#apologies for the thesis length

[bird-inacage]

Love Sea Episode 4: Where Things Have Gone Astray

It pains me to say it, but I found Episode 4 sloppy in it's execution, direction and writing overall. (I'd like to preface that regardless of how much I like fortpeat, or have enjoyed the series for the most part, I personally think it's important to be able to critique a show when it's flaws present themselves, and not to blindly excuse those issues because we want so badly to like it).

The transition from island to Bangkok was a huge turning point in the story, and I'm disappointed to say it wasn't handled well. The episode felt very off-beat and clunky compared to the lovely moments we got last week. Most of the issues centre on inconsistencies in character trajectory that were set up by the end of Episode 3. So let's unpack what went wrong here.

Mut is brusquely given the cold shoulder

My biggest gripe is the treatment of Mut this episode and without good reason. Let's start by recognising that Mut has potentially left his entire way of life behind: his friends, his community, his livelihood - all on the possibility that Rak may come to love him. I don't think Mut's naively banking on this being forever, but the emphasis here is he's willing to give it all up. The lack of acknowledgement to this gesture was glaring. The boy is only 20 years old, may I stress. Rak knows the hardships that Mut has faced, which should make this sacrifice even more significant in my opinion. What little Mut has built from scratch, he's willing to leave behind. All for Rak.

Other than a few brief moments of Rak looking sheepish/guilty, he's very passive throughout. I was really hoping he'd display more initiative and maturity here as the older party (like he did at the end of Episode 3). Even more disappointingly, once they land in Bangkok, Rak has Mut trailing behind him and largely leaves him to his own devices. At points, Rak's attitude towards Mut feels borderline exploitative. Rak is the one who begged Mut to come with him, and now that he's there, he seems to be putting Mut on trial.

Mut's hospitality on the island was due to Rak being an outsider who was completely out of his comfort zone. Now they've essentially reversed the situation but somehow the default is still Mut making all the effort (and yes, I know he's getting paid, but the last 3 episodes have just attempted to establish that their relationship is beyond just monetary). We need to see some more active reciprocation from Rak that supports why he was so driven for Mut to stay with him.

We've also been shown that though Mut is incredibly patient, he's not a doormat. When Rak crosses a line, he does get angry. Mut ran away when his father offended his core values, so we know he's capable of putting his foot down. But Rak's treatment of him here roused no protest or questioning when it would be fully warranted. By the time they discuss the contract, it's a null confrontation as Mut has already conceded to Rak's demands by signing. I wish he stood up for himself more here.

Tongrak's change in demeanour

The Rak we see in Bangkok is how I would imagine his character to be at the beginning of the series. Slightly haughty and dismissive. But because our impression of Rak was intentionally reversed so early on - where we were shown his sensitivity and softness - to have him slip back into a standoffish persona gave me whiplash. Has Rak regressed to who he was prior to the island? Has his time with Mut not changed anything? We know it has, which is why this front feels performative. Why would Rak feel the need to play into this character when Mut's already seen who he is underneath? And what has triggered him to do so? His family haven't come into the picture yet. I don't think Rak really cares about Mook's judgement. So why?

I think it's a huge disservice to shrug this off with: 'oh it's because Rak has trauma', and that's why he's running hot and cold. Doing so only trivialises the magnitude of trauma as a 'convenient' excuse when the writing doesn't support itself well enough for a character's actions to feel convincingly well founded.

When I started Episode 4, I thought we'd missed a scene or were due a flashback that would signpost why Rak changed his mind. We're told it's because of his PA, but that doesn't hold up well because surely Rak would have factored that into the equation. There are plenty of ways they could have remedied this. They could have shown us that Rak was genuine in agreeing, but spirals over the enormity of such a decision afterwards, which leads him to back out. Or Rak agreed despite knowing full well he couldn't meet his promise, and only lied because he didn't want to hurt Mut's feelings. Or they could have included the phone call from his sister in this episode, which would indicate that Rak has bigger responsibilities outside of himself, which caused his decision to sway. But we didn't get anything to ground us to Rak's mindset this episode, so his mentality feels like a 180. It also makes his agreement to Mut feel flippant if all it took was for Mook to whine to change his mind.

I can accept Rak retreating emotionally out of pressure or worry, but it doesn't read that way. Instead, his actions and body language feel abruptly indifferent, oddly detached and cold. The contract just epitomises a clinical level of emotional distancing. Even when Mook voices her concerns, Rak looks exasperated. So this isn't presented to us as a reaction borne out of vulnerability. And because we don't see Rak mulling over any doubts about Mut or otherwise, his behaviour feels all the more sudden and incongruous.

Ultimately, Rak was the one who let Mut down. If Rak agreed to stay on the island because he truly cared about Mut, wouldn't he be feeling doubly guilty at present? Not only has he broken a promise, but Mut is making a huge compromise to pursue Rak. Yet, Rak's attitude seems to be: 'these are my terms, do you have a problem with that?' This challenging air feels out of place and counterintuitive to what they've set up so far. What has Mut done to deserve this? Why is Mut still the one accommodating and initiating, with seemingly no return?

When comedy is not your strong suit, do not lean into it

I have a real bone to pick with the 'humour' attempted in this episode. I know comedy is subjective, but these scenes are arguably the shows weakest moments. People underestimate just how hard it is to pull off comedy and to do it well. And the brand of humour they're going for comes across quite juvenile, slapstick or theatrical. Sadly it only magnifies Aya's acting as egregiously bad in this episode because Mook is leant on so heavily as comic relief.

Mook and Vi's presence as individuals and as a couple has also been very one-dimensional so far which doesn't help things. It's getting increasingly taxing to sit through their scenes when there's so little substance and depth there to root for. Trust me, I am trying to like them, but they're not making it easy.

At it's worst, filler offers us no further insight or advancement in either character or plot. Which inevitably makes you question why the run time is being wasted on excessively inconsequential material. That crime was being committed multiple times this episode.

This is not me writing off the series by any means. As I say in my introduction, I think it's extremely important as a viewer to retain the objectivity to recognise when there are speed bumps, dodgy choices or noticeable areas for improvement.

As I was writing this, I found myself going: 'I think I see what they were trying to go for here' and applying additional guess-work to fill in the gaps. But that's the issue. If the writing requires your viewer to do mental gymnastics to make it make sense, you've dropped the ball. I would heartily advocate for 'show, don't just tell'. But in this episode we neither get shown or told why our characters are acting like this, especially when it seems to contradict how we got here.

Let's hope next episode is only onwards and upwards.

[chenfordspiral]

A Chenford Thesis on 5x08

So, during my latest season 5 rewatch (thank you, hiatus nr 28593 this season), I kept getting stuck at 5x08. I could watch the Chenford scenes a hundred times a day. I’ve had a lot of time to think about why I absolutely love this episode and the way Chenford finally happened. 

Apologies if I keep repeating myself sometimes. This got way out of hand for some reason and I might’ve lost track a bit, so…

Anyway, let’s get started with my essay, or whatever this is, on how we got to the end of 5x08 and why Chenford’s development makes me weak in the knees. 

Would a big love confession scene because one of them is in danger have been nice to see in the moment? Sure. Would it have taken away from the impact of it all? Yes, yes, I think it would’ve. Because these two characters are not that. They’re private people, Tim especially, and yes, Lucy is more outgoing and once told Nolan to go for a big-ass proposal with Bailey, but when it really matters, that’s also not her. A big confession in the heat of the moment would’ve been OOC for them. The quieter, just the two of them outside way worked way better than anything else could have.

But I’m getting ahead of myself already. Let’s start at the beginning. 

All of 5x08 is the perfect lead-up to the end scene of that episode. 

Both Tim and Lucy are clearly uncomfortable at the idea of having to spend an entire shift together in the same car. They haven’t been the same with each other since they found a certain someone on Lucy’s couch and Tim encouraged her to go to UC school. 

They’ve become so much more than just colleagues to one another, but neither one of them is ready to have to face the other for the next approximately 10-12 hours. At this point, we’ve seen Lucy realize that Tim means more to her than just a friend, and we’ve definitely seen that Tim fell head-over-heals in 4x22/5x01 and just a little bit more each episode since.

So, there is nothing easy about having to be this close to each other again while thinking the other doesn’t return those romantic feelings. We see that weirdness in the shop before Lucy decides to break the silence. Without even trying, the manage to slip into a conversation that feels like them. They’re bickering like an old married couple. 

They disagree, but don’t insult each other for their different opinions – they banter back and forth, the way they have since sometime during Lucy’s rookie year. 

This wonderful moment, where we briefly saw them being them again, gets interrupted by Lucy’s idiotic WIP. Be warned, I will not be nice to this guy. I might even get through all of this without having to type out his name. Yes, I’m that petty. No, I’m not sorry. 

Lucy looks super uncomfortable right from the start. She doesn’t want to talk to this guy right now, especially not with Tim right next to her. But Assford doesn’t even register her unease. She manages to avoid having to talk very long, and couldn’t have hung up the phone any more quickly after he says he loves her. 

Now, we know Tim isn’t one for personal talk in the shop, even though Lucy’s already broken through that barrier here. But we saw the way he was avoiding even looking Lucy in the eye before she scurried off to get the war bags back at the station. He doesn’t want to have to spend so much time being so close to her. 

He doesn’t want to get involved in her personal life again. (Okay, he does, but you know what I mean.) But he clocks in on her uneasiness. And yeah, he didn’t think Lucy and the idiot he set her up with were serious enough to be talking about moving in together. So, he starts a conversation about something personal. Because he needs to know. 

“Are you two moving in together?” He looks and sounds a little broken. Because if they’re that serious, he really never has a chance. I know, he doesn’t think he has one now, but that would shut that door even more. Lucy doesn’t say yes, but she also doesn’t say no. But she does say that mr. clingy just dropped it on her earlier that day. We all see how confused and nervous she is. 

He asks if they’re happy – notice his use of ‘right?!’ at the end of that question; it’s become a pattern with them – and that moving in would be the obvious thing to do next. See, he can’t have her but still wants her to be happy. Even though he clearly doesn’t like the guy she’s with. Tim, you big selfless idiot.  

And Lucy tries to deflect, tries to convince him, and herself, that she’s happy with the guy. But we can all tell that she isn’t. And that Tim isn’t convinced either. 

The conversation is put on hold because they get called to a dispute. This might seem very random, but that couple served two purposes. One, giving an example of a couple that might be doing things better than Lucy with her WIP but still not the right way. And two, showing that sometimes, cops get called to weird scenes that seem totally random. But that’s patrol. 

Then they’re all busy trying to help the woman who’s had a bomb strapped to her neck. We see what they have to deal with on patrol, the inhuman things people do. We see them trying to handle seeing a woman killed by a bomb.  

They’re still talking about it when they’re back in the shop after it all went down. Again, they’re pulled out of the moment by her pathetic-excuse-for-a-boyfriend. This time, he seems to call to make sure she’s okay after hearing what happened on the news. But as soon as she says she’s ok, he changes course. Immediately putting pressure on her by talking about a house they should move on if she likes it. 

She hasn’t even seen the house. Let alone actually agreed to even look at houses. In the morning, she said “I’ll think about it. We’ll talk tonight.” That was not a yes. It was a ‘maybe; can we please talk about this later’. But he doesn’t get it. He doesn’t realize how much he’s bothering and smothering her right now. 

Tim only has to take one look at Lucy to see that she’s uncomfortable. He was already looking at her when she turned to glance at him, likely looking for his help to get her out of this conversation. Lucy, honey. Wanting to get out of a conversation with your WIP should ring several alarm bells. You shouldn’t need ‘saving’. 

But Tim does what he always does – making sure Lucy’s okay. So he puts on his best TO voice and tells her to stop taking personal calls while on duty. Dumbass takes the hint, but not before throwing some shade at Tim.  

Lucy takes a moment to regroup after hanging up the phone before she turns to Tim. “Thanks”. Tim nods his acknowledgement, and they both turn their focus back to work. But I’m still stuck at how Lucy looked for comfort and help from Tim and he gave it willingly. Because he wants her to be happy. And those phone calls put her on edge. 

So he did what he could do to help make her feel a bit better. I love this guy and his big-ass heart. 

The next time we see them in the shop, Lucy is looking at her phone again. Tim takes one look at her after glancing at her phone (Timmy, you bein’ kinda nosy) and starts talking again. Again, he is the one to start a conversation about personal stuff. 

