running out of things to say, which might be good for whoever managed to come this far. I have to say though, A3! helped me through the pandemic. Being a perfect distraction to the world's chaos and more importantly my crushing schoolwork and worries for personal future. I'm a very pessimistic person but seeing the characters overcoming their hardships through the help of their to-be "family" and just being happy doing trouble, gave me a little hope and light for a bit every day. I came to cherish everyone, even those I like the least. I haven't felt like this since Mystic Messenger, which was also a game, that helped me through a difficult time. I can only wish to a shooting star, that it's not the end for the EN Server yet. While yes, the JP server is thriving and I could just switch to reading fantranslation, through my experience, my enjoyment considerably sinks playing like that and I wish to fully enjoy A3!.

Anyways thanks for reading (maybe again). Sorry for all the possible errors on the way here. I'm writing everything directly without too much thought. If you want, you can also share your experiences in the comments. It's always nice to share good memories with others.

Edit: I accidentally posted it already but I wasn't actually done 😓 When I said I had a lot to let out, I meant A LOT

#a3!#i will never forget a3!#in the end i never managed to get halloween and groom Tsuzuru

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popculturebuffet · 4 years ago

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Final Space: And Into The Fire Review or Now with 110% More Homoerotic Telepathy

Welcome new and old to my first Final Space review! If you’ve never seen the blog before, and given this is the first “new” series i’ve covered as it come out in some time that’s probably quite a few of you, welcome. I’m Jake, I do recaps and reviews of various animated shows and comics, mostly just stuff I want to do, often on comission (5 dollars an episode if theres any episode of the first two seasons of this show or any episode of any other show you’d like tos ee me cover), or for my patreon patreon.com/popculturebuffet. And it is my utmost honor to add this show to my rotating roster of shows I cover as they come out.

I friggin love Final Space. I was intrigued by it back when TBS released the animatics alongside Close Enough (Wth the two shows ironically finally together on HBO max as of earlier this month), for their doomed block. I heard a lot of good things about season 1.. and let it get away from me, not watching it till Season 2. But both seasons had more than enough to pull me in with intriguging characters, even greater jokes and a truly unique idea for a premise involving giant monsters, an edltrich god and lots of cookies.

So while it took an extra year given Covid, I’m super friggin pumped to get into season 3 at long last after the hell of a cliffhanger, especially since ironically last night I saw Steven Yeun’s oscar nominated performance in “Minari”. Now i get to watch him play a cat teenager again too.. and in a few days Mark friggin Grayson. It’s a good week to be a fan of his is what i’m saying and a good week in general.

Previously on Final Space Yo!: Since it’s been a year and while the series provides a recap , I’m going to be doing these anyway so:

Our heroes finally got all 5 dimensional keys and freed Bolo, and in the process also freed Avacato from Invictus, the horrifying entity controlling final space. Meanwhile Tribore got Sheryl to stop being a selfish prick and she joined the team trying to be a better mother from now on. But freeing Bolo came at a high cost as Nightfall sacrified herself as the sixth key (KVN was natrually both Gary and Bolo’s first choice, but was inllegible. ) So we ended the season with our heroes entering Final Space and Gary reuniting with Quinn.... while Invictus loomed. So over a year later we finally get some answers so join me under the cut for spoilers, recaps, and homoerotic text ahoy.

Something i’m doing since both the roster keeps changing.. and as I correctly guessed from the trailer, and the general tone of the promos for this season, that everyone won’t be all together all season.. or even in one piece.. i’ll be doing a silver age style roll call to let us know who all we have on the Team Squad for the episode Roll Call: Gary, Quinn, Avacato, Little Cato, Ash, Fox, KVN, HUE, AVA, Sheryl, Bolo, and Tribore

So we pick up right where we left off, Gary tearfully reuniting with Quinn, with Quinn wishing he hadn’t come for her, and Gary being Gary naturally having ignored that, and actually been more determined since that made it forbidden which made it extra tempting and him want to extra do it. God I missed this glorious idiot let me tell you.

So things are quickly interrupted by invictus, who turns out to be a giant flaming head.. thing... and chases them and the crimson light, which has to start speeding with our heroes tethered to the outside, Quinn holding onto Gary.

So we get one hell of a thrilling chase as the Crimson Light outspeeds the demon head and runs into two titans, but Bolo shows up to take out one, with Mooncake trying his dimension shattering blast thingy on Invictus.. and naturlaly g ven this is the big bad we need to show off how horrying they are, and it does NOTHING. But Gary catches his little buddy so we’re alright.

Sheryl also shows off her badass bonafieds by LIGHTFOLDING THROUGH A TITAN... granted she still has some parenting skills to learn as “lightfolding while your son is hanging out the back through an edltrich god” really isn’t a motherly thing to do.. but neither is trying to murder your child several times or blaming him for how shitty your life turned out so ANYTHING is a step up for her.

But.. it’s not enough. While she does manage to kill ONE the Crimson Light is too badly damaged to go on and we get two tragic deaths in one go... The Team Squad is forced to abandon the Crimson Light.. and AVA is too damaged to Upload into HUE. “I’m Sad” “For who?” “For you.. and for us. “ God damn Tom Kenny is amazing. You don’t need me telling you that, but sometimes you need a reminder.

So our heroes end up on a desolate mystery world, stranded in final space with no ship, no suplies and no hope. The only thing to do now is survivie and hope they can continue the mission at some point.

ONE MONTH LATER

Things have not gotten any better, as naturally , our heroes have only found weird cartoon eyed worms that regrow their heads when you bite them off. So while this means unlimited food, it’s also disgusting and Garry hates it. “This may be a head but it tastes like a butt”. Quinn and Tribore are with him and Quinn hasn’t been ready to talk about her experiences trapped in this hellscape and still isn’t but being a good dude, Gary dosen’t push her on it. Though the weird red veiny thing on her arm tells me maybe one of you should speed that up before she explodes or gets cronnenburgy. Just saying. I’ll also say i’m not huge on the one month time skip, as while I feel they probably have a reason for being that specific i’ts a bit TOO long and I question why have that long a period of a jump, not the longest but still long enough for things to happen with nothing changingin that time? Still it’s a minor nitpick in an otherwise fantastic episode so I can let it go, I just don’t get it.

What we do get is some Gary Corpses dropping and Invictius puppeting them... i’m with gary that is bowel openingly scary. I also do like how despite the FAR more dire circumstances, they still get in the requisite shenanigans this series requires. I’ts not to the network mandated subplot levels where it distracts, but it’s enough to help ease the terror of the situation and isn’t around for situations like the opening where it really SHOULDN’T be. As the series always has when something big happens, the bollocks goes away. Once we’re in between we can get back to literal pissing contests, KVN leading a crowd to their deaths and HUE in a pimp hat like god intended.

So yeah our heroes have to outrun the horrible horde of Gary’s, though Little Cato catches on something’s wrong as Tribore makes gary cary him as foreshadowing for later and Sends mooncake down to asssit. Our heroes escape.. but a cave in happens.

After the break, Gary wakes up confused with the party now split in two: Gary, Quinn, KVN, Tribore and HUE on one side and Avacato, Ash, Fox, Little Cato and Sheryl on the other. So Gary does the logical thing... and take his shirt off telling Avacato to feel him.

I mean I didn’t even ship them before this scene but... Gary claims because of their bond he can telepahtically connect with Avacato. That’s normal Gary shenanigans.. except not only does he shrug off his girlfriend asking why they can’t do that.. but it WORKS. We have a scene of the two telepahtically talking in a wheatfield that is so homerotic I guarantee there only wasn’t the Careless Whisper sax because they couldn’t afford it.. or their saving it for later this season. Look sometimes you don’t ship a ship because you just.. dont’ care that strongly one way or another and sometimes you just need an incredibly gay scene to see the light. Same thing happened with Weblena same thing here.

Fox also says “that was glorious to watch” same man. That was freaking art. So our heroes split up into three plots. As usual for me

Team Gary: So yeah... Triobore’s pregnant. No way to really softball into that. He’s been pregnant this whole time. So we get a stupid and mildly horrifying gross out sequence with Gary having to look Triobore in teh eyes and Quinn having to “uncork him”. Which is code for ... you know what i’m not going to say it. If you’ve seen the episode you know and if not your better off not visualizing it trust me. Point is this whole sequence is dumb and the worst part of the episode by far. And the series CAN do good gross out. While Olan Rodgers regrets it, the pissing contest was one of the funniest scenes of season 2, and managed to make a gross idea on paper actually pretty damn funny. This.. this is just “Haha males giving birth and tribore’s an asshole”. There’s no joke here just a .. plug. .. gah.. the vomit is rising let me tell you.

We do get something good out of this nightmare, Tribore’s son who hatches as the army of gary’s dig their way in, Quanstranstro, who rapidly ages into a stylsih spanish speaking adult badass. He is fucking awesome and a great addition to the team and the sheer.. oddity of his birth is wonderful even if the actual birthing was not. Then the climax happens so before that.

Team Avacato:

Avacato and Co come across a sleeping giant robot cyborg .. thingy. Naturally Fox wakes him up. Little Cato remains not suprised. It occelates between panicking over it’s legs being gone and amenisa and is pretty damn funny. It’s voiced by John Dimagio. But it gets serious as we find out nothing has ever made it out of final space, and things.. change the longer there there. And Quinn’s been there several months if not a year. Whuh oh. This part is much better both due to better jokes and plot advancment.. though again Quanstrano is still fucking amazing.

Team Bolo: Bolo meanwhile returns and fights a titan, and has mooncake help him rather htan join the others, but looses, hitting the planet with his body.. I mean he might not get back up.. but the impact shatters the caverns and causes an explosion. Everyone but Gary, Quinn, KVN and HUE are MIA, as our remaining party find earth floating overhead.

TO BE CONTINUED>

Final Thoughts: A decent start to the season. Like I said the whole birthing sequence can die in a fire and reminds me of the terrible comedy subplots adult swim wanted grafted onto two episodes.. but otherwise it’s a tense stark opener that sets up the bleak tone while still keeping the series rediciulous shenanigans in tact. It’s the perfect welcome back after so long. I mean the gay telepathy alone would make it a winner.

Next Time on This Blog: We dive into a little history with HIsteria. See you at the next rainbow.

#final space #gary goodspeed #avacato #little cato #quinn airgon #ash grayven #fox #KVN #HUE #AVA #invictus #bollo #sheryl goodspeed #tribore menendez

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addysonsophia · 5 years ago

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Pressed Coffee

Pairing: Johnny x Reader (gender-neutral terms were used, but I had a fem!reader in mind when writing this).

Genre: Fluff, angst, some suggestive situations (not really).

Word Count: 9.1K

Summary: This is difficult to explain. I had to write this for a college lit class following the form of David Levithan’s Lover’s Dictionary, which twists the “normal” way of defining words. Told through the lens of a man we learn about his relationship, the reader doesn’t know the sequence of the events that are taking place before our very eyes, through the words that he has chosen to define with tableaus of his love life. I did this with Johnny, and I think I did a good job. Wow, this was a bad summary. Let’s try: How coffee can lead to a beautiful romance. Yeah that’s ok.

Warnings: None, some angst near the end.

Caffeine n.

I was late, like always.

I woke up a whole hour later than normal, and that caused me to do a speed-run version of my morning routine. Good thing I shower at night—a great time saver. I left my apartment in twenty minutes; as I stepped out the door the noises of the morning surrounded me: cars bumper to bumper through the city making their way to work: morning joggers with their dogs and strollers zooming past the seemingly frozen vehicles; birds swooping down from the sky to the land, hopping, and hoping for some food.

I quicken my pace as I head to the subway station on 48th Street; my shoes just a tiny bit too tight today, barely allowing me to keep my speed. Closer, I get to the orange sign, the faster time moves, never letting me get ahead, leaving me two steps behind. Down the stairs with a quick hop in my step, and a swipe of my subway card, I wait on the platform for my train. I looked to my watch, then to the board above the tunnel—the train was seven minutes way.

“Crap.” Was what I said out loud but, in my head, I was breaking down. It takes a lot to make me stressed but being late was suspect number one. Being late, is like a mortal sin that has been ingrained into my psyche from a young age: all my after-school activities in high school emphasized how important being on time was. “If you’re early, you’re on time. If you’re on time, you’re late. If you’re late, you’re dead.” That is what many band teachers, drama directors, and coaches have said to me. In college, there were consequences to being late, the beginning of practices would be spent running for every person not there (if they didn’t inform the coach that they would be late), then when the offender would arrive, they would run. Being on time shows that you are respectful, aware of other people and their time that they are giving up to also be there.

With the rising levels of stress, I shot my boss a quick text:

“I’m running a bit late. I’ll be in soon. Would you like me to pick anything up for you?”

A minute later, she responded with:

“That’s fine, you don’t have tons of work like normal. Can you get me a coffee? You know my order ;)” A sigh of relief fell from my mouth at the message, and the growing squealing sounds from the tunnel. I send back a thumbs up and slip my phone back into my pocket.

The wind of the underground picks up as a silver train flew by, slowly coming to a halt. As the doors open, people being to push their way into their spots—I take mine towards the front of the car, another hand joining the many others on the rail overhead. Swaying back and forth, the lights flicker above me as the air conditioning blows; a baby sits on their parents’ lap in front of me with the biggest smile on their chubby face. A small wave is all it takes to grab the baby’s attention, smiling back, I make a funny face at them, and now they’re bubbling with the cutest laughter. They reach out to take my hand, their ravioli sized fist wraps around my pointer finger, and the last of my stress melts away with this little angel in front of me. The parent, also has a smile on their face, appeased with the behavior of their child—any form of travel with a baby is hard, so I try and make it a little easier for them.

Sadly, my stop was up, and I waved bye to my new friend. I stepped off the train and headed up the stairs to 110th street. I already knew what coffee shop I was going to: there is a small café down the block from my office that has the best drinks and snacks—which was prefect because I had to skip breakfast. Hauling ass through the streets towards Papaya Acres Café, I mentally prepared my order.

“One large, caramel swirl ice coffee, two and two liquid sugar; one medium hot coffee with regular cream and sugar; and a croissant with butter, warmed.” The bell chimed as I pulled the glass door open and was immediately bathed in the scent of coffee and sweets. I inched forwards in line towards the cash register, when I made it, I recited my order perfectly, paid, then waited at the pick-up counter. The bell above the door twinkling when more customers came in, the melodic music coming from the speakers, and the whining from the espresso machine. I pulled my phone out to kill time before my order was ready, I opened Twitter and started scrolling through my feed.

“Dude, you can’t just, like, look at someone like that and not expect to get punched in the face.”

“I didn’t mean too! There was a-a-I don’t even remember, but she didn’t have to punch me.” What did this guy do? I know that I shouldn’t, but I couldn’t help it, I had to listen in.

“I don’t know, I saw your face, and I would have punched it too if you were looking at me like that.” The man, that was facing me, had brown hair that was styled away from his face, leaving his brown eyes on display—they were light and full of mischief. He wore a grey sweatshirt that looked comfy as hell, and he had a smile stretched across his face.

“Well, he seems nice.” I whisper to myself, my lips dancing into a smile. I turned my back to them, deciding it better to not listen in anymore.

“I don’t know any—”

“Miss, here’s your order.” Two coffees sat in a carrying tray and a bag—hopefully containing my croissant—in between the drinks.

“Thank you, have a great day.” My smile grew as I picked up my order. Turning back to the door, I began texting my boss that I was on my way. I made it a few steps when my hands were knocked towards me.

He was early, like always.

Frustrated adj.

Today, out of any day, today was the day that I was going to cry in public. Now, I never usually cry, not at movies (sometimes I do, I’m not heartless), not at sad songs, not when I’m stressed, and definitely not in public. But this just broke the dam.

There I stood, in the middle of a coffee shop, with both boiling and freezing coffee down the front of my white sweater—well, my now, brown sweater—and cute black pants. The clear plastic cup sat crushed next to the paper cup, the rest of the hot coffee melting the ice on the floor. A pair of faded, black converse faced my black shoes. Tears begin to pool in my eyes, the tiled floor becoming blurry, hands clasp my shoulders and my head snaps up.

“Are you okay?” Deep brown eyes stare back at mine. The tears being to race down my face.

“Yeah.” I nod slowly.

“Then why are you crying?” A soft hand comes to my cheek, his thumb brushes a tear away. After that I just completely broke down, like big ugly sobs, snot—everything. His hands shift, moving from my face and shoulder to caressing my head and holding my back.

“I woke up late, then my train was late, but my boss said it was fine and wanted me to get her a coffee, and then I split it all over me. But this is the fifth time I’ve been late this month, and my supervisor said that if I was late one more time, I have to meet with her.” With a heaving chest and choked sobs, I managed to explain my short morning. Sinking further, I wrapped my arms around the kind man and just let it out. I probably shouldn’t have done that, but he was so warm, and I was so tired—sometimes you just need a hug.

“That was my fault, I’m sorry.” He whispered into my hair, a hand running up and down my back. Slowly, I began to calm down, savoring the hug for a few more moments before I pulled away. I looked at his grey sweatshirt and saw dark marks from where my face was and the remnants of the coffee.

“It’s okay, I’m sorry that I got tears and snot on your sweatshirt.” Dabbing at my tears to dry my face, I turned away, getting mascara on my sleeve—the sweater was already ruined so it couldn’t get any worse. I pulled myself from his arms sighing, I bent down to grab my phone (thankful undamaged) and texted my boss what happened. I turned to the counter to reorder, and the worker already has my order ready.

“Oh, you didn’t have to do that.” I begin to pull my wallet out to pay, but she was just shaking her head at me.

“After what I just saw, you are fine. Don’t worry about it.” Her smile was kind. I went back up to the counter and put a couple of bills in the tip jar.

“Thank you so much.” I turn back around and see the man still standing were I left him.

“Hi, my name is Johnny. Can we start over again?”

Gilded adj.

Being with Johnny was like being in a world of sunlight. Everything was filled with loud laughs, quiet whispers, longing glances, quick kisses, and loving touches. Of course, there were arguments and disagreements, we were a normal couple in a not so normal world. His job is demanding, long hours and weeks spent with the only kinds of communication are texts and FaceTime calls. At first, this arrangement was strange: dates spent at hole in the wall restaurants in a back-corner way from the other patrons; dinner and movies—at home; late (like 1 a.m.) walks in the park, and food from convenient stores. It was easy to get used to, and I get why it had to be that way. When your boyfriend is part of a world-known group, you can’t really go outside in broad daylight and be seen together—it would most likely ruin his career, and some of the fans go too far.

I rolled over, a mess of blankets and sheet caught between us, and I just look at him. The sun streamed in through the curtains, filling the room with a warm glow. His hair turning a rich golden brown, the light doesn’t stop there, bathing his skin a shimmering yellow. The sight making me gasp, because in that moment, he looked ethereal—in that moment I knew I loved him.

Soft breathes fell in the space between, I moved my hand and started tracing his face. Thick eyebrows, long lashes, strong nose, full lips, sharp jaw; this man looked like he was carved from the Gods themselves, and he was all mine.

He groaned when I stopped my movements; arms moving, coming to pull me closer to his chest.

“Morning.” Eyes still closed.

“Morning.” Eyes opened, the brown catching the light and turned gold. I leaned in and placed a quick kiss to his lips, then tried to get up. But he wasn’t budging.

“Where do you think you’re going?” He raised himself up on one arm, holding me with the other.

“Bathroom.” He shook his head, I moved away again. Then he lifted himself up, arms coming to either side of me, only to lay himself on top of me, effectively stopping any attempts to start the day.

“You’re not going anywhere.” His lips tickled my neck as he spoke. I sighed out and began to run my hands through his hair, and his breathing slowed. Shortly after, the snores started, and there was no way I was getting up for about an hour. I wrapped my arms around him and started to fall back to sleep.

Perfect, it was perfect.

Hostile adj.

It was a rare date night out, and I was brimming with excitement. Tonight, we went to our favorite restaurant then headed for a movie at my place. On the walk back to my apartment, something felt off. Footsteps and whispering followed every step of our own. I pulled my face mask higher up on my face as I looked around—to not cause suspicion. With a glance behind us, I saw a group of girls, and my heart sank. This was it; this is where the relationship ended; they were going to find out and tell everyone.

See when you date a celebrity, there are rules because there are consequences. The fans of most groups are wonderful, the kindest people you will ever meet, but then there are a few that are not. These fans think that they are entitled to the artist: they stalk them; find their phone number, and call them constantly; they send death threats to anyone who gets close to their favorite artist—or worse to the artist themselves. To say I was scared would be an understatement.

“John, there’s a group of girls behind us. They’ve been following us for a while.” I lean my head on his shoulder to not cause alarm.

“John? Wha—Oh. Ok. Ah, let me think.” He became serious: eyebrows furrowed under his black cap; lips pursed behind his face mask. I don’t know how they found us; we were so careful.

