#and regardless of how i feel about later seasons.. their conflict this season had a purpose

[catdammitjackie]

The Vampire Diaries 6x07 ''Do You Remember the First Time?'' Part 3

[gayofthefae]

People judge actions based on reactions and Mike is a prime example. He is a very hated character right now but consider this

Season 1: Mike said to El (twice, I believe) "What is wrong with you!" She ran off hurt but returned within a couple episodes. (People often like to parallel him saying this in season 4 to the cliff scene when he didn't but forget the times he did. He didn't get worse or more hypocritical you just picked bad examples). I don't remember him directly apologizing for this, though he did validate that she was not a monster and he did not see her as such and that could be counted for one of these instances.

He is widely forgiven and even forgotten for this.

Season 4: Mike initiates an attempt to understand and console El. When confronted, he cannot say I love you but tries to say everything else he can to make her feel better. She is crying, speaking poorly of herself, and angrily throws letters while confronting him. After many episodes apart (which he spends brainstorming how to fix things and she spends not bringing it up once) he apologizes to her in full, hitting every point and taking full responsibility, at the soonest opportunity.

He is widely antagonized for this.

[mixtape-racha]

heaven is a place on earth | lee minho

watching you go through a rough breakup was hard enough for minho, regardless of the fact he was in love with you. now it was up to him to make you feel better // 18+ minors dni

words: 5.24k // warnings: best friend!minho x fem!reader, ex boyfriend!lee juyeon (mentioned), minho calls reader bub, reader calls minho bunny/bun, unprotected sex, drinking, brief mentions of recreational drugs, cursing, creampie, praise

minho couldn’t help but roll his eyes as you threw your phone down on the bed for what felt like the hundredth time in the last hour. why were you so hung up on this? it was literally just boy problems - you never gave a fuck before.

but at the same time – he got it. you were with this guy for 2 years, and all of a sudden he ended things just because (in his words) something “better” came along. what bullshit. there was no way his newest fuck of the season would ever compare to you.

it was a very conflicting situation for him. on one hand he wanted to tell you to pull yourself together, pour some shots and go get fucking blasted. but, at the same time, he wanted to wrap you up in blankets with ice cream, and cuddle you while you cried to shitty y2k movies.

it was complicated for him, so he could only imagine how you felt.

but as you let out another over-exaggerated sigh, he decided he’d had enough.

“(y/n), i swear to fuck if you sigh one more time i’m shoving a harmonica down your throat so i can at least get some entertainment out of it.”

looking up at you from the sofa bed tucked in the corner of your room, he was met with your flushed face - a huge pout adorned your lips and your eyes were watery and bloodshot. you looked awful.

for a moment he felt bad, but when he saw your eyes dart back down to your phone at the sound of a notification, all sympathy was lost. he lifted himself off the sofa, and snatched your phone away before you could pick up on what he was doing.

“minho! what the fuck?!” you cried, launching a cushion at him which he expertly dodged - this was far from the first time you’d tried to take him out with a pillow.

“no,” stuffing your phone in his pocket, he crossed his arms and glared at you in a way that had you looking away in embarrassment. “i didn’t come over to watch you wallow in self pity and pray that juyeon will call you and beg to take you back.”

as harsh as it was, you realized he was right. it wasn’t fair to have him over and not even pay attention to him. clearly, juyeon was over your relationship the second he ended it - all he’d been doing was going to parties and staying out all night with a new girl attached to his hip each time. and what were you doing? laying in bed with cookie dough ice cream and enough depressing romance movies to stock a video store.

it was with that realization that the tears started again - but at that point you were so used to them that you didn’t even notice. but minho did. minho always noticed. flopping next to you on your bed, he scooped you into a hug and began stroking your hair - it was a habit he’d had since the two of you were children, and one you much appreciated now.

“how about we check out changbin’s party tonight, hmm? we need to get you out of the house, but we can leave the party as soon as you want, yeah?” he suggested, fingers gracefully gliding between locks of your hair, and you nodded.

“okay, min… thank you.”

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- –

‘thank you’ his fucking ass. 

you’d only been at the party half an hour before you disappeared from minho’s side, and 20 minutes later he still couldn’t find you. sure, changbin’s parents had a big house, but this was fucking ridiculous.

last thing he knew, you were downing shots with felix. before that, playing beer pong with jisung, changbin and chan. hyunjin mentioned that you had stolen his drink not long before that. but now no-one knew where you’d gone - and honestly, most of them were too fucked up to care.

every time he thought he saw the back of your head, it appeared to be a completely different person. every time he heard giggling with one of your friends, it was a random girl who happened to have your hair color.

he had no idea where you’d disappeared to, and he was getting close to rounding up a damn search party.

until he saw juyeon laughing with his friends, and suddenly he knew exactly where you were. he didn’t know why he didn’t think of it sooner.

everytime you’d all hang out at changbin’s house, ever since you were children, you’d always had a designated hiding spot. whether it was because jisung was telling a scary story, and seungmin had made you all watch a horror film, or even during a game of hide-and-seek. the closet next to changbin’s sister's room was always your hiding spot.

without much other thought, minho darted up the stairs and down the third hallway to the right. he almost had the pathway embedded in his mind at this point. he knew you were also extra sensitive when you’d been drinking, and seeing juyeon may have pushed you over the edge.

when he opened the closet door and looked down to see you on the floor, curled in a ball with your hands over your face, he felt like he was eight years old again.

“why are you crying? girls are so silly.” minho laughed, grinning down at your delicate form, clinging to one of changbin’s stuffed animals.

he liked annoying you - you were the only one who stood up to him and it made him laugh even more. it was funny, seeing a girl be more loud and argumentative than his other friends.

but he also understood why you were crying; chan promised that ‘the witches’ was a good movie - and it was, but it was also terrifying. deep down, minho was scared too, but he didn’t want the boys to laugh at him.

really, minho didn’t know how to cheer people up, especially girls. you were the first girl he was friends with. but he knew people found it funny when he teased, so he teased you all the time to take your mind off of whatever was making you sad or scaring you.

and more often than not - it worked.

“sh-shut up. girls aren’t silly. you’re silly for thinking that.” was all you could get out, tucking into yourself further and trying to shut out the round-faced boy laughing down at you.

you knew he didn’t really mean it, that he was just trying to wind you up. but the face of the big, scary grand high witch was stuck in your head no matter what you did, and you hated it.

he stood there in silence for a second, trying to comprehend whether your sniffles were fake or not, before deciding to be the nice, good boy that his mom always told her friends that he was.

he scooted into the closet, sitting beside you before hesitantly placing a small hand on your shoulder.

“girl’s are silly, but you’re not silly. you’re our (y/n), and we wouldn’t be friends with you if you were silly.” he tried, hoping his words would be comforting. which, luckily, they were.

you lifted your head to smile tearily at him, before pulling him into a bone-crushing hug.

“this is why you’re my favorite, min.”

he was always your favorite. he always had been, everyone knew it, and he probably always would be. but he was okay with that, because you were his favorite too.

almost instinctively, he crouched down, brushing your hair out of your face.

“you good, (y/n)?” he said softly, trying not to scare you with his voice.

you sniffled, wiping your nose on your sleeve before looking up at him with those big-doe eyes you often used to get your own way.

“he spoke to me like nothing had happened. like nothing we had mattered. can we please go?”

he nodded, holding his hands out to help you up before you could even finish your request. once you were stood, he shrugged off his jacket to wrap it around you and lead you downstairs towards the front door.

“are we not going to say goodbye?” you asked, brows furrowing as you looked over to where your friends were huddled in the kitchen.

but between the clouds of awful smelling smoke, and the hoards of people sharing baggies of pills and lines of powder, minho couldn’t bring himself to take you into the kitchen. not when you’d find juyeon in there too.

“i’ll message the group chat. c’mon, it’s supposed to rain in 10 minutes and i wanna get back to mine before that happens.” he decided, opting to help you out of the door instead.

he knew you were by no means drunk - you could handle your alcohol better than anyone he knew - but he was still worried about you. not only had you been drinking, been around weed, but you were also very emotionally fragile right now.

miraculously, it didn’t take long for the two of you to wind up at the entrance of minho’s dorm building, just managing to miss the rain as you climbed into the elevator up to the fifth floor. you stayed quiet the whole time, which only deepened minho’s worry and he internally cursed himself for suggesting a party of a host that juyeon was known to frequent.

you, on the other hand, were watching minho silently, trying to gauge his reactions. you knew that deep down he probably wanted to go back and give juyeon a piece of his mind - but he wasn’t a confrontational person so that was never going to happen. you could read minho like a book, and you could tell he was beating himself up for dragging you out, but honestly you could never bring yourself to be mad or upset with him.

so instead, you wrapped yourself around his arm and rubbed your cheek against his shoulder to grasp his attention.

���can i stay with you tonight? like– can we have a sleepover in your bed?” you mumbled, cheeks not hesitating to flush red at your choice of wording. you felt like a child again, asking minho to cuddle after seungmin made you watch chucky with him.

and just like that night all those years ago, minho couldn’t have agreed quicker. 

“of course, bub. we’ll stick a movie on and cuddle, yeah?” he grinned, ruffling your hair as he unlocked his front door. although he was roommates with jeongin and jisung, they had opted to stay at changbin’s tonight rather than come home drunk, so that was one less worry for him.

the second you were through the door, you peeled off your heels - your ankles were killing and you could guarantee you would have blisters the next morning. you knew they were a bad idea to begin with, but they were expensive and you had to get some use out of them before writing them off.

suddenly you felt a lot smaller than minho, falling a few paces behind him as he walked towards his bedroom. obviously, you were - at least a few inches - shorter than him, but you’d never noticed it so much, and it had never had your stomach clenching the way it currently was. god, you had definitely drunk too much.

but nonetheless, you followed behind him like a lost puppy as he rooted around in his drawers for a shirt and some boxers for you to sleep in like he always did. sleepovers for the pair of you were like routine, except you didn’t normally insist he sleep beside you, even when you’d been drinking.

he disappeared to the kitchen to get you both water bottles and pain killers for when you woke up, as well as a peach iced tea for himself and a cherry pepsi for you - you always had a bottle each when you watched a movie together. you quickly changed while he was out of the room, before joining him to choose a snack before bed.

“got any cheese puffs left?” you asked, nudging him as he rooted through his snack cupboard, pouting when he shook his head.

“pretty sure you and ji finished them last smoke sesh. i have pringles though?”

“oh, fuck yeah,” you giggled. “i’m calling dibs on the salt and vinegar ones.”

minho chuckled, passing you the tube. “i bought them for you anyway, you fucking sicko.”

it was an ongoing joke between the pair of you that the other had awful taste in crisps. you liked salt and vinegar, minho liked prawn cocktail, and you both detested the others choice in flavor. it was so much of a running joke that last time minho tried to open a pack of prawn cocktail crisps in your apartment, you locked him in the hallway until he’d finished them.

giggling at each other, and softly shoving each other in your own little world, somehow you managed to make it back to his room and curl up under his duvet, some - in his words - shitty little romcom on tv.

“hey, don’t diss twilight like that. i love these movies.” you pouted, flicking his forehead and grinning when he winced.

“okay, okay, sorry. makes sense though. you do have an awful taste in movies.” he muttered through a mouthful of crisps, poking your side to make you jump.

