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peachy-wolfhard · 2 years

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He’s an asshole but he’s MY asshole (V)

A/N: ngl i cried writing the beginning of this, rewatching the season for this series has been rlly fun (except for the scene where Fei dies rip my queen), OH MY GOD DONT USE THE SCHEDULE THING BC THEN THE TAGS DONT WORK!!!

Taglist at the bottom, feel free to ask to be tagged in upcoming parts!

Warnings: ANGST, girlie u are going THROUGH it, Reggie’s a douche, more angst, y’all almost break up, reader is said to wear a dress but its only a passing comment, drinking, swearing, eating, five might be ooc bc i havent written for him in so long, smoking, sex implications

Word Count: 4.2k

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 6 Part 7

Laying on the pool table yet again in the Hotel Obsidian after your brother and other sister died. Can't seem to fucking escape this place. It's like Hotel California. Great now I’m gonna have that song stuck in my head. Laying on your back, head against the lip of the pool table, you admire the necklace Fei had got you when you were a teenager. Yours had said ‘Best’ while theirs said ‘Friends’. Originally they were black with white lettering but due to time, they had faded to a bronze color with black lettering from the years of filling them in with sharpie. Tearing up you curl into a ball and start to sob. My fucking family is dead, my fucking best friend is dead. Now in the fetal position, you full-body sob, not caring if anyone sees.

Ignoring the ongoing argument in the other room, you go to the buffet trying to find something small to snack on, finding an apple. Using your knife you peel and slice the apple, cutting it into little cubes. The thought of cubes breaks you again, dropping your knife on the floor and dropping to your knees. I want my family back, I want my fucking family, I NEED them. I need Alphonso’s shitty jokes, I need Jayme’s daily existential dread talk, I need Chris’ happy disposition, I need Fei. Sobbing you slide down the wall silently munching on the apple cubes. After a cry sesh, your arms fall to your sides, brushing the matted-down carpet. Looking forward all emotions drained out of you, feeling empty. Deciding to see what the other idiots are up to you head back toward the balcony.

Before walking into the room you hear Ben and Diego arguing. Leaning on the column you watch them argue, numb. “Hey, you guys done? The universe is disappearing outside. So you can keep rearranging the deck chairs of the Titanic if it makes you feel better. But the fact remains that we are too late,” Five says. “Come on, Five,” “It's over Luther, we failed.” “Come on. It cant be over over,” Viktor says. “Yeah, come on, Five. We gotta figure this out, man,” Diego insists. “Okay. How about we take a step back? Look at the big picture here. Most of us have spent the last 28 days trying to stop the world from ending. What exactly have we accomplished?” The room goes silent, the Umbrella’s reflecting on their past 28 days. 28 days ago I wasn't in this shithole and had all my siblings. Walking from your column you stand next to Ben, his arms wrapping instinctively around you. Normally, this would make you smile but not now, not after half of your family died. “Well, we made some friends along the way,” Luther says positively. “Incorrect! You know what we’ve done? Nothing. We made things worse every single time,” Five corrects Luther. Leaning closer to Ben your head leans against his bicep sighing. “Don't save the world.”

“Well, on that…super happy note, we’ve um--oh, what the hell,” Luther says as both he and Sloane stand. “We’ve got a little announcement to make,” “We’re engaged!” they say in unison. “Kill me, Jesus,” Ben mutters making you smile for the first time. Taking the flask out of his hand you take a long drink before giving it back. “Now?” Allison asks. “Yeah. Look, we realize the timing is less than ideal. But, obviously, it's now or never. Am I right, Five?” “Don’t drag me into this, please,” Five says while looking away. “What…Whatever time we have left, we wanna spend it with all of you. So we’re super pumped if you would join us in the banquet hall at 6:00 p.m. for a celebration of our love, and the official union of what's left of our two great families,” Sloane explains. “Dress code is creative black tie.”

Sloane goes around handing out their wedding invitations when Reggie and Klaus return after being gone for days. Klaus explains that they were tangled up in a father-son end-of-the-world road trip. Klaus’ long explanation ends with him saying that he’s now immortal. Huh, so that's what Diego was talking about. After accusing Klaus of getting into bath salts, Reginald asks why we’re playing with jars. “They’re invitations. Luther and I are getting married,” Sloane says to Reggie. “If he goes to their wedding I'm gonna be even more pissed off,” Ben whispers to you. Ah, your wedding was a magical time full of arguing and absent fathers. Sloane hands him an invitation before Luther tells him space is limited and taking it back. Ben picks your invitation up and looks at it, “Ours were better,” he jokes. “Well I mean it's not like they have marketable powers like us,” you continue joking.

“Dad, have you been taking your pills?” Sloane asks. “As a matter of fact, I haven't. And I can confirm that I’ve never felt better in my life. You thought you could dope me up and slow me down, take control of my affairs and squander my fortune,” Reginald says, looking directly at you. He’s always hated me, accusing me of only being with Ben to get a hold of his money, the feelings mutual. “Well, Klaus here was good enough to wean me off that wretched poison, and now that the fog is lifting I can see all your dastardly designs with a bracing clarity.” “You took him off his meds? What were you thinking?” Sloane asks upset. Reginald is then sent into another spiel about how he's the only one thinking and then calls him an impressive young man, causing Diego to laugh. “As for the rest of you, your training is to resume post-haste,” Thank fuck some normalcy in your last couple of days. Ben and you quickly tell him that you're ready. You can tell he’s been waiting for this, to go on a big grandiose mission since the last huge mission was years ago.

Five and Reginald start going back and forth; Five mentions that he talked to Pogo. God, I can't remember the last time I saw him let alone heard his name, I miss him. “Nobody wants you here, Dad,” Luther tells Reginald. “Hey, you don't speak for everyone, big guy,” Ben replies holding your entwined hands up. I don't even wanna be around him, he’s done nothing but make Ben and me feel like shit. I mean he didn't even come to our wedding when it was at his own house! “Feel free to join him.” Before Reggie can continue with another one of his long tirades, Klaus interrupts taking him to ‘have a cup of tea’ in his suite. Diego leaves as Lila quickly follows him; Sloane then leaves presumably to go see what’s up with Reggie, leaving you, Ben, and the Umbrella’s alone.

Walking past Luther and Viktor, Ben holding your hand and pulling you along with him, he overhears Luther mentioning his bachelor party and how “not everyone is invited.” “What was that?” Ben stops making the three of you look at him. “Nothing man, nothing,” Luther shrugs off with a quiet chuckle and smile. Ben quickly continues with you in tow, walking even faster than before. Getting to what you have claimed as your room Ben flops on the bed and sighs deeply. Flopping down next to him you ask “Is everything alright? You’ve been pouting since we left.” Ignoring you and rolling on his side away from you, staring at the wall. “Well, when you want to tell me I’ll be open, not gonna force it out of you,” you say walking towards the door baiting him to say what’s wrong. “Okay fine you pried it out of me,” he says with his usual dramatic flair, rolling onto his back, and staring at the ceiling. “It’s just…why wasn't I invited to the bachelor party?” he asks, completely serious. “Babe, are you joking?” you ask smiling thinking it’s just another one of his pranks. “No, why would I be joking?” he says turning and looking at you now sitting on the bed. “Well I mean you’ve been an asshole to them the entire time they’ve been here,” you tell him. “Listen, I’m gonna find Sloane and see if she needs anything before we get ready.”

Walking to what you remember is Sloane and Luther’s room, you start reflecting on Ben’s actions. Being that you were the only person that truly got to see who Ben was or wanted to be. For everyone (and even sometimes you) he wears a mask of a confident, arrogant leader but in those times when his mask slips you can truly see him. An affection-starved man craving any and all affection and recognition he can get. A man that just wants to be loved and seen by his father. Someone who has played a character so long that he himself doesn't know who he is. Finally, you made it to their room, knocking to the tune of ‘Shave and a Haircut.’ You can hear Sloane yell to come in, walking in you see her sitting in a chair hemming a dress. “Need any help?” you offer secretly hoping that she would say no. “Um, not at the moment but thank you,” she smiles. “You know I can't even believe it,” she confesses. “What the wedding or the end of the world?” “Oh shut up, you know what I meant. I just can’t believe I’m getting married,” she says smiling down at her dress. “I mean I always thought and dreamt of this day and now it’s finally here. Did you feel like this?” Sloane asks looking up at you like a little kid asking for their mom’s advice. “Well truth be told no, but that’s just because Ben and I aren't romantics, unlike you and Luther,” you say playfully rolling your eyes at the last part.

“So it’s official. My ears are broken and the idiot with knives really can’t sing,” Ben says barging in on you and Sloane’s alone time, the first part making Sloane jump at his sudden appearance. “Diego. You know his name is Diego.” Caught in the middle yet again. “Maybe you should try and be nice to him and the others,” Sloane says running out of patience for Ben. “And why would I do that?” “As much as I’d love to work through your anger issues right now, I have to get back to this. The wedding is in an hour,” she exasperatedly said, patience wearing thinner by the moment. “Fei is dead,” Ben says, reminding you about half of your family being dead and you soon too. “Yeah. I know. And so are the others.” “Oh, so that's it? You’re just gonna turn your back on the Sparrow Academy? I mean you heard Dad. we have training to do. Something big is about to go down.” “Ben, shut up,” you jump in, defending Sloane. “I wish you were talking about my wedding,” Sloane says sadly. “Okay, Sloane listen to me--” “No. You listen to me. I’m sorry they didn't invite you to the bachelor party,” Sloane says ever the nicest person in the room. “I don't…I don't care about that.” “yes, you do,” you and Sloane say in sync. “You care more about being invited to the bachelor party than Fei or the others or even saving the world.” “That's--that's... That's crazy,” Ben says chuckling awkwardly and looking at the ceiling before putting the mask back on and going back to his serious leader act.

“Is it? The three of us have never been alone. It's always been the eight of us. Now it’s just you,” Sloane says, Ben scoffing at her. “So congratulations, Ben. you're finally number one of one.” Ben looks at you incredulously, “So you’re not a Sparrow anymore?” “Why would I wanna be one?” you say about to cry for the millionth time today. Ben’s face drops for a second, looking you directly in the eyes, sadness written all over his face. “You don't mean that,” he says quiet enough that Sloane can’t hear. “Maybe I do,” looking at him tears in your eyes. “What’s so damn special about them anyway?” Ben resumes the conversation with Sloane. “They’re a real family. They don't exist to sell action figures and tote bags.” “We were more than that,” Ben tries to defend. “Were we?” No, we weren't. We were only a thing to deter crime (which didnt work) and sell merch. Hell, my own wedding had merch. “Why is it so important to you to be a Sparrow?” that's what pushes Ben to leave, quickly he walks out the door just before trying to grab your hand and pull you along unsuccessfully.

Time for a wedding! Dressed all fancy in a black gown that you found in one of the abandoned hotel rooms. You haven't spoken to Ben in an hour and a half, only seeing him here for the first time in that hour and a half. “What’s the deal with them?” Klaus leans to Five and asks. “I have no idea, could be because we’re all gonna die,” Five says matter of factly. Standing next to Allison, Ben walks toward you, “You look…so fucking good,” Ben says hoping to make amends. “Thank you. You look good too,” you say smiling while taking a drink of your champagne easing yourself into your night of hard-drinking. Standing next to you Ben grabs your hand and starts playing with your fingers smiling. “Hey. I love you,” he whispers, leaning into your neck causing you to smirk. “Love you too,” you say now giving him a sip of your drink. After that Luther and Viktor arrive, “I don't know. Normally, my tush looks good,” Luther says walking out of the elevator with Viktor. As soon as they walk out Allison and Viktor are already quralling. Luther whispers something to the both of them before raising his voice, saying “Bah, bah, bah! My day! Two hours. Do you think you can manage that?” Viktor replies with a ‘fine.’

The elevator bell rings and everyone faces toward to elevator. The seconds that it takes for the doors to open are painstakingly long, making you anxious and excited to see your sister. This was the day she would meticulously plan out when you two were in your teens, documenting everything she wanted in a large binder down to the lighting, and now it's finally here; albeit at the end of the world and planned over a night and a few hours. Looking at her you smile, “Let’s get this over with before I die of cringe,” Ben interrupts the beautiful scene of Luther seeing Sloane in her dress and the sweet moment the two of you were sharing.

The marriage was ordained by Klaus who gave a very eventful but meaningful officiant speech. Sitting on the left side next to Ben, you interact whenever Klaus says something that warrants it, such as him yelling “Can I get an amen?” to which everyone except Ben makes noise. Glancing towards him he's pouting again. I’m not his fucking mom, I’m not gonna babysit him the entire night. I actually want to have a good last day. “I pronounce you married as shit! Viva la apocalypse!” Klaus yells as Sloane and Luther kiss, making the tiny crowd cheer. After watching Sloane and Luther have their first dance, you start looking at the food spread; the cookies and brownies catch your eye more than the other foods. After putting the food on your plate (and grabbing a bottle of vodka) you turn around to look where to sit. You could sit with Ben and Allison and have the joy sucked out of you or Diego and Lila and have to deal with their mushy love talk or you could sit with Five, someone who you haven't gotten to know yet.

Sitting down across from Five he looks up from his food and nods to acknowledge you. Looking back toward Allison and Ben; the latter staring at you. “So I take it things aren't going so good with Ben and you,” Five comments chowing down on a pastry on the table and taking a looong drink. “Rather not talk about that, right now I just wanna get as fucked up as possible,” you say smirking while sitting the bottle down on the table. “Okay, I have some questions,” you say watching as Five pours himself another drink. “Are you actually like a kid or is it some time-travel fuckery?” you ask the burning question that’s been on your mind since you saw him and Ben fighting. Five goes on to explain the first apocalypse and him being stuck there for 40 years and how he’s actually a 53-year-old man. “Huh. so you’re a little old man,” you say as Viktor sits down next to you.

Getting up from your seat after talking with your new in-laws, bottle in hand you walk toward Ben’s table and flop down in the seat next to him, setting the bottle between you two. The elevator bell chimes making everyone look over and see Reginald walking in, making the room so silent, even the music. Reginald walks over and gets himself a plate and starts looking for a seat. “What is he doing here?” Ben asks rhetorically. “But who invited him?” “just sit and suffer with me,” Allison says making you giggle. “I can’t even get invited to a bachelor party and he’s invited to this?” “Wow. you really can't relax,” Allison comments making you giggle again. “Y/n, are you okay?” she asks, making a confused face at you now laying your head on the table. “Oh my god, how are you already drunk?” Ben asks in disbelief. “Well you see, in my grief, I perhaps stumbled upon the open bar and perhaps may have started the celebrating earlier than the rest. I mean come on, we’re on the edge of oblivion and you people expect me not to day drink,” you say smirking “And! I’m not drunk yet.” Leaning on Ben’s shoulder, you watch how awkward the wedding has become, no one making eye contact with Reggie. The awkwardness is semi-broken by Lila and Diego, Lila wanting Diego to introduce them. Watching them was nice, Lila and Reginald actually had things in common and got to talking, impressing Diego.

After the nice moment between Lila and Reginald, Allison had gotten up leaving you and a now pouting Ben alone. Ben and you had managed to drink almost half the bottle in addition to the numerous glasses of champagne. Now you both were laying your head on the table staring at each other, Ben laying on his plate of shrimp. Klaus soon made his rounds to your table; he had been doing this all night walking from table to table and person to person trying to convince them Reggie is good now. Guess it’s our turn. “Hey, Ben-ihana and lovely little eight,” Klaus starts. “Don't hit me!” he jokes sitting down at your table. “I know we all ain’t been best buds in this timeline or whatever, but man, do I have a mission for you--” Ben interrupts him by belching verrry loudly in his face making you giggle, still laying on the table. “Eleven people,” Ben says ominously making Klaus question. “There are only eleven people left,” “Ten and a half, I’m not all here at the moment,” you say making Klaus chuckle. “Okay. Drunk Ben clearly likes numbers and… shrimp,” Klaus says still trying to recover from Ben’s shrimp burp.

“And you couldn't even invite me to your stupid bachelor party.” “Oh. Have we finally flicked off bad Benny’s hard candy shell?” Klaus says rubbing his arm. “Why don't you like me? Or us?” Ben asks making you move next to his shoulder, cheek touching his jacket looking at Klaus. “Because you’re huge puckering assholes.” “Okay, but you like the other Ben and y/n,” Ben says annoyed and clearly sad. “Yeah, we love the other yous,” Klaus says with a hint of sadness. “Why? What’s so special about them?” “Because he was a know-it-all. He was a scold. He was a tiny dark cloud on a perfect sunny day,” Klaus laughs after that. “What about me? What was so special about the other me?” you ask now becoming increasingly curious and intrigued. “Oh my god, they were a pain. An emo with a preference for sulking and being pretentious in a corner. Know-it-all just like Benny,” Klaus explains about you, well the other you. “Those.. those are all bad things about us,” Ben says after looking down at his shrimp. “Yeah, and they looked great on you two.” “Okay, you know what? We are so much better than that other Ben and y/n. I was number one--” “Twice,” you interject. “And-and they ripped people’s throats out.” “Oh yeah, did that all the time in my timeline. Does Dad give a shit?” Klaus says before asking Ben. “No. he was busy hanging out with you” Ben whispers poking Klaus. “Oh, man, methinks you might be trying a little too hard. Look around. Nobody’s polishing their boots or pressing their tights. We’re a complete and total shit show. Ya get it? And our Ben and y/n, my Ben and y/n, were just that kind of disaster and it made them ridiculously easy to love,” Klaus says, sighing at the thought of his deceased siblings, before getting up to leave you two alone.

The speeches started after Klaus left and went back to Lila and Diego’s table. Reginald was first, talking about Sloane when she was little, calling Luther adequate, and talking about how he wishes that his shortcomings will be seen only as a rough patch. “I’m proud to call you my children, even those I raised in a revenant version of myself,” Reginald continues, glancing around the room before stopping on you, making you look toward Ben in disbelief. Holy shit, the man that wouldn't even acknowledge that Ben and I are married called me his child! Reggie’s speech continues and finally ends with a poem, Allison leaves making everyone look toward the walking woman. “Makes, no sense,” Ben says still eating his many shrimp as everyone starts applauding at Reginald’s newfound kindness. “All right! All right! Time to turn those frowns upside down. This one is for all my party people in the place,” the concierge turned now wedding D.J says, as everyone gets up and starts dancing on the dancefloor.

Dancing around with your new family and husband felt nice, it felt like it was just a normal wedding on a normal day. After all of the fast and upbeat songs played then started the slow songs. Arms wrapped around Ben’s neck while his arms around your waist the both of you sway drunkenly together. Looking up at him, you plant a small kiss on the end of his scar making him smile, and put his face into your neck and start kissing it. “Noooo, stop,” you say smiling and pushing him away jokingly. “No, come back here,” he says pulling you back before snuggling his face back into your neck. Leaving the dancefloor you and Ben go back to your seat. While sitting and drunkenly talking Klaus shows up and the three of you start walking around the hotel property.

Towards the end of the night Klaus, you, and Ben arrive back at the wedding noticeably more drunk than before. “Oh no no no no no!” someone shouts. “Klaus, why are you bringing Ben here?” Five asks. “Hear me out before--” “Hear him out,” you and Ben shout in sync as you take your shared cigarette away from Ben. “The brother that you all knew as Ben is gone. And not-- I don’t mean our Ben, the nice Ben. I mean this Ben, he’s gone now. The asshole, he’s gone now,” Klaus exclaims. “But that's what I liked about you, my asshole,” you say sadly looking at Ben. “Klaus, what are you talking about?” Luther asks. Klaus ignoring his question continues, “And the man that stands in front of you is new new Ben, and he’s one of us, and he’s a member of the team. And he’s part of the family!” Ben and Klaus shout the last statement in unison. “And as a welcome gift, I suggest we throw him off the roof,” Five says making you laugh. “Ha! They like me more!” you gloat at Ben. “Yeah, I’ll help,” Diego agrees with Five. “You know what. You know what. He can stay. He can stay,” Luther says. “And baby eight?” Klaus says holding your shoulders and giving puppy eyes. “They’ve been welcome to stay,” Diego says making you smile as you walk over with Klaus and Ben.

Almost as soon as you sit down everyone starts heading to bed. Standing up you pull Ben along with you, “I’m ‘sleepy’ if you get my meaning,” you say to Ben too loudly. Taking a moment to understand what you meant, Ben then realizes it, “huh? Sleepy? But-- Oh!” he says before speed walking with you toward to elevator.

Taglist highlighted means unable to tag: @0x1lovesonq @bryannabarradas @onmyumbrellaacademyfanera @4okkotsu @gloriousstudentoperamug @j-panic @salted-fis @siriusly-rem-writes @gamingdevil101 @sanguinelabyrinth @muzanslander12 @mihhggvggh @choichaeyiul @mitsuri-darling @birbtweettweet @choclate32 @ddeonubaby @nao-cchi @i-bitch-you-bitch @mylesofasgard @darlingsuna @blogname197 @mivzai @emmeowo @yanelly1085 @mukbee @aceofspades190 @jui36oxx @iamasimpsstuff @hawkinsbylers @fanficwritersworld @natsgaygf @divergentnewt23 @fantasyfiction-net @electronicvoidcat @benarino @papaskazoo @cole-silas @strawberryheartsstuff

#masterlist #ben hargreeves x reader #sparrow!ben x reader #the umbrella academy x reader #tua x reader #umbrella academy x reader #the umbrella academy #umbrella academy spoilers #ben hargreeves imagine

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totheidiot · 1 month

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intro post :)))

i didn't have one for the longest time but i am trying to organize my blog so here is one !! name is arian. pronouns are he/him. arospec sex-averse asexual. minor but i guess i do interact with nsfw posts like sex jokes and read the fanfiction. i love love writing and you WILL know by my posts. i draw sometimes too but only a few select people are allowed to see (few select meaning like One mutual).

fandoms !

stranger things - all posts tagged under #the monster show that got really popular - don't exactly post so much about it? you might see this tag only when i might be engaging with my st mutuals or when i post a fanfiction update

the magnus archives - all posts tagged under #rusty quill presents: this man has too many eyes. - a tag you shall see very often !! have not begun s5 (will touch that probably, next month?) but got hugely spoilered for it.

the magnus protocol - all posts tagged under #rusty quill presents: the lack of eyes is causing me unease. - i am in the place with most of the fandom ! waiting for the next episode that is.

the goldfinch - all posts tagged under #the gay bird book - you will probably never see it now, still worth checking out my old posts? i don't even remember if they were good or not.

tags !

#🍂 arian's shit : all text post that i wrote myself ! every post i didn't reblog, all of that !! even some reblogs are tagged with this if i add a lot of my own thoughts to another post.

#🪐 arian's asks : my replies to asks i get :) anons are tagged with #those who have no name and the hate anons are tagged with #those who deserve no name i only got one hate anon even that was in my old blog but it's best to be prepared ! if it's not an anon ask, i will tag it with the asker's username or if they are mutual, they get a special tag !

#📷 arian's friends <33 : all the interaction with my mutuals and friends <3

#📝 arian writes fanfiction : pretty self explanatory !! all the times i mention my fanfiction !

