#a team that clearly could do things on their own now didnt even think for a moment to go after elgarnan and solas without their leader

[magebutts]

they shoulda let us see rook's reunion with their companions right when they rescued them from the fade prison. cowards.

[tpher]

scary girl analysis !

something something the most clearly gimmicky gen 4 character we know. as your resident pahkitew island apologist, i dont care. it actually took me a bit to warm up to her and i figured id talk abt why that is

so her main thing is being creepy and sadistic for the sake of jokes. its not serious.. mostly. she does prove to actually be down to hurt others (such as when she got a hold of a jackhammer). but what about an instance where she wanted to hurt someone for actual reasons? when was that?

that was when priya went up to her to compliment her on doing a good job on the previous challenge. priya says that shes surprised by scary girl having done a good job.

scary girls response?

a very defensive "oh, it surprised you that i was good? cuz you thought id do bad?"

and thats the thesis of this post

scary girl is very insecure

backing up for a moment, in ep 2 when the teams were on ships and attacking each other, she was the one who came up with the idea of sinking the other teams ship as an idea on what to do when they were out of ammo (? iirc). but no one else heard that, just zee

then in ep 3, ripper makes her go last in the relay race thing bc he didnt want her to "blow things" for the team. she reacts by trying to bite his finger. not with a funny creepy smile, but with genuine anger to her literal bite. and then during that challenge, she infamously grabs a bear by the arm and starts beating it up while saying "thats what you get for growling at me!!!". once shes done, she goes "byeee" and goes on like nothing happened. proving that if someone wrongs her, she can easily let it go.. so long as she gets to do something back. remember this for later

and here we come back to her interaction with priya. so far, scary girl has proven herself to be a pretty alright player and she herself knows that. so the notion of someone being SURPRISED she did well?? does not sit well with her at all. but the way that she harps on the wording, even before zee steps in to make it worse, is what gets to me. it just really adds an extra layer to her character that, well. ironically surprised me! for someone who always seems to be in her own world, so unconventional, so ill-fitting with everyone else to also be insecure in some capacity?

anyway she tries to hurt priya with a spoon but gets interrupted. later on, priya is still thinking abt their encounter and feels bad so she tries to make it up to scary girl by flattering her. namely by saying that scary girls question was smart.. and priya being her awkward self, only dug herself in a hole by making it seem like that was a smart question by scary girls standards

scary girl is speechless. baffled. mad beyond words

it should be noted that scary girl looked offended when priya even started speaking. meaning that she also did not forget about their conversation that morning. she REALLY took it to heart. applying the bear logic here, had scary girl hurt her with the spoon earlier, would she be less mad? would she had considered each other even? and in that case, would this comment go over better or would it had simply restarted her need for revenge?

well. they dont interact for the rest of the episode up until the very end. after ripper used priya as a human shield, obviously injuring her

scary girl tells her that rippers a jerk and that priya didnt deserve that. so she'll be voting to get ripper out. and calls priya her "friend".

(her face and tone makes me a bit suspicious if this was genuine. but thats probably just her being her offputting self so i'll ignore it.) ok so by scary girl logic, priya deserved to have SOMETHING bad coming her way after what she said to her.

but not this.

scary girl, who came here to "make friends and watch them get really hurt", was not okay with what ripper did to priya. perhaps she thinks that only she could be allowed to hurt priya to balance things out? personally giving priya her karma, perhaps?

but now she considers priya a "friend". who likely wants to see her get hurt. but in the fun way that scary girl likely sees most other contestants as, possibly? idk.

anyway after all of that, we can see just how insecure scary girl can get over unintentionally awkward phrasing. just how deeply it hurts her feelings to be underestimated like that

season 2 spoilers ahead !!!

in season 2, we see even less of her. but there is SO much to work with

normal girl is so fascinating to me

by the time s2 starts, scary girl already has an all new look. shes trying to be "normal"

she admits in her confessional that some ppl thought she was too scary in the first season so thats why she changed her appearance and her everything. who were these ppl?

other than a dog as a joke, online forums, showing an interesting glimpse into the in-universe ""real world"" stepping into total drama. perhaps also a meta joke on the fandoms response to her but who knows. imagine unabashedly being yourself on tv and everyone is telling you to change. you are 16 and likely going through a weird phase. feeling a lot of heightened emotions already and ""knowing"" that this is who you are (at the moment). and if its not a phase? still 16 on international television getting lambasted by millions

and last but not least, her MOM??? her own mother. that just raises more questions abt how scary girl was before getting on td. was she NOT like this before? was she playing it up for the cameras? or did she just go unhinged without parental supervision? in any case the fact is that even her own mom wasnt okay with what makes her happy and how she presented herself.

so scary girls solution? to try her best to suppress anything that made her unique. to try to adhere to "societal norms", in her own words.

we dont see much of her in this ep other than her commenting on how shes normal and totally did not want to see someone get hurt. shes clearly struggling so bad. she knows that apparently what she likes isnt "right", therefore the opposite must be true, right?

she is simultaneously so immediately different that the others didnt even recognize her at first. yet still so "scary" that she cant fit in. she just doesnt know how no matter how hard she tries. if she were to stay longer, what can she do? this game is not only abt your skills in the challenges its also a social thing. how long until she snapped and went back to her old ways?

and then we get to the campfire ceremony. chef is about to call out whatever it was the she did wrong that day, but she interrupts him with a simple "no."

she cannot fathom being sent home, at least not this early. bc shes normal! she is sooo normal and she tried SO HARD to be normal! she read normal books and normal movies and studied normal people. she even taught herself to smile in a more acceptable way, which is so autistic coded to me. so she deserves to stay longer.

(getting flashbacks to my topher psychoanalysis and his entitlement being both a tragedy and his self-imposed downfall)

..but she studied "normal people" in her own not-normal way. while they werent looking. while they were sleeping. while they had no idea she was there.

so she got booted out for that. and she cannot believe it.

when she says that she "didnt even try to hurt anyone this time", she is mad. that was her ""fun"" and she managed to control it 100% only to get eliminated??? shes fed up!

but when she talks about how she taught herself how to smile in a "less-creepy" way?

she softens up and looks genuinely hurt.

she tried so hard. she saw all those horrible comments from people judging her based on like 5 episodes on a reality show. her own mother didnt accept her. her insecurity won and she aimed to change and repress everything that made her unique

and it still wasnt enough

[thesunfyre4446]

Yo. New to the HoTD discourse. I hope you don't mind me rant dumping on your blog. I'm a bit scatterbrained so I hope I lay out my feelings about these things clearly. I have finally watched HoTD and ....

Listen, I could have liked Rhaenyra well enough, in fact I didn't really mind her in the beginning. But it really all changed once I saw what the audience were saying. How the majority seems to have no sympathy for Allicent at all.

I thought we all understood that no character in Westeros is really all that great?? So I really cant understand the vile hatred spewed towards her? It feels like they even hate her more than anyone ever hated Joffrey or Cersei. People were rightfully angry with the show runners decision to have Jaime r*** her in that one scene. People were capable of feeling empathy for Cersei despite how despicable she is. But there's SOOO much victim blaming for Alicent. It drives me fucking nuts. And to show sympathy for her would have people dogging on you.

I really cannot believe my eyes when I see people thinking she willingly seduced that rotten walking corpse.

I was so naive to think people would understand where her character is coming from. She is utterly powerless. She doesn't have a king for a father to pardon every mistake she makes. She's suffocating and it makes sense for her to hate Rhaenyra who has more privilege than any woman who ever lived in that world, and yet still step over every single rule while expecting everyone else to just live with the consequences of her actions. We're supposed to like her??

I GET that the point of it all is that monarchy is just a shitty way to run a kingdom. I GET that Rhaenyra being a terrible ruler is the point. Man or woman it never mattered.

What I don't get is people thinking she's some feminist figurehead?? She behaves as a man does in that universe, entitled and unfit for what they feel entitled to. I get that that's the point, but that doesn't mean she's for the women at all. Like any man, she's out for herself. Why would I like her if she behaves as any corrupt man in that world would, when the only difference is she doesn't have a dick? And I wouldn't necessarily mind that? I don't watch HoTD or GoT for perfect characters. But if only the audience didn't treat her like some sort of hero and Alicent the pure villain.

I never felt frustrated with GoT discourse. Why the fuck does it seem like HoTD has bred this extremely toxic environment? You can't seem to have a different opinion unless your mouths dick sucking on Team Black.

Dany, just as entitled as she was, she was still able to do as duty demanded. Rhaenyra is a just a spoiled child all the way through. The hatred for Alicent and the inability for people to see Rhaenyra for what she is, has me thinking people have really missed the fucking point about what feminism actually is. And once again, I didnt watch HoTD for feminism. But the audience seems to think Rhaenyra is a beacon for it. Wether intentional or not, ideas take on a life of its own and you cannot divorce these fan-imposed ideas from the show anymore. That's really the part of all this that pisses me off.

I'm TG now not because I condone everything they've ever done. Literally everyone fucking sucks. I'm TG because I understand everyone fucking sucks. And I dislike being tube fed by the biased writers on what to think and feel.

anon, not a single lie was told.

people hate on alicent for displaying human emotions. it's insane. it's always "rhaenyra will turn westeros into barbieland" until someone brings out the fact that she has no intention of helping any other woman other then herself and then it's all "well, we shouldn't judge her from a modern day pov"..

"I'm TG because I understand everyone fucking sucks" this!! also, they have better characters lol

[gingersp1ce547]

Thiago was not expecting to be dad. Not now, nor anytime in the future. He knew how he was, and the life he led. Neither of which were suited for parenthood even though since his own father passed the idea of what kind of one he would be refused to leave his head.

