#this whole series doesn't really have a plot honestly

[mozillavulpix]

The other reason I think it's so nice that Satoru transformed is it probably wasn't the plan from the very beginning.

Him and Daifuku don't have Precure names, and the only real merch of them transformed they have are some acrylic stands (which got sold out so fast they started opening up pre-orders for another batch within a few days lmao), a card of them in the movie-branded candy toys and some stuff in the collab cafe.

We're past the Episode 30 powerup in the show, so even if they got the forms in the show now it probably wouldn't do much to affect the plot overall. And they don't start rolling out huge new merchandise lines this late into the series.

It kind of feels like a thing where they originally just had the intention of Satoru being a supporting character who the girls could go to for animal facts (and Daifuku for kids with bunnies to relate to) but then as they kept writing the season they realised how much he added to the group dynamic when he was around and then thought "actually he's just as motivated as the Precure to help people, it would be kind of cruel to not let him be a Precure at some point".

Like they seemed to have the same thought with Seiji in Happiness Charge, but for him it was only in the very tail-end of the series and as far as I remember he didn't really get any powers of his own, he just got possessed by darkness and then stayed in that outfit in the final battle.

Basically, the series could have easily gone without giving Satoru anything. But even if it's just vague fanservice that doesn't get officially named as them being Precure, they did go out of their way to come up with designs for them and let them have that moment of spotlight.

Honestly, even if they're not the same gender, I think audiences find themselves relating a lot to 'the character that doesn't have any superpowers but tries to help anyway'. They're more like 'us', after all. So giving them something really helps that feeling that 'anyone can be a Precure'. Even if you're not someone that Bandai will sell dolls of.

now when they'll show up in the show is a whole other question

[throneofsapphics]

haunt me like the wind that blows (part 3)

Feysand x f!Reader

(part one) (part two)

Summary: it wasn’t really a nightmare, it felt more like a gift. Even with the pain, her subconscious was the only place she could taste freedom.

Warnings: dark feysand, toxic relationships, dubcon, kidnapping, nightmares, non-consensual bondage, references to suicide attempt, a bit of smut, gaslighting probably, minors dni!

Word Count: ~2.7k

A/N: this is going to be the last part! please mind the warnings

Seconds after she breached the wards of Velaris, a familiar hand clenched around her wrist - tight enough pain lanced through her hand, and she wondered if he’d break her wrist. 

“Feyre said you could be trusted,” he purred, “but I knew better.” 

The wind, the beautiful and cruel wind whipped around her face, the ends of her hair rising. She could taste it - the freedom on the horizon. Then - gone. She was alone. She stumbled back, eyes wide as she glanced around her. Had she imagined it? Bruises circled her wrist and it still ached as she clutched it to her chest. 

“No, that was real.” Rhys crooned. 

“Leave me-” 

“Alone, yes I know.” His voice took on a cruel tone. “Let’s see if you survive the night, monsters worse than me are out there.” 

Gods. Gods. She was so screwed. She wouldn’t put it past him to unleash something. Something to haunt her, to scare her into coming back. “Anything is better than with you.” Y/n taunted, unable to control herself. A snarl echoed through her mind, but she took off into the night. Maybe this was just a game, but she’d be a fool not to take the chance. But where to go? She didn’t doubt that word spread of her in Vallahan, of the rogue mate to the High Lord and Lady of the Night Court. 

Branches whipped against her arms and legs, small cuts scraping against her but she didn’t care. All pain was drowned out as she sprinted, as fast and far as she could. Temporary freedom was better than nothing. She would take anything she could get at this point.

“You really think you’ll manage without us, don’t you?” Feyre’s voice echoed in her mind - and she didn’t know if it was real or not. Reality seemed to warp around her - the trees shifting in unnatural rhythms, the ground shifting underneath her - rolling like waves of the sea as she struggled to balance. Any trees she tried to grip for balance shifted out of her way. Y/n fell down a hill, tumbling and barely covering her head as she fell -

“Y/n,” a voice shouted, overtaking everything else. Hands braced her shoulders, shaking her awake. This voice was real. She knew that. “Wake up love.” She groaned, rolling away and tugged at her wrists. Chains - still sleeping with the chains on. Her eyes blinked open, spotting Feyre leaning over her, Rhys’s hand stroking down her arm. 

“You had a nightmare,” she brushed her finger over her hand. Y/n glanced down at her bare arms - no cuts or scrapes, no evidence of her wilderness ‘adventure.’ Did they plant this one inside of her, to give her some kind of sick hope? Neither of them replied, or gave any indication they were listening to her thoughts and she let out a slow breath. 

“I wouldn’t have them if you took these off,” she mumbled. At least they’d lined the interior with something soft, after Feyre protested about the bruises on her wrists.  

Her eyes glazed over, and y/n knew she was speaking to Rhys. Feyre had always been a bit … softer, maybe she would argue on her behalf. A few minutes passed as she chewed on her bottom lip. Rhys let out an exasperated sigh behind her, but the chains unlocked and she forced herself not to yelp out of excitement. 

“On a trial.” Rhys warned, flipping her around to face him. His eyes had darkened, a clear warning that if she tried anything, worse consequences would face her. “Do you understand?” 

“Yes.” She spoke softly. Maybe it made her weak, but sleeping in those damned chains had worn her down and she would have begged on her knees to be free of them. Captive. She thought she was trapped before, but it was nothing compared to this. Eyes she couldn’t see followed her everywhere, and anytime she spotted something remotely sharp - it disappeared. If she ate with a butter knife, Rhys or Feyre watched her the entire time. Even the cups and glasses had been charmed not to break. 

A clash clattered across the floor as tea spilt on the kitchen tiles. Rhys winnowed into the room within seconds. His eyes shifted between the cup on the floor, and her face. 

“I dropped it, I promise.” She nearly wailed at the dark look on his face. She felt him rifling through her mind, and gave a nod after deciding she was being truthful. A snap of his fingers cleaned the liquid up, the mug disappearing. 

“You need to be careful my love,” he said in a soft voice, gathering her in his arms. “We don’t want you getting hurt.” Or hurting yourself, went unsaid. He made her sit, brewing her another cup and almost made her feel loved. It was all a game, everything was a game to earn her trust and wear her back down. At least she told herself that. 

The memory faded, and she hadn’t realized she was facing Feyre again, her back pressed firmly against Rhys’s chest, his hands wrapped around her waist as Feyre rubbed out her wrists. Like she would every morning. Always checking to see if she could feel everything, if anything was injured - like it wasn’t them inflicting any injuries. 

“Aren’t you going to thank us?” the High Lady teased her. 

“Thank you.” She said quickly, not wanting to risk anything. 

“Such good manners when you get what you want.” Rhys’s sleepy voice came from behind her. She loved that voice, when he was soft and gentle - first thing in the morning or in the middle of the night. Loved. Y/n threw that word out of her mind. No love for them, nothing redeemable about them. 

“Sleep.” Feyre ordered both of them, “I’ll take the nightmares away,” her hand kissed the inside of her wrist. But - it wasn’t really a nightmare, it felt more like a gift. Even with the pain, her subconscious was the only place she could taste freedom. How sad everything had become, how painful of a trap she fell in. She thought of everything she lost, of everything gone to her. Gone with the wind, swept away at every moment. 

-

When she woke, alone, the sun was already shining, and she rose, a genuine smile on her face for the first time in months - but something pulled at her. Chains. Gods was that a dream too? But, they were longer this time, long enough she could reach the side table. A note placed on it. 

We had to leave early, we’ll come back as soon as we can. 

Tears spilled, dripping down on the paper and smudging the ink. The best dream she’d had in months, and it was soured. But, her favorite book and a still-warm mug of tea sat on the side table, within reach. She could indulge in this small kindness, just this once. 

They returned at the same time, looking pleased to see the book propped on her knees, one hand holding her page open as the other held her mug. 

“I told you she’d be happy.” Feyre elbowed Rhys. Maybe happy was an overstatement. The male rolled his eyes. 

“I still like her in chains.” Feyre hummed an agreement. Speaking of her like an object. That’s all she was to them. 

“You’re our mate.” Feyre frowned at her. “If you’re not going to be grateful …” 

A few minutes later, she was spitting out apologies and thank you’s as Feyre’s hand landed on her ass, her body draped over her knees. She would pause, letting Rhys run his hands over her already bruised ass. His hand slipped between her legs, and she fought back tears of embarrassment as he felt how wet she was. 

How sick was she that this turned her on? At being punished for her thoughts. 

“How else would we correct them?” Rhys’s voice entered her mind. “It’s alright to feel this way,” he spread her arousal over the small abrasions on her ass, and she winced as it stung. “The bruises will remind you.” 

The chains unlocked, but the freedom was temporary as her hips were dragged back, and she was shoved to her knees in front of Feyre, her legs spreading, dress hiked up around her hips with nothing underneath. “Take your reward now.” She cooed, one hand on the back of her hair, guiding her towards her core. She wanted to fight and protest, but the temptation and taste of her was too much. The desire to please her mate was so ingrained in her that sometimes she couldn’t resist it, and this was a way to alleviate it - a less harmful way, she justified to herself. 

-

Three months passed before she could wake alone and unchained. A treasure, and she prized herself on earning back that trust. But, she shoved that thought deep down - in a place nobody could reach. The thought was filled with a sense of vindication, and the last thing she needed was them catching wind of that feeling.

She moved silently, sneaking through the halls how she’d learned, and heard voices coming from one of the small dining rooms. 

“That could work.” Feyre said. “It would keep her here.” 

Keep her? How? Hadn’t they already done everything to keep her? 

“I have to go,” Rhys said and a chair shoved back she quickly took a few quiet strides back, before reapproaching with louder footsteps - the ones they’d become accustomed to hearing. 

Rhys exited just as she approached, a smile curving on his face as he spotted her and wrapped one arm around her waist, tugging her into his chest. He pressed a quick kiss to her lips, “Good morning.” 

“Good morning.” She repeated, forcing some inflection into her voice. Not overly so, but enough for it to come off as natural. 

“You enjoyed your gift?” 

“Thank you.” The smile actually did reach her eyes. 

“You’ve been so good.” He ran a thumb over her cheek, brushing across her lips. 

“You’re going to be late. Rhys.” Feyre said from the doorway, shooting her a smile. “Want to go to the markets today?” 

She nodded eagerly, picking up any crumbs they would string out for her, and tried not to despise herself for it. Feyre had a pleased expression on her face at her excitement, and Rhys reluctantly released her. 

“I’m the High Lord. I’m never late.” He muttered, but winked at her as he winnowed away. 

Feyre’s grip on her was tight as they walked through the city streets, arm in arm. Not giving her an inch unless she allowed it, but she would take it. No familiar faces, either. Some she recognized as old neighbors, ones who used to work with her in town, but their eyes glazed right over her as if she didn’t exist.

Her mouth opened once, as if to try and call out to them, but she couldn’t find her voice. As she met Feyre’s eyes, there was a warning glare there. Don’t talk to anyone. Feyre didn’t have to speak the words for her to understand the message. She swallowed and gave her a nod. Immediately, her expression lightened and she reached over to squeeze her arm, stopping for the next person to greet her. 

Popular, Feyre was incredibly popular with her people, they loved her. If only they could see how she is behind closed doors, the wicked cruelness and quickly shifting moods. What her love really looks like. 

“And who is this?” An older female smiled, her face lined with wrinkles - hair just starting to silver. As soon as she’d acknowledged her, the woman’s eyes changed as if she didn’t register her at all. Feyre was making sure nobody recognized her - that she was forgotten. 

No talk of “who was that on the High Lady’s arm?” or “Did you see y/n, she’s been gone so long!” would go around Velaris that night. Nobody would remember her. Nobody except who Rhys and Feyre allowed. 

- Two years and three days to the date after she was first returned, y/n got another chance. Gods did she take it. She ran and ran and ran. Breaching the words of Velaris, just as a hand clamped around her wrist - bruisingly tight as it ached. 

“Feyre said you could be trusted,” he purred, “but I knew better.” The same words from that nightmare, but this time he didn’t let go. Fear might have rung from every sense of her being, but she brought up as much determination as she could as she turned to face him and took a step closer. His brow furrowed in confusion, but she spat. The drops glistened on his cheek, surprise evident in his eyes. A satisfied smile crossed her features, but his gaze turned feral quickly and it was gone as soon as it came. 

He leaned towards her, his breath grazing her ear. “Run.” He dropped her wrist, and she did. 

Wind whipped her cheeks, branches scraped at her skin, but the floor and trees didn’t move this time. Of course, it was useless and futile, of course it would end as quickly as it began - but she’d take the chance to feel the wind against her hair, to feel the strain of her legs as she got a mockery of freedom. 

Rhys let her run, maybe gave her a ten minute head start before she began to feel his presence nearby. She would catch a glimpse of him, and cut a sharp angle to another direction, weaving in and out of trees to try and lose him. She didn’t know how long it lasted - but her lungs burned and legs threatened to give out under her. Keep going, keep going, she chanted to herself, wanting to draw this out as long as possible. 

She screamed as a weight slammed behind her, shoving her down to the forest ground. Her face pressed into the dirt and a hand yanked the back of her hair - arching her neck as his other hand circled her throat. 

“You believed it, didn’t you?” He murmured. “That I would be that stupid to give you that chance.” His hand tightened around her neck. “I don’t make the same mistakes twice.” 

A whimper left her throat. “Fuck you.” She said weakly, and her cut some of her air off, keeping any words from coming out of her mouth. 

“You’re already in trouble. Don’t make it worse.” If she’s already in trouble - she threw an arm back, a weak punch landing against his shoulder. He laughed at her, finally releasing his grip on her hair and neck as she flopped back into the ground, and scrambled to turn, backing on her knees as the rough bramble scraped the bottom of her thighs. 

He shook his head, looking at her almost fondly. A shield quickly deflected the rocks and sticks she tried to throw. But, she couldn’t stand - her legs fell out under her as she tried, already worn out from all of the running. He must’ve entertained her for at least an hour or two. 

“Three.” He corrected. “I was impressed with you.” A game, this was all a gods-damned game to him. The curve of his lips told her she was right. “A game for me,” he taunted, “but it’s so sweet when you think it’s real.” 

She threw out a string of creative curses at him, but he rolled his eyes and she watched his patience slowly wane. Still, she kept cursing as he heaved her to stand, keeping a firm grip on her as he winnowed back to the river house. 

He let her go and she fell onto the tile, wincing as her knee hit the ground. Feyre stood with her arms crossed. “You let her hurt herself.” She frowned at Rhys. 

“I let her have some fun.” Rhys hedged, but even he wilted slightly under Feyre’s disappointed stare. At least she wasn’t alone in that. In everything else, she’d be alone. For the rest of eternity. 

“Don’t be so sour,” Feyre tutted, reaching out a hand for her. “You have us, that’s all you need.”

[brinnanza]

genuinely I think margo would have been a better pick for loving fillory so much it makes a cure flower bloom. because at this point, quentin's love is nostalgic. it got him through a lot. and even living a whole life there with eliot isn't enough because he's still reckoning with the fact that eliot didn't want that, didn't want to try again.

but margo? margo loves fillory, but not out of nostalgia or childlike innocence. margo loves fillory like a goddamn adult, someone who sees everything fillory is, all its fucked up contradictions, all its faults, everything stupid and wrong and loves it anyway. loves it enough to want to change it, to make it better.

yknow who else could love fillory enough? fucking fen. fillory is her home. like she loves earth and new york, but it's never gonna be her home, where her people are, where her family is buried. of course fen loves fillory in a deeper, much more intrinsic way than quentin ever could.

also unrelated but margo could have left her goddamn eyeball on the kitchen counter to go save her fuckin life partner but what do I know about writing why even introduce the fact that she can pop her damn fairy eye out

[muniimyg]

⋆𐙚₊˚⊹ bbydaddy!jk (16) ⋆𐙚₊˚⊹

series m.list // taglist request closed

note: please prioritize your mental health and peace if the following content is too heavy for you. this portion of the plot has a lot of angst, and arguing. overall contains sensitive topics. thank you all for waiting so well for the break-up reveal!

tw: mentions of anxiety/stress/insomnia/ and postpartum depression,, early pregnancy loss (5 weeks), and self-neglect.

