#Key Bridge Incident

[odinsblog]

The crew of a massive container ship that crashed into the Francis Scott Key bridge in Baltimore early Tuesday warned of power issues before the collision, which caused the bridge to collapse into the frigid Patapsco River, officials said.

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore said the warning from the ship’s crew likely saved lives.

“We’re thankful that between the mayday and the collapse, that we had officials who were able to begin to stop the flow of traffic so more cars were not on the bridge,” Moore said. He called those officials heroes.

Moore noted that the bridge was up to code at the time of the collapse. He said the collapse was a “shocking and heartbreaking” event for the people of Maryland who have used the bridge for 47 years.

(continue reading)

[reasoningdaily]

BBC: Baltimore: 'Mass casualty event' as bridge hit by ship collapses into river

There are divers being dispatched In hopes of saving some of those who are trapped in their vehicles from the bridge collapse.

[rizzanon]

imagine if one of readers friends had a sibling and treated the friends sibling more like a sibling than any of the batfam ?? how would they react

it could be adriens twin brother felix wink wink nudge nudge

-🍰

NOT FELIX. i’ll be using Caitlyn’s older brother (from chapter 4) as the example ☺️

imagine reader in her petty era trying to avoid all conversations/confrontations with the batfam (especially dick—idk why im bullying him at this point—who’s trying to reach out to you and bridge the gap between you two that seemed to have grown bigger due to a particular incident(s) that happened will be explained more in depth in chapter 5 )

like imagine:

Dick: (calling out to you after spotting you along the hallways of Wayne Manor) Hey, (Name)! Do you want to—

regressed!reader: (cutting him off, speedwalking past) Sorry, can’t talk. I’m late to meet up with Caitlyn and our brother.

Dick: (blinking, turning to follow your retreating figure) Our brother? Wait, what? Who—?

regressed!reader: (already out the door)

Dick: (to himself, utterly perplexed) ‘Our’ brother?? What is going on?

regressed!reader: (stretching, checking the time) Wow, it’s late. I should head back before Alfie nags at me for staying out.

Jason: (shrugging, reaching for his keys) Yeah, I’m not letting you walk back to the manor at this hour. I’ll give you a—

regressed!reader: (cutting him off, excitedly) Oh, great! My bro’s here to pick me up! See you never, hopefully!

Jason: (stunned) Wait, what? Your—? (watches you jog up to some random guy on a motorcycle, who hands you a helmet before the two of you ride off.)

Jason: (to himself, bewildered) Who the hell… Did the old man adopt another kid again?

Tim: (walking up, holding some tools) Hey, I remembered you needed help fixing a gadget of yours, so—

regressed!reader: (cutting him off, smirking) I got it. My bro helped me fix it up.

Tim: (pausing) …Dick?

regressed!reader: No.

Tim: (frowning) Jason?

regressed!reader: Pfft, no.

Tim: Damian??

regressed!reader: Seriously?

Tim: (utterly flabbergasted) “What other brothers do we even have??”

regressed!reader: (walking off with the smuggest grin imaginable, answering a phone call) Hey, bro! Yeah, thanks for helping me fix that gadget of mine!

Tim: (standing there, staring after you, completely baffled)

LOL i need to do this with the other batfam members 😭

[josnhoes]

Platonic!Yan batfam with young adult reader. Part 4

[Part 3]

Note: Reader is 18-22 years old. Gn reader

Content warning: being treated like a child, being looked down on, stalking, obsessions, soft yandere but still a yandere, reader has memory issues and it's ambiguous as to why, delusional batfam, batfam as a whole basically view you as a child younger then Damien despite you being older, reader is questioned by police, reader witnessed a crime, reader tried to be a hero, violence, blood, mentions of death, dissociation, abduction

Focus Dick (Nightwing)

------

Life moved on after the incident with Redhood. He'd left early that morning leaving a note saying, 'See you soon Sparky -RH'. You didn't care to think of what the note could mean. So you burried the strange sense of foreboding that clawed in your mind at the note. Maybe the Gotham paranoia had gotten to you?

Either way, things in the next few days were normal...as normal as Gotham could be. The bat clan had put most of the heavy rollers back in Arkham at a record speed. No one knew if it was just the rogues being sloppy, or the bats were feeling a tad extra feral. You remembered when you first learned about Batman and his underlings; the idea of the police having feral furry themed vigilantes was funny. You'd thought your new neighbor was joking. But no, it was true, and after your personal run-ins with Robin and Redhood, you could confidently claim the group was feral and would punch God..any God really... given the chance. Which was what Gotham needed to be blunt.

It was nice though that you got out of the heart of Gotham sometimes. So you'd taken a day off to go to Bludhaven. It wasn't better than Gotham, but it was a change of place. The fact that a comic store was having a closing door sale was totally *not* the reason. It was.. but you were hoping to get something cool for cheap! Nerd stuff was expensive, and as a nerd, you knew that well.

The quest for a trinket wasn't supposed to end with you being brought into the local police station for questioning. You weren't part of a crime no, but you were a witness, *the* witness. A mugging gone wrong. Honestly the details were fuzzy, yet at the same time, key parts you couldn't forget. The feeling of the woman's heart fading as you held pressure on the stab wound. The wheeze in her voice as she struggled to breathe and tell you her final words. The way your body trembled as the paramedics arrived and carted her away to a hospital. The sensation of blood on your hands and skin, and the smell...

"You okay?" The police officer's voice pulled you from the spiral of your thoughts.

"I'm sorry what?" You were in a haze, shock most likely.

"I asked if you would be okay answering a few more questions. Detective Grayson just got here and wants to ask a few."

"Oh sure yeah..." the voice, no your voice spoke, but it didn't feel like you.

Dick Grayson walked into the room the officers had put you in. You weren't in trouble. A nearby camera had seen it all go down, but you were a vital witness, one who was clearly not well after what you saw. Dick didn't blame you for your state either. He...he should have been there. When Bruce had called telling him you were in Bludhaven, he was ecstatic to think he could meet you. He'd been planning a nice little meet cute styled thing to bridge a gap from a stranger to you to being besties. He was your eldest brother, the one you'd be able to rely on most. You'd love everyone in the family but you'd come to him first for everything. He could so easily picture it. The two of you staying up late, watching films and you opening up to him and feeling safe in his company. The inside jokes you'd have together, you'd both be thicker than thieves.

So seeing you as you were now was a reminder of just how fragile you were. You were in shock a really bad case of it too. Your eyes were distant as you struggled to answer the basic questions. You were shaking. You still had the victim's blood on your shirt too. He should have been there. Any of them should have, but you were in *his* turf so it should have been him. He should have gotten there before you had to see it. You shouldn't have had to apply pressure to a wound like that.

Your voice was hollow, he'd seen videos of you. Hollow is never something he could have pictured you as. You had so much life to you. Yet here you were in this state because of *his* failures; as Nightwing, a detective, and a big brother. What if it had been you? You would have died on his watch in his turf. He couldn't handle that right now.

He got the answers he could from you, then easily guided you out. He told his fellow workers he was taking you home. No one questioned it, Dick was a good guy and not the type to let a traumatized witness go home alone.

You didn't question him as he ushered you to his car, or where he was taking you when you hadn't told him where you lived. He wasn't sure you could do that right now. He wasn't lying saying he was taking you home... it just wasn't the home you'd have expected if you were more here. The room in the manor wasn't perfect, but you'd be safe there.

He brought you inside, and the family members at home seethed at him. He couldn't blame them, this was his fault. Cass took you with help from Alfred to get you cleaned up and put you to bed. His heart broke seeing how you just went with everything. Like you were aware enough to function on a base level and orders, but mentally? You were gone. Pulled into yourself, protecting yourself from the trauma that he'd caused. He should have been there.

[akajustmerry]

"The cycle of violence in The Last of Us Part II appears to be largely modelled after the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I suspect that some players, if they consciously clock the parallels at all, will think The Last of Us Part II is taking a balanced and fair perspective on that conflict, humanizing and exposing flaws in both sides of its in-game analogues. But as someone who grew up in Israel, I recognized a familiar, firmly Israeli way of seeing and explaining the conflict which tries to appear evenhanded and even enlightened, but in practice marginalizes the Palestinian experience in a manner that perpetuates a horrific status quo.

The game's co-director and co-writer Neil Druckmann, an Israeli who was born and raised in the West Bank before his family moved to the U.S., told the Washington Post that the game's themes of revenge can be traced back to the 2000 killing of two Israeli soldiers by a mob in Ramallah. Some of the gruesome details of the incident were captured on video, which Druckmann viewed. In his interview, he recounted the anger and desire for vengeance he felt when he saw the video—and how he later reconsidered and regretted those impulses, saying they made him feel “gross and guilty.” But it gave him the kernel of a story.

“I landed on this emotional idea of, can we, over the course of the game, make you feel this intense hate that is universal in the same way that unconditional love is universal?” Druckmann told the Post. “This hate that people feel has the same kind of universality. You hate someone so much that you want them to suffer in the way they’ve made someone you love suffer.”

"That's what this story is about, do the ends justify the means, and it's so much about perspective. If it was to save a strange kid maybe Joel would have made a very different decision, but when it was his tribe, his daughter, there was no question about what he was going to do," Druckmann said.

In the game, most of the Wolves regime's restrictions are directed at a post-apocalyptic religious sect called the Seraphites (the Wolves call them "Scars" after the ritualistic scarring of their faces). These Scars vexed FEDRA as well when it was in control. The dynamic in the city when the game begins is one of conflict, escalation, and a broken truce. The Wolves, like FEDRA, leverage more resources and raw power, while the Scars rely on surprise strikes against Wolf patrols, and a zealous willingness to die for the cause.

To run through just a few key ways in which the Scars uncomfortably reflect some Israeli stereotypes about Palestinians: Later in the game, Ellie finds a location called "Martyr Gate," where the Scars' spiritual leader apparently died, indicating a religious significance of a specific and disputed location, and emphasizing the notion of martyrdom as central to their culture. The Scars are able to get around Wolf patrols and various barriers around the city via an elaborate, secret system of bridges between skyscrapers. These function as a kind of flipped version of the underground tunnels Palestinians use to bypass Israeli blockades and other means of limiting free movement in order to get supplies and carry out attacks on Israel.

In The Last of Us Part II's Seattle, Scars and Wolves hurt each other terribly, and the same can be said about Israel and Palestine. The difference is that when flashes of violence abate and the smoke clears, one side continues to live freely and prosper, while the other goes back to a life of occupation and humiliation. One side continues to expand while the other continues to lose the land it needs to live. Imagining this process as some kind of symmetric cycle benefits one side more than the other, and allows it to continue.

Ellie's journey of revenge seems especially cruel, even idiotic, because we are never given a good reason for why she keeps recommitting to it. Acts of cruelty along the way, like Ellie's torturing another character to get information, are presented as inevitable. This seems to be The Last of Us Part II's thesis: humans experience a kind of "intense hate that is universal," as Druckmann told The Post, which keep us trapped in these cycles. This is not a universal feeling as much as it's a learned way of seeing the world. 

The Last of Us Part II is an incredible journey that provides not only one of the most mesmerizing spectacles that we've seen from big budget video games, but one that manages to ask difficult questions along the way. It's clearly coming from an emotionally authentic and self-examining place. The trouble with it, and the reason that Ellie's journey ultimately feels nonsensical, is that it begins from a place that accepts "intense hate that is universal" as a fact of life, rather than examining where and why this behaviour is learned."

The Not So Hidden Israeli Politics of 'The Last of Us Part II' by Emanuel Maiberg

[siconetribal]

Beyond the Bookshelves (6)

Pairing: Loki x Reader

Warnings: Mischief fails, Tricks on you, When you realize what you did wrong

Summary: You’re a Resource Management Specialist at S.H.I.E.L.D. normally referred to as “The Librarian”. You’ve been assigned the nightmarish task of digitizing all the physical resources currently owned by the agency, with a few new computers and one extra helper.

A/N:

Please comment/like/reblog. If you’d like to be tagged moving forward, please let me know! (If I missed ant tags, please let me know, I'll add you right away!)

The lovely banners used in this fic are from @cafekitsune.

If you’re new to the story, please check out the master post for the rest of the chapters.

To say he was unamused was an understatement. Four days have gone by since the incident in the library. A complete 96 hours of him not being allowed entry into the one sanctuary he has in this tower. 5,760 minutes since he last held the book he was supposed to be reading but has been forced to leave incomplete due to one person. The Librarian; he seethed at the thought of the young woman. I’ve done absolutely nothing wrong, and she dares to keep me from the library?

Though the dismissal by the Librarian was abrupt and rude, he hardly took it as something serious and proceeded to the library the very next day. That was where the trouble began. No matter how he tapped or swiped, the same red light flashed on the panel. After the seventh attempt, he let out a sigh of frustration and nearly threw the rectangular piece of plastic at the door.

“Jarvis, what is the meaning of this?” Loki demanded.

“Please clarify,” the computer voice responded.

“Why am I unable to enter the library?”

“Because your key card is blocked from accessing the library.”

“And why is that?” He pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes. This must be a mistake. I have frequented the library every day. I’ll inform the metal man of his ‘precious’ computer system’s error.

