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dadsbongos · 3 years

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trashy dad

Movie/Game/Show: My Hero Academia Dynamic: Shota Aizawa/Reader (Platonic) Warnings: references (2) to un*s ann*s, one (1) use of (y/n), fem pronouns Summary: Shota trying to support his YouTuber daughter :) cuz social media aus own me Word Count: 2.1K ~~~

"Hey, gamers," you grin at the camera before tossing an arm over your father's shoulders, "My dad's in town and as you can see," you hesitated slightly before turning to face your father, "Dad's not super into taking care of himself. So, I figured what's better than doing a Q&A together while I do his makeup?"

"Hitoshi just did a 'what I eat in a day', didn't he?" Shota quirked a brow, already reaching back to tie up his messy, tangled hair.

"Spoilers!" you quietly whine as you open your phone, "He still has to edit it, silly man. We're gonna have to brush out your hair later, by the way."

Shota's eyes widened, "We? I thought this was your idea and video, (Y/n)."

"No," you huff, scrolling through a few of the questions from fans, "I mean it was but your hair is so… Okay, first question is from - oh my God the names - shrekslongtoe, what was my first word?"

"Are you gonna start putting makeup on me or just sit there?" Shota scratched at his nose before snickering, "That wasn't your first word. Your first word was 'Dada' and it drove Hizashi insane."

"Hizashi is my other dad, by the way," you lean over to grab your makeup bag, "'Toshi and I call him papa. Oooh, oh no," you looked up to Shota, "I don't have your shade, you're gonna look weird."

"I don't really care," the man shrugged, watching as you took out a pink beauty blender, "That looks like a buttplug."

"Don't say that!" your eyes were wide at his words while you got out your foundation, "Youtube doesn't like that."

"Whoops," he deadpanned, "Next question."

"Shit, right."

"Language."

"Japanese," you murmur, going to the next reply, "yoonbumskneecap asks, 'Did you believe in me-’ they said my name but you know, ‘and Hitoshi when they decided to become Youtubers?' And 'in 'Toshi's case - drop out of college to become a professional clout man.'"

"To be honest," Shota closed his eyes, only in slight fear, as you began pressing the foundation into his skin, "I was really worried about Hitoshi, I didn't know if he'd stay as big as he was because he's a lot like me, in the sense that people tend to not like us for our bluntness. So I was worried he'd be a meme for like a month and then people would drop him, but thankfully I was proved wrong," he opened his eyes when he felt you pull away and begin rooting through your bag once again, "With you, I was less worried because you're more like 'Zashi, i.e extremely likable, and you were kind of getting a boost from appearances on Hitoshi's channel. I still worry because the internet is a fickle mistress but I'm not staying up at night about it."

Pulling out a dark eyebrow pencil, you grin at your father, "Aww, that was kinda sweet. Not really but kind of."

"What I'm here for," Shota's eyes followed your hand as you uncapped the pencil and reached up, beginning to mark at his eyebrows, "I'm gonna read the next question while you kill my eyebrows."

"I'm not killing them!" you giggled, "But unlike Papa, you already have pretty thick, full eyebrows so I won't be here long."

"Good," he muttered before furrowing his brows in confusion, ignoring your frustrated groan, "who is daddysero and why is he asking if you pissed today?"

"What?!" you pull your dad's hand back to see what he was looking at, instantly calming down when you saw he was still on Twitter, "Oh, that's just Sero, he asks me that every time I tweet. I thought you went to my Instagram DMs," at Shota's questioning stare you grinned, "Mama's got simps in her DMs."

"Don't ever call yourself 'Mama' in my presence ever again," Shota shook his head, once again ignoring your annoyance, "papichulo46290 wants to know my favorite memory of you."

"If you mix me up with 'Toshi, I'll be so pissed," you return the eyebrow pencil to your bag as Shota speaks.

"I won't... probably," he shrugs while you root through your bag, "So, Hizashi had taken Hitoshi out for ice cream because of - has he mentioned his middle school trauma?" at your nod, he continues, "Hitoshi was having a bad day from middle school, shocking, so you and I were left home alone together. You were probably seven and you really wanted to paint my nails and I let you. You..." he shook his head, snickering, "you fucked them up. So bad. But you were so happy to just be spending time with me- "

"Keep talking, but I'm gonna do your eyeshadow," you lean back in, swishing your brush over a navy blue, almost black shade, "Just so you guys know, Dad wanted to look like shit, don't unsubscribe cuz this is gonna come out bad."

"It won't be too bad, you're talented," Shota did his best to remain still, "But overall, you were just so adorable and it didn't even matter that the smudged nails got me teased in the teacher's lounge the next day. It all came off after like a week because it was shitty polish but you get the idea."

"Aww, I didn't know you kept it on, that's so sweet," you fall back briefly to inspect your work, "It's not awful but I'm only posting this because you're my dad."

"Of course, I did," Shota continued scrolling through the questions, "A lot of people are asking if you mean Dad or Daddy, and a lot more people are asking for pictures of your feet, you should block them all."

"Yeah, I got sickos in my replies too, just gotta scroll past em'."

"Disgusting..." Shota grumbled as you moved to his other eye, "Is 'electrodick' Kaminari, perchance?"

"Unfortunately."

"Gross, he asks if you had an 'I'm not like other girls' phase," Shota hummed quietly in thought, "Maybe when you were eight for like a month, but that's probably because except for Nemuri you didn't have any women in your life. Thankfully you moved on from that pretty quickly."

"Oh yeah, that was a gross, weird time. You and Papa also weren’t shitty people so I didn’t have a lot of misogynist influence."

"I like to think we did a good job," Shota sighed, finally moving back into his slouching position when you pulled away completely, "Is 'explosionmurder' Bakugou?"

"You know it."

"Okay well, he's asking if you plan on fucking up your bronzing again?" he thinks for a moment, “Was that from when you looked kinda copper-ish in a video?

"Oh my God, that was one time, Bakugou!" you shout and shake your brush at the camera, "One time!"

"I don't even know what blending is so you're doing better than I am."

"God, how are we related?"

Without hesitation, Shota replied, "Surrogate. Which answers summerlongsock's question."

"Nice," you chuckle, setting the brush back in your bag, "You probably won't need too much bronze or countour since you're going for bad," you immediately turn to the camera, "And Bakugou isn't gonna say a fucking word about it!"

"Is eyeliner next? And if so, I would enjoy a nice wing," Shota muttered, looking through the remaining questions, "Hitoshi asks why I haven't done a video with him yet."

You nod along while uncapping the liner, "I'm curious about that too. I thought my first video with a parent would be with Papa. I was gonna say family but..." you shrug, "Hitoshi was my first video and then Eri came on."

"He never asked," Shota closed both of his eyes, allowing you to move his head around as you pleased, "You just texted me the video idea and we set it up while I was in town. If Hitoshi wants a video so bad he should come up with an idea."

"Jeez, don't bully the poor boy," you laughed quietly, carefully applying more eyeliner to your father's left lid, "We should all do a video together. I think it'd be fun."

"Come up with an idea," he replied flatly before opening his eyes, "davinky wants to know when you got into makeup. Probably after thirteen, sometime."

"Yeah, I got my first real eyeshadow at like fourteen and then you guys just enabled my love of makeup after that."

"Well, the thing with that was, Hizashi and I didn't want you growing up thinking you had to wear makeup for any reason," Shota opened his eyes once he felt you back away, blinking a few times, "So we waited till you were more mature because giving makeup to a six-year-old is weird."

Capping your eyeliner, you traded it out for mascara, "Yeah, even little play kits are a bit ehhh. Don't close your eyes, but look down."

Following instruction, Shota took the opportunity to read off another question, "I can't see the name but someone's asking what we did together for fun. While you were a kid."

Humming quietly in thought, you move from one eye to the other, "We used to go to diners a lot. Those late-night diner trips, remember?"

"Oh yeah, you were such a little demon about bedtime. I had to take you to this little place for scrambled eggs or some shit and you'd fall asleep on the way back home."

Putting away your mascara, you reach out for your hairbrush before beginning to pull out the hair tie in Shota's hair, "Mina wanted me to ask what videos you show people when they ask what your kids do for a living."

"For Hitoshi, the one where he and Kaminari made Bakugou breakfast with sex toys. For you, the one where you turn yourself into Mina's little character - with the pink skin," Shota winced slightly at the tug of your hairbrush, "And Eri's a teacher so that information comes first since it's the least strange."

As you fussed with his tangled nest of hair, you read another question over Shota's shoulder, "When did you know you loved me? Like after adopting me."

"Not too long after the adoption was finalized actually," Shota grumbled as the brush made its final courses through his hair, "You've always been a really great kid. I don't know when I 'realized' but it was definitely around the time you were born, maybe like the day after."

"That's pretty good considering I was a stranger," you giggled, brushing out the final knots in his dark hair, "A baby stranger."

"Hmm," Shota hummed in response, "You almost done?"

Refraining from rolling your eyes, you fluffed Shota's now smooth and detangled hair around his shoulders with a small smile, "I'm done. Your hair is so pretty when it's brushed out."

"I know," the man muttered, handing your phone back, "Wanna do one more question and then sign off?"

"Yeah," you scroll through some of the questions, "I want it to be the best question that's ever been asked."

"Ask your own, you're great at that."

You shook your head with furrowed brows at his comment, "Is that a compliment?"

"It was meant to be."

"Thanks, but no need, I've found one. Midoriya wants to know if raising two attention whores was hard. He didn't say ‘attention whores’ because he doesn't swear but that's the vibe."

"What's Midoriya's at?" Shota asked.

"SmallMight."

"Of course," the man grumbled, closing his eyes to think, "You two were honestly pretty easy to raise. Not a whole lot of fits compared to what I've heard other parents talk about. You both liked to talk a lot to each other, and, of course, to Hizashi and me. Not terribly difficult at all."

"Aww, I'm glad we didn't make you pull your hair out," you grin.

"Oh, you still did. Absolutely."

"Nice," you giggle before turning off your phone and facing the camera, "Okay guys, well, I hope you don't clown on me as much as usual because if you do, my dad will... I don't know… kick your ass."

"Exactly," Shota nodded, a horrific smile on his face, "I'll beam right into your living room."

"Hopefully you guys come back next week where I'll..." floundering for an answer, you turn to your dad as if he’d give you ideas, "Create wings to do it better than Icarus ever could."

Giving a singular stiff nod, Shota looked dead at the camera, "I'd watch it."

"You heard it from the main man himself, peeps," you waved to the camera, Shota copying the motion, “Bye!”

"If there's one comment about my eyebags, I'm never coming on your channel again," Shota lied as you leaned over to stop recording.

"They're gonna love you, I'm sure," you assure your father, "Wanna see how I edit?"

"God no, Hitoshi showed me how long it takes to edit his videos, it looks like hell."

#bnha x reader #bnha x reader platonic #shota aizawa x reader #shota x reader #aizawa x reader #shota aizawa x daughter reader #aizawa x daughter reader #shota x daughter reader #shota x reader platonic

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greatestwizardofthisage · 3 years

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No one cares but I have a really specific headcanon about Adaine and concerts and no one to talk to about it so here we go.

First of all I headcanon both Adaine and Gorgug as autistic (shut up it's not just because I’m autistic and this definitely isn't just me projecting...)

So anyway I feel like one day Fig would just like casually bring up a concert she went to recently and Adaine would admit that she’s always wanted to go to a concert but has been too scared to due to her anxiety and sensory issues.

Fig would then take it upon herself to take Adaine to her first concert, and also invites Gorgug along because these two are in a band together so of course they bond over music and concerts and of course she’s inviting Gorgug.

So they get there and Adaine is super nervous but like she’s with her best friends!! Her party!! She trusts them to keep her safe in battle so she can trust them to keep her safe here. They get there pretty early (adaine has a Thing about being late for things) and take the opportunity to get as close to the front as possible. Fig and Gorgug have been to enough concerts together to be pros at pushing to the front. And when they finally make it right up against the barrier, they squish Adain in between them, so no one else can get close to her and she has her own little safe bubble.

And then the concert starts, and Adaine LOVES it. Just loses her mind at how good it is, like the music is loud and she’s screaming the lyrics and no one cares that she’s not behaving like a sophisticated young lady because everyone else is screaming too.

So Adaine falls in love with concerts, and Gorgug and Fig are more than happy to take her to any they can find, and it becomes their little thing together. Sometimes other members of the party come (whenever Riz comes he spends the whole time on Gorgugs shoulders) and sometimes Fig or Gorgug will bring their Ayda and Zelda, but mostly it's just Fig, Gorgug, and Adaine.

They also get really good at knowing when Adaine becomes overwhelmed. At first she’d try to hide it, not wanting to ruin it for them, but after a particularly bad meltdown, they develop a system, and now all she has to do is ask and Fig will dimension door them away, somewhere quite. Sometimes Gorgug leaves when they do, and they all go and get ice cream, sometimes, if its a band they've been really looking forward to, he’ll stay and record it so the girls can watch it on the drive home.

Speaking of the drive home, Adaine always falls asleep in the back of the hangvan afterwards. Sometimes Fig will sit in the front and keep Gorgug company while he drives, sometimes Gorgug just wants to be quite so Fig will nap with Adaine. She’s never really been good at comfortable silence, but for her best friend and bandmate she makes the effort.

Adaine and Gorgug then spend the next day recovering, because as much as they love going to concerts, it just takes so much energy out of them, so they sit quietly together, watching trashy tv at mordred manor, and once they recover enough, Fig comes in and they begin planning their next.

#sorry to all my mutuals who dont care about fantasy high #you must be so sick of it by now but its literally all i can think about #adaine abernant #gorgug thistlespring #figueroth faeth #fantasy high #dimension 20 #i literally thought of this because i love live music so much but always get overwhelmed at concerts #so maybe i was projecting...#anyway gorgug and adaine are both definitely autistic bc im autistic and i said so #autistic gorgug #autistic adaine

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galvanizedfriend · 2 years

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👀

Hi, Elise bestie!

- This is creatively called 'Random Fic'. Caroline had an almost one-night stand that went really bad and a year later they meet again at Tyler's wedding. They hate each other but end up having to join forces to save the wedding because Carol hates the bride (Hayley) and they're having pre-marital issues. Also, it's possible the whole thing that ended up getting Caroline to bad mouth Klaus to basically everyone she knows might have been a misunderstanding.

Carol takes care of the small talk, asking Caroline about her life in New York. What she really wants to know, though - and is painfully unsubtle about - is whether she's bringing anyone as a date to the wedding and if that means she's not seeing anyone. Caroline smiles curtly and replies, "No one serious," pretending not to notice Klaus' amusement as Carol launches into a long monologue about how young people these days are too capricious and scared of real commitments and, when they do decide to tie the knot, they seem to do it for all the wrong reasons - which is not only taking a jab at Caroline, but at Tyler as well. Multitasking at its finest.

"You're absolutely right, Carol," Klaus says because, apparently, he's incapable of dodging a chance to torture Caroline if the opportunity presents itself to him. "I tell the same thing to my sister every time she shows up with a new boyfriend. Rebekah falls in love with someone faster than she changes her designer dresses. It's hard to even keep up."

Carol shakes her head. "It's just so sad. I guess romance really is dead."

"Well, how about you, Niklaus?" Caroline asks, stabbing her chicken with a bit more energy than necessary. "Why aren't you married with kids as a good, honest man of a certain age should be?"

"I'm still young -"

"If you say so."

"And I suppose I haven't found the right girl yet."

"You're a fabulous young man," Carol says. Caroline refrains from rolling her eyes, but only just. "It's a wonder you're still single. You must have women lining up at your door." Carol laughs like it's a funny joke; Klaus smirks like it's true; Caroline's lips twist into a nasty little grin because what she really wants to do is punch that pretty face of his.

