#84 years later and THIS IS WHAT I HAVE TO SHOW FOR IT??? my god pls excuse the trash!!! and i still have the others in progress hsdgasdgsd

[cursivebloodlines]

011. in the dining room building a home: a gingerbread home! decorate the home and make it one fit for a little gingerbread man. - lydia!

🌙 * ― 𝐒𝐂𝐄𝐍𝐄 𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐌𝐏𝐓𝐒: 𝐂𝐇𝐑𝐈𝐒𝐓𝐌𝐀𝐒 𝐄𝐃𝐈𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍 ( a collection of various settings for drabbles or prompts, or both!) | @overnightheartbeats

011. in the dining room building a home: a gingerbread home! decorate the home and make it one fit for a little gingerbread man.

The first – and last – time Lydia attempted to build a gingerbread house, it had been a catastrophe. Everything that could go wrong did go wrong: the house itself crumbling, pieces not staying together, icing smudged the whole thing and the candy pieces of decoration fell off. Honestly? It had looked like the wolf from the Three Little Pigs story huffed and puffed and blew the silly, little gingerbread house down. It was all so completely unlike Lydia, someone notorious for her perfectionistic ways and meticulous precision. The hours she spent dedicated to it and nothing to show for it. A complete waste of time. And so, she vowed she would never ever waste her time trying to make one again. Never. Ever.

That was… until Aaron suggested trying to build one. Lydia’s face must have said it all, her nose scrunched up, eyebrows furrowed. “Why on earth would I want to waste time doing that when you can buy one that already looks nice enough from the store?” she questioned, a not-so-subtle ploy of trying to wriggle her way out of it. Aaron had gave her a look that said, really? She wondered what else was running through his mind. Maybe something along the lines of, since when does Lydia turn down a challenge? In that moment, she knew there was no way she was escaping it. Even a small smile threatened to worm its way on to her lips. Besides, what’s the worst that could happen? He’d said. She looked at him blankly, eyes going distant as she spoke, deadpanned, “The worst thing that can happen?” A dramatic pause. “I’ll show you.” With that, she cleared her throat, picked up her phone and scrolled through until she found the photo from a good few years ago. Without saying anything else, she passed her phone to Aaron, feeling quite triumphant with herself about being determined, not going through that ordeal ever again. Her gaze fixated on him as she watched his reaction, watched as his expression swiftly changed from being puzzled, to curious and morphed into amusement. Brows arched, Lydia mirrored his face, her hands on her hips as she demanded, “What’s so funny?” Trying to conceal the laughter in her voice as she quickly cleared her throat. But she couldn’t keep a straight face for long. The sound of his laugh was contagious, his smile so wonderful and infectious. Even if she had a severe case of Resting Bitch Face, she couldn’t stop herself from cracking. So, now they were both just laughing. 

In the end, he managed to persuade her to take another shot at building a gingerbread house. “The way I see it…it can only go up from here.” Or something along those lines. Some variations of it can’t get any worse. Earning a playful roll of her eyes, but in the end, she conceded. She’d already lost some of her pride and dignity the moment she showed him her poor first attempt. But at least if this one sucked, then they would suck together. But weren’t two heads supposed to be better than one? If it had been with anyone else, she may have disagreed. Having someone under her feet whilst she was trying to concentrate on achieving perfection? Lydia would’ve ushered them away and not-so-politely told them to go away. But nope, he was persistent. They were definitely doing this.

A quick trip to the store to get everything they need, and more just because they may as well since they’re there… and there they were, diving straight into it. Lydia read out the instructions from the recipe she found on Pinterest after tons and tons of scrolling, and they took it in turns to do all that was needed to do. Getting the things out as and when they needed, she was surprised how comfortable and easy it was to adjust, shuffling around each other. It was amazing how he fit in perfectly with her. No awkwardness, no Lydia getting frustrated because something was out of place or not done to her standards - a shocker. It was all very new to her but it didn’t feel new. It was like they’d been doing this forever. Shuffling around, arms occasionally brushing against each other, smiles on their faces all around. Christmas songs faintly played from the stereo, humming along as they made the dough; humming turned into singing as they waited for the gingerbread to break, happily setting up the dining room ready for decorating. She playfully swatted Aaron’s hand when she realised he was slipping the candies meant for decorating their work-in-progress gingerbread house in for a little treat. “Enough of that, we won’t have any for the -” Until he was the one plopping a gumdrop into her mouth - she wasn’t complaining then. Another laugh tumbled from her lips as she chewed it, leaning in to kiss his cheek gently before the timer on her phone beeped. They were ready!

“Now… now is make or break,” Lydia declared when the gingerbread finally cooled. Everything already set out, ready for them to dive straight in. First, to assemble the house. Her mind cast back to her first attempt, how disastrous the whole thing went. It will be better this time. Had to be. The aroma of cinnamon and ginger filled the cosy, festive-filled atmosphere, every inhale made it all the more tempting to just give it all up and dive right in to gobbling it all up. It was like she was waiting with bated breath, any moment it could crumble and fall apart. But Aaron’s extra pair of hands made it all worthwhile. He would help her assemble the little house piece by piece, holding things in place as she brought the next part out. So far, so good. It was like they had all the time in the world, every piece fitting together felt like a gigantic milestone worth celebrating. And at some stage, Lydia definitely cracked out the bottle of wine as incentive to keep them going.

In the end, it was all worth it. She hated to admit defeat but Aaron was right; it did only go up from there. Though, the bar was pretty low to begin with. And sure, maybe it wasn’t her ideal version of perfection but the time spent with him absolutely was. Lydia placed the final piece, the marshmallow snowman outside the newly built gingerbread house before leaning back against him with a content sigh. “We did it. I can’t believe we actually did it.” A beaming smile on her face as she tilted her head to look at him adoringly, before looking right back at their little creation before them. The walls of the house were slightly uneven, a few cracks in the icing revealed glimpses of golden-brown gingerbread underneath, gumdrop windows a little askew, and licorice shingles overlapped on the roof. These imperfections which, any other time would have had Lydia fuming and threatening to smash the whole thing over the kitchen counter, were the magic and beauty of it. Perfectly imperfect. It was magical because it was theirs. It was something they built together, and it was what they had to show for it. A funky yet whimsical-looking gingerbread house. Feeling him nudge her with his elbow, a grin curved Aaron’s face as he passed her something, a brief flicker of confusion etched on to her face as she lowered her gaze to her hands, a laugh leaving her as her fingers traced the ridges of the gingerbread man - or should she say woman? - before her. “Is this supposed to be me? Wow. Impressive. And, that’s funny, actually, because…” Biting her lip to conceal a laugh or give away the reveal. She couldn’t get her head around the fact they had both been doing the same thing without the other knowing. Putting her gingerbread persona to the side, she picked up the version of Aaron she’d secretly made, laughter finally escaping as she passed it to him. “I swear I didn’t steal your idea! We just…clearly have great minds that think alike.” 

In that moment it was inevitable: this was going down as one of the best Christmases Lydia had in a long, long time.

[steddielations]

Eddie’s missing. Steve can’t form a coherent thought beyond: Eddie’s missing, find him. The last few hours, it’s been his every thought, his every action.

There’s never a smooth visit to Hawkins. Eddie’s reputation has only gotten worse in the years since they moved to Chicago. Every time they come back, something goes wrong. But Eddie wanted to spend Wayne’s birthday with him, which also happens to be his mom’s birthday. That’s why he put on Wayne’s Muddy Waters record after a few drinks too many, mumbling, “Doesn’t sound the same.”

One second, Eddie was drunkenly rocking to the music, then he went outside for a smoke and didn’t come back. 

Wayne shouldn’t be out in the cold weather, but nothing could stop him from getting in his pickup to look for Eddie.

Steve’s mind jumps to nightmare conclusions. Eddie still has enemies, maybe they’re finally taking their revenge. Or what if they hadn’t destroyed the gate afterall and something worse took Eddie? Steve’s mind skipped every small explanation, but that detail about Eddie’s mom comes back.

He’s searching backroads and the thought leads him down Philadelphia street. No one goes there anymore, convinced there’s more ‘Munson victims’ buried where Eddie’s childhood home once stood.

Steve sags with relief when he shines the headlights and sees Eddie among the piles of old burned wood.

“Eddie!” Steve’s already jumping out the car, hurrying to him, “Oh God, there you are. What are you doing out here, baby? You okay?”

Eddie doesn’t seem to realize Steve’s there, frantically digging through the rubble. Looking for something.

“Eddie?” Steve reaches him, crouching down next to him, “Hey, what’s going on? Are you hurt?”

Without looking up, Eddie mumbles something like, “Can’t find ‘em.” 

“Can’t find what?” Steve asks, keeping his tone soft despite how worried and confused he is. Eddie doesn’t answer. There’s random cuts and splinters on his hands, covered in dirt and soot but he doesn’t slow down. Steve winces at the sight and reaches for his shoulder, rubbing gently to get his attention. 

“Eddie, look at me, hey. What is it? You can’t find what?”

Finally, Eddie turns to look at him. Though, his stare is a thousand miles away, eyes wide and bloodshot. The headlights show tear tracks through the soot dirtying his face. It’s like he’s in a trance, still mumbling things Steve can’t quite make out. He can smell the beer on Eddie, but he knows this isn’t just from drinking. Eddie gets stuck in his head sometimes, like in the boathouse all those years ago. Reliving nightmares from '86, and things that happened to him long before that too. 

“Her records,” Eddie stresses, “My mom’s records. I left them right here.” 

Steve looks down where he points to nothing but charred, rotting wood. There hasn’t been a house here in years. Steve remembers the fire, everyone said Eddie did it just because he was a ‘no good Munson’. Steve didn’t learn the real story until later. Eddie told him about the records, how they burned in 84 when all his dad’s scheming backfired.

“Eddie…” 

“They were right here!” Eddie interrupts, almost like part of him knows what Steve’s going to say and he doesn’t want to hear it. “I left them right here and now I can’t find them.” 

With a half-choked sob, he turns back to scouring through the rubble.

“Hey, It’s okay.” 

“No it’s not. I gotta find them, Steve, they’re all I have of her,” Eddie strangles out, flinching when Steve’s hand slides behind his shoulders.

Steve swallows down the emotion swelling in his chest. Feeling powerless to really do anything, he says, “Okay, we’ll— we’ll find them. It’s okay.”

That’s the only thing that seems to ease Eddie. Though, the way he slumps seems like he knows it’s not true, but lets himself believe it anyway. Just for the comfort. 

He’s breathing raggedly, shivering in the cold and every sob rattles his body under Steve’s hand. Finally, he lets himself sink fully into Steve, his cold wet nose pressed to Steve’s collarbone.

“S’all I got. Momma’s music,” he keeps repeating as Steve rubs his back, so drunk and so sad, “Gotta get ‘em back. S’all I got left of her.” 

“I know, baby, we’ll find them.” Steve presses kisses into Eddie’s forehead, holding him and rubbing his back. It’s not the truth, Eddie knows that, but he doesn’t need the truth right now. So Steve says it again and again, as long as Eddie needs to hear it. “We’ll find them.”

[whyse7vn]

4TH GEN LEADERS -

[ ot7 x reader ]

taehateclub

8 participants - 8 online

———————————

tae: y/n i’m coming for a sleepover tn

y/n: are you sad or something?

tae: no?

y/n: ok good

no thanks then ❤️

tae: um wtf

y/n: ???

tae: the disrespect i face on a daily is not right and should be studied

jimin: don’t care

yoongi: didn’t ask

jin: L

namjoon: 10 years…

of this

jk: time flies when ur having fun

hobi: i want to blow my brains out tbh

jk: oh

tae: jungkook do you want to see a magic trick?

jk: YES

jin: do pretzels make you fat?

jimin: have you been eating them?

jin: yeah

jimin: yeah they make you fat as fuck

jin: somebody push him off a cliff before i do

jk: show me the magic trick before i kill myself

y/n: this really is my safe space ❤️

namjoon: guys we should all go to therapy

tae: i won’t

i tried therapy and the lady laughed at me

A THERAPIST LAUGHED AT ME LIKE TO ME FACE IS THAT NOT SICK?

yoongi: real

y/n: icon tbh

jimin: my therapist tried to fuck me 😞

jin: why is he lying like omg get a life…

jimin: 30 years of age and still bothering young men like me LEAVE ME ALONE FREAK

yoongi: here they go

namjoon: one day we will all laugh and hold hands

y/n: i got 50 on jin

hobi: 50 on jimin

jin: namjoon pls don’t let him come in here and lie like that it’s actually heartbreaking watching the people closest to me be so fucking delusional and deranged think about the bystanders joon

think.

jimin: END UR LIFE

jin: you first 🤭

jimin: ignoring you

y/n: i win

hobi: aw man

namjoon: are you guys all coming to the party later?

jk: what happened to the magic trick??

yoongi: 👍🏻

hobi: yes yesss

y/n: YES

tae: yup

jin: yes

jimin: NO

jin: don’t care 🥱

jimin: i’m leaving this group and leaving this country

yoongi: k?

hobi: when something is a foot long whose foot are we measuring it off?

y/n: if it’s by yoongi’s then a foot long as hell

jk: tae can you show me now?

namjoon: kook pls let it go…

jimin: i’m jumping of a bridge

hobi: how many of yoongi’s feet tall is the bridge?