“Loki, the second prince of Asgard and Avenger, is forbidden from entering the library until cleared by Director Y/LN, the Librarian, as of yesterday evening. You are unable to access this portion of the facility until further notice.” The second prince of Asgard silently blinked as his brain took a moment to process what was just said. 

“What did you say?” He glared at the camera that watched the entry. The computer repeated the restriction details verbatim. “Preposterous, why would I be banned from the library? I command you to remove this ludicrous restriction, immediately.”

“Unable to authorize override. A higher level of clearance is required.”

“What do you mean a ‘higher level of clearance’? What level is there higher than a prince? A literal god in your realm?” He glared at the security camera above the door. A low growl rumbled in the base of his throat, his hands balled into tight fists.

“Though you are a prince, your status does not allow you the authority above the person who instated the rule. Director Y/LN is of higher rank than you, who has Avenger status.” The insipid tone of the computer was salt to his wounded pride. A mere Midgardian who minded the books was above him? The sound of footsteps quickly quelled his ire and he left, he would try again another day. The silly order would be gone by tomorrow. Or so he thought. Here he was four days later and still denied access to the library. The same red light and same monotonous warning played each and every time.

“Perhaps I should try going in with someone else? But who?” He muttered to himself, tapping a finger against his lips.

“Loki, is everything ok?” He turned at the voice. A sound once utterly dreadful was now music to his ears. He would risk his sanity for a chance to step through those doors once more.

“Captain, err, Captain, you really are a sight for sore eyes. You see, I’ve misplaced my key card, and I wasn’t sure how else I would be able to enter the library.”

“Lost your key card? That isn’t good, you should let security know right away. You don’t want it to fall in the wrong hands. I’ll let you in with mine, but you have to promise me you’ll handle the matter right away.” He raised his card as proof as he sternly looked at the trickster god.

“Of course, I wouldn’t want to cause unnecessary trouble for the Avengers who so graciously given me the chance to mend my image and prove myself. You have my word to have the matter resoled quickly.”

“Good,” Steve nodded his head before tapping his card on the panel.

“Welcome, Captain Rogers.” The doors slowly swing open, revealing the glorious sight of the towering shelves in ample lighting. Loki quickly followed in behind him, his heart swelling at the majestic sight.

“Good afternoon, how can I help you today?” The sound of her voice sent ice through his veins, the warmth quickly replaced. He needed to hide, but he was taller than Steve. Her sharp gaze pinned him to the spot. “Captain Rogers, I see you brought a guest with you. Please tell him to leave the library at once and use his own key to swipe himself in.”

“He’s having trouble getting in, Y/N. He lost his key card and couldn’t enter. You know Loki likes to read, could you let him pass this one time? For my sake?”

“The rules are the rules. All who pass through those doors must be registered in the system on entry and exit. You know it’s for security reasons. I can’t play favorites to one person and could lose my job if word got out that I’m letting people bypass protocol.” She firmly countered. Her gaze was sharp, unwavering. They were emotionless, which contrasted the charged words. Loki could not help but find himself ensnared by those eyes.

“I didn’t consider that, I’m sorry.” Steve lightly bowed his head to her before turning to Loki. “You heard her. Looks like you’ll need to get a new key card first.” The weight of the gloved hand snapped Loki out of his little daze.

“Yes, I suppose.” Loki mumbled his response, his focus never shifting from the young woman behind the desk. “Thank you for your assistance.” He forced himself to turn and break away first, leaving the library for the day.

A week’s worth of time ticked by since that day, each attempt of his thwarted in someway by the system or her.

Enough is enough! I’ve played by their little rules and look where it’s gotten me. I’ll do this my way. He pushed off the arms of the chair, using the momentum to quickly exit the lounge area that was set up for the Avengers. Just as the door opened, Loki vanished into thin air and reappeared within the walls of the library. A smug smirk pulled at his lips as he tugged at his shirt. I should’ve done this from the start. He strode towards the unmanned front desk when an alarm blared above.

“Warning, you are in violation of your revoked privileges. Please leave the library at once. Failure to do so will lead to forceful expulsion. Warning, you are in violation of your revoked privileges. Please leave the library at once. Failure to do so will lead to forceful expulsion.” The computer voice loudly repeated, startling the god of mischief. He quickly stepped out through the doors, the alarm and warning ceasing immediately. 

Perhaps I should have landed elsewhere in the library. There are obviously more cameras within the entryway. He vanished once more and reappeared next to his usual seat. There, waiting on the table, was the book he was reading. Smiling, he grabbed the book and settled into the couch when the alarms began once again. 

Warning, you are in violation of your revoked privileges. Please leave the library at once. Failure to do so will lead to forceful expulsion. Warning, you are in violation of your revoked privileges. Please leave the library at once. Failure to do so will lead to forceful expulsion.” 

“By Odin’s beard,” he slammed the book down on the table as he stood up from his seat. “How does a computer intend to forcefully remove me?!” He argued.

“You have ten minutes to leave before security is summoned.”

Of course, he gritted his teeth in frustration before vanishing from the library once more. “What reason does she have to ban me in such a humiliating manner? What wrong have I done? Absolutely nothing, that’s what!” He kicked the stool that was in his way as he walked over to the kitchenette to make himself some tea. It was his seventh cup today since he had no other means of relaxing, and he was stressed to the heaves because of this unwarranted restriction.

“Brother, is everything alright?” Thor’s voice came from his left. He watched his younger sibling suddenly appear in the lounge and instantly knew he was in a sour mood. The assault on the stool only confirmed what the deep set scowl on his face gave away. Loki waved him off dismissively at first, heavily sighing. “Clearly something is bothering you. You’ve attacked a completely harmless piece of furniture that was hardly in your way for getting tea.” He pointed to the toppled piece laying on its side.

The younger prince was ready to insist that nothing was the matter, but the words failed to come out. The look of anger and hurt in those open and expressive eyes haunted him since that fateful day. Perhaps Thor was the best person to ask. He’s friendly with them, and she seems to have taken a liking to him. “I am having a slight issue with that librarian we are to work with. She has forbidden me from entering the library. Do you know why that could be?”

“Why, I wouldn’t have the faintest idea! She hardly seems the time to do that unwarranted, perhaps your sharp tongue has gotten you into a spot of trouble once more? What did you say to her?” He took a sip of his coffee and Loki scoffed.

“I barely said three proper sentences to her before she threw me out over whatever she concocted in that troubled mind of hers!” 

“Loki, a woman scorned, is not to be taken lightly. Perhaps there was a misunderstanding when you tried to explain why you were unable to keep your promise?”

“Unable to keep my promise, what promise?” Loki frowned, but said nothing to let Thor continue. He watched his older brother’s eyes nearly pop out of his head as he set his mug on the table.

“You promised to meet with her after training the day we met with her. Our session ran longer than anticipated and the time to meet was missed. Loki, did you not apologize to her?” Thor nervously eyed him, hoping he was wrong. Loki’s posture went rigid and his eyebrows shot upwards.

Is that what she meant?! I completely forgot I made such a promise. Norns, it’s not what I said, it’s what I hadn’t said! “It seems that detail slipped my mind.” He mumbled, turning back to his tea, stirring the sugar he added.

“Quite the detail to forget. My advice is you try to speak with her and clear the confusion. She needs our assistance, and we promised it to her. If you can’t go in, why not call her?”

“Do you have her number?” Thor shook his head. “Neither do I.”

 “Then send an email? She did reach out to us through there initially.”

“An email,” he wrinkled his nose at the suggestion. Though the technology was astounding, it was troublesome. But what other choice do I have? “I’ll consider it.”

“Do not wait too long, you may lose your chance. Take it from me, I’ve learned through my arguments with Jane that sometimes swifter actions are better than waiting it out. With that, I must take my leave. I have a meeting with my mission team.” He downed the last of his coffee and left, the room growing quiet and spacious without the larger than life first prince.

Tags: @vbecker10 @huntress-artemiss @softestqueeen @thegodofnotknowing @princess-ofthe-pages @firedrakegirl @rcailleachcola @cabingrlandrandomcrap @lotrefcp @lwtannie @jainaeatsstars @msdjsg7 @tom-hlover @kneelingformyloki @gruftiela @gigglingtiggerv2 @kats72 @mischief2sarawr

[soundspeachytome]

our future lives - shohei ohtani soft au

trope: childhood best friends to strangers

word count: 5.9k words

author notes: (this will be a bit long so if you want to jump straight to the fic, go right ahead!)

I wrote this in retrospect to the days i spent with my high school newspaper publication team. Recently,  an old friend and org mate from the school newspaper (who i have not spoken to in years) followed me on instagram and it took me down memory lane.

This was a time when a boy who (coincidentally enough, also played for a sports team) used to read drafts of my silly stories and poems of fictional heartbreak and would compliment my writing all the time. He was my best friend until he wasn’t.

This was when everything was awkward, confusing and unsettling; when I didn’t believe love could blossom beyond friendship. And when it was already right in front of me, I chose to run away.

With Shohei Ohtani as my current muse, I write this to close the what ifs our high school memories have left us. And when love finally visits us once again, instead of running away, maybe, just maybe, we’d be able to look at it straight in the face and say, "welcome, I hope you enjoy your stay."

Songs i listened to while writing: (repeatedly, repulsively, and obsessively)

Right where you left me - taylor swift (evermore)

Shouldn’t be - luke chiang

You are in love - taylor swift (1989)

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.

==============================

I didn’t feel anything at first but when realization sank, I almost doubled over. A familiar feeling punctured somewhere on the middle of my chest, like a pounding, beating of a drum. While an economics faculty was waiting for me to check out her library card, she chatted animatedly with her colleague and I couldn’t help but eavesdrop. When the words “homecoming”, and “shohei ohtani” were mentioned in one sentence, I almost dropped the books on the professor’s feet.

“I couldn’t help but overhear your conversation… Did you say Shohei Ohtani is coming back…?” I croaked.

“Yes! It’s on the news everywhere. He’s attending his former school’s foundation anniversary as a baseball alum.” She hushed excitedly. She almost looked like she was blushing. 

“Professor, didn’t you graduate from Rosewood High School, too?” 

She and her friend looked at me expectantly, like I’m some sort of Bingo announcer about to shout their magic winning number. I nodded slowly, a small smile formed my lips.

“Wow! You and Shohei Ohtani were schoolmates, then! Were you in the same year?”

“Has he always been so tall?”

“Did he have any girlfriends back then?”

The pair of them launched their questions like an automatic rifle, I swung albeit defensively, and yet I couldn’t duck myself for cover in time.

I shrugged and quietly said, “I didn’t really know him that much, he was always just playing baseball, I guess.” 

Before they could respond, I pushed my thick-rimmed glasses back to the bridge of my nose and went back to my Excel spreadsheets. They said their thank yous and skipped their way out of the library. 

Finally, quiet again. 

Like every typical librarian, one glare from me could snap chatty visitors’ mouths at an instant. I reveled in the silence of my humble workplace, with shelves taller than any average person, filled with books old and new. I could spend hours in the silence, tapping on my computer archives, or shelving books from the returned pile. This is the job of my dreams. Customary, routine, familiar, comfort zone.  

I realized that I have been tapping the letter Y key from the keyboard, lost in thought. I couldn’t believe the words I heard earlier could ever be strung in one sentence, not even in my wildest dreams. I tapped my legs restlessly. It couldn’t be true, could it?

How many popular Shohei Ohtanis could make girls this flustered?

There’s a one-hundred one percent chance that the result is, well, one. 

To preserve my peace of mind, I decided to google him, and when the results showed the rumor to be true, I almost spiraled in my seat. 

Did you know Shohei Ohtani in high school? The words from the two professors rang in my head. 

I knew damn well who Shohei Ohtani is.

Shohei and I have been friends since the day we learned how to talk. We lived on the same block, sat together in class, shared snacks during recess, we’d bicker loudly and fight like the worst of all enemies. According to our mothers, when he pulled my hair after I had claimed his Spiderman lego toy,  I screamed so loud it could be heard two houses down the block. He felt so guilty about it and rushed to peck me on the cheeks so I’d stop bawling. Not sure how accurate our mothers’ anecdotes are, if they had been exaggerated or not, but they said, after that fight, little Shohei had treated the little me sweeter after that. 

On good days, we played swings in the playground. We walked home together and would visit each other’s houses to play board games and Bomberman until it was no longer comfortable to stay in each other’s bedrooms without getting weird ideas.

Upon reaching puberty, I had grown in breast size, started getting my periods and hormonal mood swings while Shohei had grown a foot taller and his shoulders stretched widely. He lost his baby fat and developed muscle definition after playing sports. It was a time in our lives when it was officially awkward to hold hands while crossing the street, or for him to playfully grab me by the neck. If we did, we would get notes from the schoolmaster for indecency.

It wasn’t only the skinship that changed. Shohei grew to be more popular with the girls when he performed well in high school baseball. He was tall, fit, respectful and most importantly, he had a kind smile that would make your heart do a tap dance. And so my heart wore dancing shoes everyday.

