#nothing compares to this episode i’m afraid

[checkeredflagggs]

The Story of Us: Chapter 6

pairing: logan sargeant x famous!fem!singer

summary: logan and you have been keeping a secret from everyone but it might be time for it to come out

a/n: while I do my best on most of my works to be race neutral, this one is very very very self indulgent 🤷🏻‍♀️

a/n2: this is part 6 of 7, which will be released when they’re finished and I’m using pretty much everything from Taylor Swift

a/n3: I still don’t understand instagram so - no one but those that follow you can see a private accounts comments (even on a public post). Also I still hate twitter so I’ve replaced it with Bluesky

a/n4: all this was supposed to be in part 5 but everyone got really chatty in the text messages…also you can blame @sinofwriting for the cliffhanger, they encouraged me 😈😈

GO READ PART 5 FIRST!!

Masterlist | Taglist

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Valentine’s Day

logansargeant

liked by y/n, georgerussell63, oscarpiastri, and 1,992,813 others

tagged: y/n

logansargeant: I find myself running home to your sweet nothings…you’ve been such a large part of my entire life, I don’t think I’d be able to recognize myself without you. This is just a small thing really (especially compared to everything you’ve done for me) but thank you y/n for being my constant support, for being by my side, for being my biggest cheerleader, supporter, defender…for years you’ve watched me chase my dreams and now that I get to have you actually in my corner while I do it? A dream come true

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user1: ok who’s cutting onions

↳user2: I knnnnnoooowwwww 😭😭😭

↳user1: who knew Florida boy could be so romantic…

oscarpiastri: yeah we’re all asking for you to stop raising the bar thanks

↳logansargeant: not a chance

↳y/n: just get on our level

↳oscarpiastri: why am I friend with you guys again

↳logansargeant: we grew on you like mold

↳user3: this trio is something I didn’t know I needed…

user4: so so so glad mother has a man who knows her worth

↳user5: right?? He’s a good one

user6: he’s getting love songs sung about him and writing such lovely things back…google how to be Logan Sargeant?

↳user7: this!!

↳user8: I don’t know who to be more jealous of…

alex_albon: I didn’t know you had such a poetic soul Logan…

↳logansargeant: for y/n? Of course I do liked by y/n

↳alex_albon: oh you’re gonna be a mushy one aren’t you…

↳oscarpiastri: you really have no idea

jensonbutton: first congrats kid! But y/n? How’d you pull that one off?

↳logansargeant: me? I had nothing to do with it. Y/N is the mastermind in this relationship!

↳y/n: you knew all along what I was doing

↳logansargeant: and I wouldn’t change anything

↳y/n: neither would I!

↳jensonbutton: oh go be gross somewhere else please

↳y/n: why? Afraid of looking bad?

↳user9: love that we’re getting catty y/n interacting with the gird now! liked by logansargeant

y/n: oh my lovely Logan…there isn’t anywhere else I’d rather be than supporting you

↳logansargeant: have I mentioned I love you lately?

↳y/n: not in the last 10 minutes at least!

↳logansargeant: You have bewitched me body and soul, and I love, I love, I love you.

↳y/n: Mr. Darcy and donuts? A+++

↳user10: he got you donuts?

↳y/n: he did!

↳user11: where can I get my own Logan?? liked by y/n

Bluesky

Logan’s Email

williamsracing

liked by y/n, lilyzneimer, lilymhe, user and 2,982,915 others

tagged: logansargeant, alex_albon, oscarpiastri

williamsracing: Team Torque is back at it this week! This time it’s all about relationships, both on and off track, with special guest Oscar Piastri!

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user12: god this is everything I ever needed

user13: this is Logan —> 😍😍

user14: oh my god what happened? I can’t get the episode to load…

↳user15: so much ngl you are missing a lot! But most of it was the boys publicly simping for their girlfriends (like 95% of was talking about how amazing their girls are)

↳user16: as they should!

↳user15: oh I’m not arguing! But also Logan talked a lot about y/n’s love songs and how they came to be

↳user14: oh my god I’M MISSING THAT???

↳user15: I’ll dm you don’t worry

user17: ok but love story being written while they were at a cousins summer wedding?

↳user18: that’s just perfect…

↳user14: really 🥺🥺??

↳user17: yes! It was one of y/n’s cousins wedding and she brought Logan as a guest. He woke her up one night by throwing small pebbles at her window

↳user17: one of her relatives caught them running around after their curfew and they had to sneak around together after that cause they were ‘grounded’

↳user14: that's just 😍😊🥰

↳user17: right? Finally y/n’s parents got involved and let them out of their restrictive ‘grounding’

↳user14: how are they so romcom???

user19: I was right on choosing enchanted as my favorite

↳user14: spill!

↳user19: 😂😂 Logan snuck into one of y/n’s sponser’s? Partners? party (Idk Logan was kinda vague on whose party it was) to see her

↳user19: it was a masquerade but y/n recognized him immediately and they spent all night dancing with each other

↳user19: this was during y/n’s first big tour and they hadn’t seen each other in a while and Logan says they were both worried about how strong the relationship actually was with the distance

↳user19: that’s why the song asks who he loves and she’s asking for it to be the beginning not the end

↳user19: she apparently wrote it that night after the party and released it within the week

↳user14: everything I learn from this episode (WHICH I STILL CANT WATCH WIFI YOU SUCK) just gives me all the feels

user20: user14 mine was another song talked about and I guess it was one of the last ones wrote for the album and it was written on the floor of their new apartment

↳user14: gimme gimme gimme

↳user20: 🤣

↳user20: not much more to know — she bought them an apartment shortly after her 17th birthday (her family moved back to Florida) and they had some friction when they were actually living together

↳user20: apparently they had an argument, she ran out the door, and he followed right after her

↳user14: 🙏 WiFi please. Please. I need to actually watch this

user21: ok but my favorite part was Oscar laughing at Logan when Alex brought up All Too Well (10 Minute Version)

↳user21: user14 Alex brought up that song because it really talks about like a bad unhealthy relationship and a bad breakup and toxicity…

↳user21: Logan almost burst a lung laughing (seriously it’s like 2/3 minutes of it) but he finally manages to calm down and explain

↳user21: apparently she wrote it at a restaurant while waiting for him because he got held up in traffic

↳user14: seriously??

↳user21: yup! He had had to make an emergency stop because he saw some kittens on the side of the road and his phone was dead

↳user21: so she was waiting on him on their anniversary and he was making a stop at the vets to make sure the kittens were all healthy

↳user21: he made it right before she got in her car to leave and he like ran over to her car with a kitten in one hand and petal-less flowers in the other

↳user21: she polished up and released the song and it’s like an inside joke between them now

↳user14: are you serious??? One of the most heartbreaking songs is a joke for them??

↳user21: yup 😂😂

logansargeant

liked by y/n, oscarpiastri, charles_leclerc and 3,293,916 others

tagged: y/n

logansargeant: that feeling when your girlfriend gets the entire MetLife Stadium to wish you luck from the other side of the world

Thank you everyone for the well wishes!

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user22: you got this Logan! Monaco will be good to you

↳user23: it better be!

y/n: all the well wishes and best of luck my love!

↳logansargeant: I’ll win it for you babe

↳user24: winning in THAT Williams is definitely a true declaration of love liked by y/n

oscarpiastri: wait where’s my well wishes??

↳logansargeant: how about you get a world famous girlfriend first then ask that question?

↳lilyzneimer: hey!

↳logansargeant: nothing against you lily of course!

↳y/n: be nice to lily Logan!

↳logansargeant: I am! I’m just trying to make fun of Oscar

↳y/n: well that’s ok then!

↳oscarpiastri: hey! Liked by lilyzneimer, y/n, logansargeant

charles_leclerc: what a beautiful moment

↳y/n: don’t worry Charles! We’ll wish you luck tonight

↳carlossainz55: Please dont worry about him — he’ll respond later. He just straight up fainted first

↳y/n: 😂😂

user25: go prove Williams wrong Logan!

↳user26: am I the only one that thinks something fishy is happening with Williams?

↳user25: oh absolutely not. I know it’s only been a week since y/n and Logan went official but they haven’t capitalized on it at all

↳user27: it doesn’t have to mean anything? They’re probably just as shocked as us

↳user25: oh mark my words. Something fishy is up

Bluesky

user28: they are Not wrong

↳user29: man those free practices were awful

user30: James Vowles I’m in your fucking walls

↳user31: fuck his walls I’m chasing after him with a goddamn bat

↳user32: start treating Logan with respect! jv.f1

user33: Seriously vowles?? Logan has brought you more points this season than Alex??

↳user34: right?

↳user35: this is only Logan’s second season (in a WILLIAMS) and he’s already outperforming his more experienced teammate!

↳user33: ALL GOOD POINTS jv.f1

user36: jv.f1 DO BETTER

↳user37: THEY ARE BOTH YOUR DRIVERS TREAT THEM THE SAME

user38: jv.f1 go get an attitude adjustment

↳user39: we’re the Captains now and we say fucking treat your drivers as people jv.f1

↳user40: that’s fucking right

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y/n_gossip

liked by y/n, logansargeant, charles_leclerc, and 3,724,618 others

tagged: logansargeant, alex_albon

y/n_gossip: another Team Torque episode came out! And it’s still all about y/n!

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user41: another one so soon???

↳logansargeant: tbh we got bored 😂

user42: y/n is really hosting a dinner party for everyone?

↳logansargeant: she is! She’s really excited to actually meet everyone I’ve been talking about

↳user42: that’s so precious

oscarpiastri: Lily has been talking nonstop since y/n texted her

↳logansargeant: y/n is also really excited

↳user43: the fomo I have right now…

alex_albon: raise your hand if this is the only thing you’ve heard about recently? 🙋🏻‍♂️

↳carlossainz55: 🙋🏻‍♂️

↳charles_leclerc: 🙋🏼‍♂️

↳maxverstappen1: 🙋🏼‍♂️

↳danielricciardo: 🙋🏻‍♂️

↳pierregasly: 🙋🏼‍♂️

↳georgerussell63: 🙋🏻‍♂️

↳landonorris: 🙋🏼‍♂️

user44: ok but what are the chances of everyone going to the tour again beforehand?

↳user48: highly likely I’m guessing

↳lilymhe: oh it’s happening!

↳charles_leclerc: oui

y/n_gossip

liked by yourusername, oscarpiastri, and 778,445 others

tagged: pierregasly, francisca.cgomes, alexandrasaintmleux, charles_leclerc, georgerussell63, carmenmmundt, aussiegrit

y/n_gossip: it’s Philadelphia night 1! We know from the recent Team Torque episode that most of the grid were planning on going to the tour again ahead of the Montreal race this weekend!

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user49: I saw Lando, Max F, Max V, and Danny Ric arrive!

↳user50: what I wouldn’t give…

user51: my sister managed to get a picture with the Haasbands!

↳user52: I did! And I traded bracelets with them 💜💜

oscarpiastri: definitely an experience

↳logansargeant: sorry you got left with Lando!

↳landonorris: I wasn’t that bad!

↳maxverstappen1: you absolutely were

alex_albon: the friendship bracelet trading business is very serious…

↳user54: of course it is!

↳logansargeant: y/n is loving it!

↳user55: you gave her our bracelets?

↳logansargeant: gave? No no no — I earned those bracelets. But she does have a collection of them and she loves seeing people trade them!

↳user55: omg 😳

user56: this is still the best thing happening this year…

↳user57: it really really is

y/n

liked by logansargeant, oscarpiastri, and 13,294,638 others

tagged: logansargeant

y/n: Montreal you were so beautiful…congratulations on the podium Logan, it was certainly well earned!

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logansargeant: you are clearly my lucky charm and I’m going to need you to come to all my races from now on

↳y/n: as often as I can and as soon as my tour ends, my love!

↳user58: I want what you guys have…

oscarpiastri: what a race mate!

↳logansargeant: thanks dude!

↳oscarpiastri: such an American…

↳logansargeant: you knew that already!

user59: what an amazing fucking race today Logan!

↳user60: I have no idea what f1 is but go Logan!

↳user61: I’m living for the new formula 1 fans…

↳user60: it’s been fun learning! So far most everyone has been really nice and welcoming!