jin: one foot could honestly kill him

tae: feet?

namjoon: MOVING ON MOVING ON

jk: there is no magic trick is there

y/n: it’s okay you’ll get over it my love

jk: i don’t think i will

tae: that was a life lesson

learn from it and become stronger

jk: how about you die.

hobi: WOAH

namjoon: no fighting i’m literally begging you guys

jin: didn’t know you were submissive like that

jimin: fr it’s gross as hell

he’s gonna tell us he kisses men next

jk: are you a homophone?????

jimin: are you fr rn

yoongi: wow

namjoon: don’t say anything

y/n: at least his heart was in the right place!

tae: namjoon likes men?

namjoon: no

jimin: yeah

hobi: like a stickerrrrr

jk: congratulations

tae: let’s make a song with drake

y/n: ew

yoongi: no thanks

hobi: pushing p

jimin: pussy

jk: where

y/n: ew again

jk: bts 4th gen leaders!

namjoon: ?

hobi: we are not 4th gen

jk: what?

jimin: we are 3rd gen

jk: oh my god

we are old as hell

y/n: that is actually so gross

3rd gen IS SO GROSS WE ARE OLD AS HELL OH MY GOD IMMA THROW UP

jin: ur both being dramatic

jimin: he’s only saying that because he’s been old since birth

like how you 84 out the womb???

hobi: jimin ur going to hell

jimin: we were all thinking it

jin: everyone deny that rn

…

hello?

y/n: bts 4th gen leaders i agree with jk!!!

yoongi: this does not change the reality

tae: can i be 4th gen it boy

jimin: LMAO

tae: what’s funny?

jimin: nothing

jk: i would like to be best 4th gen rapper

hobi: i’ll be best 4th gen singer

y/n: fair

ig i’ll be the 4th gen it girl

jimin: i’ll be THEE 4th gen visual

y/n: yoongi for 4th gen it boy

yoongi: :3

tae: i wanted to be 4th gen it boy wtf

jk: joon the father of 4th gen

y/n: and jin the 4th gen ace

namjoon: u guys actually delusional

tae: i agree

namjoon: pls don’t agree with me ur making me uncomfortable

tae: sorry father

namjoon: don’t be mad u didn’t get a title

y/n: tea the girls are fighting

tae: i’m not mad

i don’t even care fr

namjoon: sure

tae: sUrE

namjoon: you seem mad

tae: if you died i wouldn’t care

hobi: 4th gen loser

tae: hoseok wtf

hobi: who said that?

y/n: 4th gen furry

tae: ummm?

jimin: 4th gen broke boy

tae: i asked for money ONCE

yoongi: 4th gen bitch

tae: LEAVE ME ALONE

jk: i’m glad we all have titles now

4th gen is not ready for us

y/n: FR!!!!

—

kinda short pls forgive me

[louisawells]

Part Three: Wildfire...

Part Three: Wildfire 

I fully intended to write and share this part three much sooner than this; directly following part two. But, there’s something to be learned about waiting to write or tell a story while it’s still in process. 

I leave for New York in three days. My two and a half (or so) months in Copenhagen will be coming to a pause. I say pause, not end, because for all intents and purposes, it truly doesn't feel like this is the end. I don’t see my time in Copenhagen as coming to an end but rather this is the end for this particular moment in my life. 

From the moment God fanned the flame that he ignited in my heart to come here, as soon as I landed it was as if I was being propelled forward by a wildfire ever at my heels. I jumped right into life in Denmark: going on dates within a few days of my arrival, buying (not renting) a used bike, and becoming a regular at a church where the sermons are in Danish (no, my Danish is not that good to the point that I can understand an entire church sermon). There were so many moments within the first month that surprised me in the best way. Meeting people who would become friends I’d confide in in moments of true vulnerability, being able to dip my toes into the photo industry here, and seeing how God is building his church (God bless everyone who shows up when sometimes the congregation is but 10 people in total). 

There were also many moments where I was brought to my knees in humility and looking back, that first month was the third time I can recall in my life where, at a very low point, I felt God showing me where I was not seeing myself for who I was meant to be. 

Going on dates (for the first time after many months of hiatus) helped me to see that I am worthy of so much love. 

Feeling “alien” in a city where, yes, English is widely spoken but to truly be part of the culture, an entire other language is needed, helped me see my own vulnerabilities as a human and learn to embrace the uncomfortable. 

Not knowing anyone in Denmark before arriving helped me to embrace an attitude of “yes” – I was saying yes to meeting new people and visiting places I felt nudged to go because of the possibility of something great on the other side of my yes. 

Those first few weeks, filled with all of the aforementioned trials and tribulations, the darkness seemed to be closing in. But I had been there before, and being somewhere before helps you develop a familiarity and a tenacity. I’ve grown to understand you can either embrace that same circumstance like an unwanted, artificial support blanket, or you can learn to try another way. There’s a verse in the bible that I love to read: “know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow…”(James 1:3-4a)

I let flames of the wildfire of my faith spur me on. I knew that God helped me get here (and get me out of my dark night of the soul last year) and so he surely wouldn’t leave me this time either. That’s not who he is. 

Many people have asked me, “what’s next?” To which I reply, I simply don’t know yet. I want to stay (or rather, come back). I can genuinely see myself living in Copenhagen for some extended period of time. There are various obstacles and barriers on the horizon to get there, but I also know that whatever is to come, though it may not be easy, will surely be good (check out Psalm 84:11). I’ll be in NYC for the foreseeable few months after that, we will see. If I could do this, I’m truly excited for what else is possible for me and where else I can go.

To end, I wanted to share an entry from my journal that I wrote on a plane a few weeks before my trip to Copenhagen. I often journal my prayers and thoughts as a way to look back and see how God responded later or to see where my mind was at (I am frequently amused at how fickle I am). 

--

Ellipsis

In the ellipsis, I wait for the answers to come. 

I step into the space from where and who I was to the ever-present becoming. In the ellipsis, I hold things with loose fingers, willing to trust that some items may slip from my grasp (truthfully, they were always God’s to carry anyway). 

In the ellipsis, I wonder if I’ve brought too much. Are my bags too heavy, did I overpack, overthink? I trust that as I move through the months, I can keep what needs to be kept close, say goodbye to the things that are ornamental, and still hold on to the questions that remain. 

In the ellipsis, I want my yeses to be yeses and my nos to be nos. With each pause and each breath, I become more authentically me. 

In this pause, I pause and rest. Simply because I can. In the ellipsis, I wonder how I say goodbye and hello. I recognize that some goodbyes will be periods while others will only be semicolons or commas. 

[vveakfish]

re: tags on lrb

thinking abt the journey and a half my DC hyperfixation has been.

I was a DCAU only girlie for so long. (BTAS, Batman Beyond, Teen Titans, YJtv, GLtv). I enjoyed the DCEU too, but i was WAY too wrapped up in MCU brain-rot to dive too deeply into those. But that was it. Zero interest in comics themselves as a lil squirt.

Eventually I stopped caring abt the DCEU entirely. (around WW’84, tho it had nothing to do with that movie, i just never saw it — and didnt see any of the movies that came after). And got WAY into Marvel™. And i kinda just rode that wave.

When Marvel started branching out into shows i was HYPED — esp since they started that shit off with WandVision. I’d always loved Wanda, and the fact that they brought Billy and Tommy in was all i needed to push me into reading comics

i tore through the young avengers (UGH i miss them <;/3), and other titles associated with them, and was having a blast. At some point around the season finale of Loki (good show, this was just also how the cookie crumbled) I just fell off Marvel in general. A lot of this probably had to do with school ramping up around this time — but i stopped reading comics & watching their shows and movies almost entirely.

Around this time tho, bc i Missed reading comics — i started reading webcomics. And as much as i enjoyed reading Marvel comics for that short period of time, webcomics were what made me fall in love with Comics™ as a medium.

6th semester ended, i was elbows deep in world building for my own webcomic project, and started watching anime while working on it. Again, anime was always one of those things i enjoyed (Digimon, Sailor Moon, and Pokémon were some of the most influential pieces of media in my entire childhood), but my love for it as an art form was really solidified during this time

[side note: can you Tell i was dealing with art school shit during all of this? couldn’t turn the critique brain off literally Ever, so anything i enjoyed got put under the art student lens]

But my interest in anime stayed entirely on the animated side of things for a Long Ass Time. It wasn’t until Jujutsu Kaisen that i got shoved headlong into manga. God that stupid fucking anime changed my life, ANYWAY.

I finished the anime (umm maybe like. 5 times), and then HAD to know what happened next. So i devoured the manga. Every spare moment i had was spent reading it, until i was Done. then i was like orz. what do u do now ??

The answer was do the exact same thing with Demon Slayer. which was ALSO a life changing experience. read 鬼滅の刃 pls pls pls

Now. When i finished KNY, i was also like *head in hands* how do i even keep on living?? But this was also while working on my thesis project, and still doing a lot of work on the side as far as my own comic was concerned. (like… 60k words worth of world building & drafting scripts + designing characters), so its not like i had all that much free time.

anyway — i finished up my 8th semester, and barely gave myself a chance to breathe before i threw myself into working on my comic practically full time.

I was working on a one shot to submit to a contest for Webtoon, and they were asking for a pretty substantial amount of content (60+ panel Action comic one shot. and I, as always, love to make things harder on myself, so i think in one of the later drafts it ended up having over 100 panels).

needless to say, i Did Not finish the oneshot in time (its still not done to this day T~T i’ll come back for you forge, dont worry). But, toward the end of that… 3 month span of feverishly working on this project, i found myself falling in love with DC all over again.

I mentioned YJtv before, but that show was Also something that changed my life as a 10 year old.

(its really funny to think about that show now & how it’s release date lines up with the beginning of the N52 continuity, and how both the show & that particular reboot are so strongly disliked by a vast majority of DC’s fanbase — but thats a post for another day)

I’ve rewatched the show at least once a year since my roommate let me start using their HBOMax login. I know seasons 1 and 2 like the back of my hand bc of how much i watched them growing up, and i like season three well enough. But the thing was that on this unsuspecting summer night, i was about to discover that there were New Episodes.

Dude i was hyped, i was losing my shit. I had resigned myself to the knowledge that this show was never coming back. I was okay with it too. But here it was, alive and kicking after what felt like forever.

Heres the thing tho. They killed off Kon.

okay not really, but at the Time boy boy was Dead, and i was devastated. Thats My Boy. He had been my favorite character from the jump, and i did not know how to process him being gone. So i took a break from the show, and turned to ao3 instead.

At this point i was Not an avid fic reader. I wasn’t an avid reader period – outside of manga – but i had read a few really good fics recommended to my by some of my JJK pals. So i looked at the Kon-El | Conner Kent character tag on ao3 and just scrolled until i found something interesting.

In this case: a Timkon fic (this one in particular).

I knew who Tim was before this (He shows up in YJtv. He's there in BTAS), but I had never thought about him and Kon as... anything really. In the versions of them i was familiar with, they don't interact all that much. They're from different generations of heroes, but i was like, hey, what the hell this sounds cute. And man oh man, it was all down hill from there.

I read more TimKon fic, and just fell in love with them. But i was also... confused. Like... why do these two guys have such a robust fanbase... wheres the link.

THAT is what pushed me to start reading Detective Comics Comics for the first time. I wanted to get to know these guys For Real, and the only way to do that was by digging into the source material.

This post is So long oh shit. I have thoughts about How I got to know the kiddos & how the comics i read (as well as the order i read them in) have influenced my understandings of these little guys. But i think thats a post for another day. I have other things to do than write out a post about my media consumption habits

o7 signing off.

[fantasyinvader]

So, my thoughts on Heretics and Chapterhouse…

Not a good way to end things, but also is.

Part of this experience has been me learning the actual formation of the Dune Saga. I was under the belief that Messiah was a part of the first book that was cut and later extended into it’s own novel. Turns out it and Children were simply based on notes Herbert had when he wrote the original book (as a trilogy in a magazine), as such it and Children weren’t as planned out as I thought. Now, Messiah does feel like an actual extension of the original book, where the messages come to a head giving the book a more overt moral. You know, rather than people taking Dune as a simple heroes journey narrative.

Messiah still took four years to write, while Children took seven years after that. Five years passed and Herbert cranked out God Emperor, which I feel works as a grand finale to what started with Paul. Then Herbert announced he was going to finish the saga with a trilogy, releasing Heretics a scant three years after God Emperor and Chapterhouse the following year. Then Herbert died the year after that, but supposedly he had notes left behind that his son used to make two novels to finish the saga to questionable success.

The fact Herbert talked about making a trilogy and started off by taking a shot at Star Wars, implying it was simply a cheap imitation of Dune that people went gaga over, and Herbert was looking down on those people. I don’t really feel this is a case of a sci-fi writer being upset over the implications of Star Wars and what it did to the genre (there’s even a book on that), but jealous of the other franchise’s success. They even altered his story when the 84 movie was made to have it end with Paul actually being the messiah, rather than him simply manipulating the Freman for revenge, and tried to market it like it was Star Wars.

