#way too many people in the comments assuming the That Guy is a nd person who hasnt been told theyre being annoying

[hybbat]

To all the people in the comments, if you think or worry that you're That Guy then you already have to much self awareness and empathy to be That Guy.

Also if you're scared of doing something annoying and having people not tell you then you can tell them to tell you. Most people aren't comfortable with just telling someone they're being annoying for the exact same empathetic reasons you worry about being a That Guy. "I can't read your mind to know I've done something wrong" and they can't read your mind to know when you're unclear about something and what's okay to confront you about and in what way.

Discord servers are great but all it takes is one ‘That Guy’ to ruin it.

[fangirlovestuff]

‘stache Stories - Chris Evans x reader

a/n - hey lovely people!! at last, a fic! behold this astounding feat of- well, i don’t really know, but i’m happy i finally wrote at least one of the requests i had😂 i promise i’m trying to write more but for a few different reasons i’m veryyyy late on stories and i hope the anon is still around to see this! also, i personally have a hate hate relationship with the mustache, so it’s kinda in there too hehe, but we all always love chris. enjoy!<3

for the first time in months, you were finally going to see your boyfriend

not only were you going to finally see him in person after a month of both of your jobs keeping you apart, but you were going to watch him perform on broadway! 

you were so excited to watch him act on stage, you loved all of his movies and you were sure you were going to love the play just the same, if not even more

you texted chris you were there before locating the back door, telling your name to the security guard at the entrance

you asked him where you could find chris and he just pointed in a certain direction vaguely, so you looked around as you went in the direction he pointed in

you were trying to keep an eye out for chris, but you've never really been backstage in broadway before, so you couldn't help marveling at the hustle and bustle of people, and it was still nearly two hours until the show

you saw someone standing on their phone, and you assumed they'd be available enough to help you, since unlike all the other people who were walking around fervently, the man seemed pretty relaxed

"excuse me, do you know where i can f-"

he turned his face in your direction, and it took you a second before a gasp fell from your lips, and then you started giggling like a lunatic

"you made it!" chris grinned, enveloping you in a tight hug

you sighed contently in his arms, holding him back just as tightly, but when you broke away, you struggled to contain your laughter

"babe... you can't just-" you started laughing again, the mustache just as funny as it was shocking, "you can't just ignore That," you gestured at his face

"you don't like it?" he asked, but the shy smile on his face indicated he was aware of the... less than great mustache on his face

"i don't wike it," you confirmed teasingly and shook your head before pressing a kiss to his cheek

"well, the sacrifices we have to make for the craft," he said dramatically

"ah yes," you said, just as dramatic, "the craft. but, i gotta ask, how necessary was it? like is it super necessary or can you like... i don't know, shave it off tonight before we go out?"

"i didn't know it was that bad," he chuckled

"okay, okay, it's not that bad," you shrugged, "but, y'know, i feel like it kinda obscures the view," you pouted

"the view? what view?" he asks, a smug smile stretching across his face

"my very handsome boyfriend who has been tragically kidnapped by a wierdo," you said, your pout now entirely exaggerated

"i don't know is that was a compliment or an insult," he admitted with a chuckle

"best of both worlds," you smirked, prompting him to laugh

"so we're still on for tonight after the show, right?" he asked once his laughter died down

"obviously yes," you said, sincerity showing on your face, "i missed you," you kissed him softly, knowing you still had a ton of other people around, even if they were polite enough to pretend you two weren't there, it was probably a matter of time until someone came by looking for him

"great," he smiled softly at you once you parted

"see ya later luigi!" you winked at him 

"that's... fair," he laughed, shaking his head

you went by to look around the area before you'd come back to see the show itself

after the show, you found chris backstage once more, after he already changed back into his normal clothes, and took his hand, ready to head out

you two were quick, slipping out before there were that many people by the door, and you made your way past whatever crowd was starting to form before you could start walking a little less briskly

"you were wonderful," you bumped his shoulder with yours, smiling

"yeah? you liked it?"

"i mean, i kinda hated you, but that's in the job description, i think," you giggled

"yes!" he pumped his fist in celebration

"wow, if i would've known that's how you'd react to me hating you maybe i'd do it more often," you teased

"i'd rather not," he laughed, before pulling you into a street corner, where you were barely seen from the traffic, and wrapped his arms around your waist

"i missed you," he whispered

your lips finally met properly, tongues exploring, eager to get reacquainted with a beloved landscape

"missed you too," you answered, your voice a bit breathy

you swallowed and then took his hand in yours, "c'mon, let's go to dinner," you smiled, dragging him back into the street

you loved the man, really didn't like the mustache, but it made him a little less recognizable, which you were both thankful for

sometime later, scott grew a similar mustache 

when you first saw him as he opened the door for you and chris when you visited him, all he got was an "oh. so what's up?"

chris looked at you incredulously

"seriously? when i grow a mustache you call me a weirdo and when he does all he gets is an 'oh'?" 

"oh my god, i almost forgot about your mustache," you said, bursting into laughter, "god, that was terrible, wasn't it scott?"

scott laughed and agreed with you, ushering you and a grumbling chris inside

"honestly scott, if i wasn't his girlfriend back then and i saw him on the street, i would run," you said, "and i hate that i need to clarify this, but not into his arms - i would run away," you teased, watching a red tint spread on chris' cheeks from the corner of your eye

"you got a point there," the two of you laughed

"but he has a mustache as well! right now!" chris half-whined the words

"yeah, you do," you snickered at the man in question. "well, you could probably do that crime movie you've always wanted, cop or criminal," you laughed

"where was this energy when i had a mustache?" chris chimed in again

"well, maybe it's because i don't have to date scott," you retaliated

"you never had to date me too," he pointed out

"no, i really think i did. see, charming, wonderful, smart guys aren't that easy to come by, so really i had no other choice," you shrugged

"at this point you'd think i'd be able to understand if you're insulting me or complimenting me," chris huffed out a laugh

"does it matter?"

"nope, i love you anyway," he wrapped his arm around you

"awww. love you too," you leaned into his side, "but please don't grow a mustache ever again. i'll do whatever you want"

"ooo, whatever i w-"

"may i remind you there are children in the room!" you cut him off, gesturing at scott, and the three of you laughed together, "so whatever you were gonna say, spare us"

"fine," he rolled his eyes, "but i still think i looked better than him with a mustache"

"mmmm, debatable."

i couldn’t help referencing the mustache scott has now at the end, especially after the intereview with both of them yesterday (i love them so much omg), and as always i love hearing your thoughts!!<3

Taglist:  @horny-nd-bored​ @shannon124 @perfectlyharolds​ @wintersoldierslut​ @iceebabies​  @sleepingpapermouse @steverogerswasalwaysworthy @holtzkinnon @angelicl-y @stydia-4-ever @thatoneperson5000 @fangirlfree​ @kaitcordx25 @bequeening​ @steve-barry-damon-logan​ @itscrazycherryblossomcollection​ @hollandxmarvel​ @stargazingfangirl18 @readsreblogsfics @onetwo3000 @beritmetal @harrystylesholland @jazbot2000 @anobscurename @xxxtwilightaxelxxx @peggycarter-steverogers @evansphnx12 @starlightcrystalline @procrastinatingsapphictrash

if you wanna join / be removed from a taglist, comment/message me! much love <3

[k3rm1e]

hiihi !! ive been loving all the stuuf yoube been wirting latley its so good :^D i ws wondering if i ciuld have some hcs ,or just a onrshot either or i dont mind, of reader geeting sick and mumza nd dadza take care of them ?? bc i lovr mr and mrs minecraft <33 liek like reader like "ahh im finr mr minecraft" and they have 102° fever Nd have a runny nose and mr minecatft is liek "mmm no i dont thnik so m8" nd yaeh !! they/them pronouns but i thnk uve benn doing that arleady - :^) anon

sickly

hiihi !! ive been loving all the stuuf yoube been wirting latley its so good :^D i ws wondering if i ciuld have some hcs ,or just a onrshot either or i dont mind, of reader geeting sick and mumza nd dadza take care of them ?? bc i lovr mr and mrs minecraft <33 liek like reader like "ahh im finr mr minecraft" and they have 102° fever Nd have a runny nose and mr minecatft is liek "mmm no i dont thnik so m8" nd yaeh !! they/them pronouns but i thnk uve benn doing that arleady - :^) anon

:^) anon my beloved;;;;; i love your brain. this could go two ways depending on whether you’re staying with phil or if you guys are online so i went with your staying with him. i also did a one shot but if you want hcs i hv no problem writing some :) i hope this is good!

cw: cursing

mumza and dadza take care of you:

  it had finally happened. while covid wasn't fully over just yet, many had gotten the vaccine and conventions were opening up again. which meant two things: meetups and twitchcon. finally, you could meet some of your supporters and see your friends.

  “mom, are we almost there?” your mom was driving you to the airbnb you’d be staying at with a few of the other dream smp members. at first, you assumed you’d all be staying in separate hotel rooms. but, this way, you could spend more time with friends, save money, and your mom wouldn’t have to be with you the whole time. there had already been many long conversations between philza and your mom to make sure you’d be safe staying with everyone.

  “yes, sweetie. almost there. we’re just two minutes closter than when you asked earlier.” ok, sue you, maybe you were a bit excited. but really, who could blame you? making in person friends had never been easiest, so the majority of your friendship were with people online. not being able to see or meet anyone for so long had been excruciatingly painful. 

  within ten minutes, you had finally arrived at the airbnb. quickly jumping out you ran to the door, obnoxiously ringing the doorbell. through the door, you heard an accented voice yell out, “i’m coming, i’m coming!”. at this point you were springing up and down on your tippy-toes, ready to spring out of your skin.

  the door opened and you were greeted by a very tired and annoyed looking wilbur, “hello?”.

`   “WILBURRRR!!!” you were screaming in his face (unintentionally), waking him up from his drowsiness. you launched yourself in his arms, not paying attention to your mother’s bewildered expression. you quickly let go of him and shoved past him, “i’m gonna go say hi to everyone!” distantly you heard wilbur begin to talk to your mother, explaining what you guys were doing.

  while running around you said hi to tommy, tubbo, ranboo, eret, fundy, niki, techno, phil and kristin. the others were either staying in another airbnb or in their own hotel rooms. after about thirty minutes, wilbur had finally stopped talking to your mom.

  “yes, ma’am. i can promise you they’ll be completely safe. you have absolutely nothing to worry about.” wilbur was calmly talking with your mother, looking more and more tired by the minute.

  “alright. thank you.” your mother called you over. “come give me a hug and say bye!” slowly dragging your limbs over, you let her hug you. behind you you could hear wilbur and phil laughing at you.

  “bye mom…” she was holding onto you tightly, petting down your hair.

  “oh, sweetie, i love you so much. i’m so happy you found something you're passionate about and made so many lovely friends while doing so.” as much as you loved your mom, the small snickers behind you were getting quite embarrassing. you could hear that tommy had joined in on the laughing. 

  “... i love you too, mom. can you let go now?” you tried pulling back, but all she did was pull you closer.

  “oh, but i just don’t wanna let you go. i love you so much, you know that right?”

  “i know, mom. i love you too. but you’ve gotta get home and i have to unpack and get ready for meeting with fans tomorrow.” you finally got her to pull away, “i love you mom, okay? thank you for letting me do this.”

  “oh, i love you too, sweetie.” and with that, your mom left. after watching her pull out of the driveway and down the street, you whipped around.

