#also the letters help???? season finales gonna be insane

[bumpscosity]

damn amity wasted NO time being gay good for her good for her

[wosowrites]

Into the Closet (Guro Reiten x Reader)

warnings: smut

prompt: in which you and Guro play for opposition teams and sneak off after a group stage game.

a/n: based off this request here also y’all are WELCOME

You were born and raised in Switzerland, and you were proud of it. You made the move to Chelsea at only 19 and eventually met Guro.

You guys did not click instantly. You played the same position and Guro was constantly trying to fight, work, and out skill her way into a starting position instead of you. But you didn’t falter nor give up your spot. You did, however, tear those dreaded three letters halfway through the first season with Guro there and she ended up taking your spot in the lineup. She took your spot but she also became a comfort blanket to you, helping you through physio, mental difficulties and struggles.

The day you got back onto the field was the day Guro kissed you after the game. She had been so happy for you, happy to have you on her right wing as she was on the left. It was a perfect kiss, a perfect fleeted changing room kiss after everyone had left.

Years later, she was your girlfriend, and you were lined up in the tunnel of the biggest stage in the world. The World Cup.

You lined up beside Guro by coincidence and reached out to gently grab her hand. She grabbed yours, gave it a squeeze and then let it go.

The game ended 0-0 to Norways great. They gas lost their first game and it wasn’t looking good for them. What looked even worse was when the media asked for you and Guro for the post game conference after you had both showered and changed into your countries sweatsuit. They asked you a couple questions but somehow none came up about your relationship although public. Maybe it was because of the harsh glare Guro gave the interviewers as she walked into the room that made several of them grow smaller, wether by looking down or scrunching their shoulders.

After the session was over, you abandoned your post and was the first to walk out and into the hallways under the stadium. They were pretty empty as no one else had poured out of the meeting room. Only janitors and a couple people of importance you didn’t know littered the halls. You leaned against the wall and waited.


She didn’t have you standing around long. A minute later the Norwegian came rushing out of the room, her face annoyed. That is until she saw you. Her features lit up and the Norwegian quickly grabbed your hand and started running. "Guro Reiten! What are you doing?!" you whisper yelled, looking over your shoulder to see if anyone was watching. It was a hard task to do while running. "This is probably the last time we’ll see each other other than if we both somehow make it to the final. Which won’t happen with how Norway are playing," she grumbled as she turned a corner and slowed her pace. "Yes I know that," you said gently as she led you towards a door.

"So, I want to…" Guro started saying as she opened a door.

"You want to have sex in a closet?" you finished her sentence. "Yes. Get in before someone sees us," the older girl said.

You quickly hurried into the dark closet and watched as Guro entered herself and locked the door with the help of an old wooden chair that was there for god knows what reason. "You are insane," you laughed, your back pressed against the wall and your hands over your mouth. "And you are so very hot," she said, pressing her body into yours and grabbing your wrists to place them at your sides. You cupped her face in your hands and smiled down at her, your height difference only an inch, but you teased her about it always. "Are we actually gonna do this?" you laughed. "Yeah, we tell our coaches that we got held back in the hallways," she said, starting to kiss your neck.

You threw your head back and dug your nails into her sides as she continued her attack on your neck.

Playing with the hems of her Norwegian hoodie, you tugged it upwards, signaling to her you wanted it off. She stopped kissing you just for you to pull her sweatshirt over her head and tossing it into a bucket. You took a couple seconds to look at her body before placing your hands on her chest and backing her up to the opposite wall.

Guro let out a small moan as she hit the concrete wall softly. You pulled your own tracksuit over your head and discarded it before mimicking Guro’s past actions.

You pulled her ponytail loose and started kissing her neck all the way down to her collarbone. You let your hands roam her abs as hers found residence on your ass, squeezing it every time you got a rise out of her. Eventually, you pulled her sports bra up and over her head, enjoying the view of her breasts. You got down your knees and kissed her stomach until you got to her sweatpants which came off at lighting speed and stayed around her ankles.

"Still okay to do this?" you asked her as though you hadn’t already had sex dozens of times. "Oh stop it y/n. Yes you have my okay, I am consenting. Just fuck me," she groaned. You chuckled at her envy, "just making sure" you added before pulling down her underwear.

You draped one of her legs over your shoulders to give you better access to her pussy. Starting with a small lick in her folds, you accelerated your pace to have you making out with her pussy, tasting her, feeling her and enjoying the little cries and moans your girlfriend held in.

Guro’s hands were digging into your shoulder, your hair, anywhere to keep her standing as your touch made her legs falter. "I’m close. I’m so fucking close," she moaned a little too loudly. "Shush, I know," you whispered to her, the vibration of your words on her core making her thrust her hips into your face. She came all over your mouth to your pleasure. You gently got back up and kissed her lips. "I can taste myself," she breathed out.

Your hands were on her bare ass, holding her up as her legs were not working. The combination of hours of playing football and her orgasm putting her legs out of service. "You like it?" you asked her, kissing her again. "I’d rather taste you," she admitted, squeezing your breasts over the fabric of your bra.

You smiled at her softly before the Norwegian spun your around and trapped you against her naked body and the concrete. Guro pulled off your bra and slipped off your pants in a quick motion before getting to work.

She was skilled to say the least, with a couple of thrusts of her fingers, words of praise and grazing of nails on your lower stomach, you were shaking and crying out obscenities.

"Do you want to get caught, pretty girl? Cause if you do keep yelling out like that," Guro laughed, too high on love and adrenaline to realize how truly horrible it would be if you were to get busted. "Do I look like I- oh my god," you moaned out as Guro pressed her face into your pussy and nipped at your clit.

She did her job well, leaving you panting, sweaty, and in need of another shower. "I can’t believe Im not gonna get to that for another week minimum," Guro said to you, standing up and draping her arms around your waist. You let your body weight fall onto her and put your arms around her neck, leaning your head on her shoulder. "Mhm," you said simply, chest still leaving. Guro kissed your neck softly this time, letting her fingers roam your hips and leaving patterns of love on your bare body.

"We gotta get back," you said, pulling away from her reluctantly and going to find your discarded clothing.

Guro did the same, slipping her outfit back on. Her hair was still insane when you turned around to face her, both fully dressed now. You let out a sharp laugh at the sight of her, the sun lights in the closet now on. "Oh baby," you laughed, walking up to her.

You closed the gap between you both and reached over to brush her hair down, tucking loose strands behind her ears and flattening the parts that were sticking out wildly. Once you had fixed her hair, you put your hand on her cheek and ran your thumb over her sharp cheekbone. She closed her eyes as you kissed her softly. "Go win the next one, hey?" you said to her, leaning your forehead against hers. "Mhm. Yeah," she answered.

Thankfully, no one was occupying that hallway once you snuck out. "Go before me," she told you. You nodded and gave her a tight lip smile before giving her a last fleeted kiss and rushing off to the Swiss changing room.

"So sorry guys, everyone wanted to talk and I needed the washroom," you said, walking into the changing room to the team sitting around on their phones and waiting for the bus to be ready for them to exit the stadium. "All good y/l/n," your coach said, "make your bag and let’s go," he added.

You were quick to pack up your things into your bag and put it on your back before Lia and Alisha crowded you. "You got a little something," Lia said, pointing to your cheek. "What?" you said, panicked and wiping at it frantically only to find nothing there. "Ha! Jesus what did you do to have you that freaked?" Alisha laughed. "You have no clue," you mumbled. "Tell us!" Lia said, leaning into you.

"I just hooked up with Guro in a utility closet."

[risingscorchingsuns]

OHHH MY GOD YOU CANT MAKE ME WAIT A FUCKING WEEK FOR THIS. YOU CANT MAKE ME WAIT A WEEK FOR THE MUZAN KAGAYA CONFRONTATION YOU CANT DO THIS TO ME. FUCKING HELL OH MY GODDDD

hiiiii im feeling so normal right now!!!!!!!!!!!! *barely contained frenzy of biting and screaming*

anyway thoughts on this weeks ep!!! <3

- tanjiro. please. please i love you baby but i will never understand why you decided it was a good idea to go “🥺 are you fighting about ohagi? ill make lots!!” tanjiro honey they are TRAINING

-/pos btw. I love him he’s iconic for this

-shoutout to giyuu for immediately finding out about Sanemi’s favorite food and being like “:) if I bring some to him we’ll be best friends :)” giyuu sweetheart i love you. ive been waiting so long to see this scene animated god I love them. im not even much of a sanegiyuu shipper i just think this whole scene is iconic

- the ECHOES of muzan’s FOOTSTEPS right after Sanemi realizes they’ve been infiltrated????? holy fuck it is CHILLING. ohhhhhh mygoooodddd. oh my god im going INSANE

- holy shit, I feel like it’s massively under-discussed how dark Gyomei’s backstory is. Like… the whole scene really pounds it in how brutal his experiences were. His disgust at having to fight, much beyond what a normal human would tolerate. He likely had to keep caving the demon’s head in over and over because it kept regenerating. Holy shit. The color choice of everything being monochrome except for the blood is particularly chilling. I love when media uses that palette and KNY does it so good

- AUGHHHH his smile when he pats tanjiro 🥺🥺🥺 he thinks about Sayo…. GOD I love the Hashira

- I’d love to read more character analysis on Gyomei. I feel like we didn’t get as much context for his character as we deserved- why he continued to fight, despite how disgusted he is by his own strength, why he trained Genya despite his general distrust, especially towards children? Ultimately, I believe it comes down to Gyomei being a genuinely gentle human, and I’d love to read more analysis on how he maintains that. Maybe his own repetitive action helps him. I wrote a big paragraph about questions about his character, but wound up deleting it because I found myself answering them as I wrote. Regardless, if Gyomei is anybody’s blorbo to the extent that Kyojuro is mine I would absolutely love to hear your thoughts on him- I think he’s a massively underrated character and I’d love to understand him deeper!

-OUGHHH THE MUSIC!!!!!!! god I am LOVING the theme they did with the sanegiyuu fight that shit went CRAZYYYY. and the ANIMATION. look im biased because i love the way water breathing looks but godddd its so pretty. also drop ripple thrust mentioned!!!! we haven’t seen that form since Susamaru!!!

-is the next episode gonna be the last in this season?????????? where are they cutting this off?????? god i wish i could reread the manga but i lent the set to a friend so he could read it pain agony MY CROSS REFERENCES

- [MANGA SPOILERS BEYOND THIS POINT]

-I’m presuming Zenitsu’s letter was about his Master’s suicide, and Kaigaku’s transformation. I think it was really clever of ufotable to put this scene in Gyomei’s episode, and put spotlights on Kaigaku being the kid that first betrayed Gyomei- I think that fact was only actually mentioned in a Taisho Era Secret. That’s gonna blow a lot of minds in the finale arc lol

-I wish we got more development on Zenitsu in this arc. His processing of the letter, his departure from Tanjiro and the others. I think Zenitsu is also a really misunderstood character, and this arc doesn’t exactly do him many favors in that regard. I wish we’d gotten a bit of filler vis-a-vis his development, but I’m hoping we still get that in his fight with Kaigaku.

[liopleurodean]

Season 12, Episode 1: Keep Calm And Carry On

Don't they normally do the Road So Far stuff in the finale? Kinda weird I didn't notice

Also, they named the episode after the Kansas song, and then didn't even use it. Come on, people

She has no clue what's happening?

Yeah, that's fair

She's not gonna believe that

Because he's your son

That's cute

Yeah...

Honey, it's been over three decades

Oh, Dean...

New title card!

Oh boy

Dude don't walk towards it!

Cas!

That's helpful

Awesome

Don't just ditch the guy!

Maybe the John that she knew

Yeah.

Yeah, that doesn't really make sense

With what?

It's a dude with a bullet wound

This is really not good

They're psychopaths

Seriously?

Oh boy

Yeah, I can imagine

Yikes

They're trying to show that she has a heart, and it's not working

Seriously. Psychopaths

Whatever

Don't underestimate him

If you wanted questions, you should've come in peace

It was your own fault

Doesn't look much like helping to me

I don't believe that

Yeah...

Waterboarding is a war crime

Weird

Looks like fun, actually

What, is it getting hotter?

Yup

Not exactly

Here we go

Yeah, no dip

Well, that'll clue him in

Nice

It's been a hot minute since she's hunted

I love the mini fridge among the old books

Spooky

Cas!

Hugs!

Oh yeah, I forgot that everyone thought Dean was dead

We know, Cas

Fantastic

Cameras?

Oh yeah, she died in the 80s. Wild

Awesome

Baby!

You bet she is

This is sweet

Dean.

He did not want to know that

Nope

Yeah

They didn't see you helping

Hi. Let me introduce you to the United States of America, which is TOO BIG TO WARD THE WHOLE COUNTRY. You have an entire organization dedicated to a country that's smaller than 80% of our states! HOW ARE THEY SUPPOSED TO COMPETE???

Well I'm SORRY that the ENTIRE AMERICAN MEN OF LETTERS CHAPTER WAS WIPED OUT. You know, maybe you could've HELPED US OUT A LITTLE??? Hunters are all that's left! They thought the MoL was a myth!!! So sue them if there's not enough people to keep up with a space LARGER THAN EUROPE

Absolutely not.

Hah! There's no such thing

Good luck with that

I doubt you'd last a day

Seriously???

WHY DO YOU THINK THATS A LEGITIMATE OPTION???

They're insane!!!!!

Lucifer is burning through vessels

They are

I think you are

Sure

It'll happen

They had it coming

And Moe!

Dude.

Surprisingly, he's better than the others

Yikes

Ha! That's what you think

Awesome.

LADY. YOU ARE A PSYCHOPATH YOURSELF

That won't work either

Eugh. Yeah, that would look pretty bad

Yeah, I'll bet

But generally not 30 years later

I mean. It's doable, but not fun

Fair

That's so real, actually

Liar

Nice

That's gotta hurt

Creepy

Mm. Maybe

He's a horrible liar

It didn't stick

Taken

You think???

That was unnecessary

I don't think that will work

Oh, dang

I feel like this should be illegal

Whoa!

Definitely should be illegal

Hey!

Aw, come on!!!

Lady, you are in for some fun times

You're gonna regret that

Oh, that's not good

I want to punch her so bad

What is in those things?

Well crap

Come on Sam, you're okay

Nice!

Sam...

She wildly miscalculated

He didn't actually go for the throat, right? It was just a ploy

Yup

I don't know what she was expecting

He was so close

I have seen. So many gifs of that

I don't think so

Yeah.

Oh, Dean...

The family business

He has to believe that

Oh, I can't look

Awesome

This is not a great place to be

[ryosmne]

You're gonna fry your brain.

Hello everyone, since it's finals season and we're all probably really dead inside, I decided to self indulge in some tattoo artist! Sukuna writing, so here's this brainrot that won't let me focus on studying. You can read more of this au in the au masterlist.

I've been trying so hard to finish up a bartender! Dabi fic I have in the works for too long, hopefully I can get around to it too. After finals are done I'll be writing a lot more that's for sure.

Tattoo artist! Sukuna x f!reader

Warnings: language, suggestive tones, that's it.

Finals are by far the worst thing about college, y/n knows that the hard way. She's been stressing herself out for the past few days, maybe weeks, going over the same material again and again. She'd constantly argue that she really needs to pass with an high grade that's why she's so obsessive over it.

Sukuna had tried multiple times to help her ease her nerves, he's been there, although he was the type who never really stuck his nose in a book for too long, regardless, his best girl needed a break, no matter how hard she denied it.

Y/n had declined his invitations of going out, she dropped by the shop a few times, bringing Sukuna some food, but he could tell she was slowly burning herself up.

Today was no different, y/n had been writing everything down all day to help memorize it better. So many hours has passed since she started her study session but she didn't even notice that her clock read 8 pm already.

Sukuna did notice, y/n had been barely responding back to his texts and it was time he took matters into his own hands.

The earpiercing doorbell pulled y/n out of her trance like state, she quickly got up from her desk to go and get rid of whoever just rung it.

"Dollface, I was beginning to think you had died in there."

There was Sukuna, leaning in her doorframe, looking as good as he always did, in a plan white t shirt and a gray pair of sweatpants, holding a few bags and a huge basket.

"not quite, what's all this?"

Y/n motioned to the bags he had.

"Nothing much, just some things I picked up for you, will you let me in? this basket is fucking heavy."

No, the basket wasn't that heavy, Sukuna could carry it just fine, he just wanted to make sure that y/n didn't have a chance to deny him.

Y/n stepped aside to let Sukuna in, and he went straight to her kitchen, dropping his bags on the table.

"Thanks for dropping by babe, but I really need to finish the last three chapters I have left."

"Y/n, you're going to fry your brain at this rate, no more studying for today."

"But-"

"No buts, you won't read another sentence today. We're destressing together."

Turns out, Sukuna had brought over many different things. He's not the type of guy to shy away from anything, so the first thing he did was to grab y/n and drag her into her bathroom.

Sukuna had taken mental notes the first time he looked through y/n's skincare products, he was able to determine her skin type and he went a bit crazy, buying her different things to try out.

"You are insane, that's drunk elephant, why did you get this many things?"

"Because you have the really terrible cheap stuff, now shut up you're going to eat the soap if you keep talking with cleanser all over your face."

Now, y/n's skincare wasn't bad, Sukuna had expensive taste and he's a bit of a brand snob

Sukuna gently poked her cheek with a smile as y/n's face distorted because she had in fact tasted the cleanser and Sukuna could only laugh at her before she flicked some into his mouth too.

"Don't kiss me with a face mask on you brat"

Y/n let out a soft laugh, Sukuna was doing his best to concentrate at the task at hand. Matching y/n's nail polish to his. Y/n had just finished painting his, matte black like he requested but y/n gave him some white polish on his ring finger. Sukuna had argued for a bit, saying it didn't look good and that he didn't like it, but gave in after y/n gave him a puppy face, can you blame him?

"But you look so cute like that."

Y/n complained, knowing that this little comment was going to feed Sukuna's ego more.

"I know doll, but artificial orange doesn't taste as good as it smells."

Y/n once again wasn't wrong, his cocky attitude always creeped in at times, not that she minded.

