#I’m sorry it’s true the entire vibe of the season is. he’s their third

[redgoldblue]

s6 truly just

Michelle: this is my husband Sam

Michelle: and this is his boyfriend Callen

[jackrrabbit]

🤍 Haikyuu WIP excerpts

preview post for hq because recently i showed sara a list of my works in progress and she laughed at me and then made a dn joke like this is 2015 or something. we got:

🤍 communal property /// ushijima x f!reader x tendou 🤍 sunshower /// atsumu x f!reader x osamu 🤍 corporate ethics /// kuroo x f!reader

anyway these are all terrible first drafts and i'm not sorry. however i am very very into these pieces and if you're interested in seeing them finished, you should tell me fr fr

🤍 communal property /// Ushijima x f!Reader x Tendou

Summary: Tendou shares everything with Ushijima—his food, his dorm room, even the AVs he likes. Why not his girlfriend, too?

Tags/warnings: poly relationship in progress (only you and Tendou are dating at this point), mild suggestiveness ??, s*ze k*nk

Status: 10k words written (holy fuck lol) out of ~11k total? this bitch better get finished is2g

After the match, your voice is hoarse from screaming but you still manage to yell congratulations for your boyfriend when you meet him and Ushijima outside the locker room in the stadium. You’re pumped on the adrenaline of the game, so you don’t even protest like you usually would when Tendou picks you up in the middle of your hug and lifts you off the ground effortlessly. “How was I? Awesome, right? I told you we would beat them!”

“You did, you so did—“ Even though your throat hurts, you can’t help gushing about every rally, every soul-crushing block, every impossible spike. “—and then the guy on the left thought he was clear to shoot it but you just—“ You throw your arms in the air and mime hitting the ball down like a blocker. “Wha-bam!—and the look on his face! I thought he was going to punch you!”

Tendou laughs and lays a sloppy kiss on your cheek, just as thrilled as you are by the win. “You really liked it that much? I thought you weren’t into sports.”

“I loved it! You were so cool! I can’t believe I’m dating someone so cool!” You wrap your legs around his back and hug his face close to yours, reveling in the fact that this weirdo belongs to you wholly and entirely, that you get to have him to yourself (well, other than his roommate). “And I’m not into sports, I’m into you.”

Tendou smiles in a way that makes the sides of his eyes crinkle up and little red patches bloom over his cheeks, a look that says, I like you so much (Y/N), I like you I like you I like you, except he’s probably trying not to be mushy like that since Ushijima is standing off to the side.

You feel a little bad for ignoring him (no one likes being the third wheel, even if he never shows signs of caring) so when Tendou sets you down you turn to Ushijima. “And you! Holy shit, Tendou said you were good, but I didn’t know you were that good. The ball when you hit it was super loud—honestly, how are your hands okay? If I hit it that hard I’d probably break something.”

“My hands are fine…this is normal for me.”

But just because you’ve got them here in front of you and you’re still pumped from the exhilaration of the win, you can’t help grabbing Ushijima’s hand and flipping it palm-up to inspect. True to his word, there’s no redness, just the calluses he’s built up on his long fingers. “Wow.”

“You don’t need to worry about Wakatoshi,” Tendou tells you, grinning and then making a face. “He’s a monster, he can handle it.”

“No kidding. You’re both monsters.” You put the base of your palm up against Ushijima’s to gauge the size of his hand against yours, and without prompting Tendou grabs your other hand to press against his own. Tendou’s fingers are a bit longer, but Ushijima’s are…thicker, more solid. Your hands look like a little kid’s in comparison. “Can I be honest? Half the time I was thinking I actually feel bad for the other team. If I had to take on both of you at the same time, I’d probably cry.”

You’re (mostly) joking, but it’s still a complete shock when you see the side of Ushijima’s mouth curl up a tiny bit. You’ve known each other for months at this point, but you’ve never seen him smile until now. Half of you is wondering if this is some kind of optical illusion caused by the atmosphere and the dim light of the stadium cutting through the evening, but the other half of you enjoys it. You made Ushijima smile. You did that.

“Don’t sell yourself short, (Y/N).” Ushijima says, tipping his head to the side.

“Yeah!” Tendou chimes in, resting his chin on top of your head and folding his arms around your neck from his place behind you. “I’m sure you could take both of us. Right, Wakatoshi?”

So that’s probably a sign.

🤍 sunshower /// Atsumu x f!Reader x Osamu

Summary: [Kitsune AU] You find an old Ō-Inari shrine in the woods that may not be as abandoned as it looks.

Tags/warnings: Shinto religion, this preview is biased toward tsumu oops, yearning/soft vibes

Status: 3.9k words written out of 5–6k? total

Atsumu was the one who found you.

That’s how he likes to talk about it, that he found you, like you’d still be wandering around lost in the woods if it weren’t for him. Osamu thinks you would have found your way back home eventually but Atsumu likes it better this way, this framing that makes it seem like they saved you.

It’s hard for him to tell time linearly the way humans do but you mention once that you’ve known them for a year and that seems to fit. It’s spring now, almost barely tipping into summer, and it was spring when Atsumu found you. He remembers because of the way it was raining: light and tender, a summer rain early in the season, each little drop tapping off a leaf and then rolling into the forest bed to be eaten up by the grass and the soil.

Atsumu likes the rain, likes the sweet earthy smell it makes and the way the plants look so lush and green and alive, like they’d bleed if he sunk his teeth into them. He was out in the woods because of the rain ('Samu was in the shrine, as usual, attempting to set buckets under the millions of holes in the roof so the rainwater wouldn’t pool and rot through the wood underneath). But Atsumu was half asleep in a tree when he heard you crashing through the undergrowth, tripping over ferns and snapping every twig in your path (thought ya might be a bear, he tells you later, that’s how loud ya were) but he wouldn’t really have woken up if he hadn’t heard you singing.

(The odd thing is, you weren’t actually singing. You remember that day as vividly as they do: the warm, humid air making your skin feel sticky under your yellow raincoat; the tiny raindrops filtering through the canopy and kissing your cheeks; the ink feathering out on the damp xerox of the old map you found in your great-aunt’s attic so you could barely make out the “X” that was supposed to mark the location of the lost Inari shrine… You were cursing how stupid you’d been to go on a wild goose chase into the mountains with no cell service and no marked trail to look for a shrine that no one had seen in decades. You definitely weren’t singing.)

But Atsumu remembers it differently. No matter how many times you explain that you were just talking to yourself, when he replays the sound of your voice back then (reaching and lilting and falling, the way the birds talk to each other in the early morning, except the music of it was poured into syllables and words), it sounds like you’re singing. He wasn’t sure at first, hadn’t heard a voice that wasn’t Osamu’s in so many years that he gets tired counting them, but then he saw you push into view from between two bushes and he thought, a human!

A girl, too—it was hard to say at first because you were wearing that weird, slick jacket of yours, so bright yellow it was like an oversized flower blooming out of the grass, but then you tilted your head up to feel the rain on your face and the hood fell down and he knew. Not just a human, a girl! Atsumu wanted to yell for Osamu, make him come and confirm that there was a person wandering around not a mile from the shrine. A real person! Singing and smiling and wiping the rain off her cheeks (does that mean you like the rain, just like he does? did you come out to feel it too?) But he also wanted to surprise Osamu so he hid his tails and his ears and came down from the tree and asked if you had lost your way in the forest, since you were so far from any path…

When you think back on this yourself you’re amazed that you just went with him: a strange boy (man?) wearing a fox mask and traditional Shinto priest robes, which were somehow pristine white and red despite him having appeared from nowhere in the middle of a dense forest, who told you he had no idea what direction the village was but he could take you to the Inari shrine you’d been searching for…well. Maybe you were too surprised to be wary, or maybe you were just exhausted and lost. But you like to think you had a sense of it even then, the irrational belief that the boy in the woods was not just a boy in the woods.

Atsumu thinks you knew. Humans always understand, even when they try not to… He remembers, he took your hand that day in the forest and you saw that the claws on his fingers were too long to be human, and you said nothing because on some level you already felt it. Your skin was cool then, smooth and damp from the rain; he wanted to stop, run his hands up your arms, touch the places on your face where your mouth had been turned up at the corners and press his fingers into your cheeks.

🤍 corporate ethics /// Kuroo x f!Reader

Summary: [Office AU] The new junior marketing associate just happens to be Kuroo’s favorite camgirl, and he’s having trouble keeping his hands to himself.

Tags/Warnings: boss/employee, businessman!Kuroo as a reformed player, camgirl reader, this excerpt has a lil bit of 18+ content 👀

Status: 1.2k words written out of 4k? words total

Kuroo doesn’t watch porn.

It’s not, like, a moral principle or something. He has nothing against pornography. As far as he knows, it’s perfectly normal for single men. He just doesn’t like it…unless it’s you.

When he was in school it was easy. Being a teenager meant being so flooded with hormones that a warm breeze could get him up, and the adrenaline rush of winning a game was better than any big-titted porn actress faking moans into a shit-quality boom mic. Sure, he watched porn back then (what teenage boy didn’t?), but it was more out of curiosity than necessity. It was all kind of a mystery at that point, the way it can only be when you’re a clueless virgin and you and all your friends are too busy practicing for the next game to get girls.

Somehow Bokuto was the first one in their friend group to lose his virginity, and the memory of the dumbass self-consciously describing the experience has been lodged in Kuroo’s brain for the 10+ years since. “It was…I don’t know. She smelled good. You know how girls always smell good?” Bokuto’s hands twitched and his face was pink. “It’s just really…soft.”

Soft was right, Kuroo would reflect when he got laid for the first time a few months later. Soft, warm, wet. Sex was awkward at first, but before he knew it it was more natural than breathing.

It didn’t change much after high school, either. He didn’t get into volleyball for the groupies, but they didn’t hurt. There were girls when he played for his college team, more girls when he joined a business frat, so many girls he couldn’t keep track…they blurred together after a while. It didn’t take effort. You don’t need game when you’re 6’2 and you’re in the gym 40 hours a week, and you definitely don’t need porn.

So he never got into it. Now that he’s promoting volleyball instead of playing, things are more complicated. Kuroo’s never been the type who expects things to fall in his lap, but there are so many rules when it comes to dating in the real world. Good morning texts, anniversaries, flowers, parents. It’s exhausting. One time—seriously, just one time—Kuroo misses his girlfriend’s birthday to go watch a Jackals game, and the next time he sees her she throws her drink on him in public and keys his car. After that, Kuroo decides that until he’s ready to settle down there will be no more girlfriends. Which means no more reliable sex. Which means resorting to porn.

Which means you.

You, batting your eyelashes at the camera and biting the side of your lip. You, purring and mewing like a kitten. You, lying back on your pretty pink bedsheets in your pretty pink lingerie, sliding your hands between your legs. It takes Kuroo a full month to decide to pay for access to your website (Kenma’s unsolicited recommendation) but it takes less than five minutes for him to upgrade access to premium. You look like a wet dream—no, you look like the centerfold of every dirty magazine Kuroo managed to get his hands on when he was younger. Pristine and alluring and so deliciously out of reach.

And you make it so simple. No delicate emotional games with rules Kuroo never bothered to learn. No pretending to care how your day was. You untie the little bows on the side of your panties and lick your fingers and Kuroo just has to take his dick out and watch you. Getting off hasn’t been this easy for him since college. You’re a camgirl, you exist on his computer screen, and that’s how he likes it.

Which makes it a lot more awkward when Kuroo finds out that the only woman he’s gotten off to in the past…year, maybe?…somehow just got hired in JVA’s sports promotion department as his junior associate.

Your prim work blouse is buttoned up to the collar and your makeup is different, but he knows it’s you. You have to tell him your name twice because he’s too stunned to respond the first time, and even then he can’t summon up more of a response than a curt nod because his mouth tastes like dirt.

You smile a little awkwardly at his cool reception, and the hand you’d extended out to shake swings back down to your side. “Um, the guy at HR said he sent up my info yesterday…I’ll be working directly underneath you?”

Directly underneath me. Kuroo is taking a sip of his coffee when you say this. He doesn’t spit it out, but it’s close.

[burnedbyshoto]

shinsou and the very terrible, horrible, no good, very bad shift

— You, a new sidekick, screw up a case for a Pro Hero Shinsou, and he demands compensation.

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pairing: older!shinsou hitoshi x younger fem!reader

warnings: age gap (shinsou 25, reader 18), nsfw, 18+, pwp, DEGRADATION, power imbalance, spanking, marking, cursing, shinsou is a major asshole, mindbreak, sorta subspace, happy ending for shinsou, depending on person unhappy ending for reader, public sex, dubcon because of power imbalance

word count: 3,892

a/n: happy halloween. this is mean degradation imo like I thought ive done degradation but this made all those look like praise kink. be careful and click out if its too much

kinktober day 20 main kink: degradation | kinktober masterlist

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How you ever forgot that as a high school hero-in-training student, you were a big fish in a tiny pond was beyond you. Well, to be quite honest, you never thought yourself to be a big fish, to begin with.

You were eighteen, a few months from turning nineteen and had just graduated from the hero course over at UA. That in itself was a huge accomplishment, one that you should take with bubbling pride and joy, but to be quite honest, having such a big name attached to you only made you nervous. To tell the truth, you often wondered just why a hero within the top 50 even scouted you to work as an intern with them and then offer you a position as a sidekick as soon as you entered your third year. Still, it seemed to be a common predicament with BMI Hero: FatGum.

Today was your first day on the job, no longer a student part of a hero work-study, but as a physical, government paid hero — a fickle sidekick! You shuddered as you slipped on the shoes to your outfit, your teeth gnawing at your bottom lip as you made your way out of the locker room, ready to report to your first assignment.

FatGum agency was quite a lovely place, loud and warm, being the first two adjectives you thought of when you first joined their ranks. It did wonders for your self-esteem, and seeing newly turned Pro Hero Suneater, who apparently was a million times more of a nervous mess than you were, made you feel oddly in good hands.

But still, nothing could keep you from the shock that ran through your body when FatGum proudly thrust forward a patrol route for you to follow.

“Alright, pipsqueak,” FatGum jovially spoke, his eyes closed while he smiled. “This is your route for the day! It should take about an hour to get through unless anything happens! You’ll go on the route every three hours, and in between those patrols, it’s the same paper system as before! Good luck out there, y/h/n, you got this!”

“Oh my god, no, I do not?!” you spluttered, hands shaking wildly as you went through the folder Fat had so quickly presented. “What if I die?!”

“You’ll be fine. Remember how Deku and Ground Zero complimented you the other day?”

“Yeah!” you exclaim, your face burning with your shame as you remembered that confrontation. “But that only happened because Deku is a living saint, and I spilled my noodles all over him and Ground Zero! Ground Zero was also, by the way, forced to compliment me by Deku! And all he said was that my combat skills were absolutely shitty but not as shitty as he thought they would be!”

“Ah yes, I remember Red Riot discussing how his friend was less than inept at expressing his gratitude,” FatGum hummed in memory, although that dumb, proud smile never left his face. “If I remember correctly, that means he has great respect for you!”

You made a dying noise at the back of your throat.

“But Deku doesn’t lie! He speaks honestly, so all his compliments were definitely true. Now, y/h/n, let's get through this day together, ne?”

You didn’t agree, but that wouldn’t stop him from throwing you out to the streets, your heart hammering in your throat as you walked through the path he used to take you on every day. Your smile was shaky and wobbly as the people you recognized waved and cheered you on. They were all excited to see you on your own. 

However, they did point out that you were here an entire hour earlier than usual, but hey! That’s what happened when you went from being a student to trying to function as an adult!

“You’re okay, you’re okay, you’re okay,” you chanted as you passed by the spookiest alleyway on your patrol.

The hour-long patrol was almost done if your watch wasn’t lying to you: a full patrol and not a single instance of needing to help. Well, you had assisted some people in carrying groceries and holding a child as a mother shopped for dinner that night, but there were no altercations, nothing out of the ordinary. 

You marched through the alleyway, your fists in a shaky clenched grip as cold, nervous sweat dripped down your neck.

You were okay, you are okay, you will be okay.

“Nothing to be afraid of! Just a normal, average, no villains insight day!” you spoke to yourself, your body shaking as you pass an opening in the alleyway, and you turn your head to look and freeze.

“Alright, and I don’t want fucking nobody hearing goddamn shit about this drug, got it?!” a man with a quirk that made him look like a blowfish snapped.

Six men stood in the alleyway, all with tall, massive, threatening vibes. You didn’t make a single noise; you knew that for a fact, but their gazes still fell on you the moment the man stopped speaking. A horrible, stupid movie cliche that happened too often in hero life.

Your life probably flashed before your eyes at that single moment, your body and mind instinctively moving to call the heroes before realizing that you were the hero now. What do you do?! What could you do?! Drugs?! Did they have drugs?!

Panicking greatly, you watched their mouths move, but you couldn’t hear them as you took in their faces in a blur. Before you knew it, your mind shut down, and your body took over. You weren’t sure what it was. If you were way stronger than the entire group or if you just had an untapped potential that burst open right now, because you blinked and suddenly there were all thrown onto the floor, busted and bloody and tied up.

You… you did it?!

“Oh my god!” you exclaimed, your hands rising to your mouth as you looked at each and every one of their smushed, dirty faces. “I WON?! I won, oh my god, I won — wait?!”

You stepped over to the purple-haired man on the floor, his mouth stuffed with a cloth fabric you probably shoved in there at some point.

“M-Mindjack-sensei?!” you cried, your excitement of betting this drug handoff simmering off immediately. “W-What are you doing? Were you gonna stop this drug handoff? I — oh my god, let me get this off!” You scrambled to get the restraints off of Shinsou, unaware of the way the other captured men glared at Shinsou, utterly shocked and betrayed as you cleared him.

“Thank you for the capture, y/h/n!” a police officer congratulated you as you freed Shinsou, and you smiled, nodding your head. “Is it just four of them?”

You froze.

You had counted six men at first, and with Shinsou recovered, that made five men.

“I didn’t… I lost one of them?” you deflated, all sense of confidence draining you as Shinsou remained on the floor.

“Ah,” the police officer grimaced, his head shaking before he paused and looked up at you with a halfhearted smile. “Well, you still did good work! We’ll see what drug they were talking about, and if it’s nothing too crazy, they’ll be good to go!”

“Yeah, of course,” you smile weakly, feeling ready to cry as you hold onto your wrist.

“But, uh, who’s the guy on the ground?” he nodded towards Shinsou, who was looking entirely pissed off and ready to bite like some cornered, raging animal.

“Oh, Mindjack!” you respond, hands motioning toward one of the other older Pro Heroes you looked up to. 

The police officer stared at Shinsou, an unconvinced look on his face.

“I thought he was… ah, well, old? And didn’t he have black hair?” he muttered before shrugging. You didn’t manage to stutter out your knowledge of the older man with black hair being Eraserhead because he was long gone already, fingers pressed to his radio, chatting with his HQ.

Breathing out a nervous sigh, you turned to Shinsou with a shy and fully apologetic smile. “I am so sorry for hurting you! Are you okay?” you asked, your eyes scanning the older heroes' stance, unable to read anything but annoyance radiating from his body. 

“No, I’m not okay, actually,” Shinsou spat, his face finally looking up from the floor, and you felt your throat run thick at the rage and anger simmering from his face. 

“W-Wha—” you stammer, taking a step back, overwhelmed.

