#like damn the school system really is designed to fuck everyone up
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Too shy .. but I do agree with you on the Cerebrocast not getting QQ 😔.
OMG HI TWITTER PERSON ok context for everyone else i’ve been listening to cerebrocast (who do not like quentin) but i personally have so many thoughts about quentin quire and i DO hate it because he’s the stupidest whitest bitch in existence.
the thing is that i need his story to have been about white trans/queer rage because he literally looks like he has pink hair and pronouns and something something he looks like a walking trans flag with the pink hair and blue psionics and he’s a fucking PHOENIX HOST. YOU KNOW, THE X-MEN’S MANIFESTATION OF FEMALE RAGE??? ANYWAY. its just nonsensical to me that in new x-men morrison chooses their incel school shooter allegory to be…. a punk counterculture radical anarchist mutant who is driven to action when he sees a (implied gay) mutant fashion designer/activist killed in a hate crime. like i just dont think morrison understands politics. it’s a story that demonises leftist radical protesting/riots, and implies the youth doing it are just fucked up/co-opting it for a trend, and are also just super addicted to drugs all the time lmfao. and it is even bizarrer in retrospect because everyone in comics and making comics now pretty much agrees now that magneto IS right. that is just how minority politics irl have developed!! charles’ assimilationist bullshit is long past!!
HOWEVER. i do think there is a way to redeem/fix that and that’s if we think of it as a story that demonises WHITE counterculture. if we take it as a story that’s like yeah, white leftism and white queer/trans rage without intersectionality is just white supremacy. that tbh is what it should’ve been and i’m never giving grant morrison that credit but that’s what i wanted bc my god white gays are annoying and quentin is like such a perfect encapsulation of that entitlement. tbh. i like him so much as a character but if i knew him irl i’d block him on all platforms and throw him off a cliff etc etc
like i think it’s fine to take quentin’s writing in riot at xavier’s at face value bc morrison WAS seemingly aiming for a criticism on how people co-opt politics to be trendy and as an outlet for more personal issues which does happen! i just think the optics are bizarre for that and it falls into wild horseshoe theory shit and i dont think it WORKS you know i think there’s more interesting ways to take that character that aren’t like “the youth’s anger and protesting and counterculture is stupid” especially because we don’t really HAVE any radical characters that arent consistently villainised. and i think people have tried to do that since wolverine and the x-men with a more defanged pathetic quentin who is i think bi now? idk last i remembered christina strain made him lie that benji was his boyfriend in gen x 2017 but does that count? have they said it more explicitly since then? who knows i dont remember either way i think he’s better having been kicked down a few rungs and given growth. i like that his biggest fear is losing his friends/community at school. im glad that ppl have made him more fun as a character now… but they’ve also done that while wiping the political beliefs/allegory out of his character and making him just that superior annoying dude instead of trying to tackle what it does mean for quentin to have a genuine rage and hatred for how the system oppresses and kills people like him. the story implies that rage was never really genuine and he was just acting out but that SUCKS and is BORING because fuck if im not also angry all the damn time about the state of the world! let us be angry about injustice without demonising that anger! like that is why i do think quentin does have a niche following of queer fans bc like for a moment we connected with that rage from a guy who looks like *waves hand in the air* that
also my hottest take that i got redpilled into via one article i read years ago is that i think idie/quentin/evan could’ve been the next insane phoenix jean/scott/logan love triangle. a LOT of work and writing would need to be done to actually make me care about quentin in any relationship but the potential was there and could’ve been great tbh. we’re long past that era now but sometimes i think about how i would reboot that whoooole schtick into something cohesive like it could’ve been a subversive little queer story of colour if watxm volume 2 wasnt just the quentin quire show and idie/evan got more spotlight and if it wasnt completely incomprehensible or had unfortunate art. BUT ANYWAY.
THIS GOT SO LONG AND IS SOOO INDECIPHERABLE SO SORRY ANON I JUST WANTED TO RANT AND TRULY TWITTER HAS A WORD LIMIT ❤️❤️ thank u for ur support ❤️❤️❤️
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Hello!! Can you do Eddie with a Muslim girl? please 💕
Hi there! I tried to get a few more details about this request-made a post a couple of times, but didn't get a response. I do apologize if this isn't what you had in mind.
Eddie Munson x Muslim Girl Reader
Send me request here! Currently writing for Eddie Munson. I write for a variety of reader inserts (male, female, gender neutral, POC too).
The more details you had to your request, the better it is for me. EX: “What about some fluff for Eddie after he’s had a long day?”
Feel free to look through my masterlist here!
______________________________
It starts with just a note.
Hi.
You know the scratchy handwriting anywhere, after spending a month next to him in Algebra and swapping math notes so Eddie could get the equation down right, you've learned to spot the handwriting nearly a mile away.
But this, what you have with Eddie now all started five months ago at the start of a new school year and the two of you landed in History together. You weren't the type to sit in the back but you didn't love History. You were good at it, but what they taught wasn't always the full truth. It'd been picked over and watered down.
So you sat in the back, to avoid the gaze of Mr. Brown, planning to do just enough to pass the class without raising the alarm of your parents. Eddie gently taps your arm as you're doodling in the corner of your notebook and by the time you look up, peering around to see a folded piece of paper slid across the desk towards you.
You take it, as discreetly as you can from Eddie's retreating fingers and unfold the squares to reveal the single word on the college lined notebook paper.
Hi, Eddie.
Thanks again for your help last year. Promise this year I won't need as much help.
You snicker as you read the note at Eddie's underline the word "as". He's smart, easily distracted and clearly the system's not designed to accomodate people like him. But you know he's good under the surface of leather jacket and wild hair. You grin to yourself as you look back up at the board. Mr. Brown is deep into a lecture and you drop your gaze to look down to respond. I'm always happy to help.
You're nice. Sweet, too. Do you still have Wednesday's free?
You read over the note, freezing for a moment. Eddie's got his head buried in his notebook when you look over to him. I do. Why? What's up?
You slide your respond back over to Eddie and for someone who seems to buried in their notes, Eddie's hand shoots out for the response like a bat out of hell. You smile to yourself, looking back up tp the board and then jot down another line of notes.
Like to make it a long standing study date if it's okay?
Yeah, that's okay. Do you mind coming over? Parents are a little strict about it. Usual time?
You normally, last year, with Eddie would tutor him after school at the library--but given recent events in the town, your parents wanted you home unless there was a group of you out and they knew everyone. You tried not to ruffle feathers. It would only make matters worse.
You sure your parents won't mind? I don't scream bring to your house and have to interact with your parents material.
They're cool--well about some things. Our ritual sacrifice will have to wait for another day.
Eddie giggles, no one outside of the two of you seem to really notice but he fucking giggles as he reads your response. Damn. Was hoping it get it done sooner this year. But as long as you're sure, I'll be over at the usual time.
And with just a simple note, you and Eddie have landed yourself here. Every Wednesday, Eddie pulls into your driveway promptly at 5 but always lingers in the van for a few minutes to make sure he's not catching your family in the middle of prayer. He pulls out his backpack from the floor of the passenger seat and prays to whomever is above that the smell of his pail hasn't lingered too bad.
When he thinks the coast is clear, he piles out of the van, knocks on the front door is always immediately greeted by your father. It's always with a smile. "Come, come in," your father greets as always patting Eddie on the shoulder.
The house always smells alive--spices Eddie can't put a name too, but your mother is always happy to offer whatever she's been cooking or snacks. Eddie takes them with a smile and settles down at the kitchen table. And like clock work as Eddie settles down at the kitchen table, you come down the hallway, voice huffing as your sister clings to you.
"I swear if you steal another one, our parents will have to bury you."
Eddie laughs, fingers toying at the rings of his notebooks as you come down the hallway. You smile at him, books in hands and just behind you is your sister, a clip in her scarf that Eddie is yours. Clearly it's not that important because she's still wearing it but Eddie likes watching the way you and your sister interact. You settle down across from him and your sister waves at him. He waves back.
"Where did we leave off?" you ask with a huff, watching the way Eddie's gaze softens when he turns it full to you. You're not sure what the look is supposed to mean, but it makes your stomach flutter just a little.
Eddie blinks, dropping his gaze back down to his notebooks. "World World II I'm pretty sure," he answers.
"Lovely."
You watch Eddie shift in the wooden chair and the bangs start to stick on his forehead. The house is warm with the addition of the oven going and your mother at the stove. Eddie always shows up, no matter how hot it is outside in a flannel.
"Is it too warm?" you ask, getting up to fix a glass of water and grab some paper towel off the role.
Eddie clears his throat after taking a sip. "Thanks. I'm okay."
"The house is not going to go into flames if you take off the layer. I promise. The tattoos are fine, you know."
Eddie ducks his head. "Just-just wanted to be respectful," he laughs.
"You literally sit here for like an hour and a half once a week and you don't even need help in History. You could be anywhere, but you're here. You don't have to prove anything else." You motion at the flannel. "Go on."
Eddie's cheeks turn pink and it's not with the heat of the kitchen before he slowly peels himself out of the red flannel that he stole from Wayne.
"Tada," you laugh. "You flames, no Hell bursting wide open. I don't believe the rumors anyhow."
"Thanks," Eddie whispers. "For giving me the chance."
"Of course."
He realizes as he starts to form the words that he probably shouldn't ask here. But also it doesn't hurt to ask here either. "Think I can stretch my luck and get a date?"
At that you laugh as you hear your dad groan and push off the sofa. "Gotta ask the big guy first," you nod over your shoulder.
"What's this I hear about a date? Where are we going?"
#eddie munson#eddie munson fanfic#eddie munson fic#eddie munson imagine#eddie munson blurb#eddie munson x reader#eddie munson x f!reader#eddie munson x muslim reader#h writes#stranger things
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arc v 51-65 thoughts! JACK IS HERE FINALLY!!!! also crow. also, prison arc. they sent 14 year olds to actual adult prison! the gang learned about classism, corruption in the system and that you cant Beat Cops with Smiles, but with your Fists :)
-ok. in the back end of the reiji v yuya duel yuya seems surprised to hear yuzu is okay, just taken. and im like. OH IS THAT WHY HES SO UPSET?? HE THOUGHT SHE WAS /DEAD/??? I mean. you know what thats fair. being turned into a piece of paper/cardboard(?) cards. would usually mean death I guess and he did think thats what happened to her. I still think its silly for him to be so pissed at reiji who by all accounts is the nicest ygo rich guy in the entire serieses history imo. but reiji did withhold some info to test yuya a lil bit. but yknow. still.
-…reiji's mom…TOLD the WORLD about the war/invaders AND THEY CANCELED. THE. TOURNAMENT. THEY CANCELED IT AND PRIORITIZED THE WORLDS SAFETY. we ARENT getting a FULL TOURNAMENT ARC??? IN YUGIOH??? i am shocked. no way… (I know I said itd be really funny if a protag didnt win the tournament, but they CANCELED IT which is somehow even funnier to me) I cannot say I expected this at all but im not MAD abt it
-see the next ep when yuya v his mom we learn his mom was a former GIRL GANG BOSS??? WHERE HAS /THAT/ ENERGY BEEN THIS WHOLE SERIES??? instead of being a creep towards kids she couldve been characterized like this! the story abt her and yuyas dad is pretty cute but if /i/ i had a hot mob boss wife i wouldnt be telling her to solve everything with smiles not violence :) i would pick up a fucking bat with her. whatever its FINE
-god the lil montage of yuzu's dad dueling with her in a lil baby pouch on his back and pausing a duel to change her diaper was SO CUTE. TF BEST YGO DAD FOR REAL GOD. hes a duel school teacher!!! why!! cant he come to help!!!! why are they just letting an 18-19 yr old lead the lancers into anOTHER DIMENSION. i dont CARE that hes thee most responsible smartest guy ever or whatever. my god
-shun and serena are remarkably chill abt all of this, hope we see more of them talking and hanging out and stuff. like serena looks just like his sister and yuya looks like his bestie and u KNOW thats SO weird to him?? but also they were on oppisite sides of the war! i want! more interactions! (very funny theyre both kinda trailing reiji. tbh if /i/ was stranded in another dimension he would be the person id be latching onto out of this cast, too. very nice and level headed guy)
-MY GOD. yugo is SO sweet, his calm explanation to yuzu and them just sittin and talking was great. (his reaction to yuzu implying he loves rin was also very very cute. and rins design AUGH I love it SO much. yuzu is still best arc v girl for me but rins design is my fav. GREEN.) JACK!!! MENTIONED!!!
-while they were talking it sorta explained yugo v yuto was a huge misunderstanding bc yuto thought yugo was the Fusion Enemy and yugo thought yuto was yuri. very very understandable and funny. and also im starting to think everyone in this series is colorblind bc they cant tell any of the yuzu/yuya counterparts apart by hair… (also, speaking of yuri, where did he GO. whts HE up to. weve barely gotten any of him and id like More Please)
-it's…been a minute since I watched 5ds. years. and I only watched it once, so I know im probably going to get details wrong, but aside from jack and crow, all other charas so far are arc v originals? like melissa and Guy that Looks Like This :>/ arent in 5ds right… the city kinda looks different to me, but maybe its just the animation looks newer… are we going to get an explanation to where yusei is? bc if jack and crow are in this…like, none of the protags are in arc v. are they busy. is this a universe without them.
-I forgot how dystopian 5ds was! stupid rich ppl calling the cops on yugo and yuzu for LOITERING and acting like the lower class is a Threat is a lil too real…damn. yugo is so nice immediately just pulling her along to help while shes with him ;_; personality wise hes my fav of the yu boys so far… (I feel like such a traitor for this. sorry to yuto bc zexal is my fav series. but we barely got to see him. whenever he comes back im sure we'll get..more... and sorry to yuya bc I Love Clowns….but I love silly lil bikenana boy…willing to bet when we get more yuri he might fight for that spot bc i LOVE a good villain too…we'll see…)
-YUZU'S REACTION TO YUGO DWHEEL DUEL IS SO FUNNY SHES LIKE. SO RATIONAL THO. my GOD she kept saying he should stop to duel on foot and yeah. playing yugioh (or, any card game) on a bike would be insanely hard. like you have to basically have your cards ALL memorized bc you gotta keep ur eyes ahead to drive, right, so ud only be able to glance? everyone in synchro world has insane memorizing skills. (I know to a degree you'd be able to make the d-wheels have a sort of autopilot, but no, we see them steering themselves and accelerating themselves…)
-the animation kept cutting to 3d models while they were dueling on their bikes and it did Not Look Very Good. it was still very fun.
-yuzu Learns About Corrupt Police and Society Today! She once again is the Real Protag to Me. reporter cowgirl ladys design is cute!
-what was the point of the duel if the cops were gonna just set up a blockade anyway tf. the entertainment aspect is SO fucked lmao bored rich ppl. too real. yugo u dont need to rise in society u gotta burn it all down its all fucked. -_-
-YUZU HAS BEEN IN SYNCHRO WORLD FOR (1) DAY AND IS NOW A WANTED CRIMINAL!!! HOT GIRL SUMMERRRRR. (and by proximity, yuya and serena lol)
-LAYRA SAW COPS AND FLIPPED OUT. understandable but also WHO HURT U. SHINGO IMMEDIATELY NOT GIVING A FUCK AND IS READY TO DUEL THE COPS. SERENA TOO. honestly very iconic of everybody great job. except yuya who is just baffled and not 100% ready to throw down. Get with the PROGRAM yuya u cant fight cops with smiles.
-you know I understanding theyre tryin to duel their way out of it but letting ppl from synchro see: fusion, action cards, and pendulum in ONE GO seems DANGEROUS.
-sorry, but shingo being arrested while yuya is like YAY ACTION DUEL LET ME ENTERTAIN U ^_^ IS THE FUNNIEST THING EVER. and everytime he asked layra if theyre okay they look like a goddamn espurr like O__O clearly NOT OK. VERY SCARED WITHOUT REIJI. WHY DID U BRING THIS TRAUMATIZED CHILD!!!
-there was a scene when yuya was like 'look at these beautiful ladies!" n his hippo girl monsters danced for an uncomfortably long time and the cops face kept being zoomed in on and he was like O__O this ep…i cant tell if its TRYING to make me laugh but it is, my god yuya u are making ME smile if no one else. for absolutely the Wrong Reason. the CHEERFUL TONE he takes on in this situation is SO NOT APPROPRIATE FOR THE GRAVITY OF BEING. ARRESTED. this cop hes dueling is also the most tirest man ive ever seen which makes it so much better
-crows entrance was absolutely INCREDIBLE. WITH THE MOODY THUNDER AND ALL!! HOLY SHIT. just the sound of revving in the distance building up to it CROWWWWW I LOVE U. still probably most excited for jack but STILL.
-ohh, yugo know doesnt what his parents look like huh…and yuzu doesnt know what her mom looked like? her dad, the most cheerful dude in the world never talked abt her? weird.. theres still the mystery of yuzu having her bracelet…id say maybe all the yuya/yuzu counterparts might be the same but no, yuya has both parents so…cannot rly do anything with this info rn…
-ok just a small thought, but in the op and the eps so far, the guy whos always looking over security (idk his name yet but he looks like this :>/) is implied to be the villain, and ig reijis dad might be one of the final villains, but we havent had any Very Present Active villains aside from GROUPS of invaders that are p much faceless…I want more like. Present Villains. does that make sense. dennis doesnt count btw hes just some guy whos hangin out.
-shingo just introduced yuya as his APPRENTICE. PLEASE. i love him so much hes the funniest guy ever. crow also immediately being like 'idk abt all this dimension stuff! but u guys can hang out here for however long u need to :)' LOVE U CROW
-my god DENNIS can juggle and do silly little magic stuff. ok. ive been very lukewarm to him but thats very cute. also 'gon-chan' PLS.
-also one of the bills he got as a tip had that little clown guy from 5ds on it. was he a …person who was important enough to be on money? i dont remember him very much except he had like. a clown wife. cannot recall his place in the plot or anything else LMAO
-yugo and yuzu just trying to convince randos on the street the WAR IS COMING AND THEY CAN TRAVEL DIMENSIONS. AND GETTING LAUGHED AT. HELP THEM.
-im running into traffic to defend gons honor. hes so mad dennis made him the villain in their silly little roleplay HAHA. dennis is like a campy little guy, even when hes outed as a traitor later I seriously seriously doubt itll stick or he'll be a real threat. hes a silly guy..also I just like his monsters designs a lot. (also, he outed xyz to synchro dimension too LMAO DUDE. now they have all the summoning methods u guys can use…)
-gallager is just. he introduces himself as a promoter but him and nico smiley are both like. pimps for duelists right. KAHSDKJ. love his outfit so much tho
-so…where the HELL did reiji land….mildly concerned about now, its been a few…eps and he hasnt been shown…where did he go……..is he ok…….is he with jack….
-ILLEGAL DUEL BETTING. GON IS SOOO OFFENDED TOO. AND THEN IT CUTS TO SHUN IMMEDIATELY IN IT. epic illegal bird moment. poor gon is having to play peacekeeper and is the only reasonable person of this trio
-crow explaining the tops STOLE riding duels and make commoners do it for fun..my god they gentrified riding duels
-very grateful yuya is the one kinda looking after layra in reijis absence. makes perfect sense since he kinda is a big bro figure to the kids at the duel school too! it adds a real softness to yuya that I like (ok lets be real hes already been pretty soft. gooey and warm center, like a cookie) for a second it panned to serena and i was thinking pls dont let the only girl in the group be the mother hen but no. she completely ignores layra and decided to go out on her own (shingo following her lol) bc shes sick of sitting around waiting and her main goal, in her Words is to Find Yuzu too. would it be weird to ship them since they..look the same supposedly….JSDKFJK its tht question of what ud do if u met a clone of urself/alt version of urself. would u kiss or kill them. serena is a Kiss the Clone kinda girl and I respect that
-'friendship cup' is the funniest name ever for a tournament. YOU HAVE TO ENTER. TO DUEL JACK. JACK IS THE PRIZE. TROPHY WIFE JACK. shun and dennis both want to fight jack sooo bad its so funny. me too (affectionate) the fact dennis and shun both took to riding bikes and dueling at the same time SO fast is. incredible. and their lil outfits….
