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astranva · 4 years

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TPWK Music Video

Word Count: 3.5k (omg shut up I didn’t think it’d be longer than 600 words)

Category: Fluff

Warning: idk a few swear words I guess? no proofreading is done on this blog ok 😭

Summary: Long-term girlfriend Y/N isn’t only the choreographer of TPWK, but she’s Harry’s dancing partner in the music video as well. Harry is in love, and can also be a pest.

reposting because tumblr hates it when i appear under tags

// masterlist //

For as long as you could remember, you were a dancer.

From pictures taken of you as a child by your family on your tippy toes in ballet costume, to professional ones of you ranking as first in dancing championships as a teenager as you experimented with styles other than ballet, to you befriending some of the biggest names in film and music industries as you choreographed the dances for them in the studio you owned, having had bought one at the age of only 22 and it being one of the most successful dance studios there is, with people flying from all around the world to attend your workshops and get a glimpse of what you create.

You were friends with people you had never thought, as an aspiring teenager, to know and help create choreography for, along with all the musical movies you helped bring a different tune to by the dance steps you created, and to mention one name of many, you were most proud of The Greatest Showman.

Initially, you were a friend of a friend of Harry’s.

You met the English man 3 years ago; flirting with one another for 7 months on end – Harry liked to remind you that you would’ve been together way sooner if it weren’t for the both of you being in different countries so often during that time –, dating for 1, officially being together for the rest of the 2 and half years and until that very moment.

“Look, Y/N just sent me the video they made at her Tokyo workshop.”

“I can’t make it, guys. Y/N created the choreography for Ari’s new video, and she’s in it. It premiers tonight.”

“Like my hoodie? Exclusively got to be the first person to wear Y/N’s new merch collection. Looks sick, doesn’t it? Worked so damn hard on that one.”

“Have you seen Lizzo’s new music video? Y/N made the choreography!”

If anything, your friends and family liked to joke about how Harry was a fanboy of yours.

Taking Harry with you to your studio made Harry resemble a child on a Christmas morning, or a child accompanying a parent to their work for a “take your kid to work” day. He never denied the pride he felt whenever he watched you in your element, watching you gracefully do your thing, so beautifully and passionately, in a studio that looked different from his.

“We were thinking,” he said one night as he got under the covers with you, smiling and closing his eyes as you reached to rub a missed spot of his night cream on his forehead, “Of creating a music video for Treat People.”

“How many music videos are you planning to make, really? 12? For all 12 songs on your record?” You had joked with a smile, watching him snuggle into the covers with a giggle.

“And what about it?”

“Just the fact that you never warn your poor fans,” you had chuckled, “What do you have in mind for it?”

“It’s all too fresh,” Harry said, “But I have a concept in mind.”

You had hummed, resting your head on your pillow, sitting face-to-face with Harry under the covers before he excitedly propped himself up on his elbow.

“Retro. Just retro, a casino, and a dance.”

Your eyebrows went up, a surprised look on your face, “Not what I had in mind but go on.”

“What did you have in mind?”

“Lots of people, kind of like a parade thing in the street.”

“That’s nice,” he smiled.

“But...” Knowing him well enough, you continued with a roll of your eyes.

“People won’t expect a vintage video, will they?”

“I don’t think they’ll expect a video for Treat People to begin with, baby.”

“Right,” he nodded, “So, what do you think?”

Just as you were about to confirm your excitement to the concept, your face had shifted to an expression of confusion;

“Did you say a dance?”

It didn’t take Harry long to discuss the concept with his team, going through the theoretical bit of creating a music video before Jeff asked the one question Harry had been excited to answer;

“Who’s going to do the choreography? Who’s going to be your dancing partner? We need to go over some pe-”

“Y/N.”

“What?”

“You really think I’ll let anyone but my girlfriend do either of that?” Harry asked sarcastically with a smirk, “Planning on asking her tonight.”

“You son of a bitch, you already have it all planned.” Jeff laughed, shaking his head at his client and best friend.

And Harry stayed true to his word.

Insisting on driving you to and picking you from your studio after your workshop, Harry greeted you with a quick kiss once you were seated in his car, groaning about how ready you were to get in bed.

He was a little impatient, he’d admit. Holding a conversation about your day seeming to have had distracted him just a tad until you were both home and in comfortable mismatched PJ’s, indulging a late-night snack in your kitchen which consisted of quick sandwiches.

“And then he calls me, tells me that he wants me to come up with a dance for his tour promo video in a day, H! A day! Can you believe that?”

“Fucking idiot. What did you tell him?” Harry frowned, moving to remove a piece of crumb from the corner of your mouth with his thumb.

“Declined for sure. Told him that it was too short of a notice, like, what am I supposed to do? Stop the time?”

“And what did he say?”

“Whined like a baby,” you scoffed, nodding to Harry’s annoyed expression, “I know!”

“Who does he think he is?” He rhetorically asked, “Calling one of the most demanded choreographers and expecting you to just do as he says. As if.”

Despite your annoyance at the said celebrity, your frown faltered at your boyfriend.

“And you know what’s funny?” He went on, “That you’ve been trying to reach a common ground, like, a solution that would be convenient for the both of you but he’s being an unhelpful, ungrateful twat.”

You pouted, reaching to pull him closer by one of his hoodie’s strings, pecking his lips, “Thanks for sharing the same annoyance and trash talking him with me.”

“Just wish some people weren’t dicks to you, love,” he sighed, “You don’t deserve it.”

“I can take care of them.” You smiled.

“I know you can, you deal with them so well, I don’t know how you do it,” Harry said, “But I still think some people need to stop giving you a hard time. Pisses me off.”

“Yeah? It’s hot.” You teased him, leaving a lingering kiss on his lips.

Harry’s posture eased, chuckling at you as he held on to your waist. “Glad you think so.”

“Always do,” you confirmed, “Now, what do you want to tell me?”

His eyebrows came together in confusion, “How did you know that? How- How did you know that I have something to say?”

You chuckled knowingly, giving him a shrug, “It’s a little offensive that you think I don’t know you well,” you sarcastically began, “But to answer your question, you tend to touch your bottom lip more often when you have something to say. And you have this look on your face.”

He might have fallen in love again and again that moment, opting to say silent for a moment as he took what you had said in – as he took you in.

Harry let out a sigh of contentment, wrapping his arm around your shoulders and bringing you closer in a hug before pressing a soft kiss to your head, “Love you so much.”

“Love you, too,” your muffled voice replied, “Now tell me.”

“You know how I told you I wanted Treat People to have a dance? And it’s all retro and all that?”

You nodded, looking at him.

“How do you feel about creating that? Being in the music video with me as my dancing partner?” He bashfully asked, eyes twinkling and smile innocent.

Your eyes widened, “What? Me?”

“Who else?”

“Are you being for real right now?” You laughed in disbelief, “Not only do you want me to create the choreography, but- but you want me in it?”

“Precisely, yes.” He nodded with a smile.

“Wow,” you smiled, shaking your head, “Are you sure?”

“Why wouldn’t I?” He asked, “You’re so fucking talented and good at what you do, people know we’re together, I have been impatiently waiting for you to join me in any of that stuff, and it’ll be fun,” Harry listed before shrugging, “What do you say?”

“I mean, I see the fun part,” you replied, “But when do you want that? When do you want to start filming? I’m going to need more details.”

“Whatever you need.”

And again, Harry was a man of both words and actions, filling you with what you needed to know and enjoying how you seemed to glow brighter at the mention of your job and passion.

It didn’t take long before you were both in the studio after having discussed some technicalities with Harry’s team. On some days, you and Harry would goof around in your studio after you were done with the day. You’d occasionally teach Harry a move or two, and more often than not, Harry was the audience you needed to watch a new choreography of yours that you were either unsure or proud of.

But to be able to have Harry join you from start to finish in what you enjoyed doing had another feeling; one that neither of you could explain.

“You kick out with your right, then,” you demonstrated, “Step in.”

With pursed lips and his eyebrows furrowed in concentration, Harry copied your moves, eyes on himself through the gigantic mirror in front of the both of you.

“Good job!” You grinned, “Alright so it’s, 5, 6, go 7, and 8,” you began from the top, “Then 1, and 2,” you stepped with your feet as you moved, “Kick, step, kick, step, turn,” you turned, “Push to the side,” you recapped slowly, “Clap, clap. Come on, you do it.”

Harry took a moment, letting out a breath as he shook his limbs, “Alright, got it,” he mumbled, “Can you count?”

“Yeah, baby, sure,” you giggled quietly, “5, 6, 7, 8…”

“Ah fuck,” he groaned as he seemed to lag before the next step.

You approached him, resting your hands on his shoulders before cupping his face to have him look at you, “You’re nervous. Why are you nervous?”

“Besides the fact that it’s the first time I do this?”

“Do what? Dance? We took salsa classes together.” You reminded him gently.

“No, love, just- this, for a video. And you’re so fucking good. I didn’t think you’d put that much effort into my little video but the dance looks amazing and I’d just, hate to not do it justice.” Harry ended his confession with a sigh, shoulders slumping down.

“H,” you pouted, “Baby, you’re an amazing dancer,” at that, Harry rolled his eyes, “Nooo, you are!” You repeated, assuring him, “If you can’t see how far better you’ve gotten than you’re blind, H.”

Harry’s face softened, looking at you as you nodded at him.

“We’re both putting effort and I won’t rest until we give this all it takes for you to enjoy it, alright?” You leaned closer, pecking his nose with a soft kiss which seemed to work to make him giggle, reaching to scratch his nose,

“Tickles.”

“Oh yeah?” You jokingly wiggled your fingers into his sides, “In your spot, Styles, let’s go!”

You weren’t surprised that after all your little classes together, Harry had perfected the choreography. It wasn’t just in your time together that Harry practiced; you caught him in the kitchen, in the shower, counting under his breath as he sat with a dazed look on his face, and you had seen him far too many times watching the recorded tutorial you had made for him and your backup dancers.

You weren’t surprised because you knew that once he set his mind to something, he wouldn’t rest until he reached it.

But just because you weren’t surprised, didn’t mean that you were any less proud.

Far too many videos on your phones were added of one another during that time; Harry dramatically lying on the floor in the studio, sweaty and panting as you recorded him while laughing, zooming into his dopey but smiling face, your phone propped up as it recorded the both of you practicing the entire choreography, catching the bit when Harry dipped in your arms but you weren’t ready and he ended up falling, bringing you down with him as the both of you burst out laughing.

He loved seeing you in your element, that was an established fact, but being with you in your element? That was priceless.

“Jesus, this is heavy!” Gemma exclaimed as she tried Harry’s sequined, bright cropped blazer.

Filming came by, and there was nothing like seeing hard work pay off.

Harry chuckled at his sister, taking the blazer from her before putting it on, “Have you seen Y/N? Is she done?”

“They were retouching her hair.”

Harry’s stomach was filled with butterflies. If you asked him for the reason behind them, he wouldn’t know how to answer; because he was nervous he’d mess up? Normal jitters before filming? Or maybe, it was the fact that you were finally joining him and that alone was enough to have him giddy, giggly, and bouncy?

Gemma would say it was the latter, having had watched and heard Harry ask about his girlfriend during the entirety of the process of getting ready;

“Is she alright?”

“Feel like I’m getting married and I’m not allowed to see my bride.”

“Can you please tell Y/N to check her phone? She puts it on silent whenever she’s working but I want to show her my hair.”

In the dressing room beside his, you began laughing the moment Gemma stepped in, already knowing from her huff and annoyed look the reason behind them.

“Bloody pest! How do you deal with him being all clingy over you like that?”

“I don’t,” you joked, “He’s nervous.”

“And a little annoying.”

“Thank you,” you smiled to the hairdresser before getting out of the chair, “Where’s the man of the hour?”

“Whining outside that door,” Gemma answered with a raise of her eyebrows and a smile, “You look amazing, love.”

“Really?” You smiled bashfully, tugging on your vintage jacket and looking down at your shoes, “It’s a light outfit.”

“Should try Harry’s blazer,” she huffed, “So heavy.”

Walking outside the room with Gemma, you saw Harry standing with your group of backup dancers, smiles on all of their faces as he talked with them, you fully knowing that he was making sure they were comfortable.

“Here comes the bride!” Gemma joked, raising her arms up.

Harry turned, and everyone was sure that it might as well have been your wedding.

His eyes seemed to reflect the shiny blazer he had on, dimples showing as he grinned, opening his arms at you.

Concealing the shyness you felt under his stare, you laughed as you wrapped your arms around him in a hug, feeling his hand rubbing your back. “You look so good,” you said, pulling away to look at him, “Where’s Lambe- There you are,” you pointed at Harry Lambert who approached the both of you, “How do you do it? What’s your secret?”

“Only the best for Sue,” Harry Lambert said, tipping an imaginary hat at Harry, “And our Angel.” He kissed your cheek.

Soon enough, everyone was asked into place.

For the first shot, they decided to film Harry entering the stage with the dancers first.

Standing at a safe distance away from the camera’s view, you heard the director call before they began recording.

“I got a good feeling,” you watched Harry sing into the vintage microphone, TPWK playing in the background as well, as he leaned to the side.

A smile was on your face, hands clutched together under your chin as you watched Harry and the dancers stick to the choreography you had worked on for the last 3 weeks.

Seeming to be too into your own world of watching your boyfriend, you hadn’t noticed right away when Gemma threw her arm around you until she squeezed you into a side hug, “Did so well, love.”

You gave her a smile and returned the hug, at loss of words.

For your takes, Harry was exactly as what Gemma had called him – a pest.

“Harry, stop making faces at her!”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’ll stop now.”

“Harry!”

“What? I didn’t do anything!”

“You took a picture of Y/N with your flash on!”

“Oh shit, sorry.”

But you couldn’t be mad nor stop laughing, enjoying it too much for anybody’s liking.

“This is why I don’t accept when you ask me to be in your videos.” You joked as you all took a break, munching on a banana.

“See? You deprive me too much, baby.” Harry giggled, pecking your cheek quickly before reaching to grab a banana for himself.

“You’ve been depriving all these people from going back home early for the last couple of days, and look,” you pointed at Mitch, “Mitch looks like he’s close to murdering you.”

“I think that’s just his face, love. He hates this.”

“Alright, are we ready?” The director asked, “3, 2, 1, action!”

Harry sang as he stepped on the table you were sat at with your “friends”, a smile on his face as he did, his palm open towards you.

“And if our friends all pass away,” he sang, the soft ah’s following which was your cue to put your hand in his, stepping up on the table with him, “It’s okay.”

Nobody knew how the both of you did it, but everyone was satisfied with the one take they took.

It didn’t feel like filming anymore to either of you the moment Harry threw his bowtie away as you faced one another on stage, genuine smiles on your faces as you broke into the choreography you could do without a thought at that point.

There were moves that Harry had struggled with during practice, one of them being when he held you as you did a cartwheel; but all these struggles were long forgotten once the both of you gracefully did that move.

The song played as the both of you danced in front of the backup dancers and Harry’s band, only adding to the smiles on your faces before it began to come to an end – the end.

Harry twirled, your eyes following him with a smile before you dipped up with one arm, your other raised in the air, while one of Harry’s arms was around your back, the other stretched out.

“Cut! Amazing job! Amazing, amazing, job!”

The both of you were panting, you looking down at him as you giggled before you leaned down, pressing your lips to his in a quick kiss as everyone cheered.

Harry sat on it, and you sure as hell were glad he did because after one eventful year, he took matters in his own hands to start 2021 right the moment he dropped the music video on the 1st of January.

“It hasn’t been 10 minutes and it’s trending,” you laughed in shock, scrolling through your Twitter, “Your power!”

“No,” Harry smiled gratefully as he watched you as the both of you cuddled on your couch as and after you had watched the music video together, “All yours.”

“Stop,” you dragged, “You’ve been crediting me for a year for this video as if I did everything.”

“You practically did, love. It was all about the dance and look at you,” he sighed in contentment, squeezing you against him, “Made a dancer out of me.”

“You’re a natural.” You patted his cheek.

Harry scoffed, mind shifting to his X-Factor choreography, “Trust me, I’m not.”

“But seriously,” you began after a moment, looking up at him and making him shift to look at you, “Thank you.”

“Thank you,” he repeated, “I love you.”

“I love you, too, you pest.”

“Hey!”

#harry styles fluff one shot #harry styles fluff imagine #harry styles imagine #tpwk music video #harry styles

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itsclydebitches · 4 years

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RWBY Recaps: Volume 8 “Witch”

Happy Saturday, everyone! Well, it's perhaps happier provided you didn't watch today’s episode lol. Getting through these 18 minutes felt like watching an extended version of a CinemaSins vid. I heard a little 'ding!' every time something nonsensical, contradictory, or just downright stupid happened. My mind became a pinball machine.

Which, in the interest of being fair as opposed to just snarky, only matters if you're looking for something resembling emotional depth in this show. RWBY, for all its faults, is enjoyable as a mindless spectacle. It's when you expect — or simply hope — for anything more that this very fragile house of cards comes tumbling down.

If it’s not clear already, today’s recap contains copious amounts of salt. Fair warning.

With that disclaimer out of the way, let’s dive in. Episode nine is titled "Witch," which is fitting since many members of our group go toe-to-toe against Salem herself. The narrative issues inherent in having your heroes fighting their final boss years before the series is meant to end might have been avoided if it weren't for Oscar's ridiculous, sacrificial attack... but we'll get to that.

We open with a sweeping shot of the Atlas battle, as hundreds of dead soldiers segue into endless grimm. Hold onto that image for a bit. At the end of this carnage is, of course, the mouth of the whale. We cut to Jaune, Ren, and Yang already safely inside.

"Well," says Yang, "that was harrowing."

I'm on the fence about this choice. On the one hand, yes, it's good that RWBY knows it can skip over extraneous scenes. We have NINE characters to keep track of and develop, fourteen if you count Ozpin, Maria, Winter, Ironwood, and now Whitley. Plus villains. There simply isn't time to show every insignificant moment... but was this insignificant? Obviously finding Oscar and escaping Salem's clutches is the true hurdle of this mission, but that doesn't mean getting through an entire army of grimm is in any way a cake walk. I'd be more willing to ignore this time skip if it weren't likewise presented as such a challenge for Winter's team. They have to "clear a path" to the whale, but our trio got there unscathed and unnoticed? The obvious implication here is that Ren just masked them the whole way — supported by his aura breaking later in the episode — but it still feels like we missed an important chunk of this task.

I'm nit-picking though. As said, I’m straddling the fence on this one and, given that, I'm inclined to settle on a, "Good job, RWBY. You're keeping the writing tight," if only because I don't have much else to praise about this episode. Throw the poor, struggling show a bone lol.

Now that they're inside, they realize they haven't the slightest idea how they'll find Oscar. “Like finding a needle in a giant…whale… why did we think this was a good idea?!” Because you and your friends are idiots who no longer bother to think about a situation before throwing yourself straight into it? This isn't me being mean to Yang, she literally says as much later on. Our heroes no longer get by on intellect, strategy, and skill, but rather plot armor and a staggering number of coincidences. For example, Ren.