He doesn’t shy away from the truth and just says it as it is: tell your idiotic WIP that you don’t wanna move in if you don’t want to move in. And I’m not sure if Lucy is just very out of tune with her feelings or what, but come on, she knows exactly what the problem is and why she doesn’t want to move in with mr. ignorance.

Every time I rewatch this episode and get to this specific scene, I cannot stop myself from saying “You know exactly what the problem is. It’s sitting right there next to you” after Lucy says she doesn’t get what the problem is. Seriously, even if I’m not actively listening, that part always gets my attention and I mutter those words. 

Lucy keeps talking, saying that she and the WIP are great together and that they never fight. Well, Tim coming in again with the truth: maybe that’s the problem. Or one of them, anyway. If you don’t fight, there’s barely any passion. Lack of friction and arguments doesn’t leave much room to improve and work on a relationship if you want to make it last. 

Lucy isn’t one to shy away from confrontation. We’ve seen her stand her ground with Tim basically since day one. Why is she not herself with Ch… oh, almost typed his name. Woops. Anyhow, we all know Lucy usually confronts what’s bothering her head-on. Why is she hiding? 

In semi-typical Chenford (or is it Lucy?)-fashion, she tries to deflect a bit here, jokingly asking if she and her can’t-read-the-room-bf should be more like the couple from the call they dealt with earlier. Tim denies, because that is not what he means. 

“Do you guys not fight because you don’t disagree on things or because you don’t think it’s worth the bother?” 

Again, right to the point. He hits the nail right on the head. We can see that Lucy realizes the latter to be true. She doesn’t argue with ADA Boring because it’s not worth it. She doesn’t put in the effort like she usually does. Why?

Well, because those arguments would immediately show that they are not compatible, and it would likely end that relationship sooner rather than later. Deep down, Lucy knows that.

Right from their first interaction, you could see that they don’t see eye-to-eye on things. Yes, her and Tim don’t agree on a lot of things, either. But she puts in that effort. Because she cares. 

This whole conversation shows that she’s staying with the dumbass not because she really wants to, but more because of guilt, fear, and the fact that she doesn’t want to commit to any guy. Well, there is one she’d love to commit to, but thinks she’ll never have the chance to. 

Guilt because she stills blames herself for the Rosalind debacle even though we all know it’s not her fault. Commitment issues because she hasn’t felt about anybody that seriously before, until... well, we’ll get to that and the fear part later. 

Tim can see that she realizes that she’s just along for the ride in that relationship, trying to commit to someone who seems great on paper but isn’t right for her. Once more, Tim tells her what he thinks.

“You deserve someone who’s worth the effort.” 

Because he wants her to be happy, because he cherishes and adores and loves her. 

Because he wants her to be in a relationship where she wants to work through the tough stuff, where she doesn’t shy away from the conflict, where she can be herself. 

Because he wants her to realize that she’s not gonna be happy with this guy when she can’t even be herself without having that relationship implode.  

Time and time again, they’ve shown us how incompatible Lucy and mr. you-can-leave-anytime-now are. Even their first encounter was indicative that this would never work out (still baffles me that she went out with him again after that double date). He seems more interested in forming her into someone he wants instead of really accepting who she is. 

And that just won’t do in a relationship. Ok, again, Tim and Lucy constantly try to make the other see things differently, but they’re not trying to change each other. At least not in a way that would totally go against who they are. They want them to be better versions of themselves. 

I mean, come on. Lucy as a lawyer? Tim retiring at 40ish? Who are these people who claim to love them? 

Tim and Lucy constantly make each other want to be better. 

And look at Lucy. Surely, she can see that montage that the Rookie SM account posted as part of the sneak peak before the episode aired play out before her eyes. All the times they’ve put in an effort. For each other. Even when they were still rookie and TO.  

She made an effort back then. Why not with her collar of a WIP? It took some time, but I’ve come to realize that the title for the episode might as well have referred to Assford’s presence in Lucy’s life and how he’s like a weight holding her down.  

The conversation seems to be over for the time being as they both turn a bit away from one another, lost in thought, especially Lucy. She absorbs everything he just said. The wheels are starting to turn in her head. 

Before either one of them can too wrapped up in thoughts, we see a car speeding past them. They discover that a second person has become victim of having a collar bomb strapped around their neck. 

I’m gonna skip over some case related moments but will say that I love how easily they slip from personal talk in the shop to being solely focused on the case and trying to find a way to help the guy. Now, let me jump right to when Creighton just takes matters into his own hands and starts cutting the bomb off with garden tools. 

It’s just a little moment in an episode with many awesome Chenford scenes, but I absolutely love how Tim reaches for Lucy to get her to cover behind the door of the shop. And then how he’s shielding her, keeping her behind him as best as possible with one hand on her shoulder and the other on her arm. 

Tim, your love for her is showing. And I’m getting emotional again. 

This entire sequence, from seeing the collar bomb on Creighton to when Tim radios in to pick up their suspect shows how easily Tim and Lucy slipped back into their partnership. He lets her take charge with the interview. They wordlessly communicate with one another. They just need to share a few looks to know what the other is thinking and move forward with the questioning. 

You can’t force this kind of connection, it’s just there. We can all see and feel it. And they probably do as well.  

We get to the last Chenford podcar scene of the episode. They’re coordinating with Harper on how to proceed after getting the last victim’s name. After, we hear Lucy’s phone going off, again. Thank god it’s not another face time call with what’s-his-name and just a message.

But even just a text is mildly pissing Lucy off. Because dude keeps sending her stuff even though she’s made it perfectly clear she wanted to talk about it with him later, not while on duty. 

Tim immediately picks up on it again and asks if it’s more listings, which, of course it is. Because ADA clueless is being an inconsiderate idiot. Even more so for sending listings for places Lucy would never even consider living, even if she wanted to move in with jackass. 

Off of her frustration, Tim works up the courage to ask something he’s probably been wondering about since the start of their day. “Do you love him?”

No, Timothy, she does not. Otherwise she’d be happy to talk to the WIP about it every chance she gets, not be completely frustrated with him. But he asks anyway because he needs to hear the answer.  

Lucy tries to deflect again, similar to the way she did when he asked if she was happy. ‘They haven’t been dating long’... which, well, is semi-true. It is the longest relationship for Lucy that we’ve seen on the show (gag). 

And it’s been roughly 10ish months at this point (thank you, TR, for the super wacky timeline. I’m deciding to go with November here, hence the 10 months, because we saw a date of Nov ’22 in 5x09; but who really knows…). 

After so long, you know whether you love someone or not. And Lucy knows she doesn’t love him but tries to avoid having to admit it right away. 

Tim seems to accept her obvious avoidance. But lets her know that dumbass loves her. So she shouldn’t lead him on if she doesn’t feel that way about him. 

I don’t know why I always get so emotional watching this. Probably because Tim’s statement could easily be about himself, too. 

And now Lucy might finally be realizing the problem. She knows that her WIP loves her (although, I’m still not convinced, because he shouldn’t be trying to change and pressure her into anything if he really did love her). 

Lucy knows that she should, theoretically, love him back. Because on paper, he seems great and she even says, “he’s so great in so many different ways”. 

I hate this line. Because time and time again, they’ve managed to show him as a not great guy. No matter how much I try, I cannot for the life of me think of him as anything but annoying and so obviously not right for Lucy. 

Anyway. Lucy proceeds to talk as she processes what’s bothering her and comes to the conclusion that “he’s just not…“ and immediately looks over at Tim before looking back out the window. Lucy, what?! 

Could you be more obvious? You basically just said you can’t love Assford because he’s not Tim. You basically just said you’re in love with Tim… cool. I’m cool. Perfectly fine. Not losing my mind over this at all. 

That was the loudest unspoken ‘you’ I’ve ever heard. And that’s the problem of it all, isn’t it? She’s realized at some point that she likes Tim more than she thought possible and seems frustrated with herself for not being able to let him go after thinking he rejected her. Frustrated with the whole situation, really.

But that’s also just it. You can’t just stop wanting someone. Yes, you try to move on when you think it’s never gonna happen, but that doesn’t mean it’s gonna be easy or happen quickly. 

Lucy seems to never truly have been in love with anyone before. Otherwise she would’ve committed to someone already, and not just tried to settle for dumbass ADA bitch. 

Finally, Lucy has voiced the problem of it all: she can’t love anybody else because somehow, she fell in love with Tim. Again, she can’t love Assford because he’s. not. Tim. Swoon. 

I’m sure Tim could feel that her gaze shifted toward him… whether he knew that’s what she almost said or not, I’m not sure. But I am sure he hoped that’s what she could mean. 

He looks over at her, trying to figure her out. But she’s already looking away, so he turns his focus back on the road. Both of them are left with their own thoughts and the case. And I can practically feel the tension through my screen. 

Tim and Lucy, my loves. Can you two please actually talk to one another? Without leaving any room for doubts, without subtext, without beating around the bush. 

Just say what you really wanna say. The other person might surprise you with their answer. 

And then we get to the last scene of the episode. Every moment has led to this. 

We see Tim sitting outside the station, alone, before we see Lucy walk up to him, getting them in the same shot together. And isn’t that just the perfect metaphor for their relationship? Tim was alone and broken when they met in the Pilot. And then there comes Lucy, sunshine personified, and bit by bit, brings light back into his life, stealing his heart along the way without even trying. 

She constantly challenged him, made him see when he was in the wrong and why, yet never judged or blamed him for things out of his control (wife who abandoned him, learning differently, childhood trauma because of an abusive father, taking the blame for everything) and made sure he knew that those things were nothing bad or to be ashamed of or his fault. 

Unlike so many other people in his life, Lucy never tried to change him. She simply brought out the person he is underneath all the tough guy exterior. She didn’t ask him to change - he wanted to be better because her opinion of him started to matter at some point. 

We might all see the difference Lucy made in Tim’s life more easily than the impact he’s had on her, but the deeper we look, the more obvious it gets. 

The Lucy from 1x01 needed to learn that the world was not as nice as we’d all sometimes wish it were. 

Tim said it himself in 3x11. She’s a kind and empathetic person who needed to see the world in a different light. He might’ve gone about it a bit controversially at first, but that all stemmed from a place of deep-seated hurt and heartbreak (still no excuse, but more understandable and shows that he’s human). 

But he still managed to challenge her. Made her see that she could be and is a great cop. Trained her to believe in herself and her abilities - something her parents never did. And something Lucy desperately needed in her life. Someone who believes in her and trusts her choices. Someone who accepts her the way she is. Someone who has her back. 

They both became better versions of themselves because of each other. Because there was finally a person who didn’t judge. No, it wasn’t romantic right from the start. But that pull toward one another has always been there. It’s only gotten stronger as they got to know each other better and then eventually bubbled to the surface at the end of season 4 and beginning of 5. 

Kay, back to the actual scene. 

I still really wanna know what Lucy was planning on talking to Tim about. Somebody please tell me… because “We need to talk” is usually not accompanied by anything good. 

I love how Tim immediately puts his phone down and turns his attention, and his body, toward Lucy. She has his full attention, no matter what this conversation is going to be about. 

Now, Lucy is the one who comes to Tim, but he is the one to start the conversation. And because they’ve been talking about her relationship with mr. can’t-read-the-room-and-pick-up-on-Lucy’s-discomfort before, it’s what he thinks they’ll continue to talk about.  

First though: just think about how weird this must be for them. All day, Tim’s been trying to help the woman he’s fallen for work through her relationship with someone else. And Lucy’s been working through the problems she has with her WIP with the guy she’s actually in love with. 

Yup, weird. 

Anyway.

We can tell that Tim is not expecting this conversation to be about anything but Lucy and her relationship with Assford. He doesn’t even entertain the idea that Lucy might’ve come to him to talk about them. He just wants to help her see that whatever she’s doing is not working. He’s being the friend he’s become for her over time. Because he’s not expecting to ever mean as much to her as she means to him. 

“Look, this clearly isn’t working out. I don’t know why you won’t just admit it.” 

Thank you, Tim, for saying what the entire fandom’s been thinking for a while now. 

“Unless, I mean, is it guilt? Is it because of what Rosalind did to him?” 

For some reason, likely because she’s frustrated with the situation as is and really didn’t want to talk about her WIP, Lucy deflects. Again. “Oh, like I’m the only one who stayed too long when things aren’t working? You dated a lifeguard. You don’t even like going to the beach!” 