🏷️ permanent taglist:

@joonsjuice @pamzn @defzcl @maryy1300 @whoa-jo @taetaecatboy @jksusawife @un06 @firesighgirl @rrosiitas @butterymin @parkinglot-nights @musicjournalsjdb @kissyfacekoo @jkslvsnella @vampcharxter @bloopkook @somehowukook @bbystarcandykoo

//

"so... jungkook moved back in, he bought you a new car, and this entire time you've been broken up—you've been sleeping with him?"

it feels stupid to confess everything to your therapist.

you’ve been avoiding this for 9 months now. 

today it has to be settled. 

it has to be over. 

this feeling in the pit of your stomach that makes you want to throw up over and over again until you have nothing left inside of you. your lips tighten at the way your therapist blinks at you. you've never really been able to read her, but maybe that's what you like so much about her.

sometimes, it's nice not to know and just to take what people say as they are.

"he's not actually moved back in... he just has more closet space."

your therapist notes something down on her pad. then, she looks at you and simply comments, "i see... is that all you think it is? more closet space?"

"y-yes? n-no... no. okay, it's not like we're not back together though..." you begin to explain yourself.

"but you've been sleeping with him the entire time you guys have been broken up?"

you make a face.

your therapist tilts her head and lets out a light sigh. 

"i'm not judging. you two are adults. you both have needs. you both need each other. you both love each other. i'm just clarifying that—"

"okay, yes," you yield. "i have been sleeping with my babydaddy but haven’t gotten back together with him... i mean—we kind of are? to be fair, the break-up wasn’t a real break-up... it just grew into one. i take the blame for the dumping because i was the one who pulled away. so inevitably, i can't help but feel like a villain in all of it... am i? am i the villain? zion had this whole thing about what family is like, a home with another kid from his daycare, and it... it made me feel so guilty. jungkook and i talked about it and worked on it... i know he doesn't blame me, but every time i bring myself closer to... what do i even call this? ... forgiving him? forgiving myself? i d-don't know... all i know is that... every time i want to move on and just be happy—with him. with zion... with my life—i can't find it in me. i pull away, and it hurts everyone around us. sometimes, i wonder if they know it hurts me too."

"what does that mean?" she asks, her tone soft and curious. "good job getting that off your chest. you're doing great, ___."

mumbling a 'thank you,' you sigh and shrug your shoulders. honestly, you can’t think. your mind goes blank. she then sits up, fixing her posture. leaning forward, she makes her observation.

"___, you broke up with jungkook 9 months ago because of the circumstances. sure, he was supportive and understanding, but sometimes, when everything gets too much, the only person who can fix you is yourself. ___, it was a lot. it was heavy. one thing I've noticed about you is that you think and speak as if everything has to be this big thing. you know your emotions are bigger than the problem, yet you suppress them. it's okay to feel them because when you don't, you start to lose yourself. sometimes, it sounds to me like you want to burn the room down for people to empathize with you... for people to see you. for you to see yourself even."

"i don't want to burn anything down—"

"it's an analogy," she explains. "the truth is, for you, being burned out isn’t a thing until you can’t get out of bed. burnout is as simple as not wanting coffee anymore. sometimes, it's losing yourself to stress and anxiety... and people see that. jungkook, your friends, and your parents saw it. you don’t have to prove it. ___, you can’t keep pushing yourself until you can’t run anymore. you have to slow down. you have to let yourself be tired and learn how to rest."

you nod, agreeing with her take. then, you make another confession.

"i understand that," you take a deep breath. "but it’s like… before i knew it, i was upset and unfit for our relationship. i screwed up too early. that's why i broke up with him... but now... i don’t know. the guilt and blame keep pointing in different directions. i don’t know what i'm doing, and i can't do that. i can't not know when it comes to the father of my child and the love of my life."

your therapist purses her lips and offers you a small smile.

"then, ___... is it possible that things are better now? that it's more than his clothes in your home? that the room isn’t burning anymore? is it that maybe... finally, you’re realizing that being tired and burnt out is a part of life? ___, you’ve done nothing but get everything right since your childhood... to let your feelings—good or bad—be true and big isn’t a flaw. it’s you being human."

her words hit you, but not enough to stop your insecurities. with shaky eyes, you ask her, "w-what if i do it again?"

"do what again? burnout?"

"what if i fuck up everything about my life again? my career? motherhood? jungkook and i’s relationship? it hurt so bad... to wake up next to my family and not feel anything. it was so fucking hard... i couldn’t even pretend that i was okay. a-and when i asked for some air... he wasn’t even mad at me. he packed his bags and lost his breath from crying so much. at the door, he asked me if i was sure... and even though i wasn’t; i said yes...." you explain, your voice growing quieter with each word.

suddenly, everything feels so heavy. 

if there was ever a time to understand and relate to the feeling of the world being on your shoulders... this would be that moment. taking a breath, you compose yourself.

"i can’t do that again," you vow. "i can’t change my mind."

"you can’t change your mind again or you can’t hurt like that again?"

you pause.

"9 months ago, my mind kept going back and forth whether or not jungkook cared about me," you confess. "but i recently realized he does. he has. he always will... i just don’t know if i can trust him the same as before... i think i’m a horrible person for thinking that. weird, right? especially with how fucking horrible i am to him now."

"that’s not true." your therapist disagrees. "___, it was traumatic. you went through a lot—"

"—and i will never understand how he held himself together. when he was accused of plagiarism at his company, i took those accusations and sued until jungkook’s name was spotless. it was hard on both of us. he didn’t want me to go that far because they were his coworkers—his ‘friends’—but why... why was he so pathetic then? those people were out to ruin him. they quit the company and went to jyp. they proposed work that belonged to jungkook... it was a conflict of interest! when jungkook launched his work with hybe, jyp accused him of plagiarism. hybe cut ties with him and his company gave him so much shit for losing hybe. and i, his girlfriend and mother of his child, risked my career to focus on his case instead of my clients. i chose him. i did everything to fight for him. then, he told me he wanted to settle and stay at the company... i couldn’t believe it... he had his reputation on the line—his career! mine was too and all for what? because he didn’t want to embarrass his friends? because he didn’t want to cause the company more trouble? then, what about me? what about us?"

your therapist looks at you with sincere eyes. she nods, taking your words in. 

"___, does he know you’re still upset with his decision?"

"yes," you sigh, recalling how betrayed you felt. "w-we don’t talk about it. how do we? it felt like i wasted 2 months of my life and we lost our—we lost."

your therapist reaches over and offers you the tissue box. you didn’t even realize you were crying... but the silence between you two and the ache from the words that you just said begins to sting your chest.

after a few moments, your therapist softly tells you, "___, i don’t think you left him because you didn’t love him... i think you left because, despite everything, you did. that hurt because it meant loving him and putting him before yourself... on top of that, you were at a state where you should have been put first."

you gulp.

she purses her lips and makes her hit.

"___, do you resent yourself for the loss?"

you clench your fist as your therapist rubs salt into your open wounds. "the self-neglect? the stress? the post-partum depression? the insomia—"

"i resent myself for the loss," you admit. "... and i resent jungkook for losing me."

when you arrive home, jungkook is in the kitchen cooking. 

you didn’t expect him to be home. he was supposed to be picking zion up at this time and you were looking forward to some alone time. clearly, you have a lot to think about. as you take off your shoes, jungkook turns his attention to you.

“hi honey,” he smiles brightly. 

truth be told, he had a long day. he was running late this morning and had rushed out the door. as he drove to work, he got annoyed with himself. 

he forgot to kiss you before he left. 

so you can imagine just how excited he is to see you now… especially with all he has planned for tonight. 

“we had a meeting today and it ended early. it went really well so i have some news! also, i picked zion up right after my meeting. took him out for a little father-and-son afternoon... then, i dropped him off at your parents—”

“why would you do that?” you snap, putting your things away.

jungkook chuckles. “uh, maybe because i wanna ask you something tonight…”

your body stiffens.

“but we’ll get to that later! do you want to eat first? i’m cooking your favorite—”

“please stop,” you shut your eyes and take a breath. “jungkook, i had a long day. i’m glad yours was good and you got to bond with zion. i appreciate the effort—i just don’t… i don’t like that you dropped zion off at my parents after picking him up early from daycare. why didn’t you just take him home? and thank you for cooking... but i had a late lunch today, so i’m not hungry.”

“is it so bad i want to spend time with you alone?” jungkook asks, his smile fading. 

jungkook isn’t stupid. 

he knows you’re not in the mood, but he can’t help but push your boundaries a little. besides, communication is always good, right? at least, that’s what he’s been told. 

“it’s okay if you don’t want to eat... as long as you ate today. what did you eat?” he attempts. 

you move past jungkook as he asks you the question. taking out your phone, you check for any missed messages. jungkook’s eyebrows furrow as you ignore him. he catches your waist and guides you against the kitchen counter. grabbing your phone from your hands, he puts it aside.

“woah,” he pouts. “what’s up? why are you acting like this?”

you look at jungkook and hate yourself. his eyes are so kind and full of love. 

you know it. 

you feel it. 

it hurts so bad.

“what’s with the mood?” he asks, more gently this time. 

jungkook moves his hands from your waist to wrap around you. he nuzzles himself into the crook of your neck and hugs you tightly. “if you’re mad at me about something, that’s okay... but be angry here. don’t ignore me. being angry together is better than not being together at all.”

his plea makes your eyes tear up.

this isn’t easy for you either, but to be honest... it’s now or never. tonight, your heart feels especially heavy. you can’t blame it. some people say time heals all wounds—perhaps, this is it. 

this is the time limit.

“can i tell you my news?” he asks, partly trying to stall the conversation and partly because it was good news. 

“sure.”

“i got a job offer,” jungkook says. “i’d have to do an informal interview but it’s basically mine if i want it. they’re setting up a branch in new york. they want me to go there for 3-6 months and help start everything up. guide and mentor the visual director there—”

“that’s amazing—”

“i don’t want it,” jungkook chuckles. “they told me to sleep on it and make my decision in a month. until then, they offered me a raise! isn’t that great?”

your smile drops. 

all of the feelings you’ve been trying to regulate since you stepped out of your therapist's office today feel like they’ve gone out the window. was he serious? he declined such a big step in his career—for a raise? 

“jungkook,” you croak. “do you know why we broke up?”

he pulls away. 

what a fucking switch up. he doesn’t understand. 

for a moment, he doesn’t know what to do with his hands. does he reach out to hold yours or keep them by his side? he’s caught off guard. he doesn’t know how to answer you and frankly, he fucking hates this question.

“uh, why are you asking me—”

“what was the other thing?” you ask, already suspecting it. “are you going to ask me to marry you tonight?” you blurt. 

he shoves his hand in his pocket. 

“jungkook, are you asking me to marry you tonight? yes or no?”

he blinks at you. 

his heart is prepared more than ever; “yes.”

“don’t.”

jungkook’s heart drops.

“don’t because you’re saying no or don’t because you want a better proposal?” he attempts to lighten the mood with a smile. he takes his hands out of his pocket and reaches for yours. you don’t let him take it. instead, you shake your head.

“don’t because you don’t even know why we’re broken up.”

instantly, the tension between you two increases. it’s through the roof, actually. it feels like one wrong word, one wrong move, one wrong recalled memory—everything crumbles.

everything fails.

everything faces the end.

“___, i can’t answer your question because i’m not prepared to. honestly, i wasn’t prepared for the break-up. it just happened. it grew into one. ___, you never said, ‘jungkook, it’s over. we’re broken up.’ ... no. you said, ‘jungkook... i can’t breathe anymore. i need air. i need space from us,’ — that’s what you said. but to hell with that, right? we’ve been sleeping together and it’s not like we hate each other. you love me. i know you do... so i really don’t understand why you won’t marry me despite knowing the simple truth—”

you move away from him.

god, it’s so hard to be next to him sometimes. 

heading to the cabinets, you take out a glass and pour yourself some water. drinking it, you hear jungkook sigh and groan in frustration.

“are we really going to fight tonight?” he asks, annoyed.

you shrug and put your water down. “shouldn’t we? it’s kind of overdue.”

jungkook scratches the back of his head. his lips tighten and his mind is already dizzy as he asks;

“___, why did you break up with me?”

a beat.

“i wanted more from you.”

he looks at you confused. “the fuck does that mean? sex?”

you shake your head.

“jungkook, i was moving up with my career. you were constantly annoyed that i was overworking myself and that i only cared about zion. you were always mad at me when i brought up work—especially about yours. you didn’t want more. you refused the promotions and all the different leadership roles. you refused more hours—you refused to grow… just like now.”

jungkook huffs. “is this about money again? we’ve never had issues providing for zion and this lifestyle.”

“again?” you chuckle. “honey, it wasn’t about the money. at least to me, it wasn’t. i love you and would have married you regardless of my career path and yours—”

“then why won’t you marry me? you always say you will but you say shit like this. you know it fucks me up, right? this isn’t fair. you can’t keep changing your mind.”

“it’s not that i don’t know what you are to me and what i want,” you take a deep breath. it feels painful to be right. “it’s that marrying you isn’t going to make any of this easier. at least, not right now.”

his eyes are filled with hope. 

hope that maybe the reason is childish and not what he knows it really is. he hopes it’s because he left one too many socks inches away from the laundry hamper in your bedroom. he hopes it’s because you got tired of him always queuing his karaoke songs in the car before yours. he hopes it’s because (not really) you actually took an interest in nam joon or something.

most of all, he hopes it’s not what he knows it is.

“jungkook, we were disagreeing on everything. you thought i was greedy for wanting more for myself—for our family—”

“so it’s about whether or not i accept the job offer? i still have a month to think about it. i can’t just leave you and zion. you get that, right? i don’t just leave.” jungkook scoffs in disbelief. “and you act like i didn’t just get promoted. i accepted it, didn’t i? i did so to impress you because i love you. i did it to win you back because i love you.”

“but why didn’t you do it for yourself?” you fuse. “why can’t you want more for yourself?”

“___, i love you—”

you hiss, taking a step away from him. “stop saying you love me when you—”

“when i what?” jungkook steadies his tone. “when i made a decision that you didn’t like? ___, i made a practical choice back then. what other option did i have?”

“you chose wrong,” you cry. “is that what you’ve been waiting for me to say? jungkook, you chose wrong because you were afraid! it wasn’t practical. it was safe. you took the settlement, forgave those friends, and looked stupid while doing it. meanwhile, i risked everything. i fucking fought for you! for what? jungkook, it ruined us.”

jungkook shifts, taking a step closer to you. he runs his hands through his hair and groans.

“___, they have a family too. they fucked up and they apologized. i didn’t go through with the lawsuit because regardless if they deserved it—their families didn’t. their children didn’t. for fucks sake, one of them has a daughter zion’s age—”

a sob escapes your lips. 

jungkook’s shoulders slump as he lowers his head. you lower yours too, feeling your tears roll down your cheeks.

“jungkook, i love you,” you weakly admit. “i swear to god, i have never loved anyone more in my life than i have ever loved you. you’re the kindest man i’ve ever met. you empathize with others and put them before your needs. you chased me around like a fucking dog for the last 9 months, completely disregarding any self-respect. truth be told, you gave me a purpose to live. you made me zion’s mom and the love of your life. in so many ways, i don’t deserve you… but i also don’t deserve this. it feels like even when i can't trust you—i still do. it ruins me, jungkook.”

angry, jungkook disagrees.

“what are you fucking talking about—no. don’t say shit like that.”

“you kept me together for so long that i don’t know how to fall apart if you’re not around. jungkook, i had to fall apart. i was so tired then. i was so unhappy and everything you did to hold me together only angered me. it lit this fire inside of me and i felt like i couldn’t touch anything or anyone… why couldn’t you just be sad with me?”

