#but that shit is almost 100 dollars so it's not happening.

[marikosenwrites]

karasuno boys - dating headcanons (pt. 1)!

a/n: sen here!! heyy obsessing over our haikyuu boys are we <3 yes i am i'm only on season two right now though, almost season three!! i'll be doing aoba jousai, nekoma, and fukuroudani gakuen! enjoy!

characters: hinata shouyou, kageyama tobio, tanaka ryuunosuke, sawamura daichi, sugawara koushi (suga-san🥹), tsukishima kei (TSUKKI🥹) [pt. 1], yamaguchi tadashi, takeda ittetsu (just me and one of my favorites), ukai keishin [and in that order] {pt.2}

pt. 1 || pt. 2

notes: in this au, kiyoko can't be married to tanaka...yeah. they're still in highschool, btw

gn!reader

↳ ❝ [ 日向翔陽 HINATA SHOUYOU ] ¡! ❞

-this cutie omg

-probably the first to confess

-gets all blushy when you're around at the start of the relationship

-you love ruffling his hair

-if you watch him practice until the end, he treats you to meat buns!! if he doesn't have enough money, he'll just share one with you

-kageyama is jealous omg and tsukishima is just like "the chibi got a girlfriend??"

-loves you so very much

-his love language HAS to be words of affirmation and physical affection

-you just can't help but return the affection

-if you don't know how to play volleyball, he's gonna teach you!!

-if you know- he's going to ask you to talk to him

-dates will be chaotic and affectionate

-often cooking dates!

-you love his family especially natsu

-also love them amusement park dates with him

-he's so fun loving and all

-kisses are very innocent, close to no spice at all except when he's feeling super annoyed or something

-loves cuddling with you when it's bedtime <33

-does NOT have a specific schedule rest assured

-calls you his dove (aww)

-you love calling him sunshine <333

-HE'S JUST SO BRIGHT

-I SWEAR

↳ ❝ [ 影山飛雄 KAGEYAMA TOBIO ] ¡! ❞

-a sweetheart actually

-he's so cold on the outside but lights up when you're there

-kisses have a little bit of spice

-he's too prideful to confess first ig so you make the move

-loves it when you come to his practice to support him

-at some point he has requested you to become a manager because sometimes ukai thinks you're a distraction for him so asks you to walk out for a bit to let kageyama concentrate

-you bet he has worried over it because he didn't know where you went

-ok onto the main shit

-dates are always somehow sport related (HOW DOES HE KEEP FINDING THEM)

-sometimes an outing or two when he's actually free and not busy with volleyball stuff

-you'd think he isn't clingy...WELL IT'S THE OPPOSITE ALRIGHT.

-he actually craves YOUR attention and YOURS ONLY

-i think you two would have a cat together (named it NOTHING after the other volleyball players you know :/)

-loves your cuddles too

-WAIT WAIT HEAR ME OUT

-YOU KNOW HE BUYS THEM DRINKS RIGHT

-HE WOULD BUY LIKE HUNDREDS FOR YOU IF YOU WANT

-aww the little (wait he's tall) guy

↳ ❝ [ 田中龍之介 TANAKA RYUUNOSUKE ] ¡! ❞

-the hot-headed guy just can't get enough of you

-you sometimes make fun of him for being almost bald-

-but he's okay with it because he loves you (as long as you dont do it that often)

-okay so firstly like kiyoko WHEN HE SEES YOU HE CONFESSES TO YOU ALMOST IMMEDIATELY

-one second he's dumbfounded by your beauty, the other he's confessing to you already

-like you reject him first few times

-AND THEN AND THEN YOU START TO FALL FOR HIM

-THEREFORE YOU ACCEPT WOOOOO

-it's uh "Y/N-SAN! I LIKE YOU CAN YOU GO OUT WITH ME?!!!" and then you're just like "ah- yeah. mhm."

-he's just like :o WHAT

-okay that's it for the confession

-dates are always what you want

-if it happens you want to make cake, go for an ice cream shop, an amusement park- whatever, you name it and he can afford it? YOU'RE GOING

-they're all so sweet...

-he's also needy at some point when you're dating

-so...MORE IN MY NSFW LATER

↳ ❝ [ 菅原孝史　SUGAWARA KOUSHI ] ¡! ❞

-i'm gonna bet 100 dollars that he's the one confessing

-STEP ONE: get you as his girlfriend

-firstly he's going to ask you to meet him during lunch in the morning

-second when you're both there he confesses

-to his surprise you accept to go out with him and one date turns into two, into three and ON

-STEP TWO: MORE DATES TO COMEEE

-always ice cream dates and baking dates

-always appears to get flour in his fluffy hair

-ALSO ALSO YOU LOVE PATTING HIS HAIR AT ALL TIMES IT'S LIKE COMFORTING YOURSELF

-sometimes picnics too <333

-STEP THREE: there is none for now but THERE WILL BE SOON. SOON ENOUGH.

-his way of giving you affection is by kissing you, cuddling, and giving you praises...

-do you have a praise kink (nvm forget i asked that)

-cuddling in bed is one of his favorite ways to go to sleep

-you stroking his back is too

-you guys are always the talk of the karasuno vb boys group when you guys get together for gatherings (the perfect couple?!?!?!?!)

↳ ❝ [ 澤村大地 SAWAMURA DAICHI ] ¡! ❞

-he's definitely the one to confess first being the big boy man he is <3

-literally will kiss you when you accept

-so taken aback you felt like you were going to faint

-his kisses are so gentle help

-ok maybe not sometimes but we all know when that is

-love playing with his ears mayybe?? i know there's nothing different with the rest, but i just feel like it's with daichi

-your first date is an amusement park one ✨✨

-p.s. you shared the cotton candy lmao-

-he literally walked you home and your parents invited him in for dinner

-they like him very much thank you

-relationship has been approved now your parents are urging him to marry you even though it's only one week into the relationship-

-now HE'S the one that pats your head every time he passes you in the hallway or whatsoever

-when you move in together LITERALLY EVERYTHING IS YOUR CHOICE NOW

-you can choose the flat, the decorations, the vibes, the furniture- EVERYTHING

-loves you that much yes

-the sweetest guy ever NO DEBATE

↳ ❝ [ 月島蛍 TSUKISHIMA KEI ] ¡! ❞

-SALTY SHIMA. THIS MAN IS SO SALTY

-i swear bro

-he has rizz though that's for sure

-he confesses to you first (it was during lunch you remember the day like it was yesterday)

-his kisses are half spicy (igg since tsukishima is that kinda person)

-the mean to the public and only kind to you kind of person <3

-dates are usually home dates (he's an introvert (i headcanon))

-perhaps if you can persuade him (it's a 50/50)

-first date was a movie date

-then you went home with him (you went to his house)

-and met his parents

-they liked you very much <33 now treat you like their daughter

-the next time you went on a date, you brought him to yours and he made a good impression but they don't love him as much as his parents do to you

-i will write the time skip arc for this because i am biased and you literally can't stop me (but tell me if you want more i'll reblog it with more hcs)

-you were so happy for him when he joined the sendai frogs

-cheered for him on every game (LIKE THE SHIRT AND THE SIGNS AND STUFF)

-facepalmed himself out of spite ya bet he got a scolding for that

-"KEI KEI KEI GANABTTE," that was you, screaming at the top of your lungs at your HUSBAND.

-"oi, tsukki, who's that?"

-tsukishima facepalmed himself, earning a glare from you, "my wife."

-"EHH?? TSUKKI HAS A WIFE??"

-lmao the most normal occurrence

-after that koganegawa would often come to you and ask for dirt on kei (screw him for facepalming)

-saltyshima (in the public) → sweetieshima (in front of you only)

©marikosenwrites 2024-25 all banners, dividers, and work. please do not steal. i own none of the HAIKYUU!!/ハイキュー！！ characters mentioned. reblogs, likes, and comments are welcomed. <3

#sen's works #haikyuu!! #haikyuu #haikyuu fluff #hinata shoyo #kageyama tobio #sugawara koushi #sugawara daichi #tsukishima kei #hinata x reader #kageyama x reader #sugawara x reader #sawamura x reader #tsukishima x reader #marikosenwrites

[grimmshood]

for somekne who rarely wears jackets and wears the denim jacket he has even less i . really want tje insertcoin dbd denim jacket...

#but that shit is almost 100 dollars so it's not happening. #mine

[snghnlvr]

𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞 𝐢𝐬 𝐞𝐦𝐛𝐚𝐫𝐫𝐚𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐠. / sim jaeyun

sim jaeyun x fem reader!

read part two here <3

synopsis : who knew there was something behind your relationship with the infamous smart guy at school? you had questions as to why jake likes you and chose you to be his girlfriend out of all people. soon, you found out the truth: by a bet.

includes : 1.5k | cursing (internally) | again with the one sided relationship sigh | i’m a SUCKER for angst so.. | jake is a loser and i would end myself if this happened irl | y/n you’re too nice :((

extra: olivia rodrigo is my mom , if i was y/n i would’ve slapped the shit out of jake but let’s not get too physical here eh?? :] , i haven’t seen much jake angst (because he’s the most loving human ever??? he would NEVER ever do something like this) so here i am… :D

likes, comments, and reposts are very much appreciated <3

[below the cut]

“thanks for making me get $100, babe”

you look up from your seat to see your boyfriend, jake holding a $100 bill between his index and middle fingers. he sent you a wink which already made you blush like crazy but then you slowly processed the words.

what?

“what?” your expression dropped. you looked at jake, waiting for a response for what he meant.

“i said,” he planted his two hands in front of his desk, staring down at you with his beautiful eyes of his. you stared back with nothing but confusion in your eyes.

“thanks for letting me have $100 sweet cheeks.” jake’s lips curved up. he slowly leaned towards your cheeks, pecking them before proudly looking down at his cash.

that little nickname he gave you made your hearts do back flips as usual.

you stood still before replying, “what do you mean? you used me?”

you’ve liked jake ever since he was in the school’s soccer team since sophomore year. he’s popular for his smartness, his godly visuals, his amazing personality of his that steals the hearts of girls, and his talents.

your introverted personality of yours didn’t dare to make a move on jake. you were undoubtedly shy and didn’t like social interaction very much. all of the girls were in line to ask him out and directly confess their love to him, but you didn’t. you weren’t in line, you were just observing him from the side, mentally noting what he likes, didn’t like, what topics he likes to talk about and many more.

the only proof that you like him was through a little post it note you had on your desk before leaving to go to cafeteria.

sim jaeyun <3

was all you’ve written in pink in your yellow post it note. you haven’t told anyone, even your closest friend for you would be afraid of the public teasing that would soon eventually let the whole school know you like jake.

five months, he suddenly asked you out because he thought you were the “most beautiful girl i had ever laid eyes on but was scared to make a move”, quoted by sim jake himself.

at first you didn’t question it as to why he randomly asked you out.

you remember that day, you were blushing like crazy, heart almost ripping out of your rib cage, and you had all sorts of scenarios and activities both you and jake can do because both of you are in a relationship.

well, were in a relationship.

“yeah.” your thoughts were interrupted when jake responded with a heartless tone. “i admit that you were cute when you bought me gifts, but either than that,

i’ve never liked you.” his tone was monotonous.

is that why i reminded him of my birthday? is that why i reminded him of our monthsavrie? when my classes end? is that why i was the first to everything? good morning texts?

thinking about your past memories where you felt the most happy with jake,

was all just an act. just for the damn $100 dollars.

jake being the first one to hold your hand whenever both of you met, even if it’s a minute in the hallways or meeting after school ended, him being the first to notice you shivering and toss you his hoodie even if he was cold, him volunteering to help you study your subjects even if it’s 2am, him wiping your lips with his soft fingers from eating ice cream, him listening to your rants and sobs whenever your parents fight late at night, and always looking at you with nothing but love and admiration you believed,

all an act?

you lowered your head, trying to contain your proper breathing and trying not let your tears fall down. you exhaled, closing your eyes.

“who asked you?”

jake’s face slightly clenched when seeing your eyes filled with rage yet tears threatening to spill out. “who asked you for the bet?” you asked once again but with a firm tone. you didn’t break eye contact. you were thinking of his friends he always hung out with, park sunghoon, yang jungwon, lee heeseung, and many more but you felt like these people - your best friends as well - would never hurt you like that.

instead of being sad and running away, you’re staring at your ex boyfriend with bitterness. the loving stare you’ve had towards jake was rather replaced as if he’s your enemy. yeah, you’ve been backstabbed.

