#BUT AGAIN. its still…. serviceable as an episode

[oflgtfol]

i will forever defend boba appearing in the mandalorian entirely bc he was THEEE mandalorian like the existence of him as a character in the OT singlehandedly dominoed into the creation of this show. how can you have a show about a mandalorian called The Mandalorian and not feature THE mandalorian. and even besides that, he and din genuinely play off each other so well, like boba was not just a simple cameo for cash greed purposes, because he was an actual character in din’s story and the two of them work well as foils to each other. meanwhile say like ahsoka in the mandalorian was there just because she’s ahsoka

[emaya-chan-the-potato-headed]

Streaming services today.....

THAT ONE SHOW EVERYONE WANTS

plus a crap ton of filler and "original" series/movies nobody gives a shit about

[midnight-els]

It is a truth universally acknowledged that the West Wing would have been even better if they'd had a White House cat. Some headcanons bc I was thinking about it today:

Jed gave the cat a very grand, biblical name. Everyone else has shortened it to something very stupid.

Obviously all of the press and the public adore the cat. There's a minor upset in a polling themed episode when Joey confirms that once again the cat has higher approval ratings than the president. Josh is cross that they are polling on this at all.

There is one chair in the Oval Office that is The Cat's Chair. The staff know not to sit there as you'll get a. covered in fur and b. screamed at by an irate cat trying to force you off. They never warn any of their least favourite congresspeople about this.

The cat wanders around in the background of episodes, often being chased or petted by the extras.

The cat is not allowed in the situation room. The cat is always in the situation room. They had to come up with a special bug detecting protocol for the cat in case anyone tried to take advantage of this.

Ripped from the headlines plot about a congressional investigation into something related to the cat, based on the incident about Clinton's cat's postage.

The cat LOVES Air Force One. The Secret Service do not love having to get him on board or captured to get back off.

Leo and the cat are best friends. They're basically this meme. Leo's the grandma. Jed is the mom.

Aside from Leo, the cat loves the secretaries best. They always have lots of treats for him in their desks. Debbie is the only one he doesn't get on with; she has resorted to using a plant mister to spray him when he tries to get on her desk.

Josh thinks he and the cat are archenemies. The cat hasn't paid more than 2 seconds notice to Josh in his life.

CJ and the cat are archenemies. CJ was very pro-cat until she caught it fishing in Gail's bowl one day. Now she's at war to keep it out of her office. She's still trying to convince Danny to write a piece exposing the cat's dark side to its adoring public. Carol is very tired.

Sam wants so badly to be best friends with the cat. The cat thinks he's trying too hard. Will ends up exactly the same way.

Toby and the cat have never properly interacted and both are very happy to leave it that way.

The cat is supposed to stay in the residence during big events. Abbey stopped enforcing that after he got out and scratched Lord John Marbury when he picked him up against his will.

The cat has a secret service code name. One time, the code names are changed and an overenthusiatic reporter tries to break a story on the first lady's 'unusual activity' by following what he thinks is her code name. It's the cat's. CJ dines out on this for weeks.

The cat occasionally goes missing. The secretaries and Charlie have a recurring B-plot where they have to go and recover him. Somehow, the cat has always ended up somewhere relevant to the A-plot.

The cat properly goes missing after the incidents with the Thanksgiving turkeys and the goat in CJ's office (aka prime cat territory). Each time she claims she'll be nicer to the cat when it returns. Each time it lasts about two days.

Margaret thinks the cat has psychic powers and frequently provides warnings based on her interpretations of 'the signs'. Usually she's right.

The cat somehow makes off with the final edits for the state of the union one time (of course they were only handwritten on one piece of paper). Chaos ensues.

Jed tries to send the cat to Manchester partway through the series. After large-scale outcry from the staff, press and public he is returned to the White House. Unfortunately, after a couple of months as a barn cat he is even more badly behaved than before.

The cat is in both Jed and Abbey's official portraits.

[urinarythreatinfection]

Hi, I really like your work with Sanji! Can I request a fanfic where the reader is a person who didn't get love from his parents as a child, but only money? The reader is a woman, if anything! How the reader will try to show her love to Sanji is your choice! Thanks in advance!

This was a bit hard at first but I ended up getting into it eventually. It might've turned out a little more angsty than I thought but I felt like it worked really well. If you aren't at 1053 i'm really sorry I put it in there bc it worked really well too.

Insecure Love

Sanji x Fem Reader. Angst/comfort and some fluff. Major Spoilers for episode 1053. 2740 words.

Sanji adores you, you’re perfect to him. Beautiful, amazing, talented, everything. You are the best woman he could ever wish for. Sometimes he even lays awake at night thinking of the memories the two of you have made, goofy smile on his face he’s so enamored. There is one problem though, just a teensy one, you’re not at all affectionate. You don’t stop him from being affectionate to you, but you don’t exactly reciprocate or initiate. Instead, you give him gifts, which was nice at first but he started to feel a bit conflicted about it the more it happened. He would rather get love from you rather than a material good you’d bought somewhere. What’s worse is that the gifts have stopped, it’s almost always just money now.

“Here.” You say blankly to Sanji while he’s cooking, handing him cash. He spots you and his eyes trail to the berri in your hand, a small frown on his face. “Is it not enough?” He jolts and quickly shakes his head.

“No, that isn’t it. Thank you.” He forces a smile and takes it, pain in his chest. Your boyfriend tries so hard to make you feel loved, cooking for you, complimenting you, showing physical affection, but all you do is hand him cash like payment for a service; like his love was simply something nice you pay him for. He’s tried refusing it before but you had gotten upset, putting it away with a sad expression until he agreed to take it. Now you look at him as he pockets it, telling himself he’ll use it to buy ingredients for a dish you’ll like. After he puts it in his pocket he hugs you, kissing you for a bit before pulling away. “I’m going to finish cooking soon, my love, would you like to stay here?” His eyes are expectant, hoping you’ll stay, but you shake your head.

“I’ll leave you to it, you should focus.” With that, you leave him alone in the kitchen. He looks at the ingredients he was chopping, the money you gave him weighing down his heart. Is this really so one-sided? Has he just been bothering you this entire time? Maybe he’s just a toy you can play with, a music box that sings for you when you put money inside. Those thoughts crowd his head as he cooks until he accidentally lifts a hot lid with his bare hand, burning his skin; but before he can go to treat it... it heals on its own. The cook grits his teeth, clenching his fist. What a creepy ability. He puts his head in his hands and takes deep breaths, it’s okay, he loves you, you’re still together.

“Are you alright?” Robin asks him as he sets food down in front of the girls, including you, completely spaced out.

“Oh, sorry Robin-chan.” He snaps out of it and smiles at her. “I’m doing okay.” The cook leaves to serve the rest of the crew, steps noticeably heavier than normal. The women watch this, then look to you.

“Did you two argue or something? What’d he do?” Nami asks, ready to defend you, but you shake your head.

“I don’t know, I thought he was okay earlier, I handed him money and he accepted like normal.” You’re confused, and they both look at eachother.

“Like normal..?” Nami asks again.

“Yeah, I’ve been giving my allowance to him since we started dating. I know he sometimes struggles with food budget so I like helping out.” You explain and the two girls stare at you.

“(Y/n) what have you been doing so far in your relationship with Sanji?” Robin questions you and you start to talk, explaining that you’ve been getting him gifts since you both started dating; but you ran out of ideas on what to give him so you’ve started to give him money when he makes you happy.

“Wow…That’s horrible.” The navigator states, starting to pity Sanji.

“Like a sugar baby?” Your jaw drops slightly at Robin’s comparison and you quickly shake your head.

“A sugar baby!?” You’re shocked but start to think about it. “Wait, is that what he wants?”

“Obviously not!” The navigator snaps at your obliviousness. “He basically collapses the moment a woman does something for him but you’ve just been giving him money?”

“Wouldn’t you like that though?” You point out and she frowns.

“That’s different.” She considers money an okay gift for her, though even she would get annoyed if she had a lover that would only give her money and ignore anything else. “Plus you hardly show him affection, I thought it was just your guys’ thing so I didn’t say anything but you’re clearly bumming him out.”

“I haven’t refused anything from him though, and I don’t get mad at him for flirting with other women.” The navigator sighs, mentally facepalming, this isn’t working out. You’re too oblivious and Sanji’s too much of an idiot to tell anyone something’s wrong, much less a woman he loves. Robin comes up with something.

“Tomorrow you should come to our room at noon. We’ll assist you” You tilt your head, confused, but agree.

That night, Sanji heads to bed still sad and only getting worse. He can’t sleep, he’s been having trouble doing so since that happened. ‘She was there, she must’ve seen.’ An unnatural thing, becoming the same type of monster he always despised. You must’ve fallen out of love with him, that’s it. He can’t blame you, but it doesn’t mean it isn’t digging a hole into his chest. He curls up into a ball on his bed, grasping at the sheets next to him like you’ll be there.

_________________

The next morning goes as it usually does on the Sunny. Sanji wakes up early to make breakfast for everyone and when they wake up it’s time to eat. The difference now is that Sanji seems off, tired, he doesn’t yell at Luffy or Zoro and his happy comments towards Robin and Nami aren’t enthusiastic. When he sets down your plate in front of you you look up at him, trying to scan his face if he’s sick. He awakened late so it would make sense if his Germa genes weren’t as strong, maybe he’s gotten sick? You’re worried and so is everyone else, except Luffy who doesn’t notice until after eating. He almost says something but is promptly elbowed so he keeps shut. He means well but mentioning it right now will make things worse, plus, the girls have a plan.

Afternoon finally strikes and you walk into the shared girls room, they aren’t there. 'Maybe I came too early?’ You think to yourself, checking the time to make sure it’s noon. Suddenly you hear footsteps and the door opens, revealing Robin, Nami, and your boyfriend. They push him inside and he spots you, looking shocked; but before he could ask what’s going on the door closes. He tries the doorknob but it’s locked, switched so the lock is on the outside.

“Don’t even try unlocking the door or breaking it down. You aren’t allowed out until you two communicate.” Nami states and footsteps are heard fading away. You stare at Sanji’s back, his hands on the wooden door. Does he not want to be with you alone with you this much? Usually he’d be excited to have time to spend with you.

“Is something wrong?” You ask him and the cook turns quickly, not prepared for this. He isn’t ready yet! He still needs to prepare his heart for the breakup and practice his apologies for you falling out of love. “Sanji..” You reach a hand out to him and he flinches, pressing his back against the wall like he’s afraid of you. He’s scared to be touched by you, scared that when you feel his skin you’ll retract from fear and disgust from the steel-like flesh. It isn’t right, these misunderstandings cause pain and you bite your bottom lip. What are you doing wrong, what did Nami mean by saying what you were doing was horrible? You step away from him and turn around, the both of you too insecure to speak. Fortunately, being trapped in this room will force you to.

‘She can’t even bear to look at me.’ Negativity clouds his judgment, irrational thoughts filling his mind. “I’m sorry.” An apology, it sounds guilty. This must be a sign.

‘He’s breaking up with me…’ There’s too much stress, him avoiding you, being told something is wrong, and now this breakup. The dam of stone formed by the years of trauma starts to crack, tears dripping from your eyes. Sanji doesn’t see it, but he can hear your shaky breaths. It causes his eyes to widen and his worry for you overpowers his instinct to pull away.

“Mon cœur!?” Your lover walks to you and scans your teary face, his hands cupping your cheeks.

“You don’t have to call me that,” His heart breaks, you’re breaking up with him so he would have to stop calling you that. Your next words confuse him, though. “I know you don’t want to.” …He doesn’t want to? Sanji blinks a few times, why would he ever not want to call his everything what she is?

“What are you talking about? I-”

“Stop forcing yourself!” You yell and he jolts. “It must’ve been hard. Your love for women made you stay with me for so long but I know you don’t love me. Being hesitant about my gifts, not talking to me as much, and you're starting to look tired too.” You step back and put your face in your hands. “You must be staying up late thinking about how you could break up with me.” He stands there, shocked. Him… breaking up with you? The perfect woman completely out of his league? Tears flow from your eyes faster and he tries to make sense of it all, his brain so focused on his own faults that the thought of you being insecure of yours is unable to cross his mind.

“Do you mean the berri you’ve been giving me?” He manages to put together and you nod. He continues to think. “You… it wasn’t payment to you?” He doesn’t know what else to call it so he settles with that word.

“Payment?” You wipe your eyes and sniffle. “Is that why you’ve been staying with m-”

“No, nonono of course not. I thought..” Sanji quickly interrupts you, stopping that thought. This is different from what he thought was going to happen, but it still hurts to speak his mind when it only reminds him of what’s wrong, well what he thinks is wrong. “I thought you were giving me those things as payment because you didn’t want to pay attention to me. So I wouldn’t bother you, that my love was just a transaction.” He says the last part more quietly and your heart drops. This is familiar, you’ve felt this exact way before when you were young. Going to your parents for love and only getting money in return to shut you up and get you away. You start to shake and cry harder.

“I-I, I didn’t know. I’m sorry..!” You’re just like them, but Sanji doesn’t care; hugging you.

“It’s okay, it’s not your fault.” He’s already forgiving you and you haven’t even explained anything.

“No, it’s n-not okay.” You say while shaking your head, it’s nerve-wracking to talk about your past but you choose to. For him. “I… I thought I was doing the right thing. That I was different from my parents who would give me things instead of love, I always made sure t-to never tell you to go away or reject you but I ended up making you feel the exact same way I did!” You pull away and cover your face. “I’m horrible!”

