#don't know if this is entirely coherent but yeah agree that this doesn't make the story grimdark or nihilistic

[cursedvibes]

The more I think about this chapter and read others takes the less negative I’ve become towards it. I’m just neutral now and if anything I quite like a lot of things in here, especially since the full TCB translations are out now. I’m still disgruntled about Yuuji like literally being thrown to the side though.

I never cared for Yuuta but he did need a last hoorah, so I hope it is a last hoorah that Yuuta fans find good.

It has been interesting seeing people’s takes on the story and what the theme of the story is meant to be. I actually kind of disagree with the takes that JJK is a nihilistic story, for how dark and gritty it can be it very much seems to be a story of hope and change than just a story where good people fail.

I have settled my emotions a bit too. Mostly just feel tired. My main issue is like you said that Yuuji is just getting thrown to the side when we finally get a tense moment between him and Sukuna. Gege really wants to stretch that fight. Yuuji was literally digging into his chest after just landing a Black Flash. Sukuna apparently felt so threatened that he healed his brain and CT, which is quite risky, to cast a domain. But then he can just shove Yuuji away and that's it? Also this Sukuna vs Gojo rehash is for one redundant and also very ill-timed. They could've done this when Sukuna was about to unleash Furnace or his altered domain. When people were actually in danger and Yuuta's sacrifice could've meant something. Yuuta gives a very passionate speech, but the whole time I just have to think that that's really not needed. If they need back-up, the people who got transported away could just come back. Maki's Soul Blade actually seems much more useful here, since we know hurting Sukuna's soul is how you actually get him down.

Also, Yuuta telling Maki that she doesn't understand what it means to be a monster and that she's scared leaves a really bad taste in my mouth. He didn't directly target her, but maybe have some self-awareness about who you're talking to? Not ooc though I would say, nor the rest of his speech and plan.

Another thing that I find confusing is why Yuuta can't heal himself, but is then able to grow Gojo's body together. If it's because of the stitches, Shoko could've stitched up his real body too. Could be that Kenjaku's technique gives a healing boost after the transfer, but they don't talk about that and I don't know how they would know that either. Nobody has ever seen Kenjaku change vessels.

But yeah, overall my reaction is just "do we need to do this again?". I don't agree with the criticisms I've seen that this is too dark, too bleak, too immoral, irredeemable and especially all those comparisons to horror and psychothriller stories. Seems to come also a lot from the people who think Choso's death was bad. Like using Gojo's body like that is grim, it shows how rotten jujutsu society is and that they perpetuate this mindset even in the students, but I think it just shows Yuuta breaking under pressure and emphasizing certain character flaws of his. A negative development. Not necessarily bad. If anything it shows why Yuuji can be the only one to defeat Sukuna because he doesn't give in to Sukuna's believes and he won't let the jujutsu system rob him of his value of life. Even if he sees himself as a tool, he does not treat others like that and he has always been someone who saw Gojo as a human first and the strongest sorcerer second. I wouldn't even say jjk is bleak right now. People have died and Yuuta threw his humanity away, but they are still gradually chipping away at Sukuna.

Certainly not nihilistic. There are very clear values governing the whole story as seen by the dichotomy of Sukuna and Yuuji. I do think they could've been put more into focus by using Shinjuku Showdown to highlight both of their mindsets and hone in more on Sukuna and Yuuji's mentality through it, but it's far from being nihilistic. Everything has meaning, Yuuta just now made the choice to compromise his previous morals. That doesn't mean the overall message is mute. Yuuta only played a small part in it to begin with after all. It's character development for him, but not a complete overthrow of the story's themes. He was told to become stronger he needs to throw away his humanity and disregard others. The challenge for him was to fight while still maintaining his humanity at the cost of not being The Strongest. He failed and also hasn't fully committed to that path, he's just perpetuating Gojo's dehumanization by saying there needs to be someone to fill that role. Someone who needs to stand at the top, despite even Gojo saying (or previously believing) that this burden shouldn't be carried by just one person. That's why he raised the students to be strong. Not quite the right approach either and not a break of the principles of jujutsu society, but certainly not what Yuuta took away from all this that there needs to be one pillar of strength far removed from the others who does the dirty work for them.

So like there is something there in the chapter, an attempt was made to say something, even though I don't think it quite stuck the landing. Doesn't make me especially ecstatic for the next chapters either though.

[gittetj]

You've mentioned that you hc Reigen as ace, can you elaborate?

I agree w/ that but can't sort my thoughts out well enough to make a coherent analysis ;w;

Yeah, that's the vibe he gives me. No concrete "evidence" and I don't care all that much about the sexual orientations of fictional characters, but I guess for me, the headcanon comes down to three things:

1) Reigen is super disinterested in other people being attracted to each other. I feel like there are several small examples of this, but first one that comes to mind is that case with the esper who can astral project and uses it to stalk his neighbor. When they discover this, Reigen has such a non-reaction. I've seen a lot of people bring up these panels

which, yeah, but when they find the culprit, Reigen also doesn't express much of an opinion. It's just "it's a stalker, stalking is bad and illegal, this is a job for the police." No more introspection from him, he immediately moves on, it doesn't interest him. Mob is the one doing all the reacting.

2) Reigen never resorts to flirting despite how he's known for bullshitting his way through anything else to complete a job. Like, no matter how horny Studio Bones is for the guy, they can't change this. He could deliberately capitalize on the fact that a considerable amount of his income comes from massaging middle-aged ladies who find him attractive, but he doesn't. It's accidental. It does not even seem like something Reigen thinks about.

3) Reigen's a self-conscious person, yet doesn't act like it bothers him that he's seemingly never been in a relationship before. He explicitly has a crisis over being lonely in the confession arc, but it's about friends and connections and doing something meaningful with his life. Romantic relationships don't factor into it, even though it easily could, considering it has great thematic relevance for Mob who spends the entire story being in love. Not that you can't fall in love with someone if you're ace, this goes a little bit into aro territory I guess, but either way.. it just gives me that vibe. The indifference. I mean, even in chapter 99 when Mob point-blank asks Reigen for advice about Tsubomi, Reigen first asks Serizawa, then looks it up on his phone, exactly like he would with any other topic he doesn't know jack shit about.

Also, at the end of the scene, he muses about what's important in a relationship, and his conclusions just.. don't sound like he's talking about romance? To me?

I don't know, that entire scene gives me flashbacks to being younger and not yet knowing what asexuality (or aromanticism) is and having to navigate conversations like that without giving away that you fundamentally can't relate to this thing everyone else is so preoccupied with.

Them's my takes, I don't have much else to say about it.

[butchsophiewalten]

Man this is so random but this theory is stuck in my head and I wanna see how other people feel about it because I don't see people talk about it a lot (I have no clue if the link will go through properly since I've never put a link in a ask box)

https://www.tumblr.com/art-w0rm/667910993425350656/theory-time

Oh god not this theory again. I really truly try not to be mean to people for no good reason on this blog, but this theory is literally one of the stupidest fucking things I've ever seen in my entire life. I don't talk about this theory because to me it's like the walten files theory equivalent of that tubby custard mechanically separated chicken post.

Most of the time I genuinely don't even consider it worthy of my time, because it's nonsense, but this is a very nicely worded ask, and I really don't mean to dedicate any of the vitriol I hold towards this theory to You, poor anonymous person, so I will deconstruct it. I will go through the theory point-by-point and deconstruct why I disagree with it.

First up, this:

Showbear is not a character in The Walten Files anymore. Showbear was fully retconned and is never going to appear in the series again. He was effectively just a cameo of ThunderingStatic's (one of Martin's friends) OC, but when The Walten Files blew up and people started assuming Showbear was Martin's character, Static decided to withdraw his character from the series and focus putting him in other projects.

Martin talked about this on Twitter forever ago, but I wouldn't be able to find that tweet now. But here's a bit from the interview he did with KnowYourMeme back in 2021 where he talks about it:

Now this:

This is just stupid to me? Like a complete logical incongruity? I barely even know how describe what is dumb about this because I can't even fathom how anyone draws this conclusion from this information. How is it strange for a man to say 'if my wife isn't home by the time she said she was going to be, let me know, in case something happened.'????? Why would Rosemary be out cheating on her husband with her fucking daughter with her??? If Rosemary was cheating on her husband why would her whole life collapse when he went missing? If Rosemary was cheating on her husband why would she show up at the restaurant every day after he disappeared asking if anyone had seen him and hoping to find him alive??? Why would she make paintings of herself and him together after he disappeared????? What the fuck are you talking about?

Ok now this:

Whatever. This is maybe the most coherent part of the theory, to me. I definitely agree that Sha evokes a 'wolf in sheep's clothing' sort of aesthetic, but I do remember Martin saying something in a Twitter Q&A at one point about how that wasn't actually intentional, and that Bon was the character he actually meant to seem unusually predatory. I looked for a while and couldn't find a screenshot of that, but I did find this one where he says the thing about Bon:

So whatever. take that with a grain of salt.

I don't even know what to say. here. Whatever. sure she was rolling in the hay

yeah Rosemary is asking if she's still beautiful because she cheated on her husband and not because she was chopped up and stuffed inside a big animatronic sheep. I think this is correct and is the True Deep Lore.of the walten files. I'm sure this doesn't have anything to do with the recurring motif of the double-meaning behind the word Beautiful either.

I don't know why it's weird that the lost lingering spirit of a mother would be calling out to her only living child. I Don't know why that needs additional explanation involving this batshit infidelity conspiracy theory.

Sha's chest is also ripped out

So is Banny's, honestly? Just a little less?

ok now this:

I guess I can't disprove this except that I think this is dumb. I think this is a really incredibly stupid logical leap to make. Y'know I really meant to go into this levelheadedly and very calmly go through every point and talk about why I think it's Decisively Disagreeable or whatever but I can't. I really can't. I just cannot keep my patience with this sort of thing.

You'd think if there was an infidelity aspect here it would've been lampshaded in some respect, at all, in the old /sophiewalten findjackwalten page text. Where it's literally Sophie talking to Jenny about what she remembers about her family.