Okay, I have to admit that I love Lucy’s roasting. So I need to pause here for a second. I had this all semi-planned out but then my emotions got the better of me. So, enjoy while I air out some of those frustrations. 

Both Tim and Lucy stayed with their respective partners for far too long. And for the wrong reasons. 

I get that Lucy felt guilty, and is too compassionate to leave someone when they’re hurt. Especially when she thinks it’s her fault. 

And neither one of them wanted to be alone. But Tim never should’ve stayed with Lifeguard Bitch after he realized they were on completely different paths regarding the future. 

I’m not saying she should change what she wants for Tim, but neither should he settle for something he clearly doesn’t want. He even said in 4x05 that he expected to already have kids. So he still wants it. He shouldn’t be with someone who clearly doesn’t want it. 

There’s no future there. But being alone wasn’t an option either because then he wouldn’t have been able to try to ignore his feelings for Lucy for as long as he did. 

In typical Tim Bradford fashion, he compromised who he is and what he wants to please the person he’s with. 

Take his reaction to Lifeguard’s revelations in 4x21: “Ok… great”. No Tim, not great. You clearly want the wife, the house and the 2.5 kids. Why are you not telling her that? End it right then and there. 

Why are you always the one compromising? Relationships are supposed to be a give and take, not just give for you, and take for Blondie. 

If she really did love him, she wouldn’t have dumped him the way she did. And not for the reason she did. Seriously, did she not know what his job was when they first went out? I mean, Bitch please. 

Sorry for the choice of words. My distaste for her and mr. hums-the-song just grew exponentially while writing this. Anyway, let me get back to the Chenford of it all. 

Now it’s Tim’s turn to be frustrated. Because this is not what this is about. All day he’s been trying to figure out why Lucy is still with Assford when she is clearly not happy, despite what she said earlier. He’s been trying to help her figure it all out.  

Tim wants Lucy to realize she deserves better, someone worthy of her. And no, he doesn’t think that’s him. In his mind, she is far too nice to ever possibly being able to like him in that way. So, this isn’t for him. It’s not about him. 

He says it himself: “This is not about me. No, it’s not about me, it’s about you. Staying in this safe relationship... because you’re scared.” Damn Tim. Straight to the point. 

But as soon as he says it, Lucy turns the conversation on its axis and actually makes it about them. Because all this time, it’s been about them, about him. “Of course I’m scared. If we do this and it doesn’t work, I’ll have ruined the most important relationship in my life.”

Again: Lucy?! What did you just say? My lack of words here is an accurate representation of my reaction when we were all watching it for the first time in December. 

And, yeah. I’ve seen different opinions about this whole scene. I don’t think it’s entirely out of the blue. We’ve seen them both struggle with their emotions and feelings for each other for a while at this point. Maybe we’ve seen it more from Tim’s side lately and that’s why it was surprising that it was Lucy who just blurted it out.

But I think it’s so wonderfully in character for her to just get lost in the moment and say what she’s been feeling for so long now because the word ‘scared’ triggered everything she’s been trying to ignore and work through. Her biggest fear is losing Tim completely. 

“Most important relationship in [her] life.” Yeah, I was not expecting to hear this. But I love it. We all know Lucy doesn’t want to put names to her relationships. She didn’t want to with Nolan (sorry for even mentioning this), not with Emmett and she made it perfectly clear that mr. hums-the-song was her WIP, not her boyfriend. 

But with Tim it’s somehow been a relationship for a while. She even called it that on her last day of training, which I still find hilarious, btw. They’re not together. Tim doesn’t even think she feels the same way as he does. Clearly, he was not expecting to hear this, either. 

She’s literally stunned him into silence. Look at the look on his face. He can’t believe what he’s hearing. He’s never been put first in any relationship. Okay, I firmly believe that he was Isabel’s priority once upon a time, but she too, chose something else over him at the end. Just like everybody else has.

But suddenly he hears Lucy say he is the most important to her. Him. Not anybody else. Him. Tim is the most important person in someone’s life. 

And then we see Lucy as she realizes what she just revealed to him. And she tries to backtrack. She’s not taking it back – she’s simply realizing that maybe she shouldn’t have revealed herself to him and drop this on him. 

But he doesn’t let her take it back. He agrees. Because they would lose each other if it didn’t work out. There’d be no going back to before. It’s either all in and risk it or continue this weird limbo they’ve found themselves in. 

And Lucy takes Tim’s “You’re right” as confirmation that it’s not gonna happen. That it’s not worth it to risk it all. Because she doesn’t want to lose him. There’d be no other person able to fill the hole that losing Tim would create. So they should just keep going as they have. Right? 

And yet. He doesn’t accept her “right?” the way he did in 5x01 in that hotel room. Because this is different. He can feel that this is different. That he seems to have a chance at a relationship with her after all. So he puts his cards on the table. And tells her that he thinks it is worth the risk. 

“Unless it is.”

Three words. Just three words and now it’s Lucy’s turn to be speechless for a moment. Because she had honestly thought that he wasn’t an option, either. Not after he told her to go to UC school and it was “time for [her] to move on.” She took it as rejection, he thought he was doing her a favor by removing himself from the equation that seemed to leave no space for him.

We see the wheels turning in her head as she realizes that he seems to want this as much as she does. She lets out a little breath as the tiniest smile starts to form on her lips as she stares at Tim. 

And he just looks back at her, gauging her reaction. He seems to find what he’s looking for because he leans back a bit, building up the courage to ask what he’s been dying to ask her for so long. Come on, we all know it’s true. His shoulders drop as he lets the weight fall off them and smiles. 

He starts to form words as he leans toward her again, but takes another second before he lets them out. “Do you wanna get dinner sometime?” 

Not ‘go on a date’. No. Because even in this moment, where they’re the only people that matter, he knows she still has a WIP. But he took his chance the moment he realized they were on the same page anyway. And I love it. Because he wastes no time at all to show her what he wants. He took a leap the second he realized she might feel the same way. 

All the previous heartbreak that started during his childhood seems to fade away from him. Right now, this is all that matters. Lucy is what matters. Because he matters to her, more than he ever thought possible. He’s willing to risk it all because all he wants, everything he’s been looking for his entire life, is right there in front of him. 

I will never not tear up at the way his eyes are so glassy with emotion and brimming with hope. Hope that she’ll say yes. Hope that this is finally the start of something he’s wanted for longer than he realized. 

And look at Lucy. She takes a moment to absorb everything that’s just happened. From realizing that she basically blurted out how she feels about him, to having him confirming that it’s reciprocated. That he’s willing to give this a shot because he believes they can make it work. 

He believes in her. In them. And that’s beautiful. Because Lucy doesn’t have many people like that in her life. She grew up with parents who always expected more of her, no matter what she did. We saw that in a few episodes in previous seasons and it’s so heartbreaking because we know Lucy wants to make her parents proud. She wants their approval.

But they never gave it to her. And yet somehow, here’s Tim. Who believes in her. First professionally, then personally and now romantically. Who makes her feel like she is enough. Because she is. For him, she is more than enough. She’s everything. 

They’ve both been exactly what the other has been looking for their entire lives. They’ve endured different kinds of trauma that only the other has managed to slowly heal because they’re two parts of one whole and only truly happy and themselves when they’re together. It sounds cheesy, but it’s true. 

She answers so clearly, so… sure. Like, ‘Yes of course you idiot. Why wouldn’t I want to go out with you? Nothing I’d want more.’ 

And then the relief in his eyes when she says yes. My heart hurts in the best way possible whenever I watch this scene and hear his breathless little “Yeah?”’. Happy Tim is my absolute favorite thing to see on the show. 

The elation of getting confirmation that she wants this just as much as he does. That she’s willing to risk it all with him. He’s been so afraid of getting rejected again, like he did in 5x01 (when, again, your timing was a bitch, Timothy). We saw how he considered talking to her in 5x06 in the parking lot and then the total devastation after the missed opportunity because a certain someone had to interrupt again. 

So, this time, he took his chance the second he saw an opportunity.

But as happy and elated he his right there, he completely deflates after Lucy says “No” right after. Because that’s the answer he expected. The one he feared. The (apparent) rejection after putting his heart on the line.  

He turns away from Lucy, trying to put the wall back up. His whole demeanor just changed. Watch his hands – he puts them up as if physically trying to distance himself again. But he accepts her ‘no’: “Okay”. Because her happiness will always matter more than his own.

But Lucy tries to make clear that’s not what she meant. “No, no, it’s just… not yet. I owe it to [jackass] to end things the right way with him”. (No you don’t Lucy. He’s an idiot.)

Again, Tim accepts her decision, turning away again. He looks like he’s ready to stand up to leave. But Lucy stops him. We can’t see it, but I’m guessing Lucy touches his leg to get his attention again. And she does; he turns back toward her again, listening to what she has to say.

“Ask me again. Later. After.” 

There’s no question here as to what she wants. She’s not there yet, because she still as a WIP. But as soon as he’s gone, she wants this. She wants Tim. She’s ready to commit to the only guy she’s ever fallen for. 

And we’re back to happy smiley Tim. “Deal”. He’ll wait as long as she needs. Because now he knows there’s something to wait for. He’s not alone in this. She’s right there with him and she wants it as much as he does. 

And I cannot get over how they look at each other then. There’s nothing between them anymore but happiness and the knowledge that they want the same thing: to be together. 

And for the first time we really see shy, bashful, in love Tim Bradford. Look at the way he looks away from Lucy. He looks like a lovesick puppy. And my heart is bursting with happiness again.   

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I totally understand the (initial) confusion about this scene. Because yes, at first it did seem as if it came out of nowhere. And that there might be a scene or dialogue missing. But after some time to reflect on it, I’ve come to realize how much I love the way they handled it. Because it didn’t come out of nowhere. 

Look, this relationship has always been super layered, long before they took the leap here. 

But, as pointed out above, the way Lucy just blurts it out is beautiful to me. 

Because she got comfortable with Tim in this moment. After months of being at odds with one another, she felt safe enough to finally say it.

Tim spent the whole shift helping her navigate what was bothering her - Assford and his insistence to annoy her with more house offers even though she was clearly uncomfortable while dealing with a tough case - and why it was bothering her – he’s not Tim.

It wasn’t supposed to be about Tim, but he didn’t even realize that the whole problem was him in the first place. He’s the reason why she can’t and won’t move forward with jackass. Because she can’t do that while not letting Tim go. 

And that’s the whole point. After Tim told her it was time for her to move on in 5x02, she tried to make it work with dumbass. But in all that time, she’s never truly let Tim go. Because he’s the one she wants at her side, whether she’s always realized it or not. 

She could stay with clueless as long as she tried to tell herself that Tim didn’t matter to her like that. But that firmly established wall kept crumbling ever since Tim drew it up. Every episode following 5x02 crumbles that wall further and further - until it’s finally gone in this beautiful scene outside their place of work. 

Until Lucy finally realizes that no relationship will work as long as it’s not with Tim, she won’t give it her all. Yes, she tries to tell herself it’s not worth to take the risk, but as soon as Tim reveals his hand, she’s on board. 

Because they both want the same thing. To finally be together, in every possible way and not just as quasi-partners on the job. Finally, they’re on the same page. 

And what makes this even more special: it’s Tim being ready before Lucy is. It’s him waiting for her. 

I never would’ve even imagined for it to happen this way around. Given everything we knew pre-season 5, Lucy seemed like the more likely option to want to talk about things. She always wants to talk things out. 

But maybe I shouldn’t have been so surprised after 5x01. After all, Tim was the one who wanted to talk about them in that hotel room in Vegas. And yes, again, the timing was awful, seriously Timothy, but he couldn’t ignore the feelings stirring within him. 

And the fact that Tim is even willing to risk it all with someone who’s become so extremely important to him is beautiful and shows how much he’s grown and found himself again since the Pilot. He’s been broken so many times before that nobody would blame him to just never try this again. Even Lucy inadvertently broke his heart in that Vegas hotel room.  

But he wants to. With Lucy, he wants to, despite the previous heartbreak. Because she’s Lucy. Because she is one of the very few people who hasn’t just walked away. And she’s just offered him an in. 

Yes, they’ve been distant with one another for months before this, but even then - she didn’t leave. She wanted to be there when he was injured and then raced back to the hospital after hearing he had emergency surgery to make sure he was ok. Even through their awkwardness, she stayed. She made an effort. She cared. 