‘The same way she did?’ He processes what you said, what’s happening. The struggle of trying so hard to be different from family only to end up like them is something he knows as well. His hand goes to his chest, pressing down and feeling almost completely dense skin instead of the regular squish of flesh; just like his brothers. “You don’t think I’m a monster…” You quickly shake your head. “Why didn’t you say so? Are you sure- I mean you never wanted to be with me!” Whenever he was cooking or if he went shopping you would just give him money and wave him off.

“I..” You think about that, then start to get embarrassed. “I didn’t want to bother you, what if I get overly clingy and get you mad?” Sanji hears this and it’s like weight has been dropped from his heart, but hearing you say this so insecurely still makes him slowly sink to the ground. “Sanji?”

“Bother me.. being clingy.” Gods, he would do anything to have you cling to him when he’s cooking or shopping. “You could never, ever, not in an eternity, ever bother me by being ‘clingy’”

“But don’t you get busy? You work so hard cooking and when you’re out shopping you’re talking with women, wouldn’t I make it awkward if I butted in?” He hangs his head in shame, the few times that you’ve agreed to go shopping he has flirted with other women; but he had assumed you didn’t care. In a way, he would do it on purpose hoping to get a reaction, even looking back at you. Anything to show a sign you loved him, that he wasn’t a toy, but all he was doing was making things worse. This lack of communication was only causing pain to you both. How could he ever make this up to you? He was already unworthy and now he had dared to cause such suffering to the love of his life. “Baby…” You crouch down and cup his face so he’s looking at you, his eyes are teary.

“I hurt you.”

“We ended up hurting each other.” You wipe his tears with your thumbs. “Do you still want to be with me? Even if I've been messing up?”

“I should be the one asking you that, treasure. My love.” Sanji hugs you, pulling you close to him so you’re on his lap. You can feel his hesitance, the fear that you’ll pull away because he’s different now, but you don’t. Instead you press closer to him, lifting your head up to look at him. You don’t really initiate kisses, so you’re nervous as you place your lips on his. He’s only shocked for a moment before he kisses back, resting his hand on the back of your neck. This is the longest series of kisses you’ve had, almost a minute before you have to pull away. “S-Sorry, I’ve gotten better at holding my breath lately.” A bit awkward it’s from something he dislikes, though.

“So I don’t have to worry if I kiss you alot?” You ask and his pupils basically turn to hearts.

“No, you don’t.” Before you two can kiss again there’s the sound of the door unlocking, making you quickly get off of Sanji’s lap as he stands up so Robin and Nami don’t see you in an awkward position. They almost think that nothing has happened but seeing the two of you clearly panicked changes their mind, making Robin smile.

“It went well, then?” Robin chuckles happily as the two of you flush. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

_______________

Sanji hums as he cooks, a good mood from making up with you so amazingly. His ears perk up when he hears you come inside, not needing to look to know it’s you. “I’m almost done, my love.” He states as he expertly flips a steak. You don’t say anything, which confuses him but before he can turn around he feels your arms wrap around him and your body press against his back. His girlfriend, who hasn’t shown real affection until yesterday, is clinging to him while he cooks. Is this a dream?

“Don’t turn around, I’m still a little shy.” You say quietly and it echoes in his mind. Shy… shy… Gods, you’re too cute. His face goes red and he falls to the side, blood seeping from his nose. “Sanji!?” You manage to stop him from slamming fully onto the ground, shaking him. He’s in heaven, this is heaven.

[ckret2]

✨⚠️ Wasting Away Again in the Goldilocks Zone ⚠️✨

If you're new here, this is one of those "human Bill in the Mystery Shack" redemption fics, you know the drill: Bill illegally escapes death via reincarnation; the Shack crew imprisons him til they can figure out how to kill him; but they won't, because Bill's gonna make friends with them and literally everybody else in town. Whether they like it or not.

Featuring!! The slowest redemption arc you've ever read; "human" Bill that doesn't decide being trapped in an alien body is fine; show-style episodic plot structure; individual plot arcs for characters you've never even cared about; so canon compatible we even include the dang coloring book; and so TBOB-compatible over a year before TBOB came out that I'm considering taking up a position as the Oracle of Delphi just so Apollo stops barraging me with dodgeballs.

New chapter every Friday, 5pm CST! Yes, that includes this Friday!

For art, doodles, upcoming scene excerpts, and posts about characterization & plot plans, see my #bill goldilocks cipher tag. For the fic itself, the first few chapters are on AO3, but tumblr's 60 chapters ahead:

⛓️ 1 Part 1. Bill returns, in a bedsheet toga.

⛓️ 1 Part 2. Bill tries to murder the Stans & Soos (with time travel).

⛓️ 2. Dipper and Mabel save the day (with time travel).

⛓️ 3. A tense evening as the Pines prepare to get rid of Bill.

⛓️ 4. Plot twist: the Pines physically can't get rid of Bill.

⛓️ 5. The gang goes to a diner at 3 a.m. for hostage negotiations.

⛓️ 6. Bill escapes from Theraprism. [NEW!!!]

⛓️ 7. "How'd Bill get here" flashback; plus, entering his new prison.

💇‍♀️ 8. Bill gives himself a haircut and depression.

💇‍♀️ 9. Bill & Ford grudgingly have a sincere conversation; regret it.

💇‍♀️ 10. The kids decide Bill won't ruin their summer. Also: Pacifica!

📓🔺📓 TBOB BOUNDARY: Everything above this line has been edited for 100% compatibility with The Book Of Bill and posted to AO3! Everything after this line has not been edited... so it's only 98% TBOB compatible. 📓🔺📓

🧚 11. Mabel gives Bill the most beautiful makeover ever. (It's not.)

🧚 12. Pacifica advertises Harry's Hairy Fairy Formula. Bill wants it.

🧚 13. Pacifica refuses to share; the twins discover its side effects.

🧚 14. Mabel wins Bill's eternal friendship with arts & crafts.

💭 15. Bill, Ford, and Dipper have nightmares that are Bill's fault.

💎 16. Ford has a fun day with Mabel but everything goes wrong.

💎 17. The day goes right again thanks to healthy communication.

🎥 18. Mabel's Guide To Local Animals, co-starring Bill Cipher.

🧊 19. Wendy snoops into the weird things happening in the shack.

🧊 20. Wendy meets the weird thing (it's Bill).

🎂 21. Stan & Ford's birthday party! Bill gives evil gifts.

💭 22. Bill "helps" Dipper's nightmares; no one knows his motive.

👁️ 23. Bill's ex is back in town and nobody's happy about it.

👁️ 24. Everyone's even less happy to learn Bill has a sex life.

🧿 25. Mabel and Bill make friendship bracelets! :)

🧿 26. The Pines take Bill to the mall. He wears terrible things.

🧿 27. Bill breaks Mabel's heart (and panics to fix it).

🏳️‍🌈 28. Bill talks his way into going with Wendy to Rainbow Club.

🎃 29. Bill contacts the Henchmaniacs on Summerween morning.

🎃 30. Costume making. Mabel pries into Bill's past, with crayons.

🎃 31. The Trickster's pals trick-or-treat; and Bill terrifies Dipper.

🪮 32. Dipper & Mabel make a poppet to control Bill.

🦷 33. Stan takes Bill to the dentist. In handcuffs.

🦷 34. Dentist & tooth fairy attack. Stan & Bill are still handcuffed.

🦷 35. Bill & Stan reach a painful understanding and stop the fairy.

🛁 36. Anime night; and Mabel makes Bill do community service.

🛁 37. Bill plots escape and runs into Wendy. Dipper panics.

🛁 38. Bill has the worst and stupidest day of his afterlife.

🌅 39. A cultist finds Bill; Bill tries to re-recruit Ford.

🚙 40. Gideon broadcasts car commercials; invokes Bill's wrath.

🚙 41. Bill apologizes for bullying Gideon. lol no he blackmails him.

🌕 42. Bill tells Dipper secrets of the universe; predicts an eclipse.

🌖 43. Gravity is disappearing; Ford and Fiddleford investigate.

🌗 44. Ford & Dipper drag Bill hiking; Bill faces his death.

🌘 45. Ford demands answers Bill can't give as totality looms.

🌑 46. Totality. Bill decides whether Ford lives or dies.

🌒 47. Bill feels rotten but finally explains the eclipse.

🌓 48. Bill has a complete mental breakdown.

🌔 49. The gang limps home. (Plus: a second dimensional eclipse.)

💿 50. Bill finally processes that mental breakdown.

💿 51. Dipper and Mabel try to remember the Axolotl's poem.

📖 52. The gang reads Flatworld. Bill isn't thrilled.

📖 53. Mabel tries to get Bill to talk about his home world.

⚛️ 54. Dipper, Ford, and Fiddleford do paradox physics.

📖 55. Mabel learns college-level geometry.

📖 56. Mabel & Bill have fun; Dipper & Ford prepare for murder.

💀 57. The execution of Bill Cipher.

💀 58. Everything you wondered about how Bill escaped.

💀 59. Everything you didn't wonder about how Bill escaped.

💀 60. Everything you never imagined about how Bill escaped.

✨✨ 🪐 61. The Axolotl finds the second dimension's corpse. ✨

📙 62. Soos vacuums the attic (wow exciting)

📙 63. Soos decides how he feels about Bill's treatment.

📙 64. Fixin it with Soos: home redecorating!

🎥 65. The gang makes plans for the night.

🎥 66. Dipper's Guide to the Fremont Nightwigglers

🎥 67. Mabel's Guide to Secret Sleepovers

🎥 68. The aftermath of everybody pulling all-nighters.

🏖️ 69. Beach episode! The Pines fish! Bill tans!

COMING SOON:

🏖️ 70. Bigfoot, Agent Powers, and the cool teen gang.

Hey!! Go read chapter 61 now! I posted it out of order so you probably haven't read it!!!

🪐 61-2: The 2D massacre is so much worse than the Ax thought.

🪐 61-3: A building inspection in the Nightmare Realm.

🪐 61-4: Even when Bill fixes things he breaks them.

🪐 61-5: A shape meets Bill as the world burns.

COMING SOON:

🪐61-6: The gods & Bill negotiate him leaving Dimension Zero.

EVENTUALLY WHEN WE GET BACK TO NORMAL NUMBERING THE NEXT CHAPTER WILL BE:

🕴️ 71? The government investigates the Mystery Shack... again.

I skipped chapter 61 because it was about the destruction of Bill's dimension and it was scheduled to post the week TBOB came out. By the time I finished rewriting it to be TBOB-compatible, it was like, 5 or 6 chapters. I'm gonna finish posting them first to see how many chapters they actually are and then I'll update the numbering of the subsequent chapters.

This post was last updated November 8, 2024! If you're seeing this post as a reblog and it's been a while since then, check back on the original post to see if more's been added!

[rnelodyy]

The Owl House And Restorative Justice

At the end of Season 1 of The Owl House, it is revealed that Lilith, the main overarching antagonist of that season, was the one to curse her sister Eda, one of the protagonists, to win a tournament when they were teenagers. This information causes Eda to fly into a screaming rage and attack Lilith, and understandably so.

Eda’s curse is essentially a chronic illness, one that, in Eda’s own words, has ruined her life, being the reason she’s considered a social outcast and why, before meeting King and Luz, she hadn’t gotten close to anyone in years. In season 2, it’s revealed that the curse is why she pushed away her partner Raine to the point that they broke it off with her, and that during a particularly bad flareup, she accidentally maimed her own father, leaving him half blind and with permanent nerve damage to his hands, making him unable to continue working as a Palisman carver. The curse has ruled Eda’s life for decades now, so to Eda, this is the ultimate betrayal.

In the first episode of Season 2, Lilith has defected from the Emperor’s Coven, split the curse between Eda and herself to mitigate the symptoms for her sister, and has moved in with Eda at the Owl House. While Lilith herself still feels guilty and feels she has to make it up to Eda, everyone else, Eda included, has seemingly either forgiven her or chosen to look past it. Eda even makes fun of her for feeling bad about cursing her, and Lilith’s guilt is seemingly absent for the rest of the series. 

The response to this was… Less than stellar, shall we say. A lot of people were angry, saying Lilith got away with her crimes without even a slap on the wrist, and that Eda’s forgiveness of her was far too sudden.

This isn’t the first time we’ve seen this kind of critique. Amity spent years bullying Willow after her parents forced her to break off their friendship, and when she began trying to mend that relationship, the response from fans was that Willow should have been a lot more angry at Amity, and that they went back to being besties far too soon. I’ve even seen this criticism leveled at Hunter for the things he did while working for Belos, at Vee for impersonating Luz for months to trick her mother, and at Luz for hiding the fact that she helped Philip find the Collector from her friends. And it does seem strange for the show to keep tripping on this same point again and again.

Except, it’s not really. Because I think that, when viewing this show from a different angle, those supposed flaws are actually symptoms of something very important to understand – The Owl House operates on a system of crime and punishment that is very different from our world’s.

More specifically, our world mostly utilizes retributive justice. The world of The Owl House utilizes restorative justice.

So first, what do those terms mean? Broadly, they’re two different forms of handling interpersonal disputes, or dealing with crime. 

Retributive justice is the one our current justice system uses, where the focus is primarily on punishing the perpetrator. Retributive justice can mean detention, suspension, expulsion, jail time, monetary fines, some kinds of community service, exile, or in more severe cases, corporal punishment or the death penalty. It’s the lens most people view the world through, where if someone hurts you, hurting them back is the correct response.

Restorative justice is a very different approach, where you instead focus on helping the victim recover from what happened, and rehabilitating the perpetrator to prevent this from happening again. Restorative justice can look like verbal or written apologies, monetary compensation for costs and trauma, therapy for both victim and perpetrator, education for the perpetrator, mediation between victim and perpetrator, a restraining order, etc. 