Time passed fast with watching trash reality shows on y/n's couch, after their very own self care day, Sukuna made sure to fix something they could both eat. Now they were engolved in each others arms, y/n's sleepy eyes staring up at him.

"How are you feeling, doll?"

Sukuna's hand found her hair, gently resting on top of her head.

"Much better, you're the best you know that?"

"I've heard it once or twice, I'll give you reasons to say it more often"

He gave her a gentle smile, leaning closer to steal a kiss, a little more intimate than the ones they shared earlier.

" 'Kuna, I'm sorry I was so stressed and distant this week, I probably worried you-"

"Don't be stupid, it's ok, I just want you to know I'm here for you, and it's just finals. You're a smart cookie, I'm sure you'll do great."

Y/n found his words reassuring and nuzzled closer to him, letting her lungs burn with his scent that never got less intoxicating.

"Thank you 'kuna, what would I do without you?"

The last few words came out slurred, but Sukuna understood everything, y/n's breathing got steadier against him.

"I don't know doll I'm just glad to have you here, I promised to take good care of you."

And just like that, y/n was fast asleep next to him, he didn't mind her uncomfortable couch one bit all he cared about was how at peace she looked. Maybe he would move her to her bed later, he couldn't bring himself to do it now.

The next morning, y/n found herself on her bed, Sukuna had almost woken her up getting ready before he left to go to work, but he managed to put her right back to sleep with a kiss on the forehead and a light "don't wake up yet doll".

Y/n made her way to the kitchen, Sukuna usually left a little letter for her on the nightstand by the bed, he must've been in a rush today.

Not quite the case.

Sukuna not only made her, her favourite breakfast, he also left post it notes in some places.

You suck at food shopping, thank me later.

Was written on her fridge.

So that's what all the bags were for, y/n didn't find out last night because of how tired she was, and how much fun she had being around sukuna.

He had filled up her fridge with everything she ever needed to make a meal for herself or have a snack. Let's be honest Sukuna just wanted to cook for her again.

Another post it was found in her bathroom cabinet.

You're probably gonna get mad at me for this but I'm not sorry, you deserve it.

The poor cabinet was stuffed to the brim with brand name skincare that made anyone's wallet scream in anguish and a lot of bathbombs. Upon closer look y/n almost cried at how attentive Sukuna was, he took extra care to look out for her skins needs.

Y/n found the last post it on her desk while she did her revision.

Don't overwork yourself doll, you've got me for that.

Y/n brought Sukuna cupcakes from seven different bakeries to try that day.

Bonus Domain shenanigans: "Sukuna left early again?"

Megumi asked, the day had been going pretty slow he wasn't surprised his friend dipped.

"Yeah, he left this behind though."

Geto held up a very nice looking white shop bag, a slight glimmer in his eye let the rest of his friends know he planned something.

"So? What's in it anyways?"

Gojo was resting his chin on his hand, blank expression on his face, completely unamused by Geto's discovery.

"Give me that"

Nanami swiftly snatched the bag, curious to see what was inside of it. He reached in and retrieved several wrapped round objects.

"Bathbombs?"

He questioned puzzled, but then his lips tugged upward.

Megumi, Nanami, Gojo and Geto, each got two bathbombs, and even though they would outright say it, they were pretty damn exited to drop them in their bathtubs. That's what Sukuna gets for avoiding clean up.

Sukuna entered the shop barely greeting anyone and begun looking around. Fuck he was looking for something, everyone tried to keep their composure.

"Have you seen a white bag?"

He finally looked at the group of men before him.

"like a backpack? No "

Megumi spoke, Sukuna begun thinking he was remembering everything wrong, that's untill he saw something sticking out of Geto's pocket. That's for sure a bathbomb he bought for y/n

"You motherfuckers, how low can you stoop to steal my girls bathbombs?"

Hey it's me again, though I'd add that here, if you have specific skin demands I tried to cover that in here so everyone can enjoy it, I have lots of allergies and skin concerns so I'm kinda sensitive to that stuff. Hope you had fun reading, remember to take it easy, untill next time :>

Tag list: (comment or message me and I’ll gladly add you)

@artist4theworld @skatercashew

@divineteaty

@in-inception

@not-another-ackerman

@jjk-is-my-shit @ilovemarvel99

@thegaymadafakkasworld @readinghassavedmylife @ruler-of-the-skies

@bluebananasssss

@ghost-of-todoroki

@sabsaocit

@heaveus

@jackysenpaii @rebenok-zimnayaya

@aam1na @sore-eyes@ryan249057 @goobygoobster @charlie-xo @kamisamaundercover

@shadoweepingscream

@sunfloweroranges

@haleypearce

@crapimahuman

@fiona782

@levi-ships-eruri

@chocolatecake764

@stupid-simp33 @ciphersighs

[dream-a-little-bigger-x]

Bet On It | Charlie Gillespie

Requested:  I may have already requested this (or I may have dreamed it) - but I would love an imagine with Charlie and the reader having a bet. Charlie loses and has to get the readers name tattooed somewhere and his fans go INSANE. Can be either platonic or romantic, your choice.

A/N: This was too good to pass up. Hope you like it! And special thanks to @calamitykaty for helping me out again on this one! I appreciate your help and love so much! You are the best of the best! Love you! 💖

Pairing: Charlie x Reader

Warnings: Fluff, tattoos 

Song(s) used: Show Me How You Burlesque - Christina Aguilera 

Words:  3,880

“Wanna bet on it?” was one of the first things he had ever said to you three years ago when you met him after your dance troupe had performed at the annual showcase. 

You and Meghan Gillespie had been friends since you started taking dance classes when both of you were five. However, your friendship never expanded from dance classes. Both of you were totally fine with that. 

This also meant neither of you had ever met each other's siblings, but that changed when you were seventeen and Charlie tapped your shoulder when you’d come up to greet your own family after the showcase. He’d complimented you on your dancing, and told you a little flustered that you had stolen the show. You didn’t even need to ask his name to know this was Charlie. He had the same bone structure and the same eyes Meghan did. She had told you about her siblings, mostly about Charlie since he was the closest in age and, according to her, the most annoying out of all her brothers. 

The two of you talked the whole night, even long after everyone had gone. Most of it was absolute nonsense, but  you loved getting to know him a little more aside from the stories you’d heard from Meghan. You enjoyed his presence and the way he carried himself and told his stories. This boy just seemed like the most excitable and passionate person you had ever met in your life. A lot of similarities to his sister, you noticed. 

“Can I see you again soon?” he asked when the two of  you wrapped up the night when it neared twelve am. 

You had raised your eyebrow at his nervosity more than his question. “Are you asking me out on a date?” 

Charlie’s head snapped up at your question, his eyes wide and jaw tight. “Wha-What? Nah! I wouldn’t date my sister’s friend! Uhm, more like, uh… Like a platonic date!” he exclaimed a little too excitedly. He even added some finger guns to top it all off. 

“All right, a platonic date it is,” you said as a teasing grin made its way to your features. “But you have to promise me one thing…” He nodded his head, encouraging you to go on. “You  have to promise you won’t fall in love with me.” 

A snicker raked through his body before he mimicked your teasing grin, “Wanna bet on it?” 

Even though back then there was nothing at stake, he still lost the bet. You both did, technically. Because after that first ‘platonic’ date followed more dates that grew into non-platonic dates until he finally picked up the courage to kiss you on your doorstep. 

Now three years later, you were working together on a second season of Julie and The Phantoms, both of you having been on the first season too. You as a background dancer and him as one of the leads of the show. 

To say you were proud of him would be an understatement. 

However, no one knew you were dating except for the closest people in your life. Meghan knew from the first ‘platonic’ date that this would be more than just a shallow friendship, and all your other friends and family were just happy you found each other. The cast of Julie and The Phantoms, however, were your biggest shippers. They loved to tease you both to the point where fans were suspicious, but you never made anything official. You kept telling them you were just best friends. 

After a full day on a corona proof set, the two of you finally settle on the sofa of your shared apartment with Owen. Said third roommate still had to film a couple of scenes with Booboo, which meant the two of you had the space all to yourself. 

Cuddled up on the couch, the two of you scroll through your phone, catching up on anything  you’d missed on social media. You’d received a few comments on your latest Instagram story with Savannah and Tori, and even more on the ones with Charlie in them. Most of them told you they wanted you to do a live together soon. 

“People are asking for a live,” you stated, showing some of the messages in your inbox. 

“Then they shall receive,” Charlie replied and got up from the couch, making his way into the bedroom. You furrowed your eyebrows, wondering why he just left, but you were given answers when he returned with an acoustic in his hand. “They always love a good jam session,” he explained before handing  you his phone so you could set up the live on his account since he had a lot more followers than you. 

“Let’s see,” you mumbled as you pressed the button, letting the phone rest against a large candle on the coffee table. Names started popping up at the bottom of the screen while the little number in the right-hand corner raked up quickly. “Hey guys!” 

“‘Sup!” Charlie shouted excitedly, a wide smile taking over his features while he tuned his guitar. “What do you guys wanna see from us today? Send us some requests for songs I should play or questions you want us to answer.” 

A laugh escaped your mouth as you noticed a lot of the questions were about whether or not you were a couple. “No, we’re not together, we’re just best buddies.” You put your head on Charlie’s shoulder, smiling a toothy smile at the camera. 

“Do you pull pranks on Owen or others from the cast?” Charlie read aloud as you pulled yourself up again, nodding your head in response. “Yeah, we pull pranks on each other all the time!” 

“Yeah! I love to prank this one whenever I find him somewhere napping,” you chuckled, especially when you noticed his expression on the screen. His mouth ajar as his eyes went from left to right. “I swear, this boy can sleep anywhere!” 

“Don’t expose me like that!” he cried out, which made you burst out with laughter to the point where you even let out a snort. You couldn’t hold yourself anymore at how offended he was by all of this, you were practically cackling. “Okay, if we’re exposing each other, you’re always dancing. ALWAYS,” he put emphasis on the last ‘always’. His eyes widened at the word as well as his voice growing louder. 

You stopped laughing at this, suddenly turning serious. “That’s my job, Char,” you deadpanned. Charlie wasn’t Charlie if he let it go so quickly. 

“Yeah, on set and maybe at practice, but you dance everywhere,” he turned to the camera, “Seriously, she dances in the shower, on the toilet, at catering, in bed,...” he stopped himself upon realizing he’d said a tiny bit too much. 

“People are asking how you know all that, Charlie. How do you know all of that?” you teased along, knowing he had dug himself a hole and you loved to see him squirm to get him out. 

“Because I… Come on, y/n, we’re best friends, we fall asleep in the same bed all the time,” he quickly saved himself in a very nonchalant, very Charlie way. You couldn’t help the smirk tugging at one corner of your lip, thinking ‘Nice save, Gillespie’.

“But that’s still not as bad as sleeping everywhere,” you countered, your face still overtaken by that smirk. “I bet I could get a whole album of pictures of you sleeping anywhere.” 

This claim made Charlie’s head snap up, a feeling of dejavu rushing through his mind. This suddenly felt very familiar since both of you had  been in a situation like this before, both pulling the short straw.

“Wanna bet on it?” he declared, his eyebrows nearly reaching up to his hairline. 

Your tongue glided across your turned up lips as you replied, “What’s at stake?” 

“Let’s see what they think. Guys! Help us out with this bet, please! What should be at stake?”

Dozens of replies came in, but your eyes fell on one in particular. “The loser has to get the winner’s name tattooed in a place of the winner’s choice!” you read aloud, pointing at the screen where the comment used to be. “Yes! Okay! So, let’s say we have to each get ten pictures of videos by -- it’s now Tuesday, so Monday?”  Charlie nodded his head in agreement. “First one to get ten wins.” 

Charlie held his hand out for you to shake, which you gladly did so, sealing the bet. 

“Get ready to get tatted for the first time, baby,” Charlie quipped with a smirk. 

“Oh, no, Char. I’m gonna leave this a blank canvas,” you responded, gliding your hands over your ribcage and down to your sides for emphasis. “You better get ready to get ‘y/n’ tattooed in big block letters across your chest!” You patted his pecs before adding with a giggle, “No ragrets.” 

He let out a chuckle at the meme reference before turning to the phone again. The two of you spent the next twenty minutes talking to the fans on Instagram live, playing them some songs and teasing one another non-stop. The fans were pretty certain you were a thing by now, but you still insisted all this was just a really close friendship. 

By the next day, everyone knew about the bet and was willing to help both of you out. Though, most of them told you afterwards they were on your side all the way. 

Savannah skipped over to you when you were waiting at the Hollywood Ghost Club set, getting ready for the last rehearsal before you’d start filming the scene tomorrow. You were going over the steps in your head until she spoke up. “Have you caught Charlie yet today?” she asked with a smirk. You let out a chuckle, shaking your head. 

“No, haven’t really stopped today, so I haven’t seen him much either.” This made you realize you kind of missed him and were up for a cuddle right about now. “Why? Have you seen him somewhere?” 

The mischievous look in her eyes spoke a thousand words. “Gimme your phone, I’ll go take a picture, so you can stay here.” You mull over the option for a second before deciding against it. 

“No, that’s not very fair. I’ll just go and look for him after this rehearsal and hope he’ll still be napping.” Savannah shrugged at your response before tucking a strand of hair of yours behind your ears. 

“Suit yourself, he’s in the breakroom.” You made a mental note of that. “You’re so soft for him, it’s adorable,” she uttered as a tender smile found its way to her lips. “I’ll let you get to rehearsal and I’ll make sure no one wakes Charlie before you can get to him, okay?” 

You shot her a thankful smile, “Yeah, thanks, Sav.” She kissed your cheek before walking away to wherever she needed to go. 

Thankfully, Charlie was indeed still asleep by the time you made it to the breakroom. He looked adorable all curled up on the small sofa with his arms wrapped around his own stomach. With an endeared smile, you grabbed your phone from the pocket of your sweater and snapped a picture before making your way over to him and squatting down in front of the couch. Softly, you brushed a strand of hair off his forehead before combing through the luscious mop of brown locks. 

He stirred slightly and squeezed his eyes tighter before they fluttered open. When they met yours, a soft, sleepy smile lit up his face. With a beam mirroring his, you said to him, “You look very cuddly up here, mind if I join you?” He scooted over and turned to his side, answering your question without words. You joined him on the small couch and rested your forehead on his chest, shutting your eyes as you inhaled the familiar scent of his cologne. 

“You took a picture, didn’t you?” he mumbled, pressing his lips to the crown of your head. You giggled, which was enough for him to know that you did. 

“One point y/n, Charlie zero,” you said and kissed his shirt-covered chest. 

“Oh, I’ll get my revenge, Bubba, I promise you!” He poked you in the ribs, making you squirm in his arms. “But let’s nap first until they need us again.” 

When Charlie promised something, he stuck to it. So, during lunch that same day, you stood in line with Madison, Jadah, Savannah, Tori and some of the other dancers, chatting a bit while music played from the speakers in the spacious area where everyone was either already eating or queueing to get food. 

“You really never know if you--” you cut yourself off once your ears picked up on the song that was playing in the background. “Oh my God! I know the choreo to this one. Tori, you do too, right?!” 

You put the plate you were holding on top of Savannah’s while Tori and some of the other dancers gave theirs to the other girls. Tori and Sam, one of the dancers you were closest with, got up on the table. Chuckling, you watched as a few others followed their example, and you quickly give in too. 

“Hit it up, get it up, won’t let you rest Hit it up, get it up, this is not a test Hit it up, get it up, gotta give me your best So get your ass up, show me how you burlesque”

You’ve loved this movie since it came out ten years ago. Your mother showed you some videos of you dancing in front of the tv, trying to imitate the dancers. It was pretty hilarious to see a ten-year-old do this dance. 

Right now though, you were ready to show off in front of everyone with some of the greatest dancers on this crew. Moments like these were proof that you were born to be a dancer. 

“A little bit of naughty, it's a little bit nice She’s a whole lot of glam, sweat, sugar, sex, spice Shimmy, shimmy, strut, strut Give a little what, what Up on the tables we’ll be dancing all night”   

Little did you know that Charlie had walked in with Owen, Jeremy and Booboo just as you’d started to dance. He was quick enough to grab  his phone from his pocket and film it. Even though he loved the fact that it was now a tie, he couldn’t help but smile proudly at the girl he’d fallen in love with three years ago. 

This was his favorite side of yours. You were in your element on the dance floor -- or table in this case. He just loved how confident you were and how free you seemed. While you’d be kind of shy when around new people, nobody would notice that when you’re dancing. He found it incredibly sexy to see you up there. 

You groaned as Charlie held his hand out to help you down the table when you’d finished the impromptu performance. With a smirk, he said, “1-1, Bubba,” and pressed a kiss to your flustered cheek. 

“I hate you,” you mumbled, but you couldn’t withhold the smile tugging at your lips. He looked so chuffed with his victory, even if it was a small one. You wanted to grant him this one win. 

The one win quickly turned into eight more, for the both of you, by Saturday. 

Match point. 

There was a mutual agreement to pause the bet on Sunday since the two of you had a day off and were going to sleep and dance around the apartment while cleaning up anyway, so that wouldn’t be fair. But on Monday, it was game on. 

You were certain you were going to win. All you had to do is find Charlie when you knew he didn’t have to film anything and try to withhold yourself from dancing if it wasn’t a part of the filming or rehearsal progress.

By noon, you had succeeded in one department. The only thing left to do now, was find Charlie. You knew he had an hour off for lunch and  that he’d spent twenty minutes of it taking a power nap somewhere on set. The only downside was, that you had no clue where he could possibly be sleeping  now. 

“Mads! Jer!” you exclaimed when you saw Madison and Jeremy walking up to you with sandwiches in their hands. “Have you guys seen Charlie anywhere?” The two glanced at each other before giving you a look that screamed ‘seriously, y/n?’. 

“What’s the best napping spot in the entire studio and isn’t used for anything today?” Jeremy asked as a way of responding to your question. 

Your eyes widened as the image of the bed popped into your head. You quickly muttered, “Thank you!” before hurrying your way to the set that holds Julie Molina’s bedroom. And there, smack in the middle of the bed, cuddled up to a pink cushion, lied your boyfriend. 