Steps grew closer, and I could hear some of what they were feverishly whispering about.

“Do you think it’s him?”

“It has to be. I mean, look at him.”

“If it is him, who is that?”

“I don’t know, but I think if I can get close enough I can—” With that they dared more steps, for every two we took, they took three. This was getting serious.

“Ok, after we reach this corner, we are going to enter that store—see it? The bookstore? —then we are going to walk around inside until they follow us in, then after a few seconds we are going to leave, then make a break for it down the block. Sound like a plan?” It was a stupid plan, but it was the only one we had right now.

“I guess, this better work.” My grip tightens on is arm, trying to ground myself in the situation.

“Wait!” One of the girl’s screech behind me, I slightly turn my head to hear better.

“—said that she spotted him on 1st and 3rd Street. Let’s go.” They all crossed the street and headed in down the block—away from us.

“I think we are going to have to stop with the dates outside for a little while.” With a sigh, he nodded.

Lend v.

It was a cool day, in October, and I forgot my jacket. Walking through the streets at night would have been fine if it were summer, but it wasn’t. I had been in such a hurry to get out of the apartment to meet up with him, that I just completely forgot to grab the jacket sitting on the hook by the door. I didn’t notice until I had made it to the restaurant.

“Did you walk all the way here without a jacket?” I scooched my chair closer to the table, grabbing my glass to sip some water.

“Uh, I forgot it to grab it when I left.” A chuckle falls from his mouth, his eyes curving to crescent moons, then he reached across the table to take my hand, his larger one encompassing my own.

“You’re a freakin’ loser.” An often-used term of endearment. Eyes rolling, I squeezed his warm hand.

“Takes one to know one.” His face breaks into a wide smile.

The waiter came to take our order, and when he left, we just sat in each other’s gaze, content with the moment. The food came, bites were shared, and when the bill was paid, he offered to walk me home.

With the moon rising higher in the sky, the temperatures dropped. Lights from shops, apartments, and streetlights created a world of color, drenching us in greens, blues, reds, and yellows. A gust of wind came from behind us, and in a moment of silence after—he dropped his jacket onto my shoulders. I laughed.

“Thank you.” I looked at his profile, a strand of hair fell into his eyes, and he just left it. Lips were curved into a small smile—proud of the smoothness of the execution; a black turtleneck was the only thing shielding him from the weather, and from the looks of it, he was winning.

“Always. Can’t have you freezing on me.”

“I’m not going to freeze, Johnny.”

“Not when I’m here, duh.”

“You’re lucky you’re cute.”

“I’m lucky you’re mine.” Not only was my body warm, but my face was too.

He was smooth.

Loneliness adj.

He was gone. Days had turned into weeks, and the bed had grown cold as nights were spent hoping for his return. Time seemed to move slower without him by my side; the sun and it’s jovial rays never seem to set, and when they do the moon and its frigid compassion surround me in an endless longing for the light. I know that I shouldn’t be acting like this, but he was my world.

I made my way to the kitchen, the cold floors numbing my bare feet. The blanket wrapped over my frame providing little warmth. The rising sun casted an orange glow in the room. I slowly set my mug into the sink, washing the rings of coffee from the inside wall, my movements becoming sluggish as the world caught up with me.

The lock beeps from the front door, gradually opening. Shuffling could be heard in the entryway: keys being placed on their hook, bags being set down, shoes being kicked onto the rug, and jackets being placed on the rack. Water running down the drain was the only thing that filled my ears—deaf, I was to the footsteps drawing closer. Mug in one hand and scrubber brush in the other, I gazed to the beginning of the day: lights flicking on room by room in the building across from me, people making their way of from their homes, cars starting to head towards their destination. Vibrations come from behind me as warm hands snake around my blanket, hands turning into arms and a chest pressed into my back. It does not shake me from my trace, still I gazed out the window—until warm lips press onto the top of my head. By the time I had set down the mug and scrubber, I was turned around, facing him. As I looked into his eyes, my own began filling with tears. Like the play button had been pressed, my hands shot out to grab his arms, pulling him closer.

“You’re back?” uncertainty filling the room.

“I’m back.”

My world had returned. He pulled me from the sink, taking one of my hands and his other sliding to my back, he begun to sway. There we stood, dancing in the kitchen at 6 in the morning—revolving around each other, for we were the centers of our universe.

Nervous adj.

The energy in the venue was high, everything was buzzing: the lights, the speaker, the crowd, and my heart. This was the first time that I saw Johnny’s group in person, I’ve seen concert videos, fan-cams, and their online concerts, but never in real life. He has been on tour for two months—which is a long time to only talk through FaceTime and texts, but it was well worth the wait. I managed to get tickets to their last show, shortly after followed plane tickets and a hotel reservation.

The beginning of my day was spent sleeping in to get rid of the jet lag, once I was up and ready, I headed to the venue; the concert may start at 8 p.m., but you also have to get there early so you can get fan-made stuff and merch. I arrived at 4 p.m., and began to wait, making friends along the way, excitedly talking with them about the members, songs, moments, and theories for the next comeback.

I made it to my seat, light stick, and fan banner in hand as I pulled my phone out to text him good luck—as I did for every concert. I went on Twitter to see that the concert was trending, a smile on my lips as I liked the groups’ pre-concert posts. The fan sitting next to me saw my fan banner.

“Ooh, you like Johnny?” Their eyes sparkling in the bright fluorescent lights overhead.

“Yeah, as much as I love them all, he’s my favorite. Who’s you’re favorite?”

“Haechan, he’s so cute. But I also love all of them members too.” After that we got more friendly, names were swapped, and then we started talking about everything about the group. As time for the concert began grew closer the more my heart began to race, my palms became sweaty, and my stomach was in knots. Soon the lights dimmed, and the crowd thrummed with energy, light sticks turning on and the space changed into a green ocean.

The screens on the stage flickered to life, beginning the VCR introduction. The lights flashed and there he was in all his glory, standing before me. The music played and the members came to life, moving as one before the crowd.

But he always stood out to me.

Smitten v.

He had seen me during the concert and had someone come get me when it finished. Going through some ‘STAFF ONLY’ doors, and many turns later, I was in the dressing room waiting for the guys to finish going over the concert.

Sitting, on my phone, still going through the concert tag on Twitter, I heard them coming from a mile away with their excited yells and laughs. The door opens and they all flood into the room, the sound following them in. He was the last one, of course. Eyes scanning the room, going from person to person trying to find something, someone—me.

When our eyes met, it was as if the world going on around us had melted away, it was only him and me. It was perfect. Slowly, I rose from my seat and started to make my way to him, he was pushing through the people blocking us. When we got to the middle, he slowly, but surely, wrapped his arms around me. It was warm and whole, and I accepted it—eagerly. I buried my face into his chest—slightly heaving from the two-hour long concert, the sweat was felt on my cheek— and I smiled into it.

“Hi, I missed you.” Quiet, we were, afraid that this moment could end in the next breath.

“I missed you too.” He kissed the top of my head, then rested his cheek there, I wanted him to stay there forever. But our reunion was stopped when the others joined in on the hug—turning into a dog-pile. I let it happen for a little while, but then it started to get hot, and they were all sweaty—so, so sweaty.

“Guys…I can’t breathe anymore.”

“You let Johnny hug you, so why can’t we.” Mark said from somewhere from the outside of the pile.

“Because he’s my boyfriend, and ya’ll are gross and sweaty.” I squirm in Johnny’s arms, but none of them budged. “I’m going to die in here, aren’t I?” I whisper.

“Probably, but at least I’ll die with you.” He whispers back.

“No, you’re not, you Giraffe. You get fresh air and everything, while I’m down here in the depths of gross boy stank.” I resorted to whining, I’m not proud but I needed out of my prison.

“Guys, you heard them, give ‘em some space. They’re right, you do stink.” He started pushing them away, chuckling.

“Is that better, Baby?” He brushed my hair out of my face when I looked up at him.

“Yes, Handsome. I can only handle one stinky boy right now.” His hug became crushing as he lifted me a few inches off the ground that left me squealing.

“Stinky?!” Eyes wide. “I’m stinky?” He asked, voice raising a few decibels.

“Big time.” Then, my life flashed before my eyes as he starts to rub his head all over my face. Gagging, I push his nasty ass away from me, but with his grip around me, he wasn’t going anywhere. A hidden smile on my face turns into a frown when he lifts his head up to look at me.

“You’re gross. I don’t want to hug you anymore.” I push again, but that only encourages him. His hands shift from my back to my sides, then he starts to wiggle them over the covered skin.

“Stop it! No, Johnny! Stop!” Forced laughs escaped as tears start to run down my face.

“Then, take it back! Say you want to hug me!” He wasn’t letting up, if anything, he was picking up the pace.

“Never! I told you that I don’t want to hug stinky boys!” My chest began to rise and fall at a rapid speed, air rushed into my lungs only for it to be ripped back out. There was no end in sight as one of his hands grasped my side to stop me from trying to twist out of his attack.

“I’m not stopping until you say it AND give me a kiss!” A huge smile and crescent eyes are all I saw as he brought his face closer to mine, smile slinking into a smirk. “Be good, and listen, Baby.” Time to bring in the big guns.

“Jaehyun! Help me! Please!” I whip my head around to not only look for my hopeful savior, but to hide my flushed cheeks from his comment. As fast as I called his name, two more arms wrapped around me, and pulled me from Johnny’s ruthless hold. I push off from Jaehyun; finally, away from the constant contact, I slowed my breathing down. Smoothing my hair down and running my sweaty hands down the front of my jeans, I stood up straight and looked at Johnny.

“That was mean.” Lips: full on pout mode, Eyes: puppy dog mode engaged, Arms: crossed over one another. I was the picture-perfect example of how to get an apology. With his jaw dropped and eyes wide, Johnny was the perfect example of forming an apology.

“Mean?! You said that you didn’t want to hug me anymore!” True.

“But I was just joking. You didn’t have to rub your sweaty head on me, then tickle me.” Jaw snapped close, and eyes turning into soft brown ones, we were at a standstill. The others were lightly laughing at the scene going on in front of them, one seen many times before, but always with a different victor.

“You hurt my feelings.” One step closer.

“You hurt my nose and lungs” One step.

“You were mean.” One step.

“You were meaner.” Last step. We met in another hug; the winner was obvious.

“God, they’re so whipped for each other.” Mark whisper to Jaehyun with an eye roll.

Telephone n.

“I love you.”

“I love you more.”

“Not possible.”

“I think it is, Johnny. I love you so much more than you love me. You fill up, like, 54% of my heart.” With a slight nod, I won this time.

“Only 54%? Are you loving other people on the side?” A dramatic gasp and a flared hand placed on his chest caused me to laugh.

“Of course, Loser. The rest of the boys take up about 6%, My mom has 10%, Ms. Jenkins and her cat has 7%, and I have the other 23% saved for a rainy day.” My cheeks began to hurt from smiling so much; one thing that I love about him is that no matter what, he can always make me smile.

“Well, I’ll let you in on a little secret, Baby.” I slightly leaned forward, even though it did little to minimize the actual distance between us. My breath caught, as I strained my ears to hear him as he whispered.

“I love you, 3000.” My face dropped, a chuckle bubbled out, turning into a laugh, then into a cackle, and finally, I was in bed with tears streaming down my face and I couldn’t catch my breath. Once I finally calm down, I looked at him with a serious face.

“You are the love of my life.”

“And you are the love of mine.”

“I miss you.” Sigh.

“I’ll be home soon.”

“You’ll always come back, right? Back home? Back to me?”

“Always.”

That night, neither one of us hung up, content to still in a comfortable silence until he fell asleep. Then I soon followed, the sound of his breathing lulling me to sleep with one word on my mind.

Always.

Voyage n.

I watched the sun sink beneath the tall buildings. The sky had been graying all day and with the dark clouds rolling in, all the signs pointed to a storm.

But there was going to be more than one storm tonight.

Hours over the stove, wasted as the meal sits in the oven waiting to be eaten. Slowly, they lose their heat, mine steadily rose. The cars filter through the street below, reds, blues, blacks, but not the car I was waiting for. The rain falling on the street, coloring it dark; the hum of electricity fresh in the air as a flash of lightening lit up my face in the window. I looked around my dark apartment and felt empty. With a huff, I head to the bathroom, limbs stiff from sitting folded up on the couch, waiting. I looked at the mirror, sighed, turned, and left. Walking through the dark apartment, I heard thunder booming overhead, followed by a crack of lightening, brightening the room for a second, before being shrouded again.

Four times. Now, five times, he had missed our date. There was no text, no call, no note. Nothing, there was nothing.

There was one thing: loneness.

There were two things: loneness and anger. Two things that don’t work well together. One eats at the mind, and the other eats at the soul.

Hours passed, and I was still alone, sitting on the couch. Still waiting. That’s what this relationship was, waiting: waiting up for him to come back after practice, waiting for him to come home after months of being away, waiting for him to show up to dates, waiting for love. That was the hardest part, the love. Being away from each other as often as we are, you don’t feel loved—I don’t feel loved. Nights spent lying in bed waiting for him to hold me. Days spent waiting for any sign of life on his end. And the in between spent always waiting.

It was a moonless night because of the storm, still pounding away. They say thunderstorms are caused by the Greek God, Zeus, king of the sky, when he’s angry. How I shared his rage tonight. How I wanted to scream at him, but no sound came out. Nothing came out. The door beeped, then opened; shoes kicked to the floor, and keys hung up on the rack. A sigh fell from the doorway. I looked at my watch, the glow threw shadows around the living room as it read: 11:23 p.m. Steps heard, a light clicked on, a name is called—my name. I didn’t answer. I couldn’t.

My named echoed through the apartment, he wondered into the living room—light still off.

“Baby, what are you doing sitting in the dark?” A chuckle falls from his lips, a sigh from mine.

“Waiting.” My mouth too dry to put power behind it, so it came out as a whisper.

“What?” He made his way closer to me, only halfway to the couch I was curled on.

“Waiting.” It was a little louder this time.

“Honey, speak up. You’re whispering.” He was almost in front of me know, I could smell his sweat mixing with his deodorant.

“WAITING! I SAID I WAS WAITING FOR YOU!” A crash of thunder boomed in time with my declaration. He stood, staring at me like I had grown another head.

“I’m sorry.” With my chest heaving, I pulled myself off the couch, making my way to leave the room to cool down. I passed him and he grabbed my arm, halting me. I turned to face him, his eyes moving quickly over me—searching for the reason of my outburst. A crack of lightening spilt the sky and lit his brown eyes that were wide with worry.

“W-What’s wrong? What happened, Angel?” He grasped my hands and held them in between us. I scoffed, head shaking. Did he really forget? Something so important—a date—and he doesn’t even know what he did wrong? I let it go the first few times, but this—this tipped the scales.

“You forgot.” I spoke, words filled with a venom that I could feel the burning at my tongue and throat, itching to get out. I stared at our connected hands, frustration filling me up, I could see it collect in the corner of my eyes. The wind started to slam against the windows, as another clap of thunder sounded.

“Oh, Sweetheart. I am so sorry. I got hel—”

“You got held up at practice.” I laughed, because of course he did. He always did. I was beginning to feel hot; I dropped his hands and crossed mine. He reached out for me, but I stepped away—needing space.

“Darling—”

“Stop with the nicknames, Johnny! Stop trying to defuse the situation!” I paced around the living room—still in the dark—trying to ease the anger. Johnny walked away to turn the light on; the room bathed in a hue of gold. He was wearing those sweatpants that fit him just right, and a black long sleeve; a tired look on his face, but his eyes were guarded—trying to read my fire-filled ones.

“There is no situation, I don’t see why it is such a big deal if I miss a date.” Annoyed—that’s what he was, he was annoyed with me. But the feelings I had, were worse.

“Oh? So, that’s how you feel about it? You don’t care about our dates? The only thing you seem to care about is work.” My back was turned, I didn’t want him to see me cry.

“Are you fucking kidding me? The only—Wow. What is wrong with you?!” The level of his voice was rising—so was mine.

“What’s wrong with me?! You have missed five dates, Johnny!” I turned around in time to see his eyes rolling. “No calls, no text, no heads up! I would have been fine, but I stood for hours over the stove cooking your favorite meal! I had set the table all nice, I got your favorite wine, your favorite candles, and your favorite music! But you just didn’t show up—too busy dancing with your friends—leaving me alone!” Hands thrown up in the air, I moved into a corner of the room.

“Do you want to know what you sound like right now? You sound like a brat.” The word being spat out of his mouth. “You think I’m just singing and dancing all day?! I am working my ass off to make people happy! I work all day, and I just want to come home and sleep!” There it was, the guilt, beginning to build in my gut. “You knew what you signed up for going into this relationship, you knew that things weren’t going to be easy! But here you are, whining like a little bitch because I missed some dates!” The storm outside matched the storm inside, the loud rage was inescapable.

“What did you just call me? A Bitch? I—Ok.” I ran my hands through my hair, I was boiling now, nothing was going to stop the war he just laid out. “I do know what I signed up for! But when you’re in a relationship, things go both ways, Johnny! I don’t think you recognize that! When was the last time you planned a date? When was the last time you went out of your way to do something nice? When was the last time you showed me you cared? I don’t remember, and after all of this, I doubt you do.”

“Are we serious arguing over this?”

“Don’t change the subject!”

“We are seriously fighting over a date?! A DATE?!”

“ANSWER THE DAMN QUESTION!” The windows rattled from the thunderous boom. The storm or the shout? That is something that will be unknown for the rest of time.

“What is this really about? Are you jealous? Are you jealous at the fact that I do something I love? Are you jealous because you work a meaningless desk job?” My mouth dropped. One of my biggest regrets was not pursuing what I wanted to in college, I did what my parents wanted and that was shared in secret with him. Late night talks, quiet whispers so no one in the world could hear our confessions.

“I can’t believe that’s what you think this is about! I know you love your job! I love seeing you happy because of it! I-I just can’t keep this up.” Tiredness just rolled over me as I was sitting down on the couch, and holding my head in my hands. The storm still raging outside.

“This?” He sneered.

“This! You! Coming here late every time you stay over! Dates spent here, your place, or some random restaurant at 10 at night! Not seeing you for weeks at a time! You’re never here anymore, Johnny! There’s always some excuse as to why you can’t come over. And sometimes there’s nothing at all!” The rain on the windows matched the tears on my face. “I’M SO LONELY, AND YOU DON’T EVEN CARE!” My chest heaves for a different reason as sobs echoed through the apartment. I spared a glance at him, the anger was gone, replaced with realization and sadness. His hands shook, eyes searching around the room, mouth slightly open, trying to find something—anything—to say. But the damage was done.

An eternity had passed, but only mere minutes had. One question weighed on my mine. One that needed to be said. One that could change everything.

“Do you even want this anymore?” My eyes shut, waiting for his response. But none came. When I opened them, he was standing in the doorway, mouth open, eyes frantic. With a sigh, I rose from the couch and headed to the door. I walked by him and when he didn’t say anything, I scoffed. I slipped my shoes on and unlocked the door.

“Wh-Where are you going?” He sounded so small. My baby—no, not anymore. He may not have answered the question, but his silence did.

“I don’t know.” It was like I took a backseat to the situation and I was now only watching it.

“When are you coming back?” Opening the door was the easiest and hardest thing I had done all night.

“I don’t know.”

“I’m sorry.” I hummed in response, slipping out the door.

I don’t know how long I walked for, but the moment I had stepped outside, I was soaked by the rain and guilt. It wasn’t cold though; it was surprisingly warm. I had shut my phone off after Johnny had left his 6th voicemail. I want to be alone, but my thoughts kept me company. The mind likes to bring up memories, I found, after a something like this. Mornings spent waking up to breakfast in bed with a loving kiss in between bites, soft pouts led to a forkful of food, and warm gazes fueled breakfast being forgotten for a little while. Beautiful flowers placed on my desk at work, with a dorky note attached to it; doorbells rang with deliveries of even more flowers when he was gone for months at a time. Date nights that came to an end with a slow dance in the living room as music circled us from some random playlist on his phone in his pocket, after a while, hands, and lips begin to wander, one pulling the other down the hall to the bedroom. Late nights shared in bed, hair slighted messed, hands tracing shapes onto skin, lips moving in hushed whispers, and eyes full of love. Sleepless, nightmare filled nights, glasses of water at my beckoned call, hugs were endless, and a soft voice always lulling me back to sleep.

As I sat on the curb of some random street, crying, these memories showed me that he did care. Love is shown and spoken in different ways, and I was so focused on the verbal, rather than the actions. God, I was so stupid. Last week, he had made me lunch for work, he even took the time to cut the fruits into hearts.

