#because i will promo this show until the day i die

[chirpsythismorning]

The Vanishing of BLANK Wheeler

I wanted to make a list, from least likely to most likely, for which Wheeler I think is going to go missing.

But I also wanted to give a little disclaimer first, that even if these titles are real, they could still be fake, or could even possibly change given how much time we still have until s5 actually premieres.

For s2-3, the Duffers literally released official promo videos announcing episode titles for their upcoming season, with some of them changing when the season finally premiered.

Like in the case of s3 for example, they dropped a s3 episode promo video only a day after they completed filming. Meaning them titling 3x06 The Birthday, made absolutely no sense. They knew they didn't film anything birthday related for that episode. So they intentionally gave that one a fake name.

In the case of s4, that was the first time they promoted an upcoming season without giving fake titles, with the s4 promo announcing them following through with what we ended up with when s4 finally dropped.

I guess I sort of assumed s5 would follow in s4's footsteps, but from a leak standpoint, it might be smart to remember that fake titles are still a possiblity regardless. Especially in this case, where it's getting to the point in production where leaks are unavoidable. And so that might even explain why they play with this idea of fake episodes, which is because they can rest easy knowing leaks will mostly consist of half fake titles they planted there.

But for the sake of this post, lets humor the title for episode 2.

For starters, it's worth noting that the person who shared this leak originally said 'BLANK wheeler'. So as far as I know, they did not give any number of letters via underscores (_) to hint at who this Wheeler could possibly be. It's when ST news accounts caught wind of the leak and started rolling out posts, replacing BLANK with 5 underscores, that led a lot of fans to assume that the Wheeler had to have 5 letters in their name, which would have obviously ruled out Ted and Mike. But since all the Wheeler's are still on the table based on the original leak, they will all be included in this list.

5. Ted Wheeler

Believe it or not, there is something that I think actually warrants considering Ted as a possiblity.

There were some posts @stranger-chichka made a while back, comparing visual parallels between Stranger Things and Chernobyl, which could be hinting at this concept of Ted being in danger.

TBH though I think Ted being in danger or ending up dead is a possiblity regardless of him actually being the missing Wheeler.

Technically speaking, quite literally no one on the show is ruled out from being in danger at this point, so that's not saying much.

And considering the show is going to need to kill off some people next season and they are insistent on not killing any of their leads, supporting characters amongst the ranks have a high risk at being taken out. The emotional connection for Ted from the audience isn't as strong as other characters, but at least him being in close relation to a few main characters is something? I mean, he's funny I guess?

Quite frankly I don't think it's likely nor do I think it would actually make sense narratively for Ted to be the one to go missing out of all of them. I think it's a lot more likely they'd just kill him off, hence the Chernobyl parallels which imply he's gonna die. And so wasting time by having him go missing, only to kill him, just doesn't track. I think they'd just get that over with without dragging it out for very long, if anything.

Can you just imagine someone on the show shouting emotionally, It's Dad (Ted). He's gone.' Like, okay... And? I have a hard time imagining the characters being in serious turmoil over this, at least not enough for it to warrant like final season stakes amongst a bunch of other crazy shit happening. At best, the characters would be indifferently guilty for getting him roped into all this.

So yeah, I really don't see it happening.

4. Nancy Wheeler

I honestly feel like Nancy is even less likely to go missing than Ted, but the un-seriousness of an episode titled The Vanishing of Ted Wheeler is so astronomical, that I really had no choice but to put him last.

The reason I think Nancy is just very unlikely to go missing is because they technically already had her go missing as a cliffhanger between Vol 1 and 2 last season. It would just fall flat if they repeated something along those lines, with that same character, 3 episodes later. Vecna could have killed her and yet he didn't. His point was to send her a message, which was why he did what he did and then released her. The choice to target Nancy and taunt her about her family's safety in the first place, felt like their attempt at foreshadowing the danger that is to come for all of them, but one specifically. One of them that is not her. Which will make this moment back in s4 feel a lot more impactful upon rewatches.

So yeah, not feeling like Nancy is very likely.

3. Karen Wheeler

Karen is sort of a hard nut to crack all around. In the case that she is somehow connected to the Creels (Alice), anything is possible in terms of not only her being targeted, but again the entire family being at risk in some capacity. Without much to go off of outside of the obvious very haphazard timeline confusion, I feel like putting her somewhere in the middle. She was given a poster for s4. If she is Alice, then yeah it would make sense to target her. The stakes are also a lot stronger in comparison to Ted, because she was the parent in the family that actually came to Mike or Nancy and told them verbally that she wanted them to open up to her and is actually shown trying on several occasions. Whereas Ted is sort of just there when he's on screen. So the characters' distress would be a lot more dire and interesting to see unfold amongst everyone.

I also remember there being a leak in relation to Karen, Holly, Mike and Nancy all being at the hospital filming. And this was also like a day or so after ST dropped a video of Cara saying she was filming that day to hype up fans. So that leak did check out on the Karen front at least. Which puts her at the hospital at some point, potentially along with the rest of the Wheelers. Now that I'm thinking about it though, this could all fit with a Ted Wheeler death...

At this point, I'm sort of like indifferent to the possiblity, but it's still more likely than Ted and Nancy to me.

2. Holly Wheeler

It all goes back to s1, when Karen was visiting the Byers to console Joyce after Will went missing, when Holly sort of ventures off to Will's room, being guided by the lights, and sees the demogorgan in the wall.

I feel like people overlook this moment too, because it's kind of crazy that Holly has seen UD shit for herself. She was young enough that she could rule it out as just imagining things. And that could be partly the case even if she is skeptical.

There is something about Holly that makes her curious and sort of open to this world that most around her have no idea exists. And yet simultaneously some of the people closest to her do know about it and could easily clue her in when the time comes to do so, and because of that, I think she would probably be able to believe it all a lot faster than others.

Maybe this is a story where things need to happen and it just always ends up this way, but she has this tendency to be included in things that feel very important. Like in s4 with her playing with the lite-brite, and how that ended up being used to communicate with the others in the UD. There's this almost clairvoyance vibe about her. Her feeling the need to follow the Christmas lights to Will's room and her noticing and then fixating on the trees in s3.

Like I said, I don't know if it's something deeper, but it very well could be in the case she is connected to the Creels.

And while that is all somewhat compelling, at the same time it also feels very convoluted. Even if the Wheelers are Creels, I don't think that means the Wheelers would have powers, given that Henry got them when he was a child, meaning none of his family could have gotten them unless they too were taken in by the lab at some point, or were born with it.

Though I'm being full serious when I say the theories about Mike having time powers or maybe just manifestations from his emotions connected to the powers of others around him is one of my favorite theories of all time. I want it to happen. It would be cool. But that just opens the door to all of the Wheelers in my opinion, assuming his time powers came from being related to Henry. And if it was done that way, I feel like it would add way too much confusion to the story, where now all the Wheelers are gonna need to have powers, and then as a result would just takes away from the uniqueness that is already associated with Henry, El and potentially Will. One person potentially having powers without us knowing until the end aka Will, is enough honestly. Adding the Wheelers to the mix might be a bit much.

I'm also not totally convinced of the Wheeler's being Creels, and yet I also can't seem to want to rule it out entirely. But the prospects of Holly having powers or some sort of ability and just going through the same thing as Will when he was young and unaware of his powers, who is just now finding out the truth about his experiences... It just feels like serious whiplash honestly, when they haven't spent much of any time on Holly up to this point.

Like what are the stakes here exactly? What makes her disappearance and what that would look like compelling, on her front specifically? Because sure, I can see it being compelling watching the perspective of those around her reacting to this, what they would do to try to save her and all that, but what does that mean for her exactly? Are we going to see what she's doing? Are they going to hide it from us like they did with Will and then have to spend even more time uncovering it later on. And what does she even gain from being alone and taunted by Vecna presumably? What does the audience gain from witnessing that sort of event? There isn't a lot of story to explore there, outside of maybe making direct parallels to Will in s1? And then wouldn't that sort of take away from the importance of Will's role in it all just now being uncovered, if it all just repeats for Holly?

Which brings me to something that I see a lot of people using as strong evidence for why it has to be Holly, which is the fact that they recast her character.

What I think people are failing to consider is the fact that the twins who were cast to play Holly originally, were like 3-4 years old while filming s1. They weren't just kid actors, they were damn near baby actors. And while I know a big part of the reason why they gave Holly such few lines over the years was because the actors were aging way faster than the character they played, I think another factor could have been the fact that their acting experience is near nothing outside of Stranger Things, which is also pretty little on its own as well given that they have very few lines on the show.

It's not at all uncommon for child actors, let alone toddler actors to leave the industry once they start getting older. It could be for personal reasons, like wanting to explore other ventures, or it could be that they just don't perform as well with all the added expectations that come with acting as a character who is a kid with a lot of lines vs. a baby with 2 lines.

The girls got cast because at the time, they were able to perform as well as a 3 year old possibly could and would be expected to be in that role. But does that skill carry forth as they grew older? When now they have to deliver full sentences and carry conversations for scenes that are longer than 5 minutes? They've never really had to do that up to this point. Is it something that they feel comfortable with doing? Is their performance believable and is it something the writers feel confident about?

Honestly, I think they might have recast Holly, not because I think she is going to be targeted and focused on as this missing person they have to find, going through a near identical situation to 11 year old Will, but because they simply want her to be more apart of the story in general. And maybe because either the twins and/or the production didn't feel that they would be able to perform it in the way that they wanted it to be done.

And I mean, even if Holly isn't the one to go missing, one of the Wheelers is going to go missing based on this leak. If it was one of her parents, she would get a lot more scenes than she has in the past. If it was one of her siblings, again it would make sense for her to be more involved with the story. No matter what she is going to have a bigger role.

So no I don't think her being recast is as strong enough of proof as some might believe. If anything I think there is much stronger evidence that, like Karen, if they are related to the Creels, Holly is as fair game as any of them. The stakes could be high because she i such s a child. And her parents and Nancy and Mike worrying about her seems like something they would obviously do because she is so innocent and completely ill-equipped to endure something like that. But like I said, I just can't picture an focus like that on her, for her character, being very compelling given that Holly isn't really someone that needs like alone time with us witnessing it...

But there is one Wheeler left, and boy oh boy would he benefit from being alone.

1. Mike Wheeler

The most simple explanation for why it makes sense for it to be Mike, is that he genuinely benefits more than anyone when it comes to being alone with his thoughts, and with the audience watching. There's a lot of stuff dude has to work through in his own head, and since they haven't really let us have a moment alone with him that isn't under ten seconds since s3, an episode or two dedicated to making that a priority would make him coming back and things building up to the end, feel a lot more earned.

The audience needs to feel confident about how Mike feels about things. It can't be a guessing game for much longer when so many different factors are involved.

And while I think Mike may be the strongest possiblity in terms of the value it would add to the overall story is compelling enough to put him at number 1, the evidence supporting it happening is even stronger.

If we want to be crazy we can go back to the beginning. Plenty of fans have already speculated about how Mike is always late at the start of every season and how that might play into the beginning of season 5 again. I made a post about this recently and speculated it would happen one last time around the 15 minute mark. And maybe I was wrong... but maybe I was also right? Because if the second episode is called The Vanishing of Mike Wheeler, it's likely Mike's fate wouldn't be confirmed by the opening of 5x01, but in fact the closing scene of 5x01.

Throughout the show Mike plays a key role in leading the others, he's even referred to as 'the key' in s3 by Hopper. You know this show and their keys, they don't joke about that sort of thing. It's likely that Mike's story and what it is leading to is going to be central to how all of this ends.

Also in s3, there is one scene in particular that I think could be hinting at Mike being targeted, along with the s4 main poster with all of the characters. In the poster, we see El at the top, with Max and Mike as near equals on each side of her. Of course their roles are central and that's a fair layout on it's own arguably, but the equal-ness provided to Mike and Max feels very intentional. While she is slightly bigger than Mike in the frame, that could be a hint in regards to her being central now in s4, with Mike joining the mix alongside her in s5. Honestly, they could have made it so these two were beside other characters that also played a huge role in s4, and yet they chose those two to give a specific focus to. I think that is interesting (and probably intentional).

But if I'm being honest, there are so many moments in s4 specifically that hint at Mike being in danger, that I will not be able to include it all in detail in this post. So I'm going to link those below and then build off of some of it with some new details I've recovered that are worth re-contextualizing again with all of this in mind.

Hints regarding Mike and Will being targets of the town, but Mike specifically being focused on after the word 'missing' is said...

I'm gonna expand on this one because I think it's important to recognize the massive curtain in the background as this is all happening. And I vaguely reference this concept here as well which is worth checking out. But not is this whole concept of the curtain pretty blatant in this episode, this scene of the town all fleeing to hunt down hellfire club, is followed directly after, by this:

Notice how Mike is nearly always central in these moments? And how what follows feels eerily similar to what is about to go down at the end of s4 aka Suzie = Mike.

Now, this has already been talked about plenty so I won't go into detail, but... based on everything else happening surrounding this, this would apply to Mike in the sense that not only is he not in love with El, he's gay and in love with Will aka a boy. A BOY!

And then this mention of 'the terrible truth'. This word has been used like 3 times in the last few minutes. First intensely during Jason's speech about a terrible truth, with Ted and Karen being focused on with the Mike and Will extra in the background.

But what is even more crazy is that what follows sort of seals the deal for me that, this IS about Mike and it's foreshadowing what is about to come in s5.

5:02... 5x02!!!!

Also peep the watch and the letter from Dustin under it... I don't want to speculate but lettergate is looking extra relevant within all of this as well...

And to close off this point, lets show the shot that follows directly after this one.

Then later in the season, after Nancy is back from being taken by Vecna, here we have this long and emotional pause before she says Mike's name, last after her mom and Holly.

If they wrote and filmed this scene, knowing Mike would be the Wheeler missing early s5, it would make sense for them to list off the characters like this.

Mike peeking in the frame at this moment is not suspicious at all...