“does it matter?” jake tilted his head, shrugging it off. “what matters is i got my money.” he flicked his bill right in front of your face, his tongue peaking when he mockingly smiled at you.

you glanced at the dollar and then back at jake.

“did i mean nothing to you?” you asked, your thoughts suddenly spilling from your lips. “was our relationship nothing to you?” a tear spilled out of your eyes. seconds later, multiple of them were easily sliding down your cheeks.

you stood up from your seat, looking directly into jake’s emotionless eyes. “did you have fun playing with my feelings? did you enjoy taking my likeness towards you as an advantage? were your friends having fun hyping us up whenever we were around them? did you at least have some fucking sympathy for me!?”

after screaming, you looked down. you were going crazy. literally.

“god, y/n calm down. you’re embarrassing me, lower your volume.” jake crinkled his nose, eyes wandering around to see if there was anyone near the both of you.

despite not looking at him, you can hear the annoyance in his tone and the rolling of his eyes whenever you guys argue. he would call you “overdramatic.”

“fine.” you gulped before looking at him. you imagined yourself as a crying mess. it’s like every argument you had, jake would not cry, but you were.

you had to contain yourself to not let your emotions overwhelm you, but it’s hard right now.

you just got used for money.

“i hope that $100 dollar bill reminds you how much of a shitty person you are.” you grabbed your book bag and ran for your life.

out of that suffocating room.

i can’t believe it, you thought.

he’s a bitch he’s a bitch why is he a bitch!? why did he choose me!? why did he hurt me? i did nothing but .. love him and be there for him.. what did i do to get treated like this??

your chest hurts like shit, you can’t breathe, you can’t think properly, all you wanna do is to hide forever and never face jake the following monday at school. you wanted to go anywhere. anywhere but be in a room with him, sim jaeyun.

god, love is fucking embarrassing as hell.

-

YEAHHH jake angst drabble🕺 idk how to feel this one as i can’t imagine jake doing such a thing :(( but we need a change don’t we ? i hope you enjoyed it!! thank you for reading!! ❣️

#enhypen drabbles #enhypen x reader #enhypen angst #enhypen jake #sim jaeyun #sim jaeyun angst #enhypen jake angst #enhypen oneshot #enhypen imagines #enhypen oneshots #enhypen x yn #enhypen x female reader #shim jaeyun #shim jake #enha smau #enha x reader #enha scenarios #enha imagines #enha angst #enha jake

[artbyblastweave]

So one off-hand death that sticks with me in Worm, right, is Taylor's offhand mention that the original version of Breed was killed when someone shot the building he was in with an incendiary missile. Not even clear if they were trying to kill him specifically or if they were just lucky, but his bug minions stopped showing up after the strike so it's presumed to have gotten him.

Iconoclastic superhero fiction has a specific trope where capes have bridges dropped on them- anticlimactic, mundane, silly deaths, meant to highlight that for all their pomp and circumstance, they're just as killable as anyone else. Dollar Bill getting his cape caught in the revolving door in Watchmen, The "No Capes" montage in The Incredibles, almost every single killing in The Boys, or hell, Vikare getting brained in a sports riot in this very book. And on my first readthrough I sort of parsed Breeds death as "one of those," oh, you know, for all his horror-movie xenomorph monstrousness, all it took to kill him was a direct missile strike on the building he was in. Then I turned that last sentence over in my head a couple of times and noticed that by any reasonable standard having an airstrike called in on you is not an anticlimactic way to die. Like implicitly that missile strike is probably happening after several prolonged hours of urban combat against the Nine, mounting civilian casualties, etc. etc. Breed was contributing to the escalation of a situation where eventually the government just said "fuck it" and started bombing shit. And this is a genre where doing that typically doesn't work against someone like Breed, so it feels incongruous that for once it did. But it's also not nearly in the same ballpark as just randomly getting taken out by a sniper or something. It's part of the book striking a great balance between a respect for the power of superheroes and supervillains and an acknowledgement of the fact that they die just like everyone else.

(It's also a great subversion of that whole "never found the body" thing- like, Breed's body wasn't identifiable amongst the victims of the strike because of how badly burned everyone was, but he's also the kind of guy where you can infer he must be dead because the flow of Breed-shaped murders is cut off and that obviously wouldn't happen if he was in any shape to continue- there's no laying low for a comeback episode two seasons or 100 issues later. Until he's cloned back to life. But that's not precisely the same thing)

#wildbow #parahumans #worm #worm web serial #worm meta #thoughts #meta #slaughterhouse 9

[genericpuff]

The Kiss Bet Episode 172 - Hot Pot and Venting About How I Want My 70 Cents Back

Okay, look, this isn't a post I was expecting to make today but it's something that just happened and I have to fucking talk about, so let me preface this with some context.

I had to buy coins recently and because I switched to using my iPad for reading comics on, I got a "new reader" type deal from Webtoons for a coin bundle that got me like 100 coins for $5; because technically it was a 'new account' as Webtoons operates their in-game currency model on apps, not on actual emails (meaning if you use the app on an Android phone and then switch to an Apple iOS device, they're technically two separate accounts which you sync the reading data between via the account info linked via the email, therefore they have two separate coin wallets).

So with more coins than I knew what to do with, I decided to start FastPassing The Kiss Bet again, which I had recently stopped FP'ing around the S3 mark, as it's recently devolved back into the "will they won't they" trope, but instead of between Sara-Lin and Joe, it's between Sara-Lin and Joe's younger brother (the "true endgame") Oliver.

Now I don't mind the ship in essence. Joe was definitely not gonna be endgame, it was always gonna be Oliver, anyone who's read any amount of romance before - especially high school romances - knows how this shit tends to go, and The Kiss Bet isn't exactly trying to be groundbreaking or subversive in any way, it knows exactly what it's about and what it's trying to accomplish.

But it's almost become a little too good at this. Because in playing the "will they won't they" game for so long with a character that we know is endgame, it's basically been weeks and weeks and weeks of-

That said, after I caught up on the recent FP episodes, it seemed like stuff was finally moving a little bit. We were finally meeting Oliver's mom and his stepdad who he has a fractured relationship with, Joe was finally getting with his true endgame girl, Vicky (who's totally not an exact genderbent version of Joe lmao) and Sara-Lin was finally realizing she had feelings for Oliver.

And then the newest episode came out, Episode 172 - Hot Pot and Venting.

CAUTION: FASTPASS SPOILERS FOR THE KISS BET OFFICIALLY BEGIN HERE!

Already I was a little petty over the title like "lmao ok clunky title but whatever". I swept it off as not a genuine criticism, just me being a nitpicking asshole over what's essentially Fluff: The Comic.

The episode cost 7 coins, which is about roughly 70 cents, albeit closer to a dollar for Canadian readers (here's something they don't tell you about Canada - our Monopoly game currency is just as fucked as it looks) and that's where I'm gonna get into my second disclaimer that I need to be perfectly clear about (and it'll be what we get more into later on in this post).

I understand the principle of paying for art. I understand fully that many of these webtoons are being produced on tight deadlines by creators who often can only afford 1-2 assistants, if any at all. I understand and fully agree that creators deserve to be paid for their skills, time, and efforts, not just as creators working on the hellsite that is Webtoons, but as artists in general who deserve to make a living the same as anyone else. Anyone who follows my stuff here knows I'm an artist myself so I would never debate the ethical necessity of paying artists for their work.

However.

I can say that, and also agree with the people who have stated in discussion circles such as on /r/webtoons that a lot of the comics that have started charging 7 coins have been suspiciously delivering less comic since. And it's not even so much in the literal panel count, the liquid volume of these comics have remained the same, but the calorie count has dropped significantly. Food metaphors aside, what I mean is that despite many of these comics maintaining their 40-60 minimum panel count requirement, they have in fact reduced the actual amount of content that happens in them, and The Kiss Bet's newest episode is a stark example of what I mean.

I am going to start by posting only post three panels - three panels that literally sum up the entirety of Episode 172 and what it chooses to spend its time on.

That is it. That is literally all that's established in this episode. I'd tell you to go read it yourself, but honestly, this is genuinely one of those rare times I can honestly say that a 40+ panel episode is not worth 70 cents and you'd be better off, and that's saying a LOT when these episodes are only priced at the cost of a gumball. At least Lore Olympus has entertainment in how bad it is most of the time, Episode 172 of The Kiss Bet is just nothing. You will literally get more substance and flavor from an actual gumball.

Literally every other panel in this episode is either repeating the same dialogue (Sara-Lin saying the same thing multiple different times to express how Oliver is holding her hand or how his stepdad is a dick) and then Sara-Lin and Oliver staring at each other. Over. And over. Again.

I am not joking. I did not cut anything out in that sequence. That is where the episode ends. Complete nothingburger, seemingly cut off right as it was just getting started like Cait Corrain's career.

Out of the entire episode, there were 45 panels. So I can safely assume Ingrid's minimum panel requirement is at least 40 per episode, that's me assuming the best that she didn't exactly meet her panel minimum at 45 panels on the dot.

Out of those 45 panels, there were:

Two actual unique backgrounds that weren't gradients or just a single piece of furniture

4 separate panels of Sara-Lin freaking out over Oliver holding her hand and wondering if he even noticed

10 panels of Sara-Lin staring at Oliver either dumbfounded or asking him to repeat himself (or apologizing over nothing)

5 panels of the characters saying nothing

11 panels of Sara-Lin repeating information in different ways that could have been accomplished in half that time

Two separate occasions of Oliver getting Sara's attention from off-panel, literally formatted the exact same way both times (and both followed by reaction panels of Sara-Lin staring at him dumbfounded)

Way too many panels of Sara-Lin blushing in response to Oliver being an asshole tbh like literally this guy's a douchebag, Joe may have been the "out of her league" love interest but at least he was nice and didn't treat Sara-Lin like someone who just bought a Husky as a "starter pet" ???

Again, I don't usually like being a dick about the coin costs, and I definitely don't like being a hypocrite in telling people they should pay artists for their work while simultaneously posting their paywalled content like this, but I think there does come a point where it feels more irresponsible for people to not be aware of what they're about to pay for and how little they're going to be getting. This episode is literally one of the best - and worst - examples of how far the romance genre has fallen on the platform - when it's not being overtaken and oversaturated by problematic series that romanticize abuse and sexual assault, it's being dragged to death with the most boring executions of tropes that everyone has seen before and is only exciting for anyone who's never read a book or watched a romance movie, period.

And here's the thing where I do approach a bit more "hot take" territory, but every time I see this argument come up about episodes not being worth the coin cost, I see others who rightfully argue that 70 cents isn't that much to pay for what you're getting - weekly episodes of work that are usually always delivered on time, with more panels than you would ever typically see in a free to read comic.

But here's where I take issue with that argument, as much as the principle of it is sound, it misses the overall point: readers are paying for entertainment first and foremost, so can anyone who's actually paying for regular refills on their app currency step away from this and truly call it "entertainment"? Nothing was gained. The comic had 45 panels to say something, anything, and managed to not even squeak out so much of a word. Even the silent moments have no substance, they just reiterate information that we already know.

Do we really need another panel of Sara-Lin blushing at Oliver? We've known for weeks now that she has a crush on him. Do we really need another panel of Oliver getting Sara-Lin's attention? What is this actually showing of their chemistry? What is being shown here that hasn't been shown numerous times - with and without dialogue - for weeks now? What does the comic have to show for itself after four seasons?

Another point of the "it's just 70 cents, don't be an asshole" argument that people seem to miss is it's not 70 cents. It's $1. Because if you want to buy a single episode of the Kiss Bet, you can't just pay for the individual episode in isolation, you have to pay for the coins first, and $1 is the absolute bare minimum you have to pay to get 10 coins, which will only pay for one episode of a 7 coin series - of which there are many now, basically any series that's 40 panels or more will cost 7 coins and, shocker, those are the series that WT will tend to promote most, you'll rarely see the 5 coins series in the banner ads, and that's not even getting into how there are more and more series cropping up that have 5+ episodes behind FP rather than the traditional three.