↳user62: the more the merrier!

alex_albon: good job Logan!

↳logansargeant: congrats to you too! P6!

↳alex_albon: 🎊 🥳🥳 definitely been a Williams weekend!

user63: and still jv.f1 can’t be actually happy can he???

↳user64: oh good I’m glad someone else caught it!

user65: jv.f1 be happy for both of your drivers challenge failed!

Bluesky

user66: please be a new chief engineer!

user67: Adrien Newey to Williams?!?

user68: dare I say…new team principal??

↳user69: you dared. And you did…

↳user68: come on! I can’t be the only one thinking it!

↳user69: oh no you’re not…just that I would never say it

user70: watch it just be new liverly or something

↳user71: that’s not big changes…

lilymhe posted a story, iamrebeccad posted a story, francisca.cgomes posted a story

[getting ready for dinner! @.y/n][an amazing hug a day keeps the doctor away @.y/n][the best grwm are with best friends @.flavy.barla @.y/n]

alex_albon replied are you gonna be done literally any time soon?

↳lilymhe I’m getting to know my new best friend. Leave us alone

user72 replied so so so jealous

user73 replied you went from creepy flirting to closed friends so fast…tell me your ways

carlossainz55 replied taking notes 📝

↳iamrebeccad not your hugs — just hers!

↳carlossainz55 corazón…

user74 replied I don’t know who to be more jealous of…

user75 replied which star did you wish upon?

pierregasly replied you’re still not ready?

↳francisca.cgomes you can’t rush perfection…

↳pierregasly I’m not rushing y/n…I’m rushing you!

↳francisca.cgomes you’re sleeping on the couch tonight

user76 replied I’m gonna need a full YouTube video on this grwm…

user77 replied Netflix get in there stat

user78 replied who all is there getting ready for the dinner???

alexandrasaintmleux posted a story, lilyzneimer posted a story, yoursister posted a story

[cheers 🥂 to new friends @.y/n][ready for night out on the town @.y/n, @.carmenmmundt][what a night…thanks for the invite @.y/n]

charles_leclerc replied 🥂🥂

↳alexandrasaintmleux she’s so lovely Charles…

↳charles_leclerc you both are Mon amour

user79 replied how the turntables…

user80 replied ok let’s just switch lives right now…

oscarpiastri replied finally!

↳lilyzneimer don’t you dare try to rush us Oscar! We’ll get there when we get there!

↳oscarpiastri we could have already been done with dinner if you guys were on time!

↳lilyzneime: leave us alone!

user81 replied you guys are all so pretty…

user82 replied absolutely stunning

y/n replied thanks for coming Lily…I didn’t even understand myself how nice it would be to have a friend when meeting everyone

↳lilyzneimer of course! And don’t worry — they already said they’d be on their best behavior…

↳y/n 😂😂

y/n replied now stop whining! I took you to a race and to a fancy dinner

↳yoursister no! Now I wanna go shopping! And to Silverstone! And Vegas!

↳y/n fine to the shopping, maybe to Silverstone, and you have to ask mom for permission for Vegas

↳yoursister you’re no fun!

↳y/n that’s me! The no fun sister

logansargeant replied thanks for coming — y/n was worried about meeting everyone and I know you coming with us helped her a lot

↳yoursister of course! Invite me to more places and events!

↳logansargeant Vegas is up to your mom

↳yoursister damn it

user83 replied now that’s a slumber party I want to be invited to…

user84 replied the fomo…

user85 replied no pictures of the actual dinner??

logansargeant

liked by y/n, landonorris, estebanocon and 2,97,455 others

logansargeant: dinner was lovely. Thanks to everyone who came!

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y/n: thanks for helping me out this all together Logan!

↳logansargeant: anything for you sweetie

user86: damn she really got the entire grid to come…

↳user87: not only the current grid but past members AND the reserves and academy drivers too?

↳user88: the power she has…

charles_leclerc: it was a lovely dinner! Thank you y/n and logansargeant!

↳y/n: thanks for coming!

↳charles_leclerc: I wouldn’t have missed it

oscarpiastri: such a great evening! Thanks y/n

↳y/n: anything for my favorite Aussie

↳aussiegrit: me?

↳y/n: no

↳danielricciardo: me?

↳y/n: close but sorry

↳oscarpiastri: what do you mean close???

↳y/n: Danny didn’t spend years thinking he was Logan’s best friend! liked by logansargeant, danielricciardo

user74: ok I know who to be jealous of…

↳user89: all of them?

↳user74: all of them!

user90: I would kill all of you to be at that dinner

↳user91: extreme but I understand

lewishamilton: it was lovely to meet you y/n 🖤

↳y/n: same! And our conversation was enlightening!

↳user92: XNDA collab?!?

Bluesky

user93: you better say sike right now

user94: this is obviously a joke

user95: they can’t be talking about y/n and Logan right??

↳user96: they better not be!

user97: he’s done better then Alex has this entire season!!!

↳user98: I’m going to riot if this is true…

↳user99: you better check Williams social right now oh my god

Bluesky

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Just straight up bunny physiological torture and angst icl 😭

Also havnt even watched the episode yet lmao so soz if some of this doesn’t make sense contextually

Bunny 🤝 collecting parental figures that are gonna inevitably die

Warnings:

Normal Yellowjackets stuff, murder, blood, gore, cannibalism, trauma, abuse, abusive relationships, dark characters, trauma responses, Stockholm syndrome tbh…

“Hi”

It was a small squeak that caught Hannah off guard, if she hadn’t have been paying attention she wouldn’t have even heard it.

Bunny had practically snuck up on the older woman, her footsteps light and silent as her bare feet tiptoed towards her.

Two eyes started at the young girl, who stood infront of her fidgeting and restless, the anxiety radiating off of her.

Bunny avoids eye contact with the brunette, one of akilahs bunnies clutched tightly in her arms like she’s afraid to let go of it.

“I brought you some water” she mutters, almost a whisper, using her spare hand to pass some sort of wooden cup full of water to her.

Hannah takes it, but only eyes it uncertainly, making bunny squirm in her place even more, her legs moving every few seconds like she couldn’t stay still.

“It’s clean…we boil it to get rid of the germs” bunny tries to reassure her, not getting much of a response.

Elizabeth sniffles, pulling the bunny that she had named Maggie after her mother, closer to her, letting her get more comfortable against her chest.

“Um…I’m bunny” the blonde tries to tell the other woman, her voice soft and uncertain as they hold eye contact once again.

Hannah watches the teen, taking her in from her place sat on the floor.

The blonde girl looked terrified, wearing the closest to normal clothes she’d seen compared the to some of the strange outfits the others were wearing.

She had on a ratty looking hoodie that swallowed the girl, the sleeves covering her arm that clutched the bunny, and long floral pyjama bottoms, all hannah could see was a scared little kid.

They all looked so young really, but this girl more so than some of the others.

She can’t help but eye the girls face, taking note of the mark on her cheek that looked like some sort of healing bruise, the cuts and rips that lie on her lips, and as she looked down, the cuts lining her neck and parts of her arms she could see, resembling bite marks.

Hannah gives her the closest she could to a small reassuring smile, softly asking, “bunny?”

“U-um Elizabeth really…” the girl says, her lips catching between her teeth, “but everyone calls be bunny”

Hannah only smiles, deciding that this girl wasn’t so much a risk as some of the others, patting the ground by her as an invitation to sit, “I’m Hannah”

She took her invitation hesitantly, sitting slowly with her bunny still in her lap, stroking it to ease her own anxieties.

“And you have your own bunny” the woman tries to joke, a slight laugh as she notices the blondes anxieties easing, even if it was just a tiny bit.

Bunny smiles a little, continuing her strokes of Maggie in her spot now sat cross legged across from the woman.

“They’re akilahs really…” bunny responds softly, her voice quiet as she speaks, breaking for a moment before continuing, “but I help her with the animals sometimes…this is Maggie”

“You guys have more animals out here?” Hannah asks with a confused voice, trying to gage the whole situation.

Nothing she had seen or heard about these girls so far had made any sense, more so the strange ritualistic activities they had walked in on, where what looked like one of their leaders, killed Edwin.

She remembered seeing bunny then too, the tears streaming down her face as they all screamed, and the terror in her eyes as she rushed towards Edwin when he fell to the ground, axe in the back of his head.

If she had stayed any longer she would have seen the blonde hurriedly trying to shove the man’s organs and blood back into his body in an attempt to save him, and their way home.

“Um yeah…” bunny said with a small uncertain smile, her voice growing less tense talking about the animals, “we found them at the beginning of spring, we have a goat too”

The woman can’t help but frown at the blonde teen, watching her hug the bunny close and smile about the animals.

She looked so young…

“Do…” bunny started, voice little as she looks away from the woman again. She tucked some hair behind her ear, before turning back to Hannah, his eyebrows furrowed a little.

“Do you think you could get us home?” Bunny whispered, like someone could appear and shoot her down for saying the words.

Hannah doesn’t know what to say. What can she say? She wants to reassure this girl, to tell her she would get them back to wherever they came from. But she didn’t want to lie.

She didn’t want to say how she truly felt, that she thought herself as dead as Edwin was now they had practically imprisoned her, her guide too as soon as one of them catch him.

“Because we didn’t want your friend to die!” Bunny says in a rush, panicking at the older woman’s lack of response.

“I promise, we didn’t know Lottie would do that…” she continued, desperately trying to tell the woman, “w-we just wanna go home i swear”

“How…how did you guys get out here?” Hannah asked in confusion, slightly avoiding the blondes questions.

The younger girl eyed her for a minute, clearly hesitant to speak.

“We were in a plane crash” she says softly, sighing slightly as she retold their story, “we were on our way to nationals for school…um we’re on the soccer team”

Hannah wasn’t sure what to say, she could remember the story slightly, all over the news a year ago about a group of teens and their coaches having disappeared on their flight, probably dead.

They were out here this long?

“From New Jersey?” The brunette asks hesitantly, making bunny’s eyes light up.

“Y-yeah! Wiskayok! Have you heard about us?? Do you know how my parents are?!” She starts rambling out in a rush, “Does everyone think we’re dead?”

“I um…” Hannah starts, unsure what to address first.

The blonde stares her down, wide eyed with a faint look of hope on her face at getting some sort of answers about he outside world.

Hannah hated to break that hope.

“I don’t know much about it…but um” the brunette didn’t know what to say, she didn’t want to lie, she wasn’t even sure what exactly would comfort Elizabeth, what could she say that would make it better?

“I’m sure your parents are ok” she says in a softer voice, “I would have seen if something happened I’m sure…”

The blonde nods slightly at her words, biting her lip again in thought as they settle into a somewhat comfortable silence.

“I just wanna go home…” the blonde whispered, looking up at Hannah again, her eyes wide and a little glassy, “I miss my parents”

Hannah’s frown deepened.

“But, you and your friend…you’re going to go home at some point aren’t you? We…we could come with you” bunny continued hesitantly.

“I don’t even know where kodiak is…” Hannah said unsure, “and…our phone broke…”

Elizabeth’s eyes watered a little more in panic, staring at Hannah and clutching her bunny even harder in panic.

“B-but…you can take us home right?” Bunny stutters almost desperately, her voice breathless as she stares at Hannah wide eyed.

“I-I don’t know…” the older woman responded hesitantly.

“Please?!” Bunny continues anxiously, her breathing getting more ragged, “you have to get us home!”

Hannah swallows, watching as the young girl gets more panicked, her breathing shaking and body restless.

“I’ll try” the brunette says with a sharp exhale of breath, “I-i promise”’

Bunny only pulls her bunny up to her chest like a teddy bear, sniffling as she nods slowly.

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@homopheli

[ialreadymadeyouapromise]

𝐊𝐈𝐒𝐒 𝐌𝐄 𝐋𝐈𝐊𝐄 𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐌𝐄𝐀𝐍 𝐈𝐓.

