#im not trying to defend him in any way but can we at least acknowledge that harrassment and docxing are not of his own invitation or accord

[priffi]

they're both assholes, can we acknowledge that? he did some shit but he also doesn't deserve the extra shit she's doing. she's allowed to speak out but she's not allowed to bring that extra pain. there's a reason he's coming back and it's not because he wants to but because he has to my god

[mekatrio]

my enthusiasm has gradually petered out over the past few days bc i had been so busy + havent been getting enough sleep, but aa2 was a truly amazing experience for me ESPECIALLY the last case, so i still want to dissect my thoughts on it although im not as hyped up as i was right after i finished playing it (i was jumping around and grinning and pacing around my room for hours and shit 😁) i have so many thoughts so im gonna split my review rambling whatever this is into different parts, this one is my thoughts on the first three cases :D

1st case was nothing spectacular.. pretty long for a tutorial level but i guess it was acting as padding for the more dramatic 2nd case.. i guessss. at least it was very funny and not too hard to solve. and it was also trying to be more thorough in teaching the gameplay mechanics during court sessions and making sure players have an idea of what to expect in later cases.. probably... its whatever whatever. at least an amnesic concussion is still the funniest way to reteach a tutorial so im so happy they went with that.

i liked the second case!! i wasnt able to figure out how the clothing box fit into everything until the very end, so i could rly understand wright's panic, bc for a good chunk of the case it really did seem like maya had killed someone. i think this case felt the most 'turnabout' of them all, bc in other cases there were other plausibilities and culprits right from the get-go, but w the way this murder happened in a locked room with (seemingly) only 2 individuals inside, it actually did feel impossible to save maya at first. so it was very satisfying to pick apart the lies and inconsistencies and be able to arrive to the truth. and it was nice to see kurain village, and learn more about the feys in general. and it was nice to see mia again!!! i wasnt sure if she would be coming back or not. mia and maya's reunion at the end of the case was super touching, bc one of the saddest moments in aa1 to me was during the 4th case when maya couldnt channel mia, and was wondering if she would ever be able to see her again.. so it was nice that she was really able to see her again :')

speaking of mia, i dont know if this series will explore this further, but just thinking abt her state of existence is lowkey kinda scary.. like, whats it like being dead? whats the difference between being alive and dead, considering mia is still somewhat mentoring and advising us despite being dead? could a fey, who can just possess another fey like that, be able to steal the body of another fey if they were killed? (this sounds like a possible case in the future, i wonder if this will happen..) will mia be like that forever? will future generations be able to speak to this mia, can she like.... rest? disappear? does she want to? can she? and its also pretty sad too, with how in aa1 when maya wondered if she could see her again; i feel like its less sad to have someone you love die and have that be that, than it is for them to die and you can maybe or maybe not see them again.. like i dunno. i hope this gets explored more, im curious abt it!!

also, mia being in this state of 'is but isnt here' really makes phoenix's character more enriching to me, bc in the first game he lost someone very dear and important to him... except not really. and we never really see him properly grieve mia in any extent if my memory is correct. like he didnt really dwell on it, he had to push thru it in order to defend maya. but then now in the second game, when we compare wright's almost... flippancy towards mia's death to his refusal to even acknowledge edgeworth's 'death'.... its a super interesting difference. this isnt to say that phoenix necessarily values one character over the other, but bc mia isnt necessarily 'gone'... there technically isnt much to mourn? kinda?? so the way we see phoenix behave in this game irt edgeworth, we get to properly see how phoenix behaves in the face of actual loss.. and his answer to loss is to completely reject it. and it works amazingly with gameplay too, bc he's really just compartmentalizing tf out of his issues and being like Nope. Let's Examine This Room Instead :) while maya or pearl just stares at him like 😐 it adds an extremely compelling layer of depth to wright's character!! and these moments of wright's rejection of his loss are done just the perfect amount of times, very seldomly and very restrainfully, that it creates this perfect air of tension throughout the entire game before it finally blows over in the last case. I LOVE IT RRARRGHHHH

pearl's and franziska's introduction to the story were amazing as well! i had no idea what pearl's character would be like... definitely was not expecting her to be mia's vessel #2 😭 but no yes pearl was an infinitely adorable and entertaining character, it is just so so so so awesome to have a tiny child who speaks so elegantly and have such mature tastes, but still be a cute tiny child. i love you pearl. if shes not in the next game im going to be REALLY REALLY SAD....... and franziska came in with just a massive dominating personality like Yes!!! she livened up so much of the game with her presence. im going to give franziska her own post bc she deserves it so ill talk abt her more in depth later.

and of course the ini miney twist... i already said this but the reasoning for the reveal (you cant drive without a license) is fucking IJBOL but ignoring the absurdity of that, it was a really good twist that i didnt see coming but could still be satisfied with. it was also really sad that morgan had to be convicted too, for pearl's sake i had really hoped that tht wouldnt be the case :( all in all the second case was very suspenseful, emotional, and very very good. i really liked it!

and the third case............................................................................

i wanted to put a reaction image here. but i could not find anything that could express the magnitude of my immense disgust. disappointment. resentment. and unhappiness................

i already posted a lot of my main grievances with it in my lb tag, and thinking abt this case again is just self-inflicting psychic damage so ill keep it short. but man did it suck. cuz currently in life i can only play aa like 2/3 days a week and then its back to 4/5 days of work. i did the first two cases in 3 days, worked for the rest of the week, and came back in anticipation bc the second case left off on such a good note. and then to use my 2 free days on a case this shitty... BROOOOOO FUCK THIS SHIT MAN!!! i spent the following days of work just being PISSED AS HELLLL cuz like i wanted to play a better case but now i could seeth as i worked bc of this SHITTY CASE like not only did it suck but it had to be LONG too. not like final case long but normal case long but ugh it sucked sucked sucked. ive said this before but i get they were trying to make the murder seem like a magic trick that we had to figure out the inner workings of, but like.... it just fucking sucked and wasnt well-executed at all. it didnt help that nearly every character in this case was incredibly grating and annoying and the one bearable character, acro, had to be the killer.. also that fucking ventriloquist like why was he standing around in the second day when there was literally nothing to talk to him about? also why did the ringmaster wear max's fucking clothes like wha..... i dont even care anymoreeeee 😭 ok bye bye im gonna gush about the 4th case in a seperate post now cuz that was the best fucking thing ever!!!!!!

[slowly-writing]

Short

Natasha Romanoff x Daughter!Reader

Avengers x Romanoff!Reader

Word count: 1.4K

Requested by anon: Little widow is super short and all the avengers find it adorable.

A/N: as someone who is 5’11” (180cm) I did the best I could with this one. I apologize if it’s not very accurate 

“Woah! Let me grab that, y/n,” Steve says as he wraps one arm around your waist, the other hand grabbing the box of granola bars you were climbing for.

“I almost had it,” you whine as he sets you down.

“Yeah sure. Almost had a concussion is more like it,” Tony teases and you glare.

“I had everything under control. I was almost tall enough to reach it,” you cross your arms over your chest and your mom coughs to cover a laugh.

“You were balancing on a stool that was teetering on one leg on your…” she pauses to pick up the book, “biology textbook. Great, glad you’re getting some use out of that.”

“Yeah well, it won’t tell me why I haven’t hit my growth spurt yet, so at least it’s good for something,” you shrug, grabbing it from her hands and shoving it in your bag.

“Kid, don’t you think you’re a little old-“

“Don’t!” You cut Tony off. “I am not too old for a growth spurt. I don’t care how old I am. I refuse to be 5’1 for the rest of my life.”

“Alright,” he raises his hands in surrender and you roll your eyes.

“Whatever. I’m gonna be late for school.”

“Have a good day,” your mom calls.

“Try not to get mistaken for a freshman again,” Clint’s words are acknowledged by way of you flipping him off as you make your way out the door.

xxxxx

“Here,” Peter appears behind you, grabbing the textbook you were jumping for.

“Thanks,” you grumble and he grins.

“Are you sure you don’t want to switch lockers? It’s killing my back to crouch down to the lower ones anyway. Jumping doesn’t seem like the most effective use of your locker,” he offers for the tenth time and you shake your head.

“I’m fine! I can reach it all!”

“Yeah when I use my powers for you,” Wanda’s voice calls and you turn, glaring.

“Whole lot of help you were this morning. Steve’s convinced I almost broke my neck climbing for my breakfast,” you whine and she chuckles, placing a kiss on the top of your head.

“My deepest apologies. I’ll just skip my morning training with Agent Hill. I’m sure that would go over just fine,” she teases and you roll your eyes, leaning into her nonetheless.

“You just gotta get on her good side. I get to do my training after school instead of before,” you smirk and she rolls her eyes.

“That’s because she’s known you since you were three and therefore treats you like family. Not an agent,” Wanda retorts and you just shrug.

“Ya know, it’s  the 21st century,” Peter’s still stuck on the previous topic and you shake your head. “I don’t think scavenging for food is supposed to be a life threatening process anymore. Cause like, evolution and all that,”

“Well y/n’s evolution didn’t get the message,” Wanda responds and you smack both their shoulders.

“You guys suck,” you whine and Wanda laughs.

“We’re only teasing, love. You’re adorable. We have to tease you to compete for some attention. You’re too cute to look away from.” You eye Wanda for a few moments.

“I can’t tell if that was supposed to be patronizing or not, but it’s too early to analyze all that, so I’m gonna go with thank you as my response,” you tell her, standing up on your toes and pulling her down by the collar of her shirt to kiss her cheek.

“You can’t even reach your girlfriend's face to kiss her,” Peter chokes out through a laugh.

“At least I have a girlfriend,” you try to jab back but he brushes right over it.

“Say, have you ever been on a roller coaster before? Or do you not measure up yet?” He says and you lunge for him. He quickly places a hand on your forehead, holding you back where your arms can’t reach him. You can feel your cheeks heat up as Wanda tries her best to hide her laugh behind you. You hit his elbow, making his arm buckle, and pull it over your shoulder. You use his weight against him as he stumbles forward and throw him over your shoulder.

“Holy shit,” Wanda breaths out.

“How the hell did you do that?” Peter asks as he catches his breath and you shrug.

“Did you forget who my mom is? I learned how to do that when I was 8. We were literally talking about my training like 30 seconds ago,” you call over your shoulder as you take Wanda’s hand and pull her to class.

xxxxxx

What’s up losers?” Mj asks as she joins your group.

“We’re thinking about heading to the tower to study for the geometry test next week, wanna come?” Peter asks, unphased by MJ’s snarkiness. Loser is pretty much a term of endearment in her book.

“Plus it’s movie night  if you guys wanna crash it. Fair warning though, it’s Steve’s turn to pick so it’ll probably be old as hell,” you add in and Ned nods.

“Sounds awesome! I’ll watch an old movie if it means hanging with the avengers!” His enthusiasm brings a smile to your face, though it’s quickly knocked off as MJ uses your head as an armrest.

“I’m in,” she says and you glare up at her, elbowing her in the ribs.

“Too bad, you’re not invited anymore,” you say angrily and she laughs.

“Anyone else feel like they’re being yelled at by a middle schooler when she’s mad?” She teases again and Wanda quickly wraps her arms around your shoulders, pulling your back into her chest.

“But she doesn’t fight like a middle schooler, Peter learned that the hard way this morning. So let’s lay off before someone ends up with a black eye, alright?” Wanda says calmly and you sink into her embrace. You grab one of her hands from where they’re laced together by your chest and start playing with the rings on her fingers.

“I don’t look like a kid,” you mumble and you feel Wanda place a kiss on the top of your head.

“Of course you don’t” she reasures you.

“Yeah, totally. The whining totally helps your case Romanoff,” Peter adds and you glare as you all make your way out of the school.

xxxxx

“Race to the movie room?” Peter suggests and Ned frowns.

“But y/n’s like, short as hell, no offense,” he says and you laugh at his innocent look, “how is that fair.”

“Don’t worry Ned. I’ll manage,” you say before Peter takes off everyone else following suit. THey weave around the furniture and you smirk, placing your hand on the back of the sofa and throwing yourself over it. One foot lands on the coffee table and you use it to push off of, grabbing the pull up bar in the doorway that Steve insisted needed to be in the common room (you still think it’s cause he likes to show off) and doing an elegant flip, laning in front of the door to the movie room with a bow.

“Seriously, how the hell do you do that kind of stuff?” MJ asks, slightly out of breath, but still smiling since she beat Peter.

“What part of ‘raised by an assassin’ isn’t clicking for you guys?” you ask and a voice behind them draws their attention.

“Hey, I stopped being an assassin long before I started raising you,” your mom argues and you just shrug.

“Doesn’t make you any less paranoid or scary. You’re the one who insisted I needed to know how to defend myself, so I’m simply reaping the benefits,” you say with a grin, leaning into Wanda who is rolling her eyes at your antics.

“I seem to remember you begging me to train you so you could go on missions,” your mom counters with a raised eyebrow. Before you can respond Tony’s voice comes from the room you just vacated.

“Why the hell is there a footprint on my table?” He yells and you all freeze.

“Maybe if we’re quiet he won’t know we’re here?” Ned whispers, but even he sounds unsure of the plan.

“I can see the pile of backpacks by the elevator. When I find out whose foot was on my table they’re grounded. I don’t care if you’re not my children,” Tony yells again.

“Race you to...anywhere but here!” you whisper-yell before taking off, the four teenagers hot on your trail as your mom rolls her eyes behind you.

tag list: @rvgrsbrns @rororo06 @prizmix-and-friends @worlds-in-words @im-salt-but-not-salty @5aftermidnightdaily-blog @riotmaximoff @xxxtwilightaxelxxx 

[shortprince-cos]

More Truths Than Dares

Summary: After "The Double Closet Incident" as Patton so calls it, Patton and Janus have a talk at their friends' sleepover.

Ship: Moceit (Patton x Janus)

Warnings: Smoking, claustrophobia mention, truth or dare. Tell me if I need to add anything else!

Note: This is a direct sequel to "In A Closet"! You can read this without reading that, but it'll probably be confusing!

{Previous}

{Masterlist} (I KNOW I NEED TO FIX IT BUT IM A PROCRASTINATOR FIGHT ME)

~~~~~

"Oh, I didn't know he was invited."

All Patton had done was walk in the door. He hadn't even said hi, or hugged Roman yet, he just walked in the door, and Janus was already on his back for just existing in his presence.

It was going to be a long night.

"Yes? He's my best friend, you know!" Roman defended as he brought Patton to sit on the couch with him and Logan.

"Wow, rude." Logan said.

Roman made a series of offended noises. "You're my boyfriend! So obviously Patton is my best friend!"

As the two quickly dissolved into playful banter, Patton stood to go put his overnight bag in Roman's room, hearing Janus whisper something to Remus and Virgil as he walked by.

Just ignore it, he thought, not really in the mood to argue today. Especially not after what Patton had dubbed ‘The Double Closet Incident’.

It was disastrous. Not only did Patton get locked in a closet with Janus, who has claustrophobia, he discovered that he may have a thing for men. Who knew?

Roman. Roman probably knew, especially after he had adopted Patton into their little friend group. And if being gay was a contest, Roman would be the judge.

But...it was normal to feel that way, right? It wasn't weird to feel embarrassed when someone got up in your personal space, was it? It wasn't abnormal to blush when someone said kind words to you, or odd to imagine yourself in different scenarios with someone you saw on a daily basis and they were-

Wait, what was he doing again?

Patton sighed as he set down his bag by Roman's bed. Those were thoughts for another day. He was supposed to be having fun at his best friend's sleepover, after all!

Patton put on a happy face and went back to the living room to join the others, finding that Roman and Remus were wrestling over something, Logan and Janus were debating, and Virgil was scrolling on his phone. Yep, it was going to be a long night.

---

After breaking up Roman and Remus' tussle, watching a couple of movies, and other various shenanigans, Remus decided to gather everyone up in his room to play truth or dare.

If Patton learned anything from watching the others' turns, it was to always choose truth when Remus picks you.

"Double D, Truth or Dare?" Remus asked excitedly, even though he already knew what Janus would say.

"Dare."

Remus grinned like a shark. "I dare you and Patton to stay in my closet for one hour together."

Both Janus and Patton went pale.

"I...lied. I meant truth." Janus quickly said, hoping that Remus would let up.

"Nope! Too late! Now, you and Patton have to get in there, have hate sex or something, and come out in an hour!"

"Uh- we can't!" Patton exclaimed suddenly, and then all eyes were on him.

"What, are you afraid of the dark or something?" Remus teased.

"Um- no- well, kinda- but no. I- uh- have claustrophobia."

Janus looked shocked, to say the least. Thankfully, everyone was still looking at Patton.

"Yeah, small spaces are absolute torture to be in, and I would prefer it if none of us did stuff that involves small spaces, because then I'll worry about them!" Patton rambled quickly, trying to get all attention on him.

Remus rolled his eyes. "Ugh, fine. But you guys still need to do something together."

Patton blushed a bit, and Janus sighed, looking relieved.

Eventually, Remus gave up, and just dared Janus to eat shaving cream.

The rest of the night went smoother, and Patton ended up telling a lot of weird secrets, but not very important ones.

Eventually, everyone was asleep in either Roman's room, or Remus' room. Everyone except Patton, who couldn't get his brain to turn off.

Patton reluctantly got out of his sleeping bag, and made his way to the front door, maybe some fresh air would clear his mind.

Turns out, he wasn't the only one who had that idea, because as he stepped outside, he found the one and only Janus on the porch, smoking a cigarette.

Before Patton could turn back around, Janus saw him, and nodded his head in acknowledgment. Well, no going back now.

Patton silently sat down in the wooden rocking chair next to where Janus was standing, staring off into space a little before speaking up.

"You-you know that smoking is bad for you, right?"

Janus' lips curled up in a small smile as he chuckled. "I'm aware. Don't worry your pretty head, I only do it when I'm stressed."

Patton decided to ignore the way being called pretty by Janus felt and focused on the other part of that statement. "What are you stressed about?"

Janus blew out a puff of smoke, and suddenly Patton was very distracted by his lips.

"You. You're...different than how I thought you'd be." Janus said solemnly, drawing in another breath.

"Is...is that a bad thing?" Patton asked quietly, looking down to the floor.

Janus glanced at Patton with an indecipherable look on his face. "To be honest? I don't know. On one hand, you're actually a decent person."

"Thank you?"

"And on the other," Janus continued. "I've treated you like s**t for no reason other than spite."

"...It's okay-"

"It's not." Janus interrupted.

They sat in silence for awhile, trying to figure out if the other still wanted them here or not.

"Why did you think I was a bad person?" Patton asked quietly.

Janus huffed. "It's complicated."

"I mean...we got all night."

"...true." Janus sighed. "I think it's because ‘nice’ people don't usually want anything to do with me, and when they do, it's usually for the wrong reasons." He explained. "So when you started talking to me...I don't know, you reminded me of all the wrong people."

Patton's heart broke. He reminded Janus of some probably terrible memories, and had probably been hurting him just by being around him! No wonder Janus frowned whenever Patton walked in a room!

"Janus, I'm so so sorry, I never knew-"

"What are you sorry for?"

"I- That I remind you of some terrible people in your life-"

"Patton," Janus rest a hand on Patton's shoulder, making him blush. "You don't have any control over who you remind me of. Please, don't apologize for that."

"Well- then you can't apologize for being reminded of those people either!" Patton argued.

"I didn't say that, I said I was sorry for treating you terribly!"

"Well, then, I guess you're forgiven!" Patton retorted.

Janus looked at him in shock, as if Patton had just said a bunch of profanities, before quickly looking back to stare off into the distance again. His cheeks were red, but Patton convinced himself that he was probably cold out here.

"You're...too forgiving." Janus mumbled softly, as if he was talking to himself.

"I think that's a good thing." Patton replied.

Janus huffed. "...Thank you." He said, looking at Patton with a small smile on his face. "For everything."

Patton blushed. "Y-Yeah. No problem."

Janus looked at him with a disagreeing look on his face, but let it go.

They settled into comfortable silence as Janus threw his cigarette away and Patton almost fell asleep.

The second time Patton had to force his head up, Janus huffed.

"You should probably get to sleep."

As if on cue, Patton yawned. "So should you." He said sleepily, rubbing his eyes.

Janus chuckled. "Fine. I'll go back to bed if you do."

"Okay, fine. You have a deal."

Janus had that stupid, self-satisfied smirk on his face that he usually wore that made Patton feel fuzzy inside.

"Good," He smirked. "See you in the morning."

"Yeah. See ya."

Janus ventured into the house, Patton following a few moments later.

Patton felt like he was getting into dangerous territory with Janus, but instead of feeling concerned, he felt more excited than ever.

