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vidavalor · 9 months

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The Vavoom: Or, when the show's hinting Crowley & Aziraphale first kissed

It was not in 2.06, if that makes you feel any better?

Meta/theory hybrid stuffity stuff below the cut. As always, all interpretations are valid. This isn't meant to offend anyone who sees things differently. Post contains spoilers for the films 'Kiss Me Deadly' (1955), 'About Time' (2013), 'Love Actually' (2003), and 'Four Weddings and a Funeral' (1994). Apologies that this took a few days. Life's been wild this week. Let's dive in...

Right. So. The Vavoom...

I feel like most of us, by this point, are probably in agreement that Crowley is not talking about something he saw in a Richard Curtis film when he talks about his plan to help The Shop Lesbians to fall in love... and that, if he's not talking about something he saw in a movie, then he's talking about something he experienced... and yes, sure, absolutely Crowley has been on Earth for 6,000 years and could have vavoomed with basically anyone who has ever lived at this point as well as one semi-sentient car and even the world's once only-remaining unicorn but... we all know he's talking about Aziraphale. So this is about unraveling what the show presents as Clues to this end and using those Clues to solve for x and see if we can prove that Crowley is talking about Aziraphale and then figure out when this Vavoom happened with the information the show has given us so far... and the good news is that we can do all of those things so here we go...

The first thing to do is to eliminate the Richard Curtis films. Let's just start with Crowley saying that he saw his whole vavoom moment in "a Richard Curtis film." As someone who has seen a frankly embarrassing number of Richard Curtis films, I can tell you that this is a very amusing misdirect from a writing standpoint. It is amusing because it's a wink of sorts towards the same problem that comes up when you try to find The Vavoom on the GO timeline based on what the show's presented so far. What is that problem? It's that-- at first, cursory glance-- no one GO scene or Curtis film seems to have everything Crowley describes. Don't worry, though, because we actually do have enough information to find the lone caraway seed beneath these three cowrie shells here. You'll be Aziraphale-voicing an "a-HA!" very soon. :)

There are only two Richard Curtis films that feature elements Crowley lists as having occurred during The Vavoom: 'About Time' and 'Four Weddings and a Funeral.' The Awning of a New Age scene in GO actually winds up an homage of sorts to 'About Time', as it is referencing it pretty heavily. However, there is no vavooming in 'About Time'; meaning, there is not this gaze-to-kiss moment that Crowley is talking about. A wedding reception tent collapses under heavy rain and soaks several supporting characters in the film, much like how our supporting characters Nina and Maggie get soaked by too much rain causing the awning to collapse. There is no gaze or almost-kiss or kiss before it. There are other canopies-- umbrellas-- but no one gazes or kisses under one. So, Crowley did not see The Vavoom in 'About Time'-- but that particular Richard Curtis film might have been the one in Crowley's mind when he quickly latched onto Richard Curtis films while speaking with Aziraphale in the pub.

As a result, thinking about his conversation with Aziraphale while trying to craft his Shop Lesbians Vavoom might have actually caused him to over-weather and cause the awning to drench Maggie & Nina. So the joke there is more that The Original Vavoom of which Crowley is speaking in the pub scene is something that really happened and had an element or two in common with a scene in the Richard Curtis film, 'About Time', which also features Bill Nighy (see: 'Love Actually' stuff below), whose mannerisms Crowley seems to like to emulate at times. As a result of seeing the film and thinking about how it *wasn't* like The Vavoom-- the canopy collapsing, the lack of an actual Vavoom in motion prior to this, all of that disappointing Crowley greatly when he saw this film lol-- Crowley ironically then says he got the whole idea of The Vavoom from a Richard Curtis film... when, in fact, *the distinct lack of Vavoom* in the film was what Crowley remembered from it... and then, upon thinking of the pub discussion when trying to start an Awning of a New Age for Maggie & Nina, it accidentally became part of his miracle, causing him to over-Weather and, kind of hilariously, substituted the kiss Crowley was trying to incite with the collapsing awning scene from 'About Time'... the film then disappointing him all over again lol.

The other Richard Curtis film that is relevant is 'Four Weddings and a Funeral.' You might be familiar with the scene-- its ending scene-- just from cultural osmosis as this point, even if you haven't seen the film. Hugh Grant proposes to Andie MacDowell in the pouring rain. So, the big problem with this scene is that there is no canopy. None. Whatsoever. They're soaked through. We never see them go inside. They look into each other's eyes and they kiss but it's raining on them the whole time and Crowley is really specific about his canopy requirements for Vavooming. This scene is also wrong because it's a proposal between characters who have known one another on and off for years and have a more extensive history, whereas Nina and Maggie are much earlier in a potential relationship and The Vavoom Crowley talks about is an intense gaze into a first kiss. That said... just as how 'About Time' ties to Nina & Maggie's story, there are some 'Four Weddings'-y elements to Crowley & Aziraphale's relationship, in that their story also covers them meeting up through different points in time and such. 'Four Weddings' was also the first mainstream, hit rom com to openly feature queer characters in supporting roles so it's a strong one for GO to be referencing... but, ultimately, no Crowley-described Vavoom scene in sight.

Finally, there's 'Love Actually', which doesn't actually have a single element in it that pertains to The Vavoom but I'm throwing it in here because I'm just looking at all GO ties to Richard Curtis films at this point. 'Love Actually' features Nina Sosanya (GO's Nina, of course) as a queer-coded character and, in GO, David Tennant has a few scenes where he seems to be channeling Bill Nighy's Billy Mack from 'Love Actually' in S1. (Tell me Crowley's not doing Billy Mack's walk when they cross the street to the bookshop in Eleven Years Ago in S1 lol.) For those of you who have somehow avoided seeing this movie lol, Billy Mack is an aging rock star who is the best character in the film and heavily queer-coded. In S2, there's also some Big Bill Nighy Energy in the "we'll just to have to make it worthwhile then" bit with Muriel in Heaven and also in the way he chuckles in the "I *was* there, you see" moment with Gabriel. Also probably worth mentioning that, in 'About Time', Bill Nighy plays the dad of one half of the main couple in the movie and his role is to teach him how to live life and this involves pursuing the woman he is trying to marry throughout his ability to fall through time. So, Bill Nighy is basically playing the S2 Crowley of 'About Time' while the main couple of that film parallels Maggie & Nina, in that he's setting up the scenario for the couple involved to get together. Nothing in the film, though, is as overt or contains elements that match The Vavoom, other than the collapsed awning, as we got into above.

So mah point is dolphins that while there are a couple of Richard Curtis films that contain bits and pieces of what Crowley is talking about, there isn't a single one that has anything really remotely close to the, uh, extremely specific scenario he was detailing... so now we have to look at just what the hell Crowley's on about, exactly... and for this, we are, surprisingly, going to wind up looking at a very different film from any by Richard Curtis-- 1955's classic film noir, 'Kiss Me Deadly'. Why this random film, you say? Because it's actually not at all random to GO S2. It's the origins of the phrase "vavoom"... and S2 of GO contains a multi-episode homage to the film.

'Kiss Me Deadly' is, tonally, very different from GO as it's pretty dark film noir but it has a plot you might find a little familiar. One night, driving down a dark road, the main character picks up a hitchhiker who has lost her memory. After she's murdered, the film revolves around the main character-- a private investigator-- and his lover/partner investigating the case to try to solve the mystery. GO's episode "The Hitchhiker" opens with a plot and visual homage to this film when Aziraphale picks up Shax in The Bentley and obviously S2 contains a plot surrounding a mystery related to a character who has lost their memory in Gabriel. I'm going to do a separate thing that is a deeper dive into this with particular emphasis on how the lead characters relate to Crowley and Aziraphale at another point in time because it crosses into too many other things to fit it into this one at the moment but the reason why I bring the film up now is because of its ties to the phrase "vavoom."

"Vavoom", alternatively spoken as "va va voom" and containing the same meaning, is thought to have originated in a cartoon in the late 1940s but its use in "Kiss Me Deadly" in 1955 is what pushed it into popular, cultural use and knowledge. In the film, there's a character named Nick, who is friends with the two leads (the Crowley & Aziraphale-paralleling Hammer and Velda). They have nicknamed him "Va Va Voom" because he says it so often. Nick is an auto mechanic who works on the leads' car-- yes, there's a Bentley parallel lol-- and it is his use of the phrase that made it one we are familiar with today. But what does it really mean exactly in terms of this scene in the pub?

Without going too far down the road that we wind up in another meta about wordplay and symbolism in S2 here, the show is doing things related around the word 'passion' and all of its various meanings. It begins with Aziraphale referring to Maggie's feelings for Nina as "a pash"-- which is British English slang for "a crush" or "an infatuation". It comes from the word "passion"... but the word "passion" actually means something much different. "Passion" is very specifically romantic, erotic love when used to describe a relationship. It means enthusiasm when about a hobby or the like-- Aziraphale will get the neighbors to come to the meeting/ball by negotiating their commitment based on things they're passionate about-- Mr. Arnold and Doctor Who, Mutt and the history of magic. Finally, S2 is tying a lot of this passion-related plot to *The* Passion-- as in, The Passion of the Christ, or the Christian phrase for the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Why is it called 'The Passion' anyway? Because the Latin root of 'passion' is 'pati', which actually means 'to suffer.' Looking at all of this and how the show pairs up scenes with different types of passion is a whole other meta. I'm bringing it up here because of the relationship between 'passion' and 'vavoom'...

"Vavoom" means voluptuously sexy. It means passionate. Something having a sense of "vavoom" or "vavavoom" means it is either suggestive of or is sensually pleasing. In GO S2, Maggie & Nina represent the pash use of passion-- the new love, the crush-- while Crowley & Aziraphale are the show's example of passion in its fuller, richer meaning of romantic, erotic love. So now that we eliminated the idea that Crowley is talking about having seen an example of this vavoom he's talking about in a movie-- I mean, 'Kiss Me Deadly' is totally a movie Crowley saw once so he might have first heard the phrase in it, like many people did but there's no vavoom itself the way Crowley describes it in the film, just the phrase-- but yeah, now that we've eliminated the idea that Crowley got his idea from a film, we can say with relative ease that he's talking about something he personally experienced. I think we can all agree that if he did, it was with Aziraphale and the purpose of him bringing it up in the scene is not just as a suggestion to solve the issue of needing to matchmake The Shop Lesbians but as a way of being seductive towards Aziraphale.

This is also part of 'Kiss Me Deadly' in that Crowley here is the Velda to Aziraphale's Hammer. Hammer is preoccupied with the mystery. Velda tries to help him solve it but is also seeking his romantic attention the whole time and being rebuffed in favor of the mystery. It's darker in the film, as you'd probably expect, since it's film noir, and Aziraphale is actually subtly playing back in GO S2. In GO, it's mostly played off as Crowley, kicked out of bed since the religious family are in the guest room lol, continuously making overtures towards Aziraphale to torment him a little for the whole Gabriel situation but also mainly just because he likes to and he misses him. (It has been, like, maybe 18 whole hours lol.) He continues it into later in the day when Muriel is in the bookshop and Aziraphale is a little more overtly playful then but he is in the pub scene as well. All of this also ties into the fact that Aziraphale wants to drive The Bentley but again, that's a whole other meta. Going to stay focused on the kiss here...

So what we're saying is that, in the scene in The Dirty Donkey, Crowley does that whole lean and the sexy hands and that super posh voice he does from time to time to seduce Aziraphale, and describes their first kiss back to Aziraphale when asked to come up with a romantic solution to help their neighbors realize they are in love. Specifically, Crowley says this:

Whew. *fans self* Jesus, Crowley... No wonder why Aziraphale thought you could help The Shop Lesbians. That? Was romantic...

The key thing I love about this is that while everything he says lends itself to the idea of a kiss, he doesn't actually explicitly say that until the later scene in the back room when Muriel is in the bookshop-- the "one fabulous kiss" part. It's evident later on when he explains the plan to Jimbriel and when he puts it into action that his intent is to trigger a scenario that might prompt Maggie and Nina into kissing and when the awning collapses, he feels like he failed at the overall Vavoom. He did, however, see it working from across the street, such were the fireworks, when they looked into each other's eyes and what's sweet and also very hot about this scene in the pub is that the looking into each other's eyes is the key bit of The Vavoom to Crowley. The kiss is what happened as a result of looking into each other's eyes. The romance of the gaze and the passion of the kiss = The Vavoom but the latter without the former isn't the whole rapturous, perfect moment and Crowley is into this moment. He's still weak in the knees over the thought of it.

And what he says happened in it? They looked into each other's eyes and realized they were made for each other? Crowley thinks that. He says that, flat out, to Aziraphale. Crowley. Who was abandoned by the God who was supposed to love him believes that same God created he and Aziraphale for each other. That they're fated, destined soulmates. And that they both knew it, in that moment when they were taking shelter from a sudden rainstorm together, under a canopy, and they gazed into each other's eyes and then

Yes, I am aware that he says "humans" in that bit in the pub scene. He's referring to Nina & Maggie but also he and Aziraphale have a tendency to refer to their love for one another in human terms in different scenes throughout the series, which is probably a whole other meta and *refocuses on finding this damn kiss here*...

So Crowley-- while heavily emphasizing the words "together" and "canopy", both for maximum sexiness and to lead us in the correct direction lol-- tells us what's needed in this scene, right? We need a sudden rainstorm, a canopy, them wet from the rain and taking shelter, Crowley's glasses to be off or he's in a situation to be able to take them off (ironically, unlike he was when he was in the pub while he's talking about all this erotic gazing), and then we have all this gazing into a very vavoom-y, very passionate first kiss.

So, what scenes seem at all remotely tied to things Crowley describes for The Vavoom? There are three scenes that jump out immediately-- and it's none of them lol. They *are not kidding* about quite literally 'three cowrie shells and a lone caraway seed'. There are three scenes that they want you to think could be connected to this and be distracted by to complete their sleight of hand trick. They want you to look towards Aziraphale's hand and not up his sleeve, so to speak.

So the three cowrie shells scenes here are Before the Beginning, Eden, and the Job minisode. Why? They are the scenes that involve Crowley and Aziraphale and some form of a canopy, which is one of the two words in Crowley's whole Vavoom moment that he heavily emphasizes. So it's not Before the Beginning and it's not Eden and why? Because we're missing the other word Crowley heavily emphasizes-- *together.* Crowley and Aziraphale took shelter from a sudden rainstorm *together* under a canopy. That's the set up. But Before the Beginning and Eden-- the first scenes our minds run to-- are not this because they are sheltering *one another* but not sheltering *together*. One of them is exposed to the rain each time.

There's an additional possibility that is thrown into the mix that is tied to these two scenes, which is the S2 announcement poster-- the one that features Crowley and Aziraphale on Whickber Street in the rain. That one is also out because Crowley is being sheltered from the rain by Aziraphale with a tartan umbrella (ridiculously adorable, I agree lol)-- but they're not both sheltering together. That one feels like it was designed just to fuck with us, especially because Crowley's hair in it is, for some reason, at Eleven Years Ago length in it. It's almost like it exists to both be cute and to, after the season is over, make us go wait... was it then? (It was not then.) More distractions. Ok, so, then what about the Job minisode?

Is it ox rib night? This seems to have some elements at play-- there's a roof and a storm and them together and all-around kiss vibes-- but it's actually not this, either. That said? Job is connected to it in a big way and helps prove my theory here so we're going to come back to it. I'll eliminate it here by pointing out that when Crowley defends The Vavoom as a possibility for Maggie & Nina to Aziraphale, he says "get humans wet and staring into each other's eyes" and "humans" in that bit is them, even if they are not fully. This eliminates the Job minisode as The Vavoom because it confirms that Crowley & Aziraphale did get wet as they went to shelter from the storm. In the Job minisode, they never go out in it. So, Job is out, too.

Ok, so then how do we find the one scene that unlocks this and points us towards the answer hidden in plain sight in front of us?

What is the one scene that really should tell us more about The Vavoom? How about the one wherein Crowley partially recreates it?

The Awning of a New Age is the lone carraway seed. Maggie & Nina paralleling Crowley & Aziraphale. What can we learn about what happened with Crowley & Aziraphale from what happened in this Maggie & Nina scene?

We already know that Crowley feels like he partially failed at recreating The Vavoom for them. It was meant to lead into a kiss and then the awning collapsed. That is what is different from Crowley & Aziraphale's first kiss but Crowley was delighted by the gazing, which we already know to be the very important bit of this here. Off of this, we can conclude that there's obviously a parallel of this bit for Crowley & Aziraphale and this is where the parallels in the scene stop. That means that what happens *before* the gazing moment in The Awning of a New Age scene is important because that's the parallel. So, what's happening while Crowley spots them together outside and starts up the rain? They're talking, right? And what are they talking about?

They're talking about one of them-- Nina-- having a partner who is unreasonably upset. Nina is anxious about it. She doesn't blame Maggie for it, as it's not Maggie's fault. It's also not Nina's own fault and what Lindsay wants from Nina is confining and abusive. Lindsay, we learn, is cruel. We decide in this scene really how much we don't like Nina with this woman and that we want her to be with nice Maggie who is sweet and supportive and is over the moon for her.

On the surface, this would seem to be absolutely nothing like any Crowley & Aziraphale scene we've ever seen, right? Fooled by what is on the surface-- modern lesbians in London Soho, one of whom has a romantic partner-- this seems to be a plot Crowley & Aziraphale have never had. Except, that it's not. It's a parallel to one you'll remember.

One, paralleling sentence here for you...

God's a bit tetchy...

