#these are thoughts I’m having just 2 hours after the episode so. consider that when casting judgement

[cringefailcabitha]

Random thoughts about iii 15:

Between TK encouraging her on indefinite island and Lifering encouraging her in this most recent episode, I’m convinced The Sinkers would have treated a Cabby way better than The Pinkers did,💔

Test Tube is still my second favourite and always will be. I also think she can hold quite the grudge and gets really stubborn when she thinks someone is in the wrong, whether or not they actually are and this episode kind of reinforces that thought for me. It’s actually something I love about her character as frustrating as it can be sometimes, and I’m glad it hasn’t changed in the new season. I think it’s her best and worst quality,

Unsure how to feel about Blueberry rejoining. I was hoping for Tea Kettle to rejoin (would have accepted Life ring too even though I think he’s annoying) but Blueberry’s whole steeze retroactively being part of a master plan to win the competition with as little effort as possible feels weird. Maybe the feeling will wear off for me in episode 16. I think part of it is who I wanted instead of him, and the fact that we haven’t heard much from him in a while,

Weird how quickly YinYang made up I feel like but on the other hand it would be kind of wild if it had to be a whole big thing for them to make up when the little tiff they were having wasn’t even that serious so I guess it’s fine,

Cabby, YinYang and The Floor are still the main 4 bright lights of my heart though. (As in, I like the closeness they’ve kind of been developing since episode 11 and would have them inseparable if it was up to me 😅) Also I like the little smile here when she looks down (either into the middle distance or at the milk),

As if she’s touched that YinYang would do something like giving the milk to her because they don’t want to see her go. It kind of felt like not just fear of no more alliance, but also like they would miss her,

[dyaz-stories]

a house, not a home || Cha Hyun-Su x Reader

word count: 1.4k

warnings & tags: canon typical violence, hurt/comfort, hyun-su needs a hug, unresolved tension, mentions of blood

a/n: okay so, for context, this takes place during season 2. reader and hyun-su know each other from high school and reader runs into hyun-su after the events of the first three episodes. reader also doesn't know that he is a monster/neohuman though if people are interested i could definitely write that 👀 I hope you'll like it! Please let me know your thoughts and if you'd like me to write more, and consider reblogging!

next part

The hardest thing to get used to, after what others called the Monsterization Outbreak but you labelled, more simply, the Apocalypse, was the silence. You were the type of person to always have music playing, back when you were a high schooler studying hard to get into your college of choice. Now, music was wasted electricity and, worse, could be a death sentence if anyone — anything — heard it play, or if it dulled your senses and got you killed.

At the beginning, there had been lots of sounds. Screams. Cars colliding. Stores’ alarms, blaring when the looters broke in. Sobs. In your house, for a while, there had been your father, humming quietly as he worked.

Then he’d gotten a nosebleed, left the house, and never returned.

Now it was just you, and you’d learned not to make a sound. So when there’s a knock on your door, it echoes through the rooms and rattles you to your core. For a second, you clench your trusty baseball bat. You took hours and cut your fingers planting nails into it, but it’s worth it, if only for the feeling of confidence it gives you. Truth is, you rarely had to use it. Your strategy relies on avoiding confrontation at all costs.

You release it when you realize that there are very few people who can come knocking at your door.

After all, monsters don’t knock.

You rush to the door without letting go of the bat. Your habits are ingrained in you well enough that you still check the peephole — and when you do, your heart somersaults in your chest.

You keep the hinges well-oiled and the door doesn’t make a sound when you open it.

“Come in,” you whisper, not daring to break the silence with actual words.

Cha Hyun-Su stares at you, looks like he hesitates. He always does, looks like he wants to give you a chance to slam the door back in his face. He’s covered in blood now — ‘not mine’, you know he’d say if you asked —, clutching his wrist, lips chapped, eyes hollow.

“Come on,” you say again, and this time he does, walking by you without a word. Then he goes still once more, there in your entrance, while you close the door behind him. He always does that, until you give him explicit permission.

“Are you okay?” you ask when you turn around, hands reaching for his arms, his torso, trying to check on him, though you cannot see whether or not he is hurt.

“I’m fine,” he replies with that deep voice of his, catching your wrists before you can feel for yourself. “It’s not my blood.”

It never is.

“But are you hurt?” you press, still.

He frowns, and confusion sparks in his eyes.

“I told you. I’m fine.”

You shake your head.

“No, I mean— Does it hurt? Does anything hurt?”

Hyun-Su’s lips part. He closes his eyes. His body sways towards yours, and you freeze. You feel his breath against your cheek, and his grip on your wrist becomes lighter— a caress, at most. You just stay there, not wanting to scare him away, but not wanting to leave him to himself either. You feel a pull towards him, the urge to wrap your arms around him, and you resist it, knowing that he’d flee.

Finally, he snaps out of it, lets go of you, takes a step back.

“I’m fine,” he repeats for a third time.

You don’t push it.

“Do you want to take a bath?”

Clean water isn’t easy to come by these days. Fortunately for you, you have a complex system designed to retain rain water as well as morning dew, put in place by your father, when he was still around. It’s rained recently, and with the help of solar panels you’d stolen with him what feels like a lifetime ago, you’ll be able to have hot water. Showers, you haven’t mastered — though you’re sure your dad would have figured it out by now — but you can at least offer him a warm bath.

Hyun-Su’s eyes are on you, wide and focused.

They’re ever so slightly warmer than they were when he came in.

“I would like that.”

Hyun-Su comes out of the bathroom some thirty minutes later, clean and looking more like himself. He’s wearing clothes he’d left there on one of his other visits, which you’d washed by hand among some of your stuff.

“Thank you,” he says, his voice firmer than it had been earlier.

“It’s not a problem,” you reply, and you have to stop yourself from grimacing at how fake your nonchalance sounds to your ears.

If he notices, he doesn’t comment on it.

“Have you been okay here?” he asks instead.

You bite the inside of your cheek. The answer is complicated. You’ve been safe, physically that is. You have barely caught sight of a monster since he’s last been here — nine days ago. You can’t say you’re bored, either. There’s always things to do, to fix, to figure out around here.

What you are, is alone.

And, though you don’t want to admit it, lonely.

It might be the kind of answer he’s looking for, yet you can’t bring yourself to say it out loud. It’s not even that you don’t want him to know.

It’s that you’re scared that if you did, if you asked him to stay or to take you with him, he would still leave you behind.

“I make do,” you reply, which at least isn’t a lie. “I keep myself busy.”

It’s your turn to freeze when Hyun-Su leans forward, trying to meet your eyes.

“Are you hurt?”

A smile escapes you at his cautious tone as he repeats your words at you. You look up, and there he is, inches away from your face, checking on you in the very same way you’d checked on him when he’d arrived — now that he’s had the time and space to collect himself. For half a second, the corner of his lips lifts clumsily to form a smile in response to yours, and then it’s gone, as he, too, realizes how close he is.

You see him sucking in a breath, then swallowing, Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. Your heart beats so loud in your ears, you can’t even hear the silence anymore.

“I’m not hurt,” you say, and it is true for now, at least.

Hyun-Su nods without moving away. There’s an intensity in his eyes that you’re not used to, a spark, a craving.

His eyes drop to your lips.

Your whole body is tingling with anticipation, yet you don’t move, no matter how badly you want to close the gap between you. You can’t rush him. You’d never forgive yourself, if he didn’t come back.

He leans forward, just by an inch, then closer again, so close and—

He turns his head at the last moment, late enough that his cheek brushes against yours, before he pulls himself back.

That hurts. It makes your heart ache more than you’ve let yourself hurt in forever.

“Sorry,” Hyun-Su mumbles, stumbling back. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” you say. You’re not sure if he’s apologizing for trying to kiss you, or for not doing it.

“I’ve brought you food,” he says in a rush, picking up his backpack by the entrance door.

You watch him as he does, and you can’t help but note the many wounds on his body. Most of them are half-closed, and you know that they’ll be gone by the next time he comes back, but that new ones will have had the time to open and heal halfway.

He hands you his offering of food, without meeting your eyes this time, and you take it from him. Your fingers brush against him, and he moves his hand away like you’ve just burned him.

“It’s late,” you say, your voice quiet even to your own ears, even now that you’re so accustomed to the lack of noise. You don’t want him to go, not just yet. “You should sleep here.”

But, just like you expected, Hyun-Su shakes his head and closes his backpack with shaky hands.

“I need to go,” he says. Then, when you don’t answer — can he tell you’re fighting back tears? —, he adds “I’ll come back. I promise.”

You nod. It’s your turn to avoid his eyes.

“I’ll be waiting,” you say.

You open the door for him, and you force yourself to look at him as he steps back outside, into the unknown, into the danger, and away from you.

He looks back, right before disappearing in the night.

“Stay safe,” you say, though you know he won’t.

“You too,” he says, knowing you will.

And then he’s gone, and you’re alone with the silence again.

next part

[flicklikesstuff]

Hazbin Hotel Ep 8 Ramble and Theory

⚠️ SPOILERS!! ⚠️

Surprisingly, the show’s first season really got me hooked with its storyline and I can’t wait what’s in store for the upcoming season 2.

I’ve had my suspicions with Alastor since the pilot, and it just keeps growing with every episode. Even then, his real motivations are just hard to really see and it’s what makes his character intriguing. One moment, he’s lurking in the shadows like some sort of villain, and then the next, we see him maaaybe caring for his friends?? If he even considers them that. Idk 🤷

I’ve always thought that maybe he’s sticking around and playing nice to get Charlie’s guard down in the long run. Waiting for her to get desperate so he can strike a deal with her. So he could ask her for any favour in the future. And guess what? That’s what he exactly does in Ep 7.

And if I’m recalling correctly, Alastor helped Charlie with the war, but Charlie is yet to grant her own end of the deal. Alastor STILL is owed a favour from her.

(Where am I going with this theory and analysis? I’m getting there-)

At one point, maybe he did genuinely care for the hotel and the people in it. Regardless what his motives were. He even admits it’s a “surprising thrill” to watch them form connections. But the word choices he uses in this scene are just sooo…weird?

“Almost??” “Could get accustomed??”

It sounds like he admits feeling attached to the other characters but at the same time, doesn’t want to commit to it. Does he have far more nefarious intentions in mind for them and that’s why he’s so distant?

Alastor probably noticed this in the ending of Ep 8 too. His altruistic self almost got control of him. He almost risked his life to help his “friends.” And he didn’t like that one bit. Perhaps, he sees this trait as a weakness.

It really sounds like the verse“Great Alastor Altruist died” is equal to him stating that “there’s no more Mr. Nice Guy” from now on. He’s disconnecting and staying firm to whatever his highly vague motives are. And it’s highly likely that whatever’s holding him back from his full power is the deal he made itself. And he’s going to try anything to get out of it. Maybe that’s the reason why he approached Charlie in the first place.

And I’m going back to Charlie’s deal with him here. The only condition she has is that she won’t harm anyone for him. But knowing Alastor, he’s going to twist the words a bit there. Maybe he won’t harm them physically. But maybe in some other way. Indirectly. One that Charlie won’t see in the long run. Maybe he uses this one favour to help him break free of this deal or loosen it in some way.

And Charlie already has so much trust in him after the battle, she most likely won’t see it coming. It’s perfect.

(Not exactly sure how these soul contracts work buuut, she’s the princess right? Maybe she’s powerful enough to do smth about it? Maybe that’s why Alastor was so interested to gain her trust and potentially free himself?)

…….

But anyway! Onto the second part of my theory!

Alastor’s probably going to optimise his one chance of freedom through Charlie’s owed favour. But I have a feeling he’s not only going to use just Charlie.

Who else is at the hotel that the other main cast members trust? Who he could freely command under his control? To show up at his will? Answer his beck and call? Whose souls that Alastor owns?

I swear. It is NO ACCIDENT that these two were standing side by side. NEXT TO ALASTOR. In the ending. (Or maybe I’m overanalysing, but whatever. This is MY ramble)

When Alastor comes back from the “dead”, everyone was happy to see him. Especially Charlie. And surprisingly Vaggie? I guess she’s warming up to him. Idk if that’s good or not.

Everyone except Lucifer and Husk. Lucifer’s still bitter on the whole ‘dad’ thing. But I just really felt sooo bad for Husk here. 😂 My guy had maybe a few happy hours of what he thought was freedom. Then he sees this guy come back and he’s just: “Ahhhh… SHT-!”

Now I’m just saying, I don’t think Alastor can just casually go up to Charlie and just easily demand that favour. Especially now that Lucifer might be staying around(?) Also, Alastor sounds like someone who would strategically play the long run if it means benefits. Albeit, less truly altruistic than before since that approach almost costed him highly.

He’s maybe going to have to pull some strings to really make Charlie feel like she HAS to do him a favour. To better solidify his chances and so she’s less likely to be hesitant/reluctant/suspicious. After all, Alastor is only owed ONE FAVOUR. Maybe he’ll pull some strings to win over Lucifer’s own trust too so he won’t be stopping Charlie? (I’m not sure, these two are not in good terms.)

(Look me in the eyes and tell me this is the face of someone who’s definitely not going to use this hotel for his own personal gain. Things are going to start getting ugly with Alastor’s new approach. I’m also still like 80% sure these 3 characters are placed together for a reason. It CANNOT be a complete coincidence, right?)

Now I’m really curious how Husk and Niffty would react under this sudden new approach. The angst potential here is smelling strong. It’s obvious that they’re starting to get highly attached to the hotel and really consider the others as friends. Something Alastor didn’t allow himself to.

And it’s not like they have a voice in the matter either. No matter what Alastor tells them to do to secretly manipulate things around the place so he’ll appear like he’s “helping out more.”

Who knows really? What kind of errands he’ll force them to do? “Mr. Nice Guy” is really no longer an option here. That guy is dead. Adam killed him.

And all at the same time, Alastor wouldn’t be breaking Charlie’s condition. He’s not making her hurt anyone at all. Just helping a good old pal, who’s done so much for her, to maybe loosen the constraints his deal has. Or whatever else he wants, I don’t fcking know-

(But Srsly though. The angst??? Niffty and Alastor are fond with each other, but Niffty is also starting to like her new friends too. Will that create some sort of rift? Niffty actually being hesitant??

And don’t even get me STARTED on Huskerdust. Like wtf-? Husk has already stepped out of line before and it left him completely shaken. What else could he do? And a heartbroken Angel finding out he’s behind all this when Husk is the first person to truly reach out to him? Husk not being able to meet his gaze out of guilt?? THE FCK-???)

Yeaaaahhh, can’t wait what Season 2 has for us all….

Remember fellas, this is just a theory. A Hazbin theory! :))

[chahnniesroom]

tenderness | chapter 3: inevitable

[noun] /ˈtendərnəs/

1. the quality of being gentle, kind, or loving

2. the feeling of pain, aching, or soreness

pairing: bang chan x female reader

summary: in a world where soulmates are rare and precious, you don’t know why the universe has decided to give you one. you never could have imagined that they would be an idol, and one that you worked with at that, or the challenges that would arise from your bond.

chapter word count: 3.5k

chapter warnings: arguing, implied that reader doesn't have a good relationship with her family

a/n: this is the first chapter with mixed pov! time to see some things from chan's perspective :)

previous chapter | masterlist | next chapter | read it on ao3

The first time that you had watched Channie's Room in person, it was an accident. You had had dinner with Chan and lost track of time until a reminder had popped up on his phone. You had started cleaning up all your things when he had shyly suggested that you stay and watch. Technically, Chan doesn’t need any staff with him as he does Channie’s Room, but occasionally if they were being done in his studio then someone would sit in. After so many episodes, he’s trusted enough to know what he can and can’t do on stream and he doesn’t require any technical support. 

It was fun for you, watching him interact with Stays and enjoy music. These streams were fanservice, but you knew Chan well enough by now to be able to tell that he was genuinely enjoying himself. After his customary sign-off and making sure that the stream was actually over, he had turned to you and asked what you thought. You had told the truth, that you liked being able to see this side of him, and that since he was clearly enjoying himself, you enjoyed watching too. It was different to be in-person and you had to make sure that you didn’t laugh at any of Chan’s reactions or the comments that were sent in, especially when he read out a few cheesy pick up lines and quickly glanced over to where you sat.

You weren’t sure if your presence made a difference for him- he had only looked at you a couple times during the stream- so you figured that it’d be a one time thing. But the next week when you were at your desk, you got a text.

[8:14pm - received]

Hey Y/n

I’m planning on doing Channie’s Room in 15 min

[8:14pm - sent]

okay! Have fun :)

[8:15pm - received]

Want to come watch? No pressure if you’re busy though haha

[8:15 - sent]

Oh! Sure, I’ll be down in a second!!

It had gone about the same as the first time. You didn’t say anything and he didn’t acknowledge you during the hour and a half that he was live for. Still, every week you would get a text and every week you find yourself in a chair in the corner of his studio, carefully out of sight from the camera.

—

This Sunday is similar to every other, you have the stream pulled up on your phone with the sound turned off, watching as the comments fly past. He’s eating dinner, even though it’s well past the time that you would consider to be acceptable for dinner. You catch yourself smiling at how excited he is for each bite and have to school your expression in case he happens to look over.

