#and are surprised to have made it this far anyways

[reccyls]

My Greed-filled Christmas with Victor

My translation for Victor's Christmas collection event story

--

Victor: I've been waiting for you, Kate.

Standing with his arms spread wide open in front of a tree so enormous it was close to brushing the ceiling was Victor, cloaked in festive cheer.

Victor: Your mission for today is to help me decorate this tree!

Just after I had woken up a few hours ago, a maid told me that Victor had a message for me.

Kate: "There's a task that I absolutely need your help with."

(I thought it'd be a normal mission, who would've guessed that it'd be tree decorating!) (And... together with Victor...)

As I watched him excitedly fish out piles of ornaments and other decorations, expectations began to build in my heart. Victor was always so busy, so to be able to spend this time having fun with him...

Victor: Everything that we'll need is right over here.

Just then, a group of servants brought over a huge stepladder.

Victor: I'll start from the top, so could you start decorating from the bottom?

Kate: Of course, leave it to me!

Victor: Wonderful! Now let's be sure to give our boys the best Christmas surprise of their life!

...

Victor: Kate, can you pass me those ornaments over there?

Kate: Sure, here you go.

Victor clung to the ladder with one hand and reached down with his other. I handed over the ones he wanted, and he deftly hung them up on the tree. It was two hours since we started, and the tree was quickly approaching completion. As I was admiring the colorful decorations, I suddenly noticed something.

(That ornament has a crown design, and that one's decorated with a fox, there's a cat, one with apples, even mirrors...)

Kate: Do those ornaments represent everyone in Crown?

Victor: That's my Kate! I knew you'd spot it!

I met VIctor's sparkling gaze.

Victor: Everyone in Crown holds a special place in my heart.

He smiled gently as he poked a red bauble wearing a mini-crown.

Kate: That's lovely. I didn't expect there to be so many ornaments with these designs.

The nine unique designs all showed off each member of Crown.

(Is that one supposed to be Victor?)

I spotted a few plain black baubles, far less in number than the other designs and overshadowed by the others. But I found my eyes captured by it anyway, despite its simplicity.

Victor: And last but certainly not least, the star at the top.

Victor climbed down from the ladder and met my eyes. And then, he handed over a large golden star to me.

Victor: You should place it.

Kate: ...Huh?

Victor: Scared to climb up the ladder?

Kate: No, that's not... Are you sure that I should be the one doing this? The star is special, isn't it?

At my words, Victor smiled.

Victor: And that's why there's no one better than you to place it.

He braced the ladder with his hands and looked back towards me.

Victor: Don't worry, I'll keep the ladder steady. So could I please ask this favor of you?

(He's asking me for a favor?)

Victor almost never asked me for anything. His words filled me with a sudden determination, and I nodded vigorously.

Kate: Of course!

(...It is kinda scary, though.)

I finally made it to the top of the ladder and carefully placed the star on the tree. But just then--

(Hm?)

I noticed a small white ornament shaped like a robin near the top.

(Is this supposed to be me?)

Hanging next to the robin was a pure black ornament, almost hidden by the pine needles.

(Ah...)

As I was reaching out to touch it--

Kate: Aaaaaah!!

Victor: Kate!

I slipped off the ladder. I screwed my eyes shut and braced for pain. But it wasn't the cold hard floor that I landed on, but something warm.

Victor: Are you hurt!?

Ever so slowly, I opened my eyes. Victor had caught me just before I hit the ground. Our faces were so close that our lips were nearly touching. Though his eyes were filled with genuine worry, I couldn't help how my heart began to race as I realized just how little distance there was between us.

Kate: I- I'm fine.

Victor gently lowered me to the ground, and I began to calm down.

Victor: Good. And the tree is done, too.

He was looking at the tree with such delight. Even though he had his back turned to me, I had to look away to hide the flustered heat on my face. It could have been unintentional. Him putting those two ornaments next to each other.

(But still, I was so happy when I saw them.)

Victor then spun around to face me again.

Victor: And now, time for your compensation for this successful mission!

Kate: Compensation?

Victor pulled two tickets out of his coat pocket.

Victor: There's a special Christmas play premiering the day of.

It was a show that I'd wanted to see since forever ago. The Christmas Day version had special scenes changed too.

Kate: Thank you so much...

I was so happy I couldn't stop myself from clutching the tickets hard.

Victor: May I also have your Christmas to myself?

Kate: What?

Victor: Let's watch it together, Kate.

In shock at his sudden invitation, I could only nod.

Kate: --Yes, let's.

Victor beamed. He put his hand around mine, the one that was holding onto the tickets.

Victor: Thank goodness. I don't know what I would have done if you had refused.

He looked up towards the top of the tree and smiled again.

Victor: It's going to be a wonderful Christmas.

That was when a servant appeared to call Victor away for something. Waving goodbye to me, he hurried off for his next task. I was left alone, sitting at the foot of the tree with tickets in hand.

(Definitely. It'll be a Christmas I'll never forget.)

Overhead, that black ornament glittered in the shadow of the robin's wing.

[it-happened-one-fic]

Bridal Visions: Photoshoot #4 - Sumeru Bridal - Worse Things

Summary: You really shouldn’t have been surprised that Alhaitham looked quite so good in a suit, even if it was more lightly colored than his usual outfits. But then, you’d been a little bit too distracted by the vaguely flustering notion of posing in wedding clothes with him. But then, there certainly were worse things. And there were definitely worse partners.

Type: Female reader/ 800 Followers Event/ series/ sfw/ fluff/ Chiori is shipping/

Bridal Visions Series Masterlist

Word Count: 1251

I had to admit, it was odd seeing Alhaitham in a traditional wedding suit. And the fact that it was beige, paired with a dark green, rather than his usual black, made it even odder.

But even with those oddities, I couldn’t deny that he looked amazing. Perhaps even frustratingly so, considering he usually did look annoyingly good.

He’d been a clever choice for modeling wedding attire, and though I didn’t know her, I could tell that the designer, Chiori, was thrilled with his presence.

Traveler had picked well, and I had no doubts that they’d received the full reward for their commission of finding people to model these clothes simply because of Alhaitham. Though personally I still felt like Layla, Nilou, or Candace would have been far better choices than me.

So would Dehya, but she’d shot down that idea so quickly that there was no way she would’ve done this. Even if she did love clothes and would’ve doubtless enjoyed every second of this. 

But she had already made plans with Dunyarzad anyway…

So here I was in the deep green lehenga skirt and matching top that had been designed for the Sumeru section of this bridal line rather than any of the other women whom I felt would’ve been better choices.

And one thing about it, I could tell that no expense had been spared in the design of my outfit. 

At the very least, I was fairly certain that all of the jewelry I had on, from the necklace and earrings to the headpiece, was all pure gold.

I fidgeted with my sheer veil, doing my best to ignore the sheer drama of my outfit as I walked over to the steps where Alhaitham sat. Somehow wholly unbothered despite the fact that we were modeling incredibly nice bridal clothes as a couple.

And even with how gorgeous his outfit was, it was obvious that I was the centerpiece of the photo with how brilliantly colored my clothes were. As if the gold trim hadn’t been enough.

Which was perfectly ridiculous considering most anyone would be looking at his face rather than any part of my outfit.

“Alright, I want you to sit here on the step between his feet. When I give the signal, you two look at each other,” Chiori instructed as she gestured to the steps as Alhaitham looked up. Utterly relaxed as we made eye contact.

I sat carefully, following Chiori’s instructions to fan out the massive, and frankly speaking, gorgeous skirt before I was finally settled enough to glance back at Alhaitham as he finished adjusting the skirt so it rested on the steps to the left of him.

“You don’t usually wear clothes that are lightly colored, but they look really good on you,” I smiled as I spoke. Willing myself to relax and not think too much about any of this.

I was just here to model some wedding clothes with Alhaitham. Nothing more, and nothing less.

He met my gaze directly, his eyebrows lifting, and I felt my smile spread at his expression before I continued. Knowing perfectly well why he didn’t wear these sorts of clothes, “Though I will admit they are rather eye-catching.”

A smile almost flickered onto his face as a flash of amusement went through his eyes and his lips twitched, “I doubt anyone will be looking at me.”

His words matched my own thoughts regarding how utterly fancy my outfit was, but his phrasing was almost enough to make me flustered.

But I reined it in and shook my head, reaching out and patting his knee that was beside me affectionately, “Don’t sell yourself short.”

“And, freeze!” Both of us went still in the sudden directions, with me smiling teasingly up at him as he simply held eye contact.

I felt myself relax as soon as the flash from the camera had dimmed, and I could already hear both Chiori and the photographer talking, “It’s not bad, but…. I think it would be better to get the skirt in motion, don’t you?”

I glanced over to see Chiori staring at both of us pointedly, and I felt my eyebrows lift slightly before I glanced back over at Alhaitham, who’d already stood and was looking down at me.