“You just fucking ruined six months of undercover work,” he seethed, his feet moving to stalk towards you. You found yourself stumbling backward, looking everywhere but at him. You can feel your balance giving; the cold filth of the alleyway wall your saving grace as his fingers grabbed your jaw, forcing you to face him. His purple eyes black in his fury. “I don’t think you realized just how badly you fucked up?! You stupid fucking child!”

A wash of ice-cold realization flooded through you, the horror of what you knew you just did completely dawning on you as tears sprung in your eyes. You felt nauseous, utterly sick to your stomach because this seasoned Pro Hero definitely had shit to do, and you practically shat all over it.

“I am so sorry,” you whimper, pain shooting through you just slightly at the grip he has on your chin. “I am so so sorry, i-is there anything that I c-can do?! How can I-I fix it?!”

“You think I need help from some crybaby?” Shinsou snapped, thoroughly unimpressed by you, his eyes narrowing further. You didn’t even realize you were crying already. 

“I-I’m useful, I promise!” you cry a bit more, your body struggling as the older hero trapped you against the wall, his face glowering down at you with the intensity of a million suns. “I-I’m a sidekick over a-at Fatgum’s agency, but, oh fuck, I’m so sorry! I’ll do anything you ask of me!”

There’s a looming silence, a heavy tension as his eyes drop from your eyes to your parted wet lips. He’s much taller than you, and you can feel every heavy breath expelling on your face. 

“You think a pathetic, worthless little sidekick is able to do anything for me?” Shinsou snapped, his eyes narrowing as he loomed even closer. “A pathetic fucking bitch like you? I don’t think you can give me even a simple fucking action that would prove your worth.”

The words are hot embers on your ears, making your jaw drop, and your body trembles at the simple degradation. You feel your tears hot on your cheeks, your parted lips invaded by his dirt-covered fingers as he pressed onto your tongue. It had to be the shock of it, the reality of the hot, hard dick pressing into your stomach and the way he was staring at you like some piece of fucking meat, but you gagged around his fingers.

“Why am I not fucking surprised, you goddamn fucking whore,” he sneered, his fingers shoving faster into your mouth, pressing dangerously hard against your tongue, trying to get you to gag and choke around his fingers. “You fucking sure you’re a fucking sidekick? Look at you, pathetic, stupid, crying like a baby in an alleyway? You’re a hero, aren’t you? Fucking save yourself from this, you fucking bitch.”

You violently shake, your hands finding themselves tethered to his shirt, your head shaking nonetheless.

“Oh, you don’t want to save yourself?” He coos, his expression turning the slightest bit amused, maybe a bit possessive, but it lasts a second. You blink, and anger has replaced the amusement, red streaking in his vision. “Why the fuck not?”

“B-Because,” you strangle, your tongue flat against your mouth, your throat instinctively opening and closing against his fingers. “I said I’ll do anything y-you wanted!”

There’s another pause, and you wait pressed against the wall, your chest heaving with your anxiety and weird turned-on state. Shinsou was a Pro Hero, someone who was eight years older than you, someone you had respected since you were in grade school. Yet, here you were, looking nothing more than a slab of meat to him, a hole for him to abuse in his anger because you had fucked up.

“Oh, you stupid fucking slut,” he laughed, his teethed bared into a feral smirk. “You want this, huh. You want to please me any way I see fucking fit, fucking perfect. Turn around.”

There’s no room to argue or think; he turns you around without a second's notice. His hand shoving your chest into the wall, and you cry at the discomfort. He grabs your ass, pushing you uncomfortably into an arched position as he tears your pants down from your legs.

 “You’re a worthless fucking cumdump. Not even noon yet, and I’m going use your fucking body however I see fit.” Shinsou promises, fingers raking down your supple ass. Nails tearing into your skin, fingers slapping your covered cunt. “You worthless fucking slut, dirty fucking whore, already goddamn wet.”

“I’m n-not wet!” you cry, hips spasming against his rough hold, and slaps to your aching cunt. You know it’s a lie, you know that clear as day, but it doesn’t keep you from lying. Doesn’t stop you from shivering when he pinches at the cloth of your panties and removes them from your sopping wet folds.

“You think I don’t know if you’re wet or not?” Shinsou growled in warning, his fingers pinching together your soaked folds. An action that makes you cry loudly, the sharp pain too much for you. “You think I’m some fucking idiot?”

“N-No!” you cry, his fingers shifting to where your throbbing entrance is and his other hand going to your mouth, once again claiming your lips as his nails purposefully impose pain on your heated cunt. 

“You must think that since you’re lying to me,” he snaps, his mouth pressed to your ear, his hot breaths making your eyes roll to the back of your head. You want to speak up, say something, but his fingers are fucking your mouth, keeping you from speaking back. “But again, you aren’t fucking worth anything, are you? You’re not fucking anything.”

Those words whip against your skin, making you twist in his arms, hot tears pushing past your eyes again as you cry.

“Oh, you don’t like that?” Shinsou comments, his fingers pinching and pulling your tongue, and his hips begin to grind his hot, burning flesh into your ass. “Well, you better stop fucking crying because I’m not gonna stop until I’m fucking done — until I’m fucking relieved. This isn’t about you; this is for me. You aren’t shit, fucking worthless piece of shit whore.”

You sob into the brick wall, the tears unable to be stopped, unable to clear as his fingers that were scraping at your folds begin to fuck you at the same time as he fingers your mouth faster. The sensation of being outside, finger fucked in an alleyway by a Pro Hero you admired and respected beyond comparison, made you tremble with want and need. His cruel, completely degrading words a warm fire in your belly and against your skin. 

The sounds of the wet caverns he was currently fucking begin to echo in the wall, his throbbing cock grinding against your ass. It’s a sensation that makes you cry with need, your ass shifting back to feel him more, to get more from the contact he’s giving you.

“Of course some screwup like you likes this shit,” Shinsou grunted, his fingers fishing and rubbing against the spongy warmth of your walls, fingers scraping ever so gently against the velvetiness. You spasm against his touch, your whiney, pleasure-filled noises filling up the alleyway almost as loudly as the choking and the squelching of your pussy.

His hands suddenly leave your mouth, and you’re heaving at the deserted feeling in your mouth. You whip your head around, trying to see just why he had abandoned your mouth, desperate to please him more in any way he saw fit. But instead, you’re met with the sicky coldness of your saliva spread across your face. Almost instantly drying against your face as your still tear-soaked eyes looked into his dark ones.

“Don’t look so fucking sad, stupid cockslut,” Shinsou snapped, his hand that had been fucking your cunt abandoning your warmth and meeting your face. You whined, unable to come up with words as he spreads your slick against your face. A shiver wrecks your spine, a pathetic whimper at the smell, and the feel of the warm thickness of your slick. “You wanted this, fucking asked me to wreck your worthless holes.”

“I-I’m not sad,” you try to defend yourself, your body shaking as you feel the heated warmth of his cock suddenly between the curves of your ass. It presses heavily onto you, skin twitching and throbbing with its emitting warmth and simmering heat. 

Shinsou pauses, his eyes deadly and threatening as he glares at you. Unamusement heavy in his gaze, his mouth set in a small, teeth-baring snarl. “Then why the fuck are you crying? You think you deserve to be crying right now? No. You fucking worthless slut, you don’t. You ruined my damn shift, my damn case, I should be the one fucking crying. Your pathetic ass is worthless and tried to make my life the same, and that won’t fucking fly.”

The words tighten at your throat, your body trembling as tears continue to flow. His words are white-hot against your skin, and although it hurts to hear it, your cunt clenches in response, slicking even more.

His hand comes down suddenly onto your ass. The slap sharp and stinging, echoing loudly against the alleyway walls as you scream in pain. It throbs, your back contorting as you try to stretch the skin that makes you ache. But Shinsou spanks your ass again, without warning, his hand unmerciful against your soft, swelling flesh. You yelp again.

He spanks again, and again, and again. Each echoing action sending your voice screaming, counting them without even being told, succumbed to him and his every action and thought without needing to be. He spanks you until your ass feels raw and bloody, the bruises undoubtedly forming as he pinches the folds of your dripping cunt.

“Stick your ass out more,” he growls, tugging at the fold, making you stumble. The cock pressing onto the split of your ass feels heavy, and you twitch at the seeping pre-cum dripping onto your muscled rim. The bricks scratch at your face, and you find your ass wiggling out further from the wall, your back arched more as the cold wall sings through the clothes on your breast. “I’m not gonna put more fucking effort into fucking a goddamn worthless bitch than I should.”

And with that, your ass perfectly exposed for him to use and fuck. His throbbing cock presses through your pussy and slams all the way into you.

There were many pains you were used to as an aspiring hero. You were used to being punched, kicked, stabbed, thrown about, etc. Each of those pains were something you had been taught to make feel better, each pain demonstrated to you so that it wouldn’t be the thing that took you out. But there was no training for the way that his thick cock pressed through your impossibly tight entrance. There was no pain that could relate to the white fire of your rapidly fluttering entrance that was trying too hard to keep up with his slamming thick cock.

“IT HURTS!” you shriek, body twisting, tears flooding your cheeks as you feel weak in the legs. Body moments from falling. “It hurts so much! Please! It hurts!”

“Oh? It hurts? It's supposed to fucking hurt you fucking idiot, fucking whore,” Shinsou snapped in return, his hips firing into even faster than before. His massive body practically caving onto you as his cock rockets into you. Unforgiving, relentless, and with the drive to make him cum. Your vision swirls and spins as the pain reaches its peak, your mouth opening, your voice no longer working. But oh, how the saliva dripped from your mouth as his hands abandoned your waist to grab onto your stretched cheeks. He held onto your cheeks like some gag, slamming your head into his chest so your dazed eyes could stare up at him as his menacing gaze bore down on you. “You think this was supposed to make you feel good? I don’t give a shit if you cum. This is for me. I’m not fucking stopping until I’m done using you, so shut the fuck up.”

Your whimper is soft, no longer able to keep up with the pleasure your body begins to reach as the pain becomes one of pure bliss. Your eyes crossing as every thrust of his welcomed cock drives you further and further up the wall. The squelching of your meeting sexes almost sounds like a nursery rhyme. A pleasant noise that makes you giggle deliriously as Shinsou continues to degrade you continues to spout how insignificant you are.

“Your only purpose in your shit life is to be my fucking cumdump, fucking bitch, do you understand me?” Shinsou spat, his thrusting becoming barbaric, stammering in his power and speed. You laugh, your head nodding as you stare up at him with loving eyes, the drool and tears on your face trailing down your throat, soaking your uniform. “Tell me what your purpose is?”

“To be your cumdump!” you laugh, elation bubbling in your chest, fluttering deep around your cunt until you felt Shinsou’s teeth sink into your throat.

The feeling of hot, sticky cum expelling into your cunt feels like blistering euphoria, his heavy, rough breathing on your skin, making you moan softly. Your own orgasm hits, much softer, much more controlled than his as your walls clamp down like a vice around him. Your orgasm is warm, sounding deep within you that you almost didn’t realize you were dropped to the floor.

A soft, pitiful moan sounds from your lip, your eyes focused on Shinsou, who’s shoving his limp cock back into his pants, but his eyes are on the skyline.

“I-I’m sorry for messing up your… your case,” you rasp on the floor. 

Shinsou shifts on his feet, his gaze lingering longer onto the skyline before finally setting onto you. The anger seems to have disappeared, a look of slight boredom but the excitement in his eyes as he leans down over you. You feel breathless when his mouth presses against yours in a short, chaste kiss.

“I think you just helped me keep my cover, slut; maybe you do have some worth,” he laughed against your mouth.

He leaves you there, your body going limp and blackness taking over the moment he disappears.

[myrwritesfootie]

Like The Old Days - Chapter Two - Mason Mount

Who: Mason Mount x Original Female Character Words: 1629 Disclaimer: I do not know Mason Mount or anyone else mentioned in these writings. Note: So the first chapter was just mainly an introduction, this chapter is nearly double of the previous chapter and I hope you all like it.

July 31st, 2017. Arnhem, Netherlands

The weather was quite chilly for a day in the middle of the summer. Not that it was a strange occurance in the Netherlands. It was one of the things I disliked the most about living in this country. I am someone who preferred the sun and the warmth. Unfortunately that was not going to happen anytime soon.

Despite the dreary weather, I knew that I would have to enjoy the summer as much as possible before it was over and before I would start on my last year of education. Just one more year and then it was time to find work. Something I just didn’t want to think about just yet. I actually liked my school years until now.

The voice of my friend next to me pulled me out of my thoughts.

“Iris? This is like the third time you blanked on me, what’s going on in that head of yours?” Marie asked and I quickly blinked, a guilty expression on my face. “I’m sorry Mar. What were you saying again?”

The blonde sighed - clearly exaggarating, the smile on her lips giving that away as well as she looked at me  over the edge of her sunglasses, bright blue eyes looking into my own hazel ones. “I was asking if you were up for going out for a drink this afternoon, after I finished work. It shouldn’t be a long day and they say that the weather will only get better by the end of the day. Pretty please?”

I couldn’t help but chuckle. It was an ever returning question from Marie whenever the weather was nice in the city. “Fine, we are going out for a drink, but we are going to bring our own drinks and we are going to the park,” I encountered. Marie squinted her eyes for a moment, but then nodded. “Deal. I’ll ask Frances, Yvette and Sanne as well to see if they want to come.”

Even now I could already tell that the park was going to be packed. The park in the middle of the city was one of the most beautiful places in Arnhem, at least in my opinion. Whenever the sun was shining, it was busy. The slight slope in the grass made it a perfect place for sunbathing but also to have some barbecues in the summer. It was as if a big part of the city made its way into the park and my friends and I were definitely no exception.

The morning at our secondary school was one that finished pretty quickly. Marie and I were busy with our second year, with two more years to follow after this. After that university would probably follow if we were to choose for that, but so far I have not been interested in that. It meant more years at school while I knew what I wanted the most; I wanted to do something physical. I wanted to mean something for people, I wanted to travel. I did not want to get back in the school benches once more when I was done with this level of education.

So while Marie left to get to her job, I went back home. A home where a young brother had been bouncing around the house for some time now because our local football team Vitesse had been having a good pre-season so far and new names had been signed. With the Johan Cruijff Shield coming up at the start of the season, the football vibe was big in our house, with my brother bouncing off the walls. I liked football too but I had to admit that I didn’t like our own competition much. That’s what you get when you get hooked on the Premier League. The pace and level of that league was so much higher than our Eredivisie so who can really blame me, right? So where Sam - my younger brother - had a yellow and black obsession, I had a red one. A Liverpool shaped one.

The moment I walked into the house, it was clear that my mum was pissed off. “Sam de Jong, how many times do I have to tell you that you don’t get to kick that ball around inside.” The sight of shattered pieces on the floor that had previously been a longdrink glass came into my view as I walked into the living room.

“I’m sorry mum! I was trying to score the winning goal.” I couldn’t help but laugh at the words of my ten year old brother. As soon as I saw the look on my mother’s face, I bit my lower lip to stop myself from laughing.

“I just came by to let you know I’ll be at the park for the afternoon and also probably for dinner,” I quickly said, before leaving the room again so I could get upstairs, not wanting to witness the disaster that Sam was about to face.

It was only a short visit at home. While I freshened up after school - and listened to my mother yell at Sam while making him clean up the mess that he had made, I quickly looked through some messages on my phone where the other girls already showed that they had bought drinks and food already for the park.

Once I got the message from Marie that she was on her way to the park, I left the house as well. The park was only a short walk from my house but because I was known as the lazy one of my friends (and it was probably true as well), I picked the bike as my form of transport to the sunny greenery in the centre of the city. It didn't take long for me to find my friends, who had perched themselves on a large blanket in the grass. Many people had thought the same thing as we did. Other little groups had formed on the grass, some guys were kicking a football around while yelling at each other. In English. Which wasn't that rare here in Arnhem.

As I reached my friends, I just heard the last bit of a sentence Francis had said. "- is pretty cute." I rolled my eyes at the words, Francis was probably one of the biggest guy crazy people I had met but I loved her for it. I followed her gaze and found the footballing guys on the end of it. Oh, and Francis had a preference for athletes.

"Of course you have found the cutest guy in the entire park already," Marie said as she waved at me, holding out a glass with some fizzy drink in it. I looked over my shoulder and had to agree with Francis, however. The brown haired young man standing closest to us was not bad on the eyes. They were probably around the same age as us.

It was always good to spend free afternoons in the sun with my friends. For a moment there was not a worry in the world - although my mother would counter that at my age I did not have any worries. Laughing seemed to be the best remedy against long boring school days. I tried my best to zoom back into the story that Marie was telling. "So my brothers were in the backyard, mum kept yelling at them to grey inside for dinner, that they had to stop fooling around. They didn't listen at all, continued playing rugby and next moment, the ball went through the window. Mum was livid." I shook my head, a laugh escaping me as I thought back at the scene between my own brother and mother. 

"Your brothers aren't the only ones good at breaking glass. Sam wanted to score the winning goal for the Johan Cruijff Shield and thought it was a good idea to do that inside. I walked in on -"

Before I could finish my sentence, this time I was interrupted by a sudden football hitting in the middle of our picnic cloth and knocking glasses over, the ball ending in my lap. I was too surprised to jump up like some of the other girls were doing. 

"I'm so sorry ladies, my friend over there did a terrible job controlling the ball." A male voice spoke up in a British accent. It had to be one of the guys who had been kicking the ball around just a few meters away from us. A look up confirmed that it was the cute brown haired one who had come over to collect the ball in my lap. From up close he was even closer. Dark eyes matched his hair and a smile was on his lips, a shy one at that. He was our age, maybe just a bit older but when he smiled he had crinkles next to his eyes. It was Marie who found her voice back as the first one, of course she was. 

"You can definitely say that. He should learn how to play football." The guy standing with us left out a chuckle, even though I did not understand why it was so funny what Marie had said. 

"I'll let my friend Mitchell know." His gaze moved in my direction, since I had the ball. "I really am sorry…" he trailed off, not knowing which name to add to the end of the sentence. A very smooth way to ask for my name although I didn't even realise it. I scrambled onto my feet finally with the ball in my hands. "It's Iris. Here's your ball back." I held out the ball to him, his fingertips brushing mine for just a second as he took it from me. 

"Thank you Iris. I'm Mason."

[keelywolfe]

FIC: Welcome to Backwater ch.14 (spicyhoney)

Summary: Hey, Stretch might hate to see Edge leaving, but he sure does love to watch him walk away.

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Read ‘All In The Jeans�� on AO3

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Read it here!

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Stretch let Edge lead him outside, towards the winding front walkway. But instead of heading down the stone path to where Stretch’s bike was sitting there like a steampunk nightmare invading their gingerbread fairytale, he drew Stretch down to sit on the front steps of the porch. The bricks were soothingly cool beneath him in the waning heat of the day and Edge sat next to him, his knee bumping lightly against Stretch’s.

“You don’t have to rush off just yet,” Edge told him quietly. “There’s still some time before sunset.” He still had a hold on Stretch’s hand and a bony thumb rubbed gently across the backs of his knuckles. “But you looked like you needed some air.”

“yeah,” Stretch agreed, numbly. He stared down at yard in front of him, the riotously colorful flowerbeds amidst rocky outcroppings that led their way up the little hill to the house. It was a little cooler here in the woods out of the stark sun overhead in town, closer to another season than summer or so it felt to him. It was all so inviting, welcoming, and his first thought upon seeing it that this was a trap of some sort seemed a little insulting now that he’d been fed and released. He’d eaten Red’s food, hell, moved right into his home without a qualm, and a well-kept cabin in the woods was where he drew the line?