Yang: Wow, it sure is lucky for us that on our way to this incredibly dangerous mission Ren inexplicably developed a new part of his semblance. Now he can not only mask peoples' emotions, see the true emotions that someone is feeling, pull thoughts out of their head about what they believe about a situation, but can also track someone across long distances through their emotions alone. Even that doesn't actually help us find Oscar, we just got lucky again when, in this maze of a whale, he ran right into us!

Me: So what were you going to do if this meta-world stopped giving you the most contrived solutions in Remnant history?

Yang: Die gloriously, I guess.

What Yang actually says is, "Okay. That's new!" and they enter the literal belly of the beast wielding a shield of convenience.

Jaune is also being awkward again because remember, RWBY doesn't know when to incorporate humor and when to treat a situation seriously. He reminds Ren not to "drain [himself]," he'll help him, and it's clear the scene is hinting at their earlier fight. There's a lot to unpack there, but I want to save it for the second conversation.

For now, we cut to Oscar, curled up in his cell, repeating stories to comfort himself. Yeah that's fine. I could use a broken heart right before Valentine's Day.

“She brushed off her bumps and bruises, for nothing hurt worse than the loneliness in her chest." It's a line from The Girl Who Fell Through the World, which Ozpin recognizes given that he's "lived through" a fair number of fairy tales. He immediately asks how Oscar is holding up — because he's a caring person! — and Oscar admits that he never understood why the girl of the tale was sad upon reaching home again. Now he does: she wasn't the same person anymore. I don't think the fact that Oscar has had both a metaphorical fall — leaving his farm to 'fall' into this war — and a literal one — falling through Atlas to unlock his magic — is lost on anyone. This is a nice allusion to our themes. Yang's speech to Salem later on? That’s something else entirely.

Storytelling done, Ozpin says he thinks "this plan to divide might have run its course” and it's time to try and find a way to leave. I'm sorry, I love my farm boy, but what plan? He didn't do anything. At least nothing that could remotely be termed an intellectual plot. Oscar convinced Ozpin to try and turn Hazel by telling him the world would end under Salem's rule and the only reason that worked is because the story decided to chuck out Hazel's entire character. You know, the one that hates Ozpin above all others, wants the world remade into a non-Academy horror show, can't understand that people make their own choices, is terrified of Salem, and has no reason to trust a prisoner he's currently torturing. Oscar's "plan" hinged on his writers erasing a great deal of work to build a new story that fits said “plan.” He didn't even get Emerald involved, she just — again, conveniently — eavesdropped outside their door at just the right moment.

To be clear, I'm not against a story being written to work in the hero's favor. Of course things are going to be convenient in a happy-ending tale. Someone manages to hold out just as long as they need to, a sword is lying just within reach, you, yes, happen to run into the one person you're desperate to find. This kind of stuff is reassuring, telling its audiences that sometimes things do work out for the best. It's enjoyable... but only provided the hero's entire success doesn't hinge on fate being shockingly kind to them. That's what RWBY has become. A world where Salem doesn't attack Mantle, Amity Tower is suddenly finished, the group can charge into any deadly situation they want to and bank on destiny twisting around itself to ensure they come out of it safely. A hero finding a convenient weapon nearby to defeat their enemy with is only reassuring after we've seen them implement a brilliant attack, struggle, nearly win, but then suddenly be faced with failure, necessitating that little push from coincidence. They earned it. The hero doesn't get to run in blindly and find a Defeat Bad Guy plot point gift wrapped for them at the first sign of trouble. They just die.

RWBY used to be a better written show because that's precisely Pyrrha's story. She charged a Maiden unprepared, without a single plan or hope for success, and she died. That's what happens in a dangerous, internally consistent world, but RWBY has since lost the second half of that formula.

I'm harping on this because this entire episode is built on that foundation of coincidence, something that shouldn't be happening at all, but especially not when you're pitting the heroes against Salem herself.

So yeah, it just gets worse from here.

Back to Oscar. Without the cane magic is the only weapon they have at their disposal, but he's reluctant to use it because every time he does, they merge more quickly.

They... do?

Okay, there are three major problems with this announcement:

I'm pretty sure we've only seen Oscar use magic once: creating that barrier to survive the fall through Atlas. That was the point of his near death experience, to unlock something that had previously been unavailable to him. Yet if he's only used it once, why is he so sure that it hurries the merge along? What's this "every time" business? This confusion could have easily been avoided if the show had just let Oscar use his magic this volume, tackling some other questions and gaps in the process. Let him use it to fight off the grimm in Mantle, giving him the opportunity to admit to at least Jaune, Ren, and Yang that Ozpin is back. He could have used some magic against the Hound with Ozpin's encouragement, answering the question of why he was entirely silent while the two of them got their ass beat. Give us a moment where Oscar uses his magic against Hazel, nearly escaping in the process, but is captured again at the last moment. Basically, his line makes it sound like magic has been this ongoing resource with an established downside when... it hasn’t.

Coinciding with all of the above, how is it that Oscar can suddenly use magic at will? Yeah, yeah, he unlocked it during the fall, but really? You open up the magic gates and from then on out it's as natural as breathing? This is the same issue with Ruby's silver eyes. The story gives these characters incredible powers, but never has them talking about how they work, let alone training them. They just exist, perfect in execution, as soon as the plot needs them. (See: the final shot of this episode.) At least Weiss had to practice her summoning for multiple volumes.

Finally, the question of how Oscar instinctively knows how to use magic could easily be answered with, "Well, he's kind of Ozpin now," but that would require the story to actually explain what the merge is. "We merge faster," Oscar says, but what does that mean? The Ozpin and Oscar we see in this scene are fundamentally indistinguishable from the Ozpin and Oscar who existed at his aunt's house, four whole years ago. They're still separate people, with one controlling the body and the other existing as a consciousness he can talk to. Nothing has changed. The show keeps insisting that Oscar is going through this deep and painful arc of losing himself to Ozpin... despite the fact that he has yet to lose a single bit of Oscar-ness. Has he changed? Well of course, but anyone going through these experiences is going to change. Remove the "merge" aspect and Oscar's confidence or power up is likewise indistinguishable from any of the other characters' developments. Nora is becoming more of an individual this volume. Ren is becoming more powerful in his semblance. Neither have an Ozpin to force that change, it just happens on its own. So what separates Oscar from every other character going through a formative experience? When is “I’m not the same person anymore” due to unnatural magic vs. just growing up?

Don't get me wrong, I'm happy our boy is getting more screen time — and that the cast is actually being kind to him now — but overall his arc is objectively terrible. He bought some clothes, told Ironwood he was as bad as Salem, told Hazel how to access the Relic, and then asked him not to be a villain anymore. Somehow these things are presented as significant moments of growth while the real questions surrounding his merge go unanswered.

“Honestly, I think you’re doing just fine on your own," Ozpin tells him, but he's not. God knows our boy is trying, but this is a moment where Ozpin's self-hatred (and the story's insistence that the younger generation is intrinsically better than the older) is blinding him to the situation. Oscar has made terrible decisions lately, in as much as he's been able to decide anything at all, and now he's rejecting escaping captivity because he's terrified of a concept he doesn't even understand yet. None of that is fine. Reassurance is one thing, but painting this situation as Oscar making better choices than he would with Ozpin's input is insane. He literally just decided to keep them in Salem's clutches indefinitely because something something magic is scary, I guess. Oscar doesn't need a, 'You're better than me' speech, he needs a reality check so they don't both die. Remember back in Volume 5 when Oscar, a brave but idiotic 14 year old, insisted on fighting someone entirely out of his league and Ozpin was like,

then saved him from getting his head crushed in like a cantaloupe? We need more of that. Our teenage heroes need guidance, but because RWBY keeps insisting that every adult they encounter is corrupt or incompetent, that hasn't happened in three volumes. They're just aloud to decide things like, “Let's tell our captor the Relic's password because UwU ~trust~” and then the story bends over backwards to make that work. Instead we could, you know, let characters learn that they can be wrong.

The snow scene was the beginning, but RWBY really went off the rails the day it let Qrow warn the group against stealing from and attacking an allied city, only for them to call him an idiot for doubting them. Now, Ozpin doesn't even get to warn Oscar about stupid decisions, he just agrees with them, reassuring and passive. Never mind the complication of whether Ozpin is even emotionally capable of providing guidance after they labeled him the worst thing to ever happen to them.

Why does RWBY keep ruining my faves 😔

Anyway, we’ve got to stay on track. Oscar has decided to just lie there but, luckily for him, Hazel's redemption — I use that term so loosely — has begun. He drags Oscar out of his cell before we cut to Winter.

She's leading a portion of Ironwood's army, trying to get things ready for when the bomb arrives. Neon and Flynt are a part of her team, sharing scared glances and trying to remain optimistic. It's a legitimately hard-hitting moment, striking that balance between horror and hope. Funny though, I wonder that RWBYJNOR would think of their friends fighting for evil Ironwood...

Marrow, continuing the tradition of insisting that our heroes be both adults and kids simultaneously, looks sadly at the soldiers heading into battle and goes, "But... they're just kids." I would like to remind everyone reading that Ruby is younger than them. Anyone who thinks that these teenagers shouldn't be fighting grimm — the thing they have been training to do as their professional career, during an unprecedented attack on their home — should not simultaneously be looking to the girl who is two years younger as his savior. (Something that, while not overt yet, is very much where Marrow is heading as he continually doubts the Ace Ops and looks to RWBY's group as his new, moral leaders.) I'm glad that, for once, this perspective is firmly called out. Elm arrives to tell him point blank that he needs to figure out his personal ethics later. It doesn't matter because there's an army of grimm out there and monsters aren't going to spare anyone, adult or child. Quit philosophizing and kill some already.

Back to Hazel where we get the doorway shot from our trailer. He's taken Oscar to the Relic, because of course he has. Do I really need to list how convenient this is too? Apparently, "the moment we move that thing, this place goes on high alert," but there’s no alarm for when Oscar is taken from his cell, they enter the Relic's room, or when they use it. What does a movement alert matter if someone can just waltz in and waste the last question themselves? Put some of those endless grimm in the room to guard it, Salem!

Just assume that I am, at any given point in this episode, letting out the longest sigh my lungs are physically capable of.

Emerald shows up, demonstrating both the convenience of everyone arriving when they need to, and the very real danger that Salem herself could come in and discover what they're up to. Hazel has Oscar summon Jinn, only to immediately say that “Actually, I think all my questions are answered now.”

I'm sorry, how does this answer any of Hazel's questions? His driving question was not, "Is the Relic actually a magical object capable of doing magical things?" but rather "Are you telling me the truth about Salem's plans to summon the Gods and destroy all of Remnant in her quest to finally die, thereby changing who I'm going to support in this war?" Seeing a naked, blue djinn does not answer that question.

Hazel's "redemption" is non-existent. He — we — learned about Salem's death wish despite how that contradicts previous lore, then he trusted Ozpin despite that contradicting his entire character, now he joins the heroes because, literally, he sees Jinn floating there. It’s bad enough that Hazel goes from clear villain to sacrificial hero in a matter of in-world hours, but we don’t even get a reason for why that change occurred.

Oh, there's also this:

So Jinn doesn't come out of her lamp unless someone intends to ask a question, but does it for Ruby because she's special, yet still reiterates that this won't happen again. Then Oscar summons her without intending to ask a question, she comes out anyway, confirms that none of them seek knowledge from her, and happily pops back inside her lamp because eh, it’s whatever.

If RWBY had any courage the three of them would be cursed now for toying with a powerful, magical object. Remember the days when Jinn was a little terrifying because it felt like she was warping her answers and we had no idea what she might do to someone who used her carelessly? When she felt like a djinn? Good times.

Or better times, at least.

So Good Guy Hazel and Good Gal Emerald promise to get Oscar out. Never mind all the horror they caused, the people they killed, and that for Hazel, at least, this defection is coming out of nowhere.

Anyone remember that Emerald orchestrated Penny's death? No? Just me?

As they leave it turns out Neo was camouflaged against the wall, because she was also precisely where she needed to be. Does everyone just periodically pop into the Relic room to see what’s going on? At least this time it's not working in the heroes' favor. Remember when I said it's beyond idiotic for Oscar to just hand out the Relic information to known enemies currently holding him captive and torturing him?

Yeeeeaah.

So Neo's got the Lamp. Funny how all of this could have been avoided if Ruby had just put it in the vault like she came to Atlas to do ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

We return to our trio where Jaune and Ren need to rest because their aura is giving out. Good! These guys fought a battle, fought Neo, fought more grimm, fought the Hound, traipsed through the tundra, presumably fought through more grimm to get to the whale, and have been using both their semblances to look for Oscar. It's about time their reserves started to falter.

Jaune decides to scout ahead a bit, leaving Yang and Ren to talk about nothing of importance. I mean that seriously. Remember a few days ago when I spoke about how, if the snow conversation does come back up, Ren's points would be entirely ignored for a nonsensical “I’m glad we’re friends” speech? Remember how I also spoke about how every emotional beat now is entirely generic and you could replace any character with another and not a single thing would change? Yeah. This is both those arguments in one. Nothing is said about the points Ren made. His problems with how the group has been acting lately and the very real, very deadly consequences it has had are flat out ignored. We went from

"But these aren't the kinds of decisions we should be making because we have no idea what we're doing!"

"Forward, no matter what!"

in a matter of hours, with precisely zero insight into how Ren went from one perspective to the exact opposite. Kind of like Hazel. Because see, RWBY doesn't write arcs, it just writes one thing until it decides to switch it up for something else, with the opposite idea presented as a “resolution” or a “twist.” Our creators writes scenes they know the fandom is begging for without considering how to get a character to that place, let alone how to get them out of it. That's all Ren's speech was, the equivalent of moral fan service. Here's a glimpse of actual character depth and a morally gray situation... now forget it ever happened because we're back to our regularly scheduled programming.

Instead of working through the laundry list of issues Ren raised, Ren instead accepts Jaune's aura help — something they've been doing since Argus — and tells Yang it's okay to be scared. These moments are meaningless and, as said, could have been between anyone in our cast. Ren could have told Nora she doesn't have to use jokes to cover up that she's scared. Jaune could have reminded Ruby that she can depend on him. Yang could have tried to keep Blake and Weiss' hopes up. This scenes ignores the individuality of the characters, like the fact that they just fought over very different world views, to instead favor any dime-a-dozen moment of support. The number of times this volume has rejected the conflict and resolution the group needs for bland, generic reassurances staggering.

Also, apparently Jaune isn't scared at all? I don't think that's as good a thing as Ren seems to think...

Then Jaune immediately rounds the corner, terrified lol.

One of the seer grimm is on its way and he tells Ren to mask them. Apparently he had been masking them before — one of the reasons he's so tired now, trying to do two things at once — but it's only here that they go black and white again. Ren manages to keep it up for a little while, but his aura breaks before the seer passes and they're spotted.

Hark! A consequence!

That was well done. It makes sense and it adds to the stakes. We've seen the insane amount of fighting the group has done since Volume 7, we just established that they're at their breaking point, and then Ren's aura fails him right when he needs it the most. Add this to the miniscule pile of things that were well done this episode.

Salem runs into Emerald and Hazel, the former of which is acting very suspicious when asked if he's made any headway with Oscar. The seer's alarm interrupts them though and... okay. Was I the only one who cackled during this moment? Between Salem's voice acting and the fact that she just yeets herself down the hallway, it came across as really funny to me.

Either way, it is a bad situation. Our trio is trying to figure out what to do, to which Yang responds, "Do what we do best… charge blindly into danger!!”

Ren's aura is broken. Jaune barely has any left and it’s unlikely he could heal right now even if Ren had any aura to amplify. If Ren takes a single hit anywhere important he is dead.

Me, on my knees, surrounded by the ashes of the Hound, the last bit of serious storytelling we had: "For the love of God, the kingdom is on fire and simultaneously dying of cold. There's a grimm army decimating hundreds outside. Half their group is missing and they're wandering lost inside a devil whale, about to have the most powerful being Remnant has ever known personally try to kill them — can we please have their attitudes reflect that?"

The answer, in case you were wondering, is no.

Back to the bomb. Whatever scientists were given this task have completed it and Marrow watches as it's flown out towards the whale. "Come on, Juan" he whispers and I'm all, "Juan?" Apparently it's a callback to last volume when Marrow couldn't remember Jaune's actual name, but it took me hopping onto the RWBY wiki to remember that.

As death via explosion inches closer, the trio runs into Hazel and Emerald. Turns out though that Hazel is really Oscar, disguised through Emerald's semblance. Nice trick! Jaune immediately drops both weapons to hug Oscar and, while that's nice and all, it's also the stupidest thing he could possible do in enemy territory. Also, Oscar has been beaten up by the Hound, tortured with magic, and likewise beaten bloody by Hazel. I was hoping for a tender hug like the one Nora gave him, not a giant squeeze for more comedy purposes. It just feels like RWBY has no idea how to manage the tone of this volume, let alone the torture of a child...

There's the obligatory, "Why should we trust you?" from Yang regarding Emerald joining the team, to which Ren responds, "Because she's scared, just like us."

That doesn't prove anything. Literally everyone is scared right now. There is a war going on. I really cannot emphasize enough how RWBY throws out Deep™ sounding lines that are, upon inspection, absolutely nonsensical. Nora reminding Penny that there are different parts to her personhood, Hazel saying that all his questions have been answered, Ren announcing that Emerald is scared... it's all worthless chatter that has no bearing on their problems: How do I keep from being hacked? How do I know you're telling the truth? How do we know you're trustworthy after you spent years trying to kill us? But of course, because it's RWBY, Ren's announcement is treated as some sort of secret truth that everyone accepts. Emerald joins up.

As they head for an exit we return to Marrow who, frankly, is getting on my last nerve. I know the fandom loves him because he's clearly leaning towards Team RWBY, but does anyone actually listen to what he says? He starts yelling at Winter for sending in the bomb because the trio might still be alive in there, despite:

Seeing for himself the hundreds of soldiers that have fallen trying to keep Atlas safe

Knowing and hearing again from Winter that the only way to stop this carnage is to take out the whale. Given more time, the whole city falls

Sadly announcing to the world that children shouldn't have to fight in a battle, rather than just joining the fray and helping to keep those kids safe

How does Marrow think those kids are going to be able to stop fighting? How does he think he'll get a city to return to? It's no wonder that he's drawn to Ruby because both characters stand around twiddling their thumbs, mourning that things are bad, and blaming others for imperfect solutions rather than doing something to make the situation better. Marrow's disgust at Winter over the bomb is precisely the same as Ruby's disgust at Ironwood over Mantle: how dare you not have a plan that results in both victory for us and zero sacrifices? They want perfection which, yes, is an admirable trait, but their problem is they refuse to do anything until that perfection appears. They’re paralyzed, a trait that’s particularly dangerous when your story insists that perfection will never appear: it’s not a fairy tale. So they just continue to get mad at others for the fact that they live in an unfair world. You want that perfect solution? Think it up yourself. Otherwise, stand aside and let those coming up with something do what they can to make things better.