Would he be able to give them half as good as a childhood as the one his father gave him? Would he leave them grieving and wondering how much of their father they knew like he did?

Should someone that shot a 15 year old in the foot be trusted with a child at all?

In the end these questions didn’t matter. Because he had a kid now and she was a sentient egg.

Fortunately, his work on the island was much less dangerous than it was back in brazil. So he could bring hope with him on his daily rounds. She seemed to like it a lot, which was a good thing because he wasn’t sure what he would do with her if she didnt other than leave her in the house with cesar but she spent more than enough time with the hacker already.

Before they had learned what liz had been up to and saved hope, thiago had been spending a lot of time with one badboyhalo. After he had saved dapper bad insisted on giving him a gift, which ended up being a whole thing of enchanted gear. He took some of it but he kept a couple pieces of his old set that liz and cesar had enchanted on, and the rest in an unsorted chest somewhere in his room like everything else he couldn’t get rid of.

He kept hanging around bad after that. Mostly because he was a real good source of information on pretty much everything happening on the island, but also because something he said to Thiago once wouldn’t seem to leave his mind.

Bad was asking about what thiago did before the island, around a month into their stay here they decided it would be ok to tell people the truth as long as they didn’t go into too much detail, so he did. Only for bad to reply “why would somebody marked by death want to fight her creatures?”

“What?”

Bad tiled his head like some kind of owl. His pure white eyes staring through thiago from under his hood. “Or at least i think it’s death. Maybe not our goddess but something similar.”

He looked thiago up and down once more. “Do you not feel it?”

The urge to throw off his hoodie and run to the nearest mirror to double check that the symbol of that fucking place was still gone was tempting. But thiago knew he didnt need it. He knew what it was like for his hand to not be his hand and this wasn’t it.

He shook his head, forcing his tongue to move from where it had glued itself to the top of his mouth, “No.”

Bad made a noise of curiosity in response but moved on. Thiago wasn’t sure if it was out of noticing his discomfort or something else entirely but he thanked the change of pace.

Unfortunately, the fact that he even got that bit of information in the first place meant he needed to go back and continue to prod for more

So far hed gotten out of bad that only the rest of team was “marked” like this. Some clearly were by an entity like thiago, cesar and arthur (bad upset about blood), but with joui and liz it was unclear. Same went for the mark itself, which bad described as almost being fuzzy. Like fog was obscuring his vision of it.

He was pretty sure that this was all bad knew, but bad was bad and liked to be a tricky little shit. One of his coworkers once wrote an article just for fun about creatures from folklore across the world. He was bored on his break and read it which was a good thing because he was not unconvinced that bad wasnt some sort of Irish fae creature. It definitely wouldn’t be the strangest thing a person was on the island (that was etoiles).

Even if bad didnt know anything else about their team, he definitely knew a lot about what happened on island, Especially when it came to politics, or as liz liked to call it, a telenovela pretending to be politics. Which was a blessing in disguise as it made writing about it much less boring on thiago’s part.

Hope was with him today since her quests had already been completed for the week. They bounced across the map as he handed out the latest information about the islands happenings as well as gathered it.

Cellbit and roier were off being sickeningly romantic somewhere and hope asked very politely if she could go say hi to him. Not that thiago would ever say to no to something asked as sweetly as that, he told her yes since Cellbit was technically also her dad even if it was only like 5% since he helped in the investigation to find her.

They then headed to pierre’s to restock on some potions, only to find him and maximus… maybe arguing? Thiago wasnt really sure but it could have also been flirting, or manipulation. It could go many many different ways with those two and honestly even though it was his job to know, thiago didnt wanna know. Neither did he want hope to have to witness it. So he quickly sweeped her up into his arms and turned back around to the teleporter.

She gave him a look of silent curiosity but didn’t ask. He was thankful for it today as opposed to usual worriedness. She had been alone in one spot for so long, and had so much curiosity about the world. Thaigo (and the rest for the team) wanted her to be cautious of the what she was getting into yes, but he also wanted her to feel safe enough to be able to run up to a flower she liked without asking if it was ok first.

Deciding to foster her curiosity at the cost of having to try and find a child friendly way to explain whatever the fuck pierre and max had going on, he told her that they were having a private conversation that he didnt want to interrupt. Hope, who knew all about private conversations because of her secretive ass parents, nodded seriously at this and thaigo took a mental note to explain to her at some point that not all private conversations were matters of life and death.

Next they headed to bad’s, who thaigo knew had a good stock of potions he wouldn’t mind missing if it meant keeping an egg safe. He wasnt there and a look at the map told him he was off on some adventure with dapper most likely in search of creature that the kid wanted to tame.

There was a couple other people awake but he really didnt feel like crossing thousands of blocks to go and find them, so instead the two wandered about spawn. Hope taking the lead and investigating the different buildings up close. She already knew at this point that her pais and mae where not the people to ask about how crafting materials worked and seemed happy just to silently investigate.

In the past he would have expected it to be a good break from taking care of a kid, a time to collect his thoughts. Instead he just watched her and his heart felt warm. No thoughts of the what he was gonna write about next, or how everyone back in brazil was doing drifted through his head. All he could focus on was the way hope would walk up to block, completely transfixed by it, bend down to get a look at it better, maybe tilt her head or touch it lightly before moving on to the next one.

Or at least it was all he could focus on till a sound caught his attention. Mentally, he praised the fact that his still functioning ear worked perfectly if not better than that before turning to look in the direction of the sound. In it’s place he saw “charlie” slimecicle teleporting off somewhere.

This was odd for a couple of reasons. The first being that slime did not wake up often. The second was that when he did he usually hanged around big groups of people and the third was that thiago wasnt sure where he got enough exp to teleport in the first place.

Ok, maybe that last one was a stretch but still. Call it investogators intuition or whatever you want but there was something odd happening here and thaigo wanted to know what.

A light tug on his pants brought him out of his head. He read hope’s sign pai, who was that?

“He’s another islander my dear” he replied

She broke the sign before placing down another, Where is he going?

“Most likely home”

Hope stared at him. It was a stare she most definitely learned from cesar and liz because it screamed bullshit

“He really could be going home,” hope’s stare persisted in intensity “buuuuuuuuut your instinct is right. Theres something fishy about this. I feel it too”

Are you gonna go check? she didnt have to write the and can i come for thiago to know she was thinking it.

“Yep. Do you wanna go teleport to pai cellbits and go hang out with him and tio roier while i do?”

I can go there if you want.

He frowned. A sentence like that was the hope equivalent of saying no. She was just too afraid to say that was what she actually wanted.

Still. There was a possibility, however slim, that whatever awaited them on the other side of that waystone was dangerous. If something ever happened to her and thiago knew he could have prevented it he wasnt sure what he would do with himself outside of that it wasn’t good.

He had a enough innocent peoples blood on his hands already, but to have a child’s?

You don’t know if there were any children in the holy cradle, a voice whispered. It swirled around his ears and even though the non-functioning one was well non-functioning, he swore he could almost hear in it and yet you burned them all the same.

Now wasn’t the time for thoughts like this. Hope was still waiting for a reply and who knew what slime was doing.

“You can come with if you promise you’ll teleport away when i tell you too”

Hope beamed up at him nodding vigorously before placing a sign down quickly writing I promise! And then beginning to run over to the waystone excitedly.

“Woah woah woah slow down my dear!” He called out after her. Once he caught up he added “let me go first and hold my hand the whole time.”

Trying to contain her excitement hope gave one strong nod. It seemed to be an attempt at showing she was serious.

Smiling at this and taking her hand into his, thiago and hope teleported to charlie’s base

There wasn’t much there outside of a small shack which thiago assumed was Charlie’s house. The two investigating the outside area a bit before thiago used his still functioning ear to listen to the door. After hearing nothing inside, the two carefully proceeded to enter the building with thiago leading the way.

He didnt notice anything odd at first glance until hope gently tugged his hand in the direction of something, a small opening made of dirt.

Traveling into it, they found a large cavern filled with various plants and some sort of train system. Ignoring it, thiago and hope stealthily made their way down till they could see charlie standing in front of what seemed to be. a house. Only, he wasn’t alone.

There was an egg with him. One that thiago hadn’t seen before.

Grabbing a sign of hopes he had stored away he wrote out do you know them? Before breaking it and passing the back sign to hope.

No, Was the response he got. So not another test subject egg, which meant considering how Charlie was treating this egg (with warmth and excitement), they were most likely Charlie’s egg.

Only issue was that Charlie’s egg, juanaflippa if thiago remembered right, had died months ago.

“Stay right here,” thiago whispered to hope before giving a light kiss to her head and letting go of her hand. “I’ll be right back.”

Hope nodded and stayed in her spot as thiago got closer and focused his eyes on the outline of this egg. It was times like this that he missed the range of his gun but sword and shield would have to do.

The dead don’t come back. Thiago had known this as fact since the day he learned about the “airplane crash.” But it wasn’t till he joined the order that he learned the second half of the statement.

The dead don’t come back, so when they do. It’s not them anymore. Whether that meant they were a hallucination or a creature, thiago wasn’t sure. What he was sure of was the fact that he wouldn’t let slime be killed by whatever was pretending to wear his child’s face.

Thiago jumped down ready to strike but just as he did, the egg ran back into the house with Charlie sprinting after them, leaving thiago’s sword stuck in the ground. Cursing, he ran after them, only to see the egg disappear into specks of code as Charlie cried out for it.

Code meant code monsters. Thiago was not prepared for code monsters, he was prepared for paranormal bullshit even though none had ever appeared on this island before.

Regardless, he needed to write all of this down while it was still fresh on his mind. It didn’t matter if this wasn’t paranormal, it was still dangerous even if that danger had momentarily passed.