I raised my head up and looked towards the sky, rain hitting me in the face. I sighed, then reached into my pocket, and tried to turn on my phone, but a black screen stared back at me. This night couldn’t possibly even get worse. So, I stood up and tried to find a street sign to figure out where in the hell I was. I spotted one above a bookstore and figured that I was about a 30-minute walk away from my apartment. From the love of my life. Walking in soaking wet clothes and shoes in the rain is very much uncomfortable, but it had to be done to get back to my life.

Street after street I grew closer, after some wrong turns and a very nice lady who gave me directions, I was almost home. As I waited at a crosswalk, I heard something being called from across the street. But I ignored it, it was most likely nothing, just a random noise from the city. When the light changed, I heard it again, this time sounding like my name, growing louder. I made it across the street when I heard it clearly, this time I looked to where the sound was coming from. Combing the streets, I saw brown hair, a black long-sleeve, and track pants that fit just right. I started down the sidewalk, tears forming in my eyes, and a smile on my face. His back was to me when I met him, so I ran into him at full force engulfing him in a hug, starting to sob.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I was dumb and I know you love me.” He turned in my arms and wrapped his own around me. I looked up, his hair was wet, and his shirt was soaked. Tears fall down his face, his eyes sparkling. I raised a hand to his cheek, he pressed into the warmth, and I wiped away a tear, only for it to be replaced by the rain.

“I’m so, so sorry, Johnny.” He took my hand and kissed my palm. “I-I was being selfish and I didn’t see all that you did for me. Can you forgive me?”

“Always, Baby. I’m sorry that I made you feel like you weren’t loved, because I love you so much, and my heart broke when you said that.” He dropped his head into my neck as his shoulders shook with tears, his hands gripping the back of my shirt like I was going to disappear from his hold. “I let you down, you didn’t feel loved when all you were doing was giving me love. I wasn’t doing-I wasn’t being enough for you. I’m sorry.” He broke down, he’s sobs echoing into the night. We stayed like that, in the rain, until he started to hiccup, my hands soothing up and down his back when he calmed down. I took his face back into my hands and raised him so he could face me.

“Look at me, Handsome. Please look at me.” When he opened his eyes, they were sparkling and red. I brushed his wet hair out of his face and put a smile on mine.

“Johnny, you are enough for me. Mornings with breakfast in bed, surprise flowers when you’re away, lunches when your home, dances in the living room. You show me your love, and I appreciate everything you do for me.” I reach up to place kisses all over his face, making sure to cover every inch, I wanted him to feel my love.

Here we stood, in the rain, in the middle of the city, staring into each other’s eyes. His hand raises up to hold my face, and I hold my breath. He leans in, slowly I close the gap. I melt into him; his lips were soft against mine—there was no rush. We broke apart, with rain falling onto us, I break away from his arms, grabbed his hand and walked towards the apartment. In the light of the city, hand in hand, we felt the love for each other again—in that moment he became my everything, and I wouldn’t have traded it for the world.

Wander v.

The night was full of life during the walk we took in through the city. Lights glowing, shinning onto his beautiful face; with our hands entwined we made our way to some unknown destination. Papaya Acres Café. I laughed as I saw the café.

“Do you remember that day? The one where we met? I was a mess; I was surprised that you even had the balls to ask me out on a date after I rubbed my snot into your sweatshirt.” In the moment, it was probably one of the most embarrassing times of my life. Now, it is a funny memory that gets laughs when we tell people how we met.

“Of course, I did! It’s not every day you bump into an angel and make them cry, so I had to do something to make you smile again.” His hand squeezed mine as we entered the café, the bell chimed as he held the door open.

“Why, thank you, kind sir.” A curtsy.

“The pleasure is mine, my lady.” A bow. Followed by giggles.

“Welcome to Papaya Acres. What can I get for you?”

“Handsome, I’m going to the bathroom. Order for me?” With a nod, I turned and went into the bathroom. Soft jazz played through the green tiled room as I entered a stall. I wrung my hands into a paper towel and headed back into the café. Johnny was sitting at a table near the pick-up counter. My chaired squeaked when I pulled it back; wincing, I sat down.

“I missed you.” His lips pouted, face sitting in his hands, eyes soft.

“I was gone for like three minutes, Loser.” I laughed out.

“I always miss you when you aren’t around.” I pulled one of his hands from his face and held it in my own, comparing the size difference. I hummed as I laced our fingers together.

“I missed you too.” A playful smile appeared on my lips.

“Here is your order.” I looked over and saw three cups? Huh, that’s weird. Maybe Johnny wanted to try a new drink or something.

“Thank you. Have a good night.” He got up to pick up the drink tray, and I waited for him in the middle of the café. My hand got cold when he passed me my drink—I drink iced coffee, no matter the seasons—and his were now full with his two drinks. Putting my drink near his face, he took a sip from the yellow straw, humming in delight when he pulled away.

“You got two drinks? What kind did you get?” When he told me, neither of which was something that I was going to try; when one of us orders something, the other automatically gets to have a taste of it, it’s a rule we made after many meals were pouted over because no one would share.

Walking through the park down the street from the café, arms bumping as our laughs reverberated on the trees and buildings around us.

“My dad knew I liked beans. So, he was like playing with beans. Then he dropped it, and then he dropped a rock. And then it slid, and then hot water started falling. And then, coffee.”

“You actually think I believe that? Johnny, I’m not Mark.” I chuckled.

“Hey, don’t be mean to Mark.” He chuckled back. He walked over to a trash can and tossed mine and the cup he had been nursing away, leaving the untouched cup in his grasp. He, now having a free hand, connected in the middle, brought our clasped hands to his face and placed a gentle kiss on my knuckles, his fingers running over my ring finger—something he had only started doing recently, but I paid no mind. I looked at his face, and he wore a serious expression—his thinking face: eyebrows furrowed, and lips pursed.

“What are you thinking about, my love?” My free hand brushing away some hair that had fallen into his eyes. He sighed; a small smile played on his lips.

“I was thinking about how it would look if you had a ring right here.” He pressed on my ring finger. I laughed with a smile. He looked at me with wide eyes; I looked at the cup in his hand, he was shaking.

“Johnny? Honey, you’re shaking. Are you ok?” My hands cupping his face now, I searched for the reason for his sudden nerves. His eyes snap to mine as he takes my hands off his face, and he steps away. My heart is now in my throat, as my mind races to find out what was causing his anxiety. My hand, acting on its own, reaches out for him, but he only laughs with his head down.

“You are truly something different, you know? You are the reason I get out of bed now; there are days when I don’t want to go to work, days were I just want to give up, but then there you are with your cute little texts, cheering me on, notes left from the last time you were at the dorm. When practice runs long and I can’t give anymore, you pop into my head, and then I remember that tonight you are waiting for me to come home—so I push ten times harder.” He cleared his throat, and shook the cup in his hands, a dull rattle followed. He swallowed. “I know it isn’t easy being in a relationship with me, the dates, the secrecy, but you are always there.” He brought his hand up to push away hair that wasn’t there. “God, this is hard.” He whispered, his hand moving to run down his face.

“What’s hard?” He looks at me. He shook the cup again; the same rattle came from within it.

“I want you to be there.”

“What? I’m right here, Baby.” Now it was my turn to furrow my brows—in confusion.

“I want you to be with me. For as long as you’ll let me. I want to grow old with you; have kids, have a family—maybe a dog. I want to dance with you in our home when we have gray hair and wrinkles.” I get it now. He chuckles. “You are so beautiful, and I just want to wake up next to you every morning. I want to make breakfast with you, I want to go grocery shopping with you, I want to do puzzles with you—”

“I hate puzzles, Loser.”

“That’s beside the point, don’t interrupt—it’s rude. Where was I?” The rattle started again.

“You were listing things you wanted to do with me.”

“Oh, thank you.” He cleared his throat. “I want to sit with you in the living room and just spend the day reading, I want to take you out and have photoshoots that I can post for everyone to see. I want you, Baby. I’ve never wanted anything so much.” I smile and move to close the distance.

“Johnny Suh, are you asking me to marry you?” A rattle.

“Well, duh. But now you ruined it.” He whined.

“I didn’t ruin anything. Now, go ahead and ask me. Should I practice my surprised face first? Hold on, I need to warm up.” I started pulling faces with different sound effects and hand motions. He let out a long whine and stamped his feet a little.

“Stop,” He drug out, “This is serious.” I cleared my throat, wiped my hands on my legs, and pushed my hair out of my face.

“Of course,” Serious face, “Continue.”

“I love you with my whole heart, you never stop running through my mind, you are magnetic. And I can’t help but to be draw to you.” He popped the lid on the coffee cup and stuck his hand in, pulling something into his fist. Then he got down on one knee. “My love. Will you marry me?”

Remember when I said I don’t cry in public? Not only has this man made me a liar not once, or twice, but now three times. I guess, you could say that I wanted to make him sweat a little bit.

“Let me see…” I tapped a finger on my chin as I began to walk around him. Adding to the act, I hummed and muttered, nodding, and shaking my head. When I got in front of him, I covered his hands in mine and stared into his eyes.

“Of course.” I whispered. He jumped up, picked me up and spun me around. When he set me down, he took my hand and slipped the ring onto my finger. He kissed the ring, then me. There we were, in the park at 10 p.m., with our love in the air.

“I love you.” Were the words we whispered for the rest of our lives.

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Thank you for reading! I hope that you enjoyed it! Let me know what you thought!

I could possibly be interested in writing more of these if you guys like, doesn’t matter the length, member, or group. Just send in a word or words, member/group, and if you want it angsty or fluffly!

Thank you again!

#nct #nct 127 #nct imagines #nct 127 imagines #nct johnny imagines #nct 127 johnny imagines #nct fluff #nct angst #johnny imagines #johnny suh imagines #johnny seo imagines

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immortalbutonlybyname · 5 years ago

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Reviewing Dramas I have watched part 3

My rating system goes like this: 1- Did not like, 2- Enjoyed but probably wouldn’t watch again, 3- Enjoyed and would watch some episodes again (or for movies may watch again), 4- Enjoyed and would watch again, 5- Loved

TV Series

Pinocchio: 4/5

Trigger warning: Suicide, Victim blaming, attempted murder, actual murder

Pinocchio is about a kid who, after a massive tragedy blown up and twisted by the media causes his mother to attempt a murder suicide by throwing them both in the ocean, gets washed ashore a small neighboring island and takes on the identity of a old man with dementia’s deceased son. Him along with his “niece” who has Pinocchio syndrome, where one will get uncontrollable hiccups whenever they lie, must work to become reporters for two different goals and find themselves facing a giant conspiracy and a question of fact versus impact in media. I really enjoyed this show, it was especially nice how each episode was named after a children’s story. I began this show because I really loved Lee Jong-Suk’s acting in High School 2015 and I was not disappointed. The episodes had a lot of painful scenes but also plenty of funny scenes to balance it out. It kept my interest really well throughout and I don’t remember an episode where I was bored. It does have darker themes so I would be wary of those if you are sensitive to such themes.

I Can Hear Your Voice: 4/5

Trigger Warning: Attempted murder, Actual murder, Victim blaming

I Can Hear Your Voice follows a woman who witnessed the murder of a father and the attempted murder the victim’s son, despite her fear she decides to testify as a witness. Her statement and evidence as a witness gets the criminal a guilty sentence, effectively making the murder wish to seek revenge. Years later, she is a lazy, cold public defense attorney who does not care for her clients and lacks manners, the young man whom she saved from the murderer and helped is actually a telepath and they meet again. The two of them, along with a former police officer turned lawyer, work together to help those who are truly innocent while also protecting themselves once the murderer has finished his sentence and begins to seek revenge. This show was great, it was funny, sad, annoying, and cute. I watched this one shortly after Pinocchio and it was kind of similar in feel but personally a little more interesting in my opinion. There were a lot of moral dilemmas that not only the characters but I as a viewer struggled with. I even got on my group chat with my friends and asked them about the issues and they struggled as well. I liked a lot of the characters, including the female prosecutor who is the main’s rival. Overall a really great show, definitely worth watching.

Flower Crew: Joseon Marriage Agency: 5/5

Warnings: Forced suicide, OCD/Nervous habit/ possible hint to self-harm warning.

Flower Crew is about a former, escaped slave who becomes a member of the most sought-after marriage agency in Joseon era Korea after her husband disappears before their wedding leaving her with many debts to the aforementioned agency. She soon finds herself in a very sensitive situation of pretending to be noble and going through the queen choosing tests to save her slave brother, all while trying to decide if she loves the cold, stand offish leader of the marriage agency or if her heart is still after her missing fiance. The best thing about this show is that each character gets their backstory and closure they needed. Usually with shows, my favorite characters (as they are usually the secondary ones) never get the closure or even backstory they deserve. In usual my review fashion, I will not lie to you, I found out about this show about a week before the first episode aired and decided to watch it as it aired mainly because Park Ji-hoon was one of the main actors in it, and he didn’t let me down, he was a proper cringey asshole but I loved him so much. I was worried as the show progressed that he wouldn’t have a proper backstory and only the few hints they threw at me that I would have to piece together, but I was more than pleased when his arc finally came. It was definitely worth the wait and while waiting I ended up loving all the other characters and actors/actresses involved in this show. Definitely would recommend however, dark themes are a regular.

Beating Again (aka Falling for Innocence): 4/5

Trigger Warning: Heart conditions

Beating Again or Falling for Innocence depending on where you watch it, is about a stern, cold hearted man with a genetic heart disease and a kind but serious secretary whose father betrayed the main character’s father when they were kids making them enemies. After a set of coincidences, the main character goes through a heart transplant and ends up with the heart of the secretary’s husband. Shortly after the transplant he begins to experience new mannerisms and personality traits that were once the husbands as well as finding himself falling for his secretary. Throughout the show they work to fix his past mistakes, trying to find out what exactly happened to the secretary’s husband, all while figuring out if he is the one in love or if it is his heart who loves her. I really enjoyed this drama; it was more on the serious side most times but had some great humorous moments as well. It also did an amazing job at pissing me off towards the end, most kdrama’s do but this ish was next level anger. I saw it on YouTube and decided to watch it while bored one day and I was not disappointed it was such a great show.

Who Are You School 2015: 2/5

Trigger Warning: Attempted suicide, HEAVY Bullying, Depression, Victim blaming,

Who Are You School 2015 is about two long lost twins, one living the life of a pretty well off school bully and the other still living in an orphanage and being ruthlessly bullied. After the bullied twin attempts suicide by jumping off a bridge, the adopted twin who just happened to be nearby due to a school trip saves her. The bullied twin wakes up with amnesia and gets mistaken as the adopted twin, but as she gains her memory she discovers that while she lived the twin who saved her died in her place leaving her with not only guilt for surviving but also with the blame of the death of a friend from her sisters past. This story deals with finding who she truly is and coming to terms with her past while also trying to find the truth behind her sister’s past. This was a good show, however it took me forever to finish as the content messed with my own mental state if I watching too many episodes at one time (and I am a perfectly healthy person mentally so please be careful when choosing to watch), a few episodes was okay for me but when I first attempted to binge it was not a very good idea. I did honestly watch it for Yook Sungjae as I loved his performance in Goblin and while I knew what I was getting into, I did not expect it to affect me as much, his acting is great as usual and his story line just broke my heart. This show also does have a love triangle and it’s honestly the worst written most dissatisfying love triangle I have probably ever personally seen, so, there’s that. Once again very good show, however, practice caution if you are at all sensitive to these topics.

A Korean Odyssey: 5/5

Trigger Warning: Jump Scares, Anorexia, Self-Harm (sort of)

A Korean Odyssey is loosely based off of the famous Chinese story A Journey to the West. It follows Jin Seon Mi, a young girl who can see ghosts and Son O-gong, a former monkey deity reduced to the status of a common monster after being punished and kicked out of the spirit realm. After Seon Mi frees O-gong from the marble mountains she is cursed with the fate of Samjang, a human who must protect the world from evil spirits. If the Samjang is devoured, the monster who eats her becomes incredibly and uncontrollably powerful. O-gong wants to eat her to gain this power, however a deal made to get Seon-Mi to release him from the mountains, stops him. In fear of O-gong, Seon Mi, with the help of the demon king, gives the monkey deity a Geumganggo, a magical bracelet which makes it impossible to go against the words of or hurt the one who has gifted it, with an unexpected side effect, he is now uncontrollably in love with her. Now Seon Mi has to deal with saving the world from horrible destruction all while dealing with a head over heels and hating every second of it, deity meanwhile questioning both her feelings for him and his true feelings for her. I absolutely love this show. It is my favorite kdrama to date, I am actually watching it a second time with my friend and we are about halfway through, then a few days ago started watching it over again with my older sister so I would say this was deserving of a 5 ranking. I really love all the characters honestly (minus the main bad guys but no spoilers, if you’ve seen it you know who they are) they are all equally assholes and precious children who must be protected. I have to admit though, my favorite story line was the devil king and my favorite character has got to be the shopkeeper’s grandson despite his lack of scenes. I have never seen or heard of One (Jung Jae-won) before this show but I love him so much now. I actually watched this for Hong-ki (notice a pattern, but hey, at least I am honest in my biases.), but I finished this show with more favorite characters than I thought was possible. It does have ghosts and demons which can be creepy to some, but as someone who has yet to be affected by scary movies such as The Ring, and the whole Conjuring series, it really just looks to me like those demon snapchat filters so it’s not actually scary. Overall an amazing show, definitely recommend, 110% worth watching.

Korean Movies

Secretly, Greatly: 5/5

Trigger Warnings: Graphic images of gore, Mass suicide mentioned, Suicide, Death and Loss

Secretly, Greatly is about three North Korean spies who were sent to South Korea and are given disguises as a fool, an aspiring singer, and a high school student. They soon become accustomed to South Korean lifestyle and find happiness in each other, wanting to live their lives happily instead of spying for North Korea. After an information leak of all the identities of the North Korean spies they must stick together to survive while being hunted down by both sides. It’s a movie about finding family and happiness even in the toughest situations, questioning where one’s loyalty lies, and the strength of the bonds between those who have nothing but each other.

Northern Limit Line: 2/5 and 5/5 explained below

Trigger Warning: Graphic images of gore, Death and Loss, Actual funeral footage,

Northern Limit line is a movie based of the true story of the North Korean attack of South Korean naval ships during the 2002 FIFA World Cup. It follows the crew members on one of the navy patrol boats, from when Corporal Park Dong-hyuk joins, to after the attack. This movie is really great, and I still love it. The ONLY reason I am giving this a 2/5 is because it messed me up for three whole days afterward. I was an emotional wreck; I had no previous knowledge of this attack and the extent of my knowledge of the movie going in was that it was based off a true incident of a North Korean attack. While I don’t regret watching it, I would probably never watch it again unless I really really wanted to and had like 3 days of free time to be emotionally damaged simply because of the heavy content of the movie thus the 2/5. It is rather graphic with quite a few shocking scenes and even real clips of the actual funerals of the fallen crew members and their families grieving. I cried, and honestly still feel like crying as I am writing this. I did lots of research on the incident afterward as well to further understand the content of the movie. Every actor did amazing in portraying the highs and lows of serving in the South Korean navy and the eventual close friendship between all of the crew only made it even more tragic. If you are able to handle the heavy material of this movie, I highly recommend it as it truly is an amazing and sad story that everyone should see at least once.

The Con Artists: 4/5

The Con Artists is about Ji-hyuk, a thief that specializes in safe-cracking who teams up with the young genius hacker Jong-bae, and the planner Goo-in for their biggest mission yet, to steal $150 million from Incheon Customs in 40 minutes. This show was pretty good, I liked all the twists and turns as the movie basically took you on a roller coaster ride throughout. At one point I was thoroughly pissed off, but I was played, and it only made the movie better. If you are looking for plot twists galore, you are in the right place with this one. I can’t really say much about it without giving any spoilers (that’s how elaborate it is) so I shall end this review here. Highly recommend!

Taiwanese Movies

Secrets in the Hot Springs: 5/5

Trigger Warning: Death and Loss, Jump Scares, ghosts

Three teens who have begrudgingly, at least to two of them, become friends go to one of the characters families hot spring to help run the place during school break, strange and hilarious things begin happening around them. They now must figure out the secret behind the mysterious hot spring. Personally, I feel this movie is so underrated, so much so I can not even find a gif for it so, have a picture. I decided randomly to watch this movie after boredom scrolling through Netflix one day and I am so glad I did. I thoroughly enjoyed it and did end up watching it again the day after. It’s really cute, if not a little awkward at points, and definitely hilarious. I didn’t find it exactly scary because the humor really distracted me. Some of the humor might not land exactly right with some people, like the constant mention and jokes of two of the boys being in a relationship together when neither were gay. I personally didn’t mind these and see them simply as a culture difference, but some may be a little more sensitive to these materials. Overall, I recommend this movie to anyone who wants a funny, slightly suspenseful, feel good movie to watch.

Part 1

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Part 5

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au-tumn-al · 5 years ago

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So after 110 hours, I finally beat Persona 5 Royal. Before going into complete FFVII mode, I wanna lay out all my thoughts.