"Oh, it really is a wonder," she remarks, words drenched in irony. "So you're not sleeping around?"

"Caroline -" Carol tries to cut in.

"Jumping from one girl to the next faster than you change shirts?"

"That's inappropriate -"

"Like, say, hooking up with more than one person on the same night?"

Carol lets out a nervous giggle. "I don't know what kind of man you've been seeing in New York, Caroline, but Klaus isn't like that. He's a gentleman."

Caroline fixes Klaus with an icy glare and a mean smile. To his credit, he has the decency of looking away from her. "Of course. Niklaus is definitely, definitely not that kind of guy. I must be too influenced by trashy new yorkers."

#yokan answers #whywaitdarling #WIP Game #i have been writing this for over two years LOL

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beann-e · 3 years

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long drabble of me dreaming my favorite haikyu characters are power hungry Hollywood stars that the industries made into assholes

also to thank everyone for 600 followers !! 😯

Tw! kuroo slander, akaashi slander, pushover y/n, emotional manipulation at its finest

I promise there was a point in time when we were I know we were I- I know I was

Yet , why are we sitting in front of a small old lady who's telling me we're both liars

That we were never that— we were never

" happy? " your voice came out short a small scoff of a laugh leaving your wide opened mouth

" y-you — he's happy — we're — I — I am happy " your eyes darted around the room looking for a shining piece to focus on for your jumpy eyes to land on

" he-he's happy I-i'm happy " your breathing quickened

" w-we — what is happy exactly anyways" you screamed

" w-what is it " you screamed at the top of your lungs rattling everything in the room ,everything , everyone ,and every nerve

" you can't feel it —you'll never feel it don’t--dont harp on it " a deep voice came out

" it's ok — really " your body tensed as you still felt everything inside you going haywire your eyes moved over to the person you once knew

the person who sat on the opposite end of the shared couch trying to move as far away from you as possible or that's what he wanted to do

" I-I - am I — why "

his voice came out stoic and short " you don't have the ability to"

his hand moved down his face " we're not happy because you can't be "

your body shook you felt the room going cold arms locking around yourself you need to be held you needed to be told you were right that everyone else was wrong this had gone on for too long

" come on get over here " he smiled softly

" come on pretty girl " he moved his head to show a smile on his face as you quietly moved shifting your body a bit over to him

" almost there come on I won't hurt you " your body stopped

" who said anything about hurting me "

he paused a small thought in the back of his mind coming to light

' damn i've screwed up '

" y/n hey — " you moved back to your end of the couch faster then he could reach out to grab hold of you " shit y— "

" do you two tend to always go back and forth like this "

the old lady sat watching " you , y/n , convincing yourself of something thats nothing shy from wrong and you , akaashi convincing her that everything's ok" akaashi's hands dropped and so did his smile

' asshole I knew he was faking '

" are you blaming me? " his voice came out tough and questioning almost as if daring her to answer correctly knowing that would ruin his image of himself and cause him to overthink your entire relationship

" i've done nothing but be there for my wife , for my love"

he turned to look at you panic spread in his eyes as the gears in his brain started to turn his thoughts already leading his mind down the path of overthinking" y/n we don't need this — let's go i'll call kuroo an—"

" no " you screamed " h-he can't help kuroos — he's just as bad please g-go away "

you pulled your knees to your chest as his eyebrow raised his eyes slowly moving down to your feet that sat on the edge of the couch a low cough coming out of his throat as he moved his gaze between the heels of your feet that were placed on the couch and the lady that sat in front of you

you dropped your feet quickly and moved back to a nice position your arms thrown over your crossed legs and back straightened your shades moved down on your nose— earrings hanging loosely to your ears and hair styled to perfection rivaling your inside appearance

Your hand came up to smooth out the dress that you wore for presentation hands playing with the fabric of the item

" you look fine y/n " akaashi’s voice came out soft. The lady in front of you smiled at the male to your left knowing a compliment could go a long way right now with the dark energy that had been placed in the room

you could feel his code for ‘ your being extra now y/n “

" really I mean it " he pressed " did you hear me "

‘ stop right now or your gonna give us away ‘

you quickly jumped " y-yes so sorry for not answering the first time I — "

" it's ok y/n we don't mind " the old lady’s voice rang out in understanding

" she's right we came here for you so — "

" no you two originally came here for you —that is what i was told by miss y/n "

he looked away and to his side staring at the window trying to calm himself down he was never one to show his anger he’d always played it off so well behind his calming persona but, his mind —his mind was anything but calm.

" y/n did you want to keep going " the old lady questioned eyes glowing and darting over you pristine appearance you really did look like the definition of money to her

your head moved in a small motion to look at akaashi out of the corner of your eye seeing his gaze on you as everything in the room slowed to a stop when his gaze moved to the door behind the older lady your eyes darted to the door seeing kuroo walking in a small smirk on his face

" actually miss y/n can't — we have an interview in 10" the old ladies face moved into a happy and excited smile you praying to the gods she wasn’t one of those people

" oh — kuroo " she screamed out In shock

the tiny bit of hope for help you’d finally thought you had a hold on left your body immediately with the knowing thought of ‘she’s a—

" I-i'm a — i'm a fan — I— "

he smiled down on the older lady pulling her into a hug as his eyes stayed locked on yours a wink coming out of the motion as akaashi turned his head back to the woman at hand ignoring his ‘friends ‘ advance on his wife " I love to meet my fans— especially when their as pretty as you "

" you are even sweeter than they show you on tv —you charmer you "

" i'm no charmer — i'm just being honest " he laughed " your pretty well set up here "

he looked to you " I see why she decided to come here —actually it's a bit nicer than I expected —inside seeing as though it's in the middle of no where and kinda I guess trashy on the outside "

he was picking on you with his words explaining codes that only you could get ‘ you picked the furthest place away from me and I still found you are you stupid ‘

the old lady smiled " yeah it's for people - like y/n here who don't want to be found out you know "

he smiled " yeah I get it — your a saint for doing things like this — y/n's never had anyone who can take care of her let alone listen like I can —I mean her husband yeah but he’s kind of unavailable but me im there always anytime any-day—she wants a lot from me she’s a beggar by nature y’know “ he sighed as you winced at his next words

“ everyone always seems to be out for her money or really just using her talents for their own benefits —making her seem stupid really. They exploit all of her—well she really only has them but her weakness—“ he looked at you from the corner of his eyes before he laughed “ like gullibility “

" I feel bad —really I'm always here if she wanted to come back "

he looked to you as she asked " do we want to come back y/n? "

‘this choice is not yours ‘

she smiled as kuroo moved a bit more to the middle of the room where the couch and chairs were placed his eyes sharply pointed at you " your always open to come back y/n "

‘ come back to another therapist and ruin your image like this again I dare you ‘

you smiled small at kuroos offer " no actually i'm fine I — I got to say what I wanted "

" that's good — that's nice — if you wanted to say more or talk when you have time y/n just call kenma he'll set up a professional ride for you "

he moved to talk with the older lady " and you — is there anything you need —- payment maybe for the time she did take up "

" oh uh no no for free on the house "

" what no —no i'll leave something for you " kuroo moved to grab his wallet as he sat a hundred yen coin on the table on top of a book that caused him to look twice with a squint his hand moving to rub over it anger obvious to anyone who knew the real him behind his outside appearance.

You shrinking when he rolled his shoulders back to you it looked like he was releasing anger to not snap at you and calm himself down but to everyone else it seemed like he was just stretching

" woah — this is actually a really cool notebook “ his voice went low “ y/n did you see this notebook”

‘ did she write anything about you in here —anything at all ‘

you shook your head slightly causing him to skyrocket and land to that space in his head that always pissed him off.

" yeah I use it for all my daily messages—everything my clients say too— it's one of a kind "

" oh really " he laughed at her words laying charm on discreetly knowing it wouldn’t take much " so I wouldn't be able to find it even if I wanted to — that's kinda cool but kinda sucky at the same time "

he smiled as she moved to pick up the book and hold it out to him " n-no you can find it look it's right here in your hands take it please free of charge "

he shook his head " I could never — you said you had stuff in there—your clients private information in —in this book of yours "

" nothing too important—they wouldn’t mind and it also has everything I wrote for y/n in there it’s up to her anyways if you read it so just take it "

he reached out and grabbed the book " see now I have to leave you with something please is there anything you want I mean— "

he looked her dead in the eyes but you could feel every word he said being directed to you " I hate to leave people unsatisfied "

she shook her head before speaking cutely she was completely out of her mind, she’d not only granted kuroo the access to your private health screening but now accepting his money and offer

‘ can fame really allow anyone to break rules ? do people love their stars this much ? ‘

" just — just an autograph would do great " he smiled moving faster than light as he held the notebook moving over to the woman's poster on the wall

" oh I see i'm already up here " he laughed as he grabbed a sharpie off her desk and scribbled his autograph all over his face on the poster " and ta-dah"

she smiled and mumbled out a thank you as he moved to hug her akaashi getting up and walking towards the door this wasn’t how this was suppose to go this was supposed to be the day you got out of their hands out of the industries hands

" thank you so much for what you did today " he said as akaashi moved to speak

" thank you ma'am for your time " the two males moved to the doorway as the lady followed them closely behind to the door to close it when they left

" no problem I have another person coming in soon so I hate to cut this short " she said as her voice came out with meaning

' oh she's talking to me ' you were still sitting there on the couch face to the floor as you hesitated to bring it up to face the two males in front of you

Your hands shaking as your finger played with your clothes again the hem of your dress in between your pointer and thumb

" love , let's go " Akaashi spoke a smile showing through his words your legs locked as you didn't move your lips trembling eyes glazed over but your shades doing you justice and covering them from everyone in the room

Or at least those who didn't know already — those who hadn't been through this already which was only one person here and she wasn't either of the 6"0 tall males that stood across from you

You body jumped as your heard a loud snap travel through the room

' those are his fingers he just snapped at me —like an animal '

you looked up to see kuroo smiling his finger made up in a snap showing he'd done just what you thought he did his hand moving to only one finger pointing to the space next to him his hand low to not pull the ladies attention to his motions

" y/n come over here " his voice was still light but held everything that you knew he meant behind it " we have an interview in 5 minutes "

your legs shook wobbly before standing

your body moving over to the males before walking out the lady smiling before closing the door kuroos grip on your upper arm strong as you three made your way to the black car parked out front as he yanked you in the backseat after him , gnashing his teeth before fixing his suit and tie body scooting over to allow more space. Akaashi scooting in to trap you in the middle kuroo hitting the drivers shoulder two times signaling them to drive

The car was quiet akaashi looking out the window his pointer finger drumming on his pants leg kuroo staring straight ahead at the back of the drivers seat

Your eyes let the tears drop that you held back in the room as kuroos hand swiped at the shades you wore flinging them across the car and straight in between akaashi's feet as he moved to pick them up and grip them tightly in his own hands going back to calmly looking out the window ignoring the scene that was about to take place next to him

" take these fucking glasses off—your not fucking fooling anyone "

your body shook at the action " are you mad—mad at me " you said softly your voice barely a whisper kuroo didn't even have it in him to scoff " I sense i've made a mistake " you kept going

" oh you sense huh " akaashi's voice came out in a short laugh before his mouth closed speaking quietly to himself“ god how can someone be so — so dense and just lack so much —” he sighed “ intelligence “

"your so fucking " kuroos voice came out loud as he gripped his pants in a strong hold

" so so so fucking stupid " he said anger present in his voice trying to put emphasis on his words that were attacking you and shaking you only making it harder to look at either men in the car

" you — I swear on my fucking life — y/n — if you go in here and fuck up — "

he put up one finger " one — one fucking time "

he wanted to make sure you understood

" ill fuck you up y/n I swear — one time that's it that's all do you understand me "

your mouth moved tears moving into it as akaashi spoke for you voice dry he was just so tired of this so tired of the constant yelling and mistreatment you were put through all because you weren’t smart enough as a child to choose a different dream job "trust she gets it — she heard it the first time "

he moved to speak under his breath " she's heard it many times "

the car stopped as kuroo turned to face you his hand cupping your cheeks his pointer on your cheek and thumb on your chin holding you in a death grip making you look at him

" i'm repeating myself because you've shown me your nothing more than a stupid chick who can read a script— so lemme say it one more time " his eyes were hard on yours his face showing no remorse for the painful emotion shown on your face

" if you go in this interview and fuck up once — even so much as take a restroom break to go sniff whatever the fuck mattsukawa had you do last time — i'll fuck you up so bad they'll think your next role is a horror movie and your the fucking monster "

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detectivedreameater · 3 years

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Margarita Monday || Camille and Marley

TIMING: Mid October PARTIES: @carrionxcamille and @detectivedreameater SUMMARY: Camille comes over to Marley’s for margaritas but ends up sharing a little more than drinks. CONTENT: Alcohol

Relaxing just...wasn’t something Marley really did. Ever. Sure, she took time off and had nights off, but just doing something to do it for, well, fun? Was strange. Having another woman over and not having intentions to sleep with her was also very strange for Marley. But, here she was, setting out ingredients to teach someone how to make margaritas the right way, just to...do it. No ulterior motive, no reason other than to just be normal. Readjusting herself, Marley set out the ingredients-- Dragones tequila, triple sec, cognac, lime juice, and a little bit of simple syrup. Oh, and ice. Marley had had to go to the store and actually buy a bag of ice, considering the only fridge she had was a small drink fridge, and it didn’t make ice. Was that weird or suspicious? Did she care? If this Camille was anything other than what she said she was, Marley could easily get away or fear gaze her. She was in no trouble here. Still, she jumped a little when there was a knock on the door. She looked over, straightened herself out, then went over. “Welcome to Casa Del Marley,” she said in a cheesy tone, even if she did know proper Spanish. “It’s Margarita Monday today, so please come in and make yourself at home.”

Right, this was good. Meeting people, getting out of the house, making connections. Camille was making progress, and it sure was better than spending another tuesday night parked in front of the tv barely focusing on trashy reality shows. She needed more friends, and margaritas certainly seemed like a good way to curb any first meeting awkwardness, even if it was a little college to get drunk on a weekday. Whatever, it’s not like running the park was hard. This would be good for her. This wasn’t her threadbare allyship with Regan, and she couldn’t rely solely on Cece for company either. The greeting at the door made her laugh a little as she stepped in, toeing her boots off by the door, “thanks for having me, I needed an excuse to get out the house.” And an excuse to have a drink a little stronger than a glass of wine, honestly. “You earn points already for the alliteration.” She grins, “teach me your ways, margarita master.”

Marley moved around to the kitchen quickly once Camille was inside, trying not to let the strange feeling in her stomach take too much hold on her. “Yeah, sure,” she said, setting out two glasses and the mixer. “Anything to have an excuse to make margaritas, honestly.” She gave an awkward smile. “Not that I need one, but, you know.” She cleared her throat, gesturing to the ingredients she’d laid out. “Well, first of all, you need the right ingredients. None of that cheap shit, okay?” she pointed at the tequila. “This is the best kind, hands down. People might try and tell you Cuervo or Patron is good enough, but they’re wrong,” she tapped on it, “plus, my girlfriend would gut me if I said anything otherwise.”

It was a long time since Camille had tried to make friends, honestly. With Jace the way he had been she didn’t want people around at the house and eventually being lonely was just easier than trying to make yet another excuse for why the girls couldn’t meet her husband or see her home. But Marley had offered to have her over, she wanted the company too. Of course, Camille couldn’t really afford high shelf tequila right now, but they’d- unsurprisingly- had a well stocked liquor cabinet at home, and she did one day plan to have a set up like it again. “Right.” She nods sagely, laughing a little, “honestly I can’t drink Cuervo anymore anyway, it just tastes too much like terrible college decisions.” She grins, “does your girlfriend work for the company or is she just a big believer in high shelf tequila?”

