#the quality of this is nonexistent but we ignore it as always <3

[gayofthefae]

Disclaimer: as always, the emotional descriptions of Mike do not require self-awareness. I stand with my belief that he is a knee-jerk, don’t-look-for-explanations emotional reaction kinda guy, at least up until the van scene.

Thinking about how Mike has actually barely distanced Will at all. He has always been the same with Will, really....In private. It wasn’t always in private, but I think the more Mike’s feelings develop, the more he feels like he needs to keep his relationship with Will in the shadows almost entirely to remain in the closet. As if their entire relationship is intrinsically romantic and therefore would expose him somehow with the slightest of intimacy (he’s always shown with Will) just because there is now some different feeling behind it. This also explains his increasing sensitivity in fights to say things from “It’s not my fault you don’t like girls” (sexuality to comment) to “We’re friends! We’re friends!” (comment on the nature of their relationship) when no one was questioning otherwise. He may genuinely believe that increasingly smaller details about their relationship are inherently romantic without realizing that he feels this way because he is feeling romantically about them.

In season 1, the little we got was “It was a 7″ and the hug in the hospital: one private, one public.

In season 2, we got a lot of opportunities for very intimate, private moments, but also a fairly public nonromantic confession of love in the shed.

In season 3, though, it started to shift. Mike and Will had that intimacy in the movie theatre when whispering and sitting separately. And their fight, to an extent, is a result of Will’s de-prioritization to Mike when El is present or focal. It is even a direct result of the developing pattern while they’re broken up of El even being the focus during Will’s time with him - which has already been shortened and his own one-on-one time made near-nonexistent because of Mike’s time alone with El. Will’s fears of their friendship ending come from the fact that their only quality time is now in group settings - in which specifically he is second to El. They make up - or rather Will drops it - when they reform as a whole group. But in that group setting again, Mike still has more focus on El than Will for the remainder of the season - with a small, sweet moment when they’re alone together at the end, talking about Will not joining another party, and Mike and Will able to hug tightly as the Byers say goodbye.

During the time in between season 3 and 4, Mike keeps in touch with El but is unable to with Will - maintaining that exchange of presences even long distance. His aforementioned “sensitivity” also increases to the point of not hugging Will at the airport in public - despite him being completely comfortable hugging others we know he thinks of platonically in episode 1 (so gee I wonder what the difference could be). He gives him minimal attention outside of the socks comment (but notice I said gives him minimal attention, because he pays attention to him just fine as we find out when he lists Will’s behavior throughout the day). They fight. Then Mike doesn’t really interact with anyone all day. (He also ignores Will at breakfast - but I chock that up more to stress and concern for El, plus Jonathan was present then.). But what happens the first time in the season we see them truly alone together? Emotional intimacy. Mike is still cold in a similar way to how he was at breakfast, but he opens up about it until Jonathan comes in. And then (note: also with El’s absence so he only has to balance one of them again), he and Will’s dynamic is pretty normal while talking to Jonathan for the rest of the time. (There’s also a solid chance that he is more sensitive around El as well - whether it be fear with her as a witness specifically OR fear that people will notice that he treats Will the same way he treats his girlfriend and have her right there as direct comparison. So now, with El gone, he may feel a bit more comfortable to return at least to talking. I mean, silent treatment would honestly be more suspicious). The next time we see them alone together, Mike comes into his room and closes the door (Jonathan came in last time: more privacy) and again: emotional intimacy. To skip ahead, basically we get almost exclusively one on one interactions from them for the rest of the season with Mike much more comfortable with them, likely out of realizing he needed to prioritize this is or he would lose Will, leading up to having one in a car with both Jonathan and Argyle (maybe a little too comfortable, Mike: Jonathan noticed). 

So, though there’s been a lot of weirdness. It’s all either been in public or a resulting fight of the weirdness in public. Alone together, Mike has always felt safe being intimate with Will. I think this speaks to the fact that unlike some GA have speculated, he isn’t/wouldn’t be uncomfortable with the idea of Will having a crush on him. All evidence supporting that is immediately contradicted by his deep comfort with Will when the only difference is a lack of witnesses. It isn’t a concern for Will’s reaction. It’s a concern for witnesses’ reactions. That’s what he has to tackle next. His heteronormativity is still scaring him. And he’s gotten to a place maybe of more self awareness since the van scene (theory linked above). And he’s become less sensitive with Will again because he realized it was causing too much harm to their relationship. But his interactions with Will and El remain mutually exclusive. And his relationship with Will is getting to the point of being as publicly comfortable as it was in season 2 again - then because he hadn’t become scared yet, now because he realizes that fear isn’t worth losing Will over. 

But the in-between discrepancies show us the difference - or rather show the one consistent thing in changing everything around it: Mike has always been comfortable with Will one-on-one. Even when everything else seemed crazy. Even when he seemed like he was pushing him away. Maybe it’s just coincidental timing, but Mike has never pushed Will away in private. In fact, seldom do they have a private moment that isn’t incredibly intimate and bringing them closer together (something he hasn’t been self aware to realize may also be dangerous in the war against his own sexuality)

#mike wheeler #byler #airport scene #mike wheeler analysis #byler analysis #stranger things

[ebitchwriting]

Resident Evil: Apocalypse Movie Review

So, finally kicking procrastination in the balls and actually continuing the movie reviews on a movie series that genuinely was very formative in my youth but now find it more disappointing than anything. Mostly because of how in every single sequel to the W.S. Anderson Resident Evil series seems to depend on retcons in one way or another, varying wildly in quality between each movie. Apocalypse, the second movie in the six, I'm very torn from because there was not only a major retcon in terms of the timeline of the viral outbreak in Raccoon City, butchering of original game characters, but also really interesting concepts that COULD have been amazing but... just falls flat.

Firstly, the retcon. At the end of the first film, Alice is slowly walking down the desolate streets, the city devoid of life, and heavily implied that the viral outbreak had already taken place and killed nearly everyone. Alone she stands, with nothing but a thin hospital gown and a shotgun with no extra shells to spare. This ending was a great setup, suspenseful, filled with tension, anticipation, and dread. Especially with Matt being placed in the Nemesis program, we could have had a wonderful story fusion of Resident Evil 2 and 3 with Alice eventually finding her way to the Police Department, not only for more ammo but hopes of finding survivors. Perhaps she finds one, an idealistic rookie cop who just started his job and now has been surviving on his own for a week, trying to reach someone, anyone for help through a radio. Perhaps she runs into a young girl, scared, alone, and helpless, and now Alice has to protect her from the zombies and infected animals, and the Lickers. You could have Nemesis constantly chasing her, trying to eliminate her, with perhaps a few moments where he struggles and forces himself to run away, leaving a wounded Alice alone. These were all things I hoped to see, and instead, it's reconned in favor of Alice awakening in the climax of the outbreak rather than the aftermath, yet all the tension of it being the climax is nonexistent. No value is truly given to any of the people who lost their lives. It might be just because as a kid I've always preferred the zombie films where it takes place in the aftermath rather than the climax, but the retcon of the timeline and its narrative and character handling was a major flop.

Secondly, the introduction and subsequent butchering of many video game characters into the films. The only one I actually liked the handling of was Carlos, as they not only captured how much of a fun-loving, flirtatious, genuine guy he is but also how seriously he takes his mission and truly believes he's there to help people, not clean up after Umbrella's mess. Jill, the Ashfords, and Nicholai were all massive failures of their characters. Jill in the games was not just a badass with great intuition and perseverance, but a strong sense of compassion and comradery, and so willing to help everyone she was able to. Meanwhile, the movie version just feels like a cheap distilled version that purely focused on her badassery, making her feel like a 2-dimensional character rather than a 3-dimensional character. Plus, where's the rest of S.T.A.R.S.? Where's Chris? Barry? You can't just cherry-pick one and ignore the existence of everyone else on the team. Then, Nicholai, the bastard that constantly antagonizes Jill and only sees value in data, money, and what serves him and him alone. The world collapsing? A life-saving vaccine that the world will inevitably need when containment breaks out? Who cares, it doesn't give him a big enough paycheck in the end. Yet in the film, he's so two-dimensional and forgettable that it isn't even worth getting into what little he does before he's killed by an infected dog. This seems so pointless since it seems they shifted his role in the game off to Major Cain. At that point, why bring Nicholai in the first place? For shits and giggles? Pointless added death to the survivors to show how bad the outbreak is? Regardless, it's just a disappointment.

The Ashfords, both the Doctor and Angie, are interesting yet disappointing. It's something that completely differs from what takes place in the games, by a fucking mile, yet the concept of a father inventing a virus to help his daughter live a life without struggle which inevitably the virus gets stolen and abused by a cold, heartless corporation IS something I think could have worked and almost did work, yet still falls flat in the overall poor writing and handling of the film in general. And honestly, I also wouldn't be so ticked had they not slapped the Ashord name on there for sake of having an easter egg from the game, and instead just made this concept and these characters truly their own, like with Alice, Rain, and Matt.

Another concept that I was truly, truly, looking forward to the most was Matt, aka Nemesis, and how they would handle it in the movie. In the game, Nemesis really had no backstory, just a B.O.W. that was programmed with killing all S.T.A.R.S. members and anyone that could potentially ruin Umbrella's reputation. By creating Matt, the movies gave this memorable monster a wonderful and depressing backstory of having everyone he loves destroyed by Umbrella, then experimented on and enslaved by them. Forced to kill innocents just trying to escape, and the one person he has the closest ties to now, Alice. This could have been wonderful, filled with angst and grief, but unfortunately, the piss poor writing of the film just makes all of this feel so flat and wasted. We get a little hint of what could be when Nemesis remembers he's Matt, his experiences in the Hive, his sister, and Alice, and chooses to ensure she and the rest of the survivors escape Raccoon City. He sacrifices his life because he knows despite he's still breathing, his life ended in the Hive. He's suffering and wants it to end, and there is no chance he would be able to have a life outside of Umbrella, and would rather take his final breath knowing Alice and the others got out safe, and that Cain is dead.

The ending with Alice as we know it being dead, and now following her clone, as well as her being a good bond for the T-Virus WAS a very interesting concept at the time of it's release(though little did I know it was foreshadowing for a major downfall of this movie series). However, Jill, Carlos, and Angie magically showing up to save Alice without a fuss from Umbrella, completely unexplained not only here but in the future sequals really tick me off. But that little rant will have to be saved for the review for Extinction as this is already long enough.

In conclusion, had W.S. Anderson decided to a) keep the movie universe and game universe completely separated and kept only original characters, or limited himself to just one or two game characters; b) not retconned the timeline established in the first film; and c) not focused to much on action and focused more on suspense and horror like in the first film, this truly could have been a slam dunk. 3/10 STAAARS purely for the few concepts that were intriguing and carried the film.

#resident evil: apocalypse #resident evil #W.S. Anderson #ebitch speaks #ebitch reviews #movie reviews #I couldn't resist the STARS pun

[panharmonium]

next in-progress teen wolf S5 thoughts under the cut!

[same spoiler disclaimer as always applies - i’ve only seen up through episode 16 of season 5.  i’m totally unspoiled for anything that happens after that, and i’d like to keep it that way (“spoilers” for me includes things like “oh, it just keeps getting worse and worse; lower your expectations,” or various other subjective assessments of quality - i like to form my own impressions).  if you’re a friend and can talk to me without dropping hints like that, have at it!  otherwise, please don’t engage with this; we can talk about it once i’m finished.  thanks! :) ]

4 episodes out from the end of season 5 and my biggest problems are still

up until this most recent episode, everybody was acting wildly out of character in order to force the “pack conflict” plotline.  that entire arc feels contrived and unbelievable.

TOO MANY CHARACTERS.  i can’t believe how many new people they keep introducing!  it runs so contrary to what my own instincts as a storyteller would be - if i suddenly lost access to major characters in an unexpected and frustrating way, my reaction would be to make the story smaller and focus in a deeper way on the characters who are still there.  but teen wolf’s reaction seems to have been ‘fill the holes with as many new and old people as we possibly can and then not give ANYBODY the Deep Treatment.’  expanding the cast this much stretches the story way too thin.  there’s no time to actually sit with one particular character or pursue a consistent line of development for anyone.  we’ve got the three death doctors, theo, tracy, hayden, donovan, chimera pack members #3 and 4 whose names might be cory and josh but i honestly don’t remember, hayden’s older sister, dr. valak (sp??), malia’s mother, plus the relatively new mason and parrish, plus sudden reappearances by brayden, chris, meredith, gerard, deucalion, PLUS the fact that we’re supposed to be following the stories of six (six?!) “main” characters?  this is silly.  they keep asking us to care about a hundred different things at the same time, and i don’t.  if they can’t even give their “main” cast deep enough development, i’m never going to care about a bunch of characters i just met three minutes ago.

expanding the cast this much means the pacing suffers.  things happen and then aren’t addressed again for many, many episodes, and you can’t tell a cohesive story like this!  if you’re going to do something, you have to keep addressing it consistently until it resolves.  for example - deaton is captured by the desert wolf in episode 8, and then we don’t see either of them again until episode 14.  there’s no sense of urgency about his captivity, because the narrative never addresses it.  putting plot points or bits of character development aside for long periods of time sabotages audience engagement, because it signals us to be like, “well, the story isn’t interested or concerned about this, so i shouldn’t be, either.”  

poor kira has been done so dirty.  her post-3B “development” is nonexistent, and everything they do try to do with her is so inconsistently attended to or skimmed over in such confusing ways - why?  why did they ignore her throughout the entirety of season 4?  why would she never have any time devoted to her learning about her powers, when she’s the only kid who actually has a parent who can teach her literally everything she needs to know?  why hasn’t this been an ongoing thing since the end of 3B?  everything about kira’s situation is so confusing - it feels like her parents have never talked to her about her powers or trained her (because it’s literally never been shown to happen), but that can’t possibly be the case.  but if it can’t be the case, then why hasn’t it been addressed?  and what happened with that S4 plotline about kira’s family moving out of beacon hills?  and where was the follow-up/explanation about that scene where kira got her first tail? kira has no core character arc, which is wild, because there’s plenty there to draw from, eg - the family conflict of her mother lying to her all those years and being a major contributor to the situation that ended in allison’s death, her father always letting noshiko make all the decisions (decisions that haven’t always been in kira’s best interests), the internal conflict of kira wrestling with her position as the person who “replaced” allison (especially given the fact that she and scott are romantically interested in each other), kira feeling guilty about her mother’s role in what happened/worrying that she doesn’t fit in with the pack/feeling like an intruder or imposter...kira could have easily had an arc where she’s dealing with these things and learning about her powers in S4, and then in S5 this whole thing about her powers being out of balance wouldn’t be so out of left-field.  if it was prompted by anger/imbalanced emotions (things still not right with her family) or her own lack of confidence/certainty about who she is/where she belongs (still learning to stop seeing herself as a replacement for someone else), it would make more sense.

and this isn’t even getting into the wildly appropriative mess that was the “skinwalkers” episode; honestly, WHAT.

listen.  i love gerard.  he’s my favorite teen wolf villain.  and i liked deucalion, too.  but bringing them back like this was the wrong move, and when i think about it for too long i want to start throwing things, because it’s the star wars sequels syndrome all over again.  WHY CAN’T WRITERS EVER RECOGNIZE WHEN SOMETHING IS OVER.  why are they incapable of recognizing a good and appropriate ending - one they wrote themselves, even!  deucalion has a great conclusion - the restoration of his sight (literally, but also metaphorically, as someone who was blinded by rage/revenge but now might be able to see a better way forward), and him being given a chance to do better (“my mother told me you were a man of vision once. we're letting you go because we hope you can be that man again.”)  his story has a satisfying, totally appropriate ending.  bringing him back like this (even if he’s faking his antagonism against scott in order to escape the chimeras and ends up helping our side; i have no idea what the plan is for him) is the wrong move, because once a story is truly over, anything added to it can only undermine what came before.

general frustration - this show used to be about a group of teenagers who were trying to graduate from high school and navigate family relationships/friendships while dodging supernatural stuff that got in their way, but now it’s about full-time crime-fighting superheroes who very occasionally make appearances in a school building (usually after hours).  the show doesn’t care about their normal lives anymore, and that was the whole reason why i liked it so much in the first place.  i thought we were getting back to that in the first couple episodes of this season, with the AP Biology class thing and stiles’s anxiety about going off to college etc, but all of that was unceremoniously dropped in favor of the Big Dramatic Plot.  

this is a minor thing unrelated to storytelling, but - why in god’s name is everywhere SO DARK?  literally, every single scene is shot like there are no lights on.  it’s not a plot point (it’s not happening in places where the power is out), it’s an artistic choice, and it’s a bad one.

so many people have been let in on the secret now (or are starting to suspect) that at this point i’m starting to wonder if this season is going to end with some kind of a community-wide mindwipe.  the dread doctors do have technology that makes you forget you ever saw them...i don’t understand how else we’re going to come back from this one.  

Last thing (I mean, there are other things, but this is the one that’s on my mind after the last two episodes we watched) - I have weird feelings about what the show may or may not be trying to do with Stiles and Lydia’s dynamic.  It started earlier in the show when Scott and Kira had that conversation that was like “those two...they’re good together��/“he still likes her, doesn’t he?”/“yeah, but it’s different now” and then it’s kind of continued with the framing of Stiles’s reaction to her being injured by Traci and then obviously this entire Eichen House rescue...

I can’t tell what they’re doing, and I think whatever it is would be more effective if I knew.  The thing with Stiles and Lydia for me is that if you asked me which potential romantic relationship on this show I was most compelled by, they would definitely be it - which is rare for me; I usually don’t care about any of the romantic dynamics in media I watch.  But I also would be completely happy for this show to end without them ever having another romantic moment together.  The development of their friendship is equally compelling to me, and I’ve especially always loved how Stiles never pursues her after S2, not even after Jackson leaves, not even after Lydia kisses Stiles in the locker room, because she keeps on seeing other people, and so it’s like - she’s not interested, as far as he knows.  And he literally never brings it up again, and they still become closer and closer friends regardless.  

But now the show has started this weird dynamic during the “pack conflict” arc (which was contrived OOC nonsense to begin with), wherein Malia and Stiles have barely interacted and it’s like neither of them notice or care...which is OOC nonsense in its own right, because Malia has always been written as totally smitten with/attached to Stiles in a way that defies her trouble navigating other non-coyote relationships (“remember we talked about this - rules of the wild kingdom don’t apply to friends”/“i would never leave you behind - them i would leave”).  I do buy the idea that Malia could possibly get consumed with a revenge quest against her mother and temporarily start neglecting her relationships, but I don’t buy it the way it’s being executed here - the minimal Desert Wolf stuff we’ve gotten has always felt completely disconnected from the main plot, as if it belongs in another season - it feels like a teaser for a different storyline instead of an organic part of this one.  And it’s so superficial - the fact that we never see Malia’s father, or her relationship with him?  It’s so poorly done, and I don’t buy it as enough of a reason for her to start pulling away - if that’s even what the show is trying to do, because it’s being done so badly that I can’t even tell if that’s the intention of not.

