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gamebunny-advance · 7 months

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Let's Just Rip Off This Band-Aid (Kliff Doll Repaint)

I still haven't finished adding the fringe to his scarf, but at this point, I don't think y'all will actually care that much. It's a personal project anyway, so I'll just finish it on my own time. Right now, I want to be released from the shackles of this project.

Once again, my poor camera and lack of editing do him no favors (he's got a real bad case of jaundice in that first pic. I PROMISE he's not that yellow-orange IRL ;o;), but he is (mostly) done.

Well, he was (mostly) done like a week ago, but just yesterday I decided to redo a few things to try and "fix" what was really bothering me about him, so I really made recursive progress. That said, I do like him more now than I did a week ago, so I'm not mad about it.

A little backstory: Alongside Kun3h0, I've been working on him for the past month, so I've been pretty occupied with this project for a while. Now, I do wonder to myself why exactly I thought making this would be a good idea. All I can really say is that my impulsive tendencies drive me to do things against my better judgement.

But, I will still give y'all my documentation and thoughts on the process + more pictures.

(I'll talk a little more about it later, but for those of you that aren't going to go through the long-ass readmore, the Neon J. mask is a reference to an old comic I drew.)

(It's so old, I was still writing everything by hand~)

So, the "real" answer to "why" I made this is really as simple as "because I could." As I said in the Kun3h0 post, I've been wanting to repaint dolls for a long time, years even, so in the back of my mind, I'm always thinking of ways I could finally start one.

Well, recently I just finally put together the ideas and motivation I needed to start. And of course, that was with Kliff.

I don't remember *exactly* how I stumbled across everything, but I do recall looking at doll clothes online and stumbling across this trench coat (pictured with the other clothes for this project).

(I took this pic mostly because I thought I was going to take pics of every major step of the process, but that didn't end up happening).

I thought it was pretty darn close to Kliff's coat, and I got the horrible idea that, "I could def make a Kliff doll to go with this coat as long as I can repaint it."

I feel like usually people would think the other way around, but that is basically the truth of this project: I didn't find clothes to fit the doll, I made the doll to fit into the clothes. Because for me, customizing the doll wasn't really the intimidating part: it's making the clothes. I don't know how to use a sewing machine, and currently lack the patience to learn (and due to some personal trauma that I don't really want to get into), but I can hand-sew, so starting any project that involves it requires me to be willing to set aside a lot of energy for me to do it, which I don't often have.

But, if I could find ways to cut down on the sewing, then I'd be more willing to start. And somehow, I was able to find just about everything I would need for a potential Kliff doll without having to sew anything. In the end, I only sewed together one thing, and it's the one thing that isn't actually finished: the scarf.

So, I blame the trench coat for the entirety of this project: if I'd never seen it, I would have never made a Kliff doll. In fact, I got the clothes before I even had the doll.

Since I was brainstorming this project, one of the most important parts is of course the base doll, which was tricky. Male doll repaints are fairly uncommon, especially of older men, so there weren't a lot of resources or places to get inspiration for this project.

From what I found, most male (fashion) dolls were very youthful, and the ones that weren't usually took heavy modifications to achieve, which was out of the question. Kliff was supposed to be an "easy" project, so on top of not wanting to sew any clothes for him, I also didn't want to have to alter the doll that much to make it look like him. This was a lot to ask for without putting in any personal work, but in a way, this goal was supposed to keep me from actually starting this project: really this whole thing was supposed to just live in my head as a fantasy as most things do, but then I just stumbled into the right set of things, so I couldn't stop myself from going through with it.

The doll I landed on was a BTS Mattel doll. Now I've said before that I know basically nothing about BTS, and that is still true, but that's beside the point. In my research for finding a suitable doll to work with, I found out that a popular base were these BTS dolls. At first, I wasn't into it because I was still running into the "youthful face" problem that I was with other brands: most of them had pillowy lips and nice soft faces, but I did eventually find one that I thought was close enough: J-Hope.

(It's not the worst match up.)

I don't have pics of my doll before I started working on him, but it was pretty close to the stock photo. He has much thinner lips than the others, and a taller, more angular head shape that I thought would work best for Kliff. I did worry a bit that the nose wasn't "strong" enough to really be Kliff (and IMO, it wasn't XP), but it was the closest I found yet, so I decided to bite the bullet and get one, and if I had one, that meant I needed to start gathering everything I would need for this project.

So, no backing out now.

Now, actually acquiring this doll was a whole other song and dance, but here's the part that's important for how the process went:

Due to a miscommunication with the seller I eventually got him from, there was a delay with shipping, so I didn't actually get him until weeks after "officially" starting this project. In the meantime, the clothes and things for Kun3h0 (who I started as an impulse project within the impulse project) had already been gathered.

The original plan was that I was going to work on and subsequently post about Kliff first since he was a comparatively simpler project. All the things I was avoiding for Kliff: sewing clothes and making modifications to the doll, were all going to be incorporated into Kun3h0, so she was theorhetically going to take longer and be posted later, thus telling a small story of "starting simple, ending complex." But since I didn't have his doll, but didn't want to delay working on Kun3h0 just to wait on him, I started on her and repainting his clothes anyway.

So, I don't have any pics of the doll or his clothes from when I was working on them, unlike the sparse ones I had for Kun3h0, I only have pics from after he was finished.

But I'll still tell y'all what I can to at least preserve the story.

For starters, repainting this coat was probably the most time-consuming part of this process.

I really thought that it would take one or two days maximum to turn this coat bright yellow, but I think it actually took over a week. And I really should have known; the coat was a medium tone, and I know that yellow takes a while to build up on anything that isn't light. I lost count at some point, but I swear that thing has over 20 coats of paint on it. Mind you, the first 10 or so coats were watered down with the textile medium, which also contributed to how long it was taking for the coat to take color, but at some point I just got so frustrated that I stopped mixing in the medium and painting directly onto the coat to get the color to layer faster. This is a huge no-no for painting acrylics onto fabric, lest the paint crack from creasing the fabric, but I just couldn't be bothered anymore. I needed this thing to be dandelion yellow NOW or I was gonna lose it.

There were consequences for taking that shortcut, such as the paint cracking in high motion areas and the coat getting stiff, but it's not terrible. In the end, I accepted the trade-offs or else I might still be painting the coat. Perhaps one day I'll reverse engineer the pattern for the coat and make him a new one, but I wouldn't count on it. In retrospect, I wonder if I would have had an easier time if I had thought to bleach the coat first?

As you might notice, I contoured/shaded part of the coat in orange. That's something that I actually *just* added yesterday and added another couple of hours to the work time. It was just bothering me that the doll was essentially a giant slab of yellow, and was part of the reason I didn't like it very much. But I got inspired by this repaint to try contouring the coat to give it more depth.

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(I also used this person's videos to modify the hands. He has one deidcated to just reshaping the BTS hands.)

In the end, I'm pretty happy with the results.

The rest of the clothes weren't as difficult to deal with.

The pants took the paint a lot better, likely due to being dark paint on a light surface. Since I used less paint, it's not as stiff as the coat and still go on very easily. Though, they are VERY high waisted, and I'm not sure if that's normal XP

The shoes are also painted (and slightly modified), though I had to paint them twice because the first time, the paint got stretched off when I tried to put them on the doll's feet: the shoes were just *slightly* too small for the feet of the doll, so they really get stretched to fit his feet, and his heels don't actually go in all the way XP.

He's still capable of standing on his own, but I try not to remove the shoes, so I can avoid having them crack again.

In my "initial clothes" pic, I put down a different shirt than the one he's wearing. The original plan was to repaint the shirt black, but my work space is very limited, so I couldn't really repaint three pieces of clothes at once without significantly risking that I would stain other things. In the end, after getting scarred by how long it was taking for the coat to take color, I decided to just give him one of the black shirts that came with the coat. This does make him somewhat inaccurate since the current shirt has flowers/plants on it, but I'm gonna say that they make up for the lack of flowers on his scarf. Maybe someday I'll make him a new shirt from an old sock or something, but for now, I don't think it's a bad look.

Other clothing of note is the scarf, but since it's not technically finished I didn't take any close pics of it. It's actually made of an old headband of mine that I just cut and painted to look like his scarf.

Originally, I had actually glued on ribbon to it for the stripes, which took a couple days for the drying, but because I couldn't flatten out the scarf to easily glue the ribbon, it turned into a mess and bulked it out too much: since the scale of the doll is already small, I really needed to keep the fabrics thin. This was especially important for the scarf since it was going to wrap around his neck: if it were any thicker, it was going to practically eat up his face, which it still does, just less so.

Speaking of face...

When I finally got the doll in the mail, I started working on him right away, so I don't have any "before" pics of the doll.

After I did the usual "wiping off the face and pulling out his hair," I started with repainting the entire body and head.

Despite Kliff being ambigously "WHITE 🫵," Kliff isn't as pale as the original doll. I'd say even the stock picture I posted above has more warmth than the actual doll did. So, I got the base to be "coral" all over, dusted him in light orange chalk pastels for contouring, and most of his details are outlined in shades of burgandy. I didn't take any nude pics of this doll, but he is countoured all over his body and you can rest easy knowing I gave him some nips XP. But maybe someday I'll show y'all doll!Kliff's washboard abs XP.

TBH, I did want to detail some tattoos and some body hair too, but I just didn't trust myself to do either of those well with the tools I have (my brushes aren't thin enough, and my hand not steady enough for those kind of intricate details). Maybe someday I'll at least get his tattoos in (and after I've actually designed them XP), but we'll see. I don't plan on having the doll in short sleeved clothes very often, so details like that are the least of my concerns.

TBH, I was pretty proud of how the face paint originally went on. I really took my time to make sure it went down flat. It really was beautifully smooth~

But disaster struck.

I had painted the head while it was still separated from the body, and when it finally came time to reunite them, the paint on the head cracked and peeled when I shoved it back on. And, foolish fool that I am, instead of accepting my losses and starting over from a perfectly clean head, I just peeled the lose ends and repainted the exposed parts, which of course made the paint uneven. I somewhat justified this with the idea that most of it would be covered by other details, but in retrospect, I really should have just started over properly.

But, after that ordeal was over with, it was time to actually work on the face.

I can't clearly remember if I worked on Kun3h0 or Kliff's face first. I think I worked on them simultaneously because it took me a LONG time to actually get the courage to work on Kun3h0's face.

I thought I did a decent job on Kun3h0 since I really only had the 1 eye to repaint (the hidden eye is painted, but it's basically just a void with no details), and it was a bigger "canvas", so it was easier to paint. Besides having 2 eyes that I would need to make nearly identical, they were also a lot smaller, so it took a lot longer to paint them in a way that satisfied me (and since it's not easy to "redo" acrylic paint, his eyes lost a lot of smoothness too).

Again, I don't have any "before" pics, so it won't be easy for me to convey my troubles about it, but I do want to say that I think Kliff with a closed mouth is very cursed.

He just looks like he's itching to say something heinous and that is no different for the doll.

It was so difficult for me both match his expression on a face that wasn't *completely* his and still look like him. Although I chose this doll because he most resembled Kliff, he was never gonna be a perfect likeness of him, but despite knowing this, it still bothered me that the face was still just very "young" looking.

Granted, I don't think the original Kliff looks *that* old either (if I didn't know any better, I would assume he was in his 30s, not his 50s, especially compared to other characters around the same age), but still not as *smooth* as the doll is (even with my paint mishaps).

If you can believe it, the face actually used be worse. I don't have pics of it, but like the coat, I actually repainted his face yesterday to again try and fix what was making me dislike it before. I think the problem is that I didn't outline the eyes as much as the final one (like, I don't think I lined his undereye at all), so he was lacking depth. The mouth was also a little more off. Instead of being like "<--->" it was more like "|-|"

(A rough illustration of what I'm trying to describe.)

So, while it's still not perfect, I do like him more today than I did a week ago.

I think the only things left to talk about are his accessories, starting with his wig:

I'm not actually a big fan of the color. When I started this project, I wanted to try and make him as accurate as possible, and the original Kliff design has a very "cherry jolly rancher" hair color.

However, how I draw him and how he appears in Encore Edition gives his hair a more red-orange tone which isn't as intense. In the end, I opted for accuracy towards his first design since that's the one I was technically most familiar with and wanted to replicate, but in retrospect, I should have realized that I was never gonna be able to seperate my personal quirks from this personal project, so I should have gone with a color that was more accurate to how I interpret him. (I dunno if I would have gone as far as to give him triangular eyes, but one of my biggest takeaways from this project has been that I should have just allowed this to be "my take" on the character instead of trying to be "accurate," meeting in the middle, and satisfying neither condition.)

I don't think I really got across how much I HATED brushing out yarn for the wigs when I posted Kun3h0. It was just such a tedidus process, from brushing it out, to straightening it, to gluing it down. It was such a mess. I'm still finding loose wisps of yarn hair floating around my home since I made them.

Since I had more than had my fill from making Kun3h0's wig, I once again started taking shortcuts when it came to Kliff: I really should have made more wefts for him. I figured since his hair was (compartively) shorter, that I wouldn't need to make as many, but in the end his wig turned out both too thin and too thick.

Since his hair is so messy, I didn't follow any kind of guide for his hair like I did Kun3h0. I basically just glued around the perimeter of the cap, horizontally on the inside, and made sure it would fold over in the front.

Part of the problem is that I made the wefts too thick: instead of just gluing down what could actually touch the surface of the work area, I wound up gluing layers on top of each other, so the wefts would be like a mm thick when they should have been less than half of that. So, I barely got enough coverage for the scalp, and the parts that I did get down are very thick. I think it makes his head look bigger than it should which kinda adds to the uncanniness of him.

I did try to style it as close to canon as possible, but there are some things that just aren't (easily) possible in certain mediums, and Kliff's wild hair is one of them.

In retrospect, I probably should have just sculpted his hair with clay or something: it probably would have been more accurate, but I don't have much confidence in my sculpting ability, and again, I didn't want to modify the doll that much, so I stuck with the yarn.

I might suck it up and try and make him a new wig, I still have a LOT of red yarn left over, so maybe I can make him some new styles too. But the tedium of going through with it makes it very unlikely that I'll follow through~

(The wig from other angles.)

Since the beard is made from the same yarn, I'll lightly talk about that. There aren't too many resources about bearded dolls, but I've seen people root it, glue it, and even just paint it if they weren't supposed to be thick. In the end I used this repaint for reference (suggestive content warning) and glued it on.

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The scarf covers most of it, but I think it turned out okay. I need to add just a *little* more to his left cheek, but otherwise I feel like I was successful.

Next, it's usually hidden due to all the crap that's on his head, but I did give him an earring.

I didn't think about it until way too late in the process, and I tried to poke a hole through his ear so he could actually wear it. However, when I tried to do so, I almost ruined his head paint a second time. Saying, "fuck that," I decided to just glue it on.

If I had been more brave with modifying this doll, I might have just resculpted his ears entirely, because, being based on a real life human being, the doll's ears don't flare out that much, so they're easily covered by other things.

His glasses are just a piece of painted plastic that hold to his face using some plastic cord. They fit well while his wig is off, but putting them on with everything else is a goddamn nightmare.

Since his ears are so small, and his hair is so short, there's nothing for the glasses to "grab" onto without the cord, but the cord is too short to fit around the wig once it's on, but I can't make the cord longer to sit over the wig, because the glasses need to go over the headband, and it's a pain in the ass trying to layer everything like that.

So, I have to put the glasses in place first, TAPE the cord to his scalp so they don't move, put on the wig, then put on the headband. It's really such a hassle, but I don't think I can truly convey the annoyance of having to do it all without showing you. So, unless I absolutely have to, I'm never taking any of those things off him again.

I think the last things are the headband, mask, and tablet.

The headband is just a spare scrunchy that I have. I don't have one in the *exact* same color as the real one, so I went with the closest one I had, which was this teal color.

I didn't feel comfortable repainting one since it's essentially an elastic band, I don't think the paint, even with the textitle medium, would be able to hold up to all the stretching I have to do to even get it on his head.

If I happen to find a white one somewhere in my stash, then I might try dyeing it using water and acrylic paints to see if I can get it green, but for now, I think this works. A little thick, but it works.

The tablet is just a piece of foam painted with paint markers and the mask is a piece of cardboard. I wasn't planning on really recreating any scenes with this doll, but since I remembered that comic, and thought it would be easy enough to make, I went ahead and made it as an in-joke to myself.

Honestly, I think it's the most charming piece of the entire ensemble. Plus, he can wear it without me having undo/redo any of his other head accessories, so it's easy to make him wear it whenever.

My final comments about the doll itself are that he's fucking huge. I should have taken a pic of him next to Kun3h0, but he is too tall to even fit on my display shelf without sitting.

(Please ignore any mess you might see in the reflection. This is just one of the only flat pieces of furniture he can stand on without me standing on something to take a pic.)

Despite my interests, I don't actually collect dolls (I'm more into figures and plushies), so I wasn't expecting him to be so big. In fact, Kun3h0, who would be considered a small to medium doll in collector's spaces, was also bigger than I thought she'd be, so you can imagine my surprise when I got my hands on him.

So... I don't really know where I can put him. He obviously can't live in front of my TV, but beyond being too big for my shelf, he also doesn't fit in with any of my other collectibles. And I'll be honest, the contrast of him "clearly not belonging" among my more "kawaii" items was a motivator in starting this project, I live for the gap moe after all, but in practice he really just sticks out like a sore thumb. (This is also why his first pics are in a slightly different location without many props. I just couldn't put together anything from my collection or find a spot among my things to take a good thematic pic with. The magazines/CDs he's with are from my dad's collection.)

I do have space at higher elevations in my room, but it's kinda off putting to have him staring down my room, looking like he's plotting something (my space is too small to ignore it). So I dunno what I'm gonna do with him. I did have plans to make him some... cuter outfits so he wouldn't stick out as much, but that requires sewing, and I'm kinda worn out from this project.

In conclusion, despite my troubles with this project, I'm not entirely displeased with the results. At the very least, it was an experience, and one that I might even be willing to do a third time 👀...?

But for now, I'd like to rest and maybe go back to drawing again. I feel like I haven't drawn anything "real" for a while now. We're inching closer and closer to the next follower milestone (4 digit number BA-BY!), so I'd like to at least get back to being good enough to sketch some stuff for y'all soon~

#gbunny makes #gbunny draws #custom doll #doll custom #doll repaint #kliff #nsr #no straight roads #for the record i do find this project thoroughly embarrassing for me #but i can't justify its existence without sharing it. so here it is.#like. i wish i could have been obsessed with somebody else.#anybody else.#well. someone who's socially acceptable to obsess over i guess #but i'm not. i'm obsessed with him so i'm going to make things of him #and they're gonna make me happy #despite the embarrassment #Youtube

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photogirl894 · 2 months

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"Sun and Rain Part 2: Age of the Empire"

Chapter 37

"Recovering a Reg"

A "Bad Batch" fanfic!

Pairing: Hunter x fem OC, Echo (more best friend pairing)

A/N: Hello again, my dear readers!! I thought I was gonna have this done over the weekend, but things ended up getting busy, so it got pushed back! But a new chapter is here now and we are heading for Daro!! 😁 We're almost through season 1, guys! Just a couple more episodes and a few extra chapters afterwards to go!

Hope you all like this one!

Edit: there are parts of this chapter that were inspired by two comics drawn for my story by @theknightofivanhoe ! 😊 You can see them here and here!

Taglist: @the-sad-batch , @nimata-beroya , @intrepidmare , @legolkenxbi , @tech-aficionado ,

@ladykatakuri , @d1n0-dan , @sammi9498 , @darthzero22 , @scarlettrose9901 ,

@thebadbatchscyare , @chxpsi , @ilikemymendarkandfictional , @4pplecider , @locitapurplepink ,

@l-lend , @nekotaetae , @eternalwaffle , @merkitty49 , @avathebestx ,

@idoubleswearimawriter , @techs-stitches , @fantasyproductions , @totallyunidentified , @dreamsandrosies

《 Chapter 36

》 Chapter 38

All chapters (Part 2) (Part 1)

Explanation: The Batch get a call from Rex, asking for help breaking out an old friend, so Hunter, Kimber, Tech and Echo undertake the rescue mission.

Kimber found herself once again in awe of the sight before her. Even though she had seen it several times before, she still couldn't help but be entranced every time she beheld it. Her heart began to race and her breath caught in her chest. She was mesmerized and felt as though she could watch it forever. The rest of the world around her faded away, her mind and eyes were singularly focused ahead of her, wanting nothing but to reach out and grasp her heart's desire….

“Haven't I told you it isn't polite to stare, sweetheart?”

She blinked and reality set back in as Hunter caught her watching him, having briefly ceased flourishing his vibroblade between his fingers. The heat in her cheeks rose immediately and she was certain her face was turning red. In the moment, she also realized that Omega was trying to copy him with her welding pick that she was using to try and fix Gonky.

“Sorry…got carried away,” Kimber apologized sheepishly, tucking a stray lock of hair behind her ear.

When she looked back, Hunter was smirking mischievously at her and he resumed twirling his blade around while still keeping his eyes on her. “No, I think you knew exactly what you were doing,” he said back, his voice low and gravelly. “You love when I do this.”

Now shy at being put on the spot, she turned to walk away, attempting to hide her ever-reddening face, but suddenly, she heard the knife being sheathed and then felt Hunter’s hand grab her wrist and pull. She found herself stumbling back across his lap, his arms trapping her.

Leaning down close to her face and nuzzling her nose, he teased her, “I’m not letting you get away so easily, my love.”

“Hunter!” she cried through a giggle before she was silenced by his lips kissing hers. She gently pushed him away and whispered in urgency, “Not in front of Omega, darling.”

“Omega, go up to your room,” Hunter ordered the young Clone.

Omega replied, not even facing them, “I’m fixing Gonky. Don’t mind me.”

Before Kimber could protest a second time, Hunter cupped her face and kissed her again, pulling her closer into him. She couldn’t help but chuckle into the kiss at his adamancy for affection.

She broke away to say to him, “You’re incorrigible.”

“Isn’t that why you love me?” he asked back.

“Among other things,” she said, tracing his cheek with her hand.

Just then, they heard Echo call out from the front of the ship, “We’re being hailed. It’s…Rex.”

Hunter sighed aloud. “Of course,” he grumbled. It seemed any sort of moment he could steal with his beloved was always being interrupted one way or another.

“We’ll have time later,” she reassured him, patting his cheek and stealing a quick peck on the lips before pushing herself off of his lap and back onto her feet.

Kimber, Hunter and Omega moved into the cockpit from the back area of the ship just in time to see Rex’s holographic image appear. He had the hood of his poncho pulled over his head, which made his eyes barely visible.

“Hello, boys,” he greeted them. “Sorry to cut right to it, but I could use your help.”

“What do you need, Captain?” Hunter asked him.

Rex looked around cautiously, answering, “I received a distress signal from a Clone trooper, but I’m a bit tied up at the moment to retrieve him.”

“You want us to recover a reg?” was Hunter's next question, which earned him a curious look from Kimber.

“He's an old friend and he's in trouble. I need you to get him out,” said Rex.

“Out of what exactly?” asked Hunter.

“Why are you asking so many questions?” Kimber then questioned him, confused as to why Hunter seemed so cautious over this.

They heard beeping on Rex's side of the transmission and he hurriedly tapped a couple buttons on his wrist, stating in a hushed voice, “Can't talk right now. Sending you his signal. I'll be in touch.” Then the transmission was abruptly cut off and Rex's hologram disappeared.

Kimber noticed Echo looked worried upon seeing Rex suddenly vanish, so she went and stood by his chair and laid a hand on his shoulder.

“What was that about?” asked Wrecker.

Looking at the screen in front of him, having received the information from Rex, Tech informed the rest of them, “The distress signal sent by CC-5576 is originating from Daro, a terrestrial planet in the Outer Rim with no known settlements or installations.”