“As it should,” Marley said, scrunching her nose. “Cuervo is for college frat kids who want to get drunk fast. You need a nice fine tequila to truly appreciate the art of the margarita.” She cleared her throat, trying to move past the awkward feeling in her throat, even if she’d said the word first. “She’s a lady of fine taste, what can I say?” grinned before sweeping her hand to the next ingredient. “Now, some people might also try and tell you that you can use sweet and sour mix. It’s cheap, it’s faster-- blah, blah. But they’re wrong. You gotta do it yourself if you want the best flavor. I use lime juice, salt and simple syrup. 2 parts lime juice, half part syrup. Pinch of salt,” she explained, finding talking about alcohol was much easier than talking about Anita being her girlfriend and what she liked. “Lastly, my special secret ingredients,” she moved down the line again, “triple sec and cognac. Add to taste, of course, but I usually do a shot of each. Really brings out the other flavors. You can add a little orange juice as a spritz sometimes, too, if you’re feeling citrusy. But, yeah--” she nodded to herself as if to congratulate herself on a job well done. “That’s all there is to it. So, shall we try and make some?”

College frat kids who want to get drunk fast? Camille almost winces. That had sure been Jace. Perhaps this whole thing really was her own fault, in a roundabout way. How had she not seen the signs of it when they were younger? Sure everyone liked to get messed up at parties when they were kids, but Jace was always looking for another party to get messed up at. She’d thought- stupidly- it was the social aspect. Jace was a jovial guy, he loved to be around people, that was why he loved parties. Maybe even back then he’d loved drinking more. Uh oh, yeah, she was not going to admit it to Marley but Cam had definitely made a few sweet and sour mix margaritas in her time. It was easier. But then she hadn’t been sure how easy the real method was too-- and honestly it didn’t sound like rocket science. She liked listening to people talk about a passion of theirs, and Marley clearly had this down to a T, so seeing her in her comfort zone made Camille a little more relaxed too, and they weren’t even drinking yet. “So you go pretty sour then? That’s good. I make cosmos sometimes and I always add more lime juice than recipes say too, I just like them sour.” She nods, “doesn’t sound like I’d be able to fuck it up too badly,” Cam grins and picks up one of the glasses, “assuming you start with tequila?”

“Oh yeah,” Marley said, nodding, “the more sour, the better. What can I say? I’m a sour woman.” She stacked two glasses on the counter in front of them and motioned to the ingredients. “It really is hard to fuck up a margarita, it’s more about getting the right proportions so that you can enjoy all the flavors at once. And, of course, making sure you have good tequila,” tapped the bottle again, “yeah, sure. Start with that, I’ll uh-- supervise,” she said stepping back and letting Camille approach. This was still...strange and knew for her, but she was learning that it was nothing to be awkward about. Maybe this was just how normal people interacted. Maybe if she kept trying, she’d actually get used to it one day. She gave a smirk. “Go on, then,” she motioned, “don’t fuck it up.”

Camille laughed a little- actually, she’d been called a sourpuss once, by an older guy at a club trying to grind on her. The memory amused her to this day. Maybe they were both a little sour, but she didn’t think that was a bad thing. “I’m the same with wine, I never like it overly sweet.” She says, stepping up to the counter to start by pouring some tequila in one of the glasses- hey, she was still young enough at heart to know roughly how to pour out a shot. “I’ve known people to use triple sec before, but I’ve never come across cognac. Hey, I’ll trust the master though.” Cam shrugs, adding in plenty of lime juice and salt before pouring some syrup into a measure and adding that too. “I will admit to hating it when people put stuff on the rim of a glass though, salt or sugar or whatever. I’ve never gotten that.” She was sure that too was something about flavor, but the grains just irritated her mouth. Camille knew she liked triple sec, so after a full shot of that she measured out a little less cognac- she’d never been a huge fan- and added that too. “Looks like I managed to avoid total disaster… Or I didn’t make a mess at least.” Obsessively watching bartenders in college to make sure they didn’t mess with her drink had paid off, it seemed. She raised the glass, “cheers.” And took a sip. “Wow. Okay, you’re right. I’m adding cognac to every margarita I make from now on. Damn, that’s good. I don’t even like brandy.”

Marley watched Camille fill up her drink, talking herself through the process. “Cognac just gives it a little extra bite, you know?” she shrugged, “I’m not a big fan of the alcohol on its own, but the slightest touch really does spruce up the most basic cocktail.” Mostly, she didn’t like it because it wasn’t an alcohol she could consume copious amounts of in a small amount of time in order to get drunker quicker. But she didn’t need to say that outloud. “Ah, see! You’re amazing at it already,” she said, leaning back against the counter. From around the corner of the kitchen table came JD, sniffing the air and the new scent in the house. Marley observed him for a moment, before realizing that his horns really weren't anything that normal people would expect on a hare. Or, really even, expect a hare. She went forward to shoo him away, but he scampered under the table and around into the kitchen, right up to Camille. “Uhh, he’s got-- a mutation,” she said, staring wide eyed.

It was all going well and everything was very normal, which Camille was pretty pleased about because since waking up in town she kept getting hit across the face with weirdness. Killer mimes and vampire neighbors and an eyeball where the goddamn sun should be. It was nice to kick back with a new friend and have a drink, and talk about normal things like cognac. She’d been into cocktail making for a while when she was younger, but then Jace’s problem had gotten worse and keeping high percentage alcohol in the house just… Didn’t seem smart. She took another sip and tried not to think about that. “Well it helps to have a good teacher.” Camille laughed, only the slightest of a bitter edge to the sound, “I would know, I used to be a- ah!”

Camille startled when the creature scurried up to her, pressing her body back into the kitchen counter. “Holy hell.” It was, in essence, a big weird looking rabbit. Which would probably not have garnered much of a reaction if it were not for the horns. Horns! Every day something new and totally out of left field. Is it the weirdest thing she’s seen? Well… There were eyeballs coming out of her taps at one point, that was probably weirder. But this-- Camille didn’t quite see how a mutation could give a rabbit horns. Which meant this was the supernatural kind of weird, which meant Marley knew about the supernatural kind of weird. “...Right.” She takes another sip of her drink and sighs, weighing the pros and cons. Camille could pretend to believe her, but there would be an awkward air over the rest of the night. She had enough secrets already. “Y’know, you don’t have to… I- look, here’s the thing, I’m not an expert. Like, I don’t know a lot about it all but I do know that there’s stuff in this town that is…” She waves a hand vaguely in the air, trying to find a good word for it. “Let me put it this way, when I lived in the motel my neighbors were vampires. So, don’t bullshit me. That’s not a normal rabbit.”

Marley watched Camille closely, as she started down at JD. She could see the cogs turning in her head. Most people who wanted to remain ignorant would wave this away and be happy to accept the “mutation” explanation-- but when Camille didn’t, Marley felt herself slowly warming up to the idea that maybe she wasn’t half bad. She came over around the counter and picked up the large hare, hoisting him onto one arm and holding him so his legs dangled below her arm. He sniffed the air, wriggled once, then settled in. “You’re neighbors were vampires? Gross,” she muttered, scrunching her nose, “vampires are so broody and angsty. Oh, my life is so tragic,’ she sighed, putting a hand to her forehead, “I’m doomed to eternal life and I must feed on the blood of innocents! Or...whatever.” She remembered the last vampire she’d known, and how much his disposition to drink blood tortured him. Vampires, for all their monstrosity, could be so human sometimes. “Glad you got out of there, then,” she replied, feeling the awkwardness hang in the air a bit. She cleared her throat. “He uh--” glanced down at JD, “--he’s a Jackalope. Supernatural hare, basically. But I swear he’s nice! Usually.”

Camille wasn’t going to wander around the whole town with her eyes closed. She was in White Crest because she’d died. If she wanted answers about what the hell had happened to her and didn’t want those answers to totally freak her out it would probably be a good idea to embrace everything else weird and wacky going on in town. It was just so… Exhausting. Nothing was normal. She couldn’t even make a new friend and drink margaritas without some not rabbit thing becoming part of the evening. Maybe she just had to get used to it.

It was almost comical the way Marley handled the thing, and how quickly it settled into her arms like it’d been there a dozen times before. It probably had, she seemed to be keeping it like a domestic pet. That was almost… Sweet. And her vampire impression did make Cam laugh. “They were broody!” She agreed, “those walls were thin, I could hear them complaining. Didn’t stop the parade of pretty young girls always going in and out of their room though, so they can’t have felt too put out.” Once she’d found out what they were Cam had started watching for those girls- some of them went back again and again, but what mattered to her was making sure they walked back out. She nods, “yeah. Cece really did me a favor.” Oh how much she had come to rely on the kindness of strangers as of late, it was new. “He doesn’t seem not nice. He just startled me. I’m still getting used to all this stuff, and I don’t really feel like getting into why I’m here in the first place but it.. Yeah, it’s part of my life now, so.” Camille shrugs, staring at the jackalope… She’d heard of them, but it hadn’t occurred to her that they might really exist in this new world. “He’s almost cute. Does he have a name?”

“All vampires are,” Marley said with a little roll of her eyes. “They’re pretty dramatic.“ At least, all the vampire she’d met were like that-- she felt like it almost came with the territory, just like how most mara liked the strange and horrific. Most of them even shared Marley’s love for insects, because unlike most mammals, they didn’t run away scared. “Oh, you know Cece? Like Cece Bishop, Cece? I work with her sometimes.” And somehow knowing Camille knew Cece made Marley all the more relieved. At least she didn’t have to skirt around things anymore. “He’s very nice, usually. Just spooks easy, which is funny, considering--” she paused, frowned, “he’s pretty scary looking.” Marley rustled her arms, cinching her brows. “Almost cute? He’s extremely cute, actually. I mean, lookit his face!” she exclaimed, holding him up. JD responded by thumping his legs against her and leaping out of her arms and over to the couch. “Well...I think he’s cute,” she muttered, looking back over at Camille. “His name’s JD. Short for Jack Daniels.” A pause. “I swear I’m not an alcoholic, though.”

Sometimes Camille worried she was taking all of this too well. But then she remembered her first few months here, the icy cold that had settled over her the second she realized she was supposed to be dead, sitting in that motel room and staring at the wall for god knew how many days without being able to move. Trying to accept it all had practically rendered her catatonic, and she was still struggling, but Camille was no idiot. Even with all the additions the world was still the world and she was still a living thing that needed to make money and survive and carry on.

“I haven’t actually met any vampires, so I couldn’t speak for all of them.” Cam shrugs, and then her eyes widen, “at least… I don’t think I have. I suppose that’s rather the point.” Wow, maybe she had met vampires. Marley could be one for all she knew. It was probably rude to ask. “Yeah, it’s her I live with. We met out at Dell’s Tavern one night and when she found out I was staying at that creepy motel she insisted I stay with her.” She nods, “right, it makes sense that you’d know her too.” The morgue and the police department probably worked closely. They’d probably done that in Boston, when she’d died. Camille chuckled a little at the contradictions, how Marley thought something could look scary and cute at the same time. Though she managed not to flinch when it- JD- was brought closer to her face. He had regular rabbit eyes, all big and innocent and shiny. She did jump when the beast moved suddenly though, clutching one hand to her heart and laughing despite herself. “He can leap like a rabbit, huh? Is he- do you just keep him, like, as a pet?” Cam smiled, “I like JD. When I was in college my roommate had a hamster and we called it Khalua.”

“Count yourself lucky, then,” Marley said with a small chuckle. “Oh, trust me-- you’d know.” It was a strange thing, to find someone so...okay with all this weirdness. Even Erin had been a little freaked out by everything at first, but maybe Camille had just skipped past it all already. Or she just hadn’t seen the freak out and was getting the after effects. She shrugged. “Yeah, Cece’s like that.” She didn’t know Cece all that well, but from what she could gather, the woman liked to feel useful and help others. And was a bit nosey. “He’s a hare, actually. Common mistake. Hares are bigger than rabbits.” She scratched her chin. “I mean, yes? He’s pretty harmless. He mostly just follows me around and chews on things. Animals don’t normally like me, so it’s kinda nice to have one around that, you know, does.” A chuckle. “Khalua, ha. That’s a good name. I’m gonna steal that if I ever get another pet. I was considering getting another tarantula, they’re pretty low maintenance.” She gave a short pause, before prodding her next question. “So...how do you know about all this stuff?”

“Oh, would I? Well that’s… Reassuring, I suppose.” The only thing that’d tipped Camille off about her neighbors at the motel was how loudly they talked about it. Perhaps they’d been trying to scare her. Honestly at the time they’d been the least of her worries, and she’d even briefly wondered if any attempts to kill her would actually work. Jury was still kind of out on that one, but it wasn’t like she wasn’t going to ask anyone to try it and find out.

Camille nodded, “right, a hare.” The difference wasn’t enough to bother her, but she’d try and remember it. “Ah, I hear most animals are a little bit destructive like that.” She chuckled, it was one of the things that had stopped her from getting a dog with Jace, being too precious about her house. “He was a real hit whenever we had dorm parties, that’s for sure. Even the dean thought he was too cute to tell us off.” The idea of a spider as a pet was… Really not Camille’s cup of tea, but if Marley already had a weird supernatural hare it probably wouldn’t seem so odd to her.

Right. How did she know about all this? Marley was a cop, it probably wasn’t smart to tell her too much about how she didn’t have a legal identity and there was a man in prison for her murder. But… Well, Marley was a cop with a jackalope, and wouldn’t it be a good idea to have as many useful people helping her figure this out as possible? If Marley had a strong enough link to the supernatural stuff, maybe she’d have some information no one else did yet. “Well…” Camille sipped her drink, tapping her fingers against the side of the glass. “How do you know about this stuff?”

.Marley ruffled her nose. “Hey, I asked you first,” she pointed out, frowning. It was strange to not feel affronted by the question, however, and she had to take a minute to pause and decide if that really was one she wanted to answer. A few months ago it would have been a solid and definite no, but now that things had changed in Marley’s life, she wasn’t sure anymore. She waffled on it for a moment, confused by her own indecision. “I’m a cop in White Crest,” she finally answered with a shrug, “how could I not know about this stuff? I know most of the precinct will like to make you believe everyone around there has their head in the sand, but you can’t judge us all because of that.” Even if Marley did. She knew most of the other cops didn’t believe in any of this shit. “I also sort of grew up with this kinda stuff.”

She leaned back against the counter again. “Okay, so now that I played my cards, are you gonna tell me yours?” she asked, nodding at her. “You seem pretty normal, so what could’ve happened to you to clue you in to all this shit?”

Camille lounged back against the counter, tapping her nails against the almost empty glass in her hand and waiting. Whatever Marley had to say she was willing to bet the other woman had been around this kind of stuff a lot longer than she had. The reasoning of being a cop was sound enough, she was willing to bet they all saw some weird stuff. But Regan worked in the morgue and had wings and still managed to be disbelieving of the whole thing. Growing up around it, though, that made Camille relax just a little.

She set the glass down to pull back the sleeve of her shirt and show the sigil on the back of her hand. “I died a while ago.” Camille said, trying to sound more nonchalant about the whole thing then she felt. “Woke up in White Crest earlier this year. With this thing-” She tapped a finger against the mark- “which I did not have in my first life. A lady told me it means I was resurrected and the mark keeps my soul in my body, or something.” Camille tugged her sleeve back down. “So I am pretty normal. Or I was, but it’s kind of hard to deny all this stuff when you know there’s an autopsy report with your name on it.” She shrugged, twisting her hands together, “I figure for now this town is the best place for me, while I’m still trying to get it together.”

