#we love a through plot line of meme confusion

[anniexarmstrong]

where: somewhere mildly kid friendly who: @wolfsonged​

“I do not believe a single word that comes out of your mouth anymore, not one,” Annie accuses, voice full of mirth as she wags a finger in his direction. “You’re telling me people find these things funny?” It was a nonsense picture from the internet. Normally, she’d ask Odette, but the possibility she’d corroborate Raul’s story was too high.

[prettypei]

“AND MY MAN, THANK YOU TO MY MAN.”

plot: in which they (try to) save you from embarrassing scenarios; fluff!

reader: gn! Reader, but in geto’s part reader has a period

warnings: icky scenarios (in an embarrassing way), blood in getos part (but like in period blood)

parings: gojo, geto, yuuji, yuuta x reader

(a/n): some of these are from personal experiences lol also names used in yuuji’s part are purely fictional ☝️

✰GOJO isn’t afraid of awkwardness. He’s well aware of the tension, but he mostly chooses to ignore it. He just doesn’t care enough. Until now. After your “particular loud outburst of gas” on the subway, everyone’s staring at you. Right now gojo is faced with the (probably) most important (and hilarious) decision of his life: save his soulmate from embarrassment, or stare at them as well, pin pointing the blame on them? He sees you trying to advert gazes, looking at the floor and anywhere but the faces of those who are staring at you in a disgusted manner. He then feels a little annoyed too. It’s hard to hold it in! What’s the big deal?

“*clears throat* ahem…. I was the one who farted. You can stop glaring at (name) now, guys.”

Everyone then immediately looks away, swiping on their phones or pretending like they weren’t even looking at his lover in the first place. You look at him, an expression of bemusement and awe on your face. He shrugs and gives you a cheeky grin. Well, it was worth it to see your smile.

✰you and GETO were on a date at a restaurant before you excused yourself and went to the bathroom. And when you come back with a mortified expression, he expects the worst. “What is it?” He’s asks. “I-uh….” You fiddle with the hem of your T-shirt. “My…pants are…stained…” Geto gives you a confused expression. “Huh? Babe what do you-“ “BECAUSE it’s that time of the month, suguru.” Geto’s eyes widen. “Oh. Oh!” Cue the awkward silence. You speak up: “Im really sorry suguru, we have to cut this date short…I didn’t expect this I-I am so so sorry.” He looks at you once again, and stands up.

“Let’s go to my apartment, Kay? You can borrow my jacket to cover yourself up.”

“But I might stain it!” “Well, I can wash it anyways. It’ll be fine! Plus I love you more.” he chuckles while adding a short peck to your cheek.

✰YUUJI and you were just coming out of the cinema, laughing about the comedy you and him just watched. “Ohmigosh did you SEE Angelina’s face when Ryan fell for her best friend?” You howled. “She got what she deserved, that bitch.” “Angelina was like, like that one meme.” Yuuji takes out his phone and scrolls through his photos, finally finding the photo. “THIS.” He snickers. It was then you just couldn’t stop laughing. And laughing. And laughing, until you earned a few glares from strangers. “Y-y-Yu-yuji.” You gasp for breaths. “I-I can’t-“ you continue laughing. Yuuji then notices your face red from laughing… and he laughs too. And laughs. And laughs. “(n)-(name)!” He sputters. “Y-you look just like that seagull, y’know? The meme?” You both look at each other, pausing for a second before bursting into laughter together. He then pauses to smile at your face.

“Y’know, it feels better to laugh with you. Is that weird?”

you smile back. “No, not at all.”

✰YUUTA was just looking for you because boy, the line for the bathrooms sure were long at the amusement park. “(name)? (NAME)!” He calls, searching for your familiar face. “I’m here!” You wave your arm, squeezing out of the line and walking towards your boyfriend. It was then yuuta noticed something stuck on the back of your shoe, and the line of people snickering and taking pictures of you. A long white roll of toilet paper was being dragged by the back of your left sneaker, and you were completely oblivious to the fact. You stand in front of him and grin. “Let’s go ride the roller coaster then, is that okay?” “Sure. Uhm wait I just dropped my ring, give me a sec.” You stand while yuuta walks behind you, pretending to pick up the ring while taking the toilet paper wedged under your shoe. He throws it away in a nearby trashcan, sending a glare to the people who were giggling at you. They all turned quiet. “Found it!” He says in a sing-songy voice, before lacing your arm in his and heading towards the rollercoaster. “Hey what was that about? The line suddenly turned quiet, did you see what happened?” You ask.

“No. I think someone tried to cut the line or something, I don’t know.”

[autisticlancemcclain]

fic rec friday 42

hello and welcome to fic rec friday! where, on friday, i rec five of my favourite fics.

The Wrath of Kzhan by Oh_Contrary

A mission goes terribly wrong when Lance and Pidge are betrayed by their would-be allies. Now Pidge is injured and it's up to Lance to get her to safety-- But can he do so in time to save her? And even if he does, who's going to save him?

pidge & lance fic? ft. bamf protective lance? focus on platonic/sibling love? i got u guys. hard angst with a lot of fear but heavy fluff and comfort at the end, and a very interesting and intentional plot!

2. Lion Heart by ErinWantsToWrite

Lance can't remember. He doesn't know where he is, why he's on this strange planet- yeah a planet that isn't earth- he's just fourteen! Why was he here? Where was his mom? His big sister? Why was this giant, mechanical, blue lion comforting him? Why were these people talking to him through a helmet, even if he couldn't answer? How does he get out of this suit-Who are those purple dudes outside of the lion?

i will always always ALWAYS have the softest of soft spots for de-aged lance. its gotta be one of the top three plot devices fr. oh? lance doesnt know how to be his true self around his team? and his team doesnt know how to understand him yet? here is an easy and fun to read solution 😊

3. Hide and Seek by @zipadeea

“We can’t say blue, I’m already blue. It would just get confusing.” “You go out of your way to make our lives confusing, Lance.” “Memes save lives, Keith. That’s all you need to know.” The story of how Voltron got its official Code Blue for medical emergencies. And the five times the paladins use it.

this fic is pretty evenly centered around all the team, but shiro lovers im calling u rn. the last scene with keith and lance and shiro actually made me want to curl up and sob in the best possible way i thought it about it for days after

4. Up the river by @zipadeea

Lance falls in a river on a strange planet, and gets stranded up the river with an even stranger kid. He's getting pretty tired of waiting for his friends to come rescue him, before realizing, maybe this time, he's going to have to figure out a way to save himself.

i need yall to undestand how batshit feral this fic made me. im always a little bit obsessed with religious imagery, thats just how things are, but this one just had it everywhere and so seamlessly?? in fact i think i actually went insane about this fic before in a separate post, i cant remember when, i just know that ive read this fic a stupid amount of times and i have specific lines memorised and i think about it all the time

5. Take It In, Feel It All and Hold It by @bleusarcellewrites

“Do you wanna try it out, Lance?” Lance blinks at him, eyes narrowed in confusion and making the adult to chuckle. “Dancing, son. Do you wanna dance with me?” “I dunno how, papa.” The five years-old bites his lower lip unsure, looking up at his dad nervously but the adult just smiles softly at his son and holds out both of his hands towards the child. “It’s okay, son,” he comforts gently, “Just take my hands, I got you.” [Small moments that made Lance realize how much he loves dancing with the people he loves]

okay i know a good chunk of you are new so im gonna give u a lil chunk of information, from a voltron elder (my old ass). bleusarcelle was at one point the reigning goddamn monarch of the klance fic world like well and truly. the most iconic and well loved domestic klance fics have ALL come from bleusarcelle i swear to god. and this fic? this particular one? this one is absolutely THEE most parent klance fic of all time. read this and have ur cheeks ache with your smile

that’s it for today!! i’ll see y’all back next friday for the next fic rec post!!!

[weirdthoughtsandideas]

Ok. Final HSMTMTS season review by a random nerdy girl with weird thoughts and ideas

Non-spoilers:

They really did not give a single fuck anymore

No like so many bleeped swear words ??

SEXUAL INNUENDOS TOO? HELP SO MANY OF THEM.

I feel like they did want to do more with this show and I am guessing a lot of their ”we give no more fucks” attitude this season has something to do with that

They made some odd choices with some characters lol

The amount of times I thought ”this reminds me of glee”, ”it’s giving glee vibes” people who wanna watch something after this show watch Glee it’s on D+ now too because Disney bought Fox

In the end I am happy and satisfied with the season and I am glad to see it all at once rather than wait for eps. Waiting for eps is fun too but I like variety

Now Spoiler Time😌

I need to talk about the most important thing first according to me.

ASHLYN!! ASH!!! *squeals*

I don’t know if the fandom has treated her as roughly this season but I have not forgiven you how you treated her last season and she is the baby girl ever

Like this girl?? All her lines can be memes?? HER MOUTH TO MOUTH THING THAT COMES BACK SEVERAL TIMES GIRL YOU ARE NOT SUBTLE WITH ANYTHING

Maddox and Jet are the siblings ever I love how they just sibling-tease each other all the time while always being friends. And I am happy they have each other considering their home life seems to be… oof.

A LOT of things seemed to happen off screen that I’d like to see… on screen?

Like a big part of the Seb stuff… his whole dad thing was just very rushed and kinda like ”btw we are adding this random thing” and ??

And the CHEATING. Biggest plot twist of the show. I WAS NOT PREPARED. I WAS NOT PREPARED.

Big Red and Ashlyn’s breakup was actually very nice though. No drama… I also found it hilarious that she was more mad for Carlos’ sake than her own didjdkdkgidoslf

THE PUMPKIN MAN WAS SO RANDOM?! WHAT THE FUCK. AND HE JUST CLIMBED THROUGH THE WINDOW TO ?? TALK TO CARLOS ON THE PORCH WHAT WAS GOING ON I WAS SO CONFUSED I DIDN’T EVEN REMEMBER HIM

Ricky is such a sweet boy honestly

WHEN HE ASKED THE CAMERA WHO THE FUCK THEY WERE HELP BREAKING THE FOURTH WALL X 2000

Good on them for confirming Ryan is gay

Why is Maddox such a gay mess I love her

It feels like their story is not over yet and a lot of loose threads are still up. I wish we could have seen their graduation

MADDOX AND ASH WERE MAKING OUT. Like when this show started it was ”a little peck” at most with Carlos and Seb and now there is this.

Also their kissing scene and Carlos walking in 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

I’m happy things are going good for Gina and her mom is finally present

I seem to have forgotten when/if Kourtney broke up with Howie or not?? Did she? Did I not remember that?

Emmy is so funny I can’t

I loved to see everyone’s origin stories how they got to the theatre in the first place. Like Ash feeling like she was in EJ’s shadow?? Ricky not even doing the audition if he hadn’t spoken to Gina? Carlos being bullied like that??? SEB WITH A GIRL?!

Mack just has this large former child actor energy going on I can’t explain it ??

Also them highkey wanting to reference Dog with a blog here

Every time they do a show I am always prepared something will go wrong. Like S1 scarred me now I think something always will happen and even when it goes good I am still like ”aaaaany time now…”

I know I will have more stuff to say about this show. But that’s all for tonight. It was a wild ride with the Wildcats.

[nar-nia]

hi, love

i discovered ur blog by a total accident, looking for something to read, while scrolling through heeseung tag (cuz im a simp) i saw the babysitters club teaser, and i was rly excited to say the least, after u posted i honestly fell in love with ur writing style, the way u describe things and the amazing plot <33, i remember i reread it with heart eyes, not kidding

so naturally i started reading all the other fics for enhypen boys and the current heeseung series has me in chokehold!!! it's truly amazing and im always super super excited for fridays! the story line is phenomenal even though hee is a silly boy *sigh* hope he will do better!

also the short angsty (1:40 pm) drabble u posted recently omg it was just wow, i felt it in my heart, kinda relatable ngl <\3 where is my hee *shaking my head*

anyway

im rly confused why ur works are not receiving the attention and love they deserve, its really sad :((( i hope it doesn't bother u that much tho, but trust me i try rly hard to send ask everytime u post so at least u know there is someone here!! I AM!!!!!✨

im very thankful for this blog its nice, fun, quiet and quite a fantastic place, i feel rly cozy coming here and rereading ur works is always fun, but it might be a little creepy how many times i read baby sitting club - but what can i say it is my comfort fic <33

im sorry if u are having hard time, nina!!! i think u are amazing and ur art is truly stunning!! *smooch on the forehead*, whatever u are doing right now im proud of u, keep going!!

this message reminded of that one meme/copy pasta tho

 If Nina has million number of fans i am one of them if nina has ten fans i am one of them if nina have only one fan and that is me if nina has no fans, that means i am no more on the earth . if world against nina, i am against the world. i love #nina till my last breath.. .. Die Hard fan of nina

your ask actually made me cry a bit, it was so sweet and kind 💖 thank you so much.

aren't we all simps for heeseung? that guy is just so * loud screaming* but i'm glad that you discovered my stories thanks to it 🤭 and the babysitters club! i'm still so proud of this story, i think i had heart eyes while writing it too 😅 but hearing that you loved it makes me really happy.

and the heeseung story, yay 🥰 it breaks my heart every time i have to write something else than sweet moments for y/n and hee but it has to be 😔 not for much longer though, if i'm allowed to say this little spoiler!

i'm sorry that you can relate to the drabble 😕 it was a spontaneous idea and involved a lot of self-insertion so i know how you feel. i'm not heeseung but i'm sending you a big hug anyways <33

I AM SO GLAD THAT YOU ARE HERE 💖💖 it makes me really happy seeing your asks after every chapter, and it motivates me even more to write new chapters. i don't mind how many people read my stories as long as the ones that do enjoy it 😊 i'm already amazed that other people than my friends actually love what i'm doing here. and i'm grateful that you are here <33

now this is the part where i started crying because not only did you say so many nice things about my blog but also the fact that the babysitters club is your comfort fic? it's definitely not creepy if you've reread it a lot of times, it's so sweet and kind and i'm really getting emotional right now. please read it as often as you want, i'm glad it can give you comfort!

i already feel better reading your ask (even though i said i was crying right before... IT WAS HAPPY TEARS) <33

thank you thank you thank you 💖💖

[soulrph]

hi, i am new to the rp community and i feel so confused about the terms people uses (english is not my first language) and when i asked some rp "help" they told me to search or something like that and i lost hope, i was going to give up and then i found your blog and omg, you look so nice and cool and chill and very very cool so can i ask if you can explain what are muses, starters, mun, threads, memes, etc? thank you very much and i love your blog, it's so calming and aesthetically pleasant! <3

hello my darling!!! oh, don't you worry, i'm here to help! joining the rpc is a task of it's own size, and it's even more challenging when you have english as a second language, and to be brave enough to ask for help?? you deserve a medal, my love!! well done to you!!

now, i'm going to throw down a quick list of basic terminology, and if i leave anything out, let me know!! of course, as always, all followers are welcome to add their own definitions in the comments! without further ado, here we go!

mun = you! you are the mun! basically, the mun is the person behind the screen, writing the blog. i am the mun for this blog, my name is blue! hello!

muse = your character! some people write on blogs with more than one character; these blogs are known as multi-muse, because they have many characters!

canon character = a character directly from a movie, musical, book or other form of media.

canon divergent character = most people write canon divergent portrayals of characters, or versions of characters which KIND OF follow canon, but also ignore canon events and focus on the character themselves. so, to use marv.el as an example, someone might want to write tony stark, but a version of tony stark where he DOESN'T become iron-man. most of the time, people use canon divergent portrayals to correct terrible writing and poor plot points.

original character = original characters, otherwise known as OCs, are characters that people have created, which are NOT part of any established media! they are just as valid and wonderful as canon characters!

starters = basically a starter is the introduction of a thread! so, they can be super short, like one line long, or they can be a paragraph long, or many paragraphs long! it's up to you, really! so you can write a whole thing about your character and written from your characters point of view, and then your writing partner will respond, and you'll go back and forth and that's called a thread!

closed starters = a closed starter is written EXCLUSIVELY for one person! these can be plotted or improvised; it's entirely up to you and the person you're writing the closed starter for!

open starters = an open starter is a starter that ANYONE can respond to! they're usually short, and many people can reblog them whenever they want to!

threads = a thread is basically any series of replies to a starter or a meme response. so, you might write a starter for sophie, sophie might reply, then you reply to sophie, and so on and so forth, and those interactions combine to form a thread!

memes = memes are just lists of various prompts! people write them on meme resource blogs, like this one! some memes are short, some are long lists, some focus on actions, others focus on dialogue. you can send them in to people through their inbox!

shipping calls = basically a post that says "like this post if you want to discuss a ship between our muses!"

ship = short for relationship, a ship is often implied to be a romantic relationship between your muse and someone else's muse, but they can be any kind of ship at all!

plotting calls = basically a post that says "like this post if you want to plot a thread together"!

starter calls = basically a post that says "like this post if you want me to write you a starter for a thread"!