PAIRING: s4!jj maybank x fem!reader WARNINGS: kissing, no use of y/n GENRE: fluff SONG INSPIRATION: thinking about you - calvin harris, ayah marar WORD COUNT: 831 NOTE: last episode of season four never happened

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jj had already coaxed you into drinking more than you probably should have. he was impossible to say no to, especially when the moonlight caught in his hair like that, when he kept nudging your shoulder with his just to see you smile.

you leaned back on your elbows, toes buried in the cool sand, head spinning just enough to make everything feel a little floaty, a little too loud and too soft all at once. he plopped down beside you with two more beers, handing you one with a mock salute.

“to making bad decisions!” he grinned, teeth flashing.

you clinked the bottles together clumsily, laughing as foam spilled over your fingers. you wiped your hand on your shorts, heart racing for reasons that had nothing to do with the alcohol but everything to do with the way jj was looking at you.

he was your best friend. your best friend. you reminded yourself.

and maybe it was the bonfire’s warmth, or maybe it was the way his knee brushed against yours, with him not pulling away.

a reckless thought rooted itself deep in your chest.

kiss him.

you took a long pull from your beer, bracing yourself against the pounding in your ears.

he threw his head back to laugh at something pope said, golden hair messy, throat exposed. you caught yourself staring, and staring hard, 

before letting yourself talk you out of it, you shifted closer, the bonfire spinning lazily behind your eyelids.

“hey, jay,” you said, voice almost too loud you really couldn’t tell.

he turned his head, smile still dancing on his lips. “yeah, trouble?”

you didn’t think. you didn’t hesitate.

you kissed him.

it was clumsy at first, teeth knocking against his, noses bumping, but when your mouth fit over his properly, a soft, surprised noise escaped him. his hand jerked like he wasn’t sure what to do. bottle falling forgotten into the sand, and he kissed you back.

for a few blissful seconds, you melted against him. his lips were warm and a little chapped, tasting like beer and saltwater, and it was everything you’d ever secretly wanted but were too afraid to ask for.

halfway through the kiss, nerves surged through your drunken bravery. you pulled back just enough to look at him, breathing hard, searching his eyes for any hint of regret, rejection, anything that would make this feel like a mistake.

all he did was blink back at you. his hand reached up and cradled the back of your neck, fingers threading through your hair. without a word, without a second of hesitation, he tugged you back in, mouth slanting over yours with a sudden, breathtaking urgency.

the world tilted, and you let it.

he kissed you like he needed you. his thumb brushed the sensitive skin just behind your ear sending a shiver down your spine. you gasped quietly into him and he took the opportunity to deepen the kiss, tilting his head to better fit his mouth against yours.

somewhere in the background, you heard john b’s voice. probably teasing the two of you, but it all sounded like static compared to the way jj was touching you, kissing you.

you dropped your beer blindly into the sand, freeing your hands to tangle into the hem of his shirt, pulling him closer until there was no space left between you. his other hand found your waist, thumb pressing into your hipbone.

when you finally broke apart for air, your foreheads rested against each other, breath mingling in the humid night.

jj let out a shaky laugh, eyes closed. “jesus christ…”

you swallowed, heart hammering so hard you were afraid he could hear it.

“i’m sorry,” you whispered, voice hoarse. “i just– i didn’t mean to– ”

his eyes snapped open, a grin spreading across his flushed face.

“don’t you dare apologise,” his hand stayed on the back of your neck, thumb sweeping soothingly over your skin. 

“been wantin’ to do that for years.”

your breath hitched.

“really?” you breathed.

he smiled, not his usual cocky grin, but something gentle, almost shy. “really.”

for a moment, neither of you moved. the fire popped and hissed behind you, casting dancing shadows over the beach. the pogues were still laughing somewhere off to the side, mercifully oblivious to the two of you.

and then, because you were drunk on more than just alcohol now, you leaned in and kissed him again. slower this time, deeper, savoring every second like you were trying to memorise the way he tasted, the way he felt.

he kissed you back with the same desperation, with the same reassurance that promised this wasn’t just some drunken mistake for him either.

when you finally pulled apart again, he tucked a piece of hair behind your ear, thumb brushing your cheekbone.

“you’re mine now, you know that, right?” he said, voice low and sure, no teasing for once.

you nodded, a smile tugging at your lips. 

“yeah, maybank. i know.”

reblogs and comments are appreciated ᯓ★

© ialreadymadeyouapromise 2025.

[desertskiespodcast]

The first half of Desert Skies season 1 was made in a large hollow room, the latter half was made in a very unsturdy uncomfortable blanket fort.

The mic I use goes for $100 brand new which is nothing compared to many, and I’ll replace it with the same one if it ever breaks.

First episodes I ever made were made using free software, and the only reason I use a different software now is because it’s part of the Adobe subscription I have for other products I need. They both do the exact same things.

I never worked in sound engineering and still have no idea what half the things I do to clean up the audio are actually doing. I don’t understand the terms. I press buttons till it sounds right.

I never wrote a fiction script in my life. I didn’t finish college. I’m in recovery from a serious mental illness and have been for many years.

I’m ridiculously unorganized.

I didn’t have time to make a show. I operated at a loss for nearly a year and after that only made enough to pay for my hosting fees and software. I had a family I supported and they’re loud (but I love them).

I did it without a team. I did it without previous voice acting experience or other actors. I did it with massive amounts of self-doubt. I played every character.

I did it anonymously for like the first 6 episodes because of how afraid I was.

I took 3 month breaks between some episodes and then would have 2 episodes release back to back. At multiple points people thought my season had ended. It took me almost a year and a half to finish my 13 episode season

I still made it after some really mean reviews. And after constantly being compared (often kindly. often negatively) to a massive show I’d never heard of.

I made it after all the articles saying I’d never get listens because the podcast world is flooded. I continued making it after I found out I wasn’t doing something new, that there were like 8,000 other shows in the category.

Next month DS is on track to hit 1 million downloads.

I’m so glad I made it. It’s brought me so much joy. And I write none of this to brag, but I’m damn proud of what I’ve accomplished.

I’m just here to tell you this:

THERE ARE NO RULES

THERE ARE NO RULES

THERE ARE NO RULES

You can make one or a hundred shows if you want to, because there are no rules

You can make it by yourself or make your grandma voice act for you, because there are no rules

You can record it on a cassette tape and mail it to random addresses, because there are no rules

You can make it for one person, or for yourself, because there are no rules

You can make it a found footage or a full cast or improvise it or release one episode a year for a decade, because there are no rules

You can advertise it, or make social accounts, or don’t. There are no rules

You can record it into your phone, or your moms phone, or into a Talkboy because there are no rules

The only thing you can’t do is never make it. That’s not allowed

[sloasis]

bucks behavior post what happened to bobby is very similar to how he acted post strike in s6. maddie spends most of the episode sending people to check in on him and he wants nothing to do w it and goes to eddies house as a way to break free from maddie making sure he’s ok. compare to now he is the one doing the checks on everyone with the assessment but still he is being left alone brining in eddies worry that he’s not doing ok. when he’s at eddies he asks him if he’s now allowed to ask how he’s doing similar to you’re spiraling and nobody knows how to talk to you about it. but this is now unfamiliar territory for both of them they are both going through tragedy not just one, buck asks eddie if he remember when he almost died and it brings forth a sense in i’m not the only one but now with season 8 eddie is the one say you never asked how i was we are all going through it at the same time. & later in the end of the episode when buck speaks with maddie he tells her she needs to stop trying to fix everything just like he in the future is now trying to do but it’s not working. they then go into not being afraid to ask for help to not be seen as a burden and drifting further away and that what he’s feeling shouldn’t be hidden and even placing eddie into maddie’s place it’s a similar talk in buck should not push everything away and talk about what’s going on cause deep down that was eddies goal just to talk to him to make it known that they are in the same position just like all the times before

OOUUUUUUUUUUGH . Omg yeah . The parallels to Buck's NDE in season 6 to Bobby's death in season 8 .. ouch . It's also kinda the same conversation where Buck and Eddie were fixing his wall and Eddie told him he's the guy who always tries to fix everything ... Buck just has this need to do so , this need to be useful and I think he thinks he needs to do this , fix everyone else's problems so he has a place in their life and world ... It's also just because he loves and cares for them so much that he'll try his best to help and fix anything for them . Maddie's the same , she wanted to help and care for Buck after what happened with the lightning and she went a lil too far with it , Buck was feeling so overwhelmed and vulnerable because he just DIED . There's not much that can ' fix ' that and his emotions and thoughts about it . Going to Eddie's was so good and says a lot too because that is his SAFE place , he immediately fell asleep on his couch and that is something that has SO many layers to it , like idk about you guys but I have never just fallen asleep on the couch like that , no matter how exhausted I was . There's so must trust and love to that scene where he just . Walked in and felt so safe that he fell asleep within seconds of being on Eddie's couch . In the same season where he stated that he ' didn't want to pick the wrong couch again ' BTW . Anyways , into season 8 yeah . He took what Bobby said to him to heart so hard , ' They're gonna need you kid ' . He thinks that it's his right and his purpose to do so , after Bobby's death and the aftermath .. he went to everyone to see how they were doing , to make sure they were okay , putting them first over his own grief and mourning . Not checking in for HIMSELF , Eddie was frustrated seeing this , he was WORRIED about Buck because he wasn't focusing on his own ' grief scale ' . That is what lead to the fight because he just wanted to talk to BUCK about it , not do this game where Buck thinks he has to fix everything for everyone , running himself ragged over it , instead of just . Talking to them , listening and being there normally . Buck has the best intentions always , of course he does , he just has gone about it in a way that Eddie doesn't need . He just needs him .

[wncestnoir]

Hi dear,

What are your favourite spn episodes/wincest moments?

Have a nice day❣️

oh, thank you so much for this ask, anon! i was waiting for someone to ask this question so i could rant <333

for my favourite spn episodes i'm going to go by seasons - season 1: 1x14/1x15 ; season 2 - 2x05/2x09/2x10/2x11/2x14/2x15/2x19/2x21/2x22 ; season 3 - 3x03/3x08/3x11/3x16 ; season 4 - 4x01/4x06/4x13/4x14/4x17/4x18 ; season 5 - 5x11/5x14/5x22 ; season 6 - 6x15 ; season 7 - 7x08 ; season 8 - 8x21/8x23 ; season 9 - 9x01/9x23 ; season 10 - 10x05 ; season 11 - 11x17/11x20 ; season 12 - 12x11 ; season 14 - 14x12 ; season 15 - 15x20

as you can probably tell, i do have a favorite season—season 2 supremacy, hello??—and then there’s season 13… no favorites, no feelings, but anyway-

when it comes to my favorite episodes of all time, “all hell breaks loose” part 1 and 2 are the ones. like for me, they’re not even two separate episodes—they’re one giant emotionally devastating masterpiece. i hold them so close to my heart it’s honestly a little embarrassing. those episodes were the tipping point. the moment everything changed. i finished them and immediately fell headfirst into supernatural hell—no looking back, just full spiraling. that’s when it stopped being casual. that’s when i became completely unhinged about it. and, of course, it was also the exact point where the wincest brainrot kicked in and never left.

but beyond the personal spiral, there’s just something about those eps—the vibes. the aesthetics. the emotional weight. the desperation, the love, the sacrifice. dean making that deal? sam dying in his arms?? the grief, the rage, the everything??? it’s peak supernatural. it’s the show firing on every cylinder. they’ll always be my favorite for so many reasons—some normal, most of them unhinged—and i wouldn’t have it any other way.

favorite wincest moments?? oh i have many. a curated collection, even. first of all—playthings. i mean. come on. that scene is just… obscene. the energy?? the proximity?? like it’s so on the nose it might as well be slapping us across the face. they really said “subtlety? never heard of her.” it’s the blueprint. then there’s croatoan (2x09) which is just so much. dean choosing to stay and die with sam?? sam crying, begging him to leave?? the absolute tenderness in all of it??? it's romantic apocalypse-core and i will never shut up about it. and obviously 4x14... dean’s siren being sam is so canonically insane it doesn't even need commentary anymore. it’s like the holy grail of “they’re literally (probably) in love” evidence. peak wincest. the crown jewel. nothing else could ever compare.