He held out his hand, and I smiled half-awkwardly, quietly accepting it and standing alongside him as Chiori spoke, “Could you two move over here. I want you to hold her hand as she twirls….”

He nodded, still holding my hand as I gathered up my skirts in one hand as best I could before nodding over at him.

I followed his lead over to the side before letting go of my skirts and glancing over at Chiori, who’d already moved out of the line of the camera.

She nodded, and I spun as Alhaitham held up my hand. And at the last second I looked towards him. Smiling at the sensation of my skirts flaring around me as my eyes met his. 

A smile flickered across his face, either at my giddiness or the raw amount of fabric swirling around me as the golden embroidery and jewelry I wore twinkled in the sunlight.

I slowly spun to a stop as I heard the tell-tale click of the camera’s shutter, and I looked towards where Chiori stood with the photographer. My hand staying locked in Alhaitham’s, where they hung between us as we waited to see what she might say.

And after a moment she nodded and looked up at the two of us, “Looks good. I’ll send your payment through the Adventurer’s Guild.”

I felt myself smile, nodding as I exhaled in relief and started to turn to go before pausing. I frowned at my skirts as I bent slightly to once again gather the layers of green and gold.

Alhaitham watched me, tilting his head slightly, “Do you want me to walk you back to your changing area?”

I paused, blinking up at him in slight surprise before smiling and nodding. Feeling oddly touched by his offer even as I nodded, “Sure.”

“Hmm, while the two of you do that, we might get one more shot of you two walking away,” The photographer spoke up, and we both turned to look her way before I nodded.

“Feel free,” Alhaitham’s answer was nonchalant, and I felt myself smile. Snickering slightly at both his words and tone as he reached out and took my hand once more before we took off.

Walking away and largely ignoring both the camera and the photographer snapping pictures from behind us as I glanced at him, “So do you think you’ll want to go with beige and green when you get married?”

I grinned at him, teasing him slightly as he glanced my way before looking back forward with a single quirked eyebrow, “Who knows. Maybe we’ll get these clothes for free since we modeled them and they were made to our measurements.”

I blinked before feeling myself frown slightly at his words, hesitating slightly before I spoke, not fully voicing the implications of what that would mean, “That would mean we’d have matching bridal attire, though… Nice, matching bridal attire.”

He lifted one shoulder, perfectly unbothered in a way I honestly felt only he could be, “There could be worse things.”

I paused before feeling myself smile as he glanced my way, and I nodded as I felt a smile work its way back onto my face, “There certainly could be.”

If you would like to read more:

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[febuwhump]

Honestly making it a ‘vote as many times as you want’ approach took away the joy for me. I wanted to see actual voting not spamming whatever a few people with time to kill wanted. Feels like it’s expanding beyond people who would actually participate. It’s making me want to do this event less. I don’t want to feel like I have to spend hours spamming the options I like in order to give them a shot. Voting once would have made more sense. Or parring the list down and running tumblr polls to cull the list. This just feels immature.

i totally get how you feel and your feelings are totally deserved! this is how i see it:

the poll has always been vote as many times as you want. i've never installed a limit, and historically people have voted more than once. that is how we had the actual, original voter fraud last year, where one vote per person was implied until one user started spam-voting waterboarding in order to get it in. this was funny. it is no surprise that everyone wants to try it this year.

every year we try new things and do different stuff. i don't think the prompt list that comes out of this will be any worse off for people campaigning and trying to get their prompt in; i don't think the community will be either. the members of the community who are invested and deeply involved are the ones spamming for their favourites; the people who aren't are not necessarily not going to do the event. they were always going to see the prompt list and decide based on that - and the prompt list will still be good because the top 100 prompts are all good and i will curate the winners.

the actual voting is never revealed, so at no point historically either was it evident how people voted other than for the top 30. that is done for a reason: i reserve the right to look at the winners and go, no that's got too many repetitive prompts and a few are going to get switched out. this year, people are calling this deserved tyranny. because it's funny.

and your other options aren't bad at all; they just require more work from me, the person with the full time job and multiple hobbies and the likelihood to get burned out on this event too early by doing too much who is the only admin. a single poll and then answering questions is the most viable option for me - if you want to see an event run that way, then you're more than welcome to pick a month and go for it!

i get that it feels immature, but i think that you might be mislabelling people's sincere enjoyment. i don't think there's any harm in people who really want something voting for the prompts they want more than once; just like i don't think there's anything stopping anyone at all from finding out that their prompt isn't on the final list and then writing it anyway

finally, and this might sound harsh but i say it with all the love in the world: you don't have to take part. if you aren't enjoying the way its being run this year, then you don't have to! or you can blacklist the propaganda tag and febuwhump in its entirety until january 1st when the prompt list comes out and then see if its something you want to take part in! not everyone wants to do every part of the event and that's fine!

i'm sorry that you're not having as much fun this year, but i honestly think this method has engaged the community far more than the only-vote-once route did previously, and my goal is to try lots of different things to get the biggest and best turnout. if, in the end, we get less works than we did last year, or less people actually taking part, then i'll reevaulate

and also. what's so wrong with being immature anyway?

[goodqueenaly]

Considering the public version of Baelish and Sansa's situation, as in him being a doting father to his only child, albeit illegitimate, does it raise some perplexity among the Vale nobility that he wouldn't ask for a legitimisation? Alayne is his only child, he's unmarried at the moment, and any male heir he could have in the future would preceed her anyway. Or is legitimisation done exclusively in cases of emergency, aka when literally no other legitimate heir is available?

It’s worth emphasizing that legitimization is a relatively pretty rare process: of the dozens of acknowledged bastards we know of in the history of Westeros, only two (outside the blanket legitimization issued by Aegon IV on his deathbed) have ever been formally legitimized (three if you count Jon Snow, who was all but certainly legitimized by Robb’s will but whose legitimized status is not yet widely known in-universe). Importantly, in each of those cases - Ramsay Snow, the sons of Marilda of Hull, and Jon Snow - the legitimization came about specifically because the lord or king in question had no surviving legitimate son to inherit after him (at least officially - I very much believe Mushroom’s assertion that Corlys was the biological l father of Addam and Alyn of Hull). (Again, Aegon IV is the exception here - I don’t even think he was really trying to push Daemon as his alternative heir - but I believe Aegon’s move was a sort of final “fuck you�� to the future King Daeron II, a last petty stab at the son he hated rather than a genuine politico-dynastic decision by the dying king.) Likewise, only Aegon IV ever chose to legitimize a daughter (and again, only in the context of a blanket legitimization); even Oberyn Martell, for example, who held out each of his daughters as his own far earlier than Littlefinger was supposed to have done for “Alayne” (and indeed, lived with the mother of his four youngest daughters as effectively a married couple in a nuclear family), never apparently sought to legitimize any of them. Nor indeed should it be forgotten how serious a process legitimization is: only a king can legitimize a bastardborn Westerosi, and once so legitimized, both that person and his (or her) descendants would be legitimate forever.

So far from the assembled aristocracy of the Vale finding it odd that Littlefinger would not be pressing for Sansa-as-Alayne to be legitimized, I think these aristocrats would be surprised, even shocked if Littlefinger tried to make his “daughter” legitimate by royal decree. After all, the public narrative about “Alayne Stone” is that Littlefinger didn’t even know of her existence until very recently - when “at [her] flowering [“Alayne”] decided [she] did not wish to be a septa and wrote to [Littlefinger]”. While Littlefinger might have publicly recognized Sansa-as-Alayne as his daughter, and treated her relatively well by Westerosi standards (remember, this is a world where Lord Hewett made his own extramarital daughter a house servant to his wife and their children), Alayne’s social position is at best a liminal one - able to act in some ways as the lady of the Arryn household, but in other ways (as Littlefinger, Myranda Royce, and Harry Hardyng all remind her) very much considered the inferior of her blue-blood neighbors. Moreover, I think many in the Vale would anticipate that Littlefinger - now Lord of Harrenhal in addition to being Lord Protector of the Vale and the richest thief man in Westeros - would marry and produce legitimate (male) heirs of his own; indeed, Myranda teases Sansa-as-Alayne on this point, remarking that Littlefinger “needs a pretty young wife to wash away his grief” and that he “could have his pick of half the noble maidens in the Vale” (including, as she later jokes to Sansa-as-Alayne in TWOW, Myranda herself). In turn, the idea that Littlefinger, having such standing, would choose to go through the significant effort of petitioning the king to elevate a bastard teenage girl as his heiress, when he himself could marry a suitably aristocratic bride and have a legitimate son of his body to succeed him, would so grossly contrast with the patriarchal and classist socio-political expectations of Westerosi aristocracy that I think the move would cause nothing but muttering and suspicion.