If it wasn't enough that Jason hyped up the whole town to see the Hellfire club as their enemy responsible for all of this, here we have a focus on Mike specifically being targeted by Jason.

The Duffer's statement about the show overall in the Piggyback script, and I gotta say it fits Mike a lot more than any of the other Wheelers.

Mike is a Paladin. And when they break an oath, they might spend an all-night vigil as a sign of penitence... aka everything is going to come to a head and Mike is going to be alone dealing with this shit for a bit, until he can come back ready to face it.

And I know it's controversial, but this post explains perfectly why Mike being central to this would make the show go full circle in a really compelling way.

Mike hasn't really unpacked...

Karen lookalike standing in front of the missing persons board. Could be any one of them but still, considering the costume of this extra looks closer to what Karen was wearing when she reunited and hugged Mike... I'm gonna put it more so with him.

Mike's guilt and shame regarding the past and what it has led them to could also play a big role and why him going missing would be worthwhile to explore. Part 1 / Part 2

Mike paralleling Yuri, who eventually reveals the truth (in his pocket) after stalling. If Mike parallels him all throughout the start of that moment, what does that mean for how it ends for Mike?

An antique funeral home fan behind Mike in the s4 character promo photos in the Creel attic, how Mike is seen sitting before Will sits beside him shortly after and it involving upside down imagery, Mike's first line in the show being used to later foreshadow his fate in early s5, and also bringing it back to Suzie's house which I already went into but it might be helpful to look at it again from this lens.

The Duffers would not pass up on the opportunity to parallel Mike with Finn's other character Richie in IT, which is literally based on a book that heavily inspired ST in the first place. And how all of that plays into the queer-coding for Mike going all the way back to s1.

The Duffers revealed after posting the funko-pop shotplanning pictures (2) that they were finished with planning for 5x01-5x02.... meaning this shot of Mike all by himself, is going to occur in one of those episodes...

We could still hypothesize Holly is the one to be taken, given that she doesn't have a funko and so they couldn't include her here regardless. But the fact that Nancy is with the other seems to imply to me that they are all likely working together to get Mike back, who is alone.

This one is a little more hard to pinpoint for sure, but it comes from a BTS Ross posted recently.

We are clearly in the Wheeler's house here. And if you zoom in, it looks like someone is standing (hiding?) behind a doorway/curtain. And the only person that seems to fit it imo is Mike... But why would he be hiding in his own house...?

It just makes me think about what is going on with Mike in early s5. What would be occurring that has him in this sort of situation? And it makes me wonder if him going missing has solely to do with him being taken and gone in one single moment, or if it could involve him avoiding his family and others potentially, with him being taken after that.

Lastly, I'm going to go into more choppy territory, stuff I know only a couple of people will actually consider. But it is pretty fucking fitting of what is about to go down so I can't not mention it.

In the Puzzle Tales' most recent Hellfire Campaign, this is the title...

Like the whole chapter is just a big joke on Mike about him being scared to be alone, which is painfully ironic if this is the direction the show is about to go for the next 2 upcoming episodes.

And then we have a song WSQK posted on Twitter back in January. I know people don't believe that this account is connected with anyone in the production, which is fair because I myself rarely believe leaks from anonymous accounts as it is. But I've been keeping up with it and it genuinely doesn't seem like a fan could come up with these songs.

The song I'm about to mention is the 7th song they posted, called Army Dreamers by Kate Bush. And you might fight it sounds a lot like the situation Mike might find himself in in early s5.

And though I'm sure I didn't cover everything, I feel like all the things I've mentioned and referenced from other posts are plenty to at least consider this as opposed to rejecting it all together.

At the end of the day I think there are some valid arguments for all of them to some extent. And quite frankly all of the Wheelers and most of the characters in the show will find themselves in danger in a way that is going to probably last longer than just one single moment the entire season. So even if it's just one of them, I don't think that rules out the others playing a bigger role in what is going down.

I just think narratively, there is one person that benefits from being on-screen and alone with their thoughts. And the other 4 being confronted with what that person discovers eventually will also make all of this a lot more worthwhile than any of the other options in my opinion.

[tired-night-owl]

Blood Runs Cold

Fandom : Star Wars The Bad Batch

One shot ?

I tried to write a small fic about Crosshair and Omega in the new promo that’s been released because I can’t wait to see them together in the new season even if I know my heart is gonna get crushed by Dave Filony again… Hopefully I am the opposite of last season and I am soooo wrong and they will all be reunited as a big family where no one dies or sacrifice themselves for the others ! Anyway I hope you enjoy :) 

Word count : 866

Summary : Crosshair has much to think about in his new conditions, what doesn’t help is when a far too bubbly and optimistic teenager comes and ruins his peaceful self pity moment.

Notes : brief mention of torture I guess, small but graphic description of tech’s death, Siblings!crosshair x omega, Spoilers for the new promo clip !

He noticed it a while ago, when they first started their wicked experiments on him. He tried to keep it under control mostly for his pride because seeing as with such a condition, his (now rendered useless) talent would be even more so wasn’t helping his morale. Crosshair didn’t mind it too much for now because not one clone in this cursed facility was in any shape or form to judge him in his misery. That is until the girl showed up. 

That child has been the sole cause for any misfortune he had to live though in the last couple of months he thought, but scolded himself to at least not make it show. She has enough to deal with too at the moment without having to suffer his endless wrath and sorrows. Still she cost him everything. His family, in more ways than one, his station, attempting to save her branded him a traitor and a VIP ticket to Hemlock’s test table and —

His mind went silent 

His brother Tech…. He had to give his life for hers. Skull smashed to pieces because they didn’t heed his warning. There's no way the batch can survive without its brain now. 

His mind whirled with thoughts like these locked in his dark cell all day. Some would say they were enough to drive a man insane but Crosshair already knew insane, and it wasn’t by his choice. Now he sees it, the effect that damn chip has had on him. How it made him turn on the only people who ever cared for him. He couldn’t turn on this one now. 

« Crosshair… »

« Crosshair ! I tried to come earlier, but there are too many guards watching me…»

He tried to calm his usually snappy tone for the sake of the girl who must be as terrified if not more than he is at the moment.

« You shouldn’t be down here at all » he tried to make her realize a little harsher than he wished.

It was foolish of her to put a target on her back by snooping around, on THEIR backs. In a situation like this where there is no hope, it’s best to comply and hope you die as painlessly as possible. Though that seemed unlikely for him at the hands of that sick scientist. But there might be hope for her yet if she stopped escaping her quarters.

The girl continued with her misplaced energy and optimism.

« How else are we gonna plan an escape ? »

An escape ?! Had she gone insane? Did she not realize they were in the middle of no where, in an unknown imperial playground, surrounded by guards with no moral compass except loyalty to the credits they earn at the end of each shift filled with screams of tortured people. Better to kill that idea in the egg before she gets too altruistic. 

The sniper resumed his usual cold and unapproachable attitude, hoping the girl would realize that planning an escape in a place such as this with only 1 ally was foolish already but with no one, it was simply stretching your neck to help the executioner do his job. 

« There is no WE, and there is no escape… I’ve already tried. » 

The young clone didn’t budge.

« Every stronghold has a weak point ! Maybe I could convince Emerie to help, she’s one of us. »

His brothers has taught her well he could tell, and by that he meant by filling her head with useless idiotic tactics and informations for a obviously changing galaxy. Besides if they shouldn’t trust one person in this Sarlac pit, it was HER. That double crossing scientist woman. Testing on people was bad enough but on her own « brothers » that was being a plain sociopathic hypocrite. 

« Not every clone is your ally ! » The sharpshooter reminded her.

« You trust too easily… »

He expected a reply and one sounding similar to that one too, so he doesn’t know why her words struck him so. 

« Maybe you don’t trust enough. » Omega replied with that same misguided hope as earlier.

An uncomfortable silence surrounded the two and then it started again : the shaking.

The stupid shaking he couldn’t stop. The best sniper in the whole GAR with quivering hands, how ironic. He felt uneasy having her see him like this. It was as if his own brothers could see how low he had fallen and for a prideful man like Crosshair, it was not an easy feat to overcome. 

« Crosshair ? »  The young girl asked after her gaze fell upon her brother hiding his hands from her. 

Not so long ago he would’ve snapped at her for simply seeing him in a state like this, desperately trying to steady his once reliable hands but now, he just didn’t have the heart or the energy to do so…

« Just… Go. » he simply said. 

« Before you make things worst for both of us… »

In this moment he came to the conclusion that yes, he didn’t want to be punished for the girl’s misbehaviour but he also mostly didn’t want her to suffer because of him. 

Knowing Hemlock, he wouldn’t even do it to punish Omega… but he would do unexplainable things to the girl to make HIM suffer. 

[ofoceansandtombsanew]

Do you mind if I ask your top 10 favorite characters (can be male or female) from all of the media that you loved (can be anime/manga, books, movies or tv series)? And why do you love them? Sorry if you've answered this question before.....Thanks...

no worries at all, i've never been asked that actually! i really apologize for how long this took to answer because i was thinking so long and hard about characters in media that have touched my heart in different ways.

but in no particular order my top 10 favorite characters are

honda tohru

haruno sakura

narancia ghirga

rengoku kyojuro

bakugou katsuki

iwakura mitsumi

yamada asaemon tenza

nijimura okuyasu

furina

sokka

+ 2 bonuses for fun

the protagonist of fruits basket, my girl tohru. my fellow clumsy queen. if i were going to list down 4 characters i related to the most in animanga, tohru would be one of them. maybe it won't be too much of a surprise she's on this list because one of my highest ranking posts is literally a deep dive into tohru as a character. shameless self promo read here, but this would definitely explain all the reasons i love her so much. but the amount of love this character exudes despite all the painful things she's been through, how i relate to how she tries her hardest to present herself as bubbly to hide her loneliness from even herself, there's just so much i can't help but love about this character.

sakura is one of my girls from now until forever. she's the reason i love cherry blossoms so much. if i had to pick only one character from naruto to call my favorite, it would go to sakura hands down, no questions asked. i'm a first generation sakura fan (lmao is that a thing?) where i liked her from her very introduction to naruto. i loved her pink hair, her green eyes, how she carried herself and you will always see me in the trenches defending sakura as a character and what she supplied to the naruto series. maybe it's because i also related so much to sakura growing up and growing up with the character as well, so there's a lot for me to love here.

narancia is honestly one of the most beautiful characters in jojo for me and i'm not just talking about aesthetics. off rip he comes off as a dumb, violent gangster when in actuality, in spite of the more obvious aspects of his characters, there is a strange purity to narancia. in his loyalty, in his straightforwardness to even how his stand ability manifests as a toy army plane. the implications of the child soldier narancia very much became, his efficiency in being able to kill while very much so still being that kid whose biggest fear than anything was being alone. narancia truly believed he was going to die alone in that alley. his death in jojo is honestly still to this day, one of the hardest hitting. because it was so brutal and unexpected and in a lot of ways so unfair even if the rationality as to why he was targeted made sense (i've talked a number of times with my mom who has seen jojo about how all of the characters who die in pt 5 are core members of the 'heart' of the bucci gang, narancia ofc being one of them). in that moment, everyone cried for him whereas prior he was the one who cried on behalf of the party for the loss of abbacchio.

rengoku lwk just might be everyone's fav in demon slayer but i don't care, same here. his owlish design, his vibrant energy, the conviction to stay behind his principles and even die by said principles? i can't not admire the guy and how despite his short appearance in the story, you still feel the ripple effect of it throughout the story. sasori, maybe deidara had a point when he said true beauty is fleeting and an explosion.

katsuki honestly stole the whole show of bnha for me. hell i was out here enjoying him even when he was just an irredeemable bully because i could see early on the complexity of the character and was honestly curious to see where such a belligerent personality came from. how he's reflected on himself throughout the story, becomes better than the person he was the day before, all of that is really admirable to me. it's lwk honestly gets to a point where if katsuki isn't the focus of an arc or episode, i lose interest. show me the explosion boy please. i also feel like even with the great aspect of the character, there's a lot of disservice towards him regards to how the way his parents treat him is swept under the rug, the way they completely brush over the fact they muzzled and chained him on live television due to his refusal to accept an award and presented a strong student as mentally unstable to the masses (something that led to his very kidnapping, mind you). but my gripes with those things honestly make me love this guy even more than i already do.

mitsumi from skip & loafer is another relatable character for me. from the older trans woman figure in her life (one of my moms) to the clumsiness. like mitsumi, i too am always falling over and because of that i've gotten good at picking myself up. characters like mitsumi, you can't help wanting to follow the model of. i love her straightforwardness, her open-mindedness and appreciate how she views life and those around her. i can only hope to be more like her, among some other characters i love, in my daily life. i love how it doesn't really matter who someone is in relation to her or someone else she knows, she makes her own fair assessments of that person and judges based off her experiences with that person.

tenza is the best character in hell's paradise. argue with a wall i can't be argued against here. damn did we lose when his fine ass got axed early in the storyline. i deadass almost stopped reading hell's paradise after chapter 21 because i was that upset about his death. i'm a sucker for a character who dies saving the rest of the group, and the way he went out in a blaze of glory. already dying, already bleeding out but still deciding he'd spin his last few minutes of life buying time for his comrades. his final thoughts wondering what his life could have been like if he weren't dying in that moment. the students he could have had. the wife he could have had. the visceral reaction i had seeing his body get tossed over like he was nothing but garbage? still feel that. he's another example of a character who didn't have long to shine in the story in terms of number of appearances but the way you feel his presence in the story after his death? how it fuels shion and nurugai's quest for vengeance. how that vengeance almost very well destroyed one of them. how tenza in spirit gave nurugai the will to save shion's life. i really, really loved it. it was such a subversion of expectations seeing the pupil die rather than that master.

okuyasu is definitely my favorite character in diamond is unbreakable. he comes off as just comic relief, which to be fair, okuyasu is very funny. however comma, there's so much to depth to the character that you really appreciate as the story goes on. he's a follower by nature, you can see that from the very first episode you meet him where he follows his brother's orders. that once keicho died, he immediately found someone new to follow in josuke, our jojo for the part. but you see him slowly starting to take those steps towards becoming someone who doesn't just follow, but leads. someone capable of deciding for himself what he wants to do. especially after his brother dies and he becomes a caretaker for himself and his father. how he wants to put large windfalls of money into his savings. how he is able to work around his intellectual shortcomings with his strengths. okuyasu is dumb but he isn't an idiot. he is actually quite astute in a lot of ways one doesn't expect and that he doesn't give himself credit for. so all of this made his grand decision not to follow his brother into the afterlife so satisfying.

oh how i loved furina from day fucking 1. from the moment her design got leaked i knew where my primogems were going. when she entered the story officially? i was even more in love just due to how different she was as an archon. i could understand why she wasn't for everybody but she was everything for me and that's all that mattered. then we get the level 4 tragic backstory, her 500 year long opera where she alone is on the stage? it wasn't enough just to pull for furina, furina deserved everything my account had to offer. her story quest really made me want to shove paimon and the traveler into a blender but regardless, this character has my whole heart and i will eat up any content that pertains to her as i fucking should. she deserves my everything.

sokka. absolutely sokka. seeing sokka finally get his fucking flowers during the atla revival during 2020 brought so much joy to my soul. i've loved sokka since back when atla was still airing on tv. he has been my favorite and honestly i think some of my humor and sarcasm of today relates all the way back to the guy with boomerang. i got both of my moms into atla and it really made me happy to see the guy they initially saw as the dumb funny one in the group when they just glanced at the tv when i was watching it, is actually arguably the smartest on the team and a literal genius who grew into the man he wanted to become since episode 1. that he was actually the most logical member of the team and the most practical when it came to their long term goals. he was humbled and realized his misogyny was an incorrect way of thinking, he learned from his mistakes an even with his insecurities about where he stood on the team, he never let that get him down for long.

