#and then the show itself which manages to be exciting and heartbreaking and funny and soft

[kineticallyanywhere]

im trying really hard to be normal about Moon Knight but please know that this is a dam that could break at any moment so like if you don’t like it or simply don’t care about it just go ahead and block/softblock the tag #moon knight in advance because my likes are filling up with posts I intend to reblog eventually and I’m trying to be sparse about it and spread them out but BOY HOWDY I gotta work this through my system

[lucky-dreamfisher]

Queer Subtext in The Illusion of Living - Part 5/5

It’s time to address the elephant in the room: Henry.

Joey tries very, very hard to ‘no homo’ his relationship with the man:

“His presence was helpful, I can happily admit, but his absence was even more so. Not having him at the studio ended up being one of the best things that could have happened to it. Of course, the funny thing is, I couldn't have not had him without having him in the first place. Just like you can't appreciate the light if you haven't spent time in the dark, so too does a person's absence become clear only if he has been around.” TIOL, page 154

“A letter from Henry. You might not think I'd keep such a thing, but I do. I have no ill will toward the man as you know. Him leaving, as I said, was the best thing that could have happened to the studio. His letter reminds me of that.” TIOL, page 218

The lady doth protest too much, methinks.

The only hint we get regarding Joey’s true feelings for Henry is the following note by Nathan:

“NateA: Joey has always been a professional person, far more so in many ways than me. That is why this section of the book is so forgiving of the man who abandoned the studio he helped create. Joey can't help but see the good in people. That being said, as a good friend of Joey's, I know that Henry's departure was a great upheaval for him and a great personal betrayal. Joey never truly forgave Henry, and I don't think he should have felt obligated to. The fact that Joey is so gracious in this part of the book is a reflection of his incredible generosity in allowing Henry Stein to be stainless in the eyes of history. I think, had he lived longer, Joey might have in later years called it his greatest illusion.” TIOL, page 155

I’m very surprised by the harshness in Nathan’s tone here. Especially since Henry appears to believe that he and Joey have parted on good terms, and Joey admits that they have continued to exchange letters for a while after Henry’s departure. We’ve also seen Henry’s note to Joey in the game, and it comes across as warm and supportive:

It really doesn’t sound like anything ugly happened between him and Joey. So then why are both Joey and Nathan convinced that Henry is a monster?

While I can believe that Joey is pathetic enough to consider anyone who slights him his worst enemy, Nathan comes across as a more level-headed person. So for him to voice his approval for Joey’s petty grudge must mean that he knows something that we don’t. But what could it be?

Honestly, nothing else comes to mind except for romantic heartbreak. It’s the only thing that could justify a man holding such a deep grudge for so many years. This isn’t Joey’s first friendship that grew apart over the years - his army friends have moved on with their life as well. It’s a normal part of life and there’s nothing in TIOL that would suggest Joey is unable to cope with that. We also know that the studio did fine for quite some time after Henry’s departure, so it’s not like Henry left Joey deep in debt. Henry wasn’t even the only animator at the studio:

“When the studio opened I surrounded him with artists of all skill levels, and the Writing Department had its own de facto leader in Mr. Hemmings, and so the whole of Creative was well managed for that first year of the company before I had to part ways with Henry.“ TIOL, page 155

And so we’re left with only one rational explanation: that Joey isn’t so much hurt by Henry leaving his job, as by the fact that Henry left specifically for the sake of his marriage.

Try as I might, I found no reference to Linda in TIOL. Even though Joey claims to have been friends with Henry for many years, he makes zero mention of ever having met Linda. While there are some hints that Henry wasn’t yet married to her at the time when he and Joey opened the studio together (such as the fact that he claims he hasn’t seen her in “days” even though he presumably slept at home, implying that he and Linda weren’t living together at the time. A shopping list among his notes in the Handbook also suggests that he cooked his own meals, which would be unusual for a married man with a demanding job), the two were already a couple by then, and must have known each other for a while already. Surely, as Henry’s friend, Joey would have met her?

Even when talking about Henry leaving, Joey uses a cryptic language:

“Henry left for his own reasons, and the correspondence between us became less and less. To be honest, it was almost like a weight off when he left. He had grown more sensitive as the studio became more successful and giving him pep talks had become exhausting for me. All the good qualities he brought, the hard work and diligence, were being undermined by a restless need for something different. Something that wasn't Bendy. I will never understand that drive. Bendy was and is perfection.“ TIOL, page 177

In DCTL Norman claims that Henry left to spend time with his wife. Why doesn’t Joey say that? It doesn’t make him look bad to admit that an employee left to enjoy a quiet family life. It’s almost like he refuses to acknowledge Linda’s existence at all. Like it’s too painful for him to speak of her.

Perhaps the “personal betrayal” that Nathan is referring to is related to Henry choosing a real family, over the “studio family”, and the possibility of having a real child, as opposed to a fictional one?

The symbolic image of Bendy as a child shows up multiple times in the game: for example the drawing from Henry appears to depict Bendy, Alice and Boris as a happy family, with Bendy holding onto their hands like a child would:

There’s also Alice using a womb imagery to describe the ink machine:

And of course, the final monologue is centered on Henry’s choice to pursue a family:

That monologue is very interesting if we assume Joey to be gay. Because a gay man would never have been able to follow Henry’s road. Gay!Joey could never choose to have a real family with a man he loved, because that option was denied to him by the homophobic society he was living in. The studio is the closest thing to a family that gay!Joey could ever hope to have. 

And evidently, that was not enough for Henry.

If Joey’s indeed gay, that must have felt incredibly unfair to him - knowing that he had no chance of happiness in marital bliss from the start, through no fault of his own. This would explain his desire to create a real, living, breathing Bendy, no matter the cost, just to prove to Henry that Joey’s “child” can be just as real as the one Linda could give him.

“Bendy was Joey's child, and he felt just as strongly about Bendy as I feel about my flesh-and-blood son.“ TIOL, page 2

This idea of an illusory choice very much resembles the choice between the Angel Path and the Devil Path in Chapter 3. It’s the only choice that Henry ever gets to make in the game, yet no matter which way he chooses, he still ends up in the same corridor. Some of the golden messages highlight his helplessness:

The symbolic meaning of the choice between the Angel and the Devil also shows up TIOL. There’s a scene in the book, where Joey writes a play about an Angel and a Devil fighting over the soul of a human man. Eventually, the Devil confesses that he doesn’t want the human to make his choice, because then one of them would have to leave. The play was supposed to end with the man making his choice, but according to Joey they lacked a third actor, so the ending was never played out.

I believe that the play is symbolic of the relationship between Henry and Joey, specifically with regards to Henry choosing a relationship with Linda over his friendship with Joey.

There are several reasons that lead me to believe this:

The human in the play making a choice between the Angel and the Devil is reminiscent of Henry choosing between Devil Path and Angel path in BATIM.

The play highlights that the Devil is on the left side of the human, while the Angel is on his right side:

“ANGEL: Spending my time with a devil has been an enlightening experience. Working with you over these years with you sitting on that left shoulder, so far and yet so near, all our debates, they were invigorating for the spirit. 

DEVIL: I won't miss you! Fighting all the time, trying to trick you into agreeing with me, trying to push you off that right shoulder of yours. The violence and the anger. I won't miss it at all!”, TIOL page 89

Much like the Devil Path is on the left side in the game, while the Angel path is on the right side:

The Devil is obviously a stand-in for Bendy. Joey even dances on the stage at one point, and one of Bendy’s nicknames is “The Dancing Demon”. Joey also claims that the Devil from the play was an inspiration for Bendy:

“Let's start with the basic idea of a cartoon.You need a main character. Someone who has adventures and who the audience relates to." I did. I needed that. I needed a character who didn't just reflect the general population back to itself, but a more exciting version. I had no interest in moralizing, besides I didn't think moralizing was particularly realistic. People don't see the world as one populated by do-gooders. I thought of the angel in my play. She could never be a lead character. The devil on the other hand…” TIOL, 165

The fact that Joey claims the ending was never played out is strongly reminiscent of the missing ending of the Tombstone Picnic

It’s possible that Joey is lying about the ending not having been played out, to hide Henry’s role in the success of the play, much like he removed his part in Tombstone Picnic. After all, what would be the point of writing a play for 3 actors, when you only have 2? Why not ask someone to play the 3rd?

Although the play itself is centered more on the relationship between the Devil and the Angel, rather than their relationship with the human, there is still a strong queer symbolism in the play:

“Abby shifted nervously next to me the whole evening. She was in a dress for the first time in a long time, white and soft. I was pleased she'd come in character. For my part the only red thing I owned was a garish bow tie, so that was all I was able to contribute visually.” TIOL, page 82

The angel is played by a woman, who usually wears men’s clothing, but of course, the Angel being a symbol of Christian values couldn’t possibly be portrayed breaking the gender norms. She had to wear a dress, though Abby is clearly uncomfortable in it. She’s essentially performing heteronormative feminity. Next to her we have Joey as the Devil, dressed in a red bow tie, which as I’ve mentioned in the first part of this analysis, used to be a symbol of homosexuality. 

This contrast between the uncomfortably heteronormative Angel and flamboyantly queer Devil is striking. It’s also very much in line with the views of the society in the 1920s. For something to be the symbol of purity and goodness, it has to be heterosexual, and the Devil is queer, because he’s also the symbol of sin.

That symbolism could be indicative of Joey’s own internalized homophobia. Back in his army days, his friends used to bully him for breaking gender norms. Joey likes to present himself as the hero, who was easily able to outsmart the bullies, but many of his later remarks in the book and in DCTL show that some of that attitude has left a deep mark on him.

The symbolism could also be intentional. Joey boasts about having personal ties to Noel Coward, a real life gay playwright, who was known for his many affairs with men, and for putting an ungodly amount of queer symbolism in his works:

“The old woman took a liking to me, and she was nice enough. Besides, her connections were incredible. She knew everyone, she even had the playwright Noel Coward come to stay with her whenever he was in town.” TIOL, page 144

There’s a lot of evidence pointing to the play being symbolic of Henry’s choice between his relationship with Linda and with Joey. But it’s also symbolic of Henry’s choice between Bendy, and a real child. The studio family, and a traditional family. Heteronormative relationship vs a queer relationship. 

Although there’s no indication in canon that Henry might be bisexual, he doesn’t need to be. The game has beaten into our heads that the “choice” is an illusion. Henry was never going to choose the Devil, or at least that’s what Joey believes. Although we’re never told what choice the human in the play was going to make, we’re told that he was supposed to be dressed in white, which suggests that he chose the Angel. 

“(The door stage right opens. A man all in white enters calmly and chooses a seat, brushes it off carefully and sits. He takes his hat off and holds it gingerly in his lap.) (Quiet.) (Curtain.) THE END” TIOL, page 91

That might be why the Devil in the play confesses that he doesn’t want the human to make his choice, fearing that one of them will have to leave once such a choice is made:

“DEVIL: You think he has made a choice? 

ANGEL: It is possible. 

DEVIL: Do you think he might be all bad? 

ANGEL: I hope he is all good. 

DEVIL: If he is all bad, my job here is done. If he is all good, you can go home. 

DEVIL: Strange. If we win we also lose. You would think that would be something I would find delightful. 

ANGEL: You would think I would love to make such a personal sacrifice.” TIOL, page 89

The line about a “personal sacrifice” is very interesting in this context. The Angel and the Devil clearly care for each other and for the human, and don’t want their relationship to come to an end. Though the Devil in the play seems to make gestures that the audience interprets as romantic in nature, Joey insists that it isn’t the case:

“I leaned in and placed a hand on Abby's knee. There was a gasp from someone in the audience, but I knew Abby wouldn't be flustered by it. That wasn't the nature of our relationship.” TIOL, page 89 

It makes me wonder if perhaps Linda and Joey used to be friends at some point, and both competed over Henry’s attention.

There’s a much overused trope in fiction where two men compete over a woman, which ends up ruining their friendship. It would be really interesting and subversive to see a man and a woman competing over a man instead.

EDIT: I can’t believe I forgot to add this part:

"Joey, thanks for coming," said Henry, approaching from behind us. I turned to look at him He had dressed up for the event but every item of clothing looked slightly wrong. The sleeves of his shirt a bit short, his vest a bit long, his tie askew. He smiled, though, with such confidence that I couldn't help admire him. I still do.” TIOL, page 160

Joey fell for Henry’s smile, how romantic!

“We watched in silence as he worked. Despite his lack of genius, to this day, I will always say that watching Henry work was a real pleasure.“ TIOL, page 173

“It's fascinating. Henry was never the showman like I was. He didn't tend to be easily remembered by those who met him when we did business. I was invariably the face of the company, the one introduced first at a gala, the one to whom people slipped their business cards.Yet in the end he ended up setting up camp in this small corner of my memory. I can't deny that he is tied to the creation of Bendy, to the creation of the studio itself. That at one time, in one small apartment, one too warm evening, we had shaken hands. That once upon a time we had been partners. He'll always be there, in the dark recesses of my mind. Always linked to me that way. Funny how the forgettable man is now forever in my mind” TIOL, page 177

[deberiaestarescribiendo]

Summary: Javi hasn't called...again, Isa tries to distract herself making a new friend, but she doesn't know that her intentions are far from innocent and are tied to Javi crossing paths again with someone from his past.

Warning: cursing, mention of violence, threats, anxiety, kidnapping. Very hateful characters from the show 👀

A/N: I'M SO SORRY THIS SHOULD HAVE BEEN POSTED ALMOST A MONTH AGO. I will try to finish this before this month ends. I think I could wrap this in one chapter more and an epilogue probably.

Just a small warning. This is a work of fiction and the intention is merely to develop a little bit more of a character I adore, Javi Peña. There's mention of the drug cartel, the violence they inflected in Latinoamérica (and as a Latina it hurts me very deeply, believe me) and the political involvement of different governments and agencies but this is not a political statement or trying to do other thing than entertain.

Chapter VII: Smart Choices

Isabel had never been a very popular girl, always the shy one in high school and she made a very small group of friends in college. But as everything in her life, there was a before and after since her life changed and she had Elvira.

She could not go to the club with her friends, their conversations about their new graduate’s struggles hurt her since she had to drop out, their heartbreaks and adventures had nothing to do with her life surrounded by diapers, feeding bottles and sleepless nights and so one day the phone stopped ringing, their friendship was limited to birthday parties and Christmas postcards while she became a mum and a wife. And thus making her world a very small universe with her child at the center and Javi and her turning around her.

So when that lady at the supermarket, Judy, called her she didn’t think anything weird out of it. Instead she was happy, excited to have another struggling mum that needed some comforting from somebody that understands her as much as she did.

“I’m sorry I took the liberty to ask for your phone number, I have a friend that goes to your mum’s salon and I ask her for it” she had said the first time she called.

Judy is a funny and very quick and intelligent woman. When they got their first coffee together, Isa barely asks any question, Judy fills the conversations so Isabel never has the chance to ask when she is meeting her kid or who gave her her phone number since she knows every client of her mother’s salon by heart and nobody mentioned her ever. But Judy keeps the conversation flowing, sharing her tragic story about leaving Colombia out of a very tough situation with a guy and creating a new life for her and her kid in the USA.

“It must have been so tough” Isa pounders

“Colombia back then was a bloodbath, you had to navigate the streets in survival mode, always looking behind your back and praying to come back home safe” Judy explains

“My husband worked in Colombia for a few years”

“Oh really? When?”

“80’s early 90’s"

“Well, he must have known. So sad! it is a very beautiful country...”Judy’s gaze is fixed far away as if she’s remembering something

“I guess it’s difficult to talk about it, my husband never shares much”

“Mm” she hums, she opens a golden lighter and gets the flame close to the cigarette on her red lips “What did he do there?”

“He worked at the Embassy” she’s not lying but she prefers not to specify, and now that’s past, the details are not really important

“Oh! and that’s what he’s doing in Mexico now?” she asks exhaling a white cloud of smoke making a perfect o with her lips

“Not exactly”

“He must be careful; I heard things are following the same path we suffered back in Colombia”

“Yes...he’s...smart, I’m sure he will be fine” Isa answers more to convince herself than her new friend

“I saw in the news the other day how a few civilians died during a clash between two fronting cartels and then the police. Very, very horrible images" she smacks her lips

"I haven't watched the news…" the knot in Isa's stomach grows tighter, Javi haven't called back even if he promised he would

"They kill anyone that is on their way, civilians, gringos too, DEA agents…" the Colombian woman casually brings the coffee cup to her lips when Isa frowns at her

"What did you say?" She asks

"They kill civilians?" Judy smiles uncomfortably the corner of her lips stretching up

"No, the last part"

"Gringos...DEA agents" she repeats

"Why did you say that?" The knot gets tighter restringing her throat and her question is just a whisper

"I… assume Javier must be…"

"I haven't told you what he does"

Judy gasps and bats her long black lashes a few times before changing her face to a complete cold expression, her glossy lips now a tight red line

"Look, Isabel, I think you are a very smart woman…" she starts

"I'm leaving"

Isabel pushes her chair back to go but the other woman's hand holds her to the table, her perfect manicure claws making her stay

"Sit, don't do anything stupid" Judy spats, the brief confrontation has alerted the waiters and they look at them intently until Judy gives them a very warm apologetic smile

"Who are you? What do you want?" Isabel tries to hold herself but her instincts is crying for her tu run, to get her baby back and look for Javier

But Javi could be anywhere

"You know your husband and I met, many years ago" she continues smoking "we worked closely in the hunt of Escobar" she smirks "I admit I was surprised to find him married and with a kid. He used to be involved with a very different type of woman"

"What do you want from Javi? If you hurt him I swear…" Isa mutters

"You must have been really special. A magical pussy" she laughs "or are you that dumb and naive that he lied to you and believed it" she crosses her arms over her chest, looking with a smug face from the white cloud of smoke "do you know what he did in Colombia? Do you know what he's capable of?"

"Where is he? If you touch him I swear to God I kill you" Isa tries to contain the tears, to seem strong but fails which makes Judy smile wider

"Oh! So you are an idiot little girl. Better keep up, cielo, if you want your husband alive"

México

A constant, something that keeps on proving itself to be right: shit does follow him. He tries the breathing techniques that the doctor showed him but the bag on his head stinks like rotten meat and the heat inside the van is unbearable. He finds a little solace feeling Steve's tigh pressed against his. Both of them rocking back and forth with each bump on the road

"Connie is going to kill me" his friend says

" If they don't kill us first"

"Callense cabrones" one shouts and Javi hears the muttering insult Steve pronounces before receiving one hit himself

He feels the vomit running up his throat, the smell, the heat and the fear have mixed themselves on his stomach and he can no longer calm himself down. He’s about to die, he knows it. About time, my friend, I elude death for so long in Colombia, so many close calls and now I’m about to die in some unknown part of Mexico because of a fucking middle age crisis I couldn’t handle.

He tries so hard to close his lips and swallow, breath, Peña, breath. The only cold thing in this van is the thin silver chain and medallion he wears around his neck.

This would be a marvellous moment to do some magic, old man Javi says to himself and that old saint around his neck. What did Isa call the old man engraved in it? Saint Jude. Okay, Jude, show yourself, please. This is actually a lost cause, it’s your field of expertise, c’mon

“Andando” the sicario pushes him out of the van before he can even process they have stopped the vehicle. The man grabs him by the arm harshly and guides him forward, the sun pierces the black bag over his head but he can’t only perceive the light and the sound of the gravel under his boots.

Suddenly the light changes to a white light and he feels the temperature lowering: a house with air conditioner and there’s a soft murmur of water but otherwise the house is silent. Javi memorizes those tiny details, it’s the only thing that could eventually help him if they’re held hostage and not killed right away.

