#He gets eaten by a fish in the rain episode | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

waynedunlaptheorgandonor · 4 years

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hey so “find me” dropped on premiere and i just watched it, so you know what that means??

it’s review time!

(super rambly as usual) spoilers under the cut

before i say anything, let me say, IT’S FINE, Y’ALL. as predicted. people are gonna be dramatic bc there are daryl/leah scenes, but like...we been knew? and some of them were rly important caryl-wise. (tbh, the episode was kind of boring and just a set-up for other stuff, lmfao)

okay, review:

opening credits, which i think most of us have already seen, were cute. obvi there was some weird tension with daryl that leads to the coming-to-a-head thing at the end, but their banter is still cute af

they went fishing and daryl’s reaction to carol was adorable, and there’s an important parallel later on, so bookmark this

similarly, there’s an important parallel to carol’s “the dead catch up to us eventually”/daryl’s “i ain’t gonna let it”, so bookmark that, too

dog is the instigator for the flashbacks, so if you wanna blame anyone, blame him. he races to the cabin, which for some reason daryl, who spent five years in this forest, seemed surprised to see? didn’t you literally map out that whole area, my dude? whatever

cue flashback!

i might have the scene order mixed up, but i think it starts with daryl being all sad by himself, and then dog as a puppy shows up and he’s like “!!! a dog!!!” which is v cute, and then he runs back off. we don’t meet leah yet

we see carol and daryl having a conversation while standing on opposite sides of a river for no reason except to probably symbolize distance or maybe covid, lol. the conversation basically goes:

carol: things are different

daryl: yeah

carol: how long are you gonna be out here?

daryl: -shrug emoji-

carol: i get why you’re out here, and i’d join you if things weren’t...

daryl: different

carol: yeah

daryl: yeah. anyway, it’s gonna rain, and also i’m having emotions, so ttyl

the end

at some point we see daryl sitting with an extremely unhappy face while it pours rain on him in the dark, and i want that as a reaction gif IMMEDIATELY

also the rain destroys his “where in the world is rick grimes?” map, which makes him v upset and scream-y, and we get the idea that he might be going a bit bonkers being all alone looking for a dead (or, ig, kidnapped by helicopter) man

in present day carol finds the note, and is like “oh dunk, she lived here??” so she knew about leah, and daryl’s like, “i already told you everything,” and carol’s like, “no you didn’t,” so we go back to flashbacks (but i’m still not sure what parts carol didn’t already know?? whatever, it’s not that important)

i’m just gonna hit the highlights of the flashbacks bc they were not that thrilling:

first time daryl meets leah the dog leads him to her cabin, and leah ties him to a chair and holds a gun to his head being like, “what are you doing on my land?” bc apparently you can claim whole forests during the apocalypse, and daryl says very little, and eventually she lets him go

next time dog finds daryl and he brings her back and leah is like, “the dog likes you” and they’re kinda flirty, and then daryl says very little and leaves

next time daryl is surrounded by walkers and leah shows up and helps and they hide in a tree and are awkwardly close to each other and daryl cannot handle the close physical contact so when the walkers pass he says very little except to tell her to never come back again, lmfao

the next flashback is my favorite bc daryl just fucking

goes to leah’s cabin and throws a fish at the door???

i laughed for ten years

he throws a fucking fish and then stands there for a minute like “is she gonna notice that i gave her a fish??” like, no, dumbass, you didn’t even knock, you just threw a fucking fish at her fucking door, what is wrong with you??

no wonder it’s taken him and carol so long if he thinks throwing fish at people is a smooth move. boy has NO fucking game

anyway, leah gets him back by finding him and throwing the fish at his head, being like, “wtf, don’t throw fish on my porch?” which, fair, leah

IMPORTANT CARYL PARALLEL (from here on out known as “caryllels”) #1: so earlier i mentioned the carol fish thing, and apparently the same thing happened with leah, where she speared a fish on her first try and daryl was like “tf?” v blatant “we are supposed to be thinking about carol and daryl’s relationship during this scene” sort of thing

leah’s backstory is bland. had a family, they got eaten or disappeared or something. she, her adopted son, and dog’s mom got away, but the kid was bit, and died the same day dog was born, bc ig when god closes one door, he replaces your dead son with a puppy, or however the idiom goes

ONLY PART THAT GOT ME LEGIT EMOTIONAL:

leah asked daryl who he lost, and he says, “my brother”

asklfdjaslfdjskl

god i miss rick

i hated rick for so long and now i miss him so much

but i digress

IMPORTANT CARYLLEL #2: leah and daryl have the same “the dead get you eventually”/”i ain’t gonna let it” conversation as caryl had earlier, only daryl is playing the role of carol in this scenario, so again we’re supposed to be comparing the two relationships. lemme get through the rest of the summary and then i’ll tell you my opinion on what that means

fuck what even happens next?

i have these out of order bc they were all the fucking same, but the two of them get closer, and there is the vaguest suggestion of sex ever. you literally only see daryl’s hand

then jump-cut to them sitting at the table being emo, ig bc daryl was gonna go back to look for rick for a bit, and leah is like “who do you belong with? your brother you won’t stop looking for? your family that you left? [side note: that seemed rather pointed, like, “hey hoe, you abandoned your family, that was kind of a dick move”] or me?” and he says he doesn’t know, and she’s like “yeah you do, now choose”

jump-cut to caryl scene where carol finds him at the river and says that she won’t be visiting as much, and daryl’s like “k” and they have a brief argument where daryl’s all snippy, like, “what? do you want my permission for you to move on with your life? i’m not still emo about the fact that you’re moving on with your life, and i also don’t think it’s contextually significant that every time you show up in my flashbacks you explicitly mention that you’re married and have a kid,” and carol is like, “bro, you need to Get Your Shit Together and come home”

jump-cut to daryl having what i’m assuming is an epiphany that carol/fam have all moved on while he was out being emo, and so he decides to go be with leah, except, plot twist! she’s gone. the picture of her and her son is gone, but dog is still there. daryl leaves the note, which says, “i belong with you, find me”

for those freaking out about the wording about the note, may i remind you that she specifically asked, “do you belong x, x, or with me?” so he was just answering the question

aaaaaand back to present day

carol is like, “what do you think happened to her?” and daryl is all -shrug emoji-, and then she’s like, “...do you think she might have just...you know...left?” and daryl gets rull offended, which was kind of funny

(she probably just left, bud)

carol tells daryl to stop thinking that when people leave it’s bc of him, and connie’s name gets thrown into the mix, and daryl gets a “oh here we fucking go” look on his face, and it sets him off

he said basically what we were already spoiled for. “you just want to run, you don’t know when to stop, i shouldn’t have taken you off the boat bc you still just want to run” etc

and carol looks fucking HEARTBROKEN, which hurt me, and she goes into the other room and we end the episode with daryl staring forlornly out of the window

the end

okay

so quick analysis

i think the significance of this episode is supposed to be so we have an understanding of why daryl is suddenly so !teamfamily, and !teamfuture, and how badly he wants carol to be there with him. at one point, one of them even says, “this isn’t about leah, or connie,” or anyone but the two of them. the title “find me” feels significant, bc the whole episode is daryl grappling with where he’s supposed to go, and what his purpose is, and by the end, he says to carol, “i know where i belong,” (implying, with her and the fam), pulling us full-circle. in the first flashback onward he is lost, but by the end he is found -cue amazing grace-

daryl and leah were flirty, but to me it felt very much like something that was just being used as daryl character development. we barely got anything that juicy between the two of them (except the fish throwing thing, that was amazing), and i still don’t think that it would make any sense, regardless of the showrunner, to pair daryl up with some rando after having so many other choices that people would have preferred. i don’t think we’re meant to #endgame ship it, so much as we are supposed to be like, “oh, ok, daryl learned the power of family and stability and leveled up, -you know what that is? growth gif-” as a result, i literally have no idea what leah’s role is gonna be in s11, but i don’t think it’ll be a huge plot point

so now we firmly know where daryl stands. he is all about moving forward, not looking back, and doing the best he can, and he’s frustrated bc when he took carol off the boat he wanted her to be in the same place as him so that they could grow together, but she wasn’t and isn’t there yet

so my guess is that what’s next for carol’s storyline is her reaching that same zen-level daryl’s at

once they’re both there, then they get to ride off into the sunset and make passionate love under the moon casting shadows over the vast desert wasteland

whew

anyway

tl;dr: idk, episode was fine, if not kinda boring. lots of caryllels. can i go back to writing my vietnam war au now?

the end

(stay hype, stan kang, and get daryl to call carol sweetheart 2k21),

-diz

#thank god i can move on with my life now #caryl #caryl spoilers #twd s10 spoiler #dunlap tp

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a-bang-for-your-bucky · 3 years

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Playin' With Fire: The Choice

SUMMARY: Tom has opened his big mouth, spilling secrets that aren’t his to share. They carry on with the mission, all wanting to get back home. Dani has a choice to make.

WARNINGS: EXPLICIT LANGUAGE, VIOLENCE, CHARACTER DEATH(we all know what happened in the movie, okay), MENTIONS OF ANXIETY, FEAR OF WATER OR WHAT’S IN THE WATER.

WORDS: 4,400

A/N: This is it. This is the last part, for now. I have an epilogue planned, but the release date for that is TBD. Thank you for those who have supported this story. I appreciate each and every one of you!

They moved on after the rain stopped. Dani successfully avoided Tom, seeing as Santiago wouldn’t let her get more than ten feet away from him. He had been glued to her side since Tom opened his big mouth. With the mules, the hike had been doable, easy almost, until they got to a river.

“No. No fucking way.” Dani shrieked at the rushing water. Tom groaned, turning around, looking at her.

“You scared of a little water, Tequila?” Will asked her, and she nodded her head frantically. The men looked at her, surprised. It wasn’t necessarily the water she was scared of.

“I have seen every episode of River Monsters. You have no idea what’s living in that fucking water.” Dani fretted. She had already survived being shot by a narco and a helicopter crash. She was not about to die being drowned or eaten by giant fucking fish.

Santiago took her hand, leading her into the river. He was by her side the entire time they crossed. Dani tried to focus on him more than the unknown that swam around her. Santiago could see the panic when they reached a spot they couldn’t touch the bottom. He tightened his grip on her hand, pulling her closer to him. It took longer than expected to cross, the current stronger than they had anticipated.

“See, querida. We made it. And no signs of fish, except Frankie.” Santi joked as they climbed onto the riverbank. She gave him a dirty side look, as she wrung out her hair. Yeah, she thought, This was a fucking bad idea.

With the river long behind them, they hiked a path through more jungle until they were walking a steep, winding trail. “The old smugglers Trail” Santi called it. Tensions were running high, well, higher; Will and Benny started arguing, cursing at each other. The fight was instantly cut short when Frankie’s mule was startled and went sliding down the side of the mountain, almost taking him with it.

“Fish!” Dani yelled, wanting to run to him, but she was at the front of the line with Santi. The look on her face was pure terror when he didn’t respond. “Frankie!” She cried out again. Santi pushed down the gut wrenching feeling he got looking at her so distressed over his best friend.

“I’m good, Tequila. I’m good.” He answered her, once he got his breath back. Benny didn’t have a sick sense of humor, but when he started laughing at the animal tumbling down the mountain side, it triggered something in Santiago.

“The fuck you laughing at? That was a living animal, man.” He growled at his friend. Benny turned to look at him, but Tom was the one who spoke.

“That could have been any one of us. Fuck, It could have been your baby mama, and you’re worried about the fucking donkey?” Tom sneered. Santi balled his fists up. Dani laid a hand on his arm, pulling him back from crossing that line. Instead, she spoke up.

“You’re the reason we’re in this fucking mess. You just had to get every single dollar you could get your fucking hands on.” Dani shot back at him, tired of his bullshit. "You are greedy, uncaring, and if I had any choice in the matter your ass would still be sitting at home." She continued to move forward with her mule, without really waiting on the guys. She could hear some chatter, that sounded like Frankie, trying to be the voice of logic.

They made it off the side of the mountain, but now they had to go up and over. The guys quickly engineered a pulley system to make heaving the bags up easier. They insisted that Dani leave this to them, including Tom, which surprised her.

“Are you sure you want to get rid of the mules?” She asked one more time. Santiago and Tom both agreed. Dani turned Frankie loose on them to scare them off. She laughed at his outburst, watching as his arms flailed about. He had some fun doing it. Frankie joined her back at the bottom of the system. Dani chuckled as he walked up.

“What are you laughing at?” He asked, looking at her curiously. She shook her head.

“Nothing, it’s just, you reminded me a lot of my best friend. I hadn’t seen him in a while.” She missed her Frankie, her best friend Frankie. She knew nothing would be the same after this, but she could hope.

Scaling the side of a mountain, while hauling bags full of stolen drug money, was not on the list of things Dani thought she would ever do in her life. She was sure they were going to catch some form of pneumonia after the whole river incident. Sitting on a mountain top in the Andes was fucking cold. The six of them huddled in a semi-circle. “We cold-camp.” Will said when Benny demanded a fire.

“Fuck you.” He started, and lit a wad of cash ablaze. “This is my ‘fuck you money’.” Tom looked at Benny and Santi chuckled, saying that Benny was crazy.

“We don’t have enough men to carry all of this money, so we might as well be warm.” Tom said, shrugging his shoulders at Benny's blatant defiance of his captain.

Dani was nestled between Frankie and Santi, which was warm enough on its own. But when Redfly dumped a whole suitcase of money onto the fire, the warmth flowed through her body, making her relax. Santi looked over and saw that Dani had her head laying on Frankie’s shoulder, and he felt a pang of jealousy. He knew he shouldn’t, he had been sleeping with another woman. He couldn’t shake the fact that she could have been pregnant with his kid, and she wasn’t finding comfort with him. It made him sick to his stomach.

Dani opened her eyes to see Santi staring at her. She could see the hurt in eyes, lit up by the flames of the fire. He flicked his gaze back to the blaze in front of him. She couldn’t get a read on Santi. Some days he wanted her, other days he was fucking his informants, leaving her alone for hours at a time. She told him that she loved him, and he never said it back. She didn’t know where to go from there.

They both knew what they had and it wasn’t a relationship. Santi wasn’t the type to settle down, but the idea of Dani having his kid, gave him hope that maybe he could. Maybe he could do it with her. Taking shifts, they all tried to get some sleep before having to move on.

The sun rose over the mountaintop. Dani groaned, opening her eyes to see that just Tom was awake. “Morning, Teq.” She grunted in response. She was never a morning person. “Look, I’m sorry, for everything. I shouldn’t have outed you like that.” He apologized. Dani was able to squeeze herself out from between the two men.

“I’m not pregnant, just so you know. I shouldn’t have said that about Molly, though.” She told him, but didn’t apologize. She looked over at Santiago, who was beginning to stir. She adored his sleepy face, he was always at his most peaceful then.

“We should probably get moving. We still have a lot of ground to cover.” Tom announced loudly, waking up the light sleeping soldiers.

They were making progress, almost down the side of the mountain. Dani bent down to pick up a bag when a gunshot rang through the open space, a bullet shattering a rock by her head. She tumbled to the ground. She threw her arms over her head to protect herself, suddenly wishing that she had one of those stupid helmets Santiago always made her wear.

“Dani!” Santiago yelled, taking cover behind a rock not too far from her. She looked up, where she saw him trying to make his way to her. She held up a fist, a hand signal for him to hold. It wasn’t safe. She rolled over, seeing that she was closer to Benny, who was crouched down, holding his shoulder.

“They seem to like me. I’ll draw their fire. Ironhead, take that ridge, make sure no one else is coming up. Fish, Pope, go that way.” Tom ordered, directing the guys. Dani army-crawled her way to Benny.

“You good?” She asked him, looking over the wound. “It’s just a graze.” She noted as she wrapped it with a cloth.

“Thanks, Teq.” Benny said, placing a kiss to her head. “Come on, let’s go. Keep your head down.” The two of them followed Tom.

Benny had gone around to the right, while Dani stayed behind Tom to the left, trying to make her way back to Santiago. If you were to ask her, she would tell you what happened next was her fault. She was too slow on the draw, she hesitated. “Tom!” She cried out as soon as she saw the man rise over the rocks. Tom lifted his head, but it was too late. Tom dropped with a single shot to the head. Dani didn’t even realize the man had his gun trained to her too, until more shots rang out. She squeezed her eyes shut, waiting for the searing pain of the bullet, but it never came. She let out a strangled sob when she opened her eyes and saw the shooter dead. A hand touched her shoulder and she screamed as she tried to throw an elbow back, but it was caught.

“It’s me, querida. It’s me, baby.” Santi’s voice flowed through her ears. She turned around and collapsed into him. The feeling of safety washed over her, being in Santi’s arms. She straightened herself up to see that Benny and Will had made their way to Tom’s body. Frankie walked up to her, wiping the tears she let fall. She had completely spaced out, staring at Tom’s lifeless body, she didn’t even register that Benny and Will were fighting again.

“You’re a heartless son of a bitch.” Benny yelled at his brother after he told him to get Tom wrapped up, that they needed to keep moving. Santi and Frankie broke them apart. Dani found herself sitting next to Tom, the reality of the situation sinking in. That could have been her. It could have been Santiago. It could have been any of them.

“Come on, Teq. We gotta move.” Frankie’s calming voice broke her from her thoughts. He helped her up, as they made their way back to the bags. The five of them hauled the money and Tom down the side of the mountain, making their way to a flat point where they could see the ocean. It was almost over, but at what cost?

“How late are we to meet the boat?” Santi questioned, not really directed toward anyone.

“Five days.” Benny replied as Will tried to get a good look ahead of them. They decided that someone should go ahead and make sure the boat was still there. When Benny volunteered, Dani scoffed.

"Your Spanish sucks, Benny. I'll go."

Santiago immediately said no. "No way am I letting you go. I can't keep you safe if you aren't here. Please, baby." He begged her to stay. Dani sighed, she didn't want to argue with him. “You’re looking for the Hijo Prodigo.” Santiago told Benny, handing him the three million dollars.

Will looked at his brother packing away the money in his pack. “Benny, watch your six.” He warned him, giving him a tight smile.

“You watch yours.” They watched as Benny made his way down the rocks until he disappeared from their sight.

The night was oddly calming to her as Dani leaned back on a duffle. She hadn’t really said anything since Tom was killed right in front of her. The whole reason for her being there was to save them if something happened. Deep down she knew that there was nothing she could have done. Tom was shot point blank in the head, killed instantly. She felt a wave of nausea come over her as she looked at his tarp-wrapped body. She scrambled to her feet to get away from the guys, but didn’t make it far before her knees gave out and she was dry heaving onto the dirt. Frankie rushed to her side, rubbing her back. Santi watched as he comforted her. Frankie would be good for her, better than he would be. He was the reason she was in this mess. For a split second, Santiago found himself happy that she wasn’t pregnant. She didn’t need to be tied to him for the rest of her life.

Santi stood up, walking over to where Frankie was holding her. “Let me, please.” Frankie looked up at his best friend and back to Dani. It was like he had forgotten the situation for a minute. Realization sank in and he was releasing her to Santiago. Frankie knew Dani would never be his. He lost that chance a long time ago. He hated that he was watching Santi fuck up his shot with her, even after he all but pushed him into her.

Dani wanted to reach out to Frankie, because she didn’t want him to let her go. When Santi wrapped his arms around her, she found herself sinking into him. “Te lo prometo, cuando subamos a ese barco, Volverás a Estados Unidos, lejos de mí. Nunca debí haberte incluido en esto. Esto es sobre mi. Solo espero que algún día me perdones.” He wept softly into her ear as she rested her head on his chest. “You will be better off without me.”

Dani listened to Santi pour out his heart to her. She wanted to console him, but the words got stuck in her throat and came out as cries. Santi was able to get her to stand, moving her back to the duffles, where they could be somewhat comfortable while they waited for Benny to return.

Dani looked between Santi and Frankie. She felt herself torn. One part of her wanted to curl into Frankie’s side, the other wanted to curl into Santi. She pondered on it for a second before deciding to go to Will. She took a seat next to him, and he was pleasantly surprised.

“Hey, baby girl. You got yourself into quite the mess.” He said as he opened his arms for her to get close. She didn’t say anything, she just let him wrap himself around her, falling into a sense of familiarity. It was silent for a little while, nothing but nature sounds.

“I’m gonna say something. Are you listening?” Frankie’s gruff voice all but echoed through the silence. “We gotta get back on our game. Enough of this. It stops now. You understand?”

“Copy that.” Santi agreed with his friend. Santi didn’t care at this point, he just wanted to get everyone else home safe.

Will was next to speak and he surprised everyone with his question. “How many people do you think you’ve killed?”