now for the underrated gems that live in my mind rent-free: 3x07 (fresh blood) — sam telling dean “i know you better than anyone else in the entire world.” okay soulmate?? okay person who sees dean more clearly than anyone ever could??? it’s so intimate and sad and full of love. 7x02 — that moment when dean pulls sam back from his lucifer hallucinations with nothing but his voice?? his touch??? pure “anchor to reality” trope and it gets me every time. like dean is sam’s safe place and has been for years. 8x19 — that hug after sam comes back from purgatory?? the way dean holds onto him like he’s afraid he’ll disappear again?? the relief and need in that touch?? i’m weak. 10x14 — don’t even get me started. dean collapsing into sam’s arms, like physically folding into him, just seeking comfort, no walls up, no macho bullshit. just raw vulnerability and trust. it’s so soft and so them. i tear up just thinking about it.

anyway. wincest is written into every corner of the show, and moments like these are why it exists in the first place. no one can deny the chemistry, the subtext. it's there. plain and simple.

hope this answers your question anon, i hope you have a good day as well <3

[malin-la]

Spoilers for Hazbin Hotel episode 5

Anyways I wanted to talk about this couple of seconds

It’s such a ridiculously small bit but as my animation teacher once told me: NOTHING IS ANIMATED FOR NO REASON

It’s the way Husk’s facial expression is initially shocked from the impact of the appearance of the chain, but it quickly drops to something more annoyed than afraid. Almost in a “here we go again” kind of way

What I’m saying is that it’s more than likely that Alastor has done this before. And while the extent of Husk’s physical abuse at Alastors hands is probably nothing compared to what Angel has gone through as a victim of his contract, Husk is also clearly a victim of the physical reminder that he is contracted to Alastor

TLDR: Chain magic sucks and Loser baby hurts even more now

[spitefulsatanfics]

Title: Protecting What’s Mine

Setting: Supernatural Season 11, Episode 9-10 – "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" / "The Things We Left Behind"

Character List:

Dean Winchester

Y/N (Reader)

---

The air in the Impala was thick with tension. The headlights cut through the dark night, casting a pale glow on the empty stretch of highway in front of them. The engine hummed beneath them as Dean gripped the steering wheel, his knuckles pale. He hadn’t said much since their last hunt, since everything had gone sideways with the Amara situation.

Y/N sat beside him, the quiet hum of the road beneath them feeling like a contrast to the constant tension in the car. The weight of what had just happened—the close call with Amara—still hung in the air, but the gravity of the situation hadn’t fully settled in yet. They had barely escaped alive, and the weight of that fact was heavy in the silence. Dean was different. Something had shifted after everything, something Y/N couldn’t quite place.

Dean’s usually confident demeanor was cracked now. His shoulders were tense, and Y/N could see it in the way he gripped the wheel, like he was holding on to something more than just the car.

"Dean?" she asked softly, her voice breaking the tension in the air. "You good?"

He didn’t respond right away, and when he did, his voice was low and distant, not the usual teasing or sarcastic tone she was used to. “Yeah, just thinking.”

Y/N could tell he wasn’t alright. The situation with Amara had shaken him more than he let on. She knew it. She could see it in the way his eyes flicked to her, then back to the road. The haunting feeling of what they’d just been through was still too raw.

He let out a breath, still not looking at her. “You should have stayed in the car, Y/N. I didn’t want you getting involved with her.” His voice was rough, like he was trying to convince himself as much as her.

She shook her head, leaning closer to him, trying to catch his gaze. “I’m not going anywhere, Dean. You know that.” She reached out, her hand resting gently over his on the steering wheel. The small touch was enough to make him pause for a second, but he quickly returned his focus to the road.

“I don’t care about Amara," he muttered, his grip tightening on the wheel. "I care about you.” His words hung between them like an unsaid confession.

Y/N felt her chest tighten at his words, at the vulnerability that shone through in his voice. It wasn’t something Dean usually allowed to show. He was always the one in control, always the one protecting everyone else. But now, here he was, opening up in a way she’d never seen before.

The night air outside was cool, but it didn’t compare to the chill in the car. The more Dean avoided her gaze, the more the knot in her stomach tightened. He was afraid—more afraid than he let on. Y/N had known him long enough to recognize the signs. This wasn’t just about the hunt. This was about something deeper.

She pulled her hand away, her fingertips grazing his as she leaned back in her seat. "You know," she began softly, trying to ease some of the weight off his shoulders, "you don’t have to do this alone. You never have to do it alone."

Dean's face remained unreadable, but his jaw clenched just slightly, his fingers curling on the steering wheel. “I’ve always had to,” he said quietly, almost to himself, the words a bitter reminder of the life they led. The life he led.

Y/N didn’t let him retreat, not this time. She knew the weight of the world rested on his shoulders, but that didn’t mean she had to let him carry it all alone.

"I’m not going anywhere," she said, her voice steady. "And I’m not going to let you push me away just because you think you need to protect me from everything. You need to understand that I want to be here. With you. Through all of this."

Dean shifted in his seat, but still didn’t look at her. His grip on the wheel didn’t loosen, and for a moment, the car was filled with nothing but the sound of the engine. The weight of their words hung in the air, but there was something else there too—a quiet understanding, unspoken but real.

“You should have stayed back at the bunker. Away from all this,” he muttered, but Y/N could hear the soft crack in his voice. He wasn’t mad at her, not really. He was just... scared.

She squeezed his hand gently, her thumb brushing over the back of it. “You know I’m not going to stay behind when you’re out there risking your life.”

He was quiet for a long moment, his face still unreadable. But when he finally spoke, his voice was soft, almost like he was afraid of saying it out loud. “I don’t want to lose you.”

Y/N’s heart stopped at his words. The sheer vulnerability in his voice—the admission that he was afraid of losing her—struck her deeply. It was the last thing she had expected to hear from him.

She turned to him, her gaze soft but unwavering. “You won’t. Not while I’m here.”

Dean didn’t say anything, but for the first time that night, his grip on the wheel loosened just slightly. His shoulders relaxed a little. He wasn’t okay yet, but he was starting to let her in. The walls he’d built around himself had cracked, and she was determined to help him tear them down completely.

---

Later, back at the bunker, the two of them sat in the library, the faint hum of the fluorescent lights filling the otherwise quiet space. Dean had showered, and though he appeared more at ease now that they were off the road, there was still something off about him. The weight of what had happened with Amara was lingering, and Y/N could feel the tension in the air. He was still on edge, still thinking too much.

Dean had been keeping his distance all evening, but now, sitting across from her at the table, he seemed to be lost in thought again. His eyes flickered to the laptop in front of him, but his mind wasn’t there. It was elsewhere, probably still on Amara—on the fear that lingered from their encounter.

“I don’t know how much longer I can keep this up,” he muttered, his voice low, the words barely breaking the silence.

Y/N watched him, heart aching at the way he looked so broken, even when he tried so hard to appear tough. “You’re not alone, Dean,” she said, her voice soft but firm. “You don’t have to carry all of this. Not anymore.”

He let out a frustrated breath, running a hand through his still-damp hair. “You don’t understand. It’s not just about this. It’s about everything—about not knowing if I’m going to make it out of the next fight. About not knowing if I’ll have someone to come back to.”

She stood up, walking over to him. There was no hesitation in her movements now—she was done being afraid of pushing him too hard. “You always have me,” she said, her voice unwavering as she placed a hand gently on his shoulder. “I don’t care what happens. You’ll always have me, Dean. I’m not going anywhere.”

His eyes flickered to hers, and for the first time in a long while, there was a glimmer of relief in them. He leaned back, letting out a long, shaky breath. “I don’t deserve you,” he muttered, his voice barely above a whisper.

Y/N smiled softly, leaning down to place a gentle kiss on his forehead. “You’re wrong. You deserve everything good in this world. And you deserve someone who loves you. Completely.”

Dean’s hand found hers, his fingers curling around it. He didn’t say anything, but the way his gaze softened told her everything she needed to know. In that moment, with everything they had been through, the only thing that mattered was that they had each other. And no matter what came next, they would face it together.

---

The night stretched on, but the weight of fear that had lingered throughout the day began to ease. The bunker was quiet, and for a few fleeting moments, it felt like the world outside didn’t exist. Y/N and Dean were no longer just survivors of a world full of monsters—they were more than that. They were each other's sanctuary, and that was enough for now.

[djeesperate]

Finding Comfort

Word count: 1675

C/W: Minor Relink spoilers?, I refer to him as "Siete" instead of "Seofon" sorry, Siete being toxic, unrequited love. Inspired by the fate episode the funny blond man has in Relink.

“Isn’t that worth something?”

Siete has been mulling over his thoughts ever since his silver-haired acquaintance spoke his mind.

Id was socially awkward and struggled to understand most things that weren't combat-related. So when he expressed envy over the captain and the Eternal leader's relationship, Siete was at a loss.

“What are you doing out here?”

He snaps back to reality at the sound of their voice—speak of the devil. They stood in front of him in sleepwear, the moonlight from above making their tousled hair shine beautifully amidst the damaged deck of the Grandcypher. Siete exhaled from his nose, “Mulling over work stuff. No breaks for someone as in-demand as moi, I'm afraid.” He lied. “What about you? Thought you'd be fast asleep after the party was done. Your beauty sleep's important, y’know!”

He watched them roll their eyes, unimpressed. “I'm looking for Gawain,” of course you were, “He stepped out of the party for a bit before going back in.” So that's where you went, “Wanted to check up on him before I sleep. Have you seen him?”

“No.”

“Huh… maybe he's in the pantry. He didn't eat much after all,” you knew his eating portions now? He watched you turn back to the door and walked away without looking at him. “Whatever. Thanks anyway.”

“Hey.”

When you stopped to look back at him, it gave him just a little bit of hope. “I’m proud to be by your side. Wouldn't have chosen anyone else but you.” He said, earnestly, hoping his words would reach you this time.

It vanished the instant those wrinkles appeared, brows scrunched, eyes narrowed, those lips that made the most perfect smile pull downwards. “Ew, what was that for?”

“Ahaha… kidding~” Not one blade in his vast collection was sharp enough compared to the cut in his heart right now. If he were to be stabbed by all the swords in existence, it wouldn't hurt as much as watching your back turned, leaving him atop the ship without saying goodbye.

The alcohol tasted horrible the day after, nothing Ladiva said truly reached him. The distance he was from reality started to grow further and further—her words that once brought comfort long ago, muffled by the black abyss between them now. 

“Oh, hello, dear! It's rare to see you here.” The chime atop the door rang as someone entered.

“Trust me, I'd drop by more often if it were as empty as it is right now.” An irritating voice came from behind the blond man, footsteps coming closer to the bar. “I have no clue why that one guy insists on talking to me, but I never pictured him to be as chatty as he is.”

Ladiva laughs, leaning forward on the counter. “Oh, come now, Baal means well. He tells me you have a good voice.”

“Nonsense. The closest thing to music I've ever done was when the captain made me sing them ‘Happy Birthday’,” The knight from Dalmore took the seat next to Siete, “Barely in tune, I will add.”

“That's nice,” Poison spilled out from Siete's mouth, words laced with sarcasm as he butted into the conversation.

Yet, the man didn't notice this and raised a brow. “I don't understand. What was nice?”

He never understands, “Don’t think too hard about it, man.” Siete downs his drink, ignoring the disapproving look Ladiva was giving him. “I just say things randomly. A quirk, really.”

“I see… I suppose eccentricity is the norm in this crew,” don't make him laugh, “Thank you though, I think.”

“Don't mention it.” Siete smirks, setting his mug down before standing up to leave. “I've had my fill Ladiva~ Thanks again for everything.”

Whatever was going through her mind, Ladiva didn't say anything. The concern in her eyes was blocked out of his view—he didn't want to acknowledge that he was causing her distress.

“Ladiva, are you alright?” Gawain spoke up. He blinked in surprise when he felt Siete's hand land on his shoulder, squeezing firmly.

“You have no idea how lucky you are.” Siete looked ahead, not even sparing him a glance as he let go, leaving the knight alone and confused.

“... Is everything okay with him?” He looked at Ladiva, unsure of what he walked into.

She smiled, but Gawain could tell she was pained by something. “It's nothing, dear.” Her voice was almost inaudible, extremely saddened. “Everyone has their struggles. I hope you are doing fine, though.”