The sicario pushes him and for a few milliseconds Javier thinks he’s about to fall hard to the ground but ends up on a chair. Then they pull both his arms to the back without any care and handcuffs him there.

Javi jumps from his seat when he hears the loud thump of the door closing, still in the dark and without any sign of company, he calls:

“Steve…”

Nothing

“Your friend is in the other room”

He could recognize that fucking voice anywhere, is engravated in his brain, in that part of his head that is capable of the worst, that tiny espace where he keeps every hateful and the worst people he has met, Bill Stechner being the number one on that list.

“I was so happy thinking you were dead and crawling back to hell” Javi sighs before he’s hit by the clarity in the room. He blinks fast until his eyes are adjusted to it again. It’s a nice room, wide and scattered by a few pieces of furniture covered by white sheets, the dust in the air makes evident it has been closed for a long time.

“So was I thinking you were rotting old in your father’s little ranch but here we are”

His beard is greyer and the already receding hairline is back a few inches, but he looks exactly the same, tha smug stupid face is looking at him from above. That smirk of “I’m always five steps ahead from you” the same he had when he made him leave the Embassy before catching Escobar and the same he had when he tried to take down Cali. But now he’s here in Mexico, what the fuck is he doing here?

“And, do tell, please, why the fuck do are path cross again?” Javier spats

“Oh! I didn’t want to cross paths with you. I must admit I found it funny when I saw who was managing the account for our textile export, but you, being the noisy stupid man that you are “ Stechner approaches him, his smirk freezes in a tight line “had to call your friends. And you see, you’re mending on my business again”

“So you switched from the CIA to the Narcos?”

“Javier, javier…” he sighs “You are always focusing in the wrong things and not in the bigger picture”

“The bigger picture being…” Javier rolls his eyes at him

“You wouldn’t understand, I tried a few times in Colombia and you ended up fucking it all up” he shakes his head

“So what do you want from me now?”

“Well now that you are here fucking everything up again I’d prefer if the repercussions go to the right direction”

“Which is it not yours, I guess, or whomever you’re working for”

“Yeah” he laughs and points at him “you’re smart when you want”

“And wouldn’t it be better to kill us right away?”

“Oh, you see, my associetes want to do it” Stechner nods “The really don’t give a fuck. But I told them that you could be of service”

“You’re really delusional if you think…”

Stechner interrupts him “And if you weren’t willing to cooperate we could always resort to the good old ways” the man walks to a nearby table, over the white sheet there’s a manila folder. Bill opens it slowly, that stupid smirk back at again on his face, relishing on the desperation and fear in Javi’s eyes.

Please, not Isa, please not my child

“Your wife made a new friend, it’s a small world after all, isn’t it?” Stechner shows him a picture, he recognises the cafe, Isa is seated talking to another woman he hasn’t seen in years.

“Judy is very nice when she wants” he takes out another picture, this time Isa is on the backyard playing with Elvi “You have a very beautiful family”

“If you touch them, motherfucker” Javi tries to get out of the chair, he doesn’t even care if the metal from the cuff cuts his wrists. He just want to do what he has wanted to do since he started working in Colombia and crossed paths with the CIA

“They won’t, it is entirely upon you that this is just a simple anecdote. I promised I’ll try to control them...if you do what you have to do” Stechner shrugs and throws the pictures to the floor where they rest in front of Javi’s feet

“What do you want?” he murmurs, his gaze is fixed on those images trying to see something, when were they taken? how does he know if they already hurt them?

Please, please he begs and his vision is starting to blurry

“Well, my associates will appreciate it if the DEA will center its efforts on our common enemy. You see it right? it’s the same story all over again; the enemy of my enemy is my friend…”

“I’m not DEA anymore”

“Are you? I mean you’re here with your dear Steve in an ongoing investigation that mainly relies on your testimony so…”

Stechner roams around Javier’s chair “It’s not like you haven’t done it before, Javi, think about it as if you are involving yourself with the lesser evil, there will be a time to capture my associates, but not now”

“Just go back home and when the time comes you can assure the DEA that those terrible horrible people that are getting that poison in our beautiful country are involved with our common enemy. What is the difference between one Cartel and the other? It just a matter of time they both get caught” he continues

“Why are you involved in this?”

“We’ve done this many times, Peña, let it go. It’s better this way or do you want to end up like Kiki? or better yet, your beautiful wife or your kid?” Bill points to the pictures of the Peña’s family “think about it”

And he thinks about it, the hate and the fear burning in his chest. So many years protecting himself in covers of solitude, brief encounters to relieve the stress and alcohol, protecting his heart from this fear and pain of getting his family killed for his job.

You did this to them, you looked for it. Now what?

Isa (Laredo)

She drives fast, fast as she has never driven before. She has always been a very responsible person and even more when she became a mother. Elvira is seated on the back, her little hands holding the seat hard and she has called her a few times, her voice shaky and scared.

“Mami, where are we going?”

“To Grandpa’s, honey”

“You’re too fast”

“I know, but we need to get there now”

The screeching sound of the tires stopping abruptly on the road has alerted Chucho who now waits with the porch lights on when they get out of the car.

“Mija, what’s wrong?” he screams

“I think Javi is in the danger”

[violethowler]

A Farewell to Agents of SHIELD

I originally wrote this after last year’s San Diego Comic Con to process my reaction to the announcement that Season 7 would be the end of the show. I ended up not doing anything with it, but now that we finally have a start date for the season I wanted to share it now:

On Thursday July 18th, Marvel TV head Jeff Loeb announced that Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., the first TV show ever released as part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, would come to an end following the conclusion of its seventh season in 2020. Despite the unexpectedness of the announcement, the fandom wasn’t completely caught of guard. After the show had moved from the standard 22-episode season to a 13-episode summer season,we were expecting the show to only last a few more years. But that did not make the announcement any less emotional.

For me personally, I was stunned at first. I even let loose the waterworks for a few minutes. After the show was renewed for Season 7 before the sixth season had even aired, I suspected that we would only have one or two more years left with the characters I’ve grown to love. But I still felt overwhelmed by the finality that the show’s ending had been officially confirmed.

Once the shock of the announcement faded, though, I was able to calm myself. It was something that we had all known was in the cards since the Season 7 renewal back in November 2018. To be perfectly honest, I’m pretty sure most of us were surprised the show had even lasted as long as it did.

After the first few episodes when the show premiered back in 2013, critics and comic fans quickly turned from praising the show to harshly criticizing week after week. They all felt that the season’s overarching story arc felt like it was spinning its wheels, and despite the initial expectations of more direct tie ins with the movies and appearances by notable comic characters, the first season felt more like a case-of-the-week show focused on a group of original characters that die-hard comic fans had no inclination to care about. 

While those critics and fans bailed on the show over disappointed expectations, those of us who stuck around were rewarded for our patience in the second half of the season, when the release of Captain America: The Winter Soldier allowed the show to finally peel back the curtain on the season’s overall mystery and set up an exciting new conflict for the episodes to come.

The reveal that HYDRA had been hiding within S.H.I.E.L.D. for decades, and the spy agency’s subsequent dissolution at the end of the 2014 Captain America film, breathed new life into the show and the characters. The reveal that Grant Ward had been an undercover HYDRA agent all along would drive the conflict for not only the rest of the season, but for future seasons to come.

Despite the boost the HYDRA reveal gave it, by the end of Season 1, we were uncertain whether Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. would ever be renewed for a second season. Things had been mostly wrapped up as far as the season’s main arc was concerned, but the last episode had also set up new conflicts and new mysteries that needed to be answered. Fortunately for those dedicated fans, a few weeks later it was announced that the show would be back for at least one more year.

When Season 2 arrived that September, it came with a new direction and energy that kept the story moving along at a brisk pace and avoided unnecessarily prolonging arcs. Now that the writers were no longer hampered by having to avoid spoilers for a major Marvel movie, they had the freedom to spread things out and reveal plot points and mysteries in a more organic way.

After Season 2 ended on two cliffhangers, again we feared that the show would be cancelled. The announcement that the show had been renewed for Season 3 was a relief.

For the last several years, this pattern has persisted, with the fandom constantly fearing the ax of cancellation season after season, but the show still managing to retain a strong enough following to keep coming back. And each season, the show continued to improve itself into one of the best comic book shows on television. It was smart, funny, and self-aware enough to point out when things get ridiculous without ever coming across as insincere.

While Marvel’s live-action series on Netflix like Daredevil, Jessica Jones, and Luke Cage all debuted to critical acclaim, I could never get into them the way that everyone around me seemed to. I could see from an objective standpoint why these characters and their stories appealed to people, but there was a spark which these shows lacked that kept me from fully engaging with them.

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. not only had that spark, it grew that spark into a roaring flame that it continued to keep burning all the way through to Season 6. In the early days I figured the show would either end with three seasons, or its series finale would tie in with what is now Avengers Endgame (back then it was just Infinity War Part 2). But now that it’s officially been cancelled, I’m glad that it lasted as long as it did.

With the announcement of Disney’s new streaming service Disney+, the Netflix shows began dropping like flies. First Luke Cage was cancelled. Then Iron Fist. Followed by Daredevil and the Punisher, with Jessica Jones the last to fall. It seemed as if any Marvel content that wasn’t going to be on Disney+ was having its plug pulled, leaving Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s small but active fanbase fearing once more for the future of our series.

The end of Season 5 had largely wrapped up all of the show’s loose ends with a few avenues left open for things to continue. Though Season 6 had already been announced at the time “The End” aired, the episode had been written and filmed under the assumption that it would serve as a series finale if the show didn’t get renewed. So we were all concerned that Season 6 could end on a cliffhanger and then be cancelled before the story could be resolved.

The news in November 2018 that the show would also be getting a seventh season was cause for celebration, not just at the fact that the story would continue, but that whatever was happening behind scenes with Marvel and the Netflix shows, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. would be spared from cancellation for the time being.

It is a source of triumphant irony that the show critics and audiences turned on and wrote off early on managed to outlast all of Marvel’s other shows. The Netflix shows have come and gone, but Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D is still here, chugging along like The Little TV Show That Could. Runaways ended with its third season in late 2019, and Cloak and Dagger was cancelled after its second. WandaVision, Loki, and Falcon & the Winter Soldier are premiering on Disney+ within the next year, but it will be a long time before any of them are able to top Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. in terms of both the number of years they’ve been “on the air” and in terms of the number of episodes released.

For one hundred twenty-three episodes, the amazingly talented cast and crew have been delivering one standout performance after another, continuing to keep audiences invested in their characters on an emotional level through all the drama and comedy and action and heartbreak. Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. continues to be one of – if not the greatest comic book show on television, and I have full faith that the cast and crew will finish things off with style. It’s been one hell of a ride with this show, and I’m going to miss it when it ends.

[svtegg]

sebongies and the taeyeon songs they remind me of:

seungcheol: gravity. gravity is about finding solace, finding something to hold on to even through the hardest of storms. i firmly believe seungcheol has had to learn this the hard way, and because of this gravity reminds me so much of him. ive also personally found such a warm and safe place in the group he has lead and fronted to where they are today. he will never know how much strength i’ve gained from him, how much he has been the gravity pulling me back down to earth in those especially hard times. the song also has this hopeful and nostalgic feel, which i feels fits him. it sounds sort of like an anthem for us hopeless introverted romantics that find solace in the small gestures of affection and love. just saying i would also die for seungkwan to cover this song.

jeonghan: i am all ears. i feel like jeonghan is definitely seventeens anchor. he grounds them and guides them, in a way much different from how seungcheol does. cheol is their leader, their frontman and main man. jeonghan works the sidelines. he knows all the members inside out, easily knows all the little details about the other 12 boys, what their favorite food is or what snacks they like, what their habits are and what gets them the most frustrated. it’s a silent type of support, almost like a parent or an older sibling or relative. that silent looking out for your friends that’s almost not noticed. just like this song he’s a comforting presence in svt that always offers a hand to hold, a ear to listen or a shoulder to lean on anytime of day or night while still keeping everything lighthearted and honest. this song is actually one of my most beloved songs, the lyrics and the melody is just so comforting and i feel so safe when i listen to it and i feel that’s the kind of feeling jeonghan gives off too..

joshua: 11:11. now this song is probably my all time favorite kpop songs. period. the whole vibe of the song just screams joshua to me. the simple guitar instrumental, the plucking line, the soft percussion in the background and the effortless yet beautiful vocals that softly blends in with all the other elements. it’s a simple and beautiful song, the lyrics reflecting sadness for missing and happiness for experiencing the past, which i feel is such a joshua thing to say.. i might be over analyzing him with this though, and to be honest most of the reason why i chose this song for josh is because i want to hear him sing it, it just fits him so perfectly. a slow, simple and soft track with some sweet guitar and bittersweet lyrics sung in a soft and breathy voice. it’s just so him!!

jun: time lapse. time lapse is easily one of my favorite taeyeon songs. it holds this childish and naive undertone with such serious and beautiful lyrics about growing up and realizing life maybe isn’t what you once thought, yet still seeing the beauty in everything you’ve experienced throughout your life, and despite the hardships and the traumas you’re still able to move forward and try again. i feel like it reflects junhuis personality very well. he’s a very reflective, thoughtful, headstrong, stubborn and smart person, yet he manages to keep this amazing and childish happiness and naiveness to him that i hope he never ever looses.

soonyoung: find me. find me is such a strong song, conveying a message of making your own path, flyging as high as your wings will take you and youll find what youre looking for. it’s a little ambitious, very headstrong and fierce. even though soonyoung may not be precieved as the most fierce or ambitious member, i feel like he’s definitely one of the few in seventeen who has the most self discipline, the most ambitious ideas, the most headstrong mindset and definitely a fierce working ethic. he definitely has his insecurities, as we all do, and this song is almost like a self reassuring anthem telling yourself that no matter what you’ll be fine as long as you keep going forward. which i feel very much reflects him and his values as a person.

wonwoo: city love. i feel like wonwoo is 100% a hopeless romantic at heart. at the same time he’s very simplistic and almost brutally realistic, and i feel like i could definitely connect with him on that..despite this i still imagine that he has this very special ability to see beauty in ordinary everyday objects and things. like the reflections of lights in a puddle or the way the morning fog wraps along the tallest skyscrapers. which is exactly what city love is about. the line; “To me, the things that were meaningless before meeting you, Become new every day” gives me major wonu energy.

jihoon: feel so fine. this song i picked out just because of the lyrics. it’s obviously a beautiful song in itself, but i feel the lyrics hit especially as a song that maybe reflects a bit of the inner conflicts jihoon has endured and learned from. it starts out a little helpless, wondering how you got to this place, what happened, why can’t i be the way i wish i was and then later realizing you’re okay, you’re fine and realizing you’re living in the world you once only dreamed of. i feel especially because of how jihoon opened up about how he felt responsible for seventeens success, he felt accountable for whether or not seventeen would be a hit, if they would make it or not. and now he’s produced a three times platinum, critically acclaimed, award winning, bonsang awarded album. look at you now jihoon, look how high you’re flying. (he also mentioned in hit the road that he no longer feels this obligation and i think that is because of the growth he and the rest for the guys have experienced through these 5 years)

minghao: wine. minghao has this quality about him. he just seems like he’s experienced the world before. he’s an old soul, poetic to an extent yet such a realist. and this song is about loving the memories of a painful love and despite the hardships realizing the beauty of heartbreak. it’s poetically and beautifully heartbreaking, which i feel reflects minghao very well. especially the way taeyeon sings ‘my vintage love’ over and over and the entire feeling in the track..it’s just very minghao. idk how to explain it

mingyu: do you love me. this pick has nothing to do with lyrics, which is kinda funny because this is one of the first kind of cliche love songs on the list i think. the biggest reason why i picked this is because i feel like mingyu would actually enjoy listening to this song, i feel like it’s very mingyu-esque. a soft jazzy ballad with sweet lyrics and gorgeous backup vocals. the lyrics of course coincidentally also convey a message of a newly fallen in love person who hopes the other also feels the same way. which is such a puppylove type song, so much to the point that it makes chills run down my back in excitement. just the feeling you get when you’re newly in love i guess....

seokmin: fire. this may get some of the sonecarats out there confused. because fire is such a heartbreakingly sad song. it’s mostly about a love that’s not good for you. a fire eating you up from the inside and leaving nothing but ash. about feeling alone. but i honestly believe seokmin is one of the boys in seventeen with the most worries, the most internal pushes and pulls. i definitely feel like seokmin is a person who feels his emotions very strongly no matter if they’re happy or sad. i also honestly believe he is his own worst critic, and i wish for nothing else than for him to realize the immense talent and charisma he holds, how much of a fire he is on the outside. how much he shines and how far his warmth reaches. he’s such a star.

vernon: curtain call. this is probably one of taeyeons songs i feel is the most neutral in the feeling it gives me. it has a sort of happy yet sad quality that is kinda hard to come across. i feel like this song is mostly about being okay with how things have turned out, to say goodbye with a smile and remember the good times. and then when we meet again we’ll prepare to smile again. it’s a very calm, reflected and reasonable song which i feel is some of the core personality traits vernon possesses. i don’t think he’s neutral in the sense that he doesn’t feel things, he’s just a person who makes every situation the best it can be, which i think is in all honestly a great way to live.

seungkwan: here i am. this song is so incredibly heartbreaking. it explains the difficulty in showing your true self, masking your real feelings with happiness, smiles and laughs. being afraid of being vulnerable, yet knowing your true raw unfiltered self is just as beautiful and strong as the ideal self you show to everyone. i think seungkwan has definitely had some inner conflict with being labeled the funny one, the mood maker and the jokester of the group. there’s no way that’s not been a chip on his shoulder sometimes, and i think he’s definitely fallen more comfortably now as he’s started to grow to be more secure of himself. i hope he knows just how much carats love every side of him, not just the funny mood maker but also the seungkwan that talks about his mom and cries and the seungkwan that explains his feelings and gets angry and frustrated, the insecure and the tired. everything.

chan: i’m ok. this song is about fighting back, not taking any bullshit. giving back exactly what you got. just ignoring all the people wasting your time and following your dreams and believing in yourself to the fullest. i feel especially this line is full of lee chan energy:

“This ambiguous and lukewarm something. I don’t like playing games of push and pull. No thanks baby”..

it’s also a very sexy and powerful song, i feel like despite this technically being a pop ballad, if jihoon just remixed it slightly and chan maybe wrote a little rap verse for one of the verses it could easily have been a chan solo song, with such a strong and stand-alone type message it fits his personality perfectly. i definitely feel like chan is one of the people in the group who has full awareness of his abilities and how far he can push said abilities. he doesn’t bullshit when it really comes down to it.

[nekoabi]

On the Verge of a Heartbreak - Epilogue

Here it is, the monster of an epilogue... that took two days to write... because I have no self control... *falls flat on her face* Well, yeah. I hope you guys enjoy this! Gonna do a last promo for my writing blog that I’ll officially start posting to with the next fic: @nekoabiwrites

AU: Human, (post) School Pairing: Moxiety, OC/OC Words: 9621 (ye it’s long) Warnings: Mention of alcohol and drunkenness, descriptive panic attack, Roman gets mad a few times, yelling, bad life habits. Anything else, please let me know!

Summary: Roman Ashworth is loving his life, or at least... he thinks he is.

Roman Ashworth was happy with his life. He was perfectly content with his job and his lifestyle. Everyone at his job was too stuffy and uptight, completely not his type of people. He preferred to leave them to their own devices, having always turned down their invitations to spend time together after work until they finally got the message. Instead, Roman would go back to his empty apartment, take a few hours to wash off the boring 9 to 5 desk job costume and replace it with a perfect party look, go out to one of the many clubs, and then just dance and drink the night away.

He had friends, though. While at work, he’d talk with his co-workers and they were always so pleased to be around him. At the many clubs, Roman was close to all of the security and bar staff, so clearly they were friends. He even spoke to his old school friend, Remy, on occasion. Yes, Roman Ashworth’s life was going just the way he wanted it to.