What Littlefinger wants to avoid most of all with Sansa-as-Alayne is undue attention being cast on her, at least until Littlefinger himself feels ready to reveal her as Sansa Stark. Indeed, this was the entire purpose of choosing a bastard disguise for Sansa in the first place: when Sansa suggests that she could portray herself as “the trueborn daughter of some knight in [his] service”, Littlefinger reminds her that “[s]uch a tale would draw unwanted questions”, while then noting that “[i]t is rude to pry into the origins of a man's natural children”. Therefore, Littlefinger’s treatment of Sansa has to fit within the socio-political expectations of Westerosi and specifically Vale aristocratic life - which is to say, not promoting bastards above their station (again, according to the rules imposed by the elites in this society). No one, I think, would expect, much less encourage, the rich and powerfully landed widower Littlefinger to hold out his bastardborn “daughter” as his heiress, still less to go through the process of legitimizing her; better, for Littlefinger’s scheme at least, to leave her as a recognized but still illegitimate child, and trust in polite society’s reluctance to pry further, rather than foster speculation by taking the unorthodox move of pressing for her legitimization.

[alia-alia12]

By Chance

Part 1: The Question

𖧹Gojo Satoru x Fem!reader

𖧹Fluff

𖧹1.2k

𖧹Masterlist

@ramonathinks 🫣🫣

The sharp hiss of the espresso machine and the murmur of quiet conversation filled the cozy café, creating a soothing background rhythm. Gojo Satoru stood at the counter, his bangs falling messily in front of his eyes as he waits for his usual drink—a black coffee with a splash of cream.

The day felt like any other—uneventful, calm, routine. He had slipped into the habit of coming here every afternoon, drawn by the atmosphere more than the caffeine. He enjoyed people-watching, observing life moving around him in effortless patterns.

But he didn’t expect her.

“Have you ever been in love, mister?”

The question came from a small voice by his side. He glanced down, finding a little girl with wide, curious eyes staring up at him. Her tiny hands clutched a stuffed rabbit, old and worn with love, as she waited for her mother to finish placing their order.

Her question hung In the air, innocent yet impossibly heavy.

Gojo blinked. He could’ve brushed it off with a laugh, teasing her for asking such a grown-up question—but something about the sincerity in her gaze made him pause.

Had he ever been in love?

The answer came easily, without hesitation.

“Yes,” he said softly, almost to himself. “Yes, I have.”

Before he could dwell on it further, the barista called his name. He gave the girl a small, genuine smile and nodded politely toward her mother before heading to the counter to get his order.

But as he stepped back outside, the wind tugging at his coat, the girl’s question echoed in the back of his mind.

Had he ever been in love?

He had—so much it still hurt.

His feet carried him back toward his apartment, though his thoughts stayed locked in the past. He thought about you—the one person who’d made him feel more than he thought he was capable of.

The one who held his heart so tightly… only to let it slip through her fingers.

Gojo didn’t know when he’d fallen for you, but there were certain memories that stood out more than most. Moments so vivid they felt like they had happened just yesterday.

Maybe it was the day you first met.

It was the first warm day after a long winter. He was six, dragged to the park by his grandfather, who insisted that he “get some fresh air.”

You were sitting on the edge of the playground, tying your shoelaces with a determined frown. He had noticed you right away—bright-eyed, serious, stubborn.

When your laces refused to cooperate, you huffed in frustration. Without thinking, he strolled over, hands in his pockets.

“You’re doing it all wrong,” he announced, his young voice full of certainty.

You glared up at him. “I know what I’m doing!”

He smirked but knelt down anyway, tying your laces with practiced ease. You stared in surprise, blinking as he finished.

“There,” he said smugly, standing up. “You’re welcome.”

You stared at him for a long moment before smiling—a small, genuine smile that stayed burned in his memory.

Or maybe it was the first time you held his hand.

You were both nine, walking home from school during a sudden rainstorm. His tiny, battered umbrella barely covered both of you.

“Stop hogging the umbrella,” you grumbled, bumping his shoulder.

“You’re the one walking too far away,” he shot back, holding the umbrella out farther.

The rain kept splashing around your feet until you finally huffed, grabbed his hand, and tugged him closer.

“There,” you said firmly. “Now we both fit.”

Your fingers were cold but soft, perfectly fitting in his.

He still remembered the warmth that bloomed in his chest that day, though he didn’t have the words for it back then.

It could’ve been the day he accidentally stole your first kiss.

You were thirteen, sitting on the swings at the park near your family’s bookstore. The sky was streaked with the pinks and oranges of sunset, a lazy breeze tugging at your hair.

He was teasing you about something—he could never seem to help himself—leaning in just a little too close to get under your skin.

You turned your head at the wrong moment, and suddenly—your lips brushed.

It lasted less than a second, soft and unintentional, but time seemed to freeze.

He was the first to pull away, wide-eyed and red-faced.

“S-Sorry,” he mumbled, cheeks burning hotter than the summer air.

But then—you laughed. Soft. Genuine. Beautiful.

“It’s okay,” you said, still smiling, “it was an accident.”

Satoru thought… maybe he wanted more 'accidents' like that to keep happening.

Was it the day he asked you to be his girlfriend?

It had been late summer, the air warm and still. You two of you, both 16 now, were laying on the old picnic blanket near the edge of the park, watching the clouds drift lazily across the sky.

His heart pounded in his chest, his usual confidence replaced by something far more vulnerable.

"Look," you started, pulling his attention away from your face and to the sky where you were pointing towards a random cloud. "It looks like a cat"

He squints, eyes adjusting to the bright sun. "It looks like a meatball"

You snorted. "Your imagination is broken."

A comfortable silence fell over the two of you as Satoru forced himself to say the words that have been bouncing around his head for the past few weeks.

“Hey…” he’d said softly, fingers brushing against yours. “Be my girlfriend?”

You’d turned to him, startled at first—but then you smiled, so bright and real it made his chest ache.

“Okay,” you’d whispered. “I will.”

His eyes widened. "You will?"

"Yes."

Before he could overthink it, he leaned in, his eyes fluttering shut as his lips pressed softly against yours.

He’d kissed you then—his first real kiss, soft and sure, filled with quiet promises he couldn’t put into words.

Or maybe… it was the day you left.

The day you told him you were moving to another city.

You had tried to smile through your tears, promising you’d keep in touch, that distance wouldn’t change anything—but life had a way of proving otherwise.

Calls faded. Messages stopped. The distance became more than just miles.

Or maybe… it was all the little moments in between.

The way you always tugged on his sleeve when you were excited. The way you laughed at his terrible jokes. The way you saw past his bravado—saw him in a way no one else ever had.

No.

It wasn’t one moment—it was all of them.

Every shared glance, every small touch, every whispered conversation under the stars.

Every second spent with you made him fall even more in love than he already was.

The sound of a passing car snapped Gojo out of his thoughts as he reached his apartment building. He sighed, running a hand through his hair.

It was silly—pointless, really—to get stuck in memories like this. Years had passed. You were probably living a new life, far from here.

But still…

He glanced back down the street toward the coffee shop, a faint, wistful smile tugging at his lips.

Maybe fate wasn’t done with him yet.

Part 2

[heybaetae]

hi friends! 👋🏻

i am here with my little 2024 gif wrapped after being tagged by @jkvjimin, @cordiallyfuturedwight, @yooboobies, @taehyunghobi, @jinstronaut, and @btsjk-biased. i didn't expect so many tags, so i appreciate you all for including me and wanting to see me recollect some of the work i shared this year. i'll do so under the cut and leave comments wherever i see fit.

i've seen a couple different ways people have done this, so i'll do a variation of both. i'll list my favorite vs. most popular set per each month + some honorable mentions that i liked or were particularly proud of. feel free to go show any of the mentioned posts some love just as i plan to do with everyone else's some time after i post this!

JANUARY

my favorite - vmin holding hands ↳ because i'm Me and they are insufferable

most popular - thankful taehyung

honorable mentions - jimin at home, koo sprout

FEBRUARY 

my favorite - jikook...playing? ↳ i was mostly just continuing to test out panning gifs when i made this, but i liked it a lot because what the fuck is wrong with jimin

most popular - blue & grey yoongi in vegas

honorable mentions - hobi backstage, exhausted jimin

MARCH 

my favorite - bts debut solo albums as iphones ↳  this was the most labor intensive set i'd made probably since the first set in my social media series (aka the instagram feed...part two next year? i've already outlined the templates but hobi is holding me back) and mayhaps the most disappointing as far as steady engagement goes. it dropped off pretty fast and it really killed my spirit ngl...but we ball. i appreciate everyone who wrote really nice things in the tags <3

most popular - fri(end)s

honorable mentions - fri(end)s live film

APRIL 

my favorite - vmin stretching

most popular - favorite jungkook smiles ↳ i think this was requested by an anonymous person, but it sat in my drafts for many months and i thought "oh this could be an endless series for all the tannies if i'm ever running low on comp ideas". then i finally published it on a slow day and just never made another one. maybe some day lol

honorable mentions - ethereal jungkook, rawr xD jungkook

MAY 

i didn't post anything in may. actually, everything i posted in april was an old draft because i took a break during april and may (in other words: i ran away with my tail between my legs after the iphone set lmaooo)