She’s seen every side of him and yet, she stayed. 

It’s interesting, actually, that Lucy might have been one of the few people that Tim (briefly) walked away from. Because Tim holds on to the people he loves as tightly as he can but will also put their happiness above his own no matter how much it might hurt him. 

He walked away from Isabel because he felt it was what was best for her, not for him and only once he knew she was getting better. We don’t know what happened with Rachel and who broke up with who, but she was the one to leave for another state. Lifeguard Bitch dumped him while he was in the hospital, right after he woke up from emergency surgery because he wouldn’t do what she wanted. 

Lucy has never walked away from Tim. But there he was, willing to let her go because he felt that that was best for her. He put her (seemingly) best interest above his own. Because he couldn’t, or wouldn’t see that she didn’t regret what happened between them, that she values him for who he is. That he means more to her than she, or he, could’ve ever imagined. Because somewhere deep down, he still doesn’t believe he’s worthy of love. (I wish I could give pre-canon-Chenford Tim a hug so badly.)

For two people who know how to communicate with one another, they really did a number on themselves in eps 5x01 and 5x02. Neither one of them actually listens to the other. It’s not communicating. They don’t ask for clarification; they just assume to know what the other means. 

Tim walked away in 5x02 before either one of them let their masks slip and we could see that they were both heartbroken, thinking the other regretted whatever it is that happened between them. 

These two have evolved from TO and Rookie, who, for all intends and purposes, should never care about each other as anything more than colleagues, to friends during Lucy’s rookie year, to best friends who bicker and annoy each other like a married couple. 

And somewhere along the way, they fell for each other without noticing, without meaning to. And I think neither one of them quite knew what do to once they had that moment of realization. 

We saw them struggle with it up until the very end of 5x08 when it all came out. When they just couldn’t hold it in any longer. Because they’re the light in each other’s life and just want to be together. 

And now they get to know what it’s like to actually be together the way they’ve wanted to for a while. From now on, they get to live life together. And I definitely didn’t tear up thinking about this last part. 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I understand everyone’s opinion about this episode, good or bad. 

I simply think that, yes, it was a slow burn, but you can’t drag it out too long before it eventually burns out. Why create more drama when there is no real reason to? If they had written more drama for Chenford, it would’ve been created to keep more roadblocks in their way. No one would’ve wanted Lucy to move forward in her relationship with mr. boring. But that was the (almost) last thing keeping them apart. 

What could they have done to keep them apart for longer? The only thing I would’ve been okay with would’ve been a time in which they just hang out as friends every chance they get before taking the plunge. Drama? I don’t want that. 

But that might’ve also only lasted a few episodes before everything bubbled to the surface. Even with a slow burn, the flame’s gotta ignite at some point. 

Okay, Tim being her superior would’ve actually been a very real obstacle that many of us thought would keep them apart for longer. Especially since he’s such a stickler for rules. But I think I get why they moved them forward the way they did. Both Tim and Lucy got caught up in the moment – nothing but the two of them mattered. No rules, no significant others, no power imbalance at work could’ve kept them from going after what they wanted.  

The only thing that mattered was finally being able to be together after realizing they both wanted it.  

I personally really appreciate that they kept this real. Yes, the writers chose to have 5x08 be the ep to move things forward. But story-wise, it’s very true to real life. Tim and Lucy didn’t have much of a choice but to ride together again after Grey told them to. Not without revealing what exactly the reason for their discomfort was. 

Real life is when things happen when you least expect them. When you have to deal with things sooner than expected. When you blurt things out without thinking. When you put your heart on the line without knowing how the other feels. 

I haven’t been in this fandom long and have only watched The Rookie and shipped Chenford since mid-2022. But even I was becoming inpatient for them to be together after only 6 months. 

We’re all allowed to have our opinions. We can all have mature conversations about this and discuss it with respect. But the minute you completely disregard the fact that every person working on that show is a human being and call them names, and even tag them in those posts, you’ve gone too far.  

They don’t owe us anything. They don’t have to move the story forward the way we want. Yes, fans keep shows going to a certain degree, but it’s the writers’ decision what to do. Or maybe it’s the network’s decision and they have to run with it and make it work.

Basically all I saw all summer long was comments about needing Chenford to be together asap. Then it happens, and yet, this is when the negativity (and disrespect) in the fandom started. 

I’ve said this before, but I’ll say it again: we were never all gonna get it the way we envisioned it. And maybe we all should’ve kept that in mind going into season 5 (I’m including myself in this, yes). But it’s okay to be disappointed. 

Did I expect it to happen the way it did? Nope. Was I a little thrown at first? Yup. But I’ve fallen in love with it since then. It’s so them. 

Let them learn together. Let them grow together. Let them become even better together. 

There is so much left to explore. Them getting together opened up a whole new world of potential storylines. And I for one cannot wait to see what is next in their journey. 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Additional note 1:  I will forever be mad at The Rookie for making the-one-who-shall-not-be-named sound like the nicest guy when all I can see is red flag after red flag. They introduced him as a pesky ADA, who I immediately disliked, who was suddenly a real ‘nice guy’ the next time we saw him. It’s like they completely changed course and decided to use him in any way possible to keep Tim and Lucy apart. And make me uncomfortable in the process. 

I know there might be some fans out there who really like him, but I just always see the guy humming the song Lucy sang to keep herself calm when she was dying. Dude, that’s the woman you’re dating. How does that song get stuck in your head and NOT trigger you? 

Even this episode alone is reason enough for me to dislike him. I could go on for another 5 pages, but I’ll stop here and just say: I’m glad Lucy dumped him in maybe the least nicest way possible for someone as empathetic as her. 

Additional note 2:  I’ve mostly been very positive about Chenford’s development, but even I can admit that some things haven’t sat right with me all the time (and I mean pre-canon and after), mostly because I expected things to happen differently at times. But that doesn’t mean the way they’re handling it is bad or wrong. We can’t expect for them to integrate callbacks to all the significant moments from earlier seasons. 

I’ve simply chosen to be positive whenever I post something because I accept and appreciate what they’ve given us, but I understand and respect if some fans don’t. As long as we don’t expect everyone to see everything the way we do, and we don’t get all childish and mad when we don’t all agree (seriously, why do we always have to get mad at each other when we disagree on things?!), I’m happy to be here. Because Chenford and The Rookie are my safe space, my escape from reality. And sometimes I just need to get lost I these characters for a while to get back on track in real life. 

Thank you to @escapismqueen for listening to my constant ramblings whilst writing this and being my nr one supporter while I was struggling to get this done! I think I need to credit her for some of this because we think so much alike that she easily could’ve written parts of this herself. 

[lavendermin]

Please share your professor Welt Yang thoughts, I've brought snacks for us!!! ☺️🍉🍫🧁🍙🍓

(I fear this will awaken something in me)

- 🍪

took 3-5 business days to arrange my thoughts since it was just feral babbling in my melted brain. But!!! We are ready now ☝️

suggestive toward the end, what can I say. I want to get in his professor pants sorry

Professor Welt Yang who is obviously the crush of quite a few university students, though I’d think he would be the oblivious type who just thinks of it as silly faculty gossip. His lectures are always very popular and at full capacity each semester.

Of course you aren’t immune to his serious yet gentle charm either. And while working on grad school you go to him for certain advice and pointers for your thesis. It becomes a more and more frequent thing, so much that you have his office hours memorized at this point.

Conversation is easy with him. And you’ll admit sometimes you go and start a random topic off with a broad question just to hear Welt talk in that deep voice of his. You could hear him talk for hours if he’d let you.

Of course this man is dense and dumb as rocks when it comes to even taking the hint that you are down so bad for him. Just have some patience with him.

You’ll catch him at the university’s cafe grabbing a quick lunch and coffee which turns into effortless conversation just to stay with him a little longer. At your one-on-ones you’ll even bring him a coffee when you stop by. Kind gesture or wiggling your way into his mind? You would never reveal.

There are little things here and there that you start to do that will leave you on his mind more often.

It’ll start with visits for advice on your material and projects. You are easy to get along with and even have some insightful commentary on the topics he speaks about.

Then come the complimentary coffees you bring— sometimes even some suggestions you bring to mix it up. He always enjoys them and thanks you for going out of your way to bring him the most delicate blends and flavors.

Then come the few invites to lunch. First at the university’s cafe to continue the conversations. After a few weeks you offer lunch at nearby places just outside campus. “It’ll make a nice change of scenery and the weather is lovely for a walk today, don’t you think, Professor Yang?” you’ll suggest oh so sweetly. And with that kind and genuine smile you give, how could he refuse? There are some subconscious thoughts that go through his mind wondering if you’re his favorite student. A strange one indeed given you took his lecture last semester and others a few years while you worked on your bachelor’s, but aren’t a student of his currently.

Your meetings during his office hours continue— a bit more scattered throughout the week and with more days in between. Welt starts to look forward to seeing you in his office, two coffees in hand. Lately he’s all you can think about. It becomes more of a frequent guilty pleasure as you show up in tight pencil skirts and button up blouses that reveal a lacy set underneath if his eyes linger too long. You apologize for constant formal attire, throwing in some excuse about recent project presentations and an internship you began. His eyes follow you when you move to leave his office, eyes glued to the way the pencil skirt hugs all your curves in ways that have him a little dazed with new thoughts.

You start showing up on Fridays and later than usual to his office, skirt length just a little higher sometimes and giving him a tease with how your stockings complement your plush thighs so well. You apologize deeply for catching him at the end of his office hours— and before the weekend, no less. The campus is mostly empty with majority of students having left and only a few faculty still around. Your professor, being the kind soul he is, of course tells you it’s always a pleasure to have you in his office. And your attire today certainly is… special.

“Apologies, professor, I have a dinner later with some friends and don’t have time to go home and change,” you explain as you head toward his desk in practiced motions. Your weekly routines. Welt shuts the door, assuring you it’s no issue.

But it is an issue. His heart hammers rapidly in his chest as his eyes take in your attire against their will. How could a simple black dress hug your body in such a sinful way? Or was it just his mind?

His heart is swaying and his feelings will go through some internal turmoil as he begins to realize that his feelings are something more.

Still, ever the professional, he takes a seat at his desk and offers you the one in front of him. Same routine. Just another meeting.

And you break routine. Or break him.

His eyes follow your every move and gesture as you begin explaining some issues you’ve had with your thesis edits and research. Being so close to him, he can catch the subtle scent of your perfume. A warm and subtle citrus.

You apologize briefly, telling him you have to leave soon but needed his advice to get some edits done over the weekend. No need to apologize of course. His eyes follow your every move as you apply some lipstick on while he looks over your file that you emailed over. His heart beats louder and there are some images that come forth in his mind that he has to will away. He has long succumbed to these… questionable thoughts. And that’s putting it lightly.

“Professor?”

Oh. He had been staring idly, not even realizing you were so close to him now. Damn, he hasn’t even looked over the file yet.

Your sultry voice still rings like blaring alarms in his brain. He clears his throat and says he will look the files over more thoroughly and send you an email so you’re not late to your dinner.

Your laugh is heavenly as you point to something on the screen of note on the file. Something he doesn’t even register as his eyes immediately fall to the way your chest is mere inches from his face as you bend near him. The revealing low cut of your dress leaves little to the imagination.

“Professor Yang.” Your voice is just above a whisper, pulling his attention once more.

“Yes?”

“Can I kiss you?” you ask simply, hand on his shoulder making the skin under his dress shirt feel like it’s on fire.

Heat spreads to his entire body, mind blank. His eyes dart to your lips and linger there as he gulps. Hard.

With a chuckle, you lean down to press a kiss to his neck. An action he feels has an effect on him ten times more severe than if you were to kiss his cheek. It’s deliberate. It’s planned. And he wants more.

You tilt his chin up with a delicate hand. Welt is at your mercy, not making any indication of wanting these advances to stop. His eyes are on your lips again as you lean closer, and tilt your head with a sly smile.

“Seems this lipstick really is smudge-proof,” you say, examining the area where you placed your lips. Your eyes go back to his and suddenly his breath hitches in anticipation. “Professor.”

Welt shudders at the way the word rolls of your tongue. There’s jolts of electricity that run through his spine and spread through him in an addictive rush just from your voice. You have him inevitably wrapped around your finger.