That was until one day, when all the things he’d been running from and pushing to the back of his mind came crashing down around him.

It all started when he got a message from Remy, asking to meet at their usual spot that evening. Roman was utterly delighted that his friend wanted to spend some time together, would be a nice change from the usual day-to-day life. So, that night he cut his partying short and headed to their usual meeting point – a small local diner. Upon entering, Roman was easily able to pick out his friend due to the signature leather jacket and the fact there were only three others in the diner at the time.

Roman slid into the seat opposite of Remy with an exaggerated sigh, “Man, I don’t know about you, but I am exhausted!”

In front of him, Remy simply sipped loudly through the straw between his teeth. He kept the sound going for a few seconds for effect, but eventually let it pop out of his mouth, “You’re half an hour late.”

Roman scoffed, “I’m sorry, I’m just such a busy guy. I’m sure you know how it is.”

Remy seemed to consider fighting the point for a moment, but then clearly thought better. He shook his head and took another long drink before speaking again, “I have something for you, Ro. Something from your brother.”

At the mention of his family member, Roman immediately went on the defensive. Originally, he’d looked excited at the mention of receiving something, but that quickly went out the window. Roman crossed his arms and pouted, “I don’t remember having a brother.”

Remy sighed, already tired of Roman’s game, “Look, do you want to know what it is or not, because I can throw it away.”

“No, I wanna see it so I can throw it away if I want to.”

Remy rolled his eyes and reached into his pocket. He pulled out the plain envelope and placed it in the centre of the table, within reach of them both and stared at Roman. Slowly, the man leant back in his chair and seemed to relax entirely, as if a weight he was carrying was dropped off of his shoulders. He casually sipped at his drink once more, watching Roman carefully as he grabbed the envelope.

Roman purposefully took his time opening the envelope. He could feel Remy watching him, even after the man had flicked his sunglasses down, and Roman really didn’t feel like playing up to his friend’s expectations. It was hard, but he managed to accomplish his goal and slowly took the piece of thick paper out of its holder, flipping it open fairly quickly.

His heart stopped as he saw what was, unmistakably, a wedding invitation.

“Is this some kind of joke?” Roman turned the paper towards Remy, pointing to it accusingly, “Because it’s not very funny.”

Remy pulled his sunglasses down a little to make eye contact with Roman, giving the man an opportunity to show his exasperation. “No, Roman, it’s not a joke. It’s a real wedding invitation from your real brother.”

“I already told you, I don’t have a brother.” Roman huffed. He opted to ignore the continued disdainful look from his friend and focus on the invite itself. It was proudly proclaiming the wedding of his former brother and his fiancé, who just happened to be the same person from years back. The silver detailing was intricate, yet also very simple as it stuck mostly to the border of the letter. Roman read the words again and again, trying to come up with anything else to say.

He didn’t want to go to this wedding. He didn’t want to see the man who was supposed to be his brother and the kid who he’d lost years ago. He didn’t want to see who he was marrying and see them both looking happy once more. He didn’t want to go because he’d likely have to see the other’s family and deal with all of them, which meant seeing… him.

“Ugh.” Roman threw the paper down onto the table and pushed it towards Remy, “I’ve thought about it and I’m totally not going. I’d have to see Logan again. I am not about to give him the satisfaction of seeing me and gloating in my face about how great he is and how much better his life is with his two brothers.” Roman pretended to puke, sticking a finger into his opened mouth.

Across the table, Remy had had enough. He roughly slammed the recyclable cup he was sipping out of against the table, not making a loud sound but getting his point across and managing to get Roman’s full attention.

“See? This-” Remy flicked his finger up and down Roman’s body, “-is the problem here. You.”

Roman spluttered, clearly offended. He went to speak but Remy took the sunglasses off of his face and snapped the arms shut, “I wasn’t finished.” Remy said, his voice somehow both calm and threatening at the same time.

“You are still holding onto the past, Roman. You tell me every time we meet up that you’re over it, that you’re done with all that, but look at you. You’re throwing away an invite to a wedding because you don’t wanna see one person. One person you’ve put characteristics onto that are not even a part of them.” Remy sat up straight for the first time, locking eyes with Roman, “How do I know that? Because I’ve met with them. I’ve met with them all, and guess what? They’re not dicks. They never were dicks.”

Roman was slowly getting angry. How could his friend turn on him like that?! “That’s not fair, Rem! I thought you were on my side!”

“OH. MY. GOD.” Remy threw his hands into the air, silencing Roman. The few people still around in the diner turned to see what was going on, “There are no sides, Roman. There have never been sides to choose. You made your own problems by focusing all your attention on ruining one guy’s life, and you are still so blind to all the shit you’ve caused.”

“Luckily, they’ve all been able to move on without you and they’re probably better for it. Do you wonder why you’re always alone, going out to clubs to dance with strangers, drinking the night away?” Remy asked rhetorically, “It’s because you’re unable to make friends. You never learned how.”

“That’s a lie! I-” Roman started to respond but Remy cut him off again, standing up out of his chair which caused it to make a horrible screech as it slid back.

“No, it’s not, Ro. You have no friends at work, which you happily gloat about because ‘they’re no fun’. You have no friends outside of work because all you do is go out and party with strangers who forget your name the next day because all of them are so drunk. You have half a friend, Roman Ashworth, and that is me.”

“Half a friend…?” Roman asked meekly, a little scared at Remy’s behaviour.

“Yeah, half a friend. Because I am getting sick and tired of all your high and mighty behaviour. You’re not better than anyone else, sweetheart. You’re actually worse off than most. And, if you keep this up, you’re going to lose that half as well, because I am gradually losing hope for you. I used to sometimes be able to see that kid I used to be friends with, the kid that was fun and wasn’t obsessed with himself, wasn’t obsessed with some other kid that had literally no interest in fighting him, and I’m really starting to lose sight of him.” Remy plucked his cup back up and made to head towards the door but stopped just as he turned his back to Roman, “If you ever start to wake up and see the destruction you’ve caused, call me. Or-” He reached back into his jacket again and pulled out a second envelope, this one noticeably thicker than the one he’d handed to Roman. He held it between two fingers, showing the other man that his name was written on the outside, “-I might see you at the reception.”

With that, Remy walked out the door of the diner.

Roman was left alone with the invitation still staring him in the face, along with the few other customers who were watching him with interest. Quickly, he grabbed the invite and walked back to his apartment.

He was absolutely furious that Remy would even say such things to him. How dare he insinuate that Roman was one of the worst people he knew! How dare he say that he was only ‘half a friend’ to Roman now! How dare he even try and compare Roman to those who’d dropped him so easily all those years back.

Roman stormed around his apartment for a while, thinking about what to do. “C’mon, Roman. Think. You just have to prove that he’s wrong about you.” He muttered to himself as he paced frantically.

Then he had the most brilliant idea he’d ever had. Roman dove for his laptop that rested on the small coffee table and switched it on as he took a seat on the couch. He drummed his fingers on the edge, a giddy sense of glee filling him. If Remy was so sure that everyone else was having a great time with their ‘friends’ and whatever, then Roman was just going to have to find evidence that he was wrong.

Roman searched through his social media in order to find either Patton or his fiancé. He first found the fiancé’s but then realised that he was blocked by the profile holder. Roman took offense and quickly moved to Patton’s, more determined than ever to find proof that their lives were not as perfect as Remy made them out to be.

“Oh, you were always too trusting, Patton…” Roman spoke low, as if he were taunting the statue of the man that resided in the profile picture. He wasn’t blocked here, he was even still a friend, which gave him access to all he could possibly want to find. “Let’s see what you have on here, shall we?” Roman spoke to himself as he began to scroll through the pictures Patton had posted over the years.

This trawling through the other man’s pictures and memories did not have the desired effect on Roman, however. Instead of finding pictures where they seemed to be faking their amazing life and great friends, Roman was being greeted by images that just proved Remy’s point. He searched desperately, trying so hard to find evidence to his theory, but ultimately came up short. He could reason out all the smiles with negative ideas as much as he liked, but there was no water to any of it.

Slowly, Roman started to give up hope and just began to click through the pictures. He’d not seen his little brother in well over 7 years, and the absence was suddenly hitting him hard. He’d gone all the way back to pictures that had been taken a little after the day they moved away from the old neighbourhood and was watching the young man grow into the adult he was today.

Roman clicked through picture after picture showing his daily college life; his dorm room, all the friends he was making, his relationship with his now fiancé. Everything looked idyllic and perfect.

Now, he wasn’t an idiot. Roman knew deep down that this was still an idealised version of Patton’s life, but there just had to be some truth behind it, especially as every photo was within a few days of each other.

He slapped the lid of the laptop shut in frustration. Roman decided to get some rest, he’d be able to focus better tomorrow anyway, and he would definitely be able to find something that proved his point.

The next couple of weeks went by in a blur of usual mundanity for the most part, though Roman was now hyper aware of how his co-workers acted around him. They seemed to grow quiet as he approached, either beginning to talk in hushed whispers or just entirely going silent. Before he'd had that talk with Remy, Roman saw these behaviours as invitations for him to start his own conversations with the groups he was passing by, but now he wasn’t so sure. Roman attempted to brush this off as a random coincidence and go about his day as normal, but the idea kept nagging at the back of his mind.

At the end of each day, he was more than ready to go about his usual evening routine and just go have some fun. Roman forgot about the social media scrolling and just did what he always did. He went out, got drunk and had a great time with some strangers, but one day, he left before the club closed because he still couldn’t get the odd nagging from his mind.

Roman huffed as he walked through the door to his apartment, kicking off his shoes roughly. He went to the bathroom to remove his makeup and his eyes caught the laptop still sitting on the coffee table where he’d left it weeks prior. He paused, considering it for a second before ignoring it and reaching for the makeup remover. It was only once he had fully cleansed his face that he looked at the piece of technology again.

Realising he’d never be able to sleep if he didn’t at least have a look, Roman threw himself onto the couch and flipped open the laptop. As he waited for it to load, he pulled out his phone and looked at his own profile.

He felt like he needed to compare himself, really visualise the difference that Remy had been talking about in order to understand it because he really wasn’t seeing it right now. His heart sank, and his stomach ached as he realised that every picture he had was usually of him alone; selfies of him in dark clubs or his own apartment. The ones that had other people in them were of people he didn’t know the names of or were of him and Remy. It wasn’t until he went back to his high school pictures that he was able to see photos of himself with people he could easily recognise and name.

Roman started to feel queasy so he threw his phone to the side and focused on getting back to Patton’s profile on his laptop. More pictures went by as he spent the next hour looking at them. Photos from holidays and vacations with his fiancé and their family, photos from date nights and anniversaries, photos of people Roman could vaguely recognise from their high school days. But then came the pictures from the last Christmas that had gone by.

The first was like most Christmas pictures he’d already seen on his travels through Patton’s life, showing him wearing a large festive jumper and his fiancé begrudgingly wearing one of their own. The next ones were what hit Roman the hardest.

He saw his parents. With his little brother. And without him.

Roman hadn’t realised that he’d not only dropped his little brother all those years ago but had also lost contact with his parents. He hadn’t spoken to them since he’d decided to move away to the city, figuring that he didn’t need to. Each and every time they’d invited him home, he’d been busy – or so he’d fooled himself into thinking. And they’d stopped trying after all these years. Patton had done the same back then, having moved away so suddenly and not really wanting anything to do with their parents, but he’d clearly patched up the relationship somewhat. It hurt to see this, see himself excluded from what could be seen as any normal family picture. The next one hurt even more. It was both of the families, sitting together for a posed picture. He finally got to see Logan’s face for the first time in years. He could seem him happy, alongside not only his parents, but also Roman’s own parents.

Roman once again slammed the laptop shut and left it to fall into sleep mode. He moved into his bedroom and attempted to fall asleep, trying to rid his mind of the image he’d just seen. The next day, he didn’t even feel like going out. He instead decided to sit on his couch and binge some TV. He tucked the laptop away in a place he couldn’t see it, trying to remove the temptation to torture himself some more.

This went on for another week, just Roman working all day and then sitting in front of his TV until he eventually passed out from exhaustion. All the while, he was cursing everyone he used to know, especially Remy. The man was supposed to be his friend and yet he’d cursed him like this, forced him somehow to look at all of those pictures and make him feel the worst he’d ever felt in his entire life.

It wasn’t until one of his co-workers approached him that Friday did Roman finally realise something was terribly wrong with his life.

Roman had almost fallen asleep as his desk due to his entire week involving him passing out at around 1am after laying on the couch for hours. So, when the meek young employee had approached and checked if he was okay, Roman was definitely startled.

No one at work had spoken to him so kindly in a long time. “I was just a little worried.” The young worker said, “You’re usually full of energy and life, but recently you’ve looked a little worse for wear and I just wanted to make sure you were okay…”

Roman awkwardly assured his co-worker that he was okay, or was at least going to be soon, still a little thrown off by the nice gesture. It felt good to be thought about by someone. Later, during his lunch break, he managed to catch up to the other co-worker and ask if they were sitting with anyone, before taking up a seat at the same table in the café.

That lunch had been the most enjoyable in a long time. Roman wasn’t sat at his desk alone or out somewhere by himself, he was laughing and learning about someone else. Later that day, he was still hung up on it and decided to pull out the laptop again.

He didn’t want to look at pictures any more, Roman decided as he unlocked the laptop once more. He moved back to the main page of Patton’s profile and scrolled a little through his other posts, reading the most recent ones that all seemed to be related to his upcoming wedding.

Roman paused for a second when he saw one that had a couple of names he recognised. Patton had made a post a few weeks back, talking about how his fiancé’s brother and his fiancé’s best friend had argued over who would be the best man, and both of them were tagged. Roman hesitantly clicked on the best friend’s name, just curious to see how he was doing.

There was some zing of joy that managed to sneak through the ever-present gloom that was filling Roman’s body as he saw that the old friend of his was doing well. He scrolled through the pictures for a moment, trying to figure out why he recognised the girl that was in a lot of the photos before giving up and heading back to Patton’s own page.

Roman paused as a thought entered his head. Remy had said he’d spoken to the couple, right? Did that mean…?

Without even really giving a single thought to the consequences of his actions, Roman looked at Remy’s profile. It was then that his world really shattered around him. Remy had other friends, Remy looked happy. Roman had very few memories where Remy was as happy as he looked in these pictures. He scrolled through a few, noting that the old friend he was previously looking at featured in some of the pictures along with the girl.

The laptop was quietly shut and placed back on the table. Roman was left in the dark of his apartment. It was now nearly midnight. This would usually be when he’d be in his element in the clubs, and here he was, sat alone. He reflected on everything he’d seen over the past weeks, slowly letting everything add up in his head.

He really did have no friends. He did nothing but work and party. He went to the clubs to fulfil that sense of companionship with drunken strangers who he forgot the names of before they’d even parted ways. He brushed off the invites to hang out with his co-workers and his family, which had made them start to ignore him. He’d deluded himself into thinking this was the best way to live his life, that he was free from all restraints and was doing exactly what he wanted. But those pictures told a different story.

Roman knew he wanted what those pictures had all shown him. He wanted friends, he wanted to have relationships that meant something. He wanted to get his family back, he wanted to laugh and cry with them and see them happy. He was starting to get that back from the singular lunch experience he’d just had, but that was only a taste – and Roman realised he’d been craving it for years now.

He groaned and buried his face in his hands, “What have I done…?” Roman once again spoke to the empty air, as if maybe some voice would respond to him. As his hands fell away and he stood to get a drink, the white of the wedding invite caught his eye. He’d dropped it onto the small table just outside of the kitchen area, thinking he’d throw it away eventually, but something was stopping him.

Just then, Remy’s voice rang through his head, “If you ever start to wake up and see the destruction you’ve caused, call me.”

Without thinking through the consequences, Roman reached for his phone and called Remy’s number. It rang for what felt like forever before Remy finally picked up.

“What?” came the sleepy voice. Roman laughed to himself; he’d forgotten that Remy was always cranky when someone interrupted his sleep. “Look, if you called to just laugh at me, coul-”

“I think we need to talk, Rem.” Roman quickly responded, before Remy could finish his thought, “I think… I need your help.”

There was a moment of silence, only broken by the slight rustling on the other end of the phone line. Roman fiddled with the ripped flap of the invitation’s envelope that was still sat underneath it on the table as he waited for Remy’s response.

“Okay. But we’re meeting late, I need my beauty sleep. Perfection like this doesn’t happen without good rest.”

Roman was able to hold back his laughter as his nervous energy poured out from him, “Sure thing. How about 5pm?”

“Uh, no, my terms. 8 or later.”

“Demanding as usual. Fine, 8.”

“You can’t talk shit.”

“Uh huh, sure. See you tomorrow, Rem.”

With that, they both hung up. Roman sighed and decided to head to bed, finding that rest came easier that night than any before.

----

Roman nervously tapped his foot as he checked the time on his phone for the umpteenth time since he’d sat down in their usual seats at the diner. It was now getting close to 8:45 and Remy had still not turned up or messaged him. Roman had already made his way through several drinks as his throat kept drying up.

As Roman was beginning to type out a message to Remy in order to check if he was actually coming, the man in question strolled through the door casually and slipped into a seat opposite.

“Sorry, I’m late. I’m just so busy… I’m sure you’d understand.” Remy flippantly stated, exaggeratedly gesturing and throwing his legs up onto the empty chair beside him.

Roman breathed out a self-conscious laugh at having his own words thrown back at him, “Okay, I deserved that…”

“Oh no, that’s just the beginning, darling. I have plenty more where that came from.” Remy pulled out his phone and opened one of the notes pages, “Should I list them for you?”

“Nah, surprise me next time.” Roman pushed the phone down. A moment of silence passed as Remy stared at Roman through his sunglasses, it took that whole time for Roman to realise his friend was waiting for him to say his piece.

He took a deep breath and began to speak, “I wanted to meet you to say I’m sorry for how shitty I’ve been. This whole month has been fucking torture because what you said has been playing on my mind, which made me see the truth. It made me realise I’ve just been pretending, pushing away the negative thoughts and making everything positive. I’ve been so focused on me, and I haven’t looked at anyone else around.” Roman thought back to the co-worker he’d spent lunch with the day before and smiled, “But now I realise that I need to be better. I need to listen to people, not just brush them off all the time… because that’s how I end up with no one in the long run. I figured the best person to start with in order to make myself better was you, Rem. You’ve been my friend for years, you’re the only one I’m still in contact with from back then and you never actually gave up on me, no matter how much I ignored you or frustrated you. I feel like I need to thank you and apologise a hundred times over before I’ve truly made up for all the shit I put you through, but I hope this is, at least, a good place to start…”

Remy was silently sipping at the drink in his hand. He said nothing, even after it was clear Roman was done. He let a minute go by, looking as though he was considering everything Roman had just poured out to him. “You’re right.”

“Huh?” Roman almost jumped as the man opposite suddenly spoke.

“You really do have to apologise a hundred times.”

Roman flicked his eyes around the diner. He was unsure if Remy had accepted his initial apology or not. He waited in yet more silence as Remy took another extended drink through the straw that was perpetually between his lips.

“…but I guess this is a good enough start.”

Finally, the cup was placed on the table and Remy smiled his half smile at him. Roman felt his entire body relax. He’d been so god damn tense this whole time without even really noticing it. He felt like laughing maniacally out of relief, but managed to reign himself in before talking, “Thanks, Remy.”

“That’s two.”

“Fuck... you’re actually going to keep count aren’t you?” Roman rested his forehead against the table, groaning.

“You know it, hon.”

“Great.”

“So, who’s next on your list?” Remy asked, changing the subject.

