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khaleesiofalicante · 2 years

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every wednesday I remember about LBAF new chapter at 7pm when I am either neck deep in shit or about to take a nap and just stare into space for a while knowing I wont be able to liveblog

BUT IT IS FRIDAY AND IT IS 11 SOMETHING AND I AM VERY TIRED BUT I NEED TO DO THIS SO LET'S GO

okay but brain tired I dont remember anything from the prev chapter. Except Nico. That was something else

why is he stressed...what did I miss?

OMG YEAHHH THE ENGAGEMENT PARTY

omg chairman is DRESSED UP

So, here he was, wearing a white kurta with sequins and shit.

damn.

OH RIGHT THE KISS

I COMPLETELY FORGOT ABOUT IT LMAO

yeah secrets are not secrets in this household

Murder, arson, violence :)

Also, would I kill Marcus on site? Yes. Am I attracted to crazy smart assholes who would burn the world down and just intelligence in general? ...yes. I CAN EXPLAIN MYSELF-

Not excusing the shit he did though of course not.

HE IS GETTING MARRIED YOU GUYS I CANNOT BELIEVE

He wondered if he should sit down and talk to bapak about it. Maybe he should check if bapak wasn’t having an immortality crisis while Max was growing up and Rafe was getting married.

omg...

also Lucifer and shadow demons are definitely coming up in this fic. And Nico saw some future glimpse about the LBs which is why he told magnus to take care of them or sum shit. Oh and the Logan (?) guy with mal is the warlock. Also poison theory confirmed! -Leftover thoughts from Tuesday

just kill her now and end it. sigh

Max ignored that. “First…I think she has feelings for me.”

Really Max? You think?

And then he thought, if anyone other than David kisses me ever again, I will set myself on fire.

Oh damn. OH DAMN

pull..?

I dont like this...

“I…I can’t live without him,” Max whispered.

SHUT THE FUCK UP LEAVE ME ALONE

this is sad. I shall now cry

is this foreshadowing? to there being a way for this?'

“If a solution doesn’t exist,” Max said. “Then I will create one myself.”

I...FUCK

ABIGAIL OMG SHE IS EATING GRASS

Abigail is literally the best character in here

New beginnings are so beautiful

Okay but I know we're all worried for the entire mavid drama rn but I am particularly worried about lexi and liv.

they cant communicate. That's it. It was an issue when they first got "together" and then when they finally actually got together and it has clearly not changed one bit. Right now it's about moving in together, what will it be next? I remember thinking it was a little funny in part 1 and 2 but it's just concerning now. How will they work in the long term like this? Relationships cannot be built on miscommunications.

Anyway.

Need to see jace and gabriel bonding please and thank you. Jace's fears are totally valid though but I feel like he needs to actually get to know Gabriel.

He knew Magnus was struggling with his immortality lately.

oh :(

GIGI SAID OKAY IS THE MOST AMAZING THING EVER

omg MALEC AS GRANDPARENTS HJSAUIDIUIJLF

I love diego and alec so much

He saw two girls running across Angel Square, holding hands and trading soft kisses. Unafraid. Unbothered.

Beautiful.

Alec did this <3

“It’s called sexual tension, dad, jeez,” Max had scoffed when Alec had voiced his surprise.

YES!

the blackouts...fuck

oh we had one yesterday! not a magical one but it was in the middle of my nap...

They had an alliance. They protected each other. They helped each other.T hey trusted each other.

I am so proud of him too <3

Would literally die for him

Why was everyone taking so long to get ready? How long did it take to put something on? Five minutes???

DUDE??? WHAT??

Whenever I have to get ready for something, I kick everyone (my brother) from my room and lock the door for a good hour or 2. We just hosted a dinner last week...HOW THE FUCK DOES IT TAKE YOU 5 MINUTES-

“I know she is safe with you. I know however much I love her; Rafael loves her twice as much. Maybe thrice. I have no doubt that he will be a good husband. But Anjali is not just gaining a husband. She is gaining a whole new family.” “And I will protect her as I protect the rest of them,” Alec promised. “That’s all I needed to know,” Diego let out a deep exhale.

Just...no words

no warlocks here...fuck

magnus? you good?

FUCKING WARLOCK MATH

but like...damn he can do math...damn...

me @ me:

10?? 15?? DUDE??

oh my god his OUTFIT I WILL DIE

oh my god they're wearing a lehnga...fuckkkkkkkk

uhhkdhdshjds women

FUCK FUCK FUCK THE OUTFITS I WILL DIE OMG DAVID SELENA AND LEXI FUCK

i will actually pass out they are all so hot

Selena chuckled, realizing that this meant David had probably tried to take selfies with Chopin before.

proof or it didn't happen

I NEED THE MEHNDI DESIGNS BTW

LMAO SOON??? MEHNDI??? HILARIOUS JOKE SELENA

Gabriel...OH MY GOD

sigh...jace be nice

oh yeah logan YOUNG. and they are TWINS

She thought of all the young warlocks in the blacked out cities. They must be terrified of not being able to access their magic. She hoped they felt safe enough to reach out to their institutes.

omg...

GABRIEL AND SELENA OH MY GOD THEY ARE SO CUTE

the signal's been down for that long...?

fuck

also do not climb the twoers

FUCK

THE DEVICE

FUCK FUCK FUCK

I WILL KILL SOMEONE

“Anjali said the ceremony lasts past midnight,” Rafael informed. “So, you’re gonna stay put and play nice.”

Yeah! Welcome to a desi wedding, my loves <3

Today was about him. Him and his amor. Fuck everyone else.

HELL YEAH

his magic...the device

oh :( nooo that's so sad

they should be able to choose their own suggens properly

they're all so BEAUTIFUL

ABBY DO NOT EAT MEHNDI JHJDKFJD

What’s with all the gorgeous women today?

DUDE I KNOW RIGHT??

omg she's beautiful...

“Did you know that the colour of the mehndi has a deeper meaning?” Anjali’s mother asked him. “The darker it is, the happier your marriage will be.” “No pressure,” Rafael chuckled as he looked at Anjali. “Your hands better be red when you wash the mehndi off.”

THEM <333

She knew how to take his dreams and make them come true.

This!! oh my god this!!

I have a feeling something will go wrong

gun

ANJALI NO NO NO FUCK

ANJALI WHAT HAPPENED

I HAVE NO SCROLLED PAST THE FIRST "anjali"

I WILL DIE

OH MY GOD

DIEGO AND DIVYA

FUCK

FUCK FUCK FUCK

WHAT THE FUCK

nope nuh uh I am done goodbye

marcus. fucking marcus.

I...oh my fucking god...

THE MEMES IN THIS ONE KILLED ME.

ps - all of yall lusting after the white kurta has me cackling lol.

#lbaf

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ericmun · 3 years

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210314 Shinhwa’s Eric and Dongwan’s Instagram Updates

Just a quick note as what might transpire this. There have been posts from fans pressuring about the lack of Shinhwa activities and Eric got the flak usual. One post in particular on the day before (Saturday night) that tagged all the members that probably why this happened, why he feels he’s been treated unfairly, as well as explaining why he had to go on SNS.

The clash between Eric and Dongwan is nothing new. It is mostly personality differences and ways of doing things. We are posting this because everyone has the right to understand what’s going on with a full and accurate translation (as accurate as possible) of how things went. Thanks so much 6crystalis for these long translation.

Eric’s 1st post:

I was keeping track quietly, but the problem is that the gap between internal affairs compared to external perception is too big, and so, there is constant conflict between the two. I thought if just leave it, it would slowly disappear by itself. Instead, the difference became so big, these was nowhere left to take a stand. I always thought that when it came to problems, the right thing to do was to dig it up by its roots and untangle it bit by bit; you shouldn't try to cover it up and pretend nothing happened. But in the end, I chose to listen to the opinions of different people and left it alone. One guy who always put group activities before all other work. Another guy who puts certain emphasis on solo activities, but during this period is emphasizing on Shinhwa activities. Although, it caused problems for group communication and schedules, but to fans, he is an intimate and gentle guy. Two people with different thought processes, so I've decided I need to go find and understand each person's differences. But everyone is too one-sided on who they are listening to, to the point that only support the one saying nice words to them, and cursing the condition of the person who is quietly working hard for the group. Isn't that too much? If the problem only stopped at supporting VS not supporting, it doesn't matter, but is it really necessary to go to the extremes of praising one side to high heavens and making personal attacks on the other? Right now, it's not 50/50, it's more than 90% of the people who think the latter's style is correct. Then that means everything I had been doing during that period is wrong. Just let me switch places with the later then, it's easy. But, can you put on some restraint, the group of people on DC? Aren't you tired? Stop gathering in groups in places I'm absent and discussing things that aren't set? If you want to talk about those things, then say it when you come join the group meeting. Didn't I already ask you guys (the members) 3 weeks ago about setting the schedule? If you actually want to resolve this, then let's talk. I have no way of contacting you, so I'll tag you, and I will also let Andy know. You'll invite me to tomorrow's live right? I'll be there.

Note: Eric tagged Dongwan for this post as seen in the photo

Source: muneric Translation: 6rystalis

Eric’s 2nd post:

Because I was afraid of causing conflict, I thought just leaving it would make it disappear, so I chose to say pretty words filled with hope that were false to make people happy and just leave everything. I think that’s just making me doenjang (superficial/full of BS)

Text on the chat:

ERIC: What time is the live tomorrow, Andy? ANDY: The time is not set yet, hyung. We'll set it after meeting with Dongwanie hyung tomorrow. ERIC: Can you tell him to invite me for tomorrow liveㅎㅎ ANDY: Okay ERIC: ㅋㅋㅋ ANDY: ㅋㅋㅋㅋ ERIC: I'm curious what he'll say ㅎㅎ No matter what he says, just forward it to me. I'll also adjust as needed. If it's really too convenient, then I'll think of a way to adjust it. ANDY: eung eung (yes yes)

Source: muneric Translation: 6rystalis

Dongwan’s post:

I am Kim Dongwan.

First of all, I feel very sorry for all the Shinhwa Changjo who got shocked.

Tomorrow, I will meet the members and have a good talk. Because it is internal affairs, we should discuss it among ourselves first.

The previous announcement about holding a live with Andy will go ahead as planned.

The conception of Shinhwa albums and concerts require the investment of a lot of manpower. This isn't completed by members on their own, or can be completed by just any member. To members, Shinhwa activities are very important and something they really look forward to. So, I have always taken into account the opinions of all six members, and after adjustments, produce a conclusion that is satisfying to all members.

Before getting this conclusion, other than the members' opinions, communication with the production team is also very important. It requires the polishing of time and opportunity.

Apart from the problem about contacting me... If we could've had a little bit of communication with the production team beginning last year, if we could've communicated so that they could feel at ease, then Shinhwa and Shinhwa Changjo wouldn't have had to encounter a situation like this... This is a point that I feel a bit regretful about.

We work hard together to be the Shinhwa that will paint a beautiful painting for Shinhwa Changjo.

Thank you, everyone.

Source: danedkim Translation: 6rystalis

Eric’s 3rd post:

Starting from 3pm, I had been asking Dongwannie and constantly checking with Andy for updates, but there was no answer at all about whether he was going to accept or reject my request to be there. Said it was because the production team couldn't contact me, so that's why they couldn't go forward with their work. Then let me tell you about my position. It started around "Sniper" activities? Around 2015-2021, he hasn't been in our group chat for 6 years; and after being blocked, I never got his new phone number. During the time I announced my marriage, because of "whether I let the members know I was getting married", I was being attacked. There was that brother that came out and loudly said, "Eric definitely has his own reasons~ Please understand~" Kept getting cursed or something. From the blank period in the military to album production in the years that followed, schedules and venues were booked one year in advance by me. I wouldn't know how to keep in contact with the production team? In those 6 years, I'm always telling everyone we should hold a meeting. Every time, the schedule is adjusted weeks in advance so that we can have this hard-earned chance to meet up. Even like that, we weren't able to see each other. There are too many times where there was no other way because of deadlines to just hold a meeting with 5 people.

Last year was the same. Again, I told the members that we should meet, everyone should open up some time in your schedule. And then the date was set, but on the day, we were stood up. The kind-hearted members were finally able to meet up after so much, but weren't even able to take a picture for proof before we separated. I was also really tired, so I suggested if it's hard to find time in your schedule, then let's use group chat to to figure things out, it'll be more convenient. I'm also really busy with work. Each time I have to adjust my schedule so we can meet, but if it gets cancelled on the day, I'll also feel really tired. Even so, he still refused to use group chat to discuss things. I'm also human. I thought, "We're in pandemic conditions and I still have dramas to film. If it continues like this, just leave it, stop pretending to be close." And so, at the end of last year, I stopped joining the group chat. But the root of the problem is here. In the 6 years that I have been doing all this, where I was constantly cursed, after I left group chat for a mere 3 months? Under the circumstances where I was absent, you had a meeting in a chat, in the way where you are comforting others and telling them to air out their raincoats? At that point, I couldn't hold it anymore. A few days ago, a Shinchang chat was established in Clubhouse. Like it was an official channel, you talked about things that members have never discussed or confirmed. There was even content that we haven't even heard of before. Yesterday, you said, "It wasn't you. It was because there are a few members who don't want to hold Shinhwa activities that these activities weren't confirmed in the end" ?