But then, it wasn’t the house where the real problems lay, was it, it was the people living in it.

Monsters and a Human from another multiverse, again, and not just any Monsters, but another set of mirror images here in the Aboveground. He’d been worried about a Stephen King effect around this place and it turned out he should’ve been more concerned with Isaac Asimov, ‘cause the shift from gothic horror to sci-fi was not one he’d been braced for, with a ‘little invasion of the body snatchers’ vibe tossed in for extra flavor.

Only, that wasn’t fair, was it. Doppelgängers, Edge had mentioned earlier almost like it was a joke, but it was true, just like Sans and Papyrus were and he’d adjusted to them okay. It hadn’t been easy hanging out with someone who wore his brother’s face, but he’d adjusted. And despite the somewhat otherworldly location, these guys had been nothing but kind to Stretch, kinder than the Humans who’d greeted them when they’d popped out from the mountain, for sure.

Hell, Red took him in like a mama dog adopting a stray kitten. The glossy veneer of Stretch’s knowledge-dump panic was cracking and with it his weird sense of numbness, the void it left behind filling with dawning horror.

They were the only three who got out, Frisk said, they’d lost everything and everyone, and fled all the way here, and Stretch was the one about to have a panic attack about it. Exactly what kind of asshole was he trying to be here?

When Sans and Papyrus showed up under similar circumstances, he and Blue opened their lives and homes to them, all tea and sympathy. Well, mostly the tea was from Blue, but still. He was out here in Backwater crying in his soup over a breakup and he couldn’t even dredge up some compassion for versions 2.0?

“i’m sorry,” Stretch blurted thoughtlessly. He turned his hand in Edge’s, shifting to grip his slender fingers tightly. Bare bones against bare bones, weirdly intimate for all that they were only holding hands. He didn’t think he’d ever touched another skeleton like this except his own brother, back when he was little and Stretch was still trying to keep him from running off after every other damn shiny thing he ever saw.

Holding Edge’s hand was a lot different than trying to hang on to his squirmy wormy little brother. Edge only held on just as tight, his brow bone furrowing. “You don’t need to apologize, it’s a lot to take in. You’re honestly taking this all much better than I expected. Theorizing about a multiverse is a great deal different than being confronted with living specimens.”

“no, not that. i get that. i mean—i’m sorry.” Stretch waved his free hand around them vaguely, trying to indicate the entire world with one helpless gesture, “for everything. it must’ve been rough.”

Yeah, nice to see that Stretch’s gift for understatement hadn’t been affected by his personal traumas. Rough was a really great way of describing being the only survivors of their entire world. Next, he’d describe water as slightly damp, maybe fire could be ‘a little burny’.

Edge’s expression cleared, a certain tightness forming around his sockets. “Ah.” He looked away, eye lights rising to the sky where scattered pools of blue showed through the leafy branches. His eye lights were the orangey-red glow of a banked campfire, the crack running through his left socket lent him a sort of strangely thoughtful look. “It’s all right, it was a long time ago for us.”

“about ten years, right?” Stretch winced inwardly, yeah, sure, keep on talking about his painful past, that was a great payback for a yummy dinner. “i mean, that’s what i got from the book you gave me.”

“Yes,” Edge agreed. He didn’t seem to mind talking about it, maybe time really did pad on the emotional distance; Stretch’d have to check back on his own history in a couple years, give his memories a poke and see what bruises came back. “A third of my lifetime.”

Huh. If the math was right, that actually put Edge as a little older than him, who would’ve thunk it, the little brother mythos tipped on its axis, just for him.

Edge slanted a considering glance his way. “We knew other Monsters came to the surface. I kept tabs on the news from the world outside Backwater, just in case—” he hesitated and whatever awful scenario he was thinking about got lost in a shrug. “Well. Just in case. We saw you and your brother on the news with the other Human, and realized you were from a different Underground. They referred to you as Papyrus and Sans then and before you ask, we’d already changed our names before you came to the surface. When we came to this town, actually, and if you ask me why, I wouldn’t be able to tell you. Sometimes in Backwater, certain things simply make sense. One day, everyone started calling me Edge and that’s who I’ve been since.”

He stretched his long legs out in front of him, his slim, bare feet next to Stretch’s grubby sneakers. Edge’d changed out of his grimy gardening clothes before dinner into a fresh t-shirt, still only plain black but the way it clung to his ribcage and along the line of his broad shoulders was worth a second look. His jeans, too, and Stretch was hyper aware of his own baggie shorts and t-shirt that declared he was the taco king of Minnesota, of the differences between them.

“so you already knew about me,” Stretch said, “i mean, before i got here.” There was an unfair advantage if he’d ever heard one.

“In the abstract, yes,” Edge shrugged. “It didn’t seem very important until you showed up in my brother’s living room and tried to hit me with a lamp.”

Fair. Stretch looked back at their feet, at the visibly healed cracks in Edge’s metatarsals, nothing at all like his own undamaged bones. He understood the multiverse theory, wasn’t exactly that complicated. In theory, he and Edge were different version of the same person, each another facet to a complex jewel; that was the theory, anyway. After hanging out with Sans and Papyrus, Stretch had a few theories of his own and the most important one was one he wanted to be sure Edge understood.

“you aren’t really me, you know that, right? not me me.” It seemed important to him that Edge knew that or maybe Stretch had it backwards, maybe it should be that he wasn’t Edge, since Edge was here first by several years. He sort of had dibs, didn’t he.

For some reason, that statement made one corner of Edge’s mouth curled up in a smirk. “That seems rather obvious,” Edge said dryly. “For one, as fascinating as you seem to find my jeans, you wouldn’t fit in them very well.”

“no!” Stretch sputtered, holy shit, abort, abort, do not look at his hips right now, do not do it, “i mean in the context of the multiverse! like how chara and frisk are alike, right? they look alike, but believe you me, chara ain’t like frisk. you and me, we might’ve had the same names once, but we aren’t the same, not really.”

“Chara and Frisk have some ten years of distance between their ages that might account for that,” Edge pointed out, “but I’m no scientist, not even on the weekends. It isn’t me you should be discussing this with.”

Then who…? “i’ve got some data to back it up, i’ve met someone else from another multiverse, you know. two someones, other versions of…well…us.”

Well, now, looked like it was Edge’s turn for a shock, how about that, nice to see it on someone else’s face for a change. “You have?”

“yeah. another set of Sans-and-Papyrus skeleton brothers ended up with us before we ever got the surface. they wanted to stay out of the news and the queen let ‘em.” Stretch shrugged, “i don’t know all their story, they don’t like to talk about it. but it’s been a couple years since they showed up and we definitely aren’t very similar past being skeletons and having brothers.” For one, Blue might not cook as well as Edge, but at least his spaghetti never landed anyone in the hospital with acute food poisoning like some other skeletons who would not be named coughpapyruscough.

But Edge didn’t seem interested in another set of skeleton brothers to add to the collection, not even in the interest of making a full six-pack. He’d shifted to his knees and faced Stretch, his sockets wide, “There’s another Human that fell, then? Into their Underground?” Edge asked, urgently.

“probably, but not that came with them,” Stretch shook his head, “i. uh. i get the feeling their story is a little like yours, only more so and a lot more recent.”

That urgency faded. “Ah.” Edge settled back to sit on the step again. “I see.”

Stretch didn’t ask why Edge was so interested in there being another Human kid, that was a surefire way to wander off the path, but he made a mental note about it. “what i’m getting at is, you knew who i was when you first saw me. what i was.”

“I’m hardly going to mistake the framework of my own face.”

Yeah, see, that was another mark in the column of the differences between the ‘verses not simply being nature vs nurture, but them being different people entirely despite the whole names-and-also-skeleton thing, ‘cause Stretch had been looking at his own face in the mirror for a long damn time and he didn’t look like Edge, fuck no, he’d be the first person to know if he was that gorgeous.

Probably better not to bring that up. “and you guys have been here on the surface for ten years now, taking care of the town, and you never tried to contact anyone?”

Edge only shrugged. “What was the point? It isn’t as if we actually knew any of you. I expected that more Monsters would find us eventually and you did.”

“yeah, by accident.”

Edge slanted him another look, coolly raising a browbone, “You’ve been in Backwater a little while now. Do you truly believe you’re here completely by accident?”

Yeah, okay, that was a pretty good point. “but if you were expecting other monsters to show up eventually, then why didn’t you want me to stay?”

“Maybe because my brother was very quick to adopt a person who is wearing something like my face?” That stung and Stretch looked away, his fingers going helplessly stiff in their shared grip. “Or maybe because the longer you stay, the less likely you’ll be able to leave,” Edge sighed. “That’s how Backwater is.”

“wait.” Hold on, back that up. “you can’t leave?”

“I didn’t say that.” Yeah, and that was a backpedal if Stretch ever heard one. “Frisk has willingly tied their life to this town, and I’m sworn to protect them. I can hardly do that from another city.”

“but nothing is physically stopping you from leaving.” Because if the corn was gonna sprout little legs and come after him if he drank the water here too long, that would be important information to have.

“Where would I go?” Edge countered. “Back to Ebott? Unlike my brother and I, you have ties there. We do not and I’ve very little interest in revisiting the mountain ten years away from it. I have everything I’ve ever needed right here and as for wants, I’ve long since accepted the truth.”

There was a certain bitterness there and Stretch should let it go, he’d already poked that wound enough. He should, but he still ended up asking, softly, “what truth?”

“That sometimes people don’t get what’s coming to them.” The words were so loaded that Stretch winced and hunched down, almost expecting to hear a gunshot. Instead, Edge sighed, let his anger go on an exhaled breath and he sounded calmer as he asked, “Now you’ve heard my secrets. What about you?”

“me?” Stretch snorted. He kept his gaze on the flowerbeds, tracing the flat round stones of the path, and did not meet Edge’s crimson gaze. “heh, you guys are determined to ferret something out, aren’t you. i keep telling you, i don’t have any secrets. my boyfriend dumped me, and it brought me down, couldn’t get past it, so i left town. ended up here…i should be writing this down, it’s like the start of a country song. shame i don’t have a truck.”

“You’d look terrible in a cowboy hat. And your soul?” Edge asked, gentle but implacable.

“that’s not a secret,” Stretch muttered, “i just don’t want to talk about it.” He’d talked about it plenty back in Ebott, for all the good it did him, and he’d hoped to leave those chats behind when he got on the bus.

“Fair enough,” Edge tugged on his hand suddenly, pulling Stretch to his feet, “Come on.”

He barely gave Stretch a minute to catch his balance before he started to run, heedless of his bare feet as Stretch stumbling on after him. His brief, absurd surge of fear that they were, ‘oh, fuck, running from something,’ faded as Edge laughed aloud, pulling him past trees and through flowerbeds, around the corner of the house into the backyard again. Off to the side of the garden beneath a large tree was a massive pile of fallen leaves in a messy sprawl of browns and golds, and Stretch only realized what Edge intended when it was too late to stop him, barely stuttering out a “wait--!” before he leapt and yanked Stretch along with him.

They landed together in a cacophony of brittle crunching and the blinding, whispering surge of leaves launching into the air. Stretch sputtered and flailed, wallowing in the pile that was somehow soft and weirdly crisp at the same time, billowing around him as he floundered.

Somehow, he managed to find out which way was upright again and burst out on the surface, swimming through leaves, and through the madness, he could hear Edge laughing, that deep, rich voice sharing out happiness. For the first time in what felt like an endless dry spell, his soul felt like it was full, joy pouring into it, filling up the empty space in his chest.

“you’re crazy,” Stretch laughed, spitting out a leaf, and watched as Edge flopped back in the leaves, arms and legs moving and sending up another wild swirl of crunchy browns and golds.

“Perhaps,” Edge called, raising his voice over the cronch. “But I made you smile.”

“the technique could use work, but i can’t argue with the results.” He looked up and for the first time, Stretch noticed that not all the trees here were loaded with green. His grin slowly faded. “the leaves are falling.”

“Yes,” Edge’s smile eased down, understanding dawning, and he shuffled through the leaves to Stretch, reaching for him, “It’s a late summer heat right now, but yes. The corn is ripe, autumn is coming and soon.”

Autumn was coming, too fast, and there was nothing Stretch could do to stop it, but that didn’t mean he had to let it go. He was a little sick of letting things just happen around him and Backwater was getting him into the habit of doing something about it. “i want to see edgar allen again. you think if i went back to the field, the corn would give me a pass?”

“I think that a visit can be arranged without that being an issue.” Between the two of them, they managed to wade out of the pile onto solid ground, both of them shedding leaves as Edge headed back into the garden. He skirted the wall of sunflowers, leading Stretch deeper into the rows. Right into a small patch of corn, the tips of the leaves already yellowed and curling.

Stretch stopped abruptly, his sneakers sinking into the soft soil as he stared, “is that…?” In the middle of the little field there was a scarecrow hanging from a crossbar. It looked exactly like Edgar Allen, from the greasepaint face down to the plaid shirt, only now, there was a scarf looped around his neck, the very same one Stretch left in offering.

“It is,” Edge agreed softly. “He is every scarecrow. They awaken when needed or summoned.” He gave Stretch a nudge, hard enough for him to stumble forward a step deeper into the field. “Talk to him. That’s what you wanted, isn’t it?”

Talk to him. Right. Stretch swallowed hard, trying to shuffle aside his sudden misgivings. His voice creaked like a rusty hinge as he managed a weak, “edgar?

Then he watched, fascinated. He could nearly see the life filling those limp limbs, the burlap sack of his head lifting as he raised it, and he knew the exact moment Edgar caught sight of Stretch in front of him.

“Well, hey pal! Good ta see ya!” That croaky voice was the same as Stretch remembered and he smiled helplessly, watching Edgar unwind an arm from the bar that held him up to touch the bandana around his neck, “Wanted ta thank ya for the new gear!”

“it looks good on you,” Stretch managed. The turkey-red fabric was bright against the faded plaid of his shirt and Stretch wondered how long it would take for the sun to bleach it out. Would there even be time before Edgar…ended? Did his clothes vanish with him or was he left out in the field to rot after his seasonal duty? He didn’t know and found he didn’t want to ask. For fuck’s sake, Stretch barely even knew the guy, if he was a guy, and still his soul heavy with sorrow.

“Corn thought so, too,” Edgar Allen said gleefully. “Nattered on ‘bout it for hours. Kept me awake for an age, I tell ya.” For all that his face never changed from that greasepaint sneer, Stretch could almost feel the sudden surge of sleepiness rising in the air, the way Edgar took hold of his support again, and slumped back down, “Still restin’ up from it. Thanks, again. See ya around, pal, give me a call if ya need me?”

“i will,” Stretch said and as he watched, that animation faded, life seeping away and leaving behind a nothing but straw-filled bundle of clothes.

A gentle hand settled on his shoulder and Stretch turned to look at Edge, trying to swallow down the thickness of absurd grief in his throat. He’d met Edgar Allen for a total of ten minutes, tops, and it still hurt.

“It’s difficult for him to stay awake when he isn’t needed,” Edge told him softly.

“yeah,” Stretch managed, blinking hard, his sockets aching. “he’ll be dying in a few weeks.”

“Yes, for the season,” Edge agreed, “It’s not really a death, but it is something like it.”

“that sucks, big time.” He understood it, sure, the whole ghost of gyftmas present sort of visit. Didn’t make it suck any less.

“He’s earned his rest and his spirit will return. Perhaps in the spring you can came back to Backwater and meet his recreation.” Edge held out a hand and after swiping angrily at his sockets, Stretch took it, folding their fingers together again. “Come on, it’s starting to get dark.”

It was, Stretch saw dismally, the sunlight creeping through the trees faded and soft with oncoming dusk. He’d already been here a helluva lot longer than he’d meant and it might be an interesting trip back to Red’s if he didn’t hurry; he’d be wandering off the path simply because he couldn’t see the damn thing and he really didn’t feel up to testing the monster bear theory, not today.

The two of them hurried their way back around front. He’d left his bike on the side of the driveway and before Stretch could reach it, the hand in his that had been faithfully leading him all afternoon betrayed him. Suddenly, Stretch found himself yanked around, a tree trunk hard beneath his back.

He looked up with wide sockets and all he could see Edge looming in front of him, stark crimson eye lights boring into his own and arms braced against the tree on either side of him. They weren’t touching, not quite, but he was close, so close Stretch could feel the warmth pouring off of him and it was ridiculous that it made him shiver in the waning heat of the day, an uneasy trill tickling its way up his spine. Something that was not fear was swelling inside him, not fear at all.

“What is it about you?” Edge said abruptly. His eye lights were burning, bright coals in his dark, narrowed sockets.

“what do you—” Stretch started, too weak and a little lost.

He broke off on a confused sound as Edge leaned in suddenly, tried to jerk back but there was nowhere to go as Edge murmured close to Stretch’s audial canal, his breath damp, nearly as solid as a physical touch, “If you think I haven’t noticed your attraction to me, you may wish to redefine the word subtle.”

“uhhhh.” Not that it wasn’t true but getting called out on it right now was a little unexpected, hell, he hadn’t even been looking at Edge’s ass this time. Any reasonable answer slipped away from his fumbling reach. “that’s…i mean…”

“It’s not that you’re unappealing, but as you’ve said several times, you’re getting over a breakup.” A gentle thumb slid along his cheekbone in defiance of what Edge was saying, making Stretch suck in a sharp gasp of breath.

‘Not unappealing.’ Wasn’t exactly a glowing endorsement but eh, reviews didn’t always match the product.

“yeah,” Stretch said inanely. “yeah, i am.” As if that meant anything, as if he could even think of anything outside this singular moment. Edge was so close to him, the lines of their bodies separated by bare inches as Stretch breathed out a faint, “sorry.”

He didn’t even know what he was apologizing for.

“I’m not. You aren’t alone in this,” Edge exhaled a soft half-laugh. “I’ve felt an attraction to you since the moment you tried to hit me with that damn lamp. But that doesn’t mean it’s a good idea.”

“yeah, uh,” Stretch swallowed hard, trying to add some starch to his voice, but it was so damned hard (fuck, don’t think that, don’t, shuffle that pun right to the end of the queue). Edge was so close, and the bark of the tree was rough through the back of his t-shirt, lighting digging into his ribcage like a goad, urging him to move, to step forward, to complete that circuit. Stretch didn’t move. “i mean, the way the multiverse theory goes, i’m sort of you. or you’re me. something like that.”

A low chuckle filled the air between them and Stretch closed his sockets, holy fuck, that voice rumbled through him like a miniature earthquake, “That isn’t what I meant at all. You don’t want to talk about your past and that’s fine. But that doesn’t mean the effects don’t linger.” The very tip of Edge’s nasal nodule brushed the side of Stretch’s skull as he sniffed delicately, his warm breath gusting.

Slim fingertips came to rest on his sternum over his damage soul and that single light touch affected him more than the entire groping session in the library. “I can smell your pain, such a deep hurt in your soul. I don’t want to make it worse.”

“edge,” Stretch whispered, closed his sockets against the answering whisper of his own name. There was the slightest pressure of a knee against his own and the temptation was there to spread his legs, to give it a place to rest, and he shouldn’t, they shouldn’t, but that warning voice was getting softer, distant, caught by a shepherd’s hook and hauled off the stage. He’d gone through half a dozen shocks since he woke up this morning, added them to the pile he'd gotten since he’d stepped off that bus. What was one more?