“Oh, I've been well.” He lights up, smiling genuinely, “My sister has expressed her interest in fashion to me recently. It's nice to hear her talk about it so excitedly…”

How funny, the Sun is out and summer is in, but it felt cold wherever Siete went. 

Atop a hill in a peaceful area he scouted, he sat cross-legged, leaning back on his hands as his head faced the skies. His eyes closed, allowing himself to feel the breeze of the wind and hear the rustling of the grass below him.

They were supposed to spar with him here an hour ago, but he guessed they probably cancelled on him to do other things. Again.

“They’re out with Sir Gawain’s sister.” 

Siete opens his eyes, looking at the unwanted guest. He didn't say anything, irritation showing on his face.

“... You're not thinking of killing me again, are you?”

“I wonder, Id, I wonder~”

Id frowned, continuing to stand as he looked down at the sulking mess of a man. “You're being passive-aggressive,” he noted, “Such tone is meant to convey sarcasm. Elmott taught me this.”

“Do you want a gold star?”

“Siete.”

“Just go away. I'm not in the mood to talk right now.” Siete motioned him to leave as if Id were a dog. He laid down and closed his eyes again, trying to find peace.

He heard Id sit down next to him. “You're temperamental for a leader. I wonder how the other members of the Eternals see you.”

“You can ask them yourself if you're so curious about it.”

“Why are you the way you are? Why so bothered by Sir Gawain’s relationship with the captain?” Crimson eyes studied the blond’s face. “I told you before that your bond with the captain is special. Is that really not worth anything to you?”

“Get lost.”

“I am lost. I don't understand why you're isolating yourself like this.” Id sighed in frustration.

Moments passed, and Siete spoke after contemplating his words���whether or not he should open his mouth. It's not like he enjoys being petty either, you know? But he can't help himself when he's being treated like trash. “How envious you are of me, I'm exponentially envious of him.”

“... Is that so?” Id was deep in thought. “I suppose it's comforting to know that even you can feel inadequate.”

“I'm glad you feel better about yourself.”

“You're still being sarcastic…” Id sighed. “Is there no way for me to help you at all?” He watched Siete open an eye, the teal trying to burn his red ones, “I am… Mr Fix It after all.”

“How cute,” Siete sat up, leaning closer to him. “So what's the fix for my achy breaky heart, hm? What's your million rupee solution?”

Id backs up, uncomfortable by the staredown he's receiving. “I… don't know.” He admits. “But I'd rather keep you close while finding an answer than leave you to your devices. You would sooner behead that man than face your troubles head-on.”

“Now that's a good idea.”

“That is not a good idea.” Id frowns again, “What is this obsession with murder? Aren't you supposed to be a hero of sorts?”

“It's not an obsession. It was only you.” Siete corrected, “and I was just joking, obviously.”

“Nothing is obvious with you…” Id shook his head, choosing to ignore the part where the Eternal leader admitted wanting Id dead in the past. “Always saying things with hidden meanings, always saying the opposite of what you mean. Maybe if you weren't so cryptic, the captain would've reciprocated by now.”

Siete merely laughed at the suggestion, as if it were the funniest joke ever told. Id just watched with scrutiny, trying his best to decipher his mannerisms. Siete never had a mother, but he felt as if she would've sounded like Id at this very moment.

“Then I suppose you don't want me to fix it. I'll take my leave.” The albino man moved to stand back up but stopped when he felt a hand on his wrist.

In a kneeling position, Id looked to Siete, sitting quietly staring straight ahead at absolutely nothing. He searched his eyes for some kind of meaning to this strange behaviour but found nothing. “Why are you holding my arm like it's glass?”

“...I don't know.”

“Does that mean you don't know, or you know but refuse to elaborate?” He raised his brow, patience running a little thin.

“Don't ruin the moment.”

“What? What does that mean?”

“How can you expect to woo the ladies being this dense…” Siete shook his head, sighing dramatically.

“But you're not a lady… what is happening right now…” Truth be told, the only reason Id sat back down was because his brain was working overtime trying to understand the situation he just landed himself in.

“Just stay. Please.”

Nothing more was said. No words were exchanged past that point. 

Id doesn't fully understand, but he stays anyway. Was it weird that somehow, it felt comforting? That was how he thinks the air feels. Siete doesn't seem bitter anymore and genuinely looks cheerful again (maybe he should ask Elmott what significance “moments” meant to women…).

He sighed, this man really was the most difficult to comprehend. First, he tells him to leave him alone yet now he's telling him to stay. He hasn't let go of his arm either. Id wonders if there's some case of split personality going on inside Siete's mind.

“Look, Id! It's Vyrn stuck in a pumpkin!”

“Er, that's a cloud.”

“Id…”

Who would've thought clashing personalities somehow make good friends?

[crab-ran-goon]

sorry analysis is so scary for me and this is like a weird scrapbook of a discord conversation i had earlier today but like thinking abt Eiji Hino and what OOO reveals about him so early on in the show. a disclaimer is that i’ve seen under 10 episodes of ooo so like. obviously i lack the full picture this is just personal observation cus to me eiji sticks out from other kamen rider protagonists from shows i’ve seen! and i find it fascinating!

putting it under cut cus it got yappy

besides gavv, i had only ever watched heisei 1 shows. ryuki, blade, kabuto and i’m currently watching kuuga while having seen roughly half of den o. ooo is my first time watching anything neo heisei and i’ve seen no completed reiwa shows (so i can’t compare shouma to how a reiwa protagonist is like for example) ! enough like. background information my point is

To me Eiji Hino is not the typical primary rider. While I ultimately think his heart is in the right place his attitude towards saving others differs from early heisei “i protect others because i love humanity/love people/love this world” or any kind of variation on that sentiment. I took note of Eijj telling Hina pretty early on he saves people because he’s afraid he might regret it if he doesn’t.

So what does this tell me about Eiji? I feel like in a show all about greed and desire he’s holding back his true feelings. He’s not the hero because he feels any particular way about being one and being proactive but because he fears the person that would make him and his regret. I don’t think he’s a cruel person or an indifferent person at all. He shows a shit ton of kindness for his fellow humans as he has a lot of empathy for victims of the greed and regularly bickers with ankh about it. But he kinda carries this misery to him under a cheery carefree demeanor. He doesn’t want to let himself feel bad about things, because would it then force him to look at himself?

He doesn’t seem to want things. I don’t think he lets himself have these desires because he personally thinks he doesn’t deserve to be tied down and have a place of belonging. While pondering this I thought about how he was unlike other riders for his attitude on being a hero differing from characters like Godai and Shinji. It has a mild kick of “this is just the right thing to do and nothing more” but now that I think about it more he’s really just a good kamen rider protagonist too cus he has all those isolation from humanity type of feelings. I guess my point is 7 episodes in I can sense he has smth wrong with him and won’t let himself be happy.

But he will smile like a dumbass and bicker with Ankh and try to help Hina the best he can even if there is something he’s holding back and then he can allow himself to pretend there’s nothing wrong <3 clocking his depressive vibes when he’s done nothing but smile 👍

[nichhed]

@bxd-kxrma liked this post !!

oh, gee. What COULDN’T I say about you that is absolutely positive and glittery???

Can I just say that you’re actually one of the most fun people I’ve come across in this community??? If it weren’t for dearest Seventh, it probably would have been a much longer frame of time before I would have met you, so shout out to @the-lytenye-realms for introducing us through our love for Elysia & women alike. You’re so easygoing and I think that is one of the things that makes it so easy for me to fall into a nice rhythm when interacting with you. You’ve easily become one of those people I can’t help but see as a good friend, ‘cause dang, the misadventures go crazy.

Your support in my silly endeavours, even when others were flailing their limbs in disappointment that a grown woman could be this way, honestly solidified that this world will keep spinning in all its glory. I know that there will be a lot more fun to be had in the future, and I’m looking forward to every bit of trouble we cause the citizens of Discordtopia for the hell of it!

Anyway, on to the stuff you’re here for! It’s super difficult not to find your passions infectious. Karma is the main OC I have interacted with, and the one we have discussed the most, either in group chats or DMs. If I’m honest, I love how REAL she is. She has flesh, she has breath & she has bones. She’s structured, no matter what verse you throw her into. In particular, I like how you’re not afraid to get into the nitty-gritty of a character to ensure that they, themselves, are totally human. There’s such a sweet dynamic between the good and the bad, the lewd and the lewder, the serious —

You get the point.

One of my favourite parts of the day is being able to see you having fun with Karma on the dash. The silly little bickering that takes place either at night or early morning has always been something that entertains me. To shine a bit more light on the seriousness of it, though, I will say that there’s nothing that can compare to the light you bring to my muses. I think it just helps a lot because you’re one of those people I feel particularly comfortable with, which makes plotting ANYTHING really easily. Like, we could probably plot out a cat-maid-cafe RP thread and have some really silly things go down and I’d want it to go on for 52 seasons, 12 episodes each, 60 minutes per episode, with a sequel, with a prequel done 12 years later following a story made in its wake.

…I am somewhat referencing Tokyo Mew Mew, yeah.

To cut to the chase, Karma is one of my favourite OCs to ever have been made by anyone and I hope to see more from you in the future. I know you’re going to be a busy piece of Toast, but I will be checking in to ensure all is good !! Remember, you’re so cool and one of the bestest people to exist.

[please-help-this-little-lesbian]

So, I recently started watching Avatar: The Last Airbender. The politics of the show are very interesting to me, especially considering I just finished reading The Animorphs series. Now, I know they aren’t directly comparable, what with being two different mediums (books vs a cartoon), being created at different times (Animorphs the 1990s, ATLA 2005-2008), and (slightly) different age ranges (ATLA 7+, Animorphs middle grade (specifically 9-12, though I’d argue it generally skews older.)) But both are very anti-war and anti-imperialism. Animorphs was the first series in that age range I encountered that truly goes “hard” with its themes. It asked a LOT of tough questions, and its protagonists were truly morally gray in the end. One of my favorite scenes in the series is where the villain is on trial for war crimes, and his lawyers bring up that the protagonist is ALSO a war criminal. The protagonist is acquitted by The Hague because it was self-defense. Incredible. But, back to ATLA.

An episode that really stood out to me was “The Puppet Master,” particularly Hana’s fate. Now, if I’m being completely honest, I was never afraid of Hama, and honestly, I didn’t blame her. I’m not saying she was RIGHT, she was torturing innocent people who had nothing to do with her original imprisonment, but I could understand how she’d operate on all Fire Nation citizens being a monolith. Honestly, I was a little disappointed that her arc ended with her being locked up again, the very same thing that drove her to blood-bending in the first place.

It really made me think about “justice,” particularly the western view of it. I feel like the west, particularly America (ATLA, though inspired by Asian culture, is an American made-TV show), justice is viewed as a punitive and retributive thing, where the ultimate goal is to punish the fact that a crime was committed, rather than address why, how, and the humanity at the heart of the situation. Wim Laven says, in an article for LAProgressive, “No criminal trial is motivated by healing or truth. Trials are about fact finding and fact exclusion,” (2021). Healing is a part of my problem with Hama’s story. She is someone who has suffered from immense trauma in being kidnapped, imprisoned, (probably) tortured, and lost not only her home but everyone she knew. Yes, continuing the cycle of violence doesn’t help you heal from it, but sometimes it feels like it’s the only option. Again, I’m not saying what Hama did was RIGHT, but to her it was something, something to deal with the pain and anger. And putting her back in the very same conditions that fueled this pain and anger doesn’t feel like justice to me.