I'm not playing that despicable SNS where you can say things without leaving any evidence, talking about things that don't exist or politics where people criticize you. But to be different from being like that despicable SNS. I chose to leave a record of what I'm saying to be criticized. I guess it can be considered me saying what's on my mind. 6 years and 3 months. I'm too angry, so I suggested in the past that for 3 months, everyone should calm down on their own and think about what our things mean to us. If suggesting these 3 months is wrong, then I admit it, I apologize. But, in the post, it brought up the production team. I really want to ask, am I really the one affecting Shinhwa's schedule? Up until now, I've asked another members about this situation, yet I'm still unable to get a solid answer about whether you're accepting my arrival. Instead, you confirmed on Instagram that it's Eric and the production team's miscommunication that things couldn't be confirmed? I'm preparing to take a rest right now. I'm going to treat it as you rejecting to invite me to join you tomorrow. If members discuss things in the future and really want to make our dongsaeng, who's caught in the middle, uncomfortable, then just continue to do so. The person I wanted you to invite was me, so why are you replying to the fans? It would be great if I also had the ability to omit the main point and say words that sound nice to the ears. But, I'm also human. I apologize to everyone for having to listen to such tiring story.

Dongwan’s reply: I had a phone call with Andy around 6pm. I said that the 3 of us should meet and talk together. Perhaps he hasn’t told you yet. I’m coming to Seoul tomorrow. We’ll talk face to face.

Source: muneric Translation: 6rystalis

============================================================

Eric also did 2 more posts about the hate posts from Shinhwa DC Gall. We might translate it later if translator has time.

#shinhwa #Eric Mun #Eric Moon #Mun Jung Huk #Eric #Lee Minwoo #Kim Dongwan #Shin Hyesung #Junjin #Andy Lee #신화 #에릭 #문정혁 #이민우 #김동완 #신혜성 #전진 #앤디

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starlocked01 · 3 years

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Look Alive, Sunshine

AO3 Link

Dukexiety Week Day 7- Music WC: 1.8K Summary: Remus picks Virgil up from his dorm in the middle of the night to combat an old fear. Content Warning: Swearing, Panicking, references to past suicidal thoughts

@dukexietyweek

A/N: This is actually in the same universe as When Can I See You Again? which is the first dukexiety story I wrote featuring Soul mark timers, lots of miscommunication and drama, and fun. And fight club. If you've liked this week's oneshots, maybe give WCISYA? a try ^_^ Thank you everyone for reading along and sharing this week <3

Despite Remus' progress with Dr. B. and despite over a thousand nights with no incidents, Virgil still could not shake his fear of the Xs. He hadn’t seen them in years, but some nights Virgil stayed up to watch his soul mark countdown the seconds until Remus could reassure him he'd lost sleep for no reason.

Most of the nights when he stayed up watching with growing anxiety, Virgil didn't even try to text Remus. His boyfriend needed the sleep and would just worry when he woke up until Virgil finally rolled out of bed and answered his reassurances. Tonight was too much. Tonight, not even the steady passage of time promising he'd see his soulmate the next day was enough to allay thoughts of horrific unforeseen accidents.

Tonight Virgil texted his soulmate at quarter to two am and watched as the numbers changed without warning.

00:05:17

Five minutes. Virgil gulped and couldn't help but feel like he'd fucked up. He glanced at his phone several times, bewildered by the lack of an answering text, but mostly watched his wrist counting down.

At about the two-minute mark he finally realized he should probably get dressed and grabbed a pair of skinny jeans to struggle into. He struck his foot on the corner of the bed and bit his lip hard to avoid waking up his roommate. Virgil quickly shrugged on his hoodie and shoes before checking his wrist again.

00:00:10

He laughed to himself at the near deja vu feeling, walking over to the window to watch for Remus’ car in the parking lot.

To his surprise, there was a knock at the dorm door instead. Virgil jumped and rushed over to the door, cracking it open just in time to glimpse his soulmate grinning out in the hallway.

"Remus! What are you doing here?" Virgil asked in a hissing whisper, sliding out into the hallway and shutting the door as quietly as possible, "do you know what time it is?"

"Uh yeah, babe. 2 am. You're the one who sent a distress signal, what was I supposed to do?" Remus answered at his normal, too-loud volume, wrapping Virgil in a tight hug before the smaller man could answer or object.

"You coulda just told me you were alright," Virgil grumbled, hugging his soulmate back tighter anyway, "do I want to know how you got in?"

"The desk worker recognized me and let me in. Don't worry, I would only break in if mildly inconvenienced," Remus grinned, starting to pull Virgil with him down the hall, "so why are you up so late? You weren't waiting for me to croak, were you?"

Virgil started to respond but stopped before he got a syllable out. That was what he was technically doing, even if he dreaded that very thing more than anything. "I- don't make it sound like I would ever want that! I just… got worried."

Remus tugged Virgil closer to his side, "I'm okay. And I'm not going anywhere, worrywart." He waved briefly at the night guard and ushered Virgil outside, "c'mon. We're gonna fix this."

"How? You're okay tonight but what about tomorrow? How do I know you're going to be okay every night? What if-" Virgil gulped, not wanting to vocalize his worst fear.

Remus stopped just outside the door and turned to Virgil, "come on, Virgie. I always call when it's a bad day. And I haven't had one in a while."

"Yeah, but what if-"

"If I had a bad day, I'd call. C'mon. We've gotta get your mind off this," Remus murmured, pulling Virgil towards his car.

Virgil huffed but followed Remus easily enough, sliding into the passenger's seat as Remus scanned through a pile of CD cases.

“Oh my god, you still have those?” Virgil asked, a bit surprised to see his old emo collection.

“Of course I do. One of the best your-birthday presents I’ve ever gotten,” Remus giggled and picked the album he’d been looking for, “I get that you get scared. When I die you can listen to The Black Parade and mourn me, but tonight we are gonna Look Alive, Sunshine.” Remus started the car and fed the CD to the center console before backing out of the spot and zooming out of the parking lot.

Virgil hummed happily, giggling as Remus recited the initial traffic report along with Dr. Death-Defying, “I love Danger Days. Remember how you convinced the DJ at Prom to play this song?”

“How could I not? He only did it because of your pouty little baby face back then,” Remus teased, earning himself a smack on the shoulder, “what? He certainly wasn’t doing me any favors.”

“You’re an ass,” Virgil chuckled.

“I’m your ass,” Remus corrected him, headbanging along as he drove.

“So where are we headed, ass of mine?” Virgil asked just over the music, watching as streetlights and neon signs advertising closed stores flashed by.

“Nowhere special,” Remus replied carefully, pretty quickly turning into an empty parking lot and pulling into a space as far from any lights as he can.

“Yeah.. not kidding about that... Is this a bookstore?”

“Bookstore parking lot.”

“Okay, why a bookstore parking lot?”

Remus didn’t answer, just unbuckled and tried to squeeze between the front seats of the car to the back. Virgil watched in amusement until Remus managed to push himself through and got settled in the back.

“C’mon. You do this for me all the time, now it’s your turn.”

Virgil laughed and turned the key to the battery-only position in the ignition and locked the car doors before following Remus, sliding back to the back seat a touch more nimbly. He settled into Remus’ lap and pressed a soft kiss to his cheek.

“Thank you,” he murmured, settling in as Remus wrapped his arms around him and started singing along with the music.

“If that's the best that I could be? Then I'd be another memory. Can I be the only hope for you? Because you're the only hope for me,” Remus sang softly to Virgil, running fingers through his hair.

Virgil sniffed and sang the rest of the verse, “And if we can't find where we belong we'll have to make it on our own. Face all the pain and take it on because the only hope for me is you alone,” he tried to relax and let Remus’ presence reassure him that neither of them was going anywhere without the other, “is it weird to say I wish you were around more often?”

Remus stopped humming along with the music to hug Virgil tighter, “not weird at all, V. You’ll graduate soon and we can move in together. Then you’ll really be sick of me.” he smiled and kissed Virgil’s hair, “we’re so close to forever, love.”

Virgil sighed and began to sing along again a few songs later, “we can leave this world, leave it all behind. We can steal this car if your folks don't mind. We can live forever if you've got the time,” he buried his face in Remus’ chest, almost wishing they could just start driving tonight and never looking back.

“My pretty little heart attack in black hair dye,” Remus giggled, “you gotta finish school first so I can just kick Roman and Remy out.”

Virgil laughed at that, “as if you’d ever kick your brother out.”

“Easier done than said. I’ve lived with that asshole for far too long already,” Remus replied pointedly, “you know, we can work out transportation if you would perhaps consider moving off campus next semester.”

Virgil sat there silent in consideration. The only thing really stopping him from agreeing was the wall of anxieties over moving in with his boyfriend and living off-campus and paying rent and having to find a job in between homework and classes. It was a lot to figure out, not even considering the implications of actually moving in with his boyfriend. What if Remus did something crazy like suggesting they get married? What if everything changed and he didn’t like it or get used to it? What if nothing changed and he still woke up at 2 in the morning from dreams of Xs despite falling asleep in Remus’ arms? What if-

“Virgil- where’s your head, Stormcloud?” Virgil’s thoughts were interrupted by the question and a soft steady tapping on the back of his neck.

Virgil sighed and shook his head, “sorry. It got away from me. I kinda want this moment to last forever. It’s safe and predictable.”

“An abandoned parking lot is not life, sweetheart. Trust me, I love how safe this is. I love holding you and knowing nothing can happen to you while we’re here. But life doesn’t happen in safety. We can face it together, we always will. But we do have to go out and face it eventually,” Remus spoke softly, letting his voice mingle with the music.

“You’re here now. You’re here and real and not going anywhere. That should be enough. Why isn’t it enough?” Virgil asked in a small voice.

“Because you care. Your love isn’t limited to this moment,” Remus laughed softly, “your love has saved me before, so don’t you dare try to limit it now.”

“I- oh wow, Rem, I am so sorry,” Virgil caught himself and sighed, “I think I get it now.”

“Oh? Figure something out?” Remus asked quietly, continuing to tap on Virgil to the beat.

“I haven’t been trusting your love. I’m an asshole,” Virgil shook his head, “ of course I won’t wake up and find Xs. You love me. I’m so dumb for not trusting that because of course you’re not going anywhere.”

Remus chuckled, “now you’re getting it, V. I know you can’t help worrying, but you’ll at least let me prove it when the worries get too much?”

Virgil sat up carefully, “I didn’t want to bother you with it before. Goodness knows we both need the sleep, but I think next time, I’ll just reach out like tonight.”

Remus smiled and pulled Virgil back down, “you said it yourself. We need sleep. So sleep, mister. We’re not going anywhere until morning.”

Virgil laughed and feebly tried to push away, “nooo not in the car! At least let's go find a bed.”

“Aww but that’s no fun… unless..”

“Sleep. It’s nearly 3 am. We are gonna find a bed, either mine or yours, and go to sleep.”

“Boo,” Remus pouted but reached to unlock the car, not trusting his ability to climb back upfront.

“Love you too, boo,” Virgil grinned and leaned down to kiss Remus properly, quickly getting lost in the contact. Remus pulled him close, willing to spend the rest of the night that way until the second to last track of the album began and his speakers started blaring a distorted version of the American anthem. They broke apart, laughing together at the awkward background music. Then they managed to kiss the whole way through Vampire Money before climbing out of the back seat and back upfront.

“Alright. Let’s go home. Maybe I can convince you to make it home better from there,” Remus grinned and started up the car again, driving off towards the apartment as the CD restarted the album from the beginning.

#dukexietyweek2021 #dukexiety #remus sanders #virgil sanders #WCISYA? story #soulmate au #soulmate timers #mcr #swearing #panicking

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scoutception · 4 years

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Ranking the next 5 animes I’ve recently watched

After many distractions on my part, including playing through Steins;Gate, something that has quickly become something I adore like few others, I’ve continued my descent into the world of anime with 5 more series. The stuff I watched was a lot shorter on average than last time, and my attempts to be “objective” and my personal biases align much more closely compared to last time. With that, I’ll begin. 5. Soni-Ani: Super Sonico the Animation

Number of episodes: 12. Language options: subs only. Streaming availability: Crunchyroll. When it comes to visual novels, nitro+ is one of the biggest developers out there, alongside Key. Whereas Key is mainly out to make you really, really sad, nitro+ prefers a different approach. To my understanding, at best, their works are really, really dark, and at worst, they’re going straight for your nightmares, with stuff like Song of Saya and Sweet Pool. So clearly, the best mascot for them is the pink haired, constantly headphoned, and downright adorable Super Sonico. Even if it’s not outright official, it’s pretty jarring. Anyway, with that little rant out of the way, here’s the only thing on this list I actually wouldn’t recommend. Produced by White Fox back in 2014, this anime apparently got slammed pretty hard, and honestly, I have no idea why I even ended up watching this one. Perhaps this’ll be a reminder to be less impulsive in my choices in the future. Soni-Ani focuses on, who else, Super Sonico herself, an energetic and kind, yet clumsy college student who should reasonably be dead from stress and exhaustion. Along with college, she’s an idol, gravure model, helper at her grandmother’s restaurant and guitarist and main singer in the band First Astronomical Velocity with her friends Suzu Fujimi, the witty and manipulative bassist and official leader of the band, and Fuuri Watanuki, the mysterious drummer single mindedly obsessed with food. The series just explores some of the odd, extremely fanservice filled days of her life. It’s ok idea on paper, but in practice it’s just not really anything special or even entertaining for the most part. While I can usually ignore fanservice, it’s downright distractingly prevalent in the earlier episodes, to the point of several episode premises pretty much only catering themselves to it. Even without that, there’s just not much to be found; aside from Suzu and Sonico’s manager, the honestly hilarious Kitamura, who constantly wears a hannya mask and is willing to attack people for attempting to take advantage of Sonico, the characters aren’t anything memorable or entertaining on their own, leaving a lot of episodes feeling dry. They do improve in the second half, featuring episodes like a fairly charming murder mystery spoof, and an episode focusing on Sonico’s cats, of all things, but they’re still not something going out of your way to watch. The voice acting and animation, while at least ok, don’t stick out much either. Overall, again, this is the one thing I’d say to just avoid. There’s tons of other slice of life animes out there that are way better. If nothing else, though, I’m kinda glad I stuck to it just for the surprise cameo by Kurisu Makise’s outfit, considering I was already playing Steins;Gate.

4. Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-kun

Number of episodes: 12. Language options: dub (video release only, apparently) and subs available. Streaming availability: Crunchyroll, Hulu, Netflix. Moving onto stuff I’d actually recommend, here’s a nice little anime adaptation of a gag manga by Izumi Tsubaki, produced by Dogakobo. Chiyo Sakura, a high school student who stands at an impressive 4′9″, confesses her love to the tall and mysterious Umetaro Nozaki, and gets his autograph, of all things, for her troubles. Trying again, Nozaki instead takes her to his apartment... to assist him with his manga. As it turns out, Nozaki is a popular romance manga author, whose interests in life start an end at manga, rendering him utterly oblivious to Chiyo’s feelings. Thusly, Chiyo officially becomes his assistant in order to grow closer to her crush, meeting his other associates along the way. The main thing that must be said is that this is not a serious anime in the slightest, and it’s all just big parody of romance manga more than anything, especially with the characters, like Mikoshiba, who acts like a playboy, but in reality is cripplingly shy, and Kashima, the “prince” of the school who is both actually a girl and an airhead who’s frequently on the nerves of the drama club’s president, Hori. A lot of the humor thrives on miscommunication, and it’s exaggerated enough that it works well. Every character is an idiot, in their own ways, but endearingly so, and each of them stands out, from Chiyo, who mostly plays the straight man but has her moments of over imagination, or the hilariously abrasive Seo. The plots are the right kind of dumb too, like Nozaki and Mikoshiba becoming obsessed over a helper NPC in a dating sim, or Hori gaining an intense hatred for people standing on boxes due to Nozaki’s attempts to fix perspective problems. The jokes can get a bit predictable after a while, especially with Nozaki, but overall it’s a pretty funny time. The voice acting is good, and the animation is charming. Overall, this is definitely a fun watch. If you want a good laugh, or just something that doesn’t take itself too seriously, this is definitely something to check out. 3. Angel Beats!

Number of episodes: 13 (+ some OVAs not on streaming services). Language options: dub and subs available. Streaming availability: Netflix, Crunchyroll, Funimation. As it turned out, visual novels, or at least visual novel developers, became a theme in the things I watched this time around. As mentioned before, Key is one of the biggest VN developers out there, who specialize in making you really sad. From Kanon, to Clannad, to Planetarian, to Little Busters, Key’s made a lot of great stuff, and had some great anime adaptations made, particularly for Kanon and Clannad. Thus, Jun Maeda, co-founder of Key, conceived Angel Beats to originate as an anime, produced by P.A. Works in 2010. Angel Beats focuses on Otonashi, a teenager who wakes up in a strange high school with amnesia, only able to remember his last name. He soon meets a girl named Yuri Nakamura, who informs him that they’re dead, and stuck in a sort of afterlife, seemingly ruled over by a mysterious girl they only know as Angel. In this purgatory, they’re unable to die, as Otonashi finds out first hand at Angel’s hands, and the school is populated by fabricated teachers and students, but the real people stuck there are at risk of being “obliterated” if they act like normal students, ceasing to exist. Unwilling to accept this, Yuri leads class SSS in opposition of Angel and the assumed God that created this world for the cruel fates that everyone stuck in the afterlife met, Otonashi seemingly included. With seemingly no other path to take, Otonashi joins forces with the SSS. The main strength of Angel Beats is its cast of characters. From the pretty mean yet charming Yuri, to the reliable, yet often abused Hinata, to the crazy and energetic Yui, to even some of the side characters, like Shiina, the ninja girl with a crippling weakness for wind up dog toys, or TK, who speaks in gloriously mangled English and dances constantly. The premise as well is honestly fascinating to me, and makes for some very interesting episodes. It’s got some pretty entertaining action scenes, along with some really funny moments, mostly by playing the “nobody can actually die” tidbit for all its worth, with the second episode devoting a good amount of time to slowly killing off the main group in horrible, yet blase fashions. It delivers emotionally too, with the second half in particular having a good deal of touching episodes, especially episode 10. Unfortunately, there’s one giant problem with this anime that brings it down quite a bit: it’s only 13 episodes long. While I’m not a fan of 12 or 13 episode seasons, I can’t say that’s a problem by itself. What is a problem is that they were planning to have double that amount of episodes, causing the storyline to feel very rushed, and leaving nearly every character in the cast that isn’t part of the main group very underdeveloped. While there’s an entire expanded universe of stuff, good luck tracking it all down, and while Key themselves were making a 6 part visual novel of Angel Beats to expand upon it all, something that’s very promising, only the first volume has been released so far, back in 2015, with no word since, very likely because of Jun Maeda’s health issues. Overall, Angel Beats genuinely is a good watch, but it’s kinda depressing, just because of how much potential was cut short thanks to whatever genius decided to cut the episode amount in half. Unless the VN project really gets going again, it’ll probably just remain a bunch of what could have beens. 2. Puella Magi Madoka Magica

Number of episodes: 12. Language options: dub and subs available. Streaming availability: Netflix, Hulu, Crunchyroll, Funimation. Continuing the theme I unintentionally set up, here’s this famous little thing, from the mind of Gen Urobuchi, who, among other things, has worked on several nitro+ visual novels, mostly notably Song of Saya, wrote the apparently horribly depressing Fate/Zero, and was a scriptwriter for Kamen Rider Gaim, which, to my understanding, is one of the darkest Kamen Rider shows out there. Will all this in mind, there’s no real hiding that this isn’t going to be anywhere near as innocent as it tries to appear. Even if you didn’t know that, its reputation probably far exceeds it by now. Madoka Kaname is an average middle school student whose life is thrown into chaos when a mysterious girl named Homura Akemi transfers into her class, whom Madoka later finds attacking a strange creature called Kyubey. After rescuing it, Madoka and her best friend Sayaka are attacked by a strange creature known as a witch, only to be rescued by Mami Tomoe, a “magical girl” given power by Kyubey. Kyubey sees much potential in Madoka, and offers to grant her any wish of her choosing, in exchange for her becoming a magical girl as well and helping fight the witches. Homura, however, is completely determined to keep that from happening. Thus starts a chain of event in the lives of Madoka and Sayaka that, suffice it to say, don’t go very well. Without getting too specific, what starts as a mostly typical, if slightly odd, magical girl show quickly goes to very dark and twisted places, comparative to Neon Genesis Evangelion, though not quite as in depthly depressing with it. Everyone takes a beating in some way, and even with just 12 episodes, it can get a bit much for some people, even when it doesn’t end quite as awfully as you might expect. Still, it’s actually very well done. The characters are complex and flawed, but ultimately sympathetic, the overall plot is fascinating, and it ends in a very fitting way. It’s emotional, and has surprisingly good action. The dub voice work is solid, and the animation by Studio Shaft is as well, especially helped by the abstract designs of the witches themselves. While I’m not quite as passionate about it all as some are, it’s definitely earned its reputation. It’s a great watch, and definitely a big recommendation. 1. Steins;Gate

Number of episodes: 24 (+ 1 OVA). Language options: dub and subs available. Streaming availability: Funimation, Hulu, Crunchyroll. Finishing off my unintentional theme with an actual adaptation of a visual novel, there was no way I wasn’t checking this one out with how utterly passionate the VN made me. This is at least partially a bias placement, but this anime is a very, very good adaptation, and a great way to experience the story without the VN, and a great watch even having gone through it. Rintaro Okabe is a college student on break living in his “laboratory” in Akihabara. A self proclaimed mad scientist, he whittles his days away hanging out with his friends Mayuri Shiina and Itaru Hashida, inventing useless gadgets in a supposed fight against an evil organization. One day, Rintaro and Mayuri go to attend a press conference by Doctor Nakabachi in Radi-Kan, who claims to have invented a time machine, only for it to end horribly for all involved when Rintaro discovers Kurisu Makise, a young neuroscientist who had recently had her thesis published in a major science magazine, murdered by an unknown assailant. Sending an email to Itaru about the incident, Rintaro suddenly finds the world to have changed. According to everyone else, the press conference had been canceled due to a mysterious satellite that crashed into Radi-Kan, and Rintaro later runs into Kurisu, alive and well. Investigating, Rintaro finds that, by complete accident, his modified microwave has become a device capable of sending emails to the past- and that SERN, a French research organization, has been conducting time travel experiments of their own. In his attempts to understand the capabilities of what he’s invented, and his curiosity as to why his memories appear to be out of sync with everyone else’s, Rintaro rushes into a series of experiments that change his life, and those of friends old and new. This is something I could rant about all day, but putting it as succinctly as I can, I’ve never been as fascinated by time travel as Steins;Gate has made me. As fantastic as it, it’s also shown to be unpredictable, limited, and downright unsettling, especially when nobody knows just how time even works. It’s a story about the concept of time travel as much as a story about using it. The story definitely starts a bit slowly, but it’s well worth pushing past. As an adaptation, it doesn’t even need to sacrifice much, with the most that’s lost being some details in a few later arcs that aren’t worth much in the long run anyway. Beyond that, the main strength of the story is the cast of characters. Rintaro, with his rather severe case of chuunibyou, is a unique protagonist to begin with, but the events of the story turn him into an honestly fascinating and downright tragic character, and easily one of my favorite protagonists in a long time. The rest of the cast is just as good, with Kurisu being a great mix of intelligence, ravenous curiosity, and flusterability, with her and Rintaro’s interactions always being entertaining. As well, there’s the always kind, yet ditzy Mayuri, the outgoing, but odd Suzuha Amane, the endearingly gentle Luka Urushibara, and the energetic and wily Faris, just for some examples. The cast is downright loveable and very easy to get attached to. While I prefer the Japanese voice cast overall, the dub isn’t to be overlooked, with Trina Nishimura as Kurisu, Tyson Rinehart as Itaru, Cherami Leigh as Suzuha, Lindsay Seidel as Luka, and especially J. Michael Tatum as Rintaro giving great performances. Visually, White Fox did a great job giving it a distinct look. While the VN had a gorgeous and unique artstyle, it’s not really something that can be translated into animation. Instead, they used a whole lot of washed out colors and saturated lights that, combined with the sparse use of flashy effects and even music, gives a very subtle atmosphere to it all. Even beyond the style, it looks very good on its own, and it’s especially nice not having Rintaro look like a ghoul half the time, like he does in the VN.

Overall, this is very much something worth checking out. I’m beating a dead horse here since Steins;Gate is already wildly popular, but it’s that way for a very good reason. There’s also an extra OVA episode, along with a sequel movie, though both are only available via Funimation. They aren’t quite the best, but they make for entertaining watches worth checking out. And with that, that’s the end to my rambling. With the exception of, again, Super Sonico, everything here is very much worth a watch. I’m sure, once I emerge from the hell of Steins;Gate spinoffs, I’ll get to watching even more stuff. Till then, though. -Scout

#anime #steins;gate #monthly girls' nozaki kun #angel beats #puella magi madoka magica

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tanyaryanmusic · 5 years

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To All the Buttholes I’ve Loved Before.

I’m so glad I had the opportunity to date so many buttholes.

Buttholes are such an important part of the self-development process. They highlight all the areas in that we lack. If you have trouble drawing boundaries - no problem! A butthole will come a take advantage of you until you figure it out.

You struggle with being a constant people-pleaser? You will eventually come across the forever un-pleaseable butthole.

Doesn’t matter what the goal of your personal journey into self discovery; overcoming your issues with confrontation, temper, drama, perfectionism, your value and/or self worth. There’s a butthole for that.

Of course I didn’t always see it this way. I went through a stretch of disliking, and in some cases, loathing these people for a period of time. I would relive and replay all the ways they had wronged me, hurt me or taken advantage of me. Then that got kind of boring so I decided to reflect on their impact. I was able to take away valuable and insightful lessons that helped me to understand myself and the world a little bit better. And even if in most cases I learned maybe a little too late, I still learned.

I’m not sure who coined the term serial monogamist, but I think that would describe my dating habits as well as any. I have dated enough to fully emerge myself in the experiences of various nuances of men on the butthole spectrum:

There was the one that was so sweet and sensitive but turned out that his ‘sensitivity’ was actually a stealthy form of manipulation, and for bonus points, he was also a low-key misogynist racist. NBD. Then there was the passive aggressive who wanted time, love and attention but could not request this directly so he used the silent treatment to get his way and to avoid conversations he didn’t want to have. Then the ‘I-can’t-live-without-you, you’re-my-whole-world’ one that slowly got me to do everything for him because he needed me and I was ‘always so much better at it’ than he was. That was actually super clever. Well done.