While Shohei was busy playing his ball games, I joined the school paper as a news writer. The club meetings took up most of my afternoons then when i used to spend it by waiting for Shohei. By the time he finished practice, I would still be in the school library, either my face buried in a stack of books, or fingers furiously tapping an article on my laptop.

“You can go first. I don’t think I can go home yet, not unless this article writes itself.” I said one afternoon, not looking up. I was preparing an article for the school sports festival, where Shohei was the third-year representative and captain. I heard him walk up to me and braced myself. Tap tap tap.

He set his gym bag and batting equipment on the table and sat on the chair beside me.

“I’ll wait.” He said calmly. He crossed his arms over the table and closed his eyes, as if to sleep. He sat there in silence, baking in the sounds of my keyboard smashing my unnerving thoughts and emotions. 

Suffice to say, I didn’t get anything done after that. The smell of soap and cologne crept up to my nose and his broad shoulders lightly touched mine. Him sitting so innocently with his head on the table was enough of a distraction. It also didn’t help that on my periphery, I knew that he was facing my direction. In the next three minutes or so, I allowed myself to stare at his face: bags under his eyes were slowly showing, his well-defined nose, his mouth slightly agape, with evidence of picking and biting the lower lip skin.

When he startled awake, I scrambled to close the laptop monitor so loudly I thought I had cracked the screen. Embarrassed and face probably beet red, I stood up to leave. He carried all of my bags that day. When I offered to carry his gym bag, he refused.

In the last few weeks of that semester, I had become interim editor-in-chief. Shohei’s games had ended and our deadline for the year-end publication drew nearer. That meant I had made the library my second home like a bridge troll, only allowing brief, important conversations. My entire table was covered with mock newspaper clippings, sample layouts, glue, stacks and stacks of drafts that went through multiple, desperate, bloody revisions. This and the rest of my academic subjects I balanced gingerly on a thin line. Shohei would continue to visit and wait by the other corner of the library, pretending to read mystery thriller books he picked from the shelves. Most of the time, he slept. I never saw him study, even in the library. He didn’t need to as he aces all his subjects while hitting home runs on the field. I always suspected that he astral projects in his sleep and studies inside the realm of dreams. That’s probably why no matter how much he slept, he was still constantly tired. 

In other words, Shohei always seemed like he never had to try. He was good at everything. And I always had to work hard just to be able to stand on the same playing field as he is, at least once or twice. 

One particular day, when afternoon classes were canceled to give way to the club meetings, I was in my usual spot in the library with Zumi, our layout artist and a third-year from class B. We were finalizing the layout design before submitting it to the publishing house. Shohei was in baseball practice and had been MIA from the library all week.

A group of girls suddenly filled the library.

“He’s not here!” I heard one of them say. They noticed Zumi and I chatting quietly in the corner. 

“Hey, you’re Y/N right?” A girl with jet black hair siad. Her skin was white as porcelain. She had retainers on, the ones that looked unfairly pretty on lucky pretty girls.

I nodded.

“Are you Ohtani’s girlfriend?”

“Excuse me?” I blurted out, eyes almost popping out of my eye sockets.

She chuckled. “Right? I couldn’t believe it myself too. I know Ohtani only sees you as his best friend.”

I couldn’t respond right away. It was true but why did it sting so much?

“But they’re always together, I saw her give him a lunchbox during breaks.” A petite girl with a wolf haircut emerged from the sides. She had her arms crossed and an eyebrow raised. 

The rest of the group murmured in unison.

“Our mothers are close friends, so it was natural for us to grow up being friends, too.” I said irritably. Not only was this irrelevant but it was so annoying that a bunch of girls would question her decade-long friendship. 

“I don’t have to spell out the dynamics of our friendship to you.”

“If that bothers you so much, why don’t you personally tell Ohtani’s mother to stop asking me to bring his lunch boxes for him.”

It was quiet for a few seconds. I was afraid that it would escalate into a screaming match or a brawl that could result in us being kicked out–or worse, banned–from the library. The herd of girls glared at me and I glared right back. 

“Um, a-as you can see, he is not here.” Zumi breaks the silence, clearly intimidated but she soldiers on. “And you’re disrupting our meeting.” 

The first girl gives me a pointed look and spins on her heel and the rest follows. 

Zumi sighed in relief. “Oh my god, Y/N, I thought I would experience my first visit to the schoolmaster’s office before graduation.” She rubbed her sweaty palms together. 

I stifled a giggle, anger fading. Zumi’s gentle personality softened me right away. I couldn’t help but smile at her. 

“Don’t worry, Zumi, we don’t start fights but we sure as hell can end them.”

Shohei and I met less and less after that. I had purposely avoided him as much as I could because I still felt upset and he didn’t even have a vague idea about other girls spreading rumors about us. Another reason was I didn’t want to be referred to as “Shohei’s female best friend” anymore. His growing popularity in school made me only slink back down to the pits of the social hierarchy. 

I also wanted to take some time away and contemplate my feelings about our friendship. He’s only a friend I grew up with. We shared meals together and walked home together. He would hug me when I’m upset and I would console him when his anger skyrocketed. These are common best friend behaviors, right? So why else would it suddenly change? Why don’t we ever stay like this forever?

Weeks after my so-called Shohei blackout, I was left alone to clear the table I had claimed in the far corner of the library when Shohei popped in to visit.

The school year had finally come to a close, exams and ball games concluded, and the year-end paper was now distributed to everyone on campus: Shohei’s team pictured on the front page headline, declared as the year’s champions in inter-high school level.

He had a copy of the newspaper in his hand, grinning.

“Nice article, Y/N.” 

“Is it nice because it had your winning face covering the entire spread?” 

“I mean, you finally got an article on the front page!” He was waving the paper to you, pointing at the byline, as if you’ve never seen the layout more than a hundred times already. “Written by– your name! How cool is that!”

“My name is in a tiny font under your 32 font-size on the headline. I promise you, it’s not a big deal.”

“It is for me, though. I read it word for word. I loved it. You’re so good at words, Y/N” his eyes crinkled at the sides and I waved him off, blushing. 

“I’ve seen enough of this newspaper, I think I’m going to be nauseous.” you faked a retching sound.

“I’ve started seeing that damn thing in my dreams, Sho.” You grimaced. “Please hide that from me. Or I will rip it into shreds.”

Shohei giggled boisterously. You immediately swiped your hands over his mouth.

“Sshh! The librarian will hear you!” You looked around nervously, relaxing after realizing the librarian was nowhere in sight. “I don’t want to get kicked out on our last day of school.”

He held your arms away and uncovered his mouth from your hands. “Seriously, though, I’m proud of you. You worked so hard for this all semester.”

“Well, the subject was interesting to write about.” 

“Is that right?” he smiled, mischief glinted in his eyes. 

“”Rosewood’s revival after years of being dormant in high school baseball” was a pretty cool angle to write.” I said. And it truly was. The moment I saw the efforts and hardwork of Shohei and his inspiring leadership setting a momentum into the games, I knew right away that I had to call dibs on the story. 

“Uh-huh.” He was just looking at me, hands still wrapped around my arms, locking me in place. 

“It was a story worthy to tell and I just happened to tell the story. It all just–” I tried to mash my hands together, demonstrating the words synonymous to merging, fusing, blending. 

He pulls me close and rests his hand at the back of my neck. I could feel the snug of his embrace melting me into a puddle. He hesitates but leans in. It was soft, abrupt and merely testing the waters. He pulled back slightly to look at my reaction. I didn’t know what I looked like, but what I did know at that moment, my heart bounced uncontrollably like a basketball. I swear I thought it would burst my chest open. 

When I didn’t react or push him back, he leaned in for another try, this time, with more intent, meaning, and weight on my lips. When we parted, he looked away sheepishly that all I had to do in response to the kiss was to pull him in a tight hug. We stayed like that for a few more minutes because neither of us knew when to let go, or even wanted to. We just stood there relishing our newfound warmth while concealed in between the quiet and that precious corner space that held us. I don’t know how to define this feeling yet… but I could get used to this.  

Nothing further ever happened after that sweet library moment because the next day, we received news that Shohei Ohtani was granted a full scholarship overseas. Thanks to his impressive performance during the last game. Ohtani joked that it was mainly because my frontpage piece was so well-written, it moved the university scouts’ ice-cold hearts to tears.

“You’d be an idiot not to go.”  I was at the kitchen counter of our home, setting the newly baked chocolate chip cookies out of the oven to cool down. It was a Saturday morning and Shohei visited, like any other day. 

“I’d be alone, though.” he was wistfully eyeing the cookies on the wire rack. “I’m scared I might fail and be a disappointment to my dad.”

His arm slowly reached for the cookies but I immediately swatted him away.

“It’s still hot, dumbass.” I gave him the bowl where the cookie dough was originally mixed. He dutifully scooped the remains and popped a finger in his mouth, he grinned, satisfied. 

“You won’t be alone because everybody likes you. And you won’t be a disappointment because you work twice as hard than everyone else. You’re Shohei Ohtani, for god’s sake.”

He doubted but I knew what he was thinking because I was trying not to think about it, too. If this was about the kiss, we can let it go. We can forget about it. It was just a kiss, this was our future and it shined brightly in front of him. It would make me a selfish person to try and block that from him.

“There won’t be a Y/N there, though.” he said, eyes trained to the cookie dough he held. “My best friend won’t be there.”

“I’ll be right here when you come back. Besides, we can always email each other, like we always did in computer class.”

I didn’t tell him this but it also broke my heart to say those words. I will definitely miss him, sure. He’s been a constant presence in my life that once he leaves, it would definitely leave a big hole in my life. 

I wanted to tell him that whatever happened in the library that day will always be etched in my memory as long as I lived, that I wanted it as much as he did, and it hurt to say goodbye to a possibility, to something that had barely even started. If I had told him that, he would’ve turned down the offer right away.

So I didn’t, and so he left. 

Ohtani and I would email constantly during our very first year in uni. He would send me pictures of the new places he visited, food he tasted, with little descriptions every now and then. You knew he was trying to include me in his new life as much as he could. In return, I showed him how I continued my simple, quiet life, how I met new friends at uni, how I ate at new hole-in-the-wall restaurants with the promise that we’d try them out when he returned back home.

Of course that didn’t last very long as life apparently came in between us. Long training hours for Shohei, and newer opportunities showed up in my doorstep as I got a partial scholarship and part-time job as a student assistant.

It went on like that for a very long time as we kept missing each other’s emails. I would already be asleep when he sends his messages and he’d be out in the field by the time I could reply. Sometimes I don’t receive anything at all at weeks’ a time.

One day, after two weeks of radio silence, I heard a girl in the washroom gush about Ohtani’s popularity overseas and how he has gotten a girlfriend. They were pretty serious, she would go on to say. She had long black hair with a pretty slender body, something like his type. 

I stood there, hands dripping wet, listening to something I normally wouldn’t believe unless he confirmed it himself. The thing is, I haven’t heard from him in weeks, so I didn’t have a choice but to believe in the words from the grapevine.

I stopped waiting for his emails to come. If he sent me new ones, I didn’t check. I busied myself in the halls of the library studying, reading and writing, writing and writing my feelings away.

I wrote until my hands got tired, until I spilled everything I needed to forget into paper. Until I welcomed a new love into my life. He was also tall, kind, and cheerful. He respected my time and he loved going to new coffee shops with me. At that point, I was overfilled with joy and contentment that I barely thought about Shohei anymore. In the back of my mind, the chapter of Shohei Ohtani is now closed and my rosy high school life became a beloved, worn out book that I no longer revisited.

Later I learned in life that some things, despite making you undoubtedly happy, could still end horribly.

My relationships turned sour, some of my friendships fell out, but the worst part of it all was when my dad had a heart attack. 

He died six months later. 

It was pretty much autopilot after that. I could only ever handle so much, I don’t think I am as brave as Joan D’arc to handle ten, twenty more scars. Not when two of the best people I loved have left my life. Not when the person I want to run the most to is… no longer there to meet me. 

I was a student intern at the archives section when the post for head librarian was vacated. I’ve already applied to multiple companies in the private and public sectors and kept getting waitlisted but the university hired me on the spot. A week after graduation, I had started my full-time job at the library, and it felt like I was somehow glued back together.

XXX

The cans of beer clinked together as I swayed the black plastic on my way home from the convenience store. Nothing beats a cold can of beer after a full meal. Also because “Shohei Ohtani” is a name I never thought I’d hear again in this lifetime. So much so, that a homecoming sounded so ridiculous that if someone ever suggested that idea to me before today, I would have laughed at their faces. It was an appropriate time to wallow in my drunken thoughts.

Four years was a long time for anyone to change. It was long enough to switch jobs, get promoted, to save up money and travel, to save up money and get married and have kids, or none at all, to study for a new degree, to meet new people and develop romantic feelings for them, to lose such romantic feelings, to forgive and move on, to develop new habits, and it is also long enough for character development if you think your personality needed an overhaul. Four years was a long time apart, a long time to forget each other to even be considered taboo. And yet. 

And yet. 

XXX

My phone buzzed against my jeans pocket. It was a text from Zumi. She now works freelance and designs her own stationery and stickers sold at mega discount stores all over the country.