☁ arian's very complicated and strange dreams : a very miscellaneous tag ! basically talking about my dreams

#🌌 arian contemplates his universe : textposts written by me that are not really connected to a specific fandom. posts might get a bit personal/random/vent-y

fanfiction !

the goldfinch

things we don't talk about . : xandra hears strange, loud and suspicious noises from theo’s bedroom. upon closer inspection, she discovers that boris is staying the night. the next morning, she confronts them about it. 1/1 , tw references to alcohol, implications of underage sex, internalized homophobia. not my best work at all, but you can read this one !!

six of crows

a fool's game : modern era hs au where the crows are hired by their principal van eck to steal the rival school fjerda high's mascot before the games. 6/? abandoned. tws of six of crows really. don't read this one, abandoned and i don't know how to even feel about this.

stranger things

i got your letter (hope you feel better than i do) : will gets sent a series of anonymous love letters in his locker. mike's been awfully quiet about this. 2/2, tw internalized homophobia. i don't really like this one but it's been very well-received so you can give this shot if you !

your apparition passes through me : that's the masterpost, everything you need to know :)) DO read this one, this is still very much ongoing <3

we both matter (don't we?) : mike asks max if she could go to California with him on spring break. that sounds like a bad idea, but she goes for it. el is unhappy in lenora; she is not in love with one of her first friends, but she is painfully in love with the certain red-haired skateboarder girl, who makes her laugh. 1/2 i have no idea if there will be a continuation? this was really good in my opinion, kind of sucks that it didn't get any love :((

upcoming !

stranger things

two byler fanfiction, both coincidentally i'll be co-writing with mutuals :). one of them is a eeaao au, written with @qulizalfos and the other is very longfic, slightly crack fic written with @iamtheoneandonlyever that documents mike and will's life from college, all the way to their fifties.

the magnus archives

আমি তো চক্ষুর বস্ত্র ধরে / দেখতে পাই অতীত, ভবিষ্যত, পৃথিবীর অধ্যাত্ম। : a character study of jonathan sims, before being the Archivist. all written entirely in bangla, bangladeshi!jon obviously, a focus on his language, his grandmother and his culture. only like two people in the fandom probably can read this.

#🍂 arian's shit

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absolutebl · 2 years

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This Week in BL

July 2022 Wk 2

Being a highly subjective assessment of one tiny corner of the interwebs. Organized by which ones (in each category) I’m enjoying the most.

Ongoing Series - Thai

Triage (grey) Ep 12 - Tol’s turn to fix the timeline - well he can’t do any worse, right? I found this episode a little frustrating, but I still think this is one of the better high concept Thai BL‘s I’ve seen in a long time. I’m reminded a little of Great mMen Academy for some reason (much as I question if GMA is a BL). I’m excited to see howTriage ends, but also glad next one is the final ep. Where Triage falls down, for me, like Manner of Death, is going to be in rewatchability. I think once the element of surprise is removed, there isn’t enough romance holding this show together to make me want to rewatch it. But I think the story is a lot better for having not been that romantic. It’s just I happen to be a romantic at heart.

Love Mechanics (Sun WeTV) Ep 4-5 - ep 4: of course the cheating gf is hurt in a car accident with her rich boyfriend#2 and Vee rushes back to her and then makes eye contact with Mark who he is hurting even more. Because why not MORW PAIN? This whole series is basically a diatribe against cheating and the one honest gay reaps all the punishment. And yet I CAN’T STOP WATCHING. Stupid genius YinWar. Also I do love Poppy turning up, he’s got to be one of my favorite character actors in the BL universe, right up there with Gunsmile. Watching Vee lose everything was cathartic, his family, friends, and Marke are too good for him. He is a lovable asshole tho. I am both delighted and terrified that we have 6 more episodes of this nonsense. Ep 5, why are these cheaters so cute? Because it is YinWar, that’s why. Also I love it when Mark gets his own back against Vee, even if it’s just teasing and standing up for himself. Don’t ask, I didn’t get the bit with Vee’s dad either. Lots of good brother characters this summer in BL. Meanwhile Yawhe is figuring everything out.

Vice Versa (Sat on YouTube) Ep 1 - The meet cute was awkward and I don’t love that. Jimmy (Puen) is lovely, of course. The lead (Lay) is okay, I haven’t fully warmed to him. (Hooray for a butch character! Even if they had to use body swap to explain them. Notice mostly no polite particles?) I like the concept of this show. You know me, I’m big into paranormal and magical realism and skewed reality. I’m engaged with that if nothing else. And then Nanon waltzes in holding a goddamn guitar and I’m mad at the whole universe.

Unforgotten Night (Weds on GaGa) Ep 4 - I am beginning to think we should be calling this show Forgotten Kink rather than Unforgotten Night. Actually, this week was fine, we got a bit more of the side couple, whom I am now officially calling P’Daddy and Baby Boy. Also I may a UFO pun joke. Go me. TRASH WATCH IS HERE!

Sky in Your Heart (Fri YouTube) Ep 7 - How is this show now boring, corny, AND cheesy? Also I’m starting to get bad secondhand embarrassment. And then... the white sponge bath, of course.

Even Sun (Wed iQIYI) Ep 3 - They are pretty, it pretty, that’s it. I’m so bored.

Check Out (Sat IQIYI) Ep 6 - World’s most boring date? Mostly I was just confused by the random English letters on Daonuea’s shirt and wondering if I could get one like it with Thai script (since it’s so pretty). In other news, should I start a vomit trigger warning for BL shows? Why do people throw up so much? We don’t have to SEE it, ya know?

My Secret Love (Sat YouTube Sat) Ep 7 - Interesting that they call GL yuri in Thailand. That’s it. That’s all I got.

War of Y has semi started or something? Whatever.

Oh My Sunshine Night (?) - Ep 1 I managed the first ep without subs but it seems really really sad. I am nto sure I am in the right mind set for this one so I think I will wait until 1. I know if it ends happily, and 2. It’s easier to get internationally.

Ongoing Series - Not Thai

Minato Shouji Coin Laundry (Japan Weds GaGa) Ep 3 - currently my favorite show by a land slide. I like everything about it, the questionable content and relationship, the age gap, the characters, Shin’s obsessive staler edgy intensity, the side boy with the terrible hair. The food. ALL OF IT. Minato’s feelings for his sensei are an interesting parallel to Shin‘s feelings for Minato - and explain both why Minato is sympathetic to Shin and dismissive of him at the same time. When Minato admits to his feelings for his high school teacher, Shin final understands Minato’s reluctance, or thinks he does. I feel Minato deeply, he’s sunshine honesty and core integrity does not allow him to outright lie to Shin that he isn’t attracted, which goes up against his ethical scruples around their age gap. There’s an interesting dialogue going on within this show around how seriously to take teenage love and first true desire (simultaneously the most intense of our lives and the most scary for the adults around us) and how it’s belittled by society as a result. I should note at this juncture that the age of consent in Japan is 13, the lowest of any developed country. However, most prefectures also have local "corruption of minors" or "obscenity statutes" (淫行条例) which raise that AoC to 16-18, unless they are in a "sincere romantic relationship" (usually determined by parental consent). Are we going to meet Shin’s parents and large family under this context? I’d really like it if we did. Japan may be reserved in its romances but it usually attacks social criticism and difficult content head on (unlike Korea), so I wouldn’t be surprised if we got this topic grappled with directly. See Japan’s approach to noona romances.

Want to See You (Vietnam YT) Ep 6-7-8 - Far be it for me to say this with our prince of VBL but I don’t think that these leads have any chemistry. Sad, that’s usually not one of Vietnam’s issues. The brother character remains my favorite and a best boy and the only reason I’m still watching this show.

Senpai, Danjite Koidewa! (Japan Fri Viki) Ep 4 - We are halfway through this one, and I’m still not sure if I like it. It’s just too cringe. Also they keep reusing a lot of footage.

Gameboys 2 movie - didn’t drop for me in the USA on gaga.

Love in Spring AKA Spring of Crush (Korea grey) Ep 15-16 - A suitably tragic ending (including an Untamed call back) for all the bad characters and some of the good ones. I liked the psychopath second lead best - apparently my second lead syndrome extends to COMPLETELY INSANE. In the end, this drama was all over the place with uneven acting, narrative, and focus (sometimes it wanted to be a slapstick comedy, sometimes a depressing drama) which meant no one, actors or viewers, took anyone or anything seriously.... AND it’s a bromance. I was left wondering is SalHyung is now code for “they were roommates” in Kdrama historicals but otherwise largely apathetic and unimpressed. Korea, we now know you can do better. Watch Tinted With You or Nobleman Ryu’s Wedding instead: 3/10 not recommended, I don’t know what I’m watching, and neither does it. Full review here.

Gossip

Japan to adapt yaoi Takara Kun To Amagi Kun as Takara-kun and Amagi-kun. Oriyama Nao and Sato Arata will star, and rumors of the leads from My Love Mix-up putting in a cameo. 8 epes. About a popular guy and an outcast boy who secretly like each other, and soon after start dating in secret. Premieres August 18 no word on distribution yet.

Japan to produce The 8.2 Second Rule AKA 8.2 Byo no Hosoku about a boy finding his first love.

Korea’s Kidari Studio to adapt Happy Merry Ending about two men who work with wedding events, grumpy/sunshine pairing.

Blueming is getting a season 2. This is one of my favorites from this year (9/10). I am not thrilled about this decision. It’s the same director as TMS2, and I didn’t like that one all that much. Still, I’ll probubly watch it. I’m very intersted in where Korea goes when it’s given enough rope to hang itself with.

Next Week Looks Like This:

I think Coffee Melody is to start tomorrow on Viki? (Pavel my love!)

NOTE: There probubly will not be a weekly update next Sunday from yours truly. I have a busy week of remote work (with the meetings and the deadline) and then a (cough cough) college reunion thingy. So yeah. Don’t think I’m dead, okay?

This week’s best moments?

Can’t lie, I’m a big fan of the boyfriend sniff test.

I feel this in my bones... or shoudl I say stomach?

Sing it with me now... jealousy!

And a meeting of the Marks. (I used to think War & Mark looked A LOT like each other, but now I really don’t anymore). I hope Mark IRL really is really in Love Mechanics. I love him so much. He’d make a great boyfriend for heartbroken rich boy Nuea.

(last week)

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ttttaehyungie · 3 years

Text

an exercise in restraint | jjk x reader

an exercise in restraint | jeon jungkook x reader

genre | established relationship, smut, pwp

summary | Wandering hands need to be trained with self-restraint.

rating | 18+

word count | 3.7k words

warnings | subby jk, vvv slight exhibitionism (inappropriate touching in public places), no touching rule, nipple play, oral fixation, cum eating, jealousy/insecurity but they talk it out bcos we love healthy communication ✌🏻

a/n | that blonde jk selfie made me do it

When she walks into the apartment ahead of him wordlessly, he gulps. He’s in trouble.

It's not anger that emanates off her. It's not the brooding kind of silence that’s filling the atmosphere as she ignores him.

No. The aura that radiates off her is unmistakable.

It's domineering.

He calls her name, voice edged with the slightest hint of worry, but she pays him no response. In the emptiness of the silence, he has no clue what thoughts exactly her head is filled with. Trembling, he tries again, "I'm sorry."

She halts. Purposeful steps come to a stop. They're standing before his bedroom door and despite the obvious familiarity of the physical space before him, he shivers at the uncertainty that lies ahead. "Are you now?" she asks, her voice clear and unwavering. Her words grip him.

Without waiting for his response, she pushes the door open and enters the room like she owns it. She may as well have. It certainly feels like she owns him.

Standing in the center of the room, she finally turns to face him. Her expression is neutral, but her gaze is firm and pins him in place where he hesitates in the doorway.

"Come here." At her word, he obeys. He stands before her, toes scrunching against the stiffness of the hardwood floor beneath him. Despite his height advantage over her, he feels infinitely smaller, his head bowed in admonishment. "What are you sorry for?"

He chews on his lip. Shame fills him.

With a hand on his chin, she directs his gaze away from the floor to meet hers. She prompts him with a simple but expectant, "Hm?"

"I'm sor- I'm sorry for, for getting jealous," he mumbles, averting his eyes.

"Look at me." His eyes dart back to hers. But this time he finds gentleness in her gaze. "There's nothing wrong with being jealous, Jungkook. Although I wish you would have talked to me about it instead of bottling it up to yourself. It's been, what, two weeks now since I made that comment about him."

Just as the sensation of release that accompanies relief blooms in his chest as he thinks he's off the hook, her gaze hardens again as she continues, “But what is not okay is your inappropriate touches in the middle of our dinner with Namjoon."

Something within Jungkook tightens at the sound of his name. Whatever shame that had previously filled him was now singed into nothing by the flare of jealousy that bursts within him.

Tonight was not the first time the three of them had dined together. As her best friend of over a decade now, Namjoon came over to hang out together frequently enough that Jungkook was beginning to consider him his own friend. Namjoon was cool – dorky enough to be relatable, yet composed with a certain air of sophistication brought by his intellect such that he easily commanded Jungkook's respect. And Jungkook had walked into his current relationship with his eyes wide open. He'd known about the close friendship his girlfriend shared with Namjoon and didn't want to be the jealous boyfriend who broke precious friendships apart. And he had been doing well, had been genuinely chill about it.

Well, he had been, up until that little comment from two weeks ago.

It was a lighthearted remark, just an offhand comment. Mindlessly scrolling through her Facebook feed on that lazy Saturday afternoon, she came across an engagement announcement by two of her friends. The comments were filled with people gushing over how perfect their story was, being childhood best friends and all. She laughed and rolled her eyes at that. "It's all so romanticized. But what's so romantic about knowing someone before their puberty glow up? Hell, maybe we should ask Namjoon what he saw in pubescent me!"

His ears perked up at that. "What?"

"Oh, yeah, Namjoon confessed to me once when we were, like, fourteen? Can you believe it? The upper limit to my fashion sense back then was my scruffy jeans and bright magenta jacket!”

Gentle fingers pry his own out of the tight fist they had clenched themselves into, simultaneously prying him out of his reverie and back to the present. Sliding her hand into his, she frowns at him. “If you were jealous, you should have just talked to me about it.”

“But it’s so silly,” he said, immediately prompting her to shake her head.

“Your emotions are not silly, Kook,” she said. “It’s my fault, my blind spot that I didn’t expect it, and I’m sorry if I made you feel insecure about our relationship.”

Lowering his head to rest on her shoulder, he pouts as he hides his face in the warm comfort found in the crook of her neck.

“Whatever happened back then is in the past. I rejected him because I felt we were better as just friends, and it took him some time, but ultimately he agreed. And I swear, that was the one and only time. We’ve been nothing more than best friends after that,” she continues, and the words roll over him in waves of reassurance that synchronize with the slow strokes of her thumb over his knuckles. “I’m yours, and yours only, Kook.”

His free hand slides up to grip at her waist possessively. “Mine?” he asks.

“Yours,” she promises. The tight feeling in his chest begins to loosen itself. Things will be okay. They’ll work through this.

Smiling at him, she speaks again, her voice laced with mirth this time, “But what shall we do about your misbehavior tonight?”

He hadn’t been able to help himself. The worries that he left unaddressed in his refusal to talk about his jealous emotions resulted in an unpleasant dread making its home in the pit of his stomach, displacing his appetite as he sat in the cushioned bench of the restaurant. As he watched his girlfriend respond to Namjoon’s jokes with the carefree laughter that Jungkook so adored, he felt the jealousy rise in his chest, fill him, and he left his dinner half-eaten and abandoned to go cold on its plate.

The gnawing thought that she was slipping out of his hands spurred his next actions. As if needing to hold her back to him, he placed a hand on her thigh. And when she shivered at his touch – throwing him a quick questioning glance, but nothing more – her reaction further fueled him. The inane need to stake a claim on her, to remind her of whose she was, began to overtake him, and his hand slowly but steadily slid higher and higher. Watching his tattooed knuckles slither up the smooth skin of her exposed thigh was a welcome distraction from the ongoing conversation. With their legs tucked under the table, Namjoon was none the wiser from where he sat across from them. And with their table in the corner of the dimly lit room, they were adequately concealed from the danger of any wandering eyes of the other diners. Still, it all felt so illicit, but also oh so thrilling. Curiosity at just how far he could take things clouded his senses and he ignored the way she shoved his hand down when they brushed the edge of her short skirt. His hand crept up again, and this time it got to the hem of her panties and traced along the elastic. Just as he angled his hand to stroke a lone finger up where he knows her slit is, her thighs clamped shut. Under the table, she swiftly pulled his hand away before she gave his thigh a meaningful pinch.

“Sorry Namjoon,” she said, with a saccharine sweet smile on her face. But Jungkook knew better. “I think Jungkook’s had a long day. Do you mind if we head off first?”

Back in the bedroom, she steps away from him, and he whines at the loss of contact. But when she tuts at him, he falls quiet.

“My naughty boy,” she scolds, voice light but firm. “Being so dirty and trying to touch me in public. I think I need to teach you a lesson in restraint today.” Her hand runs gently down his chest and he suppresses a shiver. “Will you be good for me, Koo?” At the sound of his pet name, the name she only ever evokes in times like this, he immediately nods. She smirks. “Sit on the bed.”

He’s quick to obey, sitting attentively at the edge of his bed. She takes his hands in hers, looking them over, admiring them. “Such beautiful hands. But so, so naughty today, wandering to places they shouldn’t have been.” She places them down on the bed just by his sides. “No moving.”

Then, she backs up to stand front and center in his vision. Knowing that his eyes will be glued to her, she runs her hands over herself, tracing the curves that she knows he’s dying to touch. Arching into her own touch, she releases the buttons of her blouse one by one in a teasing fashion, letting the fabric fall open to reveal the satiny sheen of her bra. Unzipping her skirt, she shimmies her way out of the garment. A tinge of self-consciousness creeps in at the thought of her plain undergarments and how they must pale in comparison to some of the raunchier lingerie sets she’s worn in the past. But Jungkook looks at her like she’s a pin-up model all the same, slack-jawed and pupils dilated. And it gives her the boost she needs to carry on.

Shrugging her blouse off, she saunters over to him and climbs to hover just above his lap. His hands twitch but stay where they are. Her fingers comb their way through the smooth locks of his blond hair, and she watches as his eyes flutter shut under the attention. He’s so, so pretty for her as he succumbs to her touch. Tilting his head back gently to have him look back up at her, she asks, “Tell me what you want.”

“You.” His voice is petulant. “I want to touch you so bad.”

“Do you deserve to touch me after your behavior tonight?”

He shakes his head wordlessly, taking his punishment. Smirking at his obedience, she hoists herself off to sit on the bed beside him, legs crossed and leaned back, the picture of self-assured confidence.

“Strip for me,” she directs simply.

It takes him a second to process her words. But when he does, he snaps to it, whipping his shirt and slacks off. But when he makes to pull his boxer briefs down, she stops him.

“Nuh uh. Those stay on.”

She scoots back and spreads her legs, patting the space between them to get him to come sit. As he does, he can feel the smooth slide of the satin material of her bra against his back, and he longs for the warm plush feel of her breasts against him.

But before he can get too lost in his own want, she grabs his hands to place them on his thighs. “Show me you can restrain yourself,” she says.

Meanwhile, her own hands go skimming up said thighs. Up, up, up, they slide, past the tingly ticklish sides and raking with a featherlight touch between his pecs that have his nipples perking up and begging for attention, his dick twitching in his briefs.

She strokes his collarbone and leans in to whisper in his ear, warm breath puffing against the sensitive skin and her smooth voice delivered directly into his ear makes it feel like she’s everywhere, like she’s overtaken all of his senses. “Will you be good for me?”

He keens out a yes. It’s all he can ever manage when it’s her.

Then, quick as a bolt, her hand drops down to stroke his cock through the cotton material of his briefs. With a pressure that is barely there, merely ghosting over the outline of his erection, her hand pauses where his precum has created a damp spot in the heather grey material. She swipes it ever so lightly with her pointer finger and giggles. “Is this for me?”

He nods, eyes squeezing shut as she rubs her finger over the tip of his dick. He groans out his answer, “Only for you.”

Her hand resumes the torturously fleeting touches over his erection, toying with him. Her legs are hooked over his, anchoring her to him as her hands run free. The smooth skin of her legs is right there. Right there, mere inches from his hands. But he’s not allowed to touch. Jungkook thinks he just might lose his mind. But then her finger comes tapping at his lips, and presses two into the warm, wet cavern.

She knows all about his oral fixation by now. It’s hard not to notice it when, despite every post-orgasm haze, he’s latching onto something of hers, be it a tit or her fingers or sometimes an intense but slow and languorous make-out session. Well-acquainted with his preferences by now, she gives him exactly what he needs. Jungkook sucks on the two fingers she’s granted him like it’s a lifeline, and it eases the ache for him somewhat.

But very soon it becomes insufficient, and his hips begin to rut upwards, seeking more than just the gentle sweeps over his cock that she’s graced him with so far.

“Please,” he begs. “No more teasing.”

But instead of giving him more, she covers his mouth with her hand, continuing relentlessly with the excruciating lightness of her touches. The resultant whine that comes out of him is muffled underneath her palm.

“You’ll take only what I give you,” she says. But as she finishes her sentence, she adds pressure to her strokes, relieving his want just enough to entice him yet keep him on edge.

He writhes against her, but each time his hips lift for more, she pulls away. He can’t even ask for more with the way her tiny hand silences him, the hot gasps that escape him puffing against her palm.

“You need to practice self-restraint,” she coos. He whimpers, and tries his best to control himself, to be obedient for her.

Trembling in the arms that snake around him, he attempts to get a grip on himself. Taking deep, shuddering breaths for what feels like multiple eternities, he finally calms himself down. Aside from the occasional reflexive twitch, he’s gotten himself under control, abs clenched tightly as he keeps a tight rein on his desire.

“Such a good boy for me,” she murmurs her praise, and she finally releases the palm that was over his mouth, stroking his hair back affectionately to tuck it behind his ear.

Then, her hand descends onto a dusky nipple, tweaking it and running slow circles around it, and his moan is released unrestrained and bouncing off the walls of his bedroom. Her hand slips down, down, down. Delicate fingers caress his balls, and it takes all the self-control that he can possibly summon not to thrust upwards, not to move his hands to grab her tiny ones in his, not to use the physical strength he possesses that he knows will easily domineer over hers to flip her over and pin her down and have his way with her already.

Instead, his hands grip at his knees where they’ve remained all this time. His nails dig into his flesh, creating little indents of crescent moons. Seeing this, she tells him to relax. At her gentle coaxing, he begins to release the tension held within his taut muscles one by one. He lets go, eyes falling shut as he lets himself flow with the languid strokes she unhurriedly palms through his briefs.

At his display of obedience, there’s nothing but contentment in her voice as she murmurs, “So good for me.”

Hearing this, he decides to try his luck. “Please,” he begs, his voice tiny. “I’ll be good from now on. Can I please, please touch you now?”

She hums in consideration, but it’s all feigned. Completely pliant in her arms, she knows he’s restraining himself as best as he can despite the way his body trembles with pure want. And she’s ready to give him what he wants.

“Ok.”

His eyes fly open at the simple permission granted. Afraid he might have just imagined it, he asks again, “I can touch you now?”

Pulling away from him, she slides herself backwards to lie fully on his bed and he turns to watch. She unclasps her bra, but leaves it on, giving him the honor of taking it off. Hands beckoning, and voice commanding, she directs him, “Touch me, Koo.”

He crawls forward meekly and gingerly lifts her bra from her, soaking in the sight of her breasts. Slowly, reverently, he traces a finger on her areola. She giggles. “Such a patient boy for me now.” He nods, delighted that she is delighted, and rolls her nipple between his fingers with more boldness.

“Do you want them in your mouth, Koo?” she asks, but it’s less a question than it is permission. With that, he bends to take the other bud into his mouth, and sighs at the feel of it against his tongue, at the satisfaction of having something to suckle on.

With his mouth busy, his hands go running all over her, across the planes of her ribs and caressing her sides and her soft tummy and briefly dipping into her bellybutton. She lifts a leg and grabs his hand to place it on the back of her thigh. Getting the hint, he releases her from his mouth, the bud slightly red and swollen from the attention, and lifts her other leg to pin her thighs to her sides. The damp spot he spies in her underwear causes pride to swell up in him, knowing that he did that to her.

“Here, Koo,” she says, tipping her chin up and pulling him in by the shoulders for a kiss.

