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jbreenr · 3 years

Text

Trust –Chris Evans

Pairing: Bodyguard!Chris Evans × Famous!reader

Word count: 5.7k

Summary: Chris has worked for many artists. All, counting on him to keep them safe. Why don't you? (Here's the second part)

Warning: Poorly written smut (+18 only, please), choking, unprotected sex (don't do that, kids. be responsible), mentions of an alleged stalker, reader being a bit stubborn, slight angst (???), cockwarming at the end. This is a RPF AU so, don’t read if you don’t feel comfortable with that. I think that's it.

A/N: Damn, I got a little carried away. Sorry. This is the longest shit I've written so far so, I hope it's not as boring as I think it might be. Anyway, I had so much fun writing it for @buckyownsmylife 's 1st anniversary challenge! Why am I always writing for you? I don't understand, but I like it 😆. Also, yes, I posted this on Chris' birthday, I'm that kinda person. As always, lack of vocabulary and grammatical mistakes abound. *apologizes en español*

Wheel results (just attaching evidence):

ᴹʸ ᵍⁱᶠ

“'MARVEL'S AVENGERS' STAR, Y/N Y/L/N IS ATTACKED BY A CRAZY FAN AFTER LEAVING A RESTAURANT!”

“DISCONCERTING VIDEO OF A MAN PUNCHING HIS FAVORITE ACTRESS AFTER HARASSING HER. CLICK THE LINK BELOW.”

“EMMY NOMINEE, Y/N Y/L/N, SUFFERS MINOR INJURIES WHILE TRYING TO GET AWAY FROM AN AGGRESSOR.”

All captions said the same. The press, as always taking advantage of the misfortune of others to create gossip and gain followers and reads on their sites.

You shut the laptop and took your face in your hand.

It all started the day before, when you were waiting for a cab outside an overly expensive Thai place, after having a meeting with one of the most acclaimed thriller film directors to discuss a role he was offering you for his next project.

With the deal made and dessert finished, Mark, your manager, offered to take you home, but you declined his offer, telling him that you had to run some errands before. He left with the promise of calling you during the week.

The ringtone you set for your best friend sounded loudly in your back pocket. Answering her call, you covered your eyes from the sunlight.

“Hey, babe. How's it going?”

“I should be the one asking that, but given your apparent good mood, I think things went as planned.”

Raising your arm, you called for a taxi, but the driver ignored you. “It went better than planned! Not only did I get a role in the movie. I got the role in the movie. So, you better greet and bow to the new Mistress of the Underworld next time you see me!” Your voice went from arrogant to excited as you spoke, letting her know that you were joking.

“That's awesome, dude!” your friend exclaimed. “Damn, there'll be no way to get you out of your throne now.”

You fake laughed and asked, “Do I really have to get the drinks? I mean, it's me who we are celebrating.”

“Hey, your achievement, your liquor.”

“Hi. Are you Y/N/N?,” A guy you vaguely remembered having seen some times behind the security bars of different events shyly approached you. “Yes, you are! I love your movies. Can I… can we take… is it okay if…?” Phone in hand, he tried asking.

“Hold on a second, girl. I’m taking a photo with…” you didn't finish the sentence, waiting for the man to complete it.

“Oh uhm, Bern.”

“With Bern. I’ll be right back.”

“Do it fast, we gotta toast because you’re paying the bills again.”

“Shut up.” You giggled and then turned your attention to the red headed in front of you.

He was taller than you by a few inches. His green eyes, small, and his nose and cheekbones covered with hundreds of freckles. He seemed nice.

“So, how would you like the photo?” you asked as you fixed your perfectly combed hair. “Do you want us to pose or just a simple selfie?”

“A selfie is fine.” he stood beside you, close enough for both your faces to fit on the broken screen of his phone.

Raising your hand, you made a peace sign and gave your biggest smile to the camera. He clicked the button and it was done.

“Well, it was so nice seeing you, Bern but, I better get going. People are waiting for me.” You waved at him and turned to start walking, but he stopped you by taking your wrist.

“Can we repeat it? I don’t like how I look.” His insisting eyes, trying to convince you.

“Sure, why not?” Your friend was still on the line and you told her to wait for a little longer.

You got in position and showed your teeth once more, but your smile faltered when you felt his cold fingers touching your lower back from under your top.

"That hand.” You warned in a playful voice.

His touch disappeared, but the feeling was still there.

Once the photo was taken, you stepped away and shakingly said your goodbyes, in hopes of getting away from him as quickly as possible.

“No, wait! Let’s take another one!” His hand gripped your waist. “Just one more.”

“I'm gonna be late. My friends are--.”

He dragged you closer to him and you stepped on his feet accidentally, but he didn't seem to notice. His eyes, big and sparkling.

“The lighting is not good.” He looked around. “Let’s go somewhere else to make it perfect.”

Fear ran down your body, the closeness of his face to yours, disturbing you to the point of wanting to start running.

“Please, let go of me.” Calm flew from your mouth, even though you were feeling the opposite.

“Not until we take another photo!” His tone was contundent, nothing like the one he used while asking for the first one.

“You’re hurting me!” A few people were passing by, only turning to see if you were really that actress they had seen somewhere, none of them knowing what was going on.

“You really want to leave me?” You pulled, intending to shake him off. “Then, leave.”

Instead of just freeing you, he shoved your arm. The unexpected force, bringing you to the ground on your side. Your whole weight, falling on your left hand.

Screaming in pain, you heard your friend calling for you asking if you were okay, while with teary eyes you saw Bern running away and a lot of curious people forming a circle around you.

“Hey girl, uhm,” You took your phone to your ear and brought your other hand to your chest. “I think I’m gonna be late for the party.”

After some X-rays, a movement test and a bunch of medical terms that you didn't understand, the doctor told you that you only had a slight sprain and that you'd only need to wear a wristband for two to three weeks, take some painkillers and anti-inflammatories, and avoid movement as much as possible.

Luckily, you were already done filming the second season of your series. Your only concern, the pre-production of the new movie that started in a couple of weeks.

Those events led you the next day, sitting in front of Mark’s desk, being given a speech of how you should be more careful while talking to fans.

“… And that's why I consider it appropriate for you to take an escort with you.”

“But I don’t need protection!” you yelled at your manager. “I can defend myself.”

“Yeah? How did that go yesterday?”

Licking your lips in exasperation, you tried to come up with a compelling argument so you could persuade him to put his crazy idea aside and let you be.

“Look, Mark, I’m just saying that I don’t need a babysitter.”

“Y/N, understand, I don’t want anything like that happening to you again. While that lunatic is still out there, you cannot go out alone."

“It was not a big deal. I don’t know why you’re all acting like he beat the hell out of me.”

“He could have.”

“But he didn’t!” You stood up and wandered around his office. “I’m tired of telling people that I can handle these kinds of situations just fine.”

“I don’t care what you think.” Pointing at the chair in front of him, he signaled for you to sit again, which you did recultanty. “I found a guy. He’s supposed to be the best of the best; good recommendations, excellent resumé, and an impressive knowledge of, what seems to be, martial arts." He said as he held an open folder. "Just... give it a chance, would you?" He handed you the folder. "If after a month you feel uncomfortable with someone following you around twenty four seven well, we'll find another solution."

You looked at the information printed in the piece of paper, not paying attention to it and sighed in defeat, throwing your head back. “What’s the worst that could happen?”

Of course, you should have known better than to think that.

Two days later, Monday morning, during breakfast –or study time, as you usually called it, your doorbell rang.

Still in your pajamas, you went to open the door. A half empty bowl of fruit, held between your left forearm and ribs. Your hand, immovile, caught in the wristband.

Mark stood in front of you, looking as if someone had dropped ice cream in his favorite pair of shoes. Right eyebrow raised and lips pressed in a tight line. He was mad. At you, specifically. But it was not his expression what caught your attention. It was the man behind him; a hundred and eighty-two pounds of pure muscle and six feet of gorgeousness remained silent and still, wearing an immaculate black suit and showing no emotion in his handsome face.

“What did I tell you?” Mark asked as he showed you his phone. A picture of you and two other girls adorned the screen.

“I don’t know.” You took a grape from your plate and turned to walk to the living room again, both men, following you inside. “You’ve told me plenty of things since we met.”

The other man looked around unimpressed, hands behind his back and an analytic glint drawn on his pupils.

You dropped to the couch, taking the script and marker again to continue with your previous task.

“I specifically said that I didn’t want you to expose yourself by going out alone.” He sat on the coffee table. The other guy, rigid and impassable a few steps away. “And, what do you do? You decide to go for a walk, wave at paparazzis, give autographs and have long conversations with strangers in the street.”

“They’re not strangers.” You threw the script aside. “They’re my fans, and if it wasn’t for them, we wouldn’t be having this conversation in the first place.”

“One of those fans is the reason we’re having this conversation right now.” He inhaled deeply, as if it helped him calm down. “I’m not here to argue with you.” He stood up.

“Lucky me!” Your sarcasm had him shaking his head.

“I came to introduce you to the newest addition to your team.”

For some reason, you felt as if they had practiced that part, with the man walking in your direction and reaching out his hand to you the second Mark finished the sentence.

“Miss Y/L/N, my name’s Christopher and I'll be the one taking care of your safety.”

You eyed him up and down from your seat.

My safety. You thought, chuckling. He's way too cute not to be an actor… model, if not.

“Well, Chris, welcome aboard.” You shook his hand with your healthy one.

“I would appreciate it if you called me Christpher, if you don’t mind.” He straightened, the tone of his request calm, but firm.

“Sure, Chris.” He narrowed his eyes in discomfort but did nothing to correct you again.

With an eye roll, Mark moved to sit beside you and invited Christopher to have a seat as well.

“Let's start, shall we?” Your manager asked, putting out a notebook full of post-its. Your new shadow, doing the same.

You spent the rest of the day checking your activities for the next week, preparing security measures and a contingency plan, in case it was needed.

Your script reading, delayed until dinnertime.

The first two weeks were not as boring as you thought they'd be. Rumors of a certain actress dating a mysterious guy blew the internet as soon as he was spotted helping you get out of your car in the parking lot of a mall. Gossips about your love life, breaking social media when photos of you two carrying your shopping bags were published. Speculations regarding him moving in with you were heard the day he accidentally appeared in the back of a video you posted. All of them, dismissed during an interview, answering a question about the incident that caused it all.

Although you were having the time of your life, calling him "Chris" in every chance given, teasing him, he didn’t flinch even once.

The only problem you found was when it came to greeting people that approached you asking for a photo. Chris would create a barrier between you and your fans, and ask them to step back, scaring most of them. He took his job too seriously. That did not mean you didn’t manage to sneak out of his trained ocean eyes to get closer to them every now and then, getting on his nerves every single time.

Week three was here, which meant that you had run out of food, therefore you needed to go to the store to get some supplies for the rest of the month.

It was nine o’clock when the doorbell rang. Still in bed with eyes closed, you groaned in disbelief and covered your face with the blankets. It had been like that since his hiring became official… kind of. The first day, he arrived at six am with the excuse of needing to inspect your apartment to rule out possible access for intruders. Deep inside, you suspected it was his retribution for ignoring his wish of being called by his full name during your first reunion; The second day, he was at the door at seven, with the argument that his working hours started that early; On day three you decided to shorten his duty time by asking him to show up at ten thirty in the morning and gave him a key so he wouldn’t interrupt you with whatever you were doing.

Yet, he thought that it was better if he was there earlier in case an unexpected event arose. And if it was not enough, he clung to the idea that waiting to be invited in was the right thing to do.

The shrill sound echoed through the house again, making you want to disconnect it and knock him out with it. Instead, you got out of bed and with slow, heavy steps, went to open the door, leaving your robe and slippers behind. You gave up your efforts of looking presentable on day six.

Unlike you, with tangled hair, morning breathing and wrinkled pajamas, he was wide awake, prepared to start the day with his batteries fully charged.

“You know where the coffee is.” You let him in and closed the door behind him, knowing damn well that he didn't need a cup as much as you did. “I’ll be right back.”

Dragging your feet on the floor, you walked directly to the bathroom, not ready to say goodbye to the comfort and warmth of your bed and replace them for the awakening effect of a shower.

Your voice accompanied the music coming out of the radio on your way back to your apartment, hands playing simultaneously an imaginary guitar and the biggest air drum someone could imagine. Singing the guitar solo and shaking your head to the beat of the song from the passenger seat had Chis peeking at you, successfully hiding a smile behind a weary face.

Right when the chorus started, your stomach roared, ruining the moment and your performance in the process.

“We can go get you something to eat.” He suggested, keeping his eyes on the road.

“Yeah, I’m starving!” Unlocking your phone, you searched for a place nearby where you could have a pizza. “Bet you too.”

“I’m good.”

“I doubt that.” Clicking on the pin of a pizza and pasta restaurant, you said. “This morning you rejected my kind breakfast offer,” Sarcasm, coming out easily. You offered him a bowl of cereal with barely any cereal on it with no milk. “And I hadn’t seen you eat anything the whole day.”

“I’m good.” He repeated, shaking his head, putting the conversation to an end and turning right when you told him to.

There was no explanation. No apparent reason for it to happen the way it did. Maybe you had bad luck with food establishments, maybe you should resign to home deliveries and never step on a restaurant for the rest of your life.

Chris had parked a block away from the pizza place due to the lack of space in front of it, which meant that you had to walk a couple of meters to get there and then to your car when you were finished.

Halfway to your car, with Chris on your right facing forward, you felt a hand stopping you by your shoulder from behind and jumped in surprise, letting out a sight.

Faster than light, Chris placed himself between you and the stranger and with brute force, one of his fists collided with the guy’s stomach while the other pushed him back by the neck, sending him to the ground. You swore you saw him falling in slow motion.

“Oh, my God!” someone said. A bunch of teens quickly approached the scene.

Looking down, you saw a boy not older than nineteen, holding a napkin and a black marker.

No amount of words could describe how embarrassed you were, no amount of autographs you were to give could make you feel better.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” You apologized to him and his friends, sending a deadly glare in Chris’ direction, who stood impassive as if it was nothing. “This won’t happen again, I swear.” You vividly imagined next day’s headline: “FAN IS SENT TO THE HOSPITAL WITH INTERNAL BLEEDING AFTER TRYING TO SAY HELLO TO Y/N Y/L/N.”

“Don’t worry.” The guy on the floor said as you helped him stand up, his hand covering the side of his abdomen. “I read what happened to you, it’s good that you have backup.”

“What can I do to compensate you for this? I feel horrible.” Your concern, showing as you bit your lip.

“We can always take a photo and forget this happened?” He asked with a smile drawn on his lips, which made you relax your shoulders. The weight of guilt, slowly disappearing.

Taking a look at his friends, they all nodded in agreement and signed up for a photo themselves.

As punishment, you proposed that Chris took the photo this time to make up for the misunderstanding, making them all laugh. He didn’t like the idea but did it nevertheless after he decided that they were harmless.

You two would have a conversation as soon as you were alone.

“Are you crazy?” You had barely entered your apartment when you started with your lecture. “Why did you think that punching a fifteen year old was a good idea?!”

“I didn’t know he was fifteen.” he said, as composed as always.

“Exactly. You didn’t know.” You pointed your finger at him. “Because you didn’t stop to check who was ‘attacking’ me.”

Slapping the door closed, you marched to the living room, willing to start an unlikely discussion.

“He shouldn’t have touched you in the first place.” He left the bags in the aisle of the kitchen. “I was just doing my job.”

The coolness of his statement sent you over the edge.

“Attacking people is not your job!”

“And, what exactly is my job, then?” The tranquility with which he had handled himself up to that moment fading little by little. “You have treated me as your assistant all this time. I am not here to do your grocery shopping, I am here to protect you!” He yelled at you, His anger and frustration, evident. Until now, you were not sure if he was able to show any sort of emotion.

“How many times do I have to say that I don’t need protection?” You yelled back.

“If so, why am I here?”

“You, my friend,” Shortening the distance, you poked his chest with your index finger. “Are here because my manager is a paranoiac grandpa who believes I’m too naive to put my trust in everyone.”

“In everyone but me.”

“I. Don't. Need. To. Trust. You.” You added force to your touches with each word.

“Stop it.” He said, taking your hand in his.

“What? Can’t stand a girl telling you that she doesn’t need you to be her knight in shiny armor?” With your other hand, you resumed your poking, with less force thanks to the pain it caused you.

“I’m serious.” He caught your other hand, making you whine in an ache.

“Yeah, me too.” You got closer to his face. “Go terrify teenagers elsewhere.”

Attempting to step away from him in a dramatic way, you pulled your arms down, not giving a damn if it hurted, but he didn't let go. Instead, he held you with more strength. You did it again but ended up with the same result. The only one thing you thought would set you free, spitting from your mouth like poison: “You're fired.”

He tilted his head, contemplating if you were kidding or not. When he decided that you weren’t, he huffed. A dry and somber action that sent chills down your spine.

“You don’t get to decide that.” His hold on your wrists relaxed, giving you the opportunity to step away.

“No, I don’t. But I’m calling Mark to tell him that this,” You gestured circles with your hands. “Didn’t work.”

One second you were reaching for the phone and the second, being slammed against the wall next to the couch by Chris, whose right hand was firmly placed in your throat. The amused look on his face and his head shake, had you voiceless.

“You really are a pain in the ass.” he affirmed. His face was so close to yours that you could count the hairs of his beard if you wanted to, see the almost imperceptible tint of green in his eyes, kiss his plump lips if he just leaned enough…

His eyes explored your face, absorbing every inch of it, learning your features, like trying to memorize them. When you parted your lips to exhale and your breath hit his face, he closed his eyes. His long lashes brushing softly above his cheekbones and his bicep, looking more prominent under his tight ironed black shirt, thanks to the growth on strength of his grip.

“What are you doing?” The tremble of your voice brought his gaze to you once again. The way you practically moaned the question, had his cook twitching under his trousers.

“When I accepted Mark’s offer to work with you, I did not expect you to be as difficult as he described you.” The sides of his thumb and index finger dug in your jaw, forcing your head up and the rest of your body to be supported by your tiptoes. “I thought I’d be able to do my job as I’ve been doing it all these years but you had to make it complicated, hadn’t you?”

You wanted to answer him, oh, how much you wanted to give him a smart comeback to lower his guard, but given the predicament you were in, with your back flat against a cold wall and your panties damped for an inexplicable reason, you decided to wait for the perfect moment to do it.

With his other hand, he removed an unruly lock of hair that covered your face, tucking it behind your ear. The gesture felt so sweet, so intimate that you almost forgot what his other hand was doing.

“Being close to you has been torture.” The ghost of his words grazed your face. “Watching you roaming around in nothing but those extremely thin pajamas of yours, listening to you sing while taking a shower,” His lips made contact with your cheek ever so slightly that you wanted to move forward to feel it again, something impossible at the moment. “Having to put up with all those hormonal high schoolers undressing you with their eyes and standing there as if it didn’t affect me.”

“Are you saying that you find it offensive?” Collecting all the lucidity you had left, you asked. “Or that you also want to undress me?”

He smirked. An incredulous smile adorning his charming appearance.

The fingers of his left hand drew your collarbone, passed over the hem of your sundress and stopped above its first button.

“I think the answer to that is obvious by now.”

He was still keeping you glued to the wall with his big hand wrapped around you. Not that you were to move an inch if he wasn’t.

“And, what are you waiting for?”

For the second time during your discussion, he analyzed you, looking for any mockery or sarcasm –since it came natural to you. What he found this time, surprised him, pleased him; the words desire and hunger were written all over you. Not a bit of disgust or discomfort about his grip on you was visible. And it clicked to him. You liked it. It was the reason why you hadn't tried to escape or push him away.

Sadly for you, his hand left your hot flesh to get at the neckline of your dress, taking the piece of fabric in between his fingers, as well as with his other hand.

In the blink of an eye, he pulled, ripping the buttons from their seams and making them fly all over the place, leaving your dress open and hanging from your shoulders as if it were a cape, displaying your almost naked body to his view. You were not wearing a bra, but it was not a surprise, he had been purposely looking up and away from you the whole day. Your underwear was not so different whatsoever, the smallest thong he had ever seen was kept in place by two thin threads hugging your hips. It was not difficult for him to get rid of it, putting it on his pocket.

Not wanting to stay like that forever, you reached for his belt, willing to undo it with shaky, slow fingers since your wrist still hurted. As you did so, he unbuttoned his shirt and tossed it somewhere near the dining table.

He was tattooed; an eagle was drawn on the right side of his chest while a legend was written in the left, various pieces adorned the upper part of his arms and some others were scattered around his abdomen, a bigger one was visible near his v line. You felt the urge of licking every single one of them, recreating the patterns which the artists probably used to ink him.

“Like what you see?” He asked. Having had your mouth opened, you would have most likely been drooling.

“I think the answer is obvious.”

He took your face with both his hands and stamped his lips to yours in a heated kiss. It was all tongues and teeth, your faces moving in different angles to have better access to each other’s mouths. His beard scratched your cheeks, tickled you, but you barely registered that, too immersed in the battle of dominance your tongues were fighting.