Blah, blah, blah, spoilers for everything under the cut.

To start off, I loved Royal. The gameplay was so much fun and it felt like such a natural evolution from vanilla P5. Probably my favorite change was what wad done with Baton Pass. Trying to pass to your entire party was very fun and very satisfying, especially if Joker got the ×4 or even ×3 and got to abuse a possibly charged Hassou Tobi lategame. It was pretty broken, but I don't mind things being broken once you go to the effort of figuring things out. Speaking of broken things—

Showtime attacks are super cool. I didn't know what to think of them at first because of how stupidly strong they are, but after I got to some harder boss fights where doing about 1k damage per attack would only get rid of about a small fraction of the shadow's health, I wasn't complaining.

(Also, I never actually got to see Joker and Violet's showtime. Oops.)

The fact that the damage scaled like that was really good, especially once you get into the third semester where party members have severe and colossal damage moves and even healer Morgana can do 150 damage per basic attack without buffs on an enemy without debuffs. The enemies' damage output remained kind of sad though, but uh....you can't win 'em all ;;

To finish showtime talk, Joker and Crow's showtime was heccin' great. I never skipped it. It was Batman in my animu JRPG so it was 10/10. It also did way more damage than most of my party members' showtime attacks so ey. It finished off that Yoshitsune request boss too with around 2.4k damage so I'm obligated to like it. On that note, how is showtime damage calculated? Do certain showtimes do more damage, or does it just depend on the offensive stats of the party members using it?

Technical damage was beefed up too, and I probably should have tried to take advantage of it more than I did but I never figured out how to make technical damage reliably knock an enemy down. I know that there was a way to do it but I never figured it out. Yes, yes, I know it was because I skipped tutorials but everything else was so busted, I never felt the need to go back and read said tutorials. I did read that book about technical damage though in-game, but it just added more technical combinations.

Onto other changes though, it could have been because I was playing on hard, but status ailments became about 10 times more useful. ...Actually, no, it was definitely because I was playing on hard, but even so, I felt like more bosses were weak to them when compared to P5. They went back to being mostly immune to them, especially in the new semester, but during and before October or so, status ailments became invaluable. It could have been because I sucked that much, but my party members, and even sometimes Joker, would get left with double or even single digit HP by near everything, even if I debuffed and buffed. Queen got regulated to a forget bot, but man it carried me through some boss fights. ... i.e., Kaneshiro's fight. Well, that and Mona's confuse.

I liked the Will Seeds too. They were a fun way to kind of change up the palaces and for me to hunt down. Even though yeah, they are pretty broken (especially with the accessory you get from the 2nd palace being able to get rid of elemental weaknesses for whoever has it equipped, not to mention the ability to give charge or concentrate to another party member), I still can't say I used them over my SP adhesives most of the time. I used the one that got rid of elemental weaknesses on Crow, but that was just because I could only use him and Joker at the time and did not want enemies to get another move on him to get another chance to hit either of them.

The changes to Mementos were amazing. Like the rest of them, they were pretty busted, but still. Amazing. I feel like I'm in the minority with this, but I didn't mind Mementos. In fact, I kind of liked going through the grind of going through it. Although...tbf, I kind of liked Tartarus too. Its 264 floors were a bit much, but I liked being able to turn off my brain, put on a podcast or YouTube video in the background for me to listen to then go through Tartarus in one or two in-game nights.

Back to Mementos, collecting stamps and flowers for Jose was fun, and being able to change the cognition for Mementos was busted. Since you can get EXP from auto-killing, you get over-leveled very fast. It doesn't help that you have to backtrack floors for stamps since they randomly generate, so you get even more money, experience, and items. On the bright side though, no, I didn't need to wander around singing "I've Been Working on the Railroad" with Mona and Skull for an hour and a half trying to find the materials for the Eternal Lockpick (which was renamed in Royal to Permapick ... I guess???)

Because of the changes you can make to boost item, money, and EXP gains, Mementos became the prime grinding area. Even more than the card shuffle thing in P3. Since you got so much EXP from ramming shadows even without leveling up EXP gain. I put all my stamps into getting more items and money until I couldn't anymore and I had near max every single crafting item, and never had to worry about the cost of anything ever. Combined with the money gains from killing shadows, you can also pick up sellable treasure from the item cubes in Mementos and it can end up selling for well over a million yen. So getting to max didn't even require Joker abusing the confuse status ailment or abusing the shadows with "You can do better than that."

I didn't mind the Mementos music, even when I was playing the game without something else playing for me to listen to, but now that Mementos does have new music, yeah, I realize now how much better it is. I wouldn't listen to it alone like I would Rivers in the Desert or anything, but it was a nice change. I listened to one of the songs before the game had its western release and didn't like it all that much, but actually playing the game while hearing it made me actually like it.

I got to level 99 though before the game was over. It made it so Joker and Crow were able to tag-team the Reaper then kill it in 3 turns. I had thought that trophy would have been a lot harder to get lol. It was pretty weird seeing the Reaper in such clear lighting though due to the new Mementos area though, I have to say.

Onto the bosses though...

I loved the changes to the bosses (except the 5th one but that's just because I hate everything about the 5th palace, even if Royal did make it about a million times more bearable).

Kameshida having cognitive Shiho and Mishima as helpers for the boss fight was such a good change, and made him about that much more hateable.

Madarame's boss fight in vanilla P5 was the hardest boss in the game for me, even on normal mode, but it was made so much easier in P5R. Madarame didn't bring back his painting form, but instead brought back elemental versions of himself specifically so the player can abuse Baton Pass. Baton Pass combos are extremely satisfying to pull off, so I enjoyed it immensely. Honestly, having that as the second boss in the game was so much of a better decision than what was in P5. That, or I'm still salty about all the deaths I had from fighting him the first time.

Kaneshiro was definitely harder, and I was a little stuck when he called his cronies out to guard him. Mona and Queen using confuse and forget while Skull and Joker attacked Kaneshiro made it a lot more bearable though. I also kept using spotlights on Joker so the enemies would attack him. He had Shiki Ouji equipped and they only ever did physical moves when my status effects missed, so I was never at risk for losing the fight. ... And then of course Skull and Queen finished it off with a showtime attack after Mona got yeeted.

Sphinx mom was a lot easier. I didn't know that the right dialogue choices made it so Oracle would guard you until someone told me, so I was sitting there surprised at how much easier it was lol. I did get stuck at the end though because it didn't look like I was damaging it. I thought Oracle needed to bring back the crossbow so I just kept buffing and healing. It took about 10 minutes for me to get bored and start attacking it again and it turned out I could attack it, but it was just that sphinx mom's HP wasn't visually moving before eventually going down. Joker still used Shiki Ouji which had learned an immunity to wind so. Easy victory (ignoring the part where I'm a dumbass).

I switched to easy mode for Okumura. I just did not care at all. I hate his palace, I hate the music, and the enemies could range from being easier to kill than the enemies in the first palace to being a pain in the ass, so I wanted to have it be over. If I didn't have an unreasonable hatred for the 5th palace though, I probably would have liked the change. It was challenging without being complete BS, at least much more challenging than how it was originally in P5. Having the enemies run off though did get pretty annoying when I was trying to beat it legit but I was just so done at that point, it was more on me than the game lol.

Part of the reason why I was so eager to get through Okumura's palace though was to get to Sae's palace. Because I love Sae's palace, and just in general, the entire month of November. It has amazing story bits, still the height of P5's story if you ask me, a great palace, and Whims of Fate is one of my favorite tracks from P5's OST. Sae's boss was even changed to when she spins the wheel, whatever element it goes to, she uses that element and her resistances would change. I loved that, and it was extremely fun to take what you more or less should have learned about enemies' attacks and their correlating weaknesses and use them for a boss fight. So much better than the original where you don't need strategy at all other than "hit her hard lol."

Shido's boss fight was changed to be super climactic. They made it easier for the sake of Joker being able to confront the dude that got him a criminal record and directly ruining his life, and I can't complain. It felt amazing to 1v1 him. The game fixed the possibility of being screwed by it by having him attack in a certain order like the twins do in their special fight, so that was nice at least.

Yaldabaoth's boss fight was the same. Still easy enough, as long as you're careful. Or...not careful but extremely lucky. I wasn't able to finish it off while it was charging up its almighty attack, but my entire party ended up dodging it so it didn't even matter lmao. Now that I think about it, it very easily could have been because of that one Will Seed accessory that makes you dodge attacks but... I don't care. I was still super lucky I didn't get wiped and be forced to start the fight over starting from the Holy Grail.

The new boss... Uhm... It was taking way too long so I ended up cheesing it with Haru's third persona's new move that basically makes you invincible for a turn halfway through the fight. ^^; Noir was a Vault Guardian bot, Queen just healed and took advantage of one of the tentscles' nuclear weaknesses to Baton Pass to Crow when she could, and then Joker and Crow did all the work. Crow's third tier persona's almighty move kicked ass and you know what else kicked ass? Hassou Tobi abuse. The other 2 phases weren't even really fights, so at least that kept it from dragging too much, despite all the phases it had.

When Joker and the boss had that punch-out fight though, I lost my shit. I was laughing so hard I started to cry and my back was hurting. I don't even remember why I thought it was so funny, but I was laughing my ass off. I couldn't even press X to get Joker to punch because I was laughing so hard. Right before it happened, I joked to my sister that a tutorial would pop up and suddenly the gameplay will have the controls from that P4 fighting game and you have to learn that in order to have one last showdown. And then I got the prompt to punch. Then Joker punched. And I started laughing.

11/10 would punch Adam Kadmon man again

On the topic of the new stuff though...

Kasumi/Sumire/Violet was pretty fun to use but badly, badly overshadowed by both Joker and Crow, at least during boss fights. She offered to join the party before Shido's palace and she really should have joined then. Maybe she would just be absent for the Mementos dungeon & Yaldabaoth/Holy Grail boss fights, but she should have been there for Shido's palace. I liked her wanted gimmick of being the crit'er, but when you get her, Mona's third tier persona learns an AOE Lucky Punch, Joker already has high crit, and I would always baton pass to Crow because of his severe almighty AOE ×3. Plus, the way I built my Joker with practically exclusively two personas, Yoshitsune and Kuguya Picaro, he was already the phys and light attacker except with the addition of being able to have an auto-concentrate at the start of every fight (I have no idea why—it's something with Yoshitsune but idk what it is), the charge skill, Yoshitsune's nature of tripling the effect of charge, and the additional electric damage. She should have been a party member before the new semester. Obviously this isn't the case for everyone, but for me personally, I didn't often find use for her, especially since she can't do colossal or even severe magic damage. She is a very good physical party member, but again, Joker already covers that better than any other party member can, including Skull.

Crow was a great party member though. I used him in every request and boss fight after I got him. I was a little salty he couldn't switch back and forth from Loki and Robin Hood but I suppose if he did, he'd make Violet even more obsolete lol. I liked Loki while playing P3, so I'm glad I was able to use that persona again. He had Debilitate which was amazing. Queen learns Checkmate when getting to the third tier persona, which is an AOE version of it, but honestly, whenever I was fighting a boss that I thought needed it at that point in the game, I didn't need it to be multi-hitting. Plus, it costed about 90 SP and no way I was using that over her healing, defense buffs, and nuclear damage.

But anyway, back to Crow, I loved using him. He basically turned into my almighty damage dealer, even with his somewhat weaker magic, at least compared to his strength stat, but considering the final boss fight, it was extremely helpful. It did take up a lot of SP, but I had 5 Somas, a ton of SP restoratives, and had basically asked Kawakami to make me either curry or coffee every single night I was able to, so I pretty much had an infinite supply of it.

It helped that P5R made Akechi a much more likable character too. I liked him all right in P5, but didn't find him all that sympathetic, and thought that the characters treating him so sympathetically was extremely jarring considering all the horrible shit he did (which includes making orphans of both Haru and Futaba). That still kind of holds true, but since you can actually build a social link with him outside of the story, you can see more of his character and it improved him in leaps and bounds. Not to mention that his 8th confidant rank was....something else ^^; having a section of the new story too with just Joker and Akechi, (and kind of Sumire too, but mostly just those two) was awesome. I loved seeing them team up to punch Adam Kadmon man in the face. Plus, having more time with him in the Phantom Thieves without pretense had him going "I am surrounded by idiots" basically the whole time he was there. Like—I even felt disappointed that Akechi was actually dead and he didn't survive. That's a huge improvement over from me wishing one of the dialogue options was "fuck you lmao" during his death scene at the end of Shido's palace when he asked the Phantom Thieves to promise him to change Shido's heart.

For Sumire though, she had a good character arc. Like her gameplay though, she was badly overshadowed by both Akechi and Maruki. Even still, I liked her character arc and everything, and her social link. Even if I ended up liking Kasumi more in the end anyway rip

That's kind of all I have to say about her, oof. She was good, but other elements took attention away from her pretty badly.

Maruki though... Maruki was amazing. He was a fantastic antagonist because I got to punch him in the face, his palace was amazing, I loved the music, the different sections were cool, and I even liked the color maze bridge puzzle thing. I definitely wouldn't like it so much if I ever replayed it, especially if I try to get that final Will Seed, which wasn't hard, but did take kind of a while, but I don't think I will be so it's not a problem.

He had such good motivations, and the fact that he didn't ever actually hurt anyone other than when he punched Joker in the face made him really sympathetic and redeemable to me. At the end of the day, all he actually wanted to do was make people happy and not have to suffer, and was willing to destroy himself in order to achieve it. But just like with every belief, it went too far and he took away people's free will and ability to pick for themselves. The kind of moral question about the entire thing was very interesting, and I kind of wish it was more further addressed. There should have been Sojiro or some other character that was perfectly happy in Maruki's alternate reality so they could challenge the Phantom Thieves in a way Maruki wasn't able to. Still, what was done was really good and I liked it a lot.

...

Even all that said, I have no idea why the hell Joker could not use Satanael. There was such a perfect opportunity to use it once Maruki evolved his persona to Adam Kadmon, a giant persona. Hell, it was still small when compared to Satanael. It's after beating Yaldabaoth so Joker should have access to it. It would have been epic to be able to use a giant Satanael in a normal-ish boss fight. I'm sure there are some explanations as to why, but the game never mentions it or even acknowledges Satanael so it doesn't count and I'm still bitter. The writers forgot that Joker has a persona literally as big as a cognitive god and that kind of broke some immersion for me. Immersion completely went out the window once Joker and Maruki started punching each other but STILL. Satanael's not that great a persona, but having it show up in the story again would have been so awesome to use a persona about as big as Shibuya more than once.

Hardly comparable to my beef about Satanael, but I wish that while the party members were acting as Phantom Thieves, or at least while they're in the metaverse, the names on their text boxes would change to their Phantom Thief names. There's no reason why they didn't, especially since the characters exclusively use their Phantom Thief names to call each other anyway. It's not a huge deal or anything, but I would have liked it.

I loved Royal, and totally think it's better than P5 vanilla. Its new semester kind of takes away from the superb ending of the vanilla game, but the new stuff still makes up for it. Don't get me wrong, you can still get the original ending from the vanilla game in Royal, at least I'm pretty sure you can, but it involves you missing out on all the new content, including Violet as a party member and getting Crow back, plus Joker's showtimes so it's not worth it imo

I wasn't actually looking forward to the game when it was announced, or even planning on getting it, but I had the Phantom Thieves' edition pre-ordered for me as a Christmas present so I wasn't going to...not play it lol. I'm extremely glad I got it though, even if I otherwise wouldn't have, and now that I have finished it, I'm very happy with the game. The gameplay's improved by leaps and bounds, and the new content was all amazing.

... And I got to punch Maruki in the face.

I did end up getting the platinum trophy for Royal too, so despite the Phantom Thieves den thing, I don't see myself going back to it, at least any time soon. It was an amazing experience, but I can set my sights back to FFVII now lol.

...Although, I did hear you can fight the twins and Lavenza so uhhh maybe i won't be shelfing it so soon—

#persona 5 royal #persona #p5r spoilers #personal #long post

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thequietmanno1 · 5 years ago

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Thelreads, MHA 216, Replies Part 1

1) “Oh, starting with Shinso analyzing where it all went wrong, and how he could’ve won?”- Shinso’s ruminating on the exact reason for his imminent and inevitable defeat-namely his scarf being, in essence, a reverse scorpion move if somebody grabs it first- in the brief seconds before Izuku slams his head into the ground and strategizing how best to correct this oversight in the future, which will probably involve more knives, all the knives, in fact. Actually, considering how powerful Izuku will be in the future, Shinso will have to figure out a way to carry an entire loony toons acme crate of miscellaneous weaponry to stand a chance against a multi-quirk wielding Izuku, which makes me wonder why somebody hasn’t figured out a way to utilise hammer-space containers for pro heroes to carry the essentials around.

Actually, considering that both times now Shinso has inadvertently kick-started an evolution in OFA when he fought Izuku he’ll probably have to run the whole gamut of 7 quirks being unleashed in sequence before he can start to catch up when Izuku’s got no more secret quirks to pull out on him mid-fight.

2) “Midoriya, that’s not how you pin someone to the wall in a romantic manner.”- He’s practicing with Shinso so he doesn’t get to rough when he tries it with uraraka…. Oh who am I kidding, it’ll be her pinning him, even with the super strength

3) “Not only his enemies, but his allies as well went way beyond to win the match. everyone put their heart in soul into the fight, surprisingly even Mineta did that, so of course Shinso would feel a bit inferior to them.”- Can’t be helped, especially when you consider the miles of experience gap between not just 1A and 1B against Shinso, but also the two classes compared to other first-year classes from other schools, or perhaps previous UA alumni during their first years.

They’ve simply got too much life-or-death hero experience from getting wrapped up in Midoria and All Might’s main plot shenanigans, even 1B got sucked in a little during the forest lodge, as well as the fact that their quirks may be even stronger than previous generations thanks to the strengthening and hybrid aspects of inherited quirks. If Anything, Shinso must be considering himself lucky to be matched against such strong opponents and allies, depending on his class allocation, and even more so when they all express admiration for his own abilities and worthiness as a hero candidate.

4) “Anyway, the point is, right now, Shinso is not seeing himself as the same level as them. The fight wasn’t lost because of him, but that doesn’t make him feel any better.”- Heck, perhaps especially because Kaminari was able to use his hands-on experience to come up with workable and smart strategies that took advantage of his opponent’s blind spots and weaknesses, whereas Shinso barely survived that match without support from Tsuyu, Shinso’s feeling the gap between one of the ‘dumber’ students, that he should be theoretically able to outsmart or direct in a team battle, yet he was the one that got sucked into kaminari’s plans and wasn’t able to contribute as ‘flashily’ as he wanted to. He more than held his own, but he feels frustration at the gap that remains despite all his efforts. Still, if he sits still, that gap will only increase, so he feels even more motivated to continue his self-improvement than before

5) “He isn’t sad to have lost, if it was to those people.”- if you lose, make sure it’s to somebody who’s genuinely better than your best efforts, and not to a lucky break or lack of effort on your part. Shinso gave it 110% in that fight, and he wasn’t yet good enough to handle Deku on his own, but he still went down having fought to the end, and he can’t feel any sorrow in a fair loss like that

6) “Not only on the fifth match, but okay. Akira up there was ironically the only one that was actually jailed now that I think about it, everyone else was incapacitated on field.”- actually, they’re all getting jailed alongside Monoma, as evidenced by the ‘klang’ sound effect next to their heroes names… apart from Kodai, who is effectively pinned in place by Mineta’s balls until their stickiness wears off- I wonder if Mineta has some way of deactivating the stickiness, or setting a timer on it so that his targets aren’t effectively welded to the surroundings like Awase’s quirk, and the police don’t have to wait standing around for hours to actually transport the villains to jail. Kodai was certainly free from his balls fairly quickly after the match concluded.

7) “A perfect score, fitting for the next symbol of peace’- I dunno, he seemed a little too murder happy for somebody who’s supposed to be all about saving others… oh you meant the other future symbol aspirant who slam-dunked his opponents.

8) “Oh wait you guys still had to drag their asses all the way to the house of mouse? Goddammit that’s quite mean-spirited, they were all down, without any way to fight back.

And Mina please, calm down, they are already dead.”- Them’s the rules, match isn’t over until all opponents are either incapacitated or ensnared in mickey’s steel embrace- and it’s lucky they were against a 5-man team, because they couldn’t unstick Kodai until her restraints had lost their potency, which might have given her a chance to fight back, somehow, so it’s perfect for them that they had enough surplus to fulfil the requirements. And Mina’s posing like that cause it’s an after-match snapshot of the group and she’s mid crane-kicking Mineta out of frame for his earlier behaviour

9) “And you bastards back there, stop breaking the fourth wall. That can be dangerous, you know? Ryan Reynolds could show up, then your universe would be doomed.”- Aoyama’s been turning the 4th wall in swiss cheese since his first appearance, Reynold’s has more than enough entry points to barge in guns blazing. Don’t let him meet Bakugou or we’ll be cleaning him off the floors and walls for weeks- mercenary blood ‘never’ washes out.