Roman raised his head and sighed, “See, I’m not sure exactly who I need to apologise to. Like, I know I should say it to my family and Patton’s fiancé’s family and everything, but who else?”

“Wow, you really do need my help. Alright,” Remy finally moved his sunglasses off of his face. He rested them up on top of his head, so he could look Roman dead in the eyes, “Let’s get started with this list.”

For the next two hours, the two friends sat and figured out a ranked list of people who Roman needed to apologise to. It started with the easier and geographically closest ones for Roman to handle, so he’d get the hang of what he needed to say and how to say it in a way that wasn’t awful. Remy listed off everyone he could think of on the top of his head before grabbing Roman’s phone and scrolling through his contacts and his social media. They left the obvious ones until last.

“So, when do you think you’ll speak to them?” Remy casually asked, as they’d now reached his family members.

Roman shrugged, “I dunno… Depends how quickly I get through the rest of these?” He said, clearly unsure of himself.

Remy raised an eyebrow, “Really? You can’t think of any time at all when you’d be able to see them all?”

“But… wouldn’t that be… kinda gross to do? Bring it all back up on their wedding day?” Roman was trying his hardest to think of a better time, but nothing was coming. After the wedding would be awful and he really only had two options before that: skipping out on their invite to the wedding and then showing his face after that when they would have already probably made a decision about him due to his absence, or turn up at the wedding, actively avoid interacting with anyone that might possibly recognise him but then that would also make it seem like he’d not cared to show up at all even though he had.

He began to search for even the smallest reason not to turn up, “Like, I don’t wanna start a fight on their wedding day, Rem. It would be bad.”

“Start a fight? What the fuck are you talking about?”

“Well, y’know… me and Logan haven’t gotten along and-”

“Ughhhhhhhhhhhhhh.” Remy groaned loudly, rolling his eyes back. “Roman, come on. Are you still stuck on him? Just let it go, bitch. Oh my god. I don’t even know what he did to make you hate him so much, but it better be something fucking traumatic as hell or else I’m walking out of here.”

Roman shut his mouth. If he was completely honest with himself, he didn’t even remember what Logan had done all those years ago. He’d just ended up telling himself and everyone who asked that he was ‘just an uptight, controlling asshole’, but that still didn’t mean that Logan was in the clear. Also, yeah, he was kinda a huge dick to Logan and stuff, but that didn’t really matter anymore. He hadn’t seen the guy in years, so really it didn’t have anything to do with what he was currently trying to figure out.

“Wait.” Remy was currently reading his mind, if his facial expression was anything to go by when Roman looked back up, “You don’t even realise what you really did, do you?”

“Rem, please, just tell me stuff. Don’t ask questions like that… I can’t.” Roman whined, almost pleading with his friend.

Remy silently pulled out his own phone again. He scrolled through something that Roman couldn’t see from the angle he was currently sat. It was only once the phone was slid across to him that he was able to see that it was a social media chat. What he read caused his stomach to churn.

Message after message sent between Patton and Remy went by. He read all their discussions, from their first correspondence where they’d lamented the loss of their friend and brother, up until their recent talk about asking him to come to the wedding.

“Oh, that’s not all.” Remy plainly said as Roman attempted to push the phone back to its owner. Another chat was opened, this time with Reggie. He scrolled back up to a specific message before letting Roman read again.

This time all the messages described what had happened once Roman had left the school and the effect he’d been having on his little brother and their friends. He was only able to get to the messages that described what he’d done on that fateful day in the park before Roman had to stop himself before he puked.

“Okay. Okay. I get it. Just. Stop showing it to me.” Roman cried out, leaning against the back of the chair in an attempt to get as far away as he could from the phone screen.

“Do you really get it, Roman?” Remy asked, his voice measured and serious. “Do you get what you did? What your actions caused? Because you better understand before you even think about seeing any of them again.”

Roman swallowed hard and tried to calm himself down. It hadn’t occurred to him that he’d been such a dominant source of anxiety and stress for his little brother and his friends. He’d never stopped and thought about how his obsession with proving Logan was somehow worse than him and taking him down a peg would even remotely cause such changes. He’d absolutely never thought that he would actually have been the source of arguments and disagreements. Something inside of him was thrashing about, yelling at him and punishing him. Maybe it was his morality that had finally been released from its cage after all these years.

He didn’t even realise he was losing himself to it all until a hand rested on his shoulder and Remy’s voice reached him, though it did sound like he was far away down a tunnel, “Hey, Roman. Can you breathe for me?”

Roman tried, but he found his lungs weren’t listening. They seemed to just want to breathe sharply. It was almost like he was drowning, he was shivering like mad, but he felt like he was in boiling hot water. His muscles were tensing to the point of being painful, causing him to start to curl up into a ball, which didn’t help his breathing.

“C’mon Ro. You can do it. Just follow this pattern as best you can.” Remy started to gently stroke a rhythm out on his back, keeping it perfectly in time. Roman could just about make out Remy vocally breathing through it at the same pace.

He managed one shaky breath, but then fell back into a couple quick ones. “Good, that was good, Ro. Keep trying.”

It took a few minutes, but eventually Roman was able to breathe deeply again. He was now able to notice Remy crouched at his side. They were still in the diner, it was still dark outside. Everything was getting back to normal. Aftershocks still racked Roman’s body from time to time, but he felt better, “What… what was that?” He asked, still a little dazed.

Remy stood up and took his seat across from Roman once more, “A panic attack, Ro. I guess that was my fault, shouldn’t have thrown that all at you in one go. Sorry.”

Roman shook his head softly, “Don’t. It’s okay. I just… I never realised. I didn’t know that-” His throat seemed to close as he went to admit it out loud. He cleared it purposefully and powered on, “-that I did all that. That it was all my fault.”

Remy nodded, “Well, do you get it now?”

“I think so…” Roman bowed his head and paused as another aftershock of shudders flew through his body, “I have so much more to apologise to them for, huh?” He smiled ruefully at his friend that was back to sipping at his new drink.

“Understatement of the century, sugar.” Remy responded with his own smile as he also flicked his sunglasses back down over his eyes.

From that night onwards, Remy would spend at least one evening a week leading up to the wedding with Roman. He was the one who critiqued the apologies Roman came up with and got him to change them for the better, while also being the support Roman needed in order to even go through with some of them. As the weeks went by, the pair found themselves just enjoying their nights together as they relaxed a lot more. Roman was still trying to get out of some of his old habits, but Remy wasn’t too pushy on it. He was finally seeing the kid that he became friends with back in middle school; the sassy confident asshole that complimented him so well. Remy had to remind Roman of his old self from time to time, especially when he started apologising for something that wasn’t a big deal.

One night, Roman and Remy were simply lounging on Roman’s couch, watching a show and chatting. Roman grabbed the wedding invitation off the coffee table and turned to Remy, “Hey, so I was re-reading this earlier today and it’s an invite to the reception, right?”

Remy looked between the invite and Roman, eyebrows raised, “Did you think they’d invite you to the ceremony? I thought we’d already worked through your delusions, but alright.”

“No, you dick.” Roman shoved Remy’s shoulder with an exasperated smile, “I just wanted to make sure.”

“Ohhhh, sure.” Remy held his hand still as he was shoved lightly again, making sure to not spill the drink he was holding.

“So, what about you?”

“I’m going to both.”

“Oh.”

Remy glanced to the side and saw Roman’s slightly downcast expression. Clearly the man had not been expecting that revelation to come out so easily, but he quickly managed to shake it off and smile unconvincingly once he noticed Remy looking at him.

“Okay, Ro, do I need to explain again how much I’ve been in their lives?” Remy sighed and tilted his head back to rest against the back of the plush sofa.

“Nah, I kinda knew it. I guess I just needed to hear it to really believe it. Y’know?”

The corner of Remy’s lip twitched into a smile, “Yeah, I get it.”

Then the week of the wedding came. Remy had to cancel their usual get together as he needed to travel, but he did threaten Roman gently in order to make him promise to show up. This threat was what made Roman turn up on time, finding himself swamped in a landscape of unfamiliar faces. Some of the more friendly and chatty guests tried to start small talk with him and Roman obliged them, being as polite as he could while also dodging around the question of how he knew the couple.

Roman eventually found himself lingering in the bathroom of the reception venue, checking himself in the mirror over and over. He kept finding small things that needed to be fixed, but a small part of his brain – that sounded strangely like his friend - told him that he was stalling so he didn’t have to go through with what was going to undoubtably be the hardest apology he was ever going to have to do.

He wasn’t deluded anymore. He was aware of what his actions had caused, at least as far as Remy could tell him. There was no way for him to truly know what effect he’d had on Patton and his parents after all these years, but he knew it wasn’t a positive one. Roman was highly aware of the fact that they might not accept his apology outright and – while he knew it would hurt – he wasn’t going to be surprised if that happened. The amount of pain and suffering he’d caused over the years was a hell of a lot, almost to the point of being unquantifiable, so he was prepared to take their decision with dignity. He knew it wasn’t about him - well, okay it was a little about him, but it wasn’t about him – so if he was left hurting at the end of it all, that was just how this was going to go.

His phone buzzed as he was bracing himself to leave the bathroom. Roman checked it to see a message from Remy.

Rem: Boy. You better be late or something, because I will ruin you if you’re not coming.

Ro: I’ve been here for almost 30 mins, just been in the bathroom for...      For most of it.  

All of a sudden, the door to the bathroom slammed open and crashed into the wall.

“You better get your cute little ass out of this bathroom right now or else, lord help you.” Remy shouted. Roman realised that the door hadn’t even shut as Remy finished his sentence.

“Rem!” He whispered harshly, “Shut up! The last thing I need is-”

“…It’s not a wedding without a fight, right honey?” Laughter followed the voice that floated through the small crack in the door as it finally shut.

Roman hung his head and turned away from his friend, “Great. Wonderful. Just perfect! Now people actually think I’m getting into a fight! Y’know, the whole thing I wanted to avoid!” Roman glared into the mirror, trying to catch Remy’s gaze.

The other man was leaning against the wall between two of the stalls and simply shrugged, “Wouldn’t have been an issue if you didn’t hole yourself away in here, honey.”

Roman scoffed and rolled his eyes before turning back to face his friend, “Don’t you ‘honey’ me. Ugh, I don’t know if I can do this, Rem…”

“You can and you will, unless you want-”

“Unless I want you to tell them that I’m a coward who turned up and wanted to apologise but skipped out because it was too difficult for me. Yes, I know, Rem. You’ve told me a hundred times.” Roman cut across the other, sounding exhausted.

“Alright, good, you listen. Now, you’re gonna stand up straight, walk out of here, go find your table, sit and listen quietly like a good little boy, wait until the moment you can move and then go say your thing, right?” Remy casually rattled off the plan they’d gone over and over in Roman’s apartment a few weeks ago.

Roman sighed heavily, “There’s no getting out of this, is there?”

“Nope.” Remy crossed his arms, “Either you do it yourself, or I drag you out of here to do it, and that wouldn’t look good, sweetie.”

“Ugh, I know! I know!” Roman almost cried to the ceiling, as if he were cursing some kind of omniscient being for putting him in this situation.

Remy blinked a few times before speaking again, “Are you done?”

Roman pouted but nodded. He followed his friend out of the bathroom, taking a deep steadying breath before stepping out into the large reception room. He stood just outside of the door for a moment, unsure of where to go. From what he could see, there was something like a photo booth on the far end of the room, which was decorated with pictures and memories of the couple as well as several things that bore the couple’s last names. Currently over there were some people he thought he vaguely recognised, there was a tug at his memory that told him they could be aunts or uncles or cousins that he’d only met a few times. Seeing them reminded Roman that family were going to be involved and he suddenly felt the need to hide back in the safety of the bathroom once again.

Remy made sure he couldn’t do that, however. Almost as if he had a sixth sense for Roman’s panic, the other man grabbed his wrist just before he was about to turn and run before dragging him over to the table that sat just next to the entrance.

“So, you’re back here. What are you going to do?” Remy prompted, pointing at the table plan for the dining area.

Roman found his name at the table furthest away from the head table. He’d expected something like that and so it didn’t come as much of a shock, but he realised that – in order to get to the head table – he’d have to walk through the dance floor, which would be completely clear and in full view of everyone attending. Roman could feel his heart starting to pound as he visualised the worst; being watched by all those pairs of eyes, being rejected immediately without even having the chance to speak and apologise, physically being dragged back across that empty floor and thrown outside.

Remy comforted him by gently stroking the pulse point on his wrist, “Hey, chill out. You’ll be fine. Patton will hear you out, he’s a good guy. Everyone else will follow his lead. Just chill.”

Before he could even respond, Roman was interrupted by the call for everyone to take their seats in the dining area. He shakily drew a breath and looked at Remy, who nodded to him. Both of them walked through the double doors, but Remy was being sat at a table near the front, so he left Roman to sit at his assigned table.

Roman tried to control his pounding heart and his shaking hands as the rest of seats filled up. He quickly realised that he was at the “Random People We Invited But Really Didn’t Expect Them To Turn Up” table, as three of the seats around him remained empty and the rest recalled stories of one time encounters or impersonal tales of how they knew the newly married couple. When it came to his turn, Roman made up a story of how he’d known the couple back in high school – it wasn’t a full lie, but it made it easier than possibly having to explain why he, the brother of one of the grooms, was sat here at the back of the room.

It felt like an eternity before the wedding party finally arrived, giving Roman a reason to stop talking to these people he didn’t know. He clapped politely along with the rest of the room as everyone entered and took their seats at the head table, though he was unable to take his eyes off of his parents and Patton once they’d come through.

They all looked so happy, like actually really happy. Roman had no memories of any of them looking like that, at least as far as he could recall. His stomach started to sink even more as the toasts began, the realisation that his awful behaviour years ago really affected his family in such a horrible way. He barely paid any attention to the toasts and speeches, especially when they came from people he didn’t know or were about events he’d never even heard about. It was yet another reminder that Roman had missed so much of their lives. He reacted in kind with the people at his table, smiling and offering a weak chuckle whenever they laughed, but none of it was real. The only time Roman really found he focused was when people he did know spoke, mostly his father and Logan.

Patton and his new husband – who Roman realised he should now refer to by his name, Virgil – took to the dance floor for their first dance. The moment was pure and adorable, yet Roman felt ill watching the two of them. All he could see as he watched the couple slowly sway were the young kids he’d thrown around and yelled at in the rain all those years ago. Guilt was dripping through his body, making him want to curl up and hide away from everyone. It also gave him the drive he needed to stick through it and make him want to apologise, he wanted to get his family back and see them happy. He wanted to replace that awful memory with ones full of smiles.

Roman almost missed the call for the buffet to start. They were going up table by table and, of course, because he was at the reject table, his was going to be last. He was not upset by this arrangement at all, however. It gave him more time to psych himself up.

The buffet was right across the room from his seat, which meant that if anyone looked just to their side, they would have a full view of him. Roman made sure to keep his face covered by his hand as the head table gathered their food, using the guise of propping his head up as the ruse. He watched and mentally counted down the numbers as each table was called up to get food. As Remy’s table went up, the two made eye contact and Remy jerked his head towards the long main table, a silent message that reminded Roman of his ultimate goal. He nodded in response, which seemed to placate Remy for now. Finally, his table was called.

Roman stood with the rest of them but lagged behind a little as they all passed in front of him. He wasn’t hungry at all. Throughout the process of all the guests gathering their food, Roman had seen many of them take a detour to the head table in order to congratulate the couple on their marriage, so him crossing the empty dance floor wasn’t going to be too out of place. The last member of his table passed in front of him and Roman took the plunge, walking directly towards the head table.

At first, no one seemed to respond in any negative way. They must have thought he was another well-wisher or something, not surprising as they hadn’t seen him in years. It was only once one person clocked that it was Roman that everyone else seemed to fall silent as they realised it themselves.

The rest of the room quietened in response, as other tables seemed interested in what was going on. Roman clenched his fist quickly to try and stop him shaking before he opened his mouth.

“I am here to apologise. To all of you. To my parents, for ruining your lives for years and destroying relationships you may have otherwise spent time enjoying. To all the people here who knew me in high school or college, specifically those who were there to witness… that day. I apologise for causing so much stress, for almost ripping your friendships and relationships apart. I am so sorry for being an ever-present thought in all of your minds and being such a problem for you all. To anyone I used,” Roman glanced to Remy for a second and then to Reggie, who sat at the head table, “I am sorry for being a blockade and a dick to you all. I wish I could have understood how to be a better friend and how much I had to lose back then. I am sorry I only saw you as a tool to further my stupid, self-imposed revenge that really made no real sense. To Mr and Mrs Mortenson, I am so sorry I targeted your son and almost ruined your other’s relationships. I’m sorry I stopped you from seeing my parents back then and I am so sorry for being the reason you moved out of a neighbourhood that appreciated you both so much.”

Roman paused for breath, knowing the hardest part was just about to come out.

“To Virgil,” He turned and looked the man in the eyes, trying to ignore the hatred that was blazing in them, “I am sorry for everything I did to you. I had no idea what impact my actions and words had on you, especially back then. Now, I am aware that I likely did lasting damage and for that I am deeply sorry. I am sorry for trying to stop you being friends with Patton. I am sorry for causing your brother so much trouble and hurt that he was worried I would turn on you. He was probably correct about me back then, and that is unforgivable.”

“To Logan,” Roman turned and looked at his self-proclaimed school rival, finding the knot in his stomach untying as his gaze wasn’t as rage filled as his younger brothers, “I am immensely sorry for everything I ever did, for all the awful things I put you through. I know my actions and my words were disgusting and I fully own that fact now that I have been able to see the consequences. I am sorry for treating you unfairly and making assumptions that pushed me to find new and creative ways to be a pain in your ass. I am sorry that I ruined so much of your life and practically forced you to worry even more about your younger brother, purely because you were worried my attention would turn to include him in that stupid vendetta I had. I’m sorry for every word I said against you, I am sorry for every action I took against you.”

“And… to Patton,” Roman could feel his eyes beginning to tear up a little as he looked at his younger brother, seeing the small vulnerable young kid he’d almost destroyed. He refused to let himself cry in this moment, it wouldn’t look good and would make him feel like he was trying to gain sympathy, “I am sorry to you, Patton, my little brother, for everything I did. I had no idea that the boy you came home excited to talk about from preschool would turn out to be the man you loved, and it is awful that I tried to stop that. I am sorry for trying to push you to be like me, I’m sorry for even considering and implying that you were even remotely like I was back then. I’m sorry for all the teachers that compared us, for all the stuff I spouted about how close we were, for all the times I caused you to panic and worry about me or anyone I was involved with. I’m sorry that I almost ruined everything for you. I am truly sorry for it all.”

“I understand that some of you may not accept this apology and I want to say that I understand and will respect your decision, no matter what. Everything I did was unacceptable, and I am disgusted with myself. I wouldn’t be here without your kindness and willingness to at least give me a chance, and I definitely wouldn’t be here without you, Patton, reaching out to someone who could get me to realise the problems and hurt I’ve caused all of you. Thank you for being so gracious in listening to me today and for even considering inviting me to the happiest day of your lives.” Roman bowed to them out of pure instinct. He blinked back the tears that were still pricking at his eyes. His throat had caught several times and he needed to now swallow hard in order to stop him from bursting into tears.

Roman stood up straight and looked along the head table. He smiled and thanked them once more before going to turn and leave.

“Roman, wait.”

A voice stopped him from moving. Roman turned back to see Patton standing up, along with Virgil and a couple of Patton’s side of the wedding party. They seemed to be having a quiet argument, so Roman stood still and waited patiently to see what was happening.