A notification pops up overtop of the video and you freeze. 

You come back to yourself when Chan calls out your name. When you blink, you’re still looking at your phone, but the video is blank. The stream is over and you didn’t even realise.

“Y/n, is everything okay?”

“Oh nothing, just saw a weird comment and it caught me off guard,” you laugh.

“What did it say?” Chan asks, instantly concerned.

“Nothing, it’s not important. It wasn’t even anything, I promise.” 

And really, it’re true. It was just a text with a date and time. After all, how could you say that it was a text from your eomoni that caused such a strong reaction? It would just lead to more and more questions and you’s not in the mood to deal with that. You know you'll have to bring up your family with Chan eventually, but you don’t know how he’ll react and you don’t know what you’d say anyway.

For now, you paste on a smile and promise that you’ll tell him tomorrow when the time is right.

—

A couple weeks later, it was a rare evening that all the members plus yourself were available to have dinner at the dorms. Minho had taken advantage of an afternoon free of schedules and used the time to prepare a feast of bossam, kimchi jjigae, dubu jorim, as well as a spread of banchan.

Eventually the topic shifts from work related to the upcoming time off they had for Chuseok. They go around the table, sharing their plans, even though everybody knew what to expect. You had talked to most of the boys beforehand and knew they were going to visit their families, while Chan and Felix were keeping each other company at the dorms. By extension, that meant you were also going to be staying at the dorms, something you were more than happy to do.

When the conversation makes it around to you, you are somewhat preoccupied with scooping some more rice and tofu into your bowl. Felix playfully nudges both you and Chan while asking, “Any special plans, you two?”

“Nothing,” Chan replies at the exact same time that you grimace and say, “dinner with my family.”

The whole table stills as the boys look between the two of you and Chan noticeably stiffens. They've never heard the conversations you've had with Chan about meeting your parents, but the lack of information you've shared with them is likely telling enough.

You determinedly mash together everything in your bowl, trying to ignore the stares from everyone and the way your cheeks are heating up.

"We celebrate Chuseok together every year. I'm- I'm required to attend," you mutter into your food.

"That sounds nice. You don't see them often, right?" Felix says cautiously, breaking the tense silence that has settled over the table.

"I-" Before you can finish, Chan abruptly stands up, pushing his chair away from the table. He heads straight toward the door, slinging a coat over his shoulders and shoving his feet into shoes.

"I'm going to the studio." Is the only explanation he gives before the door is swinging shut behind him.

Your knuckles turn white around the handle of your spoon. The braised tofu in your bowl has been turned to paste and though it smelled good a few minutes ago, your appetite has vanished. 

You knew that your Chuseok plans would eventually have to be brought up, but you had been dreading it. Even if you had never mentioned anything, it sat as a heavy weight on your shoulders for the past few days. You had spent hours trying to think of the right things to say, but had never built up the courage to talk to him. You knew he really valued family connections in a way that you never would. Chan's curiosity about your family paired with his close relationship with his own had left a bitter taste in your mouth that prevented you from speaking up any time the two of you were alone. You had hoped that it wouldn’t be a big deal, but clearly that wasn’t the case.

You definitely regretted it now. Practically anything would have been better than him finding out in front of the rest of the members because you had absent-mindedly spoken.

You close your eyes for a second before also rising from the table.

"I'll go after him," you say breathlessly. "I'm sorry for… that. I should have talked to him before. I- I'm sorry. Thank you for dinner, Minho-ssi. Sorry."

You bow quickly to avoid making eye contact with anybody and quickly gather your bowl and utensils. Chan had left his phone on the table in his rush to leave, so you grab that too and pocket it. Once you put everything down on the counter, you stand over the sink and massage your forehead. You really didn't want to have to talk to Chan, but knew he was like you and would be stuck in his head if left alone for too long. 

You can hear the boys starting to talk to each other in low voices and that is enough for you to force yourself towards the door.

—

When you finally make it to Chan's studio and inch open the door, he's already on his laptop with his headphones on. Either he doesn't notice your entry or is trying to ignore it, but he's not actively working on anything, just staring blankly at an unfinished track.

When you say his name, he startles and jerks his arm, making his cursor skitter across his computer screen.

He half pulls off his headphones while turning towards you, but pauses when he recognizes who's at the door.

"I'm sorry," you say immediately, stepping further into the room. "I-"

"I don't want to talk right now." Chan cuts you off, shaking his head and turning back to his laptop to continue glaring at the track he has open.

You don't know what to do, so you edge back towards the exit. You're just reaching for the handle when he calls out.

"Were you ever going to tell me?" He's still not looking at you, fists clenched and his whole body tense. "Or was I just supposed to find out on the day of the dinner?"

"I was!" you say defensively. "Of course I was going to tell you! I've been meaning to for days, just haven't… haven't gotten around to it."

Chan swivels around and impatiently gestures towards his couch and you quickly take a seat, acutely aware that this puts you directly in front of him. 

"Just tell me? No invitation? Not even going to give me a choice to say if I want to go?" he presses. You shrink into yourself as he continues on, not even giving you time to respond. "I introduced you to my family, even though they're in Australia. You met my sister in person! I don’t know a thing about your family other than that you have one. Do your parents even know about me?"

"They know," you say in a small voice, but don’t elaborate further. Chan doesn't look satisfied by your response, frustratedly running a hand through his hair. He blows out an angry breath and his posture suddenly deflates.

"I just- I don't get it. Is it me? Are you embarrassed to introduce me to your parents?" Chan asks, sounding defeated.

"It's not you-" 

"I just don’t understand. Is it because- I know that being an idol is unconventional, but-"

“No, it’s not that,” you interrupt before he can spiral further. 

“Then… why?”

"It's not- Chan-oppa, there's nothing wrong with you. Or you being an idol. You're fine. You're perfect. It's me," you say miserably, voice hoarse, "I just, I didn't- I don’t want you to have to see the kind of person I am when I'm with them. I don't like how I am, who I am when I'm around my family."

You bury your face into your hands and swallow hard to try and remove the lump that has formed in your throat. When Chan settles beside you on the couch and wraps an arm around your shoulders, you soften, both at his presence and the warm buzz of the charge.

"I'm sorry," he says gently. "I shouldn't have pushed so much."

"No, I should have told you," you reply, voice muffled by your hands. "I knew I had to tell you."

His hands enclose around your wrists and carefully pry them away from your face. When you open your eyes, you see that he has leaned forwards to try to look at you better. 

“I just want to get to know you better. I want to get to know your family, your background. Please, let me in.” He looks so young like this, earnestly looking at you.

In response, you tip forward and rest your forehead on his shoulder. Although you normally avoid skinship like this, especially at the company, anything was better than seeing his concerned but confused expression. You want to tell him everything, but how can you explain the twisted and complicated relationship that you have with your family? What words could describe the facade that you have created to pretend you're not affected by their disappointment?

"I promise, I'll tell you everything eventually. I just need some more time, okay?" you ask hesitantly. Chan agrees immediately. "I want to talk to the boys too. I know they must also have questions. Can we? Have a meeting tonight?"

—

Y/n decides that she wants to tell the group all at once to avoid having to repeat herself and Chan is secretly relieved. It’s not that he doesn’t like one-on-one conversations, but he hopes that the rambunctious nature of the other members lightens the mood. He’s looking forward to getting any information he can about Y/n’s family, his not-so-subtle attempts to learn even a little bit about them have been fruitless thus far.

As Chan and Y/n make their way back to the dorms, he texts the group chat to gather in the living room. By the time they make it back, everyone has crammed themselves on the couches, leaving an empty space on the loveseat for the two of them.

Y/n takes a deep breath to steady herself.

When she says her parents’ names, Chan doesn't recognize either, but Changbin's head immediately shoots up and he lets out an "Oh shh-" that's quickly cut off by a well placed elbow of Minho. Y/n makes a face at that.

"Yeah," she says, clearly unsurprised by Changbin's reaction, but resigned. On the other side of Minho, Jisung speaks up.

"I don't get it, is he famous?" He also receives an elbow to the stomach, to which he whines, "Hyunggg, that hurt!"

“Be sensitive.” Minho scolds. Y/n laughs at that, but there’s no humour in the sound.

“No, it’s okay. I get that you guys are curious,” she says. “My parents aren’t famous, but they are well known in some circles. You guys know the hospital that Hyunjin goes to for check-ups of his hand?”

Everyone nods at that. Even Felix is familiar with that hospital, as he’s gotten treatment there when he injured his back. Chan himself has visited a few times regarding various injuries or procedures. The hospital is large, fairly new, but most importantly, has a reputation for being discrete. It’s definitely a favourite for idols who don’t want to take the chance and be photographed or have personal information shared.

“Your parents are doctors?” Seungmin prompts.

“My abeoji is. My brother too,” Y/n confirms. “But he also… My abeoji owns the hospital.” She looks down at her hands as she says it, as if scared to see what the reactions of everyone will be. Chan feels like his brain is short circuiting and can't get himself to do anything but stare. 

"Noona, does that mean you're loaded?" Jisung asks, eyes wide. Minho immediately turns on him, but Y/n shocks them all by laughing loudly at that.

"I wouldn't say I'm loaded. My parents definitely are though."

“That’s awesome! What’s wrong with that then?”

“Well, you know how Asian parents are. They had certain expectations for me, for my future that I didn’t meet. They didn’t exactly approve of me deciding to go into the entertainment industry, so we’re… not close. I see them twice a year, Seollal and Chuseok.”

Chan can sympathise with that, although his parents have always been supportive of him, even when he was a trainee and they were worried or didn’t understand why he never gave up, a lot of families weren’t the same. 

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Felix says. He stands and pulls Y/n into a tight hug, which she melts into. It soon becomes a group huddle as everyone joins in, surrounding Y/n in love.

“We’ll be your family, Y/n,” Chan promises, and everyone else murmurs their agreement. He pretends not to see the tears that gather in the corners of Y/n’s eyes.

—

A couple days after Y/n’s announcement, Changbin knocks on Chan's studio door.

"Hey," he says when Chan rolls over on his chair and opens the door. "Just wanted to talk to you about Chuseok."

"Okay," Chan says slowly.  "What about it?"

“Are you going to Y/n’s family dinner?”

“Yeah, that’s the plan.”

"What are you planning to wear?" Changbin asks bluntly.

"Uhh." Even though Chuseok has basically sat in the back of Chan’s mind for the past few days, haunting him every time he has two seconds to think, he hadn’t even considered that aspect of it. He’s been too occupied worrying constantly about not knowing what to expect and yet not wanting to talk to Y/n about it. "I don't know, something nice?"

"Yeah, you have about 10 outfits, all of them are black, and almost half of them are hoodies. Do you know what Y/n is wearing?" Chan grimaces at that.

"I didn't even know that she was going until a few days ago man, of course I don't know what she's wearing."

"Listen, hyung. Her family… I don't know them personally, but I think you need to either talk to her about it or make arrangements to borrow clothes from a stylist."

"Borrow clothes from a stylist?" Chan laughs incredulously. "Can't I just buy something myself?"

"I mean you can do whatever you want," Changbin says, putting his hands up in surrender. "Be my guest to buy designer brand formal wear that I'm pretty sure you'll only wear once since you'll have to have something else for the next time you see them."

“Designer formal wear?” Chan repeats. “What am I, going to a wedding? This is a dinner with just her immediate family, do you really think they would care that much?”

“I don’t know for sure, but I just think that they’d be the type to really value appearances. Clothing is one part of that. Just… Talk to Y/n, okay? I want things to go well for you and I know that you want to make a good first impression.”

“I- okay,” Chan acquiesces. He trusts that Changbin’s just coming from a good place even though he dreads having to talk to Y/n about this. “I’ll bring it up.”

—

A week before Chuseok, Y/n knocks on their bedroom door while Chan’s trying to work at his desk. By the time he’s taken off his headphones and has started standing, she’s managed to get the door open and enters. Even after his conversation with Changbin, Chan still hasn’t been able to broach the topic of Chuseok with Y/n again, even though it’s been occupying his mind an increasing amount. He feels a rush of relief when he sees that she’s carrying two garment bags, lifted above her head to prevent them from dragging on the ground.

“This is for you,” she says, thrusting the larger of the bags in Chan’s direction. He peels it open carefully to find a black suit with golden details embroidered into it. The jacket is more traditional, the design is clearly a modern version of a hanbok, and the fabric of all the pieces look luxuriously thick. Without even trying it on, he can tell that the outfit has been tailored to his dimensions. It’s beautiful.

“Is this for-”

“Chuseok? Yes. My eomoni is… particular about what people wear. You’ll look good in this.” Y/n assures him.

“What are you wearing?” he asks, curious about the second bag that Y/n had hung up while he was inspecting his.

“You’ll find out later. Don’t worry, I won’t be outshining you.” she replies playfully.

“Hey!” Chan laughs. “You know that’s not what I meant.”

“I know, it’s just fun to tease.”

Chan carefully places the clothes back into the garment bag and zips it up to hang in his closet. He’s dealt with his fair share of expensive clothes, most of which have to be treated with extreme caution as they have to be returned at the end of the day, but this feels different. Not only is it now his to keep, but it’s also one of the first gifts that he’s exchanged with Y/n, giving it special significance.

He knows this gift is more than just clothes. It also represents Y/n opening up, letting him into this side of her life that she’s kept to herself for so long.

“Y/n,” he says, waiting until she makes eye contact. “Thank you.”

“No worries,” she says, cheeks pinkening. She looks down at the ground. “It’s the least I can do, you’re going to have to put up with my family for an evening.”

Chan doesn’t know what to make of finally meeting them, Y/n’s mentions of them have been sporadic and cryptic at best. He’s desperate to learn more about her and he knows that her family, although distant now, likely played a key role in the way that you conduct yourself. But over time, and especially these past few days, he’s growing more wary of what he might learn. He just can’t understand how someone as kind, soft, and thoughtful as Y/n could have such a stilted relationship with her family.

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[aspoonofsugar]

A Quick Nora Thought...

Nora's first appearance in the series sets up her arc in two ways:

Nora: I can't believe we've been at Beacon for a full twenty-four hours! Not that I thought we'd get kicked out or anything, I mean, you're the perfect student and I'm… well, I'm me! But it's just crazy, you know? We've been friends for soooooooo long! What are the odds we'd still be together? Well, not "together-together…" Not that I'm not saying that you're not handsome; you are handsome, but that'd just be weird, right?

Let's focus on 2 lines:

Not "together-togheter"...

I'm... well, I'm me!

Not together-together

Nora is initially co-dependent from Ren. She is saved by him and spends the majority of her life by his side. As a result, she struggles to find a new balance, when her feelings become romantic. They are together platonically, but not romantically. At the same time, Nora's idea of getting together-together as things are is unhealthy.

I'm... well, I'm me!

Let's consider these 2 scenes:

We've got a world-renowned fighter on our team, what's basically a ninja, I can bench five of me… Jaune… We've trained all year, our weapons are awesome, Glynda barely yells at us anymore and… Uhh… Jaune!

Nora: Yeah, they’ll be fine. Jaune’s a great leader, Oscar’s grown a ton, and Yang is more than capable of protecting them all in a fight. Oh, and of course Ren is- um…

Whenever Nora can't properly say who someone is, she would define them by their name. In volume 3, Jaune is still unsure of his identity, so he is no-one, but Jaune. In volume 8, Ren is going through a similar identity crisis, so Ren is someone Nora doesn't know anymore. This speech pattern highlights that the character mentioned has a frail sense of self. Well, what does it say about Nora, then? The very first thing she says is that she is unsure of who she is. Ren is someone, for example a handsome perfect student. But Nora? Who is she?

Ren + Nora = Renora

Nora's arc is built around 2 ideas, which seem opposites. On the one hand her story focuses on her relationship with Ren, as he is her objective since early on. On the other hand she must figure out who she is as an individual. So, how can she be together-together with Ren and be just Nora at the same time?

Nora: I don’t know what he is. Every time I think the two of us are making progress, he… (sighs) We’ve been together our whole lives but I feel like I understand him less now than ever. And I don’t know if that’s his fault or mine. Blake: When you’ve been at someone’s side for so long, after a while they become a part of you. But that’s just it, they’re only a part of you. Don’t forget about the rest. Nora: I don’t actually know who I am… without Ren. Pretty sad, huh? Weiss: Well, maybe take this opportunity to find out? Do something only Nora can do.

The two thematic threads come together in volume 8. Nora doesn't know who Ren is and since she has built her self-image around him, she is suddenly unsure of herself as well. It turns out that to go from Ren + Nora to Renora, our girl needs to figure herself out:

Nora: When my mom ran from the Grimm and left me behind, you found me. We became Ren and Nora. But I realized on this mission apart, I don’t know who “Just Nora” is. And if I’m ever going to find out, then I have to do it alone. Because I’ve always loved you, Lie Ren, and that pretty head on your shoulders seems like it’s doing a lot better. But I still got to get mine sorted out before I can be the partner you need. Is that…okay?