10) “Well, not everyone was that into winning, but losing still is a sour pill to take. And I’m quite amazed that you weren’t that into it, devilshroom, considering the damage you did to my mental state for watching those scenes. I would say you looked quite competitive there.”- Alternative angle, if that’s what she does when she’s not fired up, what’s it going to look like when she’s serious about winning next time? Pray she’s against Bakugou or Todoroki, or the unlucky sap will come out looking like a cordyceps zombie from the Last of Us

11) “Any second now Aizawa will just hit him with a chair and tell him to stop saying bullshit like that”- Aizawa’s a pragmatic sort. Unlike Aerith, there’s no folding chair he can pull out of hammer-space to smack a bitch with, but he doesn’t need to with some handy-dandy shut-up rope wrapped around his neck.

12) “You know, I don’t why but I was under the impression that Shinso knew that this was a test, that he came all this way to take part in a test. I don’t remember if they said something about he doesn’t knowing it, but it makes some sense, they want to see him fighting at his normal, not when he knows he’s being evaluated.”- Shinso’s been trained by Aizawa, so if he wasn’t smart enough to figure out the hidden purpose in every test, it’d bring major shame to his fath… teacher. Downside is, since he’s been under Aizawa’s tutelage, he’s begun to suspect everything of being a secret test, even when there isn’t actually any tests around

13) “so now we’ll be focusing on the kid that almost got everyone killed. Again. Seriously, someone is keeping score on this?”- I’m at 4 times for the whole class and about 2-3 moments each for every classmate he’s had life-or-death struggles alongside in the in-between moments- odds say the numbers will only increase, bets are on the numbers breaking single-digits before the years out.

14) “Of course those two dorks would be interested by it, of course… Oh lord…”- They will probably be looking to teach Midoira how to clothe himself in black whip so Kuroiro can merge him and dark shadow together into the bird-headed Cerberus of Darkness, keeper to the shadow dorms….Dorks @thelreads

#mha216 #thelreads #my hero academia #chapter replies #bnha

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tiniest-hands-in-all-the-land · 6 years ago

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To continue quenching my thirst for erasermic headcanons, would you mind following up those pining Aizawa HCs with PINING HIZASHI HCs please??? I HAVE A DYING NEED ;_____;

THAT’S FAIR

Erasermic Pining Headcanons: MIC EDITION

Hizashi was definitely attracted to Aizawa from the moment he spoke to him--but he doesn’t realize that attraction is love until much later

he’s kinda just like “HEY i feel really bubbly and happy whenever I’m around Aizawa! He must have some joy-emitting aura as a secondary quirk or something!!” for like two or three years straight. His friends just listen and nod along in pity

Unlike Aizawa, who feels the need to keep literally every one of his feelings under strict lock down with laser grids and six different security levels, Hizashi. Must. SPEAK. He cannot con t a in these feelings, they must be set FREE

Every one of his and Aizawa’s group of friends (barring Aizawa, himself ofc) is then subjected to Hizashi’s very long and very thorough dissertations concerning his emotions about Aizawa and how much Hizashi loves everything about him

it gets to the point where every single one of his friends are about two seconds away from just throwing a tied-up Hizashi to Aizawa’s doorstep with a sticky note that reads “HEY! I’M IN LOVE WITH YOU BUT I WON’T TELL YOU MYSELF BECAUSE I’M A BIG SCAREDY CAT!!” smacked onto the middle of his forehead cause they’re tired of hearing him talk and not doing anything about his feelings

Whenever Hizashi alludes to being in love with Aizawa to people who are not part of his friend group, they all kind of give him an eyebrow raise, like “...Really? The ugly rat man digging leftovers out of the garbage?”

And Hizashi. is insulted. He cannot see how anyone could not think Aizawa is the most beautiful and wonderful creature in the world?? Have they not seen Aizawa’s physique, or the way his tangled mop of hair perfectly frames his face, or the spooky way his eyes glow blood red when he activates his quirk, or the cute little pout he makes whenever he’s angry?? What’s not to love????

And don’t even get Hizashi started on Eraserhead as a hero. He will go off on anyone who implies that Aizawa is a shabby, difficult-to-work-with hero.

“Well I’d like to see you swinging around on rooftops in the dead of night busting entire crime rings with only your bare fists and a fancy scarf while having to deal with your shit! Eraser would kick your ass in a fight--and wouldn’t even brag about it afterwards!!”

Hizashi is Aizawa’s ultimate hype man. So much so, that he flat-out refuses to talk to people who don’t respect Aizawa

Hizashi is very touchy with Aizawa! Granted, he’s touchy with everyone, but with Aizawa it feels very special, because at first, Aizawa hated it every time Hizashi laid a finger on him. Hizashi planned on stopping after so much complaining, but suddenly, the complaints just kinda stop?? Aizawa literally never sighs in contempt or slams Hizashi into the ground when Hizashi wraps his arm around his shoulders or pulls him into a hug like he used to, he just. Accepts it

Hizashi is. very confused. and concerned

“Is this okay?? Am I allowed to touch???” “Do whatever you want.”

If we’re being honest that was probably the best moment of Hizashi’s life

Originally, Hizashi used to stress about always doing his hair and wearing his sunglasses whenever he went out into the public, because he’s gotta keep up his image, yanno?? But one day, Aizawa sees him with his hair down and his regular blocky glasses cause he didn’t have time to make himself up before Aizawa got there, and Hizashi’s kinda freaking out about it. But Aizawa says he kinda likes him looking so relaxed and natural, and it just. Causes Hizashi to want to keep his hair down and wear regular old glasses every single day because Aizawa said he likes them omgg

Hizashi showers Aizawa in affection. Whether it be buying five packs of Aizawa’s favorite juice pouches for him, taking a million photos of any cats he meets on the street for Aizawa to browse through later, or wrapping him up in a big warm hug, Hizashi will do so happily

Speaking of cats, Hizashi is In. Love. with the dopey grin Aizawa dons whenever he’s looking at cute pictures of cats. Which. In reality, Aizawa’s “dopey grin” is more of a slight uptilt of the corners of his mouth so that he’s not quite smiling but not quite frowning, either. But GOD does Hizashi love it

Aizawa’s Scary Smile™ and his laugh are Hizashi’s reasons for living

The first time Hizashi made Aizawa laugh, Hizashi thought he had ascended to a higher realm. He definitely shed a few tears

later on in life, when Hizashi gets more comfortable with his crush and he’s not just a bag of nerves and hormones, he actually starts offhandedly flirting with Aizawa. Small comments that can be taken as light-hearted jokes like “Well aren’t you looking ruggedly handsome today?” or “You’re so cute when you bury your face into your scarf!”

Aizawa doesn’t really respond to the comments with anything other than a scoff and a roll of his eyes, so Hizashi’s kind of convinced that 1. Aizawa doesn’t mind them and 2. Aizawa doesn’t think much of them

Hizashi’s a little sad that Aizawa isn’t really picking up what he’s putting down, but most of him is glad that he’s not making things awkward between them

If ever somebody starts trying to make a move on Hizashi, he probably won’t even notice. Because honestly he’s way too infatuated with Aizawa to care.

If Hizashi has a chance to bring a friend along as his +1 to an event, he will 110% always choose Aizawa. Even if Aizawa has no interest in going, and would probably just spend the entire time by the food table instead of socializing, Hizashi will happily stay right by his side and chow down right there with him

But most of the time, Aizawa wants to stay away from social events. And Hizashi’s okay with that! If that’s the case (and if the event isn’t too important), Hizashi will subtly make an excuse as to why he can’t show up for it, and plan a movie night for them instead

Hizashi loves messing around with Aizawa’s hair. He’ll often take to untangling it and braiding it to keep his hands occupied whenever he has a long-winded thought to share to Aizawa. It’s very cathartic, and Hizashi gets to see Aizawa in a cute braid afterward! Win-win!

He also loves it whenever Aizawa falls asleep on his shoulder. Aizawa just looks so got dang peaceful and soft when he’s sleeping! And Aizawa’s falling-asleep-on-someone is a sign of trust, and Hizashi is filled with many happy feelings that Aizawa trusts him enough to do it with him! Also, it allows Hizashi to carry Aizawa around in his arms and wrap him up like a snuggly burrito in hundreds of blankets, so that’s a plus, too

Their friends are convinced that, because Hizashi and Aizawa live together and spend so much time with each other and also rescue cats together, that they have officially gotten together as a couple. Hizashi plays along--it’s his way of dealing with Feelings™ and also avoiding telling them that he’s still too much of a coward to confess but uhhhh don’t tell anyone

Hizashi has about five hundred different playlists made about Aizawa, and always puts on one for his radio queue whenever he’s feeling especially lovestruck that night. They’re all named fancy terms describing Aizawa, like “Hero in the Shadows” or “Beauty in Black” or “Pink Sweatpants Day.” Hizashi still makes new Aizawa-themed playlists to this day, and the general population is none the wiser about his motives

Hizashi always has Aizawa test-listen to his playlists and help him pick out the best songs to play on the radio. He knows a song must be especially good if Aizawa ends up enjoying it

In addition to his teaching Aizawa English, Hizashi also takes the time to teach him JSL. Hizashi enjoys the process of teaching JSL a little more, just because it feels so much more personal in helping Aizawa form the hand motions and coming up with personalized signs for them to use whenever they work together on missions

Hizashi either drunkenly confesses his feelings one day or he lets something slip out accidentally while ranting, there is no subtlety or planning in his methods

I think that’s about all I got for now!! Enjoy!

#bnha #boku no hero academia #my hero academia #mha #erasermic #maizawa #yamada hizashi #present mic #aizawa shouta #eraserhead #tinyheadcanons #anonymous #ask #i'll shut up now #long post #Anonymous

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wilhelmjfink · 6 years ago

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Weather The Storm - Pt. 1

A/N: THIS SHIT TURNED OUT TO BE REALLLLLLY LONG!! So it’s 2 parts now :-) Sorry guys but I hope this warrants everyone that reads it to follow me in anticipation for the next part! Also this part is mildly shmutty (rated m for mature if you will because I REALLY try to be classy with this shit you guys) and took me forever to write becauseeee I literally just can’t write erotica unless I’m good and drunk??? But then it gets gooooood so I hope you guys enjoy this because it stressed me out for like a week :,) You guys know I’m 110% for angry and sad Daryl because I love suffering but I tried to go for a little bit of a relaxed, positive vibe on this one... part 2 is going to be hot mother fuckers so stay tuned!!!!

@samlott2202 requested a young reader so I hope that this satisfies! hehe xoxo

“It’s getting real dark over there,” you told Daryl from the second floor balcony of the suburban home you both occupied. Gated communities were always a task considering you never knew whether or not they would be full of walkers from the people who fled there before it got bad in hopes of some security. This one, unfortunately, had been quite populated — however the haul you would return with that night would be worth every walker you’d killed to get there.

Daryl appeared behind you, his boots shuffling tiredly against the concrete until he reached your side and leaned his arms on the iron rail and allowed himself to stretch out and relax as he exhaled smoke from the cigarette he’d lit. “Reckon it’s gonna storm bad tonight.”

You glanced at him beside you, fighting a smirk and looking back away toward the distance where the dark, angry clouds rolled in over the horizon and the crashing water further out beneath it. “Wow. Daryl Dixon, on the spot,” you giggled to yourself. “And now over to Tom for sports.”

“Shuddup,” he nudged you playfully with his shoulder, smiling just the slightest bit but enough to have your stomach flip at the sight.

Stop, stop, stop. It was becoming increasingly difficult for you to stifle the feelings that had developed ever since Daryl had swooped in and saved you from the trio of strangers that cornered you on a run several weeks ago. Two men and a woman that had quite literally appeared out of thin air, knife to to your throat, knees forced down in the dirt as they began to rifle through your bag in search of any goods you’d worked for that day.

But an arrow through the skull of the man that had his weapon held to the flesh of your neck had frozen the other two in shock and while they then spun around furiously in search of the perpetrator, you’d managed to grab the shotgun from behind you and slice the other woman as she receded back toward you threateningly, luring you into a struggle with her. And, a split second later, Daryl and then Rick had appeared, the second hauling the woman off of you while the other pounded on the man like a tiger and landed punch after punch until he was positive he wouldn’t come back as even a walker; and you’d never seen him so angry.

Rick had managed to simmer him down but he still went to you, eyes wild as he interrogated you about what they’d done, if they’d hurt you, if they’d done worse in the moments he’d been gone. But you could only stare stupidly at him, shaking your head before the dwindling adrenaline finally allowed you to step forward and wrap your arms around him at the realization that this man has just saved you from all of those potentially deadly and horrific things. And the anger and worry that laced his words had your heart fluttering because he cared.

But after that, nothing had changed — at least on his end. You still had the same, comfortable interactions, the same friendly demeanor about them. And that was all it was — friendly. And you knew you needed to smother your schoolgirl crush before you did something outlandish that you’d regret, knowing it would scare him off and you’d lose him as merely a friend and shoot down any potential of there ever maybe being something in the possible future.

It was a struggle with your easy-going and flirtatious nature but you couldn’t help but swoon at the way he blushed at your comments, always averting his gaze and hiding his small smile, the tips of ears turning light pink.

But you guessed that, like most things life held for you nowadays, it too would pass.

There was a low rumble of thunder that echoed from far off, growing louder as it neared you and confirmed your suspicions of a bad oncoming storm. If you had to guess you would say it was late April, early May; showers were common lately and thunderstorms were no different, though this one held a little bit of a heavier weight it seemed.

“See how the leaves ‘er flipped upside down?” Daryl asked, motioning toward a towering oak tree in the back yard of the luxurious home you sought shelter in when a light rain had started to sprinkle down only to stop shortly thereafter. You followed his gesture and noticed the greening leaves were indeed turned over, the lighter side upright as they rustled in the wind. “Almost always means a storm’s comin’.”

You nodded thoughtfully. “And you see how dark it is there — where that bolt of lightning just flashed?” Daryl then nodded in response, awaiting your answer curiously. “That usually means that it’s lightning somewhere.”

Another playfully harsh shove had you stumbling over yourself as you laughed at your own sarcasm, not missing the way he exhaled a genuine but breathy laugh that had butterflies coming to life in your stomach. “Man, you’re just full’a shit today, aren’t ya? Ya high or somethin’?”

High on you. Even you rolled your eyes at your subconscious. “No, just in a good mood, I guess.”

“Why’s that?”

You shrugged, holding your hand out flat to test if it was in fact a rain drop that had fallen on your head. “I dunno. I don’t question it anymore. Just take advantage of it when it happens.”

Daryl flicked the cigarette butt over the ledge. “Smart thing t’do, I spose.”

Another rumble of thunder caught his attention and you watched him curiously as he observed the distance, his eyes narrowing in thought.

“Think we should get back?” You asked, but he shook his head almost imperceptibly.

“Nah, it’s rollin’ in quick. Either means it’ll hit here hard n’ pass by... or it could be a real bad one, too.”

“What do you mean ‘real bad’?”

You asked him, pushing the sliding glass door open the remainder of its frame to allow him in beside before you pulled it back shut. “Should we wait until it passes?”

“Look down there,” Daryl pointed to a patch of sky to the east of the oncoming storm where the giant wall of clouds seemed to break enough to reveal some sky. It seemed to be dark itself, though, the hue turning greenish yellow as the patch stretched in its direction. “S’not a good sign.”

You tucked yourself back inside the master bedroom around the corner, backing away from the glass doors and windows. “Is it gonna tornado? Because I don’t do tornados.”

Daryl threw a glance at you over his shoulder, quirking up an eyebrow at your confession. “You afraid of storms?”

“No, not storms,” you corrected. “Tornados.”

“Same thing.”

“Uh, no — not really!” He smiled at the way your voice inflected as your apprehension became more and more noticeable. “Thunderstorms I can handle. A fuckin’ freight train whirling through town and sucking up everything in its path? That’s a little different. I’m not down with that — I’m not built to withstand that shit.”

Daryl chuckled at what you knew was a relatively silly fear to have, but at the same time, was justifiable considering the circumstances. No more weather warnings, no more emergency shelters and emergency responders when they were needed. No assurance that the house you were in was sturdy and had been kept up with in terms of construction so that the roof over your head wouldn’t blow the fuck off. You could feel your heart beginning to race and you forced yourself to keep a level head which became more difficult as the rain began to pick up, rapping loudly against the ceiling above you.

“It’ll be fine, alright? I promise.”

If you told him that his reassurance offered you absolutely no comfort, you would’ve been lying through your teeth. The way he approached you, strong and confident, his bright blue eyes boring into yours in a way that had you feeling like you were staring at an open, blue sky basking in sunlight. You couldn’t even find your voice at that moment, your mouth going dry and unable to respond verbally in any way despite your desire to thank him for simply being there. So you nodded and gazed back at him, unable and unwilling to tear your eyes away from him as he stared at you with his own thoughts whirling through his head before he broke it and made his way out of the master bedroom.

“C’mon. Let’s go find some flashlights or candles or somethin’. Might as well get comfy.”

Trotting after him, you peered out the windows as you followed his footsteps down the winding staircase, flinching at the proximity of the lightning as it grew nearer. “How long do you think we’ll be here?”

“Why?” He asked you, rifling through a closet at the foot of the steps. “You gotta date or somethin’?”

When you heard him respond you knew that he was consciously making an effort to put your fraying nerves at ease, light-heartedly teasing you and steering the conversation away from the oncoming storm. You couldn’t help but laugh, dry as it was, and roll your eyes.

“Don’t be a dick,” you replied, joining him in his search through the first section of the large home.

“Oh, like ya weatherman comment was so flatterin’.”

“I thought they were funny,” you mumbled to yourself, reaching into the cupboards above the refrigerator on your tiptoes. Your fingers brushed against glass and you fumbled for a grip on it until you managed to wrap your fist around the neck of a bottle you pulled down to eyesight. “Will this help?”

Daryl careened his neck around the doorframe to see what you were talking about and you could tell he was as pleased at the sight as you were. “If tha’s your poison. Crack ‘er open.”

You eyed the bottle in your hands, watching the clear liquid slosh around against the glass. Bacardi 151. “I’ve never really drank before,” you admitted.

Daryl turned and eyed you incredulously. “Huh?”

“Well, I was only sixteen before all this.”

With a low whistle, Daryl shut the door of the closet he was digging through, his arms full of some odds and ends that would be useful as the storm raged on outside, picking up with each passing moment. “Never woulda guessed you was just a kid back then.”

You merely shrugged. “Yeah, I get that a lot. Well, got that a lot. I think that would make me about twenty now, right?”

He grunted in response and you found that you were slightly upset at his lack of response.

“I’ve told you that before,” you added to break the silence. He shrugged, staring down at his hands.

“Guess I forgot,” he muttered.

“It doesn’t bother you, does it?”

When he didn’t answer that time you turned to face him, your cheeks flushing instantly under his stare as he seemed to be holding some internal dialogue with himself; you could see the wheels turning behind his eyes and you looked away almost instantly before he caught himself and cleared his throat.“Uh — yeah, no, it don’t bother me none.” He was fidgeting with the lantern in his hands until it flickered and the dusty bulb inside came to life. He shoved it in his backpack in the countertop, trying to distract himself as he stuffed it with cans of food and batteries and anything useful he could get his hands on. Anything useful he could grab to avoid looking at you; still he spoke up: “You’re more mature than lotsa other people your age.”

Sifting through the cabinets in search of glasses, you smiled at him. “Had to be. Can this stuff be drank straight? Well, never mind, I guess it has to be. Not like we have a chaser or anything...”

Daryl snorted: “chaser? Thought ya said ya didn’t drink?”

“I said I didn’t drink much,” you sat a glass down on the dusty granite island in the center of the kitchen, catching his attention enough to bring him over, hopping on the barstool across from where you stood. He watched you carefully pour the drinks, flinching when a crackle of thunder broke suddenly through the silence.

“Ya sure ya ain’t afraid of storms?” He smirked.

“Fine,” you sighed in defeat. “Maybe I am a little afraid of storms.”

“Ain’t got nothin’ to be afraid of,” Daryl replied after kicking back his drink and wiping his mouth on the back of his sleeve. “I told ya, I ain’t gonna let anything happen to ya.”

It was a small phrase, hardly mentioned in passing and otherwise quotidian. But when he said it to you, it had your pulse racing, the blood rushing to your cheeks. And he noticed, too; he hadn’t meant for it to be laced with an underlying affection but it came out that way naturally and the short silence that followed it was thick and heavy but sweet like molasses.