Let’s take it back to Animorphs since I brought it up for a reason. There is actually a similar situation portrayed in the series. In book 20, The Discovery, we’re introduced to a character named David. He recently began attending the same school as the protagonists, and came across a piece of technology he shouldn’t have. This leads to him being targeted by the villains of the series and triggers a fight between the protagonists and antagonists. In this fight, David’s parents are captured by the villains, and his home is destroyed, leaving him at the mercy of the protagonists. They debate whether to leave David to be captured by the antagonists or induct him into their group. (The villains are parasitic slugs who can crawl into people's brains and take them over, and the protagonists can morph into any animal whose DNA they acquire. Because they take over brains, you have no way of knowing who is and isn’t actually a parasitic slug, so the protagonists must keep their powers a secret from everyone they know. Yes, IK Animorphs is weird. The point is, the slugs know everything about you, so either way David is a risk.) They ultimately decide to give him the power to morph and induct him into the group, but this ultimately ends up being a mistake. David repeatedly endangers the group, breaks their rules, almost betrays them to the villains, and tries to kill multiple of the protagonists. The group has no choice but to do something with David, but what? They don’t want to kill him, so they do something that’s honestly far worse. They trap him in rat morph (you can only stay in morph for two hours before it becomes permanent) and drop him off on a secluded island in the middle of nowhere. This haunts the protagonists for the rest of their lives. Later, through fever dream plot reasons, David comes back and begs to be killed. We never find out if he is or not. A key part of David’s story is that at the end of the day, he was just a traumatized, troubled kid whose life was turned upside down, and EVERYONE ended up suffering for it. Animorphs does a really good job of exploring the tragedy of war, and it's because of the focus on how war creates conditions where violence is the only option because it is easier to commit to a cycle of revenge than work to improve conditions so that war doesn't have to be inevitable.

I'm not saying Avatar: The Last Airbender doesn't talk about this, or that it has to! It's for a younger audience, I don't expect or need the protagonists to commit atrocities! But it's interesting that they introduced a character that is villainized for this, and disappointing to me. The situation isn't black or white, Hama is sympathetic, and we understand why she's doing this, but the writing presents the only solution as punishing Hama for the harm she caused instead of allowing her to redeem herself.

I'm not saying that's an easy answer, either. The gaang are kids, in Fire Nation territory where they're subjected to Fire Nation laws, and just freed her victims. With the upcoming invasion, they couldn't just take Hama back to the Southern Water Tribe. But why is locking her away the only solution? Why didn't they at least consider the route where they prevented her from committing further harm by taking her out of the situation? Maybe they ask her to join the invasion with the promise she'll stop blood-bending. Maybe they promise to break her out later. I'm not saying everything would be perfect, but letting Hama return to her home, surrounded by people who would help her heal, takes away the desire to do harm, does it not? This is a situation where punitive justice is NOT the only answer, yet it's presented as if it is. I wouldn't even be as upset at her fate if the narrative addressed this wasn't the only way, and the tragedy of this being their only option at the moment. But it doesn't because it sees it as right.

This also frustrating because Zuko IS given the benefit of tragedy and restorative justice. Now, I haven't finished the show yet (I just finished 3x11), but from what I've seen so far, I'm assuming Zuko redeems himself by not only working to heal HIS trauma but the trauma he caused OTHERS. And that's GREAT! I LOVE Zuko, he's my favorite character. I'm not saying he doesn't deserve a redemption arc. He DOES. But it's frustrating that he, a member of the royal family of an imperialist nation, who's directly harmed the gaang amongst other crimes, is given this opportunity while Hama, a victim of said imperialist nation, isn't. Yes, you can chalk it up to Hama admittedly committing far worse a crime than Zuko has, and Zuko being a child while Hama is an old woman, my main concern is still the optics here.

ATLA has a philosophy of actions defining character, and while this is fine, and I agree with it, I don't think it's given quite the amount of nuance it needs. Motivations for actions are just as important. Hama's arc is messy and nuanced, but that isn't explored nearly enough.

If we can all agree that Zuko is a victim who deserves a second chance, then why isn't Hama?

[ecargmura]

The Fragrant Flower Blooms With Dignity Episode 4 Review - Study Date

Watching this episode while remembering the contents of what had happened in the recent chapter of the manga made me worried for what will happen as we’re on the verge of why the teachers hate Chidori and indoctrinate their students to hate the school. To reiterate, Subaru, in this episode, said that the teachers hate Chidori, which was why she was being overprotective of Kaoruko because she worried about what would happen to her if she was caught being seen with him.

See? Subaru isn’t so bad. She means well, but is very awkward about it. She puts up a cold front due to the bullying she faced in the past, but Kaoruko was there to protect her, so she looks up to her. It does feel as if her identity is just being about Kaoruko, but she will grow out if it, I promise. I’m glad the anime is able to capture Subaru’s expressions well. I’m glad that Rintaro didn’t waste any second to turn down her request of not seeing Kaoruko anymore.

Speaking of Rintaro, I do like how he’s slowly falling for Kaoruko. He even got surprised when he woke up and arrived early for their study date—pfft, Rintaro, 7:43 am is nothing compared to me waking up at 5:30 am every morning when I was your age. The fact that he takes her studying advice to heart and even wants to motivate himself to do his best just because of her. She really is like a light in Rintaro’s life in a way. She means so much to him that not even Subaru can stop him from wanting to see her whenever he can. Gosh, I love it when a romance story’s protagonist is not backing down from the supposed antagonist’s request to not see their love interest anymore. He has backbone and he’s not afraid to use it.

My favorite part was honestly the part where those two middle school girls thanked Rintaro for giving them his seat at the library. It shows that while other people are still quick to judge him, there are others who will be brave enough to be grateful to him and realize that Rintaro’s not all that scary.

If you like how Kaoruko dressed in this episode, you’re in for a treat as she’s quite the fashionista so you’ll see a lot of different outfits from her. Also, I didn’t realize her hair was in a bun until I saw it in this episode. I’m a fake fan. I shall leave now. *closes laptop*.

[patches-and-potions]

Negativity incoming if you don’t want to read more of my criticisms of RTD2. I swear I like this show guys I just wish it was better. I’ll make a tag or something so people can blacklist it.

———————————————————————

Is this a safe space to say I dislike most of the RTD2 reoccurring characters? Just because we know nothing about any of them, and I am not emotionally attached to anyone (except Carla + Cherry). My rewrites will be below the cut

Let’s recap what we’ve gotten in show:

Shirley: Basically replaced Osgood but doesn’t do anything specific, just vague sciencey stuff on her tablet that’s convenient at the given moment. What’s her specialty? Why’d she join UNIT? What are her opinions on the militarization of UNIT? She could have been a window into non-field operations at UNIT. Removing her from the stories she appears in would have no impact. An interesting character concept wasted by RTD

Christofer: His singular personality trait is to be Kate’s admirer-turned-partner. He’s kinda her conscience? but also not really because we’re never shown that his words have any impact on her. Again, would have been interesting to see the writers create dissent within UNIT if they actually had Kate’s moral ambiguity and Christofer’s less flexible ethics be a significant conflict. UNIT Director facing a potential mutiny from her own second in command who thinks she’s gone too far? Entire episode right there.

Mrs Flood: You will never convince me that she was supposed to be the Rani from the beginning. She had such an amazing set up and generated a ton of intrigue…for nothing. I was convinced she was the Trickster or even another Timelord (my irl friends and I had a crack theory that she was the Monk).

Rose Temple-Noble: It makes sense that Donna had a daughter, we know Donna always wanted a family. But I swear to God can we have normal companions? By normal I mean not Timelord hybrid/DoctorDonna shenanigans, btw. Like Donna is the most important woman in the universe and her daughter is completely normal. To me that’s more compelling than whatever happened in the Star Beast. Rose can still make her plushies and have the reasoning be Wilf tells her stories when her mum isn’t around. She’s stuck in the same hole as Shirley, interesting ideas with not awesome follow through. Why does Rose work at UNIT? You’re telling me that Donna Noble lets her underaged daughter work for the military? Also this is just a nitpick but Rose’s actress (I’m blanking on her name I’m so sorry) looks way too old to be 15/16. I genuinely thought Rose was Ruby’s age, like 19-21. This is not hate on the actress, her performance (what little screen time she gets) is fine. I just can’t suspend my disbelief enough to believe that is a girl in the middle of her teens.

How I would fix these things:

Shirley is the new UNIT CSO, and she’s simultaneously nervous of taking on that legacy and excited to be in a position to do good for the world. She mentored under Osgood, who recommended her to Kate. Osgood went dark to be able to help the Zygons and stay off UNIT’s radar, with Kate’s begrudging permission. Shirley specializes in biomedical engineering. She and Kate have a slightly uneasy dynamic because Kate unintentionally is always comparing her to Osgood, and Shirley is tired of being overlooked for her own talents. She privately considers Kate to be toeing the line between authoritative and authoritarian.

Likewise, Christofer has risen to second in command of UNITs military forces, but he’s very similar to the Doctor, in that he only uses violence as a last resort. People often assume the opposite because he’s a scary looking guy. He’s outspoken, serious, and isn’t afraid to call Kate on her bullshit. The two of them often disagree because of that, Kate pushing for harsher retaliation to alien threats and Christofer refusing to roll over and let her anger outweigh her morals. He would stage a mutiny if he though Kate had gone too far

Also, I’m injecting my Shirley/Christofer propaganda in here even though I’m likely the only person in this fandom who ships them. The two of them are basically the last line of defense when Kate gets really pissed off, and they bond over the fact. Christofer admires Shirley’s brilliance, and Shirley admires Christofer’s unwavering moral compass. Christofer fell first, Shirley fell harder (after my imaginary UNIT mutiny hypothetical episode)

Rose is trickier because she’s even more of a non-character. For one, I’d make Rose completely human, and she grew up believing in aliens because of Wilf. Anyways Rose doesn’t join UNIT as a literal child, she’s actually part of an alien/ufo truther club and makes her plushies to fund trips to historical extraterrestrial sites and conventions. Donna finds it adorable even if tOf course, UNIT keeps tabs on the club in case they ever get too close to the true aliens. That’s why she gets so excited when she meets the Meep (in this hypothetical rewrite) because then she can show the Meep to her club members. Unit figures it out because they’ve been surveilling former companions. I haven’t worked out how the Star Beast ending would change so suggestions welcome.

Mrs Flood…oh that’ll be a whole other post

[pretentious-art-love]

Comic Reviews #12 - 20th Century Boys by Naoki Urasawa

I’m about to write up a storm.

As far as it goes, this is the worst manga I ever read.

I’m annoyed, I’m annoyed at it, and annoyed at the other manga by this author too, Monster.

I remember watching the Monster anime back in 2017, I watched one episode every day, there was a David Sylvian song as the ending I thought was incredible, but after 74 episodes… nothing, it was a bunch of nothing! Spoilers ahead for both this and that one.

I hated that anime, it was incredibly disappointing, and this year, I am now reading 20th Century Boys due to a recommendation someone gave me on Discord. At first, I didn’t know it was from the same author, but the style is very clear even when comparing the Monster anime to the Boys manga. There are some good things about this manga and those are the reason it is not getting a 0. The concept of seeing your childhood story come into reality as an adult is very cool, some of the spooky cliffhangers are fun… before you realize the pay offs are underwhelming, I like the way this artist draws people because they look closer to real life humans (aside the female lead which has bigger eyes than the rest for some reason) but aside that… that’s it, I don’t have more positives.

Where do I start? I just…  I just hate it; I just hate all of it. Why? Because this author thinks you are stupid. Let’s start with Monster, what were Johan Liebert’s crimes against humanity? They are never clearly stated, it is murder, psychological manipulation, criminal stuff, identity theft and a bunch of smoke and mirrors since we are always chasing him in the anime. Here is the same thing, there are virus attacks but for the first attacks a number is never given, how many people die on London? How many in San Francisco? It is only one time when there is a reference to the creator of the atom bomb that a number is given, 150,000, but for the most part, everything in this manga is smoke and mirrors too.

First of all, yes I know mystery has tropes like red herrings and hiding information from you, that is part of the magic, not revealing everything at first and also giving you fake information to see if you can figure out who the real culprit is, I’m not saying this author is bad at the art of suspense, he is in fact pretty damn good at it, the thing is that the view of humanity he uses for these two works is incredibly, frustratingly myopic!

I know the basis of horror in many cases is the fear of the unknown, there is even a genre dedicated just that, cosmic horror, this author likes to deal a lot with the unknown too, but the way he holds information from you so much, the way his villains feel rhetorical, the way that big reveals don’t change the story at all, it annoys me to my very bones! Not to mention his villains are HUMANS!! Not cosmic monsters from other dimensions or the sea, that’s why it feels so wrong, humans have their own goals and fears, they are chemical based machines, but he just refuses to understand them, even worse, he mystifies them on purpose!