Awning of a New Age unlocks that Lindsay being unreasonably angry and dolling out insane punishment for no actual misdeeds is a parallel to God during The Flood. God was Aziraphale's Lindsay-- the unseen, abusive partners, sending down their words and marching orders and causing distress. Crowley approached Aziraphale like how Maggie approaches Nina. Aziraphale half-heartedly tries to defend God the way that Nina half-heartedly tries to defend Lindsay but both pretty much give up in the face of Crowley's and Maggie's sane responses and support. The agreement that the present situation-- Lindsay about to abandon Nina, God about to abandon her creations in The Flood-- is horrible and unjust. They connect over the lack of justice. The Flood scene we saw ends as the rain begins, with Crowley and Aziraphale both looking up as it starts to fall.

Maggie and Nina get further-- they get to the first half of The Vavoom, in parallel. We haven't seen that yet with Crowley & Aziraphale. (Maggie & Nina also didn't have to go stop and save a bunch of people first lol.)

So how do we know that The Flood was the first kiss?

How do we know that Crowley and Aziraphale first kissed in Ancient Mesopotamia in fucking 3004 B.C. and have been vavoom sorted gone on each other ever since?

Because it happening in the aftermath of saving lives in The Flood would then mean it meets every one of the elements Crowley describes. They get wet from the storm. They will work to save everyone, which is evident from Aziraphale being dead fucking certain in the Job minisode that Crowley was a sweetheart who wasn't going to kill any goats or kids. How would he know this for sure? Saying that what God was doing was terrible in The Flood scene isn't enough for Aziraphale's surety by Job. That means that Mesopotamia and The Flood is the first time they teamed up. It means that Crowley saved people and animals during it. It more than likely means that he did so in a way similar to what he does during the Job minisode-- he transformed them into something that could survive the storm, probably rocks or something. (Big Medusa vibes lol.) But what would happen then? Crowley and Aziraphale would have to *stay through the storm to turn the people back*, right?

So, they'd need to seek shelter from the rainstorm. Under a canopy that could survive the storm. One they can both step back under and bump into one another beneath. Most likely, it's an actual canopy in original meaning of the word-- the shelter of trees. I think one of them (Crowley) bolted afterwards, based on the Job minisode, which we'll get to again in a second, and from under a canopy would be the easiest way to just be able to leave during a storm. (They did not spend the Biblical 40 days and 40 nights under that canopy or they almost certainly would have wound up having sex, which the show is suggesting in other scenes didn't happen for awhile after this which is also another meta lol.) But there's also another reason for trees that kind of cracks me up.

Remember when Aziraphale comes back from Edinburgh in S2 and, before he left, they had their whole Our Car/Our Bookshop thing and Crowley's been peeved for a day now over how Aziraphale got to go adventure in The Bentley and he got to wear a cardigan and babysit their former attempted murderer? And about how what he's really playfully irritated over is that he keeps trying to use Operation Shop Lesbians to turn Aziraphale on by mentioning their Vavoomy first kiss and Aziraphale is, kind of hilariously in retrospect, just totally tormenting him by barely indulging him on it? What happens when Aziraphale comes back from his trip?

Crowley-- genuinely-- says "there you are-- I was worried something had happened to you" and he's off-camera for a moment as he does so and the camera is on Aziraphale, who kind of seems like he would like one of Crowley's kisses about now. But what does Aziraphale get in place of where a kiss could have gone?

A face full of plants lol.

In their box, so that when he handed them to Aziraphale, they hung over his head like a canopy.

Don't wanna talk about The Vavoom, angel? Fine. You're just getting the trees. Mwah. *goes to his car and is all did you misssssss me kissy face*

Aziraphale, in old married bitch mode:

Finally, there's that Ancient Mesopotamia is, chronologically, the last scene so far in which Crowley is not seen wearing glasses, which is essential because Crowley-- while wearing his glasses in the pub lol-- describes the key bit of The Vavoom as involving staring into one another's eyes, which Crowley & Aziraphale can't do if Crowley has his glasses on. Since Crowley wears his glasses in approximately 87% of Good Omens, it means that the answer is in a scene where he's either not wearing them at all or could be seen as able to take them off. Mesopotamia meets that criteria. But there's still one more thing that can really hammer home the idea of this The Flood, Part 2 being their first kiss and that's going to be how we end up back at the Job minisode again.

Go back and think of the Job minisode again but now with the idea that the last time they saw one another-- ages before it-- they shared this moment of wildly passionate vavoom and look at how it recontextualizes the entire minisode.

Start with when they first see each other again. Where did *that* Aziraphale come from? He's teasing him.

The Aziraphale in Before the Beginning and in Eden and in the first bit of The Flood that we've seen is more anxious. He's not afraid of Crowley and he's definitely attracted to him but he's distracted by the dangers of what is happening while they're talking. Suddenly, he jumps from the Aziraphale of The Flood to the Aziraphale of the Job minisode. This one is flirtier. This one is literally like all so you never called-ing Bildad the Shuite lol. He's all "last time I saw you was... The Flood?" like he doesn't know and Crowley is all tight nod ohfuckit'shim and also ohfuckit'shimhavemissedhimsomuch and hiding behind his sunglasses-- Bildad is the first appearance of the sunglasses, chronologically, so we go from the Vavoomy gaze to Crowley hiding his eyes... this then all moves into the courtyard scene after a few moments...

Oh, what's this now? The only scene in the whole series in which Aziraphale asks Crowley to take his glasses off? And he does? So quickly-- intentionally-- that his expression from before is still on his face and it's just nothing but naked want like he's saying oh you wondered how I was looking at you from behind these this whole time? yeah, it was like this... Aziraphale is straight up asking for more vavoom. Take the glasses off. Look me in the eye and tell me you want this and yeah, sure, they're talking *on the surface* on *one level* of their conversation about whether or not Crowley is exhibiting serial killer tendencies and wanting to kill small animals and kids but, really, this scene is also the formation of their coded way of speaking to one another. Crowley's "I want to. I long (pause) to kill the blameless kids of Job the way I killed his blameless goats" and then lifting just enough of the magic to let Aziraphale see that he had actually not killed the goats at all but had actually faked their deaths, indicating that that was his plan for saving the kids as well... Well, it also means that *all* of what Crowley just said to him was coded. That's the weird pause after "I long" that breaks it into two sentences. It makes the second level of their conversation that Crowley whipped off his glasses, gazed into Aziraphale's eyes, and said I want to, I long... meaning, I want you, I want to kiss you again, I long for you...

But the bit of the Job episode that sells me on The Flood being The Vavoom is actually the bit just after Crowley miracles himself, Aziraphale, the kids, Jemimah's pot (because he's so not a serial killer, he saved the damn pot lol), the wine (because fuck that little Influencer Brat of Job-- Crowley's not about to kill a kid but he absolutely will drink the last of his wine for treating Aziraphale like a whore lol), and the food down to the cellar and started iguana-ing the kids. Why this bit? Because Aziraphale is fucking giddy and is just tormenting the living fuck out of Crowley.

He's all "I knew it!" and when you first watch the scene, right, you could think he means he knew that Crowley would save the kids. Yet, he already knows that by this point-- that's what the courtyard scene was. That's why he's yelling that he's "QUITE SURE" when Crowley asks him if he is (and calls him "angel" for the first time when doing so) while he's setting everything on fire just a moment before. Obviously, Aziraphale is happy that Crowley didn't kill the kids but what he's all I knew it *smug smile, actually fucking wiggling with flirty joy* about is that Crowley wanted to be alone with him again and would find a way to make it happen because what's the plan? The one that Aziraphale is totally teasing him about?

Aziraphale is going on about how oh, this is *Satan's* big plan, huh? A *big storm*? He loves every minute of it and he also really loves Crowley getting very close to him-- kissable close-- and being all "ooh aren't you brilliant?" when Aziraphale was acting smug. When did Crowley get that comfortable getting that close to him?

But yeah, Aziraphale loving every second of Crowley saving the kids, turning them into sightless/soundless iguanas, and sending a storm over the land for the night while keeping the two of them dry in a little cellar canopy so they can be alone together again-- essentially, repeating a version of The Vavoom scenario, as he'll still be trying to do millennia later... Aziraphale thought that very romantic and had no problem flirtily teasing the hell out of Crowley for it. Crowley's game is as ancient as Bildad the Shuite lol.

So yeah, what we're saying here is that there's a The Flood, Part 2 and that it's likely in S3. I actually wouldn't be surprised if it opened S3, since the first two seasons are opened with the other canopy-themed firsts-- the two first times they met, really, in Before the Beginning and Eden, both with the wing canopy-ing of one another-- so S3 could be the tree canopy and their first kiss. The Flood also seems likely to return because of how it ties thematically to the whole end of the world of S3's Second Coming plot.

One aspect of this theory that I really like is also that it means that Crowley was more female-presenting during their first kiss (which also goes along with the feminine energy sometimes associated with the phrase "vavoom"/"vavavoom") but also that when they next see one another in the Job minisode, Crowley is the more male-presenting Bildad the Shuite... and Aziraphale is really just into all of it. He's just into Crowley, full stop. We already know he is but I like the idea of it tied to their early days and showing it unfold a bit and how it's just all fine by Aziraphale, who just loves this being and is happy to see them and get to be alone with them again. It's very sweet and romantic.

I guess the last thing to say is that if this is true, we're all going to have a field day redoing the psychoanalysis of this bit below, aren't we?

#ineffable husbands #good omens #good omens 2 #good omens meta #aziracrow #crowley #aziraphale #good omens theory #vavoom

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cbrownjc · 2 months

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My Long IWTV Season 2 Prediction Post:

So this is a long post containing all my (more or less) final predictions for Season 2 of IWTV. Mostly so I can keep track of everything I've been predicting since Season 1 ended.

I'm breaking this all up between General Predictions and some specific Episode Predictions. And I'll put it all under a spoiler cut due to the length and just in case any of this is correct, which would mean massive spoilers. Because yes, many of these predictions are based on things found in many of the books in the VC, not just IWTV; as well as recent trailers and other press material.

General Predictions:

Louis will attempt to end his life like he did in the book Merrick by the end of the season, likely in EP08: This is something that I've been predicting since EP05 of Season 1 first aired. I think it is pretty much my oldest prediction wrt the show, and one I've never wavered from. Now it's time to see if this prediction is right or not.

Lestat is asleep in a coma somewhere in the Al Shafar Tower, and is the source of The Groan: I first made this prediction back before EP07 of S01 aired. I wasn't too confident about it being proven during Season 1, but I think now is the time. Maybe Lestat's in the penthouse. Maybe he's in the basement. Maybe he is on some floor in between, I don't know. But something like The Groan wasn't spoken about as just some throw-away line. There is a reason it was pointed out. And I think that is because Lestat is the source for the sound and makes it sometimes while he is in his post-Memnoch coma state. And what is going to finally wake him up will be Louis doing what I predicted above in my first prediction.

Armand and Daniel's relationship (ie their past romantic relationship) will be revealed in EP08: I've been predicting this more times than I can count during the hiatus. Simply because, as far as general/causal audiences go, revealing it in the finale always just seemed like the most impactful place to reveal it.

The missing pages of Claudia's diaries will reveal the information about her that we learned in the book Merrick, particularly regarding her feelings toward Louis: Via the link above I made a long meta post about that. I'll say more about it below, but in general, why Louis is going to do what he does by the end of EP08 will be because of what he reads/learns from Claudia's missing diary pages, just like as what happened with book!Louis in Merrick.

Louis will begin to awaken his Fire Gift abilities during the season: There is a quick shot in one of the preview trailers of what looks to be Louis setting one of his photographs on fire, but not with a match or candle or anything, but just by staring at it. I think when Louis first discovers he has the ability to light things on fire like that, he'll not be overly excited about it or anything, and only reluctantly test it out sometimes . . . until he unleashes it in full in the season finale against the theater coven.

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Episode Predictions (Spoilers):

Episode One (many people have already seen this episode at the premiere, but there is one thing I was already predicting about it before then that I want to say again):

-- Louis and Claudia will not arrive in Paris until either the end of the episode or the beginning of Episode Two.

-- This episode will be a set up to explain how revenants are created. That they are made if you try to turn a human but don't give them enough blood; OR if you don't scatter the ashes of a vampire that has been reduced to one. This will be done to set up both why Claudia's ashes had to be scattered AND the risks being made to bring Louis back either at the end of Season 2 or the beginning of Season 3.

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Episode Two:

-- Not much to say really that most don't already know/suspect. Louis and Claudia arrive in Paris, and Armand and Louis first meet. Louis and Claudia meet the whole theater coven.

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Episode Three:

-- Again, not much to say. Armand's full backstory will be told. This is also the main episode where we'll see Nicki and what his fate was. We will probably also get confirmation from Armand that the backstory that Lestat told Louis and Claudia about Magnus and how Lestat said he was turned was true.

credit: gif by @sheisraging

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Episode Four:

-- Louis and Armand have sex for the first time (with Dreamstat in Louis' head giving commentary 🤪).

credit: gif by @sheisraging

-- The "banquet" scene, where Armand puts the coven members to sleep and Louis and Santiago have a confrontation (Louis looking like he's going to cut Santiago's tongue out.)

-- We will see the rift between Claudia and Louis continue to grow, as well as Claudia's distrust/dislike of Armand.

credit: gif by @sophsun1

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Episode Five:

-- "Lestat, Lestat, Lestat, Lestat, Lestat, Lestat, Lestat, Lestat." 😂

credit: gif by @loo-nuh-tik

Yeah. We'll see this moment above in Episode 5. And Louis and Armand will basically deliver all their break-up dialogue from the end of the first book HERE, in Louis' shitty apartment in San Francisco; after Louis has attacked and almost killed Daniel.

This means that yes, Louis will confirm to Armand that he knows what Armand did to Claudia here. (With only heavy illusions made about what her ultimate fate has been.) And then Armand will give his "I thought you'd get over it" monologue.

And while Louis and Armand won't fully go their separate ways as they did in the book after all of this (because Armand will still feel he needs to look after Louis), we will very much understand that these two are not a happy couple at this point in time, and are full-on toxic in their own unique way.

credit: gif by @loo-nuh-tik

-- Along with the FULL 1973 interview, The Chase between Armand and Daniel will be shown almost in full. We'll see a lot of things about The Chase, but we will probably not see fully when, or how, it ended.

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Episode Six:

-- "I betrayed Louis once in my life and it wasn't in San Francisco." Armand says this to Daniel in Dubai in this episode.

-- Madeleine gets turned in this episode.

-- Louis says goodbye/breaks up with Armand.

credit: gif by @hermit-frog

-- "The Last Supper."

credit: gif by @nalyra-dreaming

-- The episode will end with Louis, Claudia, and Madeleine all being taken by the Theater coven to be put on trial. Armand gives Louis a "Judas kiss" and leaves the three alone at the dinner table right before they are taken.

credit: gif by @ofinkandust

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Episode Seven:

-- Okay so, back when the Jones Cut trailer first aired, I said that this moment was Rockstar Lestat:

credit: gif by @virginiaisforvampires

Well, I was wrong about that. Why? Well take a look at this:

credit: gif by @sheisraging

Do you see it? Behind Santiago, in the upper left. That is the same key prop on the railing as in the shot with Lestat on the right on the railing. If you squint, you can also kind of make out the musical notes on the railing to the left of the Lestat image on the railing on the right in the Santiago one.

The shot of Lestat isn't Rockstar Lestat, as I first thought it was. It is the real Lestat's first entrance into Season 2. And it's going to be at the trial, in Episode Seven.

-- And because Lestat is making his first entrance in the way I talked about above? This is 100% from Armand's POV with some of Louis' misremembered POV with it. Because Lestat was not in any condition to make THIS kind of entrance on his own.

-- The revisit of Mardi Gras Murder Night from EP07 of Season 1 will happen here, during the trial. And it will be revealed that Claudia alone slit Lestat's throat while Louis stood by passively, while Lestat begged Louis to put him in his coffin. (Matching up to what Claudia wrote, in Lestat's blood, what his last words were.) Giving the full context to this moment we only saw in a flash in EP07 of Season 1:

Which will then lead into . . .

-- The revisit of the Louis-Lestat fight from EP05 of Season 1 will be shown in this episode as well. (And will give viewers, particularly non-book readers, their first hints of Amel.) And because of what happened in that fight, specifically why that fight started in the first place, will tie into . . .

-- Claudia's diaries, which will be read at the trial. Out loud. By Santiago. And more specifically the missing pages, which we see Louis and Armand talk about in this preview, will contain some damning evidence that will all lead to . . .

credit: gif by @mundaneandmagicalcreature

-- Claudia will reveal right there, on stage, to Louis himself, how much she hates him and blames him more for her situation than she does Lestat. Because "It's never been about me." Lestat made her for Louis. If Louis hadn't wanted her, she would never have been turned.

-- This episode will end with Claudia's death. Louis will be rescued from his coffin prison by Armand, and the episode will end with Louis breaking down over her loss -- both in the past and in the present in Dubai now that he remembers everything about Claudia's true feelings towards him right before she died.

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Episode Eight:

-- Louis goes all Carrie/Firestarter on the Theater coven (after warning Armand to stay away first), unleashing his full Fire Gift powers on them all.

credit: gif by @sam-reid

-- Louis grieving in the park -- the same park where he first met Armand -- in the rain after destroying the theater coven, comforted by Dreamstat. And then Armand arrives . . . because Armand is whom Louis was actually waiting for. Why? Because, as Louis said about it in the book --

Where to go then, if not to die? It was strange how the answer came to me.

credit: gif by @hermit-frog

-- Louis and Armand (and Dreamstat) go to the "Louver" for that moment from the book; which in the show has been replaced with someplace else since, post WWII, the Louver was apparently still closed at that time. It will be revealed that Louis knows of Armand's hand in Claudia's fate, shown via Dreamstat's reaction to everything Armand says about what happened.