“You wouldn’t believe what I just heard.” Zumi texted. Even before she could conjure a follow-up text, I responded right away.

Y/N: “Someone’s coming back to town?...”

Zumi: “WUT.”

Zumi: “U KNEW? AND DIDN'T TELL ME #betrayal”

Y/N: “I heard about it a couple of days ago and blacked out after 3 cans of beer. Sorry, Joomi-chan.”

Y/N: “I didn’t drink only because of the news, though. I ate almost 2 KGs of wagyu, too. It was the perfect drink to end the day.”

Y/N: “I ate ice cream, too."

Y/N: “I’m rambling. I”ve been restless since I heard about it.”

Y/N: “I’ll be okay, though. I always have been.”

I was about to put my phone down after the text blasts I sent to assure her when text bubbles appeared. Typing. I waited.

Zumi: “It’s alright to admit you’re not okay about this, Y/N”

Zumi: “He was a big part of your life, who ghosted you, asshole move btw, and his head’s probably gotten too big for his own good. I wonder how he walks around with that swollen head without toppling over.

Zumi: “Also, I’m only saying all of this because my role as Y/N’s only best friend is currently being threatened. I forgive you though!”

I had to laugh. Zumi was always fond of Ohtani and I even back in high school. Whenever she had time, she would join us on our katsu curry runs and hated matcha, while Ohtani and I loved it. She always preferred strawberry. She was the perfect balance in our little trio. And now, she is my voice of reason.

I paused to reread the text. Am I really okay about this? It’s a fairly small town, the chances of running into him are slim, but never zero. And what if I do meet him by chance, what should I do?

Zumi: “Text me when you feel like drinking again. I’ll sneak out and join you in solidarity!” 

Before I could send the cutest peach butt sticker to Zumi, a message from an unregistered number popped up on my notifications.

“Hi, Y/N. It’s Shohei Ohtani. I got your number from your mom. I’m sorry for being abrupt like this but I just flew back from the States and will be spending a few days at home.

Do you want to meet up for some curry katsu for old time's sake?”

Holy hell, I stared at the messages in disbelief. Am I being punked right now? Where is the hidden camera? If the universe is listening right now, please, swallow me whole into the earth right now. 

I clenched the phone hard, against my chest. You are better now. Don’t fumble. 

Tap tap tap.

XXX

I don’t know what had gotten into my head that when I responded a few hours later, had agreed to meet up after work for curry and drinks. Future me would like to smack past me of five hours ago for making a decision like this. 

But here I am now, just a few stores away from the curry place I had suggested for dinner. 

Suddenly feeling conscious, I stopped by a convenience store that had a convex mirror on top of the corner shelves. I swiped lipstick on my lips and powdered my nose. I also bought mints just to play for time. I worked up the courage to text Zumi.

Y/N: So, please tell me I’m doing the wrong thing and I will turn back.

Zumi: What happened?

Y/N: After we texted earlier, Shohei texted me out of the blue and that he’s already in the town.

Zumi: He WHAT???

Zumi: Are you telling me he asked to meet up and you said yes?

Y/N: You should switch careers and be a fortune teller instead.

Zumi: You WHAT???

Y/N: Pls, pls, pls tell me I’m wrong for doing this.

She didn’t respond right away. Her text bubbles went up and down infrequently. I stood outside of the restaurant, in the cold of the night waiting for her response.

Zumi: How do YOU feel about it?

Zumi: If I were you, I, who have witnessed all the carnage all these years, I would do it. I know if you turn your back now, you’d spend another four, five years wondering what would’ve happened if you chose differently. 

Zumi: Don’t try to rationalize it, Y/N. You’re panicking now. But I know in your heart, you want answers. You want this. So suck it up and be a big gworl! 

She resonated exactly how I felt about this. So why was I hesitating?

I walked up to the restaurant and scanned the room. It was almost empty after dinner hours, except for a few white collar workers catching up on late night meals.

And then I saw him. He sat at the back of the room, his back facing the front of the shop. I could recognize those wide shoulders anywhere in a heartbeat. I made a beeline towards him.

He wore a blue polo buttoned up to his chest, creasing at the shoulders as he slouched forward. He looked absolutely different from the memory of the boy who used to carry my bags. His hair grew into thick waves and his cheeks and jawline was chiseled and defined to the bone, revealing more of his handsome face.

He stood up, smiling widely and threw his hands around me, a whiff of his sandalwood perfume and the feel of his hair pressed to my cheek brought everything back: spending lazy days in the library, the night strolls on the way home from school, sharing twin popsicle ice creams, the warmth of his hands intertwined with mine, that last first kiss. I pulled away and he gestured to me to sit down. As we both sat down, I thought, You are always finding ways to get my hopes up. 

We stared at each as I settled down on my seat. For a few moments, I felt the room was charged with cold air. His eyes traced my face making me more and more self-conscious, I had to break the ice. 

“The chicken curry katsu is good here, you know.” I said, as a waiter approached and served us water. “But if you prefer pork, it’s heaven too.”

I sipped the cold water nervously and fidgeted the hem of my plaid skirt. 

“It’s been a while.” I started.

“I’ve been busy.” He started to explain. I hate how he thinks this was his decision, how he didn’t even consider the fact that I’ve been busy, too. “How about you? I’ve stopped hearing about you since…”

“Things happened.” I simplified, but really, I wanted to give him a rundown of how things have more or less worked out okay for me–how I am doing well at my job, taking my Masters, thinking about traveling to Southeast Asia with Zumi, spending time with family on weekends, trying to do pilates at least thrice a month, and catching up with some old friends whenever we got to clear our schedules. How I am, despite his absence, was not entirely miserable. But I don’t want him to think that I am just doing this to prove a point, so I coated a response with the standard, “But I’ve been fine, thanks. How are you?”

“Same old, I’m here for business and something else. I finally got the courage to tell you this now.” He said, finishing up the last of his meal and downing his glass of water before speaking again.

I honestly don’t want to know, I want to order another glass of beer and fall asleep drunk. I want to crawl into my bed and waddle in self-pity at how I’ve spiraled back to square one, of how after all these years, I am still hopelessly in love with this unattainable man, who thinks we are still each other’s best friends after years of no contact. Instead I responded cautiously, “What is it?”

He inched forward and leaned his face on his right hand. “There’s this girl.”

I held my breath and braced myself for impact. 

“There’s this girl. We almost always never stood on the same foot. She hated sports and hated standing in the sun to see me play, but watched regardless because she had to write an article about it.

“When we finally started realizing we liked each other, I received my scholarship grant and moved overseas. If she got mad about me going MIA, I could've explained better to her that I had an accident during Spring training and was in a hospital bed for almost a month. Had she checked her emails, she would know. But she never replied. Ever.

“After a few months, I heard from our friends that she finally got a boyfriend and was in a happy, healthy relationship. I thought, ‘Oh. Good for her! I'm happy for her. Someone near to take care of her.’ but was I really, though? I got myself a girlfriend, too and forgot about this girl for a while.

“But I heard about her dad’s passing and I tried to reach her but I couldn’t. Her home phone number was disconnected, my mom said they moved out of the block and she still won’t respond to my emails.

“I couldn’t be there for her but I thought, “she'd be with her boyfriend. She’ll have someone to lean on. But then her friends said they had broken up long before the incident. She carried all those baggage all by herself? Who did she have to lean on? Was she eating okay? Was she sleeping well? Does she still smile when she watches puppies run around bumping into things?

“It seemed like the timing was never on our side. She was available when I wasn’t, I was free on the days that she was occupied. 

“I’ve always wondered if the universe played some practical joke on the two of us. If somehow, they'd ever allow me the chance to meet her again. I’ve been waiting for her for a long time now.

“Y/N, do you think if I ask her now, she’d finally be as ready as I am to meet her?”

I exhaled and felt my heart pounding. There is the thrum in my chest that felt all too familiar. Have we been missing each other’s chances all this time? Have I been getting on and off the wrong platform, just as much as he did, because we didn’t know what we wanted when we were barely twenty?

“I think you should ask her before it’s too late.” I said, catching myself, still staying on that third person narration. I mulled over the times we constantly missed each other like he had pointed out. He had been there for me when I was searching for myself and what I wanted to do, and I had watched him from afar when he was trying to meet his dreams, to the point of pushing him far away. 

“I’m asking you now. I was always late, wasn’t I?”

His brown eyes bored into mine, expectant, hopeful. “Yes. You were...but you’re here now..." I trailed off, thinking how much shock I was to hear Shohei's speech. I wondered if responding to my real feelings was the right thing to do. He had his accident, my dad's funeral, the miscommunication between us. The sudden falling out. I wondered, if after all this time, someone like me would still be worth restarting over with.

"...and I think, you’re just in time, Sho.” 

He smiled widely, showing the crinkles on the sides of his eyes, he exhaled as if he had been holding his breath all this time.

"Thank god. I was almost certain you'd say no and disappear on me again." he laughed.

Freckles that I've never seen before popped over his nose and cheeks. So much has changed in his appearance but it was the same smile of the boy I love since eighteen.

“I’m home,” he whispers.

“Welcome back,” I said, finally smiling at him, too.

Shohei stands up and offers his hand as we exit the restaurant; I take it and interlace our fingers. For the first time in a long time, the tap dancing of my calloused heart has returned ever so exhilarating, like a lost pulse bringing me back to life. We are catching up on lost time, and for whatever fragment of memory that may have escaped through the cracks, we’ll slowly string them together. It doesn’t matter how many possibilities we’ve missed in the last four years of being apart. The important thing is this possibility, the right here and right now.

[violencebian]

now that season 2 has come out, we have canon confirmation that the drowning scene is after the bridge scene. vander blames silco for inciting the bridge incident and for the death of felicia and connell. which i think is interesting because of the implication that vi and powder were the reason vander gave up violence. so why is he then lashing out violently at silco following his adoption of the girls?

i think theres 2 key reasons for this.

1. it's a tie in to ambessa's line about how killing one prevents the deaths of thousands. there's a running theme in arcane about the cycle of violence and the cycle of mercy. violence begets violence and mercy begets mercy. it also explores the idea that even the most seemingly heartless of characters are capable of and display mercy. on the flip side, characters shown to be merciful are alluded to as having a violent past. this establishes that mercy and violence are inextricably linked as one cannot exist without the other but it explores the meaning of what mercy truly is and begs the question; can violence be a form of mercy?

2. there's a secondary theme that characterizes vander and silco. violence leads to change and change cannot exist without violence. this is quite literally the title of episode three, "the base violence necessary for change." this episode is meant to challenge us, what amount of violence is needed before people realize there needs to be a change? if the bridge scene was enough to prove to vander that he needs to become a pacifist, then why does he try to kill silco? because it's not enough until it effects him personally. the same goes for silco. because even as vander drowns silco, it isn't until he's attacked that he lets up. here's where we find our answer. there is no set amount of violence that necessitates change, but rather how the violence affects us. we are desensitized towards violence directed towards others but violence that directly impacts us or targets us is all it takes to ignite a change. so the true dilemma here isn't why is so much violence necessary for change; it's why do we have to be the victims of violence to believe in a need to change?

their relationship and dynamic is really interesting to me, so i hope we see more content of them in the future

[3-2-whump]

Khaled’s Backstory, Part 3: Betrayal

<prev

Thanks again @whumped-by-glitter and @generic-whumperz for beta reading the third and final part of Khaled's backstory. This particular incident takes place a handful of months before the beginning of the Eternal Story

Breaking out the fun tags again!

TW/CW: kidnapping, noncon drugging (injection), forced to hurt another, reluctant whumper, minor whump, multiple whumpees, slave whump, captivity whump

His mother raised one skeptical eyebrow as she watched her eldest son burst out of the bedroom, rush into the bathroom, and emerge into the kitchen with high spirits. “Good morning, Khaled,” she greeted, tone laced with suspicion.

“Good morning, Ammi,” Khaled yawned back.

She passed him a plate of reheated khagina with roti and a glass of milk. “Early start today?” she asked. It was unusual for her eldest to rise any time before 11:00, and here he was, practically vibrating with energy at 10:00.

Khaled nodded as he stuffed his face full of food. What had once been a one-time favor was now the third photoshoot he’d be doing. Turns out, Shazia’s agent and photographer asked him to come back for another photoshoot after the first time. The photographer said he ‘liked the kid’s energy,’ and Shazia’s agent said ‘he has a face that could sell’ (whatever that meant). All he knew is that he got to wear new clothes and shoes and pose with a football in the middle of a grassy pitch while some middle-aged guy with a camera snapped pictures. So, he came back for another, and planned to go back for another this morning.

He caught the judgmental look in his mother’s eyes. “Ammi, it’s fine,” he reassured her through a mouthful of food. “Look at the pay, huh? I make in one morning what I make after a week of work!”

“The money’s not important, you know I don’t like it!” Ammi emphasized. Khaled ignored her as he threw back the glass of milk all in one gulp. “You know this is how children like you go missing!” she warned him.

“Yet I’m still here,” Khaled shrugged, setting down his plate and glass before going to the entrance to retrieve his key and his shoes. He turned back to say his goodbyes before he left. “See you tonight!”