JUNE

my favorite - life goes on vmin self-cam ↳ act surprised. i can't believe they let this sit on a hard drive for four years and then dumped it on me out of no where during festa, are you fucking crazy

most popular - jimin being small and cute

honorable mentions - smeraldo garden marching band, dino wrists jungkook

JULY 

my favorite - jungkook knows he's cute ↳ i also posted the before and after coloring of this because...girl 😭

most popular - taehyung filling the room with negative energy ↳ i would see that video edit all the time and was like...i need this as big gifs. lowkey the quality kinda slays

honorable mentions - ytc in busan jimin

AUGUST

my favorite - happy birthday jeon jungkook ↳ in my timezone his birthday starts at 8am on august 31st, so that's why i include this with august because it appears within that month in my archive. anyway this was fun and experimental and i'm glad i got it out of my system since i always wanted to try the google theme. i ended up merging it into the social media series because of the templates, but that was clearly a stupid move because if something says happy birthday in the caption people tend to abruptly stop reblogging it when the birthday is over so... 🤡

most popular - jimin struggling in connecticut

honorable mentions - sunscreen jungkook, giggly jikook, raggedy brothers, vmin in jeju

SEPTEMBER 

my favorite - maknae line sharing tae's glasses

most popular - park "believable ass" jimin

honorable mentions - jikook on the train, maknae line love gestures, jungkook being cussed out by jimin

OCTOBER 

my favorite - happy birthday park jimin ↳ another birthday flop but it's so cute

most popular - vmin in the car

honorable mentions - jikook clowning in the barracks

my recap stops there as i have nothing to show for november and december (with the exception of the yeontan tribute set and what i'll be posting for tae's birthday) as i stopped giffing at the end of october.

you can take a look back at everything else i made in my archive here :)

i don't know what the new year will hold for me as far as posting content goes, but thank you very much to those who never stopped supporting my work this year and the last four years since i started this blog. i've had a lot of feelings this year about my place as a gifmaker here and i've struggled a bit reckoning with the low engagement despite how much i know my work is loved by those who matter and never fail to let me know. i am working on reminding myself of this and i offer the same sentiment to anyone else experiencing the same feelings. you all deserve 100x more than what you get back.

for now though, my queue is gonna continue posting for me for a while. if i can get myself out of this funk by the time bts comes back, then i hope to provide whatever i can when the time feels right.

i think nearly everyone has been tagged to do this by now, but i’ll tag (unless you’ve already done it, just lmk or ignore me) @jung-koook, @kimtaegis, @btsiu, @namchyoon, @kookjinnies, @rjshope and whoever else wants to do this, please do and forward it to me or put it in my tracked tag so i can reblog it!

i love you all. happy new year 💜

[whatspastisprologue-blr]

I stayed up far too late last night to watch S1E1 of The Newsreader on AMC+ because I'm making it my mission to watch other things IWTV actors have done and...

I love it! I was so disappointed there was only one episode so far because I NEED MORE! I think I went through the full range of human emotion at least once in that single episode. I was laughing, cheering, yelling profanity and creative threats at some of the characters, hugging my pillow, collapsing sideways onto the couch. My heart broke. I kept pausing it to appreciate a detail I'd noticed. I was a mess!

Like, the show is set in the 80s but the show itself has a very 80s vibe, so I was just taking in the costuming and set design. These characters go through, or watch, very real things (like the Challenger explosion) and then go report on it, proud they've done a good job doing so (which, yeah, it's their job; I just found it jarring). The old has-been reporter complaining about glamor in the news to the old boss guy while Helen's absence from the screen results in a severe ratings drop. The has-been reporter dude's wife so far seeming like a "pick me" and so far not getting any praise for it. Modernizing the way the news is presented and the folks holding it back. Helen is amazing.

But Dale.... Like, Dale and Lestat are played by the same person, so of course there's going to be similarities in appearance. There were definitely a few expressions I noticed that were the same. And while I'm keeping in mind keeping in mind that we've barely seen the real Lestat, I had fun seeing all the differences as well as the things that could be shared. At first, I just really wanted to know what made the IWTV casting director look at him, playing this awkward dork with questionable singing ability, and say, "Ah, yes, this guy should be the Vampire Lestat. The vampire. The one who becomes a rock star."

And then I realized that he spent a good chunk of the episode's start running around on the verge of a panic attack, he cried multiple times, and he just has major heart eyes for Helen, who I assume is his love interest. Like, I think he'd do whatever she told him (at least for now). And suddenly things began to click into place.

I just remember sitting there listening to Dale sing in the car and being impressed that the same actor, a few years later, would do, "Long Face".

Anyway, that's my rambling for now. Can't wait for more episodes!

Oh, actually, one more thing, because I'm curious. Is anyone else ever surprised by how deep Sam's voice is? It's happened to me a few times when I've done IWTV rewatches: I get caught off guard because his voice is always deeper than I expected. And then it happened again with S1E1 of The Newsreader. And it's not that I expect him to have a high pitched voice or anything; I just forget it's *that deep*. I don't know why. Is it just me?

[seijorhi]

Hi Rhi!!

I’ve been a fan of all of your fics for a while now and All In just scratched my brain in ways I didn’t know fics could. The uneasy atmosphere in the first half was so well executed that I kept on wanting to reach out to Aya for help (I might have crushed on her and wished the reader had just skipped off into the sunset with her instead) and the way the Shiratorizawa trio straddled the line between socially acceptable but weird and downright creepy at the stadium was perfectly balanced. I was slightly suspicious that this would be a ‘beta reader discovers she’s an omega’ fic but honestly the twist was ten times better than what I predicted, and the way you disguised Ushijima’s reaction to scenting Aya on the reader was masterclass.

I’ve been obsessed with all the behind the scenes information you’ve been posting on your blog and wanted to ask a few more questions. First, what scents do you think Ushijima, Semi, and Tendou would give off? Does the reader have a preference, and if so do any of them calm her down or do they just give her relentless anxiety? Of the three would you say that Semi is the most inclined to be the leader with how conniving he is? And lastly, when Tendou gifted the chocolates what did he mean by “I had a feeling, I went with it”?

Thank you so much for writing and sharing this fic, I hope you have a wonderful day!

-🐡

nonnie, ily <33

vghfdjkhfjdks in no way was i going to write a surprise omega for my beta fic, i would've been hunted for sport. also it takes half the fun out of it – don't get me wrong, i love it for the whole 'sudden, unexpected heat, oh shit' thing, but this fic wasn't about that.

anyway, onto the questions.

tendou's scent's described in the fic as cherrywood, that sort of sweet, cherry intensity with a woodsy base. semi's got more of an amber-vanilla scent going on, which takes on a warm, smokey edge. ushijima's scent is clean and masculine, musk and cedar. the kind you just wanna bury your face in and inhale. those alphas smell good, and she hates that they do have an effect on her. i wouldn't call it drugging, but after a few hours of being smothered in their scents, it's harder to think clearly. they definitely take advantage of it.

from the perspective of the fic it might seem like semi's the one calling the shots, but it's a little more complex than that. being the biggest, the strongest, the most dominant, ushijima falls easily into the position of pack alpha. if he hadn't wanted the beta in their pack, she wouldn't have been. that wouldn't have stopped semi from going after her, it just would've meant he kept all her for himself, separate from the pack.

semi might've been the one to convince him that going after the omega was the right bet, but ultimately he was the one to green light it, and when it became abundantly clear he wouldn't tolerate aya's close proximity towards their beta, that was the end of it.

as far as tendou's comment goes, it's about the chocolates themselves, and her scent. he took a gamble when he made the chocolates specifically to give to her – caramel with sea salt. it was a guess that they'd complement her, and it paid off because he was right.

[jimmycarterghostland]

I finished my Worm read days ago. I'm going to discuss how I feel about the entire story as a whole here.

Some background: I discovered the web serial Worm years ago. I was either searching for the longest story or was searching for one that was one million words long. Either way, one of those things led me to Worm. Instead of reading it properly, I spoiled a bunch of stuff about it for myself, and would read random scenes out of order. And I would look up Reddit posts about the story. I tried giving it a proper read years back, but didn't get very far.

Months ago, I started that proper beginning-to-end read. A couple of days ago, I finished that read. I read the entirety of Worm. And it was worth it.

Before I started that read, I thought the Travelers were pretty cool. I ended up resenting them during my read. Not only were they rude to Taylor, but the Travelers didn't even like each other. That made it even harder for me to care about them, because they showed no care for anyone else.

Heartbreaker and his children, the Heartbroken, fulfilled this very specific trope of mine that probably doesn't even have a name. I don't know why, but I love it when a fictional male character has a lot of children by different women, making those children have a lot of half-siblings. Thragg from the Invincible comics fulfilled this trope too.

Heartbreaker was a villain I wanted to see a lot more of. He definitely had a lot of potential. I wish Wildbow had given him a bigger role in the story. I don't even think Heartbreaker had any dialogue. I wish Accord had had a bigger role, too, because he was another minor villain I found interesting, but at least Accord still had a decent amount of appearances in the story.