[radiosandrecordings]

I am feeling... Strangely vindicated, by what Martin said this episode about how their whole relationship is just kind of built on a trauma bond. I think it’s always bugged me when people describe them as soulmates, because so much of jmart to me is that they’re not. As much as they love each other, that love is a choice. They don’t always click, they get on each other’s nerves and argue and don’t get each other’s jokes but they still love each other. Yes it’s as a product of their circumstances, but that love doesn’t make it any less real. 

(Under the cut because oh lordy this one got long apparently) 

I think to summarise my own feelings on it, I am legitimately going to have to quote a fanfiction here. One of the first TMA fics I read when it was still updating was Weaver, a superhero style Web!Martin au that I still recommend because it’s wonderful, if a little outdated plot and characterisation wise because it was posting two years ago. But a line that always stuck with me was (spoilers) in the chapter in which Spider-Martin gets de-masked and Jon finds out who he is (It’s also the love confession chapter. For obvious reasons.) 

“If it were a different world, one where the Weaver didn’t exist, maybe Jon would never have fallen for Martin. But that isn’t the world they’re in. They’re in this one, and in this one, Jon has fallen for Martin. There’s no doubt about that.”

And I did not like this at the time! Because I was a little more naïve about romance at the time and I really felt that that took away from it instead of adding to it. I thought that Jon’s admittance that in a different timeline he wouldn’t have loved Martin was a sign of weakness, that because they weren’t ‘perfect soulmates’ then it was... I don’t know how to phrase it better than in meme format: “I’m going to get a bad grade in relationship, something that is both possible to achieve and normal to fear”. That even if they were entirely happy together that this was a flaw and meant it wasn’t the 100% run Perfect Storybook Romance I thought I wanted to read. Obviously since then I’ve realised that’s all bullshit and this is actually a lovely line because it’s stating that he does love him, here and now. And this is what canon reiterates to us in 199: 

MARTIN: But we wouldn’t have, would we? Been together I mean. [....] Face it, John, it took almost two years of crisis and trauma to even make us compatible. And that sucks. But here we are. And I don’t want it to be for nothing. I won’t let it.

And I just... Love that Martin is aware of that. He’s never been under any illusions about his relationship with Jon. Of course we don’t know if it’s actually true because we don’t know these timelines, we cannot get a solid answer (Unless 200 REALLY pulls it out of the bag and shows us. After all, Martin did say “Their own Martin” when listing things that the other universes probably had). Jon doesn’t seem to like this idea, being confused at first, then rejecting that he hated Martin, and then trying to divert the topic, so maybe they would work, or at least Jon is looking back retrospectively and seeing ways he could have changed to make it so he was more aware of his feelings, but hindsight is 2020 and rose coloured glasses y’know. 

Plus, Martin himself admits in 186 that he knows most of the reason Jon hated him was projection of his fear: 

MARTIN: Hey, to be fair, he still kind of hated me back then. I’m really not sure it would have been the time to take my shot. ALSO MARTIN: Fair. He was projecting hard. Between us, that guy’s got some real issues. MARTIN: Hey! Pretty sure we love ‘that guy’. ALSO MARTIN: Yeah, and all his many, many problems.

So Martin here is already showing his “I am aware Jon hated me” cards, but Martin’s inner self is also going “Yeah, but also, he did have a reason”, which is odd since it makes it seem like the internal Martin, who was generally much more open and blunt about harsh truths that episode, is the one actually defending Jon.

So with Jon’s rejection of the sentiment, I don’t think we can take it as a definitive truth that they wouldn’t work in another timeline. I think it might just implicate they wouldn’t work in the dynamic they had before. Martin is right in that I don’t think that would have worked out without the layers of trauma bringing them together. Jon seems to think, though possibly through flawed hindsight, that they could have. Personally I’m interpreting it as they could work if, as Jon said, “If we had just... met. Been together, without all of this.”, ‘this’ entailing the institute as well, meeting as peers somewhere else without all of the weight of That bearing down on Jon, affecting him even in a mundane capacity before becoming a supernatural one. 

I’m glad it’s in there though. The way I had described Jonmartin before is that they’re not soulmates, by any capacity. But, if you want to assign them a romantic trope of that type, red string of fate might just work. Because they don’t match, not perfectly, but they always had each other, and really, there was no doubt that they wouldn’t end up together in some capacity. And I like that it gives a layer of self-awareness to Martin! I am so glad for every line and interaction that kicks back against early season characterisation, or fanon misinterpretation, that he’s naïve or just a love interest. It gives him this really lovely bit of depth that he, the one who was always painted more as the lovestruck one than Jon “What Are Feelings” Sims, is the one hyperaware of their status to each other than Jon, who seems to want to convince himself that they were always meant to be, whether that statement is true or not. 

[fermented-writers-block]

PART 1 of 6 of the Owl Deity Hooty Theory

[NEXT PART]

[OWL DEITY HOOTY THEORY MASTERPOST] (in development)

(TLDR at bottom of post)

Over several long months of research and analysis since March of 2020, I have been following an utterly fascinating thread of potential misdirection and subtle details throughout The Owl House, and today, I would like to start weaving together of what I believe could become one of the biggest and most cleverly disguised twists in the entire show.

To begin, let’s take a look at the B plot of Understanding Willow:

On first glance, it’s an ultimately inconsequential sidestory with the sole purpose of justifying an excuse to keep Luz and Amity in Willow’s mind, as well as providing some well-needed room to breathe and release tension after the veryemotionally charged confrontation with Inner Willow. After half an episode of Eda and King outdoing the other in ridiculous ways to win Gus’ vote and Gus running off in frustration at the end of the episode from Hooty’s inane rambling, it’s easy to laugh off Gus’ pick and assume that nothing/of value was said when he closed the door for the interview.

However, if one pays close attention to that very scene, Hooty actually canstill be heard (if faintly) underneath Eda and King’s grumbling, interestingly talking about how “It all started with a hunt. Blood red skies. That’s right, I was created-.”

Now, while it may seem silly to focus on dialogue from Hooty of all characters, this A) tells us that there was an event in the past involving blood red skies and a hunt of some kind, B) that Hooty had been created close to said event, and C) implies that what he knows but can’t tell as a story worth a damn is EXTREMELY important to be included and be hidden in such a manner.

For comparison, the only other instance of dialogue being tucked away in the background in the entire show is in Wing It Like Witches:

During the lecture at the beginning of the episode, the history teacher openswith lore on Belos appointing a head witch to each coven over 50 years ago, immediately cluing in the audience to try and decipher the rest of the lecture as it moves to the background. Adding to this is how the musical sting when Luz shows off her movie obscures what he says even further, making it even more of a intriguing puzzle that the creators clearly intended for viewers to pick up on and attempt to solve.

In contrast, the hidden dialogue of Hooty’s interview is much shorter and not as hard to decipher as the teacher’s history lesson, but at the same time, there are few to no indicators whatsoever in that scene to clue in the audience to even check for something like that. It comes at the end of an episode where most viewers would have been paradoxically tired out and driven abuzz by the revelations of Amity and Willow’s relationship, doesn’t attempt to draw much attention to itself, and frames itself as a comedic subversion of audience expectations with neither the “greatest witch who ever lived” or the self-proclaimed king of demons being picked by Gus.

Instead, he picks someone that the show portrays constantly as an oblivious and gullible idiot after being described as a “state of the art defense system” at the very beginning of the series. Someone who, despite it being played for laughs, is scarily capable of casually subduing Lilith offscreen one episode and then beating her and an entire squad of Emperor’s Coven members without even the slightest change in personality or temperament.

Someone who, due to being the Owl House itself, could be considered the titular character of the entire show, yet is taken for granted by those who inhabit him and barely gets any respect from even the cutely patronized King - including when Hooty could be interpreted as having potentially been full on DEAD for a time given the use of extremely cartoony X eyes and a lack of vital signs in The Intruder.

And someone who Eda at best tolerates and at worst abandons in personal interactions and only occasionally acknowledges him when he’s actually doing his job. Yet at the same time is so implicitly trusted beyondprotecting her home to the point where - when up against the closest person Eda has to an equal outside of likely Belos - the only actually recognizable spells Eda used in combat were 1) stereotypical energy blasts, 2) a single shield spell in Covention, and 3) a noticeably large reliance on imitations of Hooty above any other spells she could have decided to use instead.

In short, the show repeatedly tells us he is just an idiotic gag character through and through, but at the same time demonstrates he has immense power through both onscreen and offscreen demonstrations, implicitly tells us his importance ahead of time through Eda’s imitations in actually serious situations, and treats his interview and origin story as - if not even more- important to keep secret than a long lore dump about how Belos’ reign works.

After all, there being only two instances of hidden background dialogue in the entire season is already intriguing on its own, but for one to get plenty of clues to draw in people’s attention and for the other to be treated as just another gag about a “mere comic relief character” - aka a good way to draw away attention and lower one’s guard - heavily suggests a far deeper significance buried under layers of misdirection, comedy, and conditioned audience expectations.

I mean, when Eda bragged about being “a bad girl living in a secret fortress,” Hooty followed with a remark about how “I’m the secret.” While that line may sound like Hooty simply being confused as part of a one-off on the surface, it’s an odd dialogue choice for the writers to pick when you think about all the other reminders of his nature as the house itself throughout the season. With the precedent these moments set, it would have been much more appropriate for him to latch onto the “fortress” side of “secret fortress” AND it would have been just as equally funny of a joke about his awareness skills, but instead, Hooty broke away from the established trend to say something that would make people suspicious were it to come from anyone else.

In a way, this reminds me much of the many subtle bits of foreshadowing strewn across the show, like Luz unknowingly describing Amity in Witches Before Wizards and Eda burning a hole through Luz’s coven type quiz that coincidentally selected the same track she had taken at Hexside as “a punky potionist.” At the time of airing, these initially seemed like one-off jokes, but eventually came back in full force several episodes later with Amity’s hidden sensitive feelings and love for the Azura books becoming clear in Lost in Language, and the reveal of Eda’s school track in Something Ventured, Someone Framed with her school misdemeanor pictures.

That said, compared to these individual bits of minor foreshadowing, the jokes about Hooty in Understanding Willow appear to simply be the most obvious pieces in a giant puzzle, implicitly and outright telling attentive viewers that there’s a major mystery to be uncovered here.

In fact, I feel bold enough to say that we could be looking at a twist on a similar scale to that of the Pink Diamond/Rose Quartz and Stanford Pines twists in Steven Universe and Gravity Falls respectively, what with this particular puzzle piece coming from how Gus wanted to make THE greatest interview of all time, and how he was looking for someone who was “interesting, accomplished, AND noteworthy:”

Note the emphasis on the ‘and’ here, as Gus had made a big deal that “people aren’t meantto be all those things” at the beginning of the episode, so as a result, stripping away all the comedic framing of his subplot leaves the intriguing implication that whoever - and, perhaps, what- Hooty is, they really are the most interesting, accomplished, AND noteworthy person out of everyone.

I could go further and talk about why I suspect the mystery surrounding King’s origins, whether true or not, is partially meant to misdirect us from paying attention to Hooty, or how the TOH crew’s could be disguising legitimate clues to his nature among made up and highly meme-able joke answers in order to proliferate said concepts throughout the fandom - thus letting us do all the dirty work of getting ourselves used to the ideas and used to dismissing them at the same time - but to bring things to a close for now, I’d like to leave you all with a question that I’ll start answering next time:

What does it mean when both the most powerful and notorious witch on the Boiling Isles and the possible actual king of demons/the Titan itself/something don’t match up to a house? And what do you think it is that makes him so special to warrant such misdirection?

TLDR: Between Eda’s golem spells, the show stressing his nature as the titular house, his implicit strength, and the odd dialogue and structure of Understanding Willow‘s subplot in relation to him, I believe I have good reason to suspect the show has been giving us many hints towards Hooty being much, much more important than it would like us to currently believe or even joke about. Particularly, through clever uses of comedy to establish and enforce a strong audience bias against looking closely at him or unironically taking him seriously, and to potentially plant the seeds for something I will start exploring in Part 2.

[younghosfavewhore]

fill me up   2.19

xl [s]

wc; 1.5k 

plot; nctjungwoo!boyfriend x femreader!girlfriend

you and jungwoo fuck raw for the first time.

warnings; fluff?!, MATURE CONTENT, smut, oral (f receiving), unprotected sex, creampie

"happy birthday!" you exclaim as jungwoo walks into the 127 dorm. a grin plasters onto his face, the one that flashes those pearly white teeth.

you and the boys went to hell and back preparing this surprise for him. the dorm was decorated with him, covering walls and any form of furnishing he could correlate with.

"the member with the best hair" was branded onto a gift bag filled with hair products. "netflix and chill" is inscribed on streamers lining the tv stand. photos of him -be it memes or photoshoots- lined the walls and other stands. you were proud with the scheme you laid out for this. you were happy the boys helped, but you were even more happy that jungwoo seemed to appreciate the effort.

"y/n!" he mutters the grin still prominent on his face.

mark was quick to put jungwoo in a chokehold, "what about us?" he asked with a smile. "we helped, too." you couldn't help but chuckle.

the other boys crowded around him. chanting and cheering him on. "happy 24th! jungwoo-ssi!" they joked. you could only imagine the neighbors frustration at the noise.

throughout the excitement, jungwoo kept his eyes on yours. you could really tell he loved it. he breaks through the boy’s moshpit to get to you across the room. the boys erupt in giggles, teasing you as the tall brunette wraps you in his embrace. his scent was lovely, like he bathed in a million candles.

“thank you...” he whispers into your ear. you wrap your arms around him and you pull his body towards you. 

“you’re welcome.” you smile into the crook of his neck.

“awww!” the other members taunt. you and jungwoo smile before pulling away. 

“can we eat the cake now?” taeil jokes.

“yea, you guys can have your moment after we celebrate.” doyoung smiles.

you nod and lead the way to the kitchen. there were cheesecakes and cakes set up on the counter. 

“wow...” jungwoo’s eyes beam at the food in front of him.

“우리(our) food boy.” mark jokes and the members let out small snickers at the quirky nickname.

“let’s eat!” jungwoo exclaims and everyone scramble for plates and drinks.

-

before you know it, the boys are slumped with their plates in their lap; most of them half asleep in the dorm’s living room. you were just glad to see that they ate well. except, jungwoo was wide awake. you’re standing in the kitchen clearing the dishes and soju bottles off of the counter when he walks up behind you. 

“y/n...” he says, bringing his arms to your waist. he places light kisses on your neck and you smile at the sudden gesture.

“yes?” 

“i love you,” he pauses. “so much.”

“and i love you more.” you refute.

he smiles into your neck and takes your hands. “come on.”

“where are we going?” you smirk, already knowing the answer. 

your question is met with silence as he leads you to his room. you knew where this was going and it got your heart pumping. jaehyun was knocked out on the couch downstairs, so jungwoo had the room to himself. you reach his room and he closes the door behind you.

“jung-” you start, but he cuts you off.

“to show my appreciation,” he pauses, taking your hand again and leading you to the bed. “i want to return the favor.”

“you don’t have to-” he cuts you off again, and if it weren’t for the desire burning in your core you may have been offended. he presses his lips against yours, pushing you back on the bed.

his body hovered over yours, and it was a staggeringly familiar feeling. the kisses moved from your lips to your neck, and soon jungwoo was pressing soft kisses onto your chest. he slides off your shirt. the feeling of his fingertips grazing your skin sends shivers down your spine.

“jungwoo...” his name rolls off your tongue as you whimper.

he reacts more than you expected. he unclasps your bra and places small licks around your nipple. you moan in response as he sucks on your nipple, fondling the other with his fingers. he was driving you insane with his touch already.

he presses kisses onto you again, trailing down your stomach and towards your groin. you want to feel him but his clothes are restricting that. 

“shirt...” you whimper and he smiles in response. he slides off his shirt revealing that heavenly six-pack that only you were lucky enough to get a feel of. 

he sets his hand on your thighs and situates himself between your legs.

“i want to taste you,” he says, looking at you for approval.

you nod. how could you ever say no?

he slips off your pants and admires the view of your wet panties. 

“hot.” he chuckles and runs a finger down the soaked cloth. 

you were never one for teasing, and now was no different. “jungwoo, please...”

he smirks, leans down, and begins placing kisses onto your inner thigh. the kisses trail up and down, teasing at your groin just to travel back up your leg. why did he have to play around so much? moans escape your lips when his mouth finally meets the fabric.

he presses his nose against your panties inhaling. “you smell so good,” he says, lecherously. he’s quick to pull them off and his eyes widen at the sight of your pretty pussy. 

he leans back in, placing one, slow lick from the bottom of your slit up to your clit. you gasp at the sudden action. he places more licks onto your clit, flicking his tongue up and down, sending you into a frenzy all at once. 