Marrow goes so far as to drag Weiss into things, trying to guilt Winter with the knowledge that she'll have to relate the death of her sister's friends back to her. Winter, because she's a badass who isn't in denial over the situation, tells him that yes, she will shoulder that responsibility. To Marrow's credit he backs off then, but man. RWBY has legitimate moral questions here — when is holding out for a few worth risking the many? — but they go about exploring it in the most frustrating way possible. I personally have no respect for the guy who wants to announce that Children In War Is Bad instead of, you know, using the power he currently has to protect those kids already neck deep in a battle.

Because John Mulaney remains relevant:

"There shouldn't be a horse in the hospital :( "

"We're WELL PAST THAT."

Marrow is the one going, "There shouldn't be kids in a war :( We shouldn't have to kill a few to save the whole kingdom :( " and everyone around him is like, "No shit, dude! But this is the hand we were dealt! You going to help us, or what?"

Literally all of these characters could have been so much more than what they currently are.

Except Winter. She's doing great.

Now for the final scene. Our group nearly manages to escape the whale, but is incapacitated by some sort of screechy power that Salem employs.

She contorts her body, stretching out her arms to snag Emerald, and the others have a brief, but intense skirmish. Jaune manages to block a blast of magic aimed at Ren with his shield — nice — and Yang dots Salem's face with a bunch of bombs before blowing her sky-high — double nice. Oscar shoots out some magic of his own because, yeah, I guess he can just do that now? It really feels like it came out of nowhere after eight episodes of being the punching bag.

Of course, Salem immediately reforms. She traps the group with grimm arms that come out of the whale, interrogating Ozpin about why he bothers to keep coming back. There's a very sad answer there of, "I don't," referring to his lack of choice in reincarnating to fight her.

Yang interrupts their little tet-a-tet to throw the question back in Salem's face, calling her out on her choices. A great idea but, as always, execution: "because something bad happened to you once upon a time? No one gets a fairy tale ending."

I’m sorry, but that dialogue had me cringing. Like I said before, way too on the nose. There's keeping with the fairy tale theme, and then there's shoving the viewer's face in it. More of Oscar's musings on how he relates to the protagonists of fairy tales, blurring the lines between storytelling and reality, which in turn encourages the viewer to consider how they see themselves in the RWBY cast. Less... whatever this is.

Yang goes on to talk about how many people Salem has taken from her, which upon reflection makes a certain amount of sense if you toss in all the people who are here, but changed somehow due to Salem's influence, as well as acquaintances who died as a result of her meddling: Raven is scared off, Tai suffers as a result, Pyrrha dies, Penny dies, Yang loses her arm and her school. I think the dialogue could have been revised to reflect that better though because what Yang implies is that Salem has killed countless of her loved ones, yet what she says is, "Summer Rose. My mom." Honestly, for the few seconds this exchange was happening my thoughts weren't even on Summer. Yang calls Salem out for killing loved ones and my brain went, "Pyrrha??"

That's how little they've done with Yang and Summer. I know in the past I've argued that RWBY has a "better late than never" situation going on, that I would praise them for making the right writing choices even if they arrive years too late... but now that we're here, I find that it's a hard problem to overlook. Summer is Yang's mom? When's the last time we heard that? Volume 2? Whenever the conversation with Blake was. Since then Yang has called Raven "Mom," focused on that emotional connection (or lack thereof), was excluded from the conversation with Qrow, comforted Ruby after she was blindsided by Salem's taunt, and otherwise hasn't mentioned Summer at all. There is no foundation for this accusation except a few lines about getting cookies as a child and the fact that we're tossing references in now makes me worried that we'll indeed get a grimm!Summer reveal. Better remind the audience that she exists before the twist arrives! Honestly, as much as a part of me wants to praise RWBY for trying to get things back on track, moments like this just ring hollow now. They waited years and now it’s too late. It doesn't help that this is the episode where we shrug off Ren's speech. What will Yang's cutting admission amount to based on this trend? Probably nothing. Summer will become Yang’s mom again in another six seasons.

Salem, obviously, doesn't care. The real Hazel arrives and she orders him to take Oscar back to his cell. Instead, he gives him his cane with a whispered, "No more Gretchens, boy."

Behold, another meaningless line. Hazel hates Ozpin for "forcing" Gretchen on a mission and "getting" her killed. The whole point of his villainy is that he doesn't understand the concept of choice and that bad things can happen to good people with no one able to prevent it. Not every loss has a responsible party attached (outside of, you know, Salem/the grimm). So what is he even demanding here? No more huntsmen schools? That's what you wanted Salem for. No more "forcing" people to fight for you? Ozpin never did that in the first place. Or is it just a strange promise that no one else will die here? RWBY seems to be under the impression that they can just name drop dead family members — Summer, Gretchen — and that's that. Emotional depth created, never mind a lack of buildup or clarity.

Then Hazel punches Salem across the room and she releases every single hero from their bonds. See the theme of this episode: convenience. Hazel shoves a whole bunch of dust crystals into his shoulders and yells that he's doing what Gretchen would have wanted, clearly sacrificing himself so that the others can escape. The battle between him and Salem is pretty decent. I enjoyed the dust vs. magic creativity and the sheer damage Salem can take before reforming. This fight really showcases how not human she is.

It does, however, bring into question Hazel's reveal about her needing an hour to heal at the longest. I mentioned how unlikely it would be that our heroes would get the chance to "kill" her multiple times, yet here we are, just a few episodes later. They got that opportunity and... does it matter? Salem's reforming doesn't appear to slow down at all, despite her head getting obliterated at least three times, so at what point does she need longer than a few seconds to heal? If this was meant to be a potential weakness the group would eventually exploit, we needed to see it here, both for that setup and to keep it consistent with Hazel's story.

Regardless, they fight and at first it looks like a pretty straight-forward sacrifice on Hazel's part, giving the group their chance to escape. Except... Oscar.

"She'll just come after us," he tells Jaune, turning away from him to fight.

I need a list for this:

Of course she's going to come after you. This is not some shocking revelation. At no point has anyone thought that escaping the whale is the answer to all their problems, it just creates one less problem to deal with. Namely, the problem of "Our ally is captured, being tortured, and may give up important intel to the enemy. Oh, also he's about to be blown up with a bomb." Salem coming after them doesn’t matter. What matters is making her plans as difficult as possible as you work to come up with more solutions of your own. This is just a smaller version of the Ironwood conflict: “Well, Salem will just follow Atlas into the sky so it’s useless to attempt escape, or to buy ourselves time.” It’s really not. I know I’ve used this ridiculous comparison before, but if you’re ever chased by a horror movie serial killer hell-bent on your destruction and your reaction to this problem is, “Why run? He’ll just chase us. The only possible choice is to fight him with a 99% chance of our death,” then I beg you to re-evaluate things.

What was the point of coming to rescue Oscar if he was just going to stay behind? The whale is about to be blown up by a bomb and the trio risked their lives ten times over to get to him. If I were them I would be pissed. We went through all that to get you out and now you’re refusing to leave when we have a chance? Thanks for that.

Same with Hazel. Not that I care about the guy, but if I was sacrificing myself for others to escape I'd be pretty annoyed at them randomly deciding not to do that.

What does Oscar even think he's going to do? Kill the immortal witch? The entire point of our series is that they can’t do that (yet).

However, if he is able to do something significant via Ozpin's magic, why didn't Ozpin do that generations ago? Somehow I don't think a younger Ozma closer to the height of his power was in a worse position to attack Salem than a tortured, aura-less kid who unlocked his magic yesterday. The more RWBY reveals about Salem, the more I go, “Okay, but why didn’t his happen [insert any number of years] ago?”

Did Jaune actually leave? I assume he's just grabbing an airship or something before coming back to drag Oscar away, but seriously where did he go?

There's no way I can approach this scene without throwing up my hands and going, "What? WHY?" Which is a real shame because we finally get to see a bit of what the cane does and it’s... precisely what Ozpin's magic has always done? I mean, we saw that green shield five years ago and now there's a giant white beam. Okay.

If the beam just hits Salem with Generic Magic Power then there was never anything secret about the cane, it’s just, you know, Ozpin’s weapon. If the cane does something significant to hurt her we're left with the question of why it took literal generations to use it. Nothing is making sense to me and the only way I can think to salvage this scene is if Jaune runs back in, snags Oscar like a sack of potatoes, and runs out yelling about how he's clearly suffering from a concussion because what are you trying to accomplish here?

It doesn't help that this moment feels... final. Hazel has managed to hold Salem in place. Oscar has unlocked his cane and lands some mega hit right before Hazel passes out and looses his hold. Not only does this feel like a scene that should be at the end of the volume (we've still got five episodes), but also the end of the series. RWBY is building Salem into an unbeatable enemy by giving her more and more powers, and simultaneously eliminating the stakes by having our currently weakest character (in terms of exhaustion/injuries/aura/training) landing a shot like that. Why would you nerf Salem's threat level like that in the middle of a volume? Especially with a tool our group has had available from the start? If the cane does damage, maybe lead with that in the, “Here’s why we should stay and fight” office conversation.

I assume that Oscar's hit will obliterate Salem to the point where both he and Hazel have time to escape, or he obliterates both of them (“Do it”) and that's somehow presented as a better choice than just running while Salem is captured, or the bomb will interrupt things somehow... but it's just so shoddily done. At the very least, if they were going to have Oscar refuse to let someone fight alone, have it be an actual friend he's staying to assist. Having Oscar refuse his own rescue to help Hazel has more than one problem attached to it. We can say what we want about RWBY's themes of forgiveness, but this guy was torturing him just a few hours ago while serving Remnant's version of the devil. Just let him sacrifice himself and move on.

And that's where we end. Oscar powering up, the cane getting all magic-y, and him shooting a crazy big blast that engulfs both Salem and Hazel. I can't believe how not excited I am about my farm boy doing something badass, but here we are.

Overall I think this episode was way worse than last week's. We absolutely had problems in "Dark," particularly when it came to the Hound and the group's blind devotion to Ruby, but at least those moments were cushioned by an otherwise decent episode. "Witch" felt like I was watching something closer to a parody of RWBY, one deliberately poking fun at the fandom's desires: erase all conflict for awkward silly times, your favorite villains are instantly good now, the heroes go toe-to-toe with the main antagonist because why not, throw a bunch of magic in there for good measure, and wrap it all up in some over the top "this isn't a fairy tale" lines. I can see the pieces of a much better episode here — Emerald sneaking Oscar out with her semblance, Neo snagging the relic, Flint and Neon, Hazel attacking Salem — but it simply didn't come together.

I know I said this last time, but I have no idea what we're going to do for another five episodes. Salem slowly reforming from bomb damage as the group tries to keep Penny from opening the vault? The grimm attack halted with the whale gone so Qrow can go after Ironwood? The longer this volume runs, the more I think it was a mistake for them to introduce Salem as a fightable antagonist now. RWBY doesn't know what to do with her besides have her inevitably fall in the final season, so until then she's left being stupid (Relic), passive (Mantle), or, likely, written out of the story temporarily so the heroes can turn their attention towards smaller conflicts and weaker foes. They literally can’t beat Salem yet, but they can’t focus on other problems when she’s around without coming across as negligent, so if you have to find ways to erase her to make room for that... what was the point of bringing her here in the first place? We could have established that Salem is bound to her realm and had her send the Hound and whale to attack Atlas. There, all the fun parts of the volume without her complicated presence.

Well, the next five weeks will certainly be interesting, at the very least...

Until next time 💜

[Ko-Fi]

#rwby #rwby spoilers #rwby volume 8 #rwby witch #mymetas #rwby recaps

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geekywritings · 3 years

Text

JUNGKOOK X READER PART 2 - Is this real life or am I in a drama?

Part 2 of my little Jungkook x Reader story. For all who need a recap of Part 1: You are a young vet, just trying to make your way home from work when suddenly Jungkook falls right into your car, taking refuge from a group of sasaengs. You give him a ride home and he exchanges contact details with you, promising to stay in touch.

The prompt for part 2 is: “It’s pouring rain, why are you here?”

For the next few days, all you could think about was that meeting. It still seemed so very surreal. And you didn’t even dare tell anyone about the incident, because who would really believe you? Even your best friends and work colleagues would just raise and eyebrow and shake their heads most likely. Such things simply didn’t happen to people. They were part of k-drama scripts or popular web toons and after a week, you did start to wonder if it had all been some kind of strange dream.

But exactly that evening, when you had just come out of the shower to enjoy a cup of tea and a new episode of your favourite show, your phone beeped with a new Kakao Talk message. You gave your phone a lazy glance and then almost dropped your mug when you saw it was from none other than Jungkook.

JK: “I’m sorry for the late reply, Miss Vet. Things got kinda hectic. But I have not forgotten my promise. I still owe you that thank you.”

You had to reread that message a few times and for a second you wondered if it was a scam perhaps, but who else would now about that event but him? For a second you wondered what to answer before typing:

Y/N: “No problem. You are an idol after all. And you did already thank me.”

It took only a few seconds until his answer popped up.

JK: “It still doesn’t feel like enough.”

Wow, did he know how cool that sounded?

Y/N: “You don’t have to worry. Really. I’m glad I could help.”

This time he took a bit longer to reply.

JK: “Do you like flowers?”

Y/N: “Yes of course. Who doesn’t?”

JK: “Which ones are your favourites?”

That one was harder to answer. You liked quite a few and just named them all, allowing him to make the final choice.

JK: “Great. Can I send them to your workplace? I don’t think florists deliver late in the evening.”

It was sweet that he was so dead set on sending you flowers as a proper thank you and while part of you was delighted, the other part wondered how to explain the bouquet to your colleagues at the vet office. Still, you typed in your adress and sent it out.

From then on you thought the conversation would end, but apparently Jungkook was in a talkative mood. He revealed that he had a free evening and was just relaxing on the couch with a good meal, before asking you what you were up to. You told him about the drama and he suggested watching at the same time, sharing comments through text.

You had never done anything like it before, least of all with a stranger, but Jungkook seemed so nice and it didn’t feel so intimidating to write with an idol over messages. And after the first few shared comments, you actually started to really enjoy it. You two ended up talking throughout the entire episode, which was almost an hour long and then even half an hour on top until Jungkook announced that he was heading to bed. Noticing the time, you realized it was time to hit the pillows yourself.

But as you laid there in your bed, you kept reading through the chat history, as if making sure it was still real. Especially that “Goog Night” with the cute little emoji brought a smile to your face, before you finally turned off the night light.

____

For the next two weeks, he kept writing texts every other day. Sometimes it was just a random “How are you?” or a comment to your recently posted Kakao Story that he didn’t dare post publicly. But sometimes he would ask if you were watching that drama again to share comments in real time. It had become kind of a ritual when the third week started and a day without his messages felt weird. You still couldn’t tell anyone about it, but your friends and colleagues did start noticing your smiles and your eager grabs for the phone. But whenever they teased, you just said it was some guy online. Their would never believe the truth and you didn’t want to put Jungkook in trouble either. You had seen how crazy his fans could be, so the last thing he needed was your chats to become the topic of online gossip. Besides, it was kind of exhilarating to have a secret like that. At this point, you had already totally forgotten about the flowers.

During the fourth week of knowing Jungkook, you were staying late at the clinic, taking your regular night shift to take care of your little patients. You had just made your rounds, giving all the animals their medicine and checking on their bandages, before sitting down in the reception area, in case of emergencies coming in. But it was a super quiet evening, so you took out your phone. Almost on cue, a message popped up: “Finished work?”

Y/N: “Nope, having a night shift today.”

JK: “Oh, sounds tough.”

Y/N: “Not really. It’s quiet tonight.”

Nothing came after that and you put the phone away again, turning your head to the entry, the glassdoor giving you a perfect view of the rain shower outside. It really was coming down hard today. Bored, you took another round visiting your furry patients, giving them an extra round of cuddles. Suddenly the sound of the door tore through the hallway and you were quick to place the cat with the broken paw down to go and check on the new arrival.

You were utterly stunned to see Jungkook standing in the half opened door, dripping wet and with a huge bouquet of your favourite flowers in hand.

“It’s pouring rain! Why are you here?!”, you exclaimed, approaching him with a shake of your head.

“Well, florists dont deliver at this hour.”, he said cheekily with a shrug. “So I came personally.”

He held out the dripping bouquet to you, which you took gratefully, enjoying the heavy fragrance of the flowers.

“You really shouldn’t have, but thank you. They are gorgeous.”, you said, sending him a smile, before inviting him to the staff room.

“Let me make you a tea and grab you a towel.”

“You got coffee instead?”, he asked, running a hand through his hair. It had changed color, you noticed, though you also instantly thought that you prefered it black.

A few minutes later you came back with a small towel and a steaming cup of coffee, taking a seat across from him at the small table. The entire room was tiny, but it was enough for the team.

“So this is where you work, huh?”

“Yeah, it’s a good place. It has nice people and I like how we truly take our time for each patient.”, you explained. You knew that not every clinic was like that, having done internships elsewhere during your studies.

“Aren’t you busy though?”, it was now your turn to ask him a question.

“I am most nights, but we do get our time off as well.”, Jungkook replied. “Our agency is a good place too.” You nodded, having read up a bit about Big Hit since your meeting with one of their idols. You also realized that you did know and enjoy quite a few of BTS’ songs, even though you had never been able to put a face to them. Now you enjoyed them even more.

“Do you want a tour?”, you asked, after a minute of silence fell between you, during which Jungkook tried to dry his hair. He agreed with a nod, before following you around. There wasn’t much to show, but he did spend some time in the patient rooms, giving the animals some pets and cuddles. He was good with them, you notcied and they seemed to like him in return.

“You have two cats at home, right?”, he asked, his hand still stroking a fat tabby, who was at the clinic because of stomach problems. The owner insisted something was wrong with him, even though you had determined that he just needed a change in food and a consistent diet.

“Yeah, Mr. Paws and Pogi.”, you replied. “I got them both from here, when the owners didn’t want them anymore.”

Jungkook’s eyes snapped to you, one of his eyebrows raised. “People do that?”

“Sometimes, unfortunately. Mr. Paws has a missing paw, ironically. We had to amputate it and the owner thought his cat would need special treatment because of it. And Pogi just needs regular medication and special food.” Small things really, but some owners just couldn’t handle it.

“I saw pictures of them and I never notcied the missing paw.”, Jungkook said.

“I don’t make a point of making it the focus on pictures.”

You ended the tour back in the staff room, where Jungkook took his coffee for a few sips, the drink instantly helping to warm him up.

“I have to miss our drama this friday.”, he suddenly announced. “So you have to give me detailed updates or at least a good summary.”

“You could just watch the rerun online.”, you suggested.

“It’s no fun alone. So unless you can wait a day for the new episode...”

“I make no promises, since the last episode ended on a cliffhanger.. but I’ll try to be patient.” He smiled at your humor, but you were serous. The show was more enjoyable with him.

“How did you get here?”, you eventually asked.

“I took a cab, but told them to let me out in front of a restaurant nearby. From there I walked.” In the pouring rain no less. Probably so the cab driver wouldn’t tell where he went. It was a clever ruse, but it was a shame that it was even necessary.

“Need a ride home?”, you asked. “I think I’m not a bad driver and I have some minor experience with idol passengers.”

His smile grew even wider at that. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

“But I do stil have to work for an hour before I can take my break.”, you said, glancing at the clock on the wall.

