#i could probably write a damn essay on why i think pretty much every main character from stranger things is autistic | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

rrazor · 3 years

Text

hq boys as non-sexual things that feel sensual

tags: mildly suggestive content (mostly pining)

bokuto: certain phrases are very sexually charged; “make me,” or “what are you gonna do about it” lunch time!! bokuto comes back from the cafeteria with his pork-cutlet sandwich to see you engaged in a card game with three other people. He sees that everyone’s bet something and you bet a strawberry danish you bought this morning and bokuto’s eyes go 🤩 he forces himself in LMFAO and makes sure to sit next to you 🥰❤️ in the end, it’s only you and him left (konoha and komi come over from their classes to see what all the fuss is about and they’re like …..how is bokuto doing so well 😶)

but you win and steal his sandwich on the desk 😈 he tries to defame you for cheating lol but all you do is look at him coyly like “and what are you gonna do about it, bokuto-kun? 😇” and suddenly his tongue feels heavy and his cheeks flush and he’s all 🥺👉👈 he asks you for the bread back because its his only lunch 😭💀 but he ends up winning sm more because you offer to share your bento with him and his heart goes 🥰💖💞

akaashi: sitting next to someone and your shoulders/thighs touch it’s the sports festival!! and it’s lunch break. he spots you sitting on a bench and he starts sweating at the idea of sitting next to you but he wants to be near you somewhat because then MAYBE you’ll talk to him??!? hopefully 🥺💔

he swallows his nerves and sits on the bench too but on the other side with a huge gap between you and your friend. he pulls out his phone to look “busy” LMFAO then, more of your friends come over and suddenly, you’re snug against him, your BARE THIGH touching his because you’re both in shorts and akaashi thinks he gonna pass out with the bashful apology you give him 😵 he thanks every deity he can think of that your friends came over and STAY because your leg is still touching his and he’s holding a conversation with you 😭🥺🥳💕💖❤️😍

konoha: having someone use your keyboard standing up while you’re sitting in front of it you’re in one of the school’s computer labs working on a research essay. akinori sits next to your station, having worked up the courage earlier to ask you if you could help him with his. he sneaks glances at you at the printers as you refill the trays with more paper 👀 he blushes even though you aren’t even doing anything to him 😭😔💔

before he can stop himself, he calls your name lmfao 🗣 but manages to save himself from utter embarrassment by asking you to look over one of his passages. coming over, you lean over him, hands on his keyboard as he leans back. his eyes are wide and cheeks ruddy as he tries so hard to keep cool because you’re so close 😍🥺💕 and god does he hope what he wrote was coherent because he thinks he’d d-word if you said it made no sense 😓😵

kuroo: when you’re sitting next to someone and they lean over and reach across you to grab something another day, another group project. kuroo gets added to a group with you and another guy because he was absent for volleyball. the two of you push your desks next to him and he’s fist pumping internally because you’re sitting next to HIM and not the other guy and he gets to act as the barrier AHAHAH 😇🥳😛

you’re working together when you ask one of your friends to pass over the notes she took from you. she’s sitting in front of kuroo, but diagonally to the right so she leans back and you lean forward to grab the papers. your arm accidentally brushes his chest and kuroo short circuits 😶 you’re SO CLOSE and your body is nearly laid over his entire desk and if he moves his hands up he could probably touch your chest HJAKHSDLKASD 👁👄👁 the guy next to him looks at him all 😐 as kuroo goes INSANE 🤯

kita: hugging from behind he’s home alone, studying in the living room for his university exams. you’re in the kitchen with his grandma helping her with tonight’s dinner. he smiles softly to himself hearing the two of you laugh 😊🥰💞

he’s halfway through a derivatives question when you hug him from behind, arms coming around him as you rest your head on his shoulder blades 🥺💘 when you softly tell him dinner is almost ready, his chest warms and a soft smile appears on his face ❤️💖

atsumu: the guys strapping you in on a roller coaster. are we gonna kiss? why are you giving me that eye contact? inarizaki’s vbc get together to go to the local amusement park!! they get in and the first thing the twins want to do is ride all of the roller coasters so after a ridiculously long line up, atsumu’s sitting next to osamu, waiting for an attendant to come buckle them in, when you suddenly come up in your cute uniform and hair tied up and atsumu’s like SHIT ITS YOU 😳 also damn y didn’t you tell him you worked here he could have gotten discounted tickets smh 🥴😒

anyways you come up to them to buckle them up with him first and he doesn’t really notice anything but you buckle the first strap really tight and he’s like “does it need to be so tight 😘” and you tell him, making eye contact, using your best customer service voice (vocal bottoming but at least you get paid) and with a pretty smile on your face that doesn’t reach your eyes, “yes, unless you want to die. and if you do, don’t do it on this ride because my shift ends in ten minutes and i don’t want to stay here to write a report about a dumbass who ko’d on a roller coaster 🥰” and he BLUSHES oop— 👁👅👁

osamu: having your back scratched you sit next to each other in class and it’s self study time and you’re helping him with the english homework that was assigned when his back starts feeling itchy. he rolls and moves his shoulders to try to alleviate it, but it just isn’t working so he brings a hand back to scratch at it, but he’s not flexible enough to reach it 😔 you ask him what’s wrong and he puts his arm down like he got burned because he doesn’t want to be seen doing something weird in front of you or making a weird face so he just says nothing but you raise a brow and go “are you itchy?” and he nods JAJCKKAD

you bring your arm up to where he was just scratching, “here?” a shake of his head, “no, a little to the right.” AND YOU SCRATCH RIGHT AT IT!!!!! he can feel his shoulders slump as he closes his eyes and groans a little WHOOP he’s SUPER EMBARRASSED but you just laugh it off and scratch him some more before going back to work and he looks at you like 🥺💖 why’d you stop?? even though you’re not even looking at him LOL 😞 touches his back that night in the shower like your hands were so small 😯😍😳 and maybe he should be itchy more often but it also quickly turns to she better not be touchy feely with anyone else 😒

suna: someone writing on your arm he’s forced to take this one evening class this semester because it’s not offered the next one and he needs to take it because it’s a prereq for almost every other course ugh but at least the cute girl who sits next to him lets him copy her notes LMFAO 😭💀 he left all his belongings in the gym’s lockers because he was going to go back anyways for practice so when the professor gives out a code for a free trial of the software they have to use for the homework assignment due in a week, he’s like shit; he left his phone in his bag 🤡💔

you offer to write it down on his arm, grabbing a pen from your pencil case. he nods like sure why not so you take his arm and push the sleeve of his hoodie up and start writing and he just stares at you 👀 your writing is cute and he kinda likes the feel of your hands on him 🤧 class ends and you part ways with a wave. It’s not until he’s reached the gym that he realized you could have just messaged the code to him on facebook 🤨 so he pushes his sleeve up and sees your phone number on his arm under the code 😘 aren’t you smooth!!! 😌

iwaizumi: when someone is putting the car in reverse and they put their hand on the back of your seat iwaizumi been interested in you for a while, and ever since he came to the revelation he finds it really hard to talk to you because he’s afraid of coming off too aggressive or you figuring it out 😔💔 good thing kindaichi reveals that you’re his older cousin and that you’ll be driving some of them to their next practice match because the volleyball team’s bus is out for a checkup!! 😍😘 oikawa, matsukawa and hanamaki all force him to sit shotgun as you drive (even kunimi and yahaba get in on it). iwaizumi grumbles about it and all but he’s secretly super happy he gets to be right next to you omg 👀😭 he takes a bunch of glances around the interior of your (parents’) car and sits a little straighter than he usually would.

he can feel the stares on the back of his head from the other third years egging him on to make a move and just when he works up the nerve to say something to you, you put the car in reverse to back out the parking spot and put your hand on the back of his seat 😳😤 iwaizumi thinks you look so cool AND HOT he clams up and just stares at you with his jaw slightly open 👁👄👁 💕pls save him 🤧

matsukawa: when a girl puts her hand up to yours and remarks on how yours is so much bigger you got randomly paired up with each other to do a presentation for your world history class and so you’re sitting next to each other on a saturday afternoon at the public library doing research together. matsukawa spent more time than he would like thinking about what to wear because he doesn’t want you to think that his fashion sense was as grotesque as the school’s khaki pants 😷🤢 (when you complimented him nonchalantly about how he looks a million times better in casual clothes compared to the school uniform and joking said that he should start a petition to get rid of the school’s ugly khaki plaid pants and skirts and use a photo of what he was wearing today as the main piece of evidence, he almost doubles over 💀)

you’re sitting next to each other and he’s still kinda reeling from the previous interaction ahjdalhd but he does his best to pull his weight. he’s taking notes in a notebook and you look over and comment out of the blue that his hands are really big as you look at yours 🤧👀 he blinks and looks at you like “yeah?” and you nod, putting your hand up and he does it too because he thinks he’s having a fever dream at this point, but not even in his wildest dream did he’’d ever think you’d push your palm against his and say “your hand is so big! 😳” he has to excuse himself to go to the washroom to scream 😘🥰❤️

hanamaki: when you’re sitting next to someone on public transport and the centrifugal force from the vehicle firmly mooshes the two of you together hanamaki pines for you silently and you can’t really tell he likes you because he’s pretty decent at keeping his emotions hidden. or maybe you’re just so busy with your senior year you don’t notice anything that isn’t the impending doom of university applications and keeping your grades up 😤😇 anyways the two of you get on and off at the same stop each day (which he secretly thanks god for 😭) and you’re sitting next to each other and hanamaki thinks he’s gonna combust because you’ve never been this close!! 🥺🥰

he can feel his hands getting sweaty already. hanamaki sneaks glances at you and tries to see what you’re doing on your phone LMFAO suddenly, the train lurches a bit and you slide from the inertia right into his side and then he can feel the warmth coming from your thighs, side and your shoulder are touching holy sh— 😭❤️😵👀💖 you look up to apologize as he takes a breath and you’re a little shy in your apology but he takes that chance to ask you about something mundane and he makes you laugh!!!! he thinks about the interaction for the next two weeks because he finally got to talk to you dhaskld ☺️🥺💕

kyoutani: when anyone raises their arms to stretch and their shirt gets lifted up slightly gym class—you’re doing timed runs today!! kyoutani is already finished with his so he’s just sitting off the side of the track, staring not-so-subtly at you but you don’t notice because it’s your turn next!! you’ve got the typical school mandated shorts and plain t-shirt on but kyou is all 👀 at your tastefully exposed skin. he thinks you look pretty with the sun hitting your face as you give a smile to your friend, squinting at the sun light 🥰

he’s just mindlessly staring at this point but then you raise your arms to stretch your triceps and the hem of your shirt rises up a little to expose the tiniest sliver of skin before it’s covered again 👁👁 his cheeks pink a little and you catch him looking LMFAO but you don’t think anything of it and just smile and wave as kyoutani burns bright red, heart battering against his ribs and looks away 😡🤡🥰💕 he saves it for future reference HURDURDUR 😇😛

ushijima: when a woman does that thing where she tucks her hair behind her ear while making direct eye contact ushijima is INTERESTED in you, likes you, is intrigued, would like to hold your hand and rub the back of your hand and feel the soft skin with his thumb—same thing 🥰 you’re talking to him about something for the cultural festival and he’s nodding along to what you’re saying because you’re so brilliant and responsible for working on the school festival committee wOW 🤩

time seems to move in slow motion as you look up him whilst tucking a piece of hair behind your ear. he zones in on the shy smile on your face, your cute cheeks, glossy lips and pretty eyes 🥺🥰 “ushijima-san?” “yes?” “what do you think?” “that’s a great idea, I will ask my team members for their input as well.” you nod exuberantly even though he has no idea what you’re talking about but your cute smile makes him all mushy on the inside 💖💕

semi: making eye contact with another customer at the grocery store around the same age it’s 2:11pm on a tuesday and semi’s at the grocery store because it’s summer and his mom was all “go to the store and buy these shimeji mushrooms for me, eita, they’re on sale!!! but only until 3pm so get skedaddling!” 😩 so he’s here and he swears housewives are the most powerful people on the planet because he thought he was gonna d-word just tryna get his discount mushrooms. he spots you in the condiments aisle looking at sesame oil and he gives you the up, down and lingers a little too long on your exposed legs 💀

he thinks you look really cute in your t-shirt and jean shorts though 🥰 when you look up and make eye contact with him and give him a little smile and wave he BLUSHES 🥺 and is right about to take the chance to talk to you but a granny hip checks him trying to get to the soybean paste and he almost trips and lands on his face 😔💔 so much for looking cool in front of you 😢🥺

tendou: having someone else play with your hair satori sees you on cleaning duty carrying the recycling to the bins as he finishes his runs around the school, about to make a turn to the gyms. he makes a beeline for you, calling your name with a bright smile on his face and waving his arms in the air. 🥰💞🥺

he bounds up to you and offers to help even though the bin is really light, cheeks warming at your smile 😊 when he takes the bin out of your hands , you wave your hand to get him to bend down. he complies, eyes widening when he feels your hand in his hair. he straightens up to see you holding onto a couple pieces of cherry blossom petals 🌸 he laughs bashfully; it feels like time has slowed and you’re the only two people in the world 💖💕

sakusa: if you’re on a pc/laptop, somebody leaning over your shoulder to look at the screen with you. the close proximity of your faces can feel awkwardly sexual you’re in the same kinesiology class and sakusa first noticed how GOOD your presentations are wtf and he’s even more impressed when he hears that you winged the whole thing because “i conveniently forgot about this until one in the morning when I decided it was a good time to reorganize your entire dorm room” ALSO you offered him hand cream the one time you caught him staring and against all reason he said yes and ever since he’s been dying to ask you where you got it from because HOLY was it nice 😍

you get paired up for the final pair presentation and he’s only become more interested in you! you’re easy to talk to and don’t pry too much and he finds himself oversharing at times 💀 the professor gives the class part of the lecture time to work on the projects so you’re sitting next to each other working when he asks you a question about the academic article he just found and you lean over his shoulder to look at his screen 👁👁 for anyone else, the close proximity of your faces would have grossed him out but he can’t stop thinking about how good you smell and how cute your ears look 👀🥰 when you tell him he’s found a really good source with an excited smile on your face, he BLUSHES and promptly wants to pass away because he has no mask on to cover him 🤡😭😵

sachiro: when you have a melting popsicle, there often comes a time where you must choose between eating it too quickly, or sucking it off so it doesn’t drip on you sachiro hums happily, holding your hand as the two of you walk home after your date and stopping at the convenience store where he buys the two of you popsicle sticks 😋

you’re talking about something funny you saw hoshiumi do in the class the other day when your popsicle drips onto you. you kitten lick at your hand and take the whole thing in your mouth to get rid of the more liquidy parts of your ice cream and sachiro is all 👁👄👁 he swallows thickly, cheeks warming and heart beating a little faster; why’s he suddenly so thirsty? 🥵💦🙈

gao: getting a strong whiff of somebody’s perfume when they pass you gao really wants to talk to you, like really really wants to talk to you 😖😭🙏 but you’re talking to your friends about something and the cute way you laughs and joke with them has him all 🥺🥰🤩

he’s about to walk up and join the conversation because let’s face it, gao isn’t afraid of much 🤧💀 too bad the teacher calls you back into the classroom about something. when you pass him, he gets a good whiff of your shampoo and his stomach flutters 😍😊🥺💕💖 follows you with sparkly eyes and wishes he made the choice to talk to you sooner 💔

futakuchi: bending over to pick up something you dropped kenji is watching (glaring) as you talk to one of the baseball team’s starting players 🤐 he’s so ticked but he doesn’t admit it like where does this guy get off making you laugh and smile like that wtf 😒🙄 luckily for kenji, the guy gets pulled away by the class rep for something so kenji calls your name to get you to look at him instead 😤

you come over and just as he’s about to stand up from his desk, he knocks over his eraser. you crouch down to pick it up and he finds himself really liking it 👁👁 he doesn’t get it either 🤡 like you aren’t bending and snapping—just folding your knees to get his eraser for him, but the way you tucked your hair behind your ear before you bent down so prettily has him ☺️😉🥵

terushima: when you’re eating and chatting with someone and they lick their lips yuuji pulled you away from your friends when it was time for lunch, wanting to spend more time with you one on one. he was so busy with volleyball and school lately 😞 and when he managed to get you to tell him how lonely you felt without him, he made it his mission to spend more time with you!!! 🥰😘💕

you’re eating together, sharing food and talking about everything and anything when he notices you lick your lips; he zones in on your little pink tongue as it swipes across your bottom lip 👁👁 “yuuji, you okay?” a hand on your cheek and suddenly, he’s kissing you. he tastes like the leftovers your mom packed you for lunch 🥰😋

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princessofprocrastination · 3 years

Text

A Creep? (Sapnap)

MASTERLIST

pairing : sapnap x reader

summary : in the world of flashing cameras and big stages, love lives don’t exist, and there’s no such thing as personal space.

a/n : a sapnap story for y’all, muah. also, thank you so so much for 175 followers, holy crap.

your backstory is quite simple. a texan girl who had a dream of singing, but was limited since the main genre of your state was country.

you appreciated the genre, but you have never been interested in making country music, the song choices never fit your voice. you didn’t even think you had a texan accent, at least that was what people told you.

your parents have always been super supportive of what you do, constantly posting your covers on youtube, hoping that people out there enjoy to listen to you as much as they did.

your dad had been the one to encourage you to do busking. he says it’ll be a great opportunity for you to learn what it’s like to sing in front of people, and a chance for you to get rid of your stage fright.

so you did that. you started busking when you were about fourteen and stopped when you turned sixteen.

no, you didn’t stop because you were quitting, or that you were tired of it. instead, you were really lucky, and got recognised pretty early on your busking days.

your dad decided that it was best to move to the US, where it’s closer to the record company that you were tied to. hence, that was what you all did.

well, that was what you and your dad did. your mum decided to stay in houston to take care of your younger sibling. she felt that it was best they all stayed.

that didn’t mean you guys were distancing from each other. instead, it felt like you were closer, calling everyday, making sure she knew what you and your dad were up to, and making sure that they were okay back in texas.

you would consider yourself extremely lucky, for getting to experience what it’s like to be in the industry from young, for being able to produce music really quickly, for being able to attract people so quickly, those who liked your music.

in your prime age of eighteen, you decided it was best to move back and forth from texas and california, from where you live. since things are going smoothly and you weren’t really needed in the US all the time, you thought it was best to move to texas again for the time being.

you could say your music career was going pretty well. you found a loyal fanbase who enjoyed listening to your music as much as you enjoyed producing them. you were glad to have listened to your dad from such an early age.

you were happy doing what you’re doing. but you were losing things to write about.

being young, you didn’t have experiences in anything. sure, you excelled in school well and continued to attend online courses but you never really had friends, you never had a love life.

a lot of people would say you’re too young, that it shouldn’t irk you this much, not being in a relationship but you thought the opposite.

granted, you are happy with the close relationship you and your family have but you wanted to know what it would be like to be loved by someone else, to feel what it’s like to be held.

you craved it. you’ve heard all about it, the pain, or the happiness it comes with. but you wanted to experience it for yourself.

so your dad and you move back to houston to your old house, not letting go of the house in california since you knew you’d come back once in a while.

something that you hated telling people was what you did for a living. most traditional families would think that music can never bring food to the table, but times have change and music have changed a lot of people’s lives.

another thing you hated explaining was why people took photos of you everywhere. with certain popularity, in comes curiousity. people want to know what you’re up to.

and as weird as that sounds, you needed to get used to it. even though it was obvious that paparazzi’s jobs are basically an invasion of privacy.

although you thought you could never be important enough for someone to document every step you take, paparazzi’s thought differently. but you understood it to a certain extent. it was their job, after all.

as much as your job is important, so is theirs.

sometimes it does get annoying though. you could be just in a grocery store, shopping for ingredients alone and there would be a swarm of paparazzi’s waiting outside to catch you and ask some questions.