I also took personal offense with Monster because it feels that with that anime everyone was so busy of being afraid of the mystery guy or whatever to the point they didn’t see that many people in positions of power will end up playing his games in real life, they act his game of blood just happens because he is mentally ill. Sure people will say "Nah, Johan is worse we just don't know much of his crimes" well to that I say THAT DOESN'T COUNT! The author doesn't want to define a single thing of his crimes so he can say he did all of them! Its fucking stupid! I call this bullshit!

Also, the whole blending the line between good and evil in children’s book is so stupid! It is so fucking stupid I hate it! It pissed me off back then, and it still pisses me off now. Like if you teach someone 2 plus 2 equals 5 many won’t just believe you, they will see through your lies, but if that is the route you want to go, sure, why not, I just don’t get why when in the real world there is a much more interesting route to take to blend good and evil when you introduce conflicts of interest.

The villain here is not as aggravating as in Monster but he is also just an enigmatic fuck that just wants to destroy the world because he had no friends or whatever or who the fuck cares, also there was another guy aside him or something, and they can bend spoons or whatever but like seriously who the fuck cares. I just hate, really hate, when people make the misunderstood person the mystery villain, if it was me, I would write the story in the villain’s shoes, I can assure you that you can keep just as much mystery that way.

Let’s bring other mystery anime for comparison, Hirugashi, the very first scene of that anime is a guy murdering his classmates in a paranoid frenzy rage, it was brutal, and the whole season 1 you are passed around through the paranoias of several protagonists and you stay on your shoes the whole time and it gets absolutely horrifying, and the mystery is kept the whole way through… I feel that when we get to season 2, we get revealed a little too much and the mystery is removed, but there is still things to figure out and the plot gets moving a lot faster, so in any case, I thought that was a good mystery, you are kept in the villains shoes, you want answers, and there is this burning intensity all the way through.

Now, sure if you do not want to depict the blood or murder or paranoia I mean sure I guess fine, fucking fine, if it is not your thing, fine, there are other ways to tackle the unknown, but every single time I am reading this story I just can't help but feel an incredible lack of commitment at all fronts, I feel like he is looking at me as if I was a dumb fuck or something because all implications and behind the scenes awful acts are always incredibly vague and there is nothing of actual substance to hold yourself into, it is one thing to hide facts and other to just have smoke and mirrors, and this is all just smoke and mirrors!

With these two stories, Monster, and 20 Century Boys, I always get this feeling, this sickening feeling, these two stories are always, freaking fucking always, telling me “Look at these awful beings! Beings you would never ever turn into! See them? They are so evil, they have gone way past anything a human could ever turn!” It’s as if he implied they were never human, it pisses me off, that’s why I say his view of humanity is myopic, sure there will be people more prone to extremes due to brain development or whatever, but anyone can turn rotten if they went through the wrong things, if they are pushed just enough, and it pisses me off, it insults me, that these two stories present you their villains as things completely different from you, things you can never turn into, it lacks the very self-awareness of what it means to be fucking human, it makes me incredibly angry that I even want to cry! God fucking damn it!!

It annoys me also that many chapters in this thing (and episodes in Monster as well) are about people looking horrified at the actions of someone they are investigating, yes I now it is a horror trope and that is a good way to convey fear, but all tropes mean absolutely baloney if the core is not there, you are played around for an eternity and chased around for a pie that is not ever there! Why? Why?! For the love of God, I hate it. Then we go back and forth, after all the information we need is given to us, we keep going back to the past, and again, and again and again, as if trying to give us some information, like for the love of God, there is nothing there! Why do we have to keep going back and forth? Many of the scares are baloney too, why where the people with the highest scores in Tomodachi Land sent to a bonus stage where they ended on a spooky hill virtual reality thing? Why did the people kill themselves? Because of a sheet ghost? What was so evil about it? Why did Friend think he was not going to die when he met the guys on the school’s lab? Why did he go by himself in the first place?!!! He always sent his henchmen to do things instead of him! So why? It is all so stupid! And I know there will be plot holes in a mystery story, it is part of the craft, I get it! But the only thing I see in this manga is just a list of increasingly aggravating gnosterceses!

I hate how the enemy is presented as a pure evil cartoon villain but then they say something like “I am actually morally ambiguous,” like bitch??? I hate how the good guys are just good guys, for justice, the doctor of Monster suffered with the idea of saving that blonde fuck because some gray morally reason when you only see in him just naivety, “maybe he will change once I operate him” or something, like come the fuck on!!! At the end of this manga too, when we have gone through all the vague killings and friend and whatever and all the rhetorical bullshit this fucking manga puts us through, the story has the very audacity to imply “maybe the bad guy just wanted a friend” as if trying to imply they actually understood him, it adds salt to injury, like… the nerve, the absolute fucking nerve. Why doesn't the story leave it as someone with a weird brain tumor that makes them do weird things? That would be a lot more alien and unimaginable! Why is the story appealing to their humanity after everything happened? For the love of God! What we are treating here that is so insulting is not something subjective as art tropes or narrative devices, but how you see yourself and how you see human beings!

Just think about this, why does Johan's actions make it evil, but when we are talking about political warfare, we realize it is just business and part of the job? This is not a merely historical thing either, many political figures alive today still do these very same things, all the time. Not just between political parties but also countrirs. What would you do if you saw them face to face? That is what I'm trying to say, these aren't stories that explore moral ambiguity but a foul notion of it. The very premise of both of these stories comes from the fetishization of normalcy against a hollow notion of otherworldness. Everything about the machinations from these stories just fucking sucks.

I hate the use of psychological aberrations as a source of fear, it just feels like a capitalization of ignorance, and incredibly close to being anti-art. Why are there so much pop culture pastiches at the beginning? Because that’s what this manga is! An absolute pastiche bore! Never trust someone who depicts The Beatles as rebels or bring up Janis Joplin to make you feel they are the good guys. I hate it, I hate how they make me feel. And for the record, I love cartoon villains that are very simple in their motivations, I love pure good guys that fight for good, I love drama, flair, I love red herrings, I love investigations, I love mystery, I love trying to guess who is the culprit, but every single time I think about this story (and Monster) I just feel an absolute hatred coming from this author, he says, “you are a weird traumatized fuck, that’s why you are evil. Oh and also you are totally stupid”, I hate his use of psychological aberrations as a source of horror, I hate how he refuses to elaborate on his villains' views and how he refuses to understand them, I hate his awfully narrow and trite view of mankind and I hate being played around like a fool for cheap fucking reveals that amount to nothing. I fucking hate this manga!!!!

1/10

Gnosterceses: Stupidities. I felt stupidities sounded too dainty to have the impact I wanted it to have, so I made up this new word. Gnosterceses also shares some of the consonant clusters the world estiercol (shit in spanish) has.

[willkimurashat]

Exactly 0 people asked-

Oh, never mind, Andy wants to know, so here I am yet again, rating Love Island the Game: Double Trouble this time!

Here’s the rating post I did for s5, for anyone curious:)

I just wanna preface this by saying, I love this game. I know it is greatly flawed and I get frustrated, annoyed, irritated, riled up very often, but it’s still my comfort place and I enjoy playing it so very much. I am aware that fusebox as a company has many issues and I am not thrilled that they might be using AI to write their scripts, even if it's just a speculation. I don't spend any money on the game and I play it on plane mode, so I don't get any ads. Additionally, I think it’s long established that nothing will ever repeat the success of s2, the one hit wonder I’m afraid, so I choose to not compare it to earlier seasons to not ruin my expectations. However, my one hope for s6 was for it to not be worse than s5. Did it fail my expectations? No. Did it exceed them? Also no. But it did meet them exactly where I set them, so to me, this season was generally a success. But not without its issues, of course.

Disclaimer: I tried to be as objective as I can, but at the end of the day, I’m a mere human and these are all just my humble, subjective opinions. Feel free to agree/disagree/add on/make your own:)

Also, beware of the potential spoilers ahead:)

So, without a further ado, shall we?

Character Design: 9/10

Lots of hotties this season, that is for sure. The design team (I think/hope/want to believe that a human did the art for the most part at least) worked very well this time and the art style is wonderful. I personally found myself attracted to most of the islanders - Bella, Jamal, Ozzy/Marshall, Chloe, Andy of course… Their faces look proportional, I love most of their facial expressions, the blushing faces are just so adorable (especially Andy’s, but I may be a little bit biased lol). Took the point off for some weird poses though (*ahem* Andy *ahem*), some odd expressions, Ryan’s mop of hair that just doesn’t sit right on him, and for the fact that both sets of twins have the exact same sprite - I understand that they’re identical and share the same face, but like, give them a different pose at least?

Character Personality: 6/10

This is where my main issue lies: they’ve given us so many fun characters with distinct personalities, and then they merged them into one. Why? Less work, I assume. How can a bad boy wannabe Jamal who never settles for a relationship act the exact same way as a golden retriever footballer Lewie? Conversely, how can a golden retriever Lewie become a villain in the same exact way that a suave, confident pilot Roberto became? Why do we never learn about their personalities besides the first date in the first volume and then through random sprinkling of one sentence facts about them to give a slight illusion of variety? Why are all their personalities boiled down to recollection of past events that were so surface-leveled and so superficial that even talking about them in later episodes feels like an afterthought, or, dare I say, a chore? Why do all the og’s personalities revolve around love bombing? So much potential down the drain.

Personally, my favorite islanders this season are Casa Amor people. To me it seemed that that’s where the most energy went when creating the season. Everyone in Casa was their own person with unique personalities and stayed that way for the longest time. Correct me if I’m wrong, but they all had unique dialogue and shared bits about their life, their worries and concerns about relationships and life that helped me get to know them better, understand them as people, as characters with personalities. And even after being merged post casa, though they suffered from the merging as well, Flo remained the most interesting girl and Marshall kept his snarkiness still.

Character Diversity: 5/10

This section brings me great sadness, I can't lie. Yes, this is about Grace. You've talked about it, I've talked about it - we're all in consensus that the way her character was treated is absolutely wrong. How many times can Fusebox step on the same rake to finally get it in their heads and stop villainizing women of color? It is frustrating. The treatment of Black women in the fandom is already... not great, even if the characters themselves did absolutely nothing wrong (Thabi, Genevieve). So, of course, let's perpetuate the stereotypes, let's make the one Black woman in the game possessive, territorial, immature, and the main rival to MC if you're romancing Ozzy. Why? What reason does it serve? Who hurt you, fusebox?

Let's look further. LGBTQ+ players were downright neglected this season. All three queer women in the game share the same route - it's not really a choice to keep eliminating women so that you're only stuck with one per wlw route and basically pre-pick who you like most solely based on looks. Why can't we have them all in the villa at the same time and get to actually learn who they are, then ruminate on who we like the most, and toss and turn in our sleep, and then pick amongst them? Why couldn't we couple up with Bella right away? There was literally no obstacle to do that, it's just ridiculous that we can bring her to the hideaway, but not couple up. Why can’t it be done in equal measure to, you know, picking male li’s?

Overall, I’m glad the cast is diverse, but I still wish we’d gotten a better look into everyone’s culture and identity, and I would’ve loved to see at least some nod to their cultures throughout the game.

MC Design: 9.5/10

MC is beautiful. Every single MC I’ve seen is absolutely gorgeous and none look the same. She fits in with the cast, she stands out as a true love islander, she looks fantastic in a couple with any and all LI’s. Might even say, s6 MC is the most beautiful and unique MC we’ve ever had. Half a point off for reusing s5 pose - while it didn’t bother me at all, that is a little bit of a lazy move.

MC Personality: 8/10

Well, I'm glad she has one. If I were to compare her to myself - we are completely different people, but that doesn't make her any less fun and/or entertaining to watch/play as. Let's put aside for a moment her generic comments a la "oh yeah?" or "oh really?" because she has said many a gems this season. She's not afraid of putting people in their spot, she's telling it like it is, she's an instigator, she is fun and fiery and so unashamedly herself that I strive to be more like her. Truly. You cannot tell me she doesn't cuss like a sailor and I love her for it. If I knew her irl or even if she were one of the npc's, I'd probably love to hate her because frankly, she's a bit rude, but that's what makes her loveable. Or a loveable bitch, so to speak.