On the other side, Logan was watching the man stood in front of him with a soft smile. He was fully aware everything Roman had just said was sincere. So many times in high school did Logan have to sit and watch as Roman faked his way through apology after apology, empty promises that he’d never do anything like that again to any student. This time, the emotion was plain for all to see and his eyes didn’t hold the rage and promise of more hurt. Logan physically found himself relaxing. He even helped in coaxing Virgil off of his new husband.

Everyone was silent as Patton smiled warmly to Virgil, “I know what I’m doing. Don’t worry.” He whispered before pressing a kiss to the other man’s cheek. Patton turned and walked around the table, coming to stand in front of Roman. He could see his older brother was tense, was clearly trying to hold himself together and so Patton smiled a comforting smile before wrapping his arms around Roman in a gentle hug.

Roman’s eyes flew wide. He hadn’t expected this. He stared between the table and the man hugging him carefully. When he heard the next words from Patton, everything came falling down.

“I forgive you, Ro.”

Roman wrapped his arms around his younger brother, silent tears falling from his eyes. He knew he still had a lot to do to make up for everything he’d done, he knew he hadn’t won all of their trust back, but he was more than willing to put in the work to do it. Roman was determined to prove he’d changed. But now, all that mattered was that he had his little brother back.

Last Chapter

My other stuff: http://nekoabi.tumblr.com/myworks Mobile Accessible Masterlist: http://nekoabi.tumblr.com/post/181954641376/fic-masterlist

Abigal and Ayana belong to me. Reggie belongs to @not-so-innocent-bi-sander Daniel belongs to @doces-e--tuga Ana, Em and Asher belongs to @fangsandrainbows Sophia belongs to @notalwaysthevillian

General Tag List: @not-so-innocent-bi-sander @didsomeonesayprince @llamaly @justanotherpurplebutterfly @iaminmultiplefandoms @ultimate-queen-of-fandoms2 @lowkeyvirgilobsessed @louisthewarlock @fangsandrainbows @xxladystarlightxx @sleepyssnail @ao-koshka

OtVoaH Tag List: @daughterofsomnus @chaoticcharm-stone-posts @notalwaysthevillian @iamsilentwolf @ab-artist @6tick6tock6 @lesliealiceinwonderland @kiwisandsprinkles @luckybanana948 @planetsandanxieties @nienna14 @theunoriginaldaisy @absolutesandersidestrash @fiive-second-cookies @i-read-by-lamp @analogical-mess @icing-on-my-lasagna @quietwords-loudthoughts @reinefandoms @hanramz-the-fander @sevencrashing @blenderkit17 @iolanomsgranola @nowedontliveinigloos

[ruby-red-inky-blue]

Tagged by the lovely @leaiorganas, thank you very much!

Fanfic questionnaire!

1. What was the first fandom you ever wrote fic for? BBC’s Sherlock 2. What was your very first ship? Sprotte and Fred from “Die Wilden Hühner” probably? Han/Leia was a big thing, too.

3. What fandoms have you written for, and what are your ships? BBC’s Sherlock (I didn’t focus on it, but Molly Hooper/Greg Lestrade), Doctor Who (River Song/Eleven), NCIS (Ziva David/Tony Dinozzo), The Mentalist (Teresa Lisbon/Patrick Jane), The Vampire Diaries (Katerina Petrova/Elijah Mikaelson and Caroline Forbes/Niklaus Mikaelson), Now You See Me (Henley Reeves/Daniel Atlas oh my God I wrote for that A LOT), Gossip Girl (Blair Waldorf/Chuck Bass), A Song of Ice and Fire (Sansa Stark/Petyr Baelish I know), Marvel [Captain America] (I wrote some stuff featuring Steve and Bucky, I don’t really ship it myself but I’m not saying you can’t read my fic that way either) and Star Wars (Leia Organa/Han Solo), most recently The Americans (Nina Sergeyevna Krilova/Oleg Igorevich Burov) but still very much first and foremost Rogue One (Jyn Erso/Cassian Andor)

4. What ships do you tend to gravitate to?

two troubled people who are equally lonely - usually one by virtue of actually being alone and one who feels very far removed from the people around them - who might lash out at other people but who would never intentionally hurt the other, whether they’re dating or fighting or broken up. Fiercely loyal to one another; tend to be bad at voicing their emotions but show them instead. (Often one by ridiculously grand gestures and the other in the tiny, tiny things.) Also, apparently, height difference is extremely important. [see Leia/Han, Nina/Oleg, Gaby/Illya (The Man From Uncle), Veronica/Logan (Veronica Mars) and Jyn/Cassian]

5. Current OTP(s)? Top Four: 1. Jyn/Cassian (always, always, always) 2. Nina/Oleg 3. Veronica/Logan (they’re on my mind more, but Nina/Oleg is still instant heartbreak) 4. Gaby/Illya (aka the one that doesn’t make me cry, so yay for that)

6. Former OTP(s)? Eleven/River, Tony/Ziva, Klaus/Caroline, Danny/Henley, Chuck/Blair, Sansa/Petyr (aka the ones with the silly shipnames... Tiva, Klaroline, Danley, Chair - honestly, pick the most ridiculous I dare ‘ya)

7. What do you think have been some of your best fic ideas? Even though it’s turning into a huge flaming mess of a plot, I still think The World Through a Scope was a pretty neat starting point - I mean, Rebelcaptain sharing a psychiatrist, you know? Also pretty happy with how I managed to spin my chapter for the Food Travel AU and I am so stupidly happy with my High School AU (which is not a thing I ever expected to be able to say). Also I am highkey in love with the idea of Firefly crossovers and I really want to write more. Aaaand I am so damn pleased with my ridiculous Winter Olympics AU it’s not even funny.

8. Your worst? Some plot lines in The World Through a Scope were Bad Ideas in retrospect, but alas. Also a lot of my earlier ideas weren’t... horrible in itself, but the execution oh my God

9. What kind of fic do you most love to write? Angst angst angst *lol* no but seriously I think my favourites are the really quiet ones, set in the dark at night or in the car, cuddling and angsty conversations and sleepy sweet fluff. I love those (probably because I usually write at night when I’m getting sleepy myself *lol*)

10. What do you dread writing? SMUT more than anything, tbh. And extensive action scenes, I’m bad at adrenaline-inducing excitement

12. What is a fic you would love to write one day? I really do want to write that GDR spy AU in full one day. One fine day *sigh*

13. What’s a fic you wish someone else would write? I’m a sucker for that historical AU stuff so I’d be really cool to see everyone write a Rebelcaptain fic based on some of their home country’s history. I’d loooooove that. Or another Firefly crossover. That too.

Tagging: @skitzofreak, @moonprincess92nz, @movioletta, @ladytharen, @estherlyon, @yavemiel, @thenewleeland, @rapha-writes (please feel free to ignore if you’re not feeling like it and/or have already been tagged ^^)

[eyanril]

Movie Round-Up 2017

My opinions only, of course! :)

Best of 2017:

Logan - This movie is magnificent from the opening to the end credits, and if you haven’t seen it, go out and rectify that RIGHT NOW.  Hugh Jackman brings an utterly heartbreaking vulnerability to an aging Wolverine. Patrick Stewart as Charles Xavier and newcomer Dafne Keen as X-23 keep pace easily with Jackman’s fantastic performance.  The story is amazing, the acting is phenomenal, the special effects and fight choreography are stunning.  Seriously, just sit down and watch it already, even you are not a fan of the X-Men franchise.  You won’t regret it. 

Thor: Ragnarok - A delightful romp that, although it doesn’t hold up particularly well on its own, lightens up the Marvel Cinematic Universe almost as easily as a Guardians film. And despite its overall silly tone, it does a good job wrapping up the Asgardian story line and delivers some actual consequences that will reverberate in later films.

Wind River - Stunning cinematography and superb writing elevate this fairly by-the-book murder mystery above its brethren.  Jeremy Renner and Elizabeth Olson (as well as the supporting cast) are fantastic, and their performances alone make it worth watching.

Get Out - As much biting social commentary as it is thrilling horror movie, this was by far the biggest surprise of 2017 for me.  Everything about Get Out was meticulously crafted, and it deserves every bit of praise it got.  I can’t wait to see what else Jordan Peele has up his sleeve.  

Tie: Guardians of the Galaxy 2 and Spider-Man:Homecoming - Both manage to balance the humor and the gravity of their plots fairly well, giving us plenty of funny interspersed with character growth.  I have to give a slight edge to Spider-Man because of Tom Holland’s adorkable performance as Peter Parker, but I enjoyed them both a lot. 

Most Disappointing of 2017:

Ghost in the Shell - Damn, I wanted to love this, but even Scarlett Johansson wasn’t enough to make this live action adaptation of the beloved anime work. (In fact a lot of people seemed to think she was part of the problem.  I disagree).  It’s gorgeous, and it’s well acted, but at the end of the day it just felt flat and forgettable.

Alien: Covenant - Not sure what I expected, considering the let down that was 2012’s Prometheus.  A far cry from the quality of the original Alien and Aliens, it has all the shine but none of the substance that would be a good modern addition to the franchise. It goes in a direction that makes little sense, and made less of an impression on me than even the much derided Alien:Resurrection.

The Dark Tower - Ugh.  It took me months to read Stephen King’s epic fantasy/horror series in its entirety, and all my hopes and dreams for a good adaptation of the source material were dashed very quickly during The Dark Tower. Not only was it a bad adaptation, it was a bad movie in general.  I only hope that someday down the road someone can do the saga justice, even if it’s as a TV show or miniseries, because at this point anything would be better than this movie.  

Kong: Skull Island - Another one I had high hopes for, another one that let me down.  Tom Hiddleston and Brie Larson were given nothing interesting to do in a movie with a bloated run-time and little plot, which is a shame because they are both fantastic actors.  Utterly forgettable.

Beauty & the Beast - Why, Disney? Why do you have to keep making these mediocre live action adaptations of your already excellent animated films?  I don’t know exactly what I expected with this one, other than more of what made the original good.  Instead we got a charmless scene for scene rehash, with lukewarm chemistry and tepid song and dance numbers that don’t hold a candle to that of the original.

Surprises of 2017:

The Lego: Batman Movie - Having enjoyed 2014’s The Lego Movie on a very basic level, I wasn’t expecting to like this as much as I did.  Genuinely funny and heartwarming, it was a better Batman movie than Batman V. Superman and a better DCU movie than Justice League.

Star Wars: The Last Jedi - Hear me out on this one.  Going into The Force Awakens in 2015, I had seen only A New Hope and The Phantom Menace in their entirety, so I had no idea what to expect of this new iteration.  As it turned out, I was largely indifferent to The Force Awakens.  Color me shocked when I walked out of The Last Jedi very excited for Episode IX.  Was The Last Jedi flawed? Absolutely - and yet, due to a few very crucial elements (mainly any part involving Rey or Kylo Ren), I wouldn’t call it unsalvageable.  In fact, it’s one of the few movies I’d ever consider going to see in the theaters twice, just so I can have more of the good stuff.    

IT - I may have spent half the movie covering my eyes, but as far as horror movies go, that’s high praise coming from me.  While IT has a few issues, overall I found this modern adaptation of Stephen King’s classic novel to be thrilling, terrifying, and terribly beautiful.

Power Rangers - Having grown up with a cousin who spent a good chunk of time obsessed with the original Mighty Morphin version, I watched this mostly for nostalgia.  While it takes itself way too seriously for the most part, Elizabeth Banks’ campy turn as Rita Repulsa elevates the quality whenever she’s hamming it up onscreen.  Overall I enjoyed it, which was not something I expected for a movie rebooting a very bad 90s kids’ show.

Colossal - Based on the trailer, you’d think Colossal was a comedy - and you’d be completely wrong.  Hiding a slightly disturbing redemption story behind a funny facade, this one came out of left field, but managed to leave a good impression.  

Movies of 2017 that I wish I had seen:

Lady Bird - From all accounts, it’s brilliant, and I’m just upset that no theater within a reasonable driving distance is playing it. Saoirse Ronan is an amazing young actress and I’ve always enjoyed anything I’ve seen her in.

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri - See above, ha.  As we both consider In Bruges to be one of the best movies ever made, my husband and I are eager to see it.

Baby Driver - For some reason my husband and I completely missed this in the theaters and we’re now regretting it, considering the amount of praise it has gotten.  Edgar Wright’s movies are always fantastically shot, and I’m sure this is no different.

[wknc881]

Hopscotch Kick Off (Part 1)

As September inches closer by the day, the city of Raleigh starts to prepare itself for that one magical weekend of the month known as Hopscotch Music Festival. This weekend, happening Sept. 7-10, takes over downtown Raleigh as music fans from just about everywhere descend upon the city’s many venues, some even makeshift just for the festival. We here at WKNC look forward to the festival every single year and would like to share with you some of our most anticipated acts for this year in our special Hopscotch kickoff! 

Run the Jewels 

Over the past four years, Hip-Hop has been turned on it’s head by the genre’s super-duo Run the Jewels. Comprised of emcee Killer Mike and producer/emcee El-P, the pair have created an undeniable sound for themselves that originates in their self-titled debut, and has been reinvented twice over on their 2nd and 3rd LP’s. But even more exciting than their studio albums, is the sheer legendary live performance that Run the Jewels has put on for fans all over the country. It only makes sense that Hopscotch would want in on this action, and out of all the amazing acts on the festival’s line-up this year, I am most excited to see RTJ hit the stage.

My favorite tracks from each album include “Banana Clip feat. Big Boi” (Run the Jewels), “Love Again” (Run the Jewels 2), and “Legend Has It” (Run the Jewels 3).

Killer Mike has always been a staple lyricist in Hip-Hop, representing a unique spin on the Atlanta-sound. But after having El-P produce his 2011 album R.A.P. Music, and featuring on El-P’s album Cancer 4 Cure, the two realized the chemistry was perfect, and they toured together to promote these projects. This of course led to 2013’s first release under their new moniker, Run the Jewels. Ever since, they have put on unbelievable live performances, arguably thriving the most successfully at festivals (which is good news for Hopscotch goers).

As Underground Music Director, I have of course promoted every Run the Jewels project, and they continue to be in regular rotation at WKNC, because they encompass the ultimate “Hip-Hop” sound, yet they also reshape it. This year’s performance will be a special treat for me, as I have yet to see them live. The exciting part about seeing a duo is the way they transfer energy back and forth throughout their performance, and I can only assume they have mastered their craft over the last 4 years of touring together. To me, the show just might be, as Run the Jewels would put it, a “Christmas F**king Miracle!”

Run the Jewels will be performing Friday night at 8pm at Red Hat. 

 -John Wilson, Underground Music Director

Cherry Glazerr

Los Angeles’s Cherry Glazzerr is upbeat indie rock with garage rock, punk, and synth pop influences. The band features songwriter Clementine Creevy on guitar and vocals, Tabor Allen on drums, Sasami Ashworth on synth and formed in 2012 when Creevy was just fifteen years old. Their music is an honest display of self expression and offers a modern spirit of the rriot girl movement with frontwoman Clementine’s songwriting themes of feminism and empowerment which can especially be heard in their second album Apocalipstick which came out earlier this year.

Tracks like “Nurse Ratched” feature upbeat garage rock influenced guitar laced in synth, powerful drums, and  strong smooth vocals with socially charged lyrics “She’s a wild one in a land that’s supposed to be free”.

Other tracks have a more self reflective feel such as “Told You I’d Be With the Guys” a reflection of youthful friendships. As well as a more punk influenced sound as Clementine croons with the ferocity of Kathleen Hanna (Bikini Kill) “ I told you, I told you I’d be with the guys, but I know better now than to be with the guys”. Apocalipstick was recorded with the talent of Joe Chicarelli (White Stripes, The Shins, The Strokes) and Carlos de la Garza (Bleached, M83, Tegan and Sara) and released on Secretly Canadian! records.

They are a band not to miss at Hopscotch and will be closing out the Pour House at 12am with a energetic, head-banding, feel good, empowering set.

For fans of: Speedy Ortiz, Diet Cig, Screaming Females  

-Mariam Marand, Local Music Director

Pie Face Girls

Raleigh based trio Pie Face Girls is comprised of Dani Hoffpauir on lead vocals and guitar, Tiffany Huff on bass and Klay Misenheimer on drums. Kicking off the high-energy lineup at Pour House on Saturday, they are sure to cause a stir. Their music is politically motivated with goals aligned against the patriarchy, the “alt-right” and any of their sympathizers. Join these warriors as they tear Trump a new one whilst infecting onlookers with the urge to aggressively move their bodies in solidarity. Their sound is very pop-punk and energizing, some of my favorite songs are “Get On The Floor”, “Dude Yr Girlfriend Sux” and their Peaches cover of “Fuck the Pain Away” (found of their Bandcamp). The Pour House is THE venue to attend Saturday of Hopscotch, with Pie Face Girls getting things started at 9PM and Cherry Glazerr ending the night at midnight.

-Farah Hamouda, DJ sPaRr0vV

serpentwithfeet

I have already seen serpentwithfeet open for Perfume Genius at Cat’s Cradle, but his performance was transformative for me; Josiah Wise, the artist behind the enigmatic music project, weaves together R&B and gospel, creating songs that sound like prayers. Wise is able to piece together the experience of queer love and heartbreak in both a theatrical and intimate way for his listeners. I’m excited to see what he brings to the stage for Hopscotch, since his stage presence demands to be felt, and I couldn’t get enough of his voice. One of the songs I’m most excited to hear (again) is “four ethers” ,an orchestral masterpiece filled with runs of Wise’s voice. During his actual performances, he tend to improvise a lot of his runs, making every show a unique experience.

serpentwithfeet will be performing Saturday night at Nash Hall, 12 p.m. 

-Cas Saroza, Program Director 

Madame Gandhi

You probably heard about the woman who free-bled at the London Marathon, right? She’s also a really neat musician and activist named Madame Gandhi, and she’s playing Hopscotch! Although it was tough to choose with the lineup this year, I’m probably most excited to see Madame Gandhi because I’ve been following her for a couple of years now, and she’s inspired me the whole time. She went on a world tour drumming for M.I.A. while simultaneously attending Harvard Business School through 2015, and she released her first EP, Voices, in late 2016. Additionally, she works with Thinx, a company which makes period underwear, and AfriPads, which produces reusable menstrual pads for people who do not have such products readily accessible. If you’re interested in activism, electronic music, hip-hop, and/or lyrics that *really make you think*, give Voices a listen! The EP is more relaxed than most music that I listen to, but I really enjoy the arrangements throughout it. I’m eager to see what her music is like live and to hear what she has to say. She plays on Friday, September 8, at 11:30pm at Nash Hall. Top tracks include “The Future is Female” and “Yellow Sea,” but they’re definitely all worth checking out!

-Ciera Cipriani, The Fuzz

The Make-Up

When Hopscotch 2017’s lineup came out, there are obviously going to be bands that everyone more or less knows. Then there are those bands that one must discover before the festival. For me, that band was The Make-Up. For many, this band might be one of those bands everyone knows, if you’re of a certain age. The Make-Up released their first album Destination: Love- Live! at Cold Rice the year I was born on the infamous punk/hardcore label Dischord Records. Funny enough, this album isn’t exactly what one might think of when they hear the words punk/hardcore. This album was released on Dischord given the band’s interesting history. Frontman Ian Svenonius and multiple other members of the Make-Up made up 80’s notorious DC hardcore band The Nation of Ulysses. Politically, both bands share a very similar message. Sonically, they are in two different playing fields. The Make-Up will be a band to witness this September at Hopscotch as politics are their bread and butter, right next to making a unique blend of funky, gospel tinged post-punk. They wear their communist, leftist leanings well on their sleeves and are sure to have a few things to say about the current political landscape plaguing America right now. Rest assured, they will still sound amazing with their special live show that calls for audience participation and takes many cues from gospel performances. Be sure to familiarize yourself with this band as they take the City Plaza stage Friday night right before local legends Future Islands.