and everyday, a different question arrives.

you never held back in telling them what they wanted answers to, you never had to hide anything. so what was the point of hiding. they never asked anything of importance, anyway.

although the number of paparazzi’s lessened as you moved back to houston, the numbers weren’t small enough for you not to get overwhelmed.

it really shocked you the extent they would go to write something vaguely interesting in an article. you didn’t even know how they knew you were moving back, but you never questioned it.

as long as they don’t invade your privacy at home, all is good.

about a couple months ago, you decide that your house was getting too boring and cramped with the cries of your little sister to really write anything good for your new album, so you found yourself sitting in a starbucks about less than an hour away from your house.

you thought it was best to find somewhere further away from where you lived just in case someone spots you. you hoped for the opposite, though.

you found yourself sitting in a secluded spot at the side, next to a window, facing the parking spots. you knew you’d stay for a while, so you tried to find a spot where people wouldn’t really see you.

of course, with the way starbucks is set up, everyone can see everyone and but you can’t complain. the place had good drinks and pastry, and had pretty good wifi in case you needed to use your laptop at some point.

you texted your manager from time to time, earphones in both your ears, listening to the newest sza single. this was the best time to finally catch up on some new music you missed out on.

often times than not, you’d be typing away in your computer, stopping to grab your iced drink in your right hand to sip it, putting it down after a couple seconds.

but you hated not knowing your surroundings, it has been what your mum taught you since young, to never be vulnerable, especially in public. with that lesson etched in your brain, you’d look up and around the cafe to see the changed of people once in a while.

about an hour or two after you seated, you noticed a man walking in, wearing a simple, t-shirt and jeans outfit, carrying a backpack seating on the spot opposite you, but more on your left.

he sat facing you so you quickly knew what he looked like the moment he sat down.

for some reason, he caught you eye.

he was fairly tall, taller than you at least, but wasn’t above six foot, not that it mattered. his hair was long, noticeably not been cut for a while, and had a short stubble, which suited his face so well.

upon others, he seemed like the normal looking texan, white male. but to you, he was attractive. everything with him seemed to fit so well. he looked about your age, though you’re terrible at telling ages.

you looked older than eighteen sometimes, yourself. you blamed it on the identity crisis you once had in california when you turned seventeen.

you watched him silently as he stood up to the counter to order something. you snapped out of your thoughts, thinking if you got caught, he’d surely call you a creep.

it had been pretty quiet actually. a couple came up to you when you walked in, asking for a photo but that was it.

it seemed like it was going to be a relaxed writing day for you.

your eyes glanced once more to the texan male as he settled down, typing away on his laptop. perhaps he’s writing an essay for school. maybe he’s still in college.

but who were you judging, you, who was seated typing away probably looked like a college student, too. well, you are, just that you didn’t attend physical school. not that you were doing school work at that point, anyways.

that day had been reserved for writing. and it seemed like you’d be coming to this starbucks more often.

no, it’s not to check on that man, obviously.

even i can sense the sarcasm in my own tone. what the hell is wrong with me? i see one attractive male around me and i don’t know how to act? that’s so unlike me.

you sat at the same spot for another three hours, eventually getting another drink when your first one ran out. you felt relaxed, thinking about your life, about what you wanted your new song to sound like.

you and your producer texted back and forth, sending each other files of different guitar and piano notes you both liked to be into your song.

you were so focused that you hadn’t looked up for a while. so you did that, you glanced up to check your surroundings, to see what had changed from the past couple hours.

looks like that guy is still there. it’s been so long. must’ve been a long essay.

your eyes looked back on your laptop, clicking on a short snippet of a music file to listen to on your earphones that haven’t left your ears for about four hours.

you listened to the file, eyes glued to your notepad in your laptop, trying to decipher if the beat went along with your lyrics. you picked up your cold drink with your right hand, putting it up to your lips as your eyes never moved from your laptop.

while you gulped a couple sips, you decide to look out the window.

your heart skipped a couple beats as you surprised yourself, seeing a row of people with cameras flashing and recording you in your seat.

damn, has it been that long since i looked up from my laptop?

you slowly put down your iced drink, pulling your long sleeved sweater to cover your hands, covering your face for a couple seconds to calm yourself down before you looked up again.

you were pretty acquaintanced with some of them outside, so they offered you a big smile, some of them laughing at the shock on your face when you spotted them.

you were embarrassed, to say the least. people here weren’t used to you and didn’t know who you were, aside from the few who asked for your autograph from earlier. you didn’t want to make them uncomfortable.

with your covered hands, you waved at them but told them to go home, mouthing the words to them, hoping they caught on with what you were trying to tell them.

you made a ‘shoo’ motion with your hands, signaling them to leave, that you didn’t want the company today.

since they all couldn’t hear you anyways, they soon left one by one, thinking they got enough footage of you for the day, to save their films for another day.

you knew that you couldn’t go to that starbucks as often as you wanted anymore, you didn’t want the same paparazzi’s to swarm the whole cafe.

so you didn’t end up coming back to the same starbucks location for a while. specifically, for about three weeks.

for the time being, you went to several small cafe’s, where no one knew you, aside from strangers who called themselves your supporters who spotted you drinking your coffee.

you were sad when you had to leave the starbucks that day. you knew that if he were to indeed come the next day, the same time, you wouldn’t be able to see him for a long time.

you weren’t even sure if you’ll see him again after that. houston is huge, after all.

when you walked into the same starbucks from three weeks ago, the barista greeted you, practically shouting your name out, telling you how much he misses you, since you came only once before this.

you went to him first, ordered a drink and spoke to him for a couple minutes before telling him that you needed to start writing things before you lose your motivation.

you sat in a different seat this time, a little scared of sitting next to the window.

you found yourself sitting in a further in spot, furthest away from the door and windows, unlike last time. hopefully this time, no one can spot you from outside.

but you were sure that the paparazzi’s were tired of waiting on your never arrival there that they’ve probably given up.

there was a reason you came again, though. and you’re sure you made it obvious. you just wanted to see him again.

SAPNAP POV

there was not a day i don’t stop by that starbucks. but that was the first time i had ever seen you in there. you seemed to like your own space, away from people.

it sure did look like you were so focused in getting your essay done. you barely looked up from your laptop.

i just couldn’t look away from where you seated. you just looked so beautiful, but so mysterious. being since i’ve never seen you before. but for some reason, i felt like i’ve seen you somewhere. i just didn’t know where.

but it shocked me even more when i saw the sea of people waiting outside, pointing huge cameras on you.

when i first spotted a couple people standing outside, i assumed that some celebrity was going to walk in soon, or that they were already sitting, just in some sort of disguise, or that i didn’t know who they were.

i didn’t really care, and continued typing in my laptop, wanting to quickly finish work before i could relax and finish drinking my cup of coffee sitting right in front of me.

but then i started noticing that they kept on getting closer to the window that you were seated next to. so i stopped what i was doing, and curiously looked, as some of the customers in there stared as well.

i did see someone coming up to you, talking, but i assumed that you knew them. maybe they were your family and they came to say hi before needing to urgently go.

but i can see that i was wrong.

every single camera was pointed your way. there was like ten people standing outside of the cafe, some cameras flashing, others recording you.

you hadn’t noticed yet at that point, still very much focused in whatever you were doing on your laptop.

you finally picked up your drink, eyes finally leaving your work to look around you. you almost choked on your drink, seeing the cameras.

you put your drink down, pulling your sleeves to cover your hands and covered your face with them, clearly caught off guard and embarrassed.

you smiled at them, waving a little before politely telling them to leave, that you had to finish doing something, as you pointed to your laptop to them.

you seemed to know them. you didn’t really look uncomfortable, but more of cautious of what people in the cafe would think of the commotion.

soon, they left anyways, seeing as there was nothing they could really document from you sitting inside, and they couldn’t really ask any questions.

about an hour later, you left, the barista greeting you, saying that he hoped to see you again soon.

now i’m more intrigued. who could you be?

how did so many people know you?

soon after her, i got into my car and drove home, exhausted from doing school work all day. the coffee helped for a couple hours and now clearly wearing off.

george and dream texted me, telling me to join their discord call, saying that george was streaming and they wanted to talk about some weird shit.

well, there goes my extra sleep for the day.

soon, he ended his stream and the three of us were left talking about how our days went.

“dude, mine was so confusing.” i stated last, after hearing what dream had to say about patches shitting everywhere on his carpet due to diarrhoea.

“what do you mean?” dream asked me.

“there was this girl, she came in before me into the same starbucks i go really often, right?” i stopped to make sure they were listening. they hummed to let me know they were.

“ten paparazzi’s swarmed the starbucks. they just pointed their cameras at her while she sat on a table at the side.” i said.

“she was so shocked to see them at first, but she quickly told them to leave. she looked not comfortable with the stares after that she had to leave like an hour later. i don’t even know if she finished her work.” i finished.

“wait really? what did she look like?” george asked.

“my age, hair pretty long. she looked shorter than me and she was wearing flared jeans with a graphic tee.” i described her the best that i could.

“wait. you said starbucks in houston, right?” dream cut in.

“yeah, why?” i asked, hoping for some answers.

“i just saw the photos. i know her. she’s a singer, moved back to texas from california recently.” dream told me.

“she’s like extremely known dude, how did you not know?” george said after dream told me who she was.

“i don’t know artists besides 21 savage, i’m sorry.” they laughed.

dream sent in her instagram in discord for me to see.

i searched her name on instagram and scrolled through her photos and highlights, switching to youtube to listen to her music after that.

i quickly clicked follow, wanting to be updated whenever she posted. i didn’t care if we met in real life anymore, i’m just intrigued at this point.

but it’s not like she’ll see my username following her. she has people following her everyday, she must not check it, right?

you had over a hunder million followers on instagram. i’m just shocked i hadn’t heard of her. maybe that’s where she was familiar.

i came back to the same place the following da, the week after. i came everyday and couldn’t find you anywhere.

well, not that i could blame you, you were swarmed the first time you came, anyways.

i saw the paparazzi’s waiting every single day, hoping to get a glimpse of you to ask questions but soon gave up and ended up not returning after a week seeing as you stopped coming.

but you didn’t stop coming. you ended up coming three weeks after your first time.

the barista practically jumped on the spot and screamed your name, i was sure everyone in the cafe knew you came in after that.

you didn’t check the entirety of your surroundings so i was sure didn’t know who was seating where. i wasn’t even sure if you knew me, or remembered me from last time. did you even notice me?

this time, instead of sitting next to the window, she sat on the table to my right, we were both facing the direction of the barista. you sat where you could rest on the wall like i did, so we were basically in the same position, just next to each other.

you settled into your seat, putting your drink down, turning on your laptop and got ready a little notebook that you had from inside your bag.

while you sipped on your drink, you looked around to finally see what was around you. my eyes and yours locked at the same time, being i didn’t look away from my stare from when you came in.

you smiled at me, acknowledging me. i gave her a smile back before turning back to my laptop to make myself busy.

you had your hair different today. last time, it was down, and showed your natural looking hair but this time you had it pulled up into a ponytail. i guess you meant business today.

i don’t know if that means you didn’t want people talking to you, or.

oh, you put on your earphones. i guess you didn’t want to be disturbed, then.

i kept staring at every part of you. okay, that sounded wrong and makes me sound like a pervert.

you looked perfect. every single ring you wore on your fingers fit perfectly. your hair pulled back gave me the chance to see your side profile. your outfit casual, straight jeans with a sweatshirt on.

god, you are beautiful.

you felt his stares. he stared for a good couple minutes before he went back to his laptop to finish whatever he came here for.

so he did remember me from last time. or he just noticed me today. or did he know who i was?

“god i hope he’s not one of those creeps.” you thought. finally i find a guy attractive and he’s a creep? i hope not.

at some point in the couple of hours you’ve seated there, you had to take out your earphones to focus even more on writing something, instead of getting distracted with listening to something.

you really wanted to come out with a new album in a couple months, and to do that, you needed to write something. urgently.

you sipped your drink from time to time. you even had to facetime your producer for a while to ask on his take for the path you’re going with your new songs.

he was really supportive and heard what you wanted and didn’t dump all his opinion and tried to call it a day. that was what you liked about him. he seemed to always take your thoughts into consideration.

playing with the rings on your finger, you looked up to look around to think of a word that seems to be at the back of your head, just you couldn’t seem to put your finger on it.

there was no paparazzi’s today, thankfully. you were able to just keep your thoughts at bay and not have to be worried about the swarm of people waiting for you to answer their questions.

you glanced at the man seated next to you just for him to notice your stare and look up from his work and matched your gaze.

you hadn’t expected him to notice so you gave him a small, shy smile. to which he gave you back one.

“do you mind if i, uh. sit with you?” he asked, pointing at the seat next to you.

your heart jumped. holy crap this was happening.

“i don’t mind, here.” you moved to your left to give him space to slide in next to you. he took that seat, moving his stuff from his table to yours, now laptops next to each other, your elbows touching.

you two laughed at a dumb joke he said.

to you, his name was nick but had apparently been sapnap to his online friends and fans.

you were amazed at what he did as a hobby. sure, your job was a close second, but not close enough. you found it fascinating and promised him that you would check his channel out someday.

that, to which he told you that he was embarrassed now and regretted telling you about what he does in his spare time. but you told him that he had nothing to worry about and that nothing could creep you out.

you two spent a while talking to each other, even getting each other’s numbers at some point and promised to come here more often to meet other and do work together more often.

“i actually had noticed you from the first time you came. it’s hard not to when there was a sea of people outside for you a couple hours later.” he told you. you covered your face with your hands, embarrassed that his first impression of you was that crazy.

“i noticed you from the moment you walked in a few weeks ago too, i was a little sad when i had to leave.” you told him.

“but please, no more speaking about the swarm of men waiting outside to talk to me. i am still as embarrassed to this day.” you started another sentence.

“it was shocking, but i think i needed the experience, you know?” he laughed.

you two sat there, next to each other until the sun sets, till the there was no sign of the sun at all, till the moon was high in the sky.

you two didn’t realise how long you’ve sat there until his parents called him, asking where he was. and when your dad texted you.

you two promised each other to come again the next day to meet and do work. actually do work this time, not just talk. although you both knew that you two would end up talking instead.

with the promise to text you when he reaches home, he left the place and got in his car to drive home.

that was nice. well, now you had something to write.

with a smile etched on your face, you stayed in the cafe for about another two hours writing about the happiness you felt in your heart until you decide to leave.

oh and yeah, he definitely texted you when he reached home. and fulfilled his promise to meet you again the next day, and the next, and more after that.

you never ran out of ideas of things to write after that. it seemed that you had finally found someone who you could share new experiences with.

and even after years of dating, he still teases you about writing multiple songs about him even before you started dating.

god, he’s adorable.

well, you could say that he wasn’t a creep after all.

#sapnap imagines #sapnap imagine #sapnap x reader #sapnap

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darlington-v · 3 years

Text

on the matter of chekhov’s gun

“what does chekov’s gun have to do with ranboo’s lack of panic towards his inability to speak about dream and his misdeeds?”

this was something asked in one of the replies to my essays, which made me feel the need to make this post instead of just a simple reply because i have a lot of thoughts on the matter.

first, let’s talk about chekov’s gun.

chekov’s gun is not just wilbur’s old crossbow, nor just something funny he would reference but it is a writing principle.

now, whether or not you follow that principle is up to you, but most good writers and writing will follow that principle which is: everything in writing has to have a purpose. even small details.

they may not necessarily have huge plot relevance, but when you are writing you have to ask yourself, ‘why is this necessary for me to write this in?’ chekhov’s gun helps you maintain a cohesiveness within your story and writing as all of it will serve a purpose.

in writing anything, whether it is: character details, character arcs, plots of any degree (be it a small character arc or a main storyline point), setting details and the setting itself, you have to ask yourself, what purpose does this serve in the narrative? what does this establish?

let’s use a fine character detail for example. say your main character notices their companion sewing with a peculiar stitch that is not often used in their self proclaimed home country. what was the purpose of pointing that out? a good writer, utilizing the principle of chekhov’s gun, would have it be relevant to the story later. you could write their companion was lying about where they came from, which will later affect the mission they’re on, which will later come up due to the affects it has. or, perhaps, the companion was raised by parents who are refugees, which will then establish a personal connection with perhaps a political conflict at the core of this hypothetical story.

regardless, these give meaning to the fine detail you established in chapters, or episodes, or in the dream smp’s case, streams, earlier. which is what the principle of chekhov’s gun is. everything should be done with a purpose.

why is chekhov’s gun important?

the importance of using the principle of chekhov’s gun is in maintaining cohesiveness within your story. no one likes a dissatisfying story. we want to walk away from a narrative feeling a sense of wholeness and satisfaction. whether it has a sad ending, happy ending, or bittersweet ending, you want to walk away feeling satisfied. like it all had a purpose. a good story ends with good closure.

you get closure when your worries or questions or understanding of something are calmed, or answered, or explained to you. this is why chekhov’s gun is important. in making sure every element in your story serves a purpose, you make sure that any questions being asked are getting answered. in asking yourself “why does this happen” and then applying that answer to the story, whether it is immediately or later, you are making sure your loose threads are getting tied. you’re making sure that you will always be able to provide your reader closure.

and closure is satisfying! we all want closure. we all would like our lives and conflicts to have pretty answers wrapped up in a bow, but... the issue with reality, rather than fiction, is that we don’t always get it.

which is why it’s so important in fiction.

no one wants to use their time reading, or watching, or just consuming something in general, that leaves us unsatisfied. which is why we don’t have to, nor should we, necessarily use the way events unfold in real life as a skeleton for the way they unfold in fiction. like i said before, reality doesn’t always provide closure, but fiction can. in making sure your narrative has all of its loose ends tied up, you’re optimizing the amount of satisfaction received at the end of your story.

so, while chekhov’s gun is a principle, it’s a damned good one. it helps maintain a cohesive story which just naturally makes the story more enjoyable and satisfying.

what does this have to do with ranboo, or the dream smp for that matter?

well, you should apply this to any media you watch and think about critically, but it has to do with noticing small details and wondering what their importance is.

i made an essay posing the question “why wasn’t ranboo shocked that he physically couldn’t speak about dream and the misdeeds they committed together” which talked about how ranboo didn’t really seemed shocked on the matter.

the point of the essay was really to point out that the behavior was peculiar and to ask what it may mean, because it was such an odd thing that stuck out to me. i wanted to perhaps go into depth about why he regards the circumstance with a tone of irritated understanding, and why he may understand whats going on. i don’t really have any solid ideas, but i wanted to start discussion on it.

now, why is chekhov’s gun relevant to this? because the lack of response sticks out, and it doesn’t have a clear answer yet. it subverts your natural expectations of how someone would react to their ability to speak being stripped from them. you would expect a bit more shock, and yet we don’t get that. at the very least it’s peculiar and it is a question to be asked. there’s a question created in the action.

as for the answer? i don’t really have one myself, it’s why i was posing the question.

i understand that ranboo was sufficiently shocked and panicked, but he wasn’t at a threshold to which he would have passed out. we clearly see him process the situation at hand. it’s not that he was numb to it, there is a pause where he processes the fact that he cannot speak. if he was numb to the shock, he wouldn’t have still been panicking over the prison, because he would have been shutting down all of the shock. that’s typically how shock and trauma works.

but even if his lack of response to the inability to speak was being numb or too mentally distraught, you have to ask yourself: why?

what purpose does him being numb to that situation serve? what does that establish? if you say it establishes his character is mentally unwell or it’s a testament to ranboo’s mentality and his mental wellness, the issue is that we already knew that.

we already know ranboo isn’t okay. that’s been proven not only in the stream in question, but multiple other streams. there is no purpose in adding a new behavior or new element only for it to establish something that has been established before.

that is what chekhov’s gun and its principle has to do with my essay and questions raised.��i am posing the question ‘what purpose is being served here’ because of the idea that every element to a story must serve a purpose.

as for why this is important to the dream smp as a whole, it’s very clear that there are at least three writers who likely use the principle of chekhov’s gun.

one is wilbur, he mentioned it and used the principle for season 1 of the dream smp. he shows the audience the tnt room and even like clearly references chekhov’s gun.

another is dream! dream spoke on ranboo’s stream that he enjoys red herrings and leading the audience astray, with the conclusion being something unexpected but still understandable. i definitely recommend you watch the portion of that stream where ranboo and dream spoke about lore and writing because it was really insightful and just... enjoyable overall.

lastly, and most relevant to my essay is ranboo! similarly to dream, he likes red herrings. he’s stated multiple times on stream he loves to mislead the audience with small details only to have the reveal like... blow our minds later. the importance of chekhov’s gun and red herrings are that if you’re using the principle, your reveal is going to be SUPER satisfying because the red herrings will still serve purpose, just a different one than that which the audience expected.

and, in my opinion, their writing so far has been really enjoyable. i love ranboo’s lore streams and i love what direction lore goes when these characters and therefore ccs are involved. so... i trust them to write well, whether it is with the understanding of the principle being titled chekhov’s gun or the logical thought process which is... good writing has good closures. and in giving everything a purpose, you’re giving yourself a skeleton for good closure.

i definitely didn’t know the idea that “all elements to a story should serve a purpose” was called chekhov’s gun. and honestly, the name doesn’t matter.

it’s just a damn good principle.