“What?” Frankie blurted out.

“You heard me.” Will confirmed his question.

Frankie sighed, “As many as I had to.” The pain and regret thick in his voice.

Dani twisted in his hold to peer at his face in the darkness. “Why would you ever want to know that?” She asked him.

“43. Confirmed.” Will said easily, no hesitation. Dani technically hadn’t killed anyone. If Santi hadn’t shot Lorea in the head, she would have killed him. He would have bled out in seconds. She also could argue and say that she killed Tom, even though she didn’t pull the trigger. But that was her argument. She should have pulled the trigger and he would still be here. “Hey, hey. Don’t go there.” Will told her as if he knew what she was thinking. “Get some sleep. I’ve got your six.” He placed a chaste kiss to her head. Against her better judgement, she laid her head down on a duffle, letting exhaustion take over, pulling her into the darkness of sleep.

She woke up to a commotion, Will no longer beside her. She moved to sit up, seeing that Benny had returned. Dani got up to walk over where Frankie was sitting and asked what was going on.

“So we go through ‘em.” Santi declared. The guys had surprised looks on their faces.

“Through them? I’m not prepared to wipe out every teenager in that town just to get through with this cargo!” WIll refused, in disbelief of his friend.

Santi scoffed, “That cargo? What about this cargo?” He pointed to Tom. “What about Tequila? They won’t hesitate to take her out, too. Tom died for this money and we are not leaving this country without it!”

Benny shook his head, “He didn’t die for that money, he died because of it!” He snapped at Santi. Santi looked at his friend for a moment, turned on his heels, and walked away. Dani wasn’t sure what all was said while she slept, but she knew they couldn’t take out a bunch of kids. Will got up to go talk to Santi, but Dani stopped him. He seemed to understand what she was implying and moved back next to Benny. She walked over to where Santi was standing, trying to compose himself.

“Santi,” She started as she reached out for him, “Benny is telling us these are kids. Kids, baby.” She emphasized the word to try to get him to understand. He nodded quickly.

“I know, sweetheart. I know. I just, I can’t believe this. I can’t believe I let this happen.” He croaked, voice cracking a little. She moved closer, rubbing his shoulder.

“We all came here of our own free will. This was our plan, Santi. If anything, I’m to blame, too.” She pointed out to him. She was just as much to blame. Santi shook his head and caressed her face.

“No, querida. I thought we could do this. This is on me. All of this is on me. I’m sorry.” He apologized, leaning his forehead to press against hers. She wrapped her arms around his middle, hugging him tightly, wordlessly, letting him know that she was there.

“We can’t do this, Pope.” She whispered as she released him, and he agreed. He took her hand and they walked back toward the other three men. The action was immediately noticed by Frankie.

“I’m sorry, guys. I don’t know what I was saying. We can’t just go through them.” Santi said regretfully. The guys all nodded.

“All that matters now is getting Tom home, getting us all home safe.” Dani added, as she moved so she could face Santi. “Just, how do we do that?”

They all looked to each other for an answer, but Santi spoke first. “We keep carrying him down. We fill our day packs with whatever we can and leave the rest.” Santi explained that there was a trench they could throw the money into. So, they filled their packs and carried what was left to the giant hole in the ground. “Snow will be coming in soon, no one will ever see it again.”

Under the cover of darkness, Benny was able to sneak away from the group to meet up with the boat. Dani walked on with Will, Santi, and Frankie. “Woah. Wait. Wait!” Will whispered harshly at the sight of a truck hidden in the thick. They all drew their weapons.

“Do you see anyone?” Dani asked looking around, “Looks abandoned.” She added. Frankie walked forward asking to be covered.

Suddenly, the lights flipped on and a kid rushed around with a gun aimed at them. Santi tried to talk him down, but Frankie scared him, saying he was going to take a shot. It was a ripple effect from there. Luckily, they were able to get the truck to start because reinforcements were coming. Frankie sped down the dirt road, listening to Will’s directions to the beach.

“Did you just give that fucking kid money? We should have killed him the second he saw our faces!” Frankie growled into the steering wheel.

“We’re not killing any more people.” Santi said calmly.

Frankie shook his head in disbelief. “I’ll tell you right now. If we get to that beach, and Ben isn’t there. I’m fucking killing people.” Frankie vowed. Dani looked over at her friend, shocked at his tone and how okay he was with taking lives. What scared her even more was that she agreed with him.

The reinforcement came in quick. Benny was right, it was a bunch of teenagers, shooting very big guns at them. Frankie did his best driving, dodging the bullets. “Kill them! Pope, Tequila, just fucking kill them!” He yelled back at them. Dani gave Santi a sad look before holding up her gun, taking her shot. She took out one driver, causing the truck to flip, it going up in flames. Santiago shook his head, before shooting at the other vehicles. Frankie got them safely to the beach, waving Benny in on the boat. The last vehicle followed them across the dune, still flinging bullets their way after it flipped. Frankie gave them cover fire, so that they could climb into the boat.

It was over. A job that should have taken a few days, took over twelve, and they had almost died one too many times. Fuck, Tom did die. His body wrapped in a tarp laid at their feet as they made their escape. If Dani had known what she knew now. She would have fought Santi on this. She would have told him to let it go.

“Minus the expenses and our administrative fee, that leaves $6,400,944 cut six ways. Which gives you six shares of $1,066,824. I will need all of your signatures on the sixth contract here, for the Redfly Family Trust.” The account explained. Dani could see wheels turning in the guys heads, so it didn’t surprise her when Ben and Will forwent their share, giving it to Tom’s family. Frankie, however, did surprise her when he gave his share away, Pope too. She shook her head.

“Give my share to Mr. Garcia.” She told the accountant. Pope looked up at her.

“Dani,” He started, “You don’t owe me anything. Keep the money.” He told her and she knew that. She signed the needed paperwork and walked out into the building lobby. “Dani, stop.” Pope called after her.

“I’m not pregnant.” She blurted out, feeling like a weight was removed from her chest. Pope looked at her confused. “I’m not-- I’m not pregnant.” She said again. Finding a pharmacy was the first thing she did when they were safe on the Island. She already had one negative test, but felt the need for another.

Pope was conflicted inside. He spent the last week almost hoping that her first test was wrong. He wanted this with her. Now, he didn’t know how he felt. “How do- Are you sure?” He wanted to confirm with her.

She nodded, “The second and third tests were negative. Turns out planning a money heist is just super fucking stressful.” She joked, but he didn’t laugh. Dani let out a sigh. “Come on, Santi. Can you honestly tell me you wanted a baby?”

Did he want a baby? No, not right now. But he wanted her. He wanted to be hers. “I want you, sweetheart.” He said, “I want everything with you. I should have said this a hell of a lot sooner. I love you.” He placed a hand behind her head, pulling her close. He looked deep into her eyes, she was sure he was staring at her soul. “I love you, Danika Kate Reid. I have loved you from the moment I laid eyes on you.”

Tears spilled over her lashes, a happy sob escaped her lips. “Oh, fuck. I love you, too, Santiago Isaac Garcia.” She smiled, letting him pull her in for a hug. “It’s time for us to go home.”

“Let’s go home then, Tequila.” He offered her a hand, lacing their fingers together, and they exited the building where the other three men were waiting. Frankie looked nervous.

“So?” Will asked, looking between Santi and Dani. She smiled softly at their friends.

“I am not pregnant.” She told them. Santi gave out their passports before handing one to her.

“You’re coming home?” Frankie asked, hopeful at the sight of the little booklet.

“We are coming home.” She told them, looking up at Santiago. His eyes were bright, full of hope for their future. He couldn’t help but lean down. His lips connected with Dani’s, taking the breath from her lungs. His lips were warm and soft. She got lost in the kiss, not caring who saw, considering they were standing in the middle of the street and their best friends were right there. His fingers tangled in Dani’s hair, hers scraping the back of his neck, tugging lightly on the curls. The three other men hollered in excitement.

Santiago groaned when she pulled away, already missing the feeling of her lips on his. “Let’s go home, Pope.” She breathed, caressing his stubble covered face. He smiled at her, before they turned back to their friends.

“Fucking finally. I thought I was gonna have to spell it out for you two.” Benny cursed with a smile, pulling Dani into a hug. “It’s gonna be nice having you back home.” He raised his eyes to Santi, “Both of you.”

“Get home safe.” She said to both Millers before hugging Will.

She turned to Frankie with a smile. “What are you gonna do, Fish?” She asked, reaching out for him. He grabbed her hand, pulling her in for another embrace.

“I gotta baby girl to get home to. I can’t wait for you to meet her.” He replied, placing a kiss to her head. She nodded.

“I can’t wait either.” Dani laughed, “She’s gonna be so spoiled.” Frankie agreed, before telling her to take care of Santi and herself. “We will see you soon, Catfish.” She moved back to Santiago, taking the hand he was holding out for her. She laced her fingers with his and nothing had ever felt more right. She was where she was supposed to be.

Tags: @mylifeisactuallyamess @itspdameronthings @221bshrlocked @speakerforthedead0 @danniburgh

Translations:

Te lo prometo, cuando subamos a ese barco, Volverás a Estados Unidos, lejos de mí. Nunca debí haberte incluido en esto. Esto es sobre mi. Solo espero que algún día me perdones.: I promise you, when we get on that boat, you'll go back to America, away from me. I should never have included you in this. This is all on me. I just hope one day you'll forgive me.

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mysteriesofmarcy · 3 years

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Mystery Monday #3: Sorry it's late!

Not a whole lot in this episode that I couldn't have talked about last week. Anne and the Plantars are back in Amphibia now. Mr. and Mrs. Boonchuy will probably explain to Mr. X the ENTIRE Amphibia story, but because this is a cartoon and there need to be stakes they will accidentally leave out one crucial detail. But that's not what I'm here to talk about.

Today I'm going to talk about a pattern I've noticed in the series.

Almost every episode has a moment where someone could have said "Hoo boy, I/we probably shouldn't have done that!" But half the time, it actually works out the end because they did the thing they probably shouldn't have done.

For example:

In Anne or Beast?, Sprig probably shouldn't have run off into the woods to capture the beast. But because he did, he ended up with a new best friend.

In Anne Theft Auto, Anne and Sprig probably shouldn't have taken Bessie for a ride on their own. But because they did, Anne ended up reading Bessie's manual and being the secondary driver on the trip to Newtopia.

In Contagi-Anne, Anne probably shouldn't have faked being sick to get out of working. But as Hop Pop pointed out, if she had gone out in the rain, she probably would've gotten sick with the rest of the family.

In Family Shrub, the kids probably shouldn't have snuck down into the secret passageway in the house. But because they did, they discovered an armory from which they took weapons to use at the temples.

In Snow Day, Anne probably shouldn't have thawed Sprig out. But because she did, they got Polly back AND the weasel babies got to eat an omelet.

In Scavenger Hunt, Anne probably shouldn't have ditched Marcy and Sprig with the puzzle. But because she did, she made several new friends AND solved the final clue.

In Night Drivers, Sprig reasoned that while he and Polly probably shouldn't be driving Bessie, if they did, they would be home by morning AND Anne and Hop Pop would be so grateful to be home, they'd forget to be mad.

In Friend or Frobo?, Polly probably shouldn't have left the wagon to go cause trouble. But because she did, she ended up with a new best friend.

In If You Give a Frog a Cookie, Anne probably shouldn't have revealed Dr. Frakes' name to the Plantars. But because she did, they met the scientist who would help them build the portal.

Marcy even tried to use this logic in True Colors, saying that she probably shouldn't have given Anne the Calamity Box, but because she did, they all had huge adventures in Amphibia.

I could go on, but you get the point.

Of course, the other half of the time, the thing that the character probably shouldn't have done, does NOT cause things to work out better in the end. Examples of this include:

In Cane Crazy, Anne probably shouldn't have messed around with Hop Pop's cane, because it caused her to get stuck on dish duty for a month.

In Girl Time, Anne probably shouldn't have used Hop Pop's IOUs to pay for everything, because they nearly got the family thrown in debtor's prison.

In Plantar's Last Stand, Hop Pop probably shouldn't have sold the garbage potion, because he had to give everybody's money back afterwards.

In Trip to the Archives, Sprig probably shouldn't have locked the family in the Archives, because it resulted in the Archives being permanently locked AND Anne nearly getting eaten by cicadas.

In Family Fishing Trip, Sprig probably shouldn't have tried to sabotage Hop Pop's attempts to bond with Sylvia, because they all backfired on him.

In Fiddle Me This, Hop Pop probably shouldn't have pushed Sprig so hard, because all he wanted to do was have fun.

In Combat Camp, Tritonio probably shouldn't have taught the kids to fight, because that skill got him arrested.

In Truck Stop Polly, Polly probably shouldn't have left the f'wagon, because the bird that she put in her own place hatched and tried to eat her family.

After The Plantars Check(ed) In, Sprig probably shouldn't have gone out seeking adventure in the hotel on his own, because he was too tired to go out with his family.

In Bizarre Bazaar, Hop Pop probably shouldn't have buried the Calamity Box, because in After the Rain, it ended up missing.

In New Wartwood, Marcy probably shouldn't have added so much more weight to Wartwood, because (as she knew) it would make everything too heavy and make it sink into the swamp.

In Spider-Sprig, Robert Otto probably shouldn't have tried to kill "Frog Man", because as Molly Jo put it, "Your flashy battle could've really hurt someone. Or worse!"

And I could go on, but you get the point.

So, I predict the pattern continues on. I guess what I'll do is I'll look through the next few episodes, trying to figure out in which episodes things WILL work out because someone does something they probably shouldn't have done, and in which episodes they WON'T.

Commander Anne: Anne probably shouldn't have taken the job as leader of the Wartwood Resistance, but because she did, the Wartwood Resistance formed in the first place.

Sprivy: Sprig and Ivy probably shouldn't have devised a plan to be together, but because they did, they found a thing that will help the Resistance.

Sasha's Angels: Sasha and her freedom fighters probably shouldn't have rushed into that situation head on, because it ended up getting them captured.

Olm Town Road: I don't know. The synopsis only tells us that they are searching for the city of Proteus.

Mother of Olms: Again, I'm not sure. The mother of olms is probably going to lead them to their destiny.

Grime's Pupil: Sprig and Grime probably shouldn't have turned on each other, because infighting among allies can only hurt the cause.

So there you have it. What do you think will be the "probably shouldn't have done that" moment in the next episodes? What are your favorites of those moments in the past? Any prominent ones that I missed? Leave your answers in the replies, reblogs, and asks to this blog!

Thanks for reading, and again, sorry this is late!

Oh, and since nobody even tried to guess why last week necessarily had to be about Marcy, I'll give you another hint. I've already told you it has to do with her being a nerd, and now I'm telling you it has to do with the date on that day.

#amphibia #probably shouldn't have done that #but it worked out because i did #mystery monday

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aer-in-wanderland · 4 years

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구미호뎐 | Tale of the Nine Tailed - Lost in Translation EP03

The saga continues: part three in a series in which my sister and I pick our way through all the (mis)translations, humour, and cultural subtext that dropped from the fan-subbed version of TotNT. Thank you so much to everyone who bought us coffee - this one’s for you. ;)

Before we begin, for anyone just joining us: EP01 / EP02.

We pick up back where we left off last episode with Yeon dressing Ji Ah’s wound.

Yeon’s line that’s subbed, “Stop being a crybaby” can be a bit hard to translate. The word he uses is ‘eomsal,’ which literally means, ‘the exaggeration of pain; feigning pain; a great fuss about nothing.’ So he’s essentially saying she’s overreacting. I'm not a fan of the use of the word ‘crybaby’ here though personally.

“Long time no see, Lee Yeon.” > > > 12 Hours Earlier.

We see Thirsty meet his ignominious end in a toilet (we never got character names for these guys so I’m just going to call them ‘Thirsty’ and ‘Hungry’).

Elsewhere on the island, Rang fishes a curse doll with the man’s picture on it out of the surf. That’s quite the atmospheric shot. Point to the director.

Episode 03 Title Card: The Secret of the Dragon King

We open the following morning as Ji Ah and the man who found the body (who Ji Ah refers to as ‘Captain’) examine the scene.

Sub: “Being at sea wasn’t enough and he drowned himself to death.” I’m not sure that sentence even makes sense. I would have translated the man’s line as: “Ho~ Let no one say he wasn’t a seaman. He managed to kick the bucket by drowning [even on dry land].”

Sub: “Talk about it being all for nothing. This is what he gets after throwing himself at his life.” Um, what now? The line is: “Human lives are so futile. And after he clung so viciously to life, too.”

Lol Yeon. “I see someone threw a party.” I like this sub. What he literally says though is: “Oh~ Looks like it was a really special night.” (‘special’ here is in English).

Sub: “He smells like a stinky fish.” What Yeon literally says is: “Ugh, a smell like rotting fish is coming from this kid!” Yeon refers to the man as ‘yae,’ which literally means ‘this kid,’ but can also be used to refer to inanimate objects. So, either way...pfft

Appropriately, the BGM playing as Pyung Hee casts her curse is ‘Shaman.’

Back over to Yeon and Ji Ah as they investigate the body. The chyron on the screen reads: ‘The first survivor of the Milky Way (Deceased)’ Irony-(probably)-not-intended.

We get another chyron not long after, over a shot of Pyung Hee’s father’s head being returned to shore that reads: ‘Seo Gi Chang (Died aboard the Milky Way)’

Lol None of this has stopped Yeon from nomming on his banana milk. I had thought the milk made him seem like a little kid, but according to Korean fans, it’s also, apparently, commonly enjoyed by old men. heh

Sub: “Besides, they’re not good looking enough.” This is a mistranslation. Yeon’s line is literally: “And besides, I don’t like the look of their faces.” What he means, though, is the feeling they give off, rather than their actual ‘looks.’ It’s a common expression in Korean. If I was translating instead of explaining, I would probably render this as, “I don’t like the look of them.”

As Ji Ah drags him out, however, Yeon can be heard saying, “Ah~ I judge people by their looks~!” I’m 98% sure this is another LDW ad lib. Basically, LDW made a joke of his previous line, as if to say Yeon cared about the look of them because they weren’t attractive enough, when really his line meant they seemed shady. It’s almost as if he predicted the bad sub...

We get a brief scene featuring the second (and only named) survivor of the Milky Way, Jin Shik. Oh, and his headless ‘visitor.’ Creepy.

The music underscoring Hungry gorging himself on raw meat is making everything worse (or possibly better, if disturbing is your jam)

I’ve said it before, but I would watch an entire series of Yeon and Ji Ah being a supernatural investigative duo.

Pfft Yeon refers to Seo Gi Chang as ‘the head’ (mogaji). I’m not sure if I should call that indelicate or irreverent. It’s a bit of both, really.

Yeon’s line here is subbed as, “What happened on the boat?” but it should more properly be: “What did you do on the boat?” He’s not just asking after the sequence of events; the line is a clear accusation.

Sub: “We met an unexpected storm that day.” Actually: “Rough wind and waves hit the side of the fishing boat.” (i.e. causing it to capsize)

I appreciate that Yeon sits back here and allows Ji Ah to take the lead.

So, as it turns out, the 11th hell is actually a fishing boat (I’m sure the cast of 1N2D will back me up on this).

Fun fact: This sequence was filmed in a green screen pool and then made to look like the middle of the ocean with CG.

As an aside, I love that Ji Ah deduced the whole story on her own and that she uses that knowledge to corner Hungry psychologically. Also, that her strategy proves more effective than Yeon’s threat of violence. It’s not so much a ‘you catch more flies with honey,’ as a ‘brain over brawn’ sort of deal.

Ji Ah: You were frightened, weren’t you? Twenty-eight days straight on a perilous life boat without water or food. They’re the perfect conditions for a person to go mad, aren’t they? First-degree burns from the hot August sun striking your body mercilessly, the boat pitching about all day; despite not having eaten, you feel as if you’ll throw up. Clenching your teeth and waiting to be rescued only works for a day or two. The more you think about it, the angrier you get. ‘Why, me? Why?!’ Around the fifth day was the crisis point. Since, in that time, not a drop of rain had fallen. Dehydration would have set in first. [...] But it’s odd, isn’t it? For having starved for 28 days, you lost too little body mass. [...] What did you eat?

Meanwhile, Yeon’s contribution to all of this is: “And you couldn’t have used a delivery app in the middle of the open ocean where there’s no wifi signal.” Pfft He has, of course, caught on to her strategy. As usual, though, he decides to take the cheeky route.

Side note: I find it interesting that, in this universe full of monsters, the first incident Yeon and Ji Ah end up investigating together turns out to be an entirely human horror.

Yo. Hungry deciding Ji Ah is food is just...ugh. Never trust a cannibal.