 -Jamie Halla, General Manager

Make sure you check back in with us on Friday for Part 2 and throughout the next couple of weeks for more coverage! 

[junmyuns]

so i am back from got7′s melbourne fanmeet and here are my thoughts!!

ok so, i’m ngl, i was not very impressed with the organisers of this event?? everything seemed like such a mess, and it made things awkward and weird. i’ve been to lots of kpop concerts/fanmeetings since i first got into kpop, but this one was the most messy imo :/

and it’s funny bc got7 aren’t even my fave group out of all that i’ve seen, but i was soooooooo excited for this fanmeet, more than for some other groups that i consider faves.

i got there kind of late though (5pm), and so most of the merch was gone (though i don’t think i had plans to buy any so that was prob good for my wallet), but most of the freebies ppl were passing out had gone too. i managed to get a pack of cute photocards and a banner but that’s about it. i was too busy in the gold queue for wristbands. i got the yellow one!

that being said, even at the very beginning when they had technical trouble (the curtain was supposed to drop and reveal the members but it never did so they had to bring guys in to manually remove it from the hanging), it was kind of like an omen of what was to come (this sounds so dramatic).

that being said, this is no slight on the boys at all!! they were wonderful! (and dealt with the curtain malfunction perfectly). just other things could have been handled a lot neater by the organisers tbh.

i think they performed q and sign first?? i’m trying to think back on everything... i really love q esp btw, it’s one of my faves on the album (just kind of sad that they didn’t do my fave: paradise).

so at the beginning, andy (the host) asked them a bunch of questions based on the arrival letters. idk i feel like that concept made things a bit awkward, esp when he’d have to prompt the boys to talk. i always like it better when one of the mcs is in the group itself bc since they all know one another, it kind of makes it easier to get a conversation/banter going? they did good though! and mark talked quite a lot in this portion, which warmed my heart. he was pretty good at getting the others answering the questions, and it was all really cute :’) (esp when it was revealed that he and jb have been stealing jinyoung’s shampoo and jinyoung told them it was ok bc “we are one”...he touched jb after that and i’m sorry but my jjp heart launched itself right out of my chest i love them i can’t believe i witnessed that live...I WILL GET BACK TO JJP IN A MOMENT THOUGH).

also, when he got to the letter V, bambam started talking about taehyung?? then he and the translator had the most awkward exchange ever bc bambam joked about it being nice when he’s next to taehyung?? something like that, and the translator thought he said the sun (taeyang), and bambam was like nope this is bad joke sorry. it was so awkward to watch but thinking about it now makes me laugh so much though oh my god.

everyone seemed in a good mood but jackson :( idk if something is up with him, whether he’s not feeling well/he’s tired/misses his mum (bc it’s her birthday) or maybe even his brother and niece, but i don’t think he even talked at all during the first question round. he kind of just sat there looking sad while everyone else talked. i have seen jackson get like this in varieties and stuff, but it’s really heartbreaking to see in person, esp bc jackson is usually so hyper, and he’s my fave too. however, he did talk more towards the end, and i just think he was having an off day (which i don’t blame him for at all bc the amount of stress and work that they have is ridiculous). i think i spent most of the performances staring at jackson and feeling really worried about him, which gave what i was watching more of a sense of realism that i usually don’t feel when i’m at a concert. either way, i really do hope he feels better soon whatever the case.

also, i didn’t talk about youngjae yet!! he wasn’t there (he’s in korea bc he’s not feeling well. he’s with coco according to mark :p), so we didn’t get to see him :( he did have a video message for us though, and the cheers were so loud for him every time they showed him on screen it was great :’D i hope he feels better soon too!

anyway after that, they had a games round and i think the first one was the cheek to cheek round and the JJP LET ME TELL YOU. so basically, it’s that game where two ppl are blindfolded and then there’s an object held between both of their cheeks and they have to guess what the item is using only their cheeks (jackson: “any object?? even a PINEAPPLE”). jb and jinyoung  were put together and i y e l l e d bc i never thought i’d get to see jjp live but boy did i. i actually legit got choked up and i’ve never felt that way at a concert before. like my bias could be dancing right in front of me but give me my otp and i am a fucking goner. THEY DID THE JJ CROSS THING. also one of the members (bambam??) took away the object at one point and jjp were cheek to cheek/sort of kissing?? i can always trust the other members to give me A++ quality jjp content so thanks guys!! (btw their object was an apple). jackson and yugyeom were next (object: plush toy parrot) and then (after some discussing) it was mark and bambam (foam plane).

either way, the jackson/jinyoung/bambam team lost and jackson had to do a girl group dance (aoa’s excuse me) and it made my life. he’s so cute. also at one point jinyoung had to do aegyo and he apologised after but it really was adorable i love aegyo.

i think they did the x2 dance speed game after that? this is another thing that annoyed me. the speed was wayyyy too fast, and yugyeom even brought it up after the first round...that not even weekly idol did it that fast, and whether the organisers could make a bit slower, but nope, just as fast during the second round... and idk. i just didn’t like how the organisers dealt with that.

but before they started dancing bambam was like “i need to take my earrings off for this”. i love this kid.

mark/jb/yugyeom lost and their punishment was another fast dance oh man.

i’m prob messing up all the order with everything that happened, but i can’t remember too well haha.

i know that they performed fly and skyway at some point in the middle though. and it’s funny bc fly isn’t my fave title track of theirs at all, but i loved watching that performance.

i haven’t talked about how cute both yugyeom and bambam were though!!!!! they were so fun and if i didn’t have my bias already locked in place they would have threatened that position so easily :D also bambam kept dabbing but does that come as a surprise to anyone. pls. they seemed really happy :)))

so at some point they had a draw to win an all member signed placard, and they were supposed to pull seat numbers from a box. like a lucky draw type thing. each of the members was supposed to pull a seat, BUT when they started they kept drawing blank pieces of paper?? and so andy had to go backstage to see what was up with the blank pieces, and then got7 were told to entertain the crowd in the mean time, and it was just so disorganised? like the members were kind of confused, and the organisers were kind of scrambling to figure out some way to choose ppl (at first they wanted the members to point out ppl from the crowd, but then they managed to get the lucky draw thing to work somehow idk). anyway, to distract us all, bambam made yugyeom do a sexy dance which was awesome, but also yugyeom is a BABY to me. he’s younger than my lil bro and he can sexy dance all he wants but i still feel like his mother haha.

also, at some point a fanboy won one of the placards and bambam (and mark) got super excited about it. bambam wanted another fanboy to win one it was cute.

they did their ments then. it went: jackson, jinyoung, jb, mark, bambam and yugyeom. all of them did it in english except jb haha. jinyoung’s english is REALLY good. like i knew he was good, but i didn’t expect it to be THAT good, you know? i also really like how whenever jackson tells everyone to stay healthy, he always stresses both physical AND mental health. it’s nice :’)

they performed hard carry and never ever then, i think? suuuuuper hype!!!!!

ok so another awkward moment is that during encore, one of the members (mark?) told everyone to get up out of their seats and literally everyone started rushing to the front of the stage. like everyone in gold. and then the security guards had to yell at everyone to go back to their seats, and bambam was just like “...i just meant get up, guys. not go forward...” and it was just a confusing mess of awkward but also kind of funny now that i think back on it. but then they came out and performed out and go higher and ppl swarmed to the stage again, but i don’t think the security guards could do anything at this point since they were performing already. either way, i got a good view of all the boys since the ppl in front of me had headed to the front and it was BEAUTIFUL. got a good view of pretty much all of them tbh since they moved around the stage a lot.

LASTLY, HI TOUCH!! so everyone in gold was given an armband at the start (either green, yellow or pink). they announced at the end that green and yellow were hi touch and pink was the photo opp. i’m actually SO GLAD that i got hi touch bc i wanted that more than the photo opp. so yesssss, i’ve actually seen up close and touched all the members (except youngjae ughhh). order was: yugyeom, bambam, jb, mark, jinyoung and jackson. i was telling myself that THIS TIME i would gauge their heights (bc i always want to do it when i do hi touches but never end up managing it bc it goes by too fast). i was soooooo nervous when we were lining up. maybe even more so since i waited longer than previous hi touches, and when we were lining up all of us got a nice view of them and they’re so good looking irl it actually pains me. and no, i didn’t remember to check our their heights. hah.

it went by so fast (like most hi touches), but i remember yugyeom and bambam’s hands are pretty soft. jb and mark smack five you a bit more. i don’t remember what jinyoung and jackson did bc i literally forgot how to word and exist the moment i saw jinyoung. he is GORGEOUS. you think you know but you don’t k n o w. i also very clearly remember yugyeom bc he was first and there was a tiny lag in the line so i was prob in front of him the longest. bambam was really cute. jb gave me direct eye contact. i love him. mark tbh i don’t remember all that much bc it was too fast :( jinyoung, like i said, ethereally beautiful. and then jackson wasn’t as smiley. i think he still wasn’t feeling so great, so he just looked a bit sad/serious :( anyway, i didn’t manage to say anything other than “hi” to them, and i don’t think any of them said anything either? just smiled mostly.

also, when i was lining up the security guard told me that her fave was jackson and i was like saaaame girl.

either way, the last person i touched was jackson and the first person i saw was my bro who told me to touch his face so i rubbed jackson on him haha.

and it’s funny but i don’t feel that post concert/fanmeet depression feel as much lately when i go see groups. i just feel kind of happy and a bit nostalgic, which makes it a lot easier to deal with. i’m so happy and fortunate to have had this experience (despite my qualms), and i like feeling like this. it’s a lot better than being devastated that it’s over. of course i’m sad that it’s finished, but i’m also really looking forward to looking back on this whole experience as a fond memory in years to come. and there’s something really nice about that, i think :’)

[dyzie7754]

All This Time (2/2)

Pairing: Sam X Reader Warnings: Angst, blood Summary: Part 2 out of 2. I am just super surprised my writings have taken off. Anyways, the reader heads to meet Sam, but what exactly does he have to say? Word count: Approximately 2300 words. 

 Catch up! Read: Part One

     Reaching your front door, you paused trying to swallow the sudden nervous jitters that seemed to roll in your body like tidal waves. THE SAM WINCHESTER was at your door. Right now, in the middle of the night, being all mysteriously romantic and stuff. Who even throws rocks at windows these days? You found yourself not caring too much as you placed your hand on the cool door knob, that did nothing to calm the heat rising in your skin as you were buzzing with excitement. Who knew such simple teasing could land you right here?  Inches away from a man who had been haunting your fantasies for years.

     A man whose eyes seemed to captivate you. A man whose smile was the brightest you had ever seen. A man who was as fierce as he was soft, as rebellious as he was loyal. A man who was nothing more than a walking mass of contradiction and pure sensual need. A man who had a past darker and more sinister than most criminals. A man whose stability is ripped from beneath him at every turn. A man who has had countless heartbreaks, and ‘almost’ happy times. A man whose heart was hurting, and whose mind was barely taped together.

Blowing out the breath you didn’t know you had been holding, you opened the door slowly, biting your lower lip in anticipation of what lay beyond only several layers of treated oak. When Sam finally came into the view of the increasing gap, he smiled at you.

“Y/n!” he chuckled, his voice sounding relieved. “You had me worried! For a second there, I thought ah-I thought you really weren’t going to open the door.”

“Sam, how could I not open the door? It’s you,” you say simply, truthfully.

You couldn’t quite read Sam’s expression at your response. It was almost pained. “Yeah, yeah. Of course, you would, what was I thinking?” he says quickly. “Hey, let’s go inside,” he says stepping past you into your home. You follow him confused, but when you get to the entryway-he’s nowhere to be found.  “Sam?” you call out hesitantly, growing slightly scared. “Sam, I thought you wanted to talk?”

“Of course, I do,” comes Sam’s voice to immediately to your left, causing you to jump with a shriek.  

“What the hell, Sam! You’re acting weird. What’s going on?” 

“Nothing. Sorry just nervous.”

“For what?”

“Look ah-Y/n, I ah- I really like you, and I was serious. If you can tell me to my face, you don’t feel the same, that this isn’t worth at least a shot, I’ll leave. You’ll never have to worry about me doing something like this again. But if there is even the SLIGHTEST chance there is something between us, I think we should give it a shot,” Sam said earnestly, his eyes holding an emotion in them you had never seen.

   A flash out of the corner of your eye caught your attention again and, there was Sam again-another Sam, in different clothing, calling out to you. He seemed to be screaming at you silently, pleading with you to pay attention to him. Your front room seemed to distort itself for a second, as if reality bent, and in front of you was a dim, dark room. Surprised, you through your head around, but it was as if nothing had happened.

Shaking your head, you tried to figure out how to reply. “Sam, I-I don’t know. We both have so much work to do, and we must stop the damning of the world and demons and God only knows what else. I just don’t want our emotions to screw our game up and get us killed.”

“I don’t get killed, Y/n. And if I do, I always come back,” Sam says taking your hand.

“Until the one time you don’t, Sam! Until the one time you don’t. Then what? I’m all alone again!” You cry, ripping your hand away.

At that moment, the ghost Sam appeared again, this time- he was slightly bloody with a bruised cheek. He was screaming again, shaking with unheard pleas towards you.  A shadow loomed in the distance behind him, slowly approaching him from his back. It looked big, and even out the corner of your eye, you could tell ghost Sam was in trouble.

“Y/n, why are you against this?” the Sam in front of you said, tone suddenly stern and serious.

     “What are you talking about, Sam? What’s really going on?” You ask suddenly scared.

       “You couldn’t just stay here-with me? Let me love you- the way you’ve dreamed of? I mean-come on!” Sam shouted, pacing back and forth. He looks back at you with a smirk, “The real Sam is never going to love you. You should just live out your final moments happily.”

“What the hell are you?”

‘Sam’ smiles at you, “I don’t know, Y/n. What am I?” he chuckles and shrugs, “I’m perfect. Perfect Sam. Perfect moment. Perfect love. Perfect world. Perfect.” He finishes his sentence enunciating each perfect very carefully.

Suddenly it clicks, everything clicks. How romantic he was being suddenly. The texts, the flirting- it was all an illusion. This entire night hadn’t been real. It hadn’t been Sam. Maybe that was why you were so lineant in opening the door, or flirting back. Maybe that is why you snapped back at him earlier with a courage you didn’t know you had. It was fake- and deep down, past your feelings – you realized that.

“You’re a dijin,” You say confidently, and ‘Sam’ gives you a wink. “None of this was real.”

“That’s right. But-“The dijin says with a smile. “Stay anyway. It’ll be wonderful for you. I can even drain you slower to make the allusion last a little longer, since we got… interrupted. I mean am I supposed to be impressed with his performance?”

  “No way in hell!”

“Think about it, Y/n. You can have the best of Sam- for what to you will seem like years. You can have the doves, the picket fence, hell! I’ll even throw in saving the world, and some rug rats. Deal?”

“No!”

Sam couldn’t believe this was happening. He had waited years. YEARS. He was going to tell you how he felt. He had done everything right-flirty/direct texting, showing up unexpected, making a romantic entry. He thought he was finally moving forward. He loved you. He was going to tell you. He was going to hold you, show you. Finally.

He watched as your head disappeared from your window as you were on your way to let him in, his mind wandering on all the moments of the past and possibilities of the future. With you. He couldn’t believe had finally ‘got it in gear’, as Dean would say, but he was sure glad he did.

A minute passed, then two… No Y/n. Three minutes, then four….Still no Y/n. Five minutes, then six…

Sam was beginning to think you had abandoned him, and that was when he heard you scream and the sounds of broken glass. Pulling his gun from his waistband, he kicked in your door to investigate, but you were already gone.

Sam called Dean immediately and they set to work. Sam called in favors he didn’t even know he had to find you. To save you. Just as you saved him. It took three days to figure out it was a Dijin. It took one week to track you down.

One week.

Sam had just prayed you’d still be alive when he got there. He had never driven so fast. The car he had stolen out of some parking lot when Dean had called only read up to 100 mph, but he was definitely pushing that peddle faster. He burst into the warehouse like a goddamn villain in those comic books you had on your shelf. While Dean was handling the dijin, Sam was trying to pull you from the chains and draining equipment. When he had finally gotten you down, he tried to stop the bleeding, but it was hard. You had cuts everywhere. He tried screaming at you to get your attention, but you couldn’t hear him, just starring off into space, barely clinging to life.

“C’mon Y/n! Wake up!” he cried, shaking you slightly. “Damnit, Y/n! Please!” The blood was seeping through the shirt he had placed to the deepest cut on your stomach, it wasn’t stopping. Sam was watching you die. He could already see you paling, your skin losing the glow he loved so much. Your eyes started to gloss, and your body started to shake slightly.

“No, Y/n. No! C’mon wake up. Baby, please wake up,” He tried again, nearing sobs and hysteria. 

He couldn’t handle this. Not another Jess. Not another woman he loved gone before he could properly love them. Why couldn’t he protect you? Why did he have to wait? He should have said something much sooner. Much sooner. He should have walked away from hunting with you, warded you both in a forgotten tower to live out your days with each other. He should have done something. Anything. But no, instead he decided to ignore this feeling you gave him, ignore you. For years.

He was so screwed up.

He hadn’t noticed the dijin sneaking up behind him, until he was thrown backwards across the vast warehouse. He hit a table with an alarming crack, but he felt no pain as he struggled to find you through blurring eyes. When he could focus, he began struggling to get to you. To stand, which he was finding difficult.   The dijin looked at Sam, then to your fallen form. He then bent so that he was perched over you, whispering to you. Your head turned towards him. 

“Get away from, Y/n!” Sam screamed, his struggle becoming more and more true as he finally managed to stand. He began to run towards you and the dijin, when the dijin finally looked up at Sam.

The menacing look froze Sam for a millisecond. But that was all it took. The dijin leaned down and shoved his arm through your mid-section, completely rupturing your abdominal. It was at that moment that Dean had managed to finish him off, and Sam ran back over to you.

You were chocking on your own blood, but you were out of that damned allusion. The room smelled funny, like blood, but then again, it was probably yours. You knew that at least. You knew you were dying when you were ripped from the dijin’s power. It was the first thing you realized about your actual reality. The second thing you noticed was Dean. Standing over you, near tears- trying to be as stonefaced as possible. Although his look said it all. Dean’s face told you were definitely not doing hot by any means. The third thing you noticed was Sam, sitting beside you, tears streaming freely. He was holding you as best he could, but to be honest- you couldn’t really feel your body. You almost felt like you were floating and Sam was the only thing holding you down, and he wasn’t letting go.

“Sam,” you struggled, your voice sounding strange even to you. You watched as his eyes flew to yours, holding such hope, sadness, and love.

“Y/n, I’m sorry. I wasn’t fast enough. I tried. I swear I tried. I tried,” he said quickly, trying to reassure both you and him. “I wasn’t that late though, babe. You’ll be fine after we stitch you up.”

“Sam,” you say, your eyes and chest growing heavier and heavier. “We both know that last part isn’t true. I’m not leaving the warehouse…” you cough up more blood and continue, “I’m sorry, I lo-“

“Shh-“ Sam stops you. “Tell me later, okay? When you’re home in my arms.”

You tried to tell him that wasn’t going to happen, but you couldn’t anymore. You were slipping away into a peaceful, dark abyss. Sam and Dean would be okay, you knew that. But you also knew your part of their lives was over. They would get stronger, better, and you would always love Sam. That was your last thought before you ceased thinking. You would always love Sam.