Now, Star Wars wasn’t telling the same story as Dune, it played the heroes journey and the things Dune was trying to warn people of straight. It also borrows from a lot of stuff, from Asimov’s Foundation series to Kurosawa films. But, that shot Herbert made kept bothering me. It feels like his intended sequel trilogy was meant to show up Star Wars. It made the themes of Dune more overt, spelled out some of the messages, tried to tantalize with what I call “creepy sixties sci-fi writer horniness” (also known as going Heinlein), as well as played up the talks on philosophy and plans.

It’s a weird case that I like the characters, especially in Heretics, but it feels like it’s faux-deep. When you’re talking about women sexually dominating men to rule the galaxy, or how torture turns Miles Teg into the fucking Flash, it kinda messes with the stuff on needing to terraform Chapterhouse into a new Arrakis. Dune had always been about how the universe is too vast to control and how just a little misstep can throw plans into dissarray, but this stuff felt more like Herbert was pulling it out of his butt (again, we have a character become the Flash). The series ends with the threat we’ve been dealing with having their victory (using an unforeseen, bloodless way of killing that’s never explained) turned on them due to ultimately a chance encounter with one of their members turning into something more, but there’s a bigger threat out there implied to be autonomous face dancers. But we also get the DNA of the classic Dune characters waved in front of our faces to bring them back as gholas.

It just feels like Dune is going in circles.

I can accept this point as the end, as it leaves everything up to possibilities with the only thing we know for certain is that mankind will still exist in 5000 years, but really it should have ended with God Emperor. That was the perfect ending to the saga, not whatever notes Herbert left behind that were supposed to end with a transition to democracy (after Chapterhouse talked at length how democracy can be subverted)

[dathen]

Okay I have some complicated thoughts following Melanie’s arc that all build on top of each other and hinge HEAVILY on unreliable narrator interpretations so bear with me

In my relisten I’m at the beginning of s3, and it always shocks me a bit at how quickly she interprets Martin’s interaction with her as hostile.  I’m going to skip over the “it’s understandable, Melanie’s had a hard time in her career” disclaimers since there’s plenty of meta on that already, and instead follow the effects of this tendency: not on others, this time, but on her

(This got absurdly long and covers so many episodes so I’m going to split it into separate pre- and post-bullet surgery posts)

Rewinding a bit, the last time she was at the Institute, she was starting to get along with Jon before he seemed confused about her comment on “the other Sasha.”  It takes her a split second to interpret that confusion as him suddenly deciding to gaslight and mock her, gets angry and tells him there is something seriously wrong with him, and leaves before he can ask what she means.  Given how tenuous their truce was and the fact she and Jon had mocked each other in the past, it’s an outburst that at least has some personal history behind it.

But only a couple episodes later, we learn that it’s not just Jon she responds to in this way.  In TMA 84, she meets our Martin Blackwood!  Customer service voice opposite-of-Jon politeness extraordinaire!  And as soon as he gets confused about the two Sasha comment, she.......immediately assumes that HE is also trying to gaslight her.  She insists that “I’m not doing this again” without giving him a chance to ask or explain, so they miss the opportunity to piece together the deal with the Not!Sasha.  Her doing this with someone she just met shows a much broader pattern than her interactions with Jon.

That very episode, Elias offers Melanie a job, and she accepts despite Martin’s protests.  Later, she accuses them all of them being an “old boy’s club” because she interpreted Martin’s warnings as sexism rather than trying to protect her.  As the audience, we see the unreliable narrator of her perspective at work: we know that Jon and Martin were genuinely confused, and we know that Martin was trying to save her, and that all of these instances were her seeing it as people being out to get her.

Hop forward to the notorious gossip scene in TMA 106.  Here, Melanie complains about Martin being hostile to her.  My first assumption was that this was all offscreen, but after this parade of misinterpretation and comparing to her and Martin’s actual interactions, I have to wonder:

TMA 84, after Martin tells Melanie about the murder, and right before Elias interrupts:

Martin:  Are you sure you’re alright?

Melanie:  Yes!  I just got… God, I’m kind of at the end, you know?

Martin:  The end of what?

Melanie:   Everything.  Friends, clues, savings. Everything.  Options.  There’s nowhere left for me to go . I don’t know why, but…  I just, I just felt that perhaps coming here might help.  And talking things out with Jon.  I mean, I mean he’s awful, but at least he listens, you know?

Martin:   (soft) Yeah.  ...I’m sorry.  Um, is there anything that I could, like, maybe...do for you?

They get interrupted immediately after this, so this was the first impression Melanie was given.  Then, when Elias offers the job, she...assumes Martin’s “I don’t think that’s a good idea” is from sexism, when he’d just been talking about murders and disappearances that caused that very job opening.

TMA 88 

Melanie:   Are you alright?

Martin:  Yeah… Sorry, just a lot of change recently, y’know.  You and John and Sasha and… everything’s gone a bit wrong.  It’s the not knowing, you know?  I mean, Jon’s still alive.  Not sure why, but I’m sure of that.  But Sasha, I…

Melanie:   Yes, it’s… it’s probably, um…

Martin:   Sorry, sorry, I’m...  What do you need?

Next interaction!  Oh this one HURTS.  Martin takes her question literally, and starts telling her why she’s not alright, a reverse of their earlier exchange.  But Melanie came by for a question and wasn’t prepared for an honest answer, so Martin quickly reels it in and asks what he can do for her once again.

Skipping forward a bit in that same scene:

Martin:   Oh, you weren’t here when we took the place over from Gertrude!  It’s been over a year just to get it like this.  I mean, I think the database was on Jon’s list, but--

Melanie:  So how do you track someone down?

Martin:   Oh, oh well, y’know, we’ve a few contacts in various record offices around the place.  Aside from that it’s just… just a bit of detective work, really.  Tim used to do a great line in impersonating people to utility companies!  Heh, the number of times he got them to give him ‘his own’ address--

Melanie:  Right, right… Um, this one, the name is 'Jude Perry.’ Doesn’t mean anything to you, does it?

I LOVE THIS EXCHANGE.  I TREASURE IT.  Having bottled up his emotions, Martin is going in full Friendly Helpful Coworker mode.  There are so many little details here signaling that he’s embracing her as part of the team, sharing anecdotes about Tim’s shenanigans and Jon’s old plans, looping her in as One of Them as he helps her get what she needs.  This is the kind of approach you go to management trainings to get, to help new hires feel welcome and part of things.  But alas, Melanie is in a hurry and wants to cut to the chase, so all this is lost on her.

TMA 98 - I won’t copy it all in here because it’s long, but this is an overwhelmingly positive interaction.  She asks if he’s okay, but he bottles it up and says he’s fine.  This time, she presses, and he admits it’s because of the statements.  Martin ends up asking for help!! and Melanie agrees!  She’s on the way to murder Elias, but she still gets credit for “I’ll ask him to cut you some slack.”  Then she invites him to drinks!

And then.... TMA 106

Melanie:   Anyway, Martin’s always been lovely to you.

Basira:  Hmm. I don’t know, I mean, you should have seen him when I turned up last year. I think he thought I was trying to steal his precious Archivist.

Melanie:   Ahhh. I got the exact same when Jon was hiding out, and came to me with his “source on the inside” stuff.  Martin was not impressed.

WAIT WHAT

We just looked over all their interactions!  They were all soft and lovely and welcoming!!  But then we hear Melanie with “well unlike how he is to me, Martin is nice to you.”  This was taken at face value for years, but when you line up all of the above, I feel there is a strong basis to say this is another case of Melanie’s first impressions + over-defensiveness gone wrong.  Just like we saw her initial bickerings with Jon solidify into series-long hostility, her interpreting Martin’s confusion as gaslighting and warnings about the job as sexism seems to have doomed her opinion of him long-term.  We hear Martin being kind and concerned and welcoming, then hear Melanie contrast it as bad treatment.

Recently, a mutual considered this even further to how she talked about losing all of her friends with the Ghost Hunt UK circles:

Melanie:  Even back then, I could feel all my old friends starting to distance themselves from me. ...  I stopped asking the others for help, and I kept my research to myself. I talked to them less and less. By the time I was arrested, I think a lot of them had already given up on me.

I have to wonder...did this sort of dynamic play out here, too?  Did she assume that her friends’ concern was judgment or hostility?  Were they giving up on her, or did she lash out and push them away?  Either way, it’s easy to see parallels to s2 Jon in her description, here, with her withdrawing and diving alone into increasingly risky research without asking for help.  And s2 Jon definitely shared Melanie’s tendency to see offers for help and support as hostile.  (Aside:  I interpret her and Georgie as not very close at this point, like a networking contact rather than a friend; Melanie comes to Jon for someone to talk to about her struggles above her, and Georgie seems to be unaware of all of Melanie’s encounters pre-s3)

And on that downer note I am ending part 1...but PART 2 IS GOING TO BE WAY HAPPIER THAN THIS.  Here, we see Melanie with a lot of people who would have supported her if she let them:  Martin, Jon, possibly the friends she said abandoned her.  But in her effort to protect herself and not let history repeat for how she’d been hurt in the past, she ends up alone and spiraling.

[the-redheaded-league]

Numbers in Midnight Mass: I Have a Lot to Say

okay so I’m rewatching MM and noticed some things... hear me out, but I think the numbers mean things

So the Apostle Paul didn’t have a book called “Paul”, but John has a book called “John”. I also looked at the title of the episode where we first see these numbers, so here we go...

Riley’s 4-10 years in prison - mentioned in Genesis

John 4:10 - “Jesus answered her, ‘If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.’”

And thus begins our story about a misguided priest bringing people what he thought was the living water/a gift from God...

Genesis 4:10 - “The Lord said, ‘What have you done? Listen! Your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground.’”

This works too, since he’s literally going to prison for killing someone.

Riley’s restitution amount ($140,900.11) - mentioned in Genesis

John 14:9 - “Jesus answered: ‘Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?’”

Not recognizing someone right in front of you??? Hmm...

Genesis 14:9 - “against Kedorlaomer king of Elam, Tidal king of Goyim, Amraphel king of Shinar and Arioch king of Ellasar—four kings against five.”

This is part of a story about a war between city-states. Not as fitting.

St. Patrick’s, founded in 1824 - first seen in Genesis

John 18:24 - “Then Annas sent him bound to Caiaphas the high priest.”

Caiaphas was the Jewish high priest who helped organize the plot to kill Jesus. Not sure how I’d tie this in, but the priest organizing a destructive plot? Hmm...

Genesis 18:24 - “What if there are fifty righteous people in the city? Will you really sweep it away and not spare the place for the sake of the fifty righteous people in it?”

This discusses the destruction of Sodom, where only one righteous man was allowed to live. The rest of the city was destroyed. Warren & Leeza??

Riley’s address (192) - first seen in Genesis

John 19:2 - “The soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head. They clothed him in a purple robe.”

Riley ends up being the one to sacrifice himself first, thinking his sacrifice may save lives.

Genesis 19:2 - “He said, ‘My lords, please turn aside to your servant’s house and spend the night and wash your feet. Then you may rise up early and go on your way.’ They said, ‘No; we will spend the night in the town square.’”

Not as fitting, but the boys do sneak out a lot...

Erin’s address (317) - first seen in Genesis

John 3:17 - “For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.”

As part of the group that tried to save the world from the angel, this one looks pretty fitting for Erin

Genesis 3:17 - “To Adam he said, ‘Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’”

A few lines later is “ashes to ashes, dust to dust”, which is super fitting

Bev’s favorite poison (Compound 10-80, which is a real compound, but somehow it fits) - first seen in Genesis

John 10:8 - “All that ever came before me are thieves and robbers: but the sheep did not hear them.” [The following verse begins with “I am the gate. If anyone enters through Me, he will be saved.”]

Bev judging sinners & leading the way to “salvation”, anyone?

Genesis 10:8 - “Cush begot Nimrod; he began to be a mighty one on the earth.”

Not nearly as fitting, but one line later, we have the fact that Nimrod was a “mighty hunter”, which makes a little more sense for Bev

The ‘84 fire Bev mentions when she’s burning down Erin’s house - first seen in Revelation

John 8:4 - “They say unto him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act.”

Kind of fitting but I like the following even better...

Revelation 8:4-5- “The smoke of the incense, together with the prayers of God’s people, went up before God from the angel’s hand. [5] Then the angel took the censer, filled it with fire from the altar, and hurled it on the earth; and there came peals of thunder, rumblings, flashes of lightning and an earthquake.”

This is about the breaking of the seventh seal, the last thing triggering the Apocalypse...

Conclusion: Flanagan either made these numbers line up like this or I’m reading way too much into my latest obsession ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[rcksmith]

Nobody else — Five Hargreeves

Requests: “Hello! May I request number nine from the fluff prompts and number seven from the smut prompts for Five? Maybe where the reader is a super skilled fighter, and the other Hargreeves siblings can’t get over how amazing she is, but that causes Five to become a little jealous?”

“Okayy if you're not tired of Five and smuts yet, can I request 18,70,74 and 84 from smut list with fem reader?”

Fluff prompts:

9. “So you're saying that girl is your girlfriend?!" "No, that girl is my wife!”

Smut prompts:

7. “The only way you’re getting off is on my thigh.”

18. “Are you sure? Once we start, i might not be able to stop.”

70. “Maybe I should leave you like this, that way anyone who wanted to use you could have a go with you. Would you like that?”

74. “I think I like you better with a gag in your mouth.”

84. “Let me show you what happens to little brats who don’t follow the rules.”