TLDR;

chekhov’s gun is the writing principle that every story element serves a purpose, which is why you should ask yourself “what does that mean and what purpose does it serve” whenever an event or element in a story jumps out at you, for whatever reason that may be.

if you need more info on chekhov’s gun here are some articles! they explain it much better than i probably ever will haha!

#ranboo #ranboo analysis #dream smp analysis #dsmp analysis #dream smp #dsmp #my analysis #long post

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fencesandfrogs · 3 years

Text

clan culture inspiration fic master post

a collection of fics/series/w/e i've used for inspiration. ordered by how much i used them

Flightless Dove, Poison Ivy acaciapines

read it, it’s good. it's 100% my main fic inspiration, i love it, it's very good.

the light that shines on you solacefruit

huge inspiration for my riverclan. just. massively where i get a lot of ideas. probably a larger source of material than flightless dove, if i'm being honest.

RIVERCLAN leaders have a litany of names. weather caller, storm seer, spirit walker. a new leader being made is a chance to find another for the list. these names are to honor leaders for the role they play in their lives.

(names. leaders. meaning.)

so you can see where i got that from.

Warriors Redux Deconstruction Dullard on ao3 (not linked)

i've split this into two parts, because there's a lot. i'm a fan of this in terms of world building, but i've been select in what i've used from it. deconstruction is linked highly because it had a lot of key details that shaped my opinions on what wouldn't be. a lot of this i would've changed anyway, but i wanted to list WR because it'd be dishonest to act like this wasn't shaping my thoughts.

anyway, a short list of things that were mentioned in WR:D that i'd already decided on or am now using

behaviors. i mean, i've said "flicked her tail" or "flattened his ears" so much it's getting old, but by god if i am not being true to cats movements. i think WR:D is somewhat conservative on use of purring, but i've also been writing about kits, and a lot of purring is involved with kits, so special case, i suppose. but i'm very cautious with my descriptions. i've tried really hard not to use smile, because cats don't smile. that's the one that gets me the most.

water. this is kind of a specific thing. but. in ctd's fading echoes. the lake is a concern not because the cats need water, but because the prey needs water.

queens and toms. now. i have always been irritated by this. and the lack of female leadership. because toms should know they're kept on the graces of the queens. the sisters got it right. but i can't just kick out half the cast, so i'm forced to keep them. i have, however, kept toms out of the nursery. queens are protective around their kits. it's the best i can do to appease my strong desire to literally just kick every male cat out of the clan. in all of my stories, though, i keep track of who's in the nursery with what kits, because those kits are going to bond to every damn mother. it's super annoying that this isn't kept more clear anywhere. i have to do so much math and check so many allegiances every time.

kits. it's basically impossible to convince me to write this the way the hunters do, so even in ctd, we see kits not walking, not opening their eyes, until real kittens would. does this make the early chapters of growing shadows a pain because dovekit does basically nothing but sit and listen? yes. do i care? yes, it is important to me that dovekit does nothing but sit and listen because she's a baby. bb. need protect.

genetics. usually i correct coat colors for POV cats. because it bothers me. see: tortie dovekit/ivykit in CTD, and the fact that i think in jaywing, jayfeather is going to end up amber like brightheart. i need to do some research to double check, but...i think that's what will happen. (please don't ask about hollykit, ivykit, and lionkit. i don't even know who their parents are. how is crowfeather "dark grey, almost black"? what does that mean. how is leafpool even leafpool. i don't understand anything.)

religion. i'm not fundamentally changing how starclan works, because i'm writing the books where magic is confirmed real, but...i've tried to distance the connections with it. and god, so help me, i'm going to make things a proper religion for w&f. there will be religious things like prayer. god.

cultures, folklore, names. this is getting long so i'm lumping this together. basically, i've got some name stuff sorted out. it's not "traditional" naming, because i'm not going WR on this and renaming really important cats (altho the reason WR has my respect for traditional naming is because they're not afraid to rename cats to fit the scheme), but i have some pretty defined rules. and there will be folklore and stories. this is especially important for dovefeather, when she goes to riverclan.

Sharing Tongues Icej

a series. i don't think i've used much of this directly, but it has shaped a lot of my opinions on clans. it's why thunderclan is militaristic and why windclan is so strict.

it's also shaped my thoughts on a lot of parts of clan life. i'm writing this all out of order, so i'll say, a lot of the inspiration that warriors redux had, is shared in this series. i'm not sure if there's overlap in the interst, but it's got simularities.

especially in terms of relationships. i have a bit of a fascination with story telling as a form of culture, if only because in my personal life, story telling, especially verbal story telling, has always been really important. so i think a lot about it.

anyway, these are a good set of fics, and they're ranked so highly because they're kind of a paradigm i've crafted my thoughts around.

Tell me about your Ancestors Drowsy_Salamander

so this was what got me started, even over flightless dove. it got me thinking about the differences clans would have.

i haven't written "funerals. mourning. prayer." yet, although as you might guess from the fact that i have a title, it is on my mind. i think i'll draw heavily on this for that.

one other very specific line in this that i draw on is

When SkyClan was reformed by Firestar at the gorge, it was reformed in ThunderClan’s image.

now i say that specifically because i didn't want that. i wanted leafstar to find her own tradition. a lot of skyclan's destiny deals with her struggling to adapt the warrior code to her clan. so Ancestors continues by talking about tree's influence, and this is what i got from it:

SKYCLAN once held ceremonies at tilt, when the birds were quiet, but now, they hold most ceremonies at low moon, when the spirits are strongest. ...

apprentices are made at low sun, born from a time when they were not always gathered.

(ceremonies)

and i'm happy with that

Warriors Redux: Ammendment Dullard on ao3, not linked

this is ranked significantly lower than deconstruction because (a) i'm borrowing superificial things at best and (b) i had already come to a lot of these conclusions. still, i'm writing a full list because there are little things i don't think to write whole essays about sometimes. that said, whereas in deconstruction, i could basically say "yes, everything that's said here, i agree with, i'm only tweaking things for personal taste or because of differences in perspective" here it's more like "here are the things i'm using" and the other stuff is just there, but not really anything i want to use

time and date. in one of my generic CTD posts i had a few paragraphs about this. basically, i like the system of time. except for half, because that confuses me. so it's dawn, sunrise, low sun, (sun) tilt, sunhigh, dusk, moonrise, low moon, (moon) tilt, moonhigh, repeat. and kits are aged to apprentices at the beginning or rough midpoint of seasons.

numbers. math. drawing things in the dirt with claws. in short, yes, no, what the...no. just no. cats in my stories can basically count, but they don't really, like, count the way we do? they might say five leaf bares ago, because i am not saying, "the leaf bare before the one with X which was before the one with Y" and that's what a cat is thinking and maybe they have words for this, i don't know, i'm not writing that. four and nine are holy numbers, or the closest cats get. (apprentices are apprenticed at nine moons in the holy sense, because a queen pregnent for a three --- two, but who's counting --- and in the nursery for six. this will never come up in a story unless it's a background note, because it's confusing and hard to explain off the cuff.) i don't have to explain my last point.

names. i have my own rules. i don't intend on changing character names with the exception of the symbolism in jaywing and dovefeather, but i may at some point make some comments on what, based on my rules, i would do. i don't want to change names because it confuses me, but i don't want to say for sure that i won't. definitely not based on WR rules, i have my own form of "traditional naming" for the w&f world.

clan specific notes. you can find it in my writing. there's a lot of influence in it. i don't want to list everything.

come back to you one by one solacefruit

i haven't really used this for anything, i just generally like it. it's definitely given me inspiration for how i use stories, but not any particular thing.

it really is beautiful, though.

alright, that's about it.

#warriors au #warriors worldbuilding #worldbuilding #warriors #warrior cats #jaywing #cloudtail's daughter #dovefeather #mine #txt #28th #February #2021 #February 28th 2021 #1st #March #March 1st 2021 #q

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beatriceeagle · 4 years

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I'm more of a fantasy than sci-fi person, but consider my interest piqued. Why should I watch farscape?

Okay, the thing is, every Farscape fan’s pitch on Why You, Yes You, Should Watch Farscape ends up sounding very similar, and that’s because Farscape is a black hole that sucks you in and does things to your brain, and after you’ve watched it you are never, ever the same, which incidentally is basically the plot of Farscape.

I would summarize the basic plot for you, but that’s work, and luckily, the show’s credits sequence includes a handy summary that I will provide instead of doing that work: “My name is John Crichton, an astronaut. A radiation wave hit, and I got shot through a wormhole. Now I’m lost in some distant part of the universe on a ship, a living ship, full of strange alien life forms. Help me. Listen, please. Is there anybody out there who can hear me? I’m being hunted by an insane military commander. Doing everything I can. I’m just looking for a way home.“

So let me break down that monologue into its component reasons you should watch Farscape.

1) Some of the strange alien life forms are Muppets.

Farscape a co-production with the Jim Henson Company, and while there are many aliens played by humans in make-up, there are also a considerable number (including two of the regular crew) who are Muppets. By which I do not mean Kermit. I mean really gorgeous, elaborate works of art.

Also, even a lot of the humans-in-makeup aliens just look cool, and incredibly weird. Here’s an alien who appears in a single episode of season 1:

Not that there aren’t, you know, occasional Star Trek-style “these guys are just humans with weird hair,” or whatever, but in general, the aliens on Farscape look really alien. And that’s more than an aesthetic choice; it’s Farscape’s driving narrative principle. The aliens look alien, they act alien, they have alien values.

You know how a lot of sci-fi shows will have a stand-in for “fuck,” like Battlestar Galactica has “frak”? Well, Farscape has “frell.” And also “dren.” And yotz, hezmana, mivonks, loomas, tralk, snurch, eema, drannit, dench, biznak, arn, drad, fahrbot, narl. Some of those are swear words, but some of them are just words, never explicitly translated, that the alien characters will pepper into their speech, because, well, why should translator microbes be able to completely translate all the nuances of an alien culture? You’ll pick it up from context. One time, in passing, a character mentions that he’s familiar with the concept of suicide, but there’s no word for it in his language. I cannot emphasize to you enough how fleeting this moment is; the episode is not about suicide, we’re not having a great exchange of cultural ideas—at the time, the characters are running down a corridor in a crisis, as they are about 70 percent of the time—it’s just that the subject got brought up, and this character needed to talk around the fact that he literally didn’t have a word, in that moment. Things like that happen all the time, on Farscape.

Because more than anything else, Farscape is a show about culture shock. John Crichton is this straight, white Southern guy, at the top of his game—he’s an astronaut! he’s incredibly high status!—and then he ends up on the other side of the galaxy, where none of his cultural markers of privilege hold any meaning, where he doesn’t know the rules, where he literally can’t even open the doors. And he has to unlearn the idea that humanity is central, that he is the norm.

2) John Crichton, an astronaut, is pretty great.

A show that’s about a straight white guy with high status having to learn that he’s not the center of the universe could easily be centered around a really insufferable person, but one of the subtle things that makes Farscape so wonderful is that Crichton is, for the most part, pretty excellent. He has a lot of presumptions to unlearn because almost anyone in his cultural position would, but he’s also just a stand-up guy: compassionate, intelligent, open-minded, decent, forgiving, brave, hopeful.

And the galaxy tries to kick a whole lot of that out of him. It doesn’t succeed, mostly, but if Farscape is about anything other than culture shock, it’s about the lasting effects of trauma. How you can go through a wormhole one person, and experience things that turn you into someone you don’t recognize.

That’s kind of grim-sounding, but ultimately, what I’m trying to say is that Farscape is almost fanatically devoted to character work. Crichton is not the only character who sounds like he should be one thing and ends up being another. All of the characters—all of them, all of them, even the annoying ones—are complicated wonders. And you don’t have to wonder whether the events of the episode you’re watching are going to matter. They will. Everything that happens to the characters leaves a mark. Everything leaves them forever changed. Whether it’s mentioned explicitly or not—and often enough, it’s not explicit—the characters remember what has happened to them.

3) The living ship houses a lot of excellent women, among them the ship itself.

Ah, the women of Farscape, thou art the loves of my fucking life.

There’s Aeryn Sun, former Peacekeeper (that’s the military that the “insane military commander” hails from) now fugitive, currently learning the meaning of the word “compassion” (literally). She will break your fingers and also your heart. John/Aeryn is the main canon romantic ship.

There’s Pa’u Zhoto Zhaan, a priestess of the ninth level, current pacifist, former anarchist. Sorry, leading anarchist. She orgasms in bright light! (Oh my god, Farscape.)

There’s Chiana, my fucking bestie, a teenage(ish? ages in Farscape are weird) fugitive on the run from a repressive authoritarian state. Chiana is like a seductress con artist grifter thief who mostly just wants to survive so that she can have fun, damn it. Characters on Farscape do not really discuss sexualities (sex, yes, sexualities, no) and it would be fair to say that several of them do not fall along human sexuality lines generally, but I’m gonna go ahead and say that Chiana is canonically not straight.

Then there’s Moya, the ship herself, and it’s hard to get a straight read on Moya’s personality, since she mostly can’t speak. But she definitely has opinions, and things and people she cares about. And she moves the plot, though that gets into spoiler territory.

Past first season, further excellent women show up: Jool (controversial, but I like her), Sikozu (I once saw a Tumblr meme where someone had marked down that Sikozu would lose her shit when someone pronounced “gif” wrong, and that’s absolutely correct, and it’s why I love her), and Noranti (who is incredibly weird, and incredibly hard to summarize, but man, you gotta love her willingness to just show up and do her thing). Plus, there’s a recurring female villain, Grayza, who I could write probably multiple essays about. (I don’t know how you will feel about Grayza, as not everyone loves her, but I think she’s fucking fascinating, especially because she’s not actually the only recurring female villain. We also get Ahkna!)

(Side note: I should mention, here, that the cast of Farscape is really, really white. There is one cast member of color, Lani Tupu, but he pretty much represents the entirety of even, like, incidental diversity in casting for the series.)

Anyway, Farscape is full of awesome women, and also awesome and unexpected men, and it really enjoys playing with audience expectations of gender roles, generally. Literal entire books have been written about the way that Farscape fucks around with sex, sexuality, and gender. It’s a little weird because it was the late 90s/early 2000s, and sometimes that does come through, but Farscape’s guiding principle was always to try not to present American culture of the time as the norm, so like. It is not.

(An aside on Farscape and sex: Literally every character on Farscape has sexual tension with every other character. If you are a shipper, this is a Good Show, because no matter who you ship, there will not only be subtext, you will get a Moment of some kind. Multiple characters kiss the Muppet. Farscape is dedicated to getting into the nitty-gritty of the galaxy—I like to think of it as showing the guts of the universe—so a lot of the show is kind of squishy. They live on a biomechanoid ship, instead of androids there are “bioloids,” there’s a lot of focus on strange alien biologies, and lots of weird glowing fluids and things. I think the sex thing is kind of part and parcel of the larger biology focus: Farscape is really fascinated with how we all eat and evolve and live and die and, well, fuck. Which is in turn, kind of part of its focus on making everything really alien.)

4) Other stuff you should know.

Farscape as a whole is excellent, but it was kind of the product of creative anarchy—an Australian/American coproduction (oh yeah, everyone except Crichton speaks with an Australian accent) that was also partnered with the Henson company, whose showrunners were based in America but whose actual production all took place in Australia, and who was just constantly trying new things. So individual episodes can vary wildly in quality. It really takes off in the back half of season one, but no season is without a few off episodes.

It is extraordinarily funny, and I really think I haven’t stressed that enough. It’s one of the shows I want to quote the most in my daily life, but almost all of its humor is really context-dependent, and if you just wander around going, “Hey Stark? What’s black and white, and black and white, and black and white?” people look at you really funny.

It’s very conversant with pop culture generally (although obviously sci-fi specifically, and Star Trek most specifically of all) and really enjoys deconstructing tropes, often to the effect of, “Well, Crichton really does not know what to do here, does he?” but sometimes just to be interesting.

There are also a lot of themes about science, and its uses and misuses.

The whole thing is fucking epic, and if you get invested at all, will take you on an emotional ride.

This show is weird. I know that that’s probably come across by now, but I think it’s worth reiterating as its own point: Farscape is so weird. Like, proudly, unabashedly, trying its hardest, weird. An amazing kind of weird.

If you’re into fantasy, you should know that there’s a recurring villain who’s just a wizard. Like, they don’t bother to explain it any more than that, he’s just a fucking wizard.

In summary: You should watch Farscape because it is a weird, wild, emotional, epic romance/drama/action/allegory full of Muppets and leather and one-liners and emotional gut punches and love, and if you let it, it will worm its way into you and never let go, which, now that I think of it, is another Farscape plot.

Send me meta prompts to distract me from my migraine!

#farscape #meta

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mircallablue · 4 years

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So, in the wake of BeauJesters seeming passing, I’m going to take a moment to be more than a little self-indulgent and explain why I love these characters and their unique dynamic so goddamn much, as well as why I’m so disheartened by the way the show seems to be taking them. Warning: essay ahead lol. This is just a rambly rant that I’m writing because it’s cathartic to vent a little bit of frustration, and I love these characters so much. (and I love the entire cast, every goddamn one, and every other character in the show too. This is about love, not hate).

So, for a few brief and wonderful episodes in this campaign, I actually believed that I was being told a love story about falling in love with your best friend, and figuring out your sexuality, while also unlearning all of the untrue lessons that the world taught you about love while you were growing up, and in so doing, finding value in yourself. Which, for me personally, is just super relatable. Like, that ticks every damn box I have lol, which partly explains why I love BeauJester so much, and I know a lot of B/J shippers feel the same. I’ve shipped B/J from super early on, but I never in a million years really believed it would happen, for a lot of reasons. Mostly homophobia, biphobia and heteronormativity. But I enjoyed their dynamic nonetheless, even though I thought (and was often TOLD by other shippers) that it didn’t stand a chance in hell of happening.

So you can imagine how VALIDATING it was when Marisha, both in character and out of game, confirmed that Beau had very significant romantic feelings for Jester. All of the crumbs we’d collected over the course of the campaign were finally coming together and all of the gaslighters who told us we were delusional suddenly had to acknowledge that there was something there. And once it had been acknowledged, it was OBVIOUS. Omg it was so obvious and I loved every second of it. It was so undeniable for the next few episodes, and in hindsight, that there was something building there between them, there was potential. There was definitely a connection between these two characters. And for a few weeks, it was great.