-- And this will all now tie everything together into what will be alluded to about Claudia -- and Louis knowing Armand had a hand in it whatever it was -- in Episode 5 . . . and this now reveals why Louis and Armand's relationship has not been a happy one at all over the years, as we will see in Episode 5. And this will all be summed up by Louis probably saying this from the book directly to Armand:

"Yes, that is the crowning evil, that we can even go so far as to love each other, you and I. And who else would show us a particle of love, a particle of compassion or mercy? Who else, knowing us as we know each other, could do anything but destroy us? Yet we can love each other."

-- And the "Louver" scene will be the last scene we see Dreamstat in, as it will be here that Armand will tell Louis that Lestat died in the destruction of the theater. And Louis will believe him.

-- Armand, in the present in Dubai, will reveal the head thing he did to Claudia before she died.

-- Armand will reveal how he threw Lestat off Magnus' tower, even after Lestat was badly burned by Louis setting fire to the theater (but survived).

-- we will find out WHY Louis stopped feeding on humans in the year 2000. And it's probably not something anyone expects.

-- At some point in here it will be revealed that Lestat and Louis do reunite after Paris -- for real -- for a time, in the recent past. As seen by this hug:

credit: gif by @nalyra-dreaming

However, something happened that made Lestat unavailable/incapacitated again (some Memnoch-type event is my guess.) So Lestat is now in a coma and Louis, rather than be alone, chooses to stay with Armand for the same reason he did after losing Claudia in Paris.

-- In Dubai, Louis will try to end his life via sunlight exposure, as he did in the book Merrick (as I noted above). Because, along with finally remembering the truth about how Claudia really felt about him, Louis will also be under the impression that Lestat will never wake from his coma again.

-- The bookcase collapsing around Daniel is a consequence of Lestat waking up from his coma after he stops hearing Louis' heart beating. (I.E. a visual representation of Lestat "shattering the realm" as it is apparently explained in the book Prince Lestat about this moment when he woke up in Merrick.)

-- Armand saves Daniel from getting crushed by the bookcase, which will also come tumbling down after the books and glass do.

-- Somewhere in all of that, Daniel will have a flashback that reveals he and Armand were actually lovers in the past. Daniel will be stunned by the memory. Armand will just be surprised that Daniel finally remembered it.

-- Armand and Daniel won't have time to talk about it though because Armand fears/will realize that Louis has done something that caused the commotion to happen (and likely because he also notices The Groan has stopped).

-- Armand and Daniel find Louis' body, burnt to coal ash. Lestat is either already there with Louis' body or arrives very soon after they do.

-- Whether we see Lestat revive Louis (as he was revived in Merrick) at the end of the episode (with Armand's help) or if we are left on a cliffhanger about it? IDK.

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The predictions above are all the ones I feel most confident about right now. There are some others I have, but I'm not very confident about them, so I'm not listing them. I might mention them in individual posts after certain episodes air or not.

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raven-at-the-writing-desk · 2 months

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Hi , miss Raven

Their is something has been on my mind for while ;

In rook suitor suit vignette he Compose a flattering poem about Crowley

While Ace and Epel was talking about how rook would compliment anyone , rook insisted that he mean every word he say .

And there's this specific weird line

"if it weren't for your presence , I wouldn't be here"

Like what do you mean?????!!

Do you think this line is hinting at the fact that rook didn't join NRC via traditional way or he wasn't chosen by the dark mirror , since he is one of the light trio

Or To the fact that he transferred to another dorm smoothly without any problem?

For some reason I started suspecting rook recently 😭

The fact he was one of the reason vil overbloted by convincing him to watch neige performance and also he is the one who convinced vil to add Ace and deuce as part of VDC team while I thought lilia and cater was a better option

I would like to hear your opinion about it 👀

Ah, so if I'm understanding you correctly... You're theorizing that Rook might be an outside agent of some kind? One that Crowley intentionally brought into NRC to facilitate triggering overblots??

I’ll try to respond to one question at a time; hopefully this will make it easier to follow along! The post got quite long, so it's all below the cut~

Beginning with Rook’s poem, and, more specifically, “If it weren’t for your presence, I wouldn’t be here”. It’s funny that you mention this line, because when the vignette first came out (in JP; the terminology used is similar to “I would not exist/be here”), people interpreted it VERY literally. As in… “Rook is Crowley’s son because he literally could not be conceived without a father! They’re even both named after birds! They have to at least be blood related somehow!” Strange how in 2020, Crowley was suspected of being Rook’s father but now in 2024 Crowley’s being suspected of being Malleus’s father. The poor headmaster just can’t catch a break 😂

Personally, I don’t think that line is implying anything strange about Rook’s enrollment. As far as we know, he did not join NRC though any abnormal means, and nor did Silver. Of the “light trio” (a label that I must stress exists within the fandom but is not endorsed by TWST), only Kalim fits the bill. Kalim was originally homeschooled, but received an acceptance letter to NRC a month into the school year. Another month later, he transferred in. As far as we know, all students at NRC (save for Yuu and Grim) were chosen by the Mirror of Darkness, even the light trio. Again, I want to emphasize that TWST does not use “light trio” or a similar term to refer to or to characterize Kalim, Silverc and Rook. We’ve gotten no formal in-universe explanation as to why those three in particular have light cosmic magic instead of everyone else’s dark cosmic magic. (This is entirely separate from meta theories, which are out-of-universe explanations for why the “light trio” exists. The popular meta explanation is that it’s because Silver, Kalim, and Rook are not twisted from Disney villains but rather “good” characters like Aurora, the Sultan, and the Huntsman.)

On the subject of transferring dorms, the option is always on the table. We see mob students talk about transferring dorms as early as 1-14:

In 6-67 (part 20 with the Pomefiore group), Vil describes the transfer process as being tedious and involving a lot of “complicated paperwork and ceremonies”. Crowley also says the process is “burdensome” in 1-20, but this phrasing is quite vague and could mean any number of things. (Burdensome to whom, the staff or the students? Why exactly is it burdensome?) Overall, it seems like transferring dorms would take a long time and require various formalities, but not necessarily be full of problems.

As long as you’re dedicated and consistently complete what is asked of you to complete the process, transferring should be no issue. I don’t think it’s a given that you’d normally experience troubles in trying to transfer. It should be smooth by default (unless the student backs out, is uncooperative, and/or fails to complete the required steps). So following that logic, I don’t think the poem line is saying anything about Rook’s dorm transfer either.

While it’s true that Rook encourages Vil to watch Neige’s performance and advises that Vil pick Ace and Deuce for the VDC/SDC Tribe, I do not believe there was malicious intent behind these actions. It’s hinted throughout book 5 that Rook’s reasoning for doing these things was to help Vil recognize the value of his “beauty” is something he gains from himself, not from the approval of others.

This is most likely Rook’s motivation for suggesting Vil observe the competition or to consider freshmen for the team. It’s exposing Vil to the contentedness that can come with imperfection or not being at the very top, something Vil fails to recognize in himself until the end of book 5. Being as perceptive as he is, Rook would have realized that outright telling Vil the moral of the week would not sway his strong-willed friend’s mind. Thus, Rook devised a more roundabout plan and involved Yuu (who, at this point, has a reputation for settling dorm-wide disputes) and co. (unpolished and clumsy underclassmen that Vil could shape as well as potentially also learn from in a reciprocal manner). Maybe Lilia and Cater would have been more technically skilled, being members of a club band and all, but they wouldn’t have provided the same opportunity for growth that Yuu and Adeuce did.

Rook is someone who has always been portrayed as a supporter of Vil’s, a good friend and a trusted confidant. He does have a nefarious side and is 100% capable of deception (like the time in Endless Halloween Night when he quickened his heartbeat to convince Sebek he was also scared and therefore was not a traitor). However, I don’t think Rook would want to betray his friends by actively harming them and putting their lives in danger (both during book 5’s overblot and immediately after in book 6’s rescue mission); he truly cares for them and wants to see them happy and healthy. (One could argue he should have voted for NRC instead of RSA to help Vil achieve his dream instead of betraying him, but that’s another discussion entirely.)

There’s no reason why Rook would go out of his way to do innocuous things like helping Epel with his UM or imparting wisdom to Deuce unless he actually cared and wanted to see them develop. Beyond the scope of book 5, why would Rook do even more innocuous things like trying to make Epel feel welcome and assisting him with learning table manners? Why wouldn’t he go out of his way to provoke Vil more often? Did Crowley hypothetically have even all of these little details down and instruct Rook to do (or not do) these things??? It sounds too far-fetched to attach a hidden motive behind everything Rook says or does. It could be as simple as “he wants to be there to support his friends”.

Before we wrap up, I’d like to quickly touch on the suggestion that Silver and Kalim too were catalysts for Malleus and Jamil’s OBs, respectively. It’s true that they were, but I doubt Silver or Kalim were aware and did so intentionally. Both seemed genuinely ignorant as to the true stress that Malleus and Jamil were under, and Silver + Kalim do not present as toxic people who would want to inflame their friends’ negativity. Of course, there’s always the possibility that Puppet Master Crowley (™) is orchestrating everything from the shadows (but I’m not going to get into the “time loop to gather all the necessary information and learn what the correct choices are” theory here www). I just don’t think Rook is Crowley’s accomplice in all of this if the time loop + intention overblots theories overlap.

This is one of those instances where I see Rook as being very honest with his intentions and because of his… generally strange character (?), his peers and players alike still suspect there is a deeper meaning to his words. I interpret his poem as nothing more than waxing poetic to expressing gratitude to the one man that makes it possible for him to be at NRC as a student: Crowley. Rook states that he wanted to give an exemplary poem using a subject that both Ace and Epel were already familiar with, so he went with the headmaster. Furthermore, we know that Rook is able to witness many wonderful and beautiful things at NRC, as well as make meaningful relationships with interesting people like Vil. He would not be able to do any of these things were he not extended an invitation to NRC—and it is for this reason that it would make sense for him to genuinely be appreciative of Crowley.

Those are all my thoughts on this matter all for now ^^ Hope it was an interesting read!

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gentrychild · 6 months

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O great Owl and thou noble fic-finding rats I come because I have failed to find that which I need.

There is a work, apart of your Anyone universe, where Izuku is writing a Quirk Analysis Paper and he wakes AfO up so he can see a mutation quirk which enlarges AfO's arm. I have combed through all of Anyone and then through your side works that take place in this universe. But I found nothing.

The only thing I can think is that it was a tumblr post or a fanfic one of your blog mates wrote for you. But alas, I am still here.

In exchange I swear that if my firstborn ever starts stealing quirks I will buy all the therapists, and if that fails I will leave him to your fic-finders with no rivers in sight. And they may nibble on him for all of forever.

With reverence and sincerity, -me

I have some bad news and good news for you. The bad news is that his is something I wrote and posted on Tumblr, and you will never find it again even if you scroll through the entire Anyone tag. The good news is that you must be especially lucky as I found it by pure luck in a file I had forgotten.

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Izuku, sitting on his bed, books and notebooks opened on all of its surface, clicked his pen. Once, twice, thrice, the sound echoing in the silent apartment without doing anything to bring the answer the teenager desperately needed.

Usually, deadlines weren’t a problem for him. For some obscure reasons, the teachers in his high school were trusting him no matter what he did and forging his mom’s signatures to excuse his many absences had become the routine. However, he needed to finish this paper for tomorrow morning, so Hebisuga could read it and save her grade in Meta Analysis. That way, she would stop worrying so much about this subject, focus back on her Japanese, and write once again her ridiculously good flash cards that she always accepted to share with Yuuto and him.

But right now… Izuku’s brain just wasn’t cooperating.

He got up, his back protesting as he stopped hunching over for the first time in a couple of hours, and he left his bedroom. His notebook in hand, he walked past the bathroom and knocked at the door of the master bedroom, currently invaded by the bane of his existence while his blissfully ignorant mother was away.

The door opened in the second, All for One appearing in front of him, his hair messy and his face showing the trace of the pillow but no sign of sleepiness. The villain was one of those persons who immediately passed from sleep to alertness while Izuku needed three cups of coffee to be semi-conscious.

“What is it?” the villain asked. “Did you-“

“Show me your mutation quirks, please. Preferably the one that can offer some kind of protection.”

“What makes you think that-“

Izuku clicked his pen once again and just stared at the quirk-stealing-fiend.

All for One finally obliged, making his arm grow in size, muscles growing until it had gruesomely swollen up, and he even added some spear-like bones. Bewildered, he answered every questions Izuku had about the drawbacks, the weight, how much he could still move his arm, and so on.

Because if analyzing quirks was his passion and could become a job, words in a book didn’t mean anything to Izuku. He needed to ask questions, to make theories, to see them in action.

Once he was done and had all the elements he needed, he thanked All for One and walked back to his room without offering any explanation. But of course, his roommate didn’t need one.

“Did you just use me to finish your homework? At three AM?”

#anyone fic #anyone snippet #Thank you for doing your part in preventing the birth of a new AFO

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matan4il · 1 year

Text

Buddie 613 meta

We now know that the man who risked himself to get Buck out of the line of fire during the shooting arc is Jeshan, which means ‘clear’ (if you’re interested, you can find more name meanings for 911 characters here). So let me just giggle for a second about the fact that 911 had once again reunited Buddie with a character who can be referred to as Captain Clear Me(h)ta. Coincidence? IDK. But I have to admit, it kinda made me reflect back and feel nostalgic. When I first started watching the show, I had no intention of writing meta for 911, but after going ballistic when 309 aired, I knew I would HAVE to use the s3 hiatus to write down all my thoughts about everything Buddie related so far. That’s what I did, I wrote and shared my baby, my first round of Buddie meta. That’s where it was supposed to end, but then people asked and encouraged me to write meta for the eps in 3b as they would air, too. I figured I could try, and that’s how my Buddie weekly meta posts were born. At the time, there was no one else writing proper weekly meta (I don’t mean a summary/review of the ep, or meta posts that stand on their own, but proper analysis on Buck, Eddie and those who matter to them, organized and serialized for each ep as it aired). And now, I’ve been writing them for almost 3.5 seasons. And I feel like they’ve inspired others to do the same. TBH, I can’t actually remember seeing weekly meta posts in other fandoms (maybe they exist and I just haven’t come across them, IDK). So I got all emotional, thinking about how these posts may be love notes to Buddie and the show, but most of all they’re a love letter to the wonderful people who have been supportive and encouraging, who’ve been reblogging the posts, who’ve been commenting on them and telling me that what I do makes a difference for them. Thank you so much, these posts wouldn’t exist without you. You have a much bigger impact on the fandom than you might have realized! So if Captain Mehta is indeed a nod to the meta, it’s a loving, appreciative nod that belongs to all of you. ~~

When Chim shows up to escort Hen to work, he ends up sitting down for a talk with Denny instead, and I really enjoyed this scene, it was lovely, but it also once again emphasized the difference between the firefam kids’ relationship with their parents’ colleagues and the r/s Buck and Chris have. Chim talks to Hen’s son when he happens to come across the kid, but he only sits down for a proper conversation because Denny implies Hen and Karen are up to something intimate, and Chim shouldn’t interrupt them just yet. Consider how different that is to how Buck intentionally looks to spend time with and dedicated to Chris! And then Chim is impressed by how smart Denny is. It’s cute, but it also reveals just how little they interact that this comes as a surprise to Chim. It’s so different to the intimate familiarity of a parent, which is what we know Buck has with Chris (and that Chris has with Buck, which can even be seen in the kid’s teasing, for example regarding the snoring in 414). ~~

You might have seen that, when the promo came out, I momentarily lost my sanity and posted this. I just couldn’t get over the fact that they actually had Eddie correct the chief on the duration of Buck’s death. It was such a spouse thing to do. It was a declaration about the anguish that each single second represented, when Eddie couldn’t breathe because Buck wasn’t. It was a confession of sorts, on how Eddie felt as he desperately NEEDED his husband to live (I’m not even joking when I ascribe him this title, Eddie said with his whole chest, “THAT IS MY IDIOT HUSBAND THAT I HAD TO WATCH DIE FOR THREE MINUTES AND SEVENTEEN SECONDS AND I WILL NEVER FORGET ANY OF THOSE SECONDS, NOR LET ANYONE ELSE DO THAT”). It was a glimpse into how time must have moved differently for him as each second etched itself forever into Eddie’s mind. And yes, it’s a clear parallel to 413, when we witness time slowing down for Eddie. And I mentioned in my post that in both scenarios, Buck is just out of his reach, so close, but simply not close enough. In one case, this forced Eddie to believe he must now accept his own death. In the other, he couldn’t accept the possibility that Buck would die, so he just fought harder, and if he couldn’t save Buck with one course of action, he tried another, Eddie just had to keep going, 'coz the idea of those three minutes and seventeen seconds turning into an eternity? Unacceptable. ~~

But notice in my unhinged post from that day, I used the word ‘counting.’ Eddie counted the seconds, and this is revealed to us at a poker game where Buck is counting the cards. I already noticed that when we saw the promo, but this connection was reinforced in the ep itself when Chief Williams vocalized what Buck was doing. The thing about counting is that it’s reserved for what matters, what’s crucial. Buck is counting the cards in order to win, and he wants to win because it matters to Eddie. Buck wasn’t the one who initiated the search for a poker game where he could use his newfound skills, Eddie was the one to take that initiative. And he could bring Buck along without telling him where they’re going (I would normally scream for a whole separate paragraph just about Eddie telling Buck to dress nice and there being no need for any further explanation or prompting, but we were so well fed, I’ll have to scream about it into my fist for just one sentence) 'coz Eddie was so sure his husband would go along with whatever crazy scheme he’d come up with. And he was right, even though Buck didn’t think it would end well, he still went along with what his husband wanted. Please let me reiterate: Buck’s counting cards because Eddie is so important to him, and Eddie was counting the seconds because Buck’s his vital sign. ~~

Another thing to keep in mind about the poker game is that the only other time we’ve seen Buck playing poker was in 312. In that ep, Eddie was off to meet Christopher’s school teachers (leading to his eventual lackluster r/s with Ana), so having a free evening, Buck spends it with Maddie, Chim and Josh (and is told he unequivocally sucks at Poker). Jokes were made about setting Josh and Buck up, and it was implied whatever Buck’s sexuality was, that was not the reason why Maddie abstained from making the match. What I find interesting is seeing how far our boys have come! In that ep, they were operating separately, and it led them down the wrong paths.