Especially if the idea is that Sophie is meant to have been there. You'd think something like that would have come up here. Not 'she was nice and a good mom until my dad disappeared and her mental health started getting worse'

[andmaybegayer]

Project “Let’s watch every single Fast & Furious movie”

The series is still finding its feet and not entirely sure what it wants to be. It has however decided that this one should contain a truly incredible amount of homoerotic subtext.

2 Fast 2 Furious (2003)

We check back in with Brian, who is street racing for a living in Miami now that he is no longer a cop. Ludacris, is here, for some reason. The FBI show up and put our boy over a barrel until he helps them investigate another crime ring, with his car.

The cinematography and general visual language is much more mature, they've figured out how to shoot cars driving and in particular races in a way that better conveys relative position, advantage, and speed. No more undercranked footage, much more medium to wide shots of cars weaving past each other, as well as some complicated composited motion shots.

If you look for this movie on Tumblr you mostly find gifs of Devon Aoki in her girlboss pink Honda S2000. And yeah, I get it, this look kicks ass. The leather skirt and thigh highs with garters or whatever that is really screams 2003.

Right, the plot. Even more so than last time, the core plot is extremely mid. Brian is over a barrel, and needs to help the FBI investigate a drug lord, in exchange for them forgetting about him. He doesn't trust a cop to partner with him so he gets them to offer a deal to his old boyfriend Roman, with whom he had a falling out many years ago. The two of them go undercover smuggling money for the drug lord and eventually work through their differences and get the guy. Big whoop.

Far more interesting is how the interpersonal relationship of Brian and Roman is handled. These two feel like a couple who dated all through high school and broke up over a nasty disagreement when they were 19 and never really got over each other. The first time they meet they physically throw down and it looks like this.

Just straight guy things. I made a crack about 2 bi 2 curious in the last post and I was like "someone has to have made this joke before" and a) not really it looks like only a couple tweets but b) it led me to this short video essay on a bisexual reading of 2 Fast 2 Furious. I don't agree with all its finer points and I think the author completely misread some sections of the movie but you'll find far more agreement than disagreement from me with this one.

Carrying on, there's a lot of the awkward "I want to trust you, and I know I should be able to trust you, but I don't trust you" between these two. It's great, if you want to watch two very pretty guys go insane over each other for an hour and a half, this is a movie for you. I'm going to reiterate a lot of what's said in this video because it's all very obvious.

Before we continue, I need to note that what you don't see, oddly, is really any kind of coherent heterosexual romantic subplot. Like, there's one there, they do parts of it, but it's almost homeopathic. It's purely there to check the box. Monica is an undercover cop who's been with the drug lord for like a year and, in theory, Brian is attracted to her. There's discussion of this, he checks her out, they make bedroom eyes at each other, the drug lord gets jealous, it's a whole thing, but mostly you see that Roman is worried that Brian is going to do something stupid because he's attracted to her.

In the above video the author misinterprets one scene as Brian sleeping with Monica but they do not actually fuck! She shows up in the early morning to tell Brian that he's going to be betrayed but they do not, in fact, fuck! This is important to me because man, there's so little of that subplot going on. This subplot barely develops at all, they don't talk to each other much, and when they do it's only the barest flirting.

At one point Brian does a driving stunt to impress Monica and when he's done, Roman pulls up and goes "oh, he did that stunt? He learned that one from me." which. Come on there's no way to read that that doesn't at least suggest that maybe Roman did it to hit on Brian when they were younger.

Speaking of car stunts, those are used to convey character a lot better in this movie. Dishonorable side characters drive in annoying ways in races to make themselves hard to pass, Brian and Roman do a whole elaborate game of one-upsmanship during their driving audition for the drug lord, and a doubles drag race with high stakes serves as a major bonding moment where they learn to trust each other. There's much, much less plot and character going on explicitly but I think the photography and the storytelling are working together more closely in this movie.

The movie seems to care less about the cars themselves though. The Lancer and Eclipse they drive for much of the movie are not particularly attractive nor particularly powerful cars, and the Challenger and Camaro they pick up later are more plot device than eye candy, unless you're really into American Muscle I guess. The initial race includes Suki's S2000 and Brian's Skyline that both very quickly end up sidelined, you don't see much of them again. There is much less time spent in garages and at races here, which is part of why the core plot feels like a lot of other action movies where the protagonist is a criminal helping the cops. I wonder if some of this is down to appealing to a wider audience who may just not give a shit about the finer distinctions between the Honda Civic EF and EX hatch.

There's a beautiful sunset scene where Brian and Roman just talk it out for a few minutes and settle their differences, come to terms, and finally trust each other again. I know I'm pretty much only talking about this one relationship but it's pretty much the only part of the movie with any depth, and the other parts only gain value in their proximity to it.

The final sequence is a huge endurance run across Florida that is a lot of fun to watch and includes a very funny scene where they scramble like, a hundred cars as a distraction to throw the police off. If you watch you can see that they really just grabbed whatever cars they could find to pad out the shot, there's like three or four PT Cruisers hidden in here.

The final run is mostly a show of the reformed trust between these two, it's great, it's a decent culmination of what's been building up through the whole show, they get their freedom, together, and resolve to move on together.

The whole movie really hangs on this relationship, it elevates it from a solid 5/10 "absolutely mid action movie" to a 7/10 "compelling characters you will think about later" type deal.

[lord-squiggletits]

I wish to love and appreciate idw optimus more too. But I also don’t want to read through the entirety of IDW 1.0. Can you please recommend me any specific issues/parts?

My best friend and fellow IDW Optimus lover made a post compiling all the comics with major story beats involving Optimus. Her list has a lot of the same things mine does, but also a lot more specific issues because she actually knows which specific issues of which series you can read specifically for ones focused on IDW Optimus. We don't agree on everything (I love some comics she dislikes and vice versa), but I would recommend her list simply because it's the most well-documented and thorough. Link I also have a lot of far less coherent but still genuine posts about IDW OP on my #idw op love tag.

As for specific parts I would recommend... since you don't want to read through all of IDW1, I'll go ahead and recommend you things based on in-universe chronological order rather than story release order, but if anything here interests you then I would recommend reading IDW1 in release order so that you get a better grasp of the story's context and how new lore was given out over time:

Chaos Theory and Police Action by James Roberts (The Transformers 2009 issues 22-23): I love love LOVE the way JRO writes Optimus talking to Megatron during the present day, it's very IDW-Optimus flavored because of how blunt, abrasive, and snappy Optimus is. There's a part in the comic where Megatron claims that he "knows [Optimus] better than anyone else," and he's right, but it's also true that Optimus knows Megatron well enough to see that he's bullshitting and it's very entertaining watching Optimus slowly lose his patience with him. I love the dialogue especially, no one (canon or fandom) has ever quite written the same IDW OP who's in this set of comics. It's also the most MegOP comic of all time because the sexual tension and the subliminal imagery of them doing BDSM together is unreal, plus it really captures their dynamic of two old soldiers who snap together with chemistry despite (or perhaps because of) being such long-time enemies. They just UNDERSTAND each other so well. Also, as a bonus point, Chaos Theory is where the pre-war lore for IDW1 began being published, so if you read Chaos Theory then the context for future pre-war lore makes a little more sense.

Shadowplay by James Roberts (More Than Meets the Eye issues 10-11): More pre-war lore that picks up where Chaos Theory/Police action left off. Important because it establishes a lot of IDW OP's character relationships, especially with "the Senator," Roller, and to a degree Ratchet and some minor side characters. I don't really know what to say about this besides it's just really fucking fun to read and features IDW OP getting to do cool shit like fight bad guys, investigate conspiracies, and do heists while also establishing one of his key character traits: being disastrously gay for suspicious men that he places entirely too much trust in to tell him what the right thing to do is.

Spotlight: Orion Pax by James Roberts: Okay, I'm really sorry for recommending JRO's stuff because it feels like favoritism and I don't even think JRO does the best version of IDW OP, it's just going in in-universe chronological order means that a lot of JRO stuff ends up first on the list. This one doesn't really have much of consequence in it and is honestly one of the weaker Spotlight issues, but like Shadowplay, it involves Orion Pax doing fun action shit and having way too much trust in a suspicious man (a new one from the suspicious man in Shadowplay).

The Autocracy Trilogy (Autocracy, Monstrosity, Primacy) by Chris Metzen: Oh my fucking god this is THE IDW Optimus to me, this trilogy is literally what made my ears perk up to even start liking IDW OP because it's what took me from "Optimus Prime, that's the guy who's the super awesome leader that everyone likes and is a paragron to everyone, yeah I know him" to "Oh.... holy shit this is such a good plot/worldbuilding, Optimus has so much CONFLICT and DRAMA with other people." It covers one of my favorite periods of the general Transformers formula, namely pre-war and early war plot events as conflicts come to a boiling point, there's political conflicts and personal conflicts, the planet is falling to shit and everyone is trying to escape and things are as depressing and scary as you would expect for a war that's literally about to consume a whole planet. I found the general plotlines to be gripping and intense (Autocracy is the weakest in this regard, but the writing gets better with each book) and I really like seeing how Optimus grapples with leadership. Especially the negative parts where people hate/fear him because of his association with Zeta's regime (the previous Prime, who Orion worked for), call his judgment into question, refuse his calls to action or waver in their faith in him, and so forth. I found it to be a really nuanced yet sympathetic view of IDW Optimus that made me fall in love with him. Because really, the thing that humanizes a character the most is making them flawed, and Autocracy trilogy Optimus is so incredibly flawed and conflicted. And also it shows him being shit on by other characters in a way that's well written in a plot that makes sense and doesn't feel like the entire plot is conspiring to shit all over him.