When viewed through a retributive lens, The Owl House lets its characters get away with a lot of shit. Lilith cursing Eda, Hunter rounding up Palismen knowing they’ll be killed, Amity tormenting Willow for years, it’s all stuff that, in a retributive environment, they should be punished for, and they’re just not. Eda is only genuinely angry at Lilith for two scenes, Amity and Willow fix their relationship very quickly once Amity starts making amends, and Hunter isn’t punished at all. 

However, I believe the story of The Owl House is best viewed not through a retributive lens, but through a restorative lens.

Let’s look at the Lilith-example again. Lilith’s offense was cursing Eda, which she did because she wanted to win a spot in the Emperor’s Coven. Knowing Eda was better than her, she cast a curse on her, thinking it would only last for a day. But when the time came, Eda forfeited the match, soon after which she transformed into the Owl Beast and was pelted with rocks until she ran. The curse turned out to be very permanent, and Lilith spent the next 20 years trying to fix her mistake by working for Belos to try to capture Eda, since he promised to heal her curse. 

However, when she finally succeeded, Belos went back on his promise. Instead of healing Eda, he ordered her to be publicly executed. When Lilith protested, Belos essentially told her to shut up, that it was the Titan’s will, and left her there. 

So, having realized her method of fixing her mistake has gone real bad, Lilith sneaks down to the Conformatorium to free Eda herself, but arrives too late and finds Luz instead. After a brief fight they end up teaming up, and Lilith leads Luz to the elevator, but they are captured by Belos and Lilith is thrown into the cage with Eda. There, she restores Eda’s partially petrified body, and after fleeing with her, Luz and King, uses a spell to split Eda’s curse evenly between their two bodies.

From a restorative justice point of view, Lilith has done pretty much everything she reasonably could do to fix things. She’s denounced the Emperor’s Coven, returned Owlbert to Luz, helped Luz find the elevator to the execution platform, saved Eda from petrification, apologized to Eda, and while there’s no way for her to cure Eda’s curse entirely, she took on half of the curse at great expense to her own health, in order to ease Eda’s symptoms. 

Eda isn’t angry anymore because in her eyes, Lilith has already fixed things with her. Punishing her more at this point is pointless. What more could Lilith do, really? What other lessons could she learn? The only thing that punishment would bring at this point would be more suffering. 

Let’s look at another example: Amity and Willow.

Amity’s offense was breaking off her friendship with Willow because she was a late-bloomer, bullying her for years, and allowing her friends to do so too. Willow is left with horrible self-esteem issues because of this, and combined with her failing grades, turned her into a horribly shy and withdrawn wallflower (no pun intended). After she’s moved to the plant track she starts actually getting better, but Amity and Boscha especially continue to torment her. While Amity’s bullying of Willow does peter out over time, Willow is clearly still extremely resentful of her. In an attempt to make Willow forget their friendship, Amity accidentally sets most of Willow’s memories on fire, leaving her confused, amnesiac, and unable to grasp basic concepts like that chairs are for sitting in.

Luz pushed Amity into fixing Willow’s brain by going into her mind together and piecing her memories back together. There, the Inner Willow revealed what happened to Luz and the audience.

At this point, Amity shows her that her parents were actually the ones who forced her to end the friendship because they didn’t think Willow was a suitably powerful or influential friend, threatening to make sure Willow would never get accepted into Hexside if Amity didn’t force her to leave. Amity then apologizes to Willow for going along with it, and for the bullying, and vows to make sure her friends never mess with Willow again. 

Willow accepts her apology, but also makes it clear that, while it’s a start, she’s not yet ready to accept Amity in her life again. Restorative justice has not been fully attained, because to Willow, Amity hasn’t fixed everything – Boscha and her squad are still bullying her, and still consider Amity one of them. This changes two episodes later, when Amity tells Boscha to grow the fuck up when she starts bullying Willow again, and joins her and Luz’s Grudgby team despite her personal issues to get Boscha to back off. Willow doesn’t make a grand gesture of forgiveness in this episode, but it is after this point where the two become comfortable around eachother again. 

Did Willow forgive Amity too quickly for years of trauma? Maybe. If she had chosen to continue keeping Amity at a distance I certainly wouldn’t have blamed her. But in the end, Amity fixed the mess she caused as best she could, and has proven herself to want to be a better person, to want to be Willow’s friend again. She worked hard to prove herself to be a person worth trusting, and Willow decided to give that trust a chance again.

And while they did become friends again, that friendship was clearly still affected by what happened, which led to bumps that the two of them had to work through. Like in Labyrinth Runners, where Amity’s overprotectiveness over Willow makes Willow feel like Amity thinks she’s incompetent, and still only sees her as the helpless person she used to be. 

Willow continuing to be mad at Amity and punishing her for what she did wouldn’t be an unreasonable reaction, but it wouldn’t have fixed anything. It would certainly have an impact on Amity, seeing her former best friend rejecting her attempts to make up for what she did, but the hurt on both sides would have continued festering, because deep down, Willow missed Amity too. 

In Hunter’s case, there’s the question of whether he can even be held responsible for his actions. The Palisman-kidnapping in specific was explicitly done under duress – if he failed he would face verbal and physical abuse, and be threatened with his nightmare scenario: getting thrown out of the Emperor’s Coven. 

And that’s not an empty threat either. Hunter has no magic, and Belos has drilled it into him that witches without magic have no future. Without the Emperor’s Coven, his only future prospects would be starving to death on the streets or wasting away in prison. Either way, Hunter would be alone, without family or friends, without a job or job prospects, without anyone to turn to for help. Any child would be terrified of that. Hunter wasn’t always acting on direct orders – in fact he defied direct orders to stay in his room in Eclipse Lake to go look for Titan’s Blood, and then again in Hollow Mind to arrest the rebels. But he made those choices based on the idea that Belos wouldn’t want him if he was a failure, and that he needed a chance to prove that he could still be useful.

And contrary to popular belief, Hunter does know right from wrong. He has a very strong moral compass, he’s just been forced to ignore it in favor of doing whatever the Emperor wants. To shut up that little voice telling him he’s doing the wrong thing, he uses what’s called a thought-terminating cliche, a statement that feels so fundamentally true that the argument need not continue. In Hunter’s case, that statement is “It’s for the greater good.” Sure, kidnapping his new friends and abducting Palismen to feed to the Emperor and threatening someone who’s been nothing but kind to him to take the portal key from her girlfriend and justifying terrorism makes his stomach feel like he swallowed a cactus and saying it out loud makes him sound like a horrible person – but it’s for the greater good. He’s doing it to serve Belos, and Belos knows what’s best. 

So by the time Hunter is out of active danger and able to rest and recover from what happened to him… what would further punishment accomplish? He already knows that he did fucked up shit while working for the EC, and he’s proven time and time again that while he’s not fighting for Belos’s approval, he’s actually a genuinely kind-hearted kid. Punishing him now would likely cause him to react very poorly, because he’s been at the wrong end of that stick so often that he’s developed severe PTSD because of it.

And if you think restorative justice is still in order – Hunter is currently hyperfixated on making sure Belos can never hurt anyone again, and for the long term, he has expressed that he wants to become a Palisman carver when he grows up. While it won’t bring back the Palismen that were killed, it will help the current Palisman population recover and reintroduce Palismen to witches who may have had to give up theirs. 

When viewed through this lens, the writing of The Owl House starts to make more sense. As a show, it is extremely forgiving towards its characters – they’re still held accountable for their actions, but as long as they’re willing to grow and learn and fix the damage they caused, they are very quickly forgiven. 

However, I do understand why these writing choices can be… controversial, so to say. Because it doesn’t feel very satisfying, does it? When someone hurts you on purpose, your first impulse would be to try to hurt them back, that’s just how people work. 

That’s the hardest thing to come to terms with when you become an advocate for prison abolition for example – you’re not just arguing for freeing a guy who got 5 years because a cop found weed in his pockets, you’re arguing for the release, and most importantly, the humanity of some of the most vile, disgusting people this planet has ever produced. Even now, when someone commits a truly awful crime and gets sent to prison for life, my first thought is “Good, I hope they rot in there.” But that’s not justice. That’s just revenge. And revenge is not something we as a society should want to build our justice system on.

It’s not satisfying to see Lilith go from using Luz as a human shield in her fight against Eda to sleeping on the couch in Eda’s house within 2 episodes. It’s not satisfying to see Willow let Amity back into her life when Amity has hurt her so badly before, or to see Hunter become romantically involved with Willow after he literally abducted her the first time they met. But that satisfaction isn’t really the point. Revenge is satisfying in the moment, but an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind, and if someone shows a genuine willingness to change, it’s often better to give them a chance to.

However, my final point is about what happens when this approach fails. Because not everyone is willing to change. Some people, when faced with the consequences of their actions, decide to dig their heels in and refuse to admit fault, or blame the victim(s), or use those same thought-terminating cliches that Hunter used to justify their actions, “I was just following orders” being a big one.

And thus, we come to Belos.

If Belos showed a willingness to change, a genuine one, not an attempt at manipulation, should he be given the chance to? That vengeful part of me is VERY empathetically saying no. But logically, reasonably, he should be given that chance, if only because he’s a human being and no human being deserves to be mistreated. That doesn’t mean his victims are obligated to forgive him or be around him again, in fact I think that, for the sake of Hunter’s mental health, Belos should stay as far away from him as humanly possible. But he should be given the chance to start over, to truly better himself and do something good with the rest of his life.

But Belos isn’t willing to change. 

Belos is a product of a bad environment and grew up with a cult-like mentality and hatred for witches that he had to adopt for his own safety. It’s hard to break out of that mentality, but not impossible. Case in point: Caleb. The tragedy of Belos’s character to me is that he had so many chances to change, so many people to help him make that leap, but all of the people who offered him that help ended up dead by his hands because he couldn’t handle the idea that he may have been wrong.

At this point, Belos is stuck. Changing would mean not only giving up on his life’s work, but acknowledging to himself that everything he’s done, mutilating his body, killing his brother, slaughtering thousands and installing himself as God-Emperor of a population he despises more than anything in order to facilitate a genocide, was completely pointless.

He can’t admit that to himself. Especially the thing about Caleb’s death. He’s sunk-cost-fallacied himself so far into a corner that all he can really do when faced with opposing viewpoints is dig his heels in even deeper and lash out in a rage at anyone who challenges him. Even now, when his body is literally falling apart at the seams, he’s still trying to commit witch-genocide, because it’s all he has. 

Restorative justice doesn’t work in this case, because the perpetrator needs to be receptive to it. Logically you would assume the show would default to retributive justice, and characters like Willow and Camila do take a very vengeful glee in imagining themselves beating the snot out of Belos. But right now, the primary motivation of the Hexsquad and Hunter in particular when it comes to Belos is to end the threat he poses. As long as Belos is alive and free, he will continue to hurt and kill people, and if he can’t be talked down, he needs to be either contained or killed to prevent him from causing more harm.

The Owl House provides, in my opinion, a very nuanced take on restorative justice. It shows how it works in action, how different situations impact what it looks like, and what happens when it’s simply not an option. It’s not the most satisfying story to tell your audience, because when someone hurts our babies we want them to suffer, no matter how sorry they say they are. But in this case, I think that sacrificing that bit of audience comfort is worth it to tell the story like this.

[jmdbjk]

Traveling is my thing too...

I'm still marinating in my Are You Sure?! afterglow. I just loved every part of it, every minute of the episodes and behinds. There is one thing that's been on my mind and I know it might ruffle some people because of how it sounds at first.

Jimin and Jungkook spontaneously created "scenes" for Are You Sure?!. Prompted each other for the sake of making content. Another facet of being good entertainers...

They were trying to be content creators and not rely on others to tell them what to say or do. The total opposite of "scripted" which, of course, means the shows were unscripted and made up as the days' activities unfolded.

They both actively initiated moments they could play off each other. This is part of that now-becoming-over-used word we say to describe their dynamic... chemistry.

Was it fake? No. The moments they created were genuine interactions whether it was an inside joke of theirs or just talking about topics like cosmic horror or origins of slang words. Not any different than how we behave with our own close friends and significant others. We initiate conversation topics, we poke at each other, we talk about stupid shit, we sometimes have heartfelt and meaningful conversations.

In other words, we are authentic with our closest people. That's what humans do. And as we also are so comfortable with our friends and significant others, we can also have quiet time just being in the presence of the other. IT'S ALL NORMAL AND NOT FAKE.

Was it fan service? No. Again, they were being content creators, trying to create something that was purely them, purely normal interactions only they could have with each other.

Do they have off moments? Of course they do. When one or the other was not active in the interaction, the other was just being themselves, no faking, no fan service, just Jimin and Jungkook behaving as themselves, the only way they know to behave, in the presence of the other, nothing negative about it, just "being."

But they were on a mission to create content that they knew Army would enjoy while they were away. With a big smile, Jungkook said we'll really enjoy it. He said this before he got in that Jeep and drove away to Connecticut. He already knew before it started that he and Jimin were going to have fun. They trust us, their fans, to enjoy the things they give us. Those who do not enjoy it are not their fans.

I've seen people say they only watched a few clips and not the entire series of AYS and then conclude "its obvious (insert fave name) feels this or that." No Boo, you can't deduce those things from a 5 second slo-mo clip or a screen cap from a split second moment from an 8 episode series (9 hours of interactions between the members). What IS obvious is these people don't want to know the truth.