“Just a break? What time do you go home?”

“This is just like a hospital with normal night shifts. Usually they are covered by our senior staff, but because some are on holiday, the task falls to me. So today, I’m staying till 7am. But I get the next day off.”, you explained. Those almost 24 hour shifts were draining, but rare, so you didn’t mind them at all.

“Oh, I think I will need loads of coffee to make it until 7am...”, he said.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I might as well keep you company. That will be the perfect way to show my gratitude.”

“You really don’t have you...”; you started.

“I have a free day tomorrow as well, so I don’t mind.”, he insisted casually. “Besides, we get a chance to talk about that drama in person. It’s easier than typing.”

You still didn’t get why he wanted to stay. Somehow you could not imagine that it was because he simply started to enjoy your company through your online talks.

For almost the whole night, you just talked and drank copious amounts of coffee. He followed you on your patrol rounds, helping you with minor tasks whenever he could. And although it was strange, it was the best night shift ever. Most of the time, it didn’t feel like you were hanging out with an idol, but just with a really nice guy. A really handsome one at that.

“This is nice.”, Jungkook said, voicing what you had been thinking. “But I do need another coffee.”

“You could also just take a nap.”, you offered. “I’ll wake you before it’s time to go.” It was already 4 am at this point.

He seemed to think about the offer. “Ok, but we will grab some breakfast together to make up for lost time.”

Did he really feel like he owed you all this time? You weren’t quite sure what to answer, so you just nodded and went to grab him a blanket. There was a small sofa in the staff room specifically for the nightshift or patients who could not see blood.

“Goodnight, Jungkook.”

“Goodnight, Y/N”

Hearing it live was so much better than reading his text you decided. And with a smile you made yourself another coffee to last the remaining hours.

#jeon jungkook #jungkook x reader #jungook x y/n #jeon jungkook x you #jeon jungkook x reader #bts army #bts fanficion #bts romance #jungkook

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sneezefiction · 4 years

Text

apple pie & ice cream

Kenma x Reader - Scenario

desc: gloomy days can always be brightened with sweet smells, cinnamon sugar, and a homemade apple pie from yours truly: Kenma Kozume

a/n: to the anon who requested this a little while ago... happy birthday, love!! i hope you’re okay that i switched things around a little bit & had Kenma make you something sweet instead <3</i>

warning: slight language

wc: 1580

---

Some days are longer than others.

You’ve never had a good explanation as to why, but there are at least some telltale signs.

Like when red lights seem endless, your favorite song doesn’t sound as pretty as it should, and you just can’t keep your tired eyes open. Even with a cozy mug of hot tea in hand or the gentle stream of sunlight filtering through your office’s window, the warmth on your fingertips and face simply refused to reach you on the inside.

It also doesn’t help that you were flipped off not once, but twice, by some shitty drivers when you clearly had the right of way.

So you determine that the faster you can get home to Kenma, the better you’ll feel.

You take every short-cut and any back road, impatiently awaiting the moment that you can kick off your uncomfortable shoes and step out of those constricting work clothes. To turn on the air-conditioning and crash into a couch that proves to be far more welcoming than the outside world. Even just a nice, long stretch would do your aching back and heavy arms some good.

But most of all, you long to sink into Kenmas chest and lazily breathe in the comforting smell of home that rested on his well-worn hoodies. To run your fingers through his silky, soft hair and make messy braids out of it while sighing heavily to relinquish the day's grip on your tight shoulders. You can’t wait to bother him until he sets aside his black and red headphones to kiss your forehead and pull you into a soul-catching hug.

Most crappy days call for extra love from your gamer-boyfriend… but today Kenma has really gone out of his way to shower you in sweetness. Literally.

You’d sent him an awfully lengthy text about the number of crazy drivers on the road, the dreary weather overhead, following it up with a recap of your teary-eyed breakdown in a fast food chain parking lot... and you topped it off with just how much you missed him.

So he did the one thing he knew could lift anyone’s spirits.

Kenma got to baking his world famous apple pie.

Countertops were covered in white and brown sugar, apple peels, and other various, scattered ingredients. A store-bought pie crust was preheating in the oven, because only God knows how long it would take for Kenma to learn how to make that from scratch. Spices plumed in delicate, little clouds throughout the kitchen. Everything was coming together beautifully.

Kenma mumbles to himself quietly, a little miffed that he’s missing his weekly streaming session...

But secretly, he’s been meaning to do this for you for a long time.

He’s been dying to thank you for putting up with his incessant live shows and never-ending computer gameplay. For living with him in his rental house even though he could probably (definitely) afford something far more luxurious. And you deserved luxurious. You should be decked out in diamonds and fancy cashmere, lounging on a sofa atop some rooftop garden oasis that overlooks the entirety of Tokyo, and dancing the night away at clubs and galas.

But you chose him.

Simple Kozume.

A smaller-framed boy with a knack for video-games, patterns, and strategy. The one they jokingly called “pudding head” in high school. That kid who used to hide behind his own hair because the world around him was far more daunting than he thought he could handle.

Kenma would rather stay in and binge a series on netflix than spend a night out on the town. He invests himself in playing an overly-competitive tournament of Mario Kart with you over flying out for a highstakes game of poker in Vegas. He prefers nights surrounded in fairy lights when you collaborate on videos with him, throw popcorn at his long hair, and drink a bit too much just because you both compliment each other more when you’re a little tipsy.

You love all of this about him and you’ve reminded him time after time that you wouldn’t trade him for the world… yet Kenma is still determined to at least have this apple pie done by the time you get home.

But as luck would have it, you’re early.

The lock to the door clicks and twists as you slide it open with a few squeaks.

Your senses are instantly delighted by the blooming fragrance of cinnamon and nutmeg. An ambrosial wafting of warm apples and pastry dough permeates the airspace while the added ginger and lemon cut through the sweet scent.

As if the room had just handed over a fluffy blanket and set you in front of a crackly, wood-burning fire, you’re filled with that much needed comfort.

You’re home. And it smells so damn good.

If heaven had a scent, this was it. And you might as well be wearing a halo and angel wings.

“Kozume…?” You call out, wondering if it was really your boyfriend in the kitchen creating that mouth-watering aroma.

“...yes, y/n?” He replies slowly, trying to clean up the countertops, a little frustrated that the pie wasn’t finished in time for your arrival.

“Is that you? Or did Gordon Ramsey break into my house and take over my kitchen?” You giggle, waltzing into the kitchen, the stress of the day being alleviated immediately upon seeing those speculative, gold-speckled eyes.

His hands are in his hoodie pockets, but when your form turns corner into the kitchen and makes its way toward him, Kenma draws them out and sneaks his hands up to your cheeks, cupping them gently.

He leans in, his expression a tad quizzical and somewhat mysterious, and whispers…

“You’re an idiot sandwich.”

A laugh bubbles up and out, shaking your whole body as you wrap your arms around his frame. You’d seen him just this morning, but wow you’d missed him and his extensive knowledge of meme culture. Now Kenma has his arms draped around your waist, hands squeezing at your hips a little. Your flustered but smiley expression spurs on a soft chuckle, a gentle yet deep rumbling in his throat.

“I thought you’d be back a little bit later, but I’m glad you’re here.” He murmurs out, voice tired but so soothing to your ears.

“Mmm, I’m glad to be back… now are you gonna tell me what that magnificent smell is? Or should I open up the oven and check?” The cheeky tinge to your voice causes him to pull away from you for a moment to look you in the eye.

“If you want it to turn out well, I’d keep your pretty little hands away from the oven for the next few minutes.” Kenma quips.

You playfully stick out your tongue but then proceed to place a teasing peck between his eyes, making him crinkle his nose cutely.

“So, when you sent me those texts earlier, I might have accidentally made an apple pie.” Kenma admits, looking away.

“Accidentally?” A grin slowly spreads across your face, eyes glinting with humor.

“Yep. Accidentally.” He shrugs, “I found some ingredients and a pie dish and I just accidentally threw it all together. So yeah, how convenient is that?”

You sigh, rolling your eyes.

He’s really something else. And to think your day had previously been wrought with misery and disappointment.

“Mmm I don’t know, Kozume… it doesn’t sound like an accident to me. I think you did it because you wanted to be sweet.” You whisper softly into his ear.

Leaning back to brush away a strand of his hair from his face to get a full visual of his cat-like gaze.

“And why would I do that?” He teases gently.

“Oh, I don’t know… maybe because you love me?” You poke at his shoulder.

“Huh? Love?” He gives you a goofy look, raising both eyebrows in mock confusion. “...Is that some kind of sauce?”

He tries to keep a straight face, but the quirk of his lip gives him away.

You just stare at him before giving in to another fit of rolling giggles. The hearty, unrestrained laughter overtakes the both of you, causing you to double over and clutch your middle in an attempt to hold yourself up. Kenma has his back up against the counter-top, holding the edges of it with both palms to keep himself steady and from falling to the floor.

As you both recover from aching lungs and that cloudy, euphoric feeling, you can’t help but let a smile plaster itself on your face.

Kenma has done many things today.

He gave you a reason to come home with hope in your heart. He’d drawn you into a heartfelt, soul-refreshing hug. He had made you laugh like nobody ever could. He’d even baked you an apple pie.

But best of all, he‘d held you together.

Like he always did.

Every single day, without a doubt in your mind, you could celebrate and smile. Because you would always have this cinnamon-covered cutie to smile and crack up with. He would always brighten the most mundane of weekdays and find the loveliest of ways to match your moods.

You two are like apple pie and vanilla bean ice cream.

And speaking of ice cream…

“Hey, Kozume?” You bring him into one more bear-like hug.

“Yeah, babe?”

“Did you get ice cream to go with the apple pie?” You ask, your face preciously tucked into the crook of his neck.

No reply. Had he heard you?

“Kozume? Did-”

Cue a huge sigh from Kenma.

“...Where are my car keys? I need to go to the store immediately.”

---

tags: @cherryonigiri, @yams046, @miss-rin, @shou-kunn, @senkuwu-chan, @super-noya, @stcrryskies, @holaaaf, @sugacookiies, @vintgicals, @moonlightaangel

(comment, dm, or send an ask to be added to my general tag list)

#haikyuu!!#haikyuu x reader #kenma x reader #kenma kozume #kenma #nekoma #haikyu #haikyuu fluff #hq #hq x reader #hq scenarios #haikyuu scenarios #kenma scenario #kenma imagines #haikyuu fanfiction #haikyuu kenma #sneezefiction

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iicytodoroki · 4 years

Text

Childhood Friends to Lovers - Kageyama Tobio x Fem! Reader NSFW

Warnings: explicit language, fluff to smut (explicit), drinking (legal ages), unprotected (pls use it though!) please don’t read if you’re uncomfortable or too young, this stuff is dirty

WC: 3.1k

A/N: ah ha haa, what if i make a cute fluffy and domestic pt 2, a full 180 from this unholy piece

7 years ago

Dear Diary,

I met this funny boy in my class, he was really quiet and always looked angry. Since we were sitting next to each other in the back corner of class, we were assigned as partners for the rest of the year. During our first lunch meeting for our project, I caught him trying to shake the vending machine screaming, “Argh! Stupid machine ate my money and won’t,” *kicks machine* “give me my damn milk.” Luckily, I knew where the other vending machine was, which was kind of hidden behind the gym of our junior high. So when we met up at the benches facing the empty tennis courts, I was able to see such a cute blush on his face when I gave him strawberry milk. Turns out his name is Kageyama Tobio and he loves volleyball.

5 years ago

Dear Diary,

I was so sad today. I found out Tobio and I aren’t going to Shiratorizawa together. We met up at the park that meets halfway of our houses and read our letters. I was able to get in with my grades, but regardless of Tobio’s abilities, his grades were just not enough. I knew he was the most frustrated, but I ended up crying so much. He kept hugging me saying that “It’s okay, we can still see each other, we know where we live.” But I kept saying it’ll be hard for me to make friends since Tobio was the only one I really connected with. I couldn’t see his face, but he just kept hugging me harder. He just said that I’m smarter and stronger than him because I’m brave enough to cry for both of us and get into Shiratorizawa; “Go there for both of us and I’ll meet your school’s team on the court and show them what they’ve missed out.” Tobio always had an odd smile back then, but the gloss on his blueberry eyes told me he meant it. So I smiled too and we just stayed there enveloping each other’s warmth.

2 years ago

Dear Diary,

It was the week of our graduations. Shiratorizawa’s graduation happened before Karasuno’s. But Bateyama (exhausted Kageyama) had to oversleep. Luckily, the previous third years from my first year came over to congratulate me since I was their manager. Tobio forcing me to learn volleyball seemed to come in handy, plus I was able to see them in their matches. Anyways, my closest friend Wakatoshi came. He brought me my favorite flowers and gave those rare smiles for me for graduating as Top 3 in my class! Ah, to make Waka proud and smile. It’s so rare just like Tobios, they’re both volleyball idiots but they're my volleyball idiots.

After about an hour the third years had to leave for their trains and Tobio was then running towards me! I was so ready to yell at him for almost breaking his promise, but I kinda choked when I saw he was red-faced in a cuffed white button up and tie, black slacks, and a belt that definitely accentuated his upper build. He kept on apologizing for sleeping in, but he said he’d make it up by taking us to our usual restaurant.

Boy, did he feed me well. I really wanted to confess to him when we were walking home. His side profile looked so handsome with the orange and gold glow behind him. But then he told me he was going to the city, either Chiba or Tokyo to train for the volleyball team. So I stopped myself, I mean he’s going to be so busy and I’d just hold him back, right? What kind of friend would I be to stop him from his dreams after working so hard for it since second grade?

So we agreed to keep texting each other of course, and have the occasional meet up since I’ll be going to Keio University near Tokyo.

Today

Dear Diary,

I’m finally on break!!! And I got plans to meet up with Waka for dinner! Geez, I haven’t seen him in ages. He’s been constantly keeping me up to date with his matches and training and always checking in if I have food. He’s still the same back in high school, always looking out for me like a reliable captain. He also told me Tobio got in the Schweiden Alders! So maybe I get to finally see my blueberry boy. To be honest, I am kinda nervous though, we rarely text and haven’t seen each other in over a year.

Checking the time, it read 3:20pm. You had to get ready and leave by 4pm, so hopefully you can make it to the gym by 4:30pm when Waka finishes up practice. Now that you knew you’re likely to run into Tobio, you thought maybe you should dress up a little. So putting on a long straight skirt that flattered your ass in the best ways and a short sleeve blouse that matched your natural makeup, you checked yourself out in your mirror. You for sure grew into a beautiful young woman, each feature on your face was no longer the “sweet, lovely YN”. You could take on any person you’d want. One you’re hoping to make an impression on after you meet him today.

Awkwardly standing at the entrance of the gym, you can see a crowd of really tall and muscular guys patting down with towels and drinking water. Finally your eyes met with the stoic face of the olive-tone man. Waka started walking towards you, still clad in his sweaty uniform but you didn’t care. You went up to him and hugged as much as you could of his sports model torso.

Waka gave you a small chuckle at your attempts and returned your hug. As you two were recapping your plans after he cleans up, you see at the corner of his bicep tufts of the same black hair you wanted to run your hands through. The blueberry boy was busy patting the sweat off his face with a towel.

“Tobio? Tobio!” Hearing his name, Tobio looked in your direction as you jogged up to him. He looked to be in a state of shock that you were actually here. He staggered a bit when you hugged him, but after a moment he wrapped his arms around you.

Wow, he sure trained hard.

Pulling you out from deeper--inappropriate--thoughts, Tobio pushed your shoulders at arms length giving you his dopey smile. The dopey smile just for you.

“What are you doing here, YN?”

“Oh, I’m here to meet up with Waka. I’m finally on break and he’s off this weekend, so we wanted to get dinner together.”

Looking behind you, Tobio sees the walking Super Ace coming towards you guys.

“Ah! You should join us Tobio! Right Waka?” you smiled looking up at Wakatoshi.

“Mm. If he’d like,” he stoically said.

“Sure, let me just get in the shower and I’ll meet you at the foyer.”

Happy at the answer you wait for the two giants. While walking to the restaurant with a Koshitsu (private room/booth) you were in between the two, making you feel much smaller than you are. You kept talking since both of them were mostly listeners. Waka gave the hum for acknowledgement, but Tobio would keep his eyes on you. More specifically your hands. He could just easily grab them, but you guys weren’t like that.

Dinner ended right when the skies were turning into a rich dark, blue. Almost like his eyes.

You thanked the heavens you didn’t pay because those two literally ate for a whole family. Each of them. Nonetheless, it was fun catching up with the volleyball fanatics.

“Would you like for me to walk you home Yn,” Waka asked.

“Um,” you hesitated since you wanted Tobio to ask you first. But then, “Ushijima-san, I understand your sleep schedule is at 8:30pm, it’s 8:00pm now. It’ll ruin your biological clock, so I can walk YN home. Also, she and I live in the same direction.”

Waka looked at you for approval and you gave a reassuring nod, “I’d appreciate that Tobio and don’t worry Waka, Tobio and I have been close friends since middle school!”

At that, Wakatoshi bid both of you a good night and safe walk back home.

Reaching the doorstep to your flat, you turned around to face Tobio. You and him both awkwardly looked down at your feet until you broke the silence.

“Would, would you like to come inside for drinks? You know since it’s my break and your weekend off?”

Snapping his head up, Tobio meekly nodded his head. Now you both were drinking at your kitchen counter laughing at the old memories before graduation. The giggles finally quieted down until there was a pregnant pause.

“You know, I’ve always liked you since that day you bought me that milk,” he said softly.

Now alert and cleared of your foggy thoughts, you stared at Tobio.

Tobio continued, “I didn’t realize how much I loved you until I saw how close you were to Ushijima…”

“Wait, do you mean it?”

Tobio quietly nodded his head and looked right into your eyes. Searching for an answer.

Instead, you lunged at him holding his face in your hands as you kissed him. Tobio titled his head and rested his hands on your hips. After a few chaste kisses, he wrapped his arms around the small of your back and deepened the kiss.

Tobio prodded at your lips for entrance which you gladly gave into. His wet muscle forced yours down quickly and focused on exploring your mouth. Muffled moans from his tongue touching the roof of your wet cavern and suckling of your own wet muscle. Your knees literally became weak and were about to give out. Sensing this, Tobio’s firm, vein-decorated hands grasped your ass to hold you up against him. Gasping at his rough kneading you moaned, “T-tobio…”

Hearing his name falls from your lips was like flipping a switch in him. Next thing you know, he lifted you so you were now sitting on the edge of the counter. He became more aggressive and desperate to have his lips meet the rest of your skin. He started to trail down your neck, leaving deep red marks at the junction of your shoulders.

“Nghh--more Tobio…”

At this, he lifted and threw your blouse somewhere over his shoulder and started leaving new marks until Tobio’s lips grazed the edge of your bra.

“Off,” he huffed, “Now.”

Seeing the dark, lust in his eyes caused your lower abdomen to tighten. So complying to his demands, you unclasp your bra revealing your supple chest to him. Then you suddenly feel the calloused fingers tweaking at one nipple while massaging and the lapping of his tongue on the other. Tobio growled at the newfound source while you curled your fingers at the base of his hair behind his head. After whimpers and moans from him interchanging between each nipple, you feel his hard-on grinding into your inner thigh.