“What's he doing all the way out there?” Hunter questioned.

“Well, does it matter?” Echo asked back.

“I'm with Echo,” Kimber agreed. “It shouldn't matter where he is. We need to help him.”

Hunter responded, looking between Echo and Kimber, “We've gone on missions before without much intel…but this would be stretching it.”

“That's never stopped us before,” said Kimber.

Then Echo stated, “Rex wouldn't ask us for help if it wasn't urgent.”

“Echo's got a point,” Wrecker observed.

However, Tech interjected, “May I remind you that we are in the middle of a job for Cid. If we deviate, we will not be compensated. No money means no food.”

“Oh yeah, Tech's got a point,” Wrecker said, changing his side.

Kimber scoffed. “Cid can wait, for all I care,” she murmured.

Then Omega voiced her concern, “But Rex's friend is in trouble. That's more important than getting paid.”

Then Wrecker switched again by saying, “Well, the kid's got a point.”

Hunter cast a look of disbelief at Wrecker for changing his mind a third time, but then hung his head with uncertainty.

“We have enough credits right now that we can afford to skip out on one mission,” said Kimber, mostly to Hunter. “Rex is our friend and he's counting on us.”

When Hunter glanced over, both Kimber and Echo gave him imploring looks, silently urging him to do the right thing. “Fine,” he relented. “We'll check things out, but…I don't like it.”

“I'll ring the girls, let them know we've gotten sidetracked,” said Kimber, heading back towards the bunks and giving Hunter a pat on the shoulder as she walked by him.

Back in her bunk, she dug out the encrypted comm device from her pack and put in the frequency she needed. A few seconds later, four females and one baby appeared before her.

“Good to see ya, boss lady,” Rina said first.

“Hello, girls. Was your mission a success?” Kimber asked.

“Ha! Those smugglers had no idea what hit them,” said Lex, clenching her cybernetic fingers into a fist.

Then Irys chimed in, “Meaning Kida insisted on flirting with them and dancing for them to distract them while we stole all the cargo.”

In response, Kida, who had her son in her arms, tapped Kori's nose, eliciting a tiny squeal from him and stated, “Mama's still got it.”

Kimber chuckled to herself. “Funny you should mention that because we just heard from Rex.”

Kida's head popped up immediately. “How is he? Is he okay?” she inquired.

“He's fine, but he's asked us to help liberate a friend, so we're deviating from our current mission for Cid to help him out,” Kimber replied.

Rina snickered. “I'll bet you're real torn up about that.”

In a monotone voice, Kimber responded, “Yes, I'm completely heartbroken.” Then she rolled her eyes. “Listen, I don't know how long this will take, so could you let Cid know for us that we--”

“We got you, princess. Don't worry,” Lex interrupted her nonchalantly.

“We'll do your dirty work for you,” added Irys.

“Thanks, girls. I owe you,” Kimber replied gratefully.

“Got that right,” said Kida. “Whatever happens, just be careful, all of you.”

Kimber gave them an affirming nod before cutting the transmission. Now that the business with Cid was dealt with, it was time to prepare for their new mission to Daro.

The Marauder came out of hyperspace and into the atmosphere of a deep green planet with lots of white clouds surrounding it. Despite the many planets she had been taken to at this point, Kimber still couldn’t help but be in awe every time she saw a green planet. It was just such a foreign color to her, having grown up on Tatooine.

“We are approaching Daro’s atmosphere,” Tech informed everyone, who were now standing inside the cockpit. “I’ll bring us in low to avoid any possible tracking scanners.”

“We’re banking a lot on a Clone we don’t even know,” stated Hunter skeptically.

Then Echo responded steadfastly to him, “Rex trusts him…and I trust Rex.”

Kimber tugged on Hunter’s arm, pulling him into the back cabin and then questioned him, “What is going on? Why are you so skeptical about all this?”

Hunter seemed unsure how to answer, but Kimber had an idea as to why.

“Is this simply because the Clone we’re rescuing is a reg?” she asked. When he still didn’t say anything, she went on, “Hunter, you have every reason to hate regs, especially right now, but Rex wouldn’t ask this of us if it was important. Besides, all the regs are under the influence of the inhibitor chip right now…which means if Rex is asking us to rescue him, maybe that means his chip isn’t working the same as yours didn’t. Or maybe he managed to get his removed. Don’t you trust Rex?”

“I do,” he finally said, “but…I don’t know. Something just doesn’t feel right about this.”

“Is it your senses?” she asked him.

He shook his head. “No, it’s not that. Just…a feeling in my gut I can’t explain.”

“Well, tell your gut to hush. We’ve got a mission to do, Sergeant,” she said.

He gave her a half-smirk. “Giving me orders again, huh?”

She winked back. “You know you like it.” Then she flipped around and walked back to the cockpit.

Outside, there were vast forestlands below them and throughout were many rocky outcroppings, hills and tower-like structures. It truly was a beautiful landscape; at least, to Kimber, it was. The ship soon landed in a clearing within the forest and the squad all donned their helmets before heading outside, their weapons all drawn except for Tech, who kept his datapad in his hand.

“The signal is coming from that direction,” stated Tech, pointing straight ahead.

They all moved ahead a few feet until Tech pointed out that the beacon should be right ahead. Within seconds, Omega located it on the underside of a log, removing it and showing it to Tech. Wrecker questioned where the reg was, since they’d found the tracking beacon. Hunter removed his helmet and started keenly surveying the ground around them. Then he crouched down to the ground and picked up a small piece of wood, holding it up to his nose and taking a single long sniff of it.

“We’re already too late,” he said before looking up. “The Clone was being hunted. He was dragged…that way.” He gestured forward ahead of them, put his helmet back on and then led the others up the hill before them.

They all kept going until they were close to the base of the mountain directly ahead of them. Hunter told everyone to wait as he knelt down and placed his hand on the dirt. Then he picked up a tiny bit and felt it between his fingertips.

“What is it, Hunter?” Kimber asked, watching him carefully.

He stood back up and declared, looking up, “There’s something here, inside that mountain.”

“I believe you are right. My scans are being jammed,” Tech said in agreement.

“You said there was nothing on this planet,” Wrecker pointed out.

To which, Tech simply replied, “That data appears to be inaccurate.”

“Hmm, that’s a first,” said Kimber. “I’m sure Irys would’ve had the correct data from the start.”

“Oh, don’t get me started,” Tech said back, though she could tell by the look in his eyes through his goggles that he was grinning underneath his helmet.

Hunter turned back and told Wrecker and Omega to wait on the ship. Omega tried to protest, but Hunter cut her off saying it wasn’t up for debate. Dejectedly, she hung her head, but nevertheless, did as she was told and started walking back towards the ship with Wrecker beside her. The other four continued on a few more feet before Hunter stopped to feel the dirt once more. Kimber kept a lookout behind and around them to ensure nothing would sneak up on them. Luckily, the surrounding areas seemed pretty clear.

When Echo questioned him on what he could sense, Hunter answered, “A shuttle landed here.”

“How is that possible?” Kimber asked.

“What exactly is in that mountain?” Echo then asked next.

Hunter sighed. “Only one way to find out,” he responded, looking up towards the top of the mountain.

Kimber couldn’t help but groan a little as she put her rifle on her back because they all knew what that meant: climbing.

They took off further up the hill, preparing for a very long climb upwards. Tech slightly lost his footing on the edge of the cliffside as they ran up, but Kimber happened to be a step behind him and was quick to grab his arm and steady him. After that, they all began their climb up the mountainside, following Hunter's lead. It was definitely not an easy climb for Kimber, but she soldiered through as best she could. Tech returned the favor and helped pull her up in certain spots and kept an eye on her while Hunter and Echo took the lead. Eventually, they came up over a ledge that seemed to lead out into a plateau halfway up the mountain. They all ran over and stopped at the edge of the plateau, taking a knee by a large tree. To their astonishment, there was a huge opening inside the mountain that went down several yards, lined with smooth stone walls, lights and sections for what looked like lifts.

“This isn't what I was expecting to find,” Kimber commented aloud.

“This looks like some sort of military base,” said Hunter.

Though, Tech replied, “Not one that I've ever heard of.”

However, right then, Kimber heard the sound of distant engines approaching behind them. “Get down!” she quietly told the boys, dropping down to her stomach.

The other three followed her example just as a shuttle came flying in above them, lowering itself into the base. When they all got back up, Hunter said they should get a closer look. With that, they all slid down the hill further into the opening until they landed on the roof of the base. From there, they kept going until they reached the edge again, getting low so they could spy inside without being seen. Kimber placed herself down on the end beside Echo. They could see the open hangar across the opening where the shuttle had landed and its occupants were already outside on the platform. Echo took out his binoculars to get a better look.

“I’m clocking a couple of commandos and squads of Clone troopers…and they’ve updated their armor,” Echo informed them.

“What?” Kimber replied, puzzled, as Echo handed Hunter the binoculars. Kimber then took out her rifle and positioned it so she could see through the scope. Sure enough, there was a squad of troopers all still in white armor, but the designs were now different, especially in the helmets. It didn’t feel right seeing Clones in this new armor, not when she’d gotten so used to their old armor. She could hear Tech going on about something regarding the mountain’s natural composition, but she wasn’t paying attention as she could suddenly feel a pit forming in her stomach at seeing the troopers that she couldn’t explain. Was it just another reminder of how the Empire was changing everything…or was it something else?

Then she heard Hunter state, “This is no longer just a simple extraction. Let’s get back to the Marauder and leave word for Rex.”

“But what about the mission?” Echo inquired as Hunter and Tech both stood up and started walking away.

Then Kimber added, “If we leave now, it might be too late.”

The other two stopped and Tech responded, “We do not know for certain if CC-5576 is even in there…or if he is still alive.”

“We don’t know that he’s not in there either. We can’t give up now,” said Kimber.

Hunter then said in addition to Tech’s statement, “We’d be going in blind without any reinforcements.”

It was then Echo stood up. “You did that on Skako Minor when you rescued me,” he reminded them resolutely. “I’d still be trapped in that place if you hadn’t. If there’s a chance that trooper’s being held against his will, we have to try and get him out.”

Kimber smiled under her helmet. Echo’s determination and resilience never ceased to amaze her and she felt immensely proud of him in the moment.

That was all Hunter and Tech needed to be convinced to move forward with the mission. After that, Hunter informed Wrecker and Omega over comms of the situation and that they were going inside the base. Omega wanted them to wait so she and Wrecker could help, but Hunter told them to stay put as they were the backup in case things went south and to stay alert since comms would be jammed once they were inside. Tech made note that he would need to tap into the central database in order to pinpoint the location of their target. Then Echo pointed out they could use the lift shaft in front of them to gain entry. Once the lift reached the top, all four of them moved onto the roof and waited for it to go back down. The lift soon descended down the shaft again and Hunter warned them they would have to jump. A few seconds later, they all jumped off the lift and clung to the wall just outside the hangar entrance. Hunter climbed in first to make sure the way was clear and then signaled for the other three to follow. They all shuffled along the wall and got inside, carefully sneaking after Hunter.

The hallways inside the Imperial base were dimly lit, giving them a bit of an eerie feel to them. It didn’t take long for them to find a computer terminal that Echo and Tech could access to find the missing Clone. While Echo scomped into the computer, Hunter and Kimber stayed at the end of the corridor, keeping an eye out for any Imperials or soldiers, especially since Echo informed them there was a new encryption in the computer and he would need time to bypass it. Hunter moved the left side of the entryway while Kimber stayed on the right, carefully peeking around to keep watch. Within moments, they heard footsteps approaching and saw a small group of troopers led by a commando walk over to a nearby door, which the commando used a key card to open, and they walked on through. Seeing the troopers up close once again made the sinking feeling Kimber had earlier grow even more.

“There’s something pretty…off about that armor, Hunter,” she whispered after the soldiers left.

“Yeah…,” he said, trailing off as he went back to the other two, Kimber following him.

To their surprise, Echo told them as he looked over the data on the screen, “This doesn't make any sense. The muster report lists fifty Clone commandos and a thousand TK troopers.”

Confused, Kimber replied, “T-what troopers?”

“TK trooper? I'm not familiar with that designation,” said Tech.

Something about the new designation didn't sit well with Kimber along with the new armor. Though, she couldn't dwell on it long as Echo found the Clone's location a few levels down, so they all ran back to the lift and went down to where they needed to go. They located the detention wing and moved carefully through the hall. Hunter spotted a single guard manning the hall and knew they had to take him out.

Remembering how easily she took out one of the Pyke's guards a little while ago, Hunter looked back and said, “Kimber, you're up.”

She moved up beside him, noticed the guard and gave Hunter a nod. She heard a voice from inside the cell speak to the guard, but she couldn't make out exactly what he said. It was definitely a Clone's voice, though.

Then the guard responded to him, “Quiet, traitor!”

“Wait…that trooper’s voice…,” Kimber thought.

His was not a Clone's voice.

Something really didn't feel right with that realization.

Though, there was no time to think about it as she then heard the Clone prisoner respond, “That's Captain Traitor.”

She took the chance, leapt out from behind the wall and, with a grunt, threw a punch right under the trooper's chin. Caught unawares, the trooper stumbled back, dazed, and then was sent sprawling to the ground when Kimber punched him a second time.

“That's my girl,” Hunter thought fondly to himself as he and the other three moved out.

Kimber walked to the cell, seeing the golden ray shield in the entryway. On the other side, sitting on a bench, was a Clone she didn't recognize. His black hair was slicked back down the back of his head and he had on white armor except for on his arms where they could see his black undersuit. Thanks to the blacks, she could tell that this Clone was different from a lot of other regs because she could see the muscles on his arms and they were quite built and toned, more than other Clones. She got the feeling this guy was pretty strong.

“Are you CC-5576?” she asked as the others came up behind her.

His eyes went wide slightly before responding, his voice unusually pitchy for a Clone, “Uh…well…that depends. Who's askin'?”

As Echo switched off the ray shield, Hunter informed him, “Rex sent us.”

The Clone let out what Kimber found to be a cute, higher-pitched chuckle and smoothed back his hair. “In that case,” he responded, pointing a finger at them, “the name’s Gregor. Now, let’s move out.” Then he stood up and walked to the doorway to the cell as the other Clones ran off. He looked to Kimber and then said, “Also, apologies if I seemed startled by you. I was just surprised to hear a woman’s voice when I thought all of you were Clones.”

“Not to worry. I’m used to it,” she said with a casual shrug as the two of them ran off after the others.

Now with their quarry alongside them, the Clones and Kimber snuck stealthily and quickly through the winding hallways. They could hear comm chatter every now and then until they saw a group of troopers at the end of the hall near the lifts where they needed to go. Gregor observed that they were gathered for inspection and there wasn't any other way past them, but Tech stated he could redirect them elsewhere, so they found another computer terminal nearby so Tech could do what he wanted to do.

“Armor like that, I take it you're CC's like me?” Gregor asked them as Tech started keying in the code in the terminal.

“CC?” asked Kimber.

“Clone commando,” answered Echo.

When Hunter told Gregor that they were CT-99's and Gregor realized that meant they were defective Clones, Kimber clarified for him, pointing to the others, “They're 99's. Not me. I'm just along for the ride.”

“You've still gotta be pretty good if you're keeping up with the likes of them,” Gregor said. He chuckled again and then said, “If you ask me, it's the ones who want to stay here who are really defective.”

“You’re telling us,” remarked Kimber.

Then Echo asked Gregor, “What was your assignment?”

Gregor answered, “I was an instructor--”

A loud wailing alarm suddenly rang through the hallway, cutting off Gregor’s explanation, and everyone immediately tensed up.

“What’s going on, Tech?” Hunter questioned.

Turning back to them from the computer, which now had a red screen and was flashing a warning signal, Tech answered, flustered, “I keyed a Code-16 to redirect the forces. I don’t know what happened.”

Lightly pushing Hunter out of his way to talk to Tech, Gregor chided him, “Clone codes don’t work here. You just triggered a security alert.”

Right then, there were shots fired from behind them. Hunter and Tech put themselves up against the wall while Echo, Gregor and Kimber ducked to the other side of the hallway to avoid the incoming Imperial blaster fire. A squad of four troopers and a Clone commando came from around the corner, firing at them from down the hall. Tech was quick on his feet and threw a smoke bomb at them just as Echo stunned two of the troopers. As the smoke from the bomb burst out, flooding the corridor with dark gray smoke, Kimber, Hunter and Gregor jumped out and started fighting the three remaining troopers in hand to hand combat. Hunter went for the Commando and put him in a headlock, squeezing his neck until he passed out. Gregor threw one into the wall, kneed him in the stomach and then proceeded to punch him square in the throat, making the trooper collapse and gasping for air. Kimber shoved the remaining trooper’s blaster up into his helmet, dazing him, and then did a roundhouse kick, hitting him in the head and knocking him out, as well.

Gregor saw her pull that move and complimented her, “Wow…you are good.”

“I appreciate the compliment, Captain,” Kimber said back.

Retrieving the key card they needed for the lift from the unconscious Commando’s belt, Hunter asked Gregor, “Is there another way off this base?”

“Only way out: up,” Gregor answered as he picked up one of the blasters from the floor.

“Look at this,” they heard Tech say, who was now kneeling next to one of the knocked out soldiers.

“What is it, Tech?” asked Kimber.

He removed the helmet of the trooper and stated, “These are not Clone troopers.”

He pushed over the body of the soldier to reveal the face of a random young man and Kimber couldn’t help but gasp at seeing a different face other than a Clone trooper’s.

“I knew something wasn’t right,” she whispered aloud, now realizing why the new armor and the unfamiliar voice she'd heard before had been making her feel uneasy the whole time.

Gregor scoffed at the sight. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you,” he said to the Clones. “These are our replacements. If you can believe that.”

They didn’t have time to process that revelation as they heard more soldiers coming and Gregor was already about to run off, so they all took off quickly down the hall. Hunter threw an electric explosive back behind him, stunning a group of soldiers all at once, before following after the others. Blaster fire and stunning blasts were being fired back and forth through the dimly-lit corridors as the Clones and Kimber dodged all the shots, which weren’t really coming anywhere close to them, and stunned all the soldiers they ran into. Gregor led the way through with Hunter and Kimber right behind him and Tech and Echo in the back, watching their six.

As they ran, Tech caught up and inquired of Gregor, “Are you sure you know where you’re going?”

“Hey! I’m the one who escaped here before,” Gregor replied, almost seemingly offended that Tech would ask such a question.

“And you were captured,” Tech reminded him.

“After I made it out,” said Gregor back.

Three more Imperial soldiers rounded the corner in front of them to stop them as they were about to reach the lift, but they were all shot with stun blasts within seconds. As they got to the end of the hall where the lift entrance was, Gregor lifted up a closed fist by his head, signaling everyone to halt momentarily.

Seeing how badly the Imperial troops had been shooting at them, Hunter observed, looking at Gregor, “I thought you said you trained these guys?”

“I didn’t teach them everything. That wouldn’t be very smart, would it?” Gregor replied before going to check on the lift.

Kimber chuckled in amusement. “I like him,” she said to Hunter.

“Of course, you do,” Hunter responded.

Gregor snuck a look outside to see if the lift was coming down the outdoor shaft and sure enough, it was already on its way down. It reached the doors and Tech and Kimber immediately stunned the two soldiers inside. Once they hit the ground, Gregor and Hunter moved their unconscious bodies out into the hall so they could all fit inside the lift. Tech went over to the terminal on the wall and mentioned they needed an authorization code to access the lift, to which Hunter responded by taking out the key card he’d procured and tossing it over to him. Once Tech inserted the card and keyed in where they wanted to go, the doors closed and the lift began to ascend.

Then Echo asked the question, “These new troopers…what do you mean they’re our replacements?”

Gregor went on to explain to them, “Well, we Clones are soldiers of a Republic that doesn’t exist. These recruits come from all over the galaxy. They swear loyalty to the Empire. They’re not as skilled, but there’s an endless supply of ‘em.”

“Numbers aren’t everything,” Hunter said in reply.

Right then, the lift stopped and the doors opened, revealing an even bigger squad of troopers right outside along with another Clone commando in the front, blocking their way. Hunter and Gregor were quick to kick the soldiers back and Kimber slammed her hand on the button on the wall to close the doors just as the Imperials started firing. The doors shut and the lift started going back down.

“That was close,” she gasped.

“You were saying?” Tech snarkily remarked to Gregor.

“We’ll, uh…take a detour,” Gregor stated timidly.

Kimber shook her head, but still snickered quietly to herself. Getting out of the base with their new friend, Gregor, was going to be fun.

#star wars the bad batch #the bad batch #bad batch hunter #sergeant hunter #my sergeant #bad batch fanfic #hunter x oc fic #sun and rain fanfic

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ace-malarky · 4 months

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intro post 2024

sup lads, it's been like two years and I figured the pinned post probably needed updating

wait it has almost exactly been two years that's hilarious

Anyway. some things haven't changed. Name's still Ace, no matter what I write on the notes I send to my old library

I'm always up for tag games and random asks!! throw 'em my way as you like :3

pronouns are in flux! predominantly they/them, sometimes it, occasionally he. It varies on the bit, but you probably can't go wrong tbh

we're - we're going to say early 30s. it's not wrong and it's better than this being outdated in a little over three weeks when it all changes once again

no I did not plan this, no I can't do a basic formal outline, I have to ramble. what did you think i wrote for.

Other Places I Can Be Found include twitter & instagram under more or less the same username

~~~

Writing Focuses!

Everything is fantasy, everything is queer. Excerpts can be found under Writing Pieces

I'm largely jumping around between vaguely connected scenes and character work right now, but there's definitely a pattern!

mainly;

Soul of the Party - when a series of mysterious thefts sweep across town in the weeks before the annual tournament, Solaris is removed from the duelling tournament to avoid bringing attention to his cousin's family. Instead, he and his cousin and a band of Feral Mages investigate on their own and find a plot targetting one thief from Off-World (ft. four separate magic types, light crime, sword fights, mistaken (secret) identity, curiosity almost killing the cat)

Shapeshifter WIP - when things start getting tense between neighbouring countries, Syn volunteers to slip across the border and pass information back in an attempt to avert the looming war. They may have underestimated how hard it was going to be to go back when no one recognises them and their own best friend hates them (ft. pining, friends-to-lovers of the star crossed variety, hand wavy world building, questionable morality, questionable spying techniques, A Certain Level of Dumbassery, some Fucked Up Shapeshifting)

Dumb of Ass, Snake of Tits - a DnD story of a dragonborn monk who leaves their monastery to see the world, ends up with a Morally Dubious Courtesan for a travelling companion, gets cursed (twice), has a slight corruption arc, but somehow still comes out better than they started and with a boyfriend to boot (ft. travelling, fights, the unwillingness to wear a shirt in camp and making that everyone else's problem, other uses for bras when you don't have tits, revenge, What Sharp Teeth You Have, unquestioning kindness until it isn't kind, overthinking but eventually manage to communicate about it, slight pining, one vaguely horny dragon)

@dorksndisasters for the not-technically-dnd campaign that I run! The full first draft of the first arc is up there and I am currently editing to make it less stilted and transcriby

and, you know, the usual. Fair Folk, Superheroes, Pirates, Time Travel, WereCreatures, Winged Folk, Storytellers, Vampires, Curses, Even More DnD. All of the WIPS can be found on this page and some of them are in this definitely out of date post here

I'm always up for answering questions about any of them, even if some haven't been touched in literal years. They're still growing mould somewhere in there. Branching out in ways I didn't conceive of.