If you don't watch original content in its entirety, how could you possibly "know" your fave/bias? Especially this particular series. If you are a fan of Jimin, Jungkook or even Taehyung, if you did not watch the entire episodes, your opinion is meaningless. If you based your opinions on select snippets or screenshots with no context, your opinion is meaningless because you don't have the entire story. You have every right to say you don't like it and won't watch it because it doesn't align with your (false) idea of who Jimin, Jungkook and even Tae are. But in doing that, you should also remind yourself you are clinging to your own fantasies of who they are.

If you had access and were able to watch all of the episodes on Disney+, many thanks for helping to make this project of Jungkook and Jimin's a resounding success. Ranked #5 worldwide for 2024 TV shows on Disney+. This chart is sorted by popularity:

In his last live the day before enlisting, Jimin told us he was sick with the flu for a week after returning from Sapporo and only had another week before their enlistment. Maybe he was starting to feel the symptoms on that last day in Sapporo and it contributed to feeling so down.

The behind footage for Sapporo shows at some point the cameras were turned off in the car when they were driving to the airport to return to Korea.

It would have been easy for the show's producers to just edit the footage and write captions that totally ignore the fact the cameras were ever turned off at all. We would have never known. Them including that information helps us put everything in context. Jungkook and Jimin purposely turned the cameras off and they purposely informed us of that so we could understand that there was a lot of time without any recording whatsoever. Maybe they talked about stuff they didn't want recorded. Maybe Jimin took a nap because he wasn't feeling good. No matter, most would call that PRIVATE TIME. They had an abundance of PRIVATE TIME during ALL of these trips.

I feel strongly they will do a few more trips. They loved this so much, and they have a foundation to build on, they will do more.

And now, its been a few weeks after the last episode and we've got the behind scenes. It still sort of feels like a dream that these two produced this project for us. Yet it only made sense didn't it? Who else out of the 7 would do something like this? It's genius level thinking to create this, doing something they both have said they love doing, doing it with each other, the people they connect with the best, and giving us something at the same time. Brilliant.

And I want to say thank you to Jimin and Jungkook. Personally, this was the best of the best.

It is truly the work of the Universe that they have each other, to support each other during this period of time. In recent pics I've seen, they look well. I miss them so much.

And now we're just over 8 months away from having them back. Eight months and 15 days before all 7 are discharged and we look forward to the first group live and an ocean of tears of relief pouring from all over the world for them. 10 days until our Hobi is back. I'm so excited!

My Are You Sure?! photobook arrived the other day, I wasn't expecting it so suddenly because Weverse Shop still had it marked as "shipping soon" and then all of a sudden it was here. YAY!

I am going to scan a lot of it but the big postcard sized photos that were part of the early pre-order gifts are on my refrigerator. I also ordered the Are You Sure?! magnets but those won't be here until December. As you can see, I'm a collector of fridge magnets when I travel so it was a no-brainer to get the Are You Sure magnets.

Also, shout out to anyone in North Carolina trying to recover from Hurricane Helene. The Nantahala area was one of my most favorite vacations. I hope to go back someday. I know it's hard to rebuild, I've experienced the aftermath of too many hurricanes. Take it one day at a time and never lose hope. Normal will come back again.

[silverzoomies]

Summer Wind

tate langdon x reader smut

warnings: existential crisis, death, afterlife, implied/referenced character death, murder, angst, aged-up tate langdon, fingering, fingerfucking, kissing, canon divergence

word count: 4,690

a/n: another drabble. y'know that thing people do sometimes? where they "age-up" a character, but don't really age them up? i initially wrote this in response to that. but it somehow turned into a means of venting my existential terror instead. i was gonna include more smut. but tbh i didn't feel right about it. this one's gonna stay unfinished. sorry about the abrupt ending !!

inspired by the song summer wind by frank sinatra

You were dead for an indiscernible span of time.

You couldn't be sure how long. But you suspected a few years, at least. Through one of the top floor windows of your eternal purgatory; you watched the trees. Nature alternated between skeletal displays of branches, to vibrant arrays of color. Withered. Blooming. Withered. Blooming. Withered. Blooming again. Rinse and repeat.

Once you accepted your fate, things started clicking into place. Trapped in a vintage hotbox of murder, you put together the pieces of a long lost puzzle. And though some parts were still absent, you pushed yourself to move on. You might never figure out how you died, or who you were before. But to worry so much would be senseless at this point.

Through acceptance, you began to feel again. If only in small bursts. Abrupt, but worth cherishing.

One memory remained ever present. You had the sense you were a school guidance counselor in life. And in death, you took up the mantle again. Offering your services to the other souls lost in the house. One of the ghostly residents shared a similar occupation. Way back in his breathing years. He didn’t do it so much anymore. Instead, he spent time with his family, working towards redemption for his past actions.

You steered clear of most residents, fearful of their unpredictable episodes of bloodlust. They allowed the evil within the house to lure them further into madness. On the days they came to you for your services, you spoke to them in hopes they’d find absolution. Change in the afterlife was extremely difficult to achieve. Your 'clients' rarely ever scratched the surface of their tainted psyches. And any progress they made, they always resorted to their old habits in the end.

Only one of them ever found true change. Of course, he had to be the most wretched of them all.

You once felt sympathy for Tate, making excuses on his behalf. In the years when his heart still pumped blood through his veins; he was young. Misguided. Perhaps the pressures of his upbringing took too much of a toll on him. And in the afterlife, he suffered under the influence of the house itself. The evil buried deep within channeled through his broken soul.

But if such an evil did exist, it never took hold of you. Nor did it sink its venomous teeth into Violet, or her innocent mother, or that pure of heart baby, or even Ben Harmon himself - sinful a man as he was. They resisted, and so did you.

Tate was pure evil. Carnage incarnate. Maybe that made him susceptible to the influence of dark forces. But after talking with him for a few years, you accepted him for what he was. Foul from birth, deplorable in death. No matter how often you tried guiding him to goodness, he remained forever loathsome. The evil in him burned eternally, needing no kindling.

His own acceptance of that fact allowed him to change. In a more physical way, much like Moira. Tate embraced his fate, convinced the house was where he belonged. A punishment until the end of all things. Simultaneously, a safe haven from whatever lay in waiting after purgatory. Tate’s progress was very much real. Albeit, not the kind you aimed for.

You could see his growth in his features, rather than his morals. Sitting across from you during another weekly session, Tate fidgeted with a frayed hole in his jeans. With his blond brows creased, he stared down at the denim. As you watched him like this, you picked apart his finer details. Where his skin once beamed with the pale, ghostly image of youth; creases were now etched in. Faint, but noticeable lines curved under his eyes.

An aura of maturity emanated from him like a light much too dim. Tate carried the same mannerisms from his heyday - if one could even call it that. But he had long since graduated from his mentality of that era. Tate spoke of his past actions as if he regretted them, though you suspected he felt no real remorse. He used to cry all the time. He used to throw childish tantrums. But you couldn’t remember the last time you saw his soulless, black eyes water. Now…

He carried nothing but cold desolation. Common amongst those trapped in perpetual limbo.

“I saw her again today.” He admitted, his lidded eyes flitting up to meet yours, “She hasn’t changed any. Not like me. Not like…” Tate made a gesture at his face, his thumb grazing the angular shape of his jaw. Tiredly, he blinked, “Not like this. Fate’s a funny thing, isn’t it? I always thought we were fated to be together forever, but…”

On the sofa across from him, you kept your cheek perched in a hand. As you scribbled in your notebook, you took note of the way Tate’s features bled misery. All at the mention of her. It must have been painful for him, watching her stay the same. While he finally outgrew himself. Those changes only further separated the two of them. Obliterating any chance he had to make amends. If there ever was.

There especially wouldn’t be now. Even Tate was on the tailend of coming to terms with it.

“How’d it make you feel this time around?” You pressed in a soft tone, shifting on the couch. His dark hues zeroed in on your thighs, bare in a simple dress. The lining appeared cheap, glittering with sequins reminiscent of childhood nostalgia, “When you saw her?”

“Fuckin’...I dunno…” Tate put his face in his vascular hands, fingers curling into his hair, “She’s like a kid to me anymore. What am I supposed to think?”

“Maybe she’s content like that. In the same way you’re content the way you are now.” You shrugged, tenderly laughing, “Maybe teenage angst suits her that much.”

He shook his head, shifting from a criss cross position on the loveseat across from you. Bouncing a leg, Tate gave you a pointed look. His brows turned downward.

“We thought it fit me too, didn’t we? But look at me now."

You were. You were looking at him a lot. And he wasn't wrong. Teenage angst once paired well with Tate's immature nature. Back when he thought like a kid, and acted on impulse. These days, he'd become more lethargic. When he wasn’t consumed with blood lust. Rugged virility was his partner now. Coupled with the melancholy existentialism of a man pushing thirty.

“You wanted to move on.” You clarified, your teeth clicking the edge of a pen at your lips.

“Did I?” Tate bitterly laughed, the empty vacuums of his eyes caught your tongue in motion, “Doesn't seem like anyone else here wants to. ‘Cept Moira.”

“Well, they only think they can’t. They believe they’re tethered here, frozen in time at their moment of death. I used to think growth was impossible too. Until you…”

You took in his masculine features again. The scruff around his chin. So fair, and not too noticeable. Catching yourself in the midst of ogling him, you redirected your gaze to Tate’s eyes. Imposing. Starless. Easy to get lost in. He wasn’t ignorant to your attraction. A hint of grin pulled into his laugh lines and dimples.

“Does it scare you?” He asked, “What’s your excuse then?” Tate threw a condescending nod of his head, “If you’re so enlightened. If you know better than all of us - with your morals ‘n bullshit like that. Why haven’t you changed any since you died?"

Shrugging, you looked bashfully down at your notes.

“Why would I want to? If I can stay young for eternity. If I can keep these curves, and what’s left of my youth. What’s the point in growing older?” You admitted in truth.

“That’s a little superficial though, isn’t it?” Tate leaned back into the loveseat cushions, “Shit like that doesn’t matter here. Who are you tryna impress? And what’s anybody living gonna think? When they meet you, and find out you’re nothin’ but food for maggots now.” He teased, legs spread, one knee bouncing, “There’s gotta be another reason you haven’t moved on. You’re not like us. I dunno why you and the Harmons don’t just…y’know…go.” He trailed off, his gaze falling to his lap.

You saw his bitterness return in full force. Another miserable wave of longing washed over him. Yearning for something that didn’t exist anymore, and never would again.

“I…” You paused, doodling hasty flowers in your notebook. You avoided Tate’s eyes, “I wanna know how I died first. I wanna know who I was. Before I even consider moving on.”

Sinister acidity flashed through his vision, “Seriously? That’s what’s stopping you?” Tate huffed a harsh laugh, admitting without missing a beat, “You wanna know how you died? I’ll tell you. I stuck a knife in your back and stabbed you to death.” He confessed, monotone, “You know it too. You’ve known since we met. You’ve just been in denial this whole time.”

You sat up in an abrupt movement, scooting forward and tossing your notebook away.

“What?! What are you even talking ab-…I’ve been trying to figure this out for years, Tate! Years!” You threw out your hands, “You…you can’t be serious! Why would I be in denial about something like that??”

Tears of betrayal stung the corners of your eyes. Tate shrugged, seemingly unbothered. He crossed his arms, his eyes dark under the ridges of his brows.

“‘Cuz you feel bad for me. Or…uhm…you wanna feel bad for me.” He shrugged again, “Fuck if I know why. I’m the last guy you should have sympathy for.” Tate said, his black hues narrowing in thought.

“You didn’t…did you really stab me? Really? You’re not lying about that?” You almost shouted, clawing your fingers through your hair, “Please. Please tell me you’re lying!”

Tate appeared unfazed, ignoring you, “Do you love me or something? Is that why you’re so broken up about this?” He asked, desperate in his infinite search for validation.

“Why the fuck would you stab me?!” You shouted, full of wrathful turmoil.

You stood off the couch, surging toward him with your fists balled at your sides. Tate didn’t flinch. He pursed his lips, thoughtful again. With an insufferable aura of nonchalance, he shrugged once more.

“Wanted to.”

The blank emptiness in his expression told you everything you already knew. Tears streamed down your face, painting your cheeks and chin in damp threads.

“Where? Where did you stab me??”

Tate gestured with a nod of his head, towards the only window in the room. A summer breeze fluttered, catching the curtains in its dance. You wanted to find the radiant light of nature beautiful again. But it only served as a haunting reminder - the environment remained symbiotic with time. And you were forever left behind.

“Over there. By that window.” He said, watching you pad over to said window, the skirt of your dress fluttering.

The window. In the one room you always felt so drawn to, for reasons unknown. Now, you knew. Bracing your hands on the windowsill, you peered your head outside. Ghosting your skin, the air breathed an essence of life. Something you were no longer a part of. You used to be content with that fact. But now? Knowing your life was unfairly ripped from you, how could you ever move on? Your death wasn’t an accident. Nor had an irreversible illness seized your physical form. Just Tate.

His low voice droned from behind you and in your ear. A faint vibration followed, along with a presence at your back. You felt the soft texture of his sweater, but no body heat with it. One of his icy hands met your shoulder. He reached his other arm out. Tate pointed to a spot near the entrance gates.

“I didn’t wanna tell you. Because I didn’t wanna lose you too. But…” He paused for a beat, “It was on Halloween. Ten years or so years ago, I guess. I was gonna leave. Make my rounds. Y’know…like I used to. The house was-uh...up for grabs back then. You came up to the door. One of the kids here opened it for you. And you kinda...walked in. Tried lookin' for 'em. Wrong place, wrong time.” Tate lowered both his hands to yours, after sliding his fingers down the sides of your arms, “You were holdin’ hands with some kid the whole time. He had to be, like…seven? Eight? I don’t even remember what his costume was.” His lips curved in a grin, “But I still remember yours.”