“you fell apart before i could even process what happened—” he recalls, tears threatening his eyes. “___, i was devastated beyond belief. i was sad too. i was afraid too. you don’t think i wanted to cry in bed all day with you? i had to get up. i had to take care of zion and i’m sorry if i held onto you tighter than i should have—but i had to. there was no other way i could’ve lived if i didn’t hold on to you like that. you’re my air. i love you, ___ and in case you didn’t know; it hurt me too. losing our—h-holy fuck. i love you. ___, i love you. please, i love you so much—”

you sob.

you don’t even try to hold yourself together. a heavy cry escapes your lips and jungkook instantly lifts his head and comes to you. he wraps you in his arms as you cry into them.

“i love you,” you whimper. “i don’t blame you for it—really, i don’t. b-but why did you stay? i worked so hard and you chose to stay. i stressed myself out and couldn’t sleep. i felt so betrayed and i wasn’t eating—”

“i know, i know,” he murmurs, holding back his sobs. “i hate myself for it. it was my fault—”

“don’t—”

you pull away and hit his chest. 

your eyes sting from all the crying and your throat feels dry. yet, every fiber inside of you feels like it’s on fire. it feels like you’re burning down the room and all jungkook wants to do is slow dance in it.

“jungkook, when you settled, it took something from us. something beautiful—our second—our time.” you slow your breathing to gather the courage to say it. 

to say everything. 

to say it all and maybe, save it all.

“honey, i d-destroyed and hurt more than you did... and i know you don’t blame me; but am i ever going to stop blaming m-myself?” you sob. “i’m pushed into t-this... corner where it’s all my fault—and it is, you know? if i hadn’t stressed myself over your case and just f-focused on making partner at the firm—if i had just i-ignored the f-feeling of the knife you twisted—it was supposed to be this time around.”

jungkook’s heart breaks.

“9 months...” you say, voice trembling.

“don’t say it like that,” jungkook begs. “my love, i didn’t forget.”

that’s just it.

he hasn’t forgotten either.

yet, his body doesn’t ache like yours does. as much as your heart wants to forgive and find beauty in this tragedy—your body hasn’t healed. all those months ago, when you focused on jungkook’s case and stressed yourself to the bone—you made a mistake. you neglected your health to prioritize everything but yourself.

your breath hitches as you recall everything. a part of you feels relieved to have said it all aloud, but inside, it feels like something has burnt up—like a part of you has died.

you reach for him, cupping his cheeks in your hands. jungkook’s tears spill over, and you gently wipe them away with your thumb.

his body collapses into yours. his sobs wrack his chest as he buries his face in your arms.

jungkook cries for the break-up.

for the hurt that’s grown between you two.

he blames himself even though deep down he knows it’s not his fault.

the ache in his chest feels unbearable. you tighten your hold on him, bracing yourself for what comes next, but before you can speak, your body gives in.

everything does dizzy and you hold your breath.

suddenly, your knees hit the floor, and you collapse in front of jungkook, the weight of it all too much to bear.

“i’m s-sorry,” you choke out. "i can't—fuck. i'm so heartbroken, jungkook. i can't—"

jungkook drops down beside you, pulling you into him. as you cling to each other, you feel his heart racing, his breath catching in his sobs, mirroring your own. he holds you tighter, as if he could take all your pain into himself. if he could, you know he would.

and somehow, in the midst of this overwhelming pain, you feel the strangest thing.

this has to be the most painful moment in your entire relationship, but it’s also the most healing.

after nine months of distance, you finally grieve together.

the grief overwhelms you two.

after what feels like an eternity, you manage to compose yourself, pulling away from his embrace. meanwhile, jungkook is still crying heavily. you reach up, cupping his face in your hands again, wiping the tears from his swollen eyes. he leans into your touch, his lips pressing softly against the palm of your hand, his breathing slowly calming down. but then, he moves closer, and you know what’s coming next.

jungkook tries to kiss you.

you push him away gently, your heart breaking all over again.

“... i think you should go home,” you whisper, your voice tired and cracked.

"___, please—"

"we fought enough tonight. i don't have anything left in me, jungkook... just go."

for a moment, silence hangs in the air, thick with everything left unsaid. there's still more. he swears it. he knows it because his heart races with so many more confessions. so many more things he has to tell you.

like the fact that when you cleared his name, he never felt so loved in his life.

like the fact that when you stressed yourself over him and got upset with his decision—he wanted to take everything back.

like the fact that when he let you cry in bed all day over the loss, he cried as he held and fed zion in the living room.

but now is not the time.

now, the hurt aches and he has to let it. he has to let you fall apart. he has to feel this too because if he doesn't—then he misses it all. he misses everything and he can't do that.

he needs to know.

he needs to learn.

he needs to love.

jungkook swallows hard, his voice barely a whisper. “okay… whatever you want.”

you both stand, your movements slow and heavy. you watch as he gathers his belongings, guilt and disappointment twisting in your stomach. at the door, he pauses, eyes closed as he takes a deep breath.

“what about me?”

his voice breaks the stillness. you feel your heart sink.

“what about you?” you ask softly, though you already know the answer.

“___, i don’t want to go,” he pleads, desperation creeping into his voice. “i… i can’t do this. not again.”

“what do you mean?” you force a weak smile. “this is our first break-up.”

“for real?”

you let out a sad laugh, though it holds no real humor.

“for now.”

jungkook takes a second to compose himself.

“i’m gonna pick up zion and have him sleep over at mine... and it’s okay if you’re still full… just eat a late dinner,” he murmurs softly, eyes cast downward. then, turning toward the door, he looks back one last time, his voice soft but filled with emotion.

“for the record, i thought i was home… but if air, space, and time is what you need, so be it. just know, i hope i’m it in the end. i hope i’m what you need.”

they say the 3-year itch is when the sand timer runs out. it takes two people to flip it over and restart the clock. at your 3-year itch with jungkook, suddenly your careers were where you two scratched.

then, the plagiarism accusations came along. as horrible as it was, you thought this was the perfect opportunity to show jungkook how much you love him. how much were you willing to do for him, and how much could your career benefit you two? at the peak of all this, you didn’t know it.

you were carrying more than just work.

at 5 weeks, 1 week after jungkook settled—time was up.

jungkook sits in his car, crying and staring at the ring that should be on your finger. he can’t help but feel all the sides of it. he shoves it back inside the box and opens the glove compartment. throwing it in, he continues to reflect. 

was he insensitive? was he so wrong about not wanting to take the job? the proposal was ill-timed, but was he crazy? weren’t you two doing better? … were you hurting all by yourself this entire time? of course, he hurt too. he was just grieving differently… does that make this his fault? he doesn’t know. he doesn’t care. in the end, losing something is still losing something. 

truth be told, it’s no one’s fault. 

yet, jungkook hits his steering wheel and continues to sob. he wants to blame something. he needs to. as he searches, his heart screams out;

time.

[respectthepetty]

Dunk and Joong could have offered me anything in 2024, and I would have taken it, gladly, no questions because my ass is a Jaidee fan first and a human second. But to hand me The Heart Killers? Oh! Let me list all the reasons y'all gonna hate me when this comes out.

Joong plays Khao's older brother

Khaotung is older than Joong, but in BL Land that doesn't matter because Khao is playing the hopeless romantic little brother while Joong is playing his stern older brother. Someone already wrote it was 10 Things I Hate About You/The Taming of the Shrew, and Shakespeare would be thrilled to know one of his masterpieces is getting the queer treatment and it's not Twelfth Night.

Dunk is playing the crazy seducer

Boy wants a car and is willing to go to great lengths to do it, including distracting some dude, so his buddy can play house with that dude's little brother. But the whole point is they had to find a guy who was crazy enough to accept the offer in the first place >insert Dunk's character< so the guy isn't just wanting the car. He is doing this for the thrill of getting tied up, stripped down, and threatened.

And I respect that.

Jojo is apparently directing

I wanna have beef with Jojo after Only Friends, then I look at his resume and remember this is the man who gave me puppy play in The Warp Effect, poly in 3 Will Be Free, and a chaotic stripper named Judo in Dirty Laundry PLUS the YinWar trailer for their Partner in Crime concert which has now lead to YinWar doing Jack & Joker, so as a vegetarian, I'm gonna be like Elsa and let that go.

Which means Rath is probably the cinematographer

I don't give men compliments easily, so when I state that Cinematographer Rath has never disappointed me, I mean it. The man knows what he is doing, and if he is in on this series, I know if anything, it will be visually stunning.

First and Khao being the Beyonce of GMMTV

I'm in Jaidee's corner always, but I have eyes and First and Khao could really do whatever they want and I'd eat it up. I have believed them with whomever they have been partnered with in the past, and if they want to play high schoolers in an oppressed school system or a banker willing to see his ex and his ex's new man just to flirt with the boy from the market, I'm buying the tickets, I'm sitting in the front row, and I'm holding up homemade posters. Basically, I'm shutting the fuck up and experiencing whatever they want me to experience.

First and Khao tears

This is its own category because when they cry, they are in a league of their own. They claimed this series was going to be lighter than their previous work, but what is a First or Khao series without tears? I hope they are drinking water right now because someone is crying in this series, and JD's faces are already wet for other reasons.

DUNK'S BODY!

Not to objectify the man's body, but . . . it's a banger, and he has been done dirty by wardrobe for two solid years. His face card never declines. His arms are solid. His waist is snatched. His hair is perfect. Even Tay, New, and Jan were talking about him in the BTS for Peaceful Property because they were saying how New's character was based off of Dunk - pretty, fashionable, and COCKY! But wouldn't we all be that cocky if we were walking around looking like this?! Like shut up fives. A ten is speaking!

It's high time that man got to stunt like Force always does just taking off his shirt for no reason. Good for him. And good for us.

Oh, yeah, and the plot

Sorry, I mean the plot.

SHIT, THE PLOT!

You know what? Nah. I honestly do not give a fuck about the plot. Joong and Khao are hired killers. First is out to get them. Dunk gets involved (although, I think he knows a lot more than he leads on), and . . .

All will end well.

Because if anything, Jojo ain't never been allergic to a happy ending *wink*

So just know this show hit its target audience

ME!

¡Salud!

[nobodyfamousposts]

Scarlet Lady Essay: Frightningale

Yet another essay for @zoe-oneesama. Because you deserve it.

I’m not going to bother with a compare/contrast of canon vs Scarlet Lady Frightningale because Frightningale in canon was a pretty forgettable episode. Akuma was lame. Setup was wasted. And it’s removal from the series would lose nothing of value.

So instead, I'm going to focus primarily on the Scarlet Lady version of Frightningale and what it does that makes it memorable.

I guess to start with, I should make it clear that I’m not a fan of shows being lazy, especially when they display a lack of planning or consideration of their story and characters. And perhaps one of the greater indicators of this issue is when a series suddenly realizes they they neglected multiple plot points until it’s too late to give them all the focus they warrant so they end up shoving all of those points into one episode and try to present it like it’s supposed to be an adequate resolution of all that buildup or in any way intentional.

Penalteam was that episode for Miraculous. They had the “temporary heroes” setup going for them but then wasted so much time on filler like Frightningale that it seems like they honestly forgot about it until they were reaching a designated end point and they realized they still had four more heroes they were supposed to introduce. Whoops? Ah well, just introduce them all at once. Not like anyone will care!

And when you treat most of the cast like they’re all as shallow as a puddle, I guess that’s true.

The thing is, when you have a setup where there is a running theme of every person in a specific group getting their own episode/chapter to detail their issues and how they get a power up, it’s going to stand out whenever one of them doesn’t. Especially when that one or more are forced to share their limelight episode. 

That’s not to say you can’t do it, but it’s bound to get attention if you do. It reflects poorly on the writing. It shows whom the “favored” and “unfavored” characters are. And it displays the issue with pacing—namely that it’s next to nonexistent until it hits you with the force of a freight train.

But can it be done and be done well? Is it possible to pull off such a thing and have it make sense and fit in lines with the characters?

Well, yes. Off the top of my head, I can think of two different ways to do it to make it work.

And Zoe did both of them.

If you look at Scarlet Lady as a whole, you’ll see a conglomeration of characters—each with stories and arcs attached. They have personalities. They have goals and problems and their own highs and lows. One sign of good writing is that some focus is given to highlight these other characters as people. Individuals in their own right with lives outside of the main characters or situation.

Miraculous doesn't really do this.

Scarlet Lady, however, does. Because contrary to the title, Scarlet Lady isn’t just about Chloe.

It isn’t even just about the heroes.

It isn’t just about Chloe being horrible. Or Marinette being in love. Or Adrien being in desperate need of a hug and a nap. Because while the story is centered around them, it isn’t solely about them. Other characters get focus and growth and their own arcs throughout the comics.

But the big two—the BIGGEST two with arguably the most depth and most growth and quite frankly the best storylines out of everyone in the entire series?

It’s Sabrina and Lila. And their individual stories have led up to this.

As such, this episode—which was mostly filler and all around forgettable in canon, matters here.

It’s where Sabrina and Lila reach the culmination of their respective character arcs. 

Yes, it’s when they both get to become Miraculous Heroes and meet their own kwamis, but it’s more than just that! They both hang out with the girls group as full members of the crew, getting to take part in a music video together. It’s also where they both get to stand up for themselves and the city at large while calling out Chloe and Scarlet Lady. This is what their storylines have been building up to and where their growth really shows.

Sabrina started out as Chloe’s minion same as canon—albeit with more attention to her feelings and her responses, no matter how seemingly small, allowing her to feel more like her own person. And through this focus, we got to see her open up more, pull and eventually break away from Chloe and her influence, and over time stand up for herself and try to establish herself both with the class and as an individual.

Lila started off as a liar and manipulator, selfish and self centered, much like canon. Unlike canon, her lies are tied to her issues, noted to be poorly thought through, and give her more introspection as a person. After the lies are revealed, she’s not “redeemed” so much as she is “accountable”, and it doesn’t change who she is. She remains selfish and certainly far from being considered “good”, but she’s letting people in past her walls and masks in a way she hadn’t been able to before.

Both of these things? Figuring out who you are and letting people know you for who you are? They’re incredibly hard. And a lot of time was devoted to both of their journeys along the course of the comic.

Sabrina’s arc was about her figuring out who she is on her own. Outside of Chloe and her previous role of being a follower and lackey. And sometimes it feels less scary to stay with someone toxic than to be alone and facing the unknown. We see it in the way she tries to put herself out there afterwards, reaching out and risking rejection and just figuring herself out. Even or perhaps especially with those she already knows and has a less than positive history with.

And we still see the struggle of her view of herself in this episode. It was in the way she was upset that she legitimately tried to help and it still resulted in bad things happening. And it was also clear when she calls herself a “sidekick” to Marigold after the day was saved, as if it’s a role she still sees herself as and one she struggles not to fall in to. Over time, we’re seeing Sabrina learning that she doesn’t have to be attached or subservient to someone else to have an identity or be accepted. 

Lila’s arc involved her figuring out who she is with people. Outside of the lies and manipulations she creates, the masks she wears, and the identities she crafts to make people like her. The “real Lila” is far from the best person and arguably not even a good person, but she also doesn’t have to be for the others to accept her as the still somewhat bad influence she is. She’s still very much selfish and flawed, but she’s less inclined to hide it or treat it like something that needs to be hidden. And isn’t that a common lesson? That it’s better to be liked for who you are than to force yourself to be someone else to be liked?

And at the same time, even with being less than a fully good person, she’s showing that she can still find better ways of acting that allow her to help others rather than hurt them or serve herself. She still hates Scar, but rather than working with Hawk Moth to kill her and risk dooming Paris and the world, she’s instead working with Alya through more legitimate (and legal) means…and hitting Scar where it hurts most. She and Adrien may not be friends, but rather than try to punish him for not going along with her, she’s instead rescued him, putting herself on the line—something that the former Lila wouldn’t have considered doing and one that canon Lila wouldn’t be capable of. Even if she’s motivated by pettiness or self-interest, what would have been straight up revenge on someone who upset her has grown to be something that is working in everyone’s better interests.