“Be careful, beta!” She called out as he ran out the door.

-

Something was different today. No, not different, something was wrong. Shazia met him at the football pitch in the park all by herself, with swollen red eyes and a runny nose as if she’d been crying. She cast him a wobbly smile and waved to him as he approached. “Khaled!”

He ran closer to her to bridge the distance between them sooner. “Shazia, what’s wrong? Why are you crying?” He looked around, noticing that she was on her own, then back at her. “Where is your agent?”

“He’ll be here soon, it’s just-” she hiccupped on a suppressed sob. Khaled didn’t wait for permission as he gathered her in his arms and hugged her. He rubbed her back as she cried, whispering small reassurances like he would when he calmed his little sisters down from nightmares. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed something behind her ear. It was a tattoo, kind of like a barcode.

A sharp, pricking pain jabbed him in the side of his neck, making him jolt in his friend’s arms. He lightly struggled, trying to pull away from her as she hugged him closer, whispering an “I’m sorry” into his ear. His confused thoughts started to muddle, then they cleared until there was nothing much in his head at all besides sensations. His limbs suddenly felt heavier. His struggles lessened and slowed down to a few involuntary twitches. His tongue felt thick and uncooperative within his mouth as he tried to ask what she had done to him and all that came out were a few stuttered noises. Everything was so heavy as he leaned into her with his whole weight. He felt tired, so tired, why was he so tired? It sounded like someone was yelling, but distantly and unintelligibly, as if he were under water. As Shazia brought a hand up to his head to encourage Khaled to lean onto her shoulder, her dupatta slipped, revealing two faint, prong-like scars on the side of her neck. Those strange scars were the last thing he saw before his eyelids shuttered closed. Tried as he might to stay awake for whatever came next, Khaled couldn’t help but give in to the blissful unconsciousness tugging him into the void.

-

He reawaked what seemed like hours later, though it was hard to tell in the dimly lit … Where am I?  Khaled thought, coming back into his body. He was laying on his side on a stiff cot. He blinked his eyes to adjust them to the darkness of the tiny unfamiliar room. There were bars where a door should’ve been, and four more kids dispersed throughout the small cell-like room. Panic surged within him, but the heaviness of slumber and whatever he’d been injected with weighed him down onto the cot. The realization that he could hardly move made his heart race even more, as he never felt so vulnerable before in his life. Distantly, he could hear whispers and crying all around him, though he could not pinpoint where it was coming from. The sounds only added to his panic. His head throbbed, and it felt as if the room was swaying. Why can’t I move? Where am I? What’s going on? Is Shazia okay? He squeezed his eyes shut and grimaced. Even thinking hurt too much. So, with nothing else to do, he opened his eyes again and observed his cellmates.

A girl sat slumped against the wall next to Khaled’s cot, curled over with her head between her knees, and a boy around his little brother’s age sat next to the bars of the cell door, listlessly staring out of it. Another boy and girl were huddled in the far corner of the cell, the girl crying softly into the boy’s shoulder and the boy trying not to cry for her sake. They were about the same age as Ayesha and Yusuf. “What’s going to happen to us?” she sobbed. The idea of his younger siblings ending up in a place like this made him feel sick. “Will our family ever know?” He willed himself to sit up on the makeshift bed, with nothing on his mind but to comfort these kids that reminded him of his siblings. “Will they ever find us?”

Khaled swayed off the bed and staggered toward them. His head swam with the aftereffects of the sedative. “Hey, what’s wrong?” he asked, placing a gentle hand on both of their shoulders. The girl sniffled as she tried to regain composure.

The boy answered for her. “She got you too, didn’t she?” he asked bitterly.

Khaled furrowed his brows. “Who?”

“Girl with the blue eyes? Great hair?” he clarified.

A magenta pink kurta flashed in Khaled’s mind. “Shazia?”

The girl next to him perked up at her name. “She told me her name was Layla.”

The other girl slumped against the wall looked up from her lap. “That’s what she told me, too.”

The other boy at the cell bars turned around to face them. “It doesn’t matter what false name she assumed! The point is, that girl tricked us!” he spat.

Khaled shook his head, despite the throbbing sensations that wracked in his skull from doing so. “What? No, that can’t be,” he denied. The dreary setting that he now found himself in contradicted him. “She’s a nice girl, this must be a mistake!” he defended, despite the fuzzy memories of her sticking him with something sharp.

A clanging noise sounded from somewhere to their right, followed a creaking sound of metal on metal. A sharp beam of light preceded a shadow stepping into their prison, revealing more prison-cell arrangements across from them within the strange room they inhabited. The light was extinguished once more as the metal door clanged shut. Stopping in front of their cell door was a familiar girl in pink, holding a lantern, looking grimly at her victims. Her dupatta was gone, revealing a series of disfiguring, prong-like scars around the circumference of her neck.

The other four cellmates merely glared at her. The boy who was sitting by the door quickly backed away. Khaled however abandoned any sense of pride he had to throw himself at the bars of the cell door. “Shazia! There you are, you’re safe!” he cried with relief. “Please, tell them it’s not true, tell them that it’s a mistake, that you’re not the reason we’re trapped down here!”

She lowered her blue eyes in guilt, her silence answering for her. In the faint glow of the lantern, her pink kurta appeared blood red.

Something in Khaled’s chest panged, as if he could feel his heart break in real time. “Shazia?” he whispered.

“I’m sorry.” Her sad blue eyes glanced at all of them, then went back to Khaled. “I had no choice.” Khaled’s eyes flitted to her scars. “I never would’ve deceived you all if I could’ve avoided it.”

The girl who had curled up in the corner now stood up and raised her hand accusatorily. “Well, an apology isn’t going to free us, is it, bitch?!”

“Hey! None of that!” Khaled snapped.

Shazia visibly flinched at the words, but she held her ground. “I’m not even supposed to be here, but I came to apologize, and to warn you. You five, as well as the groups we picked up in Mumbai and Bangkok, are going to be sold. I don’t know where, I don’t know when. My masters don’t tell me these things. Just, when they come for you, do what you’re told and it’ll hurt less” she advised.

A series of questions erupted over the five captives, each question overlapping over the other.

“What do you mean ‘they’? Who are ‘they’?”

“Why did you trick us?”

“Are you coming back?”

“Why us? What’s so special about us?”

“What did they do to you?” Khaled asked.

Shazia did not respond. She turned her back on them and retreated towards the exit, taking the glowing lantern with her. The intense ray of light that came when she opened the door to leave was the last shred of light the captives would see for a long while as they were left in the darkness with their unanswered questions.

Le Tag List: @kabie-whump @rainydaywhump @whumped-by-glitter @skittles-the-whumpee @generic-whumperz

@bamber344 @there-will-always-be-blood @morning-star-whump @a-la-whump @watermelons-dont-grow-on-trees

@defire @phoenixpromptsandstuff @scumashling

[misfitmagpie]

Well I will gladly take a look at the fully revealed logo! Though I will say that red-archivist pointed out some good stuff in this post. But we can take a deeper look into certain things!

Also p.s.: You will want to read the giant ramble to the end, because I noticed something as I was finishing, and it puts everything in an interesting context.

As mentioned in that post, the combination of the alchemical symbols for salt, mercury, and sulphur do indeed form the tria prima, the three primes or components of life.

⊖ or salt, which represents the earth and the human body. In alchemy it also symbolises the lower consciousness, self-knowledge, and wisdom.

☿ or mercury I already covered last time, representing the mind, the omnipresent spirit of life, and stood as symbol for intellect, imagination, moral judgement, and the higher mental faculties. The alchemical associations of mercury have a strong connection with the Greek/Roman gods Hermes/Mercury, a messenger god who also acted as a chthonic deity, a psychopomp and god of boundaries to be exact. Which might be relevant, might not. (He was also a shepherd god, just adding that detail)

🜍 or sulphur represents the spirit or soul of all materials and living things. In alchemy it is seen as synonymous with consciousness and the expansion of thought. And is seen as the bridge that connects the body with mind, thus it is seen as the key to understanding the inner workings of the soul and consciousness. It’s interesting to me that the sulphur is in the logo 4 times, connected to the circle that encompasses the salt and mercury symbols, and the chevrons (I’ll get to those in a moment). This could have been purely aesthetic, but they could have also simply opted to have the sulphur symbol instead of one of the chevrons and have pretty much the same effect. Instead they chose the alchemical symbol of the soul, also seen as what ties body and mind together, also an element that is strongly associated with heat and fire, to encompass the body and mind, together with heraldic symbols of protection. It’s an interesting choice which makes me wonder about the mindset of the people who founded this organisation. (Maybe they are the types to believe in purifying fire, or purity of the soul as a way to protect oneself against the horrors out there? Who knows.)

The double ^ are chevrons, a heraldic symbol associated with protection, and meant to represent the roof of a house. Even the name is derived from the French word for “rafter”. It is also used in military or police uniforms to indicate rank or length of service. It is interesting to me that the bottom left chevron is an inverted version of the top right. The inverted version being next to the symbol for mercury or the mind, and the regular next to the symbol for salt or the body. Without it being in full colour, I can’t say much about any particular heraldic or symbolic links that might have. At most I can speculate that maybe it’s hinting at how the mind might not be as safe as the body in such a service, of course that can also be my own knowledge of TMA colouring my interpretation.

The O.I.A.R. in the top banner has been revealed! And it’s nice to get confirmation that I guessed correctly on the R! Personally I am not very good with acronyms, but @emdashingaway correctly guessed that it would be this. In my previous post about The Magnus Protocol logo she pointed out that it might stand for Office of Incident Assessment and Response, which now seems very plausible!

Now the background has some interesting repeating symbols too.

🜏

This is the Leviathan Cross, in alchemy another symbol associated with sulphur (in particular black sulphur) and thus also the soul. However it is worth noting that Anton LaVey, founder of the Church of Satan, has adopted the Leviathan Cross as a symbol of his Church in the 1960s. Though I can’t immediately find much more about it and its origins beyond the alchemical association and the very modern Satanic association. (The name Leviathan strikes me as interesting too, but there is too much that can be said about it, especially for a symbol that just occurs in the background.)

🜇

This is the alchemical symbol for aqua regia (derived from the Latin for “royal water” or “regal water”), it is a mixture of is a mixture of nitric acid and hydrochloric acid, optimally in a molar ratio of 1:3. Historically aqua regia was used in alchemy in the process of attempting to create the philosopher’s stone. It is also used to help dissolve gold and platinum within actual chemistry!

♁

Is the symbol for antimony is associated with the animal nature or wild spirit of man and nature, and it was often symbolised by the wolf.

🜘

This is the symbol for bismuth, while it does get mentioned in alchemical texts, the particular use and associations seem to be unclear. All that I can seem to find is that in early days, it was often confused for tin or lead. And that apparently Miners in the age of alchemy also gave bismuth the name tectum argenti, or “silver being made”. (Also it’s chemical symbol is Bi, which is funny given how apparently some have discovered that they are bi thanks to TMA)

I hope this is visible, but one of the symbols in the background also looks an awful lot like one of the alchemical symbols for tin. It looks like a curved X with circles at the ends of the legs. Tin in alchemy is associated with the planet Jupiter, and is sometimes called the ‘breath of life. ’ It represents the idea that the whole is stronger than the sum of its parts.

⚥

From what I can find, this is not strictly speaking an alchemical symbol. Clearly a combination of the male and female gender symbols (each of which is actually derived from the symbols for Mars and Venus respectively, which do get used in alchemy actually), it is generally seen as a hermaphroditic symbol (using the strict broad biological label here, not referring to intersex, I just want to point that out). But given all of the alchemy references so far, I suspect that it might be referencing the rebis (from the Latin res bina, meaning dual or double matter), the ultimate end product of the alchemical great work. It is sometimes described as the divine hermaphrodite—a reconciliation of spirit and matter, a being of both male and female qualities. A lot can be said about the great work in alchemy, and this post is already long enough honestly.

And lastly…

Take this, flip it upside-down, and you have the shape of the logo in which all these symbols are displayed. This is the symbol for the philosophers’ stone. In alchemy it is an unknown substance sought after by alchemists, said to be capable of turning base metals into precious ones (like gold and silver), can be used to derive an elixir of life, and was even thought to bring about spiritual revitalisation. And it symbolises perfection at its finest, enlightenment, and heavenly bliss.

And while researching this, I also noticed something rather interesting. It might end up not being relevant at all, but I discovered that a famous alchemist was named Albertus Magnus who was born some time before 1200 in the Duchy of Bavaria (the flag and coat of arms of which during the Wittelsbach dynasty sports a rather nice diamond pattern, a bit like the pattern you see within the triangle of the logo). He was a saint with a deep interest in a large variety of topics including logic, theology, botany, geography, astronomy, astrology, alchemy, mineralogy, zoology, physiology, phrenology, justice, law, etc. I recommend potentially checking out the wiki page on Albertus Magnus that I shared earlier if you are interested in knowing more, there is a lot of history there. But it’s interesting that he shares a surname with Jonah Magnus, founder of the Magnus Institute.