For a second, you forgot what your hands were supposed to be doing, but resumed their task after his went to your now ruined dress and slipped it down your arms.

Pulling down his pants you ended the kiss to gather some needed oxygen. Looking down, you saw his length had formed a tent in his boxers and you throbbed.

“Is it too late to say that this is utterly unprofessional from you?” your breathless question was just finished when he dug his fingers on your neck again, spun and threw you to the couch with enough force to move it minimally.

“It is.” He climbed on top of you, opening your legs with one hand and keeping himself up with the other, holding onto the back of the couch. At some point, he found the opportunity to take off his remaining piece of cloth.

His cock stood proud resting against his lower belly, its red tip, already leaking with precum. The sight of it, of all of him, had your hips jolting forward, searching for that which would end the torment you were being a prisoner of. You closed your eyes, attempting to compose yourself and don't seem too eager to be one with him.

You were soaked. Your arousal going down your ass and wetting the surface of the couch.

“Well, I think--” He cut you out in the middle of a sassy comment. “Shit! Chris!” You screamed when he shoved inside of you with no warning. His hips, stopping when he bottomed out, not precisely to let you adjust to his size. Your hands, flying back to hold onto the arm of the couch, your left wrist, complaining in pain as you bent it.

“Say it again.” the hand that held your waist, now was on your throat, tightening its grip once more. “It’s been driving me crazy this whole time.”

Suppressing the need to remind him all those times he told you not to call him that, too afraid of letting out a whimper, you obeyed, repeating his name like a prayer, wishing that he started moving.

He did. Slow. Agonizingly slow.

With each unhurried thrust you wanted to drag him down hard, but him, having the back of your head buried in the soft material of your couch, made it impossible.

“Isn’t it funny?” He looked down at you. “How you wouldn’t forgive me for kicking the air out of someone but would beg me to do exactly that to you?”

His fingers squeezed your flesh, making you whine.

You swallowed, the difficulty of it evident for both of you. “I didn’t beg.” Your raspy voice came out as a whisper, but he listened. Of course he did.

Fire came out of his eyes, an almost primal groan left his lips right before his hips started moving back and forth with an animalistic determination.

“Oh, God!” you moaned.

“Do you have any idea of how frustrated I felt every time I caught you running away from my side to risk yourself getting hurt again?” His peace was ruthless, the slapping sounds of his hips colliding with the back of your thighs, getting louder as well as your cries, filling your ears in the most sinful way. “How useless I thought I was when my most important task was to hold the door open for you?” The vein in the side of his neck was more visible than usual, popping up due to the effort to which he was subjected. “How I felt like garbage when you saw me as if I was a monster for doing precisely what I get paid to do?”

He sounded hurt, brutally honest and it made your heart sink. The contrast between his words and movements, lighting a dilemma in your head. You were not going to justify yourself for what you did, but you also felt like he deserved an apology for putting up with your shit. After all, it was not his fault, he was just following orders.

Too lost in your thoughts and pleasure, you didn’t notice his hand had left the couch to find your clit. Only when he applied pressure, rubbing fast circles, did you decide to enjoy what he was giving to you and to feel bad for your recklessness and childish behavior later.

“Please, keep going!” high pitched pleads fell from you as your hands abandoned the soft material of the couch and gripped on Chris’ wrist.

“Are you being nice now?” He somehow managed to fasten his assault, causing your breasts to bounce up everytime his pubic bone hit you and raising the sound of your squeals. “Let’s see how nice you can cum.”

Every time he pushed inside, you saw from the corner of your eye the painting hanging in the wall moving away. Or, was it the couch what was moving? At this point, you didn’t mind. You only cared about the immeasurable pleasure Chris was giving you and the knot forming in your stomach, telling you that you were close to your release.

“I’m--” You tried announcing but a particularly deep shove stopped you.

“Me too.” He inhumanly doubled his efforts rubbing your bud with two fingers and tightening his other hand around you, nearly having you seeing stars without pausing his thrusts.

“C’mon, baby, cum for me.” The term he used, snapped the coil inside of you, bringing you to the strongest and more powerful orgasm of your life with a raw scream that came from the top of your lungs. He could feel your fast pulse coming back to normal.

Squirming under him and clenching your spasmic walls around his still hard cock, you heard him curse. His hips faltered and he twitched inside of you.

Throwing his head back, he kept moving, reaching his own climax, something your over sensitive body resented.

“Chris…” moaning his name was all it took for him to paint your insides with his hot seed.

Both of you were out of breath and covered with a thin layer of sweat, and while he looked like the personification of a greek god, you imagined your appearance was not so different from when you got out of bed, with your hair a mess and your voice raspy –only, for a whole other reason this time. Yet, he looked at you as if you had been hours in front of a mirror, getting ready for a red carpet.

Still buried inside of you, Chris took you by the waist and moved to the side, laying on the couch, putting an arm behind your shoulders, hugging you to keep you from falling, and placing one of your legs on top of his thigh to be more comfortable.

The white mark of his hand was slowly fading from your skin and he explored it with his fingertips, making sure that he didn’t hurt you for real.

“You’re still fired.”

He laughed at that. Genuinely laughed. It had been the first time since you met him that you heard him laugh. And for some reason, you didn’t want it to be the last.

He took your injured hand and interviewed his fingers with yours.

“The hell I am.”

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tomthesoftie · 3 years

Text

her hidden crystal tears

❧ synopsis: keeping a relationship under covers isn’t an easy feat. when a popular, successful jock of a college, who has many obsessive fans, dates an average student, they decide that it’s better to keep their relationship secret due to safety reasons, but when the jock starts to become more ignorant of how their s/o is feeling, what might happen to their barely stable relationship?

❧ pairing: jock!tom x fem!reader

❧ genre: angst

❧ warnings: lots of angst (?), petty girl fights technically harassment, crying, pent-up emotions, unhealthy coping

❧ a/n: this is an unedited fic, as always and I didn’t know how to end it because I had two endings in mind. I might write both endings (angst and fluff) or maybe I’ll let you guys suffer lmao I’m kidding I originally was writing a blurb about the reader hiding their emotions/hiding their tears by feigning happiness, but I ended up writing like a 2500+ word fic lmao. also if some shit seems wack, it’s because I posted this on my phone.

alternate fluff ending here: let them flow

masterlist prompt list add yourself on my taglist!

Swerving through the large crowd, you found yourself a seat on the filled bleachers, squeezing to fit in the front rows to spot your boyfriend. Looking about, you located your brunette partner jogging into the field arms raised in the air, pointing towards the crowd you were hidden in. He waved his hand mindlessly, eyes scanning the ocean of screaming schoolmates and “fangirls.” His gaze finally fell on you, and his face lit up, bringing a pink haze to your cheeks as he blew a kiss in your direction. The girls sat beside you screamed out, pretending to catch his kiss and sending one back.

You and Tom decided to keep your relationship under covers, due to the overly obsessive “fangirls.” Both of you knew it would be the best option to keep you safe. If you were ever injured or threatened by one of his “fangirls,” Tom wouldn’t be able to forgive himself.

Tom held the leather ball in the crook of his arm, with the other pushing his way through the attacking team. Calculating his success, he dove into a touchdown, scoring him and his team the winning point.

The anticipating crowd jumped up, cheering loudly and hugging one another, whereas the visitor team’s crowd let out a loud, mutual sigh of disappointment.

You jumped out of your seat, screaming out your lungs as you stared, wide-eyed, at your beaming boyfriend. His teammates had lifted him into the air, tossing him about. You giggled as he caught your eye, slyly winking at you.

Lost in your own world, you almost ran down to where Tom was before you saw a hoard of girls jumping and reaching their arms out to grab at him. Frowning, you walked away from the crowd to retreat to the warmth of Tom’s car.

You scrolled through the collection of images you and Tom had had together, warmly smiling at the memories. You let out a breathy laugh, selecting on one specific memory: Tom’s head laid on your lap, eyes shut, and lips puckered lightly as he let out even breaths.

The car door beside you opened, shaking you out of your train of thought.

“Hey,” your eyes were met with the blue pupils you weren’t expecting.

“Haz?” You looked behind him, hoping to find your beloved boyfriend.

“Tom — um — he told me to drive you back to the dorms, said he would be heading to the celebratory party,” Harrison explained, eyes shaking with concern and sympathy.

“Oh, I understand,” your smile not quite making it to your eyes.

“He was being hoarded by his,” Haz hesitates, “fangirls. He didn’t want you to get involved.”

“It’s all good, Hazzy. No need to worry about me,” you let out a feigned laugh.

You stepped into the warm building, waving Harrison goodbye. Another football victory, same schedule.

You go to Tom’s game to support and cheer him on, Tom wins, you avoid him, Tom’s “fangirls” hoard him, you wait in Tom’s car, Harrison comes instead of Tom, Harrison brings you back to your dorm while Tom goes to his party, you fall asleep in your own arms: the ‘Tom’s football victory’ schedule, named and created by you.

To say the least, you weren’t fond of the last half of the schedule. You always were left alone to celebrate Tom’s victory on your own, while Tom was doing who-knows-what at the afterparty.

In full honesty, you were slowly growing tired of hiding your affection for one another. You didn’t know how much longer you could hold onto this style of dating. If the pair of you were going to date, you would date publicly and however you wanted, whether it meant risking your safety or not. Besides, you weren’t some helpless girl that doesn’t and can’t protect herself.

The next day, you woke up with an aching head and puffy eyes. Groaning, you looked into your mirror located at the corner of your room. You flinched at the sight of your pink, tear-stained cheeks and tangled, mop hair. Pushing yourself off the soft mattress, you stumbled into your bathroom, prepping a warm shower to start your day off fresh.

With your laptop and notebook resting in your arms, against your chest, you made your way to your next lecture. You walked sluggishly across the large campus, occasionally catching a glimpse of passing football team members.

A specific group you walked past caught your attention. You saw the familiar brunette curls in your peripheral vision, immediately making you turn your gaze towards it. You saw his warm smile as he chuckled with his group of friends, some of his “fangirls” giggling along with the group.

There Tom stood, laughing and joking about with his peers, radiating happiness. He was basking in the attention he received from his friends and “fans.”

You tried to catch his eye, and you swore you did for a split second, but he only walked past you as if you weren’t even there. Not even a hidden smile or wink of acknowledgment was sent your way.

Your walking came to a stop as you frowned at your boyfriend’s back. You wanted to shout out his name, call for his attention. You wanted to nuzzle into his chest, breathing in his scent. You wanted to look into his chocolate-pooled eyes, see the twinkle of adoration as he stared at you. Nevertheless, you couldn’t. You couldn’t do anything with Tom in public, for you were just another girl on campus, trying to get by, and Tom was the successful jock with a bright future ahead.

You walked into the large room, taking a seat, conveniently, in front of Tom. This time, you were the one to not spare him a single glance, albeit he probably wasn’t expecting or looking for one.

You tried your best to listen and focus on the lecture, but the consistent whispers behind your back began to nag at your patience. You leaned your down further into your notes, as if it could fix the slowly kindling fire in you. Checking the clock, you saw that only five minutes of the lecture had passed, and your professor had barely said anything.

“Five minutes? I swear it felt like half of the lecture had gone by. And the professor. I swear he had just said like tons of important information,” you muttered to yourself under your breath, catching a few students’ gazes.

You gently pounded a fist into your temple, forcing your attention onto the lined sheets of paper on your desk. You expected to see notes, not illegible scribbles. You silently groaned, switching the sheet for a new, clean page. You took a deep breath and began jotting down the key points of the presentation that was being projected onto the large whiteboard.

A feminine voice cleared their throat beside you, “Excuse me.”

You looked up from your work, a glare on your face as you were pulled out of your focus once again.

“Can I help you?” You asked, irritated.

“Uh, yes, you can. You can help me by moving yourself to that seat over there,” she pointed at an empty seat across the room, “and giving this,” she placed her hand on the desk, atop you notes, “seat to me.”

You scoffed, “And why should I?”

“Oh, honey,” you cringed at the nickname, “Tommy, here,” she nodded towards Tom, “shouldn’t have to suffer by looking at your terrible hair. Like, honestly, do you even care for your looks?”

You were practically fuming in your seat, but to avoid trouble, you responded with a monotonous voice, “I’m sure “Tommy” can take care of himself. Spare us both the inconvenience, and go sit yourself on that empty seat because if you couldn’t tell, I’m occupying this spot.”

“Who do you think you are?” She shouted, hand crumpling your notes.

Furrowing your brows, you grabbed at your notes, hoping to spare them.

“Move your ugly ass before I kick you off this seat,” she threatened, pulling you by your hair.

The professor stopped talking, glaring at the pair of you. You took it as a sign to shut up and not fight back.

Fist clenching, nails creating red crescents in your palm, you stood up, pushing the girl off of you, ignoring her gasp. You grabbed your notes and laptop, turning to see if Tom would defend you, but when you saw his passive expression, you let out a quiet laugh of disappointment, carrying yourself to the back of the room.

For the rest of the class, you stood in the back, writing your notes with blurry, tear-filled vision. Although you were still in shock due to the event that had unfolded minutes into the lecture, you wouldn’t let it falter how you were doing in school.

As soon as you were dismissed, you bolted out of the room, heading to your safe haven on campus.

Not many people, if any, knew about the hidden garden located within the campus’s vast park. You had only discovered it by accident when you were a freshman looking for your way around campus.

The first thought you had when you walked in was that you were transported into a different dimension. Thinking back on it, you were naive to think that, but you were still justified. Anyone would think such a beautiful place couldn’t belong to the aggressivity and rashness of this world. The variant shades of light green and pastel pink flowers growing between the weeds of grass gave the place a heavenly feeling, followed by the mist that sparkled under the sunlight.

You dropped yourself at the thick tree’s stump, letting your notes and laptop slip out of your grasp. You cried into your knees, pouring out all of your stresses. Your breaths were short and heaved, occasional hiccups bubbling from your lips. Your sobs slowly lulled you closer to sleep, emotional and physical fatigue catching up to you. That is, until you heard the recognizable clang of the door handle hitting against the wooden door.

“Darling,” the accented voice you longed to hear spoke up.

Quickly wiping away your tears and sniffling away any evidence of your sorrow, you stood up, “Tommy!” A feigned smile lay on your supple skin as you ran over to your boyfriend, embracing him in your arms, “What’s up?”

“Are you alright? I’m sorry I didn’t speak up for you during class. I should’ve told that girl to get her hands off you,” he stroked your hair, “She didn’t hurt you, did she?”

Letting a pained giggle out, you shook your head, “Nope, I’m fine. You know how strong I am.”

“I really, really did want to speak up, but you know that we should keep our relationship under covers, for your sake,” he spoke gently, placing a kiss on your head.

You scowled into his shirt but kept up your cheerful facade, chirping, “Mhm, safety.”

“I knew you’d understand,” he sighed. His hold on you weakened, “I should get going, though. The group will start to wonder where I’ve gone.”

You frowned, pulling away from him.

“Don’t be like that, darling,” he cooed, “I’ll come over tonight. Don’t worry.”

You let out a sarcastic laugh, “Of course, as you always do.”

His brows furrowed at your sudden mood shift, “What are you on, darling?”

“Oh, nothing,” you chirp, hopping back to the tree, collecting your notes and laptop. “Go ahead, meet with your friends. Leave me behind like you always do,” you murmur the last half.

“Love?” His voice neared you, and you barely registered the stray tears betraying you, rolling down your peachy cheeks.

Quickly bringing up a hand to wipe the wetness away, you keep your back facing Tom.

“Shouldn’t you be going? Don’t want your friends to worry,” you laughed, lightly. A hand placed itself on your shoulder, the sudden contact startling you. “You scared me, Tommy. You shouldn’t do that,” you giggle, hiding your true emotions, “You know how easily scared I am.”

“Darling, can you look at me?” He asked, quietly, concern lacing his tone.

“What for, Tommy?” You inquired, nervously laughing.

“You’re acting quite… strange,” he explained.

“No need to worry about me, bubs. I’m as peachy as always,” you quipped, shoulders bouncing in emphasis.

“I’m giving you one more chance to turn, or I will do it for you,” he said, sternly.

You stayed, unmoving, forcing Tom to turn you with his raw strength. At first, you tried to fight it, but you came to the revelation that there was no way you could overpower him.

When you met his warm, liquid eyes, you felt your own tear up, and suddenly, your shoes were an intriguing sight.

“Baby, please look at me,” he whispered, hands rubbing up and down your arms.

You shook your head in denial, trying to keep your weakness hidden.

“It breaks me to see you this way,” he lifted your face with a finger to your chin. His thumb moved to wipe away your crystal tears.

“Then leave,” you hissed, weakly.

“W-What?” Tom stuttered at the unforeseen reply.

“I’m tired, Tom. I’m tired of hiding, of you ignoring me and me, you. How long are we going to do this? It’s so stupid, all of it,” you dropped your head again, this time of fatigue.

“B-But, you know why we’re doing this-” you cut him off.

“I know, and I can’t help but think that this was a stupid choice,” you motioned between the two of you, “You’re barely around me, and on campus, you don’t even acknowledge me. On the slim chance I do have you to myself, it can only last for so long. At this point, it feels like we’re not even together.”

“I-I don’t understand. What are you trying to say?” Fear filled his eyes as the pit in his stomach became more and more noticeable.

“I think it would be better if-” you stuttered in a breath, “if we took a break.”

“Why? Just because we’re hiding our relationship? You know why I- we chose to keep it secret,” he rushed out his words, hands gripping yours.

“Do I? Do I really? Today was display enough that even though we act like we don’t know each other, I’ll still get harassed by those “fans” of yours. Not to mention, you saw it all unravel, and what did you do? Nothing. There’s no practicality to keeping our relationship hidden because either way, some “fans” will go overboard no matter who the person. Also, I think I showed that I can defend myself from crazy people when I pushed that girl off of me today,” you spoke, ferocity and resentment spurring you on.

“I know I messed up when I didn’t help you, but I thought about our relationship-” you scoffed.

“So what? Even if we weren’t in a relationship, you should’ve helped a girl out. Especially when she’s getting harassed because of you,” you jabbed a finger into his chest.

“Tell me how to make it better. I want to make it better. Don’t end us, please,” he begged, gripping your hand tighter.

“Stop, Tom. I told you that I want to take a break. Besides, it won’t be any different to how our normal relationship is,” you laughed. Pulling your arm out of his grasp, you walked away, “Now, I won’t have to waste any tears on you anymore.”

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popculturebuffet · 2 years

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Restocking the Buffet: Late February 2021

Hello all you happy people. This is just a mildy quick post to talk about a few things, similar to Linkara’s state of the wall posts he does every couple of months, talking about a few recent bits of news i’ve wanted to get off my chest, next month’s schedule, upcoming plans now I have a better idea where things are at that sort of thing. If you don’t know me I do longform reviews of comics, animation and other fine stuff.

Assorted Thoughts on Recent News: The Boondocks Reboot Canceled: Let’s get to the bad news first as in an otherwise great week, some bits stuck out like a sore thumb. This is the first: Cedric Yarburough revealed the Boondocks reboot is no longer happening , it was canceled for reasons that haven’t been properly revealed yet leaving me incredibly annoyed. For one thing as a fan of comic strips, the original show to me is one of the gold standards for both comic strip adaptations and adaptations period, taking what worked from the comic, changing things up to work for a new medium and adding tons of fun touches all it’s own. So a reboot to it tackling modern issues especially in a post george floyd post trump era was perfect. The other reason is just as simple as it is baffling: HBO Max has exactly ONE adult cartoon worth a damn with all others they’ve tried being throughly mocked and shoved back into the stygian depths they came from. So WHY they’d cancel the one promsing show they have in reserve?

Just throughly frustrating and disapointing.

Bloom County Picked up For a TV Series!: Thankfully not one day later the exact opposite happened as something I hoped for but had little hope would happen happened: Bloom County was picked up for a tv series, with creator Berkley Brethead cowriting and producing it. For those unaware of this strip, Bloom County is a satrical comic strip from the 80′s that was revivied in 2015 and follows loveable optimist and goofus Opus, braindead cat who gets into a lot of weird shit Bill, and collapsed lawyer and sexual harasser Steve Dallas among many others. It’s a national treasure as well as the source of several of my reactoin images and I even have an Opus phone on my desk my friend emma gave me. So yeah this is excting and likely to happen given fox usually at least TRIES a show for a season.. and likely two given how animation is. So even if the show sadly dosen’t take off like I hope it will and introduce dozens more to this wonderful world, i’ll at least get two great seasons of television. I have high hopes for this and good or bad, i’ll defintely be covering this one when it comes out.. whenever that is.

Sonic The Hedgehog 3.. and Knuckles: Smaller one here but ahead of Sonic 2′s release in april, Paramount annoucned both a knuckles spinoff tv show and a third season HELL YEAH. I mostly bring this up because of something we’ll get to soon.