Both Lila and Sabrina hid themselves in different ways and for different reasons. So having them both assert themselves and call out both Chloe and Scarlet Lady is a show of their growth and overall a huge deal. It’s not something either of them would have done at the start of the series. Sabrina, because she was a “yes man” who wouldn’t dare to argue with Chloe and Lila because she wouldn’t risk openly doing something to make herself a target. 

And now boom! Look at them both! Lila stepped up to openly and publicly denounce Scarlet Lady as not being a hero for real reasons that aren’t just about herself or her feelings—complete with receipts! The girl did her research, noting incidents from before she even came into the picture. Then follow up with Sabrina standing up against Chloe’s machinations and dismantling Chloe’s main source of power: her father. Even better, she’s using logic and knowledge she would have as a former ally of Chloe’s who would know her tricks, taking her former friendship with Chloe and using it against her.

And on top of that, each of them are given the Miraculous by the person they wronged in the past. Marinette to Sabrina and Adrien to Lila. Especially in Lila’s case, it says a lot that they’re trusted. That shows narratively that even with their mistakes and bad choices and continued struggles, they still can move forward—not necessarily to find redemption, but to find themselves and be their best selves.

This is why it makes sense for them to share this episode. It’s also why both of them speaking up matters. They are both publicly confronting their greatest foe, and the fact that their foes are really two faces of the same person further highlights this. 

So they both have issues with the same person, are dealing with forming their identities without catering to others, are working out how to have/be friends, were formerly not the best of people, and have a fear of rejection. As such, this isn’t just their obligatory hero episode, this is what their individual stories have been leading up to. Almost like they’re two sides of the same coin. And the comparison between the two helps them both shine.

And speaking of shining, does anyone remember how the all girls team up didn’t get a chance to shine in canon? Zoe sure did.

I have a whole list of problems I have regarding Party Crasher, but perhaps number seven on that list is that the boys got to have an all male temp hero team up episode while the girls didn’t.

In fact, by this episode in canon, only Alya, Chloe, and Kagami actually got to be temp heroes.

To be fair, only four of the guys out of seven in canon got to be part of their particular event in Party Crasher, leaving out Ivan (who often tends to get overlooked) and Nathaniel (who has had a precedent of just literally disappearing from the episode). But originally, part of the appeal of Party Crasher was that the focus was supposed to be on the male classmates and getting to see at least some of them being part of a team against the akuma.

Why then didn’t we get an episode like this with the girls? Or at least something LIKE this?

Frightningale became that episode. And if any of the episodes were to do it, it makes the most sense for Frightningale to be the one.

All of the girls were together to take part in this event. So Zag would have had the perfect excuse to include them all in the fight or just have the girls do something to help even as civilians. I mean, we’ve had episodes do this before. Max in Robustus. Nathaniel and Alix in Reverser. Luka in Captain Hardrock. Let the civilians show their heroic traits even before they become heroes. It’s not a Miraculous, but it’s still giving them focus and expanding on them as individuals.

Instead, canon Frightningale was a filler episode. And not even a good one. For an akuma who forces people to sing or dance, it’s a waste that they just had the heroes spend the whole time rhyming. A waste of writing and talent. I mean, have you heard Christina Vee sing? If there needed to be a musical episode, I would think that the akuma who forces people to sing would certainly warrant it! At least more than it’s Christmas and they sing just cuz.

So this is yet another thing that Zoe improves with the Scarlet Lady version of this episode. Giving us the all girl team up episode so many of us have long wanted and getting to see all the female heroes together at last. 

And with this, we get the full roster of friends-turned heroes.

Except for Alix. Poor, poor Alix.  ;_;

Your day will come.

In this way, the end where Clara goes a different direction with her music video feels less like a half-assed fix to a half-forgotten plot point and more like something that was built by everyone involved. I don’t know about the rest of you, but given Clara’s excitement over the all girl band playing and Pigella’s gift showing Clara an idea for her video, it highlights the focus on EVERYONE being part of this—both the video and the episode itself. It kind of comes off as a lesson of its own about teamwork and giving everyone a shot rather than focusing specifically only on one or two specific individuals.

And isn’t that what separates the heroes from Scarlet Lady?

But there’s a third important aspect of this episode.

This is the episode where Chloe is smacked in the face with Scarlet Lady’s falling popularity. 

Let’s remember that at the start of the comic, Scarlet Lady was fully and widely considered THE Hero of Paris. She was beloved for doing nothing and it was a point of frustration for Chat, who actually was having to pick up her slack. Initially, there was nothing he could do because him being the only real hero among the duo meant he often couldn't stick around after akuma fights to prevent Scar from telling "our story". In addition, he didn’t know who she was or who chose her and why. Then even when it was clear her getting the Earrings was a mistake, for a lot of the first couple seasons, she was so popular that they couldn’t just take the Earrings away from her lest they risk backlash from the rest of the city. It’s a backlash that seems increasingly unlikely as more and more people get to see her behavior and callousness firsthand.

We’ve seen hints of it in other episodes, but none of them were so blatant to Chloe that she couldn’t ignore it or shrug it off or otherwise make excuses to protect her ego.

Prime Queen wanted to focus on Marigold and Chat Noir for their “romance” to try and boost ratings. Alya and Lila made some snarky comments, but Chloe could easily dismiss them both. Nadja also made a comment that nobody cared about Scarlet’s love life, but a lack of interest in her love life isn’t a lack of interest in herself and Chloe despises both of her “sidekicks” and wouldn’t want anyone trying to pair her with them anyway. And Nadja reassures her that they’ll focus on her after they’re done with Chat and Marigold. So yes, she can dismiss that as well.

Reverser has Chloe faced with both of her identities are made as villains in art and a story. However, she clearly looks down on Nathaniel and Marc barely registers to her. So she can dismiss them.

Look at Despair Bear, the Intermission, the interactions with the various other heroes, and the fact that only Chat Noir and Marigold are privy to the Guardian’s secret existence and allowed to pass out other Miraculous. Much has been shown of the other characters being less than impressed with her, snarky towards her, or showing the process of how they discover the truth about her and how she actually handles akuma attacks…namely in that she doesn’t. And Chloe can dismiss all of that because to her, none of them really matter to her.

But Chloe can’t dismiss the fact that a renown celebrity dedicating a music video to the “Heroes of Paris” isn’t including her. Bad enough her sidekicks are taking center stage but she’s not even in the music video at all?

And when someone she despises calls out the reasons why she’s not a hero in an openly public setting surrounded by a multitude of people who all agree with her? You could say it’s insult to injury. But some would say it was a long time coming.

Some Rando: Scarlet Lady sucks! Alya: Marigold and Chat Noir do all the work, not her! Kagami: She’s barely even necessary at this point. Clara: This video and song are to celebrate hope and love. And Scarlet Lady lacks both when push comes to shove. Chloe: ARGHHH! WHATEVER!

It further shows the turning tide of public opinion against Scar. What was once a trickle has grown into a wave, and now Chloe is forced to acknowledge her image and status aren’t as ironclad as she thought. Sure, she could denounce Lila as a liar like she’s done before, but Lila is bringing up instances that Chloe can’t deny: being late (as she’s just plain been a no show to several fights), endangering civilians, and being caught live on camera being willing to let someone die in a particularly horrible way because it’s easier.

This is the episode where it’s not just people seeing Scar is horrible, but acting on it and letting Chloe know they know she’s horrible. It’s reached the point where Chloe can’t just disregard the claims or discount and ignore her critics. And we’re seeing Chloe starting to lose control as a result. To the point she has to force her dad to ruin a previously sanctioned event in what has to be one of his most flagrant displays of abuse of power to date just to shut down her detractors.

And even that would come with more consequences for Chloe if it had been allowed to continue. Sabrina herself points it out that Clara is very popular with a lot of fans—people who would be aware she’s making a music video and whom would be very disappointed if word got out that it was cancelled due to an issue with the Mayor. And given all the very unhappy people we see in the comic in question where she points that out, it stands to reason that the word would get out. Heck, I’d be surprised if someone wasn’t recording it.

Then there’s the love square/hero shenanigans.

Remember how in canon, the whole “playing themselves/risking identities” bit kinda just dropped out halfway in? The kwamis were the only authority figures involved to call out on the risk and of the two, Plagg didn’t care and Tikki gave one knowing stare at Marinette before turning around to gush about the suit. Even though Marinette offers the alternative idea to the music video by the end, there’s no further comment or notice of how she and Adrien nearly blew their identities….or alternatively a comedic take where nobody recognizes them regardless and they worried for nothing. Honestly, I would have taken either setup.

Having Fu present to call them both out shows there is a responsible authority figure watching, makes it clear there are rules they are expected to follow, and reinforces that this was, in fact, a horrible idea. Sure, Marinette and Adrien worried enough to hide their masks, but it should have been obvious that wouldn’t work long term. They are risking their identities, not just to Paris but to each other. And he calls them out for doing it on purpose.

Then there’s the beautiful crescendo of the love square dance in that the two both pretty much have figured out the other’s identity and just want an identity reveal to make it official—which Fu won’t allow. We see it in their playful banter that gets mistaken for “getting into character” and in Adrien in particular pushing Marinette to take part.

This is a point where we are seeing them be teenagers. Foolish of them? Yes. Should they have known better and not done it? Yes. But is it in character and the sort of teenage shenanigans we would expect of teenage superheroes? Definitely. And that’s part of the point. Because they are teenagers. Teenagers in love, no less. Teenagers in love with secret identities to dance around. Which is half the fun of secret identities!

It’s just another aspect to this episode that makes it enjoyable.

So overall, the episode matters in ways that the canon version didn’t and was fun in ways that the canon version wasn’t, making it stand out not just as an episode or a remake of the canon episode, but as its own standalone episode AND a noteworthy point in the overall story.

[absolutebl]

This Week in BL - The Summer Games BLgin.

Organized, in each category, with ones I'm enjoying most at the top. Those Greeks did have that reputation for naked dudes rolling around together so I'm declaring it...

BL OLYMPICS!

I'll be passing out metals in various sporting events, as part of the weekly updates through mid August, just for funzies.

July 2024 Week 4

Ongoing Series - Thai

The Rebound (Weds Gaga) eps 9-10 of 12 - I guess mass murder is nothing next to having to raise funds for your basketball club. There were a lot of water sports in these eps (no not that kind). I’m not complaining. The street BB playoffs were fun. Frank is GOOD. I didn’t know he played. They aren’t using doubles for this. Meanwhile, it’s a bummer this one can’t be a poly romance. 

Winner!

Gold in Handball

for that shower scene in ep 9 (also... ya know, DUNK TANKS)

Balls in hands of all types.

Briefly must chat about that intro/outro music. It's like Thai autotuned Stray Kids. Which means I kinda adore it.

Century of Love (Weds Gaga) eps 5-6 of 10 - I guess he’s had a long time to learn how to fight really really well. This is a fun show. It does occasionally feel like a bunch of gay boys playing dress up. I LIKE P’Third a lot. I hope he doesn’t turn out to be an actual baddie. I’m finding the music a little intrusive in these episodes. I love the deconstructed suits look, and the velvet blazer. Very 90s. The confessions scene was very cute. It’s a good thing Vee is so easy-going, because the last few months of his life have been truly insane. And now he’s queen of the castle? Still working his convenience store job?

I honestly thought we'd just get kisses halfway through not a full on sex scene. But it was very sweet and tender. Appreciated, boys, thanks. However it’s never a good sign when the sex scene is it at the halfway point, it just means there’s gonna be a lot of trauma to come.

(I gotta say every time Daou smiles he actually looks his age.) 

This Love Doesn't Have Long Beans (Fri iQIYI) ep 4 of 8 - I like them now. I mean as a pair of characters. I wasn’t really sold on the main couple until this episode, and now I’m interested (yes I am shallow). The boy with the glasses is definitely sus. I’m quite drunk, thus I have to say Sailub is the hottest thing on my screen right now. Metas's taste in interior design sucks. OK, that physical therapy session was sexy. I wasn’t sold at first, but now I love this side couple too.

Argh. SailubPon kiss so well. Also COUNTER LIFT!!!! 

Silver in Weightlifting

Sunset X Vibes (Sat iQIYI) ep 7 of 12 - I’m the one who always says this stuff, but this pair might be the best at relationship heat. Let me try to explain. They are good at putting on screen the kind of NRE, want to bone, just really into each other physically and also connected and loving. It’s the way their bodies always arch towards each other. They’re very comfortable in each other’s space in a way that’s really rare to see out of Any BL country but Taiwan. I think they might be my favorite couple currently active. I don’t know how to put it except that

it looks like they want each other,

it looks like they like each other,

it looks like they’re into each other,

and it looks like they GET each other.

It’s nice to see on screen. The plots/stories/narratives that they're given aren’t doing them any favors, but man they’re a good pair. Meanwhile, was I screaming the whole time don’t rip the sample of the custom piece? Yes I was. But it was still sexy.

Sam getting discovered was fun! Yo is gonna burn his arse good.

My Love Mix-Up Th (Fri YT) ep 8 of 12 - Okay! Officially boyfriends. I almost like the friendship btw Atom and Mudmee better than the romances. But they all so cute. 

The Trainee (Sun YouTube) ep 4 of 12 - I hate the gf intern so much. I think she is past redemption now - time for death. What is it they say about ADs? they do all the work, for none of the credit but all of the blame.

Knock Knock Boys (Thurs Gaga) ep 10 of 12 - I guess Peak’s dad really is that awful. Jane is the beard? Got it. The show got suddenly quite sweet and complex. Where did that come from? Meanwhile ,Almond + Latte + sex education is awesome. Great trope we rarely get in BL. 

Love Sea (Sun iQIYI) ep 7 of 10 - Look, what’s really annoying me is that I am neither upset nor pleased with the show. I like to be driven one way or the other by Meme. Trash watch here. (delayed this week, I can't face it)

I Saw You in My Dream (Weds Gaga) ep 1-2 of 12 - Out the gate I don’t like it. I don’t really like the teasing thing and the acting is poor. That said, neck kisses in the very first episode do make me happy. So I’m gonna keep watching. As for ep 2, I like the sides, and we have gay brothers trope activated. I also like the paranormal element, it adds some much-needed tension, but it is still a little slow (typical of a pulp).

Ongoing Series - Not Thai

I Hear the Sunspot AKA Hidamari ga Kikoeru (Japan Weds Gaga) ep 6 of 10 - I like our poor lost puppy slowly figuring out what’s going on. It’s so elegantly done. Also, the the boy begs his quiet seme to SAY something, you know he’s gonna DO something instead. 

I could have done wihtout the pan around the head kiss. We over that, 8 years ago.

Takara's Treasure AKA Takara No Vidro (Japan Mon Gaga) ep 4 of 10 - Why don’t I like this show? I had to think about it quite a bit. It’s the power differential. I never enjoy it when the character with less power is the one doing the pursuing, it comes off as too desperate or something. In this case he is: from the country, poor, and younger, It just makes Takara’s dismissive attitude and snobbery unpleasant to watch. Also, you know me, =/= obsessive stalker behavior. 

It's airing but...

Bad Guy (Korea YT) - yeah, erm, no thank you.

4 Minutes (Thai Netflix/Grey) ep... - Great, a rich boy studying business at uni, suddenly gains the supernatural power to see four minutes into the future. I try to catch up next week.

I have a source, but I simply didn’t have time to watch it. So sorry. Too much traveling too much BL to keep up with. A perfect conflation of conflicting priorities.

Meet You at the Blossom (China) - it's your funeral (or, more likely, one of the main characters'). You can argue but... statistics. You know my feelings on this matter. MY BLOG, remember?

64.media.tumblr.com

In case you missed it

The Time of Fever AKA Unintentional Love Story 2 (Korea movie) trailer IS COMING IN SEPTEMBER!!!!

Next Week Looks Like This:

Upcoming BLs for 2024 are listed here. This list is not kept updated, so please leave a comment if you know something new or RP with additions.

Coming Up Next!

7/29 Battle of the Writers (Thai ????) - trailer here, TutorYim return, and while I adore them, I really hope this is better than Middleman's Love. Won't be hard. However: the premise? Ugh. Something something authors fighting - save me. Why don't writers understand that nothing is more boring than writers?