The Death of Optimus Prime by James Roberts and John Barber: This comic is basically the transition from phase 1 to phase 2, it establishes the branching plotlines of MTMTE and exRID, so this is another one of those comics that will help you understand IDW1 better if you want to read for more than just Optimus. Anyways, DoOP is great because it has a similar vibe to the Autocracy trilogy in that society is chaos and full of people who fucking hate Optimus' guts for the role he played in the war. You can also compare/contrast the way OP was before the war and early in the war versus the way he is after the war and see how much the war changed him (Chaos Theory also kind of is like this but it more shows bitchy Optimus specifically in his dynamic with Megatron). It also features a fair amount of Optimus Heroic Moments, Optimus Brooding, and Optimus being so fucking depressed he's literally sad when he wakes up and realizes he's not dead dude get some fucking therapy please I'm begging you--

Punishment by John Barber: This skips ahead quite a bit in the story but I think stands decently well on its own without having to understand the wider context. It's one of Barber's best-written stories and one of the only ones I've come back to reread for its own sake. It features Optimus trying to solve the murder-mystery of a bunch of Decepticons, featuring really cool plot conflicts like Optimus trying to navigate post-war society and the tensions that still linger from the Autobot-Decepticon war. I really like this one because it has that whole "not everyone loves OP and a lot of people hate him for justified reasons" thing that makes IDW OP a much more 3D character, PLUS it has some politics with the way Decepticons are treated post war. And I think it does really interesting things with Optimus in terms of showing how he DOES have this idealistic, merciful side that wants people to choose peace and letting go of vengeance, but of course it's not so easy to expect that of people after a 4 million year war. So when people inevitably choose violence, Optimus gets frustrated and angry and lashes out in a way that feels very real and understandable. It's a really good example of a comic that shows IDW OP in a nuanced way, showcasing both his virtues and flaws in a complicated situation that shows that there's no easy solution to these problems and no way for Optimus to escape without getting his hands dirty. Unlike future comics which involve OP being in complicated situations but instead the plot is super contrived and seems to overwhelmingly shit on OP without ever mentioning the very obvious ways that he could be defended, creating a story that's conceptually fascinating but incredibly mediocre in execution.

If I had to recommend any single one of these to read, I would recommend the Autocracy trilogy the most because it's literally the story that made me love IDW Optimus and made me realize "whoa, this guy is super nuanced and not what I expected of him." That's not to say that no other Optimi have depth and nuance, but I think the Autocracy trilogy was great for me personally as one of the first IDW1 comics I read. It struck a really good balance between "uh Optimus was part of some bad things that warrant being shit on" and "Optimus is struggling to overcome those bad associations he did, succeeding with some people and failing with others" and "Optimus is an optimist who has faith in others even when they don't have faith in themselves." Also, as a bonus, the Autocracy trilogy also features cunty murder-husband Megatron, an interesting character arc for Hot Rod, and the Dinobots as really interesting supporting characters (including their leader, Grimlock, having a cute veteran-rookie dynamic with Hot Rod that I wish we got more of).

[applepies-and-starlight]

sorry for this incoming long rant in your inbox

I have a hot take w/r/t ishqueg queerbaiting and canto v in general. I think the incel kerfuffle had something to do with it. they don't want to threaten Ishmael's (imagined) sexual availability to the (prioritized) heterosexual male audience by explicitly confirming her lesbianism¹ because said idea of sexual availability is part of their business model as a gacha game. much has been correctly stated about LC's art design and the avoidance of stereotypically sexualized designs. but the characters are still hot. you're supposed to find them attractive.

there's a lot in C5 that feels weird and disjointed and I wouldn't be surprised if they made some last minute changes. this is why heathcliff pulls ishmael out of the white ego death goo out of nowhere² (I mean he spends the entire canto complaining and even floats the idea of going it alone inside the Pallid Whale even though he admits they'd irretrievably lose people in the process) when it's Dante who was the one rebuilding trust with her and helping her pull free from her spiral. (For that matter multiple characters have interactions with her in C5: Dante, Rodya and even Outis.) the white ego death goo scene makes a lot more sense as the capstone for Dante and Ishmael, doesn't it? I think it was, originally, but Dante isn't male as far as we know and they might have realized that none of the people pushing the action in the canto were men. obviously unacceptable if you don't want to alienate the incels in your audience. I mean, shit, "heathcliff and ishmael learn a bit about why they're each Like That and make peace³" would have at least been an arc, but that's not really what happened.

yeah I dunno sorry again for rambling semi-coherently but C5 and its inconsistencies really bothered me. queequeg⁴ deserved better.

¹Or bi/pansexuality, but I can only do so much discourse in one ask.

²one more note. the scene is clearly meant to be important because it gets its own CG *when even Queequeg's death didn't* but like -- it doesn't seem to have changed their dynamic even a little bit. during the Green Ordeal bit Outis says Heathcliff is the least trustworthy member of the team (or something like that) and Ishmael agrees! it's like it never happened. she's still offhandedly mean to him later.

³or make out. I'm not into heath/ish in the slightest, as you probably inferred, but whatever. they're much more interesting to me as platonic haters.

⁴one last thing. it really is unbelievable that they shied away from explicitly acknowledging the queer relationship while saying shit like "you unearthed her broken heart" and having a scene of Ishmael planning out her life with Queequeg and mentioning "her hidden wounds that only I saw" (paraphrasing here). they don't need to have like them scissoring onscreen or anything but come on. even the 173-year-old source material was more upfront!

Anon gets it (even when i only half get it; wonderfully worded anon(/genuine))

Honestly, in light of this rant, I'm curious about an alternate timeline where the incel controversy never happened, sure it would most likely happen by the time Canto V Happens™ instead (because, as you said, lesbianism) but I'm wondering if they would've been more open about Ishqueg's dynamic...

[maya-matlin]

I love your takes on OTH and agree with nearly all of them! You and an anon had interesting thoughts on Julian and why he seems perfect on paper but was so meh in reality, and I laughed out loud when you pointed out that the writers radically changed his personality at least once or twice a season. I have a mutual who watched most of season six, skipped season seven, and was stunned when she tuned into season eight and was like ‘wait, since when is Julian the adorkable comic relief—-who is this?!’ I think for me I got a weird social climbing vibe from him, which would be annoying but understandable if we’d met him in high school but is a quality I find really off putting in adults. He’s obsessed with the so-called popular group of a high school he didn’t even attend and even says something gross (brulian fans fins it cute but no) after the first time he and Brooke have sex about now getting why she had been popular . He just seems to really care about popularity/social status and the fact that he himself was uncool in high school a decade ago and making a good impression in Hollywood and all that. I actually like that Lucas took an instant dislike to him because so did I!

Thank you! Yeah, Julian was an odd character. He's not a bad guy or even particularly irritating. It's just that the writers were unable to decide which personality to give him. So to begin with, Julian is this slick, underhanded guy who shows up in Tree Hill to make Lucas's movie while also fucking with Peyton. But once Lucas discovers Peyton's past with Julian, that goes away pretty quickly. They stuck with confident, almost worldly Julian when he first started hooking up with Brooke. Season 7 was kind of a mixture of season 6 Julian while also giving him more nerdy moments. Season 8 Julian wasn't even the same character. He couldn't do a simple high five. He did matching Halloween costumes with his mom. There were jokes sprinkled in about manly man Nathan who likes things like sports and beer vs Julian who is effeminate and knows how to pick out beautiful flower arrangements where it's clear who the butt of the joke is supposed to be. In season 9, they tried and failed to make Julian a darker, edgier character by having him go through a self destructive phase after leaving his son in the hot car. There's no actual coherency to his personality or character development. He's almost completely defined by being Brooke's love interest and to some degree, an awkward replacement for Lucas who doesn't quite fit in. It's to the point that Mark Schwahn apparently wanted to rip off the Dawson's Creek finale so badly that they once again decided to "go meta" by having Julian create a tv series about Lucas's book after they'd already done the same story line with the aborted movie back in season 6. Naturally, Julian writes himself into the series, stealing away Lucas's winning shot at the state championship and being the one to make the sex tape with Brooke.

That's an interesting take that I can't entirely disagree with. It's so fucking weird that the Julian we met in season 6 would ever care about this random group of high schoolers from a small town. We're invested because we've been watching their story lines since the first season, but you'd think Julian would have grown beyond trying to fit in with the popular kids and had met and bonded with his own "people" back in LA. I realize Julian being a regular required him to eventually mingle with Brooke's friend group, but it could have been done in a much more casual way. Oof, yeah. Brooke had tried so hard to define herself by things unrelated to sex and looks back on her sexual history during her teenage years as something.. not quite shameful, but also not something she's proud of. It wasn't the right thing to say at that moment, and if Julian read Lucas's book he would have known there was much more depth to Brooke than that. While I don't personally dislike Julian, I do think he was kind of desperate to fit in and receive validation from the popular kids. Again, I struggle to understand why he wanted validation specifically from the OTH characters considering he was already working in Hollywood when we met him. Julian Baker was basically two different characters awkwardly smashed together. I like him well enough, but in all honesty he's carried by the fact that he isn't Lucas. Lucas is so flawed and indecisive for most of the series that even though he's a far more dynamic and consistently written character, his massive lows make it easy to forget his highs.

[the-sky-queen]

Alright! Let's review Spider-man: Turn off the Dark, shall we?

For those who didn't see my original post on this, here's the scoop: Spider-man: Turn off the Dark was this theater musical some people tried to make once upon a time. It was essentially just a complete failure. The story was a mess, the stunts got actors hurt and the music . . . well, that's the point of this post. You see, the music was written by Bono and The Edge, members of the band U2. If you know them, you probably know them for songs like I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For or With or Without You. (Or if you've seen Sing 2, you know Where the Streets Have no Name and Stuck In a Moment You Can't Get Out of.)

My sister is a massive fan of U2. I think she might have listened to all of their songs. So, I thought it would be fun to listen to the soundtrack of Turn off the Dark with her for the first time and see if the songs were any good.

(Keep in mind that this is all just my opinion. If you've got something different that you think, I'd love to hear it! This was honestly a very fun and fascinating soundtrack to listen to, and I'm sure there's people out there who like it more than I do.)

With all that said, let's get into this!

So, pretty much immediately, we ran into a bit of a snag. We didn't realize this until halfway through our listen through, but the songs are completely out of order on the soundtrack. So, here we were, trying to piece together some kind of coherent story for the songs we were listening to, and it was just a lost cause. XD It's not my first time listening to a sound track that has every song out of order (our family has a disc for the Shrek Soundrack that's like that) but it's still baffling. Why would you arrange the soundtrack like this? But anyway, as I said, we didn't even realize the songs were out of order until we got about half way through the soundtrack. Not realizing they were out of order, we came up with this crazy idea for a plot where Peter Parker was depressed because Uncle Ben dies just before the events of the musical, he's in a relationship with MJ, but is too sad to be entirely with her right now, he becomes Spiderman, and Norman Osborn is upset that his research got leaked and is slowly going insane. Totally not accurate, but it was fun to speculate.

