#I will post clips from that episode later probably

[zenoyambutpenguins]

Experienced it's about time for the first time ever and its easily one of my fav episodes so far

[shantechni]

Gonna attempt to post something today, just a simple clip or two. Hopefully.

[kanmom51]

Jikook in bed - Part 2

I’m going to take one second here before diving into part 2 here and be really honest with you guys.  I’m kind of anxious about this one.  There is so much going on in these few seconds clips, and I’m not sure I will cover it all.  But I will try to do my best, and that’s what it’s all about, I guess.

With that, I feel like we need to split this part 2 this into 2 parts.

We have the JK waking up, turning on the hallway camera (do we talk about how sus it is that that specific camera was turned off at night and JK had to turn it on in the morning?), walking into the master bedroom, seconds later seen walking out of the room, going to the camera and turning it off again.

That will be part 1 and there is much to unpack with that tiny moment in the episode.

And for part 2 we have JK going back into the master bedroom after having his snack fest of a breakfast to just BE with JM.  Even with the cuts this one was quite naughty and so so telling.

Ok then, let’s get going.

I mentioned in my last post (part 1 of Jikook in bed) the need to show JK sleeping in another room, another bed.  I also shared my opinion about just how much time those two spent apart at night – being not much at all.  If you look at the bed JK slept in you can see that the pillow he threw to the side (you know how you do when you have double or triple pillows in a hotel room and just throw the extra one to the side of the bed you aren’t sleeping in), you see that pillow is basically unmoved.  And knowing what we know about JK as a sleeper, it staying put is a bit of a tell as to how much sleep he got in that bed.

But being apart for some of the night, as much as it wasn’t much time apart, JK needed his morning cuddles. 

So when he got up he needed to go get some.  Cuddles people. Get out of your heads!!

The funny thing is that he decides to let us know so.  Well, he chooses to turn on the hallway camera (which was turned off for the night – will get to that in a sec), turn around and walk into the room to JM.

Before we talk about how he looked before and after he went into the room, or where he went and where he came back out from (the suspicious cuts), let’s discuss for a second why that hallway camera was off for the night.  First thing first, I do think that the two had control and decision making powers over when the cameras are rolling.  They agreed for them to be on all night in ‘their’ rooms and had the power and ability to turn the cameras around the house off and on.  And that alone shows us just how much privacy they had if they wanted or needed it.  Even while shooting the show. That camera in the hallway being off allowed them to move between the two or more rooms without footage of it.  And you probably understand where I’m going when I say two or more rooms.  Rooms that didn’t have cameras in them. 

Anyway, JK turns on the camera looking like this:

And this is him coming to turn off the camera after leaving the room.

I’m sure you’ve already seen those two pics all over the place.  JK with what appears to be lip balm entering the room, coming out without said gloss to his lips.

We also see JK walking into the room going to JM’s side of the bed.

We hear him talking to JM.  JM asking him what time it is and he says 11:30 (am). 

There is an obvious cut and we see JK walking out of the room stating he’s hungry, coming form the other side of the room, not where he walked into the room, not from JM’s side of the bed.  Kind of as if maybe, just maybe, he spent more time than a couple of seconds (as we are led to believe from the footage) and some of that time was spent laying down in bed next to JM – on the other side - exactly where he was coming from.

JK walks out of the room, after being there for god knows how long, and turns off the camera.  Why?  Why turn on before walking in and turning off after coming out?  He asks himself if to turn it off and does. And I really would like to know why.  Not like we don’t get to see them on that camera later on in the day, so obviously they turned it on again. 

The hallway camera is on as JK leaves the room after that second visit to the master bedroom.  We don’t see him turn it on, it just is when he’s coming out of the room.

Curious editing indeed.

As I’ve been doing in my last posts I can’t help but give a little throwback.  And this moment here, the coming in and going out with this huge cut, it reminds me of this:

Summer package 2018.  That candid camera in the room, JM's shock reaction, lucky for them we couldn't see JK's face, cause I can only imagine the terror. Anyway, long story short, the way that footage is oh so obviously cut, the camera moved to show supposedly them walking in, and JM straight away walking out. Only problem is that he happened to have the bag on the wrong shoulder when he did walk out eventually.

Back then it was the different shoulder that was the giveaway, this time it's the wrong side of the bed, lol.

Next time we see JK coming back to the master bedroom, is after he had his snack fest and joked about leaving to film the episode without JM, which he obviously doesn’t, the editors taking stock of that, lol.

Something that is quite curious is that it appears that JK's mic is already on the bed at that point. He takes it off the bed, makes a move that looks like he's taken it off his top and puts it on the bedside table. When did that mic get there and why go through the works trying to show us he just took it off his top? He sure does have it on him when he's downstairs, so how did it get to the bed before he supposedly joins JM there again? And it's not JM's cause JK had it on downstairs and it's off him when he does the whole "I'm taking it off and putting it down" whatever it was.

And he is putting it back on once again as he leaves the room and going down stairs.

So, I tell you what I think happened here.

I will give you a hint.

Go look at the start of the 'scene'. The room door is kind of shut (why close the door to the room if you're alone in the house, which they were at this point, unless perhaps you have the hallway camera on and don't want that camera to catch something it shouldn't?). And when you see JK walking towards the bed, he's walking from inside the room, not walking into the room. My guess would be him coming from the ensuite towards the bed.

So, one possibility, the tamer one, would be that JK walked into the room, shut the door, went to the bed, took his mic off, when for a whatever it was he was doing in the ensuite (no.1 or no.2 - take your pick, although mine would be the latter after all the shit - literally - he was eating for breakfast) that he didn't want the mic to catch, and then walked to the bed and did his whole mic on mic off thingy.

And if we are on this subject already, do we talk about the fact that they have no issue with shitting next to each other? In that proximity? They did grow up together, and in the early days even showered together, that is true, but they aren't teens anymore and as adult grown men, who have the choice to not shit next to each other (not even talking about the CT cabin, cause there there wasn't much of a choice, but in this house with clearly more than one bathroom and one toilette they still choose to use the one bathroom which is part of the master bedroom, where JM was sleeping) they still choose to?

Moving on.

JK gets comfortable.  The way he takes JM’s leg, straightens it out and just rests his head on it. 

Soft.

Peaceful. 

Relaxed. 

Breathing. 

Being.

And cut.

Again.

As always with these two in these situations.

My question, once again, would be why? Was he getting too comfortable?  Was he getting too comfortable for too long?  Who knows. 

All I do know is that this was not the only cut we got.

There were a few very obvious cuts to the very playful, very flirty-handsy interaction between the two.  JM was being a naughty teasing minx – that grin on his face said it all.  Limbs were all over the place. 

ALL OVER THE PLACE. 

At some point it even looked like we were getting a repeat of BV1 crotch footsies.

That grin JM had on his face. He knew he was going to be naughty, couldn't help himself. And when you are naughty you get a slap on your butt. I didn't just say that. And yet, I did.

And we got this in the following order: a butt slap, a butt rub and a little later another butt slap. 

Yes JK slaps butts.  He slapped Jin’s butt when he was discharged.  But guys, there are butts and there are BUTTS.  And JM’s butt, it gets the royal treatment from JK. 

JM’s butt gets slapped, rubbed and squeezed. 

ALL THE TIME.

Oh, and do we talk about the grunts throughout this whole scene? You cannot watch that scene on mute, because DAMN, those grunts, yikes.🤣🤣

Also, was it only me or was JM literally going (without words of course) “come and get me”? 

JK moving to lie on his tum tum could very well be due to uncontrolled rising circumstances. A little much needed calming the farming on his behalf?  Who knows.  What I do know is that it was naughty and very surprising that even an edited version got into the show.