+ 2

ojamajo doremi is coming back, so i gotta mention my two of my fav girls from the series that i relate to the most. first up, harukaze doremi or i'm doing myself a disservice. doremi is a character that has a lot of shortcomings from her clumsiness to her . and i relate a lot to her because of that. whenever i learn something new, i'm never the best at it. especially handicrafts and seeing others around me being good at those things definitely sucked. so seeing a character like that was great for me at that age. but one thing that is just so great about this girl is, to quote caribou-kun on youtube (please watch his video essay on ojamajo doremi on youtube) "she is the greatest friend in the entire world". and i don't say that lightly, she's like the tohru honda of majou shoujo. she would literally take off her shirt and give it to someone to throw up in if they needed it. the way she can connect to people. how she supports them when they most need it even if she doesn't know what is the right thing to say or even if it is at the cost of her own feelings. when i say i want to be a good friend to someone, doremi is one of the faces i picture.

and finally, senoo aiko. she was my favorite favorite of the ojamajos growing up. initially because, well, she was the blue one and blue has been my favorite color since before i can honestly remember. because damn did certain parts of her character also really relate to me. divorced parents (although in my case, they got divorced when i was very young and have been that way since my earliest memories) and doing your best to handle that situation even if you want your parents to get back together. my parents never got back together like aiko's but honestly, she i was happy to see that old dream of mine be realized through her. she has had to be the prince for herself and others in her life for most of her life, and when you finally get to see the moment she can just be the princess is wonderful.

there are other characters i haven't mentioned due to the limitations of just 10 characters but these are some characters that immediately come to mind for some major favs.

[ghostinthegallery]

Hello Ghost! First good day I am you are doing well!

Second; forgot to ask in AO3 but will we see Trazyn explaning the shitshow he put himself, Solamnace AND everyone living in Solamnace at the mot? It would be so cool to see his crypteks and Ashkut AND Huntmaster calling him an impulsive moron in the politest most passive aggressive way they can get away with XD

And seeing their undying loyalty to him too. Even with imminet and lets be honest extraordianary danger they are all in all WILL stand with their lord until to the bitter end. He is theit lord and this is their home and by the all dead gods they will fight tooth and nail to protect it!!!...also after the amount of work the put in Solamnace and regular bullshit they go through there is no way in hell they'll go without a fight.

I would love to see Trazyn getting emotional XD (because these people were HIS family before and after biotransfarence I will die on this hill you and magistralucis convinced me in XD)

(if anyone is curious what situation Trazyn got himself into, read my longfic here. Shameless self promo done)

Haha, I do have plans for the Solemnace crew (not immediately, there's a lot to cover but it will come!). Now hijacking your ask because it did get me thinking about loyalty as a concept for necrons. So few of them have free will. Even those that do are still machines. Machines can be programmed. Szarekh literally had a command protocol that let him control every single necron (which he gave up but the fact that level of control is possible is kinda terrifying)

So how can one truly know if loyalty is chosen or programmed? How much free will can a machine without a soul have? I find that idea so interesting, and I imagine is occurs to the characters as well. We just don't see it as much since most of the POV characters are lords who would have no reason to consider it. Severed imho addresses this in a roundabout way with how it portrays Obyron's loyalty to Zahndrekh. It shows that a subordinate can choose loyalty to their lord, rather than having it forced on them by programming.

I imagine the Solemnace crew are in a similar position (the sentient ones anyway). Trazyn is not the best lord out there, he will take possession of a subordinate's body if he needs it and that does NOT sound pleasant. But the narrative really does show his court having will and opinions and skills that Trazyn values. That's not true of every overlord. So yeah, based on what we see I do think their loyalty is a choice. That's hella emotional to me, so yeah, I promise it will come up XD

[incarnateirony]

You were in Marketing, so tell me, do you think Jensen agreed to Atomic Heart without realizing that there would be a bit of a shit storm, or do you think he and his promo team were good with the shit storm, because bottom line, it's a worldwide game and it gave him huge publicity? I mean, even the haters blaming him for the entire war really doesn't matter, as 99% of people know that is just stupid. Also, controversy about what nationality a dev is, is not going to stop gamers from buying a game. I just can't figure if Jensen stepped into this unaware, or brilliantly chose this to widen his name appeal?

I think Jensen has far better sense of bearing on media than all the people pretending to be upset off of a well known exaggerated review that intentionally warped it.

I think Jensen is fully aware that media everywhere boils down to about one of three money sources, behind just as many proxy screens. I think Jensen is aware you guys read things funded by Russia and PIF every day, or watch shows with them, or networks funded by them every day.

It's that this is all hilarious noise of people with miscellaneous agendas, and other people reacting to them inflating their importance.

Jensen is fully aware, just like every other actor in the history of ever, he's going to work down the money pipe of one of several major influencing political forces, if not multiple or all of them at the same time, and that's just how it fucking works, and this fandom really needs to wrap their head around it.

It's xenophobia, fam. Someone saw "Russian" and went digging immediately for "dirty money." And if you dig in media enough you will always find it. This is actually more "media welfare" dogwhistling, in Russian font. breaking news, game developer uses locally available funding systems to create game, more at 11.

Jensen knew that people would react to agendas and dogwhistles and that it wouldn't matter a goddamn thing or negatively impact his career, just that narcissists would waste energy yelling about it feeling like they're doing something.

Listen, I support Ukraine, but you're a fucking goof if you think this is about Ukraine. Even if you're Ukrainian, I'm sorry. Half your fucking TV still is probably Russian funded. Stop picking and choosing things to pretend to be mad about when there's a shiny actor's face attached to fight about. If you're gonna be pissed about this shit, fix it at the root, don't attack the small developers that have the sin of Existing In A Country.

I think Jensen was happy to be a shooter bicon rebelling in silent LGBTQ undertones to lead more Russians to his content, and that everyone fucked up the developer happy to do that, and made them give away all their profits.

The game dev giving all their profits to Ukraine should have ended this. You guys aren't here for truth or social justice or even Ukraine, you guys are here to argue about shit until the horse has been beaten into glue. People WANT this studio to die for NO good reason beyond the fact that some idiot convinced them it needs to, and they will not stop beating this fucking horse until they get what they convinced themselves is right.

If you are still talking about this thinking it has any meaningful bearing, I regret to inform you, you as a person are extremely succeptible to propaganda.

[wheelercore]

It's really interesting how we get 3 versions of the creel plotline:

1. The creel trailer, which has alice and henry running up the stairs excitedly together and alice finding the dead rabbit, not in the playground, but what I assume is either the front yard or the backyard. Also henry and alice are noticeably younger, but children grow quickly so I don't know if that was intentional.

2. The show itself, which has the difference in the beginning entry way scene and alice in the playground.

3. The First Shadow, in which alice strikingly missing, despite the fact that the play still takes place when the creels just moved to Hawkins, supposedly. I believe the first promo refers to henry as the new kid in school, emphasizing that henry may be an only child in this play... somehow.

So either something happened to alice before the creels arrived to hawkins (doubtful, this show places a lot of emphasis on hawkins as a setting and I doubt the it would make its central 'cursed town' irrelevant to its plot twist)-

Alice never existed (?? Lol) -

Or something happened to alice after the creels moved to hawkins and what we see in the show is not what it seems.

The third option isn't exactly out of this world. The show, since the beginning, put a lot of emphasis on PTSD, flashbacks, and repressed memories. It's all the more obvious with El recovering memories of Henry and the massacre, but s2 was filled to the brim with allegories and mentions to flashbacks, starting with Phineas "totally not used in the show as an allegory for the psychological effects of trauma" Gage and how will's supernatural experiences were compared to PTSD.

Vecna's curse was intentionally made to be subtle to the victim. None of them knew they were in a hallucination until it was made obvious to them. And... there are just some very interesting word choices going on here:

Hopper corrects Joyce in this scene but the association of flashbacks and nightmares continue. Victor describing his own vecna vision, reminiscent of his own traumatic memories:

Him describing waking up from his later vision, describing both that vision and his "reality" as nightmares:

We don't see Alice dying. Not even in Henry's pov- it's intentionally obfuscated from us.

In the beginning of s4 nightmares are also framed as a sign of the vecna curse, we see specifically Max's nightmare being more so a flashback, or a memory, to Billy's death. Nightmares are also a core symptom of PTSD so it fits the bill with season 2.

Funnily, enough we see Alice also experiences nightmares- which we know what that's associated with:

What exactly were in Alice's nightmares?

In the beginning we also got these very sus lines by Alice of all people, saying how the home looks like a "fairytale" and a "dream", which you know is what people say when they mean something is too good to be true, the opposite of nightmare, used to mean something that is so dreadful its hard to believe.

These lines arent in the creel trailor, which is... interesting.

Also I wonder if there is a hint to this when Henry gains his abilities in the first place. Weirdly enough this is symbolized by Henry forcing a clock to go backwards, metaphorically into the past (and I am obligated to mention this, but the parallel to fred):

Where others saw order, I saw a straitjacket. A cruel, oppressive world dictated by made-up rules. Seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years, decades. Each life a faded, lesser copy of the one before. Wake up, eat, work, sleep, reproduce, and die. Everyone is just waiting. Waiting for it all to be over. All while performing in a silly, terrible play, day after day. I could not do that. I could not close off my mind and join in the madness. I could not pretend. And I realized I didn't have to. I could make my own rules. I could restore balance to a broken world.

Also makes me so curious about the rainbows on the clock during this monologue/scene... a reference to the rainbow room? Makes sense because it seems like the lab kids were killed in a similar fashion to Alice- their jaws weren't broken unlike virginia and the vecna victims. Why?

It's interesting how directly after this scene it cuts to the rabbit being killed- and with the predator/prey theme often represented by animals and a rabbit is definitely a prey animal- and that rabbits body being left for alice, who would later be killed in a similar way.

Why is Henry forecasting Alice's own death to her? For funsies? We see he repeatedly that he used tactics against his parents to hold the mirror up because they've done "terrible things" (still unknown what Virginia's terrible thing is yet). For vecna victims its slightly different, while fred and max fit that bill, patrick and chrissy don't. Their visions were more along the lines of showing them the darkness in their lives that they hide. So it seems to me that vecna shows not just sources of guilt, but the harsh unbridled truth of their lives. So what business did Henry have with Alice?

I'm not saying that there is possibly some weird fucky altered reality/time loss stuff happening in hawkins but. I am.

[austinsgirl]

Rather Die | Chapter 11

rating: pg-13, talks of pregnancy, language

word count: 1986

cross posted on wattpad

master list

————————————————————————

“And cut! That's a wrap! Thank you everyone!" Anna calls out as the movie just shot their last scene. A very wet, steamy, rain kiss.

Austin high fives Vic, playing it cool. Although, he'd love to hug her instead, or do more. He hasn't been able to get her out of his mind the past couple weeks since their hook up.

Regret has been killing him. He hates what he did to her, falling for Eliana's alluring ways. He wishes he hadn't fucked up. Victoria would be his if he didn't.

He can't help but to bask her sexual beauty at the moment. Her wet tee, clinging in all the right places.

Austin starts to head to his trailer to get those thoughts out of his head.

"Hey, Butler!" Vic calls out to him. "See you at you at the wrap party?"

He's surprised she'd ask him such a thing, as he knows she's been dying to get filming over with so they'd never have to see each other again. Well, at least for a while until promos start.

"Uh, yeah! I'll be there."

"Cool. See you then!"

"Why'd you ask if he was going?" Mila questions Victoria.

"I wanted to know if my night would be more entertaining. If he's there, I get to watch him suffer in jealousy one last time because he'll see me & Ashton together."

"You're crazy, Vic."

"I know. But he's made my life a living hell, so."

Little does she know, Austin's been keeping up on the asshole act to hide his true feelings towards her, and he now finds it as a turn on to see her get all worked up & frustrated. So, lately, making her life a living hell has really been a benefit for him.

At the wrap party, drinks are being had, music is blaring through the speakers. It's almost as if it was the cast party all over again, but this time it was a different club.

Austin sits in the corner, sipping on an old fashioned as he watches Victoria & Ashton dance the same way he & Victoria danced the night things fell apart.

"Hey handsome." Eliana comes up & sits next to him.