~~~~~

Hi guys!!!! Its been awhile! So, this is an au that ive fallen in love with, so i wanna keep writing for it! If you guys have any name ideas, send em my way please!

General Taglist: @resident-crow-goth @macademmia @theantisocialghost @foreverfangirlalways @emo--nightmaree @moxy--sanders101 @quinnthequeer @gattonero17 @trashno0dles @tranquil-space-ninja @chaotic-murder-muffin @lugooble @sander-crossing @princess-rosie @sleepyysoot @hi-its-tutty @lookingforaplacetosleep @sarcasmremovedsoul @corkeecoderyt @drarrymalecsolangelo @private-snippers @girl-who-reads @emy-loves-you @reptilian-with-scallions

Ask to be added or removed!

Reblogs are appreciated!💖

[artreider]

Let's try to get this final live blog on my station 19 rewatch done. I'm currently laid up on my couch in mild pain but unable to do anything else.

I don't really like flashback episodes but i want one for the premiere since we are jumping so far ahead. I hate that this episode starts with a fight. But damn knowing what the fight is over, i love how loyal andy is to maya in this episode. Something ive wanted for her and the team. Qnd also jaina looks gorgeous.

The fire scene yay another fire on the fire show lmao. Feel like we missed some last year which im sure was covid related.

The marina scene ugh chefs kiss. I love how happy and giddy they are. I do wish we couldve gotten to see some of their month apart communication and their quarantining apart those two weeks when carina got back. I wrote a little something related to that and i may share before the premiere of season 5.

The quiet moment between carina saying her morning was better than those 6 weeks and then asking about mayas folks was a beautiful and real moment and i love it. So brief it could be overlooked but great choice for team.

The little bit of danielle and stefania that was them and adlibbed in this episode was so great also.

I love that rhey addressed how everyone was able to attend maskless and how safe the wedding was keeping the real world element in. Also vic love you and your chicken dance comment makes me sad that we didnt get it.

Vics parents trying to talk to her about theo is so cute.

Poor lawyer she'd be good for dean.

I understand some people dont come out until late in life but that is hard to hear that you havent loved the person youve been with for decades like you do this new person. That would hurt me so much to hear, like i couldve been with someone who is my great love if youd told me sooner. I love/hate this storyline for travis family.

Ugh if this fire had gone on any longer those poor kids and elderly couple.

Haha andy you should wait until someone answers the door for you when visiting almost newlyweds or people who've been seperated for 6 weeks lmao.

Also maya's excuse and none wet (shower) sex hair i love it.

Ugh sullivan trying to defend himself makes me so upset.

Bailey giving ben hell about second and third opinions is funny, like i figure shed be all for it.

Inara and marcus leaving jack is sad. I hope we still get to see marsha in season 5. Also if they do pair jack and jo itd be a bit ironic. I mean jo too had an abusive ex like inara.

Also jack and his marsha have similar eyes, itd be something if it came out she really was his mom.

I dont understand how maya hadnt settled on what to wear she's queen of the clipboard lmao. Just goes to show how some things throw us off course. Also i totally get her saying her outfit choice will define her forever. I judge my look in my wedding photos all the time and feel like other people do as well.

Why do i feel like this exchange between maya and carina was mostly adlibbed? It just feels so fun.

This poor family and ugh i couldnt imagine having to make the tough calls of firefighters/fire captains.

Love that all the fire crew helped put the wedding on.

I understand travis emotion here.

How'd this conversation about maya's folks get started with andy???

I love that maya and andy's friendship is restored. Also famous last words maya, dont speak the bad juju into existence.

Dean you shouldve spoken up there.

Why the chief there? I live in a city and the chief aint showing up for a house call that needs a few units. At least not until fire is out of they for some reason cant get it out.

Lmao maya freaking out about wearing the same thing as carina. Andy therapizing maya is funny.

That poor boy.

The dad comments to ben are beautiful. Also love that so many of the team know how dean feels about vic.

So why is travis getting dressed separately than the rest of his team. I mean i know its because he doesnt know about Dean's feelings and pushes vic to give theo a chance as well as allow theo and travis to talk but come on. He wouldnt get ready separately.

Also what was the point of theo going to that room if not to get ready. Sorry just annoying.

I wish carina had had someone mention andrew to her. Whether ben, bailey, maya or even any of the fire team who worked on the call with him during the crossover awhile back. Her grief during this day of happiness should've been acknowledged, even with just a remembrance table for him amd other family she lost to covid.

I do love this beautiful moment with vic though saying this isnt all just for maya.

Oh my how i love the maya confronting her father. She is the brave i want to be. Also what she says to her mom, yes chefs kiss. However when her mom shows up at the wedding, really the woman couldnt grab a nice shirt or dress to wear on her way out or on her way to the wedding.

I also love the look of pride on maya's moms face both at the house and the wedding.

Im sad we probably wont get any moments of her living with marina due to the time jump.

Ugh the choice that cost maya her promotion but ahouldnt have.

Also with all maya's options for clothes, couldnt they had dressed her mama in something borrowed from maya. Lol im sorry it bothers me so.

Vic's song for the intro is beautiful. Barrett has a beautiful voice.

Maya is so happy her mom is there and i love it. Also in my head at least one person videoing is doing it for the greys family who couldnt make it to the wedding for carina.

I also love maya singing along with vic to carina.

Queen of the clipboard forgetting to write her vows is special and funny. I love carina talking her down from a panic attack. Also her simple vow is beautiful and how carina who probably did write her vows saying we're good instead of reading them after seeing maya's mom in attendance and the look shared is everything.

I truly believe that was the moment she 100% knew maya had changed from end of season 3, was definitely all the way in. She knew what it meant for maya's mom to be there.

Love the dance montage and improved marina kiss.

Another healing theo and travis talk.

Sullivan just cant let it go and ugh trying to justify it. I just cant, still not over it. Even if he isnt captain in season 5 it still isnt right.

Sullivan you cant say you have the teams back then saying you can control them and throwing maya under the bus. Those are contradictory.

This jack and andy conversation is interesting.

This marina conversation is funny but sad when you know the end of the episode.

Its so funny that so few people know about Miller's feelings at this point.

It'll be interesting to see the travis, vic and theo in season 5.

Ben and bailey are so cute.

Wish we couldve had conversations at the wedding with maya and her mom or carina and maya's mom or the 3 of them.

Inara is so wise. I hate this for all 4 of them.

Gotta love the ole grab em and pull em back to kiss them and let them know how you really feel tremmett moment.

Too late dean, they tried to tell you.

I love marina dancing in the background ugh sullivan and the surrera rehashing.

Time for the horrible news ugh.

Everyone just looking at marina and knowing is horrible.

Great season, great episode and im looking forward to whats next.

Thank you to everyone thats been following my rewatch blogging, and for all the kind comments. I appreciate it so much, made the summer so fun.

[peachcitt]

shadow and bone netflix series analysis

what up besties i said as a joke that i wanted to do an analysis post on the changes made in the s&b netflix series from the grishaverse books, and then i realized i wasn't joking and that i actually wanted to do that

it's finals season, i am an undergraduate english major, i have had about five hours of sleep within the past forty eight hours, and believe it or not i am doing this analysis as a fun reward for finishing a research paper. i am putting this out here for you so you can decide if these are the kinds of vibes you want right now.

structure of the analysis will be vaguely as follows:

changes made, in chronological order (or as best as chronology i can do under the circumstances and doing absolutely zero fact checking)

analysis of change when looking at the themes of the books which will include my personal feelings

personal theories (if any) derived from the change for the trajectory of the netflix series

so, like, long post warning. also spoiler warning for the netflix series as well as probably most, if not all, grishaverse books

now let's get this baby started

alina's appearance and shu heritage

so the series starts right off the bat acknowledging alina's shu appearance and the in-world racism and prejudice she's experienced because of it, which was not in the books. however i found alina's shu appearance to be completely in line with the book's themes. alina was already isolated at keramzin and the army because of her sickliness, and she's isolated at the little palace because of her power and her awkwardness. so purposefully making her shu was, i felt, a nice world-building decision as well as a new and interesting layer to her character. also, it's always nice to see diversity in media, so i have literally no qualms with this change

in terms of the rest of the series, the grishaverse is a very politically-motivated story. there's a lot of in-universe politics that happens in the shadow and bone trilogy and especially in the king of scars duology, and i think if the series chooses to extend into/include the king of scars duology story (which, i really hope it will), alina being shu (or at least part shu) will be very interesting to see considering king of scars and rule of wolves deal with negotiations and treaties with shu han. i think also having alina be shu and someone who has experienced countless amounts of in-world racism become a saint, seeing how she and the rest of ravka navigate her identity and identity politics will be really interesting. generally speaking, i just really hope the later parts of the series really delve into alina's identity, what it means to be a saint and also "look like the enemy," and the ravkan people's mixed feelings about her

alina's sickliness/childhood relationship with mal

in the books, alina is described as thin, always having trouble sleeping, hardly ever hungry, and sickly looking because, as we learn later, of her constantly unconsciously repressing her grisha abilities. this is part of the reason she's isolated at keramzin in the books; she's sickly and awkward and no one bothers with her except mal - because they're the same age and mal is strong enough to defend her from the older orphans at keramzin. however, the show doesn't really delve into the effects of what suppressing her abilities do to her except for a few offhand lines (alina angrily saying "im never that sick" when mal suggests she say she's stick to stop from going into the fold, mentions of her larger appetite when they're on the run in the woods). instead, the show kind of flips alina and mal's childhood personalities; mal is depicted as shy and easily picked on, and alina is the protector.

i'll just say it: this change fucks so hard. i love it. i think it says such wonderful things about their characters, and i like that alina begins the series as someone incapable of turning a blind eye to bullies and someone who cares very fiercely for the people she loves (not that that isn't the case in the books - i just think this change does a great job of looking directly at it in the way that shows have to). i think it's easy to root for her, and it's easy to see how she will become a saint to the people. in addition to that, i love what this is saying about alina and mal's characters and how they grow up; that separation from alina caused mal to have to face his own problems head on in traditionally masculine ways (because that was what ana kuya criticizes him in the show for; for always running from fights and being too soft, and i think it's really telling that our first view of mal as a kid, im pretty sure, is gingerly holding a bunny which portrays feminine caregiving and then we jump cut to mal fighting in a dirty boxing ring in the first army, something gritty and masculine). masculine ways that he had to be indoctrinated into and that may not actually be in his natural disposition.

meanwhile, separation from mal meant alina no longer had to be a dominant protector, and she does not connect with anyone in the first army as strongly as she connected with mal, so she doesn't really feel the need to be as aggressive as she was as a child. however, you can see that quiet protectiveness spark up at times - notably when people other than herself are picked on, such as at the food line when she claims not to know the others in the cartography unit so they don't get penalized along with her. i do wish, however, elements of her sickliness had been emphasized a little more in the show because of grisha theory, which i will talk about in another section.

first entry into the fold

okay i will be honest. this change is probably the one that scared me the most when seeing it in the trailers, and i am kind of still iffy on it now. in the books, alina's first journey into the fold and the inciting moment for the entire series is just luck and orders. everyone in the first army has to go through the fold at some point, and it just so happens to be alina and mal's time to go through. however, in the show alina is not initially assigned to go into the fold, but mal is, and alina goes out of her way to make sure that she gets on the skiff so that mal won't have to go alone/without her. there's this level of 'choice' (or at least the illusion of it) in the show in terms of alina and mal getting onto the skiff and going into the fold; at one point or the other they both try to tell the other not to get on the skiff and just choose something else.

the thing that irks me the most is alina's stubborn "i'll make it" line that she tells mal after she's on the skiff. it screams 'fantasy dystopian protagonist' (divergent is the first to come to mind for some reason) in a way that alina never comes across in the books. alina never chooses to make her life more difficult - she's always given two terrible options and has to take the option that fits with her morals or her perception of the power she needs to surivive and win the fight. but i know the only reason alina goes out of her way to get on the skiff is because she's separated from mal, which aligns nicely with the protective nature the show has inscribed on her.

the thing that redeems this change for me is that when alina tries to get just herself onto the skiff (by burning the maps to ensure that she has a purpose there), she ends up endangering the lives of her entire cartography unit. this keeps with the theme of a whole lot of alina's later decisions throughout the books affecting so many more people than just her, and i like that this is a lesson that she learns very early on. this change also seems to be a trade out for the final entering-the-fold scene, but i'll talk about that later.

alexei

here he is, the lynchpin himself. in the books, alexei is dry and rude in a funny way with alina, and they have this really great banter at the beginning of the novel, and then he's, like, the first to get carried off by volcra. very harrowing in the book, i loved it. in the show, alexei's character is a little (a lot) different - he's naive and blunt in a silly way, and he very obviously has a crush on alina. instead of being carried off by volcra in the show, though, he jumps off the skiff and runs blind into the fold - committing what we think at the time is an act of suicide - which was extremely harrowing to see in a completely different way, and i loved it. even if they changed alexei's personality i still love him (and his death) dearly

so as previously mentioned, alexei acts as the lynchpin between the six of crows plot and the shadow and bone plot; he manages to escape the fold alive, and makes it all the way to ketterdam to tell a select few people the legendary sun summoner is alive WHICH. okay ive just decided that's my next topic. anyway back to alexei.

his death in ketterdam is awful because of the personality change, which is why i don't mind missing bitchy alexei from the book; his hopeful little "if i tell you, you'll set me free?" that pulls at your heart and also tells you immediately that he is going to die as soon as he tells everyone what he say is done so well. i also like that through treatment of alexei, we get some characterization of the crows; inej immediately gives him water and glares at the mercher in quiet rage on his cruel treatment, kaz doesn't flinch when alexei is killed but inej and jesper do. i also thought it was interesting to have the mercher (dreeson was his name i believe) to be the one to get his hands 'dirty' and actually be the one to shoot alexei because in six of crows, there is always the sense that the merchers are cruel and conniving, but that they very carefully keep the death of the poor and the grisha off their own hands. im wondering if this hands-on killing is a dreeson-specific trait, or if this more hands-on cruelty will be explored more in other mercher characters we meet, like van eck.

sun summoner legend

this change is so?? i don't really know what to think of it. narratively, it makes sense in the show to have this legend be in place so that alina's importance is immediately recognized by people across the different countries.

however in the books, no one really expected alina. her presence wasn't foretold or divine (at first) or fate in any way. she became a saint because i think in part people weren't expecting her, and once they saw what she could do, they wanted to believe in her abilities so bad they made her divine. this change was also weird to me having just finished rule of wolves where zoya (i think) reflects on amazing things that have happened throughout the story and she notes that alina was not some sort of legend that people were expecting - none of what happened was. everything that happened from alina to nina's miracles in king of scars to zoya's expanded abilities by the end of rule of wolves to the "age of saints." all of those things were just chance people being in chance situations that all slid together in a strange, amazing coincidence. they got lucky.