~~~

World Building

also a big ol' thing here, the main tag is world building but that isn't just my stuff in there, it's also a lot of reblogs

largely centered around the Mist Worlds which is where most of my WIPs are set. There is an Overview post, a Magic post, a bit on the Mist Itself, and also the Worlds (and a page where this is collated)

some bits are incredibly handwavy and made up on the fly, other bits I have been thinking Too Much about for Too Long

~~~

Characters

Oh boy we got 'em. Occasionally can be found via rambles on Sundays under the tag So It Ends

Syn and Maverick are competing for blorbo of the year right now and if a wip or specific characters aren't mentioned, these are probably who I'll answer ask games for

Syn - a distractable and mischievous shapeshifter who volunteers to be a spy because "pretending to be someone else is what I do" no we're not going to unpack that right now. they/them, big fan of antlers. also goes by Val or Lance

Maverick - a frost dragonborn who's a little bit naive to the ways of the world and prefers to assume the best of people if they can. Likes to help, doesn't question as much as they should. Not quite an "everything happens for a reason" mentality, but certainly thinks that they got what they deserved at points. they/them, has been known to act without thinking on a number of occasions

#talkin' malarky #writeblr intro #writeblr #intro post #long post #can't do images for shit lmao sorry about the wall of text #can't do brief either ahahaha #but I think that's maybe more clearly laid out. idk.

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byemizumikahago · 1 year

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UPDATE: Some of Mizumi's AO3-essay's comments + more!

I talked about Mizumi deleting the AO3 version of her 2nd anti-komahina essay, and all of the comments along with it. I still haven't found an archive of it, but that's alright, because thanks to a very helpful source (you know who you are, and thank you again SO MUCH), screenshots of some of the more important comments are still alive.

And that's not all! The very helpful source (once again, thank you so SO much) has supplied other screenshots of mizumi's interactions over the years, as well as various other miscellaneous stuff. They also provided context to each one, so I'll be using quotation marks and italicized text to quote exactly what they said.

The grooming victim's name will continue to be censored in blue, so that you can tell when it's their name being censored vs. other stuff.

So, without further ado, here are all the screenshots they provided:

These are the types of comments mizumi said she received here, and, yeah, it proves that mizumi didn't lie/fake these screenshots. I've checked both of these accounts' histories, and they both seem legit; not a sockpuppet account.

(PS: Bcuz this still needs to be stated, do NOT go and harass these people. Yes, I know some of the stuff they said isn't very great (especially the one faking DID), but the point of showing their usernames isn't to send people after them, it's to prove that they are real people, and not just alt accounts made by Mizumi. Do not take what is meant to educate as an excuse to harass people, thank you.)

The screenshots from this post, but without the AO3 account deleted, + Mizumi's dms to christy afterwards.

"This was everything I remember she sent regarding the ao3 essay. [She] Sent these around December of last year."

"She claimed to have been harassed and witch-hunted in this post. She'd told me she experienced excessive harassment (which I know now is likely untrue), and sent stuff like this to try corroborating it a lot."

"Something sent in a similar spirit"

"And here is Mizumi having her [EX] friends defend her.

That said: I don't fault the two friends in these screenshots. I truly believe they were lied to and/or threatened, as she had done to me and the reddit moderator."

(IMPORTANT: Both of these people are no longer friends with Mizumi. So don't go and harass them, they have not done anything wrong.)

"I also want to share this. The behavior I witnessed and experienced aligns with this, and I think it's so important for everyone, especially younger people, to be aware.

Based on the last post, it looks like she's still interacting with minors, even after promising not to do so again; this is very scary to me.

I think they all need to be aware of it, especially if they may not be familiar with abusive behavior. This is without getting involved of course, as this kind of thing can be dangerous for a younger person."

(OCTOBER 7/8 EDIT): "You're going to meet many people in life. Some will be lifelong friends, others will leave a lasting impact on who you are. Unfortunately, some of those people you meet will end up being predatory or abusive in some way. With the internet becoming more prominent, predators now have more access to potential victims than ever. For that, I think it is crucial that everyone, namely children, are aware of the grooming stages. https://www.rainn.org/news/grooming-know-warning-signs If this has or is currently happening to you, please let a trusted adult or loved one know. You are not to blame for what you've endured, and you shouldn't have to continue suffering. You should never have to keep a relationship of any kind secret from trustworthy loved ones, nor be afraid to set boundaries. If you're a child, please understand that it isn't acceptable for adults to behave inappropriately towards you. They should not be leaning on you for emotional support nor making you uncomfortable in any way. If you are a survivor and don't have a support system, I'll be linking some support networks below. https://helpingsurvivors.org/grooming/ https://www.rainn.org/ Here is a tip line for those in the United States https://tips.fbi.gov/home"

#mizumikahago #mizumi kahago #danganronpa #screen shots #ao3 #archive of our own

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ninja-go-to-therapy · 2 years

Text

Dismantled

this isn't late you're late ur crazy (in my defense, I fell asleep as I was editing)

ao3

im gonna say it again for clarity: im not ableist, the bad guy is ableist. ok have a nice day

you've all read damage u know where this is going. for those who haven't: lol this boy is about to be traumatized beyond belief.

Prompt: caged

Fandom: Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Characters: Donnie, OC

Summary: Donnie wakes up in the clutches of a pyscho who's decided to forcibly "adopt" him.

Trigger Warnings: kidnapping, infantilization, muzzling, ableism

1561 words

Donnie woke up in a strange room with a pounding headache. He groaned, wanting little more than to sleep the pain away, but that was far from his best option at the moment.

How many horror movies had this kind of opening, again?

The room was… normal. Kind of. The bed he was on was large, adorned with a plethora of admittedly comfortable pillows and blankets. There were a few soulless decorations on the walls, abstract splotches of dull colors and such. It would look nice in, maybe a bedroom on television or something. There was no window, and the lightbulbs felt oddly artificial compared to the light he was used to at home.

There was a brown bookshelf, piled with its fair share of novels and the like. There was an open closet, its door long gone, with what looked to be various basics and essentials on the inside.

Something about it unnerved him.

The room looked like it had come right out of a home catalogue. An extraordinarily shitty home catalogue, but still. Maybe it was more like if an alien had seen exactly one millennial’s minimalistic bedroom before designing one of their own.

The real question was what on earth he was doing here, and where were his brothers?

He moved to sit up, but found himself unable to do so. The blankets were wrapped around him so firmly that he found he could barely move, let alone sit up.

Why could he not escape the vicious grip of these fucking blankets ? It was like he was being swaddled .

“Guys?” he called, wiggling in his cushy prison. Damn, it really was comfortable. No wonder this was all the rage for babies. And cats.

His awkward wiggling proved futile. If this was a prank, it was the weirdest one he’d ever had pulled on him.

No matter what he did, nothing would get him out of the damn thing. He called for his brothers many times more, but each time the silence only seemed to become more deafening. Something ugly churning in his stomach told him that his brothers weren’t around to reply.

For a long, long time, nothing happened. Eventually tiring himself out from his attempts at escaping, he slumped into the mattress, staring at the plain white ceiling until his eyes burned.

Growing horribly, horribly bored, he found himself counting and sorting every detail of the room into the most specific mental categories he could.

There were 83 books. 37% of them had white spines, 24% of them were lying horizontally, and Donnie was unable to see the title of 98.8% of them, with one singular outlier: a proudly displayed novel that he’d never heard of.

He was too far away to count with complete accuracy, but the closet was at least 62% full of clothing in different shades of purple.

He didn’t like that one bit.

After running out of physical things to count, he resorted to counting 100 Bottles of Beer on the Wall , and then, when he got through with that, reciting pi as far as he could go.

And, though that kept him busy for a long, long time (but really, who was to say how long with no real way to tell time), eventually he found himself alone with his thoughts again.

He chose to drown those out with another 1,000 Bottles of Beer on the Wall .

He got to 764 before he finally faded back into sleep, and he did not dream.

----

When he came to, there was a figure looming over him. His vision still clearing, he spotted hints of red.

“Mm… Raph?” he mumbled, doing his best to blink the sleep out of his eyes.

“Good morning, sunshine.”

That was not Raph.

Finally, Donnie’s vision focused (though, to be honest, his head was still swimming), and the red fox mutant above him came into clarity.

Mental alarms immediately blaring, he did his best to assess the situation. “Uhh… do I know you?”

The man smiled, and it was almost warm, comforting, even. Almost.

“No,” he said with a huff of a laugh, “not yet.”

“Cool… soo do you happen to know where my bros are? I’m sure they’re not too far, I can meet up with them, get out of your hair, get out of these… ugh, blankets, which, thank you for… that, but really, I should be going.”

The fox lifted an eyebrow. “Going? Wherever to?”

“Well, ideally home, but knowing our luck, probably to fight some crazy monster who wants us dead. And then pizza! And then home.”

He narrowed his eyes, frowning. “Oh, sweetheart. You don’t even realize, do you?”

This man was making him very, very uncomfortable.

“Erm… realize what?”

“You can’t be out there fighting crime and monsters , Donnie. You’re just a child . And you’re not like your brothers. They’re built differently than you. That soft, weak shell of yours… just think of what could happen!”

“What the fuck do you think my battle shell is for?” he snapped, far past patience for whatever the hell this situation even was. It didn’t even occur to him to panic over the fact that this stranger very much knew who he was, by name .

The man’s eyes flashed dangerously, dark , and Donnie felt very much like the first time he and his brothers had battled Meat Sweats: like he was about to be eaten alive.

But the guy just took a deep breath, collecting himself, and smiled a strained, ugly smile. “Technology always fails, in the end, purple.”

Why did this stranger care so much? It was none of his business what Donnie did with his time, and, regardless of technology and its simple failures, Donatello was a genius who did not fail . Most of the time.

“Yeah, okay. Who the hell even are you?”

In one, startling instant, he was suddenly very inside Donnie’s personal bubble, inches from his face with his awful teeth bared like he was about to tear out his throat.

“Do. Not. Swear .” he growled, a violent threat that hung in the uncomfortably small patch of air between them.

“...right,” he said, swallowing down his fear, “so I’ll be going, then?”

The man straightened up, his snarl replaced with a falsely gentle smile, as if his outburst had never happened. Breezing right past Donnie’s attempt to get out of… whatever this was, he kept smiling that artificial smile. “Silly boy, you’ll call me dad, of course.”

What episode of a police drama was this?

“Yeah, I definitely won’t be doing that, thanks anyway.”

“Let me make this very clear , sunshine. The world out there is too cruel and you need to be taken care of by someone. You won’t be leaving .”

Donnie stared at him, raising his eyebrows in some level of concerned surprise. When he finally found words again, they came out in the form of— “okay, listen up you bitch-ass motherfucker—”

The rough, oddly fuzzy hand that gripped his jaw caught him off guard enough to shut him up. It wasn’t squeezing, it didn’t hurt, but it burned anyway, in the way that Raph’s eyes burned into him when he was disappointed, in the way that a particularly vicious villain’s words would burn threats straight into his heart.

“You,” the man said very, very low, “are going to need a lot of discipline.”

He released his jaw, and Donnie took in a few careful breaths of air, choosing to stay silent for the moment. He had a feeling anything he could say would only result in a harsher lash-out from this psycho.

If only he had his battle shell. He had no idea where it (or any of his tech, or weapons, or anything ) was, and without it all, he felt hopelessly naked.

“If you can’t speak correctly,” the man began, as if he was disciplining a child. Belatedly, Donnie realized that was exactly what he thought he was doing. “You won’t be speaking at all .”

That rough hand gripped his jaw once more, and it didn’t take a genius after he saw the thing in his other hand to connect the dots.

He was trying to put a fucking muzzle on him.

“No!” Donnie argued, wrenching his face free of this villain’s vice. “Don’t fucking touch me!”

He fought. He really did. But when he had no limbs to fight with, the statistical probability of him winning was less than 0.00001%. He did not defy the odds.

He shouted through the thing , screaming every curse in the book in his rage. Not a single one of them made it past a muffled, inspecific yell.

Panic was truly beginning to take over. He couldn’t move , he couldn’t speak , and he was completely at the mercy of this lunatic . Worse, he had no idea if his brothers even knew where he was. He had no idea where he was. He could be in New York or in Nevada for all he knew.

All he knew for sure was that he was trapped in a house with a psycho who was trying to treat him like his own incapable child .

His best bet was to… ugh , play along, no matter how absolutely vomit inducing the idea was. The second he’d earned enough trust to regain free use of his arms and legs, he was out of here.

Two could play this game. And Donnie was exceptionally good at winning.

22 notes · View notes

babychoko · 2 years

Text

🌺𝔸 𝕤𝕚𝕝𝕖𝕟𝕥 𝕣𝕖𝕢𝕦𝕖𝕤𝕥🌺

Part 11

Note: Edited the last part because sentences were somehow deleted.

Pebbles crunched as I walked limply around the corner to my flat. I thought that the winter time would be quieter and more relaxed. But this did not seem to be the case. Things had become more stressful at my work because drinking coffee was especially popular during the cold season. Usually I had a little time to sit down. But I stayed on my feet almost the entire shift. My headache from the seminar didn't help at all. I'm through for today.

I have to mention that my seminar is not as much fun as before. Mr. Zhongli is no longer leading the class and is taking his post as a guest elsewhere. I haven't seen him for quite a while. And when I do, it's rarely in the hallway, on the second floor. I really missed his methods and found him interesting.

That reminds me, I still have his contact details. He gave me these back then when I was worried about Venti. Should I come to an emergency, he would help me.

Through all my worries, I didn't notice what he said. But...emergency? I suppose if it has something to do with Venti. After all, they're very close. I learned then that Mr. Zhongli helped him out of a jam.

Exactly.

When Venti got to a very low point in his life and lost control of himself. It tears my heart to think about it. Every now and then I think, what would have happened if we had met earlier? Most likely not much. After all, we have a bit of an age difference. No kidding, I thought he was in his early twenties.

But he isn't.

Blessed with a round face, wrinkle-free, he's proudly...

Oh, never mind his age.

What I do know is that he's been through a lot. And if he needs my help, that I will be there for him anytime. With these thoughts, I trot up the stairs to my flat door. It took me quite a while to get there and open the door. What I needed now is to put my feet up. They're bound to fall off any time now if I don't do that.

Winter time..yes yes. One is always sad there. And in autumn, you're still full of joie de vivre.

I suppose so. The colourful leaves still radiated life in nature. And now the branches are standing all bare and blowing away. The new year has already started and I don't feel like new.

As the saying goes: new year, new me.

This and that.

But I can promise that I am exactly the same person at 00:00 as I was at 11:59.

My bag emitted a dull sound as dropped on the floor and took off my shoes, followed by my jacket and other stuff.

I just want to lie down. That's all. Tomorrow I'm sure I'll be re-energised.

I finally sat down on the sofa with my house clothes on and ate my warmed up dinner. But after only a few seconds I was interrupted by a phone call.

Huh?

I answered the call without looking to see who it was.

"(Name)! Long time no hear." I furrowed my eyebrows in irritation.

"To hear from you again..."

"Ehh... aren't you glad? There was a reason for that! Now listen carefully."

"I'm all ears." I sighed and took another bite. He gasped for air.

"I'm allergic to cats, after all..“ Then he exhaled.

"A fact, yes."

"When I was on my way to university, a cat wouldn't budge. I bet it knew I was allergic to them. Roadblock, I tell you. And here's the thing: I wanted to get to the other side of the road..until this beast attacked me! She was looking for trouble!"

Pause.

Oh, he's done? Does he want me to respond?

"Venti, you mean to tell me that a strange cat tried to mess with you of all people?"

"I didn't have time to cuddle with that one. That could have ended fatally. So I was going to decline, then my phone fell out of my hand: it got broken! Uh, hello?"

I struggled to keep from laughing out loud. Him and his stories! Wait a minute...

"So how did you call me now?" I looked at the screen at that exact moment. Oh, his home phone. "It's been taken care of. So your phone didn't survive?"

"And I almost didn't either! Imagine that, (Name)." The thought of Venti rejecting cuddles from a cat made me laugh.

"Can your phone be fixed?"

He sighed. "Unfortunately, no. That's why I have to buy a new phone. What a waste!" I put my plate down on the table. "I think it's about time for a new model. It doesn't have to be expensive." He was always sending me sms. He could make things easier with a smartphone. There are apps that cost nothing. He can send me endless messages or make long phone calls. Besides, nowadays you're almost forced to walk around with a smartphone.

You can't do much without apps any more. But no matter how many times you mention it, Venti was never really convinced. He booked tickets or anything else directly from a shop, office or wherever.

"Maybe I should get one similar to yours."

"That would be good..wait, what?" Venti and a smartphone? I should call the reporters. He'll make headlines.

"Let's look at some models. How about this?" A good opportunity, and to see again. How many weeks has it been? The last time was when he finally met my mother. One day I went to see her and introduced Venti to her. So, a long time ago. Before Christmas.

Her reaction was completely different from what I expected. She was very relaxed, calm and happy. He has a certain charisma that you can't hate. Luckily he didn't let out a line like, "Oh, I didn't know you had a sister!" He would have blown her away with that. Also, I was relieved that she didn't ask about future plans..

After all, he and I didn't bring this up any further. But it was clear that we were leaving everything to fate.

When Venti agreed, we went looking for a smartphone in the shop the very next day. There was a cheap model with a camera from every brand.

"This one costs more than a whole rent to a capital city..how many lenses is that? Huh..THREE?" He looked more closely at the back. "And where's the back button?" I swiped at the screen. "That's how you do it. They don't have those on the newer ones-"

Click

"Wow! Really detailed is this camera!"

"Venti, d-delete that!" Another reason why I won't get one of these. Besides, I can hear our wallets howling.

Sighing, I deleted the picture and also the ones taken by some teenagers. They seem to have forgotten to delete their pictures. It could be that I did a favour for them.

"And a lot of people buy that? Aren't they all practically the same?"

"Well, this brand is popular. Especially among the younger ones. Let's go to the other section. They're cheaper there." I forgot he lives under a rock. Further away from the city, no TV, little internet use... I already envy him for that.

And what a joy that he is not picky. We found the right model for him after not long. In the very next shop, I was allowed to choose a new mobile phone cover for him. It was a light shade of green with a dandelion inside. He liked this cover very much.

After the successful shopping, we sat down in a café and ordered something to drink. I showed him some functions, which he quickly learned to use.

"Hmm... sending you endless messages. That doesn't sound bad." I can get ready for something. But of course I would be delighted. I'll admit that.

I sipped my cocoa in silence and put my phone back on the table. "What have you been up to lately, Venti?"

"Quite a lot of typing. I think my fingers are going to fall off. Not to mention I've had a lot of gigs." So he's been busy too. Poor guy.

"And what about you? (Name), you don't overwork yourself..do you?" If I lied to him now, would he believe me?

"I..I'm still trying with the balance.." He looked half-satisfied. But then he smiled. "Oh, really? As long as you don't overwork yourself, that's fine! After today, you can call me anytime~"

"How's the iron infusion going?" He looked to the side as he drank his cocoa.

"It's finished. I'm following protocol with the diet. But the improvement... is minimal."

"At least it's better than nothing, right?" Looks like we'll continue to do our best.

There was a brief silence between us. We were running out of things to talk about. That's what I thought, at least, until Venti tapped me and pointed to a baby in a highchair.

"Look. He's been staring at you for quite a while..." He whispered with a grin.

What..at me? I looked over Venti's shoulders and sure enough, the baby was looking at me. An older man who could be his grandpa was trying to feed him. But the baby was far too distracted by me and didn't turn to his spoon.

His eyes were a warm emerald colour and his hair was very light in contrast to his skin colour.

When we made eye contact, he smiled at me. It felt very familiar. I didn't feel tense at all.

After that, he finally let his grandpa feed him. Normally I had a feeling that children were afraid of me. But this time it was not the case.

"Ahaa..are you hiding something from me?"

"I-idiot..no way!"

Venti turned to the baby and held out his snow-white hand. The child stopped munching on his bib, let it go and tried to reach for his hand instead.

It was an unusual sight in a café, but Venti could make fast friends with anyone. In the next few seconds he squatted in front of the baby chair and held the baby's little hand with a warm smile. The grandpa couldn't help grinning and put the spoon aside. He probably gave up trying to feed his grandchild and watched. He seemed to have said something because Venti turned to him and nodded, then replied.

I was still sitting a little further away, watching in silence as I rested my cheek on my hand. Seeing them interact so familiarly warmed my heart in a way. Yesterday I was a mess and now a joy awakened me.

I know those emerald eyes will not be forgotten.

We paid after a while and left the café.

"You've made a new little friend, I take it?" I said jokingly and put my hands in my jacket pocket.

"You could say that! There's nothing purer than a child's smile and desire. I love them!"

"You're very kind, Venti." It's no wonder no one feels uncomfortable around him.

He smiled at me, which was contagious. But then I had a suspicion.

Venti...could it be that with me he wants a.. no, no. I'm overthinking everything! But come to think of it, he's older than me. You might have different plans after a few years. Besides, he'll be done with his studies very soon.

After all, life comes with responsibilities. Should I take on another responsibility when it comes my way? When it comes upon us.

Maybe one shouldn't always live a blanket life after all. It's what I used to firmly believe in.

"Venti, do you think... that someday..." Oh, it's not easy to ask.

"Yeah?" He bent down to me. I could feel the warmth in my cheeks.

"Forget it! It doesn't matter now."

"Oh, is that so?" He sighed and shrugged his shoulders. "Then ask me another time~"

Is he trying to tell me that he knows what I wanted to ask? I'm sure he's just pretending! A quirk of his to make me feel uneasy.

"Are you staying at my place tonight?" I didn't see what was stopping me. So I said yes. It's another opportunity to spend time together.

"Yeah, sure. Why not?"

The long bus ride didn't bother us at all. On the contrary, with him, the time passed quickly. This time, I was the one drawing something with my fingers on the fogged windows.

"(Name), can I ask you something?"

"Anytime? Yes."

He then drew with me at the window. A sun.

"Do you..believe in reincarnation?"

"I think so. I'm still very unsure about it." Reincarnation is one thing that has remained unanswered for me until now. But why was he asking me that? Then I remembered that he can start conversations about anything.

"What about you, Venti?"

"I used to be very unsure about it. But for a while now, I've believed in it."

"Only for a while?" I asked, confused. "What made you do it?"

"I'd say... a sudden change of heart. Funny, isn't it?" He leaned his head against me.

"Changes of mind are like swings of emotions for me. At some point you harden up and let it slide."

"Now that you mention it. There were a lot of things I didn't like to accept for some reason. But when you get used to it..." I reflected.

"But you know, I've always believed in incarnation. Even before reincarnation."

It didn't look like Venti was expecting an answer. So I said nothing and painted a face on the sun at the window. But the misting on the window dripped down. Now it looked like the sun was crying with a smile.

When we got out, we went to his house. It was already late and he switched on a lamp. "Shall I turn up the heater?"

"It's okay, I'm not cold. You can leave it off." I then pointed to the embroidery on the living room table.

"Have you got on with it yet? Let me see it."

Excited, I sat with him and he took out the small piece of fabric. A purple flower was visible on it.

"What kind of flower is that?"

"The Hyacinth. But unfortunately you can't see it clearly. I'm not that good. You‘ve got me beat. Look at yours!"

I shook my head with a laugh. "I still can't embroider the rabbits in detail! I'll never get a little pillow like that. Or a tissue..."

"Well, I think you've really improved. If you keep it up, you will!"

I nodded and stroked the small half-finished embroidered fabric.

The purple hyacinth..what does it stand for again?

"Shall we continue? Now that we're at it." He suggested and took a needle in his hand.

We had nothing else to do, so we embroidered together as usual. It was a relaxing hobby for the two of us. Much better than watching TV at my place and making fun of hosts or stupid decisions on blind-date shows. Those were the ones that upset us the most.

A few times my thoughts were interrupted because I pricked my fingers with the needle with my clumsiness. But I didn't prick myself too deeply, which was good. Otherwise he would dramatise and come at me with a first aid kit.

"Listen, about earlier... I wanted to apologise. I forgot that supernatural subjects scare you." Said Venti softly.

"It depends on what kind of subjects..." I corrected, not wanting him to feel guilty.

"(Name), may I ask what exactly are you afraid of?"

What exactly am I afraid of? As soon as night falls and you're alone, I suppose. That's the problem with me.

"During the day, I can work things over just fine. But as soon as it gets dark... then I almost lose control. I can't see anything. I don't know what can suddenly come out of the darkness. And most things... they happen at night. That's how it is in stories. I think that's what it is." I confessed frankly. "And now, add paranormal things."