Only in this way, she can be by Ren's side (together), but not in aa codependent way (together-together).

As for who Nora is... the episode Risk makes it pretty clear.

The most beautiful flower of all

What beautiful blossoms we have this year, but look... This one's late...But I'll bet that when it blooms it will be the most beautiful of all. (Mulan, 1998)

The Renora's confession scene ends with Nora being not ready for a relationship with Ren. And yet, the moment looks at Nora he sees the air full of petals ready to bloom. Considering Ren's Mulan's allusion and the importance flowers have in Renora's arcs, I think the reference is pretty clear.

Nora (a pink flower) has yet to bloom. She is late in a sense. However, the flower which blooms late is the most beautiful of all. That is Nora. Our girl will definately bloom into herself, no matter the adversity she meets:

The flower that blooms in adversity is the most rare and beautiful of all (Mulan, 1998)

[suffersinfandom]

A Summary of The OFMD Meta

Sooooo... this is part one of an incomplete summary of A Meta-Discussion Of The Subtext by meratrishoslee (Mera) on AO3 (linked to, as the author requests). I hope it’s helpful to the folks who’ve been curious about it -- heyooo @fahbee and @pushbuttonkitty -- but maybe not quite 90K-words curious! I’m not going to comment on anything; this is meant to be an impartial -as-possible summary.

It's massively long, so this is just the first eight chapters.  

“There’s every possibility you are still in your feelings as you read this, even weeks after the finale. You are in your autonomous knee-jerk reaction, adrenaline-spike, slapped across the face, feeling-so-betrayed-right-now moment. You’re valid. That’s absolutely what’s happened… on the surface. But as you take a deep breath and begin to examine logically what’s in the show and engage with the material both in its text and subtext, you will see a new concept begin to take shape.” (Mera)

Chapter 1: Overview

Some background: Mera was involved with The Johnlock Conspiracy and believes that TJLCers weren’t wrong. (If you want a fun watch, I recommend Sarah Z’s YouTube video.) Essentially, TJLCers believe that Sherlock and Watson of BBC’s Sherlock were supposed to be endgame, and this can be proved with careful analysis. This is often paired with the idea that there is a missing fourth episode to the show’s fourth season that will eventually air and confirm all theories.

Mera defines ‘text’ and ‘subtext.’ Text is “dialogue lines / Shot choices and directions / Visible actions, describable as stage directions.” Subtext is “every single other thing, as well as what is suggested by or can be inferred from the text above.”

“Whenever something doesn’t make sense in the text, it is a BEACON (or maybe even a LIGHTHOUSE) to look at the subtext. Your subconscious mind recognizes subtext long before your conscious mind parses it -- assuming it ever does.”

The rest of the chapter is devoted to short descriptions of Mera’s key assertions with links to relevant chapters and their convention experiences. They cite talking to Con O’Neill at Florida Supercon 2023 as one of their reasons for believing so strongly that Izzy Hands is alive:

I asked him for advice in a specific time of trouble, and he gave me something real that had worked for him. I asked for a hug and he gave that also. 

As I was pulling away I said "I’m glad that I gleaned one absolutely true thing from your portrayal of Izzy." 

“What’s that?” 

I said: "The character (in my original work) that Izzy inspired – when he’s out of pain at last, it’s impossible not to love him." 

That seemed to hit him on an emotional level; he couldn’t hold my gaze after that.  He said “That’s what I’ll be taking with me today.” 

This was July 1st 2023, after completion of the filming of Season 2.  I've thought about it often as the season went on, and how it must have affected him. 

We have to love Izzy so that he'll live.

Mera spoke to Con again at NYCC:

The last thing I managed to get to say to him was: "They gave Izzy Hands a Passion Play." 

"They did?" he asked. 

"Yes, they did!" I replied. 

And I watched that brilliantly swift mind again at work, because he considered it for the briefest beat -- and said in a tone of joy: "They did; yeah, you're right!" 

I remember for the minutes and hours after I was amazed: did he not know, somehow? Did the writers not tell him (and he didn't realize at any time since) that in first quarter of the series they'd given him Gethsemane, a betrayal, a crucifixion (okay, getting shot in the leg and head, but don't get stuck on the details), a burial, and then a full on canonical resurrection?

Con then said another very important thing:

"But I got over it." 

[...]

If Izzy's dead (for real and forever dead) and he knew it, then what he said to me was on a level of cruelty that I could never countenance from him. If Izzy lives, then those words are yet another piece of proof to me that Con was clever enough to be right both for someone who'd only seen five episodes, and someone who would eventually see all eight. 

Chapter 2: The Cup and Ball Trick

The chapter is an extended “game” of cup and ball (where a ball is hidden under a cup and the guesser needs to determine which cup it’s under) interspersed with pictures from OFMD at various points in season two. It ends on a shot of Izzy’s grave where his body definitely isn’t.

The important takeaway: Izzy returns from the dead once to shoot Ed during Ed’s final suicide attempt. Ed returns from the dead after the near-fatal mutiny. Why would you think Izzy’s actually dead and in his grave at the end of the show?

“I didn't cry at the finale -- I was too filled with joy and excitement. I was Mary Magdalene at the grave; I was one of the first to know the truth of the resurrection, whether or not anyone believed me!” 

Chapter 3: OUR LOVE MEANT DEATH

"..because if [Izzy] doesn't [live], with what I know now, his death is a cruelty struck at every queer individual alive or dead since 1981.”

Mera observes that almost no one touches Izzy’s bare skin and Izzy bleeds more than any other recurring character.

There are two times someone touches Izzy’s bare skin: first when his screams are being muffled when he yells at Jim and Archie to kill him, second when Ed puts the gun in Izzy’s ungloved hand during his first go at suicide.

Conclusion: "Izzy is coded with AIDS.”

Ed holding his bloody hand up to the rest of the crew away when Izzy is dying is a “warding-off gesture.” 

Izzy is pale and sickly-looking as he’s dying. “My gorge rises. In the year of our Lord Shiva 2023 -- THEY GAVE THE MOST QUEER CODED CHARACTER ON THE SHOW A FUCKING AIDS DEATH.”

Izzy touches someone else’s bare skin twice in the show, and both instances are Ed. The first is in S1E10 “where he puts his left Death-marked hand on Edward's wrist as he's choking him.” The second is in S2E8 as he’s dying “in his ex-lover’s arms” (notably, this is the same hand with the spade tattoo).

“If Izzy's well and truly dead, for real and stays dead... He is in media both the first historically and the most recent chronologically to receive a full on AIDS death.”

“Until they prove to me and all of us that only Izzy's grief and the specter of AIDS remains in the grave -- and the rest of our beloved boy, our new unicorn (oh hey do you know what Problematic Modern Culture says about unicorn blood?), our pure-hearted risen being, our self-sacrificing queer man, will get his chance to be touched, held, kissed, and LOVED in Season 3.”

Chapter 4: “The Third Was For Death”

“Season 1 was Pinocchio: a wooden puppet wants to become a real boy -- and does!  Hip hip hooray; that was pretty easy.  Wow, the cute tall young guy of the crew lost a finger and the mean nasty short grouch that some people hate and some people like (because they understand him on a visceral, subconscious, subtextual level) lost a toe -- but if that's the worst that happens, we came out okay!”

Season two is “The Monkey’s Paw.” Mera tells the story with pictures from OFMD to emphasize the connections. Importantly, there’s an instance of a couple’s son coming back wrong after a wish (Lucius). The final wish returns the son to his previously-dead state and Mera ends on a picture of Izzy’s grave.

The cast’s and crews’ interviews might not support the real narrative because they’re not allowed to say what they want to (“Ever had to develop code language to hide your queerness from your parents, your teachers, the state?”) They’re all “in distress” and trying to tell us without telling us. 

“Why does the new (old broken down) house smell like death? Why does everything we wished for that we got feel bad? Why does everything we're supposed to be happy about feel sad? How long would it take YOU to spot someone blinking out the word T-O-R-T-U-R-E?”

Mera hopes that the next season won’t tell us certain a new story: George Orwell’s 1984.

Chapter 5: Where Were We? Oh Yes, In The Pit Of Despair

This chapter is about The Princess Bride as it relates to Izzy’s story in seasons two and three of OFMD. It’s a comparison based mostly on costumes and lines; there are no one-for-one character comparisons. Vitally, the plot of TPB is used to predict the next season of OFMD. 

Season two of OFMD ends at the part of TPB when Westley is thought to be dead (Izzy in his grave). Westley is revived, soooo…

“At what point does a preponderance of evidence flip over into fact? At what point does a handful of chance coincidences become planning and architecture? At what point do you go beyond a reasonable doubt into conviction?”

Chapter 6: Birdman and Blackbeard: Or, How To Watch Media

This chapter is about analyzing media. Once you learn how, you stop being a passive watcher.

“Instead you read its rhymes and rhythms like a sonnet. You go to the media in return – you meet it halfway, like a lover. You engage with it. You find themes embedded in the subtext that, once unearthed and examined, continue to inform and expand your experience of the text.”

“The people that like things nice and easy are the ones that watched the finale of Season 2, got angry and upset and – instead of examining those feelings and sitting with them and figuring out why everything felt weird and fucky – wrote it off as bad writing and cruel showrunners, and are already onto the next piece of media to pour into their open eyes and ears.”

And that’s fine! But if you like to think, you interrogate the media and see what else it’s saying.

Mera summarizes The Hero’s Journey through the lens of Orpheus’ story.

Season two mirrors season one almost too well. “...Why are they recreating their first season almost beat by beat? Why is this “second verse, same as the first – only a little bit louder and (in many cases) worse? Then Episode 8 hit… and I realized. They wanted to make sure that, in every conceivable way, the fans had a subtextual map of the meaning of Episode 8. So the mirrors between seasons had to line up almost exactly.”

Now we go into the three-act structure and how the hero’s journey maps onto it. Mera then uses Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue Of Ignorance) and to show how they personally analyze meta, but I don’t care nearly enough about what they’ve gleaned from Birdman to go into it here. You’ll have to go read it yourself if you want their methods.

“Remember: Everything on screen in the finished and published movie is a choice. If something doesn’t make sense on a textual level, it is often a signpost (or LIGHTHOUSE) to look at it on a subtextual level.”

Mera points to an article about three-act structure and notes that “fun and games” is both part of that author’s second act and the title of an OFMD episode. 

“Are we being fucked with? Or are we being instructed?”

Chapter 7: If You Strip Away The Myth From The Man

It’s the Jesus Christ Superstar chapter and it’s massive. I’m only including the most substantial comparisons and points.

Mera starts by linking to a gifset of Con talking about Taika saying that Izzy and Blackbeard are comparable to Judas and Jesus (and then Taika and Con sang songs from JCS while getting their makeup done). Notably, Con didn’t specify which character was which.

Blackbeard is a myth created by (of) two men, Ed and Izzy. “there's always two male bodies involved: Jesus and Judas, and both sacrifice themselves to the cause.”

It’s easy to say that Izzy is Judas, but wait -- there’s a better and deeper interpretation! Look at this picture from S1 that resembles the Last Supper and frames Izzy as Jesus! “Now I finally understood. Sure: Izzy is Judas-coded. That's plain for anyone to see. But Izzy is also Jesus-coded… from the under/reverse side.”

Izzy is Jesus-coded for all of season one (even more than Ed), and the comparison is solidified by the end of S2E3: “Izzy Hands is almost fully and directly Jesus-coded, and after Ed's own resurrection (not as an agape-love self-sacrifice for the saving of others, but through selfish personal/eros love alone) Edward is now obviously the betrayer of the whole crew who is permitted to stay aboard only on terms of sackcloth clothing and uneasy tolerance.”

Judas died by hanging himself according to the Gospel of Matthew. The only characters we see hanging are Ed and Stede, which clearly aligns them with Judas. 

Izzy is a good person. He cares about the crew; Ed never does. When Izzy’s wrong, he fesses up to it and apologies; Ed does not (or when he does, the apologies are bad). “Does he lie?  Yes, ostensibly to protect his captain and crew. Is he fairly mean to the Revenge crew until they [...] become his crew? Pretty much, although I could argue otherwise in places -- especially the fact that while Ed throws Lucius violently and bodily off the ship without any warning, Izzy carefully puts the crew on a safe island with a minor fuckery of his own to keep them calm and happy until he leaves. (It's obviously not Edward's idea, although he does permit Izzy to put himself between the deadly Kraken and the Revenge's crew in order to accomplish it.) Is he selfish? Yes, and who of us aren’t sometimes selfish about the people we love?”

Jesus and Judas have massive amounts of sexual tension (yeah, can confirm). Izzy is Jesus-coded because, while he doesn’t initiate contact like Jesus does in JCS, he’s always looking directly at Ed. Ed is Judas-coded because he has a hard time looking at Izzy and finds it difficult to touch him.

“...If Izzy Hands is a queer man who is Jesus-coded, who we see go through not one but TWO passion plays during Season 2... [near-death after having his leg removed, end-of-season death] he is conquering the death of HIV/AIDS and queer grief. He has to die so that he can vanquish that very real death, and arise again triumphant over it.”

“One direct correspondence with Jesus is that Izzy is convinced of one right way to be (whether or not it actually is), and everything outside of that offends him viscerally at this point in the series.” Izzy is convinced that there’s one right way to be a pirate, and Stede’s fucking that up.

And back to AIDS/reverse-Jesus Izzy: “Now among the lepers we're back to the reversal: no one touches Izzy. He’s desperate for it yet can never allow it. Jesus’s touch, kiss, love cures – and everyone seeks it and craves it. They demand it, they swamp and overwhelm him. Jesus's naked touch/kiss/love cures disease -- Izzy's carries and spreads it.”

“Judas/Edward makes his deal with the priesthood/King George to betray Jesus/Izzy – his price is 30 pieces of silver/Stede’s life.” That is, Ed is the one doing the betraying in season one. 

But the real betrayal happens when he cuts off Izzy’s toe and feeds it to him while he’s vulnerable. Important note for the AIDS stuff: “...Edward puts on leather gauntlets immediately prior to this assault -- he ‘gloves up.’ He doesn't have direct naked contact with Izzy's blood or flesh during this scene.” The toe-feeding scene is absolutely framed as sexual assault.

And the toe thing continues into season two. “Sit with that also for a moment: the faux consent of making Izzy remove his own clothing to bare his body parts for this violation. Is it too far a stretch to think that Ed also made him eat each one, in their own private, gristly sacrament? He did threaten to ‘feed him the rest’ after all.”

Here is the outline of Izzy’s first “passion play”:

Izzy's Last Supper: all the toes eaten before as well as the one threatened now. 

Izzy's Gethsemane, wherein he begs his God for the cup to be removed: he tries to bargain his and the crew's way out with his conversation with Blackbeard, to find an alternative to the self-destructive violence. 

Izzy is betrayed by his Judas (again): shot in the leg for the 'crime' of mentioning Stede Bonnet's name, or Blackbeard's affection toward him. 

Izzy descends into the grave: lays in a secret tunnel in what we can believe is the lowest part of the ship, while rotting enough to be smelled throughout.

 Izzy dies: he shoots himself in the head and both we and Blackbeard believe him to be dead.

Izzy is risen: he hauls himself up out of his own grave without assistance from anyone else, crawls to the main deck, reloads his pistol somewhere along the way -- and shows himself to his followers crew at last, in order to bring about their salvation.

Con himself said that this is a passion play, and it takes up a massive chunk of the first part of the season. You don’t throw something massive like that into a show unless you’ve got something bigger coming.

But Judas dies before OFMD ends (mapping OFMD onto JCS), so now who is Ed? He’s Pontius Pilate. There’s the whipping of Jesus (Izzy’s back scars), then Pilate kneels down to hold the bleeding Jesus in his arms. It’s this specific Pieta statue.

“Izzy has to die to conquer his own living death, to end the curse that has kept him untouchable and unable to be loved as he so desperately desires.” There’s the crucifixion for you. Izzy dies and is buried, and we’re still waiting on the resurrection. 

The last shot in JCS is of the empty cross; the last shot of OFMD S2 is Izzy’s grave. “If the cross in the last and arguably the most significant shot of JCS symbolizes the triumph of resurrection and rebirth... the one in OFMD S2 must also.”

Alex Sherman liked one of Mera’s Izzy Lives tweets that he was tagged in. 

Chapter 8: The Dual Substance Of Christ

Now we’re looking at The Last Temptation of Christ. This is another long and involved one, so I’m cutting a lot of minor things that don’t serve the overall meta. (I also know fuck-all about this movie, oops.)

“An argument can be made (and I will attempt it) that Judas in this instance is not only the show creators/writers room of OFMD who had to put their much beloved boy Izzy Hands through all this agony... but also we the Unseen Crew who adore him, who have suffered alongside him through all he's endured, and who want nothing more than to have him back and whole in resurrected triumph.”

TLTC presents another reason to identify Lucius with Mary Magdalene (and notably, Jesus can’t touch Mary -- because Izzy is AIDS-coded). Once again, there’s an immense amount of sexual tension between Jesus and Judas.