And then there was that one guy that when we broke up he called my home phone number 28 times in the middle of the night. And my cell phone 16 times. (No exaggeration here people. I’ve never seen anything like it.) And he left voicemails and texts that rom-coms base their desperate post-breakup characters off of - calling the first time just sad… the second one was more desperate. Then it was fiercely angry with horrendous name-calling. Then apologetic. Then sad again. And so on. I am absolutely one to indulge in the occasional hyperbole, but this was legit what happened. I suspect there are some deeper issues there.

Anyway. If you get the chance to reflect on these experiences in an objective manner, you get to pull out all the skillsets that they left you with. In many of my own experiences it came down to me learning to honour my value, draw boundaries, and have more self-respect.

If you get really keen on being objective, reflective and learning; you can also take away how you, yourself were a butthole. I am fully aware of the level 10 butthole I have been in certain circumstances (none of which will be listed today, because I know you think I’m perfect and I would hate to disillusion you). I also see the miscommunications that happened, and how things sort of got muttled, and therefore people got hurt unnecessarily. But hey, we’re all a little tougher now with a better sense of humour. Right? Or perhaps, the less desirable outcome, in which we’re all a little more jaded with a bitter sense of humour. Either way.

Each of the experiences with these buttholes (and my being the occasional butthole) really helped me to identify the man I chose to marry. They created this metaphorical checklist that I was able to go through.

Oh, you do that thing where you twist everything up and have no responsibility for anything? … nah. No thanks.

Ah yes, I am familiar with this technique. This is the avoid-it-until-she-gives-up technique. Nope. Next!

Hm, I am noticing how defensive and mean I get around you. I don’t like this version of me. Peace mofo, I’m out.

As awful as it sounds, there was a period of time when I was dating the man that became my husband that I was practically waiting for him to do something ignorant. But he just never really did… Don’t get me wrong, it’s not like he’s perfect. It’s more that he’s accountable. He has his moments, and he’s the first to tell me he’s sorry, or that it’s not my fault or that he just needs a bit of time to figure something out. If he’s been a bit insensitive or I have felt hurt, I tell him. He listens to me and he always apologizes. (And he doesn’t say dumb stuff like: “I’m sorry you feel that way.” Or “Calm down it was only two fries!”)

My husband respects the shit out of me. It kills me that his mother has passed away because I always want to thank her for whatever she did to make him the man he is today (I do regularly thank his dad), and I want to take notes so I can one day raise a human to be so considerate and kind.

He cherishes me. He makes me feel important to him. I feel valued, trusted and loved.

I once told him about my insanely unreasonable fear of getting locked out of the house. That day (THAT DAY) he went to Home Depot and changed the deadbolt out for a mechanical deadbolt so I didn’t have to worry about losing my key. I didn’t ask him to do that, he just did. ‘Cause he’s awesome.

He always cleans the kitchen if I cook. And often will help me clean the kitchen if he’s cooked. He does the laundry, he plans dates, and buys my favourite snacks when I’m PMS-y. He also buys me flowers every time he comes home from a long stint at work.

But most importantly, I can be all the weirdest versions of myself. He supports me with my experimenting, pushing boundaries and trying new things. I am allowed to feel all my feelings, and I feel truly safe knowing that he’s not threatened by my experiencing emotions. My favourite part of our relationship is that neither of us holds the other one to blame when we are sad, upset or hurt. Even if it was their doing… we don’t say “You hurt me” … it’s “I’m hurt.”

I know that we’ve only been together for a short time but this isn’t the first time I’ve been in a relationship for 2 years, and this one is different. At this point in previous relationships I am usually acutely aware of things that are making me feel stifled and uncomfortable, and simultaneously naively optimistic that all that garbage will get sorted out - and then it doesn’t, and maybe it lasts a few months more until it inevitably comes to a strained end. I’m just really grateful to be this far in and there’s no garbage. There’s effort, communication, and the occasional disagreement. But it’s pretty mellow. And I love that.

There’s a Buddhist quote that discusses finding your person, I’m going to paraphrase it because I can’t remember it and Google was NO help. It says something along the lines of: when you meet your life-partner it won’t be all sweaty palms, heart pounding and fireworks, instead, it will be this noticeable sense of calm. AKA it won’t be this dramatic hot/cold soap opera. I think we base our expectations of love on movies, TV and storybooks - which is a distorted adaptation of reality. It’s not to say you won’t get butterflies or nervous - sometimes I still do with Brin! But mostly he makes me feel ease. And it was like that from day one. Easy.

There are many people with a long dating history of failed relationships that will tell you there aren’t many good ones left. They’re the first to tell me that I really lucked out with how awesome Brinley is. Don’t worry all, I am well aware that my husband is straight-up the tits. But I want to get across something I feel is very important. I truly feel that I was able to identify my husband as someone to spend my life with because I reflected and learned from my past relationships. I was willing to look myself in the face and acknowledge where I needed to adjust and shift for my own personal growth; and I was able to very distinctly know what I wanted in the human being that would become my life-partner. I became so clear on this that I had decided I would rather be alone and happy by myself, than to settle for a relationship that only filled me up part way.

Before I met Brinley I made a list. A list of qualities and traits that were all inspired by the previous relationships that I had experienced. It was a pretty detailed list. When I completed my list, I read through it, and my first thought was: “Wow. If this person exists. He’s a pretty remarkable person.” It made me reflect. If I find this incredible person, then I ought to be the most incredible version of myself that I can be. I ought to be willing to return these same qualities. It’s not terribly fair to ask someone for this level of investment if you’re not willing to come to the table with similar value. So I started doing my best to develop in my own areas, asking myself harder questions: Are you ready for your person? Truly. The person that you know you want. The one that is going to treat you the way you deserve to be treated. Are you taking care of yourself? Are you comfortable being all of yourself? Are you responsible with your money? Are you brave enough to own your feelings and your mistakes? Are you able to stand up for yourself? All of this inquiry gave me the motivation to invest in myself. To hold myself accountable to rise and expand on who I am. To acknowledge my value and observe my deficits with kindness and patience.

So thank you, Buttholes. You were the reasons I was able to make that list. The reasons I knew exactly what I appreciated in a long-term relationship and the reasons I knew exactly what I didn’t need. You helped motivate me to step back and evaluate myself and acknowledge my various strengths and the I’m-working-on-them parts. You helped me to understand and appreciate what a truly incredible person Brinley is. Without the contrasting experiences of your Butthole-ism I may never have been able to fully appreciate the gift that my husband is.

Thanks Buttholes. I only hope I was able to do the same for you.

#Buttholes dating yycblog yyc thingsIwrite boydrama learningfromshit lifelessons humour musings reflection relationships

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hayjeon · 6 years

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Cut Me Open Story Talk

Hiya guys!

For new readers, a story talk is sort of an author’s post-word thing/director’s cut sort of thing where I make some commentary about the fic! :)

For old readers, welcome back for a good ol’ story talk! It’s been a while since I did one of these, because it’s been such a long time since I’ve written a full fic that I enjoyed rip but nonetheless it’s so good to be back!

Warning, don’t read this before reading the fic, unless you want it to be spoiled :o

Whew! That was wild ride. It had a lot more drama than I intended it to have, but I needed the whole thing to arc in the way that it did to make everything wrap up nicely.

First of all, thank you to the honorable mentions: @katrina-noona who helped me and gave me a ton of advice and pointers! I love you so much, you’re honestly the reason I was even able to finish this monster lmao

+ the two anons who preferred to be kept anonymous, but were really honest to me about their marriage and divorce process! Thank you so much :)

Okay, let’s get to it!

I realized that I’d been writing a lot of...normal(?) fics. You know, the regular, enemies-to-lovers, or friends-with-benefits!aus, and nothing really...actually portraying the nitty gritty parts about relationships/love.

I mean, literally the last full fic that I wrote was with Seokjin and their love story is literally so digustingly perfect. I wanted to do something completely different than that. So I thought of this!

I had the chance to observe 3 years ago my own parents’ nasty divorce process. (btw they didn’t end up getting divorced) but it was so hard to see the two people you respect most always fighting like that and miscommunicating. I had to be the middle-man, and they were both talking to me, trying to make me take their side, and as a freshman, I was so overwhelmed and scared of doing something wrong. In addition to all the stresses to going to college 300 miles away from home, and a college with so many other smart people on top of that, and making new friends and new community and dealing with a ton of weight-gain, my life at home was falling apart at home too.

And so I learned very closely that love has a nasty side to it. Feelings are so fragile and they get hurt, no matter how strong the person. My mother is my role-model. She’s been through a lot, and I love her so much for it. And my dad too. They’re both so strong, but the divorce process hurt them so much, and it hurt me too. They’re fine now, and have come to accept their differences and live together in harmony, learning to forgive and communicate better. But that didn’t make the whole 3-year-old process any easier.

So instead of writing just another generic fall-in-love, live happily-ever-after kind of story, I decided to portray that in here. Yoongi and Y/N are perfect for each other. We can all see that.

But it doesn’t mean that their lives are perfect to a t. Instead, they go through real struggles, like issues with having children or dealing with mean mother in laws, incongruent schedules, being tired all the time, having to conceal some things, being afraid to acknowledge the truth....all of these things are real and raw things in a relationship that I felt important to integrate into Cut Me Open.

And I want to reiterate one important thing: this fic wrapped up nicely, obviously. But I was careful to mention that even though they made up, it wasn’t a generic happily ever after:

“Sure, to be fair, after you and Yoongi had resolved your issues and decided to cancel the divorce, you still had to try. Love didn’t come that easily. If it was easy, then it wouldn’t be true love.

You and Yoongi had to attend marriage counseling sessions, make an effort to start going on dates again, and had to have long talks in car rides home to resolve and sort out all the miscommunications. You had to give up some of your responsibilities as Chief so that it would be easier to focus on being Yoongi’s wife, and also designate some work for him. Yoongi had to give up a few surgeries so he’d have time to spend with you after work and dedicate some to share the responsibilities of chief.

The both of you had to make a sacrifice. But it was worth it.

True love, without sacrifice, you learned, meant nothing.”

I hope that this was made clear enough to you guys, that yes, they made up fairly easily compared to others, and this is just a fic that wraps it up nicely. But whether or not a marriage works or not, it all depends on the timing and honestly the extent of sacrifice a person is willing to make.

I have a friend who’s parents split up and now have their respective marriages with beautiful wonderful people, and are so much happier than if they had tried to force their first marriage to work. And I respect that and support that 100%. Sometimes, certain people are not the ones who you believe those sacrifices are worth. That’s why people go through divorces. It’s very real. But I believe there is someone out there that makes it feel worth it.

If that’s not even a significant other, but it’s actually a friend, a child, or even a future you, then go for it. It’s gonna be worth it.

And for some, I know that marriage is difficult, and sometimes it feels like one side isn’t sacrificing enough. In that case, I really truly strongly believe in 1) a strong support system of friends/family, and 2) outside help. Y/N and Yoongi both had these, a community of friends and family who helped them and they also were willing to go to counseling to help sort it out. This is totally okay. You have a support system, and it’s really actually okay to seek out help. It doesn’t mean you’re going to fail, it doesn’t mean you’re doing something wrong. It just means you’re willing to try.

And to wrap it up, I just want to reiterate that there are always two sides to a story. HAHA a bunch of ppl said things like they wanted to punch Yoongi or they hated Yoongi, and honestly same. I did kind of build him up to be a passive asshole in the first part, but as soon as you read part 2, I hope it closed all the frayed edges and made sense why Yoongi made the choices he did.

Communication is so important in any relationship. With a friend, with a child, with a spouse/sig.other, or even yourself. It’s so so so important and I hope this fic portrayed even a little bit of that to you :)

Again, thank you so much for reading Cut Me Open! I truly enjoyed writing this fic, and I’m so happy that it’s finished, although I wish I could’ve done a litlte better with the second part because it started going a little all over the place in my haste to finish it on time. T___T

But thank you guys for your support, and like always, please let me know what you thought! I absolutely adore your guys’ feedback and questions and commetnts, it’s the reason I continue to write <3

Good night,

Hay

PS. I made a timeline/outline for myself to reference while writing the fic because it jumps around everywhere, but if you guys want to see it, this is it!

#story talk #fics #writing #cut me open

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jandiistheworstandhereswhy · 6 years

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Jandi Is The Worst And Here’s Why Part 3: Life After Happily Ever After

This is part three in my series “Jandi Is The Worst And Here’s Why”. To read the previous installments, click the links below.

Part 1, Humble Beginnings

Part 2, He Was A Boy, She Was A Girl, Can I Make It Any More Obvious?

You know its funny, as going into this project I wasn’t expecting to have too many positive things to say about Jandi, yet the first two installments of this series have been relatively focused on the better parts of this ships, hinting at its eventual downfall. Well kids its time to get into what exactly lead Jandi to becoming the dumpster fire it currently is, meaning we’re going to have to look back (*wink wink*) at season two.