You decided to take a taste of your own drink and brought it to your lips, shuddering when it stung your tongue and burned down your throat. Of course Daryl laughed at your reaction, the sound a beautiful antonym against the rolling thunder and harsh winds that blew outside that would’ve left you terrified if he wasn’t there with you.

“Ya don’t sip it,” he told you, reaching for the bottle to pour another for himself. “C’mon, kid.”

Determined to rid yourself of the ‘kid’ tag he’d categorized you in you tipped the glass back, downing the liquid in one gulp before slamming the glass back down against the granite and exhaling deeply, fighting the unappetizing burn it gave you as Daryl continued to sit by and enjoy watching you do so.

“At’ta girl,” he said lowly before kicking back another. Innocently enough, you presumed, but the heat that had just ran down your throat and into your stomach pooled even farther down and you felt your face flush in an instant, your pulse racing. Inside your head your brain was reeling, trying to figure out the next thing to say or do, whether or not to read too much into it, what to do to make the situation carry on like normal.

But he’d gotten distracted, leaning over to peer around your head to the bay window behind you. You followed his gaze and relaxed at the sight of stillness, noticing then the rain had stopped and left you both in a comfortable silence.

Daryl pushed himself up from the island and walked toward the window and you followed, shadowing him timidly, fiddling with your hands awkwardly against your chest while you waited for him to inform you of what he was so interested in.

However, when he did speak, you wished he hadn’t: “I don’t think s’over with yet.”

You cocked your head curiously, standing on your toes to look over his shoulder. “It sure looks like it.”

“Nah,” he took a step behind you, his hands moving to your side as he gently guided you to where he’d been standing before he leaned in so close to you his breath against your skin it rose goosebumps over every inch of your body. “Ya see over there? Funnel cloud’s formin’.”

It was incredibly hard to focus on where he was pointing with his proximity demanded all of your attention; the scruff feeling against your skin, the scent of cigarettes and Bacardi, it had you faint. You swallowed hard, knowing you had to answer or he would notice how incredibly turned on you were: “Yeah, lots of clouds.”

He shot you a look that had you instantly red before he slowly smirked; and you saw the unmistakable telltale signs that he was just as flustered as you were. And the way you faced each other held your lips mere inches apart and you both held your breath; while his eyes were trained on your lips yours darted between both his and his eyes. Watching. Waiting. Both of you — waiting a cue from the other, some form of confirmation...It was silent. Too silent, actually. Still.

Then, in an instant it seemed, the rain had started back up, pattering in the rooftop and drastically increased over the course of several seconds until it became obnoxiously loud.

“Hail,” Daryl said suddenly, leaning back from with such a shift in demeanor you knew he was genuinely worried. Throwing his arm further around you, he ushered you out of the kitchen. His free arm did stick out and swipe up backpack on the counter and you threw open the heavy wooden door, and Daryl slammed it shut behind you.

He’d already explored the basement while you got topside: it was a nice, luxurious space that matched the rest of the comfortable home. Finished with carpeted floors, a full bar with decorative track lighting and furniture, the works. Daryl locked the door shut after assuring it was completely closed.

“What do we do?” You asked him quietly, anxiety rising at the sight of him even the slightest bit uptight. You were noticeably shaken and you trailed after Daryl as he flicked on the lantern, setting it on the coffee table to shed at least a little light on you both.

“Why are ya whisperin’?” He asked, his own voice mockingly quiet. “The storm can’t hear ya.”

You were upset for half of a second after being mimicked, but it immediately dissipated at the sight of his slight smile and you knew he was teasing you to get your mind off of your worries because that was the only way he knew how.

“Stop making fun of me,” you giggled, falling back onto the plush sectional couch behind you. Stretching your legs out, you admired the lavish furniture. “So if you’re not worried, I shouldn’t be worried, right?”

Daryl rounded the corner to the bar and snatched a bottle off of the shelf before he joined you, dropping his bag at his feet. “Just gotta stay down here, lay low. If it gets bad...well, we’ll know, I s’pose.”

“And what do we do if it does get bad?”

“We’ll be fine down here,” he reassured you, turning so his boots were propped up onto the couch and popping the cork off of the bottle in his hands. “I wouldn’t lie to ya, alright? Told ya I’m gonna keep ya safe.”

“You always do,” you felt yourself relax at his confidence and leaned back into the cushions behind you. “Thank you.”

“For what?” He passed the bottle to you and you sheepishly took it.

“For always making me feel safe.” Drink and pass it back. You’re getting comfortable. You knew there was a chance the comment could make him slightly uncomfortable but you swore he smiled the slightest bit before he answered quietly and took the bottle from your outstretched hand.

“‘m glad ya feel safe with me.”

It was both comically and ironically demonstrated when the thunder crackled so violently the walls around you physically shook, and you instinctively jumped up from the couch with a terrified yelp and Daryl reactively reached for you as if he could’ve stopped you from running away.

“Thought I made ya feel safe,” he joked as you caught your breath. You brought your hand to your heart, too, sure that the sound might have actually stopped your heart.

“You do!” You smiled despite being winded and shaken. “But the things you make me feel can’t stop the loud ass thunder from scaring me half to death.”

He caught it before you did, the liquid courage heightening his sensitivity to the vibes you gave off the loser it made you. “Things? What the hell else do I make ya feel?”

You felt called out and shifted uncomfortably as you tried to think of a response to being called out. “Uhm, good things — happy. You make me... really happy.”

It was a genuine response but Daryl looked away, snorting in derision and unable to accept the compliment. “It’s true, Daryl!”

He was twisting the glass bottleneck in between his fingers sheepishly and the sight made your heart flutter familiarly once again and you stopped, the idea crossing your mind but ultimately burying itself away.

“Ya make me happy, too,” he told you shyly, his voice low and hoarse and the tone unusually musical to your senses.

At that, your heart stopped beating in your chest. “Do I really?” You asked curiously, not catching yourself as you leaned in closer to him unconsciously. He watched you intently, nodding in response. You smiled, mouth dry as you tried to formulate your next few sentences. Nervous. Fuzzy. Horny. What don’t you make me?

Thunder roared again and the house shook all around you. You subconsciously scooted yourself closer to Daryl, your brain seizing the opportunity and timing, and not missing the way he stiffened when your bodies touched lightly touched. He held his breath. His eyes watched yours, intrigued, awaiting your next move. And you knew that you had to make it, because he never would. So you leaned in slowly, hovering before him, you’d lips inches apart just as they’d been upstairs prior that drove you insane. It was painful; the distance desperate to be closed by an unseen force that had your heart and mind racing. His hair fell in front of his eyes but you could still see them, flickering between your eyes and down to your lips hesitantly, debating. You knew you could and probably would stay there forever and never close the gap between you two — so you did it yourself.The rain and winds raging audibly on outside only seemed to encourage you, your own storm inside of you brewing the second your lips touched his. You know well enough to gauge his reaction, too, and would pull back from him just far enough to see his face and try to read his expression. But, if you knew Daryl like you thought you knew Daryl, you anticipated him being very hard to read if he wasn’t outright appalled at what you’d done in the first place.

But as you retracted, he went with you; an unseen bond pushing him forward into you as you leaned back, both fueled with a combination of adrenaline, alcohol and a mutual attraction. It surprised you at first, the fortitude of his reaction as it was so unlike him. But it was a good sign and an even better reassurance that whatever it was you had been doing, you needed to keep doing it.

Deep down, you knew the faux confidence he was exuding was due to the Bacardi, but you were also positive that he wasn’t drunk enough to do something like this if he didn’t really want to. Drunk words are sober thoughts.

So you began to sit up, not breaking the heated kiss between you with tongues brushing against each other and teeth grazing lips, your hands moving from the cushion they supported you on to his chest where they gently coerced him to lay back on the couch. It allowed you to crawl forward, your bodies meshing together as you moved naturally, you overtop of him and him comfortably beneath you as if you were one whole being instead of two separate people.

When you pulled away breathlessly Daryl looked up to you, his expression soft but unreadable behind the strands of shaggy hair that fell in front of his eyes. You gazed back down at him, infatuated entirely already, your heart pounding relentlessly at the sight and the feeling of him beneath you, and the lack thereof on your lips if even for just a minute for you both to catch your breath. During the silence, his rough hands caressed up your arms painfully slowly, blanketing you in chills as he observed you above him like you were something entirely new and enticing, just as excited but just as nervous, if not more, as you were.

Though you were over the moon and thrilled that you’d made the jump in the first place, sure that it wouldn’t have happened otherwise, you found yourself burning beneath his gaze and you looked away, biting your lip nervously to distract yourself from the fact that his gentle touch already had you giddy.

“Ya alright?” He asked quietly, his words obviously driven from concern and what you assumed was skepticism. And you knew that if you apologized and climbed off of where you hovered over him from his lap he wouldn’t argue or hold any resentment toward you and the thought alone was meant to comfort you but all it did was drive you further down the rabbit hole you were falling into.

“Yeah,” you replied, your voice hardly a whisper. “Are you?”

You worried when he hesitated a moment, afraid that this newer and confident Daryl might have withered away and left him full of regret and embarrassment, but after awhile he nodded and responded in such a way that had you wondering if you could read this thoughts.

“‘m great.”

You couldn’t stop yourself then from falling back forward and reconnecting yourselves with a hungry kiss, your lips crashing into his so eagerly that it elicited a low growl from somewhere inside of him, lighting your own flame inside of you that quickly spread through every nerve ending over your body — some more than others.

You descended down his jaw line, planting soft kisses before lowering yourself down to his neck where you allowed your innate desires to take over and kiss and bite at his sensitive skin and you felt his soft grip tighten into a desperate clinging, his nails dragging down to your hips and around your back as he encouraged you on, also fueled by the natural feelings that you were giving him as if you’d done it all before a hundred times. When you felt his calloused fingers slip beneath the hem of your shirt you held your breath and he noticed, halting his movements immediately.

“Is this okay?” He asked you, genuinely unsure of himself which only had you even more convinced that it was much more than just okay.

“Yes,” you replied breathlessly, lowering yourself back down toward his broad chest. If the whole thing was going to be filled with doubtful questions and the need for reassuring consent, that was fine with you. The next words that came out of your mouth surprised even yourself: “Please.”

That was the only word he needed to hear in order to continue, his hands then moving up to your breasts quicker than they’d hesitantly started out. He became greedy then, not that you minded, pulling your shirt off over your head and tossing it carelessly aside. Even in something as simple and unobtrusive as the black sports bra you were wearing, he eyed you lustfully like you were prey, eager to taste like you were his last meal on death row. Shortly after, in the midst of heated kissing and moans you both failed to stifle, his hands went to the waist of your jeans and fumbled with the button for hardly a second before he managed to unfasten it with ease. And once again you hesitated for just a second where, caught up in the moments prior, you’d managed to block out your inexperience and let both Daryl and your body do all the work so that your brain could just follow, barely keeping up with the hands moving up and down and all over you. But the lower his hands drifted and the deeper your need for something more grew, the more obvious it became to him.

“Ya want me to stop?” He asked curiously, halting all his moments in fear of making you uncomfortable.

“No,” your brain immediately responded without even consciously allowing you to think of a different answer. “No, I just... I’ve never really gone much farther than this before.” You’d looked away shamefully, afraid of how he might react although you knew confidently that he would never get angry or upset, but you didn’t expect a slow smile to creep on to his face; and the sight of him beneath you with his gentle expression that still somehow held bad intentions behind it had you swooning.

Leisurely he sat upright, pushing you down this time so that you slowly lay back onto the cushions behind you, allowing him carry out whatever plans he was formulating. “Well, we can take it real slow...”

You about melted into couch beneath you; the mixture of his words and the chivalry they held laced with desire were enough to have you squirming beneath him but combined with the way his voice growled the words lowly in your ear almost had you erupting in flames right there.

With a newly discovered confidence you wrapped your arms around his neck, pulling him closer to you while all fears and worries of the storm outside left you entirely. You had the notion that he was slightly hesitant as you were considering how careful he was with his movements even after you’d nearly begged him to continue, pulling your jeans off of your hips so slow it was almost painful. But when you kicked them off your ankles and discarding them to the floor. Again you found yourself slightly self-conscious in your choice of plain grey panties, but Daryl didn’t seem to mind at all as his hands went back to your abdomen and trailed lower, unhurriedly as he took his time, knowing that he would have you writhing beneath him. And he was absolutely fucking right.

LIKE & REBLOG & MAYBE I’LL POST THE 2ND PART!! ;-)

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th3okamid3mon · 5 years ago

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Gisaengchung (Parasites) [SPOILERS]

A lovely tale on why you shouldn´t trust people!

Sinopsis:

A family barely subsists in a basement they call home. Unemployed and at the border of misery, a job opportunity is presented to the older son Gi Woo, which consists on giving english classes to the daughter of a high class family. Step by step he gains the trust of the owner and begins to introduce his own family as workers in hopes of getting more money from them.

Writing and characters (+some acting):

I am not very familiar of Korean movies, I´ve heard about some good movies but never actually watch any from the country. Now, I´ve heard about Bong Joon-Ho since I watch one of his previews works called Snowpiercer and even though that kind of movie is not exactly my favorite I have to admit it was really well written and the visuals were really creepy but pretty in some twisted way.

Gisaenchung´s story is really well thought, all the details fit together like a puzzle of 500 pieces or more. It had to be meticulously written so to make some sort of sense and even then some things dont make so much sense, but Joon-Ho has a cover: this movies is a drama, suspense and dark humor movie. When you have a super dramatic rich family with their over the top reactions and mannerisms in an only drama movie it would be seen as a joke if they were trying to look serious or be taken seriously, in this case works perfectly since they are used as comic relief, specifically the rich mom being the most gullible and most dramatic of all. Their purpose is accomplish perfectly and the sheer dumb and naive nature of the mother works in favor of our bunch of vermin.

It is a very understandable and digestible plot: you have a poor family of scammers, they get an opportunity to scam a family, they proceed to scam the rich family by pretending to be strangers to each other and working as a house keeper, a driver and 2 teachers, and then they get discovered. At the simplicity it doesnt sound that entertaining I suppose, everything in between is simple yet complex and then it goes into fucked up territory almost from 10 to 110 really quick.

This family are assholes! Like... Complete assholes, the name of the movie is after them! They take advantage of a character that is super anxious about her children and is super naive and is really lonely because of his husband leaving for work a lot and completely destroy 2 lives in the process too! They get the husband´s driver fired by framing him as a sex addict with a kink and the housekeeper is fired by making her look like a tuberculosis patient. This people are awful! They are manipulative, dangerous, assholes! And yet... you kind of root for them? That´s how good the writing is. You know they are awful, you know they are manipulative. Hell, at the beginning they use manipulation to probably get someone fire and get money from a small pizza company they work for as box benders. AND THEY FUCKED UP AT LEAST A QUARTER OF THOSE BOXES! They are not good!

...But who can blame them for being like that? They are living in a really bad situation, they are stealing wifi from a neighbor so they can check a WhatsApp to see if the pizza place send them a message. They were talented at sports, the daughter knows how to work with programs like photoshop and probably other types, the son is really smart reason why he was given the job as an english teacher and to be honest he is kind of good at it. They are not lazy people. The situation is not good for them and they can´t exactly get a good job due to not having a degree. It´s actually kind of sad to see their potential being wasted due to their economic situation. Of course anyone would survive in however manner they can, even if that makes them a bad person in the process.

You have a rich family that supports and loves their children, shown as getting both of them private ¨teachers¨ (not enough love I guess, due to not fucking checking this people up in the first place and only trusting the recommendations of a college student). They aren´t bad people, they treat their workers fairly and they respect them and when there´s reason to fire someone they try to do so respectfully as not to damage their reputation or shame them (so much). You should feel sorry for them because they are so nice and are being scammed but you can´t shake the feeling that they kind of deserve it for being so naive. Well, at least not the children, those kids have 0 control over who their parents choose. THE PARENTS ARE SO DAMN DUMB! The mother specially! So anxious about your children learning and exploiting their talents but not so anxious to get the first whoever that crosses your ears? You feel bad, for them and maybe you dont get angry, they antics are not anger inducing, they are hilarious because, as i explain before, they over react A LOT. I don´t know if that was a directors decision or if the actors did what they pleased, they fit too well in the scene to not be planned.

One thing that stood out to me were the dialogues, they made sense but they became a bit descriptive in certain points.There were really good silent scenes, there was a good balance between dialogues and silence, though I don´t know why I felt certain dialogues were too much? Maybe it was with their reactions as well, Korean and older Mexican movies have a thing in common and that´s a level of exaggeration. Sometimes it´s good, sometimes it gets the spotlight and not in a good sense. With the rich family there was no problem, it was with certain characters like the daughter of the scam family that overreact in one scene. Since they were drunk it kind of made sense but it there wasn´t exactly a follow up of his outburst. it passed relatively quick so it wasn´t much of a problem.

Sound and music:

The dialogues were well said, there was no difference in volumes and it had no noise. The silent parts had a good sound, whether it was background noises or music, it never felt out of place. The sounds were actually relaxing at some point, specially with the rain or water flowing. It had a good crispiness on them, they sounded natural and not manufacture with materials. The music wasn´t over used or overbearing, it was mostly in the background. It wasn´t almost present in certain scenes, you could hear it but it was very low. It didn´t had weird spikes and it was kind of nice. Not exactly the most memorable.

Photography and art:

First... Some examples:

I mean... WOW. The different lights, the shadows, the colors, the difference in lighting from each set. EVERYTHING IS GORGEOUS. Easily identifiable, with that I mean if you see this screenshots you would probably recognize them immediately. I don´t know how original the setting is from other movies but MAN is it gorgeous. The shots are most of the time open, details are hidden in the background (even when they can be a bit blurry, sometimes there something behind), the lighting is the first thing you´ll notice. There´s so much contrast between the highlights and shadows, even though most of them are not really strong.

The colors schemes for each place are not entirely different, I think the reason is they wanted to portray that both families have certain similarities, mostly the only difference being the living situation. It´s really interesting how you can find warm colors in both families, they all love each other, both families support each other and their interests. The parents praise their children (even though the scam family probably shouldn´t praise illegality but, meh...at that point it can be consider too late)

The art department went OFF with this one. You can feel the filthiness and close space they live in, their living situation is bad but they manage. The other family is clean and clear and it has to be perfect that way. I think there were 2 parts where they work even harder.

(This is a kind of Spoiler for the end) When they use blood, it tends to look fake in some movies, in here it looks really, really red and dark. The makeup for the strangled neck also was a nice touch and look really good.

The other part I think was really well accomplish and that also might have taken FOR EVER TO MAKE IT WORK, was the flood, because it not only involved flooding and ENTIRE NEIGHBORHOOD, it involved a toilet spewing black water out as if it was puking. How did they manage to do all that? HOW MUCH WAS THE BUDGET? Geez, How many TAKES TOOK TO ACCOMPLISH THAT?! It look hella gross and the way it was spewing water was very realistic.

There´s an entire sequence where three members of the family gets out of the rich house and walks towards their home and each step they take they descend even more, but that´s not all, it is raining and water is flowing and pouring, it looks fantastic and the neighborhood gets flooded and there´s stuff out getting fucked over. The makeup and the art design were crazy here, I wish and hope and pray they got paid well because MY GOD this was hard work at its finest.

Conclusion:

I need to watch more of this foreign movies and so do you! If you haven´t seen any movie out of Hollywood, you should do so. Maybe this one is a bit too much though. It goes well but there are certain parts that are a bit slow and then it goes fast and then slow again, it can be a rollercoaster and I´d be lying if i wasn´t expecting the movie to finally end. It is entertaining and it isn´t that long (2:12 hours), it doesn´t have any popular references. This movie was thought to be seen by an international audience. If you as an USA Citizen (´cause I´m not calling you Americans, America isn´t a country and USA is not the center of it) feel uncomfortable to be shown or for your culture be mock, well TOO BAD GET USED TO IT! Nah, I´m kidding. The kid in the movie has an obsession with indians and the family acts like USA is like high standard but in a mocking kind of way? My brother actually thought it was a Get Out situation so...

This movie has a perfect blend of suspense and humor, the drama is palpable, it is there, the suspense and dark humor are the spotlight though. The actors are really good and the dialogues are not complicated to follow. It is pretty funny, heartwhrenching at points (specially the end) and entertaining movie, if you want to start watching foreign films you could start with this one.

The worst part of the story is that both sides are right to react the way they did, and it´s kind of sad.

This is what I took from it: Poor or rich, it doesn´t matter. People are humans and they all have needs. And those needs will be satisfied one way or another. When you have a family, You will do whatever it takes to make them happy and sometimes drastic measures will be used.

Go watch it, you won´t regret it.