“Again,” Welt says with a clear of his throat.

You climb onto his lap, checking his expression in case there was any indication he didn’t want your advances. The hardness painfully confined in his slacks says otherwise.

And you indulge him with a kiss on the lips. One you smile into as he goes in for another like a man starved. Welts rough hands grab at your soft thighs, pulling you closer against him. It’s like he can’t stop now that he’s started. He pushes the thought of someone walking into his office and being discovered engaging in these scandalous activities with a former student far back in his mind, like a fleeting thought he can’t be bothered to think of. Not right now, not when you’re mischievously tugging at his belt buckle. The serious gentleman everyone knows is quickly dissolving before you.

Several months of pleasantries and exchanges and patience finally leading up to exactly what you wanted. You can’t help but grin against his lips for your little victory.

[moe-broey]

MEANWHILE. In another realm. I've revisited Alear's FB's

I FEEL LIKE. Alfonse's problem isn't so much that he's emotionally guarded, despite, you know, being extremely emotionally guarded. It's that He Isn't. Like. At the same time.

Consistently, without fail, Alfonse puts himself in situations where he's amicable and helpful. Their C support consists of Alfonse helping Alear see to her own odds and ends, having been brought to Askr with nothing but the clothes on her back. A common situation! He gets her a ring case to put all her rings in. So here, he's helping. And when Alear shows him the rings, and tells him the lore/significance of the rings, he takes an interest -- because of course he would! That sort of thing is right up his alley. And so he's not only amicable enough to be approachable, he's also showing interest in the things she's interested in, and having a spirited conversation about it.

Their B support consists of more of the same, just getting into the details of how Emblems work. HE DOESN'T REALIZE IT YET. But he's bonding with Alear. This goofy ass motherfucker doesn't realize this is literally how friendships are formed. Like I'm convinced he's thinking they're just talking lore and stuff and it's a casual conversation between casual allies and surely nothing emotionally charged will come out of this. He's just being friendly (without NECESSARILY becoming Friends) and there's nothing more to it, there Will be nothing more to it.

A support.

She voices A Problem. TWO things about Alfonse. 1) He was built in a lab to be a fixer (juries still out on his methods/solutions) and 2) He takes things SO personally when he relates to it. PVP enabled he's going to fucking get your ass about it. He is sooooooooo emotionally distant Up Until you fucking provoke him (AND THIS. ISN'T EVEN ENTIRELY TRUE. BC WHAT HE DOESN'T REALIZE IS GENUINELY BONDING OVER SHARED INTERESTS COUNTS TOWARDS BECOMING INVESTED IN THAT PERSON which is HOW he ended up in The Situation in the FIRST PLACE).

Which leads to him "helping" (POORLY.) (Because in all of this he IS still wired to help people)

Which just pisses him off even MORE, believing he has the Correct and Inevitable perspective and desperately wants to get Alear to see it the same way, doubling down.

(Bro I am going to hit image limit again before even making my point..... AUGH)

Alear's next lines, "That's true, but won't keeping my distance mean I appreciate them less while I have them?" / "Is that how you see your relationships with Heroes? With me?" / "No matter how much time we spend together, you'll always keep me at arm's length for when I have to go?"

Here, I think Alear is expressing to him she already sees him as her friend. I don't think Alfonse picks up on it though, trying again to get her to see his side of the issue -- as if, in his mind, they're just debating and not having an emotional conversation.

Alfonse's next lines: "Consider it from my perspective. If I am too attached to you, and you leave, I could lose my will to fight." (ALFONSE. ALFONSE. COME ON MAN.) (LIKE. Idk man if you're saying shit like that I think it's too late. It's so over for you.)

THIS ONE THOUGH. I THINK. PLEASE staywith me but it is the root of it all

Euden's (named Milo here lmfao Milo jumpscare) next line: "Do you not feel the same way about us?"

Alfonse's lines: "My apologies, but no. The forming of friendships is a thing I don't take lightly." / "It's true that I rely on the assistance of Heroes summoned from different worlds when fighting, but that is wholly different."

Alfonse lines (continued): "I have a duty, and can't afford such hurt. So if I grow close to someone, I do so accepting the potential consequences."

AAAAUGHHHH WHAT IS MY THESIS. WHAT THE FUCK AM I TALKING ABOUT. I HAVE MORE CONNECTIONS TO MAKE. AND FOR WHAT‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️

SOMEHOW. His Book 1 (p sure they're from Book 1) lines to Kiran that go, "I suppose we don't know much about your world. And how rude of us to not ask until now!" / "What? Your world has buildings that scrape the sky? And what do you mean by 'cars'?" / "Like wagons... that run without horses... and are made out of metal? Fascinating." <- THESE LINES. Combined with his smiling sprite. TO ME are a direct parallel to his C and B Alear conversations, HOW, he's taking an interest in Kiran and without realizing he's growing a fondness for them.

Something SOMETHING about his cognitive dissonance about how he can be friendly without "being friends", how he's afraid of caring too much when it's clear he already cares at least a little ESPECIALLY SHOWN. In how, Alfonse doesn't realize he could have hurt Alear's feelings until she directly states it: "I understand. Still... it makes me sad."

ONLY THEN he gets his panicked(?) sprite, replying, "I apologize for upsetting you." It's here I think he finally realizes, OH. THIS IS. An emotional conversation and not like a debate of ideals and I feel bad for hurting you. BECAUSE!!!!!!!! HE'S COME TO CARE ABOUT ALEAR!!!!!!!!! IN ALL OF THIS!!!!!!!!! Whether he's fully aware of it or not, whether he LIKES it or not, he cares about her feelings and wants to make it right. Into, expressing (again that PVP "Well I took that personally" reaction he has): "I suppose it's just that, when you talk about the Emblems, how you worry, I feel as if I'm hearing my own voice."

Which S support, sets up for a resolution and mutual understanding peace and love all is well with the world 👍

ALSO the parallel to Euden, since this is the very start of what would be analogous to support conversations (side story content unlocked by powering up the character), Euden takes Alfonse's response to him in stride -- since, there's no real emotional stakes. Aside from, Euden wishing they could be friends (since he's just built like that), but ultimately giving Alfonse space and respecting his feelings about it. The Point: While they've been working together, Alfonse hasn't Quite developed that fondness yet I don't think (esp from what I remember from the main plot of the crossover event, which is next to nothing LMFAO). It develops later!!!!!!

If I hadn't hit image limit I would insert the What the FUCK are you two talking about meme here like. What the fuck AM I talking about. Can someone else make this post actually I don't think I'm qualified 😭😭😭😭😭😭

MAIN POINT.

I look at Alfonse and I go I think I hauve covid.

[ranchthoughts]

✨2023: A Summary✨

Post your most popular and/or favourite edit/gifset/analysis for each month (it’s okay to skip months!)

Tagged by @lurkingshan (here) and @wen-kexing-apologist (here). Thanks for the tags!

In 2023, I made 175 original posts, including 45 metas about 12 different shows and two large scale projects (the GMMTV Multiverse and the GMMTV Kissing charts). It was interesting to see what meta (and how much) I had written in which months. It's also fun looking back as I approach my one year anniversary of watching and writing about BL - I'm so grateful for all the wonderful people I've met and gotten to chat with over these past months!

January and February [0 metas]

I wasn’t on BL Tumblr yet! Any and all meta came in the form of thoughts, texts, and powerpoint presentations.

March [6 metas]

My BL Tumblr debut! I started this blog with the intention of 1) more easily gathering and archiving posts for future reference, and 2) collecting my thoughts somewhere other than text threads and my notes app, so I began posting meta the day I got here.

Most popular: what started as me thinking about Win’s rock t-shirt from ep 11 and then grew from there… - reading a lot into a random Thai ql shirt choice? Me?

Favourite(s): Thoughts on Tinn, his mother, and coming out (part 1, part 2); Thoughts on Tinn, his mother, and music - My first meta ever posted! I keep returning to Tinn and his mother's relationship in My School President...

April [1 meta]

By default, the most popular (and favourite): Gun's feelings are realistic - I love when MSP subverts our expectations

May [13 metas]

Oh damn! This was a big meta month for me. Some of my favourite metas I've ever written were posted this month.

Most popular: The Eighth Sense and Missing Pieces - I am really proud of this one. It also made me laugh that I apologized for the length at the beginning when I would go on to post much, MUCH longer metas.

Favourite(s): Thoughts on genre, tropes, Bad Buddy, and My School President (aka my Bad Buddy and MSP thesis, which began life as a powerpoint presentation... now here's one of those much, MUCH longer metas in question); Wai as a faen fatale (which also began life as part of that same powerpoint presentation and I think perfectly encapsulates my analytical style); Conversations in ITSAY that are about more than they seem (I am really proud of the analysis I did here and the writing style I used to present it). This was also the month in which I started my deeply self-indulgent GMMTV Multiverse project, which later inspired my mission to record all GMMTV kisses.

June [11 metas]

Oh nooo another bunch of my favourites. This is cruel to make me choose.

Most popular: Thinking about Pran's "Pat, you've got to stop doing this to me" (I love this one! and this was the first of several times I've gotten to collaborate with the wonderful @dudeyuri)

Favourite(s): An analysis of the baseball mom shirt, Bad Buddy ep. 5 (my entry into the venerable field of Bad Buddy/ql shirt analysis and also encapsulates pretty much everything I try to do in my metas); An impassioned defense of the Bad Buddy ep. 5 rooftop kiss (combines many of my favourite things: reading deeply into the minute details of Bad Buddy, an analytical framework that just clicks itself together as I write, and literature reviews); and Thinking about Snow White as the engineering play, part 1 (shout out to the two other people going ham on Snow White as an allegory during the Our Skyy 2 madness - @chickenstrangers (here) and @letgomaggie (here))

July [3 metas]

Most popular (and favourite): Thinking about Pat, Pran, and pursuit (I think this was my first time articulating the idea of Pat and Pran's commitment to the bit, a concept which continues to circle in my head. This was also another collaboration with the wonderful @dudeyuri!)

August [7 metas]

Here comes Only Friends... and the GMMTV Kissing Multiverse project.

Most popular: GMMTV Kissing Multiverse updates 1, 2 and 3 (this is so much fun to track and analyze, and I've been really touched by everyone else's excitement for the project too); Various thoughts and musings on Only Friends and ephemerality (the Ephemerality Squad assembles!)

Favourite: Thinking about Boston: a study of episode 3 - I find Boston's mind a fascinating place to explore

September [8 metas]

Oh look! It's more Only Friends!

Most popular: Mansplain, Manipulate, Manwhore: Ray confronting Boston - once again, I love getting into Boston's head. This post was inspired by @wen-kexing-apologist's scene breakdowns, especially their Fight Night one

Favourite(s): The above, and also The Mundanity of Meanness

October [5 metas]

Most popular (and favourite): The first fist bump in Bad Buddy - oof. I've gotta come back to this idea sometime.

November [3 metas]

Most popular: The Latest Update to the Kissing Multiverse - the hotly anticipated post-Only Friends update to the kissing charts

Favourite: the kissing charts, and Thinking about Pat, Pran, and competition - again, I love to think about Pat and Pran. I consider this one to be part of an ongoing series, along with my earlier metas on pursuit and the rooftop.

December [1 meta]

Most popular (and favourite): Not Me and earrings - technically an addition on @chickenstrangers' post, but was a relief to get my months old "Not Me is about ears and earrings!" thoughts out.

some no pressure tags: @chickenstrangers, @distant-screaming, @dudeyuri, @neuroticbookworm, @slayerkitty, @telomeke, @twig-tea, @waitmyturtles

[conelluwrites]

If Time Could Stand Still (Freeze This Moment)

Ryomen Sukuna x GN! Reader

Kinktober Masterlist

Kinktober Playlist

Song: Cruel Angel’s Thesis (Ama Lee Cover)

Continuation here

You had, quite frankly, no clue how you ended up on your knees in front of Sukuna.  You suppose it doesn’t really matter now, you try to stop yourself from zoning out as he speaks

Warnings: vomit mentions, gagging, dub-con elements

You had, quite frankly, no clue how you ended up on your knees in front of Sukuna.  You suppose it doesn’t really matter now, you try to stop yourself from zoning out as he speaks but looking at him has your mind going absolutely wild with everything you want and don’t want.

