talking to dagny about superpowers the other day and it sounds like even Worm didn’t really tackle the thing that I always find a hard sell about the sorts of powers where the logic is like ‘this person can fight real good because they’re able to calculate everything super fast so they know exactly what actions they need to take and when to dodge and so on’:

namely, that as someone who has spent time practising movement disciplines, i can tell you it’s perfectly possible to know exactly what you need to do and still fuck up the physical execution.

think about like. one physical skill people always like to claim is ‘really’ physics is catching a ball, because there’s like an equation or whatever that will tell you where the ball is going to fall. but anyone who’s played a sport has surely had the experience of knowing exactly where the ball was headed, and just not being able to get to it in time.

unless you have a secret second superpower that gives you inhuman physical reaction times and peak physical fitness and have spent a lot of time practicing acrobatics? kinda feel like you should have a perfect vision of the set of movements you need to complete to dodge the incoming fire while moving quickly into cover, faceplant on the second backflip and eat bullets.

dedicated to the lovely @himboksj​ happy (very late almost criminally late) bday present! so whew... there’s a lot happening in this one! return of jock!jk and his wonderful girl oc now featuring!!: squirting, creampie, oral (fem receiving), mild choking, biting, boobs in face!!, anime tiddy mentions, praise kink galore, multiple orgasms, the use of a vibrator, jaykay is sick actually, over-stimulation, mild spit kink, dommish!jk, (redacted) pet name, mentions (and watching) of porn, everybody is in love and horny, crying cause the dick too good, fingering but not really. 5k of words that should have never left my brain. listen to continuum & nothing without you by tanerelle (kindly check masterlist for the pretty boy drabble mini masterlist if you want to read the rest of this au!)

Jeongguk didn’t mean to go snooping through your things. It was 100% accidental. He just remembered that you kept some athletic tape in your drawers because Jeongguk usually needed to wrap his knee or ankle after practice and you ensured that he always had some near (in case he came crashing at yours instead of going back to his dorm after Coach brutalised him during drills). And, anyway, you were at a point in your relationship where Jeongguk didn’t necessarily feel the need to outright ask you if he could poke around your drawers. Of course, he respected your space, but it’s not like he wasn’t nosy when you were best friends. You were in the shower too, he didn’t want to bang on the door and ask where you kept the tape.

Imagine his surprise when he reached the final drawer in your dresser, idly rummaging around for the blue athletic tape he knows is buried somewhere, and his fingers latch around a silky cloth instead. He knew what it was immediately, the shape a dead give-away. A discreet bullet vibrator, stuffed under your unnecessarily large collection of fluffy winter socks. Perhaps he stopped breathing, the twitch in his loose workout shorts undeniable. He’s not surprised that you own one and yet, his brain can’t fathom you using it. Even now, Jeongguk’s still growing used to seeing you come undone around his length, the feeling of your walls tight on his cock as your mumble his name. It drives him mad. He’s seen you in every kind of state; sobbing hysterically, laughing until tears slip from your pretty eyes, stumbling drunk in the streets, eyebrows furrowed with anger at him, that soft tiny grin you grant him on good days, the pout your lips settle into when you don’t get your way. He never fathomed he’d ever see you in that way, skin flushed with heat, eyes cloudy with ecstasy, your heat pressed against his own. He finds new ways to fall in love with you every day but it reaches new heights when he’s deep inside of you. Maybe he’s mildly obsessed with seeing you unravel, but that’s a secret he keeps to himself.

He does take a peek at your toy though, a soft velvet-like purple vibrator. It’s cute actually, something you would definitely purchase. But then the sound of water hitting the shower tiles slows down and Jeongguk swiftly tucks the toy back into your drawers.

“Oh?” You say when you open the door to him standing stiff in your room. The steam from the shower wraps around your figure in gentle wisps, sunlight filtering in from the window behind you, the image of an innocent angel appearing right before his eyes. “You’re here.”

“Practise ended early,” Jeongguk returns, his gaze trailing the droplets of water that slip down your skin. You smell good, just like that vanilla and peach shower gel that you dearly love. And the towel hiding your body is loose. It’s not his fault that he’s hard in his pants. When he moves to hug you, your face contorts, a downward tug at your lips that Jeongguk longs to change with a kiss.

“I’m wet,” you whine, brushing past him. “Go shower, you always stink after practise.”

He huffs, strong arms catching your fleeing figure and quickly wrapping you into his chest. “No. Don’t want to. I missed you and you can’t even hug me? You’re so mean to me.”

“Guk-” Jeongguk cuts that complaint with his face in your neck, lips colouring your skin rouge with a kiss that intends to leave a mark. “You can’t,” you mumble, but your fingers settle on the nape of his neck, tangling in the growing strands of his hair. “I have to get to work soon.”

“It won’t take long,” Jeongguk returns, feathering kisses across your skin as he nudges you to the bed. “I promise. Let me do this, I’ve missed you, bunny.”

Your towel is discarded somewhere in the amble to your sheets, your thighs wrapped around Jeongguk’s face a second later. He watches your body carefully, teasing your clit with purpose before he allows himself to slip his tongue deep. He notes the twitches in your thighs, the way your buck your hips against his face. He ignores his desire, for the time being, nose buried at the apex of your cunt, tongue covered in your slick, his lips latched on your clit. You like it fast, purposeful sharp flicks that make you squirm until Jeongguk has to pin your hips down, the lave on your heat brutal. His brain can’t help but wonder how you’d behave with your toy grazing your clit and his cock burrowed deep. You’re so sensitive, response to even the softest kiss he lays on your cunt. Would you be wetter than this? You’re already dripping down his face, his mouth glistening with your desire. But he wants to see if you can do more than this, squirm more than this, make a bigger mess than this. The thought surfaces as he feels your body lock, the tension in your limbs drawn high as your hands reach for his. You cum on his face with your fingers intertwined, his name falling from your lips as the afternoon sunlight hits your skin. It’s then and there that Jeongguk decides, with his mouth wet from your release, he’s going to see you squirt one day. For him and him alone.

He waits for the moment to naturally strike, silently scheming wicked thoughts every time you crawl into his sheets. It happens one evening, an empty bottle of wine at the foot of your bed and hentai porn playing brazenly on his laptop screen. Somewhere between downing the bottle and cuddling in his sheets Jeongguk had mentioned an uncanny resemblance between your gigantic chest and the anime boobies he’d grown fond of since his introduction to hentai. You’d immediately dismissed him, whacking him hard on the head and then Jeongguk had to prove it to you, opening his favourite website and pulling up a video that had your jaw-dropping.

“Your boobs do that, you know,” he says. Which grants him a sharp kick to the shin.

“Jeongguk, what is wrong with you?” He can tell you’re not annoyed, but there’s a lilt in your voice that makes him pause, doe eyes flicking to your face. You may be kicking him under the blankets but your eyes are stuck to the video, a distance glaze colouring your gaze. He can tell by the way your thighs draw together that you’re not as averse to this as you pretend to be.

“Turn it off,” you mumble.

“Why? I can tell that you like it.”

“Jeon, I’m not joking.” There’s a glare paired with that sentence, but he reads right through it.

“Fine,” Jeongguk offers, fingers already typing what’s been on his mind since the day he discovered your vibrator.

“What are you—oh.”

There’s a quiet lull. He clicks on a video that’s more familiar to him than he’ll ever willingly admit out loud. It starts the way Jeongguk prefers it to, with a man on his knees, his head buried between the thighs of a girl.

“What are you doing, Guk?” A warning. A question. Jeongguk is not sure what you mean by that and he’s too hesitant to take a look at your face to decipher the tone in your voice just yet. He takes the jump instead, hoping you don’t mind the fantasies of his mind.

“Have you ever squirted?” Somewhere between the exchange of words in Jeongguk's room, the man on his laptop screen slipped two fingers into the girl. It doesn’t help that your boobs are falling right out of your loose camisole, resting right on his bare arm.

“Jeongguk,” you return. “Answer my question.”

“Answer mine first,” he looks at you then, trying hard to read your eyes. There’s no heat in your face, just an innocence that colours your features. Wide eyes, your legs draw together, a hard swallow that he sees in the low lights that illuminate the room.

“No,” you say, bottom lip caught between your teeth. “So why are you showing me squirting porn?”

It’s then that Jeongguk realises he wants to ruin you. As horribly cliché as it sounds, he longs for that. And the urge for it doubles when your gaze falters, flicking quickly for the screen before drifting back to his. The couple is still fucking on his screen, hard quick loud thrusts that travel to the pit in his stomach fast. He’s hard in his briefs, a painful throb ebbing through his length when your hand drops to his chest.

“Guk?”

He shuts the laptop, the moans cut off, a heated silence taking its place. The bed feels too big when he gets up, ignoring the confused look you give him.

The vibrator is exactly where he left it, oddly comforting because it means you don’t use it. You have him after all. But he needs the toy for tonight.

“What? Guk? What’s go—when did you find that?” You’re embarrassed, he knows it from the way you squirm under the blanket. He glances down at it, finger pressing the switch that turns it on. A quick run through shows ten decent vibrators at different levels, it’s rather intense even in his hands, the low buzz that it emits filling the room forbidding before he shuts it off.

“A couple of weeks ago,” he says. You groan, your head dropping into your hands.

“Put it away, Guk! And don’t go through my stuff ever again.”

“Why? I think it’s cute.”

“Cu—what is the point of this, Jeongguk? I don’t get what you’re trying to do?” And there you go, staring at him with those wide ingenuous eyes. So trusting, so clueless. He draws closer then, considers taking his underwear off so you can see just what you do to him. But when your gaze drops he halts. It’s not about him tonight. It’s about you.

The bed dips under the weight of his as he says it, the toy still in his hands. “I want to see if you can squirt.” He sees the way your back stiffens, the raise in your brow.

“I’ve never done that,” you splutter, falling back as Jeongguk crawls over you.

“I know. But you can.”

“I can’t, Guk. I don’t think I can.” Your pretty lips are drawn into a reluctant pout, but there’s a bright curiosity sparking through your gaze that Jeongguk knows all too well.

“See, you don’t think you can. You said that before. And then I made you cum five times in a row.”

“No that was different—”

“We’re just seeing if you can. We don’t have to if you don’t want to but I think it’d be fun to try.”

You pause, trying to ignore the heat blooming between your legs as you weigh the decision before you. There were times when you thought you were about to, an edge in your orgasms that felt dangerous. But your body never let you go there fully, drawing back from your slipped from heights you couldn’t handle. You can tell Jeongguk won’t grant you the same precautions. His eyes a dark, toeing a line that feels forbidding. The covers are gently pulled from you, Jeongguk staying silent as you ponder. But the moment the cool night air hits your skin you know what he’s asking for. It’s a strange level of vulnerability, a bareness that makes your skin prickle. He wants something that you’ve never given anyway else — not even yourself. It’s a lot to ask for and his directness makes you pause. The hesitation crumbles when his hand settles on your thigh, wide warm palm gently nudging your clasped legs apart.

“We really don’t have to, if you don’t want to,” Jeongguk says, honey eyes locked on you. You know he’s being honest; he wouldn’t push it if you said no. And yet, something twists in your stomach. You want this. The realisation is sudden and you don’t know if it’s because of how perfect Jeongguk looks tonight. Chestnut curls a messy halo on his head and his shirt hanging loose from his broad shoulders. Or maybe it’s how he looks at you as if this is the only he’s ever really wanted in the world. As if you’re the only thing he’s ever really wanted.

“I want to—I mean I want to try.” You let yourself fall open then, something clicking as Jeongguk slots right against you perfectly, your sleeping shorts bunching up when his hips roll with intent. His lips land on your neck a moment later, a kiss so soft that you don’t feel it at first, lost in the way he hits your clit when he bucks into you. Jeongguk draws you back with a bite, one sharp enough to leave you gasping, your back arching from the sheets. He lets his hands slip under then, the vibrator momentarily forgotten as he maps your skin, lips feather-light once more, kisses gentle enough to leave you delirious.

“So good to me,” Jeongguk mumbles, eyes drifting to your lips. He draws close then, mouth fitting yours in a dreamlike perfectness. It’s flavoured with wine and want, a clear hunger in how he parts your lips. The hands that grip you are hard but his lips are gentle, savouring the taste of you against his mouth as if he wants to commit it to memory. The softness of the act has your skin tingling, bright and wild yet slow like the turning of the Sun. When you part, the air is different — charged, the current that swims through the atmosphere finding a home in your body as it settles in the depth of your gut. Jeongguk doesn’t give you time to ponder, mouth trailing from the corner of your lips to the hollow of your neck where he bites. It hurts enough to shock your senses, sweeping you back from the heavenly haze to the alarming reality of what he’s about to do to you. Your whimper hits the air as his tongue presses into the mark, painting your skin dark. A pointed reminder. You’d thought Jeongguk would be possessive, but sometimes he surprises you with it. The purposeful touches, the harsh bruises he likes to leave high on your neck. Or anywhere on your body, really. There are times he’d press his fingertips into them when you’re willing enough to let him choke you, the flash in your eyes spurring his hips forward.

For now, he busies himself with breathing a new one to life, one you know he’ll play with tomorrow — or later tonight if you give him the chance. Your brain can’t think that fair, zoning out as his mouth works a claim on your skin. Eager fingertips are drifting down your thighs, brushing past the band of your sleeping shorts. It’s expected that you’re already wet, but Jeongguk delights in his find with a muted moan in your neck. His fingers don’t go further though, grazing light against the damp fabric of your underwear. The swivel of your hips is automatic but Jeongguk quickly stills it with a hard press of his palm into your skin. You’re forced into the mattress, freezing when he finally wanders from your neck to your chest. So slow, wet lips idly trailing until his face lands between your chest.

“Gukkie,” you hadn’t realised how gone you already sounded until you spoke, voice wavering. He hums in response, non-committal, his hands shifting from your hips as he focuses on freeing you from your top so he can get your boobs in his mouth.

“Don’t tease me today.” You’re trying to sound firm, pliantly raising your arms so he can get you bare. But that firmness shrinks when your eyes land on his. So dark in the dwindling moonlight bleeding through your half-open blinds.

“Why?” There’s that smile of his, one corner hung higher than the either. You’ve sunk yourself in a sea brimming with sharks. “You sound cute when you whine, bunny.”

“Jeong — fuck.” There’s no point in protesting when he’s buried himself between your chest, tongue already toying with your nipple. Too many guys before him had misunderstood how to touch you there, but Jeongguk knew — he had learned. Studied your body so that he knows when to nip or kiss, shifting from pain to pleasure until the line blurred and so did your vision, until the only sound filling the room are harsh breaths and the quiet murmur of his name. Your hands eventually stray to his head, the heat in your core demanding attention as you guide him down. Jeongguk complies, not because he doesn’t want to tease you any further, but because he loves tasting you too much to ever say no.

The sight he finds sends an ache down his length, already hard but now leaking into the fabric of his grey sweats. You spread yourself so easily for him, light pink panties coloured dark with your wetness.

“Cute,” Jeongguk whispers, falling naturally into his place between your legs. It wasn’t meant to grace the air, but he’s glad it did when he notes the bashful smile tugging at your lips and how you twist to shift your head into the pillows the closer he gets. Which, honestly, makes him pause. He wants you to watch, needs you to. Something in the base of his brain needing constant affirmation that he’s making you feel good driving his next set of movements.

The hand on your chin is unexpected and adamant. You can’t help but give in, wide-eyed when Jeongguk forces your gaze onto him. “Need you to look bunny, can you do that for me?” The nod you give him is instinctual, heat blossoming in your bones when Jeongguk smiles, satiated and proud. Perhaps you should have put up more of a fight, but how could have known what he would do with only the tender touches he’d lift as your guide. Even the quick kiss he plants on your clothed cunt revealed nothing of what’s to come. So gentle as he pulls he fabric down your hips, discarding it somewhere in the sheets, his eyes never leaving the wetness on your lips.

“My pretty girl,” he says, nipping the inside of your thigh. You squirm at that, futile because Jeongguk just held you closer. “All mine, right bunny?”

“All yours,” you return, voice far and your mind slipping from your hands. Jeongguk apparently takes that to heart because he devours you, nose burrowed in the apex of your cunt, breathing you in as his tongue mapped the velvet of your walls. It doesn’t take long for your legs to wrap around his head, back raising from the bed and the drip of your slick coating your inner thighs. Yet, Jeongguk relishes it, forgoing breathing as he eats you open, toying with your clit as if that was his sole life purpose. You forget the world with a speed that should concern you, thighs trembling with each determined swirl of his tongue over that bud. Again and again, until you spill into his mouth, wet and creamy, creating a mark of your own on his lips. He keeps you there, unrelenting even when your whines hit high and your chest heaves. There’s a ringing in your ears as the high wanes away, which is swiftly placed by a quiet mumbling that sinks into your skin.

“Tastes so good,” Jeongguk murmurs, licking between your folds. “So fucking good.”

“Jeon,” Something twists in your gut when he drops a final kiss onto you as if he was thanking you for letting him do that when you should be the one on your knees thanking him. When he softly drops your leg to the soiled sheets you decide it quickly, already shifting onto your elbows.

“Yes?” Such innocent eyes staring back at you like he didn’t just fuck you open with his tongue.

“I want you too,” you’re already shifting but Jeongguk is quick, fingertips hard on your jaw when he halts you. He knows what that means, reads it in how your gaze drops to the crotch of his pants, wet just like you were. But that’s not what he wants, besides, he’d rather save that for other places.

“No.” When he says that you almost deflate, but then Jeongguk drops his hand from your jaw, swiftly dragging his shirt over his back and off his body. There’s nothing that can suffocate the desire that blooms in your chest. He’s so beautiful, hard lines and warm skin, kissed by the Sun herself. There’s an itch in your palm instantly, and you hastily register that if you don’t touch him you might die. Yet, your eager hands are pinned over your head, wrists wrapped tightly in the grip of one of his wide calloused palms. There’s a brief moment where his attention is caught by the bounce of your chest before you’re suddenly overwhelmed by the fact that you’ve never asked Jeongguk to fuck your tits before. But as you stow that away for later concern, Jeongguk’s other hand drifts to the discarded vibrator, sinister now in his command.

“Don’t want to fuck your mouth, bunny. It’s not about me tonight, it’s about you.”

“But—” Jeongguk swallows that protest with a quick kiss, the taste of you on his tongue igniting a fire that crackles and consumes until you feel nothing but heat and want, all fuelled by your erratic lovesick heart. You kiss until the only thing filling your lungs is him, like a heavy smoke that envelopes you, travelling through your body until you pull away, warm chest flushed against his. There’s a stupid twinkle in his eyes and it makes you feel sick, swaying dangerously when he shifts away. You don’t want him to go, but you don’t move when he gives you that look. The devastating ache dissipates when his pants drop from his hips, hard cock meeting the cool air. The twitch that travels down his length echoes between your walls, eagerly clenching around nothing. Jeongguk just smiles, stripping bare leaving himself vulnerable to your eager eyes. You wait, behaving good because you want to for him and Jeongguk notes this, delivering a pleased slap to your cunt when he pulls you close, one hard enough to jolt through your spine when his palm hits your clit.

“I’m kind of sensitive,” you whisper, shy again. Which is funny because weren’t you begging for his cock down your throat a second ago?

“I know,” Jeongguk returns, uncaring. The vibrator comes to life a moment later, buzzing low through the room. He knocks it up to the second-highest level.

“Jeongguk! Start low then work it up. I can’t take it like that directly, it'll chafe me.” Which is right, your clit is already feeling dry, slick staying solely between your walls. Jeongguk notes that, pausing before sinking two of his fingers deep. You squeak, hips lifting when they brush against that spot in your walls. He works you open deftly, pleased when you grind your hips into his hands, spurred on by the feeling of something finally inside of you. But it’s fleeting, Jeongguk dragging his fingers out and over your clit before raising his fingers to his lips and licking them clean.

“Now it won’t,” he states, and before you can open your mouth and deliver a retort the vibrator is pressing against that bundle of nerves, tremors echoing in your bones as your legs squeeze shut in an attempt to get away. Jeongguk pins them open, cock leaking against your thigh and he rolls the edge of the toy over your clit, before you jolt so hard the sheets shift and he knows exactly where to place it. He works it out of you, praise naturally falling from his petal lips when you give in, eyes shut tight and your heart stuck in your throat. The vibration feeds the heat in your gut, drawing it to the surface of your skin, sweat beading along your forehead and a dampness forming down your spine. It feels both quick and slow, coaxed out of you with steadfastness. Jeongguk’s gaze never strays from your pussy, locked there as he etches this moment into his memory. You look gorgeous, whining and twisting underneath him. He can tell that this is a lot for you, judging from how you bury your face away from him. He would have forced your eyes on him, if he wasn’t already so enthralled by how perfect you look like this, moans low colouring the air bright with their sound. His own want multiples when your body freezes, strung tight, the edge beckoning you over.

He pulls the vibrator off then, depriving you of your release because his brain demands that he feels this one around his length.

“Jeongguk!” You’re on your elbows, eyebrows furrowed together in frustration. “Why-w-why would you do that?” There’s a waver in your tone, a lilt so pretty he can’t help but smile.

“When you squirt you’re doing it on my cock.” He states it like it's final. And it is from how he draws you close, vibrator momentarily lost in the sheets, the head of his length brushing against your wetness.

But what catches your attention is when. A loaded promise. A determined one.

You spread your legs open, shifting until he slips past walls stretching to accommodate his welcoming presence. “Okay then, make me.” You say it with your gaze on his, watching as his eyes glaze over hips already bucking deeper, before your words register in his brain and Jeongguk’s gaze shifts into a dangerous glint.

He tugs you hard, pulling close enough so that he sinks in deep, cunt already moulding to the curves of his cock. “With pleasure.” Those words are warning, painted right into the heat of your skin as he sheathes himself inside of you. The groans in the air belong to both of you melting into one distinctive sound. It’s cut by the lewd squelch of your wetness coating his length, one that settles in Jeongguk’s gut, release already creeping into the corner of his vision. But he holds it back by knocking your legs further apart, mouth returning to the bruise he left earlier, teeth sinking into the sensitive skin. You arch into him, shifting as pain bleeds through your nerves. The motion allows the last inch of him to slip past your walls, spearing you open, before Jeongguk draws himself out and returns with a hard slow thrust. He fucks you deep, right into the bed, the frame creaking with each loud meeting between the two of you. You can’t do anything but cling onto him, eyes fluttering as his cock drives into you, determined with every piston of his hips to see you unravel. And you do, with a sickening quickness, already weak with the remembrance of your past edge. You feel soft underneath him, pressed against his skin like you hope you find a home for yourself there. And Jeongguk provides — lips mapping your skin gently and a pride in his tone that makes you want to do anything for him.

“That’s it, good girl.” You can’t say anything but his name, whining with every drag of his length along your walls. “So good to me,” he whispers, sweet, unlike his unforgiving hips. “Pretty girl and she’s all mine.”

“Yes,” you gasp, wanting this more than ever. “All yours—a-all—hnghhhh—y-yours! Jeongguk, please! P-please, please, please.”