The Casagrandes Canceled: Yup. Just.. yup. While I haven’t watched the show in a while, it’s still disapointing this is happening, though not suprising. Both this show and the parent seem to be in a rut where not much changes. With other Slice of LIfe shows like Craig of the Creek and Big City Greens FEELING like they have progress while still keeping most of the same status quo , Loud House feels stuck DESPITE having moved everyone forward a grade. Hopefully it’ll get out of this rut and give the casagrandes characters, especailly Syd, another shot.

Comixlology Revamp: Comixlogy is a digital comics service, one I use frequently as it’s cheaper, usually better and just all around rocked... but this week it pivoted to a new model, using amazon’s services and reader and it.. is not great. There are a LOT of bugs to be worked out let’s be real here and while i’m far from the only one complaning abou tit, both Patton Oswalt and Gail Simone have chimed in I hope Amazon gets their heads out of their asses and fixes this SOON.

Okay now that’s out of the way

Blog Announcements:

Schedule:

This is as always freely avaliable under the schedule tabs. Schedule may change based on need, real life stuff coming up that sorta thing.

March: March of the Penguins! 2/27: Watchmen: The Judge of All Earth The Great North: Sexi Moose Adventure The Legend of Vox Machina Season 1 Monthly Muppets: The Great Muppet Caper 3/6: Batman: Surf’s Up, Joker Down Tomtrospective: Curse of the Blood Moon and Junkin Janna Penguin’s Behind Bars This Duckburg Life 3/13 Danny Phantom Poll 2 Amphibia: Cane Crazy/Flood Sweat and Tears/Hop Luck/Stakeout Surf’s Up Tomtrospective: A Boy and His DCXCE, Doop Doop and Sad Teen Hotline 3/20 Amphibia and Owl House: Escape to Amphibia/Follies at the Coven Day Parade Life and Times Finale Special Emma Patreon Surf’s Up 2: Wavemania 3/27 Amphibia and Owl House: Commander Anne/Sprivy/Elswhere and Elsewhen Bloom County: Headbanging and Marriage The Venture Bros Season 4 Watchmen (Film) April: Sonic Month! 4/3 Amphibia and Owl House Sonic Underground: Knuckles Quadrilogy Watchmen: Watchmaker Ducktales and Venture Bros Comparison (2nd Year Duckiversary) 4/10 Amphibia and Owl House Sonic Patreon Amphibia: The Domino Effect/Taking Charge/Anne Theft Auto/Breakout Star Monthly Muppets: Muppets Treasure Island 4/17 Amphiba and Owl House VeggieTales: An Easter Carol Sonic Poll Sonic Universe: The Tails Adventure 4/24 Amphibia And The Owl House Archie’s Sonic The Hedgehog: The Original Freedom Fighters Sonic The Hedgehog: The Movie (OVA) The Venture Bros Season 5

So a few things to talk about form these in detail

Theme Months:

Yes i’m doing TWO theme months in a row. This is Kev’s baby through and through with me only pitching in a Bloom County review on my own time because how can I celebrate penguins and not do this. So we have a look at the failed pilot penguins behind bars, which looks to be heavily intreting, a look at opus’ engagment and metal career, and a mini retrospective on the two film series Surf’s Up, one an underated fun surfing film.. the other a weird sequel i’ve never seen that has the wwe slapped on it and Vince Mccmahon’s weird mastabtory fantasies. So.. about right for a WWE product

The second is one i’ve had in the works for a while and with the film still set to come out and Emma , one of my patrons, one of my best friends and one of my main contributors, being a sonic fan, it was easy enough to collaberate for this idea.

To celebrate the sequel to the awesome first Sonic film, we have SONIC MONTH. A whole month dedicated to the blue blur with, like march of the penguins, about a review a week covering all sorts of sonic shenanigans: We have the four knuckles episodes from underground, his ONLY apperance in the DiC cartoons no less, a tbd patroen review, the tails adventure arc from archie where Bunnie and Antoine’s honeymoon an 8 year old took them on goes pearshaped thanks to a game adaptatoin decades after it shoudl’ve happened, a patreon poll choosing from the best of the criminally underated uk comic, a look at the one sonic comic kev ever owned and it’s second part, and finally capping it off with the sonic ova! Strange isn’t it?

The End of Old Projects and the Start of New Ones!:

March is also, as you can see a lot of house cleaning as I finish up both the tom retrospective and the life and times retrospective (part 1 of it anyway). After all the heavy delays I’ve sped things up slightly but you’ll get the same quality from these final reviews. I’m also FINALLY getting to my long put off due to delays review of an extremley goofy movie for my second patreon stretch goal.

So after Sonic Month and a tighter schedule in may, what’s next. Well for starters i’ll be starting looks at every season 1 episode of Amphibia starting tommorow thanks to Tyler Spickel, one of my patreons who got me to another goal! As a reminder my patreon goals are set on how many people join, so even just one dollar a month hits them and I have a goal set up EVERY time someone does. So your buck not only nets you a free review for joining and a seat at the table when I do my polls, my patreons each get to pick one of the choices you all vote from, but also gets me to do various projects. The next one up is episode by episode reviews of Owl House season 1, since like amphibia I started covering it reguarly at season 2. So if you want to give a hoot and see me do the same, join my patreon

MY PATREON IS HERE!

I’ll also FINALLY be starting my long delayed Helluva Boss retrospective in May! I’ve been wanting to cover the show for some time but I priortizied getting everything else finished.

I’m also covering some of Justice League International in May for it’s anniversary , and if reception is positive enough I may cover it in full. I also WILl do the more than meets the eye retrospective at some point... I just started it at the worst time possible, both as I had to cut back on reviews and as I had a ton of other stuff already going. I will get back to it, it’s still one of my faviorite comics ever and I still love it, the momentum’s simply died down and i’d rather not force something this important.

For my Danny Phantom followers, I’ll finally be starting my next leg of it’s story arcs with my Jazz arc, covering Jazz finding out his idnetity, her other spotlight episode in season one 13, the two youngblood episodes, ultimate enemy and then secret weapons, along with masters of all time , the last plot relevant episode before season 3, then probably season 3 as a whole. We’ll see

Finally i’ll be covering tuca and bertie this summer in full season reviews after the venture bros retrospective wraps up, for now, in june. It was one of my stretch goals and will slot in nicely as the new show I binge throughout the month and review a tthe end, something i’m keeping as a tradition. After that I’m considering either steven universe or x-men 95. You guys let me know which you’d prefer. As for anything else

I’m keeping things open for now, thinking of things i’ve wanted to review, things I hate I want to tear apart, that sorta stuff. I’m defintely going to do something x-men related as my rouge and gambit wedding review was a decent hit and every x-centric thing i’ve done has been a success, as well as how much I love it i’m just not sure what it’ll be as I have a lot of choices. Not only that there’s a daria arc i’ve wnated to do for some time but given it stretches over pretty much all of season 4 i’ve considered just doing season by season reviews of Daria at some point instead. I’ve also had character focus retrospectives for Flame Princess from Adventure time and CJ from regular show in my head so let me know. What characters would you like me to take alook at? What arcs from shows? what shows as a whole? Let me know what you guys would want to see and if it matches up with ideas i’ve had. What comics do you like?

Finally we have one last update to take care of

Regular Coverage:

Owl House and Amphibia are back next month! now since i’ve covered seasons 2 and 3 respectively as they’ve come out, some of you likely wonder how i’l lhandle this. As you can see from the schedule i’m pairing them up! I’ll still give these new episodes my best, but i’ll be doing both shows in one article, something I dont think i’ll get many objections to since these two fanbases have a lot of overlap. This also may be the LAST regular coverage I do. I MIGHT do moon girl and devil dinosaw, but that depends on both what you guys would think of me doing that and if I end up liking the show enough.

That said seasonal regular coverage is getting a new addition. While we wait on Invincible and Close Enough to return, say hello to Legend of Vox Machina! Yes baby, coming at the start of march i’m covering season 1. I was blown away by this series despite not having seen critical role (yet), so you bet your ass i’m doing it , especailly now I have a nifty new format for doing full season reviews thanks to my venture bros retrospective that I like a lot more. LIke those in addition to going ham on the character arcs and what not, i’ll also be breaking down the episodes capsule style with runners, some you’ll regonize form venture bros, some exclusive to this series.

So that’s all. join me for all this fun stuff and thanks for reading.

#sonic the hedgehog #amphibia #the owl house #the legend of vox machina #danny phantom

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stuckinapatriarchalbullshitland · 4 years

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Sorry Moonchild

I don't know how to express my chaotic thoughts right now but there are really two things I understood from Lauren's live. One, she was just selling her logical LJ1 narrative and I'm not saying her fight wasn't real or invalidating her feelings, but she has just copied the was never real tweet at once erasing everything we've seen before . She spoke from her perspective but I think she forgot that everything that happened between the two of them was reciprocal, it was not only her, Camila was also. And he did it to keep Camila in the closet when she never belonged to him and less in the past was what has screwed me the most from that video. Lauren's speech isn't new, folks. She has always had it and her traumas did not begin in adolescence, nor with TXF, nor with 5H, nor with Camren, they began in her childhood. They started with their family and continued their education LONG BEFORE MEETING CAMILA. That I think haters have forgotten very quickly. And why involve the Latino community in all that drama? I really agree with several of my mutuals here. Lauren didn't take Camila out of the closet but kept her there, a prisoner. She erased everything that gave us a sense of identity in a way that has always been used by the industry. I think it was @romanticentropy or @emisonme who said that the industry DOES NOT SELL REALITY but PRs and Lauren described that. I know that afterwards my inbox is going to be filled with haters again, but I don't care. What has screwed me the most is that those fucking bastards used the last letter to kill Camren which was Lauren, who always denied Camren to make us drop like flies. If they have succeeded, I don't know. Possibly. All I know is, unfortunately, Lauren has given rise to circus fans to use her against us because her clip talking about Camren and Camila is already circulating on their fucking accounts. I have to remind you once again that every artist needs a public backstory to "justify" their music and Lauren Jauregui's backstory will always be Laucy, Tyren, and Deny Camren because that's what drives the most headlines. Wait and see, folks. In fact, it already did yesterday because the global trend WAS LAUREN TALKING ABOUT CAMILA. So for me there is nothing new here. This is a bit of going back to 2016 and 2017 and it's really funny, but I doubt the fandom will die completely if fans decide to quit. Camren has meant a lot to many fans. Many queer fans who have been represented in the relationship of the girls, in what they transmitted. If that was never real I don't know what pussies we saw at the 2018 AMAs. If Camren wasn't real I don't know why Camila keeps talking about green eyes in her songs and Lauren promoting her eyes like crazy all the time after the premiere from South of the Border. If Camila was always straight, I don't know what her phrase means "This album is not really about boys." If Camila was always straight, I don't know what those green eyes mean in Camila's She Loves Control merch. I'm here to say that I really don't understand it, I really don't. Camila never hid her essence and for this she was repressed. Lauren freely chose to hide hers during her time before Fifth Harmony so as not to be harassed or bullied and is respectable, it was her decision to take care of herself. But this seems to have invalidated people who bravely decide never to hide and live their essences freely. I feel like Camila was always one of those people and I'm sorry, but I can't agree with Lauren on that point. What she did I did not like and cannot support her. And I don't, because I felt identified with what she did. I had a gay friend for a short period of time who never denied his sexuality or that he liked boys and in the camp where I met him he always showed himself free, without hiding his essence despite being harassed and bullied and it was me who always came out to defend him. Forever. Pablo always told me not to do it because he didn't care what they said about him and that annoyed me because those idiots had no right to do him that harm when he was not doing anything wrong. Until a counselor from the camp came to talk to me and told me to try to convince my friend to hide. He convinced me to talk to Pablo to hide his essence and not be disturbed. I naively believed that I was doing something good and I told him, I tried to convince Pablo of that and he got mad at me for it. He told me that he thought that I was his friend and that I would be the only one who would not do such a thing as hide and he stopped talking to me for a while until he went to apologize and tell him that if he did not want to hide that he did not do it. That she would support him and help him fight and defend himself if he needed it. Pablo became my friend again and since then I promised myself never to interfere with anyone's real essence. Lauren didn't understand that when she kept Camila in the closet. What has screwed me the most about the video was not Lauren's words per se, but the fact that she knew that we were once manipulated by management. Again. But, despite everything. I will not fall for the game. I'm not going to fall for all the haters who say we've lost that Lauren has killed our fandom and a thousand other shits. There was a story there folks, and we don't know for sure if it still does, but there was something there and no one is going to convince us otherwise. Not the haters, not the industry, not even Lauren. She also knows that we don't believe her so again, nothing new. All I know is that LJ1 is coming and the promo machine is up and running with Lauren. Soon we will see that it will have headlines (because it already has videos of fans on Youtube talking about it) so I am going to leave this long ass post here and warn anons and haters that I will keep my inbox closed after answering the group of asks that have me arrived. That's it. Peace out.

#sorry moonchild #i can't convince you to stay #but love the ones who decide to stay

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janeyseymour · 3 years

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"the wrath of mama seymour- or whatever the hell I’ve been labelled as" -Jane

Jane takes it upon herself to handle some nasty comments one particular account has been leaving the queens.

WC: 3072

For the most part, the queens got rave reviews, and their queendom was full of love and support. Every once in a while though, the queens got some hate, specifically Anna of Cleves and Jane Seymour- the two queens who arguably had it the least bad. While the others got hate sometimes, it was never anything that the queens would deem as true. Some might tell Katherine or Anne that they were “whores”, but the two knew this was not true. History might have depicted them as this, but they lived their lives. They knew they weren’t. Anne had actively tried to reject the king, and Katherine was forced into her situations. What these people had said about Jane and Anna was true- or at least those two thought so.

The fourth queen wasn’t one to put up with the comments. She would openly complain about them to the other queens, and she had even made it a point to call out the hateful comments that she got. Jane Seymour wasn’t like this.

The silver queen, hot-tempered and not so kind in her first life, knew that if she had said anything, it would only fuel the hate comments. So, she stayed quiet about it, letting these comments eat at her slowly.

“You’re responsible for Anne’s death. Don’t you feel even the slightest bit guilty about that? Bitch.”

“We all know the “i’m a kind sweet mum” act is fake. If you’re a bitch, just show it and let us hate you.”

“You don’t even deserve to be in the show. You had it the easiest.”

“The only one he truly loved? He only loved you because you had a son. But that son died before he could even do anything. After you died, you still failed. You don’t deserve to be remembered as queen, and you definitely don’t deserve to be in the likes of the other queens.”

That one hurt. That one comment hurt. The third queen did what she could to let it roll off her shoulders, but to no avail. That comment made her stomach flip.

Still, she did her best to stay kind, finally deciding to put out a video on her Instagram in attempts to stop the hate coming her way.

“Hi queendom. It’s Jane,” she said as sweetly as she could. “I’m here to address something with all of you. As we know, the idea of the queendom is to build others up, not tear them down. Now, I know we all know I say in my song that I’m unbreakable.” She paused, mulling over how she was going to word this. Her tone lowered a bit as she spoke quietly, “But the truth is, I’m not.” Her voice broke a bit as she said this. “I see every comment you all leave. I see every direct message, every private message, all of it. The kind comments are so lovely, and I appreciate them all so much. The not-so-kind comments are few and far between, and for that I’m thankful, but the ones that I do see hurt. I think we all just need a reminder to be kind to one another. Please remember the golden rules we were all taught: treat people the way that you want to be treated. If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all. That’s all I have to say for today, but I’ll leave you with this- you are enough. I’m sending you all so much love! Thank you.” She blew a kiss to the phone and waved before turning the camera off.

Almost immediately, fans started outpouring love to the third queen.

Roseamongstthethorns: i just wanna know who said something mean to jane because we are going to have some words

Sixqueenswalkintoabar: @janeyseymour we love u pls know that

AnnieBoleyn: whos talkin shit on my janey. I’ll fight em for u

Jane rolled her eyes at the green queen’s comment before replying.

JaneySeymour: @annieboleyn, i’m just speaking in general terms. Also, language dear.

AnnieBoleyn: @janeyseymour i say what i want #sorrynotsorry

Catherine_Aragon: you chaotic gremlin @annieboleyn

Jane laughed a bit at what Catherine had commented when she saw a notification pop up. A direct message from the account that had left that one particularly nasty comment.

Stop acting like you don’t talk shit on people. All you did was talk shit on Anne in your last life. That’s what got you the “queenly position” that you clearly didn’t deserve in the first place. Right? Just shut up bitch.

And so, Jane shut up. She ended up deleting her last post where all she did was try to address the issue, something that the other queens did quite often. She almost deleted her entire page accidentally (or not-so-accidentally if you asked the third queen).

“Janey! What are you trying to do: delete your whole account?” Anne teased.

“N-No,” the silver queen stammered out. “I-I uh, was just trying to delete a post. I guess I just hit the wrong button. Could you show me how?” She feigned confusion. It worked- the blonde was always asking for social media guidance anyway.

Everyday, this hateful account would send her messages. And every single day, against her better judgement, she opened the messages. The silver queen would roll her eyes and try to go on with her day, but it was affecting her, and the other queens were starting to take notice.

“Mum?” Katherine tried to get her adoptive mother’s attention. “Are you okay?” She had glanced at Jane, who was staring at her phone with tears in her eyes.

“Hmm?” The blonde lifted her gaze to the pink haired queen. “Oh.” She blinked away the tears. “I’m just fine dear. Just-”

“Are you having some trouble reading what’s on your screen?” The fifth queen was trying to be helpful. It was known in the house that the blonde wasn’t the most educated when it came to reading and writing. It was also known that Jane sometimes had a hard time reading what was on her screen if she didn’t have her glasses. “Here. I can help you.”

“Oh no, it’s nothing. I just-” The blonde was interrupted when the youngest queen took the phone out of her hand and read over the message on the screen, a horrified look appearing on her face.

“This fucking account,” Katherine huffed.

“Kit,” Jane sighed, never one for cursing unless necessary.

“Mum, this is necessary. This account has been harassing all of us.”

“Have they really been?” Jane’s interest piqued. Kat nodded her head. “Interesting.”

Over the next few days, Jane stayed quiet on social media. She saw the tweets and the comments on her “most recent post” asking why she deleted the video of her talking about being kind. Before she made her next move, she had to speak to the other queens.

“Hey Lina?” Jane asked one night as she was making dinner, the first queen accompanying her.

“What’s up Jane?”

“Kat told me about this horrid account and how they’ve been sending all of us hate messages. Do you mind if I take a look at what they’ve been sending you?”

“If you want, but you have to promise you won’t go all Mum.”

“I- I can’t promise that, but I’ll do my best.” The Hispanic handed over her phone, the messages already on screen. The first queen knew the exact account she was alluding to.

Queenly my ass. If you were so queenly, Henry wouldn’t have gone through all of the trouble he went through to divorce your sorry ass.

“What the-”

“It’s really not a big deal mija. Whoever this is, they don’t matter. Just leave it be.”

“Annie?” Jane wandered into the second queen’s room as they were all winding down for bed that night.

“What’s up Janey? Need some makeup remover again?” the green queen laughed as she scrounged her room for the wipes that the third queen asked for every once in a while.

“Actually, no. I bought a big thing of them the other day. I came to ask about something else.”

“Oh. What’s up?” Anne unceremoniously threw herself down on her bed.

“Kit and Lina were telling me about this awful account that has been-”

“Do you want to see the messages?” The blonde nodded, and the green queen threw her phone at the blonde.

You deserved to be beheaded, you whore. You should’ve never been queen in the first place, chasing after the king and getting him to divorce Catherine. How does it feel to be so wanted for such a short amount of time before all you were was another body?

“Annie, know that is not true.”

“I know Janey. Why do you think I’ve just ignored it? He’s not worth any of our time anyway.”

“I mean, he’s going right against the entire reason for our show.”

“Yeah, but he’s just not worth it. Don’t go all Mama Bear on him, okay?” Jane shrugged.

“Cleves?” Jane made her way into the kitchen first thing in the morning. “Are you back from your run yet?” She pulled her robe close to her body, muffling a yawn as she reached for the coffee pot.

“Seymour, you’re up early,” the fourth queen noted as she walked in through the back door.

“Well you know we’re both the earliest risers. Anyway, I have a question for you.”

“You wanna see my phone to check for any messages from that one shit account on Instagram?”

“How- how did you know?” Jane sputtered, flabbergasted.

“I heard you talking to Aragon and Boleyn. Here.” Anna tossed the blonde her phone.

“I don’t have my glasses with me. Oh boy.” Jane squinted her eyes to see the text on the phone.

Ugly bitch. How’s it feel following the only queen he truly loved, only to be rejected 6 months later? Shouldn’t even be compared to the other five. No idea how you managed to get yourself into the group, you irrelevant bitch.

“What he said isn’t true Cleves. You earned your place here.”

“What he said isn’t far from the truth Seymour. I know I didn’t have it the worst. I arguably had it the best if we’re being honest.”

“Please don’t let what he said get to you.”

“Hey Cath?” Jane wandered into the writer’s room late at night, two mugs of tea in hand.

“What’s up Jane? Can't sleep?”

“Not really. I’ve had a few things on my mind lately.”

“That account that’s just been shitting on all of us lately?” The sixth queen looked at the blonde knowingly. Jane just nodded.