A/N: We not tolerate any pedophilia here !!

I write about Five with their 20s. I write the same about the characters of Harry Potter.

Thank you for requests💖 I hope you guys like💖I decided to compile these two requests, since they were the same energy and they prompts connect to a central plot. I added all the elements that were asked for individually, and made sure that all ideas were respected and written down. Good reading.

English is not my first language, so I so sorry if have a mistake.

Requests are open. Love you ❤️

Couple: Five Hargreeves / Fem! Reader.

Warnings: explicit smut, dirty talk, bad words, fluff, fight, mention of death, jealousy.

— — — — —

People need each other to find support, comfort and understanding. Thomas Merton said: “Love is our true destiny. We do not find the meaning of life alone, but with the other. ”

And as cliché as it was, it was the truth. And that is exactly what happened to you.

It was difficult to explain how many years you had already been killing for the commission. Ever since, maybe? You did not remember a time when that work was not part of your life, your routine, your system. But you could feel, vaguely like a hazy dream, that one day the act of breathing was ... light.

Killing without conscience brought many regrets, and the weight of guilt filled your chest, making it difficult to breathe.

But you were good at that. God, you were very good. Maybe it was the endless years of training, your quick thinking, or the simple fact that you had a lot more physical stamina than the other agents. But, whatever it was, it helped you move up the board quickly.

Murdering with a gun was easy, quick, clean, and there were already many agents who did that job. For someone like you, so empowered, the commission has relocated you to more… arduous and dangerous missions.

Your job was to kill those whose gunshots could not show up at the necropsy. Someone who needed to die without the body revealing what had happened very well.

Shoot JFK? It wasn't with you.

End Hitler? It wasn't your job.

To kill Socrates with your bare hands and make everyone believe it was poison? This is where you came in.

The difference between the jobs was that you had to do the whole process. And a melee interaction instead of a weapon always brought people who wanted to fight for their lives. And that is why the commission chose you to do that, without any partner.

They elected you because you fought like a super soldier, focused on your goal like a robot, and never came back without success. It didn't matter how many fights you had to fight with your target, how many punches you had to throw and also take, or how many injuries you returned. You always won.

Over time, you learned things in practice, tricks that made it easy, scams that would save you effort. You learned to study each person in seconds, find their weaknesses, and use his own strength against them.

That's when you met Five Hargreeves. And Thomas Merton's quote made sense.

You two were so much similar. Both the best in their fields, wrecked in a sea of ​​personal traumas, buried by a job that got the best of you two. You two felt misunderstood, alone in the vastness of that world. And when you two met... well, were no longer alone.

You two got involved, in all possible ways and ways. Loved each other, adored each other, and completed each other. Life went out of automatic mode, and for the first time in a long time, you two managed to breathe lightly. The food now tasted good, the heat of the sun on the skin was now better, and the world... the world was ruled by the red color of love.

So it became the most obvious and coherent decision to you two get married. Five could no longer imagine a life in which you did not exist, and you did not know how the world could go without him.

“I can't believe we did that!” You laughed, astonished, as you entered the apartment that you and Five shared.

You two had just married, something just for you two and the ceremonialist. You two chose something very intimate, reserved. And now the ring on him left hand looked like the most beautiful thing in the world for you.

Five laughed softly, hands moving up your arms, bringing you closer.

“We did. Wife.”

After that, your two contract with the commission changed. Five would only continue to do that if no one dared to touch a hair of yours, and you swore to The Handler that if someone did something to Five, you would destroy that place brick by brick.

Five saw in you a strong and atrocious ocean, which could swallow whole cities only with the force of its fury. And he liked that. He liked having someone as competent and firm as he was. Five liked to know that if there was a disaster, he would not be the only one who would go after a solution.

You were the type who knew that if you wanted things to happen, you had to do it with your bare hands. And Five loved it, because he felt understood. He carried so many responsibilities on his back that it was relieving to find someone who also felt the same things.

Five knew that, when him found way home, you were going with him. And you went. You two exchanged vows that would be together in joy and sadness, in any situation. And if the situation now said to go to 2019, well, you would.

“It makes me so sick, God!” Five heard you say when you two fell out of that blue portal he created.

He would have laughed if his muscles didn't hurt so much. For someone so trained you got sick of his powers very quickly.

"Five?!” And then the voice of one of the brothers was heard.

And that's how you two ended up there. A week later, in the Hargreeves' living room, with Diego swearing that you wouldn't be able to beat him in a fight.

Five laughed against the margarita's straw, sitting comfortably at the bar, giving up on telling his stupid brother that you had already killed much more dangerous people with your bare hands.

“I do not want to hurt you.” You smiled understandingly, and Klaus laughed.

“I bet 50 bucks that she beats your ass, Diego.” It was only logical that he was going to encourage his brother to fall.

“There is no way you can hurt me.” Diego guaranteed, getting up and starting to push the sofa away, making room for a fight.

“Are you up for it or are you scared?” He played with you, and Five laughter it back there, having a lot of fun.

“This is ridiculous, Diego.” Allison stressed, but it was obvious that she wanted to watch too.

You smirked, getting up from the bar chair next to Five. You didn't want to defeat your husband's brother in that fight, you understood that the circumstances between the two of you were not fair.

You were created to kill, injure and decimate. Body wrestling was your job and it wouldn't be fair to Diego. You knew, from Five, that the Hargreeves were created to be heroes. Saviors of the motherland. Hurt and kill if necessary, but don't make it a goal.

But not with you. Killing was your goal, always. And your weapon was not super powers or pistols, but the body itself.

“Okay.” You laughed and went to the circle that Diego had made “But I don't want to hurt you. The first one to fall to the ground loses.” You were trying to be peaceful.

Diego agreed, giving him a friendly smile before saying:

“But I will use my knives to distract you.”

It was logical that he wouldn't make it cheap and easy, even if it was for himself, you knew that.

So you agreed, took off the suit you were wearing and rolled up the sleeves of your white dress shirt, while the Hargeeves sat in a safe area, away from that makeshift ring.

Diego delivered the first blow, and you just deflected the trunk, taking him by the same arm and twisting it against his back. At that moment, if it was something for real, you would put more strength to break the bone, but you didn't want to hurt him, so you just released Diego with a little push forward.

Diego turned to face you again, the naughty smile on the face of someone who knows his own potential. He was very good, you knew that, but the different upbringing made you a better opponent.

This time, the blow came from below. It was a trip that you jumped while pulling on the fist he used to land another blow in the same second, forcing him to come forward with force while you deflecting once more. Diego staggered forward, steadying himself on the floor once again.

It was all absurdly fast, as if you were a robot. A machine programs for that.

Diego hurled the knife in the wind while attacking with his other fist. You dodged again, but this time you struck back, slamming a blow down the side of your stomach, blocking his attack with your other arm and unleashing a kick in the chest, which made Diego stagger backward.

In a matter of seconds, the knife was at the end of its course. And while Diego was advancing again, the wind that the knife was making hit your hair. But the knife didn't finish course. You stopped the blade with your hand, holding to the object with your palm.

At that moment, you saw Diego's eyes falter. And a surprised gasp by the Hargreeves graces the ambience. Then it was your turn to attack. You threw the knife on the floor, driving the blade into the wooden floor as you went.

There were punches, deflected blows, creeps. The two of you were dancing to an agitated song, which was reaching its climax.

Diego had holding you in him arms, and you turned your body, locked him left arm in your hands while you used the momentum to propel your legs up, past his neck and turning, taking you both to the floor. He fell on his back while you used your own momentum to balance yourself, standing upright.

“YES! YOU OWM ME 50 DOLLARS!" Klaus's voice was heard.

You laughed, and you were about to walk away when Diego dug his left hand into your heel. He pulled you in a single stroke, and it made you fall, your back hitting the ground as he took the lead. Diego put his legs on your hips the first second you fell on the floor, and he used his own strength to keep you there.

You laughed out loud, and so did he.

“This is cheating!” You scolded him, punching him in the chest.

“Whatever, but you had to fall too!”

Diego was a good loser, you recognized that by the intonation of the voice. He was not possessed or reviled because you won, but he wanted it to be an eye for an eye, even if only as a joke.

But as soon as Diego got up off you, holding your hand for you got up too, your eyes went to Five. And you found the green irises burning in an atrocious fire. You frowned, not understanding, but you didn't have time to go over there and ask what happened. Klaus and Luther came to you and Diego.

Klaus charging his brother and Luther asking you how you did that final blow.

“It's for me to use when he pisses me off!” Luther looked directly at his brother in a silent threat “ But he will not get up alive!”

“Fuck you” Diego said before practically shoving 50 dollars in Klaus's face.

“Is easy.” You replied Luther “I'll show you."

But while the brothers were having fun, marveling at you, Five burned in a visseral cholera.

Wasn't it enough for Diego to have literally been on top of you, you had to want to teach that stupid gorilla too ?!

Oh fucking no!

When Diego went to Luther and started explaining with you, him your side, how the scam worked, Five was exploding. Now that stupid men butcher knife would be on your side?! Agreeing and explaining whit you as if it were your husband?!

Wasn't it enough just fucking being on top of you?!

Definitely fuck not!

“Take it easy, buddy.” Klaus appeared beside him “You are looking at them as if you want to kill someone.”

Five just snarled, not bothering to respond, his eyes never leaving you.

“Wait..." Klaus looked better at who Five was staring “Are you jealous of Y/n ?!” He was amazed.

“Shut up!” Five forced himself to swallow a handful of margarita.

“Oh my God!” And he wouldn’t stop “You like her! That must be why you live in a bad mood! You must be in the friend zone! ”

“Didn't I tell you to shut up already ?!” Five looked deathly at his brother “And I'm not in the friend zone with her.”

But Five realized that he gaved too much information to his brother, because now Klaus's face was opening in a shocked smile.

Goddam!

“So you're saying that girl is your girlfriend ?!" Klaus was loving the situation.

But, out of the corner of his eye, Five can see Diego holding your arm, showing Luther the place to deliver any stupid blow.

You gotta be fucking kidding!

“No, that girl is my wife!” Five tapped the margarita glass on the counter, teleporting to you and pushing Diego's hand off your arm, replacing his own.

“The show over!” He growled as he left the room, pulling you with him, your feet stumbling a few times before picking up the pace.

“Five!” You said, but he didn't seem to hear.

The image of Diego's legs at your fucking waist, the body sitting on you, the hand on your arm, rewound Five's mind like a curse. He felt his anger inflate, jealousy whispering in the back of his neck like a little devil, making him see the situation bigger than it really was.

You called him again, but for Five, it was like you called his brother's name. And then he exploded in his own fury.

He couldn't wait to go up all those stupid stairs, all those corridors, Five just pulled you against him, disappearing in the blue flash and reappearing in the his room.

“You are crazy?” You pulled the wrist out of his grip.

“I should be asking you that!” He said “Did you see that scene ?!”

“What a scene?” You frowned.

Five focused his eyes on you, in angry energy.

“Diego on top of you, fuck!" He snarled “Luther drooling like a dog on you!”

“Five.” You thought all that was absurd “They are your brothers!”

“You have no idea how much i don’t give a fuck!”

The situation was ridiculous, and you ended up laughing in disbelief and bewilderment.

“We were fighting!” You defended yourself "Nobody was drooling on me!"

“I swear to god tha ...” Five walked over to you, his eyes flooded with rage, his body enveloped in that intense and explosive energy.

You lifted chin to get a better look, your chest stuck to him, Five's breath hitting the top of your nose. That week had been full of emotions and issues to deal with, 24 hours being insufficient to do everything, explain everything. And, well, you and Five didn't have much time alone...

All of this compiled with the fact that your husband possessed the beauty of an angry god,and that excited you so fuck absurdly.

Suddenly, the air in the room became caustic, seething with the expectation of something improper happening, injecting heat into your chest that descended to the middle of your legs.

You sighed softly, and Five immediately noticed the waters where your thoughts were sailing.

“Does it turn you on?” His voice was hoars “See me angry?”

The sigh you gave was your whistleblower, your chest started to rise and fall more breathlessly than usual, your core starting to pulse. You wouldn't be able to say anything even your life would depended it, you drowning in the malicious and hot climate of that room, compiled with the absurd beauty and intensity of the adult in front of you.

God, you needed him!

“Yes, you like.” Five had an arrogant, boastful tone, mocking how sensitive you were.

But his eyes took on a more conscious tone, and he whispered as he said: "Are you sure? Once we start, I might not be able to stop. ”

Five knew his own limits, his own anger, his own strength. If he touched you now, in most simple, he wouldn't be able to stop. You agreed, hands moving gently up his body, resting on him hips.

“I will not be gentle.” Five wanted to you know again.

He had already fucked you hard, drowned in insatiable desire, marking your skin with slaps, hickeys. Five had already mistreated your mouth, made you scream. But never fucked you in anger. He never took his anger out on you. And now, submerged in jealousy, he knew how much strength he would discharge on you.

“I don't want it to be.” But you gave Five the go-ahead on a needy sigh, your fingers running around his waist.

Five dropped his mouth to your ear, tracing a path across your skin with warm lips, now bringing hands up to your skin, feeling how hot, needy you were.

“You're wet and I haven't even touched you yet.” His words hung over you like a warm warning of what was going to happen, what to expect.