Then Liam - out of character - mentions that Caleb is in love with Jester. And it is immediately, fandom wide, treated with more respect than Marisha and Beau.

I know a lot of people get very very angry when this is brought up, but it is just the ugly, unfortunate reality that a lot of people in this fandom treat Jester like a manic pixie dream girl. Even the people who do not consciously believe her to be that (and I don’t think there are many that genuinely believe it), are perfectly fine /treating her/ like one, as long as it serves one of the straight men that they love so much, usually Caleb. And this is where the heteronormativity comes in. Because even though it was an out-of-game confession with no bearing on canon, Calebs feelings immediately took precedence over Beaus in terms of the fandom narrative.

I personally have never liked the way Liam handles romance in game. He did pretty much the exact same thing in campaign 1 as well, where his sad boy pines after the happy girl from afar until he’s uncontrollably in love with her, and then with no warning he drops it like a bomb. He just happened to drop it out of game this time. The main reason I don’t like this style of romance is because of how (unintentionally) manipulative it is. You see it in bad romcoms all the time. The guy makes a public declaration of love that pressures the girl into reciprocating or looking like the bad guy. But the main reason I don’t like /this particular/ declaration is the timing.

Liam - who has always said he likes things to come out in game - inexplicably decides out of game reveal something as major as Caleb being in love with Jester, right after Marisha IN GAME took steps towards Beau and Jester being together. And it completely changed the narrative. Suddenly it was “top table top table”, and that's if Beaus feelings ever got mentioned at all. It was not at all helped by the fact that a lot of cast members (sam) still pushed Fjorester HARD, even with Jester telling Nott to stop, which must have sucked for Marisha/Beau. But even as recently as episode 99, Beau was still flirting with Jester, and there were definite hints at Jester maybe having unacknowledged feelings for Beau.

Then the hiatus happened. When we return, Beau is throwing herself at Yasha, and there’s not even a song for Jester on her playlist. And then Travis reveals (also out of game, like Liam) that Fjord has feelings for Jester (in a playlist heavily curated by known fjorester, Dani Carr). And even /that/ is treated with more weight by some fans than Beaus in canon confession. And Yasha is having all of these super convenient dreams where Zuala tells her its ok to move on, and Beau and Jester are barely speaking. And now Beau is calling Yasha her GIRLFRIEND? WHAT??? Did I miss 20 secret episodes that aired during hiatus or something???? Beau and Yasha have still, in 107 episodes, only had ONE meaningful conversation and yet their relationship is being treated as deep and inevitable. Sure, you can read into their other interactions if you want. But as a queer person, I am sick to death of my love needing to be represented as subtext.

And so it has become pretty clear that the cast has decided out of game to go in a different direction. And of course they are well within their right to do that. But I just can’t help feeling incredibly disheartened, and again, more than a little bit gas-lighted. It really does seem as if Beaus' feelings for Jester have just been scrubbed from canon - as if they never even happened. All, seemingly, to make way for a typical happy-girl-sad-guy relationship with either Fjord or Caleb, and a typical pair-the-spares barely-any-depth relationship between the two out lesbians because its easy.

For the entirety of campaign 2, BeauJester has been treated as one thing - inconvenient. Inconvenient by the fans, who prefer other ships and have treated BeauJesters terribly, and now it seems, inconvenient by the cast, who have seemingly discarded it and scrubbed it from canon.

And one thing that really upsets me is the amount of genuine viciousness and vitriol coming from (some) BeauYasha shippers. I really wish BeauYasha was something I could get on board with, I do. And a lot of people who are sending me hate seem to assume I don’t want them to end up together. But I would be fine with that. But as it stands, they’ve literally only had one real conversation in 107 episodes, and they’re calling each other girlfriend? While literally having not spoken about anything like that? While one of those characters is supposed to have canon romantic feelings for another woman? Imagine that situation with any other characters and it would be comical.

I swear, the queer ladies in this fandom have been done dirty. All of us. Imagine if, in campaign one, Grog and Keyleth, in episode 107, started calling each other boyfriend/girlfriend in the middle of a battle. (I picked those two because they probably had the fewest moments together of any VM pairing). That’s pretty much what happened here, and we’re supposed to like it - be grateful, even - because it’s wlw rep? And I swear, the number of times I’ve been called lesbophobic in the last month is absurd - all because I’m not comfortable with a canon lesbians canon feelings being swept under the rug. All because I want wlw relationships to be allowed to have the same depth and growth as the straight ones. Yes, even if that relationship is B/Y. We should not settle for less. Imagine if they had done this with any other character's canon feelings for another. People would be angry.

And I know there are going to be a lot of people saying “It’s their game, they can do what they like”.

True. I never said otherwise. But it is also a show. It is a product. They sell merch. It is something that they have taken the time and the steps to make sure that we care about. And this is what that looks like.

I know what happened here isn’t technically queerbaiting, but damn if it doesn’t cut the same.

#critical role #cr spoilers #critical role spoilers #beaujester #cr discourse #i look forward to being called toxic

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cjstalkingstarwarsagain · 3 years

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hi! i’ve recently decided to rewatch all the star wars movies and take notes on them and then,,, share them with you. so if you’re even mildly interested in my star wars opinions, here you go :)

i’ll divide it into a couple categories so,,,

well start with rogue one!!

shit that made me giggle

"oh look, here’s lyra back from the dead. it’s a miracle."

everything K2 says and does. i love him and he’s perfect.

i love the continuous attempts by K2 to appear imperial and how he fails every time. not a single storm trooper or officer ever believes him when he starts running his mouth.

so sorry but bohdi getting his cable caught and trying to shake it loose is such an adorably human moment. makes me giggle every time.

i honestly thought this section would be longer, this movie made me laugh a bunch.

stuff i don’t like or doesn’t make sense

why does jyn start believing in the rebellion? there’s no indication that she cared before they found her. there’s no real turning point that we can see. she just,,, suddenly is really into this shit. which is strange because the only reason she ever joined was because she was given a non-choice (either help or get put back in prison). i guess i can kinda see how her father dying could have changed her, but we see none of that on the ship after his death. we just get to the rebel council and all of a sudden she’s the poster girl for rebellion.

saw seems really stable at the beginning of the film, so why did he go seemingly crazy and paranoid? it’s probably explained in the novelization but that’s no excuse to just have a character go crazy with really no explanation or backstory.

that being said, a lot of the character development is pretty lacking. i don’t think i’d care about these characters nearly as much if i wasn’t already a star wars fan.

video game cut scene style general tarkin

bor gullet is supposed to make you lose your mind but bohdi was pretty much fine after like,,, a day

how does the death star,,,, move?? like i know it can but has that ever been explained? is it like little thrusters? like the ones you can see in real life to stabilize things in space? there’s nothing i can visually see. i’m not mad about it i just wanna know.

why does saw insist on staying behind? why doesn’t he come and help?? it would have been so easy to just leave but he insists on staying behind and just watching as death inches closer. i think it doesn’t make sense because we know *so little* about his character. give me more on him, make me understand.

since james earl jones is getting older, vader sounds older. was there??? nothing the audio or editing department could have done about that??? not super mad about this one just because darth vader is really cool and i’ll never really complain too much about darth vader screen time.

when the fuck did jyn become a motivational speaker??

my one gripe about pretty much every star wars movie is the sheer number of times people climb through huge shafts and jump around and shit and they’re always *fine*. no way they wouldn’t fall to their deaths in any normal situations.

can someone?? check the science of the hammerhead corvette?? because there’s no gravity or weight in space right?? theoretically all you gotta do is give that star destroyer a bump and it’s spinning out, right?? i know absolutely nothing about space physics but i gotta be right. maybe i’m wrong. i dunno. i’m dumb as rocks. hear that baby girl?? it’s the spare change rattling around in my skull. i got pennies where my brain is.

absolutely no fucking shot cassian survived a blaster hit AND that fall AND climbed out. my belief simply cannot be suspended that much.

DUDE I FORGOT THAT THE DEATH STAR CAN TRAVEL THROUGH HYPERSPACE HOW DOES WORK SOMEONE TELL ME!!!!!

why doesn’t vader just,,, force grab the plans. i know he sees them. why not just force stop the guy running away with them??

final note now that the movie is over. yes, it’s got a lot of issues. the plot is ehhh at times. the trailers don’t match up with the movie shots AT ALL (i wanna know what happened behind the scenes with that). the character development is lacking in many major ways (that has not stopped me from loving these characters though, but that’s the autism talking). but like i’ll say in the "stuff i liked" section, this is such a damn cool movie. i was once talking about it with an older friend of mine and he said seeing rogue one in theaters felt like watching the original trilogy in theaters back in the 70s and 80s and honestly that’s such a compliment. i love this movie, i really do.

just cool shit,,, you know the vibe

DEATH TROOPERS

krennic is probably one of my favorite imperial officers. for some reason he just really sells it for me, the evil and manipulation that borderlines in try hard. and (i mention it more later because you see it more in the "choke on your aspirations" scene) beyond that just the fact that he’s?? a guy. just a dude. at any given moment he could be described as just hanging out. but he’s trying so hard (for whatever reason, we don’t know his evil motivations) to be this big bad evil dude. and it’s just interesting to see someone *trying* to be imperial and *trying* to be evil, as opposed to a tarkin-type character who’s just naturally an asshole.

i love the rogue one main theme. don’t even talk to me. it’s so cool.

it’s cool to see more about the birth of the death star, seeing other people learn about it. sort of realizing the fear and terror that everyone must have been experiencing. especially after being a star wars fan for so long and being like, yeah it’s the death star it’s just a staple of this universe. it reminds me that "oh god this was a planet killer and this was the first time something like that had ever even been heard of".

there’s gorgeous visuals in this movie.

i like the "i’m wanted in 12 systems" guy cameo (did you know his name is cornelius? i googled it)

when the storm trooper asks for papers?? like fuck yeah show me what life is like under imperial rule. give me that shit.

chirrut is so badass i’ll never get over it

"i’m one with the force and the force is with me" i’m eating that shit UP! salivating over the meal in front of me. i really want more exploration of the guardians and jedi worship in general. like gimme that weird funky space religion.

seeing an at-st just walk around a town. i dunno i like that shit.

K2 saying sorry for hitting cassian. i’m so soft on this robot.

"clear of hostiles,,,, ONE HOSTILE"

jyn stepping in front of K2 to protect him after she (not ten minutes ago) made the comment “i’m just afraid they’ll miss you and hit me”. jyn,,, your soft side is showing,,,,

i like the cool machine blaster that baze has. it’s awesome seeing different blaster styles when originally the only variation we really saw was chewie’s cross bow style blaster.

i really wanna see more of baze and cirruit. i wanna know what happened that made baze stop believing. i wanna know how they met. i wanna see them evolve and grow together.

i like that jyn argues that 16 is too young to be a solider (she’s 21 in the movie). i like that she’s mad that she’s young and has been put in a position to protect herself and then later save the galaxy. (for context: luke and leia were 19 in a new hope. anakin is 19 in attack of the clones, ~22 when he became darth vader, and rey is 19 in force awakens. stop putting the fate of the galaxy in the hands of people who are *barely* adults)

the testing of the death star is awesome. love seeing wicked cool space weapons. when it blocks out the sun? ominous as hell fuck yeah.

it’s interesting that baze says cassian doesn’t look like a killer, that "he has the face of a friend", when one of the first things we saw him do was kill a man. i think about that a lot. does that say more about baze’s ability to read people or does it say more about who cassian is deep down, beyond what he’s done to serve the rebellion?

cassian’s relationship with death and killing is very interesting. you could argue that cassian is just as brainwashed and deep in the rebellion as anyone imperial. i really hope it’s something that gets explored in his stand alone show. he mentions he’s lost everything and has been a rebel since he was 6. gimme cassian andor backstory.

"careful not to choke on your aspirations director" is probably some of the most dramatic-anakin-skywalker shit i’ve ever seen vader do

i like seeing rebel infighting. so often it seems there’s always general consensus about what the rebellion wants, but it’s good to see that they don’t always agree on how to rebel.

i love the consistent "found family" rebel alliance shit in these movies. it makes my dick so hard.

ARTOO AND THREEPIO CAMEO FUCK ME UP THOSE ARE MY BOYS

okay i totally get that the empire is evil, i really do, but rogue one (and lots of moments in the sequels) really reminds me how fucking cool some of their shit is. like death troopers? imperial droids like K2? the base on scarif? vader’s castle on mustafar and his bacta tank?? fuck me UP.

i loved hearing the troopers doing their dumb small talk about the T-15s on the beach.

i think ben mendelssohn is perfect for the role of krennic, no notes there. he’s just like?? a guy and he’s doing everything he can to fit into this evil role and he just wants to be like this big bad imperial boy on campus. i don’t know. i don’t have the words right now to express how fuckin awesome he is. i’ll write an essay about it later.

THE AT-AT COMING OUT OF THE MIST?? CHRIST ON A BIKE. LAY ME TO REST. LOVE IT.

fucking love me some female fighter pilots. the women of star wars are so badass. doing justice to my return of the jedi ladies.

i think a whole lot about jyn giving K2 a blaster. the way he takes it and looks at it and holds it so gently. i think that’s the first time a human has trusted him with a blaster since his reprogramming. he seems so appreciative of that trust.

i love seeing the faces of baze and the other rebels when a few of the x-wings show up and take down an at-at. i’m so very soft for the relationship between these rebels. not to be cliche, but the *hope* that they have. it’s so moving. this movie is just so full of that quintessential rebel feeling.

hey so i’m super emotional about the death of K2 okay? because in the novelizations you learn that in the last second k2 had before a full shut down, he ran a simulation where cassian lived and even though he knew it was impossible, it made him happy. FURTHERMORE K2 is very well known and his name is often listed along side jyn’s in terms of talking about the history of the rebellion.

chirrut and baze’s deaths are so important to me. we know they’re best friends, and even though we don’t know how long they’ve been together, they love each other so deeply. chirrut being the path for baze to return to the force? touching. i so wish these dumb force husbands could have had more screen time. baze calling chirrut back?? chirrut telling him to find him in the force?? baze looking to see the man he loves one more time before he dies??reminds me of the silken quote about dying in your best friends arms because it’s all you know. anywho,,, if star wars canon has any mercy then these two lovers are force ghosts together rn. don’t care how you feel or whether you "ship" them or not. love comes in so many forms and they encompass all that love.

terribly sorry but i think about those two star destroyers colliding with the rogue one main theme playing over it every day. it’s,,,,, so,,,, ( ´∀｀)

i’ve said it before and i’ll say it again BEN MENDELSSOHN??? UH YEAH

krennic watching his weapon (his beautiful, successful weapon) power up and kill him,,, the poetic justice of it all,,,,

any time anyone says "may the force be with you" i dunno maybe it’s my religious trauma but i’m head over heels for that good shit

the star destroyer coming out of hyper space as the rebels are escaping and some of the ships hit the destroyer?? one of my favorite things in the new star wars movies is directors and writers saying "oh this can totally happen" and they DO IT

jyn mentioning earlier in the film that she isn’t used to people sticking around when shit hits the fan and then dying in the arms of cassian?? because he stayed?? and for the first time she has someone??

in that same vein: cassian also says earlier in the film that he lost everything too. his connection with jyn is also important to him, just as important as it is to jyn. they need each other. i can’t remember who on this hellsite said it, but someone mentioned that they hope the stand alone cassian stuff coming out doesn’t make him this swindling playboy who fucks around a bunch. i think having him as more of like?? a mandolorian type character would be really cool. like he’s a rebel assassin: make him one. make him independent and badass and cool and DONT give him a bunch of romantic or sexual interests because then that downplays the clear love he had developing for jyn. again LOVE COMES IN FORMS BEYOND BASIC SHIPS. and there’s a lot of love in star wars.

i’ve said it a million times but vader is so cool and over and over again this movie reminded me that he’s actually so scary. i saw star wars for the first time when i was 6 and i can’t remember my initial reaction to him, but i’ve definitely (like with the death star) been desensitized to the fact that if i was in star wars, darth vader would scare the shit out of me. he’s *scary* and that’s cool. i liked seeing vader effortlessly go fucking mad on these rebels. then you understand why they were so scared in that first scene of a new hope.

no i absolutely will not get over the vader scene. i won’t. his saber turning on. his force abilities. his effortless lightsaber work. the choral music over the scene with the hectic orchestra. don’t touch me i’m emotional.

i loved seeing leia. it touches me so deeply every time.

fuck i love this movie despite all its faults.

if you’ve made it this far, thank you!! i hope you enjoyed. please remember that this is totally a safe space for all star wars opinions and you can feel free to disagree with me! i’d love to hear what some of you thought :))

#star wars #rogue one #baze #jyn erso #chirrut imwe #cassian andor #baze malbus #bohdi rook #k2so #star wars opinions #star wars critique #star wars review

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queens-hoes · 4 years

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so...the MLQC anime

It's the elephant in the room rn. We gotta talk about it!

First of all, shoutout to MAPPA for even giving us an anime of our boys, regardless of the end product, it's amazing that they did it in the first place, and shoutout to the animators and VAs that put a lot of time and effort into the show.

Now. We can all agree that this wasn't a perfect adaptation. Don't get me wrong, it was good, but it could've been much better!

A lot happened, a lot didn't happen, so first I'm gonna focus on the biggest issue.

I. The trailer

Naturally, it was the trailer that got us all hyped for the anime, like "omg that scene is gonna be animated, it looks so good!!! I'm so excited!!"

And then they just. weren't in the anime.

Y'all know what scenes I'm talking about too (and if not, @daily-mlqc made a great post showing the scenes that never appeared). Like, it's one thing to not include certain scenes/change them, but it's another thing to show said scene in the trailer and not include it at all. It's basically false advertising!

The infamous Chapter 10 Victor shot, Lucien's Midnight Date shot, the shot from Gavin's Slightly Drunken Date....all of them unused....all of them holding so much potential

II. The boys

Obviously, you've only got so much time. You've only got so many episodes. But when the story is propelled by "Bonds" and important relationships, not growing those bonds sticks out a lot.

The boys were done pretty dirty and we all know it.

Kiro was introduced, then pretty much ignored until the Hacker episode. I get that he doesn't make many appearances early on, but it would've been nice to build that relationship a bit more so we can really feel sad when he sacrifices himself to save MC on the rooftop. But I will say that his transformation into Helios was pretty good (but where was that phone call foreshadowing the transformation tho)

Lucien was done fairly well. His episodes were executed pretty faithfully (especially the Ares reveal), but towards the end he kinda just....disappeared? Which is a shame bc the scenes between him and the MC after she finds out he's Ares are so damn good. It was the worst in the last ep, bc she didn't even interact with him at all and he kinda just disappears?? He got slight redemption, but not to the extent as in the game

Gavin was done the best, undoubtedly, bc you can really feel the bond between him and the MC (that "wait for me" scene? Chills.) but it's bc of that that he feels so off in the last ep? Like I get that he's a changed person after everything, but brushing her off felt really weird to me.

Victor. I could write a whole essay on how dirty they did him (he's my fave, after all). I've already gone in depth on the episode 7 debacle (it still makes my blood boil), so I won't repeat myself here, but TL;DR they did his character development so dirty. Like it looked like they were really trying to sell us on Victor/MC in the last few eps, but it felt kinda off to me bc all the development just isn't there (honestly, I blame Victor's weak "overemotional" response to her almost dying. That scene is what drives their relationship forward, so him not being as desperate and emotional in the game...grrr)

MC is the real MVP of this anime, like she had a fully developed personality and cute/funny scenes that made her likeable and adorable (just think about it this way— she could’ve been like Yui from Diabolik Lovers. No one wants that.)

III. Missing Scenes

(Slight spoilers for chapters 15-18)

We've all got our fave scenes from the main story. It's inevitable. So not seeing a lot of them animated is sad, not just bc we like them but bc they expand the bond she has with each guy!