So, thiago turned and quietly walked out the house, back to hope and then the two teleported back home.

Pai, hope wrote upon arriving what was that?

Thiago bite his lip. God what he wouldn’t give for a cigarette right now.

“We’ll figure it out.” He crouched down to her level “So for now let’s not worry about it. Okay my dear?”

Worry crossed over hope’s face for a split second, and it landed sharp like a stab in thiago’s chest.

“This scar?” Arnaldo said pointing at a long scar that wrapped around his upper arm. Usually it was hidden by long sleeve shirts but he had rolled those up to be able to kneed the dough of the bread he was making, “It’s just from a stunt that i messed up once. Nothing to worry about my dear”

Thiago took a deep breath in. No nicotine hit his lungs but the oxygen worked just fine. “How about this? I’ll let you know everything new i learn about this case. After all i need an expert on eggs, and who’s a better expert than the best egg on the island?”

Hope looked down at her feet bashfully, but with a glow of praise, “you promise?”

Extending out his pinky finger, thiago smiled gently, “of course my dear.”

Hope wrapped her own around it, and the promise was sealed.

[safetycar-restart]

So. I saw a certain tweet of George going into the Mclaren motorhome with Lando. Thoughts? Well mine is that you are Lando's dom. George's dom treats him badly and Lando hates seeing his friend hurting. So he drags him back to see you so he can submit and feel better. He sees how good Charles and Pierre's poly relationship is for them and he wants that too! 🐇

Please I love the image of Lando just stealing George. He’s just like “nope, mine now” and fucking takes him. Shoutout to the poor mclaren media person who left Lando alone for two minutes and came back to find Lando had kidnapped one of their competitors. I'm gonna tag this as 'd/s au - poly!George/lando' cause i really like this idea and i'd love to hear more about it and for it to be its own au!!

Firstly, lando's original plan was to simply murder the Mercedes dominant, but he figured that would probably take a lot of planning and isnt really his thing (AKA: Alex refused to help).

George is pretty good at hiding how much he's hurting, how his dom clearly isnt giving him what he needs. But Lando can still tell.

His suspicions are confirmed one evening when he's at dinner with George and George asks him if he gets berated for needing more attention from his dom. Lando's heart just breaks for his friend (okay yes he's had a crush on George for years but George doesn't know that so it's still friend). Lando thinks about all the times George has stared longingly at you and him, how George averted his eyes when Lando would catch him watching.

Then there was the time that you joined them for lunch (Lando had just had a scene with you and he didnt want to part from you just yet) and George had insisted on paying. You had thanked George sincerely, telling him you really appreciated it and George was beaming for the rest of the day.

And then Lando thinks about whatever the fuck charles and Pierre have going on with charles's team and just... yeah he needs to kidnap George.

This all comes to a head during a media pen session. Lando was already in the media pen when George arrived, and George looked so fucking sad. His eyes were red like he had been crying, and he was gripping his water bottle so hard his hand was shaking.

Lando thought back to how George's session had gone, and as far as he knew George did well. There was nothing on track that would warrant George being like that, and Lando knows there's only one other thing that could do that: his dom.

Lando decides right then and there that George needs to come back with him and scene with you.

You have no idea how Lando manages to sneak George out from under the eyes of the entire media pen and his own media person, but somehow he did because you walk into his driver room and find George sitting on the couch with Lando.

At first you think that George is just hanging out with Lando, but then you see that Lando has his arm wrapped around George and seems to be comforting him. You ask what's happened, and George looks up in fright. The poor thing honestly looks like he's about to bolt out the door, but you're standing in the way of that.

Lando starts to explain, well he just says that George really needs a nice dom and then gives you his best puppy dog eyes and damnit you are powerless to deny him.

The saddest part is honestly how the smallest thing makes George so so happy? You run your hands through his hair, asking if he's going to be a good boy and he nods to quickly its comical. The smile on his face when you kiss his forehead in response is heartbreaking. A well cared for sub shouldn't be reacting this way to a mere forehead kiss from an unknown dom.

You treat George as well as you can, cuddling him and letting Lando suckle on his cock, praising him the entire time and encouraging him to fall apart in your arms. He's floating in subspace for the rest of the night, cuddled between you and Lando.

George is absolutely mortified when he wakes up the next morning and thinks back to how he acted. But at the same time, he can't remember the last time he was this well rested? He never wants to leave this bed.

Needless to say, George starts to come back.

At first it's just Lando dragging George along to scenes and George pretending that he's annoyed by this and hasn't been counting down the days until a race weekend because he might be able to scene with you and lando again. But eventually, George starts to accept that you and Lando actually love being with him and he starts to seek you two out on his own accord.

[micamicster]

Hey micaaa, i just finished IWTV thanks to your passionate blog work on the show and I remember seeing you answer an ask about your thoughts on the second season but i didnt read it to not spoil myself and now i cant find it 😭😭😭 would be grateful if you could help a gal out xxx

Hi babe! So either I never answered an ask like that or its been lost to the bowels of tumblr, but that's ok because this is an ask! and I can share my thoughts here! And my thoughts are... mixed but overall positive. I will expand under the cut.

When I watched the first episode of the new season, I called my sister immediately and said, don't worry, they've done it, it's just as good as it ever was. Now I'm not sure I would say it's just as good as it ever was, (I have things to criticism this season whereas last season I really had not a single bad thing to say about the show at all) but it's still at a level of acting, writing, set and music and costume design, and thematic depth that I think is hard to find anywhere else on television. Complement sandwich coming up!

The acting, music, sets, costumes: this show is the opulent gothic romance I've spent my whole life craving and modern media not giving to me. (Fire emerald fenel or whatever her name is immediately and hire this team for wuthering heights or i riot). As in season one, there is a level of cohesion, thoughtfulness, detail, and sheer skill that goes into every element of this show that makes it just a joy to watch. Jacob Anderson is a revelation, and he's got a team that is on his level.

I agree that the pacing is not as good this season. In season one, I felt that each episode was its own distinct chapter in the story with it's own distinct arc, and I have to admit that I'm biased toward that sort of clearly structured storytelling when it comes to television. (It's television! It's got episodes for a reason!) For example, I thought the San Francisco episode was one of the best of the season, and I think that's because it's (sort of) a bottle episode, and because it's about the complicated dynamics between just a few characters, so it has that tight focus that other episodes in the season were lacking. I get the inclusion of hallucistat because I, too, missed the explosion of chemistry that is jacob and sam playing off each other. However I felt that there were times he was overused or unnecessary, and in some of the later episodes it felt like the writers worried their audience would get bored. I thought that it took a while to get a direction on what the dubai portions of the show were doing (rather than them just being a tool to enable story digressions, like the lestat/armand backstory). For as significant as they are, we really learn nothing at all about the coven aside from santiago (ben daniels u were having SO much fun, weren't you?). And it makes their betrayal, their plotting, and their deaths less interesting when they're just background costume hangers. (And it's disappointing when I think of how well other minor characters are sketched out in equally small screen time other places in the show.) Similarly I think that the last episode confrontation was underwhelming--maybe we needed an episode for the dubai climax and for the backstory climax?

(Not really a criticism here, just givng my personal opinion that despite what the actors are saying I have a hard time believing 100% in the louis/lestat reunion. We've never seen anything so far in the show not narrated by someone else (or directly experienced by daniel) so I have a hard time seeing it as "the truth" (what does that even mean in a show like this?) but instead as a version of the truth filtered through Daniel's imaginings, for his story's conclusion. But that's just my interpretation!)

(Also not really a criticism of the show but the fan experience hasn't been as fun this season. Last season everyone I followed was a fun little bubble against the wider fandom, this season the mutchies are at each others throats lol I of course stand alone as always being correct (in the secret takes I text my sister), everyone else is correct sometimes and incorrect others, or even both correct at the same time although they wouldnt like to hear it)

Final compliment! Theme: This show remains one of the best, most nuanced, and most empathetic portrayals of abuse that I have ever seen on tv. It's the gothic! It knows what its about! And what it's about is the way that people can both love you and hurt you, or want to control you, or be cruel to you, or damage you by loving you in a harmful way. It shows how abuse can use the structures of race, gender, age, and family, to trap a person, manipulate them, and control them. It shows how society aids abusers and punishes victims through these same structures. It shows how trauma can fracture a person's understanding of themselves, and of their own memories and experiences. And it says, with relationships and emotions this complex, there are always going to be new perspectives on what happened--even between a person and themself there are different versions of the truth. There are no easy answers, there are no one-size-fits-all truths in this story. The complexity of the emotions victims of abuse, the love and rage and fear, the gratitude and resentment, they feel toward their abusers are all present without the writing using these emotions to judge or vilify the characters. It manages to be empathetic in its writing of perpetrators, without demanding "forgiveness" from the victims or excusing/minimizing the abuse. (I know some people have different opinions on how successful the show is on this topic, I fall into the camp of thinking this is what the show does best--allow multiple complicated feelings and perspectives to be true at the same time). I think constantly about one of the showrunners quotes where they said (im misquoting) that is the gift of immortality and maybe also its curse--you always have time to try again, to get it right this time. Which is in many ways the allure and the curse of family--people you can't shake. People you can't escape. Immortality and memory and trauma as time loops. This show is so fucking good.