Butterflies erupted in your stomach as you nervously grabbed your phone and snapped a few pictures to make sure there was at least one that wasn’t blurry. Your hands were shaking way too much from the excitement, but you couldn’t just let this one pass. You had to win. If not just to prove a point. 

You rapidly scrolled through the photos and when you saw one that was in focus, you shrieked and leapt onto the bed on top of Charlie. He let out a groan at the sudden weight pressing down on his body as he shook awake. 

“I won, bitch!” you screamed out, doing a happy dance as you straddled his lap.

He rubbed his eyes like a toddler whilst giggling like one too before placing his hands on your thighs and saying, “I didn’t think you’d find me here.” He started rubbing up and down your jeans-cladded legs, a pout tugging at his bottom lip. 

You raised your eyebrows at him, “Seriously? This is the most infamous napping spot of the entire studio! I immediately came here when I couldn’t find you in your regular spot in the breakroom.” Now it was his turn to raise his eyebrows at you. 

“Someone else told you I was here, didn’t they?”

“Yep, definitely.” 

He groaned and then flipped you over, so you were lying next to him, and you let out a shriek before it turned into a giggle. “I already know where you’re gonna put my name too,” you mumbled. You pressed your forehead against his while tracing a heart on his chest, right above his heart. 

His eyes fluttered shut as he kissed your forehead. Placing it back, he muttered, “Let me guess, on my left pec, so you’re forever in my heart?” You simply hummed in response, earning a chuckle from your boyfriend. “Why are you so predictable?” 

“Shut up, you love me.” 

Butterflies welled up in his belly as you said that. He loved the overconfident way you always said those words. They were true. Very true and he loved that you knew that. But that didn’t take away the fun into actually reminding you too. 

“That’s true.” 

The following day, you took Charlie to the tattoo parlor to get his tattoo. You had told him a thousand times he didn’t have to do it, that knowing you were the winner sufficed, but he just replied with a, “No, I want that tattoo.” 

The tattoo artist asked if  you had a design in mind, so you handed her the slip of paper on which you had perfectly written your name in cursive and told her where to put it. She simply stated, “You got great  handwriting,” before showing you and Charlie to the back. 

“Film this for Insta, babe, so the people know I lost,” Charlie had ordered you sweetly as he tugged his shirt over his body, handing it over to you while he sat down. 

You grabbed your phone and started filming when the tattoo artist, whose name was CeCe, she’d said, started on his tattoo. Charlie looked up at you, biting his lip, and then reaching out to you. Without asking him what was wrong, you swung his shirt over your shoulder and took his hand with the one you weren’t filming with. He squeezed hard, nearly bone-crushingly hard, but you let him. After all, it was kind of your fault he was there in the first place. 

When CeCe had finished and put a protective band-aid on it, Charlie grabbed his shirt from your shoulder, and kissed you on the lips sweetly. You paid for the work and time CeCe had put into this, said your goodbyes, and headed back home. 

Pretty much every single one of the cast was waiting at your place, ready to see the finished product. However, Charlie wasn’t allowed to take the covering off yet. It needed to stay there for two to four hours before he could take it off. 

And once he did, you were surprised to not only see your name on his chest, but also your favorite flower worked into it beautifully. Confused and surprised, you looked up at Charlie. 

“When did you even tell her to do that?” you asked as everyone started to take pictures of the tattoo and of the interaction between the two of you. 

“Called in beforehand,” he simply shrugged. Shaking  your head, you leaned up and planted a kiss to his lips. Even though it was bat-shit crazy he even went through with tattooing your name on his chest, the fact he added an element of you made it extra special. 

That night, Charlie posted the video of him getting his tattoo on his Instagram stories while you made a compilation post of all ten of the sleeping Charlie pictures you had accumulated in the last week, along with a picture of his tattoo. 

@Yourinstahandle: Victory is mine! You are absolutely crazy. I can’t believe you went through with this. At least now I’m forever embedded on your heart and I’ll be yours forever. 💖 @Charles_Gillespie 

And with that, you immediately went Instagram official too. Following your example, Charlie shared a picture of his brand new tattoo as well. 

@Charles_Gillespie: Wanna bet on it? Forever mine 💖 @Yourinstahandle

When he joined you in bed that night, you went to lie down on his chest, only to receive a painful hiss from him, causing you to shoot up again. “GAH! Sorry! Sorry! Sorry!” you shouted, and looked at him in shock. 

“It’s fine,” he muttered and went to pull you back but you refused to. 

“No, Char, I’m not gonna hurt you for an entire night,” you grumble and crawl across his legs to lie down on his other side. “This feels weird.” You rested your head against the non-painful side of his chest. “But better than no cuddles.” 

“Yeah, well, maybe you shouldn’t have won, so I wouldn’t be in pain right now,” he responded, followed by a small chuckle, letting you know he was just joking.    

“You are the most ridiculous person I have ever met,” you muttered. Before closing your eyes, you quickly leaned up and pecked his cheek. 

“Wanna bet on it?”

*

*

*

JATP Taglist: @hannahhistorian92 @marinettepotterandplagg @thequirkybookaholic @bookdealer5 @tenaciousperfectionunknown @hemmingsness @iainttakingshitfromnobody @ifilwtmfc @angryknightstatesmantrash @kiss-themoongoodbye @rudysbay @thedarkqueenofavalon​ @caitsymichelle13​ @calamitykaty @wiselight @kcd15​ @vicesvsvirtuesfanfic @stars-soph @kinda-really-lost

Charlie/Luke taglist: @parkeret​ @lukeys-giggle @gingerxarmy @lovesanimals @lolychu @perfectlywrongformend3s @luckylouiebug @camiladelrio98 @myfriendscallmebeans

Lemme know if you wanna be on my taglist! 

[aerithisms]

hi! i was wondering if you could share some of your favorite faberry fanfics? :)

oh ABSOLUTELY bestie come with me on a journey where i embarrass myself by revealing just how much time i've spent reading this stuff over the past few months

you're the trouble i always find by mooosicaldreamz

quinn and rachel meet again as adults when rachel gets cast as the lead on the tv show quinn's writing. fun fact i read this one before i even watched the show because i was bored and it was such a love letter to glee and faberry that it singlehandedly compelled me to watch it and now here we are

stays in vegas by gayerfurtherfaster

the glee club is in vegas for a reunion and when rachel and quinn wake up to discover that they're married they have to retrace their steps from the night before. this one is adorable and so FUNNY i love it a lot

various works by forforever19

forforever19 is a hero of modern society who has written TONS of faberry fic over the last couple of years that i've barely scratched the surface of so i'm sure if you frequent the faberry ao3 you've seen them around but here are some i've read and liked: waiting for a girl like you (alternate take on the wedding fiasco), worth the wait (rachel's college roommate pulls her head out of her ass), to last a lifetime (a vehicle for lots of cute vignettes), meant to be (amnesia fic because i live for the drama), just my soul responding (soulmate au), and one single thread of gold (tied me to you) (also a soulmate au lol)

we are lead (to those who help us most to grow) by nightshifted

alternate take on season 1 quinn and her mental state during the pregnancy storyline after she moves in with mercedes. features the quinncedes friendship we deserve and ofc faberry being in love

you say you've gone away from me (but i can feel you when i breathe) by yumi_michiyo

completely canon compliant post-canon fix-it fic that takes quinn's "and i donated the egg" joke line literally and features quinn and rachel finding their way back to each other through being surrogates for the klaine baby. this fic is my official headcanon for what happens after the finale because i think it's so lovely and treats the characters well

simple parts by flyingflesheater

time travel au where senior year quinn and rachel travel forward to find themselves married in the future. i'm always a sucker for the drama of the time travel trope and i thought the family dynamic in this one was especially interesting

devolution by poetzproblem

alternate take on season 3 quinn that really digs into her psyche during that time in the show. it's lighter on the faberry (though the faberry is there!) in favour of character study and i think it does quinn so much justice. also features really sweet quinntana friendship

poetzproblem is another one of those people who's written a LOT of faberry over the years that i'm sure you've heard of and i haven't read anything close to all of it (i haven't tackled their mammoth don't blink series yet but i have faith that it slaps) but i also loved magical mystery tour, a cute time travel flash forward fic (time travel seems to be a big trope in faberry fandom for some reason? i'm into it) and acceptance/remembrance, in which hollywood actress quinn fabray keeps thanking a mysterious rachel berry in her awards acceptance speeches

take these broken wings series by celaenos

canon divergence that follows what quinn's journey might've been like if she kept beth. haven't finished this one yet (mostly because i adore it and i want to savour it lol) but i love this quinn and the found family of it all so, so much. strongly features her friendship with my himbo king sam evans

you and her loathing this cruel world by thememoriesfire

thememoriesfire seems to have been a pretty big name author back in the day and i haven't read either of their biggest faberry fics yet but i really love this one, where it's kurt that quinn gets pregnant with instead of puck, and quinn, kurt, sam and rachel form one big unconventional family

sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything by andawaywego

i've read a few fics by this author and so far they've all been great but this one sticks to me the most. finn's death is such a difficult subject, especially for fanfiction, since it's so wrapped up in the death of a real world person, but i thought this fic handled it in a very delicate way and had such a thoughtful exploration of how rachel might deal with that grief while falling for someone new

mistyheartrbs (also my beloved mutual @mistyheartrbs here on tumblr dot com) has written a ton of faberry fic that i've barely started digging into but this recent missing scene fic set during season 3 made me feel insane so i offer it as a place to start

gonna stop there and i'm sure i'm forgetting something i loved but there is so much good faberry fic out there it's the best!! i don't usually end up into fandoms where the fic writing scene is this prolific and i'm having a lot of fun indulging in the backlog

[babygirlizz]

izzie’s favorite movies and tv shows of 2020 (aka the worst year ever)

another year, another movie and tv show review. this year has, to put it simply, sucked. 2020 has been so terribly awful that sometimes the only light you can see are the absolute bangers of movies and tv shows that came out this year. with that being said, some of the movies and tv shows didn't come out in 2020. if the are mentioned in this post it is because they either: had a season come out this year, i found them this year, or they became popular this year.

SPOILERS: it may not come as a surprise but just in case you didn't realize, there will be many spoilers ahead, read at your own risk.

tw // death, suicide, drug use, mild adult language. if any of these things might trigger you, i strongly urge you not to read this post.

there is no specific order of these shows and movies, i'm just writing as they come to mind. if you enjoy any of these movies or tv shows, or if you have any suggestions for me, please let me know!

TV SHOWS

1) Santa Clarita Diet

Okay, so I know this show doesn't have anything to do with 2020. But, I found this show in 2020. I put it off for a while, thinking it wasn't my style of a show, but boy was I wrong. I loved this show. Sheila Hammond (Drew Barrymore) is a normal suburban wife and mom. She is a real estate agent with her husband Joel (Timothy Olyphant). She struggles with the fact that she isn't very adventurous. This all changes when she throws up an insane amount at a house showing. She then finds herself craving adventure, and craving human flesh. Yeah, she's a zombie. Not only is this show super hilarious, but it also shows the growth that they have with their characters and their family. I'm also team Abby (Liv Hewson) and Eric (Skyler Gisondo).

2) Outer Banks

So, I'm from NC. And, watching this show at first bothered me because I can very obviously tell this show isn't actually filmed in the obx, and the geography isn't exact, but once I got past that, I loved it. John B (Chase Stokes) is a teenager that lives in the poor side of the outer banks. He has a friend group called the Pogues which consists of JJ (Rudy Pankow), Pope (Jonathan Daviss), and Kie (Madison Bailey). They absolutely hate the Kooks, which are the rich kids. A while after John B's dad gets lost at sea, presumed dead, the group finds some evidence that may solve the mystery, and make them rich. In the process, John B falls in love with a Kook names Sarah (Madelyn Cline) whose father Ward (Charles Esten) may have a little more to do with the mystery than he let on. Through friendship, murder, and secrets, the gang may just figure out what happened to John B's dad.

3) Love, Victor

Alright. I loved loved loved Love, Simon. I also really loved the book "Simon vs. the Homosapien Agenda." So, when I heard about this show, I was so excited. Victor (Michael Cimino) is a teenage boy that moved to Creekwood with his family. He meets Felix (Anthony Turpel) who lives in his building. He also meets Mia (Rachel Hilson) and they begin dating. But, he also meets Benji (George Sear). While trying to get used to a new school, new friends, and a new relationship, Victor finds himself questioning his sexuality. With the help of Simon (Nick Robinson) and his friends, Victor finds it in himself to finally come out, and he admits his feelings, for Benji. This is such a good show, but I was so upset when season 1 ended on a cliff-hanger.

4) The Haunting of Bly Manor

The sequel to The Haunting of Hill House. Now listen, haunting of hill house was an absolute banger. When I saw that Bly came out I nearly died. I was so excited. But, I was alone in my apartment and also a lil bitch. So, I had to wait a week until I was home with my family to watch it. Now, I was so excited to be scared, and there were a few jump scares and ominous moments, but this season was more centered around the story line of Dani Clayton (Victoria Pedretti) and her new life in a foreign country. When seeing an ad for a live in job as an au pair. When she gets there, she meets the two young children she’ll be looking out for and the other workers of the house, including the gardener, Jamie (Amelia Eve). Throughout her stay at Bly she begins to notice weird behaviors from both children and by the end of the series she sacrifices herself for the children. Sadly, this story is being told by Jamie who Dani had fallen in love with during her stay at Bly. Now I was somewhat upset about the lack of horror, but was still very intrigued and drawn in by this series.

5) Julie and the Phantoms

Alright, at first I was not gonna watch this show. I thought it looked a little too young and childish for me, but everyone was talking about it on twitter so I had to. I. Love. This. Show. This show centers around Julie (Madison Reyes). Julie is a teenage girl who, sadly, lost her mother. The one major thing she shared with her mom, was their love for music. Since her mothers passing, she gave up music. This is until, dead musicians from the 90′s show up in her garage. Luke (Charlie Gillespie), Alex (Owen Joyner), and Reggie (Jeremy Shada) all tragically passed away in the 90′s after eating bad street hotdogs. When Julie finds their CD in her garage, she decides to play it and they come back in ghost form. But, only she can see them. With their help, she finds her confidence to play music again. Also, she has to find away for them to stay because they’re slowly disappearing. 

6) Derry Girls

Bitch. I love this show. And yeah it didn’t come out in 2020. Shut up. I found this show recently after watching the cast on the holiday special of the Great British Baking Show. I loved the actors so I had to watch the show. This show focuses on Erin (Saoirse-Monica Jackson) a 16 year old girl that lives in Derry, Northern Ireland in the 90′s. Alongside her is her cousin Orla (Louisa Harland), her two friends Clare (Nicola Coughlan) and Michelle (Jamie-Lee O’Donnell), and Michelle’s English cousin James (Dylan Llewellyn). During these years, a lot of people in Ireland struggled, especially because it was during wartime. Even thought this show isn’t focused heavily around the war, it’s amazing to see these teens live a fulfilling life while struggling with the state of their country, and the lack of money that their families have. 

7) Elite

HA. This show did have a season in 2020 so leave me alone. But bro, I love this show. At first, I didn’t watch it because I thought I could only watch the dubbed version in English, which I hate. I hate dubbed shows they look so weird. But, once I found out I could watch this show in Spanish, I fell in love. But, sadly, theres too damn much to talk about in one little post. It’s crazy. But basically it just follows the lives of teens in high school that are trying to survive. And no, not in the “I’m surviving high school,” sense. No, people be getting murdered. 

MOVIES (tbh i didn’t find a lot of movies good this year lmk which movies u liked this year and maybe i’ll like them!)

1) All the Bright Places

After the death of her sister, Violet (Elle Fanning) is devastated. She closes herself off, and has her parents get her out of doing school work that involves working with others. But, as time goes on, they realize she may need to start to move on. Violet then meets Finch (Justice Smith) who is enamored by Violet. He suggests they do a project together. While finding and visiting some of the smallest wonders of their state, they begin to fall for each other. While you are focusing on Violet and her mental health, you tend to miss some of the signs that Finch’s mental health isn’t great either, but by the time you do, it could be too late. 

2) Dangerous Lies

Hmm. This was weird for me. I had only ever seen Camila Mendes in Riverdale, and honestly, not a fan. So, Katie (Camila Mendes) and her husband Adam (Jessie T. Usher) are struggling with money. Katie decides to take a job working for an elderly man, and eventually gets her husband hired there as well. Unfortunately, he dies, but for some odd reason, leaves the house and all of his fortune, to Katie. As they get comfortable in the house, they begin to uncover some very weird and dangerous lies. 

3) The Devil All the Time

Ok. Iconic. You got so many hot men in this movie. Bill Skarsgård, Sebastian Stan, Tom Holland, Robert Pattinson. C’mon now. That’s crazy. But, this story is so long and in depth that I wouldn’t even know where to begin. This movie is a bit disturbing. It involves murder, sexual assault, killing of animals, and so much more so if that’s an issue for you please do not watch this movie. It was also quite long, but it was still good.

4) After We Collided

Okay just listen. I was that teenager. I read wattpad stories and was, embarrassingly, addicted to After. This was not a great movie per say, but it was After. This is a sequel to the movie After. This movie centers around Tessa (Josephine Langford) and her recovery after her breakup with Hardin (Hero Fiennes Tiffin). Theres sex, alcohol, bad acting. The whole nine-yards. But c’mon, they’re so cute together.

5) To All the Boys p.s. I Still Love You

Okay it was a good movie. I enjoyed it. This movie focuses on Lara Jean (Lana Condor) and her boyfriend Peter (Noah Centineo) and their relationship post the first movie. But of course relationships aren’t super steady, and John Ambrose McClaren (Jordan Fisher) shows up. Yeah, John Ambrose, from her letter. They become closer and Lara Jean has to decide who she wants to be with. Spoiler, it’s Peter. BOOOOOOO justice for John Ambrose McClaren, he deserved better. 

[plus-ultra-oof]

Break Time! | Bokuto & Kuroo | Haikyuu!! | Tickle Fic

A/N: This is one of the fastest things I’ve ever written lol. I love Bokuto and Kuroo’s friendship a lot but this could be read as Bokuroo too.