You moaned softly, your body shivering, screaming for you to get more, seeking some friction, some contact. Then, as if Five read you thoughts, his left hand clung fiercely to the back of your neck, curling him fingers in your hair.

He forced you to look at him, watching the rage and the extraordinary lust.

“Let me show you what happens to little brats who don’t follow the rules.”

Five left you brutally, telling you to take off all your clothes, watching all your movements while he got rid of the shirt himself. He left him tie beside the bed, sitting on the mattress and pulling you onto him lap as soon as you finally got naked. He fit thigh in the middle of your legs, making you sit on his thigh.

You groaned, the friction in the place you most wanted, the core pulsing against the dark cloth of him pants. You rummaged your hips for more than you wanted, but Five dropped his hand on your ass, releasing a loud, stinging slap. The groan was unable to be controlled, and you buried your face in the curve of him neck, sobbing there.

“You will be grateful for every slap I give you, do you understand?” He snarled, fingers tightening on your flesh, marking your skin.

You agreed, and thanked him when Five slapped your ass harder. This time, he moved him thigh beneath you, brushing your pulsating core, leaving you in an extremely needy state.

“Fi-five!" A sob escaped, followed by another thanks when a slap hit your in ass again.

Five's hands roughly grabbed your waist, holding you firmly in place as he started to rummage in him thigh, making you moan louder every second. That was torture. You pulsed and wet him thigh, your body rigid from wanting more of that friction, the sobs escaping your lips, the muscles contracted.

“Such a needy slut." He snarled in your ear “So desperate for my thigh.”

You groaned at him words, your fingers around him shoulders, squeezing there while Five took you so badly in him thigh. He dropped his mouth to your hot neck, pouring a hickey there before sighing hoarsely:

“The only way you're getting off is on my thigh."

It sent electric currents to your swollen core, and moans got even bigger when Five increased the speed of his movements, rubbing your clitoris in those mind-boggling movements. His strong grip, compiled wheezing on his neck, his hoarse voice and the movements of his thigh took you to the limit. And you were pushed into that abyss of the climax.

“So fucking quickly.” Five delighted, in a groan, and stuck his hands on your back, holding you there, turning you in one movement to the bed.

Your back hit the mattress, Five’s warm hands roamed your legs, squeezing thighs and parting them, exposing your wet, red core at the climax. Five groaned loudly, as if seeing you hurt physically, and he took his hands off you to grab the tie next to you.

“Be good and open your mouth for me.” You obeyed, and he wiped the cloth over there, fastening his tie.

You sighed brokenly, your heart beating fast, breasts stiff and sore, your ass burning with slaps, core sensitive to climax.

“I think I like you better with a gag in your mouth." Five reflected, him hands roaming your trembling body, squeezing every bit of skin, reveling in how your skin felt at him touch.

Five reveled in the breath you took, enjoying how you looked like a fucking goddess like that. So vulnerable, so needy, so needy.

He was controlling himself until now, pushing you to the limit, making you sensitive, teasing you, making you sensitive to what was coming. Him smile was purely lustful, and Five leaned toward you, roughly sucking the nipple from your breast, nibbling at the needy skin. Then he brought hands up to his pants, opening his belt and zipper, pulling the pieces down far enough for his dick to pop out.

The moan you gave when you felt the hot, luscious member on your thigh was enough to inflate him ego even more. Five turned your body down, pulling your waist up, leaning into your ear to whisper:

“I'm going to fuck you so hard that you'll never forget that day.” Then he entered you, rough, strong, badly.

He forced your walls to get used to him size and sank to the bottom of the well, clutching his hands to your hips and pulling you against him dick. You screamed against the tie, pressing your fingers to the pillows, sobbing when Five set a fierce, wild and badly pace, mistreating every inch of you.

One of him hands went to your neck, closing his fingers there and pouring out all the fury and jealousy he felt in the thrusts, going in as deep as he could and pushing your limit. The pornographic sounds of the two of you moaning, the sound of his hip hitting your ass, invaded the room, mixing with the smell of sex, lust and hunger.

You shouted him name when Five left and brutally entered you, making you choke on your own sobs.

“What's it? Are you unaccustomed to my dick?” He tasted it, leaving your neck to slap your ass aggressively “Is it too much for you?”

You sobbed, stopped by the tie, and Five hit you again.

“Do you think someone can fuck you like me?!”

Now him voice was angry and his movements too. Five fucked you like he had spent his whole life in fury at you, waiting patiently for the day when he would discount everything on you. Him hand went to your mouth, pulling tie from there and releasing your toxic moans.

“Answer me, fuck!” One more slap, leaving your ass on fire.

“N-no!” You cried “Nobody ... no-nobody fucks me like you!”

You talks with a more thrust, and Five pushed your chest to the bed, keeping his hand on your back, him moans mixing with your.

Then he reached the peak of anger.

Five came out of you, turned you up and bent your legs, placing your knees on your shoulders. He entered in a brutal way inside you, the new position making him occupy all the minimum vacant spaces. You screamed, tears welling up in your eyes, your hands tightening on his arms, your heart already racing.

It was too much. Your body begged for more, for the climax, for the lust, for anything fierce that Five could give you. He dropped his mouth on yours, biting your bottom lip instead of kissing you, making you swallow his lines when he said:

“Maybe I should leave you like this, that way anyone who wanted to use you could have a go with you. Would you like that? ”

You desperately denied it. Five could very well come out of you and not let you come, and just that thought made your body tremble and tears flow.

“Plea-Please!” You sobbed “I beg you!”

That did things with Five. He stuck his body to your, him arm going around your waist and fucking you as if that could chase away all his anger. This time he kissed you, sticking his lips to yours as he felt you pulse around him and break up in a hushed scream, trembling at the climax.

Five did not falter, his black hair clinging to his forehead with sweat, his heart pounding. He cum strongly inside your core, filling you with hot cum. You groaned, wrapping your arms around his neck, deepening the kiss as he came inside of you, slowly calming down.

The two of you sighed, the room flooding with the smell of sex and desire, your hearts thudding at the same pace. You whimpered in his mouth, and when Five want to leave inside you, you denied it, tightening your legs around him waist.

“N-No.” You moaned softly, "Stay inside, please."

Five drew air through his teeth, him hands gripping the sides of your body, stirring inside you, beginning to feel the lust rising.

He kissed you again, whispering:

“You want to have a child of mine, don't you?" It was an arrogant, provocative voice, and you sighed. “You are such a fucking sensitive little thing.”

Then Five started moving again, and you stayed in that room for much longer.

[dull-c]

rewatch continues! i slept til 2pm today (yeeeeew) and then made fried rice for combined breakfast-lunch-dinner, so i didn’t get around as many eps as i thought i was gonna, but i did get from 1x08 to 2x07 which i think is decent – especially considering how much kreese there was in these episodes. also, i said i was gonna be more coherent this weekend but that has not worked out, sorry

1x08

LUCILLE!! god randee is so beautiful and also somehow very comforting to me. the mom vibes are real!

-“you’re dating a larusso?” jlawz wants to be dating a larusso so bad :(((

-even if i didn’t know the specific men that wrote the amanda and lucille interactions in this episode, i would definitely know a Man wrote it, ya know what i’m saying?

-continuing this episode’s theme of train crash family dinners jlawz dumping “just because you live in a nice house doesn’t mean there’s nice things going on inside” on the diazes yiiiikes. like i get it buddy but you met these people three weeks ago and have had two conversations with them. jlawz is the worst reflection of drunk oversharing me and i don’t like it

-daniel and robby kata montage is making me so sad. i’m really gonna need them to be on good terms again soon, it has been 84 years and my heart hurts

-look, what louie did to jlawz’s car was objectively very bad but he felt he was defending daniel’s honour so i am going to give him the tiniest, tiniest little point for that. sorry but i love daniel and i empathise with people doing terrible stuff because they love him (NOT you terry)

 1x09

-okay HANG ON. did jlawz just walk angrily into the backyard of every house on escalon drive, encino until he found daniel’s place?? and how long was he standing there staring at him?? like the whole time he was making his coffee he just stood there staring ominously?? was he there the whole night??? i need answers!!

-the speed with which the old men go from screaming and trying to fight each other to flirting over cars and nicknames, to bonding and opening up about childhood daddy issues and mutual ex-girlfriends together gives me whiplash. cobra kai is not a comedy it is a tragedy and the tragedy is these two hotheaded idiots who desperately want to be friends and keep fucking it up!!

(billy is essentially just mouthing the words to take it on the run while ralph sings and i think we can guess here which of them came from a theatre background)

-also the way jlawz looks at daniel when he says ‘it’s alright’. i wish to /consume/ it

-“yeah except yours didn’t break your trophy and try to kill you” insane how quickly the showrunners are gonna forget this later!!

-when are we gonna get johnny and daniel drunkenly sparring for real??? it’s been three seasons!! we have been denied it too long. GIVE THE PEOPLE WHAT THEY WANT, SHOW

-daniel’s rage at robby ‘was this all a con?’ is not at all reasonable (he’s a child daniel jfc) but also feels a little different with the tkk3 viewing still fresh in my head i gotta say

-and johnny screeching off out the driveway with a car that's not his. both these men are really the Overreaction Bosses. they apparently never grew out of it and now everyone in the valley must pay

 1x10

-okay but like, jlawz getting his dick out in public and pissing on the larusso plate while muttering about how he can be robby’s father if he wants strikes me as even more repressed home of sexual than the billboard thing. i can’t explain it, it’s just how i feel

-“just when you think life’s going good…” god johnny really wanted to spar with daniel real bad, didn’t he? it’s okay i wanted that too, you dumb little baby man

-yaya is truly aspirational

-the eyefucking going on through the tournie. the crane kick smirks. GOD just fuck already people are getting maimed here

-there’s no way anyone in the topanga team is in high school

-oh robby. i genuinely feel like he is the will byers of cobra kai. as in, he really really needs to catch a fucking break

-daniel being like “i’m not saying you have to like the guy, i know i never will.” babe you literally took him to your childhood home to reminisce yesterday but ok!!

-johnny when he realizes he’s created a little no mercy! miguel monster:

-i have resigned myself to the fact that whenever i hear the miyagi theme i am going to cry now. nothing to be done about it

 2x01

-the way jlawz wanted to punch kreese in the face as soon as he saw him? i felt that

-season 2 has a lot to answer for bringing us kreese and stingray, but daniel looking beautiful and radiant restoring the miyagi do dojo almost makes up for it tbh

-”balance is my thing.” oh yeah for sure jan!!

-miguel really grew whole inches and got his braces off in one weekend. amazing

-jlawz peeping daniel and robby at the hardware store and getting upset and going off at robby about is actually desperately sad. it gives big divorced family energy

-robby: he cares more about his rivalry with you than he does about me daniel [frowning]: hmm bummer but nothing i can do about it as an adult grown man who is one half of this rivalry i guess!! 

-probably more stuff happened in this episode but i was eating my rice at this point so just enjoy this photo i took of the tv screen for some reason (the reason was i love daniel):

so nice that the lesbians on the left there got a car AND a photo with daniel larusso. truly the dream of all lesbians

 2x02 (ish) to 2x07(ish) {my thoughts got a bit slow and same-y after i had all those carbs, so i have condensed the thoughts from these episodes all together bc why not}

-daniel’s calves (that was all i wrote down, that was the whole thought. and i agree with me)

-when kreese said “the gang’s all back together. well, almost all of us” i literally dropped my fork in fury. full offense, i hate that raggedy racist old bitch with all of my heart. i'm so mad i will probably have to sit through his ‘redemption’ in s5. i hope chozen kicks him into a ravine

-anyway, again, there’s something very ~recent exes~~ about the way daniel walks up on kreese and jlawz and stares angrily at jlawz like he’s betrayed him and then kreese puts his hands on jlawz in a weirdly claim-y way and jlawz shrugs him off and tries to talk to daniel and daniel’s like i’m Not Angry I’m Disappointed Goodbye (he IS angry tho). why is every lawrusso interaction like this??? why are they like this

-i’m not gonna get into any deep meta/wank about whether daniel should have told johnny anyway about robby. of course he should have, but like sigh, adults are beating up children here in karate wars town. within the logic of the show it makes sense that daniel would see kreese (a man who jumped out from behind a cardboard cutout of himself to yell grraaaaar at him) and go yeah nah peace out i’m not putting robby in that mess

-it’s 2018 there’s no way that cement truck business wouldn’t have been recorded and uploaded to twitter and johnny would have been the new bean dad

-oh so daniel was gonna do an ice demo at valleyfest and jlawz does a fire one huh? and the fire was melting the ice? it’s almost like…. there’s some sort of …. symbolism… there…. 

-an angy little tory appears! and she loves to do violence

-hey guys so we need for miyagi to give daniel some indirect advice but he’s dead what should we do? just put another guy in a hat that looks like miyagis and have him give the advice? okay perfect!!

