#I explored my sense of fashion!!!! which I didn’t think I cared too much about before!!!

[artificial-condition]

Having a gap year was really great for me because it was the first time in my adult life that I was able to just sit with myself. Figure myself out. Work on myself. Even though I had been an adult for several years, I feel like I really matured in my year of nothing. I now feel much more firm in who I am, even with opposition; I have always been a big pushover, letting other people do whatever they wanted and letting my desires go to the side, but now I am much more likely to assert what I want and tell people no. I’ll just do and be without analyzing what others want or expect of me, and it’s so refreshing to let that go. People really do grow in the cracks

[letterstoear]

Three reasons to love Vil Schoenheit

One of my personal favorite characters in twisted wonderland for sure. I actually didn't start off caring for Vil all too much, but I think he's one of the characters you love the more you know.

Also, please check out my shop for Twisted Wonderland inspired merch!

Shop here: Shop — Letters to Ear (squarespace.com)

Potatoes

Potatoes can be simple vegetables which have the capability to transform into just about anything. Perhaps that is the reason Vil often sees those around him as potatoes. Everyone has a great potential to become even more stunning and all he wants to do is to carve that out of them. I’ve come to love this aspect of Vil, but I’m also just a big sucker for these kinds of characters.

Vil noticeably has influenced many of his fellow dorm students into this new lifestyle. We can see this in his little group right before the VDC as he preps everyone. From giving out skincare, meal plans, and even workouts! Vil does it all.

The many versions of beauty~

Vil is undoubtedly beautiful, whether he chooses to wear a potato sack or a fancy suit. He looks absolutely phenomenal in all of them because he makes it work for him. To put it simply, Vil embraces whatever he is given and uses it to the best he can. When situations call for improvisions, Vil makes quick work of the items around him. This can be seen in the Luxe couture event where his outfit is missing the final piece. In the end, with the help of Grim, Vil uses curtains from the shop he was in.

I would also like to put out that Vil is someone incredibly comfortable with exploring fashion as a whole. Through each new outfit we see Vil matches his outfits to whatever event it is he is partaking in. Furthermore, he himself explains how he came about to the choices he makes when it comes to the outfits. I enjoy learning each little detail Vil has about his outfit as you can really get the sense, he loves what he does. So, to Vil fashion is a means to express himself as well as something he finds enlightenment in.

There’s always going to be losses in life

When the results came out that Vil lost the VDC, I for one was incredibly upset. However, Vil understood why he lost and saw the competition for what it was. To gracefully accept a loss in the way Vil did was absolutely beautiful. He didn’t take the loss as a sign that he was below anyone either, he simply understood what went wrong.

Another instance in which we see this is during the Beanfest event in which Vil loses. In such an intense fight Vil loses with a smile on his face as he gave it his all for the last happy beans day in NRC. Despite losing the fight Vil doesn’t lash out nor does he get sad about losing, rather he gives encouragement to his remaining teammates to go on.

With those three points I hope you’ve grown to love Vil, even if it’s not much!

[opuestocomplementario]

clothes in Love in the air (BL)

So…I am into clothes and fashion, especially in series and movies, therefore I got really curious about the choices of clothing in certains dramas, especially BL thai. Because it is not something we talk about when It comes to BL. We tend to focus on acting, writing, music, but clothes are not the topic, and I do understand. Most BL Thai dramas take place in universities and they have uniforms so we don’t have much to explore outside of their hair and little details that they put to differentiate main characters from others. So, here is an approach that I decided to do, especially in my current obsession: Love in the air. This means is a personal interpretation, so does not need to be taken seriously. 

I will cover the main pairing first for obvious reasons but when PrapaiSky shows up I am definitely talking about them later on.

Love in the Air is a Thai BL show about two relationships, one between a senior architect and a junior, and the second is also about a student architect and a racer and businessman (we don’t know what Prapai does yet). The show focuses on how these two relationships between these very different people collide and become more than that. 

Our first character, Rain, is a bratty student who talks shit all the time and respects no one. He is in his first year of university and likes this college mate, Ple. From the start we only see Rain wearing the uniform that consists of a white shirt and black pants. Rain, however, wears his in a casual and informal way, with a colorful shirt under. Unlike Sky and Ple, who are seen put together, Rain looks like he doesn't care about rules and order that much. And then we also get this piece of information that I feel like has to do a lot with how Rain is: he does not know who Phayu is, and Phayu is the idol of everyone as well as a pretty respected senior. Everyone loves Phayu, except Rain.

His hair is also an indication of his character. Ignoring the awful color and hairstyle, Rain is supposed to look inocent and dumb, which he is. He is cute, but he is also a child (keep in mind that he is 19 in the drama), so it makes sense that he wears comfortable clothes, but also colorful and shiny. 

When we are first introduced to his character we can also see how his clothes symbolize his nature: Rain does not follow the rules (he literally got into an illegal race), he don’t respect his elders (he yelled at Payu), he can’t keep boundaries (he kept following Ple even though she repeatedly said that she didn’t want to have anything with Rain) and he is irresponsible and unprofessional (does homework at the last minute, uses cell phone in class, leaves everything to the last minute).

But, the moment that he starts getting his life together and dating Phayu he looks a lot more put together and his clothes are more visually pleasing. When this happens we can see a lot more blue in Rain’s clothings than before and where does blue appear too? Yes, in Phayu’s racer suit. 

The blue hue is associated with calm, intelligence, sincerity, and confidence. Blue is the color of the sky and ocean in nature. These create a sense of calm and security. A light version of blue contains both blue and white properties, making it a blend of both. For instance, white symbolizes purity, cleanliness, and openness (Rain is young and virgin). Lighter blues are a reflection of these properties. As a result, lighter blues become associated with peace, friendliness, approachability, youth, and loyalty.

Even thought I said before that Rain was really iresponsible and sometimes dumb, it is true that once he realize the importance of taking things serious and being more aware of his behaviour the choices of wearing blue fits a lot with him. Rain also feels safe with Phayu and looks for him when he needs security and comfort. That’s why I also think that the atmosphere of their scenes is always a mix of blues, greens and blacks. Because while the storm can be dangerous, it always gets calm afterwords and rain can be soothing and comforting (yes, i am talking about Episode 6 where Rain gets Phayu to stop growing) 

Okay, so after trying to read more into Rain clothes, we can finally talk about my favorite boy and talk about how amazing his clothes are. This all started because I became obsessed with how they styled Phayu in every single scene and how I don't think this was unintentional and random.

Our second lead is Phayu. He is an architect for the day, and a mechanic in ilegal races for the night. This already tells us how dynamic and versatile he is as a person. He is professional and works hard to get things done right but also likes to have fun and is playful when it comes to things that he likes. He enjoys the bikes and the races, and he doesn’t like when people can't follow the rules. And I really like how important this is. Is it not that Phayu is obsessed with everyone following the schedule; on the contrary, he sees how important the order and the rules are because otherwise people are going to get hurt. He is responsible, organized and mature. So we clearly understand why he wears suits. But what I love the most about these types of outfits is that they are not a full suit. He wears jeans with it and he wears colorful jackets. This can be translated into the fun personality and youthful character that he is. While he does have a respectful job with older people, he still is young and jovial. Goes to drink with friends, helps people without them asking and is flirty. (Honestly, where the fuck can i get a Phayu? The more i write about him the more jealous and mad I am about the fact that he is fictional)  

Phayu is also a mechanic and doesn't like when people insult their job. This can also add to his “bad boy vibe” because he does things at night that are not well known by a lot of people. The color black is a shade/color that comes off as mysterious, serious, prestigious, and powerful to most people. When worn, it is a symbol of class, business, elegance, and sexiness while also having an overbearing, even sometimes evil character to it. Is important to note that he does not wear black all the time. So we can say that he is not always this put-together and serious persona, especially when it comes to Rain. 

So yeah, I love the color schemes of Phayu, because he can appear in outfits like this and makes completely sense for the character. Also, we, as society, don’t talk enough about this serve. This outfit. THAT 'S IT. I NEED HIM TO MAKE A COMEBACK. 

I also feel like the hairstyle of Boss helps a lot with this characterization. At first it might look like the long hair is just to appear “bad, hot and sexy” and is obviously for that. But I feel like if the stylist also only styled him in dark colors and clothes, the aura wouldn’t be the same. Like, he is supposed to be an idol in his university so I feel like even though the bad vibe suits him, it wouldn’t work the same. 

But what i love the most about this is, unlike other shows from the same writer (and others shows, for that matter), Love in the air make the characters realistics, not only with other elements like friendships, work, college and sexuality; but with the way the style everything else (clothes, hair, scenarios, music, THE MUSIC IS SO GOOD FOR SOME REASON). Fiat and Leo from Don’t say no  for example look expensive because they have money and wear things that not many other people will wear, almost as if the clothes were made specifically for them, while Phayu and Rain wear clothes that everyone and anyone can wear: colorful jackets, jeans and shirts.  And they also used clothes to reflect their personalities.

Conclusion: Love in the air has really good stylists that know what fits the actors and the characters best. I hope that this keeps with the story of Prapai and Sky, because honestly I can already make connections with some of the colors I have seen. Like red signifies power, boldness, and confidence, it also symbolizes love, emotion, and passion, so we can already tell that this fits A LOT with the portrait of Prapai.  

[oumaheroes]

I love your headcanons so much and I wanted to ask what you think the relationship between Canada and France is like? Being primarily England's son, it would be interesting to know whether or not Canada still considers France a parental figure of any kind.

I don't think I entirely agree with 'primarily England's son.' It is true that Matthew has spent more time with Arthur overall as part of his family and the English part of Canada has strong cultural connections to the UK which binds them closer together; Matthew is as much Arthur's son as much as Alfred is. But the core of Matthew, his oldest parts and patterns and memories, are very much French and this is a tricky thing for him to work with, sometimes.

One interpretation of the motto of Quebec is:

’Je me souviens/ Que né sous le lys/ Je croîs sous la rose’ -

‘I remember/ That born under the lily/ I grow under the rose’.

I'm not going to go into historical accuracy for this coming view of mine, it is more personal than anything else. Please do read my headcanons on Matthew and Arthur's relationship first for a better understanding of how Matthew ticks and how Arthur parented him after Francis as this will make a lot more sense. Because Francis was different. Not different as in cruel, or different in that he does not, did not, love Matthew but different in that Francis views children, nation children especially, very differently from how Arthur does.

Francis is showier, more at ease with himself than Arthur ever was. Francis does not see the best aspects of himself in children, does not search for understanding or empathises with being small and misunderstood and weak. He does not like remembering himself this way, often refuses to explore these parts of himself and rejects it when he sees it in others. Arthur hates it too, of course, and neither had a sweet and easy childhood, especially compared to the silver spoon fed nations they raised, but where Arthur takes this hatred of himself from those years and channels it into pushing himself to improve, Francis pushes these aspects away. He does not have the patience for children, does not want to watch them fumble and fall or get to know them intimately as the half-baked clay that they are. They are children, they will grow- he will have more in common with them then.

This isn’t callous or even really a conscious decision. He just doesn’t relate to children in the same way that Arthur can, cannot get past their youth, their ‘unreadyness’. He can play with children and can talk happily to children but he has no time for children, especially when Matthew was in his care. He would make sure he was fed and cleaned and put to bed on time and was given the best things money could buy, but he also didn’t care about these details overly much. The Duke of Blah Blah said that this specific toy is the best thing to buy children of Matthew’s age? He’ll get it. Oh, Lady So-and-So’s son is having riding lessons? He’ll set them up for Matthew too. What fashions are best? Does he have the nicest apartments? The best servants to hand? Best tutors?

And this is all well and good but he didn’t take the time to find out what Matthew actually wanted or felt. He didn’t care for Matthew as his own person, didn’t take the time to get to know him and this is what Matthew, and all children, desperately want from their parents. Simply to be heard and understood and loved as they really are.

France sees things more critically and logically- the potential a child can have. How having Matthew about made him look, how he was treated differently. The social circles that opened or closed, the way people talk to him and the conversations they pick. Francis sees it all and he cares about it in a way that Arthur doesn’t and he enjoys following and leading the steps that courts dance. Matthew was a very nice ornamental piece for Francis and from an early age Matthew quickly picked up on his energy and intentions.

Smile at parades of strangers. Hold Papa’s hand and bow for the King. Try his best and practise again and again until he knew all of the steps to the new dances that year. To do these things was to spend time with Francis and to make him happy and Matthew was starved for that time and affection- a ghost of a close relationship that came about whenever Matthew accepted Francis’ current interests and social rules.

This of course, meant that when Francis gave Matthew away it really did devastate him. He had tried so hard. He worked every part of himself to do and be his best to make Francis happy but that wasn’t enough. From Francis’ view again this act wasn’t really cruel at all- war is war. A deal is a deal. Arthur may be a fool and he’s not always in Francis’ good books but he’s got a son of a similar age and he’s good with children; Matthew would have a play mate and Arthur’s boy wasn’t dead yet so Arthur couldn’t be that bad of a parent. It made sense. Matthew would be fine.

But again, he didn’t consider Matthew’s feelings as a person, how this would affect him or how much it would hurt. Certainly not the repercussions- on his personality, on how he builds relationships, how he sees himself.

Today Francis and Matthew are on good, if distant terms. Matthew is polite and Matthew is loyal to Arthur and Arthur wouldn’t have approved or a meltdown or rage at seeing Francis again for the first time in years. Nor would Arthur have approved if Matthew had cowered away and avoided him, or causing a fuss of any kind. Matthew loves Arthur, is grateful to him for treating him as a son rather than a spare so… Matthew shakes Francis’ hand and asks about his trip. Takes his coat and hangs it up, smells the familiar smell that knocks him back decades to powdered wigs and jewelled cuffs on a coat that glint in the light of a thousand candles. Hears the language that Arthur refuses to speak with him slip once again between his ears, notices the changes as much as what has remained the same. Hears himself in Francis’ laugh and hopes that he at least sounds more genuine.

Francis knows now that they will never have as close of a relationship as Arthur and Matthew share but he’s grateful for what Matthew has let him have. Maybe it’s because Matthew is an adult now. Maybe it’s because Matthew is his own person, or maybe it’s because Francis himself has grown and matured. It’s likely a combination of all three, but Francis wants to get to know Matthew these days, after WWI especially, and often initiates contact and arranges visits for them both. Matthew is happy for the attention and enjoys getting to know and spend time with Francis but Francis is very much the one taking the lead. Again, similarly to Francis in his youth this isn't to be cruel but just because Matthew doesn't think of Francis in this way. He does not consider going to him for advice or for a good time or even for affection- he has other people for that now.

Although now polite and positive, the bond between them is very surface level, lacking the easy warmth that he shares with Arthur and both he and Francis are aware of why.

Despite this, there is still something there within his chest that rings Matthew back to his earliest days. He’s taller than Francis now, the proportions strange on him like a stolen shadow but in the right light, in the right angle, earlier times will catch him and Matthew feels as much as part of Francis as he ever did.

Thank you for the ask! <3

[thesmokingguns]

Thrift Store

Word Count 1916

Fluff

You rolled your eyes watching the man walk into the thrift shop you owned. The bell had rung drawing your attention to the tall man with teased hair and leather from head to toe.

This was the type of person you were used to seeing duck into the shop on The Strip looking to score some piece of cool clothing for their stage outfit. All of them loved chatting you up about what night their band was going to play and how you should totally check them out because they were going to make it. The only place they were going to make it was to third base with some bottle blonde.

You flipped your magazine, eyes looking up to the man who was dragging the metals hangers to the side looking through the leather jackets. Typical of him to be in that section. He didn’t look like the type to steal so you didn’t really pay that much attention to him until he was right in front of you a few minutes later.

“Excuse me.” You dragged your eyes up looking at him. He was holding up a black jacket you had found at a yard sale last weekend, “This doesn’t have a price on it. Could you tell me how much it is?” The jacket would look good on him and it would definitely fit better than the one he was wearing that didn’t even cover his wrists.

“Ten dollars and the jacket you’re wearing.” You replied to him. You could redo his jacket and sell it for triple the price. He seemed surprised but was tugging off his jacket and sliding the new one on already.

You were right, it did fit him perfectly. It took away the little boy playing dress up and made him look like a man.  He looked in the mirror and you watched this small smile, confidence slipping into his face. That’s when you really took him in and appreciated the way he was built. He had a strong jawline and these olive eyes that were the kind that got girls into trouble.

“Listen, I know you’re cutting me a huge deal. Can I buy you a drink tonight? My band is playing at the Whisky at midnight. You can meet me before or if you want to stick around after I’m sure there will be a party at our apartment.” There it was. The line where he invited you out because he needed more chicks in the audience.

“I’m really busy tonight. I’m sorry.” You actually felt sorry when you lied. But there was no way you, you were going to get sucked into going to see some shitty club band when you could stay in bed and not be annoyed with people. You held out your hand taking the crumpled bills he handed you.

“That was a shitty line, wasn’t  it?” He rubbed the back of his neck and you watched the leather stretch over his bicep. Jesus Christ, he wasn’t like one of the thin chicken boys who came in. He had muscles and was filled out.

“Look, I’m sure your band is great but I’m not going to go see them because you bought a jacket from me.” He nodded understandingly, “But you do look good in the jacket so at least you have that.” You teased him, loving how he smiled from the corner of his mouth, he had to be older than you by a few years and there was this mystery about him that had you wanting to ask more questions but instead you took the jacket he had been wearing, throwing it on your bag for home and went back to flipping through your magazine.

He was still standing in front of the register as if he hadn’t quite worked out that you weren’t going to go out with him. A sigh escaped your lips as you looked back up at him.

“It’s past lunch time but maybe we can grab a beer and a burger now?” Your eyebrow shot up at his offer. A beer and a burger was much better than seeing a shitty band play. You looked around the shop, it was 1:30pm on a Friday. Soon the place would be mobbed with kids from the Valley looking for new clothes to wear for their weekend nights in Hollywood. This was one of your busy days and you knew that you couldn’t leave.

“I can’t leave. It’s busy here Friday afternoon but if you wear that jacket tonight I’m sure that you’ll find a great girl for beer and burgers on Saturday afternoon.” You smiled. He seemed confused about why you kept turning down your advances.

“Well, if you won’t go out with me can I at least have your name?” You heard the bell ring and looked past him to the two young teens walking in.

“It’s Y/N. Now you need to get out of here because I have customers.” You moved around the counter slightly grazing against him as you moved down the aisles to check on the kids who seemed like they wouldn’t have a problem stuffing things into their bags. You watched the man walk out of the shop, smiling at the whole encounter.

The night was steady. People crammed into the small store and it turned out to be a great day for business. You locked the safe at the end of the night and jumped out of your skin when you heard a knock on the glass door. Your eyes narrowed seeing a man shifting outside and you grabbed the baseball bat next to the register.

It was dark outside but you could hear people laughing as they passed outside, which just heightened your senses as you got closer. It suddenly dawned on you that it was the guy from earlier. He noticed you finally at the door and held up his hands. One hand was holding a six pack and the other a brown paper bag with grease stains on the bottom.

“It doesn’t seem busy now.” he yelled through the door. The way he was standing there made you shake your head, turning the lock as you opened up and let him inside the shop. His eyes took in the bat you were holding as you locked up the door, “Are you in a late night baseball league?” You roll your eyes, locking the door up.

“I thought you had a show.” He tosses you a beer and you’re taking him in wondering what angle this man is trying to come at you from.

“We play at midnight. I have an hour to have burgers and beers with you, Y/N.” The crinkle of the bag makes you watch his movements, “There’s this little hole in the wall joint that makes the best burgers around the corner from here.” The stranger is handing you a wrapped red and white checkered burger.

“I don’t know your name and you expect me to just have dinner with you.” The suspicious nature you have makes it hard to tell if this guy is usually this spontaneous or if he wants something from you. Knowing how the men in this area are, you're sure that he is going to try and get something.

“I’m Nikki Sixx.” The name makes your eyes roll. Another boy with a fake stage name and dreams of being a rock and roll superstar but he brought beer and burgers so you can’t just kick him out.

It’s a quick hour and after the initial eye rolling over his name and the slight boredom when he talks about his band you find yourself listening to him talk. Actually listening and caring about what he says. The way he describes his dreams isn’t with the youthful nativity you have come across from your time in Hollywood. No, Nikki has a plan to achieve his dream and it includes a lot of hard work. He isn’t afraid to work for his dreams because he knows that is how he will get them.

He’s easy to talk to and you find yourself laughing so hard you’re covering your mouth at the stories he tells you. From the way his band does maniac things to funny stories of schemes he’s done to survive. You don’t know why it’s so easy to laugh with him. But what you like the most about him is how he asks questions about you that would get lost with other people. He doesn’t make the hour you have together all about his rockstar dreams but he turns the conversation to what your goals are. His eyes are thoughtful, watching you as you speak about fashion design and how the store is a stepping stone for you. He even gets you to show him some of the things you altered and designed. The usual embarrassment you might feel void because of how comfortable he makes you feel.

Eyes keep darting to the clock and you know he’s stayed past the hour he had told you he had before his show. Until finally he’s pushed his time back as far as he could and he’s getting up to leave, knowing that he’s going to have to run from the store right onto stage..

“I’m glad that you let me in tonight. I had a great time getting to know you, Y/N. The band doesn't play tomorrow night so if you’re around Sunday I’d like to tag along to your yard sales you were talking about.” He’s saying it because he wants to spend time with you and the fact he’s willing to hang out on a Sunday afternoon to see something you like has you softening to his charms. He is a lot different from the usual clientele of the store with a self centered nature and a rock n roll attitude without the fame.

“Well, you know where I work. My apartment’s above here. If you’re serious, meet me at 11am Sunday and we can go explore together.” Nikki nods at your words and you wish he’d invite you to the show again but even in the short time you’ve talked to him you know he won’t. He doesn’t want to be rejected twice for something that he cares about. But he has shown such a sincere interest in your passions and you find that you want to see him play. “Do you mind if I walk to the Whisky with you to see the show? I heard there’s a pretty good band playing tonight.” His eyes flash up and it’s nice to see you’ve surprised him by changing your mind. He doesn’t seem like the type that is surprised too often

As you’re walking, chattering nonstop with the stranger you met in the shop this morning your mind wanders to the leather jacket he’s wearing. That jacket was made for him to wear. As soon as you saw him holding it you knew that he was going to go home with it. If he hadn’t come looking for that jacket your day would have been a lot different. Now you were with the bassist of a band going to the Whisky to see another band try to make it off the Strip and into the stars. But the usual apathetic feeling you had about these bands were gone and you were thinking that this person would really make it. And you were rooting for him.

[kaypeace21]

The fathers of Stranger Things:  (narrative analysis)

This analysis will discuss all the dads in st. But will mostly focus on the parallels between Brenner, Lonnie, Neil,and Hopper. And the ramifications on their kids.And no i’m not saying Hopper is necessarily as bad as these other fathers/doesn’t have his reasons. But i think the parallels are worth mentioning.

Cycles of Ab*se  & internalizing your father’s teachings

Baseball-We see in s2 the cycle of abuse is there- Billy mimics Neil, and then Max mimics Billy. And uses violence to stand up for herself- which earlier she said she was trying to combat … explaining she can be angry like Billy sometimes but she never wants to be like him (her nickname symbolizing this: aka ‘mad max’).  

We see in s3 Neil taught Billy baseball and bullied him  and called him a “p*ssy” so Billy as a child bullied others and calls them a “p*ssy” (internalizing his father’s teachings and probably venting his anger towards his father on to others). We also see Billy in s2 antagonizes max and demands “say it. say it!”And later Max yells at Billy “say it! say it” and attacks him with a bat. Showing that even Neil has influenced her to a certain extent (via Billy’s ab*se of Max). 

We also see in s3 when Will is frustrated he destroys cb (a symbol of his artistic ambition/the day his father left) and destroys it with a  baseball bat (and then we see the mf officially return) . We also see in s2, Will has a baseball next to the mf drawing (in his room). This is noteworthy due to the fact Jonathan in s1 asks if Will even likes baseball or is just doing it to appease his father. in s1, Will admits he isn’t a fan of baseball -showing how this ‘interest’ in baseball in later seasons just reflects his desire to win his father’s approval (through more sterotypically masculine hobbies).  And we see how both Neil & Lonnie taught both their sons baseball- who are both named William -and who they would call  “f*gs”. We also see in s1 Jonathan lugs around a baseball bat & his father’s gun -however neither tool is used by him in the end successfully. However, in s3 we see Jonathan using an axe (like Joyce) showing by this point he’s mostly taken on Joyce’s influence. 

El’s spying , fighting the Russians, and  lack of care for her safety shows she internalized Brenner’s teachings- We know in s1 El was trained to be a spy/weapon against the soviets (by Brenner). And in later seasons when it comes to her interpersonal relationships- she continues to spy on everyone around her.  she spies on Mike despite his vocal discomfort in s3. Brenner specifically tells her to spy and repeat the words the guys are saying back to him- which is exactly what she does to Lucas and Mike (spying on them and repeating their words back to Max). And when Mike is concerned for her safety we also have El mimic Brenner’s words (from s1) . in s1 she is also said to be taken by Brenner to be a “weapon to fight the commies” and in s3 that’s exactly what she did!  She does literally everything Brenner ever wanted from her!!!!!!!

