#designated survivor season 2

[fncreature]

Why do we not talk about the fact that Lyor & Seth destroyed a fucking marriage because of bees. That guy killed those roses for the bees and then his wife killed the bees and then they exposed it. What the fuck is happening

[quack-quack-snacks]

Drowning Without You By My Side

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My Sweet Home Masterlist

My Cha Hyun-su Masterlist

Pairing(s): Cha Hyun-su x Fem!Reader Summary: Ever since losing everything, you felt like you were drowning. Trying to end it all wasn't successful when an unknown and unnatural force was hell-bent on stopping you, but when a near-death experience - unintended this time - causes you to tempt Death's grasp, you finally meet the force keeping you bound to the world. Warnings: Season 2 spoilers (slightly)! Slight panic attack, drowning, explicit detail of attempted suicide on the reader's part (The National Suicide and Crisis Hotline is 988. There are so many people who care about you and would love to help you. You are not alone), cutting and bleeding (during the roll calls), Ah-yi being too cute for her own good, and Hyun-su being a fond little cinnamon roll and a great big brother (even if it's only for a scene), no use of (y/n). Word Count: 6,163

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Hyun-su!

You woke up with a start, sweat slickening your skin and causing the slightly ripped t-shirt to stick to your back. It was designed with a band of which you'd never heard the likes of before the apocalypse started. Your breathing was quickened intensely and you wiped your hands over your face, pushing your palms into your eye sockets as you fruitlessly tried to calm your heart rate. It took several minutes of doing every method you knew to stop a panic attack before you were finally able to take a deep breath without it stuttering in your lungs. You swung your legs over the edge of the hammock you had designated as your bed since you first arrived at the stadium all those months ago. To know that you hadn’t seen the boy you once called home in over half a year was a hard pill to swallow. You hated yourself for letting him go.

Hated that you didn’t try harder to follow after him.

Hated that you let the group force you onto the truck with them and head to the safety camp.

It was a never-ending cycle of self-loathing since you’d arrived at the stadium. When you’d found the secret exit leading out of the stuffy concrete walls you were trapped in, you found yourself leaving whenever possible. You couldn't handle the pitiful stares of your fellow Green Home survivors and the eyes of the citizens in the stadium who disliked the woman that protected the “murderer” of the chief’s husband. Although Eun-yoo and you did not really have any sort of relationship in terms of friendship, you had an unspoken agreement to protect and stand up for each other. If not each other, you had no one. The people you each had viewed as the closest to you of anyone had gone missing or even passed on to the next life. You both refused to admit that last thought out loud, though. 

Every morning, you would wake up and attend the morning roll call before getting dressed and leaving for the day until you returned just in time for the evening roll call.

Today would be no different.

You dropped your bare feet onto the frigid concrete floor and walked towards the bathroom, suppressing a shiver. The entrance to the bathroom had been taken off after an incident inside of the stadium. It involved none other than yourself and the elder brother of one of the boys who bullied Yeong-su when the two of you got into a fight. You can remember the exact words he had spoken to you after you talked to him about the boy’s behavior.

“The little shit deserves it. Being the little brother of a murderer and the devil’s advocate,” he’d said, referring to Eun-yu and yourself. “I hope he ends up becoming a monster. I even hope I’ll be the one to have the honor of killing him.”

You remember punching him square in the nose as soon as the words left his mouth. He’d flown backward and slammed into the bathroom door, successfully knocking it off the hinges and breaking the flimsy wood in half. You were positively seething at the absolute audacity the man had. Not being satisfied with how he’d fallen, you jumped on top of him and started pounding your fist into his face. You hit him over and over again, undeterred by the few hits he managed to get in, until you were pulled off of him. You started thrashing around violently when you felt hands wrapping around you to pull you off of him until you realized it was Park Chan-young, the young soldier who had been an alibi and friend to you and the rest of the Green Home survivors since you’d first gotten on that truck. A small crowd had gathered around after hearing the commotion and yells coming from the two of you before they all parted to allow Chief Ji in. When she saw you, her confused stare deepened to a glare but she ignored you in favor of transporting the brother you had just fought to the medical room. That was a hell of a day.

The inside of the bathroom was a regular locker room. Not surprising considering it was originally used for the players of the baseball team. The only difference was one of the walls was poorly rebuilt with rocks and bricks by Chief Ji and some of the stadium's residents after it was impacted by the missiles. 

Before you had started heading over to the bathroom, you had grabbed your small compact bag of hygiene supplies and brought it with you. Although toothpaste was hard to come by and you had to share the rations the soldiers found with your neighbors, you were able to find some on one of your days out. You brushed your teeth dry, not wanting to use any of the limited water on something like brushing your teeth. This had become something you were used to. 

Finally returning to your sleeping space, you didn’t bother changing out of the clothes you slept in and just decided to continue wearing them. The outfit was comfortable yet simple: a pair of oversized off-white sweatpants you had to manually make a drawstring for using a shoestring, and a short-sleeved dark blue shirt. Your shoes were the same ones you wore the first day this monsterization started. They were originally a pristine white you had tried your hardest not to taint, but now they were stained beyond repair from your adventures. You consider yourself lucky you had only bought them a week before the outbreak. They held up well throughout the year you’d spent with them as your sole pair of shoes. 

The morning announcement calling for roll call sounded through the silent air of the little enclosed unit you were lucky enough to be given.

Although luck may not have been the true cause. So many people were reluctant to be near you when they slept and complained enough times to the chief that she eventually just set you apart from the rest. Although it was lonely at times, you were thankful for the shred of privacy you had been granted. 

Once your shoes had been put on along with your sweater, you calmly walked down the hall toward the place where your assigned group met for roll calls. You arrived just in time to see Yeong-su slap away Jin-ok’s hand when she tried to pull him back from a soldier who was grinning meanly at him. You could see the built-up tears in the boy’s eyes that he desperately was trying to push away and rushed forward. Seeing the reasoning behind his tears, despite the consequences that you knew would ensue, you roughly pushed against the soldier’s back which sent him tumbling forward and his face met the ground floor with a sickening sound. You risked a glance to look back at Yeong-su and Jin-ok. Yeong-su’s arm was bleeding rapidly, seeming obvious that the soldier who cut him too deeply hit an artery. Hopefully, it wasn't a major one. The boy’s lip was quivering as he held back his tears. You could see all the emotions in his eyes: anger, frustration, helplessness, but mainly relief. Relief from you coming in to defend him. You quickly sent a look to Jin-ok and she immediately knew what you meant. She gently took Yeong-su’s hand and this time he didn’t resist as she led them both away from the scene and to their living quarters. 

You barely had time to let out a relieved smile before a fist was sent flying into your left cheek, sending your head snapping to the right and you falling back, only barely and painfully catching yourself with your elbows. You looked up at your assailant to see the officer who was tormenting Yeong-su standing above you. His nose was bleeding heavily and if you didn’t know any better, you would’ve thought he was beginning the transition period to a monster. He wiped at his nose to no avail and sent you a heavy glare. He leaned down and roughly grabbed your arm, hauling you to your feet and pulling out his knife. You held eye contact even when the blade roughly slashed across your forearm, right over an already existing cut. You praised yourself internally on how you kept your face entirely neutral and how the soldier looked angry and disappointed at your lack of reaction.

You gave him a slight smirk as you held up your bleeding arm for his view, the blood gushing down and covering your bruised elbow. “Happy?” You questioned tauntingly and your smirk grew as you saw the man seething. Despite his intimidating height, you couldn’t help but think he looked like a cartoon character with the way you were sure steam would be bursting out of his ears at any second. When he made no further move to continue the fight, you swiftly turned around and walked out of the room, smiling when you heard him yell in frustration and throw something to the floor. The knife, you presumed. 

You didn’t bother visiting the doctor to help you treat your wounds as you wrapped a strap of clothing around it and called it a day. Any respect you had for him instantly flew down the drain when you caught him drinking the rubbing alcohol meant for treating wounds and acting immaturely all the time. You walked in the direction of the exit, making sure to not be spotted by any soldiers as you did. When you finally got there and pushed the door open, you let out a breath of relief. The moment you stepped out the door and into the clean air of the outdoors, you felt yourself relax a little more than before. You found it odd how you felt more relaxed outside of the safe haven the stadium provided but you couldn’t help yourself. In the outdoors, you felt free. You could think without hindrance and allow yourself to feel an emotion that wasn't complete and utter despair.

The ground crunched below your feet as you walked across the gravel towards the green grass fields. You had no objective or destination in mind for today, you just wanted to escape the oppressive hands of your 'superiors.'

Walking on light feet, still making sure to keep your head focused on the area around you in case a monster appeared, you found yourself standing in front of a building. There was nothing special about this building. Half of it wasn't even attached as it lay broken in shambles around the structure. The ladder leading to the roof was rusted and had some of the metal bars sticking out awkwardly. The building in total was relatively normal and in good shape compared to those around it.

The only special thing about this building was the memories that it spurred within your head. 

You climbed up the ladder, tears blocking your vision as they collected on your waterline despite your deepest efforts. You lost everyone. You lost Hyun-su; the boy you called home; the boy you called your soulmate; the boy you loved more than anyone or anything else. You lost Ji-su, the girl you decided you could call your best friend after spending so much time with her on the first floor of Green Home for those days at the beginning of this mess. You even lost Su-yeong, the little girl you’d grown so protective over… gone without a second thought. You never truly had Eun-yu so it wouldn’t hurt as much whether or not she had died. The only person you truly felt you had left was Yeong-su. You hated yourself for doing this to him but only having him wasn’t enough to stay anymore. 

You felt like you were drowning. You were unable to handle the constant feeling of your emotions overpowering you. You’d heard so many times that it got easier as time went on but you never thought you would be able to overcome this. Although it might have been fitting to end your life by drowning, you just wanted a quick and painless death.

Falling solved that for you. 

When you finally climbed the ladder to the roof of the building, you couldn’t help the sobs that wracked your body. You hopped up onto the edge of the building and looked up. The sky seemed to perfectly oppose how you were feeling. Soft, puffy white clouds were fluttering through the atmosphere and forming different shapes you could just barely make out. The tears slipped down the side of your face as you tried to gain some sort of peace before you followed through with your decision. 

The wind was a gentle, cool breeze across your damp cheeks as you stood and glanced across the beautiful terrain below you. The grass had just barely begun to grow out of its perfect and well-maintained state, but it was still a wonderful sight to see. There were flower gardens surrounding the tall building, some crushed brutally by the falling of the walls but most were left perfectly untouched and thriving in the new world. The sight made your body calm down, the tears cascading waterfalls of sorrow down your cheeks slowly coming to a stop. You’ve heard of the acceptance of death people have when they know they’re about to die. You’d never thought you would have to face that kind of acceptance, never really thought the way you’d die would be because the world had been cruel and gave you too much pain for you to handle. You never thought that yet there you were.

There you were, standing on the edge of the tallest building you could find, one foot raised and hovering over the edge and you giving one last smile to the world before having your other foot join it. 

The wind screamed in your ears and you swear you could hear voices within it. Voices calling your name. Voices that sounded too similar to one you’d lost. You let your eyes fall shut as memories flashed through your mind. Memories of reading to Su-yeong and Yeong-su; memories of playing the guitar and singing with Ji-su, laughter interrupting each word because you couldn’t take yourselves seriously; memories of Hyun-su. 

Memories of shaking his hand when you first met him after he moved in across the hall from you in Green Home. 