“jungwoo,” you moan and repeat his name as if it's the only word you know. “fuck...”

his name must be his weakness, because with that he sticks a finger inside you. your back arches towards him and a smirk plasters on his face. his face meets yours as you make a desperate attempt to kiss him. you can taste yourself on his tongue and moan onto his lips. the feeling of his digit pumping in and out of you, the feeling of your tongues mingling with each other, the feeling of lust taking complete control was too much, it sent you into hysteria.

“c-close-” you mutter, breaking the kiss for only a millisecond.

jungwoo adds another finger, curving them perfectly to hit your sweet spot. with that, you’re sent into orgasm. your pussy clenches and throbs around his finger. jungwoo had eaten you out before, but never like this. your jaw is left slacked and you want more. 

before you even have time to process, jungwoo slips his fingers out of you, licks them clean, and slips out of his pants. his hard dick falls out and all you can anticipate is the feeling of him filling you up. he reaches to the nightstand to grab a condom and you stop him. he gives you a confused look, understandably. you and jungwoo have never had unprotected sex, but you needed the full experience, you couldn’t let this chance go to waste.

“i’ve been taking the pill. fuck me... raw.” you confess your zeal and he shoots you a smile.

without hesitating, he positions himself at your entrance and slides his girth into you. your jaw hangs open and your brows furrow. jungwoo’s eyes roll back and he bites his lip. the look of him fucking you bare was one you never thought you’d get to see.

he inhales a sharp breath until he bottoms out, his head is hanging down and his hair is covering his eyes. you wrap your arms around him and lift yourself up, craving the feeling of him pumping into you. it’s almost as though he’s reading your mind, jungwoo begins to pound into you. the feeling of your tight, wet pussy around his thick cock was too much for him not to give into. it wasn’t until now, that lewd, wet sounds fill the air, that you remember the boys downstairs. but the feeling was too good to stop. they had heard you by now, what more is there to lose?

“i’m so close,” he coos, and you could tell. his strokes were getting messy, and he would ram into your sweet spot every few pumps. “where do you want it?” his voice was low and groans escaped his lips.

you don’t hesitate to answer, “inside me,” you cry out, “fill me up, jungwoo.” you emphasize his name and he speeds his thrusts.

he cums inside of you, the thick, white, sticky liquid filling you up. he lifts from your embrace to sit back and watch his cum-covered dick slide in and out of you. the overstimulation was killing him but the sight of his cum dripping out of you made it worth it. he gives a final stroke before pulling out and catching his breath. 

“i love you.” you repeat the sentiment and place a kiss on his cheek. 

“i love you more.” he smiles. “i’ll get you a towel.” 

the innocent smile on his face didn’t match up with the way he just fucked you, but that was his charm. and you loved that about him. you loved everything about him.

[dilfbane]

Your Weeping(Your Need For His Touch)

Summary: When things go south on a mission, you have to confront more than just the sketchy town, cartoon villains, and one-bed hotel room you’re forced to share with Loki. You have to come to terms with not only the consequences of being captured, but also the God of Mischief’s feelings for you - Because for all that he might be an asshole, sometimes, he really does have a heart. Written for the Picture Is Worth A 1,000 Words 6k Follower Writing Challenge by @startrekkingaroundasgard 

Pairing: Loki/(Female)Reader

Warnings: Descriptions of injuries and medical treatment, as well as discussions of the inevitable mindset around sacrificing oneself for the mission that I feel like being part of the Avengers would entail. Also swearing, because at its core, this story started out as a bit of a crack! fic. 

Word Count: 7.8k. 

A/N: So apparently when I have mental breakdowns they result in me writing crack-fic that takes a 180 veer into angst and fluff for absolutely no reason. For the sake of the crack-fic, in this timeline Loki was forced to help the Avengers take down bad guys directly after the end of the first Avengers movie, so… Is that a confusing plot hole I didn’t know how to account for except by making this AU? Maybe. Did I do it anyway?…. Yeah. This really was meant to be a crack-fic about Loki and the reader confessing their feelings set in the bizarre world of meme culture, I didn’t realize there were going to be feels in it until it was three in the morning and all of a sudden this happened. That being said, your girl went there, so enjoy! 

“Oh, shit,” You say, as you take in the grimy hotel room. The walls all smeared in what looks like dried blood, the putrid smell of rotten eggs, a crack-screened television with a fine dusting of some suspiciously white powder. And, of course, “There’s one bed.” 

“Hmm?” Asks Loki, turning towards you, briefly, from unpacking. He had dumped his suitcase(Magically plucked out of a chaotic liminal space) unceremoniously on the bed’s scratching, pilling coverlet without so much as a second glance at the rest of the room. And why do you need a suitcase, anyways?? You wonder. It isn’t like we’re planning to be here that long. In fact, you hoped with every fiber of your being that you’d be here for as little time as possible, because this town might actually be the sketchiest place you’ve ever seen in your life; no small feat, for a bona-fide member of S.H.I.E.L.D. 

You’ve kicked alien ass on a mutated purple Mongolian death-worm three thousand feet over New York City. You’ve run reconnaissance to rescue debatably-magical items sequestered away in an ancient cave labyrinth plastered in paintings and untranslatable runes, gunfire and what could only be described as the baying of hellhounds in the near distance. You’ve fist-fought a gigantic hive-mind robot in a field of artificially sentient feral steel suits - You’ve even survived Tony’s parties. 

Yet none of those scenarios hold a candle to this fucking town. 

And Loki, the asshat, seems utterly, competently - no, maniacally - unfazed. 

“There’s one bed,” You repeat, into the air. 

“Ah,” Says Loki, straightening. 

“You don’t see that problem with that?!” 

“Should I?” He asks you, walking across the room in long, graceful strides to stand in front of you. He wears the same expression he always wears, amused and indifferent, but this time with the addition of a single, elegantly-arched eyebrow. You drop your head, refusing to meet his somewhat-curious gaze. It physically hurts, how attractive Loki is. Not for the first time, you curse whatever god decided that you and him would once again be mission partners - in this case, you belatedly realize, and choke back a thick laugh, said god is, unsurprisingly, Thor. 

If you survive this, you make a note to beat his head in with Mjolnir. As it is, you are here in this room with Loki, with perhaps twenty IPP agents and a reckless poisoner dogging your every move, and there’s a high chance that you won’t live long enough to navigate whatever the hell sleeping with your crush-who-has-murdered-men. Ok, so ‘murdered men’ isn’t entirely accurate. More like ‘caused the murder of men inadvertently through his schemes’. It doesn’t seem to make much of a difference, right now. 

And what about Loki? He is still staring you down, like you’re some wind up toy moments away from going off. Funny, that, you think. If ever there were a time to not have a mental breakdown, it would be here, with him. You’ve crossed a lot of moral lines in your life, but you will be damned if you let Loki Laufeysson see you cry. Loki is graceful. Composed. Sarcastic. Lithe. Rolls his eyes at almost every statement that comes out of somebody’s mouth. But he is, also, beautiful. Shockingly comforting, in his own nihilistic way. You don’t know what it says about you that you find comfort in statements like, Try not to die, you know that I hate funerals. Part of you - most of you - doesn’t want to. But it gives you strength, somehow, to shrug off the day and ground your flailing mind in evading Loki’s calculated manipulation. I won’t show you my weakness, you think to yourself. It’s not enough, but it’s a start. 

“No,” You tell him - too quickly, he’ll pick up on that - “You’re right, you shouldn’t. It’s fine. We have - a lot to deal with, is all.” 

Loki nods, seemingly accepting your answer, but his eyes are still narrowed, watching you like he’s calling your bluff. You talk right past that look - have to, to keep yourself sane, to not think about the one bed that looms large over this entire conversation. It doesn’t even look like a comfortable bed. 

“We have two days,” You say, to stop yourself thinking of it. And, also, to talk your way through your disarmingly disjointed thoughts. Loki nods. It would really help if you said something, you think. Swallow the thought, hot and thick, down your throat. What’s the point of a mission partner if you can’t even soundboard off them? “The Pink Cobra could strike anyone, anytime. The IPP is planning something in New York - “ 

“Isn’t everyone, these days, planning something in New York?” 

He sounds regretful, and for half a second you want to offer him the reassurance that his very presence offers you. But you are sure he doesn’t know what he does to you - with his words, with the sidelong glances that you’ve felt linger on your form far too long in the heat of a fight. If you didn’t know any better, you would say Loki worries about you. 

“We have to shut him down,” You say. Focus on the Pink Cobra, because honestly, that’s easier. “Find out where he manufactures. Not get poisoned,” You add, at the end. 

“Yes,” Loki says, tone dripping with sarcasm, “We should certainly try not to get ourselves killed. Failing that, I suppose, we can at least request that no one in H.Y.D.R.A gets autopsy access.” 

“Loki?” You ask. Rhetorically. “You’re not helping.” 

He smirks at you, then. He knows. 

“What do you propose that we do then?” He asks, taking a step towards you, getting so close that you can feel his hot breath. “About the Pink Cobra?” 

“Find him.” You say, fumbling, blush rising high on your cheeks. 

Tonight? 

One bed? 

You are screwed. 

                                                             ***

When you were a kid - think really little, Capri Sun pouches and still believing that true love wasn’t complicated - your father told you that every story needed a good supervillain. You aren’t sure if the Pink Cobra counts as a good supervillain, but he’s the least confusing one that you have to deal with - and, as far as villains go, a fine enough challenge to face. He’s like a madman out of some high fantasy novel, with dark eyes and a sable-sewn cloak and a penchant for poisoning. He is adept in all the arts of the woman’s murder; he has a keen grasp on the side-effects of arsenic and camphor and tansy and cyanide and strychnine. He’s been found to have dropped crystal phials filled with belladonna and ricin while fleeing a scene. If all else fails, he’s more than practiced with daggers. 

In other words, he’s the kind of villain that none of you, with your flying suits and telekinesis and super-strength, are anywhere near prepared to waylay. 

The plan, as far as team Avengers is concerned, is easy: 

You and Loki. This town, where the webs of his manufacturing production and the few glimpses of information that Thor has totally legally excavated out of his captured minions has led to. Two days until some undefined grand attack bears down on the city you live in. Two days to find the Pink Cobra and kill him. The more time passes with no headway, the more you think that this is an impossible task, but you know what Tony would say. We have our best minds on it. 

The thing is, you aren’t sure that that’s true. The minds that have been set to this task are you and the God of Lies. It’s hardly the best they could have come up with, considering your track records. Actually, you take that back - Loki was a good choice for this mission, because, not three hours after arriving in this hellhole of a city, he seems to have somehow developed the ability to read minds. More specifically, yours. And that could prove stunningly useful. 

The scene, as it stands: Loki, sprawled across the lumpy bed, three pairs of crisp white shirts, a plaid scarf, and a full set of Asgardian battle armor neatly hung in the mothball-infested closet, flicking through channels on the grain, cracked television with an apathetic expression and one arm thrown haphazardly over bent leg. Propped up in such a way that he could jump or spin or parry at a moment’s notice, yet perfectly, devastatingly languid, leafing through Nick Fury’s dossier on the Pink Cobra. He looks at you like a god, you think, and then remember. He is one. 

You, on the floor, because on top of all the other things this hotel doesn’t have, like two beds, there isn’t anything even resembling a desk, shifting through a glowing, holographed file archive from headquarters that barely runs on your severely outdated laptop. It’s a point of pride to you, keeping the laptop - not because it’s good, but because it’s survived five years of being an Avenger, which is something not even all the Avengers can claim to have done. You’re also fairly certain that Tony’s attempts to update the firmware had infested it with some sort of renegade virus. Elevated above your screen, the files are split into two groups, the sum total of everything that you know about both of the groups that are avidly trying to kill you. 

There’s the wealth of information containing the Pink Cobra’s poisoning sprees, but those aren’t the files that interest you, and you know that Loki’s not much interested in them either. That honor falls to the fanatics at the IPP, the Imminently Predictable Psyops organization, which you know even less about than you do about the Pink Cobra, chief among which the fact that they need a new name. Imminently Predictable Psyops?, Tony had said, when you’d finally apprehended one of their proxies. What do they think this is? Some type of ARG? 

What you’ve gleaned, from months worth of studying the network, is that they operate as a sort of cringe-oriented death cult intent on ‘reshaping the universe through meme agents’. They’d been on S.H.I.E.L.D’s radar for a long time - upwards of a year - before anyone at team base learned they existed - which, you can almost hear Loki saying, was a failure in the extreme. Currently, it was your job to obsessively worry over whether they were going to send ‘meme agents’ to bust through the door of your seedy hotel room and off you both. You hated - truly loathed - how casually Loki was taking it all. 

He’s acting like nothing was wrong with this situation, when, in fact, you’re ninety-nine-point-nine percent sure that this night will end up with one or both of you dead. It is, to say the least, disconcerting. 

Kill switch, the holograph files read. Cross-referential Neil Cicierega acoustic weaponry. Your mind sees the words, but doesn’t comprehend them, and you run a hand up to rub at your bleary eyes with annoyance. You risk a glance upwards; on the bed, Loki scans page after page after page with disinterested nonchalance, punctuating the flipping over of each document with a noncommittal hum; as if to say, I understand you. As it to say, This could be worse. You try to slip into that mindset. Certainly, things could be worse. 

Actually, though? Not really. 

Because, for all the world, the holo-file in front of you just said ‘Pepe The Frog Chaos Banking Laser Initiative’. 

“What the fuck does that even mean?!” 

“Sorry?” 

You whip your head around. Loki, raising an eyebrow. Damn that - perfect - eyebrow. 

“Sorry,” You echo back at him, rubbing your eyes again, perversely glad for the break, even if it is this awkward. “I … said that out loud, didn’t I?” 

“Marginally,” He tells you. “Yes.” 

“Sorry,” You - well, it’s not a whine, not exactly. You’re tired, and there’s no way you’re going to sleep tonight, so you feel like your tone’s justified. “I didn’t mean to do that. I think I’m just - this is. Completely nonsensical.” 

“Show me?” He asks, and you snort. He could totally just look up, but - 

“Do you have a P.h.d in memes?” You ask him, and, before he can answer, “Because unless you have a P.h.d in memes, I don’t think you’ll be able to help.” 

“You’d be surprised,” Loki says. Vaults over the bed with the speed and grace of a panther, filling the air with a cringing wheeze as the rusty springs bend underneath him, and landing in front of the holo-file, pushing you aside slightly to get a better view. When his fingers brush against your side, cool and firm, you flinch. 

“Tired,” You offer, when he shoots you a momentarily concerned look. “Just. Need to sleep, later, I think.” 

But Loki is already scanning the file, and when he looks up, not five seconds later, you want to hit somebody. Preferably, you think, him. 

“I would assume,” Loki says, “That they’re using time travel in order to obtain and store monetary value by way of a Pepe-the-frog inspired laser array.” 

“Oh,” You say. You blink once. Blink twice. Still have no idea what that means. “Right.” 

“Do you not know your memes, love?” He asks you, smirking. And oh, if you don’t feel things. 

“I don’t go on the internet, much,” You tell him. “Too busy, you know, trying not to get killed.”

 Loki shrugs. Sidles away from the file. The groan and squeak of those springs tells you he’s back on the bed, giving you some well-needed space, but you can’t bring yourself to look. 

“You can sleep,” He says, “If you want.” 

“Ha!” You yelp/choke/embarrassingly bleat out into the room’s stale silence. Underneath the rotten eggs, you catch a whiff of bong-water. “No.” 

“There’s a bed,” Loki says, cocking his head pointedly and patting the lumpy covers. 

“Yeah, that’s - kind of the problem.” 

“Why?” He asks you. 

“You - really?” 

“I was only asking,” Says Loki, re-focusing his attention on whichever Pink Cobra document’s next in the folder. “If you aren’t comfortable telling me - I merely thought, seeing as you were tired, you might take this opportunity to rest.” 

“Yeah,” You  tell him, “Of course, that’s - nice of you.” 

It comes out stilted. Patently off. If he notices, he doesn’t say. 

“Are you going to - um. Do you need help, with the rest? The ones I have seem kind of hopeless. I mean,” You say, when he doesn’t look up, “I don’t think that we have to worry about getting demolished by trans-dimensional Agarthian wormholes.” 

“Of course not,”” Loki says, scoffing and incredulous, gaze, you are sure, on his page. “If they wanted to kill us, they’d send someone with a gun.” 

In reality, it’s several someones. 

                                                             ***

“You jinxed it,” Is the first thing you tell him, when the men leave you. They’ve thrown you into a one-room warehouse, rickety shelves stacked with cartoonish tubs of green goop and mildewing boxes filled with grenades and machine guns and what appears, at second-glance, to be twelve-fingered latex gloves. You’re tied wrist to wrist, ankle to ankle, and your throat feels uncharacteristically parched. Fear, you tell yourself. Apprehension. “Can’t you just - use your seidr to magic us out of this?” 