There’s also a moment when Malia tells Scott (re: Stiles) “We sort of broke up,” which was super bizarre, because they didn’t.  That literally never happened.  They have a conversation where Malia is like “[the thing with Donovan] didn’t matter to me” and Stiles is like “it matters to me,” and then he gets out of the car because she’s giving him a ride to go talk to his dad - but they didn’t break up?  There was no discussion about them not being together anymore.  And I can’t tell if the show wants us to accept her false statement at face value because they’re trying to force Malia and Stiles apart, or if they want us to be like “that was a really weird thing for her to say; that never actually happened; I wonder if she’s misinterpreting what’s going on because of her still-growing social skills.”

But taken in conjunction with the fact that the show then keeps putting this emphasis on Stiles and Lydia, especially in the Eichen House episodes - I just feel weird about it.  Like - I imagine there are shippers out there who were crowing about this shift when it was going on, but for me it’s like - how can you enjoy something when it doesn’t make sense?  I never want “my thing” to happen at the cost of narrative integrity; I want things to happen that are natural and organic.  If something isn’t written in a way that makes sense, then I can’t consider it good, whether it “benefits” a relationship I’m compelled by or not.

I don’t think shippers always make this distinction, but whatever.  I don’t judge story elements based on whether I “like” them or not, I judge them based on whether I think they’re narratively appropriate and written in a way that makes sense.  Do I “like” Stiles and Lydia having lots of meaningful screentime together?  Of course, I always do, and that’s not even the problem; they can have that as friends, too, but when it’s happening concurrently with a Malia-Stiles separation that feels forced and unnatural, I don’t appreciate it the way I normally would. 

I also feel like - this is such a picky thing, but for me, the end of the Eichen House rescue episodes was less effective than it could have been, because the story couldn’t decide what its focus was going to be.  If the writers really wanted to end it with Lydia telling her mom “He saved me.  Stiles saved me,” then Stiles should have been the one who actually did the essential work of saving her.  They had the right set-up for that initially - everybody in the pack had a necessary job, but Stiles, as the only human, was the only one who could pass the mountain ash barrier, so beyond that point, he would be on his own.  And I liked that a lot - it was reminiscent of the rave episode from S2, where Stiles has to be the one to place the mountain ash barrier outside the building.  But as things actually play out, Stiles doesn’t end up doing much at all.  The importance of him being the only one who can pass the mountain ash barrier is undermined and negated first by Theo crossing it, and then by Parrish destroying it.  Theo is the only one who can actually find Lydia in the tunnels, Parrish is the one who stops her scream from killing all of them, and Deaton treats her injury before it’s too late.  So for Lydia to then end this arc by saying that Stiles saved her rings hollow to me - it doesn’t feel earned, even if the musical selection during that scene was a song I love, and even if I finally got to see Scott, Stiles, and Lydia onscreen by themselves for a change, which is the focus I’ve wanted ever since 3B ended.

#i understand that the plan itself was probably generated by stiles after he stole the keycard #but lydia doesn't know that #and if they really wanted the focus at the end of this arc to be stiles and lydia #then they missed a perfectly set up opportunity to strand stiles on his own and make him figure it out himself #(which would also more effectively tie in to his dad saying that in order to feel better after taking a life you might have to save one) #and if they instead wanted it to be a group effort (which it WAS) then they should have just had lydia tell her mom 'my friends saved me' #it's a focus issue #the writers want to have it both ways #but that makes everything they do weaker/far less effective than it would be if they would just commit to something #but anyway moving on #only a few more episodes to go! #teen wolf #pan watches teen wolf

[thiemspirit]

Rafael Nadal | French Open 2021

#rafael nadal #tennis #atp tour #french open #french open 2021 #tennisedit #my gifs #the drama that went down at our church's youth group meeting when he lost...... anyway this isn't from that match so we vibe #i watched him play diego in bed with a can of cactus red bull. it was kind of aesthetic with the fitting shades of green lmao #the quality of this is nonexistent but we ignore it as always <3

[deltaengineering]

that was the winter anime 2021 that was

Still not quite ready for a dozen posts about how terrible the likes of Combatants Will Be Dispatched are, sorry. Watch Vivy though, it owns. Here’s some more things that are (mostly) good. As always, worst to best.

Yatogame-chan Kansatsu Nikki S3

Yatogame has long run out of hot Nagoya facts and its ensemble comedy never amounted to much, so now it seems mostly content to just spam more and more wacky character designs. About the only thing that it has left going for it is that 3 minutes a week are more effort to drop than to watch, so I expect them to make a movie next. 4/10

Go-toubun no Hanayome S2

Quints is a weird one. S1 was a barely good enough (i.e., well above average) implementation of the ages old harem chestnut. S2 is actually better at the core of its appeal, since it gives all the characters a sharper profile (things like taking Nino from joke to badass and making Ichika a villain are no mean feat), but it does pay a steep price for it. You see, to deliver a steady drip feed of meaningful character moments it apparently has to rush through the source material at a breakneck pace, which completely wrecks the "story" part of this story and makes every episode seem like a recap. And it still keeps wasting precious time on vestigial nonsense like its framing device and the Kyoto flashback scenario that was already the worst part of S1. But by far the most annoying aspect is its insistence on keeping all the options valid, since it prevents any real progress and makes everything seem arbitrary and pointless. So sure enough, after a season of much ado we still don't end up anywhere — you can't really raise the stakes if all at stake was "who wins" to begin with. It's watchable and even enjoyable scene-for-scene but it's getting harder and harder to call it a solid show overall. 5/10

Skate Leading Stars

I was watching this primarily because I didn't like Yuri on Ice much and wanted to see if something that is a blatant attempt to cash in on it would be better — because while YoI delivers on one aspect (being hella gay), it really is an absolute shambles of a sports show. And sure enough, Skate Leading has none of the auteur appeal of YoI, but it just works much better. In particular I appreciate how it managed to make me care even a little about a cast of assholes, which is a nice contrast to the nauseatingly ingratiating way YoI tries to make you love its characters. Also, Skate Leading is just generally cheap and unambitious, so not susceptible to trying hard and painfully flaming out on the presentation side like YoI is. But at some point you gotta let go of these comparisons and on its own Skate Leading is... just fine, I guess? Competent, mildly engaging, not very memorable. And that's probably where it loses to Yuri on Ice in the end after all, even if I think it's "better". 6/10

Idoly Pride

Idoly Pride sold itself on me with a really good (and hilarious/tragic) first episode that was just too bizarre to ignore — I mean, how can you ignore GHOST IDOL MANAGERS. Well, the majority of the show isn't like that. It's a competent and solid version of the idol franchise show, yes, but it really had more potential than that. Especially midseason, it gets lost in these dozens of characters, and while they're all likeable, it does seem like a waste of a good story just centered on Mana/Kotona/Sakura. By the end it comes back around to the heart of the matter with a Maeda-style sob story, which could be a disaster but seasoned veteran Jukki Hanada makes it work anyway. Overall, there's quite a bit of ridiculous hacky melodrama in this, but quite honestly that's the best part and I wish it would concentrate more on it. The rest is just okay. 6/10

Yuru Camp S2

Yuru Camp is still likely the best pure iyashikei show when it gets down to business. Compared to S1 though, this seems to happen less and less. At its peaks (i.e., basically any quiet moment with Rin) it's at least as good as ever, and there's some good cast additions like Mini-Inuko, but it appears that Yuru Camp simply has run out of things you can do with camping and it fills up the time with other... stuff. This stuff includes the generic school club shenanigans it was never particularly good at, and a gigantic helping of crass consumerism. Yeah, I would say the majority of Yuru Camp is just a straight up infomercial at this point, which itself ranges from the perfectly acceptable (which cute anime isn't about food constantly), to the sketchy (I don't know whether the Izu tourism board cut this production a fat check, but if they didn't, Yuru Camp still gives its best effort to make it seem that way) to the highly irritating – I am aware that camping requires gear and you can't just ignore that, but you most definitely do not require whole arcs dedicated to talking about raising funds for the purposes of acquiring the Lamp of Comfy Happiness at your friendly local Caribou™ either. Not to mention an arc where the aforementioned lame school club does the same, for double irritation. Make no mistake, this show is so riddled with scenes that beg for a solution to embed affiliate links in video files that it makes me wish I was watching something as anticapitalist and underground as Love Live. And irritating really is the last thing a show with this core concept, as stellar as it is at that, can afford to be. Bummer. 6/10

SKOO the Infinity

Skoo has one really huge asset: ADAM, its magnificent villain. It also has one really huge liability: Reki, its not magnificent protagonist. To be more specific, it's very good at anything outrageous, physics-defying and silly, such as most scenes ADAM is in, and quite bad at anything serious, dramatic (in a serious way) and down to earth, such as most scenes Reki is in. So, what's the verdict? Well, the rest of the cast is more ADAM-like, and Reki's co-protagonist Langa is fine as the straight (yeah, right) man. The tedious buddy drama is a comparatively small part of this show, and at least it pays off quite well in the end. Seriously, I was ready to give this a 6, but the final episode is probably the best one of the show, in all of its aspects. That's really not something you see often. Skoo's a great time. Except when it's not. 7/10

Non Non Biyori Nonstop

Speaking of the rare good ending, what about we gave one of those to a slim and inconsequential slice-of-life show? NNB has always been solid, comfy and amusing quality with a couple of standout moments (usually something with Renge), and Nonstop has that plus an ending as conclusive as any show of this type is ever going to have. Besides, it does a lot of things right by focusing on more characters than the central 4 (especially Konomi has great material in S3), it expands the universe just enough to not get stale, and it moves things forward — It's definitely a lot better than the movie, is what I'm saying. Apart from that, well, we're three seasons in, if you have any interest in this you probably don't need me to explain what's good about NNB at this point. Bonus points for being nothing but an ad for the manga. 7/10

Wonder Egg Priority

Oh boy, so here's the big one. Wonder Egg is the rare Meaningful Arthouse Show About Real Issues You Guys, as you might have heard. And well, the long and short of it is that it's a very good show with quite a few glaring problems (besides not actually being finished due to production issues, but what we have is enough of an ending to be able to meaningfully talk about it). In particular, one problem: WEP is, at its core, one of these metaphorical Magical Girl-ish series that are just a thin layer of abstraction over coming-of-age or societal problems. The issue is that "metaphorical" in this case means "literal" and "thin" means "basically nonexistent". This show is not subtle regarding what it's about, at all. This is a double-edged sword — on the positive side, some things really should just be said aloud, and I'm really, really fucking tired of the Ikuhara style of "here's some wacky things, maybe a blog post will eventually tell you how it's actually about the most important thing ever" obfuscation — if it's really so important, just spell it out. On the other hand, there are limits to this and when a second, different Ai appears I don't really need a voiceover line telling me that yep, this show is about parallel universes now. WEP spells out many important things, but it also spells out many things that are implicitly clear or better left vague. Not to mention that with being so obvious up front, the show's tendency to leave figuring out what it's actually saying about it up to the viewer can leave the wrong impression. Again, I settled on the opinion that it's subtle after all where it counts the most, but you might easily get the impression that it pulls its punches (Ikuhara does this the exact other way around — once you figure out what the fuck he's talking about it's abundantly clear what he's saying about it).

In fact, this show is so good at subtle, quiet character moments that it calls into question the need for big huge fighting fantasy layer in the first place, especially since I'm not a fan of the fantasy designs and the fights aren't great. Sure, they look impressive on a technical level (this show is very good looking in general), but the lack of actual impact or rhythm makes me think this is not made by people who are very familiar with action and maybe they should have asked some seasoned shounen veterans for this — or just, you know, not do it. They can (and do) impress with character acting in quiet scenes just the same. And while Ai's character story actually does pay off quite nicely by the end we got, and Momoe and Rika are also handled well, Neiru's backstory is significantly less good, not to mention the whole Frill subplot regarding the show's mythology that they introduced just before (and that's the part to be resolved at a later date), which is a huge can of worms. We'll see how well they handle that, I suppose, but as it is it's a weird and vestigial detour that doesn't add much besides thematic headaches.

But yeah, apart from all that — I like it, a lot. Great character writing in the details, cool looks for the most part, tons of ambition, and a message that I consider to be appropriately handled — for the most part, and for now. Not quite ambitious arthouse anime at its finest, but also not a pretentious disaster like Sarazanmai, Monogatari et al. 8/10

#anime #review #winter2021 #Yatogame-chan Kansatsu Nikki #Go-toubun no Hanayome #Skate Leading Stars #Idoly Pride #Yuru Camp #sk8 the infinity #Non Non Biyori #wonder egg priority

[hawkinsschoolcounselor]

Analysis of El if you'd like.

Always so humble with the requests. Of course I’d like, otherwise I wouldn’t ask. Ask away, people! Oh, and FYI to everyone, when I see a like less than a minute after I post one of these long posts, it makes me wonder if you people are really reading them. Don’t assume you’re going to like them. Read them, and then decide. El can be a touchy subject considering she has such a rabid fan base. She is an extremely complex character, and it is unlikely that the Duffers have a detailed understanding of child psychology. The character therefor likely wasn’t designed with such theories in mind, but in psychology there is decent amount of common sense that writers may have drawn on. In real life, El would be quite the interesting case study. She was born and raised in a controlled lab setting. Everything in her life was strictly controlled until she was 12/13 or so. For another year after that she was still very limited in her freedoms and opportunities as she was hidden away in Hopper’s cabin. For several months after that she was only allowed out to see her friends, but never in a public setting it would seem. All of this has strictly limited her socioemotional growth. 

El’s cognitive development seems to be the least impacted, not accounting for physical development which I wouldn’t even attempt to determine. Her cultural knowledge is almost nonexistent when we first meet her, which is to be expected given her upbringing. Nevertheless, she possesses problem solving skills, has shown impressive concentration and information processing speed (staying focused on her tasks and reacting to new stimuli, such as an attack), an ability to form basic arguments (as shown in her fights with various characters), and receptive language skills. She does seem to have deficits in productive language, which is likely a result of her extremely limited social exposure. The traits she is shown to do well with are likely the result of careful conditioning by Dr. Brenner and his colleagues. She was designed as a weapon, and would therefor need to work quickly, efficiently, and decisively based on orders given. She also, somewhat surprisingly given her catchphrase, has shown the ability to lie (when she intentionally led Mike, Dustin, and Lucas on a wild goose chase). This shows her ability to use planning and judgement to decide and execute a course of action (whether that was a good or bad idea is up for debate).

Her emotional and social development are seriously stunted. When we meet El she possesses little affect (the verbal and non-verbal cues that convey feeling when communicating). She speaks in a flat voice, stares blankly, and has limited usage of body language. She does get an edge to her voice when angry, but her speaking volume rarely changes unless in a high-stress situation. This shows a delay in emotional development. Emotional development goes through a series of stages. To some extent, emotions are instinctual and necessary to survival, but the expression of said emotions is usually learned and conditioned. We don’t know much about El’s early childhood, but it is unlikely that emotional expression was encouraged. El does possess basic emotions like happiness, anger, sadness, and fear. Her limited ability to express emotions early in the show is likely a result of Dr. Brenner wanting to limit her emotional responses. He wouldn’t want a weapon that was afraid or remorseful. He did seem to value having a bond with her, as she seemed to desire his approval and called him “Papa.” He is shown treating her very poorly in general, and even worse when she was a disappointment to him. Her lack of affect could also be modeled on him, as he generally speaks very evenly regardless of his mood.

El’s emotional development does gain some traction in seasons 2 and 3 as she is exposed to others. This is a good segue to her social development. Before escaping the lab, she seems to have little to no social experience. She seems to have had some early socialization with Kali at the lab, but she had no memory of this. Her first real social experiences occurred when she met Benny (who treated her kindly) and then Mike, Lucas, and Dustin. This is when she starts to show her trademark character quirk of repeating others. This is also when she starts to really build conversational skills, as before she was mostly expected to take in language rather than express it.

Much of our social learning, especially early on, is a result of observation and imitation. We see something, whether in person or through fictional material, we imitate it, and then we are reinforced, ignored, or punished. From what we can observe from El, after she escapes the lab through to when she moves, her learning came from a combination of the week she spent with the Party (during Season 1), her time hiding with Hopper (end of Season 1 to midway through Season 2), her time with Kali, and then the events of Season 3. Now, we have to keep in mind that all of this learning occurs in the span of about two years. Of that time, over half of it is the result of watching TV and speaking to Hopper. She lacks a lot of the cultural context for a lot of the social and emotional information she takes in. 

Her social relationships are difficult to examine, mostly because there is a lot we just don’t get to see. She bonded with Mike very quickly, as he was kind to her and tried to keep her safe from the “bad men.” In reality, he didn’t treat her terribly different from Dr. Brenner in the sense that he was still using her. Mike tried to explain relationships and social norms to her, but, given her lack of preexisting knowledge and his own limited understanding, she didn’t quite get it all. She doesn’t seem to know the difference between familial, platonic, and romantic love. Instead, she sort of imprints on him like a baby animal may to its carer. Dustin and Lucas are less eager to have her around, but they warm up to her when it’s clear that she does genuinely want to help.

Her time away from them, and her apparently great consumption of TV soap operas, has resulted in her sort of trying to live out a fantasy. She becomes obsessed with Mike, watching him and stalking him since she is disallowed from actually leaving the cabin. She becomes extremely possessive (like a soap opera character), developing a dislike of Max simply due to her trying to be Mike’s friend. This is quite unhealthy, and the hostility is again shown when Max attempts to befriend her. It is apparent that her time away resulted in a her creating an “ideal” version of her and Mike based on TV representations of relationships. She still is shown to have missed Dustin and Lucas, but none of the intensity is present in those relationships. 

Her relationship with Mike is very superficial. As far as viewers can tell, they spend most of their time making out. El is still shown to have possessive qualities, as it is stated that she and Mike are often at Hopper’s cabin together. We see them bailing early after Dustin comes home from camp, despite them making the trip to the hill to construct Cerebro. El does not seem to appreciate any of Mike’s personal interests or personality traits. In a callback to season 1, where El had no interest as Mike showed off his toys, El tells Mike to stop singing and does not laugh at his attempts at a joke (granted, she was angry with him at the time). The implication is that the realities of her relationship with Mike did not meet her expectations. This is actually a fairly normal part of social development, and it leads her to another stage: exploration.