“A-ah, T-tobio…” his teeth tugged, “pl….mm, please!” you shouted

Releasing his mouth with a wholly pop, he huffed and looked at you with his overcasted bangs,

“Do you really want to?”

Even after all that he still had that crease of a frown and genuine concern in his eyes.

Smiling at his question, you looked at him through your lashes before meeting your foreheads saying, “Of course I want you Tobio, I want you so bad…”

Hearing the air choke up inside his throat, you decided it’s your turn to play with him now.

Nearing his ear, you whispered, “I want to feel every,” you hands trail down his stomach, “ridge of you,” now at the edge of his track pants, “inside me,” he feels your fingertips shadowing over his, “as your cock bruises my cervix for a week,” as you grab his dick.

“Hgnh, YN…” you heard him moan into your ear. The temperature rising after hearing his voice become an octave deeper saying your name, “Where’s--,” you knew what he meant.

“The l-last door,” he kept grinding into you as he worked on your boobs again, “d-down...Mmm...the hall..ah!” At that moment, Tobio reached under your skirt and rubbed through your underwear.

Finally knowing his destination, he lifted you with your legs wrapping around him as he kicked your slightly opened door to your room. At the soft bounce of your bed, you can see the moonlight illuminate on Tobio as he hurriedly took off his clothes. The shadows intensifying the curves of his abs and pecs. The moonlight highlighting the buff muscle on his arms and...his thighs.

Practically salivating at his sculpted body, you hear him chuckle a little before saying, “You like what you see?”

Confidence and heat now pumping through your veins, you got on your knees before slowly wiggling out of your skirt, giving him a show of your wet, laced underwear.

“Do you like what you see,” you questioned as you propped your hands on his shoulders.

“Yes, very much,” he smugly said.

Tobio and you were now heavily locking lips. All the while, two of his cold rough fingers slipped through your underwear, being slicked up by your wet arousal.

“Ahh...Tobio, please….I need you….inside,” your breathily moaned.

Grunting at your plea, he quickly ripped off your underwear so that you both can clearly see the pool of your arousal staining it in the center.

Shoulders pushed down on the comforter, you gazed up at the lusted blue eyes. You both were panting and gleams of sweat could be seen glistening from the moon’s light.

“Do you still want to,” Tobio asked again, with more seriousness than ever.

“Yes, I want you Tobio,” as you pushed back his bangs that were dangling above you.

Smiling at your response, he locked lips with you again. This time with so much love and passion knowing that you guys can finally be together after so many agonizing years.

Distracted with his lips, Tobio used his hand to guide himself at your entrance. Feeling the tip, you both looked at each other one last time for approval before you gave him a nod. In your quiet room, you can hear the sound of your arousal gliding his cock inside you while Tobio huffed into the crook of your neck. Grabbing his shoulders and shutting your eyes, you can feel the girth of him widen you more and more, “T-tobio you’re,” your moan was caught in your throat, “so--” that’s when you felt the tip poking at your cervix, “...b-big”

Hearing your confession, you can feel the smirk grow on his face. But then you hear him let out a strangled grunt, “And you’re,” he grunts again, “shit...too t-tight…”

As you adjusted, Tobio used everything in him to stay still at your fluttering walls. You signaled him by nodding your head that you’re ready.

Tobio started at a slow pace, which slightly burned, that is until pain turned into heated neediness. Whimpering for Tobio to “go faster” the room was filled with your hitched wining and his hot panting on your collarbone. Your walls constricted around him, making you feel every vein and curve of his. The soft patting of the bed and wall only increased with Tobio’s need to hear more of your voice.

So he took one of your breasts into his mouth and started flicking his tongue on it. The other hand which was gripping your hip was traveling down south. Through your folds, his thumb met with your sensitive nub. He began to make figure eights resulting in a rush of pleasure go through you. Shivering at it, Tobio’s tongue stopped for a second. He felt you tightening around him, making him release a deep throaty moan, “Anghh, Y-YN…”

Hearing his panting and increased pounding against your tightening muscles, you gripped his shoulders and arched your back when Tobio gave an extra hard thrust making you feel it all over the inside of your pelvis.

“Nghh, I’m gonna---” you moaned until you hitched your breath because Tobio began pressing harder figure eights against your nub and he started to suck to bruise the junction of your shoulder again.

“I-I know, baby, just,” he let out a hot release of breath when you thrusted up to meet your needs.

“Tobio, I-ahh…!,” you couldn’t finish your sentence because Tobio used both his hands to lift your waist against him. Unfazed by his own need to have you released first, his dick was able to reach inside you in new depths you never thought were there.

“I need you to cum first, princess,” he grunted as he brought you to him in a new angle.

With his bruising grip at your sides, your hands clawed and clenched at your sheets. You needed something to ground you as Tobio kept railing into you. The sound of skin slapping against each other and the feeling of your breast moving in rhythm of his thrusts pushed you at the edge.

“I can feel you almost s-snapping YN,” Tobio looked down at you, sweat shining on his forehead. With his shit-eating grin he continued, “Princess, I need you--ngh-- to cum now…”

At this, everything just broke inside you. Your body released everything that was pent up resulting in a shake go up your spine. On Tobio’s end, you had a death-grip on him, your walls were so tight and were milking him of his impending orgasim. Your walls pulsing in waves. No longer able to hold it, Tobio released a guttural moan while leaning forward, as his warm cum splattered your walls white. Still riding out both your highs, you guys caught your breaths.

Sitting back up on his heels, Tobio slowly pulled out from you. You wincing and clenching at the emptiness, and him hissing at the loss of warmth. Looking down at your womanhood, Tobio smirks in pride of seeing both your cum leaking out. Proudly, he used two fingers to slide the liquid up from the bottom of your fold, back into your abused hole.

“Angh! Tobio!” You shouted at him from oversensitivity. He only chuckled at your reaction and leaned forward. He plopped right next to you and brought you up against his broad bare chest.

He kissed the crown of your head. After a few moments of basking in silence you asked,

“So does this mean we’re dating?” cheekily tilting your head up to him.

He scoffed at your question before he looked away with a tint of a blush, “G-go to sleep already.”

You giggle at his reaction knowing well enough what he meant. “I love you too, Tobio,” you said before shutting your eyes.

Before you fell into a deep sleep you remember his dark-blue eyes gazing at you.

He quietly said, “I love you too, dummy,” as he stroked the hair of your now sleeping form.

tag: @sugawalmartwobble @gulfwanq

#this is utter filth #and my first smut so excuse the lack of quality #kageyama tobio x reader #ushijima wakatoshi #kageyama x reader #haikyuu #smut #haikyuu smut

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kyluxtrashpit · 4 years

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2020 Fic Recap

I really like writing these and 2020 has been a HELL of a year, so here we go lmao. It’s been a wild ride for sure

Total wordcount: 88 109 words (note: I’m subtracting the ��sorry I didn’t finish this, here’s a summary of the remaining plot’ that I published for a fic in a previous fandom from this since it’s not relevant here). Overall I wrote less than last year, but given all that happened in terms of the world and personally and fandom-wise and all of it, I don’t feel too bad about it lmao. I also have a lot of WIP words of half-finished things and some planning and such so I feel okay with this

Favours, 4906 words, posted Jan 4

This was a weird one cause this is a two chapter reader insert fic, the same story but told with both Phasma and Hux. I originally wrote this for Phasma, but later decided it would be easy to tweak into a Hux story (which it was lmao) and figured people might like that, so I did both. I had fun doing it, even if this is kind of a very small niche ship and trope wise

Know Your Shadow, 5022 words, posted Feb 16

Ah yes, here we are, the first foray into renben, a ship I had NO idea would grab me so hard but here we are lmao. I’m not done with them either yet, don’t you worry. There’s something about the corruption angle I really like, also Ren is HOT, and it’s also interesting to think about Kylo truly getting to find himself and be who he wants to be. Canon didn’t really satisfy on this, but the concept still interests me and it’s what had me writing this fic. Also, Ben losing his virginity to an older man like Ren is just *chef’s kiss*

Public Indecency, 3719 words, posted Mar 1

And my second renben! This was partially inspired by art and partially by just the idea of not giving one single fuck, and how thrilling that must be for someone like Ben to experience. Ren and the KOR truly do not give a shit and it’s really beautiful in a way. Plus some hinting at found family with the KOR. Ngl, Ben/Kylo finding his place and acceptance with the KOR makes me so Soft and there’s so many words I could write about it. Plus public sex is very hot lmao

Beautiful, 3254 words, posted Mar 8

Back to kylux, and this one was an old WIP I started back when the prompt was first posted on KHK in like 2019 or something. I got stuck on it and then left it for a while. I was digging through my old WIPs, looking for something that might catch my interest and boom, this one did, so I finished it and then posted it. I quite like the fic and it’s a bit more in the ~classic~ style. It’s also always a good feeling to get an old WIP done lmao

Choose Your Destiny, 5077 words, posted Mar 20

More renben and this was my fix it fic for ROKR vol 4. I talked about this more on twitter at the time and why I found the story as it was unsatisfying, but ultimately it’s really just a case of rushed writing and playing into established bad writing (e.g. showing a fall from grace by having someone kill someone eviler than themselves). I also really liked Ren and I felt like Kylo didn’t really get to have enough agency in like... any of it. His motivations were weirdly absent as well, despite this being ostensibly about him. So I wrote this, which I think handled how the story should have gone a lot better and, plus, it’s got smut!

(Okay and the rest are behind a cut for length)

Show of Devotion, 2479 words, posted Mar 28

Renben once again and this time, I mean, it’s all inappropriate use of lightsabers lmao. I was looking at the Ren and was like ‘wow that is SO phallic’ and then the horny brain turned on and, well, here we are. I also wanted a side of found family with the KOR and I think got that with this. It’s horny. It’s fun. What more could one want?

Aural, 2729 words, posted May 12

Okay this one... I have absolutely no excuses for lmao. I’m not even sure where the inspiration came from, I just remember I was in an online work meeting that was boring and the entire sequence of events played itself out in my head. It was all I could do to focus on work for the rest of the day and not immediately write this cursed creation lmao. The worst part was I’d been totally blocked on writing since March and this, THIS, was what eventually broke out of me. In case you haven’t read this one, it’s ear sex. Hux’s dick, Kylo’s ear. No, I don’t know the logistics either. But hey, I had a blast with it, both in terms of writing it and the reactions lmao. Someday I gotta write a follow up involving a nose too

Missed Chances, 10 749 words, posted Jun 7

Ah yes, this is the point where my renben met my kylux and created this absolutely enormous peanut butter cup of a fic lmao. It really was supposed to be like half the length it was, but alas, it was not. Also cockblocking kylux was SO hard, they wanted to fuck SO bad, but I had to stop them, the story demanded it lmao (and people in the comments were MAD, which is always excellent). It’s also when my renben series really started to have like, an overarching plot (aside from the modern au fics which I’ll talk about later). I even still have more instalments planned

Free Use, 6971 words, posted Jun 23

Another one that turned out far longer than initially planned, and also my most popular fic this year! I’m both surprised and not cause like. It’s a complete smut fest + my heavy headcanoning of the personalities of the KOR. People like smut, but I also feel it’s kinda niche considering how deep I’m in for the KOR lmao. So idk, I guess the smut won out. I did have a lot of fun with this one and there’s a lot of characterization thought put into each KOR, so it was really nice to see people loving that as much as I did. Canon gave us crumbs, but I just used them to make meatballs

Eat You Up, 1573 words, posted Jul 5

There’s not a lot to this one, it’s really just renben rimming cause the sexual dynamic with renben is so fun. Kylo/Ben is inexperienced yet eager and depraved enough to impress Ren, which is something considering I think of Ren as Very Experienced lmao. I really do love this ship; it’s a lot of fun to play with

In the Vents, 2002 words, posted Aug 3

Ah and this was my first piece for the stuck inside event on twitter, which I had a lot of fun with. Stuck fetish is one I’ve always wanted to explore, but never had any concrete ideas for. This event led to me finally getting to have Kylo stuck in a wall (plus more as well), which was fun. Also I spent far too long thinking about Hux’s vent contraption set up cause I knew he would never let Millie go anywhere that might hurt her, so I had to come up with a way to make the vent safe and here we are lmao. Hux being an engineer and also the most extra cat owner in existence worked out very well indeed. This was also the start of my creativity boom near the middle-end of the year that uh kinda burned out in a not so great way, but I’ll talk about that later lmao

Distraction, 3658 words, posted Aug 6

Another for the stuck inside event and another kylux/renben sandwich! Also featuring the KOR this time! Listen... it’s a gangbang, it’s got renben, it’s got kylux, it’s got Kylo getting stuffed from all ends... this is the kind of fic that, to me, is pure indulgence lmao. I had a tremendous amount of fun with it

Entrapped, 3484 words, posted Aug 8

So this was also for the stuck inside event (yes, I wrote 3 fics in about a week lmao - I don’t know how I did it either) and it’s darker than the sort of things I usually write. I enjoyed exploring something like this though, something outside my usual purview. It didn’t perform super well, but tbh the dark ones rarely do so lmao

Pit Stop, 1505 words, posted Aug 31

Welp, this is just an excuse for watersports lmao. I like piss, what can I say? And I’ve done it to kylux, so I had to do it to renben, and the modern au ‘need to pee on a road trip’ seemed like the perfect opportunity for it. Not much to say for it really

The Deal, 2431 words, posted Sep 3

Ah and this one here was the first for the throwback event I ran on twitter! The event itself ended up kind of being tainted by drama from one singular person who kind of ruined it by being a jerk for literally no good reason, but I’m not going to talk too much about that. Even with that, I still greatly enjoyed it and this piece might be my favourite from it as a whole. Kylo Amidala, political scandals, neither of them being nice... ahhhh yes, it definitely brought me back lmao

Devotion, 1929 words, posted Sep 10

Another for the throwback event, this time with Emperor and Hound dynamics which, unf, yes, I will literally never get tired of it. I really had fun with every fic from this event and this one was great because I so rarely get to write real action scenes, even if they’re in a flashback here. That and the dynamic itself really made it fun

To Be Wanted, 10 473 words, posted Sep 16

Ah yes, and here is my KBB for the year! I did a minibang this time, as, well, everything was going horribly wrong around the time of sign ups and I thought a mini would be more realistic. I think I was right on that and I’m glad I did it, even if I was torn at the time. The idea itself is one I’d been thinking about for a while. I can’t remember if I thought of it after seeing the leaks for tros or after watching the movie itself, but it’s been with me for a while and while I dithered over whether or not to sign up this year, the idea came back and was just perfect for a minibang. Plus I got an absolutely amazing and wonderful partner, which is really what makes the experience of doing bangs so great. I love this fic, I LOVE the art for it, and the whole experience was definitely a highlight to 2020 as a whole, both overall and in terms of my fandom/writing experience this year

Floss Me, 2033 words, posted Sep 21

My third for the throwback event and also the dental fetish fic I’ve wanted to write for a while now lmao but could never figure out a scenario for. As some of you may remember, 2018-2019, I went through some pretty horrific dental stuff and ultimately I think it kinda gave me a fetish lmao. Also I feel like there may or may not have been a kinky flossing prompt on one of the prompt sites at some point, but I looked everywhere and couldn’t find it so. But anyway, it was a fun fic for a kink I think is quite underrated tbh

The Cost of Certainty, 2541 words, posted Sep 25

My fourth and final piece for the throwback event, and this one is also a contender for my favourite piece from that event. I have always loved the idea of Hux being a serial killer and this was a perfect excuse to write it. I’d also recently finished a rewatch of Hannibal and, well, you can see where this came from lmao. I love writing tension and it was just very fun all around. I almost wish I’d done something like this as a long fic but tbh I don’t think I would’ve enjoyed writing it as much

Huxloween Drawings, 676 words, posted Nov 1

So this isn’t a fic but rather the drawings I did for huxloween, but people wanted them on ao3, so posted they are. Now, I mentioned above that I had this massive creative boom in Aug-Sep, but that it burned out rather badly. This is when that happened. I got into this place where I just... felt like everything I made wasn’t wanted or needed in the fandom. That everything I like is so unpopular at this point that I should just give up and leave. That I’ve spent all this time and energy over the years trying so desperately to get people engaged and so few ever cared and I just... ugh. It was bad. It was really bad and definitely partly fuelled by the bullshit that someone brought up regarding the throwback event (and I still believe that they are the sole cause of it’s poor reception). I, uh, am doing better now and still working through it all but it was a really rough time. But I found myself still wanting to be creative so I decided to draw. I am not good at drawing. I am not an artist. But that’s what made it fun: I went into each drawing knowing it wasn’t gonna look great. That wasn’t the point. So I never got upset about it. I think it helped me a lot tbh and I did really enjoy it and I’m glad I did it

Unconventional, 7243 words (in progress), updated Dec 20, first posted Nov 18

So the next part of me trying to fix the bullshit in my brain creativity-wise was to post the first chapter to this fic. This is a piece I’ve been working on since 2016-2017 (I don’t remember exactly when, but it was pre-TLJ, and I’ve gotten a new computer since so I don’t have the original creation date of the document) but I could just... never get a plot together for it and ever since I abandoned a fic in my old fandom (and this year I finally posted the ‘sorry this isn’t getting finished, here’s a closure summary’ chapter), I’ve been hesitant to post WIPs before being at least 80% done. So I said fuck it, I’m gonna post this and not be scared. Is this fic complete? Nope, but the plan is starting to come together. Do I know exactly where it’s going? Nope, but I don’t need to. Is it self-indulgent as all hell? Absolutely. I love this fic and I love this story and I love the concepts within it. So I posted it and tbh, it really helped. And I think this, combined with my writing break where I drew for 31 days straight lmao were really my saving graces here

Test Run, 3661 words, posted Dec 31

And now my final fic of the year! Which is a ship I honestly wasn’t super into (I don’t hate it, it just generally doesn’t do much for me) but then I did that thing where I thought ‘hmm but could it be written in a way that I am into?’ which, in my experience, always leads to me writing exactly that. Which is what I did here lmao. I’m pretty happy with it though and despite it being very strange to write, as I really had to work to get these two to get where they were going lmao, I had fun with it. I honestly doubt I’ll write more of them, but I’m glad I wrote this one, and I think it’s a good experiment to close out the year with

What have I learned?

Honestly, this year was a clusterfuck lmao. 2019 wasn’t great for me either, but we all lived through this and it was certainly An Experience. I think what this year really helped me focus on was what made me happy. I ended up in some dark places and I don’t want to go there again. It feels repetitive to say that, once again, I have learned that writing what I want is key when I say that every damn year, but tbh I think 2020 underscored it even more so. Spite as a motivator, when used to much, smothers the spark of creativity and the joy of creation. The most important lesson I learned this year by far is to not let that take the driver’s seat. A dash here and there? That’s fine. But as your main motivator? That’s just not healthy. And I need to work to keep it from consuming me like it has been for too long

Goals for 2021?