So by the start of season two, Andi and Jonah are finally together which means that we won’t have to focus on all the awkwardness of becoming a couple and delving into the more interesting part of a relationship, the relationship itself. Is what should have happened but instead the show seemed quite adamant about not making these two official for as long as possible. At first this would make sense, as since Jonah had just gotten out of a toxic relationship he probably wouldn’t be interested in starting a new one. Here’s the issue though: the show never makes this explicitly clear, and Jonah’s wording leads Andi to believe they’re boyfriend and girlfriend. Instead of having Jonah say something along the lines of “Hey I’m sorry I let Amber treat you that way, she’s gone now, and I want to try to be friends for real this time” which would align with Andi’s speech in “Were We Ever?”, he just says he wants to hang out with her more, which Andi misinterprets as a start for their relationship. And one thing I want to make clear here, and this is something that will come up a lot as we talk more about Jandi, is that many of the problems here are not character issues but writing issues. What I mean is, the problem isn’t the character’s behavior that lines up with their established traits are creating issues, but rather that circumstances forcing them into tedious and arbitrary situations are being manufactured by the writers in order to maintain a poorly thought out story. It’s not Andi nor Jonah’s fault for this miscommunication, as this was something put in place by the writers to extend the story line further. Why? Well that’s a question I’ve answered on several occasions but for those of you new here....

The reason that stories tend end a story with the start of a relationship instead of having two people get together and showing the ways in which a romantic relationship can affect a person is because the romantic leads simply are not interesting enough as a couple to carry an engaging story. I like using the show Friends as an example since its so well known, because it perfectly displays the difference between a couple with chemistry and without. Monica and Chandler were able to get together and stay together in the show because they were entertaining enough as a couple that having to constantly restart their relationship was not necessary. With Ross and Rachel, however, they had little to nothing in common and wouldn’t really contribute much to the show if put together, so they are constantly put in a state of will-they-won’t-they as the constant instability and drama is the only way the writers know how make the audience care even a little bit about them, which a lot of them still didn’t. That’s why saying Jandi would be good if they stopped having drama is a worthless statement because its never going to stop because Andi and Jonah do not have enough romantic chemistry to carry out a descent story line for the rest of the show and the writers know this. And for the first half of season two, it seemed like they were actually going to say something about it.

See, during 2a, a lot of people thought that the show was going to subvert the typical middle school romance by having Andi realize that Jonah wasn’t what she really wanted and that instead of chasing after this idea of a perfect boy she should be with someone she actually shares interests with and doesn’t cause her so much emotional stress in the form of Walker. A lot of people though that was the direction they were going in, including myself, because honestly that would’ve been genius. Take a couple the audience just assumes will be together, than show why they shouldn’t actually be together in the first place and we’re only rooting for them because we’ve been conditioned to like the idea of this kind of couple. The biggest reason so many of us believed this was what was going to happen was that Terri Minsky in an interview when asked about her favorite storyline in Andi Mack said how she was most proud of Andi realizing she didn’t need to be in a relationship, and thusly Jonah. So a lot of us pretty much saw 2a as biding time before the inevitable break up (and in my case the inevitable beginning of Jyrus but we’ll get into that later). From the constant miscommunications, to the distrust, to the absolute failure to find any common interests, the writing seemed to be on the walls that Jandi was gonna sink and sink hard. This all came to a head in “We Were Never”, actually referencing the episode that first broke off Jandi, where it was revealed that Jonah never wanted to be Andi’s boyfriend, and that this whole time Andi had completely misunderstood him. This is frustrating for a multitude of reasons, the biggest being it makes out both Andi and Jonah to be completely incompantent at interpreting basic social cues. It was a story beat that just lead to more questions like, why did Jonah mean when he said he didn’t like labels but considered him and Andi together? He tells Cyrus that him and Andi aren’t broken up, but yet doesn’t think that saying he doesn’t want the label of boyfriend could be interpreted that way? How could Jonah not tell when Andi was very clearly upset when he said he didn’t want the bracelet? Was his hesitance towards labels because of Amber? I know most of these are directed towards Jonah, and to be fair Andi did jump to the conclusion they were dating, but not without reason. What would’ve been so difficult of just having them be an official couple? That’s the assumption everyone else watching it had to begin with so why not? Simple, to continue to drag out the storyline.

If Andi and Jonah had been official, there would’ve been far more of a sense of finality with their “break up” in “We Were Never” but instead the show can say “Well they never really were together meaning they didn’t actually break up so we still haven’t seen these two get together”, meaning that the writers have created a scenario in which they can technically repeat the same story beats without it actually being the exact same thing. Now anyone with basic brain functioning knows that’s total bullshit, and pretty much everyone has seen through it. It’s quite frustrating but not as frustrating as what was to come.

Looking back at Bash Mitzvah is truly disheartening, as it was an episode that set it self up to be the turning point for pretty much every character’s storyline but ended up being for the most part an empty promise. One of the bigger examples of this would be the final ending of Jandi, as with Jonah seemingly having lost Andi for good now that she had hung out with Walker and realized that a relationship shouldn’t have to be as emotionally draining as hers was with Jonah, and it seemed that unlike last time when she cut Jonah off, Andi was still willing to be with Jonah in a platonic way. This isn’t what happened obviously and the fans were furious. Of course they would be, since the show was so blatantly being lazy when it came to the writing around Jandi. Surely there’s no other reason that the fans would have a problem with alright you know where this is going and we’ll be getting into that next time.

#andi mack #jonah beck #walker brodsky #cyrus goodman

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puroresu-musings · 6 years

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NJPW DOMINION 6.9 in Osaka-Jo Hall Review (June 9th 2018)

IWGP Jr. Tag Title Match: Yoshinobu Kanemaru & El Desperado (c) vs. Roppongi 3K ***1/4

Juice Robinson & David Finlay vs. Jay White & YOSHI-HASHI ***

Tomohiro Ishii & Toru Yano vs. Minoru Suzuki & Zack Sabre Jr. ***1/4

NEVER Openweight Title Match: Hirooki Goto (c) vs. Michael Elgin vs. Taichi ***1/2

IWGP Tag Title Match: EVIL & SANADA (C) vs. The Young Bucks ****1/4

Hiroshi Tanahashi, Jushin Thunder Liger & Rey Mysterio Jr. vs. Cody, Marty Scurll & Hangman Page ***1/4

IWGP Jr. Heavywheight Title Match: Will Ospreay (c) vs. Hiromu Takahashi ****1/2

IWGP Intercontinental Title Match: Tetsuya Naito (c) vs. Chris Jericho ****1/4

IWGP Heavyweight Title Match - 2/3 Falls ~ No Time Limit: Kazuchika Okada (c) vs. Kenny Omega *****+

Photos.

Well this was quite the supershow. Capped off by one of the greatest matches you’re ever likley to see, the 2018 edition of Dominion from a sold out Osaka-Jo Hall was a show to remember. It started with a good, but unspectacular undercard (which they absolutely sprinted through) but built to a completely blow-away climax, this (along with WK12) is going to be hard to top as far as best card of the year goes. Things started in glorious fashion with new company president, Harold Meij, being revealed to the world, and him doing the Young Lion sprint to the ring. The matches began nicely with the Suzuki-gunners defending the Junior tag straps against CHAOS’ own SHO and YOH of Roppongi 3K. The main problem I have with this one is that it was over in 9:29, which meant even though it was all-action, no doubt, it was probably a little too short to form anything meaningful. The finish saw Kanemaru accidentally blow the whiskey into Desperado’s face, after the masked man missed a low blow, then SHO hit that Last Ride powerbomb into the lung blower for a great near fall. SHO then went for Shock Arrow, but Desperado escapes, bumps the ref, Kanemaru nails SHO with the whiskey bottle, then Desperado locks on a cradle and the champions retain. Juice Robinson pinned Jay White with Pulp Friction to end another good 7 minute doubles outing. The win undoubtedly sets Juice up as the next challenger to White’s US Title, which should happen at the Cow Palace on July 7th. ZSJ caught a Yano low blow between his thighs and turned it into the Breaks Special to win via submission in another really fun (but once again, incredibly short) tag contest in 8:42. The main point of interest here was Ishii and Suzuki’s exchanges, which were just incredibly hard-hitting. These guys haven’t faced each other since the 2013 Kizuna Road show, so hopefully that is on the horizon.

Goto defended the NEVER Title against Big Mike Elgin and Taichi in a 3-way next. This would have worked much better as a straight singles match between Goto and Elgin, who’s hard-hitting exchanges carried this thing. Highlights included Big Mike, who’s dropped a lot of weight, hitting a tope con hilo onto everyone, and Manami Toyota’s Japanese Ocean Cyclone Suplex on the champion for a great near fall. There was a sunset flip/superplex tower of doom spot. The finish saw Elgin powerbomb Taichi into Goto in the corner, then hit the Spiral Bomb for the win and the title in 13:46 of very good action. The decision to give the belt to Elgin is... interesting, to say the least, but as long as he has it, I imagine he’ll have some great defenses, regardless of what you think of him personally. The LIJ duo of EVIL and SANADA defended the Heavyweight Tag Titles against 7 time Jr. Tag champions, The Young Bucks, in the first excellent match of the show (it was also the first not to feel completely rushed through). This was another of those ‘old school’ style tag bouts the Bucks have been doing the past couple of years, and featured some great work revolving around Nick Jackson missing a kick and hitting the ringpost, and the ensuing sell-job of the foot throughout the rest of the contest, which was just great. Matt did more great, subtle back selling here too. The finish saw everything break down. SANADA applied Skull End to Matt, then did the big swing with him still in the hold, then went up top for the Moonsault, but Matt moved and Cold Skull landed on his feet. Matt hit a big spear on SANADA as he landed, then the Jackson nail both champions with double superkicks, before hitting More Bang For Your Buck on SANADA to win their first Hevyweight belts in 15:03. With the Jacksons now the champions, this very much freshens up a fairly dead-in-the-water division at this point. Then it was the Legends Dream Team 6 man encounter as Liger and Tanahashi teamed with a man making his NJPW debut, Rey Mysterio Jr, to take on Bullet Club’s most nefarious trio; Cody, Marty and Page. This was all good, but again it felt very rushed. Everyone looked good in this thing, hitting all their signature spots, but it was really the Rey Mysterio Show as he looked smooth as ever out there. The finish saw Cody pin Liger with Cross Rhodes at the 11:35 mark. It seems as though Mysterio will potentially face Scurll in San Fran.

With both men coming off amazing performances in the BOSJ, including Hiromu being in what might very well be the best match of 2018 so far in the Final against Ishimori, expectations for the Jr. Title match were sky high. Some very famous pundits thought it might even usurp the main event. Well, suffice it to say, it didn’t and in those respects, despite being a fantastic match, was maybe a bit of a disappointment. I thought that, whilst a lot safer, it maybe wasn’t even as good as their bout together in February. This was still incredible stuff however, they started at a thousand MPH, with Hiromu hitting that overhead throw into the turnbuckles about 10 seconds in, then once outside, Ospreay hit a massive running Senton Atomico off the ramp. Ospreay also hit two reverse ranas in a row. They sensibly slowed down from here, and had a fairly safe high flying match... until Takahashi hit a Canadian Destroyer, and locked in his Triangle Choke 9which I believe he’s calling “D”) that was so well protected in the BOSJ, which Ospreay escaped by lifting him up and dropping him right on his head, which was terrifying. Ospreay with the Robinson Special, and goes for Oscutter, but its countered and Hiromu hits the sunset flip bomb out of the ring and to the floor, which had been exposed earlier when Takahashi lifted the mats. Hiromu hits the Dynamite Plunger for a great near fall, then tries Time Bomb, but its countered, and Will hits a series of superkicks. A Storm Breaker is turned into the triangle choke, Ospreay tries to power out and Takahashi drops him on his head with that devastating Butterfly Piledriver, hits the Death Valley Bomb into the corner, and connects with the Time Bomb win the belt at the 20:20 mark to a big pop, in the exact same fashion he won the BOSJ. Great stuff.

Then it was I.C. Title time, as Naito defended against Chris Jericho, who was sporting a new look to go with the reinvented personality. This too had a lot of hype, which it too maybe didn’t entirely live up to, but it suceeded in being a wild, intense and believable brawl that was quite unlike anything else on the show. Like a modern day Brody, Jericho attacked Naito before the bell, powerbombing him through a table, then DDTing him onto another, all before the match had started. After a Lionsault and Naito had made the ropes whilst locked in the Walls Of Jericho, Chris pummeled Naito with some stiff shots that left him bleeding from the eye, then Naito fights back, blugeoning the old Lion Heart with the remnance of the broken table, which earned him some boos from the Osaka faithful, whom Naito has a long, storied history with. Naito then hits a piledriver on the time keepers table. Back in the ring, Jericho turns a middle rope Frankensteiner into the Walls, in a very dramatic spot, which saw Naito make the ropes again. There was a moment of miscommunication where a Destino spot was botched, but they finally pulled it off after an slightly awkward pause. After Naito escaped a third Walls, they traded hard slaps to the face like they were Vader and Hansen, which resulted in Naito bleeding fairly heavily from the left cheek, as well as potentially from the ear. Naito wins the exchange, then goes for his patented flying forearm, but Jericho catches him in a Code Breaker for 2. They exchange again and Naito hits Gloria, which looked nasty, and goes for Destino. Jericho escapes by pushing Naito into Red Shoes, hitting a dastardly low blow, then a Code Breaker to win the Intercontinental belt after a 17:16 war. This was something of a surprise, I thought Jericho would probably win, given the Cow Palace on the horizon, but his priority appears to be music these days, so it was up in the air. I’m pleased he won, it shakes things up and really, Naito doesn’t need the belt. Jericho continued the beating in the post-match, but was ran off by EVIL. I can’t lie, a match between Jericho and EVIL doesn’t exactly fill me with great excitement. Of all the guys in New Japan I would pair Jericho with at this point, I realy wouldn’t be going with EVIL, but what do I know?