“Here.” Cathy handed over.

What other stories do you have to claim? How about the one where you allowed your husband to groom Elizabeth, Anne’s precious daughter, and you joined in? Why don’t you reclaim that one, you sick twisted bastard?

“He’s-” Jane started.

“He’s not wrong.”

“Anne’s forgiven you for that.”

“She has, but I’ll never forgive myself. Is there a reason you’re so invested in this one account?”

“They’ve sent some not so kind things to me in the past few days.”

“Hey Kat?” Jane nudged the girl sitting next to her. When she heard a hum, she continued, “Can you tell me what that one account was saying to you?”

“Oh, it’s really nothing far from what other hate messages I’ve gotten.”

“Can I see? Only if you want to show me. You don’t have to of course.” The pink haired queen silently passed her phone over. The blonde adjusted the glasses on her face before she began to read.

You whore. You deserved to die. And I hope you felt that axe come down on your neck.

“Oh my god.” Jane was disgusted.

Did you really think you posting a stupid video of yourself speaking about being kind would stop me? It won’t. You six are all terrible women and it’s honestly deplorable that you would paint yourselves to be angels and use your stories to embrace the power of women when you know you have no power. You never did. You were all terrible people in your past lives. There is no way you changed that much in your present life. Worthless bitches.

To say the blonde was fuming was an understatement.

The next day, Jane went live- something she had never done before. It took her a few tries, but she was able to figure it out without any help from her fellow queens.

“Hello sweet queendom,” Jane said sweetly as she still tried to adjust her camera. “The other queens are out for the day, so I figured I would go live. We’re just going to wait a bit until a few more people get here, but then I have something that I’d like to say.”

The third queen greeted as many fans as she could as they made her way into the live, but she kept her eyes peeled for the one account that was sending them all hatred. As soon as she saw them enter, the warmth and love that had been in her eyes vanished.

“Ah, okay. I think we can get this started.”

Roseamongstthethorns: Why did you delete the video of you telling people to spread kindness?

“Well Rose, that’s actually why you’re all here right now. I have something to say about the hate that the fellow queens and I have been getting. So listen up, because I’m only going to say this once. Do you hear that, instagrammer1549?” She knew she was being ballsy calling out this one particular account, but there were no names attached to the account. She wasn’t doing anything to put this person full of hatred in danger.

“We can all deal with some of the not so kind comments that are thrown our way. We as queens choose to ignore them and carry on with what we do because we love what we do. We support each other, and we hope that using our voices and sharing a part of our story will help empower other women to share their stories too. We’re all in this together. However, when you start coming at us for things that we couldn’t prevent, like... dying... let’s say, it is absolutely disgusting. Catherine couldn’t prevent being divorced. She handled that situation like a queen, even going as far to get down on her hands and knees and beg Henry to let her know what she did wrong. Anne refused the king for years. I couldn’t help that I died, and I certainly couldn’t help that my son, who you have no right to talk about, was plagued with a sickness that took him much too soon from this earth. You have no right to talk to Anna like that. She was beautiful then, and she is beautiful now. And even if she wasn’t so beautiful on the outside, she is so much more beautiful on the inside than you could ever be. You sending those comments does not help your case much. Katherine was forced into those relationships. She was a mere child, and we all know that children can not consent. How very dare you go and tell a young woman that you hope she felt it as the axe came down on her neck. What kind of, as you called Cathy, “sick, twisted bastard” says something like that to a nineteen year old? And finally, how dare you bring up horrid stories from our past and plague Cathy with the guilt of something that happened almost 500 years ago.”

Sixtudorqueens: okay Jane, go off. We support.

“None of us are perfect. We all know our imperfections, and we’ve all made peace with it. Yes, we all did some very questionable things in our past. What happened then, while we all are horrified at our past behaviors, we have forgiven each other because we know the truth of our story. We did what we had to do to survive. But, the six of us as a group have made such wonderful process in this life, and we are truly coming out of it better than we ever could have by ourselves. Those girls are my family. Say what you want about me. I don’t care. I have a family to help me build myself back up when haters tear me down and my heart is broken. But, so help me god, if I hear of one more person coming after any of our children or my sisters again for something so personal- well,” Jane laughed bitterly. “-quite frankly, you don't want to know what will happen. Keep your disgusting comments to yourself.”

The comment section blew up, and the amount of likes her live was getting was astronomical.

Sixqueenswalkintoabar: okay mama seymour, GO OFF!

Roseamongsttthethorns: YES JANE. @instagrammer1549, there is a special place in hell for you.

Catherine_Aragon: Jane I thought we talked about not going Mum.

“Lina, I bit my tongue for long enough. It had to be said. On that note,” Jane paused to take a deep breath, the warmth that usually radiated off of her returning. “For the rest of the queendom who has shown us nothing but love and kindness, thank you. We really do see every message, comment and twitt-”

Sixtudorqueens: tweets*

“Tweet,” Jane corrected herself. “So thank you for that kindness. For now, I’m ending this live, but I do hope that you will all remember what I’ve said. Please, only spread kindness. That’s the, as Anne and Kat say, “vibe” that we’ve created for the queendom. If you don’t have anything nice to say, perhaps just don’t say anything at all. Please remember that you have a voice. Please remember to use that voice to spread kindness and love, not hatred. The world already has enough of that in the world. No need to create more.” With that, Jane ended the live.

“So,” Anne bit back a smirk at the dinner table that night.

“We all saw your live Seymour,” Anna bit the bullet and spoke about what they were all thinking.

“Kind of impressed you could figure that out without one of us Mum,” Katherine smiled slightly. “I'm proud of you.”

“What I said had to be said,” Jane affirmed as she took a bite of her dinner. “You don’t come after my family and not feel the wrath of “Mama Seymour” or whatever the hell I’ve been labelled as.”

#six the musical #six musical #six fanfiction #six the musical fanfic #six the musical fanfiction #six fanfic #six musical fanfic #jane seymour

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sephiroths-stuff · 3 years

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You know what? I have the right to dislike John Green's portrayal of terminal illness and the disrespect he wrote his charas having in TFIOS. Yes he and his bro are doing good things and that's great but I also, as someone who is quite possibly terminal rn (I'm definitely declining rapidly in health. The word terminal isn't official but I've lost almost half my body weight in two and a half months and can barely eat so...) as well as also a jewish person, I have the right to say that I found some of his writing disrespectful and also ableist (not to even talk abt the Anne Frank part of TFIOS because that was horrendous) and the fact that he profits off of it and so many of his fans don't acknowledge how many issues the book has rubs me wrong. People screaming and defending him nonstop to make up for ppl disliking him annoys me sometimes ngl.

Did he deserve the harassment he got on here? No. But I think that we as a people should know how to call out authors especially ones who write such prominent fiction works for writing things that have such problematic elements.

Non disabled/goyim can reblog and shit but don't fucking clown on this post. Thanks, bye.

#tfios #the fault in our stars #discourse #literature #ya literature #don't clown #illness

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davidmann95 · 4 years

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Hey David? Why is ours such a cruel and merciless God?

mirrorfalls said: (If you don't know what I'm talking about, your inbox should be filling up with more specific deets riiiiight about now.)

cheerfullynihilistic said: THE SNYDER CUT

Anonymous said: You don’t seem to think Superman’s public rep will take another beating from the Snyder Cut coming out. Honestly I thought you’d be way more upset than you seemed on Twitter.

Anonymous said: So uhh, against all thoughts and logic the Snyder cut is being released? Maybe as a mini series? Thoughts?

Anonymous said: SNYDER CUT!

Bullies. Jocks. Guys angrily asking if we know who their father is. Assorted dudebro nerd-oppressors of America:

You have failed us. You have failed us so hard. What else do we even keep you around for if not to head this shit off at the pass? Shame on you.

Okay, so seriously: I’m actually gonna put most bitching and moaning under a cut, because I know firsthand there are as many as several non-slavering maniacs out there who dug Man of Steel and Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice and who are simply and entirely reasonably excited that they’re getting this movie after all. I don’t feel like throwing a wall of text at them shitting all over this, so I’ll lead off with I think some fairly even-handed commentary on the real-world circumstances here, rambling speculation regarding the production, and some cautious optimism about the actual movie/s. THEN I’ll get to what I imagine most of you are here to see.

So totally in a vacuum: this is a cool, good thing. I’m the notorious theatrical Justice League-liker, but at best it was a compromised product due to the original creator - who like it or not clearly had an incredibly ambitious personal vision for these characters and their world - suffering a horrific tragedy forcing him off the project, and leaving his final stamp on blockbuster culture and a world he’d devoted years of his life to a flop with his name on it when he couldn’t even truly call it his own anymore. At worst, said tragedy was taken advantage of by suits to ditch him in the home stretch so as to try and shove out something ostensibly more marketable. But now because of a...very loyal fanbase, the man’s getting the opportunity and resources to rise like a phoenix and see at least some of his vision through in a huge way. That’s pretty remarkable.

Not in a vacuum this is fucking horrifying. I’ve already seen folks poo-poohing the reflexive fears that this will ‘set a precedent’, and they were right enough that I deleted my initial tweet on the subject because I didn’t think I could express my own opinion with any nuance in the space of 280 characters. Yeah, nerd whining definitely shaped Rise of Skywalker (another movie I enjoyed in spite of the circumstances of its creation). Hell, Sonic the Hedgehog crunched its CGI team prior to unceremoniously firing them to redesign his model thanks to outcry. That’s already a market force, and just to be clear upfront, if we can’t agree the predominant mode of operation for #ReleaseTheSnyderCut has been a toxic nerd harassment campaign when they spammed posts memorializing deceased actors and chased Diane Nelson off Twitter, we’re not gonna be able to have this conversation. And director’s cuts are you may have noticed also already a thing. But this isn’t changing direction on a project that’s already going to exist no matter what, this is turning back 3 years later on a commercial flop and dumping tens of millions of dollars into it, explicitly in response to that harassment campaign. It’s not *actually* going back and, say, remaking The Last Jedi, but by god to the naked eye it’s gonna be as good as for plenty of fanboys, and probably to some shortsighted execs as well. This is a new thing, and in this context it is a very, very bad one. Hopefully one that won’t amount to anything.

As for the movie itself: what the hell is this thing going to end up being? I assume with this sort of cashola being pumped into it we’re not getting any slapdash greenscreen or storyboarded sequences, but four hours? Is it really just going to be an expanded and revised version of what we saw in theaters, or is this including content that would have been in the originally planned Justice Leagues 2 and 3? My understanding is that those were already compressed into a single Justice League 2 before plans collapsed altogether, were they maybe filming side-by-side and this’ll be the whole shebang? If not is Snyder going to hedge his bets and end this on a clean note, or keep it ending on a cliffhanger in hopes HBO will throw another $250 million his way to keep going? Does DC want to keep going? Would they give into fan pressure on releasing after all what was widely publicized as the first film of a duology or trilogy with dangling threads if they weren’t going to be at least watching the numbers to see the feasibility of returning to this in a bigger way? Not that I think WB execs would piss into Snyder’s mouth if he were dying of thirst at this point if he simply asked to be able to do Justice League 2, but if he floated that if they instead just give him a liiiiiiiitle more money he can finally deliver unto them their very own Avengers - one that they can work on even during quarantine since it’s mostly just VFX work left - and hey if it works out he’s got a sequel or two cued up and ready to go? Maybe they look at their scattered plans and say the hell with it and end up giving this a theatrical release and sequel with Snyder holding the reigns again if this ends up a killer app; stranger things have happened, if not many, and somehow this is already happening in the first place after all. Alternatively, if this succeeds, could they go “thanks and good on ya, totally do another, but it’s gonna be an HBO exclusive so you’re only getting a hundred million, figure it out”? Would Ben Affleck return? How much reshooting will he be willing to commit to even for this? And most importantly, since this is potentially going to be serialized as six ‘episodes’, will We Got This Covered count this as another ‘win’ since their bullshit rumor mill algorithm spit out “Justice League HBO TV show” recently?

As for the project itself: I ain’t subscribing to HBOMax for this bad boy, but once it becomes more widely available I can’t claim I won’t probably watch it. It’s basically a new movie about the Justice League, and if there’s anything I WOULD wanna see Zack Snyder do in the DCU, it’s the movie finally moving past pseudo-realism (aside from some of those dopey costumes) and leaning all the way into godlike superbeings bludgeoning each other through continents. I absolutely wanna see his aesthetic take on the Green Lantern Corps, and New Genesis, and time travel, and all the other weird promises of where his movies were going to go climaxing in a ridiculous super-war across all spacetime. It’s the same reason J.G. Jones was an exciting choice for Final Crisis before he had to leave, seeing a guy known for his work in an ultra-real grungy superhero style starting there and building up to seeing his version of absolutely wild cosmic spectacle. And no, to respond to one of the initial asks, I’m not worried about the impact on Superman. Everyone seems to have accepted this is its own distinct thing whether they like it or not, I think him getting to complete his ‘arc’ will quiet down many of the folks who like to yell at every other version as retro nonsense since now they’ll be able to be smug about having had the best take rather than pining for a lost finale, and I’m not interested in further Superman movies at the moment anyway with Superman & Lois in the pipe (which I was originally paranoid would be endangered by this when rumors first started floating, but if it’s been brewing since November then if they wanted to strike that down to ‘make room’ according to their Byzantine ever-shifting rules, they would have by now). Far as I’m concerned, as long as the other DC movies get to keep doing what they’re doing during and past this - even Pattinson in his corner, however that works - then totally let Snyder work out all his Wagnerian superhero bullshit for another flick or two. If nothing else, maybe we’ll learn what the hell that diagram up there is supposed to mean. And a plea I want to clarify upfront is wholeheartedly sincere: we’re already down the rabbit hole, so let Snyder to literally whatever he wants with his non-theatrically released Justice League. Zero input or veto power from outside parties. If he wants Flash to hang dong or Superman to say fuck or Batman to learn he’s Steppenwolf’s secret dad or Cyborg to learn he needs to eat babies to fuel his machine parts, let him go for it. Whole point is this is now his thing for people who want his thing.

Okay, beneath the cut the filter comes off, so go ahead if that’s your jam.

Hahahahahahaha this is gonna be such a fuckin’ shitshow you guys, Jesus Christ.

They’re giving the dude who did BvS and wants to make an Ayn Rand adaptation someday $30 million to take another crack at this monstrosity! 30 goddamn million smackaroos for four fucking hours of by many accounts roughly the same basic movie, except now presumably with what little coherency, fun, and clean character work the theatrical cut managed to pull off excised in return for weighty staring, ponderous pseudo-philosophical musings, hackneyed symbolism, aimless mythology teasing, and Steppenwolf I understand being decapitated by Wonder Woman at the end rather than taken back to Apokolips. I didn’t even spoiler mark that shit because don’t you dare pretend you care about the fate of Steppenwolf. I won’t have it.

I used to wonder if I was indeed missing the forest for the trees with these movies, that I was so inflexible in my personal image of these characters - even though I appreciate plenty of alternate takes on them and even some stories that bend or break what I consider their ‘rules’, just not these - that I was incapable of grasping or appreciating these films on their own merits as works of art using those archetypes in wildly different ways; even I could see there were good moments and interesting ideas on display despite seemingly failing to come together. No matter how much I personally deconstructed how and why it wasn’t working, I couldn’t do it to my own satisfaction to the point of stamping out that niggling little worry with how many folks whose opinions I respect love ‘em. Until I finally remembered that the Cadmus arc of Justice League Unlimited is totally the same basic story as BvS, centrally driven by an even worse take on Superman, and that’s still one of the best superhero stories of all time. These just stink by any merits, and while I think Justice League absolutely has the potential to be the most *entertaining* of the bunch, it’s not going to magically become *good* in the eleventh hour. Not to lift up Joss Whedon of all people as some kind of savior, I’m on the record that my love for Justice League as-is is some kind of inexplicable alchemical accident, but I promise that there is not going to be one single addition to this movie that’s going to make up for the removal of “Just save one person”.

Also I’m already not looking forward to dudes tweeting “whoa, he’s splitting it up into a serialized narrative, reflective of the sequential nature of the characters’ primitive native pictorial medium! Or mayhap in ode to the pulp film adventure serials which inspired those in turn! Even the Justice League children’s cartoon for dumb babies, which was itself...made up of episodes! That’s three references in the structure of the thing alone! The man’s operating on an entirely different level!” “God, isn’t it amazing how much better he understands the source material than you”, they shall say, about a man who I understand just very confidently referred to Doomsday in his livestream as having destroyed Krypton in the comics. Again, don’t you say they won’t, just the other day I saw folks tweeting they just realized that since Jor-El wears armor over his bodysuit that technically means Superman’s whole costume is underwear which means Snyder’s totally honoring that without putting him in ugly dumb red panties so checkmate, dorks.

(Okay, in fairness, I know Snyder was saying that’s his take on what happened to the moon in the past of the movies and maybe I only misheard that he thought that also happened in the comics, and it’s trivial information anyway. Still sucks though, that seeming out-of-nowhere Jax-Ur shoutout was like the one thing I liked about that otherwise interminable Krypton sequence. And why is there a second Doomsday? You did Death of Superman already!)

And further SPOILER thoughts below on the reported plots of 2 and 3:

It’s also an amazing, perfect sort of narrative synchronicity that the hypocrisy of Man of Steel in presenting Superman as a savior would (will?) be matched by the movies also rejecting that promise long-term. In there, Jor-El’s musings on the capacity of every living thing being capable of good, the closest the film has to a singular moral statement, are proven wrong when Zod has to be put down like a mad dog, and rather than the one who’ll bring us into the sun, Kal-El’s presence draws ruin from beyond the stars to our world. And again in BvS with Doomsday. And again in Justice League 1-3, where in spite of claims by Snydercutters that it’s okay for Superman to be a really lousy take on Superman because it’s totally supposed to take several movies after putting on the costume and calling himself Superman, including his own death and resurrection, for him to really, like, become Superman, man, he remains a liability to the end. His death lures in Steppenwolf, the Kryponian matrix in his genes is Darkseid’s goal, he becomes the villain of the first act of Justice League 3 - possibly of his own free will depending on which version you’ve heard about - and at the final showdown, it’s Batman who sacrifices himself to stop Darkseid and save the world and inspire the rise of superheroism, because Batman, you see, rules, whereas Superman, stay with me here, drools. A letdown given BvS was just about the one major story of the last 30 years to unambiguously conclude Superman is better than Batman, but not a shocker. None of what I understand goes down in these - iconography from the likes of Fourth World, Crisis on Infinite Earths, Death and Return of Superman, Rock of Ages, Final Crisis, and Injustice reused but stripped of all context and thematic weight that gives it meaning (even Injustice is built on the premise of having a ‘good’ Superman to contrast the dictator); Lois being the ‘key’ because of her connections to two men, one she married and one she bears; time travel that even by the very generous suspension of disbelief applied to it in a genre like this operates by two obviously completely different sets of rules in its only two uses, and is then used to write the entire second movie of the trilogy out of continuity in the first act of the third, making one and a half of these movies pointless - is shocking. It’s just more empty notions and unfulfilled promises offered up to a fanbase staking everything on the idea that all the tampering, all the wild swings, all the meandering, it’s all building UP to something, not possibly just a dude who doesn’t understand these characters but wanting to look very clever with them before building up to one more rad punch-up. So yes, make these movies. Let what can be gleaned from them as worthwhile be revealed, leave the rest of it up for examination to be judged as it deserves and let it, finally. Finally. Be done.