[disabled-stuck]

HI ITS ME CHRONIC PAIN ANON BACK AGAIN... here's my thoughts on who of the human cast is Aware That They Have Chronic Pain Issues. srry ppl were discussing and im like, Wow, Time For Me In Hc Central

june's issues start to really develop and get bad post-game (in my headcanons), so for a long period of time she literally has no one to talk to about it bc she's self-isolating. she eventually tells nannasprite about it when nanna is guilt-tripping her into getting up (nanna voice: Whatever works, hoohoo!), and nanna is like. this is my only granddaughter. i will do whatever i can for her. (i love june & nanna's dynamic. could u tell.) jasprose also is like GIRL!!! You Are In Pain!!! nanna & jasprose team up of the century to get june egbert to Acknowledge Her Problems

dave NO clue NO idea WILL not talk about it. maybe EVENTUALLY tells karkat about it but i don't think she ever seeks out a diagnosis or tries to get one. hes got old ingrained trauma about seeing doctors, which is something he's trying to get over, but like, he already has 4 bajillion other things to unpack about his childhood and healthcare systems are not historically good about chronic pain, a dismissal of their symptoms might set them back in that regard. they're just homebrewing this shit for now.

rose: yeah, she knows. she doesn't talk about it in those terms, though. instead of saying "i have a horrible migraine and cannot get out of bed" she tells kanaya to text the gc that she's afflicted by the Broodfester Woes and cannot join them this evening. theyve sort of picked up by now what that means but she thinks it's funnier this way.

jade: HMMM. i think she put herself through her denial paces but actually i think going grimbark essentially caused her to not feel her chronic pain (a side effect of condy's semi-control over her body), and when she got shunted back into her body she had to face the reality where she DIDNT hurt all the time like wow thats how ppl normally feel? what the fuck????

jane: oh absolutely fucking not does not know. unlike jade, his pain got WORSE during crockertier. yet it still takes literally two decades for him to finally acknowledge that his stuff is NOT normal and the fact that her whole friend group has chronic pain doesn't help, which kind of sucks. jane voice: well sometimes i can get out of bed when i have a headache and rose can't, so clearly its not the same (as if jane doesn't force himself out of bed even when he really shouldnt!!!). roxy has to be the one to tell him.

roxy: yeah she knows it's chronic pain. she's been worried about getting cirrhosis for years, and so has been keeping up to date on her physical health as a result. she figured it out pretty quickly after a couple flareups. trickster mode made it worse for her.

dirk: hal has been telling him for YEARRRRRRRRS that his carpal tunnel is just that, carpal tunnel. and yet. AR: Dirk, if you do not take better care of yourself, you are never going to be capable of building me a body of my own. TT: 1. I'm fine. 2. I'm not building you a body anyways, so the point is moot. anyways he accepts it during the game bc he's like you know what. might as well admit it to myself. good thing, too, because it only gets worse after a couple decapitations.

jake: has pretty much always known, deep down, but like. she lives on an ISLAND. the hell is he going to do about it? no, better not to think about it. someday they'll be able to deal with it, but that day isn't today, and theres so much to do. so he represses it DEEPLY. normal action hero jake english doesn't have chronic pain, of course. she's a heroic manly lead, after all... (the deconstruction of that mindset sort of makes them acknowledge it, though.)

ANYWAYS I JUST RAMBLED AT YOU FOR A COUPLE HUNDRED WORDS HOPE U HAVE, A GOOD DAY/NIGHT/WHAT EVER

YYAYYY no you're so good nonnie thank u forever and ever

[maguneedsalife]

T'zekhwalker - Final Zenos Fight

i spent so much time here it needed its own post. i'd be lying if i said this one scene wasn't a main reason i pushed t'zekh through the main story (the other was i wanted him to get to 90/get the rdm artifact gear so he could wear his canon glam but you know)

so, some background for folks who are new here: t'zekh was the main wol for stormblood. he was the one zenos became obsessed with, and he has spent most of endwalker trying to get zenos to leave him alone. he knows zenos desperately wants t'zekh to kill him--to come at him with fire and rage and bloodlust--but t'zekh refuses to kill anyone no matter how much they deserve it.

i had been waiting so long for t'zekh to be able to do this dialog choice and the answer i had envisioned for him actually changed from the time i did this with aoife. originally i'd thought he'd go with option 2, but by the time i got here, 3 was more his style.

which ended up being a good thing, because zenos's response to that answer was fucking perfect for t'zekh

small aside--it drove me bonkers back when spoiler embargo first lifted and ppl (mostly on twitter) were INSISTING that answer 1 was the only possible canon answer and if you picked any of the others you were clearly playing the game wrong. even despite yoshi p confirming that there was no "correct" answer and the team had tried to write it so that players could respond to zenos the way they felt best reflected their own character's experience. people were STILL out there like "sorry but if you didnt pick option 1 you're just wrong"

so to see the text validate my choice and my hcs so perfectly has me feeling vindicated in this chilis. it is okay for people to have a different experience of the game than you!!! (i'll get off my soapbox now)

option 3 was perfect for t'zekh because he is finally fed up enough with zenos that he's finally willing to cast aside his moral opposition to killing in order to make sure zenos can't hurt anyone else in his name.

and zenos caught on to that and responded in kind.

anyway then i took a fucktillion pictures in the instance (most of which i'll put on my wol blog)

it was so hard to get them in the same frame lmao

and then i did the solo fight! not too bad on red mage, surprisingly enough - was very thankful to have vercure though lmao

this punch is still just as satisfying the second time

On my way to the last credits sequence i learned that you will actually fuck up the music timing if you skip or speed up the credits. it was playing revenge twofold when it was supposed to be playing flow together. that was very jarring. i don't know why they haven't set it to just start playing flow together for that sequence. dont skip the credits folks

and that's a wrap! i uhhh might have abandoned him before finishing out the quest so i could go farm memoria misera with aoife but im very happy to have (technically) beaten Endwalker with him before the year ended, which was one of my goals.

I think I started main story with him in January, so it's taken me about a year to get through... mostly what set me back was i had to make time/build emotional strength to make progress through parts I knew would be difficult emotionally. But I committed to not to skipping any cutscenes and just pressing on through a second read, and I'm glad to have embarked on this journey.

as soon as i finished endwalker the first time i knew it was going to be equally aoife and t'zekh's story. they both ended up having stakes in the plot in different ways, and getting to play through and see things from t'zekh's perspective was so much fun.

i still keep thinking abt the version of the ending in my head, wherein t'zekh is lying at the edge of the universe and all he can think is "i want to live, dammit!!"

and he hears a voice calling out to him.

"there you are!" aoife shouts, "I was looking all over for you!"

T'zekh has spent so much of the story kind of in aoife's shadow, grappling with what it means to be a "hero" in his own way. he spent a lot of stormblood resenting her absence.

but by the end of endwalker… i think they end up really close friends

---

Next, it'll be Banri's turn.... skipping as many cutscenes as possible so i can get him through before Dawntrail!

[richardsphere]

Leverage Log: The San Lorenzo Job

OK, we're really switching to season-long setups now with the return of Manticore as a Plot-point. Not really a fan, I personally like shows where stuff can actually stand on its own to stay that way. It feels unfair to suddenly rely on the audience to start taking notes from previous episodes when you've trained them not to.

So now we know that there are 3 things to be stolen this episode: The Election/The Country itself (stuff the ballot boxes or hack the machines, possibly a Sophie Thing, grifting not a Person but a Country entirely), His Backup Gold and Diamonds (Big Parker Moment?) and the Manticore Servers (cause Leverage Consulting is not stupid enough to let that thing go out on the open market a second time. They learn from their mistakes. )

I guess there's a small chance they don't steal Manticore? In that they could also say "the servers will go on the open market after Moreau's take-down, and we'll just buy it with the money we steal from him" like he bought it after they stole it from Duberman, But that doesn't feel like how the Leverage Crew operates.

----

The Italian makes another appearance, "Damian Moreau will never leave San Lorenzo". Clearly a case of Exact Words 101, So of I'm right they're gonna turn his Shelter from extradition into his prison.

---

OK the heroes have all touched all the TV's in the electoral command center, which means they're now all Hardison-ed. Compromised, don't trust anything a TV shows in this episode.

---

So they're compromised (definitely not intentionally no-no this show would never make the bad guy think he knew what was going on to make the bad guy overconfident. They'd never do that /s)

But are you telling me Hardison hadnt hacked the stuff yet? Thats like the first thing he does? Normally... Normally its the first thing he does, i forgot about Manticore didnt I.

---

"How is a campaing promise different then a lie", come-on writers, tell us how you really feel!

----

What scandal could be worse then Sex or Corruption? Animal Cruelty, Puppies... You can tell the writers loved coming up with this as a plot.

Love the way that their chosen stooge absolutely despises them. Like Nate is not a nice guy and this is a genuinely good person forced to work with Nate at his sober-est.

---

The way that Sophie tells the poor guy exactly how she's gonna manipulate him with the handshake, then proceeds to do it.

---

And the team is back at what they do best biochemical warfare, Nothing these guys cant accomplish by drugging the heck out of some people.

--- Oh jackbooted thugs with face concealing masks, in a show where the heroes are always disguising themselves as anyone and everything, shoot Shophie on camera? Yeah that was the plan, make it look like democracy is falling apart to get them in trouble with the UN watchdogs. Tell the Current President he can simply frame Moreau to clean his own hands... give him a nice retirement package... I can see Nate's angle.

---

So yeah, play your enemies against eachother, steal an election, Sophie's face is going to be on the money now. Sophie grifting so hard she makes a president feels like a good enough Big Sophie Moment. So they didnt steal Manticore, just imprisoned the owner and then had it become a San Lorenzo Government Property (which is now an actual democracy).

No big parker moment... kind of sad, but having Parker steal all his gold off-screen feels like the most Parker way to steal. the simple "yeah she's good enough we dont even need to show the audience" is Parker enough for Parker. even if the 2-part finale didnt give her a "moment" the finale didnt need it.