All in all it was A LOT!!!

Too much?

Not for them.  But for us. 

For those that see.

That see them, see what they are to each other.  See what these moments mean to them. So much more than just playfulness and fun. 

So much MORE.

[stormblessed95]

Watching Are You Sure?! EP 1

A reminder of how I do these reaction posts as I watch things. I just write my reactions and thoughts down literally as a happen. Think more of a bullet point format. I'll include links when I can to videos, thanks to the people who twt who upload clips. And at the end, I'll do a better wrap up of all my opinions. I hope everyone enjoyed the show so far!!

The episode starts with Jimin showing up right before JKs GMA performance and interview, July 14th 2023.

Them meeting up and talking about how he has his performance in NY on GMA later. Jimin saying that he hadn't seen him in a while, their schedules kept them SO BUSY 😭😭 this trip was so good for them. And the way he caressed JKs throat and told him to rest his voice and take care of it since it had been hurting. 🥺 So many soft touches too as soon as they were able to see each other again. And we didn't even get to see their actual reunion.

JK packing up his hotel room and talking about how he never traveled so freely before. They are so sweet and so busy and I'm so glad they were able to carve out even just a few weekends for time to themselves. And the way when the staff was talking to them about plans and who would drive etc, JK said he would drive and was just sitting there talking about traffic while they were holding hands interlocked resting in Jimins lap 😭 that's so??!!

Then fighting over the AC in the car in efforts to take care of the other is so cute. Jimin wanting to make sure JKs throat stayed okay, JK not wanting Jimin to get sick. They baby the heck out of each other. And Jimin watching his GMA performance on his phone 🥰 JKs cute smile while Jimin was jamming out to his music 🥺

"JungJi" new ship name alert?! Lmao!

JK ordering for the table 💜

The absolute bickering over who is a bad driver/bad at parking. The get out. Lmao the way they absolutely irritate each other on purpose is amazing and soooo best friends/might as well be married behavior 😂🤣

When they went shopping together and JK said they should buy the same shorts together 😍🥰 matchy matchy always!!

And an ARMY recognized them and saying hello and they were so cutely excited about it. "We've still got it." 😍🥺🥰

JK ordering for them again at the brewery 🥰 and I love that they went to an LGBTQ friendly brewery for one of their first hang out spots. Some ARMYs went and talked to the people working and said they everyone said Jikook were super polite, no one had recognized them and they kept to themselves a bit and just had some phones/go pros for recording.

The way that they also started talking about how this was their trip before military service. And how JK started bonking Jimin over the head with his camera when he mentioned it. Jimin was giggling but you KNOW that they was emotional from it too. This was when they were thinking there was still a chance they would be separated for 2 years. I know they were anxious to get to cherish this time spent together. I know it meant SO much to them both and probably so much to JK that Jimin traveled all this way and made it happen.

The way that JKs kayak tipped over immediately and Jimin just was cackling as he continued to paddle away and the staff were fishing JK out of the lake 🤣🤣🤣 just for JK to furiously row up on him and be like "you have your phone?? Tip over!!" 🤣🤣 They are so funny and cute! And Jimin taking a photo of his baby 💜 the way Jimin spent the whole time on the water just laughing and smiling fondly at everything JK would do. It's so freaking sweet. They just really had so much fun together being silly and goofy.

Not Jimin giving JK the "you come here often?" Pick up line and the immediate roleplay they both get into 😅🤣😂 they really can't go too long without at least a little bit of flirting lol

We know there was a getaway cabin with a 2 bed option but Jikook picked the one with just one bed. Lmfao good for them. Hey BH, we know you have no issues with filming the members while they sleep, even while they share the bed. How come we got zero footage of Jikook sharing the bed? 😂😂

Jimin being like "JK, you are a good cook 🥺" and Jungkook just immediately getting to work on cooking them dinner 🥺💜 although when Jimin asked for a taste, why did JK feed him from his FINGER?! Lmfao and what the hell was the noise he made when Jimin licked his finger 😂🤣 half moan, half laugh? I don't even know lmao

And the way he ran to go feed Jimin a piece of the chicken because he was proud of how his cooking was turning out. Sooo cute. Jimin accidentally dropped a piece of chicken and acted like he committed a great offence 😭😂 the way they spilt dinner duties though was so cutely domestic.

JK speaking directly to the camera to speak to the viewers. Man has done too many hours long live streams. Lmao he is too used to just chatting with ARMYs 🤣😂 that was adorable and Jimin thought so too. And the way Jimin goes "I miss V" and JK immediately is like "let's call him!" Anything to make Jimin smile! But they clearly cut so much of that convo, BH, give me my members loving each other istg I miss them too much. And don't even get me started on the yoonminkook conversation. I genuinely almost teared up. I miss BTS so much 😭 their laughter is healing

Jimin getting a stomach bug 😭😭 my poor baby. And the screen just going black while Jikook cuddle?? The give us minimal Audio and a black screen and then they cut away entirely and we KNOW they are cuddling. Lmfao TF BH!! We know they cuddle, where is my fanservice?! And JK turned over at some point and elbowed Jimin in the nose. You KNOW they were all up in each other's business on that bed for that to happen 😂😂😂

And my poor Jimmie... He feels so bad 😭😭 JK is taking such sweet care of him though.

JK outside stacking rocks while Jimin rests is giving me Yumi vibes. Lmfao I love him (and her!) SO MUCH! The way he prayed after too for a good trip with Jimin. The rock tower is also (correct me here if needed) a way to pray for someone's health and well-being. My poor sick Jiminie. Yumi also used the rock towers as ways to pray and communicate with her Gods.

Wrap up thoughts?

Not much I haven't already said honestly. Lol but just more emphasis on how special this trip is, both to Jikook themselves and for us to have it shared with us. This IS comfort TV. They bring each other such peace and happiness. They both banter and tease and have such fun. They both baby the heck out of the other. JK taking care of a sick Jimin was soooo nice seeing. The way Jimin wasn't feeling good, but rallied in order to have a good time for their weekend away.

It's also interesting that so much of this is honestly filmed from GoPro. They have some staff and crew there, but from what I've seen it's a smaller number than normally goes to film these shows and they are left alone with just installed cameras fairly often. That's extra nice for them. 💜

I am and forever will be salty about all the cuts. The Tae face time was cut short, the cuddling was cut, so much was cut. Which duh, I get why. But I still want more 😂 looking forward to the behinds to see if we get anything more. That black screen cut from them cuddling though was 👀👀😂😂

JK was such a good leader and took charge so much so far this trip. It was cool to see, Jimin ALSO thought so! The way he was speak for both of them, drove them around, ordered food and drinks for them, gave dinner prep instructions. Gave Jimin his medicine.... I'm not saying it's hyung behavior.... But... Lol also I did notice that there was a pretty even split of address between him calling Jimin hyung, or just by his name. Along with all the little random bits of flirting sprinkled through the episode lol so cute..

Hope you guys enjoyed it!! And thanks for reading all my random thoughts! Onto episode 2!

[airborneice]

sooo I think this ended up being my tribute art to hilda the series? almost a whole year after the show ended but oh well 🤷‍♀️

if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to ramble about how much the show means to me for a bit -

Soooo I really really love this show. It is so delightful in every way, from the heartwarming and funny writing to the insanely beautiful visuals. You can tell that every aspect of this show was made with so much love and care and it truly has a type of charm to it that I’ve never seen in anything else. I’m really glad it exists and got the run that it did.