#Justice League #Snyder Cut #Zack Snyder #DCEU #Worlds of DC #Superman #Man of Steel #Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice #Superman & Lois #DCTV #Analysis #Opinion

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onisiondrama · 4 years

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PART 8 - video #14 & #15

(Click here for video mirrors)

[I just want to note: these are not my thoughts or words. I’m only summarizing what Greg / James is saying in his videos for people that don’t want to listen to him. I had a couple messages in my inbox from people who (I think) misunderstood what I’ve been posting, so I wanted to clarify I’m not defending Greg lol.]

the did nots

- Greg says someone named Kelly wrote him. He asked her to watch one of the many videos about him and tell him what the accusations were because he wants to address them because it’s easy and fun for him. - 4:25 His ex claimed she had a seizure and he was the cause of it. - He asks how could he be the cause of a seizure? Unless he hit someone over the head with a rock. Despite what people say about his brow, he’s not a caveman. - He didn’t call an ambulance and he recorded it for a Youtube video. - Greg says she faked the seizure. She had done it twice before. One of those times when he went to call an ambulance she popped up and snapped out of the seizure. If you met someone like that you’d understand, but it takes life experience to understand who they are. - 6:00 Claimed he groomed an underage person. - Says grooming isn’t calling someone a c-u-n-t. That’s like brushing your hair with razor blades and lemon juice. - 7:38 Greg targets vulnerable people. - Says it doesn’t make any sense. Are all these people damsels in distress? Are they incapable of defending themselves? Sarah was arrested for beating the crap out of a grown man. Not vulnerable, actually scary. So scary he spend the night in the garage because he was afraid she’d murder him. She had a full gremlin face. People like talking without knowing and call themselves reporters. - 8:31 Kai send and received explicit photos. - Says we no, Kai hates p-o-r-n. People make these claims with no evidence. You don’t have to give $20,000 to some a-hole, you just need legitimate concrete evidence. No one does that because no one has it. He’s seen people threaten to fake evidence. He’s seen screen shots of people who want to create fake evidence with deep fakes. If you wanted something done you should have talked to a lawyer and handled it privately, now the case is manipulated and contaminated. The livestreams contaminated everything. It’s a circus. - 8:00 Two people argued over who will take someone’s virginity. - He says “retarded” isn’t a good enough word for that. No one would argue about taking someone’s virginity unless you’re talking past tense. He says that’s totally different. They didn’t take her virginity. Kai did nothing and just layed there. [He talks about the crime against Sarah again.] People shouldn’t say Kai likes CP. That’s crazy, kids are disgusting. Nothing is attractive about them. Snot, my little pony obsession, backpacks, they don’t understand anything in the world. - 9:07 Claimed he instigated and had a threesome with someone then kicked her out shortly after she turned 18. - He says no. He says one person was receiving oral and he made love to the 18 year old but they weren’t kicked out shortly after. They were kicked out when they said he needs to impregnate them when they were “mano y mano” with each other in hopes the three of them would come together and be poly. He realized she didn’t care about the other person. - Greg abused his ex. - He asks if it’s the one that cheated on him and got pregnant with someone else’s baby? One time he called the cops on her because she threatened to kill herself and make it look like he did it. That person? Asks why no one considers the abuse toward him. Threatening to make it look like he murdered her is a crime. If he sold prescription pills, he’d be in jail. Sarah sold pills and she told him her mom tried to set her up to marry a guy for a green card and he’d pay her. Those are crimes. He thinks Sarah’s mom is innocent because after everything Sarah said about them they can’t believe anything. It’s loco Sarah shit. She admitted to doing cocaine too. - He dated Shiloh when she was underage. - He says you finally got something- [he cuts off and nods his head]. She was 17. They were both in areas it was legal and he was 24. The police looked into their relationship and checked stuff and they were good to go. Someone tried to get him in trouble, but he knew the law. When you love someone you don’t worry about taboo. - 11:08 Greg had an affair with her while he was still with Skye. - He says if his pp is 3,000 miles long maybe. He didn’t meet her until he filed for divorce. He says this person is an idiot and is spreading slanderous statements. How can you cheat with someone who is on the other side of the country? He laughs and says Skye’s last name isn’t Tantaga, that’s her username. He got a plane ticket when he was already filed for divorce. - 11:55 Shiloh may have been 16 when they first met. - He says he didn’t even talk to her until November 2010. He says look up her birthday she was 17 1/2. “Fucking facts yo.” Why don’t people care about the truth? -14:24 Greg made videos about ex girlfriends that were filled with lies. - He sarcastically says, “very specific, very proof.” No logic, just say “they lie.” - 22:17 Greg had photos from 12-17 in various states of undress on a forum. - Greg says you could just prove that if it’s true. Everyone forgets that website was 18+ and was heavily moderated. “Fucking idiot.” - 23:50 Greg removed forums because they were being investigated. - He asks what forums? He didn’t have forums and he doesn’t care about Hansen. He’s the one that called the cops on Hansen. The cops weren’t there for Chris Hansen, they told Greg to file an anti-harassment protection order against him. There’s nothing to fear. Chris Hansen is an old man and his last job contract wasn’t renewed because someone sued for $100 million and won. The only things to be afraid of are his douchiness and his creepiness. “Fuckin�� boomer.” - 26:10 Youtuber admits he gets more views when he talks about Onision. - Greg says finally something truthful. When this guy talk about anything that doesn’t have to do with Greg it’s like [thumbs down and laughs]. Greg tells them you know what you do and you don’t actually care. - Greg silences ex girlfriends by threatening to sue. - Greg asks when did this happen? He doesn’t remember that. If he did that it didn’t work. The girls are re-tweeting people threatening to burn his house to the ground. Sarah tweeted she wants to psychically attack him. He says she is going to be no one’s victim because she’s a fighter and he’s scared of her. - Greg has 7-8 other victims, possibly more. - Greg says that’s a tough sell because these people aren’t his victims, they’re just people he dumped. He says it’s like high school when people break up and they start rumors about each other. Youtube is high school 2.0. - 29:00 Kai is a victim and was underage when the relationship started. - Greg says Kai was 17 1/2, but told Greg he was about to turn 18. When Kai revealed the truth Greg already fell for him. He doesn’t agree with the victim part because they’re still married. This Youtuber should let kai speak for himself and not speak for people and pretend to be their hero. “Douchebag” - 29:10 Greg violated the mann act, accuses him of human trafficking. - Greg says if that happened, then prove it. When and how did he violate the mann act? - 30:15 He forced someone into signing an NDA and forced her to remain silent after they kicked her out. - Greg says Sarah said she wouldn’t sign the NDA unless she gets what she wants, which was sex. Later on she apologized for r-a-p-i-n-g them. He doesn’t know if she denied it yet, but she probably will. What she did was extortion and was a crime. Says this guy should make a hate video about Sarah now if he really gave a shit. - Greg took advantage of Kai because he was a fan, but that’s subjective. - Greg says stop speaking for Kai. Nobody asked Kai. - Greg groomed Kai. - Greg gives the same response. He says Sarah said she wasn’t groomed. She said “if anything I groomed you” and they thought it was funny until it was real. - Kai had a tinder. - Greg says that was for a video. It was a joke. He calls the Youtuber a joke. - Says he might respond to more because he doesn’t gibe a fuck anymore. He tells people to join OnisionFans.com to DM him questions.

oh my

- He apologizes from the heater noise. He says certain people get mad at him when he turns it off for videos because it makes the house cold. - He’s not sure if he’s being left now for speaking out. He doesn’t know what Kai is going to do now that he’s speaking out. - He wants to talk about the “investigation” (air quotes). He says he doesn’t take it seriously because he knows what actually happened. [Sarah NDA story for the 100th time] If an officer investigated the situation, he would arrest Sarah instead of Greg. Greg also has a witness who was also heavily pressured. You never heard this story from Sarah because she’s a fraud, a liar, she has BPD, she has a number of mental problems. Sarah wouldn’t say anything that would get her in trouble, but Greg said things that might get him into trouble about pressuring Kai. He did that because he felt bad for Sarah, but he should have had no sympathy for her like her mother. Her mother saw her for who she really was, one of the most toxic people he’s ever met. [Locked himself in the garage story.] When Sarah’s mad at you her eyes go from brown to black. - He says a lot of people will agree with him because it’s common sense. About Hansen and his crew, you don’t talk about a open investigations. You don’t try to monetize people’s pain when you’re trying to pursue them legally. You’re supposed to catch them by surprise. - He says when Chris had a show about people who went after 12 year olds, Chris didn’t warn them and tell them he was looking into them. He didn’t make a 9 month series about how terrible they are, then tell them he’ll go to their house to get them. He says it doesn’t make any sense. - Chris is getting donations and ad revenue. These girls feel sorry for themselves because they were dumped. Now they’re vengeful and malicious and they want to get back at him because they probably still want to be with him. If he never dumped them, would they still be together? They never dumped him except when Shiloh dumped him for h-e-n-t-a-i. He thinks they would still be together. Why are they only mad at him after he rejects them? - Hansen is paid to say there is a crime here. Greg saw Hansen allegedly stated he didn’t care about any of them and just wanted money, but he doesn’t believe that. He also saw Hansen hired someone named Anonymous Gene to dox Greg and his whole family. Greg says that doesn’t make sense to dox his whole family. It takes an evil person to do that. - When you have an investigation, you are supposed to stay silent then you catch them by surprise, take their stuff, and try to find something that would prove they’re guilty so they don’t have time to hide anything. - He has never spoken to Regina before as far as he knows. He thinks Regina is ugly. When Regina started talking to Kai when Kai was 17 so anything Regina has to say in nonsensical because of their ages. Kai denied anything was exchanged and isn’t interested in p-o-r-n. Kai is a beta male cuck, nervous, scared, anxiety disorder person, which is why he didn’t want Greg to talk about anything. Regina is a scumbag, horrible human. Regina is now working for Hansen and that’s a conflict of interest. You can’t have a witness work with someone who is making money going after someone. That’s absolute corruption. - Now people are saying they have evidence on him, they have a laptop. Spoiler alert, if you have evidence you tell someone they have it so they can get a warrant. It’s ridiculous because he has nothing of interest, but if he did the audience would have tipped him off forever ago. This was all handled horribly. He saw the other day he saw a public figure say”I hope we get this guy” with no evidence that Greg is guilty. You can’t do that, that’s slander. - The person who had the laptop before Sarah was a woman and she would have never looked at CP. It went from a woman, to another woman who apparently held onto CP for years, said she brought it to the police who did nothing, got it back, sent it to Vince, Vince sent it back. Vince got fired and changed Chris Hansen’s site to his mugshot. Greg says he was told Chris Hansen’s site now redirects to OnisionFans.com. He thinks that’s weird and funny. - Sarah started off by saying she was not groomed and only had her feelings hurt. Then people started working her up and her story progressively became something else. - This is the sloppiest investigation he’s seen in his life. He can’t believe the lack in professionalism. This isn’t a reality show, it’s real life. Greg is worried for Hansen because he put his whole career on this [he lists Hansen’s financial troubles] and if he doesn’t find something legit he’s screwed. - [Sarah laying in his lap story.] Greg thanks Sarah for describing his junk as “perfect.” “It’s just so perfect.” [Sarah being loud story again.] He says she complained he didn’t use the wand on her after he broke up with her. [He shrugs.] Says he meant to but didn’t get around to it. - So your investigation is a guy who had sex with an 18 1/2 year old? This person sexually extorted and blackmailed them. You should investigate her. [He lists supposed crimes she committed.] Greg said she had no idea these were crimes until he told her. “Idiot.”

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amandajeanwrites · 4 years

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A Love Letter to Knives Out

As my husband says, Rian Johnson’s Knives Out has been out for a long time now (aka two months, which I guess is a long time in Hollywood), but we just went to see it (took him long enough to take me!!!) and I can’t not talk about it.

For those of you who don’t know, Knives Out is the ultimate manor-house, family-values, murder mystery. One week after thriller novelist, Harlan Thrombey, commits suicide, the world renowned private investigator, Benoit Blanc, receives a wad of cash in the mail and a request to investigate the mysteries surrounding Thrombey’s demise. Thrombey’s family of white socialites are asked to return to the manor for further questioning in which you learn about the happenings on Harlan’s 85th birthday the night before he died.

The film is a mash-up of perfectly timed flash backs, done in the hilarious point-of-view of the most recent character in question, but most of the film is seen through the stunning green gold eyes of Thrombey’s nurse, Marta Cabrera, who was the last person to see him alive. It’s an exciting who-done-it jampacked with family drama, white privelege, and sour (not to mention famous) faces, and I enjoyed every last morsel.

I’ll try not to get into spoiler land too much here, as I mainly just need to talk about how much this film inspired me. As a writer, specifically one who’s been struggling through writing mystery and thrillers myself, I was enthralled with every tiny decision Rian Johnson made, both with the screenwriting and direction. He knew the formula perfectly, implanting props and clues at the beginning that would definitely come to life later.

I feel like before I even get into the writing though, I need to discuss production and set design, as the Thrombey family home completely blew me away. The outside of the house, besides being perfect for the kind of Clue-esque murder mystery novel, was merely unremarkable compared to the props and set dressing that was done inside. Before bed, I read every article I could interviewing the set decorator, David Schlesinger. I just had to know what informed all of the tiny details in this over-the-top, ornate home.

He said he based every single prop off of a novel that Harlan Thrombey would have written over the past sixty years. From there, he sourced the majority of antiques locally in the Boston area as the character would have done. I caught only a handful of odds and ends in the background, as the plot and characters keep sucking your focus back, but I can’t wait to see it again to see what else I can catch.

Okay, back to the writing. Rian Johnson’s attention to detail wasn’t the only thing I pulled inspiration from. The man clearly loves murder mysteries, as this story was reminiscent of all of those classics we all know and love, but he took so many major spins on those tropes, so nothing felt predictable. You really had no idea who to blame until the very last few minutes of the film. Every single character has a motive and not a one has an air-tight alibi.

One of the ways he brilliantly diverts expectations is in the use of a main character. Marta Cabrera, played by Ana de Armas, the nurse, is the daughter of an immigrant woman, working hard to keep her family afloat and safe. She’s great at her job, forming a close bond with Harlan and his family. She seems to have a heart of gold. (She has a literal disorder where lying makes her vomit.)

She’s refreshing. I guess that’s what I’m getting at. Typically in these scenarios, we’re seeing everything through the eyes of the madcap detective (we’ll get to him in a moment), a strong-jawed, handsome gentleman who is seeing everything for the first time and is just learning the personalities of the characters through their faults and guilt. Through Marta, we’ve seen it before. We know them. We know how disgustingly obtuse the family is. We know they don’t care about her or where she’s from. We see the guilt before it’s ascertained. It’s just a beautiful twist.

Also, someone pointed out on Tumblr that Marta’s character is refreshing, as woman, because she isn’t sexualized AT ALL. In the entire movie, never once do we see her in a revealing outfit. She’s often dressed as an innocent, middle class working woman, in normal, comfortable clothing. Not once do we see her snuggled up against the incredible sexy bad boy of the family, Ransom, an obvious pick for a love interest. She’s just a girl observing the family do horrible things, and not once is she sexually harassed for it. It’s incredible. This is what we want more of, Hollywood! (Louder for the people in the back!!!)

Going back to the point, however, that every character has a motive, Marta isn’t as innocent as she seems, and it makes for some incredibly poignant and emotional scenes which shockingly moved me to well up. That’s another part of the genius of this film, the emotions. One minute, you could be cackling out loud about a ridiculous comment made by the Alt-Right grandson, and the next minute you could be sympathizing for the characters who lost the patriarch of the family.

It filled me with nostalgia, not only for other murder mysteries of this caliber, but because at one point, I leaned over to my husband and said “Oh my God, these are like my family get-togethers.” The family argued politics. They laughed and danced and partied. They told eat other to “eat shit” and got in fist fights. They cried, holding each other in apologies.

Aside from the family, comedic relief also came in the form of the aforementioned madcap detective, Benoit Blanc, played by Daniel Craig. Blanc, a detective straight from Civil War era Georgia, comes into the family with new eyes but old wisdom through experience. He figures everything out within the first fifteen minutes but struggles through the details for the rest of the film in waxing monologues about baked goods that will have you rolling. He teams up with Marta, “Watson” as he calls her, to unsheathe the dagger completely, so to speak. Their chemistry together truly makes the film.

I could go on and on about the rest of the characters and their perfect imperfections, but I have to go on to why I wanted to write this post in the first place. If you want to talk characters and actors (Toni Collette though!?!?), hit me up on Instagram @amandajeanwrites and I will discuss it with you for DAYS. (Shameless plug.)

So the point, of all of this, was how I left the theatre feeling insurmountably inspired. Not only was the writing impeccable, full of details and heart and soul and emotion, rounded characters, a set beginning middle and end, but at the heart of it all was a man successful for writing dozens of mystery and thriller novels. I know that sounds wild, that I was most inspired by the character who dies at the beginning, but truly I was.

Harlan Thrombey is everything a writer aspires to. He has amazing success. He lives in the dream home. He has a mostly healthy (although ridiculous) family who loves him very much. He took them all under his wings to support them financially because his success gives him the means to help. He takes Marta in, although as his nurse at first, and befriends her and takes care of her and her family as well. And he’s able to do all of this because of his imagination.

Throughout the film, one of the police officers on the case is geeking out about the various set pieces because he’s a huge fan of Harlan’s work. I think every author wants that sort of fandom. Someday, I’d love a mansion full of brats and a stranger to come in and tell me how proud he is of my work and how honored he is to be in my home.

I don’t know, I guess that aspect of it just really filled me with joy, and it pushed me to keep moving forward. I will have that house someday. I could, you know, go without the murder part of it. Let’s leave those for the novels.

TL;DR, Knives Out was an incredible representation of the murder mystery genre, and it’s going up on my list of favorite films of all time. Rian Johnson deserves all of the awards this season, as do his cast and crew. Bravo to all.

Oh, also, thanks as always, for reading xo

Let me know in the comments if there’s a particular film that inspires you to keep pursuing your passions.

#knives out #chris evans #toni collette #rian johnson #jamie lee curtiss #don johnson #jaeden martell #katherine langford #michael shannon #daniel craig #ana de armas #lakeith stanfield #christopher plummer #writer #mystery #clue #author #authortube

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tessisawriter · 5 years

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Not Losing Me (Adrian Kempe)

Request (anonymous): Adrian Kempe #16 💜

A/N: I have no idea what the Kings’ social media people are like: I just made them that way to highlight the problem of sexism in the workplace. If you have ever experienced sexism or harassment, please know that it is not your fault and you have every right to report whoever did that to you. Lightly inspired by Gabrielle Aplin’s “Losing Me” (link here).

Warnings: Two swear words, angst, sexism, mention of catcalling & harassment

Word Count: 1.8k

Another night, another loss.

You sighed as you turned off the post-game coverage, knowing that Adrian would be home any minute now. The Kings had not been doing well recently, and your boyfriend was in a perpetually sullen mood. You didn’t want to make him feel worse than he already did.

As soon as you put down the clicker, you heard the telltale signs of keys jingling outside the door, a string of curses, and finally, the lock turning. The door burst open, and Adrian came stomping inside. There was a wild look in his eyes that you had never seen in the seven years you knew him.

“I’m so fucking sick of losing!” Adrian exclaimed, throwing his hockey bag down on the ground.

Your heart hurt for him. You stood up, walked over to him, and wrapped your arms around him in a bone-crushing hug. You whispered in his ear, “I know, babe.”

Adrian’s body tensed and he pulled away from your embrace, but you still kept your arms around him. “No, you don’t, Y/N—all you do is study, and work, and study some more! You have no idea what I’m going through!”

“I’d beg to differ,” you responded, keeping your voice calm. “We do completely different things, sure, but frustration is central to both of our jobs. When I hand in a paper that I know is subpar, I feel like a loser.”

Adrian’s eyes darkened. “Are you actually trying to compare grad school to being a professional athlete?” The venom in his voice cut through you like a knife. “Come on, Y/N, get real! I not only have to play games five times a week, but I also have to stay in perfect physical shape and put the puck in the net! Grad school is child’s play.”

The last comment made you snap. The floodgates opened, and tears started streaming down your face. “Don’t you dare tell me that what I do is child’s play!” you screamed. “I know you’ve been down lately, so I’ve tried to be as understanding as possible, but you just crossed the line!”

“Really? You’re going to throw a temper tantrum now?” Adrian’s voice was dripping with snark.

You were overwhelmed by your emotions, but “That’s it, I’m done,” was all you said as you turned away and walked into the bedroom.

You went into the closet and grabbed a blanket. It was too late at night to fight like this, and you needed time to think. You plucked Adrian’s pillow off the bed before returning to the living room, putting them on the couch, and informing him: “I think it’s best if you sleep out here tonight.”

The possessed look in Adrian’s eyes vanished immediately, and remorse replaced it. “Y/N, baby, I shouldn’t have said that, I’m so…”

“No.” A suppressed sob made your voice sound choked. “You hurt me. You really hurt me, and I need some distance from you now, so please, just stay on the couch.” Your voice was reduced to a squeak by the time you finished.

Adrian’s green eyes looked suspiciously watery, but he just nodded and grabbed the blanket, unfolded it, and laid it out on the couch while you walked back into the bedroom and closed the door, locking it before you climbed into bed and shut off the light.

***************

You drifted in and out of sleep, never able to relax enough to rest. You hated nothing more than restless nights, so you eventually gave up on sleeping and sat up in your bed.

The clock read 4:15AM, and you groaned, running a hand over your face. Your heart ached when you looked at Adrian’s empty side of the bed. How could your loving boyfriend who had done nothing but support and lift you up throughout your five-year relationship belittle you like that? His statement stung, and it kept replaying in your head, confusing you the more you thought about it.

You didn’t feel any better physically. Your eyes hurt from crying yourself to sleep, your nose was all stuffed, and your throat was scratchy. More than anything, you wanted water, so you reached over to the bedside table for where you normally kept your water bottle, but your hand only made contact with air. “Shit,” you cursed quietly. You left your water bottle in the living room.

The last thing you wanted to do was go outside, especially because you didn’t want to wake Adrian if he had managed to fall asleep, but your throat screamed for water. You compromised on leaving your water bottle in the living room and getting another one from the kitchen.

You crept over to the bedroom door and tried to make as little noise as possible while you unlocked the door. You were successful, so you slowly turned the knob and opened the door halfway. You looked through the door and saw Adrian lying on his side on the couch, facing away from the bedroom. He appeared to be asleep. Sighing, you stepped through the doorframe and tiptoed to the kitchen, where you took out a new water bottle and filled it without making too much noise. When you walked back into the living room, though, Adrian was sitting up on the couch and facing the kitchen, clearly waiting for you to come out.