If you could see him - which you can’t, because you’ve been tied back to back - you’d swear that Loki was glaring. 

“Do you - do you have a plan?” You ask, after a moment. 

“I’m working on it,” He says. 

“That’s all?” You say. “We were dragged out of our drug-dealer’s hotel room by a bunch of robed men with guns and the only thing you have to say is ‘I’m working on it?’” 

“I’d get it done faster,” Says Loki, “If you wouldn’t interrupt me.” 

“Ok,” You tell him, “No interrupting you. Got it. That’s - Alright.” 

Unfortunately, not interrupting him is easier said than done, because without the sound of your voice, you are left to your thoughts. 

The men had broken in nearly immediately after Loki’s glib, sardonic retort to your worries, shooting the glass out of the room’s already half-smashed-in window and kicking the door in simultaneously. A bit much, isn’t it?, Loki’d asked, and you had wanted to smack yourself on the forehead. Really not the time, you had hissed, but Loki hadn’t seemed to hear you. Do you do this with everyone they send you to assassinate?, he had asked, instead. The men had been dressed in long, billowing cloaks of bright red, embroidered with orange snakes framing a picture of Beaker from the muppets with early 2000’s emo hair. Chaotic meme agents, you had thought to yourself. So that’s what they’re supposed to look like. 

You hadn’t picked up, until now, on the snakes. 

“They’re working together,” You say, when you can’t stand the playback of Loki being disarmed after spinning and tossing his silver daggers at the men, of the men kneeing him in the balls and twisting your arms behind your back, holding a gun to your head to stop you from trying to fight. Waking up in the back of a van that smelled like microwaved fish. Being tossed like garbage onto the floor of the warehouse, painted in bruises and cuts from the small pieces of glass that had dug their way into your skin. “The IPP and the Pink Cobra.” 

“Obviously,” Loki says. Sharply. 

“Did Tony not -“ 

“Stark,” Loki practically growls, and, ok, you’re not losing it but that did make you jump in your skin, “Is an idiot. He wouldn’t know how to connect the dots if they were presented to him in a Buzzfeed Unsolved episode.” 

“That’s - You had that on Asgard?” You ask him, momentarily distracted. You wish that you could see Loki’s face, and are very glad that you can’t. 

“That isn’t the point,” Loki says. 

“I know,” You tell him. You’re scared that your voice is trembling. Scared that he can tell, even though he’s not facing you, how badly your fingers are shaking. Scared that he knows your worst, biggest secret - 

That, despite being an Avenger, you are anxious. That, despite him being Loki, despite him being here, and wonderfully, infuriatingly himself, he cannot help you, this time. 

You are going to die, covered in cuts and abrasions, on the floor of a meme network’s headquarters, at three a.m in the morning. They are going to come in with umbrellas that shoot poison darts or the ex-presidents Point Break masks and mow you down, and Loki has no fucking plan. You feel the ropes tighten where they’re knotted, itchy and fierce, and you have to fight to keep yourself from whining in terror and nerves. Whining isn’t what Loki needs right now. Whining’s not going to save you. 

What is going to save you, you try and remind yourself, is Loki. If you can shut up. If you can let him decipher what needs to be done. If he can figure out some way to do it before the blowtorch-wielding robed vigilantes or some disincarnate meme god comes back and draws their electronically-sharpened fingernails across your throat hard enough to split skin and sinew, send waves of blood down the front of your shirt like a river of sweet, thick red honey and toss your corpse in a ditch by a highway and - 

“Y/N?” It is foggy, barely-heard. Posh. “Y/N!” Louder, this time. There are fingers on your wrist, bent backwards to grip you. Squeezing, insistent and there. “Breathe.” 

Fuck, you think. You’d started to hyperventilate. To shake, with a full-body tremor that forecasts a great, unstoppable wave of sobbing panic. And Loki had noticed. “I need you to trust me,” He says. “Trust me to get us out of this. Can you do that for me, darling?” 

He has never called you darling before, but God how you’ve wanted him to. You feel like you’re being stabbed in the heart - because there is no way he means it, no way that this is anything other than a desperate and cruel attempt to get you to calm down. Something that belies how obvious you are. How needy you are. How pathetic. And yet - 

And yet, he doesn’t say it meanly. He speaks like he cares about you, and in the face of your impending death, you want to think Loki cares. You’d let him say anything, do anything to you, right now. More than that, though, more than any of that - as you think back to meeting him, to your blossoming late-night friendship and twitchy banter and the quiet moments you’ve shared with him in-between battles - 

“I trust you, Loki,” You tell him, and feel your breath quiet in you. Feel yourself growing still and calm with the certainty that Loki will do as he’s said. 

That you will survive this. 

That -

“Good,” Loki says. Not relieved, but determined. Leaving you no room to argue. 

“So what do we do?” You ask him. 

“Nothing,” Says Loki, and you can hear his wide grin. 

“Nothing?” You ask him, gawking.

 “Nothing,” Says Loki. He gives your hand a tight squeeze. 

And then the Pink Cobra walks in. 

                                                             ***

This will end badly, you think. It’s about the only thing that you can think, preoccupied as you are with - 

It might be easier not to - 

Fuck. 

The thing is - and you really do try not to move, not to groan, not to scream - the thing is, you thought that when Loki said he had a plan, that said plan wouldn’t involve you being collateral damage for a LARP-er who’d most likely broken out of an asylum. I wish that we could be back in that shitty one-bed hotel room, you think to yourself, and - alright, not the best timing, but it rips a laugh out of you, spiraling and unhinged, before you feel the Pink Cobra, resplendent in coral cloak and villainous swagger, slug you one in the jaw. It hurts worse than you’d thought it would - you’ve never really gotten injured on missions, you’re usually good at talking yourself out of things, which is why the Avengers keep you around. You can speak any language, as long as you’ve heard it once, and your customary daily awkwardness can shift into persuasion like flicking a light-switch on. 

Usually, though, you had an opportunity to speak, and weren’t rendered speechless by - 

Loki, if you’re being honest. How much you want to kiss him. How much of an asshole he is. Trust me, he’d asked you. Can you do that for me? The Pink Cobra’s grip is sharp and bruising on your side; he’s slipped his fingers up your shirt and is pressing the point on your side that threatens to make your knees buckle, making bile rise up in your throat, driving you wild with the aching need to flee. He has one hand clasped over your mouth, now that you’ve quieted, and you can feel something - pain, and a pill - pressed snugly into his palm. He will force it down you, you know, if Loki so much as sighs wrong. 

You’ll never trust him again. 

You wish that you knew what the time was. If you end up dying at 4:20, you’re going to throw fists with somebody in hell. 

You wish, also, for aspirin. Avengers training has left you woefully unprepared for the reality of getting punched in the face. You can already feel your jaw starting to swell, taste an egregious amount of blood. You’re pretty sure that the force of the blow knocked a tooth out. 

What strikes fear into you, though - a fear somehow deeper than the absolutely bone-chilling, blood-curdling knowledge of what the Pink Cobra might do to you - is the look you’d seen on Loki’s face in the seconds after he’d grabbed you, before it fell into practiced, amused apathy. He’d gone white, and his eyes had blown wide. His fingers had spasmed with anger. 

He’d looked as scared as you feel. 

And you have no idea why. 

It isn’t like you’re anyone special. Not any more than the rest of the team. Less so than most of them. You aren’t a god, like Loki and Thor are. You don’t have stealth-assassin training, like Bucky, or super-strength like Steve. You can’t seamlessly pilot mechanical suits over the New York skyline like Tony, or use a crossbow like Clint, or beat thirty people in single-hand combat like Nat, or change into a nitro-fueled rage machine like Bruce. 

You can’t do anything, much. 

Except, apparently, die.

You squeeze your eyes shut, not letting yourself look at him. You won’t let Loki’s disinterested face be the last thing that you see. It makes the Pink Cobra’s words all the worse, when he speaks. His voice is dark and sick and timbered, and you feel maggots crawling over your skin as he slots you closer to his body, tightening his already painful grip on you so that you can’t move even an inch away from his tensed, coiled muscles. 

“So,” He says, “You are superheroes? How long did it take me, to apprehend you? Ah - three and a half hours? Tell your boss-man, do better next time.” 

“I’ll pass it along,” Loki says. His voice sounds different. You can’t place why. Still won’t look. 

“You won’t,” The Pink Cobra says. You can feel his shoulders rise, then fall. Feel him smirk. You love Loki’s smirk - secretly delight in drawing it from him, sometimes - but the Pink Cobra’s only fills you with yet more terror. You’ve pursed your lips tightly shut against the intrusion of his hand, but when Loki speaks he forces your bruised, bleeding jaw open and shoves the pill into your mouth. The pain of your injury tears through you like white lightning and you thrash, trying to escape. A keening sound claws its way out of you, fevered and anguished, and you feel your hands, still bound up in ropes, trying in vain to push off and away. The man behind you sighs, and then aims a swift kick at the back of your knees, which sends you down before you can so much as yelp. Your knees hit the floor, and he’s holding you by your hair now, twisting it so hard that you’re almost sure he’ll scalp you. He’s pulled something - too big to be be a knife, some kind of shortsword?! - Out from beneath his cloak, and is pressing it up against the column of your throat. You feel the weight of the capsule between your teeth heavily now, and realize what it means in the split-second before the Pink Cobra bends and whispers, Your choice; stale and rancid into the shell of your ear. 

Next, he addresses Loki. 

“You’ll be wanting to know what our plan is,” He says. Our, you think. We were right. “Hmm? I know how you people are. Always wanting to know. Tell me this, Mischief Man. What will I get, if I tell you? What price are you willing to pay?” 

You know what this is. You know it like the ache in your heart when Loki brushes you off. Like the safety you feel in his arms. You open your eyes. Take in Loki’s face - he’s trying to hide, but you know, you know how he feels. You know what he’s going to choose. 

And you know that you can’t let him choose it. 

“You’ll let her go,” Loki asks, “If we let you leave here?” 

“The thing could be managed.” 

No, you think. No, Loki, don’t! Whatever the Pink Cobra’s going to do, whatever the IPP’s planning, knowing’s worth more than your life. 

“One thing I want to know,” Loki says. He’s twirling a knife of his own, a slim silver number he keeps on him at all times, and you feel the blade on your own throat start to dig in - not enough to draw blood, but enough for you to feel it. The threat of it. The promise of it, and the coldness of the gleaming metal. “You and the IPP? How does it fit?” 

“You want information from me?” The Pink Cobra asks. Lets his blade bite you, just barely, and the strength it takes for you not to scream is more strength then you’d known you possess. 

“Yes,” Says Loki. “It’s not like I’m asking for much.”

He meets your gaze. You meet his. You hope that he cannot read it. His eyes are so worried, so desperate, you nearly break down. 

“I suppose,” The Pink Cobra says, “That you’ve earned it. Getting here - getting this far - it must have been no easy task. Fine. There is no Imminently Predictable Psyops organization. They were a - what do you call it? Red herring? A scent of blood for the shark.” 

“You fabricated them,” Loki says. “Why would you fabricate them?” 

He is losing his composure, you can tell. You will never be ready for this. He will never be ready for this. You hope that he will forgive you, and you know that he never will, and you swallow the pill in your mouth. 

“Because it was fun,” The Pink Cobra says. 

And then your body knows pain. 

                                                             ***

“He didn’t think I would do it,” You say. Your mouth feels thick, clotted with blood and shock, and your body is one raw, gaping wound, but the giddy feeling of victory has begun to course through your veins. Pure, unfiltered adrenaline. You had waited for the moment of death to come, and it hadn’t. The pill is fake, your mind had screamed. But there’d been one thing left, that might work. You had breathed as slowly as you possibly could, forced every muscle of your scared, writhing body into single-minded limpness, rolled your eyes backwards into your head,  drew one last breath in, and fallen. Twitched, for a few seconds, like a rag-doll. Then made yourself still. 

Loki had slit the Pink Cobra ear to ear, beaten him within an inch of his life as he bled out, screaming like a man deranged. He’d left him a wet, bloody mess on the floor, and the blood had run down the not-quite-steady plane of it, pooling around you and mixing with the blood from your jaw, from the evening’s earlier glass cuts, from the deep, burning stab wound the Cobra had got on your arm. 

You breathe, and your body knows pain. 

You look at Loki, and your body knows pain. 

He is shaking. Visibly shaking. His hands are clenched into fists at his side, and he looks as pale as bleached bones. His eyes are shot red - he had sobbed, when you fell, and a howl had torn through his body. You don’t know what to do, what it means, what the hell even to say to him. His cheeks are tear-stained, his breaths ragged. 

You blink, and your body feels pain. 

“We won,” You croak out. “Loki, we won.” It hurts worse than anything you’ve ever felt in your life. “I think he broke one of my ribs.” 

You don’t mean to say that last part, but you do, and you are the one crying now, because it feels like he probably has, and you can barely even stay awake through this pain. It feels like the Hulk is pulling you limb from limb. Like all of those nightmares you’ve had where Loki decided to leave you - to go back to Asgard, and never speak to you again. 

Stupid, you think. He won’t, again. Not after this. 

Loki still hasn’t spoken. He’s looking at you, and his eyes are wild. Desperately, jaggedly roaming your body. His fists twitch with every new part of your body they land on. 

“That bad, huh - Oh, fuck.” 

And just like that, the tension leaves Loki’s body. The dam that had held him firmly in place is broken, and he’s running towards you with none of his usual grace. Dropping down by your side. He hoists you, and you hiss, and the tears won’t stop coming, so you bury your face in his shirt, nose pressed at the crisply ironed collar. Don’t care that it’s bleeding, because Loki’s here now. Holding you. Keeping you real. He’s got one hand stroking your hair and his touch feels right, nothing like the Pink Cobra’s, and he’s whispering: You brave, precious, idiot, how dare you, how dare you throw your life away like that?! 

“It worked,” You exhale - it’s the most you can manage. You would laugh, if it wouldn’t shred you to pieces. Loki cradles you fiercely, hands grasping at the sweat-and-blood soaked fabric of your shirt, running over you as if he doesn’t believe you’re alive. “It - hurts,” You get out. Barely. “Loki, it - I can’t -“ 

“Don’t,” He tells you. His voice has gone brittle, choked with thorns. “Don’t talk. Don’t - Don’t ever do that again. Do you hear me? You will never do that again.” 

If I need to, I will, you think. And you wonder if that’s why you’re here. Wonder if that’s why you’re strong. You wonder, and hurt, and believe. Feel the strength of him, clutching you like you’re the only thing in the world, taking in greedy lungfuls of your weeping, your need for his touch. 

You can’t talk, anymore. It hurts too badly. But you surge, upwards, up into where he’s holding the back of your head, pressing your forehead into the dark, warm space under his jaw that smells like smoke and peppermint. Loki is taller than you are - you fit right into the curve of his neck, and his long curls curtain you in a bubble of warmth and content. 

“Promise,” You say, but it comes out unintelligible, and Loki’s hands are running, so gently, over your skin. 

“What was your plan?” You ask him, forcing it out of your body. 

“Hush,” Loki says, “Later.” 

There might not be any later, you think. Not like this. 

                                                             ***

In the hotel room, an ocean of scattered pages and ceiling mold and blessed privacy, you balance, cross-legged, on the bed. The wind blows wet and cold from an earlier rain through the busted out window. You have managed this out of sheer stubborn-ness, because it is the most that Loki allowed you to do. You’d passed out, twice, on the journey back - he had magicked you there, though it had taken a considerable amount of effort that you weren’t sure you really deserved - and had immediately propped you up on the pillows and stooped to ruffle through his suitcase, emerging not long after with binding tape, cat-gut thread, and a needle so sharp you could feel it slicing your flesh. You had opened your mouth to protest, but Loki had silenced you with a glare that could fell Director Fury. So you had gone quiet, and caved, letting him kneel over you on the distinctly lumpy mattress and begin inspecting your wounds. It had taken a few tries and a Please to convince him to let you sit on your own, and it hurt much more than the manner in which he’d arranged you. You were starting to, slightly, regret it. 

“You don’t have to do this,” You say, pulling it from bleeding lips. He shushes you with a harsh, stern tut. “You’re not my mother,” You tell him. 

“You could have died,” Loki says. There’s a snarling undercurrent to it that you can’t even start dissecting. “What were you thinking?” He asks. It is easier, though still painful, for you to answer him - he had used nearly half of his Thor-limited magic reserve to perform a basic stasis spell on your injuries, but the spell wouldn’t last forever. You’ll need stitches, he’d said, choking it out like he was the hurt one when he’d seen the number the Cobra’s blade had done to your arm. 

“I’ve had worse,” You say, grinning weakly. 

“Are you lying to me?” He asks you, with the tone of someone who’s distinctly not in the mood for joking. 

“I thought,” You say. Steel yourself. “I thought you weren’t going to do what needed to be done. So I - Did it myself.” 

“What needed to be done.” Loki says, enunciating every word. 