-oh wait. this means the earlier tournament being canceled is just gonna lead into this one isnt it HAHAH i knew it couldnt be ygo without a full tournament arc….its fine. I actually dont DISLIKE these type of arcs even if they arent my favorite
-not sure if ive said it but I Must mention it: yuyas magicians have nonbinary swag
-who the hell is shinji. youre not yusei. bootleg yusei….where did they PUT YUSEI!!! are all the protags busy like DAMN!! WHERE ARE THEY!!! I understand on a meta level u wouldnt want them all in the series to take away protagswag from yuya but this series literally lends itself to a bbt style crossover! the whole series is a crossover! they shouldve had a lil movie or smth. I want. another bbt movie. but w the newer protags too. lke all 8-9(??) ygo protags...itd be FUN
-crow being such a DAD to a ton of kids is cute. and probably the best person layra couldve come to stay with tbh, hes obv concerned abt them ;_; babies. also him and yuya dueling bc crow thinks feeding kids is more important than making them smile…and yuya thinks making them smile is more important…no yuya i gotta side with crow here LMAO crow called yuya privileged too JDSFHKJ
-NINJA GUY!!! I FORGOT HE WAS WITH THE LANCERS?? i mean ive been seein him in the op but STILL. good he got layra outta there. the cops were going to arrest a CHILD. i mean ik yuya is a child too but layra is a CHILD child not a teen yk. omg jail arc???
-speaking of arcs. is this series called arc v. because. arc 5. as in fifth arc of the yugioh series. I was speculating to why it was called that last time and had the realization thats prob why JKSHDFK
-god we actually are getting a…prison arc…this is INCREDIBLE. why werent they given the prison uniforms everyone else has. btw yuya now would be the PERFECT time to bring ur inner demon out to break out
-the bosses absurdly large brick stack of cards is insane. ive never seen so many so neatly stcked in one place…bro what if someone knocked them over that would be a nightmare…
-the lil story with the boss was fun (and felt appropriate given hes dueling yuya, who is all abt Smiles and Entertaining and hed lost that…like gettin his spark back) …so the moral here is u can make friends with fellow inmates n have solidarity but the cops are always enemies. understandable and real
-so yuya should become the new prison boss. right. he beat the old boss. but whatever I guess they didnt want yuya to be a crimeboss...cowards
-so whenever someone tries breaking out, their friends/the ppl left behind get punished and taken somewhere they 'never return from'…thats…terrifying and would be pretty efficient to anyone with any kind of morals, but idk, i feel like anyone would get really desperate and try it anyway at a certain point if conditions are bad enough, their fellow inmates be damned..
-sorry but it has to be said though. this mans hair is a lizard straight up. with the little hands and everything. is anyone fucking talking about this.
-my god yugo cannot whistle at all. everytime i see him and yuzu im like. they are so funny i love them both so much SJADFHKJ we go a few eps w/out them and im so sad… btw..yuya is in jail, i kinda expected this friendship cup thing to involve them more heavily, but the :>/ guy said yugo and yuzu would be arrested when they showed up for it too and im like. is it even gonna be an Event or Not. i mean I LOVE prison arc but. Wondering
-'hey crow if ur gonna leave here (prison) can I come too..' YUYA. DO YOU THINK CROW OF ALL PEOPLE IS GOING TO LEAVE YOU AND YOUR FRIENDS IN PRISON AND DITCH YOU ALL?? ITS CROW. CMON.
-yuya constantly looking like either the happiest dude ever (when its horribly inappropriate most of the time) or the saddest little kicked puppy alive makes me lose it. (and the third option of Murderously Possessed, but its been like 20 eps since weve seen that so..maybe the demon and yuto both peaced out. maybe they eloped. good for them)
-ok im going to need a gif of this PRONTO. shun how did you get there. HE SHOULDER DROPPED THIS MAN. XYZ BITCHES ARE BUILT DIFFERENT. XYZ REPRESENT!!!! he bodied like 15 more guards after this with his FISTS not even using his cards CMON LETS GOOO the prison break scene was AMAZING. also shingo grabbing some rare cards on the way out. best boy alert. why do his eyes glow in the dark.
-….hey shingo loses SO many duels its kind of funny. reminds me of watching manjoume from gx do the same thing. between them who has more losses. theyre both a certain…flavor of cringedude characters that i always end up liking…
btw Lightsworn Monster SPOTTED. I HAVE THIS CARD IN MY FAVORITE DECK!!! HIII FELIS!!!
-'what does a monster with 100 lp have to accomplish' -guy whos never heard of goddamn card effects. damn i thought these dudes were supposed to be the super efficient guards or whatever…anyway shun coming in with the literal xyz rescue was CUTE look at him functioning in a team ;w; good
-oh my god :>/ guy is named jean-michel roget. hes. hes french coded. u know wht i think i like my silly lil emoji name for him better. GOD DAMN they were SO close to escaping. CROW HAS KIDS AT HOME. ARGNH THEYRE TRYING TO SEPARATE SERENA TOO. BULLSHIT.
-REIJI FINALLY FINALLY SHOWING UP. WHERE WERE U. talking to a council I Guess. fucking negotiating. ok king of efficiency. he saved everyones asses with this. everyone say thank u reiji for everything, always.
-oh my god the friendship cup. theyre all being forced to demonstrate their abilities in the tournament . mandatory friendship cup. its a Full Circle. out of jail straight into the REAL tournament arc. i cant believe this.
-yuya vs jack. oh my god its going to happen. <- so excited to see jack i am going to throw UP
-crow called jack a traitor so. so they havent made up yet. I mean I FIGURED and yusei isnt HERE and i am :( I barely remember 5ds but I remember crow and jack bein silly together near the end…be FRIENDS or ELSE I will CRY
-yuzu's lil riding duel outfit is SO cute. pls. also yuzu crying with relief once she sees yuya is ok…baby ;_; theyre so Close to bein reunited….
-the problem with me trying to figure out how and why this series diverges from 5ds is that i remember Nothing Important from 5ds at all. i remember the dumbass details like that jack loved cup ramen JSDHKJ but its clearly an au (with..no yusei for some reason...) and im like. wondering if theyll ever explain WHY its an au from the original. or if im just supposed to Know. bc I Dont Yet
-I thought itd be really funny if jack DID defeat yuya in Three Turns like he said he was going to. and then he DOES. he beats him so hard yuya FLIES OFF HIS BIKE. AND BOUNCES. LMAO glad hes wearing a helmet at least. love u jack. also. i know it was probably framed in the way of jack being an asshole but I? kind of agree with him about this:
(I actually…said smth along these lines in my first arc v liveblog post:
almost word for word HAHA me and jack are on the same wavelength and he read yuya in like 10 seconds FLAT I am Amazed)
not that it's a BAD thing. he wants to make people happy, and it makes him happy in turn when theyre cheering for him! thats fine! (an irl example would be like, I enjoy making art for others to make them happy. but I also enjoy getting positive feedback for my own satisfaction!) absolutely nothing wrong with it!
HOWEVER. the impression I've gotten so far is that yuya gets upset when his opponent is the one being cheered for (a good example was the michio duel and that annoying trivia kid duel. he didnt seem real happy when the audience was rooting for them and not him!) as opposed to…I cant believe I'm comparing him to dennis but. the dennis v gon duel was a great example of what I think a more genuine entertainment duel should be…they were playing the roles of hero v villain, and dennis was great at improv there, quickly turning into the villain when Straight Man to his Comedy Guy routine Gon accused him of being the Real Villain in that situation. like he ROLLED with it and was perfectly fine with gon winning bc it suited their lil story and the audience loved it! I think entertainment dueling SHOULD be like that, like improv and acting bc you're entertaining ppl. ur a performer. u need to go w the flow more.
(Okay, this might not have been the best duel to show it off bc 1. hes dueling JACK of all ppl who declared hes gonna WIN and. he Will. 2. this is a situation where hes trying to showcase the strength of the lancers, so it wouldnt do to THROW the duel. but he couldve played into jacks dramatics a bit, made himself out to be more of a dramatic underdog, or a potential upstarter…for wanting to be an ENTERTAINER I want to see yuya channel his dramatics a LOT more than he does. esp w jack of all ppl!) to me it feels like yuya also ties a LOT of his self worth to how other ppl perceive his role in duels too which is Unhealthy (and again. is an extension of the 'smile when u want to cry' stuff imo, also pretty unhealthy) I…dont know if any of this is That Deep or theyre just trying to make jack seem like an asshole. I WANT it to be this deep bc its a REALLY interesting trait for a protag to have!
-kinda love how ppl in the Tops are dressed like old timey victorians. (also a lot of them have very western names) it just creates a very. unique vibe
-can I also just say i LOVE LOVE LOVE the trope in ygo of 'person does what they think is the final finishing move, then theres smoke and everyone is like :0 and when the smoke clears, the person is still standing in the duel because of some trap/spell/effect' IT HAPPENS SO MUCH IN ARC V AND I EAT IT UP EVERYTIME.
-...jack gave this random child servant a card and told him it suited him and the kids mad jack 'changed' and got mad jack compared him to a 'weak card'...first off its gonna end up being smth like 'even weak cards have potential, none of them are useless, its like u, u feel like ur a low level but u also have potential' (which. very yusei thing btw) but also if my hero gave me a card i would literally be SO happy this kid is dumb asf. jack literally wasnt even being RUDE when he gave it to him and jack is usually SO Rude like CMON. 'wheeh i had NO cards and jack gave me one but its WEAK so i dont want it' this is called being ungrateful. i know hes a kid so I shouldnt be so annoyed but damn its rude. its a REALLY cute card too (not one I recognize and the text is in japanese but its a cute lil cyber girl with pink hair and a tuning fork and bc this is synchro I assume its a tuner monster or smth?)
-...went from jail to bougiest penthouse in the world. lmao and locked in his room....ur a rich persons pet now...'if u lose ur out of the penthouse' willing to bet its the same for jack since at the end of the day hes still. u know. a commons Guy cosplaying a bougie. funnily enough, the tops are saying 'as long as he keeps winning hes not a commons, hes one of us!' and the commons are saying 'hes a traitor who sold out!' then another commons guy being like 'NO jack is still OUR hero he doesnt belong to the tops!' etc. its like he cant fucking win no matter what he does! insane. jack ilu tho.
-...actually, first match is gon v crow. calling it now, gon loses his Stand In One Place shtick isnt gonna work v a motorcycle. i kinda think I want crow to win this tournament actually to duel jack KJHSDKJ i know itll prob be yuya but cmonnnn. its PERSONAL for crow. btw does this mean gon will be homeless for the rest of the friendship cup stuff since if u lose u get kicked outta the penthouse. where will he GO. ...tbh since crow has kids waiting at home for him it might be better if he loses first so he can take the losers of this tournament back home w him so they dont. go to jail again? maybe? we’ll see!!
very very fun stretch of eps, I binged SO many last night and tonight :3
#sanchoyo liveblogs arc v#sanchoyorambles#JAAAAAAAACK MY FRIEND JACK HE IS SO FUN I LOVE JACK <- loves jack#also going to print out and frame that pic of shun elbow dropping a cop. its so dear to me. thanks buddy#arc v#ygo#this kind of turned into an essay at the end of me analysing yuya which#may or may not be completely wrong and i might be looking too hard into it#i actually think jack is being very chill compared to how i REMEMBER him which is like#this is clearly n au right. but how/why
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Hey there! Chapter 4 is up!
Since last night, police and pro heros were alert around the dorms and around the school.
Villains wouldn't make a move (it was too risky with so many pro heros on the same place, and with the security systems at full alert and function), still, it wouldn't hurt to be cautious.
Thigs weren't looking good and there was tension in the air.
They had made the students stay in the dorms
This kid wasn't normal... he could be in danger... or he could be the danger... for precaution it was decided he was handcuffed to the bed, but no one expected him to wake up screaming and scratching himself to bleed, breaking the handcuffs in the process. Like, yeah, when people that don't have strength based quirks train and stuff they can be strong. But he actually broke the cuffs without problem. Those cuffs were designed to resist strength quirks.
At first Aizawa thought the hearing came with the kid's quirk somehow or maybe he just got overwhelmed, but the strength...
Could this kid be a new kind of Nomu?
Everyone got on the move when this possibility was put on the table. Some suggested handcuffing the boy once again, but Aizawa argued against it, even if he was indeed a nomu, the kid hadn't wanted to attack anyone, he had alredy enough stress with the nightmare he woke up from and if they handcuffed him, the kid would try to free himself and who knew how violently he could react.
What Aizawa felt when he saw the kid for the first time was... something.
The scars were also worrysome.
When Chiyo checked him, she found small scars here and there along his body, but the most notable were two scars, the first one was a stab wound, the second one was a scar of a big wound. It was the size of a fist if not a little bigger.
What happened to this kid?
Hisazhi had wanted to stay with him when the kid woke up, but he convinced him to stay with the kids.
They needed answers.
And soon.
_____________________
Rin was confused, red flags raised inside his head.
His first though was "why would anyone bring him here when he literally set himself on fire?”. Then he remembered that Aizawa could turn off his flames, and all the weird looking people he saw on the street (well not that strange, at least for him, demons looked funny most of the time). He wouldn't stand out so much (that was what he hoped, there was a guy with skin of what looked like wood on the street for fucks sakes!) but he had to get out of here to get his sword.
Shūzenji's "quirk", as she called it, (looked like that term was the way they meant their powers, why did they call it that? and how did all these people got powers?) consisted in healing, her lips grew and stretched giving him a kiss. After that, he felt a bit more tired but the scratches healed.
He let her use her quirk on him deciding to keep quiet about his fast healing, bursting in blue fire like a damn lighter was bad enough, he didn't want to get things worse. The less they knew the better, so, when Shūzenji and Aizawa asked him how was he and if this happened often he said he just had a bad day. The nephilim honestly didn't know what would have been the best answer but he hoped this was a good one. If he said yes then they would say "oh, so you are dangerous, we can't let you go" and who knows what they would do to him, and if he said no (like he did), he wasn't really sure what would come next.
The door was knocked twice before being opened by a man with black hair along with what looked like... a huge mouse??
Okeeey??
— Principal Nezu, detective Tsukauchi, I was about to call you — said Aizawa in a neutral tone.
— Hello Aizawa, I see our guest is awake — answered the huge talking rodent
The uneasiness twisted Rin's guts and crawled under his skin, but he managed to calm himself as he reminded himself that it was more likely that these people didn't even know what demons are (unless they were exorcists or something but he didn't think so, they didn't use True Cross symbol or anything, not to mention that they would have already attacked him, they were already taking too long for that), still, the fact that they saw his flames kept him nervous. It made him remember that nightmare and it sent shivers down his spine.
— Now, kid, could you please tell us your name, your age and explain us a little about what happened to you? — asked the detective.
— My name is Rin Okumura, I'm 15 years old and I was going to the train station when my flames got out of control, I didn't know what else to do that get away from people to not hurt anyone, Mr. Aizawa knows the rest — he gestured to him. — Thanks by the way — he quickly added.
It felt kinda weird to talk about his flames as if it was something normal.
Aizawa's response was just a nod. His expression was unreadable.
Rin really hoped they'd buy it cause there's no way he could play dumb like he would have wanted to. Aizawa and some officers saw his flames, and who knows how many people too on the streets.
He was lost, Kurikara was lost, strangers saw his flames, he was now being interrogated.
How was he going to fix all this mess?.
The detective wrote somethig on his notepad. It made Rin sweat a little.
— Can you tell us a bit more about your quirk?
Rin expected that. It wasn't so surprising.
— Like you saw, I can control blue flames... sir — he said glancing to Aizawa.
Tsukauchi took a moment, then wrote another note on the notepad.
— Is that all?
— Yes
New note.
《Should I tell them that I need to contact my family?...but what if the phone numbers don't work again? How will I explain that?》
Tsukauchi sighed putting down the notepad
— Rin, we really need you to clarify us some things, please don't lie
— I'm not lying! — His claim sounded lame even for him.
— My quirk lets me tell apart truth from lies, so, again, please don't lie.
《FUCK. IT.!》
Rin not knowing what else to do, bolted. The window seemed like the best route of escape. He knew they said something but he didn't hear it.
He had to go.
The window was close, but before he understood what was happening, he found himself on the floor restrained by Aizawa's scarf
— Kid, you're making this harder than it is
Aizawa's hair was floating and his eyes were red
— Trying to run will be also pointless, officers and proheros surrounding the school, you won't get far.— Added Nezu calmly and composed
Rin was thankful the scarf wasn't made of some holy shit thing that affected demons (what was it made of then?), and now he had it clear that those hair and eyes meant he couldn't use his flames.
The scarf restringing him felt more tight for a moment. But he could break the scarf, he could feel it.
Maybe Aizawa noticed this or something cause he said
— Listen, answer our questions honestly and everything will be ok.
That made Rin stop trashing and trying to get free. He was done.
— That's bullshit and we all know it!. Let me go! — He spat at no one in particular, he just wanted to leave.
Aizawa crouched down to be more at eye level with Rin, turning off his quirk.
— We really need some answers, please, just help us with that, nothing bad is going to happen to you
— What do you want to know from me that's so important? — asked the nephilim, his voice a mix of despair and annoyance, but he had stopped trashing so Aizawa let him take a sitting position
—We just need to know if you know some people — said Nezu (seriously what was he?). It was a bit unsettling that during this whole time he was calm and still.
— Like I said, my quirk lets me tell apart truth from lies so i know you lied, at least in some things, I got that you are being honest about your name, your age, and the fact that you did not want to hurt anyone when your quirk went out of control on your way to the train station explained Tsukauchi so, can Aizawa release you so we can clear all this?
Rin weightened his options.
He didn't understand much what did Nezu meant with "proheros" but if they were with the police, that meant bad news. They could be bluffing of course, but... it made sense now, they wouldn't have brought him here without being careful.
A part of him wanted to release himself and just look for his sword. But even if he didn't like it, he had everything to lose. If Aizawa could turn off his flames who knew how many others could too. He also didn't know what powers those officers and "proheros" had.
Plus, if they were after him it would be harder to find Kurikara.
He would have to take his chance when he found himself alone.
— Fine — he reluctantly said. With that he was free once again.
— Thank you— said the detective genuinely
They let him take a sit on the bed.
— Now, what other quirks do you have? — asked Tsukauchi
— Uh... — he felt a little awkward — I'm... strong, my senses are better than the average, too.
He also could hear demons telephatically (they didn't need to know that), but now that he thought about it, at first he just assumed all he had were the flames, his strength and the physical changes of his ears, fangs and tail. Hearing Kuro was a surprise. He couldn't prevent but wonder if there was anything else he could do.
— Are you a Nomu?
That was new?. He had been called all kind of names alluding to his demon heritage but he never heard that expression before. Was it a kind of demon? He wished he had paid attention to class. No matter how hard he tried to rack his brain, nothing, it didn't ring any bells.
— No
— Do you know what a Nomu is? Or have you heard of it before?
— No, what are they? — Hey, if they suspected him for being something at least he wanted to know what it was
— Let's summary it as they are people that were experimented on, that have more than one quirk.
— ...Oh — that was the only thing Rin could say. That... sounded messed up.
— Do you know the League of villains? any relationship with any of them?
They showed him sketches of what he assumed were members of this "League".
— No, never seen or heard of them before
— And All for One?
— No
《What kind of name is that?》
Rin took note how the air in the room relieved a little after his answer. There had been tension he didn't notice before.
— What gave you the idea that I had something to do with them?
— Your blue fire quirk — Tsukauchi elaborated, gesturing to a sketch of a young man that had spiky hair, heavily scarred over his jaw, down to his neck, and under his eyes, with what looked like staples along the scars and piercings on his ears — This guy, who calls himself Dabi, is dangerous, and also has a blue fire quirk like you.
— You can understand we needed to be careful — said Nezu — But now, I think we all are really curious about two things, the first one is how do you have more that one quirk and not be a Nomu, and the second is why aren't you in the system, we couldn't find anything about you, as if you don't exist, no missing report, no registration, nothing.
Rin looked at Tsukauchi straight in the eye.
— You said you knew when someone is lying right?
— Yes?
— Then you know I'm dead serious when I tell you than I'm not from here
— What do you mean? — Tsukauchi asked. Everyone was as confused as him
— I mean this isn't my home world or something. I don't know where the fuck I am, but where I come from there aren't things as proheros, this League of whatever or Nomus, I don't even know how the fuck I got here in the first place — Rin said extending his hands and then letting them fall in his lap in despair — all I know is I have to go back home, so just let me go and I'll be out of your hair.
Please. He begged silently.
Rin sweated cold, he fucked up, he fucked up, he fucked up BIG time. He felt everyone was looking at him as if he had gone nuts, then they looked at Tsukaiuchi.
— Ok... — guess the detective was processing all this — You are being honest...
After a few minutes where everyone let the information sink in Nezu broke the silence
— If you allow me, Rin, I have a better proposal for you... what do you think about becoming a hero?
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uhh anyone else grew up doing well at school but struggles in higher education because you are afraid of asking questions if you didn't get something for the first time and feeling like somehow you instinctively have to know everything or else you'll be seen as dumb???