Their tongues intertwine and he moans. He’ll never get enough of her. The way their cores fit against each other, melding together despite the two flimsy cloth barriers that separate them, is like they’re just made for one another. The thought of their twin damp arousals rubbing up against one another as their warm, wet tongues slither against each other in this erotic tango has his head swimming in the foggy lust.

She grinds upwards with her hips, legs hooked around his waist, dragging the softness against his dick that’s been painfully hard for god knows how long now, and the thin string of his restraint very nearly snaps. But he’ll be patient. He knows that’s what she wants. And what she wants, he gives.

“I want you, Koo,” she moans out. “In me, please.”

This, he’s happy to obey.

At her word, he pulls the last article of clothing that remains on her down, the last thing that separates her from his eyes. Her folds glisten under the yellow glow of his ceiling light, and it’s a sight to behold. He has to force himself to stay focused, to keep himself from the temptation of bending down to lick a stripe up her slit, to get a taste of her arousal. No, she wants him in her. And that’s what he will give her.

He pulls his briefs down, no time to get them fully off, and they wrap around his muscular thighs as he kneels and lines himself up to her entrance. And then, slowly, steadily, he slides himself in.

As much as he wants to focus on her pleasure and her pleasure alone, the warm and viscous arousal coating him and the velveteen, pillowy feel of her is a sensation like no other and he can’t help but get lost in it for a moment. The feeling is absolutely transcendental, and he pauses, relishes in it, thanking the heavens she’s on birth control.

“Feel good?” she asks, noticing his pause. He nods meekly. “That’s good. I like it when you feel good too.” She smiles and clenches around him lightly, pulling a moan from him. “I like it when you’re a good boy for me so we can both feel good. Will you make me feel good now, Koo?”

Her words set him off and he begins rolling his hips, slow but deep at first, then speeding up as she asks him to. The way her nails rake through his scalp and then down his back drives him forward, the clapping of their flesh together rhythmical with each one of his powerful thrusts.

Soon, the tell-tale signs of her oncoming orgasm begin to show. He feels her clench around him and watches as her back bows as she arches upwards, taking in the wondrous sight of her falling apart before his eyes as she finally erupts around him and coats him in her essence. His heart fills to brim and spills over. Watching her consumed in pleasure and knowing that he was the one to give that to her, it only takes Jungkook a couple more strokes to completion, and he collapses into her chest as he whimpers into the safety of her neck, creaming her walls white.

His lips latch onto the soft skin of her shoulder and he can’t do anything else but suck gentle hickeys into the expanse of her body. He would be content to stay in her forever, feel his dick soften in her plush folds. But she squirms underneath him and he pauses to accommodate her. Gently, she slides him out, but keeps him in her arms and his head nestled in her soft chest. He watches as she slips a hand down, dips two fingers into her pussy, and scoops out their mixed arousal. And as his doe-eyed gaze remains fixated on her glistening fingers, his mouth opening instinctively as they come closer, she slips her fingers and their cum into his mouth.

Savoring the taste of their coupling, he dozes off, completely spent, her fingers still in his mouth as he suckles on them tenderly. And as she watches, the thought of clean-up occurs to her, and she knows that the wiser thing would be to temporarily relinquish her comfort and get it done. But wrapped in his embrace and watching his little blond head rise and fall in tandem with her breaths, she really can’t help herself. Instead, she decides, that’s enough restraint for now.

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britesparc · 2 years

Text

Weekend Top Ten #520

Top Ten CBeebies Programmes

Ah, the wonders of timing. A couple of weeks ago, everyone was banging on about it being the twentieth anniversary of CBeebies, and I wanted to get in on that action. But, wouldn’t you know it, Valentine’s Day got in the way of relevance, and so we’re doing a birthday celebration a bit belatedly. Never mind. By the time you get to twenty, you should be able to wait a little bit.

I’ve thought about CBeebies a lot, and some version of this list – or one like it – has been percolating for quite a while. This is because I’ve worked in kids’ TV almost my entire adult life, and especially since my kids have been born, I’ve spent a lot of time working actually for the BBC, oftentimes making promos for CBeebies. So both personally – having small children who watch the channel – and professionally – making stuff for the channel – CBeebies has been a big part of my life in the past decade.

What’s given me pause, though, is the fact that I actually know some people who make programmes for CBeebies. I don’t wanna upset anybody! Especially, y’know, anybody who might want to give me a job. So what I’m going to say here is this is not a list of absolute quality; I’m not saying these are the best. But they’re the ones I’ve fallen in love with the most. That might be because I think the writing or production is genuinely sublime; it might be because we came across them at the right time in the right circumstances. Maybe my kids loved them! When your kids love stuff, really love it, you tend to soften on it, even if you weren’t very keen on it to begin with. This is brought to you by “I have totally come around on Minecraft YouTubers”.

Oh, and yes, there are omissions. That’s because, as my kids have gotten older, they’ve started watching, well, more Minecraft YouTubers than CBeebies shows. I’ve got friends with younger kids who go on about Bluey, which I’m sure – from the sounds of it – I would just flat-out love. But I’ve never seen it! My kids are too old, I guess. Or too into Avatar: The Last Airbender or whatever. Or – let’s be honest – they’re just playing Minecraft, or watching people play Minecraft.

So here we go: my Top Ten CBeebies shows; shows that mean a lot, one way or another.

Hey Duggee: is it the music, the artwork, the voiceover? The tone of wry whimsy combined with heartfelt preschool sentiment? Is it the genuine humour and excellent writing? Is it the raft of in-jokes and references, from The Life Aquatic to Apocalypse Now? Is it my minor role in making The Stick Songgo viral? All of this and more; the best children’s TV programme ever made.

In the Night Garden: simultaneously a very sweet and gentle imagery and music that lulls children into another world and, ultimately, to sleep, and also the most bonkers, batshit, balls-tripping stuff you’re likely to see. Nonsense songs! Size-changing vehicles! Dancing flowers! Symmetrical stone-stacking!

CBeebies Bedtime Stories: Jackanoryfor the 21st Century, the simple pleasure of somebody reading a story aloud will always work. The soft, relaxing presentation adds to the “bedtime” aspect, and a huge selection of impressive celebrity readers makes it an event programme for all ages. I mean, come on; everyone from Dolly Parton to Captain America is here.

Topsy and Tim: creating a kind of soap opera for nippers is a phenomenal idea, introducing them to ongoing narratives and stories about familial dynamics. There are all kinds of cool topics explored, from illness to bereavement, with a keen eye on its audience. The cute family and great performances help too. A common fixture round ours.

Show Me Show Me: I’m starting to think nobody is better at introducing the very young to the world of television that Chris Jarvis and Pui Fan Lee. Gentle, engaging, fun, and a perfect start to the day when your kids get you up too early.

Swashbuckle: the perfect kind of gameshow for young kids; really energetic silliness. But what lifts it up is the bevvy of terrific performances, from Gemma Hunt to the trio of pirates, telling incredibly silly and very funny stories amidst the slapstick, chaotic gameplay. Plus I got to go on set, so it gets extra points.

Our Family: there were a trio of programmes, all made – if I remember correctly – by the same North East production company, following the lives of the very young as they experience things anew. Our Family was one, but there was also a cooking programme and one dealing with “My First…” These were great windows into individual lives and shared experiences, and really sweet preschool documentaries.

Waffle the Wonder Dog: taking the Topsy and Tim preschool soap format but making it way sillier, we now have essentially a comedy-drama about a talking dog and his beleaguered family. Hijinks ensue, lessons are learned, and at the centre of it is a flat-out adorable dog.

My Petsaurus: here we have, perhaps, a lesser-known show, but one which was just huge in our house, albeit briefly. A short selection of shorts, it features a girl and her cute pet dinosaur. That’s it; a simple premise, really well executed. I’m a sucker for an interplay of animation and live-action, and this is a great example, with a really good young performance at its centre. Because my kids were into it a bit more, it’s just eased out the broadly similar Woolly and Tig, which is also brilliant.

Go Jetters: there’s a lot of chatter about Octonauts, which I’m not going to diss, but for my money you can’t beat Go Jetters. A preschool Thunderbirds with a globetrotting bent, where it succeeds for me is in the absolute disco swagger of all-knowing boss Ubercorn, and especially in the moustachioed grump Grandmaster Glitch. Two incredible performances from Tommie Earl Jenkins and Marc Silk.

See, I already feel really bad for having to miss out things like Balamory, Dinopaws, and the educational one-two punch of Alphablocks and Numberblocks. Basically, CBeebies is great.

I've made a very rare edit to this list (I hardly ever edit them after they're posted apart from to correct spelling and grammar mistakes!) because, like a massive idiot, I confused the titles Let's Play and Show Me Show Me - so in the very unlikely event that you were confused by me referring to Chris and Pui instead of Rebecca and Sid, that's why. Sorry to all involved! In fact, Let's Play itself was a very close-run thing, a fantastic show that my youngest especially loved.

#top ten #cbeebies #tv #bbc #hey duggee #waffle #go jetters #night garden #bedtime stories #kids tv

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lizziestudieshistory · 3 years

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Books of 2021: The Way of Kings - Brandon Sanderson

I have a few things to acknowledge here before we get into the proper review - this is REALLY LONG and VERY CRITICAL. I promise you I do genuinely love The Stormlight Archive, but if you are someone who doesn’t like to see criticism of Sanderson or Stormlight, then please don’t read this.

This review has spoilers for The Stormlight Archive - you have been warned.

I’ve made no secret of my love for the Stormlight Archive - it’s my favourite ongoing fantasy series. I’ve also avoided reviewing it, and I’ve been putting it off since I first read it back in 2016 (could be 2017? It was a while ago.) How could I review something I love so much? How do I approach reviewing a 1,100 page epic fantasy novel? I just didn’t know. To be honest, I still don’t. I adore this series, it’s become part of my identity - if you asked any of my friends what’s Lizzie’s favourite book they would probably say Stormlight. Maybe Lord of the Rings but that’s a different kettle of fish.

I’ve reread The Stormlight Archive annually for the last five years. I promise myself I won’t reread it and let myself come back in anticipation for the next book. I’ve failed miserably every year. And these aren’t small undertakings - they’re each 1,000 pages and there’s four of them now! For context I usually only read 2,500 pages a month.

So, I’ve finally decided to review these doorstoppers dressed up as fantasy novels. These reviews are mainly for myself, they’re going to be self indulgent, long, and focus on what I want to discuss like characters, structure, and prose - rather than reviewing the things I should probably talk about (like the actual plot…) I want to work through all the things I love about this behemoth of the modern fantasy genre, but also focus on its flaws. The praise for Sanderson is everywhere, so I want to work through my honest opinion of these books, work out why I love them, and I’ll invite you on this journey of self discovery with me.

Structure

I’m yet to work out why I’m starting with structure but we are, I guess it helps with the framing. In case you’re reading this having not read The Way of Kings, each book in the Stormlight Archive is made up of 5 main parts that follow major viewpoint characters, and the parts are split up with small interludes that expand the worldbuilding, follow important secondary characters, or foreshadow future moments. Everybook is centred on a key character - in The Way of Kings it’s Kaladin - who we follow in the present day as a major viewpoint character and explore their backstory through a flashback sequence. Each book also has a prologue which retells the assassination of the Alethi king, Gavilar Kholin, and an epilogue from Wit.

Firstly, this book takes FAR too long to get going and even longer to get into as a reader. I’m not joking when I say there are FIVE introductory chapters: the prelude, a prologue, Cenn’s second prologue (technically the first chapter but it’s a prologue), Kaladin’s introduction, and Shallan’s introduction. It’s too much. We’re jumping around, nothing really makes sense, and we’re not sure how these characters are related. They could be taking place in different worlds for all you know on a first read.

When I first read this book I was a lot more patient with long introductions and multiple false starts - I had the time to dedicate to getting into the story. I could, and did, forgive the THREE false starts to this story before we get to Kaladin’s first chapter. However, the opening structure of this novel is a mistake. If someone gives up in this section I honestly don’t blame them - if I was reading this for the first time in 2021 I probably would too.

The prelude and prologue are both excellent. The prelude in particular is weird and confusing but also sets up a clear mystery and sense of the sheer scope of this story. Szeth’s prologue, the first time we see Gavilar’s assassination, is flawed but still wonderful. The fight scene needed a bit of cutting, for my tastes, and I think the introduction to the magic system is clumsy - there’s far too much obvious info dumping and it needed some serious editing, especially as the complicated use of the magic that Szeth uses is barely relevant in this book. However, I think the Herald’s giving up the Oathpact and a magical assassin is great! They’re a bit weird and you’re not sure what’s going on, but it’s engaging.

Then there’s Cenn. Poor, innocent Cenn. I’m sorry but he’s completely unnecessary. Independently of the rest of the introduction to the Way of Kings Cenn’s chapter would be a pretty good prologue as he’s there to set up our main hero Kaladin from an outside perspective. We love Kaladin and Cenn’s chapter is fine for establishing him as a typical fantasy hero – he’s a warrior, cares about the people, and so forth.

However, Cenn’s chapter in the context bogs down the opening too much. It’s too long, not particularly relevant, and adds yet ANOTHER prologue to this already enormous book. Cenn’s chapter offers nothing to the reader that we don’t learn later on in the text when the content of Cenn’s chapter makes more sense. We even see the exact same sequence of events from Kaladin’s perspective in a flashback! Not having Cenn’s chapter would add more interest to Kaladin’s character and add more weight to the flashback sequence because we wouldn’t have met Kaladin at his peak (sort of…?)

Kaladin’s flashbacks aren’t that engaging as it is, he’s a fairly standard fantasy hero from a small village who ends up leaving his happy family to go to war. So leaving a small mystery around him in addition to ‘how did he become a slave’ would help with my engagement. It would leave me wondering how reliable is Kaladin as a narrator, is he really as good with the spear as he claims? I wouldn’t know but Cenn’s chapter removes all the mystery apart from ‘how does Kaladin become a slave’. It needs to go to make Kaladin more interesting and cut down on some of the unnecessary page count.

While we’re at it… Just cut out ALL the interludes in this book, except for the Szeth through line. I KNOW they are here for the Cosmere connections and to foreshadow things much later in the series. However, new readers and Stormlight only readers don’t know this and, quite frankly, they SUCK. In later books the interludes make sense but here they add so much tedious, pointless crap to an already bloated book. They’re too much and add next to nothing – other than seeing Szeth lose it as he kills people, that was fun (in a disturbing, creepy way… Can you tell I like Szeth?) Either this stuff needs to be relevant to the book we’re in now, or painfully obvious that we’re coming back to this stuff in later books. I still don’t know why we got Ishikk’s interlude with the Worldhoppers, and I completely forgot Nan Balat had an interlude. I’ve read this book 5 times… THAT IS HOW POINTLESS THEY ARE! Sanderson should weave the necessary foreshadowing into the main text, intersperse the perspectives we do need for THIS story into the main sections, or cut them out. When I get to the interludes I physically sigh and sometimes put the book down - now I just skip everything but Szeth - but on a first read they’re really off putting.

To finish up with my complaints about the structure, and this is a big one for me - why do we have huge chunks of this book without major viewpoint characters? I’m biased here but Dalinar is probably the most important POV character in the story because he introduces the real stakes of the story. He has the groundbreaking visions of the past, he is the viewpoint we get into the politics of the war, he is the character who does and continues to have the most impact on the development of the story on his own.Yet, we don’t meet him until we’re 190 pages in…

Sanderson alternates Shallan and Dalinar’s chapters between the five different parts and that means they vanish for 400 pages at a time. Why? I ended up caring about them right as we’re about to lose their viewpoint again for the next part. We needed to see the three major POV characters interwoven together throughout the five parts, not randomly dropped and picked back up again. The structure of this book was a mistake.

Okay, I promise I do actually like this book…

Worldbuilding

Something I do love is the worldbuilding of Roshar, and I usually don’t care that much about worldbuilding. I can really appreciate good worldbuilding, especially on the history side of things, but for most novels it’s just fine? If I roughly know what’s going on with the world then we’re good, I can just get on with the story and not worry about it. However, Roshar is genuinely beautifully built! It takes A LOT to get me to visualise a world as I’m not a visual reader. I can feel the atmosphere, get to know characters, but can I imagine a face or setting? No.

There are three fantasy worlds that have allowed me to actually see the world and it’s landscape: Middle Earth, Discworld, and Roshar. The bleak, storm weathered landscape of the Shattered Plains is so embedded in my mind it’s ridiculous, the only place I can picture more is the Shire – and Lord of the Rings has a film to help it!

Now, to be fair it’s hard for me to separate the worldbuilding in The Way of Kings from the rest of the series, so I now have 4,000 pages worth of worldbuilding in my head… However, it’s certainly strong and I distinctly remember having a vivid image of understanding this world, the atmosphere, landscape, and so forth, on my first read. Although it did take me until Oathbringer to realise that everything, except humanity, was basically a crab… (I think that was just me being dense.)

I do think Roshar needs much more of its history to be expanded on. We don’t have much between the Last Desolation (don’t ask me to spell it's in-world title!) and it shows at times. I don’t expect something on the level of The Silmarillion for Roshar, however, I do think we need to see something more substantial in the period between the Desolations and the present day. We know about the Recreance, the attempted takeover of the Vorin Church, and the Sunmaker? That’s 4000 years! To put it into context it’s the distance between us and Jesus’s birth TWICE, it’s like we know about the end of the 11th Dynasty of Egypt, the Reformation, and the British Empire in our own history... We need to find a balance, especially as we get so much development of science in the later books. More history please - but this is a personal issue and a series wide problem, not just The Way of Kings.

Magic System

Now, this is controversial for Sanderson, but I’m going to skip this for now. This review is already well over 1,000 words long and I’ve not even started on the meat of the novel yet. The magic system isn’t really fleshed out in The Way of Kings, we only really know stuff about the Windrunners (in an abstract kind of way) and the very basics of the Knights Radiant in general. So I’m going to discuss the magic when I get around to reviewing Words of Radiance, Oathbringer, and Rhythm of War, basically whenever I have the energy and more space.

Safe to say I actually really like the magic system in the Stormlight Archive. I usually dislike hard magic systems (I think I’m the only person who dislikes Mistborn’s Allomancy - while very well developed, it’s a bit silly and is far too much for my tastes...) as they often take some of the wonder, mystery, and excitement of fantasy out of the story for me. However, I think surgebinding is a fun system and there is a lot more of it for use to discover, preserving some of that mystery. Oh and, if you were wondering, I would be a Skybreaker!

Prose

Okay if you read the structure section and were wondering - why is this woman still reading these books, you’re in for another head scratcher.

If you’ve ever talked to me about literature you’ll know that there are two things I look for in a really good book: characters and prose. Now characters are something Sanderson does phenomenally well in the Stormlight Archive, but that’s not something you can tell 100 pages into a 1,000 page tome. You have to sit with the characters for a long time and give the author some page time to familiarise you with the people you’re following. If you trust him, Sanderson pulls off some stunning character arcs, especially in the long term and I’ll talk more about characters later on (or you can just skip this section? Up to you really!).

However, prose is something you notice immediately, and Sanderson’s is…utilitarian at best. At worst it’s abysmal. These days I’m very picky about prose, a utilitarian style is fine but a book is unlikely to become a new favourite of mine without good writing. This doesn’t mean I want or expect the writing to be flowery or elaborate, but it does mean I want, and appreciate it when, the prose suits the tone of the narrative and world. I must acknowledge that I’m in a (vocal) minority here, a lot of people either don’t notice Sanderson’s style or like it - I certainly didn’t mind it when I first read ther series - so this is definitely a subjective opinion but one I’m certainly not alone in.

Nevertheless, for me Sanderson’s prose is overly simplistic, repetitive, and very American. Okay so the American is probably only noticeable if you’re not American. However, I’m used to fantasy having a certain Britishness to the writing style, even when the author isn’t British, but to me (as a Brit and fantasy reader) the Americanisms are painful at times… There is no way in hell I’m ever going to acknowledge that aluminium is aluminum no matter how many times Sanderson uses it!

Yet it goes beyond a spelling issue because, let's be honest, in this day and age American English is widely spoken and regularly used in fantasy literature - you can’t escape from it as much as I want to. It’s in the style of writing and construction of sentences. The entire narrative reads like an American has decided to tell me a story using their colloquial, everyday speech. It’s a deliberate choice on Sanderson’s part to make things accessible and digestible, and for some people this works. I do think he has a fantastic style to get readers in, especially readers who are getting to grips with high epic fantasy as it’s one less barrier to entry in an already difficult novel. But it does mean rereading isn’t always the best experience and sometimes the writing can jar me out of the story.

In places it’s too simple and colloquial, so much so the writing becomes clunky, clumsy, and unrealistic to the world he’s creating, especially in descriptive passages and dialogue. It reads like Sanderson could have used more lyrical or formal writing but deliberately chose not to - at the detriment of the prose. This is particularly noticeable with characters like Jasnah Kholin. Jasnah is a princess, brilliant scholar, and political mastermind, she’s known for her poise, elegance, and intelligence. Yet she often speaks like an everyday 21st century American and other characters who haven’t had the same education or training as she has? I can’t believe this for a moment, her dialogue is so egregious in places that it’s like I’ve been hit over the head with my own book! I physically cringe when she says things like ‘“scoot over here”’ (chapter 70, p.1083). WHY is Jasnah talking like this?! It doesn’t make sense to me – Shallan maybe, but Jasnah? No. It doesn’t fit with what we’ve been told about her character.

(Just as an aside, I loathe the word ‘scoot’ – it should be burnt from the English language as an abomination!)

Part of the issue with this is Sanderson usually doesn’t distinguish between the character's voices, both in the dialogue and prose. Most of the time if you dropped me into a random section of the Stormlight Archive with no context I honestly couldn’t tell you who’s speaking or narrating without the signposts Sanderson gives us. This isn’t a huge issue as he’s writing in third person limited, and with context and the chapter icons we know who we’re following. However, it does mean we don’t have any idea of character voice – in the general prose, internal narration/thought, or speech. What’s the difference between Kaladin’s dialogue and Jasnah’s? I have no idea from the sentence construction or speech patterns. Certain descriptions of how characters speak help to differentiate (Jasnah is commanding, Shallan squeaks, Kaladin grunts, etc.) but from their speech patterns I wouldn’t have a clue.

All of this comes back to Sanderson’s overly simple and Americanised style. It’s his choice and it does work for many people, but personally it doesn’t always work with the characters or story. I’m not expecting him to write like Robin Hobb or Guy Gavriel Kay, but some finesse and awareness of character would be appreciated, especially if it helped to differentiate character voices.

I’m also going to throw this out as a very personal issue because I’m not sure where else to put it… Sanderson has the worst sense of humour I’ve ever had the misfortune to read. The comedic moments are occasionally amusing… However, Shallan’s puns are worse than my Dad’s jokes. Every time she says something apparently ‘witty’ and someone else remarks how clever and funny she is I want to hit them... At best she’s mildly amusing, at worst she’s cruel. It’s never funny. (This only gets worse with Lift, I almost DNFed the entire series because of the Lift interlude in Words of Radiance. And don’t get me started on Lopen.)

Characters

At last! Something I genuinely love and the reason I read these books! Sanderson has created some of the best characters in modern fantasy in this series and they are the only reason I’m still going. I like the worldbuilding and plot, but I adore the character work in this book and the series as a whole. The characters are generally so good that, even when I dislike them, it's because I dislike them personally, not that they’re badly written characters! Usually I love Sanderson’s characters though, even when they’re incredibly flawed (looking at you Dalinar!) because he’s particularly good at complex character arcs.

Szeth – I love Szeth, slightly irrationally for how much he’s in both this book and the series as a whole, but he’s one of my favourite “secondary” characters in the series! Szeth is actually the character who made me fall in love with the series in the first place, which feels weird to say because he only has five or six chapters in the entire novel. However, a magical assassin with a strong, if morally dubious, sense of duty and obligations? Sign me up! The opening prologue from Szeth’s perspective is wonderful - it’s far too info-dumpy but it’s highly engaging and one hell of a way to open the series.