[cool-blu3]

the only thing i hear when people say shit like 'oh people just forget how bad trump was' is how comfortable they have been able to feel over the past four years. like good to just have that confirmation that we really are not and have not been on the same page. just fuck y'all.. watching biden get elected was like watching the world dissociate. it felt like waking up (still) in hell and watching everybody suddenly act normal. the people who have been feeling safe and cozy for four years just because the president has been wearing a blue tie are fucking ridiculous.. things did not get better. people did not get safer. the world did not get kinder. the trans genocide blossomed beautifully under his watch. as did covid. we fucking lost abortion. like soooo so sorry but i've actually been having a WORSE time during this presidency?? student loans payments resumed. ???? during a FUCKING genocide???? personally, watching the democrats allow our human rights to CONTINUE to come under fire so that they will CONTINUE to need urgent protection.. actually has been the opposite of an encouraging respite from concern for me!!! it demolished any hope i had of feeling safe under this government. we just watched them DO NOTHING!! ON PURPOSE!! SO WE WOULD STILL NEED THEM!! and watching people fucking SWALLOW ALL OF THAT and NOT PAY ATTENTION because the government is Blue Team now has been. beyond horrifying. i think it's really fucking stupid of people to act like trump was soooo much worse honestly, i think it speaks deeply to somebody's privilege and relationship to power if they're able to gain that much comfort from a biden presidency. ITS LIKE. they just spent four years watching us die. doing the bare fucking minimum to even slow that down. so that they could mobilize us based on fear. and y'all are lining up to say thank you daddy biden for holding the gun to my head. stupid. foolish. short sighted. i hope you had a fun 4 years tho!! hope you felt so calm and comforted by the blue president tho!! while the vulnerable people in your communities were getting ostracized and killing themselves or getting taken from their tents in the night and shoved on a bus and shipped out of state with nothing i hope you felt super safe!!! while trans people are fucking becoming refugees in this country right here that we live in, while it becomes more and more difficult to just exist in public... yeah but i hope that you felt soooooooo fucking safe. good for you. I DIDNT THOUGH. i spent the better part of this presidential term suicidal, i had to stop speaking to my family because they didn't care, and i had to flee my own chosen community and support systems not once, but twice.

so. i just think it's a fucking stupid thing to say. if you felt safer while biden was president then good for you i guess but fucking check yourself. don't ask me to care about your sense of safety if that safety is dependent on feeding me to the dogs so everyone else is scared enough to vote blue. you clearly so not care whether anybody else has felt safe the past 4 years why should i give a fuck about you.

[bedeion-legion]

oh yall already KNOW that the original sun/moon games are far superior in my mind

usum completely undermined the depth behind lillie and ESPECIALLY gladion's whole reason for being the way that they are. im gonna be focusing on gladion since thats my blorbo, i know him the best outta the two.

gladion often gets mistaken for being edgy and not much else. surface level? sure, hes dramatic and a bit rude. crucially, though, is that he really isnt if you take a look at him with a closer eye.

the whole reason why he has so much apparent bite for no apparent reason is because *hes literally on the run from his abusive parent*. hes a teenager who deeply cares about pokemon. when he found out about silvally, he couldnt let it continue suffering in the dark. he HAD to help it. and for that he had to run from the only home he had. he didnt even get to say goodbye to his little sister. hell i doubt he had any time to grab much in the form of pocket money or necessities.

his very strong love and compassion for the world around him is what led him to take such a colossal risk at an age where he couldnt have POSSIBLY seen the actions of his consequences, and hes clearly hurt by it. he built up walls around him in the form of a tough persona as a means of survival. plus, considering everything he had to go through, he wouldnt exactly be in a great place mentally. honestly, hes probably holding back a lot of his bite since, contrary to his initial appearance, he doesnt like people get hurt by what he says and does for not even doing anything themselves. hes just... scared. hes on the run for doing something completely selfless and justified, and he has pretty much nothing except team skull when he run into him.

AND YET, DESPITE ALL THAT, HE STILL GOES OUT OF HIS WAY TO TREAT HIS POKEMON THE BEST HE POSSIBLY CAN. DESPITE BUILDING THAT EMOTIONAL DIVIDE WITHIN HIMSELF, HE COULD NEVER STOP CARING HEAVILY FOR THINGS.

honestly him being snippy at the mc and haus probably a testament to him yknow being a teenager living alone having to sustain not only himself, but his pokemon as well. hes jaded to life at this point and already has to deal with team skulls antics on the daily. guys got more pressing things to worry about than a couple of kids who are annoyed at team skull grunts causing trouble.

AND ALL THAT. ALL THAT GETS FUCKING TOSSED ASIDE IN USUM. because now lusamine is chill and cool and normal actually hahaha!!

all of the nuance of gladions character that i just described is gone. his entire reason for being on the run? not really all that prevalent anymore, in USUM he pretty much bounces for teenager reasons. he BECOMES the more shallow caricature of edge that people tend to see him as. its not like his SM counterpart isnt entirely void of edge, like obviously the guys still a teenager who dresses Like That. He just now almost entirely lacks the background and depth his character had in the original games. he honestly becomes a parody of himself, and as someone who clearly holds gladion and his characterization close in my heart, its disappointing beyond belief.

hell, this doesnt even begin to touch into how USUM screws up a lot of the writing for lillie's trauma and later arc. you can criticize SM for a LOT of different reasons, but the aether foundation and especially the aether family are very well-written (less-so mohn, but to be fair hes pretty disconnected to the story once he gets eeby-deeby'd through the ultra-beast realm). the reason why i care about these damn kids so much is the fact that their trauma and how it shapes and shows in them is really well done. it makes me CARE for these characters, yknow?

so.. yeah. as cool as i think zeraoura is as a pokemon, both design-wise and concept-wise, it doesnt save USUM from being really disheartening to me as someone whos a very big fan of the original aether foundation plotline (as well as an enjoyer of the anime, as its kind of its own thing that isnt really either storylines? it has silly goofy lusamine, but still keeps elements of trauma and the darker themes of SM, largely through the use of Faba as a character, which i use a lot more in my own AU for the gen).

i wish we had just gotten the extra content within USUM without messing up the storyline so much (hell, i wouldve loved a bigger touch on the trial captains. instead of goofing up the aether foundation storyline which was already really good, they couldve touched on those characters who ACTUALLY needed more characterization within the games, like they did with the anime).

ok legion its 7am and i havent slept and im expected to be up at a decent time so im logging off now, enjoy my insane ramblings. perhaps one day i shall return to feed whatever scraps are left of this little niche of a niche pocket of the fandom ive found myself in

[amilliontales]

She sighed, a disapproving gaze only partially hidden by her hair as she glanced at him over her shoulder. He'd been endless trouble, more so since receiving his task and getting worse by the year. It seemed he'd allowed his ego to flourish beyond what should reasonably be allowed, and lorded himself over others as a result.

It was an affront to the clean and polite, well-respected image they had been working so hard to establish and maintain, keeping things comfortable for the dearly departed while also ensuring they kept to a strict behavioural standard and didn't strife among themselves.

Meanwhile Adam was cavorting around in the streets being openly crude, vulgar and suggestive in ways that distinctly ruffled her feathers.

"It would behoove you to take note of your fellow souls and follow their fine example for once. You may have the prestige of having been the first, but be sure that your continued disrespect will not be allowed to stand regardless."

He would do well to remember he was not untouchable here. || Sera to Adam

Adam was paying no attention to Sera as they made their way down the pristine streets, his focus torn between the occasional passerby and the drink in his hand. He didn't like Sera. Though to be fair he didnt really like anyone outside of his own team. He respected her well enough, she was his supervisor for lack of a better word and her rank and position didn't leave a lot of room for doubt. Which is why when she requested his company to have a little chat he went along with it without complaining. But man, he hated this.

Even the silence that stretched between them was irritating. Clearly she'd had something to say, why force him to drag this out. Was it supposed to seem nice? like they were just taking a little stroll or some shit? Did she think he was too stupid to know what she thought of him by now? What heaven thought of him. Yet all he could do was focus on his drink and avoid looking her way until she deigned to address him.

"…" And there it was. Fuck but that annoyed him to much. He was the same person he was before he landed in heaven. But clearly he was good enough when he showed up here, and he has the same mouth and habits now he did back then. If anything Heaven changed around him, and now he seemed like the odd one out. But what was he going to say to someone who he already knew didn't give a shit about anything but keeping her image clean and as separate as possible from him. He'd just be dismissed and rebuffed, so fuck them and what they think.

"Yeah yeah, I got it."

Bitch.

[haven-gum-rockrose]

Dazai Character Playlist Elaboration: The Good in Me by Jon Bellion

overall its about him taking three steps back in his moral redemption every time hes around the port mafia, or reminded of his time there probably. It happened when he was taunting akutagawa in captivity(the main one), and though he didnt really do anything substantial, his mannerisms clearly reflect it when isolated by Higuchi and Gin, when he locks the door under the premise of torturing Kouyou, when speaking to Mori during the ADA and Port Mafia meeting, even to a lesser extent whenever he meets up with Ango. .... oddly enough this doesnt happen when he’s around Chuuya or Hirotsu but that’s neither here nor there. 

first verse: 

You know that he trusts you and I know that he loves you But somehow you convinced me again My foundation rumbles and all my morals crumble My father's warnings run through my head

okay to start this off. ignore the pronouns, i do a lot of fuckery. they dont matter. 

In this verse the context is Dazai after allowing himself to be captured by the Port Mafia. And the first line obviously is referring to Akutagawa and the way Dazai knows full well how much Akutagawa idolizes and reveres and values his opinion and shit and how easily he can fucking wreck his mental state with a couple words. 