#like i dont struggle with my grades bc i usually end up asking the questions... it just takes me hours of prep time and a fuckton of anxiety#rn too...... i have a zoom meeting in two hours with my statistics prof so he can explain my correspondance analysis to me#bc i literally never did one before (so it seems valid that i dont know how it works right?)#and im so anxious i could barely fall asleep last night and woke up hours earlier than i was supposed to#like damn the school system really is designed to fuck everyone up#and even being a good student and conforming to their expectations wont save you from that#my posts#im tired and stressed tf out help#please dont reblog
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Rating Your Shameful Simps
DISCLAIMER: this is of course all /lh and my attempts to be funny. I have too many skeletons in my search history to really judge but that won't stop me from initiating some clown on clown violence with yall.
Let's get into it
Asra from the Arcana game
...really? That's the most shameful character you'd read smut for? A man with a pet snake? Haven't played the game yet but he's pretty cute I'm a big fan of the white hair on poc character design I think it's cool 8/10
ok not necessarily shameful but matt murdock 😳😳
Again, really? ik damn well y'all are freakier than that bc you're here aintcha. 10/10 tho I approve
peepaw afton
All that comes up in google images is Springtrap. You don't wanna admit you're a robot fucker, huh? 0/10
william afton😞
All that comes up in google images is that 8-bit grape fucker and a scrawny brunet in a Springtrap onesie... is this young peepaw? He's not hideous, I'd say a 4/10, 7/10 if I were straight
freddy fazbear (all of them) 🏃♂️
Fair enough, not my type but I can't judge much. I tried to get into Foxy in middle school and now I'm super into Monty and Sun/Moon so yk. 7/10 if youre into dilfy types
Todd from Eddsworld
Google says you mean Tord, who I'm told is a robot-building communist. I can't say shit bc I read some Tom fics back when i was super into Eyeless Jack, never learned anything about Eddsworld tho. 4/10 bc i dont really like the art style, probably 6/10 if he was real
Jeff the killer
You mean the middle schooler with no eyelids? Get some help and focus on your geometry homework, creepypasta simping is for middle schoolers questioning either their gender or sexuality and haven't gotten a diagnosis for their mental issues yet and I stand by that bc I'm a shining example, 1/10
epistemological anarchism itself
I googled it and still don't know, fair enough, 7/10
the dad from httyd or that one bald butler from cruella
Stoik is fair, if you're into dilfs thats very understandable and vikings are hot, 7/10, I googled 'cruella bald butler' and mans looks like a clean shaven babish who moonlights as Agent 47 4/10
Ron Weasley
Everyone knows the twins are the hottest Weasleys 2/10
Venom
ah, the vanilla's shame. 10/10 character, I'll be here when you
optimus prime and i’m not proud of it
you shouldn't be, everyone knows if you're gonna fuck a transformer you go for Soundwave or Knockout and if you fuck an autobot you go for Bumblebee. Shameful. 2/10
Uhhh, probably Soundwave from transforms (specifically from transformers prime)
correct. 10/10 (side note i loved transformers prime it was one of the first shows i watched when i got out of my 'im only allowed to like girly things' phase and theres so many hot robots but also i lowkey had a crush on both jack and miko if im remembering names right)
I've read smut for the ninja turtles, SPECIFICALLY the 2007 movie ones, and the 2014/2016 movie ones
Incredibly valid, I was like 13-15 when the 2012 cartoon came out and in love with Raphael, then the 2014 movie came out and they were 9ft+ and so strong and they all had their little personalized accessories like mikey had a seashell necklace and they were all in like kilts/loincloths and I decided I'd be okay with any or all of them we're gonna assume (read: pray) that theyre 18-19 100/10
Bahorel, from Les Miserables (not the musical. the book. he's not mentioned in the musical. i read 2000 pages of french puns and descriptions of the paris sewer system just to read smut about an arguably minor character. ask me about the battle of waterloo i dare you. please kill me. )
Dear God. 2/10 for the character, 10/10 for the dedication.
ya ever heard of A Monster In Paris? Singing dancing giant flea named Francoeur. yeeeeea
I cannot judge, I never watched the movie but I watched that clip where she's singing while he plays his little instrument 100 times when i was like 15-16. I'm gonna judge anyway 8/10 there are hotter monsters but he is a musician so
Finally, the big whammy
munkustrap from cats (be gentle on me)
Wow. Wow. Everyone take a second, open a new tap, google it. First of all: absolutely not. There is not enough personality in the world to get my to fuck this creature. Secondly: you can't even come back with 'oh i meant this character typo aha' because there is nothing you can replace 'munkustrap' with to make this okay, because it'll still be from cats. Shame on you, shame on your cow, shame on your whole family. -9000/10
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okay so i read @lordwhat @funnywings @outpastthemoat’s post about the real finale being that the boys have to get out of fake heaven by way of gay love and found family and please just consider:
we open on dean who's doing his thing in heaven but it feels empty
he does the same thing almost every day and when he asks about blowing off some steam on a random hunt the answer is always that he deserves to rest
and he tries, he tries damn hard, but there's something off and he can't quite shake it
until he has a dream about jack, and it's all fire and brimstone and jack keeps telling him to wake up wake up wake up
and then maybe he starts noticing things about this heaven
about how things are designed to isolate him from everyone but sam
about how his parents are next door but he'd much rather be charlie's neighbour - charlie who's always too busy to hang out
and the pieces start falling into place
and the dreams get more intense
and he thinks he's going insane until he forces himself to talk to sam about how he lived out the rest of his life on earth, about the details
and sam's life was shitty too
and then it's obvious
they need jack but based on dean's dreams it sounds like he's in danger
so the winchesters bide their time, act natural, but eventually find a backdoor from heaven down to earth
and the second they arrive chuck is waiting
he holds jack by the scruff of his neck and rolls his eyes because really??? even in death the winchesters just don't fucking quit
he figured he'd have fun torturing them for eternity but hey looks like the total annihilation of this solar system is on the menu
and then his eyes widen and he just... stops
it’s cas
dorky cas, awkward cas, badass cas dressed in dark wash jeans, a white tee and a leather jacket. holding death’s scythe
because it turns out a reaper is just another kind of angel
and having a soul/grace hybrid means the almighty rules of universe have been bent yet again
so cas kills god
cas. the embodiment of love. he reaps chuck.
and he smiles after it’s over - maybe a little shy - but the winchesters are shocked, and the more he waits the less confident he feels. so he nods. steps back. starts walking away
and then dean practically bowls him over
and he’s hugging him and touching him to make sure he’s okay, and then he’s kissing him, hard and desperate and confessing his love like it’s a goddamn argument because how fucking dare he
and sam’s brows are in his hair but he can’t stop smiling and jack beams
cut to the bunker. it’s sunday night dinner and everyone is there. everyone: jody and donna and the girls, all the au folks, eileen
sitting around a table, we see everyone smiling and laughing and talking
jack is listening raptly to claire talk about hunting and patience talk about school
sam and eileen are practically sitting in each other’s laps
sam gets a text - he’s the head of the hunter network they’ve created, and it’s from a newbie. the hunt’s done, but the emf meter broke. sam kicks dean under the table. “hey, we need another emf meter.”
“seriously? do these new kids think this shit grows on trees?” dean rolls his eyes and mutters about working part-time hours at the garage, but he’s seldom been as happy then when he’s elbow deep in the guts of a machine. he turns to cas and
cas is looking over the entire table, pizza untouched. he’s smiling. soft. proud. happy.
dean pinches his thigh and grins. cas rolls his eyes. catches his hand.
dean is wearing death’s ring
end.
#destiel fic#15x20 coda#coda fic#I guess????#death!castiel#this was such a cool concept#adventures in fanfic
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FULL REVIEWS: “Understanding Willow”
Damn this episode was hyped up. Everyone was looking forward to this. Everyone wanted to know how this was going to go down. I did too and when we got it we were not disappointed.
However it did prove why I don’t participate in fan theories because we’re all usually wrong all the time. So I say just shut up and be patient. But enough of why I’m not invited to discussions. Lets get it on!
We start the cold open with a Skara sighting! I still think her design is cute. She inviting her friends to her fifteenth birthday party. Neat. We see a bit of Amity’s dynamic with the two. Boscha is actively mean to Willow and Luz while the other two seem more neutral.
“It’s fun because it’s stupid.” This was hilariously adorable.
This was adorably hilarious.
Again we get another quick shot of how Boscha and her group pick on Willow. Skara doesn’t actively join but she does laugh at Willow which does suck. And we know Amity used to put down Willow too. My lumity loving heart is guessing that she’s stopped because of Luz’s influence but it’s just a guess. Still not cool that she doesn’t stop Boscha but that’s for another episode.
That must be an odd sensation.
We cut to photo memory class(?) and it’s big brain time again. What track would this be in? What purpose would this serve? Who would need to pull out memories with tweezers? If this process could permanently damage a person why would you let teenagers do it to other teenagers? It’s a madhouse I tells ya. A madhouse.
Anyway.
So Willow was always a cutie.
Luz notices the Amity memory, but Willow asks her to drop it and leave it alone. Which she doesn’t do. It’s another character flaw of Luz that we’re going to see more of. She always has good intentions but she tends to overstep her bounds. It’s (to me) another form of being innocently insensitive, a common character flaw in characters like Luz.
Amity notices the memory too when she passes by the room. She wants to put their previous friendship behind them and does the reasonable thing of setting the memory on fire. Which sets all the memories on fire because of course it does. It’s fire! Dammit Amity, I thought you were the smart one.
“I’ve connected the dots.” “You haven’t connected shit.” “I’ve connected them.”
We start the B-plot with Gus. Apparently after being kicked out of the Human Appreciation Society, he’s been looking for another club to join and is trying the school paper. He has to interview someone to get in but can’t decide on who.
Is it hot in here or am I just dying?
Willow starts freaking out and getting all sweaty and everyone (you included) figures out why immediately.
And there it is.
So Willow is going to to bye-bye for good unless they do something. So Luz takes everyone to the smartest person she knows because it’s clearly not Amity right now.
It’s a good thing you went to Eda and not a teacher or Willow’s parents.
So Eda explains that they can recover Willow’s mind before all the memories are permanently destroyed by physically sending someone in there to recover and repair the memories.
“Be still my fantasy loving heart!”
I agree with Luz. I love the journey to the center of the mind trope. But Eda believes in the buddy system so someone has to go with her and since we need Gus for the B-plot, it’s Amity.
Luz and Amity enter Willow’s mind and it takes a quick second to organize itself to a form that they can perceive because it’s the mind. That’s kind what it does. It likes to organize things to recognize patterns and because magic.
Luz and Amity start fixing the memories. Apparently, Willow and Amity were really good friends when they were little and even Amity feels bad about almost getting rid of them. But there’s one memory that Amity doesn’t want Luz to see.
Meanwhile in the B-plot, Gus is still trying to find someone to interview. Eda suggests herself because she’s Eda, and King demands attention. They don’t care about Gus’s whatever; they just like attention.
Back in Willow’s mind, Luz and Amity are going a good job repairing the memories but something is undoing all their work. We get a cute moment between Luz and Amity that I want to talk about more when I do my lumity analysis after I finish the reviews.
BTW, I’m going to do a lumity analysis.
They discover that the monster undoing all their work wasn’t actually that one fire Digimon whose name escapes me, but was actually the Inner Willow. The Inner Willow reveals that Willow actually resents Amity for ending their friendship and letting her new friends pick on her for years.
Now she has the opportunity to let out all her anger and hate like The Emperor’s dialogue in a STAR WARS movie. I know I’ve made that joke before but it still applies.
Inner Willow plays back the memory of when Amity ended their friendship. We know they said that Amity did it because Willow was bad at magic but the acutal memory is a little off. Amity reveals why as well as the truth on why she really ended her friendship with Willow.
Amity’s parents never liked Willow because she wasn’t from an elite witch family. Of course Amity didn’t care. She was a little kid and kids don’t care about stuff like that. Amity’s parents say that she can have one of the friends that they picked out for her. (So Amity’s parents don’t even see Skara and Boscha as people either, huh?) Turns out they were brats even back then too. I guess Skara mellowed out over time. When Amity refuses, her parents promise that they’ll use their influence to make sure that Willow can’t get into Hexside.
This a threat but I always wondered why it was a threat. The best guesses are that Amity and Willow wouldn’t be able to see each other at all, Willow wanted to go to Hexside, Hexside is one of the better schools on The Boiling Isles, Hexside was the closest school to Willow’s house and going somewhere else would be too much of a pain in the ass. Whatever the case, the threat worked and Amity broke off their friendship in her birthday. Amity’s, not Willow’s. Pronouns.
Amity can’t undo the years of pain she’s put on Willow, but she can promise to make things better from now on. Amity apologizes and promises that she will try to stop Boscha and her gang from picking on her. Egg on her face, huh?
Hayden Christensen is going to show up next. I can feel it.
Luz and Amity repair the memories and leave Willow’s mind. In a very mature twist for a Disney show, Willow admits she can’t forgive Amity yet. There were literal years of pain between them. But it’s a start. And the episode ends with Gus interviewing Hooty and that goes exactly the way you think it would. Hoot.
FINAL SCORE: 5 - Loved it.
This episode was everything people wanted and more. The drama, the depth, the heart all came across strong here. Not a major turning point for the plot (because I know some people who dismiss every episode that isn’t about the main plot as filler. BTW fuck you guys), but this was a major turning point for the characters. Luz may be the main character of the show, but the main characters of the episode were Willow and Amity.
If I had to find any faults it’s that I didn’t think the B-plot was that great. I don’t think Gus is very funny yet. Especially when you put him next to two comedic powerhouses like King and Eda. Other than that, this was a mind blowing episode. And it’s not even the first one!
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The Neighborhood
Sibyl Campbell wasn’t even mad when she woke up on a hot ass May morning in her room, drenched in sweat. Instead, she bypassed anger and went straight to resignation because the HVAC system in the Robert Moses Houses was broken — again — and she didn’t have the time or the energy to bitch about it. In fact, the heating and cooling stayed shutting off across Groundview Gardens. It had become a predictable kind of disappointment in the neighborhood, more so than flooding during superstorms or the fact that no matter which part of the neighborhood you were in, you could feel the rumbling of the shuttle every seven minutes.
Sibyl had spent all night coughing and turning in her bed from the claustrophobic heat that agitated her asthma. Her mother had already gone to work, otherwise, she would have heard Mildred Campbell yelling in indignant patwa over the phone at an Arcadian Realty & Management representative “to fix the damn AC” before she threatened to call 311 on their ass, and report them to the city. Both Mildred and the AR&M rep knew it was an empty threat, but to shut her up, they’d call someone who’d tinker with the system and the air would come back on for a couple of days or so, before it chipped out. And then, the routine would start again.
Sibyl checked the weather. It was already ninety-five degrees. She took a puff from her inhaler and scrolled through her timeline. The same picture of a little girl with a big bright smile captioned with different variations of “RIP Destiny’’ and prayers for her family flooded her feed. Sibyl forced herself out of bed. The sweat on her body made her feel uncomfortable. She hauled a clunky, old portable air conditioner out from her closet and plugged it into the wall. Management would fine them for the spike in their energy use, but she didn’t care. She pushed the power button on, and waited for the box to cough out some hot air before it eventually cooled the room down from a humid haze to a lackluster lukewarm.
#
SOIL had been trying to meet with AR&M, the neighborhood’s collective management company, about the HVAC problem with little to no success for close to three years. They had circulated petitions. Tried shaming them in the local news. They even considered organizing a rent strike, which would have done nothing because everybody who lived in Groundview Gardens received subsidies from the city that made rent practically free. And as much as people were pissed about freezing their asses off in the winter or not being able to breathe during the summer, nobody was tryna fight free rent. So, SOIL decided to annoy the shit out of their landlords instead. On their way into their coolly ventilated corporate office buildings, occupying their lobbies, picketing in front of their luxury condos, and most effectively, managing to damage one, or two, of their solar-powered generators in the hottest month New York City had ever seen. A few arrests and some pissed off rich people later, management finally agreed to hold a town hall to hear from their tenants, which meant SOIL’s next plan of action was to convince as many people as possible to show up. Nefi Ramos saw it as a challenge that they could surely accomplish. Her neighbors were like camels to water in a desert. They were thirsty, and had learned to go without for as long as they needed to, but lead them to a watering hole, and they would drink.
“It’s too fucking hot,” she shouted into her megaphone. She was standing in front of one of the many large screens around Groundview that cycled between ads for things they couldn’t afford and AR&M’s infamous “neighborhoods of tomorrow” promotional video. Most people just used the screens to check train arrival times and the air quality. The next shuttle was two minutes away, and the air was currently “unsafe for vulnerable groups.”
“Are we just supposed to take this shit?” Nefi asked. “We don’t deserve to live like this.”
Around her, the rest of SOIL handed out cold bottles of water, popsicles, and fruit cups from coolers filled with melting ice, along with flyers to people walking towards the train platform. They walked past the demonstration uninterestedly, only stopping long enough to take a bottle of water. Everyone had gotten used to Nefi shouting at them to care about things beyond their control, and learned to tune her and the rest of her angry SOILders out, taking their flyers every now and then only to chuck them into the nearest trash can. This morning, a few people did stop to listen for a second or two, the heat getting the better of them, before they saw the time flicker on the screen behind her, and realized that they’d be late for work.
Sibyl, her camera always strapped to her body, snapped a few shots of her neighbor. Nefi was like a loud older cousin who wasn’t afraid of a little trouble, or frankly anything. She both awed and terrified Sibyl.
“It’s time for these slumlords to sweat,” Nefi went on. “We need to organize. Our voices are stronger together — ”
“What makes you think anyone gives a shit about what happens to us down here?”
Mr. Solomon had been on his way to the bodega to buy his morning loosie, but stopped to sit in his walker, taking a moment to catch his breath.
“That’s exactly what they want us to think, vecino.” Nefi softened her voice in that way she did when she was trying not to shout. “The more we believe that we can’t make them pay attention to us, the longer they get away with treating us like shit.”
“I remember when they first moved people into Groundview.” In the midst of reminiscing, Mr. Solomon started coughing aggressively, prompting someone to hand him a bottle of water which he drank quickly before continuing. “We were protesting and shouting in the streets, but they didn’t care then. They’re not gonna care now.”
The history lesson quickly turned into yet another heated debate about neighborhood politics between him and some of the other SOILders trying to convince him to take one of their flyers. Sibyl used the opportunity to catch Nefi’s attention, who waved her over enthusiastically.
“Yo, did you hear?” Nefi handed her a fruit cup. “We finally got a meeting with the overlords! Are you gonna come?”
“Nahhh, Nefi. You know that’s not really my thing…I’m not an activist.” Nefi was always trying to recruit her for some radical ass shit that just never seemed worth the trouble of explaining to Sibyl’s very Jamaican mother.
“Nobody said you had to be. You live in this neighborhood, and have just as much say about what happens in it as the suits who own it.” Nefi sensed Sibyl’s hesitation. “Please Sib! Come so we have more people in the room. You don’t have to say anything. We just want those dicks to see that we have power. People power!”
Nefi was very proud of the fact that she had an uncle, or it might have been a second cousin, who had been a member of the Young Lords and, drawing on their legacy of fighting for the liberation of Puerto Ricans, was always going on about the oppressive nature of renting, and self-determination for poor people, and community empowerment, and, and…
“Aight — I’ll go,” Sibyl assured her, trying to cut her sermon short. Nefi hugged her and thanked her a million times before shoving a stack of flyers into her arms to pass out and post up around the neighborhood.
#
The singular garden in Groundview Gardens was usually ten degrees cooler than anywhere else in the neighborhood. It was created — not by the architects who had designed New York City’s newest development, but instead — by the community out of desperation as an escape from their cramped apartments. During the days, the older folks used it to grow their herbs, medicines, and flowers for their healing practices. The local farmers grew produce that fed the community. After school and on the weekends, all the kids hung out at the community center at the heart of the garden where they learned to dance, make art, and play music.
By the time Sybil got there later that night, Groundview’s collective of artists had already transformed the greenspace into their Saturday night hangout. One of the DJs was spinning records. People were dancing, drinking, smoking, having a good time. Dante, Sage, and Felix had bottles in their hands when Sibyl joined them at their usual spot. Their clothes were covered in colorful patches of spray paint.
“Did you finish it? When do I get to see it?,” she asked them excitedly. She hadn’t seen her friends in about a week, which meant they were either done with their latest mural or were taking a break before they disappeared for another few days.
“Soon.” Dante looked tired, but excitement danced in his eyes. “Shoot anything good lately?” He leaned in reaching for her camera, but she quickly pulled back from him.
He laughed at her and took a sip of beer. Dante was her oldest friend out of the trio. There was a quiet protectiveness between the two of them Sibyl hoped they could always maintain.
“It’s been a minute since I last checked.”
“How come?” Dante asked.