While I was drawing this I kept thinking back to a recent quote from Luke Pearson about how iconic to the series that little red cabin in the wilderness is, even though it was only there for a couple of episodes/comics - pretty much everything that happened in the show is because the story moved on from there and Hilda found new settings and characters and her world got so much bigger, but at the end of the day, that place is where it all started.

When I was re-watching season 1 clips to get art references it took me right back to 2018 when the show first aired. I remember often putting on the season 1 soundtrack while I was scanning animations under the rostrum when I was at uni late and re-watching the episodes when I was feeling down and needed a bit of cosyness. I was Going Through It in late 2018 for a number of reasons and this quickly became my comfort show, and that’s probably a part of why I still love it years later - things are way better but it’s just lodged there in my heart now.

And uh…not to get all cliché but…this show really did help point me towards where I am now. While I was at uni I’d study clips of it from time to time to see how the animators achieved what they did and I learned some useful stuff here and there. like..someone’s animation breakdown video on Hilda is what introduced me to the concept of arcs (I was on an animation course so I should’ve known abt arcs already but oh well. better late than never 🫠) and a ton of animation stuff made more sense to me after that. I can look at some of my very old animations and pin-point a principle or a little cheat that I learned from studying Hilda. On top of that, at my uni we focused on hand-drawn animation (on paper first and then. photoshop of all things 😑) so that was the whole scope of my animation knowledge, and I was really fascinated by how 2D rig shows like Hilda even worked.

In the end I got so curious that I took a toonboom course after I graduated and started figuring it out for myself. I didn’t really know what to do with myself in the immediate post-graduation job search hell, but I wanted to learn more skills and Hilda looked like the type of show I wanted to be on more than anything, so I made a point of learning the stuff that might get me there. And learning rig anim was extra fun bc it helped me understand how this show was made and appreciate it even more :) It truly lit up an enthusiasm in me for all the technical behind-the-scenes stuff in cartoons that still keeps me motivated to this day. anddd long story short I’m a 2D rig animator now so I guess it worked out! ngl I think it’s very funny that I stanned Hilda so hard it got me a job on a disney show. how does that even happen. (and I’ve even had the honour of working with some of the people who made Hilda so in a way it feels like it’s all come full-circle now :) )

And obviously, it’s been really fun being in the fandom with everyone and being insane together. It’s wild that it’s been 6 years of that. I’m glad for the cool people I met and all those fun times. I’m really glad I got to be a part of that.

Soo yeah!! lovely show. thank you

[felassan]

r/dragonage (Reddit) post titled "Jeff Grubb: Dragon Age: Dreadwolf scheduled to release in late 2024." Post text: "Dreadwolf to be shown this summer and planned release later this year, Bioware is internally confident on the release date. Anything could change of course." Source: [link] Clip: [link] "Credit to: u/IcePopsicleDragon for posting this in r/GamingLeaksAndRumours."

[source]

In episode 339 of Game Mess Decides, Jeff Grubb had the following to say on Dragon Age: Dreadwolf's possible/rumored release window [transcript]:

Question from chat: “Hi Jeff and Mike, when will Dragon Age 4 be shown and released?” Jeff: “Yeah, I mean, I expect it will probably pop up this summer. I don’t know when it’ll be shown is the real answer, that’s the, let’s get that out, I don’t know when it will be shown. I assume it will be shown sometime this summer. Could happen at any time though. It will be released this year [2024], last I heard. That is, and they’re pretty confident about that, doesn’t mean it’s a guarantee, could slip, but right now, internally, they expect to release it later this year, which is why I took it in Fantasy Critic”.

[source (timestamp 35 mins 20 secs), clipped version]

(there were no more mentions of Dragon Age or BioWare during the episode)

[ennn]

I expect Billy is going to be an antagonist for a while and that's OK

Anti's for either Agatha or Billy are probably going to get more intense as I predict our boy Billy's gonna be antagonistic for a bit. And let's be clear, I'm not hating, or saying either are evil, or in the wrong.

That's way too simple a take for this show. In the words of showrunner Jac Schaeffer:

...we populated the show with similarly flawed individuals who are also selfish and self-serving, who are self-sabotaging, who are constantly standing in their own way. And then they were just in conflict.  Everybody is kind of an anti-hero in the show. That was really fun and felt very truthful there. 

No one here is meant to be a pure "good guy", which is I think kind of Billy's arc -- but more on that later.

And when I mean antagonist I'm talking about the characters roles in the story. An antagonist isn't necessarily a villain. Agatha is the show's protagonist as well as its main antagonist: as much as she claims she wants only power, deep down she wants a coven, a community, a family. But she is as Schaeffer puts it, "in the way of her own thing."

Billy being an antagonist simply means that his goals – or some of them at least – conflict with Agatha's. Rio has been described as a "romantic antagonist" as well because some of her goals are also in conflict.

Long text speculation post and mild promo spoilers under the cut:

Let's first get this out of the way: Why do I think Billy's going to take on an antagonist role? Aside from well, all the things that happened at the end of Episode 5, there's some clues Billy's not all who he's been saying he is:

There's a promotional video with audio lines, and you can hear Billy saying things like "Agatha Harkness can never be anything but a covenless witch" and "I do not trust you".

Billy claiming to be "obsessed" about Agatha and her biggest fan and going on the road for power should know that she is the world's most notorious witch-killer – why is he appalled about her killing and so against it? And if episode 5 is any indication, power is not what he's lacking.

Joe and Schaeffer have mentioned that Billy will be different in the back half of episodes.

A quick clip from a trailer has Agatha (covered in mud) telling Billy "Last one there is a nice person", implying that Billy at this point doesn't want to be nice. I assume, at this point, he wants Agatha to pay for her misdeeds. The yellow tint of the clip also matches with the current Road area they're on.

Now at this point I do not know if Billy was involved in what I believe is a fake trial in episode 5. I'm inclined to think it's the Salem Seven, and we get this truth of Billy as fallout. I believe he definitely didn't want Alice dead.

Now for reasons why I think it'll be okay–even interesting–to have these two in conflict and everyone should put away their pitchfolks:

They are going to come to an understanding

You know how in Hawkeye series Yelena wants to kill Barton because she blames him for Natasha's death? I think we'll get a broadly similar arc or vibe for Agatha and Billy here. And they will design it in a similarly emotionally satisfying manner.

Right now Billy's basically like everyone–including the rest of the coven–who believes that Agatha is truly what her reputation says. And that's not surprising! Agatha is masks and layers and theatrics and she's not opening up unless she absolutely has to.

It may take a few episodes but I expect we'll get that before the series end, with this sobering exchange we have from a trailer:

Why do you let them believe those things about you? Because the truth is too awful.

I don't think Billy will be the Big Bad simply because I expect at the end Agatha's going to have to choose between wanting her coven, her community of witches, and something else—power perhaps, or her son, and go back to her old ways.

And for that to happen Agatha will need to have formed enough bonds with her coven, including Billy, to make it a difficult choice.

Power, darkness, and anti-heroes

Look, Agatha is my babe and she definitely needs a win after all that awful that happened in episode 5, but if you think about it Billy being a lot like his mom is really interesting? More interesting than him just being a cute innocent fanboy.

Because if he is an anti-hero, with some darkness in him, it's an opportunity to explore some of the themes or ideas we touched on in Wandavision with Wanda and her power, and her sense of self.

Heroes don't torture people.

Agatha recognises the darkness in people, delights in it even: as touched on in interviews, it's one of the reasons why she saw herself as Detective Agnes in that spell, as an investigator exploring the darkest aspects of humanity. She's seen the worst in people, and knows how to play the villain.