Jonathan & Billy’s fights with Steve (reflect their father issues... which Steve accidentally triggered)- We see Billy and Jonathan both shoved into walls by their father’s . For Billy this is in a direct consequence of Max running away and for Jonathan- Will’s disappeareance. Billy first shoves Lucas into the wall similarly to Neil. And both Jonathan and Billy are told to “STOP”.

Billy also breaks a plate over Steve’s head. What’s interesting to note is in s3 we see Billy’s mother threw a plate at  Billy’s father (so he was mimicking the dysfunction he saw as a child). kind of like how in s3 he backhands max (mirroring how neil backhanded his mother in the s3 flashback). 

When it comes to jonathan we see jonathan tell nancy to leave and it’s “not worth it” to argue with Steve. However he stops in his tracks when Steve says he’s “like his father”. Then Steve proceeds to insult his family. And  eventually Jonathan who throughout every season is generally portrayed as non confrontational attacks steve. similarly when Billy and Jonathan are beating Steve (who is laying on the ground)-multiple people are yelling for them to stop.But both are in too much of a triggered daze to stop themselves. Even when the cops come- Jonathan elbows the cop in the face and kicks steve with handcuffs on and even says handcuffed for the cop to “get off’ (like he told Lonnie earlier). 

Both would rather do this to their own fathers-but Steve (and the cops) were used as their proxy instead. The fights might reflect what the boys have been taught by their fathers-aka vi*lence. Also on some subconscious level jonathan may have been like-oh you think i’m like my dad? I’ll show you what my dad is like (beats steve with no mercy).

***also, tw se*ual ab*se (you can skip)-during the jonathan fight they also bring up the “pervy photo sesh”- which jonathan took right after seeing his father. in the movies said to inspire s4 they often had a se*ually ab*sive dad/relative who would take innaproriate pics of his kids.uuuuugh. So jonathan may have just been mimicking that past behavior of his father. ugh.***

father’s ab*se  reflects the supernatural

*if you know about my did theory-part 1 and 2 you’ve heard this stuff in detail but i’ll just give a brief synopsis 

- The demogorgan that attacks Will in s1 is  a demon called the “deep FATHER” in d&d.

-El first comes across the demogorgon  (“deep father” ) eating it’s own eggs- symbolically this shows the ‘father’ is hurting it’s own kids ( a motif in the show)!

hunting/baseball/trunks connecting to Lonnie and the monsters:  Will is attacked by the demogorgan in Lonnie’s old shed (and Will tries to defend himself with Lonnie’s old hunting gun). The demogorgan jumps on Jonathan and knocks the bat out of his hands, when he tries defending himself from the demogorgan( both activities: hunting/baseball Lonnie taught the boys).  We also see the demogorgan also attack hunters and a deer- a ref to the lonnie & Jonathan hunting story about Bambi. In s1 we see Jonathan check Lonnie’s trunk to see if Will is there . But also we see the mf throw heather and later her parents in the trunk as well. Also when Jonathan starts talking car repair lingo in s3 -Will senses the mf (since Lonnie repaired cars as a hobby in s1). When lonnie returns in s1 jonathan asks Joyce “did that thing (demogorgan ) come back?” And when Lonnie says he explored around the quarry-jonathan mentions how the demogorgan only traveled a few miles  around his house. When Lonnie says “someone should be held accountable” for what happened to Will- it transitions from lonnie hammering a nail into the wall to Mike piercing a pencil into paper explaining the hole in the upsidedown and how Will got trapped there- hinting at how Lonnie causing trauma to Will is the explanation for everything supernatural. Also need to point out how we zoom in on the lightbulb in Lonnie’s shed (after Will is taken) and they later zoom in on a red lighbulb (when Jonathan tears the innappropriate photos down from the red room) and then it transitions to the christmas lights. And then we see Lonnie berate Jonathan and there’s a glowing lightbulb beside Lonnie (to mirror him to the demogorgan).

-flowers & monstrous fathers: when Brenner (”papa”) first hurts Terry on a hospital bed she wakes up with sunflowers next to her bed. Lonnie in s1 is shown to have a sunflower blanket, and in s2 we see a sunflower book next to Will’s bed after he has a nightmare. We also see that the demogorgan ( ”deep father’-also called the “the man without a face” in s1 ) have a face that resembles a flower. Brenner also gave El a flower when on her bed (although not a sunflower) before forcing her to face the demogorgan for the 1st time.

I believe  credit goes to the tumblr user lazy-storm-cloud for noticing Lonnie’s sunflower blanket. I noticed most of the flower imagery but never noticed that blanket until they mentioned it.

-supernatural “wounds” connecting to Will,  El, Kali and fathers.The lab workers say the upsidedown’s influence over crops/hawkins is “spreading”  while joyce says the tunnels Will drew are also “spreading”. Will says his now-MEMORIES” (connected to the mf-who parallels lonnie) are “growing, spreading, and killing.” Later, Kali in reference to Brenner says her wounds “spread” because she didn’t address her pain caused by Brenner (her papa). And when kali creates a brenner-double he says El has a terrible wound that’s “growing, spreading, and eventually it’ll kill you.” (if not addressed) and they don’t stand up against their father.

-doors connecting to problematic fathers: We see Will in s1 have a sign on his bedroom door that says “do not enter”. And he also requires a password for cb for people to enter. When joyce in s1 hears aggressive knocking on the door she assumes it’s lonnie and says to “go away, Lonnie”.  In s1 we the demogorgan unlock the door telepathically and chase Will. later we see Will stare at the shed door terrified as the demogorgan sneaks up  behind him. in s2 we see the mf slam open the arcade door by itself, and also open his house door in the same manner . when the house door opens it zooms in on the back of his neck- which indicates it’s based off an old memory-a now memory.  We have El also telepathically unlock people’s doors in a similar fashion-not respecting such boundaries. And El asks in s1e1 for the door to stay open.  And Neil, Hopper, and Billy  angrily yell to “OPEN THE DOOR!!!!!” And Hopper slams doors open demanding they stay 3 inches open. We also see El enter a door in the void to see Heather being attacked in a tub and entering the darkness.

tubs:brenner forces El into a sensory deprivation tank. Later El refers to it as a “tub” after seeing the byers tub. we later see the mf is afraid of the byers’ tub. And tub iconography shows up for billy & heather. the s4 movies hint at Will having a tra*matic memory occurring in the tub.

The fathers of St  (recap):

Brenner (“papa” to El and Kali). He forces El into a dark room for hours when she doesn’t obey him. At one point tries to force her to k*ll an animal.  Given the way she ate at Benny’s- he may have starved her as another form of punishment.He allows El no ability to express herself (and dresses her in a masculine/androgounous way) and bans her from the outside world. He tries using a calm-kind demeanor to try and manipulate mothers (Joyce & Karen) into thinking he cares about their kids. And uses El as a weapon/spy .  He would read to El and give her flowers and  a lion plushie . in the st novel  (suspicious minds) he compared the children/numbers to  “rabbits” he could “hurt”.

Lonnie-(dead beat dad of Jonathan and Will). divorced.Forced Jonathan to k*ll a rabbit. It’s implied he has thrown his kids in his dark car trunk  (since Jonathan checks if Will is lonnie’s trunk in s1). He tries manipulating Joyce into thinking he cares about Will. But he just wanted to use Will’s death to make money. He canonically-joked about his son dissappearing. And insulted his ex wife. Then when he realizes he can profit off his son’s death-who he hasn’t seen in years. He leaves his 20-something live in gf, flirts with Joyce calling her “babe”. And pretends to care for Will and the rest of his family. Then gaslights them when they call out his bs. He also has called Will a “f*g” and it’s implied he forced Will to hunt/play baseball. He also shoves Jonathan into a wall. He can have a relatively calm demeanor like Brenner-but then blows up. He smokes, and it’s implied he may be an alcholic since beer cans are littered all over his house. Will has lion plushie in cb (and since lonnie means ‘lion’ it may have been given to him by Lonnie?). He  (like Hopper) implies Joyce is mentally ill and that she’s hallucinating due to grief-and says she’s going to go “over the edge” mirroring Hopper’s words about Joyce in s1. 

Neil- divorced.Calls Billy a “f*got”, and forced him to play baseball. He later shoves his son into a wall and slaps him. He has a calm demeanor and then yells to make his points with Billy.  He also yells at first wife cause romantically jealous. Him & Lonnie both have fights with their ex wives where the phrase “I’m not lying to you” is used. 

Hopper- divorced.in s1-3 we see he smokes, pops pills,  and is an alocholic. The pilot pitch explicitely states he is . He is shown to have anger issues, sells out El’s location to Brenner in s1. In s2 threatens to send her back to her ab*sers if she doesn’t listen to him/ stay isolated from the outside world. dresses her androgonously and tries controlling her romantic relationships. He yells at Joyce cause romantically jealous . joyce annoyed at Hopper: “yes everyman i speak to is my boyfriend”. El says “you are like papa.” And in the pilot Brenner and Hopper were said to dress similarly. And Murray says to Joyce that Hopper is a “brute” who “reminds (her) of a (past) bad relationship”. Aka Lonnie. 

Steve’s dad- is called an “asshole” by Steve and it’s implied he cheats on his wife.

heather’s dad - is sexist to Nancy and cold to his wife. We see Heather (who is the same age as Nancy) has some hidden resentment towards him.

Sam (Max’s dad)- divorced/out of the picture like Lonnie. in the novel ‘runaway max’ is said to be a criminal who often took Max to shady places/bars. And also taught her how to pick door locks-similar to how Jonathan picked a car lock open in s1 like max with a door in s2.

Dustin’s dad- also out of the picture ? dead... maybe?

Recap: Parallels of fathers

forced their kids to k*ll animals/violence toward rabbits/throws kids in dark places/gave their kids lion plushies/tries unsuccessfully to manipulate mother’s  into thinking he cares for their kids: Lonnie & Brenner

taught kids shady stuff like how to pick locks: Lonnie & Sam 

are described as poor/called their sons “f*gs”/forced sons to play baseball/slam sons into walls/have their sons attack Steve/have sons who are into hard rock music: lonnie & Neil

“i’m not lying to you”-:Neil/ex wife and Lonnie/joyce

dr*gs/smokes/alochol ab*se/womanizers/hunters: lonnie & Hopper

imply Joyce is wrong about the supernatural and is just mentally ill: Lonnie and Hopper. Both use a similar expression of her being on “the edge”.

lie to Joyce: Lonnie and Hopper (specifically lies claiming he took her advice and uses that lie to try and get a date with her)

Gave them cat plushies: Lonnie,Brenner, possibly hopper with sara’s tiger 

being connected to flowers: Brenner & Lonnie

yell at love interest when romantically jealous:Neil and Hopper in s3

Hopper: compared to Lonnie (by Murray in s3) and Papa/brenner (by el in s2). in the original pilot Brenner & Hopper were supposed to look similar. Brenner was supposed to have a beard, and wear jeans and plaid shirts similar to hopper in s1. it’s also interesting to note how Hopper started to look more like Neil -they’re both blondes-and in s3 they have matching moustaches (and billy started growing out a moustache in s3-mirroring him becoming a mini neil too).

dress El in masculine clothes/isolate her from outside world/spy on El/read to El:Hopper & Brenner

calm demeanor but quick to anger/ also divorced: Hopper, lonnie, Neil

yells to “open the door”: Neil, Hopper, (and possessed Billy) .it’s also implied Lonnie can pick door locks open.

outliers

jonathan - In the pilot pitch he’s described as taking on the father role for Will (after Lonnie left).  However, he is often paralleled to the mothers of st. Most likely because he never had a healthy father figure- and distrusts even good men like Bob- so models his parenting behavior more so on maternal figures. We see  Jonathan being paralleled to the mothers taking photos of their kids on Halloween, and Jonathan being paralleled to Karen twice.  We even see him bored/annoyed in s2 watching the film “mr mom” since the comedic premise was haha - dad has to stay at home- cook for their kids , drive them to school, do laundry, whaaa how can a man do that ... look it’s so hard  ? isn’t that what moms do instead? All things Jonathan does without literally tripping over himself and failing like the older male film character, initially does .  He also in canon helps pay for the mortgage. We also see Jonathan is unlike the other problematic fathers (who demand entry into their kid’s room) since we see him knock on Will’s door and get verbal permission before entering Will’s room in s2 (respecting Will’s sign). Similar to joyce ringing cb’s doorbell and getting verbal permission from Will to enter.We also see on Halloween Jonathan mocks Bob but when Will defends him Jonathan later mimics Bob telling Will “hope it doesn’t suck” (in a vampire voice) showing at least subconsciously he was mirroring the parenting-like behavior from Bob (since Will liked Bob). So Bob became the first male he used as an inspiration for his ‘parenting style’.

Ted-  is shown in direct opposition to Lonnie.In s1 we see Ted help Mike put on a tie mentioning to Mike it has to be a “little tight” and that it “looks good”. And  after this scene: we see Jonathan struggle to put on a tie (and then ripping it off in frustration-signifying his lack of a father figure that could have taught him how to do this when younger). So in s3 we see Jonathan’s ties are always poorly done and slightly loose around his neck. The same season Jonathan comments about how Nancy’s dad makes 6 figures and his dad “isn’t even around”. He finacially supports his family. cuddles Holly on his fav laze-boy and takes her to fairs. Wants to comfort Mike after Will dies (but listens to Karen to give him time). Has Karen tell Mike that if he wants to talk to him about Will’s death- he can call him at work and he’ll come home for Mike. His calm demeanor seems genuine -unlike the other father figures who quickly lose their cool facade (Ted has never yelled at his kids). Even when kids yell or insult him he doesn’t lose his cool. Worst things he’s done: told kids to stop cursing, naps alot, gives an outdated football analogy about How Mike needs to stop acting out . Why st fans claim he’s a bad dad : boring af aka the human embodiment of wonder bread, in loveless marriage,  and not rambo-esque like Hopper so people act like he’s a horrible dad in comparison to Hopper. Despite being a  more stable parent in the normal everyday situations.

Lucas’ dad- unfortunately we saw very little of him. But he seems somewhat similar to Ted. He’s nice and gives somewhat dated  advice at the table to his son-like Ted did. He seems like a mellow, chill dude, who finacially supports his family. But,Unlike karen/ted it seems like he loves his wife and vice versa.

Bob-the wannabe stepdad-  as the first romantic interest after Lonnie-He contrasts him. He doesn’t do drugs or smoke.  Is emotionally vulnerable with Joyce and vice versa. He never makes fun of Will or Joyce’s mental health issues. he relates to Will -who was bullied as a kid, and is into computers, comics, and was in av club (just like Will). He is supportive of Will’s non-manly interests and encourages those interests (bringing brain puzzles, and board games over when told Will is sick).  Unlike Lonnie who tried to force ‘manly’ interests on to Will. He isn’t mad when Will busts his brand new camera but is simply concerned that Will is being bullied. He’s also shown being concerned about Will’s mental health. He helps joyce with little things like finding her keys and taking Will to school. His happy calm demeanor  is genuine-and he is never shown yelling in anger. He kindly disagrees with joyce on the ‘ drawings on the walls game’ cause he was concerned it wasn’t good for Will’s mental health (and tells her she can talk more about Will’s issues). He sacrifices himself to save Will, joyce and everyone around him.  And unlike Hopper- Bob was never jealous or mean to joyce about the men in Joyce’s life. Bob was serious about Joyce and the boys-he wanted them to be his family and move them near his own blood relatives. We see he had an impact on the boys at the end of s2- Will drawing the “bob newby superhero” drawing and Jonathan using Bob’s camera. 

[jimlingss]

Kale’in Me Softly

➜ Words: 17.1k

➜ Genres: 90% Fluff, 9.5% Angst, 0.5% Smut, Farm!AU

➜ Summary: After your grandfather's passing, you decide to take over his farm and plant the trendiest vegetable: kale. It's a struggle to be in the countryside when you've always been a city girl. But there's someone less than sympathetic — a grumpy farmer across the acres who's constantly trying to pick a fight with you.

➜ Warning: Strongly implied smut

cr.