What really intrigued me about Szeth was his role as the interlude throughline character for The Way of Kings. His internal conflict between his obligation to follow the Truthless’ laws and his personal morality is fascinating. Szeth’s character development has been one of the highlights of the entire series for me, especially as we explore his personal morality, questioning of power, and commitment to law and justice. This conflict is one of the reasons I love the Skybreakers in general and I sincerely hope we get to see more of this (and their conflict with the theoretically similar, although realistically very different, Windrunners) in book 5. However, Szeth is a promise that Sanderson hasn’t kept yet. So much has been built up around his character and we haven’t explored him properly (as of Rhythm of War) and I’m mad about it! He’s an incredibly interesting character, morally and thematically, and I hope Sanderson can live up to the hype he’s built up around him in the first four books of the series.

Kaladin – Okay the real reason we’re all here, the shining beacon of the Stormlight Archive, everyone’s favourite heroic bridgeman: Kaladin Stormblessed. Confession time – I didn’t love Kaladin the first time I read The Way of Kings. Don’t get me wrong I liked him but I’m generally not a massive fan of underdog superhero narratives. (I’m still not a fan of Bridge Four in general for the same reason, I would apologise but I’m not sorry…)

Kaladin spends most of this novel running bridges for Highprince Sadeas on the Shattered Plains. Unjustly enslaved by a corrupt member of the aristocracy, Kaladin is fighting to keep himself and his bridgecrew alive during one of the most pointless “wars” I've read in a fantasy novel - the pointlessness isn’t actually a criticism. He’s facing systematic oppression and disregard for human life, as well as battling his own depression and forming a bond with a spren named Syl (I absolutely adore Syl! But I want to talk about her in my review for Words of Radiance.)

So… I’ve always been frustrated with Kaladin’s fundamental drive to save people and take responsibility for people’s deaths, even when there was nothing he could have done to save them. This book is probably the worst for it out of the four currently published and I just found it a bit much because I personally struggle to relate to his attitude. This level of personal responsibility is a completely alien concept to me, at least to this level, and it’s Kaladin’s entire thing - his driving personality trait - and I just didn’t get it. Kaladin and I are very different people and for a long time I really struggled to relate to him on the same level everyone else seems to in this book. It also didn’t help that the main plot around Kaladin running bridges, struggling with his depression, and trying to keep his men alive is very repetitive… So when you’re in the midst of it and struggling to connect quite so deeply with Kaladin this book can become a slog - yet, the pay off for his struggles is so satisfying and it is very much worth it for making the end feel earned.

However, my issues with connecting to Kaladin is definitely on me and this is by no means to say Kaladin is a badly written character, I’ve always admired how well Kaladin is drawn in this book. Within a few chapters I understood who Kaladin is, and really loved the conflict he had with his depression and role as a fantasy hero. It's beautifully painful to watch and, even when you’re a bit ambivalent about Kaladin, you really care about whether he and Bridge Four are going to survive the bridgecrews – and the climax sequence with Kaladin becoming Stormblessed again at the Tower is still one of my favourite moments in the entire series!

However, on this reread of the series I had a completely different experience to what I’ve had on previous reads, and a lot of this is down to Rhythm of War. I don’t want to say too much here because it’ll involve spoilers for Rhythm of Warm but having seen Kaladin confront his, as Ron Weasley would say, “saving people thing” and really struggle to keep functioning as Stormblessed, I was so much more on board with this book. Rhythm of War’s much more personal approach to Kaladin really helped me understand him as a person, not just the underdog hero. The struggle with his sense of self, the way his depression impacts his ability to act, and the way he’s moving forward in Rhythm of War let me appreciate the character work for Kaladin in The Way of Kings. The struggle, graft, and determination, especially given his mindset, is much more admirable when I can strip away the focus on doggedly protecting everyone no matter the personal cost.

Kaladin and I are very different people, but that’s okay and I’ve come to appreciate him a lot more in the last 7 months. Now I can happily adore him alongside everyone else, and not just nod along with the rest of the fandom because I understand he’s objectively a well written character. Also Kaladin’s mental health rep is some of the best I’ve seen in an epic fantasy series. However, I would approach this book, and series, carefully if you’re sensitive to depression.

Shallan – confession time round two: I hate Shallan. I really loathe her on a deeply personal level. And I’m still bitter about it because I used to love her, when I first read this book she was my favourite character! This was partly due to relating to her and partly due to my frustration with Kaladin. However, as I read Words of Radiance I grew uncomfortable with her and by Oathbringer it became a full on HATED of her…and it’s never gone away.

I first met Shallan when I was a shy 18-year-old, budding historian and scholar. I got Shallan, I loved her plotline, and found Khabranth a lot more interesting than the endless bridgeruns with Kaladin (sorry Kaladin!) I connected with her because she represented (projected) a lot of what I was at the time - and still am today, just an older version of that person. She was the main character that really drew me into the story - yes I loved Szeth and thought he was brilliant, but Szeth is largely absent from this novel and Shallan is the main female lead.

And then I got hit in the face by the infamous Words of Radiance “Boots” chapter, and I immediately got iffy vibes, then there was the Chasm sequence, and so many other moments that made me uncomfortable. I’ll avoid spoilers and, for now, just say I got hit in the face by Shallan’s innate privilege, her causal abuse of social rank, and complete lack of social and self awareness. To top it off the narrative gives her no consequences for this and even rewards her for her behaviour, rather than making Shallan work through the issues around classism (something I, as a Brit, am hyper aware of and it SHOULD NOT under ANY circumstances be ignored, especially with Kaladin’s narrative running parallel to Shallan.) However, this is later book issues and a major dropped theme that I’m fuming about, but I still found I liked Shallan in THIS book when I reread the series.

Not this time.

There are moments in The Way of Kings where we can already see Shallan’s privilege and complete disregard of anyone who is remotely lower than her in the Vorin hierarchy. The scene with the book merchant stands out. No one in that scene is innocent, and I’m much less annoyed by it than I am at the “Boots” scene, however, it shows an early form of Shallan’s complete inability to reflect on her own behaviour towards those with less power than herself. She’s casually abusive and manipulative, but no one really calls her out on it. The few moments when someone does confront Shallan about it, and the narrative consistently forgives her because Sanderson allows her to come across as the victor in each of the arguments. This isn’t to say Shallan’s causal abuse of the Vorin social system shouldn’t be present in the book. It’s actually very realistic, in our world white people (especially white women) have behaved like Shallan for centuries. However, what does matter is the narrative framing. However, I’ll dig into this when I get to reviewing Words of Radiance because a lot of my planned review for that book is centred around this issue.

I’m also resentful that Shallan’s character in The Way of Kings is a complete lie – we don’t know her at all, but not in the same way as Dalinar? We KNOW something is off with Dalinar, we KNOW he was a terrible person and a warmonger from the way people talk about the Blackthorn – but Shallan’s reveal largely comes out of nowhere in some respects and I HATE that the person I loved so much 5 years ago was a complete lie. I’m a bitter person and I will continue to hold a grudge until Shallan dies or the series ends, whichever comes first.

Jasnah – my problematic QUEEN. Is Jasnah a shitty person? Yes. Do I love her anyway? Yes. Difference is I knew Jasnah was shitty from the start… I like problematic characters, I just hate being lied to (*cue insincere smile at Shallan*)

Jasnah is a difficult character to talk about in this book because we don’t know much about her other than her public persona, however, she’s a large part of why I love it so much. I just like brilliant women who would kill me, okay? It also helps that she's an historian, I have a soft spot for murderous historians. I’ll talk more about Jasnah when I review Oathbriner, hopefully that won’t be in another 5 years…! I just wanted to highlight that I do love a female character in this book!

Actually on the topic, Sanderson is still a shitty author for female friendships – he has included more female characters in Stormlight but why are there no female friendships that aren’t rooted in backstabbing and lies?!

Dalinar – if Jasnah is my problematic Queen then Dalinar has to be the problematic King. Dalinar is my favourite Stormlight Archive character. I could wax lyrical about what a BRILLIANT character he is. You may not like Dalinar, you may not forgive him, but you have to admit he is the best written character in ANYTHING Sanderson has written, and one of the best in modern fantasy. Nevertheless, much like Jasnah I’m going to wait until I review Oathbringer before I talk about Dalinar because I can’t do him justice without his flashbacks. However, I will tell you a story about the time I first met Dalinar Kholin.

So, I first read The Way of Kings on my commute back and forth to Worcester Cathedral because I had a work placement in the Cathedral’s archives. I’d been doing this commute for months and reached the point where I knew when to get off the train by feeling, no need to check the stations (this is relevant).

I was on my commute home, and as I was walking to the train station I started part two. I met Adolin and he was fine. I was a bit confused because this was a whole new perspective and set of characters, but I was doing okay. (Yes I was walking and reading, no I do not recommend this arrangement for health reasons.)

And then I met Dalinar. As I got on the train we got into his own head, with the mystery of the visions just starting, the hints towards his complicated relationship with Elhokar, and the amazing fight with the Chasmfiend. Bearing in mind I was automatically doing my commute through this – I’d become so invested in Dalinar, I missed my transfer on the train. I’ve never done anything like this before in my life. I’m paranoid about it! But I was so engrossed in this aged general, who was potentially going mad, that I missed the stop on my train and didn’t even notice until we hit Birmingham New Street.

I was so in love with Dalinar Kholin that I travelled to the wrong city… And my love for him has only gotten stronger*.

Conclusion

Overall I have a complicated relationship with The Way of Kings, and The Stormlight Archive in general. I love this series, I particularly adore the characters and character work Sanderson is doing as the books continue. However, it is severely overhyped. There are a lot of flaws in this book, especially with the writing and structural aspect of this novel. It’s poorly paced, clumsily written, and lacking finesse. For me Sanderson is an okay writer but a wonderful storyteller. As a storyteller he’s made a huge contribution to the fantasy genre and I’m here for the major improvement he’s made in popularising more complex character work and the inclusion of mental health representation. We’re just seeing the start of this shift in the fantasy genre and I’m excited to see where Stormlight and fantasy are going to go with this movement.

However, as a writer he has a long way to go in improving his craft of writing. These are big books, and I will often forgive mistakes with narrative structure in books of this size because they are so huge. However, this doesn’t mean we shouldn’t acknowledge them when reviewing the novel. Mistakes were made, especially in The Way of Kings, and are still being made but Sanderson has been slowly improving with the later books.

There’s a lot to love in The Stormlight Archive - the worldbuilding is insane, the characters are incredible, and the plots are gripping. I love them, and I will continue to eagerly await the next installments! But they’re far from perfect, and that’s okay. Sanderson has captured the imaginations of thousands of fantasy readers and I would highly recommend you give these books a go, despite my critical review. This is a fabulous time to be a fantasy reader and The Stormlight Archive is one of the most exciting reasons to be reading the genre!

*Dalinar and I are going to be on thin ice if Sanderson continues with his character as he did in Rhythm of War, but again I’ll address that when I review Rhythm of War.

#the way of kings #the stormlight archive #brandon sanderson #cosmere #book review #kaladin stormblessed #dalinar kholin #jasnah kholin #szeth son son vallano #not tagging a certain character because last time I had really nasty comments #i promise i really do love this book #i'm just critical of everything I read these days #especially when I've read it five times

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captain-aralias · 3 years

Note

Re the author as meme: anything from four weddings and a funeral! 👁👁 it was such a cute, heartfelt fic to read after awtwb :,)

thank you <3 that means a lot, and i'm glad it worked for you. i randomly decided to choose.... the first section of the final chapter. let's see what i have to say about that.

just a reminder this is a director's commentary on a bit of a my fic. in this case Four Funereal Weddings, chapter 5, part 1.

below the cut 👇

Simon’s been a mess all week – but then again, what’s new?

Everything, it turns out.

When I asked him what was wrong, he told me. (It’s not going back to Watford, despite all the bad memories. It’s the wedding – he’s convinced he’s going to spoil it.) He let me comfort him. I wrapped him in my arms this morning in bed, Simon’s head pillowed on my chest.

i didn't save it, but i had a different beginning that was more like - simon's been a mess all week. i thought it was about going back to watford, to the place the mage died. it's not - it's about the wedding.

but i changed it because it was essentially the same 'joke' as the beginning of chapter 4. it's not this big thing, it's the party/wedding. then, of course, i actually think this beginning is much better, because a 'joke' (it's barely funny, hence the commas) about reader expectations being subverted isn't actually as worth having as 'what's new - everything' :) i liked that.

“I literally forgot the rings, love. What could you possibly do that’s worse than that?”

“I don’t know,” Simon groaned. “I don’t want to find out.”

“It’s more likely you’ll save Bunce’s life than ruin her wedding.”

He frowned, unconvinced but definitely thawing. “I don’t think anyone’s going to attack the White Chapel today.”

“You never know, Snow. Perhaps that demon Shepard was engaged to will appear and challenge Penelope to a duel.”

when i showed this to giishu, they were like - i hope the demon comes to the wedding. too late - already written it not arriving.

“Is that likely? It is on the guest list.” He was still trying to sound sceptical at this point, but nothing makes Simon happier than the threat of violence and the chance to be useful. (Me, perhaps – he kissed my chest thoughtfully.) “I thought they were friends now.”

i dont know whether this 'nothing makes simon happier than threats of violence’/maybe i make him happier than threats of violence thing actually works. but i really really like it. so it's staying.

“Circe, Simon. I don’t know – I was joking. I didn’t realise we’d actually invited a demon.”

“Maybe I’ll bring my sword just in case.”

i really like moving between time periods for 'carry on' fic - it's something rainbow does and i try and consciously evoke it. so here we started in the past, and with one sentence we're catapulted into the present again.

He’s got it hanging around his waist now as he and Shepard welcome the guests into the White Chapel. (No sign of the demon yet, but we’ve let in all manner of other horrors. Banshees. Dryads. My aunt Fiona and her husband.) (He shouldn’t even be allowed on the school grounds!)

baz is very down on nico in this fic - in part because he kind of is in AWTWB, but also because it's an ongoing gag. this is classic power of three stuff as well - all manner of horrors: one thing, two thing, comedy third thing.

I can tell Simon’s feeling even better now that we’re actually here. The rings are in his pocket; his sword is at his side. Nothing has gone wrong yet. He keeps smiling at me.

simon remembers the rings - that's important. i had to give the failure to baz, he's too good at life. it's not funny if simon forgets them.

I’m here too, but I wouldn’t say I was actually welcoming anyone; mostly, I’m admiring the sight of Simon Snow looking purposeful and handsome in a suit.

We’re out of weddings. After almost a year of ill-advised nuptials, the social calendar is now empty until Lady Salisbury’s birthday. I’m planning to convince Snow that formal wear is absolutely required for that occasion, no matter what his uncle might say to the contrary, but it’s in November. Late November. That means this is my last chance to see Simon like this for a month. I need to savour it.

I am.

this is a classic me really aping rainbow in a way that is actually maybe too much - the turn, the re-stating of the position.

also - jamie is a real let down for baz. he just wears band t-shirts all the time. if he dressed well, he could be another man that baz thought was objectively attractive because he looks like simon, but not as attractive as simon.

He’s in dark grey. Wool, well cut, with a relatively subtle large cheque pattern. White shirt. Burgundy tie and pocket square, which match his wings. And my suit, which is velvet.

i already posted about the suits, but here we go. suits. it was weirdly hard to write these sentences about all the things that match - there are too many things. i almost got rid of the hankerchief, but damnit, i wanted the handkerchief!

It’s all extremely homosexual.

one of my favourite lines from AWTWB - i'll have that, thank you rainbow.

Luckily, I don’t have to pretend to be straight at Bunce’s wedding.

this is a reference, of course, to chapter 2 and baz dressing straight for his dad. i LOVE using the final chapter to reference stuff from earlier in the fic.

I doubt I’d have managed it today. Not with Simon looking like this, anyway. The Salisbury sword is hanging just below the edge of his jacket, bigger and heavier than the Sword of Mages. Held tightly in a black leather sheath that I admit is really doing it for me.

(Perhaps I don’t mind if Simon doesn’t wear a suit again until November. Perhaps what I really want is to see him wear this sword and that sheath and nothing else. Mmm.)

i really like this image, obvs. i dont really like the way that i wrote it in - it's one of the things i write in paratheses that don't quite work. hopefully everyone is too busy thinking 'mm' to notice.

“Stop ogling me,” Simon says as I smile and bite my lip, but he’s grinning too. He doesn’t mind.

“If you wanted me not to do that, you shouldn’t have let me dress you,” I tell him honestly.

i originally wrote in that baz was in charge of suits at the wedding - he put shepard in spencer hart, but then i thought: i dont care about this, and deleted it to make the scene flow better.

I’m trying to be honest with him these days.

“I didn’t realise it would be so distracting,” Simon says.

“Neither did I.”

“I mean for me,” Simon says. “How am I supposed to do my job if you keep looking at me like that?”

“Hm. That sounds like your problem, not mine, Snow.”

“I could make it your problem,” he suggests.

this and the eyebrow raise/dare thing is so classic me. it must be in about 20 of my fics -a nd that's more fics than i have!

I raise an eyebrow in a way I hope looks like a dare. It would have worked, I think (Simon’s eyes get darker and he steps towards me) if we hadn’t both heard Shepard call a familiar name.

“Agatha!”

(We’re very lucky Shepard is here, and that he’s a natural greeter. Frankly even Simon is dead weight here. If he and I had been left alone together, we’d probably have ended up snogging just out of sight while the guests found their own seats. Not that it’s difficult. There are only two sides. Either you’re one of the five people Bunce can stand, or you’re on Shepard’s side.)

another awkward parantheses but i dont know what else to do with it!

“It’s so nice of you to come,” he’s saying to Wellbelove as Simon and I redirect our attention back to the guests.

Which seems a bit rich to me, since the woman literally lives on the school grounds now. But I know he means it because he’s an extremely earnest American.

and now this wants to be a parantheses, but i've just had one.... so it isn't. argh. what a palava. i assume rainbow doesnt have this problem because she's not pretending to write like anyone - she's just writing.

it was a fun line of dialogue though - has baz being a dick about agatha and almost nice to shepard. you can see i thought of the title of the fic back when i thought it would all be in baz POV, becuase simon doesn't give a shit what nationality shepard is, but there we go. it's still baz's story.

“And you must be Niamh,” Shepard says. “Magickal vet extraordinaire. I’ve got so much to ask you later.”

haha - i thought this idea was hilarious. shepard's the complete opposite of niamh. and yet, indeed, what WOULDNT he have to ask her??

“Oh.” Agatha’s girlfriend – a tall Irish girl in a tux, who I vaguely remember from school – looks like she’s already thinking of excuses to get out of that one. “Great.”

i wanted niamh to be in a tux - this was one of the main things i knew about this chapter. the bowtie is undone. this sentence structure works logically, but does it work? do you get confused that there's no dialogue tag? i get confused when i read it back, but i thought it was the most elegant way to write this.

“I’ll show you to your seats,” Simon offers.

“No, that’s all right,” Wellbelove says. “I’m sure we can manage.”

Quite right too.

this is a call back to baz saying that showing people to their seats is pointless. i just wanted to get them out of hte scene - wondered wheher it was creepy that simon wants to show them to their seats when he fancies niamh (as we're about to find out), but decided.... it's ok, he's just a nice boy.

“Don’t leave too early!” Shepard calls after them. “I’ve got lots of questions about nifflers!”

nifflers are real in this universe, IDK. i couldnt be bothered to invent a new animal.

“Merlin,” Simon says once they’re out of hearing distance. “Agatha’s girlfriend is hot, right?”

simon fancies all the hot people, this is my headcanon. i respect people who think he's demi, but i think he's the anti-demi. he likes them all, but just doesn't know it. until now - this is what this scene is doing (apart from showing you baz being content, and also just being my headcanon). it's showing simon being further along in hsi journey of self discovery. able to understand that he thinks niamh is hot. but he doesnt want to fuck her - he's only into baz.

I should probably be annoyed, or jealous, but I laugh instead. (What’s this? Am I actually feeling secure in my relationship? Circe help me.) (Everything’s new.)

a reference to the beginning of the chapter.

“I can’t believe you didn’t know you were gay,” I tell Simon.

“I’m not gay,” Simon says, also laughing.

a reference to AWTWB (and carry on), obvs, but also for our purposes, chapter 3.

“You’re so gay you fancy lesbians.”

“That doesn’t make sense.”

totally does, though, right? in a way. i get out of explaining that though by having baz just give the childish response. i wondered wheher people would get upset about this scene, btw. even now while i'm writing tis commentary i'm thinking - should i draw attention to this scene???!!! i just thought simon would fancy hot queers, ok!

“You don’t make sense,” I counter.

“Shepard, help me out, here,” Simon says.

“I only have eyes for Penelope,” Shepard says piously. “To me, Niamh Brody is just a source of interesting animal facts.”

“That means he thinks I’m right,” Simon tells me. “He just doesn’t want to say.”

that is what shepard means. it's his wedding, though, come on simon :D

“I think he means you’re a terrible boyfriend.”

he doesn't mean that.

Simon grins. (He feels secure too. Fuck.)

“You know I fancy you more, babe.” I do know that. “I probably fancy you more than anyone has ever fancied anyone. Especially in that suit.”

another verbal tick from me - i like when the dialogue is countered or answered by the other person's POV. also - we all went CRAZY for 'babe'. here i am, taking it for myself. i love it.

I raise an eyebrow. “Really. Tell me more, Snow.”

“Actually, I fancy you even more out of it.”

“That could be arranged.”

this dialogue - not ideal, but it's fine.

“My guys,” Shepard says. “I know you’re having this second honeymoon thing and I’m stoked, really. But please – keep it family friendly? For me? Or, you know, take it elsewhere. My mom’s here.”

does this dialogue feel awkwardly extra american, written by me, a brit? did you know shepard's american??? look, his dialogue has all this americanisms in it :D

I wouldn’t mind taking it somewhere else, honestly. (Sex, it turns out, is actually wonderful when you’re not doing it purely to get back at your ex. Or perhaps it’s just sex with Simon, who always tries so hard to make it good for me.) (And it is. It’s good. He’s so good.) Two other boys sleep in our room in Mummer’s House now, but I’m sure we could find an unpopulated corner.

this fic has to be rated teen becaue of who requested it - and because sometimes i like to write fics that are teen, rather than just porn everywhere, but to engage with AWTWB is to engage with the question of simon and baz having sex. the book is about them having sex, so here we go - i nod to the fact they have had sex since we last saw them in chapter 4, a week ago. and it was very good and baz liked it, thanks, even though he had bad sex back in chapter 1 (mmm, call back).

But I also know Snow has a job to do here, and that it’s important to him that he does it well.

yay! i love this characterisation of simon, you're welcome.

I kiss him on the cheek and leave him to it.

and i love this casual cheek kiss.

that's enough of that. thanks for reading!

#carry on #my content

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dayseternal-blog · 3 years

Note

If you ever finish answering all of yours awaiting asks...

45 questions for you 👀

https://myaekingheart.tumblr.com/post/650107314353897472/fic-writer-ask-game

Lolllll BADLUCKBREBIS, you are so funny.

Inspiration and Reading Asks:

1. How long ago did you start reading fanfiction? Writing fanfiction?

It looks like I started writing in 2017. I've been reflecting recently on how there are so many regularly active writers now compared to in 2017-2018. It was the tail-end of some of my fave writer's activity within fandom. Utsus was posting less and less. The Tumblr NaruHina fandom seemed to disappear, a whole community of writers left for other things (matchaball, nekomamoru, magmawrites, cherryjutsu, spyder-m, tenney-shoes, eliphya, among others). 2018 was a very quiet year, but! I avidly read katarinahime and bunnyhoodlum's works! In 2019, quirrrky restarted things with NaruHina Week!