8/4 Sugar Dog Life (Japan Sun ????) 10 eps - OMG a uni student who looks too young and a... COP. GAH. The subversion and kink of it all. Please Gaga pick this one up? They made it for US.

8/7 Cosmetic Playlover (Japan Weds ????) 8 eps - office romance around the makeup counter featuring a younger seme and sex by blackmail. I am intrigued. DFTUJ (don't fuck this up, Japan).

8/8 Monster Next Door (Thai Thurs WeTV ) 12 eps - I am so DAMN excited to see Big finally lead a BL. I can't even with this, one of my most anticipated of this year. He's a great kisser ya'll, he's kissed a lot of boys as second lead. I can't WAIT.

8/12 First Note Of Love (Taiwan Mon Gaga) 12 eps - About a singer with stage fright and his timid fan stars Charles (H4 the puppy one) and Michael Chang (the youngster in My Tooth Your Love), plus side couple featuring a Thai actor Jame (Koh in Gen Y) and Liu Min Ting (of Guardian fame). What a damn tean. I can't wait. With thier powers combined!

8/16 The Last Time (Thai Fri YT) ? eps - Convoluted story of loss and possible reincarnation or something.

8/22 The Paradise of Thorns (Thai movie) theater release - Jeff Satur is back but this does not look like a BL (the gay lover's death is the inciting event). More in Goodbye Mother vein. Looks dark and dramatic. He opposite and extremely well known actor Toey Pongsakorn who has never done gay before.

Addicted Heroin (Thailand adaptation) is also supposed to release this month. GIVE IT TOO MEEEEEE. I don't care about anything else but August back on my screen. It's been almost a decade since he did BL.

THIS WEEK’S BEST MOMENTS

This week's adventures in caption "out of" and "off" are not the same thing. This is an uncomfortable thought.

I'm so tired I'm seeing double. This is all you get.

(Last week)

Streaming services are listed by how I (usually) watch, which is with a USA based IP, and often offset by a day because time zones are a pain.

The tag BLigade: @doorajar @solitaryandwandering @my-rose-tinted-glasses @babymbbatinygirl @babymbbatinygirl @isisanna-blog @mmastertheone @pickletrip @aliceisathome @urikawa-miyuki @tokillamonger @sunflower-positiiivity @rocketturtle4 @blglplus @anythinggoesintheshire @everlightly @renafire @mestizashinrin @bl-bam-beyond @small-dark-and-delicious @saezurumurmurs

Sigh, Tumblr in it's infinite wisdom doesn't like too many tags.

Sports in Play (the jokes write themselves) )

Boxing

Breaking

(That's Not) Cricket

Diving (yes, for that)

Fencing (yes, with those)

Handball (exactly what it says, no, read the word.. again)

Rhythmic Gymnastics (obvs)

Squash (snicker)

Surfing

Swimming

Trampoline

Weightlifting

Wrestling

[cleolinda]

The Scariest Movie I Ever Saw in a Theater: The Ring

I'll tell you up front that the story I'm going to tell you is about "The Ring (2002)," in the sense that it is about The Ring in the year 2002.

See, I don't know what The Scariest Movie Ever is. A quick google says that the consensus is The Exorcist (I haven't seen it, because I never felt like scheduling a day to freak myself the entire fuck out). But horror is specific, and not just to a person, but to a time and place, even. When I saw The Shining as a teenager in a well-lit living room with other people, I didn't even really flinch, but I bet it would play very differently to me now. I don’t think The Ring is at the top of anyone’s list, but twenty years ago, I had a personal interest in it—at the time, I was running a dinky little Geocities site devoted to movie news. Links curated and compiled from all the other, bigger sites I followed—basically, it was the linkspam format I have used on multiple platforms, including here on Sundays. And so, as someone who followed theatrical releases pretty closely for two or three years, I saw the trailer for The Ring, and I immediately knew it was going to be huge.

To locate you in time, this was just after three self-satirizing Scream movies and the Overcomplicated Serial Killer films of the '90s. The Ring was something completely different: chill aqua-blue color grading a good 5-6 years before Twilight; a mournful Hans Zimmer score; no jokes, no quips; and a slow, inexorable sense of doom. Grief, even, given that the movie begins with the death of the main character's niece. What immediately struck me about the first trailer was 1) the melancholy of it, and 2) how much it doesn't explain. Onscreen, you get the title cards,

THERE IS A VIDEOTAPE IF YOU WATCH IT SEVEN DAYS LATER YOU DIE

Concise! Understandable! A woman (Naomi Watts) is freaking out upon discovering that her young son has just watched it! Admirable job setting up the premise and the stakes of this entire movie in thirty seconds flat, without even any dialogue. That's all you need to know, and thus, the remaining minute of the trailer can do whatever it wants, and what it wants to do is be fucking weird. Echoing voices, TV static, a closeup of a horse's eye, ladders, a girl with dark hair, people reacting to things we don't see, drippy doorknobs, rain. Characters don't give us the whole plot in convenient soundbites of dialogue (like they do in a later trailer); we just hear lines, overlapping, murmured out of context—

did you see it in your head? she talks to you... leading you somewhere... showing you the horses... you saw it. did you see it in your head? she shows me things. Everyone suffers.

That you saw it has lived in my head ever since, and not once have I charged it rent. But the "best" part is Naomi Watts screaming at the end, because you don't hear her voice; you only hear this heartless telephonic beeeeeeep. It's 2002 and I'm watching this trailer, thinking, I have no idea what the fuck I just saw. This is going to be huge.

And it was, to the tune of $249 million on a $48M budget.

At risk of recapping what you might already know, Ringu, aka Ring, is a media franchise that spiraled out from a trio of Koji Suzuki novels into Hideo Nakata's film Ringu (1998), a landmark of Japanese horror, plus several other movies, some TV series, many comics, and even a couple of video games. The overarching story is about a murdered girl/vengeful ghost named Sadako Yamamura whose rage and pain have created a cursed video tape, you watch it and you die unless you pass the tape around like a virus, seven daaaaays, etc.

The "ring" in question is the rim of a well. Keep that well in mind.

The movie I saw is the U.S. remake, which itself had two sequels. (The iconic Sadako is now named Samara Morgan. Keep her in mind, too.) Director Gore Verbinski moved from The Ring to Pirates of the the Caribbean (!), and so Hideo Nakata himself would direct The Ring Two. I... honestly have only seen the first one. And I was right, it was huge, and it kicked off the American J-Horror Remake genre, for better or worse. But what gets forgotten about The Ring is its marketing campaign, which I followed pretty closely for my doofy little news site.

It was inspired.

The story of The Ring is partly the story of the sea change in the media landscape—how we watch movies. And the story of its marketing is a picture of the very last years before social media changed the wilderness of the internet into something that feels so big, like a billion people could see anything we say, and yet so small—only a tame handful of places to say it, owned by three or four companies, and corraled by algorithms.

Back around 1997-1998 or so, I worked at a video store (Movie Gallery, where the hits were there then, guaranteed) for about a year and a half. By the time I left, we had started adding DVDs to the VHS tapes on the shelves, but we hadn't replaced the entire stock. Video stores might have transitioned fully to DVD by 2002, I'm not sure, but people still commonly had both VCRs and DVD players in their homes. And I remember that The Ring was sold in both formats when it eventually hit home video. Which is to say—you know the analog horror genre today? Marble Hornets, Local 58, The Mandela Catalogue?

Analog horror is commonly characterized by low-fidelity graphics, cryptic messages, and visual styles reminiscent of late 20th-century television and analog recordings. This is done to match the setting, as analog horror works are typically set between the 1960s and 1990s. The name "analog horror" comes from the genre's aesthetic incorporation of elements related to analog electronics, such as analog television and VHS, the latter being an analog method of recording video.

Okay, but this is just what home media was like, and 2002 was at the very tail end of that—boxy black VHS tapes that degraded with time and reuse were just how we lived. At the same time, I'd been using CDs for music since about 1991, and all our software installs came on CD-ROM discs; a "mixtape" by that time had shifted to mean a rewriteable CD rather than a cassette tape. In college, I—well, I'll plead the Fifth as to whether I downloaded mp3s via Napster, but I was also taping Mystery Science Theater 3000 on VHS over the weekends. It was Every Format Everywhere, All At Once, and we kept half a dozen kinds of players around for them. Here in 2023, we stream and download everything invisibly, unless we choose to engage in format nostalgia. (I've already run into the problem of Apple Music deleting songs I really liked, due to this or that licensing issue, because I was really only renting them.) The year The Ring hit theaters was the edge of a last shimmering gasp of physical media where iTunes had only come into being the year before, and iridescent discs were still mostly what we used, but cassettes, both video and audio, were still viable. And so, people did not think it was terribly weird when they started finding unlabeled VHS tapes on their windshields.

Movieweb, quoting TikTok user astro_nina:

"Their marketing strategy was essentially 'let's get this tape viewed by as many people as possible without these people being aware of what this is, sort of raising intrigue," she says. One way they achieved this was by airing the tape, which allegedly marks its viewers for death within seven days, as a commercial with no context. The video would air between late-night programming "with no words, no mention of a movie, for like a month...so people would run into it and it would just go on to the next thing, and people would be like, 'what the f--k is this?'"

I remember seeing the Cursed Video as an unexplained ad at least twice, by the way. That TikTok also indicates that DreamWorks straight-up sent copies of the tape to Hot Topic stores, as well as planting them under actual movie theater seats. While running my movie site, I heard at least one story of someone finding a tape on the sink counter of a restroom at a club. Did the marketing department actually plant tapes in bathrooms—or did a freaked-out recipient leave it there, hoping to dodge the "curse"?

(I haven't embedded the Cursed Video here, by the way—but I could have. If you'd like to see the American take on it, you can watch both the full version and the shorter variant that appeared in the movie itself. A text description of what the fuck you're even looking at is here [content note for both: blood, insects, animal death, body horror, and suicide by falling]. The original version from the Japanese film is shorter, and it's eerie rather than gruesome.)

BUT WAIT, THERE WAS MORE: DreamWorks had something of an alternate-reality campaign going with a handful of in-character websites. This was only a year after Warner Bros. ran the groundbreaking "The Beast" ARG for A.I.: Artificial Intelligence: "Ultimately, fifty websites with a total of about one thousand pages were created for the [A.I.] game." (I lurked in the Cloudmakers Yahoo group.) Marketing for The Ring did not go anywhere that in depth, nor did it need to; it was both a smaller film and a smaller story. I saw at least two “personal” websites (seemingly amateur and a little tacky, like my own), but the one I particularly remember was about someone who owned/trained horses? I'm not sure if it was meant to be the actual Anna Morgan character—Samara's mother—or maybe someone who had noticed that the Morgans' horses were disturbed? I'm not even sure anyone even remembers this but me. Reddit users dug up a few other archived websites, but they're about Sadako, the curse and/or videotape; they aren't as subtle or character-oriented as the site I remember. (Honestly, I wonder if weird shit like "What Scares Me" or "SEVEN DAYS TO LIVE" were made by fans rather than a marketing department, but who knows.)

[The “About” page from Seven Days to Live on the Internet Archive.]

[The entirety of An Open Letter on the Internet Archive. “UPDATE” is a now-blank pop-up. I would bet $5 that it was originally a pop-up of the cursed video.]

I need to point out here that Facebook did not exist in 2002. It would not exist for another two years, and Twitter wouldn't exist until 2006. Even MySpace was not a thing until the next year. I didn't start my Livejournal until October of 2003. What we had, for the most part, were independent forums and blogs. We also had Creepy Internet Fiction like "The Dionaea House" and "Ted the Caver"; their use of the blog format, of people out there seemingly living their lives until something fucked up went down, gave the stories the shape of reality. And it helped that these blogs had comment sections, sure—sometimes more story unfolded there—but for the most part, an author could "abandon" a blog, and you'd just find the story there via word of mouth. Like the Ring blogs I remember, it wouldn't seem strange if no one replied to you, whereas today, you'd have to hire a writer to sit on Twitter, or Reddit, or even Tumblr, and interact with people in character. Could you do something like The Ring's mysterious, weird-ass blogs today? Would anyone even notice?

So: It's 2002, my head is full of Alternate Reality and eerie images and you saw it, and I'm hype as hell to go out and see The Ring. I'm perfectly happy to go see movies by myself, so I went in the early afternoon (best time to get a good seat). The movie ended up being a sleeper hit, and the first weekend, the public was still sleeping on it, so there were only 7-8 other people in that theater, grouped in maybe two clusters. I was off in my own little pool of darkness in the upper right quadrant. Functionally, once the lights went down, I was alone.

Despite some middling reviews at the time, The Ring is something of a horror classic nowadays. If you want a scary movie this Spooky Season, check out The Ring. Or don't, because it nearly killed me.

We're at the last, I don't know, third of the movie? And Our Heroine has tracked down the origin of the Cursed Videotape to some creepy mountain motel or whatever. SPOILER, it turns out that it was built over the Cursed Well (everything in this movie is cursed) that Our Villain was thrown into—that's why Sadako/Samara is a vengeful wet murder ghost crawling out of TVs now. While investigating this decrepit hotel room, intrepid journalist Rachel and her, who is it, her ex-husband? her kid's dad, idk, discover the well under the creaky old floorboards. And then, wouldn't you know it,

NAOMI WATTS FALLS INTO THE WELL

NAOMI WATTS FALLS INTO THE FUCKING WELL

THAT'S WHERE SAMARA'S BODY IS

[The rather slapstick moment when Rachel falls into the well. Does not include what actually happens next.]

I go absolutely rigid in my seat. Naomi Watts is splashing around this dark-ass death swamp of a well and I know, with as much certainty as I have ever known anything in my life, that Samara is about to pop up in all her pasty, waterlogged glory. All the sad creepy dread, all the desperation to figure out what the fuck all that shit on the tape was and stop Samara from killing Rachel's son, all the horrible contorted victim faces, all the alternate reality I’ve been soaking in, it has all come to this. I have to leave the theater. I cannot be having with this. I have to be gone from this place. My legs do not work. I cannot feel them. I am frozen. I want nothing more in this life or any other to get up and leave this cavernous pitch-black room, and I cannot. I start praying for death. I want you to understand that I am not trying to be flippant or humorous. This is genuinely what went through my head. I was too scared to even think, "You know, you could just pray to pass out or for motion to return to your limbs or something." No, I sat there in The Ring thinking, Please for the love of all mercy just let me cease being.

You know that scene in Mulholland Drive (also starring Naomi Watts)? Winkie's diner and the EXCRUCIATING tension? It was a little like that, except I wasn't watching it, I was experiencing it, and Samara was my dirt monster out behind the diner.

Except that the jump scare didn't actually happen. I mean, yes, Rachel finds Samara's body down there, but—I don't remember exactly, please don't make me go watch it again to tell you what actually happens. It's played more sympathetically on Rachel's part, as I recall, and she and her ex get Samara's body out so that she (Samara) can have a proper burial.

And then it turns out that this is not the end of the movie. It turns out that Rachel has Fucked Up.

I think I was relatively okay through the rest of it, although the climax is Samara emerging from a TV in her full glitching swampy glory to scare [SPOILER] to death. I don't recall praying for death twice. There's a point when you're so exhausted from fear chemicals that you're like, yeah, this might as well happen. Bring it, Soggy. I did have a hard time prying myself out of that seat afterwards, though, and my mom says that when I got home, I had the classic thousand-yard stare. How was the movie?

"It was great," I said, and I meant it.

I've seen things that were objectively scarier (I watched much of The Haunting of Hill House from behind a pillow, to be honest), and it's not like I've never experienced fear in real life. But I respect when a movie that can make me feel so intensely, and there's something weirdly precious about the way horror is a safe roller coaster, as it's often been said. So I love telling the story about The Time The Ring Nearly Killed Me—a movie that actually made my body stop working—and I love thinking of how embedded in a specific time and place that movie was for me. The last gasp of VHS when the Cursed Videotape still seemed plausible; the way the internet was still wild and weird and free; where I was in my life, keeping up so avidly with all the movie news, and finding myself in such a little pool of darkness early one afternoon. It's the scariest movie I saw in a theater; that's the alchemy of circumstance.