In this ep, Buck and Eddie were inseparable both as a couple (even sharing the winnings from Buck’s new talent, because what don’t these two share? And I was particularly chewing glass when Chief Williams asks Buck how he wanted HIS winnings, but instead of answering her, he looks at his husband. THEY ARE SO FREAKING MARRIED), and as a family unit with Chris (which is maybe a good moment to point out that all of the romantic couples were paired off in 613, and so were Buddie! Now, one could argue that Buck and Eddie were paired off because, well... who else is left for them to hang out with? But 312 is a reminder that when the show wants to, it can push the main cast and minor characters into the same orbit, so it still didn’t HAVE to pair Buck and Eddie off here. It chose to. On top of that, by showing them with Chris as well, 911 reminded us they’re far more bonded than just two best bros hanging out together ‘coz none of their other friends are single). In short, during 312, Buck lost and Eddie was about to be lost on a detour in his romantic journey. In 613, they ARE a family, they work as one throughout the ep, not just in parts of it, and they’re both winning. ~~

Something that gets to me is that when I first shared the BTS pic of Buddie at the poker game, it was clear that Eddie was just bursting with self confidence. He looked like he would be the star of that game. But when we got the promo, we discovered that it was actually going to be Buck who would shine that night. So what makes me slightly froth at the mouth is that all of that sexy confidence we picked up on in the photo? It was real. We weren’t wrong. It just wasn’t confidence that Eddie had in himself, it’s confidence he has in Buck. All of his swagger? Is a reflection of how much he believes and enjoys seeing his husband be a star. I am gonna need 3-6 working weeks at least to recover from knowing this. ~~

Speaking of things that destroyed me forever, everything about the Buckley-Diaz family in this ep falls into that category. I mean, not only did we once again have incredibly domestic scenes, we had one that was very reminiscent of the lasagna one in 601 (Eddie with Chris at the table, Buck fussing around them only to join in once he brings along something to be consumed), reinforcing that this is THEIR NORM, we also had Eddie and Chris being so cute and supportive when it comes to Buck’s new ability (Chris calls him a superhero, Eddie goes along with it, and when Buck’s upset he didn’t get a better superpower, naming some he would have liked to have, Eddie comforts him by saying those other options sound horrible).

And then to top it all off, we had Buck and Chris cooking together. Bobby’s been explicitly acknowledged as basically being Buck’s dad by both of them, and we know Bobby’s been teaching Buck how to cook. Now we get Buck doing the same with Chris, clearly marking them as father and son, especially since this is done with just the two of them, this special time that’s allocated just to their bond together. Eddie is not needed as a middleman. I know that this isn’t news, but every single time the show reinforces this truth, that Buck is Christopher’s other dad, that their bond is that deep, I gain 10 years, so I have to mention it. ~~

For 613, I made my weekly gifset about Buck and answers, but I’d actually like to elaborate on what you see there. In 602, at the happiness center call, we see Buck looking to Lev in search for his own answers on what his happiness looks like. When he still can’t find any, he turns to Hen, because she always has them. Along this season, that’s been his theme. He’s trying to figure out what he wants in order to be happy, which is connected to the couch theme we’ve all been screaming about since 601 (and especially after he fell asleep on Eddie’s in 612). In 613, Buck suddenly finds that he’s the guy with the answers and he likes it. But has he really got them? Buck says these words to Eddie and Chris, and in addition to that, while he utters them, he’s literally captured in the same frame together with Eddie. But it’s also essential that we heard why Chris can’t just be given the answers. It’s in order to learn, Eddie tells him. That’s exactly what Buck has to do, he has to find his answers in order to learn from the search process. He’s not just there yet, but the framing of the whole scene coupled with the ongoing couch theme is very loud. ~~

What gets me maybe most of all in a whole ep of REALLY GOOD BUDDIE CONTENT, is the way the whole thing wraps up. The storyline on Buck’s new abilities doesn’t end with any commentary on those or on his recovery process. His last scene in this ep is the one with Chris. It follows directly the one with Hen and Karen, a scene which reminds us that we’re never surprised at either woman spending solo time with and caring about Denny, even though neither is biologically related to him, because they ARE BOTH his parents. In the same way, it’s only natural that we see Buck spending alone time with Chris, without Eddie around. It is so meaningful that the last shot of Buck in this ep is not about his story line at all, and neither his abilities, nor having died for several minutes is the point. Instead, the last, and therefore most significant shot of Buck in this very Buddie domestic ep, is him smiling at their son. I feel like that says everything about his trajectory.

~~ (my weekly meta posts) (my Buddie gifs) (all of my content)

~~ My tag list will follow in the reblog, please let me know if you wanna be added/removed here.

~~ Thank you so much for reading and for any reblog, like, comment or supportive tag! Also, HUGE thank you to @whosoldherout. On top of real life stuff, she makes her own amazing gifs AND helps make these posts so much better. She’s the one with the real superpowers!

#buddie #911meta #buddie meta #911 meta #9-1-1 #evan buckley #eddie diaz #911 spoilers #evanbuckleyedit #eddiediazedit #christopher diaz #wm #911edit #buddie gifs #buddieedit #911onabc #911 on abc #911abc #911 abc

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torchstelechos · 1 year

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I do think its really important to remember that SY was suppose to be the villain character but its only because of his kindness and newly gained life that he didn’t end as one. In the very beginning of the story we learn that Peerless Cucumber Bro often left comments on how SJ didn’t get his dues and needed to be punished more, and only after he transmigrated did he acknowledge how awful of a death SJ had. He also made point to explain that he only read the book for LBH, which he noted to enjoy his decisive actions and deft ability to kill. Markedly, he liked his brutality and personality over the erotica that the majority of PIDW fans enjoyed. Peerless Cucumber Bro is someone who loves action and the ability to cut right to the chase, something that he does not do and most likely has difficulty with in his world.

Speaking of, it is something to note that Peerless Cucumber bro is rich. He had head chefs, he could pay for a 6k+ chapter book of erotica in 20 days, he noted that he could not understand SJs envy and ambition for power since he lives well, and he even noted to himself that his family was well off. He is incredibly wealthy, and it shows. Which is important to note because he, not once, showed any guilt or remorse on dying and leaving his family behind. Yes, he sometimes refers to people as being similar to his family but he never showed any pain for losing that life like he did when he lost LBH. This is important because I genuinely think SY was depressed and self destructive to himself, which goes against popular HC that he was chronically/terminally ill (I do like this HC and like how its portrayed in fanfiction). It would explain how he ended up dying all alone by himself, and how blase he was to his own life and death.

SQQ is a self destructive force who ended up dying three times, and didn’t feel anything about death itself. He was worried about others and the effect it had on them, but for himself it was up and on again like it never happened. He does not care for his health, had self isolated as SY to the point he died alone, and has a horrible self esteem to the point that he continuously agrees when other people put him down and often calls himself the villain. Even though we have seen the evidence of someone who is always being thrust into new situations and awful plots, he calls himself lazy and easy going. He hides his thoughts and feelings behind his fan and has a remarkably thin face. At the very base of his actions and his thoughts, he is self destructive, powerful, and smart. This is the set up for a villain.

However, when shown the actual people in front of him and forced to act as SJ did towards LBH and his disciples, he flinches from it. He notes that it happening in front of him was different. His entire self soothing comedy monologue went quiet when he had to enforce the Endless Abyss scene, and grieved for the childish innocence he killed from one of his favourite people. SY was set up to be the villain and obviously thinks of himself as one, but can not act as one. If he had the choice LBH would have been his sticky sweet white lotus disciple for as long as LBH wished to be.

His kindness, as seen in the book, is what turned him from being “the scumbag villain” to the protagonist we see in the novels. Which, yes, he is a protagonist! He even has the protag halo that LBH has and its very funny in the meta way for SQQ not to realize this, but thats for another post. But he loves his disciples, he loves his peak lord siblings, he loves his Binghe, he loves his new life, and he is kind. That is what kept him from being the villain he sees himself as, his kindness and love for others. Whether that be romantic, platonic, or familial, he loves the people he has met and he treats them kindly. That is why it is important to remember that he was set up as the villain by everything in the story we do not see, but what we do see is him continuously changing the story to fit a new genre that lets as many people as he can save live. Sorry sorry, I just think about SY being set up as a villain so much. It changes a lot of views I have on the series when I remember the duality of SYs story and character development.

#SVSSS #scumbag self saving system #Shen Yuan #shen jiu #shen qingqiu #luo binghe #Meta #I think?? Haha I dont usually do metas but I dont know how to write fanfic for this series #so Im just writing down my thoughts on the characters #Like how if we see this from the PIDW characters POV SY is truly a villain #Its just something that makes me laugh because he is a villain just as much as he isnt!#what a wonderful complex character to write for. This type of story.#I wonder if Peerless Cucumber Bro would forgive me for writing meta about him?? I think he would be kind of happy but utterly disgusted #ew fans that actually think im complex even though Im a really simple person with no hidden motives -SQQ probably #I love this fucking idiot so much I relate to him on a spirtual level and think he was probably depress to the point of having A Plan.#if you know what I mean #because I still think him reading PIDW entirely in 20 days marks a special occasion for something and if its not for the final chapter...#Anyway #I love this stupid sweet potato of a character #Oh! New tag!#Sweet Potato SQQ #for archiving puproses on meta for him #Probably not good meta I didnt even add quotes or page numbers Im just talking out my ass from what I remember #Watch me write an essay on this lmao

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writingonleaves · 2 months

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were you sent by someone who wanted me dead? (did you sleep with a gun underneath our bed?) - jeremy swayman

pairing: jeremy swayman x original female character

warnings: swearing, pretty angsty. hopeful ish ending because i can't do sad endings, very personal but i think many can relate in their own way, cliche ish, barely proofread

inspired by + title: "the smallest man who ever lived" by taylor swift

word count: 5.6k

author's note: i'd argue almost every piece any author writes is personal, because it has their life interspersed through the words. but this one really is, because a majority of this is the exact same words i wrote years ago after a break-up. heard the bridge to this song and immediately knew i had to write something inspired by it. also trying a new format of sorts (maybe a bit meta??), so i hope you enjoy and lmk what you think!!

~*~*~

When Noelle Betsko walked away from Jeremy Swayman, holding back tears until the call dropped, she knew it was going to be a tough time for the foreseeable future.

It didn’t matter that the pandemic had forced them apart. She knew she would still feel him for months to come.

She did the only thing she knows how to do when trying to deal with things. The one thing she always resorts to as an aspiring novelist. Sometimes on her laptop when the words were spilling out too quickly for her brain to catch up, tears littering the keyboard. Usually in her old beat-up journal, scribbling in the cursive that Jeremy claimed he always loved (“It makes your handwriting unique”) with the pens he had gifted her just a few months prior.

At the age of 21, Noelle got her heart broken for the first time. At the age of 26, she’s about to publish her first poetry collection of sorts, all of the poems modeled after journal entries written throughout her life. So not really poetry, though her mother would say otherwise.

She swallows as she thumbs through the middle part of the first known and binded copy of “miscellaneous.” There are only eight entries in the whole collection that are taken verbatim from her past writing. These are the eight.

May 13, 2020 (three days post-breakup, crying in my childhood bedroom)

I don’t even recognize who I was and who you were in those writings before these pages filled with love and hope and happiness. I can’t even summon up those feelings anymore that I knew existed at one point. Those feelings of complete bliss and love for someone so deep you can’t explain it.

I’m mad at myself for not being able to conjure those feelings, because at one point, I did love you. How could something that was part of my daily life for over two years just disappear so quickly?

But now, I’m not mad at myself. I’m mad, but I don’t know where to direct that anger to. I feel a bit empty sometimes, but then frustrated the next. Sometimes I get sad, but not so much compared to the other feelings. I spent enough time being sad during our relationship.

When we broke up, on an annoyingly beautiful Tuesday in May — over the damn phone, mind you, which whatever, it’s COVID. Fine — You told me you felt like you had been putting more effort into us.

At the time, I didn’t react, but I’ve been thinking about how angry that statement made me. Makes me, actually. I was always very open with how much I gave to that relationship. How much it meant to me. How much it affected me. But I understand that with some people, sharing everything too much equates to things not meaning anything anymore. But you out of all people should’ve known that I mean everything I say.

I felt like I gave so much. I know I gave so much. When I told you I loved you, I always meant it. Every single time. When I told you I missed you, I always meant it. I wished you were right next to me at that moment. I mentally gave so much, because to me, I wanted to. You were always on my mind, always high up on my list of priorities. I never took us for granted.

I’ve been questioning if that was the same for you. Did you start becoming complacent?

The second thing you said that day that hasn’t left my head is that you knew me pretty well. And initially, I remember not thinking much of it. So I don’t doubt that; you always knew right when I was about to cry, even over the phone. You often knew when I was mad or upset, but when I look back now, you never pushed. Which is a good thing, to an extent. But it was a bad thing sometimes too. I knew you often wanted to give me space, but sometimes I didn’t want space. I wanted you to push. To try to understand. Maybe that’s unfair of me; it probably is. I should just say I want to talk about it more, right?

But if you genuinely knew me, you would’ve known.

After two years, seven months and 12 days, I still feel like I didn’t know you. Did I ever know you at all?

When people talked shit about you, I always defended you. And I still would defend you now. But lately, I've questioned what I’m even defending. All those good qualities that I thought you had, were they even real? Of course, I know some of them were, to a certain extent. But as I look back on us, there’s a lot of doubt about whether I even knew the person I called my boyfriend for so long. I know there was a point where you cared about me, but I can’t remember when.

I often felt like I was letting you know so much about my life, but you didn’t do the same. I get that sometimes a person just wants to forget about the bad and focus on the good with a person you like for awhile. I get that. But once that was happening every damn time? That should’ve been a red flag.

June 7, 2020 (twenty eight days post break-up, outside my childhood room on the deck)

I don’t understand how you can give so much to something or someone and have it not be recognized or appreciated or enough. If I wasn’t enough for you, how will I be enough for anyone?

I hope one day you’ll truly understand how much this hurt. Not just the breakup, but feeling like I was always being pulled in a direction I didn’t always want to be pulled in. Feeling I was stuck between a rock and a hard place and never ever being able to win. I hate that I settled so much in the last year. Because I should’ve demanded more, even though deep down I knew you were never going to be able to give it to me.

I think back to our past daily texts, and I just don’t get it. At one point, we both meant the things we said to each other.

Yet we still hurt each other.

This fucking hurts.

You’ve hurt me so much, but most of it wasn’t intentional, which I think is somewhat even worse. Because I’m not totally mad at you for causing the pain. You never did anything outright to cause me pain, but I still feel like you did.

Unintentional pain almost stings more than intentional.

When I asked you out that night after we were both on an emotional high, I took a chance. For once in my life, I took the leap, knowing that I could get humiliated or hurt or just straight up shot down.

Where did it all go wrong? Or, more realistically, how did we think that we could go through the wrong when it was there at the start?

I’m trying not to blame myself too much. Trying not to tell myself that I should’ve known better.

All those times, especially at the start, when I would ask you if you genuinely liked me, you always thought I was just trying to be annoying. But you never understood that I genuinely thought that way. My self confidence from the start was lacking, and you didn’t try to understand that, because I come across to everyone as confident and self-assured.

It hurt, when you would brush things off like that. I felt like you didn’t care.

And then, it got to the point where I stopped asking that question. Part of that is because I did become more confident and you did show that you cared, and part of that was because I knew it would piss you off.

The amount of things I was scared to talk about with you because I knew it would piss you off? I don’t wish that feeling on anybody.

I shouldn’t have been scared. I shouldn’t have been uncomfortable. But I was. And if you did notice like sometimes you claimed to, why didn’t you make it more comfortable for me? Was that too much to ask for?

So larger than life that at the end, you faded into just the smallest man who ever lived. Fuck you.

Was it too much to ask for when I just wanted to know why you were upset? You didn’t have to ever tell me the full story (lord knows there were times I didn’t), but was it too much to ask for something? You told me once that I’m the person you’ve told the most to. How? You barely told me anything. And when I wanted to talk to you, whether it was about growing up in Alaska or why you were in a bad mood last night, you always brushed it off. Always.

So I don’t feel so bad about feeling like I gave more effort. I gave so much of myself to you. If you really cared about me like you claimed you did, why couldn’t you show even just 1% of that care back? Or just meet me in the middle?

I could’ve tried harder to meet you in the middle, I’ll admit that. But you didn’t even give me a map or a clue how to.

I felt so fucking left in the dark. I felt left in the dark about my own fucking relationship, something that I should be completely sure about. If you really love someone and care about them, how can you leave them in the dark? How could you not even see that I was struggling to find a flashlight?

You did care about me. I know that. To some extent and at some point in time, you did care about me. But caring about someone and their well-being isn’t always enough.

Why couldn’t you have worked with me? When I was extending my hand out, why didn’t you reach for it? How can someone just be so blind? I mean, I’m practically always spelling it out for you.

Maybe I am being selfish. But fuck, I just wanted to be happy. At some point, you made me happy. When did I start making you feel like I wasn’t enough? Why wasn’t I enough for you?

It’s useless, in a way, to keep going about this. Because I know I deserve better. And we’ll both find people who are better for us. We just couldn’t be that person to each other.