2. How do you spend your time when it comes to fanfiction? Are you primarily a fic reader, writer, or a perfect 50/50 split of both?

Recently I’m primarily a reader!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Because there's so many writers now!!!!!!!!

3. Are there any fics that inspired you to write what you do?

Yeah, let’s list them. “A Special Friend” by agitosgirl inspired “Nightdreams. “Medicine” by @grimmjowkurosakidrake inspired “White Lilies. “Torch Song” by @mmmbuttery inspired “About You.” The language in “Unless the World Were to End” by @bunny-hoodlum inspired the language in “That was the plan.” “In Between Drinks” by @peppercornpress inspired “In Between Drinks NH.”

4. Link your three favorite fics right now.

“Operation: Bring Home Naruto” by Dragonwannabe - Rated T, Canon-Divergent, Multi-chapter, Complete. Hinata's been assigned the mission of getting Naruto back home safely after his last dangerous assignment. But can she handle the undercover identity as his girlfriend that she’d been given without revealing her true feelings for him?

“The Mission” by Lunawraythe - Rated M, Canon-Divergent, Multi-chapter, Ongoing. It wasn't that Hinata never expected to work with Naruto, just never on a mission quite like this.

“The Loving Type” by @peppercornpresses - Rated M, Canon-Divergent, Multi-chapter, Ongoing. A few years have passed since the Fourth Shinobi War, in which...Rookie Nine steadily advances in rank. Naruto gets engaged. Hinata leaves Konoha. And Kakashi schemes for days.

5. What are your fanfic pet peeves? Do they have a huge effect on whether or not you decide to read something?

ahhh. I do have quite a few pet peeves. If the fic is Canon-Compliant or Canon-Divergent, I expect Naruto and Hinata to behave like Japanese people. Say what you want, but the Naruto Universe is definitely Japanese in my book. So that means no shoes in the house. Nothing rattles me more than reading Hinata taking her sandals off before climbing into bed. Like, what? she was wearing her outdoor shoes indoors this whole time??

mmm... another pet peeve is when the writer describes Hinata in a kimono, but it sounds like an American Halloween costume, like the slutty version, instead of an actual kimono.

mmm... and the other big pet peeve I have is when it’s Hinata’s first time eating ramen because Naruto is showing her the wonders of ramen. lol. why. how. in what world would a Japanese person make it to their teenage years without ever eating ramen.

I have a bunch of other little pet peeves regarding Japanese culture in fanfics. But in general, it doesn’t stop me from reading the fic if I'm already in the middle of it. I’ll continue reading it and will probably recommend it to other people anyway. If I can tell based on the summary, then it's not for me, and I don't read it. If this makes anyone feel nervous about writing fanfiction, that's not my intention! I would also be happy to be a sensitivity reader if necessary.

6. How do you find new fic to read? Where do you primarily read fanfiction?

I primarily read fanfics on AO3 and ffnet. I find new ones by constantly checking the Hyuuga Hinata/Uzumaki Naruto tag on AO3 or looking into a writer’s favorites list on ffnet.

7. Do you prefer to read short fics or long fics?

Short fics.

8. How often do you reblog/comment on fics that you like?

I reblog pretty often. I don't comment as often as I used to😕 I used to comment on every fic I liked.

9. Tag 3 fic writers you think are underrated/unknown in the fandom/fanfiction community.

Uhh?? Idk. I think recently the writing group here is pretty tight, everyone seems to know everyone.

10. What’s your favorite fandom, pairing, or character to read fic for?

Naruto fandom and NaruHina.

Fanfiction Writing Asks:

11. How do you come up with your fic titles?

I usually take it from words used in the story or from the prompt.

12. Tell the author your favorite fic title of theirs (not the fic, strictly title). Author: what’s your favorite title you’ve come up with and why?

I think...maybe "Tell Me of Forevers" or "Nightdreams." I like those because they aren't taken word-for-word directly from the story, but touch on a theme in the story.

13. Do you outline your fics? How much of a headache would someone get if they just looked at an outline of yours without reading the fic?

Yes, I outline. They wouldn't get a headache, I think. It's usually just a summary.

14. Do you have a personal word minimum that you hold yourself too? Why or why not?

Nope. I didn't know people do that.

15. Tell the author your favorite fic of theirs. What’s your (the author’s) favorite fic you’ve written?

My favorite fic continues to be "It's No Secret."

16. Do you research for your fics? If so, how deep of a rabbit hole have you gone down by accident when researching?

Yes, I do. I've done historical and folktale research for "Little Samurai." I did area/location research for "Last Chance." I did historical research for "About You." I did fairy tale research for "Catskin." I did a ton of astronomy research for "The Cowherd and the Weaver Girl." And I did lighting research for "Inspo." I go pretty deep.

17. How obsessively do you sit and stare at your fic after you’ve just posted and wait for feedback?

I don't. I usually have something else I need to do or I go to bed.

18. Do you have a WIP that you keep telling yourself you’ll eventually get back to, but deep down you know that’s probably a lie?

I actually think I can finish all of mine if I just try.

19. Do you edit your fics after you write them, or do you prefer to just hit post and run (because it’s someone else’s problem now)?

I always edit before posting to AO3. Anything I post directly on Tumblr might not be edited.

20. What’s your favorite part about the fanfiction writing process?

Posting!

21. What’s your least favorite part about the fanfiction writing process?

Starting a new chapter.

22. Do you take fic requests? If so, for what characters and why?

On occasion. If someone sends me a request, I'll think about writing it. Sometimes I do write and post it, sometimes I leave them in my drafts for a better day.

23. What’s your absolute favorite trope to write?

From what I already have posted, probably friends-to-lovers, secret relationship/forbidden love, or high school au. I don't think I have an intentional favorite.

24. What’s a trope that you’d like to never hear about as long as you live, let alone write?

Public humiliation / public degradation.

25. Do you listen to music as you write? If possible, link your writing playlist.

No, not usually.

26. What’s your biggest distraction when writing?

Tumblr feed, all the pictures to scroll through mindlessly.

27. Do you like to give your readers some warning of what might be coming or just slap them in the face with content at random?

lol, whatever is fine.

28. How do you deal with writing pressure (ie: pressure to update, negative comments, deadlines, etc)?

Well, pressure to update is not a big deal to me. I do this for fun, so I don't think I unnecessarily pressure myself too much. With negative comments, I don't get too many of those, and I think I do my best to avoid situations where I might get negative feedback.

29. Have you ever written for an exchange or event of some kind? Which one(s)? Did you enjoy it?

Yeah, I like the events. My favorite was NH2020, the year-long one last year. I also enjoyed the Secret Santa last year since @badluckbrebis was my giftee.

30. Post a snippet from your current WIP without context - no more than 300 words.

haha😈

Ecstasy slides through his veins, blooming over his mind, cocooning him in pleasant sensations, cum shooting out in eager twitches against hot, milking flesh.

31. Of the characters you write for, which is your favorite? Has that choice been swayed at all by your followers/readers’ reactions to certain ones?

Naruto Uzumaki, always.

32. Copy and paste your top three favorite lines/jokes/sentences you’ve ever written. What fics do they come from?

Top 3 faves in order:

That was the plan: "She shifts in his arms, and cloth and cleavage come pillowing up to his face, and he’s certain that she’s scooped from the same puffy stuff his adolescent daydreams were made of."

Tell Me of Forevers: "What he wouldn’t do to inspire every blush, every smile of hers for an eternity when such moments already only speak “forever” to him."

White Lilies: "Whether at his feet, in his eyes, ears, mind, if not reaching his heart, she never landed anywhere. (It’s okay.)"

I consider "White Lilies" to have my technically best writing, so it was kind of hard to choose just one line from that fic! But I decided that one's my favorite line from the whole story.

33. What do you like writing better: one shots or multi-chapter stuff?

One-shots.

34. How much of yourself and your life experiences do you put into your writing? What do you think your readers’ image of you is?

A lot of my life experiences are in my writing. Hmm, I think readers probably think I'm...hmm...either empathetic or really perverted?

35. How much has writing fic changed your life?

I spend a lot less time on real-life social media than before.

36. Are there any fics or fandoms you’re embarrassed to have written or been part of?

I'm kind of embarrassed of "Honeymoon at the Hot Springs" lol. It's fine.

37. Give an update on your current WIP - if you don’t have one, give a sneak peek to a title or idea that you have and would like to write.

My current WIP is that A/B/O fic I started for February Smut Month Prompts: Sweet as Candy or Love Bites. I'm going to title it "Sweet As," and it'll be about how Naruto and Hinata become Alpha/Omega mates. It's really kinky, really smutty, and totally what I would want to read.

38. What does your writing process look like? How chaotic is it on a scale of 1 (very tame) to 10 (you can’t handle this kind of chaos)?

uhh???? a 1?? I've never once thought of my writing process as chaotic. Ahh, then I think of bunnyhoodlum's multiple drafts for the same chapter, and I realize that there exist types of writing processes that I would not be able to handle...

39. What’s something about your writing that you pride yourself on?

My smut.

40. How did you come up with the idea for [x fic]?

41. What’s your most popular fic (with the most notes on tumblr, most hits/kudos on ao3)?

Idk about Tumblr,,, maybe White Lilies got the most attention here. My most popular fic is Nightdreams on AO3.

42. Asker: pick three of the author’s works. Author: rank them 1 (the best) - 3 (the worst) based on whatever criteria you want - this could be something totally random that isn’t quality related (like simply ranking fics based on how many trains appear in them) - have fun!

43. Talk about a positive experience with fanfiction or the fanfiction community that you will always remember.

I will always remember how people congratulated me for finishing White Lilies😭 Also, when peppercornpresses made that FIRST art of my story, I just, I just stared at it all day.

44. Rant about something writing related.

hmmm, I don't feel like ranting about anything. I just recently ranted about my pet peeves above.

45. Fic specific questions - if you have any weird questions about specific works, here’s your shot to ask them!

I did them all! Nice questions.

#anon #*anon*#fic writer ask game #i will send these questions right back at you

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deborahdeshoftim5779 · 3 years

Text

BBC Merlin 4x05: His Father’s Son

Here's a round-up of my main observations from BBC Merlin's "His Father's Son" (4x05).

1- MERLIN AS A KNIGHT

I have to admit that Merlin as a sorcerer and trusted adviser appeals to me the most, but I did write a lengthy post analysing how Arthur had turned Merlin into an excellent fighter. This refutes claims that Merlin gave more to Arthur than he received in return.

At the beginning of 4x05, we see Merlin selected to play a new role: that of knight. How did this come about? Arthur Pendragon is best known for his skills as a warrior, but he deserves more credit for his military tactics. These destroy the popular yet false idea that he is unintelligent. More on the latter in a forthcoming post.

One of Arthur’s favourite tactics is using decoys. Previous examples of him using decoys include: The Castle of Fyrien (3x07), when Arthur used Merlin as a decoy to entrap Cenred’s soldiers; Aithusa (4x04), when Arthur used himself as a decoy to get Sir Percival to safety; Arthur’s Bane Part 2 (5x02), when Arthur uses Merlin as a decoy to enrage the slave traders before they escape-- by far my favourite example.

All things considered, I don’t think it takes long for Arthur to choose Merlin. Furthermore, this decision may have taken place before they reached their selected location, as Agravaine later mentions a previous attack by Caerleon on the border. This choice demonstrates that Arthur has higher confidence in Merlin's abilities than he does of in his knights-- else he would have chosen them. We must conclude that Merlin is Arthur's best fighter, though at first glance, we wonder why an unarmed man follows trained knights into battle.

Merlin is sharp, fast, has high stamina, and is incredibly resourceful. Most of all, however, he is incredibly brave. In fact, when rewatching 1x02, I was surprised to see Arthur acknowledge that Merlin was "braver than you look." This despite Arthur’s frustration that Merlin did not try hard enough during practice ("Come on, Merlin: I've got a tournament to win!").

What’s more, in that same episode, Merlin complains about his first day, but later on, we see his fascination wth the ongoing tournament. Then he admitted to Gaius that working for Arthur (in the context of said tournament) "isn't totally horrible all the time." It took one day for him to change his opinion!

Sure, Merlin would continue to treat the fighting as pointless violence, and Arthur as having nothing more in his head than a desire to knock "the seven bells" out of other people (3x04). However, even in 1x02, when he applauds Arthur's fighting, his actions tell a different story. We associate this habit of liking something whilst pretending otherwise to Arthur, yet Merlin has it as well.

As I have said before, Merlin and Arthur have profound differences, yet are profoundly alike.

2- MERLIN AS A SERVANT

It comes as no surprise that Merlin would return to serving after the beginning of 4x05. However, what that change represents sets the tone for this entire episode: Arthur dismissing Merlin's counsel repeatedly in favour of listening to his uncle.

When Arthur says, "so please, stick to what you do know," you have to wonder whether Merlin remembered being entrusted with the role of knight. Now, Arthur puts him back in his place.

Here's another example: "My conscience is clean, which is more than I can say for my room, so just... do your job, will you?" Yet just yesterday, that job involved Merlin risking his life against enemy forces by dressing as a knight.

By the way, you can tell that Arthur doesn’t believe his own excuses, because he keeps using the passive voice to justify killing Caerleon: “...a show of strength was necessary… an example had to be made… My conscience is clean…”

Merlin’s face after Arthur claims he doesn’t need anyone is self-explanatory.

3- NEW THOUGHTS ON ANNIS

Is Queen Annis a good person? Actually, no.

First of all, she knows and approves of her husband invading foreign kingdoms to plunder their wealth. Such invasions naturally cost not only the lives of Arthur's men, but her own, too.

Furthermore, despite accepting Arthur's offer of a fight by single combat, she is prepared to cheat by enlisting Morgana's power. Perhaps if Arthur had died, too, she would have felt some remorse. Yet she still takes a monumental risk with Arthur's life in blatant violation of the knight's code. One has to wonder about her reaction had Camelot plotted against her armies in the same way.

Then we have Annis calmly ordering Merlin’s execution without giving him a chance to explain himself. The lack of emotion in her voice suggests she has done this before.

Speaking of cruelty, Annis’ champion seems to enjoy inflicting pain on his enemies, yet the Queen claims that he “served my husband well.” I dread to think what she means by “served”.

I will also note that Queen Annis disdains magic, referring to Morgana as “witch”. As I have said before, Uther did not begin prejudice against magic; sorcerers were disliked and feared elsewhere, too, including by those who disliked Uther. Many sorcerers caused this prejudice by engaging in manipulative, violent, and wicked deeds.

Examples include High Priestesses using Fomorrohs to enslave people’s minds (4x06); Cornelius Sigan using his power to change day into night and acquire vast wealth (2x01); sorcerers using special blades to murder people (3x04), and so on.

None of this takes away from Annis’ complexity, nor does it undermine her immense humility when she accepts defeat and withdraws from Camelot. After all, much of Annis' rage and desire for vengeance stems from intense grief over Caerleon's death, so we can assume her marriage was a happy one.

Forgiving the man who destroyed her domestic happiness (as well as leaving her people without a king) shows tremendous nobility on Annis’ part. I think Arthur sees that, for he is always humble and respectful before her.

4- LONG LIVE THE KING

Few people respect Arthur more than Merlin. So when he doesn’t join in with cries of “Long live the king!”, you know something is wrong.

5- CONTROL YOUR FEAR

Episode 4x03 has a hilarious scene where a drunk Arthur claims he isn’t even a little bit scared, because, “I’m a warrior. You learn to control your fear.” Then Arthur walks smack bang into a pillar. Never fails to make me laugh. Minus the drunkenness, Arthur was telling the truth about controlling his fear.

You can see this at least twice in this episode: first, when he sees how many men Annis has brought against Camelot, and secondly, when he sees the size of Annis’ giant. In both cases, Arthur harnesses his fear into determination, which is another sign of a great warrior.

Next up, we have a fascinating scene where Arthur watches his men joking by the fire. It's a great way of showing Arthur’s care for these men, as well as his guilt that impending war will end their lives. In a sense, Arthur has to control his fear yet again.

6- TRUST IN MERLIN

After the above scene, Gwaine asks Merlin if Arthur is all right, and the fact that Merlin can describe Arthur's feelings without even questioning the King once again shows the unique nature of their friendship. Merlin sees Arthur's expression, and he just knows. And Gwaine knows that, hence why he does not question the King himself.

Listen to the silence after Merlin's response. Nobody questions Merlin's judgement: they just reflect. Given the way Arthur has repeatedly dismissed Merlin's advance in favour of his uncle, I think he could have learned something from his own knights.

I wonder whether the knights would ask Merlin something about Arthur in this way, whenever the king was absent. In ancient kingdoms, kings had advisers, and in order to earn the monarch's favour, you spoke to the latter first. Did Merlin ever play that role for the knights?

7- MERLIN’S IDIOCY

Now, I have a problem with Merlin telling Arthur that 1)- he would have taken any other option but to face war with Annis, and 2)- his decision to kill Caerleon “was made in the best interests of Camelot.”

Sorry, but it wasn’t. Merlin knows that. I understand that he has to rally Arthur’s spirits so that they can win against Annis, but I am glad that Arthur knows full well he has done wrong. Both Merlin and many fans do not give Arthur enough credit for recognising his own errors.

However, even these foolishly optimistic statements pale in comparison to Merlin's reckless and self-righteous interference when Arthur negotiates with Queen Annis. I burst out laughing when he trips and falls headlong into the tent, a metaphor for his impetuousness.

Merlin eavesdrops outside Annis’ tent, gets caught (so he didn't conceal himself), and then has the audacity to say, “Sorry about this!” to Arthur! Not only that, he got angry over being called a “simple-minded fool”, when he couldn’t even walk in a straight line to follow the king, got himself caught and almost killed by enemy soldiers, and made Arthur look as though he were double-crossing Annis!

I completely agree with Arthur’s anger: “Oh, I was being kind, believe me: you almost got me killed in there!” Correct. Merlin simply could not trust that Arthur knew what he was doing, and decided to interfere. Instead of apologising for getting Arthur into trouble, Merlin remains on the defensive, claiming without evidence that Arthur was “doing a pretty good job of that yourself!”

This is untrue. Arthur surrendered himself to Annis’ men. The most injury he received was a slap. He asked a favour. That isn’t risking your life. In fact, Arthur was trying to save lives, and if Merlin had been listening properly (or just stayed in bed), he would have seen that. Only after Merlin’s sudden entrance did Arthur face serious danger from Annis.

Now, Merlin’s explanation for this is, “I’m your friend! I was looking out for you.” I don’t doubt it. But once again, Arthur is right: “I appreciate that in your very confused way, you’re only trying to help, but please: don’t do it again.”

Condescending? Of course. But this time it was Merlin who provoked him into this anger.

8- MORGANA

Despite all her power, Morgana still has to defer to non-magical kings and queens. After all, she requires their military assistance to take over Camelot.

You can also see how Queen Annis detects Morgana’s hatred, greed, self-righteousness, hypocrisy, and bloodlust. In one glance, Queen Annis begins questioning the wisdom of working with a sorceress she does not trust, not least on account of Morgana being a sorceress.

In fact, Arthur’s prowess as a warrior impresses her more: “You have as much to lose as I if Arthur wins…” Fascinating scene.

9- THANK YOU, OLD FRIEND

It’s ironic that arguably the best scene in 4x05 begins by showcasing Arthur’s cynicism. No guesses why Arthur did not tell Merlin about breaking off his relationship with Gwen earlier. That speaks volumes. If he had told Merlin, I think they would have had an argument similar to that of 4x11.

Only when Arthur realises that he may die does he ask Merlin to pass his ring onto Gwen with an apology. You can see the guilt etched onto his face as he refuses to make eye contact. Interestingly, Merlin does not ask any further questions.

Arthur’s entrusting Merlin to look after Gwen in the event of his death says a lot. For example, that ring is technically royal property, yet Arthur gives it to a servant for safe-keeping, rather than his next-of-kin, Agravaine. Despite claiming to need his uncle’s advice, Arthur will not trust Agravaine with such duties. Has Arthur made a medieval will or testament? Obviously, I have no idea, however, this episode already shows Arthur’s reliance on Merlin to deal with family matters.

Another interesting aspect to this scene is Merlin’s silence after Arthur makes an indisputable point. This dispels any idea that Merlin’s advice was always correct. On several occasions, Merlin had to defer to Arthur’s judgement, because he saw the truth and wisdom behind it. “I don’t know what will happen. But for the first time since I became king, I know in my heart I’ve made the right decision.”

Got to love Arthur’s half-amused, “You’re not about to start crying on me, are you?” He expects Merlin to be either in good spirits or confident, because that is how he, too, remains confident. Arthur is an optimist, yet Merlin becomes a pessimist, so the king must pull Merlin together with light and yet serious teasing.

Needless to say, Arthur calling Merlin “old friend” implies that they have been friends for a long time. So why do some fans still think that Arthur had trouble admitting that Merlin was his friend? Also, the word “old” in this context can imply reliability, constancy. Arthur chose that word to describe Merlin’s value, as well as the length of their friendship.

The great thing about Arthur is that while he makes some serious errors, when he does repent, he does so well. Not only does Arthur graciously thank Merlin for his concern, but he makes it clear to Agravaine that he relies on Merlin’s judgement prior to entering battle. This supports my earlier statement that Merlin is Arthur’s best fighter, as well as right-hand man; Arthur does not leave for the fight until Merlin has confirmed his readiness.

On top of this, Arthur later admits that he might be a cabbage head. “I should have listened to you, Merlin. Just this once, I think you were right-- even if you are the worst servant in the five kingdoms!”

By implication, Agravaine is wrong. Arthur won’t say that, of course, but we saw Merlin’s sound advice competing with Agravaine’s lies for this entire episode. We can only conclude that regardless of what he says, Arthur trusts Merlin more than members of his own family.

And this is a theme which will continue and grow for the remainder of Season 4.

FURTHER POINTS:

Merlin’s fighting skills

Paradoxes of Arthur and Merlin’s friendship

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wookie92 · 3 years

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WHAT IT’S LIKE TO HAVE A MICROPENIS

My micropenis is approximately ½ to 1 inch long when flaccid and 3.3 inches long when fully erect. When fully erect it has an upward angle and a slight banana curve. It is also very thin (2.8), though proportional to the length. According to calculations my penis has a volume of 36.19 ml / 1.22 fl oz (us). Various studies suggest that the average American penis is 2.8–3.9 inches flaccid and around 4.7–6.3 inches when erect. According to online information at SIZEMEUP, in a room of 1000 guys only 1 would be shorter than me.

In an adult, the average stretched penile length is about 13.24 cm (5.21 in.). An adult micropenis is a stretched penile length of 9.32 cm (3.67 in.) or less. Growing up I remember reading that a micropenis was defined as any penis shorter than 2.8 inches in length. But have been subsequently given new information that slid me well under the 3.67 inch upper limit.

Where Do I Stand On The Penis Size Chart?

All this to say: the majority of average flaccid penises are longer than mine when I am erect.

I cannot say that I am deeply ashamed of my micropenis, but certainly I have experienced shame with regard to my size. I can say that I am extremely self aware of my penis size. This is largely because of the of things I hear women and women say about micropenis, and people’s reaction to my own micropenis.

I can only speak from personal experience, but the number of times I have heard women making fun of men for the size of their manhood is staggering. At one time, I actually overheard three or four of my colleagues at work all agreeing that "men with small dicks should be required to wear a warning sign."

In school, especially high school and as an undergraduate, I was subject to a lot of hazing and bullying that was directly connected to my having a micropenis. As a sophomore in high school I was depantsed at the pool by three bullies when I got an unwanted erection. They lifted me up and held my arms behind me to prevent me from covering my erection so the entire PE class present saw what happened. The coach had left the pool area when it happened. While the three boys were penalized, the damage was done any my “secret” became known through out the school before the end of the day. The teasing commenced immediately and was unrelenting. Even my mother got calls from some friends who had heard about the incident (and my condition). My mother reacted in anger at me that somehow I was responsible for the situation (and her subsequent embarrassment). No empathy there. I was depantsed three more times before I graduated from high school and it was clear to me why I was being targeted.