I always interpret the second line in the context of Dazai’s tendency to rationalize shit - like he needed to provoke Akutagawa to get him to eventually team up with Atsushi, it was the easiest way to do that, yada yada. tho we know full well that there were other ways to get those two teaming up, especially for genius ass Dazai. (Alternatively interpreted by my own belief that all of this is to some extent set up by Mori to either taunt him, or throw him off his redemption game enough that he does eventually consider coming back so the you could be referring to him cuz i wouldn’t put it above that slimy asshole)

But again, when he’s in the port mafia basement or whatever, and the kid he fucking abused is right in front of him and its familiar and all from the past, i think its a lot more natural for him to slip into old mindsets and let go of all the progress he’s made just for that moment, instead going for the simplest coldest option. 

yeah- father’s warnings is referring to Oda’s last dying wish actually.. and here Dazai is mentally abusing an orphan again. 

chorus!

Your heart's a vine that I've bled trying to climb Yeah, you're making a ruin of me Try to survive, keep my spirit alive But like a knife in the woods Yeah, you hunt down the good in me

ignore “your heart,” we’re substituting it for his search for a will to live. alternatively could be referring to him trying to be better in general cuz like- with his bad track record before everything theres no way it’s fucking easy for him.

eh, i dont look into that lyric too much, just ruining his efforts and shit

third line!!! look at it!!! i dont need to explain

next two lines just vaguely refer to the port mafia idk. 

NEXT VERSE!!!

One temptation sparked this Now I can feel the darkness It's my own fault but you had this planned All of me, you take now, like criminals and shakedowns Yeah, you make me forget who I am

first two lines - obviously  its the temptation to abuse an orphan. what else would it be?? its one of them like- yeah ur soul is port mafia black things where he just cant facking escape it. its always gonna be in the corner of his mind, just sometimes more all consuming than others. 

Now of course it is Dazai doing these things, and for someone as good at manipulating and being in control of himself, 100% guaruntee that he does consciously choose to act this way. its not a “aur naur the memories, they are invading my consiousness and moral brain and forcing me to be mean to people and act like i did when i was eeeevil.” yeah it is porbably a trauma thing but not to the extent that he couldn’t stop it if he chose to. “But you had this planned” is again part of my belief that Mori is at least somewhat intentional abou this. it could also be the universe. his whole “i am a man hated by righteousness” and .. i forget the line but ‘everything worth wanting is lost the moment i obtain it’ thing. 

fourth line! yeah. criminals and shakedowns is enough. and ive rambled about the first bit enough as well. 

fifth line refers more to who he has become, who he swore to be and is trying to be, etc. etc.

then the chorus repeats twice. so theres not much more to analyze

there is a little third verse but its just the repeated echo-y background chanting of “All of your good is mine” which if you wanted to take it far, which i tend to do, it could be of the belief that everything good about Dazai came from Oda actually. Or ykno- the taunting voice of the dead that lingers in the back of your mind. idk. 

but yeah thats this song. 

[introloves]

@virgoamajiki: hhnngggg no thoughts just boxer!bokuto fucking you senseless after seeing the other boxer he was supposed to fight that night flirting w/ u just to rile him up and throw him off his game.

— soft dom! bokuto + boxer! bokuto + mentions of harassment in the beginning + overstimulation / dumbification + size kink + comfort + praise + breath play + squirting + fluffy end + bokuto calls reader ‘puppy’ + f! reader

— word count; approx 2.6k

— part of my boxerverse! bokuto: one shot no. 1

he can’t blink back the images of you during the fight. the near deafening roars of his name all fadded into nothingness as he stalked towards his opponent- bokuto was dead set on putting him down.

the prick had really managed to get under his skin at the weigh in, picking you out- pointing directly at you and asking why you didn’t hop on over, he said you’d be better taken care of.

you’d sat there, wide eyed, clearly scared and taken back by his words. you only spared him a glance. instead turning with wide eyes at your boyfriend, now scared for the other man. frantic eyes shot up to look for his own- it was clear what you wanted, you looked scared and your face held a look that said;

“bo, please don’t.”

and usually, that look would disarm him completely- but not now- not now when he can see the way your eyes watered and lips trembled at the words.

he is sorry for not looking at you right away, sorry for not giving you the comfort you need-

but he’s not sorry for lunging over to the other side, barreling straight past staff that looked minuscule compared to his towering form. microphones clashing onto the floor with clear intent.

it’s complete chaos, bokutos manager grabbing him, holding him back down onto the seat, hissing in his ear that he’ll have a chance to go at him, “in the ring.”

you sit, dazed by the clamor and rapid snapping of cameras that bathe the two of you like a shower of pure light.

but he sits back down, hand clamped over your thigh, squeezing you, using your body as a stress ball. he can’t even look at his opponent, amber eyes focused on nothing more than your trembling knee- koutarou truly thinks he might kill him.

-

when he finally enters the ring, it doesn’t take long for the bastard to get dropped. its almost comical how short the match ends— usually bokuto would have put a little more show into it, letting him take a couple of hits before handling it, dragging it out to fluff his ego, showing everyone that he was the king, but not now.

as soon as his opponent is down, spread out on the white canvas- he steps once towards the body— pushed away by the referee in panic with the way he looms over him a little longer than necessary. the referee looking over at his teams side, shoving him back into his corner before calling the end of the match.

he lets his body get shoved into his corner, scoffing at the way the man lays there... pathetic.

bokuto doesnt even react to the roars of the crowd- walks past his team and into the locker rooms.

it feels like it takes forever to get back to you, normally you’d be at the ringside, but for this round he didn’t want you there and you not being able to do that, especially for a fight like this has you on edge. waiting for your koutarou to come home. the tension is almost suffocating when you finally hear the door slam closed.

you know hes not mad at you, thats not who the shake of the house is directed at. bokuto has always been a gentle giant with you— an overexcited, loving, and sweet giant.

he walks straight into the room, tugging off his shirt, shorts, leaving a trail of clothes as he makes a beeline right to you. there’s a deep want, need to have you, it feels like someone’s pressing down onto his chest- a tight ball of... anger and fear swirling around there.

it softens when he see’s you though, cuddled up on the bed, eyes lidded as you smile at him, welcoming him home. when he touches you, your body still warm from an almost sleep, he feels the sharp edges of anger melt away. there was no need for him to angry or scared at the words his opponent had thrown your way- he wasn’t the one about to fuck you to sleep... but the small tingle of fear and anger didn’t leave him completely.

“baby.” you murmur, hands outstretched to bring him into your space, the big body of his instantly melting down to your form, elbows perched on either side of your head- trapping you completely in.

“saw you drop him... first round.” voice heavy with lust and want, he was so strong and powerful and all yours. legs drop down onto the bed to let him in, ready for him, waiting for him.

“yeah, had to.” bokuto responds back, whispering it against your lips before he kisses you, licking into your mouth with heavy strokes of his tongue, all but tracing his name onto the front of your teeth.

“he scared you didnt he?” he growls, hissing at the way your heat wiggles to find his cock. bokuto shifts to hold the weight of his upper body on just one arm, slipping a hand down to tug your bottoms off.

“mhm.” you whimper back, gripping onto his shoulders, body jerking with every pull.

“did you see how i took care of him, pretty thing?” kou spits, pulse quickening at the wetness that meets his knuckle, trailing the back of his hand up your cunt before slipping a finger against your folds, splitting them open to briefly glance at your exposed pussy.

“fuck- course you did, thats why you’re so wet, huh?”

you cant really say anything, because he was right- seeing him knock that man out with one punch, straight to the jaw, sent heat flooding through your veins, proof of it formed in the shape of pure slick painting the outside of your cunt, between your thighs, pooling in your bottoms. its kinda silly, he knows what he does to you, knows you love watching him in his element, eyes hardened and face laxed in total concentration and an air of cockiness to him when he steps in the ring. he knows you love it, cause you’re always drooling into your panties when he comes to you after a match.

“real wet.” he marvels once more, sinking a finger all the way down to the knuckle and all you can do in response is open your legs wider, tilting yourself up to show him how ready and receptive you were for him.

“good girl.” his voice is tight and low- something like a growl with the way you move against his one finger. its enough to snap the string of self restraint he had, pure unbridled energy bouncing off him as he departs from you- just for a second, to kiss you harshly.

its a mix of tongue, spit, and teeth- strings of your passion still hanging from between the two as he leans back to look at your form, wiggling around in need of him.

its okay, he thinks, he’ll give you what you want.

and he does, doesn’t take long for him to grab the base of his thick and heavy cock, letting it slap against your cunt a couple times before squeezing the head of him inside- nice and snug. it makes him lightheaded, he cant think of anything but you- a fever crawls up his sculpted back, a need to just sink in and fuck you silly, but he wants something from you first.

“who do you belong to puppy?” he inquires gruffly, not moving an inch, watching the way you blink up at him through tears.

“w-what?” its sudden, your sweet and kind bo almost never talked like this in bed, it makes you salivate, a heat flushing down your back.

“c’mon- tell me who you belong to.” he hisses once more, splaying one of his big, strong, veiny hands across your chest, pushing down- locking you against the bed.

he still hasn’t moved, and the fluttering of your pussy down on the head of his dick makes him grunt- muscled stomach tensing with each one. he comes back to you- a little softer in the way his words sound, carrying that sweetness you know and love.

“please, tell me you’re mine.” he whispers, moving the hand that had you pinned down up towards your neck, rough callouses rubbing against the soft and sensitive skin there.

its a juxtaposition of kind, vulnerable words mixing in with the harsher movements of his strong hand curling against your airway, frantic in the need to hear it from you.

you know what he needs, and you’re more than happy to comply, wanting nothing more than to make him feel better. your hand moves up to wrap around his wrist, pulling him in close, eyes burning with hot tears forming there at the lack of blood- but you continue, till the next words are all but hissed, high and tight.