This Jesus is angry and this God is fearsome. Judas does a lot of slamming-Jesus-into-walls, much like Ed and Izzy in S1E10. 

Jesus confirms that he is a heart and he loves, which solidifies Izzy’s position as the heart of Blackbeard. 

In his final trial in the desert, Jesus’ final tempter appears as flames. Izzy and Ed both play with flames when they lie.

“Izzy is pretty much Jesus-coded as I explained in the JCS meta… but here also due to the timing and content of this scene, Izzy’s also Lazarus-coded.He dies, he goes into the pit of the grave, he smells of rot, then he is raised from the dead.” Lazarus and Izzy both have a rough time of being alive again and drink about it. 

Jesus says “I have to die on the cross, and I have to die willingly.” This parallels Izzy saying that he wants to go when he’s dying. Judas doesn’t want Jesus to die, which puts him more in line with Jenkins and company than any characters.

“But Izzy has to die, in order to conquer death. He’s lived with the specter of HIV/AIDS that has separated him from loving touch and the sharing of physical intimacy. He has to go into the grave to leave his disease and his queer grief behind, and to be reborn to love.”

On the cross, Jesus says, “Father, stay with me. Don’t leave me.” As he’s dying, Izzy tells Ed, “Sit with me, Eddie.” 

“I feel sick, and I think I’m supposed to. It’s supposed to hurt. Both Izzy's death and Jesus's crucifixion are supposed to be two of the realest and most awful and most beautiful things I’ve ever seen on television.”

In TLTJ, there’s an extended part of the movie where Jesus is in a kind of gravy basket. The events are all kind of odd. They involve Jesus sleeping with Mary (the reborn unicorn, free of AIDS and safe to touch). Jesus returns to his body, suffers, and dies.

TLTJ doesn’t cover Jesus’ resurrection. “We have to trust what we know of the story: that Jesus is risen, and only death itself remains in his grave.”

--

On to the next!

[kyriethesquishysquid]

Betrayal Never Felt So Good (König/Fem!Reader) Chapter 2

You can find Chapter 1 here, Chapter 3 here, Chapter 4 here, Chapter 5 here, and Chapter 6 here!

Word count: ~6.5k

Rating: Mature

A/N: Use of Y/N and Y/L/N. Appearance of a feral and jealous Possesive!König. We get plot but no smut in this one, with some angst, feelings, murder, and comfort on top! Reader really just needs a hug right now. Reader is also morally grey and morally questionable. Continued COD and military inaccuracies galore. Don’t shoot me for not writing out any combat scenes please - I’m a smut/fluff/angst author, action is outside of my wheelhouse lol. Once again written in less than 24 hours so please forgive any mistakes!

TW: Non-consensual drugging, emotional manipulation, body shaming, and attempted assault from asshole #2. Cold-blooded murder (but done for “good” reasons so it’s fine right?). Canon violence toward others by König, hints at stalking, hurt/comfort. Pet names (in English and German), bad German translations bc I’m still a lame monolingual American, and STILL no beta because we die like jackass Graves.

Crappy Translations:

Ungeziefer - Vermin

Maus - Mouse

Mein schatz - My darling

Meine leibling - My love

Scheiße - shit

It had been two whole months since your “rescue” from KorTac and not a day had gone by where you didn’t spend it thinking of König. That man plagued your mind worse than anyone ever had before. Which was stupid, considering you knew next to nothing about him, except that he treated you like a princess and fucked you like a whore. Oh and that he was the colonel of a “technically” enemy faction and your relationship would be seen as treason. And yet, he was the first man you’d had any sort of connection to in years. The only one who seemed to know everything you needed and wanted by intuition alone, and you craved the opportunity to explore that connection further. 

You tried to think of some way to reach out to him but there was never a plausible avenue. You didn’t know his real name so finding him online, if he even had an online presence, would be impossible. You couldn’t very well ask Graves if he had any information on him either, lest you get fired, or worse, murdered, seeing as the Commander did not have a reputation for being understanding.

 As the hamster wheel in your brain spun round and round, your thoughts grew more desperate and unhinged. It wasn’t too much longer before your contract with Shadow Company was up anyway. You were heavily considering seeing if KorTac would take you after, which you felt crazy about, but you weren’t sure what else to do. Logic just didn’t seem to play well with your thoughts about König and it was driving you insane to not be in control of yourself.

You could only turn off your constant barrage of emotion when you were knee-deep in patients or allowed out onto the field to provide care; though even that had been happening less. “Don’t want to chance triggering a PTSD episode”, Graves had said. And yet, despite thinking it couldn’t get worse, life had decided to throw you another curveball. It came when you were given your first mission in weeks, being called across countries with a small team of specialists to Russia to protect a diplomat and his family while they were in the country. That wasn’t the bad part though. Oh no. You could handle travel and a safe mission for once. The part that tied your stomach into knots was the fact you were going to be serving along with KorTac. It took everything in you not to show the emotions you felt in the moment Graves had told you that, while the last time you’d seen the KorTac colonel flashing through your thoughts like a movie. 

-

The shouting in the quiet bunker was your first sign something was wrong. At first, you tried to ignore it, snuggling closer into the big human-shaped heater against you but then there was a gunshot, and that got you both up. Instinctively, you knew what was happening before even stepping foot out of the room. 

“They’re here, aren’t they?” you whispered.

An overwhelming sense of panic filled your chest as you clasped his hands tight, unsure of what you were supposed to do.

“Stay here,” he instructed you as he quickly crossed the room to his dresser, gearing up in a hurry. 

“What? No! You can’t go out there! What if they hurt you?!” you snapped back. 

König shot you a bemused look as he tightened his vest. 

“They can try, mein schatz, but they will not succeed.”

While his cockiness was certainly attractive and you knew he could hold his own in fights, there was now a part of you that worried and ached at the thought of him getting hurt. Before he could leave, you caught his wrist and jerked him back to you, smashing your mouth against his. 

“Be safe.”

-

“Y/L/N!”

The pain of being ripped from such a powerful memory was enough to make you stumble, nearly falling into the last man you wanted to see at that moment; Daniel Carter, your “savior” from König and KorTac. It took all the power in your body not to frown at the brunette smugly grinning down at you. 

“Yes, sir?” you finally asked. 

“You gonna get in?” 

He gestured to the plane and you quickly stepped into the cabin, a hot blush coating your face as you walked down the aisle to find a seat near the exit but still far enough to not be at the very end. Your fear of flying wasn’t something you had to face often thankfully but, when you did, it was a tough beast to battle. Fortunately, your mind was easily swayed into other worries when you watched the rest of the teams climb onto the plane. One by one, they found a seat, until the last member boarded, his figure dominating the entire space with his six-foot-eight presence. You couldn’t help but watch as he walked by. Gods, he was even bigger than you remembered. The sway of his hips and spread of his gait as he walked left nothing to the imagination, and you found yourself staring unbearably hard at his thick ass and thighs until he sat down on the other end. 

Fuck, this was going to be harder than you thought. Your heart had felt afloat water in stormy seas ever since the moment you’d seen him waiting with his team this morning. At first, seeing him made you feel like you were finally able to breathe again, but the way he pointedly avoided your presence dragged you back down into the suffocating depths of turmoil. You’d hoped it was just a show for the others around you, but then it became clear that your hopes were for naught. Twice you’d tried to get him alone, practically begged him to talk to you, only to be treated as if you didn’t even exist.  

A tightness that had nothing to do with your fear of flying squeezed at your heart as your eyes dropped to your feet. Doubts began to pile up like a car crash. Maybe you were stupider than you realized. Maybe those nights had meant nothing to him. Maybe you were just another stupid conquest who had the gall to believe someone as high-ranked and enigmatic as König would actually want more than an easy lay. And, fuck, had you made it easy. Some nice words, a few sweet gestures, and a voice that made your brain melt, and you were putty in his hands.

Lips tilting down, you leaned back against the stiff seat and let out a long sigh. Maybe if you hit your head hard enough on the wall you’d break something, or at least get a concussion bad enough to be sent home.

“What’s up, toots?” Daniel asked, tapping his boot against yours.

You managed a half-assed smile and muttered, “Hate flying.” 

He grinned and leaned over just enough to nudge your shoulder with his. It was minimal contact but it was enough to make your stomach hurt. While Daniel seemed nice enough, you’d been privy to too many conversations he and his buddies had when they thought they were alone in the medbay or canteen. While some of the absolutely disgusting things he’d said were enough to make you wary, most of your ire came from him being the one to sneak you out of König’s room. 

“You’re a strong gal, you’ve got this. Just take some deep breaths,” he instructed slowly, “Here, gimme your hand.”

Before you could politely decline, he snagged your hand in his and wrapped your smaller fingers around his palm. 

“Lean back, close your eyes, take deep breaths, and squeeze if you need.”

Just the thought of being that vulnerable in his presence, or really any of the men around you,  made your skin crawl. But honestly, what else did you have to do at this point? It was about an hour flight and your mind wasn’t in a good place. 

Giving him a little nod, you did as instructed and let your head fall back once more. After the first few breaths, you had to admit some of the tension was dying down. 

“There you go. Atta girl.”

Fuck. Your heart lurched against your ribs as his words threw you into a very heated memory that you most certainly didn’t need right then - the way König praised you for taking his cock so well, how his lips brushed your ear as he said such sinfully beautiful words as his hands caressed your skin. Face warming, you tried to clear your head again, only to get disrupted by the sound of heavy feet stopping in front of you. 

“Can I help you with something, sir?” Daniel asked, something akin to fear in his tone. 

Who could he have been afraid of? Most everyone here was on good terms, or so you thought. 

“Is there something that we need to know before we land?” 

König. Jolting upright, you gaped up at him in disbelief as he stood there stiffly, arms crossed across his chest and eyes pinning Daniel down in earnest. God, that shouldn’t have been hot. You were supposed to be hurt, pissed at him, and yet the fire in his eyes as he stared down the other man was nothing more than primal.

“U-Uh, I’m not sure what you mean, sir,” Daniel stammered out.

You quickly jerked your hand from his and noticed that finally- FINALLY- those deep blues were focused on you for the first time all day. 

“We cannot afford to have any distractions out there. I will ask again, is there something that we need to prepare for? Will your attention be divided?” König bit out.

It wasn’t painfully obvious but you could hear a slight inflection, almost anger, filtering through his tone. 

“No, sir,” you retorted stiffly, “Private Carter was helping me with my fear of flying.”

“Correct, sir,” Daniel agreed quickly.

König let out a snide hmm before strolling back down the aisle to his seat. It wasn’t until he was fully sat that you relaxed in your seat. 

“What the fuck…This is awkward, right?” Daniel whispered, “I mean, it’s weird for me but I can’t imagine how weird it is for you.” 

Playing dumb, your eyes cut to him curiously and you asked, “What do you mean?” 

He gestured weakly toward König and the rest of his team, and then at you. 

“They quite literally kidnapped you a couple of months ago,” he muttered, “They killed a group of our men and were actively fighting against our mission, and now we’re expected to just get along with them?” 

The guy had a point. Sighing heavily, you shrugged and leaned back. 

“Yeah, it’s weird, but we do what we gotta do, right?” you murmured.

If only he knew the real reason for your discomfort. Eyes flicking up to the bare metal ceiling, you said a silent prayer that once you were on the ground, you wouldn’t have to be in König’s presence anymore. It wouldn’t do to be distracted, and lord knows you would be. 

“Try to rest,” Daniel said suddenly, “I’ll wake you when we land.” 

Any thoughts of arguing were wiped from your mind when the cabin shuddered through turbulence. With a shaky inhale, you closed your eyes and started counting back from one hundred. Even if you didn’t fall asleep, it would help with your endless anxiety.

…

“Alright, you’re good to go. Just try to stay off of it as much as possible until we leave tomorrow. Those painkillers will help the pain but the ligaments still need time to repair,” you sighed with a weak smile.

“Just glad it’s not broken,” he laughed nervously, “It’d suck for my first real injury to be caused by tripping in the dirt rather than by combat,” 

You snickered in agreement at that. That would be one sad story.

“Remember, ice, elevation, and painkillers!” you called as he exited the room with a wave. 

Turning back to your laptop, you started the final charting on the private’s file but it wasn’t long before you were distracted by someone entering the room. Dread filled the pit in your stomach when they didn’t instantly speak. So far you hadn’t seen König more than once or twice in passing this past week and you’d hate to break that streak right before you got to go home. 

“Hey, Y/N, why don’t you head out for the night? I’ve got things covered here!”

Relief practically oozed from your pores as you heard the familiar voice of one of KorTac’s medical staff. Spinning around in the wheely chair, you found the redhead already opening her own laptop at the other desk. 

“You sure?” you asked.

“Of course! You let me sleep in and took the first half of my shift, it’s only fair I let you out early,” she teased kindly. 

Leaving early meant the possibility of running into the silent colonel, but it also meant you could actually enjoy the last night in the city. While it was a smaller area, it apparently had a decent nightlife, or so Daniel said. He’d caught you before your shift and practically begged you to join him and some of the guys out for drinks at the local bar to celebrate a job well done. You’d thought he was going to cry when you told him you worked late and couldn’t join. 

“Girl, go! Shoo! I’ve got this.”

Flashing her a smile, you nodded and gathered up your things. 

“Okay, fine, you win,” you groaned in faux frustration, “I’ll leave you be.” 

She shot you a mock salute and turned dutifully to her laptop, fingers flying across the keyboard as she began to check charts. With one last nod, you grabbed your bag and hurried out into the hall. It was only eight thirty and the guys were going out around nine, so you had just enough time to change into something more sociable. 

The instant you were in your room, you wasted no time digging through your duffle bag until you found a semi-decent outfit. Most of your clothes were for work but you liked to keep a few nicer things on hand for occasions such as this. After pairing a cute black peekaboo sweater with a pair of fitted dark-wash jeans that framed your thick thighs and ass perfectly, you slipped on your only non-work shoes- a pair of black ankle booties. From there, you hastily fixed your hair and put on a quick bit of makeup before rushing out the door. 

It felt weird to admit you were kind of excited to hang out with Daniel and the others tonight. You’d never really been included much in things back home, being medical staff and not one of the “boys”, but ever since being here for the mission, Daniel had made it his primary objective to make sure to check in on you multiple times a day. A strange little friendship was budding and, somehow, you didn’t hate the idea. He’d been nothing less than kind, and now that you weren’t completely hung up on the colonel, you were losing your biggest reason for disliking him. 

“Y/N! Whoa!” 

Daniel’s yelp caught you off guard and you couldn’t stop the blush that formed when you saw the way multiple pairs of eyes raked up and down your form. 

“Damn, you clean up nice, Y/L/N,” another private, Chad you think it was, said from beside Daniel. 

“Uh, thanks,” you replied awkwardly, “So… bar?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Daniel said with a grin, “Hope you don’t mind but we’re walking because it’s only two blocks away!”

Nodding in understanding, you joined the group of five with a little smile, trying your hardest to keep your nerves at bay. It was chilly out. Nothing too horrible, but it made you glad you’d had the foresight to wear something warm since you had to walk in it. 

“Hey, you know, Chad was right,” Daniel said quietly when he dropped to the back of the group with you, “You look incredible. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you in anything other than work attire.”

Damn it. It was much easier to hate him when he was acting more creepy and you were under the illusion he’d ruined your love life. Now… Now it was almost too easy to like him.

“Thanks, I appreciate that,” you answered, “You look nice too! Never seen you dressed down either.” 

It wasn’t a lie. Daniel wasn’t a bad-looking guy, maybe a bit plain with short brown hair styled in the regulation cut, nice green eyes, and a big smile, but definitely not bad. It was just that your thoughts were always flittering around the almost seven-foot beast of a man in comparison and no one could compare to that. 

The pink that dusted his cheeks only served to make him cuter and you were nearly groaning in frustration at the thoughts filtering through your mind. No. There was no way you were going to give in to those thoughts. It was just the pain of König ignoring you and the human need for attention making you think that way, you were almost certain. 

“Ah, we’re here!” 

The music from the bar was audible from the outside and it only got worse once you stepped in. He hadn’t been lying when he said there was a thriving nightlife. The small bar was packed to the gills, with just enough room to move around and get to the bar, bathrooms, or dance floor. 

“Come on, I’ll buy you your first drink!” he shouted over the music. 

Aw shit. You knew where that was going to lead. Before you could decline his offer, he snagged your wrist and nearly dragged you to the bar. You were given no choice but to order your favorite drink when he demanded so and the bartender stared you down with a less-than-patient glare. True to his word, he paid for your drink, and then instantly dragged you through the crowd without a word. Daniel led you everywhere like you were some lost puppy who needed direction. From the bar to the table, and then to the dance floor, you weren’t given a single choice in the matter up to the point of him practically pouring your drink down your throat. 

Said action didn’t fly over well, the liquor bitter and stinging down your throat so quickly you had to reflexively cough to avoid aspirating. 

“Jesus, fuck, calm down,” you snapped at him once you caught your breath. 

“I just wanna make sure you can loosen up and have fun,” he replied with an apologetic smile, “I’m sorry. I.. I just don’t want you to fall behind or anything.”