Disclaimer: Includes swearing and minor spoilers for the timeskip (Kuroo’s future plans are vaguely mentioned)

Summary: Kuroo’s working himself to death with exam season on the horizon and Bokuto has just the idea to “help.”

——————————————————

Upon a third glance at Kuroo in just a few minutes, Bokuto had determined something was wrong. He could hear him sigh and shift in his seat from where he was sat on his bed. It wasn’t in the restless way that Bokuto was feeling right now though. It was a lot more tired. He narrowed his eyes at his friend, taking in his stiff posture and tense jaw. Rubbing his eyes with one hand Kuroo scrubbed an eraser across his paper with the other, the movement far harsher than necessary. He craned his neck to read something out of a textbook and his lips pressed into a thin line as he tried to comprehend it. The near silence in the room aside from his friend’s quiet frustration was honestly freaking Bokuto out.

When he’d shown up at the other captain’s front door, he’d been ready to go get food, screw around in his backyard, and maybe see an action movie or something. They’d planned this for weeks in advance —their schedules were both pretty packed— and as far as Bokuto knew they were both really looking forward to it. He’d prepared to just mess around and have some simple fun, so he was really surprised when Kuroo opened the door with a tight frown on his lips and not at all dressed for a day out.

“Bo?” Kuroo furrowed his eyebrows as his arms came up to cross over his chest, “what are you-“ Realization took over his features and after a few mumbled curses to himself, Kuroo opened the door further and let him in. The house was the same as Bokuto remembered it: Clean, but still clearly lived in. The mild clutter was charming in its own way and Bokuto had seen it when he’d visited his friend in the past. Kuroo himself was actually the only thing that seemed different.

His hair was messier than usual somehow and the beginnings of dark circles were smudged under his eyes. Instead of his usually clean and neat clothes, he was in a ratty white t-shirt and some old looking red sweats with “Nekoma” written down the sides in faded white block letters. It wasn’t just that though, all of his apologies and attempts at conversation also seemed off as he led Bokuto up the stairs to his room. Like his heart wasn’t really in it with his mind so preoccupied.

“Sorry man, I completely forgot, my bad it’s just-“ he cut himself off with a sigh as he heavily dropped into his desk chair. Bokuto felt overwhelmed just looking at the numerous stacks of heavy books lining the desk, so of course he hadn’t protested when his friend asked for another hour to finish up. He hadn’t been excited to sit and do nothing for an hour, but even he wasn’t going to complain when the usually cool and collected guy seemed so frazzled.

So after running back down to the kitchen to grab some snacks, he’d settled down on Kuroo’s bed to wait, scrolling aimlessly through his phone to try and quell his boredom and keep his restlessness at bay for a bit.

That, of course, didn’t work for long. After maybe 50 minutes —a new record!— he started stealing glances at Kuroo over his phone and as time continued to pass he became more and more concerned. He could practically feel the stress rolling off him in waves as he flipped through another workbook, so Bokuto did the only thing he could think to do at the moment, with what little information he had on whatever was happening; He messaged Kenma.

After tapping out a simple “whats wrong with Kuroo?” he’d set his phone down, not expecting much from it. Even though he barely contacted the guy on his own, Bokuto knew Kenma was terrible at responding to anyone who wasn’t Hinata. This obviously meant his chances of getting a reply before the day ended were slim. He practically jumped to grab his phone when it lit up again, only minutes after sending the message. Pretty damn fast for Kenma of all people.

From Kozume Kenma:

entrance exams. he’s been like that all week.

Ohhhhh. That made sense. Bokuto looked over at Kuroo again, as he glared down at his calculator, a new kind of disdain burning in his eyes. Bokuto hadn’t given the exams much thought honestly, but to Kuroo they surely mattered a lot.

When Kuroo told him that he was going to be quitting Volleyball once they graduated to pursue a career in the marketing side of things, Bokuto’d both understood completely and not gotten it at all.

He’d never really know how anyone could give up something that gave him such a thrill and brought him such joy. Sure, Nekoma wasn’t exactly a powerhouse school, but Kuroo was still a damn good blocker. He surely could’ve made it onto at least a division 2 team if he tried. Still, his friend was different. He wanted something else and that was okay. What wasn’t okay was the fact that he seemed set on working himself to death for it.

To Kozume Kenma:

k im gonna fix him

This time the reply was instantaneous. A simple “good luck” that felt suspiciously like Kenma doubting him. He scoffed, looking over at Kuroo again. The guy was probably even more tired than he looked. Koutaro could definitely take him in the messed up state he was in. Then again, he was incredibly stubborn when he wanted to be.

Bokuto glanced down at his phone. He’d already gone 20 minutes over the promised hour. That plus the whole week Kenma described had to be enough time for now. Going for that long without a real break sounded insane to Bokuto, and there was no way it was healthy either.

“Hey Kuroo,” Bokuto called, sitting up and grabbing his phone after sending a final text off to Kenma (An assortment of emojis portraying his confidence and competence at the given task). When his eyes fell on Kuroo, he hadn’t moved at the sound of his name.

“Kuroo?” He tried again. Still no response. It seemed the blocker was lost in his own world of textbooks and pages on pages of meticulous notes. Bokuto practically shuddered at the sight. He didn’t know how his friend could stare at all of that for so long.

Standing and taking a few steps away from the bed landed him right behind the desk chair. He frowned. Kuroo still hadn’t even noticed him moving around. Then he reached across the desk to retrieve a different colored pen and an idea popped into his head. Bokuto, always quite the impulsive person, followed it without question.

He quietly set his phone down on the opposite side of the desk to free his other hand and then reached out and jabbed him in the ribs on both sides. The action was instantly rewarded with a jolt and a squeak from Kuroo, a clatter from his pencil when it fell from his hand, and a loud triumphant laugh from Bokuto himself. Kuroo whipped around, scowling, “What the hell, man?”

“Your hour is way up bro,” Kuroo raised an eyebrow at him and scrambled for his phone. Once he found it beneath a large stack of colorful print outs, Bokuto saw the suspicion and slight annoyance in his eyes turn into guilt.

“Shit,” he turned to actually face him and Bokuto could see the way his shoulders sagged and his hands fidgeted in his lap in a very un-Kuroo-like fashion, “I’m sorry Bo,”

Koutaro gave him a bright smile in an extra effort to assuage his guilt, “It’s no problem, we can just go now!” He exclaimed, straightening and nodding at the door. Kuroo hesitated at that but before he could say anything, Bokuto’s phone chimed from its place on the desk. It lit up for both of them to see and Kuroo’s eyes narrowed in confusion.

“Why’s Kenma texting you?” He asked. A hint of his usual smirk flashed across his face as he peered at the deadpan emoticon, familiar and characteristic of his childhood friend. Bokuto bristled at the question. Why wouldn’t Kenma text him? Sure they weren’t exactly close, but Kuroo didn’t need to look so smug about it!

“I text a lot of people!” He replied, tucking his arms to his chest petulantly, “and you were busy,” he added before he could think better of it.

Kuroo immediately deflated at the reminder of his work. The glimmer of his usual playful self vanishing as he looked back over at his collection of practice booklets and papers and whatever else was strewn across his desk. Then he bit his cheek, and Bokuto knew he was going to argue before he even forced it out.

“Bo, I should probably keep going,” Kuroo frowned, his words almost pained, as if just the idea of going back to studying hurt him. That was what really solidified everything in Bokuto’s mind, “Maybe we can-“

“Nope,” Bokuto said succinctly before launching his attack with the overwhelming energy of a hyperactive athlete who’d just sat in one place for way too long. Kuroo squirmed in place as the spiker snuck a hand up his side. He was unable to stop from giggling already, too caught off guard by the suddenness.

“W-Whahahat the fuhuhuck, Bokuto?”

Bokuto shrugged and used his other hand to scribble at his neck. He made no effort to hide his shit eating grin when his friend squeaked in response, attempting to lean away in the chair, “You’ve been doing this for wayyyy to long,” he chuckled, grin only widening when the best defense Kuroo could muster was to slap at his wrists. Weak at best, but compared to his usual struggle, it was even more lackluster for the self proclaimed provocation master, “You can barely even fight back!”

“Shuhut uhuhup- Bohoho!” Kuroo’s volume went up in slight alarm. Bokuto grabbed onto his arm, using it to pull him out of his chair while simultaneously continuing his attack on his waist. Then he sent him falling back into his bed with a gentle shove, easily maneuvering him into a semi-pinned position with a practiced grace. Now with one of his arms held firmly away from his side, Tetsuro was feeling a lot more vulnerable. The shift was evidenced in the more frantic giggling as he tried to muster enough energy to pull away from Bokuto’s playful torment.

“Don’t worry, we can get you some barbecue! It’ll fix you right up!” Bokuto exclaimed, as if he wasn’t currently digging his wriggling fingers into Kuroo’s stomach to make him shriek louder. Still, he shook his head wildly.

“Ngh- ahahah ihihi- ihihihi neheheed to stuhuDy!” He tried, his voice shooting up an octave when Bokuto decided that the dips in his hip bones were a suitable place to grab and squeeze. Damn Bokuto and his stupidly extensive knowledge of this particular weakness.

“Mmm no,” Bokuto responded, slowing his fingers to fluttery circle to let the other captain breathe, “From what I hear you’ve already done way too much of that! It’s break time!” Kuroo took in the extra air greedily. As he did, he leveled his friend with an incredulous stare.

“How did you even-?” Kuroo started before his expression dropped and his eyes darkened in realization. His gaze went back up to Bokuto’s face where he was leaning over him curiously, “Kenma,”

“Yup,” Kotarou laughed boisterously and nodded his confirmation, “This is an intervention man,” The blocker scowled and started to say something that sounded like the word “traitor” but he was quickly cut off by his own hysterical giggling. The break was over, and Bokuto had decidedly shoved his hands higher to scratch at his friend’s ribs at the sign of continued resistance.

“He- aHA shihit! Hehehe’s lying!” Kuroo yelled through his laughter, desperately trying to catch Bokuto’s wrists as his hands seemed to continue crawling their way up his torso, “Lehehehet mehe uhuhup!”

Bokuto scoffed and smirked at his panicked movements, “Not a chance,” His hands didn’t pause for a second as they avoided Kuroo’s grasp. When they honed in on the space between his top two ribs he threw his head back with a helpless cackle. Bokuto had to bite down on a fond smile at the sound, “Now come on! Just say you’re gonna stop overworking yourself and come get food with your best friend!”

“KehenmahaAh’s my behest friehehend!” Kuroo jeered defiantly, apparently still sassy despite everything. Bokuto narrowed his eyes and dug into his ribs harder, making him throw his head back with the force of his laughter.

“Rude,” If Kuroo wasn’t so busy dying, he would’ve teased Kotarou for the childish pout on his face, “but fine, your second best friend,” he corrected laboriously, as if the Nekoma student was in any place to properly respond to him.

“Gahahahah yohou’re ridihiculous!”

“Blah blah blah, let’s go get food Kurooooo!”

“I hahave to- wahahait! No no no Bo DoHON’T!” The resounding screech that Kuroo let out when Bokuto’s fingers finally made contact with the soft skin of his underarms was priceless. He fell into a fit of insane laughter as the other captain watched proudly. His hyena laugh even made an appearance, sending Bokuto himself into manic giggling as he set about driving his friend crazy. “BWAHAHAHA NOHOHO NAHA BOHOHO!”

“What was that?” He teased watching as any final hope of escape fell away, leaving Kuroo a laughing mess. His hair was skewed all of the place along with his clothes that had ridden up in his struggles. His face was bright red, from embarrassment, laughter, or both Bokuto didn’t know, but it was entertaining any way. It was also comforting to see that even in his almost catatonic pre exam state, his friend was still capable of loosing himself in something as simple as tickling.

“FIHIHINE! FINE FINE FIHIHINE!” Kuroo screamed, giving up his pride at last. Anything was worth it at this point just to stop the sensations taking over his brain. All he could think of was the way Bokuto’s deft fingers were scribbling over his underarms and how no matter how he jerked or squirmed or squeezed his arms to his sides it just wouldn’t stop. He could never handle being tickled there long and Bokuto was taking full advantage of that information, “AHAH YOHOHOU- GahHAH YOU WIHIHIN DAMNIT JUHUHUST STAHAHAP!”

Bokuto shot up from the bed, stopping to throw his arms up in a cheer. His loud shout of “HEY HEY HEY!” in victory was lost on Kuroo though. He was too busy trying to catch his breath where he laid K.O.ed on his bed. Still, when Bokuto finished celebrating and turned back to him he looked better. Still tired, but significantly less stressed out of his mind.

Even as he punched him in the shoulder in revenge, his posture had relaxed and there was a wide grin left on his face. And as the last of his giggles faded away, Bokuto was inclined to believe that it was genuine.

“Come on bro, I wanna go check out the new Rec center by the park!” Bokuto yelled, earning a raised eyebrow from Kuroo as he moved around his room, picking out new clothes for their outing. He pulled his shirt over his head and tossed it into his laundry basket before turning to face him.

“I thought you said we were getting barbecue?” He asked, amusement coloring his tone as he picked up a new shirt. Bokuto smirked.

“Both,” he replied, squeezing Kuroo’s sides as he lifted his arms to put it on. He laughed loudly, batting his hands away and shaking his head.

“Ahaha enouhough!” He giggled, taking a few shaky breaths. Then his taunting tone returned at last, “As long as you’re paying man,” His usual smirk was now secured back in its place, for better or for worse.

Then he ducked into the bathroom just in time to avoid Bokuto’s distressed groan. Rest In Peace his wallet.

Still though, he was admittedly happy that Kuroo was back to normal, even if that meant that he was back to being a stingy jerk.

[shmegmilton]

Can you explain how Aaron and Alexander stopped being friends and started fighting?

They were never really ‘friends.’ I assume you got that idea from the play, but I have no idea why the play tried to push that narrative. Civil? Sure, but that was necessary. New York was less than 50,000 people at the time, and they were both accomplished lawyers & statesmen who had to work and interact with each other on a daily basis. Politics is politics, look at how people are acting right now during our election. 

As for your question, it’s a long line of policy & personal disagreements, mostly. They were on opposite sides of the aisle on pretty much everything. Lots of small things, but a lot of big, BIG things.

     Burr was (ironically) kind of a pacifist; he kept mostly to himself, didn’t really speak much publicly & didn’t necessarily go out of his way to confront people unless he’s been pushed long enough (everyone ‘snaps’ at some point, y’know?)

But that’s why the ‘Burr is an evil mastermind’ myth is so pervasive today. Burr just… didn’t bother defending himself, or correcting anything, because he (mistakingly) had faith in the inherent goodness of people that someday people would see him for his true character. So for that reason, we don’t really have a good timeline from Burr’s perspective as to how he felt about Hamilton—but BOY howdy did Hamilton never shut up about Burr.

----

Trespass & Confiscation Acts  (1782ish)

     During the Revolution, the British confiscated the property of patriots that fled the city. New York did the same thing, & for a while it was this game of: ‘Oh, you’re gonna take my stuff? **draws a line in the dirt** Well, everything behind this line is mine now.” It was all very bad, and after the way Tories & Loyalists faced a lot of honestly very fucked up discrimination & forfeiture of their rights. Hamilton (like most Federalists) was pro-British, so he represented a lot of these people in court. I’m sure it wasn’t purely out of the goodness of his heart--most of his clients were loaded--but the sentiment is there. On the other hand, there are multiple records of Burr buying up property around this time, most likely confiscated Tory property, which he would usually flip or give away to people that he knew, so he was taking full advantage of this. Burr also, most likely, went head-to-head with Hamilton on a few of these cases, because Burr tended to work with the ‘common folk.’

French Revolution (1789ish to 1799ish) & Proclamation of Neutrality (1793)

     Burr (like most Democratic-Republicans) was pro-French, so much so that he took in French refugees fleeing the Revolution into his home. He was very sympathetic to the cause.Hamilton was not. He basically saw it the same way that right-wing Conservatives see the Black Lives Matter movement is the best way I can explain it. He also hated it for the amount of immigrants that were now fleeing to the U.S.

Burr Gets Chosen For NY Senate (1791)

     Key word: chosen. As in, he didn’t actually run. That wasn’t how politics worked back then. The Hamilton musical just fucking lied outright about that, let’s be clear. He also never switched parties. Ever. Back then you were nominated by the people who were already in government--usually by one of the powerful families like the Clintons or the Livingstons, or yada yada. So Burr didn’t actually do anything. He didn’t even really want the position either, if I recall. But back then if you were ‘called to serve,’ you were obligated to do it. Hamilton was furious either way because it meant that Burr was replacing his father-in-law, Phillip Schuyler, meaning that he wouldn’t have that extra ear in government that he wanted. Burr also had a lot of views that were considered ‘extreme’ at the time, like getting extra rights for women, immigrants & black people, but I have no idea what Hamilton thought of those individual policies other than he just didn’t like women, immigrants or black people.

1792 & 1796 Presidential Election

Burr wasn’t really that serious about either of these elections, I don’t think (in ’92 he wasn’t that well-known & barely got any support, but it’s worth noting the fact he was nominated to run at all was really impressive. He’s tied with William Jennings Bryan as being one of the youngest people to ever receive an electoral vote, at 36 years old.) In ’96 he faired a little better—he got 30 votes, which is nearly half of what you need to get the ticket nomination, also very impressive.Hamilton was super staunchly opposed to both of these runs, though, and did his typical Hamilton thing of openly campaigning about how the people shouldn’t vote for Burr, yada yada.

Jay Treaty (1794)

     I highly suggest looking up supplemental information on this because it’s a bit complicated, but it was basically a treaty between us and Great Britain to reaffirm that we were going to continue to not mess with France, as well as a couple of other weird hang-ups. It was not popular, at all, especially with the Demo-Republicans. There is a specific instance (that is actually kind of insane) where Hamilton gave a public speech in defense of it, and the Democratic-Republicans in the crowd started pelting him & the other Federalists with rocks. Hamilton got SO mad that immediately challenged a man to a duel, and threatened to fight each of the Democratic-Republicans one-by-one.  