“Couldn’t sleep?” Adrian asked, his voice sedate but scratchy.

You shook your head.

“Me neither,” he said.

You just stood there, staring at him. Everyone said there were two responses to potential conflict, fight or flight, but you knew there was a third option: freeze.

“Y/N? Do you want to come and sit?” Adrian asked you for the second time. You snapped out of whatever trance you were in and gingerly walked over to the couch, sitting on the opposite end from Adrian.

The silence was killing you, so you brought the water bottle to your lips and took a sip. The cool water felt like heaven, so you drank the rest of the bottle before setting it down on the coffee table.

“Feel any better?” Adrian said.

“Yeah.” You tested your voice, and it sounded clearer.

“Good.”

The silence took over the room again, but you turned to Adrian and broke it: “Why did you say what you did? I mean…” You searched for the words. “You’ve never belittled me before, and while it hurt, what really bothers me is I don’t understand where it came from.”

“I didn’t mean it, Y/N. I was frustrated with myself, so I took it out on you, but I shouldn’t have.”

“I believe you,” you replied, “But that wasn’t the question. Where would you pick up such a notion? It was sexist, and you’ve never behaved that way before: quite the contrary, actually. You always treat girls as equal, and that was why I liked you in the first place.”

“I don’t know, it’s just…” Adrian ran his hands through his hair, which told you he was lying. He knew where it came from.

“Adrian,” you said, moving a little closer to him on the couch so that you weren’t so far away but also had enough distance between you, “It’s okay: you can tell me. I won’t judge or anything.”

Adrian sighed. “You know the new guys in social media?”

You nodded, your blood already boiling. The Kings had hired a new social media team this year, and there was only one female member. The rest were boys in their early to mid 20s who were known to hit on fans and occasionally, a player’s SO. Fortunately, they didn’t try that with you, but it happened to Tyler’s wife, Cat. They were pigs.

“They’re always talking shit about girls, and they were on me today, or I guess yesterday now, about you.”

“What about me?” You asked, despite dreading his answer.

“That they forget I have a girlfriend half the time because you don’t go to a ton of games,” he admitted.

You stiffened. “You know I want to go to your games, but I can’t control the fact that my classes are all at night.”

“I understand, Y/N, I really do, and I’m so proud of everything you’re doing at your PhD program. I don’t know what came over me.”

“I do,” you said. “Those assholes knew you’ve been upset over losing a lot lately, so they took advantage of it and spread their poison.” You closed the distance between you and Adrian on the couch and put your fingers under his chin so he would be forced to look you in the eye. “But you can’t let them do that anymore, okay?”

“I won’t, I promise,” Adrian said, and you knew from the earnestness in his eyes that he was telling the truth.

“Okay, then. I forgive you.”

Adrian’s eyes widened. “You do?”

“Yeah. It wasn’t really you talking earlier. But promise me one thing.”

“Anything.”

“Tell management to fire those jerks,” you said. “Did you know that a bunch of them hit on Cat last week and were catcalling her?”

Adrian’s jaw clenched. “No, I did not know that. No wonder she’s been acting strange whenever she comes to the facility. Tyler’s been really worried about it; I have to tell him…”

“No,” you said. “I’ll call Cat in the morning and convince her to tell Tyler herself. He needs to hear it from her, Adrian.”

“You’re right. God, I’m so sorry about all this,” Adrian said as he wrapped his arms around you and hugged you tight. You returned the gesture and rested your head in the crook of his neck.

“Don’t be sorry: we’re going to handle this together tomorrow,” you replied.

Adrian released you and stood up. “That’s right: we’re a team, and I won’t forget that again. Let’s go to bed, shall we?” He extended his hand, and you took it, letting him pull you up from the couch and into bed.

After you were settled in the bed with Adrian as the big spoon, he whispered into your hair, “I was so worried I was going to lose you.”

“Because of those jackasses?” You chuckled and turned around to face him. “You’re not losing me because of them.”

Adrian smiled and kissed you on the lips. You leaned into the kiss before pulling away.

“Let’s not lose any more sleep over them, okay?”

“Amen to that,” Adrian agreed, and you turned back over so that you could resume your original position. Both of you fell asleep within five minutes, happy that your fight was over.

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thegreencircleone · 4 years

Text

A Belated 10/10 Story

The Girl from Out of Town.

((Eloni gets hit on/hits on someone.))

October 10th, 9 pm. Officially 1010’s 6th birthday.

It was between a few big events; but honestly from looking at Eloni, the green Android, one could not tell. October 10th was a big night for 1010, but it was one of Eloni’s favorite nights in general (apart from maybe new-years)... Even now he wandered to-and-fro speaking with guests, introducing himself, even pairing people off with other dancers.

A robot’s job was never truly done, but Eloni lived for this! 1010 loved to party, but Eloni in particular loved THIS party. He loved the formal wear, the excuse to get gussied up, the copious amounts of booze and alcohol, the exorbitant amount of food (though he couldn’t enjoy it). Right now he was waiting primarily for the game of croquembouche jenda- but as he did so he scanned the room for any negative or alarming emotions.

… And that is exactly what he found.

Bar.

Eloni slowly maneuvered his way in between throngs of party-goers toward the bar; his vision of the emotions causing the disturbance to his radar began to ping more completely. Anger was brewing loudly at the bar, though the cause remained a mystery. There was no fight, no arguing that he could detect; it seemed like the barely contained rage was simply stewing there on it’s own…

And then it’s source came into view.

At the bar sat a woman with vibrant yellow skin, brownish hair with streaks of medium blond curled into a loose, low, and messy bun at her neck. Her jewelry was simple and ornate, but hung close to her body aside from her sequined headband and row of pearls that hung in a knot all the way down to her navel, and her dress was an old-fashioned tabard-style dress of white and sequined gold and copper. She looked less like a party-goer, and more like a run-away or jilted bride.

She was stunning, even if you didn’t have a thing for the art-deco look… Or her pretty, pissy face as she slowly sipped whatever drink she had in that martini glass. This mystery woman also did not look like she was a typical party-guest for the 1010 crowd.

Eloni needed to intervene.

And that’s just what he was going to do.

Eloni slid up to the bar-stool right beside her. “You know;” he began with an earnest grin. “I thought the Captain turned off the time-machine before the party.”

The mystery woman stopped, looked up at him and gave him a dubious scowl. For a moment they stared at each other in mutual silence as the heartbeat of the EDM around them did some of the talking for them.

She locked eyes with her as she took a pointed sip from her glass as he started to continue.

“Hey. Name’s Elo-” but the Android stopped his sentence half-way through as he realized something much more interesting to talk about. “Oh wow. Your eyes are pretty.”

The woman continued to sip her drink, this time her brows knit in confusion. Beneath fluttering, heavily eye-lined lashes and golden eye-shadowed lids lay a set of perfectly vibrant emerald eyes- with a ring of ultra-light purple around her pupils.

Finally, she spoke. “That’s it?” she asked. “... I thought y’were some sorta robo-casanova. You pick up most skirts like this?”

Eloni was flabbergasted.

“I mean- I…” he blinked as he tried to unpack what all the heck she just said. “Oh. OH, no. I’m not- I’m not a lady-killer. That’s uh- that’d be my brother. He’s… Uh…” Eloni felt his shoulders ride up in awkward embarrassment as he gestured elsewhere. “I just… Uh. I didn’t greet you as you came in and you seemed really mad, and I thought I’d come over to… You know?”

“Shoot the shit?”

“... Help?” Eloni offered, smiling. “What are you drinking? Where are you from? You don’t sound like you’re from around here.”

From where he sat the woman’s ire retreated noticeably. She was still angry, but now she was more… Uncomfortable than angry. Well… No. Mostly angry… She just wasn’t the rage-filled time-bomb waiting to go off.

She looked back to Eloni, who by now was leaning halfway over the bar, trying his best to be suave. He thought for a moment that her anger retreated entirely-- and then the rage was back.

She let out an audible noise, crossed her legs the opposite direction from him and returned to her drink. “One; if this is your attempt to get me to say by boozin’ me up; don’t bother. It’s lemonade, sugar. Two; you just insulted my dress. Why the heck’d I’d tell ya where I’m from?”

Eloni sat up. “What? Nooo. I didn’t- I didn’t mean to insult your-” he gave her a once-over again. 1010 wasn’t really programmed to oggle fans, at least not discriminate, but Eloni still found her sense of style utterly different and definitely worth looking at. The dress, be it old-fashioned definitely fit her pretty well, and upon closer inspection it wasn’t white; but a very pale yellow. She looked and talked like a gangsters wife from some of those old mob movies.

“My eyes are up here, birthday boy.”

“Sorry!” he said on instinct.

The mystery woman turned around in her seat and finally looked at him again. “Don’t’cha have some fan to flirt with?” she asked. “Doubtless this is comfortable for you.”

Eloni smiled a little more. “Try me! My prime directive is to make sure all our fans have a good time at our birthday party!... Annnnd you seem dead-set on being pissed.”

The woman gave him a disbelieving look and crossed her arms, letting her drink sit on the counter empty. “Butter my scotch n’ call me in the mornin’, you ain’t gunna give up on this, are ya?”

“I’m programmed to make people smile!” Eloni insisted, sitting up straight and giving a little, informal salute. “Noooo frowns on my birthday!”

“Uh-huh…”

Eloni relaxed and leaned a little closer to her. “So, seriously baby. If I’m bothering you; I can always get one of my brothers. I’m not the popular one, but you say the word! All I want is a smile from you, and it’d be the best birthday gift.”

“Ppft,” the woman dismissed, but then she got a little quiet. “... No offense…” she said quietly. “... I’m flattered, but, seriously. You should go try to flirt with one of your fans, okay?” she asked. “It’s sweet you’re trying to make me feel better, but it’s not going to do much for me.”

“SiiiiSTER!” came a bombastic voice from right behind them. “Sister, I have procured the caviar and blinnies! You are correct! They are-” Eloni turned around to see a man with long, straight blond hair with stripes of green, but the strangest thing about this man was not his hair- but the goggles worn on his face.

The moment that Eloni saw the man seemed to be the moment the man saw him in return. There he stood, knees slightly bent with two plates filled with the aforementioned hors d'oeuvres on little plastic plates.

“OH. A 1010!... I will- uhh… I’ll just.”

“Zeebs, it’s fine…” the woman said, turning around and sliding off. “We were just going anyway.”

Eloni spun to follow her with his eyes. He should have just dropped it- everything in his code should have told him to stop his pursuit of this faraway, foul-mouthed, foreigner… But it was his birthday, dang it.

“You know; it’s rude to come to the party and ignore the birthday-boy!”

The pair stopped. The man with the goggles; (Zeebs wasn’t it?) turned around and let out a low and singular laugh. “It’s rude to harass a troubled woman! You don’t see her complaining!”

The woman held up her hand to her companion, then glared back at Eloni. “Well, kill me softly with his song- for an NSR goon ya don’t give up, do ya?”

Oh! That was a musical reference… Actually it was two. The comment on being an NSR goon was a bit befuddling for a moment, but figured it had been because she plainly was not from Vinyl city.

Eloni saw her irritation flare, but all he could do was smile. By now their interaction had proven to become interesting to the people around them. “1010 never surrenders,” he recited.

The two unknown party guests stopped and seemed to survey the situation. Zeebs glanced around a little more frantically than his sister whose interesting gaze settled back onto the green android after a moment. “Oh my goood… What. Do. You. WANT from me? A smile?” she asked, not at all afraid to show she was still mad. “‘Cause I’ll have y’know: I have a reason why I’m absolutely livid!”

“Sister… Ix-nay on the Ad-may…”

“Fuggit. We’re already here,” the woman said back at him. “Go on, birthday boy. What’ll it take for you to let me skip town in peace?”

Eloni stood up, stretching out to his ten foot height. “If you weren’t here for my birthday; you should have made an appointment!” he chided, watching the face of this mystery-woman’s flinch with embarrassment. “Tonight’s my night! A night to pAaRrTty~” he hummed musically. “What sort of party would it be without dancing?”

The woman paused, her face still scrunched in disbelief before she turned to her brother. “... Hold my purse,” she instructed softly, turning back to Eloni with a little stomp. “Alright, soldier-boy,” she said lifting a finger up at his face… From allllll the way down there. At least five feet down. “You get ONE. Dance. After that, and I’m gone. No ifs, ands, or buts.”

Eloni studied her emotions for a moment. She was still… Mad, but she was almost acting comically pissy. To liken it to something easier to explain- if red was anger and yellow was happiness, then her emotions teetered on a pale orange. She was just as happy to be pursued as she was angry it was him.

Eloni leaned down. “Sure, baby. I can make one dance count.”

There came a tart snort from the woman below him. “Oh,” she laughed… Then slowly her anger receded a little more. “Oh. I’m gunna fucking run you into the ground, you sentient lamp-post.”

It was a threat. It was playful. It was a challenge… It tickled him.

Eloni let out an equally incredulous laugh. “Can you even… Dance in that thing?” he asked, taking in the nearly floor-length gown.

But surprisingly the woman forced a smile, grabbed Eloni by his suit jacket and started dragging him off to the dance floor. “Quit talkin’. Move ya gams.”

Eloni let out another chuckle as he watched the woman drag him out to the dance floor. The anger was practically no longer there. Only tracings remained; but emotions didn’t necessarily just stop because you had moved on: they lingered. This stranger had some fight back in her, but it seemed she was enjoying this more than not.

“So aggressive, baby~”

The woman looked back up at him. “Don’t call me ‘baby’, sugar.”

“Don’t call me ‘sugar’, doll.”

“Don’t call me ‘doll’, either.” By the time Eloni was dragged back into the dancing fray the woman had turned around and snapped to, heels he hadn’t had the chance to see snapping to as she readied herself. “You swing, darling?”

Oh. Oh he didn’t entirely know how to respond to that.

“... I’ll take that as a-”

“I’ll match whatever you put out, ma’am,” he finally pushed out.

The woman finally seemed to regard him for a second, before shrugging, not looking at him straight in the face. “Mm. We’ll work on it,” she said, stepping close. “Ever dance with a partner?.... And I don’t suppose you can use your super robot powers to play a good swing number?”

Eloni…Wasn’t entirely sure what happened after that. All he did was look up towards the DJ booth where Subatomic was playing his fair share of music and sent in a request, message hurried and likely missing a few vowels. He didn’t care.

“... So, uh,” Eloni started. “Uh, I’m sorry. I’m not normally this brave…” he said. “Or. Uh this pushy…”

The woman cocked her hips and shimmied a bit closer. “It’s your birthday,” she excused. “... And it was kinda rude of me to stop and not say hi, at least, so. Two-fer-two, darling.”

Eloni blinked again as DJ came through- birthday boy requests were high on the chain of command. Soon the sound of electric-pumped ragtimey-toons pounded through the air… That’s when it was all a blur.

1010 was designed to dance, yeah, but new dances took a lot of concentration and coding on the part of the Droids AI. Eloni and his brothers were great with their dance routines, but sometimes their personal dancing skills were hit-or-miss… Even then Eloni liked to think his long legs would hit those swing-high kicks; but he was nothing on this woman. Sheer fabric and high-heels were competing with him faster than he had ever seen…It wasn’t a quarter into the dance that his lead was entirely taken over by her.

It was a situation he had no idea was coming; a woman half his size beating him at dancing. A HUMAN woman practically running him into the ground… It was a lot, it was an endless barrage of legs and shimmies…

It was pretty great.

Just as soon as the song had started; it had ended, Eloni was practically bent over and the mystery woman was done. Off she trotted in her high-heels to re-join her worried looking brother with a completely enraptured Eloni to follow her.

“W-wait. What’s your-” but before Eloni could finish the question or even grab her attention- he felt his hydraulic knee buckle- and land him square onto a nearby table.

Plasticware and plates flew to the floor and Eloni struggled to keep his holographic head above a pool of spilled rose and champagne. When people rushed him to see what was wrong he gazed around.

The Mystery Woman and her brother were gone.... Well. At least he made her smile!

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teaveetamer · 4 years

Text

My Issues With TFioS (and Other Elements of John Green)

Alright I’m just going to preface this with two things.

It’s been about six years since I’ve read the entire thing through, so my points are probably not going to be as detailed or precise as they were when I first read it.

If you enjoyed the book, identify with the fanbase, or like John Green in any capacity... Great! You might want to skip this one. This is definitely not the post for you. I’m going to put all of my more controversial thoughts under the cut so if you don’t want to see them you can just move on.

I brought up the book in that other post because I felt it had relevance to the discussion of “authors using characters as a mouthpiece”, but that’s only a small part of my issue with the book itself. I suppose I could have used a fanfiction example, since there’s more than enough fodder there, but I brought up The Fault in our Stars specifically because I feel comfortable criticizing a book in a way that I don’t feel comfortable criticizing fan works. John Green is a public figure that produced a paid product, made money, and does this professionally, while most fanfic authors are amateurs that provide free entertainment and just do it for fun.

Now with that said, we move on to the meat of the post.

Some Background

Perhaps this is not a little known fact, but I absolutely adore love stories. I don’t have incredibly high standards for them by any means, and in fact I actively enjoy them even when they aren’t the deepest, most thought provoking pieces. Someone got me a copy of Red, White, and Royal Blue for my birthday this year and I read the entire thing cover to cover in a day (and I seriously recommend if you’re looking for a pretty easy read with a lot of gay).

The only thing I love more than love stories? Tragic love stories, of course. If anyone has followed my fanfiction or main blog for any amount of time then you know that I love a little bit of tragedy. Usually with a happy ending, but not always. So when one of my friends shoved (and I mean literally shoved) The Fault in Our Stars into my hands and billed it as a “tragic but heartwarming love story” I thought it would be perfect for me.

I was sixteen at the time, the target age demographic, and I was always looking for books with smart, well written teen characters. At this point in my life I’d never heard of John Green or his fanbase before. I tell you this because I disliked the book as I read it, but I think John Green and his fanbase are a major factor in why I disliked it so much I’m willing to sit down and write a blog post about it six years later. Granted, that’s not all on the book, but it is a factor.

Needless to say, I was not all that impressed by it. At some points I was downright infuriated, really.

My Issues With the Book

In summary, it feels very meh and overly pretentious. After about two chapters I just wanted to put it down, and the only reason I pushed through is because my friend insisted that it got better. She said it was funny, relatable, and intelligent, but I found it to be none of these things.

The impression I got was that the author, whoever he was, fancied himself terribly clever and he wanted everyone to know it. You know the type, the kinds of people that go around and assure everyone of how smart they are? It feels like it was made for haughty teens to brag about how intelligent they were because they read a “deep” book. The book itself, despite being a surface level of “witty”, didn’t really have anything to say. In the end it reads like a thirty-something year old man bragging about how smart he is and waxing philosophical about the nature of life (and... Breakfast food..?) and using a fictional teenage girl to do it.

That’s why I brought up the “mouthpiece” thing. I didn’t want to read a book about a thirty-something dressing up his thoughts as a teenage girl. I wanted to read a book about a teenage girl.

Speaking of Hazel Grace… I don’t know if this is a common experience, but can anyone else tell when a man writes a female character? I find that I usually can. Men have a particular voice when they write, and especially when they write women. Every single page hammered me over the head with the fact that this was a man who was trying (and, in my opinion, failing miserably) to write a relatable teenage girl. And, in my opinion, he parroted a lot of very upsetting, dangerous mentalities for young women.

There were quite a few “I’m not like other girls, and not just because of the cancer!” moments (a mentality that I find wholly problematic coming from other women, let alone a man writing for a woman) that just had me rolling my eyes straight out of their sockets. She doesn’t care about shoes, see! She reads books! Isn’t that awesome and unique? Because, apparently, women are not allowed to do both.

These problematic mentalities extend into the book’s romance plot, too. Augustus is, frankly, one of the creepiest motherfuckers I’ve ever had the displeasure to read about. Not only is his aggressive creepiness portrayed as romantic, but Hazel reacts exactly how men wish women would react to their advances. Unfortunately I don’t have a copy of the book in front of me so you won’t get much in the way of direct quotes, but some examples include:

He stares at her, completely unblinking, for the duration of their cancer kids support group meeting… before they’ve even so much as spoken a word to each other. Which also features this gem of a quote: "A nonhot boy stares at you relentlessly and it is, at best, awkward and, at worst, a form of assault. But a hot boy . . . well." which just perpetuates the disgusting misconception that women are okay with being creeped on as long as a guy is attractive. Spoiler alert: We fucking aren’t.

He repeatedly refers to Hazel as “Hazel Grace”, despite her introducing herself as “Hazel” and asking him to just call her “Hazel”. And not only does he ask for her full name, he demands she give it to him. This rings all kinds of alarm bells for me, because you know who else does that kind of shit? Christian Grey. And it’s manipulative, disrespectful, and downright rude. It is essentially saying “I hear your desires, but I would prefer to address you how I want to address you, not how you would like to be addressed, because my ego is more important than your comfort”.