Memories of him coming to you crying for the first time and confessing how he couldn’t stand being alive anymore.

Memories of losing yourself in his eyes when he smiled at you.

Memories of his touch against your cheeks when he leaned in to leave a kiss against your forehead.

Memories of him.

A single tear drop fell from your eye and you smiled at the thought of meeting him again, whether that be in your next life or the one that comes after death. There was no doubt in your mind that he was gone, and that thought alone was more than half of your reasons for wanting to end it all. 

Just as you were sure you were about to hit the bottom, a strong yet lean arm wrapped around your body and gently set you down on the ground before retreating just as quickly as it had appeared. You shot your eyes open only to be left with the blue sky above you and the intense wind that breezed over your body as whatever it was that saved you disappeared. For a few moments, you couldn’t breathe. You couldn’t move, couldn’t blink, couldn’t think, couldn’t do anything except stare in perplexment at the sky. As you sat up, you still couldn’t think straight and allowed your body to work on autopilot as it walked you home. 

It took a full week until you were finally able to come to terms with the fact that either you had imagined the whole thing or something - someone - had saved you.

A month after your first attempt, you tried again. You couldn’t handle the stares of disdain and hatred towards you after you had defended Eun-yu as others criticized her about her apparent murder of Chief Ji’s husband. Yet, just like the last time, you were saved miraculously last minute by that same strange force. 

You tried a dozen more times, all ending with the same result. It was so frustrating and you could barely handle the pain knowing you couldn’t even control your death, let alone your life.

The tears streamed down your face violently as you knelt and smacked your fists angrily against the wet, coarse dirt of where you were, once again, gently placed down after another failed attempt to end your life. The shredded noose hung limp around your neck and you ripped it off aggressively. You let out an agonizing scream from the deepest part of your lungs and it ended with more sobs as you let yourself fall onto your side with your knees pulled into your chest. Your loud sobs slowly quieted down but the tears never stopped falling. You stood up from the wet ground, your hair and clothes both stained by the mud below. Water rained down from the heavens, soaking your shirt and making it cling to your chest. Your tears blurred with the raindrops that splashed against you and slowly made their way down your face, disappearing down your neck and into the collar of your shirt. 

“Why are you doing this?” You yelled into the open air, receiving no answer. “Why? Why do you keep doing this? Why won’t you just let me die?” You choked on a sob at that last question and yet you still received no answer. Defeated, you decided to retreat back to the stadium and get cleaned up. When you returned, Jin-ok was the first to notice the bruising around your neck and your tired, puffy eyes. When she asked, you played dumb but you could tell she saw right through you. Luckily, she left it alone. 

You ended up curled up in your hammock for hours as you sobbed your heart out. 

Although the stadium might have been a better place to follow through with your plan, you refused to put your few remaining friends - if you could even really call them that - through that. Put them through the pain of seeing your dead body and knowing they might have been able to stop it. Even though you would be dead by then, you wouldn’t be able to live with yourself. The only way you would allow yourself to follow through was outside of the stadium.

But a certain someone, or something, wouldn’t allow that to happen. 

That was the last time you tried to end your life.

You’d had many dangerous encounters since then but every time they would be cleared out by your guardian angel before you could even really call them a threat. It got to the point where you felt more safe outside the stadium compared to within its concrete walls.

Sighing, you averted your eyes from the building and walked around it, focusing instead on the plants that were just starting to bloom in the early spring. The breeze was a welcome chill that rose goosebumps along your arms. As you continued to walk, your mind blank and your feet destinationless as you wandered, you came across a large pool of water.

And a girl.

She was young, and couldn’t have been more than 5 years old. It was such a shock to see her there, especially all by herself, that you didn’t realize she was sinking until it was almost too late. Without a second of hesitation, you jumped right into the lake and swam as fast as you could towards her. Grabbing a hold of her hand, you pulled her along as you swam back up to the surface. You dragged her towards the edge of the earth where the stable ground met the water and laid her down. Lowering your head to her mouth, you tried to listen to her breathing but instead, you got a headbutt to the ear. She shot up and started coughing up water. You ignored how your ear stung at that moment and instead rubbed along her back while she breathed heavily. 

“Are you okay?” You asked her and she suddenly snapped her head towards you, like she didn’t recognize your presence until you spoke.

Slowly, she nodded. “Yes,” she hesitated before quietly asking, “Did you save me?”

You smiled at her shy mannerisms as she played with the hem of her wet and dirtied dress. “Yeah, I did.”

She looked up at you, almost surprised with your confession, and gave you a shy smile back. “Thank you,” she whispered before averting her eyes again.

You couldn’t stop the smile growing even brighter on your face at her adorableness. You looked around, seeing nobody else in sight. Your eyebrows furrowed as you began to worry about who she was and why nobody was taking care of her. “Are you alo-”

Just as you started to speak, a wet and slimy tentacle-like appendage wrapped itself around your torso and yanked you back into the lake. You thrashed around but couldn’t unravel yourself from the monster’s grip. You saw your knife float away and sink further down the dark abyss that was the bottom of the lake. With it, the last of your newfound hope to live followed. Just as you lost the last of the reserved air in your lungs, a sudden figure dove into the water and wrapped its arm around you. Just before your eyes fluttered shut, you swore you saw the blurry face of the same boy who haunted your dreams. The boy who haunted your nightmares.

The same boy who haunted your mind as you stuttered between the line separating life and death after surrendering to the lack of oxygen. 

“Hyun-su!”

You screamed as you saw the military take him away. You lay helplessly against the side of the crumbling Green Home building as the pain of moving around too much from your wounds caused you to be dead-weight in your spot. 

He let out a scream of agony that ended with your name and you felt your heart shatter. He was surrounded by multiple people; doctors, scientists, and soldiers alike. Each person’s face was surrounded by a strange darkness. The only thing you could make out of their faces were their evil, wide smiles, and their eyes tainted a demonic red. The sight made you feel even more helpless and despair-ridden than before.

You could do nothing but watch as the love of your life was taken from you without a second thought. 

Hyun-su gathered you in his human-form arm while the other, extended in his monstrous form, swung back and forth through the water to slice at the monstrous being that dared to harm you. He didn’t waste much more time under the water to fight the beast as he noticed your eyes had slipped shut and you weren’t releasing any more air bubbles. He surged upwards, his wing doing most of the work as he darted through the surface of the water and onto the solid ground near the same little girl you had saved before.

Lying you down on the ground gently, he lowered his head to your mouth to hear if you were breathing, cursing quietly when he realized you weren’t. It was at times like these that he thanked whatever deity existed that he allowed himself to be persuaded by his parents to be a lifeguard for a summer. That way, he learned and was certified in CPR. 

Plugging your nose, he administered two breaths into your mouth before pressing his - now both fully human - hands to your chest. Just as he prepared for the first chest compression, you suddenly started coughing and turned onto your side as you continued to cough up the water from your lungs. He was so thankful there wasn’t enough water in your lungs that he would’ve had to break your ribs giving you CPR. 

But he would choose broken ribs over a body that wasn’t breathing any day.

After coughing your lungs dry, you fell onto your back with your eyes closed as you took many deep breaths. Suddenly, you remembered the face you clearly remember saving you and shot up into a sitting position, your eyes wide and surprised. Your gaze immediately fell upon him.

Hyun-su.

You held your breath as your eyes met and you stared at each other for a few moments. Your hand hesitantly raised to reach out for him. His gaze didn’t stray from your own as you brought your hand to his face, a mix between a sigh and a sob leaving your throat as you felt the soft skin of his cheek touch your fingertips. He was wet and cold, but he was alive. A smile grew onto your face but it dropped just as Hyun-su’s began to form. You yanked your hand away as if his skin suddenly burned you, and it might as well have. You could see the hurt expression taking over his face but the feeling of the anger, betrayal, and grief flooding through your veins overpowered any feelings of remorse you might have felt. Taking a quick moment to look around for the child you saved, you let out a small sigh of relief when you saw her innocently watching the interaction between you and Hyun-su, breathing normally and sitting safe and sound on the grass.

“Take care of her for me, will you?” You asked him coldly, not waiting for an answer as you stood up and started speed walking in the opposite direction. 

“No, wa- wait!” He scrambled to stand up, calling after you as you ignored his advances. “Stop!” He finally caught up to you and wrapped his hand around your bicep gently, turning you around to face him. 

“What? What the fuck is so important that you finally feel the need to talk to me?” You let out a sob of a laugh as you ripped your arm away from him. You could slowly see the realization of why you were acting so angry and upset dawn on his face as guilt settled into his eyes. “You’ve gone this entire time being just fine as you save my life just to leave me there, alone, time and time again. So please - please - explain to me what is now so important you feel the need to reveal yourself to me.”

You looked at him expectantly as his mouth opened and closed, looking for an answer. He seemed to find it as he finally said, “I just… I really thought you died this time. I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

You looked at him, frustrated, for a moment before harshly scrubbing your palms over your eyes which were tearing up against your will. “So… what, after all the times you saved me, now you want to check on my safety?” Taking a deep breath, you forced your face to look calm, masking your anger for his sake so you could get out of this situation with as little hindrance as possible. You dropped your hands to your sides, your tears smeared across your face leaving it in a shiny glow. “Well thank you, Hyun-su, for your consideration,” you spoke the last word with bitterness lacing your tone that you could tell he caught as he winced softly. “But I am fine.”

You turned around, fully intent on heading back to the stadium when his hand wrapped around your bicep again. “What?” You asked angrily and turned around only to be pulled into a tight hug. You didn’t waste time in fighting his grip but he was relentless. “Let me go!” You screamed at him, although it was muffled by his shirt. “You’re such an asshole! I fucking mourned for you! I built a fucking memorial and brought a flower every single week without fail and yet you were never fucking dead! Why did you keep letting me think you were dead?” You were now pounding your fists into his chest, no longer resisting his embrace but expressing the built-up anger, sadness, grief, and self-loathing you felt every single day. It all stemmed solely from the way you hated yourself for not trying harder to save him. Not trying harder to resist Eun-hyuk when he told you and Eun-yu he would bring him back. “Was it you? Was it you every time I was stopped? Every time I was in danger, it was you who saved me, wasn’t it? What gave you the fucking right?” The crying started again. In turn, your hits became less and less powerful with each strike along with your screams gradually quieting. “Why did you have to leave me?” You sobbed out and let your head fall onto his chest as he buried his face in your hair. Your hands clutched onto his t-shirt as if trying to anchor him to you, scared that if you let him go, he would disappear again. Your knees gave out, exhausted by the emotional turmoil washing over you from the last five minutes. And so soon after death caressed you on the cheek too. Hyun-su caught you and slowly lowered the two of you to the ground, never once breaking the embrace. 

You sat in silence, only broken by the sound of your sobs as they slowly subsided. When you settled down, you spoke once more. 

“Did you know I was in love with you?” You didn’t feel any physical reaction from him that would express what he was feeling in that moment so you continued. “I never stopped. Loving you, I mean. I don’t think I ever will, but god, I hate you so much right now.”

There were a few silent beats where the only sound you could hear was the sound of his heartbeat against your ear until he spoke. 

“I didn’t think I would be able to handle seeing you again and find you with this exact reaction. By the time I left the military’s grasp, I tried to find you but then I saw you on that ledge.”

It surprised you and calmed your nerves all the same. 