I would've loved to see Gavin's ferris wheel scene (Chapter 15), MC reuniting with Kiro through Helios, only for him to erase her memory (Chapter 17), Lucien's sexually tense press conference (Chapter 16), all the angsty scenes with Victor from Chapter 18, etc.

Heck, some dates could have been good to add too, especially some of Lucien's (Midnight Date, Crisis Date, etc. that foreshadow the Ares reveal)

And again, you can't have everything animated, but to completely cut out everything from these chapters?

IV. The Ending

Obviously MAPPA had to wrap things up quickly, but what the fuck was that ending? Not only did it feel kinda anticlimactic, but seeing MC turn into Sailor Moon and defeat Hades was pretty....weird, to say the least. I liked that it was her bonds with everyone that unlocked the power, but I thought the overall conclusion was pretty meh.

(Spoilers for Chapter 18)

They could've used the ending where MC decides to sacrifice herself to save humanity. Sure, it would've been sad, but it would've been such a way to go out, especially if she wakes up in the Eternal Winter world. They were hinting at a season 2 (that'll probably never come) anyway, so why not do it like this?

To be fair, I guess that would be unsatisfying to anime-onlys but bloody hell, I just wanted something stronger

V. The Black Queen

She was teased in the opening every damn episode, only to briefly appear in the last one. Well, parts of her anyway. Why include her at all if she's barely going to be incorporated? I was hyping her up to my friend the entire show, only for her to just. not really do anything.

In conclusion

I think adding a few more episodes would've made a huge difference in terms of story, pace, characterizations, etc. The ending felt way too rushed, the "bonds" felt somewhat flat, a bunch of scenes were missing even though they showed up in the trailer......like, I'm overjoyed that it got animated at all, but dammit I just wanted more bc I love this game

So what are your thoughts on the anime?

#mlqc #mr love queen's choice #koi to producer #love and producer #li zeyan #xu mo #bai qi #zhou kilou #mlqc victor #mlqc lucien #mlqc gavin #mlqc kiro

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asteriismos · 4 years

Text

Next Door Neighbor -- Bill Denbrough

Authors Note : y’all know I love bill ;)) he’s my fav and that won't change. this also randomly turned into kinda fluffy smut but oops

Warning(s) : eighteen! losers club, masturbation, fluffy smut, a little OOC for bill, yet another reason I'm going to hell

Request :

Ik you just wrote two Bill smuts, but imagine being neighbors and best friends with bill and your bedroom windows are right next to each other. and then he watches you masterbate and the next day he’s acting all weird bc he didn’t know you do things like that and he’s never thought of you in that way. and when you ask him why he’s acting so weird he just snaps and is like "you should really close your window" or something like that bc 🥵

“I’m just saying, she’s not that bad if you look at her from the side,” Richie Tozier said to Bill over the walkie talkie line. It was getting late, around 10 pm, and Richie had been on the walkie with Bill for an hour. Talking on walkie talkies was a little childish, but that was all of the losers favorite way of getting a hold of each other.

Bill laughed to himself, pulling out the chair to his desk and sitting down. “I’m going to pretend you’re not talking about Stan’s mom and politely ask you to change the subject.”

There was laughing on the other line, “Fine, Bill. Let’s see . . . Oh! How’s Y/N? She come back from her spring break trip yet?”

Much to the losers dismay, you had gone on a spring break trip with your family all the way down to Florida. You were gone for the entire week and a half, not being able to even call them on the phone or the walkie. Apparently it was a ‘no technology’ vacation for your entire family, so none of your friends could even call you to see how you were doing.

It also sucked for Bill, because he didn’t have anyone to talk to when he was up late drawing or writing.

You had lived next to Bill for what felt like forever, your bedroom windows facing each other. Bill had put his desk to face that window so he could sit down as he spoke to you, who put your bed next to the window in your room to do the same. It was kinda depressing seeing you not there every day, your lights off and door open to your empty house.

“I’m not sure, I haven’t checked to see if she came home yet,” Bill answered. He went to push back his curtains and open his window to see that your family was home. Your room was lit up and an open suitcase was laying on top of your bed, clothes strewn around the room. Your window was open wide just like his, but you weren't there to say hi. “Oh yeah, she’s home. But not in her room, she must’ve gone to take a shower or something.”

“Damn, you’re so lucky that you have a window that looks into a girls room,” Richie said. Bill scoffed, of course Richie would think that.

“Actually, I don’t go looking into her room every second I get, so maybe she’s the lucky one. She could’ve gotten you as a neighbor,” Bill said, grabbing a pencil and reverting his attention to the paper that he was supposed to finish up over the break. He had left it to the last minute, like he was sure a majority of his class did as well.

“You know I’m just joking . . .” Richie trailed off. “But you’re telling me you’ve never even peeked? Not once?”

Bill bit his lip. He really hadn’t. He respected your privacy, and didn’t want to get caught doing something like that and labeled as some kind of pervert by you. He didn’t want to make you feel creeped out or upset at him, so he just didn’t. Has he been interested before to just take one little peek? Yes, but he never acted upon it.

“Nope, not once Rich,” Bill answered. “Isn’t it time for you to have your late night talk with Eds anyways?”

“Shit, you’re right. He’s going to think I just left him on his open line. Thanks Bill, and goodnight.” Bill muttered a small ‘mhm’ and left Richie’s line.

For the next ten minutes, Bill bullshitted his way through the closure of the essay, looking up once he heard a door open. His first instinct was to look at his own door, but it seemed to be coming from your door in your own room. You walked in, covered by only a towel. Your wet hair stuck to your shoulders, which had gotten considerably tan since he last saw you.

Bill was quick to do what he always did, shut his curtains so that you could have some privacy while changing in your room. He usually kept them closed for a good half an hour so he knew that you were finally done changing. And once his curtains were closed, he heard your towel drop to the floor.

The words Richie said to him were beginning to ring in his head. Especially the ones about just peeking.

No, that would be stupid. He couldn’t do that to you, especially considering the very definite possibility that you would catch him. You’d get so mad, and Bill didn’t want that.

Well . . . It wouldn’t hurt if he just looked for a split second, right? It would be fine, you were probably already done changing and he could then strike up a conversation with you and pretend that he didn’t just try to be a peeping tom.

Channelling his inner ‘Richie’ or whatever you wanted to call it, Bill opened his curtain just a tiny bit, enough to see into your room with one eye. At first he didn’t see you, maybe you had gone downstairs.

But then he heard moaning.

Oh fuck.

Bill then saw you, real clear. You were laying on your bed, hand in between your thighs and moaning quietly. Your door was closed and you had surprisingly left your window open. Bill couldn’t believe what he was seeing and he was about to shut the curtain and forget this had happened completely, that was until he heard his name come from your lips. It was quiet, but it was definitely his name. You were imagining him. That his fingers were inside you and not your own.

To say that his pants tightened would be an understatement.

Bill couldn’t believe that you thought about him in that way. Sure, he had thought about that type of stuff before, and thought about the possibility of him having sex with you. But that was all just stupid stuff that his friends fed to him, that you liked him. That you would look at him with longing in the hallways at school and in the science class you had together. You always acted like you didn’t when you hung out with the entire group, but looking at the position you were in right now, it looked like that was all an act.

Maybe he should do something about that.

~ the next morning ~

It was the last day of spring break before you went back to school for the remainder of your last high school year and you were looking forward to spending it with your best friends. You hadn’t seen them all break since you left to vacation in Florida, and you were dying to speak to them and hang out with them again.

You wanted to talk to Bill last night, but he seemed to have gone to bed early, since you called him on the walkie and he didn’t pick up. Which was strange, Bill was always the one to go to sleep in the early hours of the morning - especially during breaks from school.

Oh well, you’d see him today anyways.

Your parents had gone out a few minutes ago for the day. They needed to get some things done on Main Street and also go shopping since you all cleaned out your fridge before going on vacation. That was fine with you, considering you didn’t plan on being home at all today.

You walked outside of your house and looked around the street, breathing in the fresh air of Derry that you had surprisingly missed while you were away. Florida was pretty, but it didn't matter, Derry would always be in your heart. It was sad to think that soon enough you would be leaving this small town for college very soon, all of your friends would leave and go their separate ways.

Your vision turned to Bill’s front porch where he sat, reading some kind of book. You chuckled to yourself. Typical Bill, head in a book unless you or one of the losers pulled him out of it.

“Hey, Bill! Long time no see,” You yelled to him, making your way towards him and stopping at his steps onto the porch. He looked up and closed his book, shoulders obviously tensing up about something. He seemed to be thinking about something pretty important, especially since once he made eye contact with you his eyes widened. “Is something wrong?” You asked.

“No! I just didn't see you come up that’s all,” Bill replied, standing up to face you.

You laughed, “Okay, well, I actually was going to wait until I was with everyone, but Eds said that he needed a few extra minutes so I guess I can give you your gift now.”

Bill cleared his throat, “You got me a gift?”

“Yeah, don’t you remember asking for some shells? I swear you were the first one to ask.”

Bill breathed out, seemingly remembering that conversation he had with you after break. You squinted your eyes at him as he nodded his head. “Okay,” you said, a little weirded out by his behavior. Bill was never the one to forget, there must be something distracting him. “They’re in my room, c’mon.”

A few minutes later, Bill was standing in your room as you looked through your suitcase. You still had yet to finish unpacking, so everything was still all jumbled around in the rather large suitcase. You passed some shirts and threw some pants out, finally finding the bag that you had collected seashells in. You had spent an entire day looking for them for your friends, making sure that they were the coolest ones that you could find.

“Here,” You said, pulling out the bag and turning to face him. Bill was looking out your window, the same one that looked into his room.

What the fuck was wrong with him? Why was he acting so goddamn weird?

“Bill, are you sure nothing’s wrong? Because your acting like I killed your cat,” You said, setting down the bag of seashells on your desk and putting your hands on your hips. “What is wrong with you today?”

“You should really close your window.”

It was a mumble, a whisper. You weren't even sure if you heard him correctly.

“What did you say?” You asked him.

“I said, Y/N, that you should really close your goddamn window.”

In a few short seconds, Bill walked over to you and put his hands on your cheeks, grabbing you and pulling you into a kiss. It shocked you, but you felt yourself melt into it. What did he mean about closing you window? You were sure that you had - oh shit.

You had forgotten to close your window last night. When you got out of the shower, when you were touching yourself.

He pushed you to walk towards your bed, falling on top of you when the back of your legs hit the bed and sent you flying backwards on top of it. Your hands lazily ran through his hair, earning a slight groan on his end. It was soft, way better than you imagined it to be.

Because you’d imagined it more times than you were willing to admit. That hadn’t been the first time you touched yourself thinking about your next door neighbor Bill Denbrough.

Your best friend, Bill Denbrough.

“Wait, Bill wait,” you said, pulling away from his lips and moving your hands to cup his cheeks. “You’re my best friend. I mean, we practically grew up together.” His eyes looked straight into yours, his flushed cheeks tightening as he grinned, “Well, the other losers are your best friends as well. Do you masterbate thinking about them too? Do I need to be jealous of Eddie, or maybe Stan?” You rolled your eyes, laughing and hitting him playfully.

“No. Just you, stupid,” You answered, your own cheeks reddening at the fact that he caught you doing such a thing. You had been careless last night.

“Well then, maybe I can be more than a best friend then,” Bill stated, his lips attaching themselves to your neck, sucking lightly on the exposed skin. You gasped at the contact, your hands once again running through his hair and pulling at it.

“What I’m trying to say, Bill, is that you’re my best friend and you don’t have to do anything,” You replied. “You don’t have to do anything just because I want to.”

“Y/N, let’s just say that you’re not the only one that’s touched themselves thinking about the person with the window next to theirs,” Bill said against your skin, his hands reaching under your shirt. His hands palmed at your breasts. “I want this just as badly as you do.”

And with that, you stopped talking and allowed him to pull off your shirt, exposing your tanned skin and white laced bra. He did the same with his shirt, pulling it off and once again allowing his hands to go to your chest.

Your lips went to his shoulder, peppering kisses along his skin, admiring the slight freckles that were there. His touches were soft, meticulously made, like he didn't want to hurt you for any reason. You internally swooned at the kindness he showed you, the love that you felt within his touch. Both of you had never seen each other in this context before, and it was a little confusing at first to think that the boy you grew up with was now in your bed.

His left hand went from your chest and snaked down to the waistband of your pants and slipping past it when you tugged on his hair to continue. It wasn't long before he slipped a finger inside you, watching as your face twisted from admiration to lust, all from the pleasure that he was giving you. He took in every soft noise that you made, his lips coming and kissing yours once again as he slipped another finger in. His pace was beginning to pick up as well, and you couldn’t believe how much easier it felt to get to the brink of your climax when it was Bill’s hand instead of yours.

The pit began to form in your stomach, the one that you always felt happen with yourself in over three minutes, but this time with Bill it had barely been two minutes and you already felt like you needed to release.

Realizing this, he pulled his fingers out, licking them clean and then pulling his pants and boxers off, doing the same with your pants and underwear.

“I want it to happen when I’m inside you, princess,” he whispered, sparing no time to push into you. You gasped at the sudden pain you felt, tears threatening to slip from your eyes and he wasn't even moving yet. Could you even take him? He wasn't all the way in yet, and you were already feeling pain like no other.

After a few moments, the pain began to feel tolerable, it even felt a little good.

“You can move,” you said to him, nodding and putting your hands on his shoulders. It felt as if your hands were made to be placed there, they fit so nicely on his body.

Bill began to move and it still hurt like a bitch, his hand went down and played with your clit, alleviating some of the pain and replacing it with pleasure. The shockwave of pleasure you were experiencing caused you to moan out, his own groans and noises starting to match yours.

Your high was coming, fast. The more Bill played with your cit and the deeper he went made you spiral higher and higher.

“Fuck babe, you’re so tight. You feel so good,” Bill said, kissing you once again.

That’s when your orgasm hit, and you hit it hard. You moaned into his mouth, your hands squeezing his shoulders as you rode it out. You began to move your hips with his, causing him to go deeper than he had ever gone before. That’s when he came, moaning out your name.

He rolled off of you and laid there next to you, muttering words of praise while you both laid there. You grabbed his hand and squeezed it.

“Well, Denbrough, if that’s what is going to happen every time I keep my window open, then I may never just close it ever again.”

Tagging List :

@big-dick-denbrough

@cupidsloverr

#bill denbrough #bill denbrough x reader #bill denbrough imagine #bill denbrough smut #smut #stanley uris #eddie kaspbrak #richie tozier #beverly marsh #ben hanscom #mike hanlon #it #IT movie #it movie 2019 #it movie 2017 #it movie imagine #it movie x reader

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fimflamfilosophy · 4 years

Text

Characters: Tearing Each Other Together

After the world-sweeping success of my previous article (forty notes on Tumblr, wow!) and being driven out of my house due to mold for the second time in two months, I think the time is right to add another essay to the subject of character design and writing. But what’s left to say after having definitely solved the entire process of character writing the last time?

Well, suppose you can figure out the emotional state of one person. That’s well and good, and oddly harder for people than you might imagine. And I think the reason it’s so hard is because in virtually any show you’re not going to be given a character in a vacuum to learn that process from. They have some story, something they’re trying to overcome, and other characters they’re bouncing off of, and the actual process of conflict is more complicated than knowing who your characters are.

Hate, Love, or Indifference, It’s All A Struggle

So what’s the essence of a story? There’s some motive that’s trying to be achieved. A conflict. And I can’t stress this enough. Conflict. Because it’s one thing if you say your main character is a kid who wants to be the best Poke’mon trainer and completely another to have that be a concrete objective with a satisfying story and conclusion. Wanting to be the “best” isn’t actually conflict. It’s a dream. Being forced to travel the known world to acquire eight gaudy pins that probably cost twenty-five cents each to manufacture? That’s conflict.

And not only do you have to travel the world, you do so with a shrill red-head who explicitly hates you because you trashed her bike, and a sex-starved pervert whose life dream is to make Poke’mon mate with each other for a living. And that’s important. Without Misty and Brock, Ash’s journey is a lot less interesting for a lot of reasons. Misty calls Ash out every time he messes up, and aside from being on a watch list, Brock is a helpful older character who tells Ash, and therefore the audience, what’s what.

But let’s back up, because people understand the benefit of Brock and Misty at a basic level, but when you’re starting off, how do you know who those people should be? Well, every show, from sitcom, to comedy to drama, does its best to balance personalities against each other so there’s always some sort of conflict possible between them.

Now, “conflict” doesn’t mean they’re trying to kill each other. It could mean they’re falling in love with each other. Maybe it means they don’t have much in common but have to work together over long hours in isolation. The idea is simply that there’s something to overcome between these people. Misty thinks Ash is stupid - that’s a conflict which is often leveraged to push Ash forward. Brock, however, has a reactive role in the show, only functioning in conflict when a womanizer who grovels at the feet of ladies Ash is already helping anyway.

It’s odd because if Misty were older she would be set up very well as kind of an “opposites” romantic torture device with Brock. They’re even depicted as professional equals, which would have made their levels of expertise and experience more balanced. Had they been closer in apparent age, a “will they won’t they” romance would have fit adequately, with Brock’s constant hitting on other women serving as a major, hopeless, long-lasting roadblock to a serious relationship between them; it would work especially well because Misty is established to have an inferiority complex to her prettier sisters. It also might help explain why Brock hung around so long. But as it was, Brock’s main contribution to the inner dynamic was to act as a mediator, caretaker, and mentor.

But circling back to Brock’s dream of Poke’mon husbandry. Well, on the meta level that’s why he doesn’t leave. Because it’s not a motive, he’s not taking steps towards it, and it’s not going to happen, it’s just a dream. Until it does happen, anyway, and then they wrote him out of the show - but we’ll dig more into this later.

Balancing Imbalance

The best place to look to see good conflict set ups between characters are popular sitcoms. Consider the show “Frasier”: it ran for eleven seasons and revolved mainly around the personal spats of Frasier, his brother Niles, their dad, and the dad’s caretaker, Daphne. Frasier was arrogant, Niles was insecure, Dad was an earnest roughneck, and Daphne was well-meaning. Frasier and Niles were also elitist pricks at times so they couldn’t even always agree where to eat together, much less with their father who was happier having a burger with ketchup.

Every episode had some central motivator; an ice fishing trip, a joint investment, an awards ceremony - but these things were just catalysts to the main conflict, which was almost always something between characters. We’d seen it time and again, that Frasier and his Dad would come to blows over differences in taste. Niles would try to court Daphne while torn by his commitment to his failing marriage, over and over. But the pithy banter and the way they resolved it would always be new, so people watched this show, episode after episode, for over a decade.

And the simple beauty of it all was that each of the characters had something to do with each other. Whether it be filial obligation, lust, sibling rivalry, friction between introversion and extroversion, or taste in food, they always had some source of conflict to make a show out of. Niles and Frasier were both psychiatrists, but from different schools of thought and different working environments, so they even had chances to butt heads academically and professionally. It was rich with writing opportunities and it’s not any wonder it lasted so long.

Another sitcom, “New Girl”, which was about a group of roommates, had a good dynamic set-up between two characters, Schmidt and Nick. Nick is a messy slob and Schmidt’s a type A neat freak, creating a really obvious source of conflict to work with. But then they had a third character, Winston, who they lampshade as the token black guy.

Now, the joke that Winston is the “black friend” has pretty much no legs, so in the early seasons you see him acting as kind of a third party mediator, or maybe a wild card, and it winds up being funnier when Winston is unhelpful. So as the seasons went on, Winston gradually lost his damn mind. He becomes a cop and meets a woman so that he’d have some character growth and dynamic, but also develops into a man who would burn a building down as a prank. The writers had no idea what they were doing with him and he gradually flew further and further off the handle.