So last year I didn’t set any hard goals and boy, is it a good thing I didn’t, cause I achieved none of them lmao. I didn’t write more words (though I did write more individual fics, and the word count gap between this year and last is about the size of the difference between a big bang fic and a mini bang fic so really, I think I did okay), I didn’t even write a single fic for BTHB, and, to be really honest, I did not manage to keep my love for writing alive the whole time. I was in a really dark place a few times this year, but that drop in Sep-Oct was the worst from a creative standpoint. I feel like I’m mostly out of it now, even if I still have some work to do maintaining it. I’m hopeful for the future in that regard. The only thing I really did accomplish was that I feel positively towards all the fics I wrote; I’m happy and proud of all of them

So what is my goal? Honestly, I feel like every year I have to relearn the lesson of ‘write what you want, have fun, be self-indulgent, fuck expectations, etc.’ and my goal this year is to not have to relearn that again, but to keep that energy and carry it with me for the whole year. I realize I may have to put some effort in there, but I’m okay with that. I don’t know what 2021 has in store, but if I can just keep my passion alive and not fall into that pit again, I’m calling it a win

#kylux #renben #hey I'm not late this year lmao #it's been an interesting one that's for sure #anyway I'm happy with all my fics this year which is good #but I need to keep working at keeping my head in the right space #which will likely take some practice #but I'm off to a good start #and I have good feelings about the future in that regard #so here's to a 2020 full of writing about kylo getting railed to high heaven #and to a 2021 full of the same!#my fic #long post #shut up nerd

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florrickandassociates · 3 years

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TGF Thoughts: 5x05-- And the firm had two partners...

Hello and happy season 6 renewal! I think I assumed TGF would last three years when it premiered—not five, and certainly not six (this assumption was because I thought the CBS All Access experiment would fail and it would take three seasons for them to admit defeat). Now, I kinda think TGF might just run as long as the people involved want to do it. The way I’ve come to think of TGF is that, because it has no overarching arc or plot and because it is always topical, it is a show without a clear end point. That’s why it’s still fresh even though it is a spin-off in its fifth season. I could see it still feeling fresh in its tenth season if it continues to evolve and change. Anyway, here’s to season six!

Thoughts on season five, episode five, which I didn’t really love, under the cut.

The episode kicks off with TikTok and Jay’s hallucinations... yay. I’m hooked.

Look, before we get further into this episode, I’m going to comment on Jay’s plot as a whole. I am really, really glad this show decided to dedicate screentime to showing how horrific COVID is, and especially how horrific the disparities in treatment by race and class were. The hallucinations pay off about as well as they could. And I still do not like anything about this plot. I wish I could say I did.

Rivi is now out of the hospital and suing Harbor Hospital. He claims that his daughter died of COVID due to their improper care.

I’m intrigued by Rivi’s wife. She’s deaf and reads lips, and her first scene—where she reads the lips of Harbor Hospital’s lawyers privately discussing settlement—establishes that she’s a partner to Rivi and not “just a wife.” (I think this is going to also help distinguish Rivi from Bishop. Both care about families, but we all know Bishop had his wife killed.)

Julius and Diane talk about Kurt’s case. Diane looks incredulous when Julius floats the idea of Kurt taking a deal. I almost laughed at Diane’s expression because, well, she’s talking to Julius, her former client who spent time in prison for something he didn’t do. Luckily the show remembers its history, and Julius notes this to Diane.

Julius also points out that Diane is acting more like Kurt’s wife than his lawyer in this situation, and he won’t share things that are relevant to her personal life but not her professional life.

I am also not going to recap too much of the COVID stuff. Everything I have to say about it is going to be a variation on what I said above-- I'm glad they’re spotlighting important themes but I still don’t like this plot.

I do like that Jay notices Carmen saying “darn” instead of “damn.” She blames parental training and notes she also starts every email with “Dear.”

I do not like that Jay now hallucinates a woman who is literally credited as “naked woman” to illustrate that he has a little bit of a crush on Carmen.

Why are they already bringing the suit before they have found any evidence of discrimination at Harbor Hospital and before they’ve looked into what type of care Pia Rivi actually received?

Jay asks Carmen if she wants to join a group of RL staffers for drinks. Carmen says she’ll think about it. Yay for Carmen plots that bring her into the firm’s social circle.

I also don’t think I’ll have much to say about the Diane and Kurt plot. These FBI investigation plots are always the same: a lot of rehashing of the same fights, lots of new twists and turns where it always feels like the facts are changing, and a clean slate when all is said and done. I was thinking about this the other day and was like, “Ah, wouldn’t it be nice to go back to the good old days before the stakes got so high that the FBI was always investigating one of the regulars”? And then I remembered that season 1 of Wife has a plotline (which ends up being mostly inconsequential) in which the FBI investigate Peter.

The FBI’s investigation of Peter in season 1 is so inconsequential, in fact, that it brings us Elsbeth’s first appearance and I STILL see people thinking that Executive Order 13224 in season 3 is her first appearance. It is forgettable enough that people manage to forget ELSBETH TASCIONI.

Anyway my point here is just that this feels like familiar territory and until the writers prove to me they have something new to say, about Jan 6 or about the FBI or about Diane and Kurt’s marriage, I... am not that invested.

Julius calls Diane out on being part of every conversation with Kurt. This is a good point. This is something that I would like to see the show address more. Didn’t Kurt ask Diane last episode not to be involved? Why don’t we get to see the fallout of that decision and how it impacts their marriage? I know this show is not character driven in the way I’d like it to be, and I know that is part of why it always feels fresh. It just tries my patience sometimes.

Diane looks really red in this scene.

LOL @ the stock footage of an ambulance pulling up in front of Harbor Hospital that clearly says “LOS ANGELES CITY FIRE DEPARTMENT.”

One problem I have with Jay’s plot in this episode is that it feels very, very similar to the hospital episode of Evil. This is only a problem because the episode of Evil is much better. The hospital episode of Evil uses horror to show racism in the healthcare system; it’s very innovative and suspenseful. This episode wants to do the same thing... but I don’t think the writers found the exact right tone to pull it off. I can see what they are trying to do and admire that they are trying, at least.

I am struggling to articulate why I dislike this plot so much! The best I can say is that something just isn’t clicking. And, honestly, this may just be a problem with how little I’ve ever understood the hype around Jay. I’m not sure if I’ve ever said this before, but the show seems more enamored with Jay than I am, and I’m always at a little bit of a distance from the character. (I suspect it’s an acting thing, not a writing thing.)

There is also just a LOT going on in all of the Jay/hospital scenes, probably more than is needed to get the point across. It’s like the episode can’t decide if it’s all in on being horror, if it’s trying to be surreal, if it’s trying to be quirky, if it’s trying to be heartfelt, if it’s trying to be pointed, or if it’s trying to be about Jay’s emotions. I actually think this plot would’ve worked better if it were a little toned down.

Starkey is in Diane’s office and it’s time for one of those scenes that happens in all of these FBI plots where the FBI agent is annoying and then the person they’re annoying walks away and is sassy towards the FBI. This scene feels like a mix of the one in the season two premiere where Starkey tries this strategy on Maia and some of the clunkier moments of the TGW series finale.

Danny Pino is on The Good Fight now! I’m excited to see him! He’s super charismatic; I see why they had him playing a politician on BrainDead. On this show, he insists everyone call him Racehorse.

Racehorse is now representing the hospital, and Carmen is a little outmatched.

Predictably, Racehorse’s strategy is to try to force Rivi to testify by bringing a countersuit. Testifying is obviously bad for Rivi since he runs a criminal enterprise and would have to answer questions under oath.

Really long pause before the credits. Also, I don’t like this thing where we don’t get to see Liz until after the credits. I demand more Liz!

This episode is called “And the firm had two partners” but has nothing to do with Diane and Liz and the drama about who should be a name partner. It barely even has anything to do with Liz! Misleading.

Yay for Nikki M. James, who directed this episode!

Okay, I saw a post on Reddit about how everyone looks red in this episode and didn’t think anything of it, but on rewatch? That post is spot-on; everyone looks red. The scenes in Diane’s home are particularly bad. Kurt looks like he has an awful sunburn.

I’m glad to see Diane’s home also has a kitchen; I was getting concerned it really was just that one room.

I love Diane and Kurt but sometimes their plots rely too heavily on just being like, she’s a liberal! He's a conservative! Tension ensues!

This episode is, sadly, Wackner free and very light on Marissa. I am fine without Wackner for an episode (sometimes a break from gimmick is nice) but I really miss Marissa’s energy.

Diane asks Marissa to investigate something related to Kurt’s case. Marissa’s not thrilled, seeing as she is no longer an investigator and has two other jobs, but she agrees anyway.

Diane doesn’t learn, does she? Two scenes ago she was apologizing to Kurt for meddling and revealing info he didn’t want her to reveal (the name of the rioter) and now she’s trying to get more information so she can... put herself in a position where she can act on more information Kurt doesn’t want her to act on? Cool.

LIZ!!!!!! FINALLY!!!!!!!!!!!

Rivi and Isabel want to talk to Liz without Carmen present. Isabel, wisely, wants Liz to be on the case along with Carmen. Liz protests, but Isabel insists. She notes that she could see some associates using a racial slur against Rivi... and Liz knows she has to join the case to keep Rivi on as a client. She apologizes and then fires all three associates involved in the joke.

There’s a whole subplot about a doctor who posts TikToks that allege racism at Harbor Hospital, but also silly TikToks to boost her follower count. I do like that they allow this doctor to be both someone who wanted to do good and someone who wanted fame.

After this, though, we lose the thread of the TikTok dancer (and of the COTW, kind of) because the plot becomes more about Jay. That’s fine, though it’s a little bit clunky.

There’s a reveal that Jay’s hallucination of Frederick Douglass is actually a fellow patient who was in the COVID pit at Harbor Hospital with him. As I said before, this is the best payoff for the hallucinations possible, but there were still too many scenes of the hallucinations.

Wow, I actively do not want to watch these scenes a second time.

NRA lady from the season 2 panel (with Adrian, Mr. Elk, the Florrick fan, etc.) is back. She is friends with Kurt, because of course she is, and could speak up and defend him. She doesn’t want to.

God, I hope he isn’t fucking her. I can barely do another one of these FBI plots—don't make me sit through another Kurt Likes Pretty Ladies with Guns plot.

Even though NRA lady doesn’t want to speak up, Marissa has followed Kurt and identified her.

More stuff happens with Jay.

What if the hallucinations don’t end with this episode? I like showing that Jay is a long hauler but omg do I loathe these hallucinations.

I do like that Jay clues Carmen in on the hallucinations.

Why is Julius even allowing Diane to tag along on visits to Starkey, and why must this gag with the dead birds keep going?!?

More Jay stuff.

I just don’t get why they’re asking about the Pit, where Jay and lots of other black or brown people with COVID were held, before they have any idea where Pia Rivi was held in the hospital. Are they just trying to fact-find?

Shockingly, Pia Rivi was never sent to the Pit and actually received special care because no one wanted to anger Rivi. I... would have assumed this from the start or looked into this before bringing the suit? I know the whole point of this case is to get to explore Jay’s experience in the hospital and shine light on disparities in healthcare but I can still nitpick!

Jay recalls hearing someone say that he was taken out of the Pit and given better care after the hospital received a call. He asks Liz if she made that call—she didn’t. She says she wishes it had been her, but she didn’t know the situation was that bad. I’m a little surprised we didn’t get references to Adrian or Marissa here. If they could’ve made a call, they absolutely would’ve. Adrian’s like a father to Jay, and Marissa is a loyal friend. Adrian has enough sway to get Jay better care, and you KNOW Marissa is resourceful and connected enough to get him good care.

I really love this Liz and Carmen scene where Carmen asks Liz for advice and Liz helps her out. I like that Carmen still has things to learn—and knows it—even as she’s a great, capable, talented lawyer.

Carmen starts to leave, then turns around and says, “I want to learn from you. I don’t... My attitude is knowing, but it’s just my attitude. It’s not who I am.” YES! I’m so glad we’re getting lines like this that make Carmen’s personality clearer. She’s not a malicious sociopath who wants to defend drug dealers and help bad people get away with horrible crimes. She’s a new lawyer who wants to be ready to handle anything, make a name for herself, and come across as untouchable. This line makes everything click into place: this is why she’s willing to represent Rivi, put forward her own strategies, and be so polite it's rude to Liz... and why she also would rather stay at RL than go work full time for Lester.

Liz smiles, realizing she’s gotten through. “Carmen. When I was your age, I acted exactly the same way. I wanted to be perfect. So, I acted like I was perfect. Because bluff is always a part of it, but just... just let me help you, when I can. Ask questions.” I believe it. And now I really just want to see an episode where young Liz and young Alicia face off. My guess is Liz tried to project boldness and fearlessness, while Alicia tried to project hyper competence and that’s why they clashed (and why Alicia was thought to lack a “killer instinct”). Okay, okay, I’ll stop talking about Alicia.

Racehorse deposes Rivi and it ends with Rivi beating the crap out of Racehorse. I assume this is setting up a longer arc. You don’t introduce a personality as big as Racehorse played by a Kings-favorite like Danny Pino without having plans.

Also, it’s heavily implied that Isabel is a huge part of the leadership of Rivi’s drug empire. I’m no longer surprised by “actually the wife isn’t so innocent and is also a criminal!” reveals, but I still like this. I think it works better because there’s never any implication that Isabel is an unknowing innocent. Rivi treats her like his equal from their first scene together; she clearly is aware and okay with his prison time and the accusations against him.

We spend a lot of time on how the whole fight was caught on camera. Wonder if that will come back. (I can’t remember—did that accidental sex tape of Maia and the DNC girl ever come back into play?)

Diane threatens NRA lady until she agrees to help Kurt out.

Jay asks Diane if she made the call to help him. She didn’t. Like Liz, she’s apologetic that it wasn’t her.

Turns out it was David Lee. He claims it was a business decision. Sure, David. This is so fitting with David Lee’s character—he's always doing stuff like this. And he always likes to say it was about business. I think he secretly has a heart, though.

(I don’t have much to say about this reveal since it’s familiar territory for David Lee.)

I like that Jay’s hallucination appears to him as his friend, rather than Frederick Douglass, in his last scene of the episode. I hope that is the end of the hallucination plot.

Kurt gets the news that NRA lady is going to speak up for him. He tells Diane and says “it’s amazing how close we came to disaster right then,” as they have a drink. KURT AND DIANE, YOU SHOULD KNOW BETTER—IT IS NOT OVER UNTIL IT’S OVER. And this? Is not over! Does anyone really think this is over!? It will be more surprising to me if NRA lady actually follows through and this all gets wrapped up than if there’s a Big Twist.

I know these writers and I know these arcs. They are meandering and full of twists and turns and add up to a complete picture that doesn’t really hold together. That’s why I’m so negative on this episode even though I’ve been positive on the arc in the past. This feels like the mid-season misdirection that it almost certainly is, and I was hoping this arc would be a little more about commentary and a little less about convoluted plot nonsense.

Diane and Kurt dancing at the end of the episode HAS to be a reference to Diane and Will’s post-victory dances, right?

#this is definitely shorter than most of my recaps because i had VERY little to say about most of the plots in this ep #the good fight #tgfthoughts

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fizzingwizard · 4 years

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Digimon Adventure: Ep 19!

Wow! That certainly was an Episode!! It was pretty fun from start to finish, though nothing mind-blowing, but it was definitely the ending that made me gasp. Not wholly unexpected to an old turnip like me, but promising lots of fun (and angst!).

Picture of the week: MIKO, THE TRUE STAR OF THE SERIES!!

no for serious are the writers reading my reviews? they keep giving me what I want. within reason I guess. They seem to have an extremely limited budget as usual x’D

but Miko is still adorbs

ok I’m really looking forward to recapping this one so let’s get to it!

So last week I thought the kids sans Taichi and Yamato were abducted by Devimon, but apparently that either isn’t the case, or it was, but then Devimon decided it’s best just to dump the kids back on Earth and hold on to their partners. Because that’s the current situation. While concerning that the kids are separated from their partners, it’s probably best this way, since Devimon appears to be sending Gesomon(?) and Parrotmon(?)

to the human world, if I remember right. It’s hard to remember what happened in the first fifteen seconds kay So when the kids find their partners it will probably be in the human world and they can fight back.

Meanwhile Taichi and Yamato are alone and very Confuse

Taichi tries frantically to contact Koushirou. The others too... but especially Koushirou.

Finally he gets him!! He’s so happy!! My Taishiro heart flutters!

But I was fully expecting it to be a trap. When I saw this still here, my first thought was “Devimon’s forcing him to tell Taichi a lie by threatening him with a gun!!”

of course thats not whats happening. Koushirou is relatively fine and there are no guns (yet). What’s happened is the other kids have been sent back to the human world for reals this time!

This show is not even bothering to hide its Taiyama angle.

They spend the entire episode giving each other Significant Looks like this. The entire episode.

Now where’s Jou through all of this, you ask?

He went to talk to the police. He’s shocked they don’t believe his story about monster attacks and the world ending (well, at least Tokyo ending). I freaking love how taaaaall Jou is. Though it makes Koushirou look like a bean x’D

Jou = beansprout / Koushirou = bean

Koushirou has a much easier time dealing with the news that the police don’t believe them. He’s a denizen of the Internet. He knows how people’s minds work. And he has tons of chat logs to prove it.

People are chatting and spreading gossip and disbelief and complaints, but my favorite is the comment that just says “It’s a flood of fake news” xP

The home team runs into Mama Yagami! Who Sora literally calls Mama Yagami! x’D I mean I know that’s how kids generally refer to their friends’ parents but I still lol’d.

So un... Jou is almost as tall as Mama Yagami. LMAO. I’m gonna assume she’s short. Jou might indeed be quite tall for his age but Sora and Mimi are pretty close to Mama Yagami’s height too. I guess we haven’t seen Taichi standing next to his mom yet! With his hair he’s probably taller than her.

So Mama Yagami is HILARIOUS and I’m so glad that’s a continuing thing in the reboot! She was already that way in 99 Adventure, but we’re just seeing a lot of it now - like every time she’s around. (And we didn’t see it in Tri so I missed that.) Basically she seems like a basketcase. Not a totally irresponsible one, more like just... generally the carefree go with the flow type. Which is not bad. She just also seems a bit, uh, ditzy?? I think Taichi probably grew to be so serious by necessity. Dad’s busy with work and someone’s gotta make sure mom doesn’t leave the house without her keys!

The way Sora just stares at Hikari like “explain??” after Mama Yagami thrusts Miko at her and runs off to get her car with a big smile as if they hadn’t all nearly died recently... bahahaha.

also I love how she doesn’t even bother asking her son’s good friend if she knows where he is after not seeing or hearing from him for three full days

^The face of a boy shouldering the weight of nuclear family life and all its batshitness

Taichi and Yamato determine their priority is find the Holy Digimon. I wish they were a little more concerned with what happened to their friends’ partners, but I guess this is the only goal with solid clues. Anyway before they can do anything they are attacked by Bulbmon Looks like subtitlers went with Valvemon which also works, who looks like a Lego monster creation by an eight year old (and probably is).