Home — you left it all behind for this.    The tractor chugs and wheezes. Its wheels roll over the craggy and unpaved road, making you feel every bump and pebble through constant jolts and bounces. The sweltering heat of the scorching sun was already making you break into a sweat and you sigh, listening to the buzzing of cicadas and the sputtering engine.   But otherwise, it was quiet. More than what you were used to. There isn’t any traffic, honking, construction or the noise of motorcycle engines or sirens of ambulances. There’s just the rustle of leaves and the swaying of grass strands.   “I can’t believe Old Man Seok had such a pretty granddaughter.”    A laugh bubbles out of you. “It’s all in the genes. Did you know my grandfather?”   “Everyone knew Old Man Seok. Everyone knows everyone here. But it sure helps that our farms are next door to each other. Just down yonder.” The middle-aged farmer grips the steering wheel. A good-natured aura in spite of his intimidating disposition, he feels like a strict but caring father figure. “He was very kind even to the end of his life. Offered my family a lot of jam throughout the years. A good man through and through. My condolences.”   Your smile softens. “Thank you.”   “I gotta say, it’s nice to have a new face around these neck of the woods. Doesn’t happen often.” The corner of the man’s mouth pulls and the wrinkles by his eyes crease. “You should come meet my son sometime.”   “I wouldn’t mind.” The tractor pulls up to the worn house you’ve seen in your mother’s childhood pictures. “I always love making new friends.”   You hop off the tractor the moment it comes to a stop and the man wishes you luck before you thank him again and he’s on his merry way.   With only one packed suitcase in hand, you walk up to the house and push your Gucci sunglasses to the top of your head to get a better look. The fence, door and roof are made with a cherry wood that compliments the forest green walls. The patio, on the other hand, is out of oak that matches the rocking chair in the corner. There’s white trim lining the rectangular windows, giving you a peek at the purple, paisley curtains inside.   The house looks tattered through time, but cozy.   “You’re leaving?!” — “Do you really think this is a good idea, Y/N?” — “Do you even know what you’re going to do there?”   The voices of the friends you left behind echo in the recesses of your mind while you fiddle with the hem of your dress in the shade of classical blue — 2020’s pantone colour and a fantastic fashion statement. It’s not farm-appropriate, but better than most of the things in your closet.   You went shopping for the last time before you packed your one pink suitcase, but you’re starting to realize those tight, denim overalls might not work like they do in the movies.   “You think you can run a farm?!” — “I didn’t raise you so you could go back to the countryside!” — “You don’t even know what you’re doing, Y/N! Grow up already and stop being ridiculous.”   An exhale squeezes out of you as you dispel away your family’s discouragement and you grip your grandfather’s letter as you finally muster the courage to approach the house.   When your grandfather passed away, you inherited ten thousand dollars and his five acre farm. It’s small. Nothing worthy of bragging about and one of the hundred of reasons everyone thought you would sell it. They even urged you to, so they could get a split of the money. But they never thought you would refuse. That you would leave everything behind and come all the way here.   It’s a mess.   Thick layers of dust coat the antique furniture and peering out from the kitchen window, the field is littered in leaves and twigs, wooden planks and debris. A sense of guilt overwhelms you.    You can’t believe your family let it become this way.    You set down your belongings and almost immediately, you begin to look around. Pacing the backyard, the field, the barn, trying to figure out what is what. And it’s not long before a dark-haired man with doe eyes and a permanent dear-in-headlights expression finds you.   He nearly startles you to death with his timid greeting. “H-Hi...”    “Holy shit!” You press your hand to your chest, spinning around and he boyishly grins. “You scared me!”   “S-Sorry…my bad...” Boots, jeans and a white shirt, he looks like a newly graduated high school student who stumbled into the wrong place. “Are you Y/N?”   “That’s me.” You wonder if he’s here to kill you. The farm setting was the perfect location after all and serial killers these days have the potential of looking as cute as he does. “You’re...?”   “I’m Jungkook. I used to work with Old Man Seok. My mom told me you’d be comin’ today and that I should show you around, so….” He scratches the back of his neck, oddly endearing for how awkward he is.    You let him guide you despite having already gotten the chance to peek at almost everything — a detail you leave out to spare him from being disheartened. But with Jungkook here, he has the strength to widen the doors of the old shed out back and you get a better look at the storage and old equipment.   “God.” You cough and bat your hand from the dust piles arising. “It’s so dirty.”   “Yeah. The tractor needs a bit of fixin’ up which I can help you with, if you need.”   It’s clear that towards the end of your grandfather’s life, he was too weak to properly take care of his property. You can tell by the way the field is in tatters, all his crops long dead and his machinery is in desperate need of repair. But as you gander at the space, you discover that there’s everything you need right here. Shovels. Wheelbarrows. Sickles and spades.   “Thank you. I would appreciate that.”   Jungkook nods, wearing a small smile. “Your grandpa used to help me out a lot, so it’s the least I can do. If you ever need any help, I’m down a few acres West by the market. Just give a holler.”   Your cheeks warm, realizing he’s not as young as he appears to be. “I will.”   After a while longer, Jungkook leaves you to get settled down and you bid him farewell. You know it’s going to take a bit of time for you to get used to this change, but with a sigh, you try your best to familiarize yourself with the land and surrounding climate.   //   Back in LA, you were a fashion design marketer.   Originally, you set out to fulfill your childhood dream of being a top designer for a big brand like Chanel or Dior, but along the way, you ended up in the marketing sector. It wasn’t as bad as what people thought. A kind of niche you actually quite enjoyed and while you might've left it all behind for the farm life, you know the first step to starting anything is doing market research.   So at nine in the morning sharp, you enter the farmers’ market.   Open every Sunday, there’s a certain bustle and liveliness in the atmosphere. People from surrounding communities and even far away cities have come to get their fresh produce and dairy products. The market place is held in an open building with doors and massive garages wide open, practically held outdoors itself, and as you walk along the stands, you notice goat milk to beeswax lip balm being sold. There’s everything someone could ask for, bath salts and herbal soaps, baked goods and handmade aprons and quilts. You didn’t know farmers’ markets had so much to offer.   “Would you like to try some raspberry jam, darlin’?” A plump lady offers you a spatula.    “Sure. Thank you.” The sweet taste ends up bursting on your palette and you hum at the taste, considering buying a jar for breakfast. But she interrupts with a curious stare and a bigger smile.   “I haven’t seen you around before, dear. Did you come from somewhere far?”   “Oh no, I just moved in. My grandpa was Seokjin….”   “You mean Old Man Seok?” Her entire spine straightens, face lighting up. “I never knew he had a granddaughter!”   You warm, proud that your grandfather’s made such a lasting impression. “I just moved in a few acres away.”   “Taking care of your grandpa’s farm?” she asks and when you nod, the woman practically swoons. “Why, what a gracious thing you’re doin’! Old Man Seok would be proud to have a granddaughter like you! Keepin’ his legacy alive like that. Heaven knows I can’t even get my boy up to milk the cows!”   You laugh and she ends up handing you a small jar of raspberry jam for free, wishing you the best of luck.    Apparently word spreads fast in this place. After ten minutes of exploring the market, kind and overfamiliar strangers approach from behind their stands, greeting you and taking your hands. Some muse how similar you are to your grandfather while others happily send you some cheese and bread. By the time you’re at the end, it looks like you went grocery shopping.   But in the midst of it all, you get the chance to talk to some customers. Making conversation with a pregnant woman, an elderly man, and a little kid overly excited to use his allowance for some candy. People are receptive and friendly, more than what you’re used to back in the city. But you study what they purchase, their spending habits, what people seem to be interested in.   Then, your attention is caught at a cute honey stand — jars of honey sealed being sold with beeswax candles tied with pastel yellow ribbon. More importantly, you recognize the doe-eyed boy at the cash register.    “Jungkook!”   He greets you with a big smile. “Oh, hey, Y/N! I didn’t expect you’d be here.”   With your previous lifestyle, the attention of a cute boy like Jungkook isn’t enough to make you bashful — a few years too late on that — but you can still appreciate how endearing he is. “I’m just taking a look around. Thought I should get to know the place since I might be here soon.”   “How’re things going? Did you settle in yet?”   “I did actually.” It wasn’t in the realm of your expectations to make friends so quickly out here, but to have such pleasant small talk with Jungkook proves your anticipations were wrong. “It took a lot of time to clean the house, but totally worth it! I strung polaroids above the mantle and I found a vintage armchair that’s really in style, so I’d say things are going pretty well.”   The boy grins from your enthusiasm. “It sounds like you’re adapting better than I would.”   “I’m trying.” Your smile becomes sheepish. “I’m still figuring out the fields and the land. I haven’t even gotten started in clearing out the shed yet.”    He nods, lips parting to respond. But then there’s a call of his name behind him and he sighs before sending an apologetic expression. “Sorry. My ma has more honey to unload from the truck. I gotta skedaddle before she yells, but I’m glad things are working out for you!”   Jungkook’s undoubtedly cute, even when he says goodbye and promises to catch up with you soon. You don’t dwell either, continuing to parade through the market by yourself and discover all the places you missed on your first walk that was overwhelmed with others intercepting.   What piques your curiosity this time is a wooden stall with a soft green cloth draped over the flat surface and a sign that reads ‘Romaine with Me’. What’s offered in the crates are lettuce. Lots and lots of different heads of lettuce lined in rows like plush animal prizes on display at carnival games.   You don’t pay much mind to the man behind the stall that’s sleepily blinking and leaning his head in his hand, elbow propped up and figure slumped over. He looks like he’s dozed off but somehow kept his lids peeled back.   You approach and read the labels underneath. Red. Green. Romaine. Boston. Bibb. Arugula. Batavia. Radicchio. Iceberg.   “I didn’t know there were so many types of lettuce,” you mutter to yourself.   “It’s two dollars for each bundle or head,” the man suddenly pipes up in a raspy tone, nearly startling you to death. You realize his pupils have darted right on you and that’s he’s not in fact sleeping with his eyes open. “Romain is three. And there’s a sale on the radicchio.”   The man has an oddly intimidating disposition for looking so tired. He has tender features and seemingly soft skin that makes you wonder about his skin care routine. Yet, his hair is as dark as his cat-like eyes that have narrowed in on you. You suddenly feel pressure to make a purchase lest you waste more of his time.   “What are the differences?” you ask, studying the lettuces in front of you.   “Iceberg, romaine and radicchio are crispy. But iceberg has a clean and fresh taste. Romaine is more bitter and radicchio is a bit bitter and spicy. Boston and bibb are butter lettuces which are softer and have a sweet taste. Boston's leaves are wider and lighter green than bibb's. Arugula is peppery. Batavia is your usual with more crinkled leaves. Red and green are your standard.”    The man breathes the explanation out with only one lazy inhale in between and when he’s done, he gives you a look as if asking if you’re satisfied. But you’re more than that. You’re genuinely impressed.   He spat facts at you and you’re not sure what to do with the information.   “You know a lot about lettuce.”   “I’m a lettuce farmer,” he deadpans.   “Really?” The corners of your lips pull, even more intrigued than before. You didn’t take him for much of a farmer. The man has a kind of bad-boy vibe that you’re accustomed to and without much thought, the clumsy words stumble out of your mouth— “I thought farmers were dirtier.”   “What?”   “Like sunburnt, straw hats, overalls.” You nod, studying the produce and missing his offended expression. “Like that’s totally the farmer’s aesthetic.”   “Aesthetic?”   “Yeah,” you hum, not realizing the man was glaring holes into you. “I’ll take a bundle of the romaine, please.”   You end up going home shortly after, trekking underneath the sun with recyclable bags full of food that fills your fridge, sure to be enough for a whole week. You’re not sure what to exactly do after that — there’s plenty of tasks and jobs to be done, but you’re not certain where to start.   So you decide to take a break — partly to relax and partly to procrastinate. With your sweat wiped away and a fan whirring in the corner, you plop down into the vintage armchair and grab one of the magazines you brought with you. But it isn’t a good read, not when you had already looked at most of the pages on the plane ride over here….   Your mind ends up wandering, considering what you should do with grandfather’s land, if there was anything new you could offer at all. And at the same time as you’re flipping through the magazine, you stumble on a particular page. A recipe for an avocado kale poke bowl.   You skim it and your eyes stop at a single word. Kale.   Kale. It sticks to you like glue and you squint at the text, the four letters in print. Your mind searches and it hits you that kale was never sold at the farmers’ market. There was everything, every fruit, every vegetable. But not kale.    A smile stretches across your face, determination blooming in your chest. Organic kale was a total new fad. Good for you. Healthy. Sought after in the city, but yet to be prevalent in the countryside. It was a perfect opportunity, one that was sitting right in front of you this entire time.   Relief overwhelms you as you make a decision on your niche: kale.   //   It starts off with books.    Gathering as much information as you possibly can, you also learn through guides and internet articles on your chosen crop. You find out that kale becomes bitter over the summer, sweetest in the Fall after being touched by a light frost. It bolts in Spring, so sowing seeds is most appropriate around April to May while they can still be planted throughout the seasons. It provides a yield between late September to early May, direct seeds maturing in fifty to seventy days while transplants take a bit less than half the time.   You learn how to protect seedlings from pests, purchasing lightweight fabric to cover rows, and you begin to plow the fields.    It takes time to clean up, to get your grandfather’s equipment fixed, to become financed. But you start right away and soon, you’re sewing the seeds eighteen to twenty four inches apart. Getting transplants. Watering them appropriately. Working day and night.   You’re not exactly sure if you’re doing this right. Especially on hot days when you’re sweating buckets, dirt has marred your skin and your lower back screams. But you know that even if you fail and have to pack your bags, the effort of trying would be enough for you to feel satisfied.   So, you persist.    And day by day, the seeds begin to sprout. The dirt is littered with tiny green specks and you feel thrilled that it’s actually growing. Slowly, but surely, you would return this farm to its former glory by your own hands.   //   It’s another Sunday when you take a trip to the farmers’ market.   In spite of having only been here for a short amount of time, you’ve become acquainted with the market. You don’t get lost anymore in the bustle and many like to stop you to ask about your day. It’s a hospitable place, never making you feel uncomfortable or awkward, and you feel relieved that your grandfather was surrounded by such warmth till the end of his life.   You’re also starting to become familiar with one particular wooden stall and the sleepy man behind it.   No matter what week it is, he’s always there, wearing the same loose flannels but in different colours, flipping through a pamphlet or dozing off. He only looks up when someone comes to buy lettuce.   But today, he’s joined by an older man that recognizes you all too easily. “I almost didn’t see you there without being so gussied up in those city clothes. Looks like you’ve gotten yourself comfortable with farm life. Almost reminds me of Old Man Seok back in his heyday.”   Immediately, the younger lifts his head up, brow cocked. “You know her?”   “She’s Old Man Seok’s granddaughter. I gave her a ride to his farm when she first came,” Mr. Min introduces and his son gives you a better look, one that’s ridden with a modest amount of distaste. “Y/N, this is my boy, Yoongi, that I was talking about.”   It never occured to you how similar they are. Their husky voices and quiet yet intimidating dispositions are unparalleled. But the older seems more open and friendly than the younger who has a blank expression and his eyes narrowed in at you. Although you don’t get much time to dwell, ask him that the issue might be or if that’s simply who he is.   Some people naturally have a resting bitch face and Yoongi might be one of them.   “How’s the countryside life doing for you so far?” his father asks and you smile, attention redirected.   “It’s not too bad. But the sun’s hot and I didn’t know farming could be so hard!” Your head quirks to the side, still awed that this was the lifestyle of so many. “I always thought it would be easy cause the organic edamame plant back at my apartment wasn’t so bad to take care of.”   Yoongi scoffs.   “Yep, it’s difficult alright.” Mr. Min’s engrossed and asks, “What’re you growing?”   Enthusiasm and a sense of pride makes you exclaim the answer— “Kale!”    Yoongi winces at the volume of your voice while his father is made even more curious.    “Kale?”   “I was thinking about what wasn’t being sold at the farmers’ market and I found that kale was underrepresented,” you rant, “Kale’s totally the new wave. It’s a trendy, super food and packed with antioxidants. Did you know that kale is among the most nutrient-dense foods on the planet?”   “Can’t say I knew that.” Mr. Min has his mouth upturned into an amused smile. Yoongi, on the other hand, sighs. “I’d love to hear more about it. My wife’s quite passionate about these kinds of things too. She practically runs the entire farm! You should come over for dinner sometime, Y/N.”   “She should?” — “I’d love to!”   Both you and Yoongi talk over another, but you don’t hear him. You’ve never been invited to this kind of thing before and your family rarely ate together. So, the aesthetic of sitting down for a countryside meal with a farming family, like it’s Thanksgiving, is a fantasy you’re eager to fulfill.    //   Unfortunately, dinner at the Min household has to be held off when your first harvest comes.    Finally after a month of waiting, there’s actual kale out in the fields that are ready to be collected. The leaves are small, a little bitter and it’s not a large yield — but it isn’t bad for the first time. You’re happy enough that you’ve grown something, so you don’t nick pick for now.   Instead, you focus on wrapping up the bundles, on preparing a stall, on organizing a spot at the market to sell. And when the days of busy work and high pressure accumulate into the first Sunday of the month, you’ve arranged crates of freshly washed, organic kale ready for purchase.   It’s exciting. One week you’re walking around as a customer and the next, you’re on the other side of the stand as a vendor. You get to witness the behind the scenes of other farmers, the doors opening at nine sharp, the increasing bustle of the market.   But for some reason, you only have a few people who stop by and only one who buys a bundle.   “Don’t be worried,” Jungkook comforts, having stopped by once he noticed you. “People tend to buy what they’re used to, so just wait a while. You’ll eventually get your own set of customers!”   You can only hope he’s right.   By five in the evening, it’s over and you hold in your sigh. You wonder what you should do with the abundance of kale you have left, but you try not to linger as you close shop and the market shuts its doors.   Everyone seems to disassemble their stalls with ease, carrying crates to their cars, collecting their earnings. Most are gone within ten minutes but you struggle, unable to keep up when it’s all too new to you and before you know it, you’re the last one left in the space that’s still cleaning up after yourself.   The only person you catch is Yoongi who’s walking off, passing you with a crate of two lettuce heads, having already sold most of it. You notice he’s in one of his open flannels again, this time it’s yellow and gray, and you send a friendly smile. But he doesn’t say anything or make a change from his indifferent expression.   But then he stops. Five meters away.   “You should stop treating this like a joke,” Yoongi deadpans, swiveling around on his heel.   You freeze, halfway from grabbing the mason tip jar that you decorated with washi tape the night before. You blink, not sure if Min Yoongi is actually and willingly uttering words to you or if it’s your imagination. “What?”   But it isn’t. He is very much talking to you. “The market isn’t here for someone like you to play games.”   Now, you’re just confused. “But…...I’m not playing games...?”   “It’s obvious you’re not serious about this.”   You scoff. You’ve had your fair share of running into mean girls in the fashion industry and in High School, the ones who are snarky and make passive aggressive insults that are disguised as compliments. You just never expected to run into something like that here.   And in such a straightforward way too.   Usually people are more subtle when they show that they don’t like you.   “You can’t accuse me. You don’t know anything about me!”   Yoongi stares at you boredly. “You’re making a mockery out of people’s livelihood.”   “I’m trying to learn.” You cross your arms, standing your ground.    You suppose from his perspective it might be off-putting that you’ve come from nowhere and you’re trying your hand at the farm life. But you swear you haven’t been condescending nor have you ever looked down on anyone. At least you hope it hasn’t come across that way.   “I don’t know what I’m doing, but if it seems like I’ve been mocking you then I’m sorry.” This isn’t just a hobby to you nor is it a spectacle for your amusement. You’re serious. Even if you might come across as ditzy, insincere and inexperienced. “But you don’t need to go out of your way to insult me. I already know I was stupid for coming here. Why do you think I came alone? This is a whole new world for me and I’m trying, so I’d appreciate some empathy.”   Yoongi stares at you. You stare at him.   The two of you have your eyes locked in one another’s, and you want to throw hands, but then he suddenly walks away as if he didn’t hear a word you said.   You glare at his backside, huffing out in frustration.    As if your day wasn’t bad enough, he had to make it worse.   //   “Stop being ridiculous, Y/N!”   Your mom’s voice is jarring on the other end of the line. It’s grating to your ears. There’s a strong urge to hang up, but you’re not sure if she’ll call again. You’re surprised she called you in the first place — the likelihood of a second time is slim.   “I’m actually doing well, thank you very much.”   She ignores you. “Sell the land and come home. Do you really think you can do this?!”   Tears sting your eyes against your will. You inhale to keep your voice even and steady. “I do actually. I’m learning while I’m out here and it’s not as hard as I thought it would be.”   “You’re making this harder than it needs to be. You had a high paying job. An apartment. Clean water to drink. Lots of food to eat. You were comfortable! And you gave it all up, why?!”   “The air’s fresher here,” you quip much to your mom’s chagrin and frustration. “I’m a grown woman, mom. I can make my own decisions.”   “Until you make others pick up after you!”    You wince, hand tightening on your duvet. You try your best not to cry. She doesn’t need to know that you’re running out of money, that your kitchen is filled with leafy greens you couldn’t sell, that your back aches from working out on the fields. “Don’t come running to me when you finally get bored or you’re halfway to starving to death.”   You know they think sooner or later, you’ll show up back home with your packed bag. But you refuse to give in. You’ll prove your friends and family wrong — you’ll follow through with this.   If there was one thing you were good at, it was being stupid. Being stupid made you at the bottom of the class, it made you have friends who used you, it made you struggle. And it made you resilient. It made you know what working hard to get to where you want meant. It made you determined.   And you’re gonna fucking give it your best! Even if the smarter route would be to give up!   So with your sleeves rolled up to your elbows, you brace yourself and enter your kitchen full of kale. If you can’t sell it raw, then there are other things that you can try.   //   “Get your kale kombucha! Your kale smoothie! Full of vitamins and nutrients!”   You’re holding a tray of paper cup samples, voice loud with a wide smile. A woman who’s looking at your stand curiously passes by and you steal the chance, smoothly intercepting her way. “Would you like to try one, ma’am?”   “Sure.”   She takes a sample and once she sips, her eyes light up and her expression becomes inquisitive. The woman approaches your stand, looking over the products you have. “It’s really delicious. How much is it for a smoothie?”   “The three sizes are here.” You gesture to the display and she hums. “Two dollars for a small, two fifty for a medium and three for a large. We also have salted kale chips, kale guacamole and kale pesto.”   “Is this all homemade?”   “It is!” Your enormous smile is proud. “I grew the kale organically and made these with fresh ingredients.”   “I’ll take a large smoothie, this guacamole and a bundle of just regular kale then.”   “Coming right up!”   You’re no stranger to the art of advertising — it’s one of your strengths with your marketing background. You’re pretty sure the chalkboard signs are doing a good job of directing attention to your stall and the samples are certainly going a long way too.   “Can I try one, miss?” A little kid tugs on your green apron and you lower yourself down to their eye-level, happily handing them two.   “Of course you can!”   Sunday after Sunday, you do better and better.   Of course, it’s not without constant trial and error, honing in recipes and packaging, learning how to keep products as fresh as possible. But the improvements make the labour all worth it.    You notice how Yoongi watches you across the floor and when you smile, he immediately looks away. But there's little time to pay attention to him when the lineup at your stall gradually becomes longer and longer. Jungkook helps you out when he can, whether that’s manning the register beside you or handing out samples to draw in curious customers.   “You’re gonna run me out of business soon, Y/N.” Jungkook says in the midst of a slow down when you’re finally able to catch your breaths.   “Please,” you giggle. “I’m sure you’re the one drawing in the business. Weren’t those last two customers trying to get your number for the past ten minutes? Last time they kept on asking me about you too.”   The boy laughs shyly and it’s all too endearing. “They’re just bein’ nice. If anything, you’re the one drawing in the customers since you’re so pretty and all.”   More giggles bubble out of your throat and you lean closer to him. “So you think I’m pretty?”   Jungkook realizes what he said and his face reddens. He awkwardly scratches the back of his neck. “I mean...isn’t that a fact?”   “You’re too sweet, Kook,” you sigh wistfully. “Thank you for helping me.”   “Anytime, really.” Jungkook’s smiles softly and his lips part, but before he can say anything, his peripheral vision finally catches the weight of a third party’s stare. His eyes travel across the market floor to the wooden stall of lettuce — right on the man behind it who’s rolling his eyes.    You follow his line of sight and a knowing smile appears on your features. “Jungkook, can you hand me the sample tray?”   You might not be the brightest crayon in the box, but you’re not that big of an idiot. For the past two weeks, you’ve noticed how Yoongi keeps staring at you. You don’t suspect it to be sudden infatuation either. Most likely, it’s surprise that you’ve proven him wrong or reluctant admission that you’re on your way to success, or perhaps passive aggression too.   Whatever the case is, you approach him and witness him visibly stiffen as you come closer.   Your smile remains bright when you ask, “Is everything okay, Yoongi?”   “I’m fine,” the man deadpans. “You should move. You’re blocking my customers.”   “You have no customers.”   “I would if you weren’t standing there.”   You scoff. “You are not cute.”   Yoongi’s brow lifts, amused at your comment. “Excuse me?”   “I want to make peace,” you outright declare, having no shame with confronting him. “I’ve had my fair share of drama back home and I’m not looking forward to picking fights here, so I forgive you.” Yoongi snorts as you raise your sample tray as a peace offering. “I know you’re curious, so you try one. My kale kombucha is my most popular item. It’s a fermented tea that has lots of healthy yeast and bacteria.”   “No.” The dark-haired man rejects without needing to blink. “Kale is disgusting. There’s a reason no one sells it here.”   You’re shocked, not knowing where to start. But there’s no point in arguing with him and spewing nutrition facts. Your pride is much too high to insist too, so you merely lift your chin. “Fine. Suit yourself. But one of these days, you’re going to fall in love with kale, Min Yoongi.”   It’s a challenge — but a one-sided one. Yoongi simply sighs as you strut away, feeling more tired than he did before.    //   The engines of the moving truck rumbles and coughs as it rolls down the dirt road.   It’s drawn the attention of several, including his dad and mom. They’re peering out the front window, curtains tugged with their noses pressed to the glass. Usually, Yoongi doesn’t care much for what the neighbours are up to or keeping up with community gossip, but for some reason, his curiosity is piqued enough that he glances out as well.   “What’s going on?”   “There are trucks coming back and forth from Old Man Seok’s land.”   Yoongi wonders if you’ve given up and you’re moving out. He wouldn’t be surprised.   But suddenly, before he can walk off and mind his own business, his mother whirls around. “Yoonie, go check up on our new neighbour.”   He exhales exhaustingly. “Why?”   “Well, you’re friends, aren’t you?”    “We’re not.” It’s a firm fact, but his mother doesn’t hear him. She’s already moving into the kitchen and making him follow her. He knows arguing is futile — once she’s set on her mind on something, no one can change it.   “Go on and deliver some cheese too.” She hands him a paper bag. “We haven’t welcomed her properly yet and it’s customary to at least give a greeting and gift.”   Yoongi begrudgingly obliges and minutes later, he finds himself making the trek across the acres to the cottage that always reminded him of Christmas with its cherry red roof and forest green walls. The polluting trucks drive away in the meanwhile, wheels turning against the gravel fading, and the countryside returns to its quaint atmosphere. As he comes closer, Yoongi notices the wooden spools on your lawn and some barber chairs littered around, akin to a dumpster yard, but he avoids them and walks up the porch, knocking twice on the door.   He can imagine thrusting the bag in your hand, muttering a greeting and question or two before getting back to the farm. Yet, what he doesn’t anticipate is silence and then noises farther away.   The man sighs and decides to follow the sounds lest he spends the rest of the afternoon waiting at your front door.   He rounds the house to the backyard.    “What are you doing?”   Yoongi discovers mason jars, picnic blankets, wooden crates sprawled all over on the grass — things he guesses the trucks brought over — and he finds you on a ladder with fairy lights tangled around your limbs.   You jolt. In horror, Yoongi watches the ladder dangerously wobble back and forth, but luckily, it steadies and you twist yourself around. “Holy shit! You almost scared me half to death!”   “What are you doing?” he repeats, more urgently and concerned than before.   “I’m setting up fairy lights obviously.” Your smile is big, cheeks swelling with it. “I’m gonna decorate part of the land with hipster furniture and channel the farm aesthetic. It’s going to become an Insta spot. Hashtag kale-in-farm.”   Yoongi doesn’t understand half of what you just said and he’s not sure if he should even ask.   “What’s a hashtag?”   “You don’t know what a hashtag is?” Your eyes are perfectly rounded, looking at him like he’s an alien and he chuckles. The irony isn’t lost on him. He isn’t the weird one — you are.   “Should I know what it is?”   You don’t answer, merely climbing off the ladder and his breath hitches at how you don’t watch your step.    Yoongi doesn’t get stressed easily, but he swears he’s going to get a heart attack looking at you.   You pull out your phone suddenly from your back pocket and after some tapping, you thrust the screen in his face. “This is Instagram, see? It’s an app where you can follow people and see the pictures that they post. An Insta spot is a place where you can take good Instagram pictures. Hashtags is a way to label the posts, so others can see and search it up. Or at least that’s what I think it is. It’s kind of hard to explain, it’s one of those things that just catches on and you get after using it. This is my page, see?”   You’ve given your phone to him and Yoongi eyes your bikini photos before handing it back.    “Uh-huh.”   “I can’t believe you don’t have an Instagram. You should make one and add me!”   “No thanks.”   You huff, pouting at him and Yoongi’s mouth twitches as he resists the small smile. There’s something in the way you react to him being mean to you that makes it all too entertaining.   “My mom wanted to give you some cheese.” He hands the paper bag over and you excitedly peer inside. “It’s just goat cheese. Usually she makes a cherry pie as a housewarming gift, but today….was a bit last minute.”   Yet in spite of the measly present, Yoongi’s taken aback at how happy you seem. “This is so sweet! Tell your mom I said thank you! I should probably give her some kale—”   He lifts his palm, stopping you in the middle of your sentence. “There’s no need.”   “Well, tell her I said thank you.” You put it down on the wooden patio steps and move towards the ladder. Then something by his foot catches your eye. “Oh, can you do me a favour and put that typewriter on the wooden crate?”   Yoongi doesn’t know why you have a broken typewriter, but he follows your instructions. His eyes travel to several worn bikes you have leaning against the railing. It’s strange considering you don’t seem like the type to bike.   As if reading his mind, you laugh. “They don’t work. It’s just for the aesthetics.”   “Uh-huh.” He turns back, about to bid goodbye and leave this mess behind him. But as he turns away, he witnesses you step on the highest prong of the ladder. The part you’re not allowed to step on. With the danger warning signs plastered on it that says ‘STOP’ in big, red letters.   Yoongi’s breath hitches and he lurches over, grabbing the ladder to steady it as it wobbles.   “Woah!” You regain your balance and turn to grin at him. “Thanks for that. You saved my life!”   “Get off.”   “What?”   “Get off the ladder before you die.” His stern command has you obeying and you come down to the ground again. Yoongi sighs and takes the lights from you. “I’ll do it. Tell me where you want them and hold the bottom rung for me.”   You’re bewildered, but you don’t reject his offer of help. Yoongi follows your instructions too, working quickly and more efficiently than when you were, and you can’t help but giggle as you watch him string the fairy lights.    He glares at you. “What?”   You look up at him, beaming a grin. “For being such a mean, old grump, you’re actually pretty reliable and considerate, Yoongi.”   He diverts his vision elsewhere. “Whatever.”   But it’s all too true.    In many ways, Yoongi reminds you of peppermint candy. Hard on the outside but with just a bit of melting, all too sweet and sugary on the inside.   //   It starts off with you.   A post, a cute caption, the hashtag. You manage to get Jungkook to follow suit and then it’s a group. A person who shows up with their friends, stopping by to enjoy your kale farm and haphazardly filming their adventure to put onto their social media. Then it’s three or four, more and more of the hashtag being used, of pictures being taken, of others catching wind of the trendy new place to take photos, of fresh kale being harvested and kale kombucha being sold.   It’s an exponential growth and before you know it, there’s a bustle at your farm.   Strangers that park in the designated area, families enjoying the picnic spots, young adults posing for photographs underneath the strung fairy lights after dark. Your kale chips and smoothie sales skyrocket and after constructing a website, you know you’ve made a name for yourself.   You hire Jimin, Jungkook’s cousin, to help you out. Recently turned eighteen, he’s gentle and luckily attentive. He excels in customer service and in between selling your products and doing measly tasks to upkeep the farm, you know you’ve finally found a sustainable income aside from the farmers’ market alone.   “This ‘s what I call innovation,” Yoongi’s dad muses as the two of them stand near the tractor, looking over the field to the figures prancing on your land and listening to the laughter that leaks over. “It ain’t often a smart woman suddenly shows,” he says, glancing at him. “You should take advantage of it.”   “It’s not smart.” Yoongi turns away. “It’s dumb luck. There’s nothing impressive about it.”   His dad sighs at him, but as they retreat home, Yoongi can’t help glancing over his shoulder.   //   Yoongi has accepted that you’re a complete wild card — when he thought you were making a spectacle of this rural life for your own amusement, you make a whole declaration about how serious you are. When he expects you to move out, you instead bring bits and bobs to your farm. When he expects you to completely and utterly fail, you thrive.   Yoongi always thought that he was the enigma — hard to understand, hard to get to know, one of the many reasons he isn’t particularly close to anyone. But in reality, you are. At surface level, it looks like you’re simple-minded, overly enthused, optimistic. Yet you continuously defy his expectations.   And he has to applaud you for it.    But of all things, Yoongi most certainly did not expect to see you on his porch one afternoon.   “I got invited by your mom for dinner,” you explain with another infamously bright smile and your arm lifts with a bag. “I brought kale!”   “You did.” He holds in his sigh.   “I don’t know how you want to eat it, so it’s raw….unless…..do you not have electricity? I can go back to prepare it.”   “What?”   “You know, electricity.” When he stares at you, you begin explaining to be helpful. “The stuff that gives you light and power and you can turn on the stove—”   “I know what electricity is!” Yoongi shouts. He’s almost always calm, but you have a talent for being condescending without even realizing.   “What’s with all the noise?” His mom emerges and her face immediately lights up, lips forming into a warm smile. She wipes her hands on her apron and comes to embrace you. “Y/N! I thought I heard your voice! Come in, come in! Oh my word, what’s this? Kale? Thank you! Was the walk here long?”   “Not at all.” You smile, being ushered in the kitchen. It still amazes you how much Yoongi looks like his mom. They both have tender, soft features. Albeit, the male took on his father’s personality and characteristics, his physical appearance compared to his mom is nearly a carbon copy. “It’s only a few acres away. I love your home, by the way. It has a good energy to it.”   Yoongi wonders when you got so comfortable with his parents.   “I’m preparing dinner right now. Should be done fairly soon, but Yoonie! Why don’t you show dear Y/N around the farm?”   Yoongi knows he doesn’t have a choice and you hold in your giggle at his dejected expression. It’s not often you can witness him being obedient and when he takes you through his backyard, you can’t help poking fun at him. “Yoonie?”    “It’s a childhood nickname,” he grumbles.   There’s an urge to squish his cheeks together. They’ve always reminded you of jello or bread loafs, but for the sake of not being slapped, you control the desire.   The Min property is vast.    Chicken coops and several sheds are close to the house, but in the distance, cows and goats graze in the open pastures. The lush fields seem to stretch to the horizon, only broken up by the occasional tree left to grow in peace. It’s a tranquil landscape and there’s an urge to sit back in a rocking chair and knit. Even though you don’t know how to knit.   “How big is the farm?”   “It’s a hundred acres.”   Yoongi says it like it’s nothing impressive, but it’s still fifty times the size of your own farm.   “Is that all lettuce?” You look over the plowed fields filled with green.   “Some of it is asparagus and carrots, but it’s mostly different kinds of lettuce,” he explains, “We don’t sell all of it at the market. We got a few contracts from grocery stores and those get shipped out, so we’re always busy year round.”   You’re amazed. His family manages to do a lot more than you and you already feel swamped half the time. But you suppose you still have a long way to go before you can call yourself a real farmer.   The pair of you approach the fence and you watch the goats chewing on their grass, bleating at you. You grin and mimic their noises, oblivious to the way Yoongi steals a glance at you. “What do you do with all the animals?” you ask.   “They’re for personal usage. We eat chicken eggs and my mom makes cheese a lot.” Yoongi diverts his vision at your intense stare and clears his throat. He didn’t know all of this was so interesting to you. “Have you ever milked a cow before?”   “No!”   “Do you want to learn how?”   “Yes!”   This time, Yoongi can’t hold back his chuckle at your childlike enthusiasm.    He leads a smaller cow into the stall, introducing her as August, and you help him brush her down. Yoongi shows you how to wash August with warm, soapy water, how to clean her utters and let the milk down by relaxing her. He demonstrates as well, clamping the top of the utter between his thumb and first finger before squeezing.   You follow his instructions, mimic his movements and milk squirts into the silver pale successfully. “It feels kind of weird.”   The corner of his thin lips pull. “Is it supposed to feel nice?”   When your hands get tired, Yoongi leans over to help you out, explaining how often someone can milk cows for, where August came from and how long she’s been around. You never expected how awfully endearing it would be to listen to a farm boy talk about his precious cow, but it is. Or maybe that’s just Yoongi being Yoongi. Everything that comes out of his mouth is interesting to you.   “—months ago and…..are you even listening?”   “Of course I am!” You totally weren’t and he doesn’t seem to believe your assertion either, so to divert his attention, you turn the direction of the utter and squeeze. The line of milk squirts directly at Yoongi’s kneecap, dampening his jeans and you laugh at his scandalized expression.   “What the fuc—!”   “Stop! Stop!” You stand, giggling incessantly while blocking your arms up when Yoongi lunges down and squeezes two utters at you. The milk is warm and sticky against your skin. “I’m sorry!”   “Too late!” His cheeks are swollen with a gummy smile, happily taking his revenge.   Before any of you have realized, the sun has gone down and there’s a lingering scent of milk on your clothes. But no one other than you and Yoongi notices or at least his parents don’t say anything.   “How are things going, dear?” his mom asks you with a satisfied smile as she watches you devour her dessert apple pie. Dinner at the Min’s was all too cozy and welcoming. Food had filled the rounded table and the family, albeit only three members in total, had gathered together.    For the past few months, you’ve been eating by yourself with a magazine by your side or in front of the old television with some obscure show on. You missed having conversations over delicious meals and part of you wonders how you’ll return to your regular routine after tonight.   After a taste of the forbidden fruit, you’ll wish every night was like this.   “Better than expected actually. It’s a learning process, so it goes up and down, but everyone’s been so helpful to me that it hasn’t been bad.”   Yoongi’s father nods solemnly. “All on your own too.”   You become shy under their praise. “It’s nothing, really. I just wanted to preserve the memory of my grandfather and all I have is his land, so....”    Sometimes you lay awake thinking about how much your life has changed. A year ago, you were still in LA in a high rise apartment working, and in an effort to connect with your family roots again, you left it all behind. But you don’t regret your decision whatsoever.   From the moment you came here, no matter what challenges you faced, it all became worth it in the end. It’s a hard life, but a peaceful one. A simple and serene way of living that you always needed.   “Bless your heart,” his mother swoons and you realize Yoongi’s gazing at you too — with an odd sense of gentleness that you aren’t used to. Or maybe that’s merely the dim lighting of the small dining room. “You are the hardest working, gosh darn smartest young lady I have ever met.”   You look away from Yoongi, face warming at the compliments. “No, I just try my hardest.”   “And try hard you do!” His mom leans across the table, eyes bright. “Don’t you think so, Yoonie? Isn’t Y/N marvelous?”   You turn to him expectedly, but Yoongi’s eyes are suddenly down at his empty plate. “Well, there’s nothing else to do out here but work, so isn’t that the default?”   You scoff and it takes his attention. “You aren’t cute at all.”   The corner of his mouth tugs. “Excuse me?”   “Don’t pay any attention to him, Y/N.” His mom bats at your arm. “He’s too much like his dad.”   “You mean, he took after my best traits?” The older man at the table has his brow cocked and you smile at the banter, but the woman beside you doesn’t entertain it.   “He took after your temper and grumbling.”   “Which is why no one ever bullied him.” Yoongi’s father slaps him on his back and he sighs.   His mom turns her head to continue, “Never mind them. I swear, Yoonie used to be the cutest kid in the whole country. I don’t know when he changed. Do you want to see his baby pictures?”   Your spine straightens and your eyes widen. “I would love to—”   Suddenly, there’s the ear-piercing noise of the chair leg scraping against the wooden floorboards. Yoongi has stood up and tosses his napkin down. “It’s getting pretty late. Probably time to go home, right?”   You laugh, but oblige only because it gives you reason to come over again. Yoongi’s mother at least assures as much, promising that next time you’ll be able to see all the albums and photographs of that time he cried while being chased by a goose — something you’re looking forward to, much to Yoongi’s dismay.   He’s just too much fun to tease.   The more and more you get to know Yoongi and the people in his life, the better you’re coming to realize that he’s not that much of a grump at all. It’s a facade, really. A thin curtain that hides how soft and pouty he actually is. Less like the bad boy you initially thought. More like a farm sheep.   “You didn’t need to walk me home, you know.” You turn to him, glancing at his profile. “It’s only a few acres away.”   “Yeah, but then I would never hear the end of it from my mom. It’s dark out anyway and it’s not like I mind.”   You nod and the pair of you fall into a comfortable lull. There’s a lot from tonight that you have to think about and it’s not just about Yoongi and his family. After seeing how they run their farm and how much they’ve expanded, you wonder if you’ll ever get to that size too.   “What do you think if I started growing quinoa and soy?”   He gives you an incredulous look, still visible in spite of the darkness, and it makes you laugh.   “What would you do with quinoa and soy?”   “I don’t know. Make different smoothies or flavours of kombucha? I would have to look into it. But it’s just a thought for no—” The pitch of your voice raises as you lose your footing, about to plunge. But then Yoongi yanks your arm back, steadying you before you trip in the ditch. “Oh my god! I almost died!”   “Watch where you’re going, woman,” he scolds and his hand boldly wraps around yours, palms clasping together firmly. You glance down, foreign to the feeling of his affection and Yoongi notices. He looks straight ahead, but quickly explains, “If you die and haunt the farm, that’ll bring down the value of the land nearby.”   You scoff. “You’re lucky you have a cute face, Min Yoongi.”   His lips curl. “I thought you said I wasn’t cute.”   “Your personality isn’t, but your face is alright.” If anything, you’re downplaying it, but he doesn’t need to know that. “Out here, you’re a good eight, but where I’m from, maybe you’re a six and a half.”   His laugh is mellifluous, and it infects a smile on your own features. “What about you?”   You look down to where you’re joined at the hands and muse how much larger his palm and fingers are to you, how his skin is calloused from working the fields, how warm and secure it feels.   “Clearly, I’m a ten wherever I go,” you quip. “Can’t you see?”   Yoongi apologizes, “I’m sorry, I might be blind then ‘cause I can’t see you as attractive at all.”   Another scoff tears from you, a lighthearted one that makes his grin widen. “You know what? I take it back. You aren’t cute at all. Not even your face can make up for your sour personality.”   Yoongi chuckles, squeezing your hand, and it’s awfully unfair how your face heats more.   //   Despite how busy you get managing the Insta spot, planting and harvesting kale, and cooking and packaging products, you never fail to find time to be at the market every Sunday. While your other sources of income are slowly increasing more than what you get from the farmers’ market, the atmosphere and sense of community is enough for you to scrape up time out of your week to set up your stall.   And it’s often the time that you get to have your conversations with Jungkook too.   “So….did you try it out?” Your eyes glisten, locked into his. “What did you think? Did it work?”   The boy scratches the back of his neck. “I...don’t think kale shampoo is it, Y/N.”   You deflate, keeping your sulking to a minimum. It didn’t work for you either, but you were trying to see if it was just your hair that was the strange one. “Really? But it looks soft.” You reach over and plant your hand in his black bed of hair. To your surprise, it’s even silkier than it appears.   “Woah! It’s soft!”   Jungkook ducks his head, colour blooming on his cheeks. He doesn’t bat your hand away nor does he lean into your touch when you pet him incessantly. “It isn’t that soft…”   “What shampoo and conditioner do you usually use? It feels so nice, Kook.”   The both of you are oblivious to the flannel-wearing man from across the market who’s glaring above the heads of lettuce. He bores his gaze into you, wondering what the hell you’re doing in the middle of the farmers’ market and putting on a show for all the older ladies to watch. Don’t you know how gossip and rumours start at this place? Merely chatting is enough to grab attention, but to be outright flirting like this was downright reckless.   His jaw ticks, nostrils flaring. He’s uncomfortable. It isn’t any of his business, but Yoongi feels an urge to do something. It’s utterly irrational. Completely out of the norm of his usual behaviour.   But somehow, he finds himself abandoning his stall and crossing the floor.   “What the hell are you two doing?”   “Yoongi!” You turn, greeting him with a big smile and suddenly that irrational emotion is replaced with something else that sits at his chest. To have your attention, he feels…..satisfied. Even if it’s childish. “I was just talking about the kale shampoo I made, but I think it’s an idea I’m going to have to scrap.”   “Shampoo?”   “It left a sticky mess on my head and took me ten minutes to wash it off,” Jungkook tells and his smile softens at your sigh. “Sorry, Y/N.”   “Maybe kale conditioner would work better....”   At the same time, Jungkook’s name is called by his grandma nearby, so he bids goodbye and a see you later to the both of you. It’s a slow down period right after lunch, so there’s fewer people around and with Yoongi here, you take the opportunity. “Can you watch my stall for me?”    “What?”   “I need to go to the bathroom.” You clasp your hands together and bat your lashes, trying to appeal to him. “Pretty please, Yoongi? I would really, really appreciate it.”   He exhales and waves his hand boredly, not sparing you a glance. But you already know he’s relinquished before he says it. “Fine.”   You jump up with a smile. “Thanks! You’re the best!”   In the next three seconds, you’ve jogged away and Yoongi’s left standing at the market, watching your stall and his stall from across the floor that he abandoned. He wonders how he got into this predicament, but doesn’t dwell when his eyes stray to your bottles of fancy kombucha on display.   He picks up a bottle, curious as to how you made these fancy labels, and he snorts when he notices in tiny text it says, ‘don’t kale me’. You’re such a dork, it’s impossible to believe. Then again, his mom decided to make a pun for the lettuce stall too, so he’s not one to talk.   For a moment, Yoongi ponders what the hell this kale kombucha tastes like.   He got a chance to try it before when you waltz up to him all those weeks ago with a tray of samples, but he denied you out of pride and stubbornness. He knows it must taste somewhat decent if you’re making all those sales. He’s seen people drinking it as they walk around too, but he’ll be damned if he actually went up to you and bought one. He’s sure you’d throw a celebration and do the whole ‘I told you so’ dance if it was actually delicious.   Relinquishing, he places the bottle back on the display.   But then the awful happens. Time slows — there’s a noise and the entire dainty shelf is collapsing. Yoongi is helpless to the way the bottles collide against the ground deafeningly, how the dark green liquid splatters on the concrete, to the way the glass shards spray. He cusses and manages to catch one bottle before turning around.   There are people staring at him — customers alarmed and vendors sympathizing.   But more importantly, you’re standing meters away, returned from the bathroom.   He catches your shock, your confusion, and then the heartbreak — even if it only lasts for a blink before you’re smiling again.   You come over, looking down at the mess. “I didn’t know you hated me this much to sabotage my stuff like this,” you quip jokingly. But there’s no banter or excuses being made. There’s silence. And you lift your eyes to meet Yoongi’s, realizing how mortified he is. “Hey, it’s alright. I knew the shelf had a few loose screws, but I didn’t know it would fall like that. I should’ve fixed it sooner.”   “I’m sorry. I’ll make it up to you.”   “You don’t really need to do th……”   “I’ll make it up to you,” Yoongi states more firmly than before, eyes darkened and you swallow hard. He knows you’re trying to cover up how hurt you are, how you’re trying to save face and not only is he embarrassed, he’s guilty. “You were supposed to sell all this, weren’t you?”   You give in and Yoongi grabs a broom, aiding you in cleaning up the mess. You’ve never seen him so serious and solemn before, but it makes you glad that he’s the one here to help.   //   At six in the morning, you wake up and less than ten minutes later, you hear the wheezing engine of a truck out front.   The sun was barely on the horizon, but when you walk out to the porch, you discover Yoongi shutting the door of his vehicle and coming up to you. He’s dressed in an oversized purple and black plaid flannel and gray shirt underneath, black hair flopping to the side, features softer than usual. He’s yawning and rubbing his eyes, all too endearing that you have to admit it.   “Mornin’,” you greet with a grin and he merely grunts, gesturing inside your house. A laugh draws out of you and you open the door for him. “You didn’t need to do this, you know. I told you I was totally fine.”   “Just accept my help, lady,” he sighs and looks around your living space, glancing at the polaroids strung above the brick mantle, the recycled jar of flowers on the kitchen counter, and the couch cushions made from flour sacks you reused. You grow warm under his scrutiny, realizing that no one has ever entered your home before. But while you expect to get criticism, Yoongi instead says, “I like what you did with the place. It’s cozy.”   You smile, still a bit self-conscious. “Thanks. Do you want tea? Coffee? Kale juice?”   “I’m fine.” He follows after you, stepping into the kitchen. The space is crowded or maybe it’s just you feeling small with him so close. “I’m here to help. What do you usually do at this time?”   “Well, I usually start by harvesting whatever kale I can. The weather seems good today too and there are some fields that need to be plowed, so I should do that and then plant some seeds…”   “Okay.” He’s already tugging his sleeves up. “Let’s get to it.”   It’s unusual to have someone join you during your morning chores, but it isn’t unwarranted. Granted, you have to teach him a little on the way you do things, but he already knows a lot from working on his own farm and you find Yoongi is a great listener. He might have a blank expression and be exceptionally quiet, but his occasional questions are insightful and he’s attentive when he mimics you.   It’s peaceful — the sun not yet sweltering in the sky or giving an unbearable heat that makes it hard to work, the animals in the far distance not awoken, the breeze curling through your hair. When you look up from your spot, you see Yoongi working as hard as you are and it tickles the corners of your lips into a subtle smile.   Things finish twice as fast and then you’re taking a break, making breakfast for Yoongi.   His company is nice at the table, even when he complains that your sunny side up eggs are too overcooked and you threaten to throw him out. It’s a kind of banter that doesn’t so much irritate you — rather, it keeps you on your toes, making you giggle at witty remarks while he rolls his eyes.   After breakfast, Yoongi insists on washing the dishes and succeeds when he whines and feigns annoyance on how you don’t trust him to clean your plates. He ends up fixing a light fixture in your kitchen too after you mention that it sometimes flickers off and startles you.   He’s helpful and handy, more than you thought he would be, but you try not to get used to it.   “This is where you keep your kombucha?” he asks as you show off the pantry that you’ve practically changed into a cellar.   “Yep.” You tap one of the large jars on the shelf. “It takes five to seven days for it to ferment after I make it. Then, I have to add in the kale and let it ferment for another three days. These babies will be ready for tomorrow. But I have to make a new batch today.”   “That’s a lot of work,” he comments.   “Oh. You haven’t seen it yet.” You brush past him, smirking.   Yoongi looks all too cute in the pink apron. It’s a comical sight and albeit, isn’t actually a part of your usual routine to wear one, you made it up on the fly just to see him wear it and he’s too cute.    “What?” His head whips up, brow cocked at the way you’re grinning.   “Nothing. Hand me that bowl.”   It’s a bit of an irony that Yoongi hasn’t tried any of your kombucha, but is first to learn the recipe from you. You show him how to brew the gallon of black tea, how to add the cup of sugar in and allow it to cool before pouring it into the jar.    “What’s that?” he asks when you’re sticking a rubbery flab into the jar.   “It’s a scoby. It has a bunch of yeast and bacteria that helps with fermentation. It’s made from kombucha, sugar, black tea.” You seal off the jar and Yoongi goes quiet. You look up at him, discovering a thoughtful expression on his face as if he’s impressed you know what you’re doing. “I’m not completely stupid, you know. I know I come across as—”   “I never thought you were dumb,” Yoongi suddenly states without missing a single beat. Your eyes become rounded and the corner of his mouth pulls. “Maybe insensitive and ignorant, but not stupid per se.”   “Hey!”   “There’s a difference,” Yoongi laughs and insists, “Being ignorant means you just haven’t learnt yet, but being stupid means you can’t learn at all.” He ducks when you half-heartedly swing and more chuckles fill the home, including your own. But Yoongi’s right. You had no clue what you were getting yourself into when you first arrived. Everything’s been a learning process, but it finally feels like things are falling into place.   Yoongi helps you wash the kale out back and stays by your side, peering over your shoulder, as you make the kale chips, guacamole and pesto. He stirs and gets ingredients when he can, and you find he has quite a knack for packaging things neatly. He’s somehow careful yet efficient.   “I didn’t know you did so much.”   “Yeah.” You wipe your sweat with the back of your hand. “I try to space everything out, but sometimes everything falls on the same day and I’ve been running low on products, so I can’t put it off.”   He hums, sealing the jar of pesto shut and then working on smoothing the label on the surface.   It’s mid-afternoon already. You didn’t realize how quickly time was going. The golden sun is already coming through the windows of the kitchen as you and Yoongi work across from one another, falling into a lull. You turned the staticky radio on, but it often acts as background noise when either of you start another conversation.   You giggle and he tilts his head up at the noise. “What? Did I put the label on upside down again?”   “No.” You shake your head, smiling to yourself. “It just kind of feels like we’re a married couple, that’s all.”   Unbeknownst to you, Yoongi freezes. But then he eases, the corner of his own mouth tugging.   “You’re not trying to seduce me, are you?”   “Seduce you?!” You scoff, looking up to see him focused on tying the ribbon around the jar. “I have higher standards than that, Min Yoongi.”   “Says the one who’s been flirting with me all morning.”   “I’m not flirting with you.”   “Uh-huh. Don’t tempt me with the suggestion of marriage then. I might actually do it.”   You’re baffled, made speechless with how he twists his words and how sweet he can talk. Your face heats and you know that if you open your mouth, you’ll blubber and make a fool out of yourself. So you opt for a huff and silence which only spurs on his chuckles and inadvertently makes you sulk harder.   If anything Yoongi was the flirt. But you’re not about to declare it in case he asks if that means you’re affected by it. Because you are.   The rest of the afternoon is spent finishing on packaging and storing away the products to sell tomorrow when the Insta spot opens and the following day at the farmers’ market. But as you dust off your hands, you feel the gurgle of your empty stomach and you offer to make him an early dinner.   “Is there anything you want to eat? My cooking skills aren’t that great—”   “Clearly.”   You glare at him. “—but I can look up any recipe you want.”   Yoongi makes a disgruntled noise and he leans over to open your fridge. You peep over his shoulder and at once, blood drains from your face.   “There’s nothing in your fridge, Y/N.” He turns around with puzzlement on his visage. “How did you make breakfast this morning?”   “I….used the last of my eggs to make breakfast. I didn’t think you would actually stick around long enough for dinner.”   “And what would you have eaten tonight if I did leave?” With one foot keeping the fridge open, he starts taking out several things like a maid cleaning out your kitchen. “The strawberries have gone bad...and there’s….mold on the bread. How do you live?”   “My budget was a bit low for this week and I underestimated how much groceries I would need.” When he pulls out the drawer with bundled kale, you stop him. “That’s for me to sell.”    “You don’t eat what you grow?”   “Not really,” you admit. “I don’t actually eat much kale….I brought lots of instant noodles from the city, but I ran out two weeks ago….”   He shuts the fridge. “I’ll talk to my mom and bring more eggs and milk to you more often.”   “You don’t need to do that.”   “No, but I want to.” Looking at you, Yoongi realizes that you’re really just a girl who came from nowhere to start a whole farm. Partly hopeless and causing an urge in him to take care of you, but for some reason, he doesn’t seem to mind as much as he thought he would. “Move. I’ll make dinner. You have some iceberg lettuce and kale that I can work with.”   He starts rolling up his sleeves again and you don’t let your eyes linger on his exposed veiny forearms for long.   You feel a bit embarrassed that you didn’t prepare more and that he caught you at a struggling week. But more than that, guests are supposed to be treated better. “I’m sorry, Yoongi.”   “Don’t be.” As he passes, he plops a hand on your head and you look up at him, surprised at the unusually affectionate gesture. “I’m quite the chef, you know. I make better breakfast than you do.”   Yoongi probably does, but your pride won’t let you admit it. “Psh. You haven’t started yet. Don’t get so cocky.”   You help by setting the table and then pulling a stool to watch him cook. Maybe it’s a bit lame, but you’re impressed at his knife skills and how fast he chops the lettuce and kale into thin strips, keeping a constant rhythm and never once stopping. You scoff when he glances at you with a smirk, but there’s little you can say, especially when he sautes it in a pan with oil and half an onion you have left.   The house is filled with a mouthwatering scent and it’s even more delicious than expected once the plate is plopped down in front of you and you get a taste.   “Oh my god….how did you make this?”   Yoongi smugly shrugs. “I made it up on the fly. Can’t help that my talent is inborn.”   You’re too busy eating to retort with a snarky comment. “Maybe I should marry you.”   He laughs and quickly eats before you steal his own portion.   The sun eventually goes down and it’s hard to say goodbye after one of the best days you’ve had since coming here, but you know you’ll see Yoongi tomorrow and the next day — whether that’s across the acres and through a giant wave or arguing as you do at the market.   He’s always been around, an addition to the farm life itself, and you wouldn’t have it any other way.