Reynolds Affair (1797)

     Burr had a personal relationship with Maria Reynolds; he was her divorce attorney in 1793/1794, helped her out financially, & successfully petitioned (+paid for) her daughter Susan to attend a boarding school. I believe they also stayed in his him with him during the divorce proceedings, but don’t quote me on that. He never said anything publicly that I could find, but Burr probably had a personal investment in the Reynolds Pamphlet, since it painted Maria in a really damaging light.

Alien & Sedition Acts (1798)

     These were some of the most worst laws ever passed in the history of the country. Like, these were AWFUL. It not only limited immigration, but it limited the freedom of the press and freedom of speech (ESPECIALLY immigrants, my god.)

Burr was right on the front lines helping defend people in court, he actively opposed it & is probably the thing that propelled him into Jefferson’s orbit as a potential Vice President.

John Barker Church Duel (1797)

John Barker Church had accused Burr of taking bribes (which was unfounded & untrue) and they ended up dueling. JBC was the husband of Angelica Schuyler, Hamilton’s sister-in-law.

Neither was injured (though, JBC apparently put a hole in Burr’s coat), but it supposed infuriated Hamilton & his associates so much that they would send out fake letters “from Burr” challenging people to duels.

The Manhattan Company (1799)

    Burr was getting sick of the difficulty he was having getting loans from the Federalist-run banks and decided to do something about it. There had been several seasonal epidemics of yellow fever—caused by mosquitos but, at the time, it was thought to be caused by improperly treated water, miasma (‘bad air’) or (if you asked Hamilton) stinky evil immigrant refuges who were fleeing France and Haiti. Burr saw this and spearheaded a campaign to get a proper water treatment plant, even getting Hamilton to help him. Through some really weird loophole that I don’t quite understand, Burr was somehow allowed to use the ‘surplus capital’ for banking, which essentially turned it into a bank. The actual water treatment portion of the company was plagued with problems due to improper management and things like that.     We’ll never know his exact thought process on this (people normally assume it was malicious trickery because people are biased to hate Burr anyway) & I highly doubt that Burr knew the extent of the issues (he was on the Board of Directors, but so were a dozen others--INCLUDING John Barker Church) so I don’t entirely think it’s his fault, but the fact of the matter is that it most likely exacerbated the existing problems & indirectly led to more people getting sick/dying until they finally fixed the problems.I would say that it’s completely justifiable for Hamilton to be mad at Burr, but, as we established, Hamilton hated both poor people & immigrants (two groups most likely affected by this) so he wasn’t actually mad at him for the reason a… y’know, a normal person would be mad at him. He was mad at him because Burr destroyed the monopoly that Federalists had on banks, making it easier for Democratic-Republicans & others to get loans. He was literally mad at him for making the economy fair.

1800 Election & 1804 NY Governor Election

  These two are self-explanatory, I think, and I’ve already been writing way too long, lol. My hand hurts.

[kexing]

Venji has always been endgame: Benji’s attraction to Victor

the first thing I really need people to understand is that Benji is not watching the show, he’s not seeing things through Victor’s point of view, and for the most part of the season he has no idea Victor is struggling with his sexuality. from Benji’s point of view, Victor is straight and into Mia. that’s how I’m going to be analyzing his thoughts and actions (well, guessing mostly because he does lack screen time and insight moments. hopefully we’ll get more of him in season two!!)

btw I’m gonna break it down episode by episode because I’m insane (and I also feel strangely connected to Benji so don’t @ me)

Episode 1 - Welcome to Creekwood

as I’ve mentioned before, you can interpret Benji’s “nice shoes!” line as interest. but even if you’re not willing to do that, I still think it’s valid to consider that he might’ve felt some kind of immediate connection to Victor (if episodes 2 and 3 are any indication of that. and the Call Me Maybe lyrics).

Episode 2 - Stoplight Party

the “Benji attempts to teach Victor how to make a espresso” scene is very much about Victor’s attraction to Benji so I don’t wanna look too much into it. also Benji comes off as (at least for me!) a very attentive and loving person, so his dedication to teaching Victor felt very genuine. but still like...... he did get lost in Victor’s eyes for a moment before the milk spilled akdjksdjjs

then at the end of the episode Benji calls Victor late at night (he even apologizes for that) when he could’ve called Victor at any other time or could’ve just told him at school. and well, (I may be reaching here but headcanons are always good!!) I like to believe Benji couldn’t stop thinking about Victor, which is why he decided to call. for some unknown reason he already feels connected to Victor and wanted to hear his voice and—

let me stop here before I write a whole fanfic because that’s not the purpose of this post.

Episode 3 - Battle of the Bands

oh boy, I’m gonna try to unpack this episode, hopefully I’ll make some sense. I’m very sorry if I fail!

so, Victor and Benji have the Call Me Maybe (cutest) moment, in which Victor tells Benji that he’s going on a date with Mia the next day.

Now. I need you to remember that Victor explicitly told Benji that he and Mia wouldn’t go to the Battle of the Bands and that Benji had already performed when Victor got there and only performed again because his band won the battle (so I’m pretty sure Victor wasn’t supposed to hear the Call Me Maybe cover). therefore this wasn’t Benji confessing his feelings to Victor. if anything, I believe it was his way of dealing with the intense and ever-growing feelings that he has for Victor through his biggest passion (music), pretty much like making a reference to something that you know no one else will understand (since for everyone else it’s just a Carly Rae Jepsen bop).

but then Victor eventually shows up and hears Benji singing Call Me Maybe and for him it’s definitely not just a Carly Rae Jepsen bop anymore. it’s their song

after the performance, it looks like Benji is going to talk to him about it, maybe to try and make it seem like it’s no big deal (since he thinks Victor is into Mia, and he himself is in a long term relationship) but Derek appears and we’re all left heartbroken (Simon & his friends included).

what I’m trying to say is: they are two halves of the same idiot. while Victor is in denial of his sexuality and attraction to Benji, Benji is in denial of his growing feelings for Victor. we love this denial duo

Episode 4 - The Truth Hurts

not much to say about this one BUT. at the beginning of the episode you can see how Victor and Benji are working totally in sync, to the point where they barely need words like the freaking soulmates that they are. honestly, I’m done pretending they aren’t soulmates because this show just kept shoving that into our faces over and over and if you failed to see it then it’s not my problem (or maybe it is since I’m literally spending my time trying to explain exactly that. but I just care too much about these two and I want people to understand why).

then Derek calls and Benji picks up lovingly because he’s a loving person and a caring boyfriend and even though he might be struggling with his feelings for Victor, he’s not about to neglect his boyfriend (shame we can’t say the same thing about Derek) (no I will not stop throwing shade at him).

Episode 5 - Sweet Sixteen

I could try and say several things about this one but for real, BENJI DREW VICTOR AND GAVE HIM THE DRAWING AS A BIRTHDAY GIFT. like! this stupidly artistic boy!!!!!!!!! this stupidly caring boy!!!!!!!!! he could’ve bought Victor literally anything or not even bothered to think of a gift At All, but he took the time to DRAW VICTOR LIKE ONE OF HIS FRENCH BOYS!!!!! what am I supposed to do with this knowledge!!!!

now I’m imagining Benji observing Victor. the way the light hits his face, how his shoulders move, the shape of his hands....... all the while telling himself it’s just to draw Victor!!!!! but that’s still beautiful and frankly thirsty nonetheless.

p.s I was robbed of a scene like that.

Episode 6 - Creekwood Nights

not much to say about this one except the show blatantly telling us that Derek can be real shitty sometimes. also, I wanna talk about Venji’s dynamics throughout the show so bad but it deserves a post of its own so I’m gonna hold my tongue.

Episode 7 - What Happens In Willacoochee

(stays in Willacoochee or maybe it will haunt your gay ass all the way to New York).

oh boy, this is where shit starts going down for real.

so Victor kisses Benji. I’m not going to defend Victor because what he did was reckless and dumb and frankly disrespectful. but I need to say that it was going to happen sooner or later because when you repress something too hard and for too long, it’s bound to come back with full force and explode in your face. I really wish it was in a different circumstance, of course, but also life isn’t always made of perfect situations and shit happens. (and nope, that does not excuse Victor’s actions).

now think about Benji. he’s been struggling with his feelings for Victor, who as far as he knows is straight and in a relationship, and then suddenly Victor kisses him. my best guess (due to his reaction to Victor’s speech in episode 10) is that he thinks Victor isn’t being serious about it, that in no moment that kiss meant anything but curiosity and recklessness, when they both have people to lose (again, he doesn’t know that Victor struggles with his sexuality, much less that Victor has feelings for him).

so yeah, I believe Benji was upset, not only with Victor though, but with himself.

(I’ll come back to this in a second)

no Benji in episode 8 so.......

Episode 9 - Who The Hell Is B

Benji decides to leave the coffee shop. Victor tells him that the kiss wasn’t his fault and Benji says that being around Victor makes him feel guilty, now why is that?

firstly because he’s not a psychopath and the fact that he cheated on Derek makes him feel guilty. but I do believe that that’s not the only thing that makes him feel guilty. deep down he liked kissing Victor. he likes Victor, he’s been doing his best to keep that buried but Victor had to go and complicate things, so now the only way to avoid making a bigger mess is staying as far away as possible from each other. so he runs back to the safety of his relationship with Derek.

(listen, I know the show makes it seem like Benji is super angry and wants nothing to do with Victor but I don’t believe that’s the case. he’s upset and feeling guilty for liking someone else, denial does make you act very hostile sometimes).

Episode 10 - Spring Fling

Benji’s denial continues but (thankfully) it won’t last much longer.

he goes to the bathroom and tells Victor that he’s read his letter and that he does forgive him for kissing him but that that doesn’t change anything, that it’s best for them to stay away from each other.

that’s until he hears Victor’s speech to Derek (which was more to Benji than Derek so). that’s the moment he realizes that Victor actually likes him, that the kiss as cursed as it was had meant something, that they both feel exactly the same thing. that’s what gives him courage to finally accept that he can’t be with Derek anymore because his heart belongs to someone else. (has belonged to Victor from the moment they met) akdjskdjsj someone please tell me to shut up

which leads us to the bench kiss(es) scene. now, these boys are a whole mess because Victor was still technically dating Mia (he did try to come out to her before, couldn’t do it so he decided to come out after the Spring Fling) (good intention, poor execution).

But I also believe this was just lazy writing and they wanted to have a scene where Mia catches Victor and Benji together. it could’ve been done better, they could’ve been just touching foreheads or something but they wanted the full drama so the kiss(es) happened. I’m taking 50 points away from the writers for this. (also does not excuse Victor or Benji since they literally met halfway. these idiots are so in love wtf!)

(I still love them though, and hope they do better in the future, for themselves and for each other).

anyway, I think that’s it! if you read up until this point: thank you so much!!!! I tried my best to understand and explain Benji since the show said fuck Benji stans. hope this helps!

— love, MJ

[drawlfoy]

The Wonders of Ohio P.6

masterlist (catch up on parts 1-5 here!!)

request guidelines

pairing: draco x reader

request: my original idea :))

summary: y/n’s senior year was going to be great, but her British exchange student is a little weird. this is NOT a non-magic AU. draco’s still a wizard in this fsjifkszfjkd

warnings: language, fainting, bad driving, mentions of drinking and drug use

a/n: eeee this is such a fun bit to write. thank you all so much for being there for me. this is definitely one of my favorite fics i’ve written since it gives me so much creative liberty and the fact that i get feedback and readers for it...just warms my heart. if you’re reading this: thank you so, so much for sticking around. i might come around with more oneshots soon. anyways i hope you enjoy the initial descent into the real real plot. also fluff will be coming soon i promise but i wasn’t lying when i said this was slowburn

tags tags tags @gruffle1 @missmulti @cleopatera @hahaboop @accio-rogers @geeksareunique @eltanin-malfoy @war-sword @cams-lynn @itsivyberry @ayo-cowbelly @nerd-domland @yesnerdsblog @shizarianathania @evanstanfanatic @strawberriesonsummer @hariosborn @night-ving @icintliviinyiniilsiji @erisdogwood @loveissupernatural

word count: 3.4k

song recs:

a pearl -- mitski

movement -- hozier

revival -- deerhunter

Draco was crying.

Or, at least, someone was. The gasps coming from just a wall away were apparent, but Y/N could hear a voice that didn’t quite sound like Draco--which had to be a trick of the mind, because there could be no one in there but him.

She rapped on the door against her better judgement to be met with a flurry of movement--fabric rustling,  and a soft pop that echoed through the air.

“Draco? Are you alright in there?”

Y/N found herself wishing that he wouldn’t open the door. After the Homecoming ask, the last thing she wanted was to see his stupid pretty face again, but she was a good host sister. Emphasis on sister.

To her shock, the door swung open. Just a few inches, just enough for her to see the pile of black shredded paper in the middle of his room and a drained looking Draco glaring back at her.

“Can I help you?” His once pristine white shirt was gray in some places, like he had rubbed ashes on it. 

“I just thought--did you burn something?”

“No. What is it?”

She looked at him a bit closer. His eyes didn’t look red rimmed with the dead giveaway of a crying session, but they looked close. The furrow in his brow was from worry instead of his usual sternness and he kept nervously pulling down at his left sleeve. 

Draco wasn’t crying, but he was about to.

“I…” There was something deeply unsettling about seeing Draco so uncollected and fidgety--almost like seeing a fish out of water or an American conservative with an adequate understanding of class struggles.The air was charged with something yet again, so much so that Y/N could feel the hair on her arms stand up. She decided to avoid damaging his masculinity any further. “Nothing. It just smelled a little like smoke. I wanted to make sure you weren’t burning a candle or anything. You know how my mom is about that.”

He continued to stare at her.

“Would you like me to leave you alone?”

“Please.” 

Well, that was embarrassing thought Y/N as she made her way back down the hall and to her backpack. I get rejected twice in one day. Smooth.

The days following were profoundly more uncomfortable. Breakfasts became uncomfortably akin to the Silent Game and Draco stopped coming out for tea in the evenings. The drives to and from school were decorated only by occasional bits of small talks or grumbles of exams. In short, Y/N knew that she had overstepped a boundary and Draco was pulling back.

School had finally become crazy. Y/N’s life became so entrenched with letters of recommendation and 200 word supplements that the Draco shaped hole in her life was bearable. After all, she was fine before he came, and she was fine now. She’d been silly, allowing herself to fantasize about a kid with some serious trauma and family issues that clearly had personal things that handle before he thought about getting all cozy with someone who was not in the slightest compatible with him. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

oOo

If someone turned a glass of whole milk into a human, that person would be Chad. He was the poster child of an “American” boy--tall, warm blonde hair, slightly tanned skin, and cornflower blue eyes. 

But his personality? Not so much. 

“My beloved husband!” Y/N called out as she saw him speaking to her mother in the foyer while Draco glowered in the corner. She bounded down the stairs in record time, leaping into his arms as her strappy heels swung from her hands. He smelled of cotton and laundry detergent. 

“Hey nerd,” he said, swinging her around in a circle before setting her down. “Did you finish the Econ homework? I was hoping I could take a picture before I leave…”

Y/N drew back to smack him on the shoulder. “You disgust me.”

“You abuse me.”

“And I’ll do it again,” said Y/N. She had forgotten how funny he was. 

“Oh, you two,” Mrs. Y/L/N cut in, stepping between the two and pressing the boutonnière into Y/N’s hands. “Always bickering like a married couple.”

Lizzy snorted from the top of the stairs where she was struggling to stuff a light jacket into her purse. “Hot take.”

“Hold still,” commanded Y/N, holding the pin and attempting to attach it to his lapel. “I’m literally going to accidentally stab you. Cut it out.”

He made a face down at her. “Do it. You won’t.”

“Oh? I won’t?”

“Y/N,” Mrs. Y/L/N’s exasperated voice warned.

“I’ll refrain, but only because the rug we’re standing on was my Grandmother’s,” Y/N said to him, her voice dripping with sweetness. “Consider yourself lucky that you’re not on the tile.”

“I’ve never been more thankful that my late grandmother-in-law had such impeccable taste.” 

“Suck up.”

“Oh, because you’re such a rebel.”

“It’s called motivation!”

“Honey, I want a divor-”

“For Christ’s sake, stop flirting or I’m going to puke,” a cool voice cut in. The group turned to see Sylvia standing in the doorway, clad in a flowing black dress that just barely ghosted over the top of the floor. 

“You look radiant, darling,” Mrs. Y/L/N said.

“And we weren’t flirting,” said Y/N.

Sylvia sent her a little wink before walking to sit down on the couch across from Draco, who was currently perched cross legged and looking profoundly uncomfortable. 

Sylvia, Lizzy, and their dates all opted to take Lizzy’s car to the city while Chad, Y/N, and Draco took Chad’s. The plan was to drop Draco off at the school with ample time to prepare him for the uniquely traumatic experience that was ASB sanctioned after school events, and to the plan they stuck.

“Yeah, go ahead and treat me like your chauffeur, “ scoffed Chad as Y/N slid into the backseat next to Draco. The sports car was surprisingly narrow with hardly any space between them. If she wanted to, she could easily rest her thigh against his.

“It’s called being polite, dear,” said Y/N, flicking the back of his head before turning to face Draco. “You’re really gonna commit to this? Major props, but, like...you really don’t have to go to this if you don’t want to. You can even stay home. I know how to sneak you back in.”

Draco rolled his eyes. “I’m here for the American experience, right?”

“Hate to break it to you, but there is no uniform American experience. It’s all personalized, and I don’t know if you want yours to be seasoned with 14 year olds T-posing in a circle to...I don’t even know. Chad, what kind of music do they play at those places?”

“Fuck if I know. I don’t go to them either.”

“It’s fine. I told Heather I’d be there.”

“Ooookay, whatever you say,” Y/N said. 

They rode in silence for a few more beats. The wind outside was uncharacteristically strong for an early October day, and it looked like a storm was brewing. In their rush to get to the dance on time, they had neglected to take precaution against the wind and ran outside to Chad’s car without a second thought. Draco’s suit, while posh and put together, had clearly bore the brunt of this choice. His tie had become slightly rumpled and his hair mussed, a look that was all types of wrong on him.