So if you're someone who's (almost definitely) keeping up with more than one series? You can't just pay the $1, you have to pay at least $5 for 50 coins, and that will NOT go far anymore or cut as evenly as it used to when just about every series is now 7 coins. Webtoons knows fully well what kind of game they're playing by making the new coin cost an uneven number while still offering increments of 5/10 in their coin bundles. They undoubtedly want you to be left with an uneven number so that you'll be easily lured into buying more coins so you don't 'waste' the uneven amount you have left that isn't enough to buy the episodes for the series you want to read. Obviously this is more speculation and not fact, but it's a common business model and with the series that have adopted the 7 coin count model (rather than starting off with 7 coins outright) such as The Kiss Bet and Lore Olympus, it's becoming abundantly clear that either the creators or the platform itself is encouraging these series to meet their panel minimums with as little content as possible in order to get more money out of readers who are barely even being drip fed actual entertainment and narrative progression, let alone spoon fed.

And then there's the waiting. The goddamn waiting. So many of these series guilty of siphoning their content off through a hose that they're deliberately standing on are designed intentionally with the most egregious cliffhangers in mind to keep their audience hooked so they'll undoubtedly FP next week. Do you know what that amount of waiting does to a comic? To its readers? First off, it artificially extends the actual pacing of the comic to make it feel longer than it is, when in reality, many of these plotlines are happening in a vacuum of very short bursts of time. Case in point, Lore Olympus is commonly confused for having a plotline that takes place over the course of months, when actually when laid end to end in order of cause and effect, many of its subplots - including the romance of Hades and Persephone - takes place over the course of days. This over-inflates the plotline's actual depth and, even worse so, it makes it harder for readers to keep up with information that's being delivered, as it often takes weeks for that information to actually go anywhere - so by the time it does, many readers have straight up forgotten about it.

It's absolutely not okay that so many of these kinds of series are normalizing literal slow burning for an audience who's paying to be entertained. It's not a "slow burn". It's just slow, and deliberately so. It's absolutely NOT FUN to follow a comic that does not go anywhere week after week. It's frustrating. And before long, it starts to feel like gambler's fallacy, where readers have to essentially gaslight themselves into paying into it more and more convinced that it has to pay off eventually, based on a promise that was never actually made, only assumed in good faith. And readers should not have to fill in the bulk of the content that isn't happening with their own imaginations, which is something that happens a LOT in these series that spend so much time on the characters just staring at each other and saying nothing. It's not 'plot' to just draw characters blushing and have your audience fill in the rest of it entirely on their own. This is certainly a technique in writing, but in the case of The Kiss Bet and other comics like it, it's much less of a valid technique and more just flat out manipulating your audience into falling so hard into the sunk cost fallacy trap that they don't notice they're being robbed blind by the plot that hasn't actually happened - and they've been paying for that financial and emotional robbery out of their own pockets and brains every step of the way.

Again, I do not care about the coin cost in and of itself, seventy cents IS still an incredibly cheap price for weekly updates of a series that has to put out so many panels each week. But as a reader and a customer, I should not be leaving these updates with less information than what I started with. And I'm someone who's incredibly old school by webcomic standards, there are comics that I follow that have updated 1-2 pages a week for over a decade that manage to do more with their limited pages than Lore Olympus and The Kiss Bet manage to do after entire hiatuses filled with pre-production time.

Why does this page of Alfie manage to move both the intrinsic plot of the titular character as well as the external plot that's going on around her in one page made up of 5 panels better than what The Kiss Bet can do in 45?

Why does this page of Tamberlane manage to convey more information about the world's lore and the people in it in a way that's emotionally driven and clearly affecting the characters without outright info-dumping than what Lore Olympus has managed to spit out onto its plate since S3 started over a year ago?

How does Tales from Alderwood manage to be more entertaining and convey more meaningful storytelling through its characters in a single page consisting of zero dialogue than what The Kiss Bet can convey in its silent panels of staring, blushing, and repetitive stuttering?

Why are the creators who are relying entirely on their own efforts, resources, and ability to generate income through community interaction and support putting out better work with less panels and on slower schedules for FREE than what we're seeing from professional creators on a professional publishing platform who are being paid to do this as their job?

There's this saying in the tattooing industry: good work isn't cheap and cheap work isn't good.

At this point, 70 cents is not a 'bargain' as many people like to argue in defense of the creators. And while I do want to have good faith in the creators who don't pull this shit, the creators who clearly go above and beyond to do what they do in the pursuit of storytelling and polishing their craft to be the best piece of work that it can be - the comics that are worth paying 70 cents and beyond for - are not the comics that Webtoons is promoting to people. The creators of the works that genuinely deserve more than 70 cents per update are being left to fend for themselves without support from the platform, while those that aren't worth the price of even a flavorless gumball are consistently winning the Wonka Golden Ticket lottery.

The cost of 70 cents is relative. For some works it's a genuine bargain. For others like the The Kiss Bet and Lore Olympus, 70 cents is not a "bargain", it's not a "good deal", it's exactly the value of what you're paying for - cheap work that isn't good.

#so yeah i'm done reading the kiss bet fr now #i figured if i had 100 more coins than i needed i may as well use them for something that i didn't need to start from scratch on #but i literally feel ripped off LMAO #webtoon critical #the kiss bet #lore olympus critical #anti lore olympus #lo critical #Youtube

[defilerwyrm]

Oh, Alcohol.

Barenaked Ladies saved me from a life (and possibly death) as an alcoholic.

Let me explain:

My first official, tax-paying job as as a mutuel teller at a horse track in the mid aughts. I worked for $8.15/hour most of the year and during live season (when races were taking place at my track) they bumped it up to $8.50. During live race nights, I could easily pull in $100 in tips in a night.

You would have thought that a nearly-homeless college dropout trapped in a relationship he didn’t yet fully realize was extremely abusive would have squirreled that away to make a better life for himself, but no. My coworkers (including The Ex From Hell) liked to go drinking at the restaurant/bar across the highway from the track after live race nights—twice a week—and I, being starved for company and having TEFH as my only ride home, went with them.

It was always a jolly old time. I drank so many mudslides & flying grasshoppers and ate so many mozzarella sticks you wouldn’t believe. My regular bartender and I (and that phrase should set off alarm bells in your head already) developed a new drink! It’s still one of my favorites. Here, let me share it with you:

AQUA VELVET 2 parts blue curaçao 2 parts Midori (melon liqueur) 1 part pineapple juice spritz of Sprite Shake with ice, strain, serve cold in a hurricane glass.

Fucking incredible drink.

But yeah. I drank pretty heavily every night we went out. Drank until I got loose and loopy and extremely homosexual. Drank until I didn’t care about the dysphoria I was trying to ignore and the mental illness & traumas I couldn’t afford to get help for. Until, for just a few hours, I was happy.

And then one night as “Closing Time” by Semisonic played on the speaker system and I received my solo bill, I really looked at it and realized I’d spent literally all of my tip money for that day’s work. I spent over $100 on alcohol in one sitting—in 2007 or 2008 money, on an $8.50/hour wage. Moreover, I’d drank over a hundred dollars worth of booze specifically for the goal of getting drunk and staying that way.

As a sidebar, one of the many things wrong with me is moderate/severe OCD. My most intrusive symptom is endomusia—music stuck in my head…every…waking…moment. As in, I can tell when I’ve woken up because that’s when the music starts. (In a fascinating twist, my father and brother both suffer this, too.) Any little thing that I see or hear or think about could set off a new song playing on repeat in my head.

And in that moment, looking at that staggering total on my receipt for the night, I heard Barenaked Ladies jamming their way through a syncopated bridge:

I thought that drinking just to get drunk was a waste of precious booze

Had it not been for that song, I would not have known that drinking to get drunk on a regular basis was a classic sign of alcoholism. But because I knew and loved that song, and because I had that moment of crystalline clarity at something like one in the morning, I realized that I had a fucking problem and I needed to stop.

I am immeasurably lucky that I came to this realization before my alcoholism developed into an actual dependency instead just of a deeply stupid bad habit I did for fun twice a week. I don’t take for granted that it could have been the end of me if not for that single moment. As much horrific shit as has happened to me in my life, holy fuck have I ever gotten some lucky breaks.

I don’t drink much nowadays, and haven’t for almost a decade. I don’t really like how it makes me feel most of the time. I just finished a top shelf margarita before writing this, in the safety of my own home, and it’s—I think the second alcoholic drink I’ve had this year.

So yeah. Music saves lives, y’all.

#cw alcohol #alcoholism #addiction #true story #about me #don’t mind me

[hiemaldesirae]

Swap AU:

Angel Dust does get called into the studio for work, but he only does one shoot per month. He's actually filling Valentino and Alastor on what Vox, Husker, and Charlie are up too. Thanks to Angel, all of Valentino's workers get a 250 dollar raise because of the pictures and coat he managed to grab for Alastor.

Alastor's Shadow is under strict instructions not to leave Vox's side, no matter what. Vox only really knows it's there when it decides it's board of playing at being a regular Shadow. Which usually happens when Vox is at the hotel, doing paperwork.

Vox's Geotia is related to Stolas! He's a nephew via Paimon. He's been to almost all of Octavia's Bday parties.

Valentino and Vox technically remote when Vox rescues both Charlie and Angel Dust when Charlie interrupts a shoot and catches everything on fire. Before Valentino can put it out, Alastor appears and shit nearly hits the fan(--he murders and devours the remaining camera crew, and cast except Angel, Charlie and Val) before Vox himself appears.

Vox just appearing immediately calms the radio demon down, his form returning to the one everyone recognizes as he gently moves towards Vox, a dark possessiveness in his eyes.

Vox tells Charlie to grab Angel and go, now he'll be right behind them, and Alastor chuckles, purring softly. "Will you, darling?" He asks, voice smooth. "Just this once I'll let you go. But next time I have you in my hand like this....you'll be mine, Vox. Mine and mine alone. Now go."

Vox and company run.

THE COAT???? lmfao angels working overtime that boy better be getting raises in the thousands if hes nabbing voxs fucking hotelier uniform. the disrespect :sob: and to think alastor probably sleeps with the coat held in his arms and his nose bured into the collar to smell voxs scent... god hes such a freak

WHAT NO WAY??? my god. for some reason i just cant stop thinking of those mafia (??) ad games where its like level 1 hitman to level 100 hitman... and in my eyes im thinking of canon vox as level 1 stalker swap alastor as level 100 stalker. theyre so terrible theyre meant for each other (which is actually. an interesting concept hmm what would happen if swap!al and canon!vox met)

oh!!! cute little guy... imagining vox just bursting down the hotel doors and setting down this tiny little owl one day and going 'found us a casino manager'. vaggie and charlie are freaked out of their minds because thats a KID and a GOETIA where the FUCK did he get that

im gonna.be sick. nonny whywould you do this to me.... my HEART fuck WAGWHHDJ... alastor going insane and only calming down when vox arrives on scene... vox telling the others to go without him and promising that he'll be right with them but alastor just laughs about it because he knows vox will end up with him in the end...theyre horrible. i need more of them immediately thank u nonny for ur incredible service

#ran rambles #hazbin hotel #general asks #radiostatic #swap au

[battleangel]

Truth, Justice & Northrup Grumman

Four genocides are happening right now:

Palestine/Gaza

Sudan

Congo

Tigra

Last 3 are in Africa so no mainstream news coverage.

US is funding the 1st one because of Zionism (Israel).

There is a 3 front war coming due to US presidential election being next November: Palestine (siding with Israel, Russia (siding with Ukraine), Iran (siding with Israel vs Iran & Palestine).

Biden is asking for $100 billion -- $60 billion for Israel & $40 billion for Ukraine.

He refuses to say how long the US engagements in Israel & Ukraine would be or to give any kind of timetable yet he is demanding 100 billion US dollars fund the genocide in Palestine & the war in Ukraine.

Biden is already openly threatening Iran using very bellicose statements that they had better stay out of Palestine and essentially doing everything he can to start WW3.

Biden is already making an argument that wars in Palestine & Ukraine are good for the US economy in trying to get Congress to approve the $100 billion in aid to Israel & Ukraine.

He claimed that US weapons manufacturing plants that make the weapons in the Israeli and Ukrainian conflicts would be responsible for creating 15k+ US jobs.

It is the Iraq War all over again.

Trumped up, contrived, fake as fuck, only happening to prop up sagging presidential approval ratings, to assure reelection & to drum up jingoism, nationalism & virulent blind patriotism that leads to nihilistic militarism, warmongering, national bloodlust & endless empire building on the corpses of young men, some idealistic, many black brown & poor, endlessly exploited by the capitalist war machine.