“dickhead.” you smiled, cuddling further into his side, the buzz of the alcohol slowly wearing off. but nonetheless, you stayed wrapped in your best friend’s arms as the movies continued playing and sleep began to befall you.

you didn’t know when you both had fallen asleep, but when you checked your phone the dimly lit screen told you it was 4am. you squirmed out of minho’s unnaturally tight grip, desperate to get some water but unable to find your bottle in the darkness of his room.

but no matter how hard you tried, his hands wouldn’t leave their grip on your - well, his - shirt. and fuck, did he just whimper? was he that desperate for you to stay curled up in his arms all night? that might have been the cutest thing you’d ever fucking heard.

so naturally, you gave up on the idea of water, opting to get straight back into your previous position, reveling in minho’s vulnerable state where he was actually willing to show you unlimited affection.

but…oh.

sure, you knew minho was a guy and he didn’t have control over it, but did he have a fucking boner? you didn’t know what to do. should you ignore it? should you wake him? should you leave and sleep on the couch?

you opted to gently nudge his shoulder, whispering to him softly.

“min, wake up. minnie, c’mon. wake up, bunny.”

a pout adorned his lips, and small whimpers kept falling until his eyebrows furrowed and his eyes opened lazily. maybe this wasn’t a good idea, because he looked really annoyed.

“what, fuckface?”

oh god. his voice was all raspy, and his eyes were still practically glazed over with sleep. why were you finding it cute?

“uh…” you didn’t know how to approach this, you were like a deer in headlights. “i think that– uhm… minho you’ve got a fucking boner and its all i can feel right now.”

curse your fucking word vomit. but minho’s cheeks flushed scarlet and he shot up, pushing you across the bed in the process.

“oh shit, i’m so sorry, (y/n)!”

why was he so upset? it was natural, and yeah a little uncomfortable, but you weren’t about to hate him for it.

“it’s fine, min. do you want me to go sleep on the couch so you can… uhm…” you gestured vaguely with your hands, both of you avoiding eye contact desperately.

“i love you, but there’s no fucking way i’ll be able to get off knowing you’re in my living room and know what i’m doing.”

minho’s first lie of the evening. honestly, the idea of you hearing him get off was wildly attractive to him, but he couldn’t admit that to you, could he? you were his best friend for crying out loud. and you were hurting tenfold from seeing juyeon so fresh after your breakup. he couldn’t think like that.

but you took his comment in your stride as always, rolling your eyes playfully and huffing.

“puh-lease,” you grinned, accentuating your words. “we both know that me hearing you get off would be the most action you’ve got in a while. you’re basically celibate.” you couldn’t help but giggle at yourself, especially with the way minho’s face twisted.

“whatever, loser. i could be the best fuck of your life and you wouldn’t even know it.”

oh. well, that sparked an idea in your head. you both loved teasing and pushing each other, and with your proximity and minho’s current predicament - why not see how far you could push it after all?

“oh, yeah? why don’t you put your money where your mouth is, lee minho.” you wiggled your eyebrows suggestively, grin ever growing as you watched the realization drop over minho’s face.

“what the fu– (y/n) did you just ask me to fuck you?” he looked bewildered, and honestly - he was. were you still drunk? was the breakup affecting you that much? …were you, like, mentally okay?

but you simply shrugged, moving to sit on your knees opposite your best friend. sure, it was a reckless move, but you would’ve been blind if you hadn;t picked up on the way minho treats you, and looks at you. friends don’t act the way he does towards you.

and honestly, you were single now, so what was stopping you? your mom always commented on how much juyeon looked like minho, and how you were projecting, but could she have been right? they were pretty similar after all, looks and personality wise, so was she that far from the truth?

were you so torn up about losing juyeon because it was the closest you’d get to dating someone like minho, or even your best friend himself?

you guessed it wasn’t just minho putting his money where his mouth was.

taking a deep breath, you shrugged at the boy opposite you again. “i guess i did. you said you could be the best fuck of my life? prove it. or are you all talk, hmm?”

what you weren’t expecting, however, was for him to be completely and utterly confused.

“are you– are you still drunk? what are you talking about? you’re still getting over juyeon, (y/n), i can’t fuck you while you’re out of it like that, and i’m not allowing myself to just be a rebound for you.”

“just… be a rebound? min, have you thought about this before?”

the sincerity in your voice proved to minho that you weren’t drunk like he wanted to assume. he wanted an easy way out of this, one where he didn’t ruin your friendship and didn’t have to face you remembering your words the next day - especially if this was a one-time rebound, or worse, a mistake.

he sighed, running a hand through his hair and looking at you with those gorgeous cat-like eyes that you’d adored since you first met.

“yes. okay? yes, i have. i think about it a fucking lot, (y/n), okay? i think about fucking you senseless. but i also think about holding your hand, and taking you out, and looking after you when you’re sick and coming home to you after a rough day. is that good enough for you? can we please go to fucking sleep now?”

you were stunned.

absolutely, utterly and completely stunned. you never realized just how deeply minho may have wanted you. and you honestly weren’t expecting a dampness to form between your legs at his words - especially confusingly, you were more turned on at the domestic stuff. he really wanted that with you?

“but, min… why didn’t you say?”

“because you were with juyeon, (y/n). you were happy. you were in love. and i’m just your best friend, i couldn’t take that away from you just to get my feelings off my chest. are you going to sleep or not?”

you could tell he was embarrassed, he was never good at hiding that. you could also tell he wanted you to drop it, to forget what he said. he cherished you too much as a friend to lose you like this. but you wanted more.

you wanted to know everything. you wanted to understand what was going on inside his head. you wanted to fall for him the way he had fallen for you; and honestly you were already more than half way there.

it had always been minho, and it took 2 years with a shitty ex, a drunken meltdown, a sleepy boner and a heart wrenching confession for you to realize that. god, you were so stupid.

grasping his hands softly, you threw all common sense to the wind and went with what your heart and gut were pushing you towards. everything suddenly made sense, everyone thought you were together anyway. why not screw your courage to the sticking place? why not take a chance, a risk, of finally taking what - deep down - your heart had always wanted?

“minho,” you started softly. “please. make me fall for you so hard my breath gets swept away. make me miss you even when we’re together. make me need you like an antidote to the world’s worst poison. i want all of it. all of you.”

and while you had rendered him speechless many times over the course of your friendship, he was not expecting that in the slightest. unknowingly, he squeezed your hands, brows furrowing as his nose twitched (you didn’t call him bunn for no reason, after all). he looks down-right adorable.

but as your eyes wandered, taking in all his features, your mind quickly flipped. his predicament. the one that got you here. he was almost throbbing in his boxers, his tip leaking and staining his boxers so prettily at your words. did you really have that much control over him? it was the hottest thing you’d ever seen.

“let me prove it, hmm? how about i help you out, bunny?” you teased, eyes fixed on the spot between his legs, his cheeks heating at your suggestion.

“don’t fuck with me right now, bub, seriously. i’m not doing this if you’re not in your right mind. i couldn’t do that to you. please,” you could’ve sworn his eyes were glistening - with excitement or fear you weren’t sure. “i just– fuck i’ve needed you for so long i can’t have it ripped away from me.”

“i’m sure, min. i promise. i’m a hundred percent sure, more sure than i ever have been. i need you to fuck me silly, and make me yours.”

it was like a flip switched in his head, and his gaze hardened at the sight of you on your knees in front of him. so pliant, so willing. so needy.

“i’m gonna kiss you now, yeah?” he spoke softly, hands reaching out, itching to hold you in them. all it took was a simple nod from you, and he captured your lips with his own with so much heat that you felt like you were on fire.

had you reached heaven? you were almost sure you had with the way minho manhandled you onto his lap, your core mere inches away from his cock, and it had your heart doing backflips. just two thin pieces of material, keeping you from feeling all of him. your hands tangled in his hair as he began pressing hot kisses to your neck, long swipes with his tongue after his teeth pressed into the surface of your skin enough to make you hiss softly.

his hands were on your hips, a place they’d been many times before when he’d been comforting you, but this… this was so much better. this had an end goal with you collapsing into his arms, tired and spent. this had an end goal of you waking up next to him tomorrow, able to do it all again. because you were his, and you were damn sure he was yours.

you didn’t even notice you’d began grinding your core onto his until his fingers dug into your skin, halting you to a stop. he pulled away from your neck, already out of breath, and his pupils blown wide.

“don’t.” he hissed, his tone and the look on his face making you clench around nothing. “don’t do that, or i’ll bust in my pants. i don’t wanna be cumming anywhere but inside you, yeah?”

you keened at his words, a whine spilling from your lips. yeah, you wanted that. wanted that more than you needed to breathe. why were his words affecting you this much? you felt all fuzzy, all safe and warm. it was never like this with juyeon – it was all missionary, his face screwed up above you when he came as soon as you started to feel something, waiting until he fell asleep to pull out your favorite vibrator.

but minho… he was like magic. every touch had your skin lighting up, every kiss making your knees weak. he couldn’t be human, no ordinary man could do that. but you supposed he was no ordinary man. he was minho. your minho. he always had been, and he always would be. and you couldn’t be happier for realizing that.

you could’t help but pull miho’s hands off you, shushing his protests as you raised your hips to rid yourself of his shirt and boxers - now, unfortunately, soaked in your slick, his actions having more of an effect on you than you ever thought possible.

it took him a second to fully comprehend your actions, but he quickly scrambled to do the same. clearly, he’d been waiting a long time for this, and you were going to make him wait much longer. not when you needed him too.

his cock sprung free from its restraints, and it was like tunnel vision had taken over. it was… really pretty. not too long, but not too thick. a delicious blush of red coating his tip, but not angrily red. the drip of precum leaking making your core clench beautifully. and that curve… yeah, minho was going to make you scream, no doubt about it.

“like what you see?” he teased, and you rolled your eyes, flipping him off.

“would like it more if you were inside me, jackass.”

and before you knew it, he had you pinned underneath him, his grip on your wrists held either side of your head both too tight and not tight enough.

“don’t wind me up, bubs. not when i can leave you here begging for me to let you cum, yeah?”

his tone had you feeling like you were floating, your brows furrowing as your hips bucked - a silent beg for him to just hurry up and get on with it. he could be the brat tamer he needed to be, and that you desperately wanted, later but right now you just needed him to fuck you senseless.

“besides, i don’t really think you’re in a position to demand, are you?”

that was all it took for you to decide you needed him inside you right at that second. you unhooked your hand from his hold and reached down between your bodies, grasping his leaking cock gently. he hissed at the action, turning into a groan as you lead the tip to your folds - letting your wettess spread between the two fo you like wildfire.

“please, min. i need you to fuck me..” you whimpered, teasing his cock against your clit, and flinching at the stimulation.