Speaking of Heartbreaker, his two kids Regent and Cherish were interesting. I actually liked Regent a lot. I was surprised that Cherish genuinely hated him and that the feeling was mutual. For a while, I thought that Cherish was going to betray the Slaughterhouse Nine and maybe team up with Regent and develop a friendly bond with him. I wanted that to happen. It didn't happen, though. Cherish ended up getting a fate worse than death. I feel bad for her, to be honest. I wouldn't wish her fate on my worst enemy.

I wish Regent had survived. He was a cool character. RIP.

My favorite character was Tattletale. At first, anyway. I think Taylor was my favorite by the end of the story.

Worm is the only superhero novel I've read. Reading it was nostalgic for me. When I was a kid, I loved reading superhero comics and watching superhero movies. The X-Men comics, movies, etc. is my favorite superhero fiction. Reading Worm fed my childhood obsession with superheroes. In general, people with superpowers forming teams and fighting other people with superpowers is something I love to watch or read. My own web serial, which I'm currently rewriting, has that.

I loved the dialogue in Worm. It was one of my favorite things about it. Those chapters during the final battle, when Taylor couldn't understand English, the lack of dialogue was a pain. Not just because a lack of dialogue can be boring, but also because Wildbow writes dialogue so well. I loved it when the characters in Worm would just talk to each other. And I love how characters tended to have unique vocabulary. Sometimes it fit their personality too, like Skidmark and his love for disgusting, inappropriate speech, because he's a disgusting, inappropriate person.

Something I had a problem with, though: a lot of times it wasn't clear which character was talking, and sometimes it was clear which character was talking but wasn't clear which one they were talking to during a group conversation. All of that happened a lot in Worm. Sometimes a dialogue tag would've been nice, with either a name or a pronoun.

The introspection was great. The inner thoughts of the characters never felt repetitive or anything. Sometimes certain phrases were used too much, like "The object was long as he/she was tall". And there were other repetitive phrases, but the introspection always felt fresh. I never had the impression a character was thinking the same thing took much.

Wildbow uses similes pretty well. I loved his descriptions. Sometimes I would read a sentence or a paragraph and understand exactly what a character was feeling. There was this one part when Taylor describes the terror she felt being like a gun being pointed at her for a long time, with her fear not rising or going down. I wish I could find that paragraph again.

The characters. The characters in Worm were amazing. They were so diverse with their own unique beliefs and motivations. It was realistic. A lot of them felt like real people. And there's some great character development. And because a bunch of the characters repeatedly make appearances throughout the novel, you see a lot of them and they make the book feel realer, and more "lived-in".

Worm is technically a multiple point of view novel. It's mainly told from Taylor's point of view, but it has a bunch of other narrators too. Wildbow is a master of multiple POV, which is also my favorite point of view to read and to write. The narrators in Worm have personalities and beliefs that show in the writing. Wildbow knows how to use introspection to demonstrate that. In the racist Hookwolf's interlude, he refers to Shatterbird as the racist term for her race, because he is racist. His inner thoughts fit his character. A non-racist character in Worm wouldn't have used that term. They would have used the proper word for Shatterbird's race. Hookwolf also has a hatred for cornrows, which is another example of his racism. When I read Hookwolf's interlude, I really got the sense that he was racist. Good job, Wildbow.

Worm has a lot of great instances of "show, don't tell". Like when he describes Leviathan as moving slower, because he's weaker, but Wildbow doesn't explicitly say that Leviathan was getting weaker. I loved that. Sometimes the reader has to figure things out for themself. There were some satisfying instances where Wildbow didn't spell out the obvious. I liked that.

I like how smart the characters were. Fictional characters being hopelessly stupid is something I really hate, but there was none of that in Worm. It was like everyone in this book was smart. Smart characters acting genuinely smart makes fiction more thrilling and fun to read or watch. It was satisfying to read intelligent characters showing actual cleverness. There was none of that "This character is stated to be smart but never does anything smart" nonsense.

One example of a character being genuinely clever in Worm is when Coil asks Dinah the chance of various individuals in their group, including themselves, surviving an upcoming attack, after she says there's a chance she will die in the next half-hour. The percentages is around the same for each of them. Coil does this to see if the attack will be an attack on all of them as a whole. This was clever. Another smart moment is when Taylor deliberately confuses Bonesaw to delay her attempt to get to Taylor's brain(which Taylor doesn't want to happen. Bonesaw is a really bad person). This moment probably wasn't extremely clever, but I think in real life most people would just pointlessly beg the bad guy to stop instead of actively trying to delay them.

Characters in Worm use their powers intelligently during fights, and that's what made reading this novel even more fun. It was intriguing.

I also love the stakes gradually get higher. The most dangerous villain is fought at the end, which is a good thing. Because the final battle in a book or other piece of media should be when the stakes are highest. If Scion was defeated in the middle of the novel and Lung was the final enemy to defeat instead, that would've been a terrible writing decision by Wildbow. Villainous Scion was much more of a threat than Lung was.

I really loved this novel. I wish more books were as great as this one. Worm is actually the web serial that made me start taking web serial seriously. I hope I will someday write a serial that's as great as Worm.

My rating for Worm:

4 out of 5 stars.

[prongsmydeer]

Ayesha Liveblogs XO, Kitty S1

Logistically, I don't know how a minor could apply for a school program without their parent's consent. Did Kitty just pass a form to Dr. Covey at some point without him knowing what he was signing?

"Did I just let my youngest daughter go to Korea to have sex with her boyfriend?" "No! No. Maybe." That's why they needed to have a white dad LOL. My family would be aghast

Very American of Kitty to consider "No English," in Korea, a rude response

"Oh, by the way, I decided to surprise him. He has no idea I'm coming." I'm sure that won't lead to any unforeseen consequences, Kitty

"I don't know anyone who'd do something like that." "Well, now you do. I'm Kitty." I immediately like Yuri, high femme chaebol gal who befriends with girls she hits with cars

Also think Kitty's supposed to be like 16 or 17, but immediately everyone we've seen from KISS looks a solid 5 five years older than her, minimum

"I can give you until tonight. If you can't pay by then, your enrollment will be cancelled." Things are not going well for Long-Distance Boyfriend Dae, it seems

"Apparently their housekeepers so you and Juliana... embracing last week?" Oh, she high femme for real. It does make me laugh that she's a lesbian called Yuri

"Her name was Eve Song?" "Huh. That doesn't ring a bell." Is Lesbianism a Han family tradition? Because that was a suspicious way to respond to someone bringing up your old friend

"God damn it, Q. This is bespoke!" While I am not well-versed in the lingo of Korean international schools, I don't think a teenage boy has ever said this

I was about to say the Dae reunion was going better than I thought it would, but then Yuri showed up holding onto him. Contextually, it seems like she's probably paying his tuition to cover her gayness, which then forces him into being unable to be honest with Kitty at the cost of his own schooling. It's all very icky

Very bold of Kitty to assume that literally anyone exiting the dance after her would be Dae. And she was confident enough to shout it from 20 feet away!

"You know I told my mum we've been dating since the summer, right?" "You know you only told me that four hours ago, right?" I enjoy Dae, he's spiteful little man

"I've just noticed that Americans speak louder than anyone else." I'll hand it to Alex, he's matching deranged introduction for deranged introduction

Where TATBILB was a very easy watch, so far XO Kitty is a hard watch in that the secondhand embarassment is through the roof. This is like a cartoon. Who is so comically ignorant of their surroundings?

WHY is Kitty in the Men's Dorm? Surely this is not a co-ed boarding school?

Update from 1 minute later: Song Covey gave boy vibes to the dormitory assigner, and that's all that was needed. How New Girl!

"I know you're trying to be a hero by letting that tourist crash here tonight, but this isn't a hostel." 1) It is her assigned dorm, Kitty is not crashing. 2) She may be a foreigner, but she is not a tourist. 3) Get got, Min Ho, you're a piece of work!

OHHHH Dae had the Dead Mum necklace, he just didn't want to give it up over this misunderstanding:

Yuri laughing at her dad terrorizing his employees reminds us all that before she is a lesbian, she is a rich person, and that means she is a little evil

What must Kitty make of this, her sort-of ex-boyfriend being forced into a PR conference in his pajamas?

"He will do better. So... 'lettuce' move on." Not Dae saving the Han Hotel Empire by being cute

"He's faking. That's a fake relationship!" Having such a weird relationship history in your family has to serve some purpose, and for Kitty, it has served acute observation skills

Over under odds on Kitty showing up directly at Dae's house somehow?

"It's fine. I already get made fun of in school anyway." Heartbreaking news from Dae's sister with duct-taped shoes

"And I promise, I can explain everything." Will that be before or after you sign the NDA, Dae?