When Yoongi returns home, he announces that he’s back. There are storming steps, his mom enthusiastic and racing down the stairs to ask him how it went. His dad looks around the living room corner as well, and he sighs at their intrusiveness.   “It was fine.” Yoongi tosses the keys aside, scratching the back of his neck. “She’s actually a lot more hard-working than I expected.”   He walks off before they can bombard him with any more inquiries, but they understand their son well enough and they exchange knowing smiles.

You never expect to see Yoongi awkwardly lingering on your porch like a car salesman, especially considering you were once doing the same thing at his house not long ago. But while he’s here just to deliver some apple pie his mom made, you eagerly pull him inside.   “Why? Why?” he whines childishly, but stumbles after you anyway.   “I need you to try something for me.”   It was an Insta spot day, cars filled in the lot you designated, people from the city out in the back and the chatter loud enough to leak inside the kitchen. Families were strolling about, children picking kale, young adults posing for countless pictures by the picnic blankets and decorations. Yoongi can’t quite understand what their fixation and fascination is to drive all the way out here for such frivolous things, but if it works then it works, he supposes.   You set the apple pie on the table and notice Yoongi peering out of the window, primarily watching the brunette boy fussing about and working the register behind the cute stall you made.   “Oh, that’s Jungkook’s cousin, Jimin,” you tell him, even though he probably already knows. Everyone knew everyone around here. “I hired him to help out.”   “Doing well enough to hire people?” he asks, brow lifted and a smile raising on his cheeks.   “I guess you could say so.” Your pride is supported by the bustle outside the window. “I need all the help I can get.”   “Are you trying to get me to help out too? Because I don’t work for free, lady.”   “Pft. No. I thought you might want to try out the kale kombucha you made with me last week. You came right in time actually. I just got it packaged and everything. Wait here. I’ll go grab a bottle.”   Without another word, you pull the door open and Yoongi sighs with a softened smile, watching you march across the land to chat with Jimin. But within seconds, his attention is taken away by the squeak of the door and a middle aged woman sticking her head through.    “Excuse me,” her voice is shrill, “is there a bathroom in here?”   “Uh…” He’s fairly certain you don’t let anyone inside your house and that he caught sight of fancy porta potties you set up on the side. “No. If you turn the corner, there’re some bathrooms you can use.” Yet, she blinks blankly at him and Yoongi holds his long exhale in his nose. Whatever your intentions are, it seems like he’s working for you anyhow. “I can show you.”   Yoongi hopes he’s not wrong or it’ll be terribly awkward, but luckily for him, there’s indeed bright blue stalls and the woman thanks him as she waddles off. But he can’t take refuge inside your home when he’s interrupted by someone again.   “Excuse me!” This time it’s a group of girls around his age giggling with caked makeup and dressed in short rompers. They thrust their phones forward before he can utter a word. “Can you please take some pictures for us?”   “Uh, sure.”   Yoongi feels out of his depth. Embarrassed. While you knew nothing about farm life, he knows nothing about city life. You might’ve disproved a lot of prejudices and stereotypes he held, but he still feels awkward and out of place in their scrutiny. Like he’s part of a completely different world, and he’s not sure what to say or how to act.   But he still tries and crouches down, trying to frame the photo and catch the trees in the back with the stringed fairy lights above. “One. Two. Three. Smile.”   “Thanks!” The girl comes forward to look, but before he can ask if it’s good enough, her friend comes up to him with another phone.   “Can you take another one?”   “Alright.” He gets back into place and times it. “One. Two. Three.”   Yoongi hands back the device and is about to duck his head and seek refuge no matter who calls out to him, but the girl stops in front of him with a brightened smile. “Is it alright if you take a photo with me? I’ve never had a picture with a farmer before!”   Yoongi sputters, speechless. For one, he hasn’t taken a photo in years, much less for a stranger’s personal collection. And secondly, he’s not some spectacle to be gawked at. He’s not some dancing monkey or clown. Not a poster boy or a cardboard cutout. This is his life—   “I’m sorry.” A voice calmly cuts through his annoyance and Yoongi feels a hand against his shoulder. You’re beside him with a polite smile. “Staff aren’t allowed to be photographed.”   “Oh. Okay.”   They walk off and resume their activities. You take Yoongi’s hand and tilt your head towards the door. “C’mon. Let’s go back inside.”   He feels safe inside your house again when he can remain an observer and not a participant.   “Sorry about that. Some people can be a bit insensitive, but most of them have good intentions.”   “It’s fine.”   You pour out the bottle of amber liquid into a tall glass. “They probably just wanted a photo since you’re good-looking.”   “What?” Yoongi snorts and turns around with a grin. “So you think I’m good-looking?”   “Isn’t that a fact? That’s why people were staring at you. The whole rugged look works well for you.” You plop down the glass in front of him before you can think twice about the honesty that just unabashedly spilled from your mouth. “Try it. You had a part in making it, so it’s only right, right? And if you like it, I’ll even let you bring some home.”   He rolls his eyes at your mischievous smile and lifts the glass to his lips. It’s fizzy, and the taste is both tart and slightly sweet. It reminds Yoongi of sparkling cider, but with a herbal hint that he assumes is the kale. He doesn’t utter a word, even when you’re watching him intently. But after Yoongi smacks his lips together, he goes for a second sip.   And you take that as a positive sign. “You like it?!”   He’s startled at your overly excited voice. “It’s not bad.”   “See?! I knew it! All you needed to do was to try my amazing kombucha recipe and your mind would be changed. Didn’t I say that? I totally told you I would get you to like kale!”   “Hold on, hold on.” Yoongi stops you in your ramble. “Don’t get ahead of yourself. I only said it was decent.”   You laugh. “Sure. Whatever you say.”   He sighs, but ruffles your hair as he walks past, already bidding goodbye. “Get back to work.”   “Yes, sir.” You dramatically salute him and he leaves through the front door. But then it hits you a moment later. “Wait a minute….”    This is your farm. Not his.   //   You’re thriving in more ways than one. Aside from your personal projects on the farm, you’ve gotten yourself established at the market, like one of the decade long vendors who’ve spent their whole lives here. After a few months of setting up your stall, now everyone knows you by first name basis. A few older ladies even gave you the nickname of Sunshine and it only makes you love them more.   “You’re staring at her a lot, Yoonie.” His mother nudges him and he tears his eyes away from you across the market floor.   “No, I’m not.” He’s not sure why he bothers. Yoongi feels like a child trying to deny the obvious.   “Go talk to her. Lookin’ is not gonna do you any favours, young man. You have to talk.”   Yoongi already knows — he doesn’t need his mother to tell him.   “She’s busy,” he grumbles, “I’ll talk to her later.”    Fortunately, a customer comes up and Yoongi takes the opportunity to escape the conversation, immediately moving to ring them up and leaving his mom with a hopeless sigh.   At the same time, someone approaches you. After taking a sample from the tray, she decides to purchase a whole case of pesto much to your delight. “I actually bought smoothie and kombucha from you last week,” the lady mentions as you’re packing it up for her and you nod.   “I know. You bought two large smoothies and half a case of kombucha, right?”   Pleasant surprise takes hold of her expression. “How do you remember? Don’t you get a lot of customers?”   “I remember most of them, but I especially remember your Chanel classic handbag,” you point out with a smile. “The medium pink is a rarer one, plus it’s not the kind of thing lots of people wear in this sort of place.”   “You have a good eye,” the lady notes and you take the compliment. “It’s the only flashy thing I own and I have no other place to wear it aside from running errands.”   “Oh trust me, I’m like that too.” You grin, finishing up and passing the machine card for her to tap and pay. “I find that as long as you have confidence, you can pull anything off and it makes running errands a lot more fun.”   The lady laughs and easily agrees. She takes the box you offer her, but lingers. “Your kombucha and your smoothies are delicious by the way, and the pesto seems pretty good too.”   “Thank you. It took me a while to narrow down the recipe, but I think I nailed it.”    “You did.” She affirms and then out of the blue, asks, “Would you be willing to sell your products at the supermart? It’s a local grocery store I run with my husband, five miles from here, just down Imlings road.”   You’re speechless, blinking twice at her as your mouth opens and closes. The older woman waits patiently with a smile and you muster a half-coherent answer. “I-I would definitely consider it!”   “Great.” She smiles and then reaches over to her pocket. The woman hands you a business card. “Some folks around here have contracts with me too, and I’d love to add your products on the shelf. Give me a call some time tomorrow and we can chat about the details.”   You’re stunned and only broken out of your trance when a customer comes up and clears their throat.   It’s a triumphant day. You feel like you’re floating, walking on clouds — and Jungkook notices how you’re humming to yourself too and boyishly grins. “Something good happen, Y/N?”   The pair of you are walking out, Jungkook carrying your boxes as you lug your totes with you while waving goodbye to the other vendors that were leaving for the evening. “Just everything. I feel like things are going right for me, you know? And that’s kind of rare for me.”   “No, I get you. Pop always says there are rainbows after the storm. Then again, he always says how the Kim’s are running around like chickens with their heads cut off.”   That makes you laugh, but then the two of you interrupted by a sharp cry of your name. “Y/N!”   You witness Yoongi running up to you, completely out of breath.    “Hey. Are you okay? Where did you even come from?”   “Never mind that.” He straightens out. “Let me drive you back.”   “Oh, Jungkook was just going to….”   “Nah.” He insists and takes the boxes from the younger boy. “Our houses are closer together anyway. I don’t mind.”   “What about your mom?”   “She’s already left since she’s having dinner with a friend.”   You look at Jungkook who’s wholly confused, a deer in headlights and you decide to spare him from the trouble. “Well, alright. Thanks then.”   It feels a bit odd, but you take him on the offer and bid Jungkook a goodbye. The rest of your kale and belongings are packed into the back of Yoongi’s truck before you’re getting in. It’s old and worn, but the vehicle feels like it’s full of memories. You buckle yourself in and then he’s driving off with the fuzzy radio playing in the background as the golden sun sets over the horizon.   “Jungkook ain’t shit,” Yoongi suddenly pipes up after a moment. You glance over to discover him looking straight out the windshield, hands gripped on the steering wheel. And you burst out laughing.   “What?”   “He was seeing Aria for a while and then left her for the hills, so he’s got a reputation around here. I thought I should let you know.”   You see him peek at you in the corner of your eye, but you can’t repress your grin. “You sound like a boyfriend.”   “Yeah, well, I’m actually a good one.”   “Oh yeah?”   Yoongi’s knuckles are white and with the way his tongue peeks out to lick the seam of his lips, you wonder if he’s nervous. “I could show you.”   A giddy giggle that belongs to the sixteen-year-old you bubbles out. “And what would dating Min Yoongi look like?”   Yoongi plays off of your playful tone. “For one, I haven’t gotten to show you around properly yet and you still haven’t gone to one of Taehyung’s bonfire parties. He’s the guy with the strawberry farm. And I have access to his exclusive parties cause we went to school together, so you could use me to get in.”   “Hmmm….you drive a hard bargain, Min Yoongi.”   “I know how to cook a mean dinner if you give me real ingredients too.”   You laugh again, leaning your head back against the seat. “You’re too good at sweet-talking. Does your mother know you chat up girls like this?”   “Maybe. But I only really sweet talk you.”   He’s bold tonight and it’s not doing good things to you.   Your face is heating and you’re incessantly tapping your fingers against your leg. Beneath the lighthearted flirtation was a sort of simmering nervousness that’s filled with questions of if the line is going to be crossed and when that would be, and who would be the first to make the move.   Yoongi parks the car in front of your house and pulls the keys out of the ignition.   The pair of you naturally shift and look at one another. Your gazes lock together and there are three seconds of tense silence — neither wanting to get out, to break the rather intimate moment. Where you muse how brown his eyes are and Yoongi, himself, hitches his breath.   And then you’re lurching over for a kiss.   It’s all mouths and noses bumping together, obscene and sloppy, but a long time coming. His lips are softer than expected, only chapped at the corners, but you don’t get to think about it for too long or deepen the kiss. Not when you’re too busy giggling and laughing against him.   You pull apart, hands grasping onto the collar of his loose flannel. “You’re so eager.”   It’s a bit unusual to see Yoongi be anything other than annoyed or composed, but you soak it up as much as you can. The sunset is painting his skin golden and the car smells like him too. It seems like you’re surrounded in Min Yoongi and it’s fully welcomed.   “You are too,” he retorts on an exhale, hand skimming down to the dips of your waist. But then Yoongi swallows hard and retracts. He leans his arm on the steering wheel and looks out the window in disappointment. You wonder if you did something wron— “I can’t stain the truck. My mom has hawk eyes and she’s gonna know if we do something, and I’d rather she not.”   You scoff and lean forward, swift enough to plant a kiss on his cheek and pull away. “For such a good talker, you sure are stupid, Yoongi. There’s a whole house behind you and no one in it.”   A gummy smile spreads into his face and you feign a tired huff, lifting your chin and sticking your nose in the air. You add, “But for your information, I only give people the time of day when they make it worth it for me.”   He’s already opening the door and accepting the challenge before you can finish.    “Oh, I’ll make it worth it alright.”   You find out that Yoongi has a dirty mouth and an even nastier tongue. Part of you always wondered if he hated your guts, but you couldn’t be any more wrong.    You’re tugging on the strands of his hair, chest rising and falling as you pant. “W-Where did you learn how to do that?”    The bastard shrugs with a smug smile. “I might be unlikable, but I’ve had plenty of practice before.”   “Oh yeah?” The corner of your own mouth tugs. “With who?”   Yoongi grins and lifts himself up to plant a sweet kiss against your lips. “You wouldn’t know them. But they’re not as important as you are.”   “I’m going to choke over your greasiness, Min Yoongi.”   “Good. Choke.”   “You’re gonna have to stuff me with your cock first.”   Yoongi laughs at how you’re desperately tugging him closer to you, but he easily agrees with one condition— “Only if you’re good for me.”   The pair of you are sweaty when you finish. You thought the old bed frame was going to give up mid-way. Luckily, it held up even with all its loud squeaks and creaks. But you wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a dent where the headboard slammed against the wall.    But you’ll count your losses later. You’re just relieved that there was no one in the house.   While Yoongi might’ve been all soft groans and rapid exhales, he made you absent-minded to your own noises that somehow leaves your throat sore. You’re sure anyone who would’ve stood by your porch would’ve heard and been scandalized for the rest of their life.   “You know.” You turn to Yoongi, having stared at the ceiling. His eyes meet yours. “You’re pretty good for a farm boy.”   The playful quip ticks him off enough that he does it again. Yoongi pins you underneath him and is merciless. Your bubbling giggles turn to tears leaking down the side of your face from overstimulation, but you climax again through a moaning apology.   When you’re spent, Yoongi collapses next to you.    You’re surprised at how cuddly he is, how he naturally reaches for you, torso molding against yours and arms wrapped around your waist. In spite of feeling hot and sweaty, Yoongi holds you against him and you relish in it. “How is it possible that no one’s snatched you up yet?”   “Maybe it’s because I’m known to be standoffish.” He smiles against your temple, soothed by the way you run your fingers through the strands of his hair. “And what about you? Do you have a boyfriend or a husband I don’t know about that’s waiting in the city?”   “No. No one’s drawn me in quite like you have.”   Yoongi’s smile pulls into a grin, and the pair of you are lulled by each other’s inhales and exhales, unintentionally falling asleep in one another’s embraces like lovers underneath tree canopies on a Summer afternoon.   It’s some of the most peaceful sleep you’ve had, but then you��re shaken awake by a rattle and an ‘ow’. Your eyes open to find the other side of the bed empty and Yoongi nursing his hip after presumably bumping into your nightstand. You sit up, disoriented as he’s hopping up and down, barely getting his pants on.   “I need to get home before my parents find out I was gone the entire night and start asking questions.” His voice is thick and husky, hair in a disarray, eyes bleary and barely awake.   His panic makes you giggle and you watch him struggle to put on his clothes. Peeking outside, the sun isn’t up yet and the clock reads that it’s five in the morning. “Are they even awake this early, Yoongi?”   “I don’t know. Sometimes.” He fiddles with his flannel, putting his arms through the wrong holes, and even when he figures it out, he doesn’t realize it’s inside out. “I’ll...see you later?”   “Wait. Yoongi.” You stop him for a second and he turns around. It feels awfully juvenile, like you’ve reverted back into your sixteen-year-old self that giggles over crushes, but Yoongi always seems to make you feel that way. “Are we….dating now?”   “If I didn’t make it any more clear last night and by sleeping over, then I don’t know what else to do.”   It takes a beat for the words to sink in, but once it does, a bright and overexcited smile overcomes your features. Yoongi snorts before the corners of his own mouth tickles.   When he’s gone, you discover that you miss him already.

The morning alarm rings at six. But by then, you’re already up.   You’ve fallen into a natural schedule, a cycle that your body has picked up on and has awoken before anything needs to call you. And after brushing your teeth and running a comb through your hair, you’re taking care of your farm. Plowing fields. Harvesting kale. Having breakfast.   You also package the last of the pesto and guacamole, pouring the kombucha into the bottles with the proper labels. Some of which are prepared for the grocery store to pick up while others are packed for tomorrow. Afterwards, you come to the farmers’ market and meet Hoseok, a boy you’ve hired to help you take over. He helps you man the stall and the cash register, giving you the freedom to chat with customers and other vendors or complete other tasks with Jungkook.   By afternoon, you come back to the farm to check out the Insta spot and aid Jimin in running things smoothly.   “This is beautiful, Y/N.” Today, you’re graced by a few friends from the city. They drove out here after you reached out to them again and you couldn’t be more pleased from their genuine reactions. “When you said you were coming out to start a farm...I didn’t imagine this.”    “It took a lot of work, but it’s not half bad, right?”   Mina leans in, eyes flickering around. “Where’s this infamous Yoongi?”   A laugh spills from you. “He’s busy. You’ll see him next time.”   “I keep hearing about him, but I haven’t even seen him or his picture once,” Tiffany huffs. “I’m beginning to think he’s fake.”   You grin and insist, “I promise you he’s real.”   “Oh my god!” Yeri startles the group by the sheer urgency in her voice, but when you all swivel to her, she has her phone held in the air, screen directed to her face. “This is the perfect lighting! Guys, come here and take selfies up before the sun moves!”    You can’t help smiling as you watch them, matching their footsteps as they approach the fields. You can tell that they’re still surprised, that they love what you did — and you couldn’t be prouder.   At ten at night, the last people have filtered out and you bid them goodbye.   “Great job, Jimin. Thanks for the help as usual. It didn’t get too busy when I was gone, right?”   “Not at all.” The brunette with the polite smile shakes his head. “Oh, but the customer feedback box was full. I put it in the living room for you.”   “I saw that. Thank you. I’ll take a look tomorrow.” Looking ready to go, you walk him to the door. “Rest up then! I’ll see you tomorrow.”   “Goodnight, Y/N.”   But as one man leaves, you catch another down the road. The familiar truck is chugging, head beams piercing through the darkness settling across the horizon. Jimin recognizes it too after months of the same routine and smiles at you before he’s on his way.   The truck is parked on your lawn and the dark-haired man in the flannel is already smiling when he catches you through the front windshield. He opens the door and slams it shut as you lean against the doorframe, arms crossed and the screen door held behind you.   “Well, well, well. Look at what the cat dragged in.”   Yoongi chuckles and grabs a crate from the back of his truck. “It’s groceries from my parents.”   He meets you at the porch and plants a chaste kiss on your lips as a greeting. You follow him into the kitchen as he beelines to it. It’s almost like this is his home — an idea that tempts you greatly.   “Aw, she packed me more pie.” There’s goat’s milk too and you store it in the fridge as Yoongi organizes your cabinet, making sure there’s enough sustenance to keep you healthy for the week. You’ve already told him that you could take care of yourself, but he’s stood firm and you didn’t argue. It was a guilty pleasure to be pampered by Yoongi after all, and you weren’t about to refuse it.   “My parents want you to come over soon. They keep asking me about you.”   You nod. “I’m happy to come over whenever they want. But I should probably bake something. Your mom always makes me food.”   “Nah. She does it cause she likes to. How about Tuesday?”   “That works for me.”   “Have you eaten yet?”   One shake of your head leads to him cooking and then the pair of you sitting at the table across from one another and sharing a warm meal. You ask Yoongi about his day and he tells you about bailing Namjoon and Taehyung out of jail. Apparently, they landed themselves into trouble after they lost their cow and went looking for it. Yet somehow, they ended up miles away on an orchard farm where they had a confrontation with an old grump and got arrested for trespassing.   But as exasperated as Yoongi likes to act, the irony isn’t lost on you how he drove that far out to bail them out and keep the secret from their parents. He’s the kind of man that conveys his feelings through his actions instead of his words and you’ve come to endear that quirk about him.   After dinner and cleaning up, you turn on the twinkling fairy lights strung along the backyard and stand on your patio, leaning against the banister. The land and rows of kale are strangely bare without people and the ruckus of crowds, yet there’s a certain peacefulness of the uncertain horizon.   “What’re you thinking about?” A husky voice sounds beside you as Yoongi meets your side.   “Nothing.” You shake your head. “All day I’ve been feeling proud of myself, that’s all. I think...my grandfather would be proud of me too.”   “Of course he would be.” Yoongi drapes his arm around your shoulder. “I’m proud of you too.”   As calm and detached as Yoongi may be at times, he still has the effect of catching you off guard when he sweet talks. And it’s a kind of duality that makes you adore him even more.   You wrap your arm around his slim waist, grinning and he plants a wet kiss at your forehead.   “Hey, Yoongi. Since you love me….does that mean you love kale too?”   “Those things are mutually exclusive.”   “But kale is my lifeblood.” You look up at him. “You can’t love me without loving kale.”   He scoffs at your ridiculous argument, but it’s pointless back and forths like this that you enjoy the most. Especially when Yoongi gives in. “Fine. I love kale. But for the record, I love you a lot more.”   You laugh and lean your head on his shoulder. “I’m glad I came here.”   You’re glad you never gave up or gave in to the discouragement of your family, the apprehension of your friends or the voice inside your own mind.    You’ve finally found your place.   “I’m glad too.”   There’s no need to go home when home is right here.

[balillee]

why 'there's no lore going on' right now in the dream smp - The Misfits Analogy

Fans of television, especially British television, will probably be familiar with an early 2010's show called Misfits. The show ran for five seasons spanning 2009 to 2013 - while the first two seasons (the first moreso than the second) are regarded more as cult classics, the latter half of the show completely falls in writing and production quality due to one significant change - the cast.

Seasons one and two of Misfits was centred around the original misfits gang - Nathan Young (portrayed by Robert Sheehan), Kelly Bailey (portrayed by Lauren Socha), Simon Bellamy (portrayed by Iwan Rheon), Alisha Daniels (portrayed by Antonia Thomas) and Curtis Donovan (portrayed by Nathan Stewart-Jarrett).

The show was good for two different factors from my perspective -

The intersection of superpowered television and interpersonal conflicts that broke the norm for stereotypes.

How the cast reflected modern British society.

In summary, the show followed a group of five young offenders at a community service centre. Not too interesting - but give them relatability, realism and explore their character development and their existing stereotypes/tropes through the use of superpowers? Genius.

Nathan was most definitely the fan favourite character of the show - he was outgoing, annoying, larger than life in a lot of ways and in all senses, he was a skeevy asshole who would insult characters at every turn. He was very much the class clown of the show and any British viewer could probably see someone they remember from school in Nathan, except Nathan was lovable and you could sympathise with him because you could see him struggling primarily at home and with his family.

Spoilers for the show - Nathan's power was immortality and the ability to resurrect himself from death. This power wasn't explicit immediately either to Nathan or to the audience unlike all of the other young offenders, and it reflected his 'nothing can hurt me ' attitude. Nathan was a character who could take any comment and brush it off like it was nothing, and he in the physical sense could take being thrown off a roof, impaled and practically buried alive and be sitting in his own coffin with his iPod all fine and dandy.

Kelly was also another standout example - her character reflected the stereotype of a chavvy girl, 'council house and violent' - loudmouthed, not very smart, questionable fashion choices and a bit abrasive. The only difference is that the show knew they had to subvert that stereotype - instead, Kelly was smart in her own way and she was empathic -> her superpower was the ability to hear other people's thoughts, and later, she became superintelligent and when her character left the show she decided to move to Uganda use her newfound rocket-scientist level intelligence for good. She was still loudmouthed and definitely chavvy, but she was also a whole human person who cared about other people and who was definitely intelligent.

If I kept going, I'd be lamenting about how season one's cast well reflected and subverted stereotypes and expectations using their superpowers, but I'd be here all day and that's really not the point I'm trying to make.

By the end of season 2, Robert Sheehan, as the standout performance from the show, decides to move on to greener pastures (which,, I don't blame him, being stuck on E4 would have been a nightmare for his career and look where he is now? He's a fan favourite as Klaus in TUA now!) - thus, Nathan is written out of the show in a post- season 2 special in which he gets locked up in prison in America.

This was the first character to get written out of the show.

In season 3, we lose Kelly who moves to Uganda with Seth to defuse landmines, and Simon and Alisha are both killed, and the only remaining member of the original ASBO five is Curtis.

Season 4 rolls around, and we pretty much have an entirely new Misfits cast - Curtis, and then we have Rudy (who had been present since season 3), and then we have new additions Jess, Finn and Abbey.

Let me tell you that by this point in the show, all of the fans had lost interest.

Not only had the two biggest fan favourites, Nathan and Kelly, left the show, but you now have to replace four out of the five original cast members with new ones that don't function the same way the originals did. What type of person is someone with X-ray vision trying to represent? You could argue that maybe Jess is good at figuring people out, but I don't really remember this being explored that much in the show. And the difference between this reflecting a minor personality trait is that the original cast didn't do that - in dumbed down terms, Alisha was a 'sket' who had the power to make people horny for her, oftentimes against her wishes, through skin-to-skin contact. That's much more impactful and there's a lot more to explore there.

Episode 7 of Season 4 of Misfits is the clearest indicator of the departure of the original show's intentions and explains perfectly why it didn't work the way it used to.

For the entirety of the season, Jess had been crushing on a guy called Alex from a bar she frequented (who later went on to replace Curtis as the fifth Misfits member in season 5, go figures) who, as far as we had seen, not at all reciprocated those feelings nor was there any indication of him wanting to.

In episode 7, we figure out why.

Jess, using her x-ray vision, finds out that Alex's penis was stolen by a trans man.

I'll be honest, when I first heard it, I thought it was a joke.

The show went from having a diverse cast, not only in terms of having two black characters in it's main cast, but also in it's diversity of character tropes that they aimed to subvert - to then having a mainly white cast in a show that actively perpetuates harmful stereotypes about trans people being dangerous.