  “not. a. single. word.” you stared dead in the boy’s eyes, seeing just how much wilbur was about to burst out laughing.

  “what? personally, i think it’s very sweet.” tommy was smiling, purposely pissing you off. “so sweet, how much your mom loves you.”

  “shut your fucking mouth, tommy.” you stared deadpan at him and began walking inside and over to the kitchen.

  “what? i didn’t say anything wrong! i was just simply commenting on your very, very sweet relationship with your mother.”

  kristin moved forward to talk to you, “for what it’s worth, i do thing you hae a very sweet relationship with your mom.”

  “thank you. you’re the only good one in this house, kristin minecraft.” with that she laughed, and you all continued on with your evening. after staying up late watching old youtube videos, you all went to bed. in the morning you would have your first day of three at twitchcon, meeting fans and other creators alike. 

  for around 10 hours, you stood in booths signing fanart, prints, notebooks, and the like. meeting so many different people was eye opening, just learning who supported you. at the end of the day everyone went to a restaurant to eat dinner after so long.

  “this food… is so… fucking good.”

  “agreed.” you and the rest of the so-called ‘bench trio’ were eating at what wilbur had deemed the ‘kiddy table’. after eating so much food you were all tired. the rest of your friends had already left, walking back to the airbnb. when it was finally time to leave the restaurant, it was pouring rain.

  “WHY IS THE RAIN SO COLD IT’S LITERALLY SUMMER”

  after running home you had gone to sleep while the others had changed and taken showers. after sleeping for around ten hours, you had finally woken up. frankly, you felt like dogshit. you could barely breathe out of your stuffy nose and your head felt like it had been shoved full of wet cotton balls.

  instead of staying in bed, you got up and tried to get ready. on the way downstairs to get food and see who was making so much noise, you fell face first down the stairs. “owwwww…”

  hearing a ruckus, phil and kristin left the kitchen, where they were making pancakes. “holy shit! are you alright, mate?”

  pushing phil over, kristin walked over to you, “obviously they’re not okay phil! the poor kid is lying on the floor.”

  slowly getting up, you try to reassure both of them that you’re okay. “no, no, no, don’t worry. i am perfectly okay.” while you don’t know exactly how you sound, based on the expression on phil’s face, you don't think you sound very good.

  “uh, yeah, how about no. you sound like you’ve draken a whale bottle of vodka.” phil walked over to you and grabbed you by the arm, trying to hold you up.

  “i’m fineeee”

  “no, your fucking not. you’re burning up.” phil looked at you, angrily. “you need to go to bed.”

  “but i don’t wannaaaaa. i feel fineeee.” you felt like crying, for absolutely no reason. with that, you passed out on the floor.

  phil and kristin somehow managed to get you back up the stairs and into bed. once you were safely in your room, with no risk of cracking your skull open, phil took your temperature. “mate, your temperature is at nearly 102°. you’re lucky i don’t take you to a hospital.” he started at you, disapprovingly.

  “i’m sorryyyyy dadza. are you mad at me?” in your deluded state you pouted at him, like a child.

  “no, i’m not mad at you. just disappointed. you should’ve known not to do that. you’re old enough to know when you’re sick.” he stared at you with a disapproving look.

  “but that’s even worseeeeee” you felt like balling your eyes out. out of embarrassment, you tried to hide under your blanket. “can you tell mumza i’m sorry for worrying her?”

  above you, you heard phil laugh. “it’s not that big a deal, kid. i’m just upset. you could’ve seriously hurt yourself. i was worried.”

  “you were worried about me? awwwww, i love you too dadza.” you moved your head out of the blankets, smiling at him with dried tears and sweat on your face.

  “yeah, yeah. now shut up and go to bed.”

  kristin walked in, hearing what he said. “phil, don’t bully the kid. they already feel like shit.” out of the corner of your eye, you saw her look over to phil and smile at him.

  “i’m not doing anything, swear on my life!” he put his hands up in defense of himself, making you laugh.

  turning away from him, she directed her next question towards you. “how you feeling, kid? took quite a tumble there.” she smiled at you and ushed your hair out of your face.

  “i’m sorry for worrying youuuuuu. i love you, mumza. promise.”

  laughing, she leaned down to kiss you on the head. “love you too, kid. now, want me to sit with you and we can all watch some netflix or something?”

  you silently nodded and the two of them joined you on the bed, not caring very much if they got sick. after not even an hour, you all passed out.

  a few hours later, everyone returned back from the convention. let’s just say wilbur now had some very valuable blackmail.

hope you like it! this was so wholesome i- wfowcsjvri

i want parents like dadza and mumza now

[normal-thoughts-official]

Why was Lorenzo such a jealous bitch nd why does this fandom treat him like he's a good person😑

okay so i know that this is a rethorical question but i've actually thought about this a lot so i'll take my crack at answering this - WHY is lorenzo such a jealous bitch?

the only thing he's said about why he hates magnus - that i remember of, at least - is the line "he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. his fame is not based on talent, it's all nepotism"

now, anyone who knows anything at all about magnus knows that not a single fucking word of this is true. magnus was born poor in a recently colonized country under a lot of oppression, there was no damn silver spoon in his mouth, and after that he was thoroughly abused by his demon father. his fame is also absolutely based on talent - he invented portals, for fuck's sake! and the "nepotism" comment barely makes sense. i assume he means it's just that magnus' power is all due to the fact that his father is demon royalty, which makes magnus more powerful than most warlocks

so, that explains what lorenzo is jealous of - magnus' power and prestige among warlocks (such as having been HWoB for decades) - but not what the fuck lorenzo's deal is (i mean, we've met plenty of other warlocks in the show, many of which weren't really fans of magnus, but no one other than lorenzo has this idea that magnus doesn't deserve his fame), or why magnus (because while like, yes, magnus is very powerful, i assume he's not the only son of a prince of hell, considering asmodeus is not the only prince of hell and these guys get on the loose, like, weekly. and lorenzo is obviously OBSESSED with him, he deliberately went out of his way and abused his power as HWoB several times specifically to antagonize him, and also, you know, TRIED TO KILL HIM)

lorenzo talks about magnus almost as if magnus took something from him. it's not just that magnus is powerful and that he supposedly doesn't deserve it, lorenzo obviously feels as if antagonizing magnus is some sort of vengeance. i know plenty of jealous people, but going as far as forbidding anyone other than himself from giving magnus a magic transfusion, specifically saying that if it went wrong he wouldn't help, and then refusing to take back the magic when he KNEW perfectly well that would kill him, is to me very obviously a thought out plan TO kill magnus. lorenzo had been hoping from the start that magnus' body would reject his magic and the transfusion would kill him - why else would he specifically say, the second he agreed to the transfusion, that if it went wrong magnus would be on his own?

and it's not like lorenzo even gains anything from that, other than killing magnus. and humiliating him, which lorenzo has said explicitly was something he wanted to do (i believe the term he used was "breaking his spirit", but potato potatoh). if it was about magnus' position of power, he already had that - lorenzo literally already had the HWoB position. if it was about magnus' magic, he had already lost it. lorenzo had absolutely NOTHING to gain from magnus, so his personal vendetta against him doesn't even make sense from JUST a jealousy standpoint. he had already "won" over magnus. the only explanation is that he wanted some kind of revenge

but revenge from what? well, we know that magnus and lorenzo don't like each other, but magnus never really TOOK anything from lorenzo. considering how he wouldn't miss an opportunity to talk about how much he hated him, i think lorenzo would have brought it up if that had been the case. and magnus is just not the kind of person to pull the rug from under other people's feet - look no further than the whole show for evidence of that. he literally puts the others above himself at all times (which is unhealthy but that's another story and something i've talked about plenty of times already)

so why does lorenzo feel so much resentment towards magnus? why does he act as if magnus' power took something that was rightfully his?

i think lorenzo feels that he was entitled to be the most powerful, to have the most prestige, to be above magnus, and he resented magnus because that was simply not true

why?

let's go back to the only thing we know about lorenzo's backstory - the baby painting. yes, it's a huge meme, but think about that for a second. lorenzo has a huge ass painting of himself as a baby that he displays proudly in his home and that's, like, his #1 stop at the house tour. the baby painting. "needless to say, being born in spain during the siglo de oro was quite the experience". is the first thing he said

let's make this abundantly clear: this line makes it canon that lorenzo is a colonizer. the siglo de oro ("golden century" in spanish) started (roughly) in 1492, year of the """""discovery""""" of the americas, and ended (roughly) in 1659, the year when spain signed a treaty and lost a bunch of their territories to france (link to source). altho the term is usually used to refer to the boom of the arts in spain, it's obvious, just from these historical landmarks, that the siglo de oro is about colonization. it's about the fact that at the time spain was at its peak colonial power, and could afford to exploit what later became third world countries, and put part of that money (in fact, the literal gold they were stealing from latin american countries) into arts and other luxuries (because in the renaissance portraits were a luxury item and a symbol of status - link to source) for the ultra rich that benefited from colonization

so, lorenzo is not only a colonizer, but he's a part of the elite. the fact that his family could afford to have a painting of him as a BABY (portraits were almost exclusively adult portraits, and usually of the whole family, unless you were even richer than the rich. and even then individual portraits were usually to celebrate important achievements such as a marriage or acquisition of state - a baby being born doesn't qualify, especially because at the time most babies died not long after birth anyway), and a HUGE painting on top of that, shows that they were just. loaded in an incomprehensible way. im talking jeff bezos level of riches. they were the elite of the biggest colonial empire of their century. so, ironically, lorenzo was born with a silver spoon in his mouth - everything that he had, he was born having, and he specifically had because it was being stolen due to a dramatically violent process of genocide and slavery, that he believed to be entitled to simply because he was born a spaniard/white. that is all canon, because in the shverse mundane history is the same as in real life. EVERYONE who was born in the colonial elites was taught that they were entitled to shit from other countries, that they were superior not only to other ppls but also to their own people - let's not forget that this was way before the advent of republics, those were monarchies. the ppl who were part of the elite straight up believed they were superior to others by virtue of god