Conclusion:

Given all that I have managed to dig up about the symbols within the logo, and the indirectly connected links with suspiciously named historical figures, in particular with the context of there being another Bouchard within the Magnus Protocol, I can’t help but be suspicious of whatever this British civil service is actually getting up to behind the scenes. In particular what they think they might be trying to accomplish using the Fear Entities.

Of course at this point it becomes pure speculation. But I am more than happy to hear everyone’s ideas, speculation, and contributions!

[mercair]

SHOPKEEPERS

Finally! All of my secret bosses' shopkeeper friends are here!

LOOK AT THEM! LOOK AT THEM NOW!

Now i'll proceed to give quick descriptions of them.

Ms. Mari: Old actress that played the role of Woostern's mother on the "Woostern & Friends" show, however both of them did develop a real mother and daughter-like relationship over time. She locked the shadow crystal on a safe after Woostern's dissapearence and keeps looking for her to this day, even though everyone else thinks that Asriel took Woostern with him when he went to college. Light World Object: Trash Flowers

Zocker (DESIGNED BY CREEPA-BOT !!): Sockling No. 45. Cool sock skater dude that taught Bonslick how to skate, and they used to do all kind of crazy stuff together. They haven't seen each other in some time after Bonslick went insane though. No real connection to the machine in the basement or anything, but he does know how to get the key. Light World Object: Sans' Lone Sock

Tool-Eo: Old technician man that helped the lightners in the creation of the Bunz-E animatronic. After that, he basically was the one who trained Bunz-E's AI. He taught him how to do some magic tricks, how to treat the guests, and who he was supposed to defend. After the incident however, he was forced to dismantle the animatronic and hide his leftover part behind a sealed wall in the basement. Light World Object: Toolbox

The Egglins: A group of rowdy egg childs that just do whatever they want. They used to play with Quiddo all the time, after all, the weird ones gotta' stick together! Until the day that Quiddo suddenly wandered off too far and dissapeared, they tried to look for them to no avail. Also, they found something weird in the trash recently, some strange looking flowers that make a bridge when you align them in the water... They don't know what to do with them. Light World Object: Eggs, they're eggs

Modi-Fi: Mad Alien Scientist that used to work for Space Emperor. She was... Really close to Shikari. They used to run tests together, it's a lot easier when the voluntary test subject is basically indestructible. The day of the incident, she was forced to retain Shikari and exile her to the Dark Webs, as well as to hide the Shifang. That day she almost got killed... it was as if Shikari didn't even recognize her... Light World Object: Mod Installing Program

So yeah, that's it, i hope you like them!

... Hmm? What about Sakriss' friend? Well... Sakriss is still a mistery. For now.

[hexedwinchester]

Fire Country Season 1

apparently, some very lovely people on Tumblr asked for a quick review on Fire Country and since I'm already bingeing hard on this, why not?! (Some spoilers in the review, please proceed with caution). This one's for you @idontknow-1213 and @sounknownvoid 🤗🤗

For those who don't know the show, it starts with Bode Donovan (actually a Leone but changes his name to Donovan) in prison applying for a program to be a firefighter. It's all good and lovely, until the day he starts the program and is assigned to a firefighter camp, Three Rock in Edgewater, his hometown. Ghost of his past actions (revealed later) have him conflicted about being back home and he requests for a transfer but of course ends up staying. Throughout the season, Bode struggles to build the bridges with friends and family that were burnt long ago, all the while striving to be a better person. He believes if given a chance, people can change.

Now let's talk about some key characters!

Bode Donovan (Leone): our protagonist, though looks like a guy you wanna don't cross, thanks to the muscular build, long hair and prison tats, he is actually sweet but deeply misunderstood guy. He takes his job as a firefighter very seriously and is not afraid to defy an order if it means saving people. I mean you can't always play by the books, right? One thing I noticed about him is though he is out of prison (in a way), he still goes by the prison law. Bode has a long way to go.

Manny Perez: Captain of Three Rock, Gabriela's father and Bode's mentor. He keeps the inmates in line but also believes in them and has their backs. He comes to appreciate Bode's knack at being a natural firefighter and regards him highly. Unfortunately, Manny has his own demons he tries to fight on the side. This is also why Manny relates to the inmates because he shares a similar past. I like his character. He is a man who learnt a lot the hard way. Quite hard bitten like that.

Sharon Leone: Division Chief Sharon Leone is Bode's mother (gasp!). She is also sick (kidney disease, it sucks) so she requests Manny to keep Bode in the camp and he does. While Sharon has a soft spot for her incarcerated son, she is headstrong and damn good at her job (woman knows her shit and how to make it work). She is a total badass and popular among men (I mean, seriously what's with other men hitting on her like she's single cause she ain't?!)

Vince Leone: that's Bode's dad (and if you are a huge Twilight geek like me, you would recognise him as Chief Charlie Swan, Bella's father) who doesn't want to be Bode's dad because he is the reason why his daughter, Riley dies. (Not really, he thinks he is but accidents happen and the catalyst is someone else). So Vince hasn't forgiven Bode for this until the real guy confesses and Vince is stuck in a situation that brings back old memories. What's Vince like? A devoted husband (except for that one incident), a good firefighter and a girl dad that's hard on his son. And did y'all know, the actor Billy Burke is a damn good singer??!

Gabriela Perez: Manny's Olympic-swimmer-turned-firefighter daughter. Honestly, when I first saw the cast, I expected Gabz to be a lot stronger but she's just a sweet girl next door that's trying to follow her heart, conflicted to choose between swimming and firefighting, just like Jake and Bode. Sparks fly between her and Bode as they try to balance their feelings among other chaos. Although, they are still not my favorite couple. I prefer Vince and Sharon (tooth rooting couple goals!!). I honestly wanted to like her but she comes with unnecessary baggages and is a bit of a crybaby (sorry!) but whoever is incharge of her costume, needs a raise. Her wardrobe is really pretty 😍

Jake Crawford: ex boyfriend to Gabz and ex friend to Bode. They have a fallout when Bode discovers Jake cheated on Riley which ultimately led to her demise. And honestly, I was prepared to hate Jake (no, it has nothing to do with Jake reminding me of Jacob Black from Twilight) and while he starts off as a jackass, towards the end of season 1, they redeemed him well. He is also serious about his job and his new love interest (thank God!) Cara who happens to be Bode's ex! (Yeah, they date in the family, it seems like🤣) he respects the Leones (Vince and Sharon, I mean)

Eve Edwards: (is it just me or that's too many Twilight references already? 🙊) a part of Bode, Jake and Eve trio friendship, she is funny but doesn't sugarcoat it. She is fiercely loyal and hardworking. They start exploring her character towards the end of season 1

Freddy Mills: Inmate at Three Rock camp and Bode's friend. Their camaraderie is commendable. Both are loyal to each other and have each other's back. I think Bode needed a friend like him. So that's good. Plus, he wants to marry a girl named Cookie!

Throughout the season, Bode tries to prove he is worthy of being at Three Rock, worthy of Gabriela's love but with his own conflicted nature and Sleeper, an inmate from Bode's past comes to stir trouble, it creates a challenge, leaving Bode with a difficult choices to make.

I honestly went in blind with Fire Country. At first, I was just going to see the episode with Camden in it (duh!) but I decided to give the show a try and I'm glad I did. What I love about this show is, if you have seen Walker, it will give similar family vibes. The entire Cal Fire unit works like a family including Three Rock as they fight fire side by side. The whole romance between Bode and Gabz is not in your face (which is nice) but the chemistry between Vince and Sharon is too cute to ignore. The first few episodes are a bit slow as they set the tone but then the show ups the stakes progressively. It is quite intense at times and you can feel the heat (no pun intended) on your face. I love that the show takes the time to scratch beneath the surface for each of its characters and not just the main ones, giving them a certain depth. I didn't expect to like the show as much as I do! But it's quite refreshing and a bit different than your regular crime/cop procedural shows. All I can say is Max Thieriot, who I know from his The Pacifiers time, has done a great job as an EP.

Let me know if y'all have any interesting takes on the show or the characters!

[birdiewriteslit]

“summer of difference”

chapter two: new romantics

jacaerys velaryon, aemond targaryen, aegon targaryen x fem!stark!reader

summary: you remember a certain incident from last year, and you meet a certain group of siblings.

warnings: 18+, nsfw content, smut, kind of p in v?, making out, aegon😒, loss of virginity

BRUH TUMBLR DELETED A BUNCH OF THE SHIT I WROTE AND I HAD TO WRITE IT ALL AGAIN so that’s why this is late sorry y’all but trust you will be fed this chapter

LAST SUMMER, THE GARAGE

“Are you sure about this, Jace?” you asked timidly, which is ironic, because minutes before you were confidently climbing into the backseat of Daemon’s convertible.

“Positive.” Jace was on top of you, breathing heavily as he tore away from the newly bruised spot on your neck. “Are you?” he asked, hovering over you.

“Yeah, I am,” you confirmed, grabbing his shirt to pull him back onto your lips.

He kissed you fervently, hooking your legs around his waist as he gripped your hips. “Take it off,” he whispered against your lips, tugging on the fabric of your shirt.

“I’m not wearing a bra,” you said.

He shrugged. “Less work for me then.” Your heartbeat quickened, but you complied, revealing your breasts to him. He stared for a moment before hastily taking his shirt off, and going back to attacking your neck with his mouth.

You’d never seen him like this before. You’d been toying with him all summer, sure, but you weren’t expecting him to take your virginity in his stepdad’s convertible.

You covered your mouth to stifle the moan that escaped you. Jace took one hand off of your waist to take yours away from your mouth. “I want to hear you,” he said, connecting his lips to yours again, preventing you from protesting.

If his whole family and yours weren’t just beyond the door to the garage, the last thing you’d be worried about was your vocal ability.

But the thought of getting caught was sort of thrilling. Anyone could walk through the door and see you like this, your hands on Jace’s face, his tugging on the belt loops of your jean shorts, both of you half naked. They would know you belonged to him.

Your hips involuntarily bucked up to his, and he groaned into your mouth as he started grinding on you. “Jace…”

“I know, baby, I know,” he rasped. pausing to slide his shorts and briefs down, you taking the time to unzip your shorts and do the same.

He aligned himself with your entrance, bringing one hand up to cup your face, his forehead on yours. His eyes asked if you wanted it, and you nodded. “I need you, Jace,” you said softly.

He kissed you quickly and slowly inserted himself inside you. You moaned loudly at the exact same time the door to the garage opened.

Your head whipped around to see possibly your worst nightmare. It wasn’t Cregan, it wasn’t Luke, it wasn’t even Sara. It was Daemon, standing in the doorway with his keys in hand.

His lips were pursed tightly together and sunglasses covered his eyes, which made this experience all the more terrifying because you couldn’t see his eyes. The excitement of others finding you quickly vanished as you realized that was the worst thing that could’ve happened.

“Are you fucking serious right now?” he said after a few moments of uncomfortable silence.

Jace said nothing as he hurried to cover up your chest with his shirt that had previously been discarded to the floor of the car. He pulled his bottoms back up, and you did the same, pushing his body away from yours.

“Daemon, I-“ Jace started.

Daemon grimaced and held up one hand. “Don’t, just don’t. In my own house. You do this in my own house? In my car? My one sacred item? And you choose to do this the moment I decide to go on a peaceful, relaxing drive?” He pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed, taking his sunglasses off and tucking them into his shirt.

Rhaenyra could be seen behind him, peeking over his shoulder to see what the commotion was about, and gasping when she saw your guilty faces and lack of clothing.

“Y/n, put that damn shirt on. Both of you, inside now,” Daemon demanded. “Your mother will deal with you, boy,” he said, pointing at Jace.

You shamefully put Jace’s shirt on, and exited the car. Jace followed you past his angry stepfather and into the house, still half naked and feeling very embarrassed.

As if it could get any worse, there was Baela, Luke, and Sara sitting on the barstools, all holding in their laughs. Luke lost his mind laughing when he saw Daemon through the door attacking the car’s backseat in Clorox wipes. Sara and Baela had the decency to keep it in.

“On the couch, both of you,” Rhaenyra said, her face perfectly still.

When you sat down, you studied Jace’s face. He wasn’t looking at you. His eyes were wide as he stared at the floor. This was the worst.

You looked behind you to see Baela silently laughing, Luke slapping the countertop, and Sara violently tapping away at her phone.

Rhaenyra entered the room about five minutes later with your parents behind her. Wonderful.

Your dad was busy trying to look menacing to Jace while your mother muttered several prayers under her breath.

“Would you like to explain what you were doing in Daemon’s car?” Rhaenyra asked calmly, her arms crossed over her chest.

You cleared your throat awkwardly, glancing around at your audience. “Well, we were in the garage, and then, Jace, I mean, I had an idea,” you started, attempting to save him. “And now I see that it was maybe not a good idea.”

“Were you at least being safe? Using protection?” Rhaenyra asked exasperatedly.

“Not exactly,” you admitted.

“She’s on the pill, she’s fine,” you dad said. Holy hell, this was fucking mortifying.

“She’s not fine! You know better than anyone that it doesn’t work,” your mother exclaimed.

“What is that supposed to mean?” you interjected, ultimately hoping to change the subject.