"I'm with Juliana." "What does that mean? You're with Juliana?" "She was supposed to be at the welcome party. But she didn't come. All her social media's been deleted. And her phone's been disconnected too. I think her parents sent her away beause of me." Turns out Yuri is not that tough a shell to crack. Dae got through to her in seconds

Dae: I'm really sorry about your fucked up life, Yuri, would you care for a piggyback ride?

"No offence, but I hope we get to break up soon." "You and me both, kid." This is the polar opposite of Peter and Lara Jean's fake relationship. This is fully under duress

"But we didn't get to do any of the things we planned. New Year's Eve, northern lights, holding hands in public places. We were finally gonna get to be ourselves." [...] "Stay the fake shiny 'it' couple, so my parents forget about the rumours, and I'll be with you, kissing you, at midnight, in Iceland." Oh, to be solving life's woes over a leetle kiss with your girlfriend in the supply closet

Also: XO Kitty's first kiss on screen being Yuri and Juliana, hell yeah!

"You're well below the level of your peers here. And the work only gets more challenging." Wow, Professor Lee comes on strong with the hateorade. He didn't give Kitty a chance to fail

I did assume that Q was gay, but it is still exciting to see! And for him to be Persian and Filipino, very cool!

It feels so aggressive for Principal Lim (Yuri's Mum) to go straight from gritted teeth, "Don't mess up," to a soft, "Yuri-ah." GIRL

I expect I'll grow to like Min Ho, but man does he test my patience

"Now this is chemistry." Again, Kitty feels like she is a cartoon. The sole muppet in a sea of people

CRAZY butterfly effect of having Min Ho being a poopy baby leading to the destruction of Dae and Kitty's happiness

"I think my mom had a baby here." That is a direction I did not expect this to take!

Min Ho, you can't be poor little rich boy bc your actress mum is too busy for you. Yuri is already poor little rich girl, and she outranks you, bc she is more charming, gay, and fashionable

Min Ho is insufferable and deserves whatever Punishment Madison the K-Pop Stan Unleashes Upon Him

Kitty does really make having a dead mom 50% of her personality

"My mom would take me to the department store and forget me there." See, Yuri wins! Also, same

"You know that our moms knew each other at KISS? Crazy, right?" [Absently] "Yeah, crazy." Money's on Yuri's mum being involved in the adoption of the secret baby

Kitty continues to be a cartoon character in thinking she can break into a hospital record room illegally in a country of which she is not a resident. Girl, they can deport you whenever! Go file an information request to the local government, you Jim Henson Character of a Teenage Girl

"ADOPTED TO AUSTRALIA"????? ARE YOU TELLING ME NEW TEACHER ALEX IS THEIR BROTHER???????????? THAT IS BANANAS

"Q? Maybe just me and you next time?" Somehow Min Ho, has, in being terrible, circled back to being helpful in the Q + Florian romance

"Well one of your parents is Korean, right? Mine are both white." "Really?" "Yeah, I'm adopted." Let it not be said that XO Kitty is known for its subtle foreshadowing. Alex's literal next scene is this adoption conversation

Q's right though, she needs more than just a vague intuition Alex could be her brother. Get his birthdate. Find someone who knew your mother. Get a birth certificate

"I have an idea. Kitty should live here." HGKJHGKJHG so many things about this show are so contrived, the plot itself, Kitty and Dae's separation. However, I will allow this weird roommate livestream to be a plot device, because I do think a New Girl scenario sounds like fun. I love roommates to lovers:

"Your aggressive perkiness may have charmed your American teachers into giving you good grades, but here you'll need to put in more work." Professor Lee said: It's not enough for Kitty to fail my class. I must disparage all her other skills also

"Do you want to poison your classmates, or do you want my help?" I knew Min Ho would get me eventually. I think this is the ep. What can I say, I love an irritating man!

"We were roommates, but we weren't close." Here's my running theory based on the vibes around Kitty's mum and Yuri's mum. I think that Jina/Principal Lim WAS close with Eve, and that Eve let Jina check into the hospital under her name. So Alex is someone's secret brother, but I think it's Yuri!

[Gentle poke] "There's an actual person in there." "Don't try to get me on your side. I'm famously anti-Kitty." What a thing to say to someone's face, Min Ho!

Min Ho and Kitty come to a truce over Chuseok meals and the understanding that grief is a uniting force

"Not all people need to be star-crossed lovers to be compatible. Like hot people, for example." [Gestures to self] "We can and want to play the field." See, Min Ho has struck a balance of an arrogance level which charms me

What the hell is Kitty going to achieve by looping in Alex, she's found out nothing!

Yuri's Chuseok experience is seeing what it's like to be with a family that likes each other for the first time:

Yuri immediately reminds us that charming the Kim family she might, she is still self-preservation above all at the explicit cost of Dae's happiness. Taking the Dead Mum necklace is RANK behaviour

"This is exactly why I never had children." [Alex, upset] "Excuse me." Professor Lee enters the chat as Alex's dad??????? What?????

I can't believe that Min Ho getting the nickname Poopy Baby was foreshadowing. This show has so many swerves

"When he has a night with me, he won't be seeing anyone else after." Kitty's scheming has more success than I give her credit for

As Yuri's mum burns her yearbook page, I'm doubling down on Jina being the mum

"Our mum and Professor Lee?" "Our mum?" Well, the secret baby's out of the bag

As funny (and expected) a development as Min Ho's dream about Kitty is, the visual age difference is a lot. He's my age, and she looks 15! However, I'll allow it, I know she's like 20

"Kitty, we can't just upend everyone's lives. What if we're wrong?" "What if we're right? We'd be enhancing everyone's lives." "Stop. I know you're just trying to help, but not everyone's on your timetable." Incredibly fair boundaries from Mr. Alex

"Oh, my eyes! It's like looking directly into the sun." Hate to tell you, Min Ho, but that sounds a little romantic

Q and Florian are the Patron Saints of Underage Drinking and Protecting Your Friends On The Dance Floor, which was also my nickname in high school

Well, biological brother or no, I think Teacher Alex is going to Brother Up and drag Kitty's ass out of this club

It's so beyond the point of what's happening, but I do enjoy Lee getting a hate text from a student while he's practicing guitar. Deserved!

"I wanted to thank you, for helping me reflect on how I talk about others, especially women." Put this man in jail. I don't have a reason yet. I just know he should go

Yuri giving Kitty a snack and water to sober up. As she should!

The longing look between Jina and Professor Lee. I hate the vibes we are creating in the studio today

Also. Also. Not lost upon me that it seems Alex was admonished in this nightclub by probably his mum and dad. Blehbg

"Why does it feel like I've been zapped by a million volts of electricity when I look at her?" Kitty. You cannot have romantic tension with every person on this show!!!!! However, as a fellow bisexual: Ha ha

I'm glad that Dae found out about the necklace, although it came at the time him being emotionally dumped during Kitty's bisexual awakening

"Are you in a mood to make me coffee?" "Yes, but I will deeply resent you." "I can live with that." Min Ho and Q are fun

LMAO @ Min Ho owning up to having a sex dream about Kitty. Honest to a fault

Yuri is not a viable romantic option for anyone while she's blackmailing and extorting a relationship using people's housing and the Dead Mum necklace. Gross! Get some therapy girl

"I recognize that necklace. You and Eve Song got them together. Why didn't you tell me that Kitty was Eve's daughter?" "Why would I have? Does it matter?" I struggle to read where Eve fits into this weird faculty romantic triangle. I don't THINK she was dating Yuri's mum, but maybe!

"I need to know what she's hiding." "To understand her better?" "No, to destroy her." Yuri said: I never claimed to be healthy

florian is so efficient at meddling with Professor Lee. He not only delayed roll call, he got him to leave!

Yearbook confirms I was right, Eve did not have a secret baby, but Jina definitely did!!

Also: Yuri being like 'I'm sorry about the necklace' while Kitty's like 'NOT NOW, GAY THOUGHTS'

I love how much of this episode relies on Professor Lee having no peripheral vision whatsoever. I wonder what his prescription is

"I hope this day has allowed all of you to understand the consequences of your actions." They learned nothing, and they never will <3

Insane of Dae and Kitty to have a paparazzi makeout seconds after a paparazzi breakup

Good for Min Ho, finding a mercifully uncomplicated and willing girl to be a distraction

"I'm just so in awe of what a good friend my mom was." "And letting Jina use her name in the hospital was a big deal. If your mother is as kind and loyal she seems, you do have her essence." That is a beautiful compliment, Teacher Alex

"I'm going to help you." "How?" "Not sure." I'm curious to see what Yuri defines as 'helping'

"You are just so likeable and sincere, it's annoying." LOL YURI

"What excuse could you possibly have?" "I'm gay. And with the family I have, I'm not allowed to be." You gotta hand it to her, Kitty, that's a pretty good excuse!