Sam held you until your body was cold and stiff. He held you a minute more before Dean made him get up to give you a proper burial. His body was numb, his eyes were numb, his heart was numb. Everytime Sam had opened up, he lost. Every single time. He had hoped you would be different, but you weren’t. He was just no good. Even though he wanted to be perfect for you. He would still remember your smile, your life, the way your hair fell. He would remember your walk, your talk, and he would cherish those always. After all this time, how could he not? After all this time, he would love you for the things he found irresistible and all the things he found annoying. Like you singing in the shower to Lion King soundtracks at the top of your lungs at 4 am on that hunt by the Denver River. But even still he would never not care. After all this time.

[drink-n-watch]

You know how it’s smart post writing to sort of keep the punchline of your post until the latter half? Or you know, until at least the second paragraph so people can’t just know your entire thoughts from the little snippets in search engines or in reader and have to click on your actual post to find out? It’s sort of elementary good post writing basics. Anyways, I loved this episode. I can’t even quite explain why (spoilers for the rest of this posts there) but I enjoyed it tremendously. Let’s see if Crow is better at this building suspense thing than I am!

I’ve seen bloggers able to do that! Let’s see if I can pretend… I loved it, too, but I won’t say why until later. How’s that? I’m building mystery!

Of course, spoilers for episode 84 (Deky vs. Gentle Criminal) of My Hero Academia. That’s the one in which Deku and Gentle Criminal meet for the first time, in case you’re reading this way into the future or something.

Let me just start by laying out the summary of the episode. It’s just about time to put on the show for the school festival and last minute preparations, and nerves abound in class-1. Everyone has gotten into the spirit of things and is desperate to put on a great show. Deku and Aoyama realize that the rope which Deku was going to use to hoist Aoyama above the audience and make him float around is a bit worn, and they worry it could be dangerous. So Deku resolves to go buy one in the morning right before show time.

So far it’s pretty standard festival episode stuff, but it’s charming. They manage to really bring the anxiety and excitement of impending performance across and I was getting psyched for the show right along with those kids.

First mystery reveal: That’s part of what I loved about this episode!

In the morning, Deku darts out to the closest hardware store for the rope, but runs into Gentle just as he is leaving the small café next door. Surprisingly, both of them recognize each other and a confrontation ensued in which we finally get a glimpse at both Gentle’s quirk and his plan! Did I leave anything important out?

Nope! Those are the important details! I also thought it was funny that Deku’s knowledge of Gold Tips Imperial got Gentle Criminal so excited he started to talk to Deku! It was a little detail, but I liked it.

Like I said, the first part of the episode was really sweet. The show did some heavy duty heartstring tugging by throwing in some Eri flashbacks. It was also just fun seeing how everyone dealt with the upcoming show and the pressure of performing in their own way. However, one of my favourite parts was actually Deku getting his gloves.

Some of you may remember that Deku had commissioned some extra accessories from Mei and it seems those were gloves. First of all, Mei is one of my favourite characters so of course I’m going to enjoy any scene she’s in, but the gloves themselves were just really cool. I mean they looked great, I understood exactly what they did, had a vague idea how it could work and it just made a whole lot of sense with Deku’s powers. Practical fantasy is awesome!

More Mei is always better. If I were Deku, I’d be working with her and some of the business course students to build relationships. I don’t care if Mei’s babies blow up as often as they work (or more?). She’s talented and creative. If I were a her, those are exactly the skills I want in a support staff!

The meatier part of the episode is certainly the Deku and Gentle meeting. Their initial interaction was actually very funny and edited in a way that makes us think Gentle and Deku are really very similar. Like Deku could have become a criminal just like Gentle is he had taken a different path.

It’s hard to say without seeing how this all plays out. It’ll come down to Gentle Criminal’s motivations, I think, and exactly what he plans to do once he gets to the school. But that initial interaction was wonderfully awkward on both sides — it’s like they both knew the conversation was wrong, but they couldn’t escape!

I personally don’t think this (that Deku and Gentle are counterparts). Yes, Gentle and Deku do have some similarities in the way they analyze things and in certain aspects of their demeanor, but I think they are fundamentally different. I also think that considering his personality, a disgruntled and disillusioned Deku who turns his back on heroes is more likely to become Stain than Gentle…. Stain was a good character.

Stain was an amazing character! And that’s why I need to see Gentle Criminal’s motivation. If it’s as ideological as Deku, he might go as dark. But then, with Deku’s power, he’s more likely to be the blunt object that was Stain than something more refined. I just argued myself in such a tight circle that I got dizzy.

Let me just say it right now, Elasticity has got to be one of the best quirks ever. Like not the most powerful or anything, although it seems like it could be very powerful, and it’s also really adaptable and can be used in so many different ways. The idea that you can rubberize air itself holds so much potential. Also more than a bit of fringe horror as Gentle could easily encase someone in a cube of rubber air and asphyxiate them if he was a more violent type.

But beyond the practical considerations of this power there’s the anime design considerations. It’s fun to animate and watch things bounce around. It creates a lot of dynamic fast movement scenes and the wobbly scenery it leaves behind is also visually interesting and brings a bit of levity to fight scenes. It’s a good power that’s easy to explain. It’s a wonder it took them this long to use it.

It’s like they kept his power a mystery to build suspense! And in fact, I liked that power so much it’s my next to last reason I liked this episode so much — for exactly the reasons you just explained. Interesting concept with a visually exciting execution. Perfect for anime!

It’s possible that I missed something. Not to mention that I’m not sure to what extent Gentle is a reliable narrator, if at all, but from what I gathered Gentle’s plan is to simply sneak into the festival, for the views. Like those jerks that disturb people at work because they think it will make for good clickbait on YouTube. Putting aside the means for a second, the base motivation here seems to be just personal fame. And that’s not bad at all, in fact it’s kind of cool. After all those anti heroes or broken villains with elaborate plans and deep Freudian excuses, it’s sort of refreshing to have an antagonist that just sort of a shallow jerk. And the entire conflict comes simply from the fact that he’s selfish and not very empathic. That’s not a bad character type and it’s one that My Hero Academia hasn’t used so far, so I like it. The slight issue I’m having is that it sort of clashes with how Gentle has been presented up until now. He always seemed more clueless than self-centered and for some reason, I convinced myself that he had a reason for his actions beyond fame. This is why I’m not entirely sure if I missed something. What do you think, Crow?

I don’t think you missed anything; or if you did, we missed the same thing. I have a sense that the narrative is keeping the full explanation ambiguous to keep us interested, and to be honest, it’s working with me. I mean, can the explanation really be as simple as he’s just a jerk? Or is there something more? I think there’s more to La Brava than we’ve seen so far, but that’s no great insight — the cliff hanger in this episode was her about to use her Quirk, and there’s some hesitation on her part and on Gentle Criminal’s to use it.

And let’s go back to the means. Sneaking into the school festival sounds harmless enough, but if Gentle is caught, the event will probably be canceled, which would be heartbreaking for all the kids that poured their heart into it and were looking forward to it. But it goes way beyond that, it takes away the symbol, the “everything is going to be ok” message that festival stood for. It’s another bit of darkness encroaching on the light.

Much worse would be if he actually got away with it and the festival went off without a hitch with Gentle in attendance. Not only would posting the video afterwards destroy the message as well, but it would send a signal that UA security can be breached. It would announce loud and clear that no one is safe anywhere. That would truly be a disaster.

It’s like a malicious attacker getting into a company’s computer network. It’s bad enough for the incursion to work, only to be detected and repulsed by the company’s security team. It’s quite another to find out days, weeks, or months later that the breach happened — and the security team wasn’t good enough to even realize it.

Like I said, I really liked this episode. I’m still not sure why. And I can’t wait to catch up with Deku and Gentle next week. I wonder if we’ll get to see La Brava’s quirk. Do you want to guess what it is, Crow?

For an instant, I wondered if it was some kind of limited time jump, but with severe consequences for the quirk user. That’s probably because of some of the audio books I’ve listened to recently! Other than that, my second guess would be that she has the ability to capture and arrest movement with her camera; but then, why wouldn’t she use that more often? Do you have a guess?

I also think it’s camera related but I really don’t know what it is. I briefly thought she may have the power to trap people within the video, maybe for a limited amount of time. This would have the potential for a very interesting fantasy episode if the characters ever put on a play or something…

I think one of the things that I liked most about the episode was that the fight reminded me so much of the first three seasons. Deku isn’t zipping around with an Eri power pack (or limiter). He isn’t taking on a villain who can crush city blocks. He’s taking on a criminal who has some skills, but who’s unlikely to crush a city. Ever escalating stakes are fun for a while, but they have diminishing returns. A return of an earlier form is a pleasant break, I think.

My Hero Academia s4 ep84- The Show Must Go On You know how it’s smart post writing to sort of keep the punchline of your post until the latter half?

[britesparc]

Weekend Top Ten #357

Top Ten Things 2018

Well, that was quite a year wasn’t it? Everything smelt of Trump and looked all Brexity. Urgh.

But good things happened too! Good things at the pictures and on the telly-box! Some good stuff to play and some good stuff to read! And over Christmas I drank a lot of Guinness. Good times.

So as is customary, here I go chronicling my favourite Things from the year that was. As usual, there’s a metric ton of stuff I didn’t see. I could write Top Tens of movies I missed or shows I skipped. A Quiet Place, Annihilation, Crazy Rich Asians, Possum, Hereditary, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, Lost in Space, Killing Eve, season two of GLOW, Black Mirror, The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, pretty much every big game apart from Red Dead Redemption 2 and Sea of Thieves, back when it was in beta. I’d include Tetris Effect and Spider-Man in this list, except for the fact that I don’t have a PSVR or for that matter a non-virtually-real PS4. So yeah. I feel like I’ve missed a couple of things.

But who cares? I’ve got two kids who are usually fantastic when they’re not not going to bed. I did a bunch of writing. I did some good work, with new and old clients. In short, apart from all that Trump and Brexit shit, it was actually a really good year, even if nobody bought me a PS4 just to play Spider-Man.

Beyond Infinity: no question, the biggest deal of my cinematic year – my pop-cultural year, in fact – was Avengers: Infinity War. I love the Marvel movies, I follow them like a combination of comic book and soap opera (so, really, just like a comic book – or comicbook, as the late great Stan Lee would rather we say). The build-up was immense, the hype was over-the-top, and my expectations were simultaneously sky-high and deliberately watered-down because I knew they could not be matched. It exceeded everything. I can’t get over how good it was. Endgame cannot possibly compete, cannot live up to the quality of this opening salvo, and yet… and yet…

The end of the road!: oh my god, Transformers. Transformers is over. Transformers is done. I’ve written about this a bit. IDW’s Transformers was my jam, my favourite comic run of all time, and – in the More Than Meets the Eye/Lost Light diptych – my single favourite comic book. Or books. Two titles, I guess. Anyway, it’s over, and I’m sad, but I loved the ending, and I just loved it existing in the first place.

Into the Titans-Verse: any other year I’d be able to say “well the two greatest superhero movies this year were both animated”, but, y’know, Infinity. Anyway, Teen Titans Go! To the Movies was tremendous, Deadpool for kids, with the year’s second-greatest Stan Lee cameo (sob). And then at the end of the year we had Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, the greatest Spider-Man movie of all time. Gorgeous to look at, a beautiful distillation of what it means to be a superhero, and a rollicking yarn to boot. Together, these two animated movies managed to interpret and realise elements of superhero stories that had never really been seen on screen before, and in a better fashion than most live-action films. Also we got to see a close-up of Shia LeBeouf’s leg snapping.

Reinstalling classic games: two of my favourite games from years gone by were Lemmings and Theme Hospital. The latter of these has had a brilliant spiritual re-awakening in the form of Two Point Hospital, probably my favourite new game of the year (I’d also like to check out Theme Park sorta-do-over-a-bit Parkitect). But just before the end of the year, a mobile-friendly remake of Lemmings dropped on mobile: a great update of a classic. It’s not perfect, and it suffers from the usual free-to-play puzzle game pitfalls, but, man, Lemmings. God I love Lemmings.

The Doctor is back in: I’m very happy that Doctor Who is back. I love Jodie Whittaker as the Thirteenth Doctor. I have, over the course of the series, grown very fond of the new companions. And I am overjoyed at the show’s reception, with some of the highest Who ratings for years. But the only thing that’s stopping me putting this higher is the fact that I was, frankly, a bit disappointed in the show itself. Some of the writing left a bit to be desired, and although there were terrific episodes – “Rosa”, “Demons of the Punjab”, and “The Witchfinders” in particular – there were too many flubs, weak endings, and moments of dodgy dialogue for it to truly soar. But! It improved as the series went on, the New Year’s Day episode was mostly great fun, and I have every confidence Chris Chibnall’s second series in charge will be even better.

The triumphant return of Vic & Bob: fun fact: my brother and I were going to see Vic and Bob live until Bob went and got his heart fixed. The selfish bugger. But after missing out there, and also the cancellation in recent years of both the recurring Shooting Stars and the very underrated House of Fools, it’s great to see my favourite double act return in spectacular fashion. Just as silly, random, and hilarious as I remember from my youth. Welcome back, you daft buggers.

The honour of Greyskull: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power is probably my favourite new show of the year. Funny, exciting, action-packed, with a very contemporary feminist edge, it’s everything a growing girl needs. And her dad, too.

Growing old gracefully: going all serious for a bit, They Shall Not Grow Old was a sombre highlight. Not only was it a fascinating, thought-provoking documentary, showcasing in unique fashion the lives and thoughts of men who served on the Front in the First World War, but the restoration process used to colourise and stabilise the images is nothing short of revolutionary. A tremendous achievement in more ways than one.

Donald’s America: oh God, no, not that Donald. Rather Donald Glover, who’s had a great year: practically stealing Solo out from under the nose of our new Solo, like some kind of nefarious Sabacc shark; and then his phenomenal This is America. Incredibly powerful lyrics, sure, but the depth of the video, with its resonant imagery, is profound and heartbreaking. Altogether, it’s a supreme piece of filmmaking.

Red Dead Returns: I don’t have loads of free time for games nowadays; I’ve mostly been playing games a couple of years old, like Batman: Arkham Knight and Mass Effect: Andromeda, as well as my usual fix of LEGO games and Peggle 2. But I did get Red Dead Redemption 2 for Christmas, and I must say I am – so far – impressed. I never quite managed to finish the first game (well, second game, you know what I mean) but the quality of the visuals and the acting and the world is second-to-none. The snow effects are incredible. It’s the first game I’ve played where a character’s clothes feel separate from their body. I’m not far enough into it yet to know if really the game holds up, but in terms of a rich world which draws you in and makes you feel that you’re there, you’re that character, it’s a stunning achievement. Even if a load of people didn’t get paid.

Tune in next week and I’ll decide what looks good next year! Well, this year. You know.

[trevorbailey61]

Moseley Folk Festival

Moseley Park, Birmingham

Sunday 3rd September 2017

For two glorious days, Moseley Park has been bathed in warm sunshine making it possible to believe that this was the start of glorious extended summer, or possibly a better one to compensate for the one we didn’t get in August. The vibrant greens, however, are now duller and flecked with yellow or brown, the paths are strewn with leaves and the earlier sunset brings a chill to the dark nights. By Sunday morning the pretence was over, grey clouds replaced blue skies discharging their content over the dry ground. The warmth of the sun was now hidden and the shorts and t-shirt I had worn for the first two days would no longer keep me warm; needless to say the shades were left at home. The chill of autumn, however, seems appropriate. Sunny optimism was right for Amy Macdonald, the warm glow of nostalgia for Fairport Convention but today we have the icy cold of Laura Marling, just the time for autumn to announce itself.

There are a number reasons why I shouldn’t like Laura Marling. From her aloof detached manner as she takes to the stage she makes it clear we are here on her terms and we should be grateful for the hour or so we spend in her presence. Her one comment as is to say we all look nice in our “macs”, the mocking tone contrasting our soaked and bedraggled selves with the immaculate figure in front of us. She runs through about half a dozen songs from her latest album, “Semper Fermina”, before she says another word. She is momentarily distracted when a member of the audience shouts out a song request but the girl next to me yelling out “you’re a genius” is ignored, and coming when everything else was silent, there is no way she wouldn’t have heard it. The detached manner seems to apply to her band as well, each works in their own space and there is little sense of camaraderie; as it is the last night of the tour she asks them to share something with the audience but it all seems a little forced and inevitably Marling’s own contribution was the least revealing. The long solo acoustic middle part of the set makes the point that whilst it was nice to have them around, they weren’t essential. The rest of the band had left the stage for this and when they return she asks them what they had been up to back there, a little chink perhaps in the armour, without her domineering presence they may actually have had a pretty good time. This aloof manner may well be due to her being very posh; I’m not just talking Genesis public school posh, Marling is the daughter of a Baronet, aristocracy, the gentry that the music of the people has always been against.

For all this, however, I can’t dislike her. The icy cool detachment gives her a presence that is magnetic and she effortlessly holds the attention of the audience. As the applause dies down after each song, there is silence, no background chatter, everyone held in rapt attention as they wait for the next song. The intricate percussion and fluid baseline of “Soothing” immediately grabs the attention and the subtle textures of the music are so absorbing that she doesn’t let go. The latin title of the album, which means “always woman”, is a phrase she picked up from the Roman poet Virgil and she has had it in her mind for about six years until she felt she had the songs to do it justice. These deal with women’s perspectives of women, as close or more distant friends or as rivals. They may or may not be highly personal, Marling’s doesn’t do emotive and the distance between the songs and their emotional context remains a mystery. The “hopeless wanderer” of “Soothing” therefore could refer to her ex Marcus Mumford finding someone else to give him the security he craved and that she was unable to provide. Alternatively, the song could be entirely fictional, the dying friendship approached as a theoretical exercise to discover what it would feel like to be there, real life and music compartmentalised so that the two do not cross.

In less skilled hands, this could be a weakness but Marling makes the ambiguity work and the songs emotional content displays an impressive lived in maturity, particularly so given that she is still only in her mid twenties. There is an underlying sadness in the songs, the friendships were once close but are now over, the good times remembered fondly but the pain of separation means that they will never be found again. The story in “Wild Fire” is of a friend who “Keeps a pen behind her ear; Because she's got something she really really needs to say”; something that one day will be written into a book. Her own self centred nature, however, means that she is only interested what she will say about the “her time spent with me”. Her negligence also informs “Don’t Pass Me By”; a plea for a closeness she knows she cannot give in return. The highlight is “The Valley”; for once showing vulnerability in that she retains the feelings she once had but wonders why the other person wants to keep their friendship in the past; “I know she stayed in town last night; Didn't get in touch; I know she has my number right; She can't face seeing us”. Her calm dispassionate voice serves to bring out the raw emotion of the words and the effect is magical.

Alone with just her guitar, Marling returns to her earlier work with a delicate “What He Wrote”; another almost unbearably sad song illuminated by her delicate playing and a voice that barely rises above a whisper. Her one cover is Townes Van Zandt’s “For The Sake of the Song”, immaculately played and as dark as her own work, but before the band return, she does allow in some light in with the beautiful “Daisy”. Despite the loss and regret in the lyrics, the pace quicker is a little for “How Can I?” but the mood of quiet reflection returns for other songs from previous albums until she concludes with “Rambling Man”, for once the rhythm in the song being allowed to assert itself without being constrained. There was no encore, but then there didn’t need to be, the set had been pretty well perfect as it was and her songs wouldn’t lend themselves to one anyway. Seeing her at Latitude three years ago, she didn’t quite manage to overcome the scale of the largest stage and fond it difficult to draw the audience in. Now, her stage presence is more assured, her oblique and intense songs are some of the best she has written and in front of a smaller audience who were there to listen, she was mesmerising. A wonderful end to the festival.