“Draco?” she asked. He snapped to attention. “Your tie is all undone. Can I…?” Y/N motioned to his neck.

Wide-eyed and frozen, he met her with, “er...sure.” 

Y/N leaned forward, trying to think past how her thighs were just barely touching his. Her corsage (a tasteful red, thank you very much) bumped against his chest, flattening a bit. She wasn’t very familiar with ties--she’d never had to be in her past experiences--but whatever his was made of, it was expensive. The fabric felt silky and impossibly smooth in her hand as she carefully untied it.

Chad took a sharp turn into the school drop off lot, prompting Y/N to nearly topple into Draco’s chest. His arms shot out to steady her and retracted so quickly that she was left wondering if she imagined the whole ordeal. 

“So it’s true,” said Chad from the front. “Nerds do have bad upper body strength.”

“Shut up,” she responded. Her cheeks felt unbearably hot as she tried her best to focus on tightening Draco’s tie and ignore the fact that she was close enough to smell his cologne--a soft pine, she observed--and feel the shadow of his breath on her face. His hands were clasped together lap, tight enough to turn the knuckles white. 

It was an odd feeling, getting butterflies in her stomach while she was touching a boy that wasn’t her date as Chad careened towards a parking spot and pulled in so violently that Y/N almost went sprawling into Draco again. She looked up at him, getting ready to crack a joke about the absurdity of the situation or the questionable driving; instead, she found herself staring up into his eyes. 

His normally pale eyes looked darker than usual--his pupils were insanely dilated--but that was because it was dark in the car. Obviously. Out of the corner of her eye, Y/N could see his chest rising and falling with an urgency that she hadn’t noticed before.

“Do you want me to uh..fix your...your hair, too?” Y/N said, mentally cringing at how she stumbled over the sentence. To be fair, his hair was ruffled and out of place. It wasn’t like she was making an excuse to touch it or anything.

To that, Draco jerked away from her, his back brushing up against the opposite car door. “No. No, it’s ok. I’ll fix it myself.”

Y/N was sure that her face was tomato red.

“Alright buckaroo,” Chad said from the front, his nonchalant demeanor never more appreciated. “Your hot date is here. Get out of my car. We have a busy day of antiquing ahead.”

Any semblance of casualness left Draco’s body as his eyes widened. “Antiquing?”

“Yeah, remember the place I took you to right after you came here?” asked Y/N.

“Er...don’t you have anything better to do?”

“Excuse me?” She sat up straight so quickly that she felt her hair come slightly undone at the nape of her neck. “That’s rich, coming from the kid going to a school dance as a senior.” 

“It’s probably not going to even be open. It’ll be late by the time dinner’s over,” he said. 

“Since when do you care? Honestly, quit acting weird,” Y/N responded, scootching away from him as he made no effort to get out of the car. 

“I’m not--it’s--erm, nevermind, forget about it.” He cleared his throat, straightened his tie, and brushed off his lapels. “Heather must be waiting for me. Goodbye.”

After a little struggle, Draco managed to best the slightly confusing door handle of Chad’s car and was out the door. Y/N slid across the seat and out with him, shutting the door and grabbing the handle for the passenger side. 

“Y/N?” Draco’s voice called before she had the chance to fully get in and tell Chad to book it. 

“What’s up?”

He took a few steps forward, pausing just a couple feet away from her. His eyes were cast to the rain puddle ridden cement. “Promise me you won’t do anything stupid, okay?”

“I should be telling you that, king,” Y/N quipped. “Your first real American dance. If you go to any after parties, make sure to watch your drink. Don’t take any substances from strangers--or, anyone, really--”

“Y/N, he’s not a chick.” Chad, his hands still perched on the steering wheel, turned to peer out at her. “He’ll be fine. I think they have beer in Britain.”

“Well, whatever. Have Heather text me if I need to pick you up anywhere. And don’t get in any cars with someone who’s been drinking!”

“Y/N!”

“Ok, ok, I’m coming.” She slid into the car, turning one last time to say bye. Draco was already gone. “Only if I drive.”

oOo

“So Heather and Draco, huh?” 

Y/N scowled at Lizzy as she speared a piece of her salad particularly viciously. “I don’t know if it’s like that. I think he’s just being polite, or whatever. I think British people are just like that.”

“Why are we even talking about that boy?” Chad asked. “He’s got that whole Timothée Chalamet dying Victorian toddler aesthetic if Timothée was blonde and had a perpetual stick up his ass.”

“In a hot way, though,” said Lizzy, her eyebrows wiggling. Jonathan scowled at her side. “Oh, don’t be so jealous. As if I’d ever go for a kid who doesn’t even know what Snapchat is.”

“I don’t understand what Heather sees in him,” Chad continued, his fettuccine plate long forgotten. “He’s got the personality of a wet rag, and she’s so bubbly and...I don’t even know. Do you guys get what I mean?”

“Draco’s got personality,” said Y/N. 

“Not like Heather.”

“It’s not his fault he’s reserved. He’s actually really funny.”

“And that’s what I like to call rose-tinted glasses,” Chad said, gently poking her cheek. 

“Hey! I’m the one who lives with him.”

“Whatever. Let’s just call for the bill. I’m not hungry anymore.” Chad folded up his napkin, placing it on top of the tablecloth and ignoring Y/N’s protest as he got out his wallet and placed a credit card on the table. “It’s on me, guys. You know how my parents are. They’re just happy that we’re all getting together again instead of holing up in our rooms.”

“Thank god junior year is over,” Sylvia added. “That’s really kind of you. At least let me get the tip?”

As the group bickered over the payment options and flagged down the waiter, Y/N noticed her phone lighting up with a notification.

Heather, 6.48pm: Hey girly! Sorry to bug you on your night but Draco wanted to check in and ask where you guys are/what you’re planning on doing tonight.

“Who’s that?” Chad asked, looking down at the little paragraph in the gray message bubble.

“Just Heather. Draco wants to know what we’re doing. Probably because he’s realizing how sucky dances really are and is about to beg us to come pick him up.”

He snorted. “Yeah. Poor kid.”

Y/N typed out a quick “we just finished dinner and are heading to the antique place now. lmk if i need to pick him up earlier” and tucked her phone away in her purse. As much as she resented it, she couldn’t help but wish that Draco wanted to join them instead.

“Are you guys ready to beat it and hit up that antique place?” Marvin, Sylvia’s date, asked. She rolled her eyes and sent him a lazy smile.

“You sound like a dad.” 

“Off like a herd of turtles, baby,” Y/N offered, gathering her things as they made their way out the restaurant door. “Not gonna lie, this place doesn’t show up on Google Maps or anything. I think I know how to get there but none of you guys are allowed to make fun of me if I take too many wrong turns.”

“No promises,” said Chad, winking down at her and giving her shoulder a little squeeze. 

 As they walked, it became profoundly obvious that Chad and Y/N were the only two who weren’t officially an item. Lizzy and Jonathon were walking hand in hand while Sylvia and Marvin whispered in each others’ ears when they had to wait for crosswalk signals. While she had great chemistry with Chad, nothing ever felt real with him. It always felt like an act.

Perhaps the tension between them was because of that one time they kissed and never talked about it again in freshman year after a particularly nerve wracking competitive math round before she quit--something that she wasn’t exactly going to shout off the rooftops for the masses to hear. Or maybe because he pushed her away right after and said it was a mistake. 

Whatever it was, Y/N and Chad were decidedly not romantically involved. She had been shocked when he’d even bothered asking her for the night. Granted, they were always pals and it shouldn’t have been awkward, but drawing the comparisons between her and the other girls was making the evening very uncomfy. Y/N couldn’t help but pray that Chad was going to be the one to break the ice.

“Where the fuck is this place?” he finally said, much to Y/N’s glee. His grace and manners were absolutely unparalleled. “It’s cold and I’m sure it’s going to start raining again.”

“It should be just a few more blocks and then to the right,” she responded. “Sorry. It’s cool as fuck, though. I promise it’s worth it.”

“This is just her ploy to lure us all away from civilization to off us,” Sylvia said, turning around from a few feet in front of them to raise her eyebrows at Y/N. “Eliminate the competition before college apps even begin. I’m impressed, honestly.”

“Now you’ve gone and ruined it all,” she fired back. “Thanks, Vy.”

She was relieved to see that the antique store couldn’t be missed, even if she tried. The sign, a worn and friendly gold, was illuminated by large lights. The words “My Grandfather’s Attic” had never looked more welcoming as Sylvia gripped the door and ushered them inside.

The moment Y/N stepped inside, something felt...different, kind of like the hair-raising feeling she got when she was around Draco. The electricity in the air she felt with him could easily be explained away by the fact that he was, for lack of a better term, the most stunning person she’d ever seen, but perhaps she was slowly getting over him. Perhaps…

She turned to see Chad, his honey blonde hair spilling over his forehead as he focused on a basket of vintage buttons that seemed to glimmer in the light. The furrow in his brow--the same one that she’d been so familiar with after seeing him solve countless math problems--appeared as he examined the basket, turning a red button around in his fingers, soft and and sprinkled with writing calluses. 

Maybe it had been Chad all along. Maybe Draco was just a detour. 

Before she did anything she regretted, Y/N turned and made her way back into the store. The set up was the same as she remembered--interesting and foreign objects hanging from the walls, ceilings, and congregating in baskets and overflowing shelves. She didn’t even realize that she had migrated over to the opposite side of the room until she felt the solid, cool wood of the black box from her dreams pressed into her hand as she turned it over and traced the strange white sign that was etched into the front. 

“Y/N!” 

The sound snapped her out of her trance to see...Heather and Draco? He was jogging towards her despite the fact that he was wearing a full suit. Y/N made an absent note to make fun of him later. 

“Why are you--”

“Put that down!” He stopped a few paces away, his eyes darting around the store at a frantic pace. “We need to leave.”

“Why? Honestly, if you wanted me to pick you up, all you had to do was…” She had to take a breath to steady herself. Her body felt like it was filled with static. “All you had to do was ask.”

“That’s not...ok, just put it down,” he commanded. “Please. Just put the box down. We need to go home.”

“No! This is my last homecoming. I’m sorry your experience wasn’t great, but I don’t...I don’t, uh, appreciate…” The lightheadedness hit, so suddenly that she almost fell. 

“Fuck, are you okay?” Draco was right in front of her in an instant, his eyes scanning her face.

“I feel...” She took a shaky breath. “I feel...starry?”

The last thing she remembered was Draco trying to tug the box out of her grip, his other hand warm on her shoulder.

And then everything went black.

final a/n: so draco got a howler and some wack stuff happened, huh? tell me what you think. 

[miraculouscontent]

What do you think would be if Agreste family was Childless (read: What if Adrien don't exist)?

I can’t get into too much detail because no Adrien means no Chat Noir and that’s dicey-er territory. Still, I’ll give it a go.

Obvious stuff first:

- Gabriel wouldn’t have as many on-screen moments of “sympathy” since no Adrien hug and no scene with them watching Emilie’s starring role together.

- We’re going to presume that there’s a new cat who is at least competent enough to follow Ladybug’s orders and get the job done.

- No Adrien means no book which means no potions at the very least; we will however presume that Marinette gets a Lucky Charm in “Sapotis” that leads her to Fu, even if the Lucky Charm confuses her so she has to ask Tikki about it (which then leads to Tikki taking her to Fu), so temporary heroes will still be a thing (otherwise this’ll be boring with me shrugging at a bunch of temporary holder episodes).

Anyway, episodes that would be significantly different without Adrien are bolded, episodes that are uncertain (i.e: ones that involve potions) are marked with a *, and episodes that are bolded and italicized outright/possibly would not happen at all:

Season 1

Stormy Weather (no visit to the park, possibly no Alya since Alya’s purpose in coming was to tell Marinette about Adrien; if Alya does show up, possibly just Marinette and Alya being gay moms to Manon)

Evillustrator

Lady Wifi

Princess Fragrance (new cat possibly doesn’t get hit by Princess Fragrance’s perfume, as it was Chat’s idea to open the windows in the first place, which let Princess Fragrance spray her perfume in)

Dark Cupid (new cat possibly not getting shot since they wouldn’t be distracted by confessing to Ladybug)

Mr. Pigeon (new cat likely not allergic to feathers; Marinette would probably still compete in the hat contest though)

Pixelator (new cat may not get shot by Pixelator as Adrien got shot protecting Chloe which... who would protect Chloe?)

Copycat (um... yeah)

The Bubbler (Adrien doesn’t exist, therefore no one for Nino to get akumatized over)

Simon Says

Rogercop (this one’s debatable, but Plagg might not see the bracelet from his vantage point, so he might not cause the whole incident that leads to Roger being fired)

Gamer (no Adrien means that Max and Marinette would be teaming up, so unless Max gets akumatized just out of being beaten by a girl, we’re good)

Animan (no Adrien to set up Nino’s date with Marinette, meaning Alya and Nino aren’t at the zoo, don’t get trapped in the cage, and thus don’t get together)

Darkblade (this one wouldn’t really be different exactly, but this showcases Adrien’s fencing ability while he’s fighting against Darkblade as Chat; it’s not significant but more like a fun fact)

The Pharaoh

Timebreaker (new cat might protect Ladybug differently rather than taking the time to hug AND shield her; possibly no time travel back and Marinette might drop the watch herself since there’s no Adrien to grab it first, though that’s really insignificant since the watch had to be run over by Alix for it to break)

Horrificator (Inspector Jones is different so no Chloe insisting on being the other role, though Mylene would still be chased away; hm, I wonder who Inspector Jones would be if not Adrien?)

The Puppeteer (possibly no Rogercop, so it’d be a different akuma)

The Mime

Guitar Villain

Reflekta (no Adrien, so unless the photographer still puts Juleka in the middle and Chloe insists on being there, which she didn’t in the original as it was only being next to Adrien that she cared about, Juleka wouldn’t be sent to the bathroom)

Ladybug & Chat Noir (Origins - Part 1) (This one is REALLY subjective and debatable so don’t take it too seriously, but it’s possible that the new cat would’ve listened to Plagg’s full instructions and Plagg might’ve talked about Ladybug’s purification; therefore, the new cat might’ve been like, “Hey, are you supposed to purify that or--” “Oh! Right!” meaning no second Stoneheart)

Stoneheart (Origins - Part 2) (Again, only relevant if you assume that Part 1 would have the new cat reminding Ladybug of purification)

Antibug

Kung Food (no Adrien to help Marinette with Chinese; honestly I feel like this is better because the writers would probably have to have her know Chinese instead of being taught terms by a white boy)

Volpina (no Adrien, no book, no Marinette getting upset at Lila dissing Ladybug and thus - in addition to no Adrien for Lila to flirt with - no Ladybug calling Lila out unless she does it differently) (either way, no Volpina in general because there’s no fox hero for her to base herself on, so it’d just be a generic illusion maker if anything)

Season 2

The Collector (no “Volpina” means no “The Collector”)

Prime Queen (depends on whether Ladybug and the new cat are ship-tastic enough for Nadja to do a story on and if the new cat would stand up enough for Ladybug that Ladybug wouldn’t feel the need to barge out)

Glaciator (no Adrien means no disappointed Marinette means no Andre the ice cream man being upset)

Despair Bear (no Adrien to tell Chloe to start being nice means Chloe shall make no attempt to)

Troublemaker (no Adrien pictures means Marinette isn’t as panicked so Penny wouldn’t have to kick everyone out so readily)

Gigantitan (no Adrien, no Gorilla to try to akumatize, so no butterfly to akumatize August)

Riposte (Adrien is apparently Armand D'Argencourt’s best student; thus, no Adrien means that Kagami would just get into the fencing class)

Befana

Frightningale (this one is a BIIIIIG “if”; Chloe would have to care enough to want to be Ladybug without Adrien as the cat, and then Marinette would have to be peeved enough at the idea of Chloe being Ladybug to interrupt, which she technically implies in the original by saying, “Chloé playing Ladybug? No way! Not gonna happen!”)

Gorizilla (no Adrien for Gorilla to lose)

Robostus

Sapotis (again, we’re presuming that Ladybug gets a Lucky Charm that either leads her to Fu or Marinette asks Tikki about the Lucky Charm and Tikki leads her to Fu)

Dark Owl

Syren* (no aqua powers; possible zodiac usage, like Dragon for water powers)

Zombizou

Captain Hardrock (no Adrien for Marinette to get depressed over but she’d obviously still meet Luka, whether on deck or in his room)

Frozer* (no Adrien for Marinette to third wheel for alongside Luka, but Philippe’s ice rink is still in jeopardy so he’ll still be akumatized; also, no ice powers)

Style Queen (new cat very well might not be turned to glitter, meaning no need to go to Fu anyway because the bee actually wasn’t needed to beat the akuma: Plagg/the cat was)

Queen Wasp* (no bee miraculous to lose, no Queen Bee, Audrey may or may not get close to Chloe because Marinette has less reason to help)

Reverser (new cat would get reversed into something else at the very least?)