and i think, at the center of the books, is this kind of purposeful disillusionment of the saints and religion, what with the main character of the original trilogy literally becoming a saint and yet never truly feeling saint-ly or being perfectly divine. the sun summoner legend the show brings up seems to depart from this. it'll be interesting to see what the show does with the legend and how alina feels about it as she fulfills it, and im honestly hoping that we'll find out later in the series that the legend was actually just some poor guy a few hundred years ago making something up to give people hope.

the crows timeline/characterization

in the books, the six of crowd ice court heist happens three years after the events of the final book of the shadow and bone trilogy. but obviously the timelines are smushed together for the show to create a new and different direction for their story and also, as we see at the end of the season, a new and different direction for alina's story as well

ive also seen bardugo say that because of the converging time lines, the grishaverse story will not take seven seasons (one season per book in the grishaverse) to get through. for this reason, im thinking that the parem story/ice court heist will begin if/when we get season 2. given that parem is a big part of kos/row, i see a crows and nikolai interaction happening in season 2 that sparks a beginning discussion on parem.

but back to the crows characterization! the crows are completely in character for me in almost every way, and i found the interactions between kaz, inej, and jesper to be very in character. however kaz's plan to capture alina doesn't work out almost at all which is something that he definitely wouldn't have let happen in the books. im chalking this up to the converging timelines - these crows are baby crows. they're young, a little less experienced, and they haven't gotten their groove on heists (and they don't have the rest of their crew) yet. but i anticipate seeing more crows-classic successful heists in season 2.

there are a couple of things i want to talk about each crow, so it's subtopic time

nina and matthias

perfect. their interactions were almost always word-for-word from the book. i can't remember if matthias had actually been the one to actually catch nina in the book, but if not, then it was a nice touch. it was interesting to see that both of them were so willing to be traitors of their country for each other in the show, because even when they're in a romantic relationship outside of fjerda and ravka in the book, they struggle with even the idea of betraying their country.

i like how they changed nina and matthias' "escape" from fjerda to ravka, and how nina explicitly betrayed grisha she knew to their faces. im interested to see how they'll integrate her back into the second army, or if they even will do that. also, i like that fedyor slowed matthias' heart to make him pass out before he sees the other grisha, so it was easy to understand how matthias could've thought it was nina deceiving him all along. their confrontation in the boat was (chef's kiss), and the horror on nina's face as she realized that this situation she put him in won't be as easily solvable as she thought was just wonderful.

jesper

perfect. i love him. and the coy little hints that he's a fabrikator were so good. also the line in the very beginning where he asks for a demo man, which foreshadows wylan was very nice. the only thing out of character is one time kaz asks him to be a distraction and show jesper claims that being a handsome distraction is not part of his talents. it literally is, why did they make him lie.

inej

literally so so good. i love that we meet her while she still has her oath not to take lives; we get to see her develop and learn that sometimes death is necessary, but that she still isn't yet comfortable with killing. on some level, she never will be, and i think that was a perfect place to start her character. however, i am confused about the show giving her a brother. where is he. is he going to be important?? why is he here???? i can't even make any solid predictions about him because inej having a brother came straight out of fucking left field. here's one flimsy prediction based on nothing at all: inej's brother is grisha and is an indentured servant. may also be involved in the parem plot, or works at the white rose where nina will befriend him and connect with the rest of the six because of him. who fucking knows

kaz

i already kind of went over their disaster plan that still somehow worked out for him, but i love literally everything else they did with kaz. the refusal to show his bare hands was literally art!! we got that tease in the first episode and the camera pans up as soon as the gloves come off. that was perfection - as well as the intimacy and trust portrayed between kaz and inej without them ever touching. i also loved the hints and nudges for his story with pekka - the way he always says his name with obvious distaste, and when we see him interact with pekka for the first time on screen. how he asks if they've ever made a deal before and pekka just goes "nah" and kaz just glares at him. perfect. and i also think the show really leaned in to the soft parts of kaz that inej sees in him, especially when he basically said she (and jesper) meant more to him than any saint?? oh my GOD. i kind of like this honest departure from kaz's book "greed is my god edgy edgy blah blah" especially when he's afraid he'll lose inej. i also think it'd be funny if we hear kaz say "greed is my god" and be edgy about it with us AND inej knowing that is superficial because of what he told her. that would be hilarious.

pekka, tante heleen, per haskell

these three aren't part of the six, but they are part of the original six of crows story and i still wanted to talk about my opinions on them, so they're going here.

i fucking loved pekka, how ruthless he was, and his irish accent. that was wonderful. because of how fucking hands-on and brutal he was, though, i wonder if they're going to keep the jakob hertzoon piece of kaz's origin story the same, because this pekka was so good at being violent that it was hard to picture him even pretending to be a benevolent benefactor to orphans. he is a dilf, though. i am not afraid to admit that.

my only problem with tante heleen is that her actress looked too nice. like she might bake me cookies and offer me a ride home from school. total milf as well but not in the scary sexy way that she was in the books. she had smile lines, she was so dainty, she seemed so genuine. i want to see her be a little more cruel.

per haskell, the actual gang leader of the crows, is not in the show at all. it seems as though the show made kaz the official boss of the crows while he is only second in command in the book. this makes me wonder how they'll handle or if they'll even include that fucking awesome scene in crooked kingdom of kaz earning the gang's trust over haskell. it would be weird to introduce per haskell in season 2 when he wasn't even mentioned in season 1, but it wouldn't be altogether terrible considering the crows spent very little time in ketterdam this season. however, this makes me wonder if, when kaz was away on his little saint pilgrimage (i am calling it that specifically because i know it would piss him off) someone else stepped in as "boss" of the crows. in the show, kaz also leverages the deed of the crow club in order to be able to take inej with him, and presumably the jewels alina gives him will solve that problem, but what would happen if any of the crows find out he made that deal? would he still have to earn the gang's trust back in a show of power and respect like in crooked kingdom? much to think about.

mal

back to the shadow and bone story, ive already briefly (not really briefly) gone over mal characterization alongside alina, but i want to mention how the show includes his perspective alongside alina's and how important that is. the shadow and bone trilogy is told entirely from alina's perspective, and alina is in some ways an unreliable narrator. she tends to think of her relationships and feelings as one sided unless her friend/love interest is looking her in the eye and telling her exactly how they feel about her. the one exception is genya, and that sort of bites her in the ass until it doesn't, but i digress. the point is, the only mal perspective we get in the books is alina's perception of mal, and the bonus content of the "lost" letter he'd written to her while looking for the stag in fjerda. granted, that letter says a lot about mal and how he feels about alina, so if you didn't take the time to read the letter when reading the book, chances are you weren't so hot on mal unless you have sexy critical reading skills like me (or just really love the childhood best friends to lovers trope).

getting all the gritty, messy details of how hard mal is trying to get back to alina in the show makes him so much more of a sympathetic character than he may have seemed at first glance for the majority of shadow and bone from alina's perspective. the show really stresses that the bond alina and mal have is mutual and powerful, and i think that's fucking perfect, actually.

this point was really driven home during the episode we see that mal has a matching scar on his palm that is related to alina, just like how alina has a mal-related scar on her palm. that scene in the brig was so good, especially when they ask each other what they're in for, and alina says "the usual," and after a pause, mal replies "the usual" as well. he could be lying because he knows she would feel bad if she was the reason he chose to stir trouble to go to the brig, but he could also be saying that he usually actively chooses to be sent to the brig for defending alina or because alina is usually already there and he wants to be with her. knowing that and then seeing alina have the scar on her palm erased was. fucking devastating (in a good-ish way), and im kind of hoping alina either chooses to have the tailoring removed so she can see the scar again or injures her hand in a mal-related injury so they can match again :(

i have more to say about mal, but i'll save it for the grisha theory/amplifier section

the darkling

overall, darkling portrayal was very spot on, but i didn't really like how he just. gave alina his name so early on. in the books im quite certain he doesn't give alina his first name until the third book? regardless, he doesn't give it to her until they've fought and been enemies for a while. theoretically, kirigan giving his real name to alina so early could be a manipulation tactic (like his moments of 'vulnerability' and 'weakness' with alina in the book), especially because we lose that 'heart to heart' by the campfire after the darkling rescues alina from the fjerdans where alina first starts to see the darkling as human.

i also thought it was interesting that alina kisses kirigan first - in the books they're actually having a serious discussion (i can't remember what about, but when she realizes the darkling is Not Good, she remembers the first time they kissed as a thing he possibly did to distract her from thinking her own thoughts), and the darkling interrupts her with a kiss sexy enough for her to forget what's going on. the show however chooses to do a girlboss she-can-move-on-if-she-wants-to moment which is pretty cool and let's be honest, if you like men and ben barnes is right in front of you giving you Sexy Eyes a whole lot, you are going to want to kiss him. that scene where they get interrupted during a steamy kiss, and they laugh and kirigan leaves the frame just to rush back for one last kiss? that nearly fucking converted me. that was really sweet actually. the show does a fantastic job of showing how captivating kirigan's interest can be.

last note about the kirigan for this section - isn't kirigan the name of the guy who owns the guilded bog for nikolai in kos/row? i can't be sure because i don't have my book with me and i refuse to look up information when i have gone this entire post without looking anything up, but if his name isn't kirigan it's pretty fucking close. i don't know what that means, but i don't think bardugo is the type to name characters similar names for no reason. we'll know for sure if/when the guilded bog is introduced.

zoya

most of zoya's portrayal is really in line with her character and her development throughout the shadow and bone trilogy as well as king of scars and rule of wolves. i think the show did a great job of showing how zoya was in the darkling/kirigan's favor for a while before alina arrived and how she resents alina at first for causing her to not be the darkling's favorite anymore. in addition to that, knowing we find out she is part suli in row makes her casting so much better, and i like that we get to see a little more of her personality in the show than we do in the book shadow and bone. of course we see more of her in siege and storm/ruin and rising, but it's nice to have her become a sympathetic character through the knowledge that she has family in novokribirsk and that she purposefully mans skiffs to see them before she fully sides with alina.

the one thing that made me. just confused was zoya calling alina a "half-breed" at the little palace?? it was so out of place (that particular part of the insult; im pretty sure the other thing she said was very much exactly what she said in the book. some insult about orphans i think), especially knowing that zoya herself is a "half-breed," so that didn't make sense to me.

however, i was glad to see alina immediately embrace zoya as an ally - because she knows from the start of zoya's alliance that she had family that kirigan killed. in the books, alina's parentage is not at all important, and their deaths are never specified to matter, but the show points out from the very beginning that alina's parents were swallowed by the fold. i think this makes alina's immediate compassion and forgiveness of zoya make sense, and it was also very sweet and a little funny to see alina pull zoya into a hug that she so obviously does not expect or want to express as something she wants. it was perfect.

east vs west ravka civil war

i don't have much to say about this except it makes kirigan's actions at the fold seem a little better. not great, not by any means, but knowing that the leader of a growing coup was right on the other side really cements in the idea that kirigan is doing this for what he thinks is the greater good of ravka. im pretty sure in the original trilogy, there was also some tension between east and west ravka, but none of it comes to a head until the events of kos/row. great set up for future ravkan tensions in future seasons.

david and genya & fedyor and ivan

before we get into the last meat and potatoes of this post, i want to talk about love because it's a little bit of a break. take this time to stop reading, stretch, relax your jaw, straighten your back, drink water, etc. you've been here a while. you deserve it

okay so first fedyor and ivan. in the books, fedyor and ivan are just bros (i don't even remember them ever really interacting?) but in the show it is heavily implied they are dating. this is so funny to me, and i love it so much. especially because ivan was in a het relationship with marie in the books (but because the show kills marie off before she dies in the books, obviously that is not happening), so they really just decided that ivan and fedyor were gay for seemingly no reason. except i think ivan died on the skiff during the final battle in the show which is kind of a bummer because he lives through to ruin and rising and has an... interesting arc. fedyor, i think, dies in the battle of the little palace in siege and storm, but i wonder what they'll do with this relationship in next seasons. maybe fedyor will take ivan's place as grieving boyfriend with ptsd, but im not sure. i honestly don't even know for certain if ivan dies in the show, so we'll see.

as for genya and david, i would just like to point out the little hints of mutual affection. in the books, it's kind of implied that genya had feelings for david first and he didn't realize his own feelings until after she's scarred by the darkling, but in the show we see david actually looking at genya during the winter fete! like looking, appreciating the view! i loved the show choosing to include that small amount of mutuality, and after finishing rule of wolves it definitely made me feel some type of way. david and genya. i love them, they're perfect.

grisha theory/amplifiers

we're nearing the final stretch in this post, however, i have a lot to say about grisha theory and amplifiers, and i also have a lot to say for the battle of the fold so this "final stretch" will probably be. a very long stretch.

so obviously because of the nature of books and narrative writing, there was a lot of space within the shadow and bone book to go over the grisha theory alina was learning at her time in the little palace in great detail, however in the show we hardly even get any grisha theory at all. the little we get is actually from the apparat. im not sure if we get anything from bhagra. i don't even think we get the phrase "like calls to like" which is the most basic piece of grisha theory throughout the entire grishaverse.

i am definitely. bitter about this. i obviously didn't want huge long meditations on grisha theory in the show, but pretty much the whole time alina was at the little palace, i felt like she had so much time free time to wander around the palace, hang out with nadia and marie, daydream about mal and kirigan. don't get me wrong - those are all valuable activities - but i feel like it missed the point of alina's time at the little palace. she felt isolated there; yes, she had nadia and marie, but she couldn't share with them everything she was going through because she didn't want anyone to truly know how difficult mastering her abilities were. and because she was so isolated, she throws herself into grisha theory, especially during the times in which she can't summon her abilities by herself. this is when she learns about why she's been so sickly her whole life (because she has not used her abilities, and grisha derive some form of life force and energy from using their abilities), all about amplifies, and other really cool world-building for grisha abilities and culture. instead, it was difficult to tell (at least for me) in the show if the palace and the little palace were even different places while in the books the little palace was such a whimsical, ancient, and magical place for alina compared to the gaudiness of the main palace.

the collar

anyway, complaints about architecture and alina's subpar theory education aside, the little bit of grisha theory we get is from the apparat when he talks about ilya morozova and the three amplifiers he was attempting to make during his lifetime. when the apparat is describing amplifiers, it almost seems like amplifers - not just morozova's inventions - are super rare in the world of the show. amplifiers are relatively rare in the books, obtained by only some of the most powerful grisha (zoya, ivan, alina), but they still exist. from what we've seen of zoya and ivan, they didn't seem to have amplifiers on their person, so it looks like alina is unique not only in getting an amplifier from one of morozova's beasts, but also in just getting an amplifier in general, which is a little weird.

EDIT: thanks to @laelipoo for pointing out that zoya is actually shown to have what looks like a tiger’s tooth embedded in the skin of her wrist in the first episode! so okay this shows that powerful grisha still have amplifiers in the world of the show, but this probably suggests that instead of being pieces of jewelry like in the books, they act more as body modifications, which is really interesting. if im not mistaken, ivan’s amplifier is a necklace in the book, so maybe his show-amplifier would’ve been embedded in the skin of his chest. regardless, i’d still like to see more discussion on how amplifiers in the show work - which, now that we know zoya most probably has an amplifier, we might get to see with her becoming more prevalent of a character in the projected arcs of the show (both shadow and bone trilogy as well as kos/row)

i can't remember if morozova was ever referred to as "the bonesmith" (i feel like he has been, but not in the way the apparat refers to him in the show), but i feel as though that was a kind of. foreshadowing for how we would see the stag amplifier work later in the show. in the book, the stag's antlers are a literal collar around alina's neck that remains there until she loses her abilities, so the metaphor of being "owned" by the darkling is definitely there. it never stops being there until she loses the ability that makes her his mirror and his tool. however, in the show we definitely. do not get that.

so i've seen some people say that they hate the design of the stag collar, and i cannot say i was a huge fan of looking at it myself. but that just really cemented in the fact that kirigan forcing the collar on her is a complete violation of her body and her agency. the fact that the bones erupt from her skin and that her skin looks irritated where the bones puncture through her skin just reinforces the idea that this fusion is not natural and is not supposed to be pretty because kirigan taking control of her in this way is really really terrible actually. in addition to the collar, the show also gives kirigan a circle of bone embedded in his hand - which, hand versus collar, who has the most agency in this situation, his hand is quite literally around her neck, etc - but i feel like they made this change so that non-readers could see and understand the mutuality of the amplifier in a physical manifestation because the show doesn't expand on that theory at all.

i really liked that the show kept the reason for alina gaining control of the amplifier being her connection with the stag before kirigan killed it because that at least is consistent with the theory in the books, especially with the expansion of that same theory in kos/row with zoya's connection with juris and how true use of an amplifier requires mutual connection, understanding, and suffering between the grisha and the animal.

i also thought that the way the show portrayed alina taking back control of her power with the stag's horns absorbing into her own bones was a really effective way to show that the power is hers now, and that it is a part of her. however, i wish the show had kept some evidence of the collar because of how it quickly became a piece of her iconography in the books as well as a symbol of her power. seeing as how alina stabbed the circle of bone out of kirigan's hand (very sexy girlboss moment), i wonder if kirigan will still be able to control her abilities. if he can, i hope that any time he uses her abilities, the horns emerge from her skin again as a visual signifier that alina is being violated and that her own power is being used against her. OR even at the times in which alina uses kirigan's power against him (like if the show depicts the conclusion to the battle of the little palace where alina uses the darkling's merzost) to have the horns come out of her skin to show that she is reinforcing her bond with him. both would be really cool.

alina and mal

okay so in ruin and rising we learn that not only are alina and mal bffs and in love whatever, but also that they've been drawn to each other because mal is actually the host to the last of morozova's amplifiers. and then alina looks back at the times in which she's felt the most powerful or when they encountered morozova's beasts, and she realizes that all of those times coincide with when she had important moments with mal. this reveal is huge in the series, and without the build up, i fear it might seem like it would've come out of nowhere if the show chooses to go in the same direction.