Sibyl usually couldn’t wait to hold herself up in the darkroom at the community center to develop her film, but she had been putting off her latest batch. She’d fallen in love with photography while taking classes at the center as a kid. So much so that one day, her mother came home with an old film camera and Sibyl never put it down. That first summer, she ran around the neighborhood asking to take people’s photos. It felt so natural to her, though it had taken a while to gain people’s trust. Take their pictures for what? What was she going to do with them? Skeptics, but curious, they eventually agreed. They’d uncomfortably pose or force a smile, and then immediately ask her to see it because if they didn’t look good, she’d have to delete it. Then she’d explain how film photography worked, and they’d cuss her out for wasting their time.
Weeks later, she’d find them again — at the corner store, or at the People’s Garden, and give them the glossy prints she’d developed. Through her lens she could see they were secretly afraid she’d see the things they’d all spent so much time and concern trying to hide. But those things would all melt away when they’d see themselves — some for the first time — with the same worth and value she saw in them. After that Sibyl didn’t have to ask. They booked her for quinces and graduation parties and engagement photos. People would stop her when they saw her around. “So you not gonna take my picture? Girl, you know I look good today. Quit playing and snap something quick,” and they’d pose with more pride than before, as if to officially celebrate the triumph of living, something they didn’t know they had accomplished until they saw proof.
After seeing so many of her neighbors’ pictures, some of which she took, circulate in online memorials, something lodged itself in the pit of Sibyl’s gut. She couldn’t fully identify what it was, but it left her with little energy to feel or do anything else outside of going to school and work. But she didn’t know how to explain that to her friends without being weird or bringing down the mood, so she just said, “Been busy with school.” She quickly changed the subject before anyone tried to press her on it.
“Are ya gonna go to the town hall?”
“What town hall?” Sage asked.
“The one with management. About the HVACs.” Sibyl handed them flyers from her bag. “I promised Nefi I’d go, but I don’t want to go by myself. Someone come with me?”
“Pass,” Felix snorted.
“I’ll go. Should be fun,” Sage said with a smirk on their face. “I wanna hear what those assholes say their excuse is for not fixing shit.”
“I’ll save ya the trip. Sorry, you’re too poor for us to care,” Felix mocked. “It’s not like they’re all of a sudden gonna have a conscience ya know.”
“You mad negative bro,” Dante said.
“What?” Felix asked animatedly. “You really trying to spend the rest of your life down here? We all need to focus on getting the fuck up outta here instead of asking them to fix some janky ass vents.”
It’s not like anybody was trying to spend any part of their lives in Groundview, but lately it seemed like the rest of their lives wouldn’t take so long. The sound of the shuttle, more muffled than anywhere else, reverberated throughout the garden.
“I’m out the first chance I get,” Dante admitted. His answer wasn’t surprising to any of them, but this was the first time Sibyl heard him say it out loud. Dante was one of the more talented and disciplined artists in the collective. It would only be a matter of time before he blew up and left.
“What happens when ya leave though?” Sage was upset. “You get out, but what about the rest of us? Not everybody can up and leave right? Shouldn’t we try and make shit better for everyone.”
“That’s a trap, Sage. Shit’s not gonna get better,” Felix said harshly. “Does it ever hit ya, like really hit ya that there’s no future for us here? Everybody’s so busy working to get by, we don’t even have time to realize how fucked up everything is.”
“I’m not saying it’s perfect.” Sage shot back. “I just don’t think we have to turn our back on our community. That’s fucked up.”
“Don’t take it so personally, Sage,” Dante cut in. “Nobody’s turning their backs on anyone.”
“Besides, no offense to Nefi n ‘em,” Felix said, “but everybody’s wasting their time if they think those suits are gonna fix anything.”
Sibyl listened quietly. Groundview was all they ever knew. She had never considered leaving it, and yet she also was afraid to admit that she thought Felix might be right.
#
The middle school auditorium only had like fifteen people — half were members of SOIL — in there that Tuesday night, which was more than Nefi had expected. The handful of people who told her they wanted to go to the town hall, but couldn’t, were either working, or would get home too late from work and would have to cook dinner or iron school uniforms for the next day. Everyone else couldn’t be bothered; like Felix, they thought it was a waste of time. That nothing would come from it. Sibyl didn’t show. No one who attended the town hall actually thought anything would come from it either. If AR&M had wanted to do something, they would have done it a long ass time ago. The people who did show up were mostly Nefi’s elderly neighbors who were always ready to spit their anger into a mic because if they weren’t going to get a solution, they would at least get to cuss someone out, and have an audience to witness it.
Nefi worked her way around the room to thank people for coming. These things always felt like family reunions to her. Old friends hugging and catching up because they hadn’t seen each other in a minute, with work and family and life moving everybody in this or that direction, even though they all still lived in the same neighborhood. She finished up her greetings and joined the rest of SOIL, huddled at the front of the room. They went over the order of speakers, before Benjy, the group’s designated peacemaker for the evening, asked everyone to quiet down and get seated so they could start. He reminded everyone to keep it civil. Then one by one, people got up to the mic to direct their anger at the empty faces in tailored suits, sitting at the table in front of them, who could all care less about the people shouting at them. There was a lot of finger snapping, and “that’s right” and “tell-em’s” from the crowd throughout.
Finally about half an hour in, a young woman, with a little girl clutching on to the left side of her body, got up to the mic.
“My name is Mercy Brooks, and this is my daughter Angelique.”
Her voice was shaking, in that soft, angry, pissed off kinda way that warranted attention. Nefi hushed the crowd down so that she could speak her peace without interruption.
“My daughter’s asthma acts up almost every day. She can’t breathe. Ya should be fucking ashamed of yaselves. Our babies are dying down here. Is that what we deserve because we can’t do better? We just supposed to take that shit. You ever thought about what it’s like to live down here, huh? I’m sure ya don’t cause if you did, you wouldn’t think it was right to keep people living like this. Or do ya not care cause it’s not your kids?”
There was silence from the table, which was worse than feigning any sympathy or remorse. It set the room off into chants, which meant it was over from there. AR&M security shut that shit down quick right on cue, and if you weren’t arrested that night, you were brusquely escorted out. Management promised to set up some vague kind of task force with representatives from the neighborhood, but it led to nothing. A fucking disappointment, that’s what that shit was. And it wasn’t a surprise to Nefi or anyone else, but it hurt all the same. A few weeks later, that same woman who got up and spoke, her daughter Angelique died because they couldn’t get her to the hospital in time after she had an asthma attack. AR&M still hadn’t fixed the vents in their housing complex. And they still didn’t change the filters or fix the ducts in the other housing complexes so that it wouldn’t happen again after that. SOIL kept trying to drum up some kind of anger. Anything to get people to feel something. To do something.
Murals of Destiny, Angelique, and every other person who had died that year quietly popped up around the neighborhood. Vigils and altars with flowers and prayer candles accompanied them. But as much as people were upset or sad, no one knew what else to do except mourn and move on because it was clear to everyone that no one gave a damn about them. And so, what was the point?
##
They called it the Subterranean Housing and Inner-City Tunnels project, or S.H.I.T. for short. A plan to provide affordable housing for everyone who had experienced the worst housing crisis New York City had ever seen. People were evicted left and right. Families were priced out of their homes and neighborhoods. The shelter system, swelled beyond its limits for decades, finally collapsed. The streets and subway were overrun with people in sleeping bags and blankets. So nothing new, but it finally annoyed enough people to warrant action.
Naturally, the city contracted its most blood thirsty developers, AR&M, to help solve the problem, which was kinda like asking an arsonist to put out a fire they had proudly started. To no one’s surprise, they didn’t want to forfeit any of their luxury condos that sat empty while people slept on the streets. Instead, they struck a deal to create the largest scale of public housing of its kind, in exchange for absolute, unregulated freedom. The only problem was there was literally no land left for them to develop because they had already bought it all. And then one day, the chief architect of S.H.I.T. had an epiphany when he felt the uptown 6 train rumbling beneath his feet. There was an entire part of the city he had yet to consider. Where a majority of the people who needed housing were already living. Sprawling housing complexes with multi-unit apartments appeared overnight 150 feet underground, with the pilot site in the South Bronx. A new subway station and miles and miles of foot tunnels connected New York’s newest neighborhood to the world above it.
There were protests, anger, outrage! That the country’s most progressive city could so blatantly, and quickly!, shove all of its poor people out of sight only seemed to bother the poor people because everyone else praised S.H.I.T. as the most innovative solution of the 21st century. New York City had done the impossible, and housed every single person. That was grounds for celebration and federal funding. Plans were quickly announced to roll S.H.I.T. out across every major city in the country. To ease people’s concerns, the mayor at the time, eyeing a presidential run, promised that his own city’s underground neighborhood would just be temporary — transitional housing at best. Transitional to what, no one could answer. Temporary until when? Until they could think of something else. One year became five, became ten, etc., etc.
In time, AR&M and the city eventually added a couple schools, a hospital, a library, and a sad excuse for a park that residents eventually turned into the People’s Garden. Folks opened up bodegas, 99 cent and liquor stores, and made themselves at home. It didn’t take long to accept living where they did as another fact of life because they had no other choice. Over time, the plan to move everyone back aboveground disappeared from the city’s housing briefings. Then, the briefings disappeared altogether. The high rates of asthma and chronic bronchitis that seemed to come from living in Groundview occasionally made the nightly news, but not enough to cause major concern or stop neighborhoods like Groundview from popping up across the country.
There were still those who remembered life before Groundview, and vowed to move out of the neighborhood as soon as the opportunity arrived. They kept the dream close to their hearts. And if it didn’t happen during their lifetimes, they’d make sure it would happen during their children’s. More realized it was a fool’s dream and moved on. Eventually though, everyone adapted to the vibrations of the shuttle inside their kitchens. The white, fluorescent lighting that lit every corner of their world like a harsh, artificial sun. The damp, muggy air that arrested their chests if they tried to breathe too freely. And the humming of the massive ventilation systems that heated and cooled their cramped, windowless apartments — when they decided to work.
#
An Artist’s Treatise on Survival
I don’t know how we do it sometimes. That is, put up with all the shit that life throws at us. Work jobs that exhaust us with little in return. Take care of our families with little to no support. Do so much with so little. And still be able to smile or laugh in the midst of it all. Then, I remember: it’s because we have to. No one else is gonna pay our bills if we don’t. No one else is gonna put food on our tables for us. No one’s gonna bail us out. Naturally, you learn to hustle. To channel your frustrations into working around the way things are because trying to fix things that were built broken takes time you don’t have when you’re just trying to get by.
What gets me even more is how we’ve perfected survival itself as an artform, and created whole new types of living from abject desperation. We wasn’t supposed to, much less find reasons to enjoy life, but we did anyway.
Some even take on the added challenge of trying to make life more bearable, more enjoyable, for the rest of us. For example, sometimes when it felt like there wasn’t much to appreciate. That you were resigned to the fate of being alive and not living and didn’t deserve any better. You’d see a mural. On the way to the laundromat. Or the corner store. While you were running errands. Or walking home, bone tired, from the train after another long, shitty day at work. And like all good, beautiful things, it reminded you to breathe. You didn’t always know who created it. Or couldn’t remember if it was there the day before even though you’ve walked that way millions of times. You just knew that it was, in its own way, encouraging you to make it to tomorrow. Bright bursts of color and story interrupting the mundane, tiresome every day you’d come to accept with no protest.
After a while, it becomes easier to accept a simple truth about living. That we can still manage to find a reason to laugh, to enjoy life, despite it all, and that we can be the source of our own power. It’s kind of audacious of us to still try and find joy even if it means creating it for ourselves. Maybe that’s why we do it.
#
At first, it started off as harmless tagging, and they kept it up chasing the thrill of not getting caught. Then they tried to outdo each other. It became a sport: who could paint the better mural. Get the most buzz around the neighborhood before they got painted over. But the better they got, and the more the murals looked legit, the longer they stayed up. Until they stopped painting over them altogether because people loved them so much. They didn’t belong to the creators anymore. They belonged to the neighborhood. And before they knew it, they’d created something much bigger than any of them could have imagined.
The tunnels just seemed like the next natural step for the graffiti artists in Groundview. Miles and miles of blank walls? Dante, especially, saw something to keep him busy after his brother died. Besides, painting murals felt like the only thing he could do. He’d stopped going to school. He’d just paint. When he ran out of ideas to paint, he asked Sibyl to see her portraits, and he started replicating them across the neighborhood. He was relentless — portrait after portrait. Sage and Felix started helping him out because they worried he would lose it, spending all that time in the tunnels by himself. He was grasping for something, but he didn’t know what it was. Until he saw it, lying on the ground near a garbage can.
The Groundview Residents’ List of Demands
The People of Groundview Gardens demand financial and social restitution for all residents, especially those who developed chronic health issues from living underground and/or have lost loved ones because of it.
The People demand New York City move all Groundview residents back above ground into rent subsidized apartments.
The People demand New York City disband all underground housing policies so that no one else has to live in Groundview Gardens or any other housing project like it.
Until the first three demands are met, The People demand Arcadian Realty & Management fix the HVAC systems in every single housing complex it owns and regularly maintain them.
Once Groundview Gardens is fully evacuated, The People demand New York City turn the entire neighborhood into a public memorial to commemorate the loss of life, preserving the art and The People’s Garden.
After the town hall, and the supposed task force, proved to be a bust, SOIL had created the demands to deliver to the city. They circulated leaflets with the five bullet points, but no one would take them seriously. Dante himself, admittedly, had checked out, and had ignored SOIL’s literature, up until that point. The demands appeared overnight on the walls of the tunnels in bold white paint for everyone to see.
They were the last thing everyone saw coming into Groundview and the first thing they saw from the shuttle on their commutes leaving the neighborhood.
#
Nefi kept waiting for the moment when her neighbors would suddenly realize that they were angry — very angry. They’d decide they were fed up once and for all and refuse to settle for less anymore. They’d riot in the streets. They’d protest in front of AR&M’s offices. They’d refuse to go into work until something changed. Their anger would get everyone’s attention. Her own rage had burned intensely inside her for as long as she knew herself. She learned to channel it through SOIL trying to make Groundview a better place, even though everyone told her it wasn’t worth it; it wasn’t possible; it was a waste of time. But it was either that or literally set some shit on fire. But, it didn’t matter how many rallies, tenant meetings, town halls, or demonstrations SOIL organized. Nefi learned that she couldn’t have a revolution without people. And the people? They were tired and overworked. They didn’t have time to overthrow anything. And, even though no one would admit it, they were also afraid — afraid of change, of what they could lose, of realizing that something greater than what they had come to know was possible. So to save themselves, and Nefi, further disappointment, they rebuffed her again, and again: Nefi you need to chill. Girl you’re doing too much. Don’t waste your time. Nothing’s gonna change.
After the town hall, and years and years of holding hope, the fire inside Nefi dulled until she couldn’t recognize herself anymore. She conceded her rage for high-functioning hopelessness. She withdrew from her friends, from her neighbors, from SOIL, only tapping into enough energy to wake up, go to work, and make her way back home. The days bled into each other, so much so that when the night Nefi had been waiting for eventually came later that August, it caught her completely off guard. It caught everyone off guard because it wasn’t the HVACs or the deaths of toddlers, or even the wrath towards AR&M that finally set people off. But it shouldn’t have been a surprise to anyone who’s lived in New York City long enough because it was the one thing that could incite the level of large-scale anarchic rage Nefi had been holding out for — and that was the MTA.
#
The night in question, the air was hot, muggy, and heavy with potential. Like any other evening, people were heading home from work, the collective exhaustion weighing down on their bodies, stamped into their faces. They waited together, huddled in a sweaty mass on the sweltering Third Ave-138th St. platform for a train that felt like it would never come. When an empty shuttle finally did arrive in the station, the doors opened to the grating sound of a man’s voice coming through the train’s speaker system:
“Attention passengers. This is your conductor speaking. Due to unplanned construction up ahead, we are disbanding all trains to Groundview Gardens at this time. I repeat, we are disbanding all trains to Groundview. Sorry for the inconvenience.”
This shit had happened plenty of times before. A disruption of service that made it difficult to get home. Everybody was so used to it and had even come to expect it. The inconvenience of being poor and powerless consistently working against them. It too had become a predictable kind of disappointment. Even the audible, collective disapproval was muted and slightly rehearsed, nothing more than a reflex. They would have to find their way home, some two-odd miles on foot, through the tunnels.
But that night, Ms. Claudette, who had been on her feet all day at work taking care of her elderly patient and still had to go home and iron her scrubs for the next day, was fucking tired. She had paid her fare. And, she had paid her taxes. She had also paid her dues in this country — twenty-seven years worth of struggle and debasement — for what? This could not be it. Life could not just be disappointment. The least she expected was that the train would get her home like it was supposed to. She decided that she was going to let the conductor have a piece of her mind.
“This is nonsense. Tell me, just tell me, how am I supposed to get home?” Her boisterous St. Lucian accent traveled well beyond her.
Folks who heard her echoed in agreement, hyping her up. “They have the nerve to raise prices for this shitty ass service,” someone said loudly. They all collectively decided to board the empty train. The construction workers in their hard hats and massive boots, the women with their large tote bags and their tiredness neatly folded away into themselves. They were all going to sit on the train, until it started up again. It was going to take them home.
The conductor was tired too. Nothing as deep-seated as his passengers, but something not too far removed. He had no skin in this game though, and his job didn’t pay him enough to care. He was annoyed; they were keeping him from clocking out. And so, after listening to a bunch of people passionately curse him out, he told them to, and I quote:
“Write a letter.”
It happened so fast. I mean, when I say shit popped off before anyone could swallow their spit. Someone knocked over the trash cans on the platform. Someone else, set them on fire, with what to this day no one really knows, but their latent anger seemed to have ignited what they didn’t know was inside them.
The riots lasted for weeks. People boycotted the MTA and didn’t go to work.
The restaurants aboveground shuttered because they were understaffed. Construction on all the new developments stopped because the workers, a lot of whom lived in Groundview, refused to show up. People aboveground had to stay home because their nannies and house cleaners weren’t able to come and relieve them like they had come to rely on. Groundview had forced the city to come to a complete stop.
The mayor held a press conference saying she didn’t condone the behavior of the vandals at the train station. SOIL led protests and demonstrations in front of city hall until she had to hold a second press conference to apologize for her statements at the first press conference. She promised she was going to make sure that it would never happen again — not just the riots, but the unnecessary deaths in Groundview, the resentment the residents felt towards the city. They were going to fix the HVACs, and the MTA! They were going to heal the great divide the city had long thrived on once and for all, if, and only if, the workers called off the strike and went back to work. It sounded so sincere, everyone wanted to believe it. Tired of holding all the power, they asked SOIL to represent them at the bargaining table. Deals were made. Hands were shaken. And things went back to a semblance of normal with a few slight adjustments.
#
Sibyl was heading out of her apartment when she saw a piece of yellow paper on her front door.
60 DAYS NOTICE TO INCREASE RENT
Mildred Campbell
207 167th St. (GG), Unit 10E
Beginning September 1, 2041, the monthly rent will go up an additional 5% for all units located in the Robert Moses Houses. Please make the appropriate adjustments within the AR&M digital payment system.
We appreciate your continued tenancy.
Sincerely,
Arcadian Realty & Management
Pieces of yellow paper were taped to every single door she passed on her way to the train. It had been a year since the last time the heating or cooling had stopped working. Everyone held their breath celebrating, just in case that was when the heat would shut off or the air would decide to stop working again, but it never did. The number of deaths and hospitalizations went down, and everyone seemed content enough after the strikes and boycott ended, to go back to work. The trains even went back to running as efficiently as possible for the MTA, always teetering on the edge of collapse, but never actually approaching it for fear of recreating another opportunity for mass rebellion.
On her way to the shuttle, Sibyl saw a group of people congregating near one of the murals. She clutched her camera in her hand, ready to raise it to her face, when she heard a voice she didn’t recognize shouting through a megaphone. It belonged to a man she had never seen around the neighborhood before, and he was walking backwards while talking to a group of people Sibyl also didn’t recognize.
“Groundview is the latest up and coming neighborhood in the city,” his voice echoed. “Some of the most promising young artists have gotten their start in this urban — ”
She didn’t stick around to hear more.
After the riots, small groups of tourists descended regularly on Groundview like vultures to see the murals they had seen in viral photographs. They’d rudely block the paths from the train platform, or take up way too much space on the footpaths of the tunnels posing in front of the murals for pictures. Not long after that came the opportunistic hacks who had never stepped foot in Groundview before, running “culture tours’’ around the neighborhood. The residents felt like they were stuck in some sick and twisted museum. Out of annoyance, they banned the tours and non-residents from the People’s Garden, preserving their one last sanctuary in the community.
Sibyl had been in the middle of it all the first night of the riots. She was on the subway platform on her way home from classes and started snapping pictures once she realized what was going on, catching the fervent energy better than anyone could describe to everyone else who wasn’t there. She had no idea her photos would end up everywhere. But they did, and they not only helped draw attention to the plight of her neighborhood. They also drew attention to the wealth of talent germinating underneath the city. Her photos of her friends, their murals, and the other members of her neighborhood, had also attracted a lot of attention that felt good to the young artists who all of a sudden saw opportunities previously unavailable to them right at their doorsteps.