Had Marley been drinking something, she would have spit out her drink. Instead, it came up as a cough that felt as if it stuttered and stuck in her throat, and she turned to look at Camille with wide eyes. “I’m sorry, did you say you died? And then-- came back?” That wasn’t really all that uncommon, but Marley had been sure Camille wasn’t a zombie or a vampire-- her tastebuds were too on par. But then she showed Marley the marking on her hand and it clicked-- someone had brought her back to life using necromancy. Marley didn’t know much about it, only that only very powerful spellcasters could do it, and that it was some sort of taboo-- Peter had informed her of this, and reminded her that they were not vessels of death while doing so-- and that Bea had likely also been resurrected. She’d told Marley she’d died after Marley had pestered her about not calling back.

“Yeah, well, I guess that’s fair,” she answered, scratching the back of her neck. “Normal is-- relative, I guess. Even though you’re, well, you know…” she motioned towards her, “you can still live a normal life.”

Marley’s reaction was… Almost comical. Especially in comparison to others. Nell had been matter of fact, Regan in denial. Marley was much closer to what Camille had expected of people. The tequila probably helped, but she actually didn’t feel all that exhausted by talking about it for once, which was a nice change. Perhaps because she hadn’t gotten into the details of her ex husband and the whole ordeal that had brought about her death. She didn’t want too, it wasn’t like she owed Marley anything. Part of normal was moving on. “It’s kind of a lot to process.” She said, nodding. “So I’m trying to take it easy. Just… Getting out into the world again, y’know? Steady job, making new friends.” Camille shrugged, “not perfect but better than nothing.”

She smiled,“actually, it makes me feel much safer knowing we actually have cops who understand exactly what is going on in this town, even if you can’t convince the entire squad.” She laughed softly, moving to set her glass down by the sink and pick up her bag. “It’s getting late. I shouldn’t keep you up all night. But we should hang out again, now that I know I don’t have to watch what I say with you.”

For a dead woman, Camille was pretty casual. Marley didn’t know what that experience was like, but she could understand wanting to make a normal life for yourself. “You really should quit the Cryptid Corner,” she said after a moment, but it was with a sly grin and not a judging one. “I heard that place is haunted.” Marley gave a sheepish shrug. “Well, glad I can help out, then. I’ll certainly do my best to keep this place clean, but White Crest is certainly a...dangerous place. Don’t um-- do anything to get yourself killed again, alright?” She started heading over towards the door with Camille. She wanted to quip about how the night was her time, but she kept her mouth shut for now. She’d already given away too much, and even if Camille had been more forthcoming with all this than she’d originally thought, she still felt exposed in some way. Even though Camille had spilled her entire story, Marley kept hers much closer to her chest. “Uh-- yeah,” she said, confused for a moment. People didn’t often ask to hang out with her again, let alone as just friends. Was this really how the world worked? She furrowed her brow. “Yeah, let’s do this again. Maybe with snacks next time, too.” That’s what people offered, right? She brushed the thought away. “And uh-- thanks for trusting me enough to tell me. You don’t have to worry, either. Your secret’s safe with me.” And if Camille turned on her somehow, it would make for some good blackmail. Not that she wanted that to happen. But old habits die hard.

Camille snorted out a laugh and shook her head, “the closest thing that place has ever gotten to haunted was the one time we had a possessed toilet. A nightmare to deal with but we’ve had nothing since. It’s too lame to haunt.” She nods, “yeah… Yeah I know this place can be a bit wild. Hell, when I woke up here people were being attacked by mimes, so.” It was almost scary how quickly she’d gotten used to it all, but maybe waking up dead could numb you to experiences like that a bit. “Trust me, I don’t have any plans to put myself in harm's way.”

It was true, she certainly wasn’t going to go looking for trouble. She’d even stopped walking around the forest at night, so things were looking up. Another friend who knew her secret, someone else to trust. Camille was sick of being lonely, see, she’d decided this life was going to have friends. “Right. I appreciate it. Enjoy the rest of your night, I’ll see ya.” She gave a cheery little wave before heading out the door, to return to her own home feeling a little more optimistic than the day before.

#chatzy #chatzy: camille #wickedswriting #margarita monday #camille

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annsparksthegmr · 3 years

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Pokemon Black Nuzlocke - Part 4

Hello! Surprise everyone I got another Nuzlocke update. And for a quick minor spoiler. I tackled two Gyms down in the next part. Might surprise you but I got a feeling the last two Gyms may pose a challenge. But you can read more below!

Back into we go with a Vanillite encounter at the Cold Storage. Once again, I caught a female one and decided to name her BananSplit. Totally spelt it wrong but that shall be her name for now on. Then I went inside of the building to go deal with Team Plasma and level up my team. After that I went to the Gym, watched Ghetsis truly do “totally not villainous” things before busting down the door to challenge his Gym. After buying a bunch of Moomoo Milks because they are surprisingly affordable for the time being.

I managed to reach Clay with no casualties. But then came our battle and immediately after his Krokorok used Swagger, he got a critical hit Bulldozer which Captain thankfully survived. I switched into Queen to handle the incoming Palpitoad and heal Captain back up. Queen then easily took out Palpitoad, but then came Excadrill. Which I’ve heard can be an end runner if I wasn’t careful - or at least I thought so. My main goal was to use Leech Seed and have Queen slowly take it out. After all, she resists most of its moves besides Slash. And I can switch into Captain if her HP gets too low. But thankfully Leech Seed secured the victory after using a hefty Grass Knot.

Another Gym secured with no casualties! I am so happy for my team. Queen and Captain really helped pull their weight. It might be because I get over prepared at times. Maybe a bit too much with items, but I feel like it's fair to use items. I headed to Route 6 and had a battle with Bianca. Not sure if I was supposed to do this before the Gym Battle, as all my team was around level 30 and her team was level 28. But she was easy to deal with.

Route 6 arrived so far all I am getting are Vanillites, which I use dupes to ignore for another. I understand it is because I am playing in winter so most options don’t appear. But I ended up running into a Foongus. A male one, who I decided to cheekily name Voltorb for the encounter. Never really going to use it right now but it shall hang out in the box.

Clay opened the way to Chargestone Cave and I got the TM Bulldoze. And I remember why I like Clay so much. Just like with all the other Gym Leaders. Oh, also N sent ninjas - I mean Shadow Triad - so we could chat. Here comes when N reveals Cheren is ideals, Bianca is truth and the main protagonist is somewhere in between. And it's kind of scary after N apparently walks off and teleports away then Bianca and Professor Juniper appear to explain the floating blue gemstone mechanic. I really miss stuff like this. I get the Lucky Egg and manage to find my encounter for Chargestone Cave - a Klink. Never got one of them before, so I nicknamed it Geartown.

After defeating more of Team Plasma I finally fought against N. We beat him no problem. I arrived in Mistralton City. Skyla had her little speech which led me to Route 7. On the way, Odette evolved into a beautiful Swanna. And I got my encounter as a double - with a male Watchhog and a female Cubchoo. I decided to go with the Cubchoo because I have found memories of my Beartic on my first one. Plus, if memory serves - a Beartic can learn some potential HMs. I named the adorable Cubchoo Snowball and she’ll rest in the PC until I need her.

Arriving at Celestial tower, I climbed up to the top and on my way caught a male Litwick. Decided to name Gracey after Master Gracey - neat Haunted Mansion reference because why not. At the very least, if Ramona faints before I reach the end I can use him. Or if the Modest nature on Ramona becomes too big of a problem to ignore. Plus Ramona also has Hustle as an ability. Though speaking of Ramona, she evolved into a Darmanitan. I reached the top and rang the bell. I really miss stuff like this. But a quick check of the PC revealed how both my Fire-Types have their natures lowering their respective attack/special attack. Whelp. Guess I have to wait and hope Reshiram will have a decent nature.

But now, I’m about to do something risky. I’m going to take down Skyla’s Gym at the same time. I already have a decent pick of Pokemon already prepared for this. Which hopefully, she won’t be too much trouble. By the way, what are the odds of a Trandquill getting off three Detects in a row? Just curious. There were no problems and with my confidence boosted so high in the sky, I challenged Skyla to showcase the power and potential of my Nuzlocke team. And I’d like to say, Pebbles and Zigzagzop clearly brought Skyla down to ground level.

Two gyms down a single update? I might be getting a bit too cocky, considering how N nearly spooked me as I exited the Gym. He wanted to chat with Pebbles - and seriously N, call Pebbles by her nickname and not Boldore. She takes great offense after defeating Skyla. He left about spouting about the Light and Dark Stones.

I plan to end things on this high note for the time being! I am only slightly considered regarding the next two Gyms. Brycen is Ice-Type, but with Ramona I feel okay with challenging it. But the bonus of Ramona getting Sheer Force now, I’m fairly confident in her performance. Though I may train up Gracey a bit, since I don’t think having Zigzagzop would be totally okay. My Zebstrika might have Flame Charge, but I don’t think it would help out as much as another Fire Type.

Though after that will come the final Gym Leader. Who I currently have is either an Ice or Dragon Type in my party. Meaning that Drayden could honestly kick my butt if I went with how I had now. *has flashbacks to his Gym Battle* His Haxorus is scary… I do, at the very least, have BananSplit and Snowball currently relaxing in my PC. I may have to plan to do some extensive level grinding to get up prepared for that challenge. If I don’t end up suffering any unsuspecting battles which end up taking out members of my team.

Maybe it is my experience with casually playing Pokemon and trying to keep a balanced team of Pokemon which has me pretty much not having any deaths so far. Though, I won’t be surprised if an upcoming battle decides to add a bunch into the death category. But for now, I played enough for the time being. Next time, I plan to at the very least challenge Brycen or hopefully get a considerable chunk of the way through to the eighth Gym. Not entirely sure if I’d be up to face Drayden - since I am playing Pokemon Black, which means no Iris fight.

But overall for my team, I can’t help but feel extremely proud of them so far. I knew for the later Gyms, Queen would have to practically be benched since Grass does not fare well against Flying, Ice or Dragon Type Pokemon. But she still carries herself well otherside of Gym Battles. Pebbles was definitely a surprise pick who I thought I’d bench her right after Lenora’s Gym. But this girl’s been proving her weight with her massive defenses enough where I want to keep her around. (And I swear if Pebbles dies, I will actually cry. She may not be able to fully evolve but I’ve grown attached to my rock). Zigzagzop was meant to be dropped after Elesa’s Gym, but he’s actually been proving himself with this latest Gym to keep around. I feel like he has a strong friendship with Pebbles considering I got them back to back. (Even with the funny Jaiden Animation reference.) Captain has been… well, I don’t really like his final evolution but having the Water/Ground typing makes him a good enough tank and Water-Type Pokemon to have on the team. Even if Odette is on the team. He might end up being Boxed, but it may just depend how things go. And Odette has already been showcasing why I needed a Flying-Type Pokemon on my team. Even if she is x4 weak to Electric. Even after fully evolving, she’s already showcasing her worth.

The only dilemma I have will have to be addressed soon. But I really hope even with losing Puppy and Fountain, I won’t have to say goodbye to anyone through a death. I expect to have to switch some out for the upcoming Gyms. Until next time though, which, I do plan to draw what my final team will end up being. And who knows? Maybe I’ll end up finishing the main story of Pokemon Black right on Christmas? Wouldn’t that be a treat?

Smell ya later!

Team Recap:

Queen - Female Servine (Lvl 35)

Pebbles - Female Boldore (Lvl 36)

Zigzagzop - Male Zebstrika (Lvl 36)

Captain - Male Palpitoad (Lvl 35)

Ramona - Female Darmanitan (Lvl 35)

Odette - Female Swanna (Lvl 35)

In Box/Reserve:

Ghost Girl - Female Liepard (Lvl 20)

Cassandra - Female Sandile (Lvl 21)

Trashie - Female Trubbish (Lvl 22)

Lowen - Male Cottonee (Lvl 20)

Lady - Female Minccino (Lvl 23)

BananSplit - Female Vanillite (Lvl 21)

Voltorb - Male Foongus (Lvl 23)

Geartown - Klink (Lvl 26)

Snowball - Female Cubchoo (Lv 30)

Gracey - Male Litwick (Lvl 26)

Deaths: 2

Fountain - Male Sampour (Lvl 15)

Puppy - Female Herdier (Lvl 25)

#pokemon black #pokemon black nuzlocke #personal thoughts #text post #I'm waiting for when this game will punish me #place bets when karma will strike me #I feel like this nuzlocke might be getting too easy #might have to change things up

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lovemesomesurveys · 3 years

Text

[yoliebloop]

where was your last kiss? I think it was in his car. It was like 8 years ago, so my memory is a little foggy.

have you ever had that person hold you? Yes.

when was your last piercing? When I got my ears pierced as a baby.

Last kiss, when was it? Like I said, it was like 8 years ago.

Do you ever look at yourself and get angry? Yes. I’m really upset, disappointed, and disgusted with myself to be honest.

are you hiding something from the one you love? Nothing major.

can you tell the difference between coke and pepsi? I definitely can and Coke is better.

do you prefer weed or cig? I’ve smoked weed and at least there’s benefits to it, but I have no desire to ever smoke a cigarette.

what do your parents say about smoking? They support weed being legal because of the medicinal benefits, but as for cigarettes there’s no good from that.

do like kissing with tongue or without? I don’t mind a little tongue.

what's your favorite body spray? I don’t have one currently. It’s been awhile since I’ve used any body spray.

clear lip gloss or tinted? Tinted.

what show is hilarious to you? Hmm.

what's the worst thing about sex? I’m a virgin so I wouldn’t know.

have you ever thought you were pregnant? Nope.

when you were young did the word sex bother you? No.

what did your first crush look like? I vaguely remember now cause I was like 9 years old, but I’m pretty sure he had brown eyes and short brown hair.

is your body more curvy or flat? Flat.

current mood? Sick and tired of being sick and tired.

what kind of girls piss you off? People who are assholes in general piss me off. <<<

is ice cream in winter weird to eat? Nah. I drink hot coffee year round, which some people think I’m crazy for during the summer, so who am I to judge.

what's your least favorite holiday? Valentine’s Day.

if you’re having a boring day what do you usually do? I do the same things everyday.

do you turn to food when your upset? No.

is your bf/gf good with your parents? I’m single.

does chewing with someone's mouth open make your angry? Maaaaaaajor pet peeve.

what's something you hate about people? Closed-mindedness and people who are very judgmental and rude.

are you jealous of other girls? No. I am envious of some, though, like of their hair, looks, or body type.

who last made you upset? I don’t recall who, but I’ve just been so frustrated, irritated, and upset with my health and how I’m feeling, as well as where I’m at in my life. I’m just so exhausted and don’t want to feel this way anymore.

does he/she usually upset you? I get upset about that stuff a lot.

who's more strict mom or dad? My parents aren’t strict, but my dad is definitely more overprotective. what feature do you find pretty about yourself? Nothing.