for example, alina and mal in the book only find the stag after they kiss for the first time. however, in the show they don't kiss. they don't even move mal's "i see you now" speech to right before they find the stag. it's simply a jump cut to alina and mal in the forest looking at the stag. they might be talking, but i don't think it was an 'important' moment for them.

however, they've been setting mal up as a better-than-average tracker since the very beginning with ana kuya asking him specifically to hunt for dinner. mal also admits that when he saw alina's power come from the tent when kirigan is testing her power that he heard a 'high-pitched tone' and somehow intuitively knew that it was her or something like that. he also tells alina that he'll always be able to find his way to her, no matter what, which is really romantic of course, but it is also part of their connection as one of morozova's three amplifiers and the girl who will possess at one point in time two of the three amplifiers.

i also think that the scene in ruin and rising when alina kills mal for his power is supposed to directly mirror the scene in the shadow and bone book where alina tells mal before they find the stag that she wants him to kill her before she can be caught by the darkling; part of the reason she feels strongly enough to ask this is because she understands grisha theory enough to know what the darkling's plans for the stag and her are. when she's protecting mal and the stag from the darkling, she begs mal to kill her. but he doesn't. and in ruin and rising, when they're out of options during the final battle, mal tells alina to kill him. and she does.

but without alina asking to be killed paired alongside the lack of intimate mal and alina moment before they find the stag, i wonder if the show will be heading in the same direction as the books in terms of mal's status as the last of morozova's creations, or if they'll decide to do something different.

battle of the fold

i think the most obvious difference in the battle of the fold is that kaz, inej, and jesper are like. just chillin on the skiff. additionally, zoya is on the skiff (her presence there was discussed in the zoya section), and mal is not a prisoner in the skiff like he was in the book - he snuck on. for the six's presence on the skiff, i don't mind it and i actually like how they participate in the battle (inej throwing a knife into kirigan's chest and nearly ending his shit right then and there was something we always wanted but did not know we wanted. same with zoya and inej bonding during a fight), but the change in mal's freedom status on the ship is a little more complicated.

in the books, the darkling lets alina and mal spend one last night together (with bars between them) before whatever happens on the fold. i can't remember if he tells alina that he plans to execute mal in the fold, but regardless it becomes apparent that is his plan when he throws mal overboard, on the edges of alina's sunlight, and begins reigning in the sunlight so that mal will be consumed by the fold. it's the fact that mal is in danger that alina manages to gain control of her power once more, and she saves mal. the group of dignitaries from the various nations are still on the ship when she makes her escape, and she uses the Cut - a form of summoner ability that she has never used before and has only ever been used by the darkling. she makes the terrible and difficult decision to let the dignitaries die in the fold alongside the darkling, because she believes it's a worthy sacrifice to make, and she and mal escape together.

i think this sequence of events would've tracked really well in the show with how alina had previously been depicted as mal's protector, but the show chooses not to have alina save mal and kill the dignitaries. instead, the show has kirigan kill the dignitaries and also has mal have a homoerotic fist fight with kirigan which is. not exactly not in line with themes the show has put on, especially with how mal and kirigan have interacted before in the show.

in the books, we don't see mal and the darkling interact without alina as a buffer, and so a fistfight between them in the battle of the fold in shadow and bone wouldn't have made narrative sense and would've just ended up feeling cheap. however we do see mal and kirigan interact without alina in the show - when mal is showing kirigan where the stag is and kirigan learns alina's favorite flower through mal, and when kirigan gives mal that petty little speech about how he'll get alina eventually while mal grows old and dies.

there's an interesting phenomenon in certain kinds of love triangles; most of the time you see love triangles in the classic sense of Person B and Person C both being in love with Person A, who has to make the choice between B and C. however, that's not a true love triangle - there also needs to be a connecting factor between B and C. and, in most cases, that connecting factor is the ritual of masculine homosocial rivalry. so when applying this kind of love triangle to alina, mal, and kirigan, we see that both mal and kirigan have feelings for alina, but they also have a connection to each other through their rivalry, which is as much about rituals of masculine conquering (whether the person they are wanting to conquer is alina or the other man is a very interesting question to which the answer is yes) as it is about being the person alina loves.

do i personally like the kirigan/mal fight in the fold? no, i would've much preferred to see alina rescue and protect mal. however, i do recognize that the fight makes narrative sense within the show, and it was really funny to see kirigan get his shit rocked by mal's bare fists a couple of times. i would say i hope he's been humbled by the experience but we all know that's not true.

also remember when i mentioned that kirigan is the one who kills the dignitaries here instead of alina leaving them to die? and remember, way back in the beginning when i said that alina inadvertently getting her cartography unit killed in the show may have been a swap for some deaths in the battle of the fold? alina being excused from the deaths of the dignitaries in the show but responsible for the deaths of her cartography friends at the beginning is what i was talking about. like i said way back (or maybe i didn't say it but im saying it now), it makes narrative sense. i get it.

however, i think the choice not to have alina perform the Cut on the skiff when she regains control of her power is an interesting one. because, in the book, that was an ultimate show-off of power (even if it was a terrible moment for alina). no one else but the darkling can perform a Cut, and as soon as alina forcibly takes control of her power from the darkling she uses his own signature move to leave him for death? that's a power move. that's irony. that's a physical manifestation of alina being able to adopt and take advantage of some of the darkling's power and use it against him, which is definitely a main theme in the book as it happens every single time alina gets close to defeating him and also when she actually defeats him.

so the Cut is really important, and i want to see in what other situation the show might have alina perform a Cut of her own against kirigan, or if they'll even include that aspect of reclaiming of power. i really want them to.

conclusion

so what have we learned? i think, first and foremost, we have learned that i have so many opinions and should learn how to be sweet and concise with my words. we have also learned there were a lot of changes between the grishaverse books and the series, and these were only the changes that i remembered off the top of my head having watched the series almost a week ago and having reread the books over the past few months.

in addition to those things, we have learned that, in my academic opinion, many of the changes made to fit the story into the screen were positive changes or, at the very least, changes i am interested in seeing develop. in the end, i am just a fan, and regardless of what season 2 may throw at us, i trust bardugo's decisions because she has never let me down narratively before, so i'll probably end up loving things the show ends up doing because i am, at my core, a simple sort of person.

i had a lot of fun writing this all up, and i hope this super long post was informative or entertaining in some way. thank you so much for reading<3<3<3<3

[itsclydebitches]

V7 e2 ironwood: "the people will hate you" "thats a price im willing to pay" V8 e14 ironwood: "Why doesnt anyone appreciate meeeee" (RT: We can’t have him accept hatred for his actions guys, we have to make sure every aspect of his character is irredeemable so anyone who even remotely defends his characters will be shat on!)

You know, as much as I despise that line - especially coming off of a bomb threat - I can't blame Ironwood for it if we read "anyone" as his former allies. Ironwood, despite what Volume 8 would like us to believe, is not some automaton. His desire to instill pride and reap support from his allies read loud and clear throughout Volume 7 (as well as since his introduction), everything from his excitement over potentially seeing Ozpin again to him outright acknowledging that he couldn't do any of this without Winter's help. Back in Volume 7, Ironwood was willing to shoulder the hatred of the people because they were entirely ignorant to the context of his choices. He understood that their hatred stemmed from not understanding why he did these things - to create long-term protection from Salem - and the crucial difference between the nameless people of Mantle and the rest of our cast, his allies, is that the latter DO understand his motivations. They, unlike the people, are fully informed. What happened when Ruby and co. learned why Ironwood was taking resources? They supported him. Doesn't matter if they complained about everything not coming up roses, they actively assisted Ironwood in continuing this plan. What happened when Robyn learned why he was taking resources? She joined him, seeming to agree about the Amity idea and standing with Ironwood before all of Mantle. What happened when things got even more dicey and Winter learned that they were being recalled before evacuations were complete? She supported him because she understood why he was making this incredibly tough call. Time and again Ironwood was surrounded by people who had that context, knew that there were only hard choices available, and stood by him, even when they hated that there was no better solution. Even when some did step away (the group) at least others remained. There was, in the background, constant appreciation for his hard choices from at least some of his allies all the way through to Winter's betrayal, simply by virtue of those allies agreeing to continue helping him. Every time Ironwood looked up, there it was, someone who actually understood the situation overtly or silently saying, "This is indeed what we have to do, no matter how hard it is. I support you in this decision." And with that approval comes a certain amount of relief. Someone else gets it.

But, because of Volume 8's insistence on making Ironwood 110% irredeemable, that support was slowly stripped away. First Blake and Yang betray him. Then Ruby sides against him. Penny leaves. They tell the whole world he can't be trusted. Then Marrow goes. Then Winter. Then finally the rest of the Ace Ops. This revolving door of allies leaving might have been poignant if their departure was actually timed with Ironwood's horrific acts - Ruby leaves because he shot Oscar, not because he's trying to save people by leaving; Winter leaves because he murdered the councilman, not sticking around for two days after that because killing is fine, I guess, etc. - but instead it just reads like no one ever cared. We disagree with Ironwood? No sense trying to talk that out. Nobody cares enough to put forth the effort (Oscar being an incredibly rare exception). So yeah, by the time everyone has left, and they've left for reasons that feel ridiculous and petty, and then they're actively twisting these events to absolve themselves of any responsibility... I can see why Ironwood in that moment would go, 'Omfg I can't believe that none of you appreciate this.' Because you understood what was happening. You are a part of the morally gray war that demands only awful choices of us. You lied, and hid, and betrayed, and did all these questionable things right along with me. Out of everyone in Remnant, you were the only ones who could appreciate why I made the hard calls when I did. You alone were in a position to understand and, for a while, you did.

Obviously I'm not talking about stuff like the bomb threat... but then, neither was Winter. Her grievance was "squeezing Mantle" so, yeeeeah, she and the other heroes should appreciate what he did there. They don't have to like the overall shittiness of the situation (who would?) but because they went along with it, because they understood his motivations, because it was all in service of helping the world, and because they knew Ironwood has been shouldering the consequences of that sacrifice since the Fall of Beacon... they are indeed the ones who should have at least the teensiest bit of appreciation for his attempts, even if those attempts didn't turn out well. In the same way that, I expect, Ruby would want appreciation for saving the Kingdom of Atlas... even though she destroyed it. Yang and Blake would want appreciation for gaining an ally in Robyn... even though they betrayed all of them to do it. Jaune would want appreciation for keeping the Maiden powers safe... even though he killed Penny. This cast is made up of characters doing horrific, incredibly questionable things in the name of serving a greater good and all of them approach those choices with the belief that those in the know - their allies, friends, and family - will understand why they had to make those choices and will appreciate the various sacrifices they went through in order to do what they thought was right. Ironwood is no different in that regard.

[lassieposting]

10, 12 n 19 for skugpine?

Ohohoho so u fell in the SOW garbage pit too huh

God this got so long im so sorry

10) who usually makes dinner?

They go out. Skug has a well-equipped kitchen and can make a few staples, but Nef still has no idea where Skug lives and Skug wants to keep it that way. Serpine knows how to make a grand total of one dish - pasta, staple diet of his student neighbours - so they usually meet up in town and he'll make use of Skug's apparently bottomless wallet at one of Roarhaven's swanky restaurants. Skug likes the one that plays live jazz.

12) who hogs the bathroom?

Nef. This dimension has A Lot of fun shit that he did not have back home. Skug spends an unreasonable amount of time trying to reconcile that his nemesis, orchestrator of The Trap, is also the same man who will spend ages perched on the side of the bathtub kerplunking an entire hoard of those gritty bathbomb things into the water and gleefully sending him videos of what colour the water turns.

19) who clings to the other for comfort when they’re sad or scared?

Serpine - which is a new development for him.

Now, I have a whole theory about why alt!Serpine is so different (read: chattier, saner, more realistic and less caricatured) than his book one counterpart, and why his relationship with Skug is so different. But they're pretty similar in that until the year(?) spent in the Leibniz dimension in SOW, both versions of Serpine had to be completely self-reliant. He's never had anyone protect him before. Mevolent afforded him a lot of freedoms to commit atrocities that he might not have otherwise had, but those came with a lot of strings attached and the knowledge that ultimately, Mevolent would sacrifice him if necessary. So he always needed to be on guard for that.

When he joins the group going to Leibniz, he makes a truce with Skug.

(Interesting note: og!Serpine and Skug were already on first name terms. They called each other Nefarian/Skulduggery throughout book one. Alt!Serpine and Skug are clearly not - he's even annoyed by the familiarity in Phase One, and this sarcastic exchange is the only time he uses Skug's name pre-SOW.)

Anyway, Dexter, Saracen and Tanith all advocate for killing him on the spot. They discuss this right in front of him. And then:

Skug defends him.

This has to be a shock? It's a shock to everyone else, and they know Skug better than Nef does. But for whatever reason, Skug fights his corner against his own friends. People who want to kill him as justice for what he did to Skug.

Do-gooders. Who knows why they do these things. Bizarre.

But this continues throughout the trip. Skug tells him to shut up every time he talks, shorts out his nervous system for laughs, and threatens him with violence at the slightest opportunity, but he also protects him from everyone else, and not only the members of their own party.

He's not much of a fighter and he knows when it's in his best interest to ingratiate himself with the top dogs in a group, so he tries to connect with Skug, puts out tentative feelers to Val and Tanith. And gradually, without even realising it, he gets used to it. Having someone protecting him. And we know this, because when Skug agrees to cut his hand off, he's horrified. He genuinely doesn't believe at first that Skug will let that happen, he assumes they'll fight their way out - which means he believes by this point that Skug will prioritise his wellbeing over their being vastly outnumbered and Saracen being injured.

(Interesting note the second: we know either Serpine or Serafina cut bits of Skug off while he was being tortured in Serpine's dungeon - at least one of his fingers. It's really interesting that Serpine is so surprised Skug would allow this, after that - he's basically getting back what he gave out, and Skug is famous for his ability to hold a grudge - to the point that when they first meet in KOTW, Serpine believes Skug is there specifically to kill him...after 200-odd years.)

Anyway, the point is: to be that shocked by this turn of events, he would have had to have built up a considerable (if subconscious) trust in Skug in a fairly short amount of time - enough that he now defaults to Skulduggery Will Protect Me rather than Here Is The Inevitable Betrayal I Planned For.

(Interesting note the third: At this point, Skug reassures him that they'll get him to a healer as soon as they get back - which, again, is something Serpine never gave him. There was no healer to ease the pain of having his finger cut off, no one to nurse his injuries, no antidote to the poison slowly shutting his body down.)

After this, Serpine goes from "Skulduggery" back to "the skeleton". He also acknowledges that Skug had every reason to want to hurt him, meaning he does recognise everything he did to Skug would lead Skug to want to get his own back, and believed he'd defend him anyway.

And by the end of the year, Skug is back to protecting him, this time from China, arguably the most powerful person on the planet:

And then, now delving into au, he's made responsible for Serpine, like a parole officer. Since he's the one who refused to execute him, he gets the dubious privilege of making sure he settles in, behaves himself, and contributes to society. Serpine isn't stupid by any stretch, and he knows China very well - he suspected she'd want him killed, and since she's well aware of their history, he recognises her making him Skug's charge for what it is: a punishment. He's clever enough to connect the dots: China wanted him dead, Skug is an accomplished killer, China is furious enough with Skug to do this to him, ergo Skug probably defied orders to take Serpine out.

So. Eventually, he gets back into the habit of looking to Skug when he's scared and wants backup.

[surviving---not---living]

What the fuck do I do?...

**tw emotional/physical abuse mentions**

posted this on reddit with different ages and such so he wont find it but he doesnt use tumblr so I wanted to post here to see if yall had some suggestions as well any help would be greatly appreciated or to just know someone read would also be enough... with that said I'll paste the post.

to start I'm 23f and the fiance is 38m

I have an idea of what i should do i just sincerely dont want to i dont want to leave him homeless and without money or a job...

but the last few months have me scared and confused...

(during arguments he let's me write down what's happening when I hear something that stands out to me in Hope's itll help me fix my behaviour i got from my parents so ive been able to write down exact wording on some things said) theres just so much going on...

to preface this hes never been physically abusive to me and thankfully it's not there yet. in his defense though i was raised very incorrectly due to shit parents and I have a lot of mental issues that cause self sabotage, delusional thinking- meaning If I personally believe something it usually takes a small war to get my mind to recognize im actually wrong, as well as terrible memory so if I do acknowledge I've done something wrong more often than not my head forgets what happened or what i even did wrong if anything and the next time it inevitably happens again I have no information to pull from to tell me what I did was wrong or why. so basically I'm kind of a fuck up, I'm doing my best to fix my shit but yeah my fiance has been dealing with all of that for 4 years now.

(*some minorly important issues

•he's been interrupting me not letting me finish what I'm saying and just outright changing the topic since we first got together, although wrong of me I started doing that as well because i saw no other way to be able to speak to him except even when I'm doing the exact same shit hes doing it seems like hes the only allowed to be upset.

•we were in an open relationship except he didnt follow the rules we agreed to one time and that broke my trust I had for him. we said no coworkers, we said only people we were both interested in we said no one that's taken and yet all of those got broken over an ugly bitch. and I still get shit for bringing it up to this day.

•he said that until I start prefacing all of my conversations with him he wont count any attempt I've made at talking to him about my problems. so basically everything I've tried talking to him about doesnt fucking matter and it doesnt fucking count. not even when I tried telling him 3 separate times I'm feeling suicidal to top it off everytime i mentioned it, it ended in an argument.

•he told me he got suicidal thoughts for the first time in 10 years due to me and honestly I didnt know how to fucking respond to that. it made me sad yeah but where was the care I needed when I brought up the same thing? where was his give a fuck hes supposed to show if he actually cares about me??