Luckily for Ji Ah, her guard dog fox is on the job.

Over to Rang, who asks a weeping Pyung Hee what she’ll give him in return for granting her ‘wish’. We don’t get to see her answer him, but it was included in the backstory collection.

It’s unclear to me just how much Rang is involved in ‘granting’ Pyung Hee’s wish. Like, is he the one fueling the curse somehow, or did he just teach her what she needed to know? I’m inclined to believe it’s more the latter.

We cut to Taluipa at the Afterlife Immigration Office, who’s pissed that someone’s messing with her Death List. There’s a fun mythology-related chestnut in this scene: when Hyeonuiong comes running in, he’s carrying a watering can. Taluipa accuses him of having been watching dramas, but Hyeonuiong insists he was watering the Uiryeongsu.

The chyron for it reads: ‘The Uiryeongsu. A tree that measures the sins of the dead by the weight of their clothes when they’re hung on it.’ The hanja for ‘Uiryeongsu’ (衣領樹) literally mean ‘clothing-amount-tree,’ so its name is essentially its function. In traditional mythology, it grows on the near bank of the Samdocheon. This is also the same tree that the Uiryeong’geom (geom = sword) mentioned in EP13 is made from.

“You watered a tree for 3 hours?” Pfft Hyeonuiong and watering can, exit stage right.

Minor detail: I just realized I can actually see from Taluipa’s List in this scene that one of the two fishermen is named Kim Gil Sang. Still not sure which one though, so I’m going to stick to calling them Hungry and Thirsty.

The Dragon King Scroll

Back over to Ji Ah, who examines a creepy scroll hanging in Jin Shik’s vacant quarters. Once again, the show cuts into its own dramatic tension with a moment of levity as Yeon startles both Ji Ah and me by popping open his bag of snacks with a massive bang. The contrast between Ji Ah, who’s in serious investigator mode, and Yeon, who just continues his one-gumiho snack parade, blasé as can be, adds humour to an otherwise grim situation.

Yeon’s response of, “Oh. Sorry.” is in English, making it sound, if possible, even less sincere.

On the off chance that anyone was wondering, the snack Yeon claims as his favorite here is 솜짱 (somjjang). According to the Korean fans again, this is also a food commonly enjoyed by elderly people.

Subs: “Do you know how many people in Joseon died during the 50 years of war? 3.5 million. I’ve seen more deaths than all the funeral companies in this country.” This is another case of diagonal translation. Yeon’s line is more properly:

Yeon: Between the Imjin War and the Manchu War, do you know how much of the population of Joseon-era Korea was lost in just 50 years? 3,500,000. I’m a guy who’s seen more funerals than all the funerary companies in Korea put together.

[Note: Yeon is talking about The Japanese Invasions a.k.a The Imjin War (1592-1598) and The Qing Invasion of Joseon a.k.a. The Manchu War (1636)]

As a linguistic aside, Yeon refers to himself here as a ‘nom’ (rhymes with ‘home’). If you read the breakdown of EP02, you’ll recall that ‘nom’ can mean anything from ‘guy’ to ‘bastard.’ It’s not that Yeon means to call himself a bastard, though. It’s only that the typical alternative here (i.e. ‘person’) carries the implication of 'human.’ Since Yeon is, of course, not human, he opts for ‘nom’ instead. The word gets a lot of mileage in this show in relation to all the supernaturals for that reason.

Lol This exchange about the Dragon King was great. Point to the writer. I would translate it as:

Yeon: You’re right, but it looks nothing like him.

Ji Ah: You’ve...seen him?

Yeon: Back when I was a mountain god. Well, in today’s terms you’d say we attended a leadership conference together. They over-glamorized him. He’s not this good looking.

Ji Ah’s reaction is perfect too. Her, ‘I don’t even know where to begin with that statement so I’m just going to move on’ look came across loud and clear.

Yeon’s line as he leans over Ji Ah’s shoulder is subbed: “This is just like ‘Where’s Wally?’” In Korea, the game is called ‘find the hidden picture’ (‘sumun keurim chatgi’). So the line is actually: “What is this, ‘find the hidden picture’ or something?” I’d say there’s a 50/50 chance this line was another ad lib by Lee Dong Wook.

On an entirely different cultural note, ‘Where’s Wally?’ is know as ‘Where’s Waldo?’ in North America and exactly nowhere else. Don’t ask...

This scene features the first mention we get of Imoogi. Imoogi are among the most famous Korean mythical creatures. In most tellings, they are essentially proto-dragons, though occasionally they can be baby dragons. For example, one imoogi tale claims its imoogi was the son of the Dragon King (the same one Yeon attended a ‘leadership conference’ with). Most of the lore agrees that if an imoogi stays submerged in deep water for a thousand years, it earns the chance to become a dragon, though the caveats vary widely, and many imoogi fail. Finally, while the imoogi in TotNT is evil, imoogi aren’t categorically so; some are good, some aren’t.

Rang and the Mudang

Fun fact: Kim Beom explained in his Instagram LIVE that he chose to wear a red suit partially because the color gave off the feeling of a villain, but also because it contrasted well with the green of the forest. He also named this as his favorite Lee Rang outfit.

For anyone keeping track, Rang speaks to the mudang in banmal. She, in return, addresses him as ‘Lee Rang-nim’ and speaks very respectfully.

Okay, there are a couple of things to unpack in Rang’s following exchange with the mudang:

Mudang: The Corrupt God, King of the Wicked. He is Lee Ryong-nim.

Rang: [Laughs] What’s with that? Ugh, I seriously just cringed! If you slap a fancy title* from the next world in front of its name, does a snake become a dragon?

First, the mudang’s line here is said in an archaic cant. Second, ‘Lee Ryong’ (properly pronounced, ‘i-ryong,’ since there’s actually no ‘L’ in ‘Lee’), is another name for imoogi.

Finally, when Rang says ‘a fancy title from the next world,’ he’s referring to a posthumous name/title. Nearly every kingdom to have occupied the Korean peninsula has used posthumous titles (시호), most often for deceased royalty. By giving one to Imoogi, the mudang is venerating him. Rang mocks this, seizing on Imoogi’s failure to become a dragon. (Let no one say he and Yeon aren’t brothers).

The subs have Rang referring to Yeon as just ‘Yeon,’ but he actually calls him ‘Lee Yeon.’ That’s a very impersonal way to refer to one’s older brother, which is, of course, intentional on Rang’s part. It serves as another linguistic cue to the audience as to how Rang regards Yeon at this point.

A note on the evening primrose: tvN released a short blurb about it, since, as far as I can tell, the mythology was invented for the show. It reads:

Evening primrose that has grown while feeding on the blood and flesh of corpses is the same as poison to gumiho; if they so much as touch its powder, their bodies catch flame.

While the subs consistently just say ‘evening primrose,’ this should more properly be ‘burial ground evening primrose,’ which is how the various characters refer to it.

Fun fact: ‘Evening primrose’ in Korean is ‘dalmaji-kkot’ (달맞이꽃), which means ‘flowers that welcome the moon’.

Sub: “Half-brothers, to be exact.” The term Rang uses in Korean is quite literally, ‘brothers from different stomachs,’ so it refers specifically to half brothers who share a father but who have different mothers. I mention it only because Korean viewers will have been given slightly more information about their familial relationship here than was provided in the subs.

Back over to our leads, as Yeon urges Ji Ah to leave the island post-haste. His line is subbed: “I’m saying you may die if you stay here.” That’s a perfectly fine translation. For anyone curious, though, his line is quite literally: “I’m saying if you stay here, [the conditions are] perfect for dying.”

Sub: “That’s none of your business.” Yeon’s line is more properly: “That’s not for you to know.”

Ji Ah’s response to this is very literally: “I have no intention to go home for a reason I don’t know. So Lee Yeon should find the person Lee Yeon came here to find. I have to know why my parents came to this island.” This is the first time Ji Ah uses Yeon’s full name as a second person pronoun (so basically to mean ‘you’) when speaking to him. It’s hard to make generalizations about any form of address that don’t have multiple exceptions, but in this case, using his name is a more neutral, and somewhat more familiar, alternative to some of the other pronouns she’s been using when speaking to him. To my sense, it softens her rejection of his advice a little bit.

Back to Rang. His line is a bit awkward to translate, but essentially what he says is, ‘Calling my brother a ‘mountain god’ is an overstatement/ putting it nicely.’ I might approximate this as, ‘Sure, my brother was called a mountain god.’ This is the only time in the entire drama that Rang refers to Yeon as ‘uri hyung,’ and it kills me a bit that it’s not out of fondness, but rather derision. ㅠㅠ

Similarly, when Rang says, “I’m a fox, after all. I have to repay eunhye properly,” he is, of course, using eunhye sarcastically.

The subtitle here once again says ‘the underworld,’ but Rang’s line is actually: “I’m going to go to hell, without fail. Together with Lee Yeon.” The subs really need to do a better job of distinguishing between hell and the afterlife.

We see Ji Ah instruct Jae Hwan over the phone as to what to search for in the library records. She’s split off from Yeon since we last saw them.

Elsewhere on the island, Yeon also makes a call, only his is to Halmeom (Taluipa) to ask about Imoogi. When this episode first aired, I thought it was odd that Yeon was using ‘Imoogi’ as if it were a name, since this would be like referring to Yeon as ‘Gumiho.’ He later taunts Terry-Imoogi about just that though (i.e. not even having a proper name), so obviously it was an intentional decision on the writer’s part.

Sub: “If by chance Ah Eum was born again into this world, I can’t let that thing coexist with her.” This sub went a bit sideways. The ‘by chance’ has been mis-attributed. The line is properly: “There’s no way I could possibly (i.e. by any chance/under no circumstances can I) let such a thing exist in a world in which Ah Eum has been reborn.” Yeon is already sure that Ah Eum has been reborn at this point. He’s saying that because she’s been reborn, he can’t allow Imoogi to coexist with her under any circumstances.

Rang vs Ji Ah

Ji Ah returns to Pyung Hee’s to find ‘Pyung Hee’ reading Moby Dick. This is an ironic enough choice of literature to clue her in to the fact that this isn’t really Pyung Hee. Smart cookie.

On a character note, I loved that Ji Ah’s knowledge of, and love for, world literature was threaded believably throughout the drama in a way in which it feels natural that she caught on to Rang’s hint here. Point to the writer.

Again, for anyone keeping track, Ji Ah and Rang speak to each other in banmal, as has been the case since Rang revealed himself at Ji Ah’s house in EP01. Not because they’re close, obviously, but because they have zero respect for one another. It’s a bit of a power play on Ji Ah’s part, too, since she’s (hundreds of years) younger.

Over to Yeon, who barges into the local market owner’s personal quarters to interrogate him. His line when he catches sight of the scroll on the wall is subbed: “Look at this.” This should more properly be: “Check these people out. There’s one here too.” The word he uses that I translated as ‘these people’ is ‘i-geot-dul,’ which is very literally ‘these things,’ so I sort of understand the confusion in the subs. He means the islanders though, not the scrolls. In contrast, ‘there’s one here too’ does actually refer to the scroll.

The knife Yeon throws hits directly over the slit pupil of the scroll dragon’s eye. Nice aim.

Back to Ji Ah and Rang. When Ji Ah accuses Rang of orchestrating the deaths of the Milk Way survivors, ‘to distract us,’ what she says quite literally is ‘to cover our eyes and ears.’

When Rang applauds Ji Ah’s deductive abilities, his line is subbed, “Awesome.” This should more properly be, “Outstanding,” or, “Exceptional.” I honestly believe he’s being sincere in his praise. Being Rang, though, he’s probably just delighted this makes her more challenging to toy with.

Having completed his interrogation, Yeon’s eyes change as he erases the man’s memory of the event. I suspect the reason Yeon is so cavalier about revealing he’s a gumiho is because he can basically ‘undo’ it whenever he wants using this power.

Ji Ah’s quiet, “I decline” is so satisfying. Also the way Rang pulls back in surprise haha I guess he’s not used to being turned down.

Rang’s exchange with Ji Ah is subbed as: “Loosen up. Why be so stiff when it’s just good old me?” / “Let me give you some advice since that’s how you feel. Don’t gamble with another’s tragedy just for kicks. There’s a word for people like you, you know. A colossal jerk.” This is difficult to translate, and I think the subs have done a pretty good job, but a closer translation would be:

Rang: Augh— So uptight! Are you going to keep acting this uptight, just between us* (literally, ‘between you and me’)?

Ji Ah: Between you and me, then, I’ll give you just one word of advice: Don’t carelessly role the dice atop others’ misfortune. People call jerks like you ‘sleazy bastards.’

[*Note: Rang’s phrasing implies that they’re somehow close/on good terms, but he’s being sarcastic, of course.]

First off, the word Rang uses for ‘uptight’ (빡빡하다) means ‘stiff; uptight; rigid; inflexible; strict.’ By this, he’s referring to how she never lets her guard down. I don’t know that any of those words properly conveys that, though.

Second, while I translated Ji Ah’s line about the dice very literally here (in keeping with the spirit of this post), I actually like how the subs handled it from a translation/subtitling standpoint.

Finally, the subs have Ji Ah calling Rang ‘a colossal jerk,’ but the term she actually uses (‘yang’achi saekki’) is a much stronger expletive. ‘Yang’achi’ is a term for a thug, gangster, or hoodlum. ‘Saekki’ literally means ‘child of.’ In practical use, though, it’s close to ‘bastard.’ (I really didn’t think I’d be explaining the finer points of Korean expletives when I started this series, but here we are). I approximated this as ‘sleazy bastard’ above.

Pfft Rang being genuinely offended at Ji Ah’s language. Jo Bo Ah talked a bit about what she thought of all the explicit language Ji Ah uses towards Rang in her wrap interview.

Subs: “When he finds what he wants, you’ll be begging for mercy.” No idea where they got 'begging for mercy.’ What Rang actually says is, “When he finds what he wants, you’ll see hell.” Unlike in the subtitle, Rang’s warning actually has substance to it, since he’s referring to the fact that, once Yeon identifies Ji Ah as Ah Eum’s reincarnation, their fate with Imoogi will repeat itself.

By the time Yeon rushes back to Pyung Hee’s, Rang is long gone. His line subbed as: “What did he say?” is, quite literally, “Lee Rang, that nom, what’d he say?” This use of ‘nom’ manages to come off as fairly mild. (He may be a jerk, but he’s Yeon’s jerk).

Ji Ah’s response has undergone cultural translation to become: “Even when I order pizza, I never go for half-and-half. I always choose just one.” Honestly, though, I don’t know that it was necessary. What she actually says is: “Even when I order chicken, I don’t go for half-seasoned, half-fried; I’m the type to just pick one.”

This scene was originally longer but part of it got deleted. They released the clip, though, so I’ll translate the full exchange here:

Ji Ah: I'm saying I turned him down, your younger brother. Since I bet on this fox.

Yeon: Let no one say you aren’t a learned (wise) woman. Is that all?

Rang (voiceover): Don't trust Lee Yeon too much.

Ji Ah: That's all. But...you said the two of you are brothers.

Yeon: Yeah. We’re brothers.

Ji Ah: Why are you so hellbent on destroying each other?

Yeon: It seems like you don’t know since you’re an only child, but, as a rule, the relationship between siblings is a lot like noir, just without the guns.

Ji Ah: There you go, deflecting the question again. Is that a secret, too?

Yeon: If you ever happen to run into that guy again just the two of you, no matter what, run fast. That kid* despises humans. Especially humans that look like you.

Ji Ah: Why do you keep taking cracks at people's faces?

Yeon: ...I'm hungry.

Ji Ah: Why don’t you take the opportunity to pack up and leave while you still can? Your younger brother...it seems he’s preparing some sort of special event.

Yeon: That’s what I’m waiting for.

*Note: The word Yeon uses that I translated as ‘kid’ is ‘jashik.’ This is another word that, depending on how it’s used, can either be fond or rude. ‘Jashik’ literally means ‘[one’s] child,’ but it’s also commonly used in the sense of ‘punk.’ It’s a bit softer than nom. You wouldn’t use it to refer to yourself, though.

Ji Ah’s “Why do you keep taking cracks at people’s faces?” (meaning he’s insulting/taking issue with how she looks), is referencing their exchange the previous night when he told her not to smile because she was ugly.

We cut briefly to Shin Joo eating at the Snail Bride as he sizes up Yoo Ri from a distance. Come to think of it, we never got this BGM for the Snail Bride, either...

Ramen Heart-to-Heart

Lee Yeon’s one-gumiho meokbang continues. I feel like Yeon has been nomming on something in nearly every scene this episode.

The BGM while Yeon and Ji Ah eat is a remix of Yeon’s theme, ‘The Fox’s Wedding Day.’

Sub: “Just because these ladies wear baggy pants in floral prints doesn’t mean they have kind hearts. Get digging, and you’ll find all sorts of dirty secrets.” Yeon’s line is more literally:

Yeon: Living is all the same [everywhere]~ Just because grannies in the countryside wear flower-patterned pants doesn’t mean that even their insides are flower-patterned. If you start digging, venomous and insidious years come pouring out.

Ji Ah’s response then plays off of Yeon’s turn of phrase: “Is that the case for you too? I just wondered, ‘With what pattern did you live all those long years?’” (referring to the ‘pattern’ of his heart).

On a minor cultural note: the word Yeon uses is ‘mombbae pants’ (몸빼바지), which are a fashion(?) staple in the countryside. You’ll know what I mean if you run the hangeul through a google image search. That’s where the subs got ‘baggy’ from even though Yeon doesn’t explicitly say it.

Sub: “Why have you been searching for your parents all this time?” Yeon’s line is more properly: “Then what about you? What has made you wait for your parents for such a long time?”

Sub: “I’m the same. I’m waiting for the one I miss.” I would have translated this as: “I’m waiting for someone I miss,” which is literally what he says.

Sub: “Why did you part ways when you still miss her this much?” This is a bit hard to translate into natural-sounding English. The word Ji Ah uses is ‘mi’ryeon,’ which means ‘lingering attachment.’ So her line is quite literally: “Your face is so full of lingering attachment, how did you come to part ways/break up?”

Sub: “The first being I loved was a human girl who ended up dying. It’s why I’m still hung up on her. Happy now?” Hmm... I would translate Yeon’s line as:

Yeon: My damn* first love was a human of all things, but she died, so I’m foolishly unable to let go of my lingering attachment. Happy now?

[*Note: Yeon is cursing is the phenomenon of first love itself, not Ah Eum.]

His statement is witty, because the word he uses for ‘foolish’ is also pronounced ‘mi’ryeon.’ In this case, though, 'mi’ryeon’ means, ‘foolhardy and dense enough to be stubborn to a preposterous degree.’ Which is probably a fair assessment given he’s been waiting 600 years. The sub for this line made it sound like he’s saying, ‘I’m hung up on her because she’s a human girl who died,’ which would just be weird.

Shin Joo Meets Yoo Ri

Okay, minor detail, but what exactly was Yoo Ri trying to accomplish here before Shin Joo stopped her from entering an off-limits area of the Snail Bride?

The BGM here is called ‘Skip a Beat’ (‘Kanju Jump’). I found the track title slightly surprising since it’s actually taken from an ad lib made by Kim Yong Ji (Yoo Ri) in a later episode.

For anyone keeping track, Shin Joo and Yoo Ri are speaking in a mix of banmal and jondaetmal in this scene.

We next see Shin Joo on the phone with Yeon, whining about the whole ordeal and asking an unsympathetic Yeon to come back and retrieve his necklace for him.

Yeon’s line that’s subbed as, “Deadly?” could mean more than one thing. The line is literally, “What? The thief was deadly?” The word for ‘deadly,’ though, could equally mean that she was a knockout (i.e. gorgeous). It’s probably a bit of both.

Subs: “There’s nothing more pathetic than being blinded by a woman’s beauty...” / “But you also ruined your life by falling for beautiful woman.” For the record, neither of them actually uses the word ‘beauty/beautiful’ here. I would translate this exchange as:

Yeon: You... The most pathetic thing in the world, is being blinded by a woman, and...

Shin Joo: But being blinded by a woman and wrecking your life is something Lee Yeon-nim did too, isn’t it?

Yeon: What, you punk?!

Lol Yeon’s “What, you punk?!” is a familiar refrain whenever Shin Joo unwittingly(?) insults Yeon. The word is ‘imma’ (임마) or sometimes ‘inma’ (인마). Yeon consistently uses the former.

‘Bad Fate’

Subs: “Why is that branch broken? It must’ve hurt.” Yeon is actually personifying the tree here, which makes sense seeing as he can communicate with it. So his line is more literally: “Now why has this kid gone and made a fuss breaking [his] branch? It must’ve hurt.” Which is cute.