I hate stuck up girls, do you? I dislike anyone who is stuck-up. <<<

do any of your friends have a nasty ego? I don’t have any friends, but I wouldn’t want a friend like that.

which smile face do you prefer? :)

does playboy make you sick? It’s not something I’ve had an interest in.

would you ever kiss a girl? No.

what about date, would you date a girl? No.

are blondes that hot? Some are, but I don’t think someone is hot just because they’re blonde.

can you remember your 4th grade teacher? Yes, he’s my favorite teacher.

what grade are you currently in? I’m done with school.

what do you usually buy/pack for lunch? --

do you think soda should be served at school? I was so upset that they removed the soda machines the year I got to high school haha. I thought it was cool to be able to get that at school.

why do you think farting is so gross to guys? I didn’t think guys typically found farting to be disgusting.

is burping gross? If you’re being loud and obnoxious about it.

do you stink right now? I just my smell my laundry detergent on my clothes.

ever watched YouTube makeup tutorials? Yeah.

are butterflies the cutest bug? Um, “cute” and “bug” don’t belong together in the same sentence unless you’re saying, “bugs aren’t cute.”

what tattoo would you get if you HAD to get one now? I’ve wanted to get “free bird” for several years.

are snakebites sexy? or over talked about? I used to think so back in my emo days.

last thing you drank? Water.

Favorite kind of gum? Minty kind only.

last song you heard? I don’t remember.

what are some of the lyrics? --

do you like M&M or Lil Wayne more? I like Eminem more. M&M, ha.

what do you think of hilter? Uh, he was a vile, evil piece of shit?

do dogs have feelings? They absolutely do.

are you afraid of snakes? YES.

favorite snack? I like to have cookies, muffins, donuts, brownies, cupcakes or Little Debbie snacks with coffee.

is Kool-Aid beautiful to you? Uh, I’ve never thought of it as being beautiful.

can you remember the last time you cried? Last night.

cocoa or coffee? Coffee, always.

7 forever or 51 forever? 51 forever.

ever seen the notebook? Nope.

"The Hills" do you think there acting or its real drama? Of course there’s acting involved. They hype things up and set things up to make certain things happen.

ever got in a fist fight? Nope.

ever get a boob job? No.

what’s your biggest flaw? I have so many to choose from.

i hate when people say "i luv u" or "ily" do you? Not a fan either, personally.

do you think cussing is trashy? I don’t like when it’s done excessively.

all time favorite band? Linkin Park.

thongs are butt dental floss. ...

rather have your guy wear tightie whities or thong? How about boxers.

your thoughts on speedo's, i think it should be speed-NO's! I don’t care.

do you think chest hair is hot? (ew) No.

what about nipple hair (lol)? No. omg what would you do if your bestfriend had nipple hair, would u tell her? Uh, I wouldn’t know if they did and that’s not of my concern. Like why would I care? Also, I’m sure she’d be aware of it.

are popping zits fun? I don’t think it’s fun, but I do it. I have an awful picking habit.

is acne gross to you? Yes, it’s not a pleasant thing to have.

can you count to 7,800,900,1. backwards? I would never even try.

anything bugging you? My head.

do you enjoy sneezing? No.

do you feel bad for bugs? always being killed cause they look weird:( No.

zebra print, do you like it? Nah.

belly ring or lip? Neither.

do you like septums? No.

what would your parents do if you got a tattoo? They wouldn’t care, but they’d be shocked if I actually got one cause they know how big of a baby I am, ha.

what about getting pregnant? They’d definitely be shocked to say the least about that.

are you on birth control? No, I don’t have a reason to be.

#personal #text #survey #surveys

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gothamcityneedsme · 3 years

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Character questions for girls! 17+18 for Akane, 22+29 for Sennestra, 32 for both. (38 for Tav because I don't want to leave him out :p)

SORRY I FORGOT TO ANSWER THESE. From the post located here.

17. Do they like to take photos? What do they like to take photos of? Selfies? What do they do with their photos?

Akane is really big on the photo reel. She’s definitely the kind of person who goes through her photos when she’s bored to delete the ones she shouldn’t keep so that she has more space. She also definitely uses a computer to store them because they accumulate over the years. She only takes pictures with her phone, the digital age is kind to her lol.

She takes pictures of things around her, she definitely has a few shots of the places she goes most (her room, her house, places she walks often outside). She would take pictures of things she sees (pretty buildings, fountains, nature, cute animals). She would also take selfies, but usually only whenever she’s wearing a new outfit or if she’s with friends. She definitely likes taking pictures of herself when other people are in it as well, she likes gathering memories.

I can totally see her making scrapbooks when a time or event really strikes her, but she probably keeps those to herself. She would only share them when she really trusts someone and wants to be very open with them. (and when a right time happens for her to show them as well).

18. What’s their favourite genre of: books, music, tv shows, films, video games and anything else

Akane loooooves romance novels. Big epic ones or trashy silly ones, she adores them all with the same amount of love. She especially loves medieval-themed romances. Music-wise she would probably listen to mostly pop songs or classical music. I can’t really see her enjoying any “harder” music. TV shows is similar to her book loves, she would love shows like Merlin. For films she would like foreign artsy films, I think. Aaand for video games, I don’t usually see her as a gamer, but if she’s going to do anything, it would be to play healer in an MMO with her friends, lol. She makes her character look pretty and sweet. I MAYBE could see her getting into rp, which, if that was the case, she would have at least two characters. One a sweet magical girl and the other a valiant but shy male knight. She’s baaaaaasically projecting hardcore lol.

22. What are their favourite insults to use? What do they insult people for? Or do they prefer to bitch behind someone’s back?

If she isn’t swearing, Sennestra would probably call people ‘coward’ a lot, or just literally spit at them. She definitely bitches both to people’s face and behind their backs--when something bothers her she can be a bit Queen Bitch about it. I see her using a lot of universe-appropriate swear words when she has something specific to insult too.

Sennestra is definitely the type of person where you’re safe from all perceived slights if you’re her friend, but if you’re her enemy you never escape her glare.

29. What do they do when they find out someone else’s fear? Do they tease them? Or get very over protective?

For this, I think it depends on the gravity of the fear. If it’s something small that the person is sort of brushing off themselves even as they confess it, Sennestra would poke fun at them. Gently, if she’s friends with the person. This is especially the case if it’s spiders or something little that’s more a minor phobia than a true fear. (And, for these minor things, as long as the relationship wouldn’t be too harmed by it, she’d be the type to do like leaving a rubber spider on the back of someones chair to surprise them later, etc).

If it’s a more serious fear though, especially if it’s the fear of someone she really cares about, Sennestra would be overprotective. She wouldn’t TALK about it, really, and she’s not good at that kind of close comfort kind of way of addressing fears, but she would be sure to put herself between that fear and the person who is afraid. Once she’s aware, she would always try to shield them from it, as much as she can.

If it isn’t a physical fear, then she HAS to talk, and while she’s inelegant about that, she would try to do her best to assure the person who is afraid, and would try to reassure them with her own strength.

32. What do they dress like? What sorta shops do they buy clothes from? Do they wear the fashion that they like? What do they wear to sleep? Do they wear makeup? What’s their hair like?

I’m going to limit myself to a modern universe for this ask or I’ll never get through it. I’ll start with Akane. Akane dresses very very femme, lots of pretty dresses and bright colors moreso than dark. She likes accessories and makeup and prettying herself up. She buys clothes from stores that sell more clothes for women than men, the sort of store that really has a lot of different fashion-lines to choose from. She LOVES the clothes she wears. To sleep, she would wear cute pjs with patterns she likes. Her pjs would always match. Her hair is a very dramatic bob, with her hair longer in the front and shorter in the back. She usually wears it down without much else done to it, but sometimes she will but barrettes or headbands on for fun. She almost never ties it back at all and would only do so if she’s doing yardwork or something extremely physical like that.

Sennestra is a mix of practicality and goth and while she would dress fancy when the situation calls, for the typical day she wears clothes that she can move quickly in. When she was younger I think she leaned more heavily into the goth thing, but as she grows older the color scheme remains, but the clothes would change. She probably buys her clothes from stores that sell clothes for professionalism or sports. To sleep she probably just wears a big T-Shirt and that’s it. She’ll wear shorts if other people are around but typically probably wouldn’t bother. Sennestra wears makeup but she doesn’t change it up very often, but she likes wearing heavy eye makeup and lipstick. Sennestra’s hair is short, and she styles it to line up with her jawline, but it’s very coarse.

38. What do they admire in others? What talents do they wish they had?

Tavon admires people who are sure in their ideals and goals, and while he does have those himself, he actually tends to hide his own insecurity about his choices. He wants so deeply to be sure of his path that he sort of projects the questionlessness he thinks he has onto others and admires it, even when he assumes he possess it as well. Later, he does possess it, but he does still admire it, especially when someone’s goal does not align with his own--he finds differing perspectives interesting. (A side note, but he is more often to lessen or remove his own goals in the face of other’s, though--but sometimes that is a good thing).

He also admires practical skills, especially combat-related ones in most universes. He admires bravery and daring, those who are willing to push for what they think is right.

He wishes he was better at connecting honestly with people--an honest connection is something he struggles with. Falsely, it is easy for him, he’s a spy, he can play the game perfectly, but trust and true connection often evade him, or are quite difficult. He looks to people who truly care for and love each other and admires those deep feelings.

He also generally admires any specific skillset that isn’t one he’s particularly trained in--even as a spy its not like he can be a master of everything, so sometimes he needs a specialist. It depends on universe, but Tavon Prime would wish he had better mechanical technological aptitude (as his skills lie mainly in slicing).

#shitpost #akane #sennestra #tavon #abysskeeper #I FORGOT ABOUT THIS SORRY LOL.

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unibrowzz · 4 years

Text

My 2020 reviews

All the cool kids were doing these so now I finally dragged my ass into doing them too lmao.

Albania- Fall from the Sky

A song I swear cursed this whole contest from the moment it won Festivali i Këngës. Like with the shitshow this song caused I just knew the whole year was fucked. With half the fandom whining they didn’t get their first club song of the year to the other half smugly shoving it as their winner despite no other songs being around to compare it to, the whole fiasco just left me knowing that 2020 would end in tears, just hopefully not my own. As for the song, it’s lame. It’s a standard ballad with OBSCENE amounts of autotune, which is weird because the girl can actually sing pretty decently without it, so why they decided to make her sound like a damn computer is beyond me. And WHY did they translate it, haven't the past few years proven that Albania's better off leaving their songs in Albanian?

Armenia- Chains on You

A bootleg Ariana Grande song, and a really shit one at that. The kind of song only people who think being young, gay and mean counts as having a personality would say is good.

Australia- Don’t Break Me

One of the few decent Australian entries (but that REALLY isn’t saying much coming from me, I barely care they’re in the contest by this point) but marred by a horribly untidy performance and lacklustre lyrics. At least it’s not fucking pop-opera, that’s all I can say. I’d rather listen to the sound of my face being dragged down the runway at Heathrow airport than be subjected to another Zero Gravity.

Austria- Alive

One of those pseudo-jazz dance songs, á la Olly Murs or Bruno Mars (I swear there’s a song like this in every recent contest). I mean, it’s good, but it’s just kinda meh since I’m kinda getting tired of this genre rearing its fedora-wearing head every time a new lineup rolls in.

Azerbaijan- Cleopatra

One of the “better” trashy entries this year, comprised of about five different musical genres, six ancient cultures being appropriated and absolutely zero class. Probably sounds at least 50% better when you’re absolutely steaming drunk and face down on the floor in the middle of a gay bar.

Belarus- Da Vidna

Somehow, this song sounds both very unique and original yet trite and average at the same time. I couldn’t decide whether listening to it was a new experience or if I’d heard it a million times before.

Belgium- Release Me

A song which just drones on till it ends. I would say it’s ripping off the song that won last year, but it forgot that having a chorus stops your song from being three minutes of snooze.

Bulgaria- Tears Getting Sober

A typical breathy mumble-girl song, AKA a genre I can’t fucking stand. Really don’t see the hype with this one, the melody is pretty but the vocals are out for lunch and it’s otherwise completely and utterly boring.

Croatia- Divlji Vjetre

One of the token big dramatic ballads you listen to once, enjoy, then forget about until Darius in the Discord server plays it one night whilst you’re hitting up the radio bot with requests. You’ll find that “nice, but forgettable” is a common theme for this year.

Cyprus- Running

Ironically Cyprus didn’t send a crappy Fuego knockoff for 2020, and I say ironically because a crappy Fuego knockoff would’ve actually stood out this year, and I say crappy because honestly Fuego wasn’t even all that great to begin with. "Running” itself is just one of those edgy tortured soul pop songs which, let’s be honest, would have been paired with an impressive performance which would’ve overshadowed how bland it is. Kind of like “You’re the Only One”. Or even Fuego for that matter.

Czech Republic- Kemama

Standard Afro-pop, a genre we don't often see at the contest so I'll let it pass. I feel like this is the kind of song that’s infinitely better live, and that it would’ve been one of those songs that suddenly became a frontrunner after the semi finals, but I guess we’ll never know eh?

Denmark- Yes

The quintessential mid-10s Eurovision song. It's got guitars, happy people, Scandinavian origins… it’s just a typical radio guitar song, nothing special.

Estonia- What Love Is

I mean it's better than La Forza. Granted, the sound of someone pissing directly onto a microphone installed in the bowl of a toilet would sound better than La Forza but still. Going back to this song, it’s just... a standard Eastern-ballad with some very desperate lyrics. It feels kind of outdated, if I’m honest. Like something about this just reeks of 2011.

Finland- Looking Back

Yet another dreary, forgettable ballad. It comes to something when the best song they COULD have sent was a party song which sounded like it was from the mid 90s. At least that song was memorable. That said, this one at least has some decent lyrics. Bravo for that I guess.

France- Mon Alliée

France decides to say “fuck it” to being an underground fan-favourite and takes a leaf out of the UKs book by sending the same rent-a-Swede schlock they’ve been sending since 2015. I’m just confused as to why anyone in their right mind would choose to follow the UKs example but you do you France.

Germany- Violent Thing

A rehash of Sweden's entry from two years ago, but this time sung by Justin Bieber circa 2008. Kind of alright if you can stomach the singer's whiny voice, but otherwise pretty dull and kinda forgettable.

Greece- Superg!rl

Hello fellow kidz, we are hearing you like the girl power? The super heroes? The t3xt $p3ech? We made you song, please give us the votes *dabs*

Georgia- Take me as I Am

I mean… this sure is a choice. This feels like one of those songs that everyone memes on because the lyrics are kinda janky and the singer’s voice (and accent) take a bit of getting used to, but other than that it’s just one of those NQ songs for hipster fans to declare as their unironic winner at a later date. All in all this just feels like the male equivalent of one of those mid-10s fat acceptance women’s songs, only a lot shoutier and this time he has more flaws than not being skinny.

Iceland- Think About Things

A bootleg George Ezra song, performed by a load of disinterested tumblr users in their pyjamas. Because if there’s one thing that sells me on a song, it’s being given the evils by a bunch of nerds who look like they’ll send me death threats for not agreeing with their Pokémon headcanons. To be fair, the song is kind of groovy since it sounds so 70s, but the performance is very off-putting to people who aren’t in the Eurovision loop. And also people who are, because I sure as Hell don’t see the appeal in this myself and this whole performance just feels like Save Your Kisses for Me without the charm. I feel like this would’ve come second or third, definitely with a lot of televotes but either the jury would’ve dragged it down or it wouldn’t have scored enough televotes to win.

Ireland- Story of my Life

A song that’s at LEAST ten years out of date by this point, think like an early Katy Perry, Jessie J or Avril Lavigne song. I’ll forgive it because even though it sounds like it should’ve been entered in 2013 (at the latest), it at least evokes some nostalgic memories of shitty school discos and holiday parks.

Israel- Feker Libi

The female equivalent of the Czech song. Unsurprisingly, people went wild for it when it was released. I guess only women are allowed to sing Afro-pop at this contest. Like with the Czech song, I’ll forgive it since Afro-pop is a cool genre anyway, and even though this is just another club song I can at least see myself dancing to it.