I fucking loved you.

I wish it ended differently.

July 8, 2020 (fifty nine days post-breakup, in front of the lake)

I really really fucking miss you.

I do.

I miss being able to text you that i love you and not necessarily expecting a response until the next morning. I miss knowing that as soon as you wake up, you’ll text me back and assure me that yeah, you love me too.

I’m left feeling bittersweet as I look back on memories that are just splashes and not definite strokes on the canvas that used to be us.

I miss having you as a friend.

I’ve been having more urges lately to want to text you. And it isn’t even anything important. Just moments I experience throughout the day.

Do you get the urge to do the same?

July 19, 2020 (seventy days post-breakup, still in the same damn house)

It’s hard. It really is. And it kinda just hits you at random parts of the day. Sometimes I wake up from a dream that you were in and have to remind myself that it didn’t happen.

Sometimes it physically aches when I realize that you won’t ever help me put on my jacket again, or complain that my hair is in your face when we’re lying on the couch watching Brooklyn Nine Nine, or groan when I drag you up to dance with me (which you never improved on, no matter how many times I tried to teach you basic rhythm). I can’t view our song the same way anymore, and I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to.

The other day, I read some simple thing on Twitter. I don’t even remember what it was, but I do remember that for a split second, I could see your smile in my mind. But it wasn’t just any smile. It was the smile you gave me when you took me ice skating that first time. I remember asking you what you were smiling at, and you said that you just were taking in this moment. I don’t know if you took a mental picture that day, but I know I did. That day seems so long ago now.

In almost anything I do, you somehow pop into my mind or into the conversation. And it’s not even in a harmful way either. It’s because you were part of my life for so long. I see a dog on the street, and it reminds me of how you always stopped to pet every single one we’s see I write something in my messy handwriting, and I remember how you always used to complain that you couldn’t read the notes I’d occasionally leave around your place when you went away. I went to the doctor’s the other day, and they said I was 5 feet and 3 inches, which is just definitely not true, and I almost reached for my phone to text you, because you would’ve cackled and insisted that no, I’m 5 feet 2 inches and it wouldn’t even matter because I’ll always be shorter than you. It’s simple and minute things that make me miss you that much more.

I still can’t listen to some songs the same way anymore, but I can at least listen to them now, which is a feat in itself. I was unpacking from college and found the teddy bear you sent me the first extended time we had to be apart and had to immediately put that out of my sight. From those boxes also came photos that I had decorated my dorm room with, and to be honest, I’m glad now that I let you keep our best one. I deal with all my emotions, besides writing, by making Spotify playlists, and I made a new one earlier this week. I think it’s helping. It’s a slow process, this whole moving on thing, but it’s one that I’m trying to be grateful for, because like most things in life, you just don’t truly know until you go through it.

Sometimes, I find myself wondering how you are and how you’re healing. But, even though we’ve both changed since the day we met, if there’s one thing I know, it’s that you’re incredibly strong and stubborn. I hope that you’re finding some growth in this process too.

October 17, 2020 (one hundred fifty seven days post-break up, apartment in orono)

It’s been almost 5 months, and you still cross my mind everyday.

Why wasn’t I enough for you? Why didn’t you fucking tell me what you were thinking? Why was I the one who had to approach you just because I was just so done with the silent treatment?

But I’m not mad at you. Not anymore. The mad phase passed ages ago.

Closure is a fake word. Even a breakup as mutual and smooth as ours was still left me with so many questions that will probably never be answered.

Any breakup fucks you up to some extent. I knew it was going to mess me up even back when we were together. But not like this. Never like this.

But like anything in life, I guess you can never really prepare for what you think you might feel, because most of the time, you discover a whole new side of you that you never thought existed.

I don’t miss you. I don’t. I don’t feel that love in any way anymore.

But I did once.

You did too, right?

November 15, 2020 (one hundred eighty six days post break-up, fogler library)

I hate Halloween.

Though, it did bring me to you three years ago. I’m pretty sure I fell in love with you right then and there.

Three years later, you texted me on Halloween, five months after our breakup. The universe really, really wanted to fuck with me.

It was a tough night for you. I knew that. Because I know how you are after losing a game you should’ve won. But that didn’t mean that I owed you anything and had to respond.

We agreed on no contact if we ever wanted to stay friends. Clearly, friends is out of the picture now, but come on. A vulnerable text after a bad night because you know I would feel bad for you?

Fuck, you know how much I would hate that. You had to have known.

Just because we’re not dating anymore doesn’t mean that everything about you just disappears. I still know your tendencies. I still know exactly how my head burrows into your chest during a hug. I still know the actions I used to do that would be followed by you attacking me with a hug. I still could point you out in a crowd.

I looked for you in every crowd for years.

That stuff doesn’t just go away, no matter how much I want it to. But fuck. Fuck. Why did you text me?

I don’t regret how I handled it. I probably would’ve responded months ago. But just like you, I’ve grown these last couple of months.

It was comforting, for a split second, to know that maybe, just maybe, these past couple of months have been hard for you too. It makes me feel human. It makes me feel like I’m not crazy.

I’m glad you texted me. You gave me another level of closure I hadn’t known that I needed until then.

But fuck, dude. You know me better than that. You should know me better than that.

I hate Halloween.

November 26, 2020 (one hundred ninety seven days, at the coffee shop i brought you to when you came home with me two years ago)

I don’t regret loving you, but I hate you for what you did to me.

Or maybe not.

I hate knowing that even though we haven’t been in a relationship in a bit, it feels like sometimes, you’re on my mind the exact same amount when we were dating. I hate knowing that I gave so much of myself and my love to you, and it always felt unrecognized.

Fuck, will it ever stop hurting? Will I ever be able to have to stop myself from thinking about you? Will it ever stop?

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

Happy birthday. I hope you enjoy it.

June 12, 2021 (three hundred ninety five days post-break up, in boston, visiting a friend)

Tonight, when a friend asked me about you and how I felt about how we ended, I was able to articulate my thoughts clearly. I’m really proud of myself for getting to a point where I can take the lessons I learned the few months after we broke up and acknowledge them in a succinct way without breaking down into tears. Just watery eyes and the occasional voice crack

I’m also proud that I can say that when we were dating, I lost a bit of myself. For months, it was really hard to admit out loud.

I’m proud of how far I’ve come. Sometimes, I wish I could call or text you about it, because I think you’d be proud too. And I know I’d be proud of you. I am, to be honest. I do break resolve once in awhile and check on you through various avenues.

I still haven’t seen you in person since the last time COVID made us say goodbye. Maybe I never will again. But day by day, I’m starting to accept that and be okay with it. I’m accepting that memories that used to be so painted in my mind are blurry or almost completely erased now. But that’s okay. Honestly, it’s probably for the best.

I wonder, when you think about it, if you think about different moments that I do. That’s the thing when something ends. You have to be okay with letting go of those moments and realizing that just because you forget them, doesn’t mean they weren’t important.

I don’t think I miss you. I hesitate in saying that. Because I’ve moved on and handled the aftermath of it better than I think both of us ever thought I could. When you hung up the phone for the last time, I proved to myself again that I’m stronger than I give myself credit for. I think we all are. But we don’t realize it until we’re thrown into a situation that we think we’ll never be able to overcome.

But we do. Whether it’s because we’re forced to because there’s no other option, it doesn’t matter. Because we get through. We move on.

I hope you're moving on.

And then it goes into other topics, graduating during a pandemic specifically and losing what’s supposed to be your last year of no responsibilities before adulthood. There are other poems in here that reference a past relationship, but not as much as these eight.

If there’s one thing that Noelle did change, it was taking out the details. Jeremy may have hurt her, but he doesn’t deserve someone possibly making a connection between these poems and their shared background. She’s not a famous author by any means, but she wanted to be careful.

Not that she makes that part of her life publicly known. People don’t need to know that her brother was Jeremy’s captain for two years at Maine and that’s how they met.

Noelle grew up going to rinks. She hasn’t gone to one since they broke up.

But also, what the fuck? It’s been five years since she’s dated the guy. She really is over it by now, even if his rise to stardom in the Bruins flittering on her social media feeds still sometimes has her swallowing a bit before she can continue with her day.

Brooklyn is far enough from Boston. But sometimes it feels like it’s right outside her door.

She’s proud of her first published work. She really is. People believed in her and after numerous notes swapped back and forth with her editor, she did it. She always knew she wanted to work in publishing. She never knew she herself would publish anything.

And here she is now, two weeks after the book release, in Boston, about to do a q&a and a signing. Apparently, “miscellaneous” has been on top of numerous lists and it’s flying off the shelves. Noelle can’t really believe it and tries not to think about it too much, trusting her agent with all of that.

She’s happy to talk about her work and process though. That she can handle. And she’s grateful for all the love.

After a signing at a local bookstore, she decides to walk the 20 minutes home in the Boston fall. It’s a bit brisk, but she doesn’t mind and she just wanders, belly filled with delicious sushi she inhaled for dinner with an old friend.

Of course it happens the one time during her walk when she doesn’t avoid eye contact with someone. The song playing in her earbuds fade out of her focus and she almost stumbles.

Jeremy’s eyes were always Noelle’s favorite thing about him. She thought she would’ve forgotten what they looked like by now. But clearly she hasn’t.

Her eyes quickly cast to the person next to him. It’s definitely a girl. They’re a bit too far away for Noelle to pick out details. But it’s enough. He’s walking on the side closest to the street. It’s a Friday Night in a bustling part of the city.

It hurts. She wishes it didn’t.

Even from far away, she sees his eyes blink in recognition. Noelle puts her head back down and walks faster.

(She cries in the shower when she gets back to the hotel. She had debated feeling super sorry for herself and going to the hotel bar but refrained)

She has a few free days in Boston before flying back to New York. When she wakes up the next morning, she debates on going home early. But no, she won’t let a three second glance at someone ruin her time here. She used to occasionally come here during her college days. She loves this city.

The city may be Jeremy’s, but she can make space for herself here too.

She takes her time at a cafe, people watching and eating some breakfast. As she takes her coffee to-go, she looks out the window at the bookstore she was in the night before for the signing. She almost drops her coffee.

Jeremy walks into the book store.

Now, Noelle is debating her options. What she should do is continue with her day and walk in the opposite direction. But she’s always been too nosy for her own good. And maybe a bit self destructive. She decides to leave the cafe and cross the street immediately, so impatient to where she’s almost tapping her foot as the pedestrian signal stays red.

As a writer, she’s no stranger to movie moments. The scenes written in books or movies where the timing is too accurate to be real. The situation too good to be true. But after a car speeds through an orange and she can finally walk, she stops in her tracks instead, feet glued down to the sidewalk.

Because Jeremy is right in front of her on the other side of the street. Her book in his hand. And he’s looking right at her.

The first feeling she can recognize in herself is anger. Anger at the way their relationship panned out. Anger at the way they ended. Anger at the radio silence the years following. Anger at him for everything. Angry at herself for everything.

The second feeling is, weirdly, shame, which she’s embarrassed by. There’s nothing to be ashamed of. But she feels it anyways.

The third, and perhaps the most prominent, is emptiness. Five fucking years later, and she’s brought back to the emptiness she felt immediately after they broke up. The emptiness that the person you loved isn’t yours anymore — who maybe wasn’t ever yours to begin with.

Before she can run, he’s already crossed the street to her. He looks naturally different as someone who you haven’t seen in five years would. But he also heartbreakingly looks the same.

“We should get out of people’s way,” Noelle manages to chokes out.

Jeremy laughs a bit. Her heart lurches. “Yeah.” He starts walking and she follows him wordlessly. This is his city after all.

He leads them to a bench under a tree with beautiful fall foliage. She puts at least a foot between them as they both sit down, staring out at the people passing. She can’t take the silence.

“I see you bought my book.”

“I did,” he replies evenly. “Congratulations. I always knew you would do it.”

She squeezes her eyes shut. Maybe if she squeezes hard enough she’ll forget when she originally pitched Jeremy the bare bones idea of the exact same book that’s currently in his hand. “Thank you. Congratulations to you too. On everything.”

“You’ve been watching?”

She shakes her head. “No. But, you know Seth and…yeah. It comes up during family calls sometimes.”

“Why didn’t you say hi last night?”

She looks pointedly at a couple walking their dog. “You seemed busy.”

“She wasn’t-that-it doesn’t mean anything.”

“Oh. Because that makes me feel so much better,” she spits out, before taking a deep breath. “Whatever. It doesn’t matter. We broke up ages ago.”

“I’m sorry,” she gives him a look and is slightly proud of how he seems to shrink into himself a bit. “I-I know it’s five years too late. I know I didn’t handle it as well as I should’ve. But for what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”

The thing is, Noelle always thought that maybe hearing an apology someday would make her feel better. But now that’s heard it, she’s not sure she does.

She swallows. “I appreciate that.”

“I’ve already read it, you know.”

“Read what?”

Jeremy runs a hand through his hair. “Your book. One of my teammate’s girlfriend recommended it and I asked to borrow it. It’s fantastic,” He looks down at the book in his hand. It’s like the cover is taunting her. “I wanted my own copy.”

“Oh.”

“Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For letting me off the hook with the poems I know were about me,” he scoffs, shaking his head at himself. “You could’ve written way worse.”

She can’t help but let out a chuckle. “I thought I was pretty mean.”

“Your definition of ‘pretty mean’ is tame compared to a lot of people,” he says, mindlessly flipping through the pages of the book. “You were always the kindest person, even when you shouldn’t have been..”

He puts his hand out in her direction, the hand with the book in it. She furrows her eyebrows. “What-”

“Could I get a signed copy?”

“Jeremy. What do you want from me?”

He sighs, taking his hand back. “A chance to apologize?”

“You’ve already done that.”

“Not in the way I want to and what you deserve.”

She lets out a sigh, turning to face him fully. “I don’t know if that would be worth my time or yours. I know the book just came out, but that was five years ago. I’m over it. Forgive and forget, right?”

“But do you?” Jeremy counters back. “Clearly, you don’t forget, which I deserve. But forgive?”

“We’re just going in circles now.”

“No we’re not,” he says firmly. “You’re just shutting me down because you don’t want to talk about it. I’ve had five years to prepare what I would say to you if I saw you again. You’re telling me you haven’t?”

“Of course I have,” Noelle tips her head back. “But also, what’s the point?”

“The point, is that I still love you.”

“Fuck you,” she says in a strained voice. “You can’t just-you can’t just throw that shit out there. Fuck you.”

He bites his lip, and to her annoyance, he laughs. But she listens more carefully, and it sounds very self deprecating. “I deserved that.”

“Yeah,” Noelle looks down at her feet. “So…what? You still love me?”

“I do.”

“And what are you going to do about that?”

“What are you going to let me do?”

“I live in Brooklyn.”

“I know,” she whips her head up. Jeremy looks sheepish, which she didn’t even think was something he knew how to do. “Seth mentioned it when we caught up a bit ago. I also still follow you on Instagram.”

She tries again. “It’s been five years.”

“And I’m here sitting with you and still feel the exact same way I did back then. Even more, to be honest.” He eyes her pointedly. “Any more excuses?”

Her voice softens. “You really hurt me.”

“I know. And I’m so sorry, Noelle.”

“I hurt you too.”

He shrugs. “We were young and stupid.”

“And we’re still not?” Noelle says with a snort before swallowing. “I’m not the same person you fell in love with.”

“I’m sure I’m not either. But I don’t know if there’s a world where I don’t love every version of you.”

“Even after reading the book?”

“Especially after reading the book,” he sighs. “Noelle, I know this is unfair of me. All of this. And I’m sorry it’s taken me this long to reach out. But I always intended to. And then you’re here? And I see you twice in two days? I’d be an idiot to not try. More of an idiot than I am, anyways.”

“Try for what?”

“A second chance? To be friends? Whatever you want.” He suddenly deflates. “Even if you don’t want anything to do with me. At least I’ll know.”

“Why did you never text me?”

“I thought about it a lot,” he admits. “I tried once, actually, after the high of a really good win. But it didn’t go through. I got the message.”

“The message?”

“You blocked me, right?”

Oh. “Yeah,” she lies. “I did.” She reaches into her bag for a pen and gestures for the book, which he gives to her, a curious gleam in his eyes. “I’m in Boston for two more days, including today.”

He takes the hint immediately. Eagerly. “I have a game tonight, but I’m free tomorrow.”

“Who are you guys playing?”

“Toronto. And I’m starting. Should be a good one.”

She hums non-committedly, scribbling on the inside of the front cover. She hands it back to him with a small, close-lipped smile. She nods at him to read the message.

to my first fan,

i still love you too.

xxx-xxx-xxxx

yours,

noelle

He looks up, eyes shining but a bit confused.

“I never blocked you. I just changed my number.”

“Oh.”

“And even if I still love you, I’m still mad at you.”

“I know. I’d be more surprised if you weren’t.”

She stands up, adjusting the bag on her shoulder and putting her sunglasses on. “Text me?”

His mouth splits wide into a grin. “Yeah. Yeah, of course.”

She backs away with one last attempt at a smile before turning down the street.

#k writes #hockey fanfiction #nhl #nhl fanfiction #nhl fanfic #nhl writing #hockey blurb #hockey writing #boston bruins #jeremy swayman #jeremy swayman blurb #jeremy swayman writing #jeremy swayman fic #jeremy swayman fanfiction #jeremy swayman x ofc #jeremy swayman x oc #jeremy swayman x reader

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asaka-lucy-dr-rc · 3 months

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RAIN CODE Fan Meeting Report ③

From the second reading to the end of the of the daytime program.

RAIN CODE Fan Meeting Report ①

RAIN CODE Fan Meeting Report ②

⚠️This is a looong post and contains spoilers! Only read this if you have already played RAIN CODE and have time.