He slows, smiling into your neck. “What bunny? What do you want?”

“Wanna cum, Jeongguk p-please let me cum.” When he moves away you feel your gut drop. The vibrator is flicked back one, humming dangerously. “Guk—” you start; he shushes you with a purposeful thrust.

“You said you wanted to cum. Remember what you promised me, bunny?” You nod, slow, nervous but your need overriding your fear. Jeongguk just smiles, shifts himself a little deeper, and then places the vibrator where you need it most. It’s not instant, but it’s quick and violent, travelling through your bones and Jeongguk rocks himself deep, curls damp on his forehead and his shoulders tense but his body still giving. You match his movements with your own, shuddering the closer you feel it creep, ripping itself right out of your limbs, drawn to the surface with no remorse, your eyes falling shut and hips seizing. The vibration paired with the feeling of Jeongguk fucking you full is intoxicating, and unlike you he doesn’t hesitate, playing with your clit unforgivingly.

You don’t even hear yourself, mouth agape and your back high from the sheets, all you know is heat, burning from the inside out. No air in your lungs as it spills from you, right onto his length, walls drawn tight. It hits his abdomen, leaving his muscles wet and glimmering as the moonlight greets his skin. Jeongguk shuts down, hips moving automatically, the vibrator thrown aside, still buzzing forlornly. He couldn’t give a damn about it, bending your legs back and fucking into you hard as you coat his cock in your wetness. If it was loud before, it’s obscene now. The nails in his back spur him further, a need he’s never felt before consuming him whole. It’s already there, the white of his desire clouding his vision, but his brain suddenly stills.

Jeongguk’s hand on your chin draws you back to Earth, mind nothing but mush as he continues to fuck you open. They’re erratic thrusts, and with them, you slowly release that your cheeks are wet. Jeongguk realises it the same time you do, thumb gingerly brushing the tears falling from your eyes away. There’s a strange new awareness buzzing through your body, like your bones feel new, limbs reformed. But nothing could prepare you for that thumb on your cheek travelling down, grazing your lips until they fall open. He slips it past, lets you flick your tongue against it, before demanding. “Open.”

And you do, because what wouldn’t you do for him.

“Can I?” He questions, and somehow you know what he is asking. Another claim. Something else you’ve given nobody but him.

“Yes.”

There’s a fall in his shoulders as if he was afraid you would deny him. But how could you ever? His thumb leaves your lips, hand drifting until it settles on your neck, pressing firmly but not tight. And then his own lips part, hips unwavering, for what he sends down your throat. You swallow, oddly thrilled by it while Jeongguk watches silently, almost in marvel. It does something to you, the way he stares, like he cannot believe you’re his. And you feel that sentiment in how he kisses you next, desperate, pleading, thankful. You return it, tongue soft against his as you feel his back draw taut, a low groan spilling down your throat when Jeongguk finally snaps, euphoria bleeding through his brain. You feel it hit your walls, warm and wet, painting you white, a strange satisfaction settling through your body.

When he eventually rolls over, quiet like he’s still recovering, you can’t help but squeeze your thighs together, an attempt to keep his love locked in. His hand cups your own, guiding you back into reality with a gentle squeeze.

The still buzzing vibrator is what you hear first, followed by the joint panting of your lungs. You move to grab it, hoping to hide the revelation in your eyes by glaring at him. Jeongguk is still too lost to care, face flushed a vibrant rouge.

“Turn this stupid thing off,” you mutter, legs still stuck, fused to the bed from the shock of your orgasm. Jeongguk snatches it up, waving it through the air as he turns it off, before giving it a fond kiss.

“Gross,” you comment, smacking his hard chest.

“No,” Jeongguk returns, dropping it. He plants a ginger kiss on your forehead. “I quite like it actually, we should order another one. Do you think they do vibrating panties?”

You hit him again, rolling over until your leg swings over his. He keeps looking at you like that, and it keeps clawing right through your heart. “You’re so sick and evil,” you say instead of the annoying comments that flutter in your delirious brain. You want to call him pretty, beautiful, perfect, maybe the best thing you’ve ever had. But you can’t let Jeongguk know he has all that power over you — not when already made you squirt and spat down your throat in one sitting. “Can you clean me up? I’m getting sticky.”

Jeongguk stills like he’s suddenly remembering what he just did, where he just came. And then you feel the rise of his chest, gaze flicking up to meet his. Bright and full of something akin to adoration, before he blinks it away.

“Give me a moment, I think I just saw God.”

Heelo mousie! Love your blog! Do you mind recommending some of your favourite Chinese BL novels or shows?

I've seen the untamed and read it. I'm currently reading heaven's official blessing and I saw the donghua. Anything other than these two?

Awww, thank you!

Novels: I am gonna be lazy and literally copy/paste the entire danmei section of my top 10 web novels post (except MXTX’s stuff since you are already reading it.) Let me know if you need help finding any of these.

Lord Seventh - I am only partway through this so far, but it’s already on the list because it’s smart and somehow intense AND laid-back (not sure how this works, but it does) and is honestly just a really really solid and smart period novel, with the OTP a cherry on top of a narrative sundae. Plus, I love the concept of MC deciding he is not going for his supposedly fated love - he’s tried for six lifetimes, always with disaster, and he’s just plain done and tired. When he opens his life in his seventh reincarnation and sees the person he would have given up the world for, he genuinely feels nothing at all. (Spoiler - his OTP is actually a barbarian shaman this time around, thank you Lord!)

Golden Stage - my perfect comfort novel. Probably the least angsty of any danmei novel on this list (which still means plenty angsty :P) It also has a dedicated, smart OTP that is an OTP for the bulk of the book - I think you will notice that in most of the novels in this list, I go for “OTP against the world” trope - I can’t stand love triangles and the same. Anyway, Fu Shen, is a famous general whose fame is making the emperor   antsy. When he gets injured and can’t walk any more, the emperor gladly recalls him and marries him off to his most faithful court lackey, the head of sort of secret police, Yan Xiaohan. The emperor intends it both  as a check on the general and a general spite move since the two men   always clash in court whenever they meet. But not all is at is seems. They used to be  friends a long time ago, had a falling out, and one of the loveliest  parts of the novel is them finding their way to each other, but there is  also finding the middle path between their two very different  philosophies and ways of being, not to mention solving a conspiracy or  dozen, and putting a new dynasty on the throne, among other things. It always makes me think, a little, of “if Mei Changsu x Jingyan were canon.”

Sha Po Lang - if you like a lot of fantasy politics and world-building and steampunk with your novels, this one is for you. This one is VERY plot-heavy with smart, dedicated characters and a deconstruction of many traditional virtues - our protagonist Chang Geng, a long-lost son of the Emperor, is someone who wants to modernize the country but also take down the current emperor his brother for progress’ sake and the person he’s in love with is the general who saved him when he was a kid who is nominally his foster father. Anyway, the romance is mainly a garnish in this one, not even a big side dish, but the relationship between two smart, dedicated, deadly individuals with very different concepts of duty is fascinating long before it turns romantic. And if you like angst, while overall it’s not as angsty as e.g., Meatbun stuff, Chang Geng’s childhood is the stuff of nightmares and probably freaks me out more than anything else in any novel on this list, 2ha included.

To Rule In a Turbulent World (LSWW) - gay Minglan. No seriously. This is how I think of it. it’s a slice of life period novel with fascinating characters and  setting that happens to have a gay OTP, not a romance in a period  setting per se and I always prefer stories where the romance is not the only thing that is going on. It’s meticulously written and smart and deals with  character development and somehow makes daily minutia fascinating. Our   protagonist, You Miao, is the son of a fabulously wealthy merchant,   sent to the capital to make connections and study. As the story starts, he sees his friend’s  servants beating someone to death, feels bad, and buys him because, as  we discover gradually and organically, You Miao may be wealthy and  occasionally immature but he is a genuinely good person. The person he buys is a barbarian from beyond the wall, named   Li Zhifeng. It’s touch and go if the man will survive but eventually he does and You Miao, who by then has to return home, gives him his papers  and lets him go. However, LZF decides to stick with You Miao instead, both  out of sense of debt for YM saving his life and because he genuinely  likes him (and yet, there is no instalove on either of their parts, their bodies have fun a lot quicker than their souls.) Anyway, the two  take up farming, get involved in  the imperial exams and it’s the life of prosperity and peace, until an invasion happens and things go rapidly to hell. This is so nuanced, so smart (smart people in this actually ARE!) and has secondary characters who are just as complex as the mains (for example, I ended up adoring YM’s friend, the one who starts the plot by almost beating LZF to death for no reason) because the novel never forgets that few people are all villain. There is a lovely character arc or two - watching YM grow up and LZF thaw - there is the fact that You Miao is a unicorn in web novels being laid back and calm. This whole thing is a masterpiece.

Stains of Filth (Yuwu) - want the emotional hit of 2ha but want to read something half its length? Well, the author of 2ha is here to eviscerate you in a shorter amount of time. This has the beautiful world-building, plot twists that all make sense and, at the center of it all, an intense and all-consuming and gloriously painful relationship between two generals - one aristocratic loner Mo Xi, and the other gregarious former slave general Gu Mang. Once they were best friends and lovers, but when the novel starts, Gu Mang has long turned traitor and went to serve the enemy kingdom and has now been returned and Mo Xi, who now commands the remnants of his slave army, has to cope with the fact that he has never been able to get over the man who stabbed him through the heart. Literally. This novel has a gorgeously looping structure, with flashbacks interwoven into present storyline. There is so much love and longing and sacrifice in this that I am tearing up a bit just thinking of it. If you don’t love Mo Xi and Gu Mang, separately and together, by the end of it, you have no soul.

The Dumb Husky and His White Cat Shizun (2ha/erha) - if you’ve been following my tumblr for more than a hot second, you know my obsession with this novel. Honestly, even if I were to make a list of my top 10 novels of any kind, not just webnovels, this would be on the list. It has everything I want - a complicated, intricate plot with an insane amount of plot twists, all of which are both unexpected and make total sense, a rich and large cast of characters, a truly epic OTP that makes me bawl, emotional intensity that sometimes maxes even me out and so much character nuance and growth. Also, Moran is my favorite web novel character ever, hands down.

Anyway, the plot (or at least the way it first appears) is that the evil emperor of the cultivation world, Taxian Jun, kills himself at 32 and wakes up in the body of his 16 year old self, birth name Moran. Excited to get a redo, Moran wants to save his supposed true love Shimei, whose death the last go-around pushed him towards evil. He also wants to avoid entanglement with Chu Wanning, his shizun and sworn enemy in past life. And that’s all you are best off knowing, trust me. The only hint I am going to give is oooh boy the mother of all unreliable narrators has arrived!

The novel starts light and funny on boil the frog principle - if someone told me I would be full bawling multiple times with this novel, I’d have thought they were insane, but i swear my eyes hurt by the end of it. I started out being amused and/or disliking the mains and by the end I would die for either of them.

The Wife is First - OK, this one did not make my top 10 web novels but it’s a sweet, fun gay cottagecore fest. Our ML, a royal prince, and his spouse, a smart if delicate aristocrat, keep house, eat noodles, play with their pet tiger, make out and spoil each other rotten, while occasionally fighting battles and outwitting their court enemies. It’s so very mellow. That couple redefines low drama - they are both nice and functional and use their brains. It’s as if a nice jock and a nice nerd got together and then proceeded to be wholesome all over the place.

I mean, the set up could be dramatic - our ML the prince, lost his fight for the throne and is about to be killed. The only person who stayed loyal to him is his arranged husband the aristocrat guy who ML never treated nicely since he resented marrying him (marrying a man in that world is done to remove someone from the ability to inherit the throne.) And yet the husband stood by him not out of love but beliefs in loyalty blah blah. Anyway, he transmigrates back into the past right after their wedding night and is all “I got a second chance OMG! I don’t want the throne what is even the point? I want to live a good long life and treat the only person who stood by me really well!” And he proceeds to do so to the shock of the aristocrat who had a very unpleasant wedding night and generally can tell the man he just married would rather eat nails than be married to him. But soon enough (no seriously, it’s not many chapters at all) he believes the prince is sincere blah blah and then  they get together and they pretty much become cottagecore goals.

In terms of dramas, I only do period dramas (or novels) so I am not the person to be able to recommend any modern BLs. There is a flood of upcoming (hopefully) period BL dramas but it’s relatively thin on the ground now. The two I will recommend is Word of Honor (which is AMAZING) and Winter Begonia (which I just started watching but which owns me already.) I have a tag for both - the one for the former is huge and I cannot recommend either strongly enough. I’ve heard good things about The Sleuth of the Ming Dynasty, but I am not big on mysteries so haven’t watched it for myself.

In terms of the upcoming BLs, the ones I am most looking forward to are Immortality and Winner Is King, but The Society of the Four Leaves also looks promising.

Based on my fanfic season ‘Sketched Artistry Pretty Cure’

Rei Takeo is a highly talented loner. She values good will and effort with a passion, and does everything to show people these things, no matter what format she has to show them with. She is also highly talented with her athleticism, her intellect, and especially her singing and her writing, as she is highly known by the teachers as a fantastical novelist. But while she does have some well meaning moments, Rei comes across to others as unapproachable, given she is tough, hot headed, and incredibly strict about helping others. She can have a really sarcastic demeanor at points. When she sees something she doesn’t approve of, she’s quick to jump in the fight and call people out, even if she becomes a victim in the process. If it gets to a point where Rei becomes in the wrong and things don’t go her way, she becomes distant, and even stubborn. Rei really does care about people’s well being though, and she does her best to stand up for them. However, she can never seem to stand up for herself, and its because of this that she refuses to show her creative side to anyone, telling people that she’s not creative and that she can’t write, even if the opposite is the truth.

Her refusal to show people her artwork came from trauma in her past. Before Rei was this tough jock, she was an even sweeter girl, more energetic, and kinder, where she came across by many as weird, but beautiful, and back then she showcased her talents to everyone, especially through her writing. It was bad enough that her tough demeaner now made vocalists shun her out despite her good voice. But one day, her elementary class had to write a fantasy story for a school report, and when Rei wrote her story, it blew her entire class away, to a point where she was granted an award for her work by her entire school that she would receive in the spring... that would have changed Rei’s life forever, if it weren’t for the fact that when she revealed her talents, it caused people to become jealous and turn on her. Someone she thought was a friend did exactly that, manipulated Rei and got her suspended, ensuring that people Rei thought were friends looked down on her and called her a hack, that she didn’t deserve her admiration and that she was essentially worthless, that Rei’s writing was nothing but a crime that would destroy her in her life. All of that, where this ex-friend treated it as advice, that Rei should not show her creative side because stuff like this would happen again. And that scared Rei for life, where she only gained enemies by showing her creative side and she felt so ashamed of her reward that she threw it away and hid her book somewhere she could forget. Rei never trusted anyone again, and never let people know that she could write. She still did write, as it was what made her happy, but she never showed anyone them. She even cut her hair to ruin her gorgeous look, so that nobody could think she was worth anything, even if her kind will still lingers in her where she tries to help others be better at themselves.

Rei was taken to Sketching Crafts Academy against her will by her mother, because her mother recognized Rei’s writing talent and wanted her daughter to express it to people again. Rei was not thrilled with going to this school, and she kept her nose in a book and pushed people away. That is until she meets Keiko Sakura, a girl who was just as naïve with showcasing her art as Rei was, but when she first crashed into Keiko at the art museum, she pushed her away, but not before she granted Keiko advice on how to better her bird painting. 

About a week later at a park, Keiko ended up getting run over by jocks who scold her for her sketch she was making on the spot. Rei sees this and jumps in to defend Keiko, claiming that she was minding her own business and so should they, but when they don’t listen, she throws her book at them. Once they retreat, Keiko thanks Rei, but Rei only stubbornly tells her to be careful where she steps before she continues her walk to class. Keiko however, not only thought Rei was cool, but also followed her because Rei didn’t pick up her book after the encounter, so Keiko tried to give it back. Keiko does figure out that Rei is in her class, and becomes confused when Rei claims to their teacher that she couldn’t write, but ends up getting the highest score in the class on storyboarding, and Keiko realizes that she had never seen a fantasy book like the one Rei had in their libraries. Keiko does eventually find the chance to give Rei back her book, and she asks where Rei got it, but Rei states that it’s none of her business. Keiko however recognizes a yellow neon pen Rei was using to write in the book, and she realizes that Rei wrote that story herself. They do get to express their efforts to each other, with Rei presenting herself as an altruist and Keiko looking up to her as a talented writer and leagues ahead of her. Keiko even tries to encourage Rei to show off her book for their upcoming short story project, but Rei refuses and comments that Keiko doesn’t understand the success of art as much as she thinks she does. Keiko manages to tell Sora about Rei having a neon pen, but by the time their project gets explained, Keiko is partnered up with Rei on it. Sora does try to look after Keiko given that fact, but Rei and Keiko are eventually forced to work on it as just the two of them. The whole time, Rei offers Keiko’s ideas for a story, but its soon realized that Keiko is both creative and disorganized, where Rei tries to improve her ideas as a logical yet passionate writer, and Rei isn’t afraid to call out Keiko’s wild style. (Honestly, Keiko and Rei were the first OCs I made for this series, and they became huge foils to each other as a result, Keiko being an open yet overly naïve with a wild creative style, and Rei being more stubborn and practical with a passionate style in artwork.) They get their short story with some extra editing from Sora, and it becomes a good success... except for the fact that Rei completely denies having any credit for the project, where Keiko felt the opposite. Keiko finally decides to reread the storyboards they made together, as well as look into Rei’s novel to see her talent for herself, and it only makes Keiko want to figure out why Rei is so hard on herself when she clearly has a creative passion. Keiko finds Rei at the same park where she helped her, and Keiko tries to convince Rei that she should embrace her passions, and that Keiko saw for herself that she has it, but it only makes Rei throw the book away and tell Keiko that no one cares for her, or her passion, why would someone care now? Keiko claims that she cares, and that gets Rei to hesitate, asking Keiko if she actually liked what she read, to which Keiko claims that she loved it. 

A new monster is created awhile later, and Rei is knocked to a tree. Keiko and Sora transform into Cure Cherry and Cure Azure to fight it, but because the creature fights with fire, neither of their finishers manage to work on it. (I forgot to mention, Cure Cherry fights with paint, her finisher being ‘Cherry Splatter’ where she uses paint bombs. Cure Azure however fights with glitches and can use fabric as chains, her finisher being ‘Azurica Calculation’ where she glitches color onto the monsters) The general finds the short story Keiko and Rei made together, and he rips it apart in disgust, where this catches Rei’s eye as she wakes up, triggering her. Rei scolds the general for destroying a great fantasy, recalling her previous talk with Keiko that gets her to realize Keiko’s identity as Cure Cherry, and Rei actively jumps in front to protect her new friend, even throwing an extinguisher at the monster with equal hot headed energy. Rei expresses that she doesn’t know how to show people her art, but she loves writing fantasies, and those fantasies should be treated with the same love she put into them. This awakens her power as the third member, and the fire powered cure of the team as the golden writer, Cure GoldenAsh. (Cure Cherry nicknames her Cure G)

Rei still continues to be a foil to Keiko as a counter to the pink lead, as they both have different ways of approaching being Pretty Cure that they don’t always agree with. Keiko is a kind and active leader, but had insane ideas that don’t always pan out, plus she is naïve about criticism, especially when the pressure of public appreciation for artwork and the ego that plagues every artist comes into play later in the story. Rei meanwhile is very strict with how things run and isn’t afraid to call out her teammates for better or worse, and it sometimes blinds her into thinking she’s the only one who knows what to do, even when she doesn’t. However, the two despite being opposites, are able to call out each other and compliment each other at the same time, Rei helping Keiko deal with social pressure in being an artist, and Keiko encouraging Rei slowly but surely to return to her authorship.  

So I kind of created an art themed Pretty Cure. Add it to the list of Wattpad stories I claim I’m going to make, but never do. And if you know me, I love this concept of literal creativity, and since I’ve been on a magical girl run lately, why not make an art themed Pretty Cure. Seriously, I only briefly made this about a year ago, forgot about it, and bought it back in just two weeks with characters and their story arcs. So let me know if you want me to do something like this for the other Cures in this fanmade season, or if you actually want me to make one.

Billboard #1s 1985

Under the cut.

Foreigner -- "I Want To Know What Love Is" -- February 2, 1985

One of the quintessential 80s power ballads. It's actually kind of interesting if you think about it enough. He's not in love yet, but he's gotten sick of not being in love, so he's asking someone he's in the pre-love stage with to show him. Though he's had "heartache and pain" before, and doesn't know if he can face it again. It's not consistent. I feel like it's a missed opportunity, but oh well. It's good enough for what it is.

Wham! -- "Careless Whisper" -- February 16, 1985

Oh my god I love the saxophone in this. The music throughout the song is so incredibly sexy. And this is the kind of song George Michael's voice was made for. He's totally capable of sounding both hot and in agony at the same time. I actually adore a whole lot of cheating songs -- mostly, though not exclusively, the tormented kind. Drama! Love! Sex! Angst! Gorgeous.

REO Speedwagon -- "Can't Fight This Feeling" -- March 9, 1985

<3. He keeps singing "r"s like a pirate, but he doesn't go as hard on the other consonants, so I'm good with it. Lyrically, this song sounds like it might be two songs mashed together. "What started out as friendship has grown stronger" or "my life has been such a whirlwind since I saw you." Well which is it? Except I've had that happen. I love this song.

Phil Collins -- "One More Night" -- March 30, 1985

This is a depressing heartbreak song without the saving grace of any of Phil Collins' neat drum stuff. Blah.

We Are the World -- April 13, 1985

Whoo boy. I was 8 when this came out. Obviously I loved it. All the kids loved it. Now, though... I'm sorry, but it's bad. Really bad. Many others have gone deeply into why it's bad. I feel acutely embarrassed listening to it, so I'm just running away from it as fast as possible. (Remember all those celebrities singing "Imagine" in their mansions in 2020? I blame this song for that.)

Madonna -- "Crazy For You" -- May 11, 1985

This is one of Madonna's most straightforward love songs. Maybe the most, period. This or "Cherish," and this is a better song. It's lovely. Like Olivia Newton-John, Madonna can act a song. (Unlike in most movies she's been in.) But what I'm thinking about now is learning in this article that her label wouldn't let Madonna release "Into the Groove" as a single. That song was huge. It was played on the radio all the time. If it had been released as a single, or maybe if Billboard had tracked songs then like it does today, it would have been a massive smash, definitely #1. "Into the Groove" is also the best song of her very early career. "Crazy for You" is good, but not nearly as special.

Simple Minds -- "Don't You Forget About Me" -- May 18, 1985

As I am "Gen X", I am supposed to deeply connect with The Breakfast Club. I was 8 years old when it came out. My life as a teenager was nothing, and I mean absolutely nothing, like that movie. I didn't recognize any of the "types." I liked the movie when I saw it in college, mostly, but the whole sexual harassment turns into a relationship deal was not seen as cool any longer. The "jocks vs. nerds" thing also felt very dated. The school in the movie was bigger and richer than mine, but it's a fantasy.