"It doesn't feel great that he can lie to someone he loves that easily." "It wasn't easy for him. I pushed him into it and trapped him there." I'm glad Kitty gets Yuri's perspective on the fake relationship

I do love how consistent Kitty's matchmaker thing is. She loves love, in a slightly different, more deranged way than her sister

Also, the way it took Kitty one (1) day to get in touch with Juliana when Yuri has been trying for months

"She kept me warm on a very cold night." Idol Ocean Park rolls up to the garden cleanup to tell Min Ho he fucked his mum. That is the funniest possible thing he could do!

"You know I'm not going to put the moves on you." "I know." There's a fine line between homophobic and gay and Kitty is riding it:

"I don't get it. You were obsessed with me." "Yeah, I do that. I get all caught up in the chase but then... meh. Sorry. I'm still into hooking up though." "I can't believe I'm saying this, but I think I want more. I might be ready for a relationship." [Madison, disappointed] "Oh..." "It was you who helped me realize that in our week together. I'll always be grateful to you. Goodbye Madison Miller." 1) I love how this acknowledges that teenage relationships operate on a different timesphere and 2) I would watch a whole show of just this weird dynamic between Madison and Min Ho. Somehow I've grown to love it

I do keep wondering if Kitty will bring up if not her crush, then at least her sexuality to Yuri or Dae

"Everything is as it should be. Then why does it feel like my stomach is being ripped out?" I don't know, you just became friends like one day ago. You've loved Dae for years. Relationships are like that sometimes. Perhaps Yuri is your Peter Kavinsky

"I am your son." What must it be like to be accosted during your morning jog by your adult Australian son you surrendered under a false name who is also a teacher you employ:

"Lee doesn't know." "I figured." "No one knows but me and... Kitty Song Covey. She told you I was your mother." Jina figured out the path of parenthood reveals in 0.2 seconds flat

"Pay the boy to go away. This cannot be revealed to the public! Ever!" I don't know what you expected, Jina, you married a guy who throws salad at kitchen staff

"All my life, I thought it was me, but really, you're ashamed of yourself." Hey Yuri, maybe Jina can multitask

"Well, your best sucks. I love Juliana. Do you understand? And you sent her away to protect your image. And you care about that more than you care about me, or your son, who wants to get to know you." YOU TELL HER, YURI

"I have to live a fake life just so you'll keep loving me. And I'm done doing that." YEAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH YURRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

Kitty's really in an impossible position. If she's honest with Yuri about how much she knows, she hurts Alex. If she honours her promise to Alex, she'll inevitably hurt Yuri

"I wouldn't do that to a friend," [Min Ho looks at Dae] "or someone I care about," [Min Ho looks at Kitty] "I just wouldn't." Min Ho's honesty to a fault is also resurfacing with plot relevance. He expects the same level of trust he gives

No one in this show can have an emotionally faithful relationship. Kitty has strong feelings for Yuri while dating Dae, Florian's meeting some guy at night while dating Q, I suspect Yuri will fall for Kitty while dating Juliana. This school's a mess!

Poor Alex, he's caught in a middle of a lot of people who don't care enough except for Kitty

Oh, Florian was cheating on his exams, not his boyfriend. Arguably worse!

"I wasn't not honest, I just--" "Lied by omission?" I love that Kitty and Yuri are having this confrontation mid-fan dance. That's art!

Dae has not a hope in the world of coming out on top romantically. He's between a lesbian fan dance (Yuri) and relationship built exclusively on saving each other in crisis (Min Ho saving Kitty for Chuseok dinner, Kitty saving his lactose episode, Min Ho now literally sprinting through the crowd to save her from fire). Dae, unforunately, is just a guy

"Pull yourself together!" Jina's laugh said: I'm leaving my husband

"Daniel, follow me." "Why?" "Mom, what are you doing?" "I have no idea." Jina redemption arc for real

"I've really been trying not to, but I have feelings for somebody else." "I knew it. I saw the way he looked at you. I'm gonna kill him." [Yzma voice] Wrong loverrrrrrrrr

"It's not Min Ho. It has nothing to do with him." I can't get over the way Kitty says his name differently every time. Pick a pronunciation, my love

"Who is it?" "It's Yuri." I don't know if I was expecting Kitty to full send, good for her

Kitty has to understand it's reasonable to break up with someone who's told you you've had feelings for someone else the length of your entire in-person relationship

"I hope you can believe I only ever wanted the best for you." [Mr. Lee as Yuri voice] Your best sucks!

"Alex, can you and I go somewhere and talk?" "I'd like that." Ohhhh, we love Mr. Lee stepping up to get to know his son

"I got in a fight with Dae, because I have feelings for my friend Yuri, who's a girl." "Oh, thank god." Dr. Covey coming in with the happy familial vibes to balance out the bone arsenic

I think Q told Kitty about the cheating not for moral support but as a reality check

"What are you doing?" "Watching you sleep." "It's creepy." "It's not, it's maternal." LMAOOOOO glad Yuri and Jina are making some headway

"What about dad, what will he say?" "I don't know. And frankly, I'm tired of caring." Yeah, Jina!

"I'm sorry, but you will not be asked back to KISS." 1) Let's finally take a moment to adress this goofy school name 2) Your daughter did the same thing, is she being expelled? and 3) She actually WAS in her original assigned dorm. So. Riddle me that, Principal Lim!

Also, to say NOTHING of the failure of the school to address the physical safety and exploitation of a minor, bc her girl roommate was STREAMING HER SLEEPING IN HER DORM

Very American for Kitty to believe a cafeteria table speech would help her cause in staying in this Korean international school

I think Alex and Kitty genuinely have the strongest friendship on this show, save Q and Kitty

Min Ho saying, "Bye Kitty. Be good," while privately being emotionally devastated. I'm rooting for you, buddy

Good for Kitty for passing her exams, even if it was for naught

I do love that Dae is 'chase you down at the airport' kind of love. Kitty's right, that's the perfect first boyfriend

I was wondering when Yuri would intervene in the expulsion. Little late in the game

"We made up, but we also broke up." Healthy perspective, Kitty

"I think I fell in love with you. A little bit, or, a lot." OH MY GOD MIN HO, SHE'S COMING BACK TO YOUR SCHOOL, THERE WILL BE CONSEQUENCES TO THIS ACTION. ALSO WHAT A WAY TO START A 10+ HOUR INTERNATIONAL FLIGHT

There was so much romance in this show, in bisexual directions. I can see now why people kept telling me to watch it. I do actually wish there was MORE roommates shenanigans, considering it's a scheme that only works once. I don't know how to sum my final thoughts, other than I hope Kitty goes on a three season arc, with one main love interest per season. I lean Min Ho, insofar as his little rich boy energy is much more benign than Yuri's, and he has charmed me. Best of luck in S2!

[biggestqiblifan]

Alright, seeing as its the Olympics, how many of the "Olympians" / Athletes are demigods?

[horsemeatluvr23]

the juppet !! i just realised he is jerma posing i swear that was unintentional...... i spent so long digging thru muppet concept art and looking at old puppet designs just to end up doing a rly simple drawing but. i love joehills!! i have only been watching them for like 4 years but their videos r so special to me :3

[zellk]

Forgot to share here.... old doodles of when I finally came around to finding a design I like for Qalaari's mom !!

[mofsblog]

Scratch is Lillith Evidence

I've kind of accepted this as canon but I havent really seen anyone compile all the evidences so uh here for anyone curious

Kayne first references her in Part 20 which does reveal that Lillith exists in Malevolent:

In part 37, when John, Arthur and Oscar are exploring the barn, John sees a painting of a woman with pale skin and dark hair and seems to go into a kind of trance when he looks at her (which. Gestures. Lillith. Gestures. Succubus-y powers. Gestures)

Later when they open the gateway in Part 38, Scratch merges with a woman who looks exactly like the one in the painting and she's described as having "alabaster skin", aka world's most highly specific descriptor, which also happens to the same description used in the Lillith entry in the Malleus Monstorum for CoC seventh edition (BIG THANKS TO @/unsafewaters for sending the images to me)

And then in Intermezzo, Kayne directly mentions having a daughter and claims that she would "love" Arthur which could tie back to him being Her Favourite. Also I don't like using evidence that isn't in the source material but in the post season 4 QnA, when Harlan's reading out the notes he wrote for Intermezzo, one of the things he reads out is the daughter line, which implies it was important enough to mention (and wasn't just a throwaway joke)

And last but not least, Yorick mentions that Scratch/Owlexander/the entity watching them is close in power to Kayne which would make sense if he created her

Also earlier in the episode, Yorick implied Scratch may be working against Kayne specifically which does imply they have a pre existing relationship which would make sense if she was Lillith:

Extra evidence: In the fake Edward Willaim Allan's journal, he has an entry where talks about how, despite the fact he distrusts his "dream dweller" (who we know is Scratch pre fracturing), something about them still fills him with awe and he feels oddly seduces by them:

Which is likely Lillith using her powers to influence him and make him easier to manipulate (since it's heavily implied, if not basically explicitly stated, she was using him to open a gateway for her to enter the world)

Also! Semi unrelated but while I have your attention and talking about theories! I just wanna highlight a minor theory of mine that there's a high chance Kayne trapped Lillith in some kind of pocket dimension or prison of sorts because the prison line (from the second to last screenshot in this post) feels like foreshadowing and I find it odd that if she supposedly is close to him in power, she would need a humans help to travel through worlds (Also, she's framed as getting "freed" in part 38 when they do eventually open the gateway which leads to the question: free from what?) so that's something to consider

[ratatatastic]

"...where everybody is...except for-little bit further for barky but it's good for me!" you can tell matthew has never stopped chirping sasha for living in boca (most of the sane guys chose places in ft lauderdale) which is a good half hour drive away from both amerant bank and the iceplex and those etas are sans traffic! the i-95 gets so congested i cant imagine what the drive is like when its rush hour lmaoooo yeah sasha deserves to be chirped to hell and back for choosing boca raton of all places and yeah no wonder this guys got a lead foot on the pedal huh

the fond little smile like oh here he goes again he does this all the time and matthews cheesy little proud grin "yes i do give you grief over this! its not the first time and it wont be the last time! i will keep doing it until you move closer to me!!"