“I knew I was just being a coward but I thought too much time had passed for me to just show up. Today was just a bit different.” He leaned back a bit to look at you and you did the same. He gave a small smile when he saw you again, with your wet eyes and glistening cheeks you looked wonderful. Even after sobbing your heart out, you were still the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen. “My love, I’ve loved you since the first moment I saw you, and I never stopped either,” he leaned in slowly so your foreheads rested against each other and your noses brushed. “And if you need time to stop hating me, I’ll wait as long as it takes.”

You looked into his radiating brown eyes as the last tear slipped from your own before bringing a hand up to cup his cheek once again. You let out a small laugh which he returned with an adoring smile. Leaning in, you pressed your lips against his in a soft, unhurried kiss. He slid a hand up from where it was pulling you into his embrace to rest against the back of your neck as he held you against him. When the both of you were smiling too much to continue the kiss, you leaned back just enough to stare into each other’s eyes. The adoration and love you had for each other would be clear for anyone to see from the way you gazed at each other.

You suddenly pushed forward and wrapped your arms around his neck, pulling him close and hugging him once more. He sat still for a moment as he processed what you did only to wrap his arms around your waist. He hugged you just as tight and with just as much desperation as you did.

“God, I missed you so much,” you whispered into his ear and he sighed shakily into the spot where his face was buried in your neck. 

“I missed you too, so much. I’m so sorry for not coming back sooner.”

“Well, you’re here now, and that’s all that matters to me,” you reassured him and he physically relaxed, his shoulders untensing and him falling further into your embrace. 

The sound of the soft pattering of footsteps interrupted the moment you two were sharing. However, it was entirely welcome when you saw the little girl you had saved before standing beside you. You pulled away from Hyun-su, but not too far as he grabbed onto one of your hands. You smiled at him slightly, he was obviously just as starved of your touch as you were his.

“Hi there,” you told her gently when you turned back to her, not wanting to scare her in any way. “What’s your name?”

She looked down shyly, not answering until Hyun-su reached out to her with his hand. “It’s okay, she’s a good one,” he reassured her as he brushed some stray wet strands of her pin-straight black hair out of her face when her small hands were unable to. He took her hand and gently pulled her closer to the two of you. It made you smile as you saw them interact. The caring and soft way Hyun-su acted with her reminded you so much of a father interacting with his daughter.

It just made you love him even more.

He gave her one more nod of reassurance before she timidly introduced herself.

“M-my name is Ah-yi,” she stuttered out and you silently cooed at her adorable little shy smile. “Thank you for saving me, Miss.”

“Of course, Ah-yi, you are very welcome,” you gave her your own smile and some of her shyness seemed to fade away. You then gave her your name and she visibly brightened up. 

“You’re the princess!” You gave her a confused smile with a small laugh as she then began to explain. “Oppa’s told me stories about you! How you’re the princess of the big green castle and how he was a knight in shining armor who was saved by you, the warrior princess!” She talked animatedly with her hands swinging around wildly and her chest puffing out at the end to make her seem stronger. Your lips formed a big smile as you looked over at Hyun-su to see him lightly glaring at Ah-yi with a big blush coating his cheeks. 

“Ah, so you’ve told stories about me, have you?” You teased him and he looked at you before rolling his eyes. 

“Shut up,” he mumbled and you yelped as he yanked on your hand, sending you falling onto his chest with a loud laugh. 

You talked a bit more with Ah-yi, somehow ending with her laying her head in your lap as you leaned against Hyun-su with your back to his chest. The three of you watched the clouds, pointing out any shapes you could find and making up stories that Ah-yi seemed to love. Every time you looked over at Hyun-su, you could see all of his attention focused on you and how you interacted with the small child. 

Time seemed to fly as eventually, the sun started to fade into the distance, only leaving splotches of light shining through the leaves of the tall trees surrounding you. All three of you stood up and you glanced in the direction of the stadium with sad eyes. You couldn’t stand the thought of leaving Hyun-su yet. Even the thought of leaving the small girl you had grown strongly attached to in the past few hours broke your heart. Hyun-su seemed to sense your hesitation as he grabbed your hand. 

You looked back at him and he looked at you so fondly you felt like your heart might burst. With his thumb gently caressing your knuckles, he looked you in the eyes and said, “Stay. Stay with me. With us. You don’t have to go yet.”

He seemed just as desperate to make up for lost time with you as you were with him. His eyes widened and that smile you loved so dearly formed on his face when you nodded with little thought put into the decision. Pulling you closer with his arm circling your shoulders and one of yours circling his waist while the other hand reached out for Ah-yi to grab. She practically leaped at the opportunity.

“You ready, princess?” Hyun-su asked you in a soft teasing voice and you looked up at him with the same passionate smile gracing your lips. 