You couldn’t contain your eye-roll as you gave into the puppy dog eyes and made a show of taking another drink. 

“There, happy?” you asked. 

“Definitely, come on, let’s dance!” 

The irritation over his actions was soon forgotten as you gave in to the beat of the music and joined in the writhing bodies on the floor. It didn’t take long to get drawn into the moment, the alcohol and music a powerful combination that brought out the serotonin you didn’t know you needed. Song after song passed and soon enough you found yourself in Daniel’s arms. It was almost nice, to let the stress of the past few months flow away and focus on only the here and now. 

“I didn’t know you could move like this,” Daniel said into your ear as his arms wrapped around your waist.

The graze of his lips across your skin sent shivers down your spine and you instinctively arched into his touch as his hands slid further down your sides. 

“I don’t get the chance to dance much,” you admitted meekly.

“That’s a shame. You’ll have to let me drag you out more often because it’s a damn sexy sight.”

A giggle escaped before you could stop it. Damn it. His flirting wasn’t funny! 

“Mmmhmm, sure,” you retorted cheekily, “You’re like the only one who thinks that.” 

He quickly spun you around, fast enough that the world went wonky and you had to grab onto him for balance, and it sent chills through your body. 

“Whoa, that- oh my,” you gasped. 

“Are you okay, Y/N?” 

There was a look of concern on his face as you felt your knees weaken. Panic sent your heart racing but you couldn’t focus enough to figure out why. Something just felt… wrong. 

“Maybe you’re dehydrated. Why don’t you finish the rest of your drink?” he urged. 

Shaking your head, you managed to mumble out, “Alcohol won’t fix dehydration. It’ll actually make it worse.”

“Well, it’s worth a try, come on.”

When he pushed the cup to your lips again, some semblance of your brain came back online and you pushed instinctively it away. The ugly curve of his downturned lips told a terrifying story. Was he- Was he trying to drug you?! Clenching your eyes shut tight, you tried to sort through your memories and recall the symptoms of being drugged to compare to your current ailments.

“Damn it, just take the fucking drink. I spent ten dollars on this fancy shit,” he grunted lowly. 

Eyes popping open, you caught his furious glare and instantly everything clicked. The reason he was so intent on you coming out tonight, how he handled the drink all the way to the floor, his insistence to drink the alcohol. 

“You- You prick,” you bit out. 

Thankfully, you hadn’t drunk more than those first two gulps. Whatever he’d laced the liquor with likely wasn’t at its full potential, and yet you were still feeling the effects. Just what the fuck had he given you?

“Y/N, what are you-”

With all your strength, you pushed him and luckily managed to catch him off guard, sending him flying back into the group behind him. You didn’t wait to see if he got back to his feet before you took the chance to escape. It was like a psychedelic maze, trying to escape the packed dance floor with your heart racing and your eyes swimming. Eventually, you made it out, and you instantly left the bar. 

The cold night air tore a gasp from your lungs when it hit your skin but it was more than welcomed. Your body felt like it was on fire, sweat rolling down your back and forehead as if you’d just been vigorously working out. The chill helped to clear your thoughts some. 

“Okay, I can do this, it’s just two blocks,” you murmured to yourself. 

For a minute, you considered calling for help from one of your squadmates, but your gut cautioned you otherwise. These soldiers were close, dangerously close. There was a good chance they’d just help him cover it up if you tried. A weak sigh left your lips as tears flooded your gaze. You wished you would have just stayed at work. You wished you hadn’t gone against your initial judgment of that asshole. You wish you were home, safe and sound in bed. Most of all, you wished you could call König to come save you. How ironic that you were looking to the man Daniel had “rescued” you from to come rescue you from him now. 

“Where do you think you’re going, bitch?!” 

A big hand snagged your wrist and pulled you to a stop so suddenly that your shoulder popped audibly, pain shooting through the joint as you collapsed back against him. 

“Daniel, please- I-”

“Uh-uh, nope. You’re not talking me out of this,” he hissed.

Despite using your entire weight to pull against him, he was able to drag you down a nearby dark alley with ease. Pain exploded through the back of your skull when he slammed you into the brick wall with a grunt and you nearly collapsed.

“Fuck!” you yelped, hand instinctively touching the throbbing spot to check for blood.

“You don’t fucking get it, do you? I was the one who located their base. I was the one who led the team in and took out as many of those dumb fucks as possible. I was the one to save your miserable ass, and what did I get for it? Nothing more than a fucking “thanks” and a shitty attitude. I waited for you to come around but you never fucking did,” he snarled, palm slapping the brick beside your face with a grunt, “When Graves suggested we bring medics along, I knew it would be my best chance of getting you alone. You’re such a stuck-up whore at home that you don’t ever go out with us. But here, I knew I could convince you. All it took was some kindness for your fat ass to fold. Can’t reckon you get much attention, so I’m not that surprised.” 

Disgust and shame reared its ugly head in your chest as you let your eyes drop from the angry vision of his face. Instead, you stared intently at the pocket of his white polo. 

“Now, you’re going to do what you should have done long ago, and you’re going to thank me for saving you. Get on your fucking knees and if you even think of using teeth I’ll put a round in your head so fast that-”

You stopped, mid-decent to the concrete when Daniel went flying. As he slammed into the ground, a hulking shadow followed him in earnest. It took your brain some time to figure out what was happening, but then you heard a familiar voice snarling in German. Slowly, the details of his form solidified in your gaze, and you sagged in relief. 

“Pray to your god while you’ve got the chance, ungeziefer!” König barked loudly.

A pained screech filled the air and made your stomach twist. 

“ König?!” Daniel groaned, “What the-? Why?!”

“You’re quite simple, aren’t you?” König snapped back with a humorless laugh, “Take one guess.”  

You watched the way Daniel’s head popped up, a look of disbelief clear in his eyes as he stared up at the giant before turning to you. Even through the lingering haze of the drugs, you could clearly make out the terror on his face and a sick part of you felt thrilled that he was experiencing even a modicum of the fear he’d pushed onto you. 

“I- I didn’t know,” he panted through frantic gasps, “I wouldn’t have-!” 

Daniel’s weak croak was silenced by a brutal kick to the face. The crunch of bone and cartilage sent chills down your spine and you couldn’t but absentmindedly think about how badly that would heal… if he even made it out of there. 

König rolled him over with a boot to the gut and crouched down above him, his voice just barely loud enough for you to hear. 

“Even if she wasn’t mine, you don’t get to touch her in that way. Unfortunately for you, she is mine. You’re just lucky I don’t have the time to drag this out. The things I would do to you…”

His words lit a fire in your stomach, misplaced lust and satisfaction filling your chest despite the gruesome scene before you. There was a rapid-fire battle going on in your mind, between the lawful good instinct to stop König and the chaotic righteousness to let him beat the hell out of Daniel. It wasn’t until the glint of a blade pierced through the dark, reflecting the weak fluorescent light behind them, that reality finally set in. This wasn’t going to be a fight. This was going to be a slaughter. König was going to kill someone over you!

“No, don’t! König, wait!” 

Your pleas fell on deaf ears. Before you could even blink, he was knelt on Daniel’s back, jerking the smaller man’s head up by the hair only to sink the knife into his ribs repeatedly, ending it with a vicious slash across his throat. It was awful and astonishing. A man of his size shouldn’t be that quick. While you’d seen him take out five of your team alone, that was with a gun. This was different. This was personal. 

Licking your dry lips, you watched with wide eyes as König got up from his position and turned your way. Something between fear and excitement quickened your breaths as he stalked your way, slowly, wiping the blood from his blade before shoving it back into his pocket

“You shouldn’t have done that,” you murmured. 

“And let him live after knowing what he was going to do to you? I think not,” he growled back lowly.

The instant you were within reach, a hand was around your throat, gentle but commanding as he pulled you into him. 

“He’s lucky I didn’t make him clean his guts up off the floor,” he hissed.

“Oh.”

Before you could react, he crouched and lifted you up onto his waist. Brick bit into your back through your sweater as he pinned you against it, making you gasp as his mouth devoured yours. 

“Mine,” he growled fervently. 

His hips ground roughly into the apex of your thighs and stole your breath as a wave of pleasure scorched through your belly. Holy fuck, he was already rock-hard. A pathetic whimper escaped your mouth into him when his teeth bit into your lip hard and you couldn’t resist scraping your nails along the nape of his neck. 

 “Nobody gets to touch you except me, got it?”

Your eyes rolled back at the rasp in his voice, the thinly veiled need peeking through in a taunt.

“Yeah, but… Hey! König, wait, please!”

A little growl emanated through his chest as you pushed on him, but he easily relented, drawing away to catch your flustered gaze with half-lidded eyes. 

“What is it, maus?” he asked.

“We can’t just- What- How the fuck are we gonna explain this?” you retorted, panic slowly filtering through your lust-hazed mind, “My god. You’re gonna get in trouble! I can’t- I can’t let you get hurt for protecting me! We have to do something! Maybe we can-”

Your rambling was quickly silenced with a hand over your mouth, the weight of his body leaning more into you, providing a sense of comfort almost like a weighted blanket. 

“Calm down, meine leibling,” he shushed warmly, “Take a deep breath and relax. Everything is going to be fine, I promise you.” 

Tears blurred your vision as you looked from him to Daniel and back to him, only to find his eyes hungrily tracing your form. Even in the current situation, you couldn’t deny the heat it caused. And then it was gone, the furrow of his brow conveying that anger once more when he released your mouth. 

“What did you think you were doing anyway, coming here with him?”

You couldn’t help but recoil, grimacing as your head hit the wall in the same tender spot, until he forced your face up by your chin. There was so much fury residing in his gaze that your heart squirmed in pain. It hurt worse than anything to see that judgment and anger directed at you. Was he really going to blame you?

“Maus, I said, what did you think you were-”

“Well, I sure as fuck didn’t think I was coming out to get raped!” you spat back finally, unbidden tears spilling down your cheeks, “I thought- I thought I was- was with friends. I-I didn’t think-”

When he pulled you into his chest, the damn broke fully. Sobs poured from your shaking form as you wrapped yourself around him and breathed him in. You cried over the betrayal from your teammate. You cried at how close you came to being assaulted by another horrible person, the fact that König had saved you twice now. You cried over how much you’d missed him, over how happy you were to hear he still had some kind of emotion for you; no matter how demented it might be. 

“I had a bad feeling about him,” he bit out after a moment, “When I saw you leave with them, I just knew. I’m sorry it took so long to get out here to you, schatz. If I had been quicker-”

You shook your head frantically and whimpered, “You were just in time.” 

He hummed quietly, hand cradling the nape of your neck as he murmured little soothing words against your hair. You don’t know how long you stood there like that but eventually, your limbs started to ache from the position. When you pulled away from him, he put you down gently but didn’t let you retreat fully, hands cupping your face tenderly while he wiped away your tears. 

“I don’t enjoy seeing you cry like this,” he sighed. 

Something about that triggered that subdued anger in the back of your mind, waking the beast from slumber. Anger was easier to handle than sadness. How dare he stand here and comfort you, hold you like this, when hours ago he couldn’t even look you in the eye! 

Nose wrinkling in frustration, you stepped back and wrapped your arms around yourself as the lack of his warmth hit hard. The hurt that passed through his eyes nearly made you collapse back into his arms but you knew you couldn’t- not yet, not until you had answers. 

“Why?” you finally asked.

“Why, wha-”

“Why did you act like I didn’t exist? I spent the last two months driving myself fucking crazy, pining over you and what could have been, only to get treated like I was nothing more than dirt on your boot the next time I saw you!”

He tried to talk but you cut him off swiftly. No way were you done with him. Shoving a finger into his oh-so-glorious pec, you stepped closer with all the rage you could muster in your glare. In another light, it probably would have been hilarious to see someone of your short stature intimidating the giant man.

“If I was just some fucking notch in your bedpost, you could have said that! You didn’t have to act like there was something more. You have to know how hot you are. I would have fucked you even without you tricking me like that. But no, you had to make me feel special, make it feel like there was more than just my body on the line, and then you have the nerve to get mad at me for seeking out platonic companionship in my teammates?! You dare claim that I’m yours?! No, no, you don’t get to do that!”

The instant your rant ended, one hand cupped the back of your head and the other shoved you back against the wall, the impact cushioned by his hand before he boxed you in on either side. And fuck, you shouldn’t have found that hot but god it was. The way he instinctively protected you, acted like he cared, towered over you in a way that just screamed dominance and power.

“Don’t you dare say those things. There hasn’t been one moment that I haven’t thought about you, that I wasn’t looking out for you from afar, mein schatz,” he said sternly.

“Then why-”

“Because I couldn’t risk anyone figuring out what had happened between us!” he snapped with a huff, “If anyone knew you had stayed with me willingly, your life would be in danger, and I knew if I spoke to you, I would break. How could I not? I’m only so strong, meine liebe. Did you really think it was easy for me to do that? That I didn’t want to scoop you up in my arms the moment you walked through that door? That it didn’t break my heart when I watched the hope leave your eyes?! I hated myself every- single- second.” 

Swallowing hard, you couldn’t force out any kind of answer. Distrust held your heart in a stronghold but his words were slowly chipping it away, the passion in his voice worming its way under your skin. 

“It was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. You don’t even understand. Scheiße, I put so much time and effort into finally meeting you, and then somehow… somehow, I lucked out. I  got a taste of what I’d wanted for so long,” he paused, thumb gently stroking that sweet spot below your ear as his eyes searched your face, “And it was more than I could have ever hoped for, only to have you ripped away at the last moment.”

His words settled heavily around you and, as their significance soaked into your brain, you could only stare at him in confusion. He… had known of you before you met? You knew they’d gathered intel on your team before the attack, but… he'd seen enough to want to see you?

“What do you mean?” you asked softly. 

His silence was loud, louder than you could handle and the guilt in his eyes sent a shiver up your spine.

“König,” you urged, “What- What do you mean?” 

German spewed suddenly from his lips, angry and frantic as he began to pace in place, and it only served to make that anxiety nestle deeper in your belly.  

“Damn it! Talk to me!” you cried. 

When he spun around, you tripped over yourself in shock trying to back away from the fury in his glare. Fortunately, or possibly unfortunately, he caught you before you could actually fall, but he didn’t let you go even once you were balanced.

“There’s no way to make this sound good,” he breathed quietly. 

Eyebrows shooting up in disbelief, you retorted, “Yeah, well, it can’t be worse than leaving me guessing at all the horrible things you could mean!” 

“I need you to promise me you won’t run, that you’ll let me explain.” 

While you wanted to hear him out, you weren’t sure how well you would handle whatever it was. There was also the issue of your dead teammate less than five meters away. Everything in your heart and mind was torn into a million little pieces of focus and it was all too much. You had to pick one problem at a time to deal with.  

Looking over at Daniel’s still form, you pressed your lips into a thin line. 

“What the hell do we do about him?” you asked. 

You weren’t lying earlier when you said you were worried for König. He had a lot of power, but straight up murdering one of Graves’ men out of battle and, even worse while allied, was beyond reason. That was a death sentence. 

König froze up, almost as if he’d forgotten about the whole reason you were there, and let out a heavy sigh. 

“I’ll call it in and have Horangi take care of it,” he muttered, “For now, come back to my room with me. Everyone should be out right now.” 

Why did that sound so inviting, so perfect? Fantasies of being able to touch him again, cuddle with him once more, plagued your thoughts until the weight of his admission came crashing back down. You couldn’t help but stare at him as his words reverberated in your head. It was clearer than ever that you knew nothing about this man, and yet you couldn't stop the way your heart fluttered when he slipped his fingers between yours, nor the way you felt content in following him out of the alley. Despite it all, under the fear and the uncertainty, that fatal attraction to him was still burning strong. When he wrapped his arm around you and slipped you under his jacket to protect you against the blustering winds, it felt too much like home. 

Just what the fuck were you supposed to do now?

[rocketturtle4]

Be My Favorite - When is the present actually the future?

I’m pretty sure writing this is about to consume my entire Saturday but by the time I wake up tomorrow La Pluie will have been out for 6 hours and my Sunday brain will have other things to think about! (it actually only took about half of it so I'm considering that a win)

I have read through my Tumblr feed for people’s thoughts on the latest Be My Favorite episode and I absolutely have to share because I found that while ideas and themes explored mirrored my own thoughts, the conclusions people were putting forth about where the show might be going were completely different.

(Posts I don't specifically reference in this but that which I definitely read and you should too include @syrena-del-mar and @shouldiusemyname here and @chickenstrangers here )

Also shoutout to @bengiyo because I used your sarge watches to reduce how much I had to go back and watch things.

LETS CLOWN

(am I, am I using it right? I have so many questions about the LINGO and I don’t know who to ask)

My Hypothesis: Kawi is going to be faced with the ultimate choice of remaining in the past or the present when the crystal ball runs out of charge and he will choose to remain in the past where he must face his uncertain future.

Okay, stay with me please

Question 1: When is Kawi actually in the present?