Hazel is perfectly fine with getting into a complete stranger’s car and spending time at his house mere minutes after meeting with him and after all of the questionable shit he just pulled.

Continuing this book’s litany of problems with women, let’s talk about Isaac’s (ex)girlfriend. The book treats their breakup as this massive betrayal, then even goes on to justify vandalizing her property because of it.

I’m sorry, but no.

You, as an autonomous human being, have the right to end a relationship with someone else whenever, wherever, and for whatever reasons you designate, regardless of previously expressed emotions or promises. How and when she did it was not the most ideal, but she’s an emotionally immature teenager, and there’s never going to be a good time to do something like this. What was she supposed to do, keep pity dating him because she felt sorry for him? Wait until someone invented technology to cure blindness? Assuming she did actually break up with him because of his disability… Are her reasons shitty? Sure. But she’s allowed to have them.

And you know what? He’s allowed to be mad about it. His anger might be completely understandable, if not totally justified. But you know what else? That does not give him the right to take revenge on her by vandalizing her property.

I would have no problem with this scene if it were honest about what it was: a bunch of teenagers with under-developed frontal lobes that are angry and feeling vindictive. But it’s not that. It’s depicted as not only completely justified, but heroic. I’m sorry, no. You are never heroic for harassing another human being.

And Augustus’s dumb little speech to her mom is such garbage. You really expect me to believe that a grown woman was so pwned by some jerk teenager’s super witty justification for destroying her property that she just went inside and, idk, watched TV? Didn’t call the police to report the crime that he and his friends were actively committing against her? Bullshit.

Speaking of bullshit, that scene is pretty egregious, but that doesn’t even begin to cover my issues with this book’s pretentious dialogue. If you told me that they ran every word in this book through Thesaurus.com then I would believe you without hesitation. The one hook, the draw, the thing that kept me reading was supposed to be the relatable characters, but they just aren’t relatable. They’re not realistic in the slightest. Seriously, go read any line of this book out loud and tell me how ridiculous you feel. I kept expecting Augustus to pull off his skinsuit and reveal that he was secretly a robot trying to imitate human speech the entire time.

I’m not sure how far I can go into this point without giving you direct quotes, but half the stuff that comes out of these characters mouths is pseudo-intellectual nonsense. “Put the killing thing between your teeth so it can’t kill you”?

It’s not a metaphor.

Putting an unlit cigarette in your mouth is still stupid. I guess it won’t give you lung cancer, but really? It’s still not a great idea.

Augustus has to go buy these cigarettes, which means he’s actively going out and giving money to an industry that has been funding pseudoscience and suppressing health initiatives that would prevent people from suffering what he did (i.e. fucking cancer).

Here’s a clue: Tobacco companies don’t actually care about what you do with the cigarettes. Their transaction stops as soon as you put the money in their hands. I could purchase a hundred packs and throw them in the garbage, and the only thing they know is that they got about $600 from me. Way to “stick it to the man”, asshole. You’re not clever.

With the exception of the Isaac’s-girlfriend thing, all of that is in chapters 1-4, by the way. This book turned me off so thoroughly that early.

So by the time the Amsterdam trip rolled around I was already not enjoying this book, but then this thing happened and it was just the final nail in the coffin for me. You probably know what I’m talking about already, but if you don’t… The Anne Frank Museum kiss.

I honestly cannot even articulate how incredibly tasteless and disrespectful I find the entire thing, and not only does that happen, but it’s followed by an r/ThatHappened “and then everybody stood up and clapped!” Seriously?

There are smarter, more well-versed people than me that have covered this topic, so I’ll leave the analysis for why that’s all kinds of wrong to them.

Those are really my big gripes, though there’s a few smaller ones (like Augustus throwing a pre-funeral like are you a psychopath? Why would you put the people you love through that???) that I’m not going to touch on because they weren’t all that instrumental in putting me off. Instead I’ll move on to the external factors.

The Fanbase

So I finished the book, a little miffed at having just wasted my time, and immediately told my friend that I didn’t like it much, and that I would be returning her copy the next day. Feeling pretty meh-to-slightly-negative about it, but whatever, it happens.

I was essentially met with “wow I can’t believe you didn’t get it.” and “Oh well maybe you’ll finally understand how deep it is when you’re older” from my friend. Which is really just one step away from the wow can’t you read?! BS that I’ve been seeing more and more frequently these days. So immediately I was pissed. All that aside, I was sixteen, the target age demographic? If I didn’t ‘get it’ then John Green was doing a pretty piss poor job of conveying what it is.

So I went online seeking something. Either validation that I wasn’t wrong and that I didn’t miss the point, the book just wasn’t great, or an explanation of what this it was that I’d missed. And let me tell you... Spotting a negative opinion of this book was like looking for a unicorn. There were a few, and many of them were met with the same kind of thing I had experienced. Vitriol, insistence that they were stupid or that they didn’t get it (again, with no explanation of what it was), and, apparently, a lot of harassment and threats.

I discovered that John Green’s target audience had a tendency to be… A bit obsessive. Lots of young, impressionable teenagers that were willing to jump on an opposing opinion with zealous outrage. If I had any interest in pursuing any of John Green’s other works or John Green as an internet personality any further, then it died in that moment. Absolutely nothing turns me off like a rabid, spiteful fanbase.

Now by this point I was already in the rabbit hole, and I began encountering a lot of criticisms of John Green and the things he’s said and done in the past. I did not like what I found.

John Green Himself

To be extremely blunt, the guy put such a bad taste in my mouth that it retroactively soured my opinion of The Fault in Our Stars even more. Since this is a post about my opinions on the book, I’m only going to be discussing things that affected my view at the time I read it. These are all things that happened six years ago, and I have no idea what this man has been up to or what he’s said about any of these topics since.

Let’s just get this out of the way… John Green writes the same book over and over. There’s always a quirky, nerdy white boy that is invariably cisgendered, and almost always straight. He is always an outcast with only a few friends, though apparently never directly bullied. He always meets an edgy girl that he falls in love with the idea of. Usually there is a road trip somewhere in there too.

The Fault in our Stars admittedly doesn’t follow the exact same framework, but it’s close enough in a lot of ways. Instead of the Quirky, Too-Smart-For-His-Own-Good cisboi being the PoV character, it’s the love interest (Hazel also fits this description, albeit a female version). Hazel and Augustus are both still outcasts. Hazel is attracted to Augustus because he’s Deep and Edgy and A Little Larger Than Life. The road trip is a flight to Amsterdam.

Looking at the man... Yeah the entire premise starts to come off as some weird self-insert fanfiction. I can feel the “I was a quirky, bullied teen and I wish this is how my high school life had been!” energy coming through absolutely every pore and every molecule of ink. Every character reads like John Green. John Green has written book after book and the main character always appears to be John Green in a slightly different teenage skinsuit.

And that’s fine, I guess. A little lazy, but I guess it’s working for him since he’s making hella bank? It’s certainly not enough to put me off the guy, just not something I’m interested in reading, and not something I find compelling.

What put me off for good were some of his comments. Dude skeeves me the fuck out. I’ll just go over some of the highlights I found at the time, and why they upset me so much when I heard them.

“Nerd girls are the world's most underutilized romantic resource.”

As a nerdy girl that has been stalked and harassed by men because I’m “good girlfriend material” (aka I like video games and traditionally masculine stuff and I’m pretty! I must be a unicorn!), this statement is disgusting.

I don’t care if it was a joke. I don’t care if he wasn’t being serious. This is the kind of shit that men think is a compliment because they think it makes “quirky” girls feel “unique” and “special”, but that “complement” is also an insult. You know why? Because it makes female interests all about how men perceive their sexual or romantic viability.

John Green’s penchant for writing “special” and “unique” girls (while simultaneously shaming “typical” girls, but I’ll get to that in the next point) and depicting them as the ideal woman just reaffirms my feelings about this quote. I think, on some level, John Green has no idea why this is such a bad take. And that’s not even getting into the fact that he called human beings resources. Women are not objects that exist to be a plot device or for your gratification. Fuck right off with that shit.

“She was incredibly hot, in that popular-girl-with-bleached-teeth-and-anorexia kind of way, which was Colin’s least favourite way of being hot”

This is just one quote of many that shames people with eating disorders and weight problems (on both ends of the spectrum, “too fat” and “too skinny”. Another fun one being: “there’s the weird culturally-constructed definition of hot, which means ‘that individual is malnourished, and has probably had plastic bags inserted into her breasts.’")

Know what this line is? It’s called “negging”, and it’s a popular tactic of incels because it works. You make someone seek your approval by intentionally giving them backhanded compliments to undermine their self esteem. The idea is that the more you insult them, the harder they’ll work to try and impress you. It doesn’t work on everyone, but you know who it does tend to work on? Insecure younger people (usually girls). You know who John Green’s target audience is? Insecure teenage girls.

As for the actual substance of the quote… I hate it. He’s shaming a woman for the choices she makes over her appearance. Which are, fun fact, none of his damn business. Also the idea that “skinny” and “anorexic” somehow need to go hand in hand is just wrong, insulting women for a mental health disorder they have no control over is offensive, and using a serious mental health disorder (did you know that anorexia is the most deadly mental health condition?) as an insult is disgusting.

Coming back to my earlier point about shaming “normal” girls, this quote is just the tip of the iceberg. He repeatedly shames women in his books for looking or behaving “typically”, while quirky girls are lauded as the ideal. Quirky girls are “weird and interesting” and normal girls are “boring”. If this was intended as a compliment, it’s a shitty one. If you have to shame one group to make another feel better, it is not a compliment. You are lowering all women when you pull that shit. You teach them that in order to feel good about themselves another group has to be made to feel worse.

And hey, maybe the pretty girl likes her teeth bleached because it makes her feel confident? Why can’t bleached teeth girl and anime t-shirt girl both be beautiful and unique and confident in their own right? Why is it “powerful” for anime t-shirt girl to wear her nerdy clothes, but scorn-worthy for bleached teeth girl to like bleaching her teeth?

What John Green is doing is simply replacing one ideal (skinny pretty girl) with another (quirky cute girl), and then he pretends like his version is somehow “woke” because it’s not based on physical appearance (though all of the women in his books are also physically attractive. Hmmm. Guess “nerd girls” are only “viable resources” when they aren’t hard to look at?).

And trust me, I’ve been down this path. I’ve been taken in by guys who try to make me feel ~special~ by putting down other women, and it leads to absolutely nothing good. It doesn’t make you feel better. It just makes you feel angry and resentful, and that’s not a place you want to be in. In fact, this was a mentality I had recently escaped from around the time I picked up this book. Seeing someone with as much influence as John Green parroting this specific brand of toxic shit to exactly the audience that would be most likely to feed into it? I was never going to be able to like the guy, sorry.

I know some people are able to “separate the art from the artist”, and I might have been willing to do that had the book actually been good… but it wasn’t. So in the end the book just looked worse for all of the author’s shortcomings.

So yeah, in summary: The book was mediocre at best, the author pushed all of my angry feminist buttons, and elements of the fanbase were annoying, condescending, and spiteful. I didn’t like the book in the first place due to the myriad of problems plaguing it, but everything else just made it look so much worse in hindsight.

Anyways, this probably got kind of ranty, but it was cathartic and I did make this blog to vent about dumb stuff. I think this qualifies.

#Personal stuff #TFioS Opinion Piece #Sorry it took so long #I had a lot to say #A little ranty

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mendespideys · 5 years

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fans ⎮t.h.

pairing: reader x best friend!tom holland

warnings: mention of sexual harassment, swearing

a/n: wrote this shitty piece because of this post.

i know 99% of us are not like this, but please respect tom and his family. yes, he chose to be an actor and fame comes with the job, but sexual and other kinds of harassment do not. be courteous!!

might delete this later but this is how i coped with my anger over certain “fans”

Anger boils within your veins as you watch the video playing on your phone. The Instagram video loops, but you’ve had enough. Closing the app, you return to the active FaceTime call with Tom. Your best friend is looking into the camera expectantly, fully aware that you would have an opinion. While wracking your brain for the best possible way to express this opinion, you readjust yourself on the couch. After countless attempts to formulate your thoughts into words, you’re finally able to respond.

“Tom, I’m sorry,” you offer pathetically, unable to do anything but offer consoling words. “That’s fucked.”

Tom shrugs, “Yeah, I guess. Comes with the job, though, I guess.”

While scrolling on Twitter, you had seen Tom’s name popping up a lot more frequently than usual. You had followed a few fan pages a while ago, and although it had mostly been for fun, they sure did keep you updated. Seeing numerous tweets about Tom and a girl in Mexico, you decided to call your best friend to receive information directly from the source. After the regular greetings and brief catching up, you had asked about the almost-trending topic. Tom had made a face at the question but had DMed you the video over Instagram.

“No, it doesn’t. Tom, you don’t have to pretend like shit like this doesn’t happen, yunno?”

“Yeah, I know,” he dismisses your words, shrugging. “I just- They’re my fans.”

“I get that and I know you how much you love them. Hell, I love them, too, but it’s not okay for them to grope you and shit. That’s sexual harassment.”

You watch Tom wince at the term, gnawing at his bottom lip. He leans back into the chair he’s sitting in, and you assume he has his phone propped up against something. The love Tom had for his fans was pure and admirable; he’d do almost everything for them and everybody around him knew that. You had grown to love them, too, even mingling with the Marvel fandom online occasionally. When Tom broke the news of being cast as Spider-Man for Civil War, you had been so incredibly proud of him. Neither of you had anticipated him to grow as much and as quickly as he had, but you knew he wouldn’t change it for the world.

“I wouldn’t exactly-” Tom begins to protest, defending his fans once again.

“But it is,” you interrupt, fully determined to knock some sense into your best friend. “There is a difference between loving a celebrity and respecting their privacy, and loving a celebrity and doing everything and anything to be near them. Your fans are amazing, but some of them are fucking crazy and you don’t deserve that.”

“Guess so,” Tom mumbles, leaning forward to grab his phone. He holds the phone comically close to his face as he leans back into the chair.

“Holland, you know I love your face, but that is awfully close. I can basically see your fucking boogers,” you joke, and Tom cracks a smile, moving the phone a little farther away. Mission accomplished. “If you fly me out, I’ll be your personal bodyguard and fight the next person trying shit like that.”

Tom snorts, a throaty laugh escaping him. His FaceTime video shakes as he laughs and you don’t bother to contain your smile. Tom was one of the most hardworking, honest, and ethical people you knew, and he deserved to be happy. It was no secret that his laugh was one of your favorite sounds in the world, and you would always try your best to get at least a chuckle out of him. Smiling sadly at him through the camera, the two of you fall silent momentarily, not sure of what to say. It isn’t an awkward silence; it’s just a silence to enjoy each other’s company. Well, virtually anyway.

“What would I do with you?” Tom asks rhetorically, his lips curving into a lopsided grin. “Miss you, Y/N.”

“I miss you, too,” you admit, sighing deeply when you realize you still have three or four weeks until you can see each other again. “You’ll be home soon and then I’m gonna kick your ass in beer pong!”

“Bitch, please,” he chuckles, dragging out the last letter of the word. “We all know I’m the reigning champion.”

“Yeah because you cheated!” you snap, your arms animating for emphasis. There’s a sound of a door in the background and Tom’s eyes dart to something behind the phone that you can’t see. A moment later, he’s looking back into the camera, a sad smile adorning his features. “Duty calls?”

“Afraid so,” Tom confirms, wrinkling his nose in dismay. “I’d rather sit here and FaceTime you for another hour.”

“Oof, you’re making me blush, Holland. You know how many girls would kill to be me?”

It’s meant as a joke, but you both know that it’s probably not too far from the truth. You had received your fair share of hate comments and death threat DMs, none of which you bothered to reply to. Tom had been infuriated when you had mentioned it, immediately typing up a tweet to his fans, but you had quickly convinced him to leave the subject be. Although the comments were absolutely uncalled for and incredibly insensitive, you could also kind of understand where they were coming from. Kind of. After all, Tom was a really handsome guy with a funny sense of humor, and he always showed his soft side in interviews. The girls sending hate were in love with the idea of being with Tom, and that was understandable. He is a pretty great guy.

“Unfortunately too many,” he replies, holding the phone out farther as he stretched loudly. “Look, I gotta go. I have a press thing in an hour. We’ll talk soon though, yeah?”

You nod. “Of course. Let me know if someone else tries anything and I will personally hunt them down and kick their ass, okay? Know your worth. Love you, Tommy.”

“Love you, too, Y/N. See ya later.”

And with that, the FaceTime call is over. You make a mental image of his newly cut hair and how cuddly he had looked in his forest green hoodie. Your heart aches, knowing you still have a while until you get to hug your best friend again, but the wait would definitely be worth it. Sighing, you lean forward and grab your phone, easily navigating back to Instagram. Tapping your account name, you click the undercover Marvel account connected to your phone, ready to share a piece of your mind with some rather nasty comments. Tom deserved better and you were ready to let everybody know.

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popculturebuffet · 4 years

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Toons For Our Times: The Loud House: Strife of The Party/ Kernel of Truth

Lana plans her and Lola’s party with copius amonts of dirt and garabage while Lola tries sabotaging it and I struggle to figure out which one we’re supposed to be rooting for exactly. Meanwhile Lincoln and Co find an abandoned news room and attempt to start their own news show with the immediate threat of cancelation hanging over their heads. You know like most shows on nick. Also Rusty gets hurt a lot which automatically makes this a winner. News Team Assemble, under the cut.

Well this week was a mixed bag.. which granted could apply to this week as a whole but I meant it specifically for this episodes. Like last week one of them is a true classic that uses the series new status quo to create something intresting, and the other... is the worst episode i’ve reviwed so far. Yes not even one week and the show managed to go from having a boring episode to having a truly odious one. Both metaphorcially and literally as there’s a lot of grossout gags this time around. And unfortuantely since i’ts first in the pairing and the airing, I have to talk about it first. Pitter Patter, let’s get this over with.

Strife of the Party I”m not exaggerating either. I admit I was hard on Schooled! and Family Bonding, but the former sitll had some good content and the latter was .. well it’s still a boring lazy retread with a bonkers ending, but I admitted to having seen worse. But “I’ve seen worse” is never the best defense. I’ll admit usually I avoided the worse episodes of the loud house. I haven’t seen some of the more infamous episodes of the show like “No Such Luck” or “Kings of the Con”.. because as just a viewer I could skip an episode if it sounded like toilet dinner. Sure i’ve still ran into them: “Study Muffin” was just eh when it aired but now both post me too and post chris savino being rightfully fired for being a harassing dickweasel thanks to said movement, it’s realy fucking creepy, has Lori at her worst (Actively trying to cheat on bobby), and .. I have no third thing. All we really got out of it was Lynn Sr’s obsession with the British. And “The Green House”’s reputation proceeds it and there’s a reason I couldn’t finish it. Point is i’ve been lucky to only step in a few cowpies in the field of this show, and now i’m watching it as it comes out i’m accepting the hard truth that with the show’s hit and miss quality, i’m going to have to go panning in shit creek some weeks if I want to find the nuggets of gold. Now I will grant this episode doesn’t sound NEARLY as bad as “No Such Luck”.. but as opus would say....

Exactly my Pengy pal. Again not being worse than the worst episode of the show, still dosen’t make you a good episode. It just makes you marginally less terrible. It’s like saying Creed isn’t as bad as Nickelback. While tha’ts true they both still sound terrible, it’s just playing Creed isn’t a warcrime in some countries. And yes I just compared two episodes of a children’s show to bands my audience thankfully likely weren’t aware ever existed, I don’t care. If you haven’t left my blog running and screaming your either new here or tolerate me being an obscure weirdo.

Before we get in proper, I haven’t covered the twins yet so let’s do that quick. I haven’t really watched a ton of Lola and Lana’s episodes, their not bad characters htey just don’t intrest me much as i’ve seen their gimmicks a lot, but I will say lola’s slightly better and I will say I like Lana more when she’s doing animal antics instead of grossout. Not terirble characters and their acted well, just not my cup of tea is all. Okay enough stalling , pitter patter!

We open with Lola planning the twins upcoming birthday and talking to her stuffed animals which is cute and all.. before a POSSUM CHESTBURSTS OUT OF LOLA’S UNICORN DOLL.

The.. the fuck. Look i’m all for scaring the crap out of kids in children’s entertainment. I loved Courage the Cowardly dog as a kid and as a grown ass man writing about children’s entertainment. I love the lich from adventure time, i’m okay with scaring kids. But this is just.. a bit too realistic. Yes really. While doll that size probably can’t fit a possum it could sure fit something else and i’ve seen stuffed animals big enough for a posssum, so yeah.. this could actually happen to one of my nieces and that thought terrifies me. It happening to me also terrifies me but I’m a grown man not a small child who’d be scarred for life. Christ. The episode does get better, for a second I didn’t bitch for a few paragraphs for nothing. Lana comes in, claims the demon possum, and tells Lola she’ll fix the doll. Uh Lana i’m not sure she wants it back.. you’d be better off burning it and setting the possum free in a republican center’s home where it belongs.