For Billy to avoid making the same mistakes as his mom, he needs to understand not just his power, but his potential for darkness.

Power corrupts, and when you're born with that reality-warping level of power, it's dangerous. It's so tempting to make people do what you need them to. And it's a slippery slope once you start killing, even if it's for good reasons.

Agatha never wanted to kill her first coven, in that moment she only wanted to live. But she did, with a power she never asked for, that made it so easy to keep taking and taking.

It is kind of tragic given the circumstances that Agatha couldn't have been a mentor to Wanda at the end of Wandavision, given the events of Multiverse of Madness, because she made some valid points and they could have been a coven, given Agatha's deep-deep-buried desire for one.

And looking at all the mentor-kid pairings we've seen in the MCU so far (Parker and Stark, Clint and Bishop, Strange and Chavez, etc.), I don't think we've ever had this kind of dynamic.

Interesting power dynamics

I think Agatha is at her most interesting when she's on the back foot. As we've seen in episode one, she's not one to give up when physically outmatched, quite the opposite. She's a survivor, she's stubborn, and she's a performer.

Billy has been revealed to have the magical equivalent of a gun, and is capable of taking this entire coven hostage.

They're going to have to interact in new ways now. But now it's going to be more of a dance.

It's new danger, new complications, but also new ways to connect, and also the opportunity for a more honest relationship.

Knowledge, history, community

This point isn't specific only to Agatha and Billy but I'm reminded of Billy taking it out not just on Agatha but Lilia and Jen as well.

It's not surprising that Alice and Billy, the two youngest coven members are also the most idealistic and noble. The world has not been kind to witches over the centuries—Lilia's been chased out of villages for her visions, Jen has been attacked—and the older members of the group have done what they can to survive: How much can you blame them for being selfish in a cruel world?

Power isn't your problem, it's knowledge.

In this case I mean not just the knowledge of witchcraft, but lived experience as well.

Younger witches have to learn their community's history, and the older ones have to be challenged in their set ways of thinking, in how they've adapted, because they're not always good.

I wouldn't be surprised if there was an allegory to be made here to the queer community as well. Schaeffer has mentioned there is a large overlap between the history and persecution of witches and that of the LGBTQ community.

--

Good lord this post ran away from me. If you actually read all of that you do deserve a cookie.

[seoul-bros]

Jikook Week 53 Complete (10-17/12/2024)

This week was the one year anniversary of the enlistment of Namjoon, Taehyung, Jimin and Jungkook and it's time to look back on everything that happened that week in 2023.

Jungkook had spent most of November and the beginning of December promoting Golden and its lead single Standing Next to You. He had returned to South Korea from the US on 02/12/2023 after filming the remix version of SNTY with Usher and this week the last of the promo material for the album was released including the iHeart Radio concert which included this rendition of Hate You....

....and photos from the three phases of Golden - Seven, 3D and Standing Next to You

On 11th December, all the members of BTS turned up to see Namjoon and Tae enlist. It was an emotional scene.

It was also clear that Jimin was determined to keep his hair right up until the last moment.

Finally, on the 12th December, Sope accompanied Jimin and Jungkook to their enlistment ceremony. Now all the BTS members were enlisted and the long wait until June 2025 began.

That day they filmed a clip for Are you sure? They were so excited to share the show with the fans.

TwiX

They went in with a quick sideways glance and a thumbs up for the camera.

Finally, on 15/12, the Usher remix of Standing Next to You was released accompanied by the performance video.

In I am Still we get to see JK filming the video and talking about his enlistment with the dancers, "You sad?" "No" "Happy" "(Hell) No"

The night before enlistment both Jimin and Jungkook came live to say goodbye to ARMY. It was hard to watch the first time but even more emotional rewatching with the benefit of hindsight. JK was far from his usual self but he still managed to communicate how much he was going to miss ARMY.

Jimin was also serious and low key. He talked about how much BTS were looking forward to getting back together and going on tour. He was clear that this was not his choice but something that had to be done and he thought that he and JK would do well because they could support each other.

Enlistment is a forced break in their activities just when they felt like they were getting started, beginning to express themselves as solo artists as well as members of the group. They faced their obligation with a positive frame of mind and, from the little we have heard from or about them since, they have maintained that attitude throughout.

I can imagine that now a year later, they, like us, are beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel. They probably still have a whole series of additional surprises waiting for us in the first six months of 2025. We know J-Hope had a whole plan for the six months after his military discharge (new music, a concert tour?). There are rumours that we can expect more music from the maknae line. Jin has been so busy, I hope he gets a bit of a break but he may also have more to share with us. We still haven't seen the Run Jin episode with Hobi!.

Post Date: 17/12/2024

[notnights]

Little ninja fans of present day and past, I began watching RC9GN in December of 2012, and it changed my life forever, now it's 2024 and I'm nearing 30, time sure flies! Anyways I've been working on cleaning out my computer files and found a bunch and I mean A BUNCH of Randy Cunningham 9th Grade Ninja promotional material and side content. I pretty much have most things that came out from 2012 - 2015 pertaining to the show.

I imagine a lot of these things have been lost to time as some of it was originally posted was from the DisneyXD website, and variations of the DisneyXD website (meaning from other countries). I have interviews, bumpers, dubs of episodes, even footage of some of the old RC9GN games, and Randy cameos (I saved footage of someone playing the RC9GN Poptropica promo!)

I also have a clip from WSFA where they reported on the fan that wrote Rachel's song. I had thought it was posted to youtube but I can't find it again so maybe they removed it, it's not on the article that's still up either! Guess it's good I saved it. (The article isn't entirely accurate, I believe she said she got the internship because of her song)

I also have a few clips of other dubs, including an Italian dub of the song and music video "GO NINJA GO," that's pretty cool! I also found audio files of the raw music from the show! I can't even remember how I got that. (they are unfortunately not named)

I have some less quality stuff like literally me just recording promos and bumpers off of the TV screen lol. Some of these also include snips of other Disney XD bumpers and promos though.

Anyways, I don't want this stuff kept all to my self as I see a lot of it is lost to time, if not hard to find. And oh look at that looks like I have a handy little sideblog I never used that's perfect for this! @theninjanomicon (I'll pretty it up later), so over time I'll probably share some of it on there.

Younger me was unfortunately not very thorough in the archiving, so some titles, dates, names, and exactly where I got them from, are missing, but I can give a rough time frame and where I got these from that I can remember. (another reason why I'm doing it! to mark down what I can remember before I forget anymore of it)

I wouldn't be uploading any full episodes for obvious reasons but might upload clips of some of the alternate dubs I have. And yes I have the pilot, which I can't share either but I do have STORYBOARDS from the pilot (which up until this year was our only reference for this "kim possible style" it used to have) which maybe I can share as I got it from the storyboarder's portfolio which was public back when I got it.

I might add some commentaries under a readmore for certain posts to give extra contexts/what I remember being relevant to the piece I post.

Now the hard part is figuring out where to start! What would y'all like to see first?

[lesbiansforangusmcdonald]

Ok, finals are over, so now I can FINALLY post my Pepe Sylvia theory about Porter actually being evil that has been ruminating in my head ever since I saw season 2! (spoilers for s2 of fantasy high, obviously)

(sorry if someone’s talked about it before and I couldn’t find it, but like WE NEED TO DISCUSS THIS BEFORE S3!)

Ok, so I noticed something when Ragh talked about the first time he saw Kalina in episode 4 of season 2 (“Heartache on the Celestine Sea”). He says that he saw Jace talking to some elven woman (who is revealed to be Adaine’s mom, Arianwen) and to “someone he couldn’t see. I just assumed somebody was invisible.” This is most likely Kalina, as Arianwen was there to get the Nightmare King’s crown and Kalina could have been helping her do that. However, this is important because, since Ragh could obviously see Kalina later on, this is a point in time when he couldn’t see Kalina.