"What are you doing here, Eli?" he asks, annoyed.

"You know I'd never miss a good party. And I knew you'd be here."

"Yep. I'm here. Probably going to leave soon though."

"Awe why? The party just started."

"Yeah, well, I don't really enjoy watching the girl I like dance with her boyfriend, so."

"Victoria?"

"Yeah."

"You like her again? You're over me?"

"Honestly...I don't think I ever stopped liking her deep down. I really regret kissing you that night, you know."

"How could you regret kissing me? I'm the best you've ever had, Austin."

"Don't be so sure of yourself, Eliana."

"So, Im not the best you've ever had?"

"Bingo. Sorry."

"Let me prove it to you. I still want you, Austin."

"No thanks, I'm good."

Eliana leans in closer to him, staring to nibble on his ear how he likes. "Cmon, Aus. I know you want-

"No, Eliana. Stop." he cuts her off. "I told you we were over, like a million times. It's not happening. You showed me your true colors that day I saw you making out with that rando. Vic was right about you & I really wish I would have listened to her." Austin gets up & starts heading out.

"Wait! Austin! Please! One more chance!" Eliana calls out.

Austin just ignores her & continues on.

Victoria notices that he's leaving. She starts to feel accomplished, thinking she was making him jealous enough to leave, but then she spots Eliana. She knew instantly she was the reason why Austin left.

"Thanks for making Austin leave! I was trying to win him back!" Eliana yells at Vic over the loud music.

"Yeah, okay. I'm sure he left because of you, because he was tired of listening to your bullshit. He told you plenty of times you guys were done for." Victoria says.

"No, he didn't, but okay."

"He did, I was there, everytime you came to set begging him to take you back."

"You're so annoying." Eliana says, storming off.

"Guess you haven't met yourself then!" Vic shouts to her.

Ashton whispers into her ear, "Wanna get out of here?"

"I thought you'd never ask."

A few weeks have passed & Victoria feels like a huge weight has been lifted off her shoulders not having to deal with Austin or Eliana. She hasn't seen or spoken to them since the wrap party.

Victoria's been happy to put the past behind her & get a new start. She's been looking for more opportunities now that she's been done with filming, and has had some time off to herself & to enjoy her new official boyfriend.

Ashton took her on a date to Dave & Busters, a place where a part of their first date took place. While Victoria was in the bathroom, Ashton had one a little teddy bear holding a heart out of a crane machine. When she came back, he asked her to be his. It was a cheesy moment, but Vic absolutely loved it.

"Hey, are you gonna ever stop looking for jobs today?" Mila asks Victoria, as she's been sitting at the counter literally all day on her laptop.

"Um, yeah. I'm about to right now actually. I'm starting to feel nauseous from looking at the screen too much." Vic responds.

"Oof, yeah. You're looking kind of green. Let me know if you need anything."

"I will."

Before she knew it, Vic was running to the bathroom to throw up.

"Do you feel better now?" Mila asks as Vic comes out of the bathroom.

"Yeah, a little bit. I think I'll be fine."

A couple days later

"Fuck." Vic mutters to herself as she sits on the floor in front of the toilet.

She gets herself up from the floor and finds Mila in the kitchen making herself a bagel.

"Mila?.."

"Hey, what's up?"

"I, um...fuck." Vic starts to form tears in her eyes. "I think I might be pregnant."

"You what?" Mila responds with a full bite of her bagel in her mouth.

"I think I might be pregnant, which would be insane because I've always been told at my gyno check ups that I may not be able to conceive because of how fucked up my cycles are & practically being infertile." she rambles, being nervous.

"Okay, slow down. Why do you think you are?"

"I just threw up again, and it like came out of nowhere. I don't know what else it could be. I've been feeling fine, it's not a constant thing like if I had food poisoning."

"I have a couple tests in the bathroom if you want to use them. I had a pregnancy scare a few months ago and impulsively bought like three boxes."

"Okay, yeah, I'll do that. But if I am...I don't know who the father is. Like it could be Austin from our one time or Ashton's."

"Have you told Ashton about that time with Austin like I've been saying you should?"

"No, I havent. I just haven't been able to find the right way to tell him."

"Well, you need to. Especially if you're pregnant & he could possibly be the father, or if you're pregnant with another man's baby."

"I know, I know. And if I am...I think I want to keep it. Like it would be a miracle if I am with the amount of times I've been told it would be hard for me to get pregnant."

"I get that. And no matter what, I'm here for you every step of the way."

"Thanks, Mila. I appreciate it. I'm gonna go take those tests since I have to pee anyways."

"Okay. Do you want to look at them together?"

"Yeah. I cant do this alone."

"Okay. Go pee, and I'll be right there."

Victoria does her business & takes the tests.

"This is the longest three minutes of my life." Vic complains.

"Thirty more seconds." Mila says looking at her timer.

When the seconds were up, Victoria took a deep breath & closed her eyes before looking at the tests.

Both tests read positive.

"Shit." Vic says to herself.

Mila reads the tests herself, "Oh my god."

"Now I really have to tell Ashton, huh?"

"Mhm. You need to tell Austin too."

"Fuck. I do, because I'm gonna have to get a paternity test."

"Are you for sure it could be Austin's?"

"Well, when I looked up how long it takes for early symptoms to start, it lines up with that time. I have this gut feeling too that it's his."

"Why?"

"Because in the heat of the moment, and not being prepared, Austin & I didn't use protection, but me and Ashton have been. Just incase, even though it would be unlikely I could get pregnant. But here we are."

"Oh damn. Who are you telling first?"

"I don't know. Austin I guess. He'd be easier to tell. I don't know."

Suddenly, there's a knock on the door.

"I'll go see who it is." Mila says.

She goes out into the main part of the apartment and answers the door.

"Oh, hi Ash! I didn't know you were coming over."

"Hey, Mila. Yeah, I wanted to surprise Vic with some Starbucks. I got you one too. Where is she?" Ashton asks.

"Aw, that's so sweet! Thanks! She's in the bathroom. I'll let her know you're here."

Mila let's Ashton in and goes back to the bathroom.

"Hey, Ashton's here. I think that's who you're telling first."

"Oh god. No time to prepare, but okay."

"I'm here if you need me. You know that."

"I know."

They both walk out into the kitchen.

"Hey! There's my girl! How are you?" Ashton asks.

Tears start streaming down Victoria's face. "Um, can we talk?"

"Yeah, of course. What's wrong?"

They go into the living area & have a seat on the couch.

"I've been meaning to tell you this for awhile now, because you deserve to know, but I haven't been able to bring myself to tell you, but I really need to tell you now."

"What is it, Vic?"

"A few weeks ago, before we made it official, and while I was still filming....Austin & I, we....we hooked up. It was a total mistake, and it shouldn't have happened, but it did, and I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry it happened & I'm so sorry I didn't tell you sooner." Vic just sobs as she gets her words out.

"Hey, hey. It's okay. I'm glad you told me sooner than later. Things happen, and we weren't together yet. It's okay, really."

"But it's not..." she cries more, struggling to get the rest out. "I'm pregnant. And it could be his, or it could be yours."

Ashton covers his mouth in shock.

"I'm so sorry." Victoria says. "If you don't want anything to do with me, or the baby, I get it."

"Does Austin know?" he asks.

"No. I just found out right before you came."

"And you want to keep the baby? I mean, I'm sure you do, right? With your issues, I'm sure you're surprised this even happened."

"Yeah, I do. Whethers it's yours, or his. I just don't want this to change anything between us. I do really like you, Ash. Shit, I love you & I don't want to lose you over this."

"You're not going to lose me, Vic. I love you too. We'll get through this no matter what happens, alright?"

"Okay. Thank you for being so amazing, and understanding."

"Of course. Like I said, things happen. It's okay."

He reaches over & kisses the top of her head.

Now that the hard part is over, the next step is to tell Austin. We can only hope he'll take the news just as well as Ashton did.

————————————————————————

[antlerqueer]

Okay so on the whole 'if you survive you live' thing, I've actually been thinking about that being connected to the locket. Like maybe they're giving it to whoever's about to be hunted because of the 'now your untouchable' thing in a 'if the forest wants them to survive than they'll survive' kind of way? I saw people say that maybe the locket goes to whoever is going to be next, and maybe it's just the way I read it, but it implied that the person gets it like ahead of time, like before the ritual comes up, which again just feels like it doesn't fit? Because I can honestly not imagine a single one of those girls finding out that after months of struggle, a necklace is what's going to decide their fate, and being okay with it, unless it takes a super depressed angle where one of the girls just like, embraces it.

But I also wonder where it is today? Was it left in the woods as like a final goodbye? Did someone bring it home? Did Lottie bring it back and start using it with the cult and/or currently has it and will have to use it with her cult/the others as like a final ritual? If they sacrificed wilderness baby then did they maybe leave it with him?

Is javi maybe alive in modern day and just like, dipped on everybody after they got rescued (this one doesn't seem too likely to me), did he maybe stay in the forest if he is alive? Did him and the baby possibly stay behind?

Is the dripping supposed to foreshadow maris death? Just the fact that a death will happen soon? Does it work like during the seance when Lottie heard the dirt tell her to spill some blood? Is there a chance that maybe mari is the one that either kills the next person (and like the dripping suddenly stops like the second after she does) or suggests that the next person to die (or even just christen if they find her body) should get eaten, maybe she becomes the person to kind of like officially start the rituals or even just being the one that gives them their biggest push in that direction?

Also the vision of how the plane almost crashed, is this like the dirt gods saying they saved them so now they owe them back for the mercy, is it a show of the power they have like theyre powerfull enough to stop the plane crashing that way, or maybe a show in the sense that the way the plane crashed was the natural way and the dirt gods had the power to have made the crash even worse if they had chosen to intervene? Is it a sign that maybe the dirt gods chose to save them for a specific purpose and not just an act of mercy?

Anyway, a lot of these were a lot less likely than some of the other ones but honestly, atp I'm just shooting at everything and the first thing that lands is what I'm gonna call the target😆

Thanks for your patience on me answering - long messages are harder for me to reply to on mobile and I wanna give it my full attention!

In my opinion, if it is part of a ritual sacrifice, it's given to whomever has to live through the night right before they run. They play like hide and seek rules, give them to 100 to get a head start, then the chase begins.

The question about where it is today is really good - honestly, would Shauna return it to Jackie until it's time for it to come back? Maybe? But I don't see Shauna wearing it constantly after it's used for the sacrifice stuff.

I don't know what's up with Mari and the dripping, tbh. I think we may not know until the end of the season what's up with that, based on it just being teased lightly for the past two episodes. That's one thing I don't have any ideas on, because I keep thinking of the promo where Coach Scott is like smacking his head to stop hearing something? So maybe he ends up hearing it, too? Maybe more people start hearing it? I don't know.

I think since the vision was during Nat's OD it isn't a message from the wilderness as much as it is from within Natalie; therefore, if the darkness is within them, then the darkness within Natalie brought forth that message. She may think the darkness saved them from their untimely fate, but I don't think the wilderness necessarily saved their lives. Because why would the wilderness save their lives and then ask for more blood, yknow? Saving them just to kill them? So it seems more like a reflection from Natalie's subconscious - she'd rather have died in that crash than do what they needed to do to survive, she'd rather have died than let that darkness into her, and now she has to live with these consequences. The darkness inside her, inside them all, makes her wish she never got out - and let's be real, did they really get out when it's inside them?

[sanstropfremir]

ok it's a bit overdue but are you ready? it's...

best stylings of 2022, part two!

once again, this covers comebacks that came out from july 1st to dec 31st, if you want to read the part that covers the first half of the year, it's here! there i explain the criteria that i use as well.

best overall

guerrilla - ateez

oh you think i'm over this? no i refuse. in fact i am STILL losing it over the fact that hanya and i managed to call a metropolis reference a YEAR in advance. i have a contentious relationship with the ateez stylists bc they have produced some very......questionable work (ketchup packet seonghwa), but then sometimes their affinity for ugly hits just the right spot like it did with guerrilla. not only is the styling an excellent blend of the best of ugly skater punk and revolutionary counter culture, but the mv is full of art references that perfectly balance the idea of starting a revolution in a dystopia where art and emotions have been made illegal.

stages: mcountdown 220804, music core 220806, music bank 220729, inkigayo 220731, inkigayo 220807, show champion 220803, music core 220813

bsides: sector 1 - mcountdown 220804, the show 220802, music bank 220729

+

2 baddies - nct 127

wrote an extensive post about how much is happening in the 2 baddies mv, it's already appeared on my fave choreos list, i am going to be a 2 baddies apologist until the day i die and there's nothing you can do about it. clown me all you want but this is one of the best designed nct mvs since probably wayv's regular.

stages: inkigayo 221002 (includes faster), music core 221001, k-909, music bank 220923

bsides: faster - k-909, music core 220924

+

gasoline - key

i have some...complicated feelings about gasoline that i'll get into in an extended post eventually, but i went back and watched the mv again for the first time in a few months and despite my complicated feelings, kibum gets it. the visual cohesion of this album is so interesting and unusual and there's so many ideas that i do love that it would be a betrayal to not have it in my top three. from the album design to costuming to all the promo material that comes out, kibum has such a strong eye and excellent ability to work with his team and i respect it so much.

stages: mcountdown 220908, mcountdown 220901, music core 220903, music bank 220902

bsides: bound mcountdown 220901, villain inkigayo 220904

+

panorama - lee chanhyuk

one half of akmu, chanhyuk had his solo debut and he went whole hog on doing something very holistically conceptual, down to the types of performances that he did. the album tells the story of a coma patient, and i highly recommend it as a listening experience, but the performances of panorama are exactly what i mean when i want idols to be fucking around with form. there are not that many so i'm actually going to give a brief description of each of them, because if there are any links you click on from this post, it should be these ones:

mcountdown 221020: he does the entire performance standing still with his back to the camera, including the ending fairy

music core 221022: does the entire performance with his back to the audience, staring into a mirror that is being held up by his manager

k-909 - eyewitness account: this is of one of the bsides, does the entire performance holding a glass of wine that he then dumps down his front halfway through the song

k-909 - panorama: honestly the most 'normal' of the bunch, but you can see the consistency in how he's performing and what type of aesthetic markers are acting as a throughline

inkigayo 221023: has a barber shave his whole head on stage in one take while he's singing