Anyway, though I don't feel much about the movie, its breakout song was really good. It does speak to a real fear both in graduating high school and during young adult relationships. I haven't forgotten the people I knew in high school, as far as I know, but obviously they don't have the same importance to me any longer. I'm Facebook friends with a lot of them. And very much not with a couple who were the most important then, because we grew apart -- or blasted apart. One of the nicest girls I knew in high school thinks there's a war on Christmas. Another keeps trying to get me to join her MLM. One of my best friends became my first boyfriend, and I don't regret that, but it was also a semi-disaster. And others... we just have nothing to say to each other any longer.

So, Breakfast Club: I don't connect with at all. "Don't You Forget About Me": Speaks to something very real and timeless.

Wham! -- "Everything She Wants" -- May 25, 1985

What a dick. Songs in which the narrator is a colossal jerk are perfectly fine, of course, but this one gets under my skin. He's whining about his wife getting pregnant when she's dissatisfied with their life and that they're broke. As if it's something she chose to do to him. She's stuck creating a whole other person with her blood and flesh, and he thinks it's all and entirely about him. I really hate it.

Tears for Fears -- "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" -- June 8, 1985

I can't hear this song without thinking of this Baldur's Gate fan trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jdd06d2nids. Speaking of which, I am incredibly excited for Baldur's Gate 3. I've been reading the early access reviews on Steam, and anything anyone is saying that's negative is stuff I don't gaf about (except bugs), whereas the positive stuff, I care about deeply. I hope it's got some of the feeling of that trailer. Um, right, Tears for Fears.

Honestly, though, it works best as a Baldur's Gate theme song. I don't think everybody actually wants to rule the world. It sounds good though. And pretty different from other stuff around it. But I like Lorde's cover better, and not just because it fits so wonderfully with all sorts of fantasy stories.

I usually play a paladin or paladin-type the first time in fantasy RPGs, but I'm thinking bard this time.

Bryan Adams -- "Heaven" -- June 22, 1985

He's been with this woman since they were young, and while they've broken up and gone through rough patches, now they're together forever and they're "in heaven." Bryan Adams knew exactly how to write a song that would become a hit. I used to not mind it at all, but it also means nothing to me. The chorus is catchy as hell though. So catchy that I ended up waking up with it in my head and it would not leave for hours and hours, so now I resent this song.

Phil Collins -- "Sussudio" -- July 6, 1985

I refuse to believe anyone ever told Phil Collins he was too young. He was born middle-aged. Anyway, the narrator isn't supposed to be him, so it's fine, but it's still kinda funny. He's got a crush on someone who doesn't even know his name, but "she's all I need all of my life." Um. The music is repetitive, the drums aren't as interesting as Phil Collins at his best, and I don't like the lyrics. I don't hate it, but I don't like it either.

Duran Duran -- "View to a Kill" -- July 13, 1985

I'm not sure I've ever heard this song before. It's about as good a song as the Bond movie they wrote it for was as a movie. In other words, it's bad. I'm not even sure there's a melody. Just a mess. "Ordinary World" would have made a far better Bond theme, but of course that was the 90s, when Duran Duran decided to try to make sense both lyrically and musically.

Paul Young -- "Every Time You Go Away" -- July 27, 1985

I like the high keyboard notes in this. They're sort of haunting. The rest of the song is musically pretty good, too. Lyrically though, it's only passable. This woman keeps leaving him every time "the leading man" shows up, so I guess he's the backup. Why does he keep waiting for her anyway? There's no hint in the song. I'm kind of embarrassed for him.

Tears for Fears -- "Shout" -- August 3, 1985

I think "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" is a better song than this one when done by Lorde. But I think "Shout" is a better song than Tears for Fears' original iteration of "Everybody Wants to Rule the World." The chorus seems clear enough. But the verses are not. "They gave you life/ And in return you gave them hell" makes sense in isolation, but then there's a bunch of stuff that doesn't go with it. Like "I'd really love to break your heart" -- wtf? But the music is really good. 

Huey Lewis and the News -- "The Power of Love" -- August 24, 1985

This was the big song for Back to the Future, and it meshed beautifully with the movie, but it doesn't need that association to be a great song. "Don't need money, don't take fame/ Don't need no credit card to ride this train/ It's strong and it's sudden, it can be cruel sometimes/ But it might just save your life." Yep. It's sort of Motown, sort of rock, and I love it. (Also: "Stronger and harder than a bad girl's dream." Heh.)

John Parr -- "St. Elmo's Fire" -- August 24, 1985

Of all the John Hughes movies I have not seen and do not plan to see, St. Elmo's Fire sure is one of them. The song is about a disabled man who inspired people by rolling himself cross-country in his wheelchair for charity, which has absolutely nothing to do with the movie. I'm disabled, and I just... okay look, what he did was admirable. But we shouldn't have to be inspirations to be counted as worthwhile, and I've been told I should die because I can't produce for capitalism, so you know. I've got some personal issues with this and I'm gonna move along.

Dire Straits -- "Money for Nothing" -- September 21, 1985

This is not Dire Straits' best song, but it's an awfully fun one. I watched the video tons when I was a kid. (That sound is Tipper Gore falling to the floor in a dead faint.) The music is great rock. And the lyrics are very true-to-life. You can either sanitize people or present them as they are honestly, and I know which I prefer.

Ready for the World -- "Oh Sheila" -- October 12, 1985

The band's from Michigan. The English accent at the beginning of the song is fake. That's a good preview for the song, which sounds like a 3rd-rate Prince knockoff at best. Blech.

a-ha -- "Take On Me" -- October 19, 1985

The video totally ripped off one of my aunts. Somehow or other, they saw into the little comic she drew for me about someone going into a land of drawings to rescue someone else in a romantic adventure, years before 1985. Anyway, this song is great musically, massively synthesizer heavy without sounding artificial. Though I can only understand maybe a third of the lyrics as he sings them. I've always understood "It's no better to be safe than sorry" though. Yep, at least when it comes to romance, which is what they're singing about here.

Whitney Houston -- "Saving All My Love for You" -- October 26, 1985

It's not better to be safe than sorry, but that doesn't mean it's good to be an absolute idiot in matters of romance either. Nor is it good to be a colossal jerk. That's what the narrator is here -- the "you" she's singing to is married. And he won't leave his wife and children, though he used to say he would. The lyrics seem to say that's she's accepted the situation, but the way Houston sings it, I think the narrator's trying to get him to leave his wife -- and children -- for her still. This makes sense, as it puts some kind of passion and sense of story into the song, which without Houston's singing would not be there. The narrator certainly never acknowledges that what she's doing is wrong in the slightest iota. This song could be done in a way that works. But it's a completely sincere ballad. So, no. I despise the narrator, I despise the man she's singing to more, and the whole thing leaves me feeling gross.

Stevie Wonder -- "Part Time Lover" -- November 2, 1985

No one's thinking anyone's gonna leave anyone in this one. It's about cheating, and the thrill of it, but then at the end, he's found out his wife's cheating on him too. "I guess that two can play the game/ Of part-time lovers." This kind of funk groove is one way you make a song like this. It makes the whole thing sexy and fun, and the lyrics also work even beyond that ending, because they acknowledge it's wrong.

Jon Hammer -- "Miami Vice Theme" -- November 9, 1985

My parents didn't watch Miami Vice. And then I never felt like watching it in re-runs when I got older. I don't recognize this song. It's an energetic instrumental, but there's so much going on, I keep trying to figure out if there's a main musical idea anywhere. Nope. Just lots and lots of synth. Headache-inducing.

Starship -- "We Built This City" -- November 16, 1985

Blech. This song sounds both unfinished and overproduced somehow. The chorus seems designed to be catchy with absolute ruthlessness by people who didn't really care, and no one involved even seems to want to bother to fake it.

Phil Collins & Marilyn Martin -- "Separate Lives" -- November 30, 1985

This is supposed to be heart-wrenchingly sad. Well, it does tank my dopamine, but that's not what a good sad song does. A good sad song makes you feel better. This one makes me need to turn on something high-energy after about 30 seconds, before I sink into bleakness. It's aggressively boring.

Mr. Mister -- "Broken Wings" -- December 7, 1985

This was one of the first songs I recorded from the radio. On my pink tape deck/radio that was a sort of a mini boom box. I've always had my own tape player since I can remember, but that was a definite upgrade from the Sesame Street one. I was 9 then, so getting more seriously into music and developing my own taste intentionally, rather than simply absorbing what was happening around me.

Anyway, the song. It's about a relationship in trouble, and he wants to stay with her. To me it sounds like she has been so seriously hurt (and not by him), that she can't trust anyone, and he's laying himself on the line for her. That has spoken to me deeply ever since I first heard the song as a child. Moving on to the music: While the lyrics are repetitive, the music is not, which is what makes the song so good. It's a beautiful song.

Lionel Richie -- "Say You, Say Me" -- December 21, 1985

I look forward to Lionel Richie no longer being on the charts. This song was on the soundtrack of some movie I've never heard of. I wish I'd never heard of the song. Totally artificial glop.

BEST OF 1985: "Don't You Forget About Me" by Simple Minds  WORST OF 1985: "We Built This City" by Starship

J/H 3-18: Eric’s Naughty No-No

If you thought the last episode was a bit of a cheat, with so little new material, this will hopefully take care of that.

We're going to assume now that throwing Zen into Season 3 would affect the production order at this point. Instead of "The Trials of Michael Kelso," 3-18 is now "Eric's Naughty No-No." Once again, the "A" story with Eric and Donna and the "B" story with the Formans are left alone and preserved for context. But there's an all-new runner, all for Hyde, and that attitude he had about Jackie in "Ice Shack" is gonna start paying off...

FF.Net AO3

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SHOW TITLE   INT. THEATER - NIGHT   A film in progress, a thin crowd. Heavy breathing and terrible porno music are the only sounds coming from the screen. ERIC, FEZ, HYDE, and KELSO, near the front of the theater, all look up at the screen in a daze.   FEZ: Oh, my first X-rated movie. I don’t know what’s going on, but that is the luckiest pizza boy ever!   HYDE: I’ll say. There’s at least nine boobs in this shot alone.   KELSO: Guys, I don’t know about this. I mean, I’ve realized lately that attraction is about more than just the boobs or the butt. This kind of trashy porno flick is really – oh, wow! That seems like it would tickle.   FEZ: Oh, nothing’s going to happen in this scene. It’s just two ladies.   Female moaning from the film. The boys all sit up straighter.   FEZ (cont’d): Oh, bravo. Nice plot twist!   ERIC: Oh – wow! Does everyone do that? Because I don’t do that. I just stick to two or three key moves, and... God, they don’t even come close to that.   FEZ: Oh, Eric. I have not done anything. But even I, had I done anything, would have already done that.   Another moan from the screen. Kelso tilts to one side.   KELSO: I’ll be right back.   He scrambles out of the aisle as the others keep watching.