-when daniel high kicks the shit outta those guys on the beach and is like “your grandpa know how to move like that, huh?” he is the actual hottest man alive. that is a science fact

-also his face when demetri shows up. please!!!! he’s so happy and so soft!!! YOU get a shoulder pat and YOU get a shoulder pat and YOU get a shoulder pat

-amanda’s comment about daniel hyperfocusing is so bang on and also timely. this is clearly going to come back soon

-season 2-3 hawk is genuinely a bit terrifying and I always forget this and then here I am scared of him again

-re: the trashed dojo. very upsetting on multiple levels, but when daniel barges into the ck dojo all wild and spitty to yell “what are you gonna do about it” and try to goad jlawz into a fight? i’m sorry but my simple little lizard brain is into that

-jimmy and bobby’s reaction to kreese being back is so valid. they are me. we are vibing

-“everyone deserves a second chance” jlawz babe your projection is showing :(( i love you PLEASE go talk to your son. stop adopting evil old men and random sweet adorable neighbours and go talk to your son who is just crying out for any effort from you at all.

-literally putting tommy in a body bag is the absolute worst crime this show has committed, and it has committed so many

-also all the cobra boys yelling wake up at him. guys……………… he’s dead i- 

-that kreese army photo is so unintentionally funny. why does he look like he’s pretending to be an army guy in a porno

-interesting how when daniel recounts what happened in tkk3 leading up to briefly joining cobra kai to the kids, he completely omits the part where he was terrorized into joining the tournament in the first place.  i suppose that could just be down to keeping it simple for the tv audience, or the writers doing that thing they do where they minimize what happened to daniel. but from a character perspective it’s interesting, like he still blames himself for wanting to win it.

aaaand that’s it for now. 2x08 next and then! pulpo. which i suspect will take longer that all the rest of the episodes for me to get through bc i will need a couple of intermissions to scream into a cushion

sidenote: when i get to s4, @lionlikenick​ is joining me to tandem watch, so that could mean one of two things. the thoughts on here could get a lot fewer because i’ll be sending them all direct to knickers, or you (all two of you) will be copping double the thoughts – mine and the ones i appropriate from her. no way of knowing which way it’ll go, but just warning you in advance.

[toorumochi]

100 OTP QUESTIONS: KaruShuu! 4/4

Hello! (´｡• ᵕ •｡`) ♡ I wrote 100 OTP Questions about KaruShuu, and I'll post them here! I'll divide those into 4 parts, here is part 4/4, hope you enjoy! ♡

76. Who takes longer in the bathroom? - Shuu, he takes care of his body well

77. Who has more songs on their ipod? - Karma, he listens to random songs and when a song reminds him of Shuu, he shows it to him <3

78. What movie did they first see together? - Karma convinced Shuu to watch Sonic ninja with him <3 but then, SHREK MARATHONSSSSS

79. What do they like to see each other in? -

Karma: …

Shuu: Don’t you dare say it.

Karma: oh I will, loud and clear

Shuu: no dON’T-

Karma: naked.

80. Who makes jokes during inappropriate times? - Karma pls 😭

They were once at a funereal and Karma is just so stupid pls Shuu lost so many braincells then but he leaned over to Shuus ear to whisper a joke and Shuu snorted so loud that the entire church looked at them

81. At what age do they discuss the possibility of children? - Hm, maybe during their 2nd year of being married or so

82. What do they love about each other the most? -

Karma: EVERYTHING ABOUT HIM IS PERFECT-

Shuu: I guess he is handsome

Karma: :,) you ‘GuEsS’???

Shuu: Yea

83. Who is the one that sees the big picture, while the other focuses on the small details? - Both pay attention to small details

84. What would they write on their partner’s social media for their anniversary? -

Karma: “Marriage: When dating goes too far”, and Shuu replied; “Oh my God…”, he later on deleted his social media :D

85. Who is bad at math? - SIURBFIEBRFUIERBFEUIRBFEQROF PLEASE NO NOT THIS, IF THESE TWO MF GET TOGETHER WHEN HELPING THEIR KIDS, P L E A S E THE KID WILL GET A 200% ON THEIR TESTS

86. Who googles everything? - Shuu, especially when it comes to cooking

87. Who does stuff on impulse? - Shuu, he gets those random impulse feelings and motivation; he once got up at 4 am to vacuum

88. How do they comfort each other when they are helpless to do anything about the situation? - They try to cuddle it off; they rather cuddle and hold each other close than go out to get their minds off what's bothering them; Karma once said, “Whatever you’re going through, so am I with you. Let me help you with whatever you’re struggling with”

89. What is an inside joke they have? -

Karma and Shuu going grocery shopping, and then they walk by a cereal aisle, and there were two cereal boxes on which was written “#1 favourite cereal” and “#2 favourite cereal”, and then Karma grins while leaning over to Shuu and points at the shelf with the #2 cereal and whispers, “This is u”

90. Who makes the other smile with almost no effort at all? - Shuu is a ray of sunshine so Karma smiles always when he is around him, but even at the smallest inconvenience, maybe when Karma is focused on work he makes Shuu smile, like he is so happy to have him in his life

91. What is their favourite holiday? - WINTER HOLIDAYS BC BIRTHDAYS SEGGS AND SUMMER BC THEY CAN GO ON VACATION WHEREVER THEY LIKE (I am so sorry but it's the truth)

92. Who is the one that is calm and collected while the other is angry and destructive? - Uh- both are calm, but when it comes to anger and destruction, then in a different way. Karma destroys smth of Shuu, but ofc they both enjoy it. We know what it is.

93. What is their favourite board game to play? - Monopoly, they are amazing at it but Jesus Christ their comebacks during it are deadlyyyy

94. Who accidentally sets something on fire? - Shuu; he almost set WATER on F I R E

95. Who has the car ready while the other is robbing the store? - Please, they both prepare the car and are partners in crime when it comes to robbing ;))) OMG OMG I NEED A LOVERS ROBBERS AU ASAP OF THESE TWO-

96. What artist/group did they go to for their first concert? - Lmao imagine them randomly showing up to a kids concert, ‘Sofia The First’ themed

97. Who sleep talks? - Shuu but it’s not like sleep talking, it’s more of mumbling

98. Who is the more social one? - Karma lol

99. What are their karaoke songs? - ‘Sofia the first’ is a must.

100. Who would get up on stage and make a fool of themselves just to make the other laugh? - KARMA WOULD! <3

Yay! So those were the 100 OTP Questions about KaruShuu! I hope you enjoyed reading them!! <3

[moldisgoodforyou]

i love you, say it back

wordcount: 1.8k

warning: you might gag it’s pretty fucking cute also there’s cursing there is always cursing

_____

“Hey, Soph.” Rafe tried snapping her out of her thoughts as she mumbled to herself, trying to calculate her midterm grades. Sophie had been chewing on her lip for the past ten minutes, anxious about if she could pull off an A in two of her classes or if she could manage a B+ on her global history midterm. “Hm?” She mumbled, keeping her eyes tracked on her calculation in her notebook.

“You’re stressing me out.” He nudged her foot under the table, trying to get her to look up. They were alone in her architecture lab, late at night, and Rafe was mainly keeping her company, just doing some homework while she was working on a model. It was a typical spot for them on Thursday nights, if he wasn’t able to convince her to go out instead. 

“Oh I’m sorry, you’re free to leave then.” She replied, tone dripping with sarcasm.

“Soph.” He tried catching her attention again, looking at her with a fond smile.

She glanced up with an apologetic look. “Sorry, didn’t mean it.”

“I know. Hey, let’s take a break, we’ve been here for five hours. What are you working on now?” Rafe came around and stood behind her, pulling her shoulders back to rub them.

She resisted for a second then let her head fall back, closing her eyes for a moment. “I’m figuring out my grades. I need at least an 84 on my global history midterm to pull it up, and I need a solid 87 on this model to keep my A in environmental studies, and an 88 on my other one to keep the A in programming, which is going to be fucking impossible, and -”

“You’ll be fine, baby, you’re a great student, you work hard. Take a break.” He urged, trying to tug her up out of her chair. She spun in the chair, looking up at him. “You don’t understand. I can’t, I still have at least 20 hours left on this one model.”

“You have a whole week -”

She scrunched up her nose in the familiar way she did when she was frustrated and Rafe had to resist grinning at her. He had made that mistake once, maybe twice, and she had just gotten pissed off that he wasn’t taking her seriously. “No, I have to get this portfolio perfect too. I’m applying to master’s programs next year and if I half-ass this project then it’ll show.”

He took her hands, tugging again to pull her up. “Soph, I love you, but you gotta stop putting so much pressure on yourself. Let’s take a break.”

I love you.

She froze and tuned out every single word after that, just blinking up at him.

“You what?”

“I said you need to stop putting -”

Sophie shook her head quickly. “No, before that. You said you loved me.”

Rafe raised his eyebrows, his arms going slack and he dropped her hands, exhaling slowly. “Oh. Did I?”

She spoke quickly, anxious, and grabbed one of his hands. “If you didn’t mean it that’s fine, I -”

“No!” He interrupted her and knelt down to her eye level in the chair. “I did! I do. I mean it.” He rubbed the back of his neck with his free hand, keeping eye contact and softened his voice a bit. “I love you.”  

Sophie gave him a tight-lipped smile, clearly nervous. “Really? Me?”

“Of course you.” He grabbed the chair beside her and pulled it to sit, then rubbed his thumb back and forth over her hand, growing tense again. “I wish it hadn’t just slipped out like that, but I’d been meaning to tell you.” He paused. “I’ve known for a while now, I think.”

She finally came to her senses and pulled him in with both hands on either side of his face, giving him a deep kiss. He finally relaxed and smiled against her lips. “I...you’re my favorite, you know?” She grinned.

He nodded and did his best to hold back his disappointment, his heart pounding in his ears and all he could think was she didn’t say it back. “Yeah. Better be.”

She kissed him again, long and slow, then pulled back just enough to rest her forehead against his. “I, um...I can’t...” Sophie trailed off, hoping he’d get the hint.

Rafe cocked his head. “Can’t what?”

She leaned away, biting her lip anxiously. “I can’t say it back. I’m sorry, it’s not like I don’t - I don’t know -”

His face fell for a moment but he recovered quickly, forcing a short smile. “Hey, hey.” He interrupted, cutting her off with a quick kiss. “I know. It’s okay. Let’s just... let’s go take a break. Walk around, move a little.”  

“I don’t know, Rafe, I gotta finish this -”

“Not asking, angel.” He stood, tugging on her hands again. She gave him a wry smile, shaking her head. “You know what that does to me, not fair.” Rafe laughed and nodded. “I know. C’mon, I’ll drag you out of here if I have to. Ten minute walk and then I’ll let you work again.”

She laughed and stood, giving him a quick hug first. He caught her around the waist and wrapped his arms around her, tight. “Love you, Soph. You’re my girl, don’t forget it.” She only nodded, words on the tip of her tongue as she rested her head against his chest. “Hey Rafe?” 

“What’s up?” He held her for a little while longer, smoothing his hand over her hair. 

“I’m sorry.” She mumbled, not willing to look at him. She’d felt it coming from him for a while and had tried to prepare herself, but the weight of his words fell on her like a ton of bricks. 

“You don’t need to apologize.” He kissed the top of her head, then let her go. “Come on, let’s go walk.” He cleared his throat. “Get your mind off of things.” 

She didn’t need a translator to know what things meant.

-

Although every single instinct in Sophie was screaming at her to distance herself from Rafe for the next decade until he lost interest, she made herself continue to hang out with him like normal. She saw the way Rafe’s face dropped after she told him she couldn’t say it back and absolutely hated the way it made her feel - something that made her stop and think. 

She’d never let herself get too attached in previous relationships, always being the one to break it off first. Usually she allowed herself a week-long maximum mourning period, then moved on to the next thing. The fact that Rafe even cared enough to say he loved her made her want to stay, to try, just for him. 

Rafe was a little distant on his own part, trying not to get too upset with Sophie for not returning the sentiment. After all, he felt like he’d known since December - only two months into dating - and it didn’t feel right for him to say it then. He was a little hurt, but he’d also tried telling her at least twice already and chickened out. He just hoped she was feeling the same way.

_

Two weeks later, she snuck Rafe into the Theta house up the fire escape. She had just turned in her final project and declared a celebration was in order. He had the routine down by then - walk over, wait around the corner ‘til the coast was clear, hop the gate then come up the fire escape to the top floor. Allie and Julia were just leaving as he was climbing up the stairs, trying his best to keep quiet.

“Skip the fifteenth step.” Julia advised him as they watched him scale the stairs from the parking lot. Rafe paused, unable to place the voice in the dark and tucked a shoebox under his arm, not sure if he should hide or just run. “I’m not causing any trouble, I swear.” Allie laughed and shone her phone flashlight on him. “Just us, Cameron, we won’t tell.”

“Oh.” He laughed. “Is Soph up there waiting?”

“Yeah, will you convince her to come out with us tomorrow? She’s being lame.” Julia called out.

“I’ll do my best. Can you stop shining the light? I’m gonna get her in trouble.”

“Climb faster.” Allie teased as Sophie pushed open the door up top. “You two are the worst, you know that?” She called down, grinning as Rafe made it up.

“Yeah, yeah, you love us!” Julia yelled back, much louder than necessary. Sophie laughed and grabbed Rafe’s hand, pulling him down the hall and into her room quickly. “Are they gonna give me shit every time I come over?” He asked, smiling.

“Yeah, but it’s ‘cause they like you.” She raised her eyebrows. “What’s in the box?”

Rafe grinned, holding out the shoebox with a poorly-tied ribbon on top. “Made you something, to celebrate. Presentation isn’t quite there, but. It’s something.”