I actually really appreciated this short scene of Yeon healing the tree. Yeon may no longer be the master of Baekdudaegan, but this scene showed that it’s still very much a part of who he is; not just his powers, but the care he has for the forest.

Fun (?) fact: It turns out this simple scene was actually a huge pain to film.

Subs: “I hope you grow well.” Actually: “Eat well and grow well.” I realize that sounds awkward in English, but the line is a directive. He’s once again speaking to the tree.

Sub: “The wind is blowing from the northwest. Something is coming.” I would have translated this as: “A northwest wind blows... Something is coming.” That’s partly a tonal choice, but it’s also a more literal reflection of the original Korean.

We finally catch back up to the end of EP02, as Jae Hwan calls Ji Ah from the library to tell her what he’s found. This time, we see her connect the first dead body in 1954 to what the forest spirit told them more explicitly.

The dates of the four incidents are: August 13, 1954; August 25, 1961; September 6, 1979; and September 7, 1987. Ji Ah quickly deduces that these all work out to be the same date on the lunar calendar: July 15th. In 2020, that works out to be Wednesday, September 2nd. If you’ll recall, the wedding at the start of EP01 was held on August 29, so it’s only been 3 days since Yeon and Ji Ah crossed paths at the wedding hall.

“Long time no see, Lee Yeon.” What is it with Imoogi and choking Yeon?

Subs: “You should’ve let me go.” More precisely: “I know, right? You should have let me go.”

Yeon’s final “What are you?” should probably have been subbed as: “I’m asking what you are!” since both his tone and phrasing have grown more insistent.

Subs: Our ill-fated relationship would’ve ended if you hadn’t stopped the boat from crossing the Samdo River. More literally:

Jimoogi: Our ak’yeon should have ended. That is, if only you hadn’t stopped the boat from crossing the Samdocheon.

The word the subs translated as ‘our ill-fated relationship’ is ‘ak’yeon’ (悪縁), which literally means ‘bad fate.’ In contrast to the broader, ‘destiny’ sort of fate (‘un’myeong’) however, ‘yeon’ (縁) is inherently relational. It refers specifically to the fate between two people (or even between a person and a place). ‘Ak’ (悪) means ‘evil.’ So 'ill-fated’ is a bit misleading as a translation since the word actually refers to the relationship between Yeon and Imoogi (i.e. mortal enemies), rather than the fact that Yeon and Ah Eum’s story ended tragically (as in, ‘an ill-fated love’).

WAIT. Subs: “No. That woman is born with a face that only I can recognize. And I don’t see it in you.” What?? That doesn’t even make sense. Yeon’s line is:

Yeon: No. That woman is born carrying a sign that only I can recognize. You don’t have it.

Obviously, Yeon is referring to the fox bead, and I’m fairly sure that was apparent since the line was intercut with the scene in which he imparts the bead to Ah Eum, but that seems like a pretty critical line to fudge up.

Jimoogi: “You really don’t know anything, do you, Lee Yeon?” It’s weird to me that they have Imoogi addressing Yeon as just ‘Yeon’ in the subs. That makes it seem like they’re friends or something...

Subs: “The scar is gone.” Actually: “The wound disappeared.”

Deadball

Subs: “We hate each other too much to play catch. I actually meant to kill you.” Wait, WHAT?! Yeon’s line is:

Yeon: Our relationship is too makjang for that. That was meant to be a deadball, actually.

Makjang, for the uninitiated, is a slang word taken from the phrase ‘the final scene’ (‘majimak jangmyeon’) that has come to refer to an entire genre, as well as particular dramatic elements or conventions of Korean storytelling. Dramabeans explain the term here. When Yeon says his relationship with Rang is ‘makjang,’ he’s essentially saying it’s overly fraught, not that he hates his brother.

He also doesn’t say he meant to kill Rang. ‘Deadball’ is a Korean baseball term for a pitch that hits a player (typically causing the game to be paused). So Yeon’s just saying he meant for the ‘ball’ to hit Rang, rather than for Rang to catch it.

On a personal note, it really bothers me when the subs spread all over the internet and they’re wrong like this. I don’t mind slight changes in phrasing or wording, but when they grossly misrepresent the characters like this it can be a bit upsetting. It’s no wonder I sometimes feel like I watched a completely different drama. ㅠㅠ

Yeon’s cheeky smile™ XD

The BGM in this scene is actually ‘The Forest of the Agwi.’

Subs: “Run away.” Yeon’s line is quite literally: ‘Get away from here,’ or even, ‘put distance between here and you.’ I mention it because I really appreciated that, despite all the danger she confronts, Yeon never once tells Ji Ah to ‘run away’ (‘domang ga’). His second ‘run away’ in the subs is also just him telling her to hurry up (literally ‘go quickly’).

The following banter between the brothers is something I mentioned in an ask a while back because all the humour had been lost in translation. To recap, though, one recurring joke the show uses plays off the word for ‘bastard/son of a bitch,’ which translates literally as ‘child of a dog’ (kae-saekki). As you might imagine, this gets a lot of mileage in relation to Rang, our resident ‘baby fox’ (agi yeou) a.k.a. ‘child of a fox’ (yeou-saekki):

Rang: This is domestic violence, you know?

Yeon: (Nodding) They say you’re supposed to raise wild children* with a firm hand (literally: hit them as you raise them), but I couldn’t do that, so I ended up raising a fox child into a dog child (son of a bitch), didn’t I?

Rang: And who was the jerk who kicked that child (saekki) to the curb? You treat me like a stray dog any chance you get.

Yeon: My little brother, I’ll have to gift you a muzzle this Christmas.

Rang’s line was subbed: “You keep blaming it on me, when you were the one who turned me into an orphan.” which I find fairly problematic since that makes it sound like Yeon killed Rang’s parents. It’s also just plain wrong; to the extent that I’m not even sure what went wrong in the translation process.

The word Yeon uses here for ‘wild children’ is ‘horo jashik’ (호로자식), which many Koreans understand to mean something like a barbarian child, but the true origin, as it turns out, is a parentless child. It’s also a term used predominantly by elderly people heh

Finally, because the dog jokes dropped out ‘muzzle’ became ‘mouth guard’ in the subs, which is both less funny and less sensical. The two are also conceptually opposed, since ‘muzzle’ implies that Yeon means to protect the world from Rang whereas ‘mouth guard’ is more about protecting Rang.

As Ji Ah continues to put distance between herself and the brothers, she happens upon the mudang’s house, which she immediately clocks as such from the obangi.

I like that Ji Ah doesn’t immediately call the mudang out for lying, but instead continues to question her knowing she’s lying. Sometimes the lies people tell can be as telling as the truth.

When Ji Ah questions her, the mudang tells her the fishing ritual is held during the ‘Ghost Festival’. This is a Buddhist festival similar to All Souls Day. In Korean it’s called ‘Baek Joong Nal’ (literally ‘hundred-gather-day’) meaning ‘the day when all the spirits gather.’ It falls on the full moon of the seventh lunar month (so July 15th of the lunar calendar), which is, of course, the date Ji Ah identified as the day when the murders were taking place. That’s why we get the zoom in and the flash to the newspaper dates: Ji Ah has put everything together.

Chyron: “Obangi (五方旗) A five-colored flag symbolizing ‘life, death, illness, sacrifice, and ancestors’”. This is the quick quotes version. Obangi have their roots in the Chinese philosophy of Wuxing, but for more on that, I’ll refer you to Wikipedia. In Korea, the colors of the obangi (red, blue, white, black, and yellow) are known as the five orientation colors, and are closely tied to both shamanism and fortune telling. You’ll notice these same colors flying outside the fortune teller’s in EP06.

I also appreciated that Ji Ah didn’t just foolishly drink the tea here. She was properly on her guard. It’s only that she mis-identified the source of danger.

Back over to our fox brothers. Rang’s line is subbed: “That was plenty of time.” This is more properly: “I think I’ve bought more than enough time by now.” So he’s actually quite overt in telling Yeon exactly what he'd been up to.

Subs: “Don’t you know why she ended up on this island?” More closely: “Do you still not get it? Why that woman ended up coming to this island of all places?”

We see the mudang encircle the creepy well with burial ground evening primrose to ward against Yeon, who is currently searching the island for Ji Ah to no avail.

Subs: “You tricked your mom while you were in her womb.” This is a bit difficult to translate. The word the mudang uses that was translated as ‘tricked’ is ‘ggweda,’ which means to ‘lure’ or ‘entice.’ So what she means is that the part of Imoogi that was reincarnated with Ji Ah ‘lured’ her mother to the island by sending her recurring dreams.

Gumiho

Lol Yeon: “I am the original mountain spirit, the master of the mountains and streams. Lift this darkness and lead me to her!” This is more literally:

Yeon: I am the original mountain god, the master of your mountains and streams.* Part this darkness and lead me to that woman!

[*Note: ‘Mountains and streams’ here can also be taken to mean ‘nature’ at large.]

Lol The line is met with silence and the soft hoot of a lone owl. That’s basically the director’s version of *crickets* isn’t it?

This line is another rare case in which Yeon speaks archaically, and it serves to make the command sound more formal and potentially magical. It’s also worth noting that he’s addressing the forest directly as a whole here (thus the ‘your’).

Fun fact: When Lee Dong Wook did his TotNT VLIVE, his promotional team made him perform this line again live just to mess with him haha

The BGM here as Yeon heads off through the forest led by his (supernatural?) fireflies is ‘Opening Title: The Legend of the Fox.’ It sounds vaguely Harry Potter-ish to me (not complaining).

For the record, Ji Ah is now speaking to the mudang in banmal out of disdain.

Sub: “Be a sacrifice. You are a very special child.” Pfft ‘Be a sacrifice’ sounds oddly funny to me. Her line is: “Become a sacrifice. I’m told you’re a very special child.” So the implication is that this information came from someone/something else.

Does anyone know what BGM this is as Yeon sprints though the forest? I think it might be another unreleased track, but I’m not positive...

Yeon’s “Halt!” is once again in olden speech. It indicates linguistically that he's in Gumiho mode.

Out of curiosity, is it not odd for people watching with subs when Ji Ah’s only utterance is ‘Lee Yeon’ but the subs just say ‘Yeon’?

Subs: “This has nothing to do with the old master of the mountain. Why don’t you keep walking?” I would have translated this as: “It is a matter unrelated to the former master of the mountain. Beg, go along your way.” She’s once again using olden-speech in her second sentence.

Lol Sub: “Says the living corpse.” I like this sub. Yeon’s line is quite literally: “With the ‘juje’ of a living corpse...” ‘Juje’ is essentially your station or lot in life, and it’s used almost exclusively derogatorily.

Sub: “Who was it that provided you with longevity you don’t deserve?” More closely: “Who was it? The one who gave you a lifespan so much longer than you deserve?”

Yeon: “I asked you whom you serve!” (literally ‘what’ you serve). Yeon once again drops into an archaic cant for this line. It serves to underline his full age and gives his demand an extra air of authority.

Yeon’s TAILS. I can’t believe this was the last we saw of them. ㅠㅠ Personally, I interpreted the firey tails as being a sort of ‘shadow’/ projection of his actual tails, which I assumed were actually more physically there (since he talks about shampooing them in the teaser interview). My sister thinks differently, though. Guess we’ll never know...

The BGM for this sequence is naturally ‘Gumiho.’ If you read our EP01 breakdown, you’ll know I was fully expecting this to be Yeon’s theme. But no, it’s the whimsical 'The Fox’s Wedding Day’ instead haha

Okay, Yeon just casually smiting the mudang is pretty badass. Seeing as he can command lightning, I’m pretty sure he was joking when he told Ji Ah, ‘even gumiho are afraid of electricity.’

If by chance you wondered what was going though Yeon’s mind when he smote the mudang, it’s featured in the EP03 subtitle poster.

I appreciated that Yeon just accepts Ji Ah at her word here when she tells him all she needs from him is one arm for support. I feel like in most dramas the male lead would have just forcefully swept the heroine off her feet amidst her protests, which I always find more problematic than romantic.

For that matter, when it became clear that Ji Ah really did need help, I appreciated that she didn’t act shy or coy and just accepted being carried without making a big deal of it.

Pfft The way Ji Ah’s eyes flash when Yeon tells her the mudang was just a human being says it all.

Yeon: “So you say... Excuse me, but you nearly died just now, you know?” This line is once again cheekily in jondaetmal.

*Ominous close up of the well*

Thank You

We catch up with Shin Joo at the supermarket as he talks to Yeon over the phone.

Shin Joo’s ‘PD-nim’ has once again become, ‘the director lady’ in the subs. *Sigh*

Subs: “Your love story is more than just famous among us.” Actually: “Just how famous is Lee Yeon-nim’s love story in our world? It’s obvious your younger brother* must have been playing tricks!”

Shin Joo refers to Rang here as ‘donsaeng-bun’ (younger sibling + polite word for person) for the same reason he calls Rang, ‘Lee Rang-nim.’ It’s an extension of his regard for Yeon, rather than for Rang himself.

Lol Shin Joo hanging up on Yeon. His love for supermarkets and fried chicken are actually in his character profile. Apparently, they’re what convinced him living as a human was worth the existential crisis that came with it.

Sub: “I’m too much of a human to easily fall asleep after such an event. Join me.” More literally: “I’m human, so on a day like today I can’t sleep sober. You* have a glass, too.”

The word Ji Ah uses for ‘you’ here is ‘ja’ne’ (자네), which is a polite term... except it’s only used to refer to people younger than you. So’s she’s talking down to him politely haha This is what prompts Yeon’s line that follows it:

Sub: “I never said anything since it could make seem old-fashioned, but you’re too informal with me when you don’t even know my age.”

Yeon: I kept holding it in thinking you’d call me an old fart, but you’re [using] banmal really blatantly. Just how old do you think I am?”

Yeon’s ‘Just how old do you think I am?’ is rhetorical. It’s not that Ji Ah is necessarily unaware of his true age, but rather that she acts as if she is.

Sub: “Those over 60 are universally considered as grandpas.” Actually: “You know everyone over 60 can be called a grandpa, right?”

Pfft Sub: “Be as informal as you like.” What Yeon literally says is, “Please lower your speech,” but he uses very respectful language to say it. I’m not sure if he’s being sarcastic, or if he just hates the thought of being considered a grandpa that much haha It’s probably a bit of both.

Aww Ji Ah promising to protect Yeon. I luff her.

Ji Ah: "Do I perhaps have something you’re looking for?” I love that she doesn’t miss a thing.

Lol Yeon: “Who am I, Jesus? Just drink what you have.”

The Vanishing

Subs: “Don’t ever resort to cursing people again. Karma can sting.” Quite literally: “You were lucky you kept your life, but don’t do such a thing* as cursing others ever again. They return, you know. Back on the one who casts them.”

*Yeon uses the disparagement marker ‘ddaui’ (따위) to refer to the act of cursing someone here. You may recall it from our EP01 breakdown.

Ji Ah chooses this moment to come running in to announce that the island has turned into a ghost town over night, which is enough to make even Yeon pause, perplexed.

I love the way Yeon and Ji Ah exchange looks here on the dock. They don’ t know what’s up yet, but they intend to find out.

‘Blue Moon’~~~ This worked great scored over the drone-camera pan out. I may be slightly biased, though.

And that concludes Episode 3. Once again, thank you to everyone who commented or left feedback on the last episode! Never hesitate to send me your thoughts, even if they’re just to say what you found funny or surprising. It helps me to know what’s of interest for one thing, but I also just enjoy chatting about the show. ;)

A brief note on pronunciation/notation: for words like ‘sa’ingeom’ and ‘mi’ryeon,’ the apostrophe is there just as a pronunciation guide. So in the case of the former, to indicate that it’s pronounced ‘sah-in’ and not ‘sine’ or ‘sane.’ Similarly, for the latter, the apostrophe is just to indicate that this should be pronounced ‘mi-ryeon’ and not ‘mir-yeon.’ I could have just as easily done this with ‘Hyeon’ui’ong’ except that’s a lot of apostrophes and I set an earlier precedent of not. It’s not an aspiration or anything fancy. Hopefully that makes sense.

Once again, I’d like to credit my sister for being the main researcher and fact-checker for these, in addition to weighing in on all the translations. I don’t always take her advice, but I do always appreciate it haha.

Thank you also to everyone who bought us coffee! Your support is truly felt and appreciated ♡ As usual, this took an ungodly amount of time, so every coffee helps haha. For anyone just joining us (or not), if you’d like to see more of these, please consider buying us a coffee. If you follow the link, you can buy a $2 cup of virtual coffee. This helps me to gauge how much interest there is, and also how much value people place on these. If you cared enough to read all the way to the end, please at least consider it. Once I’ve established there’s enough interest, I’ll proceed with Episode 4. ;)

#tale of the nine tailed #totnt #lost in translation #구미호뎐 #kdrama #korean language #happy new year!

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heademptyjustvolleyballs · 4 years

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Karasuno Back Country Camping

Backcountry camping is done in remote, isolated areas where groups need to be entirely self-sufficient. It usually requires canoeing, hiking, or climbing to reach the site.

Daichi Sawamura: Brings a family size tent so friends can share. Scouted the site ahead of time and basically organized the whole excursion (it’s a captain thing). Brings the cooking supplies and camp suds. He’s scheduled group activities for everyone, but once he gets there, he just wants to sit in a folding chair by the fire and watch the clouds.

Koushi Sugawara: At the beginning of the trip his phone's on airplane mode, he packed a book, and he's excited to spend some time off the grid. By day 3, he's taking hour long hikes away from the site, desperate to find a data signal. Eats an entire bag’s worth of marshmallows in a night and makes himself sick. Mosquitos and deer flies ignore him the lucky bastard.

Asahi Azumane: Came fully prepared for the worst case scenario. He brought bear spray, flares, whistles, enough first aid supplies to stock an ambulance... and yet somehow managed to forget his sleeping bag. Brought an axe in case they have to chop wood for the fire, but someone else has to use it because it makes him nervous. Packs everything in waterproof compression sacks & his backpack is super organized.

Yuu Nishinoya: Packs super light: minimal food & clothes, supplies & entertainment. Sleeps in one of those hammock tents so he doesn’t have to search for level ground. Favourite day time activity is finding that perfect diving rock and jumping in the lake. DIdn’t pack a towel so he has to lay out in the sun to dry off, or use a t-shirt. Prone to wandering off alone to explore the area around the site. Will probably return with mushrooms or berries that he cannot confirm aren’t poisonous.

Ryuunosuke Tananka: Only brought 1 pair of shoes on the trip. They aren’t proper camping shoes, and they get so waterlogged, muddy, and gross he’s going to have to burn them when he gets home. We aren’t even going to talk about the state (and stank) of his feet (RIP Tanaka’s tentmate). Walks around the campsite practically naked. Definitely skinny dips in the lake. Never cooks or offers to do dishes.

Chikara Ennoshita: He’s one of those gourmet back-country types. Sure, bringing more fresh food is extra bulk & weight, but he thinks having a real meal in the middle of the woods is worth it. Invested in kevlar no-tear bags to safely store food overnight. Keeps his cellphone off the entire trip, but brings an actual camera to document the adventure. Makes fun little slideshows from the pictures he takes on the trip. Tells the best scary campfire stories.

Hisashi Kinoshita: He camps so frequently that his bag is always packed and he can be ready to go really quickly. However, any trip longer than four days has him itching (figuratively and literally) for a shower and starting to get anxious to go home. Brings extra bug spray. Doesn’t own any fancy camping gear except for a camping hammock, he’ll sleep in it on really nice nights. Keeps a camping journal with maps, drawing, notes, etc. that is better than any field guide on the market.

Kazuhito Narita: Takes him the longest to set up his tent-- he really should have invested in a pop-up to avoid dealing with all the poles. Has watched 1 too many episodes of Survivorman and thinks he’s going to have to Bear Grylls his way through every difficulty he encounters. He’s fully ready to live off the land-- he brought a fishing rod, hunting knife, and wilderness food guide (there’s also 10 packs of instant ramen in his backpack). Once lit a fire just using two sticks and he won’t let you forget it.

Tobio Kageyama: Brought a single-person tent because he doesn’t want to share, but regrets it because he can hear EVERY animal scurrying by at night. Not great at camp cooking but at least he’ll offer to do the dishes. Poor baby has to soak a bandana in bug spray and wear it around his neck all the time because he gets eaten alive. Didn’t bring any rain gear so he has to wait out storms in his tent. Lives off of beef jerky & raisins, no one knows how he isn’t dying of indigestion.