"woah woah woah but lorenzo is played by javier muñoz who's brown" yeah, which is unfortunate, but he is still canonically a colonizer. first off, because it's not like they wanted someone to be lorenzo and were looking for brown people - they were looking for someone javier could play because he's a bigshot broadway actor who was also a fan of the show, and then they picked lorenzo. probably because the sh showrunners don't fucking know the difference between a latino and a spaniard. or maybe they do, but they thought, "eh, close enough". either way, lorenzo is a spaniard, and he was born a colonizer - ergo, he is white, regardless of what race his actor is, regardless of even what he looks like. there are plenty of white spaniards with similar skin tones to lorenzo, because what today is spain used to be a territory occupied by middle eastern ppl, and there was mixing. what makes whiteness is not skin tone, it's context, and the context of being a literal colonizer directly benefitting of the oppression of black and brown people is as white as it gets

so, to recap: lorenzo was born a white colonizer, and he was RAISED believing that everything he had, he was entitled to. he was entitled to it by virtue of god, because he was born a part of the rich elite in the richest colonial power in the world, and he had access to everything he could possibly want. and he wasn't just entitled to riches and power - which he still has, look at his fucking mansion, dude - but specifically to superiority to his peers. especially black and brown people, the source of his riches, the people who owe him the wealth he takes from them

and then he joins the warlock world, and not only is he not royalty (because presumably he is the son of a regular demon, not too high up in the hierarchy) but some brown guy is. and this guy is in a position of power over him (high warlock) and he is better than him (at magic, specifically, but also at everything including being a human being, but lorenzo doesn't care about that). and lorenzo is fucking livid, because he believes himself to be entitled to be the best, entitled to be treated as a superior, entitled to admiration and to servitude, especially from people like magnus (let's not forget that the philippines - colonized by spain during the siglo de oro - are right next to indonesia [link]). instead, magnus is, politically speaking, his superior

and it's not like it even means much because the high warlock position is implied to be kind of like, the mayor, and it's not like magnus ever abused his power (unlike some people - and sidenote, i think this backstory is also why lorenzo was so comfortable using his power to antagonize magnus: because he was raised in a context where political power was pretty much boundless and politics and the personal feelings of the ruler were not separated). so in practice its really just that if lorenzo had a problem, he could go to magnus, and if magnus made a decision that referred to all warlocks, lorenzo was supposed to follow it. it's nowhere near like, actual subservience. but it's way too much for someone who was raised to be entitled to the level that lorenzo was

so that's why he has this feeling that magnus took something from him - because in his head, everything magnus has, lorenzo should be entitled to. because in his head, any and all power rightfully belongs to him, and if magnus has it, then it has been stolen. and that might not even be conscious of his part or whatever, altho i doubt lorenzo doesn't think in explicitly racist terms at least in private, but that had been ingrained into his head for centuries on end. if it's still ingrained into the heads of white spaniards born TODAY, imagine one who was actually born at the fucking height of racist exploitation

so. yeah. that's why lorenzo is such a jealous bitch. that's why he hates magnus so much - because he feels that magnus having anything at all lorenzo doesn't is theft, and ironically, he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, but believes that he earnt what he has whereas magnus didn't. it's not just jealousy, it's a profound feeling of racist vendetta, and i'm sure the sh writers didn't mean it that way, they were just writing a big villain to bring malec together, but death of the author, baby! and this explanation actually makes sense without having to change anything in canon, so, i feel very comfortable saying that's why lorenzo behaves the way he does

THIS POST IS NOT ABOUT THE BOOKS

[with-love-anu]

Chances

Pairing: Sirius Black x Reader

Summary: Sirius is the asshole of your group who seems bent on pissing you off

Warnings: Swearing, Sirius being a bully

Word Count: 1,848

Asshole. He was a complete nauseating asshole. Honestly you didn’t know why you let him get that much to you. You tried to breathe. That fucking man-child Sirius just ruined your notes. Those notes you spent so much time creating and what was his response again? Ooopsie.

“(Y/n), you’re really scary when you are angry.” Sirius said performing spells to repair the damage.

“Am I?” you scoffed. “Perhaps, if I would have been, people would not try to test me!”

“Hey calm down, chill, okay?” He said with a smirk that made you wish to rip his mouth. “Here’s your notes; as good as new.”

He looked smug at the moment, gesturing the notes towards you as if trying to calm a rabid dog. Argghhh. Maybe you would become one, Sirius was in fact capable of bringing out worst in people. You snatched your notes and went away with a huff.

“You can thank me later!” Sirius called after you.

He hated you. That had become a well known fact. Why? You had no idea. You remembered being actually friends with him once. Good friends. Then one day, he just turned cold. You had tried to talk to him. But between him ignoring you completely and him shouting, “Are you that dumb, I don’t want to talk to you; move along!!” in front of the great hall you got the message. You remember running into the washroom and crying your eyeballs out. After that you stopped talking to him. You still hung out with Remus and James. Whenever he would be in the group, he would sometimes make snarky remarks at you, or ignore you otherwise. You would reply back with a scoff or just roll your eyes and continue your conversation with others. It hurt, it really did; but you had mastered to not let it show.

It was the potions class. Professor Slughorn had placed a golden yellow potion in front of you all. It looked gorgeous. Bubbles burst around, making it look heavenly. You fidgeted in excitement. You knew what it was.  

“Can anyone tell me what this is?” the professor asked. You shot your hand up immediately.

“Yes, Miss (Y/l/n)?”

“Felix Felicis, also called "Liquid Luck", is a potion that makes the drinker lucky for a period of time, during which everything they attempt will be successful. It is meant to be used sparingly, however, as it causes giddiness, recklessness, and dangerous overconfidence if taken in excess.” You said in one breath.

“Oh, so you took it today before coming to class?” Sirius sneered and everyone rolled out laughing causing your cheeks to burn. You stared straight ahead not wanting to give anyone the satisfaction. You bit your tongue. Your mother taught you, bullies would always try to get on your nerves, to reply or remark back will only make them stronger.

“Be nice to them, it will have a far greater effect. Help everyone and never speak words full of hatred. Doing that you not only hurt the person you say it to but also yourself. We don’t get to choose people who come into our lives, they maybe good or bad. Most of them will disappoint you, hurt you; but you must remember- you are stronger. I am in no way am telling you to let people take advantage of your generosity. You will be stronger because you didn’t cause the same pain which made you want to kill them, smack them, kick them in the shins so they cry out.” You giggled. Your mother smiled.

“Let go. Move on. Ignore them. It takes strength, it’s a power that belongs only to the greatest of men.”

But urge to smack him right in the face so his jaw broke was so damn strong. You took a deep breath, in and out.

“Mr. Black! How dare you! You just insulted one of my best students. You need the potion much more than she does, even to pass this class! So, I would insist you to take out your book and start studying.”

You did not expect that. People around you snickered and snorted. You didn’t dare look at Sirius. You wanted to smile, but you couldn’t. You remembered him sitting for hours in the library with Remus to work on potions. Perhaps, this was a bit too harsh.

***

You were all sitting in the library, talking about the upcoming hogsmede weekend.

“My Lily flower here, has finally agreed to go out with me as a couple!” James said putting an arm around Lily. Lily blushed.

“Well, you did promise me anything I want from honeydukes.” She told him leaning into James embrace.

“(Y/n) what about you, got any plans?” Remus asked.

“You’re asking (Y/n)? I doubt she could get a date in a million years being the know it all, we all know she is.”

You sucked a breath. James and Remus glared at him and were ready to launch when someone put an arm around you.

“(Y/n), babe?” you turned to see Sebastian standing close behind you.

Sebastian and you were weird friends. You were completely honest with one-another, understanding each-others choices and flirted with each other for fun. You would definitely count him as one of your best friends.

“Guys can I borrow my girl for a moment?” Sebastian said flashing a grin towards your friends. My girl? What was he doing?

Everyone nodded and Sebastian took you a little away, but you were sure everyone could still see you. You raised an eyebrow at Sebastian when he placed his hands on the sides of your waist.

“Listen (Y/n), I heard that ass-hole talk shit about and I couldn’t help it. You’re one of prettiest, kindest girls in school and I would have taken you out any day but that would just have complicated things between us.”

He was helping you?

“God! Am I that pathetic?” You said looking away not sure what felt worse.

Sebastian rolled his eyes and scoffed. “I am just going to assume you didn’t say that. Really? You believing that piece of shit now?”

You let out a small laugh smiling at Sebastian.

“You’re the best!” you said sniffing.

“Of course I am! I am bloody perfect, darling!” he said kissing your cheek.

“Okay, so you are coming with me next hogsmede weekend. We’ll show those fuckers what a perfect couple looks like.” He said with a glint in his eyes.

You laughed.

“Is that so, honey?” you said playing with his tie.

“Oh yes, baby girl!” he said with a wink, leaving.

Unknowns’ to you Sirius watched your interaction with Sebastian with narrowed eyes and a clenched jaw. He hated it. He hated himself. He was in love with you since the 2nd year and in the process of realizing it he panicked. He thought maybe if he was mean to you, you would hate him and return the favor. But you never did. You continued to behave civilly to him and even came forward to help him when he was struggling. And how did he repay you? By being an ass. His heart clenched every single time he teased you to get on your nerves and his stomach twisted in knots. He could never have you. Not someone as sweet as you.

***

You were going through the corridors when you heard shouts. You turned and sprinted towards their direction. You saw Avery and Mulciber dueling with Sirius. They shot a spell towards him and he fell back.

“Expelliamus!!” you shouted and caught their wands. They widened their eyes.

“You’ll get these back from Slughorn” you said in a sharp tone that left no arguments. They huffed and walked away. You turned towards Sirius. Shit he was bleeding.

“Fuck- that’s a nasty cut Sirius!” you said concerned. You concentrated and performed some healing spells. Sirius watched you intensely.

“This is going to sting, okay?” you said to Sirius but all he did was stare with an expression you couldn’t quite place. So, you returned to patching him up, trying not to squirm under his gaze.

He hissed. You gulped and tried not to shake. After you finished, you helped him stand. You looked at him and noticed he was still watching you.

“I’m gonna go and give these to Slughorn,” you said indicating the wands. “You go back to the common room and eat something, preferably chocolate.”

“Why?” he said his eyes not leaving you.

“Why what?” you asked confused.

“Why did you help me, even though I am so awful to you?” he asked.

You huffed. So, that is what this is about. As angry you were at him all the time, you couldn’t see him being beaten mercilessly.

“I am a prefect. I am supposed to stop fights.” You said as you turned to leave.

“I’m sorry” he called out loud. You turned and said, “What?”

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry for being the biggest pile of dip-shit you’ve ever seen. For every single mean comment I said not meaning it. I’m sorry for being a pain in the ass, for being so bloody damn rude even though all you’ve ever been was sweet to me.”

You stared at him. He was apologizing?

“You’re a great person (Y/n), I don’t think I’ve seen anyone match your beauty or your wit. You’re so generous that I sometimes wonder if it’s humanely possible, whether you’re real. You help anyone and everyone if they need it, never asking anything in return. And I’m grateful and thankful for how you’ve treated me and am insanely humiliated at my own behavior.” Sirius huffed. It felt like every single thing he had pent up was coming out. He wanted to shout, to scream, to let this wonderful girl standing near him know, know that she was amazing, that he was sorry, that he… he liked her so damn much it had started to hurt him. Breathing deeply he looked at her.

You were stunned. You didn’t know what to say. Your ex-friend was giving you all these praises and compliments and sincerely apologizing for being a goddamn git. You knew for a fact that the word “sorry” never came out of Sirius’s mouth; not even for teachers.

“Well, say something?” Sirius said in a small voice.

“I don’t know what to say. You’ve been so rude to me since so many years that I started to be disappointed on just seeing you. Now, you’re saying all these things, which are flattering but, how could I forgive you in just one day? How could I forget what you did to me?”

“Don’t. I want to ask for a chance, to remedy what I did wrong. I know it can’t be done overnight, but I’ll makeup for it eventually. I promise.” He said sincerely.

“Work for it. If I think you're as sincere and want my friendship as much as you say, I'll give you a chance. Not a moment before.” You said. Sirius nodded slowly. You took a deep breath turning and leaving. What did you just agree to?

A/N: Let me know what you think!

[rpbetter]

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[cescalr]

Why Is Draco Malfoy So Underrated?

A repost of a Quora answer because Quora hates me for some reason

@vivithefolle​ i take little convincing here I go -

SO!