Ads to Be All You Can Be while Uncle Sam pays for college education that should be free when student loans literally just went back into repayment will coincide nicely with the aggressive push for WW3.

American jobs. American corpses. American mothers weeping for their dead sons.

Caskets draped in US flags for 21 year old boys.

18 year olds dying in a country they've never visited for no fucking reason.

Hamas is the enemy. Russia is the enemy. Iran is the enemy.

Go die for your country.

Go die for Biden.

Go die to build Americas empire.

Go kill people you've never even met.

Go pull a trigger when your only experience with guns is Call of Duty.

Go destroy your innocence.

Go make your parents proud.

Go risk your life for $30k.

Go risk your life for the VA to treat you like shit if you manage to survive.

Go risk your life so you can have your college education paid for.

Go get PTSD and night terrors.

Go be a man.

Go fight for your country.

Go get permanently injured and disabled.

Go be a wounded warrior.

Go for the propaganda.

Go so people can "Thank you for your service."

Go for free burgers at Applebees on Veterans Day.

Go so you can see your best friend in your squad get blown to smithereens in front of you.

Go to see civilians used as gun fodder and pregnant women used as shields.

Go to see toddlers killed and babies exploded.

Go so you can be given orders that will kill you just so your CO can look good.

Go to get endlessly hazed, bullied, harrassed and almost killed by your fellow Marines so you can get a fancy certcomm later.

Go so you can add "US veteran Armed Forces" to your LinkedIn.

Go endlessly traumatize yourself as an infantryman for noone to hire you once the "conflict" is over and you come home.

Go so you can see endless horrors in war then have endless difficulties "transitioning to a civilian career" once you get home.

Go for the death squads and rape parties.

Go to be captured by the enemy and tortured.

Go to be a prisoner of war.

Go so your weeping mother can be handed a folded flag at your burial to be put inside a glass case.

Go so you can fill the burial plots at military cemeteries across the country.

Go so Biden gets reelected and Trump gets reinstated on twitter.

Go for the chevrons and the stripes.

Go to get pinned.

Go for the trauma and nightmares.

Go so your VA benefits can get cut later.

Go so you can blow your brains out in a VA parking lot since theres still a waiting list to see a psychiatrist for your PTSD, depression, suicidal ideation, insomnia and night terrors.

Go for the sleep demon paralysis.

Go for the disfigurement.

Go for the IEDs.

Go for the bombs on the side of the road.

Go to drive a Humvee.

Go for the Nazi dress blues and shining saber.

Go for valor.

Go for courage.

Go to brag at future Christmas dinners and family parties.

Go to be a dutiful son.

Go because America needs her sacrificial lambs.

Go to be a colonizer.

Go to build empires.

Go to liberate people by destroying their country.

Go to be dehumanized in boot camp.

Go to be broken down and never built back up.

Go to be hazed by the biggest fraternity in the world, the United States military.

Go for the toxic masculinity, stay for the lifelong traumatization.

Go to be a stone cold killer.

Go to kill without blinking or thinking.

Go for the brainwashing and endless conditioning.

Go for the psychological torture.

Go for the pseudosexual sadomasochistic ritualistic tortures and humiliations of boot camp.

Go for the endless mindless roll calls.

Go for the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli.

Go to lose your humanity.

Go to have your sensitivity shredded in a blender.

Go to assert your manhood.

Go because the NFL had fighter jets fly over the stadium during Sunday Night Football.

Go because youre proud to be an American.

Go because its The American Way.

Go because of Pat Tillman.

Go because its what tough guys do.

Go because you cant find a job anyway.

Go because you can make a career out of it.

Go because of Modern Warfare III.

Go because of the Star Spangled Banner.

Go because of the Stars and Stripes.

Go because of the Pledge of Allegiance.

Go for the bald eagle.

Go for Reagan and the shining city on the hill.

Go for Dubya.

Go for the rockets red glare and the bombs bursting in air.

Go for the Super Bowl honoring you at half time.

Go for the proof through the night that our flag was still there.

Go for the home of the free and the land of the brave.

Go for spacious skies and amber waves of grain.

Go for purple mountains majesty above the fruited plains.

Go to crown thy good with brotherhood from sea to shining sea.

Go for the blood on your hands.

Go to blow someones brains out.

Go to rape a local girl.

Go to vent some steam.

Go for the myth and to build your own mystique.

Go to build a persona.

Go to reinvent yourself.

Go for GI Joe.

Go for Captain America.

Go to be superman.

Go to be a boy scout.

Go for truth, justice and the American Way.

Go to spray nerve gas on a local population.

Go to commit war crimes.

Go for the genocide.

Go for chemical warfare.

Go for psychological warfare.

Go for espirit de corps.

Go for teen spirit.

Go for Northrop Grumman and Raytheon.

Go for Lockeed Martin.

Go for Skunkworks.

Go for the CIA.

Go because pain is weakness leaving the body.

Go to get your head shaved and humanity stripped away.

Go be a cog in the machine.

Go because you havent done anything for your country today.

Go for the military industrial complex.

Go so your father can Friday Night Lights you and vicariously live through your military experience.

Go to be a neighborhood small town hero.

Go to get your head blown off so your high school gymnasium can be named after you.

Go to be a local dead celebrity.

Go to be honored at your hometowns Memorial Day Parade next year.

Go for the NFL to have a collective moment of silence for you and the other dead boys before kickoff.

Go to be thanked in a random celebrity PSA.

Go for free pancakes at IHOP on Veterans Day.

Go to fulfill your fathers warped sense of manhood, masculinity and being a man.

Go to continue the US history of violence and patrimony.

Go for the blood.

Go for the foreign pussy.

Go for the horrors.

Go for the viscera.

Go for the spilled intestines.

Go for the agonizing screams.

Go for the panic attacks and endless insomnia.

Go be a paranoid android.

Go because you havent earned your freedom.

Go to write your name in future US history books.

Go to cotinue the endless cycle of war, terror and violence.

Go for the injustice and genocide.

Go for the inhumanity.

Go for bootcamp graduation.

Go for the framed picture in your dress blues.

Go to be brave and strong.

Go to be fearless.

Go to be John Wayne.

Go for Oppenheimer.

Go for 9/11.

Go for America.

Go because We're number 1!

Go for a US flag waving on a Ford pickup truck.

Go for a Budweiser commercial with galloping horses and amber waves of grain.

Go for the Korean War.

Go for Lyndon B. Johnson.

Go for Richard Nixon.

Go for General Dwight Eisenhower.

Go for the Department of Defense.

Go for the Vietnam War.

Go for Emperor Hirohito.

Go for Hitler, Mussollini and Stalin.

Go for General Franco.

Go for Lenin.

Go for Mao.

Go for Admiral Yamamoto.

Go for Pearl Harbor.

Go for Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Go for Ferdinand being assassinated.

Go for the Hundred Years War.

Go for the Spanish Inquisition.

Go for Columbus.

Go for the Founding Fathers.

Go for the sweet land of liberty.

Go for the land where my fathers died.

Go for the Pilgrims pride.

Go for General Washingtons apotheosis in the rotunda as a American god.

Go to deify yourself as a war hero.

Go to make yourself a comic book character.

Go so Ben Affleck can play you in a war movie.

Go for Blackhawk Down.

Go for Napoleon Bonaparte.

Go for Ridley Scott.

Go to be a gladiator.

Go for Julius Ceasar.

Go because Rome was built in a day.

Go for Christendom.

Go for Alexander the Great.

Go for manifest destiny.

Go for militaristic expansionism.

Go for your corpse to be found on the side of the road in a foreign country you cant even find on a fucking map.

Go so your Humvee can be exploded.

Go to terrorize the local populace.

Go to put on the armor of God and breastplate of righteousness.

Go be a christian soldier.

Go climb Jacobs Ladder.

Go be a soldier of the cross.

Go to be baptized in the blood.

Go wade in the water.

Go for the homesickness and depression.

Go for the drugs and alcoholism.

Go for the panic attacks and anxiety disorders.

Go have your sensitivity, vulnerability and innocence destroyed.

Go to be violated.

Go for the smell of napalm in the morning.

Go for Apocalypse Now.

Go for the victory formation.

Go for the mushroom cloud.

Go for the blitzkrieg.

Go for Army vs Navy.

Go to be politely saluted by strangers at airports.

Go to be a commissioned officer.

Go for the honorable discharge.

Go help Biden beat Trump.

Go help the Democrats look tough.

Go help the Army go viral on TikTok.

Go so Sexyy Red names her baby after you.

Go be used and abused.

Go for Saving Private Ryan and Tom Hanks.

Go for Schindlers List.

Go for Braveheart and Mel Gibson.

Go to remeber the Alamo!

Go for General Custer and Henry Fonda.

Go for John Ford and John Wayne.

Go for Green Berets.

Go for The Last Samurai and Tom Cruise.

Go for Gundam and Neon Genesis Evangelion.

Go for Star Blazers and the Battleship Yamato.

Go to rape comfort girls.

Go for Voltron.

Go to transform like Optimus Prime.

Go for the Gram.

Go for the likes.

Go for the follows.

Go for the LinkedIn reactions.

Go for a pinned tweet.

Go to blow up on the for you page.

Go for virality.

Go for the silver play button on Youtube.

Go for the blue checkmark and verified account.

Go for the clout.

Go to be respected and admired.

Go to be shipped home to your mother in a pine box.

Go to prove youre a man and unafraid.

Go to be a Roman gladiator in the arena.

Go to slay the dragon.

Go to be King Arthur.

Go for the Sorcerers Stone.

Go for the key to the Euphrates River.

Go for the Sword in the Stone.

Go to be a Knight of the Round Table.

Go for the Queen of England.

Go for King and Country.

Go for your rightful place on Mount Rushmore.

Go for E Pluribus Unum.

Go for the Iliad.

Go for The 300.

Go for Thermopylae.

Go to bring down the walls of Jericho.

Go for Numbers 31:18 -- "Kill all the boys and all the women who have slept with a man. Only the young girls who are virgins may live; you may keep them for yourselves."

#ww3 #world war 3 #militarism #military industrial complex #nihilism #war machine #propaganda #nation building #endless war #new cold war #end genocide #free palestine #anti zionisim #anti capitalism #lockheed #northrop grumman #raytheon #skunkworks #war crimes #ethnic cleansing #chemical warfare #free sudan #free congo #free tigray #colonialism #biden #trump #two party system #green party #socialism

[booksandabeer]

Okay, so... Maestro

I know it’s the cool thing right now to shit on Bradley Cooper and his increasingly desperate attempts to win that damn Oscar, and at this point it feels a bit like kicking someone when they’re already down, but oh boy, he makes it so easy. Still, let me preface what I’m about to say by assuring everyone who might be inclined to think that this is just me piling on, that I truly, sincerely wanted to like this movie. It’s about Leonard Bernstein!!! Of course I wanted to like it!  

With that out of the way…if you already thought Bradley Cooper was a bit much in A Star Is Born, wait until you’ve seen him act at you for two hours in this never-truer-to-its-name vanity project in which producer Bradley Cooper produces director Bradley Cooper who directs leading man Bradley Cooper as he recites lines written by, you guessed it, screenwriter Bradley Cooper.

First of all, the movie looks gorgeous. It sounds wonderful. Everybody in the so-called “below the line” departments brought their absolute A-game to this. It’s a Vogue coffee table book come to life. And that is precisely where the problem lies: This is supposed to be a movie, but what it actually is is the epitome of style over substance. It is completely devoid of any meaningful insights into the man or the time or the culture it depicts. It’s not a movie about Leonard Bernstein, the artist. Which isn’t a problem per se—different approaches to biopics are perfectly valid. The real problem is that it’s not a movie about Leonard Bernstein, the man, either. It’s Bradley Cooper spending almost 100 million dollars cosplaying as The Great Artist—beloved by intellectuals and the common folk alike—that he so desperately wishes to be himself.

Cooper's performance is A LOT. From the many affectations to the sweaty mania that is constantly turned up to 11 to the extremely nasal intonation (that seems to come and go) to, yes, the stupid and entirely unnecessary prosthetic nose—he does The Most in every single scene. Now, you might say I’m biased by my recent love for Fellow Travelers, but still, what Matt Bomer—in a small part as Bernstein’s lover and collaborator David Oppenheim—does in one scene that shows him smiling through the pain of being casually cast aside by his lover, moved me more than (almost) anything Cooper does in the entire movie. They also share a moment later that is almost unbearable to watch because of the pain seeping out of these two men who are, due to a mix of self-denial and societal oppression, not allowed to (or allowing themselves to) live life as their true selves. Finally! Some real human emotion! That is the movie I want to see. And it is so telling that this moment of actual tangible humanity happens when Cooper finally calms down for five fucking seconds.