[winterarmyy]

Never Lie To Me

A series of random Bucky Drabbles that I can't let go but don't have the brain to make the whole complete plot of.

Summary: In which Y/N's sinful thoughts towards the Asset is reciprocated.

Pairing: winter soldier!bucky x hydra agent!female!reader

Words: 3.4k++

Warnings: 18+ content, no minors allowed, nsfw, purely smut and lack of plot, honestly. messy writing and lack of dialogue, sorry for that. Others may include probably incorrect russian due to the use of google translate, marking kink (if you squint), metal hand kink, finger-fucking, clit spanking, unprotected sex, creampie, soldat doesn't talk much, i figured he is more reserved but that doesn't mean his actions are (*wink wink*) he is kinda rough but the reader highkey loves it, just bunch of horny pent-up mfs getting some action for once, y'know.

Inspiration: "Cause I can see you waiting down the hall for me and I can see you up against the wall with me." – I Can See You (From The Vault) by Taylor Swift.

Read my other works here: Masterlist

Y/N didn't understand why was she sent to this field mission. There were literally dozens of others that were much suitable to do it and yet they chose her of all people? Considering her much leisure job for the past months, which basically just to guard a lab, Hydra seemed to forgot that her body have been lack of combat practice.

She hated this. This mission. This organization. All of it.

Y/N was one of those kids that Hydra stole from the orphanages for their Phantom program; it is where they train, or accurately brainwash, the kids into highly skilled assassin. And she was one of the top 5 out of the program in her batch.

But after a certain incident in one of the mission in Peru, she was temporarily relocated to Siberia to, as they say, "recover" before they can assign get into another mission. There, she was given a much lenient task, which was to guard the lab where the Winter Soldiers were created.

Those few months was both heaven and hell for her; heaven was that she didn't need to be soaked in the blood of the innocent lives and hell was that she had to be a bystander to the cruelty of the dehumanizing process of the Winter Soldier program.

Sure, everything Hydra does to its "followers" are, by nature, imbrute. I mean, she was trained like a dog since she was but a child, but this. This was just another level of evil. Such vile and merciless thing to do to another human being. The muzzles that Hydra shoved in their mouth doesn't really help to reduce the excruciating noises that they made.

Though, while she was physically forced to witness the atrociousness, there was one constant thing that kept her mind off from it all.

They call him the Asset. In fact he was the first one. But she'd rather think of him simply as a man sleeping in a cryo chamber.

Y/N had heard of this "monster", the rumours were terrible as they come and go, but she find it hard to believe that when the soldat had such a calm and kind expression on his face, even if his features were frozen in ice. That was her first impression of him; then day by day, and what felt like ages, she watched him.

Her curiosity got the best of her when she started to think of scenarios and possibilities that the man had quickly became her escape from the horrid reality around her.

Though she spend most of her time trying not to feel it, but the other times, well... the thoughts went a little wild. At one point, they got too personal even for her own mind to comprehend.

After a month of reporting at the new post, she heard the whispers of "thawing the asset" from other agents and scientists around the lab. And surely enough, one of those day, the soldat was brought back from his slumber.

It didn't cross her mind before, of what color laid behind those closed lids. But when she saw his eyes for the first time, she was in complete awe. They were blue as the vast ocean she once jet-skied over; but they were as cold like when she stepped foot at this snow covered facility.

The contrast of his dark hair and tanned skin only makes his bright eyes to become the most prominent feature on his face. And Y/N just couldn't tear her gaze away, especially when the Hydra agent that supposed to retrieve him was making such a big fuss over how slow the soldat was reacting to their commands.

What do they expect? He was literally frozen for lord knows how long just a few seconds ago. Everything must be dissociating for him. So of course, the man's mind and body needs time to adjust.

The soldat abruptly fell on his knees after exiting the chamber, causing one of the guards to strike a kick across his face, "вставай, паршивая собака! (Get up, you lousy dog!)"

And that was it, Y/N had enough of it, "Hey!" she shouted as her stomped towards the guards. The duo quickly stood straight and showed their respect to her; knowing that those who graduated from Phantom program has higher ranking than them.

The moment Y/N found her footing in front of him, the palm of her hand landed harshly across his face, "Do you realized what you just did?" She asked as the taller regained to his prior composure.

"That man!" She pointed at the soldat who was obediently sitting on the floor, "Is Hydra's most prized asset. He alone is worth thousands of you useless scumbags. And you had the audacity to lay your hands on him?!" She roared and the lab fell into silent.

The two guards can only bite on their own tongue knowing what she said was true. The soldat was in fact the Hydra's precious weapon, as for now that he was the only one who successfully weilded the super soldier serum in his veins.

Y/N walked around and stood in front of the soldat, "Are you hurt, soldat?" she asked as her gaze fell on him. His head was hanging low as he bored his empty eyes into the shine of Y/N's black boots; he shook his head and replied, "No, ma'am"

She knew he was lying, especially when she saw the drips of blood on his pants, "Look at me." She ordered in which the soldat complied. And there it was, the source of the mess, the red cut on the corner of his lips. Her frown only deepened when the bruises were slowly forming on his cheek bones.

Y/N crouched to his level, as her hand reaching for his cheeks. His body halted and stiffened when she approached, but only to be surprised by the soft carress of her fingers on his face, "If you're not injured, then what's this?" She whispered lowly; a tone where just the two of them can hear.

The soldat's empty eyes almost melt in hers; he never saw her before, who is she? Why was there so much kindness in her eyes? And why was she holding him so gently?

He let her careful thumb wiped the blood from his chin before whispered again, "Never lie to me, soldat. Do you understand?"  The soldat obediently nodded as a spiral of indescribable emotions stirred within him. His eyes lingered at the way her lips formed into a soft smile, "Good." She praised.

Since then, the soldat's gaze had remain on her almost all the time. From the moment she threatened the two guards, to the time she looked away from the tortured candidates of the Winter Soldier program, to this very second as she undresses every part of her suit.

Though the mission was a success however, their plane was utterly wrecked by an unforeseen mini gun. So they were forced to walk through the snow storm and find shelter at one of Hydra's safe house.

It was not rare for the soldat to be paired with other agents on a mission but never with a woman. Much less the pretty little bunny that he had been obsessing over. Ever since that incident, the soldat often think of her. And he really tried too keep everything professional but something within him changed lately.

One particularly distinct moment that he experienced that made it clear to him; it was when he was waiting in the hall for his handlers to drag him around the facilities, and she happen to walk towards him from the opposite side. And when he brushed pass her, he noticed how his hands was itching to grab her by the neck and push her up against the wall.

As if there was this strong urge to claim her, mark her, fuck her. That was when he realized. The soldat wanted her. He wanted ruin her for everyone else. He wanted her to be his. But, he knew they keep watchful eyes on him. On both of them. And he can't risk that.

But now that she was standing right in front of him, in her underwear no less, how was he supposed to control himself?

Y/N turned her attention towards the soldat, he stood absolutely still that she almost thought he was literally frozen, "Why are you not stripping? Even with that super soldier serum in you, I doubt that you don't feel cold from those snow-soaked clothes."

Maybe it was the dim-lit room, but she swore that the soldat eyes darkened when she walk towards him. Especially when his eyes ranked the way her wet undergarments stick onto her skin.

How many times did she fantasize about the way he was looking at her. How many times did she made herself cum from the thoughts on grinding her cunt into his metal fingers.

Too many to count.

Especially when, in her head, she could see him in his suit with his knives, she could see him throwing his black mask on the floor, she could see him bending her over to his will, she could see him make her want him, crave him, need him.

And whenever their eyes met, she often think of the what-ifs between them. Like, what would he do if she went to touch him now? What would he do if Hydra never found them out? What would he do if they never made a sound?

What would he think if she made him her own personal addiction? Then will he entertain her fantasies by making her his own secret mission?

"Remember what I told you, soldat?" She asked as her hands reached for his mask.

Without hesitation, the soldat replied, "Never lie to you." as his face was bare for her to see.

Y/N took a step forward, so close that he could almost feel her skin on him, "Now tell me, what do you want?" Her eyes found his diluted ones as he lifted his gaze from her cleavage to meet hers.

His cock was rather truthful even from the beginning; now more than before when it twitched painfully in the confinement of his pants. The soldat hissed to the feel of it before he confessed, "I want you."

Y/N couldn't help but to smile, "Then, have me, soldat."

That was all he needed to hear. Her permission to have her, to own her. Then, very next second, he had her body pinned firmly against the wall, his lips on her soft ones, his wet tongue exploring in her mouth.

The soldat had his metal hand gripping the back of her neck, not wanting that pretty head of hers to hit the wall; while the other hand unabashedly teared the bra off from her body.

Breaking the kiss, the soldat's lustful gaze watched how her breasts became bare for him. So pretty and perky. His cock twitched madly as if it was ordering him to touch them, suck on them. And he did just that.

The soldat took her right nipple into his hot mouth while his free hand pawed on the other. Y/N moaned lewdly at roughness of his hand and mouth. When she threw her head back, that was when she saw it. At the corner of the room, she noticed a CCTV camera directly situated towards their direction

She grabbed a handful of his long hair, and lightly tugged him back but he refused to stop sucking on her. Y/N huffed when she whispered, "They're watching us."

That was when the soldat quickly released her from his mouth and quickly hovered his huge body over her, he growled possessively as his quick eyes scanned for all the nearby camera.

Y/N chuckled amusingly at his reaction, "Do you not like it when they watch us?" She teased. The soldat growled again as he pulled her closer, her nipples perked even more now that they touched the cold fabric of his clothes, "Mine. Mine alone." He declared.

Y/N looked up at him with a pair of seductive eyes, "Then, what are you going to do about it?" She taunted. The soldat swiftly pulled his knives out from his thigh strap and threw it directly at the lens of each camera in the room. Now no one would have a chance witness her divine body, or see what her face looks like when he make her cum.

There weren't much of intelligible words that came out of his mouth after that, besides the grumble noises of the word "mine".

The soldat latched her mouth onto her skin, particulary around her neck, collarbone and the valley of her breast. He kissed and licked and sucked to leave his mark on her as his metal hand dug into her hips.

Meanwhile, the flesh of his right hand slide right into her panties. He fingers trailed the outer slit of her cunt; as if he was purposely teasing her, "Зайка (bunny)" he groaned against her neck when he felt how wet she was. She squirmed needily under his hand, when his middle finger poked her entrance while his thumb grazed across her clit.

"So wet, all for me?" He purred as his finger slowly dug into her hole. Y/N whined and grabbed his wrist before he could go any further, "Want your metal fingers, soldat." she slurred deliriously; already drunk with his touches.

It took all his might to not fuck her right there and then when she let him have her. The soldat wanted to treat her gently, prepare her sweetly. Now that she had confessed such sinful desire, something in him just snapped.

He pulled his hand out, and effortlessly ripped her panties from her body before lifting one of her legs up, pushing her thighs towards her body. She yelped at the sudden roughness, embarrassment crept across her spine when the soldat licked his lips at the sight of her cunt, wide open for him.

"Want my metal fingers huh,  Зайка (bunny)?" He trailed his metal fingers along her wet hole, "You got it." He abruptly shoved two of his digits into her, causing her to let out a loud gasp at the sudden intrusion.

The soldat didn't give her time to adjust, he simply pulled his fingers out to the very tip and thrust it back into her. And he does it again, and again and again. Until the pain turn into sheer pleasure.

When her eyes rolled back and shut close, the soldat growled disapprovingly, "No. Don't close your eyes. Look. Look down. Watch how your wet little hole take my metal fingers. That's it. Look at you. Fuck. Look. At. You." His pace didn't lose its rhythm when he fucked his fingers hard and fast; he curled them just right every time he hit that deep spot inside her.

His metal fingers was better that she had ever imagine, and the sight that she was looking at was so lewd that she was already so overstimulated from it, then when his thumb circled her clit, she thought she was seeing actual stars.

Streams of fluid was squelching everytime he shoved his fingers knuckles deep into her, that it trickled down his hand. It was so messy and the soldat loves it. He want her to be this messy all the time. He wanted to clean her up with his tongue. Lick every drip of her sweet fluid, swollow it like he was thristy and she was water.

At the this point, he would be willing to stay on his knees if it means that he get to have her cunt on his mouth always.

The soldat growled at the way she moaned so shamelessly at how harsh his fingers was violating her sweet pussy. He kept on rubbing on her clit and watched her body shuddered when he slap on it. Seeing her reaction, he continued to spank her clit and he fucked her harder; one, two, three, four, until she cried out a long moan and her pussy gushed with her creamy cum.

And seeing how her body trembled, her cream dripping out onto his hand, the soldat almost combust in his pants. Though apart of him wanted to feel her sweaty skin on his own, another just wanted to feel her warm pussy.

So, instead of wasting more of his time undressing himself, the soldat hurriedly unzipped his pants to release his aching cock out. He pulled his finger out and licked her cum clean while his other hand lazily pumped his leaking length, "Taste so good, Зайка (bunny). Bet you feel good too."

Y/N whined at his action, he looked so hot and bothered. And something about him fully clothed while pumping his needy cock for her; it just drives her to near feral. She let out an exasperated gasp when the soldat maneuvered her legs to cling around his waist, while his hand gripped on her hips. Her voice then stuck on her throat when he thrust his cock deep inside in one stroke.

His size was stretching her out so much that it burned, a good type of burn; in fact, the best type. The soldat on the other hand almost burst his cum the moment he entered her. She felt so good. Better that his rough hands when he jerked off to the though of her. But he was determined to make her cum on his dick before he get his own high.

So without letting her adjust to his size, he slowly pulled out and harshly slammed right back into her; fuck does it feel so good. And her mewling so needily for him does not help the situation at all. He repeated the same thing over and over until he managed to suck up his need to cum, then fasten his pace. And the sound of her wetness rubbing against his cock when he pounded into her was so damned and sinful, that never wanted to forget.

Her back repeatedly hit the wall from the force of his thrust that she needed to hold on his shoulders for support. His pace was fast and deep, almost erratic. Her moans broken when she felt the tip of her cock ramming at her womb, her walls clenching in delight to welcome such huge and hot length inside her. Every stroke was perfect and if she had no self-control she would be cumming each time the soldat forced his cock into her.

His hips slapped against her and she eagerly followed his every thrust, desperate to meet his skin as much as he was for her. And when she looked up to him, the soldat was looking directly into her. His ocean blues dove into her soul as his grunts tangled with her cries.

His breathing stuttered and his pace flatter. She could tell he was getting close. But, the soldat refused to; not until she cum first.

In and out. In and out. His pace became brutally delicious. Her nerves were stretching so good that her toes curled and that was when she felt the coil forming. Short needy pants left her lips, each one was a sign that she was getting closer to ecstacy, "I'm cumming, soldat. Please,, don't stop."

The soldat groaned, "Don't hold back." He pounded into her impossibly harder; and the delicious drag of his cock continued to punish her into pure ecstasy, forcing her cum to leak out and lather around his throbbing length, "That’s it, Cum for me, Зайка (bunny). Cum for your soldat,, ahh fuck so tight, i'm cumming too, ahh." The soldat chased his own release as continued to thrust inside her clenching hole.

"Fuckkkk i'm cumming inside you, Зайка (bunny). Will mark you mine with my cum. Ahhh ahhh fuckk", the soldat moaned to the addictive feel of her cunt milking him, and soon after when it hits him, his cock throbbed wildly as his cream leaked from the tip, endlessly filling her womb full with his warm cum.

Y/N whined to the amount of warm fluid spreading inside her. And when she thought his slowed thrust was a sign of an end, she couldn't be wrong. The soldat slowly pulled his cock out to the very tip, just pound it back into her. He groaned at the sight of his creamy cum spilling out, circling where his cock was stuffing her. Then he does it again, and again.

Until she started to moan for him, "hmmm,, s-soldat?" She hoped that he would explain himself.