“You have a lot to apologize for.” He says, staring down at you.  His hand is tauntingly gentle as it pats your head, ruffling your hair. “I’m letting you apologize on your knees, because that’s what you deserve.  If you throw up and it gets on me, you’ll pay.  Do you understand?”  He nearly looks amused as your eyes trail over his incredible length, it’s not necessarily too long or too girthy, but it does look like something you would gag on.  However, if you’re going to throw up on anyone’s cock, it might as while potentially be his.  You’re practically drooling as your eyes go back up to meet his and you nod like a doll.  His hand grips the back of your hair in a way that’s bordering on painful. “How cute.”

He doesn’t give you much time to acclimate to anything, your hands immediately flying up to push against his abdomen, his thighs, his pelvis, his anything as you gag pathetically.  He chuckles and doesn’t allow you much room to move, if at all, but he does pause bobbing your head like you have no gag reflex.  You can feel his cock dig into your throat, you’re even sure that your throat is bulging from it. “Swallow it all, now, don’t bother trying to come up for air.  It’s no surprise you’re struggling so badly and you force yourself to stop struggling, as much as possible of course, and look up at him with tearfilled eyes and red cheeks.  Once he seems satisfied with your lack of resistance, his pace is brutal.  It’s as if he wants you to unleash the contents of your stomach all over him.

He croons various pet names and praises in a way that feels nearly like he’s just teasing you, his voice cutting out sporadically as his body shakes and trembles.  His grip on your hair goes from bordering on painful to almost excruciating.  His cock penetrates your throat as he forces you to bob your head faster and faster, your saliva drip, drip, dripping down your chin into your awaiting hands so it doesn’t land on the ground.  His cock twitches eagerly in your throat, making you gag harder and you can feel the beginnings of bile build up and prepare to spew out.

“Swallow it for me, you have to swallow.” His voice is grunting, straining as his eyes flutter closed as he continues to pump himself into your mouth.

You gag violently as his cum floods your mouth and throat, his cum breaching and coming out of your nose as you cough around him.  To your credit, you manage to swallow what didn’t flow from your nose though it’s not as though you had much of a choice.  You can’t help but glare up at him as he holds your head in place, tears run down your cheeks from the pain of being throatfucked and the pain of hot cum spewing from your nose.

He laughs and lets your hair go, watching with amusement as you gasp for breath, choking on his cum.  “Say that you loved it.”

You wipe the spit from your chin and cum from your nostrils and sit back on your butt, hands resting on the cold ground.  You don’t want to say it, you really don’t want to say it, but you know that you have to. “I loved it.”

 “Good, good…  Now are you done making a mess for the night?”

“Depends on if you’re done making me into a mess.”

“I’m never done making you into a mess.”

[healer-pop]

I feel like venture would just say "I'ma touch you foo" unironically and then apologize a lot when they see your somewhat shocked/scared face

(you probably said bet back)

…. oh nonnie. if you have seen my Discord shenanigans, you would know that I would probably not just say that back.

I would probably give them a full length thesis in what they should do to me and where they should touch and exactly what laws would be breaking in certain positions :)

I tease the teaser. Bratty to the max. 😈

[all-the-pacs]

#2 - Pac-Man (1980)

If you put a conch shell up to your ear, you'll hear Pac-Man! Much less popular is putting your finger in your ear and scratching it to hear the sea.

Welcome to the 1980s, and for that matter, welcome to the genesis of Pac-Man himself! Yep, it only took us... 3 posts, but we're actually playing the original Pac-Man. No preamble, no Galaxian, no nothin'.

Now, the development of the original Pac-Man is something so, so many people have talked at length about and may as well have made their thesis. Stuff like how originally the four ghosts were all the same color, or maybe the maze being different, or other such details.

Now, that's way out of our jurisdiction as we're here to play the finished games and talk about them at length--however iconic they may be. So, our apologies in advance as this post sounds a lot like stuff you've most likely already heard thousands of times. But if we skipped this game on the principle of "we've already played it many, many times", it wouldn't feel right, y'know?

...So anyways we would like to remark that, yes, the flyer we showcased is to be trusted, and we are playing the Midway version today. Why not the Japanese original? Well, there's one good reason that's tangentially related to what we discussed above:

Yep, over in Japan, he started out as Puck Man, not Pac-Man. In fact, that's not the only character name difference, as the ghost gang were also called by completely different names in this version as well. Later on, however, as Pac-Man exploded in popularity worldwide, eventually Puck Man also turned into Pac-Man over in Japan as well. It's probably for the best, too, because remove just a little connecting line in that P, and you get a very different experience.

The starting screen for Pac-Man is about as basic as you get. 10 points for normal pellets. 50 points for the blinking Power Pellets (not pictured, as they were mid-blink). 4 characters in addition to Pac-Man, with their personalities (their "character", if you may) and nicknames displayed.

Blinky: The "shadow" of the group. He tries his best to be Pac-Man's shadow by simply targetting wherever he is, plain and simple. He likes the top right corner.

Pinky: The "speedy" one of the group. Always one step ahead, she's... well, aiming for a little bit ahead of where Pac-Man currently is. She likes the top left corner.

Inky: The "bashful" part of the group. As you can probably imagine, he doesn't care much for targetting Pac-Man alone, usually paying attention to where Blinky is and where Pac-Man is directly headed towards and making his move if Blinky's also in hot pursuit. Multi-faceted, that Inky. He likes the bottom right corner.

Clyde: The "pokey" member of the group. He doesn't really try to go for Pac-Man directly, more than he does try to play goalie for his own little portion of the maze, only dipping away from it to try and take a quick swing. He likes the bottom left corner.

You might notice I'm going into their behaviors in addition to their characters, and... Well, that's for a good reason. While Galaxian was content to have enemies act more-or-less the same way beyond two of them employing a buddy system and having slightly differing flight patterns, Pac-Man's true revolution was that it was the start of what we now know as AI in terms of gaming.

Before now, it was almost unheard of for enemies in a game to be able to look at the immediate state of the game, and react accordingly and consistently, with most early attempts at this being very rudimentary, or involving some form of turn-based. This was the first big game where enemies would respond to your inputs in real time, and man do we take that for granted nowadays.

Anyways, that start screen is similarly incredibly simple. Just one extra life like in Galaxian, but at least in this case, the scoring is a lot more dynamic than it is in Galaxian--so, y'know, it's actually possible to get it! (We jest, we jest. But we do honestly feel like in comparison to Galaxian's requirements for an extra life being way too high, Pac-Man's is a bit too low. Literally all it took was one run where we focused more on actually playing the game than grabbing screenshots for this project for us to get it trivially.)

We're gonna be real with you--from this point on, a lot of our observations are probably gonna be real banal sounding, because we've basically gone over a lot of the more complex stuff (albeit skimming over it, admittedly.) But on the extreme off-chance you aren't aware, yes, the gameplay of Pac-Man involves you being put in the center of a symmetrical maze with two tunnels to the left and right. You're able to go through those tunnels in order to circle back around to the other side of the maze. Across the maze are a bunch of little pellets/dots, as well as four Power Pellets/Energizer Pellets/Flashing Power Bait/Gaaaaah okay let's talk a little bit about this in a bit, but all you need to know is you need to eat all the dots in the maze to win the level. If the ghosts make contact, you die, and you lose a life.

Now, this is something we will make a pointed mention of now. At the start of Pac-Man, you start by moving left by default. Left! Keep this in mind for later. It will be very, very important. ...Not for this game, though, we'll only really start to care about starting by moving left later. Much later, depending on how things go.

Oh, and while we're here--if you eat a certain quantity of pellets, a Bonus Fruit will spawn in the center, right below the Ghost pen. Eat it for extra points--the higher the round, you'll be seeing different bonus fruits, and they'll be worth more and more points, up to 5000! Yep, much like most other Arcade games of the era, it's a simple "get the highest score" deal, with no finite "end" defined by the game itself. (If you're raising an eyebrow, don't worry, we'll get back to you.)

And of course, we couldn't talk about this game without talking about the Power Pellets/other names. Of course, with four enemies that all behave differently in hot pursuit, you need a little something to combat them to keep it fair. You can always outmaneuver them, but alternatively you can grab one of the four Power Pellets in the maze. By grabbing them, the ghosts will not only turn around immediately, but turn blue and try to avoid Pac-Man for a limited time. If you actually touch a ghost in this state, Pac-Man will gobble them up, leaving just their eyeballs to wander back to the ghost pen, where they will reappear as normal. This is already a great tactic for survival, but there's also a risk-reward element; the more ghosts you eat, the more points you get. 200 for the first, 400 for the second, 800 for the third, and 1600 for the fourth! Note this stacks upon itself, so if you manage to eat all 4 ghosts in one Power Pellet, you're looking at 3000 points right there.

...Oh, right. Real quick, let me get back to you on the whole "Power Pellet" naming confusion thing. See, early on, Arcade games weren't exactly powerful to display full-on information about the games just yet. Usually that'd be saved for being on the actual cabinet itself, on the sides of the screens. As a result, basically anything not in the actual game data itself was heavily, heavily susceptible to inconsistent names. The pellets didn't have a name in-game, so in the future they'd get all sorts of names, officially and unofficially. Let's just agree to call the small ones pellets and the large ones Power Pellets for the time being, okay?

Also, here's a detail some people don't know--the ghosts aren't just, all-the-time in pursuit according to their AI. On some occasions, usually at the very start of a round, they'll instead beeline for their respective corners. From there, they'll alternate between chasing after Pac-Man and playing goalie for their respective corners of the maze. This is part of what makes the ghosts seem so "erratic" in this game, as one moment they will directly target you, and the next moment they will disregard everything and instead head right for their respective patrol points.

You might be asking what happens if you eat all the pellets, and usually, it's pretty underwhelming. The maze blinks between blue and white, and then the maze resets anew, marking your progress by showing the Bonus Fruit of the current level on the rightmost spot.

Of course, something happens if you beat enough levels, unlike in Galaxian...

The Intermissions! If you clear certain rounds, the game will play these little skit cutscenes featuring Pac-Man and Blinky, set to a repeating jingle. After this, the game starts another round as you'd expect it to. The first intermission is fairly standard, with nothing much to say on it.

The second intermission, however... Is perhaps a little confusing. Maybe another one will clear things up?

Oh! While we're over here, we might as well bring this up. The first few bonus fruit are indeed fruit--Cherries, Strawberries, Oranges, Apples, then Melons--but then after those, the bonus fruit get a little more... esoteric. For example, after melons are the Flagship from Galaxian! What do you suppose that tastes like, anyways? Not pictures is that after this is a Bell, and then after that is a Key. As in, like, a standard key for a padlock! After the key, there's no change in both visuals and point values, it's just keys for days. This is also exactly why we even bothered talking about Galaxian, by the way.

As for that last intermission...

...Well then! Talk about a good ol' case of early installment weirdness, huh?

Okay, it's worth mentioning that originally, Namco and Bally Midway very insistently referred to the Ghost gang as "Monsters". Not Ghosts. Presumably, this was to cover the truth all along that the ghosts... Weren't ghosts at all! Instead, they had these weird slug designs.

However, uh, very few people actually called them monsters. People were content to just call them ghosts because, well, it moves like a ghost, it looks like a ghost, it makes a weird little "wheww-wheww" like a ghost might, they were ghosts! It seems like this concept of them secretly being these weird slug-like creatures was scrapped very early on, as we think the idea that they are very specifically ghosts crops up as early as the mid-80s--and when they did that, Namco never looked back. They didn't quite give up on the name "Monsters" so soon, and as we'll see in a bit, this didn't stop them from allowing some strange non-ghostly depictions of these guys very early on, but this angle definitely didn't last very long. Quite funny, seeing as this is basically as close to a "plot twist" the game has to offer!

Now, some of you who are aware of glitches in video games might've heard us mention the game goes on forever and hold contention with that. And to be truthful--there is, indeed, a glitch that prevents the game from lasting forever. But we've made the executive decision to discuss that at a later date. There's two reasons for that:

There's something much, much later down the road that expressly relies on knowing about this glitch anyways.

This post is going on long enough, and we think discussion of that belongs in its own post, so it can have the gravitas it deserves.

So, for the time being, we wait on it. Sorry!

...Besides, next time, we've got something much sillier. Believe it or not, this is the only 1980 game they released. Really! It took a moment for Pac-Man to really simmer and take off, and so join us next time for the start of 1981. And, uh... Not to spoil anything, but you know how we said we only brought up Galaxian because of this game? Weeeell... We might've lied a little bit...