“I know all of that. I know it. So why am I so drawn to you?” Edge murmured distractedly, “What is it about you? Why can’t I leave you alone?” He reeled back, shaking his head as if to clear it, then, nearly pleading, “Don’t let me hurt you.”

A warning, a plea tangled together as one, and Stretch lurched after him, arms reaching with purely reckless intent, “you won’t, you aren’t, don’t go—"

The sudden klaxon of a horn made them jerk apart, Edge stumbling back and putting space between them. Stretch looked up see a rusty old pickup truck making its bumpy way down the path, coming to a stop with a wheezy squeal of brakes.

They watched it together, Edge with tight annoyance creasing his face and Stretch with panting confusion, struggling to get his breathing under control. It turned out to be a hell of a lot easier when the window rolled down the window and Red poked his head out, like getting doused with a bucket of ice water as he called with deliberate cheer, “hey, you two.”

“Brother,” Edge said, the greeting coming from between clenched teeth.

“you have a car?” Stretch asked, outraged. Shame was taking a hasty backseat because holy shit, he’d spent all afternoon on that bike when Red already had a set of wheels?

Red only grinned, a slash of a smile with his golden tooth winking in the dwindling light. “nah, i got a truck.”

“you never said!”

“you never asked,” Red countered. “it was gettin’ late and i got worried. didn’t want ya trying to scooter your way home in the dark, ya didn’t add a headlight to that rustbucket. toss the bike in the back and hop in.”

It wasn’t a question and yeah, somehow, he didn’t think Red was gonna buy that he and Edge were only talking, not this time.

Stretch felt a guilty flush heat his cheekbones, meekly obeying. It was for the best, he told himself, holy shit, yes, he should be grateful that Red showed up when he did, no matter what kind of protest his crotch was currently bleating up at him. The last thing he needed right now was any other attachments and not only because he felt like getting into another relationship right around never, (yeah, never worked for him) and rebound sex with the boss’s little brother was supposed to be off the table.

Getting into anything past friendship with Edge was a Bad Idea all the way around, ‘cause when it came down to it, Edgar Allen wasn’t the only person leaving, now was he. Stretch didn’t want to think about it, kept trying to avoid it, but the knowledge still came up in the back of his head, readying itself to bite him in the ass.

Eventually, Stretch was gonna have to find his own way home.

~~*~~

tbc

[thiamfresh]

Can you rank your favorite TW seasons? I'm currently rewatching and I'm surprised to see how my opinions have changed so much the second time

I'm doing this without having watched Teen Wolf since the final episode so WOO here we go!! uninformed trash under the cut

1) SEASON TWOOOO

This season will now and always make me lose my absolute shit. They found their feet after season one and Season 2 really managed to find its stride with a mix of comedy and drama. Skirted that sweet sweet spot of not taking itself too seriously but seriously enough that it doesn't turn into Riverdale. And, If we're not counting Theo, Matt was the most interesting Villain to me. I loVEd him, Stephen did a fanfreakingtastic job of playing him and was a lot more appealing than most of the villains in that he wasn't just 'evil supervillain' but a very human villain.

2) SEASON 3B

Season 3 B was pretty fucking amazing and I won't lie, it would've got first place if not for the fact that Season 2 just brings me more joy personally. Like storywise and stuff, 3B is definitely the best season, but I just...enjoy 2 more. Like, to me 2 has more rewatch value whereas 3B is amazingggggg Season 2 had better 'stand alone' episodes. Like you can dip in and out and enjoy it whereas 3B you gotta go for the full season.

3) Gonna be a super unpopular opinion but...Season 4 is in third place for me. At the time I haTED season 4, but when I rewatched it before Teen Wolf ended I really really loved it. The introduction of Liam into the Supernatural world and him being shown as a scared kid was a really nice (and angsty) reminder of how young the characters are and Liam being reluctant to fight the Beserkers/deadpool kinda stuff at first is !! really nice. Also, Derek going full wolf, even tho we knew it was coming, was AWESOME

4) Season 1. Look, it kinda sucks, its predictable, it's HILARIOUS, the first time I watched episode one I had to pause after the bite because I was laughing so hard at it. But again, it's idk...It's fun, it has some nice moments.

5) Season 3A honestly...I'm not..a big..fan..of 3A, Could be the murder of Boyd and Erica, could be the fact that the Alpha pack were just..not that scary to me and had me rolling my eyes most of the time they were on screen (I mean two of them fuse together likeeeee????? They wanted me to not take that as a joke?) Still had some amazing moments and really brilliant episodes/sequences. The Darach, again, not a great villain, had a lot of potential but just, didn't quite hit the spot for me. Will definitely dip into the series to watch some moments but then you know. I think The overlapping plots of the alpha pack and the Darach just led to kinda too much happening at once leaving me not giving a shit about a lot of the stuff that was happening. Also....True Alpha. I wish I could ignore the fact that its the dumbest thing I've ever heard, but I just can't and it sullies the whole series for me.

6) 6B. Because Thiam. Lets be honest at this point the show had driven off of a cliff and I was only watching for Thiam. The return of Gerard as a real player almost made me quit. I can't rewatch anything but the thiam scenes because anything with Gerard and/or monroe/and/or the teen hunter group has me foaming at the mouth. Not to mention the absolute slap in the face that was Brett and Lori's deaths. I am bitter and I will never not be.

7) Season 5A. I hated season 5. To me it was one of the worst things i've ever seen. I was actively routing for Theo to kill the entire McCall pack by like episode 3 and the only reason it is this high on the list is because of two reasons.

Reason one - Watching Theo kill Scott and everyone else in pain in the last episode made me happier than I think i've ever been. I was hoping they'd just end the whole series right there.

Reason two - I've just realised that the reason I was going to put (Theo and his lil chimera pack strutting into Eichen, pretty BAMF vibes) was in 5B so...I guess I only had one reason. So I'll repeat it. Theo decemating the McCall pack felt like the first rain to signal the end of a drought.

8) Season 6A. It's here because Thiam, but Theo wasn't in the season enough for my tastes. Would have liked it (maybe) if they'd kept Kira for the season abOUT PEOPLE WHO TRAVEL THROUGH FUCKING LIGHTNING instead of saying she had 'no story left to tell'. Again, had some great moments (*cough*thiam*cough*) but overall it was pretty shitty and I have a lot of beef with the Stiles being taken and only Lydia, who didn't even know who Stiles was like a year and a half before, being able to bring him back is without a doubt the dumbest and most disrespectful (to Scott and Stiles's friendship ((and to Stiles and the sheriff's relationship)) plot i've ever seen and was so shoehorned in it made me hate Stydia with a burning passion despite having shipped them in the previous seasons. (I am so sorry to any Stydia fans. I know it was a huge awesome moment for y'all and I'm really really glad you got that and I'm not trying to like belittle your ship I just have some personal grievences with how Stydia played out (as a whole, not just in that moment, that I can't get over))

9) 5B, I know i technically watched it all but i think i blacked out from the shame of having to endure it. Theo getting dragged into hell was pretty awesome ngl but overall, fucking terrible, If i have to watch anything from 5B i will just find clips on youtube rather than having to suffer through full episodes.

[revasnaslan]

I'll be honest about Annilis, I love him and his sympathetic background AS well as his awful approach to keeping Hec-tor safe, because he's probably in some legitimate danger but he took it too far. I love HP, but I also wanna beat his ass too. Just grab him by the ears and yell, "What are you doing you idiot sandwich?!" I just wanna ask him "Are you even happy? And no getting pegged by a Shade isn't happiness." Don't want him to die though, only because it's a cop-out for actual punishment.1/2

2/2 That's what kinda bummed me on HP in-show, he did so much horrible shit, was an arrogant living "God", and he was just killed? That easy? HP's hubris was grotesque and he deserved a worse punishment than just a lightshow to the face. HP was also a non character in the end and whatever characterization he did have was lost quickly, gonna admit. But, an arrogant jerk dying that quickly is too easy a punishment, he has to suffer the consequences of his actions and experience his loss in detail.

sorry I'm sending you so many asks about HP. But dear God did the show drop the ball on Horde "supposedly endgame villain who was woefully underutilized until the last minute and even then was handed the villain ball to make sure what credibility he did have was lost" Prime. Could have been great, his story was there, but Crew-ra wasted time on frivolous characters(star siblings might have been cool but s5 needed to work on its existing characters, not introduce new ones)and wasted plot points.

I actually have done a ton of analysis on why prime just doesn’t work as a villain for pretty much six months now. Like I started doing this pretty much the day that the finale dropped cause I never liked S5 at all. There’s just much wrong with it, strictly from a narrative prospective than I cannot get over it, which I why I’ve kind of retreated into doing Fuck Canon aus. And I don’t think the major problems plaguing prime is that he’s a bad person or a cult leader or whatever, that would be fine. This is a matter of set up and pay off. This is a matter of narrative structure. Those are my major problems with everything about this.

Anyway, I guess we’ll try a flaccid attempt at positivity, just to make it clear that I am not coming strictly from a point of view of hate… the one thing I remember liking about prime is that creepy dinner scene. Loved that scene, I was so giddy when they dropped it as a teaser clip, and I got to enjoy it in peace for like a day and a half before my love for the show went crumbling. Prime is absolutely on his game in that scene, I can very clearly see his mind working, because my interpretation of the scene is that he’s trying to bait glimmer into giving him information. Did he actually intend to harm adora? Who knows! Does it matter? Not really, considering he got the information he wanted, which was what was needed to work the heart. I can feel the tension in that scene, that is how he should have been for the rest of the season.

So what the fuck happened? *cracks knuckles* well let’s see shall we.

Foreshadowing It’s Fun Cause It’s A Thing I’ve Heard Of

So I think we all remember just how shocking it was when prime actually showed up, and he wasn’t anything like we’d all come to assume he’d be based on what had been said about him up until that point. What we had been fed was essentially that he was cold, calculating, and didn’t look upon “defects” well. He saw the clones as disposable. And they set up that aspect of his character just fine, and I don’t have a problem with how that was set up.

What they utterly failed to properly set up (and even contradicted themselves on) was the cult thing, and how prime is essentially this messiah figure to the clones. I highly suspect this occurred because they were writing the show as they went along, and hadn’t fully fleshed out prime’s whole deal until he actually appeared at the end of S4, but that’s just my own speculation given some of the things that had been said in interviews regarding other aspects of the writing (namely that micah was apparently not supposed to be alive in the first place and that happened because of a miscommunication between noelle and one of the other writers).

Regardless, there are a number of things that should probably have been done differently in order to properly foreshadow prime’s cult leader status, that actually would have heightened hordak’s characterization as well. For one thing, there’s a reason we all assumed that the galactic horde was merely a military program and it’s because of how hordak acts throughout the first four seasons. We can talk in circles about headcanons until we’re blue in the face (i.e., he might have memory problems), but the fact of the matter is that those are headcanons and that hordak’s entire narrative changes from one of an ableist family to one of a religious trauma seemingly on a dime come the very end of S4 when prime shows up.

imagine how satisfying the foreshadowing would have been if hordak had actually been spouting dogma the entire show (i.e., “cast out the shadows” and “all beings must suffer to become pure”) only for it peter off once he’s befriended entrapta, if he had been calling those who he respected brother/sister instead of force captains (which is a far more militarized word to use, and judging by the galactic horde isn’t even a term they use), if he had still been dressed in his uniform and only actually started dressing differently after entrapta had helped him? Hell, he never even so much as implies that entrapta is leading him astray before he’s back with prime, he doesn’t even seem particularly distressed about being around her most of the time, and the only reason he even gets persnickety with her is because of his medical condition.

One point I’m going to expand on for a moment is the whole “brother” thing, because that is actually a very good way of explaining what I mean. Now, hordak doesn’t actually mention any other clones at all from what I remember. This is contrary to all of the clones in S5 referring to each other as “brother” pretty openly and it being seen as a term of respect. However, the only person that hordak actually calls “brother” up until S5 is prime, and this inadvertently ended up making the word seem far more neutral than it should have been considering the context of S5. The word “brother” is actually a control tool, and if they had wanted to establish that sooner, hordak should have been calling anybody he respected that.

So, either the writers hadn’t actually thought of that part of the narrative yet, or they’re just that bad at foreshadowing.

There are also three instances of the narrative contradicting itself with regards to prime, one in S3, one in S4, and one in S5. The first is that hordak wanted to make a new body for himself. While one could argue that this was meant to be foreshadowing that prime takes new bodies whenever his old one failed (which is fine, that works as foreshadowing), the act of hordak admitting that he was intending to do that is what actually creates the snag. With the context of S5, we learn that becoming a vessel is meant to be a place of honor, but this comes with the caveat that it seems like only prime is allowed to take new bodies. So why the ever living fuck would someone as “pious” and “unworthy” as hordak think that was something he could ever be allowed to do, much less that prime would welcome him back with open arms if he did it. But there’s zero hesitation on hordak’s part, he doesn’t even mention that this is something usually only reserved for prime.

The second is that prime literally looked at the heart of etheria and said it was “unlike anything [he had] ever seen” despite canonically fighting the first ones, so he’d presumably have recognized the energy signature that first one’s tech gives off and be like Oh Shit. This one in particular drives me absolutely nuts because if I was writing a villain who had lived long enough to fight the people this mystical weapon was created by I would never write them saying that what the actual fuck. My gripe here is not that prime is ancient, that’s fine, I could’ve vibed with that. But the fact that he not only fought the first ones but also recognized mara is really egregious in a way that borders on parody for me. Like what a flimsy excuse for him to be connected to adora (and we’ll get to that!)

The third and final one is that hordak was allegedly thrown out for his defects. That’s what we were told, that’s what a major facet of hordak’s trauma is centered around. However, at the same times, prime seems like… oddly fixated on hordak in a way that usually implies something deeper is going on here. That was why I was so convinced that hordak wasn’t remembering something clearly, because why would prime spare him instead of killing him immediately after returning if he was defective enough to warrant being thrown out? Come S5, prime seems to have forgotten about the pesky little plot detail that is hordak’s defects, since they never come up again! Nope! Hordak is not only completely healed of his ailments (which Can I Get A Yikes?) but he’s also been welcomed back to his original position as prime’s right hand by the mid-point of the season, and he stays there until the finale unless the plot demands he be elsewhere to interact with entrapta cause hordak was added in post. You can’t even argue that he was keeping hordak alive because eThErIaN kNoWlEdGe because he has those fucking mind chips. Literally every single person he’s chipped is connected to the hivemind because of that. He’d have every single bit of knowledge that he could possibly want right there at his fingertips. He doesn’t need hordak alive at all.

Which brings us to…

It’s Almost Like He Wasn’t A Villain To The Proper People

The thing about villains is that, in order for them to not feel out of place, in order for their defeat to actually give a true feeling of satisfaction, you kind of have to put them up against the right people. The reason that prime ultimately fails in this respect is that he is not adora and catra’s villain, despite the narrative pushing him as that…

I actually once joked on twitter that if the rise of skywalker had come out when S5 was being written, then prime would have likely ended up being revealed as adora’s long lost grandfather in some attempt to make his fixation on her seem warranted. That’s the level we’re at in terms of how connected the two of them appear to be for the villain and hero thing. They just are not connected, and prime has absolutely no reason to be this fixated on her. They tried to explain it with she ra and prime being old enemies, but that’s equally as confusing because a) mara hadn’t mentioned him up until that point, b) this inclusion actually makes the first ones creating a superweapon look justified since prime is such a huge threat, and c) she ra is explicitly stated to have been on etheria long before the first ones even colonized it, so why the fuck is she just gallivanting around the cosmos fighting cult leaders?

And to be clear, if this whole prime versus she ra had actually been hinted at, I would not be taking so much issue with this. But as there was absolutely zero mention of him, it just comes off as egregious and very, very sloppy on their parts.

Prime also should not be as fixated on catra as he is, that doesn’t make sense at all. I know why this happened in particular, though, and it’s because the writing team was so in love with her that they just had to give her this arc. That just makes its inclusion all the worse to be honest. Why does he go to such great lengths to use catra to torture adora, why does he go into a total breakdown after catra escapes? He isn’t connected to either of them…

… because he is hordak and entrapta’s villain.

that prime didn’t immediately want entrapta dead continues to confuse me to this day, nearly seven months after the fact. Like you mean to tell me that this cult leader, who is presumably used to complete obedience from his followers, finds one of the wayward members of his proverbial flock lost on some backwater, who didn’t want to be found, and he knows exactly who is responsible for sewing those seeds of discord in this poor lamb’s head. And he doesn’t immediately want entrapta dead?

Not only does prime never mention her, despite it being very easy to push a plotline about how it’s necessary because she’s perceived as a danger to the rest, and especially to the poor lost soul who was ultimately returned to him. Instead, prime just doesn’t seem to realize entrapta exists. He doesn’t know who she is despite literally reading hordak’s mind. He doesn’t even seem to interpret her as threat considering he wasn’t worried about putting her and hordak right next to each other in the finale. He should have been using hordak to torture entrapta, and he should have had his break because hordak escaped him. That whole scene where catra is under mind control and adora was trying to snap her out of it was textbook entrapdak. Hordak should have been the one to delve into the hivemind to help adora. It was his story and it was taken from him when he was sacrificed on catra’s narrative arc altar.

And this is ultimately completely fixable. Because they had a villain they could have been using for adora and catra the whole time. Shadow Weaver. Y’know, their mutual abuser who was the main cause of strife between the two of them, and the person who kind of set the plot in motion since she’s the reason catra is the way that she is?

He Blew It. Super Hard. Complete Buffoonery.

Ultimately one of the biggest writing fumbles with prime is that he is just really fucking dumb as the plot demands, and it doesn’t make any kind of narrative sense for him to be that way, it is literally just him being at the mercy of the writers who need him to do something stupid so they can push the plot forward since they made him too overpowered for it to happen any other way.

There’s numerous instances of this across the season, including him bringing entrapta aboard the velvet glove when the very person he would have had very good reason to not let her near is standing right there, and him deciding to give catra pretty much free reign of the velvet glove and seeming to decide to trust her despite him knowing damn well that she’s likely to betray him the second he does something she doesn’t like, and the time he literally left adora to be beaten by catra instead of just killing her outright when she couldn’t even activate she ra. And in all these cases he had the fucking nerve to seem surprised when it happened?

However, there is one plot point that I feel illustrates how goddamn stupid he is to move the plot forward, and it’s the mind chips.

I mean one of the reasons I dislike it is going back to how little foreshadowing the writers actually seem capable of committing to. There is nothing to indicate in the narrative that prime actually employs mind control on anybody besides the clones, and this becomes especially egregious when we later meet the star siblings, and we find out that there are large swathes of the universe that are seemingly not chipped? It just screams like they needed some type of angst plot point for catra, so they had to find a way to make it work.

But the very inclusion of the mind chips as a plot point makes prime look so ridiculously dumb, because we are told those chips connect people to the hivemind, we are explicitly shown this for catra angst. So a) why does he need hordak around at all, because the excuse he needs to know about etheria doesn’t work since he literally chips like half of the etherian population later on anyway, b) if he needed information on the heart of etheria, why didn’t he just chip glimmer outright, it would have saved him a lot of time and hassle, and c) if he knew damn well that catra had betrayed hordak numerous times and was likely to do the same to him, why didn’t he just immediately chip her so he could mitigate two problems. If he had chipped catra immediately, he wouldn’t have lost glimmer, and it would have been next to impossible for adora and bow to storm the velvet glove through the means that they did.