All that isn’t to say that there aren’t any scenes here that have true charm and flair; at times the movie even comes close to moments of true beauty and grace that could be poignant, even devastating in the best of ways—were they not ruined by some “eccentric” directorial choice, baffling camera placements, shots that either linger on forever or are abruptly cut short. I was practically waiting for him to turn to the camera and ask “see what I did there?” Yes, we see it. We see it in the fantastical dance sequences, the 40s noir inspired shots, the shift from black and white to color halfway through the movie, the classic 4:3 aspect ratio, and the many many many allusions that do not serve this story and these characters at all but make it very clear to the audience that Cooper has seen a lot of movies. He’s a student of Cinemah, didn't you know? Anyway, all of these things aren’t bad ideas in and of themselves, but he does not know how to edit himself (or his movie) and so it’s just all too much, all the time, and it goes on for way too long.  

Let’s talk briefly about the Felicia of it all. Briefly, because for all the noise that Cooper has made about this being a movie that is just as much about Bernstein’s wife and their love story as it is about the man himself, I could not tell you who this woman was any more than I could before I sat down to watch two hours of Carey Mulligan reacting to Bernstein’s genius. Mulligan tries her best but she’s really only allowed to play two modes: swooning with adoration or vibrating with repressed anger. That’s it. I have no idea who Felicia Montealegre was beyond her husband’s wife. What did she want her life and her career to be? Was she truly passionate about acting or was it just a fun hobby to pass the time? And what did she hope to get out of this marriage, which—the movie makes it very clear—she entered into with the full awareness that there were parts of her husband’s life and heart that would remain forever inaccessible to her? Who knows. I certainly don’t.

Despite all claims to the contrary, this movie, and therefore I must assume the man who made it, is deeply uninterested in actually exploring this woman’s inner life. There’s no small amount of sad irony to be found in the parallel of Felicia serving as a shield of respectability for Bernstein (not only as that, because I do not doubt that they loved each other, but it was certainly one of the reasons for why he married her) and Cooper using his supposed interest in her (and to a lesser extent his lead actress) all these years later as a kind of preemptive measure to ward off criticism that he’s only interested in the Male Genius.  

Finally. What’s actually worse than all of the above is that somehow Bradley Cooper managed to do the impossible: He made a movie about Leonard Bernstein that is both utterly exhausting and—the true cardinal sin—terribly boring.  

#don’t even get me started on the approach cooper chooses to depict bernstein’s sexuality #which I think says more about him than about his subject #then again pretty much everything in this movie says more about him than about the people it's supposedly about #but whatever. i'm done now. going back to bed. if this has 1000 SPaG mistakes and/or makes no sense blame it on the fever #movie ramblings #maestro

[seasurfacefullofclouds1]

Two of Us leaves a bad taste in my mouth these days. The more the other writers talk about the development process the clearer it becomes that they were complicit with Sony in pushing Louis to release a song he wasn’t lyrically or sonically up for writing. All so Sony could milk tearjerker dollars from 1D fans. I know the music industry is a shitty business but I can’t wrap my head around how cold you would have to be to add to the burden of someone you knew was already struggling.

That’s not how I took it, tbh.

It felt to me, at the time, that Louis did have some insecurity or anxiety about continuing his career without his mother. Jay had been Louis’ bedrock who guided his life in every aspect, up until she became ill and subsequently passed away. Jay was 100% in Louis’ corner. Her confidence in Louis’ ability never wavered. In difficult times, under difficult conditions, Louis could always consult her to help him make the right choice.

When we look at the entirety of Louis’ career and life, we realize that there is really no one else with the loyalty and wisdom that Jay had. No matter what One Direction or the media or fans were doing, and no matter the vicissitudes of pop culture, Louis could count on Jay’s steady, supportive, and astute nature to love him unconditionally and give him an honest yet fair opinion. Suddenly she wasn’t there anymore, and Louis had to both process his own grief, and to be the head of his family, the spokesperson and the role model.

Even today, you can see the conflict in Louis’ nature. He is the leader in so many ways (“I was always the boss,” as he said), the decision-maker of expensive, risky, high profile projects, the face of fame for his sisters’ careers, the father who must protect his son from the dangers of fame and keep his own name out of rude headlines. Yet Louis is also a man who never really lived a normal late-adolescence. He “skipped” the freedom of being able to do stupid things out of the limelight, to form normal young adult friendships and romances, to educate himself on relationships, culture, and history, to have a loose day or two online just shit-texting. He tries to have a normal life, but friends and family can also be young, immature, or plain unreliable. Sometimes (nowadays) Louis does stuff just for the adrenaline and you can understand why.

Writing a song about Jay seemed to me (at the time) like a gate that Louis had to pass through, to process what was happening to him mentally and emotionally, and it was seriously challenging for him. He didn’t feel up to doing it for many reasons.

Also, as the rest of the songs from Walls demonstrated, Louis felt like the album had to tell his entire life story up to that point (he even said he had envisioned the songs in chronological order), and Two Of Us was the touchstone in his story that he could not allow himself to get wrong. During the lead-up to the album, Louis had a habit of saying he was “a perfectionist,” which I interpreted to mean that he had both very high expectations of the creative work but also an anxiety about getting the details right.

I think it’s pretty tough to read a few lines from Bryn Christopher about the songwriting on Two Of Us and understand it from Louis’ perspective, his motivation. The music videos— the performance video and the video with Richard Green— give us a better idea of what Louis aimed to do with that song. He has almost a compulsion to share his compassion and generosity with the world; this is the other side of the coin of his private, intense sadness. I think this duality allows him to be a steadier person, and it’s also something he learned from Jay.

#two of us #louis tomlinson

[roxyjean82btsoneshots]

Legs For Days

Legs For Days

✏️Jimin x female reader ✏️Friends to Lover AU 🛑 Rated 18+ 📖WC: 4102 ⚠️Warning: talks about insecurity of being tall, mentions bullying, cursing, heavy make out session turning into dry humping⚠️

Summary: Y/N is insecure about being tall. Jimin doesn't mind the height difference, he just wants to be by your side.

Also on:

Ao3

Wattpad

My Masterlist

Authors note: This story is a little more personal than I usually write and I’m aware that some might relate. But I hope you enjoy.

A big thank you to @downbad4yoongi and @star-my for being my beta angels. 💜

To say the two of you were being loud was an understatement. Yours and Jimin’s usual unserious bickering always got louder the drunker you got. Thankfully, the group was in a private room this time, or else the whole restaurant would look at you the same way your waitress did every time she came into the room. Your friends either watched the both of you with the same look of amusement as they always did, or they did their best to ignore you.

Tonight's topic of discussion was whether or not Jimin should be your date to your company party in two days since the person you were originally supposed to go with backed out.

“Jimin, if I take you, then my whole work life will be just people asking me how I know The Park Jimin! I like my quiet work life. I don’t want people knowing I’m friends with one of the world's most famous models!”

Jimin put his hand over his heart, scrunched up his face like he was in pain, and sucked in a sharp breath. “Are you ashamed of me, Y/N? Have the past ten years of our friendship meant nothing?” 

You leaned your head back and groaned in frustration before taking another shot of soju. This argument had been going in circles for almost thirty minutes now. “Jimin,” you took a deep breath before turning to face him, “I love you. You know that, right?” You bit the inside of your lip to stop the smile that wanted to show when he sniffled and wiped a nonexistent tear. “I’m not ashamed of you. You are one of my best friends, and I would do anything for you, but you know how I prefer to fly under the radar. If I show up with you, people won’t leave me alone. All I’d hear about is the handsome friend I have.”

“You think I’m handsome?” Jimin’s fake hurt turned into a victory grin.

“You’re such a pain in my ass!” You laughed, unable to control it anymore.

“$100 dollars, Taehyung.” Jimin reached across the table to collect his winnings.

“You bet against me, Tae?” Your eyebrow shot up as you ran your tongue across the inside of your cheek. “I guess you’ll be paying for your own dinner.”

Taehyung stopped mid-transaction. “Wait! What? No! Come one, Y/N! That’s not fair! It’s not my fault you fell into his trap again!”

Jimin snatched the money from his fingers. “He has a point, Y/N. It’s not his fault you lost.”

Your head snapped to Jimin, who had a cheeky grin on his face while he got his wallet out and put away his prize. “I should really kick your ass one of these days.”

He turned in your direction, rested one arm on the table, and looked you over. “Sounds like a fun time to me.”

You laughed while the temperature of your body soared, “Get away from me,” you stated, playfully shoving him away and grabbing your chopsticks.

“How have you two not fucked yet?” Jungkook piped in from across the table.

The piece of meat you’d been chewing on quickly found its way to your throat, causing you to choke.

“Damn, Jungkook.” Jimin chuckled, patting you on the back while Hoseok got you a glass of water and tried to calm his laughter so that he wouldn’t spill it. “You can’t just say shit like that out of nowhere.”

“We’ve all been wondering.” Jungkook pouted and shrugged his shoulders. “The two of you have so much sexual and non-sexual chemistry between you, it's only a matter of time before something happens.” He took in a sharp breath and turned his head slightly, taking both of your reactions in. “Unless it's already happened…”

You put up your finger stopping him, “Him and I,” you wiggled your finger pointing at you and Jimin. “Never have. Never will.”

“I wouldn’t say never, Y/N. One of these days you might.”

“I’m up for it if you are.” Jimin smiled and ran his tongue across his bottom lip out of the corner of your eyes.

“He’s not my type, Jungkook.”

“You don’t have a type, Y/N,” Yoongi yelled from the other end of the table. “You’ve always said you would give anyone a chance as long as they aren't assholes. And Jimin, although he’s a pain in the ass, he’s not an asshole.”

Jimin’s lips tightened and he nodded. “I am not an asshole.”

You sighed, annoyed at the conversation. “That is true, but I would also prefer someone taller or as tall as me.”

“I’m a whole two inches shorter! And that’s if we are both barefooted!” Jimin stated, before quickly realizing it wasn’t helping his case any.

The conversation was beginning to upset you. You’d always been self-conscious about your height, thanks to being teased about it growing up and the numerous times you were turned down by a guy. Did you find Jimin attractive? Yes, extremely attractive. But you promised yourself many years ago that you wouldn’t put yourself through the pain of rejection again, so that’s why you placed him in the friend zone the moment you met him.

“Two inches isn’t that bad, Y/N.”

You took a shot of soju and poured another while the table agreed with Yoongi. “Although he has legs for days, Jimin is still too short for me and that's that.” You quickly tilted your head back, taking the last shot, and slammed the glass on the table. “I’m going first. I have a lot of things to do tomorrow.” You stood up and collected your stuff. “Dinner is on me!” You waved your hand over your shoulder before shutting the door and going to the counter to pay.

The second you stepped outside, you rolled your neck and shoulders to help ease the tension that had started to build. You flagged down the first available taxi that you saw and got in. But as you were closing the door and giving him your destination, the door was stopped.

“What are you doing?” You asked Jimin, who had a hand on the top of it.

He didn’t say anything, just waved you over so that he could get in. The driver gave you a concerned look in the mirror, and you let him know it was fine. This wasn’t the first time one of the guys had ridden home with you, especially after a night of drinking.

The ride was silent except for the music coming from the radio. You stared out the window, listening to the sad love song that was playing. It was definitely not the kind of music you needed right now.

“Say something, Y/N.” Jimin finally spoke up after twenty minutes of silence.

You took your heavy head off the window and spoke to him, “Stop flirting with me.”

“Wh..what?” He chuckled.

Your head leaned back against the window, and your focus went back to the world outside. “I said stop flirting with me. It hurts too much when you do.” You chewed on the inside of your cheek to keep your tears at bay that threatened to spill out.

Silence fell over the car again, breaking only when you told the driver thank you. Jimin followed quietly behind you. He didn’t say anything as the two of you rode the elevator up to your apartment and entered. You didn’t have the energy to talk; all you wanted to do was get cleaned up and go to bed.