Italy- Fai Rumore

Well, at least my wish of “Italy sends a typical power ballad devoid of anything the mainstream fandom likes” finally came true. It was pretty refreshing to have a year where people weren’t shoving Italy’s entry up my nose left right and centre. In terms of my actual thoughts I can’t deny that the guy has a tremendous voice, but for some reason the song just doesn’t… click with me. I guess I like my male Italian singers a little more gruff and raspy, if you know what I mean. They gotta sound like they smoke at LEAST five packets of cigarettes a day for me to take notice.

Malta- All of my Love

Listen I am 100% rooting for Destiny Chukunyere to win this contest some day but man was this song a disappointment. It feels so… un-special and generic, like it gets the job done and that’s it. It’s not the stand-up-and-belt-it-out soul anthem I’d hoped for, it’s just… there.

Moldova- Prison

All I remember about this song is that it vaguely reminds me of that one Meccano song about the gypsy who makes a deal with the moon or something. And I’ve TRIED to remember more about what it sounds like, trust me.

Latvia- Still Breathing

The one horrible weird song you get every year which overuses strobe effects to the point it comes with an epilepsy warning. Would be bearable if it wasn't for the singer’s insistence that this is actually some feminist masterpiece when it's really just a self-empowerment club song about the singer fingerbanging herself over the fact she writes music.

Lithuania- On Fire

One of the songs everyone thought was going to win at one point, even though it seems like a surefire non-qualifier to me. It’s one of those weird entries, but not the kind of over the top, batshit insane, you’d-have-to-be-drunk-to-enjoy-it weird, the kind of subdued surreal weird. Like this is weed instead of LSD or cocaine weird. Granted my mom, who I consider to be a "typical" Eurofan, actually really liked this song when she saw it in the recaps, so who knows maybe this would have done well with televoters after all.

Netherlands- Grow

I appreciate this song for how artsy and clever it is with its structure, since it starts off acapella and the instrumental builds up with the song until it stops suddenly, symbolising a person’s growth from a child into an adult, and ending suddenly with their death (Geddit? The song’s called “Grow”). But it feels like the kind of song that would be lost on a Eurovision audience. The juries would have taken note, for sure, but the televote… let’s be honest, they’d have been too busy drunk voting for Russia to care about anything else.

North Macedonia- You

Well, it's better than the miserable dirge they sent last year, but given how I'd rather pleasure myself with a steak knife than listen to that song, that really isn't saying much. Going back to “You”, it really just feels like a diet version of Switzerland’s entry from last year, combined with Sweden’s song from 2018. What I’m saying is it’s your average “I’m a man in a club and I want to dance with and probably fuck this hot girl I just met” song, which I a new genre I just made up. You’re welcome.

Norway- Attention

One of those songs you appreciate because it sounds nice and the singer has a good voice, but instantly forget because it’s really not all that interesting. If I sound like I'm repeating myself, welcome to Eurovision 2020.

Poland- Empires

“Rise Like a Phoenix” but sung by a wannabe Adele and not a mascara-wearing Jesus in a dress. Like a lot of other songs on this list, it’s just average across the board, likeable when it’s on, but instantly forgettable as soon as the next song comes on.

Portugal: Medo de Sentir

Pretty, but also similar to their ill-fated 2018 entry, only with a bit more energy and less pink hair. What I’m saying is this would have been another NQ unless the crowd who enjoy subtle ambience music come in to save it like they did with Slovenia's entry last year.

Romania- Alcohol You

See Bulgaria, because this is practically the same song. It’s just as dreary, just as badly sung (if not worse because holy shit this girl sounds like she’s being suffocated), and I suppose you COULD excuse that by saying she’s drunk or hungover… but I don’t want to listen to someone ungracefully mumble into a microphone for three minutes.

Russia- Uno

A classic big camp party song, the kind of song people who haven’t watched Eurovision since 2003 think wins on the regular. I can see why people would like it (especially in this boring year lmao, I applaud Russia for taking the opportunity to loosen their corset and just send a complete mess instead of their usual clinical vote grabs), but it’s just not something I enjoy. It's the song that plays into the misconception that Eurovision is just a clown show for drunk people, like this is just here to be that one flash-in-the-pan meme song that only entertains people who don’t really care about Eurovision until the day before it airs. Kind of like the old ladies they sent in 2012 (remember them?).

San Marino- Freaky!

San Marino, in true Sammarinese fashion, have yet again sent a decade-ambiguous song which sounds like it was either released in 1978 or 2003. I feel like this would have been one of those songs which could have surprised us if it had a really wacky, creative performance (think like Moldova in 2018), but this is San Marino so you know that would never happen.

Serbia- Hasta la Vista

Insert unoriginal joke about a decade wanting their shitty trend back right here. Okay maybe that’s a bit harsh, especially considering how this song is actually, yanno, unique in comparison to the rest of this year. But it still feels weirdly dated, in a way where I can’t decide whether it sounds like it belongs in 1998 or 2018. I suppose girl power ages a song regardless of when it was released.

Slovenia- Voda

Yet another standard Balkan-European power ballad which you appreciate because it’s well sung, but forget the moment it ends because it’s kinda boring. … Does anyone else have a bit of deja vu?

Spain- Universo

For some reason I feel like this song is shilling itself out to someone but I have no idea who. Aside from the horny people voting solely because the singer is moderately attractive even with that wretched Jedward haircut.

Sweden- Move

Imagine soul but… boring.

Switzerland- Répondez Moi

Imagine Arcade but… in French.

United Kingdom- My last Breath

Not the best the UK could have done, but it’s at least a modern offering unlike the residual dregs of the mid-90s that we sent throughout the 2010s. It’s definitely a bit too generic to have done any better than maybe 15th, but hey at least the cancellation means we won’t have to see it not do as well as the BBC thinks it’s entitled to do, prompting a billion clickbait articles about how Brexit somehow affected our performance.

Ukraine- Solovey

At long last we come to something you probably weren't expecting: a song I actually really like. Which is weird because I usually don't care for or don't like whatever Ukraine vomits into the contest, so I was pleasantly surprised to find a song I liked from them in such a weak year. This song isn’t for everyone, it’s white noise singing which is a very acquired taste, but this is honestly the only 2020 song I find myself coming back to over and over. And it’s in Ukrainian too, so you don’t have to put up with their usual mangled English offerings.

#and that conclude's the mods thoughts lmao #eurovision #if this is good i might do this with other years let me know what you think #mod speaks #mod reviews

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ginnypctter · 4 years

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self para | pre-season quidditch promotional interview

It’s her least favourite part of the job. The interviews before season, and after games. Having to be charismatic in front of cameras and reporters with self-scribing quills and answer questions in a way that would represent the season and careers of the women on her team.

Ginny Potter was the captain though. The leader making decisions and calls, and therefore the face of whether they would win or lose.

And though she’d been a Weasley first and foremost, had risen in ranks on her own accord - the surname Potter stitched to the back of her uniform was something some of the older generation still clung too. Wretched writers like Rita Skeeter sometimes attempted to say that it was her *association* to Harry or the war from twenty years ago that had pushed Ginny into the spotlight.

Not the fact that Gwenog Jones had scouted her in her seventh year of Hogwarts when she’d been Gryffindor captain and they’d won the cup, or that she’d gone from a second to first string player in her first few months. It also definitely wasn’t that she had been ballsy enough to win Rookie of the Year in her first season, or even that she’d been one of the highest preforming Chasers in all of her career.

No, that couldn’t be the reason that Ginny had become captain nearly 7 years ago. It had to be her husband’s war heroism.

The accusations made anyone that truly knew quidditch roll their eyes - the lackluster insults usually made by sore losing men fans and trashy tabloids. Still, the comments didn’t dull how much it had hurt after they’d gotten a little louder with last season’s injury.

A dislocated shoulder ( if her arm turned completely the wrong way could be still be described as so ) had side-lined her for three games last spring; even with the speed of magical healing. The first time the comments of whether she was the right choice for captain had stopped being tongues of just rival fans, and started to come from Quidditch reporters and experts. Her age after all wasn’t that of a young woman any longer.

An impressive rookie no more, instead she was a middle-aged athlete. A woman past her 20′s. And while the Cannons were infamous for keeping players as long as possible due to their popularity, they were also famously losers. The Harpies have always been competitive. A team of women in a rough sport, it was normal for the managers to be cut-throat, but it had Ginny making the decision to go back on the pitch sooner than she should have been. Not a chance she was going to let spectators forget about her, but it kept the questions coming.

Should Ginny Potter still be captain, or was she past her prime?

So these are the questions she expects as she stands behind the podium when it’s her turn to speak for the Harpies that afternoon, prepped to be grilled and manipulated to say something that would undermine her career, her authority, her choices - all while she smiles and keeps her charm, putting her best broom forward.

“ Captain Potter, what’s the training schedule been for the team the last few months. ” A reporter starts off with the usual. And easy one, Ginny smiles her brilliant look and laughs.

“ Let’s just say enough to scare the other teams. And well, I’ve been cursed at by the team more than a few times the last couple months. ” The comment gets a laugh from the crowd before another hand goes up, Ginny nodding to the reporter to address him.

“ How do you respond to Philomena Levy-Brown, captain of the Appleby Arrows, who suggested it's time the Harpies look for a new captain? ”

“ Oh, that’s just wishful thinking! Can’t blame her for trying to get rid of the competition, but maybe she should focus a bit more on her team and they might win a cup for once. ”

Fuck, she loved the fact that trash talk was part of her job. She can’t help but smirk despite the dig that it wasn’t only Captain Levy-Brown who’d said comments along those lines. The next few questions are along the lines of “ How do you think the season will go? ” ( “The girls and I feel like this is going to be one of our strongest years - they’re ready for battle. ” ) and “ Do the Harpies have any special pre-game rituals? ” ( “ If I told you they’d be jinxed! ” ) when she’s blind-sided.

“ How do you think the Ministry's restrictions on magical movement will impact the 2020 quidditch season? ”

She pauses, Ginny’s brows furrowing - a terrible habit she had when caught off guard. It turned her bright and shining face into a glare, even when she wasn’t angry. But she shakes her head for a moment and shrugs, “ I trust that the ministry is working with the British and Irish Quidditch League, as well as anyone else they need to, in order to ensure that the season goes as well as it can with everything happening. ”

“ Are you saying that as an employee of the League, or as a Potter? ”

The glare stays situated on her face, her pale, freckled skin starting to flush with frustration before she simply states, “ Both. ”

“ So you agree with Minister Granger when she states that “Safety is more important than sport” ? ”

Ginny practically scoffs, clenching her jaw at the corner she was being backed into. This prick was trying to either get her to side with what the ministry was doing ( which she’s not fully convinced of ), or go against Hermione. It’s a split second decision but she simply states, “ I think a Minister of Magic who cares about sports more than the safety of her people would be a pretty terrible Minister, wouldn’t you? ”

Its fantastic press. She can see it in the hungry fox-like eyes of the reporters in front of her, but it’s terrible promotion. Ginny knows this because her manager Marvin suddenly appears at her side - grabbing her arm ( the bad one so she has to strain not to flinch ) as he pulls her off the stage, telling the crowd that questions are over for now.

#self para | pre-season quidditch promotional interview #dun dun dunnnn #ginny accidentally picks a side in politics #no news is good news #but bad press is great news

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thesublemon · 4 years

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Favorite movies/tv shows of 2019, and why? (Also, I really like your posts and hope you post more stuff!

Thanks so much! More posts are incoming. And sorry for taking so very long to answer this.

To be honest, I don’t watch a ton of contemporary stuff. I tend to think it’s healthier to take advantage of the great wealth of great art (or weird-but-interesting art) made in all time periods than to focus on keeping up with the present. Not that I don’t watch any contemporary things, I just don’t prioritize it in any way. So this list isn’t based on me watching everything and then picking out the best. It’s based on me watching a few things and liking some of them. But I hope that even if this list isn’t any more interesting than a list of awards ceremony nominations, I might at least have something worthwhile to say about the things in question.

Recent TV:

(I’m cheating and including TV from 2017-2019 that I watched in the last year or two, or else the list would be pretty boring and short.)

Succession (2018-present) - Maybe my favorite of the shows on this list, which is surprising to me because it’s not the kind of show I normally like. I don’t tend to care about rich people being mean to each other, or art that is glossily timely. I don’t get off on seeing the private dramas of powerful, immoral people. What I like about Succession is the sense of fragility and desperation that infuses it. It’s about the human desire for these stable institutions—families, kings, corporations—and whether or not they’re actually stable, and whether or not they should be destabilized. The whole thing is just a wonderfully rich text that has been made with a lot of craft. It’s nice to know that there are people making art that is very much about the present, and has something interesting to say about it.

Fleabag (2016-present) - The second season has gotten a lot of deserved praise, so I’m not going to dwell on its merits. It’s a complex and often moving exploration of the nature of love, whether romantic, familial, physical or divine. What makes it a truly “mature” artistic work is the way that it knows what it’s about from the very beginning (“this is a love story”) and complicates that aboutness in every single episode. It’s actually interesting to compare to the first season, which lacks the same maturity. The first season is still worth watching, but it doesn’t really become clear what it’s about until the last second, when Fleabag gives her monologue in the cafe. You keep waiting for it to get to the point, instead of having a repeated sense of anticipation about the point and accompanying satisfaction every time the point-shoe drops.

Killing Eve (2018-present) - Solid entertainment. Had a bit too much of the “contemporary TV aesthetic” for me to really love. But I’d missed genuine originality and clever writing in thriller-type stories. So it’s got that going for it. (Trying to actually define the “contemporary TV aesthetic” is a problem for another post).

unREAL (2015-2018) - I only watched the first season, and don’t feel a need to watch the rest. People tell me the subsequent seasons aren’t very good anyhow. But it was doing some interesting things. Things to do with femininity, authenticity, performance and love, and the degree to which they interfere with each other. I’m planning on talking about it a bit more in a subsequent post, along with Fleabag and the movie Weekend.

Sharp Objects (2018) - Mainly watched this and unREAL because I wrote so much about Buffy season six in the last year, and I was curious about Marti Noxon’s other shows (She was the main showrunner for that season, and you can definitely tell. Unhealthy relationships, mental illness in women, rough sex, and ideas of performance seem to show up in a lot of her stuff.). She has an interesting tendency to choose “trashy” subjects, but with a refreshingly non-cute approach to the (mostly-heterosexual) female id that I respond to. I keep trying to figure out what quality Sharp Objects had that other recent art about “women being and feeling fucked up in an artistically exaggerated way” didn’t have. Things like Midsommar, The Favourite, or Gone Girl. None of which I liked. And I think it comes down to that lack of cuteness. Watching a female protagonist furtively masturbate over the memory of a murder-shack in a way that’s not about fetishizing her? Either for a male or female or political audience? It’s weirdly satisfying.

Euphoria (2019-present) - Only watched the first four episodes or so, and probably won’t watch the rest. But it was interesting to me as a pretty successful attempt to be blatantly zeitgeisty. I like its vision of contemporary life as something full of hyperstimulus (“euphoria,” get it?). Whether that’s the hyperstimulus of porn, love, attention, validation, or actual drugs. It didn’t seem to be a reactionary condemnation of all of the above, more just a depiction of it, but since I didn’t watch the whole thing I can’t comment on its attitude with certainty.

The Vietnam War (2017) - Excellent Ken Burns as usual. I appreciated the variety of perspectives he interviewed, and I appreciated the episode dedicated to Vietnam’s history before the war started. If there’s one thing that American schools suck at teaching about the Vietnam War, it’s the Vietnamese side of things. I’m not a historian so I can’t comment on how good the history in the series is. I’m sure there are important criticisms to make of it, and like all Ken Burns documentaries he uses emotional tactics to tell the story that can at times feel manipulative in a bad way. But as someone who always wanted a more in-depth, multi-sided understanding of the Vietnam War, but didn’t know where to start, I was very glad to have watched it.