When your main villain is that fucking stupid, the tension is completely sapped out of your narrative, and prime doesn’t have enough character unto himself to continue holding up his own arc. He is a sexy lamp cardboard cutout that just happens to be brought onto the scene when they were in need of someone to throw the idiot ball at. Prime is supposed to be this thousand year old body hopper who has the wisdom of the ages, and yet he was defeat by a group of teenagers driving a clown card held together by nothing but duct tape and prayers.

Anyway!

Guess Who Just Got Murdered!

Anon, I completely agree that the way prime got taken out was just… hm. Well, it was a choice, given how they had written the rest of the season.

I’ve said this before, but I really wish I could actually enjoy hordak yeeting him, but I just don’t feel anything. That scene is a culmination of an arc that never happened because hordak was barely on screen for S5. It feels like we’re missing this whole season-long arc about how hordak managed to break free of prime and was actively working against him, and that scene is the lowest point, right before the greater scope villain is ultimately defeated by the protagonist. Which just furthers my point that prime is really hordak’s villain, because hordak reads more like a protagonist than I think the writers actually intended for him to.

Since you mentioned anillis, I feel the need to comment on him as well, because I do know exactly what happens to him at the end of my au, because I actually planned for his ending from the beginning and built his arc towards that point. The very bare bones spoilers is that he isn’t going to die, because a) he needs to live with the consequences of his actions and b) him dying would affect hec-tor horribly, especially since if anybody had to deal the killing blow it would be hec-tor. And hec-tor doesn’t deserve to be forced to do that. He wants freedom, he doesn’t want his brother dead by his own hand.

So, I completely agree that just killing prime off feels a little… like a cop out? I’m not going to get into a discussion of how he was defeated by the power of (romantic) love because my issue there is not with the trope itself, but ultimately how it was handled, and that also has to do more with my grievances with how catradora was ultimately handled than my grievances with prime. However, him being like… exorcised…

Well it sure does clean up some loose ends that we don’t want to discuss huh?

[hopetofantasy]

Culture, parallels & meta - S2 E10

Zaterdag 09:56

Perfect parallel: 

Zoë laughing off Senne’s supposed ‘flirt attempt by telling her his childhood sob story’ at their first date, Zoë actually hearing his and Viktor’s childhood sob story from Gill in this episode.

Viktor’s manipulative “He would have these crazy temper tantrums” about Senne in E6, Gill stating the true “Viktor used to throw these crazy temper tantrums” in this one.

Oopsie: Before the “Viktor and I woke up naked together in a bed”, Gill’s hair is in front of her face. After that, her hair is tucked behind her ears.

Blink-and-y’ll-miss-it: Gill mentioned that Viktor was 14 when the accident happened, making Senne 11/12 years old at that time. 

°

Maandag 11:45

C is for culture: 

“That’s a rental book, you realize that right?” - In a lot of secondary schools, course books can be rented instead of bought. The content doesn’t change that often anyways, so it’s cheaper to offer them for a certain fee to the students. Though, at the end of the school year, they have to be returned in the exact condition. Paper workbooks or prints, however, have to be bought. 

“Come on, warm waffles!” - There are actually two types of Belgian waffles: the Brussels and the Liege. The girls bought warm Liege waffles, which are thicker, chewier and with uneven edges. The Brussels one is more a rectangular shape, with a lighter and crispier texture.

Funny coincidence: Luca’s “Free at last” sounds like the quote in Martin Luther King’s speech ‘I have a dream’.

Nod to the OG: The song ‘Paradise’ by Coldplay.

Perfect parallel: Amber’s tired “Why are you always so loud?” directed towards Luca in S2, Noor’s hungover “Do you have to be so loud?” to Amber in S3.

Lost in translation: Amber saying "We gaan een terrasje doen" (literally: ‘we’re going to do a terrace’), it’s an expression indicating that you’re going to drink something on the outside (summer) terrace of a bar. 

Oopsie: The girls pass along a college campus, after they step off the tram, and cross the street for the ‘Groenplaats’. But then it cuts back to the girls passing the college campus again, right before crossing. 

Hello from the outside: The girls pass along a parade of mustached men, with Jana mimicking the facial hair with her napkin. This parade was actually part of the ‘2019 World Beard & Moustache Championships’, which was held in Antwerp on Sunday the 19th of May. 

Blink-and-y’ll-miss-it: The girls picking up the papers Luca tossed in the air. Them all walking along the crossing in Beatles’ formation (like the Abbey Road album). Luca is eating two waffles at once.

°

Maandag 12:58

C is for culture:

“Robbe. Robbedoes!” - Luca calls Robbe the nickname ‘Robbedoes’, a reference to the Belgian comic ‘Robbedoes & Kwabbernoot’ (English version: ’Spirou & Fantasio’). Its two main characters are spontaneous journalists who run into fantastic adventures, aided by the pet squirrel ‘Spip’ and their inventor friend ‘the Count of Champignac’.

“Are you going to Rock Werchter next week?” - Rock Werchter is a large, annual pop/rock music festival in Werchter (near Leuven). The four-day event is organized every first weekend of summer vacation. The number of attendees can rise up to 149,500 people for the whole festival, with a noteworthy influx of international festival goers in recent years (British, French, Dutch, Australian, South African, ...). It has three spin-offs: ‘TW Classic’, ‘Werchter Boutique’ and the French ‘Main Square Festival’ in Arras.

Perfect parallel:

Jana buying her summer outfits at C&A in S2, her shopping at the same clothing chain - with Noor helping her - in S3.

Yasmina again hinting at a (former) crush on a boy, just like the earlier conversation with Zoë in S2 and doing the same in a conversation during wtFOCKDOWN.

Lost in translation: Luca's "Eentje is geentje" (= literally: ‘One is none’), stating that it’s better to drink/eat/do at least one or more than having missed one (thing). 

Blink-and-y’ll-miss-it: Robbe's eyes dart upwards for a millisecond, after Jana asks "For Blonde Ambition?", confirming that he indeed voted for them.

°

Dinsdag 08:42

C is for culture: What’s with the last week of school? Well, after the December/April/June exams, the school can fill the days before the break with what they want. Most schools give their students a couple of free days, others might organize fun excursions or festivities. On the last Friday, however, they’ll hand out report cards and discuss them with students/parents.

Perfect parallel:

Zoë quickly darting away to avoid Senne in E7, Senne doing the same to her in this one.

Her making up lame excuses not to contact Senne in previous episodes, Senne’s “My phone was turned off. I didn’t want to be distracted while I was studying. Sounds familiar?” here.

In the first episodes, Zoë keeps saying that she won’t fall for what Senne says - his flirt attempts or lying stories, in this episode she states “I’m not falling for your bullshit” - his statement about wanting to leave. 

Zoë saying “Isn’t it time to get over it?” to Senne in S1, her “You should stop feeling so sorry about yourself" in S2.

Zoënne letting go of each other’s hands after a painful conversation in S2, Sobbe doing something similar after their make-up kiss in S3.

An upset Senne left behind in a high school hallway in S2, a sad Robbe ignored in a college hallway in S3.

Blink-and-y’ll-miss-it: Senne’s slight nod at Zoë’s “Away from me?”. 

°

Woensdag 11:44

Perfect parallel:

Zoë acting cold, because she doesn’t trust Senne, in the earlier episodes. Senne looking for reasons to be cold, because he’s scared of people being too close to him in this one. 

Senne’s “I don’t believe that” at Zoë’s statement that her parents don’t love her in E4, Zoë saying “I don’t believe that” at him denying his love for her in this one.

Zoë always running towards Senne - to chase him, to apologize, to talk - in previous episodes, him running towards her - to make-up - in this one.

The song ‘Nightcall’ by London Grammar played during their first kiss in E3, the same one plays during their reunion in this scene.

Their kiss can be compared with their first kiss, only quicker and more frantic: her rubbing his cheek, pausing to smile in relief, wrapping her arms around his neck, putting the palm of her hand under his ear, Senne messing up her hair, her squishing his head between her hands.

The movements of the sex scene in S2 are similar to the ones from S1 and S3. Foreheads leaning on each other before a kiss, a cut to pushing themselves through a open door, a hand caressing along the side, a neck kiss, kissing down a stomach, fingers gripping a back, a hand through the hair, a cut to both of them having naked chests with one on top. 

Nod to the OG: 

Blink-and-y’ll-miss-it: Zoë never ends the call with Jana. (Awkward!)

°

Donderdag 09:32

Perfect parallel:

The entire cuddle scene in S2 can be mirrored with the Sobbe hotel clips in S3: the way they’re positioned (big spoon-little spoon, face towards each other), movements (caressing cheeks, going through each other’s hair), the kisses (forehead kisses, cheek kisses, full-on making-out) and the looks they give each other (Zoë looking up at Senne).

Senne saying “He can’t get away with this” in this clip, repeating it in the next.

Zoë inviting Senne to come live with her in S2, her offering a room to Robbe in S3.

Blink-and-y’ll-miss-it: Zoë is still wearing her white and black hair tie on her right wrist, like she consistently does throughout the season.

°

Vrijdag 15:43

Perfect parallel: 

The theme of their FreeFest team was ‘80s flashback’ in S1, Luca wears an 80s-inspired-outfit in S2.

The season opening with a (washing machine) door to Zoë’s POV, ending with an aerial shot away from her in S2. The third season opening with a door that Robbe opens up to a party, ending with an aerial shot - through the roof - away from him. 

Zoënne kissing at a party while their friends cheer in the background, before the camera pans away at the end of S2, Sobbe experiencing the same in S3. 

Oop, there it is, the homophobia / heteronormativity: Robbe pushing Milan away from him, saying “Get off me, faggot”. Moyo can see what’s happening and laughs at his embarrassment.

Hello from the outside:

Somewhere during the exam period (I can’t find whén anymore), Luca and Amber made tiny exam motivational quotes, which were spread out all over Antwerp. Fans of them found them and made pics.

At the party were a ton of Belgian influencers, who made multiple insta stories of being there at the same time that the clip dropped.

Where’s Wally? Hey, look, Keisha dancing with Jens and Moyo, Britt in the crowd with Gill, Max' making some dance moves towards Luca and Lisa is vibing with Milan. 

Blink-and-y’ll-miss-it: Jana mouthing ‘hoi’ (= hey) to Luka. The tiny nod Jens gives Robbe, so that they go upstairs. The millisecond of hurt on Luka’s face when he noticed Jana greeting Jens and her lingering look on him afterwards. 

[need-a-new-hobby]

raising hell

figured id keep going so s1 ep 04 here we go

kay first off, noone moves that much in their sleep.

also slightly creepy that she wakes up and simon’s just watching her

somehow, i'm starting to see a similarity in simon and alec, a sentence i never thought i’d say. it’s interesting how they’re both trying to protect against their ‘better half’s’ trusting nature;

simon blames jace for the craziness

alec blames clary for the craziness

yay! magnus bane!

oh nooo, simon don’t leave

am i the only one wondering why jace has training equipment in his room? i mean the institute is filled with this stuff, why does he need a personal one?

so first clary barges into jace’s room which btw is super clean, just like canon, sees him shirtless and apologises (yay for human decency) and then turns her back for him to put his shirt back on? like she’s already seen him, what’s the point? and clearly this is not just me. just look at jace’s smirk.

captain america ha! i should just make a list of all the pop culture references simon makes about jace. also him yelling at jace to do his own homework, pent up rage issues anyone?

‘i’m not saving his ass a second time’ well, he does get kidnapped a lot

‘i think these are my people.’ really? so she’s just gonna turn her back on simon who’s practically her family? for what, the chance to be a shadowhunter? on a further note, how can she expect simon to just stay at the institute all day? i mean won’t his mom be super worried about him?

omg, david guetta’s a vampire. ha!

‘can you focus? this is not a joke?’ yeah, alec needs to meet his future husband.

did izzy just say alec needs to get slayed or laid? because for the latter, he needs to meet the guy first

i can’t help but be irritated every time jace takes the lead in season 1. let me see leader!Alec :(

‘warlock gets around.’ please tell me he isn’t slutshaming a warlock.

hahah. ‘how is it that my most effective asset is the one who’s comatose?’ whoever writes the lines for villains is a god.

also did the fair folk seriously send seelie scouts to chernobyl? ooh, tongue twister! seelies send six scouts spying on chernobyl! ha!

did valentine smell them or something?

oop pangborn dead! oh noo

we stan two positive girls slaying!

jace giving her another blade, let’s hope she remembers to use it this time

‘i was alive when the dead sea was just a lake feeling a little poorly.’ eek! book quote!

reference to tessa gray! yay!

i always hate how guys can get away with a dress shirt and jeans but girls have to wear dresses to parties. but my grumpy archer boy cleans up well.

hahaha. ‘at least now things are interesting.’ imma let alec explain

valentine is alive and actively seeking the mortal cup

he threatens our entire world

we’re helping his daughter (who by the way, we have no reason to trust and who showed up out of nowhere)

we’re gonna end up overpaying some warlock (my future husband) who may or may not have information we need

thus, alec does not find this interesting and does not feel better now (okay, maybe a li’l)

point to be noted: feelings can explode, and not the fun kind of explode according to izzy

simon’s home! also he’s acting like every pasty 15 yo gamer boy who stayed up to late and is now allergic to the sun.

mrs lewis is not ‘one of those moms’.

also maureen is very relatable with her whole ‘i’d like to date you.’ honestly very realistic.

so if all downworlders hang out at hardtail, is it just demons that hang out at pan-demon-ium? ‘cause if so, maybe it means demons love their damned puns

‘Iz, with a body like yours, everything is your colour.’ WE STAN ONE POSITIVE FRIENDSHIP!!!

‘most men like it when i admire their jewels.’ cue jace’s smirk, alec’s eyeroll and clary’s grin

‘magnus bane. so you’re the one who stole my memories.’ she doesn’t have to be such a dick to him. he did it at her mother’s request.

really? ‘i have to confirm it’s authenticity’. jace honestly fell for that?

again, she’s such a dick to him. ‘now it’s your turn to pay up.’ i can’t believe her.

really? dot’s dead? after all the times that woman should have died, i need to see a body

‘i won’t offer again.’ classic magnus. still love him.

‘who are you?’ why, your future husband of course. sorry, i just ship malec so hard. and this whole scene gives me book!malec vibes

“If Jace was gold, catching the light and the attention, Alec was silver: so used to everyone else looking at Jace that that was where he looked too, so used to living in Jace’s shadow that he didn’t expect to be seen. Maybe it was enough to be the first person to tell Alec that he was worth being seen ahead of anyone in a room, and of being looked at longest. And silver, though few people knew it, was a rarer metal than gold.”

the bane chronicles | the course of true love [and first dates]

‘you’re my only hope.’ should’ve treated him as that then. reason #15 why i dislike clary fray

hahaha, the irony behind the cat eye button.

how do they keep murdering circle members? not that i don’t appreciate alec’s timely rescue, but do they never take people alive?

‘we have to go’ jace moves to leave. cue clary just sitting down on a table.

‘i’m catching my breath.’ from what? she literally just got out of a nightclub. this matchstick is killing me.

‘we have risked our lives again and again for this girl and where has it gotten us?’ angry!archer time. also his eye roll when clary goes, ‘hey, i am right here.’ imma just do several dot points on this one scene, cuz it really pisses me off.

‘hey, i am right here, i don’t care about you damn jewellery.’ spoiler alert, neither does he, but chances are that necklace is worth thousands of dollars (a 1857 london townhouse for that matter). that kind of bargaining chip doesn’t come cheap and in exchange for it, they’ve gotten nothing.

‘i’m sorry you’re gonna look bad in front of your bosses.’ damn right he is. alec has a responsibility to bear and she should be glad he isn’t yelling at her. in fact he’s never yelled at her thus far. second, he’s liable for derunement and exile, not to mention the severe humiliation his parents will receive.

‘my mother is still missing and my last chance at finding her just disappeared into thin air.’ i mean, magnus did almost just die from that circle member if alec hadn’t shot him. and second, she should show a little less attitude to the people that are risking their lives and their jobs for her.

‘people are dying because of me. magnus will never come out of hiding again while valentine’s still after him and i will never get my memories back.’ first of all, the only person that died for her is dot (and even that’s unconfirmed). magnus came out of hiding for the necklace, and hotch isn’t dead yet. simon is about to be but clary fixes that anyway

ooh, emeraude’s accent makes a comeback. 

PARABATAI TRACKING!!!

‘of course they are.’ bitch, is she jealous? whaat? ‘this whole parabatai thing seems oddly intimate, if you ask me.’ literally noone asked. also, she could look a little happier that they’ve found a way out of this mess. second, i feel like that’s borderline homophobic, but that might just be me overanalysing again.

‘magnus lives in a warehouse?’ hahaha, the notion that magnus ‘dramatic bitch’ bane lives in a warehouse is insane. he bought a necklace with his townhouse for crying out loud.

also, why do they keep dragging her into these missions? she’s a liability with no training and she’s apparently the most un-athletic matchstick in the world considering she lost her breath exiting a nightclub. then again, clubs are exhausting.

sadistic shadowhunters. that’s nice.

future husbands fighting together warms my soul

were magnus’s first words to alec seriously a steak pun? ‘well done, more like medium rare.’ i love these dumbasses so much.

awww, alec’s first real smile. and the stuttering. it makes my cold, dead heart melt. AND THEN HE RUNS AWAY! GAAA

okay, so this whole magnus and clary thing has more than a few points, can’t wrap it up as neatly as the others but:

first off, he’s giving clary sole credit for saving zoe’s life when really it was all of them. technically she kicked his ass while izzy grabbed him and jace threw a knife in his back.

second, if she hadn’t called him out of hiding, this situation wouldn’t have even come onto him. and as much i hate to stomp on magnus, if he hadn’t been reckless enough to answer the call, they wouldn’t have been in danger.

third, clary is exactly like jocelyn, but for all the wrong reasons. clary uses people, offering them false promises she doesn’t have the capacity to deliver, and exploits anyone who gives her the most basic human decency, refusing to understand the cost at which they do so. (see alec)

fourth, she’s not a real shadowhunter, not without training or experience. that’s like calling a newly enlisted soldier an officer. sure, they’re part of the system, but you can’t send them into battle without an ounce of training. clary barely knows how the chain of command works. so saying, she’s not like the other shadowhunters is ridiculous. obviously she isn’t considering shadowhunters grow up in a society where downworlders are looked down upon. so when she’s introduced to this new world, obviously she looks at them as decent human beings.

‘normally, i love a dirty lair...’ ALEC’S FACE AT THAT HA!

also where’d all the warlocks? because it’s literally just the 5 of them. otherwise, imma have to assume they’re dead.

‘about Alec, is he more of a flower or cologne man?’ magnus’s subtlety is killing me.

‘pretty boy’ alec’s little smile and shrug though aaaa

‘trust no-one, especially the clave’ i mean, i get it but how’s she meant to protect it on her lonesome?

why does jace look so wounded? i’m starting to think he’s a little jealous of not getting hit on. oh nvm it’s cause he has to burn her flesh.