After you’d finished up and climbed under the covers, Jimin came into your room. He had done the same, changing into one of the spare sets of clothes the guys had kept in your extra room. He was the only one out of the group that slept in the king-size bed with you. Jimin had taken care of you one day while you were sick and accidentally fell asleep. When he woke up, he complained about how your bed was more comfortable than the one in the guest room and claimed the empty side as his.

You turned so that your back was facing him. You inwardly cursed yourself and let a silent tear fall when your body relaxed to his closeness and smell.

Jimin sighed and turned off the lamp on his side of the bed, “Goodnight, Y/N.”

・❥・

You’d just finished putting on your makeup when your phone pinged with a notification. It was a text message from Jimin telling you that he was on his way up to your apartment. You sighed and put down your makeup brush. You were way too busy right now for interruption. The buzzer to the door went off, and you double-checked your robe to make sure it was secure before you opened it. On the other side of the door stood a smiling Jimin, who was wearing a black tailored suit and had a bouquet of flowers in one hand.

Your eyes raked over him, taking in his perfectly styled hair to the tip of his Chelsea boots. “What are you all dressed up for?” you asked, folding your arms.

“I’m your date!” He proudly exclaimed, puffing out his chest.

“I never agreed to that,” you rolled your eyes and walked away.

“Careful, Y/N. You’ll scuff my shoes!”

You looked behind you and saw Jimin’s foot wedged between the door and the frame, stopping it from closing. “Well, that’s what you get for using your damn foot to stop the door.”

“Man, you’re in a mood today.”

You stopped at the couch and grabbed the garment bag resting on the arm that held your dress. “I don’t have time for this, Jimin. I still need to get dressed.” You jumped when the bouquet was suddenly put in front of your face.

“It’s a present from the guys. All six of them picked out a flower to say sorry about the dinner the other night.”

“What about you?” you lifted an eyebrow and took the bouquet.

“There’s no better present than me!” He sat down on the couch and stretched out his arms across the back. “I am all yours tonight. I promise to be a gentleman and stay by your side like a good date.”

Jimin pouted when you didn’t argue. His eyes stayed on you and watched you walk away. When you emerged from your room twenty minutes later, his heart stopped, and his breath hitched. You looked beautiful. He had never seen you dressed up like this before. The black dress was tight, putting all your curves on display, while the high neckline perfectly showed off your clavicle. The long sleeves helped to keep you covered until the dress ended mid-thigh, showing off your well-toned legs. He’d be lying if he said he hadn’t ever thought about them in ways that would make you blush. You had joked a few times, saying that he had legs for days, but yours really did go on for days. When you stopped to use the mirror in the corner of the living room so that you could put your earrings in, Jimin nearly slid off the couch. The dress was backless, stopping just above your bottom.

“Jimin?”

“I’m sorry. Did you need something?” He asked, snapping out of his thoughts.

“I asked if you could help me with my necklace.”

“Yeah, sure.” Jimin got off the couch and walked over to you. The heels you had on only added an inch or two to your height. You weren’t a fan of wearing heels that made you too much taller than normal. He knew it was because you didn’t want to stick out more than you already did. Your height was one of your biggest insecurities; you liked to pretend that it wasn’t, but he knew.

You turned to face him after he’d finished. “Do I look that bad?”

“What? No!” Jimin blinked rapidly and shook his head. “You look amazing! I’ve just never seen you in something like this before. It’s taking me a bit to get used to it.”

You ran your hands over your dress and pulled the skirt down some more. “I wanted to try something new. But I feel almost naked. I should go put something else on. I’m not mentally prepared for the attention this dress might come with.”

“No, you don’t!” Jimin grabbed your arm, stopping you from leaving to go change. “We don’t have time for that!” He kept a hold of your arm while he walked to the closet by the front door. “We just need to find…” He trailed off while he sorted through the coats. “Ah! Here we go! I knew I’d left it here.” He pulled out and shook out a black trench coat. “It’s unisex, so it will work perfectly.”

“Are you sure? Isn’t this the jacket you got from a photoshoot? It’s pretty expensive.”

Jimin hummed and helped you put it on, “I’m sure. It will keep you warm, and it will keep random men from staring at you while we go outside to the car.”

・❥・

The two of you were currently sitting in the back of the car, laughing and chatting about the happenings of your company party while Jimin’s personal driver drove. Jimin did just as he said he would and stayed by your side for the most part.

“I gave SunHee your phone number, by the way.” You laughed when his face scrunched up in disgust when you mentioned your boss's secretary's name. The woman had practically bulldozed everyone down when she saw you and Jimin walk through the door. Sunhee was one of the least liked people in the office; she was the head secretary, and she let everyone know it.

Jimin’s body shook as he remembered the way she kept putting her hands on him while she flirted. “God, I hope you’re joking. I can’t deal with any more crazy stalkers in my life.”

“I’m only joking. I couldn’t do that to you or me. I mean, if you two started dating, that means I’d have to see her outside of work.” This time, it was your face that scrunched up in disgust.

“That’s good because I told her we were dating.”

“You didn’t,” your laughter stopped when you saw the serious look on his face. “You didn’t, Jimin…Jimin. Please tell me you are joking.”

“What was I supposed to do? She kept trying to get me to leave with her. At one point, she even tried to get me into the supply closet!”

You groaned in frustration and let your head fall to the window. “Monday is going to be hell.”

Jimin patted you on the shoulder, “That’s what you get for leaving us alone at the table.”

“I had to pee,” you groaned. “Why did they have to pick a place that was so far away?” You weren’t looking for an answer, but he replied anyway.

“We still have about forty minutes until we get to your apartment. My place is closer if you want to just stay there.”

You turned your head and glared at him. “What makes you think that this date went well enough for me to go home with you?”

Jimin copied your earlier move and looked out the window. “I just thought you’d want to get out of those shoes and into some comfortable clothing as soon as possible. Plus, I live close to your favorite fried chicken restaurant.”

Your lips and eyebrows tightened while you thought. Once you’d come to a decision, you nodded and got the driver's attention. “To Jimin’s house, please. Also, can we stop to get chicken, please?”

・❥・

Jimin laughed while he poured each of you a glass of beer. You looked so cute sitting there in his shirt and a pair of his boxers, wiggling as you chewed on your food across the coffee table from him.

“I think that’s your twelfth piece.” He joked.

“I think you should shut up.” You replied in a singsongy voice.

Jimin sat back and watched you as he drank. His mind was swirling with questions that he needed answers to. “Tonight went pretty well, didn’t it?”

“Except for the random fan girls, yes. I’d say it did.” You wiped your hands on the napkin and took a drink.

“Is two inches really that big of a deal?”

You were mid-drink when your confused eyes looked at him. “I guess that depends on the location of the two inches you’re lacking in.” You smirked.

“I am not lacking there, you perv,” he laughed.

You shrugged your shoulders. “If you say so.”

“I was talking about my height, Y/N.”

“To some women, it might not,” you shrugged

“I’m not talking about some women. I’m talking about you.”

You were hunched over with your mouth hung open pre-bite. Your eyes looked up at him. He was being serious. Now the question was, did you want to have this conversation with him? Did you have enough liquid courage to let everything out in the open?

Jimin sat there on his side of the table, watching you. The expression on his face told you that he wasn’t going to give up until you answered him.

You straightened up and downed your half-full glass of beer. “Alright, let's have this conversation,” you sighed. “To me, it is. I don’t want it to be, but it is. I can’t tell you how many times I have been turned down because of my height or been broken up with because the guy I was dating couldn’t handle the rude comments. Not to mention all the names I was called. So yes, for me, two inches does matter.”

“It doesn’t to me.”

“Jimin…” Your words trailed off when he moved the table to the side so that he could scoot closer to you.

“Y/N, I understand that you are worried about our height difference. I would be lying if I said I hadn’t thought about it. But I realize I don’t care. People are going to make comments because they are assholes. All that matters to me is that I have you by my side.”  You looked down at your hand, suddenly fascinated by your nails, while he continued. “So wear your heels, take pride in your height, and be my girlfriend.”

You sat there for a few minutes, just taking in the words that he said. Two inches didn’t look like that big of a deal to most people, but to you, it was. Could you do the same as him and push your insecurities aside one last time?

“Oh my god. Did I read things wrong? Are you not attracted to me? Did I just make a total fool of myself?”

Your head quickly snapped up. “No, it’s not that!”

“So you do think I’m attractive?”

“Yes, very. I just…I umm. Fuck. Okay.” The words came out even though you hadn’t intended them to.

“Okay?” The excitement he was feeling became visible on his face.

“We can give it a try.”

He leaped up from his seated position and hugged you. “You know what’s nice about us sitting down?”

“What?” 

Jimin pulled back a little, “Neither of us has to adjust our heights to kiss.”

Before you could say anything, Jimin put his lips on yours. Your body instantly melted, and your eyes fluttered close.

For a moment, you felt as if you were floating before you felt the floor against your back. After that, it didn't take much longer for the simple kiss to turn into a full-blown make-out session. The two of you in your own little world, taking each other in with your lips and hands.

Jimin’s apartment filled with the sound of your combined moans when you wrapped your legs around him, effectively trapping him against you. The hunger you’d both had trapped inside of you for years was threatening to take over with the movement of his hips and the touch of your skin on his.

The sound of Jimin’s phone going off snapped both of you out of your lust-filled haze. Jimin slowly lifted himself away from you. “I didn't mean for it to go that far.” He said, just as out of breath as you were. “I was just hoping for a little kiss. Not a…”

“Full-blown dry hump session?” you laughed.

“Yeah, that. Although I’m not complaining, I think we should stop for now.” He turned and glared at his phone when it went off again. Jimin pouted and looked back at you. “I hate to say this, but I’m going to need you to unwrap me from your beautiful legs so that I can yell at whoever is blowing up my phone.”

Before you could reply, both of your heads snapped in the direction of the front door when you heard the sound of his passcode being entered. “Fuck!” the two of you said in unison.

Jimin had just gotten himself straightened out, and you had just gotten yourself into the bathroom when the entryway was filled with the sound of your friends.

“See, I told you they’d be here!” Seokjin’s voice echoed. “Jimin! Where are you? Oh, you’re right there.” He laughed when he found Jimin standing in the front room with a confused look on his face.

“Where’s, Y/N?” Namjoon asked, walking around the older man with bags full of food.

“I was in the bathroom.” Before you knew it, Taehyung and Jungkook were standing next to you with their eyes squinted.

“Something’s different…” the youngest of the two spoke as they began to circle you.

“What the hell are you guys doing?” you nervously laughed.

“Something feels off. Don’t you think, Jungkook?”

“There’s definitely something.”

“Oh will you two cut it out!” Yoongi yelled while he and the other men watched the weirdness going on a few feet away. “We came here to eat, drink, and let them tell us about the party.”

“Is that a hickey?!”

Everyone else in the room froze except for you, who quickly covered your neck with your hands and looked at Jimin.

“What did you do?” Taehyung looked at Jimin, whose face was turning red. “Jimin? Why does Y/N have a hickey on her lower neck?”

Jimin’s mouth opened and shut a few times while he tried to figure out how to respond. “What makes you think I did something?” he asked defensively. “Who's to say she didn’t do it?”

“What the hell, Jimin? I didn’t give myself a hickey!”

“Well, I didn’t give it to you! My phone interrupted us before I…” Jimin stopped talking and glared at the younger two who were smiling from ear to ear.

“There’s no hickey, Y/N.” Jungkook put an arm around your shoulder. “But Jimin’s dress shirt is crooked.”

You elbowed him in the side and slapped Taehyung on the arm. “Assholes! The both of you are assholes.” You slid out from under Jungkook’s arm and went to the kitchen where Namjoon and Hoseok were standing, trying their best not to laugh.

“Welp,” Yoongi clapped loudly, breaking up the staring contest between the three youngest. “Guess that means we are going to eat, drink, and talk about the party along with whatever the hell we interrupted.”

You groaned and let your torso fall to the island to hide your embarrassed face. This was not at all how you saw your night going. “Get off the island, Y/N,” Jimin said, pulling you up and into his chest. “I take full responsibility and won't let them interrogate you too much.”

Your eyes snapped back to Taehyung and Jungkook when you heard ‘aws’ coming from them. “I really don’t like you two right now! I knew I should’ve slammed the door on your damn foot.” You couldn’t help but laugh when Jimin started laughing behind you.

“Does that mean I’m finally going to get that ass-kicking you promised?”

“Get away from me.” You laughed harder and gently pushed Jimin away.