You. Yeah, you. You, nebulous quora questioner, you think Malfoy is underrated, do you? Well I, CescaLR, am here to set the record straight. The following is the answer I posted to Quora, that was flagged with ‘answer may need improvement’, which means some asshole was trawling the answers to the question posted and didn’t like mine so they had the moderators hide it because said person doesn’t like differing opinions. This post is thereby an archive, so if my answer is never again allowed to see the light of day on Quora, at least my maths is visible elsewhere. 

Hopefully, this entertains you, tumblr user reading this post. Also, as fair warning, if you do like Draco Malfoy and somehow stumbled across this post, I recommend skipping it. 

Why is Draco Malfoy so underrated?

Fleur Lee-Ranger

Author of 857406 words of fanfiction and counting.

ANSWER:

HAHAHAHA.

Ha.

Ha.

hah…..

For god’s sake, I hope you’re not serious.

Let’s look at YouTube, first:

Does 2.2 million f*cking views on a woobie Draco edit seem like he’s underrated to you? Any character that gets 2.2 million views on an edit that interprets the character in a sympathetic, caring light…. Jesus Christ. They’re not underrated.

You could make a clear argument for them being overrated, by matter of fact!

The first result is his entire life story, and a redemption of the Malfoy family as a whole, and it’s… super popular!

look at that! 70k likes versus 1.7k dislikes. Let’s use my favourite maths thing once again: Ratios!!

(I hate ratios. The things I do to prove a point, eh?)

This video has 5201431 million views. It has around 70k likes, 1.1k dislikes. We’ll round 5201431, as 70k and 1.1k are both rounded numbers and I can’t be bothered to deal with numbers that are too complicated right now, it’s nearly nine pm. 5201431 -> 5.2 million. It’s the rounded number YouTube itself uses on the search page - check the first image if you don’t believe me, and since YouTube thinks that’s good enough, so will we.

5200000 : 70000 : 1100

52000 : 700 : 11

Divide all by 11 (and round awkward numbers, because we’re already dealing in rounded numbers anyway, which is kind of bad practice, but it’ll do for this context):

4,727 : 64 : 1

As I’ve proven before (not on Quora, you can probably find it in the comments of one of my fanfictions, I’ll end up moving it over here one day when I find the right question), fandom content engagement rates are always pretty bad. But honestly? every four thousand or so views, you get 64 likes, compared to just one dislike. That’s great! That’s incredible! I’d kill for those kinds of ratings!!

(Draco’d probably wimp out, though. hehe. Jokes, jokes.)

As for his woobie video:

2.3m : 152k : 715

2300000 : 153000 : 715

Nice, don’t need to remove any superfluous zeroes. Bad, for… well, your hypothesis, to put it nicely, since that means there are only seven hundred and fifteen goddamn dislikes on this video, what the f*ck, why do so many people like this b*stard child.

Ahem. Sorry, that’s rude to illegitimate children like myself. There is nothing wrong with having unmarried parents.

…Anyway, lets slim down that ratio:

3217 : 214 : 1

Holy sh*t. I would do more than kill for this ratio. Oh my god.

That’s some great engagement there. So many likes! Clearly, Draco dearie is a very popular boy! He’d love that. I hate this on principle. God am I glad 13 year old me didn’t really use YouTube (I watched gaming content and little else, didn’t even find fandom content until 2015) or I’d have contributed one of those likes, probably.

Oh wait, no! Never mind! I can’t have contributed one of those likes, because this f*cking video was posted last year!!!!!

LAST GODDAMN YEAR!!!!

Do you understand that? Do you - do you have any idea how - just how difficult it is to get that many views that quickly and with that good an engagement???? Do you???????? It has been, get this, seven, seven whole f*cking months, Less time than it takes to make a baby, and this f*cking video has 2,265,900!!! million!!!! views!!!! With a ratio of 214 likes to one goddamn dislike.

oh my god.

oh my god

oh my god

I’m having a minor mental breakdown. Jesus f*cking H Christ on a goddamn bike.

Look at these comments! Look at how many likes they have!! Oh my god!!!! Draco Malfoy might just be one of the most beloved characters ever to get this sort of reaction, for hell’s sake!

I don’t know what kind of dunderhead you are to not notice how f*cking popular this jackass little b*stard boy is, but god, the whiny little sh*t has more fans than oh, I don’t know. Someone really popular. Tom Holland? I don’t know celebrities. Sorry.

But my point is, for god’s sake, Malfoy isn’t underrated. I don’t know what rock you’ve been living under, my friend, but that sheer idolisation you so crave of your wimpy f*cking husband is right there in front of you! Just search his name, and you’ll see it front and goddamn centre. Those of us that don’t worship the ground he walks on are generally much more background.

For god’s sake, he’s a trope namer.

Draco In Leather Pants.

How much more evidence do you need than that?

Of course, I could be jumping the gun. You could be a fan of his that is frustrated by the fanon interpretation of his character. ‘Why is he reduced to a bad boy with a heart of gold when actually he’s a more complicated asshole with sh*tty morality and no backbone that gives a whole ass damn about his family but not much else?’ Good question! Blame Cassie Claire, though I suppose that’s my go-to for most things.

Seriously though; Draco Malfoy is not even remotely overrated. He’s a whiny, terrible, useless waste of space in the books; and in fandom, he’s transformed into a cool, collected, redeemable or outright good person who’s smart and talented and like, super hot you guys, doesn’t he look cute with Hermione/Harry/Insert Author’s Projected Character Here?!!!!

Also: Y’all are f*cking creeps for this shit:

THAT’S A SCENE FROM WHEN THE KID IS TWELVE, FOR GOD’S SAKE. I’m not even joking, half of you are nonces and I want nothing to do with you! ‘hot draco malfoy edits’ HE’S TWELVE

HE’S TWELVE

HE’S TWELVE.

Hot take time:

Draco Malfoy is overhyped, overrated, and oversexualised and I want all of this to stop, because you’re doing it to Tom Felton, when he was a child. A child! That’s creepy! Please do not make hot edits of children, thank you!!!!!

Someone call the police. I’m done with this f*cking fandom, oh my god.

(Also, if you think I edited that in like some sick weirdo might do, just go find that video and give it a watch. I wouldn’t if I were you, I’d believe me, because watching that video probably puts you on a watchlist somewhere.

It should.)

Okay. Deep breaths. It’s been a few months, this answer was flagged with the wonderfully opaque ‘this answer may need improvement’, and I’m back to refine this. I’m not taking anything out, but I’m adding some extra investigation. For posterity’s sake; the original answer only contained YouTube analysis. Let’s look through Archive Of Our Own, shall we?

As I showed in my answer re: the well-liked-ness of Lilly and Hermione, this is the number of total fics within the HP tag.

This is the number of tags when ‘Draco Malfoy’ is added to the ‘included characters’ filter.

So, in terms of ‘fandom work presence’ (AO3 is mostly fanfic, but it is not all fanfic, there are a few vids and some art on there, too) Malfoy’s ratio is thus:

254603:65469

3.8889… : 1

4 : 1

So, rounding up, for every four works on AO3, there is one that includes Draco dearie. Good lord, he’s pervasive, isn’t he? Can’t turn a corner in the fandom without seeing his pasty ferret face plastered all over the walls… lovely.

Now, once again - that wasn’t the best ratio. I didn’t remove bashing, for example, so not all those works will be positive (as in, since you think he’s underrated, that means - I assume - you think people don’t like him enough) so let’s go the long mile:

I will find a ratio for Mr Malfoy Jr’s fans, versus his haters, in terms of - how many fics bash Malfoy, and how many greatly enjoy his existence?

Add the bashing tag, and now let’s see how many fics there are with a) Draco in it, and b) Draco Bashing:

hahahhahagag;k;asdkf

Oh no!

Oh my god I dodn’t…. one second… give me just one second….

Right. Laughing fit over, okay. 17.

So, 65469 works with Draco present, 17 of which don’t like him overmuch, and 65452 like him just fine/present him as he appears in canon! Awesome. Of course, people who present him as he is in canon may not like him the way you want him to, so, not awesome? Hmm. I’m not sure how to filter for that. I suppose you wouldn’t want people who write him OOC, though, because that’s not rating him properly, is it? Should we add OOC to the bashing, to get people who don’t appreciate his… many positive character traits… to the extent that you would like?

Yes, I think we should.

Now, there’s no tag for ‘OOC Draco Malfoy’, because that would make my life too easy. And, I’m not going through 151 works to figure out which ones have Draco being the one OOC. If they’ve written one person OOC, and they’re self-aware enough to tag it, then I’m going to meanly assume they’ve written Draco OOC as well. When one person’s out of whack, I’ve found everyone else is, too, so I’m not just doing this to be a dick, I promise, it’s for a real, good, understandable reason, one that is not only because I really don’t want to have to do any maths more complicated than basic ratios.

So. 151 OOC works, 17 bashing works. 168 works of not properly appreciated Draco Malfoy, coming up, which takes our 65469 Draco works down to… 65301.

Well, that’s a lot, still.

So, there’s still some tags to remove, like Evil, and Abusive, and all that lark. I’ll go do that quickly, and come back with the maths.

(okay, but I do have to show this:)

(fourteen works in the ‘Evil’ draco tag?? are you serious???)

(oh and you can’t filter by Abusive Draco Malfoy, like that’s not a tag, so I can’t exclude it, but it really adds to the general atmosphere of ‘Draco Malfoy? Yeah he’s cool I like him’ that this fandom has going on, doesn’t it?)

Alright so! We really only could take away those 14 works. Okay.

By the way, just so you know - I didn’t exclude tags like ‘Death Eater Draco Malfoy’ and ‘Bully Draco Malfoy’ (if the latter even exists), because those are things that happen in canon, and when I think of a character as being ‘underrated’ I include not acknowledging their canon actions, the bad and the good. A character is only as good as their complexities run deep.

So.

For the ratio, I guess;

65469 : 151 : 17 : 14

4,676.3571… : 10.7857… : 1.2142… : 1

4,676 : 11 : 1 : 1

…

Hmm.

For every 4 thousand 6 hundred fics Draco appears in, 11 of them have OOC tagged, 1 of them has Draco Bashing tagged, and 1 of them has Evil Draco tagged. That is…

That is unfathomably good. I’m really, genuinely having a hard time picturing it. I really, honestly, don’t think there’s been a character as unquestionably overrated as Draco Malfoy in all of fandom, because, good lord, look at that ratio! People love the guy!

Let’s see the good draco malfoy tag, shall we?

Now, to be fair, most people don’t bother tagging any of this sort of thing, usually, so that’s a minor flaw in my ratio-ing. We can’t actually know exactly how many works laud Malfoy, or hate him, or feel ambivalent, because people don’t tag their shit properly. But I’m hoping this helps, at least a little. Anyway, 905! That’s a few. Not many, but certainly more than Evil or Bashing or even OOC.

65469 : 905 : 151 : 17 : 14

4,676.3571… : 64.6428 : 10.7857… : 1.2142… : 1

4,676 : 65 : 11 : 1 : 1

Yep. That’s not bad, not bad at all.

So. Most people seem to like him, if we’re honest. As I pointed out above, he’s a trope namer. If you didn’t click on the link for Draco In Leather Pants, here’s a brief summary from the TV Tropes page:

[ Transcription:

Sometimes, a fanwork will portray a villainous character in a more positive light. It can be done out of sympathy for the character, for shipping reasons, as a part of a role-reversal story, several of the aforementioned or for the variety of other reasons.