“Something.” She repeated, raising her eyebrows. Sophie took the box and untied the ribbon, then gasped when she opened it. “Rafe, you didn’t!” Inside were 7 cupcakes, haphazardly decorated with pink frosting - her favorite color. 

He beamed, rocking back on his heels. “I hope they’re okay, I had to use the fancy ovens we have in the Delt kitchen. And it’s just from a box, but the box is normally okay, I think? James stole one - he didn’t know - but he thought it was good.”

She pulled out her phone to take a quick video of them first, then panned the video up to Rafe. He pushed her phone away with a grin, turning a little red. “It’s kind of cheesy, I guess. But. You deserve it. I’m proud of you.”

“God, I love you.” She breathed out, grinning ear to ear. 

He paused for a moment, seeming to process, then came over and wrapped her in a tight hug. “You said it back.”

“I mean it.” She kissed him quickly, a blush on her cheeks. “Love you.”

“Love you too.” He replied, pressing his lips to her forehead. She giggled and reached up, swiping her thumb across his cheek. “You have dried frosting on your face.” He scowled but let her rub it away. “Pretty sure there’s flour in my hair too.”

“How’d you know I wanted cake?”

“You mentioned it last week when we watched Matilda, you said you wanted to celebrate with it when you finished finals. But more importantly, you love me back.” He grinned.

“I do.” She laughed. “I mean it, too. I love you.” 

“I could hear you say that for ages.” He smiled, looking pleased. “I swear I’ll never get tired of it.”

“Careful what you wish for.” She teased and reached up to kiss him again.

Rafe laughed against her lips, then pulled away just to press his forehead against hers. “I’m glad you waited, you know. I didn’t want you to say it back just to say it.” 

“You know I would have held out longer if I didn’t mean it.” She nudged her nose against his. “You’re still my favorite though.” 

He beamed and nudged her nose back. “Always my favorite, Soph.” 

[sunlightdances]

Body Language

Pairing: Dean Winchester x Female Reader (could also be read as an OFC) Summary: Low blood sugar sucks. Dean’s POV. Disclaimer: I’m not a doctor!  Please excuse any inaccuracies. I don’t own Dean or Supernatural. Please don’t share my work anywhere without my permission - reblogs are okay and appreciated! Author’s Note: For my pal @that-fineline​ - hope you feel better soon! This took 84 years and isn’t very long - I’m sorry for that. Hope you like it anyway!

At the kitchen table, he stares at the spot across from him where she usually sits, a plate of eggs and bacon getting cold.

He fidgets in his seat, fingers drumming against the coffee mug in his hands, until Sam clears his throat from the doorway.

“How long are you going to sit there?”

Dean huffs. “She hasn’t come down for breakfast yet.”

Sam shrugs. “She wanted to sleep in?”

“It’s not like her to sleep this long. Something’s wrong.”

Sam frowns. “I’ll go check on her. Maybe stick her plate in the microwave just in case.”

Dean knew he had a tendency to worry about people he cared about. He’s been called a mother hen a time or two, and while normally he would protest and say that characteristic more likely belonged to his brother, where she was concerned, he knew it was true.

As if on cue, she comes in, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes, smiling at Sam as she brushes by him in the doorway, dropping down in the seat across from Dean like nothing is out of the ordinary. “Is there coffee?”

Dean splutters. “Is there coffee?”

She frowns, “What are you so upset about first thing in the morning?”

He glares. “I thought something was wrong with you.”

Her face goes carefully blank - there it is. She’s hiding something. Dean knew it, but he also knows she’s a bad liar. She’s not going to be able to hide, especially from him. “Nothing’s wrong with me.” She says flatly.

“Eat your eggs.” Sam nudges the plate towards her gently, ending the brewing argument between her and Dean.

Breakfast is a quiet affair after that. Dean tries not to stare, to read every bit of her body language to figure out what’s different about her, and she tries her best to not let it show that she’s hiding something from them.

It’s a game as old as their friendship, and when Dean’s had about enough, he heads to the garage to work on the car as a means to work out some of his frustration.

It’s hours later when she finds him half-covered in grease.

“I come bearing sandwiches.”

He raises an eyebrow. “With the fixings?”

“Who do you take me for?” She asks archly. “Of course.”

He grins and takes the proffered plate, sliding down to sit on the floor against the driver’s side door. She joins him a moment later.

“You gonna tell me what’s bothering you?” He asks after a few minutes.

She shrugs. “It’s nothing serious.”

“If it’s keeping you locked up in your bedroom, it’s serious.”

She sighs. “I just-- I’ve been feeling like shit.”

His frown deepens. “You sick?”

“Not really?”

“That’s not a great answer.” He’s starting to get worried now, hating the way she won’t meet his eyes and the way her shoulder isn’t touching his anymore. The loss of warmth, the way she’s shying away… he’s reading too much into it, but like he said earlier - body language.

“Low blood sugar.” She mumbles.

“What?”

“It makes me feel like garbage, and all I want to do is sleep, but then I don’t want to seem lazy, or useless, or like I can’t take care of myself, so I just…. Don’t come out for a while.” She says it all in a rush, like if she says it fast enough, he’ll just drop it.

“You--” he stops, trying to digest it. “How long have you been dealing with this?”

Another shrug. “Years.”

He sighs. “You weren’t going to say anything?”

“I didn’t want to bother you--”

He surges to his feet. “You’re not bothering anyone! God dammit--” He stops himself at the look on her face. Gentler, he crouches in front of her, “Look at me. I just want you to be okay. If I can help, I want to help. But I’m not going to-- to lecture you, or whatever you thought.”

“It’s a weakness, and I hate being weak.” She mumbles.

“That’s bullshit,” he says. “You taught me that. Look, you can’t control your body like that. If you need a break, if you need help managing this… that’s what we’re here for. It’s what I’m here for.”

“Sam’s going to be insufferable.” She says, nearly a whine. It makes him laugh.

“Maybe,” Dean chuckles. “But he likes taking care of people. The worst he’ll do is force feed you orange juice, or whatever.” He leans a little closer, hand on her shoulder. “You don’t have to deal with this alone, is all I’m saying.”

She looks suspicious. “You’re not going to be weird about this?”

He grins. “Oh, no. I absolutely am.”

“Dean!” Another whine.

“Granola bars and juice boxes in my backpack, just for you.”

“I hate you so much.”

She doesn’t. Again, body language. Her shoulders are loose and relaxed, and there’s so much open affection on her face he can barely stand it. The smile struggling to break free helps too.

He pulls her to her feet, slings an arm around her shoulders. Takes both their plates and heads back to the kitchen with her in tow. “Really, though. You got everything you need? Do we need to go to the doctor?”

She curls into him, just slightly. “I’m all set for now.”

“You’ll let me know, though?”

“I will.”

He hears the promise in her voice and in the way she grips his flannel just that much tighter, anchoring herself to him.

He promises to do the same for her, trusting his instincts when he thinks something’s wrong. No more missed breakfasts, not if he has anything to say about it.

….

And he was only half-kidding about the granola bars that are going to go in his backpack, first chance he gets.

[shirtlesssammy]

3x14: Long-Distance Call

Guys! We have a special surprise next week!! (Hint: We finally get to recap the gay angel episodes again!) Until then, enjoy our last episode for season 3...

Then:

Sam’s saving his brother no matter what

Now:

On a stormy night, a man drinks alone, contemplating life. His phone rings. It’s Linda. Ben tells her he can’t. “My wife.” He hangs up the phone. It rings again. Linda pleads with him. She loves him. He hangs up again. The phone rings AGAIN. He slams it down repeatedly and tears it from the wall. IT RINGS AGAIN! Damn, Linda, you are persistent. To stop the ringing, Ben pulls out a gun and shoots himself. 

Dean tells Sam they have a case. Sam tells Dean that they’re on a case --his. Dean balks at that because they’ve got nothing. Bela’s gone, the Colt’s gone, and Dean would rather work a case they can solve than wallow in his imminent death. 

They head to Milan, Ohio. They head right to the dead guy’s house and interview his widow. She’s a little belligerent but tells them that there was blood everywhere (Oh, that’s why she’s belligerent), favorite scotch was out, and the phone was ripped from the wall. 

Sam asks to look at the crime scene. He goes through the caller ID. Dean asks about strange phone calls. She admits that a couple weeks prior she picked up on a call that Ben was on. It was static. No one was there. 

Research time!

Dean finds out that “Linda” was Ben’s high school sweetheart --and she died in a car accident. On top of that, she was cremated. On top on top of that, Sam discovered that the caller ID on the phone traces back to a phone number used a century ago! (I presume Sam did all that research while he stared out the window.) 

They head to the bowels of the phone company to find fly infested, porn addicted Stewie. I’m going to skip over all this but will laugh at the ad that said “Order now & receive a bone-us gift!” Sam asks Stewie to trace the old-time number. (Natasha: flames on the side of my face at this damn offensive porn franchise.)

Dean pulls out the threat level 5 on the guy and the guy finds some results. There’s different houses that all received a call from that number. 

Sam heads to investigate one house. He poses as a phone company employee. He asks about strange phone activity. The man that answers the phone says that they haven’t had any issues. Sam notices the daughter looking concerned in the background. 

She pops outside to call his bluff. She wants to know why he was asking about the phones. He gives her a little give and she admits that she’s been talking on the phone with her mom --who’s dead. 

Dean checks in with similar stories. Then he gets a call. It’s the static-y voice of John Winchester. 

Later at the motel, Sam wants to know more about Dean’s call. Dean gets all nervous boy about it possibly really being their dad, and what they should do about it. What should Dean say? Sam, ever the pragmatist, suggests, “hello.” It’s funny, but I guess not really because Dean walks out on his brother. 

Dean comes back with a reason why things are happening here. It’s the birthplace of Thomas Edison, and there’s a museum with Edison’s spirit phone. 

They take a tour but the phone doesn’t have any EMF. They’re stumped as to what’s happening. 

Later that night, while Sam slumbers, Dean stays awake to answer his phone. John calls again. He asks Dean how he could sell his soul. “I was looking after Sammy like you told me to.” (Boris screams into the void) John tells Dean that the demon that holds Dean’s contract is in Ohio. 

Meanwhile, the daughter from earlier is IMing a friend when she gets a message from her dead mom. The mom says she wants to see her. The girl is scared but her mom reassures her that she’s with her. Then the girl’s computer flickers out and in the reflection of the monitor, we see the girl and her mom. 

The next morning, Sam returns from interviewing Lanie, the haunted daughter, to find Dean obsessing over demon omens. He shares his intel with Sam. 

Dean’s pretty sure the demon who owns his contract is following him. I pull a Dean voice to say, “Why are you so obsessed with me?” only Dean’s actual line in the show is “My ass is too sweet to let out of sight.” God. This show. Sam tries to tell him that the demon-killing exorcism that John gave Dean over the phone might not be as advertised. Dean’s a believer, though. He’s got faith in John! (Just gonna take a li’l writing break to tear at my hair.) 

Sam heads back to watch over Lanie, but before he goes the Winchesters hold an emotional shouting match. Dean’s ready to stop the demon from coming after him once and for all and thinks that Sam’s reticence is just more head-butting with their (now dead) dad. Sam accuses Dean of having “blind faith” towards his father and I weep. Sam leaves with one request: that Dean stay put until he returns from seeing Lanie. So. That’s going to go well. 

Lanie explains to Sam what’s been going on - that her mom’s requests have extended beyond the normal grieving cemetery visit. We cut to a young kid playing in his room. His toy phone rings. “Hi, mommy!” he chirps. 

Cut to Dean “Single Man Tear” Winchester sitting dramatically by his phone. It rings. 

Lanie reveals to Sam that her mother’s ghost told her to kill herself. When Sam hears the ghost’s catchphrase, “come to me,” he realizes that they’re dealing with something else entirely. 

While Sam experiences revelation, Dean heads off alone following his dad’s orders. f r o w n y f a c e. He ends up in a quiet, suburban home.

Meanwhile, Lanie’s brother Simon (of the toy phone fame) has gone missing. Sam saves him just in time from getting pancaked by a truck. As soon as the kids are buttoned up back home, Sam calls Dean. He tells him that a crocatta is after the people of the town. It’s a scavenger that lures grieving people and eats their souls. It tends to dwell in filth. Dean recalls the flies at the phone company, so Sam heads out on a hunt. (Meanwhile, YES, Dean’s off having his own questionable adventures, setting demon traps in a nearby house.)

Sam calls Dean for backup before assaulting Stewie, the phone guy. “I know what you are and I know how to kill you,” Sam says to the terrified guy. Someone looms behind Sam with a baseball bat. It’s Clark, the manager! He takes out poor soft-headed Sammy. Unfortunately, Clark takes out Stewie too. 

They both wake up tied to chairs inside the building. Clark kills Stewie and then fangs out. He unhinges his jaw and sucks out Stewie’s soul. Yummy? Clark then lays his hands on the phone console...because it’s time to kill Dean!

Elsewhere, in a police locker room, a man’s phone rings. It’s his daughter. “I know who killed me, daddy,” she says. The girl’s voice tells him that her killer is at their house right now. 