The shuttle arrived on the platform before her. Sibyl boarded the cool air-conditioned cart; the beads of sweat on her skin quickly evaporated. Nefi had warned them to be careful early on. “These things always end up having you exploit your own people for a cheap come up, and it’s never worth it.” Everyone thought she was trippin’. There Nefi was again just looking for another cause to fight now that her crusade against A&RM had seemed to come to an end. Even Sibyl thought she was overreacting at first. People were finally paying attention to Groundview. If she and the rest of the artists could help show the world how important the lives of the people who lived there were, maybe things could change for the better.
The train disappeared into the tunnel towards the 138th St. station. A lot of things had quietly changed over the last year and a half. Many of the families who had lost loved ones, including Dante’s, received settlements from the city and moved out of the neighborhood, leaving a sizable number of the apartments empty. Leading to perhaps the most visible addition to the neighborhood. AR&M had a couple of the younger artists looking for their own big break paint over SOIL’s list of demands and replaced it with a more “aesthetically inviting” message for the new visitors to the neighborhood: Welcome to the Mural District. Sibyl had only heard the tour guides call it that, in an unveiled attempt to rebrand Groundview. It didn’t take too long to find out where they got it from. The name and the welcome sign led to intense debates between the artists in the collective, including her friends, about people selling out and what they owed to each other as artists and their neighbors, which led to a few people splitting off and doing their own thing. The mural made Sibyl sick to her stomach, and she tried her best to avoid seeing it on her commutes. Then one day, someone started covering it up with black graffiti making the message unreadable.
No one knew who it was because they never got caught, but it didn’t matter to AR&M. Like clockwork the next morning, they had cleaners paint a fresh welcome message over it in time for the daily tours at noon. When the welcome message started appearing on the AR&M screens, the screens started getting covered in graffiti too. After a few months, Sibyl expected the guerilla painters to give up and move on, but they didn’t. Fresh graffiti kept appearing over the mural and on the screens, prompting AR&M to deploy their clean up crews, and then the routine would start again. Sibyl looked out the window in anticipation. “OURS.” The word, written over and over again across the mural, quickly came into view and then vanished out of sight.
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Soulmarks, Part 12
First part
Previous
~~~
Tim was separated from the only two people in the country he knew within seconds of the lunch bell ringing.
Marinette had been called up by the teacher. Apparently, she was class president last year and she held the duties until the next election. She gave a tiny sigh as she released Tim’s hand and gave both him and Adrien kisses on the cheek before heading out with Mme. Bustier.
Adrien, at least, was still in the room. Unfortunately, though, he was completely surrounded by his classmates, who were all clamoring for pictures of his notes.
He crossed his arms over his chest awkwardly as he stood outside the door, waiting for either of his friends to appear.
The door swung open and out walked Lila.
Damn it, he’d held Marinette’s hand too long and her bad luck had rubbed off on him.
He sighed. “What do you want?”
She smiled sweetly at him, twirling a lock of her hair in her fingers. “I just wanted to show the new kid around some.”
“Wouldn’t that be Marinette’s job as class rep?”
Lila sighed and shook her head slowly. “Oh, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but… I wouldn’t get too close to Mari.”
He raised his eyebrows. A little late for that, but he supposed he may as well ask: “Why not?”
“Well, for one thing, she’s a bit of a bully.” She looked at the ground. “Did she ever tell you about all the times she tried to ‘prove’ that I wasn’t actually disabled? Just because she didn’t like me? We hadn’t even talked, she was just mad I was talking to Adrien!”
A frown made its way across his face. Sure, it wasn’t at all like the Marinette he knew, but how well did he know her? He’d never seen how she interacted with people she didn’t like… and hadn’t he seen just how ruthless she could be when she wanted to that first day with ‘bowling’? In the way her expression hardened when Joker or Harley were mentioned?
He leaned against the wall. “There are other things?”
Lila’s head jerked up in surprise. “Huh?”
“You said ‘for one thing’. That implies more.”
“You’d think bullying would be enough…” Said Lila with a frown, but she continued: “Secondly, I think she’s a gold digger.”
His mind wandered to the few times Bruce had tried to buy something for her. How she’d ended up hiding money around for him to find so he couldn’t force it back into her hands. He gave a soft laugh. No, he wasn’t concerned about that. “Well, I can say she isn’t.”
Besides, if anyone here was a gold digger, it was probably Lila. Her eyes had lit up at the Wayne name. Projecting much?
She didn't seem all that convinced. “I just think it’s a little suspicious that she goes after you, Kagami, and Adrien. The girl has a pattern, and it’s money.”
He snickered. “Okay, and what about Chloe Bourgeois?”
“Chloe?” Said Lila slowly. “How do you know about Chloe?”
He frowned. “She’s in our class, right?”
“Well, yes, but they don’t talk or anything. How’d you know about her?”
“Simple: I’m her soulmate.”
Lila blanked. There was a few moments where she apparently rebooted, and then she scoffed. “Are you sure about that? Marinette likes to lie. A lot.”
“Pretty sure. Unless you know some other designers, who live in France, who bakes a lot, who carries a yoyo in their pocket, who also happens to love her parents.”
She finally stopped twirling her hair, shoving her hands in her pockets as she mulled this over. “Congrats on finding your soulmate,” she said in the same begrudging tone that siblings use when their parents make them apologize to each other. “But…”
“But…?”
Lila leaned forward conspiratorially. “I think she might be working for Hawkmoth.”
Don’t. Laugh.
He shook his head, pursing his lips together tightly to stop himself from laughing. When he was sure that he could keep a straight face, he mumbled a “yeah, no.”
She shrugged. “Don’t believe me? She disappears during every akuma and she’s never been akumatized. I’m telling you, she’s working with him!”
He couldn’t help it anymore, he snickered. Sure, the girl had gathered some pretty good evidence, but she’d come to the complete wrong conclusion. Before he could really come up with a reason for why he was so convinced that she couldn’t be working with him, he spotted Marinette running back to the classroom.
Tim watched her eyes narrow when she spotted Lila and raised his eyebrows. Sure, three out of four of Lila’s points were wrong, but the first one still concerned him.
Marinette gave a forced smile as she came to a stop beside him. “Ready for your tour? I even got special permission to take you out of school for lunch today,” she chirped, holding up two tiny slips of paper.
He smiled faintly. “How’d you manage that?”
“I let it slip to the principal that I was showing around Tim Drake-Wayne. They practically begged me to keep the school food away from you.” She winked, then her eyes found their way to Lila. Her smile lessened. “Lunch is almost over for you, Lila, you should get something to eat. What with your weak immune system and all, we wouldn’t want you to get sick, would we?”
He narrowed his eyes slightly and glanced at Lila, who sighed like this was a regular occurrence.
“Fine, Mari, I’ll leave. I know when I’m not wanted.” She leaned up and kissed Tim on the cheek before he could really react. “A presto,” she said, sending a grin over her shoulder as she walked off.
He gave a tiny wave and then glanced at Marinette.
“You’re crumpling the papers.”
She snapped out of it and frowned, looking down at the passes. She loosened her grip and started smoothing them out with her fingers. “Right. Sorry. Let’s go.”
~
She should have warned him about Lila. She had no clue what the liar had said about her, but it clearly was affecting Tim. Earlier he’d been holding her hand and now he would barely even look her in the eyes.
She stared at the empty cup of coffee in front of her as they waited for the waiter to come back with their food in silence.
A tiny part of her was tempted to just let Lila have him. She’d managed to get everyone else, had picked off all her friends one by one. Even Adrien would usually eat with Nino. At this point, she was starting to think it would be easier to just let go of the hope that she could really have friends while she lived in Paris. It would certainly feel better than grasping onto him desperately only to lose him…
She pulled her yoyo from her pocket and started messing with it.
One attempt. She’d give herself one attempt.
“What did she tell you?”
He looked at her. Finally.
“She obviously told you something. What was it?”
He finished off his coffee and set down his cup. “She said you’re a bully.”
“Well, she’s a compulsive liar.”
“She said the same about you.”
She cursed as her yoyo tangled itself and started fixing the string. “And you’re going to believe her over me?”
He reached across the table and gently pulled the yoyo from her fingers and started working the knots out. “Normally, I wouldn’t, but…” He sighed lightly. “Would she really have a reason to fake an illness?”
Marinette blinked, then shook her head. “That wasn’t the first lie I figured out. The first one was --.” She cut herself off and gave the waiter an awkward smile as he set down a plate of waffles.
The teens mumbled their thanks and he left.
She switched to English for her next sentence: “She lied about being friends with Ladybug.”
He raised his eyebrows.
She frowned. He didn’t trust her. Great. She had proof, at least. She scrolled through the Ladyblog for a while before handing over the video of Lila claiming to be Ladybug’s best friend.
“So... she lied once to seem cool to her new classmates and you decided that was enough to never trust her again?”
She wanted to kick something. Seriously? She pulled her yoyo back from him and started pulling on the string as hard as she could. She needed her yoyo back. She needed to calm down. She needed --.
Her eyes spotted a black and purple speck on the horizon and she squeaked.
Fuck. She couldn’t do this. She couldn’t get akumatized. She wouldn’t be able to fix things if she was akumatized. She couldn’t let someone die because of her --.
Tim followed her gaze and cursed quietly. “Listen, Nette, I’m sorry! I believe you!”
“I’m not stupid, Tim! I know you’re just saying that!” She hissed.
Angry tears formed behind her eyes. All the emotions she’d been holding back since Hawkmoth had begun his reign of terror were threatening to fall through and she couldn’t let that happen. God, she was feeling so much and she couldn’t handle it and she couldn’t allow herself to even try and someone was letting the akuma in and --.
She shut down.
Her emotions went from feeling like they were suffocating her to being practically nonexistent. She sunk in her seat, barely even paying attention to all the people scrambling for cover as fast as they could. She didn’t care. She didn’t care about anything at all.
The akuma paused inches away from her yoyo and she watched with a blank face as it slowly turned around and fluttered out the way it had come.
“Nette?” Said Tim quietly, his eyes not leaving the akuma.
She closed her eyes.
One attempt, she told herself. One last attempt.
“I’ll admit, I definitely didn’t like that Lila was getting close to Adrien and it made me more bitter and skeptical about everything she said than I should have been… but I still caught her in actual lies. About who she knows, about the things she’s done, about her illnesses, about everything. And I called her out on it every time, it’s why she’s so determined to keep everyone away from me. With more lies, of course, but they always have just enough truth that everyone believes her and nothing I do ever seems to be enough to convince them.”
Tim said nothing for a moment…
And then she felt his hand rest over hers.
“I believe you… but --.”
She groaned. “Great. I tried. Want a tour before we stop talking to each other forever?”
“Not like that. I’m just saying… for all of her lies, she was projecting: bullying, gold digging, lying…”
She nodded slightly. “Sure. So?”
“She also accused you of working for Hawkmoth.”
Her eyes snapped open.
~~~
Next part
“I can’t wait to see what Lila does”
Me, staring at my outline, which just says “Lila but better but also stupid”: yeah me too buddy
Taglist
@pawsitivelymiraculous @golden-promises @salty-fang @kitsunebell @sassakitty @octobitch @glastwime859 @miyla-lokidottir @onlyabatfan @ira-sairain @2confused-2doanything @ultimatetornshipper @ladybug-182 @laurcad123 @we-want-mini-mini @roguishredaxion @just-reblogs-by-h @futursworld @magic-miraculous @nathleigh @smolplantmum @vroomtaka @emimar7 @toodaloo-kangaroo @charme-de-malchan @spicybelladonna @fusser90 @indecisive-mess-named-me
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PROMise
Mark Lee x reader // FLUFF, SMUTT,
Part of PROM SERIES: MARK LEE
Themes: high school! au, prom! au, strangers to lovers, college senior Mark, high school senior reader
Word count: 5k
Summary: While enjoying the heavenly minutes of the game Seven Minutes of Heaven, he offered to be your prom date and you accepted it. The problem is, do you remember doing that? Will he keep his promise and go to prom with you?
Warnings: Older Mark, A LOT of alcohol, mentions of other idols, angel believer reader, swearing, accidental virginity loss but with consent, mentions of assault but I promise he didn’t do anything wrong :(, drunk sex, really drunk sex, fingering, rough sex, protected sex, unprotected sex, mentions of handjob and blowjob
A/N: I notice I don’t focus more on prom with the other two stories before this. But now here it is hehe, a week before prom. I focused more the preparations during prom, posting posters, getting the tickets, the dress, and getting ditched. :)) I also made this fic for the people who went to prom alone and just enjoyed the night without dates.
1 WEEK BEFORE PROM NIGHT
Finding what to wear to your cousin Seulgi’s party is taking you so long because you really don’t feel like going. You would rather feel the pain from your recent breakup, stress over organizing prom, and be sad because you might not attend it anyways. But instead of being miserable, you force yourself to look decent and head out.
With no glow in your eyes or fun within your system, you made your way to your cousin’s surprisingly quiet house... A party without noise? You almost thought that you had your dates mixed but as soon as you knocked on their door Seulgi came bolting to you for a hug with a beer on her hand. “Where is everybody? Am I early or something?” you asked her, following her to the living room.
“No silly you’re late, the others are almost half drunk. What took you so long?”
Turns out it was just a small get together, eight people invited including you. All of them are on the carpeted floor playing cards, laughing, drinking hard liquor. They all seem so close and not familiar because they’re all your cousin’s college friends. “Okay quick roll call for Seulgi’s cousin please starting with me, hi I’m Johnny”
“Taeil”
“Irene”
“Wendy”
“Jungwoo”
“Mark”
Jungwoo motions you to the girls and proceeds to continue the game that they're playing. It’s obvious that he’s already drunk and that the only sober left is you and the Mark guy whom you noticed have been checking you out. Subtly.
No matter how fun the game is, how much Jungwoo made you laugh, how many alcoholic beverages you’ve been drinking, you can still feel the sadness and brokenness that you’re so desperate to forget. It’s been three days since Jaemin broke up with you, but you still feel suffocated and choked because of what happened. As you drink the three shots of tequila Seulgi handed you, you begged to the high angels to please please please make you numb because you can’t take it anymore.
“Mind if I join in? I feel like Johnny is about to puke on me any second, I’m just saving myself” Mark made his way next to you, sitting on the corner near you, and poured himself three shots of tequila. Even though you’re not in the right mind tonight, you didn’t miss how handsome he looked with those denim jeans, white shirt, sleeves rolled twice that exposes his arms perfectly.
Did the angels answer your prayers already?
The way Mark talk is like a drug to you and he’s like a magnet that makes you want to cling to him. He’s way older than you and way matured but he’s fun. Telling you stories that described him best, introducing himself in the most fun way while he hands you tequila shots. The next thing you know the bottle is almost empty because you and Mark enjoyed each other’s company, busy with your own little world in the corner of the Kang’s living room.
“How about you what’s your story? You look so lifeless when you came in earlier” he hands you another shot and you happily take it before you tell him what bothers you.
“Three days ago my boyfriend- I mean ex, uh broke up with me. Prom is on Saturday and uh- I’m the one organizing it. Thought maybe I’ll save myself and just not go” you pour yourself another drink to distract yourself from the slight pang in your heart that you felt just by talking about it with someone for the first time.
“I'm happy that the universe saved you from a jerk such as your ex, I think you’re going to do a great job organizing the prom and because of you, everyone will have a magical night. Do me a favor and save some of that magic for yourself” Everything that came out of his mouth is right. The angels did answer your prayers, they sent Mark Lee.
Finally, the alcohol is kicking in and you’re getting even more drunk and numb to each shot that Mark gives you. “I think everyone here is drunk already except you, Mark Lee” you don’t know but you’re way too close to him already while you two are still drinking.
“We can handle our alcohol, besides we still have nine bottles to finish. See Johnny over there, all he has to do is puke. That’s his restart button, then he’s sober again”
It amazed you how partying with older people is different from the parties you’re used to attending. This party is small, but it’s still wild as a whole ass house party.
“Next game! Seven minutes of Heaven, Mark hand me that damn bottle you selfishly finished with y/n” Johnny gathered everyone in a circle and you feel like the effect of the tequila is kicking in so hard.
You thought it’s the normal Seven Minutes of Heaven game but it’s not. The game is simple. Finish the ten shots of tequila with your designated partner if you really want to get in that room. That way, the others will know it’s not against your will and all is safe.
“Were all adults here, okay. Two rules, finish the shot before going in and nothing comes out in that room. Do whatever you want. Slap each other, fight, kiss… fuck. Whatever. But you need to finish ten shots of tequila first before you enter the room”
It’s all fun and games until they started to admit what they actually do inside the room. Johnny and Seulgi admitted that they kissed, Wendy and Taeil kissed, and now you’re starting to get nervous because the bottle picked you. You don’t know who will go to that room with you but you seriously hope the bottle will point at Mark because he’s the only person you’re comfortable with.
“Okay. Mark and y/n. You’re up” Johnny hands the shots that you and Mark finished easily. Everyone saw the obvious sexual tension between the two of you and they secretly hope you two will have a great time.
The moment the door closes, Mark closed the lights and pushed you to the wall kissing your lips hungrily in the dark with want and lust which you gladly returned. Desperate to feel something other than the hurt that Jaemin planted in your heart. You grabbed his shirt and pulled him closer to you. Tongues danced with each other’s mouths, hands explore everywhere they want.
Everything happened so fast and only your moans and Mark’s grunts are the sounds that surround the room, no one is talking because the clock is ticking. He lifts your skirt, put a little spit on his fingers, and slips his hand inside your panties to draw circles on your clit that felt oh so good.
“I can go to prom to with you if you want me to,” he said, in between kisses while his fingers are making you feel good. Too drunk to even think straight, you said “Yes please” with sharp gasps and delicious moans as you cum on his fingers but he didn’t stop until you’re overstimulated.
Enjoying the heat after your high, legs too weak but Mark is quick to catch you. “Sit your ass down cutie,” he says as he helps you sit on the floor and reached for the switch to the lights, and kissed you on the cheek. He looked at his watch to check how much time you guys have, four minutes. You smiled so weakly to him, still drunk from the alcohol and his kisses but at least you have a date for prom already.
You two talked so sweetly as you tell him more details for the prom. Mark has this duality that one second he can be a gentleman but also he can be so wild and irresistible. “Promise me you’ll go okay? I’m too drunk right now, I might not remember it but I doubt because you’re so charming” he chuckled and grabbed your hand to kiss your knuckles.
“I promise”
The next day, you found yourself sleeping on the couch with someone’s arm around you and recognized Mark’s denim pants and your dress on the carpeted floor together with the mess from last night’s events. You try to remember what happened but you really can’t. The last memory you had is eating Cheetos and that’s it.
As quickly as you can, you rolled from the couch and let yourself fall on the carpeted floor and be released from Mark’s warm embrace which woke him up. “Good morning cutie,” he said with a husky voice and cute smile that made your heart beat faster but you shrugged it off, gathered your clothes, and ignored him.
How can the angels let you lose your virginity in a couch with a stranger you barely knew. Tears started to form in the corner of your eye as you wear your clothes and try to remember what the fuck happened last night.
Mark watch you wear your clothes in a hurry, sitting on the couch wearing only his black boxers briefs. He turned silent and disappointed because you can’t remember what happened last night and made him feel bad. “Do you want a ride home?”
“I was a virgin” you finally blurted out, tears falling as you wear your jacket and ready yourself to leave.
“I didn’t know” is all he can say and he watched you leave without saying anything else. Mark was worried because you might feel like he assaulted you but the truth is everything was okay last night. He even asked you at least three times if it’s really okay with you to have sex with him.
While you do some of your prom duties, your mind floats to the only memory you had from the other night. Mark’s words. Do me a favor and save some of that magic for yourself. Other than that you remember him holding your hand tightly and that’s it.
Losing your virginity is scheduled with Jaemin after prom but that cannot happen now because you two have already broken up and you’re not a virgin anymore. As you continue your work for prom contacting people, securing the program, and making sure that it will be unforgettable. Then you remember Mark’s words again. Good thing Seulgi is calling your phone and finally some distraction from everything.
“What happened?” she exclaimed without even saying hi or hello.