+

girls - aespa

i love aespa's techno nonsense. girls has all the flavour of a pre split tvxq mv but in a higher resolution. girls is purple line's daughter in a different colour scheme. i am not taking any criticism i'm right and you know it. the only thing it's missing is cunty yunho and honestly you could put him in there as he currently is and i wouldn't even bat an eye.

stages: music core 220716, mcountdown 220714, inkigayo 220724, studio choom be original

bsides: illusion - mcountdown 220714, music core 220716

+

nerdy - purple kiss

yea yea obligatory purple kiss entry, i love them and while memem wasn't a hit for me nerdy MORE than made up for it. once again they had almost a month long promo period and they managed to hit a variety of different looks from reimagined alt school uniforms to overly large sweaters. nerdy is probably tied for zombie from last year for me for best styling they've ever had. also rbw stylists are the only valid stylists for knowing how to dress someone who isn't a size zero.

stages: inkigayo 220814, music core 220806, inkigayo 220807, music bank 220729, show champion 220803, mcountdown 220811, music core 220820

+

sparkling - chungha

i love the idea of combining bird imagery and ocean imagery. it makes zero sense logistically if you give it an ounce of thought BUT the combination of feathers and sparkles and iridescent sheen with coral and lots of bright colours are such a lush visual experience that who even cares that birds don't swim. or fish don't fly. whatever look at the sparkles.

stages: music bank 220715, inkigayo 220717, the show 220719, mcountdown 220714, music core 220723

+

doom du doom - p1harmony

honestly i had a bit of struggle deciding on if i wanted to include this song or back down, because they both have really fun and creative mvs, but doom du doom won out in the end because i liked the stage styling more. the mv and its broke grimy street urchin olympic theme is so weird and charming and i love that they just have a guy hanging out in the background of all the shots just to be the guitar player. the choreo's fun af and actually uses their members' skills (see my choreo post), and it's a great touch that they had a couple of different flags made and they rotate them occasionally.

stages: music core 220723, music bank 220805, the show 220802, show champion 220803, inkigayo 220731

+

hair cut - xdinary heroes

like with the p1harmony entry, i had to decide which one of their two cbs from this half of the year i wanted to include, and it was TOUGH. i loved the styling for test me and admittedly it scratches my personal itch for punky shit, i like the ideas happening in hair cut more. plus the promo material from hair cut is just chefs kiss. so many jype groups went for an alice in wonderland theme in their cbs this year and personally i preferred xh's version because at least they threw in a lot of other references that offset it from being a direct one to one concept. the edward scissorhands themed concept photos were probably some of my favourite concept photos of all time. and they also produced a very cool and fun medley film for their album highlights that really loops all their thematic references together and has some great outfits.

stages: inkigayo 221120, music core 221112, music core 221119, show champion 221123

+

smartphone - yena

alright girlies pack it up, we got the definitive quirky girl fusion y2k cb, i don't wanna see anymore! i'm not a super avid follower of yena, but i really liked smiley and i like that she's got a consistent visual flavour. smartphone is a really fun blend of 00s references and retro gaming that gives it a different flavour then a lot of the y2k revival stylings that we've been seeing over the last year. although i'm not gonna lie, this cb makes me feel extra haggy, especially when she takes 'selfies' with the flip phones (for the young'uns, they did not have front cameras), but it's still very cute and fun.

stages: inkigayo 220814, the show 220809, inkigayo 220807, music core 220806, music bank 220805, mcountdown 220804, music bank 220812,

bsides: withorwithout music core 220806

+

runners' up

ok to start off: i have to make a category within a category, and that category is 'boy groups that vomited colours and fabrics all over the stage for three minutes', because no joke there where THREE separate cbs that had nearly identical stylings (there where actually more. i almost included bae173 here) and i honestly could not pick between any of them which i liked more. so here's the shortlist:

can't stop shining - tempest // the ogs, it was bad news that started this trend in the first place. i actually think the css styling is better than bad news, but i gotta acknowledge her trendsetting nature and also the competition was TOUGH in the back half of the year. highlights: the mv, mcountdown 220908, inkigayo 220904, show champion 220907

party rock - cravity // i was ready to be disproving bc nothing will ever be party rock anthem but the kids won me over. every single stage is just. what is happening. 10/10. highlights: music bank 221028, inkigayo 221009, inkigayo 221002, music bank 221007

drummin' - to1 // while i don't love that they booted two members (only for them to appear on boys planet), the rebrand for to1 has been really successful for me. drummin' is a fun dorky retro concept with some great choreography. they had the most themed styling of the three, which occasionally had some fun marching band inspired outfits. highlights: the show 220802, music bank 220805, mcountdown 220728

ok now that's out of the way, here's the rest of the runners' up:

play - lucy

i did actually talk about this mv briefly already, it's one of my all time favourite mvs from this year and maybe even one of my faves from the last several years. it's so stunning and heartfelt and deserves like 50 million more views.

+

halazia - ateez

honestly it was a toss up if i wanted to include halazia here or save it for the 2023 list because i wasn't sure what the stages were gonna look like, but now that i've seen a couple of them i'm confident this is the category i'd put it in for 2023 if i waited. i don't love the stage stylings but oh my fucking GOD the mv itself is a fucking masterpiece. the hala scarecrows...............

+

birthday - ten

screaming crying throwing up etc etc we all know, it's only in this category bc he didn't get to promote it other than on k-909.

+

forgive me - boa

screaming crying throwing up etc etc part two. the dinner table, the hats. the bloody stage. she's the queen for a reason. also only here because she didn't promote.

+

door - ftisland

i am not going to let any of you forget that this is a hag appreciation zone!!! also this is a great mv; it's fun, it's got great outfits, the production design is pointedly minimal. only in this category bc it's a jpn release.

+

hit the bass - blitzers

they went abroad and filmed in literally some of the MOST gorgeous locations i've ever fucking seen, which is what you should be doing @ kpop companies!! i'm tired of seeing stuff shot in la!!!! go to pakistan you cowards!!! they didn't make my choreo list this year but you should watch their studio choom to watch sya EAT the intro. ok here's a few stages with good styling too i guess: inkigayo 220724, the show 220726, the show 220802, mcountdown 220728

+

eyes on you - kangta

yea i know i'm the only kangta fan left on this webbed site and i don't care!!! this is a great mv with lot of great lighting effects and also a fantastic choice for the backup dancers costuming to include reflective taping. costume design that interplays with lighting is one of my specialties and i gotta shout it out the rare times it happens. also i'm pimp the og 90s it boy stage again, because i can and also it's a galaxy brained styling choice for him. and it has gorgeous set design.

+

pose - kino

gorgeous pink velvet suit, gorgeous mv that utilizes one of the most diffifult but most beautiful times to film: golden hour. he did do a stage in the pink velvet suit, but the mv is soooooooo pretty that it had to be on here.

+

458 - cix

for being produced with like $100 and however much it cost to rent that hawk, 458 is a fantastic bottle mv and definitely takes one of my top spots for having the most interesting combinations of imagery this year. there's a very obtuse connection to be made with the travels of dante through the circles of hell and motorsports and i wish they had played more into the idea of having driver/guide bc that could have been fun. also they should have called hajime kinoko and got hyunsuk strung up properly. it wouldn't have been that hard, he does commissions. just saying.

+

nabillera - hyuna

not my favourite of hyuna's showings, but she's still insane enough to make the list. love that she always greases up either herself or her dancers, or in this case, both. i'm gonna include some stages here bc the outfits are good, even though she didn't do that many: mcountdown 220721, inkigayo 220724.

+

birthday - red velvet

didn't love all the stylings, but the mv is a blast and the graphic design and all the concept and promo materials are soooooo good. my fave outfits are the 'candy' encrusted ones from music bank 221202.

+

standout element

mood trailer: awakening - trendz // this imagery literally never appeared anywhere else but this mood trailer is extremely cool.

28 reasons album trailer - seulgi // i wasn't expecting the mv to follow up on how good this trailer was, especially since it was for the album and not the mv, but damn it's good. it's so good. much better than the more half baked fairytale ideas that ended up in the mv proper.

i scanning film - nine.i // do i know what the hell is going on here? absolutely not. but the vfx are fucking CRAZY and i love how it's the intro song for the album.

--

you might have noticed that the standout element sections have been on the slim side this year, and that's because i'm actually gonna do a bonus post this year! since i got extremely hamstrung by the tumblr post limit, i wasn't able to showcase some of the music show stages that stuck out to me for whatever reason, so i'm going to make a post that's just dedicated to them. it won't necessarily be just stylings i thought were good, it will include good performances or nice set design or anything else that i didn't cover somewhere else. i know a lot of people don't watch music shows for whatever reason and therefore i think they miss out on a lot, so this is gonna be a fun post to highlight some of the stuff that i think is worth watching.

[thisbuildinghasfeelings]

Okay, sorry, but apparently I'm back on a Tarlos spiral already 😅.

Are you scared too that they will actually kill off Gabriel, after hearing their last interview? It seems more and more likely, and if it is I really hope they manage to do it justice, though I can't see it right now, what with everything else it's bound to happen. That was my biggest reason for not wanting him to die right now, needing to explore Carlos' feelings without throwing him into a happy wedding right after (even with a time skip, which seems a shortcut to me at the moment), but then again I'm not a writer 🤷‍♀️ and I'm ready to be pleasantly surprised.

Of course it may as well be something else entirely, with the build up we had I'll bawl for Robert too for example, or maybe it will be a mix of different things that will pull our hearts in a lot of different directions. Jim did say there would be a lot of curveballs.

Surviving till Tuesday will be hard.

I've been extra scared for Gabriel since the finale promo. I still struggle to understand how they can possibly go from Gabriel's death to a happy wedding, but I am pretty certain that SOMETHING is happening with Gabriel. I'm hoping that it's something short of death. The promo opens with Carlos asking Gabriel to be his best man, the episode is called Best of Men, and then they showed us glimpses of the wedding that included pretty much every single character EXCEPT Gabriel. Either Gabriel isn't at the wedding or they intentionally avoided showing him to us. We see Owen standing up with TK as his best man. If Gabriel is Carlos' best man, he'd be up there too...but we don't see him. However, we also don't see someone else in Gabriel's place, which makes it seem like they are very intentionally not showing us who is up there with Carlos. There are a few reasons they might do this--I talked about this a little yesterday, but I've thought it through even more now:

(1) Gabriel is dead and someone else is Carlos' best person--Iris, for example. I think Iris is the only other person we don't see in the promo at the wedding. It's possible we don't see her because she's standing up there with Carlos in Gabriel's place and they didn't want to give that away.

(2) Gabriel is alive and well and standing up there with Carlos but something is going to happen to Gabriel before the wedding and they want us to worry about him. Gabriel gets injured and they want us to think he might not make it, so they didn't want to give it away that Gabriel makes it to the wedding.

(3) Gabriel is alive and mostly well and he's at the wedding but something about his appearance is a spoiler. Maybe he has some visible injury or he's in a wheelchair or something, so they avoided showing him.

I really want it to be 2 or even 3. But could it be 1? Yeah, I think it's possible. I've been pretty adamant for a while now that I didn't think Gabriel would be dying, but I left it open to change my mind if I got additional evidence. The finale promo was that evidence for me. HOWEVER, I still don't think it's inevitable. I'm still holding out hope for Gabriel. Mostly I'm trying to prepare myself a little in case it happens. I don't need a repeat of the premiere where I was writing long, rambling posts about why there's no way Carlos could possibly be secretly married to Iris right up until the day the premiere aired! That mindset didn't make it any easier for me to come to terms with the whole secret marriage thing.

Ultimately, if Gabriel does die, it's not going to ruin the episode for me. First of all, it would give Rafa yet another chance to show off his incredible acting skills. Also, I'm comforted by the knowledge that Carlos and Gabriel are going to get a nice moment together when he goes to ask Gabriel to be his best man. Even if the worst happens, they will get a moment of further mending their relationship. I really hope we get Gabriel telling Carlos he's proud of him or something like that, especially if Gabriel is going to die. That's something Carlos needs to hear! As I said, I still really struggle understanding how they could possibly pull this off and make it work...but we don't really know all that much of what's happening in these last two episodes or how much time they're spanning. In the end, all I really care about is that TK and Carlos are getting married. Everything we've heard about the wedding makes me believe wholeheartedly that it's going to be amazing. I think they're going to do it justice. And we're so close!! Only 4 days away now!

[resmarted]

some updates:

- anne went to my house to feed my poor cat and cleaned my kitchen for me like an angel. making sure the universe blesses her with everything she needs and more even if i have to rob a goddamn bank to do it my damn self

- THREE different people WIPED their filthy fucking hands on me like i am a human napkin including directly on my skin after i finally had a shower for the first time in days. i want you to know right now that if anyone touches me from here on out especially without my consent i’m elbowing you in the fucking nose and lighting your goddamn house on fire seriously what the FUCK is wrong with people like the actual fuck

- the nurses are getting progressively more neglectful with each shift change and i’m lucky if they even return within the same hour that they’re supposed to. i’m literally so afraid to bother anyone ever and am constantly trying to do things myself so i don’t have to put anybody out and it’s very frustrating when i actually need something like time sensitive pain meds!!!

- i still have not gone thru surgery. i barely see doctors no one knows what is going on and i’m constantly too tired to look at my phone or respond to anyone’s texts and i’m exhausted by everything in general. the doctors were supposed to come for a second round at the end of the day and never did.