Your fingers curled into the sill, scraping wood, indenting the paint.

Ten years.

“So, you stabbed me in front of a child?”

Another breeze blew by. The steady air picked up your dress with it, flitting delicate fabric. Glitter along the seams of it fell away, sparkling like microscopic crystallites in the wind. Tate’s long fingers drew patterns over the cold surface of your skin. Tracing infinity symbols onto your hands.

“Rapunzel.” He whispered, “That dress was kinda pretty on you. Sucks about all the blood.”

You remembered then. When death imbued you with unexpected consciousness, you wandered around the house in a blood-stained dress. And ever since, your afterlife wardrobe alternated only between dresses of similar styles. Always cheap fabrics. Decorated in craft materials. You assumed you must’ve loved playing dress up in life. The thought of perishing in a store bought Halloween costume never crossed your mind.

“Who was he?”

You sniffled, breath hitching without any need for oxygen. Tate brought a hand to your cheek, wiping away your tears. He loomed behind you. A cold-blooded apparition of your nightmares. His casual talk of violent depravity made your blood boil.

“Who, the kid?” He asked.

He lowered his hands to the sill. Looking out the window over your shoulder, Tate squinted in the sunlight.

“Yes! I don’t-” You burst into tears without warning, sobbing into your hands, “I-I don’t remember anything! Nothing! I had no idea…who was he??”

“Dunno…” he dropped his head, pressing his cheek to your hair, “I didn’t really stop to ask. He ran away. Right after I pushed you out of this window.”

“You pushed m-what?! You’re a fucking monster.” You whimpered. Wishing you could leap out and disappear with the oscillation of the wind, “You know you’re never getting out of here, don’t you? You’re never going to change, Tate. You’ll always be a monster.”

“Probably.” He droned, wrapping his arms around your middle. Pulling you closer, he added, “You’ll be stuck here too. If you don’t let go of that anger. If you let your rage consume you. All that bitterness and hatred. This house feeds off of it.” Another pause. He nuzzled the top of your head with his cheek, “Uhm…I know this won’t fix anything. But…I really am sorry I took your life from you.”

You huffed, staring teary eyed out the window. Taking in the vast, effervescent world you’d never be a part of - through the border that brought your demise.

“But I’m really stoked you’re here….’cuz it’s not as lonely with you around.” He admitted.

“I could always tell you to fuck off.” You choked, venomous in your revulsion.

“Yeah. You could. But you won’t.” He grabbed your arms with gentle hands, wheeling you around to face him. He took your tiny fingers in his palms. You refused to meet his eyes, “If you made me disappear, you wouldn’t have anybody.”

You decided to hit him where it hurt, strangling through tears, “I could always talk to Violet. She has such a good heart. Not like the rest of you. You’re all just…awful. So horrible and cruel!”

Tate clenched his jaw, dropping his forehead into yours.

“You’re right. She’s not.” He woefully mumbled, “How come I still miss her, huh? Been missin’ what we had for, like…forever. Now I’m pushin’ you away too. And you’re all I have left.”

“Maybe stop killing people, Tate?” You snuffed, tears catching your eyelashes. He wiped them away all the same, “Who knew death could be so miserable. I…I finally found out the one thing I’ve wanted to know after all these years. I thought a little closure might help me, but…” You cried, “I feel even more messed up.”

“Why? Do you love me?” He pressed with so little confidence, you felt he only said it to convince himself.

“I…” You hesitated, brows furrowed, “I cared about you. Even though you’re a lunatic. I wanted to give you a chance. But now…now I just want to shove you out this window like you did to me. I want to scream at you, Tate! I want to make you suffer! I want to-”

He shifted closer. Within this vicinity, his maturation became all the more clear. Your weeping hues glazed over the creases under his eyes. The blond bangs of his hair had thinned by a smidgen, losing its youthful shagginess. He was all fine lines and outward exhaustion. Had you met him like this in life, you’d think him a mere decade away from a mid-life crisis.

“Go ahead. If it helps. I don’t mind.” He reached down again, grabbing your hands and guiding them up to his chest, “Just let all that rage go…you can take it out on me.”

This was just another tactic of his. An attempt to appease you, in desperate hopes you’d forgive him. Still, you didn’t think twice. Whatever wrathful anguish you kept buried inside finally erupted. The soul crushing weight of loss tumbled down over you, sending you into a frenzy. You thrashed your arms, throwing your fists in shallow, but sharp strikes. Battering against Tate’s chest, you landed every blow - inspired by betrayal. He remained still, watching you with a hollow look.

Hits turned to scratches as your grief took hold of you. You clawed into Tate’s sweater, wailing, powerless to the pain of his disloyalty. Taken aback by your overwhelming emotions, you wondered how the afterlife could bring so much suffering. Tate wrapped his arms around you again, and you buried your nose in his sweater. Your sorrowful tears stained the stitching.

“I hate you. So much. So fucking much.” You whimpered.

“You said you cared about me.”

“I hate that I care about you.” You cried, sobbing into his sweater, “I-I want to hate you. I need to hate you. But you’re right. You’re fucking vile, and you’re right. If you were gone, I wouldn’t have anybody else.”

Shifting again, he tilted your head up with a cold hand under your chin. Tate stared down at you, weary with lonesome desolation. The endless monotony of purgatory brought forth nothing but turmoil. And that turmoil linked you both in all-consuming angst. When he dove in to kiss your lips, you allowed it. If only to feel something far less painful.

Tate hadn’t kissed anyone in over a decade. But he flowed naturally with you, wary of applying too much pressure. The last of your tears fell, and again, he wiped them away. Separation came slow, as he parted from your lips. He blinked, leering like he couldn’t believe you reciprocated. Another beat, and he dove in all over again.

“I’m sorry.” He whispered.

Kissing in your ghostly state felt bleak as the dull air of winter. In the throes of lonesome yearning, death nuzzled death so intimately. You opened yourself up for him, moving back until you hit the windowsill. In your negligence, you sat on it. A calm, easy breeze enveloped your back, tickling your neck. His desirous kisses swallowed you in, his hands claiming your cheeks.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” He mumbled, his words weaving through every kiss.

Fate had yet to deliver you closeness of this kind. You couldn’t fathom how intimate connectedness might work in death. As Tate’s cold lips fell to your neck, the atmosphere between the two of you shifted. Something akin to the radiance of life saturated the air. Like the summer’s glow shining from outside. A few seconds more, and coldness turned to heat. Sensual heat.

“What does it feel like?” You asked, breathless without the need for air. You tipped your head back. Tate took this as an invitation to ravish more of you, “To make love after dying?”

The glossy warmth of his tongue painted gradual lines across your neck. He caressed you with a thumb, gliding the digit over your cheek. Under the newfound heat of his palm, you felt burning intensity. No one else brought you physical touch like this. Not since a time before you perished, so long ago.

All because of him.

“Feels kinda the same?” Tate muttered in a hushed voice. Capturing your lips again, he kissed you with cautious tenderness, “It’s a lot like being alive…from what I remember. Some of us get addicted to it. Like a drug. They suffer without it. Drives ‘em crazy.”

His forehead fell to yours once more, and Tate’s eyes fluttered shut. He continued stroking your cheek, cradling your face. As if you’d disappear once he let go. You noticed the way his chest heaved. Slowly, like his lungs were still infused with the essence of life. But when he moved in for another kiss, you felt no breath on your lips.

“Does it drive you crazy?” You whispered between kisses, “Do you suffer without it?”

“Not really.” He said, dragging his thumb over your lip, “Missed this, though. I miss it all the time.”

“What? Kissing?”

Tate nodded, blond brows creasing as his smile faded. For a beat or two more, he fell silent. Staring down into your eyes with all the liveliness of a barren void. You gazed into a cave-like abyss, lost with no light to guide you. Beckoned by the promise of something unseen.

“This feels…different…with you.” He whispered.

“Different how?” You shivered as his soft touches moved elsewhere, "Are you feeling guilty? Does it hurt? I hope it fucking hurts."

Dragging the tips of his fingers up and down your arms, he drew invisible lines with his nails. So careful. Like you’d shatter if he treated you too roughly. His palms settled over your hips, and again, he kissed you. Tate just couldn’t seem to stop doing so, even as you spoke to him with poison on your tongue.

“No. It’s warmer.” He squeezed your hips a little tighter, “Why…why’s it so warm with you?”

The initial kisses between you both were so frigid and lifeless. But now, somehow, so heated and real. You locked your legs around his hips, crossing your ankles. Inviting him forward, you loomed in the sill of the window. Your body tilted. In the arms of the summer’s air, you almost fell backwards. You had every reason to believe Tate would let you plummet.

But he didn’t. Not this time.

With an arm wrapped around your waist, he kept you from slipping. Under your dress, his free hand sought the heat between your legs. His palm cradled warmth over thin cloth. Discreetly, he pressed the pads of his fingers to your sex over your panties. And the contact amplified a scorching fire within you. A vigor exceeding the bitterness of death.

You wondered if Tate had less experience than he claimed in therapy. It took him a few tries before he found your clit. His sizable fingers circled your little nub in easy motions. Drawing long, needy noises out of you. Silence lingered between you both in calm, but tense quiet. Until the rasp of his voice caught your attention.

“Do you feel this? Do you feel, like…anything?”

You whimpered in response - timid like a churchmouse - as wetness stained Tate’s fingers through fabric. Cotton once so pure and untouched became damp. He chuckled, the sinister rumble in his throat making your blood run cold. Until the warmth of desire lured you in before you could second guess yourself. Savoring the hot friction on your pussy, you allowed sin to taint your clarity.

"For you? No. Never. You're sick. You're twisted. You're-" You cut yourself off with another whimper, once Tate caressed you with more pressure.

“Oh, shit…” He hastily tugged your panties down your thighs. Cupping your bare cunt, he pressed firmly into your clit. Thick digits teased the blazing heat of your folds, “You do, don’t you?”

Tate’s fingers dipped into your slick valley, his digits predominantly larger than your own. You rolled your hips just a smidgen, careful not to lose your balance - lest you fall out the window. Again. Though, maybe a rough tumble onto the lawn would knock some sense back into your muddled head. His other arm stayed iron locked around your body, keeping you safe. He eased inside you with all the hesitance of a man out of practice.

"F-Fuck! Fuck this. Fuck you." You mumbled, hushed under airy moans.

Following the squeeze of pleasure in your core, came something you lost in the afterlife. You almost felt the pumping of your dead heart again. A ghostly sensation of life blossomed under your ribs. Warmth flowed through your veins in syrupy bliss. Cozy wind billowed from outside, tickling your skin. If you closed your eyes for long enough, basking in the ecstasy of true feeling - you might’ve believed you were somehow revived.

Flitting your lashes, your eyes gradually opened. The sunny glow of afternoon light painted Tate’s aged features, showering him in golden rays. An image far too heavenly for a cold-blooded monster birthed from sin. You looked lazily into his hues. A whirlpool of guilt intermingling with lifeless cruelty; all within his dusky eyes.

“Feels like…” He mumbled, clumsily nuzzling your clit with the pad of his thumb. Biting his lip, Tate stifled a groan. He buried his fingers to the knuckle in your cunt, “...like I can feel your blood pumping.” Adding a third digit, he stretched you open. Your walls made effortless room just for him. You whined, making him smirk, “Fuck, this is hot. You love it, huh?”

"No. No. No, I'd never! Not with you. I'm just-" You swallowed, feeling your cheeks burn, "It really does feel like-"

Post-mortem coldness became lost on you now. Left behind, alongside your broken hearted resentment. Instead, you were overcome with the lively spirit of beingness. The afterlife had been so unkind to you. For a decade now. It abandoned you to stew in the longevity of solitude. With no one but Tate to provide you true company. Bringing your hands up to his cheeks, you pulled him in for a kiss. Your fingers threaded through his blond locks. Winding your tongue sloppily with his, you whined.

"Make me cum." You asserted, your legs sealing tighter around him, "Make me cum, and I might forgive you."

A flash of vulnerable sweetness overtook Tate's face, his puppydog eyes lighting up. An almighty flood of euphoria built up to a radiant crescendo, as his digits fucked you into oblivion. You clamped around his fingers, squirming with such intensity - he almost lost his hold on you. Tranquility found you at the peak of your climax. A divine miracle. As you cried little pleas into Tate’s lips, you felt as though you grew angel’s wings. As if some ethereal being descended from the heavens themselves, stole you away, and led you to the golden gates.

As you shuddered, your paradisal tremors eventually subsided. Blissful nirvana faded, and the hollow nothingness of death’s touch came again. Outside, the world continued on in slow-moving seconds. And in the distant horizon, the sun began its steady fall into night. Tate’s nose brushed yours. Looming in so close, he withdrew his drenched digits from your pussy. Leaving even more forsaken emptiness behind.

“I could…do that kinda thing for you every day…if you wanted me to.” He whispered, peppering your forehead in kisses, “It feels really good, doesn’t it? Just…please don’t make me go away? Please…”

[bl00dlight]

SPOILERS FOR EPISODE 8 LEAKS. DO NOT READ UNLESS YOU WANT MAJOR HELAEMOND SPOILERS.

I just wanna say. Once again the Helaegons prove their media illiteracy if they think that Aemond literally going to make amends with his sister, with TEARS IN HIS EYES... reaching for her ARM.... and him speaking so... softly.... when he says "come with me." AND HE SAYS IT LIKE THAT? PLEADING SOFTLY? AND HE ABOUT TO CRY? AND HE IS SO ANGRY AND VUNERABLE AND GUILT RIDDEN BUT IS SO HURT BY HER VISION THAT HE RESORTS TO WHAT HE ALWAYS DOES. AND THIS IS THE FIRST TIME WE'VE SEEN AEMOND ACT THIS WAY TO ANYONE. YALL SAYING HELAEGON WON?