And then it was main event time. Lets get this out of the way now, this was one of the greatest, most dramatic pro-wrestling matches I’ve ever seen. Is it worthy of more than 5 stars? Undoubtedly, but I still rate things out of five, so thats the max for me, and trust me, this was an easy five in the first fall alone! Many seemed to think these guys had an uphill battle with the 2 out of 3 stipulation, as they theorised no one would buy it ending before the third fall, but honestly the drama writes itself here; The first fall is the most important as whoever wins the first has the advantage, and that makes the second dramatic as it could feasibly end in two straight, then if it does go to three falls, its all back up in the air again. Anyway, I digress. This was nothing short of a wrestling masterpiece. Everything about it was pretty much perfect. The story, the drama, the callbacks, the award worthy selling, it all just worked as these two just click together perfectly. Theres too many layers to even try to get into here, but everything from Omega selling his ribs throughout after a nasty bump into the guardrail, to drama around Ibushi, who cornered Omega, weilding a towel, potentially ready to throw it in at any time, just made this a flawless experience. The first fall alone could have been the WK main event as it was quite the nerve-wracking experience. Okada escapes an attempt at a top rope Dragon Suplex, then kills Kenny with a Tombstone on the apron and hits a great missile dropkick for a near fall. Okada with the top rope elbow, then does the Rainmaker pose, but Kenny takes him out with a Snap Dargon. Okada rolls to the floor where he eats a Terminator Con Hilo as Osaka-Jo Hall goes crazy. Omega tries One Winged Angel but Okada escapes, only to take a V-Trigger and a German for another great near fall. Another V-Trigger connects, but the champion escapes another OWA, and hits the big dropkick. Omega counters the Rainmaker with another V-Trigger and that gets another amazing near fall. Okada hits a tombstone, but the Rainmaker is countered again, this time with a sunset flip, only for Okada to grab the legs and cradle him, Bret/Davey style, for the first fall at the 28:47 mark.

After a 2 minute rest period, action in the second fall commenced at a much faster pace with them brawling around ringside, Omega draped a table over Okada and hit a double stomp off the apron onto it. He then set up the table at ringside for later use seemingly. Kenny hits a reverse rana on the floor for a close 19 count. Another V-Trigger stuns the champion, but he turns an OWA attempt into another Tombstone, then goes for the Rainmaker, only for Omega to turn it into that massive uranage in a callback to their G1 match. Omega starts hitting hard knee strikes, but Okada fights back, he goes for another dropkick, but Omega hits one of his own. Honestly, this was an incredibly stiff dropkick, Kenny hit Kazu so hard, he left a boot print in his chin! Okada again with the dropkick, but Kenny catches him in a sitout powerbomb. Another V-Tigger stuns Okada, but the champ tries the cradle again, but scores a ridiculously close near fall. Another big V-Trigger leaves Okada open for Kenny to hit a Jay Driller, then even the score up after scoring a three count with the One Winged Angel at 19:10 of the second fall.

After wrestling for around 50 minutes, they went into the third fall. Both guys sold exhaustion here perfectly, and Okada needs somekind of acting award for his sells of the V-Triggers. There was no suspension of disbelief here, you bought everything they were doing. Omega with another V-Trigger, but Okada battles back, using all his energy to hit a massive Rainmaker, which Kenny did a wonderful sell for. However, both guys are exhausted and we get the double down. Okada tries a Frankensteiner, but Omega turns it into a Styles Clash for a believable near fall. V-Trigger by Omega, who then hoists Okada up in the OWA, but collapses with exhaustion. Ibushi on the apron trying to fire Kenny up, convinces him to hit the Phoenix Splash, which he goes for, however, the champion moves and Kenny hits nothing but canvas. Kazuchika tries a Tombstone again, but Kenny escapes and hits three more V-Triggers, goes for a fourth, and Okada battles back with two big dropkicks as the white hot Osaka crowd were beside themselves and the announcement of being at the 60 minute mark. The two exchange on their knees, then Kenny changes tact by throwing a big headbutt. As he raises Okada up, the Rainmaker manages to hit the Rainmaker, then another, but as he goes for a third, Omega turns it into a German and holds on, just like Okada does with the Rainmaker, he rolls through and hits another German, but a third is countered into a German by Okada, who holds the wrist and goes for the Rainmaker, but Kenny finally hits another German as Osaka goes bonkers. Kenny with a reverse rana, but when he goes for a V-Trigger, he’s dropkicked out of the air. Okada with the Rainmaker, but Kenny ducks and turns it into the One Winged Angel! Both men are exhausted and try to pull themselves up with the ropes. Kenny gets up first and as Okada is lying prone across the bottom rope, hits a big V-Trigger, then hoists Okada up into the third fall winning OWA to win the match and end the greatest title reign ever at 16:53 of the third fall. Holy shit, what a match!

As Kenny was awarded his belt, The Young Bucks came out and they, Kenny and Ibushi all embraced as streamers filled the ring. Omega cut a promo, saying he isn’t going anywhere anytime soon, proclaimed himself ‘the future of wrestling’, and annpounced the formation of The Golden Elite. Cody appeared on the ramp, but thought better of it and slinked off, letting TGE celebrate in the ring. There’s your potential Cow Palace main event. Its impossible to do this bout justice, it was just insanely good wrestling. Beyond the action, the story it told was just superb. In total, they were out there for 64:50 (or 69:30 if you include the rest periods) and it flew by in what felt like less than thirty. As I say, there was just so much going on here, it was like The Godfather of wrestling matches. Okada won the first fall, so he has the hypothetical bragging rights of saying if it were a regular match, he’d still be champion, and Okada still never once kicked out of the One Winged Angel. I even loved the fact that they set up a table, which is a surefire sign that its going to get used right? Well it didn’t. It just made it feel like everything wasn’t completely planned out.

But what more can be said about Okada’s title reign? I was in attendance at Osaka-Jo Hall at the 2016 Dominion event in which he began his fourth reign by beating Naito in an exceptional match. I didn’t realise it at the time, but I was actually witnessing history, as he went on to hold the belt for two straight years, break the all time record for days as champion, set a new record for defences, and produce two years of some of the greatest matches ever seen. Honestly, I find it hard to believe this reign can be topped by anyone. It’s an albitross around the neck that you’d dethrone such a champion, as having to follow that is nigh on impossible (as poor Takeshi Rikio discovered when he ended Kenta Kobashi’s superb two year GHC reign in 2005) and in many respects, theres no where to go but down. However, if Kenny Omega has proved anything in the last 30 months, its that he’s more than up to the challenge (and lets be fair, he is a million times better worker than Rikio ever was). Even this series with Okada, once you think the zenith has been reached, they would just blow past it again. As much as I loved Okada’s reign, putting the belt on Kenny is 100% the right call in my opinion. It completely freshens things up, offering us completely new feuds and programmes, and it can give Okada a much needed breather, as its been a hell of a two years. Just check this show this out, and specifically the main event, as it was just something else.

NDT

#njpw #dominion 6.9 in osaka-jo hall #review #njdominion #kazuchika okada #kenny omega #chris jericho #tetsuya naito #hiromu takahashi #will ospreay #new japan pro wrestling #puroresu #wwe

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heamaybe · 3 years

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October 2020

Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas: I liked this book, but I feel like because I enjoyed the reading experience a lot, I forgave some stuff I usually dislike. The villain and motives were pretty obvious so I ended up laughing at the villain monologue a bit, but predictability has never ruined a book for me. Though picking up on the clues and being familiar with story tropes depends on the reader so I can’t say for sure which books are actually predictable. I have consumed so much media in my life that it has become very difficult to surprise me with a logically moving story that gives the reader proper information. Also, I really liked Julian so much.

Brothersong by TJ Klune: It’s the last book and I just love these characters so so much. My favorite parts were around the middle of the book and I liked the ending mostly. I don’t want this to get spoilery so I can’t say much more than that.

The Hanged Man by K.D. Edwards: The best thing about this series are the characters. There were kids in this book and didn’t even dislike them. I still don’t understand the world or magic that well, but I don’t mind. I feel like I know enough to follow the story, but not enough to guess where it’s going. I really like Addam a lot, he’s so good to Rune and I love what they’ve got going on.

Exit Strategy by Martha Wells: Every novella has made me like Murderbot more. I also like the snippets of information we get about the world. The plot in these kind of blend together so I can’t tell what was happening in which book.

The Wolf at the Door by Charlie Adhara: The rest of the month I went on looking for different types of romances and this werewolf one was first. This wasn’t as silly as what I was looking for. There’s a murder plot and investigation that I didn’t really care about at all. This wasn’t bad though, I think it was just the wrong time because I usually like this type of stories.

P.S. I Spook You by S.E. Harmon: This was so much better than I expected. I thought it would be a little overly sweet for my tastes but it wasn’t and the main character is great. I wasn’t bored by the murder investigation in this, but I did hope there had been more of the ghosts that I was expecting.

Prince of Air and Darkness by M.A. Grant: This reminded me a lot of Carry On (Rainbow Rowell) but with more mature content and faeries instead of wizards. It was fine but I haven’t continued the series since. It didn’t leave that big of an impression for me.

Take Care of You by Gianni Holmes: Such drama, exactly what I was looking for. This series started so well and I think I like this younger daddy dom with older sub dynamic. I had to continue the series because the ending just demanded it.

Take Care of Me by Gianni Holmes: And then it didn’t continue so strong. The first one was better and this felt pointless. Somehow too domestic maybe. It just didn’t keep me interested.

Take Care of Us by Gianni Holmes: And then it continued downhill, but I’m very bad at dropping books or series I’ve invested time on. I have to know how they end. I don’t know how one can make daddy/boy dynamic this boring. Sweet, wholesome and domestic is wonderful, but it puts me to sleep in fiction. This one also focused too much on the rest of the families of the main pair and I found them mostly annoying so that didn’t help the situation where I was just waiting for the book to end.

Laurent and the Beast by K.A. Merikan: Ok ok so... Amazing...ly ridiculous. I don’t even know. I had so much fun with this. It’s like a beauty and the beast retelling, with a biker gang, and a devil that makes deals, and time travel, and so much miscommunication. I hate miscommunication but I couldn’t even be mad at it with all the other what-the-fuckery. I am so tempted to continue to the next book in the series, but I’m also a bit scared because I feel like it could do anything.

The Wolf at Bay by Charlie Adhara: I did end up continuing this series and I’m glad because this second one was better than the first. My only real issue is that this gives hardly any information about anything. We only see one point of view and the love interest wolf doesn’t tell him anything basically so the reader doesn’t know anything either. There’s obviously something going on but it’s impossible to even try to guess with the lack of information.

#books #booklr #monthly reading wrap up

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raisingcain-onceagain · 7 years

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under the cut for more family issues - sorry for clutter, no need to read, just need to keep track of this somewhere that it won’t get lost in the fucking move god

Finally got ahold of my dad about an hour and a half ago - before this, I hadn’t spoken to him or my mom in almost two weeks. We’ve been having a lot of miscommunication issues lately - I didn’t tell them about the Ph.D. acceptance and move right away, and then used the term “gossip” to explain that decision, then acted weirdly chummy with family I haven’t gotten along with in a long time, then was selfish/blind/unapologetic when sitting down after the reunion to talk. I also apparently didn’t communicate well enough when answering her texts, just monosyllabic answers and song lyrics and emoticons when she wanted to know what’s going on in my life besides work (not much, save a. see below, b. graduate stuff she’s always shaking her head at, c. queer stuff she’s said she doesn’t want to hear about, d. pop culture the sibs and I talk about but she’s constantly saying she doesn’t understand or like). And this last conversation began with my mom telling me she had wanted to tell me to fuck off after hearing my “gossip accusation” (but she didn’t because she was too classy, but she was saying it then) and ended with her also saying she loved me but couldn’t deal with this anymore and was backing off.

So. To add. About two months prior I’d sat down with them and told them I’d be having a surgery. Mom and dad. but mostly mom, grilled me about this and bewailed me not speaking up sooner; ended with saying I shouldn’t get it. Mom later pulled me aside for an even more excruciating grilling that devolved into questioning my Christian faith (trying not to tell her that that has been shaken as I see indoctrination, since the faith means a LOT to her), my ability to do my job (teach - what), and my decision-making abilities (nil, obviously). I struggled to explain adequately, I admit, but faced with highly personal questions and accusations I am not necessarily at my best. She was also mad when I started laughing her warning that I was giving God the middle finger. (that is still kind of funny, though maybe visuals are needed)

Both times, I mentioned the surgery date and that my getting it was non-negotiable. (it boggles the mind they even thought they could tell me not to, but hey, that’s for another day. It wasn’t on their insurance, time, house, anything.) Both times, I walked away with the sense that I shouldn’t talk about this anymore. And with the utter desire NOT to.