His dark eyes only glint with lust and greed when a small smiled curved on his lips, "Oh, Зайка (bunny), I'm not done with you until I mark every part of you as mine."

End.

Read my other works here: Masterlist

A/N: This scene has been played out in my head the whole day when Speak Now (TV) came out. Anyway, hope you enjoyed this short read! Drop some thought behind for me would you?

[theajaheira]

descending into deadlochposting on main i don't even care. this show is SO GOOD. i think the thing that really stuck with me throughout every episode is how committed it is to not fucking up women, and especially women of color, just to have a Plot Point + for Emotional Resonance!!! every woman on this show gets an ending that feels earned. (and yes that does include margaret carruthers.) there is just so much love woven into this narrative but they still manage to capture the grim miserable reality of patriarchy without EVER reducing a female character we care about to a Murder Victim or having her horrifically brutalized as an ending!!!! like holy shit, guys, it's actually fucking possible! you can create horror blended perfectly with humor and never actually fuck women over!!!

and yeah actually as a woc it felt really fucking good to watch a show where i got to see women of color (aleyna and tammy and sharelle and miranda and faye my beloved <333) just thrive and be silly and stupid and terrible and also lovable. and also, oh my god, revolutionary, NOT GET MURDERED, even though this is literally a fckin murder show!!! i said to my dad like midway through the series that i just got this sense the show understood how goddamn hard it is to watch television sometimes waiting for that character you love, who looks like you and has life experiences that resonate with you, to get killed, or to be treated like she's not important, and how dedicated it is to not just killing off women for shock value. every woman in this show mattered and had meaning and dimension.

because seriously, SO MANY INCREDIBLE WOMEN!!! abby with her perfect little haircut driving off into the sunset saying Of Course She Knows She's Right About Forensics. aleyna and her husband, her whole heart!!!! vanessa who in a lesser show would have been reduced to The Bad Woman, The Bigot, but we are shown how she has been abused and mistreated by men and how that's so informed her perspective + her genuine love for her son! sharelle who lays down the hard truths, who calls them out -- "all this civility but no fucking community" !!! miranda who learns that she doesn't want blood money from a woman who looks down on her cousin! tammy who is literally just all about that footy club the entire time even as men are being murdered and that's honestly so real of her. skye o'dwyer who perfectly captures that Emotionally Unavailable Dad energy except she's a lesbian and i love her. nadiyah who is Trying Her Best :) And Gritting Her Teeth About It :) faye who has no god damn patience for margaret carruthers and all kinds of blunt determined love for her niece and her daughter. vic who throws herself under the bus because she's just so determined to protect anyone she can after the women in this town protected her and kept her secret for so long!!! cath who parents her emotions and is definitely relentless in her guilting but also so relentless in her love. MARGARET CARRUTHERS WHO EXEMPLIFIES SHITTY RICH WHITE WOMAN. and of fucking course, the legends, the buddy-cop duo of all time, dulcie and eddie, who are just perpetually going around like this

except it's not even working because eddie chewed the leash off.

favorite show of the year by far. so so happy about it. rotating it joyfully in my brain for the next week, probably longer.

[aroaceleovaldez]

Is it me or people haven’t really been talking about pjo7? Like there is barely posts about it

Yeah, no, a lot of people just aren't interested in/reading the CoTG trilogy. It was kind of the same with TOA and MCGA (and TKC) in just waning interest in the franchise after HoO, and particularly for TKC/MCGA/CoTG them not being main series installments. CoTG trilogy in particular is also getting a lot of general disinterest/distaste in how it's publicly acknowledged to be just advertisement for the show and the overall downward trajectory of quality in the series. Particularly a lot of people take issue with the absolutely useless plotlines of like CoTG trilogy and TSATS, the blatant glaring inconsistencies/frequent retcons, and the fact that both CotG trilogy and TSATS were post-Rick announcing that he wouldn't be making any more major Riordanverse installments (which he then almost immediately took back re: announcing TSATS as a PR move, in response to the negative reaction of how he responded to criticism about Piper and Sam and such). Also people really dislike that it's being tacked onto first series as a marketing move. Plus, the fact that because of that, it doesn't have it's own name for the trilogy, people don't really have a good means to discuss it because they don't know what to refer to it as. We're all outright refusing to call it PJatO like the RR marketing wants because it's not PJatO, but they failed to give us anything else to refer to it as because they don't want us to refer to it as anything else. So just... nobody's calling it anything, then. Nobody's discussing it at all.

In general though the lack of interest is not surprising, given most of the fandom checked out after HoO to begin with and things have been steadily dwindling since then. Also particularly that CoTG is a filler mini-series between HoO and TOA, so skipping it doesn't really mean you're missing any information. It's kind of a "this trilogy could have been a short story saga" type thing. Like, if CoTG was formatted like Demigods and Magicians, or Demigod Files/Demigod Diaries or something I think a lot more people would be interested in it! Even though not a ton of people read the companion books, they're generally more digestible for the audience than a whole new trilogy (sorry TKC and MCGA). Just think of how many people read Demigods and Magicians but not TKC. Honestly I genuinely think they would have had more success if they just did three new companion novels of short story anthologies. Like, hey, what if instead of really bad excessively long plots about Percy's quests for college, we get more short stories of Percy's little quests a la Singer of Apollo/Stolen Chariot/Sword of Hades/etc? And then to flesh out each book a little more you could do short stories for other beloved minor characters from first series to continue it being advertisement for the show and hype up other characters that will appear. Like, what about another Clarisse short story? Or a Chris short story? Or the Stolls or something? Some TA stuff? Who knows!

[ppeonppeonhan]

So My Stand-In just ended, and We Are & Wandee Goodday end next week. We still got Knock Knock, Boys!, My Love Mix-Up!, The Rebound, Love Sea, and SunsetxVibes for a while, but...

4 Minutes (Action | Drama | Sci-Fi)

It took Bible almost 2 years to crawl out of that Build fiasco, and the fandom is primed to see him again with all of the ominous and sultry clips of the series they've been teasing us with.

Obviously, it looks promising 👀 but I'm most excited to see him in action again, and to explore another supernatural Thai drama -- this time about precognition (aka seeing the future). It'll be even more interesting to explore what it's like to be in a relationship when you BOTH have that ability. Does it prevent missteps or prove they're inevitable? We'll also get to see if Sammon, co-writer of the haunting Dead Friend Forever, will haunt us with every project.

Battle of the Writers (Rom Com)

Tutor and Yim of Middleman's Love are joined by not one, but FIVE other couples in this adaptation of a Chinese webtoon where one of them is accused of plagiarizing the other. I love a love-hate dynamic, but I can't imagine Yim resisting Tutor for long, so we'll see.

Century of Love (Action | Drama | Romance | Supernatural)

Boy meets girl. Boy falls for girl. Girl dies. Boy uses magic stone to stay alive and agrees to die a tragic death if he doesn't find his reincarnated girl after 100 years. The Gods said "Ally!", sent her ass back as a boy the last year of that century, as if to say: "Oh, are you really in love? Prove it!" Boy, understandably, doesn't recognize girl. Suspense and tension ensue.

Really enjoying how the supernatural genre is slowly becoming as prominent as the high school / college romance settings. Please give me more of The Sign. But I'm, honestly, not really a fan of the actor Daou, which made it hard to endure their last series together, Love in Translation. Mostly in it for cheeky and adorable Offroad -- and the plot, obviously.

This Love Doesn’t Have Long Beans (Rom Com)

So what I gather from the trailer is that a douchey rich guy hires a model to seduce a chef into making him his successor. Fuzzy on the why, but am far more interested in how that rich guy seduces the model's very aggressive bestie. Double the love-hate. Double the fun.

The Pit Babe writers wasted NO time capitalizing on the success of their series, and their pairings. Not only is this an answer to the Jeff and Alan fandom's pleas for more, it's also a response to the ghost ship of Kim and Kenta. We've never felt so seen. Also, I'm loving Thailand's Chef era.

The Trainee (Comedy | Drama | Romance)

A production intern slowly realizes the assistant director that everybody fears is low-key kindhearted -- and a whole ass snack. PAPI!!!

Love me some OffGun. Cooking Crush was meh but I have high hopes for this one. Per uje, their chemistry is immaculate.

DATE: Mid-July 2024

[ghost-bison]

Some of my favourite Doctor Who fanfiction (mostly One Shots)

Drawing Nearer by Geat (Ninth Doctor/reader, Ninth Doctor & reader) on AO3

This author understands the beauty of Nine like no one else does. Like fuck. Wow. If you want something immersive and soft and beautiful this is the one. Actually, even if you don't, this is the one. You need it in your life believe me. And! If you're into the Tenth Doctor instead, or just want more of the amazing stuff after you finish the first one, there's a sequel to it, Like One of My French Girls?, which explores the same prompt (reader drawing a portrait of the Doctor) with a freshly regenerated Tenth Doctor. Which is really clever and witty so you should read it as well.

Immolation by songofdefiance (Donna Noble & Twelfth Doctor, feat. Bill Potts) on AO3

This one is what would happen if the writers were geniuses. It's a whole episode and holy shit it doesn't matter who your favorite characters are: it's for everyone. It's so smart I felt like an idiot reading it. (and yes the 1k words comment on there is me lmao don't judge me I was just very enthusiastic)

Children of the Time War series by illyriashade56 (Donna Noble & Tenth Doctor) on AO3

There's a reason I've read so many fics from this author. Had trouble picking a favorite, and still can't, but this one deserves whatever publicity I can give it. It's got it all. Holy crap. Hurt/Comfort, nice Donna whump, amazing descriptions, solid plot, and you know what's good? Once you're done reading this one, you can check her account and read another one cause they're all so good. I haven't read part three yet cause I'm keeping it for a perfect night (do y'all do this as well or is it just me? anyways lol, some fanfics are just so good that I need to shower, change my bed sheets, make a playlist and clean my room before reading them) (also the author is nice and I'm referring you to her account if you want to check more of her stuff: @illyriashade56)

Run (To A New Beginning) by Topaz_Eyes (Donna Noble/Tenth Doctor) on AO3

Just like the previous one, I had trouble picking just one from this author. The sex scenes dont seem to exist just out of horniness, they're really, really good, funny, witty and moving in a way I can't explain. The author has a way with words, it feels like you're in the story (so if you're horny for Donna Noble this is the one for you). And if you don't like explicit scenes, still check out the author, they've got some other amazing stuff! Like a bittersweet, sort of fix-it for Donna's ending (Journey's End).

The Awesome and Entirely True Tale of the Doctor's New Companion by TheBigCat (Donna Noble/Ninth Doctor) on AO3

Honestly this one slaps on all aspects and that's all I have to say. You need to read it. And when you have, you need to read it again.

Stress Fracture by Youth_of_Australia (Donna Noble & Twelfth Doctor) on AO3

I wasn't expecting to love this one so much when I clicked on it. The author specifically says they don't like Twelve and that's their bitter take on him. So you'd expect it to be Twelve slander, but actually, and I'm saying that as a big Twelve fan... it's surprisingly accurate. It's a mature, well-thought take, in the point of view of Donna, it bathes in the remains of TenDonna's friendship in bittersweet ways and it's beautiful and sad and nostalgic.

The Greeting-Card Aisle by twelvedimensional (Donna Noble & Ninth Doctor) on AO3

Pissed myself reading this one (all three times), cause it's so real. This author knows what they're doing. Take Nine and Donna, put them in a room together and that's certainly what's gonna happen. And believe me, the result is side-splitting.

Constructive Criticism by goldenrod (Donna Noble/Ninth Doctor) on AO3

A very sexy take on Donna and Nine as traveling companions. Nine only has eyes for Donna and her boobies (as he should). Oh, and it's sassy and hilarious.

Creature Fear by goodbye2pisces (Donna Noble/Tenth Doctor, Donna Noble & Tenth Doctor) on AO3

This one could very well be canon. I need it as an audio book. It's cute, funny, there's a bit of Donna/Ten whump, it can be read as platonic or romantic, and it has the most adorable little epilogue.

Think Outside the Box by TheAsexualofSpades (Tenth Doctor & kid!reader) on AO3

Basically if you love Ten but don't wanna fuck him, if you had a rough day and no one's around for a hug, if you grew up with emotionally distant parents, or if you simply need to have a good crybaby moment, this one's for you.

I'm On Fire by TheDarkMaterial (Donna Noble/River Song, Donna Noble & River Song) on AO3

Just like the last one, this one's kinda like a warm blanket. It's short, it's healing, it might make you cry nice little tears... also idc it's canon to me.

Appetites by EllyF (Donna Noble & Tenth Doctor) on whofic.com

This one is hard to read because it's very graphic on the Ten whump, but... it's fucking worth it. Trust. Me. Jfc. It's Hurt/Comfort so don't worry for yourself, but the angst is real, the gore is terrific, there are some horrible comparisons in there that will absolutely draw some tears, and the frustration will be real, but when you're done with it, you'll be like Wow. Wtf did I just read.

Only Human by Louiecat68 (Donna Noble/Tenth Doctor) on whofic.com

If you're looking for Donna whump, search no more: this is the place. This one's pretty graphic, pretty horrible, Donna's going through it in all possible ways and you'll want to wrap her in a blanket, feed her burgers and hot chocolate and burn the world down around her. Quite literally.

The Doctor is In by crystanagahori (Martha Jones & Tenth Doctor, Martha Jones & Donna Noble, Donna Noble/Tenth Doctor) on AO3

This one's funny and so sweet and you have no trouble reading it in the characters' voices cause it's faithful to all three of them. I don't read Martha fics usually, I only clicked cause I saw TenDonna, but even if you're like me, you'll have no problem reading it even when it focuses on Martha's life, believe me. The vibe's just immaculate.

Your Eyes Aren't Rivers by ClementineCrane & Multifandomfuckfest (Donna Noble/Tenth Doctor) on AO3

Another one where the vibe's immaculate! Basically one of the things that made me want to write a Doctor Who High School AU of my own. Ten and Donna are absolutely adorable in this.

I'm tagging some people who'd probably be interested in one/some of those:

@bobcatblahs

@madhatter0309

@doctordonnasstuff

@brisingr-sword

@peggysbundy

@doctor-donnaa

@daze-stole-ur-milk

@obsessedanddepressed

@doctordonna-protection-squad

@jellojellyroll

@basmathgirl

@illyriashade56

@ichangemyusertoomuch

@tatennant

@paradox-n-bedrock

@cdyssey

@love-in-the-time

@davidtennan-t

@rushinintolove

@whatsfourteenupto

@nat-20s

@thegingergoddess

@odakota-rose

If some of you read/have read one or several of those and wanna interact feel free to dm me :)

[ploppythespaceship]

Uglies - Movie Thoughts

On a whim, I decided to start re-reading the Uglies series a couple months ago -- so imagine my surprise when I found out it was getting a movie! Said movie is now out, and it was interesting to watch with the book being so fresh in my head.

Overall, it's... eh. It's not a complete train wreck, the way most critics seem to want you to think, but it is fairly bland and uninspired. It's a very watered down version of the book. It also has the misfortune of feeling like yet another a Hunger Games wannabe, despite the original book pre-dating that series by several years.

Spoilers for everything under the cut.

What I Liked

Based on reviews, I seem to be in the minority here, but I thought the cast was pretty good. People seem to hate Joey King as Tally, but I thought she was fine. Brianne Tju is easily the best in the cast, stealing the whole damn movie as Shay. Laverne Cox also gives an excellent performance as Cable, though I do think she should not have been given that role for other reasons (which I'll get into later).

I've also seen complaints that the characters aren't ugly enough. They talk about how ugly they are and point out their specific ugly features, when they don't actually appear that ugly. And I think everyone complaining about that is completely missing the point. The "Uglies" aren't actually ugly -- they're just normal people, who've been conditioned to think their imperfect features are hideous.

I was honestly unsure how the Pretties would be visualized -- in fact, I wondered if the book would just be fundamentally unadaptable because of it -- but they did a fairly good job. I think leaning on CGI and unnatural affectations was the right way to go. All the Pretties have this uncanny quality to them that suits the story perfectly.