After introducing the merchandise sold at the event, Fukuhara, Suzushiro, and Ishikawa gave a reading performance. The reading was a direct reenactment of the game's dialog from Chapter 1, when Halara's forensic forte was first shared with Yuma, so I will just leave out the details.

After that, KENN joined in and the four VAs gave a reading performance. This was a re-enactment of the part after the Mystery Labyrinth in chapter 2, where Kurumi gave Yuma information about the homunculus and Yuma shared it with other detectives of the Nocturnal Detective Agency. Yakou's lines were replayed by playing the voices in the game, and Fubuki's and Vivia's lines were simply omitted. In the actual story, Vivia mentions Death God here, implying that he knows Yuma is possessed by Shinigami, but those lines were left out, and Shinigami forced a punchline by being a bit silly instead. I remember it ending with a meta-statement like, "The most mysterious thing is that Fuzz Head's voice is heard even though he is not here."

I forgot to mention in my previous post that the entire script for the reading was done by Spike Chunsoft staff, and Kodaka was not involved at all. (From the way he talked, it sounded like he didn't even supervise it). So the story itself was not something worth explaining in detail. Just the VAs' performances were really perfect and wonderful :)

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The next segment, "Kanai Ward Citizen Survey", featured a game in which the VAs predicted which answer to a three-option question would receive the most votes from the audience. The audience was treated as Kanai Ward residents, and voting was done by clapping their hands. The person who best predicted the audience's answer won a book token printed with the main artwork of the RAIN CODE Fan Meeting.

The first question was as follows:

Q1.Which Forensic Forte would you use if you could? 1. Halara's Forensic Forte 2. Desuhiko's Forensic Forte 3. Fubuki's Forensic Forte

Maybe they dared to make it easy because it was the first question, but clearly Halara's abilities are too limited compared to the versatility of Desuhiko and Fubuki's abilities 😅 so the VAs predicted that it would most likely be either 2 or 3. And here's the result of their choice:

(The VAs were given placards to hold up to answer the questions.)

Then, the option that got the most votes from the audience was "3. Fubuki's Forensic Forte". To which the VAs said, "I knew everyone wanted to rewind time." lol

The level of popularity was Fubuki > Desuhiko >> Halara.

The next question was this:

Q2.Who is the detective you want to be your boss? 1. Yakou 2. Halara 3. Yuma before losing his memory. (Number One)

When Kodaka saw these options, he immediately commented as follows:

But Suzushiro said "Isn't Halara too strict? Yakou seems to be very subordinate-minded." Then Ishikawa said, "If I were to become Halara's subordinate, I would like to see Halara looking at pictures of cats."

(The gesture of looking through the gap is what she actually did on the stage!)

And here's the result of their choice:

I was so convinced by Ishikawa's opinion, but she actually raised Yakou's number. (She betrayed us! 😂)

Only Fukuhara chose 3 and was asked by the MC why:

(He really loves Yuma!)

Then, Kodaka commented as follows:

Fukuhara countered, "But don't you think it's good that he only shows his true face to me!?" (He seemed to imagine what would happen if he became Number One's secretary or entourage 😄)

But whether his arguments did not resonate with the audience or were simply not popular enough, the option that got the most votes from the audience was "1. Yakou".

The level of popularity was Yakou > Halara > Number One.

Q3.Which organization would you prefer to join? 1.World Detective Organization 2.Amaterasu Corporation 3.Resistance

Kodaka saw these options and again immediately commented.

(That's true 😂)

The VAs began to discuss these options and which organization would give them the best chance of survival. However, all of them are very risky 😅 WDO's work is fraught with danger (as a lot of detectives were actually killed in chapter 0), and workers in Amaterasu would be executed if suspected of rebellion. Of course, the Resistance is always fraught with danger!

After such discussion, here is what they chose:

When asked by the MC why they chose Amaterasu Corporation, Ishikawa and KENN replied:

(Becoming an Ama-Pal developer is certainly a fairly peaceful option 😆)

Fukuhara replied that the reason he wanted to join WDO was because of his love for Yuma, and Suzushiro said she wanted to use Forensic Forte.

And as a result of audience voting, the most popular option was "1.World Detective Organization".

The level of popularity was World Detective Organization > Amaterasu Corporation >>> Resistance. (FYI, WDO and Amaterasu were almost equally popular. WDO was slightly more popular).

Last Question: Which line do you want Shinigami to say? 1. "Kyahaha! Down the rabbit hole we go!" (JA: きゃっきゃっきゃ！　いざ、迷宮入りーーーー！！) 2. "Luminous darkness! Shining rainbow! Glorious stellar spiral! Bello Fresco Grand Finale!" (JA: ダークネスシャイニングファビュラスレインボービューティフルマックススクリューラブリーフレッシュグランドフィナーレ！！) 3. "I hope he dies with his upper body stuck in the pond." (JA: 池に上半身が突き刺さって死ねばいいのに)

*As for the third, I don't remember where Shinigami said it, so I made up the translation myself. I used "he", but it may have been said to a female character. The first and second should be correct because I checked the English version of the videos on YouTube.

As for the first line, KENN mentioned that this line was memorable, but I need to make some explanations so that you can see why he said it. This line is said by Yuma and Shinigami enter the Mystery Labyrinth, but it differs considerably between the Japanese and English versions. If I translate the original Japanese line into English, it should be like "Now enter the Labyrinth!" However, in Japanese, it actually shares a meaning with another word that has a different meaning, but if it were put into English, it would lose that meaning, so it was probably changed to something completely different. In Japanese, when things are left unresolved, the thing is described as having entered a labyrinth. So KENN commented that he found it interesting that a word that was originally used in this sense was literally used in the sense of entering a labyrinth.

The second line is the one that Shinigami says at the end of Mystery Labirinth, when she reaps the soul of the true culprit:

Kodaka said it was based on the scene when the main characters perform a special move in the Pretty Cure series, a famous Japanese anime for girls. Suzushiro said that she searched for videos of Pretty Cure on YouTube and used them as a reference for her performance. When I heard this, I remembered that the title of the music played in the scene is "Heart Catch! Convict! Convict!" in the OST. I think "Heart Catch" is based on a title of one of the Pretty Cure series: HeartCatch PreCure! - Wikipedia

By the way, for Japanese Otaku, "heart catch" is also a word with a different meaning. I know the correct grammatical order in English should be "catch heart", but Japanese otaku dare to say "heart catch" when a cruel character grabs someone's heart (as an organ). So I think the reason for such a music title is a cross between the Shinigami harvesting the soul scene and the cute image of Pretty Cure.

Sorry for the long explanation! 😣 And my memory is a little fuzzy as to which answer the VAs chose here. I think 2 was the most popular. And in fact, 2 was the most popular among the audience, and Suzushiro actually read the line out loud!

The level of popularity was 2 > 1 >>> 3.

As a result of this game, it was Suzushiro who was the best at guessing the audience's answers! She received the book token and declared that she would use it to buy some RAIN CODE books :)

------

In the next segment, "RAIN CODE Maniac Quiz", the audience answered super-geeky questions about RAIN CODE. All questions were true/false and the audience answered by opening their fist for true and clenching their fist for false.

The audience was first asked to stand, and the person who made the mistake was treated as having left the quiz at that point and was seated. And when there were only a few people standing, the game was over. Those who stayed until the end received limited edition merchandise. (They received a card that looked like a pass).

This quiz was full of really difficult questions! 😅 There were 7 questions in total. I encourage you to see if you can answer them.

The questions were as follows:

The tallest person in Amaterasu Corporation is Dominic. True or false?

2. It is in Chapter 4 that Shinigami shows the pose in the following image. True or false?:

3. The word "WINE" is written on the label of the wine bottle* used in the case in Chapter 2. True or false? * The bottle was used as a prop for a play by the Aetheria Academy Theater Club.

4. The cat in the photo Halara was looking at in Chapter 1 had blue eyes. True or false?

5. The color of Pucci's stuffed bear* was white. True or false? * It is the stuffed bear that was sitting on a chair in Pucci's room in Chapter 0.

6. The load capacity of Ama-pal is 120 kg. True or false?

7. In chapter 1, the amount Halara asked for as the price for helping Yuma was 5,500,600 shien. True or false?

The order of the questions may differ from the order of the actual quiz, but in any case, only those who answered all of these questions correctly were eligible for the prizes.

The correct answers are written at the very end of this post!

------

Finally, the participants gave their closing remarks. The VAs all said that it was the first time they had seen the fans since the game was released, and that it was nice to know for the first time that these people love RAIN CODE.

Ishikawa said that even from the stage she could see some fans wearing merchandise shirts or carrying Shinigami bags, and felt that RAIN CODE is really loved.

Fukuhara said that he was very happy because this was the first time he had been able to talk with spoilers. (He had been on the RAIN CODE introduction live stream before RAIN CODE was released, so he had had many opportunities to talk about RAIN CODE, but this was the first time he had done so with spoilers).

The following is Kodaka's final comment, which I tried to write as accurately as possible:

"It took six years to make RAIN CODE, and as you can see from the credits, there were a lot of people involved in making RAIN CODE. I was nervous about releasing it because it was the result of so many people's efforts, and I was worried about whether how many people would like it, but I am glad that there are a lot of fans who have gathered here with such enthusiasm. I am sure that RAIN CODE will have new developments and other things to come, so please continue to support us. Thank you very much."

After the closing remarks, Shinigami's announcement began. Shinigami then asked the audience, "Did you have a great time?" and the audience responded with applause 👏👏

------

Correct answers to the RAIN CODE Maniac Quiz! :

1.✅ True. (Dominic's height is 225 cm (7'4").) 2.✅ True. (You can see this pose in the result of the second Shinigami Puzzle in Chapter4.) 3.❌ False. (It was labeled LEQUELR.)

4.❌ False. (Black is correct.) 5.❌ False. (Pink is correct.) 6.❌ False. (100kg is correct.) 7.❌ False. (5,500,800 shien is correct.)

How many questions did you get right? I got the third question wrong and dropped out 😝 (In a post-event interview in the media, Kodaka said he did not know the correct answer from the first question. lol)

This is the end of the daytime program!

#my art #rain code #rain code's fan meeting #yuma kokohead #shinigami #halara nightmare #desuhiko thunderbolt #kazutaka kodaka #syohei sakakibara

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fellthemarvelous · 6 months

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Aziraphale my love

Please enjoy my WHOLE ASS OPINION AND META ANALYSIS.

I support Petty Bitch Aziraphale for season 3!! The angels have been talking down to him from the very beginning and mocking him. Every single person in his life has insulted his intelligence (yes, Crowley has done so several times). I want to see him GO OFF!!! (I posted this part as a tweet but Twitter doesn't give me enough room to write it all in one big place like Tumblr).

Like I am ready to GO THE FUCK OFF myself!

All of Heaven has been emotionally, verbally and physically abusive to Aziraphale since the very beginning. They never listen to him, and the only one he ever really wants to talk to anyway is God, but she is nowhere to be found.

Gabriel came to Aziraphale because he experienced something that Aziraphale is very familiar with. He couldn't remember why he was going to Aziraphale, but hiding away his memory in a fly ended up being just as much for Aziraphale's protection as his own. It ended up being the only way he could actually explain to Aziraphale and Crowley what was really going on.

Aziraphale was there to witness Gabriel's open expression of love for a demon and it lit a fire in his heart. He and Crowley could be together.

Aziraphale wanted Crowley to be by his side in Heaven so he could stand in front of all the angels and tell them how much he loves Crowley so they can see that there is more to life than death for humans.

Aziraphale thought taking Crowley with him meant he could continue to protect Crowley from ever going back to Hell. It's not like he's forgotten how Crowley was acting after being dragged down into Hell for saving the life of a human and persuading her to be not just pretend-y good but actually good. Aziraphale giving her the money was the temptation to always be a good person. They saved her soul together, Crowley with the angelic act, and Aziraphale's act was the temptation. They were so used to doing each other's jobs by this point that they switched roles in that scene.

Despite their last fight, Crowley came back and saved him from the Nazis in the church, and Aziraphale had that moment of realization. "Oh my God, I'm in love with my demon." Crowley wasn't interested in the holy water when he saved Aziraphale, and he saved Aziraphale's books. They also killed three Nazis in the process, which is the most romantic part of it all. The Nazis were a source of evil for Hell, so you know Hell told him to keep an eye on the Nazis. Hell was full of Nazis! We saw Furfur complain about processing 52 men called Otto. It's not normal for that to happen in Hell, and it's really starting to piss Furfur off!!

Aziraphale and Crowley working together in 1941 is the first time we see someone in Hell say WE ARE FULL GO AWAY. Hell turned some of the worst of the worst against humanity by turning them into flesh-eating zombies. "The dead shall rise from their graves and roam the Earth once more." Furfur was the first one to set Hell's prisoners free, and in true demon style, his plan backfired against him, but he'd already set the ball rolling on the Second Coming.

The man who owned the magic shop did not want to sell the Bullet Catch to Aziraphale because he could tell right away that Aziraphale was in desperate need of help as he'd just knocked down half the things on the front counter and he would absolutely die just like that Lovely Chinese Fellow (and that seems like a pretty relevant clue). The shopkeeper only sold it to Aziraphale after Crowley handed him money from Aziraphale's wallet (Aziraphale didn't even try to stop him) and used it to tempt the shopkeeper into going against his instincts.

And in true demon fashion, that immediately backfired because it was only then did he realize Aziraphale was going to need a partner, and he was the only one who could do it. I don't think either of them were thinking about what the trick actually entailed. Aziraphale just saw a gun and was like LET'S DO THIS!

They survived the Bullet Catch in a very human way. They couldn't perform miracles and had very human reactions to the situation, but Aziraphale trusted Crowley with that gun pointed at his head.

And when Aziraphale used a human magic trick to save Crowley from being taken back to Hell by Furfur, he proved that he was willing to go to great lengths to keep Crowley safe even though Crowley was a demon.

This entire time he has been trying to give Crowley a place to call home. He painted the walls of the bookshop yellow because they are the same color as Crowley's eyes, which are also the least human thing about him. He has written about him in his journals and he's openly affectionate with Crowley. He always gives Crowley gentle touches and praises him. He loves Crowley and he's showing him in the most human way he knows how.

And when Crowley is losing Aziraphale, he shows Aziraphale his love in the most human way he can think of.

Heaven and Hell have invaded Whickber Street and put the lives of all the humans at risk. The problem is worse than he thought, and he's going back to try and fix it so that Heaven will actually try to be good for once. Not just pretend-y good, but properly good. Everyone is in danger, and I think when the Metatron mentions the Second Coming, Aziraphale completes the puzzle he's been trying to put together since hearing Jim singing a human song. It makes him understand what Gabriel was running away from, and he's the one who gave Gabriel the freedom to run away with Beelzebub.

And the Metatron is not pleased. Aziraphale introduced free will to demons and angels just as Crowley had introduced free will to humanity.

Aziraphale wants to help spread the idea of love and free will around Heaven so it can be better. He's doing something he believes is right with all his heart. He's been on Earth for more than 6,000 years. He remembers the lessons he learned. He knows shades of grey exist and he wants to use this to make Heaven a better place.

But the other archangels have never respected him, and now he's the Supreme Archangel. He has a chance to make things better, and he has done Crowley's job before. He wants to talk to God. He wants to know what it is she wants. He's tired of hearing everyone else speak for God when no one has spoken to God in thousands of years.

And when he told Crowley his idea, Crowley became angry with him and called him an idiot. What he was saying was not what Crowley was hearing because Crowley was trying to confess his love while Aziraphale was trying to tell Crowley his plan to save everyone.

He only wanted to go back to Heaven when he believed he would be able to take Crowley with him, and he thought reinstating Crowley as an angel was the safest way to keep him from ever having to return to Hell.

None of Aziraphale's actions were malicious. None of his actions were to hurt Crowley. He didn't realize how bad his words sounded because he was saying something completely different than what Crowley was hearing.

All of it was a big misunderstanding. If Aziraphale had not taken the coffee from the Metatron, he would have been choosing death. The Metatron is punishing him for going against Heaven by forcing him to go back. Aziraphale only believed it was a choice when he was told he could bring back Crowley.

Aziraphale had the illusion of choice. He knew the Metatron wasn't taking no for an answer, and when Crowley rejected his offer, he still had to go back anyway. When he looked back at Crowley before stepping on that elevator, he knew he was breaking Crowley's heart by not going back to him, but he had no choice. It broke his heart too.

So now he's stuck in Heaven after having the worst fight with Crowley. He probably feels like no one believes in him. Crowley had called him an idiot and then Crowley kissed him. He's confused because he doesn't understand why Crowley is upset with him, but he's probably tired of everyone underestimating him.

Let Aziraphale be done with this shit. Let him be petty about it. He's not holding back anymore. I want him to push back just as hard and stand up for himself. He has earned the right.

#good omens #good omens meta #aziraphale #crowley #ineffable husbands #this is my OPINION #aziraphale defense squad #i am not going to shut up about him until fandoms starts treating him better

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utilitycaster · 1 month

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@disastergenius replied to your post “perhaps unpopular but while I do agree the EXU...”:

re: this party doesn't talk much; i think that narratively, fcg's death isn't the call for them to talk in the way that molly's was? Molly's death happened early and bc of molly, but it was the wake-up call the party needed while separated and to actually begin to work together. bh's have different problems and fcg's death wasn't a result of party but was fcg's decision. so it also makes sense that it's not bringing the group together or anything, it's just mourning

So I think this is part of it but I also wanted to post this as a full response because I've been thinking a lot about this! In short...having experienced a death within a friend group, people respond in weird ways, and for the most part, with the caveat that this was a friend among my friends from college and she died when we were all adults in various different cities and therefore not necessarily closely in touch all the time, we did not have a big sit-down and go around talking about our feelings. It's much slower. And I've talked a lot with people who have experienced a death within a friend group that was closer. Sometimes the group falls apart dramatically. Sometimes it just drifts apart. Sometimes it's sort of a weird blank space no one knows how to deal with.