HAPPY RAT ALERT! hes certified in the art of subtly that is if you chirp your captain enough maybe he will listen to the hints youre dropping and will in fact not live so far away maybe he will move into your house

the old married couple are doing old married things

"barky are you going to move closer to the facility?"our beat has to have their fun too and if it makes sasha smile then i can allow it! yes thats it bully him into moving closer!!!

edmonton oilers @ florida panthers game 5 post practise interview | 6.18.24 (x)

[the-red-thread-that-strangles]

Alright. Let's talk about Akai's and Furuya's fighting styles, control, and the ferris wheel fight, featuring some tangents on professionalism.

The second reason is the implied: Akai is (in general, probably not in this situation, because he is going along with the fight Rei wants) a professional, and professionals do not fight. A professional will either ambush or assassinate (you know, like the sniping Akai is so well-known for), and generally do everything in his power to avoid a fight. It's about gaining the advantage, pressing and keeping it, to maintain control over the situation. For comparison, fights are between people of roughly equal footing, and fighting follows rules. As a person who lives in the world of actual violence, Akai does not need the fancy dances of a fighting sport, he needs his rifles, guns, and a self-defense technique for when things go really bad and personal. (Incidentally, a professional will also plan, won't let his emotions get in the way, stay calm, and keep working in bad conditions - we also see these traits in Akai.) I can remember two instances of Akai fighting (there might be more)- the ferris wheel fight, and the one time he knocked out the people after Yumi (and arguably, they didn't really have a chance and it wasn't really a fight). Other than that, he's just coordinating and providing tactical support.

Akai using Jeet Kune Do for fighting is an interesting choice. It's not as well-known as many other fighting styles (hell, it's not even a fighting style, it's a self defense technique and really more of a philosophy or a principle), but it has a couple of key values that characterize him well. First off, it's hugely individualistic. Practitioner's are encouraged to find their own way, to find what works for them, which really is Akai in a nutshell, doing what he wants. Secondly, it is described as a highly efficient way to fight. There are few, if any, rules to Jeet Kune Do, you're expected to use whatever technique will help you the most in the moment. For this reason, it is also highly adaptable, and requires an appropriate mindset to use. This latter point, I think, really mirrors the approach the FBI has in the series - do what you need to in order to get the results we want, at whatever the cost.

The fact that it's a self defense technique is important for two reasons: one is the immediate one for our context - Akai's defending himself from an angry Rei on the ferris wheel.

With all that out of the way, let's get into the ferris wheel fight, and what we learn about them there.

For contrast, let's look at Rei. It's almost funny how little professionalism Rei has compared to Akai, when it comes to the world they're living in. Rei's choice of fighting style is boxing, and he's practicing a rather straightforward, aggresive version, with barely any defense, at great personal risk. That point about professionals not letting their emotions get in their way? Well, either Rei has never heard it, or he's deliberately ignoring it. Either way, it really holds him back from gaining and maintaing control.

(I would be remiss not to point out that boxing is also done for show, fitting for this show-off.)

Boxing might honestly be good for Rei in order get out his anger and to up his pain tolerance, but for the purpose of keeping him alive, it sucks. It's up close, it's personal, and it's dirty (that tagline might as well describe Furuya himself). A threat who's gotten into that range is already a problem. Sure, usually - though not in this instance - he's also got his handgun, with its limited reach, limited firepower. For his purposes, it might suffice - he's not supposed to be a fighter, and the advantage of his gun is in its concealability. I suppose he gets a couple points in professionalism for that choice, and for often bringing back-up, whether he's working for the PSB or the BO. For what it's worth, he's also likely trained in Kendo or something similar, as we see in Wild Police Story, but he doesn't really use it. We see Rei fighting rarely, but it happens; with Matsuda at the beginning of WPS, casually inflicting violence on a kidnapper, and now here on the ferris wheel.

It's so interesting to me how they interact here.

Despite both of them bleeding, it starts to feel like Akai is in control, or at least not dated by the fighting - he gets Rei good with Jeet Kune Do's signature One Inch Punch, but has enough presence of mind to casually grabs him so he doesn't fall to his death (which gets him shoved off with a foot. Give Furuya an inch, and he'll try to take your head). Furuya's meanwhile clearly enjoying himself, might have even entered the zone, a sort of battlejoy/trance, asking for a second round (here we go again, this is a fight, with certain rules, like rounds), and Akai, well, he's beaten up, but it doesn't look like he'd surrender to get Furuya off his back - despite it being an option that would end the fight early. We see both of them smiling at points in this exchange, and I think it speaks to both of them, inherently, being thrillseekers. Putting all they are into the outcome of this fight against a dangerous enemy is a thrilling brush with mortality.

Them fighting at all, on top of the ferris wheel, is stupid, plain and simple. They expect the BO to show up any minute, and they'd better be in peak condition - instead they indulge in this fight. Really, it's Rei launching himself at Akai, who's mostly dodging and defending where necessary (I say indulge, because he is armed, and could probably escalate/end the fight early). Fights happen for a variety of reasons, usually social (because otherwise we'd be talking about violence, not a fight), and this implies Rei sees Akai as roughly equal/wants him to have a fair fighting chance, following the social contract of announcing his presence. He launches the attack, takes the initiative but the distance is so large, and he telegraphs his intentions clearly enough that his advantage is minimal.

Akai has the distinct disadvantage of carrying his rifle case, protecting its contents, because he'll need them later. He is, as the series lets us know, a capable fighter (described stronger as Masumi, who can deal with Ran, an established capable martial artist), and we can see it in this fight. He's reading Rei's movements and blocking most of the hits - for what it's worth, Rei's style seems more focused on quantity of attacks over quality. He does get Akai with some unconventional angles of attack (like swinging up into a kick from falling), and mostly this initial struggle is about them fighting for control.

When we cut back to the fight, they're still at it. I find it interesting that Akai tries to talk Rei down throughout the fight. Because the presence of mind necessary to form coherent sentences in a fight is not nothing, and the fact that he at least tries to go for a different solution is noteworthy, even if it is ultimately useless.

Then Conan calls Akai. This is in a small pause to the fight, because, surprise surprise, fighting takes effort (another reason professionals avoid it). It is really funny to me how Rei respects the rules of a fight, but he also sees an opportunity in his opponent's distraction, and seizes it (at the cost of also throwing himself down into a chasm, the self-sacrificial bastard).

Only at this point does it feel like Akai is taking the fight more seriously. I'd wager this is a) because Rei has displayed the willingness to destroy himself to take Akai with him, b) due to the enclosed space - less space to dodge and c) because at least he is aware time is ticking. They're both injured, and the enemy is coming soon. This fight better be over quick.

They only don't fight each other to the death because of Conan's timely intervention. He calls to Akai for help, and just like that, the conflict is resolved, for now. Akai wordlessly rejects Rei's request for a second round, which Rei just...accepts. Allows Akai that level of control, and the control of the flow of information (namely, they don't tell Conan they've been at it). It baffles me, but then again, I suppose it is a fight, the fight has rules, and, clearly, something more important takes precedence. Then again, this whole damn exchange makes no logical sense. Rei has sworn bloody revenge on Akai, who just saved his life today, and instead of doing something about the BO they're fighting a little. Logic is nowhere to be seen, all of this is emotional. On both sides.

I guess bonus points in professionalism for working together for the rest of the rest of the movie, even if they're sharing intel with/depending on a literal child for the solutions to their problem. It's a very unusual set of circumstances indubitably not covered by their training, granted, so what can you do (I'd still love for the adults in this universe to do their job, sue me).

Last point of note for the movie, in my opinion, is Akai waiting after all the chaos is over for Rei to spot him. Is this a case of checking in and simultaneously showing that he, too, made it out alive? He is clearly noticed by Rei, and only then walks away. And Rei just lets him. Akai is in control, in the end.