“yours, i’m all yours koutarou, my king.”

there isn’t anything he could have done to prepare for that, he stutters, chokes on the lust heavy in his chest, he feels like there’s molten want dripping down his veins- swirling into a tight ball at the pit of his stomach.

all he can do is rear back, hips lifting off you, popping the head of him out and you nearly whine, nearly ask him whats wrong before he slams down in one hard and desperate stroke, catching the skin of your cunt harshly, but its okay- there would have been no way you’d survive in a relationship with him if you didn’t like a little pain.

when his hips make contact with your cunt, puffy lips giving him cushion- he grinds down, smashing your clit down against his pubes.

eyes shut tight, a choked sob tumbling from your lips in response, head teetering back onto the bed.

“koutarou! fuck! fuck!” words high and staccato-ed are echoed out into the room, he feeds off the broken syllables of his name tumbling from your lips.

he looks at you while he squeezes his fingers against the thrum of your quickened pulse underneath his hand- watching your eyes roll back, the whites of them on clear display as lips part, a silent scream painted onto the moments of your face-

the bed groans, creaks with each crushing thrust he gives you, drilling you down into the bed.

“keep saying my name puppy, keep saying it.” he grunts looking at you with a feverish and concentrated gaze, affected in how well you stroke his ego, chest feeling incredibly full, the prickle of his orgasm starts, but there was /no/ way he’d come before his baby.

the hand that wasn’t wrapped around your throat sweeps down your arching body until his thumb finds your twitching clit- immediately pressing down on it with enough force that his thumb turns white. it rips a scream straight from the center of your chest and your body starts seizing up.

he huffs out a laugh when he sees the way your hips cant up off the bedding- it nearly pushes him back, but he stays unwavering, following the movement of your spasming body.

“koutarou!” his name leaves your mouth in the form of a wail while he batters your cunt, you don’t even know you’re moving the way you are- hands falling to rest pitifully against your head.

“ah- that’s my girl.” bokuto beams, seeing the splash of your cum arch all the way up to hit his tummy- abs glistening with every contraction as his hips drill into you- he gives in, taking the thumb that had been squeezing your clit down onto your body and sticking it into his mouth, watching you with lidded eyes as he licks the cum off his hand, all while keeping your neck pinned down and chasing the frantic movements of your hips.

there’s no immediate reaction from you when he picks up your legs- weak with the strain you’ve put them under, and folds them up to your chest.

the only thing you do is intake a lungful of air, dazed eyes looking up at him- not knowing how he got so close to your face.

it’s the first slap of his heavy balls against your ass that makes you come back from it all-

“p-please!!” you cry, eyes wide. the force of him still pistoning into you makes your body bounce off the shaking bed, and thanks to the squirting orgasm he fucked out of you with his thick cock- building a near searing sensitivity into the walls of your cunt and clit, you cum once more. it’s the final break into a headspace that has you twitch and flail your legs, wiggling against the hold of his arms.

“yeah- good girl.” bokuto grits out, a bead of sweat drips off his face onto your own, and thankfully- it’s what he needs to cum. his eyes are frantic as he watches you- swollen lips, face turned relaxed as you squeeze down around him, looking like the image of fucked stupid.

with the a final resounding smack of his hips into you, his cock jumps, swelling, growing snug inside you before he dumps an almost obscene amount of cum into you.

small twitches of your body lets him know you feel it, his head falls down to land against your chest, keeping you folded as he grits his teeth.

it takes rapid, hard blinks of his eyes to not let tears fall down onto his face. he’s shaky as he finally sits back up, making sure to bring your thighs down gently.

“kou-“ you choke out, looking for him-

he responds by finding your limp hands, still lying up by your head- slotting thick fingers and broad hands into your own.

“‘m right here.” koutarou nearly wheezes out, still reeling from an orgasm that he can still feel.

“that felt good.” your voice is airy and sweet- pitchy and laced with love.

for the second time that night- he laughs, shaking his head while he slips his softened cock out of you.

he picks you up, scooping your trembling form into swollen muscles- keeping you nice and tight against a hard torso.

“you make me feel good.” he whispers into your hair, not caring about the trail of hot cum that leaks out of your fucked out cunt, trails of it running down his leg while he places you on his chest, laying the both of you down.

holding you tight like this, sweat mingling together, residue of cum and tears painting eachothers bodies- he knows there was nothing he should have ever been worried about.

he didn’t have to worry about protecting or loosing you- bodies intertwined, locked into one another proved that you took care of him, gentle hands tracing your name onto the skin of his chest.

“i’m all yours koutarou.” you whisper, nearly falling into the heaviness of sleep.

he once again blinks back the need to cry- he could take all the punches in the world, not even blink, but he was so weak for you.

“yeah... i’m all yours too.” his voice is tender, shaky with emotion, arms squeezing around you tight.

he really was.

[empty-blog-for-lurking]

@headspacedad

First of all thank you so much!!! Ngl creepy and dark really arent my strongest strengths so this genuinely means a lot to me. I just am really really fascinated with idea of the scars remaining. The Empire ruled the universe for 10,000 years, our written history is younger than that, humanity was still living in caves during that time. Like? That is genuinely a lot of time for nothing but war and colonization and suffering and genocide. Pain like that can not be ignored, whether it be in the shape of empty planets with long forgotten pasts, ruins still intact and abandoned and forgotten, or corpses of every being from the sentient species to the wildlife, of the plants and insects even the microorganisms like bacteria that causes the bodies to rot who died when their planet was destroyed.

(And just imagine Coran who is the only person alive who was there 10000 years ago when Altea was destroyed. Imagine him setting foot and seeing Altea in any of the above three states, each equally as devastating and horrifying as the other. Coran is an old man who has outlived his family and his friends and his people and his planet and his daughter figure and knowing how little humans live compared to Alteans, he's going to outlive his human friends too)

Second of all, agreed on Monsantos saying crap things in interviews, and i dont know if it is me and Monsantos being completely different people, because honestly? So much of the characterization, ideas, and concepts that interest me the most in vld are the ones that were never really explored, written on accident, or just werent supposed to interpretated the way i interpret them

Like for eg, Hunk, one of the first things that stood out to me about him was that yeah he is kind and he is nervous, but also he doesnt trust anyone he doesnt know easily (he didnt initially trust the lions, that episode with Rolo) And he can be insensitive (Keith Galra reveal and him making fun of Lance's very very serious crush on Allura) and also has a tendency to disregard personal space. Now the last bit i know wasnt really meant to be Hunk scene as much as it was to set up Pidge's backstory, because if it were it would have come up.

But the point is when i look at this i see an actually a complex and interesting character who is very much more than a fatphobic comic relief and gentle giant than he was portrayed as, and someone who could have had a much bigger role in the story he was given (i for one think it should have been him who should have had discovered Lotor's truth and it should have happened because he never trusted Lotor and so decided to investigate him. Seriously are you telling me he went all "Yeah, he's cool, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯" about a guy who has tried to murder the team multiple times? Like i am sorry but even Lotor had a plot armour almost as thick as Keith)

Similarly i am very interested why different aliens cultures seem to have different types of quintessence magic despite the source being same, and why humans who despite living in that universe dont seem to have any inclination towards quintessence (something that seems to be life itself), and how would it look if they Were able to use it.

I am interested in Zarkon who says he loved Honerva, says he did all of this for Honerva, maybe even did love Honerva or atleast believed himself to love Honerva, but also let her do experiments that were clearly killing her and than proceed to lie to her about her own identity for 10,000 years because this gave him power and control

I am interested in the Space Whale and the altean colony and how it showed Keith future and how it means it most likely also shown Lotor future as well. Are Lotor's actions a result of some future he saw? A danger he decided needed sacrifices to prevent only to lead to his doom in a Greek Tragedy style? Could he have seen Honerva's rampage or is there another danger that has yet to come? (Also there's very likely chance that all the Alteans with Mark of Chosen are dead. It seems to be a genetic thing and Lotor went for all the Alteans with high quintessence which is linked to the Mark of Chosen. Soooo yeah. Oriadne if it was revived is very likely closed for good)

And just so many things i could go on about that interest me but clearly didnt interest the EPs. Maybe they didnt do it cause they didnt have the time to explore them (this show did 8 seasons in 2 years after all) maybe they didnt do it cause they simply werent interested in it. But yeah i am paying close attention to Monsantos ideas cause so many of them can be good, but also simply do not care for what they have actually do have to say.

Ok so i dont particularly care about what monsantos have to say about vld especially after it ended but i still think about LM saying Allura only brought back those who died during Haggar's tantrum and "planets which died before their time and not the life on it" (or along those lines. I think it was in the interview after the show ended? Someone made a post detailing it). Like i dont know about you all, but i found the idea absolutely fascinating in a morbid way.

Cause like maybe they come back as completely empty. The planets and their landmasses come back intact, rejuvinated, but not even a whisper of the lives that once lived. The planets are back but they lay bare, even the memory of life upon it now long dead. They have potential to nourish life, but what is the point? When there is no life, no beings to be nourished. These planets came back empty shells, with their children long dead and forgotten.

Or maybe they come back as they died. Maybe their soil is deep and rich, only in the way forest soil can be, maybe there are islands made up of what used to be bones of corals. Maybe there are well trodden paths, leveled lands, diverted rivers, and mined grounds. Maybe there are empty buildings, unused roads, abandoned items of every day use, each telling a story of life that once lived but the pages are long torn and the pictures have faded. Planets which were scarred and loved by the unique life that lived on it, but the beings that did that have long since been dead. These planets come back as ruins, still haunted by its inhabitants.