"I see. Thank you." He says thank you? Now that's an unusual response.

"Uh..here you go." A fitting response for him.

"There's something I actually want to show you." He whispered, lowering the embroidery to his lap and closing his eyes. "But... I don't want to scare you." Is that why he was asking about my fears?

"Why should I be afraid of you? I'm sure you don't want to scare me. What do you want to show me?"

"About this.. I cannot explain to you exactly. But I want to trust you with it!"

"All right... please show me, Venti."

It was something he couldn't show me in his home. He said to me that he should take me for a walk first. In his area, you can see the stars very clearly. The city lights are very far away for that, which makes it possible.

"What about tonight?"

I shook my head. "When I'm outside with you... then I don't feel fear. Only when I'm alone." I then looked at the moon as I walked. Today it was shining brightly and cloudless. We walked along the pebble path. "I find this night particularly beautiful. More beautiful than when I look out of my window. There I only see darkness in the sky."

I put my arms around myself as the wind pulled the cold breeze past us. Then I stopped in front of the forest. If you go deeper in, there's a hill. And far away, you can make out a source of light. That's when you know it's the city. But I've never seen it. Venti has always told me about it. But we never got to go in together.

"You are not alone, I am with you. Please let me show you the background of darkness."

I hesitated and looked at Venti.

"It's like a murder movie, you know."

He sighed and looked to me. "And that's where the problem starts..." I scratched the back of my head, grinning slightly.

"You're right about that. But I trust you." (Name), think of something nice! Otherwise, you'll never make it.

It's a short way, which seemed long to me. He and I walked deeper and deeper through the small forest. But as it turned out, the forest was not so dark. Further back, it was even light.

It was never completely dark. And when I looked up, the sky was still there.

After a few minutes, we arrived at the hill. The view of the city far in the back was actually very wonderful! I don't know if I've ever seen anything so beautiful on a night!

"It's amazing..." I murmured and continued to look.

"Light is stronger than darkness." He said and smiled at me. "Look, you made it! You're here."

I nodded and looked away from him as well. "It's not as bad here as I thought." How could I doubt the night...? Of course, it doesn't mean my fear is completely gone. But a small part..it does. "It's a small step, thank you."

I breathed into my hands to get some warmth off, hence not putting on my gloves.

"Do you come here often?"

"Once in a while, when I need inspiration or to empty my head."

"And what about other people?"

"Unfortunately I'm the only one, I haven't seen anyone else here except myself. But I'm glad you know the place now." He said quietly, looking up at the sky.

Then I remembered that he wanted to show me something. Or was it just this place? Because Venti looked like he had something else in his heart. Something he wants to let go of.

I then turned to him. He was now looking calmly at me. "Was that what you wanted to entrust to me?"

He shook his head. "Not quite. But I think you had a hunch a few times."

"A hunch?" I asked.

"Mmm." He nodded. "Maybe if I show you, it will come back to you?"

"Oh, okay."

He approached me and put his hands down as a sign for me to put my hands on top. When I did so, he held them tightly.

He closed his eyes.

And at that very moment, something happened that I could not explain. Something that no one seems to be able to explain. I couldn't believe my eyes. And I couldn't feel anything else at that moment except the wind.

The wind was getting stronger, but not colder. My whole body warmed up and the branches on the trees rustled louder.

I could have sworn that his eyes lit up slightly when he opened them. His hair swayed and I looked around. He could easily lift himself above the ground, it was as if gravity did not exist.

Then I remembered what he once said:

"With the power of the wind!"

"I only had to swing my arm once and a strong gust of wind can blow everything away. Down to the last lint!"

Wind...

Wind?!

"V-Venti..." I could only get out in a whisper. I couldn't believe anything. What I was seeing wasn't an act.

It was real.

Venti could control the wind.

These thoughts occupied me as we walked back home without words after a while.

He said nothing, I said nothing. It was as if nothing had happened at all.

Words only came when I took off my shoes at his door. Venti beat me to it and walked slowly into the living room. I asked him not to turn on the lights and didn't do it myself. When I entered the living room, he was standing in front of his balcony, which is very wide.

Only the moon gave us light.

I approached Venti and gently put a hand on his right shoulder. After my gesture, he turned to me.

Then he unbuttoned his shirt and I looked at his bare chest where the mark was, which glowed slightly. So it really wasn't a tattoo?

"This..I've always had this." Were the first words he spoke after a while.

I swallowed once. "Do you have any more?" Now my heart was racing as he turned from the balcony again.

"I will show you this one. (Name), are you afraid of me?"

I shook my head.

"You... don't want to go?" He asked in a whisper

"I want to stay with you." I just want to be here, nothing more and no questions asked. What I want now is... to be with him.

At that moment I took him in my arms.

"Please, show me the other m..mar..k..mh."

He released his lips from mine.

"(Name), thank you."

Actually, my heart should be racing again at this moment.

But I felt so numb that the fear and nervousness were not there. We parted our lips, eyes still half open. It was as if time was passing quickly. Although it took a while for us to settle down on the carpet of the living room, not paying attention to other rooms. Probably because there might be an interruption or because it would be uncomfortable. I was already lying face down, hips raised a little.

Small breaths could be heard from him and I pressed my head deeper into the sofa cushion that lay on the floor. I was too embarrassed to look at him. After feeling a slight sting, I clawed my right hand into the fabric of a shirt lying next to the cushions. It was probably his. Maybe it was mine too. But in this darkness, I couldn't really tell. After all, our clothes were somehow spread around us. One could guess what we were doing? Or rather, what we were trying to do.

My unfitting, distracting thoughts about our clothes were interrupted when I felt a stinging sensation inside me again. I pushed a small sound from my lips at that and lifted my head from the pillow.

"H..hyah..!!" It hurts. I don't want to lie. Ahahah..those may not be tears of joy. They're tears of pain. I was about to tell him to go ahead.

Then his grip loosened around my hips, one hand stroked from my hip higher and higher to my head, and with it a slight strand of hair was brushed from my face. He leaned down to me and rested his chin on my shoulder, his chest pressing against my back. I whimpered softly.

"(Name), that hurts you, doesn't it?" A whisper. I swallowed once and nodded, still feeling a little hazy. „Please, try a-again..“ I think right now I started to feel nervous.

"I don't want to stop..not at this moment." I confessed embarrassed, turning my head to the other side, giving him more room to brush his lips against my neck in a comforting way. Wouldn't I feel connected to him then? Now that we came this far..we didn‘t even properly start..

"There's always a next time, agreed? Besides, there are other ways~"

"Other... Ways?" I tried to look over my shoulder at him. But my head isn't that mobile.

Venti slowly detached himself from me and I turned onto my back. In shame, I still hid my bust with my arms. He looked down at me and pouted.

"Exactly! I don't want to cause you any pain." He now had a cat-like grin on his face and put his hand in front of his lips. "Or is (Name) that desperate..?"

I smiled at him instead of being teased. "If you say so." He's right, after all. There are other ways to show your love. Just being with him might be enough. Intimacy... yes. It's not about being intimate only in that way!

I sat up carefully and at that moment he surprised me with a deepening kiss. It felt good to put my arms around him. It soothed me and I had not thought that direct physical contact, skin on skin, could feel like this.

As our kiss ended, I noticed that I could see his face a little more clearly. At first I thought I had got used to the darkness. But it turned out that morning was coming very soon. He seemed to have noticed this and looked towards his balcony. "Oh dear. Have we been up this late?"

"Looks like it."

We looked at each other again and almost snorted. We were aware that we were going to sleep through the morning. So we lay down again. On the carpet, of course.

As long as there were blankets and pillows, we didn't mind sleeping on the floor. It was surprisingly not uncomfortable. He pulled the blanket over us and intertwined one hand with mine.

"You know...I'm relieved we didn't..“ I murmured.

He looked at me innocently. I sighed.

"I didn't..prepare anything." I managed to get out awkwardly. He blinked a few times. Then his face changed to one of realisation. You could read the "Oh!" clearly from his expression. Then his eyes sparkled with excitement. Before he could say anything, I interrupted him.

"Hey. Just.. don't comment." My cheeks grew warm and I stared at the ceiling. Never would I have thought of not thinking of risks.

He chuckled softly. "I'll see you at noon then?" He then asked with his eyes closed.

"A new way of saying goodnight?" Maybe it was too late to say goodnight now. And a good morning didn't sound any better.

"You could say that."

"I'll see you at noon then, Venti."

But as it turned out, I was the one who fell asleep. What I didn't know was that Venti was still awake, brushing little strands of hair out of my face.

Then he looked at the window with an unreadable look.

"I am very sorry, (Name)." He murmured softly to himself.

Masterlist

Part 12

#no talk to me I‘m embarrassed #:D #genshin x reader #genshin impact x reader #romance #fanfic #venti x reader #love #mentions of nudity #kisses #kissing venti #risk #suggestive content #big reveal #lime #venti x reader lime #guys I wrote IT

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bangtanfancamp · 4 years

Text

∴ summary: After spending a gloomy afternoon trying to get out of your own head alone , you finally seek out your boyfriend for help

∴ masterlist

∴ one shot

∴ pairing: Kim Namjoon x reader

∴ word count: 2k

∴ rating: pg-13

∴ genre: soft angst, comfort, established relationship

∴ warnings: oc is struggling with something akin to depression, it’s alluded to but not explicitly stated

∴ author’s note: this is incredibly self indulgent and was written in one go. I’ll edit later. I’d rather have it here to share sooner in case anyone needs it as much as me.

─────────────────────

“Joonie, what are you doing? Are you busy?” Your voice comes out small as you peak around the corner into his office, sweater pawed knuckles sneaking around the edge of the door frame.

He doesn’t look up at first. Perhaps you really were too quiet. Or maybe he’s just that immersed in his book. It’s not a cover you’ve seen before so it very well may be the latter. You know how he is when he has a new thing to get lost in. Ever your astronaut adrift, exploring the moons just beyond whatever new world he’s found.

He looks so at home now. Cozy in his den of words and letters. Perfectly domestic amidst lofty thoughts and paragraphs. His skin is mostly bare today, his coordinated tank top and shorts exposing a golden expanse of toned arms, long legs . They’re folded up and crossed, a little boy lost in wonder as he sits on his futon.

His hair is a warm chestnut this week, fringe too long around the lashes but too short to pull back. The way it refuses to cooperate when he brushes it out of his eyes, trickling silkily, stubbornly back into place, exactly where it wants to be, makes you want to chuckle.

He still hasn’t noticed you’re there. Too far gone in whatever his newest philosophy is to notice the way you study the dip of his furrowed brow, how it juxtaposes against the relief of his shadowed dimples, smiling even as he frowns. He finds so much pleasure in being studious— just for fun. No matter how much concentration it takes. You’ve always admired that about him. Admired everything about him really.

Clearing your throat, though you hate to interrupt him, you try again.

“Joonie?”

Somehow it’s even quieter than before, and as he turns another reverent page, you know you’ll have to physically intervene to interrupt him. You sigh. You hate to break the spell. He loves days like this—with the rain trickling down the window’s glass casting shadows on his focused face— he’s so happy to read when it rains.

He leans forward then without looking up to take a sip of his Earl grey, bumbling when the steam unexpectedly fogs his glasses. He laughs at himself, folding his book so it splays across the seat to mark his place and removing his glasses. It’s the first time he’s looked up. He spots you then, his face splitting into the smoothest “there’s my girl” smile you’ve ever seen.

“Hey… how long have you been standing there?” His voices comes low, warm, soothes something in you that desperately needs rest.

“Long enough to see you blind yourself with tea, it seems.” You try to smile back, but it’s a weak, floppy thing. Your cheeks can’t seem to commit so it falls a bit too flat. His brows pinch when he sees it. Something’s amiss.

“Hey… are you okay?” His inscrutable eyes analyze you, and you let him. Too tired to resist or put up a fight.

“It’s not my day, joonie.” Your voice is pitiful, even to your own ears. You’d normally wince at sounding like this in front of anyone else. But honestly, it’s okay. It’s Namjoon you’re with. You don’t have to play games or hide things. Not here. Not with him.

“Yeah?” His eyes catch yours as his palms rub the tops of his thighs. It’s an invitation. You know the gesture by now.

“Yeah… again. There have been so many of these lately,” you say, crossing the room to him, his arms unfolding to welcome you into them. “They come too often and stay too long. They’re terrible house guests. I’m tired of them, joon. I can’t seem to get rid of them.”

You’re scooped against him now, head on the space between his neck and his chest, fingers twisted into his tank top, bum in his lap, knees tucked up til you’re as small as you can get. There’s a broad palm of his on your back, fingertips on his other hand traveling the length of your arm in tender caresses as his cheek rests atop your head.

“Maybe we should start charging them rent. I bet even they can’t afford to pay that in this economy.” He offers the idea solemnly, fully committed to carrying out the metaphor that your mental health really is just an unfortunate airbnb plagued with hideously mannered squatters.

“You know, I love that about you, Joon.”

“My inability to pay rent?”

You nuzzle a sappy no into the heat of his neck,” dummy, your very real ability to never minimize things that are hard to me.”

The dip of his chest as he exhales is oddly soothing. It makes you feel like you’re being rocked and god if you don’t need to be cradled right now. “Things have been really hard lately, haven’t they?” He wonders aloud.

“It isn’t just my perception?” You look up, eyes entirely too pitiful, too round to belong to a functioning adult. No, Namjoon’s heart goes soft as he realizes he’s looking at the eyes of a very scared four year old you. The haunted gaze of an innocent girl who never got told everything would be alright. Even without knowing any more than that, it makes him want to cry.

“No, my sweet girl, it’s not.” Closing his eyes, he presses somber lips to your forehead, scooping you close to shield you— from the world, from yourself, from all the insidious things that took root in you so long ago you’re not even sure how they got in. His wide hands grip you tighter, a feeble attempt to help hold you altogether.

It’s silent then. A few beats of quiet, only disrupted by the clumsy clatter of irreverent raindrops on glass. His caress stays steady against your soft sleeves, his languid fingers perpetually in motion as he attempts to soothe the wounds that sit just beneath your skin.

You look up at him again, unsure what you’ll find.

You almost cry when you see the gentleness in his eyes. No judgment anywhere within them. Just something kind that stretches into the lines his eyes carve as he smiles. How you itch to gently peel his horn rimmed glasses off the tip of his button nose and kiss it. Bless him.

God, you don’t know why he’s so nice to you, but you’re so glad that he is. The smile you give back to him is wobbly, trembly, poorly constructed— but so so sincere that it makes your sad eyes shine. He bumps your nose with his, burying himself against your forehead as you cocoon into him.

You want to ask him what he’s reading, listen intently to him as he tells you all about it, but you know you can’t. You can’t decipher anything today. It all feels too heavy. You can’t carry the weight of anything new with hands already full. At this point, you’ve lived in this soft hoodie of his , the one you stole after his tour two years back because it smelled like him, for the past 3 days. You don’t even have the energy to change. With that kind of retention rate, seems there’s no point in asking your brilliant professor to explain anything.

Still, it’s always so nice to hear his voice. Especially with your ear to his chest like this.

So you ask anyway.

“Will you read to me, Joonie? Life always feels better when you’re reading.” You press your face deep into the copper of his neck, an open mouthed kiss placed against his pulse.

“It’s all kind of theoretical,” he chuckles. He’s bashful. If holding you weren’t occupying his hands, you know they’d be nervously fiddling with the back of his neck. A nerdy boy with a too big brain hesitant to share his discoveries.

“Is it good though? You’ve already read Jung to me, and I stayed awake through that. I think I deserve more credit.” You poke his throat with your nose. You’re not genuinely affronted, it’s just nice to remind him you're competent too. Sometimes.

His sweet chuckle then is earthy and rich, all dark molasses. “True. You actually gave pretty good feedback for that too. Fine. Didn’t mean to underestimate you. Just… bear with me if it feels odd? I haven't read it before. I can’t vouch for it all yet.”

“Fine by me. I’m just here for the cuddles and my Kim Namjoon audiobook.”

He can feel your smile against his skin. It makes him press you just that extra little bit tighter against him, exhaling soft through his nose when he feels you return the gesture.

Scooping up his paperback, he adjusts his glasses where they’ve slipped down his nose, clearing his throat to project like the narrator he claims he’s not but loves to be. He’s quiet for a few more beats. You can hear pages rustling as you sink against his skin. You imagine he must be trying to find where he was when you interrupted, or perhaps searching for a passage that seems apropos. Which he chooses, you don’t know, but you can feel when he settles, just before his caramel voice sweetens the thin air of the room.

“It's the same with the wound in our hearts,” he begins. “ We need to give them our attention so that they can heal. Otherwise the wounds continue to cause us pain. Sometimes for a very long time. We're all going to get hurt. But here's the trick - they also serve an amazing purpose.

When our hearts are wounded that's when they open. We grow through pain. We grow through difficult situations. That's why you have to embrace each and every difficult thing in your life.”

You aren’t sure when your eyes opened, not sure when they began to glaze over or when you started to cry. But you did. And you are. The salty things dripping down against Namjoon’s silken skin. Your sweatered knuckles try to knock them away, but to no avail. Your cheeks are still a wet mess and now his collarbone is too.

“Joon, what is this? What are you reading?”

“Oh… um, it’s— terribly long title but— Into the Magic Shop: A Neurosurgeon's Quest to Discover the Mysteries of the Brain and the Secrets of the Heart. Isn't that a mouthful?” his laugh is self deprecating, small, but still the most beautiful sound.

God, you hate how sensitive and soft you are right now. You don’t want to be sitting here at 4pm in your boyfriend’s lap crying over a paragraph in a book you've never even heard of before, but here you are.

“ is that… what the whole book is about ?”

“You know, I don’t know. I haven’t read it all yet. Jackson recommended it, I’m just now getting to it. Why - do you not like it? I can put this down. Read you something else if this is too heavy. You always like the poetry. I can grab that one anthology you like.”

You can feel as he starts to shuffle beneath you, eager to track down new reading material for you, afraid he’s scared you off, when the fluttering weight of your palm tethers him to his spot.

“No, stay. Keep reading. I want to hear the rest.”

You can practically hear him smile. Relieved. Can feel his dimples manifest without even trying. He kisses your hair, tilts your chin up to kiss you too. The complexity of bergamot and black tea making his supple lips even more bewitching than normal. The window in the corner is cracked open, the humidity it leaks in making your skin sticky as you lean against him.

He’s lovely like this. The rain soaked air mixing with his natural scent, a broad hand on your chin, warm thumb beneath your lip as you mold pliant into his kiss. He ends it with a peck to your lips, a tap of his nose to your nose, before hoisting you so close against him you just may fuse together.

And he reads. He reads until he’s exhausted. Til the rain has stopped, and you’ve drifted to rest pressed against the skin of his chest.

He folds the book shut once your breathing has stilled, his thumb marking the page as he tips you both to lay down sideways. As he extends his pinprick tingling legs for the first time in ages, you hoist yourself around him in your sleep like a koala, and he chuckles. That’s usually his move.

He kisses your hair then, traipsing fingers tenderly through the escaped bits of it that brush across your cheeks. He wonders if you know how madly in love with you he is. How often he’s wondered what he’d do without you. Today, like most days lately, your light was dim, but still kelvins brighter than anyone else’s.

He sends a silent thank you to whatever deity arranged things in such a way that he can hold you to his chest like this as the daylight saving’s darkness floods his studio office. You seemed so sad today, but he knows it won’t last forever. It’ll pass. It always does. He’ll just hold you until it does. And then some.

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thelucyverse · 3 years

Text

How to Interact with Fanfic Authors - for Beta Readers

I wanted to make posts both for fic authors and beta readers, because I realized in several recent interactions that some helpful unwritten rules of fandom seem to have become lost to people who are new to it.

This isn't meant to be a call-out post against anyone to say 'you did it wrong!' (really, how could anyone be mad if you just didn't know any better), and there aren't even any definite rules for anything - but I just thought these things might be nice to know and helpful to share around. This part will be @ the betas, the post for authors can be found here :)

Selecting a story to beta read

If you already stumbled across someone asking for a beta reader, you can skip ahead to the next part.

What and why do you want to beta read?

Are you looking to improve your skills in finding grammar and spelling mistakes because you want to be a teacher or a parent? Are you just bored and looking for something to do? Do you want to help your friends, or anyone who happens to need help right now? Do you have time today, for an hour, or are you willing to edit 100k over the next weeks? What content are you comfortable reading and editing? Do you want to be able to show others that you beta read a story? All questions you should ask yourself and find an answer to before you go about contacting any fic authors.

If you want to practice grammar and spelling, you want to beta a story of an author who is only looking for that, and not a deeper check.

Depending on how much time you have, you should look at the wordcount of fics and only agree to beta those you have time to do in the time-frame given by the author.

To help people you know, you could ask writers you are friends with to let you know when they need a story to beta (don't ask too many at the same time, or you will get swamped in work), or make a tumblr post saying any writer mutuals of yours can ask you whether you currently have time to beta. Many fandom discords also have a @/helper role that will ping you when someone is looking for beta readers or other help. If you want to help anyone, go to the next step, otherwise skip that one.

Finding stories or authors

On tumblr and ao3, you can check out the 'beta reader wanted' tags and similar ones like 'to beta', 'fic beta wanted', 'looking for beta reader', etc. If you are looking for a specific fandom on tumblr, you probably have to be willing to scroll for a while, as most people don't tag things with '[fandom] beta reader wanted', and even if you would have to check many different tag variants to even find a single fic. On ao3, you can search for a fandom or pairing and then filter for the beta tags (one at a time).

On ao3, some authors also allow beta work of completed stories - but make sure to only do it on works of authors who are comfortable with this, do not give unsolicited advice or criticism! No matter how 'helpful' or 'constructive'! Comments with beta work without the author asking for it in notes or profile are anything but nice.

Most authors won't be mad at you if you point out a typo or two, but still check the notes of the fic and the author's profile for whether they actively state that they do not want this kind of beta work, and if you do end up leaving a comment, make sure to a) include something you liked about the story, so the author doesn't just check their inbox to get disappointed with a 'here's a typo' message, b) ask whether they want you to keep doing so in the future or rather not, and c) always stay polite.

For anything more than a single typo or grammar mistake, you should ask the author - best in a dm if you can find their tumblr - whether they are looking for a beta reader for this story of theirs that you enjoyed reading. Still leaving a nice comment on the fic first will help your beta/author relationship along, trust me :) Again, before you ask to beta, check the notes and profile or of they have an about section on their tumblr or other sites to find out whether your help might not be welcome, as perhaps for them a fic, once posted, is not going to be edited anymore.

You can also specifically look through the profiles of authors you like, to check not just for whether or not they are alright with corrections and/or constructive criticism, but also for whether they are actively looking for a beta reader!

Working with a fic author

Once you are in contact with an author, you need to find out whether you are really compatible, to then work together well.

Preparation: clarifying what you can, should and will do for the author

What does the author want you to look for? Examples can be found on the post for fic authors. Most authors will tell you without prompting, but some might not know that clarification is necessary/ are so used to their kind of betaing that they didn't think to/ plain forgot about it. In this case, you shouldn't just make assumptions - even if you worked with the author before, they might want different things for different fics, depending on length or how important a story is to them etc, so ask what exactly they want you to do.

Make sure the instructions cover the kind of beta work, the format (directly in the text, tracked editing functions, comment next to the text or direct messages), the content of the fic if there is anything you wouldn't want to read (rating, pairings, warnings), and the time frame in which they need the work to be ready to post.

Once you know what is wanted, really think about whether you are able to do as requested. If you can't - whether because you won't finish it in time or because you can't or don't want to do the kind of beta work they need (I for example hate to only beta spelling and grammar without also correcting wordflow, I would do it for a short fic but I won't agree to beta something longer if I can't bring in my own opinion at least a little), and honestly say what you won't do and why. If it doesn't work out, they will just have to look for a new beta, and there's no shame in that.

The actual beta work