I was on the swim team and during a competition with a neighboring town, discovered that two of the players from that town recognized me as the guy with the “baby dick” which got shouted as I started my event. So, word had spread. I felt like a pariah.

Numerous scientific studies have suggested time and again that for the majority of women in the western world, tiny penises are simply undesirable. I am 28 and have had just only three sexual experiences (through personal choice) with women, two of which were very humiliating, to say the least.

In high school, my first consensual sexual encounter was with a boy named Billy. I was 13 and he was 15. He was interested in anal sex, and wanted to top me. I was willing to bottom despite the fact that he was very well endowed. He did tease me about my micropenis, but seemed to accept it. I was not prepared for how painful the experience of bottoming would be, but he continued to be interested in me, and treated me well (we even kissed) so I was willing to continue to have sex with him as a bottom. I fell in love. Then he disclosed to his homophobic older brother that we had been having sex and that put an end to our relationship. His brother let me know (rather violently) that I was to stay away from Billy or he would castrate and kill me. Billy, who had a black eye, never spoke to me again.

My first sexual encounter with a woman happened during my Junior year in high school. She was a sophomore and I was a Junior. When I undressed I could tell she was “shocked” even though she was a virgin and had never seen a man naked. She has seen photographs of naked men, and she had a brother in college. She was well pleased with my digital and oral skills, and actually squirted into my mouth (something I didn’t even know was a “thing” that might happen). Unfortunately when I attempted to penetrate her, my condom slipped off, and my orgasm was triggered prematurely as I was trying to thrust into her. She tried to push me off of her as I locked up and started squirting, and was furious that I had ejaculated into her vagina. She said she could feel me ejaculating. She got up and douched. I was too embarrassed to speak more than an apology. I helped pay for her “morning after” pill and discovered that she had disclosed the whole evening, including my premature ejaculation, and condom mishap, to her friends.

As a freshman in college I encountered a very attractive university student who seemed to be attracted to me. When I stripped, she stared at my micropenis, giggled, and put her hand to her mouth, muttering simply "OK" in a tone that suggested she was taken aback. When it came to actually performing, first I found that the condom wouldn’t stay on, but more frustratingly, my micropenis kept falling out every time I tried to penetrate her. She actually asked the traditional joke question, "Is it in?" mistaking my penis for my finger. I wanted to die. It was clear that she was getting nothing out of the experience. I genuinely tried my best to make her happy via oral sex, but she didn't orgasm or enjoy that either. I suspect her encounter with my penis through a wet blanket over the whole experience. When at last I finally thought I was making her content, she suddenly huffed in an annoyed way and got up, saying she needed to use the restroom. And that was the end of it.

I can only imagine the level of disappointment and frustration she must have felt. It must have been a horrendous experience for her.

I decided after that to become a master of cunnilingus so that any future women I encountered would be satisfied, if not by my penis, then my oral skills would more than make up for it. And I did master the art.

While in graduate school at the University of Texas in Austin, I met and married a girl. We had engaged in some sexual activity before our marriage, so she was aware of my micropenis. However our marriage was short lived when I discovered she had been having sex with my then best friend. When I confronted her with her lack of fidelity, she blamed my shortcomings as a lover and told me that my micropenis disgusted her.

Since that time I have mainly had sexual experiences with gay men, though I had a threesome with a woman that went very well.

Aside from personal experiences, the media doesn’t help my self-esteem either. Men with small penis are an ongoing source of amusement in TV shows and movies. I noticed that penis shaming was mostly reserved for villains and comic sidekicks who were never taken seriously. There are more TV shows with “little dick jokes” than shows that don’t have them. No shows make fun of women’s breast size, but targeting men with small penises as a source of humor seems to be socially acceptable. All that tells me that the writers don’t really care if men with small penises are offended or hurt.

The way the media treats the body-shaming of men compared to the body-shaming of women is wildly different. When Donald Trump makes questionable comments about the looks of women, he rightly causes outrage. Lists and videos decrying his sexist remarks have gone viral. Yet when a naked model of Trump with a micropenis was displayed in public in New York City, it was treated like a punch line rather than an attack. Some publications even called it a wonderful piece of art. Hundreds of Americans now have selfies of them laughing at Trump and his micropenis. We defend Heidi Cruz and Megyn Kelly, but where are the people defending small penises? I am no Trump supporter, but targeting him because of his small penis seems wrong.

GUYS WITH MICROPENISES KNOW THEY ARE NOT WELL-ENDOWED, THEY DON’T NEED REMINDING OF IT.

From my experience (having read hundreds of articles, forum posts, videos, and having spoken to hundreds of men and women online), it feels safe to say that the overwhelming majority of sexual partners aren't thrilled about the prospect of sex with micropenises. And if we don’t accept that these views are likely the majority, then we are never going to challenge this blatant discrimination.

I would like to ask people to think about this: If you are attracted to somebody enough to ask them to bed, and if the guy is kind to you, is it fair to write him off based on size alone?

So what do I plan to do about my love life?

Luckily I am bisexual and enjoy the company of men as well as women. I fear that straight men with the micropenis condition suffer worse shame than men in the gay community. Let me be clear, a great many gay men are “size queens” and I have been rejected by more than a few gay men, but now that so many men can meet on line I have been able to meet men who actually “prefer” men with small dicks and so they are not surprised by what I have to offer when we meet. Many of them enjoy SPH (Small Penis Humiliation), but in my life I have adapted to being the subject of humor and, in some cases, can even find that sexually arousing.

So the answer to that question is “nothing”. I try to focus my life on my work, my writing, working out, outdoors activities, sports, and other subjects that interest me. If I started to look for love, it would just make me feel down, and I already struggle with depression and anxiety secretly. I don’t need the humiliation and hurt that looking for love would bring me. Sure, everybody gets rejected, but usually for less hurtful reasons. As a bottom, many men don’t care how well I am hung. Instead they care about how I make them feel when they fuck me, and I have learned to be a power bottom.

Guys with micropenises know we are not well-endowed, we don’t need to be reminded of it. If I’m attracted to a sexual partner, then what they have in their pants doesn’t matter to me; I care more about what that partner has in his/her heart. My extreme self-consciousness about my body makes me feel like everyone else's opinion must be right, that there is something wrong with my size. I just wish people could look past it, so I could too. Because intellectually I know my size is just a variation.

I try to look at it this way. Not everyone is attracted to red hair, or freckles, or blue eyes, or black skin, or hairy chests. People are attracted to differing qualities. As long as I can find some people who are interested in the qualities I possess, and are also interested n me personally, than I am gratified.

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nagisasstunningpersonality · 3 years

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TINSITOGS, a retrospective (happy birthday)

(yes I’m like two days too late I know I’m sorry)

Why hello followers and ass class fandom, nice to see you there. I’m sure MOST people know about this, but in case you don’t, hi. On AO3 I’m better known as livixbobbiex, writer of maybe one of the most infamous Assassination Classroom fics.

Which I mean like, if you haven’t read it yet you totally should it’s fanlore at this point I promise-

Shameless plug that I don’t need aside, I felt that, on its first birthday since actual completion, I just wanted to share some things about it. Some tit bits about writing it, fun facts, maybe even some author advice TM. I appreciate that it’ll be super annoying if I do that in the tags, though, so that’ll all be under the cut. If you don’t want to read the whole post, then no matter what, thanks for the support in general!

I also want to take the opportunity to announce that I’ve reopened my discord, so if you want to talk about my fics with me (and others), you’re more than welcome to join! (the link is here)

The origin story

I’ve stated this many times, I think, but TINSITOGS was never supposed to be a serious story. Taking you back, quite a long time, it actually started in a facebook DM with a friend. We used to come up with “head canons” with each other, which were basically just very condensed fanfiction plots over a multitude of text messages. I believe I was trying to cheer her up, and I tried to come up with some kind of plot line.

At the time, I was fairly fresh to the Ass Class fandom, and I was joking about how there were no teen pregnancy melodrama fanfictions. It wasn’t that I wanted one, I just thought it was strange for a school centric anime with a bunch of ships to NOT have one. And, back then, I only really cared about karmagisa. So I just decided ‘right it’s happening’. The reason I decided to make it ABO was due to ‘it making sense’. Fun fact: it was almost written as AFAB trans Nagisa, but I decided against it as I didn’t rate my ability to handle it well back then. Looking back on it, I’m glad I made that decision.

Over around two months, writing out the plot of this story took over my life a little bit. I had no idea where I was going with it, but I was having so much fun with the drama that I decided that Karma and Nagisa shouldn’t get together soon at all, and I had a lot of fun teasing my friend with the ‘will they won’t they’. It was only when I got bored that I invented this intense drama plotline to finish it all off.

That period of time was a lot of fun. And whilst that friendship didn’t end well, I still have a lot to thank her for. She chose Daichi’s name because I had no idea, and she wanted to annoy me because I didn’t like Haikyuu. When I couldn’t decide on his hair colour, the purple was her suggestion because ‘why logic?’ Daichi speaking Korean was because of how much she liked Kpop. She even helped me choose the title of the actual fic, so there’s a lot you can thank her for, honestly.

After I finished that story, though, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Whenever I daydreamed, I used to think about that damn Daichi Akabane, and how much I wanted to tell his story. I’d even come up with extra stuff to fill in a lot of the gaps, and developed his character in my mind. I decided that I was really desperate to write it down. Usually that worked when I had an idea I wanted to work through.

I wrote the first chapter in late 2017, and then the next two as well. I just, kept going, and realised that I could go further still. TINSITOGS was never something that was supposed to be shared, but I decided I may as well. After all, that fated ‘teen pregnancy drama’ fic still didn’t exist, and I thought it would be funny to make it happen.

Yes, as I’ve stated publicly a few times, TINSITOGS was a crack fic. If I wanted attention from it, it was infamy. We even joked about me cursing the fandom if it ever became the most popular fic (whoops?). What I wasn’t expecting was a bunch of people, in a fandom where at the time there were NO ongoing karmagisa fics and it was pretty dead, to really seem to enjoy it. It was enough to have me keep writing it, at least. I still don’t know at what point I actually started taking it seriously, but somehow I did, and the rest is history?

The reception

In my wildest dreams, I never thought that I would be the author of one of the most popular fics in the fandom. To this day, the amount of views TINSITOGS has is insanity to me. For the record, across all platforms it’s on today it has 238,000, which is literally a number I can’t even visualise anymore. Almost quarter of a MILLION. To this day on AO3, it’s the most viewed Ass Class fic that’s an ACTUAL ass class fic (the others are multi fandom compilations). So yeah, I achieved the original goal, I guess?

Now you might be wondering, “omg the karmagisa fandom is fujoshi trash”. And, considering the origins, it is kind of funny. The thing is, though, TINSITOGS was written at incredibly good time. It was written when there were, essentially, very few long form Karma/Nagisa stories. If any other fics did get posted on occasion, they were usually just oneshots. I was also, at that point, writing very fast. A symptom of ADHD is becoming obsessively productive over certain things. Since I was able to get a 3k chapter out every few days/once a week, TINSITOGS was consistently bumped to the top of AO3′s default view. And some of those first few chapters were altered canon, and transcribing the canon dialogue didn’t take very long. The more views it got, the more people would read it out of sheer curiosity.

I think it also helps that, at least after it started getting some positive feedback (which was honestly after the pre written chapters), I purposely tried to make it ‘not terrible’. I mean, I personally think the first chapter is pretty weak and if it wasn’t somewhat iconic to a lot of people I’d rewrite it. But in general, I purposely tried to make the world of ABO my own, to make it more accessible to those who don’t like that genre, and stay away from the inherently grosser stuff as much as possible. I genuinely do get comments about how I introduced people to the genre as a whole, still not sure if that’s a GOOD thing but hey, it happened.

TINSITOGS turned into a lot more than just a joke. It turned into my favourite hobby. It turned into a research project (honestly, you would not believe the amount of mummy vlogs and legit scientific articles about child development I consumed). It turned into something that, at least I believe, was widely loved.

Meaning

I think it might be wrong to say that I don’t have AN idea of when I started to take the fic super seriously. For me, it was around the time someone commented something along the lines of saying my writing meant a lot to them, that they’d spent all night reading it and had been unable to put it down.

Not to get too dark here, but I do have a past in writing a very long, somewhat popular fic (it’s still on my fanfic net profile if anyone’s interested, but I don’t recommend it). However, in the latter part of my teenage years, the depression struck. Writing was the love of my life, and I couldn’t bring myself to do it anymore. Maybe I’d be able to muster an idea or even a chapter at the best points of that, but I’d never completely finished any story. Starting to write again was a huge step in my recovery, and one of the reasons I convinced myself that life was worth it was being able to impact someone’s life somehow. Even to this day, I still remember the fics I read when I was, like, thirteen. How much I still remember them, and how much they meant to be at the time. I wanted to be that writer for someone else. To be honest, it was actually Yuri!!! On Ice that got me out of the super bad, but I still never wrote anything of real consequence. TINSITOGS was the first time in a long time I actually committed to something.

And, to be completely honest, there were a lot of times I was tired of it, and wanted to just quit. But, the thing was, I felt like people depended on me in a way. I got so many comments that were just FILLED with support, telling me how much they looked forward to every update. It wasn’t just empty words, either, a lot of the times these comments would be super engaged with the actual writing. I can’t even describe just how much they meant to me, how much I would look forward to reading everyone’s opinions. And then discord happened, which was a lot of fun.

TINSITOGS went a lot further than I ever thought it would. There were comments, discussions, fan art, fan FIC (which is honestly incredible to me). Someone even added it to TV Tropes, at one point. Not to mention the Cards Against Humanity deck and quiz It makes me so unbelievably happy that I could inspire that much creativity, but it’s a two way street. It was all of that which inspired me to write, too.

Writing

The only real goal I actually had was aiming for around 3000 words per chapter. I had a whole facebook log of plot points as planning, and I was mostly just trying to expand on them into prose. I honestly thought that, at its completion, the entire fic would be around 100k words, if that. Not, at one point, being literally the longest ass class fic on AO3.

There are a lot of aspects that were directly adapted from the original messages, and I tried to stay faithful to it more so at first, even if I later removed some of the pure crack. But the style was also vaguely similar, with the story being told mostly from Nagisa’s perspective with swaps to Karma when it made sense. All the main plot beats, too, are pretty much identical. The plus to this was I was able to add a lot of really fun foreshadowing, and I feel like it’s a fun reread because of it.

Honestly though, if there’s a demand to release those OG message logs, I will. Mostly because it’s kind of funny, and interesting to see. Isogai and Nagisa were engaged at one point, even.

Obviously, it changed somewhat. 3000 was the minimum length, and the time to completion was whenever it felt right. One of my big concerns was about pacing, so it took a lot more fleshing out and maybe ‘filler’ content for some of the main arcs to work.

There’s parts of TINSITOGS I don’t think aren’t written that well, and some that I’m still super proud of. I think you can definitely tell there’s a gradual shift in style, and I get a lot more comfortable with writing them as characters as it goes along. To be honest, my pride for the fic overall is what it represents.

It is funny to think about the places it got written in, though. I started it when I worked at McDonalds with no life direction, then it went through my first year of university with me. It’s been written in at least four countries. Aeroplanes, night clubs, long haul buses, a train through the Japanese southern coastline. Even the start of covid. TINSITOGS managed to see a lot. I even turned a scene in (the boat scene during the India chapter with altered names) to my university as a legitimate assignment.

There were also a few messages I wanted to achieve, once I realised I had the platform to put them across. One of them was, obviously, ‘use protection kids’. It was important to me that I didn’t glamorise it too much, and I think that came across. I also wanted to dispute some of the issues with ABO, and subvert the consent issues as much as I could. An arc I really ‘liked’ writing was how abuse doesn’t always look the same way, and that it can be a drawn out change in behaviour. How the most important part of ‘being a good parent’ isn’t perfection, but genuinely loving and doing the best you can for your kid. How love doesn’t solve everything, and effective communication can take a very long time to learn and build a functional relationship. I mean, there definitely was a lot I tried to put in, and you’re free to interpret it all how you want. But, I like to think some people learnt some of these things, at least.

Daichi

Honestly, Daichi developed almost of his own free will. I had a good idea of his appearance, and that he was smart. Writing him from birth until around nine years old (older if you read the sequel fic) pretty much allowed that fluidity. It was really fun to explore a nature vs nurture development, and let his own characteristics speak for themselves.

He’ll always have a special place in my heart.

This is the first image I ever made. When I was trying to figure out what Daichi looked like, I honestly just edited Karma’s hair (pretty well, actually? I’m impressed with my past skill). That’s where the ‘he looks just like Karma’ meme kind of came from.

This was the first image I actually created of Daichi. I THINK it was on rinmaru games mega anime creator or something, but it’s literally not available on the internet anymore as far as I can tell, so I can’t double check. This was in the pre-piccrew days. His eyes are closed because they didn’t have the right tone of goldish/silver.

His sister, Kaguya, didn’t even exist originally, even though I decided on that ending pretty early on. Actually, she was going to be called ‘Irina’ due to some hijinks. Initially, when Karma found out about Irina’s pregnancy, she was going to get super emotional and mad at him and basically force him to name his first born daughter after her. Karma agreed to shut her up, never intending to have another child, so when the surprise second child later came along they had to live with the pain. However, to be honest I just forgot to write in the actual scene that set it all up, and I decided against adding it anywhere else. The name Kaguya was a very last minute decision, and it was a chance for me to explore some ideas that didn’t fit with Daichi’s character.

Interestingly too, Daichi and Nao were never intended to be a thing. I only decided that towards the VERY end. Even though the reason I named Nao that was because of a ship I had in a J Drama (Good Morning Call). It just kind of ended up happening because I won myself over with imagining the cute.

The music

I used to write with a lot of background music, though not all the time. Particularly towards the start, there was a lot that didn’t really make sense thematically, yet I would write to a lot.

Here’s a link to the spotify playlist if you want it it’s basically all the ones I noted I’d listened to a lot. Not including the smut ones, though, I have a whole playlist for that.

Some of the notable ones:

Five String Serenade - the first scene I wrote of the entire fic, in Chapter 25 New Year Time where they fell asleep cuddling.

Cosmic Love - when I wrote Nagisa’s love confession scene in hospital (I also wrote this pretty early on)

Northern Downpour (though it was actually a cover by Emma Blackery) - The chapter after Daichi’s born (30)

When The Party’s Over - Confession Time Third Period, Chapter 69. I literally listened to this song on REPEAT when I planned and wrote the kind of ‘break up’ scene, and it’s one of the few parts that made me cry writing.

Turning Page - I know I said no smut, but this song actually gave me the idea to have the “I love you” in chapter 108 be less on a whim and actually more built up. In the original plan, Karma really did just say it without thinking. I’m glad I changed that.

Bury Me Low and Numb - pretty much all I listened to when writing the last few chapters, because Evil Nagisa core. So much so that Bury Me Low was in my top 2020 songs rewind.

As for the title, there’s actually quite a funny story. I had no idea what to call the fic, and when that happens I usually just try and find some song lyrics. I really wanted to use something from ‘October’ by the Broken Bells. Not only because it’s my favourite song (has been for years), but thematically it really worked. The issue was, it worked as the WHOLE song, there were no individual lyrics that captured everything. And, if they did, they didn’t flow very well. And naming the fic ‘October’ would have been weird for a lot of reasons. There Is No Sweeter Innocence That Our Gentle Sin really was just plucked randomly, in a desperate search to find any snappy lyrics from any song that had some kind of meaning. After a bit of discussion, we settled that it kind of worked... if Daichi is innocent and they committed a sin or something. It also wasn’t the most obvious lyric from the song (Take Me To Church if anyone doesn’t know) so I just went with it. It works out, I think, because TINSITOGS turned out to be a pretty good acronym and pronounceable word in its own right.

The merch redbubble drama

It’s a well known fact that I’m not very good at art. However, I decided to try pixel art because it seemed the easiest to not mess up. I made Karma and Nagisa, before deciding to also give Daichi a try.

This, to this day, is the only good quality art of Daichi that I actually own. The only one I’m actually happy sharing and thinking it doesn’t look terrible. As much as I love people sending me fanart, it’s not ‘my property’, right.

So, I was kind of joking about TINSITOGS having merchandise. At first I just made two funny quote things, and uploaded it to redbubble. I was never intending to actually make money from this, and I’d agreed to myself that if I did, I would just donate it to charity. I was joking with the quotes, but since I had this artwork I figured I may as well uploaded. Separately, there was also an image that had pixel Daichi next to pixel Nagisa and Karma (which I also created).

Aside from showing up in a few people’s adverts across the internet, there was no real harm with this. In fact, I didn’t make money anyway. It was just... more the joke of it existing. I did, however, buy myself a Daichi phone case, which is one of my favourite possessions.

The funny ‘drama’ comes in when they got taken down due to copywrite. Sure, the one with Nagisa and Karma, I understand. But the other three literally had no mention or anything to do with Assassination Classroom, aside from being from a fanfiction. So basically, someone who owns those rights claimed my OC as theirs. Which makes Daichi canon? Whatever the case, I found this hilarious don’t worry.

How has TINSITOGS changed my life?

This is quite a strange thing to think about. Because, in a lot of ways, it really hasn’t. As I’m sure a lot of people know, I don’t really consider myself to have any real ‘fame’, despite the impressive numbers. Whenever I tell people in my personal life, they seem to think I’m some sort of internet celebrity, but that’s never been the case for me. I mean, it’s hardly a cultural phenomenon.

In a lot of ways, I’d much rather befriend someone than have them admire me. Possibly because being someone’s inspiration is kind of weird... I’m just an awkward duck who likes to write after all. I don’t mind it, though. I genuinely find it an honour, even if I don’t necessarily agree. I also want to take this time to say that if anyone ever wants to talk or message me, you’re more than free to do so. I’m usually super casual with people who do that, I promise.

TINSITOGS was the first story I ever finished in the way I truly wanted to. Start to end, a full narrative. And it took a LOT. There were so many times I almost felt like quitting, or took super long breaks. For me, ADHD queen, actually finishing something was a huge deal. And I know I wouldn’t have done it if I didn’t owe it to everyone who read it, and myself, to see it through. You know like, if I were to die tomorrow, at least I’ve left something behind.

In a lot of ways, it’s changed me for the better. It’s helped me develop my writing styles, and way of thinking. It encouraged me to become more active in the fandom, and develop some important friendships. I always feel like my Tumblr and Fanfiction ‘known’ factor is separate. I think most of my Tumblr following is more to do with my theories/Japanese context research if anything, for example, but I know I wouldn’t be so interested in that if TINSITOGS hadn’t lead me to deeply examine character and really look into analysing source material for clues. I also think there’s just... a lot of myself in it.

I was 17 years old, when I first came up with the idea. I finished the story when I was 20. Now, at the time of writing, I’m 21. That time has seen some pretty significant changes - just in general life facts and my own personal human development. For me at least, a lot of that was pretty turbulent, and TINSITOGS stands as a time capsule for that, in a way.

I know I gained a lot of confidence, and it affirmed to me that writing is what I love. Telling stories and sharing them is what I love.

Conclusion

Do I think TINSITOGS is an outstanding piece of writing, or the best fic ever? No. I really don’t. It’s strange to say because I definitely spent a lot of time on it, but it’s not like I put my full unbridled efforts into the story. I don’t fully plan, use a beta, or even read through on my own. And that’s okay - that’s not what I write fanfiction for. Fanfiction is my place to have fun with characters and stories I like, without the pressures of having to stand on my own complete originality. Yes, I’m fully confident that I can write at a “higher quality”, if I really wanted to. I’m also aware that some authors put their full effort into their fics, and that’s just as valid!