The common subjects of this treatment are characters who are wicked in a classy or cool way. A physically attractive villain is much more likely to be subject to this trope than a physically ugly one; Beauty = Goodness, after all, and shallow as it may be, it seems that, for some fans, this is the case even when the character's beauty only extends to their appearance. All Girls Want Bad Boys may be a factor with male villains getting a female fandom that views them through this lens. A badass villain will naturally be preferred by many of these over meeker heroic characters at times, as well. Ugly Cute villains also get this pretty easily. ]

So! There’s that. He named a trope all about appreciating a character perhaps (usually definitely) more than they deserve, so I wouldn’t call him ‘underrated’ by most general definitions of the word:

People seem to mostly believe him to be quite good, actually! Certainly enough to write about him a lot, to draw him a lot, to edit him a lot, to theorise about him a lot, to ship him with the main character so much that the 99th filter ever on AO3 was Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter.

Hey, actually, that’s a good idea! Which filter id is Draco Malfoy?

Now, if I’m not mistaken, it’s been a while since I had to do this -

Draco Malfoy was the 1589th tag canonised in the tag system of AO3. Let’s check the Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter tag (which I know for certain was 99) to make sure:

And lo and behold, I was right. That’s mad. That’s mad!!!!

Ooh, I’ve found a fun trick

To change which rss feed you’re looking at, copy the https:// link up to .atom in the speech marks, and change the highlighted number. That shows you what uses that tag_ids: - in this case, 93 is Draco himself. The 93rd tag, dedicated to Draco Malfoy. Good lord, that’s insane! I guess there really weren’t many other things to prioritize at the time, but that’s still silly to me.

Fluff and Angst appears to be the fiftieth tag canonised, for comparison. Sometimes when you replace the rss feed’s ‘tag’ in the address bar it takes you to the tag’s page instead of the feed, because that tag doesn’t have an rss feed. The more you know!

Anyway, back on track: I think all of that, rss feeds, youtube analytics, fandom presence, all kind of proves my point:

Draco Malfoy is not underrated. He is, arguably, overrated as a character, but unarguably very popular within the greater Harry Potter fandom. Unpopular characters don’t tend to get paired with the lead, at the very least - and you can’t turn around in the Harry Potter fandom without seeing Drarry somewhere, can you?

[ofcalek]

Multi-GRAMMY nominated and multi-platinum singer/songwriter/producer Alek Garcia’s new album "Growth" has finally dropped after months of teasing. The release follows Garcia's American Music Awards performance earlier this week.

Penned and produced by Garcia, the album has already been deemed to be a collection of "catchy hits" and "anthems for hopeless romantics" by PEOPLE upon release. The FADER declared "Garcia season is in full swing" with "banger after banger." This marks the first album from Garcia since his 2016 GRAMMY nominated sophomore album "Wounds”. Debuting at #4 on the Billboard 200, the album received an RIAA gold certification within four days of release and claims over 3.3 billion of Garcia's collective 7.3 billion global streams. 

LISTEN HERE

I’m Not The Only One: “You don’t think I know what you’ve done. But when you call me baby, I know I’m not the only one.”

This song is rumored to be about Garcia’s short lived relationship with Sahar Santini. Of course, the singer hasn’t commented on it but this is his first album since the breakup which allegedly ended because she cheated on him. @sahartms

Leave Your Lover: “Can't keep this beating heart at bay. Set my midnight sorrow free. I will give you all of me. Just leave your lover. Leave him for me.”

This song is rumored to be about falling for someone whose already taken. Garcia said he’d never break up a happy relationship, but some people are worth fighting for. Some people are worth starting over. Who this one is about seems to be a mystery. @ofajinx

The Thrill Of It All: “I guess I got lost in the moment. I guess I got lost in the fall. I guess I got lost in your heartbeat. In the thrill of it all”

This song is about more than one relationship. According to Garcia, this song is about the feelings he has after a relationship ends. The feeling of falling too quick and ruining it. Many rumors are flying around about who this could be about. While he says it’s about a few different relationships, superfans seem to think it’s about Scotty St.James @ofcscottys

Fire On Fire: “My mother said I'm too romantic.She said, ‘You're dancing in the movies’. I almost started to believe her, Then I saw you and I knew”

This song is rumored to be about model Eleanor Flynn. While Garcia has failed to comment on those rumors, he did give a little insight for the song. He says it’s about catching feelings for someone, sure, but it’s also about how he feels in the beginning. Hesitation, followed by falling head over heels. @ffselexnor

Say It First: “I need to know, if I'm in this alone. Come on baby, say it first. I need to hear you, say those words.”

This song is about learning to meet halfway in a relationship. Garcia said in an interview that he’s always the “first to say I love you” and sometimes regrets it. This song is about hesitation, hoping they feel the same and hoping they say it. 

How Do You Sleep: “I'm done hatin' myself for feelin'. I'm done cryin' myself awake. I've gotta leave and start the healin'. But when you move like that, I just want to stay”

This song is rumored to be about a few of his past relationships. Without a comment from Garcia, many believe it to be about Sahar Santini. Some say it’s about his famous ex fiance and the loss of trust that broke them up. Others say it’s about the healing process from any breakup and it isn’t so specific. @sahartms

Dancing With A Stranger ft. Jinx: “I know exactly what I need to do. Cause I don't wanna be alone tonight. Alone tonight. Alone tonight. Look what you made me do, I'm with somebody new”

This song is about finding comfort in the arms of someone else after a bad breakup. Garcia said there were plenty of nights out that happened simply because he didn’t want to be alone with a broken heart. 

Empty Cups: “Hands on your body like there is no one at the party. Just me and you and these empty cups. If you want it like I want it. Let me take you to another room. So it's only us”

This song is rumored to be another bop about falling for a taken girl. Garcia seemed to skim over the meaning of the song when questioned, simply saying the girl he’s singing about would know who she is. We can’t help but wonder if it’s fellow singer Jinx whose worked on a few songs with him while being in a public relationship.  @ofajinx

The Way I Am: “'Cause everybody's trying to be famous. And I'm just trying to find a place to hide. All I wanna do is just hold somebody.”

This song is about Garcia’s struggles with fame. He said in an interview that inspiration came from his brother Hal Zaleski and his fiance/Garcia’s close friend Genesis Iver. He stated that there was too much pressure to be famous and not enough room to be himself or be happy. Seeing them together gave Garcia courage to be himself without regret and hope that a similar love story will happen for him.  @ofhal @ofcgenesis

Some Type Of Love: “When we're old and gray and our faces change. There won't be a moment when my heart don't feel the same. That's some type of love.”

This song is rumored to be about a close friend of Garcia. Sources say he wrote the song after a heart to heart with someone who matters very much to him. When pushed further on the matter, he simply smiled and said she would know it was for her. @ofcadellas

Attention: “You just want attention, you don't want my heart. Maybe you just hate the thought of me with someone new. Yeah, you just want attention, I knew from the start.”

This song is rumored to be about another ex. Garcia seems to be wracking them up. Which one? We couldn’t say, but it seems to have ended rather poorly. Which Miami girl (or maybe guy?) was playing with our boy’s heart this time? 

Done For Me ft. Jinx​: “I lie for you, baby. I die for you, baby. Cry for you, baby. But tell me what you've done for me.”

This song is about realizing how much energy you put into a relationship and how little the other person puts in. It’s about giving up and realizing you deserve better. According to Garcia “one of the toughest lessons” and one he’s “only learned recently”

Stay With Me: “Guess it's true. I'm not good at a one night stand. But I still need love 'cause I'm just a man.  These nights never seem to go to plan. I don't want you to leave.”

This song is rumored to be about a ‘failed’ one night stand. Garcia said that hookups weren’t his thing, but the one time he tried it ended with him catching feelings. He says in the song it isn’t love, but in an interview he stated that it could be if given the chance. @ofajinx

Not In That Way: “I'd never ask you cause deep down. I'm certain I know what you'd say. You'd say I'm sorry believe me. I love you but not in that way”

This song is rumored to be about someone Garcia fell for, someone he assumes doesn’t feel the same. When questioned, Garcia insisted it wasn’t about someone specific. It’s about how easily he falls in love, and how many times he’s heard “I love you, but not in that way.” Even so, many speculate it to be about model Eleanor Flynn as well. @ffselexnor

[entomjinx]

Obsession

Prompt: Don't ask me that.

"These people," Mira decided, "are idiots." She looked around at her guild mates, completely flabbergasted at their obliviousness. It was obvious who liked who, to her anyways, and she felt somewhat ridiculous as she tried to explain to the group sitting at the bar why they were wrong without giving away people's private lives.

As much as she liked to gossip, there were lines you just didn't cross.

"Gray-sama loves Juvia," the bluenette said confidently, "He's just shy around her." Juvia, along with most of the rest of the girls in the guild, was sitting at a table near the bar and chatting about "Gray-sama."

Mire cringed, "If only you knew." The oldest of the Strauss siblings swore up and down that most everyone in this guild was already in a relationship and just hiding it, "Not to mention that 'your' Gray is most definitely homosexual and dating a certain pinkette." The two of them were sneaky, but not sneaky enough. She'd caught them holding hands under the table too many times for it not to be true.

She gave out another round of milkshakes for them as she tried not to throw in her own comments and give people away.

Her sister didn't have the same thoughts, "I wouldn't be so sure..." She uttered.

Juvia shot a glare her way, and Mira winced in sympathy. Juvia could be terrifying.

"Why wouldn't Gray love Juvia?" She hissed.

Lisanna put her hand on the water mage's shoulder, "For the same reason Natsu didn't love me when were kids." The group of female mages were watching silently, unsure of where this was going.

"She's not going to out them is she?," Mira wondered.

Mira moved closer to stop Lisanna if she had to, but froze at the younger's words, "What you feel is the same thing I felt, and it's not love." Juvia looked like she was going to protest, but Lisanna shook her head, "It's obsession." She moved her had off of Juvia's shoulder and grabbed the vanilla shake Mira was holding out to her.

The long haired bartender shook her head, "Why was I even worried? She probably never figured that out."

Gajeel, who had been listening to the entire conversation, was desperate to pretend like he hadn't. He wasn't in the mood to deal with Juvia's whining. He'd told her it wasn't going to happen, and watching her get told the same thing from someone else was bound to either send her into tears or make her want to spar.

He wasn't willing to make that gamble.

"It's not an obsession," Juvia hissed.

"Don't do it."

"Yes it is, Juvia. Don't do the same thing I did. It'll break you."

"It's not an obsession. Juvia loves Gray-sama."

"You'll regret it later."

"She's right you know," Lucy mumbled.

"Shut-up love rival! You just want Gray-sama to yourse-"

"Fuck it," Gajeel said aloud. Several heads whipped towards him as he made his way over to the gaggle of girls, "You have literally stitched dolls of the ice-bastard, you have photographs that he doesn't know you've taken of him, you steal his clothing, and who knows what else. If you were a boy, and him a girl, you'd be arrested for being a stalker, Juvia." The water mage had become teary-eyed, and Gajeel almost stopped himself. She opened her mouth to protest, but he clamped his hand down over her mouth. "No, Juv. You don't love him. It's an obsession from the fact that he helped you. It's just a stronger version of what you did to me when we first met, and if calling you out in front of the entire guild is what I have to do to get that through your skull, then so be it. I'll be the bad guy again."

He moved his hand and immediately wished he hadn't. A sharp wail instantly pierce the air, and the three slayers in the guild recoiled. Freed acted quickly, and placed runes around both Laxus and Wendy, not bothering with the retreating iron dragon slayer.