“fuck,” he whispered, hips rocking on their own accord, your slick overwhelming all his senses. “okay, fuck, yeah, gonna ruin you, bub.”

he used your guidance to push his length into you gently, his head falling into the crook of your neck as he left out a moan at the way your walls fluttered around him. inching in slowly, you could’ve sworn you’d never felt so full. it was like heaven on earth.

when he finally bottomed out inside you, he pressed a searing kiss to your lips, one hand next to your hips to hold himself up, while the other was holding your face, his scent filling all of your senses at once.

he began rocking his hips gently as you let out a moan into his mouth, his tongue carressing yours in a way that had you ascending closer to an orgasm than any man had ever brought you. it was embarrassing, wasn’t it? he’d barely been inside you for a minute and you were desperate to coat his cock in your cum.

when your lips detatched, you both instinctively reached to plant sloppy kisses and bites against whatever skin you could reach. god, you wanted to be covered in him. wanted the world to know he’d taken ownership of you. wanted to do the same to him.

it was hot, and sticky, and sweaty, but it was perfect. minho’s cock dragging against your gummy walls, you clenching around him every time his teeth dug a little too deep into your shoulder. why hadn’t you done this sooner?

you could tell he was getting close when he wrapped a hand around your hips, fingers digging in as his thrusts began to get sloppy and unfocused. god, you hoped you had a bruise where he’d held you tomorrow. 

as you nipped at you lips, initiating another kiss, you reached your hand down between you to rub your clit in time with each stroke of his hips. you had to cum with him, you needed to. more than anything.

you felt your high approaching fast, your walls fluttering and clenching madly as he moaned and whined against you. his hips were quickly losing their pace, and you can he just wanted to cum and paint your walls with his seed. maybe he just needed some encouragement…

“c’mon, bun. make a mess in me, yeah? need to feel you cum inside me, bunny, please.” you begged, rubbing your clit faster, trying to bring yourself to release for him.

and miraculously, it worked. he thrusted a few more times, before his hips halted and you felt him drenching your insides white. every throb of him cock, every push of more cum leaving him. it sent you over the edge, your head throwing back as you cried out.

the way your walls tightened around him milked him dry, yet he pushed through the overstimulation so shallowly fuck you through your orgasm, which you greatfully appreicated.

once you had both taken a moment to catch your breath, he began peppering your face with sift kisses to take your mind away from the sting of him pulling his softening cock from your hole.

“did so well, bubs,” he muttered, accentuating each word with a kiss. “so, so proud of you. took me so well, baby.”

your heart soared, eyes tearing up slightly which took him by surprise. you shushed down his questions quickly, because you were more than okay. in fact, you’d never been better.

“i just– i love you. i love you so much, lee minho.”

“i love you too.”

taglist: join taglist here @pretty-racha @chubbyanarkiss @taeriffic @mits-vi @chanssmiles @5kayzee @bunniieesstuff @torixx80

[missjulielovesbows]

please please please

good girl x bad boy trope for the win (can you guys tell i love this trope)

not proof read

probably one thousand five hundred words maybe

all your friends had… interesting opinions on toji fushiguro.

some would say he is an unfit boyfriend for you, since he was… a seasoned student. others would say he was a bad influence, hanging out with the likes of sukuna. all would say that you should’ve run when he officially asked you out.

he had a reputation for being a heartbreaker, a new girl in his arm’s every week or so. honestly, if it weren’t for his attractive looks, you wouldn’t have even batted an eye at him. though many didn’t know the heartbreak he had in middle school, a starter for his self-destructive behaviour. but regardless, toji fushiguro had grown quite the name as a playboy at high school.

so, naturally, it had soon become your turn to be his girl.

during class, he scootched next to you, cozying up next to you with that annoying smirk on his face, that scar on his lip stretching as he stared at you with half-lidded eyes.

and obviously you wacked him on the side of the head, shoving him away from you with a teasing remark to focus on your work.

but you’d be a liar if you said he didn’t cause any feelings to stir in you that day.

and that day, something else stirred in him too.

it wasn’t that girls never rejected him, it was just he planned his targets carefully – and you seemed like the perfect prey: a doe-eyed student, who had grades almost as perfect as her manners, quite a prude or a stick in the mud as some would say.

so, what surprised him was how you didn’t seem to be like the rumours said you were; you weren’t some prude who couldn’t have fun, you’d just had better things to worry about.

this led to attempt after attempt to get to know you, a genuinely fun chase between the two of you. from the teasing touches and some heart-to-heart conversations, he began to develop a deeper connection to you, as much as he may say otherwise – he had never been the best with words, his actions his stronger form of communication.

he had even asked your parents for their permission before he asked you out (the second time, at least). and while they were skeptical, they gave him the green flag.

oh, you remember it like it was yesterday, the day he – the nonchalant, popular, and masculine, toji fushiguro – came to school with a bouquet of flowers, a handwritten note (which you later were told one of his friends – suguru geto, you believed was his name – had helped him write), and a bag filled with your favourite foods.  

he had come up to you when you arrived at school, his eyes sparkling when he saw you – or maybe that was just your delusions because who wouldn’t want someone like him to swoon for you.

shoving the gifts into your arms, he mumbled something about getting your parents permission before he flashed that smirk at you again and his annoying voice asked you if he could be your boyfriend.

you had agreed, a bright smile on your face for the rest of the day (more like week according to your friends).

~~~~

“again, toji?” you ask him, rolling your eyes at the big fat c minus on his exam paper, pacing back and forth at the front of your bed, “we even studied well for this one!”

you rack a hand through your hair, knowing your parents and your friends were conflicted with your boyfriend, toji.

honestly, it was rough. undoubtedly, old habits die hard, but sometimes you just wished he’d at least try to change.

“well i promised them you’re different, and that everyone makes mistakes,” you huff out, rolling your eyes at him, “but just don’t”

watching you get all riled up and fidgety, he shrugs, leaning back on your bed, with that stupid lopsided smile on his face.

you noticed he had been smiling instead of smirking around you, and you couldn’t help but enjoy the change, minute as it is.

“ain’t m’ fault you look pretty teaching me” he teases, resting his hands behind his head as he stretches his legs out.

“well i’d be prettier for you if you weren’t on the edge of failing, toj’,” you huff out, sitting at the foot of the bed, a defeated look on your face.

“is it me? can i not teach you well?”

with a playful sigh and a roll of his eyes, he leans forward and pulls you into a hug, his wide embrace nestling you in his arms.

“oh quit it,” he chuckles out, rubbing your back comfortingly, “it’s ain’t you, doll, i just don’t try enough” he snickers out, ruffling your hair with one of his big hands as you roll your eyes at him, “next time, i promise”

he knew his words weren’t the most comforting, but he hoped his actions conveyed his feelings.

“well, at least you passed” you mumble into his chest, a smile creeping to your face. as much as you wished he would pay more attention to his academics, you love him regardless. though the whispers don’t help.

~~~~

“darl’, listen-”, he huffs out, his sentence cut off as you press a little too hard against his bruise, washing away any flecks of blood that remains, “listen, he deserved it y’know, hollerin’ ‘bout you ‘n everythin’”

you sigh and bring your attention to his face, a big purple bruise swelling on his beautiful face. touching it gently, he flinches and turns away, eliciting a huff from you.

you two were supposed to go out for dinner together, all dolled up and pretty until some stranger decided to unceremoniously express his feelings towards what you were wearing.

“please, toj’, don’t prove ‘em right” you sigh out, examining his face more, a small cut near the corner of his eye, “don’t bring me to tears when i did my make up so nice”

to be honest, it felt nice to have someone defend you like that, but it didn’t help his poor reputation.

he had seemed to improve himself; he had lost the playboy persona, his love solely yours, but he still has that annoyingly attractive flirtatiousness. however, his violent tendencies and his connections with sukuna were still not the best.

“honestly, i beg you not the embarrass me with your brash behaviour because surely there’s a better way with dealing catcallers than beating them to a bloody pulp” you scoff out, cradling an icepack to his face, “please, just stop acting so stupid in front of me”

he lets out a laugh, his eyes shining with adoration.