As a performer, Kate Rusby is pretty much the opposite of the headline; with her roots in Barnsley, she retains a strong Yorkshire accent despite her years in the business and this gives a down to earth demeanour for the story telling that intersperses the songs. As a mother of two children, her husband Damien O’Keane leads the backing band, she is keen to share her experiences of the joys and challenges of parenthood as well as setting the context for the songs. With the late arrival of their bass player, he gets there just as they make their way onto the stage, she sings the first of these unaccompanied as he sets up. “Yorkshire Couple” is the funny and twisted story of Martha and Amos; approaching retirement Amos learns of the unexpected consequences of his repeated infidelities. Rusby encourages the audience to participate in the final repeated line of each verse, something that she will do throughout the set. With the full band in place, the tardy bass player is immediately called upon to provide the percussive introduction to “Benjamin Bowmaneer”’, a traditional song about how the trivial start to a war can eventually consume the whole country. The subtle accompaniment gives a beautifully sparse setting for Rusby’s wonderfully expressive voice which draws out the tender sadness of the song. The sensitivity of her voice is perfect for the longing in songs such as “The Hunter Moon” and “The Ardent Shepherdess” whilst adding a haunting intimacy to “Life in a Paper Boat”, her response to seemingly endless images of refugees crowded onto the boats that they hope will take them to a better life. Searching for answers, she knows that there aren’t any and as a writer with disarming honesty she acknowledges that “all I have is a song”. The highlight, however, is “Who Will Sing Me Lullabies”; a song written a few years ago that works as a heartbreaking response to mothers carrying what look like bundles of rags that turn out to be their dead children. A rich and varied set where her gift for humour faultlessly counters the often harrowing stories in her songs. 

With his band Idlewild, Roddy Woomble headlined the festival two years ago where the enthusiasm of the response to their anthems led to the spectacle of a mosh pit at a folk festival. With the band paying the bills, Woomble is now over a decade into a solo career that has seen him recently release his third album. On a dreary late evening with the audience recovering from the hoedown that is always a feature of the Sunday afternoon, this was never going to generate that level of excitement but he does cope with the weather and the distractions to hold a sizeable audience around the stage. With a light country rock setting, his solo work seems more personal than the widescreen anthems of Idlewild although after a while it does all start to sound very similar. Earlier in the day, the line-up included various forms of more traditional folk from the angry punk of Lankum to the soft harmonies of The Furrow Collective. The Destroyers anarchic sound is described in the programme as Balkan Brass but that doesn’t really begin to cover the array of influences they draw on. Their punk infused jazz polka even brings in those waiting by the other stage for the quiet restraint of Laura Marling and the randomly choreographed moves are just about contained by the small Lunar Stage. Earlier in the day, Nifeco Costa was the one of the few African acts this year and his intricate finger picking and melodious jazz formed a bright groove that deserved a sunnier setting.

In the short gap between acts, the organisers took the opportunity to advertise the Beyond the Tracks event that is happening in about two weeks. This seems to have drawn some of the indie pop acts that sometimes find their way onto the Folk Festival line-up, The Coral who played here last year feature on the Saturday, and the effect of this seems to have been to return Moseley more strongly to its folk roots. The result of this was that at first the line-up seemed a little underwhelming, I remember having a conversation with someone on twitter along these lines at the time . In truth, some of this did remain, the Sunday afternoon in particular did drag a little, but the festival still managed to achieve what it always does, reminding me how good the acts are I already knew and introducing me to some new ones. That list then; the five best of the weekend:

John Moreland Courtney Marie Andrews Michael Chapman Laura Marling and in their 50th year it was a privilege to finally see Fairport Convention.

[exfrenchdorsl4p0a1]

Saying Goodbye To 'The Vampire Diaries'

After eight successful seasons, CW’s “The Vampire Diaries” is closing the doors of the Salvatore mansion and saying farewell to Mystic Falls. 

The supernatural series, which starred Ian Somerhalder, Paul Wesley, Candice King, Kat Graham and Nina Dobrev, is wrapping up on March 10, leaving behind a legacy of wacky, witchy, blood-sucking, doppelgänging storylines. 

But how will it all come to an end? Below, “The Vampire Diaries” showrunner Julie Plec and stars Paul Wesley (Stefan Salvatore) and Candice King (Caroline Forbes) reflect on the show’s run with The Huffington Post, and hint at what’s to come in the series finale.

The episode is not without its share of heartbreak. Like Elena says, 'Sometimes you have to feel pain in order to know that you’re alive.' Those are some of her words from the finale and are certainly true of the finale itself. Julie Plec on death in the final episode

Bidding Farewell To The Characters  

Julie Plec: I told everybody at the read-through that we would be saying goodbye to every set, every person and every important prop along the way, up to and including, literally, the last shot of Damon’s Camaro. [Laughs] 

Candice King: I think the only time I kept getting choked up was at the mention of saying goodbye to Caroline. I’ve been lucky to play a character for so long that I kind of felt like I knew who she was. I didn’t really have to dive into it too much after eight years, and so whenever anyone asked me what it would feel like to say goodbye and put that character to rest, that’s when I started tearing up a little bit. This was my first show, it was my first significant job, and for the first couple of years I didn’t know if I was going to be lucky enough to keep my job because they killed a lot of characters off. So she just represents so much of who I became as an actor. I feel like playing Caroline prepared me for whatever happens next in my career, wherever that takes me. 

Paul Wesley: Saying goodbye to the character Stefan and the things that came along with being on the show [was hard]. Honestly, the show went on for so long that you sort of start saying goodbye by Season 6. It’s not a sudden jolt — you’re already starting to transition into a different phase in your life. So it wasn’t like I was splashed in the face with cold water and in complete shock. I’ve sort of been saying my slow goodbye to the character for about three years now, which I’m grateful for because it makes it easier to transition.

Last Day On Set 

CK: The last day on set was incredibly emotional. I knew that I needed to cry … a lot. And luckily Julie was directing and wrote the last episode and she’s a crier, so it made me feel comfortable to cry as much as I did. It felt like an important moment of closure. “The Vampire Diaries” represented the majority of my 20s. I booked the show when I was 21 and I’m about to turn 30 now, so it’s really defined a decade of my life — and a pretty significant one as far as growing up and who you become. It really did shape me, and a lot of that is because of the people I got to work with. It felt so significant to stand next to so many people that had seen me grow and change and who’ve I’ve seen grow and change. We’ve all been with each other through life and death and marriage and divorce, and to be able to all stand in the Salvatore House great room set and hold hands and put arms around each other and really say goodbye to the series was a powerful moment I’ll never forget. A lot of tears, and silly string. The silly string brought the laughs after the tears.

JP: In that last moment, we really wanted to get Paul and Ian [Somerhalder] at the same time and so I had Candice and Kat [Graham] work with the art department, props and the AD department so that they could ninja-style launch an attack with the silly string and all the poppers and the sparkling champagne and all that. So we ended up wrapping on a party note.

PW: Oh, it was really funny. It was a bit surreal. I finished my take in my final scene and literally they hadn’t even yelled cut yet and someone just sprayed silly string directly into my eye. [Laughs] I have grown up on the set of “Vampire Diaries,” and, in many ways, it’s a beautiful thing and, in many ways, I have a relatively myopic view of things because you’re on set eight months out of the year. I’m 34 and I certainly want to be able to honor some of the artistic feelings I have in terms of my taste level. “The Vampire Diaries” is a fantastic show and I am so grateful for it and I think that it’s been incredible, but it will be exciting for me to do a series or a film or a play, as an actor, that is definitely a little more focused on adult stories.

The Finale Script

JP: We wanted to accomplish both tying it in a bow and leaving it open-ended, and give a sense of the future for each character ― whether they lived or died, understand where they were heading in their lives and what they were feeling. So you get a real sense of what’s to come but also a real sense of feeling like, “OK, these people, in their own way, are each going to be fine.” And that was important, since the launch of the series for me personally, to give it “a happy ending” in the midst of heartbreak. And then being able to have Kevin [Williamson] there to shape the “the how,” “the who” and “the what,” and help make the choices with me, and say goodbye to these characters with someone else who’s loved them equally for eight years was a real pleasure. In the directing, the burden was on me not to mess anything up. I’d rather have that burden on me then put it in the hands of somebody else. [Laughs] So, I took it upon myself to make sure we got it done.

CK: I was so proud of the writers and what they accomplished in writing the finale — specifically Julie and Kevin, but the whole team, too. It really gives the fans of the series everything that they wanted. I read it and it felt so good as a fan of television knowing how much space they had to fill and all these doors they had to close. I felt like they did a really, really wonderful job.

JP: The first challenge was just figuring out the cleanest and most powerful way to wrap up Season 8. Then, we got into how we were going to wrap up the series. And when it all comes down to it, we were actually able to balance the two really nicely. The first half of the episode is the roller-coaster ride of resolution to Season 8 and the second half of the episode is the emotional roller-coaster of saying goodbye to all the characters.

Reuniting With Former Cast Members

CK: Season 3, we were still having goodbye parties for when people left, but by the time everyone started coming back as guest stars, that stopped. [Laughs] We’ve seen a lot of the characters come back and forth throughout the years, but it was so special to have everybody back for the wrap party. There are some more people making an appearance in the finale, so it was really fun. It was a walk down memory lane ... I don’t want to list people because I don’t want to get in trouble! But yeah, you’ll see a bunch of people in the finale.

JP: These are good people whom we’ve had good friendships with over the years and characters that we love and said goodbye to very early, so being able to bring them back into one spot and celebrate their existence as characters but also as actors who are a part of the family was really great.

It’s just amazing how you can take people eight years later, plop them in the exact same situation, and they’re completely different human beings. Paul Wesley on the original love triangle

Nina Dobrev’s Return

PW: It was wild. I kept having these kind of flashbacks of Season 1 on specific sets — I don’t want to give away the sets because I don’t know what I’m allowed to say — but I just remember we were like kids and our lives were completely different. Ian’s priorities and his sort of outlook, as well as mine and Nina’s, were all so radically different than what they are now. I had this surreal moment where I just looked at both of them and I just thought, “Oh, my goodness, we’re doing a very similar scene to what we did eight years ago yet the way our brains are wired and our priorities have completely shifted.” It’s just amazing how you can take people eight years later, plop them in the exact same situation, and they’re completely different human beings.

JP: They kind of slipped right back into their roles with each other and shooting scenes with the three of them was a nice nostalgia.

CK: We all knew from the beginning that Nina would be coming back, so it wasn’t a surprise for us. But yeah, it was great. It was nice to have everyone there for those final moments. We were all so young when the show started, so it was fun to be able to go back through old pictures from the pilot. Also, It was great to be a part of a show that encouraged female friendships as opposed to female backstabbing. This show actually celebrated women being friends and I think Nina, Kat and I were very proud of that.

Will True Love Win? 

CK: Stefan is still human and Caroline is a vampire — and with people coming back to Mystic Falls, we’ll see what kind of chaos they bring with them. All of your questions [concerning Stefan & Caroline, Damon & Elena and Bonnie & Enzo] will be answered, and not everyone always ends up with what they wanted, but that doesn’t mean they’re not happy with where they end up. 

PW: I’m not sure that because Elena has suddenly awoken Stefan is going to leave Caroline to jump into another woman’s arms. Stefan is very loyal. I’m not saying that it won’t be challenging, but there’s going to be a variety of different things that test their relationship. Look, I don’t want to give away too much but it’s definitely going to be emotional, that’s for sure.

JP: I think that “how” we wrapped up the love stories is a less answerable question than “we did.” I’m not sure how we managed to pull it off, but we did. Whatever form it comes in, everyone will have a sense of hope for what the rest of their existence will look like.

Death Is Upon Us

CK: “The Vampire Diaries” has never been scared of saying goodbye to characters. So as we’ll be saying hello to a lot of characters we haven’t seen in a while, we might be saying goodbye to some, as well.

PW: Look, there’s definitely a death coming, and potentially multiple. Someone is dying, I’ll tell you that right now. It is and it isn’t surprising. We’ve had people die and come back to life, but there’s no coming back [now]. This is the final episode, so whoever dies here is dead. I think that’s the difference.

JP: The episode is not without its share of heartbreak. Like Elena says, “Sometimes you have to feel pain in order to know that you’re alive.” Those are some of her words from the finale and are certainly true of the finale itself.

Spinoffs, Sequels, Revivals, Oh My! 

PW: No spinoffs. There’s no going back, which is a bigger deal in many ways.

CK: Oh man, I’m not going to mess with that answer. I have no idea. But as far as this season and this series and this version of “The Vampire Diaries,” it’s answered. You kind of see where everyone [ends up]. You’re finally not going to end the episode with a bunch of questions, you’re going to get your answers.

JP: I would never say no to continuing to explore the — somebody coined the phrase for me the other day, which I love — “TVDU,” “The Vampire Diaries Universe.” I have no desire to exploit it, but I also know that there are plenty of opportunities for stories left to be told. That being said, I don’t have that plan right now, it’s just something that’s always living in the back of my brain as a future opportunity.

The Cultural Significance Of “TVD”

JP: I remember my freshman year of college sitting in my TV room at the end of my dorm hallway with one other girl watching the premiere of “Beverly Hills, 90210.” And then, a year later, walking into a room packed with college students watching “90210,” and I thought, “I wonder what it must be like to be part of a phenomenon like that.” And when all is said and done, I think that if you look at the success of this show across all international platforms, and Netflix, and on streaming, and the run that’s it’s had on The CW, it’s been that and I’m so proud of that.

PW: I really worked pretty diligently to get onto a series that I thought was going to have an impact and I thought was going to last a long time. I really wanted it to have a pop cultural significance and I think we accomplished that. What I learned from playing Stefan is to really enjoy the process. I look back and I think about the times when I was worried about how something was going to turn out or a certain character choice when I should have been enjoying the ride a little bit. Stefan, in a synonymous sense, can be a little brooding and self-serious, and I think that is parallel to my life a little bit. So whatever I’m doing now and as I’m getting older, I learn to appreciate it and be in the moment and more present as opposed to always thinking about the future and the past.

So Long, Fake Fangs, Red Eyes and Prop Blood 

CK: I’m excited to see what happens next for me. I love television and I love working in TV, but I’m open to any medium that will have me. I might need to take a break from fake blood and prosthetics, and always being on the cusp of death or someone always being about to die. I just need to laugh instead of cry for a while. But I’m just so grateful that this has been a career that I’ve pursued and had some success in at this point, so I just want to keep working.

PW: I think saying goodbye to fake blood and fangs for a little while is kind of an understatement. [Laughs] It’s been a great chapter. I find genre can be an amazing metaphorical phase and can convey human stories on a very analogous level. But I know that unless it’s the absolute role of a lifetime, I don’t think I will ever be able to play a vampire again, that’s for sure. I mean, never say never. The original conceit of a vampire dating back to “Dracula” or “Nosferatu” or movies like “Shadow of a Vampire” with Willem Dafoe, they’re obviously great stories. So, I wouldn’t turn a blind eye to that, but I think in the near future I can’t imagine playing a vampire again.

JP: I want the fans to know that we loved this show over the years as much as they did and we wanted to honor these eight years by telling the best end to this story that we could. We have had a very emotional experience putting it together and are all collectively really proud of it, and so we hope that they can enjoy it along with us.

“The Vampire Diaries” series finale, “I Was Feeling Epic,” airs Friday at 9 p.m. ET on The CW.  

These interviews have been edited and condensed for clarity.  

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

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[nofomoartworld]

'My Life as a Zucchini' is the Oscar-Nominated Stop-Motion Film We Didn't Know We Needed

Meet the stars of My Life as a Zucchini. All images courtesy of Rita / Blue Spirit / Gebeka / KNM

Though La La Land dominated last week’s Oscar nominations, somewhere between the Hollywood picture’s 14 accolades was a nod to France and Switzerland, as the stop-motion animated feature My Life as a Zucchini was put forward for Best Animated Feature.

Based on a fictional story by Gilles Paris, My Life as a Zucchini is a beautifully told film that takes the audience through the daily lives of children living in an orphanage, each having ended up there for any number of bleak reasons.

Told from the children’s point of view, however, the film skips through any dark narrative by providing a positive outlook on an otherwise heartbreaking situation, done mostly through its animated characters, who you begin to love from the very start.

We spoke to Swiss director Claude Barras about how to create an Oscar worthy movie, with emotionally driven characters, using stop-motion animation:

The Creators Project: Congratulations on the Oscar nomination. How does it feel?

Claude Barras: I’m very pleasantly surprised. I’m proud that our teamwork has been recognized. I made this film primarily to convey hope to an audience, and I really want this message to come across when it’s released to the American public in February.

The film takes on some pretty serious subject matter but through this beautiful, sometimes funny, lens. Does animation lend itself to this kind of storytelling?

My Life as a Zucchini is a realistic story and I chose to put the realism into the voices, the lighting and the pared-down set: things that aren’t very expensive. In the end, the characteristic feature of this technique is that the characters are born out of the meeting between the voices of the children, the materiality of the puppets, and the talents of the animators.

The boy who calls himself Zucchini

You’ve made it sound simple but I’m sure stop-motion is a slightly more complicated process.

Stop-motion is the only thing that I know how to do! That being the case, I was looking for a story that would lend itself to this technique. After a year of creating the puppets and the sets, the moment for animation arrives. Before beginning to film a shot, of course, the sets must be assembled and the scene lit. Filming is not done in the order of shots, but by set, axis and lighting in order to save set-up time. After a preliminary run-through, the animator takes photos of the characters in the main poses of the shot. This is done for each shot.

What are some of the difficulties that arise when shooting a stop-motion animation?

The stop-motion technique is halfway between animation and life action and has difficulties from both of those two techniques.

In animation, we work somewhat backwards. We start, based on a screenplay, to do the editing of the film with the storyboard. Contrary to digital animation, which makes it possible to improve each shot with multiple takes, in stop-motion there is only one take, without the possibility of correction. So whether one or ten characters are on the screen, nothing changes and the rule is that a single animator per set builds the shot image by image.

Every second of a stop-motion film is very expensive so multiple takes are impossible. It’s like a jazz concert: you can prepare, but once it starts, the animator must compose with their errors. For the director, this is somewhat similar to the work of a sculpture. You start with an uncut stone, you release the large figures, then you go into the details of each part up to the moment where you must stop in order to not get lost in the details. At each stage, a margin of creativity is held between the material that must still be removed and what is going to remain to shape the final sculpture.

So how do you plan ahead to ensure that your animated characters will show emotion?

I am convinced that the more realistic the face, the more details and realism are needed in the animation in order for the viewer to believe it.

So I chose to simplify the faces as much as possible in order to show changing emotions very easily. The faces are like emoticons- they are so plain that emotions are made to appear through the imperceptible movement of an eyelid. It is a very exciting creative process for the animators who gave themselves to it wholeheartedly. For me, simplifying is not weakening, but going straight to the essential.

A scene outside the orphanage in My Life as a Zucchini

Speaking of simplifying, the film has recently been dubbed in English for US audiences. Do you think your film lose any significance when dubbed?

I think the dubbing is needed since we are speaking to children. Even for adults, the viewer loses some concentration when reading subtitles. A form of subtlety and a direct relationship to the story are lost, no matter what they say. If the dubbing is properly done, I think it corrects the viewer more directly with the characters of the film than subtitles do. This is particularly true in animation, where the labial synchronization is artificial, of course, even in the original version.

I was able to hear the US version last week and I am very satisfied. Dubbing is a very specific type of work, an art in and of itself. I leave it to the professionals and I have a great deal of pleasure in rediscovering my film with each dubbing.

Originally intended for an audience of 8-12 years old, My Life as a Zucchini manages to appeal to all viewers, even despite it’s small eight-million-dollar budget

My Life as a Zucchini hits US theatres on February 24, ahead of the Academy Awards on February 26, 2017. See where it’s playing here.

Related:

This Short Animation Will Make You Quit Your Job

Why It's Better To Animate a Film Alone, Even If It Takes 4 Years

2,000 Watercolor Paintings Create a Haunting Animated Film

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