You chuckled low and flopped to your bed while you’re holding your phone, “Hi Seulgi”
“Mark made me call you, they all left just now. What happened? Talk to me, you were fine when I left you and Mark making out last night at the couch”
Funny how you didn’t know that happened, you don’t even remember how the kiss felt. “Oh, we were making out? I didn’t know”
“Fuck…” she sighs and lets out a sharp exhale, “Okay, you don’t remember anything from last night. He was worried you maybe thought he assaulted you or something. I know Mark, okay? He’s not a bad guy, though…. a little old for you but, I saw with my own eyes you were smiling last night”
Seulgi spent almost half an hour telling you what happened last night which you all don’t remember. She was so worried about you but honestly, you’re fine, “Okay. I get it. I don’t remember shit and we had sex okay, whatever. But we did it on the fucking couch Seulgi!” your cousin let out a laugh that made you chuckle and soon you laugh loudly too.
“You sure you’re okay?”
“Yeah. Honestly. As long as I don’t get pregnant or something” you’re both happy you made a joke and you sound like yourself again.
“Don’t worry, he told me you guys used a condom” what a relief you thought. Now you’re curious if the sex was great and clearly you can’t ask Seulgi that because she wouldn’t know.
What Seulgi said to you made your heart at ease, and indeed you don’t feel violated or anything it’s just bothering you that you can’t remember shit. At least he was honest about everything and he used Seulgi to check up on you. Until the end, Mark is still someone the angels sent for you.
MONDAY
After school on a Monday, you were so busy with prom and everything that you forgot that you go to the same school as your ex. You don’t know what sick game Jaemin is playing but he was looking at you deeply whenever you two cross paths.
“What’s up with your ex?” Lia asks you while you two put posters around school for prom this Saturday. “I heard he got a date for prom” she added, completely pissing you off but you don’t tell her.
“For all, I care Lia. For. All. I. Care” you said sternly and continue putting up posters.
“How about you? Who are you going with?”
Do me a favor and save some of that magic for yourself. You heard Mark’s voice again. “No one. You may not see me on prom night actually. Prom night screams ’Na Jaemin’ fucking asshole promised me a great night.” the truth finally came out, you do care about Jaemin’s prom date, your replacement. It makes you tear up whenever you remember how he broke your heart.
“What the fuck? But you made everything about prom happen! Without you, there’s literally no prom! You can go with us, your friends we will have a good time, we can make fun of his new date, who will I vote for Prom Queen now?” Lia frowned in front of you. She can be a bitch sometimes but she’s a great and loyal friend.
“I’ll let you know if I change my mind. But I’ll remove my name from the nominees for Prom Queen, I’m sure Jaemin will win as Prom King I can’t be near that jerk again. Like, ever”
WEDNESDAY
Every student is excited to get their tickets for prom night on Saturday and as part of this week’s preparation, the booth where the students can get their tickets is now open. It makes you happy to see your friends support you with this big event that you’re planning and it makes you, even more, happier to see them get their tickets with their dates on their side. Besides that, even though you’re not sure about your appearance for prom, random students kept on saying that they will vote for you as Prom Queen and they can’t wait to see your dress.
The dress. You haven’t picked it up yet from the tailor shop because you don’t want to see it. One glance of its perfection will clearly change your mind about not going to prom. And again, you blame Na Jaemin for ruining prom for you way before it commences.
You decided to get the dress after school and put it deep in your closet and never look at its perfection. But the dress has some kind of magnet and some voices are whispering behind your ear that pushes you to open it.
Fuck it.
With false bravery, you looked at your perfect prom dress and it did work its magic to you. You remember how Jaemin asked you to prom and it felt like he was asking you to marry him, it was a perfect night. You remember how you two practiced dancing when you’re finally crowned as Prom King and Queen. But you also remember how you caught him with some girl in his bed and it made you hate him again and zipped the fucking garment bag and put your prom dress deep in your closet.
FRIDAY
On the last day before prom night, you made sure you wore the perfect fake smile in front of everyone so no one would know what you’re actually dealing with. Entertaining every question they threw at you as if it’s not affecting you, may it be a question about Jaemin, your prom dress, your new date that doesn’t exist.
“People can be real assholes to you Y/n, I’m sorry that this is happening to you before prom” Lia comforts you before she goes to her nail appointment that you canceled going with her last minute because you don’t feel like pampering for something you’re not sure on doing.
“It’s okay. Enjoy the nail appointment, I have to do something last minute actually” that’s right, you overwork yourself so you won't get to think about prom tomorrow.
Before you leave for school, you made sure everything is perfect and in the right place for the big event tomorrow because who knows, maybe you really won't show up. Looking around the place for the last time, you smiled and patted yourself on the shoulder because you made a pretty great job of bringing this magical event to life.
You went to the coffee shop near your house to do some thinking and soul searching before you go home and cry your heart out about prom. A bottle of Jack Daniel’s would be so perfect right now with the right company, but you figured getting shitfaced the night before prom is not the right thing to do so you pour your heart out on drinking as much hot chocolate as you can.
And on your third cup of hot chocolate, someone bravely sat in front of you and dared to ruin your grieving moment about prom. Wearing a black cap, a white oversized shirt, and black denim pants. You almost didn’t recognize him because of his round glasses that made him look so young.
The angels must be working pretty hard right now because they brought Mark Lee in your life again.
“Having a rough day?” he asks, looking in your eyes deeply.
“Yeah” you answered coldly.
“Ready for the prom tomorrow?” Mark knew all too well that you don’t remember the promise he made to you. But a promise is a promise.
“Can we talk about something else?” you’re aware of what you feel towards Mark. And it's obvious that you’re happy with his presence now just like that night at Seulgi’s where you two were finishing that bottle all by yourselves.
“How about we go somewhere else instead?” he boldly asks, you turned your head around seeing the sun go down already, looking at the time that you didn’t notice you’ve been in the cafe for almost four hours already. So you shook your head and told him you’re not sure.
“Trust me” he stood up from his seat and held out his hand for you to take. And just like that, he got you again. He brought you to the grocery store to buy every comfort food you like. From picking ready to eat watermelons in the fruits section, choosing chips, and buying the biggest ones and you’ve thought hard how did he know about your favorite ice cream flavor.
Trusting Mark has become something easy to do even though you still can’t remember how you two ended up having sex on the couch. As long as you feel safe around him while you eat a bag of chips while he drives, you’re good with him being beside you. And besides, Seulgi told you that he’s a good man.
After the grocery shopping with Mark that you think went great and fun at the same time, he then drove you somewhere quiet and peaceful, away from the high school drama that’s been suffocating you.
You watch him make a picnic set up on the grass under the deep blue sky with stars, using his jacket as the picnic blanket. He pats the space where you can sit comfortably beside him, putting all the food near the both of you. Just like that night at Seulgi’s, Mark made you forget everything that stresses you out because he made you laugh and smile with all his stories.
“Mark” you’re now looking at the sky, laying beside each other. He made you use his arm as a pillow so you won't get grass on your hair. Happy does not suffice the feeling that he gave you tonight because he made you feel more than happy.
“Hmm?”
“I remember asking my angels to please take away the pain that I’ve been feeling in my chest. And this may sound crazy but, I think they sent you”
“I know and I believe you because an angel told me” with all his bravery he put his other hand around your waist and pulled your closer to him. “I know because you told me” he nuzzles your hair, as he remembered how it smells exactly the same the night you two were having sex.
You returned his embrace and went closer to him, feeling that familiar warmth then suddenly you were having flashbacks from that fateful night. You remember he offered to take you to prom and he promised, “Oh now I get it!” you release yourself from his embrace and he has no idea why you’re suddenly feeling excited. “You’re here to tell me that you promised to go to prom with me”
He sat up too and face you, scratching head as he nods. “And,” he let out a sigh, “I’m also here to tell you that I have this job interview tomorrow and uh, I don’t want you to keep your hopes up. I think you should still go, let's have dinner I promise. Think of it as a private prom for you and me."
And once again, you feel like you’ve been rejected for prom. After making a magical prom happen for a lot of people, you surely can’t make yours happen. And you’re not even asking for too much, but it feels like the world is doing everything just to stop you from coming to prom.
Nonetheless, you thanked Mark for a wonderful night even though it ended bitterly. The last thing you want to do right now is going home disappointed even though a great guy took you out on a night picnic. He brought you home safe, a little late but it’s fine. “Hey, it’s okay. You made me happy tonight” you made sure to not make him feel bad just because he can’t fulfill his promise.
And to give him something to look forward to, you unbuckle your seatbelt and kissed him. Mark did the same thing and you feel him smile in between the sweet kisses that you’ll surely remember this time, “good luck on your interview okay?” you gave him another peck before you leave him “make me proud”
That night, you slept like a baby which you haven’t been doing for a while now. All thanks to Mark, you woke up on prom day happy and not sad. You don’t know how he convinced you to still go and hope that he could still make it, but he promised dinner. Think of it as a private prom for you and me. You remember his own words again you couldn’t wait for prom to be over. Is this what it feels like to date someone older? No drama like that shit Jaemin put you through.
Mark: Good morning angel, can’t wait to see you tonight. :)
As you get ready for prom, you made sure to let yourself feel that you’re winning today even though you’re not a candidate for being Prom Queen anymore. You bring that confidence back again and promised yourself that you will not flash a fake smile tonight and you will wear the smile Mark gave you.
You open the garment bag with a happy heart now, and you finally felt that excitement for prom again. It feels good to be wearing the perfect prom dress, not for someone who doesn’t appreciate you, but you wear it because it’s something you’ve been dreaming to do since you were just a freshman.
Mark: Hope you received the corsage I sent you. :)
You: Right on time, thank you. It's beautiful!!!
People will talk tonight because you went to prom without Jaemin on your side. Now that the word is out, and people finally knew about the truth, you couldn’t care less. As usual, you make sure that everything is perfect for tonight so your friends can have an unforgettable night.
Instead of sitting and waiting for prom to finally end, you danced and danced with your friends until you can’t feel your feet anymore. Singing to Taylor Swift songs with your other single friends while you watch the couples and the ones with dates dance and make it a special night.
And when the time finally came, Mark is waiting outside your school. Leaning on his car, wearing his suit and tie, he even bought himself a boutonniere to complete his prom attire.
“Sorry, I’m late cutie. Wow you look-“
“Like an angel?” you jumped to him and he twirls you effortlessly, making your dress flow perfectly.
“Yes like an angel, but I was going to say you look like you’re going to be fucked on the bed tonight” he whispered oh so sexily near your ear and kiss you on the cheek. He made sure Jaemin would see it.
During the car ride, you told him everything that happened during prom while his left hand is on the stirring wheel and his right hand is holding your hand. Reminding you that he’s here already and that he’s going to make this night memorable for you. He laughed at the story about the other kids putting alcohol on their drinks and you even told him that Lia was the one crowned Prom Queen instead of you and that she’s the one who suffered dancing with Jaemin in front of everyone.
“Don’t worry, you’re going to dance with me tonight. And you’re going to be my Prom Queen every day. You’re my Valentine's Queen, New Year’s Eve Queen, heck you’re my Thanksgiving Queen” you were laughing so hard while he showers your hand with kisses because he cant reach for your lips.
It was a simple dinner at a fancy hotel that you two enjoyed plenty because the food is good. It was pretty late already but the place was filled with adults who came to have dinner, business meetings, or gathering. “Can I have this dance?” he then offered his hand to take you once again in your own little world. Swaying to the live jazz playing in the background, slow dancing with him closely.
“Sucks that I’m too drunk to remember my first time” you tsked at him playfully smiling so sweetly to what you just said.
“Believe me the first time was awesome. You were so awesome that you made me cum at least three times” there he is again with that sexy voice you love hearing.
“I really did? Wow, I didn’t know I can do that” it surprised you truly.
“Yes, once using your hand, your mouth, and your pussy. You were completely in control that night that’s why I was so shocked the next day, I thought you were just as experienced as I am. So for tonight, please give me a chance?” he pouts so cutely in front of you and you nod your head yes, “But seriously though, I’m sorry you can’t remember what happened. At least it's still us tonight, right? Can you please not run away the next morning?”
“Yes. I promise” you sealed it with a kiss, still swaying with the music.
“Shall we?” he motions you towards the exit and went straight to the elevator.
Just like at Seulgi’s the moment the door closes, Mark’s lips crashed to yours but this time he’s careful and gentle. His lips made you remember what you guys did during the game of Seven Minutes in Heaven and it made you chuckle inside.
As you two lay naked and kissing on the bed, you feel Mark’s body on top of you, his perfectly sculpted abs press on your soft skin. He reached for one of your hands for you to grasp tightly while he prepares your cunt and plays with your slit before he fucks you. Now you remember why you had that memory of holding Mark’s hand tightly.
“Condoms or not?” he asks while kissing your neck deliciously making your hips roll on his hard cock.
“You’re the expert, what do you prefer?” you swing your arms around his neck, cupping his face and caressing his cheeks with your thumb. Admiring Mark’s handsomeness believing that this handsome man is yours.
“I prefer raw, but I figured this is actually your first time and maybe you’ll freak out after. Do you trust me enough to not use a condom?” it was a hard question and an important question.
“Condom is important, but I do trust you Mark” he smiled and nod his head, going back to kissing your neck while spreading your legs wider. You watch him line his cock to your entrance and you look into each other’s eyes while he thrust inside you slowly.
This isn’t your first time but it feels like it is, you feel so full and your breathing is getting faster as he rolls his hips deliciously, gliding his cock in and out of your pussy. You moan his name, “Mark” with an airy tone he oh so loved. Kissing your lips, catching every sound you make. Everything felt so slow and good as if the world just stopped the moment you two were having sex again.
“Want me to make you remember how intense our first time was?” his lips were on your cheek, spreading kissing on your face while he continues thrusting inside you.
“This is not how we fucked on that couch?” he shook his head ‘no’ and your eyes widened when his pace suddenly went faster than before.
“You were on top of me angel,” he said, “you were holding my hands tightly and keeping them away from touching you” he did the same thing, but the moment he put both of your hands above your head his lips went in between the valley of your boobs and he quickly licked and sucked your nipples. You can only whine. “Oh I’ve always wanted to do that to you, but you didn’t let me”
Flashbacks kept playing in your head of you fucking Mark so hard that night that you needed to cover his mouth while he was cumming. “Fuck, yeah I remember,” you said with heavy breaths, trying so hard to talk.
“You remember doing this to me, angel?”
Thrust.
Thrust.
Thrust.
You grunt so hard and you feel your boobs bounce as he gave you three hard piercing thrust, imitating what you did to him when you were the one on top last time. It made you smile and moan his name again and again. You were both smiling and chuckling while he roughs you up but little did you know he’s now preparing to make you remember him.
He pulled away from the kisses on your neck but the thrusts never stopped. His thumb brushes on your swollen lips, traveling down to your neck, tracing the valley between your boobs and cupping your boobs with both his hand. He fucked you hard while looking directly in your eyes, watching you moan and roll your eyes to the back until you cum and close your legs.
He pulls out his cock and went back to kissing you softly, whispering soft apologies but your pull him to an embrace while you’re still shivering and sensitive.
“Okay cutie, come down from your high first. I got you” he soothes your back while he watches you calm down and smile so sweetly with that afterglow. “You look beautiful”
“Can I ride you on the next round?” Mark’s eyes widened when he heard that you want a second round, he didn’t expect that at all but he was happy you’re having a great time with him.
The last memory you have of your prom night is Mark smiling weakly beneath you while you ride him good and this time, you remember every detail the moment you wake up in bed with Mark. Arms wrapped around each other, bodies covered with white hotel sheets, shivering because of the cold temperature.
“Good morning cutie” he whispered beside you and kissed your shoulder “You didn’t run away, I’m happy.”
MAIN MASTERLIST
Story Time
I was suppose to attend my senior prom last minute just because i dont have a date, but my friends made sure I had a great time.
And also, y’all prom is not only about dates, its a great night dress up with your friends and dance crazy with them while wearing a 300 dollar dress
#nct-writers#nct imagines#nct scenarios#nct smut#mark lee smut#nct mark lee smut#nct 127 smut#nct dream smut#mark lee x reader#nct mark lee x reader#nct fluff#mark lee fluff#nct mark lee fluff
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Dating Poppy Min-Sinclair
I lowkey headcanon Poppy to look like blonde Chungha, and omfg she looks so good in this gif.
Summary: An enemies to friends to lovers trope, sign me the fuck up. I hope you guys enjoy and if you want more please like or reblog. If you want to be added to the tag list please reply. :) I'm also working on the third part of my Poppy x MC series and I oop I'm gay.
Taglist: @somewillwin @origmansello @kamilahtrash @poppysminion @captain-hanadeleine
SFW
It was hate at first sight (sure, jan), but in all honesty your first impression of Poppy was that she was gorgeous. The scowl on her face did nothing to change your mind. The very first words she uttered to you was "Oh, sweetheart, you don't have to worry about who she is. It's me you have to worry about.
As soon as those words leave her mouth, the only part of the sentence your brain focuses on is the word 'sweetheart' and the way she said it, voice dripping with sarcasm. It did nothing to stop you from thinking how hot Poppy was.
You're suddenly pulled away by Zoey, who tells you about the whole ranking system and she takes you out to hang out at a speakeasy, with your new outfit.
In order to get your mind off of Poppy, you decide to flirt with the stranger at the bar (who ends up being Professor Kingsley), but even as you spent time and slept with them, all you could imagine was Poppy, and how she would feel under you.
You learn that Poppy was the resident HBIC of campus, and a sort of rivalry forms between the two of you.
Poppy won't admit it to anyone but she actually found you attractive when she first saw you, even though you were wearing non-designer clothes. Probably annoyed that she actually found you attractive, she acts extra mean, because she's confused and not good with feelings. (PB please let me romance Poppy)
Not anyone is safe from Poppy's wrath, and its extra hard for you because she becomes extra mean, her words are harsher and actually stings a little.
Poppy seems shocked that you actually got hurt, and opens her mouth about to apologise until she remember that she's the queen bee, she doesn't apologise.
You don't back down and insults are exchanged between the two of you, whenever you meet or bump into each other.
Poppy actually starts to look forward to your banter with each other, and she makes an effort to bump into you a bit more.
When you learn of Kick-off day, you and the quarterbacks team up to create a performance for half-time.
Poppy for sure gets annoyed because who do you think you are trying to compete with her, the queen of Belvoire.
After you show her up and kiss Zoey, she feels a pang of jealousy, which she mistakes and takes out as anger against you. She has a meltdown, breaks up with Carter and everyone stares and start to berate her.
Poppy walks out the field and you run after her, feeling shitty because even if she was mean, she didn't deserve to be shit on in public like that. You feel really bad and run after Poppy to make sure she's okay.
You catch up to Poppy find her all the way on the other side of the campus, she's by herself and you see her crying her eyes out. Her eyes are red, and once you see her your heart breaks a little because seeing her like that made you feel like the worst human being, especially since she was crying because of you. Even though, she's crying she looks as beautiful as ever and you can't help but stare.
You approach her and she notices and sneers at you. "Come to kick me when I'm down? Go ahead, newbie. Here's your chance."
And if you thought you couldn't feel worse, you felt you heart break even more as the words escapes her lips.
You put your hands up in surrender and let out a sigh. "Look, you don't have to believe me but I just really wanted to apologise. Even if you were being mean, you don't deserve that." She eyes you suspiciously and says "What's it to you if I'm upset, Farmsville? Just fuck off, I don't need your pity."
Not backing down, you stare at her in the eyes and say sincerely. "I never really wanted to be part of this stupid ranking thing you guys have, I don't even want to be the queen bee. Especially, if it means that you or anyone else gets hurt in the process."
Poppy looks at you stunned, like she can't decipher why you're being so nice to her, and you continue "Plus, I can't say I didn't enjoy our banter, that was fun." You wink at her cheekily and she can't help but laugh at the absurdity of the situation.
You smile at her softly, happy that you managed to make her feel a little but better and you realise that Poppy has such a soft laugh and you want to hear it again.
Poppy's eyes soften as she stops crying. She looks at you and says "Thanks Farmsville, I needed that." You don't know whether your eyes are playing trick on you but you can swear that you can see her blush.
Meanwhile, Poppy feels her cheeks burn and her heart beat a bit faster. 'Damn you for being sweet.'
Smiling sincerely, you ask "Truce?" and Poppy raises her eyebrow at you amused but agrees albeit nonchalantly.
This then starts your sort of friendship with Poppy, but instead of hurling insults at each other, the both of you engage in playful banter (no one knows that you guys are friends). She turns a bit softer, in a way where she always looks at you with an inquisitive gaze to check if you were okay with the banter.
Cue the late night messages, where the both of you stay up late to talk about random nonsense that happened that day, or when Poppy's annoyed she sends you rants where she complains about how stupid everyone is, and vice versa.
Both of you being confused af because is she flirting with me or is she being nice???? (basically is he gay or European but lesbian) The two of you have each other's back, if someone says shit about either of you the other one is quick to defend. Zoey notices your change in attitude towards Poppy and she asks why you're defending your "enemy". You shrug it off by saying "If they're gonna say shit, they should say it to her face, not talk behind her back." Zoey finds that a little bit suspicious, but she doesn't say anything.