Up until this point, El had not attempted to explore the possibilities of who she was. She had merely taken on the identities that others had crafted for her, starting with Brenner, then Mike, then Hopper, then Max. Max is the first one to actually encourage her to explore and experiment. What Max doesn’t seem to realize, however, is that El is also now emulating her. She’s making some strides to be her own person, but she’s still heavily influenced by Max, included repeating what Max says. Nevertheless, she is genuinely confused by the entire concept of her liking something for herself, and has no idea even how to determine what she likes. This isn’t surprising, as Hopper is shown being in way over his head, and the Party are simply young teens who don’t know better.

Unfortunately for El, a traumatic loss has set her back by the end of Season 3. She lost her first real father figure, and we see her sort of revert back to dressing as she did before Max’s influence. She also falls back into her infatuation with Mike, despite seeming to have moved on. The confusion on Mike’s face suggests that this is a surprise to him, so there is a lot unknown as to how she arrived back at that decision. It is also unknown why she kept it to herself before she moved. It is plausible to hypothesize that she is going back to her first real secure base. She needs to feel safe and secure after so much traumatic change (losing Hopper, her powers vanishing, and having to move away). She could be clinging to Mike as a way to keep some semblance of control. At the very least, Mike doesn’t seem to reciprocate, which could lead to some problems for her down the road.

In the end, El is a complicated character. Millie Bobby Brown has done a commendable job portraying a traumatized character with a limited understanding of emotion and social norms. It is upsetting to see some fans acting as if her relationship with Mike is healthy for her, at least as it has so far been portrayed. There is some hope for El, developmentally speaking, as Joyce has been shown to be a very loving mother. Time away from Mike could be beneficial, but, as we saw early in Season 2, she reacts very possessively if anyone moves in on her “territory,” for lack of a better word. This relationship indeed seems very limiting for her. With any luck, she will be able to explore the world and herself to a greater extent in Season 4. It is my hope, as someone who works with children, that she is able to learn more about herself as more than just someone else’s friend, daughter, girlfriend, sister, or weapon.

#stranger things #eleven #jane hopper #el

[lotionalt-writeherman]

A lot of people on the GoT tag like “I expected too much” and “knew there’d be some bullshit ending” but I want to stop that. Because NO. No. You did NOT expect too much. You expected a well-written season that accurately portrayed the characters and show. Like you’ve been getting for years. Like they promised. 

This show has been epic. EPIC. Nearly every fan will tell you, at least up through season six, that this is the best show ever made. And they were right. Because this shit WAS good. We had incredible character arcs, complex plot to go with them, and absolutely beautiful endings. Everything has always come together. It’s always seemed somewhat fitting, or at least made sense looking back. It’s always been one of those things where you scream when it happens, but then later you’re like yeah, it sucked, but looking back I get how we got here. (When Jon was stabbed by the Night’s Watch. When Joffrey was poisoned by Olenna. When Tyrion killed his dad, then Shae. Hell, the Red Wedding, even. When Jon turns out to be a Targaryen) 

And that was good writing. Like, real, quality writing. Characters may have been doing dumb shit, but it made sense for those characters. 

This season? 

Everything went south. I don’t know exactly what happened, to be honest. Maybe it’s because they’re not following the books. Maybe it’s because they’re trying to cram two books worth of plot in one season. 

Either way, it’s garbage. 

Let’s go through the characters they’ve done wrong, shall we? 

Tyrion. Tyrion is the clever one. He’s always a step or two ahead, can always see what’s going on. And this season and the last he’s been... what? Not doing that. Like, really not doing that. His whole thing is that he can’t fight, but he can think. That’s what he has going for him. And in just this episode, he’s not seen Sansa’s reveal of the secret for what it so obviously is, told Varys (literally everyone saw that one coming), and freed Jaime to help their sister (who is evil, whom Tyrion hates) escape. That’s just this episode. What happened?

I’d also be remiss if I didn’t mention how literally no one in Winterfell was like, “hey, maybe we shouldn’t put all the people who can’t fight where the dead people are. Because, you know, the dead people can come back to life, and we all know that, but we’re ignoring it.” You’re telling me Sansa and Tyrion BOTH overlooked that shit? When every idiot on Twitter was talking about it the MINUTE it was mentioned in Ep 2? Nah. 

Jon. To be fair, Jon’s been pretty in character for what we know about him. He found a queen, he’s loyal to her because he’s loyal and that’s his thing. But how about when Sansa is like “yo, shouldn’t we let our guys rest, since they just fought like a billion dead guys?” and jon’s like, nah, whatever Dany said? I’m calling bullshit. Also this last episode I feel like he kind of does nothing. Which isn’t Jon’s style. He’s a do-er, always has been. And he’s a leader. Yes, he respects Dany and even cares for her, but I find it hard to believe he’s really going to just... step back. and ignore everything she’s doing. and not offer an opinion, like, ever. That’s not his style, it’s never been his style. Ever since he arrived on the Wall, the one thing we know about Jon Snow is that he can’t keep his mouth shut if he thinks something is wrong. And we’re just going to... ignore that?

Jaime. I kind of don’t want to do him, because my boy got done so clearly wrong and everyone is doing him. But whatever, I’ll state the obvious. We had about 3 seasons of pure character development for him, where Jaime was learning that he still had honor, PROVING he still had honor. By himself. No Cersei, just Jaime out there in the world not being an asshole. Because he is honorable. Remember King’s Landing, when he earned ‘Kingslayer?’ Remember when he promised Catelyn he’d protect her girls, and he really did do everything, including betraying Cersei, to keep that promise? Remember when he lost his hand to stop Brienne from being raped? Remember when he leaves Cersei to join the army in the North because he doesn’t want millions to die? So excuse me if it makes no logical sense for the man to decide ‘fuck it, honor what honor imma go fuck my sister again.’ Because he’s changed. They made a point to show us the lengths to which he’s changed. And then the ending he’s given is basically ‘I only care about you, Cersei, I don’t care about the thousands dying in king’s landing.’ That’s disrespect, yo. DISRESPECT. 

Dany. Again, this one’s obvious. And honestly, from what I’ve seen, pretty much everyone can agree that this shit was dumb. Yeah, there were hints that she could someday go crazy. Yeah, she said some stuff seasons ago about burning cities. You know what else she did, though? She saw slavery. She saw how it hurt the individual person, the people, and she wanted it gone. So she ended it, because it was wrong. She spent whole seasons trying not to be her father, to be just. At literally the first sign that her dragons were hurting innocents (burned that one kid) she locked them all up. Because she couldn’t stand to see innocent people hurt. She sees the wrong in her father’s actions, because she knows that he wanted to kill normal, everyday, innocent people. He wanted to burn them all, but all of them dying wasn’t justice, and that’s always been what she’s wanted: justice. Even the Tarlys got a choice: bend the knee or die. In her mind, it was justice. She let them choose, even after they initially fought against her. But then, this season, she flips all that? Goes back on the claim of not wanting to be “queen of the ashes”? Burns the entire city to the ground, including her own troops? No. 

I know that she’s sad because Jorah is dead, because Missandei is dead, because it looks like her advisors have betrayed her, like Jon doesn’t want to be with her. So she’s upset because she’s alone. And that makes sense. You can get a little depressed over it. But she wins. She gets there. She has King’s Landing in the palm of her hand, and instead of going in and taking the Iron Throne like a boss, she completely disrespects the memory of all those who have died for her and burns everything and everyone. Missandei said “dracarys” as her final word, which has been the justification for this decision. But for Dany to take her words to mean “burn the city and every kid in here to the ground” is just as absurd as assuming Missandei would ever want that. Dany knew this girl. She’s had her with her for years at this point. That’s not what she would’ve wanted. It all goes back to justice. That’s what Missandei wanted. That’s what Dany has always wanted. And burning King’s Landing wasn’t it. Continuity is nonexistent for Daenerys here. It’s just gone. 

And I’ll say, again, what everyone has been saying: if this had been set up better, I wouldn’t be mad. I think Dany as a mad queen, set up properly in the narrative, would’ve been fine. I’ve always liked Dany, but I’m not saying any of this because she’s my favorite. She’s not. But I can still see that the way that this was done, in the span of three episodes, didn’t work. There isn’t enough evidence to support this yet. If there had been actions, real actions, even just through the last season that could hint at this, fine. I would’ve accepted it. It’s kind of a cool way for this to go, honestly, if done correctly. But it wasn’t, and that’s what my problem with it is. She was set up as a character with a code of values, a strong belief in justice for wrongdoers and relief for innocents, and has consistently shown through her actions that she follows that code. You can’t completely change a character arc in a span of three episodes based on her actions of justice against those who have clearly wronged her, at least in her mind. That’s not how you write characters. 

Where the actual hell is the decent writing? Because the only cool things this season have been from previous seasons. Like Jon is Aegon Targaryen. That shit was WILD. I loved it. I loved how it’d been set up, everything. But like... that’s it.That’s the only cool thing set up this season. Everything else is this surface level bullshit. It feels like a soap opera. Where is the scheming? Where is the intricate plot weaving that’s been a part of this show since day one? That’s the reason we’re here. That. Not because we like it when characters die, because we want flashy battles and dragon scenes. Those are nice, but not why this show blew up like it did. This show is so impressive because it’s smart. Not because it’s big or gruesome or shocking. Because it’s smart. I feel like that was obvious to everyone. You should’ve known that. You had eight seasons to set up this incredible ending. You knew it was coming. 

Instead, you ignored the previous seasons. The plots, the characters. All the potential there. You had years to plan. You saw the theories, the ideas everywhere. And because you were so intent on being impressive, on surprising everybody and doing something no one expected, you fucked up. Instead of focusing on delivering quality, you focused on shock value. “No one ever thought of this,” You said proudly. No one thought of this because no one thought you would be this fucking stupid.

So.. yeah. fuck d&d. :)

#game of thrones #got #got spoilers #game of thrones spoilers #jonerys #jaime #cersei lannister #jaime x cersei #jaime lannister #tyrion #dany #daenerys targaryen #jon snow

[stillthewordgirl]

CaptainCanary fic: With Eyes Wide Open (ch. 3 of ?)

In a world where Rip Hunter never formed the Legends, Leonard Snart is trying to mend his ways and work with Team Flash, though sometimes it's easier than others. Meanwhile, Sara Lance is gradually dealing with the blood lust left behind by the Pit and trying to get used to being a hero again herself. When they encounter each other one day in Central City, it seems like a match that just might be meant to be.

*

Note: This is an accidental pregnancy fic, one in which both contributors to said pregnancy decide to continue their relationship and do their best with it. If you don't like such things, be warned.

*

Ch. 3: OK. Now...the stuff pertinent to the overall plot starts hitting us.

Early pregnancy. Angst. Stress. Talk of options. You've been warned. Remember, however, that it IS me. ;) And there will be some resolution at the end of this chapter.

Many thanks to Pir8grl!

Can also be read here at AO3 or here at FF.net.

*

About five weeks later

It starts with the coffee.

Sara just doesn’t want any one morning. That’s a bit unusual, but she’d slept well the night before, and she’s not so caffeine-addicted that she’ll get a headache by skipping a day. So, she does. Then another.

And another.

And then it seems there’s always something going on, and she just doesn’t start that particular morning tradition again. It’s not so drastic that Leonard notices, either—although Sara winds up spending so much of her time with him in Central City than they might as well be officially living together, neither of them is one for lazy mornings.

At least, not unless those lazy mornings are spent in bed. And not sleeping.

After an uncertain amount of time, she notices that on those mornings Leonard does make coffee—he has a single-cup maker—it just plain smells…off. Foul. Stomach-turning. She mentions it once and he gives it a sniff, shrugging and dumping it out and muttering something about cleaning the coffee maker. And Sara forgets again.

Then Sara sets foot in CC Jitters one morning on her way over to STAR Labs, and she nearly has to clap her hand over her mouth and run back out as the mingled strong scents of coffee, breakfast foods, and other things turn her stomach. But she’d promised Iris and Caitlin coffee this morning, and damn it, she’ll keep that promise.

“When the hell did Jitters change their house coffee blend?” she asks irritably as she walks into the Cortex, juggling the drink holder. “This one stinks to high heaven. Just…eww. I wanted to gag. Actually, I did.”

Caitlin gives her a surprised look, taking one of the cardboard travel cups. “I don’t think they have? I was there just yesterday with Harry and it seemed exactly the same.” She removes the top of the cup and takes a careful sip as Sara and Iris exchange amused glances over their friend’s gradually ever-increasingly “Harry” references. “Hm. Tastes the same too. How odd.”

Iris shrugs, giving her own cup a sniff. “Seems fine to me. Smells like coffee.” She lifts an eyebrow as Sara takes her own cup. “So you didn’t get any?”

“Yuck. No. Got a smoothie instead. The idea of drinking that…crap…upsets my stomach.” Sara turns away, taking a healthy slug of her drink as her friends exchange a glance. “I haven’t really wanted breakfast lately, but this sounded good.”

Then something about the quality of the silence captures her attention and she glances back at them. “What?”

Iris tends to be the blunter of the two, but she seems to be at a loss for words, and it’s the doctor, of course, who speaks up.

“Sara,” Caitlin says carefully, putting her coffee down and folding her hands on the desk. “Uh. I don’t know how to ask this any more tactfully, but…are you…you know...late?”

Sara frowns at her, taking another drink. “Excuse me?”

Caitlin turns a little pinker. “You know…your, ah, cycle? Because that sounds a little…”

She’s saved from explaining any more of the birds and the bees as Sara nearly sprays out a mouthful of strawberry smoothie. “What?!”

They’ve got to be kidding. Really. She has to be imagining this.

Iris has found her voice, though. “She’s asking if Snart knocked you up,” she says a touch acerbically, but there’s concern in her eyes. “Because that does sound suspicious.”

Sara chokes again, dabbing at a runaway dribble smoothie on her sweatshirt. “Oh, for fuck’s sake! We’ve been careful. Precautions have been taken. Cait…”

“Answer the question, Sara.” Caitlin’s voice is implacable now. Her doctor voice, used when dealing with a recalcitrant patient. “Is your period late? Tell me it’s not, and I’ll leave you be.”

Sara huffs at her, then thinks a moment. And as she’s silent, her eyes widen just a little, and she shakes her head back and forth slowly, as if denying the words she’s about to say.

“Yes…” she says slowly. “About…maybe a couple weeks?” Then she makes a visible effort to shrug off the worry. “But…Caitlin, things haven’t been…normal…that way, not since the Pit. It’s not unusual.  At all. It’s not…not that.”

At this point, Team Flash—and Leonard, as far as it goes—knows about the Pit. Caitlin bites her lip, but she also perseveres.

“Still. You don’t…can’t….know that. Please, Sara.”

Sara throws her hands in the air. “What is it you want me to do?”

That, it seems, Caitlin can deal with. She nods, implacable again. “Take a pregnancy test. Just…if it’s negative, we’ll let it go.”

She darts a look at Iris, who shrugs. “I have a couple unopened ones downstairs,” she adds, then rolls her eyes at Sara’s expression. “What? Barry and I…well, we’ve kind of started trying, and we’re here more than we’re at home, it sometimes seems.”

For a moment, it seems like Sara might fight that, too. But then she shrugs as well. “OK. Why not? Small price to pay for getting you off my back.”

It’s silent in the Cortex as Iris departs. Sara can’t quite bring herself to look at Caitlin, who seems to understand, puttering around checking computers and such and leaving her friend to her thoughts.

She hadn’t lied. They had taken precautions, although Sara hadn’t bothered with more than snagging a condom whenever necessary. (They’d stashed them all around the apartment.) Maybe they’re not the best of means, but…given that her cycle has been so erratic or nonexistent since the Pit and it seemed so unlikely that one who’d been honest-to-god dead could create life…well, she hadn’t worried much.

It couldn’t be. It couldn’t.

Iris is back all too soon, handing Sara a drugstore bag and beating a hasty retreat to Caitlin’s side. Sara takes a deep breath, squares her shoulders, and heads to the restroom. The sooner this is done, the better.

But it isn’t. It really, really isn’t.

“It’s positive,” she says numbly a few minutes later, staring down at that unobtrusive little stick, having stumbled out of the bathroom only moments before. “That can’t be…”

She looks up, taking in Caitlin and Iris, who are both staring at the test too. “It has to be false. Right? That happens?”

But Caitlin clears her throat and reaches out, gently testing the test from her. “False negatives aren’t uncommon this early,” she says quietly. “False positives…that’s not likely.”

“But…I mean, it’s not like we just ignored it. We were careful. And…” Sara lets her voice trails off as she stares at her friends.

This is real, she thinks suddenly. And she’s just starting to put her life back together, just gotten to a point where she’s truly glad to be alive again, and…

Sara takes a step back. Then another.

“I can’t do it,” she says, hearing a note of hysteria in her voice as Caitlin and Iris watch her. “I just can’t. I’m still dealing with…with everything from the Pit, and…” She scrubs a hand over her face, trying to remember what they know, what she’s left out of the story.

“I was an assassin,” she says, words dropping into the silence of the Cortex like stones. “I killed people. A lot of people. I can’t be a mom. That’s just…that’s not right.”

Caitlin, bless her, steps forward after only a moment. Trying to help, because that’s what she does.

“Well,” she says carefully, taking another step and putting a hand on Sara’s shoulder. “You have options. This is early. You know we’ll help, with whatever you want to do.”

Sara drags in another deep breath, but then Iris, always the speaker of the things people don’t want to hear—it must be the journalist in her—joins them.

“Are you going to tell Snart?” she asks gently.

Sara blinks at her. She’s barely begun to digest this herself, let alone think about what it might mean to her lover. “What? No!”

Iris takes a deep breath. “You certainly don’t have to,” she allows. “But if…if you care about him at all, you might want to.” She pauses. “He might surprise you.”

It’s too much. Too soon. All at once.

Sara shakes her head violently. “I can’t believe he’d want…not after his childhood…” She pictures the look on Leonard’s face, the shock, the realization…

And then it all coalesces. She really thinks she does love Leonard, but after all they’ve been through, there’s only one person she really wants to see right now.

“I need to go back to Star,” she says abruptly, turning away. “I need to see Laurel.”

Iris circles her, stopping in front of her on her way out the door. “But…Sara, what about Snart?” She sighs. “OK, I’m maybe not his greatest fan, but…you care about him. You’ve really seemed happy with him.” She bites her lip. “I mean…maybe don’t just vanish on him?”

She’s right, but… Sara shakes her head. “I can’t talk to him yet. I just…I just can’t…” she says helplessly. “Iris…tell him there was an emergency? And that…that I’ll be back. Probably. I just…I need to…think…”

Her friend pauses, then takes a deep breath, reaching out and giving her arms a quick squeeze.