MAIN CREDITS   BUMPER   MUSIC NOTE: “Temptation” by Perry Como.   INT. THE HUB - DAY   A pleasant weekend morning, with a light crowd in the Hub. On the far side of the booth seat, a GUM-CHEWING BLONDE, her back against the wall, talks with Hyde, who leans with one hand against the wall just above her shoulder. “Temptation” plays on the jukebox.   BLONDE: So, Hyde, are you still on probation?   HYDE: (nods) Just checked in at the precinct yesterday.   The blonde’s eyes widen, and she paws at Hyde’s jacket as she pops her gum.   HYDE (cont’d): Yeah. My probation officer’s not a bad guy, you know? He keeps it simple, keeps it short...   Hyde reaches into his pocket and pulls out a small, crumpled paper bag.   HYDE (cont’d): And he ain’t too careful with his contraband.   The blonde squeals and swats him playfully on the chest. Hyde grins and puts the bag away.   HYDE (cont’d): So, you ever been cruisin’ in an El Camino?   BLONDE: Oh, my God. Hyde, you are the coolest!   She bobs on her feet, giggling, and the mask of cool slips off Hyde’s face. We cut to:   FANTASY SEQUENCE. HYDE’S POV. In place of the blonde is JACKIE, wearing her cheerleading uniform and letter jacket and surrounded by stage lights. She is ten times as bubbly and admiring as the blonde.   JACKIE: Oh, my God! Steven, you are the coolest! Oh, can we have a Circle when we get over to Eric’s? I love that you turned me on to those! Ooh, those sunglasses are so mysterious. (gasps) And all this time, Led Zeppelin was a band? They’re amazing!   She starts a cheer routine as the fantasy sequence fades away.   The blonde has retrieved her bag and heads for the door, tugging on Hyde’s arm, but he stands firm and gently pulls her back in front of him.   HYDE: Uh, you know what? I can’t.   He offers a half-shrug by way of apology and leaves the baffled blonde behind as he crosses the room and leans on the pinball machine. He lets out a long breath and shakes his head.   Pushing himself upright and turning around, Hyde sees the blonde making out with a JOCK near the door. When they break apart, the blonde has a sultry gleam in her eye, and the jock is completely out of breath. He reaches into his mouth and takes out the blonde’s gum.   JOCK: All right!   He takes the blonde by the hand, and they hurry out the door. Hyde leans back against the pinball machine.   HYDE: Oh, holy hell.   CUT TO:   INT. FORMAN KITCHEN - DAY   The sun shines in from the patio door. KITTY is hard at work on the stovetop, spooning filling into a pie crust.   RED strolls in from the living room and takes a whiff of the kitchen air.   RED: Mmmm, smells good. Watcha making?   He takes a beer from the fridge.   KITTY: (still working) Oh, a little lemon meringue and pot roast and my sister Paula is coming and seven-layer salad.   RED: Ahh. Seven-layer – hey, wait a second.   Kitty sets the spoon down and looks up at Red.   KITTY: Red, now please, be nice. We haven’t seen her in almost six years.   RED: Yeah. Not since she got arrested.   KITTY: No, no, no, not arrested, detained.   RED: She showed up in the back seat of a police car with lights flashing. I had to tell the neighbors she was the mayor of Cincinnati.   Outside, a car horn honks. Kitty hops and claps.   KITTY: Oh, there she is.   RED: You wait. She’s gonna hit me up for money like she always does.   They cross to the patio door.   CUT TO:   EXT. FORMAN DRIVEWAY – DAY   Red and Kitty step out into the drive. A nauseatingly pink THUNDERBIRD slowly pulls in. The logo for KATHY MAY COSMETICS adorns the back window. The Thunderbird manages to rear-end the Toyota in the garage, breaking the taillights. Red scowls.   RED: That’s gonna cost me.   Out from the car steps Kitty’s sister PAULA, tanned and brunette, but with the same happy energy as Kitty. She is dressed in the same shade of pink as her car.   KITTY: Oh, my God!   PAULA: Kitty!   KITTY: Oh, my God, look at you!   PAULA: I know! I know! I’m fabulous!   They rush to embrace each other, sharing the shrill cackling that only the best of middle-aged sisters can share. Kitty looks her sister over, and Paula poses.   KITTY: Oh, my God. You’re wearing stockings! Red, she’s wearing stockings! Oh, oh, and matching shoes!   Red nods curtly. Paula smiles at him and steps over to him.   PAULA: Come on, Red. I know you’re dying for a nibble.   She gives him a kiss on the cheek. Red spares her a small smile.   RED: Ahh, Paula. You’re so... pink.   PAULA: Oh, well, sure, sure! I’ve gotta match my brand-new car.   She sweeps her hand out in presentation over the Thunderbird.   PAULA (cont’d): Go ahead, pet her.   Reluctantly, Red gives the trunk a pat.   KITTY: Well ooh, ooh, I wanna pet her too!   She pats the trunk too, with much more enthusiasm. Red walks down the length of the car.   RED: Why did you paint it with Pepto-Bismol?   PAUL: It’s not Pepto-Bismol. It’s Luscious Blushes. And only the top Kathy May salesperson gets one of these babies.   RED: So, you stole it from her?   Paula laughs. She opens up her purse, takes out a big wad of bills, and hands it to Red.   PAULA: I have all the money that I owe you. Here it is.   KITTY: Oh, my God. You have cash. Red, she has cash!   She and Paula laugh together and hug again. Red counts the money. Kitty, seeing over Paula’s shoulder, reaches over to his arm.   KITTY (cont’d): Honey, Red, Red, Red – really. You don’t have to count it.   RED: Oh – of course. You’re family!   He chuckles. The sisters go back to their embrace. Red turns his back to them and resumes counting.   CUT TO:   INT. HUB - DAY   Later that afternoon. “You Can’t Turn Me Off (In the Middle of Turning Me On)” by High Inergy plays on the jukebox.   The guys have claimed two small tables near the counter. Hyde’s chair is turned toward the wall as he broods. Eric sits backwards in his chair as he stares into space, his jaw hanging open. Fez and Kelso are turned in toward each other as they share a basket of fries and sip at their sodas.   ERIC: (beat) Okay, so did anyone besides me think that some of the guys in that movie were... not completely average? Like, you know, they were way, way above average?   FEZ: What are you talking about? Those men were completely average. In fact, I found the guy with the mustache downright puny.   KELSO: See now, Fez – that’s not honest. I mean, we all know you’re small in the pants.   Fez glares at him.   FEZ: Fine. You want honesty? I’ll give you honesty. We are all small in the pants!   He’s loud enough to attract stares, and he winces at them. Fez shoves the fries away and stands.   FEZ (cont’d): Now good day.   He grabs his coat and heads for the door.   KELSO: Fez -   FEZ: I said, “good day!”   He throws his hand up as he leaves the Hub. Kelso shakes his head and takes the basket in his hands.   ERIC:  Hey, you guys – honestly, you don’t think Donna’s... you know, bored, right? ‘Cause those guys in the movie... they didn’t do the same move twice. And I’ve done the same move, like, always.   KELSO: Yup. I bet they go to a special school or something. I mean, they’re like doctors at doing it.   He gains a faraway look in his eye, contemplating the concept. Eric gives him a funny look, which makes Kelso bow his head and cradle the fries.   Hyde looks over at both of them and scowls.   HYDE: Will you two shut up? God, I can’t believe we went to a nudie flick and all you can talk about is the guys.   He turns away, disgusted. Eric and Kelso share a look.   KELSO: (to Eric) He’s got a point.   HYDE: (quietly) The things those chicks did in that movie. There’s gotta be at least a few chicks around here know how to do some of that stuff, too. And I’m missing out on it, man!   He slams a fist down on the table, giving Eric and Kelso a jump. They look over at Hyde and lean away from him.   ERIC: (beat) Hyde, you haven’t been using the stuff you swiped from the precinct, have you?   Hyde turns to glare at them. Eric holds up his hands as Kelso keeps munching fries.   CUT TO:   INT. FORMAN KITCHEN - DAY   Later that afternoon. Kitty is preparing her seven-layer salad. Paula leans on the stovetop, looking around the kitchen. Red stands near the fridge, nursing a beer.   KITTY: (while working) So, Paula, tell me more about the ship captain.   PAULA: Oh, that was just a fling, you know?   RED: Didn’t you have a fiancé the last time we saw you?   KITTY: Red, now, there is no reason to re-hash ancient history, is there?   PAULA: (to Kitty) No, it’s okay. (to Red) It turned out he lived on some sort of commune where everyone called him “God.” And there were guns. And I could really never figure out why God would need a gun. But there were some fun parties – woo!   She laughs, waving off the memory.   PAULA (cont’d):  Life has gotten so much better since I moved to Indianapolis. I mean, things move so much faster in the big city. One day you’re wondering if you’ll ever find happiness and the next, you’re waving the starting flag at the Indy 500.   Red’s head snaps her way – he’s finally, really paying attention.   RED: You waved the Indy flag?   Paula nods. Red sets his beer down and takes a step toward her, his mouth hanging open. Paula smiles and Kitty shifts on her feet.   PAULA: Well, enough about me. Kitty, dear, what have you been up to?   Kitty stops her work on the salad and turns toward her sister.   KITTY: Well, you know, it’s funny you should ask, because we have been super, super busy. (laughs) I – I – well, you know I was working at the hospital, but with Red back to work and - and with the kids and everything, I decided to – to stay home, and...   She looks around, as if desperate for something interesting to say.   RED: (to Paula) So, did you meet Dick Trickle?   Kitty blushes at the name and throws a hand over her face. Red gives a “what?” sort of a shrug.   BUMPER   INT. FORMAN BEDROOM – NIGHT   Red and Kitty are tucked in for the night. They both sit up in bed. Kitty has her HIGH SCHOOL YEARBOOK open, while Red is re-counting Paula’s money.   KITTY: Oh, well, will you look at this? Here’s me, captain of the cheerleaders. “Most likely to succeed.” “Best laugh.” (laughs) Oh, here’s Paula.   She tilts the yearbook Red’s way and points to a page. Red’s face curdles at what he sees.   RED: What’s that on her cheek?   KITTY: Oh, she had a little sledding accident with her face that year.   Red rolls his eyes.   RED: Typical.   KITTY: (laughs) I know. (beat) Things were so different then.   She flips a page. In the upper-right corner is a black-and-white photograph of a YOUNG KITTY, posing with a tiara at the homecoming dance, while a YOUNG PAULA struggles with spilled punch down her dress in the background. The photo grows off the page, and we cut to:   INT. DANCE HALL – NIGHT   FLASHBACK. Kitty stands proud, the homecoming queen, while Paula scrubs furiously at her stained dress.   A TALL GIRL gives Kitty a big hug.   TALL GIRL: Kitty! You so deserve this. You’re the best.   KITTY: Oh, aren’t you sweet?   She gives a little wave and a laugh, already recognizably hers. The tall girl moves on, and a CORNY GUY in a bad bowtie sidles up to Kitty.   CORNY GUY: Boy, oh, boy. Chet sure is lucky. He’s got the keenest girl in school!   KITTY: Oh, stop!   A still-stained Paula, with her date MARVIN, comes up behind Kitty and draws her attention.   PAULA: Congratulations, Kitty.   KITTY: Thanks, Paula.   PAULA: I knew you’d win. You always do.   KITTY: (beat) No, not always.   CHET, Kitty’s date, strolls over and takes Kitty by the arm.   CHET: Well, I want a kiss from the queen.   KITTY: Well, Chet, you have been an awfully loyal subject.   Kitty kisses his cheek and adjusts his suit.   PAULA: You guys, I’d like you to meet my date, Marvin.   She turns, but Marvin is no longer at her side. Instead, he’s making out with the tall girl from earlier. Paula takes this pathetically well.   PAULA (cont’d): Marvin? Sweetie? Sweetie?   Kitty looks away, uncomfortable.   CUT TO:   INT. FORMAN BEDROOM – NIGHT   Kitty stares down at her yearbook and sighs.   KITTY: And now, I’m a housewife and she goes on cruises with Dick Trickle.   She sets the yearbook on her nightstand and sighs again.   Red has gone from counting the money in his hands to spreading it out on the bed.   RED: You don’t know what she’s not telling you. I mean, just because she’s more successful than you doesn’t mean that she’s happy.   Kitty slowly turns and glares at Red.   KITTY: “More successful?”   RED: Well, it’s just that she has so many...   He looks up from the cash and sees his wife’s face.   RED (cont’d): And she’s – she’s very... look, money!   He holds up the wad of bills. Kitty is not amused.   CUT TO:   INT. ERIC’S ROOM – NIGHT   The lights are on, but the action goes on. Eric and DONNA are going at it. Eric blows into Donna’s ear before kissing her neck.   DONNA: I love it when you do that.   Eric looks up, his face just above Donna’s.   ERIC: Good to know, good to know. How about when I do – this?   He goes back in and raises the covers, sparing the censor. The awful porn music from the movie begins to play as we move in on an ACTION FIGURE with its hand over its face, its fingers suggestively positioned.   RECORD SCRATCH – hard.   DONNA: Geez, Eric! What the hell?   Donna sticks out from the sheets and wraps them around herself, moving as far from Eric as she can. He struggles to emerge from inside the bed.   ERIC: Okay, okay, I’ll just go back up to the ear.   It’s the wrong thing to say. Donna climbs out of bed, over Eric.   DONNA: Get away from me, you pig! Where are my pants!   ERIC: What? Wait – it was an accident!   Donna bolts from the room without a look or a word. Eric futilely retrieves a feather from the headboard shelf.   ERIC (cont’d): Look, I have a feather.   FADE TO BLACK   COMMERCIAL   EXT. FORMAN PORCH – DAY   The next morning. Donna and Jackie sit on the Forman’s porch. Donna whispers into Jackie’s ear. With each word, Jackie looks more and more repulsed.   JACKIE: He did? What the heck for?   DONNA: I don’t know! In, like, what universe is that sexy?   JACKIE: Only one – the skinny pervert universe!   Both girls shudder.   DONNA: It was so strange. I mean, usually he just sticks to, like, two or three key moves. The pig.   JACKIE: The freak.   Jackie scoots closer and put an arm around Donna’s shoulders.   DONNA: (moans) He had just done the ear thing, too. You know, when you have something that works, just stick with it!   She buries her head in her hands as Jackie pats her back – though not without pulling a face.   BUMPER   MUSIC NOTE: “Bad Bad Leroy Brown” by Jim Croce.   INT. HUB – DAY   A lazy Sunday afternoon. Only a few teens are passing their time there. “Bad Bad Leroy Brown” plays on the jukebox.   A few GUYS IN LEATHER JACKETS huddle in a corner, each with a BABE under their arms. Hyde sits near the foosball table with a SOBBING BRUNETTE. An empty fries basket and a check are on a small round table to her right.   BRUNETTE: And so I was running late, and I didn’t have a chance to call ahead and let Jake know, y’know? So I get to his place around 9, and when I went in, he was there with my friend Susie.   She sniffs, dabs at her eyes with a handkerchief. Hyde nods, encouraging her to continue.   BRUNETTE (cont’d): At least, I think it was Susie – it was hard to tell, when all I could see were her legs around Jake’s neck!   A fresh wave of tears spills out of her, and she buries her head in her hands. Hyde gives a sympathetic half-nod and puts a hand on the back of her chair.   HYDE: I’m hearing a cry for a little sympathy and affection. And I’m here for you. And I can also be there for you, in the flatbed of my truck, in about ten minutes.   The brunette looks up at Hyde, her tear-streaked face trusting and vulnerable. Hyde leans away from her, and we cut to:   FANTASY SEQUENCE. HYDE’S POV. Jackie is in place of the brunette, an absolute train wreck of tears and bad hair. Dramatic lighting accentuates her depression.   JACKIE: Oh, Steven! It was horrible! I thought Michael loved me! I trusted him! How could he do that to me - how? How? What am I gonna do? Now I’m all alone...   She throws he head back, bawling, as the fantasy fades away.   Hyde withdraws his arm from the brunette’s chair. He scoots back slightly, takes her hand, and pats it.   HYDE: Uh – you know, though, you gotta be careful on the rebound. So, uh, why don’t I...   He takes the check, looks it over, and leaves some money on the table.   HYDE (cont’d): Yeah, and... you call up some friends who can... you know, support... and, uh –   One of the leather jacket guys, a tough-looking S.O.B., marches over and pulls Hyde’s chair around to face him.   GUY: Hey! What are you doing with my girl, man?   HYDE: You Jake?   The guy nods. Hyde nods back before he elbows Jake hard in the gut. He stands, kicking his chair aside. Jake recovers up to his full height. Now that they’re both standing, it’s clear that Jake is at least two heads taller than Hyde is. Hyde stares up at Jake’s fuming mug.   HYDE (cont’d): Oh, holy hell.   CUT TO:   INT. FORMAN KITCHEN – DAY   Early afternoon. Paula is at the stovetop with a pan, some dough, and a rolling pin. Kitty enters through the living room with a basket of laundry and sees her sister at work. She hesitates for a moment, then sets down the laundry and crosses to the stovetop.   KITTY: So, um, what’s going on here? Packing a picnic lunch for your next African safari?   They share a laugh.   PAULA: No, I thought I’d make my strudel for the boys. It feels nice, having people to cook for.   KITTY: Huh. (beat) Well, um – sounds like your, uh, jet-set life gets pretty lonely, huh?   PAULA: Oh, no, I have lots of friends.   KITTY: Oh, right, right. But, um – all the friends in the world don’t make up for having to come home from the Bahamas to an empty house, do they?   PAULA: I actually enjoy my privacy.   KITTY: Hmmm. (beat) Privacy, loneliness. It’s a fine line, isn’t it?   Paula sets the rolling pin down and turns to face Kitty.   PAULA: Okay, Kitty, is something wrong?   KITTY: Yeah, something is wrong. Why are you here?   PAULA: Because I missed you. And I wanted you to see that I’m finally okay.   KITTY: Okay or better than me?   PAULA: Better than you? Oh, Kitty. You’re my sister and I... okay, fine! I’m finally a success and I wanted to come back and rub your face in it! And I did, and I liked it!   She stands up tall and gives a snotty nod. Kitty stares her down.   KITTY: Well, good for you. It must have been hard, living in my shadow because I was popular and you weren’t, and I had a life and you didn’t. That’s right, I said it! You heard me! You were a schlub! A schlub!   The sisters glare, daggers in their eyes.   Paula breaks first, falling into laughter. Kitty follows her, and they embrace.   KITTY: Oh, I am so sorry.   PAULA: Oh, I’m sorry too.   KITTY: I just... I don’t know what is the matter with me.   She starts tidying up around the stovetop, just to keep her hands busy.   KITTY (cont’d): I should be just thrilled that you’re finally on your feet, and instead, I’m just... I’m acting like a jealous little ninny.   Paula stops Kitty’s tidying and takes her hands.   PAULA: Kitty, would you like a makeover?   KITTY: Oh, I really would.   PAULA:  Okay.   They laugh and hug again.   KITTY: (beat) I won’t look like a whore, will I?   Paula shakes her head and leads Kitty out of the kitchen.   CUT TO:   INT. FOTOHUT - DAY   A not-so-rare lull in business. LEO sits at the counter, absent-mindedly thumbing through photographs spread out on the countertop, while Hyde paces restlessly behind him. His lip is busted and his knuckles are bruised.   HYDE: This is bad, man. Everywhere I look, everywhere I go, every chick I try to score, she’s there. I don’t know what’s happening, but I don’t like it. I mean, this isn’t me, man! I don’t buy into the sham of attachment!   He stops pacing and starts soapboxing, his voice rising with each sentence.   HYDE (cont’d): No emotions! No commitment! No shackles of the female race keeping me down! She thinks she can work her way into my head? She thinks she can chase me down until I take her out, then still own me even when the kiss didn’t take? Well, I’ve got news for you, Burkhart! I’m not falling for that –   He’s right on the verge of hyperventilating. Leo leaps to his feet and shakes Hyde roughly by the shoulders.   LEO: Cool it, dude! Now look, man – your attitude has been alienating customers all day and is contributing to an unprofessional work environment.   This flash of competence from Leo is enough to snap Hyde out of it.   LEO (cont’d): Now I’m sorry, man, but I’ve got no choice. There’s only one thing to do about a situation like this.   CUT TO:   THE CIRCLE. The cramped space of the FotoHut really lets the smoke build up. Leo nods, contented, as he lights some incense.   Pan to Hyde, now with a sleepy, happy smile. He coughs and stretches.   HYDE: Thanks, Leo. I dunno, man. I just never thought I’d feel this way about a girl, you know? Especially a 95-pound midget with a voice that makes dogs deaf.   Pan to Leo.   LEO: I used to live with midgets, man. And clowns. And elephants. We went all around the country in a big train. Set up this big striped tent wherever we stopped, and everyone came out to see us. Hey, you know what? I think I was in the circus, man.   Pan to Hyde.   HYDE: I mean, I could see, purely as a social experiment, dating someone like Jackie, you know? A chick from corrupt, Republican, corporate stooge money. A child of the Man. Bring her into the full range of experience offered by the world of sex, drugs, and rock n’ roll, and you turn the Man’s own child against him.   Pan to Leo.   LEO: That ain’t funny, man. You know my kids turned against me. Like once, we were talking, and we were turned toward each other. Then something happened over their shoulders, and they turned to look at it, and then they were turned against me, man.   Pan to Hyde.   HYDE: See, it’s like I’m the virus, and Jackie’s patient zero. Through her, I corrupt the system from the inside. That’s how you bring on the revolution, man!   A horn honks. Hyde looks out the hut window.   HYDE (cont’d): Huh. (to Leo) I think we gotta go back work.   Pan to Leo.   LEO: Now what have I told you about working while you’re on the job, man?   He gives a long, slow, disappointed shake of his head.   CUT TO:   EXT. FORMAN DRIVEWAY - DAY   The Thunderbird still sits in the driveway. Red stands by its side, shaking his head.   RED: (to the car) You poor pink bastard.   The patio door slides open, and out steps Kitty, in a prim outfit and just slightly garish make-up.   RED (cont’d): (to Kitty) Well, well, what have we here?   She strolls over to the car, sits on the trunk, and strikes a pose.   RED (cont’d): All right.   He checks his watch and leans in toward Kitty.   RED (cont’d): I got 20 minutes ‘til my wife gets back, so pucker up!   He and Kitty laugh, embrace, and kiss.   Paula comes up behind them, her bags in hand.   PAULA: Okay, you two lovebirds. I’m off.   Red and Kitty break apart. Some of Kitty’s bright red lipstick has smeared off over Red’s mouth.   PAULA (cont’d): Bye-bye, Red.   She gives him a kiss on the cheek, and playfully pokes at his lipstick smear. Kitty hops off the car and hugs her sister.   KITTY: Oh, Paula. Thank you so much.   PAULA: Oh, Kitty, what are sisters for, huh? I’ll talk to you in a couple of days. And you remember what I said: recherche de vie pour vivre la vie.   KITTY: Oui oui, ma soeur.   She and Paula wave goodbye. Paula packs up, gets into her car, and pulls out, honking her horn as she drives away.   RED: (to Kitty) So what’s with all the French? Did she call me something?   KITTY: No. She said, “search for life to live life,” which is my new motto. Paula made me see that I have been in a rut. But the good news is, from now on, I am just going to explore life.   Red smiles playfully.   RED: But you’re all pretty now, with your big red lips. Isn’t that enough?   Kitty chuckles and gives him another kiss.   KITTY: Oh, I love you, Red Forman. (beat) And no.   She heads back inside.   BUMPER   INT. ERIC’S ROOM – DAY   For reasons best known to himself, Eric is checking the inside of his nose in the mirror.   The door swings open. Donna storms in. Eric quickly backs away from the mirror.   ERIC: Oh, hey. I was just looking at... hey.   DONNA: Okay, where did you get the idea to...   She looks around. She throws the door shut and leans into Eric, her voice now a tense whisper.   DONNA (cont’d): Do what you did?   Eric sighs, his shoulders slump.   ERIC: I went to see this movie, and it was a... well, I guess you could call it an art film.   DONNA: Eric!   ERIC: Okay, fine, Donna, it was an X-rated film. And it just - there were all these people, and they were doing all these things that we’ve never done. And it seemed liked they really enjoyed doing this one thing especially. And I just thought, ‘you know who would enjoy doing that one thing especially? My lady.’   He offers a cheesy smile.   DONNA: Eric, listen to me, because this is gosh-darn important. You don’t do that. Not without asking.   ERIC: (beat) So, if I had asked -   DONNA: The answer’s still no!   Eric nods. Donna crosses to the bed.   DONNA (cont’d): Eric, are you bored with our sex life?   Eric joins her on the bed.   ERIC: Oh, God, no! Just the opposite. I figured that you had to be bored. And it was our hundredth time, and I just wanted to do something special.   DONNA: Oh, my God, you count?   ERIC: (beat) No.   DONNA: Oh, my God, that’s so sweet. But do me a favor: next time you’re gonna do something weird, give me a little more warning so I can brace myself. Or tell you to back the hell off.   ERIC: Right.   DONNA: Because no matter how much I love you – that was unpleasant.   Eric nods, the message received.   FADE TO BLACK   CREDITS   INT. FOTOHUT - DAY   FANTASY SEQUENCE. HYDE’S POV. Jackie is just outside the window of the FotoHut, sitting behind the wheel of a black sports car. She looks utterly pissed.   JACKIE: What is taking so long? God, I can’t believe you’re wasting all your potential in this smelly old hut with that greasy hippie. You need to stop goofing around! Hello? Are you even listening to me?   Hard cut from the fantasy to Hyde, shaking his head.   HYDE (v.o.): (thoughts) Wait – I’m attracted to this?   We now see what triggered his fantasy: an IRATE CUSTOMER, a hot but vicious-looking redhead waiting for her photos.   CUSTOMER: Hello? Where’s my film, moron?   HYDE: (beat) Oh, holy hell.   END.

An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir

Summary: Laia is a slave. Elias is a soldier. Neither is free.

Under the Martial Empire, defiance is met with death. Those who do not vow their blood and bodies to the Emperor risk the execution of their loved ones and the destruction of all they hold dear.

It is in this brutal world, inspired by ancient Rome, that Laia lives with her grandparents and older brother. The family ekes out an existence in the Empire’s impoverished backstreets. They do not challenge the Empire. They’ve seen what happens to those who do.

But when Laia’s brother is arrested for treason, Laia is forced to make a decision. In exchange for help from rebels who promise to rescue her brother, she will risk her life to spy for them from within the Empire’s greatest military academy.

There, Laia meets Elias, the school’s finest soldier—and secretly, its most unwilling. Elias wants only to be free of the tyranny he’s being trained to enforce. He and Laia will soon realize that their destinies are intertwined—and that their choices will change the fate of the Empire itself. (Taken from Goodreads)

Our Ratings:  

 → Geena:  ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

 → Kae: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Overall: We genuinely love this book series so much that our brains recircuit talking about it... all we can do is say if you’re looking for good fantasy with amazing characters and plot... this is it!

Check out the spoiler full review below~

The Good:

→ The Worldbuilding 

Kae: Worldbuilding baybeeeeee. I LOVE IT. Reading this series was such an eye opener for me. It was so far from the usual European magic and broomsticks, that I NEEDED MORE. So I kept reading lol. The worldbuilding in this series is fantastic. There are Efrits, Jinn, magic, and more. This world is set in a Romanish Empire/Pakistani fusion of cultures. You have the Scholars are the lowest caste of people, the Tribes which is basically just a step up from ScholarS, but they are free. Then we have the Plebeians and the Martials. All of these cultures are so well written and developed that you have no trouble differentiating what culture certain characters might belong to just based on their name. Ex: Afyah, Ilyaas = Tribes; Darin, Laia, Izzy= Scholars; Markus=Pleb; Helene, Elias = Martials. All very easy to distinguish, I think. 

We also have some magical beings who are more or less immortal. The Jinn and Efrits, the Nightbringer, Shaeva, the Augurs. They’re all linked to a literal higher power. 

We also have The Waiting Place, which is basically purgatory. But it’s where the dead go to be escorted to the next life. 

Geena: I deserve no rights because I've always loved the whole roman empire history shit, it was always the most interesting shit to learn about so when I read the synopsis like roman inspired… written by a SA woman… i LOST MY SHIT!!! AND LIKE KAE DESCRIBED Sabaa does an amazing job of weaving in magical elements too, and ugh….. Her mind… BUT ALSO WHAT I LOVED IS, something a lot of fantasy authors do is fall into a hole of introducing race politics (aka RACISM) based on skin colour, but Sabaa was like… Wait Ik how to format this

Tired: Fantasy world skin-colour based racism

Wired: Fantasy world-class system based beef 

Sabaa tackles the issue of class systems and so on, and she did it all from scratch and I fucking loved it, it was gratifying to see an author who put so much effort into her worldbuilding. Also… this is v dumb… but the whole detail with sending messages using drums….. I was here for it 

→ Laia and Elias 

Kae: They’re wonderful and need a hug

Geena: Sabaa made an executive decision to write two whole cinnamon rolls and she did! COMPLEX cinnamon rolls that we love from the bottoms of our hearts. We start off with Laia’s perspective as she waits for her brother in her room, but shit hits the fan real quick and the Martial empire’s elite soldiers storm their small home searching for her brother. We learn that her brother, Darin, has got his hands on top secret info and if he doesn’t turn it over they’ll murder everyone. Darin and Laia try to make a run for it but are apprehended by a Mask (Essentially an elite soldier) and they’re forced to watch their grandparents die, Darin tells Laia to run and get out of there and our girl… our girl listens but she has mad ragrets. We follow Laia as she stumbles to the Resistance, an underground Scholar organization that has mad beef with the Martial empire. There she’s tasked with acting as a slave to hands down, the WORST person in the empire, Keris Veturia. All of this in the hopes that the Resistance will help save her brother who’s been imprisoned in the most brutal prison in the empire. 

What I love about Laia is that she’s not perfect, she’s not an amazing fighter and strategist off the bat… she’s an 18/19 year old girl from an oppressed group that has no idea what’s going on and her only skill set is that of a healer. BUT!!! Throughout the book we get to watch Laia make mistakes and learn from them, all of which makes her stronger and smarter. She’s so determined 🥺 even when Keris is carving her initials into Laia’s chest, even when she’s brought to the brink of death, Laia sticks with her goal to find Darin no matter the cost. Anyways.. We stan…. THOUGH TO BE HONEST, when I had started reading it, her first few chapters were frustrating to read because I was like “why would you do that1!!!” but then I set the book down at one moment and thought about how I’d act in the same situation and I was like….. I would’ve fucked up and been killed like 10 pages ago so Laia is doing really well LMAO… and since then I’ve been ready to fight for Laia whenever I see people shit on her.  

Kae: BOOM! So Geena summed up Laia’s character/situation perfectly. WE STAN LAIA OF SERRA. Now, we’re gonna talk about our brooding, handsome boy, Elias aka Ilyaas. Elias, is WILDLY the son of Keris. Keris had a lil boo thang back in the day and got preggers. She did everything she could to terminate the pregnancy, but nothing worked. So she was forced to give birth to him. She fucked off to the desert tribes for a while and learned how to deliver a baby, so she could deliver her own. When the time came, Keris gave birth to Elias. She cared for him for about five minutes before she was like “Yeah, I’m not with the shits. Fuck this kid.” And she left Elias in the desert near the tribes so he could be raised with them. Years later, Elias was chosen by the Martials to attend Blackcliff. Blackcliffe is a school where the Martials train to become the most elite soldiers in this world. Elias trains and trains and is ultimately the top of his class. At a certain age, the students are given silver mask that will eventually completely fuse to their face. Elias hates his mask. He takes it off every night, so it still hasn’t fused to his face like the rest of his class. Elias also hates Blackcliffe and was planning on being a deserter. He had a bag packed and was fully prepared to leave. He was sad to leave his best friend and confidant, Helene, but he was RET TA GO. That is, until he was selected to compete in the Trials that would change his world forever. These trials are to select who is to rule the Empire. He gets this news, when Laia, Keris’s slave is sent to retrieve him. When he meets Laia, he is instantly smitten. He forgets himself, is smiling, shooting the breeze, asking her names, etc. Then realizes, he could get her in trouble just for being nice to her. So they move along. 

Elias is a very sweet boy who just got caught up in a lot of shit with the trails. Every day he spends at Blackcliffe is another day he hates himself. The kid (well he’s like 20), is just straight up MISERABLE. These trials are to rest his mind, power, and strength and all the usual. The last two winners in the end will be the ruler and the Blood Shrike, aka advisor. This is almost a good thing, because Elias is competing with Helene and if they both win, they can both rule. Things are going pretty well for them. They’re winning, it’s looking good. But then, Elias has to go against Helene and they both have to lead a small armada against one another. It’s either kill or be killed. In the end, he has to go against Helene . In the end, he and Helene reluctantly battle it TF OUT. Elias wins because Helene had to forfeit because she was wearing some magical armor that couldn’t be penetrated. Elias feels HORRIBLE. His friends are dead. He ALMOST killed his best friend. He feels ashamed and like a monster. If he hadn’t hated himself before (which he totally die), he SURELY hates himself now. Laia is then sent to his chambers/rooms as his prize. He’s meant to sleep with her, but he hates himself too much and he doesn’t want to take advantage of her. So they just talk and end up sharing a little smoochy smooch. But uh, ya boy is lowkey SPRUNG cause Laia is cute and she got them CHILD BIRTHING HIPS.

Geena: Kae got that *Chef’s kiss* Elias/Ilyaas summary I s2g. I loved Elias because he was honest to god such a refreshing character to read. Like he seems like the typical YA boy → Tall, dark, handsome, and brooding. BUT!!! He’s so different and in the best way possible. FIRST OFF!!! He actually has such a fulfilling childhood (no sad backstory other than learning his mom is an actual piece of shit rip…. More like sad present story). Secondly, he recognizes that what he’s doing is wrong and the way the Martials terrorize Scholar’s is garbage and he wants no part of it. THIRD, he doesn’t like to push his own trauma on those around him? IDK HOW TO EXPLAIN IT WELL, but like he’s such an upstanding guy that treats people well no matter what? Also… he’s lowkey a dumbass… like Kae mentioned when he first met Laia his brain hit a reset and he was essentially like “Me name potato.” We love a hot dumb jock that chugs that respecting women juice. 