“Lead the way, my shining knight.”

~~~

Pt 2: Floating Above Those Dark Skies :)

[echos-gal]

ok i'm rapidly losing hope that Tech is still alive, and this sucks because it was basically the top thing i desperately wanted from this season. i wanted to see him survive. so here's my exhaustive and embarrassingly long list of reasons why he SHOULD still be alive, and if he isn't, why it was a missed opportunity. obviously no hate to the writers or anything, i love them dearly for creating this show!!!

(if you're a "Tech should stay dead for the stakes/so someone in SW stays dead for once/i hate delusional Tech stans" person, kindly keep scrolling, this ain't for you)

SEASON 2:

right from the start, Romar connects with Tech and calls himself "a survivor." HELLO???

in this same arc, Tech breaks his leg in a fall which he survives. he continues to walk on it, fighting off troopers to save Echo & Omega, showcasing his persistence and grit.

one of Phee's first lines is "better late than dead," and we know she shares a connection with Tech. she flirts with him later in this scene. it would be a shame not to reuse this line, i'm just saying....

Cid still owes Tech for racing for her in Faster. we see Cid looking miserable as she betrays the batch in Plan 99, so her playing a part in his rescue/comeback would be a nice way to show her growth. (i'm afraid there isn't enough time for this, though- as much as i thought a Cid redemption was on the horizon!)

Phee and Tech's departure is awkward, and although we have some context from season 3 (they talked more than we realized), the scene would do best if reconciled in person imo. it felt like it was setting up for something, and feels weird to leave hanging.

"don't go running off with any pirates or smugglers" could not have just been a throw away line. it set up for him to do exactly that. how fitting would it be if pirates or smugglers actually did manage to pick him up before the empire made it to the railcar crash site?

Hemlock's retrieval of the goggles shows that he sent a team to look through the wreckage. he thought there was a chance Tech survived, and may have him.

i won't go into the logistics, but big falls ARE survivable. in star wars especially. we have no idea what was below the layer of clouds/mist Tech fell through.

SEASON 3:

this is mostly CX-2 centric. their armor is very similar: the jaw/mouth shape, the hexagons over the ears, the rectangles on the chest, and the pouches/pockets.

"domicile." that is all.

CX-2 uses technology more than the other operatives we've seen, and he gets past the encryption on Phee's ship with ease.

"who are you?" was enunciated in the exact same way Tech says it to Trace and Rafa, which i definitely think was intentional.

CX-2 stops to use his rifle scope in the exact same spot where Tech and Phee stood to let down the ladders in the sea surge on Pabu.

he survives a waterfall plunge on Teth, which appears to have fooled Rex's group into thinking he'd died. the writers could have killed him off there and sent a new operative, but they chose to stick with CX-2 pursuing them to Pabu.

it's worth noting that while this CX is designated as "2," Tech's CT number is CT-9902. he is associated with the number even on a visual level: he's a dual-wielder, he wears goggles, he salutes with two fingers.

FROM A STORY PERSPECTIVE:

firstly, i am sorry and i LOVE the writers, but if you want people to accept a character's death, you've got to show his family and friends' grief. we saw no reaction from Crosshair or Phee, no tears from Hunter or Echo. it feels like fans were sadder about Tech's death than the characters in the story.

Tech seems to have been mentioned more in the second half of season 3 than the first half, which works if they want to bring him back in the finale.

the finale is called "The Cavalry Has Arrived." i really don't think you can have the cavalry (aka the bad batch) arrive without every member present. i also don't think it would feel right to play their theme without Tech there. idk, that feels incomplete!

we saw no body, and Hunter received Tech's goggles not from a trusted ally or friend, but from Hemlock. this calls into question the legitimacy of his claim that the goggles were "all he could salvage."

Tech alive and being held on Tantiss would provide a nice parallel to Echo in the first mission where we meet the batch, in TCW. and [ep 14 SPOILERS] we see that Echo is currently looking more like his TCW self, with his earpiece removed.

feels kinda sour that a character who a lot of people related to as neurodivergent representation would die just a few episodes after having a deep conversation with his sister about it.

likewise (and as a white woman i can't speak for WOC), from what i have seen, Black women are rarely the main love interest of a series! Phee is the ONLY love interest in this whole show, and it would suck to just cut off that romance before it could really become something. a lot of people wanted to see TechPhee become canon.

CX-2 is the one who destroys the marauder. it works well storywise for its pilot to have been the one to do that- the person who worked so hard modifying it, flying it, and teaching his sister to fly it. i'll be lowkey pissed if it turns out some random dude blew it up.

it's also CX-2 who invades and sets fire to Pabu. this is emotionally gripping on its own, but if he is Tech, it's even more so.

we have no idea what the operatives go through. Crosshair isn't telling, but it clearly put him in a really bad place. if Tech underwent this conditioning in his post-fall injured state, there's a chance he could come back from it. Emerie is probably the key to this, if they take the CX-2 route.

this show is all about a family trying to stay together as the Empire desperately tries to rip them apart. seeing the whole family together again - even if not everyone survives - in the finale is the satisfaction that the show ideally would go for. the last time they were all together was the season 1 finale. that was about 2 years ago in the show's timeline.

leaving Crosshair and Tech's final interactions be where they parted on the Kamino platform also feels off. Tech was the one who really vocalized the need to rescue Crosshair in season 2's finale. Crosshair, in the meantime, has changed significantly as a person. Tech's comment about Crosshair being "severe and unyielding," and unable to change this facet of his nature, is incorrect. leaving Tech dead would mean that he never gets to see this change in Crosshair, which makes me feel like a deflated balloon.

FROM MY SELFISH PERSPECTIVE!!!

give me Tech with cool scars and slightly disheveled longer hair. this is such a good opportunity for the creators to give him a sweet new look!

we never got to see Tech without his goggles on, despite Phee constantly referring to his eyes. he definitely doesn't have them right now (they're in the Archium), so we could get Mister Big Brown Eyes if he's alive. it's another missed opportunity if not, imo!

the goggles being placed in the Archium was a beautiful scene that makes me tear up whenever i think about it. it's symbolic, it's bittersweet, and it's exactly where the goggles belong. but was it closure for me? not really.

Tech is a character who became a LOT of people's favorite in season 2, including my own. why kill off a fan-favorite with an entire season to go?

yes, i desperately want a Rex and Echo series. yes, i want the batch to cameo in it, and yes... that includes Tech. making up for lost season 3 Tech content 😎

the finale will feature the zillo beast, and Tech loves the zillo beast. FREE HER! REUNITE THEM! he would love to witness her rampage.

FROM A "SURPRISE!!!!!" PERSPECTIVE

it seems like most people think Tech is either CX-2 or dead. it would be a great finale twist if we DID get CX-2's identity, it's NOT Tech, the audience loses hope, and then he shows up. i think this is actually plausible given the other assassin schematics Hemlock was looking at in Point of No Return. Tech might be in Hemlock's grasp, but not an active operative. having an enhanced clone to toy with is something Hemlock would want to keep under wraps. we see him step out of the assassin chamber at the start of that episode - if Tech is anywhere on Tantiss, i think it's here.

i think the writers have expected us to have all lost hope by now, so his finale reappearance would ideally come as a shock. the finale is almost guaranteed to be a very long episode, so we really might have quite a bit of time to explore his return, if it happens.

secret 16th episode: i know, i'm putting my clown makeup on as i type this. but the previous 2 seasons each had 16 episodes, with a two-parter finale. season 3 is just 15, with a single episode finale. TBB formally ends may 1st, so what if we get a may 4th surprise episode detailing how Tech survived? (that or an epilogue leading into a new series, which i think is more likely actually!)

[eddiezpaghetti]

Okay, so my experience with Stranger Things is a weird one.

I didn't care when it first came out, started to watch it out of "might as well" in 2020, wasn't interested in it enough to make it past S2, forgot about it outside of going "oh, hey, cool, there's a lesbian in it now, I guess," in S3, got really annoyed when "Running Up That Hill" got popular from it because it was a song I listened to on fucking loop after one of my best friends died in high school and I fully expected its appearance in the show to ignore the whole survivor's guilt theme of the song (and was very happy to learn later that it did the exact opposite of ignoring the lyrics), saw people drawing Eddie, suddenly got a lot more interested, watched just the fourth season like a fucking psychopath because I was seriously only there for Eddie, then got interested enough to start the show over properly, having mostly forgotten what I did watch of the show before.

And let me tell you something from the perspective of someone who started with the complete fourth season, who wasn't there from the start, who wasn't tainted by ship goggles or this internal battle of hope and despair, who wasn't theorizing about what the painting could be or expecting Mike and Will to kiss when Volume 2 happened or rooting for Mike and Eleven's relationship to go down in flames or whatever the fuck. Just someone who went blind into Season 4.

It's really fucking obvious that Will and Mike are gonna be endgame.

Like holy fuck. It's so fucking blatant I don't even know why people are nervous.

No sane fucking person would shoot this scene this way if they wanted the audience to care about El and Mike as a couple. Despite being all blurry in the background, Will's reaction to what's happening here is smackdab in the fucking middle, clearly showing that the important part is what's going through his head here. What he's feeling. It's like the opposite of that scene from Kingdom Hearts II where Sora and Riku reunite and Kairi just fucking vanishes into the aether while it's happening because, despite the fact that she was standing between them when the scene began, she doesn't matter to the scene, so she's just kind of gone when the camera angle changes. Will could have been behind one of their heads, or so far in the distance he blends in with the background, but he's not. He's so obvious that despite being massively blurred out, he's still the first goddamn thing you look at. What, you think that's an accident? You think he's in the middle of this dramatic fucking scene because of a mistake? He basically has a big flashing neon arrow pointing at him with "THIS IS THE POINT" being screamed through a megaphone.

And then this?

They're paired up like they're taking fucking prom pictures. Each one of these pairs is so fucking close to one another and so fucking far from everyone else. It's not, "Oh, they're standing vaguely near each other in a group shot," it's fucking Noah's Ark out here. Again, there's no way to take this as an accident. It's not just a framing issue. If they wanted to make the shot look balanced while still not hiding anyone else behind El, they would have scattered people around much more naturally. Even if they wanted to keep Nancy with Jonathan and Hopper with Joyce, there's so much room on that hill for three people to stand on El's left and three on her right. But they didn't do that. They put Mike and Will together on purpose in the most obvious way possible.

Like I get that coming up with crackpot theories is fun in and of itself and I'm not blaming anyone for having fun. I totally get the appeal of arguing a point and reaching for every stupid little thing to pull into it because it's like a game, okay? I've done that. But if you're trying to actually convince someone (whether it's someone who wants to believe or someone who's pissed at the very idea that Mike and Will could be in love), stay away from blue and yellow lights, stay away from costume design, stay away from the existence of closets in backgrounds. And don't worry about whether Mike's gay or bi when he's in love with Will either way. I'll give you a little tip about persuasion: You're only as strong as your weakest argument. Even if you've got strong stuff in there, too, the person you're trying to convince is going to dismiss anything you say as complete insanity the second you start going on an entire tangent about the shape of a character's fucking pocket.

Sometimes, clothes are just clothes. Sometimes, there's a closet in the background because it helps establish that a character is in a bedroom. Sometimes, blue and yellow are just a couple of colors that look nice together. And sure, it might be set designers and costume designers and cinematographers smirking and winking at the audience from behind the camera. But if the show was just those things, instead of those things in the context of everything else, they wouldn't be saying anything of note.

But this?

This tells a story all on its own. Someone with no context can look at this and automatically assume that each paired person is standing with someone they care about deeply, seeking comfort as they watch some sort of disaster unfold. And yeah, romantic couples usually come in twos, and we live in an amatonormative society, so that's going to be the first association anyone makes seeing a bunch of people paired off.

It's the same reason you look at this

And go, "Oh..."

"Those two are probably a couple."

And I genuinely don't understand how people could have watched S4 Vol. 2 and gotten scared. Because as someone who went in with no investment whatsoever, I just looked at these two--

--and went, "Oh, those two are a couple. Good for them." And I moved on. Shut up about the trees for five seconds and just see the forest for what it is.

Oh, and if you're still nervous? Little thing from a storyteller here: You don't leave a hanging thread like "Will confessed his romantic feelings for Mike by projecting them onto El, but Mike either didn't understand or at least didn't say he understood," without coming back to that later. That's Chekov's gun hanging on the wall, babes. It's gonna fire at some point. If Mike was going to reject Will's feelings, if they weren't relevant, they would have had that discussion in Argyle's van. There'd be no reason to leave you in suspense.