“So you and the pain in the ass, huh?” Yoongi asked when you joined him and Seokjin at the table.

“Yep, me and the pain in the ass.”

Jimin was different from the other guys you’d had a crush on. Looking back, you could see that now. He nor either one of your friends had made you feel like a freak for your height. And he was right. Those who did have a problem with it were assholes. The thought of being with Jimin made you feel anxious, but strangely, in a good way.

THE END

#bts #bts one shot #bangtan #bangtanwhq #bts jimin #park jimin #jimin #jimin x you #jimin x reader

[kats-comfort-corner]

Unexpected Ch 85 Theory Post

Spoilers under the cut

*deep breath*

HE KNOWS

HE KNEW THE WHOLE TIME

I FUCKING KNEW IT

okay so i don't actually have any definitive proof or substantial evidence beyond this and almost 20 years of an obsession with this character's personality specifically

HOWEVER

Chapter 79

Key Points:

Shikamaru checks in immediately after seeing the weirdness and asks about what happened "when they were attacked by Boruto".

The translation might be a little weird here, 'cause I don't completely understand Eida's response - which is a shame because I think most of the analysis works better when you can grasp the nuance. Anyway, lol.

She starts off saying "Nothing really" - there's a pause where Kawaki tells her to tell Shikamaru that the Hokage's dead. So, jumping from, "Nothing, all good" to "oh shit actually the Hokage is dead, my bad" is maybe slightly suspicious.

Chapter 80

Key Points:

Eida says rather bluntly that the Hokage has been killed by Boruto, but she's under duress with Kawaki's hand to her throat, so maybe she's not sounding like she usually would. Just a guess.

"There's a very high possibility" is not the same as "The Hokage has definitely been killed". I don't think Shikamaru 100% believes Eida, but I do think the possibility is upsetting enough for him to act on it regardless.

Shikadai is actually the main reason I am fairly confident Shikamaru knows something is up because this kid sees all this weird shit that doesn't add up and you know he talks to his dad about it.

Shikadai sees Sasuke take off with Boruto and you think he's not going to go to his dad like, "hey what the fuck?"

They're Naras, y'all. Come on now.

Chapter 81

Key Points:

Shikamaru is the Hokage now, apparently.

Okay, that's actually a huge factor to consider as well because I don't think he would take that position if he didn't believe Naruto was still alive and able to take it back as soon as he was found. Shikamaru doesn't want to be Hokage, are you kidding me?

"The sanctions against Boruto were in accordance with regulations." "It's also the will of the Hidden Leaf's citizens." "No matter what I order, it won't convince them."

These are not comments that come from someone dead set on hunting down and punishing a criminal that murdered a political leader. This is the kind of thing you say when you're like, "listen, yes, but also bureaucracy is a bitch and I've gotta keep up appearances or someone else will actually hunt Boruto down and kill him".

He's less worried about the fact Sarada is trying to protect Boruto and more worried about how she's doing it. In my opinion. This is not a fact, I just wanted to point it out, lol.

Again, Shikadai hears Naruto's daughter, and who is currently perceived as being Kawaki's sister, say she wants to protect Boruto who supposedly killed her dad. She also said she feels like he's alive somewhere, and I'm willing to bet dollars to donuts that is something a lot of other folks, including Shikamaru, feel as well.

Shikamaru's reaction to when Boruto arrives pretty much solidified my belief that he knows something is up and he doesn't think Boruto killed Naruto, or at the very least that Naruto could still be alive and there's more going on with this whole situation, so he's not eager to jump the gun and kill a child. Which is more than I can say for some of our pol- nevermind ignore this

Shikamaru's reaction to hearing Code is there and attacking people: Orders an evacuation and tries to figure out why Code is attacking, immediately concerned about the safety of the villagers.

Shikamaru's reaction to hearing Boruto just showed up: Prioritize Code and the claw marks, but keep tabs on Boruto without suggesting any kind of attack or restraint or anything like that. He's not worried about Boruto. But he is wanting to gather more intel on the situation as a whole, which makes sense, all things considered.

Chapter 82

Key Notes:

Very intentional frame of Shikadai seeing Kawaki show up, Kawaki shouting for Himawari and Inojin to move out of the way so he can attack a claw thing, not worrying about their safety at all.

Himawari calls him "Big Bro" and Kawaki tells her not to call him that. Not very big brotherly. Again, Shikadai is there for this. Along with everyone else, so. You know, things are kind of weird. These are weird dynamics that are not matching up with their false memories.

Chapter 83

Key Points:

Shikamaru, again, wants Kawaki to focus on eliminating Code - who is an actual threat - and pretty much ignores Boruto because he's not a concern.

Focuses on getting rid of the claw things even after Code has run off, prioritizing keeping him away and protecting the villagers instead of "trying to bring a Hokage killer to justice" or whatever the fuck people are trying to do with Boruto.

Chapter 84

Key Notes:

What Shikamaru took away from Kawaki's breakdown of the situation was that Boruto only came to the village to deal with Code. Meaning that Boruto was never a threat to the village, and there's no reason to worry about him, but it also probably indicates that there is something worth doing more digging into to figure out what the fuck is going on with all of the discrepancies in his memory that I'm sure are pissing him off.

"It better not be someone in the sensory unit."

Kawaki doesn't trust Shikamaru, and probably not anyone else in Konoha. That's not a very "Naruto's son" kind of attitude to have. The fact Shikamaru doesn't seem phased by that distrust means he's either been dealing with it for three years already, has been suspicious of Kawaki this whole time, and more likely both of those things.

Also, what the fuck, that sounds threatening? Ino would kick Kawaki's ass. I'd love to see him try though, lol. No I wouldn't, don't do that please.

Weird tensions between Kawaki (supposedly Naruto's son) and Sarada (Sasuke's daughter). If it were a rivalry, that'd make sense. But the hostility between them? Nah, that don't track.

Sarada basically confirming that Boruto was after Code and most likely trying to find a way to save the people who have been turned into trees. A very "Naruto's son" kind of attitude.

Chapter 85

Key Notes:

BOY. IF AMADO KNOWS, SHIKAMARU HAS KNOWN THE WHOLE GOD DAMN TIME

His face is hidden and he's not surprised or saying anything because if he's been trying to figure this shit out without tipping anyone off WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU SAY

Especially if he doesn't want Eida to know that he knows, because jesus christ her powers are scary and he's probably not eager to have to add that into the mess of variables he's already tangling with.

In Summary

Main Points

Shikamaru has been suspicious of this shit since omnipotence went off and fucked with people's heads.

Shikadai has been privy to some strangeness around Himawari, Kawaki and Boruto at the same time, and I can't imagine that he hasn't asked his dad about it or something. So whatever Shikadai has seen, I assume Shikamaru is somewhat aware of or we'll see a scene where something Shikadai saw or something he says makes it all click into place when his dad hears about it.

Shikamaru's language and attitude around Boruto have been intentionally vague and avoidant. It's the "will of the village", following the system's rules, etc. etc.

Shikamaru's more concerned with Code as a threat than with tracking down Boruto, which conveniently gives him an excuse to not pursue Boruto and prioritize the safety of the village at the same time.

Amado knows? Then Shikamaru has known. No doubt. There was a whole ass chapter where Shikamaru outsmarted Amado. Narratively speaking, we've got a point of reference for why there's a parallel here with Amado talking about this out loud and getting to see Shikamaru's reaction - or in this case, lack thereof - to hearing it.

Conclusion

Shikamaru continues to be the coolest man alive. Thank you for coming to my TED talk, byyyeeee

#boruto #naruto #boruto spoilers #naruto spoilers #manga #breakdown #analysis #shikamaru #shikamaru nara #boruto 85 #i didn't mean to spend so much time on this #woops lol #not my fault he's interesting af #also even if he doesn't wanna be hokage he's still a good one #js #yall stop being rude to him is2g

[that-one-weeb-but-it-transformer]

Your head cannons are so fun and lovely! Can you do human/decepticons and forbidden love? Or maybe just Soundwave… only if you want to U.U

Again, I love your writing!

Forbidden Love w/ Soundwave

Notes: i see you are a Soundwave lover. So you shall get Soundwave headcannons only home slice also sorry this took so long

He knew it damn well you shouldn't of caught his eye while he was flying

But you did,

Galloping on your mighty stead after a heard of cattle

You were rugged unlike Soundwave who was sleek and slim and all-around form-fitting and precise

So he did what any normal human/robot would do.

Went to meet you

Human form a GO, like a damn pokemon battle

She smiled watching him come up to the farm and waved him down it was hot and you don't see too many people out and about

He said something but you didn't hear him and stopped him.

"There we are! Hear ya loud and clear now! My hearing aid was off and you're on my bad side!" She smiled, "What's a man like you looking for out here!?"

A man like him? Oh yeah. He looked a bit fancy, with black pants, casual dress shoes, and a Turtle neck on.

"I saw you working."

Y/n blinked, "Oh? Seen me railin in the big girls! You intrested in buyin a few? Sorry if you're one of those big corps people. We don't sell to big corps slaughter houses."

"Why?"

"Well they defile the animal. If you're gonna kill a cow your gonna do it with humanith. And ya gonna not waste it."

You're so stern.

Hes in love

He buys two cows from you, it was 500 dollars flat. He also bought some stuff to care for the cows like two months worth of feed and a trough werid enough.

You thought it was a one time thing; till you seen him again in town at an animal supply shop.

"Oh hey! How are the two babes doin?"

"Good."

Y/n smiled, "Real glad to hear that! Never did get you're name there sir."

"Soundwave."

What, "Oh you're a DJ?" Y/n questioned, "You look like a DJ! But thats super cool!"

Sure he can be DJ if you want him to be.

DJ soundwave in the house

See the real forbidden love here is when you say goodbye to him and load your stuff into your truck, but someone stops you-

It's Smokescreen, Smokescreen stops you

"Oh hey, guys!"

OH FUCK

Now Sounds has gotta get you.

If you're already on the Autobot's side what happens if you're in love with one of them?

So he makes it a point to get your number, you know. To ask about Cow care

Yes, he has a glass tank with cows inside, like a fish tank almost, but like...transformers size.

You touch soundwaves cows. YOU DIE

Runs into you here and there in town.

He really grows on you: even inviting him over for family dinner.

He's not very talkative which surprises your family, and you're two different people

He's allowed in your room, which is surprising

You're sister who's younger actually argues about it with their mom about it

which you gladly close the door too.

"Yeah feel free to explore."

Explored a little too far and found all you're nerd shit.

"HAH! haha...Brothers...ya know them..."

"What is it?"

"Nothing! Nothing! Just a movie poster."

"I've never been to a movie."

First date? Drive-in Movie theater to watch the original star wars movie

He literally changed his alt form to drive you to a damn drive in a movie theater.

"Y/n's got a new boyfriend!!!" "Miko!"

Now Wheeljack is teasing you 100%

"OH? Is that why you're not around anymore?"

You blow him off: and you're never around much anyway to really care about Decepticon names so "Soundwave" Doesn't even ring a bell.

"What's his name? What's his name? What's his name!"

"Ugh, I swear! You're just like my brother Jackie."

You don't tell him

And you and sound wave continue to go on dates happily

He even ends up kissing you: like a kiss you were expecting? Was a shy one, not the best one you'll ever have in your damn life span

You're actually laying in the back of your truck with him one night, and fell asleep as you were star gazing.

that Autobot pendant you actually got as a homie sexual gift from smokescreen: God ratchet wishes you never taught him that phrase

But he only adverts his gaze

Turns out, The Autobots have been tracking you because the kids have voiced seeing you get into an oddly specific purple car.

and you'll get caught

You're heartbroken at the end of it, all of a sudden Soundwave's the enemy.

"No? You just don't talk now!? Dude what is your problem."

So the Autobots wanna take you home: somewhere safe and in secret.

You're even mad at them: shit you even blow up at Bumblee your so pissed.

"And you, All of you! Tracked me! What the hell is your problem!?"

You hate robots, fuck robots, you go home angry more than anything

#tfp soundwave #soundwave #tfp headcanons #headcannons #x reader headcanons #tfp x reader #tfp x reader headcannons #tfp soundwave x reader headcannons #transformersprime #tfp #soundwave headcannons #transformers prime optimus

[svechnikovvv]

300 follower special (:

to celebrate 300 followers, here’s 100 prompts i’ve compiled (: send some in with either jack, trevor, or quinn, and i’ll be answering requests!