-Sincerely creeped out, T.O.D

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jellidile · 6 years ago

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Pages and Pages (Vergil, sad)

Welp, I was inspired by the goings on with the dmc diaries that have recently popped up. And apparently, Nero is very interested in his mom and Vergil’s relationship... Hopefully, it isn’t as sad as this

@nerosdailydiary and @journalofvergilsparda Why don’t y’all take a look? Maybe it isn’t what happens between the two of you, but it is fanfic for you both so it’s only right to tag you :)

Nero goes looking for a diary Vergil hid. He’s pretty sure it’ll have something about his mother in it... He gets a lot more than he bargained for.

Nero couldn’t help but laugh as he pulled a dusty book from his father’s closet. The old man had sworn off talking about his younger years, much to Nero’s displeasure. But, he had mentioned he had a diary from those days, so now, three days in, Nero couldn’t help but feel a little pride,

“Try hiding it better next time, Dad” flipping through the first pages Nero didn’t see anything of interest. Mostly just rambles about how Dante was the worst, or how he felt abandoned. Bits of poetry here and there. Until finally, he found mentions of Fortuna. Quickly Nero skimmed through until,

Day 25 in Fortuna

I met a woman today. She was… Well, she wasn’t terrible looking. She seemed harmless enough. She asked if I wanted a tour of the church, and when I asked why she was very insistent that everyone who visits Fortuna should see it. I don’t know why (it has nothing to do with my visit) but I followed her. Overall, it… was a good day.

Nero smiled wide. Skipping ahead a few pages.

Day 35 in Fortuna

She’s all that I can think about anymore. I don’t understand what’s wrong with me. Today we were talking again and I, I wanted to kiss her so bad. Is it wrong for me to want to spend time with her all the time? I followed her home last night and she met with a friend of her’s… I want her to hug me the way she hugs her friends. I want to make her laugh because her laugh is so… when she laughs too hard she snorts and it’s… endearing. I’m rambling… anyways I think I’m sick. I shall continue my research into the church after I figure out what the hell is wrong with me.

Day 36

I AM MOST DEFINITELY SICK

Nero barked out a laugh. Of course, his awkward dad wouldn’t know what he was feeling. But it was also nice to know that on some level, he laughed like his mother. The diary had a few days missing but Nero was glad to see that nothing much was missing.

Day 50

I kissed her. We were sitting beside each other, and she pointed out that it was getting late… And just the way the sun was hitting her face, she just looked so… so… Gah! damn it all, there are no words! But I leaned in and kissed her… and I must be going mad because it felt so right. I-I think the best part was that she kissed back and I got to hold her. However brief that moment really was… It didn’t feel like it. Even now, sitting here, that moment felt like hours. Although… I’m ashamed to admit I left right after it was over. I hope to see her tomorrow.

Nero was amazed. He couldn’t help but smile. He would’ve never thought that his father was capable of doing anything even remotely close to making the first move. He kept reading. Most entries were now either focussed on him finding out what the church was up to or recounting a date he and Nero’s mother had been on. But one entry caught his eye,

Day 85

I love her so. Today we were talking and I… I told her that I had no family,

“I’m all alone.” I know Dante is still alive, but I doubt he would take me back. We may be twins but, I’ve changed too much. Anyways, after I said that she went,

“You aren’t alone Vergil. I care about you.” and she held me. There was a moment I paused, and I cried. I don’t she knows how much those words really meant to me. I’m even finding it hard to write here but… Those words, “you aren’t alone” it’s all that I’ve wanted to hear.

Day 86

How to tell the woman you love, you love her… I’ve been trying to come up with a way to tell her all day and I can’t seem to think of anything. Every time I want to say it the words die on my tongue. But I don’t even feel worthy of saying to her. How could I tell her that I love her? Just three words seem so… stupid. She means more to me then words can convey. My sun and moon. My world and stars. Life without her would be dull and meaningless. She somehow pulled down my walls. And I’m still at a loss as to how. Bubbly and bright. I remember wanting to make her laugh, but it’s the other way around. She makes me laugh. But her smile when I laugh… She practically glows. I came here seeking answers, but they don’t interest me when I see her. Sometimes we can just lie down holding each other, no words will pass our lips, but for hours we are content to do so. How do I tell my reason for all my joy, that she is so? I doubt it can be simply done.

Day 90

I am writing this in the morning because my princess says I won’t have any time tonight. She has a busy day planned. I think I might try to tell her how I feel. Hopefully, all goes well.

It’s night now… I got to tell her, and uh… Show her… If that’s clear enough. I’d rather not retell the details of tonight. That’s a memory I shall keep all to myself. Though looking at her now as she sleeps… I am overcome with a deep and profound want- no, need to stay with her. Power be damned. I love her.

Nero couldn’t help but stare speechlessly at the two entries. Tear’s flowed down his cheeks, he didn’t even know that they were there. But the way his father wrote so much about his mother… to go as far as, “Power be damned” yet he still wasn’t done reading the book. Only about halfway,

Flipping through the entries were now solely focused on his mother, and then there was a jump, Day 108, Day 109, Day 110, Day 130? Nero’s heart stopped,

Day 130

I’m leaving Fortuna. Alone. A few weeks ago demons came and… They attacked me, I didn’t see one, and… Why didn’t I see it? I should’ve seen it. Now she’s hurt and it’s all my fault… I-I wasn’t strong enough. I let her get hurt. I DID THAT! I COULDN’T- She isn’t safe with me around. Dante would laugh at me. Sobbing into my hands, alone. Bless her heart though,

“It’s not your fault Vergil. I’m still alive. Knowing you, it will never happen again.” she tries. But she’s too optimistic, all humans are. I should’ve known that it all would’ve come crumbling down. I’m a son of Sparda. I should’ve seen the demon, but I didn’t. And she’s hurt, and I- I don’t deserve to be with someone I can’t protect. Why does it hurt me to write this… Why… I’m so sorry. I’m so so sorry. I just want to protect you. I can’t I can’t lose anyone else. Especially not you. Please don’t resent me for this. Please...

Nero shook. Anything else that was written on the page was smudged. It looked as though Vergil had been crying as he wrote… Still, Nero was not done reading the journal as at least 50 pages remained. And page upon page was filled with heartbroken words. 50 pages were filled to the brim each one different yet all of them all trying to say sorry. Nero found himself particularly affected by the very last page.

If I could run back to you, love I promise I would. We were young and in love, and I can only hope that it does not mean we are dumb. But each night when I close my eyes, you are there. And it is that blessed night where we joined body and soul again, and I can hear myself saying I love you over and over. I can still hear every whispered message of love and desire. Even after all this time, I find myself drawn to the thought of you. Maybe in another life, I’m not the coward that I am today. Scared of inadvertently hurting those he loves, but it seems I’ve already done plenty of that. I’ve always been seeking power, and with you, I didn’t think I needed it. Perhaps I didn’t. Who could know?

If I could be held in your arms again, darling I’d be back in a second. Yet would you even take me as I am? On those nights where I am left plagued by nightmares, I see you again highlighted and glowing in the sunset. I feel your lips against mine and I remember every curve, I remember every inch of you. How I wish to hold you, how I wish to be held. Within your shelter, I was warm and loved. Safe from the nightmare’s of losses long ago. But even so, could you hold me? Hold the man who loved you so much he left? Who could know?

If I could lie with you and talk like we would always do, princess, there would be no other place I would wish to be. So many if’s wander through my tortured mind, and so many are met with the scared ramblings of a man deeply scarred and bitter. But, how I adored your laugh and your smile. Oh, I can still recall every time I let my eyes wander, only to find them locked with yours. How I worshipped you, and love I meant every word of passion I ever said. But do you still love me I wonder? Do you still think back to those days of bright joy, and look fondly upon my memory? Do you love me? Ah, who could know?

As Nero stopped reading he shuddered out a sigh. Strong arms wrapped around his shoulders. Nero jumped but was held in place. Vergil spoke mournfully as he placed his head on Nero’s shoulder,

“I’m sorry I left you and your mother. I left you both all alone.” Nero wanted to say something but he could only wiggle around and hug his father back. Vergil’s grip tightened on his son as he silently sobbed,

“I’m so sorry Nero…”

“It’s okay Dad.”

We aren’t alone anymore.

#dmc #dmc5 #dmc nero #dmc vergil #vergil sparda #nero sparda #devil may cry #angst #fanfic

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manifestoonmoralmanlove · 6 years ago

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Gormless Ch. 13 – Everything’s awful but lesbians are in fact REAL

A well-meaning friend gave me a book series that is hilariously bad. The first book was Souless and my riffs were entitled brainless. This second book is entitled Changless and these riff are then gormless.

I mean to say I have entitled them gormless! Not that my riffs are dumb, and the effort I spend on them stupid since I’m the only one who enjoys them. HAHA!

The story is SUPPOSED TO be about how a badass lady wearing a rad-looking carriage dress hits baddies with her umbrella and bangs her hot werewolf husband. In reality it’s mostly poor attempts at being witty, flirty, and superior.

For the last book check out the brainless tag.

If you want the TL;DR version but want to read these new riffs anyway?

This story is set in supernatural Victorian steampunk England. Alexia is our NOT LIKE OTHER GIRLS protag. She is a soulless, which means she’s able to negate the abilities of vampires and werewolves by touching them. She’s recently married a big oaf, named Lord Connel Maccon. He’s the manchild in charge of the supernatural police with a zillion dollars and he’s totes super hot too ok. Their relationship is mostly arguments about how Maccon can’t tell her fucking anything. Alexia has also recently become head of ~Soulless affairs~ in Queen Victoria’s government. She has a dumb friend named Ivy, a gay vampire friend named Akeldama, a family who’s evil because they do the same shit as her but while being blonde, and most importantly Alexia is better than everyone cause…cause.

Last time on Gormless:

Turns out a preserved corpse of a Soulless person that the Kingair pack stole from Egypt is causing the humanization problem. However somebody is after that coprse, and knocked LeFoux and Lord Maccon unconscious. Alexia gonna have to fix everything herself HURMPH!

Chapter 13 – Everything’s awful but lesbians are in fact REAL

Wowzers! Here’s the climax chapter. It won’t be the height of tension, but it will be the height of my irritated confusion. My apologies for length, it was a long chapter, and full of a lot of bullshit. LET’S GO!

We get a rare good moment where Alexia looks at the passed out Maccon and worries about him. She makes a cute note about how his eyelashes are super long and once when she commented that she was jealous of his long eyelashes he tickled her neck with them. This will be the last genuinely good thing in this chapter.

Alexia goes to a recently woken up LeFoux. LeFoux is all distraught, and there’s a bullshit line about how being upset made her look slightly more feminine and Alexia, “Didn’t know if she liked that.”

CAUSE SADNESS IS A WOMAN DISEASE AND ALEXIA ONLY CARES WHAT LEVEL OF CURRENT FUCKIBLITY YOU ARE! THE LEVEL OF EGOMANIA ON THIS BITCH!

LeFoux is like, “Hey don’t be mad at the woman who shot me and your husband. She didn’t ~mean~ it.”

YES TURNS OUT THE BIG BAD OF THIS BOOK SERIES I FUCKING CALLED BACK IN CHAPTER 4 OF THE LAST BOOK! It was Angelique! GOSH WHAT A FUCKING TWIST! YOU KNOW THE CHARACTER WHO, AT THE END OF THE LAST BOOK WAS DESCRIBED IN TEXT AS A BLATANT SPY! Yet the entirety of this book Alexia thinks its LeFoux and goes so far as to think she’s faking being shot? She turns out of the room and all the werewolves are sleeping and instead of…I DON’T KNOW letting them know she’s identified the attacker? She just huffs that she must do everything herself.

GOD STUPIDITY AND A POINTLESS MARTYR COMPLEX IS REALLY FUCKING HOT! ALSO I’M GLAD THAT EVERY SINGLE WEREWOLF FELT COMFORTABLE FALLING ASLEEP WITH AN ACTIVE SHOOTER IN THEIR CASTLE THAT WAS EVEN ABLE TO PUT DOWN THEIR FORMER ALPHA!

So Alexia goes to the room where the mummy is, but Angelique is not there. So instead of disposing of the body that Angelique is clearly after, she’s runs up to the Aethongrapher room. Angelique is there and shoves her aside to escape the room. So they go back to the mummy room, and Angelique is trying to drag the body out of there. Alexia goes to shoot some of her sleepy darts at Angelique but just as she’s about to Ivy shows up to stand in front of Alexia and whine that Alexia is being callous to her. But as I have described before, this is not Ivy’s fault. Ivy’s kink is inconvenient timing. Blithering obtusely in front of a weapon while the bad guy gets away makes her CUM. The TV hasn’t been invented yet so she can’t stand in front of it during a crucial part of a show/game. SHE HAS TO FIND SOME WAY TO GET OFF!

DO YOU WANT THIS WOMAN TO NEVER ORGASM!?

Despite that Alexia is able to catch up to Angelique and knocks her unconscious with a hefty umbrella swing. She takes the mummy outside, and dissolves it using the acid function on her umbrella. I mean, I was hoping she’d go whole hog and it would come to life and fight them but WELP guess that would be stupid fun and we’re only allowed one of those things in this book and it ain’t fun. When the corpse is just about pudding, Alexia goes back in and hears Ivy scream.

OH NO!

We take a break from this regularly scheduled programming to swap over to Biffy, Channing, and Lyall at the Westminster Hive. Biffy apparently snuck in and broke their Aethonographer. This is just to let us all know that the message Angelique tried to send before didn’t get through. I mean targeting the Aethongrapher only, doesn’t make any sense AT ALL from their perspective and honestly you could have written the entire thing out to tighten up the story. But like I guess it was real important to have that bit where Alexia has to try 2 rooms to find Angelique.

FUCK ME RUNNING!

So Ivy screamed because a woken up Angelique puts a knife to Ivy’s throat and is leading her up the stairs. All the werewolves are there as well as Tunstell. Tunstell gets out the magic gun, which by the way they start calling the ‘tun tun’ which makes a lot of sense and is totes keeping it tense. Shouldn’t it be the tun gun? WHATEVER!

They go up to a room and Angelique makes Ivy open a window. Meanwhile Tunstell tries to sneak around the side while Alexia tries to distract her. By the way this is the first time we hear that Tunstell is apparently a big dude. I had totally assumed that since he was described as a meek servant/actor coated in freckles that he was a 5’5” adorable waif boy who weighs 110 lbs on a good day. I’m glad you waited till now to tell us that. After a bit of a scuffle Tunstell wrestles the knife away, saves Ivy, and Angelique tumbles to her death out the window. The gun is never shot and Chekov leaps out to die on the cold hard Scottish earth like Angelique.

Apparently there was a rope ladder leading down that window that Angelique was really hoping she’d be able to escape down, with the knife to the throat of a hostage? OKAY THEN! When Angelique woke up, why didn’t she just try to make a break for it, to avoid being persecuted by the supernatural police? What was the point of the hostage thing? Why did she have this rope ladder prepared?

JESUS FUCKING CHRIST BOOK! IT’S NOT GOOD ACTION IF THE ENTIRETY OF IT FALLS APART LIKE A BISCUIT IN TEA WHEN YOU ASK LITERALLY ANY QUESTION REGARDING IT!

You know what would have been a thousand times better? If Alexia goes to question a recently recovered Angelique, and Angelique in a panic puts a knife to a dipshit Ivy’s throat by a window. Angelique demands to be given the body. Alexia explains that she destroyed it. Angelique at first doesn’t want to believe it but eventually concedes. Saying something along the lines of, “…If I can’t deliver the body…then…then they’ll kill me…” The people there try to reassure her that they can protect her. However in Angelique’s stunned grief she slips from the window, Tunstell is able to grab Ivy but not Angelique. Was it an accident? Did she want to die on her own terms? WE’LL NEVER KNOW? The chapter ends where the crowd goes to check on her and Angelique is FOR SURE dead. LeFoux seeing the shattered body of her former lover, clutches Alexia and wails.

BUT NOPE IN FACT THIS HAPPENS NEXT!

So Alexia is the only one to go check the body. Angelique is in fact dead, but turns into a ghost. Angelique tells Alexia to perform the exorcism, which means kill her for real real. Alexia wants questions answered first. Angelique says she’ll answer 10, Alexia agrees to this.

So like…why are you going to respect her wishes now? Doesn’t she need to be persecuted under the law, or have proof of the Hive’s wrongdoing? You maybe want to give LeFoux a chance to talk to her, since she was obviously really upset and protective of her before? GUESS NOT!

Angelique, before the questioning is revealed to have done this whole task for the immortality, since she previously and is still working with the Westminster hive. She is GIVEN immortality in the form of being a ghost and is immediately like NOPE I’D RATHER DIE. HUHHHH? MAYBE IT’S NOT IDEAL VAMPIRE THING BUT REALLY?

GOD WHATEVER IT JUST GETS WORSE ANYWAY!

Angelique says that it wasn’t her who tried to break into her bag or poison her. Alexia asks if LeFoux is trying to kill her, Angelique says probably not cause you’d already be dead. AND LIKE WE ESTABLISHED THIS EXACT ANSWER TO THIS SAME QUESTION BEFORE. WHY ARE YOU WASTING YOUR QUESTIONS YOU COMPLETE IMBECILE!

It’s revealed that Quensel, the kid LeFoux was taking poor care of before, is Angelique’s son. Angelique was trying to hide the fact she had a son from the vampires cause the vampires won’t turn her if she has any family. Apparently LeFoux, was trying to get Angelique to take care of her son and to stop the vampire biz by threatening to tell the Vampires about her son. That didn’t work apparently. We also confirm that yes, SHOCK OF SHOCK, Angelique and LeFoux used to be an item for many years. So we have this OH SO DELIGHTFUL paragraph:

“Alexia had seen something of the kind in her father’s collection, but she had never imagined it might be based on anything more than masculine wistfulness or performances put on to titillate a John’s palate. That two women might do such things voluntarily with one another and do so with some degree of romantic love. Was that possible?”

(Irritated Stare with the phrase [stares in gay judgement])

You’re 26 years fucking old, you’re well aware that gay men exist, LeFoux has been hitting on her blatantly this entire book and has been pretty much screaming how much of a lesbian she is. Like you can have Alexia in bi-denial, sure, but for her not to even realize two girls can have sex and romance at one another outside of men JACKING IT!? FUCKING WOW! I want to be clear and say that there is a myth that Queen Victoria didn’t think lesbians were real when she was enforcing the no homosexuality laws. TO BE CLEAR THAT IS A MYTH! PEOPLE IN VICTORIAN TIMES KNEW LESBIANS WEREN’T JUST A MALE CREATED HORNY MYTH LIKE HOW WOMEN LOVE THE TASTE OF JIZZ, YOU THICK-HEADED TWIT!

The last questions that Alexia asks basically are, “Is it possible for women to love each other?” and “You’re a cold bitch aren’t you?” QUEEN PICKED TOP INVESTIGATOR HERE! She then FOR REAL kills Angelique. Also I’m glad she didn’t ask Angelique what they were planning on doing with the humanization corpse, because that mystery is probably what the entirety of the 3rd book is about.

So we head back in the castle to try to wrap this all up, and boy is it pointlessly messy. I’m going to recount the items in order, so you TOO can realize what a clusterfuck this is.

Alexia tells LeFoux that Angelique is dead which makes LeFoux cry. Alexia has a normal human response to seeing a woman she likes grieving.

“Lady Maccon envied her skill of crying with aplomb. She herself went all over splotchy, but Madame Lefoux seemed to be able to execute the emotional state with minimal fuss.”

By performing some pretty sweet mental gymnastics to make it about herself. CONGRATULATIONS! She does later say that the scene was painfully sad…but…your first thought, and the one you dedicate more than a sentence to is… “I wish I could cry as hot as she could?” MOTHER OF FUCK LADY!

Maccon takes Alexia aside and explains that LeFoux and he are besties despite not interacting with her at all this entire book. He told his BFF4EVAH to keep an eye on Alexia. Don’t know why he would have lied about this? Maybe Alexia would have felt patronized? Alexia was attacked 5 times last book and needed to be saved 3 of those times. There’s nothing wrong with that ratio, but there’s also nothing wrong with wanting to have back up if you’re in a dangerous profession. Besides that the two both love science and gadgets, and if he couldn’t predict that LeFoux would awaken his wife’s bisexuality too, it seems silly to lie to her about it.

But my pity for Alexia runs dry again when, upon hearing Maccon and LeFoux are buds…she accuses Maccon of sleeping with LeFoux. And it’s like…

(Honestly, you people, and by that I mean straight people…are ridiculous.)

If Alexia is bi, it don’t matter she’s still in denial and acting like a straight up straighty.

You just found out that lesbians are real and that LeFoux is one of them, and YOU were the one to almost cheat on him with her, and you ACCUSE HIM? Are you FOR REAL!? I mean this is just a set up for Alexia to realize SOME MORE that lesbians are real. I’m glad I’m reading one of those books where everything needs to be explained 5 times.

Alexia brings up the fact that Angelique turned into a ghost but exorcised her right away without considering if literally anybody else wanted to talk to her INCLUDING THE LONG-TERM –EX-GIRLFRIEND WHO WAS RAISING HER KID. LeFoux is rightly upset at this and Alexia retorts with

“There’s no need to wallow.”