[ashysmultifandomcatdump]

Rambles about my Lord Wander AU yippee :)

finally Properly drew my lord wander design...he's basically the same but with more sharp edges (inspired by craig mccracken's concept sketches!) and a goofy outfit for when he's Eviling Out with s shooting star motif on it to contrast lord dom's bleeding heart!!! he does have a suit which the shooting star would be more Clear on but i have yet to get around to drawing it...i have been thinking about this AU for over a year now and i think i've finally figured out enough to talk about it so i will under the cut :)

i think for Structural Purposes i will talk about dominator and sylvia first. wander and dom are the only main swaps in this AU (with a smaller swap i think between the hat and dombots because it's Fun) so everyone else stays the same, though due to sylvia's proximity to dom, she has a significant enough change to discuss!!! (i am gonna sneakily reuse art from my last post for this bit hehe)

dee and sylvia travel around together on their own ship! i think the overall tone would be opposite the actual show—while WOY having wander as the main character has it be a goofy, silly show about love and friendship that's interrupted by dominator who's more serious and designed to be more like an anime villain—the tone of the AU with dee at the head would have it be more generally serious and wander's presence brings in something a bit goofier (this is kinda what he does in the show anyway. like everyone takes things seriously and then wander doesn't and people learn from him)! so dee and sylvia are both more keen to use a bit of Violence to get through everything. though that's not to say there's No goofiness, of course there is i mean. when your main opponent is lord hater of course there is!!! dom's also a menace to him like wander is, just in a bit of a different way. they just normally show up and beat them and hater doesn't react well to that of course—his degradation as a villain still ends up happening

dee also builds her little bot friends, for both practical purposes and companionship purposes :) she still names them in numbers though, not out of lack of care she is just absolutely dogshit at naming, forgive her

anyway a reason i brought up the tone thing is that wander isn't necessarily revealed just in the 'season 2' of the AU. there's kind of a looming threat in the background contributing to that. it's gone by lots of different names in lots of different galaxies, but generally is referred to as The End of the Galaxy (or just The End for short!). as suggested by the name, loads of different galaxies have been destroyed in the past. kind of like a force of nature. survivors don't really seem to be sure what exactly it is, only that it's been called by a different name each time, and nobody could stop it before it was too late. and guess who that is!!!!!!!!!!

our silly little friend whom we love the best!!!!!!!

i REALLY REALLY love roleswaps that keep the characters' personalities as intact as possible and that's what i tried to do here!! this guy may be evil as hell, but he's still Wander. he loves friends and having fun and still has that cheery attitude! he almost seems completely harmless at first! and that is part of the Plot in my head is, actually. my first ever thoughts of that spurned the creation this AU were him being a seemingly completely innocuous recurring character throughout the first 'season' of the AU, just showing up at random times, being Wander, you know. all that stuff. with the main gang not really paying him any mind, calling him a 'wandering weirdo' (since he always disappears before they can actually ask what his name is...). and none of them recognize him as The End until he actually reveals himself.

but see, he's actually grown quite attached to them! through all his time following them around, he thinks oh...aren't these folks just lovely!! he truly actually sees him as his friends. and so to honor their wonderful nickname for him, and to pay homage to his dear buddy hater, he decided his name this time around would be Lord Wander! and he'd be a Professional Villain, so they could hang out even more!! isn't he just so nice!!!

and he just doesn't seem to play by the rules at all...while they're trying to fight him, he's giggling and dodging out of the way, hitting them with...pies? just generally bugs bunny-ing out on them? he spends his time messing with them, annoying them, all the same insisting he won't fight because it's Too Violent—you know, the guy who's Killing People. it frustrates them all and he has such fun Playing with them...except dee.

one of my favorite things in the show is how wander just straight up does not like dominator. so i felt it'd be funny to keep that. dee ignores him when he's being all zany like that and he HATES her for it. he won't say it Directly, but it's kinda clear in his attitude how much she annoys him. and with all his Evilness, this would not lead to good things.

another thing about the way He Is is his exemplified traits of the other characters. like how dom was more excitable than wander, tougher than sylvia, more evil than hater and smarter than peepers; lord wander i think would be more chaotic than dom, faster than sylvia, more obsessive than hater, and more strategic than peepers (spinel if you're reading this Thank You for those last two).

anddddd i also must mention his luck because that's Very interesting in this scenario...i do think he has some form of Natural Luck Magic, and he does still have his hat (there's lots i have in mind about the hat. but i won't get into it right now), but a non-insignificant portion of his luck in the show does come from the good karma he receives from helping others. meanwhile lord wander does lots of Bad Things. does he rack up bad karma? does he do good deeds when not Eviling Out in order to cancel it out? i had these same questions a year ago and honestly i am not sure which i want to go with. both are fascinating to me

i do think that unlike dominator he would be in some way redeemable. i don't have his entire methods and motivations mapped out yet, but it's hard to find a way where he just Wouldn't be redeemable. because he's wander. you know? unlike dominator being lonely being why she didn't just kill everyone, wander does genuinely see them as his friends. he's just got a really, REALLY fucked up way of showing it. i've even considered the idea that he doesn't Actually go out of his way to kill people and only destroys the planets, making sure there are survivors but Hmmmmm i don't know about that one. it's a tough balance trying to make sure he's an actual threat. but it is something i consider. him being like a natural disaster in a sense.

this ended up being very disjointed but iiiii needed to get my thoughts Properly out there. here's the twitter thread i made last year of my initial thoughts. i Do have More in my head but i'm not really sure how to get them down in a way that makes sense...i would love to talk more about it though (especially since i have not talked much about the others other than wander. sorry he is my favorite. but i do think about the others A Lot i just didn't know what things to talk about hegshgshhg) so if anyone wants to hear more insane ramblings👍👍👍tell me👍👍👍👍👍👍i'm not normal about it👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍

[earthshine-moon]

Some thoughts from my rewatch of RoP 1x08

- Elrond and Galadriel reuniting is a beautiful moment

- Sauron, you leave Celebrimbor alone (I’m not ready for their arc next season)

- I love how proud Eärien seems of herself that she was one of the apprentices chosen to submit a design for the king’s tomb

- I need Galadriel’s dress from this episode

- going back to the point I made before, I can’t tell you how far my heart still drops when Celebrimbor says “not of the flesh but over flesh”

- Elrond throwing the “hope is never mere” line back at Gil-galad is one of my favourite moments in this episode

- I will forever love how steadfast Nori is in her opinion that the Stranger is in Middle Earth to help

- Sadoc 😭😭 at least he’s with his wife again

- I don’t think we talk about Valandil enough. He lost so much in the last episode I honestly can’t even comprehend how much grief he must be carrying. Not to mention the survivor’s guilt as well

- Elendil and Miriel opening up to each other means so much to me. I need them to be canon next season

- the saturation going down as Sauron is getting into Galadriel’s mind is genius

- I had no thoughts during the rest of that scene. I’m just as mesmerised by it as I was the first time

- Nori leaving. I’m sobbing 😭😭

- So, we’re all pretty much agreed that the Stranger is Gandalf, right?

- I love that you can kind of see the eye of Sauron in the molten gold and silver when the mithril goes in

Season 2 tomorrow!! Omg I can’t believe we can finally say that!! 😆💗

[gale-gentlepenguin]

ML What if:

(What if Movie! Gabriel was the villain in the Show?)

Now to those that have seen the movie and the show.

All the powers and rules of the show apply. The only difference is Gabriel’s Personality is the same as the one in the movie.

(How much will be different)

____________________________________________

-So for starters, I don’t think this version of Adrien would not need to sneak out to try and go to school. Since this Gabriel never became a hermit. He actually threw himself into his work instead of isolating himself. And as such Adrien would not have the hang up of being trapped in his home. Or if he does it’s more from empathy than actual restraint.

-But even so, Adrien is still a good boy and still ends up tested by Fu and gets approved.

-I think Adrien models but isn’t the only model. I can see Adrien being the one to ask as a way of spending time with his father since his mother passed, and Gabriel not refusing. At least in photos he could see the boy smile.

-Everything with Marinette in origins is identical.

-Gabriel finally caves into his loneliness and desperation and uses the butterfly. Where he learns the rules and how they work. Since this Gabriel had seen the peacock in action he was worried that using the butterfly would yield the same result, but Nooroo assured him that it’s only with broken miraculous.

-Now, Gabriel would still akumatize stoneheart and start the incident that would bring out the ladybug and cat miraculous.

-Gabriel is still lost in grief and even though he mainly used criminals in the film, he would probably use people anyway (see the movie!stoneheart)

-This Gabriel would probably still pull a lot of the stunts show Gabriel would pull. Theatrics included.

-So I do think show Origins would be relatively the same.

-Honestly most of season 1 would be the same. I can see Gabriel setting up his fashion designer contest in Mr.Pigeon.

- Movie!Gabriel would remember his sons birthday and have Nathalie get him a gift while he’s focused on work.

-Nino never meets Gabriel face to face as he is far too busy to meet him. Thus bubbler.

-Gabriel never shows up on the show to get Simon says akumatized, but likely sent a response insulting enough it akumatized him.

- Gabriel would send a text or call to have Adrien leave an area that he knew an akuma was in. Something he did in the movie.

-I would say close to season 2 we start seeing Gabriel look disheveled. I also see Movie! Gabriel not akumatizing a baby. Mainly because it would not help his situation.

-Gabriel wouldn’t Akumatize Kagami since she was after Adrien, which would be a no no.

-Gorizilla wouldn’t happen because This Gabriel would never put his son in harms way intentionally. Plus I would say this Gabriel wouldn’t have noticed the ring on his sons finger as he is avoiding his boy more out of his own emotional survivors guilt.

-Gabriel would akumatize Style queen, but he would be there in person initially. He would be the one that got turned into a glitter statue protecting his son.

-After this. Gabriel questioned if this was the right call? He put his son in danger? Was it right?!

-And I think unlike Show Gabriel, Heroes day would be his last Hurrah, but he would be much more brutal. And that result.

[vidavalor]

hi again! rewatched the 1st season now. so first off thanks again for the excuse i appreciate it lol. but secondly hoping you wouldn't mind explaining the satan's obssession with crowley thing? cos he's obvs creepy as all hell pun not intended in the 11 years ago scene but i haven't found the bit that confirms it's a fixation on crowley and not just satan being satan. tysm!

Hi! Thanks for the ask. I can try and we can see what you think after, yeah? :) Christmas cookie? *passes plate and pours some tea*

TWs: discussion of PTSD, sexual assault, including rape, intimate partner abuse, anxiety, depression. We're looking at Crowley as an assault survivor here so it's a bit dark. Lindsay's abuse of Nina is also mentioned here. This will wind up having a companion meta at some point soon as I was also asked in comments on another post to talk about Crowley and intimacy issues which is then really also talking about Aziraphale as a trauma-informed partner so a less intense Part 2 at some point soon...

If you're the anon who asked me this (or anybody else) and you can't read something with these warnings but you'd like to see what I'm saying, PM me or throw something in my Asks and I'll see if I can do a version of this that gets the points across while omitting the darker aspects.

Meta on Lucifer and Crowley under the cut.

The Ask here was about why I see Lucifer as fixating on Crowley, in particular, and not just being generally evil as, ya know, he's Satan. It's a fair question since Satan's evil isn't exactly something that anyone would consider restrained as he's the devil. Some of this is inference here when it comes to Lucifer, since the show intentionally holds the character back a bit... but I also think that holding Lucifer back is by design to help illustrate some things that we'll look at here.

The first clue to me that Lucifer has a bit of a fixation on Crowley comes from Crowley's gigs in Hell. Before the end of S1, Crowley was high-ranked in Hell. He seems to go by quite a few names in his demonic world. By making himself Nanny Astoreth when he's looking after Warlock, it alludes the idea that Crowley is also the demon of that name, who is considered part of the "evil trinity" of Hell, along with Lucifer and Beezlebub, with whom Crowley used to spend time with pre-Fall and with whom he has history.

Astoreth is a genderbent serpent goddess in lore with an abundance of other Crowley traits so safe to say that Crowley is meant to be Astoreth as well. Aziraphale proposed in 33 AD that Crowley is also Mephistopheles and Asmodeus, which Crowley didn't exactly deny. Mephistopheles is one of the most famous demons to ever exist-- he of the Faustian bargain-- and Asmodeus is the demonic prince of lust. Crowley's already been shown to be a Bible figure in disguise-- Bildad the Shuite being a Biblical character-- so the idea that we are at the 2/3rds mark of the show and we've met all the high-ranking demons in Hell but several famous ones appear to not exist in Good Omens, despite more minor ones (Shax, Furfur) making appearances, implies that we probably actually have met demons like Mephistopheles and Asmodeus because they're all really Crowley.