I found Ashton's behavior in particular to be really well done on Taliesin's part and deeply affecting. They're exhausted not just mechanically but emotionally, and they don't want to really talk to anyone, but they do very much want some kind of comfort that doesn't require a lot of effort and most importantly, they don't want to be alone. When I had to learn about the (Jewish) religious practices surrounding grief and mourning, one of the things they tell you about sitting shiva (and to be clear this is not unique to shiva, it's just that Judaism has very clear time delineations of the mourning process) is that sometimes you just go there and sit with someone who doesn't want to talk much. His reaction felt incredibly real and natural, is what I'm saying. Grief can be isolating and tiring and difficult to talk about.

It feels right for the others too. Like...we can talk about the rapid pacing but that's been the case for much of the campaign, and no, I didn't like the EXU decision but what's done is done. I think deciding to, as Chetney said in 92, "make it count" seems very natural. I do hope there are conversations in Zadash and/or Aeor but at this point "we're drunk and tired and aren't ready to really feel this", especially since in-world, everything might be over in a week or so, makes a lot of sense. I also think FCG's death has united the party at least in the sense of purpose, and I think some people just dislike that the purpose is "double down on the moon plot." I think at the very least we'll have to visit it when they tell Imahara Joe (and hopefully Dancer, too.)

Ultimately, again, while I do love the episodes after Molly's death, episode 27 only has three party members in it, and episode 30 is arguably more about Fjord and Jester and Yasha being rescued (and on a meta level, welcoming Travis and Laura back to the table after parental leave) and incorporating Caduceus into the group as it is about Molly being dead. A lot of the conversations are about that, and 31 is very much about fucking around in Zadash and doing weird shit! Jester and Veth make Molly illusions not long after while on Darktow! The effects of Molly's death ripple through, quite honestly, the entire rest of the campaign and the grief is very nonlinear. Again, I adore episode 2x30, but I think one should be careful not to overly romanticize it; the party is still very much working through those initial feelings throughout the entire pirates arc, which takes place over the span of a couple of months. Bells Hells might not have months, and it might not get explored to the same extent, but I do think we'll see the effects nonetheless.

#disastergenius #cr spoilers

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aleksanderscult · 4 months

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My unpopular opinion for today? The Darkling was terrible at manipulating people

And that mostly comes from the author's incompetence on the matter.

Back in 2016-2017 on Tumblr she was asked which SoC character finds difficult to write and she replied "Kaz. Because he's clever and cunning".

So for her, writing manipulative characters is difficult and actually explains the reason why the Darkling's "efforts" seemed comedic in S&B.

I still remember how posts from 2020-2021 expressed bafflement about where did the Darkling actually manipulated Alina in S&B.

His first, full conversation with her? He lied to her three times and tried to figure her out. What her views are, what does she know about him, has her judgement been clouded by other people's opinions of him, how she feels about her supposed destiny. Apparently she failed in each one of them and the Darkling decided to withhold information since he didn't find her trustworthy. It was too early and she was too immature.

I've written about this scene here but I MUST put this reblog here as well because it's ✨gold✨

So for anyone who believes he should tell her the truth from the very beginning uhh....have you ever been to a job with a hierarchy?

(You can also read a very good meta about their first conversation here from @theweeklydiscourse)

His additional conversations with her? They lasted only ten minutes (maximum) and he mostly tried to soothe her fears and assure her that since she'll have the Stag she won't have to worry about the strength of her power. So, me, the reader, am I supposed to think "That walk that he took with her and lasted for five minutes was so suspicious"?. Ahh...ok.

That first kiss? Boy wasn't it awkward.

It was like I watched two high school kids being kissed for the first time💀

I'm sorry but if that was manipulating then he didn't succeed at making the reader say "Now that seems shady" but wonder "What the fuck was that?". The same thing Alina wondered apparently.

If he wanted to manipulate Alina, why didn't he stay longer with her? Why didn't he spend more time with her? The guy was missing for days from the Little Palace doing his duties and even Alina said that she didn't see him much. So where was the manipulation?

To the first, awkward kiss where he lost control for the first time?

To their Winter fete make out where he almost lost his pants?

(Homeboy couldn't even control his own feelings apparently)

Leigh describes him as "manipulative" but we have no context.

So basically it's like "Source? Trust me bro".

We only have a couple of characters accuse him of manipulation but no scenes to base the argument.

His attempts, in comparison to other truly manipulating characters in fiction (like Varys, Tom Riddle, Petyr Baelish, Tyrion Lannister, the Joker), seem honestly pathetic.

When the author doesn't know how to write such things then her "manipulative" characters and their attempts seem cartoonish, cringe and childish. There's no real danger to make the reader feel like there's something wrong. His scenes with her in the Little Palace only included attempts from his part to calm down her worries and their kisses only made the reader say "Oh he fell for her!" (Which is kind of funny because this is exactly what happened).

The only instance where he was manipulative and good at it was at the orphanage scene where he lied about the Grisha children and his plans with them in order to draw Alina out.

Besides that? Nada.

And it's actually strange to me when people call him "so manipulating" and it makes me think "Have you truly not read other manipulative characters from other authors to compare?"

Because, personally, I have and the Darkling seems like an idiot in comparison.

And this is not me trying to water down the Darkling but say how Leigh Bardugo is so incompetent in writing manipulative characters and try to present him as a "master" of it.

Because he was not.

(P.S. the fact that Leigh once said "I don't want my bad guys to carry a label saying "I'm evil" because I think the real bad guys are much more tactful in their attempts" is actually laughable considering how she gave her bad guy a label when she called him "the Darkling", gave him black clothes and a fearful reputation from the very first chapter. That man really didn't stand a chance from the beginning lmao)

#the darkling #if you're an author and don't know how to write manipulative characters then don't create them in the first place #otherwise the result will seem ridiculous and that character will look like a clown #pro darkling #aleksander morozova #pro aleksander morozova #leigh bardugo #alina starkov #shadow and bone #grishaverse #grishaverse trilogy

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waitmyturtles · 5 months

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I was supposed to finally have a quiet moment this week, my first of 2024, to catch up on all the dramas I’m behind on, but alas — real life has gotten in the way, and it’ll still be a little bit before I have time to write big meta again. I’m way behind on thoughts for last week’s episodes of Playboyy, Last Twilight, and Cherry Magic Thailand, but I do very much want to write about them, so some quick notes on these three as follows:

1) I owe @poetry-protest-pornography and @chaos0pikachu my thoughts on camp and Playboyy. I intended to pen this post last week after last week’s episode, but said life (ha) has gotten in the way. Friends, please note that I still SO want to write this, because I think deconstructing why camp as a style works in art will be a wonderful conversation, regardless of the narrative success (or not) of Playboyy.

So, speaking of the narrative success of Playboyy — and the upcoming debate (maybe?) about a balance of style and storytelling in dramas, I watched last week’s episode of Playboyy with this post about The Sign in mind, because I think this post gets at a thing that I want to write more about re: Playboyy, which is, like — what makes a story/narrative contextually coherent, and what responsibilities do the artists behind a show have to viewers to make a story coherent?

I think one thing we were coming to in the conversation on camp at the end of last year was whether or not Playboyy could be considered a good, a successful, or maybe even a complete story by way of its various elements. At least for now, leaving camp aside, I still don’t think this show is working narratively at all. That Captain/Keen storyline had my head spinning — uh, your coach gave you one difficult practice, and you revenge on him by filming a sex tape without consent? How…..did we get there? Porsche now has feelings for Jump? I’m still not grabbing the whole Aob/Puen feelings debacle? The Nant/Nuth storyline has gotten momentum, but not enough to fill the majority of an episode, which is a shame, because it’s the only storyline element giving this show any context at the moment. And as @lurkingshan noted, the only real compelling moment in this episode was between Teena and Zouey about how they’d transcend reality to love better versions of each other. It was lovely to watch! But I’m still not sure why we’re watching all of these storylines and if, ever, they’ll come together in a coherent arc.

So, yeah man. I was so intrigued by the premise of this show. It ain’t workin’. I’ll have more to think on this regarding style. But the stories aren’t coming together — and I TRULY think that’s a shame, considering the important themes of the show.

2) From the little ability I had to poke around Tumblr last week after the last Last Twilight episode, I think (I think!) a general feeling was that the episode wasn’t as depth-y as it could have been for the MANY heavy moments of parental interventions that took place. I believe that’s right. I think there were too many gaps in the contextual flow of the show that left Day’s mom looking more like an enemy (like, even on Pran’s mom’s level) that could have been addressed with a touch more context coming from her.

Let me explain. When I see single moms in Aof Noppharnach shows, I first go to He’s Coming To Me. HCTM has the best BL mom ever — a single mom absolutely ready to embrace her son as he’s coming out.

We know Aof loves depicting moms; he wrote as much about it last year after Moonlight Chicken aired. He’s got some legendary moms — of course, Pran’s mom; Tian’s controlling mom (who I posit is actually a front for patriarchy in A Tale of Thousand Stars); Pat’s passive mom, who is actually way more down with reality than Pat’s dad; Kao’s mom that Kao is so fearful of by way of disappointment. (Special shout-out to Pete’s dad in Dark Blue Kiss as the best BL dad.)

In other words, we know Aof has the goods when it comes to commentary on parenting. We know from episode 9 that Day’s mom (Mhon) went through tremendous hardship to raise her boys, including begging for food. She’s a famous and successful chef by the time we meet her, a workaholic. She’s a single mom, a working single mom, and Porjai is about to be on the same cusp. Night happens to be the bridge to those two.

Mhon’s willingness to keep Day in his room….her ignoring Night to start the Christmas dinner. The taking away of Day’s phone, oof. Saying that Mhok crossed a line — all while she was aware that Day previously had a crush on August. These small points create quite the enemy storyline on Mhon.

This is unfortunate, because I actually felt, watching the episode, that there was a lot about Asian parenting that was being left on the table. Valuing work and the safety of one’s kids OVER their happiness is quite the social phenomenon in Asian parenting. A good bit of Day’s mom’s actions could actually be seen as appropriate by certain-minded parents in Asia.

Yet, to have Day’s mom then ignore Night during the dinner, to have Day’s mom take Day’s phone away without explaining why he can’t be in a relationship — even for an Asian viewer like myself, well used to a particular amount of conditional brutality in Asian parenting — those storytelling decisions seemed a little harsh without more context as to how Day’s mom was driven to be the way she is now.

We had plenty of context into Dissaya in episode 10 of Bad Buddy. That moment opened doors for us to get what the hell was going on. I would love to have a similar contextual moment for Mhon, words by her about her story, that tell us how she got to where she is by way of raising her boys and becoming successful. Despite her behavior to her sons — we know she worked damn hard to provide for them. A badass lies within, and I know a successful Aof show would show us that. I hope we get it.

3) Cherry Magic Thailand, episode 5! I LOVE what’s happening with Rock/Min against the Rokkaku/Minato storyline — I love this expansion, and how Rock is less clueless and much more emotionally vulnerable than Rokkaku. I love feisty Pai. I LOVE Junior’s Jinta! I have to continue covering my mouth as I cackle.

As compared to Adachi at this point in the storyline — I wonder if CMT is offering Achi a bit more of the clueless hand than he deserves. I love the embellishments to the jealousy storyline between Karan and Kurosawa — Achi and Rock pushing off in the boat alone was particularly poignant — but Achi is well aware of Karan’s heart now, and I’m a little surprised that he seems a dash clueless that his interactions with others would make Karan jealous.

This is a minor quibble, though. Achi and Adachi are two dudes unfamiliar with love. But I wonder slightly if this vibe I’m feeling is perhaps a result of the original Cherry Magic Japan story being literally doubled in time in Thailand.

Again — MINOR quibble. This show is a refreshing delight. And I LOVE LOVE LOVE the next part of the storyline. I love that they found a similar place in Thailand to shoot Karan’s drunk flashback scene as Kurosawa’s in Japan. Will Achi offer us Thailand’s version of a classic JBL run? I sure damn hope so!

That’s it! I think I’ll be able to catch up on all of this week’s shows in real time, bless up!

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yakdee · 1 year

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Drunken Kisses & Mixed Feelings cont'd

In my last post, I talked about how Kawi's penchant for kissing Pisaeng while drunk might lead to the argument that prompts Pisaeng to say this line:

To my point, @captain-xandis dropped an absolute gem of an analysis in the tags about this scene:

#i totally think this is why kawi stops pisaeng from kissing him in the past #their argument in the future might go along the lines of 'every time we've kissed you were drunk' or something like that #and kawi not wanting to make the same mistake again will only kiss p when they are both sober

This sent me spiraling so I'm hopping back on the meta train once more. Wanna come with? Stand clear of the closing doors. The next stop is...

Why did Pisaeng go AWOL?

Max tell us that Kawi knows/is the reason why Pisaeng goes off-grid, but we never get an exact answer. So here's my two-point theory.

Emotional Exhaustion

In the scene before the second drunk kiss, Pisaeng remarks that Kawi hasn't been free to hangout in last three years? Well, that got me thinking. During the last three years, has Kawi only gone to find Pisaeng when he's drunk and in need of comfort (and kisses)?

Being someone's "comfort zone" can be emotionally exhausting, especially when there is no reciprocity and the comfort-seeker is your longtime crush who is currently in a relationship with your childhood friend. Needless to say, the internal conflict and resulting emotional toll is strong in this one, which brings me to the second point.

Guilt

We know from the 8-year flashback scene (anniversary of Pisaeng's confession) and Pisaeng recalling the day Pear broke up with Kawi that he goes to their apartment often (he even has a key card) which is why this look between him and Pear gave me pause.

Pisaeng's facial expression goes from slight shock to what looks like guilt when he realizes that Pear is leaving. On the other hand, Pear's body language (the way she releases and tightens her grip on the suitcase handle) tells us that she's angry but not surprised by Pisaeng showing up at this exact moment (the fact that she's standing between the two of them in this scene also says a lot).

Then we see her facial expression. She is visibly angry but there's something else. She definitely knows about Pisaeng's feeling for Kawi and their more-than-friendship situationship (her knowing about Kwan and Not alludes to the fact that she's always aware of what goes on behind her back).

And if that wasn't enough, when Pear leaves the apartment Pisaeng ends up being flanked by Kawi on all sides but is closer to a larger-than-life picture of Kawi while the real Kawi still remains (romantically) out of reach like he's been for the past twelve years.

It's no wonder our boy needed to get away. It no wonder he was feeling conflicted during that second kiss. It's no wonder that he will finally reach his limit and cut Kawi off?

And as @sparklyeyedhimbo points out in their post, it's no wonder Kawi is so distraught when returns to the past and is determined to "set everything right" because he simply cannot bear the thought of losing Pisaeng again.

Is it next Friday yet?!!

#be my favorite #pisaeng x kawi #be my favorite the series #kawi x pisaeng #pisaengkawi #kawipisaeng #raemakes #s:bmf #t:meta #bl drama #thai drama #thai bl

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lurksunderthebed · 7 months

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Ghoap Analysis/Meta (2.3)

The Evolution of GhostSoap Redux

Discussion of Ghost and Soap's relationship after "Alone" and a dive into character motivations/backstory.

Answering the 'did they' or 'did they not' question between "Alone" and "Prison Break".

Part (2.3/?)

PLEASE READ PART (2.2) FOR FULL CONTEXT

Minor mentions of mwiii (23). Practically spoiler free to that game.

Warning: very long and meandering discussion. I probably should have shortened this. But even now I still think I missed things from "Alone" 😔

Alone Discussion

I think it would be fair to say that there was much that happened in "Alone" to think about. It's undeniable that Ghost and Soap's relationship had a turning point then. The intimate backdrop of two people fighting on their own for survival with only a potentially friendly voice in your ear for help is an evocative image.

One filled with flirting and banter traded in whispers, sneaking around scared enemies who will kill you if you're too loud, getting saved by someone you largely thought disliked you, that mad dash together to get out. It's all one very compelling picture to assume something happened. Something potentially romantic in nature.

Many in fandom have speculated on the nature of Ghost and Soap's relationship post mission: "Alone" and it's hard not to, really. Let it be said that the game writers knew what they were doing then and were a bit insane for doing so in a game largely meant for the male audience.

So the glaring question remains: Did Ghost and Soap get together between "Alone" and "Prison Break" in that nebulous in-between before the pair got to Ale's safe house or the time between the safe house and the prison break?

The answer to that—using the dialogue, current motivations, and timeline sadly suggests it's most likely they did not.

Since I already spent the last post discussing what Ghost may have been thinking and his motivations in "Alone", lets look at Soap's. To do so we'll have to dive into Soap's backstory.

John "Soap" Mactavish

What we do know of his background is actually a fair bit. Definitely more than we know of Ghost that's for sure.

It goes without saying that he's proudly Scottish. From the slang to the end in '23. Soap is a born and raised Scot.

According to wiki, and the current bio from the game, Soap tried joining the military at 16. His cousin who was/is SAS inspired him. He got denied many times till he finally joined at 18 and got chosen for SAS selection in 2014.

During this time in 2014, Captain Price was his evaluator to which he handily impressed all by scoring highly in tests. Soap was the youngest to pass and got labeled "the perpetual FNG", presumably because of his precocious age.

His first mission was with Price in Russia, where the captain saved his life. Later he further distinguished himself in Urzikstan with an act of courage, earning him prestigious medals as a result. Medals such as the Victoria Cross, the Gallantry medal and the Conspicuous Gallantry medal. All three of those medals irl, are awarded specifically in acts of outstanding bravery and valour.