In terms of the soundtrack as a whole, my sister and I came to a few agreements. First off, the songs were very much written by U2. It's got so many of their signature sounds and style. I've heard reviewers of Turn off the Dark say that the soundtrack sounds less like a musical soundtrack and more like the next U2 album, and I have to agree with them. (Though my sister doesn't really agree with the 'next U2 album' part. She sees things that are unique here, and I'll just have to take her word for it since I don't really listen to a lot of U2.) My sister found a lot of instances in the vast majority of the songs that seemed to be lifted out of other U2 songs from before and after this soundtrack, either as a direct copy or a spiritual second chance of sorts.

If you're going into this soundtrack blind and you're expecting a familiar broadway musical-like sound, you need to know right now that you're not getting that. These songs, as I said, sound way more like U2 songs than musical songs. According to my sister, Bono likes to write in such a way that his songs are accessible and relatable to anyone, and that sure is biting him in the butt here, because as a result these songs become very vague. There are like two or three instances in the entire soundtrack where Spiderman is actually mentioned (maybe four? I can't remember). You can usually barely tell what's supposed to be going on. You know how if you turn on the soundtrack for a typical musical, you can get essentially the entire story just from the music? Yeah, you can't do that here. Using my favorite musicals as examples here, but in Tuck Everlasting and Addams Family, there are songs at all the major plot beats. I know what's going on in the story. The characters are telling me what's going on and what they're feeling. Meanwhile, the Turn off the Dark soundtrack is all vague feelings and no events. I have ZERO clue what's going on, except in a few rare cases.

This soundtrack also has a problem with variety, specifically of the singer kind. Most of the songs are just Peter dramatically singing vague words. There's the occasional duet with MJ, two songs for Green Goblin/Norman Osborn, and one song for Arachne. (Don't even ask. If you don't know who she is already, then you might as well just dive fully into the rabbit hole that is Turn off the Dark and learn everything there is to know about this insane musical.) There's almost nothing for the ensemble to do, which is very sad. And while we're on the subject of variety, a lot of these songs sound VERY similar. Most of them have the same signature U2 rock style. It gets kinda tiring after a while. Maybe some people would like that, but I was longing for a violin or something by the end.

The Turn off the Dark Soundtrack is missing a lot of typical musical songs as well. Opening ensemble number? Not there. Hero's I Want song? I mean, you might be able to argue that's what Boy Falls From the Sky is, but I couldn't identify what exactly Peter WANTS in that song. I have no idea why we're supposed to care. That's a big problem for a musical to have.

One plus is the existence of the song Pull the Trigger. This song caught me and my sister SO off guard when we listened to it because it didn't sound ANYTHING like what we'd been hearing up to that point. It was so UN-U2 and weird that it circled all the way back around to being unironically amazing. At this point, we didn't know that it was the US military (for some reason???) talking to Norman, so I came up with the theory that the ensemble in this song were acting as the voices in his head, a la the first Raimi Spiderman movie. This is one of the songs on the soundtrack that I would DEFINITELY listen to again. XD (My sister isn't as big a fan of it, but I don't care. :P)

There were a few other stand out songs on the sound track, like No More (which hit us in all the feels so hard), Bouncing Off the Walls, and my sister really liked Boy Falls From the Sky.

Here's some notes we had for each of the songs:

NY Debut - Has no real reason to be here. It's just an instrumental, and not even an overture. It's boring.

Boy Falls From the Sky - Definitely feels like a U2 song, specifically because Bono hasn't figured out how to write as a character and not himself. My sister picked out several moments that seem to have been lifted out of other U2 songs

Rise Above 1 - Is clearly only titled this way because Bono didn't realize Rise Above 2 could've just been Rise Above Reprise, but okay. It uses second person 'you' a lot, which makes it very vague.

Picture This - Gives the vibes of the songs where Bono sings about his mom (who died when he was younger). Had a few lines that seemed redundant to me, but at least we got some MJ and ensemble action!

I Just Can't Walk Away - Sounded like a break up song between Peter and MJ??? It was pretty cool since we got more of a sense of story from this one than any of the previous songs. Also, that echo effect later on was very cool.

Bouncing Off the Walls - Sounded like an actual Spiderman song for once! All of the previous ones sounded like they were more written for Bono, but this one seemed like something Spiderman might actually sing. Thought the first few lines gave Venom vibes and I know for a fact he's not in this musical. Also, the chorus was kinda boring.

Pull the Trigger - WAS SO WACKY AND FUN!!! It came so out of left field and I want more. The patriotic bits didn't make a whole lot of sense though and the ending was weird.

No More - Honestly just so amazing. The struggles Peter and MJ have are clearly communicated and heartbreaking. The music itself was so well done as well. (Sidenote: the line MJ sings, "Everyday I feel the walls are closing in, When can I begin?" sounds SO FAMILIAR and I can't figure out what it sounds like. If anyone can figure it out, please let me know!)

DIY World - The concept was discernable but the execution was bad. It got a little absurd by the end.

If the World Should End - Had nice soliloquy vibes, but we had legitimately no clue what was going on. MJ knew something but was keeping it to herself?

Sinistereo - My sister loved it, but I HATE IT WITH A FIERY BURNING PASSION. The instruments were screeching and painful to hear and the singing itself was so flat and dead. I couldn't focus on anything else. I will never listen to this again. My sister found things to like somehow.

A Freak Like Me Needs Company - In all the reviews I've heard, this one always gets specifically talked about, so I was excited to get to this one. But honestly, I don't understand what all the hype was about. It's not nearly as high energy as I thought it would be. It's probably better on stage, but I expected more.

Rise Above 2 - Has some genuinely good and cool moments! But this was the point when I was getting really tired of the guitar and drums and wanted more variety.

Turn off the Dark - Sounded really sincere but since we know a villain was singing it, it just confused us. And towards the end, we started to get kinda uncomfortable.

My sister's final thoughts: Sometimes U2 gotta be cringe, but in the end they put out great art.

My final thoughts: It’s not a musical soundtrack. It’s the next U2 album with the occasional spiderman thrown in. U2 kept stealing from their own songs and that’s unimpressive to me. Bono’s trying so hard to be the next Andrew Lloyd Webber (but rock) and he doesn’t know how to write showtunes.

I think this soundtrack has some good moments that were really enjoyable. But as a whole? If we're judging Turn off the Dark purely on its music and nothing else, it's no wonder it failed.

But as I said at the beginning, if you've got something to add, PLEASE let me know. Despite all the things wrong with it, I still think this musical is genuinely fascinating and fun to talk about!

[lavenderek]

I am... very curious about your Jewish movie ideas. Were you talking about Halfizzbin?

yeah her

so julie riffed this passover one off the dome for me:

Main Character moved from home country to go to college in new york, and then just stayed there. he kind of quit practicing while there, and lied to his parents that he's totally still doing all the stuff.

then one year his parents have a surprise!! they managed to get last minute tickets to a broadway show! and it just so happens to be next week, which is the week of passover!! Main Character gets to host seder, isn't that exciting??!

Main Character is like FUCK. he passes a local temple on his daily commute and he's always thought about going in, but he never has. this time he does, he hauls ass over there and accosts a rabbi - ("and the rabbi's name is Elijah, of course," julie says) - asking him to coach MC in jewishness so that it looks like he's been doing it the whole time. rabbi is like 👀 but agrees.

the week is heavy partly because Main Character can't seem to go off book, but mostly because he's reconnecting with his culture and his faith and realizing it means more to him than he thought. maybe he's missed it all this time. maybe Elijah got that sense from him the day he came in. maybe Elijah has seen him pass by in the mornings, and seen the pensive way he looks at the windows. maybe he's wondered about him.

Main Character panics about the seder though and begs Elijah to pretend they're old college friends and help him host the seder. i don't know why, and MC doesn't know why, but he actually agrees. he's gotta stop by his grandma's first, but leave a seat for him, he'll be there in time to start.

it goes great! Main Character's parents love elijah, and they can 100% tell their kid has been LYING, and what the fuck they actually knew the ENTIRE TIME but never said anything, oh and Main Character realizes he's bisexual.

MC and i figured out why Rabbi agreed to do the seder. it is because he's in love with him. WOW!

there is a goof at the end about MC being hesitant to tell his mom about it, and elijah is like why, is she homophobic? but no, MC just doesn't know how to explain bisexuality to her

julie deadass just spun that one out

we came up with a few others, including a silly purim one, but the most coherent one, julie gave the title and i came up with the story. it is called Where The Challah Is lmao

so, ada and ivy finalize their bitter divorce on the day of Rosh Hashanah. ada's friends tell her this is good, it's a new start for her. she agrees, but can't seem to feel any better.

she leaves their shared bakery and starts her own. she has a year of failed relationships. then she runs into ivy again at the next rosh hashanah service. it's cold and awkward but they're forced to help do the baking together. they argue over the best way to do it, and realize they missed this: arguing over baking.

over the next year they reconnect, and merge their bakeries again. ivy proposes the next rosh hashanah. and the one after that, they are about to celebrate their second first anniversary.

the recurring bit is them arguing over the best way to make challah (which is actually pretty basic so why are they so convicted about slightly different ways to do it? well why should i know?) and they eventually decide there can be two challah breads. actually, there can be three: the ada way, the ivy way, and the both of them way. why are there so many of these? it's ok, everybody can take some home.

because the point is that they were making something together: delicious food, and a home. home is where the challah is.

bam. lesbians. jewish lesbians in aprons. come at me

julie also came up with a title and concept - it's called honey, honey because something something all the food is made with honey. come up with a jewish romcom based on that, come and play with us

[softcallofdutyimagines]

Not teeeechnically a “request”, but it’s a prompt I’ve been wanting to do for a while, so here we go. Just as @direwolfspostsrandomshit described, but the setting is your guy comes home to see you showing off the new outfit. Also, this includes Weaver and Naga as bonuses bc I love them 😌😌

Adler

You wouldn't know to look at him, especially behind those dark sunglasses, but his heart starts hammering immediately

"Uh, what's all this for?", He chuckles nervously

You tell him you were just trying it on, but you're not sure if you like it

"Why not? It looks stunning on you"

Oh really?