Then Ragh says that after he saw that, Jace and Porter came to talk to him, and “Porter did some barbarian healing with me.” This seems normal enough, as Ragh had just been in a huge fight, but Ragh stipulates that “I didn’t feel that injured, honestly.” So this line already makes it seem as though Porter may have had some ulterior motive for healing Ragh.

Then, Ragh says that as he was walking home after this, he was approached by Kalina, who threatened to kill his mom if he said anything about seeing Arianwen at the school.

(the clip of the scene is here, if you wanna watch it, edited slightly for clarity)

So this makes me think that Jace and Porter knew Ragh saw Arianwen at the school, knew he would probably tell the Bad Kids about it, and Porter intentionally passed Kalina to Ragh through healing in order to ensure his silence.

AND if you’re thinking this may be a bit far-fetched, I’ll remind you that Landren Leir, the cleric of the unnamed goddess who infiltrated the elven Galicaean church after the fall of the unnamed goddess, also passed on Kalina via healing of the high-elven clergy, which she was then murdered for.

But in order to pass it on to Ragh at all, Porter must have been infected with Kalina as well, so here are some of my theories of what that could mean;

1. Porter had no idea he was infected and was just trying to heal a student.

I mean, totally possible, right? From most of the other angles, Porter seems like a decent guy; he supports Fig in barbarian class, he’s part of a community at his local gym, and he did get sucked into a palimpsest when Kalvaxis/Goldenhoard was trying to take over the school — why would that happen if Porter wouldn’t have been opposed to what Kalvaxis/Goldenhoard was doing? And there are plenty of people who are infected with Kalina and never show any symptoms, and therefore never know. It could have been totally innocent. BUT it’s just a little too convenient, isn’t it? Ragh sees Arianwen at the school, and then right after he’s “randomly” infected with Kalina? It just doesn’t seem like a coincidence.

2. Porter knew he was passing Kalina onto Ragh, but wasn’t aware of the full plot to steal the Nightmare King’s crown.

I mean, also possible, right? Maybe Jace put Porter up to it, maybe he knew more than Porter did about the whole situation? Porter wasn’t initially mentioned as talking to Arianwen, maybe Jace just manipulated Porter because he knew that Ragh would trust Porter as his teacher. BUT I think that it would be kind of weird for Porter to be in the school, be infected, be around all of these other people who are in on this wider plot, but they don’t get him involved. Maybe they thought he wouldn’t go for it, thought he was too nice, but I’m not sure. I mean, I think this theory has more merit than the first one, like it’s possible, just would be a little weird.

3. Porter was in on the plot to bring back the Nightmare King.

I mean. Like I know this may not be another Loose Duke situation. But it’s possible! Like, he’s in the right positions! He works at the school. He has the trust of some of the bad kids. He didn’t openly support Kalvaxis or anything he did. Maybe their larger organization (which they do hint that there are more people throughout the world that want to bring back the nightmare king throughout the campaign) thought that he should lay low and hold onto the trust of the bad kids, just wait until the right time to strike. Again, the fact that he would knowingly put a student, one of HIS barbarian students, in such serious danger, in order to protect the larger interest of bringing back the Nightmare King, does not stack up well against him.

So, do I think that Porter will end up being the big bad of season 3, or even the elusive season 4? No, probably not. BUT I do think that he’s sus as fuck and we need to stay on our toes, because he could turn out to be more of a threat with the right opportunities.

[scolop98]

Turns out I have too many thoughts to put this in a comment and honestly it was a matter of time before I made a post about these two.

Okay so: AMC's Pantheon. Season one episode one. Cary and Renee are playing out their whole "pretending to be in an abusive relationship" shtick. We the audience find out that this is a ruse after their shouting match at dinner, when they meet up in the garage.

Everything about this exchange—their dialogue and poses, the smirk on Renee’s face, the casualness of it all—read like flirting to me. That, combined with the general reveal that they'd been faking an abusive marriage—not to mention how Renee immediately slides back into The Role after Cary leaves—had me HOOKED. AND it was our first hint that something was seriously and abnormally wrong (= very interesting) with Caspian's life/the Keyes family, so my initial interest in Caspian's subplot was heavily tied to Renee and Cary's dynamic.

Then we get to episodes two and three... and they absolutely hate each other.

(context: first video is after he shoves her to the ground in front of their "son" and his "girlfriend" in ep2. second video, from ep3, they are picking out the hammer that (spoilers) will be used to break her arm later that night)

Every interaction is clipped dialogue and frosty glares and the bare minimum effort spent to make sure you and your coworker aren't going to step on each other's toes. At least on Renee's side—sometimes Cary seems like he's trying to connect with Renee (ex: after they meet "Hannah" for the "first" time), and sometimes he just seems pissed at her (ex: buying out the hammer) (which is understandable, she's the worst. she is such an asshole and I love her for that)

And then we get to end of episode three: The Hammer Scene

Where Renee breaks her own arm because Cary is "too pussy to do it himself" (not an actual quote), and Cary breaks down in tears after leaving Caspian. When Cary shows that despite participating in this ethical nightmare, he's enough of a decent human being to not want to break his coworker's arm and also genuinely cares about the surrogate son he's raised for the last 17 years; and when Renee shows that she is 110% committed to whatever this still-ambiguous, evil-shadowy-tech-corp-backed Truman Show gambit is that she's dedicated the last 17 years of her life to.

Also relevant (to me specifically) is that this scene is sandwiched directly between David and Ellen's breakup scenes, which are some of my favorite moments in season one and the primary reason why David/Ellen is my favorite Pantheon ship. The contrast between David and Ellen's dynamic (we both agree it's healthier to not get back together, but that doesn't mean we can't still banter about old memories) & my reaction to them (WOW is it obvious these two used to be married, instant OTP) compared to Renee and Cary's power hour (i.e. performing the most jaw-dropping, unexpected plot twist in the show up to that point) did something irreversible to my brain chemistry and single-handedly kickstarted my interest in "incredibly divorced animated parents with convoluted relationship histories" ships.

In hindsight, the tone shift in Cary and Renee's interactions in the first three episodes was probably just bad continuity or one of those "characterization was not fully fleshed out when we made the first episode" situations. Aside from the first episode, literally all their scenes in season one make it obvious that Renee and Cary were in a purely professional fake marriage and were NOT friends. Renee can’t stand Cary, and he’s incredibly frustrated with her half the time. While their garage banter did an incredible job as a Reveal Scene, it's also a clear outlier in terms of how Renee and Cary's relationship is written.

I wasn’t really thinking about any of that during my first watch of Pantheon. I was thinking: "flirty coworkers in a morally fucked up job" + "clearly pissed at each other" = "hate-to-love-you ship dynamic," and then I was thinking "HOLY SHIT SHE JUST BROKE HER OWN ARM" and could not stop rotating this family in my mind. I did notice that the garage scene didn't match their later characterization, but instead of thinking about the bad writing I kept rotating the potential of that dynamic in my mind.

Later S1 developments such as "Renee sees Cary and shoots him on sight" and "now that I've put you in this hospital bed I will gloat about everything (I think) you've lost, and also we still have to pretend to be married," and "we are in different states and still jump at the first chance to throw each other under the bus, which unintentionally reads as obsession with each other" did nothing to dissuade this train of thought, mind you.