Black Sails (2014-2017) - Still haven’t seen the last season. But after watching I was honestly surprised I hadn’t heard more people talking about it. Or maybe that’s just my fault for not keeping up with mainstream writing about culture. It had some fascinating themes about the nature and fragility of civilization, and I think it would be interesting to compare to Succession on that front. Black Sails features characters on the outskirts of society. Whereas Succession features characters at the center of society. But both are about the desperation for stability that leads people to make societies—and disrupt societies—in the first place.

Recent movies:

(Sticking just to 2019 this time)

Once Upon a Time In Hollywood - What I liked about this movie is that it felt like a movie. I left it feeling like I’d had a big old cineplex experience. Which was fitting, because the movie itself was about the big artificiality of film. Throughout, there is this contrast between real violence, and movie violence, and who has an understanding of them. Cliff Booth, as a stuntperson, has a “real” relationship to violence, while Rick Dalton, as an actor, does not. Cliff can cut through a cult’s fakeness, and knows to turn aside an offer of underage sex. But although Dalton does not understand authenticity, he does understand fakeness. The point of the teenage terrorists in the final act is that none of them understand either authenticity or fakeness. They don’t get that violence is real, and they don’t get that movies are fake, which leads them to being destroyed by their own movie-inspired violence. In typical Tarantino form, the movie does have a smug-feeling nyah-nyah attitude about this theme, a feeling of “you idiot loser generation, you don’t get the seriousness of violence and you also don’t get that movies are fucking fun.” But it was a theme I found interesting nonetheless.

Apollo 11 - Unequivocally loved the cinematography. Just completely aesthetically compelling to me on every level. I would have have watched an entire Koyannisqatsi devoted to it. But I feel sort of weird saying that I liked Apollo 11 as an example of contemporary movie-making, since all of that footage I loved was shot in 1969. Still, the contemporary aspect—ie, the editing—did a good job as well. Mostly because it gave the impression of staying out of the way, even though it must have been a significant effort to select and organize the footage. As well as doing animations, titling, etc. I liked that the patriotism and mythology of it was mostly just conveyed via actual soundbites from the time. And that the competent chatter of scientists was given much greater weight. I watched Free Solo the other day, a climbing documentary from 2018, and I liked it for similar reasons—the fact that the presentation gave the impression of staying out of the way of the content, despite being obviously edited.

Parasite - Pretty understandable to me that it just won Best Picture, since it’s one of the few movies from the last year that knew exactly what it was about and how to do it, and did it with unpretentious panache. I appreciated its highly cinematic use of imagery. Say, the contrast between the concrete architecture on the upper and lower levels of society— how in the upper level it’s high art, and on the lower level it’s an inhumane prison. Or the way that characters keep visually crossing lines. I was actually pretty relieved to see that Joon-ho made this movie, because I hated Snowpiercer, and kept thinking it would have been a thousand times better if it was a thousand times less metaphorical and just depicted a real-world instance of inequality in a heightened, artistic way. Which is exactly what Parasite is. In fact, I think it would be interestingly instructive to explore why Parasite succeeded in creating iconic-feeling metaphors for social inequality where Snowpiercer failed. I also appreciated its basic vision of inequality as something symbiotic, and therefore systemic, rather than a matter of mere oppression. You find yourself asking more interesting questions about how to deal with systems when you acknowledge that systems are systems, even absurd and mutable systems, in the first place. Where I think Parasite was weakest was in the pace of the storytelling. I felt myself repeatedly getting ahead of it—eg, once you realize the brother is going to get the sister a job, you’re just waiting for the movie to finish up situating the mother and father as well. Whereas I think the strongest storytelling is perfectly aware of when the audience will start anticipating something, and uses that anticipation to create complications and surprise.

An incomplete list of some other things I watched in 2019 below the cut…

Movies that I watched for the first time and liked a lot:

Brink of Life (1958), Abigail’s Party (1977), Vigil (1984), Dog Day Afternoon (1975), Resolution (2012) / The Endless (2017), Jungle Fever (1991), Festen (1998)

Movies I saw for the first time that did things I found interesting:

The Devil’s Playground (1976), Skin Game (1971), The Reflecting Skin (1990), Straight Time (1978), Late Spring (1949), Iceman (1984), Hideous Kinky (1998), Bad Company (1972), Gozu (2003), Spring (2014), Jamón Jamón (1992), eXistenZ (1999), Bull Durham (1988), Carrie (1976), Swiss Army Man (2016), Tully (2018)

Movies I saw for the first time that I’d have to write specific pros and cons for:

Cape Fear (1991), Fury (2014), Cruel Intentions (1999), White Men Can’t Jump (1992), Spiderman: Into The Spiderverse (2018), The Deer Hunter (1978), Jennifer’s Body (2009), It (2017), The Favourite (2018)

Movies I rewatched and still loved:

Night of the Living Dead (1968), Dawn of the Dead (1978), The Ring (2002), Do The Right Thing (1989), F for Fake (1973), Tampopo (1985), Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (2011), Broadcast News (1987), Tangerine (2015), Weekend (2011), Conspiracy (2001), Bicycle Thieves (1948), The Devil Wears Prada (2006), The Thing (1982), Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf (1966), The Hunger Games series (2012-2015)

Movies I rewatched and didn’t like as much:

Clue (1985), Before Midnight (2013), Vertigo (1958), Anchorman (2004)

#posts: art #asks

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bluewatsons · 4 years

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Laura Miller, Sleazy, bloody and surprisingly smart: In defense of true crime, Salon (May 30, 2014)

This stigmatized genre has much to teach us about the way crime and justice really work

Give me a book that begins with a time and a date and a boring address, something along the lines of "At 9:36 on March 24, 1982, Dep. Frank McGruff of the Huntington County Sheriff's Department was dispatched to 234 Maple Street in Pleasantville, North Carolina, a quiet, suburb 10 miles west of Raleigh, to follow up on reports of gunshots and screams."

There is nothing more generic than this sort of sentence -- which is why I was easily able to make one up on the fly -- and yet there's nothing more seductive, either. In it is promised: the regular-guy lawman (who always seems to have a new baby at home), the horrific crime scene (there is always more blood than anyone expects), the enigmatic object found lying in the foyer (marked with an X in the helpfully provided floor plan), the minute-by-minute timeline of that fatal half-hour, the witness reports that don't add up, the fractal-like multiplication of scenarios and theories and complications.

I've always felt somewhat sheepish about my appetite for true crime narratives, associated as they are with fat, flimsy paperbacks scavenged from the 25-cent box at garage sales, their battered covers branded with screaming two-word titles stamped in silver foil, blood dripping luridly from the last letter. The most famous practitioners of this louche genre -- Joe McGinniss, Ann Rule, Vincent Bugliosi -- come coated with a thin, greasy film of dubious repute and poor taste. (Can there ever be a valid reason to title a book "A Rose for Her Grave"?) True crime is also the mother's milk of risible tabloid journalism, of endless trashy news cycles in which the same photo of a wide-eyed innocent bride (where is she?); a gap-toothed kindergarten student (who killed him?); a bleary-eyed, stubbled suspect (why did he do it?) appear over and over and over again.

Occasionally, true crime is where literary writers go to slum and, not coincidentally, make some real money: Truman Capote's "In Cold Blood," Norman Mailer's "The Executioner's Song." It's not the Great American Novel, yet somehow such books have a tendency to end up the most admired works of a celebrated author's career. Is it because better writers tease something out of the genre that pulp peddlers can't, or is it just that their blue-chip names give readers a free pass to indulge a guilty pleasure?

By contrast, crime fiction has a better rep. It is the most respectable form of genre fiction, the one that even the snootiest literary critics will admit to enjoying now and then. They justly praise the innovative prose styles of Raymond Chandler or Elmore Leonard as vehicles for a distinctively American voice. And crime -- transgression of the social and moral order -- is one of literature's central themes, after all. Isn't one of the greatest novels of all time called "Crime and Punishment"? Plus, from Cormac McCarthy's "No Country for Old Men" to Toni Morrison's "Beloved," many novels by literary titans are crime fiction by another name.

True crime, however, labors always under the stigma of voyeurism, or worse. It's not just unseemly to linger over the bloodied bodies of the dead and the hideous sufferings inflicted upon them in their final hours, it's also kind of sick. Gillian Flynn's second novel, "Dark Places," describes the wincing interactions between its narrator -- survivor of a notorious multiple murder like the Clutter killings of "In Cold Blood" -- and a creepy subculture of murder "fans" and collectors; when she's hard up for cash, she's forced to auction off family memorabilia at their conventions. Yuck.

The very thing that makes true crime compelling -- this really happened -- also makes it distasteful: the use of human agony for the purposes of entertainment. Of course, what is the novel if not a voyeuristic enterprise, an attempt to glimpse inside the minds and hearts of other people? But with fiction, no actual people are exploited in the making.

I love crime fiction, too, but lately I've come to appreciate true crime more, specifically for its lack of certain features that crime fiction nearly always supplies: solutions, explanations, answers. Even if the culprit isn't always caught and brought to justice in a detective novel, we expect to find out whodunit, and that expectation had better be satisfied. A novelist who dares to build her narrative around a murder and then refuses to collar the perp by the last chapter -- as Donna Tartt did in her sumptuous, underappreciated second novel, "The Little Friend" -- will never hear the end of it. Readers of books and viewers of television and film demand not only to know who did it but why, preferably with a tidy little back story about a molesting uncle, bullying schoolmates or a mom who tricked with sailors in the next room. We believe in evil, but we also want pop psychology to explain it away.

Crime fiction reassures us that for every murder there is a sleuth as obsessed as we are with getting to the bottom of the puzzle. There are the formulaic clashes between the committed police detective and the self-serving brass, the feds who interfere with the locals (or vice versa) for purely territorial reasons, the nagging spouse and the occasional sloppy, time-serving colleague who just wants to wrap this thing up before he's set to retire with a full pension. But there's also always someone, the hero -- whether public officer or private dick -- who really, really wants to find out the truth and has the brains (and sometimes the brawn) required to do it.

Because most of us have a lot more experience with crime fiction -- TV and movies, but also books -- than we do with actual crime, our sense of how law enforcement works has been distorted by the imperatives of entertainment. Forensic scientists often complain that the public expects them to possess and deploy the wizardly high-tech tools they see every week on "CSI." Because the "CSI" team's gear is presented as omniscient and infallible, legal professionals must contend with jurors' overinflated confidence in forensic evidence. Even the most appalling news stories of incompetent or corrupt lab workers will never register as deeply as watching Gil Grissom and his earnest sidekicks stay up all night and ruin their marriages for the sake of seeing justice done.

For all their lingering shots of mangled bodies and gooey, maggot-ridden corpses, these TV procedurals paint a too-pretty picture. If Jack Nicholson were a true-crime author, he'd be telling the audience for such pseudo-gritty shows that they can't handle the truth. Finding myself seated next to a criminal prosecutor-turned-defense attorney at a wedding several years ago, I asked him what pop culture gets the most wrong about crime and punishment in America. After a long pause, he said, "I'm torn between two answers: How much police care about getting it right and how competent they are to do it."

True crime is not above trafficking in misleading clichés -- because, let's face it, there's not much that true crime is above. The majority of the genre is cheap sensationalism, deploying the most shopworn clichés: tragic maidens; idyllic small towns; smiling devils; winsome, doomed tots. Much true crime has achieved its goals if it gives its readers something to shiver over late at night or to whisper about at school. (Most of my early knowledge of true crime classics like "Helter Skelter" came from other girls who got ahold of the books while baby sitting and recounted the most horrific details to a breathless audience on the playground the next day.) Plenty of it offers a comforting message similar to that of crime fiction: that, for all the bewildering and seemingly random violence of this world, it is usually possible for us to know what really happened and who's responsible.

But we also live in a golden age when it comes to a more challenging vein of true crime. These books include Robert Kolker's "Lost Girls," about 14 unsolved murders in Long Island; Raymond Bonner's "Anatomy of Injustice," about the wrongful capital conviction of a black handyman for the rape and murder of an elderly white widow in South Carolina; Janet Malcolm's "Iphigenia in Forest Hills," about the celebrated journalist's inability to accept the guilty verdict against a young mother accused of hiring a man to murder her ex-husband; and Errol Morris' "A Wilderness of Error," which is in part a challenge to another milestone in the genre, Joe McGinniss' "Fatal Vision." Coming up next month is another landmark, "The Wrong Carlos," by James Liebman and the Columbia DeLuna Project, an exhaustively researched consideration of a 1980s case in which the state of Texas most likely executed the wrong man.

Even true crime books in which the identity of the killer is uncontested can open up welcome vistas of uncertainty. Recently, Anand Giridharadas' "The True American" examines the lives of two men: the sole survivor of a hate-crime spree, who forgave and tried to save his would-be killer, and the killer himself, who seems to have become a different man before his 2011 execution; who was he, really? Dave Cullen's masterful "Columbine," published in 2009, offers the most definitive account of the infamous school shooting and clears up many misperceptions, but still leaves the reader with a sense that the reasons for such acts may be fundamentally unknowable. Several years ago, when I was interviewing Margaret Atwood about "Alias Grace," her novel about a maid convicted of killing her master in 19th-century Canada, she remarked that murderers themselves often don't seem to understand their own crimes. They describe the acts as something that "just happened" or as if they were committed by someone else even as they acknowledge they did it. The true crime accounts I've read confirm what Atwood said.

Most important of all, true crime reminds its readers over and over again that most detectives aren't fantastically clever, that most investigations make dozens of significant mistakes and that even the most seemingly hard evidence can become as indeterminate as a quantum particle under sustained study. Sometimes the confusion is understandable. Jeff Guinn's "Manson," a biography of the murderous cult leader published last year, recounts how long the LAPD spent pursuing a bogus scenario in investigating the massacre at Sharon Tate's home.

Investigators assumed that because drugs were found on the premises, the motive was probably a drug deal or connection gone bad. Manson had his followers plant "clues," in the form of weird words written on the wall in blood, with the bizarre idea that the police would instantly link these words to the Black Panthers. (They instead assumed it was just crazy druggie writing, which of course it was.) Much time was lost before the cops were put on the right track by an informant. This, incidentally, is how most real-life whodunits, such as the Unabomber attacks, seem to be solved. There's nothing like true crime to dispel the notion that criminals get caught because of a detective's brilliant reading of the clues. Rather, they get caught because someone rats them out.

Nowhere is the danger of investigators' tendency to settle too early on a theory of the crime more evident than in stories of wrongful conviction. As "Anatomy of Injustice" tells it, police decided that Edward Lee Elmore, the simple-minded African-American man who had mowed neighborhood lawns for years, suddenly turned violent. Under the influence of a suspiciously meddlesome neighbor, a local city councilman, they ignored significant evidence contradicting this theory, and eventually resorted to falsifying evidence, while Elmore's own lawyers barely bothered to defend him at all. Finally, thanks to the efforts of an attorney working for South Carolina's Center for Capital Litigation, the conviction was overturned. The actual murderer has never been identified, but at least an innocent man has escaped death row.

Investigations aren't always led astray by deliberate manipulation, however. In "The Wrong Carlos," confused and inept handling of the crime scene, witnesses and hunt for the man who stabbed a convenience store clerk in Corpus Christi combined with coincidence and bad luck to lead to the unjust execution of Carlos DeLuna. He was the spitting image of the likely culprit to the degree that even people who knew either of the men quite well couldn't tell photos of them apart. Under the aegis of Liebman, 12 Columbia Law School students pored over the records of the case, producing a meticulous and highly detailed report on the crime investigation and trial -- which, while sobering, is also catnip for the amateur detective. It strongly suggests DeLuna was innocent and it's so convincing that even the victim's brother agrees.