“Don’t worry about it. What you should be worried about is teenage pregnancy!” she shouted.

“Gilliane, it’s really fine, okay? I didn’t,” Jace hesitated. “Cum.” He winced as he said the word.

Rhaenyra opened her mouth to speak, but someone beat her to it. “You fucked my sister, Jace? Sara better be lying because I will seriously hurt you,” Cregan yelled from over the railing.

“Violence is as much a sin as premarital sex!” you mom warned. “And, please, Cregan, watch your mouth.”

“So it’s true?” he said, sounding betrayed.

Jace stared at him, silent. Cregan retreated back into his room muttering, “Dude, bro code.”

This was probably the most embarrassing moment of your life. You did your best to ignore the scent of Jace that came off of his shirt as his mother firmly educated you on sex and protection.

His face was beet red as you got lectured, and yours was burning so bad it might as well have been on fire. When you looked over your shoulder once more to see Baela whispering to Rhaena, who had just entered the kitchen, you knew you were subject to a lifetime of teasing, and you dropped your head into your hands.

THIS SUMMER, THE KITCHEN

You thought back to the night before as you waited for your bagel to toast. You and Jace on the raft, peacefully ignorant to the events from your last week at the house last summer.

You were out there for a long time. You weren’t sure how long, but time passed easily when you were with him. After a while, you two swam back to the house in a comfortable silence.

He walked you to your bedroom, and there was a moment, just one moment, where you thought he would kiss you.

You stood at the door, and he was in front of you, his face so close to yours that you could feel his breath. It could’ve been a trick of the darkness, but you could’ve sworn his eyes flicked down to your lips and back up again.

But he didn’t kiss you. He tore his gaze away from yours and bid you goodnight, leaving what could’ve been up to your imagination, which was very active.

As you laid awake in bed that night, you thought in depth about how his curls would feel in your fingers, what it would be like to trace the lines of his tanned and toned chest, his full lips on yours the whole time.

The toaster oven dinged, and brought you out of your daydream. You spread cream cheese over your bagel, and sat across from Rhaenyra at the breakfast table.

“Any plans for today?” she inquired.

You shrugged. “Not really. I was just gonna get some boat time in.”

“Would you mind taking Joffrey to the town beach today? He likes you the most,” she said.

To be frank, you did mind, but it was really the least you could do after contaminating Daemon’s car the last time she saw you. And who could say no to Rhaenyra?

“Sure,” you smiled. “I don’t mind at all.”

-

You laid out on your towel, keeping an eye on Joffrey playing in the sand by the water, and soaking up the sun.

It seemed like a perfect day. There were no clouds in the sky, and there was a nice breeze that made the heat bearable.

You were feeling quite relaxed until you noticed the lifeguard hop down from his chair and walk over to you. He stopped at the end of your towel, and you lowered your sunglasses in annoyance.

“Can I help you?”

He stood tall over you, his platinum hair was styled in a way that gave you the impression that he played hockey in the winter. His bright red swim trunks said “GUARD” on the front, and a whistle of the same color hung around his neck.

“Yeah, on account of my lifeguarding license/certification thingie, I have the right to stop any dangerous activity. You pose a fire risk because you’re so damn hot,” he said, looking fairly pleased with himself.

You gave him a blank look. “Has that line ever worked on anyone?”

“You tell me. You’re the only one I’ve used it on.” He grinned.

“Then I would say no,” you said, laying back down on your towel and pushing your sunglasses back up your nose.

You closed your eyes, figuring he would just go away, but then he spoke again. “What’s your name?”

“Y/n,” you replied, not bothering to look at him.

“I’m Aegon,” he said.

“She didn’t ask,” said a new voice. You opened your eyes momentarily to see a girl standing between you and Aegon. She was wearing a yellow bikini and had wavy hair the same color as his. “Sorry about my brother,” she said, turning to you.

You shrugged. “It’s whatever.”

The girl told Aegon to go do his job, to which he sullenly walked back to his station at the chair. “I’m Helaena, by the way. Do you live here or are you visiting? I’ve never seen you before.”

“I spend the summer here with my brother’s friend’s family. I’m here babysitting that one today,” you explained, pointing to Joffrey splashing around in the lake.

She nodded, hesitating before speaking. “Do you want to come to the bonfire tonight to make up for Aegon being weird? It’s here at nine.”

Helaena was surprisingly forward despite having just met her, but you did need a distraction from Jace, who occupied your thoughts 24/7. Besides, you didn’t know anybody in King’s Landing except for his family. Surely there was no harm in making new friends.

“Yeah, I’d love to. I’ll see you tonight.”

-

How do you sneak out of a house that isn’t your own? This was the question you were asking yourself as you brainstormed ways to leave unnoticed. It was currently 8:45, and, to your luck, everyone was in for the night.

Sara was passed out on her cot, thankfully. That gave you the opportunity to change out of pajamas with no questions asked. The little kids were asleep by now. Luke, Jace, and Cregan were in their separate rooms. Your parents were definitely sleeping at this point, along with Rhaenyra. There was only one reason why you couldn’t exit through the front door.

Daemon might as well have been your enemy at this point. Every night he sat in the living room on his special chair reading some book about war, minding his business. Yet, somehow, this presented itself as a personal attack against you.

So, there you were, climbing out the bedroom window, trying your best to make no noise. Now you were on the roof, slowly making your way to the support post by the front door. You carefully slid down it, cursing quietly when you felt a splinter enter your leg.

The beach was a mile walk from the house, and when you got there you spotted Helaena immediately in a camping chair by the fire.

She wore an outfit similar to yours, a pretty summer dress and Birkenstocks. You called her name and watched her eyes light up when she saw you.

She paused her conversation with the boy in the chair next to hers, and stood up to meet you on the sand, linking her arm through yours and bringing you over to her seat.

“I’m so glad you came,” she said. “Let me get you a chair.”

You thanked her as she left, and brought your gaze to the boy. He smiled politely at you. His hair was cut short and it was as blonde as Helaena’s. When he turned to the side, you saw how milky his left eye was, how a scar ran from his eyebrow to his cheek.

Your breath hitched. He was stunning. He was so beautiful that you forgot about Jace for a minute.

Helaena came back with your chair, interrupting your wistful staring contest, and placed it in between the two others before excusing herself to meet a friend.

Sitting down next to him, you made intense eye contact with the boy again.

His sharp features made him look hard to approach, but incredibly attractive at the same time.

He broke the silence first. “I’m Aemond. Hel told me who you are,” he introduced himself. “Do you want a drink?”

You nodded. He leaned over the arm of his chair to grab two beers from the mini cooler next to him. He opened them both, handed one to you, and took a sip out of his own. “I hear you’ve met my brother,” he said, motioning to Aegon, who was currently losing a wrestling match a few feet away.

“I have. He’s a character,” you admitted.

“You don’t know the half of it. Helaena also told me you’re from Winterfell,” he said.

“That’s right,” you confirmed.

He leaned forward, his hands holding the beer between his knees. “Are all the girls in Winterfell as pretty as you?” he asked confidently.

You managed to stop yourself from swallowing beer down the wrong pipe, and pretended like you were as confident as he was, when in reality you were freaking out on the inside.

“I don’t know. Maybe you should come north and find out,” you flirted.

He smirked at you. His good eye was glowing a dark blue in the light from the fire. You wanted to ask him what happened to the other one. You needed to know more about him. His handsomeness captivated you but told you nothing.

“I’d like that,” Aemond said. “Why don’t you show me your place here first?”

It was very tempting to say yes, but the possibility of repeating last year’s incident was very unappealing. “That’s not a good idea. I sort of snuck out to be here.”

He raised his eyebrows. “You’re the rebellious type?”

“Does that surprise you?”

Now he was grinning. “Not at all. I actually think I’m more attracted to you now.”

You laughed. “Oh really?”

“Yeah, and I think I’m gonna prove it to you,” he said.

Your heart started beat faster as his face neared yours. “I think you should.”

He said nothing before kissing you. The kiss was hot and fierce, but his lips were soft. Your drinks were forgotten in the cup holders of the chairs. His hand was on the back of your neck, making you kiss him harder.

Your hands found the sides of his face as he glided his tongue across your lips, slipping it into your mouth. The kiss became sloppy, your tongue dancing with his as you made out.

This was moving faster, but you liked it. So far, you were liking this super hot mysterious stranger.

He pulled away once, his hot breath on your face as he exhaled slowly. “Let’s go to my car,” he said lowly.

You nodded breathlessly. He took your hand and led you into the parking lot where his Bronco was. He helped you into the backseat and climbed on top of you, closing the door swiftly behind him.

What was with you and hookups in nice cars?

Aemond resumed your make out session, his lips searing hot. His nimble fingers wandered beneath your dress. You arched your back so he could reach up and unhook your bra, which he did in record time. It was obvious that he had done it before. It made you jealous of the other girls he had fucked like this in his car, but it also turned you on knowing that he was more experienced than you.

You moaned into his mouth as he played with your breast, running his thumb over your hardened nipple. You felt to corner of his mouth quirk up, and you knew he was proud of how horny he made you.

His mouth moved onto your neck, sucking on and placing open mouthed kisses to the skin. You moaned again at the feeling.

Your hand went up into his platinum hair, and for a split second you thought about the hair your fingers were tangled in a year before. Dismissing the thought, you brought your hand down to his shorts, blindly fiddling with the hem.

He pulled his lips from your neck, panting. You instantly missed the feeling of them, the warmth they offered you.

He retracted his hand from under your dress, and you almost sighed in disappointment, hating the loss of contact.

The dynamic shifted painfully. Something flashed in his eyes that made you realize you wouldn’t be getting laid tonight.

“Sorry,” he said, eyes flitting away from yours. “I got carried away.”

“It’s okay,” you insisted, clinging onto hope.

“I’ll drive you home,” he said. He climbed out of the backseat and got into the driver’s seat. He didn’t even give you a chance to switch to riding shotgun, so you sat in the backseat fixing your bra feeling dejected and a little embarrassed.

You weren’t sure why he stopped, he seemed pretty conflicted about something when he pulled away from you. You tried to ignore it, but you still felt attracted to him despite the situation. You focused on watching the lake pass by the windows instead of thinking about it.

“It’s up on the left,” you said, breaking the uncomfortable silence. “Just drop me off here.”

He pulled over, letting you get out. He didn’t say goodbye. Whatever, asshole. Don’t fuck me and don’t say good night.

You shamefully walked up the driveway. When you reached the house, you realized that the post you slid down was a one way trip. “Shit,” you muttered, defeatedly taking out your phone.

—

You: are you still awake

J: Yeah why

You: i need you to open the front door

J: ?? Tf are you doing outside

You: i’ll tell you if you let me in

—

Jace read your text and moments later you saw him on the other side of the glass door, unlocking it to let you in. You stepped inside, and he shut the door quietly behind you. He stood in front of it, waiting for an explanation.

“So I snuck out,” you said.

“I can see that.” He laughed, eyeing your smudged lipstick and messy hair, before changing his demeanor suddenly. “You smell like a campfire,” he said seriously.

“Yeah, I know. I was at a bonfire,” you explained.

“Why?” he asked, sounding suspicious.

You shrugged. “I was invited. But you know what was weird, the girl who invited me has the same hair color as your mom. Her brothers did too. Is that a King’s Landing thing or something? Nobody looks like that in Winterfell,” you said, trying to lighten the mood.

If anything, it was dampened. Jace narrowed his eyes. “Don’t tell me you were with them.”

You furrowed your brows. “You know them or something?”

“Yeah, I do. I know you should stay away from them,” he said sternly.

“Why?”

“Just trust me. Promise me this is the only time you’ll hang out with them,” he pleaded.

He was acting really weird about this, and you didn’t like that he wouldn’t explain himself. “Fine,” you said.

“Good.” He went upstairs, not waiting for you to follow him.

Aemond’s sudden rejection embarrassed you, but there was something about him that made you want to know more.

Helaena was sweet and didn’t seem like somebody who was worth the warning Jace gave you.

And Aegon was… well, he was Aegon.

I’ll see for myself what they’re like, you thought.

——

taglist:

@sabrinasstar @inkareds

[jakesuit0]

What Was Missing Review

Finn is revealed to regularly have alone time with the wad of Princess Bubblegum’s hair she gave him in “To Cut a Woman’s Hair”. It’s essentially a PG version of a guy still holding on to their ex’s underwear for personal use. The allegory is pushed forward with Finn checking to make sure he is alone. Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t exactly shocking behavior for a thirteen year old boy, but it’s the first big sign that Finn’s crush is getting unhealthy after “Too Young”. It’s time to move on! Unlike “Wizard Battle”, I like the incorporation of Finn’s feelings, despite the arc feeling like there’s nowhere to go after “Too Young”. It’s not the main conflict in the episode, and serves to build to a climax in the season finale.