So to synthesize all this: Cary and Renee are very clearly not in any sort of romantic/sexual/emotional relationship. Renee dislikes Cary at best, and all of Cary's post-episode-one moments of concern/sympathy toward Renee can be framed through this flashback sequence:

Cary, exasperated: "And… we're gonna be working together for awhile […] Let's. Try and make it pleasant. Deal?"

Cary (reasonably) wants to get along with the coworker he's going to spend the next 17 years of his life with, even (especially) if she's an asshole.

But that plot-critical-but-OOC moment in episode one wired my brain to think about these two being close enough to banter, and through that filter their dynamic in the rest of the season looked a lot like those sexually-charged, obsessive mortal enemy dynamics that enemies-to-lovers and hero/villain shippers thrive on. Not to mention the fact that these two have lived the last 17 years in the same house and might've been sleeping in the same bed for several years to keep up appearances (I know that everyone's favorite fake-marriage duo don't sleep in the same room but TwiYor don't have to keep their fake marriage a secret from their child). It is very, very easy for me to imagine an AU where Cary and Renee would have hate sex sometimes, and I feel like it would have practically zero butterflies on the outcome of the plot. Or alternatively, imagine if they were genuinely in a relationship while raising Caspian and how insanely toxic it would be—especially since their platonic, professional canon relationship is already incredibly unbalanced in terms of emotional labour.

And the fact that one of their most emotionally charged, status quo-changing, plot-relevant scenes was paired and directly contrasted with the most emotionally charged, character arc-relevant scene of my favorite Pantheon ship (David x Ellen) in what rapidly became my favorite sequence of season? Meant I was constantly reminded of this ship (Cary x Renee) whenever I thought about why I loved this show.

Anyways that's how a tiny bit of inconsistent characterization in pantheon's first episode turned these awful fake parents into my second favorite Pantheon OTP - not in the sense of "I think these characters should be together," but more like a "can you imagine how much worse their lives would've been if they were in an on-and-off situationship at any point in the last 18 years" that I constantly rotated in my mind for weeks after finishing season one. I hope my first attempt at a proper tumblr analysis essay was coherent, I wrote it between midnight and 3 AM. As a bonus, have this edit of them that I made last summer for a "toxic/complicated/disorienting relationships" MEP

The song is Tainted Love, covered by Milky Chance and originally by Soft Cell

Also, to clear up any confusion: just because I think Renee is The Worst and an Awful Human Being does not mean I don't like her as a character. I like her character a lot more than Cary actually. She's not blorbo material but she IS "I love to hate this character" material. She's the centerpiece of the entire fucked up Keyes Family Dynamic! From an audience perspective, she acts as The Face of Logorhythm's clone plot, given how she has more screen time and direct interactions with Caspian than Cary or Julius Pope in S1, and she's so intricately tied to Caspian's "what the fuck is wrong with my life" investigations. She's an asshole, but she's a complex, interesting asshole with plot relevance, screen time, and more personality than Julius Pope, and I loved watching how she and Caspian play off each other and how that changes over time. also she's a fucked-up and evil woman and idk i find that compelling in a fictional character, sue me.

[autisticlalna]

WAIT OK ALSO I NEED TO YELL ABOUT THE NEW INFO WE HAVE ABT MIMIC CHERRUBY

(under cut bc this was recorded so might make it into an episode)

okay hold on lemme get a clip. right before this Ruby says "Yeah, if I could- I- I'm currently very much so, um, suppressing something, can I just- Can I- Can I--"

and then:

Ruby: [relieved sigh] That's... That's a lot better. Um. Acorn: Ohh~! Anathra: Oh. Oh! Ruby: I've- I've spent enough time here to kind of, ah... Anathra: This is... Acorn: You look so warm and cozy~! Ruby: [laughs] Thanks! Anathra: You... Ruby: Um. This kinda form just keeps me immune from cold, I guess. Um. I- I don't know why, um, that's just something that my family and I always did that wherever we went, um, we would just acclimate to everything, hence why, um, you might've seen me as a monkey or a- or a witch at some point, that's all just... Anathra: Uh-huh. Ruby: Ah, to kind of, y'know, uh. Anathra: Is that like why you were... having an issue with water? Ruby: Yeah! With the End Kingdom, right? Right.

which, as usual, answers some questions and raises more because??? mimic Cherruby real!! and its a family thing? like, it's not just Cherruby. they just.. naturally acclimate to places. it can be pretty drastic in Ruby's case, as seen with her first transformation being monkeyification, and Endby especially becoming an enderman hybrid complete with water allergy.

we also don't know a lot abt Ruby's family outside of this and something they say later on in the same conversation about not being sure if their family even exists at this point. that's probably worthy of a post all on its own though.

what the heck.

[rbr4c1ng]

Hii! I was wondering if you could maybe explain the bus bros fallout or p2p gate or pretty much all of the McLaughlin-Newgarden lore to me since I'm only getting in to IndyCar now and I want to be caught up before the 500. I understand this is a big ask but I've seen that youve posted about it and I just NEED to know. Any links to other pieces of lore would also be much apreciated. Completely understand if you don't want to write anything though so thank you so much I advance!! <3

YES ABSOLUTELY I WILL EXPLAIN! this is my special interest dw i could write an 18 page essay about their lore.

SO basically scott came into indycar from supercars in 2020-2021 ish and him a josef started getting along like super well, which is honestly a bit odd bc josef is known to not really let people get so close to him, so scotty is a bit of an outlier in that respect.

eventually! they make bus bros!!! wooooo everyone loves it etc etc they have fun making it…. until they don’t! leading up to their breakup there were QUITE a few clues that they knew it was gonna end in flames like scott talked about it on off track (see audio excerpt below) and on hot seats with hinch if i remember correctly?

there’s also a fair share of articles that mention it. they basically knew it was inevitable but i don’t think anyone thought it was gonna happen so quickly??

so then the winter break leading into the 2024 szn happened! this is about when i started getting really into bus bros and was honestly pretty present for some of this shit (i was at the daytona 24 and st pete so i’ve got some first hand evidence but we will get to that later)… anyways so the rumors start going around that bus bros is over around?? st pete time i think??? a little bit earlier. which is odd given that they seemed okay with each other at the daytona 24, even though i thought it was strange that they weren’t both on tower motorsports anymore cause josef switched to penske porsche but GENERALLY it seemed okay (although based on this pic idk their relationship seems a little charged atp but it’s all speculation really)

then after the rumors come out i think it was jenna fryer’s article that did it in? (idk it has a paywall on it for me right now and i don’t care enough to find it here but there’s definitely excerpts floating around) now i do recommend to take anything jenna fryer says with a grain of salt bc she is essentially a gossip columnist for all intents and purposes. but the article basically said that josef and scotty were done and scott wouldn’t answer any questions about it and was only saying that they’re fine or to ask josef about it (tea from todays 100 days to indy episode actually…). they promptly took down the bus bros merch site and have been relatively quiet since then. at st pete they talked on the podium and didn’t seem too bad but i’ve seen other clips where they won’t even sit next to each other or speak to each other so take that as you will. podiums are pretty much just publicity, cameras everywhere, you’d probably want to seem at least cordial with your teammate.

(pic 1 is mine, pic 2 is a pic of my tv from todays episode LMFAO)

so heres where most of the speculative stuff comes in. Josef dissolved his media company, unfollowed everyone, and cancelled bus bros leading into the 2024 season because he wanted to “get rid of distractions”, and really we could leave it at that, but i find it hard to believe that that’s the only thing that happened.