Anansi (we’re assuming that this would be an episode where Nino gets his miraculous even if he’s not dating Alya; it just wouldn’t involve Alya)

Malediktator (no Queen Bee, no video to get into a huff over)

Sandboy (new cat’s civilian and hero nightmares would be different)

Catalyst (Heroes Day - Part 1) (if Volpina doesn’t happen, Hawk Moth doesn’t have his illusion maker, but that one was more debatable so we’ll presume he gets around it enough or Volpina did happen but very differently) (the subplot about Marinette preparing sweets is likely averted; in the original, Marinette went back on admitting that she lied because of Adrien being a sad boy which made her feel guilty) (bonus that Alya can’t use any “you’re jealous because Lila hit on Adrien” excuse with Marinette because Adrien doesn’t exist)

Mayura (Heroes Day - Part 2) (no Queen Bee so no Queen Wasp, and it’s debatable if Alya and Nino would’ve been close enough to care if/when the other got hit by Dark Cupid’s arrows)

Santa Claws (no Adrien means no final straw for Santa)

Season 3

Chameleon (no Adrien means no akumatization motive for Lila; also, no Adrien means that Marinette isn’t holding back from calling out Lila’s lying and Alya still can’t use the “you’re jealous because aDriEn” excuse, so we’ll presume that Alya trusts Marinette - an insane concept, I know - and looks into Lila’s lies)

Animaestro (no Adrien, no macaron, no last straw for Astruc and Marinette likely wouldn’t even show up for the premiere)

Bakerix

Backwarder (no Adrien love letter to accidentally give to Marianne, though it’d be hilarious to see Marianne’s reaction to being given the prescription; still )

Reflekdoll (no Adrien, no Alya intrusion, no Juleka blaming Marinette for no reason)

Weredad (based on if the love square is even still a thing, this could go any number of ways, but likely wouldn’t happen in the exact same way at least; also, I doubt the new cat would be curious about Marinette being on her own damn balcony)

Silencer

Oni-Chan (no Adrien means no picture for Kagami to get salty over)

Miraculer (no Queen Bee)

Oblivio (new cat might not be lounging around and calling them and Ladybug a couple; even if this episode still did happen, obviously it’d be very different)

Desperada (no Adrien means no guitar scene and no Aspik)

Christmaster (no Adrien gifts means no lie)

Startrain (depending on who the cat is, Ladybug might have to either go it alone or teleport away from the train to get them)

Kwami Buster (if the cat is someone who doesn’t go to Marinette’s school, possibly no Ms. Mendeleiev trying to catch the kwami)

Feast

Gamer 2.0 (this would technically be the first Gamer since “Gamer” very likely didn’t happen; ambiguous how the new cat will handle stressed out Ladybug or if they’re good at games in the first place)

Stormy Weather 2 (no subplot about Marinette delivering Adrien’s homework)

Ikari Gozen (no Adrien for Marinette to worry over so no phone-peeking and no sad Kagami)

Timetagger (new cat may no Cataclysm Bunnyx’s miraculous, which is what caused Bunnyx to be trapped in the past in the first place, unable to return)

Party Crasher (no Adrien, no party)

Puppeteer 2 (no Adrien means no museum means and no DJWifi dating for them to flirt and completely abandon the child they were supposed to watch)

Chat Blanc (no Adrien crush means no gift which means no Chat Noir figuring out Ladybug’s identity)

Felix (no Adrien means no video for Felix to sabotage)

Ladybug (Lila may’ve been called out by “Chameleon,” and even if Marinette was expelled, Alya still doesn’t have the “Adrien” excuse to pull, making it look even worse for her if she refuses to see Lila as a suspect)

Heart Hunter (Battle of the Miraculous - Part 1) (no Adrien means no sad Marinette which means Ladybug would be alert enough to go de-transform first or realize that Hawk Moth is following her) (also, Audrey possibly isn’t in Paris because she was planning on leaving before Chloe and her made up)

Miracle Queen (Battle of the Miraculous - Part 2) (Queen Bee never happened)

[fandomshatewomen]

Lovecraft Country: Race, Colorism, and Family Pt 1. Colorism

Hey y’all, I’m Mod C and I have thoughts on HBO’s Lovecraft Country. Because i have so many thoughts, I’m going to make this a bit of a series.

The season is over, but not everyone has access to HBO, so if you don’t want significant spoilers don’t read below the cut.

General Overview: So, Lovecraft Country is set in 1950′s America, post WW2 and follows Atticus “Tic” Freeman. Tic is just getting back home from his time abroad during the war. He’d received an odd letter from his dad about an inheritance from his mother’s side and has to go searching for him with the help of his Uncle George and a neighborhood friend Letitia “Leti” Lewis. Uncle George runs a travel magazine a la The Green Book, which tells people of color which areas are safe to visit and Leti needs a ride in the direction of where they’re heading so she joins them. On their journey they face racism and  monsters, but they eventually find their destination, where Tic learns that he is descended from a family of Wizards. This family is White and owned one of Tic’s ancestors who was pregnant with the child of the Master, making Tic have magical blood and the wizards want him for some advanced magic. Tic and his friends manage to escape and spend the next several months entrenched in a magical adventure trying to learn more about his family history, magic, and trying to figure out how to stop the wizard’s plans.

This time, I’m gonna talk about the colorism i found in Lovecraft country and about how different characters were portrayed based on their skin color,

Keep an eye out for the next installment about the weird family relationships in the show and let me know what you thought about the colorism and characterization in Lovecraft country

Now for the review and analysis. Tw for mentions of: rape, body horror, racial violence, and general gore

I believe one of my biggest issues with Lovecraft Country is that the series is so short. There has been a trend recently of having short seasons in a series. Seasons with 12 or less episodes has become more and more the norm, but this presents the creators of shows with an issue. They need to tell a complete story as quickly as possible. The creators of Lovecraft country needed to set up, expand upon, and complete the story of Tic and his learning about magic in 10 episodes.

Because they only had 10 episodes to tell this story that dealt with race, family, the unknown, the past, and the future so much was lost. Character development wasn’t too common, (minor) time skips happened fairly frequently, and the Lovecraftian horror element of the show felt like it was relegated to the background for most of the show. I’m not the biggest horror buff, but I know Lovecraft’s stories were about the horrifyingly unknowable, situations and creatures that defied understanding which left those who experienced them broken. Taking this concept and applying it to the black experience is honestly perfect imo and I would have liked to see it played with more, but the creators of this show seemed to have instead gone for a story about gore and pain and I take major issue with how this pain and gore was portrayed.

This post was sparked by conversations about colorism in Lovecraft Country. Most of the cast is made up of dark-skinned black people, some white people, some asian people, and one significant light-skinned character, Letitia Lewis as played by the incomparable Jurnee Smollett. Letitia is the love interest of Tic, and while the other female characters get their chance to shine, it is very interesting that Letitia never really experiences the same type of gore and pain that the other dark skinned and/or plus sized characters do.

There are three dark skinned women who are side-characters in the show, Ruby Baptiste  (Letitia’s older half sister), Hippolyta Freeman( George’s wife, Tic’s aunt), and Diane “Dee” Freeman (Hippolyta and George’s daughter, Tic’s cousin).

Ruby is a singer who manages to embody the Mammy, Sapphire, and Jezebel stereotypes all at once. She is Letitia’s older sister and is shown to be sensual but serious and is always fighting with Letitia about her relationship with the family and Letitia’s past mistakes. Ruby wants to do better in life, but is held back by racism. When Ruby meets William and Christina (two white wizards trying to use Tic in their magic unbeknownst to Ruby), she agrees to work for them in return for a potion which allows her to shapeshift into a white woman. The first time she shapeshifts is after being drugged by them and she wakes up in the body of an unknown white woman and becomes enamored with the power and ease of life as a white person. The transformation between Hillary (her white persona) and Ruby is always a gore-y and almost painful looking one. Ruby has to literally peel off her skin to become Hillary and vice versa to become herself again, leaving chunks of blood and skin and hair behind whenever she does so, but she takes the potion in order to feel powerful and to have her successes recognized by the wider world. She fights with Letitia a lot, but obviously puts a lot of importance in family, and in the end this gets her killed by Christina, who then transforms into her in order to trick the others.

It’s unclear exactly what Hippolyta does, whether she is a stay at home mom or if she assists George at his car shop/travel magazine business, but it is made abundantly clear how smart and strong this woman is. OMFG Hippolyta is truly everything, but she also faces a lot for seemingly no reason. George dies on the first trip he takes with Tic and Letitia, killed by the white Wizards. Understandably, they lie to her about the cause of his death, but she also doesn’t believe them. So, she sets out to learn the truth, finding magical artifacts in the course of her investigation. At some point, she gets sucked into a space/time machine and sent to a universe where she is turned into part machine?, imprisoned, then sent into a simulation where she is able to experience any and everything she wants. This process is meant to educate her and make her a god, but she decides that she would rather be a mother and wife and goes back to her universe to take care of her daughter Dee. At some point after her return, she needs to use the space/time machine again, but because it was damaged the first time they used it, she has to power it using the technology implanted into her in the other universe, causing her to be electrocuted with Magic.

Now Dee. Poor, Poor Dee. Quick Rundown of events from Dee’s POV. 1. Her dad goes on a trip to save her uncle. Uncle returns, but her dad is dead allegedly because of racial violence. 2. About a month later, her mom goes a bit insane and starts investigating the cause of her dad’s death, in the course of this, she goes missing. 3. After her mom goes missing, her friend goes on a trip and ends up getting killed by racial violence. Her friend is Emmett Till. (side note: I’m so fucking upset that they used Emmett Till like this. The way they hinted at who he was was well done, but completely unnecessary. The story line could’ve been about anyone else, but they had to use Emmett Till. I can’t).

While all this loss and death is going on, there’s racist magical cops (they’re part of the order of wizards trying to use Tic) who start harassing her. The cops want info on her family, but she bravely stands up to them and gets cursed. The curse is of two creatures following her trying to kill her. The creatures come in the form of two racist caricatures based on the character Topsy from Uncle Tom’s Cabin (pictured below)

(image description:

image 1: Topsy from Uncle Tom’s Cabin, a dark skinned little girl in a red dress with her hair in twists and with white bows standing on end on her head

Image 2: two little girls, one dark skinned, one light skinned standing next to each other, dressed like Topsy, but with white dresses and red bows. their lips are open gashes on their faces, twisted into a smile)

These two creatures slowly chase after Dee all the while smiling and playing and dancing, they’re obviously a commentary on the horror of stereotypes and the way they haunt us all (and they make me immmmeennnnselly uncomfortable, holy shit even looking up pictures of them has me on edge. )Eventually, they catch Dee and beat and bite her, causing her to become like them. So, now we have this sweet, traumatized little girl turning into a monstrous, stereotyped version of a black person. The gang rally together to find a way to cure her and manage to do so, but her arm is destroyed in the process, and Hippolyta replaces it with a robotic arm.

These side characters go through absolute hell and also do some things themselves, because it seems like one of the messages in the story was that nobody is perfect/horrible situations for people to do horrible things. In the simulation, Hippolyta engages in war, as revenge for the racism and sexism she and other black women face, Ruby sodomizes a white man with a stiletto high heel shoe, and the final scene of the show has Dee using her robotic arm to choke and kill Christina.

Meanwhile Leti, the one light skinned character, walks away from her experiences relatively unscathed. She almost dies during the initial trip with Tic and George, but is brought back with magic, and Christina pushes her off a tower, but she was protected with magic and walked away perfectly fine in the end. During the show she fights monsters, ghosts, and racist cops, but always comes out fine and is shown to be right in every situation despite being characterized as a bit of a fuck-up. Like, she moves to a white neighborhood with a group of other black people, breaks a bunch of white people’s properties, and is perfectly, she walks out of the show with no significant trauma or pain, in a show all about gore and pain. She also never does anything horrible to others, especially for no reason. I am grateful that at least one character was saved from this, but the fact that it was the one light skinned character, that there was no real character arc or growth for her, that she was always right despite the narrative setting her up to be wrong a lot, it puts the other characters struggles in sharp contrast.

[jq37]

The Royal Report– A Crown of Candy Ep 13 Family Ties

Regroup

Welcome back to Candia, y’all.

As the cast tries to get a handle on their giggles from whatever shenanigans happened off-screen between episodes, the PCs land back at the monastery of the Spinning Star. All the rescued civilians are grateful and the monks help to patch them up. The group is a little worried their enemies will follow them through the standing stones but only a high level Candian magic user would be able to do that so they’re probably fine. They also learn that all the weapons they stole are basically +1 to attack magical items--not useful to them but maybe for their allies.  

Spearia tends to Joren (and we’re cursed with the phrase “wrist milk”) and then goes Full Mom Mode on Liam with a several minutes long hug. Theo joins the hug so he can ask Spearia if she knows any other Druids that could do that transportation (she doesn’t know of any in Buzzybrook but there could always be others she doesn’t know about) which turns into a discussion about the SPF. Ruby thinks the SPF is on their side but the others are more wary and Rina, as before, is specifically against her. She says the SPF gets her powers from the Bulb and the sharp division between the two is just a kind of distraction from the bigger issue. Ruby calls it a conspiracy theory (though Theo says Lazuli believed something similar) and stalks off. Amethar runs after her but, en route, stops to have a conversation with Joren. 

He tells Joren that Rina is queen now and that he (as in both of them really) need to start doing the smart thing and not just the tough thing. Joren razzes him about the new attitude until Amethar says that Jet is dead which turns him sympathetic and basically gets him on board--it’s not the fight Liam was anticipating. He says that they’re gonna have to make a big show about recognizing Rina if this is gonna work and asks if they have any allies who can vouch. Amethar says the Dairy Islands are with them and they have a crazy plan that involves getting the Book of Leaves (St. Citrina’s Lasso of Truth book).

Theo runs to catch up with Joren and Amethar but, on the way there, catches Ruby and says they need to stick together. Then the three guys go and find Rina. They basically bend the knee to her and say they’re at her service. Rina is not as excited as you might think though. She accepts the endorsement while barely holding back tears, saying that she’s aware the support doesn’t come with enthusiasm but she appreciates it all the same. Then she goes with Gooey back to her contingent of followers to celebrate with them, not seeming like she’s in a celebratory mood at all. 

Cumulus and Liam have gone to the library of the monastery to try and dig into the info they grabbed during the fight and Ruby goes to talk to Liam. She confides in him that she thinks this plan sucks because even if they are able to get Rina onto the throne, it still means they win on the terms of their enemies. They’re still working within the system and the people who killed Jet and killed Preston don’t pay for anything. Liam says he’s still super down for killing all of these people and he really doesn’t think the plan is gonna work. He thinks it’s going to end in war either way. They try to decipher the map but it’s hard and they recruit the monks to help work on it overnight. 

Snicker-Snack talks to Cumulus and says--echoing his own thoughts--that Rina is crazy powerful and a possible heir to Lazuli’s title of Archmage. He wonders if they should swear themselves to her the way they were sworn to Lazuli. Cumulus thinks it might be a good idea and Snicker-Snack says that it’s Cumulus’s call since he’s the most senior monk.

Theo finds Rina again and asks if she thinks they’re in danger of getting ambushed by the SPF. Rina (after getting a head shake from Brennan) says no, not this night but she is worried that the SPF is working with the Bulb. She and her guys will be up all night keeping watch (and partying) so he can, “Go back to [his] family.”

Brain Food

In the morning, the monks have finished looking through all of the info the PCs stole last episode which means it’s time for a good old fashioned info dump. There’s a lot happening so I broke it into sections:

Military Movements

The south of Candia has been totally taken over by Calroy and his guys. He’s fully posted in Castle Candy and every state except for the Dairy Islands has recognized him as a legitimate ruler. 

The only non-traitor Candian troops are basically all at the Great Stone Candy Mountains (bc they were on route to help Jawbreaker). 

As in Ruby’s vision from Lazuli, the invasion of Castle Candy did fall apart due to discord. Specifically, it was a mix of Plumbeline’s troops and Bulbian troops and because the Pontifex held the position that there could be no Concord without all of the states of the OG Concord under the terms of the OG agreement (meaning including Candia) Plumbeline said, “Fine. If there’s no Concord, there’s no reason I have to help you,” and she withdrew her troops. 

So, to be clear, Calroy did a coup. The Imperial soldiers that are there are not there to invade Candia. They’re there doing peacekeeping stuff. The non-Imperial bread soldiers are Ciabatta’s men--he went home post spy session with the girls and used the info he stole to assassinate all the obstacles between him and being dictator for life and then decided an invasion of Candia was a good way to keep the peoples’ approval. Candia was picked for no reason other than it was a sitting duck due to all the other insane stuff that’s going on (chief or which is loss of Concord protection). And the church is there cause...actually, let me start another heading for this because it’s a doozy.

The Bulbian Church

The Pontifex has decided that the Ramsian Doctrine is in full effect. The reason they’re in Candia is because they’ve called a crusade. 

Kerradin has a fancy new title--Mace of the Faith--and is leading it.

She’s called open season on all Candians--not just soldiers, literally anybody. She’s calling for a full genocide. The church’s policy is, if you kill a Candian, your soul is saved. If you destroy Candian standing stones, your soul and your family’s souls are saved. It’s real chilling shit. 

There’s been pushback from bishops and archbishops about the policy--obviously Candian ones but from other countries as well--saying that they can’t support this and please can she reconsider (they can’t really be more forceful than that without risking being killed themselves). 

Calroy, sensing the way the wind is blowing, has sent out an official statement saying that he renounced his pagan ways and wants to be re-baptized into the Bulbian faith.

We learn that the reason the Pontifex is being difficult with Plumbeline about the technicalities of the Concord agreement and why it can’t just be back on is because she wants to stay in limbo for as long as possible so she has a chance to also call a crusade against the Meatlands--both for being so openly pagan and for the killing of Archbishop Raddica (mentioned in I think episode 3).  

There was a lot of money that the crew ignored while looting last episode and that was money to be used to pay Meatlander mercenaries apparently. 

Group Dynamics

So Calroy is kind of courting all three camps here. As I said before, he’s agreeing with the crusade and saying he wants to be baptized to court the church.

Cal is also saying to Ceresia that a crusade is needed to cleanse Candia and a new Concord could be formed if Ceresia were to conquer it and make it a part of Ceresia. Ciabatta in an intercepted letter says that Cal could possibly be governor of Candia as a province of Cersia--exactly what he wants. 

Whenever Calroy talks about the new Concord, he mentions a Concordant *Empress* who could be anyone, which also gives Plumbeline what she wants. He’s basically like that Always Sunny clip about playing both sides so he always comes out on top. 

Everyone is planning a meeting to talk about logistics and a new Concord and all that but Ciabatta doesn’t want to meet in Comida or Vegetania after the whole deal with his name being spoken and rejected by the Book of Leaves. Cal has opened Castle Candy as a meeting place. 

The Pontifex is bringing Kerradin and guards to protect her and the Book of Leaves to make sure there’s no funny business happening (ie: Cal conspiring privately with Plumbeline or something). 

And, to be clear, none of these people seem to like or trust each other. It’s all a matter of being able to use each other for mutual benefit. There’s lots of evidence of discord and resentment. [To that point, here is some very dope art.]

Misc.