The overall production design was solid as well. I like how Uglyville is all gray concrete and muted tones, while New Pretty Town is shimmering golds. Then upon reaching the Smoke, all the colors of nature finally come through. I do think that could have pushed that last one a little bit more, but it still works well.

Apart from that, I don't really have much to shout out. It's competently written, well-performed, well put together. I know it doesn't sound like I have much praise, but it is a competent movie.

What I'm Mixed On

By far the biggest change from the book is Peris becoming a Special. And I'm torn on it. On the one hand, it does make him a bigger part of the story -- he's honestly not much more than an inciting incident in the book. It gives him and Tally a unique arc that's probably the strongest through-line in the story. On the other hand, the Specials as a concept are so under-cooked (more on that later) and the actor is so bland that it still doesn't quite land the way it's supposed to.

What I Didn't Like

The pacing of this movie is by far its worst issue. We are flying through this plot. There is no time for anything to breathe, for characters to develop meaningful connections, for the bigger moments to feel earned. Some things do make sense to condense -- Tally's journey to the Smoke would have been incredibly boring without her internal monologue, so condensing most of that into a montage makes sense. But I do feel we lost too much. That's where a lot of Tally's characterization comes out, where we can see her bravery and ingenuity -- none of that comes across in the movie.

A lot of important beats are rushed. Tally agreeing to help Dr. Cable is over in a flash. It feels like Tally's in the Smoke for all of fifteen minutes. Tally and David barely interact, so their relationship has no real stake. Everyone is kidnapped by Special Circumstances, and then rescued immediately after. I almost think a 5-6 episode mini-series would have worked better -- but that might have introduced the opposite problem, where everything takes too long.

The movie also has frequent montages that don't really work. It seems like they were trying to show the passage of time, but it just makes everything feel even shorter.

The beginning of the movie has an exposition problem, as well. It opens with a montage explaining the entire setting... before leading into several scenes that also explain the setting through dialogue. We get fed the same details about the surgery and the Rusties and the flowers at least three times at the start, and it gets grating.

As already mentioned, Tally is pretty severely underwritten. In the book, she has a distinct personality and a unique presence. In the movie, she's just the main character because she happens to be the main character. Her intelligence and resourcefulness are pretty much gone.

I also think changing her motivation for going to the Smoke did her a disservice. In the book, Tally goes to the Smoke so she can have her surgery, and because she's convinced herself that Shay needs her help. In the movie, Dr. Cable tells her that the Smokies have a weapon, and she will be saving lives by helping to find them. I think giving her a more selfless motivation robs her of her character arc. She always comes across as someone trying to help, who wants to best for other people, rather than someone who had to consciously learn that.

The Specials are barely even a presence. I'm not sure they were even directly called Specials. People who hadn't read the book would never realize that there was an entire separate status of person here. You never see their disturbingly beautiful faces or their terrifying strength. Considering how pivotal the Specials are to the overall story, especially in the later books, it's really odd not to see them properly established here.

Like I said, Laverne Cox gives an excellent performance as Dr. Cable... but I think they should have thought twice before casting a trans woman. It's not necessarily that there's a trans woman in the villainous role, but that there's a trans woman in the villainous role who specifically wants to force people to have surgeries to brainwash them. Like... did the optics of that really not occur to anyone? At all? I think Cox could have played David's mother, instead.

[oneatlatime]

Lake Laogai

This Lake had better have Appa in it. With little water wings on.

Skipping the commentary as usual.

The Previously On section suggests that a whole lot of plot threads are about to crash into each other. Strap in folks.

Lefty Sokka!

Beat up Sokka quota fulfilled by his sister's critique of his art skills. It's not like he had paper to practice with at the South Pole.

Sometimes I forget that Aang is 12, then he does something like attempt to rescue his pet from a nefarious city-wide conspiracy of silence with lost cat posters.

"Good tea is its own reward." That means no, he isn't paid enough.

Remember what I said in my last post about Iroh bringing too much attention to himself?

"senior executive assistant manager" someone on the writing team has worked retail I see. Nothing like meaningless promotions with no raise attached! It's right up there with employee pizza party.

I have to pause here and point something out. This whole scene with Iroh? This is an adult fantasy. I don't mean dirty, I mean this whole scene was put in specifically to appeal to the adults who got roped in to watching this kids' show by their children. A rich man walks through the door of your shitty retail job, immediately spots your natural greatness, and offers you a much better paying job with unlimited creative freedom and a better house to go with it? Find me a burnt out retail worker who hasn't conjured up this fantasy five times a shift.

And so the plots come crashing back together. This won't end badly.

"patience really pays off" I checked. He waited literally three seconds.

Shout out to Toph in the background playing catch with a ball she can't see. Casual flex of epic proportions.

Remind me never to go to Lake Laogai. Sounds like it's lousy with Ju Dees.

So the Ju Dees don't know about each other? Because she seems honestly confused. Does Ju Dee think she's the only Ju Dee? What happens if two Ju Dees run into each other in the street?

Posters are illegal but I haven't heard a peep about recarving a bunch of fields into a zoo.

This is maybe the second time Aang's blown up over Appa. Frankly he deserves more blow ups about the whole situation.

I don't think knocking down walls will help find Appa, but I applaud Toph's spirit.

They took out a whole wall and then exit by the door anyways. That's funny.

I really hate this guy, but I have to admit that he may be the first truly competent villain of the series.

'The Jasmine Dragon' also lets anyone with half a brain know that you're Fire Nation. Try the Jasmine Badgermole instead.

Zuko really can't catch a break, huh? He wasn't happy being a tea server, but at least he was resting. But every time he gets five minutes to himself, the main plot reappears to drag him back into the action, whether he wants to or not. Although he hasn't figured out that he doesn't want to be dragged back yet.

Every line of dialogue in this scene is a good point. Zuko's right, Iroh's right. The Zuko's right again, then Iroh's right again.

YES YES YES GET HIS ASS

That was satisfying!

I'm not understanding why Sokka is the voice of reason here. Is he incapable of holding a grudge? He's the one that had all the animosity with Jet to begin with. Shouldn't it be Aang who wants to hear him out?

Toph is a living lie detector now? I can't think of an example off the top of my head, but I'm sure that could have come in handy previously. Any other incredibly useful skills we should know about?

Jet is oddly defensive for someone who claims to know he did wrong.

Ever get so excited that your spine malfunctions?

Sokka just has a metre long map in his pocket. Good friend to have in a pinch.

Avatar first! Katara is rude to an old person!

I'm going to have fun with Toph's new ability.

Toph, you have never been more right. It is the worst city ever. You are really shining this episode.

I know this is a serious scene, but I need to point out that Jet's guyliner is on point.

This shot is jarringly out of place. I think it's because it both black and white, and live action. Those have to be real clouds.

So the Blue Spirit can talk after all. Careful, your Zuko is showing.

Wow Zuko is good at sewing. And fast too.

Sokka is having far too much fun with this whole 'prompt Jet's memory' thing. Maybe he does have a bit of a grudge after all.

Katara can reverse brainwashing now too? Everyone's levelling up this episode.

This scene with the planks is a very cool and disorienting visual.

Didn't have 'the gaang breaks into a brainwashing facility' on my ATLA bingo card.

Pretty.

OMIGOD IT'S AP- did Zuko just break the fourth wall?

Everyone always forgets to look up.

So this fight is going to be Toph v. all of the Dai Li while everyone else tries not to get in Toph's way.

That's a boat.

Toph could probably take all these guys out faster if she wasn't having to constantly break off to save everyone else from them.

The Dai Li prancing up walls is a really cool visual. It's very Ty Lee of them.

I love watching her work.

Why don't you let Long Feng escape? He's no longer threatening you, and you're down there to rescue Appa. Just let him go.

The security on Lake Laogai is a joke.

Big words from someone who also had no plan whatsoever at the North Pole.

Zuko knows that Iroh's right. He knows, and that's important. I don't think Iroh is saying anything that Zuko hasn't thought and then hurriedly pretended to have never thought about before. It's why he says 'stop it' rather than being completely confused as to what Iroh is referring to.

Poor Appa's like 'can you have a crisis of self after you free me please?'

'You've chosen your own demise." No. You chose it for him. That's some top tier deflection/victim blaming right there.

Longshot can talk!

That's one hell of a set up and pay off re: Toph's lie detecting abilities.

Poor Jet. A double tragedy: to be likeable only when you're brainwashed, and to dedicate your life to wiping out the Fire Nation yet being killed by the Earth Kingdom.

Hi Appa. It's about time buddy.

Shockingly in character for Appa's first actions to be to single handedly save the Gaang from a threat.

You skip that bastard like a stone.

Everyone go and listen to the sound Appa makes when he spits out Long Feng's shoe. It's delightful.

I am framing this.

And this too.

I can tell there's some shmymbolism here, but it's gone right over my head.

Final Thoughts

Appa is back. The Gaang has Appa back. I have Appa back. Ok. I can relax now. With any luck, this means we can leave Ba Sing Se.

This episode felt like City of Walls and Secrets, Part 2. I think it was a good decision to have a couple of episodes between the two, but I think there would be some tonal whiplash if you binged this section of season 2. Which wouldn't have been a problem for a show designed to air once a week, so it's a moot point.

So Zuko freed Appa from his chains, and presumably pointed him in the direction of a door or something. Or maybe not; Appa has a ridiculously hard head, he could have busted his way out. Either way, Zuko broke the chains. Thanks Zuko!

In season 1, Zuko finds the Avatar the world had lost. In season 2, Zuko finds the Sky Bison the Avatar had lost. So in season 3, Zuko will find something Appa has lost. I wonder what that will be?

Jet being killed by the Earth Kingdom is so deliciously ironic, and tragic, yet very in character for the Earth Kingdom's approach to this war. It's also literally this:

Smellerbee and Longshot have really gotten the short end of the stick over and over this season. They were the only ones to decide to stick with Jet. Presumably they were the only ones who believed that he had had a legitimate change of heart. And they were kind of wrong. They get to Ba Sing Se only for Jet to immediately backslide way past even where he was at his worst in Season 1. He completely discounts and dismisses their legitimate concerns for his methods and his overall health. Then Jet gets arrested and disappears for two (?) weeks. So what do they do now? Get jobs? Steal so they don't starve? Then suddenly Jet's back but he doesn't even remember them. Then suddenly Jet's dead. The whole point of coming to Ba Sing Se just died, in a way that shows very clearly that their desire to help with the war is not welcome at all in the city. So what now? Do they leave and try to fight in the war from outside the walls? Do they settle down and try to forget about the war? Things did spiral completely out of Jet's control once the Dai Li got involved, but you have to admit that he's left his only remaining friends up a creek.

Sokka had some good jokes but was oddly ok with this episode's events. Toph had some great lines and got to shine with a new skill that any writer with half a brain will bring back in future episodes. She felt like the audience substitute this episode, which is usually Sokka's role. Toph was episode MVP for sure. Poor Aang took a bit of a back seat this episode. Zuko finally hit the crisis point, and may well have made his first indisputably correct decision of the series. But, as previous episodes have gone out of their way to show me that Zuko being good always goes badly for Zuko, I'm sure freeing Appa will somehow come back to bite him.

Iroh's question of "who are you? And what do you want?" was Zuko's entire character arc this season. He took a shot at answering the "who are you?" portion in Zuko Alone, and sort of halfway got there before messing up at the end of the episode. As for the "what do you want?" Zuko will tell you (often and repeatedly) that he wants his honour back. But I think he just wants to go home. The thing is, I strongly suspect that the home Zuko wants to return to hasn't existed since his mother left, if it ever existed at all. Which means that while "who are you?" has an answer Zuko can work towards, "what do you want?" has an answer that is kind of impossible. So Zuko is going to have to learn to want something new.

RIP Jet. Your life was fucked to Hell long before you were old enough to try and salvage it. You'll probably be missed by more people than you strictly deserve. War sucks, amirite?

[markantonys]

the good thing about the slog is that because such little of true import happens over such a long chunk of the series, the show is quite well-positioned to be able to tell the whole story cohesively in any number of seasons after 4. only 4 seasons would be tricky, but 5 or 6 would be just as doable as 7 or 8. (disclaimer that there has not been any news or speculation about potentially getting less than 8 seasons so don't panic haha it's just a topic i was randomly thinking about today! that being said, i do think 8 seasons is pretty ambitious in today's television landscape, especially if it continues to take 2 years to make each season, so while we're all hoping for the full 8, it's worth imagining how they could do it in fewer.)

i expect s4 to roughly coincide with the end of LOC, so, dumai's wells for rand and being raised amyrlin for egwene. perrin, mat, nynaeve, and elayne have more wiggle room in what they might be getting up to during s4 (it seems possible the ebou dar trip might be absorbed into tanchico in s3, and perrin may have to get an invented plotline or have a later plotline brought forward for s4 since he has so little in TFOH-LOC), so i won't guess at the endpoint for them beyond that it will likely leave them ready to kick into a fresh new storyline for s5. and nynaeve frankly doesn't have a book storyline after ebou dar (she's just supporting rand's & lan's storylines), so i'll ignore her in this post and just focus on the other 5 mains. fingers crossed the show will come up with more for nynaeve to do during this part of the story, but that's a separate topic.

after LOC, as far as i can recall, each of them only has 1-2 main things they strictly Must do before the last battle (obviously i've left out a bunch of stuff, but i'm thinking of just the absolute bare minimum essentials here):

rand: cleanse saidin (only requires 1 episode); reach his lowest point, then pull himself back up again, all the while simultaneously working to get as many nations under his banner as possible

egwene: unite the tower as uncontested amyrlin

perrin: finish wolf training; fold the whitecloaks into his army

mat: rescue moiraine (only requires 1 episode); get himself in charge of the seanchan forces

elayne: become uncontested queen of andor

so if s4 ends where i speculate, they'd all be perfectly positioned to spend 4-6 episodes of s5 doing these things, then the last battle for the remaining 2-4 episodes, and boom, we've fit all the most crucial things into only 5 seasons.

i know the instinct is to gasp and insist that they all have so much else to do, but.........do they really? everybody agrees that egwene & elayne & perrin only have 1 plotline during books 7-11 which is dragged out for more books than is needed to tell it, so mat and rand are really the sticking points. but if you think about it, mat spends this time repeatedly starting one plotline but then getting yanked out of it partway through to start a new one, so he doesn't actually accomplish that much story-wise. rand, meanwhile, is on a bunch of little 1-book quests (taking illian, seanchan campaign, hunting traitor asha'man, trying to meet with DOTNM) that could be cut for time or merged into his Darth Rand emotional arc from TGS. honestly, he's so emotionally stagnant for most of books 7-11 (he's either not present, dicking around doing nothing, or repeating emotional beats he already did in TSR-LOC) that i don't think going from dumai's wells straight to Darth Rand would be a bad idea at all, if the show had to; in fact, dumai's wells is kind of a perfect launchpoint for that arc, emotions-wise, and plot-wise, if they wanted to replace some of the arad doman events with some slog events, but just put the Darth Rand emotional spin on those slog events, they could easily do so (for example, him being reckless/arrogant with callandor against the seanchan and getting his own people killed could sub in for natrin's barrow in showing how ruthlessly Ends Justify Means he's becoming).

but anyway, these are imo the absolute most crucial pre-TLB plot points of the second half of the series (at least for these main characters, i'm not taking ALL characters into account in this post) and they could be fit into only 5 seasons without much trouble. now if you've got 6, 7, or 8 seasons, that gives extra room to expand these plot points and also add in some additional, not-strictly-required-but-nice-to-have plot points like more Little Rand Quests, elayne taking the throne of cairhien, egwene & gawyn hunting assassins in the tower, and the faile kidnapping plotline. (while making this post i actually had a wild thought of the faile kidnapping being perrin's s4 plotline followed by wolves & whitecloak stuff in s5 then into TLB, or alternately the whitecloaks being part of the kidnapping plotline as perrin's unlikely allies rather than the seanchan; could be a great structure for a 5-6 season scenario, but for 7-8 it would cause perrin to run out of content too quickly haha)