Josef is the dictionary definition of Penske Perfect, you won’t get any closer to it than him. he’s fucking OBSESSED with this idea of being perfect. perfect season, perfect body, perfect car, perfect team. obviously this isn’t feasible, but scotty seemed to have broken through that block in his little Penske Perfect brain and got him to LIGHTEN UP A BIT. and then the 2023 season happened. sure, josef won the indy 500 but it was one of his worst season finishes in a while and, to make matters worse, scott BEAT him. little scotty mac, supercars champion transplant from 2021 beat josef newgarden at his own fucking game after breaking down his walls and making him soft. i can see how that scared josef honestly. so he ended it. Scott doesn’t see things on a plane of winning/losing imo, everything is just experience for him. hell, he didn’t even know if he would end up in indycar and he sure as hell didn’t think he’d win races so soon AND beat his teammate. to josef, it’s JUST winning/losing. if he’s losing, he needs to be better. and he lost sight of that for the 2023 season. that’s why he had to come back and put an end to the shenanigans bc he knows scott makes him soft.

but that’s just my speculation!!!!! literally could just be nothing. maybe it is to josef, but i know for a FACT it isn’t to scott.

OH and with the p2pgate stuff! basically they had a component in their car that. was not supposed to be there! that prevented race control from turning off their push to pass like normal. (marshall pruitt has a rlly good article explaining it all here) and they were caught in long beach when race control forgot to turn on the push to pass during the sunday warm up and HMMMMM why do the penske cars still have it???? when has this happened before??? oh ok st pete! now they’re disqualified. josef used 9 seconds of p2p when it was not enabled and scotty only used 1.9 and will used none. so i’m led to believe that it was a josef-centered choice IF it was intentional to use the p2p when it was supposed to be inactive.

now josef really laid down the water works for that press conference at barber to the point that i was having a VERY hard time watching it. i felt bad for the guy. he seemed really fucking upset and i almost believe that it WASNT on purpose but. it’s just too good to be true right?

honestly i think this all could tie back to the downfall of bus bros in that scott maybe didn’t want to do the p2p thing but josef was willing to? and maybe that caused some sort of divide between them bc then again for josef it’s about Winning No Matter What, and yes scott wants to win but cheating isn’t the way for him. idk.

for more of their lore when they WERE friends, watch bus bros (duh), admit one, 100 days to indy, scott learns america: nashville, hot seats with hinch, and listen to scott’s episode on off track with hinch and rossi! also there are some very brief interactions between them on some older penske games videos before bus bros was even a thing but it’s not much. there are more but i can’t think of them rn…

sorry for rambling, if you have any more qs feel free to ask!!! i’m always available for brain picking :)

[flowerbloom-arts]

1, 14, 15 and 16 for the simpsons OC asks! ♥

@paranormal-librarian

1 – How did you discover the show in the first place? Did it inspire you to create an OC right away, or later on?

I think I've always been mildly aware of the Simpsons (given how prominent it is in meme circles on the internet) and I had a... Let's just say mild obsession with Steamed Hams during its hey day back in 2018-2019, it wasn't until July of 2024 when I started getting obsessed with it again after diving into Big Iron memes that I started getting curious about Chalmers and Skinner thanks to YouTube recommending me a clip of Chalmers showing off his Honda to Skinner, and then my darling mutual @hunsa-jars found the ship wiki for ChalmSkinn, and then I watched Road to Cincinnati, and the rest is historyyyy....... Yaaaaayyyyyy!!!

It took me a while to get inspired to make an OC because I have to look at the landscape of the media I'm getting into and see the sorts of characters that haven't been done yet. It always has to be a character I thought would be an interesting concept or worth a good story to be told.

My thought process with Delilah stemmed from looking at the assortment of love interests Skinner had and thought "You know, wouldn't it be funny if Seymour had like, one girlfriend who really really wanted to kill his mom for him, because Agnes is kind of the root issue of all his concrete relationship troubles."

And so, a sexy undercover Slavic spy is born! I wanted to base her off my own real life experiences with Slavic culture that aren't really represented in American media - so rather than making her Russian I chose to make her Yugoslavian, or rather, an ethnic Macedonian from Yugoslavia before it broke apart. Her fake identity as a Western German immigrant is also inspired by my own mom's childhood in Germany.

I thought basing her off the flirtatious female communist spy trope you see in mostly British media would make for an interesting foil to Skinner's character as a Special Forces soldier who fought in Vietnam. Skinner is depicted as more explicitly anti-communist in the comics, and a post-Cold War Romeo and Juliet layer on top of the whole murder girlfriend story would be an interesting way to explore Skinner's connection to his national identity and whatever ideology compelled him to volunteer for the war effort in the first place, as well as present a more complex look at the other side of the conflict.

14 – How would you consider your OC’s role in the show? Are they a major character like the Simpson family? Are they more likely to just be seen in the background? Or something in between?

Delilah (or rather, Матеа), would be a one-off love interest for Skinner, likely somewhere before he started dating Edna in season 8. And I KNOW the show has an epidemic of one-off love interests especially for female characters and god do I wish they'd utilize characters like Mindy or Gloria more besides relationship stuff but Delilah's backstory is not exactly built to withstand the test of time, just like Skinner's backstory as a Vietnam war veteran (in fact we're inching closer to a state where him being an Iraq war vet would be a more logical backstory, which is terrifying to think about. He's be born in 1980 if he's still 44 y/o today).

If you really want to push me to come up with an idea for a re-appearance I think she'd come back as a substitute teacher again after having broken out of federal prison under a new identity and then becoming a semi-regular background character for space nerd stuff.

15 – If they were in the show, what would be your OC’s main gimmick? Similarly, what would more likely happen to them in an episode?

Again, Delilah would be a one-off love interest, but in terms of gimmicks... I dunno, what would really count as a gimmick? I think her struggling to regain a regular life in the US as a Slavic immigrant would be a fun, if sad, turn of events. She'd probably resort to threatening violence at the mildest inconvenience too, I bet.

16 – What would an episode centered on your OC look like? Are there specific themes that would be explored through your OC's life?

I think Delilah would be introduced as a regular substitute teacher from formerly West Germany filling in for Edna or Hoover because they're sick or hungover or in some other kind of school-ditching nonsense, or perhaps the school finally gains the budget to add an actual specialized teacher to the language lab, it doesn't really matter.

The episode continues with Delilah trying to seduce Skinner into giving her "special benefits", like a pay raise ("Damn capitalists and their tiny wages for educators!") where she finds out about Skinner's issues pertaining to his mom, like her freakish control over his love life (or lack thereof). Delilah makes the connection that she needs to get rid of the problem that causing Skinner to not solve her problem, and that would be killing Agnes, and therein lies the main conflict of the episode.

The episode would be about Delilah trying to worm her way into Skinner's pants and convince him to get rid of Agnes from his life under the guise of regular after-school hangouts as friends or as staff bonding activities, only to be charmed by his nerdy sincerity outside of work and the motivation shifting to killing Agnes because she's such a horrible mother to this poor, sweet man.

She'd find out about his interest in space which she shares and they'd go to a space museum and have so much fun there. She'd be such a Bad Girl about it to contrast Skinner's goody-two-shoes attitude, breaking in after operating hours and guiding him by the hand and bypassing the security systems with whatever Russian technology she still has in her arsenal, and when they have a very touching moment looking at the stars and Delilah revealing some of her heart to him, she drops the suggestion to Skinner that he should dispose of Agnes, which he's immediately taken aback by and declines, awkwardly leaving her afterwards.

The sunk-cost fallacy of their relationship pushes Delilah to do the job herself, because really, this whole time, she's been projecting her own parental issues onto Skinner. Her own father was an abusive man and the government killing him for treason against the state was the best thing to have happened to her. She thinks Seymour should be afforded the same relief from his own mother, too.