Kae: OMG HE’S A TALL, THINNER ALTAIR MINUS DICK JOKES. HE’S NASIR AND ALTAIR IN ONE.  ASDFGHJKL 

Geena: YEEEEAASSSSS (check out that review here). ALSO MY final thots on Laia and Elias that as a duo they’re amazing! Laia gives Elias advice when they’re stuck in his room together 🤪 and he finally chooses that he’ll do what HE wants and not what the empire wants. Elias, in turn, vows to help find and save Darin…. I love them sm they bring the best out of each other 😭 

→ Izzy ft. Helene’s One Singular Good Person Moment

Kae: IZZY! Izzy is the epitome is sugar, spice, and everything nice. Well, minus the spice because she’s really just a sweet little sugar plum. Izzy is also Keris’ slave. She’s around the same age as Laia if not a year or two younger. She’s very quiet and tries to keep to herself. But she finds herself secretly being friends with Laia and helping her when things are the absolute worst. When Keris carved her initials into Laia’s chest, Laia got really sick. Our girl had a crazy fever and Izzy was there to help her through it. Well, she got Elias and he got some herbs and shit, BUT IZZY HELPED. Though Izzy has been a slave her entire life, she has always wanted to be free of Blackcliffe and all of its horrors. So she works with Laia, sneaking out, and sometimes stealing, to make sure that can happen for the both of them. I should also mention that Keris took Izzy’s eye as a child. So Izzy is a small, skinny, fragile, one eyed sweetie. But all of her hardship doesn’t stop her from being such a genuinely good person. 

Geena: Izzy is such a sweet character who tries her best to not be friends with Laia, but people GRAVITATE to Laia (good and bad rip) so she didn’t hold out very long. My favourite scene with them was when they sneak out to participate in some yearly festival that is ~~illegal~~ such a sweet moment I lowkey died.  Moving on to Helene though, the poster child of brainwashed, patriotic, eating-propaganda-for-breakfast, and the second best Mask after Elias. Helene is also shown to have feelings for Elias so when Laia shows up she’s not pleased at all! And Elias himself is confused about his feelings and rip when he was like “Let me try to kiss Helene and see if I like her too” LIKE BOY…. DON’T PLAY HER LIKE THAT PLS…. BUT he doesn’t bc Laia is ATTACKED thus interrupting their moment and Helene is annoyed like “OFC IT’D BE THAT BINCH!!!” like Helene the poor girl was attacked by another walking bag of shit o my god… BUT!!! Near the end of the book when Elias and Laia are escaping Helene is the first one to catch them, but she lets them go! A turning point for her character maybe? Though I know for a fact she didn’t care about Laia, but was doing it bc she still cared for Elias and didn’t want to see him slaughtered no matter how much she’s a ride-or-die for the Martials. 

The Bad :  

→ The Scholar Resistance 

Kae: Is that what they were called? Because they HIGHKEY played tf out of Laia. Alright. The Resistance. They’re mean and I HATE THEM. The Resistance is a rebel movement by a few Scholars who are fighting for the freedom and equality or their people. Laia’s parents were like, the biggest, most badass leaders who have ever lead them. But after they died, things kind of fell apart for The Resistance. Laia, stumbles into their hideout after she runs away from home, after her brother was kidnapped and her grandparents were killed. She begs for them to help her and they’re basically like “Mmmm. No. But you look familiar tho… Who ya momma nem?” and she’s like “lol yeah actually my parents used to run this shit so help me.” And they help her… Kind of… They basically send her ona  dummy mission. A SUICIDE MISSION to be the Commandant’s slave (Keris), to gather information about the Martials and their next plan. In return, they were to help free Darin. Laia was to gather info, then meet with Keenan (a boy in the Resistance) to give over said info every week. Well, they also chose not to tell Laia that she was basically on this mission for nothing. They had no real way to get Darin out of the prison he was being held at. They were really just sending her to die because they KNEW Keris was ruthless and that none of her slaves lasted more than a few months before they were killed or killed themselves. Long story short, FUCK The Resistance. They’re bitches and we HATE THEM. 

Geena: Kae’s right… the Resistance is a bunch of wrinkly ass losers that can kiss our asses. When it was revealed that the Resistance didn’t know SHIT about Darin and were just fucking with Laia…. I was ready to to go down to this place and fight them mySELF. Laia risked EVERYTHING to get them information, she survived for god knows how long under Keris and when she couldn’t come up with something substantial they’d be like “Oh well you’re fucking useless” as if she’s not the daughter of the Lioness aka the most fierce Resistance leader that they ever had. Also, Keenan (....) comes through in the end and offers her a way to break her slave cuffs and escape, but Laia decides that Izzy deserves that more than she does and that Laia would find her own way out… But also imagine the betrayal that Laia felt, the people that were supposed to keep her safe and help her were just screwing her over the whole time. But… despite everything that happens Laia is still her sweet self? Just like Ilyaas… both manage to maintain their humanity no matter the shit thrown at them. 

The Ugly:  

→ Keris’ tiny little mean ass 

Kae: Geena said that shit, baybeeee! Ugh, her MIIIIND. Alright. Now. Let’s talk about “The Bitch of Blackcliffe”. This woman. Evil, vile woman, is basically a 5’3, blonde hair demon. She has absolutely no patience. If you sneeze in the same room as her she’ll probs slit your throat and make a disgusted, disappointed face at you while doing it. She will tolerate NOTHING. You will not speak to her unless spoken to. I mean, this is a woman who wanted to look like so much of a badass that she thought being pregnant and delivering her own baby in a cave alone would make her look weak. I think that was actually pretty tough of her though because whew… I couldn’t do it.

Geena: She got back to her neanderthal roots

Kae: LMAOOO GIRL IM DEAD.But like,  in her youth, Keris went to Blackcliffe. As we heard from her father at some point, Keris was miserable there. She was taunted, picked on, and beat up (mind you she was the only girl at that school so that’s fucked up). She had absolutely no friends and had to fend for herself. So, to make up for it, Keris became ruthless. She became a heartless woman because people made her that way. I hate to be that person, but like, I get it? I can see why someone would become so coldhearted. She did not have a good life. Her mother died when she was young, her father wasn’t there, and she had no friends. I’m not surprised at all that she turned out to be such a horrible person as an adult. No, I’m not giving he an excuse. She had the option to be a good person and she didn’t choose that. But, yeah. That’s my take on her evil ass.  WHEW. OKAY DO YA THANG. 

Geena: TRUE, Kae’s right, Keris had that sad :( childhood :( but at the same time, it’s like… you didn’t have to continue being a dick like people were to you but here we are. Also, she’s genuinely such a terrible person and orchestrates the genocide of the Scholars and is a BITCH about everything. What I realize now is that…. She’s essentially Elias’s foil? Like neither had a solid father figure, both had a tough time growing up (with Elias missing his tribal home and being forced to murder, and Keris being bullied), but Elias does his best to break out of that cycle but Keris is like… *slurps up the shitty Martial mudwater*... she is the bootlicker supreme who finds joy at having her son beheaded (Helene is Bootlicker Lite because at least she let Elias live whereas Keris tried her best to get him killed) BUT JOKES ON THAT BITCH BC ELIAS LIVES!!!!  Elias would send Keris a crude drawing of himself like “I lived bitch!” 

Anyways, she’s an extremely well-written villain else we wouldn’t hate her so much lmao…

Conclusion 

Kae: In conclusion, we fuck with it. I loved this series so much, I read the first three books in one week and was heartbroken to find out that the fourth book wasn’t out yet. YA GIRL IS ATTACHED TO THESE CHARACTERS, OKAY!???? An Ember in the Ashes is a wonderful, extremely well written book. I think Sabaa is a literal genuis. This book made me fall in love with reading all over again. I think the characters are so individually different, it’s amazing. They are well distinguished and independent of each other. They are strong and sweet and funny and evil. Just all around AMAZING as well as the folklore, stories, and cultures that are presented to the audience. 

Geena: yyyeeeaaaass the care that Sabaa Tahir put into this book, ranging from how each character is written to the intricate worldbuilding got a bitch tearing up, BECAUSE ONE DAY I WISH TO WRITE THIS WELL!! An Ember in the Ashes draws you in from the first page, and I litcherally say this for every book we’ve reviewed but there’s NEVER a dull moment (I need a new phrase lmao) you are constantly stressed reading this book (in a good way) and there’s like 2 more books after… and the last book in the series on the way. BLEASE READ Ember, because Kae and I have spent our whole time talking SCREECHING about this book. THINKING ABOUT IT, WITHOUT EMBER WE WOULDN’T HAVE THIS BLOG LMAOOO  

Kae: OKAY BUT LIKE. LITERALLY. WE STARTED TALKING AND BECAME REAL GOOD FRIENDS BECAUSE OF THIS BOOK. LIKE, WITHOUT EMBER, THIS WOULDN’T HAVE HAPPENED. SO THANKS, SABAA. 

Geena: WE LOVE YOU, SABAA!!

Kae: And I guess that concludes today’s book rant/review! I hope you all enjoy our ramblings and more! 

F, O, and P for Declan and Josh!

Putting it all under the cut bc it got long. xD

F: Fun1. what do they do for fun?Joshua’s a hands-on kind of guy, he likes finding something to do even if it’s downtime. He’s picked up a lot of craft-related hobbies to varying skill levels, largely driven by the whole impending-end-of-the-world fear. x’D Cooking is his passion, but he also dabbles in gardening, knapping, woodworking, some blacksmithing, sewing, and leatherworking as his top preferred areas of interest. Very DIY. He was pretty hellbent on trying to figure out how to make stuff himself once he got his act together in his teen years. That’s not to say he’s good at all that. He’s passing fair on basic stuff, is kind of going for a jack of all trades deal. If he’s too tired to mess with something like that, he reads or watches movies. Prefers cooking series for their predictability and the “safe” topic when it’s movies or TV series, fantasy/adventure or slice-of-life and other light fare when it’s reading. Will watch nature documentaries and other interesting historic series too. That’s the fun he gets up to on his own that’s legal. If we’re talking illegal, he does get a thrill from stealing stuff simply because he’s good at it, and he’s keen on stockpiling stuff. He stopped doing that once he went into the police academy—though he made sure he’d stolen enough to further his plans before then, scheming little doomsday prepper that he is. Never got caught either, so his record is technically clean. With others though? He likes to hang out with Sharky, Staci, and Hurk Jr. in particular for just drinking and doing fun dumb and questionably-safe activities. Hangs out with Jess, Joey, Dutch and a few others too, doing significantly less dangerous things, like hunting lessons from Jess.Declan is a fucking jock, okay? x’D He likes his martial arts practice, likes going on nature hikes, going to the gym, sports in general, etc. If we’re talking inclement weather or just a rest day or something, he’s probably watching chinese dramas or reading romance novels. No for reals, he does read more broadly, he just is a squishy sap and likes happy endings, typically leans towards fiction over nonfiction, but is willing to read anything recommended to him. Is less of a fan of horror, but will read some selectively, prefers more old school gothic horror if so. He’s not as much of a dabbler as Joshua is, but does a little houseplant care from time to time, and tries to take care of the garden. Emphasis on tries. He gets by. x’D Nothing’s died prematurely, but he steers clear of any real gardening commitments. He’d be better with more clear-cut instructions of figuring out what a plant needs on a set schedule. Gardening’s complicated in his opinion because it’s more by feel from his perspective. Declan’s not really an eyeballer sort. Likes to dance in his own home when no one’s looking to whatever dance music he’s got on. This happens a lot during chores.2. what is their ideal party?Joshua would prefer to keep it small with people he’s comfortable with, and probably with the more “we don’t quite care so much if it’s illegal but Sharky stop trying to get yourself a federal warrant” crowd of friends. He likes his more-law-abiding friends too, just…well. Joshua’s shady, though he tries not to be. x’DDeclan likes BIG parties of friends and family. The potluck kind where everyone brings food and there’s games and gossip at all hours until a reasonable bedtime. The kind where people are squashed together in small circles everywhere because there’s nooooot quite enough chairs or seats to go around. Small parties are nice too, but he feels most at home with more people around, preferably 3+. Dinner parties with friends invited over count in this regard too.3. who would they have the most fun with?Sharky, Hurk Jr., and Staci for Joshua, for the above reasons. xDDeclan has more fun with Joey, Staci, Whitehorse, and Nick and Kim Rye.  Declan got to talking to Earl about how to get into fishing, which led into fishing lessons, which led to just hanging out with a nice beer on occasion. He absolutely adores the Ryes’ weekend barbecues and gets along particularly well with Kim. Kim thinks him and Nick talking are like putting a pair of nerds from different fields together and watching them chatter, they’re both such dorks. xD Declan’s family ofc also applies, but that’s a given at this point.4. can they have fun while conforming to rules?…yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees, for Joshua. He’s learned!Declan absolutely, he’s just a few notches shy of being a rules-lawyer. xD5. do they go out a lot?Yes and yes.——————————————————O: Optimism1. are they optimistic or pessimistic?That’s an interesting question for Joshua because he’s got a lot of conflicting beliefs and he knows it. He’s ultimately an optimist, though he has his moments of utter existential despair and feeling like everything’s going to end badly and there’s no point in trying…but he takes the time to recover from those low bouts, because he wants to believe that it’s at least worth trying to change it all for the better, because maybe it’ll work. Maybe things will turn out better, if they try. He’s resilient in his optimism, bending with the wind, compared to Declan who is more rigid in his beliefs.Declan is definitely an optimist. He can’t believe that it’s all for nothing, that the universe doesn’t care, that there isn’t a greater good. That’s part of what trips him up in his AU storyline, because he does believe virtues like justice are inherent to the universe among other things. That belief is challenged in his story a lot due to the cult’s doings, and the ultimate fallout of it.2. are they openly optimistic, throwing it on others?Well, Joshua doesn’t throw it on people, but he does try to support people who are feeling down or such about the state of the world. Declan is similar, if more resolute in his presentation—or he was. He’s a bit more on the strong-and-silent-type in his “present” timeline. x’D3. are they good at giving advice?On what topic? If you want to know how to quickly pick a lock like you’re a level 20 rogue with a maxed out dex stat, best ways to stake out and plan a home invasion, and how to do rapid inventory turnover on the black market, Joshua’s your guy. He is also your guy in select areas of research and experience. Morally in general though? Crapshoot. He’s morally flexible and will adjust depending on the audience, but generally strives to get everyone sooooooort of in the neighborhood of being a good person. His lines in the sand are mostly regarding violence and harm. Stealing and kidnapping in the context of the impending Collapse? If you have principles and rules guiding the actions he’ll side eye strongly, but let it slide. Moreso the stealing, he’s fine with that provided it’s not Extra Assholery like stealing from impoverished people or such but well…he’ll take kidnapping while waiting for the nukes to drop if there’s no torture or brainwashing or murder involved. If only. In more normal circumstances, he’s against kidnapping. Stealing…well. He and Jess used to shoplift from Lorna’s when he hitchhiked to visit when he was younger. He’s got history in Hope County whether most folks know it or not, even though he was technically living in a different state at the time.Declan? Will do his best. He gives reasonable advice before plot happens, afterwards…he doubts himself more. Doubts everything more. Once he squares that away though, he’ll be more like his old self. Not entirely, but he’ll always try to do his best and give what good advice and support he can, or go find someone who can help, etc.4. is there anyone in their life that throws optimism on them?We’ll interpret “throw” as “is influenced by” here. xDJoshua gets some good optimism or down-to-earth-solidarity from various friends. Definitely Joey, she helps him believe in the inherent good of humanity just by being herself most noticeably, but it’s true as an influence in different ways with all his friends. People being there with him means a lot, even if he’s not been totally forthcoming about his life’s details and some major aspects of himself yet.Declan gets it from friends and family alike yes, it’s part of why he’s such a lil ball of jock-y sunshine. xD5. were they always optimistic?Joshua? Not always. He veers back and forth even now, but ultimately tries to remain optimistic as stated above.Declan? Also no. He was optimistic all his life up until Plot Happenings, namely the in-game events of both Far Cry 5 and Far Cry New Dawn.——————————————————P: Personality1. what is their best personality trait?Joshua’s determination to try to make things better even in the face of crippling self doubt, supernatural issues, and overwhelming external problems.Declan‘s inherent belief in the greater good and the attempt to uphold himself and everyone to being the best they can be.Kind of similar, aren’t they, though different in how they go about it.2. what is their worst personality trait?Joshua can be incredibly violent if threatened and stressed out to the max, and impulsive at times. He regrets it later, and tries to do better, but he does have a temper he tries to rein in. He’s a petty and vengeful little fucker when pressed, though he tries not to be.Declan’s would be ironically his strong point: thinking people can be better than they are because he can see their potential. It’s hard for him and takes a while to accept that sometimes people don’t want to be better, and other related aspects of that. He works on this, but he just has a hard time accepting not trying to make a situation or such better. Well. He used to have a hard time accepting that. Plot events have gotten him a bit more jaded somewhat. Not entirely, but somewhat.3. what of their personality do others love?Joshua’s loyalty and supportiveness. Get you a friend who doesn’t judge how many bonfires you want to start per week and actually wants to help out with finding stuff to burn, while keeping you on the right side of legal enough to not get arrested. He’ll object to melting Angels’ faces off, but that’s a moral debate.Declan’s unwavering faith in humanity and individual people. He believes in you!! You can do it!! Somehow, someway!! And if there isn’t a way, he’ll help you make one!! He is your favorite gym buddy if you need a cheerleader who will encourage and compliment you.Well, he was, but needs some time to get over his more heavily trauma-induced selective muteness to get back to cheering people on.4. what of their personality do others envy?Hm, not sure people would envy either of them, though I guess maybe Declan’s do-gooder attitude? Joshua’s momentum and ability to keep going, perhaps.5. do they hate anything about their personality/about other’s personalities?Joshua hates how emotionally whiplashy he can get. He’s not sure if it’s [unrevealed backstory elements] or just how he is. He’ll learn to accept it at some point...eventually. He’s surprisingly more accepting of people being emotionally whiplashy than he is of himself being thus, up until they start hurtful comments. Then he’s potentially going from 0-60 of sympathetic to aggressive. Hard to tell, it’s chaotic at times to figure out how he’ll respond, and he wishes he was more stable in general. He’s working on it though, and has made some progress. Declan...wishes he was more pro-active in thinking for himself. It’s not full on hate so much as sad, angry, hurt, because hate is very hard for him to feel let alone sustain. At most, he might feel a flicker of it for a flash of a moment, but if he believes someone or in this case himself is doing their best, he won’t fault them for not getting a perfect or desired result. Life is full of mistakes, and you do your best to learn from them.

Americans and the straw – a messy love story

Oral fixation is a condition whereas a person have an unconscious obsession with his or her mouth. Often the person feel the need to suck or chew on something all the time. It might take the expression of nail biting and other related habits; like excessive use of straws whilst drinking beverages.

 In Freudian psychoanalysis; psychosexual development is a central element of the psychoanalytic sexual drive theory, that human beings, from birth possess an instinctual libido – or sexual energy – that develops in five stages: the oral, the anal, the phallic, the latent, and the genital. Each stage is characterized by the erogenous zone that is the source of the libidinal drive. Freud proposed that if the child experienced sexual frustration in relation to any psychosexual developmental stage, he or she would experience anxiety that would persist into adulthood as neurosis, a functional mental disorder. He argued that adult neurosis is often rooted in childhood sexual fantasy and desire. That is because human beings are born “polymorphous perverse”, infants can derive sexual pleasure from any part of their bodies, and that socialisation directs the instinctual libidinal drives into adult heterosexuality.

The first stage of the psychosexual development is the oral stage, spanning from birth until the age of one year, wherein the infant’s mouth is the focus of libidinal gratification derived from the pleasure of feeding at the mother’s breast, and from the oral exploration of his or her environment, i.e. the tendency to place objects in the mouth. The id (the disorganized part of the personality structure that contains a human's basic, instinctual drives. Id is the only component of personality that is present from birth.) dominates, because neither the ego nor the super ego is yet fully developed, and, since the infant has no personality (identity), every action is based upon the pleasure principle. Nonetheless, the infantile ego is forming during the oral stage; two factors contribute to its formation: (i) in developing a body image, he or she is discrete from the external world, e.g. the child understands pain when it is applied to his or her body, thus identifying the physical boundaries between body and environment; (ii) experiencing delayed gratification leads to understanding that specific behaviors satisfy some need, e.g. crying gratifies certain needs.

Weaning is the key experience in the infant’s oral stage of psychosexual development, his or her first  feelings of loss consequent to losing the physical intimacy of feeding at mother’s breast. Yet, weaning increases the infant’s self-awareness that he or she does not control the environment, and thus learns of delayed gratification, which leads to the formation of the capacities for independence (awareness of the limits of the self) and trust (behaviors leading to gratification). Yet, thwarting of the oral-stage – too much or too little gratification of desire – might lead to an oral-stage fixation, characterized by passivity, gullibility, immaturity, unrealistic optimism, which is manifested into a manipulative personality consequent to ego malformation. In case of too much gratification, the child does not learn that he or she does not control the environment, and that gratification is not always immediate, thereby forming an immature personality. In the case of to little gratification, the infant might become passive upon learning that gratification is not forthcoming, despite having produced the gratifying behaviour. In short: The consequences of an oral psychological fixation may be, (i) orally aggressive: chewing gum and the ends of pencils, etc., (ii) orally passive: smoking, eating, kissing, oral sexual practices. Oral stage fixation might result in a passive, gullible, immature, manipulative personality.

This, naturally, bring us to the subject of straws.

Marvin Stone, the inventor of the modern straw, is said to have got his idea for the modern straw as he sat on his porch drinking a mint julep through a stalk of rye grass in an attempt to avoid getting mint leafs stuck in his teeth. Irritated by the grainy residue of the deteriorating plant stem he started experimenting with wrapping paper around a pencil and glueing it together. Today his invention, patented in 1888, is used in great number: approximately 500 million straws are used throughout the USA every day. The straw represent many things – a personal preference, a modicum of control – but in the realm of conscious thought it is mostly nothing, which is what makes it such a tough habit to break: You never even remember picking it up in the first place. Naturally there must be an explanations for this; such as laziness, clumsiness, mysophobia – or the innate need of sexual gratification. The American society has a strong oral fixation; from insult to the action, the mouth is ever present as proven by the innumerable variations of the expletive “suck my dick” as the insult of choice for a vast number of Americans. The fascination for oral sex is ever present in both pornography; as can be seen, for example, in “Mark’s Head Bobbers and Hand Jobbers,” a very popular – or so I have been told – pornographic franchise, and in everyday life – to the extent that oral sex is not considered by many American teenagers to be sex at all. That this view is shared by adults is proven by the:“I did not have sexual relations with that woman, miss Lewinsky” defense as put forward by then president Bill Clinton in 1998. The reason for this obsession with the male member can surely be found in religion. Infants brought up in a society dominated by the social taboos connected to sex in the Christian faith, and especially so  in the mentality of the Lutheran/Protestant variations of Christianity that have an inherent emotional detachment and a greater social stigma regarding sex than Catholicism. Catholicism do regulate sex, make no mistake about that, but the traditional homelands of Catholicism; read the latin countries, have a weather more suited to frivolous behavior and gayeties of mind than the dark and dreary parts of Europe that gave birth to Protestantism. The exception to the rule would be the Irish Catholics that balance out the dreary weather of the Emerald Isle with other means of merriment. But I digress. As the avid reader remembers Freud mentioned the possible neurosis associated with a possible oral psychological fixation as either orally aggressive or orally passive. Among the orally aggressive neurosis mentioned are included “chewing on pencils” and, as many know, the users of straws often chew on the straws during drinking and indeed after the beverage is consumed. The use of straws can equally be seen as a projection to the orally passive neurosis i.e. as a socially acceptable substitute for oral sex, a practice that is often frowned upon when conducted in public. If we then look at the different personalities associated with oral stage fixation; namely passive, gullible, immature, and manipulative personalties we see that these traits are fairly common expressed individually. On rare occasions several or all of the traits can be seen in one person – a relevant example would be the current president of the United States, Donald Trump.