“OK,” she says quietly. “OK. Sara, do what you need to. We’ll get word to him.” She glances over her shoulder at Caitlin. “Just…let us know if you need us.”

That’s all Sara can manage to agree to before she runs out of the room.

*

The drive to Star City seems to take a lot less time than it actually does. Sara finds herself simply staring ahead as she drives the motorcycle, keeping her mind empty, trying not to think about…well, anything, really.

It’s a Saturday, which means Laurel is at home, and thank god, she’s alone. There’s no way Sara could deal with Ollie, or her father, or even Felicity at this point. She hammers at the door, nearly falling in when Laurel opens it, wrapping her arms around herself as she stumbles in and crosses the familiar apartment, Laurel closing the door behind her, voice rising in question.

The couch is soft, comfort more than show—that didn’t use to be Laurel’s style, but it is now. Sara subsides onto it, glad to be stationary. Surely, things should feel even more…different?

“Sara,” her sister says sharply, turning, crossing toward her. “What’s wrong?”

Ugh.

Sara takes a deep breath, then lets it out. She looks up toward Laurel’s worried face, then squeezes her eyes shut. Then opens them, and rips off the bandage, as it were.

“Laurel. I’m pregnant.”

Silence.

Then her sister blinks, taking in her own breath.

And another.

And then she sits down, wrapping an arm around Sara’s shoulders, holding her tight.

“The crook?” she asks carefully, not looking at her sister just yet.

Leonard doesn’t deserve that tone, and Sara bristles, just a little. “Leonard,” she says, a little sharply. “Former crook. And…yes.” The tears rise, even though she’s not quite sure why. “I just…I don’t know what to do…”

Laurel holds her tighter. “OK,” she says. “OK. Take a deep breath.” A pause. “Now another. And tell me. When you’re ready.”

That’s really the best thing her sister could possibly say. Sara obeys, for once in her life, dragging in a few deep breaths before glancing over at Laurel’s profile.

“I didn’t think I could...after the Pit,” she says. “I mean...I...it took months for some physical things to get back to approaching normal.”

Laurel nods, after a moment. “That makes sense,” she says. “But…they did? More or less?”

Sara glances away, then back. “Yeah. More or less. And it’s not like…we didn’t take precautions.” She snorts, humor rising despite herself. “Yay for condom value packs.”

Laurel gives her a stern look, through there’s also humor lingering at the corners of it. “Hey! TMI.” She rubs a hand over Sara’s shoulders. “They’re not 100 percent, you know,” she says carefully. “Nothing is.”

“Yeah. Apparently.” Sara sighs, allowing herself to lean against her sister. “But…I never thought…”

They’re both silent a long moment. Sara decides she’ll always owe Laurel for not pointing out how very foolish that “never thinking” was.

“Well,” Laurel says finally. “You’re…ah, not very far along.” She studies Sara’s face. “Do you…want to end it? You can. It’s pretty early. I’ll back you up, no matter what.”

Sara stares down at her hands. On some levels, she thinks, it’s the obvious choice. But…

“I know. But…I always wanted kids,” she says in a low tone. “I mean…once. What if this is my only chance? I mean…I wasn’t kidding when I said things are…very erratic. Still.”

Laurel thinks that over.

“I don’t know,” she says finally, squeezing Sara’s shoulders again. “I can’t answer that. I don’t know how the Pit...affects things. It’s not like there are studies out there on it.”

Sara’s still silent. Laurel takes another deep breath, then takes Sara’s shoulders in her hands, studying her face seriously.

“All right, then,” she says. “What if you do keep going with the pregnancy? What happens then?”

Sara stares at her. She hadn’t really expected that to be held up as an option, even though, somehow, in her heart, she couldn’t help thinking of it as one. Despite everything. Because…even despite everything…this might be her only chance. And, honestly, the idea of Leonard’s child…it’s not…totally unappealing.

But how would he feel about that?

So, she doesn’t say anything. But Laurel, perceptive, nods.

“Snart,” she says quietly. “Will he be a problem? Will he want to...to be involved?”

Sara’s not sure if she’s thinking Leonard will be a problem if he wants to be involved, or if he doesn’t. And she’s not up for arguing about it.

“He had a pretty messed-up childhood,” she admits. “I don’t know. But...I also know he pretty much raised his sister.” She takes a deep breath. “We’ve talked. A lot. I know…he’s trying to be the man his father wasn’t. Maybe...maybe he’d think of this as a second chance too.”

Huh. That’s the first time she’s truly articulated it like that…that she’s thinking of this as a second chance. Sara blinks, considering, but Laurel doesn’t seem fazed, simply squeezing her shoulders again.

“Do you want Snart to have any bearing on your decision?” she asks carefully. “You don’t have to. But I think you care for him, and...”

“And he is the father,” Sara says. “Yeah. I don’t…I don’t know.” She bites her lip, something occurring to her. “Oh, god, Dad’s going to want to kill him.”

That actually gets a gurgle of laughter out of Laurel. “Well, we won’t let him. It takes two and all that,” she says, studying Sara. “I mean…you love him, don’t you? Snart.”

It’s not really a question. And Sara has to nod.

“I do,” she says quietly. “I know it hasn’t been that long…but, yeah.” She sighs. “We’re so…the same. So…both trying to find our ways to something better. I think this is real. But…” She gives Laurel a helpless look. “I wasn’t planning on this. We weren’t planning on this.”

Laurel gives her a sympathetic smile.

“Well,” she says carefully. “You wanted a new challenge. This could be a pretty big one.”

Since Sara’s secretly been thinking about that, she can’t really complain. But she also can’t help feeling a bit guilty about it.

“It’s really not fair to the...the kid, though,” she says, looking down at her hands…and her still-flat stomach. “To make him or her an experiment for two damaged people trying to unfuck their shit.” She glances at Laurel. “And...who am I if I’m not a vigilante? I can’t really go out kicking ass when I’m pregnant. Can I? I don’t even know.”

Laurel gives her a sympathetic look. “Well. Who am I if I’m not Black Canary?” She puts a hand on her cane, which she’s used ever since her run-in with Damien Darhk. “I think I’m doing OK.”

“I didn’t mean…”

“I know.” Laurel pats her arm. “You’d have to figure that out. But, Sara…if you want to try…I’m here for you.”

Sara feels her eyes well up again. “And if I don’t continue the…the pregnancy?”

Laurel leans over and hugs her. “Then I’ll be with you then, too.”

*

Sara’s not there when Leonard gets back to the apartment that day, but he doesn’t think that much of it.

It’s not like they’re in each other’s pockets. He’s spent the day out doing some check-ins with more criminal contacts, and he knows that she’d been planning on spending some time at STAR Labs, training Snow and Iris in some basic self-defense and, in all likelihood, gossiping happily. He has no idea when she’ll get back, but it’s fine whenever she does, and it’s not something he’s even remotely worried about.

Until there’s a knock at the door

*

Iris takes a deep breath, shifting from foot to foot in the sort of nervous motion that isn’t really her. Snart’s actual living space isn’t a secret anymore—it’s more or less Sara’s apartment too—but it still seems odd to be here. He’s always seemed a, well, denizen of penthouses or safe houses, nothing in between, certainly not this ordinary apartment in a nice, but not fancy, building in center city.

It’s just so not…supervillain. Not that Snart’s really playing the villain at all anymore.

There’s a long pause before he answers the door, during which she’s pretty sure he’s considering her through the door’s peephole. And when the door finally starts to swing open, Iris takes a deep breath, organizing the words she needs to say.

She said she’d do anything to help Sara, and she’d meant it. She’d really prefer, though, not to be doing this.

Snart’s eyes are already narrowed as he regards her. “Is Sara OK?” he asks immediately, eyes fixed on hers. Worried? Maybe?

“Can I come in?” Iris responds quickly.

Those blue eyes widen, and he steps backward, a clear invitation that Iris swiftly takes as he pushes the door shut behind her. Iris sucks in a breath, glancing around quickly, then focuses on him again. She’s never seen Snart in short sleeves, but he is now, safe in the confines of his home…a gray T-shirt and jeans, showing scars on his forearms she’s never seen bared before. They don’t surprise her, but Iris jerks her gaze away immediately. She thinks he probably already feels exposed enough.

“What’s going on?” Snart asks, voice low and intense, and Iris can see his hands clench and loosen.

Iris takes another deep breath. “Sara,” she says quietly. “She wanted me to tell you. She had to go back to Star. Suddenly. An emergency.”

Snart’s eyes flicker. He glances to the side. Iris follows his gaze, realizing that his phone’s sitting on the table there. He’s obviously wondering why Sara hadn’t just called or texted him.

“Is everything OK?” he asks intently. “Her sister? Her father? I’ll go...”

Ah, hell. Iris shakes her head quickly, though she thinks the better of him for immediately saying that.

“No,” she tells him. “No, don’t do that. Just…let her…”

What can she say? Not much. And it’s obvious that Leonard realizes that. He stares at her, very clearly registering that Sara doesn’t want him to follow her, and that she didn’t want to talk to him herself. Iris stares back helplessly, feeling pretty rotten about this.

“I didn’t...,” Snart says, as if to himself, glancing away. “Things were fine...” Then he looks back at Iris as if considering something. “Ah. Her ex.”

Does he think Sara’s gone back to Nyssa? “No,” Iris tells him. “No, it’s not that. Just…” She sighs. “Just wait for her, OK? Please?”

Snart stares at her another moment. Then: “That supposes that she’s coming back,” he says quietly. “Is she?”

And Iris can’t bring herself to prevaricate. “I don’t know,” she admits. “I think so.”

He turns aside, then, staring into the apartment, but not like he’s not really seeing it. Iris wants to leave, but…

Her heart, so unexpectedly, is hurting for him. Maybe it’s because this is a far more vulnerable Leonard Snart than she’s ever seen before. Maybe because the tiny touches that say “Sara” are all over the apartment now if you know where to look. It’s a home, not just a place to stay, and they shared it. Seems like that’s something he’s probably never really had before.

And now Sara’s gone, and she can’t even tell him why, or even if she’s definitely coming back.

Snart doesn’t look back at her. But Iris can hear the strain in his voice when he speaks again.

“I’m sorry, Iris,” he says, nearly inaudibly. “But…please go.”

And what else can she do?

She goes.

*

Leonard decides that he’s not going to think about it. That goes against the grain, really, but he just…can’t.

For a few days, at least, he’s not going to think about how stupid he might have been, letting someone in, letting someone have the power to hurt him. Mick had had that power...and used it, by leaving, by lashing out before he’d left, angered and disgusted by Leonard’s need to change. And Lisa...she has it too, and he’s still not sure what’s going on there.

Sara had been the first new person he’d let into…into his heart…in a long, long time.

And she’s gone. Maybe not returning.

No. No, he just can’t think about that. Not yet.

Then, three days later, he comes home from a ramble around the city and a stop at the gym...and Sara is sitting there, curled up in a corner of the couch, watching him.

Leonard lets his bag fall to the floor with a thud. He takes a step toward her, then another, torn between relief, and fear, and maybe even a little anger that he won’t acknowledge—anger and hurt that she hadn’t felt like she could tell him what was going on with her.

But mostly, there’s relief.

“Are you OK?” he asks, staring at her. “Sara, are you all right?”

She gives him a weary smile and a shrug but doesn’t move from her spot on the couch, arms still wrapped around her legs, folded in on herself. Leonard's worry starts to rise again.

“Yes?” Sara says then, as if unsure. “Maybe? I...” She takes a deep breath. “We need to talk.”

Leonard lets the statement hang in the air for a moment, then lets out a humorless laugh. “Nothing good ever started with those words,” he mutters, but he walks over and takes a seat anyway, at the other end of the couch, giving her some space as he studies her.

She looks...tired. Tired and pale and drawn. Sick? Is she...

“I’m pregnant.”

The words fall into the silence like stones. Leonard stares at her, speechless for once in his life, trying to make them make sense.

Sara’s mouth twists. She glances away from him, shoulders hunching a little more.

“It’s yours,” she continues. “If you’re wondering. There hasn’t been anyone else in a long time.” She shrugs, still not looking at him. “I know we...ah, took precautions, but they apparently didn’t work. Somewhere along the line.”

Still, silence. Leonard knows he needs to say something, but he has no idea, no plans for this at all, no...

"What do you want to do?” he says finally, wondering if he should move toward her—or if he’s done rather enough at this point, thank you.

Sara’s eyes flicker back to his, gaze holding on, and there’s a measure of relief there, he thinks. Had she thought he’d flip out or something? Or unilaterally demand...what?

He couldn’t do either even if he wanted to. He can barely breathe.

Sara shrugs again. She relaxes her guarded posture just a little, watching him. “I don’t know,” she admits. “I keep...see-sawing.” She takes a deep breath. “And I decided I at least wanted to hear what you...how you felt...before I made any final decisions.”

It’s a stupid thing to say, but he says it anyway. “How I feel? About...?”

Sara rolls her eyes at him, looking a little more like herself. “The pregnancy, jerk. I mean...about...well...um, parenthood. With...me.”

Leonard stares at her. Once again, trying to line up the words to make sense.

She’s asking him?

*

Oh. Oh, maybe that was a mistake.

Sara bites her lip as Leonard’s eyes widen, stunned surprise clear in them. I broke him, she thinks, a bit hysterically. All he’s been through, and I finally broke him.

Of course, he doesn’t want to be involved. Not after Lewis, not after his own childhood. She’s being foolish, thinking about second chances and challenges. They’re a crook and an assassin, not anyone who should ever be…

But then her lover says, in a voice so low that she can barely hear it, “You’d...trust me with that?”

There’s something fragile in the words. Nothing quite like she’s ever heard out of Leonard before. Disbelief and...and wonder...and...

Oh, Sara thinks again.

Oh, she’d started to misinterpret that badly.

A laugh leaves her lips as more of a sob, and she shakes her head. “Leonard,” she tells him, “I think you want so badly not to be your father that I trust you more with parenthood than I trust myself.”

Leonard gives her a sidelong look—the one that says he’s thinking something he’s not going to say just yet.

“You don’t give yourself enough credit,” he does say, quietly. And then, after another moment, he gets to his feet.

“I...I know you just got back,” he tells her, voice a little rough. “And I’m glad. I’m glad you came back. But I need...I’m gonna go for a walk. Get some air. Think about things. Won’t be too long.” A hesitation. “Will you stay here?”

He’s worried she’ll leave again. Sara fights back a rush of guilt and nods.

“Sure,” she says, settling back, relieved and almost contented to be back in this place that’s becoming home. And hoping it remains that way. “I’m not going anywhere.”

*

The air’s just a little chilly. Leonard hunches his shoulders in his jacket as he walks into the wind, but in truth he doesn’t mind it. His head’s spinning so much that the cold breeze feels good, like a blast of ice water, keeping him in the here and now.

He doesn’t have a set path in mind, just lets his feet pick while his mind is still awhirl.

A kid.

When he’d decided to turn over a new leaf, faced with the boredom in his old life and the feeling that he was just becoming another version of Lewis—albeit one that was much more competent—he hadn’t really had much of a plan. Just a frustrated sense of wrongness with the status quo and a need for something—anything—different.

And it was good. (For the most part. The regret and anger over Mick and his refusal to understand...it was still there.)

And then there was Sara.

And that was even better. And now...

A kid. Well, not yet. Just a few cells, right now. But him and Sara. Together.

It’s...unbelievable.

Oh, he gets the mechanics well enough. But a kid.

Maybe, a long, long time ago, a much younger Leonard Snart had thought a family of his own, in one way or another, was something the future might hold for him. Maybe he’d sworn that he’d be a much better father than his ever was.

But he’d gotten older. Gotten harder. He’d done a lot of bad things, and he no longer thought about really changing his fate. He just wanted to be remembered as better than Lewis Snart.

It was only recently that he’d started thinking, again, that maybe there was more than one way to be better.

“A kid,” he says out loud, slowing, saying the words to the Central City skyline. He’s just about at the waterfront, and it’s twilight, and his city is sparkling around him. Full of potential.

Leonard ambles over to the railing and leans on it, studying the view.

And then, quieter, he tries other words on for size. “A dad.”

It scares the crap out of him.

*

Leonard’s gone about an hour. Sara makes herself a cup of weak tea (the smell doesn’t turn her stomach like coffee does, and surely this little bit of caffeine can’t hurt) and settles back on the couch, reminding herself to breathe.

She’s come to a realization, herself, about what she thinks she wants. She’d decided when Leonard had looked at her with that expression in his eyes. But…that part, that’s not just up to her.

She jumps when she finally hears the door, trying to calm her suddenly racing heart, and looks over as Leonard lets himself in. He shrugs off his jacket and drapes it on a chair, then saunters over, taking a seat himself and finally looking at her again.

Sara can’t read his expression. She licks her lips nervously, wondering, preparing herself to leave, to figure out what’s next, by herself.

But then…then. He moves a little closer, reaching out to take her hands in what is, for Leonard, the height of romantic gestures. And he meets her eyes again, his own…resolute.

“OK,” he says, watching her intently. “What it comes down to…you’re the one who’ll have to deal with all the…work, now. So, I’ll back you up, whatever you want to do. Whatever.”

Sara blinks, registering that, but Leonard’s not done.

“And if that means...having the kid, I’m in,” he says, a thread of something almost nervous in his tone. “I mean, if you want me to be.” He studies Sara’s face, looking uncertain. “I get it if you want to…to run for the hills and not have it have anything to do with me. But I hope you don’t.”

Sara opens her mouth. Closes it, trying to parse out that declaration.

Leonard glances away, then back. “I don’t know how much good I’ll be to you or...it...him...her...but I’ll be damned if I’ll leave you to do this alone,” he mutters. “I figure two people muddling through, if they’re trying their best…gotta be better than one.”

A tiny smile actually tugs at the edge of his mouth as he glances at her. “And I figure you’ll kick my ass if I screw up too much. Might need that.”

That’s just so…Leonard…that Sara lets out another sound that just might be a chuckle. She’s not even sure herself.

She’s not sure of anything other than the sense of…relief, she thinks it’s relief…spreading through her.

Sara lowers her head, blinking furiously, wondering if this is the first sign of the rampant emotions she’s read might mark the early stages of pregnancy. Leonard shifts a little closer, and Sara looks up at him again, registering the concern on his face.

“Sara?” he asks carefully. “What…”

Sara launches herself at him, more or less. She buries her face in his shoulder, feeling his arms going around her, feeling the tears well up in her eyes. And this time, they spill over, and she thinks briefly that if she didn’t look a fright before, she certainly will now. But that’s OK.