•he says he interrupts me because what I have to say is either false, not grounded in reality, or they're excuses. except he has little to no way of knowing any of that is true unless he hears me all the way out I could be agreeing with him and he still interrupts and gets pissed.

•I believe hes a hypocrite but he says nah hes only doing this because I'm doing bad.

•hes said multiple times that i wont see any improvement in him until he sees I've got my shit together. even though hes the one that caused the first problems in this relationship I'm supposed to be the first one to fix my shit? instead of both of us working on our shit together??? and when I ask those questions he responds with yes you are supposed to be the first one to fix your shit because I'm at the end of my rope and I wont take this anymore.)

but on to why I've been scared. this person told me he used to be abusive with an equally abusive ex for many reasons and after splitting up he vowed to never do that again and never end up like they did.

fast forward to our relationship and well a few months ago he told me he wanted to hit me and made it a point to say he wasnt going to but he really wanted to.

he said that because we were both in my car and he wanted to leave with the car except I wasnt going to get out of MY car so he started yelling, i got scared and left later on he told me that was the first time hes ever wanted to hit me and I should think about what it is I did to get him to that point. after that I left it alone for a month because things got a bit better and then came the next time he said he wanted to hit me. now I dont remember the reason for him saying it the second time but I wasnt going to let that slip as easily as the first so I spoke up about it and what he had to say about me telling him it made me scared of him to know he wanted to hit me was " well if you Weren't a coward, normally when someone says they want to hit you it's a signal that you're doing something so wrong that they want to hit you." and me knowing him i knew this was one of those times he just wasnt going to budge.

so on to the next argument.

he told me I'm the one who thrust those thoughts into him, that I'm the reason they ever came to be, I'm why the exist in the first place. and he doesnt seem to understand when I say that no I'm not the reason your head wants to hurt me they exist there because of your last relationship letting that be an option. he also said he keeps the option of abuse in his head with a line in front of it to remind him to never pass that line and he doesn't understand that keeping that idea in his head at all is not a good thing because now the option is available whether you want to take it or not and

he. just. kept. arguing. and defending.

now on to the last argument.

he says he wants me to stop putting him in a position to do all the thinking and decision making for me, when I've asked him multiple times to stop doing that because I want to do shit for myself and all he keeps saying is show me that you can actually think for yourself and I'll stop needing to do that. like motherfucker at least give me the time to make decisions or thoughts.

I know it's not his fault that I take longer to process things but he knows this fact and keeps expecting me to already have a response half a second later to something I'm barely registering 5 seconds after it happened and again yes I know its something I have to work on and I am but atm it's still an existing issue.

hes trying to call thinking for me and making decisions for me "a gift" (the exact context for him saying this wasnt written down as I was too upset at the audacity of that claim.)

he wants me to show overwhelming efforts to fix my fucked behavioral issues but the efforts I'm putting in atm dont matter to him and that hes hanging on a single thread hes no longer willing to take anything but Absolute compliance(yes he used the actual words absolute compliance) if he doesnt see me losing sleep to figure out and fix my shit he wont be convinced I'm trying. he ended that segment with him saying hes not using these words to control or manipulate me. he says this is a requirement a yes or no and he wont make his decision on whether he wants to break up with me until I say yes or no to his absolute compliance. he said his decision is solely based on my answer and If i say yes i dont get to back off or get out of it.

I also wrote down a quote he said that was just so arrogant i couldnt leave it out.

"You sit before an artisan of problem solving." -my fiance

soo haha yeahh the last argument happened right before going to bed and I started typing this as soon as I got up and finished my hygiene stuff.

I'm pretty sure if he had never told me he'd wanted to hit me this wouldn't be such a difficult thing to answer... I love him and I have no idea if I should pick him and risk any form of my safety or just let him leave me.. he has no job, no money, and no family to go to.. I know he doesnt care about being homeless but I do care..I fucking love him and I dont want that for him not even for a day... as shitty as he and I can both be I still dont believe that's what he deserves... if he ever finds this hell be even more pissed that I'm even concerned about what he'll do if he leaves.. he always told me to not care and that if I ever do want to leave him to not worry about that and just get it over with sooner.. thing is I dont want to leave I just want my baby back... the one that didnt yell or didnt want to hit me at all... I want our old relationship back.. I guess I want to know if that's even possible at this point. any words from anyone would be really nice right now.. if only to just feel like someone's talking to me.. my fiance is literally the only person I talk to and the closest thing to a friend I have. and i dont tell my parents any of what's happening because they're stressed enough so I've been basically alone for 4 years with no one but my fiance to talk to..

granted it's my fault I havent made other friends but I've been so stressed recently that I havent done much about it for many reasons..

update: he just finished telling me that hes only had half a burger in the last 3 days, (due to stress) he just wanted to let me know that apparently.

[dweetwise]

OUT OF ALL THE PEOPLE WHO IS PINNING FOR DWIGHT ITS ACE WHO HE CHOOSES AND THE OTHERS ARE LIKE ????? WHERE DID HE COME FROM ????? ace is actually really romantic and soft and cares very deeply for dwight and it took him awhile to show that yes he is serious and no he's not gonna use him and leave

I’M SORRY IF THIS WASN’T MEANT AS A REQUEST the idea just popped into my head and i had to write it! yes i have a soft spot for this ship leave me alone ;w; also i cried at “ace is actually really romantic and soft” like you can’t just sAy thAT to me and expect me to function properly hnsdsfdhfdg ;A; no warnings for this one, only a little crack and ooc!

word count: 2000

Ace X Dwight (/X p much everyone): Never reveal your winning hand

“—fock off with that shit! He’s stayin’ with me!” David yells.

“I should share with him, I’m his best friend!” Jake counters.

“Ya just wanna get in ‘is pants!” David accuses.

“Oh, as opposed to you, huh?” Quentin butts in, crossing his arms and glaring defiantly at the Englishman.

Ace leans further back against the log and watches the spectacle unfold with a lazy smirk.

The Entity had recently gifted them tents to sleep in, only there weren’t enough for everyone and some would have to share. The girls had been able to decide their sleeping arrangements easily, but David’s temper had sparked an argument among the boys and now all of the men were sent into the woods until they could come up with a solution—‘Peacefully,’ Claudette had insisted, shooting a pointed look David’s way.

Which was proving much harder than anyone would have anticipated, since it turned out nearly everyone wanted to share with Dwight, and wasn’t afraid of voicing it since their leader was currently stuck in a trial and oblivious to the argument going on.

Bill had left only minutes into the discussion, angrily claiming he’d rather sleep on the ground than listen to them for another second, followed by Tapp and Ash who had watched the scene with varying levels of disbelief before silently agreeing to share with each other.

Ace already knows how this will turn out, but it’s just funny to watch the others fight over Dwight.

“Since when ‘ave you lot even fancied ‘im?” David glares. “And you—ya barely just got ’ere!” he stops to address Felix in an accusation.

“And that means I probably have a better chance than any of you,” Felix explains calmly. “I’d actually make a move and not just pine for four years.”

“Hey!” Jake protests.

“Alright, what reason the rest of ya got?” David demands, regarding the group skeptically.

“I just wanna make sure he’s not perved on by someone else!” Quentin argues.

“No, you want to white knight for him!” Jake counters.

“Shut up Jake, now what about the rest?” David interrupts.

“I’d just really like to spend some time with him to get to know him better,” Adam explains.

“Me too,” Jeff says. “I haven’t had a proper chance to ask him if he’d be interested.”

David nods in acknowledgement, before his eyes meet Ace’s and he can’t quite suppress the disgusted sneer upon imagining Dwight ending up sharing a sleeping space with him.

“I just think he’s cute,” Ace says with a smile, giving a one-shoulder shrug.

“Look, why is Ace even here?” Jake sighs in annoyance. “Nobody would touch him with a ten-foot pole, least of all Dwight.”

“Maybe we should just ask Dwight who he wants to share with?” Steve suggests, cocking his head in thought.

“NO!” a chorus of protests interrupt him and the well-intentioned teen offers an apologetic grin.

“Look, we all know I’m ‘is type—” David starts, puffing up his chest, highlighting his generously open neckline that shows off his build.

“You don’t know shit,” Jake argues. “He sure as hell wouldn’t go for a dumb meathead like you!”

“Mate, you watch your mouth—” David starts.

“There you are!” a familiar voice interrupts the argument and both David and Jake freeze, turning their heads to look at Dwight making his way over to the group. “What’s going on? Bill said I should come sort something out?”

“Uhh…”

Ace rolls his eyes. At first, everyone was shouting over each other, and now, face to face with the object of their affection, are rendered speechless like a couple of schoolboys.

“Err, did you see the tents?” Steve starts, taking the initiative to explain when nobody else is making a move to do so.

“Oh! Yeah, they’re pretty neat, huh?” Dwight says with a small smile.

“Y-yeah,” Steve stammers and blushes a little, Dwight’s cuteness apparently making his words leave him, so Jeff takes over.

“There’s not enough for everyone, so we were just trying to figure out the sleeping arrangements,” Jeff explains. “Do you… um, do you have a preference…?”

Ace can feel everyone holding their breaths as Dwight blinks a couple times in confusion, before a flush spreads over his face.

“Oh, uh, don’t worry about me,” Dwight says, nervously wringing his hands together, before finally meeting Ace’s gaze. “I already know who I’m sharing with.”

Ace swears he hears jaws drop to the floor as Dwight makes his way over and sits down next to him, making himself comfortable against Ace like he’s done countless times before, only this time they have an audience.

“Welcome back, cariño,” Ace murmurs warmly, wrapping an arm around his boyfriend’s shoulders. “How was your trial?”

“It was okay,” Dwight says, looking up at him with a happy smile. “Could have used some of your crazy luck, though. I missed you.”

And then the boy dares to place a peck on his cheek in their first gesture of PDA, and Ace doesn’t even bother trying to hide his smug grin from the others.

“You could have told us,” Adam scolds him, huffing in annoyance but otherwise seeming to have collected himself.

“What?” Dwight pipes up, a frown on his handsome face and oblivious to Ace taking his silent victory over the others. “What do you mean?”

“N-no, not you…” Adam stammers, averting his eyes.

“Fucking figures,” Quentin scoffs in disgust, meeting Ace’s eyes and not bothering to mask his hostility.

“Is there a problem?” Dwight is suddenly raising his voice, wrapping his arms around Ace almost protectively, looking at the others defiantly as if daring someone to protest.

Ace finds the display unbelievably adorable, his normally meek boyfriend coming out of his shell to defend his honor. He places a kiss into Dwight’s hairline to soothe some of his nerves but not ready to defuse just yet, a twisted part of him wanting to see how the others react to their leader’s possessive behavior.

“Not at all,” Jeff says, trying and failing to hide the surprise on his face. “We just had no idea you were… involved.”

“We’re not ‘involved’, we’re dating. He’s my boyfriend,” Dwight is quick to remove any doubts, scowling at the others as intimidatingly as anyone with his baby face and doe-like brown eyes is capable of.

“Well, I suppose that’s the end of that discussion,” Felix comments, not seeming terribly phased to learn that Dwight is taken.

“Yeah, uh… congrats!” Steve laughs nervously and gives them an awkward thumbs-up.

“You’d better take care of him,” Jake glares at Ace like he’s the scum of the Earth, and Ace is fluent enough in Jake-talk to know that’s the closest thing he’ll get to having the saboteur’s blessing.

Ace raises a challenging eyebrow in response and Jake grits his teeth to no doubt suppress a snarky comment that he knows Dwight wouldn’t appreciate hearing, and Ace smirks over the moral victory and focuses his attention on David instead.

And promptly has to suppress a laugh over the brawler’s reaction. David is staring at them, or well, mostly at Ace. He looks completely gobsmacked, looking Ace up and down before looking down at his own, naked and well-defined chest, confused beyond what his fighting-filled brain can handle.

“Something on your mind, King?” Ace asks cockily, knowing full well the scrapper is most likely trying to figure out why Dwight would choose someone like Ace over a prime specimen like himself.

“How the fuck,” David merely mutters but, thankfully, isn’t picking a fight. Dwight still tenses in Ace’s arms and Ace’s grip tightens around him in an attempt to soothe him.

“Shh, it’s fine,” Ace murmurs into his lover’s soft hair, and that’s enough to reassure Dwight, the man relaxing into the embrace.

“So, guess we’re sharing with each other!” Steve exclaims, breaking some of the tension over the group. “Who’s going with who?”

“I’ll come with you,” Quentin says, still sounding a little pissed off but not about to cuss anyone out again, at least. “Unless someone has any more confessions to spring on us,” he snarks.

“Works for me,” Steve beams, nothing seeming to ruin his good mood.

Ace hears Felix mutter something about how he “Might as well go with Bill”, but then he sees David approaching Jake and instantly focuses on that instead.

“So, Jake…” David starts, cocky attitude back in place as he approaches the sulking saboteur with his shirt fluttering open—what the hell, did he pop even more of the buttons?

“What,” Jake spits, the challenging glare never leaving his face, and Ace almost prepares for a fight to break out.

“Wanna share?” David asks instead, not bothering to hide the way his gaze roams over Jake’s body. Ace chokes on a disbelieving laugh and from the way Dwight’s eyes nearly bulge out of his head, he’s not imagining the sudden sexual tension between the two frenemies.

He sees the wariness in Jake’s expression, and the way his eyes very obviously linger on David’s now exposed chest.

“Fine,” Jake says, but it lacks any real heat, at least of the ‘I’m-five-seconds-away-from-punching-you’ kind, and David grins and seems way too pleased with himself.

Well, there goes everyone’s undisturbed sleep for tonight.

Finally having sorted out their sleeping arrangements, with Adam and Jeff being the unlucky ones left but not seeming to mind being stuck together, the others take their leave to go set up the tents.

Ace is finally able to wipe the smirk off his face in favor of a softer smile that’s solely reserved for Dwight, turning his head around to face his boyfriend and about to start explaining the strange behavior from the others, when…

“Had enough of your gloating?” Dwight deadpans, taking Ace completely off guard and making him gape a little stupidly. “I’m not dumb, I saw what you were doing.”

Ace offers a nervous chuckle while trying to collect himself. He should have known by now Dwight is not nearly as naïve as he seems, and that he’d easily pick up on what was really happening.

“I’m sorry, amor,” Ace says, wincing from embarrassment over his childish actions. “I did want to show you off, especially after hiding for so long. And I also really wanted to watch Jake eat his words,” he confesses, clasping Dwight’s hand and bringing it up to brush his lips against the knuckles. “Forgive me?”

Dwight’s frown immediately melts into a dopey smile, and Ace barely has the time to blink in confusion over the kid’s perfect poker face before Dwight’s lips are meeting his in a reassuring kiss.

“Of course, you dummy,” Dwight beams at him, placing one last quick peck on his lips. “I’m just… really happy you think I’m even worth showing off.”

“No no no, sweetheart, we’ve talked about this,” Ace returns the smile, carding a hand through Dwight’s hair in encouragement, his boyfriend immediately leaning into the touch. “You’re not allowed to talk about yourself that way. Because…?”

“Because I’m…” Dwight starts, a flush creeping up his neck. “’Gorgeous’ and ‘perfect’,” he says, doing air quotes.

“Uh-huh,” Ace’s smile widens even further as he takes Dwight’s hands in his own to stop the self-conscious gesture. “And?”

“S…” Dwight flounders as his face reddens even further and he averts his eyes. “S-‘sexy’.”

“Damn right you are,” Ace purrs, releasing his gentle hold on Dwight’s hands to wrap around his waist instead. “I’ve got good taste.”

As if 75% of the male survivor population thirsting after his adorable boyfriend wasn’t proof enough.

“You’re ridiculous,” Dwight huffs, embarrassment giving way to a fond smile.

“You love it,” Ace counters, placing a playful peck on Dwight’s nose.

“I love you,” Dwight corrects, chasing his lips and going in for a passionate kiss that has Ace’s breath hitching in his throat and his heart hammering in his chest.

And damn, if the others knew exactly what they were missing when it comes to Dwight Fairfield, Ace would be in a lot of trouble.

[argumentl]

The Freedom of Expression Ep 1 - Haruna Fuuka files lawsuit against internet slanderers

*with Kaoru (K), Joe (J), Tasai (T) , who is a journalist writing for the newspaper Tokyo Sports, and Kami/god.*

Kaoru: Hi, this is Dir en grey's Kaoru. Have you heard of 'The Freedom of Expression' somewhere before?

Joe, Tasai : *noding*

K: I've a feeling we've done this before...

J: Thats right, yes...Its not a feeling, we actually did.

K: We are reviving the show we did on the radio station InterFM from 2015-16, on youtube this time.

J: Awesome

*applause*

J: I was really happy when I was first told about the revival.

K: I was also surprised *laughs*

J: Its not that you were made to revive the show though, right Kaoru?

K: The suggestion just came at me.

J: Oh really, like 'How about it?'

K: Like, 'Wanna tryy?' 1*

J: Ah, in a Kansai accent?

K:Yes yes

J: Like, 'Lets tryyy'..kind of thing...it started like that *laughs*

K: Yep

J: We did quite a lot (on InterFM). We even did a special edition

K, T : Yes, we did

J: We even made stickers

K: Brazil!

J:Yes

T: Ah, the live broadcast..at the Olympics

J: It was Dobashi san...Bishbash Dobashi san.

T: It would be good if we could do another live broadcast at this year's Tokyo Olympics.

J: On this You tube channel?

T: Yes *laughs*

J: A live broadcast might be a bit difficult legally, as for the Olymipcs *T laughs*

K: Um, thats *shhh*

J: Oh, its a secret!' *K laughing*  Maybe if were are asked by Tokyo Sports..?

K: Yes yes...So, as to the freedom of expression... 

Kami/god: Wait, wait, wait..I've come down too.

J: Oh, Kami?