One of the more fascinating aspects of the American psyche, part from the excessive use of straws, is the “jock” mentality; the need for men to be men and that those men that don’t conform to this group-imposed stereotype is chided for being “gay” – indicating that a homosexual man would be “less than a man” This accusation, when seen in the Freudian light of straws in the greater American orally fixated tradition, is so much funnier when considering that the homophobe every-time he orders a a drink and uses a straw nimbly sucks on a long, slender, pneumatically operated, throbbing – metaphorical – cock.

You know, I normally don’t think a lot about The Kingkiller Chronicle, because as a general rule I prefer to think about things that I like or things that I absolutely hate. But as I was repairing some clothes for the upcoming renaissance fair, I remembered a line from the first book that really bugged me.

Kvothe was complaining about how poor he was and the thing he focused on was that he had to make do with two shirts and that he had to mend them with the wrong-colour thread. At the time, I was mostly annoyed because this is a kid who’s lived on the street for four years, begging and stealing to survive, and now that he has a roof over his head and three meals a day, he’s complaining about not being fashionable enough? It was, to my opinion, really strange and whiny considering that this should be the norm in the world that the book has presented to us. It felt more like something a modern college student would be concerned about.

But as I was thinking about it today - growing increasingly annoyed because I was thinking about it while sewing, an activity I hate passionately - I suddenly realized something that put my dislike of both the book and the character of Kvothe in a new light.

(Before we begin, let me just state that yes, this is a KKC hate post. If you like the series and Kvothe, that’s great and I’m happy for you. You do not need to tell me that I’m wrong or have no taste or just don’t understand literature; I don’t care. If you don’t want to read a text being negative about a book you love, feel free to go somewhere else. If you still want to argue, I will probably ignore you, unless you make a good point.)

(For the record, I don’t actually hate the series. I do hate Kvothe, though, which is kind of the same thing, I guess, as he is the narrator and shows up in every chapter of the first book, except one - which is incidentally the best chapter in the book. The Name of the Wind would be a perfectly decent book if it wasn’t for Kvothe. He is terrible. A friend of mine, who is a fan of the series, told me about a plot that happened in the second book, which I haven’t read, and said that I would probably enjoy it because it consisted of Kvothe being beaten up repeatedly.)

So what I realized was this:

The narrative, and Kvothe himself in the role of the narrator, is trying to present him as an underdog. Think about it: he arrives at the University completely broke, he - as he keeps reiterating over and over and over again - has no money, and Draco Malfoy Ambrose Whatever-The-Fuck-His-Name-Is, the rich jock of fantasy, is constantly bullying him. A lot of people treat him like dirt because he’s, like, a nobody who comes here and is so much better than them, how dare he, etc. And of course Kvothe himself likes to remind us (and remind us, and remind us, and remind us) that nobody could ever understand his hardships.

But Kvothe is not an underdog. He grew up in a travelling troupe who were hated, sure, for no apparent reason other than because they were, but they were not oppressed or disadvantaged in any way. They had a rich patron, they had all the income they needed - it’s even mentioned that they didn’t even need to travel around, and could just cancel shows whenever they felt like it if the areas weren’t up to their standards, ie. if they didn’t get the best spot and the best beds and so on. They constantly, constantly looked down their noses at the common people for not being as well-travelled or as well-educated as them.

From the start, Kvothe had a diverse education; he is well-read, he can do sums, he’s a good actor, a god-tier musician (apparently), he speaks Shakespearean fluently; he dresses well and talks well. He had a private tutor giving him lessons about magic and everything else he could want. The book keeps insisting that he’s a genius and makes that the basis of his persona.

Except being a genius is not what got him to the University. All of the things I mentioned above is what got him there. His education, his acting skills, his eye for fashion, the fact that he had the fortune to start doing magic at a young age under a teacher, hell, just the fact that he could read - that’s what got him to the University. None of that was of his own making, really, except coming up with a way to make use of those skills.

There are, even today in our own world, countless of geniuses out there who will never get those chances. They won’t have the opportunities to go to a university because they can’t afford it, they have to work to feed their families, they never learned to read or count in the first place because that education is not available for everyone. There are people who could probably change the world, save the world, but who will die from starvation or easily preventable diseases before they turn twelve. The same is probably true in Kvothe’s world - we know poverty exists, because we get to see it. There are children living on the streets (one of which sees everything he’s ever owned go up in flames because Kvothe is a petty little shit), there are abandoned children living in basements, being cared for by one concerned individual. Some of those children probably were intelligent as well - maybe not as intelligent as a certain protagonist because he’s like a Sooper Genius, but certainly intelligent and talented enough that they could become successful and celebrated in a chosen field. But they can’t. Because they’re poor and uneducated, you know, just like the people Kvothe and his family used to look down on.

Kvothe spends four years living in poverty, and then he decides to stop, and when he does it takes him less than a day to get everything back in order. He spent four years doing nothing except feeling sorry for himself, when apparently all he needed was to just get his act together. But he could only do it thanks to his background; he used his acting skills, which he learned from his parents because they had the time and opportunity to do so, and his reading and mathematics skills - which you can only get from a formal education - to con people and getting money. His acceptance into the University also hinged on education he received - education he would not have gotten unless he had been born into that kind of privilege.

And once he’s off the street, it’s like those four years never happened. He doesn’t reflect on them, he never even seems particularly worried that he’ll end up back there. His concerns are all very shallow: only owning two shirts, which makes him look poor or cheap; having to use the wrong-colour thread to mend them, which will look slightly less good; not being able to go out for a beer or buy luxury items.

Now, I’m not saying that people who grew up in poverty (which, again, Kvothe didn’t; he was twelve when his troupe were murdered) shouldn’t be allowed to enjoy luxurious things, and I’m certainly not saying that they should be grateful for what little they get. But the fact that Kvothe doesn’t even think about it, except to whine about it occasionally when he’s not whining about something else, shows a certain level of... privilege that I’m pretty sure was not intentional.

It would make sense that Kvothe, going from a life in relative luxury to a life that is comfortable but not fantastic, would be upset about it. If he had gone directly from the troupe (I’m sorry that I can’t remember what they were called) to the University, then his attitude would make sense. But he spent four years in poverty and didn’t gain any perspective at all. The way he acts makes it seem like he believes he is entitled to things simply because he is smart and has skills. That is a very privileged way to look at things, and if he had been intended to be seen as a privileged kid who has to work past that, then it would have been pretty good characterisation.

Except, again, he spent four years in poverty. He probably watched people starve to death. He should at least at some point have been worried that the same thing would happen to him. He should know that his being in the University is not some kind of reward for his suffering, but a privilege for a few lucky people.

And yet, he says “I don’t expect anyone to understand.”

Yet, we are supposed to see his story as one of an underdog coming from nothing, fighting, and, against all odds, winning. (And then spending a lot of time in a depression because he’s not Awesome anymore, but that’s a whole other can of worms.) Meanwhile, on the streets of Tarbean, children are still starving to death because they never had a well-off background, a private tutor, and readily available education that they could fall back on.

And maybe that’s not what Rothfuss intended, but that is how I read it. The books, now as then, has one really big problem and that is the way they choose to present their protagonist, or at least the way I interpret him. Am I wrong? Possibly? Does it matter? No.

I’m Not the Person I Used to Be

I really went through a cycle on the Greg recast this year. I started off just being… shocked. I couldn’t really process it. Then I became nervous about it. I worried that even with good intentions, it would be too weird to deal with.

I believed that maybe he would be Greg in name only and just be a new person who happened to have Greg’s background. I think I kind of wanted that just because it felt like the odds of them being able to pull off having someone act like Santino just wouldn’t work.

I’m happy to say that not only does the recast work but it was the right creative decision. Skylar acts just enough like Santino to make him seem like Greg and the writing is pretty much 80% on point for feeling like Greg (and the remaining 20% is kind of tbd as I need more time to get to know Greg’s new incarnation.)

By recasting Greg they are able to continue his story as intended without undoing the ending they gave him. He left, regenerated and came back a new man. But not entirely. Because… it really feels like Greg. He’s sarcastic, funny and still seems to have a weak spot for Rebecca Bunch.

Greg has returned at the best/worst time possible. Rebecca is tempted by relapse, finding herself drawn to Josh and Nathaniel. In Josh’s case he’s changed and grown a lot and he and Rebecca are actually friends. But the part of her that’s drawn to him still harkens back to a unhealthy part of her. The immature, obsessive part of her.

In Nathaniel’s case, his change for now feels pretty fake and for her benefit. He still seems to be mirroring Rebecca’s arc in the earlier seasons. It’s a little awkward to juxtapose her feelings for Nathaniel and Josh if only because really she’s Nathaniel’s Josh. But either way, Nathaniel represents different unhealthiness. The darker more privileged parts of her were drawn to Nathaniel, though she DID have obsessive problems with Nathaniel, and that’s the very reason she broke up with him the first time.

Greg, though? Greg was always the opposite of Nathaniel and Josh. They are romcom fantasies. The hot, popular guy who was good at sports and the hot, rich asshole. Greg represents the overlooked, friend zoned guy but he was always more nuanced and realistic than Josh or Nathaniel.

Rebecca appreciate Greg the least which is tragic as he may have been the only guy she had some genuine feelings for. Greg may be the closest she’s ever got to a real down to Earth relationship, however brief it was. But she wasn’t ready for that. Greg was too real. And of course, it was an extremely toxic relationship. They were bad for each other. Their pathologies ground against each other in a way that was damaging for them both.

The ending they gave Greg was perfect. It was important that they not undo it. And having seen this episode, I don’t believe they have. That ending still matters. It still counts. This is a new beginning… of sorts.

For a first episode Skylar does pretty good. The idea of having to pull of acting like Santino but not TOO much like Santino and having chemistry with Rachel and nailing the character as written and giving a good performance on top of it is ridiculous but Skylar did a pretty good job. I’m sure he’ll only get better from here. I am grading a bit on a curve just because… look the chances this was even going to WORK a little bit were slim. That it actually works pretty well should be seen as being vaguely miraculous.

So putting aside the casting, what did I think narrative about the Greg/Rebecca stuff? I liked it. A lot. A lot of that relies on the fact that the episode does two things I didn’t want it to do: have Greg just be Greg and have Rebecca accept him pretty easily. Again: those were the right decisions. I was wrong and Rachel and Aline were right. Who knew?

Greg and Rebecca still have chemistry. Though I’m a bit worried for them both. Greg seems maybe a little too eager for a fresh start with Rebecca. I can’t blame the guy. He’s trying to be a better, more accepting person. He’s probably heard STORIES in AA that would shock most people. He probably gets Rebecca now better than he ever did before.

It’s also possible he can tell she’s changed. He certainly seems to realise it at the end. But either way… their history isn’t great. I care about them both so I worry for them both.

Worrying about Rebecca is easy: she’s getting a bit too close to relapse. That she’s even contemplating who she’s meant to be with is troubling. But it’s good that she knows it’s not good. And it’s good that ultimately, she chose to tell Greg about Marco herself. Hearing it from his dad first probably would’ve been harder (though I do hope Marco takes the time to really explain why how he treated Rebecca that night wasn’t OK as it’s a side of the story that deserves to be told, though I’m sure Greg would rather not know any of it.)

I have theories on how the Greg/Rebecca arc will play out over the rest of the season but I’ll save them for later. Suffice to say, I still think she’s not going to end up with any of the guys. I do think there IS a version of an ending with her ending up with Greg that… I would still be iffy about but could work if done a particular way MAYBE.

Meanwhile, Josh Chan: Goddamn, I’m still loving everything they are doing with Josh this season. So amazing seeing his status as the popular kid getting deconstructed. See, Josh has always represented a trope that is more from teen romcoms. He’s the popular guy who is good at sports… but with Josh it’s sort of a what if? Because Josh Chan grew up.

In this episode, he gets to reflect on one of the biggest parts of his identity: being prom king. Which he has now learned is a lie. And worst of all, thanks to George (which, whoa, plot twist) he’s now realised that maybe he didn’t have it as great as he thought. Josh, beneath it all, is really a bit of a dork. But like a lot of jocks he’s had to suppress that to stay popular. We’ve heard him mention his magic in the past but we’ve never seen it. Turns out it was a passion he hid. And he’s not really that great at it.

I would love nothing more than to see Josh embrace his inner dork. It’s already kind of who he is. The cool guy was a facade. And maybe that’s why he’s always struggled in life (well, not the only reason, certainly as Josh still has some other issues in his way, particularly as it relates to how he has treated the women in his life.)

Though I don’t really like it, there is an ending with Josh and Rebecca ending up together I could envision. But ultimately, regardless of anything else, Rebecca’s abuse of Josh should never be rewarded. (And no, there isn’t an ending with Nathaniel I see that makes sense. He’s too far behind and the abuse issues that apply with Josh apply there too. He really hasn’t even approached dealing with his underlying problems yet.)

And this brings us to Valencia…

As a person in my mid 30s… I’ve known a great deal of people around my age (and older of course) who many years later still have feelings for people they knew as teenagers. I can’t really relate as I find getting over people to be pretty easy and my nostalgia for my youth is limited. But it’s pretty common.

The most fascinating thing about this Valencia/Father Brah plot twist is how it relates to Josh and Rebecca. Josh cheated on Valencia with Rebecca, Valencia cheated on Josh with Father Brah. Of course, the situations are entirely the same. Brah and Josh were friends. Rebecca was entirely out of sight and Josh dumped her as soon as summer camp was over. Josh wasn’t really that into Rebecca but Valencia was, in that absurd teenage way, in love with Father Brah.

But then you grow up. You become a different person but for some ridiculous reason those feelings remain. Why? I don’t know. As I said, this isn’t a thing that happens to me. But I’ve known a lot of people my age who… are far enough removed to have nostalgia and that somehow feeds the feelings, making them seem grander than they probably were.

Everything else aside (like Valencia having a girlfriend and Brah being married to Jesus) it’s not like the two of them could just start dating. They are different people. But hey, again: mirroring Rebecca, this time with Greg.

This also recontexualises all those old scenes with Josh talking to Father Brah about his relationship with Valencia and his feelings for Rebecca. It’s one of my favourite narrative techniques, where new information shines a light on old events. And it’s funny but I’ll be gosh darned if I can think of a single direct Valencia/Brah interaction before now. Sure, they’ve been in the same room a few times but… this plot 100% tracks. I’m sure that’s a mixture of planning and accident but hey, nice.

Heather was so fucking funny this episode. It was kind of nice seeing a bit of the older Heather back. That said, I feel like all the weirdness with the pronouns and her assuming Valencia’s ex-lover was a woman were unnecessary. For one thing, obviously Valencia was never close to another woman before Rebecca and Heather (and all the fans) know that. For another… it’s just distracting. I would have preferred at best her speculating about different men and women. I get what they were trying to do but it was a bit of a misstep in an otherwise basically perfect episode.

I do have one other minor-ish complaint about Valencia’s plot and it’s this: ultimately, her plot means very little for her. It does, however, mean a lot for Father Brah. It recontextualises and adds another layer to his relationship with Josh and presents a more nuanced view of a Catholic priest (that doesn’t involve him being a terrible person or a creeper.)

What does it tell us about Valencia? Nothing really. We already know she wasn’t happy with Josh. We already know she was attracted to men who weren’t Josh. And it’s not like she was going to leave Beth for fucking Father Brah LOL. So what was the point for her? None really. Which only hurts in that we’ve been so starved for Valencia development. But whatevs. I’ll take what I can get. This was a (mostly) good plot and Gabrielle always kills with what she’s given.

Am I going to wade into arguing about whether Valencia is bi or a lesbian? No, I am not. It’s not actually important and arguing about it is a waste of everyone’s time and energy given there are straight fans out there who don’t even buy her being with a woman… Maybe we should focus more on that and less on arguing about what kind of woman who loves women she really is? 

That said, the writers and Gabrielle have said she’s bi and that does track with how she’s been presented, so take that as you will. I’m sure we can all agree we wish her sexuality had been better explored but honestly aside from that she’s still one of the least tropey bi female characters I’ve ever seen and nothing about her really contradicts really lived human experiences.

The Songs:

Hello, Nice to Meet You: Look, I’ve been pretty supportive of Rachel taking a rest song wise this season but I’ll be honest: it was really good to see her singing again. This is a great introduction to the new Greg and HOLY COW MY THEORY ABOUT GREG AND REBECCA DOING FOOD PLAY HAS BECOME CANON, I AM TRUE PROPHET. No, this song is great. It’s a very Rachel Bloom number with her humour all over it (just like the arrabiata all over Greg’s dick.)

What U Missed While U Were PopUlar: I friggin’ love this song. Probably instantly in my top 3 for the season. It’s catchy and one of the best songs music video wise they’ve had all season. And it’s a George song??? Who knew a George song could be one of my favourites?

Rating: 10.0 out of 10.0.

Best episode all season and one of the best episode ever. I need to go back and downrate all the other episodes from this season…

Leeches, Part 1

“Just the other day, I sat at a bus stop, over on, I don’t know, somewhere in the eighties on the east side. I sat back and the sun shined on my face, and I think I just sat there for going on half an hour. I let about five buses pass me by, I reckon. The drivers kept asking through the doors, but I just shook my head and waved them on.”

Joe laughed at himself, very much the wizened old timer, laughing at his time-honored follies, a cough feigning to latch on to the tail end of one of his chuckles. He sat on a folding chair and never crossed his legs during his speech. He looked back at us once in a while, a wide grin framing the face of a man who’d found God in his dotage.

Behind him stood three sturdy chairs on a low, small landing, the middle one much larger, obviously for a deacon, or some other minister. To his left was a banner affixed to the chapel’s wall, to his right the darkened interior of Rutgers Presbyterian Church’s main hall, only the closest pew mingling with our reflections on the glass, while the rest of the chamber disappeared into the unlit black, pews, apse, arches, all fading away like undulating cephalopods motioning into the bottomless expanse of the deep ocean.

We were thirty men of various ages and, in various angles, situated on recently unfolded chairs, our ears plastered to Joe’s syllables. A semicircle of a row flanked Joe on each side, while rows of five staggered farther away in front of him. We waited for him to finish his speech.

My friend Kenyon, a man given to reflexive smiles, body art and jangling silver jewelry, raised his hand on the tail end of the applause. Kenyon was, like myself but in a completely different way, the aesthetic anomaly in this male lineup of denim, half-zip fleece pullovers, and unbuttoned checks. As for me, I was undergoing an awkward transition from the bespoke slim-fitting hipster fare of my East Village salad days to the generic knits I ended up cottoning to, staid, American gear with a fashion forward edge, the kind of corporate mimicry of downtown New York style evident in late aughts Express storefronts, the cheap grey cardigan with thin, plastic buttons and a gaudy, shiny placket to name one example, the sort of trickled-down haute couture which American Apparel had turned into a belated, and thankfully short-lived, empire of disposable cotton.

Kenyon, on the other hand, was a world onto himself. He was irreducible, and managed to turn all of that corporatizing on its head. Steeped in glam rock, a downtown tradition dating back to Max’s Kansas City, he merged the ripped tank tops and the second skin of leather trousers with punk, post-90s hip hop, and even industrial. By the time Kenyon was done, he was fully dressed, even though he’d barely put anything on: five necklaces formed an extra shirt over that tank top, while seven sterling-coated rings formed makeshift cuffs past the “sleeves” of tattoos on his arms. Sometimes he wore a black grosgrain cap with a chrome plate sewed onto the front that read “BITCH”. No one dressed like Kenyon, and if the reader regards my valuation as improbable, I can but insist that no one pulled off his sartorial derring-do with even half of his aplomb.

In all honesty, I didn’t want to like Kenyon, and I chalk that up to sibling rivalry. Though he did pull it off, his style was nonetheless loud. At the time, I needed quiet. That’s why I was there listening to Joe with my conveyer belt cardigan. Of course I had no idea I was dragging my old style like a cadaver in search of some missing morgue. But I was trying to fit in, trying to make a break with the past. I needed those dudes with their conservative shtick, sitting cross-legged checking blackberries once in a while, probably texting loved ones about soccer practice and babysitter hours. Joe was the granddaddy and these guys were my dads.

Once Joe was done everybody else started chiming in. People talked one at a time, and each person picked the next person to talk. Kenyon’s arm was erect, and he was picked early. Joe was sheepish about feedback, more out of feeling gratified to have shared his story with us than with insecurity about revealing himself, so he darted his eyes from the floor to anyone who wasn’t talking. Kenyon, like all who were picked, was speaking to the room, even though he directly addressed Joe, who indulged the time it took to place a couple bucks into the donation hat making the rounds. Silver tinkled on silver as Kenyon lowered his arm.

He did his best: “Joe, that story about the bus stop, man, wow, that’s amazing. I wish that was me. I’m just not there yet. I’m always busy, running around chasing my fantasies, maybe a woman, projects, getting angry about my job. It’s like I’m addicted and I can’t find peace. So I envy you, and all that serenity you shared with us. Thank you.”

Unlike their hardier, more “masculine” AA counterparts, Al-Anon meetings have no liquidation agenda. They’re not out to eradicate your issue. Nobody will say, as they do in AA, “Hey buddy, you’ve been fucking up, so it’s time to get your ass in gear and do some service for a change”. It’s more like “Sit back and relax, you’ve been working too hard” and “Don’t just do something, sit there.”

AA-ers criticize the warm embrace as too accommodating, but for my money’s worth, I always got more out of the Kumbaya fireside chat in Al-Anon meetings, than the fluorescently-lit, “bad cop” demeanor of your typical AA church basement. Booze was a problem, of course, but only during a relatively short span of debauching as an erstwhile rockstar. It was a symptom of “extreme lifestyling”, so, once I left the music industry and started frequenting libraries instead of dive bars, I had little difficulty moderating my intake. Thankfully, there were no winged bottles of Smirnoff in my dreams, and to this day, I say a prayer of gratitude with every crisp draught of New World red during mealtime.

What I lacked was not self-control, but self-esteem. Al-Anon, with its boundaries, its “healing centers”, its gingerbread cookies, its amateur yogis meditating, palms up, while people like Joe regaled you with yarns about how they lived “one day at a time”, boosted the lagging go-getter within and checked the autocratic superego’s overreach. Unlike our bulldog AA counterparts, choking and chafing on the leash, we were more like tiny, caged Papillons needing assertiveness training. Al-Anon’s ethos of boundary-setting was the gamechanger for the steamrolled contingent.