Crowley retained power in Hell because it allows him what little freedom he can have in damnation. It means he likely won't be removed from Earth if he proves he's "good" at being a demon and that means he won't get stuffed in some cluttered, dark, cubicle in Hell for millennia. (Or destroyed.) More importantly, it means he'll be able to be on Earth with Aziraphale. That's easily worth taking credit for a bunch of human wars to fool Hell into thinking he's evil.

While we see that Crowley, when forced to come up with a demonic plot of his own, picks more annoying things than evil things and sells them as evil-- the M-25 design, taking down mobile phone networks, he's sometimes forced into doing things he doesn't want to do in order to not be outed as a demon who isn't super jazzed about being a demon and is really, secretly, a free-flying crow. He doesn't live to serve their Master Satan like some of the other demons do. He's going along with Hell as best he can and sometimes, he finds himself in a situation where he has to get creative because he's been tasked with something he disagrees with-- like we saw in the Job minisode. Other times, he might be forced into something he can't find a way out of, which is implied a little to be at the root of his terrible mood when he and Aziraphale meet up in Ancient Rome. He's wearing military garb that implies the temptations he's saying he's in Rome to accomplish are tied to Caligula, who wasn't exactly a swell guy.

What's interesting, though, is that Crowley is in this position of power in the first place. Other demons are shown in both seasons so far to be jealous of Crowley. He gets all the good gigs. Satan makes a bet with God that has both Upstairs and Downstairs in a tizzy for weeks and who is sent to whack the kids? Crowley. Who was sent on the first ever really Earth mission-- to get up into the Garden of Eden and "make some trouble"? Crowley, long before he'd cemented his big reputation. Who gets to deliver the antichrist baby and so kick off Armageddon, the thing that angels and demons basically "live" for? Crowley...

Across both seasons so far, Hastur, Ligur and Furfur are all given scenes of showing that they're jealous of Crowley being a favorite of Satan's and given the best assignments while they slum it in middle-management at best. What Crowley never says or admits to with other demons is that they actually don't want to be the favorite of Lucifer over here because he's the actual fucking devil and it's an absolute horror show. Crowley isn't about to admit that to them because he's supposed to want nothing more than to be Satan's slave and to express anything else is not demonic.

The other demons who are antagonistic towards Crowley are invasive and creepy but they stop short long before what we've seen Lucifer do. Hastur and Ligur pop up unannounced in Crowley's electronics-- the tv in his flat, on the screen at the movies-- and that's already disturbing. Imagine having your evil coworkers able to interrupt your r&r tv time in your own apartment... let alone the fact that Shax and even Beezlebub both pop up into The Bentley unannounced in S2. There's no evidence so far that Satan is out here "delivering instructions" like this to others in Hell the way he does to Crowley in 1.01 (and there's actually a scene in S2 that we'll talk about that suggests that he's not or, at least, that it's uncommon, which we'll get to in a second.)

He might well be but when you combine assaulting Crowley with giving him all the prime gigs in Hell and the other demons' jealousy of their Master's attention towards Crowley, you wind up with the impression that Satan is a bit fixated on Crowley.

The Bentley scene with Lucifer in 1.01 is analogous to rape. Crowley's sense of personal autonomy is violated. He doesn't consent to Lucifer forcibly entering his body. Lucifer does so by first penetrating through Crowley's two foremost metaphorical defenses-- The Bentley (enters through the radio and uses it to invade Crowley) and his sunglasses, which cannot shield his eyes/himself from Lucifer. Crowley already has these signature defenses mechanisms on in the attack scene and the horror in the scene is actually watching neither of them protect him. The scene is so early in the show that it's only the second scene we've ever seen Crowley wearing his glasses (and it's pitch black dark out, to add to it) so the glasses are basically introduced to us by showing us a situation that motivates Crowley's desire to hide his eyes from people he doesn't trust, even if they aren't human and know what his eyes look like. This is Crowley's third scene in the series itself and it's really arguably the second half of his second scene (the Hastur & Ligur in the graveyard one.) It's part of our introduction to Crowley in the modern era, with only Eden preceding it. Armageddon is new but the rest of this hell-- faking being evil, suffering violating attacks-- is thousands of years old for him at this point.

Crowley is driving when this happens.

Driving is the ultimate symbol of self-control because you're literally behind the wheel, navigating yourself through the world, in control of where you are going and the decisions you need to make to get you there, trusting yourself to make decisions that protect others on the road around you. Lucifer rips that from him by rendering him unable to drive while "delivering instructions" to his mind. Crowley-- a very powerful, magical being-- is unable to fight him off. When Lucifer leaves his body, Crowley had to grab the wheel and steer The Bentley away from hitting an oncoming truck with about three seconds to spare from a head-on collision. Crowley, The Bentley and the antichrist baby all would have likely survived that crash without issue because of their magic-- but the human driving the truck likely would not have. Obviously, Crowley would prefer not to kill anybody but Satan nearly made him against his will and rendered him unable to fight him, the powerlessness of which is then interesting when tied into things like Crowley essentially drugging himself to save Elspeth, trusting the present Aziraphale to help protect him while he did, etc..

As the attack happens, parts of "Bohemian Rhapsody" are underscoring it, picking up on a musical cue from when Crowley rolled up in The Bentley to see Hastur and Ligur in the graveyard. The graveyard scene sees Crowley arrive at the big crescendo of the song and what is it but the lyrics Beezlebub, has the devil put aside for me? and, prior to that, the eerie lyrics, especially on rewatch when you know what happens as a result of this scene: we will not let you go (let him go) x a million, not to mention the no no no no no no... bit.

By the time we're back in The Bentley and Lucifer has shown up, parts of the song play through it. I see a little silhouetto of a man plays as Crowley is literally seeing the driver of the oncoming truck in front of him, just as he loses the ability to control The Bentley. When Lucifer leaves him and Crowley grabs the wheel, we hear thunderbolts and lightning/very, very frightening/me and the Galileo segment of the song. Thunderbolts and lightning is interesting since God makes it a point to point out that this night is not dark and stormy but then that type of weather is what Crowley does in S2 that causes the power to go out and his parallel, Nina, to be trapped. It's also what demons in general can do so you could say sending a storm-- like in the Job minisode-- to be demonic and of Satan. (If it's not Crowley doing it to play Cupid, anyway.) The thunderbolts and lightning of Satan/Hell is very, very frightening to Crowley...

...Me/Galileo/Galileo/Galileo/Figaro... Galileo is arguably the most famous astronomer to ever live. He was a polymath, really, like Crowley was. Crowley, as an angel, made the stars and invented gravity. The scene with Hastur and Ligur that precedes this and ties into it has Hastur mistranslate the Italian Crowley spoke during it. Crowley said "ciao", meaning "goodbye", which Hastur correctly said was Italian but he claimed it meant "food" (mistaking it for "chow" because he's an idiot.) So a scene that ends with Crowley speaking Italian then connects directly into the scene of this attack, where Italian is spoken in the song scoring it, as Galileo was Italian and figaro in Italian is "fig tree".

While Eve does eat an apple in Good Omens, the Biblical 'fruits of knowledge' that tie to the Serpent tempting Eve in Eden are interpreted in different ways throughout different religions and at different periods in history. In Good Omens, Crowley got Eve to eat an apple and the pleasure of food opened a door to sexual pleasure. Eve shared the apple with Adam and they were *Aziraphale's hilariously judgemental voice* "expecting already" with Eve about 8 months pregnant later a day later because Eve's biology is atypical of other humans and all that. It's debated as an apple, with other different fruits and sometimes even wheat mentioned as possible things Eve ate-- if she ate food at all, as some people take the entire thing as a sexual metaphor. Figs are one fruit that some people believe it was instead of an apple, so this is a reference to Crowley as the Serpent of Eden.

Me/Galileo/Galileo/Galileo/Figaro... Crowley holding onto himself while under attack and just after it, which speaks to activation of a plan, which speaks to this not being the first time he's endured something like this. Galileo and Figaro = The Starmaker and the Serpent of Eden. The things he's done that he is proud of, that make him not evil, in his mind, and not deserving of this. Things he likes about himself. Things Aziraphale loves about him.

The song is narrating for us Crowley through the attack as he's basically frozen there enduring it, seeing the driver of the truck coming at him and Scaramouche/Scaramouche/Will you do The Fandango?

A scaramouche is a kind of mischievous scamp-- so, Crowley; The Fandango is a Spanish couple dance. Historically, one version of it is done between a pair of men who try to outdo one another with skill, in a kind of homoerotic competition. It's also slang for fucking during a concert and I have the feeling that Crowley would probably enjoying doing that Fandango a lot more as that would be consenting with a partner of his choice at a live concert rather than being mind-raped to Queen by the devil in his car. Regardless, it's another allusion to sex in the scene, adding to the rape overtones.

There's also something that is pretty horrifying about the fact that these scenes of Crowley and Aziraphale being separately reintroduced to us in 2008 after we first met them both together in Eden are intercut so that Lucifer's attack on Crowley scored by "Bohemian Rhapsody" ends with the Italian sung and cuts directly into Aziraphale speaking Japanese to the chef at the sushi restaurant.

He'll try to explain to Gabriel that eating sushi is "what humans do", which is the same phrase he'll use to try to explain to Michael and Uriel in S2 what falling in love is. During the bookshop attack, Shax will bully Aziraphale about his humanity-- about the same two things (food and love) in the two previous, connected scenes. (Gabriel, initially the one repulsed by tea in 1.01, leaves the scene after Aziraphale tells him to hide by asking if anyone wants a hot chocolate, in a pretty hilarious turnabout.) Shax calls back to the food-related and the love-related "it's what humans do" moments for Aziraphale by asking if she should "send up the sushi" and by mocking his relationship with Crowley ("What are you? Crowley's emotional support angel?"). Crowley and Aziraphale are the ones in love and it's tied together throughout multiple scenes in both seasons to sushi, in reference to the night Armageddon began in 2008.

The point then is that, making this all even worse, Crowley is actually supposed to be at a back corner table in a dark sushi restaurant sneaking a date with Aziraphale when he's attacked by Lucifer in The Bentley-- and then forced into helping start Armageddon, which could bring about the end of his and Aziraphale's relationship... and that's our grim introduction to his world in the modern part of the story.

As we go learn what Aziraphale is like in the modern era and contrast him with his head office's mentality via Gabriel's arrival, we also are given clues in the scene that suggest that Aziraphale was actually expecting Crowley, as he looks to the side Crowley comes up on when he hears the miracle sound that actually signals Gabriel's arrival instead. Aziraphale will then explain that he's there, doing "what humans do" and enjoying it, to Gabriel, and it will be only eating sushi in this moment, just as Crowley will not be present when Aziraphale explains that falling in love is "what humans do" while objectively talking about Maggie & Nina but, ultimately, talking about himself and Crowley beneath it-- his real motivation for keeping Heaven off their backs is Crowley. The writers then have Shax combine the two "it's what humans do" scenes around love and sushi and throw them back at Aziraphale while Crowley is once again not with him because of Heaven/Hell but is present in his absence in the moment.

All of this happens in the first scenes of Crowley in the modern era, all the way back in the first episode, and it's done to give us an understanding that he is a survivor of attacks like this and how that impacts his behavior, his choices, his relationship with Aziraphale. It's to give us a finer appreciation for his strength and his humor and his capacity to love in the face of it. It's to show that while some of the demons are just kind of amusing idiots, if dangerous, and that there's a lot of humor to mine there, some aspects of being a demon are not at all amusing. Crowley is really just doing the best he can to survive the absolute horror show that is an eternity of damnation as Satan's favorite over here because there are very dark, very violent aspects of it that he cannot permanently avoid.

While the attack we are shown is a mercifully short, if horrifying, scene, the implications of it are even worse. The assault we are shown had a plot purpose in that moment-- Satan giving instructions on delivering the antichrist baby to the satanic nunnery-- and since everything was in motion, that was the extent of it. Armageddon took precedence. What we are left with, though, is the impression that this type of demonic assault with its massive rape overtones is something that Crowley's experienced before and that the implication is that Lucifer attacking him is not always just to deliver a message related to an assignment but to deliver one of forcible control over him and that this is something that Crowley has been dealing with periodically for the 6,000 years he's been on Earth. It's akin to a kind of rape in 1.01 and that is already way more than enough to see how that would affect Crowley in the story... but then S2 takes this scene and both alludes to it in a key moment and gives it a whole paralleling subplot, highlighting its importance and continuing to expand upon the meaning of it. Both things together then suggest that while we saw a rape-coded assault in 1.01, the feeling that the scene was alluding to other instances where it was rape itself was definitely the implication of it.