"Well you sure stunned me", he smiles and pulls you in by the waist

Adler kisses you and runs his hands up and down your bare skin

He loves how much there is to feel

With one more kiss, he slips the tip of his thumbs under the little hem of your shirt

Hudson

"I uh, don't suppose you know how to take this off...?"

Maybe you can show him ;)

I'm sorry, but I KNOW y'all cannot look me in the eye and tell me that good old clean cut Hudson doesn't secretly have some SERIOUS kinks and fantasies

One of those kinks is definitely a huge thirst for curvy women lmao

You have him on his knees panting as it is, but to come home to you in that?

WOOF WOOF BARK BARK AWOOOOO

However, like Adler, Hudson is the master of the poker face

Too bad his blushing cheeks betray him

Now that is a rare sight indeed

You feel a bit more confident in your outfit, just by seeing how excited it's made Hudson

"Where'd you get that?", he tries to hide the blush by swiping at his face a little

You decide to have a little fun and saunter up to him, looking absolutely stunning

You tell him it's thrifted, but that's not of any importance right now

His skin feels hot to the touch as you cup his cheek and give him a kiss

At last he can't keep his hands to himself any longer, exploring every inch of exposed skin and gorgeous curves as he does so

You're going to be there for a while ;)

Lazar

Ok, first off, Lazar knows you struggle with body image issues and he does his best to support you!

So to see you working it in a cute little number like that is 👀👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻

Besides, obviously he thinks your body is lovely!!

"Wow, you look amazing!"

You whip around, looking quite surprised to see him

Lazar continues on his way over, your outfit is even better from the front

You ask him if he really thinks so

You're more then nervous in this get up, but you've come to really trust his opinion and ego boosts

"Fuck yeah I do!", he picks you up easily and gives you a spin

He kisses your nose and then your lips before gently returning you to the ground

Lazar takes one look at you and your crop top and then one at his torso

"Say, you think they have any of those in my size?", the big guy laughs

You laugh too, but you're not entirely sure if he's joking

Mason

He's absolutely stunned!

Alex thinks you absolutely own in every outfit you wear, but he's never seen you in something so revealing before 👀

You ask him if he likes it, but all he can do is stumble over his words

He can't take his eyes off that cute crop top

You're starting to think maybe he doesn't like it, since he can't seem to find anything to say

But finally he manages to tell you it looks great on you

It's not much, but you're starting to pick up that he may be a little shy in your presence while wearing such a cute outfit

He smiles and walks up to you, "Um, it looks really great, actually heh"

His hand caresses your hip and and nuzzles your check

"Do you think you could wear it more often?"

You know what?

You just might :)

Naga

He fucking DIES

Seriously, like I headcannon that Naga love a thicc Queen™ soooo hard, like I think he'd short circuit lol

For the sake of some sort of civilized manners, he asks some throw away question like where you got the outfit or something as he walks right up to you

He pulls you in for an embrace to greet you while you moodily answer his question

He's not listening however

Instead, he runs his hand from your hip up to the curve of your bust

The silk of the fabric is cool against his fingers, and they shake a little in excitement

You don't even get to finish your sentence

With a scoff and a roll of the eye, you shoo his hand away and scold him, trying but failing to conceal your laughter

He begs and promises you whatever you want if you let him take you to the bedroom in that little get up

Tsk, naughty boy

Sims

His mouth falls open the second he sees you

He whistles and howls, making you jump a little when you turn around

"Damn baby, that looks amazing on you!"

You tell him thanks, but you're not a big fan of the low rise pants. They show off you tummy to much, you think

He makes a face like he's upset anyone could think that about you, even yourself

Sims brings you in for a hug and he kisses your forehead, arms gently locked around your waist

"Naw, you look gorgeous", he kisses you again, "in fact, come on, lets go show that little number off! Make some people jealous", he laughs

You're not sure, buuuuuut...

He seems so confident in you that you can almost feel confident in yourself

At last you agree and run off for your shoes

Woods

You definitely earn yourself a collection of admirers that night

Weaver

Hoooooo boy

Weaver is about to combust

Unfortunately, Weaver is also Weaver so he doesn't know how to express it

He can't even speak he's so overwhelmed!!

You give him the usual hey, how was work stuff

He tries, but still no coherent words

Thankfully for him, this isn't a total disaster

You know him well enough by now to know he only gets like this when he's surprised

You gesture to your outfit and ask if he likes it

He nods fervently, unable to take his eyes off that little crop top

You roll your eyes and give a little laugh as you walk over to kiss him

"Thanks", you say

He feels inordinately warm under your touch

He gulps, hands a little shaky as he reaches up to touch your waist

"Y-yeah", is all he can manage

Just give him a minute :p

A very similar initial reaction to Sims tbh

"Oooo hooo... Fuck yeah! Where you going sexy?"

You blush and respond that you were actually about to go change out of this, you're just not sure it suits you

Woods has put up his coat by now, but he hasn't taken his eyes off of you once

"What? Why? You look amazing!"

He comes over and cops a little feel of your sequined booty

You jump and laugh a little, while he nuzzles your neck

You're still not 100% sold on it, but you tell him maybe it's alright just for the house...

"Heh, sounds good to me", he waggles his eyebrows at you

He'll encourage you to wear it out if you want to, but he's the jealous kind and he knows for sure you'll be drawing quite the fanclub in a stunning look like that

But it's alright, you can wear what you want where you want ofc

He knows how to fight :)

[tokyo-daaaamn-ji-gang]

hi, is it ok if i word vomit my thoughs about tokrev? i promise ill be as coherent as possible,, i dont have many thoughts anyway, im hooked on the story but im also completely clueless, im just perceiving, also none of my mutuals watches or reads tokrev so ugh i feel like i missed something. im just so baffled by wakuis um narrative mode cuz it feels so incoherent and inorganic and poorly thought out you know? what i mean is that at first for most the of arcs he got us thinking the story revolves around takemichis future/present or past whatever, being continually jeopardised by kisaki, time leaps, revenge n stuff, he tricked us with the hinting of the possible existence of a second time leaper, but then he suddenly changes direction and now it's all about mikey. i mean sure we did get a peek of mikeys problem since the vahlalla arc but the story still feels unresolved? everything that was a focal point at the beginning like michi's power, courage and resolve, is now dismissed and it's like we're reading a different story but not entirely? im sorry but it feels so stupid and shallow but i doubt that so im definitely missing something here , im kinda annoyed, i guess were not gonna get an explanation of michi's power and the fact that he was saved by the same person he himself saved by going to the past and warn him about the day he will die like that's a paradox whats the real trigger in all of this? if that matters at all... or maybe its smth like a psychological allegory like evangelion or revolutionary girl utena ahhhh idk hope i made some sense, just wanna understand where yall are at because i can barely trust the panels im reading its almost surreal

Yeah I understand where you're coming from, I feel like I'm almost reading a different story now from when I first started. It actually doesn't annoy me though since I prefer the direction in which this ones going.

And when you think about it the future is still being jeopardised by Kisaki. All this is happening because Kisaki killed Emma which lead to Mikey and Draken missing the start of the Tenjiku fight so Hina then had to confess about the future thing to make them show up. Then because Mikey found out about it he decided to separate himself from the others and create the kantou manji gang and the current timeline. It all comes back to Kisaki's actions again.

Yeah the second time leaper thing was weird, a lot of people still believe that there is one though. Personally I'm doubtful but not 100% against the idea. I think he maybe put it in to show just how good Kisaki was at manipulating his surroundings.

I think it's pretty much always been all about Mikey though, in most scenes he's in he almost seems to steal the mc title from Takemichi. From the moment Takemichi meets him a lot of his actions shift from being just about Hina to also helping Mikey (and saving Akkun too but he seems to forgot about this after a while????). Also with the constant references to there being something not quite right with Mikey I think it was foreshadowed that something bigger was going to happen. Though I did think this was because of Kisaki's manipulations at first and it was a suprise to find out this was happening way before Kisaki.

I also agree that I don't think we're going to get an explanation for Takemichi's powers. I think Wakui wants us to focus more on why he's time leaping rather then the how. (Not entirely sure why he can suddenly sometimes see the future now too though.)

[waynedunlaptheorgandonor]

can i say a sort of pointless rambly thing i was thinking about that i can't put under the cut bc i'm on mobile?

jk, i'm not actually asking. ramble below, not edited for clarity. the following is completely unclear and i will not fix it:

i've been thinking about how part of the reason i'm so chill about caryl is bc growing up as a queer woc 99% of my main ships were like, never gonna fucking happen bc they literally couldn't. it was like, "omg, they gazed at each other from across the room, let's analyze the homosexual subtext of this one scene for the next fifty years, that's not necessarily hyperbole." i've watched all my ships fuck other ppl/have other love interests, and i knew that my thing was never gonna be canon, so to see like, one thing being like, "one half of my ship fucked another person several years ago while pining for the other half of my ship," i'm like...#nice, bc that can and likely will be used as a plot point to get them together later on, whereas in other situations i've been in i just kinda had to deal with it. so my impulse when i see ppl losing their shit is to be like

and to be slightly annoyed, tbh, bc the ship is still on track to be canon, and it's like, literally two white heterosexuals, they're prime candidates for juicy angsty pining that actually gets a resolution.

but!

that being said, i recognize that that attitude isn't necessarily fair. for one thing, i'm not the only queer woc (or some variation thereof) in this fandom, and some ppl's impulse might be exasperation instead, bc like, "wtf, even my mayohet ship has dumb fucking drama," and that's valid as hell, and i get it.

and also, i get that, even if you didn't grow up shipping impossible ships (or mulder/scully, bc that's a brand of bullshit all its own), this has been a suuuuper drawn out process where sometimes it feels like they're legit sprinkling crumbs to keep you hooked, just to play you again, and when you are invested in something, like /rly/ invested, especially if it's a form of escapism or hyperfixation or whatever, that can be e x h a u s t i n g. and i get that. i truly do, and while i make a lot of snide comments about the fandom being bonkers, i do get where the bulk of you are coming from (unless you're one of those ppl who hate on actors and esp actresses for just doing their jobs, and attack them on social media, in which case i am very much judging you and you need to get your life together).