Last week I made a throw away post about the time travel being a metaphor for being unable to skip ahead in life without consequences. In particular this scene (a flashback at the very end of episode 4):

Got my brain thinking about how Kawi and the people around him freeze in their character development whenever he jumps forward, so maybe his present is actually in the past.

EVIDENCE

Timeline 1: OG Future

In this timeline Kawi essentially froze the moment the crystal ball was broken. In the OG Future he is distantly acquainted with classmates, sad for the death of his father (from whom he was distant), distant from Max and has never drunk any alcohol. This is all directly reflective of where he was at the time he broke the crystal ball.

Timeline 2: Future 2 – He’s Pisaengs best man

In this timeline he’s been back in the past, and acted very unlike himself because he assumes he's dreaming. At the end of this timeline he ends up in the very early stages of becoming Piseang’s bestie. We have not yet had serious (feelings) tension between Piseang and Kawi, only a single night of bonding and I would argue that in this particular future timeline, Piseang is not in love with Kawi. He has become a platonic bestie (something that could never happen without the time skip) because these were the emotions Kawi and Piseang had for each other in the past even if these were pretty fledgling emotions when Kawi left. (Also, Kawi now drinks heavily, something he did for the first time in this immediate past when he thought it was a dream).

Timeline 3: Future 3: Piseang is in love with him and abandons his own wedding.

In the past Kawi is more intentional with his actions to change things. We also see his confusion around how he became Piseangs best man because as Kawi continues to grow and learn this option doesn’t make sense (But as a frozen version of the previous past's future…) (I'm losing track of the tense I can feel it)

In this timeline we have only progressed slightly further through the past but all the development was around Kawi and Piseang and Piseang’s growing feelings  (Piseang getting Kawi the plushie happens in this Future’s linked Past). And we come forward to Piseang finally giving into his feelings and kissing Kawi. This scene is very similar to Piseang almost kissing Kawi in the past in the following episode (episode 3) when they fall over because in Piseang’s arc these things happened at a pretty similar point in time, its just that in this future he was frozen at his point of realization until Kawi’s consciousness returned to his body on the morning of Piseang’s wedding. He could only act after Kawi was back to being old!Kawi, because of things being frozen.

Timeline 4: He’s Famous and it’s a mess

In the linked past here, Kawi has JUST debuted as a lead singer, has turned down Piseang kindly but Piseang has made his devotion clear, has decided to date Pear ‘because he’s in love with her’ BUT Pear is feeling uncertain about her place in Kawi’s life (evidence: both the bar scene with Not, and the hospital scene) and is friends with Max again. (Also I'm not sure if I already linked @lurkingshans post with Kawi 'interupting his own growth arc midstream.' it definitely kicked my brain into gear)

In the future he is a famous singer, distant but close to Piseang, and friends with Max (why has Max stuck with him huh?) also Not and Pear and Kwan provide, in my opinion, strong evidence for their frozenness because we’ve just seen in the past that Not has feelings for Pear and Kwan has feelings for Not, and this is the exact feelings scenario we get in the future. There has been no change. They're frozen in their feelings from 12 years ago.

We also have had posts about the idea that Kawi has gotten drunk and kissed Piseang multiple times through this jump. (Which makes perfect sense if you freeze his character at this exact point of uncertain feelings that are being ignored) (@piningintrovert here) (also this post where for some reason my @ won't let me tag dropthedemiurge IM SORRY) (also here) @becomingabeing

Also his alcoholism is spiralling because he has not learnt anything about drinking responsibly in the (mere days/weeks) it’s been since episode 1 started (and alcoholism is definitely more complicated, but in this specific context you have an individual that’s just started drinking heavily because they’ve discovered alcohol and their life is super confusing and these habits aren't checked or changed because his growth is frozen, there are simply the consequences) (not saying this is the case just the case in the context of this theory)

Counterpoint

Kawi’s dad has survived surgery in the past but is still dead in the future.

I don’t necessarily think this is strong evidence against my point but it’s worth mentioning.

Question 2:

How does Kawi’s Memory Work in these Futures?

This is a separate thread but it’s related to my theory because in Timeline’s 2 & 3, Kawi appeared to have no memory of the intervening years. (Inference: He hasn't really lived them)

Timeline 4 was a little different but the memories seemed to need specific triggers (speaking aloud, seeing a person) to come back. We saw in his arguments with Pear and Piseang that he DID seem to gain and settle into his memories more as he thought about the intervening past (intervening past = the time between when he left the past and arrived in Future 4).

We see 2 different flashbacks of the ‘Pear leave’s Kawi’ moments. 1 seemed to be Kawi remembering (trigger is when he sees Pear for the first time). 2 seems to be Piseangs own memories (flashbacks are always so frustrating because who is remembering? Is Kawi remembering this too?.

Kawi also just slips into being less jaded and work focused than his (frozen) future self apparently is. (Sudden carfree metaphorical ocean romp definitely relevant here)

ALSO Kawi freaks out about his own memory in episode 7 3/4 10.30 (re Piseang’s new number) (this almost felt like young!Kawi was overlayed with old!Kawi and so we were getting conflicting reasons for the memory lapse (is he sick? did he call Piseangs old number as young!Kawi without thinking?)

Counterpoint

The scene at the very end of episode 7 threw a small but solid spanner in the works of my brain because when does this scene take place? Piseang says eight years, original jump forward was 12 (I think) so therefor this is in the intervening years. Which I kind of thought of as frozen/fairly nonexistent (Except specifically when a character thinks about them) so I am not sure how this scene fits in.

This could be something Kawi will specifically think about before going back in time

(see this post for more clowning @sparklyeyedhimbo)

(side note, his jacket looks super similar to the flashback jacket in this counterpoint scene - it's not the same one though)

How old is Kawi’s brain?

I also made a throw away post about this last week, I have no clearer thoughts on this except that it’s intriguing to ask how old the Kawi traversing between the past and the future actually is? This post is so long I’m just going to link it. It’s not very fleshed out.

Side Point

One thing that floated into my brain while thinking about all this was the recent Step By Step episode and the dissatisfaction everyone felt about the time skips. So often used as a means of progressing a characters life while rarely showing meaningful character growth.

Could this whole show be a commentary on time skips and their conceptual flaws as a means of fast-tracking character growth?

I think it’s a bit of a reach, but I also don’t tend to read into directors/creators intentions as much so I thought I’d put it out there for people to chew over.

Additional hypotheses/questions I’m chewing on:

Q: Will his dad survive if he chooses to stay in the past to take care of him?

Q: How many sets of memories does he have, does he remember any of the intervening past between main past timeline and future 2 and main past timeline and future 3? Are the memories getting overlayed?

Conclusion

 As @lurkingshan pointed out, Kawi interrupts his character growth when he jumps forward in time. We have to go back in time to keep growing. Yet we’ve gone back and forward and back and forward 4 times now and the future is always messy because the characters can’t live on without change for 12 years and still grow together. I could absolutely see the show choosing to go in the direction put forth by @wen-kexing-apologist and @stuffnonsenseandotherthings here also @lurkingshan and @ginnymoonbeam have interesting thoughts about Kawi having to stop trying to change the future and live with his choices to move forward.

It's just that I think he is going to do that in the past giving up his chance to jump forward without growth. Because he has to choose not to know where he is going, to truly live in the present.

Savy?

(please point out all the holes in my theory, I am so invested I need some PERSPECTIVE)

[phantomoftheorpheum]

PLL: OS (Summer School) Finale Live Notes.

*Spoilers for the entirety of PLL Summer School

Okay friends, we've come to end of the season! I took notes throughout the episode, so here they are, plus some post-episode thoughts.

I knew Kelly wouldn't be dead! Faran had no reason to arrive so quickly if she wasn't going to be able to save her.

Okay, not important, but Kelly's hair always looks so good when they let it be wavy, I hope she'll get that style more in season 3 (assuming there is one), which would also set her apart from Karen.

Y'all, istg if the Ravenswood namedrop means they're taking an actual supernatural angle with this, I will be the one rioting.

"They just kinda showed up outta nowhere. I mean, doesn't that Christian guy make horror masks?" hkhjsdhfjk Heartbreaking: The Worst Person You Know Just Made A Great Point. Jk, jk, I promise I do not actually hate Jen or think she's the worst person in the show, I just really hate the love triangle trope and the way this storyline has been handled and this made me laugh, and while this feels like a big deflection, yet again (like... as did you?), she seriously does have a point, someone SHOULD be bringing up the masks.

I actually love the bickering when people start accusing each other’s SOs. I do like that the girls are supportive of each other, but they need conflict, too. Also interesting to see what comes out when people are getting defensive. 

Aaaaand there's another Scream reference. Tabby: Safety in numbers! but then Tabby, approximately 2 seconds later: Let's go individually investigate our suspicious love interests and then regroup! TABBY YOU ARE A HORROR NERD, YOU SHOULD KNOW BETTER!

If Johnny is not involved, he really is the CHILLEST dude on the planet.

Confirmation that the Bloody Rose murders were filmed! That's so validating. At this point in the episode, I'm leaning towards Wes and not Christian in this aspect. They're (the girls) too worried about Johnny and Christian, which wouldn't make either of them a major twist, and they have been literally 0% worried about Wes (which I still maintain makes absolutely no sense, considering what Tabby and Christian found at his place. & the main reason he ever dropped ever so slightly on my suspect list [he was still very, very up there] was how ridiculously HUGE of a red flag that should have been that it felt like it could be a set up, but then Tabby didn't get suspicious [which was also my biggest red flag with Christian, but now she is suspicious of him] so...)

I thought it would be a stabbing and not her smashing him on the head (I also thought it might be a nightmare), but I WAS right about my “rule of threes” and my prediction that Johnny was going to fail to talk down Imogen, after successfully doing so twice before.

I'm not convinced he's actually an antagonist because if he were, why the fuck would he hide bodies at the place he works, like that is a ridiculously bad move, but also if this kills him & he’s not bad, that’s gonna be so fucked & also Imogen could definitely go to jail. So. Idk what to believe yet. 

Y’ALL, I swear to god these are my as I am watching notes & I absolutely did not realize how hilarious me calling Johnny “the CHILLEST dude on the planet,” was going to end up being. I know this scene is serious, but I just lost it, knowing how it related to my notes.

Okay, on a more serious note. Survivability is not looking great for Johnny. Also, Imogen, word of advice- when you find bodies in the freezer, LEAVE and call the police, don’t go confront the guy you believe murdered them!!! 

Okay, pause. Tabby just fell down the stairs at Christian’s (knew that was coming, obviously) after finding a Davie mask (not surprised), but since we have half an hour left in the episode, I’m guessing this means that the frame job I thought was happening IS happening and it’s happening to Christian (Wes hired Christian specifically to frame him?) and Johnny, meaning Wes is likely the mastermind. Also, this makes me VERY suspicious of Jen. She pushed the girls towards Johnny and Christian and now there’s the perfect evidence to turn Imogen and Tabby against them?

Right. So I did not have on my bingo card that Rose Waters would actually get her face carved off, that was honestly more brutal than I was expecting. 

The body on the altar is Pastor Malachi, which I’m a little disappointed about (in myself), but I did say he was the only one of the other victims that I could make any argument for being there, but I really thought it was going to be somebody important to Rose.

Okay, WELL, yes on Mrs. Langsberry and yes on Wes, but I did NOT expect him to take that mask off during the livestream. I really thought he was going to try to pin everything on someone else. I also don’t believe for a second he intends to let Tabby live, no matter what she says (though I do believe he would let her “seem” to live for the sake of the film, then kill her after). 

Did Christian not just say they should go to the screening room because there are no doors? But then immediately direct them out of some exit doors? I think this is just silly writing & not actually nefarious, but rofl.

“Mickey is a sick fuck who wants to get caught!" It really is Scream 2! It really is! Except Tabby didn't have a "wavering because I'm not sure if I can trust my boyfriend and maybe I shouldn't untie him," equivalent moment, really.

I know they all did self defense, but that last guy Tabby took out looked like a video game takedown, lol. I would have probably believed it more with Faran, but I get it.

Well, at least Faran got to punch Bloody Rose.

I AM SO MAD AT MYSELF. Tabby and Christian have that whole convo about their favorite horror movie deaths and she brings up the pitchfork, and at the time I even thought, “I wonder if someone is gonna get stabbed with a pitchfork,” and then I chose not to bother to type that up and I cannot believe I did not type that up! Of all the useless crap I typed up and that's the thing I didn't bother to ever post about? I'm disappointed in myself.

Y’all, maybe one of you should stay with Tabby, like maybe you don’t need 4 of you to go into the cabin to check the Wes situation. 

I do love the “they always come back” Scream reference with Wes’s death here.

Okay, but... why did he kidnap Dr. Sullivan? And why was Pastor Malachi on the altar? And we're not gonna talk about the tests? Like I get they were for the movie, but we're just not even gonna mention them? Because if Wes is using that footage for his film, then isn't it kind of a problem that they all survived because that very much does not make Tabby the typical sole final girl.

Uuuuummmm…. Like assuming we’ve had all the important reveals and not considering what they might write next season, Imogen really fucked up the Johnny situation, turns out that really was the chillest dude on the planet.

Whoa. Wait. After all that, we’re just getting it thrown at us that Dr. Sullivan is actually a total asshole?? It's wild that she was actually risking her license just to write a book and she hates all of them.

I mean, Archie not actually being dead is the least surprising thing ever. Obviously he was not actually dead.

So.... are the girls wearing the girls masks supposed to be the movie Tabby is imagining? Or are we actually supposed to be concerned about this?

Wow, okay, lots to digest.

Immediate Post-Finale Thoughts

I'm so tired and I stayed up super late to watch this, so I will probably do a "now I've had some time to think about it," post finale post later, but this will have to do for now.

Overall, I thought this was a fun finale! Personally I like this reveal much better than the Principal Clanton one.

However, there are so many loose threads, unresolved storylines, and randomly missing characters, so I'm gonna go over a few of those.

Ash just basically stopped existing. They say his name a couple of times, but him just not being in the finale at all felt weird.

Same goes for Greg, who I normally wouldn't miss, except they had all the Faran/Greg stuff last episode. I'm not sure why they cut most of that, but then left what they did in 2x07. It feels like maybe they felt they had to keep some of it because they wanted to show Faran missing Kelly's phone call, but they couldn't explain why Faran and Greg were out together if they didn't have their hookup earlier in the episode, but... I think it would have been cleaner to just cut all of that and just show Faran seeing the missed call without any explanation of why she missed it. I don't know. I think this was a pretty messy way to handle it.

-longest sigh in the world- you're telling me that the Shawn/Noa/Jen love triangle literally had absolutely nothing to do with anything and we spent that much time on it????? This kills me. I gave the writers too much of the benefit of the doubt on this one. I really, really thought they wouldn't do all of that and literally not have any of it matter. Is this really what they wrote? This isn't the edit? Blegh. This was such a waste of time of a plot point. Why did they bother to have Shawn in this plot line at all? You're telling me not only did I sit through 2 of my least favorite tropes (love triangle and infidelity) and you could have just written Shawn out between seasons and had the conflict be that Noa is enamored with Jen, but one (or more) of the girls don't trust her because she showed up out of nowhere (like she accuses Christian and Johnny of doing) and keeps lying about things? But instead they did this? And for what? So Noa can call someone to hot wire a car? Because we didn't even get any drama out of it (aside from Noa smashing Shawn's car and the little bit of bickering in this episode) because the girls were immediately supportive and Shawn's reaction was relegated to some angry weightlifting. What the fuck? This was a huge miss, imo.

So... It seems like a lot of Imogen's stuff was only there to set up her attacking Johnny. Like the whole babysitting Estelle sequence never comes back around (but this is the first time Johnny sees her panicking with a knife), and the stuff with her dad and Rebecca didn't matter, except for the fact that Johnny also talks her down when she has a knife. Hm.

So? How long were those bodies in the freezer and what was the point of putting them there if Wes wanted to get caught anyway? Because surely Johnny would notice if they'd been there a long time, but also they weren't trying to frame him (poor dude got hit on the head with a wrench by his girlfriend and then locked in a freezer with 3 dead bodies), so?

I wish we'd gotten a little more explanation of Wes's plan. I still don't really get why he kidnapped Dr. Sullivan and tied her up in the shack. Where was that going?

Am I just super sleep deprived, or did all this just not have any connection to the Waters family lore, aside from Wes killing Rose (I think she's dead) and appropriating the Waters family story for the film? Also, how does his reveal work, since he's just suddenly not in character? Like what the hell is Wes's film?

Who/what did the snake in Imogen's poster represent? WAS it Dr. Sullivan and Wes knew about the book? I can't think of why it would be there, otherwise. This stuff feels quite messy to me.

I have a hard time believing Mrs. Beasley is just not going to be an abusive piece of crap any longer, but it's nice to see Kelly with the other girls.

How did SpookySpaghetti get all the girl's new phone numbers? That was not made clear.

Do we think there was someone else we know who was involved (I mean that they've actually planned for, not that they will retcon in later) that didn't get caught?

So the three figures in the poster are Wes as Archie, Mrs. Langsberry as Rose, and Chip? as the skeleton? I assume?