"Instant head-aches are the worst."

He shoved the doors open and nearly hit Erza in the face. He mumbled a quick, "Sorry," before shoving past her. As expected, Natsu and Gray weren't too far behind, "Hey, Salamander, don't go in there." Natsu was covering his ears, and Gray was watching him blankly "Actually, you shouldn't either." He directed at Gray. He walked past them, not caring whether they headed his warning.

"I need a nap."

"I know he had to say all that to Juvia, but did he really have to be so cruel about it?" The pinkette hadn't heard the whole conversation, just the end of it, but even he knew that Gajeel's phrasing was a little harsh. "Or maybe it's just the fact that I'm rally good at picking up on emotions. Isn't there a word for that? It was like 'imputh' or something. I know in Dravic it's 'one who feels everything' if you translate it, but I swear there's a Fiori word for it..." He let his thoughts run rampant as he turned to leave.

"Oi, flame-brain," Gray reached for his arm and yanked him backwards, "Did you forget that we're sparing?"

Natsu shook his head, "No, but we can continue elsewhere. Juvia's crying is obnoxious."

"Juvia's... Crying? Is that why Gajeel told us not to go in?" The ice mage scoffed, "I'm perfectly capable of handling myself."

"You and I both know that you don't want to deal with her," Natsu commented, but it was too late. Juvia had opened up the guild doors and was staring at the two of them.

"Shit. She heard that didn't she?" Natsu may not have been the biggest fan of Juvia, especially since she was constantly attaching herself to his boyfriend, but that didn't mean that he wanted to hurt her.

"They were right," Juvia muttered, "Gray-sama doesn't love Juvia, does he?"

Gray froze, and now everyone in the guild was staring at the two of them. Natsu could hear several of the girls muttering about how romantic it would be if Gray stopped her from crying, and it took a lot of willpower not to growl.

"Mine."

"Juvia..." Gray whispered, and several of the girls squealed.

This time Natsu did growl. It was quiet, and he stopped it fairly quick, but it still happened.

"Does Gray-sama love Juvia?" The rain woman was looked absolutely hear-broken, and Gray realized that there wasn't any more putting this off.

"Don't ask me that unless you want an long, honest answer," He said firmly. When she nodded hopefully, Gray sighed.

"I guess now's a better time than any." They'd been a thing for a long time, but considering human customs, Natsu hastily agreed to Gray's idea of keeping it secret.

"Juvia, there is more than one kind of love," He started, "I love you like a gild-mate, like a friend, and like a creepy-obsessive-stalker-like-little-sister, but I can't love you like a lover."

Juvia's crying was a lot more subdued this time, and she had sank to her knees, "But Gray-sama-"

Gray cut her off again, "I promise you it has nothing to do with ridiculous things like how pretty you are or how intelligent, because I'll be one of the first to admit that you're beautiful, both literally and as a person. Love isn't something that you can force, nor is it the picture perfect thing that everyone thinks it is." He bent down and pulled her face in his shoulder. Several people cooed, and a few applauded the ice mage, Natsu being one of them.

"That was adorable," Natsu thought, "And he didn't out us! Hell yeah! No one will immediately assume we're fucking the moment we're alone! Because that's gross,"Natsu ace-self was not about to be accused of such a thing. "Or homophobes. How did I forget that? Homophobes suck."

It took a long while for the guild to calm down after what happened earlier, but it did eventually. Most everyone was crowded around team Natsu's usual table, asking about the mission. The few who were still asking about Juvia were ignored for the most part, but one question didn't go unnoticed by their noisy guild mates.

"Is the part of reason that Gray-sama, er," Juvia paused, "Gray-san, doesn't love Juvia because he loves someone else?" Under normal circumstances, he'd have completely ignored the question, but it had caught him so off guard that he chocked on his water. Everyone had caught on to his slip up, and Gray was mentally cussing himself out.

"There goes hiding it." He threw a side glance to Natsu, who was on the other side of the room eating, and steeled himself for what was to come, "Yes." Gray felt his face go completely scarlet, and he didn't even bother trying to hide it. Several of the girls squealed, and Elfman shouted something about real men admitting their love.

Instantly people began prodding him, asking him about who it was. Most of them were now frozen in place. "Their own fault."

When Gray looked up, he found Erza glaring at him, "Unfreeze them Gray." Needless to say, he complied fairly quickly. "I will only ask three questions. You don have to answer them, but I appreciate it." She had gone into protective big sister mode, and Gray figured that if he didn't answer these in front of the guild, then he have to later. He sighed, still red in the face, and nodded. "Do I know them, are they a good person, and do you really love them or is it a crush."

"Of course she'd ask those questions."

"Yes, no shit, and," Gray paused, thinking about what he was getting ready to say, and deciding to go all out with it. He leaned forward to look directly into his older sister figure's eyes. "I've never had so much as a crush on anyone else."

"So Gray-san does love someone else," Juvia stated. Gray expected her to be upset at that fact, but when he saw her face, she had a ridiculous grin slapped across it,"If Juvia can't have Gray-san, then just means that Juvia has to help Gray-san get the person he loves, so tell Juvia who it is?" Gray gave her a blank look, and Juvia almost wondered if she gone too far again.

"He already knows," Gray blurted, and he realized his mistake the second it came out. His face got redder, and his stance became defensive.

Juvia tilted her head, "If he already knows then why haven't you told anyone?" She asked.

"Juvia completely ignored the fact I said he. Actually, everyone did."

When Gray didn't answer, Erza decided to take the initiative, "You realize that we couldn't care less about that right? So what, you like a guy. I've dated girls before, and I know for a fact that you're not the only gay in the guild. Besides, it shouldn't matter who loves who anyways." She smacked the top of his head, huffing in annoyance, as he rubbed his head, "Now that that's out of the way, I have to reiterate Juvia's question. Why didn't you tell us, without the obvious."

"Do you all remember what I said earlier?"Gray asked. He received several nods. "Love is never what you expect it to be, and considering the relationship between the two of us is very different to the usual depiction, we didn't think you understand it. He's also a lot more secretive than he likes to admit, so I don want to accidentally talk about something that only I know about." Gray had partially zoned out with a smile on his face, but in an instant his features turned possessive, "He's also abso-fucking-lutely adorable and mine and I'm not sharing that."

Mira's voice cut through the noise of the crowd, ¨I think you broke your boyfriend, Gray." Everyone whipped around.

At the bar, Natsu's face was burred in his scarf, but you could still see that it was redder than Gray's, "Asshole," He blurted as he flipped Gray off without bothering to look.

"Love you, Pyro," Gray responded.

"Love you, too, Snowflake," Natsu muttered.

"So that's what Gray-san meant by 'different'."

Gajeel and Wendy didn't look surprised, and the bleunette even threw in a "called it." The lager of the two cleared a small hole in the crowd, and Gray, who'd quickly put together what he was doing, bolted through it and grabbed onto Natsu's arm, "Run," He whispered questioningly.

Natsu nodded, "Run." He slid his arm so as to hold Gray's hand, pulling him along, and before the crowd could catch up to them, they were out the guild's backdoor. "They are going to kill us later," Natsu shouted over the wind. Gray just shook his head and laughed, "Yeah, I don't care either."

Gray watched the pinkette as the ran rather than where they were going, smiling at the energetic fucker he called his. Yeah, they were different, but different isn't always a bad thing. Their uniqueness made their relationship irreplaceable, and Gray would be more than happy to put up with it for the rest of his life.

"When Erza murders us for not telling her, at least I'll have died protecting something precious."

Words: 2349

[rouge4truth]

TFP is Mind Palace – Sherlock’s coming out

What if… Sherlock imagines his coming out in TFP? Just my reading of it, but full of hope – please let me walk you through it in my different posts to proof it. Expecting your comments.

What if TFP is exclusively is in Sherlock’s mind palace where he comes to his terms about his emotions by road-testing his feelings and what exactly ‘coming out of the closet’ would mean and feel like for him and the people important to him (John, Mycroft, Molly, his family)?

But for Sherlock who trained himself his entire life to repress his emotions, it would need a strong trigger, to break his old pattern of hiding feelings behind rude behavior. If John would be fatally injured and Sherlock is not aware if he will pull through, this would be the strongest trigger I can imagine.

We don’t know if John is really been shot yet, but the last scene of TLD is red (start of the new storyline ‘Rouge’, which we will explore later – hopefully 8th of March we get a teaser when the expected 4th episode will air that will reveal the truth?) and we did not get a proper answer, as the next episode TFP is all in Sherlock’s head (mind palace), like TEB.

Because I felt so miserable after TFP first, I watched it several times and started to go through this episode scene by scene in different posts (Mycroft’s residence scene, 221B Baker Street (3/3)) to point out why it is mind palace, and did much research in the details like Oscar Wild and Lady Bracknell the pictures at the wall – all that subtext is about gay people and how society deals with it (feel free to check it out. I am still on it to post the next scenes, but the subtext is so rich and full of information, it takes ages to do the research – and as I’m no native speaker, I will miss a lot hope you guys can help me with this.)

John getting shot and survives is cannon in ‘The adventure of the three Garridebs’ Sherlock is panicking and takes care of him ‘It was worth a wound, it was worth many wounds, to know the depth of loyalty and love which lay behind that cold mask." This is what John writes in ‘The Strand’ after that event. I don’t think that the writers will miss the opportunity to show us Sherlock suffering about John’s life!!!

To find a solution how to save John Watson (TLD – Mary’s message) he is using his mind palace to find out how he can provide his feelings to him, before John maybe dies without knowing. We know that Sherlock works the best when he is under (emotional) pressure.

Remember Sherlock saying in A Study in pink: “Bitterness is a paralytic – love is a much more vicious motivator”.

Before he met John, he was bitter and alone. With John in his live, everything changed, John humanized him, changed him to the better! If he loses John, he has no reason to change anymore, he (maybe) would become the same bitter person like he has been before John.

This time, Sherlock wants to make it right, he is asking for help at the end of T6T, but not Mycroft, as he is aware that he can’t teach him anything about feelings. So he asked the only person, who really knows John, which is Ella, John’s former therapist, what he can do about John. Ella tells him, that therapy can only work, if Sherlock is opening up. Sherlock replays, that this is not his style – and we get no more information, if he did it or not.

Coming out is not about one moment, just one kiss and everting is fine. It is a process that starts in the head (mind). You first need to find out, who you are, and that can be a really painful thing. The next steps are to accept yourself the way you are. Then you are out with yourself, you learn to live with it. After that you need to decide, if you go further and maybe tell it to your love interest, or to your parents, to free yourself. At this point, many gay people are in therapy, because their parents, relatives, friends or people at work do not understand the pain you are going though, just to be yourself without hiding a part of yourself. If you find enough acceptance here, your next step could be to publicly come out if it is silently while holding hands or kissing your friend in public and watch the reaction of the people surrounding you or by making it public as a statement on a party or something similar. I think most of the LGBT people do not get to this point to make it officially public, because they are too afraid of it. And this is why we are surrounded by LGBT people every day that we do not recognize. But if we start to watch silently, hear and read the subtext of their behavior, or short comments, we will get a glimpse of how many there are amongst us. But why do they hide? – Because you need a strong self-believe and self-confidence to be strong enough to resist being hurt every time that people show you that they do not understand or accept you. Also it depends on the country you live in, still today, there are countries that will arrest you for being gay or even kill you. So some LGBT people need to hide their entire life. Also the society does not accept you the same way that straight people are accepted and maybe you do not get the job you like, because people know, that you are gay. Or you live in a religious community, where there is no room for diversity.