In S2, in the group scene at the end, Crowley is out of the bookshop taking Maggie and Nina away from the angels for their safety when the subject of Satan comes up for the only direct time that season. Shax demands that Gabriel and Beezlebub be taken to Hell to be given "as gifts for Satan, our Master" and Head of the Dark Council Dagon replies that "he wouldn't want them-- maybe as hors d'ouerves." On the show obsessed with food symbolism and that codes different types of food with relation to sex-- in particular, because of Serpent of Eden Crowley-- and with the brothel owner named "Mrs. Sandwich", to say someone would want a being as a "hors d'ouerves" implies sex and if we're talking about Lucifer, then we've already established that consent isn't exactly a priority. Rape isn't about sex-- it's about power-- but the show is coding Lucifer's behavior in line with its coding of sex to highlight that his violation of Crowley isn't just of the heavily rape-coded variety that we saw in 1.01 but has actually, at other times, been rape.

Dagon's most significant line in S2 is essentially to point out that Satan's a rapist-- but it's also to point out that not everyone in Hell has been through that horror. Satan's choosy. Satan's a bit fixated. Dagon's comment is actually surprising. Your first thought when Shax suggests giving Gabriel and Beez to Lucifer is that he's the devil so they'd be in danger and what you've seen of what he's done to Crowley was skin-crawling and you don't want that to happen to Gabriel and Beezlebub. You assume that it might because we're talking about Satan but then Dagon puts a check on that and says-- to not a single bit of even implied disagreement in the room-- that Satan wouldn't really care that much about getting Gabriel and Beez.

Think about how truly kind of crazy that is.

Satan would not be that interested in being handed over his old friend and the Grand Duke of Hell who betrayed him and the Supreme Archangel of Heaven? He'd maybe rape 'em, sure, possibly, casually posits Dagon, but they aren't what he's really after. They'd just be hors d'ouerves.

Not a single being in the room even so much as signals disagreement with that assessment that the not terribly subtle Dagon chose to voice aloud, which means they all agree with her. They all know who Lucifer's fixated on.

*Gabriel* and *Beezlebub* would only be fucking *appetizers* to Satan.

That implies the existence of *a main course*, does it not?

Who else but Crowley (and Aziraphale) could be on that menu? No one.

We also have that Crowley is conveniently out of the bookshop for the moment that Shax and Dagon have this exchange about Lucifer. He comes back in on Dagon saying "hors d'ouerves" but was outside when Shax was referencing Satan so he didn't hear any of it. This seems very deliberate on the part of the writers, as if Crowley had been in the room, it would have prompted some kind of response and changed what happened in the scene afterwards. Instead, the only reference to Lucifer is specifically when Crowley isn't in the room, probably because this conflict is on-going and going to continue into S3.

Prior to Dagon's line, the show also paralleled Lucifer assaulting Crowley in The Bentley in 1.01 with Lindsay abusing Nina, which adds another layer into this. You could even make an argument that one of the reasons why we never see Lindsay and we just see their abuse of Nina via the text messages they send Nina is to draw an intentional parallel to how little we've seen to date of Lucifer/Satan in the series.

It directly ties to the 1.01 scene in The Bentley because, prior to Lucifer coming through the radio and assaulting Crowley, Crowley was trying to call Aziraphale (the Maggie to his Nina in this parallel, though obviously much further along in that relationship) to tell him about Armageddon but he'd taken out the mobile phone networks earlier in the night to have something demonic to share with Hastur and Ligur. This parallels Crowley knocking out the power in S2 accidentally and Nina getting locked in the coffee shop with Maggie. Lucifer and Lindsay both attack through electronic communication devices-- The Bentley's radio and Nina's phone-- and unleash a torrent of abuse. The difference is that Nina might be more easily able to escape Lindsay and live a more peaceful life after S2 while Crowley has yet to be truly able to evade Lucifer.

While Lindsay's abuse of Nina is at least psychological and emotional in what we are shown and Lucifer's abuse of Crowley is that with physical and sexual aspects that may or may not be present in Nina's relationship with Lindsay, the type of abuse doesn't matter to the parallel as it's all terrible and that's the point. Lucifer's abuse of Crowley is paralleled with the intimate partner abuse Nina is suffering in her relationship. This is objectively pretty interesting since it sort of suggests that Lucifer is Crowley's Lindsay, in the sense that they might have once been involved pre-Fall, which might add another element to why Lucifer is fixated on Crowley.

So, while Crowley can encourage his parallel Nina all he wants to take a risk and trust more and to trust him when he promises that it will be worth it, Crowley himself can't really extract himself from his own Lindsay-ish situation yet. He does know how to survive it, though, and it's not all about the defenses he and Nina put up-- it's about learning to shed some of those defenses enough to have a sense of intimacy with a kind person you can trust to love you and help you feel safe.

[chasingfictions]

i find it so interesting that of our adult timeline survivors, almost all of them were in the dont fully believe in this shit camp. like, misty seems fully to not buy it but to participate for pragmatic reasons. taissa is shroedinger's believer which is to say she fully doesn't believe in it and she also fully does and those are both 100% true. shauna is also one of the last few remaining people to be skeptical of the cult, and when she does finally engage, it's from a place of desperation and grief. natalie openly disbelieves in the cult stuff all the time. and then you have travis, lottie, and van. travis who died in the adult timeline before our story really even starts, and who, it seems, did believe, but believed so much it killed him. so that just leaves us with lottie and van -- lottie who started all of this off but also never intended for it to take the form it did. lottie who had to be absent from the room for the decision for group ritual cannibal hunts to be made. and then van -- van the ultimate acolyte, van the most hardline believer of them all, van who is shuffling the cards, van who It has deemed can't be killed, not on Its lands. and then famously like, both lottie and van, at least outwardly, at least for most of season 2, both insist that none of that was real anyway. but still the narrative is definitively coding them in a different way than it is misty, shauna, taissa, and nat, by virtue of their adult selves being s2 additions anyway, and by being spatially removed from the rest of the survivors. so then still, our core four from the pilot onwards, the adult survivors we are given the most time and space with, are all degrees of nonbelievers.

which is just like!!! pov!!! youre the ultimate survivors of a vicious cultic group sacrifice whereby you killed and ate your friends but you left the choice of who got killed and eaten up to chance, or something like it. and!! pov!! also by chance the people who made it to adulthood were almost all the ones who didn't believe in it to begin with!! pov!! you're so good at existing in and buying into the cult system you have designated for both group survival & group culling that you win, you make it to the end, and you never even really believed in it, not really, not that much. pov, is it worse that you did all of those things to survive, not even believing in the god behind them?

[toseehowthestoryends]

The Man O'War

One of the mysteries of Black Sails is where the Spanish man o’war captured in season 1 vanishes to after Captain Flint and his crew return to Walrus…but another mystery is exactly WHAT is this ship. I’ve seen her referred to as a frigate, but now that I’ve captured a good screenshot (season 2, episode 4), that this is definitely no frigate.

The man o’war has three full gun decks. Counting gun ports, it looks like each has approximately fifteen guns, plus a short gun deck back aft near the main deck. This averages to 45-49 guns per broadside, which makes this grand bitch not just a ship of the line, but a first rate ship of the line. That's the age of sail equivalent of a battleship! Take a look at the gif below of the man o’war savaging Walrus and Ranger.

(Frankly, if she was a frigate, I don't think Flint would've worried much; Walrus has the throw weight of a sixth rate frigate and would've stood a good chance; with Ranger along, they would've been just fine and no one should've panicked.)

So, what ship is this? The Urca de Lima was a real ship, though Urca was only a nickname for Santissima Trinidad, and she was part of a combination of two flotillas that made up the 1715 Treasure Fleet. This fleet consisted of eleven ships, of which at least two were ships of the line.

The first was ex-Hampton Court, a British built third rate ship of the line of 70 guns that was captured by the French then sold to the Spanish. Sources say that she was renamed Nuestra Señora del Carmen, but contemporary sources such as the governor of Jamacia, Archibald Hamilton indicate that this was a separate ship and the flagship of the second part of the fleet. (More on that in a moment.)

The second confirmed ship of the line was the French Griffon, which was the one and only survivor. (Cool fact: the captain of this ship was also likely the informant who gave Hamilton his information).

The third ship is the mystery ship that brought up the rear of the formation. This ship is harder to place, and was either a different "massive war galleon" or Nuestra Señora del Rosario, a third ship of the line. This may have been a third rate or fourth rate ship of the line, but sources make it very hard to tell. Given that the wrecks that have been found have never been positively identified, it's even harder to determine which ship was which.

Back to Black Sails. Historical evidence says that there wasn't a first rate ship of the line in the 1715 Treasure Fleet, but the show does also indicate that the Urca was traveling alone, so a bit of dramatic license says that we've got a first rater along for the ride. It's far from outside the realm of possibility, given the contemporary evidence that the Spanish definitely did use ships of the line as escorts for treasure ships.

I think it's safe to say that the ship isn't Hampton Court, however. An ex-British officer like James Flint would 100% recognize Hampton Court, who would've been captured (1707) after he left England but was a distinctly British design. Additionally, the characters continuously refer to her as a Spanish man o'war, which indicates she's Spanish-built.

Spanish-built ships of the line with three decks have 94 guns or greater. Until 1700ish, they frequently were referred to as galleons, a term that faded out of use and was replaced by navíos. If I'm going to be a real history nerd, Spain didn't really have a three deck ship of the line in this era; they'd scrapped the only one they had in 1705, Nuestra Señora de la Concepción y las Animas. But prior to scrapping, this ship was sent to the colonies to harass settlers around Panama, so she was on the right side of the world in the early 18th century.

Historically speaking, Nuestra Señora de la Concepción y las Animas (Our Lady of the Conception and of Souls) is the best candidate for the Man O'War in Black Sails.

In-universe speaking, that big bitch is a three deck, first rate ship of the line of somewhere between 94-100 guns, just based on the number of gun ports and the mincemeat she makes of two ships at the same time. Why did she vanish? Probably because it'd be hard as hell for anyone to beat Flint if you let him keep that ship, and Woodes Rodgers would've had a much harder time taking Nassau when she was protected by a ship of the line.

Have you seen this post before? Probably a close cousin of it. Dimwit me deleted my tumblr and had to remake it.

Additional sources:

1715 Treasure Fleet Information

Ship resting places, armament, and educated guesswork

Archibald Hamilton's information

[joanyio]

TOP 9 DRAMAS I WATCHED IN 2023

inspector koo (2021) - everyone here is a different flavor of fruit, crime show exclusively made for girls and gays and it’s the best thing that ever happened to me

when i fly towards you (2023) - this is what happiness is all about

doom at your service (2021) - “love me to the point that you want to destroy the world for me” that’s it that’s the line

love all play (2022) - wfkbj for people who aren’t annoying

little women (2022) - second half felt like a makjang damn the writers were spiraling and i couldn’t stop watching (gay little women i love you)

twinkling watermelon (2023) - worth the hype

bloodhounds (2023) - i remember my letterboxd post for this saying you can almost smell the testosterones through the screen but it was absolutely binge worthy, kinda homo if you ask me!

daily dose of sunshine (2023) - park boyoung is the loveliest human being

law school (2021) - is it insane to beg for a season 2 the chance is low but nonzero… right?

HONORABLE MENTIONS

hidden love (2023) - im tired of people saying the word chemistry about the main couple but it’s true they invented it

designated survivor: 60 days (2019) - maybe political dramas aren’t always badly written, also han nakyung please give me a chance

celebrity (2023) - user joanyio stop finding invisible gay subtext in every show you watch challenge failed

the good bad mother (2023) - such a gem *continues to ignore mommy issues*

time and him are just right (2022) - cute and perfect for mindless watching in the background while you do other work

the worst of evil (2023) - instead of forcing the love triangle turned love square the writers should have made all four hot main characters make out with each other it would have been perfect

and because of love all play (2022), see also:

castaway diva (2023), witch’s diner (2021), and unlock my boss (2022) (although i haven’t finished this one yet) chae jonghyeop is my new lee dohyun (read: male actor i enjoy watching multiple projects of simply because he doesn’t give me the ick). i also rewatched hot stove league (2020) for park eunbin and jonghyeop after castaway diva, still one of the all time best dramas i remember it used to be my twitter handle years ago baseball is so cool i wish it was real