I do feel pleased that I called the combo of "someone making a movie and a mother avenging her dead child," but I'm a little disappointed a love interest didn't get revealed as evil, and also I thought the "mother" would be a bit more unhinged than Mrs. Langsberry ended up being. Like obviously she is committing a bunch of murders at Wes' direction, so not a shining example of rational thinking, and she's in denial about Chip, but I thought the "mother" was going to be fully delusional, tbh.

Am I still a little sad that they didn't find a way to shoehorn in a musical moment for Antonio? Yeah, a little, but he's alive so there's always possibly next season. (To be clear, I do not want them to do a musical episode, like please no, I just was hoping they do karaoke at some point this season or something, though I had no expectation of that fitting into the finale).

Season 3 renewal announcement soon?

Okay, I'm sure there's more, but I'm super exhausted and I need time to mentally digest this.

As usual, if you have any thoughts/feelings you want to share, feel free to shoot me an ask!

[lunar-years]

https://deadline.com/2024/08/ted-lasso-season-4-deal-near-brett-goldstein-hannah-waddingham-1236049653/ LOOK WHAT YOU DID /J

Article here

PHEW. Okay. I kind of cursed us I think? I’m sorry everyone. :(

now that i've had a few hours to soak this news in uhhhh. I have thoughts! As many of you know, I flip flop all the time on whether i actually *want* more Ted Lasso, but now that it's far closer to happening and we're hearing a bit more about what it might it entail, I'm unfortunately kind of landing firmly back in the "god no keep that away from me" camp. Reasons being:

The show kind of doomed itself when it made s3 because at the beginning of that season I would have SWORN there was going to be a s4, and by the end i was convinced there was absolutely never going to be a s4. They had sooooo many plots going on, and instead of doing the reasonable thing and adjusting the original vision of the show to expand the vast amount of story they'd ended up with for s3 into two enjoyable and well-paced seasons, they decided to instead squeeze it into one very mid, terribly paced season. so now s4 isn't going to make much sense because the show already HAD an ending (even if it was a subpar one)

why on EARTH couldn't they have decided to move ahead with this before everyone's contracts expired 😭 wtf wtf!!!!! this is an absolutely wretched cursed timeline. if i remember correctly everyone was under contract for 4 seasons up until May this year. and they're going to turn around and announce a s4 in AUGUST??? hello???

As the article mentioned, and expanding on point #2, it is quite likely several og cast regulars are no longer available or only available in a guest star capacity. this sucks. a show that's missing some of the characters is literally FARRRR worse to me then a show that was given an ending and is now over forever. boo. if you're not giving me back jamie tartt again like literally pack it up boys. why are we doing this.

the *only* cast member I could understand (and perhaps even endorse) being lowered from series regular to guest star capacity would be Jason, and that's mostly because I think it's very hard to rectify Ted being a part of the afc richmond / London scene again after they JUST concluded his series-long arc by having him return home very poignantly to his son in Kansas. Like...huh? He just changes his mind and goes back??? lmao*

*The article is under the impression Jason WILL be returning and whilst that confuses me i AM willing to give the show the benefit of the doubt on writing a creative, fun way of making that possible. I am willing to trust them and let them sell me on how Ted Lasso can continue on! but going back to point 3, it's unfortunately all irrelevant to me if other characters are missing. sorry but. no.

as much as i did/do love ted lasso for a vast number of characters, i am too emotionally attached to my favs to where i literally do not think i would enjoy the show anymore if any of them were missing. A roy and keeley plot without jamie visibly in their lives sucks 2 me. A roy plot without jamie OR keeley (because frankly i'm hesitant about the potential of juno returning either) also sucks 2 me. i love the characters together and considering where we left them in s3, it doesn't excite me at all to think about their futures without each other. i'm not asking for rjk to be canon, even, im just asking for them to all be like. IN IT. At the end of the day, the show I love, I love because they were in it.

based on the current specualations...if everyone is in it (with or without ted) i will be tuned in but i feel nervous about it. if phil's really not returning like certain reports are saying, i'm not watching. BUT i will follow along via post episode tumblr gif sets where i can see any of the fun lighthearted roy stuff and keeley stuff and team stuff and ignore the rest of whatever the fucks happening. i will peacefully continue to live on (and contribute to) Ted Lasso Ao3 island.

[marvel1012]

Sins of the Father - Pt. 1 "Richie"

Synopsis: AU 3rd season episode of The Bear. Carm makes a startling discovery, and must navigate the fallout.

Warnings: just a lot of cursing and smoking for this installment (later parts will also have drinking, mentions of domestic violence/crime)

Word count: 1,993

Author's note: This is my very first fic posted to Tumblr, honest feedback appreciated but please go easy on me! I'm new to The Bear fandom and have hyperfixated this silly AU fic into existence, if it sucks then I probably won't bother posting the rest. I hope you enjoy this long, strange trip :) (Oh, and I had to make up a first name for Mr. Berzatto because nobody says his name in the show. Cheers!)

Part 2 | Part 3 ___________________________________________

The sound of a few distant gunshots echoed around the alley behind The Bear, but it had that bouncing, ricochet quality that meant it was far enough away to be someone else’s problem, not his. Carm took a last drag on his cigarette and tossed the still smoking butt to the pavement, stomping it out with the sole of his non-slip sneaker. Exhaling the last of the drag, he glanced over at the lone streetlight above the parking spot. It was strobing, the ancient bulb still trying to provide light but dying nonetheless. “I’ll have to get the city out here to fix that,” he thought.

“Hey Carmy, somebody’s out front to see ya,” the new guy, Connor, had his head stuck out the back door. 

“What? Who is it?” It was the middle of the night, an hour or so after service ended. Who would show up to the restaurant at this hour, asking for him? 

“I dunno, he says he’s your dad? Or somethin’?” 

Carm felt like he’d been punched in the stomach and slapped across the face simultaneously. 

Not ready…

Why now…

Why here…

On his sharp intake of breath, Connor’s eyebrows lifted in confusion. “You want me to tell him to get lost, errrr?” 

“Ah, no. No, that’s okay. I’ll— I’ll be right there.” 

Connor nodded and stepped back inside, leaving the door open for Carmen to follow. Carm rubbed hs index finger against his bottom lip, considering the empty doorway. Not ready…

As he passed through the kitchen and toward the front of house, the flurry of activity that usually followed dinner service was winding down. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Sydney and Marcus talking low about something over near the prep area. He did his best to hide the fact that the thought of them dating, of them being together, made his blood boil. What right did he have to be jealous, though? It’s not like he deserved someone as beautiful, smart, and talented as Sydney. He was broken, and the whole debacle with Claire had proven that beyond a shadow of a doubt. Marcus is good for her, she’s good for him, and I’m not good for anybody.

Passing into the dining area, he noticed a chair that hadn’t been pushed in. Someone must have missed it when they were straightening up. He stopped to put it back where it belonged. Old habits. Or maybe just stalling to avoid the awkward interaction he was about to face. Taking a deep breath, he hit the door and stepped out onto the sidewalk in front of The Bear, expecting to see the father he barely knew, the one from the pictures, the one that had walked away from him and everybody else all those years ago. 

But what he got was– someone else. 

Instead of broad shouldered, salt and pepper haired Jerry Berzatto, he of the deep set, dark eyes and craggy features that looked so much like Mikey’s it hurt, the man standing in front of him, taking a long drag on a Parliament, was pretty much the polar opposite. He was on the taller side, close to six feet, slender build but still muscular, kind of a wiry guy. His wild shaggy hair, haloing his face in the glare from the streetlight, was gray, but more like a light brown gone mostly to lighter blond, not like it had once been black. Not like his dad’s would have been. 

“Heeeey, you must be Carmen, the head honcho. You got one for your old man?” The stranger popped his cigarette into the corner of his mouth and took a step forward, offering Carmen his now free right hand for a shake. Instead of doing likewise, all Carm could do was stare. Stare directly into those piercing blue eyes– his eyes. The world tilted on its axis, and he took a step back. 

“Wh-who the fuck are you?” 

The man’s lopsided grin fell, and he reeled his hand back in, reclaiming the cigarette. “What? Didn’t your Ma tell ya I was gettin’ out this week?” He paused, looked for recognition in Carm’s eyes. Seeing none, he threw his hands out. “Didn’t– didn’t your Ma tell ya anything?” Silence. The stranger rolled his eyes. “Sheeezus, that is just like crazy Don. Just like her, that fuckin’ broad, I swear,” he rubbed his lips with the fingers of his free hand, clearly agitated. 

Just like I would do. 

What. The fuck. 

“Who are you, man?” 

His question was ignored. “I bet she ran around the whooooole neighborhood tellin’ everybody that you were Jerry’s kid. And just who did that crazy bitch think she was foolin’?” He gestured broadly toward Carm, “I mean, look at ya.” He shook his head in apparent disbelief, taking another long drag. Then mumbled under his breath, more to himself than anything, “Jerry’s fuckin’ kid, heh, get fucked.” 

Taking in the ratty bomber style leather jacket and threadbare jeans that must have come from some lower end thrift store, like the Goodwill down on Washington, the gaunt, sunken cheeks and hollow eyes, the badly faded neck tattoo that could have been a pair of dice, once, possibly? Or maybe they were dominoes? It all suddenly clicked into place. Carm’s rage flared, hot and jagged. 

“Look, I don’t know who the fuck you are, or what kind of shit you’re tryin' to pull, but you need to get the fuck away from my place. Whatever you’re sellin’, I don’t want it. Did somebody put you up to this? Did Richie put you up to this?” 

The man cocked his head to the side, any and all traces of friendliness suddenly evaporated. He flicked the cigarette into the gutter, took another step forward as he exhaled a cloud of smoke. There was anger now, barely simmering under the surface. “Look, I may have been doin’ time for the last 30 years and maybe I coulda called once in a while just ta ask about ya, but me being gone doesn’t change the fact that I’m your Dad, and-'' he stopped, stuck his hands in the pockets of his jacket, looked down at his busted Nikes, and sighed. Although it obviously pained him to swallow his pride, he had to admit defeat. Softly, almost a whisper, “And, well, I guess I could use your help. Maybe a job washin’ dishes or–” 

And there it was. “Get the fuck away from my restaurant. If I ever see you near my place again, I’m callin’ the cops and tellin’ em that you’re down here flashin’ women on the street in front of my place of business. They’ll get here quick.” 

The stranger’s mouth set in a thin, hard line. Even that small detail struck Carm as vaguely familiar, as if he’d seen the expression somewhere before. You have. In the mirror. The tall man retreated a couple of steps backward on the sidewalk, shaking his head again. “I should have known. I should have known you’d be just as psycho as she is. You go ask her, ask her about Sam Miller. If she hasn’t pickled herself by now, she’ll tell ya exactly who I am.” 

He turned on his heel, and Carm released the breath he didn’t even realize he’d been holding. What the fuck is going ON? Without waiting to make sure the guy kept walking, he bolted back into the restaurant and locked the door. 

“Cousin? Everything okay out there?” Richie was standing in the doorway that led to the kitchen, looking concerned. 

“No, ah, yes, no. I don’t know.” Carmen leaned against the door, pressing his forehead to the cool glass. He was still gripping the deadbolt, as if he thought Sam Morris was coming back to try to force his way inside. 

“What’s goin' on?” Richie moved across the darkened dining area, coming to stand beside him. He peered through the tinted glass, straining to see out. 

“My, well, my uh,” Carm swallowed, started again, “It was some crazy guy that showed up, trying to say he was my dad. Did you like, pay some guy to fuck with me?” 

Richie got very still. He didn’t say a word, just stared. It looked like all the blood had drained from his face. That, or he’d seen a ghost. 

“Richie.” 

Nothing. Richie Jerimovich speechless was a scary sight to behold.

“Richie? Do you know who that guy is?” 

His brother’s best friend finally turned to look at him, and there was so much sadness there. Whatever he was about to say, he didn’t actually want to say it. The reluctance was palpable in his voice. 

“That guy,” another pause, he really didn’t want to have to say this, “that guy is your dad, Carmy. Your real dad.” 

“No, I don’t believe you. You don’t know what you’re talking about.” 

“Carm.” 

“Nuh uh, there’s no way. I don’t– I can’t– I-I”, he could feel the panic rising in his chest, tightening, getting harder to take a full breath. He was getting out of control again. 

“Carmy, calm down. It’s gonna be alright,” Richie pulled a chair over to where they were standing, “here, sit down for a second.” 

Carmen sank into the chair, hand pressed to his sternum, rubbing. Just focus on breathing, in and out, in and out. Don’t think about those eyes. Your eyes. Don’t think about that, think about anything but that. 

“Look. Me and Mikey were just kids when all this went down. We were old enough to know that some shady shit was happenin’, but the adults didn’t really tell us anything. Sam was a guy that worked with your dad doing electrical stuff. Remember? And your mom worked in the office for the electrical company? Before they bought The Beef?" he stopped to make sure Carmen was lucid enough to be getting all this. He sure as shit did not want to repeat it. 

“Uh huh,” Carm nodded to show he was following along, and for him to continue. Focusing on Richie’s voice, on his words, was helping him calm down.

“So, from what I know, Donna and this guy had some kind of thing goin’ on, behind your dad’s back. It didn’t last long but it was, ya know, long enough, obviously. Anyway, your mom got pregnant and that Sam guy split. We never saw him come around again.” 

Carm stopped rubbing his chest and looked up, “So Mikey knew. And you knew. Who else knows? Does Nat know?” 

“Ah, no I don’t think so. She was still really little when all this was going on. Nobody ever talked about it after, either. I think we all wanted to forget that it happened, and move forward with like, life, ya know?”  

Carmen couldn’t help but grunt and shake his head at that one. Sure, just forget it all happened. Just move on, pretend it’s all okay. Except it wasn’t, not for him. This changed so much.

“I can’t believe I didn’t see it before. How could I not know? I always looked different from them, felt different from them. Never really fit in. Not really.” 

“I don’t think you wanted to see it, Cousin.” Richie put a comforting hand on his shoulder. “Why don’t you head home, me and Syd can make sure everything gets finished here and lock up. If that prick has the nerve to show his face again, I’ll make him wish he hadn’t.” 

“Yeah, okay.” As he headed toward the back of house to grab his stuff, he paused. 

“Richie?” 

“Yeah?” 

“Don’t tell anybody else what’s goin' on. This is my business, and I don’t want any drama. Not Fak, not Syd, and definitely not Nat. Please.” 

“Of course, Cousin. Whatever you say.” 

Carmen nodded, and turned to leave. 

To be continued....

[josefavomjaaga]

Foreign languages: Eugène says something in German

In 1809, when Eugène marched his Italian army from Italy to Austria during the Fifth Coalition War in support of Napoleon, vice-queen Auguste, from the safety of Milan, tried to help as best as she could by providing her darling with German phrases he might find useful in conversing with the local population. We know that because at some point Eugène wrote back he appreciated the thought and was very grateful, yet still could not memorize any of it (plus they were now moving into Hungary where people don’t speak German – hooray!).

Yet it seems Eugène managed to remember at least some of Auguste’s lessons at a later occasion during summer and falls of 1813, when he – in vain – tried to defend French possessions against Austrian attacks after Austria had switched sides and joined the Allies. At least according to a footnote in "Handbuch der Geschichte des Herzogthumes Kärnthen", Volume 2, Part 3, about a fight at Feistritz an der Drau:

Welden, a Lieutenant Colonel at General Headquarters, who hurried to the battlefield with Hiller in order to assemble the grenadiers, gives a very brief account of the entire affair [...], but he does provide us with an episode from the events of that fateful day, which he had been told by the Viceroy himself, when he had the honour of being invited to his table after the armistice had been concluded.

Which is just so very Eugène in the first place. "So we don’t shoot each other today? Cool. Do you already have plans for dinner tonight?" But let’s hear lieutenant colonel Welden:

"Early in the morning of 6 September, Eugene Beauharnais set off from Assling with the two battalions of his Guard chasseurs mentioned above, and, guided by a farmer who knew the area, made his way through the Bärenthal to the pass where they descended into the Feistritzthal. Thick fog covered the area and the canyon was so narrow that only one man could walk behind the other. They had been mistaken about the distance from Feistritz, and thought it was still several hours away. The Prince walked at the head of the column. It was 7 o'clock in the morning when he, still walking through the fog and turning around a boulder, found the opening of a rifle pointed at him from only a few steps away. A " Halt wer da!" [Stop! Who’s there?] informed him who he was dealing with. The Viceroy frankly confessed to me how his blood froze in his heart until, from the small stock of German words he owed to the lessons of his spouse, he managed to utter a "Gut Freund" [good friend].

The vedette on the other side thereupon withdrew his rifle, and with a swift leap Eugen Beauharnois seized the man by the neck, the Frenchmen rushed up, made the vedette, a recruit of the 8th (9th?) Jäger Battalion, a prisoner, and after they had brought him to safety, the Italian chasseurs set themselves up in ambush. Soon an Austrian patrol arrived; this, too, was captured, and after due orientation, the nearest enemy post was attacked, thrown back towards Feistritz, which lay quite close, and thus the connection with the posts of the Campi brigade established. United with the latter, Feistritz was bypassed, but only taken after the bravest resistance and setting fire to the castle, not without great losses." - "What turn would the affair of Feistritz have taken," exclaims Welden, "if, instead of a mere recruit, a soldier of experience in war had stood at the outpost?"