It feels odd to say this about my own writing, but I honestly think there’s just something in this story. It might not be written in the best prose ever, and the premise might be kind of dumb for a lot of people. But, I think, there’s some part of this fic that managed to grab people. Somehow, at some point, many readers get captured into the emotions and so drawn in that ‘they just have to finish it now!’ Again, I’m not sure myself how I actually achieved that. Of course, that won’t apply to everyone, but I do feel there’s some truth in it. And it makes me happy, to have caused that.

If TINSITOGS is your favourite fic, or if you genuinely think it’s the best story you’ve read, then thank you. I really appreciate your support, and I’m happy to have been a part of your life, I guess. I know how much fanfics can mean to a person, and that’s why I’m not going to take it down, or edit it at all. And it’s fine too, if you loved the fic for a while and moved on -i t happens. Whatever the case, I’m very honoured to have been able to occupy a moment of your life. Or if you find this fic in 10 years time, even, I still wholly appreciate you.

This story was incredibly important to me, and thank you for reading if it was ever important to you too.

You may ask, what now? Well, this is only intended to be a detailed look back for whoever’s interested, and it’s likely the only one I’ll actually do, a year after completion. Of course, if you ever want to ask me anything or just discuss the story, you’re honestly good to contact me in whatever way I have available.

I’m still writing my ongoing stories, of course, despite taking a small break due to the university work load. I fully intend to complete the stories I’ve already started to tell, at least. After that... I’m not sure if I’ll still write fanfiction. Don’t panic, this isn’t a ‘I’m quitting writing’ thing. I may, however, have bled the Karmagisa genre a bit too dry at that point. Who knows? I am pretty interested in writing something original for once, so maybe that’ll work out.

For now, at least, thank you to anyone who read this fic. To anyone who commented, liked, or interacted with me over it. To anyone who created or learnt from it. I’m really glad that I got to share this story with you all, and ultimately left some kind of mark, no matter how big or small.

Happy birthday, TINSITOGS. I had a lot of fun writing you.

#ass class #assassination classroom #ansatsu kyoushitsu #tinsitogs #karmagisa

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mprjanedoe · 4 years

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Statement of Harm & Abuse caused by Steam Powered Giraffe’s former bandmember Michael Philip Reed

I am making this post after reading Steam Powered Giraffe’s recent tweets about Michael and also seeing another tweet circling around from a fan/friend of his as well. This statement is being posted publicly to make the Steam Powered Giraffe fandom and community aware of the breadth of Michael’s harmful actions. Steam Powered Giraffe also tweeted encouraging victims to come forward privately with more information, and because of this I have sent this statement directly to SPG so they are aware of this now as well.

This post is formed by input from victims, occasionally about each other, and occasionally through observations about themselves directly, that occurred over a span of roughly 10 years, informally through text and private messaging, as well as casual conversation at parties and during socializing. His victims should not be subject to more retraumatizing or identification due to fear of retaliation. Along this vein, I also do not wish to identify myself. Frequently his victims of abuse are non-romantic partners.

Michael and I were friends for a number of years. We became friends when I was 18 and he was 26. During the entirety of our friendship I watched him make friends with young women and notably - minors, as well as pursue relationships with them that blurred the lines of platonic and romantic behavior. I watched him emotionally manipulate multiple young women + minors in their teens he had as friends, often causing animosity between the people he was manipulating, which he then used to his gain whenever confronted on his behavior by scoffing it off as jealousy. Part of the emotional manipulation that contributed to this that I witnessed and was also victim to was a deliberate effort on Michael’s part to be secretive about all of the people in his social group who were in the category of young women and minors, despite all parties involved knowing each other in some way because they knew he was “friends” with them. Michael specifically had no problem chatting about mutual friends who were adults and men - however there was a notably distinct difference when talking about young women/minors. He groomed multiple minors that I knew, engaging in physical affection and romantic/sexual emotional manipulation. In some cases he waited until they legally became an adult to make sexual advances. In others, with victims as young as 15 years old, he did pursue and act upon sexual advances. In case it is not abundantly clear - this is sexual assault and in the context of engaging in sex acts with minors is rape.

Even in the case of victims Michael did not form an ongoing intimate relationship with, Michael was consistently friendly around young women and minors (predominantly met through Steam Powered Giraffe and before and after shows) in inappropriate ways, often openly flirting with them upon meeting them and encouraging them to keep in touch. There were many instances he initiated obtaining direct contact info with fans after meeting them, some he was privy to were minors at the time. I have witnessed this in person, Steam Powered Giraffe has received reports of this, and I have been told this directly by fans and friends of friends who have met him in passing. He regularly held chat rooms with young women and minors and in those chatrooms often made innuendoes and flirty jokes.

In addition to Michael being manipulative to many young, impressionable people, he was also an irresponsible friend - which in the context of having a social circle filled with young women and minors, was negligent and dangerous. He actively participated in peer pressuring and coaxing his young “friends” into illegal recreational drugs - predominantly psychedelics and alcohol and encouraged friends his age who did those drugs to peer pressure his young companions into these behaviors as well. He not only peer pressured and coaxed his victims into using illegal recreational drugs, but also personally offered them as he had them in his possession. He also would solicit his “friends” to hang out with him at night and drink (most if not all of whom were under 21, so he had to supply the alcohol) and then disappear or offer to let people crash at his place and then rescind his offer last minute. This put his young victims in danger and at risk, especially when under the influence of alcohol. On a number of occasions where I wasn’t directly affected by this, I was one of the people with a car who would pick up our mutual friends left hanging.

As evidenced by another tweet circulating, Michael has also said a number of racist things. He has wallowed in his white guilt openly and unproductively with multiple people of color, seeking comfort and to unburden his conscience. He has frequently made his white guilt a focus and expected emotional labor from POC, and has said some very offensive and distasteful things, like repeatedly saying he wished he was a black man, and that part of that desire was because he felt his music should be sung with a black man’s voice. His wishing to be black is grotesque for a number of reasons: - because he wanted to be absolved of his white guilt without taking any personal action to dismantle white supremacy, and also fetishizing black people as there is no monolithic black voice, black people are all individual and unique and to fixate on an idea of something they may have that he wanted is racist and inappropriate to say the least. He also made comments in front of friends and at parties to a POC he was romantically involved with repeatedly saying this person was white passing enough for him, as he wasn’t normally attracted to women of color. He also boasted to multiple friends that much of his friend group were people of color.

All in all, after years of knowing Michael, seeing his behaviors towards myself and towards others, these very clear statements need to be made.

1. Michael is a pedophile who has a long history of actively and physically preying on minors and young women. Michael has preyed upon minors and young women, and has coerced minors (under the age of 17) into sexual activity - which is sexual assault and rape. He has calculatedly manipulated young women 5-10 years his junior to be his “friend”, often treating them and implying they were in a relationship, and lying to other people involved, creating an extremely toxic social circle of gaslighted young people being manipulated and abused. He cyclically pulled from this group of individuals one at a time and withheld attention from the others to maintain control and silence of the entire group. This is sexual abuse, in any context. He has used his fame and social capital and his brand of charming and kind dude to make excuses for his behavior and seem like he would never be the type to commit it. When called out on this- he directly lies. Lying about his behavior even when presented with evidence is frequent.

2. Michael is racist. He has made multiple racist comments to people of color who were close to him over a number of years, he has sought out emotional support for his white guilt without addressing how he should personally fight against racism and white supremacy. He has fetishized people of color and fixated on them.

Those who have gotten close enough to Michael know that despite his kindhearted exterior, he can be shockingly cold and lash out in very cruel ways unexpectedly. He has done this to every single one of his victims that I’ve known, including myself, and his victims are anticipating the potential that he will retaliate in response to being called out for his actions. Private and informal testimonies from sexual partners and friends of a variety of ages, forms of relationship, and gender indicate severe emotional abuse.

I would like to acknowledge my role in accountability in this situation for those who may be wondering why I am privy to all of this information but have not spoken out sooner - 18 is not a monolithic age of wizened adulthood - and being that I met Michael when he was nearly 10 years my senior and he pursued friendship with me, I was also taken advantage of for my age and naivety. I was a consistent victim of his emotional manipulation, and felt vaguely uncomfortable for the entirety of knowing and interacting with him, but also personally looked up to him and was charmed by the kindhearted well intentioned image he cultivated both publicly and privately. Upon reading Bunny’s tweets on the matter and reflecting on all that I have been aware of has occurred, it became abundantly clear that it was crucial to make this statement.

To all who have considered themselves friends and colleagues of Michael’s who are in his age group - do not mislead yourselves that there were no signs of Michael’s behavior. This should’ve been dealt with much swifter than nearly a decade down the line when great irrevocable harm has been dealt to Michael’s victims, and there were many publicly visible signs that Michael was way too close with young people - predominantly young women and minors, even if the deeper grotesque details remained in secrecy. The same things that enticed Michael’s young victims to believe being close to him was safe and exciting, are much of the same signs that should’ve been clear to his peers were deeply inappropriate. Based on Bunny’s tweets regarding Michael getting “too friendly” with young fans, and being caught kissing a minor after a show years ago, it is abundantly clear there was a pattern of harmful predatory behavior that was appropriately investigated enough to stop sooner. I ask that all those who have associated with Michael who were peers of him as adults to reflect on this and take open accountability for their role in enabling his behavior either actively or passively in turning a blind eye and/or not investigating his behavior/personally challenging it.

We are asking that this statement is posted on all of SPG’s public channels for visibility - and that fans spread this information and that Steam Powered Giraffe does everything they can to deplatform and demonetize Michael. We are also asking that there is space for this information to spread and breathe and that things do not immediately or quickly return back to status quo within the Steam Powered Giraffe fandom. People have been seriously impacted by this and the trajectory of the lives of many youths has been altered permanently. Considering Steam Powered Giraffe’s success and fame was integral to giving Michael influence over his victims and the opportunity to meet them in the first place, it is only appropriate that there is a significant period of pause - in respect of the victims, and for those finding out about Michael’s actions to process this information.

#steam powered giraffe #michael reed #michael philip reed #mpr #spg #bunny bennett #david michael bennett #isabella bunny bennett #mprjanedoe #steam powered giraffe fan #spg fan

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full-of-jams · 4 years

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Good Riddance #1

Pairing: Jimin x Reader

Summary: There were two things life taught you. Money bought comfort, not happiness. And love was always a gateway to pain. When your former best friend Jimin suddenly returns into your life, he challenges your belief and rips open the past you tried so hard to forget.

Genre: heirs au, girl boss, e2l, angst, mutual pining, eventual smut, feat. OT7

Warnings: swearing, Jin’s dad jokes, prissy Namjoon, a very sunny dispositioned Hobi :)

Word Count: 5.5k

A/N: I decided to rewrite Good Riddance. After I finished outlining the entire plot, I realized that the characters and story were way more nuanced. So here we go!

°°°°°°°

It was a clear night. A bit chilly for mid-September, but you preferred the cold caress of the evening breeze over the smothering atmosphere of the party. The sky was painted dark, flecked with twinkling stars. You tried to blend out the lively buzz below you as you soaked in the view. Stars were scarce commodity in the City and being out here in the countryside was a rare treat nowadays.

You let out a sigh as you leaned against the balcony and took a careful sip from your glass of champagne. The icy railing bit into your skin, but you ignored the rising goosebumps. Light and music spilled out onto the ground floor terrace beneath you. People were enjoying themselves, laughing and chatting away. Usually you didn’t mind being amidst the crowd, but tonight you gladly exchanged the glittering socialite circles for a quiet reprieve.

You felt suffocated; you had to escape.

***

It started out as a normal Saturday evening. A celebratory one at that.

“Yeah man! Namjoons! Congrats! I can’t believe you’re getting hitched!” your friend Jin almost yelled across the room. He joyously greeted the man of the night and patted him eagerly on his back.

“Ah, hyung! You almost made me spill my drink! Do you know how much this tux cost me?” Namjoon asked. Despite his complaint, he couldn’t keep his goofy grin off his face. You fondly looked at both of your childhood friends.

“C’mon don’t be so stingy Mr. Investment Banker. You can make that money back in an hour. Here, in celebration of you finally relieving your beloved out of her five-year long misery, I’ll treat you to a new joke of mine!”

Namjoon threw you a pleading glance. You simply shrugged and gestured for Jin to continue.

“This is an exclusive, so stop being so ungrateful you lot! Did you hear about the notebook who got engaged to the pencil?” Jin happily continued, glancing between the two of you, waiting for a response.

“No…?” you answered as you took a swig of champagne.

“She finally found Mr. Write!” Jin howled gleefully. You shouldn’t have laughed. It really wasn’t that funny of a joke, but Jin’s contagious cackle had you spitting out your drink.

Straight into Namjoon’s face.

“Oh my god! Joons! I’m so sorry,” you breathed between your gasps of laughter. You hastily grabbed some napkins off of a waiter passing by and started wiping his face. Jin was cracking up next to you, basically on the floor.

“Why did I ever expect anything else from the both of you? Why are we friends again?” Namjoon muttered in irritation as he took a napkin off your hands and patted down his tux.

You managed to stifle your laughter, “Because you looooove us. I’m sorry Joonie, really! I’ll pay your dry-cleaning.” You gave him your best puppy eye impression.

“Ugh, it’s fine Y/N. Stop trying to be cute, it’s giving me the creeps,” Namjoon groaned. You dropped your puppy eyes and gave him a stink eye instead.

Jin finally calmed down and threw an arm over his friend’s shoulder. “C’mon Namjoon, Y/N’s right. You love us. Your life would be boring without us. If it weren’t for your exquisite, completely-out-of-your-league fiancée, we’d be getting married right now!”

“You wish,” Namjoon grumbled.

“I’m handsome, I’m funny, I can cook, I’m filthy rich, I’m a catch!” Jin exclaimed indignantly.

You nodded in solemn agreement, “He’s got a point. He’s a catch. You would make a lovely couple.” Your somber façade started to crack as another giggle escaped your lips.

“Yeah, yeah. I’m glad at least the two of you are having fun. On that note, did you see Jimin yet? I heard he’s back in town, he RSVP’d to the party”.

Your smile dropped; every trace of humor gone. “Who?”

Namjoon gave you a strange look and repeated slowly, “Park Jimin. He’s supposed to be here tonight.”

Your heart dropped. Fuck.

You forced a smile back on your face and ignored the furtive glance Jin gave Namjoon. “Oh really? He’s back? How long has it been? I’m sure his family must have missed him.”

“I’m pretty sure the whole City missed our golden boy,” Namjoon said with an awkward laugh.

Your voice turned steely, “Not sure I’d go as far as the whole City, but yeah I can imagine how he has them fooled and wrapped around his finger. I think I better go refill my glass, most of it landed on your face.” You excused yourself and walked away from the boys. In the background you heard Jin reprimand Namjoon, “Way to kill the mood, man!”

“I thought she should know. Better than to run head-first into him!”

“Whatever, c’mon take me to your bride-to-be! I need to tell her my joke!”

***

Later that evening you found yourself on the third-floor guest bedroom balcony, indulging in the starry night sky.

Alone.

You tried to lose yourself in the moment, telling yourself to enjoy this rare occasion.

After a view minutes you decided your attempts were futile. Who were you kidding? You were hiding.

Suddenly the bedroom door opened behind you, light spilled in from the hallway. You shifted your eyes and saw the outline of a sleek figure standing in the doorway.

You immediately straightened up, your long red dress rustled slightly against your body. The figure stilled for a second as he scanned the dark space. His eyes landed on you. He closed the door and slowly crossed the room.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

You carefully kept a blank face and trained your gaze back to the seemingly captivating night sky. You took another big sip of champagne.

“Here you are, Y/N,” the words came out in a soft breath. His voice was quiet, but it was unmistakably deeper than the last time you heard it.

Don’t you get it? I don’t want you here. No one wants you here. The never-ending mantra that haunted you for the last decade. You wanted it to stop.

“Why are you hiding up here?” You threw him a sideways glance as he stepped up next to your side. The moonlight hit his cheekbones, his features were half lit and half hidden in the shadows.

Immediate regret coursed through your mind.

He looked good.

You hated that bastard.

“Who said I was hiding?” you answered in a disinterested tone. He was of course right, but he didn’t have to know that. „I was trying to enjoy my peace and quiet. Alone.” You waved your glass in his general direction without sparing him another glance.

Silence fell; you could feel his gaze on you. You silently prayed he would turn around and leave. Unfortunately he didn’t, or more likely refused to take the hint.

“You don’t seem surprised to see me. I thought I recognized you earlier. If I didn’t know any better, I would’ve guessed you were avoiding me. But that can’t be it, the great Y/N is nothing if not head-on. It’s good to see you again,” he said in an amused tone.

You tensed at his words, your inner voice warring whether to simply ignore him or not. Your rational side sighed in defeat as you gave up your haphazard attempt at stargazing and reluctantly turned your attention to the boy next to you. There was no point in avoiding him, your voice justified. As much as you wanted to, people like the both of you couldn’t afford to ignore each other. You both knew this.

Might as well rip the Band-Aid off now, fast.

“What are you doing here, Park? Did you run out of millionaires to greet downstairs, who’d pat your back and toast on your return to the City? Maybe you shouldn’t have hijacked Namjoon’s engagement party for this. But then again, manners were never your strong suit.” You willed yourself to sound bored and took a measured drink from your glass.

There was another beat of silence as your words hung in the air. You snuck a closer look at him. His hair was parted sideways, falling slightly into his eyes. He wore an elegant waistcoat and slacks. A simple black tie graced his neck.

The years did him well. He looked different than you remembered. Better.

Fuck. You had to have a strict conversation with that inner voice of yours.

As your gaze moved back up, you noticed that his eyes were searching your face. All of a sudden the evening air seemed cold. You had forgotten how his gaze always made you feel. Bared and exposed. Despite your discomfort, you kept your poker face and refused to break the stifling awkwardness. Both of you let another second of silence pass.

Go away.

“Sharp-tongued and witty as ever. I missed that.” He chuckled.

Liar. Still, your defiant little heart skipped a beat. You silently vowed to yourself to meditate more. That mind over matter shit was clearly not kicking in.

“I’m already done with all the millionaires downstairs. So I thought I’d come and greet some old friends up here.” He stuffed his hands into his pockets and gave you a nonchalant shrug.

“We’re not friends, Park.” you shot back.

Jimin dramatically clutched his chest as if hit by a bullet. “Harsh words. And here I thought you’d be the happiest one to see me.”

Your only response was hard silence. Go away. Please.

He continued to disregard your silent prayers, “And what’s up with calling me Park? We’re not in high school anymore. Calling people by their last name is not gonna earn you any street cred, you know? Is this how you treat all your clients? I’m disappointed, tsk.” The boy clicked his tongue in taunting disapproval.

Your brain whirred as you processed what he just said. Shit. Shit.

“Your father is our new client with that new mystery project?” you blurted out before you could stop yourself.

A slight frown set between his eyes. “My father? Park Corp. consists of more than just my father. And he’s definitely not going to be working on that project.”

You dismissed his words with a wave of your hand, “Park Corp., your father, all the same. It’s just semantics.” Jimin wanted to argue back, but you ignored him and continued, “Don’t be so naïve, Park.” You quirked an eyebrow as you used his last name again. Nobody told you what you could or couldn’t do.

“Your old man never lets his turf go unsupervised, especially if it’s a project developed in the City. You should know that better than anyone else. But how did my dad agree to this? He said he’d never work with your father. He thinks money and business ruin good friendships…” You suddenly realized you were babbling and bit down on your tongue.

Damn it, how do you end this conversation fast? Ideally in a way which didn’t involve insulting the son of your biggest new client. Okay, maybe a bit of insulting was allowed. He wasn’t your client yet.

Jimin’s frown deepened before it was slowly replaced by a shrewd smile.

Uh oh. This didn’t bode well.

“Your father agreed to this because I convinced him.” His stupid smile grew wider as he leaned in. Your mind went blank at his sudden proximity, his woodsy scent marred your senses. “As I said, Park Corp. consists of more than just my father. He’s not overseeing this project. I am.”

You swallowed hard.

No one wants you here.

“Jimin. What do you want from me?” You had to shut him down, you had to shut your memories down.

He laughed quietly, leaned in even closer and breathed against your ear, “Like you said, I just wanted to toast with some of my millionaire friends.“ In one smooth move he swiped the glass out of your hand and knocked back the rest of your champagne.

You were too perplexed to react.

“I’ll leave you to your peace and quiet again. I should go greet some other millionaires, maybe even a billionaire or two. See you Monday,“ Jimin winked and turned to leave.

See you Monday. See you Monday?!

He stopped at the balcony door, turned around and looked at you again for another long moment. “Before I forget. I meant it when I said it’s good to see you again.” There was an odd sincerity in his voice. Your heart constricted. “You look good Y/N. I missed you.” With those words he headed back inside.

Fuck.

You were out of champagne.

***

>Beep<

“Yes Ms. L/N?”

“Ash, is this the updated schedule for today?”

“Yes, Ms. L/N. Your conference call with the London team on the current bidding process is in 15 minutes. At 10.30 a.m. there’s the project briefing with Eptá. You have a lunch date with Mr. Kim today. I placed a reservation at the restaurant at 1 p.m. I also cleared your afternoon schedule, per your request, so you can go investigate the properties. And at 8 p.m. you have your call with the West Coast team on the new development portfolio. It hasn’t changed since the last time you asked me 20 minutes ago.”

You ignored the slight annoyance in your assistant’s voice. Ash was nothing if not efficient. How wonderful.

“Ok thanks Ash.”

>Beep<

“Ms. L/N, you seem a bit on edge today. Would you like some chamomile tea to calm your nerves?” she added in a sugary voice.

How. Wonderful.

“That’s very thoughtful of you Ash, but I think I’ll pass,” you answered just as sweetly. “Please follow up with Ren on the financial analysis and make sure to bring me the finalized report by end of today.”

There was a brief pause on the line.

“Of course, Ms. L/N.”

>Beep<

You leaned back in your chair and let out a groan. How did you let yourself get to this point?

It was Monday morning. Two restless nights and three morning espressos in, you had to acknowledge that your brief conversation with Jimin affected you more than you were willing to admit.

Damn that boy and his empty words.

You closed your eyes and focused your mind on your breathing. After a few moments you released all your tension, determined to concentrate on the matters at hand. Any useless thought spent on that guy was just a waste of your precious energy.

Thankfully you were easily able to get back in the game. Your morning call went well. The team did excellent research and prep work and with a little bit of luck the bid would be as good as yours.

>Beep<

“Ms. L/N, your 10:30 appointment has arrived. Mr. Gardner and Mr. Jung have just registered at reception.”

“Send them straight in once they’re here.”

>Beep<

You briefly checked your appearance in the standing mirror and straightened your blouse. Then you gathered the files that you’ve carefully studied over the past week and brought everything to your office seating area. You were told you were specifically requested by this client and you wondered what made them so special. Special enough for your father to insist.

There was a knock on your door and then Ash came in followed by the two men.

“Mr. Gardner and Mr. Jung,” Ash announced.

You were about to greet your guests as you did double-take and froze. There, in the middle of your office stood Park Jimin. He wore a fitted light grey suit with a slim black tie, his hair elegantly sleeked back. Next to him his companion wore something more casual and flowy. His auburn mop of hair offset the cream color of his suit.

What the hell? Is this some kind of sick joke?

It took you a moment to realize that you blurted that last thought out loud. You cleared your throat and tried to compose yourself. “What are you doing here?” A clear hint of dread seeped into your voice.

Jimin laughed at your bewildered expression. Ash and Jimin’s companion glanced curiously between the both of you.

“I’m here to talk business, remember? C’mon you didn’t drink that much at the party to have a blackout. You were sulking around in the corner for the rest of the night. Don’t deny it, I saw you.”

You scowled at him. “Last time I checked your name was not Mr. Gardner nor Mr. Jung and you for sure don’t work for a company called Eptá. What game are you playing Park J…?”