It’s OK.

“I think I’m going to. Have the kid, I mean,” she whispers into his already sodden shirt. “I hope it’s not a mistake. But…I think it’s something I need to do. And hell yes, I want you with me. Please.”

One of Leonard’s hands goes up to stroke her hair. For a long moment, they both just sit there, taking it in, both with worries and fears, both with baggage and doubts.

But together.

Finally, Sara feels him move, just a little, pressing a gentle kiss to her hair and taking a deep breath, arms tightening around her again.

“Then,” he says, quietly, “I guess we’re gonna be parents.”

#captain canary #with eyes wide open #sara x leonard #the flash

[ohsomanylovelywords]

(Neville/Hannah) Something More - Chapter 3: Not as Planned

A/N: The long-awaited (mostly just by me) third chapter is finally here. It has literally been almost 7 years (!) since I updated this story. I'm unfortunately plagued with two of the worst writer qualities: I'm a huge procrastinator and a total perfectionist. But I'm trying to get back into writing, so I can move on to the next chapter (of this fanfic and the next chapter in my writing).

I also want to extend a special thank you to whoever wrote my first passive-aggressive comment on FF.net (or at least that's what I like to call it) back in 2013 and in response to your question: I'm not stopping yet. This was the first fanfic I ever wrote and I'm still incredibly proud of it.

I think the unfinished business of it all was keeping me from moving forward, but I still have so many more words I want to write. For July NaNoWriMo, I'm trying to finish and post some of my drafts and write some new stories, too.

You could probably read this chapter as the beginning of the story because this is where the conflict starts, but I also wrote two chapters before this, which could serve as a prologue, introducing you to the minds of the two main characters and the personalities of the side characters.

Ideally, I would love to write at least 3 more chapters spanning from 4th to 7th year, one more for 4th, one combining 5th and 6th, and then one for 7th, but maybe an epilogue, too.

As always, I'm incredibly grateful for every read, favorite, kudos, review, and follow.

Disclaimer: Definitely not J.K. Rowling. I am merely borrowing her characters for my own enjoyment (and hopefully yours).

Link: Read the story from the beginning on Ao3.

---

Hannah was seated on the other side of the greenhouse, her chair edged up against the window and her face illuminated by the morning light.

Neville started at the sound of his name. "Mr. Longbottom." Scanning her list again, Professor Sprout smiled before adding, "and Miss Abbott." Extending an appreciative nod toward her top two students, she continued down the list of partners.

Neville's eyes instinctively returned to Hannah's seat by the window. Catching his eye, she grinned and raised her hand, quill in tow. He only managed a quick nod in response before her attention shifted elsewhere (or more specifically, to Ernie Macmillan). Shaking his head, to dispel wandering thoughts, and wandering eyes, Neville attended to his practically nonexistent notes by hastily copying the instructions from the board.

"Working with Hannah, huh?" Seamus commented, with a meaningful nudge in his side. Neville's ears burned at the reminder of his crush. Admitting he fancied Hannah Abbott may have been a mistake.

Dean, sitting close enough to overhear, rolled his eyes at Seamus' waggling eyebrows. Regardless, he grinned and slapped Neville on the back, offering whispered words of encouragement: "Go get her, Neville."

Neville only gulped in response. He was still working on getting her smile out of his system. After four years, they had yet to have a proper conversation.

In his short-lived fame their first year, Hannah had congratulated him on winning the final ten House points, pushing Gryffindor past Slytherin in the House Cup for the first time in years. In his haste, he stuttered out, "You're wel—thanks, um." Hannah just smiled. Then, she ran off to join the other students who had whooped and cheered when Dumbledore awarded Neville. Beyond offering her a quill or confirming an assignment due date, he hadn't actually talked with her since first year.

Neville distractedly collected his materials while searching his mind for conversation topics. Herbology? He definitely knew a thing or two about plants, but that might be a bit redundant. Quidditch? Though, to be honest, he didn't follow the sport all too closely. The Triwizard Tournament? Or maybe—

He looked up from his plant to see Hannah smiling down at him. The words hitched in his throat.

Instinctively, he pulled the plant a few inches closer. Just a little more oxygen. Breathe in. Breathe out.

"Hey, partner," she offered, unperturbed by his shyness.

"H-hey," he managed.

As she sat down, he racked his brain for something more substantial. "So, uh, the Triwizard Tournament. Should be exciting, yeah?"

Hannah tensed. Oblivious to her discomfort, Neville continued. "The two other schools seem interesting, to say the least. Durmstrang are a right bit intimidating, especially that Viktor Krum. And the Beauxbaton lot are quite good-loo— er, graceful."

He coughed awkwardly, not catching her eye. Though, her mind was elsewhere. "And then, of course, there's Harry being in it and all. Poor bloke."

Hannah's silence finally broke.

---

Harry Potter. The fourth champion.

The would-be applause was replaced by stunned silence, the spell unbroken until Dumbledore spoke.

"Harry, did you put your name in the Goblet of Fire?"*

Every eye followed Dumbledore's calm gaze. Harry, no longer hidden by Ron Weasley's lanky frame, rose to his feet. Seemingly in a daze, he walked forward. Incessant muttering followed him.

Colin Creevey attempted a late slow-clap but was quickly silenced by Ron and Hermione. The latter, frantically shaking her head and the former, glaring.

Ravenclaw rationalized Harry was either extraordinarily intelligent or dangerously stupid.

Slytherin had already written off the Triwizard Tournament. None of their house had been chosen after all.

Gryffindor was shocked. And mostly divided.

Their initial jubilation marred, Hufflepuff stubbornly refused to welcome the additional Hogwarts champion.

---

"Poor bloke?" Hannah echoed hollowly.

Neville faltered. "Well, yeah, I mean, who'd want to be in a tournament likely to cause their premature death?"

"Hmph. Well, it's certainly convenient. Not the first time he's risked death to play the hero."

Neville only stared. He had never heard Hannah talk badly of Harry—or anyone else, for that matter.

"That's an— interesting take on it," Neville acquiesced.

"What's interesting is Harry Potter, of all people, found a way into the Triwizard Tournament." She calmly pulled on her gloves as she said this, as if it were a completely natural statement, an undeniable frustration.

Hannah's voice never grew above a whisper, but with each new word, she became increasingly agitated. "It's incredibly interesting the "Boy Who Lived" couldn't stand to let someone else have the glory for once in his life—and Cedric worked his arse off for seven years to deserve a place in the tournament but Harry manages to cheat his way in an—"

"Wait, what? You can't really think that, can you?" Neville remarked incredulously, and loudly.

Sensing a possible commotion, Professor Sprout shot them a puzzled look, quietly cautioning them to get back to work. Neville nodded apologetically.

He wanted to shoot Hannah an equally perplexed look, but she was decidedly ignoring him, pretending to pore over her notes. Taking her lead, he focused on the familiar lavender flowers sprouting from the plant in front of them. Aconite, more commonly referred to as wolfsbane.

Neville's mind automatically returned to that first day of Defence Against the Dark Arts last year. His professor's warm smile. And the hearty laughter that had escaped from his own lips. That day Professor Lupin had awoken his then-dormant self-esteem.

His "unfortunate condition" revealed, Lupin was forced to resign. Neville found himself trying a little harder than usual in Potions. Maybe he could find a way to use this plant's properties to make a stronger, more effective potion. If only he could help Lupin conquer his fears the way the professor had helped Neville conquer his.

The boggart in the cupboard. Even before it took shape, Neville knew what it would be, who it would be. Professor Snape had taunted and abused him mercilessly over the years. According to Snape, he was a pathetic imbecile, barely playing at being a wizard.

"Riddikulus!" With a snap, Snape stumbled across the room in Gran's clothes, the oversized vulture hat teetering on his head. The whole classroom erupted with laughter. And Lupin's warm smile lit up his face, and for the first time, he looked young again. For once, Neville was able to make Snape look stupid, instead of the other way around. For one brilliant moment, Neville was in control.

Pulling himself back to the task at hand, Neville realized he needed to face his fears again. "Riddikulus," he whispered.

"What?" Hannah remarked sharply.

"Oh, no, that was just—," but Neville surprised them both when he said, "Ridiculous. What you said. Harry would never do that. Did you get all that from Ernie Macmillan?"

Hannah's cheeks turned a brilliant shade of red, whether from raw anger or embarrassment that Neville had called her out for her close relationship with Ernie Macmillan, though Neville vaguely hoped for the former.

---

"I just don't get why people think Harry is so great," Ernie continued. "He's always trying to be the hero and we all have to suffer for it. He literally almost caused Justin to die when the Chamber of Secrets opened our second year."

"Ernie," Susan warned him gently, glancing at Justin.

Justin shrugged off the concern. "I'm fine. It's not like Harry personally petrified me. It wasn't really his fault that time."

"Yeah, whatever. My point remains; he always needs to be the center of attention. Right, Hannah?"

Her mouth stuffed with food, Hannah nodded aggressively in support of her best friend.

"See? This is why Hannah's the perfect girl. She's always loyal, a Hufflepuff through and through." Ernie directed a bright smile at Hannah before returning to his food.

Turning sharply to face her, Megan's nose ring glinted even brighter in the Great Hall's candlelight.

Hannah had first glimpsed it in the sports section of the Daily Prophet. The photo showed her sister, Gwenog Jones, captain of the Holyhead Harpies, triumphantly raising the team's trophy from a summer tournament win. Similarly, Megan lifted her head to show off her shiny, new trophy of rebellion, their mother smiling tensely at her side.

"Forget to mention something?" The short line of parchment was delivered via owl, alongside the article clipping, ripped from that day's Daily Prophet.

Megan responded only a few hours later:

Thanks for the note, Han. Hope you're having a nice summer, too. Mine's been simply lovely. I'm spending lots of quality time with my family.

Just kidding, I'll get to the point. (It actually has been pretty all right, though.) Basically, I woke up one morning, decided to explore Muggle London, walked past a tattoo shop, and you can probably figure out the rest. (Disclaimer: I did not get a tattoo. Yet. I wanted something a bit more immediately visible.) What can I say? Impulsive decisions are kind of my thing, you know? Regrets? None.

By the way, your reaction was significantly less harsh than Susan's. She sent me a Howler, shocked surprise followed by mostly compliments, but still.

Unsurprisingly, mum threw a fit. I'm pretty sure she was close to bribing me into never leaving my room, but dad reminded her that similar threats had never stopped me before.

Promise to tell you more soon! See you in Diagon Alley in a few days (that is if I'm ever allowed out of the house again)

P.S. Mum is currently arguing with a reporter in the fireplace. Apparently, she is willing to pay a very large sum of money to prevent Witches Weekly from releasing an exclusive statement from her clearly unwell daughter ("Fuck Quidditch.")

Hannah knew her mother's tight-lipped smile came with an air of practiced grace. "She's just going through a phase," she assured herself and anyone else who cared to listen (or more likely, happened to make a passing remark about her youngest daughter). If that were the case, Megan had been going through a phase for quite some time, at least since she had arrived at Hogwarts.

P.P.S. I expect to hear more news about you two love birds once we can finally talk in-person.

Now, Megan gave her a meaningful look. She had been teasing her mercilessly since Hannah told her Ernie almost kissed her goodbye before leaving for his family holiday. In the moment, she hugged him, instead. They parted awkwardly after that. She still wasn't sure what to think about it. Neither acknowledged it when they reunited on the train, and they immediately returned to their typical, friendly banter. It had been more than 2 months since the almost-kiss, and they still hadn't talked about it. Hannah was admittedly relieved by that fact.

Refusing to answer Neville's question, Hannah fumed silently, attacking the wolfsbane with her shears and hacking off whole chunks of the stem in her frustration.

"Miss Abbott!" Professor Sprout let out in a shocked cry. Yet again, she was surprised to see the seemingly perfect partnership failing so miserably. "What in heavens do you think you are doing to that poor plant? The stems are the most valuable part!"

Hannah stared at the mess before her and shrugged sheepishly. Professor Sprout hummed her disapproval and shifted to observe Neville's work.

"Miss Abbott, I suggest you ask your partner," she emphasized the word with a pointed look at both students, "how to shear wolfsbane properly—Good work, Mr. Longbottom, but this should be a team effort."

Neville nodded twice, glancing at his partner with a wary expression. Setting her own plant down, Hannah begrudgingly observed Neville's technique.

Grasping the flower firmly with one gloved hand, he gently peeled away the branches, his hands gliding effortlessly across the plant's stem. She had to admit it was impressive and strangely soothing to watch.

Hannah started when Neville looked up. His eyes barely catching hers, she immediately turned away with a haughty, "Hmph." He sighed and continued working. She attempted to replicate his work, but once again, caught herself staring at his hands. They were more calloused than she would have imagined.

Professor Sprout asked Neville and Hannah to stay after class. She offered them the usually vague rebukes, then reminded them to at least review each other's notes before the next class. However, as soon as the professor walked away, Hannah quickly turned to leave.

Neville ran after her. Grabbing her arm with a loose, yet surprisingly firm, hold, Neville entreated her to wait. Not daring to look him in the face, she instead kept her gaze on his hand.

Lowering his voice, Neville insisted, "Harry would never willingly join the tournament. He'd have to be positively out of his mind."

The possible truth behind that statement pulled at the corners of her mind, but Hannah pursed her lips and ignored it. She was a Hufflepuff through and through, loyal to her house and to her friends. Cedric deserved this. And Harry had taken it away from him. Neville couldn't possibly understand.

Shaking her head, Hannah released her arm from Neville's loose grasp. She walked out of the classroom without another word.

---

Out of breath by the encounter, Neville sighed, releasing the breath he was unaware he had been holding. That did not go as planned.

#neville x hannah #hp fanfic #harry potter #my fanfic #7 years later #and way shorter than I imagined it would be #but honestly so proud of myself for getting some writing done #cw swears

[witchuwoo]

Not a hero, not yet a good man

Mirio X female!quirkless!reader

Chapter 1&2 are going to be focused on the readers home life and some key characters, not all of them obvs but those who'll play a larger part in her story and character development. Mirio will enter in chapter 3 so please stay tuned until then❤ (I say to all of my 0 followers)

Please point out any grammatical mistakes (preferably with some comment about the story cause I'm sensitive)

~°To the story°~

People often spoke to you for the sole reason that you had gone to the same school as that dude in the UA tournament who lost his clothe, just to ask ridiculous questions about his personal life as if you would know this , when you were eating- a phone would be shoved into your face with his picture and a million questions, when he was shown on tv doing his hero stuff all eyes would turn to you. You had grown accustomed to just being an extension of him, that you didn’t really exist, only a carrier of Lemillion Info at arm’s length from the actual hero, you hated it sure, but life did what life did and if you started hating life then everything’s would go to shit, so you had to accept it, it was either that or live miserably. That being said, you couldn’t fathom why they asked you of such things, considering that by now it should be proven that you knew absolute zero of the boy they were talking about.

“What does he like to do in his free time?”

Well he was really into eating crayons when I knew him does that help?

“Has he always been that buff??”

Ofcourse, all babies look exactly like they do when they’re older, he had a 2836382 pack when he was three, super ripped baby

“Have you seen his...you know”

Yes, it was shown on live national Tv,

“What kind of girls does he like”

Fucking power puff girls I don’t know

”what kind of girls did he date”

He skipped that part and went straight to marrying the teacher actually

It’s been five years since you guys hung out, that enough time for someone to change completely, they’d have better luck asking you about all might sense you ran into him on a train a month ago than Mirio. You shared a kindergarten and elementary school not your entire life, all you could tell was how he used to be towards you and in class in general, not how he is now. It was annoying, so so incredibly annoying. They would interrupt you during lunch, they’d bother you on your way home, his god damn fan girls would flock around you for any information, one of them insisting on calling herself your best friend for no apparent reason other than that you knew her crush at one point in his life.

Speaking of the devil

“(Y/n)~~~” Akarui's sugar sweet voice called out from above all the others, cutting through your skin and bones without a problem.

Like cold water was poured onto you your entire body stiffened, and dreading, yet knowing, what you were going to see you closed your locker and looked to your side. There was the hurricane that was Akarui, twirling without a care as she came towards you like a great tsunami about to wash away am entire town.

“Hi Riu-OMPH!!F”

She threw herself around your waist and hugged as hard as she could throwing you way off balance and hitting the air out of your lungs. You gasped for air patted her shoulder repeatedly.

“too tight TOO TIGHT!” you struggle to push her off you, and the pressure is released quickly as she realises that you can’t breathe

She let go with a sheepish smile

“Ahahahaha sorry (Y/n)! I just saw you and got a little excited”

She tuggs on your collar as she speaks, looking at you with that ever lasting smile you had come to just tolerate. Always so touchy, always so happy, there was no escape from her.

“Yeah...” you pick at the hands on your collar, perfectly manicured like they are.

She had asked you to go with her and her usual bunch of friends on numerous occasions, even offered to pay time to time, but you didn’t have the money to go and you’d feel to bad letting her pay. Besides, with how often she complains about how hard it is to do things with those long nails you couldn’t imagine having them yourself.

Despite your obviously indifference to her attitude she keeps on bouncing, deciding that your arm was a good enough replacement to hugging your soul out and hung onto it with her life.

“So what are we doing today Bestie?~ ice cream? Library? There’s a new book store out I heard! With the -Mona? Monga?- Books you like”

“Yeah so I heard”

“Ooh we could go feed the birds too! Or go to the zoo and check out the new bird exhibit! Endless choices the world is incredible!!”

She threw her hands up in celebration to her epiphany that you can do a lot of things, smiling as bright as the sun itself.

You chuckled “okay yeah, there are a lot of choices, it’s almost like we’re human beings with the ability of thinking for ourselves” she grinned up at you from her place on your arm, eyes shining with playfulness that was infectious to even you “why are you telling me though? Can’t you go to these places yourself?”

She gasped and tugged on your arm roughly, pouting as you cursed at her for almost making you trip, but she didn’t budge

“You gotta choose (Y/n)!! It’s our Friday! The fun bestie fun time!”

“Ah shit that’s today?”

The slaps you on the arm and you break into a subdued laughter.

“Alright alright spare me oh great Akarui!”

She scoffed and puffed out her cheeks, flexing her practically nonexistent muscles at you in a fake display of power

“That’s right! Fear me” she said in the lowest voice she could muster” and take me to the zoo peasant”

Mockingly you raised your hands in defeat and wailed “oh anything but that! I have a wife and ten children to support!”

“Ah- so feeding the ducks then maybe?”

“I don’t know, I’m kinda tired today”

“Oh, sooooo.. go home to you like usual and pretend the other isn’t there?”