K: He's saying it from himself *laughs*..I thought he would come if we beckoned him though.

J: Thats what usually happened. He was the kind of god that would come down after we called him, but now a god that comes down on his own accord.

K: Wasn't he like that before too? Should we keep him in reseve a bit more?

J: He'll want to appear, we can't help it?

Kami: You were forgetting about me!

K: We are not forgetting you!

Kami: You musn't forget your god!

*laughing*

T: We are not forgetting you!

Kami: Its not good!

J: You are always in our hearts.

T: Yes, he is.

Kami: Yes, thats it..you have to think like that.

J: But, you are not in the studio today, kami?

Kami: Oh..um, im just getting off a night shift..

J: A night shift?!

K: Ah, but it was like that before..

Kami: Right.

J: You are doing night shift work again? *Tasai laughs*

Kami: yes, thats right.

K: That was a while ago wasn't it, how many years ago?

J: Oh, is this the night shift season?

Kami: No, its..

T: You worked for ￥1000 per hour right?

Kami: Yes, yes...my hourly rate has risen a bit though. They were telling me 'Take a rest, take a rest', so my income dropped.

J: Ahh, its what they called a 'reformed working style', right?

Kami: Right

J: Its tough for you too, Kami.

Kami: *laughs* Yes it is.

K: He's the same as ever...  so lets get started.

J, T: Please

K: Ah, by the way, Tasai san, as well as Bishbashi Dohashi san, wasn't there another person before (at InterFM)?

T: Yes..a beastly guy *K laughs* An old aquaintance of the listeners', a guy called Monster Hiranabe.

J: Its a strange story, but once when a certain celebrity died, Hiranabe-san called me up, and asked me if I had known the deceased guy...as soon as I said that I hadn't known him very well, he hung up on me straight away!

T: Thats awful!

J: He is awful

T: This very guy, Hiranabe, even got a promotion from the manager.

J: Eh? Promoted to what?!

T: To Director

J:Eh?! Really?

K: Is that okay??

J: No, it'll be terrible!

K: Right, lets move onto the main news...I'd like to get deeper into the concept of 'The Freedom of Expression'.

J: Right, so Haruna Fuuka has filed a lawsuit againts those who engage in 'internet slander'.

A tweet stated 'Both her parents created a failure'.

On Jan 14th, 18 year old Haruna and her mother filed a lawsuit at Yokohama district court demanding ￥2,654,000 in damages from a person engaged in spreading falsehoods which have damaged her dignity.

On the acknowledgement that these tweets went beyond what was deemed acceptable by society at large, on Nov 1st the internet provider was ordered to make public the persons name and address etc.

Haruna has been tweeting since the age of 9, giving her opinion at random about society's problems, and creating a stir. She now has over 200,000 followers and is fighting 10 years of slander. Kaoru, what do you think about this?

K: Well..I mean, naturally, you'd feel like that..

J: Hmm, but I don't know the details but..the name of the defendant has been withheld...well, its a common problem that as a person speaking in the public eye, you are going to get criticism along with praise...like a 'fame tax'.  That said, how far do you go before honour is damaged? On SNS, you are of course free to express yourself, you can write what you want, but the issue is what constitutes damage to honour. This might be a very difficult area in which to draw a legal line, but on the other hand, if you don't draw a legal line, things may escalate out of control...Kaoru, what do you think?

K: Well for example, if banter between friends is written down...controlling that...Its best not to look at whats written in the first place.

J: Ah, the person in question right? By the way Kaoru, its a strange question, but do you search for yourself online?

K: No, not really. I hear things, the office staff will tell me.

J: Oh, if anything is being said?

T: In the world of fame its quite true, that even if 98 or 99 opinions out of 100 are good, the one negative thing will stand out.

K: Well, yes, its the bad things that..

J: On the other hand, from the writers'  perspective at Tokyo Sports, how far are you willing to slander someone? You could write an article in a good or bad way..

T: Of course balance is important, but of course, if the courts want to complain to us, they can call us, and start an exchange, but in the case of slanders on the internet, its like, who do you complain to? So, if you ask celebrities, they will say Tokyo Sports slander is better than anonymous online slander because at least they can complain to our face.

J: Mm, absolutely. Just how far do we protect these tweets, these freedoms of expression? Its difficult.

K: Are these really 'expressions'?

J: Well, esentially, yes. When you say 'tweets' you think of nonsense, but really its media expressing things, or artists expressing things..

K: Yes, yes, you can get a sense of individual expression.

J: And this especially has the power to influence...

K: Yes, and people get swept up in it.

J: I think this is universal, but at the moment I think Japan is bit like a geyser, people will rush towards any incident and some will start complaining, I mean, I think its important to say what you feel, but its complaining without trying to solve anything, only satisfying yourself.

K: Thats it

J: Its sounds strange to say, but it ends like masturbation. If it turns into something towards a soloution its ok, but just creating thoughtless slander to satisfy yourself is questionable.

K: So its often said, if you continue the conversation only looking at the bad things, it can't be helped. There are also good people out there..you know, put more importance on those people. How to put it...its like we said before, if you focus too much on that one out of a hundred, its kind of rude to the other 99.

J: I see. Still this person has over 200,000 followers and its said she has been fighting slander for ten years.

T: She's always been a bit of a talking point online. I'll just search for her.

J: I also have Instagram, I do stuff to do with societal problems on The Dave Fromm show's youtube channel, and whenever I upload about it (on IG), my followers decrease!  *everyone laughs* Outrageously decrease! Im serious, despite getting so far, that channel updates every week, and with every update my followers decrease. Maybe people hate reading about societal problems..*to Tasai* What did you find?

T: So for example there was that thing recently about regulating gamers to 60mins per session, she had quite a few things to say about that, playing vs learning etc.

J: I see..Young people do complain, well you can't really tell here, but on the other hand, young people these days, i know they would hate us old guys talking about this, but young people apparently have three main taboos. The first is talking about sex, they dont follow this, the second is politics, they don't follow this either, and the other one is, they don't like being made to talk about the kind of things that they really need to be talking about...there seems to be this kind of trend. So i think in this way...theres a chance Haruna is getting right to the point of this. But certainly, applying the law in a way that recognises infringement/damage to honour by way of personal utterances has the potential to lead to restrictions on the freedom of expression. Its a difficult play off, isnt it?

T: Yes, it really is

J: Obviously, when it comes to race, or racial discrimination, there has come to be rules concerning hate speech and so on, but how far can you regulate one-to-one slandering, or..how far can you protect the person being attacked? Should the country or the judiciary decide this? Its difficult.

K: Kami, what do you think? Are you there?

Kami: Well, I hear slanders towards me all the time *everyone laughs* Like, god tells lies, god is useless, or even that there is no such thing as god!

J: Ahh, i see. They deny you!

Kami: Yes, thats it. If I care about those things, I lose!

J: Do you search for yourself online?

Kami: I do. *everyone laughs* ..and whenever I do its only ever those things that come up.

J: Ah of course...Kami, you have an exceptionally good handle on social media  dont you?

T: He's great

Kami: Ive got a good handle on it.

J: Do you use an iphone?

Kami: I have two.

J: God has two iphones! Thats brilliant.

Kami: Yep, I have two...im not allowed to use them while im working.

T: Does he have a contract? With his address and such?

J: I can't tell whether he's great, or whether he's not so great...

Kami: If i care, I lose...I prefer them to hate me, rather than to be indifferent to me.

K: Kami, what do you think about playing computer games for one hour?

Kami: If the kid is good at it, they should keep doing it.

T: I see, i see.

J: Ohh not sure about that. That seems a bit out.

Kami: No, i really think so. Skilled kids can carry on playing.

K: Should unskilled ones give up?

Kami: Yes, they shouldn't do it...When they play all day, and they just can't clear the level..that kind of kid.

K: Its a waste of time right?

Kami: Exactly, its a waste.

J: They should do something else?

Kami: Yes

K: You should quit if you have no talent for it?

Kami: Yes, yes, its talent.

J: Well, just getting off a nightshift must be tiring.

K: For us too, you know, we should try not to say 'stop it' too quickly...we have to keep it interesting.

Kami: It was interesting though, I was listening.

T: Oh thank you.

Kami: But don't tell lies about me.

T: If you thought it was interesting, you should write about it on your social media.

Kami: Yeh, everyone pretends on social media anyway, they won't know its me.

K: Well, that was the first episode of 'The Freedom of Expression' but, should I ask how it was..? *laughs*

J: But, being together again after a while was refreshing..

K,T: Yes, thats right

T: Im happy.

J: So am I.

K: Well, so we started in this vein....Tune in next time to see how it goes.  So this time, only this camera, theres nothing here *gestures behind*, but if lots of people watch, we could go different places, increase our cameras. I still don't know about your fee, Joe.

J: Eh?! What do you mean? It says here my fee will stay the same!

K: I might have to lower it *laughs*

J: *coughs* You're only lowering mine?...But everyone please subscribe.

K: Yes please. Please look forward to next time. Thank you very much.

1* They are saying 'How about this?' in a Kansai accent, how to translate that??

[orchidbreezefc]

OH SHIT YALL ARE WE PUBLICALLY TALKING ABOUT THE SHIT THE KFAM CREATORS PULL? IS THAT A THING WE’RE TALKING ABOUT NOW? I HAVE BEEN WAITING SO LONG FOR THIS YOU HAVE NO IDEA.

first: im not going to go into issues i have with the show itself. yall heard the helen keller episode and the walt storyline/the character voice a white dude used for him same as i did--my input won’t be necessary there i think. i also recommend the blog @kfam-tea​, thank you for your service, for being an archive for creator-based shit, the current snafu and their history, etc.

this is about my personal experiences with the creators. there’s plenty of behavior by the FANDOM that i don’t appreciate, especially in the official discord--where it’s specifically encouraged and cultivated--and maybe i’ll indulge myself with that in a separate post, but this i think will be more relevant to more folks’ interests and the current climate.

so. remember ep90, “if you’re hungry and you know it”? it’s the one where maggie calls in to apply and gets treated like shit by our protagonists for 15 minutes. comments are made about her breasts. they try to dissuade her from applying for the job posting they’ve been advertising because chet would sexually harass her and rather than address that they’d rather just.... warn off every female applicant? maggie through the conversation is trying to make amends for her wrongs (i.e. high school drama and attacking a guy who sexually harassed her so badly for years she quit her job) and talk about her efforts at recovery, and she is mocked, both in the way she is written and in the way sammy and ben talk to and about her.

it was bad. it was very sexist and bad, and nothing was said about it for a month (7/15-8/15), at which point ep92, “words: greater than pen, greater than sword” aired, which contained lily tearing sammy to shreds over it. ben wasn’t there, which was interesting, because it did create a dynamic where our resident socially aware lesbian (who solely bears the burden of educating people when they are being shitheads and is richly rewarded by being widely regarded as an unlikeable bitch by the fandom and many of the characters) rightfully confronts and gets an apology from a gay man for being half of an extremely misogynist shutdown of a woman. meanwhile, his hetero counterpart and unassailable purehearted fandom darling is not yelled at for his misogyny, and gets to have this Very Important Lesson relegated to him offscreen later. i mean, presumably? i’m pretty sure we never hear whether that actually happens.

still, it was a pretty thorough discussion of how gross that conversation had been, and it was addressed and apologized for in the show itself by the characters (or one of them), which was more than i expected. it regained some lost trust. it was clear to me that the kfam team had received the same sort of outcry from the fandom that i had seen in more private servers, and these were their amends. i decided to tweet at them applauding the effort. this is how that worked out:

[ID: a tweet by me that reads: “@ KingFallsAM hey.... today's episode was good. this was a good way to respond to fan criticism and the apology is appreciated. thanks.”

the official kfam account quote tweeted this to respond: “This was an intended storyline, we don’t course correct. We have ALWAYS had imperfect characters that learn and grow and will continue to. Also... we only saw one tweet even mention it. But thanks?“

a fellow fan, whose username and icon have been redacted, replied to the official kfam account’s response with: “I feel like there’s a less sarcastic way to respond to this tweet. I’m a diehard fan, however I saw quite a bit of criticism about thesexism[sic] in the recent episodes. I too was under the impression that it was a course correction, regardless I am glad that there is character growth“]

so. that was a cool thing. like, i do owe that other fan my life and will show up for them in their hour of need for being the only one to publically stick up for me despite being a stranger, but that sure was a quote tweet that a multi-thousand-followers account used to dunk on my under-100-followers account for trying to pay them a compliment!

i mean, really. the passive-aggressive ‘but thanks?’ at the end? and them saying not that they didnt course correct in this case where followup (a month later) was planned, but that they don’t course-correct, as in they never do that--was a clear statement of ‘we don’t accept fan criticism or feedback on writing OR representation and take it into account, ever’. hey kfam, pro tip: when you say 'thanks for accepting our apology i guess' it really sounds like you didnt feel like you needed to apologize in the first place. which is a pretty bold attitude to take about an episode where a character apologizes for being sexist.

like no wonder you only saw one tweet about it if that’s the attitude you present toward criticism (and, as @kfam-tea​‘s blog thoroughly proves, it is and has been, consistently). i know the risk of backlash is definitely why i hadn’t said anything about 90 in public up to that point. but yeah, 'nobody told us that episode was disgusting in our samebrain discord server that contains the literal creators who have a history of backlash, so can you really say there was fan criticism at all? maybe it was just in your head. after all, if we did something wrong with the intention to correct it a month later, did we really do anything wrong in the first place? checkmate'

tl;dr im not surprised by the new developments. my hearts go out to the MINORS, who are specifically cultivated as an audience by the sfw policy of the official server, who were publically chewed out by the grown ass author on twitter for requesting tags, warnings, or really any sort of discretion or consideration at all on nsfw content.

p.s.: here’s something kyle said on the discord in response to a conversation in which i criticized ben’s behavior during an episode (i.e. said he should apologize and take responsibility for a hurtful thing he did even though he did it by accident, or at least have it acknowledged in the show or the fandom that he did a hurtful thing--another post, perhaps) and the rest of the discord dogpiled me until i cried and shut down and stopped defending myself or speaking at all because i couldn’t deal with inviting any more argument:

[ID: a discord message from kyle that reads: “Thank you all for talking about this maturely and with your words. I’ve personally never seen that heard[sic???] of this scene with that POV attached but that’s the beautiful thing about this show and shows like it, is[sic] that we all kinda copy & paste ourselves on these characters and situations at times. Everybody’s opinions on the situation is[sic] valid with their own personal context of the scene.” two people have reacted with blue heart emojis.]

how magnanimous, kyle. wouldn’t have described the preceding argument as civil even if i did understand how anyone could possibly do anything on a discord text channel that didn’t qualify as using their words, but thanks? somebody literally DM’d me to ask if i was okay because without having ever talked to me one-on-one before they could tell i was deeply distraught by the end, but i’m glad you got to be the benevolent author and shake hands with both sides for a swift shutdown of dissent well executed. /s

[sparklingpax]

Rambles about TFP Megatron

This is opinionated, based on speculation (is that the right word??) and memories of episodes and moments in books. Please don’t be offended and get angry at me. I’m literally writing whatever comes to mind about this. Also sorry if none of it makes any real sesnes; again, these are my thoughts as they come so those tend to be incoherent and,,,,,unconnected?? Idk um

So scroll along if you’re not interested but here I go :’D 

///

I feel like I might get bashed for this (or not) but I really feel like Megatron in TFP is a tortured, misunderstood, haunted soul and I’m on his side as much as I am on the Autobots’ side. 

Idk some people think he’s evil just because and has no redeeming factors but I really really beg to differ,,,, (no im not inviting debate because I get too scared of arguing with people I respect everyone’s opinions so I’m not trying to impose this one!) 

He isn’t justified in the things he’s done, the many he has made to die, nor is he justified in any way for the physical and/or mental abuse of others, the top example being Starscream. However, I think we should point fingers at the initial corruption back on Cybertron, right after the whole “golden age.” 

There’s really no one else to blame except the corrupt leaders who put the caste system into being. If it had not been so, Megatron would have never been born as D-16, an unknown and unimportant energon miner with no real future other than eventual, imminent death. He has a right to be as angry as he was, and as ready and willing to kill and overthrow that governmennt. 

He took it too far, is all I have to say. 

That’s also the difference that led to Orion and Megatronus falling out of friendship and “brotherhood,” as well as the whole ‘not being named a Prime but Orion was’ thing. Optimus felt the same way--though you have to acknowledge that even he could not understand fully and truly the anger Megatron had felt. Orion Pax had never known being worth absolutely nothing, and having no prospects or future. He was a scholar, gifted with knowledge and a job. He was not a higher-up, of course, so he was not exempt from feeling frustration at the limitations of his particular caste. But I think that’s also what gave Orion the ability to see the whole thing through a more level-headed gaze. 

And that’s where it also isn’t fair to Megatron. How can you blame him for only having rage? He didn’t have a middlle-ground place like Orion did. He only had the “short end of the stick” his whole life. 

So....um......I rambled and I’m not really sure where any of this was meant to go. I actually only inteded to write maybe one or two sentences but um now it’s all this. ^^’’’ 

Again, I’m not inviting debate because debating and arguing makes me really,,,,really nervous. I’m just having some thoughts..and I can totally understand the valid reasons people have to not feel that Megatron is a good character at all, and that he doesn’t have a real motive and is simply just “evil.” I respect that. I disagree, but I see your points ^//^ 

Just been thinking about this stuff lately, been watching episodes of TFP, reading the novels again....I really do feel bad for him, even though I am aware that what he did was wrong. I can’t help but feel like I should defend him, at least laying out the reasoning he had--though flawed in the end--and how he felt to give a little perspective. 