Don’t get me wrong, I really liked Winston as a character. Aside from being funny in the show, watching the writers gradually unglue him from sanity was its own meta comedy above that. I knew they were doing it on accident, but having such a good time with it that it was just going to keep getting worse. In fact a major component of the finale for the whole show is an insane thing Winston does. They wrap the show on the note, “Winston is crazy”. And it all happened because they didn’t figure out what Winston’s conflict was at the start. He didn’t have a source of conflict with anyone, so the man became a living breathing embodiment of conflict in general.

Your Story Ends With the Conflict

Now, the catch is, in any type of fiction, whether a video game, a roleplaying session, or a sitcom, the story ends when the conflict does, because if the conflict is over there’s nothing more to tell! It used to frustrate me to no end back when “My Little Pony” was popular and the other nerds on the internet used to ask, “How many times must Fluttershy learn not to be shy, or that being shy is okay? When will she overcome all that she is and eliminate the core element that creates conflict for her?”

The answer should always be that the character will learn their damn lesson when the show ends or when they’re written off it. If you are sick of seeing a character and don’t want to see them any more, the best thing to do is close out their issues, because once they have no conflicts, they have no story, and there’s no point in doing a show about them. Asking Fluttershy to stop being shy is asking to say goodbye to her, because she's a cartoon and her job is to entertain kids by being neurotic and yellow.

People think they’re so smart when they say they’d solve all a character’s problems if it were them. In the finale to the first season of Poke’mon, for example, Ash decides to gamble his whole championship run on Charizard, who’s a self-absorbed bitch of a creature that ultimately throws the match and leaves it an open question whether Ash might have won if he’d left the team primadonna sitting on the bench.

Some viewers see that and complain it’s the dumbest possible thing Ash could have done, but it’s probably one of the single most brilliant things the Poke’mon writers did in the grand scheme, because think about where it left us. Ash didn’t achieve his goal of proving he’s “the best”, but it feels like a fluke and if he got another shot, he might make it all the way. This gave the show a gateway to more episodes with Ash still having something to prove and a dumb mistake indicating he still had a lot to learn. Because he didn’t win, his story hadn’t ended.

In some cases shows can end characters just by addressing some dream goal they’ve been expressing since the first season. In the case of Brock, they intentionally removed him from the show by introducing him to some girl who was willing to work with Brock in the animal husbandry business. He’d been traveling all this time, his dream opportunity fell into his lap, and he was gone. What reason would he have to refuse, and why would anyone stop him? And of course, Brock’s dream job was incompatible with the central plot elements of the rest of the show, so that was it!

The Format Informs the Conflict

If you want to write something but you aren’t sure when it’s going to end, you need a concrete, long-term conflict that’s not just going to go away. For example, in “Scooby Doo and the Thirteen Ghosts”, there were thirteen ghosts. By design, that show should have ended after Scooby Doo found all thirteen ghosts. It actually ended earlier than that because it was cancelled, but you get the idea. When you have a finite goal, your run time is going to be finite as well.

At least in theory. In “JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure” they establish at the beginning of one season that everyone’s magic powers were based on the Tarot. Now, I don’t know the Tarot off hand, but as the show went on I knew that sooner or later they’d run out of Tarot cards, and in my mind I assumed the season would be over when the Tarot ended. But then I got a good chuckle when a guy showed up and his powers were based on a totally different theme, because I knew the writer had realized he’d stumbled into something good and wasn’t ready to end it. He invented a cheap excuse to keep going! And I think if “Scooby Doo and the Thirteen Ghosts” had been successful they’d have managed to unleash a whole lot more than thirteen ghosts because Hannah Barbera was not exactly a studio with a lot of shame.

Character conflicts like those in sitcoms are a great way to have conflict perpetually, because people don’t really change that much and there’s no reason why most of the fundamental friction shouldn’t be there indefinitely. But of course, character-driven conflict is going to be secondary in an event-driven show. “Jojo” actually does have a lot of character conflict, but the plot is primarily about the battles and the journey - if all the fighting ended Jojo’s characters probably couldn’t carry a sitcom, at least not without some serious hard work, a little genius, and a touch of elbow grease.

For event-driven conflict, you’ll want to establish a target - a moving target if you don't know when the story ends, and that can be pretty difficult. Old action shows and comics used to do it by having a rotating cast of villains, so that after one was defeated another would show up tomorrow, and it was assumed these guys regularly broke out of prison, or they escaped in rocket pods, or whatever, and they’d be back later with a new goofy scheme. In these cases you tend to find reactive heroes; they patrol the streets until a lunatic in tights and a garden-themed hat shows up and transforms everyone into people-shaped topiaries somehow.

For active heroes, you need to establish something that requires a lot of structure, like Ash’s journey to win the Poke’mon League. In every country he visits, they all have this asinine rule that you have to go to eight unique locations and kick the ass of someone who disadvantages themselves with an easily-countered mono team that all have the same exact weakness. You can’t be accepted into the League if you haven’t proven you own a water Poke’mon to utterly flatten the fire gym! Let’s be real, this nonsense is probably designed intentionally as a money gate - most people run out of cash before they qualify. Either way, it ends when Ash wins the league, and he lost the league so the show could keep going.

For roleplaying games, the same rules apply. With your players, you’re either going to establish a reactive goal - an adventuring guild hires a bunch of colorful salarymen with silly accents to go to a dungeon as part of their nine to five job - or you need players to set an active goal for themselves and keep the realization of that goal beyond their reach until you’re ready to end the game.

The Active Hero Acts

In my younger years, I learned to roleplay in almost exclusively player-driven games where we were expected to come up with our own goals and pursue them ourselves, but I’ve discovered that is stunningly rare in most roleplaying circles. Your typical D&D player likes to play the salaryman with a funny accent who doesn’t have to worry about the venturous part of adventure. His boss told him to go to the Cave of Everlasting Wonders and Torturous Screams, recover the Sword of Bad Portent, and then hand it over to the department of magic items where they’ll file the paperwork to get it delivered to the patron that wanted the sword for some reason. No need to have your own motives.

But what if you want to play a crime fighter who actually, you know, busts up all the crime? Clearly you can’t just wait for crime to happen passively - you’ve got to go after people. Act instead of being reactive. Purse snatchers are small time and in a more grounded setting the guys you’ll catch by being passive are just grunts being hired out by someone - usually kids in a lot of cases. You have to seek out the bosses.

Making an active character to fit into any setting can be challenging, and I’ve seen quite a few pitfalls. I think one of the funniest motives is always “the guy who wants to go home” due to its obvious failure condition. A lot of stories are about everymen who just want to get out of trouble, but those stories end when they get out of trouble! In many books, movies, shows, or roleplaying games, you’re almost always going to find opportunities to send that guy home, and you’ll have to either conveniently ignore it, switch motives and decide not to go home, or end the whole story with going home. These characters only work where the story is happening to them and it's all out of their control.

I’ve also seen my share of the “quirky genius inventor/scientist”. When someone designs a character mistaking a dream for a motive. They dream of building a better mouse trap, you see. That’s their inner conflict. And while this is a real world conflict, it’s difficult to make it a good story because actual science and invention involves a lengthy quantity of controlled experiments. You breed hundreds of fruit flies, expose them to nicotine, and try to isolate the gene that causes nicotine resistance. It can be fascinating work at its level but sometimes the most exciting part of your day is when you give yourself a steam burn cooking the fly food. The “quirky scientist” in fiction is usually more of a mentor, and if he insists on staying in his lab doing his work then he’s not even a main character - he’s a guy who explains fruit flies to the audience and then is never heard from again. Other times he’s the asshole who invented the story’s whole problem.

I once played in a game with “the quirky scientist who wants to go home”, and man was that a frustrating ride. The game itself was about occult magic and demons, and for most of the game the scientist was experimenting with teleportation magic to go home and was focused on that above the goal of finding and eradicating demons (the game’s premise). And when he finally met a boss demon that could teleport him home to his lab, he went! We wound up retiring a character who, to be honest, was barely even interested in the main subject of the story. Had he been in a film or a show, they’d have cut the character after the first draft because he served no purpose and wasted screen time.

So how do you make sure your character has a working, proactive goal, in a nutshell? Establish a goal that can be achieved by the character within the framework of your story through action by leaving his house (or after burning his house down so he can’t go home), and then make sure the goal is big enough that it will take many broad steps to get there - those steps need to be concrete and visible, not things that would happen off-screen. Most importantly, tie that goal into the main premise of the story, so that reaching the end of the story generally may achieve what the character wants.

If You Aren’t Trying, It’s Not A Trial

Okay, I understand that last bit probably requires more unpacking. But think of it this way. There’s a writing structure referred to as the “Hero’s Journey”. Basically it goes like this: the hero is forced into adventure, he meets friends and goes through trials, he hits his lowest point, he is reborn into a better man, he ends the conflict, story over.

What I’m talking about specifically right now are the trials. The “wacky inventor” is usually presumed to do all his research off screen because most media likes to focus on the results of the invention and the conflict. But if you were to focus on the trials of a scientist, it’d actually be about procuring research grants and potentially materials. You wouldn’t watch a show about a man who checks gene A-235 for nicotine resistance in flies, then goes on to A-236, then A-237.

If I were to write a story about a researcher, here’s one thing I might do: the researcher fails to find what he’s looking for in gene A-235, and when he goes to seek a grant to look at A-236, he finds one of his colleagues has convinced the university that the protagonist’s research is a dead end. Hearing this, the researcher realizes he’s about to lose his lab, so he writes a bit of a lie into his report on A-235. He says it may prevent cancer.

Now, the protagonist is, deep down, a good man. He thinks this will generate some buzz at the university and get him more funding, but he’ll do a follow-up and show the data doesn’t hold up. After that he’ll ask for money for A-236 and everything goes back to normal. But disaster strikes. His article, which was only supposed to show up in an obscure research journal, gets picked up by a major news network and winds up being spread all over. Suddenly he’s “the man who cured cancer”.

And as he’s trying to figure out how to navigate the issue, another researcher comes out and says that under peer review, he was able to replicate the results. He too shows that A-235 cures cancer! Now the hero isn’t sure. He becomes a celebrity and simply lies about his research because he has no real data, but try desperately as he might, in private he just can’t get the results the peer review insisted were there.

He struggles and struggles, coming to blows with his colleague who’s scrutinizing his research notes. Throw in a love interest who’s impressed with what this guy did, and actually I think I’ve just described the plot of some movie I saw a long time ago about faking cold fusion. I think Albert Einstein was a supporting character in it. In my version the twist would be the peer reviewer was also trying to get a grant by lying. Point is, the central conflict of the film certainly isn’t the scientific process, it’s all the crazy crap that happened on the way from point A to point B.

The story is in the trials. If nothing changes, if the character doesn’t have to change their way of life or go through anything special, it’s either not a story or it’s not your typical story. There are plenty of experimental films or well-regarded books that can make a certain banality become interesting. Stories that explain the simple struggles of day to day living for people on hard times. But the trials, the palpable challenges, that’s really the meat of it all. When you think of what your character should be doing throughout the story, he should be going through these efforts, these steps, these trials, all in the name of whatever his broader goal is.

Where You Start Affects Where You End

It also matters quite a lot when and where characters are introduced. A lot of tales follow some basic notes, and one of the more common elements is “crossing the threshold”, which prevents your characters from going back to their life before the adventure. It’s used because it compels the characters forward, as they have no other direction they can go. It can be anything: the character’s home town is destroyed, the character commits a crime, he accepts a contract, his mother dies - so long as it prevents him from going back. It’s especially useful in roleplaying games where you really need everyone to be driving forward.

In one such roleplaying game, I got in a spat with the guy who wanted to run the game because I was trying to make a leader character, but the game master wanted to base his game around a movie he’d seen with a single main character. He’d elected another player to be that main character, and explained to me he’d be starting the game after that character had already crossed the threshold and had begun his journey. This meant that everyone else were supporting cast and could go back to their normal lives at any time, because they were coming willingly from where they were and not really facing any drastic changes to their personal status quo.

I eventually resolved not to play in that game at all, because none of the character dynamics I wanted were going to work. It was supposed to be a “wannabe” superhero game, with the premise that everyone wanted to be heroes, except one player had already started the journey and it turned out another had already reached the end of that arc and was going to play a character that had been a hero going on years before the story began. There was no plan to really reconcile the narrative clashes.

If that game were to work as it was, without me being present, then the person playing the pre-established hero would have needed to take the mentor role. The other players besides the main character would have needed to be comfortable in auxiliary roles, and the group would have to play as though they were part-way into the story. Still learning to be a team but well past the initial stages of a plot, and they’d all need to think up reasons to be in this group individually on their own, because the threshold had already been crossed and they didn’t cross it together.

The friend running the game was actually dismissive of my advice here, arguing that I was overcomplicating everything with a meta analysis of narrative and structure when all we need is a basic drive to play, and I don’t think he realized he’d set himself up with a much more complicated game and less cohesive premise by going about things as he had.

The already established hero couldn’t be the mentor because a mentor character had already been created as an NPC. The auxiliary players weren’t really informed at the outset they’d be auxiliaries - especially not me who’d wanted to play the team leader. The player who’d been designated as the central protagonist didn’t want to lead or be the central protagonist. It could have worked, but it would have taken a lot more planning and many more concessions than a typical game.

In a more recent game, I’ve got another bit of an issue with the start misleading the general goals of the players. It’s a sci-fi game, and first, one player is doing “the quirky inventor scientist”; his current stated dream is vaguely to create transhumanist technology. He also wants to play the leader, so he established himself as the most important man nobody has ever heard of. He has spies in every major institution in the known galaxy and is a genius beyond comparison. He’s currently based in a rusting pirate ship in the middle of the space boonies doing nothing with his life save being the most important man.

Meanwhile, I set up a disgraced military officer with a revenge quest against his own nation. But the pirate crew my character joined turned out to not believe in structure nor leadership and they killed their last commander to have a system of “democracy”. My structure-minded character has tried to take the lead and drive us forward, but he runs into general deconstructive resistance and the “quirky scientist” wants to be the leader, but hasn’t yet expressed self-motivated goals.

It’s not exactly my most harmonious game and there’s quite a lot going wrong here, but here’s how it could have worked: first, establishing that the crew of the pirates respects no leadership places the entire crew in the precarious position of being “chickenshit” at the outset. That kind of incohesiveness is why a band of rogues gets easily defeated; it’s not the behavior of scrappy men of action, but hopeless men of inaction. A corrupted “democracy” collectivises failure while awarding success to whoever actually has the most power in the group structure - it protects the weak leaders from responsibility and disincentivizes good work by allowing those same men to reap rewards while offloading the burdens to those lower on the ladder. In essence, “If things are screwed up, blame the democracy. If things are good, I did it.”

What should have happened was the “quirky scientist” should have been in charge to start with, because otherwise he has no reason to be on board the ship. He’s the most powerful man in the galaxy, after all. If it were because he was financing the pirates to go on raiding and salvage missions relevant to his research, then it would make sense. He’d have a purpose and a position of leadership just as the player wanted. It would also establish the pirates have some command structure and a level of respect for it that allows them to function.

And the power struggle between the disgraced officer and the scientist? Perfectly reasonable character conflict that would drive actual, meaningful roleplaying and story. The scientist may bankroll the operation but the officer is the tactical talent and the two pull in opposite directions, as power-hungry men often do.

However, the opportunity to start with a sensible and meaningful social dynamic has passed, and on top of that the “quirky scientist” keeps his galaxy-wide power a secret, so it’s all kind of messy and “badly written” in the sense that most audiences would be generally rooting for the crew to fail, and they’d find the grand reveal of the scientist’s galactic power to be frustrating and unrewarding because it’s more of a plot hole than anything. So close on so many counts and yet so very far, and the opportunity to pull it together eventually is present but a more challenging and uphill battle than getting it right at the outset.

In The End, Did We Even Learn Anything?

Creating a character is easy, in my opinion. Creating a working story with a group of self-driven characters can be a lot harder. This is especially true of roleplaying games or of cooperation with multiple writers, where you need to be on the same general page with a committee. It can help a lot to establish the exact conflicts at the beginning, but as can be seen with Winston from “New Girl” or the later seasons of “My Little Pony”, what you have can morph beyond your control as things go on.

Sometimes you never had control in the first place. Sometimes you lose control because you conclude the original conflict of your story and struggle to find a new one - the brand is too successful to let go. Maybe an executive comes in and injects an idea that throws the entire balance of everything totally out of whack and now nothing works. Sometimes your friend thinks story structure is overrated. It’s a difficult juggling act.

So at the end of this essay did we even learn anything? It depends a lot on what you’re trying to do and what you wanted to learn. If you’re the more typical Dungeons and Dragons group, you don’t need to think much about this. Just make your characters and passively react to activities handed out by Dungeons, Dungeons & Co - your conflict is event-driven. Are you writing a sitcom? Well, balance a tangled web of conflicting character habits and write the ensuing disaster. Want to make a complex film about a group of highly motivated, proactive people with sophisticated individual goals that ultimately converge while still respecting their rich, conflicting, inner politics, and do all that writing as part of a team? Well, good goddamn luck, but with the right start and enough care you can make it happen.

#essay

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with-love-anu · 4 years

Text

Desiderata: Little Things

PART: 6

WORD COUNT: 1.9K

PAIRING: Sirius Black x Reader

SUMMARY: You had been best friends with James, Remus, Sirius and Peter. Read your journey of love, friendship and jealousy through your wonderful years at Hogwarts. Enjoy!

SERIES MASTERLIST

The following month went in a blur. You worked with the marauders every free time you could put together to plan the club. James had got the permission form from McGonagall and you were currently arguing over the club name.

“Gryffindors are the best”

“Brave Hearts”

“Anti Slytherin”

“Pureb-“

“Guys stop it!” you shouted. You knew they weren’t doing it intentionally. There was always a bit of house rivalry in the boys but you always managed to tune it down. Right now it really wasn’t helping that Sirius and James were suggesting names which shouted “Gryffindor and Proud”, when you were aspiring for high goals like unity and strong bonds between people of all kind.

James and Sirius glared at you. You glared back.

“Why what is so wrong with these” James asked.

“After all it will always be Gryffindors in the end who would be brave enough to stand up against what is wrong” Sirius said staring at you.

“I want house unity. That is final. If houses don’t stay together I am not going to be a part of this.” You told them, your tone sharp daring them to say anything. This shut them up.

“Fine. You suggest something then.” James huffed.

You looked around and saw Remus rubbing his head, clearly frustrated. You thought about it. You wanted it to be catchy and meaningful.

“The Sheild.” You said out of the blue. (A/n: Avengers fan? Totally!)

“The Sheild?”

“Yes, I mean think about it. We are doing this to build a shield around the people we love.”

“Makes sense” Sirius said scratching his head.

The others pondered over it for a while then gave in their consents. You packed up your things and left with the marauders to submit the form to the very formidable head of house.

“Come in.” McGonagall’s voice came as you knocked the door.

“Professor, we wanted to submit the form for a new club.”

McGonagall looked up through her glasses and studied you all briefly. She laid out her hand and Remus gave her the form. She studied it for a while and then looked up, a small smile playing on her lips.

“Are you all serious about this?”

“Very much professor.”

“Well then! I hope to see your group succeed. I don’t want any kind of disruptions or fights. Keep that in mind.”

You smile widely and saw your boys having similar broad grins.

“Thank you so much Minnie. I knew you love me much to deny anything to me.” Sirius said winking at her giving her his famous flirt expression.

You mentally face-palmed. Did he have to do this? You looked at your deputy headmaster guessing her expression praying she wouldn’t change her mind.

“We are very very sorry Professor. You know how Sirius is. We won’t take much of your time and will be leaving now.” James said saving the situation.

As you all rushed out, you yanked Sirius’s ear (who gave a series of- “ow ow ow ow”) and pulled him to the next corridor. The others followed.