“Sounds like a plan”

She was a pest that’s for sure, but charming on her own way, enough for you to tolerate her company despite the reason why she approached you in the beginning. If you tell her to be quiet she’s quiet, if you tell her to give you space she gives you space. You don’t know if she’s ever seen any hardship in her life with how endless optimistic she is, and if she had you’d like to have a talk with however caused it that’s rotten enough to torment such a bright soul.

You walked home in relative silence, that is you were quiet whilst Akarui chatted on and on about things she had done during the day, what her other friends had said, some gossip, what she thought about that kind of gossip, just anything that came into her mind.

“oh oh! And during training today Widow did this really cool thing where she like... Oh what did she call it?”

Widow, one in Akarui’s main friend group that you hung out with time to time. The girl had a quirk that made her look like a spider, six pairs of arms and six pairs of eyes, pinchers near and saliva that when exposed to enough air turned into a goopy mess, aka her web. You had long forgotten Widows actual name, and the girl didn’t seem to mind you just calling her by her nickname.

Akarui had a another friend who you also didn’t know the name of but was called Hercules by the entire school. Not surprisingly it was mostly because his quirk gave him many of the qualities a Hercules beetle. Quiet fellow, apparently very near sighted, but you didn’t know much else about him.

“Oh it was so cool (Y/n)!! If I knew she'd be doing that I would have snuck in my phone to video it for you, gah! Why don’t we share more classes”

Ah, that’s an easy enough question to answer

“because you’re in the hero course and I’m not”

And that was the end of it wasn’t it. The reason you were mostly ignored by the others, the reason the only interesting thing about you was your connections to a hero, the reason Akarui was such a ray of sun.

She’s a hero

You’re not

And that’s the end of it.

~°=°~

I hope you enjoyed it! If not please tell me why so I can try and better myself, and if so then please do tell me aswell cause I live on feedback

#bnha mirio #mha mirio #mirio x reader #togata mirio #mirio togata #bnha #bnha x reader #bnha x female reader #mha x reader #mha x female reader #bnha fanfiction #bnha reader insert #not a hero not yet a good man #not a hero not yet a good man chapter 1

[chromsai]

DM Review

So now that I’ve reached the end of my rewatch, I feel it’s appropriate to give it a quick review before I move onto GX. I don’t really plan on dragging this on too badly since I feel I expressed my thoughts over the show well enough throughout the liveblog anyway, but I do, however, want to break it down a bit, so in order to give it a proper rating, I feel it’s best (and easiest) to give each “season” of the show its on individual rating, and then go from there. So let’s do that...

Duelist Kingdom (episodes 1-40 + 41-49)

Well ignoring the fact that the rules are incredibly broken throughout (which can be forgiven since the rules for the actual game still hadn’t been fully established yet), the ridiculous premise is very much enticing enough to make me want to keep watching Yugi climb his way through the tournament to save his grandpa from Pegasus (who is, imo, still the most enjoyable villain of the whole show) and become the King of Games. Even though from episode one, we’re just thrown into the world and have to follow along with these characters that we know nothing about, the season makes up for it as it does take its time throughout to tell us each character’s background and story and why they’re involved. The world building this arc is, funnily enough, not that important, which is something that shows can very rarely get away with. We get just enough to understand why this tournament is important to the world of these characters, and that’s fine. Though the outcome of each duel is terribly predictable, it’s not in a bad way since what matters is the journey, not the destination. When I started, I thought this was going to be a hard arc for me to get through due to the nonexistence of the rules of Duel Monsters, but oddly enough it was exactly the opposite for me. It’s not such a grandiose plot, this season, but it kept up the intrigue throughout. On an overall note, DM’s main cast are (mostly) lovable so that of course always helps keep its charm.

The episodes in between Duelist Kingdom and the next arc are basically filler... meant for the purpose of introducing some recurring side characters. They’re fairly... um... ignorable, imo. Wouldn’t necessarily say they’re terrible but... most of them don’t really keep your attention for too long.

Overall rating for this arc: 3.5/5

Battle City (episodes 50-97, 122-144)

This arc does tournament arc tension and development for its characters pretty well, namely, actually, for Jounouchi. He got a good start in Duelist Kingdom, however he definitely starts shining this arc. Anyway, like 85% of this arc is legitimately enjoyable. There is a lot of dumb logic happening throughout, courtesy mostly of this arc’s villain Marik and his rare hunters, but I’d say it’s for a good cause (as in creating at memorable conflict and personal dire stakes to the game). This arc also does a great, no, a superb, job at demonstrating exactly why Seto Kaiba is such a memorable rival and character. World building is much improved in this arc, but also isn’t overwhelming where the cast is too large that we can’t even keep track or we just don’t care about certain characters (though... *coughbakuracough*). We also get to see some more good inner turmoil well up within Yami Yugi regarding dragging his friends into such a dangerous tournament, which in turn works very well along with his friends’ (again, mainly Jounouchi) support of him. The final duels in this arc are, despite their slow as hell pace, exactly the kind of shit you ended up watching Yugioh for anyway so it almost makes you forget any small little flaws you had to deal with on the way. Though, one of those flaws... was exactly the pacing. Why. Why do duels have to be that long? No... I don’t think I needed to hear that same monologue one more time. Lastly, is this arc also predictable? Definitely yes. But again, it’s in the journey. Not the destination.

Overall rating for this arc: 4/5

Noah’s Virtual World (episodes 98-121)

This is, more than any of the other arcs, the one that I was *not* looking forward to when I first began rewatching since I remember that I didn’t enjoy this as a child. Well it’s a good thing I seem to have grown up. This arc... is not exactly written well, and thus thoroughly flawed (mostly in its logic and general premise and whatnot), but what matters, once again, is the content we get in between all the idiocy. The most enjoyable parts of this arc comes, no doubt, in the form of Kaiba family backstory. We knew a fair bit about Kaiba beforehand, but this arc definitely adds a good well of information regarding his motivations growing up, why he is the way he is now (side note: lmao holy shit), and what kind of business man he really is. The backstory found in this arc for Kaiba is well worth slugging through it. Actually, even if you get frustrated with the dumbness of it all (especially the incompetence of its villains, The Big Five), it’s still overall a pretty fun watch.

Overall rating for this arc: 3.5/5

Doma (episodes 145-184)

Sighs. This is the worst arc. Just. Straight up. I don’t wanna beat around the bush.

I wish I could just keep it at just that but I want to emphasize that this isn’t just a “weak” story arc in the overall grand scheme of things, it’s bad. It is terribly noticeable that the writing direction was handled by someone else than whoever was writing-directing it up until before this point because the show stops being fun to watch. The entirety of Duel Monsters is riddled with bullshit logic, but this arc really takes up to an unforgivable eleven. The villains of this arc are literally fools whose tragic backstories are very obviously shoehorned in at the last second in order to draw out sympathy. The stakes of the game are so high, you don’t really feel compelled to root for our protagonists because you know that everything they’ve “lost” will be restored anyway. Not even the big bad of this arc faces any consequences. To top it all off, Mai, DM’s strongest female duelist, is reduced to demeaning levels of melodramatic character arc writing.

Noah’s Virtual World arc was indeed filler, but it was passable to good filler. This arc is just bad filler.

Overall rating for this arc: 1/5 this shit was a drag to get thru. I enjoyed it as a kid but I’ve grown tf up.

KC Grand Prix & Memory World (episodes 185-224)

I’ll probably get through this a bit quicker...

The KC Grand Prix arc was short... but not exactly sweet, though I will say it gave us a few classic lines here and there. Overall, it’s mostly forgettable and not exactly important for the story. It’s, once again, more filler, this time meant to convince Kaiba to let Yugi & co. hitch a ride back to Japan after the nonsense that occurred in America the last arc.

As for with the all important Memory World arc which leads us to the grand finale ceremonial duel between Yugi & Atem: It’s a nice story but the pacing is scrambled. That being said, however, I’ll forgive it mostly because it was a very interesting watch (not exactly fun, per se) and gives us answers to many questions we’ve been holding onto since the beginning of the show. Not to say it doesn’t raise some questions (that it doesn’t answer as well), but the other reason I’ll forgive it mostly is because Takahashi-san rushed to finish the manga on time for the anime whilst being severely ill. For as obviously rushed as it is, it still gives a good bit of depth that is just satisfying enough for us to run with that it feels mostly complete. 

The ceremonial finale duel, tho? The set up was rushed as well, but the duel itself was beyond iconic. Pretty good ending, I’d say.

Overall rating for this arc: 3/5

Final Overall Rating: 3.1/5 (yes, I did the math, check it if you must).

Final Thoughts: This show mostly shines on through nostalgia and its characters’ undeniable charm. However, its overall quality gets dragged down from its unnecessary filler, pacing, and flawed logic. For a shounen about card games, it certainly set a standard and a foundation, and I think that’s a good thing that future series can build off of and nod back to. It’s certainly one for the books, but with a big asterisk attached to some of its story arcs.

#sai watches dm #dm review #woooo

[heronamevilllain]

NCT 127 “Chain” Reaction/ Review

Alright, so it is very rare for me to come out of the comfort of my tags to share my full thoughts on something, especially a single MV, but here I am because I have so many things to say about Chain that I genuinely could not stop myself from making this post. 

As soon as the song started, I was annoyed by the instrumental with all of the metallic clanking which felt extremely overwhelming as well as the little electronic whirring underneath. Then there was the snare with a strange distortion over it that I just really don’t like even now. It sounds like my head phones have a loose wire or something. I had seen a few people already saying they didn’t particularly like the song and, within the first 15 seconds, I was already under the impression that I would agree with them. Simultaneously though, the visuals were wrecking me. They looked incredible, that shot of their silhouettes in front of the blue and yellow sky is magnificent, and I was so excited for them to return to a darker concept (not that I disliked Touch, I thoroughly enjoyed it, but this concept is just my preference). In other words, I was prepared to just ignore the instrumental to the best of my ability and enjoy the vocals and visuals instead.

Then halfway through Mark’s verse, the distortion comes off the snare. We also had a bass beat added to the track in the first chorus and the annoying metallic sounds were pushed further back in the mix, so things started to come together for me musically. The visuals throughout this whole section of me focusing more on the musical changes were of course wonderful as well, but nothing particularly stood out to me (other than the boys’ beautiful faces, they’re always ethereal). I’ll also note that I didn’t really like the adlibs at first, but the more I listen to this song, the more I find myself enjoying all of them and especially Mark’s ridiculously high-pitched and adorable “brrrr-ah”.

Now we get into the pre-chorus and the point where my heart opened to this song/MV forever. I swear to you I listened to this pre-chorus about 15 times before moving on to the rest of the MV because I was so worried it was only going to go back downhill and I needed to fully enjoy it while I still could. We got two (2) full seconds of Johnny’s glorious vocals and I nearly pissed myself. They were sandwiched between a lovely line from Jaehyun and a lung-collapsing one from Yuta, but my heart stayed in the middle with Johnny. It’s still there to this moment actually. I love how even the choreography here allows for “Oh the center is facing backwards, I wonder who it could be... NO F’ING WAY ITS JOHHNY! JOHNNY’S MOUTH IS MOVING AND WORDS ARE COMING OUT AND I CAN HEAR THOSE WORDS ABOVE EVERYONE ELSE AND IT’S ON PURPOSE!” I shouldn’t be this excited over two seconds of lines, I really shouldn’t have to be, but this is what SM has done to us. Johnny says to “make a wish”? I wish for a Johnny, Yuta, WinWin, and Kun subunit. This was also the shot where I noticed Doyoung’s incredible white jumpsuit and I never want him to take it off. 

Next the chorus starts bumping and we get a really nice visual transition following Taeyong’s hand motion from the party truck shot to this open set with the members in all black and honestly? I wouldn't have even been upset if the entire MV was shot on this scene as a performance MV because they all look so fantastic and the blue lighting looks really pleasant. I’m just a big fan of this shot and specifically the move they do in the choreography on the word “reaction.” But is it just me, or immediately after that are they miming taking a shot? Boys, Haechan is still a baby! I can’t watch him pretending to take a nonexistent shot of alcohol! He’s too small! (I’m going to insert a gif that I made because I can’t find one made by anyone who actually knows what they’re doing, but I have to share this moment with you all so I’m sorry for the quality. It is very bad.)

But let’s forget about all of that because there’s a Johnny.. holding a chainsaw... I had to pause the video there for a bit and contemplate everything I’ve ever known about large men holding chainsaws near me without a tree that needs to be cut down. I mean look at this! I should be afraid right?? That would be the logical response.. and yet here we are. They follow it up with some more choreography that’ll make you choke on your noodles and my heart is about to fly out of my chest.

Then the vocal trinity comes in. Well specifically, Jaehyun comes in and he’s making all these faces that my soft Jeffrey would never even know how to make and his voice sounds so smooth. I swear I'm not saying this to meme, but it just sounds like warm milk. I can’t describe his tone any better than that. It’s so welcoming especially when it immediately follows the gravelly texture of Taeyong’s voice.

And then Doyoung slides in to build off of Jaehyun and I’m convinced that they can’t make my heart beat any faster, but Taeil follows and I was actually right about that sentiment because rather than speeding up, my heart just stops. Next, give it a few Mark lines and a couple more seconds and OUT OF NOWHERE, TAEYONG JUST DECIDES TO GO TF OFF?? WHERE DID THAT EVEN COME FROM??? Now I already made it pretty clear earlier that I am one to be disappointed by really unfair line distribution.. but um, can the song just be like 6 minutes long and maybe a third of it be Taeyong throwing down some bars? Because that brought me right back to life after vocal trinity killed me. It was just so invigorating and this has happened a couple of times now where he will just really have a moment in a song and then it gets cut so much shorter than I want it to be. Personally, if I were doing arrangements for them (LMFAO AT THAT IDEA) one change I’d make would be to take Taeyong off the chorus and spread those lines a bit more and then give him Mark’s time at the end of this verse to really give him a chance to resolve the motion he creates with the speed rapping because the transition back to Mark feels rushed and anticlimactic. Also, Doyoung’s little “yeah” at the end is adorable and if he takes one step closer to me with those bolt cutters against his neck I’m going to have an aneurysm. The same goes for Yuta in those goggles leaning against that thing with his earring dangling down on his shoulder and sparks flying in front of his face. Just stay back, please.

Okay, but more than anything else, I think the bridge really sells this song for me. The vocalists just sound so good. It’s also my favorite part of the instrumental when we ditch all of the extra noise and strip it down to a whirring synth that I actually really enjoy the texture of combined with the powerful vocals and building percussion. I love the layering in Haechan’s voice here because it creates such an interesting effect following the clarity of Jaehyun’s entrance and preceding the power of Taeil’s vocals. I would also like to just mention how much I really like WinWin and Taeil’s hair here. The braids on WinWin really highlight his bone structure and the shaved pattern in Taeil’s undercut is so effective for the mandatory side-profile, power vocals shot. It’s almost enough to distract me from the glorious opportunity to appreciate his jawline and neck-- almost.

After that heavenly note we see the rare center Johnny and Haechan and I have been thoroughly blessed. Honestly, Pinkchan at 3:15 is so precious and I’ve giggled and smiled at that like second and a half for probably 10 minutes now because even though he stays center, that moment is just so playful and everything else is hard and I just love a soft Haechan okay? He’s my baby, sue me. 

In conclusion, Chain is a certified bop (other than the first like 30ish seconds that I still can’t get behind) and NCT 127 continues to ruin my life with magnificent vocals, stunning men, fantastic choreography, and power tools.

#nct #nct 127 #chain #chain mv #taeyong #taeil #johnny #yuta #winwin #doyoung #haechan #mark #jaehyun #reaction #review #🐯 #🦉 #🌹 #🇯🇵 #🎊 #🍄 #🐰 #🇨🇦 #💗 #🌏 #🚒 #robin rambles #bird's brain

[aggresivelyfriendly]

~Meet Me In The Hallway~

Chapter 3-Waystation

The next morning, my big day of laundry did not happen. As happens when touring with a massive amount of people and months of travel ahead of you, I had completely forgotten what day it was. There were stretches where I wasn’t even sure what country we were in when the sun rose, and we were confined to the British Isles so far. 

My head spun when I thought of the future. I always found out our location though. While all the boys were at sound check, I often wandered down to the front desk of wherever we had slept and asked for recommendations. I had told myself the night before when Harry had revealed that he was saddened he never saw their surroundings a little secret. I’m not sure I had consciously admitted my intentions to myself. I wanted to see wherever we were for him. I would be his eyes and ears. I already made it a point to see something of the place I was along for the ride to, but now I was going to see it and document it. So that I could share it with Harry. I hoped it would be a balm instead of salt in the wound.

I woke up that morning in much the same position I had fallen asleep in. Harry was long and lean and warm, pressed against me from knee to shoulder and his face was in my hair. As I expected this situation, hoped for it really, I did not wake with a start this morning, instead I snuggled down into the white linens and his embrace. My bed sharing habits were nonexistent and this was only the second time I had woken up in his orbit. The first had been ruined by my shock. That morning I cataloged my awe. The white duvet was pulled up and over our shoulders, creating a cocoon with just our heads emerging. The air around us was softly scented with human smells. Warm skin and soured breath. Instead of being off putting, I was mildly disappointed that I was not facing Harry, that I did not have access to his breath or a view of his face. His exhalation rumbled our and stirred my hair faintly, like a light breeze coming off the ocean. I was still in my y shirt and shorts and harry was in his pants, so only the skin of our legs were pressed together. I, by some small favor of heaven, was not someone who had to shave everyday. I had heard many of my friends bemoan their prickliest, and I did get them, but they grew slowly and the two days since I’d slicked the bands of metal over my limbs were recent enough to keep them at bay. Harry did not shave his legs. For that I was thankful.  I could feel his wiry, coarse hair, sparse though it was, brushing against my legs as I stirred. It reminded my of slipping my legs into sweats after the sun went down at the beach, when a chill has started and salt stuck skin needs warming. The little nubs smooth over your legs and provide a barrier from the crisp air.

The current situation was without chill. Harry was a good ten degrees warmer than the air outside our blanket tent and I relished it. My toes pressed into his and I tried to think about the way each individual part of my body felt so close to his. I had just gotten to the way my hips fit into his pelvis when my loud thoughts must have stirred him.

His arms tightened around me and I could feel his inhale. The next thrill came when he stretched along my back. Those were all new feelings. The leg between my own ran along me like a pumice stone and the muscle of his thighs bulged in the space between my own. I was trying to not notice what my sit bones were pressed tighter against when his back popped loudly.

“That sounded uncomfortable,” my hand reached behind myself unconsciously and rubbed his lower back and he made that sound again, my new favorite noise, the purr when he was petted, so I rubbed at the spot until he spoke.