MC Customization: 7.5/10

I was easily able to make my MC look like myself (more or less), but I am a white cis girl and can’t speak to experiences of bipoc players. I will be honest and say that I didn’t register the prices for any of the customization choices because my game has unlimited amount of gems, so there might have been choices for more diverse hairstyles that were gem blocked, as has definitely happened before. I thought the game had a lovely range of facial features and hairs to choose from, though I’d love to have seen more color choices for hair. The outfits were hit or miss - some I loved, others I cringed at, the shoes were outright ugly, but I’m just glad we put granny fashion to rest and no glass shard bikini was detected. I’m glad they kept the choice for a curvier or skinnier body, but I think they can definitely do a bit better, for example giving us a choice of feminine/masculine presenting figures, variety of curvy body types, allowing us to pick pronouns - here’s already typos and inconsistencies in the script, I don’t see how that could make it worse.

Challenges: 6/10

Is it bad that I can’t really remember much of them? Yeah, I’d say that’s a bad sign… The challenges were so… forgettable? And just not done correctly? Couples quiz - over too quickly and I didn’t learn anything about anyone. The doghouse whatever it was - I don’t even know the purpose of it. What were those categories in villa vs. villa? “The sportiest girl?” “The most well traveled?” Is this a joke? Why are we having a snogathon in casa amor? How is movie night not giving us the most tea and why is it not stirring any pots? How can you manage to make the baby challenge so.. boring? And just fleeting? I would say, the heart rate challenge was the most elaborate and fun, Snog, Marry, Pie was okay, but nothing to write home about, unfortunately. Fusebox, you have good ideas, but just see them through to the end next time please. Oh, and maybe watch the show for inspo? You know, as a suggestion.

Drama: 5/10

I know you don’t want to hear it, but I think fusebox definitely took our feedback regarding drama. Of course, Ivy’s pettiness and twin mix up is.. annoying to say the least, and Grozzy-MC love triangle is tiring, especially if you’re not on Ozzy’s route, but otherwise we are able to have a chill summer of love, just like you signed up for. Personally, I love drama only when it has nothing to do with me, and that’s how I felt about playing this season. If you want to be a little more involved in it - by all means, go for Ozzy and pick ruthless choices, but if you want to sit it out - sweep all the arguments under the rug, couple up with an og for a loyal route, or play around in casa amor with no repercussions and couple up with someone there to enjoy the rest of your a chill summer. The choice is yours. After the disaster of s5, this felt quite refreshing and exactly what I wanted, but I wouldn’t say the drama was so otherworldly that it kept me very invested… Therefore, I’m afraid by toning things down they ran into another problem - they made it a tad boring.

Relationships: 6.5/10

I touched upon this already, but I’ll just say this, I strongly dislike the merged routes. In my humble opinion, the og route was written for Lewie, the post-casa route was written for Andy (or I can also see Elliot sharing some dialogue with him), and the only other unique route is Ozzy. Oh, and I suppose there is a Bella/Chloe/Flo route (you see how sad this is that they don’t even feel unique enough for me to consider them as a separate route? Yeah, sad.) I personally think casa amor li’s/Elliot are the best relationships, if you’re looking for a sweet, loving route with no drama, where your li is head over heels with you in a cute kind of way, and you learn a lot about them that isn’t just rehashing past events and/or love bombing. It progresses so naturally and realistically, in my opinion. That romance just makes sense and I love it. I haven’t played other routes, of course, but from what I’ve seen, they just feel a bit lacking in something. They feel superficial, perhaps boring. I don’t think they did a good job with their attempted slow burn route with Ozzy either - all his chats became so repetitive that it didn’t interest me enough to pursue his route. That being said, I appreciate that we could have a completely loyal route this time, with no backstabbing, no persistent exes, and no drastic change of personalities.

Friendships-wise… Did we have any? I know all the girls are kind of friends and all the boys too, but I feel like after the first few volumes where I could definitely tell the islanders were all bonding and having their lil bro moments, it all kind of vanished with time. Of course, we had those moments of gossiping with the girls and the boys, but yet again, it felt a bit surface-level. It was just not enough. In addition, I would love to see relationships bud between the islanders I didn’t interact with as much. It can’t be that mc is the only one who developed feelings for one other person - what about others? Why are they just extras? Why aren’t there bromances and romances and girlmances happening among the rest? We need those background friendships and couples who are genuinely in love to make it feel more realistic and more interesting and more fulfilling.

And of course, we can’t talk about s6 and not talk about family (insert a Dom Torreto gif). Introducing a twin to our mc was a risky move, but we’ll talk about that later. I’ll just say, family relationships are complicated and nuanced and their attempt at doing that kind of failed. Amelia could’ve been our saving grace, she could’ve been our confidant, she could’ve been our best friend. Or, she could’ve been our rival, our source of unresolved family drama, or at least our shared attempt at building bridges. We, on the other hand, got none of it. The twins seem neither close nor distant - they are just paid improv actors who pretend to like each other, but just don’t share any sentimentalities. I was hoping they’d tap into why they seem so estranged, but instead they just kept on talking about Zeph, which turned out to be the most worthless and meaningless plot point ever. They could’ve just made MC’s relationship with Amelia very close and non-problematic, that’d be so easy and lovely to have an instant bestie in the villa. Or, they could’ve let us shape our relationship through the choices MC makes - become closer or more distant or remain neutral - but instead, we got a very superficial relationship yet again, where Amelia is hopelessly desperate no matter what your choices are, and MC is deeply uninterested in what she has to say.

Recouplings: 4/10

It’s funny because I don’t actually have much to say about recouplings this time. Nothing extra disastrous happened, nothing drama worthy - just rather predictable. Yes, we could pick who we wanted, more or less, but at the same time, recouplings are a great way to stir the pot and we didn’t have that. Did the boys pick at least once? I can’t remember… And the way we had recouplings so close to each other in the beginning and then they barely meant anything in the end - meh. Also, I still don’t understand why we couldn’t couple up with Bella early on - she went first that one time and could have definitely picked us, but for some reason that was too much to allow for us…

Finale: 7/10

The finale did what it set out to do and checked off all the required boxes, so technically, I have nothing to complain about. We got the final dates, the prom prep, the speeches, the winners, the love or money, a spicy scene on the swings, and even a little lighthearted pranking moment with the girls that I enjoyed. I would have actually liked to see the afterparty this time because I truly loved the characters, but I guess it’s too many personalities for fusebox to handle at once. Fine. The final date was nothing special and didn’t differ from any other dates we had, although the overall vibe of the date was quite sweet, I can’t lie. The declarations of love were cute as well, we got to make things official, although no “l-bombs” were dropped, which is a little sad, if not disappointing. Massive bonus points for bringing back Hamish as the host - he is such a perfect showman, I think that was actually a great decision! He’s hilarious and no one takes him seriously and that added a lot of charm to the final, in my opinion.

Structure: 5.5/10

The structure of this season was so odd to me, I can’t lie. It just needed more volumes and more chapters to be better paced and to really take time with the storyline and all the twists they set up, give us the character development we deserve. The beginning started so well and promising, then everything was incredibly rushed, then Casa Amor happened - the best three volumes in my humble opinion, and then the plot just dragged on to the point where I just didn’t feel excited to play the episodes. The challenges were rushed and some were nonsensical, the recouplings oddly sprinkled throughout, gossiping around the villa was just weird, when we could’ve just asked the islanders concerned straight on. Though I loved Casa Amor, it also felt weird how we could go on dates during our time there or to the hideaway, and none of the challenges were done correctly either: the raunchy races were weird, and the beer pong not substantial enough, and the snogathon doesn’t really happen in casa. The beach huts are completely abandoned at this point, which I hate because it was one of my favorite things, but at least we had the hideaway this time and the box with spicy trinkets, so I’ll give them that. The finale hit all the necessary points, so that’s good I guess. I don’t know, I just want them to draw more inspiration from the show itself, I suppose, which they are not doing as much anymore.

Storyline: 5/10

Double Trouble. Amelia. Our beloved. Or beloathed - however you choose to look at it lol. Like I mentioned previously, giving us a twin was a risky move. I’m an only child who always wondered what it would be like to have a sibling, or a twin at that, so I was madly excited about this sibling plot line. On the other hand, again, like I said, families are complex and nuanced and are not always sunshine and rainbows. Much like the ex storyline, the family one could be just as triggering. Moreover, deciding MC’s identity and background story for us, the players, is far from a good choice. Even if we pretend it was done well, which it wasn’t, not everyone wants to have a sibling steal their thunder in the game where we are the main character. Not everyone identifies as a woman, but giving us an identical twin forces us to be so. You see where I’m going? The interactive game is becoming more and more of a visual novel and we are just living in that story instead of creating our own.

Overall, the storyline of the game was just not pushed enough, not elaborated enough, not drawn out enough. Of course, they’ve beaten to death the Grozzy thing, and the sister chats, and Tobelia, but everything else… Zeph - the most anticlimactic and useless plot point. Ozzy and Marshall - so much fuss and completely unrewarding resolution. The fake dumping plot twist - wasted potential. Casa Amor - no consequences. Movie night - I ran out of synonyms for “useless” and “wasted potential.” What saddens me is that they had so many interesting ideas and just did not see them through - they gave up too quickly, untwisting the twists too easily, which made the plot, yet again, superficial and a tad boring.

Writing: 4.5/10

I know I said I don’t like comparing, but I was replaying s4 at the same time as s6, and even though back then s4 felt like a downgrade, the difference in writing is humongous. With the speculations that fusebox is using AI to write their game, I feel like I could exactly point out to where it was written by a robot and where a human hand was involved. All the superficial, going in circles, love-bombing moments (which make up about 70% of the season) were definitely the product of a computer, but I think the moments where we learn something personal about our li was written by people. The first couple of volumes were written by people, when the characters still felt unique. Casa Amor islanders were written by people, I’ll stand by that because that’s where characters had the most charm. MC’s telling off moments were written by people, I am sure. But right as we got back to love bombing and all those “hey remember when *something superficial that happened before*” and every! time! a sentence! ended! with! exclamation! points! it all went back to AI. I wouldn’t say in general the writing got worse, but it didn’t exactly get better either. No raw animalistic NSFW display of passions happened, and the spicy scenes seemed a bit better this time, but as with what seems to be my main concern with the season, it felt very superficial a lot of the times.

Replayability: 4/10

Initially, when they’ve given us the illusion of branching routes, I was very excited to go back and replay for other characters, but I have since changed my mind. I lost any interest I may have had in Ozzy’s route, and I fell out of love with Jamal, who was my og li because they made him (and other og’s) boring. Knowing Elliot shares his route with Andy turned off any temptations I had for pursuing him either, especially because I like Andy more than any other character in s6. The girls routes? *sigh* I was curious about them, but not anymore, sadly. But you know what? Despite all that and my hatred for shared routes, I can see myself replaying this season. They’ve given me Andy, who has become one of my favorite (if not the favorite) li’s of all time and I would absolutely replay the game to relive his moments again. Plus, there’s so many scenes that I genuinely found funny that I’d play again to have a little laugh for myself. I can see s6 becoming a comfort season on par with s4 for me (at least the Casa Amor bits).

Overall Score: 6.2/10

This season had a lot of pressure on its shoulders - it had to convince us that things could be better than s5. Some people loved it, others - hated it, and as for me, it was okay. They tried to do better, I could tell, and maybe they were careful not push it too far for the sake of preserving whatever the thing that fans keep coming back for, yet not without making heaps of mistakes along the way. I think that’s the main problem with s6, it had an interesting cast, a fun premise, a promising start, curious twists - everything needed to pique our interest, and then they just didn’t use any of it to its full potential. I appreciate that we could have lovely, loyal li’s, and they’ve given us the best casa cast, they’ve given me Andy lol, and I definitely had a fair share of laughs throughout the game. I think after s5, Double Trouble felt refreshing, which created the illusion that it’s better. I’m not saying it’s much worse, not at all, but it’s positively mediocre, which I would still take over s5 every time.

Thank you for reading through this sheet of text, if you did! I’ll definitely be here for s7 because I don’t have that much respect for myself lol. And I’ll still be here in between the seasons - we have the fanfics to get through, don’t we? But until then,

Stay hydrated, islanders. xoxo