He has the Domo face. Grrraaah

Domo is NHK mascot by the way. bahahaha

Next these guys come swarming out of Valvemon. (And if we didn’t already get it, apparently Digimon can construct other Digimon as we’ve seen before.) Nothing is quite as freaky as gas masks. They are commanded by Minotaurmon/Mintaromon whatever.

They too have the aim of Stormtroopers though so our heroes will be fine...

... probably...

... then Leomon finally shows up!! Yay! He looks good! All beefy and scarred and sounding exactly like Zaraki Kenpachi. Uhh. Is it the same VA?? Nothing comes up in the Google search so maybe not but it sure sounds like him. (Minotaurmon and Ogremon also sound like Leomon... while it’s normal for VAs in kids shows to voice multiple characters esp minor ones, it literally sounds like Zaraki Kenpachi is the voice of all the characters in this episode besides the main ones. And Mama Yagami of course because that would be weird.)

Leomon may look cool, but his ride... and his friends... uh, less cool x’D I want to strangle that ostrich thing with its own scarf somehow it inspires violent emotion in me

In the smallest, most shocked voice, Yamato says, “Leomon...?” It’s honestly kind of adorable. He’s clearly remembering what Neemon said about Leomon leading the resistance way back when.

Leomon helps them escape. Taichi very considerately and cutely helps Agumon aboard the fashion disaster ostrich emu thing.

Yamato also considerately helps his partner but rather less cutely xD

Leomon takes them to his hideout and gives them your standard fare of weird-looking Digi fruit. He then proceeds to tell them about Devimon and that he is trying to infiltrate Valvemon yadda yadda.

Taichi is freaking ADORABLE, immediately concerned that by saving their asses, Leomon’s battle plans have been ruined. Leomon waves that aside though. Yamato is equally adorabibble when he asks after Neemon and gets told that they made it to Leomon safely.

Leomon plans to try to get into Valvemon again because he knows Devimon’s put something related to the holy Digimon in there. Taichi is determined to join in. He doesn’t have much of an argument as it why they should be allowed when they just got their butts kicked so easily, but he has a trick up his sleeve: the Burning Eyes of Fiery Passion.

Not to be outdone, Yamato shoots off his Icy Eyes of Cold Determination.

Faced with this twin assault, Leomon has to give in. Ahh, I remember last week when we saw the trailer for this ep and I naively thought Leomon would train them like Piximon did in 99 Adventure. Nope. They’ve just met and they’re already spy buddies.

Okay, okay, yeah Leomon does seem to have some knowledge of the “Chosen Children” and that’s his real motivation. Still.

They break into Valvemon and we get the excellent invention of Agumon riding on Garurumon. I assume because of Garurumon’s advantageous speed. That seems to be recurring thing in this show.

Idk I just capped this because he’s so darn cute

I don’t know why I capped this one though.

They enter some sort of central space where Leomon tells them something relevant to the holy Digimon is being kept. (Lol I already forgot the details of what he said.) There are two protectors, Minotaurmon and Bullmon. Leomon tells the kids to take Bullmon while he faces down Minotaurmon. These guys might have been somewhat intimidating if we hadn’t already got Perfect level evolutions mastered, not to mention the occasional Jogress :P Sooo I didn’t feel too worried.

... uh, never mind x’D Taichi what are you doing

Yamato saves his idiot butt and almost gets in a bind himself. Once again I’m just wondering why they are sticking at Adult level. Whatever. They win of course

Leomon uses his Fist of the Beast King to maim Minotaurmon. His brilliant one-liner? “I have more than one first.”

Bully: *punches you*

You: ow

Bully: *smirk* I have more than one fist.

You: That’s funny, I only have one, but it’s made of titanium *You punch the bully straight through the stratosphere* Quality over quantity!!!!

*cough*

Our heroes approach the secret compartment supposedly holding something to do with the holy Digimon... Yamato gets a look inside and gets the black shadow of true terror over his eyes

becaue floating inside like some kind of Weapon X experiment is... Takeru!!!

Hold on while I put in my ear plugs. Okay, ready, screech all you want now.

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!

So... okay. First of all, baby Takeru is sooooooo cute <3 I had two predictions about what happened to Takeru last week. Either he ended up in the digital world and was now on his own, or he got abducted by Devimon. I thought the former was more likely, but in hindsight, it should have been obvious that it was the second. This show misses a lot of points where I feel like they could have developed some relationships or thrown in some drama, but it never passes up a chance for Yamato angst.

So yeah, this is pretty much gonna destroy Yamato xD Not only is the baby brother he wanted to protect no longer at home where he can easily protect him, he’s now in the digital world and in the enemy’s clutches.

I BETTER SEE REALLY TRAUMATIZED YAMATO NEXT WEEK. Of course, I expect him to be cool-headed enough to try to save Takeru, but I will be very disappoint if this goes off with no break downs at all. Takeru is always Yamato’s number one priority!

Super exciteddddd

So I give this ep 7.5/10. The .5 is pretty much for ending with a killer cliffhanger. My one real complaint about this ep is how highly plot-based everything is - we finally got the team all together only to split them up, and on top of that, once split up, we don’t even get all that many character moments between Taichi and Yamato. As I said, they give each other lots of Signifcant Looks, but man cannot live on bread alone. However this is par for the course for this show and I know I should stop mentioning it every week because I doubt it’s changing. We will get the big shockers when we get them and not a moment before.

I just want Yamato to cry in front of Taichi and make him all uncomfortable x’D That’s what made 99 Adventure so great bahahaha

Some cool bits from next week’s trailer:

Surprise surprise, Angemon is the holy Digimon! Or one of, anyway. And he is indeed trapped. This makes the “Angemon is Devimon” theory less likely. Let’s not forget that our heroes’ Digimon partners were evidently a band of powerful warriors in the past, but they’ve forgotten much of it. I won’t be surprised if the result of that war played a part in Angemon’s abduction.

Next week they’ll have to fight to save Takeru from being drained, I guess.

And then!! Digi egg! Excite. Also I only just noticed that his hate says TK!!!

Takeruuu <3 My first fav when I was 10. Though my heart has belonged to Taichi for many long years, I still have a special spot in it for Takeru only <3 Even if he does dress like a celery stick

#digimon adventure 2020 #digimon adventure:#digimon adventure reboot #digi spoilers #digimon #fizz watches digimon 2020 #i made edits lets see if they save for once...

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touchstarvedsam · 4 years

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So.... what are your thoughts on spn 11X17 "Red Meat"? 😉

An anon after my own heart! Brace yourselves, it’s a long one, sorry.

Red Meat is my comfort episode. I watch it when I’m feeling down, or when I need an escape. Sometimes I forget that Andrew Dabb is one of the writers because the episode is so brother -- and Sam in general -- positive. It’s definitely one of my favorite episodes, one that I will never get over. It’s one of those episodes that if I see anything about it on my dash, it’s an immediate reblog.

So, let’s recap, highlights mostly, yes?

The episode literally starts out mid-battle, which is cool on its own, but Sam is so incredibly badass. His high kick, and then headbutting the werewolf, just-- GAH. I can never get enough of badass Sam Winchester, okay?

Sam gets shot within two minutes, and if any of you know me, you know that hurt!Sam or Sam whump of any kind is my motherfucking jam. He’s my favorite character, whom I’ve loved for half of my life, and any time he’s in anguish it brings me life. Not because I enjoy seeing him hurt, but because I love when Dean worries about him.

Dean kills the werewolf that shot Sam before Sam even hit the ground, then he was at Sam’s side and digging the bullet out. Dean worrying about Sam literally feels like my life force repleting.

I also love how the scenes are played out of order. I like the aspect of that. Flashing back to Sam telling Dean about the case and Dean being reluctant. Their roles really revered, huh? It used to be Sam saying they should continue with hunting down the big bad and not going on random hunts, now Sam wants to keep on saving people on those random hunts, to keep them busy when they’re stumped on how to beat the current big bad.

In the second cabin, Corbin suggests they keep going “those of us who can” and Dean whirls on him so fast with the “what’d you say?”

Pure, unadulterated, protective big brother. The you suggest we leave my brother, I’ll fucking kill you big brother look. The I know over a hundred ways to kill a man big brother look. The no one fucks with Sammy big brother look.

Dean shoves Corbin, then, ever the selfless man Sam Winchester is, Sam suggests they leave him, get Corbin and Michelle to safety, and then Dean can come back for him. Dean’s reaction, again, is pure big brother and I love it so much. He wants to carry Sammy. My whole heart. T.T

Dean fighting with branches sticking off a tree trunk, angrily hitting the tree, then stopping for a moment to breathe and calm himself because he knows losing it won’t help Sam.

Calming himself down before he gets back to the cabin. T.T

Sam -- dying, short of breath, wheezing -- begs Corbin to go find Dean so they can leave without him. Sam has never once put himself before others, even now when he should because of how hurt he is, and how much blood he is losing, and still he doesn’t. There isn’t a single character in this show more selfless than Sam, and this episode proved that.

Corbin suffocating Sam, and then Dean walking in to find Sam completely lifeless. I cry every fucking time Dean starts shaking Sam. (Not gonna lie, it gives me Simba trying to wake Mufasa vibes, and that hurts really bad, too, man.) Just, the look on Dean’s face. The heartbreak, the tears...

The way he says “Sammy?” broken, shattered.

Dean making the decision to stay and die fight since it’s because of the werewolves that he lost his little brother. This man literally cannot and will not live without his brother. It’s ingrained in his system, engraved on his bones and in his skin, that he never wants to be in a world where Sam is no longer alive. He can’t physically or emotionally endure that pain.

This is the face of a man who has given up, who doesn’t want to live because Sam isn’t, but right here, I think at the very last moment, Dean remembers that Sam would want him to save these people. So he makes his decision.

“I’m gonna come back for you, okay?” He gives Sam this broken, quarter smile, then says, “I promise.” Then the shaky way he repeats “okay” two more times, then pats Sam on the chest and gets up fucking shatters me in a million pieces.

His last look at Sam before leaving him... with the tears! It literally makes me tear up. This whole episode is just chock full of painful pining.

Dean punches a sheriff! I still don’t understand why he didn’t just say “my brother’s body is in a cabin in the middle of the woods and I need to get back to him” but this is Dean, and Winchesters never really do anything the easy way. I do enjoy him angrily punching a sheriff because he wants to get back to Sammy, though. It’s a highlight, okay.

Then! As if this episode didn’t already give us the gift of badass!Sam and hurt!Sam and pining!Dean! It gives us the ultimate proof that Sam is the Juliet to Dean’s Romeo! It’s canon! Canon, I say! Canon! Dean kills himself with pills to talk to Billie -- to make a deal, to sacrifice himself, anything to bring Sam back -- and roundabout the exact same time, Sam wakes up!

Dean: “Tell the doc to bring me back if she can... if not, no hard feelings.” Dean literally does not care if he lives or dies! He just wants Sam! Be still, my heart. The man pines for his little brother, and his little brother alone.

The whole exchange with Billie:

“We need to talk about Sam.”

“What about Sam?”

“I need him back.”

“Back?”

“Stop playing. Look, you got him, I need him, let’s make a deal.”

“Pass.”

Then we have Dean saying that Sam’s the only one that can stop the Darkness. It just. It feels so good to hear Dean say that, okay. Sam being recognized in any light is just very important to me.

“It’s cute, though, you pretending to save Sam for the greater good when we both know you’re doing it for you. You can’t lose him.” That’s it, that’s the whole show.

“I’m asking you... I’m begging you, please. Bring him back... Bring him back and take me instead.” I’m sorry, I can’t hear you over codependent brothers.

Then! Such glorious, such beautiful, such badass hurt!Sam! Gets himself on his feet and takes on not one, but two werewolves! With all the blood he’s lost, and the immense pain he’s in, he literally fights for his life and wins! There is not a more badass character on the planet, and I would give my life to protect that truth as gospel.

He steals their pickup, gets to the Impala, and calls Dean who literally just heard from Billie that Sam wasn’t dead. Also, can I just say that I really do like Billie? She is cool as all fuck.

Sam practically falling out of the truck is one of my favorite things. His legs move like a newborn fawn as he stumbles over towards the Impala, towards safety and Dean.

The unadulterated relief on Dean’s face when he hears Sam’s voice. God, I love these brothers so fucking much. They love each other so fucking much. I can’t believe Dabb wrote an entire Wincest episode, wow. Such a goddamn gift.

Then the panic on Dean’s face once again when he loses signal with Sam. And honestly the way Sam can even see straight and drive himself to the urgent care is phenomenal in and of itself. Is there anything this man cannot do? I think not!

The Sam saves Dean, shooting Corbin before finally giving in to the pain and collapsing. I will forever love the way he falls to the ground, the way his legs just kind of give out and he just hits the floor is amazing to me. I wish I could make gifs because I’d fucking gif the way he falls. It’s both graceless and graceful at the same time, if that makes any sense.

“I watched the man I love die... there’s no normal after that.” Dean feels her words more than anyone else, apart from Sam. Because he’s seen Sam die multiple times, and even though Sam is alive, Dean’s still not normal, he’s still not fixed. He gets that. He knows that a part of him will always be broken just because he’s watched Sam die, more than once. He’s never, ever going to be over losing Sam, even when Sam’s standing right beside him. Not to make light of the situation, but this made me think of the “Stop telling everyone I'm dead!” “I can still hear his voice” meme.

Dean helping Sam down the stairs with a hand on his back brings me the utmost joy. If I could gif, I’d make a gif of that, too.

Sam asking what Dean did when he thought Sam was dead, and giving him this ridiculously adorable squinty face!:

His little “I know you did something stupid because you’re making jokes” squint. Always sees right through his big brother.

I’m sorry for the lack of Sam caps. This episode was literally gigantic amounts of pining!Dean. He literally just wanted to be with Sam the entire episode, and Dean’s emotional anguish because he lost Sammy is such an important part of the episode. So many brother moments without the brothers being near each other. I will love this episode until the day I die and even then I will carry it with me into the afterlife to play on repeat forever and ever.

Thanks for the ask, anon! And sorry my post is so long. Red Meat is just really fucking important to me.

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itsclydebitches · 4 years

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Why is Marrows semblance more useful then actual magic? Even a temporary moment of not being able to move is a massive advantage in any situation. I wish the maidens were more then just elemental powers.

For me the issue is three-fold:

We continually have this messy distinction between semblances and “real” magic. I’ve talked to death about the ridiculous bird conversation, but we also have the fact that in a world where semblances often already incorporate elemental aspects and everyone has access to elemental dust... elemental powers but just BIGGER doesn’t read as particularly exciting. Marrow’s power isn’t just more useful than actual magic, it’s more like magic, period.

Semblances, as you say, are usually more powerful/useful than “real” magic. Penny can summon wind... but Marrow can keep her from moving long enough for capture. Qrow can turn into a bird... but Ruby can dematerialize herself, along with multiple friends, carrying them from one place to another without mass causing any problems. Cinder can shoot fire at you... but Weiss can summon versatile glyphs and fallen foes. Not only does this imbalance mess with the supposed superiority of “real” magic, but you have to wonder why so many people bother to go after the Maidens (outside of using them to access the Relics). Is being able to freeze something such an advantage when so many characters can already do things like turn off the ability to feel pain? At the very least we might have kept this in mind from the start, giving those like Cinder incredibly weak semblances - or no semblance at all - so that “real” magic is the only avenue they have to keep up with most other fighters. Especially when, as we’ve now seen, semblances can keep evolving into something even greater.

Finally, due to both of the above points, “real” magic doesn’t feel like a threat anymore. The Maidens don’t feel like threats. Or, conversely, significant advantages. I was okay with this when Amber was introduced because we were immediately told that she was young and largely untrained. Okay, I thought. It’s not that three (admittedly strong) fighters are usually able to take out someone with magic, it’s that alongside the magic-user not really knowing what she’s doing yet. Someone trained? Good luck. Then that seemed to be reinforced when Cinder took out Ozpin, someone whose power looked CRAZY in the brief clip we got. Wow! Maidens must be insanely strong to beat him! ... but it feels like we’ve lost a lot of that in recent years. Now Cinder looks like a joke, before that Pyrrha managed to hold her own far longer than expected, then Neo, then Jaune, Spring was killed somehow by Raven off screen (probably by betraying her trust, but still), and Penny would have lost against the Ace Ops if not for Nora’s timing. There’s still a lot that we can toss out in an effort to justify this feeling - oh, Penny is untrained too, just give her a couple months and she’ll be way more formidable, or as I said in my recap: she’s not the type to use everything to her advantage and go for the kill - but the overall sense is that the Maiden powers aren’t some epic power up that makes everyone shake in their boots... it’s just some additional elemental powers that in no way guarantees your victory. You shoot really strong wind now? That person has a semblance that let’s them stick to the ground. What are you going to do now?

I mean, this Volume we’ve seen a grimm that’s scarier than any Maiden since Volume 3. Yes, it’s a special grimm of Salem’s - and I think the power divide in that scene was crucial for establishing Salem’s threat level - but it’s still a problem when the background monsters come across as more dangerous than the women wielding literal magic.

#rwby #rwby spoilers #rwby volume 8 #mymetas #Anonymous

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365days365movies · 4 years

Text

January 2, 2021: Mission: Impossible (Part 1)

My mission, should I choose to accept it...

YEAH I KNOW IT’S A CLICHÉ. I just wanted to say it once.

So, previously on this blog, I watched the film Top Gun. Also previously, I didn’t like the film Top Gun that much, especially not its main character, Maverick, played by one illustrious Tom Cruise. Goodbye, Maverick. I banish ye from this sacred place, for this is a place where your toxic, arrogant, douchebaggery will NOT stand.

Instead, we’re gonna jump into a separate Tom Cruise vehicle, one so iconic that he launched a multi-million dollar, 6-movie franchise, and made himself known as an actor who (obsessively) does his own stunts. Which, of course, he likes to let people know, and ramps up with every successive movie. Y’hear that he’s going to space next? Like, real actual space? Don’t know what action’s going to happen there, but call me cautiously intrigued. And by the way, I know that Top Gun: Maverick is coming out this year, and that it’s technically a continuation of the original Top Gun franchise, but as I said...Maverick is no longer allowed here. It’s all Ethan Hunt now.

A few things before I start the recap. First off: did I like this movie? And the answer is...I mean, yeah? I’d like to see more Mission: Impossible movies after this, if I’m honest. I’ve heard that Henry Cavill’s lip is amazing in the most recent one, so call me interested in getting to that point. I mean, that’s 5 movies, and I’m not doing that this month, I tell you what. Still, consider them on my list! As for this movie, let’s get into it. Might help me dissect my feelings a little better.

Second, I should say that Mission: Impossible (the whole series, but especially this film), is loosely based upon the original television series from the 1960s, starring Leonard Nimoy, Peter Graves, Martin Landau, Lesley Ann Warren, and more. It was a spy-series starring members of the Impossible Missions Force, or IMF. Ran for 7 seasons starting in 1966, then was revived in the ‘80s with Peter Graves returning. And, interestingly enough, I’ll have more to say on that later.

youtube

Third and finally, I should say my relationship with spy movies. Can’t say I’ve seen a lot of them, in truth, but I have seen the original Sean Connery (RIP) James Bond films, with the exception of Never Say Never Again. Haven’t seen any other Bond films, and any other spy movies that I’ve seen aren’t super notable, in truth. And yeah, I’ve seen the Austin Powers films, but that’s a conversation for a different month.