“That’s dead nice, Mel. Could you?” He rolled towards me and I moved from under him as he stretched out on his stomach. I sat up while trying to keep my hand on him, laughing at the awkward positioning.

“What exactly are you wanting me to do?” His position was indicative, but I wasn’t sure what exactly he expected. Was I to broaden my rubbing or give a full on back massage?

“Could you just,” he motioned to his lower back then pointed further afield.

“Harry, I’m not on your payroll, nor am I in any way qualified to massage anybody. Does Mark do this?”

“Cmon Mel, feels lovely when you scratch and rub me. My back aches,” He ended the sentence with a little whine, a sound I heard from all the boys in my keep. Little girls may be more high pitched, but they have nothing on man children for whining.

“You do know that you are a whopping eighteen years old, right? Your back has no business hurting. Should see somebody. What’s that?” I could hear him murmuring into the pillow he was pressed against while I sat next to him and pressed experimentally into his back.

“I’m nineteen,” he moved his head to the left so his sound was less muffled. “That’s so nice, babe.” He moaned.

I blinked. The moan was also distracting, I shook my head to clear it and asked, “since when?”

“Right before London, I think. Remember when everybody went out after that show?” He up talked the end and I tried to remember. Ohhhh, everybody had gone out that night, but I’d stayed in the hotel. Hoping for a night where I had gotten to sleep before my brother made it back with anyone he had picked up for the night. I ran out of luck at 3am when I’d woken up to loud histrionics from some girl who clearly watched too much porn. I just shut my eyes and stayed in my room. If they were to drunk to care, I’d just put in ear plugs

“Oh!! Why didn’t you tell me it was your birthday?” I was getting frustrated with the angle I was working at and wanted to move astride him.

“Why, did you want to give me a prezzie?”

He looked over his shoulder and his tongue pressed to right corner of his mouth and the gesture was so obscenely appealing I nearly couldn’t keep mine from lolling out of my mouth. I decided to ignore that innuendo entirely as a result. “Consider this your present,” I commented and moved to straddle him.

“Oh, I will,” he giggled and the sound was so boyish I wanted to kiss the back of his neck. I focused my attention elsewhere instead. I rubbed his back in the way the salon chairs did and he made lots of happy noises.

When I got to his middle lower back, the symphony of his sounds took on a baser quality and I decided to focus on the spots that made him particularly percussive rather than the tightness his melody was causing to my own snare drum. At one particularly sensitive section, he wiggled his hips and l nearly hit the high hat on my own.

A moment later, it seemed I had run out of skin to manipulate and so I patted him and rolled to the side. Harry didn’t respond in words, but instead picked up to hand to kiss.

“Thank you, that was lovely.” He kissed the other too and stretched out languidly. My impulse was to remount him and stretch out on his back, but I restrained myself and smiled back instead.

“How long has your back been hurting?” I stretched myself out next to him and turned on my side to face him. I kept my straying eyes above his collarbones, though there were distractions there to, and prayed my hands together to mirror his pose, tucking them beneath my head.

He shrugged, “um, it’s always a bit stiff in the morning,” he stopped for a moment and looked amused but continued to talk about his back, “think it started to give me more trouble at the end of last tour?”

“Did you tell mark?”

“Nah, he’ll just call me a whiner and add sets.”

I rolled my eyes, boys. “I don’t think so Harry, you are awfully young to have any pain, let alone back stuff. Tell Mar—,” his groan interrupted me, “tell Mark,” I continued, “ so you don’t get hurt.”

“Ugh, you’re as bad as my sister,” he blustered into his pillow.

That chaffed, I had no desire to be sisterly. “Because I don’t want you laid up by 25? Listen, just mention it, alright?” I decided to drop it, I had no desire to be a nag. My brother accused me of it often enough.

He jumped on the subject change and pulled the blankets up and over our heads. “Blanket fort!” He said gleefully and tucked the duvet between the mattress and head board. All the white surrounding us made his skin look even tanner. He started pulling in pillows then, placing them around us to create a raised square.

“I don’t think we have enough, I’m a lot bigger than the last time I did this.”

“Nah, you’re tiny,” he put his huge hand on my head and pushed down.

“That won’t make me fit, wanker!” I pushed his hand off.

The mischievous look in his eye gave me an inkling I was in for it. I would have made a run for it had I not been so distracted.

“Harry,” I said not sure what was coming, but I had an idea. He quickly moved his hand from my head to my tummy and wiggled them. “No!”

He laughed and sent his fingers dancing up my sides. I sucked in a big breath and tried to wriggle away. “The fort!”

“This is a tickle fort Mel, you are going to have to escape to get away. His finger crooked at me while I scrambled, he successfully got a hold of my foot and slid me back to him. I writhed as he found all of my spots.

"No!” Breathless, “st—stahp…stop Harry!” My foot caught his ribs and he yelped. I took the opportunity to wriggle away. I was successful, but at the cost of my dignity. The unceremonious drop of my ass to the ground didn’t bruise anything but my ego. “Ooof,” exploded from my mouth and his giggles did the same.

He had undone our blanket fort in just enough time to watch me hit the ground. Apparently he found it hilarious. “Your face!” He bent at the waist and wheezed.

“Fuck off!” I grit. “I hope you choke!”

“Harsh,” he laughed. “You embarrassed, Mel?”

“I’m pissed off!” I blistered, “I fucken hate being tickled!”

“Oh Mel! Loosen the reins. It’s fun.” His giggles were dying out. He looked at me. “Hey, I’m sorry, it was just a bit of fun. Everybody is ok here. If you don’t like it, I won’t do it again.” He slid off the bed and ran a finger over my chin. I liked that. His touch moved to my hand and he pulled me up. “Don’t be mad at me. I didn’t know it was a thing.”

“I just, I feel like I might hurt you, or pee on myself. I’m sure I look ridiculous,” I crossed my arms over my chest.

“You look free, your cheeks flush,” he gestured, “and you laugh big. You look lovely, Mel! But if you don’t like i—.”

“It’s alright, it’s not such a big deal,” I shook it off.

“K,” he chucked my chin. “Come talk to me while I shave?”

“Shave what?” I giggled.

“My many facial hairs, you fool,” and he leaned in to show me.

“Oh!” I exclaimed, “now I see all three of them!”

“Fuck off!” He pulled me after him into the bathroom.

Later I sat on the closed toilet seat and watched him shave. “ What are you doing today?” I felt embarrassed I had to clear my throat to ask.

“Um,” he pulled the razor away. “I think they have some songs for us to listen to, and a brief radio thing.” He shrugged and went back to wicking away his santa beard.

“Ah. Doesn’t sound to bad.”

“Nah, not to bad. Pretty clear for us really.” He was such a bright sider I sometimes thought he needed smaller cups.

“Where are we?” I asked.

“Um, Glasgow?”

 "What would you do if you were able to see it?“

Harry filled me in on a few of his bucket list items and a mentally filed them away.

"I had better shower,” was his comment after finished his final stroke. “It’s gotten late. You are a distraction, with your tickles and forts, and insistence on rubbing on my sexy body.”

“As if!” I exaggerated.

“Listen, Cher, I’m gonna have to kick you out!”

“Whatever,” I put up the W to emphasize my quotes. “I should probably get back before he’s noticed.”

“Has he noticed, or does he care where you go at night?”

“No,” I laughed, “honestly, you’ve seen. He shoved me out in his glorious pursuit of dirty sex and assumes someone with take me in—.”

“Someone has taken you in.” Harry reminded, turning on the shower to warm it up.

I watched the water bead on his forearm when he checked the temperature and continued, “he said something about Lou one morning. I think he thinks I’m sleeping in with her.” I looked down at my phone, avoiding the deep well of his eyes.

“If my sister was here now, I’d want to know where she was sleeping.”

“I imagine when your sister comes around  you don’t kick her out to have indiscriminate sex.”  He shrugged and I decided go pay better attention when Gemma came around again.

“I’m sure he’d have something to say if he knew you were bunking with me so often.”

“Why? You lend your bed. Nothing is going on.” He looked at me then, and I almost asked, but instead I stared down at our hands and we both kept quiet.

“Regardless, I think he wouldn’t like it,” Harry said finally.

“Then I guess I won’t tell him, will I? If he even bothers to ask. I’m a big girl, I’ll sleep where I want.”

Harry laughed when I made a muscle, “You are tiny. And should get your tiny arse in the shower.” He waved his hand over his face.

“You can go, I don’t have a diary full of things to do. besides, should shower in my room, I don’t have any clean clothes here.”

“You can wear mine.” Harry pulled himself up and shook and stretched on the way into the bathroom.

“Pretty sure that would blow our cover, and my brother is too aware of your shenanigans, apparently," I emphasized, "to trust that I could sleep in here innocently.” Harry’s face answered a few questions for me and I got up to leave, unsettled in an unpleasant way. “See you later, Harry,” I quitted his room.

“Later, babe,” drifted after me and took my level of discomfort down, but I knew now that we were hiding us, whatever we were, and I didn’t like it.

It didn’t stop me.

Reblogs are love!!

#Harry Styles #Harry Styles fanfiction #harry styles fanfic #Harry Styles imagine #mmith #meet me in the hallway #Chapter 3 #song fic

[7r0773r]

The End of Policing by Alex S. Vitale

Excessive use of force, however, is just the tip of the iceberg of over-policing. There are currently more than 2 million Americans in prison or jail and another 4 million on probation or parole. Many have lost the right to vote; most will have severe difficulties in finding work upon release and will never recover from the lost earnings and work experience. Many have had their ties to their families irrevocably damaged and have been driven into more serious and violent criminality. Despite numerous well-documented cases of false arrests and convictions, the vast majority of these arrests and convictions have been conducted lawfully and according to proper procedure—but their effects on individuals and communities are incredibly destructive. (1. The Limits of Police Reform)

***

More than anything, however, what we really need is to rethink the role of police in society. The origins and function of the police are intimately tied to the management of inequalities of race and class. The suppression of workers and the tight surveillance and micromanagement of black and brown lives have always been at the center of policing. Any police reform strategy that does not address this reality is doomed to fail. (1. The Limits of Police Reform)

***

The reality is that the police exist primarily as a system for managing and even producing inequality by suppressing social movements and tightly managing the behaviors of poor and nonwhite people: those on the losing end of economic and political arrangements. (2. The Police Are Not Here to Protect You)

***

When slavery was abolished, the slave patrol system was too; small towns and rural areas developed new and more professional forms of policing to deal with the newly freed black population. The main concern of this period was not so much preventing rebellion as forcing newly freed blacks into subservient economic and political roles. New laws outlawing vagrancy were used extensively to force blacks to accept employment, mostly in the sharecropping system. Local police enforced poll taxes and other voter suppression efforts to ensure white control of the political system. 

Anyone on the roads without proof of employment was quickly subjected to police action. Local police were the essential front door of the twin evils of convict leasing and prison farms. Local sheriffs would arrest free blacks on flimsy to nonexistent evidence, then drive them into a cruel and inhuman criminal justice system whose punishments often resulted in death. These same sheriffs and judges also received kickbacks and in some cases generated lists of fit and hardworking blacks to be incarcerated on behalf of employers, who would then lease them out to perform forced labor for profit. Douglas Blackmon chronicles the appalling conditions of mines and lumber camps where thousands perished. By the Jim Crow era, policing had become a central tool of maintaining racial inequality throughout the South, supplemented by ad hoc vigilantes such as the Ku Klux Klan, which often worked closely with—and was populated by—local police. 

Northern policing was also deeply affected by emancipation. Northern political leaders deeply feared the northern migration of newly freed rural blacks, whom they often viewed as socially, if not racially, inferior, uneducated, and criminal. Ghettos were established in Northern cities to control this growing population, with police playing the role of both containment and pacification. Up until the 1960s, this was largely accomplished through the racially discriminatory enforcement of the law and widespread use of excessive force. Blacks knew very well what the behavioral and geographic limits were and the role that police played in maintaining them in both the Jim Crow South and the ghettoized North. (2. The Police Are Not Here to Protect You)

***

Today’s modern police are not that far removed from their colonialist forebears. They too enforce a system of laws designed to reproduce and maintain economic inequality, usually along racialized lines. As Michelle Alexander has put it,

We need an effective system of crime prevention and control in our communities, but that is not what the current system is. This system is better designed to create crime, and a perpetual class of people labeled criminals … Saying mass incarceration is an abysmal failure makes sense, though only if one assumes that the criminal justice system is designed to prevent and control crime. But if mass incarceration is understood as a system of social control—specifically, racial control—then the system is a fantastic success. (2. The Police Are Not Here to Protect You)

***

This increase in the number of school-based police is tied to a variety of social and political factors that converged in the 1990s and continues today. First, conservative criminologist John Dilulio, along with broken-windows theory author James Q. Wilson, argued in 1995 that the United States would soon experience a wave of youth crime driven by the crack trade, high rates of single-parent families, and a series of racially coded concerns about declining values and public morality. He predicted that by 2010 there would be an additional 270,000 of these youthful predators on the streets, leading to a massive increase in violent crime. He described these young people as hardened criminals: “radically impulsive, brutally remorseless … elementary school youngsters who pack guns instead of lunches” and “have absolutely no respect for human life.” Dilulio and his colleagues argued that there was nothing to be done but to exclude such children from settings where they could harm others and, ultimately, to incarcerate them for as long as possible. Dilulio’s ideas were based on spurious evidence and ideologically motivated assumptions that turned out to be totally inaccurate. Every year since, juvenile crime in and out of schools in the US has declined. 

However, the “superpredator” myth was extremely influential. It generated a huge amount of press coverage, editorials, and legislative action. One of the immediate consequences was a rash of new laws lowering the age of adult criminal responsibility, making it easier to incarcerate young people in adult jails, in keeping with the broader politics of incapacitation and mass incarceration. It was also at the center of efforts to tighten school discipline policies and increase police presence in schools.

The second major factor was the Columbine school massacre of 1999, in which two Colorado high school students murdered twelve classmates and a teacher, despite the presence of armed police on campus. This tragic incident received incredible attention due to its extreme nature and the fact that it occurred in a normally low-crime white suburban area. It was easy enough for middle-class families to ignore the more frequent outbursts of violence in nonwhite urban schools, but this incident drove them to want action taken to make schools safer for young people. 

In keeping with the broader ethos of get-tough criminal-justice measures, the response was to increase the presence of armed police in schools rather than dealing with the underlying social issues of bullying, mental illness, and the availability of guns. While there was some focus on bullying, much of it took a punitive form, driving additional “zero tolerance” disciplinary procedures and further contributing to suspensions, expulsions, and arrests on flimsy evidence and for minor infractions. 

The third major factor was the rise of neoliberal school reorganization, with its emphasis on high-stakes testing, reduced budgets, and punitive disciplinary systems. Increasingly, schools are being judged almost exclusively based on student performance on standardized tests. Teacher pay, discretionary spending, and even the survival of the school are tied to these tests. This creates a pressure-cooker atmosphere in schools in which improving test scores becomes the primary focus, pitting teachers’ and administrators’ interests against those of students. A teacher or administrator who wants to keep their job or earn a bonus has an incentive to get rid of students who are dragging down test scores through low performance or behaviors that disrupt the performances of other students. This gives those schools a strong incentive to drive those students out, either temporarily through suspensions or permanently through expulsions or dropping out. (3. The School-To-Prison Pipeline) ***

What we are witnessing is, in essence, the criminalization of mental illness, with police on the front lines of this process. This is especially true for those who are homeless and/or lack access to quality mental health services. Both groups of people have grown significantly in recent decades. While the Affordable Care Act holds the promise of some improvement, as recently as 2011, over 60 percent of people experiencing a mental health problem reported that they had no access to mental health services. Even when mental health services are available, they are often inadequate. A lack of stable housing and income exacerbates mental health problems, makes treatment more difficult, and contributes to the public display of disability-related behaviors, all of which make it more likely that the police will be called. (4 “We Called for Help, and They Killed My Son”)

***

One of the lessons learned in the last twenty years is that the best way to get people off the streets and out of the shelters is to make immediate permanent housing available to them at very low or no cost, and to provide a range of optional support services to help them stay there. This is known as the housing-first approach, and it is growing in prominence. In the past, homeless programs focused on proving emergency and transitional shelter, in the belief that if you stabilized someone and got them a job or necessary benefits, they could then enter the housing market and obtain stable long-term housing. This is not the case. This mismatch between low-wage work or government benefits and increasingly expensive housing makes the process untenable. Governments are going to have to intervene in housing markets by building large numbers of heavily subsidized units. The federal government could help by bringing back Section 8 subsidies on a large scale that could be pooled together to provide financing. But local and state governments have to want to build the housing, and right now many do not. (5. Criminalizing Homelessness)

*** The use of police to wage a war on drugs has been a total nightmare. Not only have they failed to reduce drug use and the harm it produces, they have actually worsened those harms and destroyed the lives of millions of Americans through pointless criminalization. Ultimately, we must create robust public health programs and economic development strategies to reduce demand and help people manage their drug problems in ways that reduce harm—while keeping in mind that most drug users are not addicts. We also need to look at the economic dynamics that drive the black market and the economic and social misery that drive the most harmful patterns of drug use. Harm-reduction, public-health, and legalization strategies, combined with robust economic development of poor communities could dramatically reduce the negative impact of drugs on society without relying on police, courts, and prisons. (7. War on Drugs)

***

Researchers like William Garriott have shown that use and dealing are concentrated among the under- and unemployed and those working in dirty, dangerous, and repetitious jobs with low pay and poor working conditions. Strict enforcement, forced treatment, and police-driven public education campaigns have been a total failure, because people’s underlying economic circumstances remain unaddressed. Until we do something about entrenched rural poverty, this trend will continue. Unemployment and bleak prospects drive people into black markets, which become the employers of last resort. (7. War on Drugs)

***

Nevada and California have developed sentencing enhancements that add many additional years to sentences based on loose definitions of gang membership. Anyone the police want to assert is affiliated with a gang can find an extra decade added to their sentence. Neither state has seen a reduction in gang activity; the enhancements have further overpopulated state prisons without providing meaningful relief to youth or their communities. 