He's such a simple man who seems happy and given determination to live by the simplest pleasures and she wants that, she wants the same thing, she's felt so lost since the USSR dissolved while she was doing espionage in the USA and being stuck there ever since, she's always felt lost in her national identity since it was expected of her to conform to the identity of "Yugoslavic" which was dominated by the Serbs in her territory, it was Macedonian nationalism that compelled her father to commit treason, after all, but now she has no identity to be proud of. Every nation she could call allegiance to has been put to shame, every name she's given herself was fabricated for the same of those disgraced nations, and she can't even use her real name in fear of the enemy government punishing her.

She just wants a life spent on something that made her genuinely happy, and spending time with a fellow nerd at heart was the happiest she's felt in a while. So yes, she'll kill Agnes even if she has to climb the roof and point a gun at her herself. Skinner's puppy eyes, however, convinces her otherwise, and he seems to express enough sympathy despite his panic to call her down. But before she could make a change in her life, the police and federal agents find her and arrest her, never to be heard from again.

The Balkans have always been in a constant back and forth of territory and national identity, being invaded by empire after empire after united states and even still we fight eachother on borders, all the while the US has always stood firmly under that red, white and blue flag by comparison. It'd be a story about the identity crises of many slavs that had to deal with the aftermath of the Soviet Union falling apart in the 90s, having to deal with all the trauma that it brought and couldn't possibly heal soon enough.

Матеа had trained and lied and learned and killed and done so many things only for her nation to Lose, and that's such a massive blow to everything she built with her life. Everything she did suddenly became worthless, and she wanted to reach for and live vicariously through someone else who was happier by comparison, who had just one problem with a simple solution - if only true happiness could be achieved by killing one single person.

[interactivefictionramblings]

[Spoilers for Heaven’s Secret: Requiem, S2.]

I don’t think I posted this one here yet, so:

Theory about the magazine clippings…

If you’re on High Adaptability, you manage to unlock the locker in Lane’s new room at Adam, and find old magazine clippings. Later, you also catch a newer clipping blowing down a corridor—from the closed-off/forbidden wing. The old ones can easily be deduced as being Ada’s: a teen girl, who we learn Pileon cares for deeply.

(Note: her age isn’t stated, but the magazines are for teens, and while Pileon says she’s just a child, she was allowed to go out with a team.)

Ada supposedly didn’t return from a mission.

Donovan said this. I think Ada’s actually being kept in the forbidden wing, and that Lane will put this together, which will result in us finding her; whether Lane goes by herself, or not. In the case of the player having made a fake deal with Pileon, finding Ada probably gets him to stop trying to kill you; even if it doesn’t make him stop wanting to, necessarily. Although, it may do so, who knows? Maybe we can become friends with the other immortals after saving her (others as in, not just Cain). Anhea clearly cares for Pileon, and probably Ada as well, so.

Additionally, in the latest episode, we learn that Donovan ordered a breathing machine to be brought from New York to the Adam base.

In that conversation between Lane and Anna, it was concluded that it was for an immortal. I’m thinking it’s for Ada; she’s injured, but alive. As for why Donovan lied…when Ada was first mentioned, my immediate thought was that Donovan was probably faking her death and experimenting on her. Donovan speaks so casually about using Dimitry like that (or rather, not doing so), that it’s obvious if they didn’t need the usefulness of the immortals, she’d keep them for projects. We learned that the green ampoules Pileon wanted and Anhea was injected with were made not only in the Siberia base, but in the room where immortals were tortured, so it’s possible that to make more, the Adam base needs blood from an immortal—and a young one that isn’t very useful in the field would be suitable, right? Especially if she’s the only option. Supply was hinted as limited, even before Nick robbed the labs of the rest. If Donovan had an injured immortal in her hands, I have no doubt how she’d choose to use them.

[samwinchesterdefender]

sam winchester and dogs - analysis

nobody really seems to talk about this. the other day, i saw that clip of sam and dean going through the memory of the time sam ran away for the first time in a while, and it made me think. we only see sam with dogs a handful of times in the series, at least owning them, and there’s a reason for that— dogs are a symbol of imperfect happiness for sam winchester.

⚠️there will be MAJOR spoilers in this post⚠️

example 1 - bones

we see bones in the episode when dean and sam are going through some of their best memories. one of sam’s is the time he ran away for two weeks and hid somewhere with a dog he found—bones—and lived off “funions and mr pibb”. people often criticize him for this in favor of dean, because dean tells him that john beat him for losing sam. however, people don’t really seem to mention the backstory for this (probably? not all the details line up, but this is seemingly the first time sam ran away) that we got for this later in the episode with sully.

in the episode, we get flashbacks of one part of sam’s childhood: dean and john were on another hunt and wouldn’t let him come with. he had asked sully, “ever think… about running away?” which sparked a conversation about sam’s future which ended in sam deciding to actually run away and ended with a cut back to present day.

sam had decided to run away because he was tired of feeling unvalued and hated the way he was currently living. he didn’t really hate his family— he was just a kid sick of being alone with no promise of change soon. when he ran away, though, he was still alone. he was just alone without promise of dean and john being home in a few days. he thought it would fix his problems, but it didn’t. he didn’t have the greatest relationship with john, but he did love dean. he didn’t really show it as a kid but dean was the only one who showed him real love, and he needed that. he didn’t have that anymore.

this is the first instance sam is shown owning a dog, and it comes after sam ran away for something he thought would fix his life but ended up not really measuring up in the end. he was ripped back from his little adventure right back into his old life. he couldn’t escape. he was free,

but he didn’t have dean.

example 2 - riot

one of the WORST plot lines on this show. i’ll say that. weird choice for sam. regardless, it stands with the analysis.

we all know how sam hit the dog and went to live with amelia instead of looking for dean. it came from the idea that dean used that one time they had evidently agreed on where if one of them died, the other would live a normal life. personally i don’t think sam would have actually done this at this point in the show, but whatever. dean had lisa and ben, and this was sam’s version. sam’s chance at normalcy. we see bits of his life with amelia develop over multiple episodes, and he was even living with her. amelia made him happy. and they really showed that dog a lot.

the dog lived with them, obviously. the second instance of sam owning a dog. sam was trying to start this new life for himself of being a guy who settles down with someone and lives his life in peace. of course, that didn’t really end up working for him, as he left amelia to go back to hunting.

yet again, we have a dog present during a time sam was trying to escape his problems and start over. sam was starting to get this life for himself that he never really thought he would have, but that he always had as an unattainable dream. he was free,

but he didn’t have dean.

example 3 - miracle

the final instance shown of sam owning a dog. dean had found this one, which, as we’ve seen from the takeaway of the two previous examples, was actually foreshadowing of dean’s death in the final episode.

unfortunately, we all remember how 15x20 starts with sam and dean in a semi-normal life. they’ve beat chuck. they’ve saved the world multiple times, and lost so many people in the process. they finally get some normalcy, while still keeping up the little hunting jobs. and then dean somehow dies on that damn rusty rebar.

immediately proceeding is what i can remember through heavy tears as an extremely sad montage of sam living his life without dean, permanently, with parallels to earlier scenes in the episode. then we get that shot of sam and miracle watching dean’s body burn.

dean had unknowingly found sam a companion before he died. this was what sam had left of his big brother. a dog. he took that dog with him when he left the bunker, and took care of him until the day he died. they had both loved that dog. sam had gotten a taste of a free life— a free life with his brother, unshackled by world-threatening evils. that was then forcibly taken away from him in an instant. he was once again alone. alone with miracle. he was free,

but he didn’t have dean.