The Door Lord steals Finn’s gum, Jake’s blanket, and BMO’s controller. It’s hilarious that he only speaks in loud mumbles. He’s supposed to be related to Key-per from “The Enchiridion!”. The Door Lord steals a toy from a candy person and Finn reassures him “I’ll get your kid back, toy!”. The episode wasn’t originally written this way. Adam Muto misspoke when he was pitching the episode and they thought it was funny to keep it like that. Door Lord steals something from Bubblegum and attempts to steal Marceline’s bass axe. With Maja being in possession of Hambo, it makes sense for her bass axe to be her most important item. Finn, Jake, Princess Bubblegum, Marceline, and BMO have to team up to solve the riddle of the door. It’s great getting to see this group of characters together for the first time. It’s the entire main cast minus Ice King, and they get so few opportunities to all be together before Stakes. Their group dynamic is so fun too. The episode is set in Red Rock Pass, which is a really pretty setting to choose for a (mostly) bottle episode. 

Marceline chastises Bubblegum for not executing the door lords, as they kept breaking out of jail. I’m not sure if PB is really above just killing them, considering all the fucked up stuff she’s done in the past. But, killing might be a bridge too far for her. I know she committed robot genocide, but I argue she didn’t see them as sentient beings. Jake decides to pretend to be the jerk in the band. Since Jake doesn’t have a grand emotional arc, this is a funny role to put him in. Marceline starts singing “Just Your Problem”:

-“I’m gonna drink the red from your pretty pink face”. This pretty much gives the game away about PB and Marcy not being platonic. She’s singing about kissing and biting PB. 

-PB calls it “distasteful”, causing Marceline to accuse her of just not liking her. This ties into PB not liking Marceline’s behavior when she got more and more consumed with her princess duties. Marceline became well aware of this by their first mission to the Glass Kingdom (“Oh c’mon, you love it.”). 

-“Sorry I don’t treat you like a goddess. Is that what you want me to do?” She’s calling out PB’s god complex. Marceline assumes Bonnie thinks she’s better than her, like how she sings “you’re self-obsessed and all the rest” in Distant Lands.

-“Sorry I don’t treat you like you’re perfect, like all your little loyal subjects do. Sorry I’m not made of sugar. Am I not sweet enough for you?”. Marceline thinks Bubblegum demands absolute loyalty from everyone as she does with her citizens. She thinks PB would prefer Marceline to be a dum dum juiced moron that never questions her. We don’t know if Marceline is aware of the dum dum juice, but I like to think that she’s partially referring to that. It also relates to Marcy viewing PB as a dictator as she sings in “Woke Up”. She thinks PB wants her to turn down her edginess and be sweeter, like when she wasn’t taking the situation in the Glass Kingdom seriously, something I’m sure wasn’t an isolated incident. 

-I’ll lump together “Is that why you always avoid me?” with the later line “I forgot what landed me on your blacklist.”  Some people question why Marceline wonders this considering her singing “Woke Up” is the obvious answer. I think she’s partially referring to PB’s actions before their breakup. Bubblegum grew more distant as her responsibilities grew, something that confused and hurt Marceline. PB talks about this in “Varmints”. She’s also referring to PB being cold to Marceline for centuries after their breakup. Even when they were around each other in “Power Animal” and “Video Makers”, we don’t see them talking. Bubblegum was very dismissive of Marcy in “Go With Me”. This is partially Marceline’s fault, as she can be really rude and mean to Bonnie, as seen in this episode. 

-“I shouldn’t have to justify what I do.” Marceline doubles down on acting the way she thinks people perceive her. If people think she’s a monster, it's less painful for her to embrace it. This is something she picked up on from thinking she scared her mother away.

-“I shouldn’t have to be the one who makes up with you so why do I want to…” Marceline thinks that since PB is the one who pushed her away, PB is the one who should take the initiative of making things right. There is some truth to this, but as we see in “Obsidian”, they are both more at fault than Marcy is willing to admit. The faces on the door glow brighter and Marceline gets closer to the truth. The truth is she wants to at least be friends with Princess Bubblegum again. That’s the real reason she joined the group here. Reconnecting to PB is something we’ll see her try to do in episodes like “Sky Witch”, “Princess Day”, and “Varmints”. 

The song itself slaps. “Just Your Problem” is super popular, so much so that tons of non-fans know the song. A big reason being that it’s probably the most relatable Adventure Time song ever. A lot of people have friends and lovers that drifted away from them or became downright cold to them due to their differences. Rebecca Sugar even based the song off of her experience with a roommate. Princess Bubblegum’s face during this is also pretty telling. She was definitely having flashbacks to the last time Marceline humiliated her with a song. PB’s face turns to shock when Marceline is on the verge of revealing she wants to make up with her. I don’t blame Bonnie for not realizing this. Marceline’s general nastiness towards her, and of course what she said about her while singing “Woke Up”, would give PB the opposite impression. 

Finn doesn’t fully grasp the tension between PB and Marcy, but is able to diffuse the awkwardness and get everyone (besides Jake) to have fun together. I also like how sweet Marceline is to BMO, gently calling him “baby”. I like PB’s quirky attempt at a science based song, which is more fitting for her than singing her heart out like Marceline and Finn. Her song fails and Marceline uses it to antagonize PB. She fixates on Bonnie’s failures as she feels insecure in her presence. The words “monster trash” are definitely echoing in her mind here. Marceline is still really nasty to PB. A lot of it feels like unwarranted bullying without the context of future episodes, but even with the context, it still feels that way to an extent. Spitting on PB is pretty inexcusable and Bubblegum is totally right to walk away after it. Their conflict boils down to Princess Bubblegum’s ego and Marceline’s insecurity clashing. I also like the detail of Shelby slithering back into Jake’s smashed viola. 

As a final effort, Finn sings “My Best Friends in the World” after realizing the key to the door is the truth:

-“Am I a joke…?” Finn worries that Marceline doesn’t respect Finn, and perhaps only hangs around him because she enjoys messing with him. This is an understandable fear with episodes like “Henchman”. It’s still fundamentally untrue, squashed by the end of “Henchman” and in “Heat Signature”. There is no denying, however, that she loves trolling Finn. She likes messing with everyone, Finn’s young mind just makes him an easier target.

-“...your knight…?” This could be taken to mean Finn wonders if PB only keeps him around, and entertains his advancements, just to use his service to the kingdom. It’s true that Bubblegum employs Finn a lot, and isn’t above manipulating him for her benefit (“The Other Tarts”, “Too Old”, “James”), but she still genuinely enjoys his company whether they are working or just hanging out. He might also just be referring to this positively, as her knight in shining armor.

-“Do you look down on me because I’m younger?” All of Finn’s closest companions are older than him, and it makes sense that this weighs on him. Even Jake, who is often close to Finn’s level and acts as a best friend, also often acts as his parental guardian. This line applies most of all to Bubblegum, given how recent “Too Young” is. The events of that episode are still raw for Finn, and PB’s behavior to him after her age was restored came across as condescending and dismissive. 

-“I just wanted us together and to play as a band. Last night was the most fun I’ve ever had.” Finn loves getting to finally hang out with everyone he loves together and feeling like part of a family.

-“Even liked it when the two of you would get mad at each other.” Finn prefers honesty between friends, and appreciates seeing their more vulnerable side as they are usually more closed off from their true emotions in front of him.

-“You are my best friends in the world. And that’s right, I’m talking about the two of you girls. And you Jake.” With his parents dead, the three of them are by far his closest companions. He’s even grown very close to Marceline in recent times. It’s kinda mean to exclude BMO, who’s right there, but BMO becomes more of a part of Finn’s family over time than he is here. 

-“I’ll forget that I lost a piece of your hair. I’ll remember the pasta that we shared over there”. Very sweet line about how the wad of hair doesn’t really matter, the time he spends with PB and getting to be her friend is what’s meaningful to him. I like how the pasta has a double meaning. He obviously just shared pasta with her, but he also had a pasta dinner with Bubblegum when she gave him the hair. 

Finn’s song is my favorite moment of the series so far, and one of the best scenes ever in the series. I thought “Just Your Problem” was Adventure Time’s best song up to now but it’s then immediately topped. I love everyone participating in the song, especially Marceline singing along with Finn for parts of it. Finn’s song causing even PB and Marcy to harmonize together is great symbolism for Finn helping to bring them back together. Even Jake finally breaks character, he’s too caught up in the moment! Rebecca Sugar drew on her feelings of being a young newcomer when she joined the Adventure Time staff to write this song. Worrying about how your friends see you and if they respect you is another very ubiquitous concern. 

The group realizes that the Door Lord showed them that the real treasure is friendship. It’s very cheesy but the contents of the episode does enough to justify it. It’s cool how well the episode ties two themes into this episode: friendship and honesty. The quick cut from the Door Lord happily seeing they got the message to him being bruised and tied up is hilarious. They get their items back, including the famous rock shirt. It’s not at all PB’s style, going to show how much its pure sentimentality means to Bubblegum. The reveal that PB kept the shirt comes as a shock to Marceline. She realizes that Bonnie doesn’t see her as just her problem. Marceline blushing and PB revealing she wears the shirt all the time as pajamas are heavy hints to their romantic pairing. Their interactions in this episode are very queer-coded, even though they aren’t hitting us over the head with it like they do in season 7 onwards. The episode itself gives enough to figure out the broad strokes of Marceline and Bubblegum having a past and a falling out without giving the details, and it’ll be a long time until they are willing to explore it more at all. It’s revealed that Marceline only joined to hang out with them. Beyond reinforcing the theme of friendship, Marceline and PB now know that the other is interested in reforming a connection again, even if Marceline will have to be the one that ends up instigating it. 

���What Was Missing” is a fan favorite for good reason. The two musical numbers are the biggest draw and they are incredible. Rebecca Sugar using her own personal experiences to write them makes them feel so raw and personal. It’s some of the most direct the series ever is about Marceline and especially Finn’s thoughts and feelings, with them explicitly singing them. It’s refreshing to get some clear cut insight as the show is usually much more guarded. I wouldn’t want the series to always be this direct, but it's nice to have moments like these every once in a while to help provide insight into their other appearances. The episode is essentially a precursor for Steven Universe. You could slot in Steven for Finn, Pearl for Bubblegum, and Amethyst for Marceline quite easily. I also really like PB in this one! Despite “What Was Missing” having not one, but two characters that are in love with Princess Bubblegum, she gets to shine. It’s definitely more Marceline-heavy, but I like PB standing up for herself, getting to see her side of the conflict, and the return of her quirks with her scientific song. PB and Marceline also have pretty great outfits here, and it’s definitely their most iconic looks besides their default outfits. 

Rebecca Sugar has since stated that she wrote PB and Marcy as exes in this episode. She felt their interaction in “Go With Me” read that way. The episode does a great job extrapolating from that brief interaction. According to Rebecca Sugar, she pitched this idea to Adam Muto, who she boarded the episode with, and he approved. They ran this by Pen who also liked it. Cartoon Network forbade the crew from being explicit with it. They still did a good job making it as clear as they could with the restrictions and the fandom picked up on it. Rebecca Sugar wanted to include LGBTQ representation and felt that exploring it through the lens of two exes with a past was the best path to getting it in. Despite it only being subtextual, it was a big deal for 2011. 

This episode stirred up quite the firestorm. It’s possibly not a coincidence that it would take almost two years for PB and Marcy to interact again. The Fredator associated Youtube channel Mathematical! posted recaps after the airing of Adventure Time episodes. After the airing of “What Was Missing”, their recap speculated on the possible romantic pairing between Princess Bubblegum and Marceline, interlaced with overtly romantic drawings of Marceline and Bubblegum from character designer and storyboard revisionist Natasha Allegri. As a result, Fredator fired Mathematical! producer Dan Rickmers, deleted the video, and cancelled the Youtube series. Times were different then, but that’s no excuse for such an overreaction. Fred Seibert offered the following explanation:

“Well, I completely screwed up. There’s been chatter on the internet recently about our latest Adventure Time “Mathematical!” video recap that we created, posted, and removed here at Federator. I figure it’s time to clear up the matter. In trying to get the show’s audience involved we got wrapped up by both fan conjecture and spicy fanart and went a little too far. Neither Cartoon Network nor the Adventure Time crew had anything to do with putting up or taking down our latest re-cap. The episode ”What was Missing” remains a terrific short and will be shown again and again just like any other Adventure Time episode. I let us goof in a staggering way and I’m deeply sorry it’s become such a distraction for so many people.” It’s a really weak reasoning as Mathematical! had always been a fan oriented show and that’s what the entire fandom was talking about. Still, I’d expect this from an executive. What was unexpected were Adam Muto’s comments: 

“If it was just a fan video there would be no problem at all. The problem was that it was made by a production company actively involved with the show. The video took something that was a possible subtext and declared it, in effect, text and made it seem like the production was actively seeking out input on plot development. That's all there is to it.” Considering Sugar said that Adam Muto agreed with that interpretation, it would have been for the best if he just stayed out of the situation. That’s what Pen Ward did ("It’s hard to comment on that, because there were so many extreme positions taken on it all over the Internet, and it happened so quickly. I don’t really want to comment on it because of that, because there were so many extreme sides taken. It was a big hullaballoo.")

Now that we know Bubbline was in fact the crew’s intention, and it’s since been explicitly canonized, the situation is just even dumber. Dan Rickmer is definitely owed an apology. But what’s really important is the series no longer having to keep their relationship a big secret.

Grade: A+