“We couldn’t let him walk away,” You say, meeting his eyes. Emerald, clouded with fury. You don’t let yourself flinch from that anger. You don’t let yourself run from your choice. “You know what he would have done.” 

“I don’t,” Loki says. “I know nothing. I know - I know that you think that your life means so little I wouldn’t care if you were gone. That I could - Live, without you.” 

That’s… different. 

“And I know,” Loki continues, “That I told you to trust me, and I meant it.” 

“I do,” You say. There is no hesitation. “I trust you - Loki. Of course I trust you. It’s not - it wasn’t -“ 

“Stop talking,” He snaps. Gentles, when you jerk your head away, blink back a fresh wave of tears. “You need rest,” He says. “And - This is. This is going to hurt.” 

You nod. 

“Best get it over with, then.” 

“You should keep your eyes closed,” He says. 

“No! I want - I need to look.” You bring your eyes up to your arm, which he’s settled onto bed’s chewed, scratchy quilt without you realizing, but Loki tilts your head up with a barely-there graze of his fingers, achingly gentle to avoid aggravating your swollen jaw. He holds your gaze for a long time. Doesn’t look mad, anymore. 

“Are you sure?” He asks you. Like all of this could be over with, if you wanted. 

“How bad it could it be?” You ask back. 

The injury is horrendous. You’d thought - honest-to-God, you’d thought the pain was terrible, but you weren’t ready for what your arm has become. The line of the wound runs in a craggy jigsaw from just under your shoulder to the tip of your elbow. Small wonder you can’t move it, can barely think through it at all. 

“Y/N?” Loki asks, “Are you -“ 

“Fine,” You say. Blink, and your body knows pain. Try not to let how scared you are show, when you look back up at Loki. The Pink Cobra’s dead. You shouldn’t be scared, anymore. “It’s really bad, isn’t it?” 

Loki sighs. Long and low and sad. 

“Will I have to - “ 

“Bite,” Loki says, and shoves something - the sleeve of his shirt, crusted in blood which you realize, sickeningly, is yours - into your mouth. “It’ll help.” 

It doesn’t, but he holds your hand through it, hushing you through the pain with furrowed eyebrows, thread and needle flying deftly through skin, air, skin again. His fingers move precisely, deliberate,  quick, and when, on one stitch, you audibly whimper, he pauses to lean down and press a soft, utterly unexpected kiss to your hairline. You are unable to fully express how much it means to you, so you do the next best thing and kiss him yourself, pressing him back once he’s finished the last of his stitches and breathing all the the words you can’t say into him. You press every fear and gratitude and lingering nerve into the warmth of his lips, wending your fingers through his dark hair despite the pangs of agony still thrumming through every inch of your body. Your face hurts, but the kiss is all you’ve ever needed and more, and Loki is so, so gentle with you, pulling away with creased eyebrows and a look of genuine concern. 

“I wanted to,” You tell him, mustering all of your strength. “It didn’t hurt.” 

“Stop,” He tells you, voice cracking, “Stop lying.” 

“I’m not,” You say. “I wanted to, Loki, I did.” 

“And you wanted to -“ 

“No.” You are vehement about it, for a broken-ribbed, broken-jawed, freshly-stitched person coming off the high of his teeth and his tongue. “Not that, I swear, never that.”

 “Why did you do it, then?” Loki asks. He has steepled his fingers under his chin, and his narrowed eyes pierce through you to the soul. You couldn’t lie to this man, you think, if your life depended on it. 

You know that you have to tell him, this time. Really tell him. You don’t. 

“”Why didn’t you use your magic?”

“You know why,” He says, and you do. You’d remembered it as the white pill turned to white powder in your gums, as the Pink Cobra’s knife had carved its way into your flesh. Thor had put a set limit on it, as condition of Loki’s release - Proof, he had said, We can trust you. Loki had thought to save it for later, that you wouldn’t need him right then. He had thought you’d talk them out, to safety. 

You’d failed him. 

“You didn’t,” He tells you, voice raw. He goes to grip your chin, to force you to listen to him, but with a glance and ill-concealed wince at your purpled jaw he thinks better of it. “You think that you failed me? You let yourself be - be beaten and stabbed - just so people you’ve never met in your life wouldn’t die, and you call that a failure?” He runs a hand through his hair. Bites back a snarl. Drops your arm. “I need you to listen to me,” Loki says, “Very, very carefully. You’re going to tell me why now, love. And then we’re going to fix it.” 

You raise an eyebrow. Worse than he does, you’re aware. 

“Sleep,” He amends, with a pointed look at the bed underneath you, “And then we’re going to fix it.” 

“There’s only one bed,” You tell him, “And I feel like I just got run over by a truck.” 

Loki huffs, a puff of warm air that you feel, from how close he still is. A grin twitches at the edge of his lips. It sets off sparks inside you. 

“I thought -“ You say. Shake your head, and restart. “You would have let the Pink Cobra attack. You would have let him just walk away, and I couldn’t just - let that happen.” 

“Enlightening.” 

“No,” You tell him, “I mean it. I couldn’t - I’m not - I’m not worth more than anyone else. We’re the Avengers. It’s our job to save people, Loki.” 

He’s regarding you carefully, eyes still narrowed, all vestiges of softness gone from his face. When he opens his mouth, it’s to close it. Form thoughts. Discard them. Exhale. 

“My mother once told me,” He finally says, “That I would never know what it meant to be human until I found the person who made me want to bleed the world dry. Take all of its’ suffering, all of its’ cruelty, and leech it out of the very fabric of time, just to keep that person from anguish, from harm.” 

“I don’t -“ 

He holds a hand up. You still. 

“She never said they would infuriate me,” Loki says. “She never said they would make me laugh, or smile, or question my sanity on a regular basis. She never said that they’d try and get themselves killed, and that I’d have to watch, and that I would feel like my heart was being ripped from my body and torn to a bloody pulp; that I would make the sky rain blood and fire at the sight of it alone. But she was right about one thing - Many things, but also this. She told me that it wouldn’t matter. That I would - love you - anyway.” 

“You don’t,” You say, not daring to hope. It’s an automatic retort. 

“Foolish girl,” Loki chides, and you blink back fresh, stinging tears. How long have you wanted to hear Loki say that to you? How many sneaky looks have you stolen in the heat of your missions, just to see his smart mind and tricky magic at work? How many nights have you sat up together, sequestered from your insomnia in a bubble of hard-earned banter and peppermint tea, fighting the tight, coiling urge to push aside your steaming mugs and pull him into your needing? 

He could not - he can’t - feel the same. 

“Loki,” You say, stumbling over the words, “You can’t - This is - This is me we’re talking about.” 

“Is there anyone else here,” Loki asks you, “That I could be talking about?” He seems nonchalant, now, as if this - this cruel fucking joke, when you already feel you’re on fire - is merely a fact of his life. “We’re going to leave this excuse of a town, and get you - proper care. Fix it. Because I will not, on my honor, watch you suffer in pain. But first, you’re going to sleep.” 

“There’s only one bed,” You tell him, and feel your resolve as it shatters. You cling to the statement like it’s the last remnant of the girl you were and the woman that you’ll never be, “And the shower doesn’t work. And I’m covered in blood.” 

But when you look at Loki, his eyes twinkle, mischievous. 

“Will you stay with me?,” You ask him, biting your lip. 

“You astound me,” He tells you, and rolls his eyes, and it feels - it feels normal. Good. A tender heat unfurls in your heart like orchid petals in the sun, numbing the persistent ache in your ribcage. “To even think that I would do anything else.” 

Later, you will ask him why. Why do you love me?, you will ask, and Loki will hum, low in his throat, curled around you just like this first night; your back pressed into his chest, your legs tangled up hopelessly, his fingers tracing nonsense patterns onto your spine in the dawn-light’s syrupy gold. Because, he will tell you, trailing a line of soft kisses up the scar on your arm - an ugly thing, but it functions, mostly, and only ever seems to hurt on the days when he isn’t there - I was given no choice. 

But if you’d had one?”, You will ask, and spin around, propping yourself on your elbow. 

You tempt me, He’ll tell you, baring his sharp teeth. Shouldn’t you know better than that? 

You will lie there, next to each other, not needing a single word. Because you will know. Because he will have told you, a thousand times, a thousand ways, exactly how he feels about you. 

Tonight, though, isn’t that night. It takes a moment to get settled in his hold, and the rain spits and drums against what glass remains in your window, slicking the carpet with dark, greasy splotches. It figures, you think, that even the rain in this city has the smell and the texture of oil. You feel like a bag of bones, stretched too thin. But safe, in his arms, in a way that you’ve never felt, before now. Loki is with you, you realize. Wrapped around you like a traveler’s cloak, the comforting weight of a slim, balanced blade at your side in a fight. He is cool, around your afraid. Warm, where his clever fingers whine and needle their way through your skin to your heart. 

“I hate you,” You tell him, “You know that?” 

Loki laughs, a deep, rumbling purr. 

“Go to sleep.”

[river-bottom-nightmare]

Nightwing 83 Review

guess who isn't weeks late this time. my opinion of the series is going up a little bit. it's still not great, but i'm not actively put off by it anymore the way i was after 81. not going to tag as spoilers, but be warned that they are under the cut

i’m sure you all are well aware of this but now, but dear god i love bruno redondo’s art. like, an unhealthy amount. the pink and blue is getting to be a theme with either him or just this run, but i am definitely enjoying it. the movement in this cover is clearly obvious, but well done. you recoznize right off the bat that the cover was drawn to drag your eyes down the page until you get to the bottom, but you enjoy the whole ride there. 

also, redondo’s way of drawing a character in stages of action so we can see just how much they’re doing in a split second of movement is quickly becoming something i like to see drawn with dick, and any other character that has that sort of ease of movement and body sense, like cass or sin or maybe a super. 

and he’s in action the entire time! there’s shot drawn just to show off a shirtless comic book character, the way nightwing is so often subjected to. he’s shirtless because he’s changing his clothes, and that’s all we see, no more and no less. very practical, very well done. i like it.

he looks so cute right here oh my god. the little squint, the hair curls. it’s adorable.

but also like. unless melinda has specifically outfitted the door spyhole so that the person on the other side can’t see dick looking through it (and in all honesty she might have) then everyone on the other side can see dick looking through that door. 

bringing your attention back to the “i can’t see melinda’s fbi file oh no!! it’s redacted!! whatever can we do!!” stupidity. redacted files are child’s play for oracle, and definitely doable for both dick and bruce. so that’s bullshit.

now, melinda apparently grew up with the maroni family, then took down part of the family from the inside. the maroni family is a large and notable presence in gotham, one that bruce pays a respectable amount of attention to. he definitely would have grown suspicious when two members of the maroni family were taken down, and with some investigation, he would have discovered melinda’s plan. and it should go without saying that the majority of things you see batman doing? dick can do it too.

it’s not so much that i don’t like how clever the villains/antiheroes are getting. i don’t like how dc heroes are increasingly written as less intelligent. they seem to be relying on pure fighting skills or luck, which may be the case for a couple heroes, but has never been the case for most of dc’s big name heroes, the bat family included. it’s irritating to me to see this sort of stuff pop up as a major plot point when i know that, if dick or bruce had been written with the amount of skill and power that they canonically possess, this entire mess would have been sorted out years ago.

unrelated but dick and melinda have the same hair

this may just be me, but i was always under the impression that dick doesn’t really have a “double life???”

yes, he’s talented enough to create enough differences between robin/nightwing and dick grayson’s mannerisms, way of movement, voices, and speech patterns so that it’s very difficult to put the two together.

but nightwing has never been separate from dick grayson, not the way bruce and batman is. he’s always leaned more towards clark in that aspect: his hero persona is an exaggerated, stately, larger-than-life version of who he really is. there’s no second persona, no real “dick grayson identity” and “nightwing identity.” they’re the same person with the same goals, ideas, and skills. one just pretends to abide by the law, and one gives up pretense of that.

oh good thank god. if he’d trusted her right off the bat (hehe. bat.) i would have slapped him upside the head. at least he’s still got instincts.

gosh the colouring on this is cool. the red has enough purple and pink tones to it that it doesn’t abruptly ruin the tone of the artwork. but it’s definitely glaring enough to take the reader outside of this personal moment they had slipped into between dick and melinda, to put them back in the present where they’re reminded that oh yea there are people hunting dick down. 

the next panel keeps this up too, in a less severe way. melinda’s bodyguard shows up (i forgot her name sorry :[ ) and subtly places us in the middle of an action scene rather than a private, personal scene.

laughing so fucking hard have our little vigilantes grown so accustomed to breaking into places that it doesn’t even register as a crime anymore??? tim coming in through the fire escape to pick bernard up for their date and being very much confused as to why bernard is freaking out.

i really like melinda’s shirt and now despite all the work i have to do and the fucking conference i have to host on monday i want to spend hours scrolling through clothing shops online trying to find this shirt. the mock neck/neckline is so cool i want it

so roland just assumes that a very dangerous vigilante who is highly talented in combat and a very dangerous bodyguard who is also highly talented in combat had a fight that ended with this very dangerous bodyguard being tied up and she looks completely fine? roland just assumes that her having no visible wounds or bruises means that they got into a fight and she lost that easily? uh. aight then

dick what are you doing. legitimately what the fuck are you doing. why are you posing oh my god. you are injured and tired and in absolutely no position to go hand to hand with one of main enemies. jesus christ run away or head to lower ground or something. don’t just stand around letting the floodlights show exactly where you are.

i don’t understand what he’s trying to do here??? blockbuster fully bought the story that dick fought them both, won, tried to get info out of them and failed, then hightailed it out of there. he didn’t have to draw roland out for a fight.

but it does look cool. the way the light just highlights his silhouette and the blue parts of his costume does look badass. he does get style points in my book for this.

w h a t  d i d  i  f u c k i n g  t e l l  y o u ,  d i c k ?

very classic superhero line and it does sound like something dick would say in a fit of righteous rage but also it makes me laugh so hard because all vigilantes think they’re so powerful that the law doesn’t apply to them. dick vigilantism is illegal. you’re acting above the law and pretending it doesn’t apply to you. hypocritical much?

it happens so often in superhero movies, tv shows, comics, whatever and it makes me giggle every damn time.

pretty decent comeback but before i start seeing people writing blockbuster as a thug i’m going to remind you that he made a deal with a demon for genius level intellect. if this turns into another bane situation i’m going to be a little miffed. he’s a smart man, which makes him a dangerous and infinitely more interesting enemy for nightwing.

this is so horribly in character i want to scream. (or. at least. it lines up with one of the versions of nightwing i have in my head.) he’s running right towards the bullets, miraculously doesn’t get shot, while making a sort-of pun. i hate this so much. i love him.

this is cool. this art is really really cool.

he leaped from a building right towards a helicopter that’s actively shooting at him, but none of the bullets are touching him. none of the corruption of the city can touch him no matter how hard it tries, because he’s too good to be corrupted. Comic Book Logic Can Be Good Sometimes Actually.

batman’s belt what??? swiss army knife who?? sorry, i only know nightwing’s bright blue escrima.

this is one of my favourite things about heroes with exceptional abilities, even more so if the hero is human. the things they can do are so far beyond the realm of normal human abilities that it’s equal parts terrifying and awe-inspiring every time they act.

he just used modified grappling wires to hook to the door of a moving helicopter, swung around the helicopter safely without hitting the blades, gained exactly the right momentum to swing upward again right through the opening of helicopter, then fought and tied up the men before they had any idea what was happening. that’s near impossible to do.

it’s stuff like this where i just sort of sigh in contentment. no matter how many times they leave out dick’s detective skills or conveniently forget that he’s actually a master planner and team leader and make him out to be this forgetful dude who makes everything up on the fly because of his “circus roots,” at least they won’t ever take away dick’s sheer physical ability honed to perfection. 

the art, too! in a few panels, dick’s drawn a little lightened or blurred. he’s moving so quickly and fighting so efficiently that he can barely be seen by the enemy. he’s got perfect form all the way through.

and THIS!

there was a helicopter that had five men shooting at him with what looks like machine guns. most people would be dead. some would run away, and be nimble enough to survive without fatal hits. there are very few people, even in fucking comic books, who can look at that hopeless situation and turn it around so quickly and thoroughly that he benefits from it instead.

i just. love nightwing.

it was funny the first time as a comic reader aware of the meme. it’s really not anymore. why the hell would you, in universe, be wearing a shirt that has a picture of your boyfriend being hit in the face by his father. 

okay that was funny. 

look at lil bitewing, so concerned for her human!!! love her sm. 

also a question as to the timeline of things. is nightwing happening before or after urban legends? 

i was so distracted by dick wearing a robe and briefs and nothing else that i didn’t register the second part until later. he slept for two days?? babs, baby, he recently had a very traumatic brain injury. why do you sound so nonchalant?