“well, i guess you just make me more stupid, doll”

~~~~

you had good judgement, you had good taste – though your friends said otherwise.

you knew toji wasn’t as bad as everyone else made him out to be.

but sometimes, it felt like they were right.

“toji fushiguro, i swear to you if you do one more stupid thing, i am going to handcuff you to a chair, duck-tape your mouth shut, just to keep you from doing these dumb adventures,” you grumble, pulling up to a police station.

passing the front desk lady – brenda knew you quite well, at this point, all thanks to sukuna and your boyfriend – you walk to the holding cells, eyes spotting the man you came here for.

“fushiguro, hurry up” you snap out, offering a little wave to the guard as he unlocks the cell door.

silently, he followed you, repeatedly trying to hold your hand, knowing he was in deep water.

you wrap your coat closer to your body as you step out of the building, briskly walking to your cadillac, ignoring his attempts to soothe your anger.

he steps in front of you, opening your car door, before going around to the other side.

knowing he was on thin ice, he lets out a chuckle, a hand brushing yours as you grip the steering wheel tightly.

“honey, it wasn’t me, i was only there by extension,” he hums out softly, eyes locked on yours as you drive away, “it was all ‘cause i was just ‘round near sukuna, i swear”

but he doesn’t get a response, nor does he expect one just yet.

you couldn’t say anything right now, lest you wanted to snap out at him, so you both waited till you cooled down – his eyes locked on your figure the whole drive home.

but to his surprise, you drive to an empty carpark.

once you park the car, you turn to him, eyes brimming with frustrated tears.

“please, toji, please” you mumbles out, “heartbreak is one thing, but breaking my ego is another,” you try to lighten your mood, but you can’t help but glare at him.

“i’ll stop hanging out with him” he says after a beat of silence, his eyes dead serious as he gazes into yours.

“look, you’re changin’ me for the better, doll,” he murmurs softly, an uncharacteristic flash of vulnerability falling on his face, “and, i think its time f’r me to put more effort in”

with gentle hands, he takes your hand, pressing a gentle kiss to your knuckles.

“you’ve already gotten me to ditch the playboy stuff,” he chuckles out, looking at you with such admiration in his eyes, “you’ve helped me study back in school” he murmurs out, remembering the late nights you would spend tutoring him.

“it’s the least i could do for you” he hums out, “’n i know all the stuff you’ve done for me, ‘n sacrificed f’r me” he confesses, his thumb tracing the back of your hand.

“i see the concern you have ‘cause you love me” he teases, flashing a lopsided smile “’n you get so frustrated with me a lot of the times” he chuckles out, watching you as you stay silent, soaking in his words.

“look, i aint good with words” he hums out, the dark night accentuating the sharp shadows of his face, “but i see you, and i’ve seen what you’ve done for me”

warmth fills you, your previous frustrations fizzling out. you hate how reckless and careless he can be, but you love how observant and aware he can be.

“so, please, don’t give up on me, honey”

you almost miss the words at how quiet he was.

and with a sigh and a smile, you bring him into a hug.

“please, i’ve stuck with you for this long, it would be a waste to abandon my hard work”

a/n. guys i love 'please please please' - sabrina carpenter she always knows what we need anyways live laugh love

[vynxluvzsoundwave]

Sorry for this vent ask but I feel like I'm losing my mind seeing this: not me returning to the Earthspark tag to see what people were thinking of the trailer and stuff and immediately regretting it LMAO I'm really wishing that people who called the first third of the season garbage had just quit, because if they hated good episodes and don't understand the show as it is, they'll hate the next batch if it's also good and I'm not looking forward to the reception! I'm disappointed that it's like the book has been written on the beginning of the season. It's making me kinda spiteful/toxic and actively hope for things the fandom would hate to happen. How are you feeling about the fandom right now as the s2a lover & understander lol - arceespinkgun

I'm having the same experience as you looking at the fandom. Like holy shit, all of the complaints/fears are so baseless it's irritating.

I've seen people fearing that the Chaos Terrans' deaths won't be acknowledged/mourned... for some reason? It's such nonsense and completely ignorant of the strong family theme in EarthSpark and how it deals with interpersonal relationships/conflict, and the fact EarthSpark does reference/mention earlier events. That's not even mentioning that the Maltos are literally shown to care about them.

I've seen lots of people hoping that their headcanons come true and... I really think people need to understand that EarthSpark isn't written like how fanworks are written. I feel like for EarthSpark's fandom it's such a prevalent mindset, for some reason? I don't mean this in a sense of 'it's bad to have headcanons' but rather people should see the show for what it actually presents and be able to understand why the show goes how it does.

Like, characters aren't just doing things — they're also tools used by the narrative to convey messages, themes, and morals.

It's so weird how people have been treating S2a as if it's a whole season, even before S2b was decided to be called S3. I hope people will understand that S3 is functionally S2b when it releases.

Also, the complaints about the animation quality are so overblown. The animation in the trailer and S2a's looks great to me.

People hate Decepticons being antagonists, they hate Chaos Terrans being antagonists, they hate humans being antagonists... it's so weird. It really would not have made sense for the Quintessons to come so early in the season (S2a). The Quintesson Executioner appearing, though, does make sense appearing so early because it helps set up for the Quintessons to arrive later, as does Terratronus.

In S1 there was not set up for Quintessons to arrive in S2. There was, however, set up for Terratronus with Mandroid alluding to her in S1E25-26 The Last Hope with "... you have no idea the power that's been lying beneath your base all these years" "Showing you the weapon it's perched upon" when he uses the CyberSlayer on the Space Bridge. Then in S2E01 Aftermath Starscream says "Beneath Witwicky lies a tremendous weapon" which calls back to Mandroid's allusion to Terratronus; and when Starscream is talking to the Decepticons about making New Cybertron in S2E09 Witwicky the framing calls back to Mandroid's moment again when the Witwicky Tower (the defunct Space Bridge) is in frame — where we know Terratronus lies beneath.

Like, the way the series is building up to the Quintessons is great and cohesive if you look at the actual story that's being told!

Chances are the scripts for these next episodes were finished before S2a was released, so I really hope I don't hear an utterance of "retcon!" or "they fixed xyz!" when these episodes are released.

EarthSpark S2b/S3 will be great and I hold no reservations about it, regardless of the rest of the fandom.

There's so many weird fears about what characters might not be present... like y'all... the trailer did not show everybody. The entire cast not being in some episodes/shots or synopsis does not mean xyz characters won't appear.

Honestly, a lot of what I read from people makes me wonder how much people understand about how to analyze media or how series are written. Like, I'm no king of analysis or whatever myself, but why are people unable to understand why certain choices or directions are made? It's weird how people are acting as if S2a is just sooo incongruent with S1 when that's really not the case at all if you go back and look — truly, like you said, it makes me wonder why people keep sticking around if they hate the story being told. I mentioned characters being tools of the narrative, and it really feels like people don't understand that when they're analyzing EarthSpark.

I'm currently reading Marvel UK G1 Transformers and EarthSpark's S1 established the Decepticons with such similar, or even verbatim, sentiments. But even without them the Decepticons' perspective in the show was clear to me.

Is it really surprising the Decepticons, who never valued/liked Earth or its inhabitants or the Autobots or the Maltos/Terrans, would fight the Autobots and Maltos/Terrans for the Embershards — the Embershards, which are key to building/securing themselves a new home (so promises Starscream)? It feels like people don't consider the characters' perspectives and their relation to the world/others around them when it's such an important part of analysis. And the necessity of conflict in a story.

I really don't understand how people thought the Decepticons would've turned good following S1... like it wouldn't have been warranted/earned. Now in S2b/S3, the episode synopses don't suggest the Decepticons and Autobots/Maltos/Terrans have a continued competition for anything; we do, however, see Breakdown punching SkullCruncher in the trailer which is very curious — given the setting, he's likely defending Bumblebee. I have seen people mention Aftermath in relation to Breakdown, and yeah, I wonder what Breakdown'll make of Aftermath's cruel death — some have wondered if he'll defect.

Really the main episodes I've seen people talking positively of are Breakdown & Bumblebee's and Prowl's.

It's so insane looking at a fandom and seeing a lack of actual fans and people just... not understanding the story. Hard being the S2a lover & understander in a world full of S2a haters & misconstruers! I genuinely cannot escape mentions of EarthSpark without people's dislike of S2a being the default opinion, and it's so frustrating! I know that if people do end up liking this batch of episodes, they'll follow it up with a "better than S2" which'll be annoying because S2a is the set up for S2b/S3.

I don't really have much to say about the trailer myself as I'm happy with what it shows because it looks interesting and the episode synopses sound great. The character I'm most excited for personally is Megatron, but I'll be enjoying all the others as well.

[bugsbenefit]

attraction in ST

or. oh god stop stripping the show of it's themes no please no it needs those, stopppp

actually making this post now bc i'm sick of people claiming anything remotely sexual or even kissing happening to the party (an opinion that often pops up in the context of byler) in s5 would be horrible, sexualising, or out of character for the show

ST has always had a realistic approach to kids growing into their sexualities. the show's never shied away from directly addressing sex and sexual feelings so i'm honestly amazed by the extremely puritan interpretation of the show. i'm assuming, in good faith, that a big part of it is coming from people not having seen the actual show in ages and are just forgetting how explicitly the show handles sexuality. instead of just assuming it's from culturally raised christian people, who feel uncomfortable seeing any portrayal of sexuality, no matter how tasteful or realistic

i'm also saying all this as an ace person myself, i get not being into sex and not wanting to see it. however, refusing to acknowledge entire themes of a fictional show just because i don't experience them is bizarre to me. sexuality is vitally important to a lot of the characters and isn't just there to be fun(gross). essentially, ST is the opposite of porn without plot

so just as a little reminder what's actually IN Stranger Things. canonically.

sorry i had this sc for ages and wanted to include it Somewhere, so here you go. at a little starter... dorry

also this is an old draft seeing the light of day now, if anything's worded weird it's bc i didn't read all of it over again so oops, grammar hard?

TLDR: the show has never shied away from explicitly addressing sexuality. buying into the puritan fanon version of the show is going to make your s5 viewing experience worse because that show doesn't exist

season 1

we're starting the show off with Stancy, which is very sexually charged in general. (even in s4 Nancy still experiences physical attraction to Steve despite them having unchanged compatibility) the plot surrounding them in s1 explicitly focuses on Nancy having sex with Steve and later regretting that choice. the scene that everyone remembers, is of course, the "explicit" (not really, because ST is really tasteful with how it shows these teens explore themselves) sex scene

they're in sophomore and junior year of highschool here. around 15 and 16 years old - yet the show doesn't shy away from letting them figure things out. and it's not like this sexual theme is contained in only that scene. it keeps coming back the whole season as Nancy tries to sort her feelings out and deals with the aftermath of that night

also sidenote here while still at Steve and his party: even Steve's friends are very casual with their sexualities. and yes, they can even explicitly mention sex and specific sexual acts, no holding back here

Nancy's character conflict in s1 very much hinges on her sexuality and sexual themes. and it's not like there is a magic you need to be at least this old rule to know what sex is on the show like so many people seem to believe, because even 12 year old Mike seems to very much know what his sister and Steve are up to. he even goes out of his way to use it against her

iconic line! but i've seen insane takes trying to spin this into something not alluding to something sexual. i'm sorry to say if he doesn't think they're full on having sex he at least thinks they're getting very intimate with each other regardless

so not even the youngest characters on the show are "innocent and pure" the way fandom likes to claim when it comes to sexuality. and of course they aren't. real 12 year olds know what sex is, they're young not oblivious

and the following seasons make that even more obvious

season 2

as of s2 the kids are getting more involved with the sexual jokes, not just making them about other people but even being directly involved with those themes themselves. which is also realistic. with 13 sexuality starts to get thrown your way by every possible form of media. lots of them start developing crushes, have no idea how relationships work, etc. it's messy, typical teens thrown into the dating game. (i say all of this from a developmental media psychology perspective thanks uni and not personal experience sorry lmao, i'm a bit too ace to have my own input here)

s2 features comedic and awkward mentions of sex(ual activity) towards Lucas and Max,

older peers giving their 13 year old friends well meant advice on how relationships work,

and has even younger characters play around with attraction/kissing/love as well, which is incredibly normal for kids to do at that age

they're all young and the show treats growing up realistically. while the theme of attraction or sexuality gets more relevant for them (in scenes that are often received with awkwardness by the characters themselves) the show offers them safe territory to stand on. none of them are directly confronted with sexuality and are instead offered people to seek advice from for example