“Damn it woman! My ears hurt and they would probably be red” Sirius pouted.

“Really?” You glared at him. “I know you love me Minnie” you said mimicking his voice.

“I DO NOT talk like that”

“Yes. Yes you do.” You told him. “Oh darling!” you added with a fake drawl. “What is a pretty bird like you doing here? Girl, you’re sweet as honey. Your eyes are so beautiful, I get lost in them.”

The boys sniggered.

“Hey don’t forget the famous- ‘You’re more beautiful than the moon and the stars’ “ James said with a dreamy expression on his face.

“You’re the prettiest creature on the face of earth.” Remus said exaggerating with his hand gestures.

Sirius glared at you all and placed his hands over the right side of his chest.

“Hurt! Right to the heart! How dare you call yourselves friends?” Sirius feigned hurt.

You snorted and moved his hands to the mid of his chest.

“Your heart is in the middle, dumbass! Although I am not sure whether it exists.” You said rolling your eyes.

Sirius narrowed his eyes and puffed his cheeks. Pointing his finger at you he said, “You young lady are a mean… a mean… “ Sirius clenched his fists hunting for the right word. “A mean young lady.” He huffed out.

You rolled out laughing and no one could contain any longer. They all barked out and bent over in laughter.

“A pretty young lady who is cute when she is mean.” Remus said in a flirty tone wriggling his eyebrows. Sirius’s smile faded.

“Aww Remus… such a gentleman” you said with a fake posh accent. You cooed at him and placed a hand on his cheek flirtatiously. You missed the big scowl that formed on Sirius’s face. He interrupted loudly,

“Y/n don’t you have to meet Lily?”

“Right! I completely forgot” you said leaving.

“Ask her whether she would go out with me anytime soon.” James called after you.

“No. Bye.”

Sirius and Peter started going towards the grounds with James and Remus a little behind.

“Do you think he bought it?” Remus asked quietly.

“He looked like someone puked all over him” James whispered back.

“I just hope he realizes it before Y/n loses all hope.” Remus sighed.

***

You met Lily in the common room. She smiled on seeing you.

“Hey! What are you doing?”

“Just some extra credit work for charms. You know I suck on those” Lily replied. “So, I wanted to ask you; what do I have to bring to the study group today?”

“Just notes from class and personal write ups if you have done any.”

“okay.”

You spent the next hour telling her about the different people from your study group. She might as well catch up; you thought.

“Isn’t Sebastian the hot boy of the Ravenclaw house? The one girls swoon over?”

You giggled. You very well were aware of the fact that Sebastian was good looking and also knew that he hated it. Hated that out of all his qualities, the one people always referred to be his looks.

“The very same.” You told Lily.

“Well, he’s handsome. Is he dating someone?”

“Not that I know of”

“You know,” Lily said quietly “I always thought you two were a thing.”

“How so?” you asked raising your eyebrows. If it was anyone else you would probably have denied it as soon it was mentioned to wade of any kind of rumors that might be building. But, it was Lily and the two of you were quiet frank with one another. Lily had become a very close friend.

“Well, just the two of you always seemed… I don’t know… close?! Like whenever I see you both you guys are giggling and whispering and doing you know! Coupley things? And I have even seen you two flirt a lot.”

You laughed. “Well, we joke-flirt. Nothing’s ever happened… Okay… so we both kind of have the same sense of humor sometimes even Sirius and the boys don’t get. We also tend to agree on a whole lot of things. He teases me and is affront about his opinions and I happily return the favor. We don’t take offence on one another; which I am certain most people would; if we say things like that to them. That’s just how we’ve always been. I don’t even know what to call this, a weird flirty rude relationship?”

Lily giggled. “I think you two would look cute together.”

“Really? Are you going to play matchmaker?”

“Well look at it my way. It would be a simple relationship. From what you tell me, I think the two of you already know what the other wants in a relationship.” You nodded and Lily continued. “So, it would be nice you know, lesser fights over stupid issues.”

You sighed. “I just don’t think I am ready to see him that way and if it doesn’t work out I don’t wanna lose the friendship.” That was only part of the question why. The main reason was that Sirius had made it difficult for you to like anyone else. You always ended up comparing them with him. It was like he would do things people do when they love loved the person. He would bring you chocolates and trinkets just because he saw them at a shop and thought of you. He would always have an arm around you during classes, breaks, quidditch matches; of course when he wasn’t flirting. He would call you his best girl every now and then; even in front of his girlfriends. It confused you. Not that you didn’t like it but you always ended up wanting more.

You both picked up your things and moved towards the library. Most of them were present and you settled down as Lily introduced herself.

“Am I late?” Sebastian said as he settled down on the chair beside you.

“No. you’re not”

You all talked discussing and completing the week’s essays one by one. This was the benefit of the group. You learnt magic throughout the week and took care of homework on Sundays. It helped you stay free minded and love what you learnt.

“I really can’t do this spell” Sebastian said pouting.

“Yes you can” you said giggling taking in his despaired form.

“I have tried everything and this just doesn’t work” he huffed.

“Lemme…” you took his hand in yours performing the spell on the cup infront of him.

Sebastian’s eyes widened as he saw it transform into a perfect little turtle.

“Oh!” Sebastian said as he noticed the wand movement he missed before.

“Y/n” he called out.

“Hmm?”

“Y/n”

“Yes?”

“Y/n”

“Seb.” You smiled at his game.

“When did you become so good at transfiguration?”

“James taught me.”

“So basically, you come back to school having this completely new and trendy look; which I love and by the way has caused all the boys have a crush on you; and you better yourself in the one subject you weren’t *perfect* before?”

You raised your eyebrows not sure how to reply. “Not all boys!” you said shaking your head.

“Okay; well a huge portion.”

“And you’re implying that…?”

“It’s only time before you become one of those…” Sebastian said narrowing his eyes putting on a conspiracy face.

“One of what?”

“You know… one of *those*” he said wriggling his eyebrows.

“Ahh…” you drawled. “Strong independent women who no need no man?”

“Exactly!” he said with a sad expression. He was too good an actor. “and then you will not see me, the sweet boy who loves you with all his little heart?”

You stifled a snigger wanting to play along.

“Aww… I will always love my old man!” you cooed.

“Hey! Who are you calling old?”

“Did I say old? I meant a mature wise man who happens to be very handsome and…”

“And?” Sebastian asked raising an eyebrow.

“hot” you said with a low voice.

“There are children here!!!” Alex said loudly earning a shush from the librarian. You all laughed.

“Guys!” you said remembering about the shield. “Guys! Guys! Guys! Guys!” you said until you had everyone’s attention. You told them about the club crossing your fingers that they’ll join. There was silence for a while.

“Count me in!” Ruuhaan spoke out.

“Yeah me too!” Lily said enthusiastically.

Soon enough everyone agreed.

“So, we would really appreciate it if you could bring others too who may be interested. Remember, next week, Friday at 4.” Remus said.

You couldn’t stop smiling when you went to bed that night.

#sirius #sirius black #sirius x reader #sirius imagine #Harry Potter #harry potter imagine #marauders imagine #marauders x reader #desidereta #my work

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razberryyum · 5 years

Photo

Why I love the Phoenix Mountain Hunt: an essay

(with novel spoilers)

Ok, firstly, the beautiful WangXian elephant in the room: I honestly never expected us to get the blindfolded kiss scene or anything close to that, though I was hoping for at least a mild hint at it involving Wei Wuxian being blindfolded and Lan Wangji at least somewhere nearby before they fade to black or cut- away, but I think what they gave us instead was just as awesome since it completely captured the spirit of the stolen kiss. For me at least, that blindfold scene was essentially LWJ being so overwhelmed by his feelings for WWX that he actually broke probably every moral code he’s lived by to uncharacteristically act upon his urges, pretty much taking advantage of WWX in his self-imposed vulnerable condition (although, how WWX could ever mistaken LWJ for being a female cultivationist, even if she’s especially arduous and STRONG, is beyond me…I mean, who has he SEEN at the hunt that would even fit that bill??? I probably could write a whole other essay just to figure this one out). With the “confession” scene we got instead, it feels like we basically got everything we wanted from the blindfolded kiss scene except without the actually kiss…which is pretty damn fine, all things considered. LWJ still was so overwhelmed by his feelings for WWX that he uncharacteristically almost demanded of WWX what his status in his life is and then pretty much eagerly pledged his continued devotion to him. To make things better, WWX was the one who came up with the word 知己 (more on that later) to describe how he felt about LWJ…which is actually a step up from how it was in the novel, where WWX, although aware of LWJ’s existence all of the time, mostly seemed to just enjoy teasing him for his own amusement. They definitely weren’t at the point where WWX would refer to him as a soulmate for life (and my God does it take a while to even get to anywhere near that point…not complaining but just…all the mostly one-sided pining on LWJ’s part in the novel hurt me).

I actually loved how the confession scene began with WWX immediately happy from seeing LWJ passing by and instinctively wanting to call out to him, only stopping himself because he remembered the talk he and big bro Lan Xichen had…which was not in the novel, completely original to the drama. I loved that change since that talk the two future bro-in-laws had just made me love LXC even more and also informed us further of just how much LXC is aware of his little bro’s feelings for WWX. But then LWJ was finally the one to spot WWX first and as he heads towards him, WWX has just the most heart-meltingly soft expression:

Like he’s so relieved and just happy that LWJ realized he’s there on his own so now they can finally converse. And then of course the conversation they have…so meaningful.

Now, tbh, for most of my life I thought the word 知己 actually just meant “dearest friend”, which would’ve been good enough already considering they can’t straight out say anything more intimate than that, but then upon finding out that the word can also mean “soulmate”, I was of course overjoyed. And considering the emotions involved in that scene and the way the two wonderful actors played it, along with the beautiful WangXian score coming in and their lingering looks, I don’t doubt that both LWJ and WWX did mean “soulmate”, especially considering how more developed their relationship was already by that point, thanks to the changes in the live action.

What I also love about the Phoenix Mt Hunt in terms of WangXian is just how WWX-focused LWJ was. It’s like he couldn’t take his eyes off of WWX the majority of the time, and he was constantly concerned for him. Other than the cute ribbon exchange at the beginning and the aforementioned conversation scene, my other favorite WangXian moment between them was when LWJ held WWX back while they were in hiding behind the tree, eavesdropping on Shijie and Jin Zixuan:

…because of the expression on LWJ’s face. It’s obvious he sees through Jin Zixuan’s facade, that the Jin dork is actually already crushing on Shijie, hence LWJ’s almost smile in that moment while trying to pull WWX back from ruining the two future lovebird’s alone time…

It felt like the reason LWJ understood JZX’s feelings was because he too was trying to hide his true feelings from the one he is enamored with.

And then of course there’s all the physical contact between WWX and LWJ…

Another reason I love the Phoenix Mt Hunt is because of Shijie, Jiang Yanli. I don’t post much about anyone else other than WangXian because Tumblr freaks out on me when I post about something more than once or twice a day so I have to pick and choose my loves, but I pretty much loved Shijie the moment she appeared in the live action. They could not have chosen a sweeter, more loving looking person to play her. I was already a fan of her character right from the get-go, but when she stood up for her little bro, WWX and her sect, I just about burst out crying cuz I was so damn proud of her. I wanted to reach into the screen and just hug her so much. She was simply amazing in that scene, the actress and the character, and I felt like we saw some of Madame Yu in her.

I’m still not very convinced that JZX deserves her, cuz he’s still kinda a dick to WWX, but if that’s the man she wants, who am I to deprive her of anything. Give her the world, please, cuz Shijie deserves it.

Oh and this moment, I really appreciated as well:

That look of utter fear on WWX’s face…which I feel wasn’t just due to the fact that he was worried for his Shijie’s safety, but because he knew there was no way he could protect her due to his condition. Bless LWJ again of course for coming to his rescue…which actually makes me wonder why he hasn’t said anything to WWX about his golden core considering it’s pretty obvious he knows something’s up. It’s actually still driving me a little crazy that LWJ continues to keep that to himself even though he clearly knows or is at least suspicious enough that he’s constantly coming to WWX’s rescue…during the Sunshot Campaign and now even at the hunt.

I also love of course how LWJ seems to be in constant fear that WWX would just lose it completely and then do something irreversible…which, of course we know that he eventually will, sadly, but my heart just ached on behalf of LWJ and the non-stop concern he must’ve been feeling for WWX like 24/7. I mean, leading up to the hunt, we know he was breaking sect rules to look up ways to help WWX, while WWX on the other hand got to enjoy life in Lotus Pier. All of it just makes LWJ’s words to his big bro, where he talks about wanting to just hide WWX away, that much more heart-breaking. It was already poignant in the novel knowing that he would even want to do something like that (after what happened with his parents) just to keep WWX safe, but somehow it felt worse in the live action because of all the build up to that moment, where we see how almost desperate he is to keep WWX on the right path and safe.

Lastly (omg, this thing is already 3 pages long), what I also appreciated about the Phoenix Mt Hunt is the stuff that happens to Jin Guangyao. First off, against my better judgment, every time he pops up with LXC, I can’t help but smile cuz it IS so damn cute how the two of them are like always attached at the hip…they just appeared together here…like, I guess they just ditched their crabby older bro to wander off together?…lol.

And then, when you see just how shitty Madame Jin and even that ass-weasel Jin Zixun treats JGY despite the fact that he’s basically helping them run their freaking sect now, really makes a good case for why he doesn’t feel any love for his so-called family, even before we find out his history. Not that that justifies what he does, especially considering how much he hurts those we do love, but we can see the Jins really don’t make a good case for themselves. Not to mention, at the start of the hunt, with how they use the probably innocent Wen members for archery targets, the line between the Jins and the Wens became really blurred, despite the Lanling Jin’s more angelic looking outfits. Again, I don’t get a chance to talk about this enough, but part of the reason I love Mo Dao Zu Shi/The Untamed is that surrounding the beautiful love story between WWX and LWJ there is a legit fascinating story about the world of cultivation, the sects and families within it, which is populated by characters that are just as interesting and dynamic as our two protagonists. I think the Phoenix Mt Hunt really highlights this fact by giving us a glimpse into all these different aspects of the two main stories at play in one event…and not to mention, WWX just looked cool AF doing all that stuff with a blindfold on…which is why I love the hunt so much.

Thank you for reading my thesis. I will continue to work hard to earn my doctorate degree in MDZS/The Untamed.

#The Untamed #陈情令 #CQL #Mo Dao Zu Shi #WangXian #MDZS #Phoenix Mountain Hunt #episode 25 #novel spoilers #Wei Ying Wei Wuxian #Lan Zhan Lan Wangji #Jiang Yanli #Jin Zixuan #XuanLi #Lan Xichen #Jin Guangyao #XiYao #Long post

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surveys-at-your-service · 3 years

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Survey #330

“and i don't want ya / and i don't need ya / don't bother to resist, or i'll beat ya / it's not your fault that you're always wrong / the weak ones are there to justify the strong”