So then I had the surgery about ten days ago. My friend who was supposed to be with me had a medical emergency of her own that morning and had to leave earlier than expected, and the center gave me something different from what I was expecting, so I needed help afterwards. Texted one of my younger sisters, who is a fucking rock star who does not deserve any of this.

My mom apparently flipped. Didn’t think I would have gone through with it after our little talks, thought i would have stayed with *them* if I did, even though I’d told her multiple times I wouldn’t. Can’t understand any of the decision-making process. Was already sick with the flu when my sister said she was leaving to help me, and hasn’t been able to sleep, etc. since. Life at their house has been utterly miserable.

I’ve been calling almost every day on the rock-star-sister’s recommendation, to fix things. Extra awkward that today finally got through because it’s also Father’s Day, and I got my dad. Takeaways:

He and my mom told me not to do this. But I did it.

They “haven’t gotten through this, and might not get through this.” Divorce? Death? Drama? Who the fuck knows?

“You know the saying, happy wife happy life. Well, she’s miserable, so I’m miserable. She lies awake crying, can’t sleep. She hasn’t cooked since.”

Today’s sermon was about children raised right, and he almost cried right there in church.

He doesn’t know whether I lied to my friends too, or they got too chicken and abandoned me, but I shouldn’t have involved my younger sister.

I am horribly selfish.

Yeah. Both looking back and looking at this, I still can’t see beyond a mess of a) absolutely true accusations {it was selfish to involve my sister, god} and b) weirdly faith/gender-oriented things about what his wife and daughter(s) should be doing. I doubt my mom’s reasoning would be any better.

So. While I am utterly, bitterly regretting getting my sister, and other siblings honestly, involved, I am feeling less and less regret about every-fucking-thing else. Which is not good, I know my parents are hurt and lashing out much as I would if I didn’t understand, but i - god I wish there had been a way not to call my sister. That is what I am regretting. She shouldn’t have to be fucking shouldering this.

To make things even more awesome? The family members that I got along better with are the same ones I was worried my mom would gossip to. And they’re in the same city as my Ph.D. program. And I might be staying with them and helping out for a bit when I move. And I can’t give my mom a fucking heads-up or time to prepare because she isn’t talking to me or replying to texts. Again, I completely understand that as a method of dealing, but then she’s going to go off again and think I was hiding this too. I have like five weeks, if that, to figure this out before I move out of the state for good.

#~ ~ ~ ~#~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~#fucking hell #fucking fucking hell #shout it to the void #a lot of this is my fault #a lot #and a lot of it I will continue to fucking maintain is NOT

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evenstevensranked · 7 years

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#50: Season 3, Episode 20 - “Surf’s Up”

Recurring character Zack Estrada invites Twitty to go surfing with him and his friends. Out of jealousy, Louis, who was not invited — invites himself.. which causes all sorts of drama. Meanwhile, Ren meets and falls for a guy named Gil who she has reason to believe might be a merman.

Okay, so I just want to start off by saying… a lot of people don’t like this episode. I looked at some old forums from 2000-2006 recently and so many people were like “This episode sucked!” right after it initially aired, lol. I guess I can see why they felt that way, but this episode is actually one of my personal favorites. Why have I ranked it #50 then, you ask? Well, upon re-watching.. it felt a little flat and sort of dragged on. It wasn’t as funny or strong as I remembered, but I still absolutely love the basis for the whole thing. If we’re looking at what I’m basing my rankings on, this one probably meets only 2 of the 6 requirements - “personal favorite” and “quality plot line.” So, now that you know my reasoning... let’s dive in. (Pun intended.)

In the opening scene, we see Louis and Twitty at lunch when *dun dun dunnnn* Zack Estrada calls Twitty over and invites him to go surfing at Troubadour Point. Now, this episode actually marks Zack’s last appearance. So, without getting into detail.. Basically, Louis has always been super jealous of this dude. Like, incredibly jealous. The jealousy dates back to early Season 1 and spans 4 episodes throughout the shows run. I refer to it as The Zack Estrada Saga. And here, it continues. The third to last episode of the series, and he’s still jealous.

I know that feel, Lou.

When Twitty returns to their lunch table he’s talking excitedly about spring break. Which, piggybacking off of what I said last week, is another reason why I fully believe these kids were intended to be high school students. Because, no middle schoolers I know go gallivanting off to the beach unsupervised for spring break, lol. But, hey! Maybe it’s different in 2017. Nah, yeah. Something’s telling me it’s definitely different in 2017. Middle schoolers look and act 25 years old these days, so.

Louis’ jealousy is very evident when he passive aggressively asks Twitty when he started hanging out with Zack and his friends. Twitty says he went surfing with them last spring break while Louis was at a temper tantrum workshop. This is the first funny moment of the episode. Louis responds by screaming at Twitty on the verge of tears, “nOW YOU LISTEN HERE! I EXPRESS MYSELF APPROPRIATELY NOW!” Louis decides to go ahead and invite himself to Troubadour Point even though he has no idea how to surf.

This episode was always somewhat refreshing to me, because it’s one of the only ones where we see our characters in an environment other than their houses or school. That’s something cool about early Disney Channel shows. They weren’t contrived or restricted to a sound stage on a fake beach like Hannah Montana, for example. They’re actually at a real beach and I love it.

They make a point to show Twitty and the owner of the beach shack rub a sacred lucky surf idol tiki thing and say “Pray for waves!” Louis enters the shack with his surfboard (which is bad luck apparently) and knocks over the tiki. Yikes. This reminds me of The Brady Bunch Hawaii episode, lol. I was just waiting for the bad luck music to play. Zack was already a little annoyed when Twitty told him Louis was coming, so now… his dislike for Louis is pretty strong.

Side note: I feel like Disney Channel totally typecast Brandon Baker as that ~ethnic surfer bro.~ For those of you who don’t know or never realized, he also played Johnny Kapahala (a.k.a Johnny Tsunami). I just came across this cute little followup series Disney did with him last year. Side side note: Brandon is actually biracial (white and fillipino) and they portrayed that accurately on screen in the Johnny movies! Random to mention, I know. But I’m biracial so I get oddly happy when I notice this stuff, lol.

There are actually two mini subplots in this episode, which might contribute to its “off”-ness. We have Tom who’s trying to build a perfect sandcastle. And we have Beans who’s metal detecting, but just ends up stealing people’s stuff. Beans really shouldn’t be there. His bit is useless. I understand it was most likely an attempt to get everyone involved in the fun beach location episode.. but, I feel like there might be too many things going on here.

Tawny is sitting by Tom, all covered up from the sun. Tom asks her why she isn’t helping with the sand castle and she’s like “Oh, I’m just waiting for a little more cloud cover.” And, Tom says “Oh. Right. Heaven forbid a ray of sunshine should touch your precious porcelain skin.” Tom is the best. But of course.. Twitty, Zack and the surfer bros go running to the ocean and step all over the castle. Louis is trailing behind them like a lovable uncoordinated doofus and ruins the remainder of it. Tom is so sad. Bless his heart.

Ren, Ruby and Monique are chilling on the beach too when some guys ask them to hang out. Side note: This one dude who Monique runs away with!! I always thought he looked familiar and as I was watching it again today — it hit me! He went on to be a member of fictional boyband Boyz N Motion from That’s So Raven! Omg. I looked it up just to make sure, and I was in fact correct. His name is Michael Copon. So, there’s that.

Ren is on the dock throwing pebbles and shells into the sea when a guy emerges from the water and throws shells back at her, lol ok. The two start talking and she finds out his name is Gil! Yep. THE Gil who breaks her heart in a pancake house in The Even Stevens Movie. Gil swims away, and Ren can’t help but notice the giant glimmering fin that splashes in the water. I’d honestly be a little confused, too.

My inner subconscious Social Justice Warrior came out a bit when Ren sees Monique and Ruby doing their hair and makeup and says “Ah! Makeup and hairspray at the beach. Very nice, girls. I thought you already met some guys.” To which they respond, “Yeah, and we wanna keep them.” NOOOOOO! Sorry. I hate to view things through that lens, but after spending so much time on Tumblr and Twitter (especially in the current climate of the country) it just rubs off on you! Ugh. You can’t escape it! Anyway, Ren tells them about Gil and the whole fin thing and they find it absolutely hilarious.

Out on the ocean, Twitty and Zack’s crew are bummed because there are no waves. Zack angrily says “Pfft! I wonder why…” And gives Louis the nastiest look as he comes paddling up to them all happy. I feel so bad. Zack yells at him for bringing his board into the shack and breaking the lucky surf idol. The gang desert Louis and head back to the beach for lunch. Twitty sides with them saying “sometimes I just need to do my own thing, man” and leaves Louis alone in the middle of the ocean. My poor baby. :(

I will not stand for this! Protect Louis Stevens at all costs.

Louis goes back to the beach and once again walks right through Tom’s sandcastle. Come on, man! You could’ve walked around it, lol. It’s not even like he was running.. he was casually walking. I can’t. He goes to the dock and finds Ren with binoculars looking for Gil. The two of them have a “conversation” that’s not really a conversation. It’s just them going back and forth ranting about their own problems without actually listening to the other. It’s a cute sibling moment, haha. I actually really love Louis and Twitty’s friendship, though. They’re like an old married couple in this episode. I think it’s adorable. During this scene Louis is so fed up with Twitty ditching him for Zack, so he decides to go surf on his own. Meanwhile, Ren is ranting about Gil being real, knowing what she saw and that she’s not crazy.

“At least your best friend didn’t ditch ya. He’s hanging out with his ~new~ surfer buddies. They’re probably having a good’ol time. Laughing, eating onion rings. Twitty doesn’t even like onion rings! Ya know?! So, it’s weird. He’s probably faking like he likes them!” I love this.

Ren decides to go out on the ocean in a boat and call for Gil by making dolphin noises. She brought sardines to lure him with and everything. This is pretty funny and one of my favorite scenes because it’s rooted in miscommunication. Plots with comedic miscommunication are one of my favorite things ever and it’s executed really well here. Naturally, Gil pops up from the water. Like... I’d believe he’s a merman, too. Why is he out there in the ocean all the time?! What was he doing underwater?! How long was he under?! How was he breathing?! All valid questions.

How creepy is that?! lol

He swims over to Ren and tells her he was getting Lobsters for his dad, King Neptune. I’m dead. She’s like “Wow. So you really are a sea person…” - “Yep, born and raised!” he says. This is gold. Then we get a super cringy, awkward moment. After a tiny bit of flirting, Gil proceeds to dramatically kiss Ren????? Slow your rolls, buddy. That’s a little fast for Disney Channel, don’t you think? They just met 2 hours ago at the most, and Ren is in middle school. I’M TELLIN YA! THESE KIDS ARE SUPPOSED TO BE JUNIORS AND SENIORS IN HIGH SCHOOL, I SWEAR! It’s the only logical explanation for certain stuff.

Beans is a freaking idiot who hovered his metal detector over peoples’ pocketbooks and crap all day and stole their personal belongings. But he refers to it as “buried treasure.” How stupid can you be?! Like I said, he’s pretty useless here and did not need to be included in the episode. Plus, you know I’m not the biggest Beans fan. Finally, we see him hover the detector over a tip jar in the shack. He goes to steal all of it before Tawny stops him. Tom comes over and announces that the Lost and Found is open, yelling out all of the items in Beans’ bag lol. There’s one bit where Tom shouts “ONE GOLDEN……. oh geez, this is mine” and sneakily puts it in his pocket. Uh. What the heck was it?! Do I even want to know? Can anyone tell what that is?

While everyone’s in the shack sulking over the lack of waves, Twitty decides to go out and attempt to surf again. While he’s sitting out there, a freaking giant wave comes out of nowhere and sweeps him away. Louis notices and runs to Twitty’s rescue! They don’t skimp on the dramatics here. Louis kicks into full Baywatch slo-mo mode with an 80s knockoff power jam “You can count on mEeEeeE, I will always beeee thereeee for youuUuUuU” playing in the background. So good.

One thing I really like about Even Stevens is that it doesn’t take itself too seriously. They’ll throw in giant computer generated waves, and a terrible green screen job - but it doesn’t matter. It’s not supposed to look good, it’s supposed to be funny. It doesn’t need to look real to sell the moment on this show. (Christy said something similar on the movie’s DVD commentary!) If this scene looked realistic, the episode would pull a 180 and turn into a drama. That’s not what they were going for, haha.

A totally not superimposed Twitty getting swept away.

Louis cracks me up. Literally anything out of his mouth is funny because of the way Shia phrases it. Once he rescues Twitty he says “You know what’s funny to me? That the worst surfer in the world is havin’ to save Hot Shot Surfer Boy over here.” They proceed to argue like an old married couple some more. Twitty says he never called himself Hot Shot Surfer Boy. Louis calls Twitty two-faced and insists he buy him a Philly Cheese Steak to apologize. It’s so petty, I love it so much. When suddenly… ANOTHER WAVE COMES OUT OF NOWHERE! We get a wonderful Louis Scream as they frantically paddle. They end up briefly surfing the wave together.

Twitty: “DUDE THIS IS SO AWESOME THIS WAVE’S LIKE… 10 FEET OVER OUR HEADS!” Louis: “DON’T CHANGE THE SUBJECT, TWITTY! I’M STILL MAD AT CHUUUU!”