When he reaches for her and GRAZES HER WRIST AND THEN STOPS HIMSELF AND PUTS HIS HEAD DOWN. BECAUSE HE CLEARLY FEELS SOME LEVEL OF GUILT FOR HIS ACTIONS???

Helaemond got the complicated tension simmering arc of misunderstanding helaegons wanted. If this was a Helaegon scene they'd be over the moon. Its only because mfs lack the understanding that Helaemond was never about soft squishy love and was always about yearning. And look at AEMOND YALL CANT SAY THEY DIDNT DO IT FOR HELAEMOND!!!! THE YEARNING!!! And I'm living for it. There is clearly context missing in those scenes, possibly that we might get Aemond and Helaena sort of teaming up in a scene or him pursuing her dreams/taking comfort in her like leaks said. Because when he comes into her room she sort of looks up at him softly and she doesn't seem angry or uncomfortable until he asks her to ride. + There is an established idea that Aemond requires her service again. And then in the balcony scene when she tells him the prophecy, it seems like he already knows about her dreams. So I suspect it's established earlier in the episode that Aemond and Hel have been having some sort of interaction about them.

Which I think is what makes the balcony scene so heartbreaking. We can see there is a connection that Aemond has, that when Helaena assumes he will hurt her, he visibly gets upset and goes into that defence mode again. He comes to her... with tears in his eyes... saying they SHARE THE SAME BLOOD AND THEIR MOTHER CAN'T UNDERSTAND AND... AND... THAT THEY SHARE A TRUER CALL TOGETHER?????? And helaegons are claiming they've won... why because she tells him the ending of the war? Because she refuses to fight?

The way she speaks so softly and gently and despondently about him dying.... I think we've got it Helaemonds. It's heartbreaking. And the idea of Aemond wanting Hel to join him at Harrenhal???? To bring Daemon down together???

Again I'm hoping those aren't the only scenes we are getting cause that would legitmately not make fucking sense but you never know with HOTD.

But still the fact we got Aemond going up with tears in his eye... and his FACEEE and the way the tear goes away at the end when she walks away and instantly he goes back to hardening up. I'm SORRY BUT OHHHH GODDDD THE PAIN!! The way he begins to tear up exactly when he asks her for help too... when he asks her to come with him... I'M DYING....

And then HOW HIS FACE CHANGES WHEN HE GETS HURT BY WHAT SHE SAYS.

And HER FACE.... WHEN SHE TELLS HIM HE IS GOING TO DIE... and HE VOICE... HOW SHE SAYS IT SUPER SOFTLY AND HER VOICE BREAKS.

And then when she says that her death won't change anything...

And that's what Hel meant by was it worth the price? Yall notice how the entire scene is about Helaena telling him his pursuit of power is his downfall...

Notice how she didn't really care about Aegon nearly dying, it was the fact AEMOND did it. The fact AEMOND is losing himself, and she asks "will you do the same to me?"

And you can see how vunerable he is and hurt and how his defences are all the way down and all he can do is whisper out that she is speaking treason. And when he threatens her... he doesn't do it harshly or in the same way he did to Aegon. He says it as if it's hurting him. He's got a tear in his eye as he says he could have her killed.

Which he clearly would never do. But he says it. Why? Because he is struggling to maintain his defence around her. Struggling to cope with the fact he hurt her to the point of her rejecting HELPING HIM. OH MY GODDDD.

I don't know what else yall were expecting, but uh in my opinion we've won. We hit all the points

Yearning

Aemond being vulnerable

Begging

Misunderstanding

Targcest vibes with the whole Valryian supremacy lines

Helaena telling him about his own death

The hesitancy towards physical touch

[cassiebones]

Please Chill

Please, I am begging you all to chill out. I'm speaking specifically to my wlw Agatha fans right now. Even more specifically to the ones who are angry that the last episode revolved around Teen/Billy.

He is a main fucking character. His backstory is important to the plot. We only get nine episodes in this series and the plot needs to move forward. We cannot do that without revealing who he is and what his motivations are, from a storytelling standpoint.

I studied creative writing in college. I worked really fucking hard to get into my program, too. I took classes on novel writing, mainly, but also in screenwriting and playwriting. I took classes on TV writing in the mid 2010's at a time where the trend was shifting to streaming services putting out entire fucking seasons at a time.

But I remember having to wait a week for an episode of a show I loved. I remember what happened to my favorite wlw characters. I remember being absolutely devastated by Lexa's death in The 100. I know you're scared of it happening again, but there is so much evidence on the contrary to prove that it's not going to happen here.

Firstly, I don't think for a second that some of the actresses who signed up for this would have done so if they thought they were going to pull the same shit. I don't think Jac or Kathryn or fucking Aubrey, who legit said that she signed up because it's a queer show, would do that.

But i don't know. Because the show isn't over. We have three episodes left over the next two weeks. I, like you all, am praying that they're not about to pull some bullshit, especially considering the majority of their current fanbase is comprised of queer people.

But you can't just call them lesbophobic because they focused on a canonically gay character rather than your favorite lesbian ship for one(1) episode. They have confirmed that Rio and Agatha are estranged exes. They showed us so much flirting and yearning and longing. From a storytelling standpoint, they are building that tension for a great payoff. Its's gonna happen. Please, just be patient.

I was upset, too. I did not want them to shift focus to Billy. When I saw that that was going to be the majority of the episode, I was upset. I made a couple posts about it. But I still watched and it was honestly a pretty good, important episode. And fucking funny as all hell. We truly saw the aftermath of Wanda's actions. Wanda, who wasn't trying to be malicious or harmful, but she still caused so much harm.

As much as I would have loved to see Rio, I understand why she wasn't in this episode just yet, but she'll likely be in the next one. It was probably only like 2 minutes after he threw them into the mud that Agatha crawled out. Also we see Lilia and Jen in future promos, so they'll be fine.

I predict that the next three episodes are going to be longer and more plot heavy moving forward. I really hope we see more of Agatha's delusions from the POV of Rio, because Kathryn Hahn and Aubrey are fucking hilarious and I know it's going to be just as funny as last night's Teen POV.

I want to see people theorizing about the next three episodes and what's going to happen and how they're going to rectify anything, but I'm seeing so many negative posts about why your favorite lesbians didn't kiss or fuck yet on this Disney show. Please, just be fucking patient. It's coming.

That being said, if I am wrong, I will be the first to admit it and be super salty about it. I hope I'm not, but who knows? I'm not going to make a snap decision either way. You shouldn't either.

[userslayer]

Hi! Can you recommend me your favourite spuffy fics? Any genre is welcome I desperately need the void after finishing bingewatching Buffy 😭. Thank u xx

hi! thank you so much for giving me an excuse to share my favorite spuffy works! if you read any of these, please come back and lets talk about it! okay here's the list:

these are all completed on ao3, most of them contain smut, most are oneshots, no deaths/cheating/nothing too dark, some toxic typical s6 stuff but they all have happy endings or hopeful open endings cause i cant stand them being sad!

do you wanna break bread with me?

this is fun, dawn comes out as bi to spike which spirals into everyone realizing they are queer, its pretty touching and domestic.

High Stakes

sexy fun poker smut, no plot, just vibes

Service the Girl

s6 smut but with complicated feelings

(Unintended) You Could Be

there's something about spuffy and roadtrips that hits so right plus parenting dawn, s5 set

i could've been your girl (we've all been here before)

post s7 buffy running into drusilla, starting a relationship and then spike joins them (i might be the only person ever into this pairing)

What Remains

again spuffy roadtrip, sad one cause s5 but they lost the battle and everything, but still have each other

honey and milk are under thy tongue

smut but with complicated s6 feelings plus spike reading poetry

nothing safe is worth the drive (follow you home)

i highly recommend EVERYTHING by this author, my favorite spuffy writer ever. this one is a s5 roadtrip escaping glory and its domestic, funny, sad, sexy and hopeful, felt like watching an episode (i seriously love this one but plz check them all out)

i will follow you into the dark

this one is by the same author but it deserves its own mention. its heartbreaking but healing at the same time, just the most beautiful spuffy work ever

Let's Get Lost

OH THIS ONE, s2 buffy runs away but runs into spike who has a little problem. its so so in character, captured so well both characters and their dynamic where they are all each other have and absolutely hate that

The Choice

s6 dynamic, spike starts seeing a buffy that loves him, its a choice whether he'd rather have that or the real buffy, its pretty sad but u know, they always find each other

Centering

spuffy roadtrip! s5 set, he comforts her through mourning and feeling helpless

What it is to Burn

post everything, long distance relationship that buffy can't stand anymore

What She Deserves

another roadtrip fic, i know so surprising. buffy heals by herself, runs into a spike that felt like she did in 6, she's the one helping him now with an actual healthier dynamic where they both heal

[tacharie]

Thoughts for The Montkraken Episode

so, I just finished the chapter and… wow I have a lot to say. I took screen shots for every part I wanted to talk about and I think this rant will be SUPERRRR long so bear with me. Tumblr won’t let me add screenshots so when I have better service I’ll edit the post to add them. These paragraphs are theories and side notes that I wrote after reading a certain section so you’re gonna see my thought process throughout the story. As always, spoilers ahead so I recommend skipping this if you haven’t read it already.

Alright so I was once a hater of this ship BUT… the Shobaru shippers may have a point in this guys 😭. LIKE.. I HAVE THE SCREENSHOT OF SUBARU BLUSHING UHHH. That is not a heterosexual stare feller 🤨…

AHHHHHHH THE FROSTHEIM DUO ARE BACKKKKK!!! I missed them so so much they’re so silly and deserve the best. Honestly the only two I trust in this school cause I CANT. I literally suspect anyone but them, but Imma be so disappointed if either of them are hiding something. I’ll be sad, but like I’ll help 🙄. I was actually so sad when the MC mentioned being the reason they could be in danger like GIRLLLLL DONT SAY THAT PLEASEEEEE. ITS LIKE THE ANGST WITH ADEUCE AND YUU LIKE STAWPOPP. Also when the Vagastorm kids were like “aw yeah Mido wouldn’t lie like that” it makes me happy that people can at least trust him enough to be honest and idk I found that kinda sweet :3. We’re also getting a bit of a timeline, like the One-Eyed Sleeping Beauty Murder being BEFORE the clash (sorry if this was already mentioned I don’t really remember stuff from the past chapters) which could’ve been a trigger.

Also, I feel like they’re trying to tell us that Jiro is Zenji’s brother because when he had that little laugh about the MC being scared of bodies, he said too. When you click the “too?” option, he just says that he isn’t the one afraid. It’s not Yuri as well cause he’s literally a doctor that is in the same room when autopsies are in session. Whatever the case, I assume he was referencing to Zenji, though it being a blurry memory. Little theory tho.

OK SO THIS IS JUST SO FUNNY TO ME. In Chapter 9’s title it says, “Girl Learns Shocking Truth About Monster”. I like to think the shocking truth was the fact he didn’t shower for 3 days 😭. CAUSE THATS THE PART SHE SOUNDS MOST SHOCKED. Idk that part was silly to me. THEY’RE OUTFITS FOR THEIR DORM IS SOOOOOO PRETTY. They ate I fear, a bit more than the other dorms. Also side note, they dropped A LOT of info with just how they word things. For example, Yuri saying “Jiro, you are well aware that I will not be associated with those germs AGAIN.” Soooo Yuri was in Frostheim? I don’t doubt it bc there’s another line that says “I’d rather not recall how bitterly cold that place is” which can MEAN TWO THINGS. I’m super sure that they’re implying that yeah, he was, but then something happened blah blah blah.

WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON WITH HYDE AND DANTE??? Like ok bitches, spill your shot to us too don’t be shy. So, confirmed by them, Dante and Hyde used to go to school in Darkwick (which I assume the rest of the teachers are too). That explains their back and forth. WHAT REALLY CAUGHT MY EYE WERE THESE LINES.

Hyde: “…You really are a softie, Dan-Dan.” (Haha Dan- Dan)

Dante: “It would seem that way to someone as cold as you.” (???) “…There are lines that shouldn’t be crossed, Hyde.”

Hyde: “…I’ll keep that in mind.”

WHATTTTT. WHAT ARE THE LINES. GO IN DETAIL ARGHHHHH. This gives us more info on the character individually too. Dante describes Hyde as cold… DANTE. So, it was obvious that this whole happy go lucky attitude was fake, but I expected to be more like Haru’s kind of attitude not like that yk?? now I know how much of a cash grab this game is, but I really hope they aren’t going to stretch the story out too long to the point where you have to P2W cause I haven’t paid a cent and I don’t plan to. I still want to learn more about them and stuff so :(. On the topic of Dante, there was a small flashback where I missed a word in the sentence that Dante said while talking with Alan. “I’m the man you supposedly killed.” Supposedly?? Now, I didn’t my catch this in my first run, but now it’s like wdym supposedly?? Shouldn’t you know? This is giving hella Jiro vibes and honestly, I’m getting sick and tired of these characters having a bad memory.

SPEAKING OF JIRO- he seems to have problems remembering things and they come back to him in the very weird moments (honestly a kin moment). I would like the think that he’s just suffering from the damages he had to go through from the clash. His relationship with Yuri is so… sad to me. Yuri seems to doubt him a little bit and I feel like he sees him as just a specimen, not much of a friend. Meanwhile, Jiro smiles a lot to Yuri and listens to him like a master, like that’s what he’s supposed to do. NOT AGAINST HIS OWN WILL DONT GET ME WRONG. He’s just so neutral about it it makes me a bit like awwww :(. They’re cute tho idrc.