- i did start giving nurses readings because i’m literally turning into my mother who is also known to do this when she’s in the hospital. very fun way to make friends! hoping it makes them a little more prompt with my meds intake tomorrow 😩

- i want to fucking die! how am i alive? how am i still in the hospital? this issue has been going on since monday. they told me if they take out the infected implant they may have to take out the bridge in my mouth built from a fibula they removed from my leg a couple years ago. i said FUCKING DO IT it’s done me no good my entire life is a nightmare ever since that operation! they still have not made a decision if they will.

- the scary thing is i’m not even at the university hospital this time, i’m at a relatively good one. this is so telling of the healthcare system at large. nurses are making what is supposed to be the current minimum wage had it gone up every year as was intended and they all have compassion burnout from being stuck indoors all day being treated like glorified maids. the rooms are overflowing there’s way too many patients and not enough staff and when you do talk to a doctor they’re straight up ready to go to lunch like you can tell they’re counting down the clock for when they can go to a bar. i fkn hate this system we live in and i swear to christ i will go down fighting it until a bloody demise.

- this could not be happening at a worse fucking time!!! rent is due im missing work i have an hour special to prepare for including promo i was in the middle of working on for my birthday show standup act where i have spent the last year refining discussing this very topic.

- everything that could go wrong is and my cat does not like to be alone without mommy!!

- the dilaudid is still good tho. would like to have this each night in a martini glass.

- please keep in your prayers the next person that dares to fucking touch me i swear to god.

[extasiswings]

“I felt it shelter to speak to you.” for Buddie

This was...not supposed to be this long but all the recent promo content has been...inspiring. Anyway...on ao3 here.

The first attack happens on a Saturday afternoon.

There’s nothing special about the day, nothing strange. Christopher is at a friend’s birthday party, Buck is off somewhere with Taylor, and Eddie is grocery shopping before he’s meant to meet Ana for an early dinner.

His shoulder aches a little—that’s what he notices first—but that’s not too unusual. It happens sometimes. Even as physical therapy has helped him regain strength and mobility in his arm and shoulder, a high caliber sniper round ripping through his upper chest is no minor injury. Plus, while he’s hardly ancient, he’s not even as young as he was when he was shot the first time, and those bullets left behind their own patches of scar tissue and occasional twinges.

So. His shoulder aches. It’s fine. He ignores it and moves on. Goes through the store, checks out, put his bags in the backseat—

There’s a glare off a window in the apartment building across the street.

Eddie reaches for the handle of his door.

Suddenly, his fingers start tingling, uncomfortable pricks of icy numbness traveling up his hands like they’ve fallen asleep, but shaking them out doesn’t help. And then, without warning, pain lances through his chest, sharp and acute, and he can’t breathe properly, as if his torso has been trapped in a vise that’s slowly tightening more and more.

His vision swims. He sways on his feet, grasping at the door handle with clumsy, numb fingers to keep himself upright.

He feels like—he feels—

He feels like he’s dying. It strikes him with sudden clarity. He’s dying. Dying in a random parking lot—he always assumed he was too young to have a heart attack but the symptoms fit and he’s just—

He can’t. He can’t die. Not when he’s survived everything else. This can’t be—

“Sir?” There’s a woman with a station wagon parked in the space next to his truck and she’s looking at him with no small amount of concern. “Are you okay?”

Eddie’s mouth is so dry and his breathing so irregular that it takes him a moment to respond.

“I—I think I need to go to the hospital,” he grits out as another wave of dizziness threatens to send him to his knees.

She calls 911. Eddie spares a moment to be grateful that the paramedics who show up a few minutes later aren’t from the 118.

As it turns out, he’s not dying. And he didn’t have a heart attack.

“A panic attack?” Eddie’s voice is distant to his own ears as he stares at the ER doctor in disbelief, his stomach flipping with a new kind of dread. “Are you sure?”

“Your symptoms resolved on their own and your EKG is normal, Mr. Diaz,” she replies as she flicks through the screens of his chart on her tablet. “And nothing in your prior history or other recent tests indicates that there’s anything physically wrong with you—you were healthy before you were shot and your recovery has progressed smoothly up to this point.”

She pauses and looks back at him. “Have you...spoken to a therapist? I noticed that your treating physician made a referral for counseling when you were originally discharged, but…”

Eddie clears his throat roughly. “Yeah, no, I, uh...with the PT schedule and everything else going on, I never followed up with that. But I’ve been fine. It never seemed necessary.”

“With all due respect, Mr. Diaz,” the doctor says, “you’re in the emergency room because of an acute stress response in which your brain tricked your body into believing you were in danger to such an extent that you thought you were dying. I’m not sure you’re as fine as you think.”

There’s probably some truth to that. Eddie can admit that much. But that doesn’t mean he needs—he’s been shot before. He’s been in a warzone. He didn’t need therapy to move forward from it then and he shouldn’t now. He can—he can handle this. He can make himself get over it.

He’s already spent months leaning heavily on everyone around him. The thought of not being okay, of asking for more help when he’s finally easing back into working, when things are finally getting back to normal, when they all have their own issues to focus on—

God, it makes him want to throw up.

So...no. He’s okay. Because not being okay isn’t an option.

He’s fine. The panic attack was...a fluke.

“I appreciate the advice,” Eddie says finally. “I’ll think about it.”

He can tell the doctor doesn’t believe him when her lips thin.

“You know, more likely than not, the panic attacks will keep happening if you do nothing,” she points out. “Ignoring this won’t make it go away.”

“I understand,” Eddie replies. “If that’s all, does that mean I can get out of here?”

The doctor sighs. “Sure.”

Eddie’s phone rings while he’s in an Uber on the way back to his truck. It’s Ana.

He swears under his breath as he sees the time—he hadn’t called anyone, hadn’t wanted the hospital to call anyone either, but that means he’s now late for a date that he doesn’t really want to keep after everything and further doesn’t leave him with any good excuses for his absence except the truth which...he doesn’t really want to admit.

Before the shooting, Carla told him to make sure he was following his heart. And he’s been too exhausted and focused on his recovery to really think too hard about that. But now—

For a moment, Eddie considers it. Telling Ana the truth. Showing her some of the dark, messy, ugly pieces of himself. Being vulnerable.

The very idea makes him recoil. Not because he thinks she would run away necessarily, but because he just...can’t.

He can’t. Not with her.

And if he’s that uncomfortable with the idea of letting in someone he’s been dating for over half a year, if he can’t imagine himself ever actually being comfortable with that...then what the hell is he doing?

He calls her back when he gets to his truck.

“Hey—I’m so sorry, I had a little emergency—yeah, everything’s fine now, but I’m not sure I’m up for going out. Can I meet you at your place? ...okay, great. See you soon.”

He may know even less about ending a relationship than he does about dating in general, but he figures he at least owes it to her to end things in person.

*

Eddie goes to work on Monday feeling fine. Great, even. He sleeps well the night before, he gets Christopher off to school on time, traffic is light enough that he gets to the station early—

Everything is fine. By all accounts it should be a good day.

At least, that’s what he thinks right up until all of them get different emergency alerts sent to their phones and they find out the city’s systems have been hacked. From that point forward, everything is chaos. Damage control. Twenty-car pile-ups because stoplights are being messed with, an outbreak of animals from the zoo when the electric locks on their enclosures released—

Eddie’s fine though. He’s fine. It’s nothing he can’t handle—in fact, he’s usually great with chaos. He’s focused and sure and capable. Nothing else matters but the work, certainly not himself. When he’s busy, he has no time to think about anything else.

The gradually worsening tension in his shoulders can be ignored. The way he has to clench his hands into fists to keep them from shaking in a way he hasn’t had to do since his earliest days in Afghanistan can be brushed off. He doesn’t have time to think about anything but the jobs in front of him, which means he doesn’t have time to think about his own state.

Brush it off, pick yourself up, keep moving forward. That’s what he knows, that’s what he can do.

Except, then they end up at the hospital and—

A medevac helicopter falls off the roof. Bobby nearly joins it. Buck and Eddie barely manage to get him back.

A cold sweat breaks out on Eddie’s brow as Bobby leans heavily against the wall next to the roof access door to catch his breath. His stomach roils. He doesn’t feel fully connected to his own body, caught somehow between present and past, a rooftop in Los Angeles and a desert in Afghanistan.

He breathes in. He tamps down on the rising panic.

Bobby is fine. The helicopter pilots and their patient are fine.

He’s fine. He’s fine.

“Are you okay?”

Eddie jumps at the question, his head whipping around to find the source. Buck’s brow furrows as he holds up his hands.

“Sorry,” Buck says quietly. “Didn’t mean to startle you.”

Eddie swallows hard and shakes his head. “You’re fine, don’t worry about it.”

He glances toward the door. “You know, I think I’m going to head back down,” he says, hoping Buck won’t notice the fact that he hasn’t answered the original question. “I want to make sure the pilots are holding up alright.”

“I can come—” Buck starts to offer, only for Eddie to cut him off.

“Someone should stay with Bobby,” he replies. He forces a smile as Buck’s eyes search his face. “I’ll be fine.”

Buck glances at Bobby, then back to Eddie before he finally nods.

“Okay,” he says. “But here, take the radio. If anything happens—”

“I’ll let you know.”

Eddie makes it down one flight of stairs before he decides to take the elevator the rest of the way down. The numbers on the top of the doors tick down, down, down—

And then, abruptly, the elevator lurches to a halt, throwing Eddie off balance and into the wall as the lights go out, plunging him into total darkness.

His ears ring from the impact.

He’s trapped. Trapped in a metal box in the dark. A box that could easily become a coffin if the emergency stop failed and sent it careening down to crash at the bottom of the elevator shaft.

Eddie’s breathing speeds up against his will. His chest starts to hurt.

Not again, he thinks vaguely. Not here, not now, not again.

But. He can’t move. He can’t breathe. Some distant part of his mind recognizes that what he’s feeling isn’t real, that he just needs to calm down, but he can’t—

He’s going to die. He’s going to—

The radio crackles in his belt.

“Eddie? Eddie! Can you hear me?”

Eddie’s mind latches onto the sound of Buck’s voice like a lifeline in an ocean of distress. It takes him a moment to make his trembling hands work through their numbness, to remind his fingers how to work the buttons, but eventually, he lifts the radio to his mouth.

“I’m here,” he says. His voice shakes. “I’m in the elevator. It’s—I don’t know which floor. Or if I’m between floors. I don’t—”

He shudders. His eyes close, not that it really matters given how dark the space is already.

“It’s okay,” Buck replies. “It’s okay, Eddie, we’ll find you. We’ll get you out, don’t worry.”

“I don’t want to die here.” It slips out of him before he can pull it back. Buck takes a sharp breath on the other end of the line.

“That’s not going to happen,” Buck says firmly, although his own voice seems less steady than usual. “I would never let that happen. I’ve got your back, remember? Always.”

A shudder rips down Eddie’s spine and he slides against the wall to sit on the floor. The walls still feel too restricting, like they’re closing in on him more each moment that he looks away.

The radio crackles again.

“Eddie. What can I do? What do you need?” Buck asks.

I don’t know. I don’t—I can’t—

“Eddie.” The fear and desperation in Buck’s voice cuts through the fog in Eddie’s mind.

He never wants Buck to sound like that.

“Keep talking?” Eddie replies. “I—just keep talking to me. Please?”

Don’t go, is what he really means. Stay with me.

He’s never allowed himself to say those things though. Not during the early days of the pandemic when they were sharing a bed in Buck’s loft. Not after he moved back home with Christopher and the other side of his bed felt too empty for sleep to come easily. And certainly not after he started dating Ana.

During his recovery, he never had to ask Buck for anything really. Buck was always just...there. Even though he was with Taylor, he was still there with Eddie and with Christopher whenever Eddie needed him. Like he knew somehow. Or maybe as if he needed to be there as much as Eddie needed him there.

Eddie hasn’t looked too closely at any of that. He’s not ready to. It’s too much, too complicated, too—too—

Dangerous.

“What do you want to talk about?”

Eddie swallows hard as his head rests against the wall. As he allows the sound of Buck’s voice to wrap around him like armor. Like home. Insulating him against the panic and isolation.

“Anything,” he says quietly. “Just keep talking.”

And Buck does. He talks about everything and nothing, random facts and stories from his past that Eddie hasn’t heard before, he talks and talks and talks until his voice grows hoarse in Eddie’s ear and the pressure on Eddie’s lungs eases.

Eddie exhales shakily and takes a few deep breaths as he continues to listen, as his body shifts from hyper-awareness and panic to wrung out exhaustion. When Buck finally cuts off, it’s because there’s an ugly screech of metal as the elevator doors are pried open, as light filters back in.

Eddie’s legs are unsteady as he gets to his feet. He trips on the edge of the elevator door when he exits—

Buck catches him before he can fall. Because of course he does.

“Thank you,” Eddie breathes into Buck’s shoulder as he finds his balance.

Buck shakes his head. “I promised we’d get you out, didn’t I? Besides, I—I shouldn’t have let you go alone.”

“I decided—”

“I shouldn’t have let you,” Buck repeats, low but insistent. His eyes meet Eddie’s and Eddie swallows hard.

“You weren’t okay. Were you?” Buck asks. And Eddie—

He wants to lie. Part of him does at least.

But he can’t lie to Buck.

Not to Buck.

“No,” he confesses. It’s half a whisper. “No, I wasn’t.”

Buck bites his lip and nods once.

“Okay,” he says. “We’ll figure it out.”

And somehow, Eddie believes him.

[fill-me-with-your-memes-daddy]

Watching the Rise of the Titans movie and I'll be documenting all of my thoughts/reactions here. [Spoiler Warning]

So instead of reblogging every new update, I'm just going to have this post up on my phone as I watch and type my reactions in a bullet list format.

Nari's human disguise is so cute. As someone who does have a cottagecore aesthetic, I want to cosplay her so bad

Are Skrael and/or Belroc non-binary coded? Regardless, I'm also obsessed and I want to fuck Skrael and be Belroc.

STEVE CARING ABOUT JIM BEING HURT YESSSS!!! My god his redemption has probably been one of the greatest there is because he doesn't just suddenly go from being a bully to a completely good person. You can see the gradual shift in learning better throughout the shows which is awesome.