This then leads to an actual good support system for both of you, and an actual friendship is formed.
This is when Poppy realises that she actually has feelings for you, and she's quick to yeet out of there, because ewww feelings. She starts to act distant and you're confused because you think you did something wrong.
It's not that Poppy wants to avoid you, she's just really confused about her feelings and she doesn't want to ruin the friendship you two have. Chloe notices that Poppy is acting weird and decides to confront her about it.
Whilst Chloe is usually oblivious, even she suspects that something is going on between the two of you, and she begins to ask Poppy questions. That's when she finds out that Poppy has feelings for you. After her small 'EUREKA!' moment Chloe decides to tease Poppy, and queen bee is not amused. "If you tell anyone that I have a crush on her, I will have you cremated and eaten by the dogs." yells Poppy as Chloe just laughs in amusement.
Chloe lowkey trying to be a wingman, but Poppy tells her off and you just think that Chloe's just being weird, and it just confuses you even more. Like what???
Mutual pining, because the both of you are too stubborn to confess how you feel. Poppy just doesn't even know what to do because feelings. And you don't know whether she likes you back and don't want to risk your newfound friendship with her.
Cue Poppy seeing you flirt with someone else, (Carter, Zoey or Veronica or whoever) and Poppy loses her shit because she's jealous.
Thinking with anger and not her head, Poppy decides to kiss you in front of the whole school. Long story short, everyone sees and it's all over social media, that's how they find out that the queen bee has staked her claim.
Poppy is touch starved and craves affection. This probably comes with the fact that her parents weren't really the affectionate type, which is why she acts the way she does. Her parents probably ingrained it into her head that she has to be #1 for everything and anything below that is the same as being nothing.
She would never admit it but Poppy adores cuddling and lazy days where the both of you just chill out and share soft and sweet kisses, in which neither of you stop until your lips are bruised.
She's also the little spoon (fite me), and you don't mind because she's so soft and you're weak for her.
Poppy is also the type to pamper you with expensive ass gifts, even when you tell her that she doesn't have to give you anything, but it makes her happy so you're happy.
Waking up next to her is probably the equivalent of seeing an angel. She looks so peaceful when she's asleep and you can't help but stare because you don't have the heart to wake her up.
Poppy can't cook for shit, because why would she need to know how to cook, she's rich??? Probably so bougie she's never had fast food in her life, so the first thing you do is take her ass to McDonald's.
Arguments usually occur when both of you are stressed and this leads to angry make out sessions where both of you are marked up with hickeys for everyone to see.
This girl needs some TLC, so please be gentle and patient because she's not used to affection.
NSFW HCs
People probably think that Poppy's a pillow princess and sometimes you joke and tease her about it, but in all honesty she can top. Her strap game is impeccable, 10000/10 would reccomend again.
When you go down on her she always tugs at your hair, and you can't help but groan as her nails brush against your scalp. Additionally when she's bottoming, she becomes a little bratty and you have no choice but to play rough and she doesn't mind.
When the two of you argue, this can lead to some intense angry sex, all bets are off when you're arguing, everything is messy, rough and passionate. The two of you don't remember the reason why you were arguing after.
The moans, groans and noises that comes out of Poppy's mouth is music to your ears. It's probably the sexiest thing you've ever heard, and you can't get enough.
When she rides the strap, it's the hottest thing you've ever seen. The way her sweat clings to her body making it glisten, and the way her body moves and convulses as she's riding makes you go insane. 10000/10 would do again.
The type to annoy you by sexting you in class, purposely riling you up, she especially enjoys annoying you when it's Professor Kingsley's class because she's petty like that. It gets to the point where you're so riled up that you just get up and leave class. She loves sending you photos with nothing on but her underwear, almost always pink or white. It's one of her favourite past times really. You can't even get angry because each photo is so good so you can't complain.
She's also the type of girl to get flustered when you sext her back, and it's honestly the cutest thing. It becomes a game of who can rile up the other person more.
These are just my headcanons and you don't have to agree with them hope you enjoyed reading. :)
#poppy min sinclair#poppy x mc#queen b poppy#queen b choices#queen b#queen b zoey#veronica lombardi#playchoices#choices stories you play#choices hcs#this is just my headcanons#makepoppyali2020#poppydailychallenge#squint squint im working on another part of the fic but enjoy this first lmaoooooo#chloe st. james#chloe queen b
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the pokemon company be like *thinly-veiled misogyny*
To be honest, the sexism isn’t even really thinly-veiled if you think about it. Like off the top of my head:
— Professor Juniper was our first female professor, and it took until Gen V to get her. But whereas all the other professors got to stand on their own without needing anyone else, Professor Juniper had to have her father come in to provide answers to various plot occurrences that she didn’t know. IIRC, she also inherited her practice from him, which was also something that the male professors before and after didn’t have to contend with. It’s a miracle that this was averted with Professors Magnolia and Sonia in Gen VIII, both of whom are women.
— Speaking of female professors being screwed over, in Gen VII we’re introduced to Professor Burnet, whose practice specifically focuses on ultra wormholes and disturbances in space-time (which makes sense since she was previously working on the Dream Radar). Given how much of the plot concerns ultra wormholes, you would think that she would be the main professor of the story, or at least play a big part. But you’re wrong! Instead she’s only in one mandatory scene, and then is basically never heard from again. Meanwhile, Kukui shows up all the goddamn time even though his goal (to create a League) is literally meaningless in the scope of the overall plot. (And even that could have been cool if it had delved into the socio-political ramifications of what overthrowing Alola’s current system of government for another one would mean, but now is not the time to get into the failings of Gen VII’s plot. I’ve gone through that enough times.)
— Back to Gen V for a second, we’re also given two rivals in the first of the Unova games: Bianca and Cheren. While Cheren, the male rival, is taken seriously and has it talked up over and over how great of a battler he is, Bianca has her Munna stolen from her halfway through the story and spends the rest of the game talking down on herself and ultimately deciding that her father was right and she really is not cut out to be a Pokémon Trainer. Keep in mind that Bianca was the first mandatory female rival in the games, because while May could be a rival in Gen III if you played as Brendan, if you chose to play as her, both rivals (Brendan and Wally) were male. So on that note, our rivals so far look like:
Gen I: Blue Oak (male)
Gen II: Silver (male)
Gen III: Wally (male), optional May (female), optional Brendan (male)
Gen IV: Barry (male)
Gen V: Cheren (male), Bianca (female), Hugh (male)
Gen VI: Shauna (female), Tierno (male), Trevor (male), optional Serena (female), optional Calem (male)
Gen VII: Hau (male), Gladion (male)
Gen: Hop (male), Bede (male), Marnie (female)
So, let’s see. We only have two mandatory female rivals (Bianca and Marnie), as well as two optional female rivals (May and Serena). Meanwhile, we have twelve mandatory male rivals, as well as two optional male rivals (Brendan and Calem). To cap this off, while the mandatory male rivals (outside of the useless Kalos ones) are always treated as strong, competent battlers who have important roles in the story, our two mandatory female rivals, well . . .
Bianca: See above
Marnie: Gets battled a whole grand total of two times and has basically zero impact on the plot despite the fact that her brother is the only Gym Leader who didn’t give into Rose’s vision for how Galar should operate and use Dynamax evolution
And even when it comes to the optional ones, since Brendan is treated as the default MC by TPCi, that means May is the one who gives up training to go be a professor like her dad. (Which is the exact thing they basically did to Bianca in Gen V, except she studies under Juniper instead.) Serena at least keeps battling if she’s the rival, but jeez.
So to say there’s definite gender inequality where the rivals are concerned is a bit of an understatement.
— Moving away from the rivals, let’s talk about villains! We didn’t get a female villain until Gen VII with Lusamine, and even then she wasn’t allowed to stay a villain because I guess Game Freak doesn’t want to accept the fact that women can be evil, too. Moreover, all of Lusamine’s achievements come from the men in her life, and all of her motivations revolve around her husband. To spell it out:
- She inherited the Aether Foundation from her grandfather / father, without having founded it herself like we’re at first led to believe.
- Her husband Mohn was the one who discovered how the ultra wormholes work, not her. IIRC, he was also the primary researcher behind Type: Null’s creation.
- The reason why she does what she does is because she’s looking for her missing husband Mohn, with an added dash of “women just go crazy (and abuse their children) without their husbands!!1!!!” thrown in for flavor.
Compare this to Giovanni, Maxie, Archie, Cyrus, Ghetsis, Colress, Lysandre, and now Chairman Rose, all of whom formed their own organizations (Giovanni inheriting his from his mother is anime only and does not pertain to the games at all) and had their own goals and desires, versus relying on someone else for those goals and desires. And as if Lusamine not being allowed to form her own organization and have her own goals for her own sake wasn’t bad enough, they then had to go and make it even worse in USUM by turning her into a damsel in distress in the Rainbow Rocket plot, depicting her as not only less capable as the male villains, but also less capable than her male subordinate. Gag me.
— On that note, Oleana is sorely underappreciated by basically everyone except the Twilight Wings writers considering she’s the only reason anything Rose did got done, yet got none of the credit for herself. Damn shame.
— Stepping away from the games for a moment, Generations was a hot mess in terms of sexism. First of all, they only ever used the male MCs, pretending that the female ones didn’t exist at all, even in cases where the female MCs are vastly more popular (e.g. May, Dawn, Hilda). Second, most of the episodes focused on male characters from the series, and the ones that didn’t were either there so they could disrespect the best character in the series by not giving her the episode she deserved (Zinnia), or were told from the point of view of a male character despite that it was supposed to be a female character’s story (Emma). And lastly, there was whatever the fuck that mess with Cheryl was. It was animated in a way that made it look like an anime not suitable for anyone under the age of eighteen. Like honestly, what the hell.
— Leaf has been consistently and constantly disrespected all over the franchise. Despite there allegedly being four trainers who left from Pallet Town (counting Ash) in the anime, Leaf has never been seen or mentioned even once throughout the two decades that anime has been running. They had an opportunity to show her in at least a cameo form in the 20th anniversary movie, but they chose not to do that either, adding yet another disappointment from that movie to the list. She had no appearances in Origins, no appearances in Generations, they didn’t do what they should have done in HGSS by making her the rival atop Mt Silver if you chose to play as Lyra, she wasn’t a skin for Pokémon Trainer in Super Smash Bros. until Ultimate, I’m pretty sure they never made an Amiibo for her either, they replaced her with her Special counterpart in LGPE and her characterization absolutely bonkers to boot, and back to Masters, SS Leaf doesn’t have the Main Character designation for the theme skills that SS Red has, and is also routinely left out of any story bits that feature Red or Blue. It’s a miracle she was even included in the Battling Legends event or whatever it was. As far as TPCi seems to be considered, Kanto only has one main character and that’s Red.
— Oh and speaking of Iris, they gave her the Gym Leader theme designation instead of the Champion designation, instead choosing to act like Alder is Unova’s only Champion when he, no offense, didn’t really fucking do anything in Gen V. :’) We hate to see it.
— In the current run of the anime, the two boys (Ash and Gou) have gotten to go around and have adventures for ~50 episodes while the girl (Koharu) has had to stay home and go to school. You can argue, “She wanted that!” all you want, but you have to remember that she only wants what the writers tell her to want, and the writers said the boys get to have adventures while the girls stay home. She finally has an Eevee and will presumably go on adventures now, but we’ll have to wait and see. And don’t get me wrong, I like Journeys and I love Gou as a character, but it is absolutely a Choice to not have a female lead present in the adventures at all and it’s one that the writers deliberately made for whatever reason.
— On that note, let’s look at Ash’s female companions, shall we?
Misty: A Gym Leader who has a vague goal (water pokémon master) and is largely out of focus during her run as a primary companion. She had no rivals or in-series (as in, concrete ones she could accomplish before leaving the main cast) goals of her own.
May: A coordinator. Does have rivals and has a story, which is nice, but battling isn’t her focus.
Dawn: Another coordinator. Even more focus than May (she was written as a deuteragonist), but also not primarily focused on battling.
Iris: A battler (her Gym Leader / Champion Status is written out) who actually does get decent focus and a cool arc surrounding her connection to dragons.
Serena: A performer, which is a girls-only career path that doesn’t have battling in it at all, unlike contests. Does have a goal, but much of her character is written around her crush for Ash and at the end of the series she says that he is her goal.
Lillie, Lana, Mallow: Honestly I didn’t watch enough of SM to have an opinion on how these three were handled outside of hating how Lusamine didn’t get to be a villain in the anime either.
Koharu: See above, she’s only just now getting to be involved with things.
Now, don’t get me wrong: There’s nothing wrong with being a coordinator (and we do see male coordinators too, such as Drew and Harley), and I think that both May and Dawn are wonderful characters. But it does make me feel some kind of way that the female characters were often given the “girly” sidequest while the male main character got to go for the Gym badges, especially since AG and DP went on for a good chunk of years. None of the ladies so far have been treated as badly as Serena was (that performer stuff is just nasty, I’m not sorry), but again, it’s a deliberate choice and something to think about, especially since I feel the only reason they didn’t go that route with Iris is because of her Gym Leader / Champion status in the games.
I could probably think of more examples of the casual sexism in the series if I thought about it, but this is just from the top of my head. As you can see, there is a lot. All of this being said, and I’m putting major emphasis on this since I don’t want anyone to get it twisted—
I love Pokémon with my entire heart, flaws and all. It has been my hyperfixation for 22 years and that is not going to change any time soon. So DO NOT even dare suggest that I hate Pokémon, or shouldn’t play it, or anything like that. I will be playing Pokémon on my deathbed and nothing and no one will stop me.
But that being said, I criticize because I care. Because I wish it would do better. Pokémon is for everyone. It’s for boys, girls, nonbinary folks, and people all over the gender spectrum. But the treatment of its female characters and the abundance of favoritism shown toward the male characters leaves a lot to be desired (though at least girls are at the table, whereas trans folk are relegated to background NPCs and nonbinary folk are nowhere to be seen :/). I think Pokémon can get better—Magnolia and Sonia felt like a proper apology for how Juniper in particular was shafted, not to mention Burnet—but it’s got a long way to go.
(And also, yes, you’ve understood this right. Twilight Wings is the only anime series to not fuck up at all when it comes to sexism. You go, Twilight Wings. Four for you, Twilight Wings.)
#pokemon critical#pokemon criticism#pokemon negative#let me know if I should use any other tags#long post for ts#stabbymattress#the treatment of Ash's female companions from best to worst has been:#Dawn - May - Iris - Misty - Koharu - Serena#and the Alola girls somewhere in the middle ig I honestly didn't watch enough of that series to know
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thoughts on the musicals y’all recommended!
tysm for all the recs! i had so much fun listening to them, i really appreciate it! always feel free to rec more :)
to preface, there’s no actual judging system. it’s all about the vibes. so, in the order that i listened to them:
the mad ones
i already made a post abt this one, but i have to mention it again. i’ve been listening to it on repeat. like. straight up on a loop.
i’m obsessed with this
the storyline is so put together, and you can really feel the heart of the show
the characters were well written (with the exception of the boyfriend tbh, i could have done without him), and i’m so fascinated by sam and kelly’s relationship (writers were cowards for making them not gay)
the songs felt super cohesive, and the repeated drum loop was super well integrated. the sound techie in me is fascinated by the way this show was put together, and i’d love to see it performed (like. fr. i was getting ideas for the design. which is always so much fun)
19.75/10
romeo es julia
holy shit this slaps
costumes were weird
but the music was brilliant
some of the captioned lyrics were ???? bad translation or bad lyrics??? but the sound was incredible so i don’t even care
mercutio and tybalt were spot on
the moms were GREAT. i LOVED their voices, like. could FEEL the emotions, even if i didn’t know wtf they were saying
pretty much everyone was like that, like idk what’s going on via words, but i def can feel it, which is the best kind of song
my mother didn’t like this one but whatever, she didn’t get to see the choreo that went with it so what does she know
the SET. the LIGHTS. the SOUND. the SET. the LIGHTS. the SOUND. chef’s kiss.
14/10
ordinary days
eh
i liked “favorite places” and “beautiful” a lot, but the rest of the songs were only okay
i wasn’t super attached to the characters and the singing was just. like. okay for me. i didn’t love any of them in particular
my mother also didn’t like this one, rip. she has a lot of opinions on musicals.
6/10
venice
oh my fucking god????????
not what i expected at all. right from the first lines i was like. 😲😲😲
like. this was so good??? wtf???? hamilton meets shakespeare meets the mechanisms meets les mis meets post-9/11 politics meets dystopia. i thought it couldn’t be done, but here i am, in awe
i was going to include some favorite lines but. it’s just all of them. ALL of them.
further confirmation that i’m in love with jennifer damiano.
also angela polk?? incredible
it’s weird bc it’s so clearly Not Broadway Music, but it’s also not trying to be, which i enjoy. i can see why some critics hated it (read some really funny reviews lmao), but i really loved the sound (haven’t seen the show, though, and that’s half of a musical, so maybe gonna try and find a bootleg)
18.99/10
count of monte cristo
damn from the overture this was. Intense. like. damn. i’m a slut for any dies irae sequence, so i was a big fan of that
that being said. gonna be real. i had no idea what was happening throughout the entire musical. it’s a pretty music-light show, so that’s probably why?
maybe it would make more sense if i watched a performance rather than just listening to the soundtrack??? idk. anyone got a bootleg?
thomas borchert has a nice voice. very distinctive. googled him to see where else i can listen to him. he was rum tum tugger. anyways. mad respect for this man
sonically, it didn’t feel like a very cohesive show? like it felt like there were a lot of diff vibes going around
lots of good songs for my evil musicals playlist though
11/10
once on this island (2017 revival)
ok turns out musicals are a lot better when sung by professionals than by sixth graders who think they can belt even tho their voices are still cracking
also turns out that stories can be much more complex and interesting-- and have much deeper themes of racism and classism-- when on broadway than when in a sweaty middle school auditorium in an upper middle class white neighborhood
funny how that works, huh
i’m still a little unsure abt it, and probably wouldn’t listen to it just because i can, but i definitely don’t object to it anymore
ty for making me give it a second try
hailey kilgore is brilliant in this
the singing in general is REALLY impressive and beautiful
12.68/10
death note
i cannot express enough in words how mad i am that i actually liked this
genuinely don’t know how to feel
i do think that i would get more out of it if i watched the anime, but it was still pretty easy to follow, just knowing the premise
idk who the cast is bc i found a weird shady playlist on spotify rather than a cast recording, but the girl’s voice (idk character names) was beautiful. “i’ll only love you more” was SO good
reminded me a little of jekyll and hyde? which? huh
also i’m now getting tik tok videos with audio from this musical can my iphone stop stalking me for ONE second
fucking unfair that this is actually a good soundtrack. the desire to find a bootleg is unholy.
14.87/10
35mm
why did no one tell me that alex brightman is in this!!!!
i listened to a few songs and really enjoyed them, but didn't get through the whole album lmao
but i did really enjoy what i did listen to, and i'm gonna come back to it
9/10
ghost quartet
i wanted to like this one. SO badly. i REALLY wanted to like it.
but i couldn't really get into it?
there were a few songs that absolutely slapped, but overall, it was just kinda. eh. which sucks bc i have heard such good things about it
i LOVED "the astronomer," "the telescope," and "lights out"
but i didn't get through the entire album
i'll come back to it eventually and give it another try, i think. i might just not have been in the specific mood for it
9.8/10
#ty again!#i always appreciate recs#the mad ones#romeo es julia#35mm#venice#count of monte cristo#ghost quartet#death note musical#once on this island#elektra#ordinary days
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What type of kids do you think the ikevamp guys would be if they went to high school?