Robert Kolker's "Lost Girls" and Errol Morris' "A Wilderness of Error" may be the most accomplished true crime narratives I've read in recent years. The killer or killers responsible for dumping bodies along a lonely Long Island road have yet to be identified. The investigation appears to be stalled for a variety of reasons having to do with the personalities and ambitions of local officials. So Kolker's "Lost Girls" focuses instead on the lives and families of the dead, young women who drifted into the world of prostitution and could not succeed at pulling themselves out again. It's a portrait of underclass life, frayed by substance abuse, domestic violence, crime and fecklessness, and it asks not what circumstances create a monster but which ones forge his victims.

"A Wilderness of Error" is remarkable not just for questioning a murder investigation and conviction but also for condemning the famous true-crime narrative written about them. Morris is a master of the genre, albeit in a different medium (documentary film) and can even claim to have gotten an innocent man out of jail by making "The Thin Blue Line" in 1988. Above all, he is preoccupied with how we establish what's true. His first book, "Believing Is Seeing: Observations on the Mysteries of Photography," dismantles our faith in the facticity of photographed images. "A Wilderness of Error," his second, concerns the case of Jeffrey MacDonald, convicted of murdering his wife and two small children in 1970. The crimes were the center of a bestselling book, "Fatal Vision" by Joe McGinniss, later made into a TV movie, that pressed home McGinniss' theory that MacDonald was a psychopath.

The writing of "Fatal Vision" was the subject of yet another book, Janet Malcolm's "The Journalist and the Murderer," devoted to probing the moral soft spots in all journalists' relationships to their subjects, but Morris believes these murders were insufficiently investigated and that MacDonald did not get a fair trial. Many aficionados of the trial find Morris' arguments unconvincing, but that is partly Morris' point. Just like the cops, outside observers settle on a story about what happened and become invested in it. They then ignore or dismiss any evidence that undermines that story, often with a vehemence that increases as the counter-evidence mounts. Certainty, an emotional state all too common today, is less a testament to the merits of a belief than a measure of how much we want to go on believing it.

At the very least, Morris presents a convincing case that an uncertain McGinniss was pushed into endorsing MacDonald's guilt by his publisher because offering a conclusion would make for a more satisfying book. Later, of course, the author had no choice but to double down on that conclusion, and whether or not he believed it before his editor urged him to declare the case solved in his own mind, he seems to have fully believed it in the end. All this would be meat for an interesting consideration of the nature of truth and whether it can ever be meaningfully detached from desire, but as Morris keeps pointing out, when it comes to true crime, real lives and real justice are at stake. Crime fiction can afford to go on telling us what we want to hear, but at its best true crime insists on telling us what we can't afford to forget.

#media #true crime #ethics #errol morris #crime fiction #crime #society #detective fiction #television procedurals #Joe McGinniss

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atopearth · 4 years

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The Men of Yoshiwara: Kikuya Part 6 - Hayabusa (Hayato) Route

Oh no, I love big brother types! Hayato might be the death of me🤣 Honestly though, Misao and Hayato reminiscing their childhood memories of the time before he suddenly “disappeared” was sweet and nice. It felt like they really shared a bond that they both looked back on fondly and still remember to this day. I always find it heartwarming when two people cherish the same memories. As expected, their childhood separation seemed like a sad one since she was so attached to Hayato as a kid, but I guess Hayato adored her too, so it was painful for both. It also seems like he’s working hard in hope that he can leave Yoshiwara in a few years and properly confess to her at that time. He probably didn’t want to meet her under these circumstances, but I think it’s a good thing, since they’ll get to see whether they are both still the person that they liked so much in their childhood imo.

I was glad Hayato sent that letter to tell her to come to Kikuya. I mean, despite how he wants himself to feel, I doubt many people could resist seeing the person they love when they’ve just reunited haha. Lol at him asking questions to see if she had been visiting Yoshiwara frequently, but it was nice of him to apologise for probing to see if she was still “pure”. More than the fact of whether she was pure or not, I think Hayato just wanted to believe that Misao is still just as innocent and sweet as she was when they were children, and confirming that she hasn’t changed probably made him happy, since it was inevitable for him to have changed considering his circumstances, but seeing the same Misao must make him feel that things can go back to how they used to be? Hayato seems so dejected about himself being a courtesan and not being worthy to be someone important to Misao, so his rejections can kinda hurt. But I can see why he wouldn’t take those valuable belongings from her though, it’s worth so much, how could he just take it like that lol. Lmao though, Hayato feeding her candy felt more like he was feeding a kid rather than it being something romantic. To be fair though, Misao is pretty childish lol, especially since he had to convince her in such a cute way that she should keep the valuables to herself just in case she needs money in the future. I knew he cheated in the game for her sake (so that she would take the valuables home), but that’s understandable since Misao is stubborn.

I don’t like the name Hayabusa so I’m going to keep calling him Hayato haha. Hearing him speak about his childhood memories with Misao, you can really see how much he cherished them, and how much he’s been wanting to see Misao all this time. It’s kinda saddening though, because whilst Misao pretty much just went on with her life after he left, it feels like for Hayato, Misao has always been his motivation to leave Yoshiwara asap so he can properly meet her as another man rather than as a courtesan. Ohh wow, I’m kinda glad the story is focusing a bit on the idea of Misao possibly getting caught for letting the couple elope. It was always just an excuse for Misao to have the money to go to Kikuya so I’m kind of happy that they’re actually exploring the consequences in this route. On the other hand, Hayato really can’t keep his cool when it comes to Misao huh? He loses most of his judgement and rationality that you can really tell how much she means to him. It’s a good and bad thing though, since he needs to keep calm to help her better, but it’s heartwarming to see that he’s not completely jaded by the world of Yoshiwara. It’s so sweet how Hayato used his allowance ever since he was a kid to buy those comfit candies all the time hoping to give it to Misao someday. Her existence really kept him going… I think Iroha’s proposal to keep the valuables at Kikuya as payment to see Hayato is a good idea. Iroha obviously doesn’t seem to care about where the money came from as long as it’s money, and Misao needs to hide them from the people checking up on her, and she wants to keep seeing Hayato, so really, it’s mostly a win win situation.

I kinda like how Hayato finally decided to express his feelings and kiss Misao. He’s afraid that she might find another courtesan before he’s able to leave Kikuya and I think that’s understandable lol. But I’m glad he’s finally being honest with himself, since even though Misao would wait for him, I don’t find there being any reason to force themselves to not see each other until he’s free from Kikuya. Misao and Iroha were really careless to talk a bit about their deal at the entrance to Kikuya, and lol right when I was thinking how careless they were, the patrol supervisor busted in trying to arrest Misao since they already investigated that it’s impossible for her to have such valuables. It was pretty crazy but expected that Hayato would admit to their crimes in her place. I find it crazy that the police or whatever would torture Hayato and possibly execute him… I love how nice and caring all the guys are in this route though. I wonder if it’s because Hayato is such a sweet and honest guy hahaha. You can really see why Hayato admires Takao, not only is he a great courtesan, he’s also a really reliable and kind guy. It was touching to see how far Hayato was willing to go to protect Misao tbh.

Well, Misao’s mother knowing the patrol supervisor was certainly convenient! And it was because Misao’s mother stopped the patrol supervisor from eloping back then that she ended up being able to live an honest life here, so she owes Misao’s mother lol. It’s kinda interesting though, makes me wonder whether the patrol supervisor did this job because she wanted to stop people from risking their lives going to the mainland and wants them to instead work hard and hope for a future here instead, or does she just think they’re stupid now lol? But not everyone is a top courtesan so not everyone gets to pay off their debts… Maybe I’m just thinking too much haha. Anyway, it was nice to see Misao and Hayato reunited. Oh btw, not sure but I feel like from Kagura onwards, the story really doesn’t delve much into the sex, it’s just kinda like, they did it, yay! Whereas, in Tokiwa and Takao’s routes, they actually sounded pretty steamy! I personally don’t really care, but it just felt kinda weird to be lacking in that part when it’s a story about courtesans hahaha. I also kinda like how in this route, instead of wasting her money all on meeting the guy or whatever, the valuables do end up contributing to allowing Hayato to retire early and being able to marry Misao. It’s kinda nice that it shows how Hayato really did work hard all these years, but at the same time, it was a blessing that these valuables ended up bringing happiness to another couple, which is what the eloped couple hoped for Misao to have due to her kindness, so I liked that it showed how what goes around comes around haha.

I think it’s nice that in the sequel it shows how Misao and Hayato are both helping out with their family businesses. I guess it’s just nice to see how they both have families and are both working hard taking care of their parents and their own married life. I love the trope where they share a candy together through kissing, it sounds nice and sweet hahaha! The happy ending was interesting, since the both of them decided to go to the mainland and look for the eloped couple to tell them about how the girl’s parents have been looking for them etc, and it was nice to know that they were thinking of writing a letter back. Not sure if that’s a great idea since they eloped but I guess the game doesn’t really care about that hahaha.

Overall, I liked Hayato, but I feel like I mainly liked him because he’s a big brother type rather than for himself. Like, Hayato is sweet, he’s kind and very self sacrificing and stuff, but I feel like their romance lacked a spark. I feel like maybe it’s because a lot of their feelings relied on you understanding how much they loved and cared for each other back when they were kids rather than seeking to show how much they loved each other in the present. It was still nice though, because it was quite saddening to see how much Hayato thought about Misao and how much he wanted to see her once he could leave, and I really liked the change in perspective/story where they focused on the consequences of eloping and how it can affect others. And Hayato is super cute so it’s all good haha.

Overall Review I feel like Kikuya gets a lot of mixed reviews so I was a bit scared that I wasted my money, but I think it was better than I thought! Honestly thought the courtesan setting was going to be pretty trashy but it was actually pretty pure lol. It doesn’t delve a lot into the darkness of Yoshiwara and stuff, but it definitely establishes that the life of the LIs aren’t one to be envied, until they meet Misao anyway, because that brings happiness into their lives lol. Although most of the routes were pretty average, I did really enjoy the Takao, Tokiwa and Hayabusa (Hayato) routes. The game definitely doesn’t have a great plot, especially with how ridiculous some things can be, but it’s mainly a game for the romance anyway, so that’s fine haha. At times, I do have to admit even the romance isn’t the greatest either though, and I think only Takao really appealed to me, but it still has its merits with the variety I guess haha. I’d say if the game is on special and you’re bored, I’d recommend it, otherwise, there’s really nothing special about it lol. It’s pretty typical, pretty cliche but it was still kinda enjoyable. It’s not too long either (around 20 hours according to my Switch), so that’s good I guess? I’d say it’s easy to read since you can kinda turn off your brain and enjoy it, but at the same time you can’t when you’re faced with some ridiculous situations hahaha. Overall though, it’s not bad, I’d give it like a 6/10 probably.

#the men of yoshiwara #the men of yoshiwara kikuya

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elliepassmore · 4 years

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Tithe Review

4/5 stars Recommended for people who like: faeries, fantasy, urban fantasy, Changelings, Unseelie Court, switched-at-birth, quick reads, multiple POVs I'll say this from the get-go: Tithe definitely reads like an early-2000s book. I don't know if I can pinpoint exactly why it reads like that, but even without knowing the exact year it came out, I could tell it was probably pre-2005, definitely pre-2010. Just something to keep in mind when opening the book. I liked the eerie, small beach town setting Black has going on in this one. There was a good mix between creepy and woodsy and normal that I liked about the town Kaye is living in, at least for the time being. When Black described the Glass Swamp, I could really see the creek and trees and scattered bottles to the point where I wanted to draw the scene. I also really enjoyed the description of the Unseelie Court, the setup of it being filled with roots and stalactites and weird veins of crystal made the place seem that much more Other. Kaye was...I don't necessarily want to say trashy, but...there are ways to write characters who drink and smoke and stay out late and party and drop out of school, all from a young age, while still having them come across as classy and someone you'd want to sympathize with. I've read books that set this up quite well, so it's nothing against that (I get it, school sucks and sometimes vices are the only thing that seem to help in life), it's more of how Kaye's characterization comes across. Clary from TMI drops out of school (and Simon does too, for a time), and actually, so do most fantasy/sci-fi MCs. Likewise, most MCs in YA novels drink or smoke or do drugs or are around those kinds of things and the authors pull it off because they write the characters and those scenes as being more than just about that. The problem, I think, is that Kaye still feels like a child for a good bit of the book, and it isn't until that passes that those qualities of her that were poorly setup in the beginning begin to seem like they fit into a scene as something other than the starring role. Aside from her initial immaturity, I really liked that Kaye just... believed in Faeries from the get-go. She'd grown up with them, believed in them, and there was none of that shock and catatonia that can sometimes come from reveals like that. Black did a good job of having a character new to the world without making her completely green. It also gave us a good reason for whyKaye trusts some of the people she comes across and the things they say. It isn't just out of nowhere or out of a lack of anyone else to turn to, it's been setup so that we know that she knows these people and has known them. *SPOILER* Though the length of time it takes to finally reveal that Kaye's a changeling was a bit much, half the book, by my estimates *SPOILER END*. Corny was a good side-character. He started out as being the surly, obnoxious older brother of Kaye's friend, Janet, but then he ends up being more integral to Kaye's journey and to the plot than Janet is. As surly as he starts out being, Corny actually turns out to be a pretty cool, accepting guy. He's the first to actually see Kaye and he pretty much just rolls with it, accepting everything she says no matter how weird or out there it seems. He's a great friend for Kaye and even has some of his own arc in this one (I believe he get's more of one inIronside). I feel bad for what he endures at the hands of other Faeries, and am uncomfortable with some of the insinuations of what occurs between him and Nephamael on that first night (and really the ones after, but it comes closest to being explicitly stated then), and I'm not entirely sure how I really feel about it beyond 'uncomfortable.' Roiben's an interesting character and I wish we got to see more of him in this book, or even more of him from his POV. He seems like a character with such internal divisions, but we don't get to really see this explored in this one (again, from what I understand, he, like Corny, has a bigger role/arc in Ironside). In this one he seemed, for the most part, to be around to be Kaye's love interest. This may be one of the parts that really feels like an early-2000s book to me, since the romantic aspect of the book wasn't built up too much. It was very much a case of girl-meets-fantasy-boy and they argue some, have mixed allegiances, they kiss a little, they argue and have mixed allegiances some more, girl's a little jealous, more mixed allegiances, and then suddenly they're with one another. I can see where the romance could've been built up, there are traces of it that I think should've been amplified more, but as it is, there's not really a lot of sense to Kaye and Roiben, no matter how cute they are on the last page. Overall it's a pretty good book, even with the heavy early-2000s vibes it has going on. Kaye and Corny were solid characters, and the other faeries were intriguing enough to make up for most of the rest of it. Likewise, I thought the settings were great and I really enjoyed the way Black turned the 'new to fantasy world' trope on its head. I'm also going to pop in here and say I also really enjoyed Kaye's mother, Ellen, as a side character. She seems really chill and open-minded and, though she cares deeply for Kaye, also acknowledges that Kaye needs to be able to make her own decisions in life (though, for the sake of reality, kids really can't drop out of school until they're 15/16, not 14, even with parental permission, which I know because I considered it in 9th grade too, lol).

#book #books #book review #book recommendations #holly black #tithe #modern faerie tales #kaye fierch #rath roiben rye #cornelius stone #faerie #unseelie court #unseelie #changeling #gay characters #tw implied torture #tw implied rape

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