IN NEW YOOOOOOORRRRRRRK!!!!!! CONCRETE JUNGLE WHERE DREAMS ARE MADE OFFFFFFFFFFFFF!!!!!

The mugshot montage reminded me of season 1 of trollhunters when toby and Jim were arrested at the museum.

STRICKLER PUT A RING ON IT??? HE'S THE ONLY DILF IVE EVER ACTUALLY AGREED WAS HOT WYM I CAN'T HAVE HIM??? well I'm still really happy about his arc over the series probably one of my favorite character growths.

Eli my guy got his growth spurt!!! As an 18 year old who is still 5'0", I'm happy but envious for him

So I went into this movie without watching any trailers or promo, but I doubt anything could have prepared me for the existence of mpreg. In fact, I wasn't going to document my reactions until I saw that.

NAMURA!!!!!!!!! MY BELOVED!!!!!! I CAN STILL THIRST FOR YOU WITHOUT GUILT

The coach teacher just called the kids zoomers so I have to dock one point from my final rating just because of that. Unforgivable

Those husky animation models suck lmao

Oh fuck the titans got power ranger zords!!

God why did they include the mpreg??? This movie would have been perfect without it.... After that plot point being revisited only one time I'm already beyond done with it

Like it's bringing me back to the v*ltron days where they're was a suspiciously high amount of klance omegaverse and mpreg fics and art created and it physically hurts because Steve and Keith's voice actor is the same person meaning this is especially cursed to me since I was unfortunately in the v*ltron fandom and remember all of that

But like on another note, how old are these characters again??? I haven't checked any wikis because of spoilers but is Steve an adult??? I know aja might be technically a lot older than 18 because alien but is whatever age she is equivalent to an adult as far as emotionally and physically in Akaridion development??? IS THIS A TEEN (M)PREGNANCY IN A KIDS SHOW????

Like bruh I saw a singular post on here before going into the movie that was like "rott spoilers without context" and there was a pregnant belly but I was absolutely not expecting the actual context of it. I'll find the post after I finish and edit this post to tag the creator right here: @makoden

This entire post is just gonna be me ranting about mpreg huh

Anyway I love the whole roundtable allusion to the legends of king arthur (not the toa version but the one he's based off)

THERE'S 3 TO 5 BABIES????? I need to take a break bruh this is just too much

Alright I've taken a 30 minute break got some food and did some things i love (decompressed by tactile stimming with some owl plushies and watched some videos on my favorite owl, Garu. He lives in Japan with his owner and is a domesticated eagle owl who basically just acts like a sky cat. If anyone else needs some eye bleach, here is their YouTube channel)

Blinky and ARRRGHHH!!! saying their "if one of us doesn't make it" talk my god one of them is going to die I can see it and I will be utterly crushed. Jim can't lose another father figure and Toby can't lose his wingman again I will riot if this happens

On a similar but unrelated to the movie note, can we just talk about how toa started with Jim having 0 dads and (if strickler and blinky live to the end) will end with 2 dads? Like I just really feel happy for him that he has two dads who actually figured out how to put the past behind them to not have any infighting between them so that both of them are healthy father figures. Jim has already been through literal hell and back losing his actual humanity in the process so if he loses one of them, I'm going to be really pissed because at this point, this is just Jim torture porn. Y'all know how as SpongeBob SquarePants went on, the show just became Squidward torture porn? It's starting to feel that way for toa and I really hope they cut the shit by the ending

Jlaire is such a good ship but like I feel like it's too perfect they never disagree with each other

YESSSSSSS Someone finally doesn't treat toby like a fat waste of space who messes stuff up!!! I think out of all the characters that would have been most deserving of a rewrite, it's Toby. Sometimes I just feel he's only comic relief and any heartfelt moments he's had in the series was also born of stupidity (ie his flour baby project being unharmed was seen by him as divine intervention from his parents but was actually just Eli and Steve behind the scenes).

Ohhhhh yesssssss Archie's father!!! I was hoping I'd see him again because we got so little of him last

Ooooooooooh Asian trollmarket!!!!!

Oh never mind slavery trollmarket

Bruh titanic camelot

I feel like we're not seeing enough of the villains because I completely forgot about the power ranger zord things

NAMORA NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO MY LAST CRUSHHHH

STRICKLER NO NOT YOU TOO PLEASE

WHAT THE FUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

THE ONLY TWO CHARACTERS I SIMP FOR ON THIS SHOW DIED WITHIN FIVE MINUTES OF EACH OTHER

THAT WHOLE ASS RANT I WROTE IS COMING TRUE FUCK THIS MOVIE THIS SERIES IS JUST JIM TORTURE PORN

WAIT JIM'S SPERM DONOR INFO?

Oh thank God I don't want to know anything about that person

For the record, I call that man Jim's sperm donor because he has no business being called a father to him. All he did was donate some swimmers to the creation of him and give him abandonment issues

Oh another blind troll elder???? This fucker is just if vendel was a bad guy

Bruh I was grieving

PACIFIC RIM WITH GUN ROBOT VEX AND THE BELROCZORD? I've never seen that movie but I know the reference

Bruh Blinky doesn't read horoscopes? Does he realize conspiracy theories are just the manly version of horoscopes?

NO DON'T KILL VEX STOP KO-ING FOUND FAMILY MEMBERS

Oh thank God he's okay

NO NOT ARCHIE AND CHARLEMAGNE OH MY GOD

oh never mind they're just gonna coup de tat I believe in them :))

But I want to see him again

But I'm glad to see vex

Yay they're in arcadia!

But yeah I wondered why the trolls and Merlin didn't keep the whole "daylight doesn't hurt trolls" feature from the eternal night but now Guillermo del Toro I see you were playing the long con in that just to kill my girl Namora :(((

Oooooh I love the animation of the Narizord over Chihuahua!! It looks very good and realistic (if only they could have put some of that into those huskies from before smh)

Bruh the character designs of the arcane order are so good I want to be them

Nari making sure the Skraelzord doesn't crush the bus

DAMN DOUBLE HOMICIDE

Bruh I'm just glad we finally have an answer on why arcadia had everything going on as opposed to literally anywhere else!! I always found that as a weird coincidence for plot convince.

BRUH WERE BACK TO THE MPREG IM SO JEALOUS I FORGOT ABOUT THAT EVEN THOUGH IT WAS BECAUSE I WAS GRIEVING THE LOSS OF MY LOVELIES.

Oh that's real convenient that the ninth configuration meant all of them. Way to not decide which character gets more attention. Though it probably was a smart way to not have any infighting in the fandom between each character's stan group.

Bruh I just realized where is Barbera did they just ditch her on the Camelot ship???

And where are the other trolls that migrated at the end of trollhunters s3? They said something about new jersey but obviously Jim and the other main characters got on Camelot instead.... This feels like a plot hole

And we never learned the process of how changelings are made and bonded to humans and stuff. We just know it's super painful but I'm curious ffs!!!!

THE DONT THINK BECOME HERO SPEECH ALL SAID TOGETHER!!!

BRUH THEY REALLY HAD TO SHOW HIM GIVING BIRTH??????? WAS THAT AN ABSOLUTE MUST??????

Plus the main audience for this series is little children (the rating for the movie is literally TV-Y7) so even though my adult ass is not in the target audience, I STILL DONT UNDERSTAND WHY WOULD MPREG AND ANAL BIRTH WOULD BE AN IMPORTANT THING TO 7 YEAR OLDS???? THIS IS A LITERAL FETISH HIDDEN IN KIDS CONTENT ITS ELSAGATE ALL OVER AGAIN Y'ALL 😭😭😭😭😭

Though it's probably hypocritical of me to think fetishes don't belong in kids tv when I've openly admitted to thirsting for strickler and namora

HUZZAH

NEW AMULET WAZ GOOD????

STAB THAT BITCH JIM

WAIT NO I SAID STAB NOT GET STABBED

Alright good job just missed the directions at first but you fixed it

SEVEN KIDS?????????

T O B Y ????????????

W A I T NO

N O

IS HE ACTUALLY

OH MY GOD THERE'S HOPE

NO THERE ISN'T

F U C K THIS SHIT THEY REALLY JUST HAD HIM TO BE BULLIED THEN KILLED

Y'ALL IM ACTUALLY CRYING THIS NEVER HAPPENS

I NEVER ACTUALLY GET SO EMOTIONAL OVER MEDIA THAT I CRY IT ONLY HAPPENED ONCE AT THE END OF VOLTRON BUT AHHHHHHHH

W A I T

HE'S GONNA BE BROUGHT BACK?????

HOLD UP THEY'RE JUST GONNA BRING ALL THOSE DEAD PEOPLE BACK??????

WAIT IS HE

BLINKY CALLED HIM A SON

HOLD ON IS THIS GOING TO BE A CLIFFHANGER???????????

BRUH THEY REALLY JUST CAN'T END THE SERIES WITHOUT CLIFFHANGERS like there's always an open ending

TROLLHUNTER TOBY????? You know what forget the whole rants I had on how toby was written they just redeemed it all

And that's all! I'd rate it a 6.5/10 because it's definitely the weakest of all the sequels but still had amazing animation and some good plot points. It's just really hard to look over the bad stuff enough to rate it any higher.

[oh-for-fic-sake]

Fearfull Proposal

Summary: henry plans a romantic proposal... and instead of coming clean about your secret fear of heights and ruining his romantic plan, you put on a brave face... well until your nearing the top of the london eye.

Warnings: fear, fluff, swearing, typos.

You quivered as you rose higher and higher over londons skyline.

Fuck why? Why the fuck had you got in this dangling glass death trap. A faulty few bolts and you'd be plummeting into the fucking thames!

Henry was standing by the window looking out at the glittering lights in awe.

You were standing with your back turned to the houses of Parliament hands clutching the rail eitherside of you knuckles white. Knees knocking.

God this was the stupidest thing you'd ever fucking done! And it was your own fault.

"Babe, look! God big ben looks soo small never been on this at night"

You hummed nodding but continued looking to the floor.

Henry paused when you didnt correct him with the whole 'big ben is the bell' you usually countered

He turned looking back to you and his stomach dropped.

"Babe? Whoa are you okay there love?" He asked frowning as he saw your eyes clenched shut almost as if you were in pain.

You were trembling and pale to the point he fearded youd pass out.

"Here come sit down and relax, i packed some snacks-" he said placing the specially packed bag of snacks and screw top mini wine bottles.

"No! No I'm fine... I will just stay here... By the saftey bar" you said giggling nervously sparing him a glance and patting the metal you were holding onto for dear life..

Henry faltered and really took in your apperance unsure what to do. It wasn't like he could get you off, you had to ride the ride.

"Babe? Are you scared of heights?"

"Nooo dont be sillyeee- OH MY GOD IM GONNA FUCKING DIE!" you began laughing him off then screamed as the ride stopped.

Instantly you ducked crouching whilst wrapping your arms around the silver bar shouting bloody murder.

It didn't help you were bathed in purple light so couldn't see shit.

Henry got up and rushed to you standing over you arms rounding you holding you securly.

"No, no its fine love... shh its fine baby, they said it could stop to let people on poppet remember?" He said quickly rubbing your sides as you cowered trying to fend off the temptation to look at the thames below.

"Y-yeah fuck hen- im sorry i just..." you mewled turning towards him tucking your head to his chest.

"Scared of heights huh? Why didnt you tell me?" He sighed pressing kisses to your head as you whimpered adn the ride began moving once again.

"Because you went to all this trouble, you planned this surprise and i didnt want to ruin it, you were soo excited" you sniffled blinking at him.

"Hey shh you silly girl, you should have told me. You wouldnt have ruined anything you silly sausage" he cooed winding himself around you tighter.

He was actually annoyed at himself, how the fuck had he not known his girlfriend of a year and a half was scared of heights?

He'd suspected a fear of heights when you both went on holiday for your birthday, but youd managed to convince him it was a fear of flying and planes... not heights.

And come to think of it you didnt even like the glass lifts in shopping centers, you ran to the corner and held on eyes locked onto the doors the entire time.

So this was the worst surprize he could of planned for tonight. Things weren't going to plan. Fuck.

"Babe im sorry" he apologised feeling like an asshole.

"No no dont be, this was extremly sweet bear" you said quickly not wantin to make him feel bad fpr your own short commings.

"Theres noting sweet about terrifying you"

"Do... do you want to sit down? Ill hold you the entire time" he offered peaking to the central bench where both your bags sat.

"I.. yes okay i think sitting will be better" you said then yipped as he prompty scooped you up and placed you in his lap securly.

"Im so sorry love, I just wanted to make this special and romantic" he muttered holding you as close as he could letting you know that you were safe and sound.

"It is! It is love really im just a baby" you said quickly grasping his face pulling him closer before peppering his face with kisses.

"Your not a babe we all have our fears" he said quietly pressing his forehead to yours.

"You dont" you sighed closing your eyes trying to ignore the snails pace of the pod that still rose over london.

You could barely feel it, but your fear amplified it.

"Oh but i do~" he replied peering at you, as yur eyes fluttered open.

"Like what?" The questionnescaped before you could think.

"No" he said eyes now becoming worried, anxiety clouding them.

"No?"

"Yes, at the moment thats my biggest fear" he said releasing a shakey breath as you frowned at him not following but didnt dwell as your ees darted to the side seeing the houses

"You see, i was trying to be all romantic and wait untill we got tp the top, but i think you'll be too terrified"

"Henry?" You said leaning back unsure about the serious tone he seemed to take.

"I brought us here, to the spot we met two years ago today..." he said drawing deeper breaths as the reality of what was about to happen hit him.

"Was it really?" You asked surprized he'd remember something like that. Anniversary? Definitely. But the day you first met? And asked for a selfie with a series of embarrassing squeaks? No you didnt think he'd remember.

"Yep. I remember doing a promo and shoot on this thing, then got off and was sat next to you in wagamama"

"And i squeaked for a selfie" you groaned with a small giggle.