i also realize that in the scheme of things i'm still a newbie. i've been here, what, twoish/threeish years, whereas some of you have been here since the beginning, so i'm not as worn out as y'all. but i also think that gives me a bit of objectivity that some of y'all have (understandably) lost.

my positivity is not meant as a sleight against those of you who are feeling negative, but is more of a semi-objective viewpoint (i say semi, bc lbr, i'm invested af in this, so i definitely have bias), and to me the threads of the storyline they're crafting seem sort of obvious.

like, let's look at it, yeah? they have one season left of this show that has been on for over a decade. they need to cater to everyone to give them a satisfying ending, while still hanging on to carylers bc of the spin-off. darylrreah seems like a very calculated move, bc it gives them both something to make abcers happy, while also creating tension and suspense and pining for carylers (i think they might underestimate just how fed up some carylers are tbh, and are banking on us to hang on for one last ride, which, honestly? if they play it right will probably work.)

if they end up doing a dumb love triangle thing, which, without seeing the episode and gauging the subtext i can't confidently say if i think they will or won't, it will ultimately end in our favor. it has to, bc leah isn't going to third wheel them on the bike in the spin-off. we can say with good authority that whatever that relationship ends up being (again, idk if they'll drag it out or not) it will be temporary. which leaves caryl open to ride off into the sunset and then bone down in every state in the united states and in puerto rico for good measure.

it's a lot of cheap drama, but i really and truly do not think it's anything to worry about, and i still really and truly trust kang to not make it out of character. ik ppl still don't agree with me on that point, and i'm not gonna argue, but to me it really does make perfect sense.

and i also predict that they are gonna play it up hardcore in the promotional shit and talking dead, but when that happens, remember it's bc it gets attention. regardless of where the story is ultimately going, relationship drama gets attention, which gets viewers, which gets amc and twd producers nice and comfy with full pockets

idk. to sum up ig i just wanted to clarify that i don't mean any harm with my relentless positivity. my history in fandom has just made this seem like nothing in comparison, bc while ppl are freaking out, i'm like, "oh damn, they're actually gonna get together by the end of this, aren't they? i didn't know that could happen!" and that makes me excited instead of upset

and you definitely don't have to listen to me. maybe i'm actually wrong. maybe i'm completely full of bullshit and am just good at making things sound confident. i got a lot of As on papers in college over books i never read, i know how to bs. but i also know how to analyze, and i while i will be the first to tell you i am not the best at a great many things, i do know that i am good at critically analyzing text while taking into account the context it was written in, and imho all signs point to canon caryl. when, i'm not entirely sure, but i see it happening. if it doesn't then they severely fucked up their storytelling, and that'd just be bad writing on their part.

(if you want proof that i'm good at reading writers'/producers' intentions, consider that i watched like, 8 seasons of supernatural before giving up, and said to myself, "i think they're gonna make destiel canon, but not until the very last second bc they are rly into catering to their fans but also have to consider their dumb fanboy audience so they can't do anything crazy overtly gay," and guess who hit the nail on the fucking head on that one)

none of this is important, but it was rattling around my mind grapes and i wanted to write it down into something vaguely coherent, and where else better to do it than here. i can word vomit and then send it into the ether and pretend i never said a thing. i love this horrible website, nothing can compare

i have no real conclusion to this, it was mostly stream of consciousness, but i hope it sort of helps y'all understand where i'm coming from, and why i am as chill as i am about things. not about y'all. y'all cause me so much anxiety i get physically sick and have to legit block tags, but with the actual show content i'm zen as hell

uh

the end ig?

it feels weird even signing off on this, but w/e

-diz

[fatalism-and-villainy]

Wen Kexing (either tyk or shl) for the character asks?

I think I'll go with TYK, because the show's version of him is pretty different.

one aspect about them i love

I'm trying to put something coherent into words, but honestly... that bit of backstory about how he was so obedient and sycophantic and wormed his way into the former Valley Master's good graces, and then killed him in the most grisly manner possible and banned anyone else from coming too close to him? Good stuff.

Just, how his nearly his entire life has been based on his own survival above all things, on fighting tooth and nail for his life and for ownership of himself and his body, and how he will put himself through the most gruesome ordeals to do so.... yeah, good stuff.

one aspect i wish more people understood about them

Hmm, I honestly don't feel like I have many polemical opinions about him (yet), except for the aforementioned point that he and Zhou Zishu are pretty similar in personality. I know there's other meta about him in the "counterpoints to popular conceptions" vein that I've agreed with, but in terms of what I personally feel strongly about? I've got nothing, unfortunately.

(Well, there's also the matter of my constantly bumping up against depictions of both his and Zhou Zishu's approach to sexual ethics that feel very off to me, but... that's another post.)

one (or more) headcanon(s) i have about this character

That "we have no men or women" line about Ghost Valley (in reference to normal social structures/hierarchies not existing there) has apparently been taking up the space in my brain dedicated to serious thought, so - Wen Kexing and gender.

Because patriarchal gender roles, as a part of the normal social order, aren't really present in the Ghost Valley, there's a degree to which he... idk, romanticizes the gender relations present in the outside world, because - primarily due to his parents' relationship - he associates them with order and safety and stability. It's why he's invested in the way he is in Cao Weining and Gu Xiang's relationship (I'm thinking of the comment he makes about who packs their bags, for instance), and borrows so much from marriage paradigms in thinking about his relationship with Zhou Zishu (even if he does modify some of it for gay reasons, as with the "someone sings, someone follows" quote).

That said, he's not likely to fail to take women seriously as fighters, either. And because gender isn't really as much of a factor in how power dynamics break down in the Ghost Valley, he doesn't feel very defensive of his masculinity or feel that that aspect of himself is the most worthy of protection, because gender performance is not the way to power in a dog-eat-dog, kill-or-be-killed environment.

one character i love seeing them interact with

Zhou Zishu, naturally. The flirting is wonderful, of course, but what really gets me are the moments where Zhou Zishu manages to catch him off guard or startle him with sincerity. The mask-removal scene, and the part where he says "you want to keep me?" all taken aback, really bring out such a new side of him.

Gu Xiang should belong here as well, as I've mentioned that their book relationship lands much better for me in the show. The death scene in particular hits me hard, and also the little hints we get of what their dynamic are just enough to sketch out a really compelling portrait and make me want to know more. It's something I really like about Priest's less-is-more approach. She's so good at hinting and implication!

one character i wish they would interact with/interact with more

Wu Xi! I still think a friendship between them, with all of Wen Kexing's crude humour and Wu Xi's firm belief that sex ought to be private, would be extremely funny. Unstoppable force vs. immovable object.

one (or more) headcanon(s) i have that involve them and one other character

Head empty only Wenzhou sex headcanons.... you know that scene where Wen Kexing prances in looking like he just had sex, and Zhou Zishu is like "what kind of beauty put those scratch marks on your wrist?" and Wen Kexing is like "oooh, are you jealous?" I firmly believe that early in their sexual explorations Zhou Zishu left similar marks on his wrist while in the throes of passion, and Wen Kexing teased him about it afterwards.

[that-crazy-five-foot-two-chick]

Rating: G

Word Count: 1.6k

Fake dating, love at first sight, and all that. The basic fluff palate.

A/N: I had no idea what the lyrics to "Hello Stranger" by Stray Kids were until after I wrote the fic, but the title and vibe made me daydream this whole idea up in the car. You're welcome. (Totally would recommend the official MV too, it just doesn't have English subs)

Another day, another heckling. And this time it had to be on a public subway, apparently.

"All I'm saying is, if you're so rich, why do you have to conveniently forget your credit card every single time we all go out for lunch?" Edward narrowed his eyes at Ling.

"Why bring it when I don't expect to be going out to eat?" Ling said airily. "And you're always so generous when it happens unexpectedly."

Edward grunted. "That's an absolute load of bull and you know it. You can't say that you 'just forgot' to bring money because you 'didn't expect it' when I text the group chat 'Who wants to go out for lunch tomorrow?' and you say 'Ooh! Ooh! Me!'" he squealed in a poor imitation of his friend.

"Your girlfriend would love you for it, you know—paying for dates," Ling continued, ignoring Ed's accusations. He gasped. "Oh, that's right! You don't have a girlfriend! Perhaps if you weren't so quarrelsome, you could manage to win the heart of a lady."

"Who are you calling so puny that he's gonna die alone and have weeds all over his grave that no one will bother to pull?" Ed screeched.

Russell finally spoke up from his seat at the end of the row. "Ed, he didn't say anything about your height. He may be a cheapskate, but he didn't make a dig at your height. For once."

"Yeah, that's right! No fair changing the subject, Ling. This discussion was about how you're a little rich boy who always makes his friends pay for his own food," Ed huffed.

"Why quibble over such a minor expense? How expensive could a burger be? Twenty dollars?" The other two boys gaped at Ling, but he only kept going. "Besides, I'm far more interested in the current topic. Edward, you know I care for you deeply—"

"Fat chance."

"—but with your disposition, I doubt you could get a girlfriend if you tried!"

"Now, you wait just a second! You don't know squat about my love life! In fact, I could—"

Out of nowhere, a blonde girl knelt on the seat next to Ed's and slipped an arm around his shoulders.

"Hello, stranger." She winked. "Why didn't you tell me you were coming this way today? I know you're shy about our relationship, but you could have just told them, you know. You don't have to give into their teasing just for me, Eddie-boo."

All three boys gawked at her—Russell and Ling because of the fact that Ed actually had a girlfriend and Ed because of the fact that he didn't. Except now he had to pretend that this strange, hot blonde girl was his girlfriend.

So he choked. Then he recovered just enough to say, "Babe, no. I was just about to tell them. These pea-brains," he glared at them, "barely let me get a word in edgewise. Please believe me, babe."

"Of course I believe you, pretty boy." Her gaze made all coherent thoughts fly from his head. "But even if they are pea-brains, I should probably introduce myself." She tapped his nose. The buzzing feeling lingered long after the tip of her finger left it. "I'm Winry." She beamed at the other two boys. Ed's stomach twisted. He wasn't jealous, was he? He probably just ate something bad at lunch. Maybe Ling slipped something in his burger…

Ling grinned wickedly. "Lovely to meet you, Winry. How did you two meet? It must have been quite a job getting this one to agree to go out with you, what with his charming personality and all."