meanwhile the sexuality theme for the older kids is still very much explicit. just as Nancy's arc is still heavily tied to her romance and sexuality (which ties into her non conformity themes - she's an ambition driven person trying to escape the culdesac life first and foremost)

not only do we get another sex scene (this time with a cut away), there's also explicit jokes about it after

sexuality on the show is continuously awkward and messy. Jonathan and Nancy are only 16-17 here - no one really knows what they're doing or what the right way to go ahead is and Jonathan rightfully almost does a spittake here. out of pocket Murray

sexuality. is. awkward. (we get is s2 thanks)

season 3

s3 gets even more explicit with it's awkward puberty sexuality themes

from Dustin talking about how much he likes kissing Suzie (and her liking him not having teeth for it?) which weirds Steve out to the repeating, awkwardly received, "happy screams joke" (which gets a callback in later scene)

sexuality is still awkward for them. it's a realistic approach to what 14 year olds act like and know. they're actively dating by now, they're kissing people And have messy relationship situations. all while still acknowledging knowing what sex and attraction is, duh, of course they know that. but i'm explicitly pointing it out because i see obscene amounts of people claiming the characters are completely sheltered and even implying that they know what sex is would be gross. to that i say, do you not remember being 14???

and while i'm at s3, also let it be mentioned that even the adults are suffering at the hands of the sexuality theme here. Hopper's hookups with random women are focused on in s1, but now that he's getting closer with Joyce they get very explicitly told to just have sex. literally

not putting the whole dialogue in here, i already have too many images because there's so many sex mentions in this show and he really just tells them their mating ritual is painful and they should tear their clothes off and fuck right now

thanks Murray, always insightful

season 4

and s4 has stopped just confronting the kids with the existence of sexuality, but is tentatively starting to explore mature themes more directly - which allows them to tentatively start exploring their own sexualities instead of just having to acknowledge the general concept of sexuality

Max gets to ogle shirtless Steve

Lucas has something under his bed that's never confirmed as anything except "100/10 gross" but had 90% of the audience i saw immediately assume something sexual (magazines or the like)

and has a bunch more direct nudges, from the kids "experimenting sexually" as Murray says

to Argyle explicitly telling Jonathan he needs to have sex with Nancy again

to Hopper and Joyce's escalating make out in a church while shirtless

to visual innuendos (i'm looking at you hose scene. this one wouldn't be such a big deal if there wasn't a genuine moral panic about it last year. which was crazy. people literally had to pretend the scene didn't exist to escape the witchhunting mobs, except instead of being killed for magic it'd be for looking at a canon scene and acknowledging it. crazy times - aside from that there's also more visuals you can take as innuendos in s4e1 which there's already posts about out there so i'm not getting into them here, i'm more focused on the overt textual references)

to Yuir extensively talking about pleasing women and making them cum (I'm sparing you from that, the sc in at the top was already enough)

to explicit graffities all over the place, like here as an example "give me head until i'm dead" which is in frame for the whole phone call and Steve talking about his bitchlesness. and is also some of the only easily legible text (i hope this is readable, most of my screenshots kind of died a bit so maybe you need to look at an actual clip to see the text)

that is aside from the "DRUGS" poster which touches on another point s4 makes. the show doesn't just explore sexuality, it also puts the kids into more mature situations in general (not talking about the deaths, this is a horror show), specifically drugs

Jonathan uses weed as a coping mechanism the whole season and Eddie even sells the stuff in full bags (insane weed selling practices btw, even i know that). Chrissy (17-18) wants to do weed and ketamine. and we also see Lucas (14) hungover after drinking at a party for the first time

the show does not shy away from portraying realistic teen experiences

Murray called s4 very well, the kids pound some bears, smoke some ganja, play nintendo, and experiment sexually

literally. you have drinking, weed, and confusing queer sexualities. they took this list step by step

and all of those pretty normal things teens tend to explore. and i say that as someone who was decidedly not into those things. the ace experience is a bit different, but i can still acknowledge how that period was like for my allo friends and people in general

there is an extreme push in this fandom to reject any form of sexual jokes or references in the show, made mostly by people being uncomfortable with portrayals of sexuality. however, the themes not only still exist, they're also very prominent throughout all 4 seasons and are important to a lot of the characters directly

and it's also noteworthy here to see how ST approaches it's sexuality theme. it grows with the characters. starting out as jokes and being received with awkwardness to slowly letting them figure things out on their own time and turns. an extremely realistic progression and very common for coming of age narratives such as ST. it's a far cry from shows exploring sexuality or sexual themes for the sake of the viewers enjoyment like Euph0ria (don't want it to show up in tags)

based on what we currently know s5 could very well be taking place in 1988 or later which would place the party at around 16-17 years old. going into the season with the fanon version of the show that is completely clean and non sexual will 100% set you up for disaster

ST is very realistic and non exploitative with it's exploration of teen sexuality so there is obviously nothing to worry about in the sexualization department, that's just puritan fear mongering. however, it's very likely that we're going to get more than holding hands or pecks on the lips from the characters that are now older than characters we've explicitly seen hook up before. there could be more intimate scenes or making out, yes. but there's also at least one basically guaranteed vulgar joke in there, all seasons have them

there's no real theorizing or speculation about s5 here, anything could happen and i'm not placing bets, i want the characters narratives to be wrapped up well first and foremost and trust the writers to do it well. however, going into s5 with some of the mindsets i've seen circulating on here and expecting the show to be "clean" and cater to a version of it that's never existed outside of purified fandom could genuinely make you feel blindsided by the shows canon themes

not targeted at anyone or anything specifically, just using this as a bit of a reality check of what the show is actually like after recently rewatching all of it in one go

[mermaidsirennikita]

what are your thoughts on the genderswap with michael's character? i feel like that's another thing that the book readers and the non-book readers are going to fight about. (you can publish this if you want, and i understand if you'd rather not talk about the show!)

My main thought is: support the genderbend, do not support the introduction of Michaela this early (because I think it really invalidates Fran's love story with John, which the show could've explored really well). I would've held the trigger on introducing the eventual love interest whether they were Michael or Michaela.

To me, it seems like another opportunity for a poorly done love triangle. And what I think makes WHWW really solid as a book is that it isn't that.

I also personally don't love the idea of John AND Michaela really existing in relation to Fran finding herself. Maybe it won't be that! But based on Brownell's discussion of Francesca like, realizing there's something missing in her marriage, based on that scene (which I did watch) of her looking disappointed by her kiss with John, based on the line Violet had about forgetting her own name when she met Edmund and Fran then forgetting her own name with Michaela...

I don't know what they're trying to say about Fran's sexuality, it's early. It just FEELS to me that the "missing" line could relate to her not loving John sexually (or presumably romantically, as I don't think this show is going into romantic vs sexual attraction). But I could be wrong! And perhaps Fran's sexuality has nothing to do with her not loving John, though I'm not sure how they would find the time to map out "I am attracted to both men and women and I just don't love my husband even though it seemed like I did for most of the season". I suspect that they're going down the comphet -> married John -> realizations occur route. But again, I could be wrong.

And in the hands of good writers? I think that could be a really authentic story. The idea of this being realized, however, through a love triangle (and I don't know how they avoid that, introducing Michaela as early as they have... she's not going to just sit there and not have Fran be attracted to her, based off their first meeting) is really messy to me. I don't mean in the sense that we can't tell messy queer love stories; we can and should. I mean that we can't divorce John as a CHARACTER from the story. I don't love the idea of him existing as an obstacle, versus as someone who has his own love story.

That latter part? Is where it starts to feel like... John as a character who exists to prop up a white woman's journey. Much like it felt Simon did for Daphne, at points, in s1. And if John feels that way, I worry for Michaela, too.

Ultimately, I feel like I would've had this kind of conflicted feeling regardless of who was genderbent, though, because I just don't really feel like this show has the writing it needs for this. Which doesn't mean I think the show shouldn't do it; it means I think the show as a whole is like... the core issue.

And I guess it's like "but they wanted to make sure they got queer rep added in so they introduced Michaela now versus later". Sure, but you didn't have to introduce Michaela now in order to have queer rep in the show. You could tell Fran and John's story pre-Michael/Michaela organically AND feature... one of the other siblings also being queer.... Cressida being queer... Both....... There was a way to tell this story and OTHER queer love stories with more nuance. To be fair, though, I don't really think the show has approached any storyline with nuance. This is the "one of THEM fell in love with one of US" show. This is the show that featured homophobia in-universe from the jump for absolutely no reason.

What I'd personally rather see than the show itself, of course, is adaptations stories that involved people of color and queer people falling in love canonically from the start, but hey.

[spacedlexi]

Of all the difficult choices in each season of TWDG, What would say are the ones that you struggled with the most for each season?

HMM good question. there are some choices i feel conflicted about when i get to them but these are for the most part the ones that i actively dread having to make (which i like 😏 those are the best choices). there are other choices throughout the series that i feel Bad about, but not necessarily conflicted. like. i Know what my choice is, but i still feel bad about the consequences 😔 these are the ones that i actually mentally find myself battling. i just love the kinds of choices that make me sit on a pause screen for too long when its really Not That Serious

S1: help lilly/help kenny - the circumstances of this choice are what make it hard. literally a ticking time bomb. do you try to save lillys father? even tho hes been nothing but a complete jackass to you AND the group this entire time and put himself in this situation? or do you try to save the group by destroying his brain before its too late? clem being there watching doesnt help because now theres the added layer of "do i brutally murder this man in front of this child even if it means saving her life?" i usually end up trying to help lilly just because i know kenny is gonna do it regardless (and i dont want her to feel completely ostracized by the group). the idea of puling this woman back from her dying father so we can brutally murder him in front of her is.... a lot. like.. you can TRY to save him you know?? even if he turns hed still have to get off the ground first just hold the salt lick ready kenny 💀 plus you still have to actually Die first before turning. theyd have a second to feel his pulse stop. but its a very hectic scene where youre forced to act first think later. and either way clem is forced to see it. the worst part about it is knowing kenny is gonna be on my ass about it even tho i side with him on LITERALLY EVERYTHING ELSE 😐😑

shoot lee/leave lee - its just 😭 telling this little girl to kill the one person she has left, moments after seeing her dead parents. its time for her to start doing the hard things. but to tell her to do THIS?? you are fucking that child up beyond belief. but also the guilt she'll carry if she DOESNT do it, knowing hes still in that jewelry store, possibly chained to it, forever (which the narrative impact of lee starting and ending the game in handcuffs (possibly a prisoner in his own body??) makes me SCREAM AND CRY LEEEEEEEEEEE THATS GOOD NARRATIVE BAYBEE).

S2: shoot kenny/look away - another "is clem ready to do this?" kind of moment. its time for her to start making her own choices. what does SHE want?? i think even a clem who shoots kenny is gonna be conflicted about it on some level. recently i played a clem who let kenny kill jane then shot him anyway. that was cool :) and the moment is way more dark than shooting him outright. no heartfelt goodbyes. just a tired "do it". oof. the set up for the kenny/jane fight is Not Good like we ALLLLLL KNOOWWW it shouldve been luke ok. but the choice itself is still a HUGE character moment for clem, and its one of my favorite and most dreaded choices in the series. how is clem feeling about kenny at this point? is shooting him something she can do?? before its too late?? or will she be paralyzed by choice? this is a choice she Never shouldve had to make, but here she is, and she has to. before time runs out. i like my clems alone so usually i either wait out the clock (no choice is still a choice. clem just cant do it but cant look away either) and stay at wellington (good alone ending), or i shoot him 1 of 2 ways (clem Can do it)(bad alone ending). shooting him after he kills jane is just like 2 birds one stone to me SHDHSJKDS 💀 and it hits that middle ground of being paralyzed by choice but still ultimately Making A Choice, just too late for it to matter to anyone but herself. and her line of dialogue finding aj alone "we're gonna be ok, we're gonna be ok" like shes trying to reassure herself more than anything WAAAHH i kinda liked it a Lot actually 👀