"Im glad you did, i scanned instagram for days after- scouring my hashtag trying to find you... i kicked myself for not getting your number~"

"I still cant belive you did that... but im gld you did henry"

"Who'd have thought the nervous little thing trying not to even breath in my direction would be my girlfriend six months down the line"

"Or that we'd last this long?" You quipped at him trying to reme,ber to breath.

"And.. hopefully a lifetime? Despite me dragging you intoyour actual living nightmare- which i promise to never do again! Not even lifts"

You scowled and tilted your head to him not sure if you heard him correctly.

Untill he pulled the small velvet box from his pocket.

"Henry?! What? You cant be serious?"

"Oh but i am love, as much as i want to do this right and drop to one knee i doubt you'll thank me for releasing you?"

"Dont you dare let me go!"

"I think you'll find im trying to do the opposite~" he chuckled opening the box revealing the simple elegant ring three tiny diamonds.

"Im trying to marry you..."

You gasped eyes glazing over as you locked on to the dainty ring pinched between his fingers.

"I love you y/n, and i want to know if you'd become my wife and share your life with me. Will you marry me?"

"Oh god yes of course its a yes henry i love you bear!" You cried throwing your arms around him making him grunt and quickly clench his fist arohnd the ring before he dropped it.

He groaned into you rocking from side to side littering your head with kisses before peeling you away to sit the ring on your finger.

You looked at the glittering stones on your finger weeping. You may have been cursing yourself for getting into this godforsaken glass bauble in the sky.

But now you were he happiest woman alive.

"I love you bear"

"I love you too"

"Would you like some wine? I brough the little cute bottles you like" he offered nodding to the bag of snacks.

"Err lets not push it hun" you whined not sure wine at this altitude was a good idea.

You kept glancing at him still sniffing and giggleing unable to look from your ring for long.

"Gotcha, no wine"

"You look surprized i said yes?"you quipped needing to talk and take your mind off the fact your at the tippity top.

"I made you face one of your nightmares i thought you'd slap me silly when i ask" he scoffed pressing a kiss to your cheek unable to stop.

"Never love... but please never ever get on this thing again okay?" You pleaded fluttering your lashes at him pleading.

"I swear. Never again, but seeing as this is our one and only ride we should take a few selfies? Mark the occasion?" He said standing letting your feet hit the floor but never once did he let go.

"Absolutly, gotta show off my new fiancé" you hummed rising to share another kiss with him not really paying attention to the height you'd now reached, you had more important things to think about. Like sharing the rest of your life with this glorious man.

"My thoughts exactly" he grinned pulling out his phone aiming it at the two of you, makeing sure to have the hand that rested on his chest donning his ring in shot.

[wangxianficrecs]

❤️live from new york by varnes

❤️live from new york

by varnes

E, 87k, wangxian

Summary:  Wei Ying lets out a long, ugly groan. “I am fine, Lan Zhan. Everybody is overreacting, it’s so embarrassing for all of you.”

“You had undiagnosed pneumonia, which you walked around with for weeks until you passed out during dress,” Lan Wangji corrects him. “It got a big laugh, until everyone thought you were dead.”

He keeps his voice even and does not tell Wei Ying that it had been Lan Wangji who caught him, who called the ambulance, and who rode with him to the hospital, where he was yelled at by nurses who wanted to know why he hadn’t noticed that Wei Ying couldn’t stop shivering or string proper sentences together.

“Rumors of my demise have been vastly overstated,” Wei Ying says. “Anyway, I’m already feeling much better. Basically fine. Really almost completely back to normal, so stop babying me and tell me why the fuck you let your stupid brother hire the worst man in the world to host our show.”

-

OR: the one where they all work at SNL, Yanli's ex-boyfriend is hosting, and that's just the beginning of everybody's problems.

My comments:  This was sooo funny, ohmygoodness, but also chock full of pining and withheld communication and stupidly sacrificial idiots. Author juggles an ensemble cast flawlessly, and everyone's personality shines in the rawest and most shamelessly hilarious way (I saw someone comment that they were all feral, which suits). Story is most often lwj POV (he and wwx are co-head writers) and this boy is SO IN LOVE, but doesn't want to damage what he's got, so he stays silent (mostly). Their relationship drama is subsumed in the utterly hectic week that leads up to a Saturday show (Sunday is off, Tuesdays have a hallucinatory never-ending feel, Fridays are actually much busier than Saturdays).

Excerpt 1:  There is no “end” to Tuesdays. There is Tuesday, and then later Tuesday, and then midnight Tuesday, and then timeless Tuesday, when it stops being nighttime but isn’t yet morning, and then eventually the sun is up and it’s not Tuesday on the calendar but it’s still Tuesday spiritually, because no one has slept and everyone is all hopped up on caffeine and cigarettes.

Excerpt 2:  Some funny bits: 

“Laughter is the best medicine!” Wei Ying wheedles. “Come onnnnn, Lan Zhan, I’ve been rotting away for months and months, if someone doesn’t let me get a joke on TV in the next twenty minutes I’ll die. I’ll literally be forced to fling myself out of the Jiang family’s beautiful bay windows, and on the way down I’ll shout, ‘This was avoidable! This is because Lan Zhan wouldn’t let me punch up the promos!’ and then you’ll be fired for secondhand murder and it’ll be a tragedy like the sketch comedy circuit has never seen.”

Lan Wangji says, “Second-degree.”

“What?”

“Murder. Not secondhand.”

Wei Ying furrows his brow. “...I’ve heard it both ways,” he says. “That would make a good detective show spoof skit, though. Secondhand Murder.”

“Mn,” Lan Wangji agrees. “Murder She Wrote, but an idiot.”

“Keeps suggesting a series of increasingly implausible manners of death,” Wei Ying agrees, scribbling on the back of the takeout menu. Yanli and Lan Wangji share a look. “All the deaths are like — incredibly obvious and she goes buckwild with her theories anyway.”

“Police keep asking her to leave.”

“I want to be one of the victims,” Yanli says. “Put like, a sword right through my chest, but I’m still alive, telling the cops what happened, and she’s still like, ‘No no, that’s what the murderer wants you to think.’”

“Gruesome! Love it,” says Wei Ying, making a note.

Excerpt 3:  some just plain esoteric turns of phrase:

Lan Zhan mutters, “Wei Ying,” in that voice of his. He says Wei Ying eight million times a day but never the same way twice. A mood ring of Wei Ying. Wei Wuxian wants to be fully dead about it, wholly and completely excused from this earth because of how Lan Zhan says his stupid name.

“Lan Zhan,” he sing-songs back. “Ah, Lan Zhaaaaan.”

Excerpt 4:  Some gut-punches: 

Wei Wuxian wants bruises; Lan Wangji wants scars.

_____________________

ETA: There's a Sequel!

It's 19k of sheer delight as our boys go to the courthouse to get hitched... only to find out they've been married for the past 3.5 years. How. How did this happen? Wwx points out that they've never had anything but married sex which is very responsible and traditional of them. But still. How do you get accidentally married???

Excerpt:  “How are you so chill about this,” Wei Wuxian demands, turning his face into Lan Zhan’s palm and kissing it at the center. “I feel like someone just informed me that everyone else on the planet except me has two dicks, and you’re just like, tralala, dry cleaning.”

“It’s easier for me,” says Lan Zhan, very tenderly. “I’ve always had two dicks.”

Wei Wuxian laughs, helplessly. “Lan Zhan.”

modern au, SNL au, saturday night live, humor, comedy, pining, FOREST OF PINES, light angst, lots of jokes, ensemble cast, feels, oblivious wei wuxian, oblivious lan wangji, idiots in love, slow burn, lack of communication, self-sacrificial idiots, flirting, getting together, everyone ships it, top lan wangji, bottom wei wuxian, roommates, hijinks and shenanigans, comedian everybody, jiang siblings, friends to lovers, found family, adorable juniors, happy ending, favorite, @itsvarnes​​

(You may wish to REBLOG as a signal boost for this author if you like – or think others might like – this story.)

[allhailthewicked]

Random JATP Headcannon: The Wilson’s and Street Food

Do you ever think about how after the boy’s death Bobby was probably extremely weary of all take-out, street food, and basically all food that he can’t see how it is prepared? Because I do! SO I decided to write a headcannon about it.

I mean my man watched his three brothers die a horribly painful death because they wanted to have a quick bite to eat. Don’t think about how he was probably the person who found them dying from food poisoning, in excruciating pain probably scared out of their goddamn minds. Don’t think about him clutching their bodies sobbing. Don’t think about how Bobby 100% most definitely didn’t eat anything for the next few days after the guys’ death. Don’t think about how he was probably too scared to trust any foods that he doesn’t make himself. But honestly, he is terrible at cooking that was Reggie’s and Alex’s jobs. I mean he can make a couple of Filipino recipes that his Lola taught him how to make like halo-halo, adobo, liempo sinigang rice.

Then eventually, he started to eat again, well not exactly, I mean Dr. Crystal seemed hopeful. But like he would go to restaurants with like multiple EFFING Michelin Stars and like refuse the food because he’s so scared that he might choke, or get food poisoning and die like the others. Like he low-key throws a tantrum because he is freaking and upsets the chef, but can you blame him?

Without any contexts the public and gossip magazines were like:

 “woah I know he’s a rock star but what a spoiled brat”

“TREVOR WILSON: A FOOD SNOB?!?!”

 “I Can’t Believe (It’s Not Butter sorry back to the headcannon lol) That This Rising Star Threw His Soup at the Chef a Michelin Star Restaurant”

(It was completely by accident btw!!! The matching friendship ring with the guys fell in the soup and he didn’t want to lose another part of his friends. So he started to rush to the bathroom with the soup to find the ring and fix it. .....and the chef just happened to be right behind.....and the gazpacho just happened to spill all over him. But he did get the ring so..... that’s good!!! But he also cried a bunch washing the tomato off of it tho)

Rose started to swing by his house every couple of days with bags full of ingredients and she checks in with him as she is making classic Puerto Rican comfort foods. She quickly realized that his vegetarianism wasn’t a lie and adjusted the recipes that she grew up with to suit his needs. Rose also realizes that if Bobby doesn’t know how a certain food is made and if he can’t see all the ingredients that went into it then he would refuse to eat it. So she fell into a pattern where she would cook at his mansion as he looks over her shoulder seeing how she make the dishes, sadly laughing at the terrible dad jokes she makes. (The jokes remind him of the one Reggie use to make)

Rose “The Queen of Meal Prepping Before Meal Prepping was Popular” makes enough food the next couple of days. Together they would sit down together to enjoy a meal. Rose just tells him it was to  make sure that she made the recipe correctly. But really it was to ease his anxiety about eating and to prove that the food isn’t poison. However, deep down it was to also show him that it is okay to make new friends and the boys probably would have wanted him to at least try to move on a little. Quickly Rose discovered that his favorite dishes are arroz con gandules (basically white rice with peas and olives), mofongo (think like mashed potatoes but with plantains), and some many pasteles and empanadas. And even after Julie and Carrie were born they have family dinners once per week that Rose cooked.

Well I mean until her chemo started of course because that when the roles started to reverse..... (but I’ve given y’all enough angst today, so that’s a story for another time)

I mean at some point he probably had to learn how to cook for himself and Carrie or at the very least he goes to a restaurant that personally shows him how the food is prepared/ he can see most of the steps on how it is prepared. Like one time The number of professional chefs my manz personally knows is ridiculous!!! I mean once he became FILTHY LIKE DIRTY LIKE I WOULD EAT HIM rich he definitely got a personal chef to either meal prep or cooks meals for both him and Carrie.

Bobby had one of the worst anxiety attacks of his life (I mean other than when he found out the guys died) when Carrie was 7. She went to Flynn’s birthday party at an arcade and found out that she ate cheese pizza and hot dogs (I mean Lukie, Lexington, and Reg died from street glizzies for fuck’s sake). Sobbing he called Rose freaking out as he drove Carrie (who was blissfully ignorant singing along to the Kidz Bop CD she got from the party favor) to the ER. “Rose I can’t lose another person who I love” Rose right before she had to perform at a gig she convinced him to turn around and go back home.

This is @iamthefryiestfrench-blog genius idea and I love it so, so much but Carrie and Bobby definitely started to cook dinner together like a couple times a week as Father-Daughter bonding time. Well until Carrie started to get super busy with Dirty Candy and before Trevor started touring again at that point they started to drift away. Fights started to happen more frequently. Carrie started to get more and more take-out to spite Trevor, but she didn’t realize that Trevor stopped eating again. A major fight erupted after Trevor passed out from hunger a couple of weeks after the Orphuem concert.

 “Carrie sweetie it is NOT DRUGS”

“Then why did I walk in to you knocked out on the floor” 

“I just hadn’t had time to eat today mahal”

“Dad do not lie to me! I cannot lose another person who I love. I can’t Dad. I’m going to call Dr. Crystal!!!”

And that was when the truth was revealed...

Carrie’s channel is slowly started to be sponsored by hello fresh, cookunity, or blue apron every single week without fail. Both of them wouldn’t admit it, but this was her offering the olive branch and Trevor took it IMMEDIATELY. (He missed cooking with his little girl). And in the sponsorship ad you would see Trevor cooking a meal with his hair in little pigtails with pink scrunchies.

Of course, they get the vegetarian meals and if you use here promo code “DIRTYCANDI10” then you can get up to 10 meals for free!!! So thank you so much Hello Fresh for sponsering today’s video!!!

It took almost 25 years but cooking with Carrie again made things feel almost alright again and that’s all Bobby could have asked for.

A/N: Hi! Thanks for reading this it was really fun to write :) (because I love to write pain lmao) But please let me know if you want to be added to my taglist down below by either replying to this post, reblogging this post, or sending me an ask! I would appreciate reblogs and feedback because I love reading your guy's comments and tags they seriously make my day but it's fine if you don't want to :)!!!

~✨My Taglist is Under the Cut Lol✨~

@poppin-peters, @sunset-bobby, @theobligatedklutz, @soupforfree, @iamthefryiestfrench-blog