Louis falls off and disappears into the sea, which is hilarious looking. But, also awful because if this was a drama, he would’ve died. But, anyway. Twitty comes riding up to shore and everyone surrounds him with praise for conquering that gnarly wave all by himself. Meanwhile, Louis washes up to shore covered in seaweed. This poor child. The two of them share one of those conflicting ~emotional~ moments where one person knows they’re being a jerk and looks off sadly at the person they’re letting down. :( Thankfully, Twitty tells the truth when Zack asks him how he caught the wave and everyone’s shocked that Louis actually did something right.

Ren’s sitting on the beach when some guy approaches her, and she realizes it’s Gil…? But, he’s walking? With legs? And then everything gets cleared up. “King Neptune” is the name of his dad’s seafood company, and he swims with a uni-fin flipper. I almost wish there were more layers of miscommunication! It could’ve been even funnier.

Louis and Twitty end up having a heart to heart while sitting in Tom’s sandcastle. It’s precious. I wish I had a friendship that tight. Instead I’m sitting here, indoors, blogging about a fictional friendship. Twitty apologizes for ditching Louis, and Louis apologizes for inviting himself. But, Twitty says he’s glad he did because he might not be alive. “Yeah… The whole save your life thing. Whatever, it’s all in a day’s work.” I love Louis. How could you not be this guys friend?! To this day, I wish I had a friend as funny and chill as Louis. Dang. Twitty even bought him a Philly Cheese Steak! Aw. They split it and it’s a nice moment. But, as they’re eating.. they have to throw in a bad line. “Huh. It’s a little dry, isn’t it?” Louis asks. Cue another giant CG wave. Get it? Now the sub isn’t dry anymore! Hah..hahaa..ha…? I never thought that line was particularly funny. It’s almost on par with this terribly cheesy (and insensitive) deleted scene from Titanic. But the visual of them getting hit by the fake wave while sitting in a sandcastle is one of those things that will always cheer me up. I can’t look at that without laughing.

And that’s it! The episode ends with a random Twitty-Stevens Connection music video "Dawn Patrol" lol. The song always gets stuck in my head. Ugh. It’s so cringy in the best way. I actually love some of the bloopers they included. But, hey! Who’s the rando on bass? Beans became their bassist earlier in the season. They use Beans for a throwaway metal detector plot, but don’t have him play bass in the band he plays bass for. Okay. Also according to the episode credits, AJ Trauth actually wrote the song! Haha, awesome.

youtube

So, yeah. My opening statements pretty much sum up my feelings towards this one. But, one distracting thing I feel like mentioning is that this episode uses one too many unflattering fish-eye style close ups? WHY?! Look:

One too many! ONE TOO MANY! Paul Hoen directed this one. He still directs for Disney today, btw! I wonder what made him decide on this? It really stood out to me and gives the episode a bit of an offbeat, quirky feel.

Thanks for reading guys! I feel like these posts are getting longer and longer. I have to reel myself in here. (Okay, no pun intended there.) As usual, chime in below. Are you one of the people on that old forum who thought this episode sucked? I personally like it a lot and was tempted to rank it higher!

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Thankssss!

#rank #even stevens #season 3 #louis stevens #ren stevens #gil #shia labeouf #christy carlson romano #disney channel #comedy #review #tv show #early 2000s #old school #the zack estrada saga #the twitty stevens connection

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thefreshfinds · 5 years

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Pen Soul: Jodie Jo’

There’s a story to be told and in Pen Soul Jodie Jo succeeds at doing so.

As quoted in the description on Soundcloud, "Jodie Jo' uses this double entendre to show that his soul is in his pen, or per-say, his writing. Everything comes from within, if looked at from a spiritual point of view, most would consider it God sent." He tells many stories from another's perspective in this 16 track LP, reeling out subconscious thoughts and pinned up emotion.

“The backstory of Pen Soul is just the experiences I've encountered in my day to day life.” says Jodie “The tracks on this project deal with a lot of internal issues that cause negative impact on relationships such as, holding grudges, miscommunication, judging, blaming, ignorance, and lack of leadership, but also it brings in the solutions to these issues that can be heard in various tracks, such as forgiveness, apologies, understanding, knowing self, vibrating higher, and finding purpose. So Pen Soul really derives from my soul, the things that I've struggled with, and how I overcame things, but I wrote the songs in a way where it's not telling my personal business, I paint scenarios of other people's lives and situations which can be related to, while giving a message that can't be heard unless dissected.“

Truly Pen Soul speaks on the problematics of our society, of Black America. It uses a range of beats that incorporate a jazz, nostalgic feel while taking you back to your roots.

Pen Soul starts off with Enter the Course (Intro) which gives us a sneak peek of what to expect next. Building up, the track starts off with a gun shot and then a British accented lady begins to speak as if she is giving a friend a word of advice. Afterwards, there is a bit of everything in the audio snippets from "Black Household" or "Church Sunday, Stripper Monday" to police sirens (to even some news documentations.) which adds a sweet touch to a transition.

The second track, Hard Heart (Part 1) drones into your ear sockets with a dash of ethereally, low drum kicks, saxophones, soft yet angelic singing and mellow back phrasing. He feeds the mind with a spoonful of knowledge about dealing with obstacles that life throws at you. Going even further, Jodie says that you shouldn’t let these same obstacles (like battle wounds) or past situations harden your heart. Life can flash before your eyes, so it’s best to just love with all you’ve got. Towards the end he speaks for the hurt by saying “How can I love someone who wants to do me wrong?” As a result, we begin to think of ways to get over those hurdles within ourselves and even though it can seem difficult, Jodie’s symphony makes it easier.

Black Household puts you at ease with its nostalgic yet soulful aura. In an instant the listener is able to understand what it’s like for those who live either with a single black household from the perspective of the mother and the kid. It really reflects on the deep emotion a mother must sacrifice in order to make ends meet but at the same time, she shouldn’t treat him the way she does because of stress and he seems to agree. Overall this track shows a strained yet loving relationship between a son and his mother.

Some shake it for the glory. Some for the gold. But in this women’s case, she does it for both. In the fourth track Church Sunday, Stripper Monday Jodie Jo’ is the narrator and he tells a brutally honest story about a woman who thinks she is rebuking her sins on the weekdays by going to church. His words are centered by an elevated production that has some passionate melodies, enticing saxophones and finger snapping snares. All in all the song gives off the feeling that it’s meant to: wise words and gospel thrown in with a pulsating tempo.

With the ongoing daunted tone from the piano chords, fast paced drums, cymbals, passionate saxophone and clickers to follow, Mama Drama (The Tale of The Good Baby Daddy) bangs in as the fifth track and tells a story about a mother who keeps a loving man away from his kids (which can be surprising to some because it is usually the other way around.) The production and words that Jodie choose to use are hard hitting. These two elements also wring out the right emotion from your heart, making it easy to feel the fathers pain.

Announced as the sixth track Feminine Myocardium to me, is a man's proclamation of love towards a woman who just doesn't show him ordinary love. The track is followed by reverse tape effects, minor saxophone blares and guitar chords, making the listen more sentimental and in turn, easy to recall past experiences with an old flame.

The seventh track Yeah Yeah, Sure Sure is about the mindset one is in during an argument but shows that love always outweighs the flaws seen in one another. Jodie's floetry in this piece can be characterized to Andre 3000’s due to the structure of syllables and grammatical phrasing that he decides to use. The production has the same reverse tape effect and blaring saxophone as the last but it also includes some warm, splashy piano chords and muffled drums.

"And they fight, and they fuss", thats what Jodie Jo paraphrases in the chorus of the eighth track called Ignorant Love. As it starts off with some deep twilight effects, the track raises the tempo with some light tamborine play, 808's and the same blaring saxophone. The message in the song is told by Jodie Jo who uses duality in his delivery and flows. To sum it up, the character in the story just wants all the fighting to end. It's taking a toll on the relationship that the lovers have.

As Ignorant Love fades out, the ninth track Aniyah's Melody is able to fabricate a cut of funk and soul. Backed up with melodious singing, spacey syntheziers and saxophones, Jodie Jo is able to spar out remorseful notations as the character to the woman that he loves.

The eleventh track Asthma & Pneumonia to me, sounds like The Way by Jill Scott except it's a little bit more slowed down and Jodie replaces the words "Is it the way.." with "Mama I can't breathe.." and adds "I got asthma & pneumonia" in as back chorus. As Jodie goes down the storyline about his asthma attack, Jodi tells us that we shouldn't take this life to granted. The lively saxophone and drums help from beginning to end, taking the track to a close and leaving some space for Puff, Pass to start.

The hardest to make for Jodie, Puff Pass wafts in as the twelvth track of the LP. As quoted by Jodie "It was one of the first tracks I started, but ended up being the last one I finished. Whenever I approached this track, my mind went blank. I didn't want to approach the song in a boring way, nor be too cliche with the topic about smoking.” Jodie’s smooth words are followed by some lighter flicks, spacious droning and low hitting drums. As a result the song transports the listener on a stimulating trip.

In the midst of Puff, Pass fading out, the thirteenth track Vibrate Rendition zooms in the perspective of another who has a sincere apology to those that he has been a “burden to”. Frankly, the character doesn’t want to cause pain anymore.. he just wants to make things right. The powerful words that Jodie uses are followed by some deep soul and sultry jazz to stress the endearment he feels. Jodi even takes us back to the Speakerboxx/TheLove Below days as he chants the excerpt from the song Vibrate in the middle to end!

A continuation of Hard Heart Pt 1, the fourteenth track called Hard Heart Pt 2 speaks from the perspective of others who let their anger or grudges get the best of them. This track is relatable to everyone because we’ve all had those people who have crossed us, but Jodie assures us that we just need to let it all go in order to live a prosperous life. Getting the point more across, the drums and piano also add a “rise and fall” effect to the storyline!

Second to last, the fifteenth Death & Fear takes an nostalgic approach. The drums and piano give the song a warm feeling and gives Jodie some free room to speak on all of the things he plans to accomplish.

Last but not least, Dreamville Audition II is just a scenario of how his audition could go once he meets Mr. Jermaine! I won’t give out too much detail but, I will say that this track bangs! It really captures Jodie’s versatility, solid bar structure multi floetry and powerful cadence.

To conclude, Pen Soul is one of many projects that really reflect the hard work that Jodie puts into his craft (you can even see where his inspirations root from: J.Cole & Andre 3000.) Jodie is here to make the world listen and be aware of what’s going on around them. Every time Jodie Jo raps, it is always different and he is constantly showing growth. All in all the lyrics and soulfulness hold weight on your mind but after you listen to the full collective.. expect to feel uplifted.

After all, Jodie Jo is the teacher and we are just the students.

LINK: https://soundcloud.com/jodieraps2/sets/pen-soul

By Natalee Gilbert

* Additional information about Pen Soul & more:

1. What are the steps that you took to create Pen Soul?

Jodie: The steps I took to make this album happen was first and foremost to pray before I worked on anything. From beats to lyrics, to brainstorming, to looking for inspiration. God plays a big part in my creativity and creations. After that, comes preparation, I make about 3 beats in a day and just get in the booth and freestyle over the beat. Usually I find a hook melody first before writing verses, if that sounds like album potential, I write a song to that beat and see what I get. Usually 2 or 3 days later it sounds wack to me and so, that's how tracks get denied. So pretty much I followed that process until I composed 16 tracks, that I felt were fitting for my intentions for the album.

2. In your opinion, what is the best album that was made in history?

Jodie: In my opinion, the best album made in history would have to be Songs in the Key of Life by Stevie Wonder, that being after Pen Soul of course.

3. What’s the difference between Pen Soul & Big Ups to Tha Homies?

Jodie: The difference between Pen Soul and Big Ups 2 Tha' Big Homie first and foremost would be the replay value, Pen Soul I believe has more songs that can be put on repeat while "BU2TBH" has songs that you'll play once and then come back later and be like "Oh yeah, this was my song". Next would be the soulful touch, Pen Soul is considered my only classic in my personal accumulation of projects. Pen Soul is diverse in the production, it has saxophones adding to it's spice, and it all together is greatly put together and much more thought out than BU2TBH.

4. Upcoming Songs:

Jodie: Keep a look out for around Christmas time, that's all I'm gonna say there.

5. What advice would you give to your younger self?

Jodie: If I could give my younger self advice I would tell me to talk to God, take life as it comes, truly develop a belief that anything is possible, don't stress about society's idea of success, count your blessings, and tell your parents, siblings, and loved ones about your love & appreciation for them more often.

6. Who do you admire in Underground Hip-Hop?

Jodie: I truly admire my homeboy Jodie Jo', because he's so consistent and true to himself and those around him. I think he has potential to be a legend amongst legends.

7. Advice to artists working on a project:

Jodie: It's okay to hate your work for a period of time. Get true feedback from people who aren't just pumping you up. Get inspired, try to talk about something nobody is talking about, or at least in a way that nobody else has. Be creative with your voice. Don't create songs based on other people's taste, create your taste and you'll attract people who have your taste. Get an ear for your voice, and your sound. Speak with clarity.

8. Words to the supporters:

Jodie: Y'all are real as ever, God has his hand upon out unit, I am appreciative of everyone that reaches out, everyone who shares, everyone who goes the extra mile. And I will never take the love given to me for granted. We are headed to the top y'all, Dreamville finna come sign ya boy! I'ma make y'all proud

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