"Hm, how did we meet, babe? It all happened very gradually—knowing each other's faces, then knowing each other's names, then small talk here and there. Then before you know it, we were having deeper conversations as close friends, and then suddenly, we were dating! He's a real softie once you get him to open up," she said, ruffling his bangs.

"Winry!" He cleared his throat. "Babe, you don't have to tell them everything."

"Oh, man!" Russell guffawed, wiping away a tear. "This girl must have you whipped, Ed."

"Something like that," Ed muttered.

Suddenly, the train lurched and threw Winry forward, her arm around Ed's shoulders directing her course straight for his lap. They stared at each other in panic for a few moments. Then Winry laughed nervously. "Looks like I fell for you, huh, babe?"

Edward slapped his forehead. "Really? Fell for me? That's so terrible, I might break up with you just for that."

"Nah, you like me too much," Winry said, planting a kiss on his forehead.

Edward's face turned a violent shade of red. Pretty girl. Flirting. At him. Dream. It was a dream. Dreams don't have lips with that much detail. Can't look at friends. They'll laugh. Different topic. Periodic table. Periodic tables are simple. Hydrogen, helium, lithium, beryllium…

"Like I said," Russell smirked. "Whipped."

The subway car lurched again as the intercom announced their arrival at the stop, and Ed's arms flew to keep Winry from being thrown again. Just as quickly as he had held her close, he loosened his grip. For a moment, her eyes widened and a faint blush rose on her cheeks. She shifted on his lap.

"This is my stop. Nice meeting you guys!" Winry leaned in to whisper into Ed's ear. "I probably caused you more trouble than I solved. I'm so sorry." She offered him a half smile and slid off his lap.

His legs somehow felt bare without her weight, his arms cold without her warmth. How could he just let her walk away? But how could he just stalk a stranger? Fortunately, all intelligent thought had left him long ago.

"See you guys later! Better priorities have come up than messing around with you losers!"

Edward heard silence, then laughter behind him, but he kept his eyes forward as he followed Winry out into the station. Crap, what had he gotten himself into? He was such an idiot. His idiot mouth and his idiot legs had been faster than his idiot brain and he was about to be in big, big trouble with this really beautiful, really nice stranger. The doors closed behind them.

"Look, I'm really, really sorry. I don't know what got into me. I don't know why I went along with it. I don't just do this sort of thing, it just happened. If there's—" Winry cut Ed off.

"You went along with it because I started it. What were you supposed to do? If anything, it's my fault for putting you in an awkward position. It was gutsy and presumptuous and I should have just let your conversation happen. I don't exactly go around pretending to be random people's girlfriends either. Some weird gut reaction in me just...did it. I...I don't even know what to say for myself. I made you lie to your friends and now you're going to have to tell them that and...I'm. I'm so sorry." She raked her hand into her ponytail and avoided his gaze.

"Can we consider ourselves forgiven, then?"

She met his eyes with a slight laugh. "Yeah, I guess so."

"Good, so...um…are you actually single?" He sighed and mumbled, "man, I don't normally do this," and continued, "Because I'd love to take you out for real if you are." His pulse thundered through every blood vessel in his body while she opened and closed her mouth and blushed. It would be cute if his entire being wasn't vibrating waiting for her response.

"Y–yeah," she breathed.

"Gah," Ed rubbed the back of his neck. "Of course you're not single, why would you be? I mean, look at you—"

"No! No. I'm. I'm not single. I mean! I'm not in a—I don't have a boyfriend."

"Oh."

"I'd...I'd love to go out with you, Edward."

"Wow," he finally managed.

"What?" Winry smiled at him in confusion.

"I really scored big today and I don't even know how." He grinned crookedly. "Was something about my complete lack of competent speech attractive or something? Nobody just agrees to going on a date with a complete stranger. Your name is actually Winry, right?"

She laughed. "Yes, my name is actually Winry. I didn't really have a lot of time to come up with a fake name or anything. As for going out with a complete stranger… I don't know. I just know I can trust you. I figure, why not go for it? And, um. I wasn't entirely joking when I called you 'pretty boy.'" She bit her lip and smiled at her shoes.

Ed's mind blanked for what seemed the billionth time that day. "You're the—you're the pretty one!" he squawked.

"Well, then...if I'm the pretty one, can I be the one to ask you for your number?"

"What?" He wasn't sure whether he'd been shaken out of his mental fog or pushed further into it. "I mean, yes! Um, here it is." He fumbled with his phone and showed her his contact information.

"Thanks." She smiled with all the light the universe could give her. "I'll...see you soon then?"

"Are you busy right now?" Ed blurted out. "Or is taking you out to dinner too soon?"

"Oh! No, not at all. I'm kind of craving Chinese takeout, actually, if that's okay."

"Yeah. Yeah, it's totally okay. Just. One thing." Winry raised her eyebrows in accession. "Never call me 'Eddie-boo' again."

[bee-cried]

A better music post

I'll tag this one with music or sumn so it doesn't get lost in the plethora of tags I have.

The last time I tried to make a music post for my oc's everything was rushed and disorganized, but since today I'm in a writing mood, I'm going to try to make this post a lot more coherent.

I'm going to go down my playlist and pick a few songs to share (trying not to spoil my story in the process.) So, the earbuds are in and my hand's are ready.

Let's go!

Billy Joel, Vienna- Just re-added this song back to my playlist today, but when I heard it again I was like, 'oh my jeez. This song is to Dylan." Poor guy is always overworking himself as the leader of his team. Kid doesn't take the time to be a kid v_v

Stevie Wonder and Ariana Grande, Faith- Yeah... animated motion picture soundtrack music. This song is for teenage Lillian. It's her being a heart throb with Stevie wonder impressing the ladies. Lmao don't ask how she was able to be in a song with Stevie wonder. She's a well known hero so it's possible. Also, unimportant detail but I imagine her in one of those like groovy jumpsuits from Austin powers lmao. "Groovy Baby"

EARFQUAKE but only my voice, SQUALAY- I already explained that I imagine Justin singing this. The pitchiness of the main vocal is so much Justin to me lmao. In my head he's goofing off with his cousins, and they all just decided to come together to sing this one night. they were supposed to be chilling, but oh well I guess lol. It's one of those "the boys at midnight' things. Y'know... like that meme.

I feel like I should mention that Justins cousins are African American (His adopted parents Nicole and Derek are African American) so when things like this happen, it doesn't matter, everybody is just being goofy together.

Anything but Ordinary, Avril Lavigne- IS IT ENOUGH TO LOVE, IS IT ENOUGH TO BREATH Yeah, I know I had this as a song I imagined with the blues during a blues daydream, but I also imagine either young Savannah or young Lillian singing this at a karaoke (more Lillian because she's more 'randumz quirky') And they are leading a crowd in the song. Yay <3 (The ending with the back vocals is just tooooo perfect.)

Back Door, STRAY KIDS- Hey! It's Kpop. Hello, kpop. I listen to so much kpop because it's the perfect montage/dance music. This is a montage of the girls being really cool. They are badass. This is more for Jenna though. She is verr badass. Perfect song for her fighting ego.

ANY SONG, ZICO- Justin because it's his vibe when he is a teenager. More laid back. Hey, I should really listen to the lyrics of this song because I have no idea what this song is about, but in my head, I imagine Justin is working in a restaurant and he's singing about trying to impress this girl he sees there but his boss is like 'Nah back to work kiddo.' So there is a lot of silliness of him trying to impress mystery girl despite his current situation.

Only problem is it doesn't sound vocally like Tennage justin :(

Can I Have This Dance, High School Musical 3- HELLO CHILDHOOD MOVIE. oh my gosh I was so in love with high school musical and Hannah Montana as a kid lmao. Anyway, I imagine this being a song soft, teenage Lillian is singing to Lyle because Lyle wants to dance with her after finding out she is the lead in the school musical and has to kiss another guy. Lyle isn't singing the male part though because to him well, 'singing is gay.' I dunno. It's too feminine to him. It's like dude, you're out here doing an entire waltz in the summer rain with a chick. How straight do things need to get. ((2024 Bee here to say, no... Lillian would totally not fuck with some insecure homophobic Goomba head, street puddle lapping broke bitch who says some weird incel shit like "I don't sing, that's gay!" Atleast not Lillian today. Sorry about that. I hadn't agreed with Lyles take whilst making this post at the time, but I wanted to showcase the complexities of morally gray characters, which lyle is. Didnt really pull it off. 🚩🚩🚩))

How's it Going to Be, Third Eye Blind- This is not canon to my story at all. In the past weeks, I have been daydreaming a lot about Loomer AKA the ship that can never happen. I'll explain this in another post but that part where 'I wanna get myself back in again' is when Lillian and Boomer kiss.

i Just-

🏃‍♀️💨 sORRY

Permission to Dance, BTS- I don't care how mainstream this song is, this is perfect music for the people of Turmoil to put together video clips of their heroes being wholesome and saying thank you collectively. It will play on every Billboard and Television. The world will know how much Turmoil appreciates its heroes.

Everybody Dies, Billie Eilish- Is this spoiling? Teenage Bella and Jenna get your sad asses outta here.

Industry Baby, Lil Nas X and Jack Harlow- Bella. Bella. Bella. Bella. BELLA-

Everybody Loves Me, One Republic- This song is dedicated to Justin, Manny, and Collin. I imagine it as an animation meme so it's very colorful and artistic (?). But yes Turmoil loves their skater boy, Sweetie pie and Goofball nerd.

DO or NOT, PENTAGON- Yay! More kpop! But I made a bit of an animatic on my youtube that uses this song >https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vki0koOR8Y4 IT'S AN AU. And yes that is Lillian and Dylan. I will talk about the AU I was working on one day, but it was extremely bubbly and magical. Magical school girl shenanigans yee haw.

***SKIPPING RAPIDSONGS EDITS/REMIXES I MAY OR MAY NOT COME BACK LATER TO EXPLAIN***

AFTER SCHOOL, WEEKLY- Okay. I love this song. It's so happy and bouncy so naturally, I would imagine a montage of the girls getting into adventurous mischief together that's cut way too perfectly in beat to the music. It sort of play's like a sitcom intro that's running too long in my head lol.