‘this might sting.’ cue clary screaming. i know, i know, i should feel worse about this but if any of you have seen the behind-the-scenes footage from matthew daddario’s twitter profile, you’ll understand. when they were shooting this scene, harry shum jr (magnus bane) was dancing outside and lip-syncing to kat mcnamera’s (clary fray’s) screams. it’s hard to get out of your head.

that pentagram is the most beautiful thing i’ve seen. i never thought i’d say that.

again, subtlety is not magnus’s strengths and i love him for it.

michelangelo

i aspire to be as dramatic as magnus bane is leading a demon-summoning ritual

aww izzy loves alec the most, clary and her mom obv, oh noo, alec and jace, that’s not good

also why does jace look so injured by it?

alec’s panicking, alec’s panicking, ALEC’S PANICKING

f*ck her memories, save jace. im assuming this whole thing is just a plot device to keep stuff spicy and to give clary credit for killing a greater demon.

i have to point out 4 things, you can skip this bit where i just talk about the team as people and how their reactions reveal stuff about them.

alec’s panic over injuries is very controlled which i think says a lot about him as a person where he has to control his reactions, but you can see he feels guilty

izzy instantly looks for any injuries, says a lot about her being more active and level-headed

clary, naturally, panics and looks to magnus for help

magnus sort of strolls over and brushes off his shirt. clearly apathetic about shadowhunter but expects that they’ll ask him to help and is his very cynical self (‘I don't know. Does he normally just lay like that without moving?') which naturally results in a very obnoxious face made by clary

somehow in this moment i feel worse for alec than jace. (maybe cause the latter is loud, arrogant and annoying) the guy’s terrified that he’s been out-ed, guilty about almost killing his parabatai and angry at himself for releasing the demon. and in typical alec fashion, instead of addressing his problems, he watches from a distance and then leaves.

okay, so jace has almost died from that demon, yet he’s the one asking clary if she’s okay?

vision time

okay how does valentine keep seeing stuff he’s not meant to see?

alright something i gotta point out. almost every angsty show/movie i’ve seen does the same thing where the girl gets frustrated at a necklace (usually a gift), rips it from her neck and throws it away. shouldn’t that have broken said necklace?

well, that’s the end of that. malec made all the difference in this ep. much more excited about magnus and alec finally meeting each other. till the next ep.

[killjoy-loveit]

Cider Candles & Mistakes

A/N: Third spooky season post! I would like to clarify that everything written in this story is complete fiction and isn’t to be taken as a true portrayal of reality. Request brought to you by: @uwunnie - I wasn’t sure if you wanted this to come out more spooky but this is where my mind first went, so I might write another version of this but a scarier one.

Summary: Summoning ritual gone wrong- hilariously.

Word Count: 881

Genre: Comedy (?), slight angst (or rather spooky vibes)

     Not every idea is a good one, and certain ideas are outright terrible. In fact, it can take quite some time before one has an idea worth even mentioning. However, there are quite a few people who don’t recognize this, and thus end up in unfathomable situations- the kind that would not have occurred if they’d kept that errant thought to themselves. And yet that kind of errant thought is what has led to the creation of this story, for if it had not occurred there would be no such story to tell. It all started with a simple sentence, “Hey, guys, look at this book I got!”

     The book in question being a small tome of spells, one that had been plucked from the bargain bin of a major retailer. Of course one of Sanha’s first thoughts upon seeing such a book was ‘Wouldn’t it be hilarious if I bought this?’ As it was quite cheap he actually did so, which led to him bringing it to show his friends. Some thought it hilarious, others not so much. But seeing as those who only focused on the hilarity/humor/amusement of the book were the loudest, the remaining few’s opinions were unheard. 

     “Hah! Look at this, it’s a transformation spell!” MJ pointed out, an amused smile present on his face.

     A look of astonishment crossed Moonbin’s face. “Really?”

     An hour or so of this kind of conversation passed. Spells being pointed out, questions of whether it was true or not tossed about, and laughs directed at the absurdity of the book. There was no doubt in their minds that the odd words and ingredients for the spells in the book were anything but a hoax. This blatant disregard of the book is what led to them suggesting to perform a spell from it as a joke. But, unbeknownst to them, there is always a grain of truth in even the most absurd of things. The lucky spell that was chosen was a summoning ritual. Though someone should at least have questioned what exactly it was that they were meant to be summoning- it was a thought blundering about Jinwoo’s mind, one that remained unspoken.

     According to the book in order to summon a kitsune, multiple ingredients were required; including fox fur, lavender, an assortment of stones, etc. Though it did require plain unscented candles, however the only kind that were on hand were those scented of cider. The instructions were quite detailed, even going so far as to mention the windows must stay open throughout the entire ritual. With the windows opened, candles lit and arranged in a circle, the ritual was set to begin. 

     On such a night, completely dark except for the brilliant full moon shining down, the atmosphere could best be described as eerie. The wind howled outside, causing the curtains inside the room to flutter. Chants in the form of soft whispers filled the room, some hesitant and fearful- as they rightly should. No one should mess with forces they have no knowledge of, the only outcomes could be disastrous. With the words written on the page spoken multiple times, they stood there quietly. Maybe they could feel the air change as it waited for an unknown being to appear. 

     After a few minutes of silence, the kind where everything stands still and people wait with bated breath, someone spoke up. “Nothing happened.” Rocky murmured.

     “Did you actually expect something to happen?” Eunwoo asked, an eyebrow raised skeptically.

     Sanha pouted, crossing his arms. “Well that was a let down.” 

     Just as he finished speaking a cloud of smoke filled the room, creating a short-lived mayhem of shouting and frantic arm movements, until the smoke disappeared just as quickly as it came. Left in it’s stead was something, or rather someone, they didn’t notice until it made a sound.

     You were sitting cross-legged on the only desk in the room, watching their bewildered faces as they argued over why the smoke had appeared. To your side an apple caught your eye, and you were quick to snatch it up and take a bite from it. Minutes passed and they still had yet to spot you, though it should have been pretty obvious- a whole person, well not technically, was sitting just behind where they were arguing. Deciding that you could no longer sit back and wait for them to finish their heated discussion, you cleared your throat. All heads slowly turned to look in your direction.

     You wiped the remnants of apple juice from your chin. “You rang?” A cheeky look formed on your face.

     The six of them stood frozen, mouths hanging open. Rolling your eyes at them, most people tended to have this reaction, you snapped your fingers at them. “Hello? You’re just going to summon me and not say anything? That’s rude, ya know.”

     “We… We didn’t think it would work. Sorry, um for disturbing you. You can go back now, to where-ever it was that you were.” Jinwoo stuttered out, tumbling over the words.

     “You’re the ones who brought me here, so deal with it. Besides, the ritual you performed wasn’t just a summoning, it was binding as well. I’m going to be here until one of you dies, like it or not!”

[adriannaelle]

Treehouse and Chill

The Simpsons reached another milestone this year with the recent airing of its thirtieth “Treehouse of Horror” special which, coincidentally, is the show’s 666th episode. While certainly not the best installment of this annual series, “Treehouse of Horror XXX” was pretty funny. Still, even the funniest jokes in this episode pale in comparison to some of the classic “Treehouse of Horror” specials. To this day, iconic segments such as “The Shinning”, “The Devil and Homer Simpson”, “Nightmare Cafeteria”, and “Citizen Kang” are still hard to top.

So, in honor of Halloween, thirty years of scary tales, and 90’s nostalgia, I want to briefly discuss my favorite five episodes of the Treehouse of Horror series. As always, ranking articles like these are subjective and are based on personal taste. Therefore, I don’t care if you nor yo’ mama thinks “Treehouse of Horror III” was trash. It’s still going on this list!

Alright, let us continue.

Honorable Mentions: “Treehouse of Horror II”, “Treehouse of Horror VIII”, and “Treehouse of Horror X”

Number Five: “Treehouse of Horror VII” (Season 8, Episode 1; 1996)

Although “The Thing and I” was a strong first segment, I enjoyed it least in “Treehouse of Horror VII”. Don’t get me wrong, I thought the story was pretty funny, I just like the second and third stories better. However, I do have a bone to pick with the ending of “The Thing and I”. Instead of confining Bart to the attic, why not keep both Hugo and Bart around after they discovered Bart was the evil twin? I mean, the family already lived with Bart for 10 years. They might as well kept the mistake going.

“The Genesis Tub” was amusing.  It may be the creative in me, but I really enjoy the concept of creating your own world and overseeing it.  Still, I felt the ending of “The Genesis Tub” was a bit abrupt.  I feel like the writers could have done so much more with the concept of Lisa creating and ruling her own Universe. Maybe she could have assaulted Bart with more fighter pilots. Maybe she could have built a massive ray gun a la the ray gun seen in “Citizen Kang”.  The ideas are limitless.

Speaking of “Citizen Kang”, this story is one of my favorites in the entire Treehouse of Horror series.  It's a brilliant satirical take on elections in the United States and the country’s politicians.  I especially like how the writers make fun of our ridiculous two-party system.  Like really, are our only choices between a drooling, Gangreen Gang, cyclops squid, and his twin sister?  Ross Perot should have brought up Kang’s and Kodos’ emails.  That always works.

Number Four: “Treehouse of Horror III” (Season 4, Episode 5; 1992)

Akin to my feelings about “Treehouse of Horror VII”, I’m only a big fan of two of the three segments in “Treehouse of Horror III”.  “King Homer” was just a’ight to me. Granted, the segment did have a great exchange between Mr. Smithers and Mr. Burns about the former’s distaste of seamen and women mixing.  Yet overall, I didn’t get a kick out of this story as much as I did the other two.

“Clown Without Pity” is a parody of the lauded Twilight Zone episode “Living Doll”.  This segment had its share of funny jokes, particularly the line from Patty about losing the remaining thread of her heterosexuality after seeing Homer horrifically run through the house butt naked.  I also like how the key to turning off the Krusty doll’s murderous rage, is switching the lever from “evil” to “good”.  Like, what happens if the lever accidentally switches back?  What if it breaks and he gets stuck on “evil”?  Take the doll back and get a refund!  Like, what are y’all doing?!

Finally, there is “Dial ‘Z’ for Zombie”.  No matter how self-aware I am about the absurdity of my kinemortophobia (fear of zombies), I still have it.  That is why I hated this segment as a child.  But as a grown woman, I find this story very funny.  It’s a pretty simple zombie story, but the jokes strewn throughout are what make it a highlight of the series.  The joke about Homer being immune to the zombies because he lacks brains is one that stands out in particular.  Also, what are George Washington, Albert Einstein, and William Shakespeare even doing in Springfield?

Number Three: “Treehouse of Horror IV” (Season 5, Episode 5; 1993)

Choosing between “Treehouse of Horror IV” and “Treehouse of Horror V” as my second favorite episode of the series was the hardest.  Ultimately, I prefer V ever so slightly over IV, but IV is a heavyweight in its own right.  “The Devil and Homer Simpson” shows just how far our dimwitted protagonist is willing to go to get his favorite, sugary snack.  You got to be desperate as all hell to sell your soul for a donut!  Other than Homer’s enjoyment of his ironic punishment, the best part of the segment is the trial itself.  The Devil’s voir dire game is trash.  How do you select the jury and still lose the case?  Never hire this man for anything.

“Terror at 5 ½ Feet” is yet another hilarious spin on an old Twilight Zone classic. This parody of “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet” stays true to the basic horror elements and story structure as the original tale, but, of course, adds its own Simpsons brand of humor to it. However, unlike the original, Bart is still tormented by the gremlin after he’s hauled off to the psych ward.  Side note, Ned Flanders really took a lot of L’s in this episode.

I’ve never seen nor read the original Dracula, so I do not know how faithful “Bart Simpson’s Dracula” is to the original story.  Well, I guess that doesn’t really matter here because this story is so funny and scary that it holds your attention from beginning to end.  From the super happy fun slide that leads to the vampires in the basement to Homer staking Mr. Burns (Burnscula?) in the crotch, this story provides many laughs that make this story a classic.  Also, the plot twist that Marge (Margecula?) is really the head vampire is funny as hell.  Sorry if that was a spoiler but in fairness, this episode is 26 years old now.

Number Two: “Treehouse of Horror V” (Season 6, Episode 6; 1994)

“Treehouse of Horror V” is solid from beginning to end.  “The Shinning” is firmly in my top five list of favorite Treehouse of Horror segments.  This segment has several hilarious moments, from Homer taking three days to make the voyage to the cabin due to his forgetfulness to the blood not getting off at the right floor, to that scene where the complete lack of television and beer made Homer go . . . something . . . hmm.  Well, anyway, I can definitely say that every time I watch “The Shinning”, I’m feelin’ fine.

“The Shinning” is not the only highlight of this episode.  Homer’s time-traveling escapade in “Time and Punishment” introduced us to numerous interesting alternative timelines that ultimately drove Homer to a pure state of “IDGAF” at the end.  Still sucks that he missed out on that donut rain.  That timeline would have smacked!  

This episode’s final segment, “Nightmare Cafeteria”, truly is the stuff of nightmares. I mean, it’s super funny now that I’m grown, but this segment used to legitimately scare me as a child.  It also didn’t help that I was a fat kid.  Like, imagine living your best life and then the next moment, you’re Ms. Wilson’s Fried Adri.  Woo, chile.

Number One: “Treehouse of Horror” (Season 2, Episode 3; 1990)

It’s often said that nothing beats the original, and in the case of Treehouse of Horror episodes, this sentiment rings true.  The very first Treehouse of Horror is the greatest episode of the series.  One of the highlights of this episode is the dulcet baritone of James Earl Jones as the mover, Serak the Preparer, and the narrator of “The Raven”.

The first segment “Bad Dream House” is a comedic spin on the classic haunted house movie trope.  The quintessential 80s style horror music that accompanies the story throughout greatly adds to the mood of the piece without overdoing it.  The conclusion of “Bad Dream House” is what makes this story so funny.  The house destroys itself rather than live with the Simpsons. I don’t know what it feels like to be curved by a house, but it must make you feel all kinds of insecure.  

“Hungry Are the Damned” is our first introduction to Treehouse staples Kang and Kodos.  It is also our introduction to the sorely missed Serak the Preparer, who definitely needs to return at least once in this series.  This segment parodies the classic Twilight Zone episode “To Serve Man” and gives us a humorous plot twist at the end.  I suppose this episode also serves as a sort of origin story of Kang’s and Kodos’ beef with mankind because this is the only episode where they are genuinely nice.  Dang, all Lisa had to do was sit down and eat her food. Literally.

Finally, there is “The Raven”, which is absolutely my favorite segment in any Treehouse of Horror Episode.  What I like most about “The Raven” is how the crew manages to add comedy to the piece without losing any of the mystique of Edgar Allen Poe’s riveting poetry.  It also made this poem a bit easier to understand, which I greatly appreciate.  It’s a refined piece of television without the pompousness of the bourgeois.  In short, I like it. 

Honestly, no matter which of the thirty Treehouse of Horror episodes you like best, all are great for watching on Halloween for squeamish, easy-to-scare people like me.  So for those of us who aren’t bravely equipped to watch the more realistic, gory, and scary productions, I highly recommend binge-watching these episodes for some softer scary vibes and lots of laughs.

[lesbiskam]

A (not so) Simple Analysis of Ele and Edo’s First Date (or why I didn’t hate this clip like I normally do)

I was going to make a “in this essay I will...” thing but then I accidentally wrote the dam essay... whoops :) it’s under the cut

First, I’m going to address the overall vibe I got from Ele, which is super important. Ele seemed very defiant the entire time, which may seem bad, but stick with me. In my opinion, Noora seemed very uncomfortable as soon as she greeted William. It’s almost as if you can feel the power imbalance. Noora has been forced to go on a date with William, and she almost seems scared because of it (almost). However, Ele really seems to hold her own. True, she doesn’t really want to be there, but she doesn’t seem intimidated, she just seems straight up pissed (which is completely understandable). It’s very clear from the start that Edo really has no power over Ele, and every thing she does is her own choice and not because she feels like she has to. (If you don’t see what I’m feeling, then I’m sorry, because I really don’t know how to explain the vibe.)

Now, some people might sit there and think “but why is this little detail so important?” Good news, I can explain that too :) Ele might have said that this wasn’t a real “date” and she might be right, but it that doesn’t mean it isn’t important. This is the first time that Ele and Edo really start to get to know each other. This “fake date” sets up their dynamic for the entire season. In the case of William and Noora, William seems to have far too much power over Noora. Noora also loses her confidence and becomes weak throughout the season. Both of these things start on the very first date. The power dynamic stems from the vibes on the first date, regardless of if it’s fake or real. By making Ele angry instead of (kinda) intimidated, it gives Edo no power over her. Without this power, Ele will not be able to be manipulated as easily. (Edo won’t manipulate her anyway, but that’s besides this point.) This change in the power dynamic lets Ele make her own decisions far more easily, without manipulation, which is crucial to a healthy relationship.

(Also, I don’t know if this was purposeful or just how it ended up. It could just be a coincidence, but it makes a big difference in my eyes.)

But now onto the actual content itself:

Like all the Williams, Edo starts by sharing his memories with Ele. Ele sees this as a tactic to try to win her over and not genuine, but this isn’t necessarily true. Yes, he is doing it to get into Ele’s favor; yes, he probably rehearsed it. But I don’t think these things are particularly bad in this situation. He doesn’t have malicious intent to manipulate or confuse Ele’s feelings, he just wants Ele to understand/like him.

Okay when Edo tries to say he didn’t force Ele? A lie. And we all know this. he blackmailed her into going on the date, and then twists things into his favor, as Ele said. But, thankfully, Ele doesn’t back down on her stance. She does not let Edo’s shitty behavior change her thinking. (I will also say that Edo is not a complete shit because he eventually does agree that he shouldn’t have texted Silvia because she would have seen it as flirting.) (Although, I’ve always thought it was really shitty how “William” thought it was okay to force “Noora” to go on a date, even if it was just honoring a deal.) Anyway, Ele was good about not giving in to Edo’s shitty-ness, which is pretty important imo. By Ele saying that she did it out of love for Silvia instead of liking Edo (and not giving a counter argument to this point), it shows that Ele is the correct one in the situation, which was not the vibe from the OG.

Ele is very sassy and amazing when saying why, exactly, Edo is a shit. And most of these are true. But when she calls him sexist, I disagree. Edo was a major fuck boy in the past, and many people would say this makes him sexist. (Personally, I would classify this behavior as sexist, but as asshole-ish, but that’s irrelevant.) However, I disagree that Edo is sexist. He head-butted a dude for calling a girl a slut. (Ele, however, still sees these actions as wrong, which will inevitably be addressed later in the season.) From a writing standpoint, I don’t think slipping that into the conversation was a coincidence. They (as in the writers) did it on purpose to show that Edo isn’t actually “sexist”, despite displaying sexist/dick-ish behavior in the past.

Now, normally, I hate when “William” compares how he insulted “Vilde” as to when “Noora” insults him, but in Edo’s situation, I understand more of where he’s coming from. The Edo/Ele insult match felt more equal to me. Ele seemed a little bit harsher/ruder and Edo seemed a little less harsh, so this comparison is understandable. I still disagree with Edo, but I understand where he’s coming from and I don’t think he’s being manipulative like William was.

And of course, the dreaded rhetoric about how one comment can’t destroy a person’s self-esteem. There are multiple things I want to address about this whole thing, but the first is that I disagree with the statement, like many people. The right well-placed words can absolutely plant seeds of doubt that spiral into annihilation of one’s confidence. Second, I think it’s important to state how Edo said it was “really difficult” to destroy someone’s confidence with one comment, not impossible. This seems pretty small and trivial, but to me it really shows how Edo is not trying to prove something. He’s not saying “this is how it is, I’m right, and you’re naïve”, he more of saying “this is just how it seems to me”. Third, I need to address how Edo thought about it before he said it. Really thought about it. He was open to discussion. He wasn’t shooting Ele down, he was talking with her. He was just trying to explain himself. Fourth (this is the biggie), I think it’s really important to recognize the context of the situation. Edo did not say anything that should have destroyed Silvia’s confidence, and it didn’t destroy her confidence. (As a refresher, Edo never said Silvia wasn’t good enough, but just asked why she was behind the boy’s bathroom.) The comment was made to make Silvia embarrassed (which is really shitty), and it worked. But it was a short-term embarrassment, not a long-term blow to her self-esteem. So, in Edo’s mind, it would make sense to say that a comment like that shouldn’t destroy someone.