Anyways Lana has a good point, Lola’s been plannig their parties ‘since before they were born”.. literally as the image above shows which is just.. fucking amazing. I cannot belivie they got to go there and it’s glorious they did. I can’t think of many, if any, other chlidren’s cartoons that showed a fetus on screen so kudos.

But yeah that was the one good moment of the episode. Next our twins go to a party suply store where Lola, clearly knowing the host well because these kids have connections, has her stash all the poop colored stuff away... which backfires as lana instead goes to the garbage for party favors and decorations. It fails to get better: Next they go to a bakery where Lana makes her own literal garbage cake and then go to flips for entertainment i.e. a bull. NOw i’ll grant both stops have good bits: The cake store guy asks if Lana’s a cop when she asks for grime and Flip has them sign a waver for the bull. And the bull being lana’s idea of entertainment makes sense.. but overal it just comes off as gross and mean spirited. I mean yes Lola’s about to do some terrible stuff herself and yes Lola ouvershadowed lana.. but she dosen’t deserve this abuse and none of this is healthy or tolerbale for.. well anyone, and could get the Loud Parents in serious trouble, which also leaves the obvious plot hole of “why don’t they step in in either situation. “

The episode would’ve made more snese if Lana went to them to get them to let her host the party and their guilt over letting Lola always do it means they don't’ reign her in despite wanting to. Instead their just.. there at the end for a great bit we’ll get to. It’s always the bad episodes that paint the loud parents as terrible parents honestly. No Suck Luck had them cast their son out into the cold over nonsense, On Thin Ice had Lynn Sr decide forcing his children to embarass themselves was more important than teaching one of them that maybe sometimes you don’t always get to force your family to obey your whims for dumb reasons, and the april fools eps have Lynn Sr so terrified of pranking retribution instead of you know.. GROUNDING Luann for going full joker on their asses. IN most episodes their kind and reasonable but it’s always the bad ones where they instead make Homer Simpson look like a good parent.

But yeah my rant aside the episode COULD work if Lola, encouraged by one of her other siblings, Luann would be a good bet as she could easily slide into the party setting when appropriate without being too distracting, realizes she’s been selfish and tries to hold her tounge for lana’s sake. Maybe then she tries sabotage.. or better she DOSEN’T, but both of them realize something; Lola realizes she’s been doing this to lana their whole lives by forcing her into a party she doesn’t like so LOLA can be happy while Lana realizes she’s being no better. Hell even if Lola did complain, which is in character, this plot woudl still work. instead.. Lana is just as bad as Lola while Lola is still pretty terrible. See the big problem is that NEITHER girl is likeable. As I’ve made clear Lana pushes a gross, dangerous party on her sister she clearly doesn’t like, and Lola, instead of trying tot alk to her parents or get Lana to tone it down.. tries to guide her to what she wants, then when that fails sabotages the party, makes it so Lana has nothing and gets her party. Both sides are being really bad, but instead of them realizing this, lana is treated as the one we should be sympathetic to when she gets mad when she finds out about Lola even though NEITHER of them are sympathetic or likeable and deserve to win 100%. But Lana does, lana gets her way, Lola apologizes and hte paradigm just shifts from one sibling being unhappy to another. We do get that one gag I talked about where when lola goes to make things right she has Lynn Sr stall and he pulls out a cowbell “You thought I wasn’t going to need this”. No bud, Rita HOPE you wouldn’t need this. There’s a difference. Thank god it’s the end.

Final Thoughts for Strife of the Party: They should be obvious but to be clear this is hippo excrement. i’ts not funny, it makes both it’s leads look bad, the parents look worse by inaction and just isn’t pleasant ot watch. I do GET the show has a young audience, and they like grossout, I get i’m not the target demographic, so I probably would just be okay with a good version of this episode.. but even with that in mind both twins come off so unlikeable it’s just not fun to watch or to see Lana win as she didn’t feel like she earned it. It’s bad and it should feel bad, and i’ts the first truly odious episode i’ve had for weekly coverage. I’ve had okay or eh ones, but this one is truly bad and belongs in the pantheon of bad loud house episodes.. or at least in the honrable mentions. Good gravy this blew.

Kernel of Truth

Okay now we’ve panned the gold nugget out of the crap creek, we can get on with the GOOD episode this week. I was excited for this one.. I was excited for both actually, even not being a huge fan of the twins I liked the idea of a loud birthday but as we just saw,.. didn’t work out so good. But this one while I thought it would just be average, promised another lincrew shenanigan and I like most of those i’ve seen, and plus I knew it’d allow me to refrence anchorman a bunch so i was llike :Fuck it let’s go”.. and this one ended up being REALLY damn good and probably one of the best episodes with this group i’ve seen, right up there with “Be Stella My Heart.” I’ts good stuff. But before we get into it you probably noticed my ranting about girl jordan but turns out, while I haven’t watched that episode, she’s in the sand field trip episode from last season hanging out with stella so I have an answer to if they forgot abotu her, they didn’t they just need to use her more, and a new ship so i’m satisfied and I apologize for bitching about it. Next time i’ll just check the wiki and see before I bitch about something. ON with the review.

We open with our motely crew searching for a hidden Game Room rusty’s cousin claims exists, with Stellas as lookout and the guys.. er all in stacks that make it look like their doing a team up move from donkey kong country 2?

I mean I have been playing the game a lot since it came to switch online, seriously if you have the service go play it, but i’m not hte only one seeing this right? Right. So yeah the kid stack fails and Zach doubts Rusty’s story.. because when has rusty ever been right.. well apparently just this one time, but we’ll get to that. They even checked the boiler room.

And then promptly vowed never to go back to the boiler room while Principal RAmierz just sighed at having to deal with a freddy kruger infestation again. They loose more children that way and the school board JUST got him out of the high school. Liam also gets the line of the episodes when he calls the group “Fellas and Stellas” Which is just objectively amazing and needs to be used every time this group appares from now o. Luckily= Stella noticed another closed door, this one taped off instead of just with a keep out sign and the Fellas and Stellas make their way inside and find themselves in.. a news room! But it’s nto a fox news room so it actually had news in it once and not Tucker Carlson, the answer to what happens to an 80′s or 90′s yuppie scumbag villian after they fail to get the orphange paved over for condos

Anyway, our heroes alll ohhh and all while Zach thinks this is where children are harvested. Nah Zach they just call them up on the pa system.

So everyone does what’s natural to them: Zach and Liam inspect the cameras, Stella looks at the old mic because she’s a natural for being an on camera personality and Rusty.. oggles an old group shot of the news team. You know I may not hate him with the hatred of a hundred suns, but he’s still objectively the worst. Zach gets mad at him over it because “That’s my mom”. Rusty defends himself by calling her hot and while th. no please god no dont’ talk about women like that you creepy little weatherbeaten Chucky doll that somehow became a real boy, or had dustin diamond transfer his soul into it befrore he died. Either is possible. The point is Ewww. The other point is while Rusty’s being his usual living proof of while he’ll die alone Zach has no right to get upset , AT FIRST because how the hell would Rusty know that’s hsi mom. You two have the combined braincell of a dead feret. Stella is the only one out of all 6 of you evenmy boy liam who has more than one brain cell. This argument is stupid and I hate you both, just settle things in the most humane way possible.. or at least THIS is what I consider the most humane way possible.

So while those two are being as stupid as expected, Lincoln suggets fixing the place and becoming the new school news crew. I mean they’d need new equipment since even if the stuff there still works’ it’s all worn out 80′s tech none of you know how to use but given their seen with a modern camera later int he episode, I assume they just sold this off and got new cameras. Even if the show flopped, more on that in a minute, the principal could still use those for other projects so it’s a win win. Stella Zhau agrees.. and FINALLY has a last name. Like holy shit i’ve been waiting a full season for this and it feels like that bit was JUST to give her a last name. Now they just need to do Liam but still, I needed this one more. Plus it also means we can now firmly say she’s chinese. Neat!

So after that blockbuster reveal Stella wonders where Rusty is, because fuck if I know, and they all find him continuing to oggle zach’s mom at their age....

Zach snatches it away and crumples up understandably annoyed. Rusty’s response is about what you’d expect.

So once Liam’s done throwing that calender into the school furnace, and saying hi to freddy as he passes the boiler on the way, our team heads to the principal to plead their case. They run into Meryl, the identical in personality, plot function and apperance outside of wearing pink instead of yellow to Cheryl, the receptionest at the elementary school who I really liked and it’s a clever way to keep the character at both schools and pays off the runnig gag of Cheryl asking liincoln or clyde who looks better her or her sister by having said sister show up and ask the same. Good stuff.

Meryl ends up agreeing to let them go see the wizard, I mean Principal Rameriz, because her soap is on. Also clyde’s a fan to his friends blank stares. Come on guys he watches romance movies, of course he’s going to love drama shows, even the non teen ones. I now imagine he joins the loud sisters on their riverdale nights. Riverdale the clusterfuck that has something for all of them: Teen drama and shirtless hunks for Lori and Leni, Music and scantly clad “teens’ of both genders and neither gender for Luna, something to laugh at for Luann who probably loves mst3king stuff, and violence for Lucy.. dosen’t seem like it’d be Lynn’s thing honestly but I rest my case. Also the rest of the sisters are too young but the parents figure Lucy’s desentised enough to violence and blind enough to sex to make an exception.

Now that fun headcanons out of the way our heroes pitch the principal whose skeptical, as the 80′s news show ended because it was boring, much like why that 80′s show ended. That and it was a bunch of 80′s pop culture refrences strung together. I do have a minor nitpick that it seems odd a school room would be in disuse for this long, but given the Principal has apparently spent years looking for aformetioned game room as we find out in the end, the school blueprints are apparnelty lost to the ages or if they exist are some sort of ancient treasure map buried beneath the school drawn in blood by an old witch. I mean this universe has cherry hating peach loving spies now, i’ not ruling anything out.

But our heroes beg them: Clyde has journalism experince on the school paper, Stella has the dedication and heart and Rusty .. thinks people need to see his face on camera. Rusty as far as we know your face functions like the vdieo from the ring and everyone in school is going to die 7 days after seeing it on film. That’s my theroy and i’m sticking to it. Thankfully everyone else is just as annoyed with him as me for once, and we get the glorious shot above of everyone just looking.. done with his antics and wondering why they keep him around. Finally for once I agree iwth the characters on something rusty related. Let’s show that agian.

Poetry. You can just feel the levels of “So done with this crap” seeping from every poor.. except for Poor Lincoln who just wishes his best friends and rusty woudl stop using him as furniture, and Liam whose covered but probably very much on team “Rusty Stop Being Yourself your blowing this for us”. They even have an action news pose.. which is botha dorable and breaks the principal’s bust of herself, so she relucntantly agrees to get them out of there. Plus as I said there’s really no loss for her here. If their sucessful the school gets a new elective, something to put on the tv’s every morning, a way to do announcments so she dosen’t have to, and free good publicity for her next bonus. If not.. then she has somehwere to store her new cameras she can use for other stuff, and come up with something else to do with the media lab. Either way she wins. Plus iwth phones and stuff noawaydays they only need the one new camera. Okay before we move on confession time: I was on a school tv news show’s crew myself. Not in middle school, we werne’te that lucky but in high school we had video media, an elective where seniors edited news segments and what not for the school’s WhamTV program. I hope i’ts still around honestly. I started on a field crew doing stories but my awkardenss and a blow up at my partner where my awkward rage prone ass threatned him by accident, got me bumped to doing credits.. which I genuinely loved. I got to something fun, creative and unique, I was still part of hte intros every week, and I got plenty of time to goof off and watch videos. It’s how I found channel awesome and first got to watch atop the fourth wall since it wasn’t on youtube back then, back before you know, it turned out Doug was abusing all of them and younger me was just unaware of it. But it was still good times so this episode does feel a bit nostalgic for me. But enough teary eyed reminciings of ten years ago, back to the plot. Our heroes air their newscast. It’s the Middle School Action News with with your Anchors Lincoln Loud and Clyde McBride, Stella Zhao in the field, Rusty Spokes on Sports for.. some reason, Cameraman Liam Wedon’tknowhislastname and Zach Gurdle somewhere out of the way. Middle School Action News, always on, always free.. no wiat tha’ts pluto. Middle School Action News, Taste the rainbow. Middle School Action News.. The Good Guys Always Win, Even in The 80′s. Yeah that’ll do!

But yeah while our heroes try their best, and to their credit this does feel like a middle school news show. The writers not our heroes. Anyways Lincoln and Clyde banter and we get our first segment Stella trying to interview mr. Bohlmer about his birthday.. which goes about as well as doing anything for him on ron swansons’ birthday.

Next we have Rusty on sports.. which I questioned when I first say this but as obonxious as Rusty can be.. yeah this is the best place to have him. Stella has the drive and the talent to be their field reporter, Clyde and Lincoln have a lifelong report that does well for the desk, Liam is nice and patient enough for camera work, and Zach is a paranoid weirdo so he probably has experince editing since thats where I assume where he is since htey ddon’t do weather and even if they did Liam’s just not the right shade of oblivoiusly nuts.

I do however at least get why they keep him around as Rusty needs someone to get fed up with him.. but as the above moment showed Clyde and Stella can do that easily, as can Lincoln, so he really has no functional purpose other than as a B-Grade dale gribble. ANd I know kids don’t know who that is but they frankly deserve better. Seriously Zach...

Okay getting back to the segement. For starters Rusty does a breath spray first.. but suprisingly despite interviewing a lady, specifically Lynn, he DOSEN’T hit on her and is actually professional and manages to get a quote despite her disintrest. LIke I know it’s the bare minimum but you’ve met rusty right? the Bare Minimum is hard for him to grasp. Earlier this episode he was oggling old pictures of his friends mom and saying he should take it as a compliment which, Hard No. So the fact hours later he’s talking to a woman without radiating creep after that is an achivment. For him and him alone mind you, most kids should know better. But still I may be hard on the kid, because DAMN is it fun and damn if he dosen’t give me plenty of joke fodder, but I will give him credit even if it’s the bare minmum. Good job rust you passed the very basic plateau of human decency.

Stella wraps things up with a look at the cafteria that’s about what you’d expect from a kids cartoon, shoe int he beans etc. Unfortuantley bean shoes, sportz and angry assholes aren’t enough to float the show and the principal is ready to can it. On hte bright side they have their first lawsuit from Mr. Bohlmer. I mean John Olvier idnd’t start getting sued by dickheads with no real case till he was 30, nicely done kids. And it’s not even why, it’s just boring and the kids aren’t enjoying it. So Stella, being again the one with her own brain cells here, proposes to let them find a big story, and Ramirez reluctantly but graciously agrees. And that’s why I like her so far. Don’t get me wrong having Steven Tobolowsky as principal was great, but I like Rameriz better: she’s smart, weary of the crap she puts up with and tough but fair.. which is a cliche btu fits here: She’ll be honest with her kids but will give them an honest chance and sees our news team really doees want this bad and her giving htem one more day to find something actally intresting is more than fair. So our heroes spitball about what to do for news. LIam suggests alien because again he has about one character trait, so everyone tells him for hte last time no. I mean it isn’t much worse than his last suggestion.

So once agian it’s RUSTY who saves the day, bringing in beet snacks.. which he tries to get them not to stone him over over the fact the popcorn was all gone.. which okay 1) I get the show’s tring to be healthy so maybe ther’es not chips, but I have a hard time buying that there’s no Chez Its, snack packs or other goodies between “Popcorn’ and “something with beetz that only two men would eat” For the record those two men are Dwight Schrute, for obvious reasons, and this guy my boy Tony Chu.

I highly recommend this comic, Chew for the record, to anyone. Just.. anyone whose not a children it gets voilent, but it is sublime. We’re not here for that, but I thought i’d plug it. It also has a spinoff currently running, Chu, following his criminal sister. Also real good and dosen’t really spoil anything for hte main series thus far so you can hop in there instead. Either way your in for a ride. Back on topic, while Rusty failed with snacks he actually brings up a good point: The popcorn isn’t just gone because it’s late in the school day, but because as the kids notice, it’s just missing in general despite the trucks arriving. They have their story and head out to investigate. And suprisingly, unlike last week’s investigation they find something: A mysterious hooded figure bribing the driver for popcorn, and taking it off somewhere. They fail to catch her, as Rusty dives over her telling Liam to “Make sure you get this”.. he instead gets a shrub and video of him attacking a shrub. I’ts a good runner and shows the writers are leanring to use Rusty better. They take the footage to the principal, who is impresssed, but states they need to find out who dun it for the story to be complete which is fair enough. They stalk out the nexxt delivery time later that night, but find the drivers have been switched and the mystery person has fled to canada. Rusty once again tries catching her and fall sin the water. Liam once again responds with a cheerful “Don’t worry rusty I got it”.. okay this dynamic is honestly better than him and Zach: Cheerful oblivious Liam and scheming dumbass rusty. Why isn’t THIS the “Those Two Guys” dynamic in the group, honestly.

Anyways Lincoln is dispondent the next day as iwth no leads, they have no programa nd prepares to do a spider-man no more with his anchorsuit.. which okay 1) you can use that for other things man. Peter Parker can’t really use a spider-man suit for anything but spider-manning but you can use that suit for dates and dances and stuff. and 2).. whya re he and the clyde the only ones with outfits? I mean.. it’s clear from this episode there will be more school news stories nad it just looks weird that they get to play dressup in suits but the rest of the crew isn’t. Liam at leat is working the camera and Zach is Zach but rusty and Stella are field reporters. Field reporters, while not always, usually get nice suits too guys.

ANyways Lincoln finds something in the garbage. And not his sister this time, as Lana oscar the grouched it up lat episode in sadness. Which to be fair will be her future career mark my words. At least I think that’s a career. Anyways, our heros find a ferry ticket meaning whoever fled to Canada is in the building. They trail some popcorn from the ticket to the locked door from earlier, which Rusty, finishing the rule of three, tries knocking it down hwile Liam gets it. Stella, again proving to be the real hero of this tale, uses her hair as a lockpick. Is.. is there anythign this child can’t do? She and Marcy should swap notes sometime damn.

And the culprit is MERYL! She was using the popcorn for insulation to get a quite room to herself and begs the kids not to tell which. is the weaker part of the episode> We don’t have the investment in Meryl we do in Cheryl, and she did you know.. steal school property.. or at least buy it off under the table. But the kids being the sweet kids they are understandably, schemes or not don’t want her to loose her job, and agree to not tell on her even if they loose their show. And to their creid and what keeps this from sinking the episode Meryl is genuinely greatful for this gesture, and gives them the scoop. And as i’ve been mentioning turns out RUSTY WAS RIGHT. Yes Rusty. That Rusty. Was Right about something. The Game Room exists. They find it thorugh a hidden locker entrance and unlock it from the inside, with af lodo of viewers coming in. Granted at first I didn’t know why Meryl didn’t just use this room but then I thought “Oh yeah she’s a full grown adult and can’t fit in the entrance and i’m assuming it was locked from the other side to the rest of the school”. So the kids have a new hangout and as the principal joins them, they havea show! Turns out she’d been looking for this place for years.. and doesn’t turn it into something else. What a legend. She plays Air Hockey with Meryl, is there something going on there or are my shipping goggles acting up.. probably both. Anyways our heroes have genuine thanks, a fun new hangout at school, their own headquarters and their own news show. It’s a heck of a day but it’s no time to rest as Rusty tells them he has another tip and i’ts off... to pick up a broom to sweep up the gumball machine they knock over.. THEN they can go find the hot tub for the teachers lounge.

Final Thoughts: OH me mow, this was a great one. For one the main complaint I had I mentioned at Schooled! of it not feeling like Lincoln’s friends were given enough personality sometimes? Gone enitrely. Everyone except Clyde and Zach get a moment and Clyde is still fully present and has gotten several focus episodes at this point, while Zach again should just leave already. But the rest of them? All on form. Stella continues to prove her competence, energy and adorability, Rusty is not only actually useful for once but was actually really funny his episode. The gag with Zach’s mom was actually pretty hilarious, my jabs at him aside, and the runner of him trying to do some epic stunt, telling Liam to film it and then humiliating himself while his pal cheerfully tells him he got it is just great and Lincoln’s Spider-Man no more moment with his suit was both said and kinda funny and I love him and Clyde’s reporter outfits. It’s why I wanted everyone to have them, especially since this will be a recurring theme and looks to be a fun one. It was fun, creative, and took me back a decade. It was a REALLY damn good one and I’m glad I watched this one first, a true highlight of the series and a true good sign that the season can, even with some hiccups, will apparnetly have some REALLY great episodes on average even with the weaker ones. That’s it for this week... and somehow for loud house coverage as, for now, their doesn’t’t seem to be any new episodes in October, but that could change. Until then, follow this blog every Monday for regular ducktales coverage and come back in October for more loud house, more the Casagrandes and some spooky spooky fun Until then, Go team venture.

#The Loud House #Lincoln Loud #Lana Loud #Lola Loud #Clyde McBride #Stella Zhau #Liam #Zach Girdle #Rusty Spokes #Principal Rameriz #Meryl #Lynn Loud #Girl Jordan #Lynn Loud Sr #Rita Loud

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