Now even Lord Maccon steps in like, “THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU, SHE’S RIGHTLY UPSET!” To which Aleixa points out OH SO RIGHTLY that LeFoux didn’t want to be girlfriends with Angelique again, so like…it makes no sense why she’d want to have some parting words or care about her living or dying.

THEN THIS TRANSITION SHEESH VERBATIM:

Lord Maccon looked at his wife appreciatively. “Good Lord, woman, how could you have possibly known that?”

“Well” – Lady Maccon grinned – “Madame Lefoux here did play a bit of the coquette with me while we were traveling. I do not think she was entirely shamming.”

I’m sorry what? We already established that LeFoux is a vagatrian and had a relationship with Angelique. Is she saying the fact she was flirted with PROOF that LeFoux is not in a relationship? Alexia, you were flirting back and you’re married. This is not a brilliant deduction. We only have this transition so that Alexia can brag about almost BUT NOT ACTUALLY cheating on her husband. And like…it’s one thing to take the piss out of him because he’s irrationally jealous. However Alexia herself was like REALLY, REALLY irrationally jealous a second ago and it’s not really irrational since Alexia might have had sex with her if she came to the conclusion earlier that girls can like other girls. SoOOoOOoOOoo great!

We continue to have pissing contests. Maccon is mad that Alexia never told him she was almost poisoned, even though you’d THINK Tunstell would have brought that up to him since he’s his servant and he was the one actually poisoned. LeFoux admits she was looking around for Alexia’s bag and that she wanted the humanization weapon too. However she wants it NOT because she’s in the Hypocras club, but in the Organization of the Brass Octopus (OBO.) The Organization of the Brass Octopus is a secret group of Scientists that is working to curb the power of Supernaturals and that the Hypocras Club was a ~militant branch~ of the OBO. Alexia is bothered that Maccon didn’t tell her about OBO, since YANNO Alexia spent half the book thinking that her crush LeFoux wanted to genocide people like her husband. Which yanno REALLY STOPPED HER FROM A LOT THERE! Alexia tries to ask more questions about OBO and Maccon just answers them all with, “But it’s a secret!”

Really love that Maccon gets super mad when Alexia doesn’t talk to him, but when she asks questions he huffs and won’t tell her. You could maybe argue that since it’s a secret society thing that Maccon shouldn’t tell her. He was sworn to secrecy or some shit. But like also…a branch of this club nearly killed them both… and she’s in charge of the entire English government’s Supernatural balance system….Maybe it’s okay for her to know a little about a powerful organization in that country that’s supposed to do the same thing?

WHATEVER!

We end with LeFoux admitting she was LOOKING FOR Alexia’s bag but never went through it or messed up her room to find it. Alexia for once has a normal reaction which boils down to, “FUCK THIS SHIT!” and storms out. CAUSE WHY BRING UP SHE WAS LOOKING FOR IT AT ALL? That is pointlessly confusing.

So below I made a little chart with how easily it could have been to make this conversation flow better. Even if you want to keep in jealousy pissing contest which is also an EVEN WOMEN WOULD SEX ME STUPID HUSBAND!

I’ll admit I don’t know a lot about editing books…but I feel as if either the editors gave this a soft touch. It seems like a simple fix that could have tightened it up and made it an easier read.

Say something nice Faps:

It was technically a climax

They technically tried to wrap things up

It has been acknowledged that yes LESBIANS ARE REAL

I did genuinely like Alexia having a vulnerable moment looking upon her knocked out husband and feeling protective of him.

#gormless #senseless #riffs #riffing

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irkimatsu · 6 years ago

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This is probably the closest I’ve ever cut it, but here it is! My final thoughts on this year’s Eurovision entries!

I’m a little antsy about getting to see it this year. You know that post I made about having off on Tuesday and Thursday? Apparently my schedule’s getting changed, and now I don’t know. And I’m not gonna know about Saturday until Monday – I could easily be in work for the entire final. Here’s hoping adult obligations don’t keep me from my Europop! (And that I don’t even have this job this time next year, although my ideal job would probably keep me away from both semis… eh, win some lose some.)

I tried to find a sorter so I could rank these more thoroughly, because I’m bad at doing that by hand, but I didn’t find one, so I’ll be doing my usual thing of listing alphabetically by country and sorting each song into categories. My categories are thus:

Favorite: My number one pick for the year! Keep in mind that this doesn’t mean the song I think is objectively, artistically best, or even a song I think is going to escape the semi – this is just the song I get the most enjoyment out of. You’ll see why I felt the need to clarify that in a bit.

Love: If I ranked these, these would get the 2nd – 5th spots. I adore these songs, and would be more than happy to see any of them win.

Like: Didn’t quite make the top 5, but I still enjoy them a lot, and don’t want them getting booted out of the semi.

Okay: Nothing objectionable, but doesn’t mean much to me personally. I get a little bit of joy when I listen to it, then it fades immediately after.

Indifferent: I don’t care for this song at all; it’s just not in a style that means anything to me. If I still can’t remember how it goes after two months, that’s a bad sign.

What: This song’s existence confuses me too much to give it a proper placement.

Biased: My opinion on this song is based on factors that have nothing to do with its intent. (aka the “song reminded me of fandom” category. Haven’t used this in a while. Good to see its return!)

Yet again, the “Hate” category has been cut, since nothing actively gets on my nerves for the second year in a row! (…except one, maybe, but that one has enough background info that… well, you’ll know when you get to it.) Songs in “Like”, “Okay”, and “Indifferent” are prone from shifting up or down one within that range depending on how I’m feeling that day; “Favorite”, “Love”, “What”, and “Biased” are locked.

Ranking under the cut!

Albania: “Ktheju tokës” by Jonida Maliqi – I can feel the effort going into this one, but… nah, not my thing. It’s so rare for me to be invested in an Albanian entry, huh? Sorry, guys. Indifferent.

Armenia: “Walking Out” by Srbuk – I don’t know how to describe my feelings on this one, unfortunately, but I do really Like it. Maybe it’s the head-held-high attitude that has me interested?

Australia: “Zero Gravity” by Kate Miller-Heidke – If this doesn’t have a completely batshit performance, I’m gonna be so disappointed. Her voice is certainly impressive! But overall I’m going for an Okay on this one. It’s fine, but I think the stage show is going to outshine the actual song.

Austria: “Limits” by PÆNDA – Oof, this one is so close, yet so far. It reminds me of some artist I listen to a lot, though I can’t place it… but it just seems… thin? If it had something else to it, it could have really been something, but as it stands it doesn’t leave much impact. Indifferent, and that feels like such a waste. Good vocals, maybe if it had better music. (Then again, maybe the sparseness is the point… but if that’s the point it’s not for me)

Azerbaijan: “Truth” by Chingiz – I dunno, I just really like the imagery here, of a man arguing with himself about a relationship that he knows is damaging, but it’s just so much easier to deny it. I particularly like the “Shut up about it!” element, adds to the self-argument thing. I love the concept, and as a song it’s not half bad, either. Like!

Belarus: “Like It” by ZENA – Oh, fuck yeah! A good way to tell if I’m going to enjoy a song – are people insulting it by saying it sounds 15 – 20 years out of date? If so, then it’s probably exactly my jam! It’s such a fun song I can’t help but dance to, and sometimes that’s all I really need. I don’t just like it, I Love it! (oh that was terrible)

Belgium: “Wake Up” by Eliot – It’s a nice beat! But I don’t think it really stands out among the competition. It’s fair enough, there’s just so many other songs I like better than it this year. Okay.

Croatia: “The Dream” by Roko – OH MY GOD WHAT IS HE WEARING. Indifferent, this is not a good song, but god damn I am so looking forward to the stage show, this is going to be the cheesiest shit

Cyprus: “Replay” by Tamta – This sounds a lot like last year’s “Fuego”. This is mostly a good thing! I loved “Fuego”! But the repetition does slightly knock its chances to land in my top 5. Still a firm Like, though.

Czech Republic: “Friend of A Friend” by Lake Malawi – It’s not easy to follow up on the sheer campiness of last year’s “Lie to Me”, but Lake Malawi put forward their best effort, and I appreciate it highly! The song’s pure, campy fun that gets stuck in my head every time I listen to it. Like! …though I tend to overthink the lyrics. What, they hear someone fucking in the next apartment and the singer’s first instinct is to swear she’s only a friend? Jumping the gun a bit much there, dude? =P

Denmark: “Love Is Forever” by Leonora – It’s a really cute song, and I appreciate all the language changes. But realizing what it’s actually about it what landed it in Like – at first I thought it was just a love song, but then I realized the call for peace and optimism and it hit me in the fuzzies. I know the political, Important songs usually irritate the cheese out of me, but I feel like this one actually put effort into the music, rather than trying to ride on their message to guilt trip a vote out of you. I admit it’d probably be in the lower range of Like if I actually ranked these properly, but it really is a good song!

Estonia: “Storm” by Victor Crone – I love how this one gradually transitions from a country song to an EDM song; I always miss the exact part where it does it, it just flows so well. The optimistic lyrics are up my alley, too. It’s a really good one, and I hope it does well! Like!

Finland: “Look Away” by Darude feat. Sebastian Rejman – As a huge 90’s/2000’s European electronica fan who teethed on “Sandstorm” back when no one really knew what an Internet meme was, I nearly shat myself when I heard Darude was going to be representing Finland this year. I have no idea who Sebastian Rejman is, but after this song, I’m gonna have to look into him! This song has such a powerful beat that hits right in my gut, exactly what I love from my music. Firm Love!

France: “Roi” by Bilal Hassani – It’s a cute little thing that I can’t help but appreciate on some level! I think it’s just an Okay for balance purposes, but it creeps into Like on occasion. Also I find the singer weirdly cute. I dunno, as a package it’s just endearing!

Georgia: “Sul tsin iare” by Oto Nemsade – I can hear the passion in his voice, but… no, this isn’t for me at all. People who have read my Eurovision posts before know by now that slow + non-English tends to equal a death knell for me. Sorry, stupid American coming through. Indifferent.

Germany: “Sister” by S!sters – I hate the artist name so much, let me get that out of the way right now. As for the song itself… I don’t think I’d care for it at all if I didn’t have an association with it, but, well, here I am – this song is so, so easy to assign to the Hikawa twins from Bang Dream. Sisters in constant competition who don’t want to be? That’s their entire arc. Admittedly that’s mostly on Sayo’s part, which kind of ruins the duet aspect, but… damn it, if I can’t imagine them singing this together and playing their guitars while members of their bands provide the rest of the accompaniment, what’s the point of living? I’m going Biased on this one.

Greece: “Better Love” by Katerine Duska – I have no idea why I’m having such a hard time clicking with this song, but it’s just not working for me. I’m sure it’s objectively good, but it doesn’t do a damn thing for me. Indifferent.

Hungary: "Az én apám" by Joci Pápai – A returning artist from 2017! Too bad I didn’t care too much then and I really don’t care now. Just like Georgia, this just isn’t my style, and no amount of objective appreciation can fix the sad fact that songs like this always sink to the bottom of the pile for me. Indifferent.

Iceland: "Hatrið mun sigra" by Hatari – …right. Oh boy. Okay. Look, when I first heard there was gonna be an industrial song in this year’s Eurovision, I was fucking pumped. This was one of the two songs I looked into before properly listening to the finished playlist, along with Finland. I’m not always into industrial music, but when it’s good, it’s fucking awesome! I started it up, heard the music, was so ready for this to be a real contender…

…aaaaand then the vocals started up. I don’t think this is just “I don’t like industrial growling”, they really do sound quite bad. I still love the instrumental, and the chorus is nice, too… but those verses. No.

And then I looked up those edgelord lyrics, and started hearing stuff about the band, and I am 110% convinced this is a troll song, firmly destined for the What category. This is what you send to Eurovision to let everyone know how much you hate Eurovision. I figured it had no chance of getting out of the semi, at least partially because of the feeling that if it does, the band will feel like they failed.

…but I keep seeing it rank high on others’ lists, so… I have no fucking clue what to expect from this one!

Ireland: “22” by Sarah McTernan – It’s pleasant! But that’s about it. I used to listen to folksy stuff like this as a kid, so I guess there’s some nostalgia for it… but I haven’t been into it in a long time. Low Okay.

Israel: “Home” by Kobi Marimi – I often hear jokes about how winning countries will send non-impacting garbage just so they don’t have to host the Contest two years in a row, and songs like this are exactly why I believe them. There’s nothing wrong with it, the singer’s voice might even be good, but as a whole package it’s just so boring. It feels like it’s so much longer than three minutes – such a slog to get through. Indifferent.

Italy: “Soldi” by Mahmood – Oh, I really like this one! The “come va” bit always burrows itself in my head, and I do respect how personal it seems to the singer, with the blending of cultures. (I know I don’t always respect the personal aspect, but I love when “personal” doesn’t have to mean “bland-ass acoustic guitar ballad”.) Like!

Latvia: “That Night” by Carousel – One for the bin of “I can’t remember how this goes”. There’s nothing wrong with it, it’s just so forgettable. I’m trying to find something about it that stands out to me, but… nah, it’s just mush. Indifferent.

Lithuania: “Run With The Lions” by Jurij Veklenko – Even more mush. I can remember bits of it, at least, but the bits I remember don’t mean anything to me. Indifferent.

Macedonia: “Proud” by Tamara Todevska – I know I normally crap on ballads, but… I think I heard this song at a time I really needed to. I love the self-acceptance message, as corny and played out as it can be. I Like this one, it’s sweet.

Malta: “Chameleon” by Michela – This came so, so close to my top 5! I really do love the hell out of it! Such a good walking song. Like, but could have so easily been a Love if not for its competition.

Moldova: “Stay” by Anna Odobescu – Oh no. This is the first year I haven’t been head-over-heels in love with the Moldovan entry, and I feel like such a jerk about it. They finally decide to take themselves seriously and send something with a lot of passion! …and all I can do is sit here disappointed! I’m sorry! Low Okay for the “objectively great, I’m sure, but not my genre” thing. I know a lot of people love it, but I don’t think I would have cared for it from any country, and it being Moldova is just disappointing for me. They can of course do whatever they want, and good for them if it works out, but let me pout in peace

Montenegro: “Heaven” by D mol – This is the most I’ve ever unironically liked a Montenegrin song since I started watching the Contest in 2014, as cold as a compliment that is. It’s cute! But cute is really all it has going for it. I’m going with Okay, though that’s mainly from comparing it to everything else I’ve heard from Montenegro; if another country sent this, it could have easily landed lower.

Netherlands: “Arcade” by Duncan Laurence – I don’t get it. I know a lot of people have been heaping praise on this… but I don’t get it, and I feel like the arcade metaphor is insanely cheesy for the mood it’s going for. I can’t take it as seriously as it seems to want me to. Indifferent.

Norway: “Spirit In The Sky” by KEiiNO – I adore this song. Great music, great imagery, I feel like it’s gonna be a good stage show! The joiking took me a bit to get used to, but once I did, I do feel it adds a lot to the song. I cannot wait to see this song performed! Love! In a better world where I have taste, this song would be my Favorite, and even as it stands I’m pretty sure it’s my favorite song that has a chance in hell of actually winning. But as for my actual Favorite… we’ll get to that later.

Poland: “Fire Of Love (Pali Sie)” by Tulia – Little confession for those who were around in 2014 – I regret choosing “We Are Slavic” as my favorite song back then. I admit that I wasn’t really taking the Contest seriously and was somewhat choosing based on meme potential. Whoops. But the good news is, this song proves that I wasn’t entirely going on meme potential. We’re taking traditional Polish singing far more seriously this time, and I still like it! It’s a unique little song that stands out in a good way, and I love the shout singing. I’ve heard complaints about it, but I got used to it right away. Maybe because I’ve been listening to shouty rave stuff for such a long time? I’m used to this style of singing, and pleased to hear it working with a more traditional musical backdrop. Like!

Portugal: "Telemóveis" by Conan Osiris – Haaaaaa oh my god what the fuck. By all rights, this should be dumped in the “What” category and never talked about again… but this weird little song charmed me somehow. I have a bad history with never remembering Portugal’s entries, with them making so little of an impression on me that I always forget if they skipped 2016 or if their entry that year was just that boring. And as weird as it is, I don’t feel like it’s quite strange enough for me to dump it in the same category that I tend to reserve for unapologetic camp. So, you know what, for breathing some bizarre life into a country I wrote off a long time ago, I’m giving it an Okay. I flirted with the idea of putting it in Like just by comparison with everything else the country has sent, but that implies I actually want to see this in the final, and I’m not gonna go that far.

Romania: “On A Sunday” by Ester Peony – By sound, I think it’s just an Okay, but a respectably placed one. I do like it more than, say, Ireland or Moldova. But I’ve been listening to it a lot recently… mainly for shipping reasons. (JyushiHomu, for the curious.) But I also decided it was a fine song even before I made that connection, so I don’t think it belongs in Biased? I may be shooting low on this one because I’m afraid of my shipping goggles impairing my judgment. Maybe it really is a low Like, I don’t know. I’ll leave it here. It’s a nice song!

Russia: “Scream” by Sergey Lazarev – Oh, man, I was so hyped to see that Sergey was back! “You Are The Only One” was my favorite entry from 2016, and I’ve listened to his English Best Of thousands of times!

…so imagine my surprise to hear that it’s a ballad. Keep in mind my usual tastes in music, and my other favorite Sergey songs – “Take It Off”, “Stumblin’”, “In My Lonely Life”. I love him for the fun club nonsense. I’m shallow, I know. But then I managed to shake off my biases and listen to “Scream” for what it is and not just what it could be, and… yeah, it’s a good song. Sergey’s got good producers and a great voice. It’s still a Like. But I feel like if they gave this song to someone I didn’t recognize, it’d land lower.

Not like the other competitor here who’s returning from 2016…

San Marino: “Say Na Na Na” by Serhat – Oh hell yeah. When I first saw that Serhat was back, after I stopped laughing, I clicked it fully expecting some camp bait to throw at Karamatsu, drop in the What category, and spend the next two months gleefully taking the piss out of.

…that is not what happened. Instead, I instantly fell in love with it. Serhat may not make a convincing Casanova, but he sure as hell knows how to party! This feels ripped right from a 2000’s Europop act that leans on disco energy, and that is exactly my type of thing. I’m so sad that this is probably going to get stuck in the semi, because I am so wildly in love with it. I can’t believe that out of the two returning artists from 2016, I fell in love with Serhat, not Sergey! Instant Favorite, I accept my place as the only person in the world who actually wants to see this win. Party energy, optimistic lyrics, how am I supposed to put this below anything else?

Still throwing it at Kara, though

Serbia: “Kruna” by Nevena Božović – Remember what I said about songs I forget the instant they end? Yeah, this is one of ‘em. I just can’t think of anything to say here. Indifferent.

Slovenia: “Sebi” by Zala Kralj & Gašper Šantl – Kinda reminds me of a forgettable t.A.t.U album track. That’s not really a high compliment. I do like the vocals, but it’s one of those songs I can appreciate in the moment but don’t really seek out actively. Okay, and a low one at that.

Spain: “La Venda” by Miki – Just typing the title for this one is making me want to party! God this is a fun one to listen to. Party song about not being a bigoted dick! What’s not to Love? Looking forward to an entertaining stage show on this one!

Sweden: “Too Late For Love” by John Lundvik – …you know that feeling when you think you should really love a song more than you do? There’s nothing wrong with it, I actually do almost like it… but I don’t seem to adore it like so many other people do, and I feel like a jerk about it. Okay because I don’t love it as much as everyone else does, but I won’t be upset to see it perform well. I don’t know what it is that isn’t resonating with me! I’m sorry! It’d probably get a Like if I wasn’t being influenced by other rankings!

Switzerland: “She Got Me” by Luca Hänni – Oh, this is a nice, fun little thing. I think I like it for a lot of the same reasons I like “Friend of A Friend”. It just sounds like the people recording it are having such a good time! Like!

United Kingdom: “Bigger Than Us” by Michael Rice – Nope, sorry. Grand ballad, yay, good for it, not my thing at all, nothing that stands out. Indifferent.

SUMMARY:

Favorite

San Mario

Love

Belarus

Finland

Norway

Spain

Armenia

Azerbaijan

Cyprus

Czech Republic

Denmark

Estonia

France

Italy

Macedonia

Malta

Poland

Russia

Switzerland

Okay

Australia

Belgium

Ireland

Moldova

Montenegro

Portugal

Romania

Slovenia

Sweden

Indifferent

Albania

Austria

Croatia

Georgia

Greece

Hungary

Israel

Latvia

Lithuania

Netherlands

Serbia

United Kingdom

What

Iceland

Biased

Germany

#irk blubbers about nothing #irk talks eurovision 2019

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