The various baddies haven’t been able to figure out watersteel--it seems that Alfredi left something out of her notes and took the secret to her grave. They did figure out the bread constructs though as we saw last episode. 

There are notes about the Sanctus Putris which is a church doctrine that runs counter to the Ramsian Doctrine and it says that to keep the Hungry One at bay, there has to be a certain level of rot in the world.

There is a letter between Onionpatch and the Sanctus Putris dudes saying that they have located the home of the SPF (the Ice Cream Temple) and will get there tomorrow (as in tmrw from their POV). 

Finally, rumors of Rina are floating around and the policy is basically, “Who cares if she exists or if she’s legit or not? If you see her, kill her.” So Emily has gone from being a huge target to...being a huge target. That’s what happens when you play two heir apparents in a row.

And deep exhale. That was A Lot.

Gameplan 

Joren thinks the best plan is to get all their armies together and publicly take the knee to Rina at Manylicks to help legitimize her. Ruby, again, is against this plan because it would mean, at least on paper, being on the same side as Ciabatta. Spearia gets where she’s coming from but says it’s just to get things settled and they can always leave the Concord again once they’re back in control.

Gooey brings up the meeting everyone is gonna be at and Liam suggests getting someone from the Meatlands there so they can force the Pontifex to say on the Book of Leaves that they’re her next target, winning them an ally. Rina pipes up that she has allies in the Meatlands so maybe she can help arrange that. Jawbreaker also wants to just spread the word that Rina exists to make things more politically complicated and give the Dairy Islands (and possibly the Meatlands) a legit reason to side with them/stop the Imperials since the Concord will be back on. 

Rina, unprompted, says again that she doesn’t care about the throne, she’s just anti-Bulb and pro magic. Cara and Ruby kinda glance at each other while that is going on.

At this point, Jawbreaker is fully on board with her and toasts to her as queen. Liam warns her about the target on her back but she says she grew up abused by Bulbian nuns. She can handle herself. Cumulus also officially pledges the service of the Spinning Star monks to her. She’s just picking up allies left and right.

Anyway, Jawbreaker, Spearia, and the rescued townsfolk plan to go for Manylicks to rally the troops. Spearia asks for an escort so they send Jack and his sailors to protect them. Before they leave, Liam has a heart to heart with his dad about how war changes you and forcing yourself to be hard so others get to be soft in which Joren finally calls him the correct name.

Cumulus thinks that, if a crusade is happening, the monastery will be a big target so it makes sense for the monks to gather the artifacts and hang with Rina’s marauders for a bit. They also decide to disassemble the teleportation circle once they leave so they’re more secure.

Ruby and Amethar are up on the parapets of the monastery kinda doing that thing where you’re not fully talking but just being like, “*Huge Sigh*”/”Yeahhhhh” with someone you’re close to. Cara shows up and says she’s going with Jawbreaker and his people to Manylicks while the PCs go for the Ice Cream Temple. Ruby asks how long she’s known magic and Cara says Lazuli taught her. Ruby asks why she never taught them and Cara says she was going to when they matured but since they never did, she didn’t want to give them more tools to run away with. Ruby says maybe they wouldn’t have run away so much if she’d trusted them. Cara basically takes psychic damage from that and Rina, who is near enough that she can see what’s happening, catches her attention for some sympathetic eye contact because she knows what that feels like.

Amethar asks for a moment alone with Ruby and apologies for having been a bad dad. Ruby protests that he hasn’t been one but he insists that he has and says that he hasn’t known what to do to help her process Jet’s death. Ruby says it’s not his fault and there’s nothing he can do. The fact of the matter is she was never alone and now she’ll always be alone. Amethar says that’s not true. She won’t be alone because he’s there for her and Jet still is too, though in a different way. He can’t stand watching her push her friends away at every turn. He asks her to please, just be here with them. Ruby breaks down a little and says that she had to run away as the most important person in the world to her died and the only way she can even begin to live with that is by getting revenge. Oh don’t worry, Amethar says. They will be killing *all* of those people.

Sickly Sweet

The team to raid the Ice Cream Temple is comprised of the PCs plus Swifty, Jon Bon, and Gooey (who is having some mutually confusing dom/sub sexual tension with Theo which is a sentence I hate to type but posterity is the main goal here so I don’t have much of a choice now do I). They teleport as close as they can (the monks disassembling the teleportation mechanism once they get there) and then it’s still another 2-3 hours to get there. It’s very cold, like the Himalayas and everyone takes cold damage just by being there. Rina (Invisible) and Cumulus (tied to a rope held by Theo) are up front to try and keep everyone else from triggering traps as they walk up the steps. 

They eventually come upon gates in front of an arch and a hallway with a huge locked doorway in front of it. And there is a symbol of a huge spoon in front of the door. Rina passes Winterscoop in front of it and it opens. They follow her down the hallway and Cumulus triggers a trap when he takes point but Rina, holding Winterscoop, learns that if she takes the lead, she auto-disarms the traps. 

As they walk down the hall, Rina sees the eyes of the SPF and hears her voice in her head, “I can’t see you, but I know you’re here.” The SPF says the temple was made by those like her (Rina) but she (the SPF) is the only one who’s been there for quite some time and her pupils narrow to slits. 

Amethar sees an image of Saphria who says, “Long way from home, brother,” before disappearing. 

Because of how well lit the hallway is, Ruby currently has no shadow. 

Liam, as they walk, smells a quick whiff of hot chocolate and cinnamon.

They get to the end of the hallway which branches off into three directions: there’s a staircase going up to a door (marked with the Sucrosi symbol for the SPF which Ruby recognizes because Laz shows up as a quick vision and tells her and Theo recognizes as having appeared in the sky before the battle that killed Laz--Rina also recognizes it and it is the SPF’s actual name, not one of her titles, so it seems possibly magically significant), to the right there’s some weird combo of illusion and conjuration magic which makes them think that there’s a combo of true things and tricks and like maybe some of the stuff they’ve been seeing out of the corners of their eyes as they’ve traveled would be there, and to the left there’s a locked door marked armory. 

Ruby uses her thieves' tools and Mage Hand to get the armory door open and it turns out it’s actually a library (which everyone but Theo is disappointed about). Inside, they find a book in Bulbosi that’s filled with with ancient spirits of the other realms--the Jolly Giant, the Hamburger Helper, and (at Emily’s prompting) Wonder Bread. It’s basically a checklist of magical spirits from the other kingdoms that the church has destroyed and further proof that Candia isn’t more inherently magical than anyplace else. They’ve just fought to protect their magic. 

On the last page, there’s again mention of the Dracoria Azucar with an inverted symbol of the SPF covered in spikes and surrounded by magic and then in the middle of the page a chocolate egg which Rina tells Liam is what they’re there for. 

The book suddenly slams shut and flies away. Outside, they hear the door at the top of the stairs open. They get out and walk up the stairs into this chamber at the heart of the mountain. It's a massive room with huge icicles coming down, dim light, and a ton of mist. They're kind of on a platform suspended above a bunch of emptiness. In the middle, there's a tower of frozen ice cream scoops and at the center is a small opening. Surrounding it and floating around it are huge freezer burned ice cream cones and popsicles. At the top of the tower, frozen into it is a chocolate egg (a chocolate smear inside the ice indicating that it was incredibly hot). 

The SPF appears in front of them in her cute glamour bearing the mended teacup, the note from Lapin, and the heartseed Liam left for Preston. She thanks them for coming and apologizes that she can’t bring Jet back but says now she can bring them to Jet. Ruby asks what that means and she suddenly sees figures in the mist--4 adult women with a younger adult woman along with a figure that looks like Amethar’s dad. There’s a brightly colored road made of illusory light going from where they are, down into the mist. The SPF says it’s a pure Candy-only place and she can take them there. The church means to burn everything sweet out of the world forever and this is the only way to keep them safe. She’s taken a lot of other spirits there already and everyone they’ve lost and love will be waiting for them and they’ll be together forever. 

Amethar openly expresses suspicion at the SPF and the SPF says she’s only using the glamour to make them feel more comfortable. Rina says she’d like to see the SPF’s true form and the SPF says, “I bet you would,” seeming ticked off that she has Winterscoop. She compares Rina to Lazuli who wanted to take everything that made Candia special and let it get used and abused by the rabble (her opinion, not mine). Look how that turned out for the Jolly Giant and the Hamburger Helper.

Ruby, in Twinspeak, asks the misty figure of Jet, “Are you real?”

The Jet in the Mist (played by Emily who is on the spot drafted by Brennan to be Jet once again for this moment) says (with the knowledge to back it up), “It’s true, but I don’t know if it’s good.”

With that answer, Ruby gives the SPF a placid thanks but no. She’s grateful that she’s been protecting the magic of Candia but they need it now to keep Candia safe. The SPF says that that’s what she’s doing. If they go into the mist, they’ll be safe. No, says Ruby. If they go into the mist, they’ll be dead. The SPF doesn’t see a difference. Safe and dead? Safe and alive? To-may-to, To-mah-to.

“Are you mad at me?” the SPF asks, childlike.

“No,” Ruby says, evenly. 

The SPF says she’s only ever tried to help. She sent Lapin to protect them even though she knew he’d die and they’d lose everything because she knew they wouldn’t come unless they lost everything.

Ruby pauses for a second that feels like ten minutes.

“Did you kill my sister?”

The SPF looks slightly sheepish. “Would you have come here if she was still alive?”

Ruby does the only thing she can do. She pulls her bow.

Looks like someone just jumped Ciabatta in her to-kill list everybody. See you next week! 

Things I’m Concerned About

I mentioned this in an ask but I’m concerned Cara is about to pull a Cat’s in the Cradle--meaning, she keeps getting brushed off so I’m worried she’s gonna get really hurt and the PCs will suddenly care and it’ll be too late. This fear is based on nothing except what I would do to be mean to my players. I have a semi-similar fear about Rina but I’m gonna let that sit for a bit.

Ruby. Girl. I know what you’ve just been through but...girl. Please be smart here.

I never love a battle map you can fall off of. That always gives me anxiety--especially when your enemy can fly so it’s not equal footing so to speak.

I feel like “concerned” is a bit of a weak word to describe my feelings on a genocide but I named this section during episode 1 before I knew where things were going so yeah. Bad.

Everyone the group hates being in one place is hypothetically very good but also has the potential to be VERY bad depending on how it plays out.

I really wanna know what the Sanctus Putris is planning is to at the Temple. How aligned are they with the mainstream church? Their main tenant runs pretty counter to what they’re doing right now. Are they potential allies? Why would they be communicating with Onionpatch, known close confidant for the Pontifex? Were they trying to sway her with something there?

Five More Things

Woah! Oh man, that whole last scene with Ruby and the SPF? The music? The tension? The constant, calm No’s from Ruby until the SPF Said That and then the instant switch into Terminator mode? What a scene ender y’all! When I watched it again for this recap, I knew what was coming and it still bodied me. The immediacy with which Ruby/Siobhan grasped the, “This is death” thing was so impressive to me. I loved everything about that last 5 mins. So it seems like the SPF is the one who set up that letter. She might have been posing as Cara in that moment, or maybe it was a full illusion--that seems to be her school of magic. I knew this Fae was shady but man! Can you imagine the world where Lapin is still alive at this point? Would love to know his take on this.   

There’s a bit I didn’t mention in the recap when they get back initially and Brennan tries to have the NPCs overrule the PCs on the cuteness levels of the corn monster from last ep that is so funny. Nothing like ganging up on the literal god of the universe you’re playing in. Also funny is him going, “No Zac, this is good,” when he starts listing out the other house spirits/brand names. Gotta love having a captive audience for your carefully constructed nonsense. 

OK, so question. What exactly is Calroy’s plan with the church, huh? Because, you can get baptized all you want, you’re still cake my dude. Is he hoping they’ll let him, what? Die of old age while slaughtering his people? Yikes. 

When Swifty opened his mouth the first time I was like, “Absolutely not,” but now I kind of love him?

So we learn in this ep that all other spirits get their powers from the Bulb or the Hungry One ultimately which is interesting conceptually. “Power is neutral except for how you use it,” is cool and also generally correct imo. Rina mentions the SPF, “Working with the Bulb” at some point and do you think she means the Bulb or the church? Because the Bulb is mindless but she doesn’t necessarily know that. And if she means the church that would also be wild considering what we learned this ep. 

[kadywicker]

Hi! Im same anon from few weeks ago thanking you for getting me into the magicians bc dopamine etc and rn Im watching s4 (near end but im rationing it. kinda) but i dont really filter spoilers so Ive seen stuff from s5 and I have to say... every single thing I read/see sounds like a fever dream and not even a fun one. What is going on? I'm not sure i want to know.

oh my god it’s miserable man i’m so sorry. s5 is..... so bad fasdfasdf i avoided watching it for a year bc i didn’t want to waste my energy trying to p*rate it. but i watched it last weekend and let me tell u..... not worth it! there’s a couple episodes that are like? okay? i guess? but mostly it’s just. terrible writing. sexism. homophobia. nonsensical plots. bad writing. more shitty writing. like. there’s some spoilers below so don’t click if u dont want spoilers but in case u want to know what’s going on (warning for spoilers and a huge wall of text):

there’s too much magic now so spells are going off the shits bc there’s so much magic. there’s a harmonic convergence coming up which will make magic go even MORE wild. a pig man from fillory shows up saying there’s going to be an apocalypse and he needs quentin to help. julia says oh shit sorry quentin’s dead but i can do it but the pig man says only STRONG MEN can do it so he fucks off to try and go find a man for the quest. julia decides to stop the apocalypse anyway, which she thinks is the harmonic convergence. so much fucking shit happens long story short they end up DESTROYING THE MOON. they crack the moon like an egg and eliot and margo get trapped in a timeloop caused by sentient whales practicing magic to keep the kraken at bay. margo gets out of the time loop leaving eliot who figures out what to do! and sends himself back in time to stop the moon from cracking. yay world saved. MEANWHILE IN FILLORY eliot and margo were thrown 300 years into fillorys future where the dark king rules. he’s got? fucking zombies or some shit hes “fighting”? i dont know i wasnt sober for half of this season. they’re hunting fairies. eliot talks about quentin in one (1) episode and cries a little before sending quentin a letter in the underworld. earlier in the episode he tried to fuck the dark king. after that he does not bring up quentin a single other time bc gay men do not get to have compelling love stories and he spends the rest of the season mooning after the dark king he met for 3 seconds before deciding actually HES the love of his life, not quentin. fen and josh are dead in the past and margo and eliot change the timeline like three times to save fen and josh! wow yay! also they can’t save quentin bc changing the timeline would be bad and disrespectful :( they can save fen and josh by altering the timeline though! at one point alice tries to make a golem of quentin to answer some questions about a page in a weird language she found in his desk but she brings back child quentin instead and he dies so it’s whatever. after the moon shit, they’re trying to find this seed that’s depicted on that page of quentin’s bc it’s the World Seed and can create whole new worlds! which is convenient bc turns out that apocalypse was NOT the apocalypse on earth but an apocalypse on fillory they think the dark king is gonna cause. turns out no, they’re going to cause it, they need to destroy fillory to stop the dark king from bringing back an army of the dead to bring back his gay lover bc gay mean are evil and bad >:( and before they destroy fillory they need to get all the fillorians in a pocket world and then put them on a new world they build with the world seed. so much shit happens i don’t even know. there’s a heist. there’s a musical episode that’s also the heist episode. eliot makes out with alice AND kady in this episode bc god likes to see me suffer. there’s a new chatwin! she’s great her name is plum and she can travel through time! she uses these time saving abilities to save hyman- you know, the really sexist perverted ghost that spies on people? yeah well she saves him. even though the narrative forbids saving quentin, they can save that fucking guy. julia is pregnant with penny 23′s baby but it’s a Super Pregnancy bc it’s red monkey month in fillory which means it goes faster. and she’s getting affected by the baby’s abilities to travel and be Psychic. fucking charlton is there he was still in eliot’s head the whole time and he gets out of eliot’s head to bother eliot but no one else can see him so they give him hyman’s body bc hyman wants to be a creepy ghost still. quentin gets brought up a few times but mostly to talk about how he ~sacrificed for those he loved~ or what the fuck ever and also to hammer in more quentin/alice like they didn’t have a like 3 month toxic relationship and he had a FIFTY YEAR RELATIONSHIP/MARRIAGE TO A MAN AND HAD AN ENTIRE CIHLD WITH HIM but ya know alice is the true love of his life bc they’re a man and a woman <3 <3 <3 the moon is sentient? i guess? there’s symbiotic aliens? fogg gets trapped in a magic acid induced drug alternate reality? and evil fogg from another timeline ends up coming through and fucking shit up? regular fogg gets back and has to hold a cat to stay sane bc all the insanity goes into a cat? fen, margo, ALICE?, and josh end up creating new fillory bc thats definitely the list of people that knew and loved fillory the most (definitely not eliot who was high king of fillory and sPENT 50 YEARS ON FILLORY WITH A HUSBAND AND SON no no he wouldn’t know about fillory), and disappear to their new fillory. the phrase “ovary up” is used no less than 7 times during the season and in the episode descriptions. kady’s barely mentioned as to what she’s doing post finale. eliot is a professor now and oh in the last FOUR FUCKING MINUTES WITH NO BUILD UP charlton kisses him and they go upstairs to fuck <3 the dark king was getting catfished by his brother martin btw bc the dark king is actually rupert chatwin and he ends up in a time bubble with jane and that’s fine while martin gets trapped in the library or some shit i don’t know. oh and plover is still alive and doing relatively fine compared to other characters who are like, dead. fen sympathizes with him isn’t that nice. there were at least 5 different opportunites to bring quentin back and they didn’t bring quentin back or leave opportunity for that. it’s bad. santa shows up for a minute? alice gets her fingers cut off and sewn back on and can’t do magic w one hand now but she’s a master magician so it turns out fine. there’s a line about “her lunacy identifies as she/her” talking about the moon, as if the magicians has any room to make pronoun jokes when they’ve had 2 trans characters that both died and weren’t even textually trans. at one point it turns out josh and fen fucked and margo tries to kill fen in a fit of jealousy and there’s a love triangle situation. fen is now a werewolf too btw. in conclusion! it fucking sucks.