Only do as much as the author asked you to, and do that well! You know what works best for you - reading the entire text first, then going through it again to beta, or starting with the corrections and suggestions immediately. Don't correct or suggest things they haven't asked for, it is not a curtsy but might even be hurtful unsolicited criticism.

If you aren't sure about something, for example a grammar rule, either look it up or honestly tell the author that there may or may not be a mistake there and they should check it out.

Be nice! Phrase your comments in a friendly way, and unless the author told you not to, you can even write additional notes pointing out things you especially liked.

Don't expect the author to accept all of your corrections and suggestions into the final text! You may think they would improve the work, but it is their decision, and maybe they have a specific writing style they want to stick to, or any other reason to ignore a suggestion. Don't argue about any of this.

Being credited as beta reader

Do you want to be credited for your beta work? If so, you should tell the author in advance so they can decide whether or not they agree to this, and to the way you will be credited, whether in name mention only, @ on tumblr or link on ao3.

Let me know if I missed anything, and I will add it to the post!

The post for fanfic authors about dealing with beta readers can be found here.

#beta #fandom lesson #beta reader #beta readers #ao3 lesson #fanfic lesson #on fandom #fandom rules #fandom rule #fanfiction #fandoms #not lverse #harry potter #the old guard #good omens #tagging some fandoms i've noticed problems earlier #star trek #fanfic writing #fanfic reading

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mm2305 · 4 years

Text

All That Matters

Characters/pairings : Ethan Ramsey & Olivia Valentine

Words/Genre : 2.8 K / Angst , Romance

Warnings : mentions of death,injuries

Summary : Olivia gets seriously injured. How does Ethan react?

A/N : Hello again! This fic was written per @groovypalacehorselover ‘s request. This is the first time I’m attempting to write angst , so I hope this comes out good enough. A big THANK YOU to @romewritingshop for her help in editing this. Moodboard inspired by @potionsprefect 's ones.

Disclaimer : all characters and pictures belong to the rightful owners

My Masterlist

Enjoy!

------------------------------

Ethan was frantically rushing through the hospital corridors. Dread and anxiety flooded his mind that he could barely breathe. There was no way he would allow it to stall him. Pushing himself to go as fast as he could to get to the farthest wing of the hospital, he slammed the double doors ahead open.A group of interns were nattering amongst themselves,oblivious to the frantic attending approaching them. A thundering voice broke them out of their trance.

"OUT OF MY WAY!", he boomed at them, as he was approaching closer.

The interns, startled by him, broke apart allowing him to pass through them. What made them wonder though, was the clear, unadulterated emotion in his eyes. He looked as though his world was slowly crumbling around him. And they weren't wrong.

2 Hours Earlier

Olivia was finishing up her rounds for the day. In a few hours she’d be home, snuggled with her favorite throw blanket, watching a movie on Netflix while Ethan would complain incessantly about her taste in movies. She had to visit her last patient, a sweet seven year old boy named Nathan.

His diagnosis was a difficult case to solve and this made young Nathan restless. His mom came to stay with him in the evening but she had to go to work early in the morning. The poor boy was often bored out of his mind, taking adventurous strolls through the hospital, without telling anyone. There were several instances that she and a few nurses had to track him down, but still Nathan continued doing that. She couldn’t really blame the poor kid. Today was just one of those days.

Olivia walked to the nurses' desk, to ask about Nathan.

"Hello Sarah, did you happen to see Nathan? I think he snuck out of his room again."

"Dr Valentine! No, I haven't. Maybe you should ask Mary. She might have an idea where Nathan is.", The nurse replied with a soft smile.

"Okay, thank you!"

She left the reception in search of Mary. Before long, she found her in one of the halls.

"Hi Mary, I was wondering if you've seen Nathan?", She inquired politely.

"Dr Valentine! I was just looking for you. I think I saw the kid heading towards the halls leading to the new wing."

"The new wing? Isn't that under construction?", Olivia asked, an audible tremor in her voice.

"Yes?"

"Oh God! Come on! We need to find him now!", she said, a feeling of worry and dread filling her. The new wing Bloom designed was essentially a plan to enlarge the facilities available for research. From what she heard, it wasn't safe to roam around the place without any safety gear. It was too dangerous to go there, especially for a young boy like Nathan, but she won’t let him fall to harm.

After a few minutes of darting around and asking everyone they encountered, Mary and Olivia got the same response. They saw a kid among these halls at some point. By the time they reached the site, Olivia and Mary began calling for him.

"Nathan? Are you here?"

"Nathan? Nathan come here, it's me, Dr Olivia"

No answer. Either he wasn't here or he just couldn't hear them clearly. The two women began to slow down their pacing steps as they carefully tread through the congested building site, all while calling for the young boy.

"Dr Oliv?", They heard a small shaky voice calling.

Olivia knew it was him and rushed towards the direction of the voice. Mary, hot on her heels, noticed him first.

"He's there!", She exclaimed, running to his side and checking over him for any injuries.

Olivia began walking towards them, relieved that Nathan was okay,when she heard a cracking noise. She quickly realized that the wall, they were close to, was about to collapse! With a sudden burst of adrenaline, she rushed towards them and pushed them away from the wall. She smiled softly at them before she heard a bigger *crack* and everything went black.

-----------------------------------

MEANWHILE

Ethan was sitting at his computer, in his office, looking through files and updating the information onto his computer. Truth be told though, he was too distracted by a certain resident to concentrate on his current task.

Him and Olivia have been together for a little more than three months and he was happier than he had been in a long time. She really had the power to turn the worst of days better with just a smile.

She started coming to his house after work, in fact it’s almost like she had permanent residence in his heart and place. She spent most of the time there with him, just being together. Cooking, watching tv, playing ridiculous board games she always won. It was all very domestic and Ethan always felt his heart swell with love for her, at how at ease she felt being with him, in the place he now considered a home.

Glancing at the clock, he realised their shifts would end soon but he was too impatient. With a soft sigh, he turned off his computer and walked out of his office ,towards the front desk.

"Good afternoon, have you seen Dr. Valentine?", he asked a nurse he knew she frequently talked to.

"Dr. Ramsey! Yes, she was here a little while ago, she was looking for her young patient, Nathan. He has a habit of sneaking out of his room, you see - Wait a minute please!", she paused to answer the phone.

"Bloom Edenbrook Hospital how can I help you? Mary? What?! I’m sending the team right away!"

The woman, Sarah, turned to Ethan with a flurry of panic coursing in her eyes.

"Dr Ramsey, it was the nurse who was with Dr Valentine. They found the boy at the construction site! When they reached for him… a nearby wall collapsed on them!"

"What!? Oh my… No no no… Wh-What else did she tell you? Tell me!", he demanded, his eyes glossed with panic, the usual pink hue of his face drained as he turned as white as a sheet, his breathing in short stuttered gasps.

"Olivia ... was hit worst." Sarah whispered on the verge of tears.

"Page Mirani, Delarosa and the best nurses this damn hospital has! Understood! I'm going there now!"

Before she had a chance to reply, he was already off in search of his Olivia.

-----------------------

PRESENT TIME

Ethan continued running through the maze of corridors, his eyes full of unshed tears.

"Not her, please not her! Don't take her from me! Please!", Ethan wasn't by any means a religious man, but the fear of losing the woman he loved made him pray to whoever could hear his agonized thoughts. The one person on this earth for whom he would give anything for, was again in grave danger. Memories from the last time she was at the brink of death flooded his mind, knocking the breath out of his lungs. How fragile she looked and to know he couldn't do anything to save her, other than watch her become progressively weaker and her radiant smile, the one that could lighten up a whole room, fade away. "No, don't do this right now Ethan. Focus on her. Only her.", he thought, nodding to himself while pushing the last hurdle of doors open. His eyes quickly scanned the room, trying to locate her.

He finally saw her.

She was lying on the floor pieces of rubble around her. She was unconscious, her eyes closed, her golden hair around her face. As he rushed to her side, whilst avoiding the scattered materials, he saw a small patch of blood on the side of her head.

He knelt beside her, being careful not to move her, in fear of causing more damage to her body. He took her small, still warm, hand in his and softly began to stroke her cheek and hair.

"Darling? Olivia? It's me, Ethan. Please Olivia, can you hear me?", his voice wavered at the sight of her blood on his fingers from stroking her hair and a few tears were finally breaking through.

Her eyes fluttered as a soft little gasp left her lips.

"E-Ethan?", she whispered, her voice hoarse and barely audible.

"Yes, Love it's me."

"I… it hurts.. I can't…", she croaked but it was too difficult for her to breathe properly, the dust hovering in the air wasn'tmaking this any easier. Ethan noticed this and pushed her head slightly back, to allow her to breathe better.

"Shh darling I know… I'm here love, I'm not going anywhere...Please sweetheart don't give up on me… please…I can't lose you", Ethan whispered, stroking her cheek softly, trying to be strong for her.

Olivia fell unconscious once again, her chest taking short ragged breaths. He pried his eyes away from her to look around the room. A woman was in the corner with a crying child in her arms, trying to comfort him.

" Hi… Are you okay? Did you get hurt?" he asked them as he approached them.

"Nothing too bad. Might just be a sprained wrist and a couple of scratches. Nathan’s fine too, just shocked. Dr. Valentine…. she … she got the worst of it.", she replied with tears in her eyes.

Ethan didn't have a chance to reply as the team arrived. They immediately got down to work, not even hesitating to lose a minute, paying Ethan no attention.

"Get her on the gurney carefully! One mistake and you're fired!" Zaid commanded, with a fiery stern voice at the team of nurses.

"Zaid, she's got a cut on the side of her head and she's bleeding. I don't see anything too serious but we should order a scan. Shortness of breath indicates one or two fractured ribs and her left ulna and radius might be broken, given the swelling.", Ines said with evident concern and fear thick in her voice.

"Let's get some scans and see exactly what's going on", Zaid replied, trying to be as calm as possible, in this case. Olivia was his colleague,but more importantly she was his friend and he wouldn't allow anything to happen to her. Not on his watch.

"I'm coming with you!", Ethan interrupted their conversation.

"You're not in the right state of mind to help her now!"

"Zaid’s right about this. She needs you to be calm and focused when she wakes up.", Ines told him resting a comforting hand on his shoulder.

Ethan had no choice but to reluctantly agree.

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Several hours later, Ethan was pacing anxiously in front of the room Olivia was checked into. The night doctors were there checking on her. As soon as they heard what happened, her friends joined Ethan in the waiting room, to hear news about her condition. Sienna when she saw her best friend in that state, immediately broke down, Aurora and Elijah trying to comfort her. Bryce, Rafael and Jackie, were mostly silent, their minds running through endless scenarios of what could happen to the most courageous woman they knew.

She had a broken hand, three broken ribs; one of which was pressing too close to her lung; causing her difficulty in breathing smoothly. This required a minor surgery, which was conducted by Harper herself. She wouldn't let anyone else touch the woman she had come to consider a friend. Her head injury, thankfully, wasn't too bad, but there was a possibility of a mild concussion. The whole hospital was there to help Olivia in whatever way she needed. From nurses to interns to anyone she had always been kind to.

Now, Ethan was waiting outside of her room alone, because her friends left a few minutes ago. She wouldn't wake up for a few hours and they made sure she would be completely okay before they left. Besides, they knew that Ethan wouldn't leave her side. That is, once he got to finally see her.

Thirty agonizing minutes later, he was finally allowed to go into her room. His eyes glided across her small form on the hospital bed. The side of her head was wrapped in white gauze, because of the injury there. Her left arm was in a cast and placed on a pillow to make her more comfortable. She was hooked to an IV, her body seeming too delicate on the hospital bed. Her face was in a serene slumber, her body was still under the influence of the drugs she was given during and after her surgery.

Ethan took her soft hand in his, kissing her knuckles and looking tearfully at her.

"My love… You scared me so so much… When that nurse told me you were hurt… I thought I was going to lose you. Again.", He started talking to her, even though she couldn't hear him, he was baring his heart to her. Letting the tears he was holding on to fall.

"Finding you there, lying unconscious… was unbearable. Knowing that you may be gone forever, never being able to touch you, or see your beautiful smile, hear your awful jokes again… I’ve never believed in a higher power, but if there is a being that saved you, then I am grateful. Because, without you, none of this matters. You're my whole world Oliv. And this world means nothing to me if you’re not here darling", he finished , laying a soft kiss on her lips.

He stayed with her for a few hours, having no intention of leaving her, but Naveen forced him to go get a coffee and something to eat. Of course, Naveen promised he would stay there with her while Ethan was away.

On his way back to her room, he encountered Leland Bloom. "Great, just who I wanted to see", Ethan thought, resisting the urge to roll his eyes.

"Ah Dr. Ramsey. I was just coming to find you. How is Dr. Valentine?", he asked with a facade of interest.

"She’s in her room resting. Still unconscious though, because of the anesthesia from her surgery. Now if you'll excuse me", Ethan curtly replied, walking past Leland, anxious to return to her room.

"I was hoping to come with you, actually. I wanted to ask you, will she make a full recovery?"

"Not that it's any of your business, but yes, in a couple months she will probably be alright.", Ethan gritted his teeth, retraining his seething anger at how intrusive this man could be.

"Probably? You're not certain? If her recovery takes so long, then she will be left behind in the hospital's advances. Pity… she was actually going to be one of the key assets to the progression of the hospital's success.", Leland said, not having noticed or probably caring about Ethan's expression.

Ethan couldn't believe what he was hearing. The way he spoke of Olivia. His Olivia. A human being, as though she was nothing but a tool to be used. He clenched his fists, blood coursing through his veins, ears ringing, face and neck flushed red with anger, trying to resist the immense urge to punch him square in his arrogant face.

"How DARE you talk that way about a human being who was seriously hurt? She could have been fucking killed and all you have to say is that she would be an asset to the success of the hospital? What kind of person are you, really? Do you see anything beyond your own selfish, moronic advancements?", Ethan turned to him abruptly, almost roaring, all the pent up emotions escaping him in this outburst towards this man.

Leland was stunned at his outburst, mouth gaping open for a second before he recollected himself. The two of them had become the center of attention as the nurses and doctors were forming a small circle, staring at the two men.

"I would best advise you against speaking to me like that Dr. Ramsey. I'm the one who is in charge here and I expect you to treat me with respect. Now, I understand you are under pressure right now since your partner was hurt, so I'm willing to look past this little tantrum. See you soon, Dr Ramsey." he replied, walking away from Ethan, who was stalking his way down the corridor to Olivia’s room, unbothered by Bloom’s words.

The only person in this world whose words mattered, laid in a hospital bed right now, and he vowed he would not spend any more precious time away from her. Because despite what life throws at them, all that matters is that his Rookie ... his Olivia ... his true love will be alright. They will be alright. Together.

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Thank you for reading !!!

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eagles-translated · 3 years

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Analyzing the writing of Eagles

Here's a post I've been wanting to make for a while! I've expressed my thoughts on some of the storylines in previous posts, but I've never done a complete post on the writing of the whole show. I've divided this post into separate parts, focusing on each season and its plot points. Keep reading to see my analysis of the writing in Eagles! 👇 Word Count: 18k

If you've stumbled upon this post from the Young Royals or the Beartown tag (tagged them since I've drawn some parallels from those shows), here's a brief summary of what Eagles is, which you can watch with English subtitles here. This post contains Eagles spoilers from 1x01 - 3x10.

Eagles is a Swedish TV show that revolves around a few teenagers living in the Swedish ice hockey town Oskarshamn while experiencing friendship, love, and rivalry on the ice.

To start this off I would like to say that I have no experience with professional screenwriting and if anything, this is just a way for me to procrastinate on actually writing my own projects.

I love experiencing new stories and when I discover one I really like it's just natural for me to branch off with "what ifs" and to start wondering how the story would've turned out if some things were changed. Sometimes it's with a storyline improvement in mind, and other times it's just out of plain curiosity.

You might feel like this post is leaning towards the critical side, and I can definitely understand why since there are a lot of small details that I've picked apart from all seasons. I added a section for each season with things that I thought were really well done so this post wouldn't be too negative.

I actually did enjoy all seasons and I feel like the quality of not just the writing but every single thing has steadily increased each year.

Season 1: Tropes and clichés

Eagles premiered its first season in 2019 and was, despite many negative reviews, a big success among its target audience. Every episode on SVT Play amassed around 700 000–800 000 views and there didn't seem to be any doubt that the show would get renewed.

What the critics had issues with were that "Eagles rarely takes the unexpected path, and feels like a slightly soulless product of studied target group thinking a little too often," (Karolina Fjellborg in Aftonbladet) and "In Eagles, the characters seem to be locked in the role of a "teenager" but the humanity is missing. They've simplified the construction of the character," (Django Lorentzson in MovieZine).

Eagles was unfortunate enough to constantly be compared to SKAM in its infancy, and that's a tough comparison to live up to. SVT sort of shot themselves in the foot as they were the ones who contributed to it. While the show was still in the casting process, SVT wrote an article hyping the show up as a Swedish SKAM (which has since been edited, but led many to falsely believe that it would involve all the familiar SKAM characters with some hockey elements sprinkled in).

So, why exactly did critics think the first three episodes of the show were predictable and soulless? Well, it's pretty simple. They'd seen it all before. The setting, the characters, the storylines—just in different TV shows and movies.

Season 1 for me is nostalgic and very enjoyable despite its clichéd nature. I also felt like I'd seen the show before due to its generic storylines, but there is a reason why tropes are tropes and why clichés are clichés. It's because they're tried and true, and actually somewhat good writing tools as long as you expand on them. The keyword here is to expand—a story doesn't magically become good simply because you mimic something another writer has done. Tropes are fine to use but you can't just apply them and stop there. Everything in a story needs to be developed in order to be good.

It's safe to say that it's pretty much impossible to write a story without any tropes that have been used before. Striving to avoid clichés at all costs in hopes of making your story as original as possible is harder than it sounds, and almost impossible to boot. Here's a great piece of advice for aspiring writers written by a user on Carvezine:

[...] if you look down at your story and are worried it’s already been told before – don’t spend another second thinking about it. It has. A million times. The only difference is that it hasn’t been told by you. Accept that regurgitation is part of writing, and just do your best not to regurgitate the same way as the guy next to you. We’d all do well to acknowledge there is at least a portion of our stories that are really someone else’s. [...] Beyond that, write with the motivation that if you don’t get around to telling your story, eventually somebody else will.

Even the greatest books have storylines with some clichés. And that's not really a bad thing, either. Think about it. How many times have you decided to binge a TV show solely because it reminded you of another series? Or picked up a book simply because you love a good enemies to lovers romance, a battle between good and evil fantasy, or whatever it might be?

I found this article from Masterclass that perfectly describes what tropes are and why they're used. It's written from the perspective of novel writing but it is still applicable.

A trope in literary terms is a plot device or character attribute that is used so commonly in the genre that it’s seen as commonplace or conventional. For example, a trope in superhero stories is a villain who wants to take over the world. Tropes are popular for a reason—if something has been written about over and over again, there’s a good chance that it’s something readers enjoy reading! Tropes can be helpful, but a novel made up only of tropes will quickly start to feel stale and predictable to readers. That’s why you need to read up on tropes—and then innovate. Deliberately taking a favorite trope and turning it on its head is a great way to put your own unique spin on the genre and keep your readers interested.

Eagles, in its first season, didn't really do a lot of expanding upon the tropes they used and it's understandable that they were still trying to find their footing. I can also imagine it's difficult to do so when you only have eight 20 minute episodes in the season.

However... There definitely should've been more work put into these characters to make them their own. It's tricky, yes, but still achievable if you don't abandon them in their cookie-cutter form and try to actually decorate them with something unique and fresh.

So, how did they write their characters?

Felicia's character and backstory

To start off, Felicia is a famous influencer known for starring in a reality show next to her former NHL professional father. There's already a clear disconnect because it's hard to relate to a character with such a public past and large following. But it is 100% possible if you let the viewer know the character has humane qualities just like the person watching the show.

Look at Wilhelm from Netflix's Young Royals, another Swedish TV show. Wilhelm is the prince of Sweden, set to attend a prestigious elite boarding school, and is the heir to the throne. That doesn't exactly sound like a relatable scenario, does it? And yet the writers make it work because when we're introduced to Wilhelm we realize he's just like everybody else. He wants a normal life, he latches on to his older brother for support, he has anxiety, and he struggles between following his heart versus doing what his family is expecting him to do. A lot of these factors are relatable among the audience.

So, let's look at Felicia Kroon. She is in many ways portrayed as the main character of the show. Eagles starts off with her family having moved to Oskarshamn and the following episodes focus on her developing relationship with Ludde as well as her traumatic past. There's almost too much focus on Felicia here, and I'll get back to that.

Comparing Felicia to Wilhelm from Young Royals, they're both well-known teenagers with famous parents. Of course they have different circumstances considering Felicia is Instagram popular and Wilhelm is a blood royal, but in the grand scheme of things they're similar. Felicia is even referred to as a "Kroon princess" because of her last name Kroon bearing a resemblance to the Swedish word kronprinsessa, meaning crown princess.

The students of their respective schools treat their attendance as a big deal when they first arrive and then Wilhelm and Felicia start spending time with the "popular" crowd despite not really fitting in there.

I personally found it easy to relate to Wilhelm but difficult to relate to Felicia. Some people may feel differently, but her character is basically a popular party girl who attracts the attention of one of the school's star players and is "welcomed" by the popular crowd on her first day of school. I put welcome in quotation marks because Klara, the leader of the girl group, isn't exactly the most welcoming person but she does welcome Felicia to the school. My point is, Felicia doesn't have a lot of relatable traits in the first episodes.

Felicia then goes on a date with the guy she's met, Ludde. Okay, so there haven't been that many layers to her character yet. We're at the third episode and so far she's been kind of flat.

Near the end of the third episode, we get some depth to the character and we hear her back story.

Felicia: [...] We don’t have a good relationship, my dad and I. And that’s probably why we moved from the beginning, because he’s an idiot. We’ve never been close, but… Elias and he have been since they’ve had hockey. [...] And mom has been really involved, so… And I… They’ve never really cared about me. And… And I haven’t really been a problem either. I’ve had good grades, good friends, and… I don’t know why I’m telling you this. I don’t talk about it to people. [...] I just felt so fucking lonely and invisible. I was worried all the time, couldn’t sleep, panicked because I couldn’t sleep… So I started going out more. It went overboard. It started affecting school, my grades slipped… I started taking things to be able to concentrate. Everybody does stuff like that. And then I still couldn’t sleep, so… I started mixing with sleeping pills. And there’s always wine and booze at our place. I don’t want this to come out, that’s really important. Ludde: Of course, I’d never tell. Felicia: One night, something happened that made me… Act out of control more than usual. I woke up the next morning in the hospital. So they sent me to rehab. It was really rough for mom and dad that I was suddenly in focus. When I woke up, dad wasn’t even there. Ludde: What made you take too much that night? Felicia: I’d forgotten my phone at home, so I ran up and got it while my friends were waiting in an Uber. Then I came into the hall and I heard noises. You know, like, when somebody is doing it. Ludde: Okay. Felicia: And I thought it was really weird because mom wasn’t home. So I went into the living room… Dad was fucking my mom’s best friend. On the rug below the couch.

This gives Felicia more layers and does separate her from every other "popular pretty party girl" trope that you see on TV. But this is a huge info dump, and that's a problem. I would've liked to see this happen on-screen instead of only being told what went down. The golden rule of Show don't tell, as people like to say.

Show, don’t tell is a writing technique in which story and characters are related through sensory details and actions rather than exposition. It fosters a style of writing that’s more immersive for the reader, allowing them to “be in the room” with the characters. In his most commonly repeated quote, Chekhov said, “Don’t tell me the moon is shining. Show me the glint of light on broken glass."