Shoyo Hinata: He’s over-excited and over-packed! Half the stuff he brings never leaves his backpack. Runs around the camp barefoot & climbs trees for fun during the day. Manages to see all the wildlife-- otters, foxes, rare birds, snakes-- but by the time he points them out to others, they’re gone. Hates lake swimming (the lake bed is slimy and he didn’t bring water shoes), so he only gets in the water for quick dips when he starts feeling nasty. Wears a whistle around his neck at all times because if he ventures away from the site, he WILL get lost.

Kei Tsukkishima: No matter how comfy his sleeping pad is, he cannot sleep in a tent and resigns himself to being sleep deprived and extra grumpy the entire time. Offers to bring & make breakfast every morning because it’s not like he’s sleeping in. Can build a functional rain shelter in under 10 minutes with no assistance (it’s a very appreciated gift). Spends the whole trip at the site, he’s too tired to do any hiking or canoeing. Wears the same clothes the whole trip, but washes them with camp suds daily.

Tadashi Yamaguchi: Borrows most of his gear from more experienced friends, which makes him extra cautious when setting up camp. Made his own fire-starters and lanterns, just to feel extra outdoorsy. Always sunscreened up and wearing a hat. Brings the best snacks, and remembered a portable speaker for the tunes! Terrified of having to shit in the woods.

(I’m going to put the girls on a separate camping trip... stay tuned)

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gizkasparadise · 4 years

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⭐ for the fury please! :DDD

sorry this took so long, i wasn’t sure what to pick!

so here are some of my thoughts and processes when writing trauma in the fury

in general, i wanted to take a different approach than the Uplifting Movie narrative of trauma where it’s cured by love. first and foremost, people process and react to trauma differently, and it’s also not something i see as linear. you dont have trauma and then work through it and at the end there’s a cure. i dont find it to be something that ever truly goes away. it comes and goes/crests and rises.

gendry is obviously the main character, and most of the story is in his POV. gonna pick a few scenes/lines from the latest chapter, blackhaven (i):

The next morning, she asks the question when they’re breaking their fast. “Do you want to talk about it?” Arya doesn’t really know how to react to Gendry’s dissociation the night before. partially because she can only guess at the whole story, but also because this is new/she doesn’t know how to respond so she’s going to ask him to take the wheel, so to speak

He doesn’t know what it means. About how he slept in a corner on the floor? How Nymeria has been practically glued to him and scared the shit out of his horse? Or how he’d flinched when she tried to rest a hand on his shoulder? He wish he hadn’t, but he had, and he wasn’t blind to the way that Arya read his expression and body language. Isn’t stupid enough to pretend like she doesn’t know what it all means and that she hasn’t figured out what he’s not saying. he’s frustrated and embarrassed, here. and in this moment he truly hates her Faceless training, that he doesn’t even get the chance to pretend that it didn’t happen and that he can fake being nonchalant about it

“No,” he says firmly. Whatever she wants to ask, whatever it she’s wondering about, his answer’s a no. so, here is a spot where it would be appropriate for a heart-to-heart between the two of them. but i didn’t want to take that approach, because with people who’ve experienced trauma, it doesn’t matter that a supportive partner is willing to listen. that anger and avoidance are far more common responses after events that trigger them

“Okay,” she says softly.

“Okay,” he agrees, attention focused on his plate that hasn’t had much food eaten off it. this right here i think is an important moment. arya could press the issue--she has a good idea of what instigated gendry’s episode--but she doesn’t, because he says he doesn’t want to talk about it. something that pisses me off to no end in fiction is the YOU HAVE TO TALK ABOUT IT RIGHT NOW schpiels love interests of those with trauma pull. the best thing to do as a supportive partner is know when to back off/recognize that these conversations come at the right time and place and you can’t force them. i’m going to build on this later, but i see this exchange as a really important one where arya recognizes and respects his boundaries

They make camp a little outside the summit of the Red Mountains, and by the time they do, Gendry’s almost missing fucking Harrenhall. Since Amberly, his body feels too heavy and his mind too fast. And as he sits outside of the campfire’s circle, staring up at the wide sky with lots of stars all in it, he realizes that he wants to be done. That he can’t deal with anymore nobles, or rain, or holding his temper, or everyone having ten different opinions on everything. That after Amberly, he’s getting angrier and he doesn’t even know if it’s because he’s mad.

[...]

“I’ll eat it then,” Bruno says, as if to reassure him. And then he sits next to him, teeth biting into the meat. Between chewing, he points out to something in the horizon that Gendry doesn’t bother to figure out. “Those two rocks out there? That’s the Kissing Fish, a landmark named because it looks like-”

“I don’t care,” Gendry says, patience breaking. He stands abruptly, turning in the direction that’ll take him furthest from camp. Then he walks away and tries not to hear the way Bruno attempts to laugh through his discomfort. i wrote his exchanges with the wyldes and sandor to highlight that his predominant response to being triggered the night before is anger. and later, the fact that he actively works to not take it out on other people, shows that he’s trying to manage his own coping and that he does actually care about all of these people (even Sandor)

“Arya?” she waits until he initiates this conversation

“What?”

“...You remember the bad or the good?” He asks, hesitant. He doesn’t close his eyes, because if he does he thinks he’ll see it all again--blue eyes in the snow, black leeches curling over a fire. blue eyes/the battlements of winterfell is a repeating flashback for gendry. there’s other mentions of it earlier in the fic.

Arya sounds hollow. “All of it.”

He swallows. “Me too.”

She nods, voice quiet. “I know.” this is a big deal to gendry, a sort of acknowledgement of his pain that he doesn’t get from anyone else

And he feels a little less angry, at that.

#gendrya #the fury #asks!#tyyyyyyy my friend :D

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i-dream-of-twilight-sparkle · 4 years

Text

Chapter 7 - Good Mourning, Fluttershy

When Fluttershy left the castle, she decided she’d take her time for a bit before heading out to invite who she wants to. Besides, she had animals to feed both at the sanctuary near her cottage and in her home first. She shopped at the markets in Ponyville for vegetables and other kinds of pet food. Even visiting a fish store that while Ponies did not eat fish, they’re still sold as food for many ponies who have pets with carnivore diets. While fish are animals too, and Fluttershy enjoys seeing fishes when she’s swimming. She understands that she can’t force the carnivores to become herbivores. Depriving dogs, cats, bears, etc. of the diet they’re naturally attuned to would be wrong even if Fluttershy feels bad for the poor fish.

To be a nature lover like Fluttershy. you sometimes just have to understand that nature isn’t always kind. Even as the element of kindness, she can’t bend nature to her will. Though perhaps to the comfort of Fluttershy, for many of the fish that are sold as pet food, the very nature of those species is to be so plentiful as to allow the ones that avoid being caught or eaten survive to eventually give birth to more.

After finishing up her shopping, she flies over to the sanctuary and gives all animals she come across food to eat, to all kinds currently in her sanctuary. From amphibians, to birds, to insects, to mammals, and reptiles. The sanctuary gives Fluttershy a way to observe the animals she loves as they should be out in the wild rather then being confined to her home or for some of them, risking having to trek the Everfree in order to see them. Though Fluttershy still lets many of the smaller animals take shelter in her home, as many parts of her cottage include birdhouses, mouse holes, etc. She moved most animals she had to the sanctuary, but she still very much has her own little animal neighborhood to come home to whenever she walked in. Speaking of which, it was time to head in to her cottage to feed said little neighborhood.

She heads to the front door of her cottage, and opens the door to greet her many, many, small roommates.

Fluttershy: Goooooood morning! I have fresh treats for all of you.

Many animals comes out of their hiding places and approach Fluttershy to receive food and/or care from the loving pegasus that has let them seek shelter in her home. Suddenly she gets a few pokes on her flank from what definitely is an impatient bunny rabbit.

Fluttershy: Oh don’t worry Angel, I didn’t forget about you. Here’s a nice bowl of carrots for you.

Fluttershy leaves the bowl of carrots, and the feisty little bunny starts munching. Fluttershy gives a generally pleased look as a good majority of her animals are fed. Though she does notice a rather odd absence of a certain group in her household.

Fluttershy: Say, I don’t suppose any of you have seen any sign of Mr. Mousey or anyone in his family have you?

The animals listening to her either shrug or shake their head from side-to-side. Mr. Mousey is one of the ol’ veteran animals that’s been in the house around for years and barely ever missed feeding time even when he’s confined to a tiny wheelchair. Either his wife or his child who has grown up now helping him when it was time. Fluttershy walks on over to the mouse hole she knows Mr. Mousey and his family lives.

Fluttershy: Mr. Mousey? Are you doing alright? You’re starting to worr- *peeks into the hole* GAAAAASSSSSSSSP

Fluttershy screams, in the hole is… Mr. Mousey slumped in his chair having passed away in his old age, his light-grey wife Mrs. Mousey covering her eyes with her tiny claws and crying. Their grown-up white son holding on to his old mother in comfort and mutual grief for the death of his father.

Fluttershy: MISTER MOUSSSEEEEEEEEEYYYYYYYYYYYYYY NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Fluttershy averts her eyes from the hole . Lays down on the ground and just starts tearing up heavily. Once again, a beloved animal resident has died in her home. Fluttershy’s been through this many times as an animal caretaker. But it never really gets any easier to see, she can never be numb to the death of an animal she raised in the house.

The other animals seeing the grieving Fluttershy immediately come to her to comfort her as best they can.

Fluttershy: t-t-Thank y-you a-a-all… *sniff* It’s j-just s-still s-so -s-sad… Mr. Mousey’s life was just a little bit longer then the friendship with my other friends here for the exception of Rainbow Dash! *sniff* I-i-i remember when h-he… w-was just a k-kid m-m-mouse that was looking for f-food… I-i-i gave him a piece of cheese… a-and t-then he started c-coming back for m-more. In time s-showing up one time with a m-mate. A-and t-that’s when I d-decided to g-give them a m-mouse hole h-home… had their c-child h-ere and e-e-e-everything *sniff*

Fluttershy putting her face back on the ground and continues sobbing. Eventually she’s going to have to pick herself up. Put the body of Mr. Mousey in a nice box and bury him in an area near the edge of the everfree where Fluttershy buries all her deceased pets. She’s wobbly and still weak in the knees from the sheer sadness she feels. But she proceeds to start to do so. She finds a box, pulls out some cotton floof from her pillows, puts it in the box and leaves it just outside the hole. Signaling Mr. Mousey’s family to bring the wheelchair out of the hole for the last time to bring his body for Fluttershy to put in the box. Fluttershy carefully holds the body and lays him to rest in the cushioned box that now serves as a coffin for her beloved old mouse pet. She takes one last look at the body of Mr. Mousey, noticeably she actually sees that Mr. Mousey has a smile on his face. Sort of actually comforting Fluttershy, as she at least views that he lived quite abnormally long for a mouse, and he died happy. Fluttershy closes the box and ties a ribbon around it. Meanwhile, Mrs. Mousey and her son get up onto Fluttershy’s back using their claws to climb Fluttershy’s long tail to take part in the funeral.

It was now time to take the long walk to her pet cemetery again.

((Story continues after the break))

Moments later, Fluttershy reaches the cemetery of all her pets of the past, she reaches for a shovel she leaves there, and makes a small hole big enough to bury Mr. Mousey. She places the box down, and proceeds to bury the box. Once that’s done, Fluttershy, Mrs. Mousey, and Mr. Mousey’s son put their hooves/claws together in a praying position. Paying their last respects for the old mouse.

A few minutes later, suddenly Fluttershy feels what seems to be rain.

Fluttershy: Is it starting to rain? I didn’t think the weather patrol had rain scheduled today… but I guess perhaps even the planet is crying for Mr. Mousey...

But then Fluttershy see something a little odd about the rain, it was brown, and when she gave it a lick it tasted like… chocolate milk! Fluttershy looks above her is a big pink cotton candy cloud. Cotton candy clouds and chocolate rain could only be the work of…

Fluttershy: Discord, I know that’s you up there…

Sure enough a neck cranes down from the side of the cloud and goes down to Fluttershy’s level on the ground.

Discord: Hello dear, Fluttershy, How are things with you today?

Fluttershy: I’m not sure I’ll be in any mood for your antics today, Discord. Mr. Mousey h-has.. p-passed a-away… you happened to interrupt during my f-funeral for him...

Discord: Mr. Mousey kicked the bucket today? Shoot, he made one heck of a cup of tea.

Fluttershy: Wait, you’ve drank tea with Mr. Mousey?

Discord: Yes, I actually taught him how, and then he proceeded to make better tea then I ever could. Granted he can’t make a lot of tea given he was a mouse. Though it certainly feels like more then it is, when I’ve shrunken myself.

Fluttershy: I wish I knew that sooner, I would of liked to shrink myself with you to Mr. Mousey’s hole at least one time… *sniff*

Discord: Well I think thankfully his wife knows how to make tea as well, so there’s always that some other time.

Fluttershy: I suppose that’s true, but it also would of been neat to be at Mr. Mousey’s size as equals for once before he passed.

Fluttershy briefly goes back into a praying position. Discord ponders for a little bit before proposing something to Fluttershy.

Discord: You know Fluttershy, I COULD probably revive Mr. Mousey and the other pets in this cemetery if you wante-

Fluttershy: NO ABSOLUTELY NOT!

Discord: You didn’t even let me fin-

Fluttershy: Discord, I know how your chaos magic works by now. I’m not letting you turn all my beloved pets from my entire life as an animal caretaker become a zombie army that ravages through Ponyville!

Fluttershy wasn’t quite giving Discord “The Stare” but she nonetheless was not having any tolerance for Discord’s suggestion

Discord: What? It’d be an exciting episode of this sh-

A ringtone rings.

Discord: Hold on, I think that’s my agent

Fluttershy: ...Your what now?

Discord picks up the phone

Discord: Yes….?

Wait, what do you mean the show ended after the 9th season?! I didn’t even get to have a chance to make up for what I was written to do in the finale! Apparently some hated that...

Well what am I doing here then?!

Oh? I’m in a blog or website fan fiction that continues where things left off?

Bleh, this is just going to be full of namby-pamby dramatic twists & reveals, and chock full of the emotional drivel that fans like to call “feels”.

I’ll stick around, but you better be taking calls for some better gigs right now!

Fluttershy just stands there confused

Discord: Ok Fluttershy, now I know what we’re in. What direction do you want to go in? Should we share a sob story each of what life we had with Mr. Mousey, perhaps an arc about his little son picking up the mantle? or perhaps... a plot twist that Mr. Mousey was actually murdered and we look for suspects!

Fluttershy: …I have no idea what you’re talking about

Discord: Really Fluttershy, it us all so simpl-

Fluttershy: DISCORD! Enough shenanigans, a dear pet to me just died and you’re making things worse when you’re like this as I’m grieving…

Discord: Oh… I guess you’re right, Fluttershy. I’m sorry, let me do something to try to make it up to you.

Discord makes a grave that’s ‘like 100x larger then the actual burial spot where Mr. Mousey’s body is. Fluttershy takes a close look and reads the epitaph “Here lies Mr. Mousey, a husband, a father, and the kindest, best tea-making, wheel-chair bound mouse who shall forever be eating his favorite cheeses to his heart content up in the sky”. She admits that it was at least a little touching.

Fluttershy: Thank you Discord, that’s much better.

Discord: You’re welcome, Fluttershy.

Fluttershy: I think I’m ready to get back home, wanna go with m- whaaaaaa!

Discord snapped his claw hand, and him, Fluttershy, along with what’s left of the mouse family are already teleported back in the living room.

Discord: Why walk, when you have me!

Fluttershy: Well maybe it could of been a nice stroll, you know? But oh well… I have something to ask you Discord.

Discord: Oh no, is this the moment of the fan fiction you confess your love to me and ask me on a date? And does the author of this want me to be happy about that or not?

Fluttershy: What? No, I was inviting you to a royal ball!

Discord: Where’ll we end up dancing in the ballroom together singing a song like a certain romantic fairy tale. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know the drill.

Fluttershy: *facehoofs* Ugh, you’re impossible sometimes. I’m offering an invite to you just as one of my friends to take to Saddle Arabia.

Discord: Saddle Arabia? Wasn’t that the place you and the others almost were killed by an insane stallion who mind controlled Twilight?! Perhaps, I should actually come just for your security…

Fluttershy: Well, Twilight and the royal family there are taking extra precautions. But if you feel you could provide more security for us you’re free to.

Discord: Perhaps, though say what was the name of the bad person you girls defeated there?

Fluttershy: Zathir

Discord: Yes, I could also come over there to haunt Zathir’s dreams for daring to try to harm a single feather on you.

Discord suddenly wearing a black hat, red and green striped hat, and gloves with sharp knives protruding from them

Discord: This… is Chaos

Fluttershy: Heh, it wasn’t so funny at the time given it was a life or death situation. But I was the one that ultimately brought him down because I knocked the lamp down as he was battling with Spike.

Discord: Ah yes, perfect! I can have him replay that moment of his life over-and-over again. Mua hahahaha!

Fluttershy: *giggles* Well, anyway just to be sure. You DO want to go, right?

Discord: Of course.

Fluttershy: Good, now I can go find a few more friends to get here. I can use my gum portals to…

Discord: Why bother? You got me, tell me who you plan to invite and I can just snap them here, and snap them back once they’ve said yes.

Fluttershy: That sounds kinda rude… but uh if say I came across Bulk Biceps in Ponyville…

*SNAP*

Bulk Biceps: YEEAAAAAA- Oof

Bulk Biceps lands on the floor of the cottage.

Fluttershy: Uh hi Bulk, sorry for that. But I guess I get to invite you Saddle Arabia for a royal ball. You want to go?

Bulk Biceps: YEEEEAAAAA-

*SNAP*

Bulk Biceps is teleported back to where he was

Fluttershy: Um, Discord if you’re going to teleport my invitees here at least allow me some time to talk to them.

Discord: I mean, to be fair it’s his gag that YEAAAAA is all he says. So I’m not sure the conversation was going to be much anyway…

Fluttershy: Anyway… next is my parents and my brother.

*SNAP*

Fluttershy’s parents and Zephyr Breeze are teleported to the cottage.

Posey Shy (Fluttershy’s Mother): Whoa!

Gentle Breeze (Fluttershy’s Father): Huh? What are we doing in Fluttershy’s cottage?

Zephyr Breeze: Sis, just what in the name of Celestia is happening?

Fluttershy: Sorry, all of you. I’m inviting friends and family to an event I’m going to, and I guess Discord wants to speed things up a bit by simply bringing who I want to bring here. Don’t worry, he’ll bring you right back to whatever you were doing before.

Posey Shy: Where are you going?

Fluttershy: There will be a royal ball in Saddle Arabia all my friends are bringing their families as well as some of their own friends they’ve met around the world. You don’t have to go if you don’t want to, just thought I’d offer.

Gentle Breeze: Well sure, I suppose. A nice trip to somewhere new could be nice.

Posey Shy: I’m interested

Zephyr Breeze: I’ll gladly go, another chance to make my move on a certain wonderbolt friend of yours… *wiggles his eyebrow*

Fluttershy rolls her eyes, she’s going to enjoy the moment Rainbow Dash bucks him in the face again.

Fluttershy: Ok thanks, all of you! I’ll see you later! Discord, you can take them back now.

*SNAP*

Fluttershy’s family disappears and are sent back to their home in Cloudsdale.

Fluttershy: Ok, now there’s only only one more invitee, Discord. I need you to get Tree Hugger here.

Discord: Heh, with her coming at least I get to say I was invited before her this time.

*SNAP*

Tree Hugger is brought to the cottage but it seems she was in deep meditation where she was, because she seems to have not noticed.

Fluttershy: Um, Tree Hugger?

Tree Hugger hears a familiar voice and breaks out of her meditation trance.

Tree Hugger: Whhoooooooaaaaaaa dude, did my meditation give me such enlightenment that I can travel the world now?

Fluttershy: No it wasn’t your meditation, Tree Hugger. That was Discord that brought you here.

Tree Hugger: Oh hey, yeah I remember you. You… sent me to some weird sock puppet dimension…

Discord: No hard feelings?

Tree Hugger: Nah, I ain’t mad, dude. That’s not my style, though I at least hope all your bad vibes from your jealousy are gone.

Discord: Nah I’m good, besides. Fluttershy invited me first!

Tree Hugger: Ah, so you don’t have bad vibes of jealousy this time. But now you have some pouring from a big ego.

Discord deadpans and crosses his arms. Fluttershy giggles.

Fluttershy: Anyway, Tree Hugger would you like to come with me, Discord, and many of my other friends to Saddle Arabia for a Royal Ball?

Tree Hugger: Sure thing Flutterdude, I’ve heard Saddle Arabia has some nice meditation techniques that I can see firsthand.

Fluttershy: Great! I’ll see you there! Discord, go ahead and get her back home.