@TIM X COFFEE SHIPPERS GET FUCCCCKKKKEEDDDDD

ngl i totally forgot about that dude oops

this comic is giving so many reaction pictures. you know how you always use the worst possible picture of your friend for your friend’s contact picture? i’m just getting so many of these.

leslie!!! the titans!!! lucius!!! dick going to go see old friends!!!! the titans!!! this part made me so irrationally happy it really did. gar being the one to just. offer dick solutions with open arms. this was the best

i wish i could just copy and paste this entire scene, but that would take up way too much space, so i’m just going to talk about it instead. 

you gave me my name, nightwing, and you gave me some of the best advice i’ve received in my life: beautiful little throwback to nightwing’s origin. you’d be surprised at the amount of people who don’t know where the name came from, or who don’t know how much clark means to dick. and the fact that dick still looks up to clark as a hero, recognizes that clark isn’t always perfect and yet continues to hold him in such high esteem, and still looks back on advice that clark gave him fondly just warmed my heart so much.

for a man who has fearlessly stood up to darkseid, bruce will do a lot to avoid a conversation: “grrr. i’m the BATMAN. i’m so DARK and MYSTERIOUS. nobody knows the true me. no one ever will. i will be LONELY for the rest of my CURSED LIFE. such is the price of a hero. ignore my farmer himbo husband in the background”

but i don’t think there’s anything heroic about being a billionaire: another nod to how much dick follows clark’s example rather than bruce. yes, this was a very poignant and important criticism, and i think it’s wonderful that this was published in a pretty popular comic book. but the thing is, there is a way to be a heroic billionaire, but only in fictional universes. the way bruce, ollie, t’challa only ever use their wealth to help people. they donate massive amounts of money to charities that they themselves create so they know exactly how the money is being used. they hire people who aren’t likely to get jobs anywhere else and pay them much more than what a base living wage is. they use their power to help push progressive laws and social change. they are helping. 

dick doesn’t fully see it that way. he spent more than half his childhood the son of a billionaire, but still believes that one could be more heroic when one doesn’t have obscene amounts of wealth. whose example do you think he followed to come to that conclusion?

superman looked up to alfred pennyworth?: i mean yea alfred may have been a wildly irresponsible guardian and one hell of an enabler but goddamn if he didn’t love his kid.

you don’t need my input. you’ve thought it all through: ooooooh this line made me grin. for so long, dick’s treated clark as a mentor and a guiding figure. he’s still seen as a kid, an up and coming, snot-nosed titan with dreams of a better world. clark still thinks of him as a kid, despite watching him grow up. but this little line was something i think dick needed sorely to hear. he doesn’t need anyone’s guiding hand on his shoulder, he doesn’t need to ask for permission. he doesn’t need clark to support him the way he did when he was a teenager. he’s all grown up now, and he doesn’t need clark’s help. i imagine it was a bit of a surprise for dick to hear that. 

honestly, i couldn’t think of a better role model: ohhh but it doesn’t stop there. clark just straight up turns the tables on dick. imagine you’re dick, and you’ve looked up to this one hero your entire life, and then one day he turns to you and says that he thinks you’re so kind and smart and worthy of a person that he wants you to mentor his son!? goes to show just how much clark trusts dick.

i swear to god dick probably cries every time he hears clark compliment him because bruce is so rare and sparing with his praise that clark giving him the slightest hint of approval is just a dopamine rush.

also, now deathstroke and superman have both asked nightwing to mentor their kids. the juxtaposition is fuckin hysterical. imagine either of their reactions when they realize what kind of company they’re with

lets talk colours for a second, because i absolutely adore how classic colour tropes have been subverted in this comic, and in this general run really.

warm tones have usually (usually, not always) been associated with light and comfort and friendship and,,,,,well,,,warmth. whereas cool tones are usually used to unsettle, or make a scene seem colder and put the reader on edge. this varies if a comic only uses cool tones, or only uses warm tones, but if a comic uses both, this is generally well-used.

that isn’t the case in this run.

dark red, orange, and other warm tones have been used to symbolize danger, action, attacks. hot pink isn’t usually included in this colour group, but it’s definitely part of it in this case. in contrast, scenes that have cool colours give us the impression of slipping into a comfortable, calm scene with babs, tim, the titans, and other allies. even the beginning scene with superman has this blue, but then it transitions into something more golden coloured. dawn broke over dick, as his new idea came to light, and that was reflected in the art (and the sunrise setting.)

have there ever been times when dick’s longed for the comfort of his mask because he didn’t feel confident as dick grayson? i can’t think of any. i may be wrong, but this struck me as pretty ooc.

am i just??? gay and reading this all wrong??

cause i was under the impression that when someone says they are grateful for your friendship you don’t immediately kiss them. 

or is this like. normal straight mating rituals.

i mean he’s smiling afterward but still babs aren’t you supposed to at least make sure it’s okay first? you guys broke up a while back after you said something along the lines of “i want to be coworkers with you and nothing more because i don’t trust you or feel comfortable around you as a civilian anymore.” like lmao after you say something like that to someone i would assume that you don’t have the permission to just kiss them whenever you want.

show of hands who else got real sad when they realized dick was talking about himself in this.

sure, he could be referencing the things he’s seen blockbuster pull, and the children on the streets. but “i’ve seen money used for enforcement,” sounds a little too close to dick’s entire life being destroyed by one man threatening the circus to pay protection money for me to completely ignore. and “i’ve seen the poorest and most vulnerable blamed and punished rather than assisted” becomes a lot worse when you remember dick was thrown in juvie for a couple months until bruce was able to obtain legal guardianship, and in there, not a authority figure believed him when he told them his parents were murdered.

he’s lived this before.

a. mother. fucking. typo.

fucking why

i mean i’ve stated my distaste for the batfamily groupchat before but like. this is reaching new levels of ridiculousness. jason sounds like he was written by a fanfic writer. tim sounds like he was written by a fanfic writer. steph sounds like she was written by someone who doesn’t know the first thing about steph and wanted to include her for “family points!!!!!” damian’s supposed to be completely off the grid, and everyone’s searching for him. i do love the way cass texts tho.

well god fuck now i’m crying

dick got a phone call, a sorry, and a thank you out of bruce. i feel so much secondhand happiness for him, if that’s a thing. we’ll just ignore the way bruce looks ugly af and focus on the good parts okay?

and again with the colour symbolism here!

i’m either going to love this or hate this. who knows, we’ll see.

something something hearts something something pink is an evil colour something something. i need to know more about this guy but there’s definitely symbolism there. 

is it just me or does this dude look like the backstabbing traitorous absolutely motherfucking piece of shit villain that killed tadashi hamada in big hero 6?

~~

taggggg list: @woahjaybird @birdy-bat-writes @anothertimdrakestan  @subtleappreciation @screennamealreadyused @bikoncon @pricetagofficial @catxsnow @maplumebleue-blog-blog @sundownridge @thatsthewhump @xatanna-troy @red-hood-redemption​ @capricorn-stark​ @batshit-birds​ @comics-observer @buticaaba​ 

[commanderwaybright]

My unimportant thoughts on Amphibia Season 3 Epsiode 8

JUST when the WOUNDS left by the LAST EPSIODE were BEGINNING TO SCAR they pulled THAT SHIT ON ME. BUT I ALSO LOVE THE INTRO ADDITIONS AND THE FACT THAT THIS BITCH WOKE UP INTO ITS NEW BODY AND SAID "WHERE THE FUCK IS MY CAPE?" BUT ALSO OUCHIE MY HEART.

Great to see purple-haired guy and also Anne just deciding "not today." Is absolutely hilarious. HUMAN POP HUMAN POP. "You look just like someone I know." Anne, he is a frog a also red. Like I can see the confusion but. That's a human. Anne. ANNE. Also pollywood!!! Omg now we just need Anne yelling "POLLY" next episode to complete the holy trinity. Has this already happened? I'm sure she's yelled Polly, but like, this type of yelling?? HOLY- QUICK SOMEONE MAKE THAT SHIRT AND TAKE MY MONEY.

[I usually don't split up my episode because I am a scatterbrain BUT I can't focus after the intro stabbed me in a specific way like through my back so here] BAHAHHA ANNE PUT CICADAS IN THEM. SHE TRUELY IS FROG. LONG LIVE FRANNE. Also. Who's gonna make it? Is it gonna have to be me? Putting Anne into the "This is fine." Meme? "It's no big deal."? Sprig wiggles his little froggy finggies omg JWUSKWNSH HE SAID IT. HE SAID THE LINE. THIS JUST IN 1/1 SPRIGS AGREES IT'S NO BIG DEAL. OMG GUYS OMG IT'S SASHA AND *sobs* MARCY. SASHA WAIT DONT GO PLEASE GET AN EPISODE IM BEGGING YOU CUT YOUR HAIR GET CALAMITY POWERS AND CATCH ON FIRE. THE F. THE FLI. THE FLIPMAN?!?!??! YOU??!!??! AAAAAAAA. IS THAT THE FUCKING OWL HOUSE I SEE?!?! BITCH??!! LUZ IS GETTING HOME THROUGH A FUCKING CROSSOVER. Ah, ahem, I believe now is the time for "oh fuck." THEYRE GOOBERS.

Well overall I really liked this episode! Ofc I'm more excited for the next one, but also not, because I'm not sure if I will be okay over a hiatus. I might actually die. I need amphibia. BUT I can't wait!! We get some major plot!! 22 mins! The big bitch fuck king! THE NIGHT. Darcy? Dark-Marcy? Night-Marcy? Which is it? Anyways tysm and cheers to more great episodes! And CHEERS TO SEEING SASHA AGAIN I MISS YOU SO MUCH MY ANGEL WHO HAS NEVER COMMITTED A SINGLE WRONG-DOING.

[finalfantasyx]

found your et*rnals post through tags and honestly, i AGREE WHOLEHEARTEDLY.. there are so many things to unpack but the only thing that got “resolved” imo is just them ‘defeating’ that celestial (tiamut, was it?).. the rest are still in ?? shambles ????? .. lots of things that seem important and part of the build up of the story in the trailers are deleted/not shown in the movie.. it’s so disappointing :( and dont get me started on ikaris and ikaris x sersi potential.. it’s all just show but no telling ugh. the potentials, as you say, indeed are wasted

You know what, anon.

I COMPLETELY agree. I feel like the movie wanted to be so many things, it couldn't decide what it actually was. Like...is it supposed to be found family/team as family? Redemptive, after the truth is revealed to our heroes? Character growth, after the thousands of years our heroes have been on this earth? An actual superhero movie with pretty superhero powers we shouldn't look too closely at?

It was all of it and none of it at the same time. The main plot was there, but it felt like it fell so flat. And the subplots for each character just...they ALL had so much potential and there was some sort of start/buildup, but ultimately went nowhere. Except for Sprite's whole thing about being in love with Ikaris. That was just plain stupid.

And I personally love morally gray characters and satisfying arcs, whether they're redemptive or the character owns up to what they've done. That's partially why I loved Zuko so much, why I loved Riku from Kingdom Hearts so much, because they had a journey of growth, and whether or not the ending is good or bad, it's still a satisfying journey. For our favorite bird who flew too close to the sun...Ikaris had none of that. They completely shortchanged him into this dogma-brainwashed being whose only line he wouldn't cross was Sersi, and that wasn't enough. We know he struggled for a long time, but WHERE is the evidence of that struggle, if he had known the truth since Babylon? We see him and Sersi getting married and settling down for thousands, hundreds of years, only for him to leave a century or so prior to the start of the present day, but

WHERE IS HIS STRUGGLE???

His leaving Sersi and their reunion could have been like the most epic thing, but no, it fell flat because he just...left. Like any good husband would, you know 😑

And the ending where he yeets himself into the sun, I just. OF COURSE YOU TURN HIM INTO A MEME, THINGS HE LITERALLY DID, HIM WHOSE NAME IS IKARIS/ICARUS: THAT.

NOTHING about that was satisfying. We know he felt so much remorse and guilt and failure and ultimately, he couldn't live with all of it, knowing he failed and let his family down and he killed Ajaks and was partially responsible for Gilgamesh's death. But...like...wouldn't it be more satisfying if THIS was the part where he actually leaves Sersi and the team to atone for like x hundred/thousand years? Or something along those lines? We know he and Sersi never really fell OUT of love, so wouldn't this be heart-wrenching, but ultimately satisfying and bittersweet and hopeful, that whenever he returned, he would have found a way to live with himself and all he's done, and the team had to rebalance their equilibrium?

Oh, and the plot holes of this movie. The biggest one: Tiamut. Yes, they defeated a celestial. Yes, they saved earth. Now what? What about the billions of lives that should have been created with Tiamut? Which, I assume, will be addressed in a later movie since that was hinted at the end of this one, but also what about the whole Tiamut-unibrain thing? If the Eternals survived each emergence by bonding with the celestial, then that essentially means that when they all bonded at the end...Tiamut helped defeat itself.

I mean, WHAT????? WHAT SORT OF LOGIC IS THIS. Like it doesn't even make sense in the movie's internal logic??? I'm so confused???

Anyway, that was a very long-winded rant, so I'm just going to say, THANK YOU, ANON for reaching out to me and letting me know I am not alone in this frustration and letting me have the chance to go off about this movie. I'm just going to go stare at pictures of Gemma Chan and Richard Madden and watch Kingo and Druig/Makkari clips to make myself feel better ❤️

[rachelbethhines]

Tangled Salt Marathon - No Time Like the Past

While I wouldn’t call this the worst episode of the series, there are several others I dislike more, I would call this the most ill conceived story in the show. 

All the other bad episodes have potential but are let down by poor presentation, boring predictability, or sloppy planning. This one however, is fundamentally flawed in it’s very basic premise and so ranks in the bottom of most fans lists. Even people who are far more forgiving of season three and than I am, and are hardcore New Dream stans, still dislike this episode. That’s how bad it is. 

Summary: Rapunzel discovers Old Lady Crowley tossing out Cassandra's things. She is upset and demands that they be left alone. She then has Lance and Eugene help her save all of Cassandra's mementos and personal belongings, but she becomes saddened when Eugene reminds her that Cassandra turned her back on "her". Rapunzel takes a box of her things along with, unknowingly, a mysterious hourglass. As she examines it, she accidentally drops and smashes it and she and Pascal find themselves sent back into the past. They run into a teenage Eugene and Lance who keep calling Rapunzel "Sideburns". Rapunzel realizes that she and Pascal have inhabited the bodies of the Stabbington Brothers and decide to recruit the young thieves in getting the hourglass from the castle back.

Fun Fact! That Dummy is Rapunzel’s Doing 

Minor nitpick here, but Cass had nothing to do with putting Eugene’s face on her sparring dummy. Rapunzel voluntarily did that back in Under Raps. Cas never requested it nor even expressed any joy over receiving said ‘gift’. 

Basically the show is attributing one of Rapunzel’s mistakes/flaws to Cassandra in order to introduce a very nonsensical plot point later. So I need ya’ll to keep that in mind as we go along.  

Lets Talk About the Episode’s Ordering 

We don't have production codes for season three like we did for the previous two seasons. So we can’t know for sure what order everything was originally planned in, but I would argue that this episode should have came before Return of the King. 

For starters this is a “bottle” episode; it takes place mostly in the past and the only present day characters who show up are Eugene, Raps, Lance, and Crowely. As such you could potentially slot this episode in anywhere before Cassandra’s Revenge. You can’t really do that with most of the other episodes so it could have been easily moved around when airing. 

Therefore, I would argue that it should have been the first episode after Rapunzel’s Return for three key reasons. 

It would have given Edmund time to travel to Corona and give Raps time to start up big building projects like fixing Old Corona. In fact she’s already approving building plans for the capitol city at the start of the episode. Which could even explain why she took so long getting to the castle repairs if she was taking care of the stuff that the Saporians messed up else where.  

Rapunzel’s stance over wanting to keep Cassandra’s things makes more sense early on, both in universe and in a meta context. Raps would still have hope if Cass has only been gone for a month or two instead what would now be four or five months down the line. It also makes sense that Crowely wouldn’t wait around for that long. And from a meta standpoint, the audience would still be oblivious to what the heck Cass was up to and could theoretically side with Raps better; or at least empathize with her view point more, even while disagreeing with her. 

Events in this episode better explains Eugene’s decisions in Return of the King and gives the audience more context for certain stuff.  

So Why Is There a Random Magical Time Traveling Hourglass in the Storage Vault?

Slowly but surely the series has abandoned all pretense that there’s any logical world building in the show. Magical things just appear randomly now without any explanation whatsoever. Worse than that, things like the hourglass and map to the cursed tomb are treated as if they were always there, unlike the magical beings that they happened to run into in past seasons. 

The problem with this is a lack of consistency. You can’t have sceptics like Eugene and Varian if magic is so common and wide spread that anyone can run into it at anytime. Not to mention it diminishes the specialness and importance of the sundrop and moonstone if powerful magical items can be so easily found and stirred, undermining important plot points and the tension surrounding them. 