Suddenly Jimin’s companion interrupted you,“Ms. L/N, how about we discuss our matters in a more private setting?” He briefly eyed Ash and the open door to the rest of your office floor.

You gave him an irritated glance but decided to concede. He was right, there was no point in making a scene in the middle of the office. Work was work and you were a professional. You could deal with that jerk later.

“Yes, of course. My apologies, I got carried away. Can I offer you gentlemen something to drink? Coffee? Tea?”

“Coffee would be amazing,” Jimin quipped while he sauntered to the chairs, unbuttoned his suit and sat down.

You threw him a dirty look before you turned to Ash who was taking in the entire scene with immense interest. “Ash could you please bring us some coffee and water?” You turned back to the companion and added, “Please have a seat.”

Once Ash left the room and everyone sat down, Jimin’s companion reached out his hand. “I’m Jung Hoseok, nice to meet you. My partner here has told me a lot about you. I’m sorry if we surprised you like this. Unfortunately, we have to treat the topics we are to discuss today with the highest discretion.”

Jimin told this guy about you?

“Wow Mr. Jung, what an honor. I really enjoyed your last article in the Financial Times. It was very insightful and innovative. L/N Y/N. It’s nice to meet you too.” You shook his hand, your curiosity piqued.

Hoseok gave you an easy smile and continued, “Of course you already know Mr. Park here. You probably have a rough idea about the project at hand through the briefing document we sent through earlier, but before we continue to go into detail, I’d like to ask you to please review and sign this NDA.”

You weren’t unfamiliar with signing NDAs. Real estate development was a lucrative but sensitive business, especially in this city. Client discretion and secrecy was always a given at your father’s company. But if it made your clients feel safer, you were also happy to sign a legal document to ensure no trade secrets were spilled.

While you read through the terms of the document, Ash came back with a tray of refreshments.

“Here’s two coffees, water, milk and sugar at your free disposal. And one chamomile tea for you Miss.” She set the teacup in front of you as you gave her a sharp look.

She remained unbothered and asked in a saccharine voice, “Is there anything else I can get you?”

This girl…

“That would be all,” you dismissed her out of your office. If she had time to be sassy, she could handle your curtness.

After you signed the NDA you reached for the briefing document and flipped through your notes. “Mr. Park, Mr. Jung, I understand your need for discretion, but I’m a bit confused. I reviewed the briefing document and it describes your plans to revitalize the shipyard district. It does provide significant redevelopment opportunities and I’m sure it’s a great investment due to the rising popularity of the area, but to be frank, this is nothing you should hide from your competitors. Actually, it would be more beneficial to publicly market the redevelopment, as it would draw in more investors and increase the property value at a faster pace.”

You paused for a second and looked up at the two men. Hoseok opened his mouth, but before he could jump in you smoothly continued, “But I’m sure two smart gentlemen like you already know all of this. I checked our company’s asset register and we have no significant ongoing activities there at the moment.”

Jimin lifted an expectant eyebrow. And?

Was this some weird game of his? A test? Fine, you could play along.

“What we do have is a full-blown development plan for 53rd Street, which I’ve been asked to work on off-record for a mystery project in the past month. So tell me, why are you really here? Let’s stop wasting our time pretending we’re interested in finding ways to remove and recycle rusty hulls.“

Hoseok looked positively impressed. Good. “Phew, you weren’t kidding Jimin when you said she was smart as a whip. You really did your homework Ms. L/N”.

Jimin complimented you in front of strangers? Somehow this notion bugged you even more.

You brushed off Hoseok’s comment. “Mr. Jung, please, that’s my job. If you’re that easily impressed maybe I should increase my rates,” you deadpanned.

Hoseok blinked at you for a moment until he realized you were joking and started to laugh.

You smiled back at him.

Business rule #1 – always have a friend on the other side.

Your gaze shifted to Jimin and you noticed he was quietly observing you. Once again you felt exposed. Just like on that night of the party.

Focus.

You stared straight back and silently challenged him to say something.

“Yes Y/N, you’re right. Let’s stop pretending.”

No manners, not even in a business environment. What did you expect?

“We’re looking to branch out Park Corp. The hospitality industry is changing; travel and lifestyle trends are changing. As leaders of this industry we should spearhead that change.”

It was the first time you heard him talk in such a serious and determined way.

He briefly nodded at Hoseok and Hoseok brought out a new briefing document. The real briefing document. It had the word ‘Gaea’ printed on the front.

As you flipped through it, your jaw dropped. Your animosities subdued by the remarkable idea which unfolded in front of your eyes. What you read and saw was one of the most ambitious projects ever drafted. You felt a mixture of skepticism but also awe and excitement bubble up inside of you.

“An eco-hotel?” you asked aloud.

Jimin snorted, “Please don’t insult my intelligence. Look again.”

For a brief second you had forgotten who sat opposite of you. You swallowed your retort and flipped through the document again, gathering your thoughts.

You tried a second time, “It’s a new luxury experience. Seamlessly blending sustainability with affluence. A fully integrated concept of lifestyle, art and nature encapsulated in its own microcosm.”

Bingo.

This time Jimin nodded eagerly and leaned forward. “The new generation has a different view on things. The success of our company, of any company, is being measured through the impact we make in this world. They are the ones who are the breadwinners. They are willing to go deep into their pockets to appease their conscience yet unwilling to give up the luxuries that they are used to.”

You carefully took a sip of your tea and asked, “So you’re appealing to their sense of guilt? I’m not sure that’s the smartest thing to do, especially when it comes to hospitality.”

Jimin shook his head. “No. Not at all. People don’t want to be confronted with sustainability mantras or their own carbon footprint at every corner they turn. We’re not here to preach to them. We do what we do best - offer them a beautiful escape from their daily lives.” His eyes glinted as he explained his vision.

Jimin continued, “Travelling is an indulgence. When people travel they want to be pampered. They want to feel special. The last thing they want is to have a mirror shoved in front of their face. They don’t want to sleep on scratchy cotton, just because it’s recycled. Not when they’re paying $300 a night.” Next to him Hoseok nodded in agreement. Jimin glanced over and gave him a small smile.

They are friends. You realized with a small pang. You immediately pushed that thought aside.

“But what they will be interested in is that the tomatoes in their $25 Insalata di Caprese are grown right in the rooftop gardens they visited in the morning. That the honey harvested from the 7th floor tastes floral whereas the honey from the 10th floor has a deep, rich aroma because the bees fly to the park facing west. They’ll be mesmerized to see that the calories they burn on our treadmills fuel the lights of the beautiful art installation in the courtyard below them. Depending on their exertion the art changes and evolves. They’ll be surprised when they realize that the filtered and recycled water pumped through the veins of the building, fueling the water installation, the swimming pool or their en-suite Jacuzzis, is grade A drinking water. We are increasing our guests’ sustainability literacy by taking them into a world of wonder, providing them luxury experiences and showing them that one doesn’t exclude the other.” Jimin paused briefly to take a drink from his coffee.

His eyes settled back on you as he set down his cup. “This is what my project Gaea is about. Modern Mother Nature in the palm of your hands. There’s more of course, but we don’t have to go into all of the details right now.”

There was a moment of silence as you let Jimin’s words sink in and thought about how to respond. You were surprised by his demeanor. Unlike some investors who thought that the millions in their pockets made them into walking gods, you knew he wasn’t a spoiled brat. The Jimin of your past has always been a hard worker. But this was different. There was a sense of conviction and passion in the way he talked about this project.

You decided to go with a safe response. “I never thought of you to be such tree-hugger and activist, Mr. Park.”

A slow smirk spread across his face. “Don’t misconstrue this, I’m not trying to play saint.”

You snorted dismissively at his remark. He was the golden boy, he always tried to play saint. And the people fell for it.

Hoseok gave the both of you a tentative look.

Jimin shrugged casually, “Above all, I’m interested in growing our company. Let me be clear - my goal is to be successful no matter what. Might as well make a difference while I’m at it.”

You tried hard to discern his intentions. Why was he trying to play the cold businessman when he was clearly passionate about this topic?

Focus. Focus on the work.

You went back to the briefing document and flipped through the pages again, putting your analyst brain to work. “This is an interesting concept. While not novel in the industry, the mixture of lifestyle, art, experience and luxury is definitely an untried combination. It could work…,” your voice trailed off in thought.

“But?” You lifted your head, Jimin gave you a piercing look. You were surprised by the earnestness you found in his face. He was interested to hear your opinion. Your intuition was right, this was clearly not just an investment project to him.

“It could also just be a trend, a fad. You’re investing $730 million here. Whatever you’re doing, you want it to stick the first time. Yes, concepts can be changed and the location we’re developing at is prime real estate. So it doesn’t lessen the value of the property, but it would damage your brand. It would still be considered a failure and that would stick to your name. I can’t stop you, but if you want to pursue this idea I would personally recommend you do some tests and market research first,“ you voiced your genuine concern. Regardless of how you felt about Park Jimin personally, you didn’t want to ill-advise your client.

Jimin’s grin returned and grew impossibly wider. He leaned forward and took another sip of coffee. “Is that concern I hear in your voice Y/N? I’m touched,” he said in mocking delight.

Maybe you were willing to make an exception with this client. What a cocky bastard.

“Thanks for worrying, but this will work. Do you really think our executive board would have approved that amount of money without asking exactly those questions and many more? Hoseok here grilled me like I was at the Spanish Inquisition before he agreed to work with me.”

His friend threw him an apologetic smile. “I’ve got a reputation and a career to uphold, man,” Hoseok insisted.

Jimin chuckled lightly and continued, “It won’t fail Y/N. What do you think I’ve been doing the last few years?”

I don’t want you here. You wouldn’t know. You didn’t care.

Focus.

“Research. It works, I’ve already proven it on a smaller scale.”

You perused his features. There was determination and confidence. Under any other circumstance you would’ve thought it was foolish confidence, but you also saw the way Hoseok looked at his business partner. If one of the world’s most renowned financial strategists had full faith in this endeavor, maybe so should you.

After you triple checked the numbers.

As if Hoseok read your mind he proposed, “Jimin, I suggest you ask Jungkook to send Ms. L/N the business case. I know it’s not strictly necessary, but she’s going to be part of the team, she signed your NDA. We should play with open cards.”

One heck of a team. To have Jung Hoseok as your financial advisor.

A new thought started to nag in the back of your head. Usually you would never ask, but this was Jimin you were talking about. You had to know.

“Why me?”

“Excuse me?”

“You mentioned you got my dad to agree to work with you. It mustn’t have been easy to convince him to break his principles. So why? Why go through all this effort?”

“Are you really asking me why I decided to hand a $730 million project to you on a silver platter?” Jimin asked in wry amusement.

Now that he put it that way, your question did sound dense. You brushed off the judgement. You had to know what you were getting yourself into. No way you were going in blind.

“Tell me,” you persisted, your face resolute.

He stared at you for a long moment, deliberating his answer.

“Actually Ms. L/N we decided to go…”

Jimin interrupted Hoseok, “I chose your company because you’re the best in the country, maybe even globally. We did an evaluation and you came out on top. Gaea is an important milestone for Park Corp., so I think it’s only obvious to go with the best to guarantee its success.”

You were surprisingly disappointed. What a textbook answer. You decided to dig deeper.

“I get why you chose to work with Spring Development, but this doesn’t answer the question why you specifically requested for me to work on this project.”

You remembered the heated discussion you had with your father. How you refused to blindly take on a client who you, and more importantly the internet, knew nothing about.

“Because you were recommended as the best,” Jimin simply said.

“Bullshit,” you fired back.

Jimin let out a low sigh and ran his fingers through his hair. “Why can’t you just let it go?” he muttered to himself.

You stiffened at his remark. What was that supposed to mean?

“It’s not bullshit. You were recommended as the best. I followed your Aquarium project,” he finally revealed.

He kept tabs on you? The Aquarium project? Normally you were pretty good at reading people, but deciphering this boy was becoming increasingly impossible.

“The Aquarium project was a disaster,” you retorted. You started to doubt this man’s sanity.

Hoseok coughed quietly and interrupted your exchange, “Ms. L/N I can understand your skepticism. You’re right the project was a disaster, but that was because the owner and investors were morons who didn’t listen to advice. It’s now up and running and it’s become profitable in less than 12 months. That’s a huge feat considering the circumstances. It shows that you can work under pressure, you’re creative and very good at what you do. Although we’ve assembled the best team, Gaea won’t be an easy undertaking. We want someone like you. We need someone like you.”

Jimin hummed in agreement.

This was not the answer you expected.

You straightened yourself up and made up your mind. Business was business, and Hoseok was right. This project was going to be a challenge. You loved a good challenge, and this was too good of an opportunity to let pass by. You were perfectly capable of keeping your private matters separate.

“Alright gentlemen, I look forward to working with you. Should I take you through our current development analysis?”

Next >>

°°°°°°°

12/04/20

374 notes · View notes

bwprowl · 3 years

Text

Me vs. The Mitchells vs. The Machines

The Mitchells vs. The Machines is a really cool movie. Seriously! It’s the Spider-Verse crew continuing to be at the top of their game, doing their damnedest to elevate and evolve 3D film animation in a way apart from the ongoing Disneyfied edge-sanding seen elsewhere. Several sequences, especially the final fight scene at the end, are absolutely jaw-dropping. A lot of the writing of the movie is also genuinely clever, with some cool tricks of weaving in Chekov’s Guns that you don’t even realize WERE Chekov’s Guns until they’re deployed, but then make perfect sense. And I also just have to say there’s something oddly heartening about a movie that does a lot to target Millenials in terms of nostalgia, but not so much via our shows and movies and music the way other project might go about, but specifically by tapping the internet meme culture of the early-00’s that’s so media-unique to that emergent generation. There’s some genuine heart visible in so many of the levels of how this thing was made that I can understand its touting as an instant classic and the waves of praise and popularity that have followed its release.

Unfortunately, I can’t so unilaterally praise this movie, mostly because I can NOT stop thinking about how poorly-implemented and mis-framed its central familial conflict is.

Oh yeah spoilers for this movie I guess

So I’ll need to detour at first and talk about A Goofy Movie, which isn’t much of an issue for me since I fucking love A Goofy Movie. And watching The Mitchells vs. The Machines my initial takeaway was a pleasant observation that someone had basically grafted A Goofy Movie to The World’s End, which could have made for an extremely fun time for me. A Goofy Movie, so it goes, centers on the conflict between a father and child trying to understand each other, spurred on by the father conscripting the child into an impromptu road-trip which the child initially resents but eventually leans into as a vehicle for understanding as the family members open up to each other and end with a greater appreciation for their familial bond as well as healthier, more open lines of communication. There are comical misunderstandings, dramatic misunderstandings, and escalating Wacky Adventures that keep the trip feeling suitably cinematic in scope. And as The Mitchells vs. The Machines continued on, I kept finding myself rounding back to that comparison and asking “Why am I not getting into this as much as I do A Goofy Movie?”

It turns out to be a point of motivation, actually. In A Goofy Movie, Goofy dragooning Max into the cross-country fishing trip is immediately borne out of his (however misinformed) desire to keep his son from going down a wrong, potentially delinquent or criminal path. Goofy has concerns about the lessened connection and communication with Max, sure, but that’s a symptom of his inability to communicate his actual worries about Max’s behavior to him, not the sum total of the problem he feels needs fixing. Goofy is under the impression there are genuine problems Max is going through, and while he’s got the actual particulars wrong, he’s not really that far off, since Max still IS the kind of kid to elaborately hijack a school function or make up extravagant lies to get attention from the girl he likes rather than just talking to her and asking her out like a normal human-dog-person. Goofy’s objective is firmly centered on helping Max for Max’s sake, and he’s only taking up a few weeks out of Max’s summer and causing him to miss a single party in order to do it.

I lay all that out so you can try to understand my headspace coming at critiquing The Mitchells vs. The Machines and negatively viewing its own take on a plot concept I ostensibly love by default. The problem, as said, is one of motivation. In The Mitchells, Rick’s dissatisfaction with his relationship with his daughter Katie is purely that: Dissatisfaction with their relationship. Katie herself is, by all accounts, doing spectacularly. She’s got a healthy relationship with friends and other family members, she’s gotten accepted into a prestigious film school, and her YouTube account seems to pull pretty keen numbers (With all the tech jokes in this movie it’s a wonder there’s never a riff on her shilling NordVPN or Raid Shadow Legends). The conflict between father and daughter is purely a case of them growing apart in her teen years demonstrably because Rick has no understanding of her current passions and makes no effort to do so, which leads to him having consistently questioned and doubted her ability to succeed in her field. The film frames the impromptu road-trip as his attempt to ‘fix’ the issues between them, but the only thing broken by the presentation of the story is Rick’s approach to parenting in the first place. He could easily have made Katie warm to him on the way out by replacing or paying for the laptop he broke and throwing her a subscription to her YouTube channel, but then the movie would be shorter and we wouldn’t be able to pretend the conflict was anything other than his own pursuit of self-centered actualization.

That’s the other issue, of course, the way The Mitchells vs. The Machines consistently rounds back to the point that Katie is somehow shouldering half the responsibility for the father/daughter communication breakdown. But as stated above, it really has hardly anything to do with her. Katie’s succeeding on her own terms, and the only outreach she would theoretically need to do to her dad would be to make HIM feel better, something he could do himself if he’d only actually pay attention to the cool videos she keeps trying to show him and not constantly deciding that HE knows that SHE will fail. It’s a fundamentally one-sided conflict from what we’re shown, and yet the other members of the Mitchell family continuously treat Katie like she needs to accommodate her father’s personal whims and not hurt his feelings despite the fact that he’s the one who went behind her back and canceled her flight, even forcing her to miss her first week of college (!) simply because he felt sorry for himself that they didn’t like the same things anymore. Again, Katie’s doing great, it’s Rick that decides to make his problem the entire family’s problem, and while I’m going to hesitate to refer to this behavior as out-and-out abusive, it is still absurdly selfish and pointedly poor parenting.

The movie seems to nominally strive for balance in the conflict, not making it entirely Katie’s job to fix her dad’s hurt feelings, and indeed having a whole sequence where he realizes what a Big Jerk he’s been about not trying to understand or support her passions, and resolving to actually Make An Effort moving forward. The problem is that this is still framed as one half of the equation, as Katie supposedly gets to understand where her dad is coming from, which...makes her feel better about all the times he said she would fail and so she should rely on and appreciate him more? And the reason that’s a fundamental issue is annoying, because it means we have to talk about Rick’s Stupid Fucking Cabin.

Look, I hate doing this. I personally try very hard to keep in the mindset that stories are stories and things happen in them because they are stories. I am loathe to attempt picking apart the points of particular plot points, but the problem is that this Stupid Fucking Cabin is positioned as the heart of the humanity of the entire movie, yet it hinges on a sequence of decisions that no actual human being would ever come by. First off, do you have any idea how long it takes to BUILD a home like that, let alone as one guy apparently doing it himself? Rick spent the better part of his twenties building this big Fucking Stupid Cabin to fulfill his lifelong dream of ‘Living in the woods’, only for his wife to get pregnant once it was finished, leading to him just dropping like that? Was there no planning in this family? Was Katie an accident that Rick immediately was this endeared to? I mean, he totally seems like a pro-lifer. But then why do they need to sell the Stupid Fucking Cabin on account of a kid coming along? How were Rick and Linda planning on living out their lives there if not with resources that could support them as well as a kid or two? Rick could have just raised his kids in the woods in his Stupid Fucking Cabin and they would have stood a better chance at turning out like little duplicates of himself and his own interests like he clearly wanted. That’s to say nothing of this sequence of events being framed as a ‘failure’, despite that fact that Rick handily succeeded at what he set out to do, only to turn around and abandon the thing he succeeded at himself on seemingly the same sort of impulsive whim that leads to him dragging his whole family on a road trip because he doesn’t understand YouTube. There are motivating factors to these decisions he made that could inform the whole context of this supposedly tragic backstory, but we aren’t privy to anything resembling them, and the result is a plot point that seemingly only exists to make Katie (and the audience) feel bad for Rick in the third act of the movie.

The real answer is the ultimate assertion of this thing by the finale, that Katie should be ‘grateful’ to Rick for his ‘sacrifice’ of his dream that supposedly allowed her to be in the place she is now. Except Katie had no part in Rick’s bizarre impulsive choice to build a Stupid Fucking Cabin then sell it as soon as a kid popped out so he, I guess, could feel some sense of important familial contribution. That’s to say nothing of the point about parental figures who make grand, sweeping gestures nominally for the good of their kids, but are effectively and emotionally unavailable in the day-to-day engagements of their lives. Because unlike Goofy in A Goofy Movie, Rick isn’t actually doing what he’s doing for Katie’s sake. Her motivation for most of the movie is to move away from home and go to college, a completely normal-ass thing that children do. Any of Rick’s outreach or efforts to ‘fix’ relationships and situations are purely for the sake of his own hurt feelings, and the way Katie’s mother and brother consistently push her into going along with them only highlights the overt way this whole family’s problems are hung up on the insecurities of of this single stubborn jerk. But then, that’s my other major misgiving with The Mitchells vs. The Machines: Its expected exaltation of the default biological family as some hallowed unit for which it is a tragedy to fall into any degree of dysfunction. This is with pointed dismissal towards the idea of Found Family, seen as a distraction, an obstacle to Katie realizing who her TRUE people are, and coming around to a sense of fulfillment because she managed to massage her dad’s ego for long enough that he stopped being totally dismissive of the things that brought her joy. You see, Found Families are fun, but they aren’t REAL or SPECIAL because they already accept and appreciate you for who you are, unlike these people you’re biologically obligated to share living space with for 18+ years whom you have to forge bonds with through varying degrees of communication breakdowns and compromises in self-agency.

With all that in mind, it highlights some of the smaller issues in the movie’s setup as well. This is perhaps petty, but jeez was I annoyed with the film’s framing of The Mitchells as this ~craaaazy~ ~weeeeiiiird~ family which included such outlandish quirks as ‘Dad who doesn’t understand technology’ and ‘Young boy who really likes dinosaurs’. And the wishy-washy tone of the familial conflict is echoed in the ‘The Machines’ part of the plot, which mostly led to me sitting on edge throughout the whole film as I wondered how it was going to come down on the subject of those kids and their darn smartphones. It ultimately doesn’t go full anti-technology, which makes sense given how much of Katie’s character revolves around using the stuff, to say nothing of the predilections of the people who actually, uh, made this movie. But the most it can manage is a halfhearted “Maybe unregulated big tech bad?” which even then is undercut, mostly I assume because of the various big tech companies involved in producing and streaming this thing. Don’t get me wrong, I’m overall glad it doesn’t go full "durr hburr technology is bad fire is scary and thomas edison was a witch", but a lack of any insight or ideas on that front means that the familial relationship element is the only conceptual element it really has to stand on, and I just spent over 1800 words breaking down why that fundamentally didn’t work!

It’s an aggravating situation, because lord did I want to love The Mitchells vs. The Machines. It’s gorgeous, it’s got some clever bits in the writing, and it can honestly sling a punchline like nobody’s business, there are some KILLER jokes in there. But it just became impossible all the way through the end for me to engage with the heart of the movie, its central connective conflict, on the terms it wanted me to. Now it’s admittedly possible that, perhaps like Rick Mitchell, that’s my problem. I’ve seen a lot of love for this movie from my peers, and it does make me question my own projections: I don’t want to get TOO personal on main, but I admit that it’s entirely possible that people who’ve enjoyed an actually functional fatherly relationship would better engage with the emotive connections this movie wants you to make. But even with that caveat, I was able to find my own way to resonate with the similar stakes of A Goofy Movie just thanks to the more effective way that one was framed, so if this one couldn’t hook me, maybe it was The Mitchells vs. The Machines’ fault after all.

#the mitchells vs the machines #the mitchells #movies #criticism #rant

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