Tree Hugger ohms and goes back into meditation just before Discord sends her back

Fluttershy: Ok that takes care of every pony, I guess thank you, Discord. Even if this method was a little forceful…

Discord: Hey, if it moves the story about. So what do we do now.

Fluttershy: We just wait for the others to finish.

Discord: Wait, you’re saying that like we’re not even the main characters of this fiction?!

Fluttershy: Wat

Discord: Hold on, I need to call my agent back…

Fluttershy: …….

Confuzzling as always, Fluttershy and Discord now simply await word for when the ball starts

UP NEXT: Chapter 8: The Pink Pony Party Preperations

#Secrets Of The Dragon's Tear #Fluttershy #Angel Bunny #Mr. Mousey #Discord #Bulk Biceps #Posey Shy #Gentle Breeze #Mr. Shy #Mrs. Shy #Zephyr Breeze #Tree Hugger

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feelingfolegandros · 4 years

Text

Day 36 - 41: December 1 - 6 2020

I’m writing this, sitting outside, listening to goats bleat away and the goat master (I’m sure there’s an official word for this) making amusing noises and shouting at them.

The sun will start to set in about an hour, I’m guessing. I feel so incredibly lucky to be able to spend so much time outdoors. I’ve been warned that December isn’t really winter yet here in Folegandros, that January and February will bring colder temperatures and days in a row of rain. I know I can handle it. For now, I’m enjoying swimming in December.

Yesterday, Saturday, K.P. and I headed to Agios Georgios on the North side of the island, past Ano Meria. On the way, we stopped by the supermarket and the bakery. We each picked up a mikro (small) loaf of bread and some Christmas cookies to share. I met her and the man she’s staying with, A.L., in Chora outside a café where some people had gathered, semi-respecting social distancing. The sun was glorious. We dropped off A.L. at Agali, and he planned to walk to meet some fellow fishing companions at Agios Nikolaus, 15 minutes or so by foot. Fishing is not permitted at the moment, which is odd to me and I’d imagine most other people. It’s just you and the fish, right? Maybe you’re out there with other people, but are you really rubbing up against each other? Do people who fish like to embrace each other a lot? I have no clue!

When we arrived at Agios Georgios, we saw the two men who were supposed to be fishing with A.L., so K.P. went to pick him up and bring him back, so the fishing trio could unite. I laid in the sun in my bathing suit, listening to the metal playing on a small speaker they brought on the dock. It was glorious. I wrote in my notebook a bit, and then slowly but surely made my way into the water. Having a soundtrack to lazily swim around to was fun.

K.P. returned with A.L., and K.P. helped one of the other fishermen retrieve one of his lures, borrowing some goggles to get the job done. I took photos of her after she completed the task. She looked incredible. A man she sent the photo to afterward said she looked like a Bond girl, and I wholeheartedly agreed.

Unfortunately no fish were caught by our friends, but two spearfishers caught some! As K.P. and I played cards on the beach while the sun was still out, she joked that they should give us a fish. On the way home, we stopped to watch the sunset and danced on the roof of an abandoned building, listening to music on our phone speakers. Later, we made a Greek rice dish with carrots, leeks, and dill, I brought a fish from the store that had defrosted in my fridge and needed to be eaten, and K.P. grabbed some vegetables from the garden to make a salad. H.U., a friend of A.L.’s who fished with him earlier stuck around for a bit. The two of them drank vodka and raki (a spirit popular in Greek, Turkey, Albania, the Balkans, etc made of grape) and listened to music as we cooked. Another great meal!

We had started watching The Rose starring Bette Midler the day before but were rudely interrupted by a power outage, so we finished it after dinner. Midler was nominated for an Oscar for it. I liked it. Apparently, it was loosely based on the life of Janis Joplin. On Friday, before we watched The Rose, K.P. and I went for a walk in Ano Meria to a bay that is named after trees or something. Déntro (δέντρο or maybe it’s the plural δέντρα) I believe it’s called, simply because there’s a couple of trees there. She spotted wild dandelion on the way there, so we picked a bunch on the way back. It made me so happy to be able to pull my own food from the earth. We confirmed it was dandelion for sure thanks to Ireni of Ireni’s Restaurant fame. She said it was poly kala (really good), so definitely edible! We ordered some food from her to take home - meatballs with fried potatoes and bean soup. Delicious and comforting, as per usual.

Later, Z.X. brought over some souvlaki (no extra patates for me this time), then we watched Keeping up with the Kardashians together. Back to season 1 since we finished season 4 and on the TV’s mysterious Spanish Netflix account, only the first four seasons are available. After joking that Z.X. would fall asleep in 30 minutes, I fell asleep in 30 minutes.

The week before Friday wasn’t super eventful...Tuesday stands out to me as it’s the day I found out I have shingles... Ha! Last weekend, I had asked Z.X. to scratch my back, and when he looked at it, he was concerned. He took a photo of it and sent it to the doctor. We went to the doctor on Tuesday, and she said it was herpes. I spent an entire day freaking out, but then later figured out it’s Herpes Zosta - which is the same as Chickenpox and NOT the sexually-transmitted kind… The nurse, who I had met earlier this summer and is also a Cancer, put a bandage over it and gave me a small stack of more to take home along with some anti-histamines. I read about what foods to avoid and chocolate is one of them, unfortunately, so since then, I haven’t eaten any chocolate and I’m eating much less sugar than before. Boring, but it’s rarely a bad idea to consume less sugar. Today, Sunday, December 6, I stayed in bed for a while, finishing the latest episode of Love After Lockup and then a documentary called My Psychedelic Love Story. The latter is about Joanna Harcourt-Smith, who had a love affair with Timothy Leary (the LSD guy) in the early to mid 70s, while Leary was on the lam from the U.S. feds in Europe, and then subsequently brought back to the U.S. and sentenced. I really enjoyed it and she’s a fascinating woman that passed away shortly before the documentary debuted at the end of November. After sweeping the floors, I decided to take a walk without my phone to the Panagia, a church up a hill that’s an icon of the island. It’s a zigzag promenade to get to the top, and I stopped at the first zig. I sat on a rock and wrote. The sun was so strong and I was a bit sweaty so I took off my shirt. A copy of The Alchemist was in my backpack, and I finished the last 60 pages or so on the grass below the rock. Watching the clouds move past the sun again and again was wonderful. I definitely felt more connected to God, my destiny, etc. finishing that book in that setting.

Tonight, I think I’ll make the dandelion for dinner and count every single one of my blessings. The sun is beginning to set now, turning the sky the most magnificent colours.

Thanks for reading, once again! Love and light to you and yours.

#folegandros #greece #winteringreece #greekislands #island #greekisland #cyclades

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hrodvitnon · 6 years

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The Shape of Water Headcanons!

As a child Elisa was never scared of monsters under the bed/in the closet. While the other kids were, she’d just park herself in front of the closet or roll under the bed and wait for the monster to show up because she believed they were just lonely.

One time at Occam, Yolanda was standing in the locker room doorway just going off on a tangent at Zelda and Elisa couldn’t get inside. Instead of tapping her shoulder and getting an earful, Elisa opted to be a little shit and started doing a series of silly dances behind Yolanda. Zelda, along with everyone else in the locker room, maintained a valiant effort to keep straight faces… until Elisa busted out the Cossack kick dance. Zelda can’t remember the last time everyone’s laughed so hard. Yolanda still gave Elisa an earful, but it was worth it.

The same day Elisa introduced him to music, the creature had a moment of “be cool be cool be cool BE COOL” when Elisa started eating and he just then remembered the egg she gave him.

The creature would get so engrossed in watching Elisa that he’d forget what he was doing at the moment.

The first time Elisa gave the creature the grand tour of her apartment was also the first time she noticed his natural toreador stance… and his ass. Elisa was so distracted her heels got caught in the floorboards for the first time in years.

Giles started calling the creature Charlie partly after Charlie Chaplin and partly (mostly) because he caught Elisa’s piscine paramour playing with her beret and his glasses during a StarKist commercial. The nickname stuck, especially after coworkers see Elisa’s bright mood and new heels, so she and Zelda talk about her new boyfriend, Charlie.

People started noticing when Elisa would come to work glowing. In the cafeteria Yolanda accused Elisa of fishing for attention from Strickland, knowing he has a (fucking creepy) thing for her. To this day Zelda whispers in hushed tones about how the utensils in Elisa’s hands snapped loud enough to shut the place up, how she had to interpret Elisa’s rebuttal, all the while vaguely terrified of an expression she’d never before seen on Elisa’s face; she describes it as a mix of contemptuous amusement and black rage.

Sally the secretary witnessed the above episode from a safe distance, and after the... impressively colorful things Elisa had to say about Strickland she can barely maintain stoicism when he walks into his office.

Elisa absolutely taught Charlie to swear. The first time was an accident, a reflexive signing of Bullshit! in response to hearing “Dixie Doug’s: That’s a Great-a Pie!” on the radio.

Speaking of pie, Giles completely forgot about all those half-eaten key lime pies hoarded in his fridge during the preparations of busting Charlie out of Occam. While spending time with Giles and the cats, Charlie discovered the pies and, despite the color making his eyes itch, decided to try one. Elisa came home to the sight of Charlie signing with enough fury to blister paint; something about “bad food” and “bad man give bad food”.

Shortly after, Dixie Doug’s business begins to suffer a huge decline.

Charlie asks about the egg timer and Elisa explains how it’s been part of her routine and usually gave her enough… ahem, alone time before work. He proceeded to break her fastest time.

Zelda accompanied Elisa after work one time. When she saw how Elisa’s fish man literally lit up, it reminded Zelda of when she and Brewster were newlyweds.

At some point Zelda pulled Charlie aside with the intention of giving him the ‘boyfriend talk’. In response to her expectation that he be good to Elisa, Charlie just signed forever. Ordinarily it would’ve made Zelda roll her eyes but the way he signed it, earnest and matter-of-factly, as though laying down a law of nature, as certain as rain falls and the sun rises, convinces her.

Some time after that rainy night on the docks, people return to the home river of Deus Brânquia; there are sightings of a pale woman in the brackish waters. Legends are spun about a white woman with shark gills who rescues children when they fall in the river.

I kinda want to give Elisa a cool god name like her hubby

#the shape of water #headcanon #elisa esposito #charlie/the asset #giles dupont #zelda d fuller #the dance behind someone's back is based on personal events #but instead of the kick dance it was the funky chicken

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lindoig8 · 3 years

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Friday to Sunday - 9-11 July

Friday

We walked across to the Information Centre in the morning to try to book some tours. Heather had numerous phone calls and emails with a guy from there over several weeks (I think she started in Halls Creek) but had been unable to firm anything up because we couldn’t say exactly when we would arrive and because they don’t run the tours every day unless there is sufficient demand. One of the tours we wanted to do was a 4WD tagalong and they were just starting one as we arrived and there was room for one more car so they waited while I ran back to the caravan park (just across the road) to get our car and off we went.

It was really interesting. We started at the Information Centre and drove down to the Thermal Spring (the Bore). From there, we drove out to the historic Albert River bridge and its modern replacement side by side. Back into town and crawling through the scrub to see the last remaining post from the old port. Burketown was a flourishing port for some years but obviously, that ceased to be a long time ago. But there is a fancy new ‘port’: a large jetty and boat ramp, opened only about 2 years ago according to our guide. (I suspect it might be a little older than that, because it looks just like it did last time we saw it 4 years ago.)

At each stop, we were regaled with a little history, including some aboriginal stories and information about the plants and animals in the area. We learned a little about the medicinal uses of some plants and how to tell if it is safe to eat some of their fruits. At the port, we heard lots of stories about crocodiles – Brenton (our guide) and Patrick (his assistant) had lots of fascinating tales to tell and Brenton said he could talk about crocodiles all day – and I think he really could.

We set off again to see the remains of the abattoir and meatworks that was once a thriving local industry, but which is now just a rusting mouldering collection of defunct tanks and equipment slowly being eaten by the surrounding bush. Looking at the town now, it is hard to imagine it being a significant port, with industrial and commercial importance, servicing the whole of northern Queensland into the Northern Territory, but the evidence is there if you have knowledgeable people to point it out to you.

Then it was a drive out onto Australia’s largest saltpan – and it is huge. It is totally barren and we only drove a few kilometres out to where they do their Storytelling and Stargazing tours that we still hope to see – but it obviously goes many kilometres further and would be irrevocably treacherous with only a small shower of rain. They told us about people getting lost out there with no signage or landmarks to show them which way to go back to Burketown – and of course, this entire part of the country is under water during the wet months. Vehicles that get bogged are essentially lost for ever – so much of the saltpan is boggy that once a vehicle becomes bogged, nobody else can get close enough to help them out again. Even if they did get out of the bog, they would immediately bog again.

It was then a longish drive to Woods Lake, our next stop. We were the last car in the convoy with seven cars in front of us creating a veritable dust-storm but we are used to that by now. The drivers of some of the other shiny clean cars seemed less anxious to drive in anyone else’s wake so we were all strung out over about a kilometre and a half.

Woods Lake is apparently a paradise in the wet, but it is a desolate dry lakebed at present. Again, we heard lots more aboriginal stories and survival hints – our guides were really great. I admit to some reluctance to go on indigenous tours because they are so often ‘poor me, look what the wicked whities have done to us’ diatribes – but this one was really great. We heard about some of the atrocities, but they were related in a pragmatic way with a ‘this is what happened, but let’s just make it better in the future’ attitude. I am not denying history, but every civilisation (and non-civilisation) has dark times in its past and I think it pointless to carp on forever about things that can’t be changed. It was quite refreshing to hear a more positive view of the future without a massive demand for compensation from our guides.

Our final stop was at the Nicholson River Crossing: a ford where half a centimetre of water was washing the road – but which is several metres under water in the Wet. Upstream from the crossing it is freshwater, whilst downstream it is salt. And there are lots of both salt- and fresh-water crocodiles there. We didn't see any but it seems that both species inhabit both sides of the crossing so nobody felt any inclination to have a paddle.

They set up tables and chairs on the edge of the road and provided tea, coffee and muffins and we sat around and chatted for quite a while. Our 3-hour tour lasted almost 5 hours and our guides would perhaps still be chatting with us if some people hadn’t needed to leave and break up the party. Overall, it was an excellent tour with heaps of interesting information and things to see and hear about.

Back at the Information Centre, we managed to book on a Sunset Cruise on the Albert River – out to the mouth of the river on the Gulf. That is on Monday evening, but we are still waiting to see if we can go on the Stargazing one on Tuesday.

By then, it was mid-afternoon and we had only eaten a muffin each, but we decided to share a packet of chips and have a slightly earlier dinner. We roasted some lamb in our double-sided pan and it was delicious – but we were starving by the time it was ready.

Saturday

Most of the day, we just stayed around camp. We did a couple of loads of washing and went out to the shop in the afternoon – only to find that both shops were closed until Monday. Fortunately, nothing on our list was urgent.

At night, we watched the last episode of The Cliff, a short Icelandic police series – quite well done and it reminded us how much we want to spend more time in that beautiful country – but of course, we were relying on the subtitles because neither of us speak a lot of Icelandic! Sometimes it was a little hard to follow when the dialogue sped up beyond our reading ability.

Sunday

We decided to go out for lunch and wanted to check out the Tyrranna Roadhouse, 30-odd kilometres towards Borroloola. We may need to stay there if we can’t extend our stay in Burketown and wanted to have a look at the place – so decided to buy lunch out there. It was an interesting drive out there with lots of raptors picking at numerous roadkill victims along the way. There were the usual 20 or 30 Black and Whistling Kites, but also a White-bellied Sea-Eagle and about 6 or 8 Wedgies – on the way back, we saw absolutely nothing! Very strange……

Unfortunately, it was cleaning day at Tyrranna and their kitchen was closed so we came back to Burketown and went to the pub. Alas, it wasn’t serving lunch either but they directed us to the little restaurant and takeaway shop across the road and suggested we buy something there and bring it back to the pub where we could get a drink to enjoy with our meal. We did this and brought fish and chips back and had a cold one while we sat in the open window of the pub and watched a tiny bit of the world go by.

It was still pretty hot, but it cooled down later in the afternoon and I went out again to see if I could find some more birds in a different part of the wetland created by the Bore. I saw a few birds, but nothing of note. We also caught up with some of the kids by phone late in the day so that was nice too.

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agetawayfromhere-blog · 6 years

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Day 3 actually

DAY 3 Kitungure 15/04 Sim, Andrea, Dave, Ali

Woke up to music going on in the surrounding village, there is a Muslim wedding over the valley, we have been told that this noise will be going on for 7 days, woooow, that’s going to make me wear my earplugs at night time, what an incentive, thought it may have been the music to push all the wild animals away from this village we are staying in, apparently a couple of years ago, there was a baboon problem, they would come thru & ruin all the crops, so they had guards out in the fields on shifts getting rid of the baboon problem, this has been solved due locals moving in & taking up the land

We had a quick breakfast of pancakes, orange looking fruit, where you don’t eat the fruit, you grind the pulp to make the juice and a coffee, if you put the orange juice onto the pancakes it tastes quite nice & oh yeah…. A coffee 😊

Then jumped in a vehicle with Ali, Dave & Diane and headed to an ecclesia approx. an hour away by car, the roads were extremely dangerous due to the rain, that it was getting harder to keep the car on the road & not ending up in the ditch, we jumped out of Sammy’s car and took all our supplies by foot about another 5km walk, getting closer to our destination, we passed a Muslim school, these kids started to walk with us as we ventured up the road further & further, than the Kenyan time of ‘just 5 minutes up the road!’

Having reached the hall in sight, we were joined by Bro Festus, the kids running up & taking the goods from us to make our burden lighter, eventually reached our destination and ushered into the Kintugure ecclesia local hall, the mud, grime & exhaustion was then taken over by sheer delight in the faces of the kids that have seen some white people invade their hall for a day, we had achieved the photo taking of the day, taking photos today of approx. 45 sponsor kids, today was the photo taking of Luke & Alisha’s sponsor child, he was a very nice polite boy, he opened his gift from them, a couple of books & a letter, HE LOVED IT!! The other kids milled about him, they all clambered to have a look at to what he had received, we then had a study on the …….., followed by a 15 minute break, where the kids of the area performed songs for us to enjoy, was brilliant to listen to what they had prepared for our listening pleasure, lovely to hear them sing in harmony

Then the exhort was done by myself, was based on ‘God’s Breathe’ or ‘God breathed’, positive comments from the local B&S of this area, was the first time the bread & wine was biscuits & coke though, was a funny moment, then a lizard was running all over the biscuits, stopped the translation & the chairman was trying to rid this little runner from eating a biscuit, following this episode, the meeting fished, we had a bit of lunch, it was a local vegetable root from the ground, cut up & mashed to make a little bit thicker consistency than potato, without milk, or margarine, with a coke, which was lovely & refreshing.

Hygiene kits were given to each family, a wash bowl, 2 toothbrushes, wash cloth and some toothpaste, 44 in all were handed to the families in this ecclesia.

We then started walking back to the kids school where we were staying, when along came the car, picked us up, 3 people across the front, couldn’t change gears as he was sitting on the gear leaver, 4 people across the back, with Festus & myself in the boot with the luggage in the Pajero, arrived at a closer Ecclesia where Deb, Jared, Mel, Mia & Jude, Maxine, Seth & Jasmine had been for the day, half the team walked home, the other half jumped into the car & headed home again…in daylight this time!

A bit of down time, visited the elderly sisters across the court yard, handed over some laminated coloured in cards that were brought along to hand to these living in Amani (peace), had a brief team meeting about how each team got along & what was achieved for the day, so were all up to speed with what was accomplished. Dinner was served, cabbage, potato in a really delish sauce, rice and some banana mixed with maze and some sweet banana in the peal. Downloaded todays photos: 777 of them

Having eaten, went for a shower, this involves standing in a wash bowl, full of cold water and pouring the water from a jug over your head, whilst lathering, scoop the water up again & again, till washed overall, walked about 400 meters up the well-trodden path to the kids home, for an evening meditation, done by me on Characteristics: Patience, the kids performed another couple of songs for us to enjoy, before we closed off with a song again. Walked back down the path to our room, brushed pearly whites and let another day wash over us.

Gooooodnight!

fffffffffffff

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imaginetonyandbucky · 7 years

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Dream a Little Dream of Me - Ch3/4

The days after the ‘incident’ are a blur for me. Loki, Thor’s extravagant brother, decided it’s prime time for some seasonal mischief on Earth and throws an evil overlords’ party in New York for the Avengers to deal with.

Thor said Loki was adopted but damn…someone needs to find the guy some hobby. Only a demi-god bored out of his mind would bring all sorts of funky alien creatures to the middle of Manhattan for an afternoon playdate.

All. Week. Long.