S3: ??? romancing kate or not i guess?? - its the only one that really made me feel conflicted (aside from maybe the conrad thing?? sorry clem but im gonna force you to stick around actually i like it for the Narrative and it makes gabe less annoying later. also conrads alright). do you respect your brother or do you get with his wife who hates him LOL. because its not one choice you make, not really. its one the game is constantly asking of you, putting you in situations where the choice needs to be made again and again until finally you make the Ultimate choice about it. people who complain about the game being so pushy about it are kinda funny to me because like, ya.. thats the whole point.... (ive pushed back defiantly Literally just because of how pushy the game is about it tho so like i get it) she is a temptation the game is intentionally dangling in front of javi. she is the Final source of conflict between the brothers. will he remain loyal or give into it? i say give in 😏 give david something to actually be mad about. ive both romanced her and not, and the game kinda feels stunted if you dont? like... i Get It. thats your brothers wife who is still wearing her ring after YEARS of him being gone. theres 😬 feelings there. but even if you dont romance her the game still punishes you by having her be weird about it in the garage in front of david anyway. i say do it even tho its messy. it makes the story more sound imo which S3 desperately needs at that point. javi can still feel bad about it. what DID david expect?? i love mess :)

S4: kill couple/send aj inside - i love a choice that gives me a lot to think about. even if the actual in game consequences are flimsy to none. with this choice specifically, what makes it hard is the fact that the couple asked to be left alone. if they were just two walkers it wouldve been a no brainer. but with their final request, it becomes a matter of respecting the dying wish of this sad couple (which becomes narratively relevant at the end of the game OUGH WHEN IT COMES BACK). and will you teach aj that respecting those wishes is important? he needs to learn to become self sufficient anyway. clem crawled through her own number of dangerous holes in her youth. but thats the other side of it. that clem, knowing personally how dangerous crawling into those spaces where no one could follow was, i dont know how comfortable she would be letting aj do the same. but also, she doesnt want him to grow up too hardened. if she kills this couple, its pushing him further into that hardened mindset. to do whatever you have to to survive, no matter the cost to others. its a choice i find myself sitting with the longest even tho its consequences are pretty much just 2 lines of dialogue ("that couple clem tried to Guilt me about" LMAO YEAH ITS TRUE AJ THIS IS A LEARNING MOMENT FOR YOU). but yeah this is a choice i have a 50/50 chance with going either way on. every time i kill the couple i feel so bad about it 😭 (and so does clem 🥺). it being more of a philosophical question instead of an actual gameplay decision is what i like about it

not sure/take things slow/girlfriends/kiss - NOT JOKING ABOUT THIS ONE its actually so hard for me HSDHSDJKSJKDJK i dont have a paragraph of reasons why tho i just love them all differently. the first two feel the most realistic. i do like the idea of taking things slow and the dialogue for it is really sweet. but also. they might die or be taken tonight. so one kiss before everything could come crashing down on them is nice. but also hearing them call each other girlfriends???? adds years to my life. vi in ep 3 being like "um so you said you wanted to be girlfriends 🥺?" and clem like "😏 ya" i just love hearing them say it 😭 Out Loud 👁👁. and then either way clem gets another chance to kiss her in the woods in ep 3 so it works out. and 2 more kisses in ep 4 from vi this time!! thank you devs for my life 🙏 what a wonderful choice

i love choice games so much just because of the questions they ask of you. i honestly LOVE looking through the player choice stats i find them SO INTERERSTING ESPECIALLY the ones that are split perfectly 50/50. i would literally look at the stats for every single choice im not joking. where are the stats

[eloise-t-g]

spoilers for justified and justified: city primeval

finally went back and finished JCP (only watched two eps when it came out before i got bored lmao), and while it was a pretty good show, i still don't understand why it was labelled 'justified' or why raylan was there. regardless, after boyd's sequence at the very end, it's got me once again thinking about seasons 5 and 6 of justified, and in particular boyd and ava

it was clear the writers had worked out the show was ending after season 6, and where they wanted each of the main characters to be in the flash-forward to end the show. however, they couldn't have ava and boyd still love each other for that to happen, so they contrived extremely stupid ways of breaking them apart.

how much better it would have been if we, the audience, had seen boyd over and over trying to get ava out of prison, only to be genuinely out-maneuvered and out-played by raylan or other parties each time. how heartbreaking to see that contrasting with ava alone, suffering in prison, having no idea that boyd is desperately trying to help her. watching her become more and more bitter over the course of the series, both because he's seemingly abandoned her, but also the guilt that comes with believing that, with having that doubt about the love of her life.

it would have been so bittersweet to see her get herself out of prison at the end of season 5, and being torn between believing raylan (that boyd stopped trying to save her), and believing boyd (who claims raylan wants ava to doubt boyd in order to drive them apart). we would know the truth, but it would have been so interesting to see ava wrestle with the fact that she doubts boyd, especially if we see her find out about her pregnancy (rather than keep it a secret until the series finale, which was very silly). how can she raise a child with someone she ultimately doesn't trust?

this would lead into season 6, where we could have watched the desperation between them as ava wants to trust boyd, as she still loves him (rather than fall quickly and completely out of love with him, as she did), and boyd panicking as he feels her slipping away. this panic would lead him to do more and more desperate things, in particular, going after raylan with more violence. that, i think, would be the final straw for ava, solidifying the belief that she can't trust boyd with their child, that he would never truly change for them, that he's always going to be drawn back into violence and crime (the heartbreaking notion that he's known nothing else his whole life, so can she even blame him?).

idk, i just think the notion of two people still loving each other despite everything, but it's the wrong place, wrong time, would have suited the show and the journey these characters had been on, so much better than having them both act out of character for two seasons. i loved the finale, and where the three mains ended up, but the build up could have been so much better.

bonus points if raylan had lied to both of them, and also told ava that boyd was dead. this wouldn't really make sense as she could then have become complacent (and therefore put her and her son at risk), so i can understand why they didn't do that. but looking down the barrel at a potential JCP season 2 where we revisit the ava/boyd conflict, could you imagine how much juicier it would be if they had both let go of their anger and heartbreak to mourn each other, only to find out like a decade later that not only is the other still alive, but for boyd to discover their son, and ava to discover boyd still hasn't changed.

i'm torn between wanting a second season of JCP to explore these characters again, and leaving them where they are. i'm happy raylan finally retired and is spending time with his daughter. i'm happy ava and her son are safe. i'm even happy boyd escaped - he can have a little freedom as a treat lmao.

i don't even know where i was going with this, i just wanted to get my thoughts out haha. cheers to anyone who made it this far o7

[kitkatopinions]

So since you're rewatching A:TLA, do you have any problems with how Jet and Hama, victims of colonialism & genocide, were depicted?

Every time there's a 'revolutionary revolts too close to the sun' plot, I have a 'this again' exasperated reaction and on the general whole, I think that less people ought to make them. More often than not, these plotlines fail and are bad and what they're saying winds up feeling like propaganda. However, on the whole, I think that ATLA does it about as well as I've ever seen.

Please keep in mind that I haven't seen the later seasons of ATLA in a few years, so there might be things I'm not remembering specifically with the Hama episodes. I've never really analyzed this show to the extent that I've analyzed other things, as well, so... Yeah.

But, when looking at these sorts of revolutionary revolts too much plots, there are a couple of questions that I feel are worthwhile to ask:

Are the victims actually treated as victims and is their suffering given weight and understanding? Have the mains also suffered at the hands of this oppression?

Is the show itself and the main characters interested in opposing and dismantling the system of oppression?

How does the show portray violence against oppressors in general?

What is the revolutionary doing that makes them an enemy? How is that conflict articulated?

Are the antagonistic victims treated worse or better than the actual oppressors?

How much time is devoted to fighting revolutionaries who revolt too much compared to the actual oppressors?

I remember the conflict with Hama less than the conflict with Jet since I just watched the first season, so I'll be using Jet as an example, whereas I can't really speak much on Hama.

Jet's suffering at the hands of the Fire Nation is acknowledged and sympathized with, both with Katara and iirc also gone into in the episode where Jet meets Zuko. In fact, Katara compares her situation with Jet's because they've both lost parents to the Fire Nation, and Aang lost his entire people to them. This isn't a case where the main characters are less affected or not at all affected by the oppression that the revolutionary who revolts too much faced. The entire show is built around saving the world from the oppressors and colonizers and restoring peace. The very premise of the show is that Aang and his friends must help dismantle the system of oppression in place. If this was a case of these revolutionaries reacting to their oppression, but the mains and the story not really caring about ending the oppression (or even worse, fighting to maintain the system,) then it would be an instant no from me. But the story is actually about ending the oppression. The show in general doesn't portray violence against oppressors as bad. The gaang uses force when necessary even to the point of injuring people iirc, and the soldiers fighting the Fire Nation are also portrayed as heroes point blank period despite the fact that they're most likely willing to kill even though we don't actively see it (in a kid's show, this is more than fair.) Even though Aang himself wants to follow the strict 'no killing' policy of his people, the others want to kill the Fire Lord and they're never portrayed as bad or even really in the wrong for wanting it and working towards it if I remember correctly. And even then, Aang was more or less coached by other Avatars of the past to kill regardless with them talking about how they should have or did kill for the greater good, and Aang was fully set to tragically disregard his own moral code to do what had to be done until he realized there was a way for him to defeat Ozai without comprising what he believed in (also not bad in a kid's show if you ask me.) What made Jet different from the violence of the mains was that Jet wasn't only hurting the soldiers and leaders of the Fire Nation in order to free people from oppression, he was actively taking the stance that civilians and children (and I think also innocent Earth Kingdom civilians but I could be misremembering,) were a necessary causality to defeating the Fire Nation. Jet - and I believe Hama - were both portrayed as people who had been deeply hurt but who fell into the trap of dehumanizing their oppressors that resulted in them no longer caring who deserved what punishment, or what would cause the least amount of harm. Instead of being villainized for hurting the people who hurt them, they were acknowledged as having gone too far and hurting even children who had no part in the horrors that had happened to them. Jet is treated with much more sympathy and given much better treatment than Ozai. Despite the fact that Jet dies, he's given not only ample sympathy before he does, but a full 'redemption arc' for lack of a better word. He regrets the fact that he hurt innocent people, he's forgiven, and ultimately recognized as a hero. The fact that his early portrayal included him learning not to dehumanize the enemy to the point of killing children didn't mean that he wasn't still a freedom fighter who wound up doing good, it didn't mean he was unforgivable, it didn't mean the heroes wanted him to die, and in the end his actual death was a tragedy. The only reason Ozai didn't die - in contrast - was because of Aang's desire to not compromise his principles and to carry on the traditions of his people. Even Ozai's own son wanted him to die. When he was defeated, Ozai was actively made fun of. He spent the rest of his life in prison. He was treated as an evil vile man. Fighting Jet and Hama and talking about their crimes is devoted to literally two episodes out of sixty two, whereas the whole premise of the show is defeating Ozai. Not much time is expanded to talking about revolutionaries who go too far.

Again, it's been a long time since I've seen the Hama episode, so I can't speak much to that (and if Hama was more mishandled, it makes the Jet storyline feel different.) The problem with ATLA I feel is... Why did they have to have episodes focused on revolutionaries revolting too much in the first place? Why did two white men who have been criticized for their carelessness in portraying Asian cultures feel the need to write it? I don't know. A part of me is of the opinion that it's not wrong to talk about how dehumanization of the enemy isn't going to help anything and can lead to just more active harm. For another example, I don't feel like I have a problem with President Coin in the Hunger Games being a bad guy and even less of a problem with Katniss's struggles with her and Gale's different moral codes when it comes to Capitol Citizens. I do think that maybe they went a little hard on it, like they had to make Jet really bad to try and ensure that the people who get angry at anything that isn't revenge based excessive punishment wouldn't get angry at them. But those people are always going to have a problem with it no matter how it's portrayed, and it made Jet feel a little unrealistic. I can acknowledge that they should've made it something that maybe was less pre-meditated, or that it could involve citizens but not so decimating an entire town... I don't know.