Clark explains to Sam that spoofing John Winchester was incredibly easy. All he had to do was find their phone numbers, then John’s old numbers. That let him listen to voicemails, read emails, and easily find the weak links that led him to target Dean. Oof. (Side note: a crocatta would make a seriously amazing private detective in an alternate Supernatural where monsters have better meal restraint.) 

Dean stands ready at the suburban house - ready to kill a demon. The grieving officer heads home, ready to kill his daughter’s murderer. 

Dean’s jug of holy water is met with an angry father with a shotgun, so things start out really well. They quickly devolve into a dirty fist fight. 

Meanwhile, the crocatta continues to villain-monologue at Sam.

Technology, Clark says, makes it so much easier to target people. They’re connected - yet isolated and easier to pick off. (I scoff at this overdone oversimplification of the role of “technology” in society. I hate when people try to pretend the past was trouble-free.) Sam finds his argument weak as well, and punctuates that by breaking free of his bonds and attacking Clark. 

At the house, Dean disarms the grieving cop and reveals the demon trap below the carpet. He starts reading out the exorcism. To his horror, the guy walks right out of the demon trap. When the guy accuses him of killing his daughter, the pieces click for Dean.

Sam kills Clark by jabbing his head into a retail hook suspended off the wall. OH I SEE, this show has always been obsessed with death by hook. >:| 

Dean and the officer avoid killing each other. Instead, they despair in beaten silence together, before we cut to Dean holding a compress to his forehead back at the motel.

Sam and Dean go over the case back in the motel, but talk quickly switches to EMOTIONS. Sam apologizes to Dean. Dean admits he was wrong. “I wanted to believe so badly,” he says. STORY OF HIS LIFE DAMN IT. He admits that he’s terrified of dying. Terrified of Hell. 

Sam gives him sad puppy eyes. “There’s nothing wrong with having hope.”

“Hope doesn’t get you jack squat,” Dean tells him.

For Sad Boys with Poor Coping Mechanisms Science:

Call Me By Your Quote:

I just talked to an 84 year old grandmother who's having phone sex with her husband, who died in Korea! It redefined my understanding of the word 'Necrophilia'

That’s what happens when you mess with the phone company, dillweed

 Want to read more? Check out our Recap Archive!

[sentienttoast]

I posted 11,560 times in 2021

84 posts created (1%)

11476 posts reblogged (99%)

For every post I created, I reblogged 136.6 posts.

I added 281 tags in 2021

#lmao - 54 posts

#for later - 38 posts

#save - 29 posts

#oh my god - 27 posts

#resources - 25 posts

#what the fuck - 25 posts

#what - 24 posts

#holy shit - 20 posts

#<prev tag - 20 posts

#the late late toy show - 19 posts

Longest Tag: 140 characters

#also like killing hundreds of children by convincing women in impoverished areas that they need their formula even though the water in the a

My Top Posts in 2021

#5

'denmark is the capital of lego' my man's having a fucking stroke on stage

165 notes • Posted 2021-11-26 22:31:57 GMT

#4

I just thought of a technique to get lots of notes on posts that I make

If I make them all haikus then the haiku bot might reblog the post

191 notes • Posted 2021-11-27 13:50:06 GMT

#3

Omg I can't believe they got an actual height Michael D Higgins on the toy show

238 notes • Posted 2021-11-26 22:43:55 GMT

#2

10 for 10

Rules: You can usually tell a lot about a person by the type of music they listen to! Put your music on shuffle and list the first 10 songs, then tag 10 people. No skipping!

Thank you @channah for tagging me :D

1. Guns & Ships _ Hamilton Soundtrack

2. 9 to 5 - Dolly Parton

3. Freeze your Brain - Heathers Soundtrack

4. Papers - Hadestown Soundtrack

5. Aaron Burr, Sir - Hamilton Soundtrack

6. Yo Girl - Heathers Soundtrack

7. Help Let Me Go - Danny Gonzalez

8. Why We Build the Wall - Hadestown Soundtrack

9. The Other Side (Cover) - Annapantsu & Cami-Cat

10. Dead Mom - Beetlejuice the Musical Soundtrack

Oh fuck I think I've outed myself as a theatre kid.

I'm tagging @dami-cant-cope , @orphankin , @c-morrigan , @iwan-out , @irishshauna , @thespeedycricket , @one-piece-wire-fangirl , @bonniesgoldengirl , @twoangrygeese , @crithir , and @manghoes . If you just see this post on your dash feel free to do it too!

253 notes • Posted 2021-02-13 00:51:49 GMT

#1

Ngl walking into Venom 2 I kinda. forgot there was an actual plot. Like I was half-expecting it would be gay monsterfucker fluff the whole way through. Then the villain showed up and I was like. oh yeah. the story arc has to happen.

711 notes • Posted 2021-12-03 20:45:16 GMT

Get your Tumblr 2021 Year in Review →

[aion-rsa]

Midnight Mass Ending Explained

https://ift.tt/39I2zkp

This article contains spoilers for Midnight Mass.

Ending a horror story is hard.

Perhaps no one knows that better than Mike Flanagan, the writer-director behind horror hits like Doctor Sleep, The Haunting of Hill House, and The Haunting of Bly Manor. After observing the occasional less-than-enthusiastic reaction to the endings of some of his other projects, Flanagan decided to end his latest, Netflix series Midnight Mass, on his own terms.

“I didn’t want to come up with an ending that I thought would please people,” Flanagan told Den of Geek and other outlets prior to Midnight Mass’s premiere. “I wanted to come up with the ending that would have the most to say down the line.”

So what, exactly, does the ending of Midnight Mass have to say? Let’s explain just what goes down in the conclusion of Midnight Mass and assess what it all means. 

What’s Up with Mildred Gunning and John Pruitt?

Monsignor John Pruitt a.k.a. Father Paul (Hamish Linklater) was, by all indications, a good Christian man. 

“The thing we kept coming back to is that authentically, through-and-through evil people are very rare. We’re all way more complicated. The humanity of Father Paul was something that was baked in relatively early,” Flanagan says.

Though Pruitt is not a bad man, per se, he is a deeply flawed one. A long time ago, before the “war” (probably World War II or The Korean War), Pruitt hooked up with the married Mildred Gunning and fathered their daughter Sarah Gunning out of wedlock. That is obviously a big no-no for a priest and Pruitt lived with the guilt of denying his daughter for decades. 

Pruitt finally got a chance to alleviate that guilt when he came across a curious creature in Damascus. In this fictional universe where the concept of a vampire is clearly not well known, John Pruitt made the understandable mistake of confusing a monstrous vampire for an equally monstrous angel. After all, the angels of the bible are so visually terrifying that they make a habit of telling those they visit “be not afraid.” 

Pruitt thought this angel had granted him the gift of eternal life, just like the Bible promises. He then decides to share that gift with his congregation. The priest’s major sin here though is pride. He didn’t share the angel’s gift with his congregation out of pure benevolence. He did it because he wanted many more years of life in his prime with Mildred and Sarah at his side. Catholicism means everything to Pruitt. And yet, he would cast it all aside for another chance to have the family he wanted. 

“If you showed up and asked me, I would have taken this collar off and gone with you. Gone with you anywhere in the world,” Pruitt tells Mildred after she’s been vampirified. 

That’s a touching sentiment from the artist formerly known as Father Paul but it’s unfortunately a destructive one.

“When it became clear that Paul could do bad things with pure motives, the show came into clearer focus. There’s only one character in the whole show who I think is evil and it’s not Father Paul,” Flanagan says.

Only one character who is evil? Who could Flanagan be referr….ohhh.

What Were the Vampires’ Plans?

Flanagan actually never confirms which character he sees as evil, but Bev Keane (Samantha Sloyan) seems to be the best fit…unless we count the angel, and he just seems to be a hungry, growing boy.

Bev is, let’s say, a real piece of work. As beautifully depicted by Sloyan, Bev Keane is the officious church lady who can’t keep her nose out of other people’s business. After Mildred talks some sense into John Pruitt, he understands that he and his congregation “are the wolves” and refuses to participate further. That leaves a power vacuum at the top, which Bev is more than happy to step into. 

Read more

TV

Why Midnight Mass is Mike Flanagan’s Most Personal Work

By Alec Bojalad

TV

Midnight Mass Cast: Previous Credits From Hill House to Bly Manor, Legion & Sherlock

By Louisa Mellor

Now that Bev has a veritable army of superpowered vampires what does she intend to do with them? The same thing that all Bevs want to do: make more Bevs. Bev represents the worst of colonial Christianity and its historical penchant for converting all to its kingdom of heaven…through any means necessary.

When Erin Greene (Kate Siegel) finds out that Bev and friends have merely disabled the boats and not destroyed them, she realizes that their ultimate plan is to eventually take their vampire party to the mainland and create a whole planet of enlightened Christians who just happy to have an insatiable taste for blood and a severe UV-ray allergy. 

What Happens to Crockett Island?

Thankfully, Bev’s ultimate goal never comes to pass thanks to the careful plotting of the handful of human beings left in Crockett Island. Erin Greene, Sarah Gunning (Annabeth Gish), Sheriff Hassan (Rahul Kohli), and Annie Flynn (Kirstin Lehman) get to work on finishing the destruction that Bev started.

Ironically, it’s part of Bev’s plan that eventually dooms her and her kind. When one of Bev’s lackeys proposes putting out a fire that the human crew started because the whole island could burn to nothing like in ‘84, Bev’s eyes light up.

“I mean…the church didn’t burn in ‘84,” she says.

Surely this is Revelation. And Revelation means a hale mixed with fire and blood. There will be a flood of fire that ends the world and St. Patrick’s church will be the arc. That’s a great plan and all…as long as something doesn’t happen to the arc.

Welp. Sarah Gunning burns down St. Patrick’s and Sheriff Hassan and Erin Greene (with an assist from Hassan’s son) burn down the rec center. As if burning a church designated as an arc wasn’t symbolically compelling enough, recall that the rec center next to it is equally as symbolic of Bev’s greed. It was Bev who convinced Crockett Island to take the oil company’s money for ruining their island rather than pursuing litigation. And all they got out of that settlement money was that stupid rec center.

With the church and the rec center gone, there are no man-made structures for the vampires to hide from the sun in the coming morning. And that’s how an entire island of 120-ish vampires perishes simultaneously when the sun rises. 

Why Do Leeza and Warren Survive? 

All of Crockett Island perishes save for two actually. Warren Flynn (Igby Rigney) and Leeza Scarborough (Annarah Cymone) are spared thanks to some quick thinking. Putting the only two remaining non-vampirized children in harm’s way is not an option for Erin, Sarah, Hassan, and Annie. Thankfully, Warren knows of one secret canoe to reach the “Uppards” that Bev’s crew wouldn’t know about. 

The canoe doesn’t take Warren and Leeza to the mainland but it does get them away from the carnage to come. The last shot of the series is Warren and Leeza floating peacefully and Leeza announcing that she can no longer feel her legs. This means that the last bit of “angel” blood has likely left her system and with it Pruitt’s vampire legacy is over. 

Saving Warren and Leeza has practical, emotional implications for Midnight Mass’s characters but it also has some symbolic ones as well. The concept of witnessing and witnesses themselves are very important in the Bible. As a second-hand text (though purportedly with every word inspired by God) there would be no gospel without witnesses. Good news is only half the battle. Someone to witness and report on the good news is the other half. Now Warren and Leeza can report on the ultimate good news that the world is saved.

The fact that the kids survive while the adults succumb to their own adult nonsense has some major implications for Midnight Mass’s creator 

“That last moment of the next generation looking out at the ashes of what the grown ups made – that’s what my kids are gonna get no matter what,” Flanagan says. “That’s what all of our kids are gonna get. I wish it wasn’t as on fire as it it. But it really is. We’re never going to be able to explain adequately to our children what happened to the planet they inherited.”

What Happens to the Angel?

With all of Crockett Island burned to the ground, the world’s vampire nightmare is over, right? Well that depends on how well you think an angel can fly with torn wings. No, that’s not an aphorism or a poem, it’s the real question facing the end of Midnight Mass.

As if saving Warren and Leeza and upending Bev Keane’s plans weren’t enough, Erin leaves one last little gift for humanity before she dies. While the angel attacks her and drinks her sweet, sweet blood, Erin begins systematically, yet carefully cutting holes in its leathery wings. At first the angel is kind of annoyed but his hunger supersedes any level of discomfort or pain he’s feeling. 

Later on, while Warren and Leeza watch their home burn they see the angel flying away but in a halted, loopy pattern. The kids aren’t sure if the beast will have time to find shelter before the sun rises. According to Flanagan, if Midnight Mass is a parable (and he assures us it is) then the ultimate lesson of all this isn’t too hard to glean. 

“The angel doesn’t represent vampirism or horror but corruption in any belief system,” he says. “It represents fundamentalism and fanaticism. That’s never gonna go away. You might chase it away from your community for a minute. You might send it off to the sunrise and hope that that corrupting ideology will disappear. But it won’t. And the show could never show the angel die for that reason.”

With that in mind, the angel’s flawed flight pattern isn’t so much Inception’s spinning top but rather a promise that evil will find a way. And then we puny human beings will just have to find a way to stop it all over again. If that’s not Biblical then we don’t know what is.

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All seven episodes of Midnight Mass are available to stream on Netflix now.

The post Midnight Mass Ending Explained appeared first on Den of Geek.

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