But most frustrating of all, is that this could have been easily fixed by just stating on screen at some point that magic attracts other magic. Meaning it’s only Rapunzel herself who routinely runs into these things and not just everybody and anybody. 

None of This Stuff Holds Any Meaning

Show don’t tell!

At several points through out season three, both Raps and Cass morn over Cassandra’s left behind things. They tell us constantly that these objects hold significant meaning to them, but I, the viewer, have no damn clue as to why. 

We were never shown on screen what was so special about these things other than the fact that it was junk Cass collected. There’s no story attacked to these assortment of objects nor any previous indication that Cassandra valued them beyond their usefulness. As such, any scenes involving her stuff fall emotionally flat. 

Eugene is the One in the Right Here. 

Eugene’s right. 

Any well adjust and mature adult will tell you he’s right. 

If someone doesn’t want a relationship with you, than that’s it. There is nothing you can do but to move on. It sucks, but its life. To ignore that is to ignore someone else’s boundaries and personal autonomy; while also devaluing yourself and you’re own needs. 

In a competent show this would be a set up for Rapunzel to learn something about letting go and taking care of oneself emotionally. 

But this isn’t a competent show. 

But Lobster is for Poor Folk

Food history time!

Lobster, and shellfish in general, have been considered low class food for centuries. Especially around costal areas like Corona. It’s easy to attain, cheap, and not regulated like hunting was in much of Europe. In America, specifically, lobster was fed to prisoners and there’s historical accounts of riots being started over it.  

Heck, less than forty years ago, no one lived on the coast but poor people. That’s why there’s historical communities of black people living on the southeastern islands in the US and why my father grew up in the swamps of Alabama during the 50s and 60s. 

The gentrification of coastal property and seafood, like lobster, is a very recent phenomenon in human history, starting in the late 70s early 80s with the booming tourism industry and increasing globalization.   

So while I understand that the joke here is meant to be reflective of our current understanding of lobster being a status symbol, in universe, it’s the equivalent of Eugene getting excited for chicken nuggets instead of his usual bowl of cereal because the story takes place before the 20th century.  

This means that these kids are so poor that fucking mcdonald’s fast food would be considered a rare treat compared to the slop they usually eat. Yet again what is meant to be a lighthearted joke turns suddenly dark when you stop to think about it for all of two seconds all because the writers are so flippant about their world and characters. 

This Wasn’t Planned Out, So the Timeline Doesn’t Add Up Anymore and Resources are Wasted

Remember the flashback in The Return of Strongbow?

Now I need you to remember that season three is two years later from season one and the movie. Eight years ago then, would be ten years ago now. 

The Eugene and Lance in the bottom picture is suppose to be roughly the same age as the Eugene and Lance in the top picture; give or take a few months. 

I know teenage boys can grow fast, but not that fast. 

Eugene at 16 looks the same as he does at 26. All because the writers were too lazy to preplan things out ahead of time. 

We should have seen the teen models with recasted voices back during that first flashback if they were going to tell this story later. Or the previous plot point should have been less than eight years ago. 

In fact the first flashback no longer makes any sense being so many years ago given Eugene’s engagement and recent breakup with Stalyan, and the later reveal that he was working for the Baron during the original movie. 

Sloppy planning like this not only makes for a confusing timeline but it also wastes limited resources. I like the new models, I like the actors cast for these younger roles, and I do like the concept of seeing more of Eugene’s past. But going through all of that trouble and money for what amounts to one throw away episode is mismanagement of the budget and work schedule.  

Baby Varian Is the Episode’s Only Saving Grace 

I know people are divided on the deign here. Some love it and some hate it, but that’s a personal taste thing. The actual scene itself is golden either way, because it’s such a funny eater egg. Fans on both sides made memes out of this for days. It’s legendary. 

Personally I’m more in the ‘love it’ camp, though I can see the issues people have with the design. My main defense of it is more the fact that we got kid designs for the other OCs in the show and it’s only fair Varian got one as well. The fact that he’s in smaller versions of the S1 clothes doesn’t bother me anymore than when Lance ran around for two seasons in the same outfit, including when he was a kid. 

So if I like it, then why am I talking about it a salt review? 

Cause the most memorable part of an episode shouldn’t be a throw away gag! 

People bring up baby Varian way more than they do about anything else in the episode, and no it’s not just because the character popular. It’s because most would like to forget what comes after this scene. 

Where is Quirin, by the Way?

Why is your six year old son running around the big city unsupervised?

This wouldn’t get talk about as much it wasn’t for the fact that Quirin being neglectful in season one was a motivating factor in his conflict with Varian. A conflict that was suppose to be resolved back in Rapunzel’s Return but we the audience have yet to visually see any difference in behavior since then.  

Quirin’s absence here in the past highlights his absence in the present day and reminds the audience aware that we’ve not been given a satisfying conclusion to one of the most important arcs in the series.  

Lets Talk About Wasted Potential 

Like I said, I like the idea of exploring Eugene’s past. But we should have gotten that back in season two when it was more relevant. Part of why this episode fails is because Eugene has reached the end of his original character development. He’s now on an identity crisis arc which has nothing to do with this episode.  

But you know who still hasn’t finished developing? Rapunzel. 

Rapunzel has lots to still learn and viewing her past through outside eyes could have turned this story into something really special. Especially with the ‘inhabiting another body’ plot point. 

You have no end of options here, 

Have Raps inhabit Cassandra’s body for a day and gain insight into what motivates her. It could have been either before or after they met, both offers up possibilities. 

Have Raps inhabit Eugene’s body and experience what he had to deal with growing up and come to see his point of view. (This could have also worked with the Sabbingtons set up had the writers not been stupid.) 

And my personal favorite, send her back to right after Queen for a Day and have her stuck in either Varian’s or Ruddiger’s bodies. Force her to see what she did to him and have her acknowledge she was wrong. 

And those are just the most obvious choices, there’s other more out of left field things you can do that would still work with good writing. Like exploring Lady Caine’s past, inhabiting Arianna’s body and learning how to be a real queen, get dumped into actual young Gothel and lay out clues to the future Zhan Tiri plot, or possess one of the Brotherhood and experience the final days of the Dark Kingdom; the list just goes on and on and on. 

But I Thought You Didn’t Put Kids in Jail Frederic?

Remember that Raps and Pascal are possessing the Stabbingtons who are still teenagers here. They can’t be much older than Varian. 

This means that Varian isn’t some special case. Teens have received harsh and deadly punishments in the past for non-violent crimes like theft. 

Also teens are called kids still by the majority of the cast. They’re aren’t considered adults with the same rights as someone in say their twenties, yet they can be punished the same as an adult would. Which is horrendous in any time period. 

So in conclusion, Frederic is a fucking liar! 

Tangled the Series can’t decide if it’s in the far past or a reflection of the modern day. As such it winds up supporting the worst of both worlds. Barbaric practices like hanging for minor crimes and prison slave labor are treated as the norm and never called out for the horrific things that they are; treated as a joke even, but we’re suppose to accept that this world also somehow views adolescence through the lens of late 20th century sensibilities even as it forces minors to go through such atrocities. 

Like what are you trying to say show? What is your message on the transition of adolescence to adulthood regarding rights and responsibilities? And don’t tell me ‘it’s not that deep’ because this is suppose to be a coming of age show! That’s the entire premise of the series! 

So How Old Are Stan and Pete Again?

I was always under the impression that Pete was a newbie guard, closer to Cass and Eugene’s age than say Cap or Frederic. That’s why he screws up so much because he’s inexperienced, why he seemed to be the closest thing to a equal colleague Cass had in the guard when she was also just starting out, and why I assumed those braided girls from the movie were his sisters. 

I mean there was nothing on screen previously that would necessarily contradict this reveal, it just doesn’t feel right, that’s all. I guess he could be like 20 here and be 30 in the show. That would make him only a few years older than Eugene, but still doesn’t explain why he’s so useless a decade later. 

I’m fine with Stan being here though. I always thought of him being the older of the two. In fact I headcannon Willow as his mysterious wife that he talked about back in Monty’s episode during season one. (She’s Stan and Pete’s beard, and they’re totally in a open poly relationship. That’s why they’re allowed to stay in the royal guard despite being so incompetent cause they’re technically Ferderic’s in-laws and Rapunzel’s uncles. Just no one ever talks about it cause it’s a minor sandal for a princess to marry lower class and Willow’s hardly ever there.) 

And Why Does Xavier Have All Those Plot McGuffins? 

I know we’ll never get an answer, but at this point Xavier’s exposition fairy powers border upon ridiculousness. It’s just lazy and a waste of character. 

So How Does Time Travel Work In This?

There are three types of time travel stories in fiction. 

First is the ‘Changeable Past, Changeable Future’. You see this in Back to the Future. What you do in the past will change the future, i.e. your present. You may or may not remember that you did it, but be warned you could change things too much and break stuff. Like erasing yourself from existence, or ruining your love life ect. The only way to fix it is to go back in time again and change stuff again. But beware of paradoxes or you may destroy the universe altogether.  

The second is the ‘Alternate Timeline’, where changing things creates new realties and it’s a matter of finding the right reality again. The tv show Sliders is a great example of this. Each new timeline is a different dimension. What you do in one won’t effect your original point of origin, only that particular world. The challenge if often getting home again because the probable diverging timelines are infinite and the changes of getting back are a zillion to one. 

Third is the ‘Closed Time Loop’. No matter what you do nothing will change. The future is inevitable and whatever you do in the past was always meant to happen anyways. Gargoyles handles this really well. You can also have ‘fix points’ where certain important things are set in stone but small things can be changed like in several Doctor Who episodes. Braking a fix point breaks the universe once again, while paradoxes are often the solution rather than the threat. 

So which type of time travel is Tangled dealing with here? 

Scenes like the conversation regarding Pete’s and Stan’s mustache or the ones involving Eugene working on his smolder suggest a closed time loop. Yet the ending to this episode reveals a changed future. Further still the grandfather paradox revolving around the hourglass would make you think an alternate timeline yet, we’ve no indication that anything else changed other then Eugene’s opinions on Cass, and Raps shows no concern about getting back to her original point in time indicating that it actually isn’t another dimension.... so what is it then? 

You don’t have to have a tightly plotted time travel story to have an entertaining piece of media. Endgame is riddled with plot holes and contradicts itself constantly, but what it lacks in coherent plot it makes for with fun characters, emotional story beats, and good pacing that manages to balance the action with the drama while hiding the cracks just enough that you don’t lose immersion. 

Tangled however fails at even this because it gets the character beats so fundamentally wrong.  Like you may dislike where the characters ended up in Endgame, but can’t say that those developments didn’t match the characters’ previous storylines and logical trajectory. Tony finally becomes the selfless hero by committing the ultimate sacrifice, Steve learns self care as a mirror to Tony’s arc as they were always parallels to each other, Bruce learns to accept himself, Thor processes his grief and lets go of the role he was assigned at birth but never truly fit into, and Nat becomes the leader she was destined to be rather than the sidekick.  

What happens to the characters in this episode however makes no sense. 

This is Another Missed Opportunity to Explore Eugene’s Past

The other problem behind the episode is that we don’t actually learn anything new. If you’re going to promise a story focusing on Eugene’s past then I expect to actually glean some new insights. 

We still don’t know why he’s working with Baron or how he fell in/fell out with him, what his relationship with Stalyan is like, how he became so cynical; not just the general basics, like the orphanage, but that point in his life where decided that survival meant giving up his morals and ethics; where did he first learn his better ethics that he originally suppressed (cause it sure as heck wasn’t Rapunzel), and when did he and Lance become separated? 

This are questions that series decides to raise by making allusions to them and building conflicts off of them but never wants to explain the details of where they originated from. It’s super frustrating and wholly unnecessary.  If you didn’t think the story of Eugene’s past worth telling then why did up repeatedly bring it up Chris? 

Why Are You Surprised by This Rapunzel?

Rapunzel you know Eugene’s past. You know what he used to be like. You were literally there in the movie and saw him being an ass before this. You didn’t start to like him until he dropped his guard down in the flooded cave back when you both where about to die. 

You fell in love with him when he showed you his real self and he fell in love with you when you proved that you were accepting of that. You earned each others’ trust. This here; angrily yelling at him and judging him, when you’re already hiding who you really are from him both literally and figuratively, is a breaking of that trust. 

Who the fuck are you any more, Rapunzel? 

Cause you’re not the same character from the movie. You’re not even the same character from season one. But whoever hell you are now, it’s not an improvement I can tell ya that. 

So How Did The Hourglass Go From the Treasury to the Basement Storage, and How Would Raps Know It Was There At This Point and Time?

I’m guessing the implication here is that Crowley put Cass’s stuff in the vault, but like why the fuck would she do that? We’re not talking about a family attic here, but the royal safe. The most heavily guarded room in the castle with the kingdom’s most priceless treasures and antiques. Nothing Cass owned was that valuable.  

Rapunzel Is Full of Shit

Oh let me count the numerous ways in which this whole lecture is stupid. 

Rapunzel left Varian behind. Rapunzel left Varian behind multiple times, including that time he was thrown in jail. She was not a good friend, and no, this is not a case of her learning from her past because not once has she ever admitted that she was wrong to do that. So this scene just makes Raps look like a hypocrite. 

Eugene does not need to relrean a lesson on being a better a person. He did that during the movie and has progressed beyond that point. This ‘lesson’ is a waste of time and a misuse of the characters.

This reframes Rapunzel as being in the right during her argument with older Eugene at the beginning of the episode, even though she’s not. In fact this is such a counterintuitive plot point that it boggles the mind. Who structures a narrative this way? Why so blatantly point out how the main character is wrong if not to have her learn something? Why frame the story to make the person who’s personal conflict isn’t even the episode’s focus, into the one who needs to learn something? Especially if that something is already a lesson that they’ve learned on screen beforehand.

And why, oh good heavens why, would you teach children such a toxic message? Like on the surface it sounds like something you’d hear in a children's show, but the context of it is justifying harmful behavior where you selfishly ignore other people’s wishes and boundaries just to satisfy you’re own personal desires.  

And finally, Eugene and Lance do not work as a parallel to Raps and Cass. Cassandra is an adult who left of own free will. Lance is a teenager who was arrested due to Rapunzel’s own actions. Eugene isn’t the one who is responsible here, its Rapunzel. Who also left them both behind in her carelessness. Secondly, Eugene’s decisions are spurned by years of trauma and a healthy fear of dying, while Rapunzel’s is wrapped up in her own need to always be right and to keep her immature and fanciful outlook of the world intact. As harsh as it seems, what Eugene did was based off a predetermine agreement and presumably Lance would have acted the same way or been pressured to act the same way by Eugene. In short, Eugene’s cynical world view as a teen is not the source of his disagreement with Rapunzel but an adult perspective back by common sense and a respect of others choices. It makes no sense for present day Eugene to ‘learn’ anything from this misadventure that he didn’t already know and for Rapunzel to not learn anything that would actually tie the parallel together. 

Locking Another Teen Inside a Jail Cell With Another Adult as a Joke, Does Not Erase the Inappropriateness of Varian’s Story

The episode tries to add another joke about Shorty sneaking into the prison without the guard knowing, but that still doesn’t excuse the fact someone had to have tossed Lance in there with him on purpose. Otherwise Lance wouldn’t have assumed Shorty was a fellow prisoner if he or the guard that locked him up saw Shorty sneak in before then. 

Furthermore Lance’s nonchalant response suggests this is not an out of the ordinary occurrence. Nor do any of the other guard comment upon the irregularly of teens being jailed with an adult. Now add in the fact that the show fails to clarify that previous ‘cellmate’ line from Rapunzel’s Return and now gives us more confirmation that Varian was underfed and malnourished for a year with that gruel joke and you have a horrifying picture. 

Shorty might be non-threating, but that doesn’t mean Andrew, a known attempted murderer and manipulator, is too. Nor any other adult who previously was housed with a teen before then. This is still very much not okay and no amount of ‘jokes’ will suddenly make it right.  

Raps, Who is an Adult, Just Physically Threatened Two Teenaged Boys and It’s Played as a Joke.... 

How many times do I have to say it? Humor does not fix bad writing. I’m not laughing when a heroine at age 20, threatens a couple of kids for merely annoying her. Especially when said heroine has a history of abusing children; because let me repeat once again, neglect is abuse!

This is a Lie

No you wont. 

Rapunzel never tells Eugene what happens on screen. I suspect that if she ever did, they would no longer be together, because what she wound up doing here was a violation of trust and boundaries in the worst possible way.  

And This is Now a Time Paradox 

A Grandfather Paradox to be specific. How can Rapunzel be here in the past to break the hourglass if the hourglass that sent her here is broken? 

In a competent series this would be the point of a future conflict and not the actual resolution. It’s not a closed time loop because of the paradox and the changes we’ll see in the future. 