And one final thing, if you wish to make a claim that his anger about being a slave is not real, and that he uses it as some sort of twisted “card to play” as a justification, just wanna bring this up. You’ve see the movie right? Regardless of whether you think it was a good or bad movie (I really enjoyed it but thats just me ^^’’) there’s a part at the end where Megatron says the Decepticon cause is finished, and that because he now knows the “true meaning of oppression” he no longer wants to inflict it on others. There are probably other ways to interpret this, but the way I see it is that he really may have lost himself a little when fighting the war. But being possessed and commanded by Unicron woke that up again. He’d been in command for so long, he himself forgot how much a leader could hurt their own troops, or what it felt like to be stepped over--to be hurt and insulted because you cannot do anything about it. When he tries to fight back against Unicron, it’s not because of the petty reasons of simply “wanting the power” or hating not being in charge, but I think he was enraged at being seen as a slave again. Something he’d fought a war for millenia to ensure never happened again--to him or anyone else. 

And I think he also finally re-understood the last part of that statement. 

That’s why when he was freed, he ended the war right then and there, and left--never to be heard from again. 

I have no proof for these statements really, but I think it was purely guilt at having forgotten this war was not just about his own anger at injustice, but also to fight for the others who also felt as he did--his other, fellow Decepticons. 

This is not really to say he is sorry for how he treated some of them, since he is a problematic dude and has his own reasons he’ll stick to if confronted about what he did to, say,  Starscream or Starscream’s seekers when he tried to get Starscream to fear him. Or the many vehicons he didn’t care a single bit about. But I think the key is that he did change as a character--because he finally understood. 

He now has more perspective, and I think that’s why he isn’t really “just an evil character” who “has no real cause,” but someone who suffered so much and then had nowhere to go or anyone to really look to for help or guidance when his rage was handed a sword and hundreds of followers. Given his background, what else could he have done but lead them all forward in a fight? 

He really didn’t start the physical war himself, either. But he took it on as his responsibility and obligation to fight. 

Even Optimus--or Orion, at the time--his first and only friend that he pushed away, could never understand. No one but his fellow decpticons, especially the ones from the lower ranks, would ever understand the true essance of the cause of being “Decepticons.” 

Though he was bullshitting Optimus when he gave the reason for the name, I feel like at the same time, that was what he genuinely believed--that the cause of Decepticons and his fighting this war was branded as wrong and their beliefs were all lies. Megatron probably, deep in his spark, felt that if such things were branded as “lies” when they are really the truth, then he was proud to wear such a badge. 

And when he ended the cause, I think what he meant was that he was ending his involvement in it, for he himself had failed to uphold what Decepticons really stood for through all the murder and oppression he caused, blinded by his emotions. Therefore, the only sensible, just thing to do was to leave. To go somewhere else. Whether he hoped someone else would lead them or not, we will truly never know and I have no intention to make any guess to that. Only Megatron himself could tell us that. 

Both Megatron and the decepticons were not justifiied in the things they did, but if you can at least take in why they did those things, maybe you won’t dismiss them as simply “bad guys for the sake of being bad” and understand that they had a story too...

[lucidpantone]

I know this is a controversial question so i would totally understand if you choose not want to answer, but im curious enough to ask anyway. Can you rank your fav remakes in order? Maybe add a comment about what you most appreciate about each remake (to soften the blow of any sensitive readers). Ofc if you couldnt connect with a remake you might wanna totally leave it out of the ranking...

Disclaimer this is gonna be long asf. So I like all the remakes so this is gonna be hard because of that. I don’t like one remake in its entirety I can find one season in each remake I wasn’t super stoked about and if you’re skamfr I can find 3 seasons hahah. So I am actually gonna do this by fav original 1-4 seasons and original seasons (OG excluded).

Season 1: Eva Skam Espana (Isa SkamNL is a super close 2nd)

I am gonna be frank my least fav season is Eva’s season in the original seasons. I don't dislike the plot its more like I just find the other plots of the other seasons way more interesting. However if I am gonna pick my fav adaptation its gonna be Eva from Espana. Mainly because some remakes take their jonas to far and they don’t know how to balance being inexperienced and immature with just being a plain dick (am looking at you wtfock and Austin). I hate when remakes take it to far and make the couple completely irredeemable. Also Jorge is just the best man. He tries so hard for Eva he tries to make things right and its just timing, immaturity on both parts. Also I love that above all Eva and Jorge are friends. Alongside with Lucas they are just like family and they can push aside their personal issues to be their for one another and I just think thats such a beautiful quality in Jorge and Eva.They both have good souls and I am happy they ended up together but I also feel like if they didn't they would be genuinely be happy for the other if they found someone else and fell in love and thats why I love them so much.

Season 2: Zoe Wtfock (but Nora Skam Espana is a close 2nd)

Here is what I love about Zoe’s season is that we see the pov of not just how Zoe was changing because she was opening herself to love but also how much Senne was changing as well and trying to address some issues he had been ignoring because he wanted to be a better man for Zoenne. For me Zoenne and Norandro are so amazing for this reason. We not only saw the girl processing how love was effecting her development but we got to experience Senne and Alejandro trying to become better men and really transitioning from boyhood to manhood via this self assessment period of themselves. I adore these two couples for this because I am so heavily invested in both the outcome of the girl and the guy. I guess with love stories there is that saying there is two sides to a story and then there is the truth and I feel like the noorhelm storyline has always been about hard truths. About young women challenging their perspectives on feminism, about young women acknowledging when they have been a victim of a crime/emotional abuse and not blaming themselves for it but knowing that they did nothing wrong and were undeserving of the act that took place. Also s2 plays on the concepts of manhood too. How approaching situations through the lens of rage and violence can develop into harmful and even predatory tendencies. Overall these two remakes stand out to me because they really speak to the lesson of how does one define themself in the whirlwind of love and what boundaries do you need to set so you don’t lose yourself in the process. Season 3: IT’S SO HARD PICKING JUST ONE!! (Am going to base this selection entirely off my fav Isak and their narrative arc versus the evak pairing because ultimately this season is about the Isak character not Isak & Even) Matteo Druck

Let me tell you no other Skam character has haunted me as much as Matteo. I think with Matteo his story was just so raw and unfiltered. Here was this boy he was so lonely, isolated, lost and really just didn’t think he was worthy of much. Matteo was approaching life expecting the bare minimum because he in many ways didn’t think he was deserving of much more. Matteo hid himself so deeply in what I refer to as the wall paper of life. Trying to blend in and stay invisible even tho this way of thinking was seriously effecting his mental health. I don't think he realized how far from shore he was before David slammed into his life and drag him out of the grip of the ocean’s current. Matteo was on the verge of drowning he just didn’t know it. And then came David and he just loved Matteo as is and I think a big reason for that is because no one had ever told either boy that they were perfect just as they were until they said it to one another. Both boys were going through life just accepting the bare minimum one because of societal barricades around gender and the other societal stigma concerning asking for help when suffering from mental health issues. In the end they found one another and said fuck it and fuck society as long as we have one another then we’re gonna get through this. However... having said that davenzi is not my fav evak pairing but Matteo is my fav standalone Isak. The prize for fav evak tho would go to Sobbe because I literally can’t picture two more in love people. Man the day Sobbe met I feel like inertia collapsed in on itself in their respective worlds. It really was the case that time stopped and that they were destined to find one another. They are so in love it just radiates off them. Also random note my fav Even is Joana. Hence why choosing an s3 is so hard because I like different components of s3 seasons.

Season 4: Sana Skam Italia

(this is a copy/paste my original why I love Italia s4 rant)

Say what you want about the casting(this is a fair argument) but I am really happy that SKAMIT gave us a love story centered around two muslim individuals and their differing approaches and interpretations of Islam. I think for me its that we are always trying to dilute Sana’s season with this western need to educate non-muslims and though I appreciate that I also want to see a love story that’s purely about the journey of young muslims and the issues they experience themselves and not via a western glazing. The thing that stood out for me in SKAMIT is how many different perspective of how Islam is practiced came to the forefront. Sana’s journey to understand and come to defend queerness. Muslim men (Sana’s brother) being offended because she assumed he was homophobic. Laui being in a healthy relationship as a muslim queer man. Malik openly talking about Islam and his separation from it but still a believer in a greater power(and not because he wants to drink and party). For me this was what the Sana season was suppose to be about putting the muslim experience front and center and unapologetically so.

Original Season: Nora Druck

I mean what a fantastic take on building new and improved squads with more diversity in race, sexual preferences and perspectives. I will say that I also do like the new squad from Skamfr. Its nice to see newgens that am truly excited about getting to know. Like I need to know everything about Ava pronto she is bae. I do have one random surprise about my next fav original season which for me would be Arthur for Skamfr. Honestly if we would have gutted the cheating plot we would have had a really interesting season about a young adult’s life being rocked by disability and trying to find themselves in this new landscape. Similar to Nora in Druck with MI and also the long term effects of experiencing violence in the household in Skamfr but yea so far Druck has been the only one to get a sound original season out and they should be commended for that.

[queeruma]

pastelbatfandoms replied to your post “Unpopular opinion: (ignore if you're not taking them anymore) It's not...”

How are Ben's parents abusive? I think out of all the Aurodon kids,Audrey has the most abusive.

I’m like a week late replying to this, I’m so sorry!

So, I agree with you that Audrey’s grandmother is Terrible with a capital T, (’and perhaps I have owed you one, too’ biTCH HOW ABOUT APOLOGISING TO YOUR OWN GRANDAUGHTER FIRST????), but I would say Ben’s parents... well, even if you don’t want to use the word abusive, I’d say they’ve cultivated a pretty unhealthy relationship with their son, and they don’t treat him well.

I wrote about the way Beast treats him here, if you’d like to read about that in more detail, and admittedly I’d say Beast treats him worse than Belle does. However, that post is based on the first book, not on the films, so I’ll talk more about those now - and in the films, I’d say Beast and Belle are pretty much equal in how terribly they treat their son.

First film:

Ben is 16 years old. Why, exactly, is he becoming king (high king? emperor? disney im begging you to sort out your shit)? We see that he’s in school with at least a few other students who will also, presumably, take over their respective countries at some point, being their parents’ direct heirs. But neither Audrey nor Chad seem even close to becoming the leaders of their... nations? states?

If Ben were in the UK, where I live, he wouldn’t even be taking his A-Levels yet. He’s in no way old enough to handle the responsibility of running a country, let alone an empire-type situation. There doesn’t seem to be anything wrong with Beast or Belle, and I refuse to take tradition as the excuse, considering the United States/Kingdom of Auradon has only been established for twenty years. They’ve only had one king! And it’s Beast, who also didn’t become king at 16, so there’s literally no reason for Ben to be taking over now, except that Beast and Belle want him to. This is so fucking irresponsible - and unfair of them to place that pressure onto a literal child. Beast calls him a baby in the very first scene!

Then, we have the infamous family day scene. Beast and Belle give their son absolutely no support when things start going wrong, even though Leah is behaving egregiously towards children who are under their care, and in the end they blame Ben for everything that’s gone wrong, and walk away, leaving him alone.

Second movie:

They just fuck off. Their 16-17 year old son is trying to juggle managing an entire... country? empire? continent? while being a full time student and apparently also making a full tour of Auradon and making press appearances. Could he possibly need any help? Nah, time for a six month long cruise. When they do eventually come back, and something is off with Ben and Mal’s relationship, they immediately go to Mal, without taking a moment to speak to Ben about why he’s acting the way he is. From the audience’s perspective, this seems fine, since we know Uma’s probably done something to Ben. But from their perspective? Who cares about understanding their son, better make sure we comfort Mal, who is already surrounded by friends, first. (this is not me saying that Mal doesn’t deserve comfort in this scene. she’s having a super awful time. I’m just pointing out that they never seem to be in their son’s corner.)

Third Movie:

Oh good god, where do I even begin with the third film? The first scene we see them, they seem... fine. They congratulate Mal on her engagement, Belle makes some comment about finally having a daughter, Beast says well done to his son - I don’t think Belle says anything to Ben at all? Idk, it’s easy to read this charitably and say that Ben’s obviously already discussed this with them a lot, therefore there’s no reason for them to focus on him now. Mal is our main character, so we get to see their interactions with her. This is fine.

Then, the scene where Mal decides the barrier needs to be closed.

(A real-life image of me sitting through this fucking scene.)

First of all, Beast, Belle and Fairy Godmother have themselves positioned as a solid line opposite Ben. They’re literally opposing him right from the beginning. Beast instantly takes this condescending tone, as if Ben hasn’t realised that Hades almost escaping is not a great thing.

Once Ben has received his text? call? whatever that was about the crown and sceptre having being stolen, and Beast and Belle aren’t getting the reaction they want from him - Beast instantly accuses Uma of the theft and Ben defends her - they immediately turn to Mal, putting the weight of the decision on her, even though at this point she doesn’t have the authority to make the decisions. She’s engaged to the king, sure, but she’s basically just an 18 year old girl who’s just graduated high school. The second she gives them an answer they like - to close the barrier for good - they turn back to Ben and nod at him as if to say ‘see? even your girlfriend knows trying to do the right thing by those kids is a stupid idea’. The only time in this scene when Ben gets a chance to speak his mind is when he and Mal are having their conversation, away from the adults.

After Mal has done her best to talk Ben into it, Beast steps forward, and it’s here that I noticed - all the way through this film, he refers to Ben as son. Maybe that’s just meant to be a sign of affection, but in this context at least I can’t help interpreting it as Beast, at least subconsciously, trying to place Ben back into the dynamic where he has authority - father and son - rather than acknowledging Ben as the king, and therefore the one with the power to make the final choice.

And of course, we have the moment with Hades, where he refuses to move and growls, even though Hades has done nothing to warrant any kind of threat. Then, in the final scene, he objects even when it’s clear Mal and Ben are on the same page about opening the barrier. His behaviour speaks of a man who can’t handle letting go of control of any situation - and people who refuse to give up control don’t typically make great parents.

Now

I can’t say any of the behaviours I’ve listed here, like, individually depict abusive actions? But I can say that even without the books, which cast Beast (and therefore Belle, since she’s letting all this go on without speaking up) in a pretty damn negative light, when you put all of this together it’s possible to come up with a very sinister interpretation. And because these are the people who came up with, implemented, and tried to keep the idea of the Isle, I think interpreting their actions as less than just bad-parents-who-are-trying-their-best is pretty justified.

So, my interpretation is as follows:

Beast and Belle are placing their son onto the throne so young because they know he’s going to take over at some point, and if they throw him into it when he’s young, unsure of himself, and swamped with other work, he’ll depend far more on them to help him make decisions. They want to stay in control even once they’ve officially stepped down. They don’t help him during the first film because they want him doubting himself and his choices. They leave in D2 because it doesn’t really matter to them whether he’s doing okay as king or not. And by the end of D2/beginning of D3, they’ve realised Ben isn’t going to be manipulated as easily as they wanted him to, and they’ve moved on to Mal. I’ll just remind you of this:

hmmmm, Beast has been teaching Mal how to lead and it just so happens that in D3 she’s far more sympathetic to his way of thinking than she was at the end of D2. Wonder how that could have happened?

Mal, who after D1 is unsure of her place in Auradon, and no longer has the relationship with her mother that she originally depended on to guide her, is now perfectly placed to be manipulated herself, and therefore help them manipulate their son.

I know that’s just one interpretation but seriously??? When do we ever see a really genuine, happy moment between Ben and his parents where they don’t at some point cast doubt on something he does, except that one time his father congratulated him on getting engaged (to a girl he approves of)? Even at the end of D1, when Mal attempts to apologise to them outside the cathedral, Beast immediately places the focus back on Ben and his decisions - ‘I told Ben this wasn’t going to be easy’.

I guess what I’m trying to say is like... the films never take the time to properly establish that Ben has a good relationship with his parents, and so their whole relationship in the films, especially when you add the material from the first book, just ends up feeling super creepy and honestly, pretty cruel. It’s just conflict conflict conflict, without any material to properly contrast it. I don’t think Beast and Belle are in any way good people in this universe, and I certainly don’t believe they’re good parents.

[taexual]

HOLIC - 34 | jb x reader

     gif cr. @jaelousy

pairing: Im Jaebum x Reader

genre: enemies to lovers au | roommate au

warnings: sort of angsty but with fluff on top and some suggestive themes ;)

words: 4.4k

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“Please tell me you’re kidding.”

Jaebum shook his head, still frantically pressing buttons on his phone, trying to understand where was the turn that he was supposed to take. He’d already pulled to the side of the road as he attempted to locate where you were on the tiny Google-supplied map but his phone refused to cooperate further.

“I can’t do anything with this thing,” he growled, tossing the phone on his lap in exasperation as he reached over the backseat to get his travel bag. “The battery’s almost dead.”

“Great!” you threw your hands in the air, nearly hitting the roof of the car in the process. “So, you got us lost and now your phone’s—”

“I didn’t get us lost,” he cut you off, pausing to give you a stern look. “If anything, it was you and your game. I got distracted and must have missed a couple of turns.”

“So it’s my fault now?” you scoffed. “All I did was just try my best to keep you awake because you didn’t let me drive.”

“I told you I was fine,” he shot back, sitting down properly now that he’d found his charger. “And it’s dark now. You shouldn’t drive in difficult conditions.”

“And why not?” you crossed your arms, offended. “Because I crashed into a pole once? It wasn’t that big of a deal—”

“Yes, it was,” Jaebum disagreed, angrily plugging the charger into the car’s cigarette lighter. “You could have gotten hurt. I’m not letting that happen again.”

You rolled your eyes, your current state of mind not allowing you to appreciate the sentiment. “I can drive just fine.”

“I’m sure you can. When it’s light and clear outside,” he snapped, his hands returning to the wheel even if he didn’t start the car again. Driving around aimlessly at night didn’t seem like a good idea, he wanted to avoid getting even more lost. “After I saw you that shaken up, there’s not a chance in hell I’m going to let you drive anywhere if I can do it for you.”

“That’s infuriatingly bossy of you.”