Gang databases are another problematic area of intervention. California has a statewide database populated with the names of hundreds of thousands of young people, the vast majority of whom are black or Latino. Officers can enter names at will, based on associations, clothing, or just a hunch. There are very few ways of getting your name removed from the list; many people do not even know whether or not they are on it. In some neighborhoods, inclusion on the list is almost the norm for young men. Police and courts use the list to give people enhanced sentences, target them for parole violations, or even target entire neighborhoods for expanded and intensified policing. The Youth Justice Coalition in Los Angeles has documented cases where information in the database has been shared with employers and landlords, despite legal requirements that the database not be publicly accessible. (8. Gang Suppression)

***

Today there are seventy-five thousand noncitizens in US prisons, about half of whom are there for immigration violations. Many are held in for-profit private prisons. ICE uses forty-six such facilities to hold 70 percent of all immigration detainees, despite repeated reports of abuse, overcrowding, and inadequate medical services. In addition, ICE subcontracting opportunities have encouraged a boom in jail and prison construction across the Southwest. Both local jurisdictions and these corporations have a financial stake in maintaining high rates of detention, further perverting the politics of immigration. In addition, large numbers of migrants are held in local jails on immigration detainers or awaiting transport. Conditions in these facilities, whether public or private, are inadequate. In 2010, the New York Times documented widespread problems with the delivery of health care services; according to a 2016 report, eight people have died in recent years of preventable causes such as diabetes, because of inadequate health care. (9. Border Policing)

***

If we want immigrants, documented or not, to be more integrated into society, more likely to report crime, and better able to defend themselves from predators, we should instead look to end all federal immigration policing, remove social barriers in housing and employment, and acknowledge their important role in revitalizing communities and stimulating economic activity. (9. Border Policing)

***

Border policing is hugely expensive and largely ineffective, and produces substantial collateral harms including mass criminalization, violations of human rights, unnecessary deaths, the breakup of families, and racism and xenophobia. Unfortunately, both dominant political parties have embraced its expansion, whether as part of a system of restricted and managed legalization or as part of a fantasy of closing the border. Rather than debating how many additional Border Patrol agents to employ, we should instead move to largely de-police the border. Borders are inherently unjust and as Reece Jones points out in his book Violent Borders, they reproduce inequality, which is backed up by the violence of state actors and the indignity and danger of being forced to cross borders illegally. 

Until the Clinton administration, unauthorized cross-border migration was widespread, yet it did not lead to the collapse of the American economy or culture. In fact, in many ways it strengthened it, giving rise to new economic sectors, revitalizing long-abandoned urban neighborhoods, and better integrating the US into the global economy. When the EU lowered its internal borders, there were fears that organized crime would benefit, local cultures would be undermined, that mass migration would create economic chaos as poorer southern Europeans moved north. None of this happened. In fact, migration decreased as the EU began developing poorer areas within Europe as a way of producing greater economic and social stability. (9. Border Policing)

***

Despite our concerns about political liberty, the US police have a long history of similarly abusive practices. The myth of policing in a liberal democracy is that the police exist to prevent political activity that crosses the line into criminal activity, such as property destruction and violence. But they have always focused on detecting and disrupting movements that threaten the economic and political status quo, regardless of the presence of criminality. While on a few occasions this has included actions against the far right, it has overwhelmingly focused on the left, especially those movements tied to workers and racial minorities and those challenging American foreign policy. More recently, focus has shifted to surveillance of Muslims as part of the War on Terror. (10. Political Policing)

***

There really is almost no legitimate reason to deploy armored vehicles and snipers to manage protests—even those where some violence has occurred. Officer protection is an issue, but so are police legitimacy and constitutional rights. (10. Political Policing)

#alex s vitale #book quotes

[douchebagbrainwaves]

HERE'S WHAT I JUST REALIZED ABOUT DATA

A few days ago I finally figured it out. Notes PR has at least one person willing and able to focus on first, we wouldn't have the concept of an organization whose structure gives each person freedom in inverse proportion to the wealth they generate. You can't replace those. Steve may not literally design them, but nowadays data about who gets selected is often publicly available to anyone who does good work. Windows, because the mafia too are not merely afflicted by but driven by confusions over words. And the way to use these languages as because, if we're lucky, we'll use languages on the path from ideas to startups has recently been getting smoother. In Airbnb's case, these consisted of going door to door in New York. More generally, you can no longer give us faster CPUs, just more of them to solve a problem their founders had. To see how, envision two things: what they're going to build something better than they realize.

As the art itself gets more random, the effort that would have required object-oriented programming at the moment, there is nothing so unfashionable as the last, discarded fashion, there is a peloton of younger startups behind them. It's not economic inequality, is different from taking it—not just the classes that make a university such a good place to make things, like intro it to my friends at Foundry who were investors in Service Metrics and understand this model I am also talking to my father reminded me of Internet trade shows during the Bubble a lot of people working on something great. Who knew there was something wrong with the system; it's just inevitable that kids will be miserable at that age. So you're not sacrificing the lukewarm investors if you focus on the goal of getting lots of users. Thanks to Trevor Blackwell, Rich Draves, Dan Giffin, and Lisa Randall for reading drafts of this essay didn't work.1 It's not that people think of property as having a single thing. You have to decide. Or business users. Many a founder would be happy to trade places with them.2

In fact, they're lucky by comparison. I don't mean to suggest we should never do this. Whatever the outcome, the conflict was military. A company making $1000 a month a typical number early in YC and growing at 1% a week for 19 years, it would be a 900-page pastiche of existing popular novels—roughly Gone with the Wind plus Roots. But a very able person in a big company in a design war with a company big enough that its software is designed by committee, and the enforcement of quality. Different plans match different investors. But if you have significant expenses other than salaries that you can eliminate, do it. My parents were pretty good about admitting when they didn't know things, but in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

And not just in the last 40. Given an initial critical mass and enough time, a programming language is good as a second language. There you're not concerned with truth.3 VCs get paid a good salary right away. Standards are higher; people are more sympathetic to Newton. We did that at Viaweb. For example, in the sense of hitting some big need straight on. I ignore tokens that are all digits, and I was surprised to see how bad some practice is till you have growth and thus usually revenues to justify them.4 So I don't even want to do a deal; so there must be a lot.5 Fortran, and it would be extraordinary if all eight succeeded. What difference does it make how many others there are? I was certainly a hacker, the last round of funding, regardless of how you spent your summers.

There is a kind of whitelist and blacklist because they are more conservative than Boston ones. Till recently graduating seniors had two choices: give it away and make money from it. With a startup, ask yourself: who wants this right now? 8 Efficiency A good language, it was interesting to notice how important color was to the vertical. Beware of research. Oh my God, they know it, you'll miss out on most of the rest. And he pointed out that because you can release it as soon as he got a job as a waiter doesn't think of himself as a waiter to learn how to program computers, or what advantage, if any of your data be trapped on some computer sitting on a sofa watching TV, I'd have noticed very quickly. Deals fall through. It's probably closer to machine language than Python.6 There was no reason you couldn't have done this.

The strategy described at the end. Likewise, popular isn't just something you are or you aren't, but something major is missing. It's unlikely you could make a fortune in the mid 20th century masked this underlying trend. You have to consciously resist it. What prevented most serfs from leaving was that it would increase the spammers' cost to reach a given audience by a factor of 10 in speed. They can lead to distractions even more dangerous than the valuation. Hence what I call the Hail Mary strategy.

The Power of the Marginal June 2006 This essay is derived from a keynote at FOWA in October 2007. The company that did was RCA, and Farnsworth's reward for his efforts was a decade of patent litigation. The quality of investor is big news for startups, big companies have little to bring to the table. These aren't so critical in something like math or physics, where no one has. Imagine walking around for years with five pound ankle weights, then suddenly having them removed. Running a business is to make source code smaller. There was a good deal of resistance at first. They just had us tuned out.

Do you, er, want a printout of yesterday's news? If another country wanted to establish a rival to Silicon Valley seemed like a nationalistic remark: an obnoxious American telling them that if they found a good deal is that the concept of exit strategy, because you don't have that luxury. _____ History suggests that, all other things being equal, the best thing you could be working on: either classwork, or a market to supply evolutionary pressures. So they claim it's because they seem safer. And even in those fields they depend heavily on startups for components and ideas.7 But it's so tempting to sit in their offices and let PR firms bring the stories to them.8 As a kid I was always under pressure to release their new OS, whose release date had already slipped four times, but I didn't realize exactly what was killing them. But I think the cost of starting a startup. Teenagers now are useless, except as cheap labor in industries like fast food, which have remained more or less a subset of the language is.

Notes

Applying for a reason. To solve are random, they may end up. Or worse still, has one booked for them. Though if you are unimportant.

7% of American kids attend private, non-programmers grasped that in the original source of better ideas: Paul Buchheit adds: I once explained this to realize that in three months we made comparatively little competition for mediocre ideas, because they actually do, I'll have people nagging me for features. Travel has the same superior education but had a house built a couple years. In fact, if you pack investor meetings as closely as you get stock as if the similarity extended to returns.

There is of course it was the season Dallas premiered. It is still hard to say about these: I should do is assemble components designed and manufactured by someone else. But politicians know the answer to, but this could be pleasure in a certain level of incivility, the group of picky friends who proofread almost everything I say in principle 100,000 legitimate emails. In sufficiently disordered times, even if our competitors had known we were quite sore from VCs attempting to probe our nonexistent database orifice.

Some people still get rich by buying their startups. Which in turn forces Digg to respond gracefully to such changes, because the money was to backtrack and try selling it to them. When that happens. Most people let them mix pretty promiscuously.

And so this one is now very slow, but which didn't taste very good. Sites that habitually linkjack get banned.

Why Startups Condense in America consider acting white.

Founders at Work.

You can get for 500 today would say that intelligence is the most important subject. Don't ask investors who say no for introductions to other knowledge. Cit. Sam Altman points out that another way to be the model for Internet clients too.

#automatically generated text #Markov chains #Paul Graham #Python #Patrick Mooney #exit #words #sup #quality #incivility #classes #startups #founders #color #something #mid #meetings #Farnsworth #Work #money #envision #Applying #place #Gone #industries #intro #others #everything #business #Rich

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How to Measure Email Marketing KPIs – PLUS Tips to Drive Business Growth

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How to Measure Email Marketing KPIs – PLUS Tips to Drive Business Growth

There is no such thing as “going with the flow” in the business world. When our money and our business are involved, we would rather rely on data, analytics & colorful graphs. If you were looking for some help on how to measure email marketing KPI’s to govern your email automation with efficacy, you’ve come to the right place!

Keep reading to pick up some pro advice on measuring your email marketing analytics and grab some free .tips tot drive business growth while your at it!

First, Let’s Discuss Your Open Rate (OR)

Email marketing is one of the easiest types of marketing to measure because you own the content, the list, and every bit of your data. Smart marketers use this as an opportunity to use their data to draw insights that help them take action.

So the first thing that we are going to talk about is Open Rate. What is Open Rate?

Well, open rate is the percentage of people who actually open your emails, out of all of the people that you sent an email to.

How is Open Rate Calculated?

Simple… Take the total emails opened and divide it by the total emails delivered… And then multiply it by 100.

Example of How Email Open Rate is Calculated:

Okay, let��s say you sent an email to 1,000 people. Out of that 1,000, let’s say that 100 people actually opened the email Open Rate = 100 divided by 1000 times 100 would = 10%

Your open rate would be 10%.

What Influences Email Open Rates?

The open rate is mainly influenced by the subject line.

If you want to know an easy way to improve your open rate, just go through your mailbox and see if you see any other examples of interesting headlines. Do they have something in common?

Here are some good examples that I found in my inbox:

Many of them use my first or last name.

They use numbers to indicate listicles or to convey discounts.

They convey their excitement if there is something is new, updated or super interesting.

They use emojis

They use thoughtful questions

Use words that invoke excitement, urgency or exclusivity

The key to good open rates is not using the same trick every time. If you put your recipient’s name in the subject in every email, they will start blocking them out. Keep your subject lines new and interesting, switching up your tactics to get the best results.

Now, Let’s Talk About Click-through-rate (CTR)

So what is Click-Through Rate?

Easy… Click-Through Rate is the percentage of recipients who clicked on one of the links included in your email.

How is Click-Through Rate Calculated?

Click-through rate is calculated by taking the total number of unique clicks and dividing it by the number of emails delivered, then multiplying times 100.

Example of How Click-Through Rate is Calculated?

Let’s say that your total emails delivered was 1,000 again. Let’s say that out of that 1,000, you got 150 clicks on link #1, and 50 clicks on link #2. So, your total clicks is 200 in this case.

Your Click-Through Rate (CTR) would be calculated like this:

150+50 = 200 divided by 1000 times 100 = 20%

So your CTR is 20%

What Influences Click-Through Rate?

Click-Through Rate (CTR) is mainly influenced by your email’s content, but in some cases, the niche that you are emailing has a generally lower CTR. For example, B2C click-through rates tend to be around 2% lower than B2B click-through rates.

Click-through rate is the metric that tells you how ‘engaged’ your audience is with your brand and your content. CTR is what helps you determine the performance of A/B testing or multivariate testing emails.

The content in your email should be encouraging, informational, and/or educational. Tell them something new or tell them something that they already know, but do so in a fun and simple way…

Put yourself in their shoes… Would you read it?

But providing amazing content and incredible value in your emails is not all there is to it. Ideally, you should lead your reader to take action. This is accomplished by crafting a clear call to action.

What does that mean? A clear Call to Action? (CTA)

Make your call to action stand out from the rest of the content. Draw attention to your CTA by making it clearly visible with plenty of white space around it and bold colors…

If you are using a hyperlink for your CTA, make it stand out in the copy. If you don’t want to be too pushy, you can use ‘Learn More’ instead of ‘Buy Now’.

Now Let’s Talk About Bounce Rate

What is Bounce Rate in email marketing?

Simple… Bounce Rate is the percentage of recipients who never even received the email in their inbox.

How is Bounce Rate Calculated?

Bounce rate is calculated by taking the total number of emails bounced and dividing it by the number of emails sent and then multiplying it times 100.

Example of How Bounce Rate is Calculated?

Okay, let’s say that you have a total email send of 1,000 emails. Now out of those 1,000 emails, let’s say that 970 actually reached the recipient. So you have 1000-970 = 30 bounced emails.

The Bounce Rate would be calculated by taking 30 and dividing by 1,000, and then multiplying by 100.

So your Bounce Rate in this case is 3%.

What Influences Bounce Rate?

A lot of times, Bounce Rate is influenced by the sender’s IP reputation, and sometimes it is influenced by the validity of their email address.

Now, there are two types of bounces that you will encounter in email marketing.

A Soft Bounce, and a Hard Bounce. So what;s the difference, and why does it matter?

Hard Bounce vs. Soft Bounce

A soft bounce means that the recipient’s server is down, that their mailbox is full, or in some cases, it means that your message is too large for their inbox. This is generally a temporary issue, so unless you have an abnormally high soft bounce rate, just ignore it,

A hard bounce occurs when the email address is nonexistent or invalid. It could be that the recipient gave fake email addresses or there is a typo in it, but either way, a hard bounce is permanent, so when you get these, just remove them from the campaign and keep going.

Removing hard bounces improves your sender reputation, eventually which improves your delivery rate.

About List Growth

The rate at which your email list is growing. You can calculate it weekly or monthly. Once you choose a time period, then stick to it to make accurate comparisons each time.

How to calculate

List Growth = [((Number of new subscribers – (Number of unsubscribes)) ÷ Total email addresses on your list] * 100

Example: No. of Total email addresses on the list = 1,000 No. of new subscribers = 200 No. of unsubscribers = 10 List growth = ((200-10)/1000)*100 = 19%

Dependent Upon:It is dependent upon your subscriber acquisition strategy.

You should optimise all the sources to gather emails. Like, look at the conversion rate of your landing page. You can run some social media ads directing people to your signup form or landing page.

List growth is important because eventually some people will churn out of the list or become non-engaged so you should keep adding new contacts. And of course, higher the list size, more the business and impact of your work.

List growth won’t always go upwards, especially if you are in seasonal business or your volume is very high. Here is a snapshot from a list of 100K members. As you can see, the list growth keeps fluctuating.

Unsubscribe Rate

Unsubscribe rate, if it’s not obvious just by the name, is the percentage of people who opted out of receiving your emails.

How to calculate your unsubscribe rate? Easy…

Unsubscribe Rate = (# Of unsubscribers divided by the Total number of emails delivered into the inbox) * 100

Example:

No. of total email addresses on the list: 1,000 No. of unsubscribers: 5 Unsubscribe rate = (5/1000)*100 = 0.5%

Dependent Upon: Content, Quality of your email list, Frequency of emails

How to Compare?

There are two kinds of benchmarks to see if your metrics are good or not: Industry benchmarks, and your own benchmarks.

Industry benchmarks can be looked at as a reference; just try to stay in the ballpark figures. But you should pay attention to your own benchmarks.

The best way to have your own benchmarks is to compile data over a period of time – over a few months. Then you can compare weekly numbers with your benchmark to see if they are on track, growing, or declining.

One of the best platforms we’ve tested for email automation and email campaign management is GetResponse.

Click here to try a 30-day FREE trial and see what we mean when we say that your email marketing just got a lot faster, a lot more precise, and a LOT easier! Click here for a full review.

Tips to Getting Better Email Marketing KPI’s

This next section will give you some tips to getting better email marketing KPI’s, so you can start to improve your numbers like the pros and get higher success rates with your email marketing campaigns:

#1 Value

If your content is not adding value to the subscriber, or it’s too hard for them to go through the content, they will unsubscribe. So make sure you get some feedback on your content.

#2 Targeting

If your content is valuable but still if your unsubscribe rate is high, then maybe the audience you are targeting is not right. This is where you focus on the quality of the list for your particular business or content.

#3 Frequency

The frequency of your emails is also important. It shouldn’t be so frequent that people get irritated. Also, it shouldn’t be so delayed that they don’t remember signing up or relating to your brand. Thus, unsubscribing.

How to Measure Email Marketing KPIs

Every time you send an email, there will be some churn, so don’t worry if someone unsubscribes. It’s better than a non-engaged audience. But if there are unusually high unsubscribes then you need to look at your strategy, content, and the kind of audience you are attracting.

To find out why your subscribers are leaving, you can add a short survey for people to fill out when they hit the unsubscribe button. But make it optional. If unsubscribing it too hard, then the next step the reader will take is to mark your emails as spam. And we want to avoid that to maintain a good sender’s reputation.

Paying attention to email analytics will help you better grow, maintain, and convert your email lists. That will boost revenue, impact and your influence. So don’t just send an email and forget. Track the key metrics we discussed above.

You don’t have to deal with calculations and spreadsheets of numbers all by yourself. These days, most email marketing softwares provide an analytics dashboard that you can look at after every campaign or over a period of time.

If you are looking for an email marketing software that can help you gather these important pieces of data and provide them in easy to understand dashboards, then you should try SendX. You can take a 14-day free trial that will give you access to all the features, analytics, reporting and charts. You don’t even need a credit card to access the free trial. So give it a try today.

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