Now, and I want to preface this, I don't think that the Dream SMP is malicious in the same way that the writing of that episode of Misfits is. I don't think the SMP is malicious at all. What I want to highlight is how the change in cast directly mirrored when the audience dropoff was and when the show itself started to go south in terms of quality, production and what they wanted to achieve.

For the sake of my argument, there is currently three seasons of the dream smp. The start of the server up until the end of the initial disc war is the prologue, season one encompasses Wilbur's L'Manberg and the Pogtopia arc, ending on November 16th, season 2 starts November 17th and ends January 20th (the disc war finale) and season 3 spans from January 21st to the present day.

Most of the fans of the Dream SMP can tell you that the primary story of the server is centred around quite a few certain characters who viewers started watching to see more of. I'm guilty of this myself - I primarily watch the SMP for Tommy's story, and I also stick around for Wilbur, Tubbo, Ranboo and a little bit for Phil, Techno and Jack Manifold. Those were the people I was invested in and those are the stories I like to follow. Not to discredit or to downplay the work or the stories of other characters, but I can imagine that there are a few people who watch the SMP primarily for a close few perspectives/storylines, and following some storylines over others just because you're not interested in them is completely fine and there's nothing wrong with that at all.

In season one, there was always things going on with my favourite characters. Tommy was always getting himself into spots of trouble and making up different schemes to get people to come visit L'Manberg as a tourist attraction, or getting people to support the rebellion, and this was interspersed with the heavier, plot-driven moments such as Wilbur's mental breakdown, the festival, the pit fight and the season 1 finale. This got me invested in him as a character because he had been there for quite a while and we'd seen him develop and grow into the character we now see in season 3.

In the back half of season 1 came Techno, who really shook things up and threw a spanner in the works and provided a totally different perspective - unlike Dream he didn't hate L'Manberg because he couldn't control it, and unlike Wilbur he didn't have a personal connection to it and he didn't know it's history. Techno initially hated L'Manberg because it was a government he knew nothing about (and still knows nothing about even today), and because violence and destruction is kind of his thing.

We had a well balanced cast of characters - not too many - that we could follow and who all had varying perspectives, experiences and personalities. We had clearly defined groups of individuals with different morals: you had the people on the side of Manberg, the people in Pogtopia who wanted Manberg blown up, the people in Pogtopia who didn't want Manberg blown up, and on the side to compliment it all you also had the Badlands, comprised of three longstanding members of the server,,,, and then Antfrost who was kidnapped by Tommy that one time. It was all wrapped up nicely in a neat little bow and there was structure to it all. There was one plot that went in one direction, and despite the many perspectives, it all ended up in the same spot and the story ended. There was a conclusion.

In season 2, the two primary additions to the 'cast' were Phil and Ranboo, whose characters complimented the existing story well. Phil functioned mostly as a successor to Wilbur alongside Ghostbur by exploring well the departure of Wilbur as a character in that moment, and he also functioned well as a companion to Techno's character. Ranboo, on the other hand, had a pretty good complimentary solo story that could be followed alongside the main plot, however his story wasn't too distant from the main story to the point where he was completely removed from it - he had direct involvement in different events such as the exile conflict, his connection to Dream as the main antagonist of the season and his involvement in blowing up the community house.

Season 2 starts with a focus on two different spaces - it breaks up a longstanding duo and the storyline diverges into two halves: Logstedshire and New L'Manberg, and you have Techno's short 'retirement' arc working decently to compliment it and also to set the tone for his character going forward in that season. In Logstedshire we see the aftermath of Tommy being exiled from L'Manberg by Dream - we see him endure what is (in canon) at least a month of isolation and physical and psychological abuse and it culminates on December 15th when Tommy rescues himself, jumps from the tower and goes to hide in Techno's house (which acts as a good precursor to his involvement in Techno's storyline in that season). On the other side, we follow Tubbo in L'Manberg dealing with Presidency - he talks a lot and gets 'friendly' with Dream, he prepares to run against Ranboo in the coming election cycle (primarily because he doesn't want to be President) and we see his interactions with the power-hungrier Quackity who all too often takes the reigns and this culminates in the creation of the Butcher Army, and following the Butcher Army's attack on December 16th, once again, we have two clearly defined sides:

One one side, we have Tubbo, Quackity and Fundy who represent L'Manberg, and on the other we have Tommy (who is unaware of the Butcher Army's attack), Phil and Techno, and more in the middle we have Ghostbur and Ranboo.

Season 2's finale format is a clear departure for the format of November 16th, but it's not a poor choice - I think, especially considering the story that they were telling, it worked perfectly. On November 16th, pretty much everyone was streaming their perspective of the event; at the time, there were even compilations of everyone's reactions to Wilbur blowing up L'Manberg. On January 20th, however, we only had two perspectives - Tubbo and Tommy.

I'll say it now, while Season 2 was definitely Clingyduo's season, it didn't focus solely on them. There was also a big focus on Techno as a character, whose arc came to an end a little earlier on Doomsday, and there was also a focus on Ranboo a lot as a solo character, and he streamed a little later on January 20th with what I refer to as the 'epilogue', where there was also a shift in his character to expect moving forward.

Why season 2's finale worked is because it was centralised around only three characters, only two of which we ever see the perspectives of, and it was the finale of the longest running storyline of the entire narrative - the disc war. Two boys who were on their last life, making their last stand at the one man who pulled the strings to make their lives miserable - those two perspectives only, and it worked. We didn't have compilations of everyone reacting to the things happening around them which worked for season 1, instead, we focused on these two characters whose turn it was to get the focus, and we had iconic and moving moments. We had the two boys walking down the prime path saying what they could only assume might have been their last goodbyes to the people that still had a shred of care for them, we had the two sailing to where they would face off against Dream for their final stand and finally talking about their feelings a little and dreading the implication that if they were both to die, nobody would live to tell their stories, we had Tommy choosing his best friend over his discs time and time again, and we had Punz - Dream's last confidant - standing against Dream and bringing everyone with him and sending him to prison, now on his last life too.

Everything about it was perfect. The more focused ending worked for the ending of season 2 because it was their time to have their climax moment - and it wasn't some spectacular display of explosions or violence like in Wilbur's finale on November 16th, where the ramifications hit everyone and we got to see it, nor was it a show of violence and almost oppressive dominance like Techno's finale was on Doomsday, where we saw everyone's breakdown and how the people contributing to the destruction of L'Manberg, no matter how righteous they thought they were, did not care to understand how much they were hurting and destroying the lives of the country's citizens. On January 20th, Tommy and Tubbo went into it thinking they were going to die, they got their asses handed to them despite how hard they tried, and they had their behinds saved by Tommy's preparative thinking by people who weren't there to save them more than they were there to get rid of Dream.

Season 3 suffers a lot from a lack of focus, awful pacing and really poor timing.

Seasons 1 and 2 occurred during the brunt of the coronavirus pandemic, where everyone was stuck at home and had more time to stream because it was their primary form of content and because it was the best way to communicate with their friends. Thus, the pacing of those seasons was extremely steady and things were always happening.

Now, lockdown restrictions have eased quite a bit, and creators can branch out a lot more and can meet with each other in real life and can do vlog-style content. Therefore, they don't stream as much, and the focus of the Dream SMP story has shifted more towards newer or sideplot characters. If you enjoy those characters, that's fine, but when they take the focus away from the characters and the storylines the majority are expecting, a lot of people won't try to keep up with it and from their perspective there'll be a massive lull in narrative content.

What I'm saying, is that Tommy streaming for thirteen days in a row in July 2021 is a fucking pipe dream. It happened in December because the story was consistent and the pacing was steady and he had the time and the want to be there. Now, Tommy's off making his vlogs and hanging out with his friends and thus he can't stream as much as he used to. He's sort of suffering from the Robert Sheehan problem, isn't he? Tommy is still involved with the Dream SMP and his story is definitely continuing, and his narrative in season 3 is really starting to pick up with the newer developments, it's just that he doesn't have as much time to play the role anymore because he isn't streaming as much.

I'm not saying this is a bad thing - it's obviously making him happy that his content is changing and I'm fully supportive of that.

So when all of these meetups are happening and we don't have as much content from the main characters that we follow anymore, what happens?

Well, the fans get a little itchy. This fandom, especially. They might throw out a comment or a tweet asking when they're going to stream on the SMP, or if they really don't understand why the Dream SMP is good, they'll ask when the next 'lore stream' is, and they'll lament a little about how the content and the story has slowed, especially in contrast to the fast pacing of season 2 which only lasted a little over two months with much more story going on than in season 3 despite it having been going on for triple the time. What they'll get in response is that the Dream SMP is still going on and that lore is still happening.

On all accounts, these statements aren't incorrect. Lore still is happening.

But when you've been following lovable characters for two seasons, setting up their struggles and then switching the focus onto newer or 'sideplot' characters that you haven't really followed before, there's going to be a bit of moaning about it on twitter dot com.

The SMP now suffers from having too many characters, too many unfocused narratives, and poor pacing/ditched or unfinished storylines from the characters we used to follow and love while we're being told to love other characters instead.

I never really cared too much about the egg subplot, I'll be honest. I was a little interested in the involvement of Sam, Puffy and Ponk, but other than that, I wasn't really too invested. It very much tried to replicate the 'you should have paid me more' moment from January 20th at the Red Banquet, and it really didn't hit as hard because most of the characters there were either ones that didn't belong there at all (like Niki, Fundy, HBomb, and Purpled), weren't that involved with the plotline and felt out of place with the established characters in that storyline (Techno, Quackity and Ranboo), or were new characters that were difficult to get on board with because they hadn't really had too much of a story beforehand (Hannah and Foolish), or in the case of Antfrost, characters with no known motivation to be there other than that being the storyline they're currently in. Not to discredit those involved or their characters, but the Red Banquet really tried to replicate what the disc finale did with it's focused perspectives and it's Punz moment, and it failed.

Now, following the egg subplot's finale, I'm meant to focus on Las Nevadas, Snowchester and the Syndicate.

Las Nevadas is the most consistent storyline, however it's biggest problem is that it is filled with new characters or ones that are barely there. Despite how long he's been on the server, Purpled really is a new character if only because he's only really become a character recently - Foolish is still considered new, Slimecicle is new, Fundy rarely streams on the SMP. The only consistent longstanding and heavily involved characters that are a part of Las Nevadas are Quackity and Sam, and even their streams are infrequent, with a lot of Sam's perspective not even focusing on Las Nevadas but instead the prison.

Snowchester's plot is very much dying, dead and in the water. She's suffering. We haven't seen Michael in over a month, a nuke is still missing, Jack Manifold is dubiously a citizen and Tubbo doesn't even think he has a character on the SMP. It breaks my heart.

The Syndicate suffer from a lack of existence. The four characters really aren't a friend group in canon - all of the stuff about them hanging out all the time and them basically being a book club is all fanon. They've hung out as a four all of twice, the first time they ever got together they celebrated someone's death and then basically invaded Snowchester to give themselves a reason not to destroy it, terrifying Tubbo in the process. The second time was because it was Techno's birthday.

Now, Techno is in prison, and the only reason Phil hasn't read the will to progress the story is likely because of difficult scheduling with other server members, which is written off in canon as Phil not wanting to accept the possibility of Techno potentially dying.

Literally reading the will and having the Syndicate figure out that Techno's in prison with Dream will solve all of season 3's formatting issues and have the story back on track.

Currently, we don't really have two clearly defined sides the way we always had. We were meant to root for L'Manberg against the Dream Team, we were meant to root for Pogtopia against Manberg, and in season 2 we had a lot more moral ambiguity and room for side switching between the forces of Dream, Techno and Phil against L'Manberg, and then we rooted for Clingyduo against Dream.

I can predict that if the will is read, here's how a good conflict can arise.

Two clearly defined different sides - Las Nevadas on the side of Pandora's Vault, and the Syndicate (currently consisting of Phil, Ranboo and Niki), and you have compromises to make. If the side of the Prison wins, Techno and Dream stay in Pandora's Vault without a proper trial and being treated inhumanely, and there's also the threat of the rest of the Syndicate also being imprisoned. If the side of the Syndicate wins, the prison is taken out and Techno and Dream are no longer being treated inhumanely - problem is that Dream's out, and he's very much dangerous because despite what c!Dream apologists will tell you, he's not docile and he's not going to have a healing arc with Techno because he doesn't think he's done anything wrong and Techno can't tell him that he's done anything wrong (because Techno is the most wilfully ignorant character who gets to be political it's INSANE) - he'll go right back to the evil, abusive bastard he was, obsessed with Tommy, probably worse now that he can easily get Wilbur to do anything he wants and more vindictive against Quackity. Plus, if the Syndicate take down Las Nevadas they'll hold the most power on the server systematically and the so-called anarchists will ironically be the top dogs of the server.

Then towards the middle you'll probably end up having Wilbur, Benchtrio and Jack Manifold - Tubbo and Jack would prefer Techno and Dream staying in prison, except Tubbo's really not on the greatest terms with Q at the minute (because Q's paranoid and making conflict with parties that would have otherwise helped him out and thought they were friends), whereas Tommy would be stuck between wanting Techno out but needing to either keep Dream in or kill him, and Wilbur will be having to pick between aiding Dream's escape from prison or staying with Tommy, because he can't have both. Ranboo will probably be having the same problem as Tommy, except he's on the side of the Syndicate and will have to pick between the Syndicate or keeping Dream imprisoned.

Season 3 is salvageable, it really is. You can fix the poor pacing and you can fix the lack of focus with literally one revelation from fucking Philza M|necraft. But as it stands now, season 3 suffers from a similar situation as Misfits - almost replacing the cast of characters we've followed for the longest time with a new one in a format completely different to the original seasons.

[irltechnoblade]

How does anything you do help; a breakdown on why kin help blogs aren't necessarily helpful, changes to the formula I think would make them more helpful maybe?

My assessment is based on the fact that these are *kin* help blogs, and thus discuss how useful the things help blogs offer are in helping people who are fictionkin (and otherkin) with those parts of themselves. It's also very much personal opinion and I don't know how well any of my suggested alternatives would work, they're just my own thoughts on things I'd like to see in blogs like these instead.

Divination:

There's a reason some big fictionkin blogs refuse to boost blogs that do divination requests. Introspection is important in understanding being 'kin and people will instead go off of which direction a crystal swings when dropped. Divination can be incredibly useful in introspection, used correctly, it can also be very very wrong and lead you down the wrong path entirely if you choose to believe blindly. I would always suggest a more detailed method of divination carried out and interpreted yourself.

Alternatively you could design tarot and/or cartomancy spreads to answer questions that the requester can then carry out themselves. Write out advice for interpreting different methods of divination. Make it easy for those who want to use divination to explore this stuff. Interpreting divination results is very different when it comes to analysing this stuff than predicting the future.

Headcanon requests:

Personally, I thought at first glance "hey this sounds like a great idea" and when I was struggling with some stuff, I did actually request some from a blog once. They didn't help at all, quite the opposite actually. Most headcanons I already had contradicting memories for, the one that was actually possible in my timeline, I'm fairly certain now isn't something I remember. It's very easy to create fake memories though.

Alternatively you could create a list of questions for the requester to ponder and possibly meditate on in order to figure out their own memories? Questions sorta, focus your brain in and guide you towards answers.

Kin assignment:

Similar to an alternative for headcanon requests, a list of questions to focus on based what the asker has disclosed.

False positives with no introspection required. My friends who have known me years at this point all say that if they'd had to guess one of my kintypes they would have suggested my brother.

Doodles:

Actually these are pretty neat I approve they're very good and make a lot of sense to offer to those who aren't artistically inclined.

Playlists:

Theoretically good, actually. Useful for controlling shifts and using during the introspection thing. But to do well the request blog has to have a vast amount of music they're familiar with in order to be able to come up with a reasonable list of songs, and then not all of the songs they find will be useful to or even liked by the person who requested the playlist in the first place.

Stimboards:

Love stim boards. They're very pretty and stimmy, as you would hope. Not a bad thing to say about boards themselves. My only criticism is. Why are they on kin help blogs. How do they help you specifically with the whole being 'kin thing?

Recipies:

Another very good one actually! Put it in the pile with playlists and doodles as actually having a pretty good use!

Care and Fashion kits:

Make some sort of sense, but are often expensive, contain consumables (bath bombs and sweets can only be enjoyed once), and don't necessarily include the comfort you want. Blankets seem to be chosen for colour rather than material when they show up. Now, the correct colour certainly can help with homesickness, but matching textures and materials where possible is infinitely more valuable.

There's also issues with trying to recommend these products internationally. Generally better for someone to pick up things themselves as they go through life? Maybe suggesting the types of things that might help, with possible products afterwards. Having to give a justification for why each thing is included should increase the quality of these kits too.

Moodboards and aesthetics:

Once again, for those not artistically inclined, these can be very nice, and being able to shove a bunch of information into a request can net you can get one very relevant to your timeline which can be useful for introspection purposes, though never as good as one you put together yourself, using as many pictures and themes as you want. It's usefulness is actually very limited in the end and these are very common for some reason. They are pretty and nice to have I guess? Big problem with unsourced images used for these. Mostly just made to be pretty and not actually used, but that isn't the moodboards' fault.

Miscellaneous:

As someone who is fictionkin, do you know what would help me? Advice. Advice would help me. Also little things like *blank* helped me with this thing, maybe it would help you.

In conclusion. Kin help blogs are weird and do a lot of things I wouldn't describe as helping the asker with otherkin related issues, but they do offer a few very nice and helpful things.

[interact-if]

Taking the spotlight for Day 6... Lucirene!

Lucirene, author of An Angel’s Song

Latino Heritage Month Featured Author

In the forest of Bres an otherworldly sickness corrodes the soil and changes the creatures within. “A parting gift from the fallen angels”  say the citizens of the Hyaku Region and the mark on your hand confirms it.

Though the scent travelling in the air is sweet and enticing everyone knows better than to get closer. But the mark, it pulses, it burns, the pain spreading as fast as the corruption of the forest does.

Your masters are calling, and it seems like this time you cannot escape them.

An Angel’s Song Demo | Author’s Ko-fi | Author’s Patreon | Read more [here]

Tags: dark fantasy, romance

(INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT UNDER THE CUT!)

Q1: So, tell us a little bit about the projects you’re working on!

I have so many, but the only one public is An Angel’s Song. It’s, more than anything, a story about grief, loneliness and overcoming it all while navigating a hostile environment and discovering long lost secrets about the Divine and about the MC’s country. That one is very cathartic for me to make because of the themes, I feel like I’m working through a lot of feelings I didn’t even realize I had by writing it.

The next one is also an IF and it focuses on comedy, adventure and character interaction. It’s supposed to be more lighthearted, more fun, but knowing me… I don’t know if it’ll stay that way. Basically, it goes: A Captain’s boat falls prey to the storms and the strange creatures living under the sea, and they and their crew end up washing ashore an icy, snowy country. I already have the main cast written down and they have so much synergy, it’s amazing.

And the last one I’ll talk about (a traditional novel) actually happens in the same setting as my second IF, but many, many years before, when their local deity/guardian was born. It’s more of a romance-fantasy than anything, a love story between a Goddess and a half-dragon, however it also showcases many of the situations the people had to navigate and face before their country could become the place you’ll see in my second IF.

Q2: What excites you most about using interactive fiction? What are some of the biggest challenges?

What I like most definitely is how much freedom we have as authors. Of course, one is constrained by one’s ability to code but I think, for the most part, we can do so many things, reach an entirely new level of immersion that would not be possible with a regular novel. It’s amazing how sometimes I’m reading something and get so into it, feel so connected to the MC I feel dread when they do, panic when they have to make a choice that will clearly impact a lot of people in their world. With IF you can really feel like you’re part of the story.

Another thing I like is being able to explore other paths with my writing. Like for example, what if the MC had done this instead of that? How would that have affected their relationships, their world state? Writing branches is a lot of work, especially because they could change so many things, but it feels oddly satisfying when you do decide to include them. 

Challenges… Coding, mainly. I feel like a lot of new aspiring IF authors are a bit afraid of coding and I can understand that, especially since, had it not been for the help of the community, I would have taken way longer to actually start using Twine. Hopefully with time for resources come up and it becomes less daunting.

I don’t know if any other author feels the same way but, though I think branching is a blessing, it is also a curse. I can only write the same conversation so many times, I mean I know I’m writing it in different tones and sometimes with different results but it gets frustrating after a while because it feels like you’re stuck, like you’re not progressing at all.

Another one would definitely be finding a balance between reader interaction and just following your vision. Since it’s IF at times I feel like I have to meet a quota of branches or ways in which you can react, sometimes I also find it difficult to make the MC feel like a real person instead of a reader-insert. I’m working on that.

Q3: What has been something in your project you’ve had to do a weird amount of research for?

That’s a difficult one… I don’t know if I would consider it weird but I do tend to investigate a lot about fashion, especially when designing the main outfits of the characters. I spend hours trying to find out what colors were used back then, what they meant, who was allowed to use them. I have this little image with some palettes for kimonos depending on the season.

I also spend too much time coming up with names, especially for places. Like I look up names of places that already exist, what they mean, I try to investigate if the words that I want to use make sense, then I panic because I can’t find anything, but I think that’s usual for writers. I also spent more time than necessary researching for the name of a tree that you will see way later in the book, which no one will probably notice what the name of the tree means or what it symbolizes but it makes me happy.

Honestly, I feel like the amount of research I have had to do has not been particularly weird? If anything at times I think I should research more, even if some aspects of Japanese culture will not apply to Kyou.

Q4: Which of your characters is most like you? How?

The initial version of the MC from An Angel’s Song, which I miss dearly since they had more personality. They were autistic coded too, and I hope some traces of that still remain. Apart from that I feel like all of the characters from the main cast share something with me, even if their experiences are, of course, more dramatic than my own.

A lot of them have issues with a paternal figure or an absent mother, which also resonates with me. Some of Saori’s traits draw inspiration from ways in which I talked or acted before I became a little better at masking, before I became more self-aware. Hazuki being emotional and caring, K being a bit clingy but devoted, Masa having a temper yet loyal, Miwa being friendly but reluctant to open up beyond surface level information. I think those things describe me.

There’s also Rei but I don’t think I’m writing her book anytime soon. She’s someone that’s very family oriented, she’s a bit temperamental but she means well and she’s not afraid to speak her mind. Now that I think about it, maybe Rei is more the person I want to become.

Q5: Does your heritage influence your characters as you create them? (How? Why or why not?)

I’ve been living in Venezuela my whole life so I think so, even if most of the time I don’t even notice it. I believe that this happens especially in regards to relationships because people in Venezuela are very family oriented and also, from what I’ve experienced, they form strong bonds with their neighbors, which creates this strong sense of community —sometimes it goes well, sometimes it doesn’t, but my mom and her friends always make at least some friends in their neighborhoods and they gossip with some coffee about the happenings of the rest—. So when it comes to writing a character it is very important to me to make an emphasis on family relationships because those are a strong part of my culture, of my identity. 

In An Angel’s Song you have the main cast having issues or conflicting emotions about one or multiple members of their family, which influence their behavior and their outlook on life, but for the most part they are (or will be) able to form similar relationships with people that are not related to them, or to work towards restoring that relationship, transforming it into something healthier. 

In my other books family dynamics are also immensely important. For example, I’m going to mention Rei again because I love her. So, Rei has a sister named Rin, and they are both very close, even if they haven’t spent much time together. Their bond and trust in each other helps them overcome a lot of obstacles and they rely on each other when they need support or encouragement. Rei also has other people that she thinks of as siblings, and restoring that relationship with them is one of her main goals. There’s also this recurring guilt she feels at leaving her birth family and her home to explore, because to her, families are supposed to stay together.

Another aspect that I think influences my writing is religion, even if I wasn’t raised in a particularly religious household nor do I belong to any religion. Religion is a big deal in this country, we have so many events and holidays relating to religious figures. I remember when I was very young I loved going to one of the churches here because the Virgin of that town had a building filled with pretty clothes to dress her with. 

So, in that vein, I try to think about the character’s relationship with religion, do they believe in the Gods? Do they trust them? Do they follow local deities or prefer the main pantheon? How does this religion shape the way people interact with each other and the world? In regards to characters that are Venezuelan or Venezuelan-coded… I do have a few that are Venezuelan, but I don’t think I’m going to be releasing their stories soon, so I’ll keep it quiet for now.

Q6: What is something you love to see in interactive fiction?

People being passionate about their work! This isn’t something exclusive to IF, but it is something that I love seeing. I also like seeing the different ways people innovate within the genre. I feel like sometimes, especially with newer writers, there is this idea that an IF has to subscribe to a specific format and that’s simply not true. If you don’t want to use a stat system you don’t have to, if you want to add combat then go ahead, if you would prefer to write an MC that’s already pretty pre-established (which is something that I personally want to try) then there’s nothing stopping you and I encourage you to give it a go. IF is very versatile and it’s wrong to try and fit authors into a box, especially if they want to bring something new into our little corner of the internet.

Q7: Any advice to give?