Then, Edo admits it was wrong what he did. He admits that he what he did wasn’t fair to Silvia. Yeah, it was pretty half-assed, but it’s a start. He isn’t perfect, and admitting that he was wrong is a big thing. AND, he didn’t seem to say it just to make Ele like him, he actually seems to recognize that what he did was wrong (god, what a low bar…).

Again, another dreaded rhetoric. He asks Ele to look at the situation from his perspective. Cue eye roll. However I have to say that the way he said it seemed a little better. It felt less like “I’m right and you’re wrong blah blah blah” and more of “I’m not as big of an ass as you think I am”. He only wants Ele to understand where he’s coming from. He just desperately wants Ele to like him. He’s not being manipulative or anything like that. And… I understand his sentiment.

Okay, now let’s just take a long second to appreciate how he didn’t let Ele compliment him when he didn’t deserve it. You know what that is? Growth. As much as he wants Ele’s compliments and praise, he doesn’t want it if he doesn’t deserve it. Ele tries to compliment him on apologizing to Silvia, and but he calls out his behavior anyway. If he just wanted Ele to like him, he wouldn’t bring this up, but now we can see that he actually cares about being a decent person. He doesn’t want to manipulate Ele into thinking he’s a good person, he actually wants to be a better person for Ele (cue the “awwwwww”). He wants Ele to genuinely like him. He wants to actually earn her approval.

And that little “you’re right” “I know” exchange? 10/10. 1) She’s right and he should say it. 2) Gotta acknowledge his growth for admitting that he’s wrong and she’s right. 3) That was really cute (I’ve actually dreamt up this scenario before, so when it actually happened? I lost my shit, guys).

When Edo gets the call, you can see how bad he doesn’t want the date to end. He hangs up once, then apologizes for having to answer. He really just loves being around Ele, even if she’s roasting him. And obviously Ele doesn’t want the date to end either. She runs after him, being all cute and asking what’s wrong.

But then she breaks his Ele-shaped heart by asking if her debt is payed. His little “you don’t owe me anything” is just so painful. He’s just so sad that Ele doesn’t want anything to do with him, and that she only ever saw the little date as something she owed. He wants so badly to mean something to Ele. Remember, he really wants to earn her approval. He tried so hard to show her that he was a better person than he was a year ago. And this probably feels like a stab to the gut to him. After all this, Ele still doesn’t like him. The approval he wants so bad is denied. As a person who constantly seeks other people’s approval, can I just say big oof?

(TL;DR: this date seemed better imo even though the changes were actually minuscule)

((Also, I’m very sorry to those who actually read through all of this, you’re braver than any US marines. This was ridicouly long, repetitive, and unnecessary. And in the longest paragraphs possible. This was ruch a rant...oops.))

(((AND a big thanks to @skamitaliasubs for providing translations <3)))

[unproduciblesmackdown]

40, 47, 59, 62, 76

lmao hell yeah thanks for All this support i love it!! quastions

40. weirdest thing to ever happen at your school?

really idk i feel like even our schools’s Antics were pretty par for the course and i was just sitting in the corner reading the whole time basically......trying to think if anything wild happened in college but even then it was p similar. well you know what, whatever donors covered the majority of the cost of the school’s black box theater being renovated apparently Stipulated that every other year a rodgers and hammerstein production be put on. absolute freaks. my roommate/friend and their then-boyfriend, the one mormon i have Knowingly Known in my life, were in pirates of penzance (sic?) together. hilarious

47. favorite type of cheese?

i like cheddar and like, parmesan, smoked gouda.....let’s get that shit Sharp!!! and hard lmao

59. if you were a video game character, what would your catchphrase be?

idk i’d be like an npc just doing their weird thing on their own. i’ve never played pokemons unless you count pokemons Go but i think about the famed “i like shorts they’re comfy and easy to wear” npc kid. like, yeah. i feel the same. and would say similar bullshit nobody asked about

62. seven characters you relate to?

oh god.........recognizing the self through the relatable characters :|

well let’s just talk about the wrol roles right off b/c the characters that Most occupy my gay thoughts (which is to say: my general thoughts) will inevitably get priority when it comes to Remembering things

1) whom among us doesn’t relate to jared kleinman........will roland emerging from relative obscurity and coming for our entire fucking lives like the goddamn legend he is. it’s tough b/c it’s like, oh well alana is relatable too, so is evan unfortunately sorry evan, and in ways i might ~usually act~ like one of those two more than jared but. no. it is Jared who wins the relatability contest, and we all get to be beautifully haunted by it forever

2) leaning hard into winston even with the few glimpses of him b/c somehow will Cannot play an allistic cishet. and this is even More of a case where maybe i don’t much have winston’s demeanor.......even without winston being a beacon of confidence, he has more confidence lmao. and he has that ability to just Be Himself in a situation which, i wish i had that moxie lmao. i am a lot more [usually trying to be accommodating wayyyy harder than i should], booo......even though he’s clearly not great at conflict considering how it doesn’t take Too much to put him out, it’d be pretty impossible for me to be all “called them hacks and lame” or carry out a very irritated monologue in front of four people in the first place lmao. but who knows. and it’s more in the details of like, oh no winston’s the odd one out even though he hasn’t really Done Anything, but we all ~understand~ why he Deserves it.........his expectation / treating it basically as Fact that he will disappoint people.......the [weird] [offputting] behaviors and his way of speaking in What he Says and How He Says It seeming wrong to people.......like it’s only 15-ish min of content that we have here and we don’t have the least info about will’s own thoughts on the character but it’s like. how is this such an iconic Gay Autistic Quant b/c these vibes are so rare. and i appreciate that he can be ~difficult~ lmao. same with jared though i didn’t mention it. i can be difficult!! love it for us...

3) briony atkins from murder of bindy mackenzie as a character who Does act more like how i Usually Act Like lmao.....god we’re only on three i forgot there was seven of these. and yet i know there’s probably at least 2 dozen characters who could make this list and i just won’t think of most of them unless directly reminded......but anyways yeah i mean in person i mostly do Not want attention unless i feel comfortable enough / in my element or whatever. especially if it’d be some situation like “sitting in a group of randos” lol. i mean it depends b/c i also can sometimes be ~on~ in terms of Masking and trying to be like Haha I’m Social I’m Regular and i def engage in Nervous Chatter sometimes, but like, very often it’s like god don’t talk to me and i don’t want to talk either.....and then yeah people Will be surprised that like, idk, i’m opinionated as shit and idk that i Enjoy Things / Have Thoughts And Feelings coz the assumption i guess is that you must simply have nothing to say. so the dismissal of this person who seemingly has nothing to contribute and must be Boring rings true lmfao.....but then of course it’s also important that her personality Under that is the one getting mistaken for emily’s lol cuz yeah At Heart i am sure of that dramatic / intense / excitable type Sometimes. but it takes some excavation before i am like “oh i can engage in my actual self” and like weeks and months to get comfortable w/ people and i’m always suspicious that anyone actually would enjoy it and i’m not too much......i am a motormouth actually and have something to say about any and everything and like to Have Fun Here but like. idk i come off as boring and can be Notably Quiet lmao

4) oscar martinez from the office is weirdly [Haha Same] sometimes lmfao. sort of keeps to himself but also has to pipe up with Opinions and Pedantry and the kind of Drama of a restrained theatre gay. some deleted scene from an episode where during an interview clip of Jimothy in a theater lobby and you have oscar call from across the group in that [wearied Ugh God] way of ‘jim, they’re remaking ___’ while jim just kind of gives a cursory “wow gosh” or whatever and like, i sure don’t have lots of Theatre Opinions but that “oh jeez i have a Take on this and have to share it with someone” vibe is like hahaha yeah.....it’s funny in the “the gang goes to the ice rink for a third of the ep” bit where you just catch oscar doing [ice skating turn] with some solemn intensity.......the “here’s a question nobody’s asking: is this worth it” quote.........way at the end where there’s a whole deal with one of the indoor plants and he’s like “why is it a He” @ the collective gendering of the houseplant lmfao.......i love the one thing where he and pam and uhh toby right? have the Finer Things book club or whatever and jim wants to join just like ~ironically~ and pam has to tell him that oscar doesn’t want him to join b/c he’s not going to take it seriously and use it as a Jokes Vehicle. and then you get the scene at the end where jim Is basically doing that and they’re just like taking it out of him and oscar’s all very seriously like “did you get it all out of your system” lmfao like yeah, earnest members only lmao.....the thing where he gets mad at angela’s like Jazz Musician Posed Babies posters all “it’s kitsch it Destroys art” lmaoooo and in a totally different season all “this is the problem with debate” over the completely inconsequential “is [whichever actress, i forget] Hot” “”””debate””””.......the whole tendency to get involved and always have a take to get across.....opinionated-sometimes-to-the-point-of-petty central. also that he’s the canon gay, are there even any others? anyways and as the us office’s spiritual successor i’ll add on to this by uh what’s the name of billy eichner’s character on parks and rec? it’s craig right. that Self-Powered Intensity is very #me as well.

5) augh god........im like lmfao shit who represents my Hater Club side. hmmm. oh no wait you know what. totally different but i love Prof Beatrice Hotchkiss in the trt nancy drew pc game. she’s holed up in her room writing all the time and just is weird when you try to talk to her all like no i won’t open the door, bring me food, do this Research, bring me my Ski Boots i guess......and then when you do meet her it’s all at like post-midnight in the lounge and she’s all like, encouraging you as a Night Owl and your investigative curiosity and all and i’m like oh word yeah being up in the dead of night is the shit. she’s just weird and passionate and this is another character i might not Act hardly at all like but who i vibe with lmfao. hotchkiss was the supportive adult in my life

6) remembering how hotchkiss is a historian made me think of academia which made me think of like, once again with “these vibes are So So Rare” i really ought to put the wrol role of Nato on the list cuz like. that essential representation of “gets gr8 grades but isn’t really ~academic~ / doesn’t care about that and really just cares about Hanging W Friends and [real specific interests]” is like wow damn that’s the Mood. coz like to an extent i can always Relate to the ~overachiever~ types a la the [nerd character gets all-A’s and other nerd shit] deal, but there’s eventually the issue of like.....those characters like bindy mackenzies and alana becks Care about their achievements (not exclusively as some ppl would have it 9_9) and are Studious whereas i always hated school and was a godawful student in terms of Habits and always got good grades b/c the devil was with me or something and like people will think i must have tried real hard and dedicated myself to Academics and stuff and it’s like.........no................not at all hardly, sure i did my hw every night but at like 11:29 pm or studied for a midterm at lunch right before the class lol or flipped through a lil bit of the sat study guide the night prior.........the “low-effort dumbass who Academically Excels Anyhow” representation is so crucial like!! i run into a wall when it’s the Good Grades nerd character who is real studious and focused and stuff like. couldn’t be me. meanwhile the “naturally weird + probably some ‘deliberate’ weirdness” and “likes animals” and “most likely to just wanna Roll With It” and “shitty focus lol” and “non sequiturs” and “without [activity] i do nothing” is all like....ahahahohoho..........nato rly got to make this list. and honorable mention for Wrol Jeremy. again: whom doesn’t relate!!!!!!!!

7) damnit i know there’s So many answers to [characters i relate to] and whom cover like, more particular Facets here but i’m struggling lmao. Uh. like i’m like, who’s the Hot Mess / continually evolving disaster characters i vibe with......who’s the peak despresso detached Haters rep......who embodies the solo production lifestyle........dammit you know what lol i tend to Feel for like, the background ~nobodies~ who might just get like totally destroyed in some movie with life or death stakes just to like, show how much danger our heroes / Important Complex Protags are. same w/ jeremy not feeling like the Hero / the one who the story’s about / the cool guy / player 1 / etc etc etc i’m like oo i’d be the npc who doesn’t really do anything, i’d be the rando getting blown away in the background of someone else’s story. on a totally different note another shoutout / honorable mention to wybie from the coraline lmfao one of the best characters invented from thin air for an adaptation......tangentially relevant b/c he’s entirely here to support the protag / not his story at all, just here to help and prompt interactions / exposition really.......but love that [weird loner kid who’s best friend is a cat and annoys the other kid and doesn’t Get it and has specific interests and entertains himself and just is doing weird shit around here tf dude lmao killing it] like, #mood. #lifestyle. less dismal to relate to than the bg person who dies......his counterpart who totally dies is somewhat fleshed out / given Investment so it doesnt Really count as [background Nobody who’s really just fodder for “defining the stakes / threat level”] Character Concept

76. what’s your favorite potato food (i.e. tater tots, baked potatoes, fries, chips, etc.)?

latkes maybe......Yummy

[dancingwithdylan21]

Hard and Fast

Summary: Dylan falls hard and fast for the reader who is auditioning for Teen Wolf.

Pairing: Dylan x Reader

Prompt: “Can you two flirt on your own time?”

~

You’re anxiously tapping your foot in a stuffy waiting room but it’s not just any waiting room. No. It’s only the gateway to the biggest fucking audition of your life. No pressure or anything.

You’re about to audition for a role on MTV’s Teen Wolf and the fact that it’s your favorite show makes this even more nerve racking. It’s a character named Kelsey who’s a new mysterious student in Beacon Hills and she will also be Stiles’ new love interest.

And this isn’t a small arc, the role is expected to last for an entire season. That kind of exposure would be insane and also a dream come true. Today is your second callback and you’ve heard that two of the leads with be present in the room with you.

Tyler is making his directorial debut and that’s when the character will make her first appearance. And Dylan will be reading with the small group of girls that made the cut so far including yourself.

“Y/N L/N!”

Shit. Here we go.

“You can do this. You can fucking do this.” You whisper confidently before walking through the heavy metal door. You enter a large, white plain looking room and you can feel your pulse instantly start to race.

Hm. There are only five people present including the two handsome actors. Dylan is standing off to the side chatting on his iPhone and Tyler is sitting in a director’s chair with his baseball cap pulled down low. And the other three are the show’s producers who all seem ready for a nap.

Good vibes. Ugh. You quickly introduce yourself and the part you’re reading for while facing the camera that’s setup in the room. You’re now standing around awkwardly as you wait for Dylan to finish his phone call.

Dylan barely glances in your direction but moves closer still with the phone to his ear. He finally pauses in front of you as he hangs up, making your heart immediately jump into your throat. The man is even better looking in person. You didn’t think that was possible.

“Hi! I’m Y/N L/N. Nice to meet you.” You thankfully snap out of your slight fangirl moment, reminding yourself to get your shit together. Although Dylan looks strangely caught off guard and barely makes a sound when he holds out his hand. Kinda weird.

“Ok, people. Let’s do this.” Tyler quickly interrupts as he leans back in his wooden chair.

Dylan gives him a quick nod before turning back towards you. He suddenly freezes with an expression you can’t read before spinning the fuck around and bolting over to his co-star.

They are now both whispering and looking over at you while you do your best to act unaffected. But it’s making you feel self conscious as fuck at the moment. You notice Tyler give Dylan a stern look and it makes him rush back over to you.

“Everything ok?” You ask wearily.

“Oh. Uh…yup.” Dylan lies unconvincingly. Awesome.

“Let’s start at the top of page two. Stiles sneaks into the school library at night to research and loudly interrupts Kesley who’s already there.” He mumbles focusing on the floor instead of you.

“Ok.” You decide to just dive right into the role and forget the weirdness that’s happening right now.

“Can I help you, dude?” You dryly inquire acting annoyed towards “Stiles”.

“Nope. I’m good.” Dylan delivers a strained smile before clearing his throat. “Sorry for the noise.”

“Yeah I came here for peace and quiet so...”

“I…uhh I…” Dylan stutters before breaking character and then he starts coughing. “I need…water.”

Dylan gives you a nervous smile before stomping towards the table where the producers are sitting. You’re officially fucking confused at this point and start to think that you’re the problem. He makes his way back to you wearing a shy smile.

“Do you want me to still read for this?“ You ask carefully. “If you’re not feeling it then I can leave.”

“No!” Dylan all but yells catching everyone’s attention. A cute shade of pink appears on his cheeks and Tyler can’t help but crack up laughing.

“Sorry, Y/N. Dyl thinks your hot. He’s not very smooth around girls he likes.” Tyler smirks as his best friend’s mouth drops open.

“Oh.” It’s all your brain can think of at the moment because you’re beyond surprised.

But you recover quickly with a chuckle, “I didn’t picture you as the type who’s scared of girls.”

“Aw, shit!” Tyler exclaims clearly entertained by this whole train wreck.

“Can we try this again before I die of embarrassment please?” Dylan groans asking the room. Everyone nods and you can’t help but giggle at Dylan when he looks at you. He instantly runs a hand through his messy hair before taking a deep breath.

“Get your act together, O’Brien.” You hear him grumble to himself.

“Yeah O’Brien…you’re a god damn professional.” You whisper making him burst out laughing.

“Can you two flirt on your own time?” Tyler huffs sounding bored. Dylan gives him the finger before turning his attention back to you.

“Hopefully third time’s the charm.” He says with a more confident smile.

Thank god this scene goes a lot better than before and it gives you hope about actually landing this role. Sadly it ends too soon and you have to say your goodbyes.

You blush when you see Dylan give you a cute wave as he watches you leave the room. The distraction almost makes you walk right into the door jam and it makes Tyler cackle behind you.

“You two are such dorks, Dyl. She’s clearly the girl for you.” He howls as you rush out the door.

Do something lame in front of an insanely attractive actor? Check. You can cross that off your fucking bucket list.

“So what do you guys think?” Tyler questions everyone after they see the last girl who auditioned. He instinctively rolls his eyes already knowing what his co-star is about to say.

“I vote for Y/N L/N.” Dylan replies with a goofy grin.

“What a shock.”

“Dude! Y/N’s amazing. She’s gorgeous, funny, sweet, bad ass and talented! I’m pretty sure she’ll be my wife someday.”

“Jesus, Dylan. You sound like a twelve year old girl.”

“Whatever, man. I can’t help it. I’ve never met a girl like her before.” Dylan admits already looking love struck.

“Actually…you and Y/N did have good chemistry. Even if you weren’t fangirling over her, I’d probably choose her for the role.”

“Yes!” Dylan excitedly jumps up from his seat. “Who’s gonna call her? Can I call her? What’s her number?”

“Don’t make me regret this, dude. You’re already acting crazy.” Tyler warns trying to hide an amused smile. His best friend is such a dope.

“Crazy or not…I like her. And I think she likes me back.”

“Totally. She didn’t make fun of you for being scared of chicks or anything.”

Dylan shoots Tyler a classic bitch face and it makes him snicker, “Whatever! As long as you two film without eye banging each other. Especially when I’m directing.”

“No promises.” Dylan smirks knowingly.

~

Masterlist 

[mermaider00]

Hello! What about a lotura moment during the moment they were building sicline, something like eating something together or a fluffy moment, like Allura finding some silly things Lotor did like singing an old altean song, or getting stresed or her finding him playing with the mouses???? (sorry, my english is awful :c

(I choose… singing an old Altean song as they build the Sincline. Enjoy the sweetness before season 7 drops tomorrow, and some made up Altean folklore) 

————————————————-

Allura enjoyed working with Lotor. It was quickly becoming one of the better parts of her day, if not the best, as of late. 