If you have a job, do you like it? I'm unemployed. Do you like any kinds of fruit? Well of course. Are you waiting for something right now? Covid and this headache to fuck off, May for my tattoo, to be paid to take some pictures again... What is your favorite kind of animal? Kind, not the actual animal itself? In that case, social species, usually mammals. What kind of Dippin' Dots do you like? Holy shit, I haven't had that in like a damn decade or something. I don't know, I barely remember the taste. Who is the most badass woman that you can think of? My mom. My mother is a fucking warrior. Do you have a Pinterest account? Yeah. I get a lot of photography ideas from there, as well as base pictures to make Mark icons, haha. If you were to write a book, what would it be about? The stories I and my friends have weaved in RP. Have you ever seen the television show The Munsters? AHHHHH YES!!!!! Mom loves that show, so I used to watch it with her growing up. Have you ever written one of those 'Roses are red...' valentines? I don't think so. Would you/have you spent more than $200 on any one person for a holiday? I haven't, but I would for certain people. Do you have a favorite Robin Williams movie? Probably Night at the Museum. Thoughts on Slender Man? Have you even heard of him? I think it's a cool creepypasta; he does look pretty unnerving with his height and especially lack of a face. The movie was good too, btw. Do you know what the Tardis is? I think almost everyone does in this generation, haha. Doctor Who ain't no joke to a whole lot of people. Are there any children's shows that you'd watch today if they were on? Sure, like Pokemon or Avatar: The Last Airbender, among others. I wouldn't at all be opposed to watching The Lion Guard, either. I actually want to, with my whole TLK love. I'm not embarrassed to watch "kids" shows or movies at all. What would you call yourself the King or Queen of? Having not an ounce of knowledge on how to love things in moderation/avoid total obsession with things, haha. If I paid for you to take karate lessons, would you? No, especially not now with my legs. Do you read more fiction or non-fiction? Almost solely fiction. What modern technology are you especially grateful for? Laptops, ig. Do you have a favorite science topic? Genetics. Very fascinating stuff. Have you ever read any Sherlock Holmes stories? No. What is the saddest movie that you've ever seen? Either Johnny Got His Gun or Boy in the Striped Pajamas. What's your most popular post? On what? If Facebook, I don't really know. Possibly my "coming out" one or a lovey-dovey essay when Sara and I were together. On Tumblr, it's definitely the gif I made of Mark and Chica (his dog) with I think over 10k notes. Manga or anime? Anime. I don't read manga, though I've been tempted with Deadman Wonderland since the show only had one season and ends on a ginormous cliffhanger, but there's more story to be had. A card game that you're good at? None, really. A popular book you haven't read yet? To Kill a Mockingbird. I feel like every school student has read it at some point. Favorite Mean Girls quote? I don't know any. It's a fine movie, but I've never understood the hype. Name your top 3 albums from your favorite band/artist. Black Rain, Ozzmosis, and... then I can't choose. I love so, so many very dearly. Name your top 5 music videos. I don't really watch music videos, so I definitely can't name five. My #1 favorite is probably "Wrong Side of Heaven" by Five Finger Death Punch; I absolutely cannot watch it without crying. What are you most passionate about? How did this passion develop? Animals. I was born simply adoring animals and have always wanted to protect them and their environment. Do you like monkeys? Do you believe in evolution? Yes and yes. We've literally watched it in action. What embarrasses you the most in front of other people? Discussing RP if you're not involved in it. I'm terrified of people thinking I'm weird. Have you considered running for president? Absolutely not. Which famous person would you like to be BFFs with? I'd say Mark, but I'd be way too interested in dating him instead of being just friends, haha... So with that said, maybe Bindi Irwin? Would you ever go skinny dipping with the last person who commented you? Lyndsey would be that person, so no. She's a great friend of mine, but realistically I'd probably only ever - if ever - do that with the company of my s/o. Are you still friends with the last person who broke your trust? No. How long did your last relationship last? Around two years. Have you ever been banned from anywhere? Online, yes, as a little kid on the Animal Planet forum, haha... Has anyone kissed you when you weren't expecting it? Yeah, Juan. Did you like it? It was a sweet moment, but I didn't want it. Does your dad smoke? Like a chimney. Is your mom over 50? Yeah. Are you currently listening to anything? Yeah, kinda hooked on "The Horrible People" by Manson. I've found a lot of great music lately. Would you ever consider getting breast implants? No, but once (if...) I lose all the weight I want, it's going to be a moderate priority to get a breast lift. I've hated my body way too fucking long and am dying to be satisfied with it again, and with how much weight I need to lose, I would essentially have grandma tits. :x Do you know anyone who is bisexual? Me, haha. Among some friends. Who would you tell, or who did you tell when you lost your virginity? That's not something I'd just go to tell someone afterwards for no reason... I'd only ever mention having lost my virginity if I was actually asked or if it was relevant to a conversation. Is there something you have been trying to learn lately? I'm really trying to practice opposite action and behavioral activation, among other things I've learned in group therapy. When you think about your future career, do you envision yourself becoming the head honcho or CEO? If not, why not? Well, I want to be my own boss as a freelance photographer. In any other job, I definitely wouldn't want that. Too much responsibility and leadership skills. Can you think of a time when you seriously misjudged a music artist based on their name? I don't think so? Have you ever kissed someone that you didn’t really want to kiss (not assault, just indifference)? Why did you go along with it and how did you feel after? Yes, Tyler. I felt like I was "supposed to." I felt really uncomfortable afterwards. If you have to wake up early for something, what time is just TOO early for you to be there and be presentable and sentient? Have you ever had to be somewhere that early? Probably like, 5:00. No. Have the majority of your romantic relationships started with a physical attraction or a deeper connection? Always an emotional connection. Did you ever write a fan letter to a celebrity? How about submit something to a magazine? No to both. What hair color is the most attractive on the opposite sex? Of natural colors, black, but I like unnaturally dyed hair most. Where do you like to go to when you are stressed? On a carride, so long as I'm controlling the music nice and loud and not talking. Where do you go to get your hair cut/dyed? To a family friend's little salon/small business. Why do you want the career that you want? Because I adore art and think it's pretty darn magical that you can freeze a moment forever to not just remember in your head, but actually see. Have you ever watched iCarly? Yeah, I enjoyed it when I was younger. What was your favorite class during your sophomore year of high school? Art. Do you wear bandanas in your hair? No. Have you ever been on a blind date? No, not interested. How many living grandparents do you still have? None. Have you ever worked in an office? No. Who does the grocery shopping in your house? Mom. Have you ever stayed in a hotel without your parents or older relatives? No. Did you have an Easy-Bake oven when you were little? Sure did. Have you ever seen a donkey? Yeah. Have you ever made out in a hot tub? Pretty sure no. Do you always flush the toilet after you use it? Yes. What were the last words you said to your dad? Probably "bye, love you." Have you cuddled with someone you weren’t dating? Nah. Who has the ability to hurt you the most emotionally? JASON. Are you a really understanding person? Yeah, very. Are you the type of person that enjoys getting hugs? Yes. When’s the last time you wore a wig? For a witch costume many years ago. Why were you last hospitalized? Suicide attempt. What’s the longest you’ve ever gone without food? At least 12 hours, but I think I almost went a day once back when recovery started and my appetite was non-existent. What was the last name of your third grade teacher? Mrs. Britt. How was the last chicken you ate cooked? They were chicken tenders. What is your favorite kind of chip? Hot crunchy Cheetos. What grade did you have your first boyfriend? 7th. Have you ever been told that you’ve lost weight? Yeah, back when I actually WAS losing loads of weight. >> Do you have the same political views as your parents? Some things, but definitely not all. Does anyone call you babe/baby? No. Have you ever made a significant other cry? Sadly. If you could make your lips bigger, would you? Maybe just a teeeeny bit. Are you one to sneak food into movie theaters? Yep. Fuck them prices. Are you prone to illness? Definitely not. What races do you usually date? History says Caucasian, but I have no actual preference. I'll date any race. What’s your cup size? C. Ever flirted with a teacher? Yikes, no thanks. Who was the main cook of your Thanksgiving meal last year? My older sister made the most stuff. Have you ever been dumped really harshly? Well, considering it literally traumatized me... Do you have any ex’s you can’t stand anymore? No. Are you more of a phone or a computer person? Computer, definitely. When was the last time you made a sandwich? What did you put on it? Yesterday for lunch. Ham, American cheese, and mustard. Have you ever made friends with someone that you didn’t expect to get along with? Yeah. Do you own any accessories with your name on? No. What brand of eyeliner do you use? I pay no attention to this. Have you ever been sexually harassed? No. Have you ever sent a naughty text message? Suggestive ones, yes. How long have you had your pets? Roman, around two years. Venus, around three or four years. Who was the last person to tell you that they love you, other than family? Sara. Has one of your friends ever tried to hook you up with someone? Colleen tried obnoxiously hard to push Girt and me together. We all went out to eat pizza once just as friends hanging out, and this bitch prefaced an uncomfortable and nosy question to him with an even more uncomfortable "because I'm trying to get you in her pants...", and that, my friends, was the closest occasion I've ever come to slapping someone right across the face. I looked at her in absolute disgust, and Girt was clearly thinking "what the actual fuck" as well. I do not miss her feral mouth. Are you good at staring contests? No. Eye contact is very difficult for me to maintain. Do you like peanut butter? I love peanut butter. When was the last time you had to present something to your class? In this mandatory but entirely pointless entry class at my last college, we all had to do like this PowerPoint introducing ourselves. I hated it. Who was the last person that told you they missed you? I think my friend Chelsea. What store is your favorite shirt from? It's not a real store, but rather an online brand: Cloak. Mark is one of the owners/creators so I obviously support them intensely. Have you ever fell off your bed while you were sleeping? No, thankfully. Do you have something you’re supposed to tell someone, but you haven’t yet? No. What type of food do you never really eat? Vegetables, oops. Have you ever cut someone else’s hair? No. Do you like going to weddings? Not really, if I'm being honest. I'm only interested in photographing weddings for the only the couple pictures and pay, really. I'm not big on formal events. What’s your favorite flavor squash? I don’t like squash. Do you or anyone in your house have a severe allergy? No. Who was the last guest in your house and what were they staying for? Our landlord/family friend, just to hang out for a little bit and chat with Mom. What fad were you actually into? Hm. What was the last spontaneous thing you did? I'm not a very spontaneous person, so I really don't know.

#survey #surveys #questions #lyrics: ''the beautiful people'' by marilyn manson

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stilydinski · 4 years

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Anime Pretty Boys™️: A List

So basically no one asked but all of a sudden I felt the need to make a top 10 ranking list of some Pretty Boys in animes I could think of so why not share with the weebs.

To clarify: When I say Pretty Boys I mean pretty and not hot in general ! There are so so many more attractive characters out there but this is a list of guys that just look so incredibly beautiful it makes me want to bawl my eyes out. While I ofc would sell my organs for tons of anime boys, these are just the ones that make me go "mmhhhmm pretti" before thinking they're hot or whatever. I hope this makes sense aha ha.

10. Chisaki (My Hero Academia)

Those of you who haven’t seen the show might be asking yourselves what’s up with that mask but let’s just ignore it (masks are a thing everywhere now anyways right? man’s just staying safe ssjsj). Basically when I first saw this man I was speechless because wow his face is so ?? intense and pretty at the same time. The hair is casually messy, the eyes boring into your soul and the ear piercings are just hot. Also his style??? hot damn?? i mean the jacket he always wears looks so mf expensive and the suits like Yes Sir fuck me UP but at the same time he is so intimidatingly pretty that I wouldn’t mind joining the bad guys here. However because of the high hotness factor he’s lower in the list might be the dangerous aura who knows

9. Sesshomaru (Inuyasha)

Basically this man has more elegance than anyone could ever obtain. The way he always wears this fur thing on his shoulders just as a statement and never gets it dirty or loses it? an icon. Everything from the hair to let’s call it the “make up” to the outfit is just on point and you won’t ever catch the man slipping. This is the only character ever that could make me disregard the fact that he’s technically a dog demon and over 500 years old and just let him step on me.

8. Daisuke (Fugou Keiji: Balance:UNLIMITED)

I don’t think I need to say much here. First time I saw this man I was legit already on my knees without knowing a single thing about him. Some of you might say he’s more hot than straight up pretty but I beg to disagree because he is genuinely one of the most beautiful men I have ever seen. Now I do agree that in comparison he certainly can be considered more hot which is why he’s a little lower on the list however you can’t tell me that his face wasn’t shaped by God personally.

7. Usui (Kaichou wa Maid-sama!)

ON GOD if this man asked me to marry him I would not hesitate for a single second. Effortlessly pretty, the flavor is immaculate, never tasted anything like this before. Not only is he the perfect man but his face is so insanely pretty. Now Usui’s more of a casual beautiful because his face doesn’t necessarily have something outstandingly special but as a whole there is just not a single flaw.

6. Victor (Yuri!!! On Ice)

Now, you can’t tell me the hair doesn’t hit different. The man literally looks like a Greek God like that’s just a FACT we all know that, he knows that, Yuri knows that, the other Yuri knows that. Man's literally chosen to do the most elegant sport looking LIKE THAT as if he wouldn’t completely change figure skating forever. His face is so pleasing to look at because he just has this angelic aura around him that makes you think he came down from heaven personally to raise the bar for us all.

5. Yato (Noragami)

Let me just say what we are all thinking: EYES. I can’t think of anyone with prettier eyes and that’s for a good reason. Yato’s not a God for nothing, the godly looks are very evident even if he’s a little bruised up in the gif. His face is perfect, the hair looks elegant and yeah the eyes are just mesmerizing. Homeboy might be spotting a track suit at all times but damn he can wear it while living his Immortal Pretty Boy Life.

4. Guren (Owari no Seraph)

This one’s a funny one because let me tell you I know absolutely nothing about this man. I have not seen the anime and I barely know his name but I saw this man a few weeks ago and when I tell you I almost started crying I mean it. It’s hilarious how this man could be the biggest asshole who murdered my family and I’d still think he’s insanely beautiful. Now I sadly can’t get into this as deep as with this others because I have zero knowledge about him but the fact that he was the third person I thought of when making this list even if I don’t know him should say enough for now. Face is 10/10, he’s living that pretty boy lifestyle doing whatever it is that he does but god does he look graceful while doing it.

3. Shoto (My Hero Academia)

Now THIS. This is interesting because can you BELIEVE that this incredibly handsome boy does not even KNOW how pretty he is? Looking like that he would be allowed to have such a huge ego but he isn’t aware of the facts??? The two colored hair and eyes are both iconic and groundbreaking. His face just screams pretty boy in every possible way and on god i would do anything for him to realize that. Everyone in Class 1A knows how beautiful he is except him?? I could write you a three pages essay on how beautiful he is and that would just be the outer appearance without getting into his great personality. I would be ready to declare my love for him on 10 pages in four different languages but let’s not get into that now.

2. Akaashi (Haikyuu)

I honestly don’t even know how to start this. Akaashi is one of a kind. I lie awake at night thinking about the fact that he is so insanely beautiful and I wonder what the creators were thinking. Imagine you wanna create a volleyball anime and while drawing someone who is not even on the main team you come up with this? What kind of process goes through your head?? How could you publish a character like this knowing no other character you ever draw will ever live up to his pretty face? I wouldn’t know how to act. Looking at Akaashi is the most pleasing thing and the fact that he is not only crazy pretty but also has the best personality just sends me over the edge. No one’s doing it like him. This man can have my credit card, my house, my family and my liver, he can take it all and I would still worship him like the God he is, thank you.

1. Howl (Howl’s Moving Castle)

Ladies and gentlemen, may I announce the prettiest Pretty Boy of all time. This wouldn’t be a list of Pretty Boys without Howl. The man literally invented being pretty and god is he dramatic about it. Most of us probably count him to our childhood crushes. Remember when he said “I don’t see a point in living if I’m not beautiful” because he accidently dyed his hair black? I have never seen anyone this dramatic but of course his ego is big with a face like that I mean if I looked like THAT I would act up too. I would drop everything for this man and that’s on Sophie leaving behind her life to live in his castle yeah i know she didn’t do it for him back then but lbr i would. Anyways Howl literally said I support the ugly community but it ain’t me and it’s true, if you look up Pretty in a dictionary his picture will show up. I honestly don’t know what else to tell you because Howl leaves me speechless on a regular but that’s fine.

This marks the end of my list, please let me know if I forgot someone. If you made it this far with reading this mess thank you for keeping up with my amazed ass, i’ll go cry over how beautiful everyone on this list is now. I will probably regret the rankings in a week from now so don't mind them too much

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earlgreyteaforhere · 4 years

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book recommendations?

Hello Anon! This is very vague, but I will take this as an opportunity to recommend some wonderful books across all sorts of different genres. Put on your seat belt, wear a mask, log into your goodreads app, and prepare to be bombarded with an even longer never ending TBR list.

||Nonfiction||

Notes of A Native Son by James Baldwin: If you haven’t read anything by Baldwin yet, this is a great place to start. This book is a collection of ten nonfiction essays primarily focusing on issues of race in America and Europe. Baldwin’s writing style is unlike any other, and in my opinion, is the equivalent of jazz on the page if such a thing does exist. His words will get you lost and challenge your understanding of the world as you know it, only to bring you to the profound realization that you did not in fact know the world very well at all.

The Empathy Exams by Leslie Jamison: I wouldn’t necessarily call this a medical memoir, rather this book is a collection of essays focusing on empathy via stories relating in some way to medical topics. Jamison’s writing style is highly engaging and she forces the reader to ask themselves some very difficult questions about themself and their role in the world. Empathy is a complex thing, and if you’re interested in understanding the nuances of the subject, and perhaps learning more about yourself, I would very much recommend this book.

||Historical Fiction||

Small Island by Andrea Levy: Set in and around WWII, the story follows the main characters Hortense, Gilbert, Queenie, and Bernard in a rather nonlinear recounting of events taking place in Jamaica, England, America, and India. The novel explores the complicated issues of Great Britain’s colonization of Jamaica, and the rough transition for Jamaican’s living in England to help support the wartime effort. I listened to the audiobook for this one and the voice actors did a fantastic job of giving each character a distinct and easily identifiable voice and personality. I think there is also a BBC adaptation of the book.

The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto by Mitch Albom: Not sure if this technically qualifies as historical fiction, but I’m putting it here because it does a great job of tracing a lot of the evolution of modern popular music. I will never stop recommending this book. The novel is narrated by the entity of music and follows the life of Frankie Presto in a sort of Forrest Gump like fashion. I won’t say much about the plot, but I will tell you this book will make you laugh, cry, and everything in between. Please read this book.

||Fiction||

Less Than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis: This book is told from the pov of Clay, a wealthy kid from California who goes to college in the Northeast. The novel follows his time at home during winter break and highlights the more unsightly aspects of the rich elite on the West Coast. This book made me feel sort of dead inside and pessimistic about the world, so I’m not sure it would be the best book to read right now given current events. But if your mental health is stable and in a good place, this is a quick read and an all around good book.

Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan: While the movie received some harsh criticisms, I really enjoyed this book. Kwan has a unique style and is able to tell the story from many different points of view without the characters getting lost or blending together. Often times I have a difficult time keeping track of names and relationships if there is a large cast of characters, but Kwan does a fantastic job. If you enjoy juicy family drama and heartwarming friendships, I recommend giving this a read. It’s also set in Singapore which was a first for me to read about and definitely convinced me to add a trip to Singapore on my bucketlist.

||YA Fiction||

We All Looked Up by Tommy Wallach: I read this book in two days when I was fifteen and it immediately found a permanent place in my heart. This book is about the potential end of the world from the perspectives of high school students in a style reminiscent of The Breakfast Club. I remember reading this and thinking “wow, this dude just really gets it” because Wallach perfectly captures my teenage angsty self. This is also a fitting read since it seems like the world is ending these days. I also recommend Thanks For the Trouble by Tommy Wallach because it’s an incredibly unique, intriguing, and just plain weird story. Wallach enjoys ambiguity in his stories, so if you’re into that kind of negative capability, then his books might just be a good match for you.

The Illuminae Files by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff: This is technically YA sci-fi, but this is my list and I’m putting it here anyway. I’m personally not much of a sci-fi reader, so I don’t remember why I thought to pick up this series, but I am so glad I did. Illuminae has pretty much every sci-fi trope you can think of all wrapped into one marvelous multi-media kick-ass space story. The books themselves look thicc, but don’t let that turn you away. Despite the books having many pages, the story is told through emails, security camera footage logs, journal pages, text messages, and many pictures which makes for a speedy read. I recommend the Illuminae Files for those who don’t read sci-fi, but are willing to give it a try.

Emergency Contact by Mary H. K. Choi: I read this book at pretty much the perfect time in my life and I think that’s probably why I enjoyed it so much. The book is about Penny and her journey as she begins college at UT Austin and the anxieties/challenges that come along with that. Friendships, mother/daughter relationships, romance, drama, and a whole lot of social awkwardness. I’d recommend this to college students and or those about to go to college because I think most will find this book quite relatable in at least some way. The book reassures us that we are not alone in our awkward transition stages of life.

All For the Game by Nora Sakavic: This series is about a fictional sport called exy. Yes, that’s right, I’m recommending you books about a sport. Exy is sort of like lacrosse, but like better, more aggressive, and more drama. The series is about the main character, Neil Josten, who is on the run from his mob boss dad. Neil finds solace in exy and is actually not that bad at it. He goes to college, joins the Palmetto State Foxes exy team, and it’s all uphill (downhill?) from there. This series has unforgettable characters, lots of drugs and violence (don’t read if that triggers you), lots of gay, and lots of exy. For a book series about a sport, All for the game is amazing and I recommend it to everyone looking for a binge read. Note: I’ve heard physical copies are hard to find, but the ebook version is available through the kindle app and probably other places too.

||YA Fantasy||

Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas: oooooookay here we go. This series makes me weep just thinking about it, that’s how much I love it. I don’t think I’ve ever read anything that just hit me. so. hard. So many emotions. The series follows Celaena Sardothein, an assassin, and essentially her journey to becoming herself. Vague, I know, but I seriously cannot give anything away. SJM’s worldbuilding is next level and her characters are probably my favorite aspect of any and all of her books. I’ll also recommend her A Court of Thorns and Roses series here for the same reasons even though it’s been rebranded as “new adult fantasy.” Celaena is probably my favorite main character of all time, and I cannot fully express how much her story means to me. Throne of Glass is easy to follow and great for getting into the fantasy genre if it’s something you’ve never read before. Please give these books a try, I am begging you.

The Remnant Chronicles by Mary E. Pearson: The first book of this trilogy easily has one of the most shocking plot twists I have ever read. If that doesn’t pique your interest, I don’t know what will. Sorry. The Remnant Chronicles is a sort of milder fantasy than Throne of Glass, but fantasy nonetheless and super underrated. I’d recommend this series to people who enjoy stories about the politics of fantasy worlds, romance, and friendship. I let my little sister read my copies and she got through them in less than a week (I think) and could not stop raving about them.

The Raven Cycle by Maggie Steifvater: I think magical realism is a better genre for these books, but I’m putting them here under YA fantasy anyway. Fight me. Above anything else, you will fall in love with these characters. Set in Virginia, the Raven Cycle is honestly strange (in a good way) and tells the story of a group of friends’ quest to find some sleeping Welsh king. While the series is mostly about finding that damn king, there is a healthy amount of romance, swearing, clairvoyance, yogurt, latin, and all around good times. Steifvater’s writing style is unique, and with that it is admittedly a bit difficult to get into at first. But please stick with it! I promise it’s worth it! One of my favorite series ever, highly recommend.

||Short Stories||

Here is a list of short stories I enjoy. Not gonna do a whole synopsis for each, but take my word for it and pls read them.

-Tall Tales from the Mekong Delta by Kate Braverman

-Two Kinds by Amy Tan

-The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

-Jealous Husband Returns in Form of Parrot by Robert Olen Butler

-The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas by Ursula K. Le Guin

-Girl by Jamaica Kincaid

-The Cask of Amontillado by Edgar Allan Poe

-The Secret Goldfish by David Means

-The Lottery by Shirley Jackson

-A Temporary Matter by Jhumpa Lahiri

-The Cavemen in the Hedges by Stacey Richter

-The Bad Graft by Karen Russell

-Eveline by James Joyce

I hope these recommendations are helpful in contributing to your summer reading and on-going TBR list. This is probably not what you were expecting when you simply asked “book recommendations?” but here you go. Happy reading, whoever you are.

#Book Recommendations #nonfiction #fiction #ya #ya fiction #ya fantasy #fantasy #scifi #short story #historical fiction #books #tbr #summer reading #books recs #anon #trc #tog #acotar #aftg

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