Coming out is a unique experience for each person, who needs to go through this kind of process.

Bearing that in mind, think about that Sherlock is probably 40 now, like Ben is, and it is the first time in his life, that he allows himself to research his feelings so deeply. He was always aware that he is gay. But what does this mean for him before and now? He grew up in the Thatcher era and during the HIV/AIDS crisis. It felt different in that days to be gay. Stars like Freddy Mercury never had an official coming out, it has just been the rumors in the press until he died. Also we get reliably informed, that Sherlock never had sex or a relationship before, in his live. So imagine how difficult it might feel to start at this age to learn about yourself.

It is painful for Sherlock to go back in his life to find out, why he is emotional contained and what he is afraid of, as he ‘deleted’ those things from his hard drive, buried it deep inside to have more space for other ‘useful’ information. Sherlock’s childhood that changed him from an emotional kid to an almost always rude thinking machine. We learn, that it has something to do with REDBEARD and that it is an alternate story that Sherlock told himself to be able to cope with the truth (which truth?). He needs to find out what it was to find inner peace with himself first. I guess we have not seen the correct Victor Trevor story yet, I assume, he was Sherlock’s first ever love interest and there will be a different story told in a later episode.

To find out more about his life today, he needs to go back there. Therefore Sherlock creates different rolls and characters for a play in his mind palace:

The little girl on the plane represents his subconscious, and his emotions that are still disconnected from his today reality, so he is still incapable to show feelings to others properly (timing). He needs to find access to this resource.

Moriarty he is only a voice in his head, but he is the devil, the virus in his data. He is always pushing him to make decisions, he does not want to make, decisions that separates him from John.

The little girl and Moriarty are like the angel and the devil on his shoulders, like yin and yang.

EURUS is a fictive character for his (evil) logic, emotionless side. He needs EURUS to confront himself with several topics, to put himself to tests, to find out about how the both most important people in his life will react in different situations. Those two people are

Mycroft, his brother that is protecting him since childhood by teaching him that caring is not an advantage and that he should join not getting involved in any friendship or romantic entanglement, because this could hurt him. But Mycroft has also selfish interests, because if Sherlock would be officially out, this could (maybe) ruin his career in the British Government – so I had always the feeling, that he wanted to see his brother happy with John, but might have an interest to keep it as a secret. Mycroft is aware that Sherlock is gay.

John, who Sherlock is in love with, since he met him. He knows about Johns feelings for him at least since the Battersea scene in A Scandal in Belgravia, but as John is always dating women (and marries a woman) to cope with his unrequited love for him (Sherlock seems always to be unavailable for John) Sherlock fears to tell John the truth. He is not sure if John is straight and only his best friend or if he is Bi. Therefore he researched Major James Shoto, because he needs to know, if John is romantically interested in men, too.

He needs to find out about how John could possibly react, when he confesses his love, while he is unsure, he expects John to make the first move as he is much more experienced in romantic entanglement than he is.

We can see that in TFP in the most painful and emotional scene, when Sherlock askes Molly (she is always a stand in for John) to say ‘I love you’. As Molly turns the way around and asked him to tell it first ‘say it, like you mean it’ he comes to the conclusion, that John will never ever say a word, because it is true and he is insecure, too. We see John in tears, when Sherlock finally says ‘I love you’ – he is waiting instantly to hear it from Sherlock. So Sherlock cannot expect John to say anything, as he is too afraid about himself, hiding his bisexuality. 

As Sherlock kept everyone in the dark about his sexual orientation, even John, he needs to be the one who is telling John, how he feels first.

Also in this scene, he comes to the conclusion that he must tell Molly that he is gay, to save her from the pain he is causing her while she is still in love with him unable to move on.

It is not a Game anymore – If it is true, we can stop to play around the subject and tell everyone :-)

Mark Gatiss knows about the pain that LGBT people feel - so I don’t think that he wanted to hurt any feelings by not getting it right.

– Please think about it. If you read TFP as Sherlock’s coming out, than we can expect to see all what we desired later.

To see Sherlock and John as a happy couple, experiencing a proper romantic relationship, there are some steps missing, which we can expect for S5 (hopefully).

But first Sherlock needs to:

heal his inner child  (plane landed safely, TFP)

stabilize his emotions to complete himself (reconnecting with Eurus, which we can see during the violin play in TFP finishing scene)

He needs to tell John

He needs to tell his family (shown in the TFP final scene)

He needs to tell Molly

John has to come out, too (will be difficult for John)

They need to tell their friends

Coming out in public?

 Of course, they are ‘coming out’ ;-))))

Please reblog if you agree with me and think I got it right. 

[intellectualth0t]

something I probably haven’t talked about too often

I must have been around 7 or 8 years old when people, adults in particular, started pointing out my voice a lot.

Most of what I got was along the lines of “Wow, you have a very mature-sounding voice for your age!”

The way they’d tell me this was spoken with a positive tone, as if I had just accomplished something worthy of a gold sticker. That, along with uplifting terms like “mature” and “for your age” made young-me feel as if I had surpassed what most people expected out of seven-year olds. I had begun to perceive compliments on the sound of my voice as compliments on me as a person. They think I sound mature, so they must think I AM mature. Wow, I must act very grown up for my age!

A few years later; I was still in elementary school, and I was at a Girl Scouts’ function involving multiple troops. There were many other girls my age involved in the same activity as me, so I figured socializing would be easy. I was sitting at a round table alongside a good handful of other Girl Scouts whom I didn’t know, making necklaces out of colored plastic beads and string. I introduced myself to this curly-haired girl sitting next to me and she introduced herself back as Nicole. I asked her about her troop and service activities she’s done and she responded blandly, so I assumed she was maybe just shy. That didn’t stop me from continuing to attempt to make a friend. I blabbered on and on about going camping and riding horses and science projects before she interrupted me with: “You know, you have a deep voice for a girl.”

I sat silent for a moment. I wasn’t necessarily offended by her remark, as that was something I’d been told quite a few times at that age, but I was shocked by the abruptness of what she said. After all, our conversation topic wasn’t anything closely related to my voice.

“Yeah….” I nodded. “People tell me that a lot.”

Fast forward approximately two years later. I’m now in sixth grade, and I’ve had the worst trouble adjusting to middle school- getting used to racing around a two-story building to get from one class to another in less than five minutes, excessively tyrant teachers, attempting to become friends with anyone and everyone without making a fool of myself- I think you get it. Nothing about the first month of middle school was easy.

I’m in reading class. We’re assigned a group project- I think there were five of us. I have an idea on what we should do for this project, and I say my idea out loud. A few words into my sentence, this boy in my group interrupts me with “I never realized how deep your voice is”. Okay. I brush it off, continuing to propose my idea until I’m cut off again, by another boy. “Dude you really do have a deep voice for a girl!” he laughs.

Their comments aren’t related to this project; They’re dumb, just ignore them.

Before I realize it, I can’t even finish sharing my idea with the group because our project has turned into a thorough conversation about how deep my voice is and how it’s so weird that I “don’t sound like a girl”.

Within a matter of days, I became known to 2nd period reading class as man-voice Mariah, or just Man-voice for short. Where I had tried to be open and outgoing and talk to anyone every chance I had, I now avoided speaking at all costs in order to prevent “Man-voice! Man-voice!” from being shouted across the room. The class is assigned to read Maniac Magee; twenty-something hard copy novels laying open on desks occupied by twelve year olds. Of these twenty-something of us, I am chosed by my teacher to read a page out loud. Before I can even draw a breath to speak, a kid a few seats behind me mutters “Oh my god, why did she pick man-voice to read?!” I didn’t ignore the nasty comments, however I disregarded them as I had already been doing for weeks. I disregarded them as I continued reading out loud. I disregarded them as they only boomeranged back.

*fake cough*MANVOICE*fake cough*A fraction of the class erupts in laughter as my teacher erupts in frustration, attempting to shut the kids up. I however, sit helpless. What was I supposed to do in a situation like that anyways?

I’m now 15 years old. Freshman year just ended. It’s summer, and in the downtime I’ve had since coming back from vacation with my family, I spend a majority of my day laying in my bed with my phone in hand, bouncing between social media accounts. Long story short, I met a boy through Instagram. We started texting. He absolutely flattered me, and I was convinced that I flattered him as well. We texted every day. I’d tell him stories about my friends, or family, or how much I loved dance. He’d always tell me how much he admired me and how I was soooo pretty and I was a really fun person to talk to. In all honestly, he wasn’t a very interesting guy. But I was 15 and naïve, and I took any form of attention that came my way.

After about two weeks of the “talking stage”, he asked me out on a date (via text, of course). I was thrilled, but also anxious because I knew I had to find a way around my strict parents. Him and I went as far as devising a plan for me to lie to my parents and sneak out so I could see him (for the first time actually. This guy and I only met over social media, we didn’t go to the same school but he lived nearby). I called his number the night before to verify our plans.

“Um… Mariah? Is this actually you?” He answered after he picked up and I began speaking.

I was just as confused as he sounded. It was obviously my number, so I’m not sure why he questioned it. “Yeah? Who else would it be?” I laughed.

“What the…. You sound… Weird.”

Before I knew it, I was no longer on a call with him. I called him back, no answer. I texted him instead.

“So? What exactly was all that about? Why’d you hang up?”

“You sound like a dude when you talk”

“What?”

“That’s disgusting. I’m not gonna date a girl who sounds like a dude.”

Shock, confusion, followed by no more replies from this guy.

I was literally dumped because a guy didn’t like the way my voice sounded.

Petty, I know, but it was enough to completely wreck me. After all, I was in love with this guy and he was in love with me.

I had confidence in this guy. He’d always tell me what a great person I was. I looked forward to talking ot him every day. I looked forward to a relationship with this guy because after all, I convinced myself he was worth it. But was he really worth it if he belittled me over something I had already been insecure about for years?

(Answer: No, he was not)

 You hear “biggest insecurity” and you think of a physical attribute

My eyes are too close together. I’m too tall and lanky. My nose is big. My teeth are crooked and I don’t like to smile.

Is a voice a physical attribute? Well, you can’t see a voice (unless you have Synesthesia, of course). But it’s definitely something you can hear, and without a doubt something you have to use on a day to day basis. How else are you supposed to express yourself and communicate efficiently?

It’s definitely been years since any of the following incidents have occurred, yet my voice is still my biggest insecurity. I hate talking. I hate the sound of my voice. I live in constant fear of people being annoyed and irritated by its “unfeminine” pitch and awkward tone.

Against all odds, I have received a fair share of compliments on my voice. I’ve been told that it’s “different” and that I “sound really cool”. Flattering, it really is, but I don’t think I’ll bring myself to fully believe any praise I receive on something I’ve been harassed for in the past (and on some occasions, still in the present).

Anyone who has an insecurity knows this feeling: someone compliments you on something, completely oblivious to the fact that it’s something you hate about yourself. And you refuse to believe them. You think its sarcasm. You think it’s a joke. You think they’re lying.