Ok moving on to Haku and Tohma. (Ok at this point I’m getting nervous cause why are we seeing so many characters now. That’s probably just a coincidence). OK THESE TWO HAVE GOT IT GOING. Like there’s tension when you get their chat in the campus but this is like woahhhh… Also I don’t like how Tohma says “our wheelhouse? I see..” it makes me think he’s like implying “so you think you’re a part of them now?” IDK THATS JUST MY LITTLE STRETCH. Also poor Zenji, he’s like “aw yeah I died in vain lol” LIKE OUCH.

Nicholas. I DO NOT LIKE HIM. I REPEAT. I DO NOT LIKE HIM FOR A MINUTE OF A SECOND. The only staff I like are the cats, the grocer guy, and MAYBE Dante. LIKE HES SO… NORMAL?? LIKE THERE’S SOMETHING WEIRD GOING ON IK THERE IS. When MC says “I can’t believe Professor Nicolas would do something like that” I DO 😡🙋‍♀️. I am in full support of Yuri finding crimes against this guy.

Also, little other side note, I just realized that Yuri and Jiro have matching earring in opposite ears. It’s so cute.

Ok I might have to go back to the beginning and see what the “goat like anomaly” Jiro is talking about when he mentions the prophecy, cause I said “… the chancellor is a goat??” BUT ANYWAYS. Speaking of the prophecy, I’ll jot it down.

“The whisper of the new moon shall lead the champion to the academy on the solitary island. So long as the champion resides there, the world shall be sheltered from profound tragedy.”

Stating the obvious here, but this is most likely referencing to the last cutscenes we get when we choose our characters. I’ve checked the cutscenes again and there’s no visible moon, meaning it could correlate to the “new moon” portion. (Search up new moon to see what I mean). Assuming Solitary island means death, that would also help with the theory. So, whoever we chose in the beginning might just be the person who won the Laurel Crown.Honestly, this is just a silly little Drabble for a theory and VERY vague. Maybe the champion resides in the events of the past that we still don’t know about but this kinda helps?? Idk I’m just putting what I think at the moment. I’ll probably reread the game so I can get a better timeline. Also, Yuri’s rant about demon particles… doesn’t exactly sit right with me. Were they chosen to be resilient or was it just a birth thing?? Idk but I feel like a lot is missing from his theory. I mean, we’re using human logic to a supernatural cause so I don’t think pacts acting as allergies would work. If they’re not chosen, could it be that the ghouls can make pacts with more than one demon? I wanna see what happens if that was the case. Please comment if I missed something 😭.

Ok Towa appeared. (Why are we seeing so many characters I don’t like this) and we went back to that tree… WHAT IS THAT TREE?? And what the hell do you mean the fruit grew? What is that fruit supposed to be? An anomaly going to birth?? Is it supposed to represent the houses?? Motivation?? It seems so weird to me cause we just got introduced to that tree last episode. Sighs.

OK REN AND RITSU. WHAT IS GOING ON. I GUESS SINCE THIS IS THE LADT CHAPTER FOR INTRODUCING CHARACTERS BUT LIKE … STOP. I feel like something is going to happen with the MC pls 😭. Anyway, those two talking about ramen is so cute please don’t ever change you virgin and lizard looking freak 🫶( with love of course). GROCER GUYYYYYYY. YIPPEE :3!! I love that the cat is the owner and not the human lmao.

Also I will always be a MC defender cause she is so relatable. “Why are hospitals so creepy at night?” GIRL IKKKKKK. Idc what y’all say, the fact that she’s normal is keeping me sane from these freaky deaky events. ILOVE NORMAL CHARACTERS! LIKE MATSUDA FROM DEATH NOTE OR THAT ONE GUY FROM MASHELE. Anyways, I love her little comments and everything she’s so silly. Idrc if she doesn’t have much of a backbone cause honestly, she’s surrounded by danger so the best she should do is listen to the people that are constantly surrounded by it.

ALSO NEW THING. (Well idk if it’s new but yeah).

mention of a Dionysia Breakout. <—— Idk what that is, but it sounds like a little more. I love little details and slip ups thanks characters <3!!

HA! HAHAHHAHAHAHHAHA! I WIN NICOLAS 😈!!! YOU DO HAVE SOMETHING TO HIDE. AND I WILL FIND IT TRUST YOU WILL BE DELT WITH. I WILL KNOW THE PRIOR PAST >:(!! Also, Moby is being soooo annoying tbh. More character descriptions to add: competitive as a teacher. NO ONE WILL MAKE YOU HATE YOU JIRO ‼️‼️‼️ HES SO SWEET He literally asks if we’re scared and says we can hang back awwww. Though he doesn’t understand much, he can use logic and he can at least understand how we feel. It’s a nice sentiment :)!

I can’t take the transformation seriously I’m sorry. I’m still impressed by Yuri’s deductive skills and the transformation just sounded like he was constipated.

THE WHOLE BATTLE SCENE WAS EPIC!! MC HESITATING BECAUSE OF LEOS WORDS BUT STILL PUSHING FORWARD. YURI GETTING FLUSTERED. JIRO SMILING AND TRUSTING YURI’S ORDERS. THE FUNNY EXCHANGE ABOUT MUSCLE WHEN THEY WERE CARRYING THE POD. Those annoying ass pussy sticks we call Darkwick students 😡. JIRO LOOKING BADASS AFTER THE SHOT. URGHHHH I LOVE THIS CHAPTER.

HARU AND PEEKABOOOOO!! AHHHHH IM SO HAPPY I SEE THEM AGAIN!! I’m so glad he’s going to Hyde too cause I’m not ready. Also… the mermaid thing is so weird. For the Montkraken Mermaid, they seem to refer to it as “it” or “that mermaid”, but when they speak of the second mermaid, they use personal pronouns like “he /him”. Haru’s expression as well when he heard someone was abusing mermaid flesh… it’s a new one with a little crease under his eye. It’s such a sad face like, did he know this mermaid personally or was this fear?? Either way, I wanna meet him cause the other one was so pretty.

…You guys know the “I see who you are… you are my enemy” sound that’s on TikTok or reels or wtv? YEAH THATS SONG WAS PLAYING IN MY HEAD WHEN HYDE SAID WE HAD TO DO A SPEECH. HYDE IM IN YOUR WALLS. URGHHHH I HATE HIMMMMM. Call to action my ass IK either Taiga or Leo are gonna get their asses out of the door after the speech. OR BOTH. I’m starting to tweak.

NOOOOO THE SPEECH IS THE NEXT CHAPTER?? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.

I feel so bad for Zenji… like I’m so deadass. Dude he sounds so sad about how he’s dead it’s so.. URGHHHH. ALSO I CALLED IT. THEY ARE BROTHERS. AHAHHAHA!! Well it was kinda obvious cause everyone thought it too but WOMP WOMP. Also I love his real name, Taro Kirisaki. It’s pretty :)!! But these lines killed me

“and though I have taken my final blow, my brotherly heart can’t help but worry for my kin. … Not that he has any idea I’m still around.” YEOUCH?? I DIDNT COME TO CRY BRO…

I’m tweaking out because of this speech bro. I’m gonna choose the corniest stuff and hope for the best. “I feel bad please stop for me 🥺” headass.

Taiga is officially my enemy as well. I called that shit about him leaving URGH. WHAT A FLIBBERTYJIBBET!! His outfit eats tho so it balances out. LIKE DAMNNNN. HE LOOKS SO GOOD.

DOUBLE?? TRIPLE??? QUINTUPLE???? HELL I MIGHT BECOME A GHOUL TO GET THAT MONEY GOLLY 😍😍😍!! CAUSE IN THIS ECONOMY??Also thanks Jin you a real one twin. Bouta split this cash with my wife and I’ll send you a wedding invite.

EDWARD. ED PLEASE. STOP PUTTING ME IN THE SPOTLIGHT… well it’s out now so woopy!! I really wonder what the others have to say about that cause they just gave really vague surprised reactions. Well, Ritsu documented it. I love that little guy please don’t ever change you silly.

NUMBER ONE CORNELIUS HATER IDC. Unless I know your intentions I DONT CAREEEEE. YOU ARE AN OPP IT IS ON SIGHT WITH YOU. SAME WITH YOU NICOLAS!! “I didn’t know whether to tell you or not I’m sowwy 🥺” CHUPA MI PITO HOE 😡.

… you’re telling me I didn’t have to do that awful speech because DANTE AGREED?? IM DONE. IM WHOOPING EVERYONE IN THE ROOM AND AURING THE PLACE OUT. FIRST ONES OUT ARE HYDE FOR NOT TELLING ME, NICOLAS, AND CORNELIUS. ARGHHHHHHH. Also, dude, who is that Janitor guy like seriously.

ROMEO??? AND HYDE???? WHAT IS THIS ABOUT BUTTERCUP?? Wdym worked for him?? What is going on… SPECIAL MISSION??? SHO??? OH NAW. I CANT TRUST NOBODY ANYMORE 😭

Towa crying :(. What does the fruit shrinking have to do with it now?? I’m so confused.

ALRIGHT IF YOU MADE IT TO THE END WOW YOU HAVE DEDICATION. Yeah this is my personal yap session to this chapter and it’s so URGH. I’m so excited to see the next chapter and I hope we get to see more and more. Now with the Gala in place, we can finally start WORKING. Based on the timeline, we have about … 8 months left?? So hopefully, for MC’s sake, she gets cured. BYE BYE UNTIL NEXT EPISODE!!

[atlantis-is-burning]

Dead Boy Detectives Cancelation

So in light of the heartbreaking news of Dead Boy Detectives getting canceled, I decided to write a letter to @netflix It's the first time I've ever felt compelled to reach out to a major company regarding their services but I wanted them to know how much the show means to us as fans and what they're taking away from us by canceling it.

For me, the show was a literal life-saver. Without going into too much detail, I was in a very dark place prior to its release and it was the only thing that helped me through it. That and meeting all of you =)

I don't know what impact it will have, if any, but if you would like to write a letter to Netflix as well letting them know what the show meant to you, I would definitely do so. Our community may be small compared to other fandoms but we are passionate and devoted to this show and they deserve to hear from us.

I've attached the letter below the cut for anyone who would like to read it and believe me, I'm not trying to medal in the tragedy Olympics with the intro, it's just a fact of what happened.

Maybe the show helped you in ways you couldn't imagine. Maybe it made you feel better about yourself or something that occurred in the past. Maybe it was just a fun comfort show for you that you really enjoyed. Whatever the reason, this show brought out the best in people and made the world feel just a little bit kinder for a while and I will never forgive Netflix for taking that away.

To whom it may concern,

On April 29th, I sat down and watched the first episode of the Dead Boy Detectives. 

I had heard good things about the show since its release a few days earlier, that it was fun and campy and easy to watch, but for me I was hoping it would be a distraction. A very close friend of mine passed away without warning on December 30th; she was just there one day and gone the next. The first half of the year was spent helping her family get her affairs in order while trying to process our shared grief and figure out how we could move on without her. 

I didn’t begin to feel like myself again until late March and by then it was only a fraction of who I had been before her passing. So when I sat down and pulled up the first episode of the Dead Boy Detectives, the only goal I had in mind was to pass a few hours watching a silly supernatural mystery show and think about something other than this sense of loss and imbalance that had settled over me.

It was the first time I smiled in nearly three weeks and it was the first time I laughed since December.

I watched the entire series, start to finish, in one night. Then I went back and watched it again the next day. And again a few days later. And for the first time since her passing, I felt like my friend was still there somehow, like we were watching it together. It was exactly the kind of show she would have loved when she was alive, flamboyant and silly with a touch of romance and mystery, so on my fourth rewatch of it, I sat on my couch with a picture of the two of us cradled in my lap, watching a show I know she would have enjoyed and feeling just the tiniest bit of my grief fade.

It was through the Dead Boy Detectives that I found a community online, a group of people who loved the show just as much as I did. We traded theories and ideas about the episodes, we excitedly welcomed new members who had just finished it and encouraged others to watch it in the meantime. We set up forums and threads on Reddit, we messaged each other, we embraced this silly, quirky show so much that it became a safe haven for a lot of us, it became a comfort series. We saw ourselves in this show and these characters and for many of us it gave us a sense of fellowship and belonging in a world where that feels more rare by the day.

And then it got canceled and for many of us, it felt like a slap in the face for the fans.

While I don’t claim to know the metrics on which a show’s success and renewal odds are based or what formula is used to determine ratings, I do know you didn’t see the fandom we created for ourselves because of this show. 

There are artists who make the most breathtaking art pieces you’ve ever seen, writers who bring you to tears with their works, and creators who painstakingly and lovingly created playlists and mood boards for each of the characters, matching them with songs and snippets of poetry that fit so perfectly it felt like it was made for them. There are fans who cosplay so well it looks like they borrowed the costumes directly from the production team and some who make jewelry and charms and trinkets that sell out almost before they complete them.

We engaged with the stars as well, wanting them to know how much we loved the show and these characters and how grateful we were to have watched them. We set up Q&As and asked them questions through Cameo, all the while thanking them for their work in bringing these characters to life. This show meant so much to us and we wanted them to know just what an impact they had had on more people than they ever could have imagined.

We were well aware of Netflix’s reputation of canceling shows based on poor viewership so we went in and organized weekly watch parties in an effort to increase the number of new viewers. We promoted it on Facebook and Twitter and Instagram, creators made videos for it on TikTok, and we created an entirely new tag on social media to bring more attention to this show we all loved so much.