This back story could've been more impactful that way if, perhaps, the show began with Felicia in a hospital bed with a strong headache and hazy flashbacks of that night where she saw her dad sleeping with another woman. Then we're introduced to her mother and brother sitting next to the hospital bed tired and worried, and Felicia notices her dad isn't present. They tell her Felicia is being sent to rehab and then there's a time-jump before we see the Kroon family having moved to Oskarshamn.

That's just an idea I threw together at the top of my head, but you get my point. It would've been more interesting if we knew from the beginning that Felicia had a traumatic past like this, leading the viewer to want to know more about what actually happened.

We did get a brief flashback at the very beginning of the show—we see Felicia partying with her friends and taking some pill before lying unconscious on the ground. There's also a glimpse of Ludde's car accident with Andreas yelling at him to get out of there.

That segment only lasts for around 45 seconds and it's easily forgettable upon your first viewing of the show. It's also hard to even recognize Felicia in the dark nightclub setting with the flashing lights. Some dialogue in that short scene could've made it more memorable, because I found that when I first watched season 1 I remembered Andreas yelling at Ludde despite that being drowned out by the music.

Ludde's backstory was way more well-done, in my opinion. We see him having crashed the car and bleeding from his head. He looks terrified and almost frozen by fear, needing to be pulled out of the car by a panicked Andreas yelling at him to bring Ludde back to the reality of the situation. We see Andreas yelling and pointing, telling Ludde he needs to run now. It's more powerful when we get to see it.

And in episode 8, when we learn the truth of what happened, it's not a long and dragged-out monologue. It fits into what's going on in the story. Felicia and Ludde have known each other for a few months now and are much closer than they were on their first date. They've had disagreements and fights, but at this moment they're in a good place.

And it feels like the right moment for Ludde to come clean about what happened to him.

Ludde: Hey… There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you. Felicia: What? Ludde: About… My brother. It’s not really as everybody thinks. Felicia: What do you mean? Ludde: That night when he crashed… It wasn’t Andreas who drove the car. We were on our way home from one of his buddies. We’d had some fun drinking. And then… I’d just started learning how to drive. So I nagged and nagged at him. Felicia: So you were the one driving? But he’s an adult- Ludde: He was drunk as hell. He was going to leave the car, but I thought it was so cold and it was only three blocks away so I thought that I could drive. Felicia: And what happened? Ludde: It was slippery and really dark… And a car came. I hit the brakes in time, but it… Yeah. Right after he pushed me out of the car and yelled that I should run home straight away. He really didn’t want me to get into trouble. So, yeah… It was fucking bad luck. I want to just gather everybody and scream that it was me. Felicia: Hey… I love you. Ludde: I love you too. I love you so fucking much.

As Ludde is telling Felicia what happened as the other car came, we see a silent flashback of it along with Ludde's voice narrating. We see Andreas pulling him out of the car and yelling. Cutting to this scene that we've already seen in the beginning but might've forgotten about is a smart choice and makes the story Ludde is telling more real. We see it unfolding as Ludde is telling this to Felicia. It's a powerful scene.

We then see Felicia hugging Ludde from behind, a sign of support with no words needed. She tells him she loves him and Ludde says it back. It's an honest and sweet moment that comes at a perfect time in the story. It's not too early like Felicia's backstory was.

I sort of understand why Felicia's backstory was info-dumped because it was right before the drama of Mats accidentally spilling the beans to Klara's family. They wanted the audience to know what happened to her early, so they could move on to the plot point of Felicia thinking Ludde was the one who told everybody.

But we don't need every single detail of Felicia's story. Let it come organically. The only thing that was really needed was for Ludde to know that Felicia had struggled with drug use and was sent to rehab for this storyline to work. The reason why could've been saved for later, and it would've made for a more interesting reveal. Maybe just have Felicia allude to seeing something that night, but don't tell the viewers right away what it was.

In 1x06, Felicia is incredibly upset when she hears that her dad was the one who told Klara's family what happened to Felicia in the US. And rightly so.

Felicia: Don’t you get it? You ruined everything! Mats: What? Felicia: You told the whole damn town about me! About the US! Mats: I really didn’t mean to disclose you- Or disclose us. Sorry. Hey, sorry. Flisan, please. Hey. Felicia: Did you tell them you fucked mom’s best friend too? Yes, I saw you.

If this had been the moment where we first find out what Felicia saw, it would've been more surprising. Our reaction would've mirrored Mats's, and it would've been more heart-wrenching to know that Felicia was traumatized by an affair her dad had only to be cheated on herself in the very same episode.

Ludde's problematic nature

One of the scriptwriters of Eagles, Fanny Ekstrand, was interviewed in the behind-the-scenes documentary Edvins Skådisdrömmar. In this interview, she states:

Ludvig, he's the one who's been the easiest to retain the personality of. Because he's so... He's calm and friendly, but he makes dumb decisions. Ludvig isn't a typical hockey guy. He has a bunch of other qualities—music being one of them.

I found myself slightly disagreeing with this take, despite knowing Ekstrand is literally a part of the writing team and most likely helped shaped Ludde's personality. I just interpreted Ludde's character (at least in season 1) differently.

I also didn't find him that much different from any other typical hockey guy just because he happens to have another interest. That's a bit like saying Archie Andrews from The CW's Riverdale isn't a stereotypical jock because he also plays the guitar.

In season 1, we see Ludde break into the rink because he wanted to test out the ice. He just loves hockey that much. He also uses it as a way to express frustration and anger, which we saw in 1x05. He flirts with the new girl in school and in the beginning he even uses it as a tactic to gain a position on the main hockey team. This was confirmed by the creator Stefan H. Lindén in his Q&A, where he said:

My idea has always been that Ludde was blown away by Felicia and that he really likes her but that they both initially interacted and met to go swimming because Felicia knew it would piss her dad off and Ludde knew that it might throw Elias off since they were competing for the same position in the team.

I would say that the characteristics of a typical hockey guy would be someone like Adam—obsessed with the sport, flirting with girls, going to parties, and just spending a lot of time in the rink. Ludde checks off all of these points. However, I will give this the benefit of the doubt since season 2 Ludde seems to change a lot and it's easier to interpret him as the calm and friendly guy he was supposed to be in season 1.

So to me, Ludde wasn't calm and friendly at all. In season 2, yes, but when we're first introduced to him?

Ludde shows anger issues and violent tendencies in 1x05 when he head-butts Elias and breaks his nose. It's violent and messy. He then yells at Felicia to leave when she's trying to communicate with him and belittles her drug problems solely because she's rich. To me, Ludde wasn't a nice person in 1x04 either when he let his friends make suggestive comments about Felicia and what she was like in bed.

Omar: I can tell you one thing - you’re not borrowing my towel today cause I don’t know where that dick has been. Adam: It’s nice when she sucks, right? Omar: Can’t you tell us some more, does she bite you or is it just really, really nice? [...] Adam: Is that what you sound like when you’re coming? What does she sound like?

This was described as "locker room talk" and the writers probably wanted to show an authentic view of what being a hockey player is like. I understand that. But it's a little problematic when it's later swept under the rug and treated like something that we're just supposed to accept.

Elias: [...] it’s not very fun to sit in a hockey locker room where people are talking about how nice it is to fuck my sister. Felicia: Ludde would never say anything like that, you know that. Elias: He wouldn’t? It’s a locker room, Felicia. That’s the only thing they talk about.

It did not sit right with me how Felicia seemed to be the one Elias blamed in this scene, and Ludde and his friends never faced any real consequences for what they said. Elias did lash out at Ludde, but there was no severe consequence for Omar and Adam's comments.

Compare this scenario to another Swedish show, Beartown on HBO. Beartown is similar to Eagles and focuses on a hockey team in a small town with one of the star players hooking up with a girl who's recently moved to their small town.

This girl is raped by the hockey player. And because of his status as the star of the team, he has almost the whole school behind him. The girl however is labeled as a lying slut. It's unfair and frustrating to see it happen, but it's authentic and done in a way that doesn't glamorize the ugly side of hockey culture.

Eagles is not as dark as Beartown so this comparison might be a little unfair. Beartown's whole storyline did revolve around this incident while in Eagles the hockey culture is treated more as a side thought. It's like they decided to throw in a taste of what goes on in a locker room just to create drama without really addressing it further.

Beartown did a much better job of portraying the problematic and toxic elements of hockey culture without making it seem like it's just something normal that we should accept. It was honest and raw. If you haven't seen the show, this short video does a great job of depicting how much thought was put into the toxic hockey culture, winning mentality, and subsequently hockey players thinking they're entitled to do whatever they want.

So, to respond to Ekstrand's quote from Edvins Skådisdrömmar—I did not experience Ludde as a "good guy" who only makes dumb decisions at all. In season 1, he's a bad person for letting his friends sexualize a girl he likes and letting her brother hear their disgusting comments. He's a bad person for fighting with her brother and later yelling at her, saying her drug issues are insignificant despite acting supportive of her only two episodes earlier.

I don't mind conflicts like these because they drive the story forward. I didn't particularly like Ludde in season 1 because of the reasons I just stated, but they're necessary to create drama and make the show interesting.

It's just weird to me how one of the writers is saying that Ludde is a calm person and a good guy when that is not at all how I interpreted his character.

Eagles is a show targeted towards a young audience, among them probably a lot of easily influenced pre-teens. What kind of message does this send to them when the guy letting his friends sexualize a girl he's slept with and on top of that laughing at their inappropriate comments is referred to as the good guy?

Klara is mean... What else?

From the moment we're introduced to Klara, it seems obvious that she'll play a living and breathing version of the infamous Alpha Bitch trope. She's also a prime example of the basic Popular is Evil trope and has her own Girl Posse consisting of Sara and Amie.

Klara feels threatened by the arrival of a potential new popular girl, Felicia, and does everything in her power to bully Felicia to show dominance. She barely shows any good sides of herself.

The only instance I can think of where we sort of see season 1 Klara in a positive light is when she talks to Amie in 1x05 about their friendship and then accompanies Amie to her audition for the school band.

Klara: Ever since Felicia started at school… It’s felt like you only hang out with her and that you’ve forgotten about me. She like took you from me. Amie: But I haven’t forgotten you. Klara: No, but do you get what I mean? Amie: I get it, but I haven’t forgotten you. Klara: No, I know. Amie: I know, but it just turned out that way when school started. Klara: Okay. Amie: But I’m sorry. Klara: It’s fine. Amie: Are you sure? Klara: Yeah. You can make it up to me when you go on your world tour.

Klara is really supportive of Amie's musical endeavors, but she also uses her support as a way to alienate Felicia from the girl group. It's very on the nose and kind of feels suffocating in the way it's written.

Klara: Amie, did you remove the clips? Amie: Yeah, she said they weren’t good. Klara: She’s just jealous. It’s so obvious. I mean, I’m jealous. You sing absolutely amazing. I don’t know, I just think it was really rude of her to sit in the cafeteria and criticize you like that Amie: Yeah, maybe. But she apologized. Klara: But still. That clip of you in the bathroom… Like… Sorry, but I’d be so mad if someone had posted something like that of me. I mean, you were standing there without makeup, completely non-fixed up. And the whole thing with her filming you without you knowing. That’s really weird. You don’t do that. Don’t you think so?

I'm sure there are plenty of people who act like this in real life. And maybe that's part of the problem, because Klara in season 1 really isn't an interesting character. We've met this person before and we know exactly what she's like. There's nothing new to discover. So season 1 is essentially just Klara being petty and rude every chance she gets, and to me it felt like a large part of her character was written just to stir up drama.

In 1x06, we see Klara backstab Amie by filming her making out with Ludde at her Halloween party. But I thought it was established in 1x05 that Klara feels like Amie was taken from her? And if Klara actually cared about Amie and didn't want to lose her as a friend, she wouldn't just stand by and watch with her phone recording the whole thing. It doesn't make a lot of sense.

Klara even made that whole point about how it was really weird of Felicia to film Amie without her knowing. So why would Klara do it, when she expressed that's weird and not something a normal person does? Is that supposed to be foreshadowing? Because if so, that's a clear contradiction and not how foreshadowing works.

When Sara happens to see the video on Klara's phone she immediately says that Klara should delete it.

Sara: What is that? Did they know you were filming? Klara: No, of course they didn’t know. Sara: Oh my god, Klara. You should probably delete it. Klara: I’m going to! But it’s crazy, right? Sara: Yeah, god. But seriously, delete it. Klara: I’m going to.

So Klara says she's going to delete the video. But it's still unclear why it was filmed in the first place if Klara insists that she's going to delete it. It's not like she filmed it just to show it to Sara either, since Sara wasn't meant to see it and only saw it by chance while swiping through Klara's photos on her phone.

It doesn't make sense for Klara to film a video like that of her best friend that she's supposed to care about. It doesn't make sense for Klara to film a video of anybody without their knowledge when she previously made a big deal about how you shouldn't do that.

What Klara's character is, is a bad attempt at the classical mean girl. She's clichéd, boring, and full of tropes.

Even her eventual character development is riddled with tropes like the Heel Realization where a character realizes they're actually one of the bad guys. This realization seems to come in 1x08, where Felicia calls Klara out on her behavior.

Felicia: You know what, Klara. I’m so fucking tired of your fucking comments. You didn’t get to be Lucia this year. Poor you! Was dad unable to fix that? Cry then, Klara. Cry. You’re so fucking mean. Everybody here is tired- Everybody here is scared of you. Even those who liked you once, they can’t take it anymore. Klara: That’s not true. It’s not true. Felicia: Yes, everybody is scared of you. You know what? Look around. Show people some fucking respect. Klara: Well say something, Amie! Amie: What is there to say? She’s right.

Klara needed a wake-up call like this. It's just unfortunate that she goes back to her mean girl behavior and posts the video after Amie insinuated that Klara wasn't a real friend. Klara already knew that Amie felt that way since she said Felicia was right in her assessment of everybody being scared and tired of Klara. So wouldn't it have made more sense for Klara to post the video right after that moment instead of during Amie's performance?

Or rather, why not pull a Subverted Trope and not have Klara post the video at all after she realized how horrible she'd been acting? That would've made me respect her so much more and be a great introduction to her character development in season 2.

The Halloween Incident

To me, the whole Halloween episode was questionable. First off, we never got actual confirmation of what happened in that room between Amie and Ludde. Some viewers insist that they only made out and others believe they went all the way. Here's what the creator of the show, Stefan H. Lindén, had to say about this in a Q&A post he did:

I think if you went into the writers room of Eagles and asked all of us what really happened in that room [between Ludde and Amie at Klara's Halloween party] we would all have different answers. I know what happened, but I’m not sure we will ever truly know for sure, unless Ludvig or Amie eventually are open enough to admit to anyone what really happened.

This is kind of a vague answer, but that's fair considering that when Stefan did this Q&A the latest episode that had been released was 2x05 and he probably didn't want to spoil anything. However, looking back at this answer knowing how the season turned out I still feel like it's unclear what happened. It's also strange that Stefan seems to be saying that they never actually decided what happened between them since the writers "would all have different answers".

1x06 was just an odd episode for me overall. Lots of things felt rushed and underdeveloped. Let's not forget that this episode also contained, in my opinion, some of the weirdest lines in the whole show (along with Elias's strange monologue about plague vampires).

Ludde: Hey, I only have like 3%. Do you have any power? Adam: Are you wondering if I have a power bank in my shorts? It’s coming-

Ludde: I like shellfish. (said to Amie, wearing a lobster costume)

Up until this episode, Ludde has shown zero interest and attraction towards Amie. We are basically told that Ludde only hooked up with Amie because he was so drunk that he practically had no idea what he was doing.

In 1x02, we see a drunk Amie try to kiss Tobbe and upon getting rejected she moves on to make out with Adam. She gets overly friendly when she's drunk so the fact that she makes out with Ludde later is... Weird, but not entirely out of the realms of possibility.

Ludde on the other hand is moping about Felicia all night. He regrets how he yelled at her at the end of 1x05 and it shows. He's trying to drown all his problems in alcohol and it seems to be working, because when it enters his system he seems to be on top of the world.

What I found kind of ambiguous in this incident was if Ludde even remembered what happened that night. He was drinking so much compared to Amie, who doesn't really need as much alcohol before she reaches her "overly friendly" state. I thought for sure that Ludde was oblivious to the situation when he woke up in his bed the next day and immediately messaged Felicia.

There are just so many questions to unpack here that were never answered. What prompted Amie and Ludde to go into that empty room? Why did Ludde come with her? Why didn't Adam seem to care about this, when he'd been sitting next to Ludde and taking care of him most of the night? And as I wrote before, why would Klara film this video of her best friend when she previously expressed that was a weird thing to do?

There's just too much in 1x06 left unanswered. The Amie/Ludde hook-up was a badly executed plot twist because there wasn't anything hinting that this would happen. It just came out of nowhere.

Unbalanced screentime and Elias's wasted potential

A large portion of season 1 was dedicated to Felicia. This was kind of a let-down for me since I thought more focus would be placed on Eagles as a hockey team (after all, that's what the show is named after). I also thought more attention would be on Elias since he's the talented star player who's supposed to live up to his father's legacy.

The show starts with a couple radio hosts hyping up how Elias Kroon, son of the legendary Mats Kroon, is going to join the Eagles hockey team.

Host #1: [...] It’s finally official. New center in the junior team - Elias Kroon, son to the legendary NHL-pro Mats Kroon, who has now chosen to move home from the US to his hometown where Elias will play in his father’s old club Oskarshamn Eagles. Host #2: This is so freaking cool. Who doesn’t want a Kroon on their team? Host #1: We hope that he’ll take a spot on the A-team.

But we don't learn a lot about who Elias actually is in the first episode. The attention is on Felicia and her interest in Ludde.

Elias is so discarded that he barely has anything to say in the first couple of scenes we see him in. Here are all his eight lines in 1x01, and I'm not even joking.

Elias: Yes. Elias: Shut up. Elias: Ow. Elias: It's fine. Elias: Really? Elias: Fucking hell. Elias: I'll stay here. Elias: No, it's fine.

In 1x02 he has even fewer lines. Three, to be exact, and all he says is that his injury is a sprain and that it's fine. Essentially just an echo of two of the lines he had in the previous episode. It's nothing new.

There's a way to have a character stand out when they don't have many lines, but Elias just fades into the background with every other extra. There's too much time spent on having other characters talk about Elias than us actually getting to know him. So when we do meet him, it's pretty underwhelming.

Compare Elias to his sister who gets so much more attention from the writers. I don't really understand why either, since I thought Elias was a much more interesting character than his influencer sister. Felicia's character only seems to revolve around a guy. I wonder how many times we've seen that before?

In 1x02 we see the Eagles hockey team play their first game, but Elias is unable to play and has to sit in the stands for what was supposed to be his debut match. Why? Because during a hockey practice session in 1x01, Adam rams his stick into Elias to purposely injure him. I mean, fair enough. Adam is trying to get Ludde on the main team since he and Elias are competing for the same position. The shot of Adam smiling after Elias sprains his wrist is a bit too on the nose, but whatever.

What this does is minimize Elias' presence in season 1 by a lot. We don't see the son of the legendary NHL professional play an actual game until 1x05, which is more than halfway into the season. It's kind of disappointing but I understand the injury is done to dramatize his situation.

Elias barely gets his own storylines in the first few episodes. He just has things done to him instead of acting on his own. When we do see him on screen he gets injured by Adam, reprimanded by his father, and later told he can't play in his debut game.

His sweet side (or any side of him, really) isn't shown until 1x03 when Amie wakes up at the Kroon house and Elias reassures her that they didn't do anything together and that she can borrow Felicia's clothes.

Elias doesn't really do much for the plot until he hears Ludde's friends objectify Felicia and he starts a fight with Ludde and confronts Felicia about it. That's when it feels like Elias is actually a part of this show instead of just being an extra shoved into the background. His actions are finally affecting the plot.

Elias's potential in season 1 was hugely wasted. The only episode where we actually got to see him shine was 1x07, when he travels to Karlskrona with Amie. We find out he doesn't want the hockey arrangement his dad has planned for him and that he's actually a pretty goofy guy who likes making jokes (and eating green candy).

If less time was spent with Felicia and the distribution of every episode's 20 minutes was more balanced, season 1 could've been massively improved. It got much better in season 2, but season 1 suffered and made many people think that Felicia was a basic and unentertaining character.

The side characters and their comic relief

So one thing that I found really disappointing with Felicia's amount of screentime is that we barely got enough time for the other main characters, let alone the side characters.

What I mean here is that the only people we really know on the Eagles hockey team are Ludde and Elias. Ludde's friends, Adam and Omar, just feel like comic relief sidekicks. We don't really know what they're like, besides the fact that they like to make jokes and mess around.

This issue is largely created by the short running time the episodes have along with season 1 only having eight episodes in total. That's definitely understandable. It did get better in season 3 where we see Ludde having a deeper conversation with Adam and Omar and they finally don't just feel like the comic relief characters, but actual people with layers.

Ludde: I’m going to quit hockey. Adam: Are you serious? Omar: What the hell are you saying? Ludde: It’s not the same anymore. I’m not passionate about it. I… Yes, it sucks, but… I’ve thought about it for a while now. Omar: We make jokes about it and all, but… Yeah. It wouldn’t be the same without you. Kingelikingen. Adam: I get that it’s a tough choice. But yeah… You’ll work things out. You and Felicia. You always do. Ludde: You guys are pretty awesome sometimes, actually.

This scene was really sweet, and I wish we could've had moments like this between the guys in season 1. Just one scene to show that they're not just the "typical hockey guys". It feels like Ludde was the only person on the team in season 1 who wasn't just a background character. Even Elias, who you would assume should be at the forefront, isn't properly developed until 1x05 where we see him defending his sister and starting a fight with Ludde. Otherwise, it very much felt like Elias was kept in the background.

There are also guys on the team called Herman, Simon, Näslund, Ekbäck, Hoffmann, Berglund (even Montell, which was a fun nod to the show's director)... But who are they, actually? Do you even remember their names? To be honest with you, I don't. Because they're just names—not actual characters.

None of the other guys on the team get any depth. They're just sort of there as extras and to give the audience a sense of comedy with their "hockey team shenanigans". This was illustrated in 1x08, where Adam and Omar make their teammate Liam do a "sexy dance" on a table because he lost his virginity. Or a more extreme example—Jönsson, who only exists to be the comic relief and the unlucky guy who just can't catch a break.

In 2x04, Jönsson is told by Jack to do extra time in the gym and gets told off when he only spends a few minutes on the exercise bike. Later, Jack also makes a joke about how he should get Jönsson a defibrillator. In 2x09 Jönsson invites Ludde, Adam, and Omar to come to his mom's place to hang out. After he's left, Adam makes a comment about how there's no way he's going to "rot" in Jönsson's apartment that doesn't even have a balcony.

Don't get me wrong, these scenes aren't bad and I don't mean they should've been scrapped. Comedy can absolutely have its place in a show like this. Let's take the scene where Ludde flashes a couple of unfortunate old ladies on his first date with Felicia as an example. It feels like something a teenage boy would do to try to make a girl he likes laugh. It's a brief scene and it's nice to see Ludde being able to goof off only moments after talking about Andreas. We know that's a touchy subject for him.

However, it feels slightly overdone sometimes with how almost everybody on the hockey team is only there for comedic purposes and to fill space. It's more refreshing when they're shown to be multi-dimensional. I wish this is something that the writers would've considered when the show is literally titled after the hockey team, yet most of the hockey players are hardly in the story.

To add to this, it felt like Sara and Tobbe completely disappeared from the story in season 2. With Sara we understand that she probably didn't want to hang out with Klara anymore after knowing she filmed the Halloween video and posted it on Instagram, so that's fair. But it would've been nice to see Tobbe stick around in season 2, and I'll get back to why I think that.