Or maybe (and i am going full SCP 2935 here) the life does come back, but dead. They had been dead for thousands of years but now there are bodies here waiting to be buried. They do not rot, because decay itself needs life and everything on that planet is dead and has been dead for a long time. Frozen in time, to see them is to come face to face with the devastation brought, because it is much harder to deny personhood of a fresh corpse, than of stories and ruins and fossils. No one is left to mourn them, to remember them, to hold a funereal because everyone that could died with them. These planets come back as graveyards and memorials, holding the grim proof of what was taken from them.

[actualbird]

Oh god!

I really love the poly headcanons they are so sweet.... (or don't but that's part of it and i think the tot boys+MC deserve all the love the world has to give).

But, liking it or not, our 4 beloved boys are kinda complicated (that's what makes them perfect). Plus I never thought about how people get in poly relationships. So i was thinking, how do you think they all get into a polyrelationship together?

(I really have no idea of how that would happen)

hi, two anons!! im glad you guys liked my nxx team polycule stuff!! i'll answer these in one go, my "headcanon" (in quotes because i think this kinda turned into a character analysis/minific of sorts HAHA) being what first anon asked, How They Get Together.

heads up, wc of this is 1.9k words long so buckle up for a bit of a read jfsjdfkjbf

because first anon, youre right!!! the boys are stupendously complicated which i love so so much but canon has also shown us clearly that each of the boys' quirks and habits and tendencies causes a lot of (mostly played for laughs) friction. the bickering, the backhanded insults, the "im the best one here" preening contests. theyre all SOOOO RIDICULOUS and it is hilarious but yep! the boys r complex!! and that means this beautiful ship, imo, has a lot of phases to get to the actual romantic relationship bit.

how they get together, in my opinion, starts because of mc.

not in the sense that she matchmakes them all, but like.

phase 1 of the nxx team polycule is this:

through being in love with her (which we all know the boys 100% are), each of the boys come to terms with their own flaws and weaknesses. it's very apparent to me in all the story thus far that these boys are flawed as hell, it's very compelling but even more compelling to me is how all of them also do intense mental gymnastics to Not Confront Those Flaws. like, marius is a dickbag always teasing and toeing the line of insincerity, vyn is a controlling mf who always tries to sway situations to his benefit, artem is so repressed to the point that he has genuine trouble with emotions, luke is a self sacrificial bastard and also a huge hypocrite about how no, actually, hes the only one that should be hiding his pain and being dishonest, no dishonesty from other people!! in the beginning of the story, all the boys have their flaws and seem to have just kinda...not addressed how those flaws are harming them and the people around them.

and then mc rolls around and they all fall in love with her. and she sees those flaws and she doesnt let them slide. she challenges the boys in her own ways to see another side of the situation, to acknowledge what theyre doing. she doesnt want to get rid of flaws, thats impossible and also not cool. she just has this beautiful hope for like, all of humanity, that goodness can prevail with the right work. so when she sees her beloved nxx boys, she believes that for them as well.

which leads to phase 2 of the nxx team polycule:

the boys, more aware of themselves, become more aware of each other.

they werent Unaware of the others of course. it's just that they didnt like...truly connect on a personal level just yet. they saw the other teammembers with their emotional armor and flaws and saw a wall that wasnt worth looking past.

but after mc makes them realize that hey, flaws arent the end of the world actually, it's alright and the person behind them may just be worth it, the boys like. end up understanding the others. A LOT OF THIS BIT IS UNINTENTIONAL, ON THEIR PARTS KJDSBFS. like they stumble into understanding each other by accident, they didnt plan it, but over the course of nxx investigations, it's inevitable that they end up seeing the depths of the others. i delve into this a little bit in my fanfic "filler eps of the lost gold" where the boys are just going thru their actions and then trip over another boy's fears or desires and through that, gain a deeper understanding mutually.

and with understanding, sometimes, comes trust.

phase 3 of the nxx team polycule goes like this:

everybody in this team, whether they like it or not, whether they know it or not, has a heart that wants to give love so desperately.

marius lives in a world full of snakes so he cant have his heart on his sleeve for his own protection. vyn wants to be seen as perfect and the heart is inherently messy so he holds it back. artem for a very very long time was focused on work and success and achievement that he neglected his heart. and luke has been giving love all his life in a sense but in a way thats hidden.

all these tendencies that are brought upon their life circumstances results in this: they want to love honestly but they havent been able to do this

until mc. and all of them want to push back whatever fears or patterns their life has instilled in them because they see her and see somebody so unwaveringly good that all their hearts begin giving love to her to make her happy and to make themselves happy as well.

but heres the thing. the boys dont just see mc. by this point, they have connected and understood and come to trust each other as well, and the consequence of that is that They Can See Each Other Now Too, Truly.

and heres the thing. all of the boys are unwaveringly good as well.

one by one, each of the boys realize that what they feel for the other boys in the team starts to...change. yeah theyre all friends, they pick on each other a lot of the time, but the bedrock of the relationship is solid and strong now. but when marius is with luke, marius sees a light inside of luke so bright that he seems unaware that he gives off. when artem is with vyn, artem sees a goodness inside of vyn that hesitates to make itself obvious and known because vyn is scared of getting hurt thanks to it. all of them see the other and their goodness and, unbidden, their hearts want to give love to each other as well.

and because theyre all a bit stupid in their own way theyre like, huh, weird! wonder why this feeling is so familiar! and yet i cant seem to name it...and then they all independently compare these feeling with the feelings they have for mc, a feeling they do know the name of, and theyre like.

WAIT.

THESE FEELINGS ARE...VERY BASICALLY EXACTLY WHAT I FEEL FOR MC.

which only means one thing: theyve fallen in love with everybody else

marius: //goes to his studio to Think and sees that a bunch of his recent art actually had little crumbs of these feelings already, etched into the brushstrokes and scenes. has an emotional crisis about it

vyn: //records a 1 hour long entry in his audio diary to examine and gain control of his feelings but by the end of the hour all he knows is that he wants to hold these people and be held by them

artem: //quite literally just bluescreens, artem.exe has stopped working, sits at his study and slowly, slowly, thunks his head down onto his desk, valiantly trying to ignore the fast pulse of his heart

luke: //manically vents about it to peanut who, by virtue of being a bird, doesnt get it. just keeps talking at peanut to get a grasp of it all and then lies down on the floor, overwhelmed

mc, sitting in her apartment watching some netflix: ...why do i inexplicably feel as if something very, very important has just happened?

phase 4 of the nxx team polycule is basically:

pining: extreme difficulty level

because pining is already hard when ur pining for one person. what more for an additional 3 more people. and those additional 3 more people are pining back.

and all these boys are SOOOO OBVIOUS with their romantic feelings, in their own special way. the way they show their affection to mc starts to bleed into their interactions with the others and everybody can CLEARLY SEE WHAT IS GOING ON, LOL, but also all the boys are too chickenshit to confront it, because if they confront it, what will even happen??? being in love with each other, all of them, thats going to be such a complicated fucking relationship, holy shit. it's 2030, yeah, being a polyamorous group relationship isnt completely unheard of, but sue them, theyre scared.

but mc (who i forgot to mention already knows of the boys' romantic feelings for her, shes just hasnt made a move yet on any of them because SHES IN LOVE WITH ALL OF THEM AS WELL and shes been trying to figure out how the hell to make that work, she cant bear to choose just one of them, she'd be heartbroken over leaving the rest of them behind) sees that the nxx investigation team is now all pining for each other FULLY and she kinda wants to laugh when she realizes whats going on because like, what are the chances? that this would happen? that they all found each other and their feelings fell into just the right place for nobody to be left behind?

theyre all scared, she can tell. and she is as well, she wont lie.

but shes always had a belief that goodness can prevail with the right work.

and love is one of the greatest goods out there.

phase 5 of the nxx team polycule:

It's Time For Communication, Baby!!!!!

the exact scenes of how this happens is a bit vague to me. it could go two ways: mc going to each of the boys independently to talk about feelings, hers about everybodys and his about everybodys as well. OR they have a fucking meeting about it all together and artem literally schedules it in his google calendar, or something.

either way, they like, actually talk about this. starts casual, maybe over a chill date, maybe over dinner at a nice restaurant, maybe over a walk in the park as the sun is starting to set. but where ever it happens, the end result is the same: a heart is laid out bare and it is taken in gentle, grateful hands.

marius: OKAY, NOW THAT THE FEELINGS ARE OUT OF THE WAY, CAN I PLEASE KISS ONE OR ALL OF YOU, PLEASE, IVE BEEN WANTING TO KISS U GUYS FOR FOREVER

vyn, laughing fondly: has anybody ever told you patience is a virtue? we quite literally just talked it all out.

marius: //needy whining noises

artem, embarrassed: ive...never kissed anybody before

luke, embarrassed but trying to play it Cool: ....same here

mc: kissing is great, you two will love it!

marius: awesome, awesome, so is ANYBODY going to give me a go ahead or WHAT????

phase 6 of the nxx team polycule:

i dont want to say it's happily ever after, once they all get together. thats not really realistic.

they all have their quirks and tendencies and habits. and those will inevitable clash against each other. theyll have their arguments, theyll get upset, theyll sulk and be angry, sometimes. but also...

theyll see each other smile and feel like their love shining so brightly. theyll reach out for another's hand and be held in such a way that makes them think that their heart is in a safe place. theyll love each other and theyll put in the work to continue loving each other. because goodness will prevail.

and they all see each other as the most good people in the world.

so whatever happens, theyll get through it together.