She didn’t have to listen very carefully to him or try to dissect strange genius family sayings like she had to with Pidge and Matt. She didn’t have to constantly put him back on the topic at hand, like with Hunk when her yellow Paladin would get distracted. And she didn’t have to remind him she was still in the room and they were partners, like with loner Keith when he would go quiet. Working with Lotor was like working with Shiro. They were usually on the same page. 

So when it came time to meet him at the Sincline ships, she happily went with a slight skip in her step. 

Once she arrived, they took a whole varga to reassess their last updates, to make a plan on what they would do in today’s session with the third and last of the ships. Now that they were settled, another varga went by as they worked, sitting on top of the ship after climbing up from a nearby platform. It was quiet as she handled the alchemic side of their work and he the mechanical, the only sounds the hum of the engines of the command ship and the metal footsteps of patrolling sentries as they guarded their Emperor. Every now and then there would be a spark and a buzzing noise as Lotor fiddled with a few wires inside an opened control panel. 

The other sound, one she wished would either stop or wander off, was Lance’s foot as he impatiently tapped it from the platform below them. 

Allura sighed with a roll of her eyes and glanced down at the blue Paladin. Lotor didn’t seem to acknowledge Lance’s existence or slightly annoying noises. He continued on building his ship, eyes intense and focused on his work. 

After a while her own mind started to wander. Not because she was bored, she told herself, but because being here with Lotor in the quiet had a strange way of making her remember Altea. It was never a topic he didn’t wish to discuss, and had quickly become a natural thing to think of her home world when around him. Her gaze studied his hands, either deep in the panel or scrolling away on a screen. The quiet and his presence was nice when she could block out the other small noises. She was comfortable, relaxed. 

It felt like there was nothing else she needed to fight. 

Lost in contentment, Allura continued watching his hands as her throat began to hum. Just a soft sound, just a little tune, one that hadn’t been on her mind when she’d started, but now consumed her as she kept on. With her eyes on the metal of the ship now, she placed one finger on the shiny surface, started tracing Altean symbols with a glowing blue fingertip, infusing more magic into the Sincline. 

Lotor didn’t mind. She would hum sometimes when they worked, but usually it was something quick and meaningless. He kept working; hands and gaze focused as he listened to her with half an ear, a prettier sound than simple quiet or the everyday racket of the Empire. It was nice, dreamy and calming. When her voice picked up and the tune of her hum more pronounced, Lotor listened carefully. Allura then started to sing properly, using words instead of a simple melody. He recognized them 

He knew the song she was singing, and smiled. 

Minutes later, Lance’s ears perked up and he was snapped out of his thoughts and back to reality. Singing, he realized. But there were only two other people… His head jerked up from his spot on the raised platform next to the ship. He stared and blinked, mouth set firmly. 

Lotor and Allura were softly singing a song as they continued working, something he guessed to be in the Altean language, since it was the only one that would connect them. The song was slow, something wistful and otherworldly, almost haunting with both of their smooth voices giving it sound. A sad song, a romantic one if he was picking up the correct vibe. They sang it together almost perfectly, Lotor able to pronounce and enunciate the dead alien language just as well as the full blood princess. He knew every word, like she did. He knew when to stop, when to hold the note, when to deepen his voice to accommodate hers. They were in harmony. 

The entire scene, two royal Alteans singing an old song of their people as her energy and his work shined on their grinning faces, was almost hypnotic. Even to Lance. 

But he didn’t like it. He didn’t like it one bit because he was unable to relate in any way, and would never be able to. Careful not to damage the ship, he hastily climbed it to meet them. 

When the song ended, Allura laughed softly, her eyes bright and cheery. “I can’t believe you know that song.” 

Lotor lifted a shoulder casually. “When I tell you my studies on Altea have been going on for as long as I’ve been able to read, I’m not putting it lightly. I know the song and the story behind it quite well.” 

Allura sighed dreamily. “It is one of my very favorite tales.” 

“What tale?” Lance said suddenly, groaning some as he lifted himself further onto the ship to get to them. “What’s that song you guys were singing? Sounded kinda sad.” 

Neither seemed to be bothered by the human’s sudden appearance. Any chance to educate on Altea - even something so small like a song - was always swiftly taken by them both in the right setting. Allura waited for Lance to grab a spot next to her without almost sliding off. 

“It’s an old Altean song inspired by an even older Altean myth,” she told him. “There’s a happier way of singing it meant for children, usually little girls, but the true version is not for them, and the lyrics are more romantic and sexual, and changed for the young ones. It’s a song that somehow survived many generations. Back on Altea, everyone knew it. It was a small part of our history, that song.” 

“So it’s like London Bridges?” Lance asked with a tilt of his head. 

“Um… I suppose. I’m not familiar…” 

“How does it translate to English? Or do you only sing it in Altean?” 

“Hmm.” Allura glanced over at Lotor with a questioning lift of her brow. 

“The lyrics were written in a more ancient form of the language than what they spoke during Alfor’s reign as the last king of Altea,” Lotor explained, taking a moment from his work to give them both his attention. He brushed a few stray locks of long white hair from his face as he sat up straighter. “As Allura said, the song is very old. I’ve read there were countless debates through time by various historians on whether the tale the song sings of was only a bewitching fable, or actual mystical Altean history. No one ever knew for sure, and now all attempt to find out is lost, obviously.” 

Lance had never been one for a history lesson, but stories were always fun, and he was intrigued. His family back home were all storytellers. “So what’s the tale?” 

Allura settled in and brought her knees up to her chest and hugged them. “Generations ago, before Alteans traveled the stars, the planet, though always prosperous, was not a magical one, and Alteans were not a magical race. The former Royal Family’s crest and name was lost with time, save for only one, for whom the song was written. Princess Sarvi, the mother of Altean magic.” 

“Princess Sarvi,” Lance repeated, squinting some. “She sounds hot. Was she hot?” 

She looked to Lotor and saw him confused. “Earthlings sometimes use hot when they want to say attractive.” 

The Emperor gave a nod. “Princess Sarvi, whether she is a historic figure or only myth, was described as one of the most beautiful Alteans to ever breathe. The most reoccurring descriptions of her tell of pale skin and extremely black hair that matched her equally black eyes, an unusual hue for Alteans of any generation. She is said to be the first Altean born with the markings that we see on Allura and Coran everyday. The marks under her eyes and scattered along her body were gold, a deep, true gold that made her quite literally shine. The song has a lyric of her gliding in brightest white, my deep desire for the night. The color of the Royals was said to white in the ancient times, before proper documentation.” 

Lance tried to picture her. Of course an ancient princess would be exquisitely beautiful; they always were. And it seemed to be a trait for all Alteans. He narrowed his eyes some at Lotor. Even half Alteans too. Bastard. “So I’m guessing there’s a long lost love thrown in there somewhere? That’s the trend, I guess.” 

“A little of yes and no,” Allura answered. “Princess Sarvi didn’t relate well to her own people. She cared more for the planet itself. She had no interest in friends or suitors or her own royal duties, and her subjects thought her to be cold and even insane. But really, knowing what we know now, she was just extremely introverted, and felt more connected to Altea than the Alteans. She was a ghost to her people. A mythical creature only few laid eyes on. A man who led one of Altea’s Royal Houses at the time, Commander Rainer, fell in desperate love with her when he spotted her late one night in a field surrounded by juniberries. From then on, he worked tirelessly to somehow convince her to marry him.” 

“Commander Rainer is the poet, the one who wrote the song as a love letter to the Princess,” Lotor continued. His eyes were bright with knowledge as he stared at Lance. “Rainer was highly respected, a great warrior for Altea and beloved by all for his immense courage and generosity. It made sense that he would be the one to take her hand in marriage. But Sarvi was a master at evasion, and only ever spotted at night in different regions. When he would find her, his nerves got the best of him. He kept his distance, and wrote the song on the nights he would watch her as she glorified Altea with creatures surrounding her.” 

Altean Snow White, was what came to Lance’s mind. But no dwarves or evil queens or poisonous apples. “How does the song go?” 

They were both quiet as they thought it over, each one trying to translate the lyrics to the Paladin’s spoken language. This was nice, Allura decided. It was nice to share her culture with her friend, to go back to her time with a curious and longing emperor who never got to truly experience it. 

“You drift, you sing, you rival the moon. The sun creates dawn and you’re gone far too soon,” Allura began, not singing a handful of the lyrics, simply speaking them like a poem instead. Song was for Altean. “The solar sea is in your gaze, I can see locks like black fire on the shore ablaze. Oh, my love, the Ancients have stitched you, I want you, I need you. I can see the gold under your eyes, it makes me feel alive.” 

Lance grinned at her. “Who wouldn’t fall for that?” 

“Sarvi,” Lotor answered plainly, not realizing he’d killed the dreamy mood. “At night, her markings would glow, turning her into a beacon for him to find. As time went on, Altea began to change, slowly transforming into what it ultimately became. But the planet was not alone in the change. Rainer discovered that the Princess was deteriorating more with each moon cycle. Fearing for her life, he finally approached her in the night, to confess his love and marry her. But Sarvi’s skin, once dewy and lively, was almost completely translucent. Her dark hair had turned white, black eyes a pale gray. Her beaming gold markings was the only color she had left, shining brighter than he’d ever seen before. He told her he adored her, asked her to accept him as hers. Begged her when she didn’t answer. It wasn’t long until she lost her solid form right before his eyes. But before she became nothing, she held out her hand to him,” Lotor continued, mimicking the gesture by showing Lance his hand as if he wanted the boy to take it. 

“And she said,” Lotor went on, eyes focused on Lance’s, “if you love me, brave commander, sing me your sweet song forever. Rainer reached for her in haste, unable to live without her. Markings of metallic silver appeared on his face and body, glowing as hers did, before Sarvi and the Commander became light and were absorbed into the planet.” 

“Man,” Lance whispered. 

“All babies born after that night were given the markings, and the abilities,” Allura told him. “Altea became magical, and soon it was discovered by astronomers that our home world suddenly possessed two rings around the planet. It was also decided that Sarvi didn’t keep herself from her people out of hate or discomfort, but because she knew her work and her sacrifice would better all the Alteans to come after her.” 

“Princess Sarvi had a deep connection to Altea, one that has never been replicated since,” Lotor added quietly. Moments like these were now the closest he would ever come to experiencing his own connection. It filled him with more regret. “She gave her entire being and all of her inner magic gifted to her to the planet, and the Commander followed. All that is left of him is his song.” 

Allura smiled up at the Emperor. He may have never known Altea, but his incredible interest in her home delighted her. And why shouldn’t he be interested? she asked herself. He was just as much a part of Altea as she was. She could see it now. 

Lance had enjoyed the story, but as the two reminisced silently in a way he couldn’t and practically glowing around each other, his face dropped and his brow shot up. 

“You two are a couple of nerds,” he told them. 

[kinetic-elaboration]

February 5: Thoughts on The 100 2x03 Reapercussions

I am very tired and I should sleep but instead I’m going to bring my The 100 rewatch project out of hiatus yet again with Episode 2x03: Reapercussions.

I miss Anya so much!!!!! This is mostly my Dichen Lachman obsession showing but also the way she gives Clarke that ‘yeah, whatever’ look when Clarke says she’ll get her out of the cage... your Grounder fave could never.

The show honestly peaked with S2 and after this it should have abandoned all attempts at edginess because nothing will ever be more Pure Nightmare Fuel than the Mount Weather Grounder Cages.

Clarke/Anya: the ship that almost was.

So when Clarke takes Anya out of the prison room, she opens a door that says “End Containment Area” and underneath that it says “U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Mount Weather Containment Protocol.” And people really thought JRoth made this up omg learn some history.

Considering how they left things (Anya literally trying to kill her and all her friends) it’s actually pretty impressively selfless and magnanimous on Clarke’s part to not just rescue her, but immediately and unthinkably rescue her. On the other hand, Anya feels some remorse for leaving her people whereas Clarke’s like ‘here are some clothes [even though those random bandages are holding up pretty well??], let’s get a move on!’ (I know she intended to come back for them and she was being smart and practical but from the pov of, say, Jasper or Monty, this is cold as hell of her.)

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: early S2 Clarke is Peak Clarke: smart, sly, practical, brave.

Byrne mentions Earth Skills teacher “Davis” as being part of the search team for Bell et. al. My question: how many Earth Skills teachers did they have lol?

I fucking love this crashed-ship aesthetic omg I forget how much I love it and then I see it again....

“On the Ark, you did anything you wanted, without a second thought about the consequences.” Like mother, like daughter.

I ALSO miss Jasper and Maya. I’m probably like the lone person out there who still remembers them fondly but they were basically perfect because they were sweet but with the potential for a lot of darkness as well, my favorite combination.

WHERE’S MY ART SCHOOL JAYA AU?

So actually fun fact, that isn’t how the art work would have been stored in Mount Weather. They had special containers for the paintings to protect them and like a special cart thing to transport them quickly from their old homes to the bunker I read a book.

No one ever characterizes him this way sufficiently imo but Monty is really quite uptight in a way. Like first: don’t cockblock him man. And second: just chilll. This is probably why he used to smoke weed.

“Trouble? It’s Clarke. Whatever she’s up to, I’m sure she can handle it.” I mean.... he’s not wrong.

Except for the part where she’s covered in dead bodies. But even then...

So I always felt like the main point of the Reapers was as kind of a zombie police force for Mount Weather: to keep the Grounders scared of the Mountain, so they won’t poke around in it too much. Though of course they also collect Grounders, which is helpful, since the Mountain Men can’t walk that far from their home base (and, as stated, they probably want to keep most of that area Grounder-free anyway). But it occurs to me now that a third use of the Reapers is like dead-body collectors? The Mountain dumps the dead bodies out the trap door, and the Reapers take them away and eat them. So gross and efficient all at once. Mount Weather’s motto basically.

Murphy and his creating-a-distraction stones are still one of the funniest jokes this show has ever pulled, though if it were a quicker reveal after “something like that” it would be funnier.

Never mind, Bellamy appearing out of the bush is true underrated comedy gold,

That said, I feel like everything outside of the Mount Weather and Clarke stories here is filler.

Love! That! Ship!

Major Byrne says that Kane is on the verge of losing control of the camp but... I dunno.... everyone seems to be working together pretty well? Maybe if they had diversified the cast a little, not in terms of yet more Grounders but, like, non-leaders of the Ark, that would be more clear????

Okay, well, admittedly, when the Grounder prisoner is brought in they do start a mini-mob, lol. Also one of the delinquent’s fathers is shot, it would be cool if we knew who he was?? ETA: and then he dies and Abby’s like “does he have any family?” lol he just said that his son was one of the 100 so like obviously he does??

The costuming people, like the set people, really are the geniuses of this show. I love Clarke and Anya’s outfits, and Clarke’s hair somehow being both grungy and beautiful like THAT’s the apocalypse style I wanna see.

Also they absolutely 100% would have gotten together in the S2-S3 hiatus if Anya hadn’t been killed off.

“You saved my life because you needed me” IS true but she also did it absolutely without hesitation, even knowing Anya really quite truly hates her, so this speaks either to some foolhardy bravery mixed in with her practical thoughts, or just straight compassion, or both. I guess that sort of is a Clarke thing. She can be a grudge holder (seriously don’t tell me she isn’t: Wells????) but her grudges are NEVER more important than hard-nosed practical problem-solving.

Time for some gratuitous torture. Honestly, I like Season 2, it’s probably my favorite season, but it has some MAJOR filler problems. Like when it’s good it’s THE BEST but then other times it just doesn’t know how to fill 40 minutes so it resorts to pointless diversions (like Bellamy rappelling down the side of a mountain to save a character who is literally never seen again? for some reason?) or just straight out ugly violence for screaming’s sake (Raven’s surgery, Raven’s Grounder torture, Abby’s shocklashing, etc.) Like honestly I can’t even watch this. I’m just gonna browse tumblr until it’s done.

The Arkers really like the concept of “confessing” don’t they?

Like okay I’m not done WHAT IS THE POINT of this? It all but kills the whole Kabby vibe (I still lowkey ship them but sometimes I think...why?), it’s truly painful to watch, and it has no plot purpose AT ALL not even world-building because, lol, we know the writers don’t care to flesh out Camp Jaha in any real way.

Murphy is taking such sad glee out of instigating Finn’s madness/violence. The Luci of The 100 for sure.

This Bellamy story line is boring though I’m sorry. Some of these scenes (the Clarke or Mount Weather ones) I could watch a million times but this is like... kay, I know what happens already. So.

“There are some lines you can’t uncross.” I mean I think this show has actually shown that’s pretty untrue since people get over almost everything pretty fast. There’s always another horrific thing to do and/or experience!

Yeah my bitterness is seeping in.

Anyway when you come into an interrogation knowing what the “right” answer is, you’ll never learn anything, take note, stupid teenager boys + U.S. law enforcement.

Like honestly this Grounder is 500000x smarter than they are. He saves himself and rains gunfire and destruction upon his enemies. (Well, saves himself for a few minutes--but at least he got to cause harm to those he hates!)

“You thought I was the crazy one, huh?” Was Murphy ever crazy, though, or was he just coldly vengeful?

Speaking of coldly vengeful, Byrne could have been a potentially interesting character? Maybe? I’m not really into the type but as I said I want more Arkers wherever I can find them. And Kane needs real opposition. I have sympathy for him to a degree, but I also think he ultimately weakens rather than strengthens himself.

I love when Monty calls bullshit on stuff. “I can’t see Clarke? Try and fucking stop me, bitches.”

Jasper has such a big heart. Truly the emotional core of this friendship.

I like how Kane speaks as if his “diplomatic mission” of adults is so vastly different than Bellamy and Finn just going off on their own I mean, Byrne is little better than Finn? They’re both easily frustrated and fond of torture? It’s just that Byrne understands a chain of command--barely--that’s literally it.

How does it make literally any sense at all to shocklash a person one hour and make her the Chancellor the next? Like you’ve just encouraged the populace to think of her as nothing special, not above the embarrassing public application of extreme pain--but yes by all means expect them to fall into line behind her leadership. I mean I guess this sort of works if she was already somehow beloved (I guess I’m supposed to just believe that?) and now more sympathy has been generated for her--but such sympathy would seem to come at the expense of Kane. It would seem to be the opposite of what he, or really Byrne, was going for with that disgusting display. But whatever memory is a fiction I guess.

And they have this swelling-music romantic eye-fuck goodbye like??? He was just beating you!! JUST NOW!

What I’m getting out of Murphy advocating for killing the Grounder: first, he has a clear, cold, practicality not unlike Clarke, and two, he still thinks of the delinquents as his friends--how sweet. Two days ago he was killing them, holding them hostage, and stealing their ammo before a huge battle but still. Bygones.

This is not a great ep. for Bellamy leadership lol.

Finn executes a man, while wearing Clarke’s watch, in the place they had sex. Seems...symbolic?? IDK it’s late lol.

I miss Nyko a lot but also now that I’ve seen (part of) Slasher I’m not entirely sure I can ever see Ty Olsson in the same light.

Wouldn’t it be funny if they were literal brothers? Because I always assumed this was metaphorical but...was it? WAS IT?

Weird note to end on, I know. If patterns hold, it’ll be another 2-3 months before I do this again but I’ll try to be a little more on the ball about it.