Contrary to Steve’s wishes, I joined the fight the second day, after a gigantic alien bug smashed through the common floor’s windows and disrupted my relaxing round of Smash bros. Thought it was appropriate to join the Hulk and do some smashin’ of my own.

By the end of the week, I didn’t even mind Steve’s disapproving pout when he called the assemble and I just automatically went to suit up as well.

And today is no different.

“You know, I’m starting to suspect your little brother might actually hate you,” Clint says with all the subtle sarcasm he could come up with, glaring at Thor.

“He indeed appears to be in a foul mood! But we shall prevail against these…sluggy…glistening armored fish abominations just like we have prevailed in the past!” Thor booms and doesn’t fail to grab both of Clint’s shoulders in a deathly grip of brotherhood.

“Let’s try apprehending Loki this time, before he slips back into Asgard. Again,” Steve sighs from the front seat of the quinjet.

Me and Clint drop down first to take the high-ground while the quinjet touches down on the coast and the Avengers pour out to deal with the…sluggy armored fish abominations hands on.

“Alrighty, here we go. Wanna bet who gets more of those little slimy critters?”

“I refuse to be the Gimli to your Legolas,” I roll my eyes and assemble the Stark-designed sniper rifle with precision and speed that’s partly my own, partly the Soldier’s.

“A-ha! So Cap did give you his bucket list of movies you gotta catch up with! Or more like…Bucky-list, amirite?” he snickers, already sending arrows left and right.

Sometimes I wonder if this guy is seriously an adult.

(Read-more ahead!)

“Shut up and shoot. You’ll need the extra shots if you wanna beat me.”

“And here I thought you don’t wanna be the gruff dwarf to my lean, Elfish awesomeness! I wouldn’t be so cocky if I were you.”

“Bullets are faster than arrows,” I point out and take aim at the first fishy beast. When I pull the trigger, the bullet goes straight through its toothy jaw, body going limp and onto the ground.

“We’ll see about that!” he takes the challenge and intensifies his shooting.

It only takes a minute for us to realize we might have a problem. Unless we hit the funky creatures in their weak, unarmored spots of skin, the arrows – and the bullets – ricochet off their armor.

Asgardians and their damn magic.

“Well, so much for this,” I discard the rifle and wire down the building to join the fray up close. Let’s see how resistant the critters are to a metal fist.

“Aw, maaaan,” I hear Clint sputter through the radio and spot him descending down here as well. He might be the master of long-range fights, but he sure doesn’t shy away from some close combat – if necessary.

And this time it is necessary.

Steve and Thor successfully smash the magic-enhanced creatures with their superior shield and hammer combo and Natasha has already switched from deadly bullets to deadly daggers. Sam is flying all around the place, usually just setting up the kills for the others and making sure the perimeter is clear and that’s it. Since Steve ordered both Bruce and Tony to take a day off, we kinda lack the raw smashing power and the devastating Iron Man repulsors.

Or…not?

I watch not three, but five of the armored beasts explode in what is unmistakably repulsor fire and glance up just in time to spot the flash of gold and crimson. Something about a fully weaponized flying suit of armor is just so damn cool…so who can blame me for observing it throughout the past few battles. Very closely. Purely out of curiosity and…tactical reasons. Yeah, all about tactics.

Speaking of which, there’s a disapproving Captain America about to have a fit in the comms in three, two, one…

“Iron Man! I told you to stay in the Tower for this one!”

Here we go.

“Oh. Did you? I could swear you said play in the shower…which I did and now I’ve come to play here. So rude not to invite me to a party like this, Capsicle!”

“As much as I would argue about the party bit – again – we could actually use an extra hand here, couldn’t we?” Natasha saves us from Steve’s imminent lecture for now and everyone resumes their fighting efforts.

Loki is nowhere to be found this time, which is bad news. He’s either getting bored of this himself, or he’s on the lookout for more weird aliens to send our way tomorrow.

Twenty minutes later, the coast is clear. Kinda. It’s full of dead, slimy fishy bodies that are already starting to smell worse than before.

“Alright, let’s check the perimeter, make sure we’ve got them all. Someone is going to have to deal with all these,” Steve commands and looks around the graveyard of a battlefield.

“I’ve called it in. Fury should be here with the clean-up crew any minute. He likes sushi so this should be right up his alley,” Tony chuckles and lifts off. “See ya back in the shower. I mean Tower.”

I don’t even have to turn around to know that deep sigh of utter desperation comes from our mighty leader. He orders us back to the quinjet and within minutes we are back in the Avengers Tower, safe and sound.

Safe from the aliens at least. The fury on Steve’s face as he spots the disobedient engineer at the bar with Bruce could only be rivaled by the fury on Fury’s face when he sees the mess we’ve left in there for him to clean up.

“What were you thinking?!”

“Hm? Oh, I was thinking we could skip shawarma and go for double Shirley Temple’s all around. Or a Roy Rogers for you if you fancy something alcoholic, it’s past five so we can do that without Bruce calling the AA. Here, have one,” Tony hands the drink with an over-the-top umbrella to the rapidly advancing Captain, not expecting what happens next.

To be fair, nobody really expects Steve to slap that cocktail out of Tony’s hand with enough force to cause an audible smack and all but lift him off the bar stool, hand twisted into his shirt’s collar.

“I gave you a direct order! You don’t listen to me and my lectures and that’s fine, but this was a mission, Tony! You’ve been barely keeping yourself on your feet this entire week! You’re either gonna get yourself killed on the field or worse, someone else! I don’t want to see you anywhere near a battle until you’ve rested, eaten and gotten your act together!”

“Yeah? Then how about you back the fuck off, Rogers!” he spits into Steve’s face, all traces of amusement – fake, but still amusement – gone from his features.

I remember that look all too well from one week ago, when I’ve taken one too many steps towards the already panicked man. Back then I’ve written it off as circumstantial. But apparently he’s actually got enough reasons to flinch away from imposing supersoldiers.

And I’ve seen just about enough evidence.

“I will, when you - ” Steve starts, but to his own shock doesn’t get to continue.

I have found that a metal fist pushing against one’s neck usually has that effect on people. I have also found that trying to execute said move against a friendly in the presence of one Natasha Romanov usually ended up with me dodging a rain of daggers and snapping out of whatever rage-filled Soldier episode I’d be under at the time.

But this rage is all me and judging by the lack of daggers, Natasha must be thinking the same.

Steve stumbles back, the hand he’s been holding Tony with a second ago flies to my metal one still pushing him backwards, until I decide we’re far enough.

“Bucks, let me go, I’m just - ”

“I don’t care.”

“Buck - ”

“I. Don’t. Care,” I repeat with all the intimidation I can without really snapping into the Winter Soldier right here and there.

He stares at me, the anger dissipating in an instant. For the first time since I can remember, he’s not looking at me with concern, pity or disappointment. Just surprise, confusion…and little tiny bit of fear.

It should probably alarm me, but there’s no excuse for Steve’s behavior. Giving him a little taste of his own medicine might just work.

“Go cool off. Now,” I command, releasing him from my firm, but harmless grip.

Steve hangs on the spot for a moment, his widened eyes searching my face for…I’m not sure what. He probably doesn’t find it in the end and backs away and out of the room without a word.

I don’t know what I’d do if he didn’t. Or I don’t want to really think about it.

“Wow. Did you just send the Captain to his room to think about what he’s done like the naughty little kid he is?” Clint whistles and walks up to me, hand already up, expecting a high-five. He abruptly stops few feet away though, glancing at something behind me. “Right…well, I need a shower.”

“Splendid idea! Let’s go converse about today’s battle underneath the falling sprinkle!” Thor decides and goes ahead first.

“For real,” Sam nods when he sniffs at Clint, nose scrunched up.

“You’re not exactly smelling of roses yourself,” Clint retaliates and both bird men head for the elevator, fiercely glaring at each other the whole way.

I risk turning around, fearing whatever it was that stopped even Clint in his tracks, but there’s nothing to see, really. Tony has sat back on the stool, looking down at his fidgeting fingers with that scary, closed off expression.

Bruce’s expression is anything but closed off – his rage is carefully hidden behind his eyes and to anyone else, he looks just as calm as ever. Until you realize that angered spark is next to last thing one would see before he turns all green.

He gives me a tiny smile and a nod, his left hand resting on Tony’s forearm in a simple, comforting gesture.

I return the nod and dodging Natasha’s own searching squint, I leave the room as well. I’ll make sure Steve gets his shit together and Bruce will make sure Tony’s okay. Sounds fair enough.

Just gotta ignore that painful sting that stabbed at my chest as soon as I’ve seen the two sciencebros together. Haven’t felt that one in…decades.

And it freaks me the hell out.

“Sergeant Barnes? Sergeant?”

I stir from my usual limbo to the gentle sound of JARVIS’s purposefully lowered, but urgent voice. “Wh’t?” I slur, running a hand over my eyes, clearing my vision a little bit.

Did I fall asleep? I was reading this weird book about sparkling vampires and…oh wait. Yeah. That might be the reason why I fell asleep. Natasha did mention I shouldn’t read it past midnight unless I really wanted to sleep.

“If I could possibly bother you with a…request,” JARVIS continues in the same, uncertain but adamant tone that he only ever uses when something serious is going on that he can’t do anything about. A mission…or Tony.

“S’mthin’ wrong?” I discard the large book and stretch in the chair.

“Possibly…do not be alarmed, please. It is nothing life threatening I assure you, but…your assistance would be much appreciated. By me, that is.”

So it is Tony. JARVIS always speaks in twisting riddles when his creator is concerned. Sometimes I don’t understand this dynamic they’ve got going. I suppose something in his code is preventing him from being straightforward about these matters – so he’s forced to improvise.

“What is it, JARVIS?”

“Sir has – how do I put it. He deemed it necessary to use last resort means in order to sleep tonight.”

Well, that didn’t sound ominous at all. “Last resort? Where is he? What kinda la - ”

“He is drinking by the penthouse piano, Sergeant. Not excessively, yet, but he had only just begun.”

“Oh. I’m not sure how I can help you with that.”

“I would usually request Colonel Rhodes’s presence in such cases, but he is too far to make it here soon enough. I…would prefer if Sir was not alone.”

And that right there is why everybody likes JARVIS. Because JARVIS likes everyone. He’s proven on many occasions before he’d go through great lengths to make everybody’s life here the best experience possible. Even my own.

But let’s just say this pursuit of his intensifies a thousand fold when it comes to Tony. And I can’t argue with that at all.

“What’cha want me to do?”

“Just keep him company.”

“I can do that,” I nod and get up, walking straight to the opening elevator. It’s a simple enough request, but... “Wouldn’t Bruce be a better choice though?”

“I believe given the current circumstances, Sir would appreciate you more than Dr. Banner,” JARVIS replies without hesitation, the raw honesty in his statement making me pause in my tracks for a second.

“Why?” I ask in a mere whisper, hand resting against the wall of the now moving elevator. Next to Colonel Rhodes, Bruce is Tony’s best friend when it comes to the Avengers. And me...I’m pretty much just a stranger.

“Because you understand,” he answers as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

I let that sink in, while the elevator stops and opens on the floor I can’t say I’ve ever been on before. I often go to the roof, which is right above the penthouse, but the penthouse itself has always been taboo for me. Actually most of the Avengers.

It’s Tony’s sanctuary, much like the workshop. That makes it two places in the Tower I haven’t been in.

Or just one, now that I take a cautious step inside the spacious room. The lights are dimmed, but it isn’t hard to spot the engineer. He’s right where JARVIS said he would be – by the black concert piano next to the bar. One hand holding onto a bottle of brandy, the other ghosting over the black and white keys in some random melody.

It feels like I’m invading his privacy…technically, I am. Hopefully JARVIS was right or I might have to dodge a furiously hauled bottle of liquor.

Before I can decide how to best announce myself without startling him, his hand stills over the keyboard and the other extends toward me. It’s shaky and makes the golden liquid slosh in the bottle in wild audible waves.

“On second thoughts,” he looks at me with somewhat unfocused eyes, “why waste this expensive beauty on someone that can’t even get drunk.” The hand moves back to rest the bottle on Tony’s thigh and he squints at me. “Can you get drunk?”

Now that I think about it, I guess I can’t. If Steve can’t, then chances are it’s the same for me. I don’t remember HYDRA ever experimenting with this particular fact and the Soldier definitely didn’t go on any post-mission beers either.

“S’pose not,” I shrug, observing the surprisingly very sober man. He appears a bit hazy, but that could just be the exhaustion from however many hours he hasn’t slept for this time. “And I’m more of a beer guy anyway.”

He perks up at that, the squint disappearing. “Really? Where did you get your hands on a beer during the Great Depression?”

I chuckle and deeming it safe enough I walk slowly to the piano. “New York wasn’t all that big on prohibition you know? And by the time I could drink, prohibition was all but over anyway.”

Tony looks up in thought and nods. “Ah yeah…forgot,” he adds in a whisper and focuses back on the keys, not playing anything, just touching them curiously.

“There was this warehouse…I don’t really remember what it was called. I used to go there with a couple other fellas on the weekends to earn some money. Heavy liftin’ and stuff. Wasn’t much, but the manager always invited us for a pint after the shift. He was Irish I think...taught us all sorts of drinkin’ songs. And games.”

I smile at the memory. It’s so rare for me to recall something with enough detail to make a story out of it, but somehow all the drunken Saturdays just got back to me now.

I glance at Tony and catch him staring at me with a smile of his own.

“Drinking games? Now that’s more like it, Sergeant. And you said you wouldn’t know what to do when you can’t sleep,” he grins and puts the bottle up on the shiny surface of the piano, nudging it closer to me.

“S’not gonna work,” I poke the bottle and sigh. Can’t say I haven’t thought about it. But a drunken haze is a little too close to the dreamless abyss so yeah, I’d rather avoid that.

“Sucks.”

“How’s it workin’ for you?”

“Like magic! Can’t remember shit in the morning.”

“You don’t look very happy about it though,” I point out, leaning gently against the luxurious wooden instrument.

The grin slips away as his eyes travel down to the keys. “Isn’t exactly the best way to…how did your bestie put it? Rest and get my shit together? That. Contrary to everyone’s belief, I really would prefer the usual way.”

“Yeah…sorry about him, by the way. That was way out of line. What he did.”

“Thought he was supposed to fight the bullies, not be one of them,” he scoffs, playing a deep, dramatic accord.

Just as I imagined, he’s not really angry with Steve about what happened. He’s just quietly resigned about it.

And that’s just wrong.

I can be mad at my best friend for the both of us – and I am – but Tony should at least make it clear that leader or not, worried or not, Steve’s behavior was unacceptable. And if he wouldn’t listen, then he should explain what’s really going on underneath all the pretense of irresponsibility and recklessness.

Then again, same could be said for me. Even JARVIS suggested it. Just tell them the truth. Some things really are easier said than done.

I understand though. And only now I realize that I might be one of few that really do. We have the same kinda problem, with the added irony of wishing we could swap places.

To dream and not to dream.

I don’t really wanna deal with the others…explaining this to them, not even Steve. Especially not him. But Tony understands just as much as I do and I can’t say that I mind. Not at all. It’s…nice to know there’s someone in here that I don’t have to hide under a mask from. Someone that goes out of his way to make things easier for me – and I will sure as hell do the same.

“You’re right. I told him as much so…he tries somethin’ like this again, I’ll deck him in the face hard enough he flies all the way back to Brooklyn.”

He looks at me, eyes wide and mouth forming an astonished ‘o’. “Sergeant Barnes! That’s your best friend you’re talking about!” he maintains the scolding expression for a second before breaking into a laugh. “I’d pay to see that actually,” he adds in a whisper.

“You won’t have to, if he ever decides to be an asshole again.”

He yawns, eyeing the bottle still discarded on the piano.

“You play?” I opt to change the subject – and divert his attention away from the brandy again.

He shakes his head, glaring at the keyboard. “I guess. Mom used to…she was good at it, too. She thought me how to play, but hey. Playing the piano isn’t really the trademark Stark forte. Didn’t get to practice much…so now I’m just abusing this poor thing with my lack of skill whenever I feel like waking up the neighbors with broken as fuck Chopin.”

“Can’t be the judge of that. Never heard your broken as fuck Chopin,” I shrug and consider it a win when Tony laughs in response and waves at the nearby chair, the bottle all but forgotten.

“Grab a front row seat then, Sarge!” he offers.

I walk over to the chair and take it, but before moving it closer to the piano and sitting down, something needs to be done with this. “You can just call me Bucky, you know?”

“I will if you will,” he turns around a little to look at me, hands folded.

“You want me to call you Bucky?”

“Don’t be cute,” he conjures up an angry pout. “Besides…Bucky’s like a name for a dog. What the hell were you thinking?!”

“I was thinking five of my schoolmates were James’ so…Buchanan…Barnes...they thought Bucky was clever.”

“For a dog,” he repeats but has troubles keeping a smile from cracking his façade.

“Call me James then!” I flail and roll my eyes, trying not to indulge him too much.

“I already have a James friend,” he points out and looks thoughtful.

“You never call him James though.”

“Because it’s lame,” he mumbles and something sparkles in his hazy eyes, clearing them instantly. “For him I mean…James…sounds so old-fashioned. Might just be perfect for you,” he smirks and shuffles with the chair to a side a bit to make space for me.

“Dunno if I should be offended or not.”

“Definitely not. You will however be offended by this,” he points at the keyboard and starts playing something classical.

I suppose it’s the Chopin, but I’d never be able to tell anyway. It’s quick and melodic and…nice. So I just put the chair next to him, watching, listening.

By morning we’d moved to the couch to continue the random banter and eventually fall asleep.

And the dreamless slumber came again, only this time it didn’t feel all wrong, for whatever reason.

#prompts #winteriron #tony stark #bucky barnes #tony x bucky #lantia #steve is acting up #lil' protective bucky #piano!Tony

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pinelife3 · 5 years

Text

Sadness

The treatment of the breaking of the fourth wall in Fleabag is the most compelling thing I’ve seen all year. Throughout the first season, our protagonist Fleabag (played by Phoebe Waller-Bridge who also writes the show) would look at the camera to make witty asides. Usually a sarcastic remark or eye roll to hammer home that she’s sardonic, insincere, perhaps a little underhanded.

You’ve probably noticed how if you’re in a one-on-one conversation, it’s hard to rag on someone but that in a group it works (because you can pretend it’s good natured humour rather than a scathing attack on their very existence). In Fleabag, the breaking of the fourth wall is a way for Fleabag to safely ridicule whoever she’s speaking to. It’s also a succinct way of delivering backstory, revealing her intentions, and getting us on side. These interactions with the fourth wall are pretty standard, see: Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Amélie, House of Cards, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Shakespearean asides, American Psycho. It’s an accepted device. But then in season two, when Fleabag speaks to us, someone takes notice, someone spots her dipping out of their diegetic reality as she speaks to us in ours.

I thrilled at this.

Sometimes I feel like I’ve seen everything - but I’d never seen this before. This is the most exciting thing I’ve ever seen on a TV show (forget the Red Wedding). This is a masterful trick, and great storytelling all at once - it demolishes a literary device. But most of the coverage of Fleabag has focused on how sad the show is:

People seem to like that: they like being crushed, enjoy being devastated. Why is that?

I’ve recently cried over two cowboy related things: Brokeback Mountain and Red Dead Redemption 2.

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I cried when I finished Red Dead Redemption 2 because I love Arthur Morgan so much: he was just the sweetest guy, and I was sad the story was over because we can’t go fishing anymore, or crash his horse into trees and fall, or fight gators in the swamps, or brush his horse while we cruise around the old west. I just felt so wistful for his life and the idea of bad guys working hard to be good in a changing world.

And then I cried at the end of Brokeback Mountain because it is objectively very sad. The shirts tucked inside each other which Jack kept all those years. The possibility that Jack didn’t know how much Ennis loved him. The life they could have had together, and how much they loved each other - but the families and relationships they destroyed along the way as well, because no one ever said what they felt.

I really liked both Brokeback and Red Dead, because they have great stories and characters. In Red Dead, I have so many fond memories - and for that reason it made me feel strong emotions. But I don’t like Red Dead because it made me feel strong emotions. I don’t like Brokeback because it was ‘crushing’ and/or ‘devastating’ - it was enjoyable because it was a beautiful story with tragic, poignant elements. I like the story - not that it made me cry. Most Fleabag reviews seem to focus on the sadness it made the audience feel as a way to recommend it to people.

Watch Fleabag - it will make you feel something.

Prepare to emote because Fleabag is preternaturally sad.