OK, enough background folderol, let’s get to that impossible mission, shall we? And SPOILERS, by the way.

Recap

OK, so we start with our intrepid spy group mid-mission, interrogating a guy using a fake dead-prostitute, a fake hotel, and a fake face, as seen by Tom Cruise taking off one of the iconic masks from the original show. And while this is clearly enhanced special effects, the original series used real latex rubber masks to accomplish the effect of taking the mask off. I dunno, that seems more charming to me than this:

But call that personal opinion, I guess. Anyway, we cut to Jon Voight...he’s the villain, isn’t he?

I mean, come on, he’s gotta be the villain, it’s Jon Voight in a ‘90s movie, where there are very few big names outside of himself and Cruise. But, I might be wrong about that, as Voight is playing Jim Phelps in this movie, and they wouldn’t turn Jim Phelps, of all characters, into a villain. He’s one of the main characters from the original series, played by Peter Graves. Dude even made it into the sequel series in the ‘80s as the head of IMF, a role which he appears to have taken up here as well. So, OK, I must be mistaken, he’s not gonna be the villain.

Right?

Anyway, after Jim Phelps chooses to accept the mission, the tape self-destructs, and our guys are going to Prague for find proof that some dude is stealing government secrets. We also find out that Phelps (Voight, remember) is married to Claire, played by Emmanuelle Beart, a woman 25 years younger than Voight. Well...sure? Anyway, we set up some nifty gadgets and planned disguises, and we make our way to the mission. And once there, the plan goes off without a hitch. I mean, mostly, anyway. No plan is foolproof after all! So, anyway, everybody’s dead.

Yeah. Wow. Everybody just got MERCED. Emilio Estevez gets crushed by an elevator, Kristin Scott Thomas gets stabbed alongside the suspect (somehow; I don’t understand how and why she doesn’t just walk away when she sees the dude clearly getting stabbed). Ingeborga Dapkunaite gets blown up, Emmanuelle Béart does to, but...off-screen. Hmm. And Voight gets shot...on camera...so that Hunt can see it happen...

It’s them, right? It’s Jim and Claire, the married couple, right? Like...they’re totally the villains of the movie, yeah? Because, like, we don’t see Claire get killed, and Phelps literally gets killed on camera. And the way the gun is pointed at him, CLEARLY looks like he’s shooting himself. It’s even the same suit that he’s wearing, you can see the sleeve! Come ON, man!

But, no, it can’t be that easy, right? This is a spy movie, after all, one of the best! Plus, I’m only, 20 minutes in? It CAN’T BE THAT EASY! And again, they wouldn’t do that to Jim Phelps, arguably the most well-known character from the original series! Right? RIGHT?

I’m just gonna say right now, I’m gonna be so upset if I’m right about this. Anyway...

Well, looks like Ethan’s being framed for the death of his team. Ah. So, it’s this story, huh? The mission was an attempt to root out a mole, and was apparently successful, according to Agent Kittedge (Henry Czerny at his most slimily dickish). Hunt is (very badly) interrogated by Kittredge, who literally only exacerbated the situation with his dumb, dumb interrogation tactics. Yeah, it’s gonna be one of those movies. Anyway, Ethan uses explosive chewing gum to escape, blows up a tank, and kills, just, SO many fish. Aquarists everywhere shivered as it happened, I’m sure.

Hunt goes...back to the safe house? Would...would the IMF not know where their agents are stationed? And you just went...back? Couple that with the fact that Hunt figures out how to contact the mysterious dealer “Max” within about 10 minutes, and IMF officials couldn’t figure that out for 2 YEARS at this point, and...these guys aren’t great spies, are they? So much slipping under their nose, geez. And if Jim actually is the mole, then WOW, these guys are incompetent. Still, outside of suspicion, there isn’t much proof of that yet...

Oh, look. Claire’s alive. Yeah...yeah, I’m calling my shot, it’s Jim and Claire. I don’t care if I’m wrong. In fact, I sincerely hope I am, for multiple reasons. But, yeah, I’m calling it officially now. And yeah, I’m not happy about it.

Anyway, Hunt, being not nearly suspicious enough of Claire’s survival, has indeed cracked the code that the entire IMF couldn’t crack in, again, 2 YEARS up to this point. Max has contacted him through the AIM server boards (Usenet, I know, but it’s the ‘90s; couldn’t resist). Max, played by Vanessa Redgrave in a pleasant surprise, makes a deal with Ethan to get the real list of agents, rather than the decoy that she’s been given. She accepts, as they narrowly escape capture by the IMF, and Ethan agrees to give her the full list for $10 million. And for the record, that set of demands is...VERY specific, on Ethan’s end. Thought about this before, huh, buddy-boy?

Anyway, Claire (who’s definitely guilty) and Ethan recruit two disavowed agents to help them. One is Franz Kreiger, a knife-loving sociopath played by the amazing Jean Reno. The other is Luther Stickell, a slickly-dressed computer hacker charmingly played by Ving Rhames. And I gotta say...I’m into it. Like, these two are both awesome characters, and I’m all for it. Rhames, while visually not looking like you’d expect an IT guy to look, pulls it off really well. He’s potentially my favorite character in the film, behind Max and Kreiger. Because, Kreiger...

So, Leon: The Professional is on my list for this month, and having seen Reno in this movie, I am EXCITED to see a movie in which he’s the star. I’ve only really seen him in this and Godzilla and heard him in Flushed Away, and he’s always my favorite character in those films. Not sure if it’s his characters, or his rakish charm, or his ABSOLUTELY AWESOME voice, but I’m a sucker for some Jean Reno, lemme tell you.

Allllllll right, time for some spy action! Looks like we’re going into Langley to get some information. Not an easy mission, that’s for sure. In fact, some might even say it’s a-

...Yeah, OK. Anyway, the mission proceeds in what may be, and I’m gonna be honest...one of the most heart-poundingly tense and enjoyable sequences I’ve seen in a spy movie. Cruise dangling by a wire over a supposedly break-in-proof room that sets off alarms at even the slightest trigger? Yeah...yeah, that shit was cool, I’m not gonna lie. Kreiger struggling to hold Cruise up, Luther coaching from the comms while awaiting the NOC list on his computers; it’s pretty awesome. No complaints there, 10/10.

OK, let’s break it up into two halves again, yeah? Part 2!

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majesticnerdynerd · 4 years

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Reichenbach Falls Recap 2020

Hello! Since it is December 31st of this tomfuckery of a year, I decided to make a post about something that brightened my days since the 25th of May, my fic Reichenbach Falls that keeps me company every day which I love very much. Never ever would I have thought I’d come up with a 300-chapter a.k.a. 3 works in 1 fanfic. And yet here we are!

I wanted to reflect on how the initial writing process went, then the posting, and how it evolved until today.

So, Reichenbach Falls. It is a Gravity Falls Sherlock AU, but as I plotted more and more, it evolved into the monstrosity of SuperWhoLock. 2012 called that they want their Holy Trinity back, but guess what? I may be late to the party but I still groove! It will mostly be SuperLock once it really gets off in further episodes later on, but the SuperWhoLock episodes? Y’all won’t see the crazy stuff coming.

Now: the origins. As I mentioned above, the 25th of May 2020 is when I speed-wrote episode 1 of RF. The original document was 13k words long and mere 3 chapters, and I have a policy of writing on and on until it is needed to start reviewing. Upon said reviewing in the last week of August. It was a lot of work; since then I had decided to have each episode be split into 5 chapters, so I had to add 2 and review the new stuff. Today, episode 1 - Pixie Cut is the longest I have so far with 30k words. However, that may be soon overcome by episode 8 or 9 or even 10 - I noticed that episodes down the line are quite elaborate as I write them, which I suppose is good? I mean, it gives us more lore and interactions!

After writing all summer on speeds similar to those of Mr Krabs on methamphetamine (and my friends Bee @jasombee and Dee @ipromiseimnotaspy can attest to that), I suddenly found myself facing September 1st. The day I published Introduction to the characters and chapter 1 of ep. 1. And guys, the reception and feedback I got at the beginning? Still mindblowing to this day!

And I am incredibly grateful for everyone who clicked, gave kudo, commented, or subscribed to the fic, because I honestly didn’t think that a Sherlock AU that is taking on its own life and consuming mine would get much attention. But it did! And it’s all the more exciting to be able to share the story of John, Irene, Sherlock, Greg, and Mrs Hudson with anyone who joins the ride!

But the special thanks belong to Bee and Dee whom I mnetioned above as well. Bee took her time to bless Reichenbach Falls with fanart of the Colour Wheel, and Mary, John, Irene, and Sherlock. And there will be more for some other important peeps, too, eventually! And her art is gorgeous, so she definitely also deserves some serious love. Dee took her time to read the episodes I put in front of her and gave me first-feel feedback as a reader, which I value so much! She also prohibited me from spoiling her the plot twists, so she’s a bit of my lab rat to see her reactions, while Bee is my sounding board and helped me flesh out the overarching plot across the full 3 works and she also graciously helps me smooth out details regarding the crossover bits. Oh, and Dee also made moodboards for Sherlock and Irene! Thank you girls, I don’t know what I’d do without you.

We also got a SuperLock episode, which actually took a lot longer than I liked to write in July. It was the first passing introduction of the Winchester brothers, and I have to say that I’m satisfied with it. The original episode was 22k words long, the present posted one stands at 25.888 words. The Winchester brothers will be vital to the plot and very relevant as the story progresses, so it’s definitely not the last time we saw them in ep2 Gloria Scott! And I mean it, did I mention there’s a lot of lore? :)

This fic has its own memes in my gallery, because me and my friends couldn’t help it, and somehow, a twisted impostor spirit of Niclas Cage and ghoul Freddie Mercury ended up as parts of the plot in their respective episodes. What can I say, this fic is full of surprises even for me as I write :D and there’s a lot more to come as we unravel the many mysteries of Reichenbach Falls and its origins!

Honestly, it’s such a blast to write this. I never thought I’d set out to write a project this big. I have a shcedule I try to keep to, posting on every fifth day of the month. Season 1, Deja Vu, is roughly plotted out, but I’ve discussed this on my secondary blog where I had a nice chat with Iris. Season 2, name of which I won’t disclose yet because that is 1 year in the future in terms of being posted, is also plotted out roughly, but I give myself enough free leeway so as not to feel restricted or suffocated by my own expectations. Which works out, because I always improvise on the whim as I write, and it’s all the more fun!

And the people who reached out, even those who didn’t or lurk, I love you. You’ve made this experience of posting fanfiction all the more exciting and I can’t wait to show you all there is. Thank you <3

The primary ship is, of course, Johnlock, but I don’t stop there either ;) but other ships are a surprise for now!

Also, here’s something I find quite funny: almost 4 full months of Reichenbach Falls being posted and it reached a beautiful number of hits.

Do you see that?

Oh yes. It’s all coming together. What a way to end 2020. Crowley shall enjoy the ride as well, because we’re on our highway to hell! (wow it rhymes)

Seriously, though. Thank you for tagging along.

I’ll see you on January 5th with episode 6

Happy New Year!

-Vee

#reichenbach falls #my fic #recap #spn #dr who fandom #Sherlock #johnlock #Johnlock fic #superwholock #really thank you

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dafukdidiwatch · 3 years

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Chapter 9 and 10 End

Got to go, running late on things. Will do recap later

TL;DR: I’m screaming, parent issues are are abundant as abusive and manipulation, and I have a new ship going on.

Edit: Ok I am back and I have new theories on everything going on because Fuck I’m down the rabbit hole here. Where or where do I fucking begin.

Really this session just hammers down the different type of abuse that poor Lucy is going through. It’s even color coded and everything. Blue being cold, isolation, physical and emotional neglect from Thierry. Vs the Red of warm, attentiive, possessive and emotional manipulation that is Fidelia.

I don’t doubt that Fidelia cares for Lucy. But it obviously is really twisted if like only one day in Fidelia is already trying to run Lucy’s life how she thinks it should be. Honestly Seiji nailed it when he pointed out the outfit change was more for Fidelia’s taste instead of Lucys’s.

And this chapter is nothing more than family secrets revealed to Sylas isn’t it? Like, how far do you have to break the boy he’s already hurt enough. His dad literally hating his eldest and lawful child, hates his mother, 100% willing to have an affair and have more children and being told flat to his face he is nothing but a tool. It hurt to learn he was there just as a ploy for Fidelia to keep Lucy to herself, but I loved how he still cared for his half siblings. He wasn’t angry at Emilia’s existence, but how Fidelia had seemed to cast her to the wolves that is their father. He wanted to learn more about Lucy as a person, as his sibling, and was happy that it sounded like they wanted to connect too. But of course he couldn’t because Fidelia made sure to try and nuke that chance before it could bloom. Leaving them both just as lonely as ever.

Ugh it sucks so much because Lucy left from one form of isolation abuse to another!

And a minor note, Peony is probably another bastard child of Fidelia and Dubois. Her and Emilia are probably twins than Dubois didn’t want to take care of both of them so he found a way to ditch one into the streets. I mean, it’s the fucking nose people! The timeline merges and fit to one complicated mess that wouldn’t have happened if two people didn’t decide to bone down.

God I want to know what January will think of this, hearing that the anomaly they were supposed to hunt down is now Fidelia’s pet favorite. Actually, now that Lucy is here, will Fidelia even care for January as much? Or will she still try since this is her way of manipulating the council.

Rin is apparently living her best life as a wolf monster of not giving a fuck and about to do some dirty backdoor dealings with Fidelia. That is Not going to bode well.

And finally, Seiji. Wow did that Bastard Man manage to change my perception of him. You bastard, how dare you make me like you. Fucking Twerp. But god, he is trying to get it through to Sylas that he should go after someone who Likes Him. Which, puts Sylas first as part of his feelings, but also can be flipped on to himself because if Sylas is straight, then Seiji should go after someone who likes him. And that hurts.

And then when he talked to Lucy, like first time ever talked to Lucy, it was cute. It was dramatic. It felt like a normal conversation where they aren’t putting on airs with each other and just trying to figure shit out. And it was, really cute. He has this fucking “devil-may-care” rogue persona that he defaults to when he feels cornered, hence the kiss to piss people off. But, having that be your first form of romantic interest after being in isolation for 5 years, I can see why Lucy may be smitten.

Of Course....it sucks that Seiji only managed to put 2 and 2 together on Lucy and Cylas AFTER he dipped. But he got there eventually. The disaster bastard man.

I think I have a thing where I can only approve of ships if I see some in-canon connection/plausibility first. And it wasn’t a pair I would see dating. But I honestly hope there could be some feelings that sprout between the two. Some emotional development that doesn’t center around emotional abuse since Seiji knows what’s up with Fidelia and calls her out on that.

And since this post couldn’t possibly get any longer: underneath are my theories and just what is up with Morgan and Thierry.

This is what happens when I get caught up on comics, I have IDEAS.

Let’s start off somewhere simple here: Timeline.

Fidelia and Dubois have affair. Multiple times. And it resulted in Morgan. Something Something happened and they pushed Morgan into hiding so it has no connection to them. I’m also thinking that because of how Morgan has no connection to them, since Fidelia lost touch with her kid, she made sure/blackmail the Dubois to raise their next kid as his own to make sure they are taken care of. Hence Emilia’s life.

Anyway Morgan was sick, went to the care of Joe Rothart and Dr. Malliet, where a sudden Husk attack killed Morgan and Dr. Malliet 5 years ago. Where Thierry took them to be raised as “Lucien” under his care.

Thierry “gave up everything” for the kid, meaning he thought it was in his best interest to take Morgan.

The reason Joe has a soft spot for Husks is probably because Dr. Malliet was his significant other/partner. Tobi asked if they “broke up” so it implies they were dating. See here I was thinking that Morgan was like, Joe’s brother or something, way older at the very least. But Morgan was the sickly kid, the patient, and Malliet was the other Husk Expert trying to help.

Basically what I’m saying is that Thierry and Joe were lovers. Thierry Rothart is really Dr. Thierry Malliet. While trying to help Morgan, he used his own magic to maybe siphoned the illness away or something and ended up turning into a Husk himself. So when he squirreled away with Morgan (Lucy) he took the last name of Rothart as a momento of their past relationship/ what could have been and as a way of hiding himself.

Also, Ivy isn’t his cat.

We fucking saw what happened with Captain Yiff of the Wolf Brigard. She turned into wolf mode like Jade did. However!!! Thierry became the bird man of Alcatraz and sprouted feathers. AND! Husks are people who literally reabsorb their magic familiars back into themselves. Meaning that Thierry can’t have absorbed his Peacock Bird familiar AND have Ivy the CAT be his active familiar.

The only way I can think this was any way possible to have a “have your cake and eat it too” moment is because of Su. Su never had magic to begin with, and how she’s a Goat Husk, implying if she did have access to magic her familiar would be a goat. The same could have happened to Lucy.

It was stated that for a Husk the magic comes from the eyes, and eyes are the windows of the soul. Trying to heal Morgan resulted in draining the magic from their eye and that magic latched itself into Thierry, turning him into a peacock man.

....why he wants to have his house be a shrine of peacocks of what he did instead of his own fucking cat, I will never know.

Regardless, I’m thinking that after Thierry did manage to cure Morgan, since he took their eye (again, part of the soul) it probably resulted in memory loss too. I’m thinking that the eyepatch is just covering a hole or dark powers because if Lucy has like one-eye in husk mode that would be really stupid.

It also better explains Ivy helping out Thierry’s Husk mode. Familiars are conduits of magic that allows the Mages/Magicians to safely use their magic without overloading. That’s why when the magic is reabsorbed into the person the magic is out of control and fluctuates on emotion. The animals are safeguards. So Ivy, as Thierry’s familiar, is able to drain away the magic in his emotional states. But that also backfires because draining away magic that wasn’t necessarily his means it was also draining away his memory, hence his behavior issues with Lucy.

Which can also explain Lucy’s own “magic draining powers” is because they is out of balance. They aren’t like non-magic people where they aren’t able to access their magic. They aren’t like regular magicians where an animal familiar is there to help manage magic. And they aren’t like Husks where all the magic is fully absorbed into their body. Because they don’t have access to their original magic source (Thanks Thierry) their body is trying to balance itself out by siphoning the magic of others. Fill in the gap as it were. Which only works if they are in close physical contact with a magic source. But because it isn’t their original magic, it doesn’t last long. That’s why even though Ana was drained completely of magic, Lucy is unable to use it anymore, or at the very least can’t access it as easily.

The only other thing I could think of is how the hell does Fidelia connect with Thierry. Because Ivy was scared shitless of her or the thought of her. She probably threatened them both as Dr. Malliet to do “whatever it takes” to cure Morgan, and we all know how possessive she is with her children.

Long story short, Dr. Thierry Malliet did some experimental treatment which resulted in his husk form and Morgan’s cure/memory loss/magic issues. To protect themselves from being hunted, he fake their deaths and hid away as a recluse and raising Morgan as Lucy so the city’s magic leaders won’t hunt them down.

#dafukblog #NevSat #NevSatchp10 #NevSat008 #NevSat008 end

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