The potential of season 1

When I look back on season 1 I feel really nostalgic. No matter how many small details that irked me, I can't deny that the setting of the show is beautiful and I really appreciate the depiction of it. Instead of showing Oskarshamn as a boring small town, we're shown the beauty of it which is incorporated into the storylines.

Some examples would be Ludde and Felicia's first date at Gunnarsö and walk through Havslätt, the gorgeous view of the Oskarshamn harbor from Klara's house Villa Högklint, and Badholmen where the school band performs and we later see Elias and Amie walking by in season 3. All these places are listed on the Eagles Oskarshamn site and I feel like they did a great job tying the storylines in with the locations.

Another aspect of season 1 and its writing that I really enjoyed was Elias and Amie's budding relationship. They just have a natural chemistry together and the dialogue between them also felt authentic and sweet.

Season 1 is just a very polished teen drama overall compared to some of SVT's previous series.

Back in 2007-2010, SVT used to air a soap opera-style show focusing on a few teenagers living in Gothenburg that was called Andra Avenyn (translation: Second Avenue). I was only seven at the time but I watched this show religiously as it aired three times a week. Just mentioning the show brings a lot of nostalgia.

Andra Avenyn amassed around 500 000 viewers per episode and was, just like Eagles, nominated for a Kristallen television award. But how good was it, really? If I take off my rose-colored glasses for a second and actually consider the show's highly dramatized storylines and unlikely scenarios, it had a tendency to drag on (which usually happens with soap operas). It didn't offer a realistic view of teenage life and on IMDb it currently sits at a rating score of 5.6 stars out of 10.

Comparing this old teen series to SVT's newer one, Eagles season 1 was a huge improvement and continues to be the most popular teen series that SVT has aired so far.

This idea and all the characters have lived in Stefan H. Lindéns mind since 2008, while Andra Avenyn was still on the air. It's actually amazing how high the quality of most TV shows has risen since then. Eagles has a rating score of 7.4 out of 10 stars on IMDb and has become internationally known in a way that Andra Avenyn never was.

Eagles season 1 laid the groundwork for SVT's most successful teen series of all time, and that's a huge achievement.

Season 2: "Subverting expectations"

When Eagles came back for season 2, the script made it kind of obvious that the writers had listened to the critique of season 1 being predictable.

I did find season 2 a huge step up from season 1—the directing was so much better and when it came to the script we got a deeper look into all the characters that they hadn't really scratched the surface of in the first season. My main disappointment however was that it felt like they threw in a bunch of weird plot twists just for the sake of "subverting expectations".

The core idea of subverting expectations can be great if done correctly. You lead the audience to believe they know what's going to happen, but then you surprise them with an unexpected and clever twist.

A post in Cinematography written by Mason Leaver defines the phrase of "subverting expectations" as:

[...] a method of surprising the audience with some element of a story, be it the plot, themes, characters, etc. This goes beyond a “twist” in a film. Expectation subversion actively works within the genre of a story, and attempts to reinterpret or subvert the conventions of that genre, breaking patterns in surprising and interesting ways. However, this method of surprising the audience is not always well received- it can sometimes be the source of heavy criticism from fans of the tropes which have been subverted.

This included "unexpected" relationships such as Elias/Klara and Amie/Ludde. The former actually worked, but the latter? Not so much.

Amie's crush on Ludde—make it make sense!

Amie and Ludde were my biggest issue with season 2, and it felt so out of character of Amie to be head over heels for Ludde. They work great as friends but romantically they're a huge mismatch.

But they have music in common, I hear you say. Yes, they do. But having a shared interest doesn't mean people are automatically a good match. You have to consider their chemistry and overall compatibility.

Before actors are cast in a show or movie where their characters will be romantically involved with each other, it's common to do what's called a chemistry read. Here's a neat description from an article in Backstage written by Caroline Liem:

Chemistry is the complex emotional or psychological interaction between two people. If this were a romantic article, it would be about love. Instead, we are discussing the astonishing rapport between two actors, and how that connection is achieved in order to book [...] the role. A chemistry read is an opportunity to read with actors being considered for a role opposite yours, usually lead roles. The main purpose is to see how you instinctively connect and work with the other actor.

This obviously wasn't done for the actors playing Amie and Ludde, since there didn't seem to be any intention of having their characters be involved in a romantic relationship.

That was even confirmed by Stefan H. Lindén in his Q&A of season 2, where he said that a love triangle between Ludde/Felicia/Amie was planned but later scrapped.

I can confirm that from the beginning of development of the series and the first version of the storyline a triangle drama was at some point intended for season 1 but later removed – however when creating the characters, Ludvigs skill in music and arts was always there from the beginning so by knowing that, we always knew that interactions would appear between them. When looking back at Season 1, in the first scene by the lockers when Amie tells Felicia who Ludvig is, she does know exactly who he is and she is well aware of that his friend Tobias is a music guy that Amie wants to get to know. Also when looking at it, when I was the same age as Ludvig and Amie I, and I am sure a lot of people can relate to it, fact is that we never really knew if it was love or friendship in the beginning.

Knowing that the triangle drama was scrapped for season 1, it makes sense why it seems so arbitrary. There was no groundwork laid down for this pairing before it was hastily thrown together in 1x06 for a cheap plot twist. This continues in season 2, where Amie and Ludde start spending more time together. Yet it's hard to see Ludde as a potential love interest for Amie in the way the writers want us to. They still come off as friends despite having hooked up at a party.

I mentioned that Tobbe should've stuck around for season 2 and here's why. Tobbe was written to be the leader of the school band that Amie later joins, and he was friends with Ludde before the video was posted. He would've been a perfect fit for the Amie/Ludde music storyline but he's completely absent. He had the potential to be the person who could've helped them with the song a little and then later picked up on whatever there was going on between them.

I think the Amie/Ludde storyline could've hugely benefitted from a scene between Amie and Tobbe, where Tobbe asks if she actually has feelings for Ludde and we get to hear exactly what Amie is feeling. Maybe she's torn, not wanting to get together with Ludde because of how much they hurt Felicia, but at the same time finds it hard to suppress her feelings. A scene like that would've allowed us to get into Amie's head and make the Amie/Ludde storyline much clearer.

To add, this storyline was in desperate need of more interest from Ludde's side. There needed to be some indication from him that would make Amie believe he liked him back, even if that wasn't the case. All we get is Ludde complimenting Amie's song and then a hug in 2x05 when Amie says the record label in Stockholm wanted a meeting. And apparently, that was enough for Amie to think Ludde was interested in her despite him blowing off the Stockholm meeting and Amie hearing Ludde say that the Halloween incident was a mistake.

Ludde and Amie don't really mesh as well as Elias/Amie do or even as well as Ludde/Felicia do. Elias and Amie had sparks flying from the very first scene they shared. That pairing is one of the main reasons why the show became popular internationally, and why is that? Because of the actors' chemistry.

Amie and Ludde are a clumsy attempt at throwing together two people who don't really work together with the intention of "subverting expectations". And I suppose that's what the writers wanted to depict—an awkward crush that doesn't really make sense, which I'm sure many people have experienced as a teenager. That part is fine. But what I didn't like about this storyline is that Amie had no good reason to believe Ludde would be interested in anything with her beyond a platonic friendship.

While season 2 was airing, I was convinced that Amie wasn't actually in love with Ludde. She was just lonely after the aftermath of the Halloween video and mistook her feelings for Ludde as love when she just appreciated his company. Here's what I wrote:

So as we know, Amie kissed Ludde in episode 6 when he was in the hospital after having been injured during the hockey game against Karlskrona. She immediately seemed to regret having done that and ran out without an explanation, leaving Ludde alone and confused. I honestly don’t think Amie has any romantic feelings towards Ludde. I think she might mistake her feelings for a crush or something, when in reality she’s just lonely and appreciates Ludde always being there for her and giving her compliments on her musical ability. Ludde was complimenting Amie at the hospital, saying she was amazing, and I think Amie was just really touched by that and maybe wanted to thank him somehow, and ended up kissing him. And then she freaked out and left because oh my god did she really just kiss Ludde. It was an uncomfortable and awkward situation and that’s probably why she ran out. However, I really believe that if she had just stayed to explain and apologize, Ludde would understand and they could’ve just laughed it off. But this is a drama show so of course that wouldn’t happen! Do I think the writers are making them into a couple? No, definitely not. They know that season 1 was sort of predictable and cliché, so they’re making season 2 as different as possible by including these unexpected pairings such as Klara & Elias and Amie & Ludde. But Amie and Ludde won’t ever be a couple, because Ludde is still very much hung up on Felicia. I don’t see them as a couple either - yes, they have music in common, but they work way better as friends than in a relationship.

In Edvins Skådisdrömmar, which is a behind-the-scenes documentary of Eagles season 2, writers Fanny Ekstrand and Michaela Hamilton discuss the writing of the show in the documentary's third episode. The third episode is mostly focused on the lead-up to the scene where Amie kisses Ludde at the hospital. Adrian Öjvindsson, who plays Ludde, says:

Filming the kissing scene was [...] awkward and weird, actually. And that's how it ended up. Yandeh and I haven't really had any intimate scenes. In this case you could take in that it was weird, because that's also what the scene wanted to depict.

When Edvin reads the script, he describes the scene as a "nightmare" scenario. I agree. And the lazy build-up to this Awkward Kiss trope doesn't make it any better, because just like the Halloween incident this doesn't make a lot of sense.

It's supposed to be awkward and weird, just like Adrian said. But he also mentioned one of the most important details: Yandeh and I haven't really had any intimate scenes.

Before this kiss scene, there was nothing that indicated any chemistry between them. No accidental hand-touching, no longing stares, no nothing. Just a friendly hug. A proper build-up to the kiss scene would've made it feel less out of place.

The love confession from Amie to Ludde in 2x10 really threw me off as well. The confession to me made no sense and honestly felt like a prank call. There was no feeling behind it and zero reason for Amie to believe that there was a chance Ludde liked her back.

At the end of 2x08, Felicia goes to Ludde's house after he's confessed the truth to the police about the Andreas situation. Amie happens to overhear the conversation and she hears Ludde very clearly say that he's not interested in Amie.

Ludde: Felicia, there’s nothing between us. Between me and Amie. It was really the biggest mistake of my life. Felicia: Goodbye, Ludde. Ludde: Felicia, please!

Amie, now having her heart broken, crosses Ludde's name off the contract while crying. She knows he doesn't feel the same. So why would Amie even bother to call Ludde up to tell him she's "in love with him"?

Amie: [...] Hey, Ludde… Ludde: Yeah? Amie: It feels really weird to hear our song now. Because I know who the lyrics are about. And… And I… I really like you. Or, well… I’m in love with you. I just need to know how you feel. Or if you feel anything. Just tell me. Ludde: I’ll always want to be your friend, Amie, but… It’s Felicia I’m in love with.

This moment is on par with the awkwardness from the hospital kiss between them in 2x06. The second-hand embarrassment with this one was really rough, and what I don't understand is why this was even added to the script when Amie had already gotten the confirmation that Ludde didn't think of her in a romantic way. This storyline could've ended in 2x08 after Amie overheard the conversation between Ludde and Felicia.

It really didn't need to drag on for the whole season, essentially making Amie's whole storyline in season 2 about a guy. Her moment of finally getting signed to the record label was ruined when it could've been regarded as a fresh start if the storyline had just ended where it should have.

What this storyline did instead was ruining my favorite friendship of season 1, which was Amie/Felicia. This mess made it so hard for them to reconcile and they didn't end up properly addressing it until 3x09, spending almost two whole seasons mad at each other. It sucks that the writers decided to drag out their fighting and disagreements for this long when they could've instead shown two girls in solidarity who don't let a guy get between them and their friendship.

Amie apologized in 3x03 for how she hurt Felicia, but Felicia made it clear in 3x06 that she still harbored ill will towards Amie for what happened at Halloween (which in the timeline of this show was more than a year ago).

Felicia (to Amie): Are you going to start slobbering with [Elias] now too? Just give me back that sweater first, I don’t want slobber on that. Thanks.

I talked about how much I disliked the Amie/Ludde storyline in this post, with my main reason being that it really messed up the character dynamics that were established in season 1.

This storyline [of Ludde and Amie hooking up]—along with Amie falling in love with Ludde—is by far my least favorite one because it messed up the whole character dynamic. I feel like Amie and Felicia won’t ever go back to the kind of friendship they had in season 1 before the Halloween incident because the trust was so broken, and Amie really should’ve tried harder to apologize to Felicia like Ludde did instead of going after her best friend’s ex in season 2.

If there's just one thing I could change about this show, I would 100% get rid of the Amie/Ludde storylines. There is nothing that annoyed me as much as those storylines did.

Amie's musical ambitions

I've talked about this a bit before in another post because this was something that really bugged me about Amie's character in season 2. Here's what I wrote:

I honestly still feel like Amie’s whole storyline with sending in a rather basic demo written by two teenagers with little to no experience and then getting praised on it [by the Stockholm music producers] with comments such as “it’s going to be a real summer hit” felt so unrealistic to me. Maybe they only said that so Amie would accept their offer or something, but that’s still very strange because she would have still said yes without a doubt. I can understand that they thought Amie was marketable as a person and there was this bonus with her having gone viral before on Felicia’s Instagram, but that demo did not seem good enough for me to be immediately released as a single and then have them decide on the spot that Amie would be given a contract. I mean, come on. It never felt earned because we never really saw Amie struggling with her songwriting journey to achieve this dream. Sending in one demo to one record label and having them immediately want to make a whole album with you just doesn’t happen in real life unless the song is extremely good or you have a very unique voice. Amie is really talented but there are hundreds of people just like her, if not thousands. I was never convinced by her getting signed so quickly in season 2. I understand that they wanted to establish her as a successful artist [at the beginning of season 3], but that felt so rushed. I was so sure that the record label would screw her over and steal the song rights to record it with another artist who was already established, and that we’d have to see Amie work even harder to achieve her dreams. But we didn’t get that at all. Where was the struggle? [...] Of course I wanted to see Amie achieve success (and I was happy when she did), but the journey there was so bizarrely easy. She didn’t start to seriously work on making her music career become a reality until season 2. Amie had dabbled in music prior to that, like when she auditioned for the school band and did that performance of Follow, but she didn’t truly start to work towards it until season 2 when she decided to have her work sent to professionals in the business. And then, just five episodes later, she gets contacted by the record label in Stockholm. To put this into context—season 2 took place somewhere around March, and episode 5 around three weeks into April. So when Ludde first started helping Amie it took less than two months for her to get signed. You could argue that the song was just that good or that Amie is just that talented, but it never felt like a realistic storyline to me.

It's tricky to write a storyline like this when you only have ten 20 minute episodes in the season and a limited amount of screentime for every character. All that is understandable. But it's strange that they didn't opt for a time jump to really sell this storyline and make it believable.

Eagles uses time jumps a lot, but somehow this particular plot point was omitted from that and kind of glossed over. I don't really understand how they expected us to buy this storyline. The viewers aren't stupid, and more effort should've been put into this storyline.

In the post where I wrote this, @gajana18 also had an interesting thing to add:

[...] it's equally unrealistic that this huge record company would be hounding Amie, a teenage onehit wonder essentially to come back to the label- don’t they have other bigger artists?

This is a very strong point. Considering how Amie kept expressing that she wanted to finish school and then proceeded to ignore their calls, it's weird that they didn't just decide to discard her contract when Amie clearly wasn't taking her singing career as seriously as they wanted her to.

So, back to season 2. Maybe they could've gone with the record label stealing the rights to Amie's first song and screwing her over. This fuels her to try again and after a time jump of a few months we see Amie having worked really hard on a new and better song. Maybe even a whole album. And this time, she's learned from her past mistakes and improved her songwriting. This time, she's successful in her endeavor and it feels so much more earned after knowing the struggles she's been through to get there.

I also feel like a storyline like that would've made people sympathize with Amie more in season 2. It was really hard to root for her when she had nearly screwed Ludde over by not giving credit to his songwriting and saying "fuck him" when he didn't return Amie's feelings.

Klara's character development

When we're introduced to Klara in season 1, she's a stereotypical mean girl with wealthy parents who is the popular girl at school and has her own followers.

In season 2, the writers decided to develop the character. We find out Klara has issues at home and her mom is barely there. When she is, her parents will start fighting. Klara is feeling really lonely and doesn't really hang out with her friend Sara as much as she used to.

I appreciated the added depth, but it seemed like a drastic shift. The changed perspective could attribute to that but when you step back and really look at s1 Klara and s2 Klara, they're like two completely different people.

Maybe Klara's reputation suffered after she posted the Halloween video? Maybe she had a change of heart after Felicia finally confronted her during Lucia? I mean, I guess.

But what most fans (including me) didn't like about Klara in season 2 was that there were no clear consequences for her after she posted the Halloween video. Klara still hangs out with what seems to be the popular crowd and she has people to go out with. In a post I wrote last year about my thoughts on season 2, I wrote this:

I actually wish that Klara would’ve become more ostracized from her school friends to emphasize how alone she is, but she seems to still be pretty popular so that was kind of disappointing. I thought the fall-out of her posting the video would be worse, but I guess not. Anyway, I like that they’re taking a disliked character and making her into a better person. Feels like it’s been done a few times before, but I still appreciate them doing it. I hated s1 Klara for being so one-dimensional, but s2 Klara is well on her way to being a pretty good and nuanced character.

Her character development sort of comes a little out of nowhere, though. Her reputation wasn't ruined by posting that video and she didn't really lose any friends besides Sara (she had already lost Amie prior to posting that video considering what Amie said to her after Lucia in 1x08).

So what prompted Klara to become this whole new person who actually considers other people's feelings in a relatively short amount of time? Here's a conversation between Felicia and Klara in 2x07.

Felicia: Was there anything in particular you wanted to talk about? I understand that we’re not best friends just because you and Elias are together. We’re not here without a reason, right? Klara: No, I get that this feels weird for you. And if you don’t trust me after everything that’s happened - or that I’ve done. Felicia: Klara… Klara: I know that I haven’t acted like the world’s best person. And I regret that. Sorry.

But why does Klara regret her past behavior? What made her realize she hadn't acted like the "world's best person" if the ramifications from posting the Halloween video were so minimal?

Was it the relationship with Elias that made Klara change? No, I don't think so. When they first start talking at the bar in 2x03, Elias tells Klara that he doesn't always agree with Felicia and that he has his own viewpoints. In 2x07, he says Klara wasn't the one who messed up, but rather Amie and Ludde. And in 2x09, the script tells us that the Elias/Klara relationship seemed to bring more change to Elias rather than Klara.

Felicia: What did you do to him? Klara: What? Felicia: He’s smiling. Elias is like a whole new person since he met you. Klara: Stop. Felicia: I mean it!

So what made Klara change? In 1x08 she's mocking Felicia's drug problems and posts a video that will for sure ruin Amie's reputation. But at the start of season 2, she's suddenly become more withdrawn and considerate of people's feelings.

I can only name one factor that actually makes sense, and that's the fighting between her parents. Klara seems to turn into this quiet child when she has to listen to her mom and dad yelling at each other. This is something that didn't really begin until season 2, when Ola's company GECED started going under. This storyline was very well done.

But the other things, like Klara's reputation and friend group which you would assume would be affected, remain as they were in season 1.

Jack's sudden character change

Jack came into season 2 as a charming and charismatic character, seemingly fooling everybody into thinking he was a good guy. He knew the Kroon family from before and both Felicia and Elias were none the wiser when it came to the eventual reveal of his true colors.

Here's what Stefan H. Lindén had to say about the Jack character in his season 2 Q&A:

Bringing Jack in was actually originally not my idea, it came from my writer colleagues after that they revised my storyline notes for Season 2, while I was still down in Oskarshamn shooting Season 1. We had always intended for a character to come in and raise the stakes but I never imagined it to be Jack. When we started to develop the character, we all started liking him so he was kept in the story. Like with any new character we never really know who they are and what [the] point of them for coming in is [...]

Personally, I feel like the point of Jack's character is pretty obvious. When he first comes to Oskarshamn he is very much the embodiment of the new love interest coming in to date the girl who has broken up with her previous lover, while the previous lover still loves her and does anything he can to get her back although she's dating someone new. Jack is the Romantic False Lead trope who later becomes an alpha-dog Jerkass.

What I found interesting about Jack compared to Klara (in season 1) is that Jack isn't just a bad guy. He's very clever with his manipulation tactics and can easily charm people with his good looks and charisma.

When Felicia accuses Jack of cheating in 2x07, he manages to spin the whole thing around and make Felicia apologize to him and say it was stupid of her to believe he would cheat on her. I talked about this in a post while the season still aired, before Jack's true colors were revealed. Here's what I wrote:

I still don’t know if Jack really is cheating on Felicia with Olivia (the girl that texted him) but I would say he is. Jack is incredibly confident and charming, which makes him able to easily lie and manipulate people. We know he’s not an entirely good person since he’s already lied to Elias about not knowing that Mats would bring him back to Eagles. I wouldn’t be surprised if he really did hook up with Olivia and ended up being a really good liar. The fact is that not only did he deny it but he then shamed Felicia for blaming him and causing a scene, ultimately shifting the focus in the argument to her and making Felicia feel bad that she even confronted him in the first place. Jack says that maybe they shouldn’t even be together, which causes Felicia to backtrack and apologize. It’s actually pretty impressive how Jack was able to spin that around to blame Felicia and make her apologize.

Jack is able to take a small detail and use it as ammunition to get what he wants. In this situation, he brings up the girl in the Stockholm club that Felicia partied with and also kissed.

Jack: You shouldn’t accuse me, either. Felicia: What? Jack: I saw on Instagram, you and some girl in Stockholm. Have I whined about that? Coming here and blaming me for things, it feels really immature. Felicia: Fuck. Sorry, Jack.

Jack wasn't bothered by that at all. It happened before Felicia and Jack were even an official couple, and all they had done was hooking up at a party while Felicia was high. Jack, having cheated on Felicia, couldn't care less about the random girl Felicia kissed. That was just something he used to manipulate her.

When we discover that Jack is actually cheating on Felicia, he immediately reverts to a one-dimensional "evil" character. He's become the 2.0 version of Klara in season 1—written in just to stir up drama.

This "master manipulator" version of him just goes down the drain and Jack turns into a manchild who starts petty fights, files a police report because Ludde pushed him, and says to Felicia "I'm gonna tell on you!". Alright, maybe those weren't his exact words, but you know what I mean. It's a sudden shift and you start wondering how Jack was able to hide this version of himself so well before.

In 3x05, Jack sees Ludde and Andreas after a hockey game and fumbles trying to find any insult he can to hurl at Ludde. Everything he says from that point on is just line after line to really solidify that Jack is the bad guy. You didn't forget that, right? Here, let's have Jack call Felicia a druggie so you know just how shitty he is. And have him call Andreas a junkie later for good measure—there, that should be enough for people to understand that Jack is the villain here.

Jack: Johansson! Ludde: What the hell are you doing here? Jack: What does it look like? Ludde: I guess it’s you I should thank for the victory. Nice work. Jack: What is Felicia doing these days, then? Does she miss me? Ludde: Hey, you’re shutting up now, do you get it?! Jack: Jesus Christ. Do you think you can save her? What do you think she even sees in you? You two play in different leagues, Ludde. Ludde: You have no idea what we’re like. Jack: Come on! You should leave her. While you can. She’ll just pull you down into the dirt with her. You’re no hero, Ludde. Isn’t she still doing drugs? Once a druggie, always a druggie, right?