Shake it Off Mariah Carey- "I GOTTA CHICKEN ROOOOLL". My mom likes to remind my siblings and I that when we were younger we used to sing 'I gotta chicken roll' so one day I was listening to the song and I was like 'man it would be hilarious if the team sung this for fun as a group.' So yeah. It's Lillian leading the group as they sing Shake it off and man Lillian know's how to hit those high notes, she should invest in that.

But I imagine this scene with them being 12, the only people who aren't really all that invested are obviously Jenna and Dylan, but then a part of my brain was like 'EFF THAT. THIS IS A FAMILY THING, AND YOU'RE GONNA PARTICIPATE DAMMIT.' So Dylan is also goofy on a good day and Jenna...

she a tough cookie just give her time guys.

***

So there, 15 songs from my playlist. That was a lot easier than the other post I made :D

Hey, y'know you're really blessed when you can take a day off of work to do stuff like this. In actuality, my mom just came home from the hospital and I was not able to sleep at all before going off to work. Obviously I don't mind. But money is money o-o

[ma-gic-gay]

This is bad.

Boss and second best friend is presumed dead and I just had sex with his wife who happens to be my best friend bad. In his bed. In his house. Pretty sure I need to go and repent at a church when I'm not even religious bad.

Oh right, that's what happened. Minus the going to a church and confessing his sins to a priest part. That's probably what he should do, but he doubts he'll actually go through with that. A priest would probably somehow get to Sam or worse, end up knowing where Sonny is and been harboring him all this time. As far as he knows, you can't really have a priest not tell your secrets.

He's fucked. Scratch that, they're fucked.

Wrong choice of expression there. Very wrong. Ironic, but severely wrong expression.

What the hell is he supposed to do from here? What are they supposed to do from here? Go and confess their sins to a pastor? Too long and they'd probably end up in jail if that happened. Pretend it never happened? He knows that's not going to happen. There's going to be a long, drawn out conversation about it. Move to different continents and never speak to each other again? Too extreme, not to mention unlikely. Something would happen and they'd both be pulled back to town or to whatever continent they were on to post bail or something. Besides, they'd been friends forever. They could never not be in each other's lives. It was impossible.

Oh god. They're friends. No benefits. The last time there had been benefits attached, they had hated each other. Not in a typical "I hate you bitch" way, but in a "it doesn't matter if I never see you again. In fact, my life would be better if I didn't" way.

Needless to say they were not going back to those days. It would be impossible now; both had intertwined lives. Their kids were close and both were close to each other's kids. Extra parents, if you will. Not to mention, they both knew way too much about each other.

Irony is a cruel mistress, he thinks, thinking back to when they didn't even know each other's names. Those were the days of Robin and picking up random girls in bars before he learned his lesson about the girls he picked for his hookups carefully because if he didn't, there was a chance he'd end up with his entire life turned into a tornado of blonde hair and getting her out of trouble.

The quiet snoring at his side suddenly came to a stop, a telltale sign she's woken up or close to it.

Suddenly, he's all too aware of what happened last night between the two and what's going on now. They'd had sex (protected, at least they were stable enough to remember that) in the house Sonny bought, in his bed. The kids were at their friends houses, or in the case of Avery at her mother's. So at least the kids hadn't heard them.

Flashforward what he imagines can't be more than twelve hours and now they're in Sonny's bed, naked and both awake or waking up. The kids wouldn't suspect anything, provided none of his clothes besides his jacket were downstairs. He'd spent the night in general plenty of times and that had increased in this year.

Granted, their impulse control last night was to be questioned given that this had happened.

"Jason? What are you doing here?" Carly asks tiredly, still wiping the sleep out of her eyes. "And where the hell is your shirt? Or mine, for that matter- oh god."

She remembers. Dammit. This is both a good and a bad thing.

Good in the thing that he's now confirmed that they were sober, bad that now they've got decisions to make and neither of them make the best decisions when it's early in the morning and they're uncaffeinated.

"We need to talk about this, but first, coffee. Where the hell are our clothes? Please tell me we didn't leave them downstairs," she groans.

They find their clothes quickly enough and get dressed slightly awkwardly before heading downstairs to brew coffee.

The moss bowl that seems to continually grow, to the point that Jason was gifted some moss to go in his apartment as a housewarming gift from Carly, seems extra interesting this morning as he studies it intensely. That is one big moss plant. Over the course of a year, it got much larger than expected.

"Alright, we are not going to stand here in this awkward silence. We are going to discuss what happened last night and then figure out what the hell is means," she decides, handing him a mug of coffee.

"What is there to discuss? We had sex," he answers her simply after taking a sip of coffee.

"That's the exact thing we have to discuss."

"We're both very aware of how that works, Carly. Would you like me to pull up a diagram online and explain it?" Jason teases her.

"No smartass, I want to discuss the sex."

"Oh god," he groans into his coffee. "It's not even ten am and you've already decided that this is the big fight of the day for you. Couldn't this wait until, I don't know, Scout graduates college?"

"Jason," she warns, "humor me and discuss last night. I promise that this conversation will end sooner if you just agree to actually have it sooner."

"It'll end ten minutes before my funeral as opposed to at my funeral, then," he jokes.

"Do you want me to think about your death?"

"Alright fine I give in, we'll talk about it."

"See? That wasn't so hard, was it?" She asks triumphantly.

"You are lucky I don't have anything else to do today besides paperwork I can have someone else do," he answers.

There's not enough coffee in the world to stop the headache he can feel she's going to bring to him today. It's a sixth sense by now, that she'll be giving him a headache that won't be fixed until the problem is solved.

In a weird way, it's a relief know that she does that. It's comforting in the strangest way.

Neither of them claimed to ever understand why it's calming.

"I know," she says, a smirk on her face. "Now, to the discussion about last night. We did it."

"We have already confirmed that information, yes," he agrees.

"It was good."

"Yeah."

"We're friends."

"Correct."

"I need more than one word answers!"

"We're reviewing information we both already agreed on and these aren't questions."

Sighing, Carly dramatically sips her coffee, getting a quiet chuckle out of her friend. "I still would appreciate an answer that wasn't a synonym of yes. Maybe one that's, I don't know, five or more words."

"Then ask me a question."

"Fine. Where do you want to go from here? Do we stay friends or be more or be friends with benefits or something else I haven't thought of yet?" The blonde rambles, caffeine kicking in.

"You're rambling."

"I'm aware."

"Just checking."

"Answer the question!"

"Calm down," he urges. "I don't know where to go from here."

"You're always the one who knows what to do in situations like these, not me!"

"Yes, I always come up with a plan of what to do when you and I hook up a day after Christmas. Because we've been in this situation loads of times before," he chuckle sarcastically.

"I meant when I do something impulsive, or you do something impulsive smartass," Carly glares at him playfully.

"Ah yes, my life's sole purpose: Stopping you from doing stupid things. And when that fails, getting you out of trouble," he jokes again. "I don't know what to do, for once. We may have a major problem on our hands."

"May have? Jason, if you can't figure out what to do from here, I think we're in major trouble! I haven't made a major life decision without a severe amount of your input in a very long time," the blonde exclaims, downing the last of her coffee like it'll help her make a decision of what to do here.

"That probably says something about you being codependent on me."

"You love me running into your apartment with your problems."

"Sometimes. Other times, your problems and plans are so stupid I don't understand them but somehow they hinge on me going along with them."

"Well of course they hinge on you going along with them? You're my best friend, if they didn't I'm convinced that our friendship would simply never recover from it. We'd live our lives without a single hope of ever getting back to this because you didn't go along with my plan," she says dramatically, smiling. "And that would be the worst thing to ever happen to either of us."

"Mhm," he says, rolling his eyes but a small smile pulls at his lips. "I believe you decided that we needed to figure this out."

"Well we do!"

"So far you've only stated the facts of what happened and some of the options of what to do. You're the one who decided we have to figure out exactly what this means before I'm even fully coherent."

"Drink your coffee faster."

"Solid advice coming from a woman who's already formed three plans before her first cup of coffee."

"You're right, there are about seventeen different possibilities in my mind at the moment based off of what decision we come to," she smiles at him. "Would you like to hear them?"

"Do I have a choice?"

"No."

"Then let's get it over with," he sighs, sipping his coffee in an attempt to not deal with a massive headache.

"First scenario is that we pretend this never happened and stay exactly the same. No awkwardness, last night is essentially wiped from our memories. Solid option, but it's impossible. Second is friends with benefits but we don't catch feelings. Again, solid option with no to minimal awkwardness, but I have a feeling we both know it won't end up happening, especially with me. Third is friends with benefits but we do catch feelings. Could end in repressing feelings or could end with us dating. Either way, ends up being fairly complicated. Fourth is that we begin dating. This one has equal pros and cons, primarily that if that ends up going south we won't have our friendship being the same and that would be the worst but that if it goes well, marriage. No more kids though, I think we've got enough of those.

"Fifth is we both move away and never see each other again. Not happening. We both would end up arrested. Or killed," Carly shudders at the thought, "Sixth option is that you go back to Sam and I begin the rather depressing at this age journey of dating. Seventh is that we acknowledge last night but continue as friends. Can't decide the pros and cons of that one."

"I haven't even finished my coffee yet and you're already planning seven different ideas for your future?" Jason asks, impressed and terrified at the same time. "Good god."

"Well now you have seven options to choose from. No pressure but if you choose five, I will never forgive you."

"Five is automatically out of the story, don't worry about that."

"In that case, you have six options to choose from."

"Why can't you choose?"

"Because I'm incapable of making a decision of this caliber on my own."

"But I'm not?"

"Fine, we'll make this decision together. After all, it affects us both." Carly agrees against her better judgement. "We should make a list."

"A list?" He groans. "This sounds dangerously close to a plan."

"It's not a plan, though. That's the beauty of it, we make a pros and cons list. From there, we make our decision."

"Most people would flip a coin."

"That's a terrible way to make a decision."

"Not really but fine, we'll make a list."

"I knew you'd give in."

To be continued when I'm not half asleep

oh dear-