So either she’s in an alternate timeline/dimension and just doesn’t gives a shit; leaving the real Eugene, Lance, Cass, ect. to go on without her; or she’s just broke the universe and everything is slowly unraveling around her; galaxies are dying as she whines about being dumped, people in the future are being eased from existence, and God is cursing her name for ruining his creation, all the while she carries on oblivious to the destruction in her wake, as usual. 

That’s it. Those are you’re only two options now. Is everyone from here on a fake copy or is Rapunzel the damned destroyer of worlds? You decide. 

So This Confirms That the Stabbingtons are Indeed “Family”

Another reason why I place this before Return of the King; it explains why Eugene considers the Stabbingtons ‘family’. Though if it was Rapunzel he actually bonded with and not the real Sideburns, then how much of his feelings are real and how much of them were fabricated by her? How much agency did this episode steal from him?

So What Exactly Did We All Change?

Well the dummy no longer has Eugene’s face, but Cass’s painting of the three of them still has him ripped out of the photo, soo... Keeping in mind that Raps painted the dummy anyways and considering that Moonandra tries to kill him later on; I’m going to guess that Cass’s feelings weren’t actually altered. If anything their relationship might actually be worse now, cause Cassandra keeps acting like she’s never had friends and Eugene has taken up Rapunzel’s blind devotion. 

All that development in season one is just, poof, gone. Also it’s quite possible that the first movie as well has now it has been erased from existence as Eugene got his needed character development eight years too early. How the hell that’s suppose to work, I don’t know. 

Outside of the that we get no confirmation how anybody else was effected, even though a more brainwashed Eugene running around would undoubtedly have caused a butterfly effect. Don’t expect that to be explored anytime soon. 

Though, it would explain why he’s suddenly such a doormat in season three, if this was the second episode as theorized. 

No! This is the Wrong Lesson!!!

Let me explain narrative promises. 

Everyone, on some basic fundamental level, understands how stories work. We hear them recounted to us over and over again from the day we're born to the day we die. It’s integral to how we communicate as human beings. Everyone knows innately how to tell a story even if that person couldn’t tell you how stories or structured or what certain literary terms mean, but they do it every day just through speaking. And while most audiences can’t always pin point what upsets them about a story they can for sure notice when things are off and not satisfying to experience. 

Now that doesn’t mean that everyone can write an awarding winning novel, that study of a craft isn’t important, nor that every amateurish critique thrown at any given media is valid. But it does mean that people have come to expect certain storytelling practices and can pick up on narrative cues. We’ve familiarized ourselves with the language of film, novels, comics, ect, into order to comprehend what’s going on. 

Rules of writing are just following that established language so that the audience can keep up. You can break these rules, sure, but unless you know what you’re doing and have a good narrative reason to do so, then you can easily lose you’re audience. And if you’re making money off said audience that’s something you want to avoid. 

A narrative promise is a cue; a set up that lets the audience know that ‘hey this is important, pay attention to this cause it’ll come back into play later’. Now that the audience has been alerted to the plot point they expect fulfillment of the promise. If you break that promise, either through poor set up, lack of follow through, or by breaking an established convention of writing for no other reason then because you just wanted to, your audience is going to walk away unsatisfied. 

The argument at the beginning of the episode was a narrative promise. It was a cue that set up the interpersonal conflict of the main character. For add context, I know that this is a coming of age story. Convention would dictate that the protagonist would resolve this conflict by learning they were wrong. 

That’s not what happened here. 

Convention was subverted. It wasn’t the protagonist who grew and change, it was the person they were in conflict with who did. And it wasn’t subverted because of any greater narrative reason, or future pay off, or even as effort to be shallowly ‘clever’; it was subverted because the author just didn’t want to hold the main character accountable for anything. Because said character has now become his avatar for his wish fulfillment fantasy and having the main character admit fault would be to admit fault in ones own self. Rapunzel doesn’t feel like Rapunzel this season because she’s just Chris in a wig. 

The episode broke a narrative promise to the audience; both within the episode and in the greater premise of the story, because of ego. 

I don’t claim this episode is bad just because of personal taste nor because I find it morally repulsive (even though both those things are true), I call it bad because it exhibits bad writing. Plain and simple. 

Way To Undermine The Entire Point of the Original Movie, Show

Speaking of breaking narrative promises.... 

TTS is suppose to be a squeal to the original movie. It’s even in the title of the show; both of them. In one fell swoop, the series has managed to sabotage it’s very reason for existing, as it erases Eugene’s motivation and the inciting incident that kick started the film. 

 Way to fucking go. 

To further twist the knife, it diminishes the duel protagonist of said film in order to prop up a series original character, who isn't even present in the episode itself. 

I don’t mind Cassandra’s existence. I don’t even mind her being the new deuteragonist and one of the main villains; even though she wouldn’t have been my first pick to fulfill those roles given her lack of set up. But I do fucking mind it if she upstages other characters and/or derails their character arcs in the process. 

This is the Death of New Dream 

I was still in denial when this episode first aired. I honestly believed that this and The Return of the King was build up to a third “betrayal” where Eugene finally became fed up with Rapunzel’s bullshit and joined forces with Zhan Tiri. I thought the end of the series would have Rapunzel apologize to everyone she did wrong, Varian, Cass, and Eugene, in order to break ZT’s hold on them, and that true love’s kiss would reunite the sundrop and the moonstone and that would just tie everything together into a neat little bow and give us a truly daring character study of a Disney hero. 

Oh dear merciful heavens, was I ever wrong.  

How did we go from season one’s challenging and mature storyline, complete with Disney’s first real anti-villian, to this?! 

What the hell happened!? 

Rapunzel not only disrespects Eugene’s opinions, violates his privacy and trust as she manipulates him as a teen, and then brainwashes him to think like her (even if accidentally), but doesn’t even have good grace to tell him. She instead has the audacity to look all happy and self congratulatory because she got want she wanted. She, and the show at large, doesn’t care what evil thing she does to get the desired outcome Rapunzel wants. 

Rapunzel in this show is a spoiled brat. And the image of her and her now lobotomized boyfriend staring dead eyed at a picture of the creator’s previous waifu OC with plastic smiles on their faces, sums up this series perfectly. 

Conclusion 

This isn’t even the worst episode of the series guys. I don’t know if it would even make it onto a bottom five list. That’s how much crap I have to wade through when it comes to this show. This is however the most damaging episode to the franchise as a whole. 

Not even the most hardcore of New Dream fans want to acknowledge the existence of that final scene, and Rapunzel stans won’t defend her beyond, ’well she didn’t mean too, it’s the writing that’s bad.’ Yeah, the writing is bad, that’s why the character can’t and shouldn’t be defended, not here and not in other badly written episodes where she also does bad things and never makes up for it. 

Anyways I’m finally caught up to where I left off, before the move, though sadly I don't think I’ll get this series done by the end of the month like I had originally hoped. But if you would like to help out I have a ko-fi you can drop a tip into if ya want. 

https://ko-fi.com/rachelbethhines

[dont-play-with-me-choices]

So I Played The Royal Finale Chapter 3...

What the fuck. What the fuck was that. What WAS that?!?

Well, let's start with the elephant in the room.

So, light-hearted first things first: the reveal of Liam's sister might accidentally be the funniest thing I've ever seen in this app. Why did they show us her face first like we were gonna know who the fuck she is. I was sitting there confused as shit like I might've forgotten someone. Idk why but that got me adjcb;kjda

But real talk, this was a extremely disappointing development, and I'd be lying if I said it was gonna negatively color my opinion for the foreseeable chapters. I was actually really excited to find out who was under the mask. An interesting new character is exactly was this seventh installment of a series needs to push to the finish line...

Keyword? Interesting, pixelberry!!! We've done the evil family member development 3 times at least. The most recent one was the whole plot of the last fucking book. Come ON now. And Liam's family... we've pushed and pulled every fucking Rys family member we could already. But ugh, whatever, bitching won't change that, here we are with... Lena.

I'm really hating how flippant the MC was this chapter, as well. For the first two chapters it felt like it was understood that we (the player AND the main cast) have been through too much bullshit to even pretend to have faith in any Via Imperii nonsense. But suddenly we get Liam's surprise sister in a murderous mercenary army, and MC tries the "let's be besties" route??? Are you kidding me??? We're teasing her???? I want answers! Where were the options to treat her like an enemy!

And speaking of enemies turned besties....

WHAT THE FUCK ARE WE DOING TO OLIVIA

Why, why, oh fucking why are we forced to box her out like this. This is almost insultingly stupid. How is this supposed to protect her? And from what! The Via Imperii already know who she is! I wanted to scream when I saw this, and if this comes back around to where we suspect Olivia for anything, only for it to be her working on the sidelines (bc we BOXED HER OUT) I'm gonna scream for real. I swear on a giant hat. My playchoices peeps on the east coast will hear it.

I do not like this Lena development. The fact that the former queen died with child was powerful. It made Liam's pain in the previous storylines a little more heartbreaking. So that's been royally fucked up, and for what? What good does it do that we've got yet another friend in the group grappling with "difficult family emotions" AGAIN? Fuck, everyone's getting a little bit of that in the finale! Hana and her mom (actually... did we just forget about that? Hana romancers, lemme know if there was any more talk for you guys, cuz I got bupkus), Drake and Bastien got beef, this now with Liam, Maxwell... well, he already got his, actually. But you get the point.

I do not see this becoming an interesting story anytime soon. I might be a bit bitter, but we've been playing the "keep your friends close and your enemies closer" game for fucking EVER. From what we've got so far, PB has set up a finale of cheap "gotcha" plot twists, "surprise" betrayals to spice things up but will only upend previous story lines, and dumbed down MC worse than ever before to make it all fit together.

Onwards to chapter 4, I suppose.

Bonus thoughts and memes:

I'm a Maxwell romancer, and I planned on restarting the series once TRF ended to romance Liam properly. And right now I find it hilarious that because of this mess, I am doomed to deal with "evil super surprise family member" no matter where I go. Hello Liam. Welcome to the club!

My "Straight Danger" senses are tingling between Drake and Lena. I can't help it. It's probably nothing! But PB loves enemies to lovers as much as they suck at writing them, and bringing in a badass female Liam "parallel" when people have been pointing out how close and important the guys are to each other since this story fucking started, in order to say that's just as good??? Look me in the eyes and say that's not a textbook PB move.

THAT BEING SAID. If they pull a fucking hail mary in the final book and finally let me hook up Drake, who's literally chomping at the bit to protect Liam this chapter, and our resident King Oblivious...

I am weak and spineless. I will forgive all sins. This will be the best book on the planet. yes i know they wont do that let me DREAM lol

I didn't realize that I had this screenshot from chapter 2 when Lena first shows up. The pic file is titled "umm.jpg" on my computer, which I think is pretty funny.

Goes to show how shocked I was to see such a striking get-up in the royal finale. Her faceless, nameless grunt dialogue kinda gave me endless summer vibes w/ Lundgren's men. Guess I was dealing with some high hopes....

Those old family traditions were to attempt a coup, and continued by honor, pride, and self-improvement! Put some respect on my besties name, Linda!

If you want my crazy thought? I think Lena's role should've been Liam's brother (Leo? Lysanderoth? I didn't even romance him in RoE 16 thousand years ago, so I don't even remember) Leo could've been tricked into joining the Via Imperii as a young impulsive prince. They don't fuck with him, but he got older and realized that he's given an in to Cordonia that could doom them all. That's why he fucks around in the Mediterranean by RoE- he's staying away for his family's safety. It's barely even be a retcon, since all he actually says in RoE is that he hated the pressure! Maybe that pressure was the royal murder cult! We could've had some spice here! But... we've got Lena. So let's see where this goes.

(final note: I think this is how i'll be formatting all my chapter notes for all future releases, so eventually I'll pin a master post to this blog as a directory. When I write up my thoughts about the first two chapters of this, I'll update this post with a link!)

[incarnateirony]

idk if you are on twitter, but there's a journalist named Natalie fisher that basically just said we should believe that episode 18 was mishas last? on one hand a lot of the analysis you provide makes sense, but also like,, she is a journalist so idk what to do with this information

...Listen, I’m going to tell you something.

Someone literally told that same journalist exactly what was going to happen in the 15.18 confession scene before it happened and she argued with them that it wasn’t going to happen.

I only know this because a friend explicitly asked me if they were allowed to tell her our exclusive leak which was different from the original script leak but had to do with a fluke interception of the episode in transit. Because other countries exist that dub the show. But of course you can't just swing that around, so it was proposed, and apparently, she sat there refusing it. Well, we tried.

Our own server was so damn well prepared the bot was coded to link a Whitney Houston song any time someone yelled WHITNEY, as was expected inevitable, because the general vibe was

An entire server of clowns had like 60 memes ready. But here she is, arguing. With someone who knew better. For 2 months. Condescendingly even. Like wow that's stupid it would never be that loud ignore it lolol.

In fact in her misguided confidence she basically gaslit both herself and the friend to the point the friend rolled back what they believed and started questioning if it was a translation issue since it didn't arrive in english and maybe cas reall WASN'T going to tell dean he had always loved him and tell him why he deserves it before the empty takes him.

Uhhh...

So like. 

Take it with a grain of salt.

Natalie is usually good, for the record. Among journalists, she’s okay. She’s even friends with Meredith. But that said Meredith clearly didn’t tell her that, and that had been planned from go. She’s been stonewalled, she’s not getting screeners, she’s not getting intel, she’s /just as blind as you are right now./

Also her own logic is self-contradicting. What she is functioning on is anxiety.

Just like everybody else. She’s not used to flying blind. She’s used to knowing exactly what’s going on. She’s not used to doing fandom CSI and frankly, she even has been known to uh, borrow meta, but most meta right now is “DeanCas?” and she doesn’t want to do that because “getting up people’s hopes” or whatever. So she doesn’t have her direct feed line, she doesn’t have her screeners, she doesn’t have her normal press access and she doesn’t even have content to lift.

Summarily: she has no idea how to function right now, and I actually mean that in the kindest way.

As for that conflicting logic? Read her thread and apply your brain.

She acknowledges that Misha said he was going to be filming 5 more days after episode 18.

She then says that covid might have changed it.

She then also says that the reason he can’t come back is actually because that would just about demand reciprocation from Dean which, she personally believes they can’t do (just like she didn’t believe a week and a half ago that they were going to do ... uh, 15.18.)

Okay, so riddle me this: if the logic is that Misha can’t come back cuz it’s too gay, what does covid have to do with that change, and why would that change from literally the day after they filmed 15.18?

Logic people. Use it. Stop letting anxiety drive your CPU. 

Like either they had a way to handle it or they didn't. You don't cut one of your leads for extras after a major plot decision. And she even breaks out the stupid HE WAS FILMING A DIFFERENT MOVIE THATS WHY HE WAS IN VAN line.

Protip: spn was the only thing back in production then. They were the first ones back and a testing ground for Vancouver protocol.

Protip: the Amazon movie he's filming is filmed in the US

Protip: he went through multiple beard and haircut waves between each of these events, changing for each role.

What this actually means is, in lieu of actual sources, she's lifting fandom created noises that simple checks shoot down (eg being in van before van filming opened to film a us movie that didn't start filming for weeks even after his covid quarantine period in the wrong goddamn fucking country). Fandom, so goddamn desperate to find some validation for noise, decides to ascribe extra meaning to words and ideas they themselves halfassedly created and got a confused fandom journo to repeat in lieu of other sources. This is like the Trump Fox loop.

Pls ppl i beg you to use your braincases.

Like us, sitting here staring into the abyss of a transcript of not just words but events, trying to shoot holes in the source for months, peering into the abyss of the chain link saying "Destiel is going canon" (though i disagree with the fandom use of the term still) and even we weren't ready for the merch line that Stands had planned for a year and a half and also not told anyone.

Is this a way to promise your specific destiel goalpost is hit, no. But it's a point that currently she knows no more than you do, she has been violently wrong on just this topic matter recently, and her points don't even MAKE SENSE.

As it is, even on set leakers have been wrong. The original march leak came attached to a statement of having read 19 and Cas not even being mentioned. How did that work out for you?

But sure. They decided a groundbreaking swing for Cas with marketing for Dare To Defy everyone called queerbait that he and Jensen were both put in and a full planned merch line but stopped their plans because of the gay covid.

Again, do i promise your personal destiel landmark, no. Am i confident that Misha will be in the finale? Absolutely. If you remember in regards to destiel, before the season started, I commented that with the change in WB leadership, having its first woman CEO, having more women, people of color, and lgbtq people in high-ranking positions that ever, they're repackaging plan to recover from the AT&T bounce, the complete crash out of CEOs in their child and sister companies, and more, Anything Could Happen. I believe I used the term, it is a roll of the dice. Somewhere in the depths of my blog from season 14 and 15 Hiatus is the phrase, with the right roll of the dice, we could do anything. That line, from the god corporate told them in s11 they couldn't kill so they would find another way, has still slapped the taste out of my mouth from the Trap.