Oh yeah. Those familiar with bootlegs might have just had a siren go off in their brain, and we're goin' there. We're already invoking our "notable bootlegs are fine" stipulation. Whether you're familiar or not, however, we'll be seein' you around!

[inadvisablebutinevitable]

hellooo how would you rank the aftg characters personally? like in order of favorite to least favorite?

bestie I actually wrote a whole thesis essay response before realizing how unhinged it is so here is the abridged version: (note this is all for the canon versions of these characters, fanon ratings would probably be different)

Neil Josten

David Wymack

Nicky Hemmick (I know I know but it will take me 1000000 years to explain all my Nicky thoughts)

Kevin Day

Matt Boyd

Andrew Minyard (WHY IS HE THIS LOW?? Guys I don’t know I do love him I promise I would do anything for him)

Allison Reynolds

Jean Moreau (once again should be higher I love him I do)

Danielle Wilds (her and Allison could also swap places and I’d still be like “yeah that’s right” bc I love them both)

Catalina Alvarez (my fave tsc character besides Jean she means everything to me you don’t understand)

Jeremy Knox (I love him I do I just know nothing abt him)

Renee Walker (it physically hurts me to put her this low I love her so much I would die for her)

Laila Dermott

Aaron Minyard (don’t come at me pls I like him and I love fanon Aaron I just wasn’t Aaron’s number one fan in canon but I still have so much love and respect for him I swear)

Seth Gordon

I don’t really hate any of these characters I swear (except Riko he’s ranked so low he didn’t deserve a spot on the list) ((he’s a compelling villain tho)) (((Tetsuji is ranked like -100000000 I will never forgive Tetsuji ever)))

if you really want my never ending thoughts here they are under the cut:

warning for a long ass post I’m so sorry because sometimes even I can’t focus enough to read my own long posts

I have spent so long staring at this ask and trying to figure out how I can pit my children against each other but here is my best try: (this is in order of how much I enjoyed their characters personally when I was reading. The list would prob be different if I was ranking them as people and not as characters):

Neil Josten. It’s always gonna be Neil I’m sorry. Recency bias means that I’m currently thinking (and posting) abt Jean 24/7 but Neil Josten will always take the cake for me in ways I can’t even articulate. His dry humour and narrative choices always have me in stitches. He’s got so much trauma but he doesn’t want to do anything about it but push it down until he meets people he cares about and they found family him into actually healing. He cares so deeply and loves in such a subtle but incredibly strong way. I don’t know how to even express this without saying that the reason I can’t put aftg down every time I pick it up is because of Neil. He tells the story in a way that makes me want to know everything about literally every scene. It’s all Nora ofc but the personality between the lines is how I define “Neil” and I will never not love it. You’ve got me going and now I’m not gonna stop. I can’t even apologize for the length bc I will never apologize for yapping about Neil Josten I say that shit with my FULL CHEST

David Wymack. Do I even have to explain myself here? Those are his fucking KIDS and he would do ANYTHING for them while being a SASSY LITTLE SHIT about it the whole time plus he’s a DILF I would kill and die for him.

Nicky Hemmick don't shoot me pls LOOK do I think what he did to Neil in Edens was at all ok? Absolutely not. When I first read tfc I was HARDCORE hating on Nicky and then trk and tkm made him one of my favourite characters. I don’t think he’s perfect but I love the way he loves. It isn’t hard for him, none of the monsters had to prove themselves to Nicky, or even try to be a decent friend for Nicky to automatically decide that these were his people and that he cares about them. When we meet him Aaron is a homophobic dick to him and Andrew literally pulls a knife on him and yet we immediately find out that he willingly dropped everything and moved an ocean away from his home and his boyfriend to raise them both in the US and not ONCE does he act like he seriously regrets it. Me? I would be holding that shit over their heads every time they act disrespectful but for Nicky loving them despite the shit they put him through is not even a question. It’s not even just the twins too. That one scene where Neil asks “are we? Friends?” And Nicky is SO SHOCKED that Neil didn’t know and goes “oh kiddo of course!!” is my Roman Empire. Plus he’s hilarious obviously.

Kevin Day guys I love him ok, the first two books he compelled me but TKM he POPPED OFF. “I’ve never been skiiing” BANGER “I’m gonna be the deadliest piece on the board” GOOSEBUMPS, “My father comes to all my games” HAD ME IN TEARS. Don’t even get me STARTED on that sexy ass racquet hand switch at championships I’m going to combust. I love that he’s literally obsessed with exy and has the most complicated relationships with the mc’s of every book and yet steals the show every time. Kevin Day I love you.

Matt Boyd. I love him because he would love me for putting Neil first and kill me for not putting Dan before him. He loves his girlfriend and his homies and his sport and cars in that order. He’s a golden retriever who saw a team full of scary-ass wolves and still tries to be friends with them. He wasn’t a part of the “clique” that Neil was in but he did not let that affect his perception or love for Neil in any way. He’s been to hell and came out with just as much love in his heart as he did when he came in. He told Neil that he didn’t know if Andrew would be good for him but then he saw that Andrew fought Kevin for him and decided that he approved bc all that mattered to him was that Neil had someone who would defend him the way Matt would. Then he immediately becomes the #1 wingman right before the shower scene bc he would rather die than cockblock his homie. I love him so much

Andrew Minyard. Like Nicky, I was absolutely a HATER in book one and then he became one of my faves. I like that he’s brave and determined, standing despite everything when the world tried to put him down, but not without his flaws. I really appreciate that Andrew isn’t perfect, he struggles, he’s violent when it’s necessary and sometimes when it’s not. I love how he was always willing to protect Neil, despite everything in him telling him that Neil couldn’t be trusted. He’s a flawed man, but at his core, a good one.

Allison Reynolds is that girl. She reminds me of Andrew (both of them would kill me for saying that) because she takes no shit and gives no fucks. She’s who 16 year old me wanted to be when I grew up. She goes through every emotion in these books and comes out full of righteous anger and uses that to kick the raven’s ASSES and I’m so here for that

Jean Moreau. It’s weird to me that he’s so low because I love him he’s my special boy. I thought that he was interesting in TRK but Riko was a more compelling villain to me. Then ofc we learn that he was never meant to be the villain and he was ranked just below Kevin for me because I just wanted him to be happy. Then tsc happened and he became my hyper fixation. He has a VERY similar sense of humor as Neil except for Neil his jokes were directed at abnormal behaviour, and for Jean he just gets so appalled at the most normal things. I digress about his humor I love Jean and if u want to know why just read literally any of my posts

Danielle Wilds is my GIRL. Her story compels me so much and I really wish we got more backstory for her (obvs we got plenty considering the cast of characters is so huge but still… I want more). She loves her team so much despite everything and she works so hard to keep them together I wanna give her a hug and a kiss. (That scene in TKM right after Andrew breaks Riko’s arm Dan was the FIRST one to find Neil and she was so concerned about him she cares about him so much STOP they’re FAMILY I LOVE THEM)

Catalina Alvarez was my favourite character in tsc (aside from Jean) because I love her so much. @theresalwaysafiresomewhere said that cat reminds her of me and it was still to this day the best compliment I’ve ever received. I cannot name a single thing abt cat I don’t like so I’m just gonna keep going.

Jeremy Knox is only this low bc I still know nothing about this man. Reading his pov and seeing him thru Jean’s eyes was helpful in securing him a spot in my list of faves tho, I want to know everything about him please Nora please

Renee Walker also should not be this low it physically hurts me to put her here but like most other characters in this half of the list, she didn’t compel me as much until tkm. Just a personal thing I guess. I do love her though and I wish she got more time with Jean. It still bothers me that she loved Jean but was the bigger person about it and knew that they weren’t at the right place in their lives, and yet we don’t get to see how making this decision affects her. I think she deserves to be loved more. I hope she gets a happy ending the same way Jean does.

Laila Dermott I love her I just don’t really know enough abt her

Aaron Minyard I like him I promise I do he’s got some of the best one-liners! He killed drake did all that in college with an gf and all the power to him but really I think that fanon aaron just appealed to me way more. Canon Aaron just annoyed me because— gunshots actually you know what maybe it’s once again because unreliable narrator Neil hated him and Neil’s my fave so I had to be a hater too 😔

Seth. I know some fans love him and I respect that but I just… idk I don’t see the appeal. Fanon Seth is great tho I’m a fan.

Canon Thea is somewhere on this list near Laila again bc I love her but I don’t know enough about her to be like “yeah she’s my fave”. The version of Thea I created in my head based on the crumbs the books and the ec gave us, on the other hand… she’d probably be somewhere up there with Kevin

[cathyl-washere]

Hey gamers, this is my first actual post here.

Minors should maybe not be here if only for the odd NSFW post, so here's your warning if that's a concern of yours.

Bit of a length warning I suppose? I ramble a bit, but it's my pinned so I guess now's the time.

As my blurb says and avatar implies, I'm a 20 year-old transfem, working with she/her pronouns currently. I'm generally kind of hesitant to really talk about myself to strangers or to even say something in the first place, even when it's just to the void like I have been since I started here about a month and a half ago. You may recall my mentioning that this is my first actual post, or have noticed that I've only tagged like, 2 of my reblogs at time of writing. I'm trying to get out there a bit more which is why I'm even making this, but if I take some time to reply to a pm or whatever, know that there's this on top of anything irl. Also I have a tendency to write in a way as though I were actually talking, so apologies for any overuse of commas or really long sentences. Trying to be mindful of this way of writing myself though.

Should say that whatever eldritch critter lords over us all gave me the delightful combo of being able to remember a bunch of absolutely bizarre and incredibly niche things about whatever while also forgetting it all when it miraculously becomes useful. You may be familiar with the "Spirit of the Staircase?" Gamer, you're looking at her. I mention this to say that despite the length of some of the later parts, they're still not exhaustive.

I've also got into the habit of referring to people as gamers because it has that wonderful combo of being both gender-neutral and oddly funny to me. Not in a demeaning way, my sense of humor has just kind of veered into nonsense.

On that note, I should also mention that I myself have committed a cardinal sin and am indeed, a gamer. Platforms I'm on are Playstation and Switch. PC gaming is unfortunately out of my purview currently. I prefer PvE generally but also don't mind pwning some children if the vibes are there. Hope you have your bingo card ready because yes, Celeste is my favorite game. I have WAY too much time into Warframe and I like Dead by Daylight, Deep Rock Galactic, Risk of Rain 2/Returns, and Slay the Spire quite a bit. Tragically I've been a gamer for a while, so I'm just naming a few of my main ones right now while totally not ignoring a sizeable backlog, no sirree!

Music is also a bit of a vibes thing. Generally more of a fan of less intense songs, which may be an odd thing to follow up on by saying prog rock's also pretty cool. Longer a song is, the better is my usual take. City pop's also superb, language barrier be damned. Vaporwave's awesome. Born and raised on the rock of the 70's and 80's with parents that rarely listened to anything after Kurt Cobain rose to power for most of my younger years, so a good chunk of that has worked its way into my playlist. Video game music has a tendency to be wonderful to my ears as well. Solar Ash, both Risk of Rains (although yes, I lean towards the second + DLC here), Night in the Woods, songs from several of the Persona series (Layer Cake, Beneath the Mask - Rain and both versions of Specialist, oh my!), a few from Warframe and of course, the titular Celeste. Lena really is just something else, and I think I can say with some confidence that Quiet and Falling is just my favorite song generally. It does have some competition, so in no particular order I'll rattle some off: Anri's Shyness Boy, Depeche Mode's Enjoy the Silence (primarily the Hands and Feet Mix version), Hall and Oates' Out of Touch, Mac Demarco's Freaking out the Neighborhood, ABBA's Dancing Queen, Yoko Takahashi's The Cruel Angel's Thesis, Prince's Little Red Corvette, Kensuke Ushio's Crybaby, Jane Pop's Drive to 1980 Love, Shakatak's Bitch to the Boys, Komm Susser Todd from End of Evangelion, Mystical Composer by Momoko Kikuchi, Love don't come Easy by The New Jersey Connection, Once in a Lullaby by Chris Christodoulou, No Tengo Dinero - Maxi by Righeira, Seaside by Dan Mason, In your Eyes by Peter Gabriel, Dress Down by Kaoru Akimoto, Radio Ga-Ga by Queen, Under Pressure by Queen and David Bowie, and this list is getting kind of long, huh? God, music is just so freakin' awesome. Truly, one of my biggest regrets will be that I didn't hear enough of it. Band-wise, I'll mention I quite like Steely Dan, Chappell Roan, Yves Tumor, Casiopea, 1986 Omega Tribe, Car Seat Headrest, The Comet is Coming (loving Hyper-Dimensional Expansion Beam right now), Dan Mason, Mitch Murder, Desired, Nyarons, Seycara Orchestral, Shakatak, Ibrahim, OSC, Both Jack Stauber and his Micropop, Prince, Queen, Junko Ohashi, Anri, Meatloaf, Gorillaz, Night Tempo, City Girl, Yes, PKCH, Chris Christodoulou, Cape Coral, Tupperwave, Oresama, Weird Al (EBAY in particular will forever take up some of my brain space at any given moment) and good ol' Lena Raine. While we're here, I guess the one album I'll mention is Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of the War of the Worlds. Make sure it's the original though, some of the songs were revamped in recent years and personally I'm not partial to that rendition of them.