In general, I advise people to have fun writing, to not worry so much about how good it is, about if people will like it. Writing, at the end of the day, ends up being a pretty solitary activity and having those thoughts in your head too long will make you spiral. Be kind to yourself, be open to feedback when it comes (and learn to distinguish constructive feedback from destructive feedback) and enjoy the exploration of your world and characters. 

You are not alone in all of this. If you can, join a group of writers you can talk with, exchange ideas, get feedback from or just exchange memes (the ultimate bonding experience). Don’t be afraid, you’re not alone.

[dogbearinggifts]

What are your thoughts on tua S2? Did you feel like the characters grew? What did you like? What did you not? I’m interested in your perspective. Your analysis are super thoughtful and interesting!

Aw, thanks, Anon!

Overall, I really enjoyed S2 and thought it was a solid follow-up to S1. I do have my quibbles about it, so I think (for ease of reference and because my thoughts are a little scattered today) I’ll list some of my personal highlights (in no particular order) before getting into what I didn’t like as much.

Big spoilers ahead.

Allison. I thought they handled her storyline especially well. Of all the siblings, I think she had the most difficult obstacles placed in her way (not only is she a Black woman landing in 1961 Dallas, but she’s a Black woman landing in 1961 Dallas who can’t even speak in her own defense for a year) and they sugarcoated exactly none of it. The writers pulled no punches when showing what civil rights protesters went through, which just made their nonviolent response all the more breathtaking. Allison’s fear and anger during those scenes were palpable even as she kept them hidden. But along with that horror, we see the kindness and warmth of the Dallas Black community, the women who take her in simply because she needs their help, and her love for Ray, perhaps heretofore THE most thoughtful husband ever portrayed on screen. I loved him, and I loved him and Allison together. While I understand and respect his choice to stay in 1963, I wish they’d gotten more time together. They both deserved it.

Vanya. We got to see how much the baggage from her past affected her by glimpsing what she might be like if it were taken away. It’s an interesting philosophical question, and it was explored well, in my opinion. She finds it easier to love and be loved, and she stands up for herself more readily—but she also doesn’t hesitate to use powers she can’t quite control and threatens Five without fully realizing how dire her threat is (or how it might dredge up traumatic memories she doesn’t know exist). The moment where Ben finds her curled up, fully convinced she’s a monster, was heartbreaking. I loved watching her find happiness with Sissy, even if that was fleeting (and dear god, Sissy deserved her happy ending with Vanya, dammit, I don’t care if it would fuck up the timeline). Her patience and sweetness with Harlan were just beautiful. And the way she used the confidence she gained during her amnesia to fully come into her own not to exact revenge on her siblings, but to save them, was fucking phenomenal.

The humor. There was a lot more humor this season, and it was awesome. So many iconic scenes—Olga Foroga, Luther babysitting two homicidal Fives, Elliot awkwardly lecturing his guests on the history of Jello, “NEW TIMELINE NEW ME,” “Your vagina needs glasses,” AJ the fish gobbling up the cigarette bubbles, Five getting to say “fuck”….this season was a lot funnier than the previous one, and I think that was one of its strengths.

Klaus’ cult. It was played for laughs, which I both expected and thought was the best way to handle it. He didn’t want to start a new religion with himself at the center; he just wanted to not get thrown out of any more diners, but Destiny’s Children had other ideas. The “I too am a fraud!” scene was hilarious and tickled the question of whether or not a religion founded on false pretenses can still help those within it find meaning.

Luther. Getting him away from his dad, his siblings, and the Academy was exactly what he needed to become the pure of heart and dumb of ass genius we always knew he was, but his first major step in that direction was heartbreaking. We all knew he’d be rejected once he got to the Academy. We all knew Reginald would rip his heart out and stomp on it in his admittedly fashionable shoes. It gets Luther out on his own and forces him to become his own person apart from his dad, but that doesn’t make it any easier to watch. He got the positive character development he needed, but the catalyst was tragic.

Diego. We see, for the first time, exactly how Reginald kept him in line—not with meds or with PTSD-inducing torture, but with words. Even when he knows Diego as little more than a stranger, Reginald is able to rip off his skin and fling it in his face with a single diatribe; and even at 30, with years away from his dad, Diego is left unable to speak, feeling as if all of his accomplishments up to that point were the work of a dumb kid who thought he was smarter and more capable than he actually was.

Luther and Diego sharing a braincell. Luther has bad ideas. Diego has bad ideas. When they put their bad ideas together, they get terrible ideas. I loved watching them work together as a team, rather than being at each others’ throats for most of the season, even if I’m left hoping Olga Foroga had a pleasant and quiet day after that phone call.

Reginald. At first glance, it may look like the writers were trying to make him likable so they could parade him around as your average abusive-parent-with-a-soft-side. But it’s more nuanced than that. Abusive parents (and abusers in general) often fly under the radar because they fool outsiders into thinking they’re good people. They’re active in their communities. They give to charity. They have friends who attest to their virtue, significant others who think they’re the greatest. And that’s what we see with Reginald. We see him as the rest of the world did: an intelligent, eccentric man with a sharp sense of humor who cared deeply about scientific advancement. That’s how he evaded suspicion—because there were stories from years past of lively parties at his mansion, of what a gentleman he was to Grace and of how he did everything he could to save little Pogo. But those stories would all have come from people he considered his equals. When he’s with people he considers his inferiors—aka, the Umbrella kids—he’s openly condescending and demeaning. We get to see how he fooled the world, and it is chilling.

Elliot. He deserved better, and you can ship him with any one of the Hargreeves kids and get the cutest thing ever. 

The Swedes. They said so much while speaking very little.

Ben. He got more personality and screen time, and it was glorious. His love of his family and resentment toward Klaus practically leapt off the screen. The way he says “I’ve missed you all…so much” once they’ve all left was one of those right-in-the-feels moments; and watching him get so much of what he’s wanted for years when he possesses Klaus was beautiful.

Now, as for things I took issue with….

Ben. I understand why they ended his arc the way they did. I get that they were probably afraid the Klaus/Ben dynamic would grow stale if they didn’t change it somehow and wanted to give him a larger role in S3. His death(???) was heartbreaking and extremely well-done. But it also wasn’t foreshadowed. We never got any sense of what ghosts in the TUA ‘verse are, so the fact they can be destroyed by a ton of sound-turned-energy or by going too far into someone’s psyche or whatever happened….it’s not that it doesn’t make sense so much as there’s not enough evidence to determine whether or not it makes sense. It feels like the writers just kinda made that up so they’d have a reason to change Ben’s relationship dynamics, but if that’s the case, couldn’t they have done it another way? Couldn’t they have made it so the immense energy or psychic woo-woo or whatever gave him a power-up instead of destroying him? Vanya transferred some of her energy into Harlan and brought him back to life. Couldn’t something similar have happened with Ben? And if it tied him to Vanya as well as to Klaus, great! More fodder for angst and humor! (”Vannyyyyyyyy, stop hogging Ben!” “You got him for 17 years, Klaus, you can part with him for 20 minutes.” “Guys, don’t I get a say in this?”) I’m glad they didn’t write him out of the series entirely, but I still wish they’d kept him and all the character development he’d gotten throughout S2.

Episode 10. It looks like they tried to cram half a season’s worth of developments into 45 minutes. Twenty minutes in, I’d already said “Wait what the fuck” half a dozen times. A lot of those moments were explained later on, and I was able to make enough inferences to fill in any lingering plot holes, but…still. Too much stuff, too little time. E9 was a perfectly satisfying ending to the season. Yes, it leaves the siblings stranded in 1963, but they could’ve tied up those loose ends in the S3 premiere.

Lila. She’s an incredibly fun character, but her arc is kind of a mess. Most of that is due to E10, and I do feel that more time to let her arc breathe would’ve worked wonders, but I’m left feeling like her turn from “Handler is the best mom ever and I lurve Diego too” to “KILL DIEGO AND HIS EVIL FAMILY” to “Handler is a bad mom and Diego is right” happened too quickly.

The Commission. Okay, so, the Handler announces the entire Board has been killed, and she’s stepping in as director even though everyone appears to know she’s been demoted (and demoted pretty severely—she went from having an office bigger than some apartments to being a case management drone). There’s suspicion and lots of it. But then, La Resistance is….ten or so people in a single room? And when she calls the temps agents to her side, thousands of them show up ready and willing to fight and die? I dunno. Just seems like there should’ve been more splintering going on there. Again, I think they needed more time to tie everything up.

Aside from those complaints, I loved the season. I set aside most of a day to binge it, and I do not regret that decision at all.

[pleasereadmeok]

This ‘Wonderland’ Interview to promote A Single Man is a gem.  Matthew Goode is a bit of a handful and swears his way through this interview with his mate Nic Hoult.  It’s very funny.  It’s often quoted (including his description of Colin Firth’s kissing technique!) but it’s difficult to find a clean scan of the whole interview.  This scan (from Natalie/ Fairchilds on ohnotheydidnt) isn’t very clear to read so I did a transcript several years ago - here:-

Wonderland Interview

Based on the 1964 novel by Christopher Isherwood, A Single Man marks the screenwriting and directing debut of fashion icon, Tom Ford.  Having debuted earlier this year at the Venice Film Festival to a standing ovation, the film has continued to impress audiences during screening at the Toronto and London Film Festivals.

Joining lead actor, Colin Firth, on screen are fellow Brits Matthew Goode and Nicholas Hoult who discuss the film, Tom Ford and being British in LA.

ON A SINGLE MAN

Nicholas Hoult: The only time I saw Matthew was when we were getting our spray tans.

Matthew Goode: Which were more regular than we were expecting.  I got on a plane with Colin [Firth] and then literally the moment we arrived, got in the car together, went to the hotel and suddenly – it’s like ten thirty at night – we have to go to Colin’s room where we’re having our spray tans .  Colin Firth is in his pants, I’m in my pants and it stays that way for an hour whilst we wait for this stuff to set.  He’s fucking great.  I love Colin.

We [Nic’ and he] never had a scene together but we were there the whole time.  I was only really fitting in around these guys.  Nic had a damn sight more to do than I did.

NH: No I just did more.

MG: [Laughs] It was a really fun shoot. I mean, maybe I’m looking back with rose tinted spectacles, but …

NH: It was a good fun shoot. Everyone enjoyed it.  I remember the night in Venice after seeing it in front of all those people and just lying in bed thinking ‘that’s something I’m proud of’.

MG: It’s seriously impressive. You watch it and you care and, it doesn’t happen to me a lot, but I watched it and thought ‘I’m in something that doesn’t stink!’.  I’m proud of that.

NH:  That’s a nice feeling when you’ve done something and you can say ‘yeah, proud of that’.

MG:  Fucking hell – sorry to interrupt – but I was reading a magazine or a paper or something the other day and it said “A Single Man obviously being screened and whenever Nic Hoult was on screen there were gasps over his beauty” [laughs]. And I was thinking, fucking Hoult is going to LA and get so laid! [Laughs]. He is going to be turning bush away left right and centre!

NH:  It’s all down to the fake tan again.  That’s where the performance stems for me.

MG:  That is a review!

NH:  Nothing about the acting, right?

MG:  They didn’t review the film.  It just said “I saw it.  I’m going to be reviewing it at some point, but let me tell you there were gasps over Nick Hoult’s beauty!”

ON TOM FORD

MG:  Tom is immediately interesting. If it’s all about someone’s cannon of work then most of the time you wouldn’t work with a first ime director, but if the script is good and you have a chat with them and they know which end is up and which is down, then great.

NH: I didn’t know who Tom was when I met him.

MG: Nick “fashion forward” Hoult!

NH:  I’d gone over to LA got off a plane and had dinner with him.  And I asked him how he’d got into directing and why he was doing this!

MG:  I love that.  Isn’t that great?  And that’s also like Tom.  He’s not the sort of person who is like, ‘well fuck you!’.

NH: He explained very humbly what he had done and I thought OK.  And then I looked him up after dinner and was ‘oh jesus!  He’s actually accomplished quite a lot’ so probably quite a stupid question, but he was very honest and modest and made a great director.

MG: It’s so good.  And so good for Colin.  And Julianne [Moore] is bloody great in it as well.  But the real star of it, it has to be said, is Tom. It silences immediately the people who were going ‘you self indulgent cunt.’  It’s like two massive fingers up to them as it is very, very accomplished.

NH:  It’s very personal to him as well.

MG:  Hugely personal as the main story sort of mirror images the relationship between him and Richard.  There’s a similar age gap.

NH:  He would always say my character is him when he was 18.  He’s connected to every character and he knows them.

MG:  And he wrote the screenplay and it’s starkly different from the book.

NH:  Matthew’s read the book, so –

MG:  That’s right!  I have. It is different.  I am always about the script, really.  But one of the really nice things about being involved is that it is a love poem to Tom’s partner, Richard.

NH:  Tom is very good in the sense that he is an actor’s director and knows what he wants you to do but is very giving to let you go off and explore things and try stuff out.  And you don’t feel too much pressure of failure.

MG:  That’s very true.

NH: ‘Cause the second you’re on set – especially when there’s only 20 days to shoot – to not feel the pressure, that’s a good atmosphere he created.  Something his assistant was saying the other day was that he’s very good at holding his hands up and would admit when he wasn’t sure what he was doing and kept everyone on side and made it a really great team effort.

MG:   I love it when someone’s like that.  It’s so far away from self indulgent as well when someone’s shooting into the 19th hour of the day and the ship isn’t sinking, but there’s a leak and it’s far better to say we do have a leak and I’m trying to sort it out rather than leaning on one side and saying everything is fine.  He is fucking great.

ON COLIN FIRTH

MG:  Colin was great.  I knew he was going to be good.  The moment I read the script, I was like, ‘this is something you haven’t done in a long time’ – just something he could really get his teeth into.   He’s such a subtle actor and it’s been a long time since I can remember him having something that central and serious.

NH:  It was a great moment when we went to the Venice Film Festival and got the message Colin was winning the best actor award.

MG:  I know.  The previous evening we had sat there and we knew it had gone down well because there was a NINE minute standing ovation.  And particularly when you’re not in the film as much as I am, then I feel like a fucking charlatan.  I stood there and am looking down and smiling and embarrassed.  Colin’s quite emotional and I tell you what – four minutes of a standing ovation gets a bit uncomfortable, but NINE?  ‘OK, Colin… fucking move. Let’s go. Let’s leave.’ And he couldn’t tell us that he had won and so he was being shy about it.

NH:  Yeah, he kept it very quiet.

MG:  The moment we found out and we were on the boat we were like ‘What the fuck?  You’ve won and you didn’t tell us!?  And he was like ‘ I know, I didn’t wanna.’  He was humble.

NH:  It was great.  It was a bit of an odd first day like you had in the sense that I had to strip off in front of Colin on my first day.  It sounds a bit seedy when I say ‘strip off in front of him’.

MG:  It does!

NH:  It’s part of the film, I swear!  And it’s handled a lot more tastefully that that might seem, but yeah it was a bit of an odd first day.

MG:  Everyone is going to say ‘oh it’s a gay movie’ which we then counteract with ‘no it’s not, it’s a film about love.’  But there is nudity and a bit of man kissing.  Frankly Colin kisses like a nymphomaniac on death row, but it was a real pleasure!

NH:  He’s got a lot of love!

ON JULIANNE MOORE

MG:  She’s a fucking hero.  She’s lovely. I didn’t have any scenes with her. I mean I’m only in flashback, so all my stuff was with Colin.

NH:  All my stuff is with Colin as well.   The first time I met Julianne was in Venice.

MG:  Yeah, she was probably in the middle of juggling six projects or something, you know, she never stops working.  She came in and shot two scenes, which were about 20 odd minutes of the film, and they did that in two evenings so she was in and out.  I never got a chance to meet her until I was at some party in LA and she is just fantastic.  And she’s married to a guy called Bart Freadlich who is a director in his own right.

NH:  He’s a hero.

MG:  He is actually fabulous!  My girlfriend spent the whole evening calling him Bert instead of Bart and he was like ‘you know, actually I prefer Bert!  Don’t worry about it’.  He’s lovely. They could throw their weight around, but they are actually family people and live in New York – they’re kind of anti Hollywood.

ON THE LIFE OF AN ACTOR

MG: There are a lot of Brits and Aussies at the moment who are working.  I don’t know what that means.  But we never think of ourselves.  When you get off the plane and you’re in America they ask ‘what’s the best thing about being a movie star?’ I am a jobbing actor, they have no idea! They make it sound like I get 500 scripts and am sitting there going through them all. If something comes up and they are stupid enough to give it to us or you love the script and audition but someone of a huge stature can come in and take it like Brad Pitt. Or Judi [Dench] – we’ve been up against each other a couple of times.

NH: I’ve never lost out to Judi yet.

MG: Only in a drinking contest! The vicious alcoholic that she is!

NH: Sam Worthington was telling me when he was in LA someone asked him why there were so many Aussies over there doing so well and his response was that it’s an awful long way to go to fail and not give it your best shot, basically.

MG: Oh. I was expecting some sort of knob gag in there, but yeah.

NH: It’s very true. I just got back from LA and every TV series has an English guy in the lead. Joseph Fiennes, Matthew Reece [RHYS]

MG: We’re good. We’re quite good…

N H: I can’t say it’s the training, because I don’t have any.

MG: You’re doing well! You make people gasp! You complete cunt. I hate that!

NH: You’re coming across very eloquent.

MG: That’s very nice of you.  OK, who used to live with Ewan McGregor and Jude Law and he has a TV show? You’re right about that. Though it makes it sound like ‘Oh you’re English.  Have a TV show’.  I’m sure they all have about ten auditions.

NH: I had an interesting day recently when I was at a BBQ and Jimmy Page and Roger Daltrey were there.

MG: Wow!

NH: I sat there and was very quiet because I thought if I speak to them I’ll make a fool of myself so it’s best to keep out of the way and then they can’t have any bad thoughts although they probably didn’t know I was there.  But I knew they were there so it was a good BBQ for me.

MG: I’d love to learn guitar. It’s one of those things I’d love to do. Though it’s not like I don’t have the time…

NH: [Laughs]

MG: I’d like to know all the chords.

NH: It’s difficult to get the fingering right… That’s what she said.

MG: And back to Dame Judi!

NH: [Laughs]

MG: It depends if you have a high action or a low action in terms of the strings.  It hurts. You’ve got to build up the calluses. If you get a low action one that would be easier.

NH:  Are we still talking about women?

MG:  Yes! [Laughs] I remember Billy Crudup got the part in Almost Famous and he had lessons with Peter Frampton but had to have lessons on the side because Peter was like ‘you are fucking terrible’. But that’s one of the nice accidents of the job is you can get training in things. And random travel.

NH: I got to do archery.

MG: You did! That was The Weatherman!

NH: No, for Clash of the Titans. I didn’t use it once.

MG: Oh yes, it was the daughter in The Weatherman.

NH: Yeah man, keep up.

MG: Sorry mate. That’s how pretty you are. I confused you with the female lead.

NH: He’s seen all my work.

MG: I have! I’ve got to learn how to do it. You are a master.  I did a Spanish film and it was all in Spanish [!] – I learnt it phonetically. Jesus, that’s my only skill.  The major skill I picked up is I can pay my rent. The older you get the more you realize there are a lot of people who hate their jobs.  I’m so glad I’m not – ha!  Famous last words! – it does seem to be going OK for now.  But bringing it back to what do you like about acting – to be honest, everything.

ON BRITISH TALENT

MG:  I think there is an element that we’re just so happy to work.  Certainly as for getting into film it was such an accident because I hadn’t worked in front of a camera.  For a while it was like what is the secret code to working on screen?  I have no idea what it is… but even ten films in I’m still sitting here renting and not owning a house.  I think that keeps you grounded.  As opposed to some American actors who are on a hundred thousand dollars doing some TV.

NH:  You don’t get comfortable so you feel you’ve got to keep on striving.

MG: I think we’re overrated. [Laughs].  There is an element over there if you walk into a room of Americans that they’re suddenly like ‘oh fuck they’re British and we’re steeped in tradition.

NH:  It’s odd that Tom got so many English actors for the film – we’re both playing American.

MG:  And Julianne is playing English.

NH:  it’s good he trusts in us to pull of the American accents.

MG:  Yeah, I mean – idiot!  In fairness you’ve done it before and I have done it a couple of times.  But it is odd.   If you think who he probably could have had –

NH:  He probably could have done better than us!

MG:  I’m sure he could have convinced someone with a much higher stature.  I think it was just we were willing to work for free, effectively.  And that’s also what makes Britain great.  We want to work and we want to please the director and often at times, yes we might have strong thoughts on character and script, but we turn up and are like, this is your vision and you are the director and we know where we fit in. Certainly the Brits, I find, we want to be told what to do or how it’s going to work rather than, ‘I’m the fucking star!’ I tend to find we leave our ego at the door. We tend not to pussyfoot around. We all like a drink. We’re steeped in that tradition as well. There’s a certain forbidden thing in America if you drink you’re an alcoholic. No I’m not, and I generally wait until at least half past one.

NH: On weekends. Weekdays, 11.

MG: There is a reason pubs are opened at 11 and it’s because you are allowed to start drinking at that time. Otherwise, they wouldn’t do it! Christ, can you remember back to when – you might not remember, actually. I gasp at your beauty as I try to remember!

NH:[laughs] I’m never going to live this down!

MG:Do you remember when pubs shut on Sundays at, like, 1 for two or three hours? Maybe I’m showing my age now. That is fucking madness. There would be a riot now.

NH:  So basically, we haven’t found a conclusion to what makes Britain great…  You’re a big X Factor fan though, aren’t you?

MG:  My girlfriend loves it.  She’s got me into it.  I mean it’s fucking hilarious.  You literally sit there and you don’t know any of these people but the music comes up and they get selected and you can be in tears and so happy that these people have been selected for the live shows.  I really like the over 25’s this year.  They’re fucking great.

NH:  Matthew Goode on The X Factor!

MG:  ‘He’s very much into the over 25s and what is funny is they are all male’.  But it is great.  But then it’s such a machine.  There is such a turn around.  Sometimes the winner gets completely forgotten and they have no career and then, obviously, sometimes they go shooting up.  But it is great telly!  Saturday night, a couple of beers and The X Factor.

[Pics - My edit of Ben Rayner photos/scan by Natalie Fairchild.] 

[cinema-tv-etc]

A Marriage Story Inside the making of the brilliant, moving first 10 minutes of Pixar’s ‘Up’ By Alan Siegel Jun 14, 2022

Ahead of the release of Lightyear, The Ringer is hosting Pixar Week—a celebration of the toys, rats, clown fish, and more that helped define one of the greatest studios of the 21st century. At the heart of the occasion is the Best Pixar Character Bracket, a cutthroat tournament to determine the most iconic figure of them all. Check back throughout the week to vote for your favorite characters and read a selection of stories that spotlight some of Pixar’s finest moments. To infinity … and beyond!

Pixar’sPixar’s Up was inspired by a single image: a house with balloons tied to its roof floating into the sky, far away from the burden of daily life. “It seemed freeing and aspirational, something everyone wants at some point,” director Pete Docter says in an email. “Getting away from everything, in the comfort of your own house—that’s where we started.”

But Docter knew that one good idea wasn’t enough to make a whole movie. During the 2009 animated film’s development, he and codirector Bob Peterson landed on making their protagonist a grumpy old man named Carl Fredricksen—it made sense that a widowed balloon salesman would want an escape. Still, that didn’t explain his mode of transportation. “Where was he going?” Docter says. “And why couldn’t he take a plane?”

The animators knew that Carl would need a backstory to answer those questions. They decided to tell it with a prologue that details the character’s life from his childhood to his golden years. But these early scenes reveal that Up isn’t only about Carl—it’s also about his relationship with his wife, Ellie. They’re kids when she bursts into his life with a shock of red hair and a passion for exploration, and the interaction leads to a deeply felt, lifelong connection.

I remember Pete saying Ellie was the spirit of adventure,” director of photography (camera) Jean-Claude Kalache says. Indeed, the two characters bond by spending time in the abandoned shack that Ellie has fashioned into a clubhouse. While visiting Carl one evening, she shows him “My Adventure Book,”in which she illustrates her dream: to one day travel to the mythical Paradise Falls. She even makes Carl swear that he’ll take her (and her clubhouse) there. In a flash, Up snaps into a montage of their life together: the two pals fall in love, get married, buy what was once Ellie’s hideaway and turn it into a home of their own. But as they age together and life grows more complicated, their bucket-list trip becomes more and more elusive. Then, it’s too late. “We figured the best way to make the audience understand—and care—would be to connect his house to a relationship, and unfinished business,” Docter says. “We worked hard to visually train the audience to associate the house with his wife, and the unkept promise of an adventure in South America.”

The opening of Up, however,is more than just a narrative device. The movie-within-a-movie is as emotionally heavy as Carl’s helium-lifted house is buoyant. It is, without a doubt, one of the most moving film sequences of the past 20 years. “It’s the heart of the movie,” says director of photography (lighting) Patrick Lin. “I remember seeing it for the first time and, of course, crying. Actually, three times throughout production.”