The discourse around the show on Reddit is similar:

Pffft want to feel really sad? Check out this scene from Synecdoche, New York:

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It’s very moving, kind of irresistibly so. And I think that’s because it’s calling out to that scared, bitter, self-pitying part of you which is always cringing in the shadows, waiting for someone to invite it out of the garage into the living room. This speech is designed to frighten you: you’ll make misssssstakesss and ruin your life. You won’t even know you’re doing it until it’ssssss toooooo late. You might think your life is nice - but that’sssssssssssss only because you haven’t ssssssssssseen how bad it will get. It’s giving you permission to feel bad without providing any reason to feel bad, and then it’s allowing you to wallow in that bad feeling. It’s poison.

I promise you, for 99% of people who watched Synecdoche, New York , life is not that bad. People in horrible, war torn places where they aren’t able to watch Charlie Kaufman films because no one dubs indie movies in Kurdish have it bad - and not just because they’re missing out on great films, but because they essentially live in a sandier version of Hell. Haven’t you ever sat in the sun with a dog and seen it look back at you and felt a perfect connection? Haven’t you ever fallen asleep, perfectly comfortable, tucked in beside someone you love? Haven’t you ever eaten pancakes with ice cream, or seen a huge mountain, or been really cold and then gotten into a warm bath? Haven’t you ever seen a baby fake-crying on the tram and then its mum tickles it under the chin and it laughs, and you see everyone around you smile because babies are so pure? Come on! You’re not Othello. Your life is pretty nice. Even Othello’s life was pretty nice right up until the end.

Pretty nice.

But boring. Right?

Pancakes? Cuddles?

How am I to thrill at sunsets and smiling babies?

Good. Now I’m sad again.

And if the realisation that you don’t have anything to be sad about (except for the ordinariness of the pleasures in your life) didn’t make you sad, check out this compilation of the 10 most depressing moments in Bojack Horseman (ranked in order from least depressing to most depressing!).

A major inconvenience of modern life is that most of us have supremely comfortable, happy, safe lives. And when something goes wrong, you can’t go on a tragic rampage and tear out your own eyes, beat your breast, or wail on the moor in a thunderstorm - even though that may be what you feel like doing.

Work sucks, no one respects me, and I messed up that section of the Excel spreadsheet so maybe they are right to not respect me: take me to a moor where my tears can blend with rain and my howls will be swallowed by the wind!

Ordinary people don’t get to live in a tragedy - and besides, there aren’t as many moors around as literature might have you believe. The most you can do usually is make a scene at a family dinner or isolate yourself at a party and then get drunk and walk home crying. Who would write a sweeping, romantic story about an embarrassing fuck up walking home drunk, feeling sorry for themselves.

Oh.

Wait:

And Now For That 2000 Year Old Mystery

Aristotle’s Poetics is the source of the word catharsis (in italics because it’s Greek which is the way I was taught to do it in high school - if only there were Greecian-alics, am I right?), which in common parlance today basically means any kind of dramatic release of emotions. Kickboxing is cathartic. Getting your eyebrows waxed is cathartic. Crying during an emotional episode of a TV show is cathartic.

Because the word appeared in Poetics, it's original usage related to the theatre, in particular the experience of an audience watching a tragedy: the release of emotions they feel in watching things go seriously wrong for the hero. For this reason, catharsis is often tied to anagnorisis - the moment of tragic realisation.

Oh god I killed my father and married my mother.

Oh god, that’s my son’s head on the pike, not the head of a mountain lion.

Oh god, remember when I messed up that bit of the spreadsheet and everyone knew it was me. Existence truly is pain.

You get the idea. It’s not enough that the protagonist is a fuck up: that matter needs to be brought to their attention and they need to reflect on it.

(A more proper (read: academic) definition of catharsis is: “an imitation of an action ‘with incidents arousing pity and fear, wherewith to accomplish its catharsis of such emotions.’” The emotions the audience feel echo what the people on stage are feeling. The jump scare in a horror movie scares the character on screen and the audience watching at home.)

Aristotle never clearly defined catharsis. So for all this time (2000+ years) people have been trying to infer what he meant from a couple of references to a pretty slippery concept. Even though the general public has their understanding of the word, academics still cannot agree on a definition. But we know what it means, roughly, because we’ve all experienced it.

Over the weekend I watched Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s other other TV show (not Killing Eve) which had an exchange between an artist and a drunk girl on sadness and how it factors into art:

Character 1: He’s my muse!

Character 2: Your muse?

...

Character 2: Like an artist's muse?!

Character 1: Yes, he is! You think meeting someone like Colin happens to artists all the time?! He gives so much.

Character 2: Yeah, sure, and you just lap it up and just slap it on a canvas.

Character 1: Pardon?

Character 2: "His pain is so beautiful." You're using him to indulge yourself.

Character 1: I am indulging? And what is this?

Character 2: This is a $4 bottle of wine.

...

Character 2: Sorry if I upset you, Melody.

Character 1: You don't upset me. You bore me. All you seem to want to do is drink and wank and drink and wank.

Character 2: Well, at least I don't have to wank other people's pain onto a canvas, and then shove it in people's faces and call it "my art."

Character 2 in this scene is played by Phoebe Waller-Bridge. I can’t be bothered to explain why it’s relevant.

For the eternity of human brains, or at least for as long as preserved creativity, the most comfortable, secure people in the world have tried to experience the things tragic victims feel - perhaps so they can briefly know what it feels like to be a romantic figure struggling in an unjust world. A passport to feelings and drama we aren’t permitted in every day life. Catharsis is the word to express the reaction, but what do we call an audience who seeks out that sensation? Catharsis chasers?

It’s not insightful to say that people like to watch Fast & Furious movies because they’re exciting and perhaps audiences enjoy that excitement because their own lives are un-exciting. But commending a thing because it will make you sad seems aberrant in some way. A fast and dangerous car that will make you miserable. A roller coaster that will make you depressed. An incredible shootout in the streets of LA that will make you sob in the bathroom cubicle at work every time you think about it. I can’t explain the drive, but like Aristotle I will invent a new word, so that academics can never know what I meant but will still write at great length about it, so that it will slip into common parlance and be horribly misused until eventually, 2000 years from now, a girl can waffle on about it on her blog. And the word will be: scartharsio. Or maybe scorpithoniacs? Or sarcastiharsics?

Sadness is entertainment for a scartharsio.

ALL TIME HALL OF FAME: WAILING WOMEN AND MOORS

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Nobody knows what it’s like to be me, a sad woman who weeps on moors!

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I’m not being overly dramatic!

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#Fleabag #phoebe waller-bridge #bojack horseman #kate bush #wuthering heights #sense and sensibility #ang lee #kate winslet #othello #synecdoche new york #charlie kaufman #brokeback mountain #red dead redemption 2

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just-another-sickfic-blog · 7 years

Text

Aftermath

Fandom: Mob Psycho 100

Characters: Shigeo (Mob) Kageyama Ritsu Kageyama

No content warnings

Description: Mob got sick at the end of episode 5 but we were not graced with a sick episode for episode 6. Because I’m a bitter human being, I wrote a fic in the time frame between episode 5 and 6.

It had begun to rain just shortly after the fight between Teru and himself and just shortly before he would start his trek around the city in search of Dimple. That was three hours ago. It was eight-thirty now and the rain continued to pound upon the city, the storm only amplifying with time instead of weakening. He submitted to the fact that he was never going to see the annoying little green spirit and finally reserved himself to return home.

“I’m home…”

The warmth of home was welcoming. He hadn’t eaten anything since lunch but the lingering scent of his mom’s cooking didn’t rouse his appetite. Strange. He kicked off his shoes and dashed upstairs to prevent the water that collected in his hair and his clothes pooling around his ankles. He closed the door and plopped on the ground, sighing. From the corner of his eye, His bedroom was nudged open. Ritsu was standing under the door frame, reaching to hand a blue towel to his big brother.

“Shige? Glad your back. Don’t catch a cold.”

“Thanks.” Was Mob’s one-worded response as he accepted the towel and began rubbing his head down.

“You’re home late today. Wanna eat?”

“Nah, I’m gonna get to bed.”

“You seem kinda down. Did something happen? If you wanna talk about it, I’m here. Goodnight then.” Ritsu had turned to leave his brother’s room but had halted when Shigeo called out his name. He paused and turned.

“Hm?”

“I’m sorry about that one time.” Shigeo mumbled.

“That one time?” Ritsu’s tone turned questioning. “You mean when you got super carsick and threw up in the hood of my jacket?”

“No. Well—sorry about that too. I really can’t remember what happened. With that accident involving my powers. I’ve wondered, back then what did I do to you exactly?”

Ritsu’s hand subconsciously tightened on the door handle.

“Oh. You mean when those high school kids picked a fight with us? Don’t worry you didn’t do anything to me. One of the punks kicked me away and I got hurt but…you were there to protect me. Just forget about it, it’s no big deal. Good night.”

Ritsu closed the door. Shigeo was left alone, staring at the towel in his hands. A shiver ran up his spine, reminding him to change out of his wet uniform before he could catch a cold. A dull throb began at the back of his eyes, though the pain wasn’t an initial cause of alarm. Losing consciousness in stressful situations just like that time when he was knocked out by those high school students resulted in his full psychic powers being released to protect their vessel. There were side effects to such power being released though, resulting in fatigue and headaches. If he was particularly “lucky”, his immune system would drop leaving him exposed to whatever seasonal sickness was going around.

He had a feeling this was one of his “lucky days”. As he was changing from his wet uniform, a feather-like tickle began at the back of his sinuses. Dipping his head, he unleashed a couple of sneezes towards the ground. He pulled his arm across his nose, hanging up his uniform, on his closet door for the next day.

His nose didn’t stop running though and as he lay in bed, he nose continued to run and he found himself rubbing his pyjama sleeve against his nose, further irritating it. He rolled onto his back staring at the ceiling of his room, listening to the ticking clock.

“I have no appetite.”

He sneezed.”

Waking up, the only visible light was the cold glow shining from the outside streetlights. Shigeo slightly turned his head so he could see his digital alarm clock that rested on the top of his bookshelf. 1:25. He fell back upon his futon. He had always slept so soundly during the night. Especially after a fight where a majority of his psychic energy was delegated. What happened? Shigeo inhaled — or rather tried to inhale — through his nose.

Oh.

Shigeo rubbed his eyes which ascended to his nose. The oxygen he inhaled through his mouth stung his lungs and was exhaled through a series of rough coughs that felt as if they were tearing his throat. He swallowed. Water. He needed water.

he pushed himself to his feet, swaying a bit as he did so. With uneven steps, he trod down the hall as quiet as his body allowed, muffling sudden coughs in the sleeve of his arm. He glanced anxiously at Ritsu’s door and then to his parents’ door as he descended down the stairs. He began groping for the cabinet that contained the glasses. Another series of coughs were released, these ones more wet and loud than Mob had anticipated. Abandoning his original search for a cup, he turned to feel for the tissue box on the counter.

In the room which was the nearest to the kitchen, Ritsu was pulled into consciousness when faint footsteps and stifled coughs broke through the silence of the night. Ritsu blinked several times before, sitting up, stretching as he did so. Was he imagining sounds?

The coughs came again, this time farther away. Though he recognized the coughs, he was still persuaded to climb from bed and investigate. He stumbled down into the kitchen with less care than his older brother. The kitchen was almost pitch black, and yet Ristu was able to distinguish the silhouette taking a glass from the cabinet.

“Nii-san.” He spoke, voice cracking from sleep. “What are you doing up?”

“Just getting water. I didn’t wake you, did I?”

“No,” Ritus yawned. “I’ve been up for hours. What about you? You sound congested. Are you getting a cold?”

Ritsu could hear his older brother sniff the snot back up.

“No. I’m fine. Just a little thirsty is all.”

Ritsu shuffled to the kitchen and opened the fridge, illuminating the kitchen as he pulled out a pitcher of water.

“I’m thirsty as well. Please get me a glass too, please.”

In silent compliance, Mob removed a second glass from the cabinet and set it on the island beside his own. Ritsu carefully poured the cool liquid into each of the glasses.

“Thanks Ritsu.” Mob said, after draining the water from his cup.

“No problem nii-san. I hope you sleep well. We have school tomorrow.”

“You too Ritsu.”

Ritsu turned his head away, willfully ignoring that Shigeo had stolen away tissue box on the island.

The cool morning sun rays peaked through the cracks in his blinds and onto the wooden floor beside Mob’s face. His eyelids felt unusually heavy and an ache had settled into his limbs during the night. Breathing through his nose was not a possibility, it seemed. Without opening his eyes, he began groping for the tissue box that he was sure he set beside his futon. When his fingers brushed against the cool cardboard, he immediately snatched a few papers and held him to his face, blowing forcefully. He allowed himself to open his eyes to see the thick, yellow fluid distinguish itself against the white of the paper. He sat up as he crumpled it, and tossed it into the bin nearby.

“Shigeo! Are you up yet?” Came his mother’s voice from down the stairs.

“Ye-“ His voice cracked and he cleared his throat.

“Yes.” He tried again, mildly disgusted by how clearing his nose didn't affect the low quality of his voice. “I’m getting changed.”

“Well get downstairs soon. Your breakfast is getting cold.”

He mumbled something incomprehensible as he pulled his arm across his nose to halt the flow of snot trudging down the stairs. There must have been some sort of smells emitting from the kitchen as there were eggs on the stove. But each attempt was blocked out with the wall of mucous in each of his nostrils. Breathing itself had to be reduced to inhaling through his mouth, further aggravating his lungs.

His father glanced up from his newspaper.

“Ah Shigeo. You’re up.”

“Good morning.” He mumbled before plopping himself in the seat next to Ritsu. How odd for Ritsu not to be at school as early as he usually was this morning. Their mother placed a plate in front of him, pausing.

“You look pale. Are you ill?”

“Not really.” Was his muttered response as she placed her hand against his forehead and brushed some hair aside.

“You don’t feel particularly warm….hold on for a minute.”

She disappeared around a corner only to remerge fifteen seconds later, an oral thermometer in hand.

“Slip this under your tongue.” She instructed and Mob listlessly obeyed. Within a few moments, the thermometer beeped, and their mom promptly removed it.

“You don’t have a fever.”

She suddenly turned to Ritsu.

“Are you sick as well?”

“No mom, I’m fine. Really.” He said, as she applied her hand to his forehead. Normal.

While this conclusion satisfied their father, their mother’s worried expression lingered.

“Well, a fever means that their body is fighting off an infection and if Shigeo is not running a temperature, this illness must not be all that serious. I see no reason to let him stay home. He needs to improve his grades after all.”

Neither their mother nor Mob responded verbally, but she had vanished around the corner once again, emerging with a surgical mask in hand.

“Put this on at least. It won't do anyone good if you spread that cold around.”

~~ “Are you sure you’re alright?”

“I’m fine Ritsu, don’t worry so much.” Mob replied, his voice slightly muffled by the mask. He stopped as his breath began to hitch and he pitched forward to catch a sneeze. Ritsu had paused and immediately fished through his bag for a moment before removing a pack of travel-sized tissues and tossing them to his older brother. Mob’s eyes hovered over the pack before travelling upwards to rest on Ritsu’s face.

“Do you always carry packs like these?”

“Isn’t it always a brother’s job to be prepared.”

From behind the mask, the corners of Shigeo’s mouth curved upwards as he removed two from the packet and shoved the rest into his pocket.

“Nii-san,” Ritsu’s tone had turned serious. “If you find you find yourself getting worse throughout the day, I want you to tell me. I can take you home.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“But if you —”

“It’s just a small cold; I’ll be fine.”

As the day progressed, it became apparent to Mob that was, in fact, not fine. As the morning had commenced with a blocked nose and the general feeling of being ill. During school, however, it felt that a rubber band was squeezing his head together as well as a constant temperature shift between hot and cold. He was one’s farthest from the window and he briefly wondered if any students were as uncomfortable as he was. There was no sign of students shaking and sweating like he was though.

Is it just me? Why is it just me?

He had caught sight of Ritsu many times throughout the day in between classes dashing up and down halls between classes and student council duties. Instead of informing Ritsu of these new …feelings…as he had promised, he chose, rather, to stifle is discomfort and haul himself through the rest of the day. Besides, he told himself, to tell Ritsu would throw his younger brother off and more energy would be spent on worrying rather than his more important duties and school work.

He was in History at the moment and one of the less animated teachers he had encountered in his Middle School career was talking about…something. He couldn’t really make out what he was saying. Everything felt so far away and the words, muffled as if he were hearing them from under water. The chalky words melted into the board and the colours of the map merged with the wall. Everything was becoming a motley of colours. Mob briefly wondered if he needed glasses. He couldn’t tell exactly when he had fallen asleep, only that suddenly, he was startled awake by the sharp tap of a meter stick on his desk. Mob gasped sharply before jerking his body up.

“Mr. Kageyama. Unless I am mistaken, this isn’t your bedroom.”

There were scattered giggles throughout the classroom and Mob bent his head slightly.

“Sorry…” Was his only response, tugging his mask upwards, he closed his mouth and attempted to swallow the coughs that forced his way up his throat. That still didn’t prevent a few from forcing their way up and out of his mouth

The teacher tilted his head slightly.

“If you are ill and find yourself unable to focus on the lesson, I suggest that you make your way to the nurse’s office.”

With only the scuffle of shoes against the floor and the sound of chair legs scraping against floor tiles, Mob picked his bag from under the desk and left the room with the eyes of his classmate clinging to his body.

The nurse’s office was void of all people, except for the nurse himself, who entertained himself with stacking new supplies on the shelves. Mob shyly hung around the entrance, shifting from foot to foot, hoping that the nurse would happen to turn around and see him. After an award as the nurse continued to stack the supplies, completely oblivious of Mob’s presence. Mob finally resorted to rapping the doorframe with the back of his hand. The nurse’s head rose and turned.

“Hello. What can I do for you?”

“Ummm…I was sent here…”

“You sound hoarse. Are you ill.”

Mob shrugged his shoulders.

“I don’t know.”

“I’m going back to get a thermometer. Sit down on one of the cots”

Following orders, Mob neatly placed himself on the edge of the cot farthest from the door, folding his hands on his laps.

Ten seconds later, the nurse returned, slipping a piece of plastic over the electrical thermometer.

“Open your mouth please.”

Mob silently obeyed and allowed the nurse to direct the thermometer under his tongue. For a moment the only form of sound that broke the silence was the nurse taking a few steps to his desk to organize some paper. The beeping of the thermometer sliced through the silence and. the nurse turned on his heel and in two strides, was back in front of Mob.

“38.9.” The nurse read aloud and turned to show Mob the numbers. “You’ve got quite the fever. Why did you come to school with a fever this high?”

“Didn’t have one this morning,” Mob mumbled coughing roughly.

The nurse slipped the plastic off and dropped it in the waste bin.

“I’m going to call your mom to pick you up.”

“I only live a couple blocks away. I can walk from here.” Mob’s sentence was punctuations with a sudden sneeze. The nurse grabbed the tissue box on his desk and bent over to offer some to Mob.

“I can’t let you go home alone with a fever like that. If you had one of 37.7, I might have considered, but your fever is too high. I’m going to call your mother. You can lay down until then.”

Ritsu, as a result of missing the student council meeting that morning, was obligated to attend the one after school to get caught up with what he missed. At that present moment, only two thoughts swam in his mind; school work and student council duties. He could no afford idle conversation so when a female classmate approached him, he had in mind to politely shut her down.

“I think I saw your brother in the nurse’s office.”

Well that certainly caught his attention.

“You saw my brother in the nurse’s?” He repeated dumbly.

“Yeah. He’s the boy with the bowl cut right?”

“Yeah….”

Ritsu clenched his fist.

“Please excuse me.” He said, plastering a smile on his face. “There’s someone I have to talk to.”

If the girl had called him, he couldn't tell. Suddenly, neither school nor student council seemed that important. He found himself sprinting down the hall, the soles of his shoes making a high pitched screech as he skidded to a stop.

Like it had been when Shigeo had come in earlier that day, the room was void of people except for the nurse himself. He was sitting at his desk, typing away at his laptop and happened to glance up.

“Hello. Are you feeling ill as well?”

“N-no. I was wondering though. Was my brother here earlier today?”

“Your brother? Was he the second-year boy with the blank face?”

“So he was here!”

“Yes.” The nurse answered calmly, sensing the agitation in this boy’s voice. “He had a fever of 38.9 so I got someone to pick him up and take him home.”

Ritsu allowed himself to relax slightly. At least he now knew that Shigeo was at least at home and not passed out in the middle of some path. Only slightly though.

“Oh. Thank-you.”

“You’re welcome.”

Ritsu turned his back to the nurse and the nurse got back to his computer. He was going to have a long talk with his nii-san when he got home.

#mob psycho 100 #sickfic #mob shigeo #kageyama ritsu #sick mob #i am trash

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