"buy me dinner first and we'll see"

"right now? babe, we're in public"

"ooo, that's not your job anymore"

"tell me everything's gonna be okay"

"yeah, yeah, you're cute. just stop smiling at me like that"

"i'm here if you need anything, okay?"

"let me take care of you for once"

"oh my god! why didn't you tell me it was this bad?!"

"i don't like people, but you're an exception"

"you're the only one that gets to call me that, you know?"

"i crave your affection, but i crave your silence even more so shut up"

"wait... are you braiding my hair?"

"i didn't know you were the cuddling type"

"you stepped on my foot you ass!"

"that's gonna leave a bruise"

"shit! i didn't mean to break your nose"

"please, don't go"

"it hurts. it hurts so bad"

"we can't be friends"

"you shouldn't be here"

"it doesn't feel like you care"

"i need you here. with me"

"i don't know what to do"

"my heart's broken"

"where did this come from?"

"who is _____ ?"

"i shouldn't have come here"

"it's like we've become strangers"

"who hurt you?"

"who did this to you?"

"please, say something"

"i'm not leaving you here"

"after all we've been through?"

"i'm proud of you"

"you'll always have a home here"

"ohmygod, it puked on me. IT PUKED ON ME!"

"where's it's off button?"

"being a parent is difficult"

"have fun dying alone"

"you know what would make me happy? IF YOU WENT TO FUCKING SLEEP"

"sorry, i was really drunk last night"

"i can be sexy AND sad"

"don't say weird things at a kid's soccer game"

"hey, 20 dollars is 20 dollars"

"awe, you do love me"

"listen, we have very thin walls and i heard you blasting taylor swift, are you okay?"

"you locked yourself out too?"

"truth hurts, doesn't it?"

"it's good to see you"

"i need you."

"i'll be there in five"

"you're a terrible liar"

"you should keep your day job because you'll never make it as an actor"

"i brought you dinner"

"you deserve better."

"you've changed"

"you always find a way to surprise me"

"i never meant to fall in love with you, i just did"

"you're the only person i want to be with tonight"

"you're the first person i thought to call"

"if you make a noise, they'll find us. so be quiet"

"scoot over, i want to sit next to you"

"you can't stay in bed all day"

"you called me, remember?"

"what do you mean you're sick? you're my partner in crime!"

"you're such a nerd"

"i'm here for you. always"

"yeah, but you love me"

"holy shit, you're gorgeous. will you marry me?"

"are you judging me because i'm eating cake for breakfast?"

"you're not serenading me with one direction" "watch me"

"don't move, you're comfortable"

"can i use your steam shower?"

"why do i have to pretend?"

"i haven't broken into your apartment in weeks! by the way, you're almost out of peanut butter."

"is that a hickey?" "no, it's a mosquito bite"

"okay... now when is the baby?"

"i'm not crying. my eyes are sweating"

"dude, she said i have pretty eyes!"

"i kinda just ran five redlights to see you, so please let me in"

"nothing is going to change the way i look at you"

"i need to say hi to my girl"

"i don't want better, i want you"

"so this is it?"

"is this what chivalry is now?"

"i wouldn't want to spend a minute loving anybody else"

"repsectfully, shut the fuck up"

"this is why your ass loss at mario kart"

"your pancakes suck ass"

"if anyone asks, this never happened"

"don't get used to me being nice"

"i don't have a bed time"

"you're sleeping on the couch"

"i've taken five naps in the past 24 hours. personally speaking, i think something's wrong"

"i would drop everything for you"

"wake me up in 3-5 business days"

"i'm quite hilarious, actually"

"i'm sorry for calling you a little bitch"

"i've got 99 problems and i'm every single one of them"

"not my team, not my problem"

gif creds: @jurislafkovsky @jonasiegenthaler

#trevor zegras x reader #trevor zegras #jack hughes x reader #jack hughes #quinn hughes x reader #quinn hughes #nhl hockey #nhl #anaheim ducks #new jersey devils #vancouver canucks

[an-honest-puck]

a collection of viewing notes and highlights from Back to the Tutor because I don’t have the time to liveblog while watching but I do have thoughts

(seems fitting that today's viewing notes and highlights are from a women-led MMNI cast!!! 🙌🏽 Happy International Women's Day, babes!!! &lt;;3)

ah yes, Back to the Tutor a.k.a. Dave's audition tape to be the next James Bond XD

jokes, what I mean is: ytg (yeah the girls) baybeeeee!!!!!!!!

ayo big ups to the cast on this one!!!!!! I was shocked to see so few people in the cast compared to other nights (pandemic times, amiright) but hot damn what a brilliant story they weaved together!!!!

listen, I am all for Laura Kirman and Lauren Shearing romcom supremacy my dudes (gender neutral)

their love story was so friggin sweet!!! their scene on the mini-golf course and the awkwardness afterwards was so accurate and so endearing!!

Laura seems like such a load of fun - her grandiose entrance and that note she hit??????? queen shit!!!!!! excited to see more of her shenanigans!!!

and Lauren plays endearing characters so well how can you not love her????? but she's also equally loveable when she's being cheeky and causing mischief lololol

Ellie trying to be mean was so funny to watch lolol

like, she really went from 0 to 100 when she insinuated that her character pushed a grandma down the stairs XDD

Anna (Laura): You're a nasty, nasty woman!

Louise (Ellie): *desperately trying to wrap up her story arc because it's almost the end of the movie* And I'm not gonna learn my lesson! :D

Dave is in absolutely fine form and yes, I mean that in all definitions XD Dave really said as the token male of the cast tonight, I will be playing the boytoy to be ogled at, and you all have full permission to address me as such lmaoooo we appreciate your sacrifice, sir o7 /half-joking

no but for real, the man has range!!!!!!!! we love to see it!!!!!

hypermasculine James Bond to flamboyant best friend/sidekick character???? that's ✨range✨ baby

Bryony does what she does best: play an elderly person XD if I had a dollar for every elderly person I've seen her play, I'd have two dollars. it's not much, but it is odd that it's happened twice lololol

an absolute cracker of a character!!! such sassy lines and brutal advice!!! 😂 her scenes with Hen (yes, a wild Henry Lewis appeared via Zoom!!!!! it was delightful!!!! he's bloody brilliant!!!!) were so friggin sweet too omg!!!! <3

and oh my days her character ending!!!!! 😭 also, she had so many good scenes??????? but like, all of them did!!!!!!!

actually, this whole movie hit all the emotional beats incredibly well, it was magic!!!!!!!

perhaps somewhat to the detriment of the cast, with Oscar/Jono breaking character twice as he keeps an eye on them 😅 (which, mind you, was very sweet to see)

we love that moment when everyone's trying to figure out what the scene should be, so no one's actually on stage XD

Bryony: *starts to run on stage as the camera cuts away*

Oscar: Pause! Pause! Pause! *head in hands*

*cut to Bryony, sprawled on the floor as if she's fallen down the 2 steps of the stage and Dave midway through entering the scene*

*cut back to Oscar*

Oscar/Jon, somewhat nervously as he cranes his head around to look at the stage: Are you ok, Bry?

*a beat*

Bryony, offstage and cool as you like: Yes.

Oscar: Ok, good! Yes, yes, we carry on the movie- we carry on the movie- I really worried then! I really thought that we got two minutes in- gotta change the cast, got another one down- but no! It's fine! It's fine!

there is one big downside to this movie, and that is the smoke machine- terrible scene partner, never expected in the scene, always coming in too strong, 0/10 performance lmaooo

Oscar: Pause. And I think we have enough time for a final moment of performance from Bertie, who's desperately trying to work out how to signal that he wants to speak.

Hen really said "I got this, fam" and proceeded to straight up just tell Bryony to leave the room LMAO

ayo also huge kudos to Yshani and Richard for sneaking Bond music in whenever Dave- sorry, James Bond was in the scene XD

Marcus (Dave): Sorry, gals, but I'm back, and I'm pretty tired now! Alright, here we go! *proceeds to lead everyone through a ridiculously Zumba/aerobics-esque high energy dance while still looking like the most energetic person in the room*

Oscar, laughing: Pause! What I love is that obviously, when there's a song, there's a really clear moment when the song ends and we know that the movie's over. But with a dance, it's much harder to find that moment! But they do find that moment, before- because Dave does look very tired!

Marcus, voice breaking halfway through the sentence: Don't you worry, gals, I've got plenty in the tank!

*cue the music getting faster and the dancing getting faster*

and then Dave does a freaking cartwheel on the spot XD (ngl, I rated it - perhaps not in technique but geez the man has springs in his limbs lol)

#mischief movie night in #mischief theatre #dave hearn #laura kirman #lauren shearing #bryony corrigan #ellie morris #jonathan sayer #back to the tutor #for real let's give it up for this cast because they did such an amazing job!!!!!! <3 #much respect and love to 'em #oh and i guess technically #henry lewis #was there too haha #soz for the terrible quality gif but i just wanted to appreciate dave's acrobatics lol #that move wasn't quite a round-off but very easily could've been with a bit more space #but also if he wasn't so tired i swear that could be a proper hand spring lol #day says hey

[sekhithefops]

The World is Run by Jerry Smiths

So, its a popular idea that there's a shadowy cabal of rulers running the world. The Illuminati, the Deep State, the Lizard People, what have you.

Personally, I have my own theory on this one.

They're not shadowy or secret.

They really don't run the world in any sense but running it into the ground.

They're all basically Jerry Smith from Rick & Morty.

Now hear me out.

In Rick & Morty, Jerry Smith is Morty's father. He is an insecure little tit who is forever trying and failing to prove his worth, because he doesn't realize he has no worth to prove. He's pretty pathetic.

He almost gets murdered by Meeseeks when he tries (and fails) to improve his golf game, the short-lived helper creatures realizing that they can be free of their existence if they get rid of him and (technically) fulfill his request by doing so ("we can't take two strokes off his game, but we can take all strokes off it!")

He gets used by the ruler of Pluto to try to get people to ignore the fact that their planet is being destroyed by their own abuses of it and goes along with it because his ego is getting stroked the entire way, to the point of humiliating his son on stage.

And he's such a man-child that he winds up in a literal daycare for Jerrys that an alternate version of Rick established to take care of them while a universe's Rick and Morty were off having adventures.

Every time I see Jerry, I'm reminded of... honestly a lot of political figures in the United States (probably other countries too, but I try to avoid political news that doesn't directly affect me as it would only stress me out horribly.)

Lately America has been on one of it's regular Moral Panics that will, more often than not, blow up in the GOP's face in the end. We've had the Satanic Panic, the Porn Rock hearings of the 80s, and the like... now we're on to Transpeople. Politicians are trying to mandate how gender works because... I dunno, they're afraid of getting cooties or something (or more likely the usual 'we're trying to incite a culture war to avoid the class war that will likely happen one day.')

One of the worst offenders of this is Ron DeSantis, governor of Florida. A little toad of a man who is so insecure that he wears stealth high heels in order to make himself appear taller than he is as he attacks anything and everything he considers "woke" in revenge for... well, whatever. Probably losing the 2024 nomination to a pile of Cheetos in an ill-fitting suit.

Moving away from the political sphere we can find Jerries in the leadership of the business world as well. A prime example is one of the reasons I reactivated my Tumblr account in the first place. Everyone's favorite little shit, Elon "Elongated Muskrat" Musk.

Elon is 100% what Jerry would be if he had a lot of money. He got laughed at on Twitter, so he bought it and bans everyone who looks at him funny. He buys up companies and claims he's a genius scientist for inventions he had no hand in designing (and that come out far worse for his involvement post-takeover.)

A closer to home example would be Tumblr's own Photomatt, who I didn't even know existed until recently and having found out about them I wish I could return to that happy place of ignorance.

Because a transperson was... honestly as far as I can tell existing to them for more than a few minutes they banned their account, then did so again when they made a burner account, then once more with feeling, then possibly a few more times (I lost count.)

Of course he's now getting dunked on from all sides and has only his millions of dollars and the ability to threaten siccing the FBI on offenders while screaming incoherently like a toddler who was told they can't have a cookie.

Again, Jerry Smith, but with money.

So yeah. Got a bit rambly there, but thats how I see the world really. Its not a bunch of tyrannical fascists, its a bunch of insecure little men who can't handle even the tiniest bits of criticism without having a panic attack.

Where's Rick when you need him?

#the world is run by jerry smiths #politics #ceos #idiocy #at least we can all laugh