“Yeah, well, sue me,” Jaebum said. “You’re not getting into any more car accidents. Not if I can help it.”

You took a moment too long to come up with a counter-argument and the brief pause was enough for you both to realize that you’ve drifted off-topic and that wasn’t helpful to your situation in any way. Picking your own phone up, you turned on the navigation to hopefully get you two out of here quicker, even if the connection in the wooded area was much less than ideal.

“It should be me being paranoid about driving cars,” you mumbled, still going on about the same thing. “Not you.”

“Clearly, your sense of safety is warped. But thank God you have me,” Jaebum replied, his voice full of sarcasm but his words completely honest. He leaned over the center console to look at your phone. “Does it say where we are?”

“Yeah. Right here,” you passed him your phone so he could take a better look. “I don’t think we’ve driven too far from the right road.”

Jaebum retreated back into his seat, zooming in on the screen to hopefully recognize the surrounding area. After another minute or two, he sighed and placed your phone on his lap, right next to his own charging one.

“Yeah, I think it’s just a few kilometers,” he said, starting the car again. “I was supposed to take an exit and then turn right a little while later, but, of course, I was too busy talking to you to do that.”

You groaned again. “I can stay quiet for the rest of the drive if that’s what you’d prefer.”

“No, what’s done is done. You might as well keep talking now,” he replied, making a very nonchalant illegal U-turn to return to the spot on the map where he’d seen the exit he’d missed before.

“You’re not supposed to do that,” you reminded him, once the car was heading back down the road.

“It’s late and there are no cars around,” Jaebum countered, although it was clear that he was uncomfortable breaking the rules as well, especially after having preached about how warped your sense of safety was. “No one saw.”

Pointlessly, you replied, “I saw.”

“Hmm,” he acknowledged your response with a grin. “File a complaint against me. Then you can come visit me in jail, it’ll be a nice change of scenery for us.”

“I’m sure we can come up with other ways to entertain ourselves,” you said with a roll of your eyes. “And, besides, they wouldn’t put you in jail for that. But just in case you decide to do anything else that’s illegal, how far away is the motel?”

“Uh,” Jaebum looked down at your phone on his thigh. “Another hour or so. If we don’t get lost again, that is.”

“Any gas stations on the way there?” you asked. “I’m parched and I need to use the bathroom.”

He sighed, never understanding why you called him bossy when he was essentially just following your orders and stopping whenever you asked him to stop.

“I’ll stop at the closest one,” he said, knowing that there was no use in refusing you; you’d still find a way to convince him.

“Thank you.”

Jaebum nodded and, approximately five minutes full of going way over the speed limit later, the two of you had finally reached the spot on the road where it had all gone wrong. This time, Jaebum took the correct exit and didn’t miss the right turn another kilometer later, either. Both of you simultaneously exhaled in relief as soon as you were back on track, heading towards the motel.

A gas station, however, only showed up on the side of the road after you’d complained about there not being any, at least, five times. And then, once Jaebum finally pulled onto the side of the road, he didn’t settle on waiting in the car but headed into the convenience store after you – both of you were obviously craving to feel the night air on your skin after having spent so much time inside of a car.

This store was just as empty as the one you’d visited before – even if it was four hours away from here – and, after noticing that the selection of snacks and drinks here was just as awful as it was in the stop before, you concluded that people just preferred not to shop at gas station convenience stores.

After a quick visit to the vacant bathroom – the entire place here was almost deserted – you suggested you and Jaebum finished your coffee drinks – that tasted more like water, to be truthful – on the bench out back. It would be nice to spend some time in fresh air before returning to the car, and, after pointing out that this was probably a spot where teenagers came to make out, Jaebum reluctantly agreed. He may not have admitted it but he needed the fresh air as much as you did.

“I’d forgotten how bad gas station coffee was,” he told you almost as soon as you two sat down. “I mean, the guy who sold this to us looked genuinely apologetic when I was paying.”

“Yeah, there’s a reason it’s so cheap,” you agreed, taking a sip nevertheless. “Is it weird that I still kind of like it? Even though it’s bad.”

“Not really,” Jaebum said and then added with a teasing sneer, “you don’t really have great taste.”

“Okay, hold on. What?” you raised your eyebrows, feeling only slightly offended because his eye smile made it difficult for you to actually get mad at him. “I’m going to need examples of all the times I could have lead you to believe my taste was anything but impeccable.”

“Oh, I don’t have to think very hard about that,” he replied. “You like me and I’m the furthest thing from impeccable.”

Your heart rate picked up when he mentioned you liking him so easily – even though you’ve already confessed to having feelings for him back when you were playing 21 Questions in the car – but you kept your composure.

“That is not true,” you announced and then paused dramatically before hissing back a playful, “you may be the furthest thing from impeccable but to say that I like you is a reach.”

Jaebum was taken off-guard for just a moment – he was obviously expecting you to defend your taste and, therefore, compliment him – before he burst out laughing, the sound making your own smile widen.

“You know,” he started then, taking a sip of his coffee mid-sentence and frowning at the taste, “okay, no—I can’t drink this,” he grimaced again before putting the half-full cup on top of the trashbin behind him. “Anyway—I didn’t get to answer your question back in the car.”

“Oh,” you felt hot all of a sudden. “That’s right, you didn’t.”

Jaebum caught the apprehensive undertones in your voice. “Do you still want me to?”

“Yes,” you said even though now you found yourself anxious about what he was going to say. He’d already told you so much – it was hard to believe, really, how much the two of you still didn’t know about each other even despite having texted back-and-forth for countless days leading up to your first—catastrophic—meeting – and yet it seemed as though the most important things had still been unsaid.

Jaebum took a deep breath before speaking and—most likely unconsciously—scooted closer to you on the bench.

“I think I’ve had some sort of feelings for you—although I refused to acknowledge them back then—since the first time you encouraged me about my music,” he admitted, swallowing thickly. He made it seem like saying this was the easiest thing in the world, but you saw the way he kept nervously twitching his leg and toying with the distressed material of his jeans. “Do you remember that?”

You raised your head from his legs to his face and waited until he looked at you before gently reminding him, “I’ve done that a lot of times since I’ve met you. I’m not sure which moment in particular—”

“Yeah, but this was, I don’t know, one or two weeks after we’ve started to talk? You didn’t even know me that well yet.”

Your confusion only deepened because you couldn’t make sense of what he was saying. “When we were texting? We haven’t even met back then, though. You didn’t even know I was a—”

“None of that mattered,” Jaebum cut you off. “It’s just—you were the first person – excluding my friends – who encouraged me to really work on my music. And you didn’t even know me or had heard my music. Yet, you still trusted me enough to encourage me not once, but literally as many times as the topic came up. You – a stranger – believed in me while the people I was once the closest to didn’t.”

You swallowed, not responding to him because all words had escaped you – which wasn’t a bad thing, considering that you didn’t think there was anything for you to say in the first place.

If you had to pinpoint a precise moment when you’d realized you had started to fall for Jaebum, you were sure the moment would have been a lot more superficial. It would have been influenced by not only his words, but his actions, his looks, his decisions, and many more factors that required the two of you to exist in the same room at the same time. Meanwhile, Jaebum sat here, right next to you, telling you that he’d started to fall in love with you when your words was all that existed with him. He hadn’t seen you do anything, he didn’t know what you looked like, he barely knew where you’d come from or what you were even like – but he’d read your words and that was enough.

You would never be able to guess how much the things you said affected another person or even changed the course of their life, but right there, in the eerily peaceful resting spot behind the gas station, you realized that you have unknowingly been the first stranger who’d supported Jaebum instead of bringing him down for his unrealistic dreams.

“And all of that meant the world to me,” Jaebum concluded. “Of course, I thought all of our past conversations were going to turn into a big fat chunk of nothing as soon as we saw each other in real life, because, shit, how was it possible for two people to get to know each other seemingly so well, and yet somehow not know about one of the, arguably, most important things, right?”

“In retrospective,” you replied, “I’d say it was important that we knew we were both human. Sometimes that alone is enough to know when you meet someone online.”

He chuckled. “Right. That’s not what it seemed like the moment our eyes met, though. But then you proved to me that my heart – the traitor – wasn’t all that wrong about you. You proved that everything we’ve talked about before was real when you supported me and my music again after we, uh, argued—or whatever that aggressive conversation was—after I had—well, after I’d slept with Lily.”

Suddenly, you got lost between the timezones again.“Lily?”

“Yeah,” Jaebum said, confused by your confusion. “The neighbor?”

“Oh,” you blinked, looking away from him. The memories of the first few days in your apartment slowly returned to you. Lily was the girl who had bought some cupcakes over and then, consequently, slept with Jaebum only to run right into you the next morning. You hadn’t seen her since. “Yeah, I remember that.”

He couldn’t resist, “and you had the audacity to call me disgusting – at least, I remember their names.”

You glared at him. “Is that the part we should be focusing on?”

“Right,” his small smile disappeared from his face when he inhaled slowly. “Well, you did it again. You constantly proved that you had my back, even when I refused to see it and chose to give in to my paranoid side instead – which I blame purely on my deranged survival instinct, by the way – and my initially budding feelings for you just kind of, you know, continued to bloom with every passing day, or whatever,” a beat of silence followed and then, “I saw you cringe at that last part.”

“I didn’t cringe,” you laughed in spite of yourself – it was difficult to hide your smile when he was so adamant to dismiss his own impactful words. “I remember you saying you weren’t going to submit your song, though. That very first time we’ve talked about this in real life.”

“Well,” he snickered, “I say a lot of things, don’t I? But I think it was those blooming feelings,” he paused again, rolling his eyes at his choice of words but still saying them purely because he could tell by your smile that you liked hearing them, “that finally threw me over the edge. I wouldn’t have submitted that song without you, to be honest.”

“Hmm,” you lowered your gaze. Your stomach may have been bursting with butterflies at his acknowledgment of your appreciation for his music but your mind lingered on the day in discussion – just a few days after having slept with Lily, Jaebum had invited you over to Mark’s bar where you met Jiho and Jaebum made the decision to call his ex-girlfriend. “You did… um, reunite with Suji after that conversation we’ve had, though.”

He hated the word. “We didn’t reunite.”

“You know what I mean.”

Jaebum sighed because he did. And he also knew that the two of you had already approached this topic before – although back then, he didn’t have it in him to admit the plain and obvious truth to himself, let alone tell you about it.

“That’s on you,” he said then.

“What?” you raised your eyebrows. “How can that be on me? I surely didn’t contact her for you and you’d already told me before that you couldn’t understand your reasons for texting her that night.”

“It was because of you,” Jaebum said shortly.

You watched him for a moment before saying, “I don’t understand,” even though your heart seemed to know precisely what he was saying.

“No, I think you do,” he said, sighing softly again, “you just don’t want to believe it. Neither do I because, well, that night never makes sense to me, no matter how many times I remember it. You and I barely knew each other at that point. I thought there was simply no reason for me to be angry—or jealous—about you going out on a date with someone. And, I’d tried to convince myself that it was just jealousy about you starting a potential relationship while I just, you know, stumbled around, meeting whoever, sleeping wherever, but never really being sure what I was doing with myself.”

“You told me that this wasn’t it.”

“It wasn’t,” he confirmed. “It only took me literal weeks to admit it to myself but, clearly, I was jealous about you dating someone who wasn’t me.”

You inhaled sharply. “I see.”

“I never thought it was possible for me to feel this way about someone I barely knew,” Jaebum continued, making your chest burst with every word you’d been dying to hear ever since you realized you had started to fall for him. You weren’t sure if it was the secluded spot at the back of the gas station, or the comforting night sky above your heads, or perhaps the previous confessions in the car, that made him admit all of this to you with little to no difficulty, but you desperately needed to hear his version of the truth because maybe, it would finally put an end to your endless speculations about yourself, about him, and about you-and-him. “I still don’t really understand it. You… you were impossibly quick in completely wrapping me around your finger.”

He said it with humor in his voice but when he raised his eyes to yours, they were full of honesty. He wasn’t ashamed of admitting this to you – not as much as he thought he’d be – but he still wasn’t sure what the right way to confess this was.

“Jaebum,” you started slowly, “I don’t mean to burst your bubble, but you’ve literally had me thinking about you non-stop from the moment I saw you for the first time, so I’m not sure who’s got who wrapped around their finger.”

This eased his mild discomfort and he found himself grinning. “Yes, but that was purely my intention.”

“What do you mean?”

“I like being the center of everyone’s world.”

“Ha. Keep talking,” you said dryly, a sarcastic smile on your face as you put your coffee cup down on the pavement next to the bench. The drink was getting cold now which only amplified the already unbearable bitter taste. “I can feel my feelings for you disappear bit by bit.”

Jaebum laughed.

“I’m kidding. It’s just you. I like to make you flustered,” he said. “But you, on the other hand? You were never purposefully trying to make me lose it over you and that’s exactly what happened. Sometimes I think that I started to like you so much and so early precisely because you weren’t actively trying to make me like you.”

Trying desperately to keep your internalized screeching actually internalized, you cleared your throat. “Are we approaching the moment where you tell me about all of the girls that have gone out of their way to make you like them? Because I will stand up and leave if that’s the case.”

“Oh, I wasn’t actually going to bring that up but now that you mention it—”

“That’s it,” you got to your feet but Jaebum—through laughter—grabbed your wrist, stopping you and pulling you back down on the bench.

“Come on, I’m just trying to get a reaction out of you,” he said, his voice still humorous.

“That’s all you ever do,” you told him, now seated right next to him, his chest pressed against your shoulder as he kept his eyes on you.

“I can’t help it,” he admitted, his smile and the smell of his cologne making it harder for you to come up with a witty response. “I like to know how much you like me.”

“Don’t you know already?” you asked, meeting his eyes and losing your train of thought for just a minute when you saw his features from up close; you knew you’d never get used to the sight of him. “I’m fairly certain all of my friends – and yours, too, probably – know how much I like you.”

“It’s easy to be perceptive when you’re watching everything play out from a distance,” Jaebum said. “But you never suspected I liked you the whole time, too.”

You scoffed. “That’s because you literally accused me of attempting to take over your life at one point.”

“I…” the atmosphere turned serious all of a sudden. You thought you heard him swallow. “I know. I was afraid.”

They said that kissing was the most intimate form of talking two people could have with each other and yet, sitting so close to Jaebum and literally talking about something so personal felt much more intimate than all of the times you’ve kissed. Maybe because now you were completely baring your souls to each other, no longer cowering behind the protective armors around your hearts. Now you were finally voicing all of the words that your hearts had already shared with one another whenever your chests would press against each other.

“Are you still?” you asked him.

“I am,” Jaebum admitted. You wondered if the rapid beating you heard in your ears came from your chest or from his. “But it had already happened, anyway.”

“I would never try to control you the way she had,” you said, articulating each word with careful precision.

“I know,” he nodded, his hair brushing against your cheek with each gust of wind. “And that’s why I’m not fighting this. I know you have the power to make me do anything you want—”

“I don’t think I do.”

You looked down as you said this and did not see him frantically shake his head.

“Oh, no, I mean it,” he insisted. “You do. I know you do. I don’t know how else to live my life – when I care about someone, I end up giving them the possibility to do with me as they please. And I… I have feelings for you – too much for my own good – so, naturally, I’m powerless. I’m yours completely. But I trust you to never use this power for selfish reasons. I trust you to never try to change me into someone you’d like better. I-I trust you.”

You didn’t know what to do with yourself as you looked into his eyes again – just when he was going to pull your face to look at him – and whispered, “thank you.”

Jaebum was so close to you, you could feel every beat of his heart and hear every single breath that passed his lips. You were dying to bottle this moment up and carry it with you forever. You were dying to remember the words exchanged on the lonely bench on the back of the gas station for the rest of your life. You didn’t think either of these wishes were impossible to achieve because you’d been dying for so long to earn Jaebum’s trust, and you had it now. And you knew you were going to die if you lost it.

“Take care of that broken and pathetic little thing I call my heart, okay?” he asked, the most vulnerable he’s ever been with you. “I don’t think it can endure any more breaking.”

“Jaebum,” you spoke breathlessly. “I—”

“I want to kiss you,” he said, his heart shutting his brain down and claiming his ability to speak.

You felt your skin shiver but the gentle breeze blowing past had nothing to do with it. “Please.”

He caressed your cheeks, your nose, and your lips with his eyes before leaning in closer and then pausing.

“I’m afraid I won’t be able to stop,” he added in a voice as shaky as your heart, hammering wildly inside of your chest.

You realized unsurprisingly that you would have allowed him to reach inside of you and rip your heart out so he could see it beat for him only as you exhaled, “please.”

Hearing the longing in your voice mirror the feelings in his chest set off an explosion inside of him; he had met someone that, for the first time in his life, was just like him in every way. You wanted him just as much as he wanted you. You would have allowed him to do anything to you just like he’d have allowed you to do the same. And you fell for him just as hard as he’d fallen for you.

He kissed you then, his hands on your face, his lips melting into yours. And each time you kissed him back, just as eagerly, he felt the broken pieces of his heart put themselves back together as though no damage had ever been done.

In a moment of overwhelming bliss caused by the simple sensation of your lips touching his, Jaebum felt it – he physically felt the missing half of his soul right at the tip of his fingers when he gently touched your cheek. It was right there – the connection people wasted their entire lifetimes looking for. You and him were holding it in your hands.

This realization was electrifying and he suddenly inhaled sharply, pulling away from the kiss.

Surprised, you watched him breathe heavily for a few moments. Your chest had swollen with all the various emotions he’d passed onto you through his kiss and you couldn’t find the words to ask him what had happened but you didn’t have to because, a moment later, Jaebum leaned in again, pressing another kiss to your lips – just to feel the euphoric fire in his stomach burn harder – and then standing up.

“Please,” he said, extending his hand to you, his eyes dark. “Let’s go back to the car.”

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