It’s cliché to point out that Pixar is excellent at making children’s movies that appeal to adults. But the amount of humor, romance, sadness, dazzling visuals, and entrancing music packed into such a short stretch is startling even for a studio whose creative success was built on a mix of all of those things. The beginning of Up elevates a form that the company had already taken to new heights. “Animation is capable of so much more than we give it credit for—we tend to think of animation as just fart jokes made for kids,” Docter says. “Granted, that does describe a lot of it, but animation can do anything!”

The opening of Up lasts only about 10 minutes, but it didn’t start out so short. “With most of our stuff, we overwrote that opening like crazy,” says Docter, who also directed Pixar’s Monsters, Inc., Inside Out, and Soul. “I would guess we had 30 to 40 minutes of material that we slowly whittled down.”

The sequence can be broken into two parts: the first, Carl and Ellie’s childhood adventures; and the second, their marriage. But before they can get hitched, Ellie and Carl have to meet. And before that, Carl needs to be introduced to the audience. The first shot of his younger self is in a movie theater, where he’s watching a Prohibition-era newsreel about his hero: the intrepid—but discredited—explorer Charles Muntz. The boy’s hair is a long way from graying, but he’s wearing his signature square-frame glasses. Right away, the movie’s unique visual style is apparent. Like most of the characters, Carl seems to be built from different blocks. “We used to say ‘chunkify,’ everything,” Kalache says. “If you look at Carl, his fingers are very, very big and stubby.”

With Up, Docter told Kalache that he wanted to try something different. “It slowly shaped itself into a very theatrical approach to lighting the movie where nothing mattered at the edge of the frame,” Kalache says. “It was all about the characters. It was about the expressions, the emotion, the performance.” Whether it’s Carl staring at the movie screen or Ellie interrogating Carl when he stumbles into her clubhouse, the camera stays glued to their expressive faces. From the outset, young Ellie’s adventurous spirit is on display; the filmmakers gave her a visible aura. “I remember saying, ‘How do we capture that in color?’” Kalache says. “So throughout the movie, even when Ellie is not there, we have her spirit, and we decided, ‘Let’s pick a color.’ And pink became that color.”

As soon as they meet, Ellie is pushing Carl to match her level of boldness. Literally, at first. After he accidentally lets go of his blue balloon—with the name of Muntz’s airship, “The Spirit of Adventure,” scribbled on it—she takes his hand and guides him to the attic where it’s drifted. Then she shoves him onto a single plank leading to his lost prize. Naturally, the board snaps in half when he takes a step and he falls and breaks his arm.

Voiced by Docter’s daughter Elie (with one “L”), Ellie makes it up to Carl by sending a blue balloon up through his bedroom window. This leads to her showing Carl her adventure bookand their vow to travel to Paradise Falls. At the end of their fateful visit, she climbs back out of the window. But before leaving, she pokes her head back up and says, “You know, you don’t talk very much. I like you.”

WithWith the pop of a balloon and the flash of a camera bulb, Carl and Ellie’s story jumps forward to their wedding. All of a sudden, the pace picks up and the film starts to feel like a home movie. “The camera doesn’t really start moving until after they get married,” Lin says. “And I would use a very gentle lateral camera movement of tracking and panning just to kind of say that, ‘OK, they’re going through life.’”

Originally, the montage had dialogue. But according to Docter, storyboard artist Ronnie del Carmen suggested that they should let composer Michael Giacchino’s piece, “Married Life,” do the talking. “Being [a] fan of silent films, I kept pushing to see how much we could take out, and discovered that it seemed like the less we had the more emotional it felt,” Docter says. “No dialogue, no sound effects—just music and visuals. It’s pretty tight. Every shot is a setup for elements we use later in the film.”

The “Married Life” section begins like a fairytale. Carl and Ellie work together at the zoo. They buy their house, renovate it, and give it the same multicolor paint job that Ellie had long ago envisioned. They picnic in the park, where they look up and see clouds shaped like turtles, flying elephants, and babies. Soon, they’re decorating a nursery with a stork mural and a mobile made of little dirigibles.

But then a slow camera pan to a darkened doctor’s office brings Up’sfirst profoundly emotional moment. Ellie is crying and Carl is resting his hands on her shoulders. A physician is explaining that she’s suffered a miscarriage. The next scene—Carl looking out the kitchen window at Ellie, who’s sitting on a chair in the yard, eyes closed, red hair blowing in the light wind—is crushing. And to the chunk of the audience that still considered Pixar to be nothing more than kids stuff, the sudden seriousness was legitimately shocking.

🔗 👉 https://www.theringer.com/movies/2022/6/14/23166006/up-first-10-minutes-making-of

Up 2009 Pixar

[girlactionfigure]

There's something I need to get off my chest.

I'm an Ultra-Orthodox, Chassidic, Hareidi Jew. I live in Jerusalem, in an area that is exclusively Ultra-Orthodox Hareidi for street after street, suburb after suburb, for miles and miles. In all of these neighborhoods where the roads are blocked off and no cars drive on Shabbos, each black-hat-wearing family has many many children and literally no TV’s. I personally only ever wear black and white clothes, my wife only dresses in Chassidic levels of tznius (modesty), and my boys and girls all attend mainstream Hareidi Chassidic schools where the main language is Yiddish. My kids don’t and never will have smartphones, nor have they ever been on the internet at all. Period. They don’t know what social media is and they’ve never seen a movie — not even Disney animation. 

Having lived exclusively immersed in this culture for the last 21 years, I think I'm sufficiently qualified and well-researched enough to state that the consistent depiction of Hareidim and Torah Judaism by mainstream media, from Netflix to the daily news, is somewhere between delusion, slander and the literal equivalent of racism. If you consider yourself less closed-minded than how you imagine we Hareidim to be, then permit me to share a few personal details about my family, and other families in our neighborhood, to see how well your mental narrative matches up to reality:

- Besides learning Torah each day, most of the men in our neighborhood work full or part-time.

- Many women in our area work. Some even manage their own business or company. These are not special or “liberated” women — it’s so normal here it’s not even a discussion point.

- My wife is a full-time mother by choice, who despite attending an Ivy League College,  finds it a profound and meaningful thing to dedicate her life to. If she didn’t, she’d go get a job. Mind you, she also attends Torah classes each week, works out with both a female fitness coach (who’s gay) and a frum Pilates instructor, writes and edits articles for a couple global websites and magazines, and personally mentors a number of women. None of this is seen as unusual. 

- Kids in our community go to Torah schools where they learn (surprise!) Torah. They are fluent in three languages from a young age and the boys even read and understand a fourth (Aramaic). All the kids learn grammar, math and science. Weekly after-school activities have included music (violin, drums, piano), Tae Kwon Do, swimming, art, woodworking and robotics. The girls' school teaches tools of emotional intelligence. The principal of the boys' school doesn't hesitate to refer to kids to OT if needed. I practice meditation with my children multiple times each week. None of our kids think the world is literally 6,000 years old. They devour books about science and think it’s cool. They know dinosaurs existed and don’t find that existentially threatening. They have a telescope with which they love to watch the stars. 

- The women in my family (like the men) only dress modestly according to Hareidi standards. The girls don't find this burdensome or oppressive. Period. They aren't taught that beauty is bad. They're certainly not taught to hate their bodies, God forbid. Each morning when they get dressed, they are as happily into their own fashion and looking pretty as any secular girl is. They just have a different sense of fashion than secular culture dictates. (Unfortunately for me,  it's no cheaper.)

- The local Hareidi rabbis we receive guidance from are deep, warm, sensitive, supportive and emotionally intelligent. If they weren’t, we wouldn’t go to them.

- My boys assume they will grow up to learn Torah, as much as they want to, and then when they’re ready, get a good job or learn a profession to support whatever lifestyle they choose. My girls assume they’ll be wives and mothers (which they can’t wait for) but they're also warmly encouraged to train in whatever other profession they desire. (My 9-year-old daughter, chatting with her friend in the living room, just commented, "I want to be a mother and a teacher and an artist." Her friend replied, "I'm going to be a ballet teacher.") All options are on the table, and their future seems bright.

- We love living in modern Israel, feel proud and blessed to be here, and frequently count and celebrate its blessings. Everyone in my area votes. Sometimes not even for Hareidi parties. I pay taxes. (And they’re expensive!)

- As a Hareidi person, I’m glad we have Hareidi representation in the government — though I don’t always love or approve of how the Hareidi politicians act, or what they choose to represent. For the record, I'm equally dubious about secular politicians, as well. 

- While I don't spend much time in Tel Aviv, I do have a few close Hareidi entrepreneur friends who have founded high-tech start-ups there, and are — Boruch Hashem! — doing very well.   

- We don’t hate all non-religious people. Our kids don’t throw stones at passing cars on Shabbos. I doubt they even know anyone who would do that or think that it’s ok. We frequently talk about the Torah value of caring for and being compassionate towards everyone. As a family, we proactively try to find ways to judge others favorably (even those people who throw stones at passing cars on Shabbos.)

- We invite all manner of religious and secular Jews to join our Shabbos meals each week and the kids are open, happy, and confident to welcome everyone. (No, we're not Chabad.) One of the many reasons for having such guests at our table is to teach the kids this lesson.

- While we would technically be classified as right-wing and we don’t at all buy the modern “Palestinian” narrative, we certainly don’t hate all Arabs, nor do we have any desire to expel them all from the land. We warmly welcome anyone seeking to dwell here with us in peace and we are pained and saddened to see the suffering and loss of lives of all innocent Arab families and children — as would any decent human being.

- Of the few local families I know whose kids no longer identify as religious, none at all chose to disown their kids. The very thought, in such lovingly family-dedicated communities, is hard to imagine. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, I'm just saying it's not as common as it's made out. Rather, these families have tirelessly, profoundly, compassionately committed to maintaining any connection with their children, and to emphasize that, no matter what, family is the most important thing. Because it is.

- We aren't just living our life blindly, dogmatically following empty religious rules; rather, we are frequently engaged with, exploring and discussing Torah's richness, depth and meaning. Our kids honestly love learning Torah, praying and doing mitzvos. They’re visibly excited about Shabbos and festivals. This lifestyle is in no way oppressive or burdensome for them. If you suggested to them it was, they’d laugh and think you were crazy.  

- We Hareidim are normal people: we laugh, we cry, we buy too much Ikea furniture, and we struggle with all of life's daily ups and downs, just like the rest of you. Some of our communities are more healthy and balanced, some are less so; some of our people are warmer, nicer and more open, some are more closed, dogmatic and judgmental; some of our leaders are noble and upstanding, and some are quite frankly idiots…JUST LIKE ANY SECULAR NEIGHBORHOOD IN THE WORLD TOO. But having grown up living a secular lifestyle myself, and today being Hareidi-by-choice, I can testify that in these communities there is generally a greater and more tangible sense of well-being, warmth, tranquility, connection and meaning. We love and feel blessed to be living this life and wouldn’t want any other.

If this description of Hareidi life is hard to swallow, be careful not to push back with the often-used defenses like: "Well, you're just an exception to the rule...", "You're just American Hareidim", "You're baalei teshuvah", "Well, I know a bunch of Haredim that aren't like that at all"....because the truth is, while there might be many Hareidim who aren't like what I described above, it's still an accurate description of literally hundreds of thousands of Hareidim in Israel and the US — a decent portion of all Hareidim in the world. Which is my very point — how come you never see this significant Hareidi demographic represented in the media, television series, or the news? How come we mostly see the darkest and most problematic cliches instead? 

And finally, if all the facts I've listed above about our communities are hard for you to accept as true, then perhaps the image you have in your head about Hareidim is less based on facts and reality and more based on stereotypes, fear, hate, and discrimination — like any other form of prejudice in the world. 

Care to prove me wrong? Well, you're welcome to come argue it out with me and my family at our Shabbos table on Friday night. It would be a joy and honor to have you. 

Doniel Katz

[gaymershigh]

Hi-hi! Can I request headcanons of Octavinele with a reader who is a representative of their species (octopus for Azul and moray for Jade and Floyd), but he spent his whole life among humans and knows nothing about the world of underwater inhabitants. Therefore boys decide to teach him about the life of the merfolk in exchange for the fact that reader will teach them about life in the human world (I was VERY inspired by the song "Strangers like me" from "Tarzan"). Thank you ~

Awww, this scenario is pretty cute! 🥺❤ ALSO OMG ANONNIE THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR REMINDING ME THIS SONG AND JUST TARZAN IN GENERAL!!! I love Tarzan and any scene where Jane teaches him about normal human life is so dksjkssnksnsnsnan I'M IN LOVEEEE 😭💖

Triggers: none

Azul, Jade and Floyd's teaching their male s/o who is a representative of their species about merfolk life and vice versa

When you first told him that you were also the same species as him, his mouth was agape. He wasn't prepared for the second shock that you also never had an experience of living at the coral sea, which is supposed to be your homeland. Does he wonder if that's the case then what happened in your life that caused you to stay on land? Did your parents have an interspecies relationship and they decided to stay on land? Did something happen to your parents and they forced you all to stay on land for safety? Are your at least biological parents even alive? He has so many questions but he doubts that he has that many answers. For now, he'll let those questions spit out of his mouth for another day.

When you voiced out your curiosity about sea life, an idea immediately came to his mind. He scooted super close to you and excitedly tried to initiate a contract with you. The deal wasn't obnoxious or anything ridiculous at all so you don't have any problems with accepting it. Plus, why would he even hurt his boyfriend just to gain something? He's not a sociopath. You two discussed and scheduled the date of what you called "Coral Sea school trip". Don't worry, he also thinks that this is very unnecessary as well but he doesn't want to take the risk of the twins ruining the moment or anyone from the school seeing his true form.

His eyes shined when you turned into your octopus form, you're very beautiful, more beautiful than he could ever be he thought to himself silently. As it was your first time going in on water in your supposedly real form, you will be slower and clumsy, so he holds your hand to prevent anything bad from happening. This little activity went smoothly. He teaches what it's like to be a very rare species in the sea and the more he speaks, the more he envied you as you didn't need to face the potentially horrible life you could've gone through. He teaches the baby steps and anything that doesn't make much noise as he does not want to attract attention. 

When it's time you have to teach him more about human life, he's very invested. Especially if you talk about anything business-related. You also make your lessons slow since he deserves it, he did go slow on you during the Coral Sea school trip. He would ask so many questions, you might just get tired from all of it. He might even ask more questions after that day. Before you know it, he's scheduling another Coral Sea tour, he's planning to teach you how to hunt and he's expecting you to teach him more about business topics even if you don't own one.

"Oya, is that so?" My, oh my. Isn't that interesting. Day by day, you always manage to captivate Jade with your unpredictability and your sudden bomb drops of news. He's a very curious man so he'll ask you many questions like how did you find out your real form? Did your parents decide that they will live on land for reasons or did you run away from them at such a young age you completely forgot about life at the Coral Sea? If that's the case, then that's hilarious. He'll be telling you facts and how his life was back in his hometown, telling you how different it was here when it comes to getting food, the food chain, the little ways to survive there. Now that you thought about it, it kinda makes sense now as to why they're so smart and unpredictable as they're born and living in a rather unpredictable and dangerous environment in general.

The more he talked about life at the Coral Sea, the more you got fascinated. He could see your beautiful eyes sparkling and that made his eyes narrow, he was pleased with this reaction. He asked if you were interested in maybe visiting there and seeing what's there to offer? Maybe you could teach him too about human life if you want. He says if you want but it's a must in this or else..he will just be upset. He's also curious about the land life as well to the point he made a club about exploring the wilderness and collecting mushrooms. You said yes and he's very delighted to hear that. You both will visit the place together when you two have a lot of leisure time. So when you two do finally have free time, he called you right away to come to the wall of mirrors.

Surprise, surprise, he's already there, neat looking and everything as always. Since he knows that you will have struggles to swim as fast as his pace so he gently holds your hand as he leads you to the mirror. When you changed your form, you looked mesmerizing. His eyes were wide for a few seconds before going back to his soft smile, complimenting your eel form as you told him to stop the teasing. He's put a lot of lessons in one day but of course, he would be gentle because he has common sense and he doesn't want to harm you in any way. He had a thought to make you meet his parents but scrapped it as it might be too much for your first day. He takes you to historic buildings and then to the "city". While the place does feel intimidating, you felt a bit safer as Jade's with you. 

When it's time for the human life lessons, he has more questions than Azul as his questions are in so many categories but most of them are questions related to nature. You two decided to place this little private event in club time. You two hiked as you answered his little questions, it was amusing as he sounded like a five years old child. He would pick up an item he has never seen before and asked what it is if you know. As he also studied a lot about human life already before meeting you, he might accidentally educate you too in the meantime, he chuckled if he does to mock you in a lovingly matter. If you haven't joined his club, he advises you to do so as he hopes for more of these life lessons.  

Floyd gives a very loud "hm?" To your confession. You've never lived in the ocean before? That's weird, especially when you're the same species as him. He wouldn't ask that many questions, not like he has many questions in his mind in the first place. His very first question would be just "Why and then that's pretty much it, he'll go back to the conversation you two were having. It's not like he's disinterested, it's pretty interesting it's just that whatever you guys talk is more important even if it's just a talk about parkour or whatever. It seems that you need to initiate the conversation about his life at the Coral Sea and he's rather delighted that you're interested in whatever he's going back then so he goes on a full story from his family to how they met Azul in detail.

You don't know how happy he is when you're fully focused on his words. Other people usually would stare into the clouds or directly tell him to stop talking so his mood is suddenly more bright than it already is. You kept asking questions about the difference between land and sea life, his opinions and such he proposed an idea, why not find out together by going to the sea? You were excited and made the mistake of saying "I cannot wait" because..he also cannot wait! He's in a good mood right now, why not just go there? Who cares about his job!? He's not in the mood for that but in the mood to go back to his hometown so let's do just that!! Besides, you don't want it postponed because of his foul mood, don't you?

Your eel form makes him very happy. He's circling you like some sort of cult ritual to check you out. He's hugging you, jolly, and surprised that his species are very squishy. Unfortunately, you are dating Floyd so you should be expecting that he doesn't go gentle or do these baby steps. He would go immediately to his unique ways of hunting for food, the extreme sports he has an interest in, and anything that's just risky in general. He will whine when you're slower than him or can't keep up with these intense lessons but of course, will give in to your complaints because he doubts he can do anything about your weaker stamina. Yet.

When it comes to human life lessons, he will always say irritating things like "I already know this" or "this isn't interesting" so be careful in what topics you will bring up. The subjects that usually perk up his ears are sports-related things or anything that requires a lot of physical activity. Fashion also gets his head up, especially about shoes. He will ask a multitude of questions about the things mentioned above because you know, it piques his interest. Maybe some human version of pranks so he can do it to his unfortunate victims, mostly Riddle. If you manage to interest him for the entire time, he might want to do this again but maybe more sea lesson times than land?  

Lmao sorry for the very slow updates lately. I have been physically sick and have no motivation to write lately so expect updates to be rather slow! Sorry about that!!..

~𝕸𝖎𝖗𝖎

[buddielove]

Hi! I'm a gay fan of 911 and I have a question about the whole Buddie fandom. As much as I like Buck and Eddie, it's frustrating that a HUGE part of the fandom is pushing for these two characters to get together instead of putting energy into supporting Hen & Carla and Michael & Dave. Not to mention Carlos and TK in Lone Star. Can you explain to me the appeal of wanting these two men together? Wouldn't it be more interesting to see two heterosexual males just be able to bond in a non-toxic fashion? That's something we don't get to see often on television.

Hey! This is MAD long lmao I am so sorry! You caught me on a day I felt like talking! Also this took like a year to answer you lolololol. This does have a few ʻhot takesʻ so please be warned! So like in this essay....

So first I am also apart of the LGBTQIA+ community, so I do understand how it could come across as a fetish or being non supportive of the current canonically LGBTQIA+ characters, however I think a lot of the interest around Buddie and the want for them to be confirmed as a couple is how they are being written. Me personally I knew since s2 e1 Buck and Eddie were written not as rivals but as two people who would eventually become friends, but it wasn’t until the Christmas episode with the elf assuming Buck was Chris’s dad and Eddie’s partner that I was like ‘hold on!’ because I was really hoping Abbey would return and I didn’t see Eddie as a possible Buck live interest because of that. The elf’s comment wasn’t played off like most other shows would (think Dean and Sam arriving anywhere in Supernatural) it made me go back and look at the other episodes to see exactly how Buck and Eddie were being framed/written. And as we have moved into further seasons I think there has been a shift in how Buddie is being written, in s3 it was very much like two people progressing into a deeper friendship then the blood clot/lawsuit gets in the way and they both have to deal with emotions surrounding that, then Buck’s response to Eddie being trapped (we see how is he when Boddy is trapped in a fire WITH A GUNMAN, it’s emotional but not to the point is is with Eddie), even the love interests feel very pushed on us and there’s so little banter between Buddie about their gfs and how they feel about these new beginnings. It feels off, not like a friendship in the slightest, more like two people trying to force something and not wanting to deal with any other feelings. Then when Eddie gets shot and reveals Buck is Chris’s legal Guardian in the event Eddie dies, that’s huge, and he did this after only a year of knowing Buck (I have friends with kids. I’ve known one of them for FIVE years, I’m at their house every week, the kid calls me family. I’m person #10 on the list of ‘who gets my kid if I die’, not #1 lol) It just feels like it’s all building up to something, and people are getting tired of waiting for that something! We’re all emotionally tired from the past two years, and probably from many shows queerbaiting us and this is something that could happen, seems to be something the actors are ok with and the fans want. So why do they keep drawing it out. This isn’t about us demanding they ignore the chance to write a healthy platonic male friendship, or forcing two characters to be gay, it’s about holding the writers to what they’ve implied and seeing what could come of it.

Also think of it like this; If Buddie is confirmed it will still be a good example of a healthy friendship which then developed into something else, like Booth/Bones! Showing the natural progression of friendship to relationship that happens a lot in real life. It’s two men who previously (on screen at least) have only been with woman, but now they have an emotionally connection with someone which they then develop and explore. This could be 911’s first nontoxic depiction of two gay characters coming together, because sorry not sorry the canon couples aren’t perfect (which does humanize them) but they also reenforce harmful troupes that plaque the LGBTQIA+ community, which I’m sure you understand: TK was a drug addict, who only got with Carlos at first cause he was hot and sex was TK’s new addition (all gay men are sex addicts who do drugs and sleep with anything that moves). Carlos was ashamed and wanted to keep TK on the downlow (poc gay men want to pretend to be straight but have free access to gay sex). Hen cheated on Karen seemingly the first chance she got (lesbians can’t handle monogamy when pushed, and cheat on their long term partners). All known and documented troupes that happen far too often.

I’m not saying Buddie is some gay jesus ship that’s gonna save the entertainment industry but if done right it could prove to be one of the few healthy depictions of two men getting into a gay relationship we have. If they plan it out correctly, show us the relationship development, like they did with Maddie/Chim for example, Buddie could be used as a positive example of a gay fictional relationship (I really could go into depth about this. I probably should tbh).

As for not supporting Hen and KAREN, or Michael and DAVID, I think fans do support them! The writers don’t. If you read fanfics Henren and Michael/David are featured heavily in many fics, and ik some people might say ‘well they’re only there so Buddie can talk about their gay side!!’ but both these couples have their own fans and fanfic tags! They aren’t just plot devices in Buddie stories. There is a huge side of the fandom that supports Henren and wants to see more of them and their family. Same with Michael and David, during the episode where Michael and Bobby team up to find that plastic surgeon who was working illegally many people where ecstatic that we were getting more Michael/David content and that David was getting more than a couple lines. But sadly it seems like the writers only want to delve into these story lines when they need filler, they even miss opportunities to include these other LGBTQIA+ characters when it makes sense;

(Someone came for me about this but I am going to bring it up again)

When Chris is sad and wants more human connection, instead of bring Harry + Michael/David and Denny+Nia+Henren back into the picture (and yes I understood at the time the pandemic was bad (lmao still is!!), but all the actors at some point would have/had crossed over into each other’s ‘bubbles’, so ALL the actors would have been exposed to each other so getting the children together with adults they had ALREADY been with during shooting wouldn’t have been a super spreader event) but instead they brought in Ana after only two on screen dates and pretended like it was a logical thing for someone who’s up to that point been extremely careful with their child.

They really could have pushed the ‘118 is a family!’ message here and included the canonically gay supporting characters, and the lesbian main character(s) but they did not and instead chose to push the Ana/Eddie coupling even though they hadn’t properly developed it yet. The writers themselves don’t seem to care about developing their canonically gay characters and including them more than they have to but fans are continuously developing Henren and Michael/David with hc and fics.

I’d like to use your logic against you for a second, in s1 we have a very healthy, platonic friendship between Chim/Bobby but that got written out to the point they are more like boss/employee unless the scene calls for them to seem closer, we now have Bobby and Michael friendship but again we hardly see Michael. On Lone Star we have Owen and Judd as a really, really good example of a healthy male friendship but we see Judd more often with Tommy now then we do with Owen, and in s2 it’s overshadowed by Owen trusting Charlie from Twilight and constantly getting fucked over! Why can’t the writter just be happy with these happy, healthy, emotionally well male-male friendship they’ve already included and expand upon them. There’s enough drama because the show literally involves burning buildings and people’s lives being at risk from some natural/man made disaster ever 12 seconds. Does it need to have so much interpersonal conflict and male peacocking??