But I personally do not believe in cold-blooded revenge based violent punishment - especially collective punishment - if it's at all avoidable. However, another part of me is just sick of seeing it in general and is confused about why it has to be said all the time. Writers invent these characters so they can talk about the evils of revolting too much, and it's like... Why? What value did it really have to Avatar? It didn't do much to set up the future conflict of Aang not wanting to kill the Fire Lord, and it didn't do much to establish Sokka's morals imo. So what was it doing there? Just to establish that Fire Nation citizens don't all deserve to die? They do well enough portraying that throughout the whole show. So why would they need the Jet conflict? I go back and forth. There's a conversation to be had about whether or not Jet's storyline or Hama's storyline needed to happen, and I think the end conclusion is that it didn't need to be made. But in regards to Jet in particular, I think it was done about as well as a person can do that kind of storyline. As I said, I haven't seen the Hama episode in a hot minute though, so that one could be a lot worse than the Jet one and I'm just not remembering.

[2309analysis]

Sonic & Nine are called both selfish, but in misjudged ways. They both misjudged each other, because of their bias of each other.

Mainly since we saw Sonic's side of this perspective; and we all know Tails'. So, seeing Tails', but not him in our built up mythology of him Is like 20x heart-wrenching for Sonic. Tails' is basically his little brother; and knowing that Nine went through the same things but had nobody implies that Sonic's bias towards him makes him react the way he does in season 1.

Immediately try to become friends, or better yet, partners like Sonic is with Tails'. Mischaracterizing Nine's character for Tails'. Not completely understanding that they're not the same. While Nine only saw the potential friend, if not, best friend in Sonic. Which, Sonic wanted, he wanted Nine to allow him in, but for that, Nine would have to let down his guard. Which, in this perspective isn't such a bad idea due to the innocence prime Sonic has.

Making Sonic seemingly selfish because he wanted Nine to be happy and find friends. Which made Rebel, and Knucks' his "ideal" group for Nine. Not quite caring about how Nine personally felt, because remember the line in season 3, “Shadow thinks he can take Sonic away from me?" Clearly implies that Nine has obsessive tendencies if not behavior. Which in my opinion, he does due to PTSD. (Later discussion)

Making it really clear that he really only wants Sonic's attention and friendship for himself. Which makes sense from the retrospective of his past and Tails' experience from his bullies. Which concludes to why Nine is seemingly selfish, when he is only misjudged and scared. Selfish, yes, but in a mischaracterized way. You have to remember these two did grow up alone for the majority of their childhoods. (Unless you want to count underground's canon, which we can)

Making it very easy to find Sonic's presence extremely comforting. Which we could see inside of Nine in episode 1. Cutting from being alone and doing everything secretly while still hiding in the shadows to living freely and without fear. Which is completely ideal for Nine. Plus, it's extremely healthy for his mental health and mentality of the world he lived in. Knowingly that the rebels would take care of the Eggforcers.

With Sonic's help, it really seemed like that would been the case. Again, due to bias of these characters, Sonic completely miscalculated that Nine doesn't trust him enough to let the rebels have their way with him. Let alone Rebel or Kuncks'. Here comes the ironic part; Nine never spook up for himself. In my personal opinion was because that Nine was too scared for Sonic's reaction.

'Cause you can clearly tell Sonic was extremely emotionally driven in this series. I feel like Nine found comfort in Sonic's presence if not his carefreeness instead of paranoia and clever tactics. Regardless of them being caught. I think Nine almost was emotionally codependent on Sonic, because Nine was close to scarification for him. Not truly knowing who Sonic completely was, but only relying on the comfort of Sonic being friends with him.

Plus, the signs of him being his partner; you can't tell me that didn't make Nine feel at least really good if not almost invincible. So, with the emotional hysteria of knowing that Sonic basically trusted him with his life clouded his judgment on the issue that Sonic was still trying to get back to his world. Again, aware, and trying to help him do it, but I think Nine tried to deny what would happen.

I feel like he was aware what would happen to the other worlds' which lead to the conflict of season 2's final episode. Additionally, Nine made a small mini beach just for Sonic. Which really tells me that Nine's character clearly wants Sonic to stay with him. If not keep him there at bay. Again, implying obsessive thoughts and behavior. Understandably so, he almost forgets that Sonic only really wants his world back. His friends, his home, his everything. Green-Hill, quite literally is his everything.

Especially in this series. Making it very easy just to say Sonic is extremely selfish for this and not thinking about the world's and his 'new' friends. When in reality, I think they wanted that. I would rather have a whole world then separated pieces of one thing. I bet anyone would. Completely forgetting that Nine doesn't want this, he just wants Sonic to be his friend, to come and live with him, to call him his partner.

At this point, in the series, you can see that Nine is extremely emotionally connected to Sonic. Regardless of their lack of real communication. To conclude: They don't try to communicate enough on their wishes. Making them selfish to think that the other would understand. Again, over personal bias about each other. They had created a personal perception of the other without really caring or knowing how the other felt.

So when it was time to confront the reality, they didn't agree. How could they? One only wants his life back, while the other wants a real friend making it easy to just easily think the other would agree without much thought into it. 'Cause that's what their used to getting. Especially on Sonic's side of this perspective. He is so used to Tails' just agreeing without much hesitation or concern.

While Nine is so used to Sonic just going with the plan. The two characters misjudged each other over their personal beliefs on each other. Making them both selfish. Again, a heavily misjudged and miscalculated belief system.

[total-drama-shark]

Do you have a favorite romantic relationship from each season?

Yoo it's been a while since I've been asked for my td thoughts :) I answered an ask this before that you can check here but I’ll provide additional info in this one.

TDI

I have to go with Duncney in this one, their dynamic is strong and their storyline is very well handled IMO, Gwent was a more long term and endgame couple for this season but the issue with them is that their relationship status always seemed to reset every episode regardless of how much development they got in individual episodes, so it felt like it wasn’t going anywhere when it should, they liked each other since ep 1 but by the start of ep 16 they were still at that exact same status. With Duncney though the development they get in an episode carries on to the next, making it all cohesive and neat :)

TDA

I don’t think I was a big fan of many canon couples this season, Duncney was very hit or miss, Gwent broke up, Bridgeoff was hitting constant bump in the roads. I’d say Lesharold but I’m not sure if they count given they weren’t an official couple, and I preferred them in TDWT even though they had less screen time there. So I guess that really leaves us with Nizzy, but again I prefer them in TDI and TDWT. Guess TDA just isn’t my season.

TDWT

Aleheather my beloved, we love an enemies to lovers and a WT Heather W (Heather’s win is canon to me). While I admit the writing wasn’t perfect when it came to consistency, one episode Alejandro flirts with Heather to tease her while another he doesn’t want people to think he like her, it’s our first properly well done endgame relationship in a season IMO. Seeing their constant complicated conflict is an absolute treat and it’s one of my favorite canon couples period.

TDROTI

Sometimes I wonder if I like Zoke because they’re cute or I can project so much onto them, that doesn’t matter though because my fave this season is Samkota! Dakota’s development learning to be less superficial in her judgement, learning to care for people, and finding someone in her life who not only actually likes her and cares for her as a person, but loves her? My heart <3 Sam starting out awkward messing up while trying to compliment her or finding things they have in common to being able to successfully swoon her is also adorable :)

TDAS

Unpopular opinion? I love Scottney, both how the season started presenting it as sorta like a Duncney 2.0 with Scott being the bad boy to Courtney’s uptight good girl, but also how they later go about it with Scott actually just being a mess with no experience in romance and Courtney somehow still being charmed by him despite knowing just how pathetic he is at trying to be romantic. It’s cute, it takes me back, I wish it last longer.

TDPI

Jashawn is considered the saving grace of Pahkitew by various people in the fandom, and while I enjoy the season more than your average td fan, I do admit it’s a highlight. They’re sweet and cute and it’s an a character screwing up and having to reevaluate their life viewpoints and priorities to be able to truly learn how to love someone and make up for their mistakes is a great development and one I don’t think we’ve seen before! The best we’ve seen the show handle couples having interpersonal conflicts I think.

TDIR

Rajbow is an obvious one here, like even if I didn’t love them what other couple was there? Chemma? Hah, no. But luckily I do love them! I’m glad TD’s first queer characters/couple are mlm, since in the earlier seasons the mere idea of queer dudes was the butt of a joke rather than actual representation, it feels like this is making up for that. Bowie’s confidence and smarts contrasting and bouncing of Raj’s himbo energy and his still discovering his sexuality is very nice to see and very enjoyable. I hope to see them develop this couple further next season :)

Thank you again for the ask anon! I love answering asks like these :D

[k-s-morgan]

Hi! I know it hasn't been too long since my last ask about Sebastian and Ciel's manner of addressing each other (and I don't mean to clog your inbox, so don't feel pressured to reply quickly), but the question just came to me randomly – what do you think was going through Sebastian’s head when he let Ciel get shot in the finale of Season 1?

Ciel's blood forms their contract seal, the scene reflects their first meeting, he spends the rest of the episode bleeding out, and dies with perfect timing at the edge of the bridge etc. etc. It's beautiful, poetic, and I absolutely love everything it represents – this final reignition of their pact, the end of all things. It's perfect for the plot and the show.

But regardless of why the writers made this choice (to have him be shot, I mean), I've always wondered why Sebastian sat and let it happened. He could've stopped the bullet with ease, and made a dramatic reappearance just as well. We know how much he hates the idea of Ciel sustaining physical injury, so what was his state of mind? Why did he choose to wait? Did he feel fury at the guards afterwards? Feel conflicted about his actions? He didn't seem too fazed by the wound when he approached Ciel – was it because he was anticipating the end? Or intoxicated by Ciel's blood? By his darkness? His willingness to die fighting?

It's something I struggle to understand in my head. It makes perfect sense from a distance but when I try to examine it closely, I can't seem to unravel the tangle of thoughts that must've lead him to do such a thing.

Once again, I wish you and your family all the best

Hi! Oh, no problem, you know I love your asks, you always have such brilliant insights and thoughts about Ciel and Sebastian.

I think the conflicted feelings about letting Ciel get shot definitely came to haunt Sebastian later. I think the more he thought about it and remembered it, the more bothered he felt, to the point where it became one of the moments he'd rather scratch from his memory.

In that specific scene, though, I think Sebastian was torn between his absolutely insane, unprecedented decision to let Ciel off the hook by not taking his soul, letting him choose his path & enter afterlife, and a burning need for Ciel to change his mind and call for him.

When Ciel began to hesitate and stopped Sebastian from killing the Queen in France, Sebastian sensed that something is wrong. He realized that Ciel started to have doubts as to whether he needs his revenge, and despite his frustration, disappointment, even heartbreak, he chose to honor this new wish. Instead of killing Ciel like he could for manipulating the contract, he wished him happiness and left. He gave Ciel a chance to change his destiny. Sure, Sebastian knew that Ciel was very unlikely to live long like this: without help, with very powerful people and a bloodthirsty anger wanting his death, his days were numbered. But if this was what he wanted, Sebastian was prepared to stand aside.

He watched Ciel nearly die upon his arrival to London, in the fire - and I just love how sad and quiet he is there, how obsessively he watches Ciel, how he's still astonished and admiring him. He tried to stick to his more than generous decision in the palace, too: yes, Ciel was about to die, he got shot, but his death would be relatively quick, and then he'd be able to pass on and reunite with his loved ones. I'm sure it was extremely difficult for Sebastian to not react, but he was honoring Ciel's new wish, even if he despised it.

But when Ciel called for him… well, he didn't actually call physically, but he thought of Sebastian and it was strong enough for the seal to come to life. This was the order Sebastian needed, what he craved and hoped for. He looked unbothered and downright intoxicated because he was thrilled that Ciel woke up and chose him and their contract, in the end, that their game wasn't over, that they still had their last adventure ahead. Despite Ciel's wound, Sebastian was ridiculously happy because he had him back. At least this is how I always read this scene.

[molter-writes]

dude i have a question that might be considered out of pocket but i need your brilliant take on it

i was rewatching the finale last night (because i like to cause myself pain) and i got to the part where aemond said he wanted to make a gift of luke's eye to his mother

so my question is

genuinely, what the hell do you think alicent would have done if aemond returned with luke's fucking eye😭😭😭

lmao welcome to my entirely unrequested character study of aemond. short answer: she'd be horrified, and that scene more than anything speaks to the beautiful fraught asymmetry of alicent and aemond's relationship, palpable and tragic and woefully understudied.