I needed a jolt in the arm to help me take charge of the new me. Once the keg dried on my club kid/rocker past, so did all of its faulty affirmations – “I’m a killer” – “I’m the man” – “I’m the life of the party”. What had seemed like incontrovertible evidence of greatness and longevity soured into empty pomp and arrogance, showing its age faster than a fine Brie sitting out too long. If you cut the tap, you see things for what they are, hollow, teenage rhetoric, a lacquered gloss of puerile angst disguising the real pain within, the miserable cartography drawn in Crayola. I had a hard time transitioning to “adulting”.

Al-Anon was the perfect solution for a spiritual drifter like myself, someone who’d managed to duck the hypnotic allure of substance, but was tethered to the overhead luggage of an overwrought past, a hypertrophied lore inflated by the helium-empty of media success and unrestrained carousing. The skill of setting boundaries, the primary focus of the work in that fellowship, was my first time making a conscious, adult demarcation of self. It was a kind of handwritten accounting, using a brand-spanking new calligraphy pen when in the past I only had a crayon.

Not only had I been bluffing my way through every opportunity and relationship all my life, but I’d shirked male bonding as well. The old man had left enough scar tissue to lead me to believe, wrongly, that nothing presented a greater threat to my safety than another swinging dick in the room. Al-Anon, being majority female in its constituency, attracted me for this very reason. But this uptown meeting offered me a new twist: the gentle lilt of Al-Anon sloganeering with the familiar heft of masculine energy. When I found that meeting, I discovered the verdant hidden pastures of otherwise craggy masculine caverns, undergoing the Robert Bly encounter with male, yet enlightened, initiation.

“I get so much wisdom from those guys,” I told Kenyon on the downtown 1, our trip back to the Village from the Upper West Side enlivened by the meeting. Post-meeting positive spin comes like hand delivered mail, the delay forgiven and forgotten at the instant the hand touches the parcel, a sudden flash of serum in the bloodstream, a mild chemo.

“They’re like old New York,” Kenyon replied. A silver bracelet ticked on one of his eight rings as he switched arms straphanging. He rearranged his fedora and there was a moment when, with the sterling on his fingers blinking in the light as it contrasted with the soft crushed velvet of the brim, he looked like Jared Leto (Twenty Seconds to Mars Leto, not the actor). Kenyon was impossibly handsome and, after two decades of casual sex in New York, had to have known it. On top of that, his mind was so sharp, dropping an op-ed’s worth of observation in a single response, you always forgot how attractive he was. I didn’t want to like him, for survival reasons, but I couldn’t help myself.

We both got off at Sheridan Square and parted at the newsstand on Christopher and Varick. The hugs were the best part of the night, warm, not bro-y. Cool jocks first clasp hands and keep them in between, the embrace more of a back pat, with the forearms warding off fears of errant torsos touching. Not so with Kenyon. It was a full upper body affair.

He went East and I West, to a dinner date with someone I met at school. But I couldn’t get his wall-to-wall smile out of my head.

All throughout the evening, through the dinner and the subway ride back to my Upper East Side apartment, even as my head hit the pillow and I let the day’s events drift through my head like a shuffling deck, I thought of Joe’s bus stop and wondered if it was one of the ones I used, any of the M79 ones, running from where I lived on East End Avenue to Lexington where the 6 train offers the nearest underground service. That crosstown corridor gives access to one of the most pacific locations in the city. The highlight was coming out of Agata & Valentina, hauling four thick polypropylene shopping bags spilling over with istara cheese, seasonal fruits, swordfish, prime cuts, homemade pasta, and imported Brazilian nuts, and, braving the murder on my delts, walking across the street to the east bound stop on 1st and 79th,hauling two leaden weights like overfull scales pressing down on a balance. Joe probably had his atman moment directly across the street, at the westbound stop, where the sun hits more directly for longer in the day.

As I turned my head on the pillow, I thought of tomorrow, Wednesday, of waking up, walking the dog, hitting the computer to play around with electronic music, and stretching the limbs. At acting school they were really emphasizing the importance of movement (“If I see one more stiff actor in my scene study class, I’m going to be angry” was one teacher’s version).

I was reminded how, in my early twenties, I was terrified of anyone looking at my body. I didn’t know anything about anatomy, but I could feel how broad and lanky were my shoulders. I was like a wide clothes hanger. Playing the bass guitar, though I hadn’t gone out of my way to pick it up, made perfect sense, the heaviest rock instrument to offer ballast against flaying limbs. Night after night the strap creased my left shoulder, pulling me closer to the floor, the weight pressing my boots on the ground, plantar ligaments stretching out the arches. Once it was removed, I was like a hot air balloon.

So was my acting, hence the need for movement exercises, which made interesting cases concerning anatomy. At Stella Adler, I had the good fortune of having Joanne Edelmann, an experienced dancer from the Alvin Ailey school, impress upon me the importance of the pelvis. Everything was about the pelvis, acting, moving, blocking, memorizing lines, it all had to come from the pelvis, apparently. We’d lay down supine, after one of us had swiffed the last class’s sweat, grime and dead skin cells off the creaky, wooden floor, and start gyrating our pelvises, all twenty-five of us. Having suspended my pause at the bursar’s office (at some point the acting conservatory, like therapy and Al-Anon, acquired healing potential in my mind), I jumped into all this with gusto. These movement exercises, so I thought, were my ticket to getting my feet on the ground, literally. So I worked them every day for an hour.

It was early spring in 2009 and I’d been living in the Upper East Side for close to a year, moving here to escape the East Village’s countercultural orthodoxy.

The East Village is great when you’re an upstart, when your friend owns a vintage boutique and sitting there for hours talking about nothing could feel like a quiet revolution. There was something conspiratorial about scrounging for change, wearing the same pair of trousers, and bumping into the same vagrant hipsters every night. Bar hopping became a kind of Where’s Waldo stretched over the span of a week, like each party was a pop-up shop taking over that bar or club. It would have been unthinkable to go on another night, after the pop-up shop had moved. Each one of us could feel like an unshowered Che looking at Fidel clipping a Cohiba across the fold-out table, an overhanging burning bulb backlighting the floating dust and cumulus clouds of tobacco smoke.

But by this time, I’d already “made it”. My cover was blown. Interpol’s success had fattened my wallet even as it’d thwarted my agitprop designs. Trips to the grocer could involve catcalls and held stares. Benjamin’s wisdom seemed apt: “Behind every fascist regime, lies a failed revolution”. In my case, the project of seeing how far flipping the bird could get me (very far, apparently) had yielded such pithy spiritual results it was time to call it a day and find a place to do my laundry where I wouldn’t have to sign autographs.

Growing up in Queens, I had no idea what the hell was the East Village. But I knew the Upper East Side, mostly through The Jeffersons (my mother did have a wealthy friend and, once, while we visited when I was eleven, I feigned adult sass by declaiming “This place is rich!” during the elevator trip up the Central Park adjoining high rise). The sight of rows of stacked iron-grated balconies on grey-brick facades, all set to each other like a long ship container yard disappearing into the horizon of 2nd Avenue, where every taxi cab, street light and butcher shop becomes a tiny dot twenty blocks north of 79th Street, was always set to a soulful “We finally have a piece of the pie”.

Later, after initiation with the caramelized crust of 80s pop-culture, the Upper East Side came to mean Woody Allen and Andy Warhol. The high rises, in my estimation, offered sanctuary to the city’s cultural superintendents, a haven in which to pen or paint their New York City-centric odes in peace and quiet. I thought of Leonard Bernstein laboring over scores, the doorman interrupting with a call about a dry cleaning delivery.

Here, as well, were stock brokers, attorneys, traders, and other sundry bourgeois interests, the better to authenticate the wealthy artist’s pains with commerce’s badge of (dis)honor. (“There. You are one of us. Now, to quote a 90s prophet, entertain us.”) Eyes Wide Shut, with its luxury apartments and endless chambers, its New York Jewish-y professional class embodied in Sydney Pollack’s Rolex, its de riguer charcoal Brooks Brothers three quarter overcoat worn by Tom Cruise in almost every frame, laid out the terms of this fantasy of old school New York wealth for me, if also tickling my artistry with a Kafka-esque slant. Perhaps, I could revivify the failed revolution, I thought, not against the fascist regime, but from within.

It was a straight shot up 1st Avenue from Houston Street to 79th and on a random late morning Tuesday you could drive through light after light in less than fifteen minutes. I’d always hated the West Village’s European style of urban planning, the streets and lanes that curve and follow every slope of the ground, (pre-Google Maps, this meant that sometimes you ended up, Blair Witch Project-style, back to where you started). I loved the East Village’s Soviet, numerical grid, so artificial you could easily imagine the planners taking their time to map everything out. What this did was help me focus on the shops, ateliers, and salons within the fifteen block radius, without the distraction of curves and cobblestone. And the Upper East Side, at least from an urban planning perspective, was the East Village without the personality, simply adding a z axis of verticality to the latter’s x and y. With three dimensions now at my disposal, I felt I could take my Bernstein myth into Olympus itself, away from the caustic rabble of DIY punk down below.

I made enough money to afford a $4000 rent in what is called a “splinter building”; apparently only three in the city exist, a building slim enough it can only have two apartments per floor, but giving each one a three sided-view of all Manhattan, in my case, from the 23rd floor. When I first walked into it the sun was setting, casting an amber glow onto the East River. Wall to wall windows proffered a vision of Manhattan only the wealthy know – “This is Your City” (daily exposure did end up diminishing the returns of the view).

For some reason, taxis were out of the question (never mind I was splurging on rent, dinners, tuition, and music equipment expenses). After five dizzy years of flights and car services, I was only too happy to take to the MTA, the buses still lacquered in the future-glossy palette of navy and white, which I recognized from my morning commutes to St. Francis Prep High in Floral Park from my Elmhurst home. Getting on the M79 right by the river, I basically had the bus to myself, my own crosstown Lear jet, a meager, yet delightful, taste of the jet-setting I’d left behind.

Is Skyward Sword the Only Link and Zelda Romance Story?

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If you’re anything like most gamers from a certain era, you probably grew up assuming that Zelda and Link were in love. After all, he is a hero, she is a princess, he was a boy, she was a girl…can we make it any more obvious?

However, the truth of the matter is that nothing is quite that obvious when it comes to Link and Zelda’s relationship. Much like your relationship status on Facebook whenever you felt like stirring up a little drama, the relationship between Link and Zelda over the years has been decidedly complicated.

That’s part of the reason why Skyward Sword has always been one of the most interesting Zelda games from a lore perspective. After years of ambiguity, complications, winks, half-answers, and lingering questions, Skyward Sword gave us a Link and Zelda relationship that couldn’t possibly be interpreted as anything but romantic (even if there is some ambiguity regarding how their relationship ends). The game was even promoted with this “Romance Trailer” that highlights that aspect of the plot:

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While there is very little debate regarding whether or not Skyward Sword is a Link and Zelda love story, there is a much more substantial (and far more interesting) debate to be had regarding whether or not it is the only real love story in Legend of Zelda history.

“Hold up,” you might be saying. “If Zelda and Link didn’t have a canonical romance until 2011, then why did I grow up believing that they were in love?”

Well, as we mentioned before, elements of the perceived romance between Zelda and Link can be attributed to the fact that most of the guys you see rescuing princesses in fantasy stories do tend to fall in love with them. It’s not exactly the genre’s most beloved trope, but it’s certainly one that has ingrained itself into our collective pop culture consciousness over the years.

To be fair, though, the Zelda/Link love hasn’t just been in our heads this entire time. The popular theory is that the pair end up getting married at the end of the original NES game (even if the sourcing for that claim is somewhat dubious from a canonical perspective), and we see Zelda kiss Link at the end of Zelda II: The Adventure of Link. Granted, the Zelda that kisses him at the end of that game isn’t the Zelda he saved in the original game but rather a version of Zelda from years ago. Look, Zelda lore is…weird.

Speaking of which, we should probably talk about the Link from the 1989 animated Legend of Zelda TV series. That version of Link was more or less a stalker who pretty much refused to help Zelda without asking for a kiss. He was also so insufferably annoying that we honestly think Zelda might have been better off with Ganon than this ’80s movie jock in a green leotard.

It’s around that time that Nintendo became much coyer about Zelda and Link’s relationship. A Link to the Past doesn’t really bother to bring up the possibility of a romantic relationship between the two (outside of an often misinterpreted piece of dialog), and Link’s Awakening doesn’t even feature Zelda (though the character Marin is clearly inspired by Link’s memories of Zelda). At this point, it’s easy to assume that Nintendo decided to abandon the more overt references to Link and Zelda’s romance due to creative preferences, the increasingly complicated nature of the franchise’s timeline, and perhaps the feeling that this just wasn’t meant to be that kind of franchise.

That’s when we enter a prolonged and strange “Will they or won’t they?” period for Link and Zelda’s relationship. Ocarina of Time dances around the issue, but only hints that a romantic relationship may be blossoming. The Wind Waker pretty much abandons the idea entirely in favor of presenting the two as adventuring equals, while Twilight Princess offers the “coldest,” or perhaps most “business-like,” relationship between the pair yet. Nintendo even gave Link more overt love interests during this time to seemingly try to encourage people to stop focusing so much on the Zelda/Link romance narrative.

Interestingly, the Zelda/Link relationship has always skewed more towards intimacy (or at least blossoming romance) in many of the handheld Zelda games. That’s not a universal rule (Zelda wasn’t even in Phantom Hourglass), but for some reason, the pair have almost always been a bit…closer in those games.

That trend reached its apex with the release of 2009’s The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks. That game was originally not even supposed to include Zelda as Link’s adventuring partner, but the developers felt like it would be better to feature her as a prominent side character rather than try to create a new character or simply re-use Wind Waker/Phantom Hourglass‘ Tetra yet again. The result is a Zelda game where Link and Zelda spend an unusual amount of time together (compared to other titles in this series). While that kind of set-up is enough to get shippers talking, the game wasn’t exactly shy about teasing a possible romance. It even ends with Zelda and Link holding hands!

What’s even more interesting than Spirit Tracks‘ implication that its version of Zelda and Link could end up together is the reason that the developers chose to give Link a female partner for that game in the first place.

“I was searching for something that hadn’t been portrayed much, and there was Princess Zelda,” says director Daiki Iwamoto regarding the casting decision. “At first, we hadn’t settled on the subcharacter, and I discussed several things with the staff. Then we thought that, since they’re adventuring together, it would be better to have it be a girl.”

That last part brings us back to the elephant in the room concerning this whole Zelda/Link relationship discussion. There is a heteronormative side to fantasy fiction from certain eras that has, to a degree, trained our brains to see female and male leads together and just assume that they’re going to be romantically involved by the time the credits roll.

Even though Nintendo has historically danced around this romance and, at times, straight-up avoided it, Iwamoto still says that it just made more sense for Link to be with a female character that he obviously ends up having intimate moments with (even if they may or may not be entirely romantic). You could argue that throughout much of the history of The Legend of Zelda franchise, speculation regarding the pair’s romantic relationship has been fuelled by those who either wished the two would get together or just assumed that has to be the case given their situation and genders.

So why did Nintendo decide to finally show Link and Zelda in an obviously romantic relationship in Skyward Sword after dodging the matter for so long? Interestingly enough, Skyward Sword producer Eiji Aonuma thought about cutting the romance angles when the game’s development team (which, it must be said, consisted of quite a few Spirit Tracks developers) initially suggested them. While Skyward Sword‘s developers had to make some cuts to justify including the romance subplot, Aonuma’s decision to leave it in ultimately came down to his simple belief that it was an effective way to get players to care about rescuing Zelda.

“As far as the love story goes, it wasn’t that we wanted to create a romance between Link and Zelda as much as we wanted the player to feel like this is a person who’s very important to me, who I need to find,” Aonuma said in an interview with Game Informer. “We used that hint of a romance between the two to tug at the heartstrings.”

From a meta standpoint, the idea that Nintendo is aware that even hinting at the possibility of a Link and Zelda romance is a pretty easy way to engage people certainly makes a lot of sense. While Aonuma stops short of saying that was somehow their idea this entire time, you could argue that it’s more valuable for Nintendo to simply leave room open for that possibility rather than outright establish a romantic relationship more often.

Of course, that makes it all the more interesting that the one Zelda game that features such a blatant romance story is also the first game in the Zelda timeline. While the versions of Link and Zelda featured in that game are not the same characters we see in subsequent games, Nintendo did clearly establish that the foundation of their relationship (and this franchise) is partially based on their love for each other. Circumstances may have prevented them from leading the life together they hoped to have (at least based on our hopes for how two young people in love might end up), but who is to say that one of Zelda‘s descendants or one of Link’s reincarnations won’t be able to break the curse and live the life that these two were possibly denied so many years ago?

Actually, that’s what makes Breath of the Wild such a fascinating piece of this puzzle. While serious questions remain regarding how Breath of the Wild fits into Zelda‘s chronology, it almost certainly seems to take place at what we could see as “the end” of the current Zelda timeline (or timelines). It’s perhaps no coincidence, then, that it’s the game that not only openly acknowledges the complicated relationship between the various Links and Zeldas over the years but is also the game that shows Link and Zelda clearly growing closer to each other over the course of the adventure. By the end of the game, you could very easily view their relationship as “romantic” or, at the very least, heading in that direction.

While we’ll have to see whether or not Breath of the Wild 2 does anything with that implication, we’re left with the simple conclusion that Skyward Sword may be the only “overt” Link and Zelda romance story so far, but elements of that romance can be found in Spirit Tracks, Breath of the Wild, and, depending on your interpretation of the timeline, nearly every other Legend of Zelda game in some form or fashion.

Sure, it’s a little annoying that Nintendo keeps hinting at romances they seemingly never intend to really do anything with, but there’s something to be said for the ways they’ve paired Zelda and Link together over the years without relying on a relatively simple romantic subplot. Of course, that just makes Skyward Sword even more of an oddity than it already was.

The post Is Skyward Sword the Only Link and Zelda Romance Story? appeared first on Den of Geek.

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Do You Notice Me - Bughead Canon AU Oneshot.

This is a one-shot fill for the @bughead-fanfic-wishlist submitted by the always lovely @raptorlily . I can only hope that I have done this prompt justice for you. I have not written Canon is so long it was strange to go back to it. But I cannot wait until new episodes with new canon springboards to launch off!!

Ao3 Link Here.

(Apologies for the Keep Reading cut for mobile users)

Canon AU - What if Jughead wasn't the one who initiated their first kiss? What if it were Betty? Write me a story exploring Betty's growing feelings for Juggie and her deciding what to do with those feelings. Bonus Consideration: she put herself out there and got rejected by Archie, and Jughead isn't exactly an open book. He's also her childhood friend, just like Archie. Perhaps the rewards outweigh the risks?

Do You Notice Me

Betty Cooper had a problem.

Jughead Jones.

He hadn’t started out as a problem. Quite the opposite to be exact but he had fast become one. Betty, after the disaster that was admitting her feelings for Archie had wanted something uncomplicated. She wasn’t looking for romance, or longing looks or fantasies about removing a certain crown shaped beanie and running her fingers through what she imagined were soft, dark waves.

No.

She wanted to solve a murder, find her sister, maybe reconnect with an old friend. Not… this.

She found herself watching him without meaning to. It was almost like she was seeing him again for the first time. They had been friends for so long it was almost like she had missed him growing up. But she was noticing him now.

But now instead of simply accepting that Jughead was a boy with a beanie she began to wonder what was underneath. Ever since she had known him he had worn that beanie, a security blanket of types. She knew what it was like to put up a barrier between yourself and the rest of the world.

That's what her pastel pink sweaters and perfectly curled pony tail was. Something that she presented to the rest of the world a careful concealment of a part of her that was becoming more and more dominant. As if the darkness that was now consuming the small town had taken her down with it.

She had started to notice him, really notice him, that night at Pop’s. After once again managing to subdue that darker, wilder part of herself in her confrontation with Cheryl she had made up with Veronica as they headed to Pop’s. She noted how different he looked her first time really seeing him since the summer break and he looked ‘older’. He was no longer that scrawny kid that they hung out with in Archie’s tree house sipping lemonade made by Mrs Andrews. He had grown up. She had smiled shyly at him when he hopped into the booth opposite her and he returned her smile with a subtle raise of his eyebrows as he stole a sip of her milkshake. Something that he had always done since they were kids. His eyes challenged her to stop him but she just leant back in her seat, allowing him to take what he wanted.

It became abundantly clear to everyone in that booth that night how enamoured Archie Andrews was with new girl Veronica Lodge. Betty knew that the pain that she felt now would lessen. Stepping back now she could see how her ‘crush’ on Archie, and it was just that, had been a long held childhood fantasy of hers. She had seen them as that power couple. The high school jock and the girl next door looked so good on paper. But in reality Archie had only eyes for Veronica.

The little looks that Jughead sent her did not go unnoticed by her. Small, shy smiles. Kind eyes. And for a brief and fleeting moment she found herself wishing that she was on the other side of the booth next to him, sharing their own private jokes together as they had when they were children. As they had before she went away for the summer.

“I can wait out here until your mom gets here.” Jughead said from behind her as they had stood out the front of Pop’s watching Archie and Veronica leave together. His hands were shoved in his jacket pockets as he glanced at her, kicking some stones at his feet. She thought about the expression on her mom’s face if she turned up to pick her up at Pop’s to find her with Jughead Jones. Alice had made no secret of her disdain for the Jones family as soon as Betty started hanging out with Jughead. She wondered which her mother would be more disapproving of, Jughead or Archie.

“It’s okay Juggie, she’ll be here soon.” He gave her a quick nod before he returned inside to the booth that they had been sitting at. She watched him pull out his laptop and begin to type, the waitress already putting down another cup of steaming hot coffee. A loud beep tore her away from her observations as her mom leaned over to the passenger side’s window telling her to hurry up and get in the car. She stole one more glance before she made her way to the old station wagon.

In reality she hadn’t expected him to say yes when she asked him to help her resurrect the Blue and Gold. He was right, writing for the school paper wasn’t really his scene. So she had batted her eyelashes and pouted her lips slightly. It wasn’t the first and it probably wouldn’t be the last time that she used this tactic on him. She knew by his heavy sigh and slumping of his shoulders that she had won and eagerly agreed to his conditions.

It felt somewhat familiar being the sleuthing duo of Riverdale High. It reminded her of the time the summer before last where Archie had gone off to football camp and the three musketeers had become a reluctant two. They spent their days at Pop’s Betty reading her book on one side of the booth while Jughead furiously typed on his laptop while Betty occasionally would try to steal a look. Jughead would quickly turn the screen away from her prying eyes not yet ready to share what he was working on. Betty would hmph and then skip to the counter to get them another round of milkshakes ignoring the voices in her head of Alice Cooper and Cheryl Blossom that she shoud make better choices if she wanted to succeed. Jughead never said anything.

She hadn’t expected him to say yes to finding Polly. She reasoned that it was because he was committed to finding out who killed Jason and Polly was a key part to the mystery. She had expected him to turn and run when she suggested that he came to breakfast so that she could get a good look at her mum’s checkbook. No-one voluntarily put themselves in the same room as her mother. But he had. Giving her a final pleading look as Alice Cooper led him from the breakfast table, his eyes lingering on the cooked breakfast he was leaving behind.