Like I said, I’m not sure I’ll ever believe that the compliments people give me about my voice are genuine. I’m not sure I’ll ever believe that I have a beautiful, fun-to-listen-to voice. I’m not sure if I’ll ever learn to love my voice, but it’s something I’m sure I’m doing a great job of accepting for now.

-mariah

[jillmckenzie1]

Speak Your Truth – Never Settle, Stay True to Yourself, and Thrive

Since I moved into my Airstream, I hang out daily at Whole Foods (eating the salad bar and borrowing precious Wi-Fi). As a self-proclaimed blogger (I don’t know how many blogs it takes to clearly own that title), I like to spend most of the time writing. I find that it’s ironically easy for me to focus amongst the lunch crowd chaos.

Today, I painfully watched a couple with two kids absolutely annihilate one another with their words. In public. And, my heart was so soft to their experience that I literally wanted to cry.

The wife is pushing the two kids in one of those car-shaped shopping carts and accidentally runs into a pole because the outdoor tables at Whole Foods are so tightly packed together. No one is crying. No one is hurt. Nothing is broken. The husband goes to move one of the tables out of her way as she screams under her breath, “There’s a novel idea! Maybe you could move a damn chair?! Maybe you could actually help for once?!” She then goes on a tirade that this is all his fault, that his presence is a distraction, and he mocks her every word by throwing around vocabulary words like “patriarchy.” As he walks away to get cups for the kids’ juices, she mumbles something under her breath and then proceeds to yell, “Do you ever even listen to me?!” He does not turn around. He doesn’t break stride. I know that he is walking to the cadence of his life song.

He comes back, cups in hand, which she viciously rips away from him. He throws around some more vocabulary about needing respect as the man of the house, and she proceeds to knock him down. They eat. At first, in silence. Never even making eye contact. The kids suck down their juices, and while they give off an air of obliviousness, I know better. They are not stupid. They know. Or, they will know. Because this encounter at Whole Foods is not the first bashing. And, if I know anything about this vicious cycle, it will not be the last.

The little girl starts screaming. Blackberry juice is running down her chin. The mom attempts to keep her daughter’s clothes clean. The dad is telling his wife to handle the situation differently. The wife is saying that she always does it this way before blurting out, “Can you be quiet, please, and stop with the talking that’s unnecessary?! If someone asks you a question, then you answer it. If not, shut up.” Shut. Up.

The kids remove themselves from the table. The boy is climbing on the shopping cart. The mom mumbles, “That’s unsafe.” But, she is gone. Her eyes are watering as she sucks down her iced coffee. The husband throws away the trash, and she is beckoning to escape into that same nothingness. But, she cannot escape. Little lives are demanding her presence. So, she slowly eats the leftover blackberries from her daughter’s plate and loses herself into the safety of her cell phone. The husband answers a business call and uses his free hand to hold the cart that his son is climbing on like a McDonald’s jungle gym.

No one is happy. But her ring is glistening. And, they’re all wearing nice clothes. And, they’re eating an organic lunch from the Whole Foods in the most affluent neighborhood in the city. The husband is saying important things to important people, and the wife’s hair is so pretty. They’re going to the park, I learn. They are going to the park.

Maybe I am most touched by this moment because I feel like I am watching what, could very well have been, an enactment from the future of my previous life. Maybe this is normal. Maybe his condescending comments and the hunch of her shoulders as she spits fire at his spirit are nothing more than ordinary. Maybe I am being too sensitive. Maybe I am listening too closely from just one table away with my headphones in and my fingers clacking on my keyboard.

Then, I know that I am doing it again.

I am silencing myself. I am justifying this behavior because I don’t want to feel uncomfortable. I am uncomfortable. Everyone around us is uncomfortable. And, they, they are the most uncomfortable. But, this is their normal. I know it. And, I want to hug her. I want to tell them to be thankful for each other. I want to write their kids a letter to their future selves that reads, “I don’t know if your parents made it, but please, don’t ever settle.”

And, maybe I’m assuming too much. Maybe this isn’t their normal. Maybe they lost their dog yesterday. Or, maybe the wife was up sick all night. Or, maybe, just maybe the husband lost a major account last week and might get fired from his job. Maybe it’s just not their day.

But, I’m doing it again.

Because, I know. When she screamed, “Do you ever even listen to me?!” she is not talking about the juice cups. She is talking about that time five years ago when she wanted to go to Mexico for a vacation and he booked the trip to North Carolina without asking her opinion. She is talking about yesterday when she told him to put his dishes in the dishwasher for what was probably the 432nd time, knowing that he will never do it. And, when he mentioned a “patriarchy,” he is not talking about being respected in the Whole Foods outdoor seating area. He is talking about never feeling appreciated for working 11-hour days so that she could stay home with the kids and still afford the nice clothes and the pretty hair without ever having to do so much as lift a finger to balance a checkbook. He is talking about wanting respect for showing up every day, for coming home to her and the kids when he would rather be going to happy hour with all the single guys from the office.

This is not an off day for them. This is just a day for them. And, they are going to the park.

My heart is heavy. Because I can remember being married to someone with whom I would engage in such public spectacles. A big reason I didn’t drink for a long time is because I felt the burden to stay sober, to keep my breath, to retain some sense of respectable public behavior. My sobriety was the antidote to his alcoholism, and while I know that it provided some significant relief to what would have been some outrageous word wars (based on the knowledge that he has since been arrested for domestic violence with the woman with whom he had an affair and then married), I was putting a Band-Aid on a wound that begged for a tourniquet. And, I can remember my own cries for help that sounded all too similar to “Do you ever listen to me?!” in the middle of a public forum. Because, if he wouldn’t listen to me, then maybe, just maybe, someone in the room would listen.

What I’ve learned since leaving this toxicity is that it was my lack of understanding myself that bred within me an inconsistent control of my words. I could not speak my truth in times of peace, so I acted immaturely in times of pain to overcompensate for this deep void in my life. I now realize how important it is to use my words to express my feelings and my needs in a non-emotional state, to not shy away from those words because I fear that the person who hears them will be uncomfortable, that their discomfort will then cause them to change their opinions of me. At the end of the day, I only want to surround myself with people who can hear my truth, really hear it, and if it causes any level of discomfort, then we can conversate about it on an equal plane. I refuse to silence my truth; I refuse to surrender my being.

In the same breath, I refuse to cut down the one person who I will pledge to protect for the sake of my own selfish desires. Because, I know that I will not settle for anyone who does not hold the same standard. The most gut-wrenching question that circulates among my circle of friends is whether or not love really exists – if there can be authentic happiness between two people in a marriage. Unfortunately, I think we are confronted too often with people who are merely surviving their relationships.

Despite everything, I have not lost faith that the right person will love my voice, and I must hold steadfast to the belief that two people, doing the same work, will do more than just survive. They will thrive.

from Blog https://ondenver.com/speak-your-truth-never-settle-stay-true-to-yourself-and-thrive/

[recentanimenews]

We Find the Perfect New Sports Anime FOR YOU

If you're anything like me, the first question you ask every season is: What are the new sports anime airing this time around? Some seasons have one or two, and some have none – barring the eternal runners like Yowamushi Pedal, which is on its fourth season now, bless its soul. But even when we get a handful, it's hard to deny that they can end up feeling a little too similar to each other. Luckily for us, Spring 2018 has come out with sports anime in full force, giving everyone a reason to tune in to their weekly dose of adrenaline and competition.

So, the question becomes not “is there one?” but “which one do I choose?” and we have a handy guide to help you find the sports show for your tastes this season!

YOU: “I want a traditional sports story – underdogs, guts, determination, and most importantly, heart-pumping action!”

YOUR ANIME: MEGALOBOX

Tell me if you've heard this one before – a down-on-his-luck outsider finds a place for himself in the rough and dirty underbelly of competition, only to find meaning and, hopefully, freedom through their talents. Oh, and there are robot-enhanced arms to help them out. Welcome to MEGALOBOX. Osamu Dezaki's 70's masterpiece Ashita no Joe has been given a makeover, adding a cyberpunk setting and hip-hop aesthetic to the proceedings.

MEGALOBOX has all the thrill of watching two passionate athletes go all out on each other with the added spice of visuals that pack a punch and a soundtrack that makes even the cheesiest lines feel inspiring. Whether you're familiar with the seminal sports classic or a complete newcomer, this 50th anniversary reimagining of the classic boxing show will surely fill all of your blood and sweat desires.

YOU: “Sounds good, but let's rein it in. I'm all for the classic sports beats but want something a little more grounded.”

YOUR ANIME: MAJOR 2nd

Many of us have been kids with a lot of ambition before, joining clubs or teams with the dream of being the best in the field. Most of us haven't, however, had the privilege and pressure of actually being the child of one of the most celebrated athletes of our times – which is exactly where Daigo Shigeno finds himself as he finally gets the chance to prove himself in his elementary school baseball team.

Much like MEGALOBOX, MAJOR 2nd comes from another source, the long-running mid-00s series MAJOR which covered our new protagonist's now-famous dad Gorou Honda all the way from Little League to the Major League. Think Boruto vs Boruto's dad. Despite that gigantic prequel series, MAJOR 2nd manages to stand entirely on its own, assuming the bare minimum knowledge that Daigo's father is a big deal. Everything else is its own story entirely, following Daigo as he struggles to pursue his dreams with the weight of his dad's legacy on his shoulders.

YOU: “Underdogs, kids, it feels like we get these kinds of stories all the time. Where are the adults? What's it like working in sports professionally?”

YOUR ANIME: Gurazeni: Money Pitch

OK, so we're not all latent prodigies waiting to be discovered or the children of timeless talents. What if a sports anime decided to talk about the realities of working professionally in this field as an adult? Gurazeni: Money Pitch is here to satisfy that curiosity, following Bonda Natsunosuke, a left-handed relief pitcher for a professional team.

Unlike our previous heroes, Bonda isn't out here to find his place in the world or come out of the shadow of his family's legacy – he just wants to make sure he makes enough money to live on before he retires. Gurazeni has a unique perspective on the game as a profession as Bonda doesn't necessarily focus on if his team is winning or losing as much as ensuring he personally does well, because that's what the people determining his salary are going to focus on before anything else. It also follows some other players like Bonda who pursue other avenues of income for post-retirement, such as commentating, and even the struggles of newer pro players.

YOU: “This has gotten too real. I want to go back. Give me the most off-the-wall, ridiculous thing you can throw at me.”

YOUR ANIME: Umamusume: Pretty Derby

Horse racing is exciting. What if the horses were girls? What if those girls were reincarnations of race horses from another universe? What if the winning horse girls also gave thrilling idol performances after winning to prove that they are just that good? Hoof it over to Umamusume: Pretty Derby for the answers to all of these questions and more.

Don't let the ridiculous premise get in the way – from goals to focus to payoff, Umamusume ponies up on the important sports elements, including training and blood-pumping races. In case you still weren't sold on the authenticity and dedication of this show, the athletes are even named after real-life race horses.

If you're like me and have a bit more loose definition of “sports” anime, I have to recommend the online gaming anime Sword Art Online Alternative: Gun Gale Online. Also, if you're still not on the train, catch up on Yowamushi Pedal; I promise it's worth your time. Until then, I hope you find something to enjoy from this list, and if you have your own sports recommendations from the past or present, I'd love to see them in the comments!

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If you want to talk about sports anime, David Lynn is your guy. You can get him excited about weekly anime on Twitter @navycherub or hear him gush on his podcast @Tsunday_Best.

By: news+feed@crunchyroll.com