alicent does not desire violence and does not particularly respect violent people. e.g., we can imagine characters who might have been heartened or reassured — even if interspersed with guilt — that larys had been willing to kill to advance their interests. alicent is never shown to appreciate this silver lining; she is deeply remorseful and properly disturbed. the end of the season finds her attempting to stave off catastrophic violence surrounded by men who are effectively unbothered by the thought. aemond is one of these men. he is also her favourite man. i think this breaks her heart a little.

i'll preface this by stating again how much i sympathise with aemond, who is really neither a slick badass — his facade — nor a calculating psychopath — his caricature. aemond spends his childhood awash in a feeling of inescapable, humiliating powerlessness, and everything he becomes is a direct response to this experience, including his unfailing loyalty to his mother, his sole childhood advocate and ally. but aemond clocks alicent's powerlessness, too; and probably at no other time more palpably than during the quarrel at driftmark. viserys leaves her in the lurch; cole backs out when the rubber hits the road. when he tells her i gained a dragon, i don't think he's actually saying it was a fair exchange; clearly he doesn't really feel that way — he's still seeking his revenge years and years later (and fair enough). rather, i think he's telling her — and importantly, telling the people he perceives to be her enemies — we have real power now. we're safe. i got you.

aemond consistently strives to be alicent's one reliable ally. aemond also spends his life trying to make himself more powerful, and, if i were to really speculate, probably hasn't determined within his own heart whether he's done so to protect himself and his mother in the conflict he's seen presaged at driftmark, or in excited anticipation of that conflict as an opportunity to seek revenge. herein we find the crucial difference in how alicent and aemond each perceive safety, and perceive power — alicent thinks safety is found in the absence of violence, and power is the ability to be free from it; aemond seems to believe safety is found in a monopoly on violence and power is the ability to do it. it's entirely unrelated, and not to be insensitive by mixing factual and fictional tragedy, but i think sometimes about something prince harry once said about his childhood experiences watching the press chase and torment princess diana — his frustration knowing he would one day be a man, that he would one day be able to protect her, but not yet — and the anger, the frustration that caused. i append to aemond, though fictional, a very similar pain.

regardless, to whatever end, aemond's intention is to be feared and to be dangerous. he tells cole i don't give a fuck about tourneys for the express purpose of tipping us off: aemond is trying to become as effective as possible at killing real opponents in a real conflict. two things here: first, though aemond may not care for tourneys like the knights Rhaenys calls green as summer grass, he's equally inexperienced; he also doesn't know — cannot know — the true meaning of war or the costs associated. (see, e.g., his crucial misunderstanding of the nature of vhagar.) and second, tragically, though he's probably (if perhaps only partially) done so for her, he's become exactly the kind of man who has left alicent feeling trapped and perpetually terrified. olivia cooke somewhere noted that alicent lives in trepidation surrounded by 'psychopath men', and part of this fear seems to be what these men will do in her name and under the guise of advancing her interests. e.g., she knows larys' murder of lyonel did double duty. Tis only a look of pride, Ser Criston. Larys is the new lord of Harrenhal. to have become somewhat afraid of aemond — apprehensive, at least, of his adult nature — will likely only grow harder on her and harder to ignore. and the same will likely come of aemond's unintentional killing of lucerys, and would come had aemond returned instead with his severed eye: horror at the act; guilt and terror and frustration at the knowledge — however deeply buried — that aemond would have done it not for her, or for their family, but for himself; and that once again, she has been made the unwilling catalyst for the very violence she strives so painfully to prevent.

[fairy-dust-trash-can]

My honest thoughts about the Flora and Helia s5 drama, Krystal and how she was done dirty!

Ok, so I’ll start off by saying that like many people, I really disliked Krystal at first because of her oblivious she seemed to the damage she was causing to Flora and Helia’s relationship. However, I’ve come to realize she, like pretty much everyone in the later seasons, is a victim of bad writing.

With the whole “love triangle” in season 5, its bad enough that they introduce Krystal just to stir drama between Flora and Helia, and therefore making her a plot point for conflict rather than an actual character, but this whole conflict in general just badly mischaracterizes Flora and Helia as a whole. First, I think we all know Helia would never introduce Flora as just his friend to ANYONE! But season five just had to say otherwise! I’ve seen rewrites and fics that fix or explain this by introducing a sort of threat that promps him to hide his relationship with Flora in order to protect her, but in canon they give us no reason! Also, they make Flora regress back into her insecure self from the earlier seasons, which I actually think could be an interesting concept but it feels so arbitrary and it counters so much of seasons 1-4 with its reasoning that I can’t buy into it. Flora’s my favorite character so I’ll admit seeing her cry hurt my soul but I couldn’t help but facepalm at the same time. Like in all honesty, I’m happy Krystal acknowledged the damage and turmoil she had caused but at the same time, this could have been solved so much quicker if Flora and Helia talked it out. But no, we gotta make Krystal, the 16 year old, get involved in all this drama and do all the apologizing. Listen I know that season 5 onward, the writers could not to save their own lives decide if the winx and specialists were adults like intended if or they were just magically 16 again, but I DONT CARE!! By the chronological timeline, Flora and Helia are supposed like 20 by now! They’ve been dating for like 3 years! They’re considered the mature ones of their group! THEY’RE GROWN ADULTS! Make them communicate!!

But unnecessary relationship drama plot point aside, there’s a lot of things about Krystal‘s character that doesn’t make sense on a writing stance. Especially given her personality and the fact shes a princess by Nick’s canon. I understand they wanted to go for the tropy “airheaded cinnamon roll who causes problems on accident” with her but I feel it’s counterintuitive. Especially with how she tried helping Sky with his amnesia by bringing Diaspro back into the picture. But like shes a princess, therefore she should probably know of all the crimes Diaspro has committed! Like she should be well aware of political things like this! Diaspro was banished from Eraklyon after trying to brainwash Sky! Plus Sky is dating Bloom and its not like Eraklyon and Domino are small, unheard of kingdoms. I feel like it’s implied that like Solaria, both are pretty influential realms. And I’m well aware that season five onward in general throws Diaspro’s banishment and Sky and Blooms engagement out of the window, but at the very least, I feel like Krystal should know that Sky and Bloom are dating, and that Sky and Diaspro are exes. I know shes younger than most of the princesses in the show but even at her age, I feel like she should be somewhat aware of the political state of affairs between the planets. We even see her attending a political meeting, so there really is no excuse. As far as we know, she doesn’t have any siblings, meaning she is the only known heir to the throne of Linphea. Granted she’s pretty young so she probably still has a while before ascending to said throne but regardless, the kind of air headedness she’s characterized with is not something that makes a promising future monarch. Like I’m gonna say it right here, if the future queen of Linphea genuinely lacks this much situational awareness…..the Linpheans are actually screwed! MARK MY WORDS! Linphea will burn down 20 times faster than the forests of California if their princess doesn’t get some situational awareness by the time shes Queen!

Ok but seriously, they could have done so much more with her character aside from making her a roadblock for Flora and Helia’s relationship, and I will forever be salty!! Nickelodeon really messed up….

[martymcflown]

Okay I wanna ramble about the OFMD S2 finale now. This is a fucking ramble and a half but it was do this or continue posting disconnected, inarticulate messages at 5am. Spoilers ahead.

I wanna start this with the things I LIKED this season so I'm not just being a hater. Overall, I'm super happy this show even exists. A historical pirate show with an entire cast of queer characters (and many queer actors/creators) is always a good thing in my book. It's better that these shows succeed and show that it's a viable creative endeavor. Specific things I liked about s2: -Zheng. She's incredible. I loved her the second she revealed who she was and just found her so entertaining whenever she was on screen. I hope Ruibo Qian gets more chances to shine in the future, preferably as a lead.

-All the guest stars gave 110% and I found them delightful. I completely understand why the toxic lesbians took off the way they did on social media when Minnie Driver and Rachel House were so charismatic. -The Innkeeper. This episode made me so hopeful for what the season COULD be because I thought Ed's internal conflict was handled in such a great way. Kind of a shame that they set up this beautiful story of a self-loathing, suicidal person who's wronged the people he loves as worthy of second chances only to fuck that up later BUT WHATEVER THAT'S A FUTURE PROBLEM. -There are plenty of individual moments that made me feel great. That really made me love these characters and came close to capturing what I felt in the first season. But I will add a caveat to this thought in the next bit... Specific things I did not like about OFMD s2: -So, while I did enjoy individual moments when separated from the whole of the series, when trying to think of them in context everything felt so...cobbled together? Instead of feeling like I was watching a cohesive story, it felt more like the writers' room had sat down and said "All right, what scenes would people like to see? What character moments would get people talking?" Which I think was a mistake. -Plot threads were left dangling in the wind. Character conflicts were either wrapped up in a blink or were entirely forgotten. It felt like a season with no consequences (which is WEIRD, considering). I'd had an in-depth conversation with a friend around episode 2 or 3, but I'd said I was excited to see how Izzy and Stede's conflict could develop as the season went on--I specifically wanted an exploration into the idea that regardless of how hard you work to redeem yourself, nobody owes it to you to accept your apology. And that that's OKAY. Instead it felt like everyone looked at Izzy as if his previous behavior was the behavior of a mischievous cat who knocks shit off counters as opposed to a toxic force within the crew.

-I'm not an Izzy hater, I'm not an Izzy fanboy; I'm just someone who likes coherent character arcs. His character arc sucked, guys. Like I'm sorry, I know most of us were delighted with his drag show and casual, friendly bitchiness. But it made no goddamn sense for who he was in the last season, and I feel that the total 180 he did from being the symbol of toxic masculinity to giving heartwarming speeches about pirate life being all about acceptance and family to be...messy. I genuinely thought that Izzy was going to be used as an allegory for Ed having an addiction and needing to withdraw from it over a season, or that the season would at least confront the toxic nature of their relationship in a way that wasn't THREE SECONDS BEFORE IZZY DIED. Also sorry Izzy is coming up in another point but it's because it felt like 70% of this season was Izzy. -The shafting of the side characters. Remember when Ed was like "I'm the fuckin' devil. And these are the kids"? Yeah, that was kind of the vibe the whole damn time, eh? I'll be totally upfront with you, I didn't love the first season because the two Kiwis kissed. I loved the first season for the characters. I was SO intrigued by every one of them, particularly Jim and Olu. This season, every single member of the crew felt more like Polly Pockets who would get pulled out when convenient and then tossed into the sand when the episode grew tired of them. Did any of them actually have character development? Did any of them get an actual moment to shine? Also, god, on the note of the handling of crew relationships. I can't believe this season managed to polybait but here we are. I would love to understand what the reasoning was to break up Olu and Jim. Was it because they couldn't imagine two new characters (Zheng and Archie) existing without a romance? Did amatonormativity strike again? Even removing the romantic development Olu and Jim had for each other, it really felt like they hadn't gone through ANY of the shit they had in the former season. Which I suppose you could say about any of the threads connecting characters because I swear these people acted like they'd just met at a work conference as opposed to having long-standing relationships to one another. -I would like to say for the record that I was never terribly invested in Izzy Hands as a character outside of what he symbolized, but I was initially hopeful he could lead to some fantastic character development for Ed, Stede and himself. Instead, as mentioned before, he had the most rushed character development I have EVER seen and for reasons I still can't really fathom. And maybe this is just a personal thing for me, but I actually really hate showing a suicidal person learning to love life and find new value in allowing themself the opportunity to grow as a person only to fucking murk them for a cheap, rushed emotional moment.

--

Closing thoughts--have you ever seen the special finale episode of Sense8 where the creators knew they'd been screwed by Netflix and so had to scramble to put together a cohesive end for those characters? And the episode we got was messy, it left threads dangling, it wrapped up character conflicts quickly, but it also ultimately seemed to reflect the overall heart of the show? Yeah, this was like that Sense8 finale episode but, at least for me, lacked any of the heart. I've seen people argue that the creators of OFMD wrapped so many conflicts so quickly because they wanted us to have "closure" in case they didn't get a season 3. But, I would argue that I would much rather receive a season that leaves me with questions but feels coherent only to not get answers to those questions than to get the cinematic equivalent of an Uber Eats refund. I'm not satisfied. I'm still hungry. I just have someone telling me I should still be grateful, anyway. I hope they get a season 3, I really do.