He had offered to travel with her to see Polly. She could have gone on her own, even Archie offered to go with her and she had turned him away. The Betty of a few weeks ago wouldn’t have even given Archie’s offer a second thought accepting immediately. Betty liked to think that she had changed since that night at the dance. She had grown up.

Her eyes continued to drift over to him during the bus ride to the Sisters of Quiet Mercy. He stared out the window, his eyes flicking between the trees and buildings as they passed them. Her heart stopped as they set foot off the bus and the building came into view. A home for wayward teens, it looked more like an insane asylum. She could feel the tears already beginning to well. Shutting her eyes to try and keep them at bay. She felt his hands on her shoulders turning him to face her. She opened her eyes and was met by the intensity of his own green ones.

“We are going to get her out of here Betts.” She nodded. His eyes narrowed waiting for her more convicted response.

“We are going to get her out.” She repeated as he gave her shoulders a final squeeze and Betty thought that maybe he was going to pull her into an embrace, before he let go. She took a deep sigh, straightened her shoulders and pulled her ponytail that much tighter as they stepped towards the building.

She needed to see him. After the events of the day before and her conversation with her parents she needed to talk to someone and where her mind would previously have thought of Kevin or Archie there was now a new name coming to mind Jughead. She waited until her mom and dad left the home for the register. Before she snuck out. She had texted him already asking to meet her at the Blue and Gold.

Her hand was shaking a little as she turned the handle and was relieved to see him already there. She was reminded of the way that he had tried to reach out to her and her sister at the Sister’s, held back by one of the porters. It had been an unpleasant car ride back to Riverdale to say the least. Betty sitting in the front passenger seat her mother stopping her from getting in the back of the car with him. A pointed look telling her not to test her any further and Betty knew that she would be wise to heed her mother’s warning.

“Betts.” He breathed out as he saw her and Betty paused briefly at the door before she shut it behind her. He was by her side by the time the door had shut his hand on her arm in what she took as a gesture of concern and nothing more.

“Jug, I’m sorry about yesterday. I shouldn’t have dragged you into this.” She removed herself from his grip and sat up on one of the old desks.

Jughead followed her across the room, leaning against her perch. “I volunteered.” He reminded her. She looked down his hand was resting against the desk so close to her own hand. She thought about moving the last few inches to touch her fingers against his own to see if he would pull back. Whether he would look at her in confusion at her actions or jerk his hand away. She had been burned once this school year and was not so sure she was keen to be burned again.

“I shouldn’t have told her about Jason.” She pulled her hand to her lap removing it from temptation. Jughead jumped up to sit beside her on the desk. Eliminating the distance that she had just put between them.

“You needed to Betts. Otherwise you wouldn’t be any better than your parents. She deserved to know especially because -”

“Of the baby.” Betty whispered. She was still in shock that her sister was pregnant. That she was going to be an auntie. That new life growing inside her sister had already lost their father. She wouldn’t let her parents take away their mother as well.

“Yeah.”

“I asked my dad.” She looked up from her lap to meet his eyes. “About whether he killed Jason.”

“And?”

“He didn’t. But they’re crazy Juggie, both of them. And Polly, the way she was talking. She sounded crazy. Maybe I’m-”

“Hey.” His hand was on her shoulder, a soothing rubbing motion. Not unlike how he had back at the Sister’s. “All our parents are crazy.” A small smile across his lips brought a little comfort to her and she realised she was now staring at his lips.

It wasn’t the first time she had found herself in this position in the Blue and Gold office since they had started their investigation into the murder of Jason Blossom. She had imagined closing the distance between them as he leant over her shoulder watching her as she would carefully edit one of his articles or as they sat together on the old desk both looking at the ‘murder board’ as if there was something there that they were both missing. He would stare at the board and Betty would sneak glances at him as he pulled his bottom lip in concentration. Or occasionally twisted that one curl that always managed to find it’s way out of the confines of the gray woollen beanie on top of his head.

There was that voice in her head holding her back. Telling her that it was all in her head. Those gestures of comfort, those shy smiles, the private jokes, all of it was just her imagination. They were friends was it really something that she wanted to jeopardise just like she had her friendship with Archie because she couldn’t keep her emotions in check. She had been trying to analyse him. See if there was something there, whether he was feeling anything for her. She had run through his comment about her and Trevor’s date a million times.

‘You just called it a date.’ Was he jealous? Curious? Perhaps concerned that she was putting herself out there again after just having her heart stomped all over by their friend. He had said it so casually that she couldn’t read into it further. She looked for signs and yet Jughead Jones was a closed book that she desperately wanted to read.

“Juggie.” She whispered. Her hand moved to his arm and she felt him still slightly under her touch and she thought about pulling back, backing out completely. “Thank you.” She pressed a kiss to his cheek. She pulled herself back to examine his reaction as he turned to face her. His eyes searching hers his expression as always unreadable to her.

She leant in again, this time pressing her lips against his. They were warm and soft against her own. She heard his breath hitch as she moved her lips against his waiting for him to respond. She thought for a moment that she had messed up. She had altered another friendship through the complications of her own emotions. She went to pull back from the kiss, but his hand on the back of her head stopped her as he kept her in place as he finally began to return her kiss in earnest.

She sighed into the kiss as their mouths explored one another. This kiss was different to the one she had shared with Archie when they were still kids playing. Different to the one she had shared with Brad during her internship in Los Angeles at the carnival. It was as if every part of her body was on edge, every sense was heightened and she could only think of him. Her heart was thundering in her ears as she felt his hand moved from her head to her neck, his thumb brushing against her pulse point as her own hands moved from his arms to his jacket pulling him towards her so that he was closer to her as they both shifted on the desk. She pulled back smiling at him, her grin widening as she noticed that he shared her expression. Was this what her sister had felt when she had first kissed Jason? Before their families had torn them apart, when they were planning their secret get away to -

“The car!” She exclaimed her eyes widening in realisation as her mind tried to catch up to it’s own thought while still trapped in the feeling of her kiss with Jughead.

“And I thought we were having a moment here.” She met his eyes and thought that she could see a hint of disappointment.

“We were, we are, but Polly said that her and Jason had stashed a car on route 44. Maybe if we can find that car.”

“Then we can find some concrete evidence.”

“That Polly isn't crazy.” Her hands were either side if his face as she kissed his lips again. “To be continued?”

“Most definitely.” He replied taking her hand in hers as he pulled her from the desk as they left the Blue and Gold together.

Off to solve a murder, and maybe something more.

How to Succeed in Fangirling Without Really Trying

[Insert nervous laughter here]

I guess we should start with the basics like introductions and the more important things you need to know about me. Hi, my name is Grey. I am a person of the adult-ish variety who is, more importantly, a fangirl. Very soon, I will be graduating from college with a degree in history. And yes, just history. And no, I do not want to be a teacher. (This is important to the overall narrative I’m trying to create here, but we’ll get to that later.) I am a Hufflepuff and I take almost as much pride in that fact as I do about my remarkable ability to eat and drive at the same time (my friends might say otherwise, but they’re lying to you). My idea of a “lit” night is when the light radiates from my Netflix account. I love a good book and a bottle of dry, red wine. Preferably together. If there is one other thing I know for sure about myself at the ripe age of “almost-22,” it’s that being a fangirl is all I really know how to do. Maybe through this blog, I can take people on a journey they can relate to. Maybe if I share my story, it can help someone else who is out there feeling the way I’m feeling. Maybe they’ll even start a blog. It’s what I did.

To kick off this shindig, there is a little bit more you need to know about me. Like where and how my story starts. From a young age I was encouraged to be the best I could be. Not the best out of everyone, but my parents knew what I was capable of and they wanted me to do well for me, not anyone else. However, I was an awkward kid. No matter what my parents say. Isn’t everyone? Throughout my K-12 education, I somehow managed to stick myself right in the middle of the herd. I guess the more appropriate description would be “average.” I played one sport in my four years of high school, so I was not jock material. I was in choir, but not a soloist. I was in the musical, but felt more comfortable being part of the stage crew. I spent most of my lunches in my school’s library. The average high school student will experience some form of bullying and I was no exception. Not to the extent that others were, but it was enough to scar me so that my goal for that part of my education was just to get through it with as few waves as possible. So, I adapted and figured out that being stuck in the middle of everything is what made me happy. I didn’t want to be the center of attention. That would’ve been my worst nightmare. I hated myself back then and I had already given people enough of a chance to hate me in my earlier years. It might not have been bad, but it was enough.

I, also, might not be able to remember all the details, but I can pinpoint the moment I knew I was a fangirl. I was in 6th grade and I held in my meaty little hands a copy of The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan. I read the opening part of the first chapter entitled “I Accidentally Vaporize My Pre-Algebra Teacher” and it is, to this day, the closest thing I can equate to finding myself. Tiny little me, reading a book about a kid not much older than her who feels it in every fiber of his bones that he is different and can’t do a damn thing about it at that moment, it just felt like coming home. I inhaled the words on those pages. I injected them into my bloodstream once every month. No other book could ever compare as I reread it over and over and over again. It was Wonderland and I was Alice, falling, falling, falling down the rabbit hole and but with no intention of ever stopping the free fall. And as I grew older and wiser, and my tastes expanded, I started to realize that I had always been like that. Disney movies were (still are) the pinnacle of my movie tastes. I wouldn’t watch anything other than animated movies until I was well over the age of 12. My mom begged me to play outside as a kid when all I wanted to do was sit down and watch Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, or the Disney Channel. Percy Jackson and his journey finally put it all into perspective for me. And I’m still spiraling. I started to consume knowledge about Greek Mythology more than my studies. I read anything fantasy based that I could get my hands on. Harry Potter, Fablehaven, Peter and the Star Catchers, Oh. My. Gods., House of Night, the list is as endless as it is ongoing. As I grew, my tastes expanded. I got into anime, sci-fi, comics, crime, true crime, literally anything that took me away from the normal life I was leading. What I wanted more than anything in the world was to be there.

All of these things carried me through my high school career, but not in the way I was expecting. I loved my stories, my otherworlds, more than I ever loved the real world, but it beckoned. Not so much like a siren’s song, more like the annoying alarm clock in the morning that you just perpetually want to turn off, but somehow end up hitting SNOOZE so it keeps waking you up every few minutes. High school was a time where the answer to the question “So, what do you want to be when you grow up?” was finally starting to be the most important question you could answer. I’ll give you three guesses as to what girl never, ever had the answer to that question and the first two don’t count… Yup, t’was me. I’m pretty sure every time someone asked me that, my answered changed. The only thing I really knew, at least at that point, was there were two things I loved. History and what I’ve come to now realize is my all-encompassing, heart-stopping, soul-crushing love for the creative process. Everything in this world that is created has a story that I need to know. I fawn over fan art just as much as Picasso or Van Gogh. I think fanfiction and their authors can sometimes be written better than the original. I have music on at all times during the day. If I am not reading, I am watching something. If I am not watching, then I am trying to hone my own creative processes. Everything about being a fangirl appeals me like a drug. Where bullying knocked me down, I bathed myself in fantasy and used it as my armor. When the only thing I wanted to do was just get through, my fandoms taught me how I should live. Whenever I felt like I wasn’t loved or good enough or whatever enough, somehow, some way, fiction would wrap its arms around me, remind me that I was, and lift me up to carry me home.

Sounds like a wonderful thing to make a career out of, right? But if bullying had taught me anything, it was that I wasn't good enough. I was never going to be a content creator. It was always going to be my destiny to be a content consumer. I could never be J.K. Rowling, Chris Hardwick, Wil Wheaton, Felicia Day, Lin Manuel Miranda. If I could go back and tell my younger self anything, it wouldn’t be any of the clichés like ‘it gets better’ or ‘just stay strong.’ I’d tell that little punk to stick it to whoever told her that what was making her feel whole wasn’t worth making a life out of. I would tell my younger self to be brave enough to prove them all wrong. I was constantly told that I could not make a sustainable career out what I loved.  So, I did what I do best and adapted. History was the only other thing I really loved. It was the real stories, the non-fiction that inspires fiction. If I couldn’t create the stories, I would learn everyone else’s. That would surely solve that problem? It’d be a good enough substitute, right?

While I love history, it was like going from Ferrari to a Honda. The Honda will most definitely get you from Point A to Point B, but more so because you can’t afford a Ferrari in the first place. Which kind of brings me to where I am now and the whole reason I started this blog in the first place. Here’s me, about to graduate college with a degree in a field I love (even though it doesn’t sound like it) feeling like I’m doing nothing more than staring into a deep, vast, dark thing called The Void of Adulthood when the only thing I really want to do is take a nap. Or curl up with a good book or a new TV show. Forget the horror genre, adulthood, or the precipice of it, is the scariest shit I have ever encountered. And I am looking at this Void, wanting to take a ForeverNap™️,  neck deep in a big-girl-full-time job search, wearing a Captain America shirt, Prisoner of Azkaban clutched in one hand, sonic screwdriver in the other, screaming my throat raw about how I am just not ready.

But getting back to the present. I mentioned that my degree in history would somehow be important to the overall narrative I’m trying to weave here. This is why. It goes back to being too scared to do what I really wanted to do. While I love history, it just doesn’t compare to the other thing. But, I was also too scared by real life to ever do anything to change it. I was too scared to tell everyone: “DAMN THE CONSEQUENCES AND SHOVE IT UP YOUR COLLECTIVE ASSES, I’M GOING TO DO THIS.” I never wanted to shake it up, challenge the status quo, and now I’m kicking myself for it. History was a safety net I didn’t realize was there until it was too late. All this suddenly came into perspective because I found my dream job. Given the chance, it would be one that I would be really, really good at… but I can’t get it. I don’t have a degree in a relevant field, I don’t have the job experience. I’m not prepared. And it sucks royal hippogriff.

And that, dear readers who have stuck with me all the way to this point, is why I am here. I started this blog to finally break out of my shell. I am no longer content with being a consumer. I want to be a creator. I want to contribute to the discussions. I want to write things that matter and that people can relate to. I want to be fully qualified. If writing this blog and finally, finally being able to contribute something to the worlds that have loved me when I thought no one else did is the only way I can give back and get experience, then so be it. If it is the only way I can be apart of the things I love right now, then I’m going to do it. This is how I stick it to those people who told me I couldn’t. This is how I throw it back in the faces of people who tore me down. I hope that I can take people along this journey with me. I have some fun things planned. And if there are people out there who are listening to the voices of negativity in whatever forms they take, I hope I can help you realize that you are strong enough to face those demons and win. I hope that together we can find a way to forge our own paths. I don’t want anyone to ever feel like I felt. No one deserves to feel like that.

Hi again, I’m Grey. Welcome home. Here, you will always be encouraged. Here, I promise to help you in whatever way I can. Here, you are safe. And here, above all, you are seen and you are loved.

Hyperallergic: K-Pop Conquers the World

I admit it: I’ve come to prefer Korean pop over American pop. The familiar argument, that Korean producers replicate American pop conventions with sly distance and scientific expertise, won’t fly — given the present mediocrity of the American Top 40, what’s to like? Rather, the auteurs behind K-pop have mastered a sort of transhistorical bricolage that stateside comes naturally only to indie bands and the occasional hip-hop beatsmith, turning the planet’s entire history of recorded music into the K-pop producer’s playground — a massive compendium of discrete ingredients available for ransacking, for twisting into concise pop structures. If this is the counterargument to the plagiarism charge, I don’t entirely buy it either, since it could just as easily produce surreal garbage. Maybe it’s just that when a musical cottage industry starts training kids to be pop stars since before adolescence, some of them turn out really talented.

I.U.: Palette (Loen/Fave)

Since going “mature” four years ago on her breakthrough album, Modern Times, I.U. has specialized in several international ballad styles, none of them originally Korean. Assuming an air of dreamy sophistication, the former ingenue has dipped her toes into lounge-jazz, bossa nova, neodisco, Celine Dion facsimile, and any number of styles consistent with notions of cosmopolitan urbanity. Leave it to an aesthete this shrewd to identify each genre’s good parts and isolate them in palatable replicas for her fanbase. The floaty, feathery R&B she offers on this album is typically delightful.

Qualities that would repel in an Anglophone or Francophone singer fascinate in her: her choices in stylistic sources position her as the final link in a chain denoting moments of self-conscious self-differentiation. Slow R&B burners this fluffy, not to mention cocktail ballads this demonstrative, would already qualify as shamelessly retro if Justin Timberlake sang them; I.U.’s translation of this mode into Korean adds an extra layer of distance, such that the music turns obsessively self-reflexive, containing mirror upon mirror. Awareness of form ensures a willingness to stretch formal boundaries, and this album uses blank space to such masterful effect that each song blurs the traditional distinction between ballads and dance tracks. Piano, strings, quietly subtle rhythm guitar, and cannily minimal drum machine create thin, restrained, readymade shapes. While she sings straightforwardly around the melody in the foreground, her breathy backup vocals — or strings, or a softly ostinato keyboard texture — fill in the empty spots between the lines drawn by the discrete instruments, tricking the listener into imagining vast expanses of space. Paradoxically, the effect is intimate; the songs and their singer have room to breathe, especially on “Love Alone,” the album’s centerpiece — a slow, haunting, excruciating ballad extraordinaire. Swaying with stark power while stealing from Brazil the concept of saudade, the song’s gentle, plucked acoustic guitar harmonics accentuate a melody inextricable from the rawness of her voice. Nine more songs in this vein produce an album of exquisite delicacy.

Thrilling in its reticence, Palette is primarily a triumph of arrangement, of instruments positioned next to each other in complimentary proportions. Hence, you can feel the ache in I.U.’s singing. Play it at night over headphones and gasp at her every whisper.

Day6: Sunrise (JYP Entertainment)

Each release by this guitar-toting gang has leaned a tad more heavily toward arena rock, and their full-length debut is where they turn on their distortion pedals and crunch up a storm. Pounding energetically as they do, there’s nevertheless a dull predictability to this move that makes me wish they’d lighten up again.

As their eye shadow and punchy, theatrical dynamics would indicate, they draw as much influence from mid-’00s American emo bands as from late ‘00’s Korean indie-rock, but their strengths are inversely proportional to those of most emo bands. Theoretically I’m not sure whether Dashboard Confessional is a band anybody should emulate. As with those avatars of bathetic yearning, Day6’s ballads, so huge and soaring and plaintive, are kitsch masterpieces — the magnificent “I Smile,” its solemn, arpeggiated guitar chime ringing out through the air, flaunts heartbreak the way a jock might bare a set of washboard abs. Their upbeat songs, however, land with a joyless thud, beholden to excessive notions about how hard the drums must hit and how gritty the guitars must sound. If the mix were crisp rather than merely polished, the guitars might crack sharply and provide serviceable contrast with the songwriting’s earnest sensitivity, but instead the band bulldozes the material into a blunt thrash. Comparison with Daydream, last year’s sublime mini-album, reveals much; when their power pop was still agile on its feet, their amusement at getting to act like heartthrobs shone through. Here the distorted whomp obscures such frivolities. The difference is slight but exhausting.

Many of their hooks remain fetching — ”I Wish,” “I’m Serious” (what a title!) — but taken together they equal an album overwhelmed by hasty rock loudness. Barring a resurgence in rhythmic spring, I hope they shift their focus to ballads exclusively. Adducing a bleeding heart may just inspire emotions extreme enough to satisfy.

Ignito: Gaia (Mnet)

I’m skeptical of foreign language rap — each language’s cadence clicks with a different set of rhythms, and not always those specified by received Anglophone convention. Thankfully, Ignito concedes nothing to such expectations, and the Korean rapper’s second album delivers sensationalist energy while realizing the language’s sonic potential for rapid-fire delivery.

Musically, this album turns being loud and obnoxious into a battle cry. Producer Kontrix’s beats — which combine synthesized strings, power chords, sinister showoff lead guitar, giant slabs of slammed electronic boom, and, on “Metal Rising,” a massed choir — recall prior hip-hop accompaniment less than they do Kavinsky, the Star Wars soundtrack (prequels only) interpreted for synthesizer, and any music imbued with the sort of grandiosity whereby a hero has only four minutes to save the world. This is maximalist orchestral technocratic schlock of the highest order, conjuring a mock sense of shock at its own presence — “oh no, it’s me!,” cry the electronic violins and the blues guitar. The bullheaded arrogance necessary for a rapper to choose this as his musical setting astounds, and Ignito delivers. He’s got the voice for it: deep, aggressive, froglike, inhabiting a defiantly angry yet infuriatingly self-assured tone that matches the orchestration exactly. Lacking sufficient knowledge of Korean rap to place him in context, I’ll compare him instead to Kevin Gates; both convey the sense that their tongues are too big for their mouths, so they can only blubber their lips. But Ignito’s flow is quicker and more multifaceted, more mindful of internal rhymes, more willing to stretch a line and break the meter. Treating macho puffery as a kinetic skill, the album plays like a pushy show of technique. He’s got the eye of the tiger, and you’re gonna hear him roar.

No clue what the lyrics are saying beyond an English chorus or two, and I’m not sure I want to — given his manner on the microphone, he might be an unpleasant character up close. I’m grateful to the language gap for rendering delectable such a vivid portrait of gruff masculinity in the abstract.

Lovelyz: R U Ready? (Woolim/CJ E&M)

Whatever the virtues of sugary soda and tacky plastic product, a reasonable consumer could wonder just how many girly electropop albums one needs. The answer is a zillion, obviously. This Korean girl group’s second album, as tangible as Silly Putty, terrifically demonstrates why.

So cheerful one might consider them a parody of pep, PC Music’s fantasy of what the perfect K-pop band would sound like, Lovelyz inhabit a childish cuteness that, contrary to expectations, isn’t common in K-pop proper — even the danciest stars typically court the adult contemporary market as well. With song titles like “My Little Lover,” a singer (one of eight) named “Baby Soul,” and a musical style whose cartoon simplicity codes as pre-erotic, Lovelyz instead pursue the diminutive. The album thrills in its one-dimensionality. Fizzy bright synthesizers squeak, whirr, and pop like balloons pop; synthetic slapped funk bass bounces like a rubber ball; hyped-up drum machines get the party going; breathless vocals project utter delight at the fact of their presence in such a playful environment. Imagine a digital electronic template as sweet and clean as Britney Spears’s, with the mood altered from flirty ambiguity to the joy a child feels upon seeing a pile of birthday presents, each shinier than the next, wrapped in glossy paper and tied with a bow. I’ll extend the metaphor: the singers, ebullient as they are, represent the kid. The spritzy beats, and by extension the whole album, represent the most fabulous gift one could have hoped for. What a treat to witness such joy.

This album ticks off so many of my taste boxes — sleekly stylized product, formalized genre exercise, crafty simulations of emotional structure, sonic textures you can taste and feel — that it inspires the sneaking suspicion that these elements all belong to one mode. They don’t necessarily, though. The album’s just perfect, that’s all.

The post K-Pop Conquers the World appeared first on Hyperallergic.

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