Oh boy HERE WE GO
(Under a cut bc this post is a Long Boi^TM)
Napoleon. Would prbly be that kid that’s like somehow bafflingly in the top ten of his class but nobody ever sees him??? Like he’s always late to school or napping in the quietest places on campus (they found him in a locker once and the school was laughing about it for WEEKS bc he insisted he was just chillin, and it wasn’t like a bullying incident he just wanted to sleep LMAO). Surprisingly amiable? A lot of people are afraid of him at first but he’s just so casual and direct, he gains quite a few friends (and a good number of girls have a crush on him--he always diverts the attention of skeevy guys). Good friends with Jeanne because they fence together a lot, and people are always baffled at how easily they chat
Mozart. Where do I begin. Number one in his class, perfectionist prick. That one kid that’s a known prodigy and that everyone hates for his impeccable grades and musical talent. Always gets the solos and conducting roles in the school performances. He knows how to play a crowd--will always be sweet and cherubic in front of teachers. But when it’s just the students? All gloves are off. Frigid and incendiary, will not take any shit and will tear you apart with words in milliseconds. Do not cross. He will end your entire life and self-esteem, it’s not worth it. Has a few friends, and they often experience the disdain of jealous students--but they’re all steadfast about defending him. And Mozart will not tolerate it if people are mistreating his friends, he’s an iron wall of defense; to be his friend means to always have someone looking out for you, make no mistake. He and Jeanne often grab food together after practice and ask about each others day, they hella close but never really show it while school’s on--their class schedules are worlds apart bc of their grades, and at lunch they’re usually practicing/doing hw. When they hug it out at graduation and pat each other on the back everyone nearly falls the fuck out of their chair LMFAO
Leonardo. That kid that 100% could probably be in the top fifty of his class but just can’t be bothered to give a damn. Always argues points with his teachers and plays devil’s advocate until they are inches from exploding at him. Always the one to mercifully make class feel shorter with his absolute distraction-heavy shitfuckery (and sometimes you really learn something because of his line of thinking). He's a dumbass but like harmless, essentially. Used to be the perfect student^TM and then decided the system was bullshit and he wanted no part of it, thinks public education can kiss his ass. Nobody knows it since he asks people not to talk about it, but he tutors kids after school for hours--has brought kids from Ds to Bs. He always dodges nosy people, never goes to parties, and finds ways to intervene around kids that are struggling with smth (with ninja stealth of course). Despite how easily he laughs and chats with just about anyone, he’s...actually surprisingly v much a lone wolf. Only ever consistently hangs out with the heartthrob rich kid, but nobody understands why???? And they’re always roasting each other wtf, are they even friends????
Comte. Pretty boy genius, always in the top five of his class though doesn’t seem too worried about it or obsessed with rank as students often are. It’s more that his parents have high expectations for his future as their heir, so he tends to fall in line with it. Born into money but somehow....not an asshole??? He doesn’t really like showing off, tries to be quiet about his accomplishments but his parents won’t really allow it--and he’s the star of the soccer team so it can be hard to hide. Most often the one at a party trying to help people sober up (always designated driver) or hearing his friends out when they have a problem. Has never publicly tried to bust heads, but some of the guys in the school insist he’s got a dark side--probably because he threatened them (passive aggressively) within an inch of their lives for being disgusting to girls. But nobody believes them bc...I mean look at him, does that look like a threat?? He just bought that kid’s lunch for christ’s sake. TONS of girls ask him out and confess their feelings, and he always lets them down as gently as he can--conceivably doesn’t like anyone himself, as far as the student body knows. Like Leonardo he’s v amiable, but also manages to reveal nothing personal while getting close. Leonardo’s the only one that’s managed to scratch the surface, and the kid won’t leave him alone for some godforsaken reason. And yet, he seems to enjoy their minutes of banter more than the hours of time spent with “friends”
Arthur. Oh boy. Good lord. Well. He used to be a sweetheart that would always seek out the mousier students and bring them into discussion/involve them on the playground. But alas, Teenage Jadedness^TM hit him like a train and now he’s an incorrigible flirt and believes no single person can be good deep down (somebody get this bitch some eyeliner). Believes the world will always be a cruel and unfeeling place where victims are never heard, so he just kind of goes full skeptical and bitter (think Sylvain for those of you that are FE fans). Has fun with every girl he sees (usually dating several girls at once) and doesn’t much care for his grades, but somehow has perfect scores in English?? He insists it’s because he needs to keep his seduction game on par with the voices of older legends before him, but some of the girls that see him in the library from time to time--v serious--are struck by how attractive he is in such deep focus, entirely uncharacteristic of his nosy and boisterous behavior in the halls (can often be seen whirling around Isaac like a bird of prey while our little baby robin Isaac stiffly tries to get away from him, and Dazai often joins to make things even more chaotic bc why not? In reality they just love this feisty kid that never gives up on what’s right, even though they’ve both given up trying themselves)
Dazai. He’s one of those kids that like does weed regularly but is also like...alarmingly insightful?? Like those kids I was always told to avoid, but now and again I would have conversations with out of necessity and was just...kinda shook. I mean granted he’s a little weird but he’s fairly harmless?? He’s like a class clown but on a massive scale--there’s nobody in the place that doesn’t know who he is, that haven’t heard tales of his exploits (he always comes in through the windows and gets detention for it a lot, and he even brought a chicken with him to school once????) nobody gets what he’s doing at any moment (don’t even know if he does really, chaotic mofo) and honestly nobody wants to know they just do the side eye meme when he appears or laughs. The teachers lament his untapped potential or just hate him for making their lives an even bigger headache than usual, and his grades are...yeah let’s not look at those. Organized the senior prank with absolute GLEE, and it was talked about for ages after he was gone--an inspiration chaotic bastards everywhere
Theodorus. (I hate.......that I pictured him in those like Vineyard Vine white boy clothes.......for the record its mostly bc his parents force him to wear them). All business. This kid doesn’t have time for your bullshit, will absolutely walk away if you’re boring him or seeking social clout. Popular because he’s hot and has a mean streak a mile wide, all the girls that didn’t like Mozart for being ethereal and effeminate boomeranged to find Theo ready to fulfill their hopes and dreams. They only grow more feral when rumors of him actually being fairly nice one on one--and telling creeps to fuck off of vulnerable girls at parties--start to circulate. (If he isn’t with Vincent, Arthur is probably near. Nobody understands how the two are brothers????) Van Gogh name apparently is just “I can be your angel or i can be your devil” and no one understands how... Grades are average and he’s plenty capable, most of his time is spent working after school because his parents refuse to provide Vincent with any artistic materials (canvas, paints, etc). They ask him to go to parties more, but he only goes to piss his parents off (he’s v lowkey punk and it’s understandably sexy of him). Will literally only listen to Vincent, and got in a looooot of trouble after getting into a fistfight with Shakespeare. Only stopped because his parents blamed Vincent for the incident, and Vincent apologized and went quiet for days ;-;
Vincent. Always been quiet and shy, but he doesn’t dislike ppl--he just has a hard time speaking up now and again. His parents always talk over him and tell him nothing he has to say has any real value, so he tends to struggle with a lot of self-doubt. Not isolated because he’s not likeable, it’s more because people tend to take advantage of his mild and earnest nature--until Theo runs them off. He’s on amiable terms with most people but has no real, true friends and it makes him feel lonely a lot. Mostly copes with the emotional turmoil by painting as much as he can. His grades are average, he does reliably well but can often be found daydreaming or distracted. Theo tends to escort him everywhere because of his propensity to attract danger (namely Shakespeare) or walk into things cuz he’s in his head a lot. A few of the artsier girls and the quiet academic girls have HUGE crushes on him (he’s softspoken, sweet, and calm; come on now), but he’s so distant--and honestly nice to everyone in equal measure--that they don’t have much hope of it coming to fruition. This kid deadass doesn’t think a single girl would ever like him that way so he’s just c:???????? when Theo talks about “those nosy harpies coming after my brother”
Jeanne. EDGY MCEDGE. Isn’t amazing in the academic department, but he’s a killer fencer--the rallying cry of the entire team. He became leader his sophomore year and he’s pretty much the only reason they keep destroying at tournaments throughout the year. Despite the pervasive interest in him he intimidates most people away with his swift intensity and ironclad stoicism. Silent as a grave and very still, people are convinced he’s the Grim Reaper reincarnated (listen he’s juST A DUTIFUL BABIE N O). If he isn’t fencing or practicing, Isaac often offers him help in the library after school hours in one of the study rooms (can’t be seen who’s inside from the outside). The two develop a kind of uncanny bond; they’re both so...bad at human-ing that they find a lot of comfort in the atmosphere they create. There’s none of the bullshit grandstanding or clout obsession, just them genuinely trying to help each other (yes Jeanne absolutely teaches Isaac self-defense moves in order to crush the kids that pick on him, and Jeanne often either glares or outright threatens those students when Isaac isn’t looking). Only ever smiles or feels understood when he’s hanging out with Mozart, so he cherishes the time Mozart offers him to hang (he knows the kid is busy up to his eyeballs and under a ton of pressure by comparison, his parents don’t care much as long as they can brag about his fencing records)
Isaac. Mega nerd that just...does not know how to interact. Only understands math and DESTROYS in competitive math club, but otherwise is always alone at lunch or just in the library. A little bean pole because he doesn’t look after himself very well (neglects to eat a lot) and can sometimes be found asleep on his books. If approached he will be very thorny, doesn’t have any friends to speak of and trusts everyone about as far as he can throw them. Yells at Arthur and Dazai a lot when they flock around him, and has gotten into his fair share of fights. Never starts fights, but will finish them. People are surprised he can hold his own, and he comes away with blood that ain’t his. There are a few girls that are curious about him, but its mostly the ones that have seen his awkward thoughtfulness in club--or the girls that are sick of the assholes and appreciate how stalwart he is. He really just wants to be left in peace (his parents never show up to his meets or when he wins academic awards, and the few teachers that notice are pretty concerned abt his reactivity and complete lack of social savvy...) Leonardo always helps him sneak in at night to look at the stars on the school roof
Shakespeare is p much the like “kid most anticipated to be in jail as soon as they’re out of high school” He just. Has that like...serial killer vibe??? Idk if I’m explaining this well but he was that guy that would always cling to genuinely compassionate girls just trying to be nice like a LEECH, and would never fucking shut up if he did or didn’t get attention. You just can't win with this kid. Probably wanted to kill the kids that made fun of him or at the very least wanted to lash out against the confident/popular/nice kids. Only liked you if he didn’t deem you a threat, or if you didn’t make him insecure, or if you tolerated him (aka Vincent. Vincent PLEASE stop trying to reach out to dangerous ppl....I love you too much to watch this shit...) He admitted as much to Theo and the kid went livid with rage and pummeled him into the ground, though most of the rest of the student body doesn’t know quite what happened. (Theo refuses to explain to anyone, and just walks away if asked). Shakespeare will just change the subject endlessly and make passive aggressive threats until the person leaves if they try to bring it up. The only time the entire class has EVER seen Leonardo mad is when Shakespeare kept tailing this girl that wanted no part of him
Sebastian. Nerdy like Isaac, but is more of the silent observer type. Like Theo, doesn't want any part of the bullshit but won't be as blunt or outspoken about it, he's only open about it if pressed or pissed off. Doesn't have much patience for the clique-driven nature of high school and tends to take an interest in the people who stand out beyond the mind-numbing drama. Also is in the top fifty but studies like a lunatic, and can often be seen asking Comte for tips now and again. Has tried talking to Mozart and admires his talents, but Mozart gives a cold shoulder that would put Antarctica to shame. (Leonardo tries to ninja him into taking breaks but never succeeds). Has a great deal of disdain for the troublemakers (Arthur and Dazai) but doesn't intervene, just watches shit go down and sighs. Probably the most normal(?) one of the bunch, just does his best and keeps his head down
#ikevamp#ikemen vampire#ikevamp asks#ikevamp napoleon#ikevamp mozart#ikevamp leonardo#ikevamp arthur#ikevamp theo#ikevamp sebastian#ikevamp shakespeare#ikevamp saint germain#ikevamp comte#ikevamp isaac#ikevamp dazai#ikevamp vincent#ikevamp jeanne#ikevamp jean#disaster lads in the paddy wagon of high school#rest in pieces boys#wasnt sure if I should do MC as a bonus??#honestly had a lot of fun with this yEET#hope yall enjoy ty for the request!! ❤#also will be adding a cut when i get home tumble mobile just hates me
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I didn’t post about everything I played this year, so here’s my opinions on the stuff I played that I didn’t make a rec post for:
Raging Loop
Raging Loop is one of them twisty meta Zero Escape-y branching-path visual novels where an ensemble cast is trapped in a mysterious circumstance where people are dying gruesomely, and you have to find out what’s happening and stop it by looping a bunch.
I can’t wholeheartedly recommend it, because... it tries to have its cake and eat it too with the supernatural elements. Clearly magic is real and has important impacts on the scenario, but then other parts are trickery you’re supposed to see through, and it’s entirely uninterested in cluing you in to how that trickery was accomplished. Not exactly a fair play mystery, in that regard- you have to kind of just be along for the ride, rather than try to figure it out.
That said, it’s a good ride- pretty strong character writing, and the central conceit of the Werewolf/Mafia-style murder scenario creates really interesting drama. It’s more concerned with making itself feel clever than letting the player feel clever, but it’s still well-paced and gripping and has a pretty decent resolution.
Detective Grimoire
I recommended Tangle Tower, the sequel, pretty strongly- and this one, while obviously a little rougher around the edges with the art and mechanics (the suspicion tracker system is a total dud; I didn’t even realize it existed until I realized I was missing an achievement for using it), it’s still pretty darn good. Really fun character designs and animations, fully-voiced, and a solid whodunit backing it all. Plus- while the two are more or less self-contained, the continuity threads with Tangle Tower raised some really interesting questions.
Contradiction - the all-video murder mystery
This one was pretty fun, largely on the strength of the actors. The main mechanic of interrogating people on evidence and using their own statements against each other was some good stuff, too. Definitely had that Phoenix Wright quality to the deductions, and Jenks is a really fun character. (Had a few points where progression was just linked to standing in a certain previously-abandoned area of the map where a clue was suddenly there for no reason, there- good thing it had a hint system.)
As a mystery, it could use a little work- most of what you end up finding out is sequel bait (for a sequel that never actually came together, unfortunately), and the actual whodunit is just sort of hiding in the cracks of all that. And... cornering the culprit just sort of happens out of nowhere once you’ve got your hands on the right piece of evidence, without much fanfare. You’re following up on leads like usual, you find a little lie in someone’s testimony, and then- oh, shit, they’re just confessing everything! Unlike all the previous times you questioned them and they were super evasive like everyone else! And then the game is over.
All in all, it’s pretty meaty and entertaining and I’d recommend it, but unfortunately the creators have moved on to other things, so there’s not going to be any follow-up on the stuff it left unresolved.
Ikenfell
Ikenfell is a tightly-designed RPG about kids at a magic school, with Paper Mario-style action command mechanics and a battle system that makes a big deal out of careful positioning and movement, which was really enjoyable. The difficulty’s a little high (I recommend always always always speccing into max damage because killing things before they kill you is worth more than any amount of defense, speed doesn’t work, and healing is cheap), but I found it really satisfying.
There’s... something... off? About... I don’t know how to put it, it’s... doing that “yes, everyone is queer and mentally ill, deal with it” thing, which, sure, okay. But for a lot of them it’s such a background thing, like... half the playable cast is unambiguously nonbinary, but like... I don’t know if it’s trying to make some statement on how there are no rules to being NB and you can 100% perform a particular binary gender presentation but still count, or if they wrote the whole story and then changed the pronouns of some of the characters for Representation Points, or what. Probably the former? I dunno, it just feels weird. Maybe I’m just not woke enough to Get It.
(unrelatedly: why the heck is the official art they use everywhere so... off-model? none of them look like they do in-game- they look like the creator commissioned someone to draw a group shot with one reference image each and didn’t tell them anything about the characters. how much you wanna bet they commissioned a friend and it came out wrong but they were too polite to say “sorry, no, this is wrong, can you do it over?”)
Trails of Cold Steel IV
Hoo boy. It’s... not great, and it’s not great in a pretty predictable way for an even-numbered entry in the Trails series. It happens every time- first there’s a game in a new engine with new characters and a new world to explore, and it’s really nice and does interesting things... and then it ends on a cliffhanger, and then there’s a sequel game in the same engine with the same characters and the same world, reusing as many assets as possible. Also the League Of Generically Evil Anime Supervillains is there causing trouble for reasons they refuse to explain, and the plot is a storm of magicbabble and macguffin-chasing that makes little to no sense.
Cold Steel IV is that for Cold Steel III, full stop. Welcome back to all the same places you visited last game, except this time there’s some stupid magic apocalypse happening (not that it stops you from taking the time to do random sidequests constantly, of course). The whole “oh, the evil curse mind controls people and that’s why they do stupid bullshit that’s in no one’s interest” plot point is leaned on super hard, and it’s just a big yawn the whole way through.
It’s still really fun, though, because the battle system remains really well-designed. (The same battle system that was just as fun in Cold Steel III, mind you, but it hasn’t gotten old.) And- though they’re struggling to square it with the dumb mind control apocalypse plot, the NPC dialogue continues to make the world feel believable and lived-in. They don’t slack on the parts that make Trails good- it’s just the parts that make Trails bad are making themselves more evident than ever.
did finally get to date Towa though so that’s a win
One Step From Eden
OSFE is... uh. It’s fucking hard is what it is. It’s sort of a deckbuilding roguelike, and there’s this combat that takes place on a grid, and- wait, it’s like Mega Man Battle Network, it’s exactly like Mega Man Battle Network. Man, I forgot about that, but the mechanical influence is extremely obvious. It’s MMBN meets Slay the Spire.
Except it’s super duper hard as hell, because unlike MMBN you can’t pause and swap out chips or anything- everything is just always happening so much, all at once, everywhere, and you have no recourse but to git gud and learn all the enemy patterns and the behavior of your own spells and develop the twitch reflexes necessary to not fucking die from all the shit that’s on the screen always.
(What’s the story? Uhhhh, there was some kind of magic apocalypse, and some anime girls are trying to reach a city for some reason that doesn’t really get explained ever. The game doesn’t really care to build its world at all- it’s all mechanics plus a little token character dialogue that doesn’t say much.)
The point is it’s really frickin’ hard but I am an epic pro gamer and I got ALL THE ACHIEVEMENTS, MOTHERFUCKER. If you’ve played it, I expect you to be really god damn impressed with me, okay???
A Short Hike
This one was really relaxing! It’s a platformer where you explore an Animal Crossing-y island of cartoon animal people, collecting mobility upgrades- but like, mainly it’s about straight chillin’. The flight controls are fun and there’s lots of little secrets to find and it’s just a nice time that doesn’t drag on too long. Not too much to say about this one.
Pokémon Sword
Ehhhhh.
I’m not here for the hot takes about how Dexit is good actually. Development hell happened, they had to make cuts for time, I get it. It’s disappointing and makes the game a little bit worse, but it’s not the end of the world.
Apart from that... perfectly serviceable? The Wild Area could’ve used a little more technical polish (as could most things in the game, really) but was a step in the right direction, giving the player a wider array of early-game team-building options than ever before. No HMs is good. Story and characters were kind of nothing, but that’s par for the course. “At least this time they’re not shoehorning in some kind of stupid evil-team-wants-legendary-pokemon-to-destroy-the-world apocalypse plot”, I thought to myself before they managed to shoehorn one in at the last minute with zero buildup- but, hey, beats wasting half the game on it.
It’s nothing special and it’s missing a lot of polish, but its problems are mainly due to being rushed, and presumably next gen they’ll be able to reuse a lot of the models and animations (maybe even improve the animations so they’re not so boring??? a man can dream) and make something interesting. SwSh seem like they were testing the waters for something else, and not taking too many chances in the meantime.
(yo why would you sell all these cosmetic items and then turn them all off during gym battles, though)
Hades
Hades is- oh, who am I kidding? Everyone knows Hades, it’s the game of the year, greatest thing since sliced bread, Supergiant are heroes, yada yada yada. I’ve played almost 300 hours of it and I’ve completed everything except all the Resources Director levels (currently a Sigma Wraith), it’s extremely fun and you don’t need me to tell you that.
Petal Crash
It was that thing the Paranatural creator helped on? It’s, uh. It’s a block-sliding puzzle game thing, sort of in a Puyo Puyo vein. It has fun character designs and some good dialogue, like you’d expect from Zack’s involvement, but it didn’t really leave an impression otherwise (besides how got dang infuriating some of its Turn Trial puzzles can be.) The story is... kinda heartwarming, kinda didactic, kinda childish, not especially deep or interesting. Hard for it to be, when it’s told through little bits of fluffy character dialogue that exist to set up a puzzle battle as quickly as possible. Not super recommended unless you really really like block-sliding puzzles.
Hollow Knight
Man, why’d I sleep on this for so long? It’s a metroidvania platformer with heavy Dark Souls inspiration, in terms of tone and difficulty and death mechanics and environmental storytelling. And it’s... apart from all that, just really good as a game, with tight controls and juicy movement and great animation. Progression is linked as much to mastery as it is to upgrades collected- I found myself in lategame areas facing down things that would’ve killed me ten times over at the start- not because I had the best gear, but because I’d learned the game’s language and understood how to move in ways that wouldn’t get me killed.
(Usually. Sometimes I’d walk into a room and sit on a bench and suddenly there’d be a boss fight and I’d get slaughtered. Ain’t that just the way it goes?)
Anyway, on top of all that it’s just charming as hell, with a really unique and well-realized world full of little bug people. I love how, like, your character is clearly some kind of eldritch abomination, but it’s small and cute and so everyone (besides enemies that attack you on sight because they’re possessed by some kinda evil mold) is like “awww, who’s this little guy? want some help, little guy?”
(except Zote, who is just an ass hole. i love him.)
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