Early on, there were several comments from people who said they were hesitant to even watch it; they had been burned before and didn’t want to get deeply involved with a new show that would turn into yet another “one season wonder.” We did our best to reassure them and convince them that this time it would be different; it wouldn’t be like all the shows that had been cut down before it could ever really develop. Since it was tied in with DC and The Sandman Universe, we promised them that maybe this time we could save it, maybe this time it would be enough.

And it was still canceled.

On Friday, August 30th, ten minutes after the news broke that Dead Boy Detectives had been canceled, I canceled my Netflix subscription. Netflix was the first streaming service I ever signed up for and today it is the only streaming service I have ever canceled. And, after watching the fallout in our little online community, watching the actual grief people were experiencing because of the cancellation, and scrolling through pages upon pages of outraged fans who swore they would never watch another program on Netflix and vowed to cancel their subscription that day, I can see that my decision was justified.

You have no idea the impact this show had on its viewers and you have no idea the impact you had when you took it away. We had people admit that the show helped them come to terms with their sexuality, helped them process deep-seated trauma, helped them love and accept themselves for who they were. We knew the Dead Boy Detectives would never be a runaway hit like Stranger Things or Bridgerton but we hoped and prayed that it would stick around just a little while longer, that we could enjoy these characters and their stories for even one more season before they were gone for good. 

For you it may have been just a silly little ghost show that was little more than a blip on the radar but for a lot of us it was so much more than that, it meant so much more than that.

I am under no illusions that this email will make a difference or that it will bring the show back from cancellation but I wanted you to know what an incredible and amazingly talented fandom you are leaving behind in its wake. These are people who put their heart and soul into the art they create and the words they put on paper and all we wanted was a chance to see that continue.

We are tired of being drawn into a program and falling in love with the characters with no guarantee that our viewership and involvement actually means anything. We are tired of begging for complex characters and the representation we crave in media only to have the rug jerked out from under us once we finally get it. We are tired of hoping and praying and campaigning to save a show that should easily be renewed for several seasons or, at the very least, a season two. 

We are tired of feeling like we’re being taken advantage of as fans, that the passion and excitement we have toward these shows and their stars, the kind of involvement you claim to want, is dismissed with little regard toward the fans of the show itself.

We are your audience and we are tired.

We will continue to love and cherish this show and these characters, without your involvement, and give them a much longer life than they ever had on your platform. This show, the cast and crew, and the fans deserve better than what you gave them and I hope you understand the tremendous amount of talent and passion you’re throwing away in your fan base.

With regards,

-M

[cantsayidont]

Despite its protestations of progressive values, STAR TREK media has always explicitly presented (and, with only fleeting exceptions, consistently celebrated) the Federation as an expansionist imperial power, engaged in a large-scale project of colonialism.

The usual apologia/rationalization for this, both from the franchise itself and from its fans, is that the Federation is also a post-scarcity socialist utopia. However, that is expressly not the case in TOS, despite the attempts of the later series to insist otherwise.

Indeed, the plots of some of the most famous and acclaimed episodes of TOS are specifically about resource extraction and ensuring the Federation's access to crucial resources, including lithium (in "Mudd's Women"), pergium (in "The Devil in the Dark"), and dilithium (in "Mirror, Mirror," et al). We are told repeatedly that the Enterprise has a mandate to use force to secure these resources if gentler methods fail. Moreover, while the Federation has a strategic interest in these resources, it's clear at various points in TOS that their extraction and exploitation are, to a significant extent if not exclusively, overseen by private interests for profit. For instance, in "Mudd's Women," Harry Mudd remarks:

Well, girls, lithium miners. Don't you understand? Lonely, isolated, overworked, rich lithium miners! Girls, do you still want husbands, hmm? Evie, you won't be satisfied with a mere ship's captain. I'll get you a man who can buy you a whole planet. Maggie, you're going to be a countess. Ruth, I'll make you a duchess. And I, I'll be running this starship. Captain James Kirk, the next orders you're taking will be given by Harcourt Fenton Mudd!

In "The Devil in the Dark," Kirk ultimately takes a regulatory position — he will not permit the pergium miners to kill the Horta or continue to destroy her eggs — but at no point does he suggest that stopping the pergium production that threatens the Horta is a viable or even acceptable alternative. The accord he proposes is contingent on the Horta's agreement that she and her children will support the mining efforts on her planet, since Kirk emphasizes that "a dozen planets" are depending on the miners to supply needed pergium. (What would have happened to her if she hadn't agreed is not stated, but the episode strongly suggests that she would have been severely punished for noncompliance with Kirk's mediated solution: forcibly relocated to some kind of Horta reservation away from the main mining operations, perhaps.) When the Horta does agree to this proposal, Kirk assures Vanderberg, "you people are going to be embarrassingly rich," which once again suggests that while the miners may have contractual agreements to delivery pergium to Federation worlds, they are still a private, for-profit business, not a Federation department or nationalized entity.

Profit is also Ron Tracey's motivation for breaking the Prime Directive in "The Omega Glory": He believes that he's discovered a "fountain of youth" that he can own, monopolize, and exploit, and that the value of that resource will be enough to buy his way out of legal trouble for his regulatory violations.

We mostly don't see the Enterprise crew handle money except on away missions in other cultures or times, but there are a number of indications that the Federation in this era has not abandoned money: For instance, Harry Mudd's list of past offenses includes purchasing a space vessel "with counterfeit currency," while in "The Apple," Kirk rhetorically asks if Spock knows how much Starfleet has invested in him, which Spock begins to answer, "One hundred twenty-two thousand two hundred …" before Kirk cuts him off. More tellingly, in "I, Mudd," we have the following exchange:

KIRK: All right, Harry, explain. How did you get here? We left you in custody after that affair on the Rigel mining planet. MUDD: Yes, well, I organized a technical information service bringing modern industrial techniques to backward planets, making available certain valuable patents to struggling young civilizations throughout the galaxy. KIRK: Did you pay royalties to the owners of those patents? MUDD: Well, actually, Kirk, as a defender of the free enterprise system, I found myself in a rather ambiguous conflict as a matter of principle. SPOCK: He did not pay royalties. MUDD: Knowledge, sir, should be free to all. KIRK: Who caught you? MUDD: That, sir, is an outrageous assumption. KIRK: Yes. Who caught you? MUDD: I sold the Denebians all the rights to a Vulcan fuel synthesizer. KIRK: And the Denebians contacted the Vulcans.

Whether Deneb is a member of the Federation at this time is unclear, but Vulcan certainly is, and so we may assume that Vulcan and presumably the Federation itself are also part of "the free enterprise system."

The first indication that the Federation does not use money is in STAR TREK IV, and it's not obvious there if Kirk's remark that "They're still using money" is talking about money more broadly or just physical currency, which the Federation may have phased out even if it still uses credit or electronic transfers of monetary value. (Certainly, McCoy's attempt in STAR TREK III to charter a starship indicates that he had some means of paying for passage, since the captain of the ship specifically demands more money upon learning of the intended destination.)

If we accept at face value the assertion of TNG and DS9 that the Federation has genuinely abandoned the use of money, rather than simply going cashless, the most reasonable Watsonian explanation is that this has been a relatively recent development during the 70–80 years between the TOS cast movies and TNG, most likely related to the development of replication technology (which the Federation did not yet have in Kirk's time).

Of course, from a Doylist standpoint, we could chalk up some of this incidental dialogue to the franchise's evolving construction of its own setting, in the same manner as anomalous references to Vulcans as "Vulcanians." Roddenberry and his apologists might also insist that he always meant to depict a socialist utopia, but was prevented by the nattering nabobs of negativity (i.e., the network's BS&P); I'm very skeptical of such claims, but the writers were acutely aware that depicting what Earth is like in Kirk's time would be opening a can of worms, which is why we didn't actually see 23rd century Earth (even briefly) until the movies.

However, the focus on resource extraction and its ramifications is such a load-bearing story element in TOS that the revisionist assertion that the Federation was already a post-scarcity socialist utopia in Kirk's time (as both DISCOVERY and STRANGE NEW WORLDS have attempted to claim) would require really substantial retcons of the original show, perhaps to the extent of insisting that some of those events never took place at all, or happened radically differently than what's in the TOS episodes most STAR TREK fans have seen. For me, anyway, that crosses a line from willing suspension of disbelief to "don't trust your lying eyes," and suggests a frustrating and somewhat disturbing determination to insist that TOS is something much purer and nobler than it is rather than grapple with its actual conceptual flaws and ideological shortcomings.

[applepixls]

i think something like season 8's moon big thing is going to happen again this season-

in several magical mountain people's recent episodes (i remember mumbo mentioning it a couple episodes back and grian as well? not sure who else) they've mentioned that something weird/something big feels like its happening in the world (grian even made a straight up moon big reference) but i think this time it's going to be something with the ocean

this kind of starts at the very beginning of the season and follows through. in grian's very first episode he calls magical mountain a volcano and that idea has followed through and now they're hollowing it out. in another episode when he gets flung up in the air he makes a moon big reference. soo early season ideas/references seem to be following through to now

in episode 2, grian gathers a crowd of people (gem, etho, impulse, skizz, ren, cleo, cub) and they all just chat and fish and make jokes about how the ocean can get you addicted to fishing and pretend the ocean is a higher being that will provide fishing rods to those it sees worthy (we also see it a bit in the end of grians episode 1) eventually leading to ren saying "i don't know why im doing this but i don't want to stop" and cleo agreeing. etho originally had also been skeptical but quickly got dragged into the shenanigans and very happy with getting lily pads for some reason? it's just a fun random interaction but some of those things can lead to lore.

etho also says in this interaction "dont drink the koolaid" because gem randomly suggests to all eat a pufferfish which i don't fully understand the phrase but it comes from a guy who made a cult and lured his followers out into a jungle (etho loves jungles) and because cults always have a like Date where they believe their higher power is coming to save them and commit mass suicide on that day, the guy made a lot of poisoned koolaid and everyone died. so cults

in gem's most recent episode (19) she builds an artists house and says the artist looks out on the water for inspiration but as a result has become quite paranoid.

in season 8 they have a cult of people not sleeping because they think the moon is a higher power come to save them or something and early season 10 was a cult of people fishing, not to mention that certain patterns seem to repeat every other season (season 7 and 9 were both really long, in season 9 people were nostalgic for season 7 and in season 8 people were nostalgic for season 6 and certain storylines that could have some parallels drawn not to mention that everyone compares season 7 and 9 for the length and says that they were incredibly long perhaps suggesting that this season might be a bit shorter? its also the fact that in season 7 and 9 everyone built Starter Bases and then moved out to larger bases but in season 8 and now season 10 they seem to have made starter homes and expanded on them while still living out of their day one builds)

basically, tldr: something big is happening and i think the oceans doing it

theres something in the water and its making the freaking frogs gay (its making the block people all do __punk or east asian vibe stuff and bureaucratic/public service-y)

[jmdbjk]

We are sure.

WARNING, SPOILERS.

I have no doubt that every now and then, especially in the beginning, at the end of a long day or when they are tasked with doing something they've never encountered... they look at each other and say ...

And it allows them to laugh it off. They said they were making memories they could look back on while doing their service. What a fantastic period of time they had to create these memories.

This ending scene of the last episode of Are You Sure? has changed the way I think about that moment of them from the Bangtan Bomb of their enlistment day.

On their enlistment day we were so sad and were convinced they were too. And they were. But at that time we had no idea the fun they had during these three fantastic trips, they ate some wonderful food, drank a lot of beer, saw sights they don't have time to see when they are traveling for promotions and performing, spent a lot of "just being" time together which is obviously something they enjoy doing.

And knowing that at the end of Jungkook's I Am Still documentary, there was a scene of him showing Jimin his shaved head... it's as close to seeing it all play out as we're ever going to get. Piece it all together and you have a clear picture of this strong connection they have with each other.

Like Hobi said in his recent Weverse letter, I hope Jimin and Jungkook have come to realize by now it will all be ok. 27 days left until Hobi is back. 8 months, 23 days until Jimin and Jungkook are back. 38 more Mondays.

And they gave us a tiny bit of hope that this isn't the end of Are You Sure.

Delulu time: They have a lot of time to scheme and plan a reboot. Planning the next trip can also help them have something to look forward to. Like Jin did, they can do a quick live at the Hybe building before jetting off to Bora Bora or Alaska to start filming the reboot of AYS. They can make it happen if they want to. It will be another ten days after their discharge before Yoongi is free too and the group can be one again. They can go away for a few days, get comfortable with cameras and civilian clothes again. Get busy, Universe! Please?

All along, Jungkook was expressing his love for these trips, his excitement for the experiences, his enthusiasm for the good food and his easy-going vibe because he's with someone who fits him so well. Jimin enjoys the vibe of being with Jungkook and enjoys watching Jungkook be immersed in everything that brings him joy. He said if we watched these episodes, this is what its like at home.

They made it clear there are no other people on earth either of them would rather be with than each other for these trips. Jungkook said it himself: these were the best trips of his life. Jimin teared up a little when it was time to head to the airport. This was a chapter closing in their lives. If it impacted them this much, they will for sure somehow try to do it again after military service.

Besides the fact the two loved creating this, the series has been ranking high in viewers which would help sway any decisions as to whether a reboot is worth the expense. Of course it is!

Questions: I guess the behind episodes will also be on Disney? Why would they be submitted for ratings if they were only going to be on BangtanTV? Or maybe they'll be on Weverse too?

With the purchase of the photo book, there is a digital code for 52 more minutes of footage. We'll begin seeing clips of that on Sept. 29 when people begin receiving their copies. Got mine! Can't wait for it to get here!