DRAMAS I STARTED LATE DECEMBER 2023 AND FINISHED EARLY JANUARY 2024

shining for one thing (2022) - please don’t watch this show it was made only for me and i’d like to gatekeep it forever

reset (2022) - never watched a drama execute time loop plot device as perfectly as this did

UNFINISHED BUT PLANNING TO CONTINUE SOON

derailment (2023) - i was baited by a tiktok i thought it’d be a cute silly little high school drama but boy was i surprised

one day off (2023) - she’s living the dream

[t3acupz]

Will’s design during the finale was the final murder tableau.

He convinced Francis that he had to kill Hannibal while also tricking the FBI into unwittingly helping Hannibal escape. Throughout all three seasons, characters always like to emphasize that even conceptual participation in a crime is the same as committing it yourself.

In The Wrath of the Lamb, Will didn’t seem at all bothered by Hannibal pushing that dead cop out of the car. He wanted Francis to kill all the officers at the scene so he can kill with Hannibal without any restrictions of the justice system. Will not only planned all that took place during Hannibal’s escape, he also felt powerful while participating in it.

Even Hannibal was unsure if Will also intended to kill him and leave no survivors. That’s what made the scene of Will watching Hannibal suffer on the floor after getting shot so fascinating. He was debating whether to step in or let Francis kill Hannibal by proxy just like he was going to let Matthew do the deed in season 2.

But then he realized that he couldn’t live apart from Hannibal and tried at the last moment to rescue him and thus the ending fight scene ensued.

If you look at the way Francis lay on the ground, with the blood forming the shape of dragon wings, it reminds you of all the other murders in the show. The dead are honored (figuratively speaking) in some way that suits them.

Will pulls them both off the cliff because he still has an ounce of morality left in him. Despite his acceptance of true nature, he didn’t think they deserved to live after both enjoying murder to that degree of ecstasy.

He also got what he wanted which was to kill Hannibal with his own hands, intimately.

[bakedbakermom]

Nugget, the Shifting Cast of Extras, and the Unreliable Narrator

One of the biggest twists of season 2 that I completely did not see coming, is that Nugget was dead all along (a rare miss for me, as I'm usually a great plot guesser). All of the scenes with Nugget were seen through Akliah's eyes; we saw only what she saw/believed, and that was a whole, living mousey friend. The minute Taissa, an outside perspective, came to notice Nugget, we all saw the truth: that he was dead, and had always been dead, and his life with Akliah was nothing but a coping mechanism, a dream that allowed her to keep sane as death slowly closed its claws around all of them.

Akilah was not a reliable narrator of her own story. None of them are.

In this context, the constantly rotating, growing, and shrinking cast of extra JV Jackets makes much more sense. Much of the teen storyline is told through the perspectives and memories of the adult survivors, and through the journals that Shauna kept in the wilderness (more reliable having been written in the moment, but still shaped by her limited perspective as well as trauma and hunger).

It makes sense that their memories focus only on those who are important to what is happening at the time, and the others fade into the background or disappear entirely as their relevance diminishes.

They remember what one background extra wore to the Doomcoming, but forget where she was during the Jackie Snackie. They remember who stood at the gravesite by the plane, but not who drew cards during the first hunt.

Gen and Melissa only got screen time this season because one of the survivors remembers their conversations and interactions. Crystal shows up because of her friendship with Misty. Akilah has a bigger part in s2 due to the Nugget plot and her role in Shauna's labor. Mari has a bigger presence in s2 because she's increasingly annoying and antagonistic to the other survivors, as well as chief acolyte of the Cult of Lottie.

Memory is a tricky thing, and memories made during trauma and starvation are trickier still. They simply don't have the brain power right now to accurately encode memories (adult Lottie mentions this, though she neglects to say that a brain that normally consumes A THIRD of the calories you take in understandably doesn't work very well under starvation conditions).

My prediction is that background YJs will come and go based on their relevance to the events happening on screen. It's not a mistake by the show runners or poor planning or an accident; it's all by design.

Not only does this work in-universe as an explanation for backgrounders coming and going, it gives the writers flexibility to bring in edible characters without having to explain why we haven't seen them before; they've always been there, they just didn't matter until now.

(It also serves to explain why, despite being on the brink of death from starvation, the girls still look pretty normal weight. The out-of-universe explanation is that it's morally reprehensible to ask the young cast to drop to a starvation weight and maintain it for the entire run of the show [or yoyo between seasons, which is even more dangerous]. The in-universe explanation is they remember themselves looking normal, so that's what we see. Just like we saw a healthy, living Nugget. Until we didn't. I wonder if we're going to see a "true" view of them through the eyes of the rescue crew that eventually saves them. Much easier to present one good vfx shot of them looking as haggard as they would actually be rather than multiple seasons.)

[deewithani]

Theory:

Clone Force 99, Omega, and Emerie Karr are the 6 Null ARCs embryos that "died" from Republic Commando.

Note: This post will be connected to another theory post I'm writing about Palpatine's failures in cloning.

Proof:

1. CF99 refused Order 66. Crosshair shot Lt. Nolan. Emerie helped release Crosshair. We don't even need to talk about Omega.

Null ARCs are well known to be independent thinkers and resistant to command.

From Wookipedia:

When the Kaminoans began cloning, they produced twelve prototypes, designated as Null-class Advanced Recon Commandos. Their extreme physiological modifications killed half of the prototypes during gestation. The "enhancements" to the Fett genome handicapped the survivors with erratic behavior and an inclination toward disobedience, making their loyalties unpredictable. Kal Skirata, a Mandalorian warrior who had been brought to Kamino to assist in the training of a special unit, concurred with the Kaminoans' rationale behind "modified" troopers; an "unaltered" Jango Fett was not the ideal infantry soldier. Disappointed with the unsatisfactory results of their wayward creations, the Kaminoans deemed 12 of the first 100 prototypes complete failures and intended to kill them

They're also very loyal to those who are loyal to them.

Other regular commandos followed Order 66.

2. In Republic Commando, the Kaminoan scientist Orun Wa created the Null ARCs. This is what he said about them:

Highly intelligent, deviant, disturbed—and uncommandable.

In Season 1, Episode 1, Tech says this when AZI says they're defective clones:

We're more deviant than defective.

3. The living Null ARCs numbers and the "dead" Null ARC embryos' numbers.

N-5 ("Prudii")

N-6 ("Kom'rk")

N-7 ("Mereel")

N-10 ("Jaing")

N-11 ("Ordo")

N-12 ("A'den")

Missing are Ns 1-4, and Ns 8 & 9.

Clone Force 99s designations are likely CT-9901-9904. We know that Crosshair is CT-9904. They are Ns 1-4, respectively.

Omega is N-9. She's the last experimental clone Nala Se took for her experimental unit.

That leaves Emerie Karr as N-8.

4. Omega is a defective clone, and it has nothing to do with her being an unaltered clone.

Nala Se also says she's a defective clone to Tarkin. She specifically tells him that five genetically defective clones are all that remain. This excludes Echo. He wasn't genetically defective. This also excludes Emerie Karr. She's with Dr. Hemlock by this point in time.

If Omega is one of the Null ARCs, she wasn't created unaltered. She was created with accelerated aging like all the others.

Her accelerated aging is broken. She's not older than the rest of CF99. She's the same age.

I suspect she started out aging rapidly, like 99. That was Omega's genetic defect. She remembers everyone else in the tubes but being outside of them herself.

Omega was an experiment too. Nala Se figured out how to turn off accelerated aging to keep her from aging too fast.

This also mirrors Republic Commando. The Kaminoans at one point knew how to slow aging. Kina Ha is proof of that. She was engineered for long hyperspace journeys, but those never came to pass. That particular trait wasn't really needed anymore after that and was abandoned.

Slowing down the aging of clones isn't a good idea for the Kaminoans financially, after all. You want your buyers to keep buying.

(I also find it interesting that both Nala Se and Ko Sai had hidden underwater research labs).

All of Ko Sai's research was destroyed by Ordo (to Ko Sai's knowledge, anyway. They kept a copy). Nala Se's research would have been destroyed with Kamino, except a living copy remains. Omega.

Omega only appears unaltered because her broken genetic defect was fixed.

Nala Se theoretically knows how to slow/stop aging, and Omega is a genetic template for that.

5. Probably the flimsiest proof. Delta Squad exists in canon.

It's not out of the question to believe that Omega Squad and the Null ARCs could be pulled into canon as well.

I'm personally interested to see if Bo-Katan gathers any Legends Mandalorian clans. If any Clan Skirata members show up that could help this theory.

[danganronpaisbest]

Danganronpa x Criminal Case AU

(Contains university district characters from season 1, season 5, and some ocs)

Main Roles

Mary Lou Hong: Protagonist (Ult.Groupie)

Bart Williams: Support (Ult.Informant)

Tess Goodwin: Antagonist (Ult.Psychiatrist)

Prolouge

Rule Breaker: Olivia Wright (Ult.Donator)

~Chapter 1~

Victim: Riley Davis (Ult.Drummer)

Blackened: Stephanie Griff (Ult.Tennis Pro)

~Chapter 2~

Victim: Sally Hooper (Ult.Actor)

Blackened: Olly Oliver (Ult.Singer)

~Chapter 3~

Victim 1: Lisa Edward's (Ult.Libarian)

Victim 2: Toby Hansen (Ult.Director)

Blackend: Samantha Collins (Ult.Fan Girl)

~Chapter 4~

Victim: Adrian Lynn (Ult.Cosplayer)

Blackened: Penelope Rivera (Ult.Influencer)

~Chapter 5~

Victim: Tess Goodwin (Ult.Psychiatrist)

Blackened: Josh Anderson (Ult.Jock)

~Chapter 6~

Survivors

Mary Lou Hong (Ult.Groupie)

Bart Williams (Ult.Informant)

Cindy McMinn (Ult.???)

Randy Lockheart (Ult.Fashion Designer)

!!Mastermind!!

Tyler Wright (Ult. Affluent Progeny)

[cerayanay]

Super long yellow jackets analysis sorry but

Yellow jackets season 2 finale answers so many questions that I didn’t even think to ask. Natalie being a wilderness chosen leader explains her treatment by the survivors as adults, because she isn’t just treated as a teammate. Natalies treatment reflects that none of the girls ever grew out of their time in the wilderness

Misty is misty. She has always worshipped Natalie as an adult, but in retrospect she very rarely interacts with her in the wilderness. Misty is insane, but I never even noticed that she particularly insane when it comes to Nats safety. She acts like a guard dog, and Natalie understands that. In s1, when Misty does stuff like tear out her Porsches battery, put a camera in her room, kidnaps the reporter. It’s Natalie who goes to Misty to ask for help with Adams body, not Shauna. We don’t need to go more in depth about how loyal Misty is, but the fact that Natalie never feels in danger, and reacts to Misty’s obbsession with annoyance was always… odd.

And it’s not just Misty. Taissa pays for Natalies extremely expensive rehab, 5 times over. Taissa, who is willing to hold a political opponents daughters drug problem as leverage, does her part for protecting Natalie. Lottie literally has her followers stalk and kidnap her. Yes she was right to worry about Natalie, but that kind of reaction is complety disproportionate.

And that’s just those three. Misty, Taissa and Lottie still have a loyalty and servitude to Natalie. In their own way, they don’t put nearly that much work into one another. They don’t fight with Natalie like they do with eachother, but hold her still at an arms length.

And Shauna does the same thing. Shauna was never a true follower of the wild until the very last episode of s2, and you can still see that with Natalie. Besides Misty, Shauna is one of the few girls with a designated role. No one carves or skins, just Shauna. I feel that in the wilderness, this keeps her from turning to the cult, because the girls are radicalized because they feel helpless. Shauna doesn’t need that, until she feels helpless. No baby, no food, nothing but Lottie’s who’s dying because of her. Her relationship with Natalie is much more detached, because Natalie is more of her collaborator than the others. Shauna can’t carve unless Natalie hunts, and Natalies hunts would be pointless without Shauna.

And then VAN. I’m calling it now, s3 will reveal that Van resents Natalies leadership. She was always one of Lotties followers, and you can see how disspaointed she is when Lottie suceeds to Natalie. As an adult, Van manipulates Taissa so she could, 25 years later, give power back to Lottie. She doesn’t talk to any of them for decades, and she tries to resist the draw of going to the compound, and ends up immediatly falling back to Lotties leadership.

The finally, Natalie herself. For s1 and most of s2, we see that Natalie is still the hunter. She drives Misty into hunting down Travis’ theoretical murderer, she shows up to Misty’s house with the rifle, she takes shots at the blackmailers car, she verbal attacks Lisa’s mother.

None of these girls grew out of their dynamics with eachother, they just adapted.

UNTIL SEASON 2 FINALE

Natalie and Lottie swap roles! Natalie learns forgiveness and kindness. She does not want to hunt, she doesn’t want violence, she doesn’t want to drink. She commits fully to healing and pacifism. I don’t think she would have agreed to the hunt either way, but her dedication to leaving behind the wilderness for a holistic life is a 180 degree change. On the other hand, Lottie now becomes a hunter. She has shown she does need to be a leader, and commits to the violence of it.

And with that reversal, we are right back to winter of 1996. Lottie is back in charge, Natalie feels that she is othered, she is not an animal like the rest of the group. She has her head on straight. Taissa just does what Van wants. Shauna’s act of violence is the catalyst that makes resort to the hunt, Lottie is the reason it exists in the first place, and due to just complete bad luck, Natalie dies in place of someone else. She gets to redo her sacrifice of Javi. It’s like the past 25 years didn’t even happen, and they’re in the ‘what if’ stage.