In 2016 at the age of 20, Soap punched a military police officer and locked him out of his car. He did not face disciplinary action for this.

In 2019, at the age of 23 we have "Flashpoint", a potential first meeting of Soap and Ghost and we see him almost disregard orders by threatening to kill Makarov.

And finally in 2022, at the age of 26 we have the events of mwii.

What does this background bio tell us of Soap?

Well we can say he's a courageous hot headed type. One that acts on impulse, to the detriment of his own career. He's stupidly, fearlessly brave. He's been awarded for that bravery and he's ridiculously young for his rank and service. He's as fiery as his explosives. He's a thundercracker and loves to talk back to authority.

Doesn't this sound familiar?

The interesting point is that we can say that this characterization holds true whether we look at the 2019 version of Soap, the 2022 version and finally the 2023 version. Soap doesn't really change. He might be a bit more jaded, but that core nature stays strong. The military shaped his life from when he was a teenager to now as an adult, but who he is as a person never changes.

That means that his motivations and personality most likely wouldn't be any different from where we see him in mwiii(23) to now during "Alone" to between "Flashpoint" in '19 - "Kill or Capture" in '22.

It also makes determining what he may have thought throughout "Alone" easier to discern as a result.

Let's imagine we are Soap and try to reason out what might have gone through his head during the mission and more importantly why.

I've already stated earlier, that Soap and Ghost probably had a prior relationship. Soap most likely prodded Ghost into responses and Ghost largely ignored it.

Soap is used to Ghost ignoring him. He expects it but is visibly disheartened (pouts) when he's cut off. At this point, he also must be used to how standoffish Ghost is.

We see it in "Kill or Capture" where its contrasted in how friendly Soap is to the marines with Ghost looking appropriately forbidding and authoritative to them, barking out orders.

In "Cartel Protection" when the LT doesn't appreciate Rudy's jokes.

In "El Sin Nombre" when Ghost noticeably doesn't join into discussions with Alejandro, Graves and Soap about infiltrating the mansion.

"Dark Waters" where he stands apart while Soap and Graves congratulate each other for averting the missile launch.

Ghost is all professionalism and silence. We see nothing of his snark, his dark humour, his dry dead pans. We do see his eyerolls and "done with life" attitude, but otherwise he's very cold.

So the events of "Alone" must be a shocker to Soap. Soap who is used to getting back nothing from Ghost suddenly now has Ghost's full attention. Honestly it felt like Ghost spent more time talking to Soap than really being worried for himself. In fact half of that mission we have Ghost already in the church tower camping away while Soap is running around ragged.

Naturally, the first thing this hot headed guy does is snark back to Ghost. The amazing thing, is that Ghost doesn't ignore Soap this time, he actually engages and matches Soap's banter.

And guess what? Soap is excited. He's intrigued and he starts off by going for Ghost's first name. To which he's suitably chased off via horribly unfunny joke.

Soap in some sense must know he went too far because he pulls back. He asks things about Ghost, he pokes but never too hard. Soap needs Ghost's help. He can't have the man get too annoyed at him. And considering their current track record, that's an actual concern.

There's a reason why Soap never addresses the nickname that Ghost made up and it has everything to do with the fact that once he does, Ghost might just stop talking to him. Soap needs Ghost to like him. His survival depends on it.

The LT has a reputation for ruthless coldness, he's a deadly killer. He's infamous in their circles and even comes with an appellation and fearsome visage. He's a mystery. His motivations are a mystery.

So Soap tries his hardest to find out if Ghost does actually like him. If not for his own curiousity and because he wants Ghost to like him, then at least for his own sake. If Ghost likes him, then that means Ghost will wait for him.

Ghost himself gives off mixed signals about what he thinks about Soap. Soap thinks Ghost might like him, but its hard to tell. Especially when Soap is distracted by enemies and all we have of Ghost are his countless implications to Soap that he is indeed the emotionless killer that everyone makes him out to be. Ghost even states outright that he barely tolerates Soap and is only doing so because he "wants one of them to survive". Seriously, what a massive liar.

Naturally, Soap takes it as it is, but probably with doubts. Soap isn't an idiot, Ghost helps him with tips, he's constantly asking for status updates. The man must sort of like him at least. But Soap also called out Ghost about them being friends and only got silence back that time. With the ensuing silence (which Soap definitely doesn't want) and every effort on that vein being redirected, it's best to leave it at that and focus on surviving. Or at least he tries.

Because Soap can't help himself, he tests the new boundaries of their relationship in other ways.

Ghost seemed to like Soap's banter. If implying that they are friends meets Soap with disdain it's best not to go further into any emotional intimacy talks. So he goes for the tried and true classic next to snark: Flirting. I don't know what it is, in the military or just in general with male dominated areas. Homoerotic undertones and gay chicken jokes seem to be king.

But this time, Ghost responds back to it, he even encourages it. And we see the flirty exchanges between them.

Does this mean that Soap actually has a crush on Ghost and that he was just using the first chance he got to go for it?

Perhaps. Soap definitely admires him (as we see in "Prison Break"). It's a very real possibility. Maybe Soap genuinely wants Ghost to like him. It's clear from all Soap's efforts to be friendly to Ghost that Soap was just waiting for the day that the LT would warm up to him. Soap strikes me as very persistent. He could be flirting with the singular goal of getting into a relationship with Ghost.

Alternatively, perhaps Soap was just joking around and the flirting was another method of coping in high stress situations.

Perhaps it's a mix of his own curiousity, disregard to authority and his own comfort in snarky jokes. We've already established that Soap in '23 is virtually indistinguishable from Soap in '19 and '22. Soap likes to banter during missions. It stands to reason that perhaps this is his way of coping in high stress situations.

What we can say, is that regardless of their personal feelings toward each other prior to this mission, if they didn't like each other before, they certainly do now.

You can tell both of them are getting a kick out of the snark, and flirting. They actively engage each other on it. They're getting to know each other personally, and finding that they can match each other on their snark level. No other person in game banters with them the way they do with each other.

It's at least a potential for more.

But the question remains. Did something physical happen between the two during the car ride to Alejandro's safe house?

It's possible. Highly unlikely though, if we consider the motivation side of things. Why?

The point remains that Soap despite flirting, is still uncertain about Ghost's motivations after the event of "Alone". We somewhat see it in how surprised he was in "Prison Break" over Ghost's declaration of teamhood status, and in how Soap pesters Ghost about their relationship. Even the flirting in dialogue at this point is within the realms of plausible deniability; it could be passed off as joking. Soap tests Ghost, but never so far as to truly push him into transforming their relationship above the comfortable limits.

I don't see Soap moving overtly into something physical unless Ghost initiates first.

Now the question is: Would Ghost initiate anything?

So now we have to reconsider Ghost's motivations. That means, you guessed it, looking at his background as well.

Simon "Ghost" Riley

We don't know much about his backstory. The official bio says he was born in Manchester, UK. He presumably went under officer training as part of the SAS.

At some point Ghost met Price before Ghost's insistence on hiding his identity/face, due to his later comments in "Ghost Team". Ghost trusts Price and more or less implies it in "Alone". Price is the only other character allowed to reference Ghost as "Simon" by the LT himself.

Interestingly enough it was stated in a comment on Reddit by an account verified game Dev that Ghost and another character "Mace" introduced in cod warzone 2020 (who also wears a skull mask), were in the same unit, "but things had changed".

Mace's bio puts him as an ex US army ranger. We can extrapolate due to Cod: Ghosts that this is a nod to the ghost squad, an elite unit of soldiers who all wore the 09 ghost balaclava set in a different universe to the original cod modern warfare games. Presumably, Ghost, Mace and others all wore the infamous skull mask in an international unit. Mace being American and Ghost being British supports the international factor.

It's noted that Mace left that same ghost unit, to later on work as a mercenary. In "Prison Break", we learn that Ghost disdains mercenaries, as "bloody wannabes". Connected? Maybe.

We know that at some point in Ghost's life he was betrayed by someone very close to him. Trust is hard for him as a result.

Perhaps something happened in that ghost squad that led to Ghost being betrayed (maybe by Mace, maybe not).

Regardless, from whenever that betrayal happened, we know that Ghost stands apart from any other soldier and we see that in "Flashpoint" up to "El Sin Nombre". Then it all changes in "Alone".

Ghost's characterisation isn't static like Soap's. It's even in his bio. Ghost was more open at one point (he didn't start life wearing a mask and he wasn't always called "Ghost"), he gets betrayed and then becomes the brusque man we see in "Flashpoint" and "Kill or Capture".

Ghost changes and by tracking those changes we can more reliably see how the LT's interpersonal relationships transform as a result.

So let's recap "Alone":

Ghost likes Soap. He admires him and wants to trust him. The LT doesn't want him to die but he thinks Soap probably will. This makes trusting and caring for Soap a detriment.

Despite himself, Ghost waits for the sergeant and distracts him with jokes to have the man focused/not panicked. Ghost denies to Soap that he actually does like him/cares. He implies he is too cold for emotions, that he doesn't care. Ghost lies, he misdirects, he deflects. Anything regarding emotional closeness is shut down.

Snark is safe though. They banter and Ghost realises that he actually does enjoy talking to Soap. Ghost has the driest sense of humour. He loves to snark.

Ghost engages with some plausible deniability flirting too. One that is borderline risqué behaviour, but pulls back against any truly overt stuff.

On that note, we can read why Ghost flirts similarly to why Soap was as well. It could be a combination of snark, competition, romantic interest or just another way of coping in high stress situations. Ghost likes to deflect by making jokes. Taking it a step further seems to be a thing he would do so that both of them can stay focused.

Ghost saves Soap's life by sniping an enemy out of the church tower. Soap proves that he is the trustworthy/admirable man the LT saw in "El Sin Nombre", by surviving and saving Ghost's life in return in the getaway truck.

Ghost who has been a solo type of guy for so long after being betrayed, finds himself thinking that maybe, just maybe he has a potential partner. One that can keep up with him.

Soap and Ghost are a team.

Ghost who has known Soap for 3 years already, most of those 3 years spent ignoring him, has his whole MO changed after their getaway from Las Almas. Up to this point, Ghost avoided being close to people whether physically or emotionally.

Soap proves Ghost wrong about not being able to survive, his likeability, his whole everything.

Ghost now has to re-evaluate his own rules about teamwork, friendship and intimacy. If he was wrong about Soap (for 3 years!), then maybe he was also wrong about other people. Maybe he could be a part of a team again.

Maybe he can even trust others too. New people who he hasn't known since forever.

There's a lot going on there. But mainly, it has to be said that this is most likely the first time in a long time Ghost has connected to another person emotionally.

We can tell by the persistent nickname usage from Ghost how much the man cares. I've mostly avoided talking about it now, since one can argue that "Alone" is a high stress moment for Ghost, therefore of course he would use it during the mission. Him using 'Johnny' now, isn't as important as it is in other missions where he uses it when it isn't a particularly stressful situation.

Or is it?

During this mission, we see Ghost use 'Johnny' when he can't see/hear Soap in danger. The terms of his nickname usage changes. From only extremely high stress situations where Ghost isn't sure Soap is alive at the beginning, to now a more casual fond usage, as one would do to somebody they liked.

Their relationship is deepening and turning into something friendly—flirty even. We get lovely exchanges where all Soap and Ghost do is repeat their names back to each other. Something said by one of them, will always garner a response back. It's actually pretty cute and holds true to the end of cod mwii and straight into cod mwiii.

It's ridiculous how much the game emphasises this point. It really wants us to see how much names matter in the context of Soap and Ghost's relationship.

Does the difference in nickname usage indicate anything substantial between "Alone" and "Prison Break"?

Inconclusive, though I'm erring on the side of no. All it shows is Ghost becoming more familiar with Soap as something resembling a friend. Could it be more in time ? Yes. At this point, as I said earlier with Soap, it's a tentative potential.

Their flirting and banter, isn't a one off from "Alone". The game could've played it like it was and we could've seen no flirting at all in later missions. "Alone" could be an outlier; it was an extremely high stress moment. Lots of things that you normally wouldn't do could happen.

But this isn't the first and last time this happens. We see it directly in "Prison Break" and every new mission after, all the way into mwiii(23). They continue to flirt, banter and snark at each other. The potential is right there and thriving.

So back to the point. Does this mean Ghost's initiates something more physical after the relief of making it out alive?

Probably not. I'm sorry guys.

It's not impossible, but I really doubt a guy this allergic to emotional connection would want to jump headfirst into a physical relationship with the (1) guy he finds himself liking for the first time in ages. That's just asking for all sorts of complications.

Granted, perhaps his views on sex are completely opposite to emotional compatibility. Ghost could very much be a one night stand type, preferably with the mask on to keep his anonymity. Remember, this guy went out of his way to erase his identity. We even hear it in dialogue at the end of cod mw(19) from Price to Laswell during the formation of 141. There isn't a photo on the dossier and even the official group chat they have for 141 labels the man as simply 'Ghost'.

But even the 'whole Ghost as a serial one night stand guy theory' has a problem, as we see Ghost visibly shy away from getting close to people. Physically and emotionally. Touch is barely tolerated and we see in "Kill or Capture" that Ghost didn't like the fistbump Soap gives him. Touch from strangers might also go the same way. In that vein, it's hard to imagine Ghost even going out for one night stands if he just barely tolerates a casual fistbump. (With much side eye)

I suppose it could be very different if/when Ghost initiates contact himself. We don't know the exact details of how that all could happen. It does however, seem unlikely with everything we know so far with Ghost and his character.

And not to mention, there's also the added complication of fraternisation rules. Ghost is Soap's direct CO. It would get them both in trouble, at possible risk to their jobs, if a relationship was ever publicly discovered. Soap wouldn't care, we already know he flouts rules. And I'd argue that Ghost probably doesn't care deeply about rules either. No one in 141 does for that matter.

I could however see Ghost using this whole thing as a big justification to himself in not pursuing anything further. Ghost cares about Soap's wellbeing. He wants Soap to be better than him. Ghost dragging Soap down into a relationship that could get them booted out of the military seems counter intuitive to that care.

Or perhaps the adrenaline of the moment would make it all different? Adrenaline does funny things to a person. I could see Soap up for it. Ghost on the other hand ? Really, really hard to say. There's nothing saying it couldn't have happened. But there's also nothing to say it did either.

So what else are we left with to look at?

Timeline.

By virtue of timeline and Soap's previous injury, I'm going to say anything happening would've been extremely unlikely. (Though still possible).

"Alone" happens directly after the events of "Dark Waters". "Dark Waters" is set on Nov 2nd 1700 hrs. We see the group presumably coming back from the mission operation at an oil rig. One can only assume that it took a while in terms of transiting from boat all the way back to the base.

Then Graves betrays them and Soap and Ghost flee to Las Almas. By the time of the mission start of "Alone", the game places it as Nov 3rd 0000 hrs or 12 am.

Soap is injured and visibly in pain at the start of the mission. Somehow he manages to find Ghost and evade all the shadows, probably by running on pure adrenaline. Soap and Ghost find a truck and leave the city.

The next time we see them it's at Ale's base and there's some light in the background indicating time has passed between "Alone" at midnight to getting to the hideout.

There's no trace of injury on Soap. Perhaps Ghost patched Soap up. Ghost could have gotten supplies while he was running through Las Almas. It's possible something happened then when Ghost had to stop somewhere to deal with Soap's bullet wound. Some sort of adrenaline-fueled rush of passion that would make Ghost ignore all his better thoughts on staying away from the handsome snarky sergeant.

But the chances of them doing anything frisky in a time slot so narrow seems highly unlikely. It's probably not feasible all things considered. When we start "Prison Break" it's STILL Nov 3rd but at 0400 hrs. So the time elapsed between was a measly 4 hours.

Remember that Ghost and Soap are on the run from Shadow Company. Outside of the bare minimum of first aid, I can't see either of them spending the scant amount of time they have getting down and dirty.

Even then, if there was a free hour or so, that time would be best spent getting properly kitted up and checking over injuries. Let's also not forget that this is off the tailwind of "Dark Waters". Soap and Ghost had not had any rest in between whatever they might've gotten on transit back to base.

Not to mention when we see the timestamp for "Prison Break", Rudy, Ghost and Soap are already at the prison at 0400 hrs. There has to be transit time between the prison and the hideout. Ghost drove out of Las Almas to the hideout and then someone drove from the hideout to the prison. It probably would've taken a fair bit of time.

Hell, it doesn't even sound like they have enough time to spare patching up Soap, depending on how far out a drive this all was.

Rudy and group also spent time planning their prison break. We see helpful pictures drawn on maps. Gathering the kit and planning would eat into that 4hr time slot as well.

So yes. Tldr; there probably wasn't any time to do much of anything realistically.

Motivation wise and timeline wise, both of them heavily suggest that nothing happened in this time frame.

A shame. But we can however say that what happened between Ghost and Soap during the events of "Alone" remains a pivotal moment for them.

One that impacts Ghost's choices throughout the rest of the missions and conversely transforms his relationship with Soap (and the rest of 141 as a result). It establishes who they are to one another and how they interact with each other into arguably the rest of their known relationship from mwii (22) and further to the end of '23.

The one thing to take away from all this is this: when it comes to tracking the changes of Ghost and Soap's relationship, it'll always be Ghost determining where it'll go.

Soap doesn't push Ghost out of his comfort zone. Soap doesn't change. It's Ghost who decides how close Soap gets to him. It'll always be Ghost that sets the tone.

Alright that's all I have to say for now on this matter. This discussion really took all my energy. The next parts will again take some time as I recoup from this essay. Lol.

Onto part (2.4) hopefully the rest of mwii, whenever I get there.

Comments, questions, arguments. I'm free to answer any of that. There's so much to look at here and consider. A lot of this was guess work building up to this moment. So naturally I'm sure I've missed things.

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