Jack is a horrible person, but at least he was able to pretend to be a good guy in season 2. And that was actually really fascinating. I wish we could've seen more of Jack's manipulative side that he showed in season 2 instead of making everything coming out of his mouth be a half-assed attempt at insulting the other person. That's a pretty boring villain, in my opinion.

Jack's backstory of his father being an alcoholic and him starting to resent the whole Kroon family because they had everything growing up while he didn't is interesting. It would've also made more sense if his anger was only directed towards the Kroon family since they're the ones he grew up with. They're the ones he was after the whole time.

His anger towards them feels cheapened when Jack also starts insulting Andreas (who he's probably never met before) for no good reason. It's like Jack's human qualities are just gone and all that's left is this empty shell made to start fights. His backstory didn't really make anybody sympathize with him, either.

The improvements of season 2

What I liked about the writing in season 2 was that they explored new ideas and had some solid storylines (besides the mess that was Amie and Ludde). Elias and Klara actually worked pretty well as a couple, even if they were pretty much the 2.0 version of Felicia/Ludde as the "wealthy, popular pretty girl starts dating the star player on the sports team".

Felicia finally gets some more depth. The scene at the end of 2x02, where Felicia and Leila park their car near the harbor and just start crying, is so powerful.

2x05 is also one of my favorite episodes of the show, as well as the ending montage of the 2x10 season finale. In Gameday, we had a very touching scene between Felicia and Mats where they finally communicate. It's not the most understanding conversation but it's a start. It's an interesting contrast between their talk in 1x06 where Felicia revealed she saw Mats cheating on Leila versus the talk they're having now.

Another one of my favorite scenes is when Felicia and Ludde meet up at their bench in 2x10 after Ludde has called her up asking Felicia to come if there's any chance of them getting back together.

The dialogue is simple and to the point. There's no long-winded love confession for the sake of drama. It's a moment that the whole season has been building up for, and when we finally get there we realize that this is how love should be.

Easy and simple.

Ludde: You came back. Felicia: Yeah, I did. Ludde: Do you remember our first date here? Felicia: No. I’ve forgotten. Ludde: I was so freaking nervous. Felicia: Everything you said… Did you mean it? Because you hurt me, Ludvig. And I… I’ve really tried to hurt you back, but… It’s not possible. I can’t… Not love you. Do you think… Do you think it can be us again? Ludde: What do you think? Felicia: I don’t want anything else.

Ludde admitting how nervous he was on their first date is sweet and shows us how much they've been through. Felicia is struggling to find the words to say and she's acknowledging how hurt she was, but still can't seem to find it in her heart to hate Ludde. It's honest.

Another plotline that I think was a little underrated in season 2 is the GECED company going bankrupt and Ola, Klara's dad, is under investigation for financial crime. This isn't a storyline you would usually see in a teen series. It's much more serious. It also gave us a really touching and poignant scene in 2x08 between Ola and Klara sitting on the floor of his office, where Klara has to comfort her father who starts crying.

Ola: When you were little you used to sit like this. On the floor, while I was working. You had your own room, but you wanted to sit with me. “Help daddy work”. Mom’s doing the right thing by leaving for a while, don’t blame her for that. Klara: What, you can’t just leave because things get a little tough. Ola: Maybe you should get away for a while too. You know, I never wanted you two to… That you… Everything’s gone. Klara: It will be fine. It will be fine. Ola: Sorry. I’m sorry.

In 2x09, Klara is at a party when she notices a bunch of missed calls from her dad. She immediately senses something is wrong and rushes home to find her dad having attempted suicide. It's executed very well and I really liked the more serious tone they went for in season 2.

It set up season 3 perfectly, which continued with the darker themes but balanced them very well with the more light-hearted moments.

Season 3: Finding one's footing

Season 3 was a highly anticipated season. I thought the season 2 finale was masterfully done and it left me wanting more. When season 1 finished on its cliffhanger of the video leaking, the focus only seemed to be on that.

But with season 2 there's Felicia/Ludde getting back together and Ludde having been sued by Jack, Jack threatening that he would leak all of the Kroon's family secrets, Klara's dad passing away, Elias deciding to get on the train and go to the draft combine anyway, Amie having finally become a recording artist but being isolated and heartbroken... There's so much to unpack, and it's a lot more interesting than the ending of season 1.

Where's Jack?

Jack is supposed to be the main villain but he's gone for most of the season, failing to show up until 3x05. In the season 2 finale Jack makes a huge deal about how he's going to destroy Felicia's life. He's threatening her in a very violent and abusive way.

Jack: [...] I know a lot about you, Felicia. And your nice family. It’s enough for me to leak to one news site. I can destroy you. Do you get it? I’ll tell them everything. The drugs, the cheating, your abortion! Felicia: Shut up! Jack: Hey. Huh? Did you seriously think I wanted to be with you? The little Kroon princess, who has gotten everything for free her whole fucking life! You and Elias! Like spoiled brats! You don’t understand what it means to fight for something!

In 2x10, Jack decides to report Ludde for assault but he doesn't follow through on destroying this family that he hates. If there's anything Jack seems to despise above all, it should be the Kroon family, right? So why did he fight back with Ludde but not the Kroon family?

I expected Jack to leak all the Kroon secrets at the beginning of season 3, but Felicia seems strangely calm at the funeral which I'm assuming only takes place two weeks or so after Ola's passing in the season 2 finale.

Then, a whole year passes with no indication that Jack is ever going to leak anything. As season 3 was airing, I commented on how strange this felt in an ask I received:

One of my main questions about the time jump is the whole thing with Jack saying he was going to ruin Felicia’s and the Kroon family’s reputation in the press. It seemed like nothing really came of that? I’m pretty sure that detail hasn’t been abandoned entirely and that Jack will come back (we’ve already seen a glimpse of him in the third episode), but it feels strange that Jack threatened to leak all her secrets and then just never did. I got the impression that Jack was a person who, when having his pride wounded, would do pretty much anything to get back at the person who insulted him. And yet there’s no mention of where Jack has been during that time or what he’s been doing. I feel like I would be pretty paranoid about this if I was Felicia, but we don’t see this haunting her until episode 3 when she sees a flash of Jack before realizing it was just some random guy. It seems strange that Felicia was relatively at ease during the funeral (which I assume took place not long after Jack first threatened her) and after the time jump. We don’t really know what’s been going on during that year, but Felicia seems to be fine and like she hasn’t had any thoughts of Jack at all. Maybe she assumed that his threats were empty and that he wouldn’t actually leak anything to the press, which is reasonable but at the same time I don’t understand why Jack has yet to do anything after a year. He was really pissed off in the season 2 finale, after all.

Going to repeat one of the things I wrote here because it deserves to be mentioned twice, and this point is one of my biggest issues.

I got the impression that Jack was a person who, when having his pride wounded, would do pretty much anything to get back at the person who insulted him.

I feel like this was kind of a plot hole that wasn't explained. Jack is ruthless and doesn't hold back at all when his true colors come out. He has no problem talking about the sexual relationship he had with Felicia in front of her father. Jack is just that horrible.

So what prevented him from ruining the Kroon family's lives earlier, when it seems to be the thing he's wanted for years?

Michael's predictable predicament

Michael first appears at the end of 3x04, where he calls Amie up to tell her he's her father.

Man: Hey! Sorry for calling so late. Is it Amie? Amie Condé? Amie: Yeah. Man: I saw you on TV the other day. I’m Michael Condé. I’m your father.

In the next episode, we get a voice-over of the continued conversation between him and Amie.

Michael: [...] I understand if it’s shocking. I’m in Oskarshamn for work for a few weeks and— Could we meet up someday?

So, it's clear what the writers are going for here. It's the estranged father who returns into the child's life when they've become successful. We're made to believe it's a Daddy Had a Good Reason for Abandoning You trope when Michael meets up with Amie and tells her why he left.

Michael: So Petra, she— Has she said anything about me? Amie: Well… That you moved from Sweden before I was born… That you’re working as a lawyer. That you didn’t want to see me. Michael: I was… I was young when we met. Your mom and I. And everything went really fast. I was in love, but she had feelings for somebody else. And when she found out that she— That she was expecting you, then… She didn’t want me there. She said I wasn’t father material. To some degree she might’ve been right, but… I wasn’t much older than you are now. I had just gotten into a law school in Berlin. When I finally came back to Sweden, then… She didn’t let me see you. I had already lost you by then, but I want you to know that I— I’ve thought of you. And about a week ago, I… I’m seeing you. On TV. There you are. With my last name. I’m so proud.

However, it's pretty easy to identify the holes in Michael's story. To be honest this whole storyline was predictable from the very start. Before Michael even came into the story, I made this post which pretty much summed up Michael's whole character when we didn't even know he existed yet (this was when 3x03 was the latest episode that had aired).

I don’t think we’ve heard any mention of Amie’s dad in the whole series except for 3x02 when Amie was being interviewed and was asked about the Condé name where she said that while Samuelsson was from her mother’s side, and Condé was from “the other side”. I found her word choice a little interesting. I don’t think Amie’s dad has passed—but rather that he’s alive and just chosen to not be a part of her life, which is why Petra seemed to be a little offended when asking Amie why she didn’t want her last name anymore. This might also be why Amie said “the other side” rather than “my dad’s side” because they have an estranged relationship. [...] I’m not really sure if they’ll do anything with Amie’s dad (maybe they’ll go for that trope where the parent who previously abandoned their child returns after the child has accomplished something big/something major happened and the parent wants something from them for personal gain?).

When we actually get to meet Michael and hear his explanation of why he left, I wrote this post pointing out some of the holes in this storyline.

Michael meeting Amie only after she’s become famous is a little suspicious, but it’s understandable if he previously thought she didn’t want to meet him and then sees her with his last name on national television. Obviously he would contact her after that. I feel like there were some question marks with Michael’s whole story though, and the fact that his work just conveniently happened to send him to Oskarshamn after he’d just seen Amie on TV. Maybe I’m missing something here, but how did he know Amie had gone back to Oskarshamn if he saw her living as a pop star in Stockholm? Was this information about Amie quitting the tour and going back to her hometown even online? If Elias (who actually witnessed Amie saying she was done and quitting) seemed taken aback when he saw Amie in Oskarshamn, then how did Michael know?

I do think Michael will return for season 4 though, so hopefully this storyline will be straightened out a little. We don't really know what Michael has been up for the past few years and if he has a family of his own. Maybe he'll contact Amie again to tell her she has some younger half-siblings?

They ended on sour terms, but if Michael does have his own family it's something Amie deserves to know and she can decide whatever she wants to do. I'd also like to see a Michael/Petra reunion, but I'm getting a little ahead of myself.

This storyline wasn't bad, and I do appreciate we got to find out what the situation with Amie's dad was. I also liked how I was able to sympathize with Michael. He's not entirely awful, even if he did put a lot of blame on Petra. It's one of those situations where you don't really know what it's like to be in Michael's position unless you've experienced it, and it's very realistic.

Plot holes

Some of the plot holes of season 3 that I've already mentioned are how Jack waited a whole year before leaking the Kroon family's secrets and how Michael conveniently knew Amie was in Oskarshamn when nobody seemed to know she was coming except her mom.

I actually don't mind that it was never explained how Michael got Amie's phone number either, because that's usually pretty easy to find with a Google search. Things like addresses, economic status, and even your criminal history are easily accessible in Sweden when googling someone's name. So finding someone's phone number is probably fairly easy as well.

On the other hand, one of the most glaring plot holes appeared in 3x08. In this episode entitled Lost, the Kroon family is frantically searching for Felicia who has gone missing. Leila and Elias knock on Petra's door to see if Amie is there and might know something about Felicia's whereabouts. Petra tells them Amie isn't there and they leave.

Someone left me an anonymous ask which I answered in this post, pointing out how it was strange that Elias didn't just call Amie to ask her when she wasn't at home. We know Elias has her number because they've been talking on the phone and texting each other several times before in the season.

In 3x08, when Elias and his mom go to Amie's house and ask Petra if Amie has seen or spoken to Felicia or whether she's home, I couldn't help but wonder, uh Elias why not just call Amie and ask her if she has seen or spoken to Felicia? [...] if Elias had called her and she heard how frightened him and his family were and police being involved she would have told him and then there would be no point in the 3x09 episode really.

This is a very strong point. You could argue that maybe Elias just didn't think of that but if they went out of their way to visit Amie's house only to not find her there, it would seem like calling her instead would just be a logical next step in the situation? Here's what I wrote in response to this ask.

This is an issue I had with 3x08 and 3x09 as well. I had a hard time actually enjoying the moment between Felicia, Klara, and Amie knowing that her family was getting increasingly worried for her and even thought for a short moment that Felicia was lying dead at the bottom of the ocean. All that could’ve been avoided. To add, it didn’t make a lot of sense to me that when Klara finally decided to call someone she called Amie instead of Elias. An ex-friend of Felicia’s instead of her brother who could’ve helped a lot more. What was Amie supposed to do when she showed up at the hotel, exactly? I know there was the thing with Klara only knowing Amie’s number off the top of her head, but there is no reason why she couldn’t have gone down to the reception while Felicia was sleeping and asked to use a computer just to get a quick message to Elias. Like, “hey, Felicia attempted something bad but she’s safe with me, we’re at this hotel in this room but she didn’t want me to call anybody, I don’t know what to do”. That would’ve been so much better than keeping quiet about the situation for nearly 24 hours. I know that Klara probably has trauma from leaving her dad at the hospital after his suicide attempt and that she probably didn’t want to go against Felicia’s wishes. I understand the first part 100%. But Felicia was in a very bad place emotionally and was thinking that her whole family hated her when that wasn’t the case. I feel like in a situation like that you kind of have to be the bad guy just to ensure the family that Felicia was safe. Even if everything turned out alright in the end, it could’ve gone so much worse if Felicia had wanted to be kept hidden for longer. [...] Elias calling Amie would’ve been an easy solution to this whole debacle but we would’ve lost the drama. It’s still somewhat of a plot hole though, like you said.

I understand it was done this way for dramatic effect, but that doesn't really patch up the plot hole.

I also found it strange how many people turned on Felicia after Jack ruined her reputation in the press. I talked about this in an ask I received.

I don’t understand why the public turned on Felicia so harshly. And Leila too, for that matter. The way Jack told the story about how these two women had things done to them should indicate that they’re not the ones to be blamed. If I read this article and found out an 18-year-old girl got pregnant by a “violent criminal” who forced her to abort and then abused her I would not be angry with the girl. I would be angry that she was physically abused and also outed on her sexuality for being bi. If I read this article and found out Leila had been cheated on by her husband repeatedly with her best friends, I wouldn’t be angry at her. I would not agree with the decision to turn to alcohol (same as Felicia turning to drugs), but I wouldn’t blame them. And I feel like a lot of people should’ve been on Leila’s side after finding out the reason why they divorced. I don’t understand why people are saying they’re disappointed in Felicia and calling her fake when she’s been through so much trauma in her life. I feel like if this actually happened in real life, all the blame would be shifted to the men because they’re the ones who—in this story—are painted as the bad guys (with the exception of Jack, considering he was anonymous).

I got another anonymous ask sent in after this, pointing out how the anger directed towards Felicia was considerably more about her drug use rather than the abuse she endured. Here was my response to that:

[...] the drug use should’ve been understandable considering the stuff Felicia had been through was also written in that article. I don’t know. I can understand people unfollowing her if they didn’t want their young children to be exposed to all the controversy, but it’s still strange that everything Felicia received was hate messages. Did everybody just skip over the part where the anonymous source stated that Felicia was violently forced to have an abortion by an ex-criminal and probably did so out of fear for her life? Yes, we know this is fake, but why didn’t anybody seem to mention this? [...] they seem to have written this storyline with the idea in mind that the public was against the whole Kroon family. Felicia got comments such as “So fucking disappointed in you and your family”, “What a nasty fucking family”, “You and your family are so fucking disgusting”. So I think Leila received plenty of hate for drinking instead of divorcing her husband sooner and basically turning a blind eye to all the problems her family went through. That’s what Jack told the press, at least. The anger seemed to be directed towards every member of the Kroon family and that didn’t make a lot of sense to me.

Again, this is something the writers did to dramatize the situation and they kind of forgot to consider that what Jack actually told the journalist wasn't as incriminating for Felicia and Leila as it were for Mats and Elias.

The magic of season 3

What season 3 really excelled in, to me, was delving into some more serious topics as well as showing the gradual development of Amie and Elias' relationship. Amie and Elias are the prime example of how a slow burn is so much better than having a couple get together too fast, like Felicia and Ludde did back in season 1.

While season 3 was still airing, I wrote a post dedicated to questions I had received about Elias and Amie. Here's one of the things I said about them:

I think Elias’ interest in her really started to grow after he saw how caring Amie was to Felicia, and later on connecting with her on how they both ended up back in Oskarshamn after following their dreams which didn’t exactly turn out the way they expected. Yes, Elias has always sort of been watching and admiring Amie from afar, but that interest didn’t start growing until he actually got to know her. The experiences they had in the US and Stockholm, respectively, probably changed their mindsets and in my opinion it makes so much more sense for them to get together now than it would’ve in season 1 or season 2.

I still believe that Elias and Amie are the best-written couple of the whole show (at least so far), because they just make sense. We'll see what season 4 has in store for them because we have yet to actually see them in a romantic relationship, but I feel like their personalities and characters just fit together really well.

Another thing I really appreciated was the depiction of Felicia and Ludde's declining relationship. Things like that happen so easily, and I liked how we see Felicia do this huge gesture of planning a picnic for Ludde in 3x04 but there were still underlying problems between them. It's like that in real life too—no matter how big of a romantic gesture you make, communication will always be the number one priority in any relationship and that's where Felicia and Ludde fall short.

The obvious disconnect between them when it comes to money is also important. It's been like this from the beginning, but season 3 gave us an actual conversation about it.

Felicia: Please, I can’t talk about this. Seriously. It was stupid of me to bring this up from the beginning. Fuck, I get such anxiety talking about the future— Ludde: You get anxiety? I’m the one walking around with no money in my account. Mom and dad had to get a loan to pay off mine and Andreas’ fines. I’m playing on a shitty old synth, and living off you like some leech. That’s anxiety. Felicia: Everything isn’t about money. Ludde: Says the one who has money. Felicia: Move out then, if it’s so fucking hard to feel like a leech.

This felt very realistic. Of course a person like Felicia wouldn't think money is everything when she's never experienced financial issues. She's able to move out into her own one-bedroom apartment as soon as she's turned 18, it seems, and doesn't worry at all about the cost of furnishing and decorating it. She didn't even pay for it herself, because Mats mentions he's the one on the mortgage loan. It seems like Felicia has never had an actual job either, and that's starting to worry her because she has no idea what she should be doing.

Felicia: [...] I don’t know what I’ll be or what I’ll do in the future. I don’t know that. Ludde: You’re still an influencer— Felicia: Don’t say I’m an influencer, please. Do you think I want to be that my whole life? It’s not even a career. I'm— I’m graduating next year, and I… My grades suck, and— I have no plan. I only have you. Not like that—I have you. That’s what I have. I want to be here, in Oskarshamn. I don’t want to go to the US and chase some dream and be a hockey wife. That’s not a life. Sometimes I wish neither of us had a plan, just us together here.

Felicia's character finally offers something interesting here, which I've waited for since season 1. She's not just a party girl anymore who has issues with drugs. She's a privileged teenager who is co-dependent on the guys she meets and who has anxiety about the future, to the point where she wishes she could stay in Oskarshamn in her little apartment forever stuck in limbo.

She has to face a harsh reality when Ludde decides to break up with her, and later on when her name is slandered in the press and people all over the country are sending her hate messages. Her own family is furious with her and Felicia has nobody. She's pushed away a lot of people and her mental state is just crumbling in front of our eyes.

It's a strong storyline and actually very well executed. Almost everything gets taken away from her, and at the end of 3x07 you can almost feel what Felicia is feeling. We've been with her through this whole journey, almost, and we understand why she feels like suicide is the only answer.

It's tough to watch that final scene of 3x07. It's greatly amplified by Alva Bratt's superb acting, but the writing of the journey there is also amazing. It's very difficult to write a sensitive storyline like this.

Overall, I don't have a lot of critique towards season 3. I loved most of the episodes. I elaborated on this further in a separate post:

[Episodes 3x04 and 3x05] showcased what Eagles should be all about so well, which is relationships plus the struggles you go through as a teenager in a small town, and then of course hockey. The hockey game episodes are really good, even if I don’t think 3x05 topped 2x05 (the game where Ludde got tackled and knocked out). I loved the contrast in Date night of the budding relationship between Elias and Amie and then that fight between Felicia and Ludde on the cliff. [...] It was interesting to see how this sweet gesture from Felicia turned into a fight between the two of them. I thought that was very realistic, because no matter how big of a gesture Felicia made to apologize there were still underlying problems that they needed to talk about. I also loved the “non-date” between Elias and Amie in this episode. It was cute to see them goofing off before the movie started and then talking about it on the way home. I liked how Elias could connect to her on how they had both returned to Oskarshamn. The recent episodes that dropped last week (3x08 and 3x09) were very strong and discussed some important subject matters [...] They were dark, but not necessarily bad because they needed to happen. However, I have to say that I prefer Eagles when it’s about hockey and teenage relationships. 3x04 and 3x05 made me kind of nostalgic for season 1 and I liked the vibe they both had.

Eagles season 3 is in my opinion the best season of the show so far, and we haven't seen any signs suggesting that there is any reason for season 4 to not be even better.

Season 4: Hopes and wishes

Considering how each season has been increasing in quality bit by bit, I have pretty high hopes for the writing in season 4. I'm excited to see how the transition from teenager to young adult will be portrayed in the main characters, and what their future will hold for them after they've graduated.

My main questions are if Felicia and Ludde will find their way back to each other or if they'll remain broken up (that would be realistic as well), if Klara will reconcile with her mom, what's in store for Elias's hockey career, and if Amie will leave her label and maybe opt for something more independent.

I also want to see how Felicia deals with the new home she's checked in to, and if Ludde will in fact go to the school now that it seems Andreas will be getting into trouble again.

Amie and Klara are kind of wild cards here, because it somewhat feels like they've already reached their happy endings. Amie is famous and successful in her pop music career, and Klara has found her place as a businesswoman following in her father's footsteps. Maybe these developments should've come in season 4 instead of rushing them.

Nonetheless, I have faith in the writers. The writing suffered a little in seasons 1 and 2 but it has gotten better. Most of the things I pointed out about season 3 were just small details in an otherwise stellar season.

In conclusion...

This post was critical, but I tend to be critical of every show I watch. Eagles is still a very special show for me and having grown up in a Swedish small town myself I'm very fond of the show and its characters.

So huge thanks to the creator, Stefan H. Lindén, for making this show a reality and also to the director Carl-Petter Montell for contributing to the writing in season 3. And of course the writers of the show which include Michaela Hamilton, Fanny Ekstrand, and Anton Nyberg (plus Amanda Adolfsson who helped write 1x02 and 1x05 and Simon Ekbäck Nordström who is credited for helping with the hockey scenes in 3x05).

I hope you guys enjoyed this long, long post and major kudos to you if you read this far!

#eagles svt #svt eagles #eaglesspoilers #young royals #beartown #björnstad #been working on this post for a few days so i really hope you enjoy it!

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