Yes. Or if Auguste had not insisted on drilling some German words into this linguistically challenged husband of hers? Though, considering that later in Bavaria Eugène’s pronounciation was so very bad he barely could make himself understood, how could this Austrian sentry ever fall for it?

Austrian: Halt! Wer da?

Eugène [staring right into the muzzle of the Austrian’s rifle]: What? Oh, that’s German, right? Just a second, I’m sure I know the answer to that one… [takes a handwritten phrasebook out of his pocket and starts flipping through the pages]

Austrian: Look, Frenchman, I don’t have all day, okay?

Eugène [proudly]: Got it: Gut Freund. - Right?

Austrian [withdraws rifle]: Horrible pronounciation but I’ll let it go. Now take me captive already.

[callipraxia]

oh!!! this is a few hours later, but i also wanted to ask what the lost-but-recently-revived project actually is, because i've never thought to ask in an ask box until now. when my tablet is dead. eugh. it must've been mentioned before, but if you'd like to say more, i'd love to learn about it!!! i feel like i've been talking too much about my own things lately, and i wanna read about others', specifically yours >:] (i remember something about gideon and the axolotl, but that might have been a different project---regardless that sounds whimsy af) if you dont feel like it or anything, you can ignore this :^

The lost project actually hadn’t been discussed much, if at all; it’s a post-canon one-shot where Stan and Ford go back to Glass Shard Beach, reasoning that Stan probably needs to see the place again for the good of his memory and that Ford should probably pay some form of respects to their deceased parents. Stan has a video camera. He ends up documenting just how much everything has changed. He and Ford have Feelings about this, and then they run into someone unexpected. It’s...hardly high drama, so it probably doesn’t make sense that it’s taken this long to start rewriting it, but so it goes with my short pieces.

The Gideon thing is a spinoff/sequel to FWJB I’m considering – specifically, what happened to him after the final battle. It begins ten years later, with Gideon waking up to discover that someone appears to have recently jammed the majority of a tube of drugged lipstick down his throat. Since said lipstick would knock someone unconscious and induce mild amnesia in a much smaller quantity, it’s done a real job on him, which leaves him trying to figure out where he is, how long he’s been there, who drugged him, why that person drugged him, and, in fact, most of who he is – he knows his name is Gideon, he knows he should really not tell anyone that, and very little else. Not even why it’s so important to hide his identity.

Naturally, once he figures even a tiny bit of that information out, he promptly finds himself with even worse problems than he started with.

Other ideas...what the heck, I might as well talk about them a bit, not least to, er, document them in some fashion. Been thinking that writing them down might be a good idea anyway, so here we go:

1) You once suggested I kill Ford and make Stan have feelings about it. I’ve started that one, too; it’s the one I wrote down a lot of and then typed up and then lost...last week? Week before last? Week before last, I think. In this sad little universe, Ford manages to break his neck and die like six months after Weirdmageddon. Stan takes this poorly.

2) In other possible returns to old stomping grounds, I’m intrigued by the idea of going further into how Agent Trigger, of all people, somehow managed to slip under the radar, climb the ranks of the DFSI, and end up recruiting Dipper. Similarly, I’d like to do at least a short return to the IG Epilogue situation, if I can think of a good plot for it beyond Dipper’s initial reaction to “...did that guy really just take his face off like a pair off sunglasses and call me by name??” Plus, of course, if I’m ever in a fluff mood, I gotta write what happened when Soos made good on his promise to loan Ford the deeveedees.

3) Road trip time with Fiddleford and the Stan Twins! What could possibly go wrong?

4) So, Powers. Tell us more about how your agency spotted signals from Gravity Falls thirty years ago. What did you guys do then?

5) Writing more of McGucket’s memoirs, and/or the horror novel about the building of the Portal that I’ve had in mind, and/or a between-the-episodes incident where Fiddleford, struggling to remember who the Author was and why he’s so darn difficult to remember, convinces Tate to talk to him about the past, resulting in them going over a bunch of letters Emma-May had kept and Fiddleford struggling to figure out what was real vs what he was lying about, all while he and Tate are having feels (and sometimes explosive arguments) in the present.

6) Some college years stuff. I have vague ideas for something about the construction of the mind-control tie, and for something else about That One Time Fiddleford Convinced Ford To Come With Him To Tennessee Over The Holidays.

7) More angsty one-shots...stuff like Stan pretending to be Ford at Filbrick’s funeral, and the first day Ford went back to high school by himself, and some stuff with small Tate, and...you get the picture.

8) I will admit this only because of your current tagline – I, too, have entertained the idea that Stan has actually read Moby Dick. Specifically, that in his last months in school, he and Ford ended up in separate classes for part of the day because Ford was taking calculus or something, resulting in Stan having to take the standard-issue American Lit class by himself, and the teacher essentially annoying him into making a good-(ish; it is Stan we’re talking about) faith effort to do his book report properly...only for it to all end on the most depressing note possible, of course. I’ve told myself I cannot actually write this, but… *shrugs*

9) Early in his years in Gravity Falls, Stan visits the library. The librarian is someone he finds attractive. Somehow, one thing leads to another and he finds himself being strong-armed into helping with the town science fair, despite a) him not really being a scientist, only playing one in front of tourists and b) his very specific hatred of science fairs.

10) It is September. Everyone is going back to school. Wendy discovers that Tracey and Quattro exist. This is the one that had me complaining about how I missed the apocalypse not long ago – it’s harder to 99% ignore their infatuation with her in a lower-stakes scenario, and I have no idea how to handle that.

11) It is the academic year. Pacifica struggles to deal with her new social milieu.

12) Some other AU ideas...mostly “what if someone didn’t think of [clever thing] in time” disaster scenarios. There’s also the Better World AU, where...let’s just say it’s not a very nice place at all, at least for some people.

So, there you are! It’s...the majority of the ideas floating around my head at the moment. Some could merge together into one project. Some might not ever see the light of day. But I’ve got plenty of material to work with, just have to get my head back in order for writing, and I’m pleased to say that my head is getting closer to order by the day.

[flutekid]

that 90s show thoughts (SPOILERS)

what i liked about that 90s show

• ozzie

• leia being extremely awkward and naive… girl i understand you that is/was me.

• the show does make use of the ‘hey! remember this?’ a little too much, but i smiled every time they mentioned something from t7s. the vista cruiser reveal? i teared up!

• jay & nates friendship was enjoyable

• i liked how they did the ‘bits’ like they did in t7s, such as the 90210 one, the talk show with ozzie, and fez’s hair commercial. i don't think they were done as well on t9s, but i can applaud them for committing to the bits the way t7s did

• obviously it was fun catching up with the returning characters post t7s, especially seeing the dynamic switch of eric and donna being parents now or the ‘upstairs people’ (as in not hanging out in the basement)

what i didn’t like about that 90s show

they ruined jackie’s character again lol. fez mentions to kitty how he and jackie broke up- they went on vacation and fez finds her talking on the phone with kelso in their hotel room (implying she cheated). not only is that ooc for jackie, it was a little crazy to me especially considering the ending to s7 with kelso in the hotel room.

i don’t even wanna get started on jackie/kelso being together but know i didn’t like it. they really regressed jackie to her like… pre s5 self. she wanted to leave point place and make a name for herself, and instead she’s remarrying kelso for the 3rd time.

the show was a little too fast paced to me, but maybe it’s because it’s 5am. leia arrives in point place on july 3, and i’m assuming she leaves in late august cause of school. so it’s only 2 months of in show time, yet i kinda feel that the episodes were a lil rushed, but also it may be because there were only 10 episodes in t9s when t7s had 20+ per season.

in t7s pilot, the gangs group dynamic is really easy to pick up on. but in t9s has leia start as an outsider and then joins the friend group in the pilot. the gang in t9s doesn’t have a clear dynamic to me, and i don't really see how the friend group fits together. while in t7s, some characters werent as close as others (jackie & eric for example), their friendship still felt realistic and believable. the characters in t9s seem like they don’t hang out outside of the group dynamic, but they clearly do because we’re shown they do. scenes where it was just two or three felt weird, but so did the full group scenes? the only friendship i bought was jay & nate's friendship (they kinda had kelso/fez friendship vibes lol)

i didn’t really like jay and leia’s relationship, but i think it's just due to the pacing. the writers did a better job of setting up eric & donna’s relationship in just the pilot of t7s than the writers did in t9s over 10 episodes with jay & leia.

extremely minor thing: was anyone else shocked to find out donna’s room was on the ground floor the whole time? i’ve thought it was on the second floor since i first watched t7s as a teenager

also i’m sorry they should’ve made fez not straight he is too queer coded to not be

things i would change

Leia should've had an established friendship with maybe Gwen & Nate already (they live next door to her grandparents after all, not crazy to say she could’ve met them at Thanksgiving or Christmas). It would’ve made her decision to stay in Point Place for the summer a little more motivated, instead of wanting to stay to hang out with 5 people she met 4 hours ago.

[dealbrekker]

YEAH that tvxq Mirotic video you reblogged awakened something in me. The moment that dude started singing I clicked off the video bcs my jaw dropped so hard I was like WAIT FUCK WAIT WAIT WAI

PLS GIVE ME RECS 🙏🏻 I know literally nothing about them beyond seeing you scream about them (Changmin and Yunho if I’m not wrong) anyway yes I find your blabbering very endearing actually. love you <3

Obviously you can't see me rn but I am smiling so big omggggg

I guess as a brief introduction I do some bullet points and then give you some songs to check out!

They go by TVXQ for the most part, but you'll also see their Japanese name, Tohoshinki, and their Korean name Dong Bang Shin Ki (DBSK). All translate to roughly Rising Gods of the East.

They debuted in 2003 as a 5 member group, and 3 of them left in 2010. Anything from before 2010 you come across will have the 5 voices. Yunho and Changmin stayed as TVXQ and "re-debuted" in 2011.

Personally I think it is totally worth it to listen to the old stuff. I don't think there ever was and ever will be a phenomenon like TVXQ/DBSK as a group of 5, and their korean and japanese songs and ballads are mind blowing.

That being said, I stuck with Yunho and Changmin more than the others after college (funnily I was introduced to them just as they were breaking up), and consider them to be the true TVXQ. They worked insanely hard to make TVXQ theirs and their vocals and talent have grown so, so much to fill in the voices that left.

So some song recs! I'll stick to the Korean songs for now, but their Japanese catalogue is NUTS. I think at this point they have more Japanese songs tbh.

3 big pre-2010 songs:

Mirotic Rising Sun Love in the Ice (this one makes me cry every time, especially the re-arranged duo version since they cover all the voices so beautifully)

All of their old songs have been rearranged for the 2 of them, so you can certainly find those versions too. All the links above are the originals.

3 big 2011 and on songs

Keep Your Head Down (their comeback as a duo song) Humanoids (this link actually will take you to the Japanese version of the song, live concert performance because it is THE Standard for live performances) --- Also, this is a facebook link, because I couldn't find this on youtube for some reason??? Let me know if it doesn't work and I'll try to find a better one!! Spellbound (my favorite song/mv experience. It's straight choreo with only 1 camera cut)

3 Yunho solos:

Drop (I'm fine it's fine it's not insane king shit or anything) Thank U (this one has some blood and violence heads up. If that's not for you, any of the live performances are stellar) Vuja De (this one has scenes from his longer NEXUS mini film which I also recommend. It samples all the songs from that particular album)

3 Changmin Solos:

Chocolate (he can cut it out, quite frankly) Maniac (so theatrical, so musical, so AHHH. I think this is my fave of his solos) Fever (I lost my ever loving mind when I saw this for the first time. Face clutching ensued.)

Picking 3 for each of them was incredibly difficult omg. I'm excited for your thoughts! Completely understandable if you don't go through all of them, but these are some personal faves.

Finally, they just did a Killing Voice episode where they do a half hour medley of a ton of songs if you prefer to sample them that way! This is where the mirotic clip I reblogged is from :D

Their new album just came out and is called 20&2 if you want to take a listen. It's their first Korean comeback is 2018 so we've all been feral lately.

Thank you for getting through this info dump. I'm glad my blabbering is enjoyed lololol XD.

[ohdearlordspencerreid]

*First CM DRABBLE*

Pity? No, understanding- by ohdearlordspencerreid

THIS IS BASED ON THE LATEST EPISODE I'VE SEEN (14X9) SO PLEASE DON'T TAG OR COMMENT SPOILERS I BEG YOU :'(

I was inspired to write this after watching 14x9 and hearing the way the newer members of the team spoke about addicts: one, in front of Tara unaware of her ex husband and two it made me think about how Spencer would feel hearing their opinions given his history

So here is little drabble?? About Spencer and Tara having a heart to heart <3 Please be kind I haven't written anything in years 

Category: Fluff with a little bit of sad 

Warnings: Reference to addiction and unsubs being shit 

Note: In my little universe outside of canon, like in real life, relapse is a part of recovery, I respect MGG not wanting to continue with Reid’s addiction storyline but it feels unrealistic for Spencer to have stayed sober through all his trauma and stress- hence him not being 13 (?) years sober

Pity? No, understanding. 

It's been a long day as Tara falls into a chair in the round table room, her body aching from the tension of the day that is only just starting to fade, her mind racing. She is startled out of her stupor when she hears a small, polite cough from the tall young man standing in the doorway. 

“Spencer,” Tara says softly, trying to disguise her exhaustion as surprise “what are you doing here? Not that I’m not glad to see you but I thought you would still be busy preparing for your next lecture?” Spencer smiles gingerly, his long body always coming off as awkward even when he’s attempting to be casual, his tie loose at his neck. 

“I’d finished writing my lecture by the time I got off of the train to the university,” he smiles bashfully, rubbing the back of his neck. 

“You wrote a whole lecture on a 2 hour commute? Impressive” Tara smiles, glad to be talking about academics and not emotions for the first time today. 

Spencer shakes his head. “I finished the entire lecture series..” he clarifies, chuckling quietly, Tara knows it's not him showing off, it's just true. It’s just Reid. 

“Wow,” Tara laughs “you never cease to amaze me Doctor” she teases. 

“Anyway, enough about me, Garcia told me that you guys were heading back from a pretty hard case?” Spencer says gently, his eyes filled with concern. 

“Yeah…” Tara sighs, letting her head fall back against the headrest. 

“I heard you talked down the unsub, good job” Spencer compliments, giving her a slightly sad smile. “Penelope told me about.. About your ex husband” he continues tentatively “this case must have been really hard”. 

Silence fills the space for a moment, Tara considers being mad at Penelope for a second before logically reasoning that Garcia would have only told Spencer from a place of caring. “Yeah,” her voice is distant “it was hard.. My marriage and this case”. 

Spencer surprises Tara by sitting down opposite her and placing his hand on her arm. “You’re a very strong woman Tara” he states offering her a gentle smile, his eyes shining with something, pity? No, understanding. 

“Thanks Reid..” Tara whispers, slightly confused by his sudden sympathy, not that he wasn't usually sympathetic but this felt different somehow. Tara jumps slightly as Spencer breaks the comfortable silence. 

“Can I show you something?” he says tentatively.

“Of course, Reid” Tara urges, trying to sound encouraging. Spencer pauses for a second as if contemplating if he wants to change his mind before nodding resolutely, reaching into the breast pocket of his blazer and pulling out what looks like a large coin or a poker chip? 

“I’m 7 years sober” Spencer says, shaky but proud, placing a large bronze NA chip on the table before her. Tara’s breath catches in her throat for a moment as she stares down at the chip on the table. ‘You are a very strong woman Tara’ he had said, it wasn't sympathy, it was empathy. Tara opens and closes her mouth several times as if trying desperately to figure out what to say. 

“Dilaudid. Originally mixed with a powerful hallucinogen” Spencer gulps, his eyes soft and, almost imperceptibly through his decades old facade, vulnerable.. “An unsub, Tobias Hankel, he tortured me, well his alternate personality did, but Tobias, he- he wanted to take my pain away so, he drugged me. Afterwards.. It was hard to stop” Spencer fidgets with the curls at the back of his head, Tara has known him long enough to read when he’s anxious, it hurts her heart to think that he might be worried about her reaction. So she takes the initiative, desperate to wipe the sad, distant look off of Spencer’s face, she stands up and hugs him tight. 

“I am so proud of you” she states, it's the truth, after everything Spencer has been through, she would have taken drugs or worse if she had had to face that. She considers telling him so, but thinks better of it. This moment is about Spencer’s successes not his suffering. 

“Thanks” Spencer says smiling, hugging her back, his face flushed. “Just know that if you ever want to talk about anything, about your husband's addiction, or anything else, I’m here.” he says sincerely. “I’ve been told I make an excellent little brother” he smirks. 

“I may very well take you up on that one day” Tara snickers, smiling genuinely for the first time all day.