If you inferred that I might like some anime given the above section has quite a few Japanese artists then yes, your intuition was correct. I have fallen off of it recently, but stuff like Neon Genesis Evangelion, Cowboy Bebop, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, Mob Psycho, and My Life With Monster Girls are some that I enjoy.

Romantically, I'd say I'm into women. We're entering kind of weird territory for me here though because while I would quite like a romantic partner and someone to cuddle with, I'm kind of not so sure how keen I am on any actual sex? Half of me wonders if I'm just asexual while the other half wonders if it might actually be a case of finding the proper someone. I don't know, it's very much uncharted territory for me and I'm not sure where I'll end up on it. Also the whole "finally accepting that I'm trans" thing probably has its influence somewhere in there.

Politically, just give people stuff. Meet their basic needs, implement a UBI, make it so that every grandparent has a bottomless jar of sweets for the wee ones. Public transport good, cars bad, Golf is actively terrible in multiple ways. Chuck bricks at cops, detonate an oil rig (in Minecraft, I guess), eat the rich, the usual. Ideally, mix the three. Abortions and contraception are healthcare, and alongside education all should be free. Kill the cop in your head, both in the sense that if you saw someone shoplift, no you didn't and that you don't have to impose yourself on people just having some earnest, unconventional fun. These are some of my viewpoints, but I'm hesitant to try and pin myself down with a specific position due to a lack of having really read well, any greater political works, still needing to flatten some views I've kind of just had seep into me from the greater culture ("But is x really the proper thing" is tragically a constant, but I've needed to quash the Devil's Advocate voice in my head for years at this point. The little bastard never truly seems to leave. Yeah, having a little gremlin constantly try and check my thoughts can be handy now and then, but it gets really annoying when I think about topics like how the death penalty shouldn't be a thing because like, what are you doing here you idiot? Don't let your personal misgivings with a person allow for executions), and honestly a little because I need to try and be firmer as a person. I put a lot more stock into the thoughts of others than my own, and sometimes it's tough to remember that me and my thoughts also have value, whatever that looks like. Is that the best thing to just type aloud? Also don't hit your kids, regardless of circumstance.

Uhhh got to say I'm blanking a bit on what else to put in. Closing remarks now I suppose. Life is fucking awesome, and I mean that to apply to most-every instance of it. We're all just here on our queer little blogs having a time with one another, and isn't that wonderful? The past 5 years or so have been terrible mentally for me with a few really bad months in particular this year, but I finally feel like I'm on the up-and-up. Accepting that I'm trans after repressing it for a while, finally cutting off a bad friend (hopefully for good), working on getting HRT. With any luck, I'll have some patches in my hands soon. That's huge for me, not only in the obvious sense but because my brain somehow twisted itself into thinking that I can't take this whole topic seriously outside of hair growth and shaving facial hair until I actually get some form of HRT into my hands, AND IT'S HAPPENING! AAAAHHH!!! I'm moving into the next chapter of my life after being kind of stagnant for a while, and I've had such a wonderful vigor these past few weeks that I haven't known in ages. I've really embraced an appreciation of what others might consider mundane, and just trying to be a bit goofy. Letting things roll off of me, even if the anxiety tends to really weaken my legs and make me nauseous. I stay silly. The horrors may persist, but so do I. So do you. How lovely.

Also,

[missingmywing]

Me: /sees today's yesterday's prompt

Me: /maniacal cackling

Me: YOU FOOL, YOU’VE ACTIVATED MY TRAP CARD

aka AUs, Time Travel, and identity shenanigans are my biggest interests in any fandom at all so KH drew me in for a reason. This will be fun. Enjoy or suffer through my rambling about my main AU. I apologize for the length, but there’s a reason I had the immediate reaction I did.

Also sorry it’s a day late, yesterday was thesis presentations and then I was dragged out to drinks and karaoke after by my classmates so I didn’t have time to finish this.

@khoc-week Day 4: Alternate Universes

Hahahaha my first KH au I made when I was 15 and then spiraled WILDLY out of control after KHUX finished and DR happened.

So this au started as one of those “what if someone from our world died and reincarnated as a main character” fics that were so popular in the 2010’s, but over time it changed significantly. The main premise is still the same, girl from our world dies to a Heartless that really shouldn’t have been there and her heart makes a conveniently timed connection with Ven, and then reincarnates as Sora. Except it’s not quite as convenient as it seems because Kingdom Hearts itself is meddling.

Because her heart was actually Etheria’s.

This is my biggest KH au that’s lasted almost ten years now, it’s extremely self-indulgent and I keep making adjustments to it as we get new info, but I think I have it plotted out solidly. It’s also the one that’s technically canon to my keykids.

So, KHUX happens as it does, no real changes beyond Etheria and Ephemera finishing up Game Central Station together and coming back to Daybreak Town in time to trigger the finale. Etheria traps the darknesses in the tunnel, they wound her fatally, she dies holding Chirithy, etc.

The change comes with what’s next. Because Nomura BAITED US and I had an entire year to sit on my plans before the Dark Road finale dropped and ruined them all, and I decided “screw it, I can work around this”. And kind of. Threw out canon to a degree.

Yiskah is reincarnated after the Keyblade War as the Missing Link protag, so whatever reveals we get there will be his story. Etheria reincarnates as Xehanort, because I had PLANS NOMURA. So ML happens, Yiskah takes Xehanort to Destiny Islands, all of this will probably follow canon pretty closely. Dark Road also happens as canon, Xehanort having Etheria’s heart doesn’t really change much because these events “need” to happen. Whether it’s Darkness pulling the strings or KH itself… who knows. But DR happens pretty much as canon, and the post-events are where we get our first major split into AU territory.

When Xehanort goes on his lonesome trip around the worlds, trying to gain perspective, it starts as canon with him meeting MoM. But afterwards, when he returns to the Keyblade Graveyard, it’s not the Master of Masters that’s waiting for him but our single unaccounted for Darkness. His trip through the worlds was supposed to make him fall to darkness, make him decide to recreate the war, but because he has Etheria’s heart he… doesn’t. So Darkness takes matters into its own hands and tries to take him over. Naturally he fights back, refuses to let it, so it decides the more optimal route would be to simply remove that problematically light heart and simply claim his body for itself and pretend to be him.

So that happens. He dies, and it’s Darkness in his body who returns to Scala to take the Mark of Mastery with Eraqus, and kick off the next phase of canon.

Etheria/Xehanort’s heart ends reincarnating as a girl on a sort of… reflection of our world, losing their memories upon reincarnating as is supposed to happen, and growing up to be a fan of a certain video game series until dying to a Heartless who was drawn specifically to their heart because Events Are Happening (Ven just got his heart broken and Kingdom Hearts needs someone to go fix it, and who better than an old friend and its valiant champion? Etheria surviving the Keyblade War and her heart touching KH directly in the process was not a good thing for her, just to point that out.) So her heart comes in contact with Ven, shares part of it to fix his, and in the process kind of breaks the usual reincarnation rules so she keeps her memories of this past life, and the thus the memories of the Kingdom Hearts game series.

So at this point: Alana becomes Sora and knows absolutely nothing about being Etheria or Xehanort, but does remember being from “our world”. The Xehanort of this AU is just Darkeness using his identity to push the plot it read in the Book, because that’s What’s Supposed To Happen. For the sake of ~Drama~ I’m going to say she’s caught up to canon for everything except the Final Update of KHUX. To everyone who remembers that cliffhanger they did between the first half of the finale and the second… yeah. Imagine dying and reincarnating into that universe missing HALF THE FINALE OF KHUX and over half of Dark Road. It is endlessly frustrating to them, Ven, and Vani. 

From here canon… happens similarly, but also different.

KH1 has Riku being possessed much earlier because Sora convinces him to come back, and Maleficent and Ansem SoD don't like that. Kairi and Ven are both awake and helping, so there's that. Kairi is part of the final battle as an active keyblade wielder, even if she gets pulled home after.

CoM happens very differently because Vanitas is awake with Ven gone in Roxas, so he's Solana's companion while Namine can see Alana's memories and knows far more than she should because of it. She finds so many loopholes to allow Alana to keep memories of CoM, even if Sora's have to be broken later.

KH2 has Xion and Roxas awake and joining Ven and Vani, and things get loud. Roxas takes every chance to try to fight the Organization, drive forms are between the Heart Hotel rather than Donald and Goofy, and Kairi joins the party halfway through after kicking Axel through a wall. She joins them for the final fight against Xemnas too, and then opens the portal for them home.

Solana is busy having a guilt-induced breakdown about their parents never coming back from the islands falling to darkness to participate in Re:Coded, but they do meet the apprentices and start making peace between them and the Restoration Committee when they show back up. They and Ienzo get along... really really well, to their surprise.

DDD is a mess, because the dream world gives the Heart Hotels bodies and they are actively participating in the Mark of Mastery along with Sora, Riku, and Kairi. Ienzo was paranoid enough to make a secondary link with Solana before it started, so when Yen Sid lost contact with them Ienzo could make link so they could see everything happening. Canon happens and it SUCKS. Solana has much trauma from YMX.

KH3 is wildly different, because People Know Things, and Death Deities Are Weird Around Solana (aka Hades and Persephone are closer to their myth forms, and make a deal with Solana about nine death avoidances for a favor, so they only use the power of waking once at the end rather than to save everyone), and Aqua and Ven are rescued before Arendelle so they've got half the game to catch their breath before the war.

And because Darkness is Xehanort, the scene with Eraqus is very different because Solana flat out steals the keyblade from Xehanort at the end of their battle - the same way Riku does from Sora in KH1 - and stabs him with it. No soft scene here, just murder. Eraqus does show up, reassuring Aqua and Terra, but Kairi and Ven swapped places in this AU as the sacrificial being of Pure Light, so... it's much rougher on the Wayfinder Trio. Solana gets him back, though, ala canon, but that's the tenth revival after the first nine so they will disappear eventually, it just won't be immediate since they only did it once. Gives them time to hang out, get Ienzo to put some cameras in the Graveyard to catch the Foreteller meetup, do a heart dive to figure out their weird dreams and accidentally get their memories of KHUX and DR both back to the shock and horror of everyone, and then disappear.

I want you to know that this is the short version, because the longer version accidentally turned into a plot outline.

[gerandor]

THANK YOU FOR THE ANSWER <33

i asked you this bc i needed it for a project, and you've answered it with something that would never cross my mind, thank you!

also i read your tags and it says that you wrote a thesis on lalo's character??? im really interested to read your thoughts about him, that is if you don't mind posting lol.

once again, thanks a lot!

Ok fair warning first; I'm really bad at putting my thoughts into words, so while this makes a lot of sense in my head, it may not do so here, so apologies in advance! Also i'm pretty sure others don't see lalo in this way and i'm just really weird like this; no need to fight me on this, i know, trust me!

When i think about lalo’s character, that one thing that stands out to me, is how distanced he is from a logical and rational thinking process. 

Lalo, to me, seems like someone who’d boast about their gut instincts, to the point they’d find no use for logical thinking because their instincts are always right (but we know for a fact that they’re not). Lalo has lived a privileged life in the cartel; he’s basically cartel royalty in a sense, and his charms, money and the Salamanca name have taken him anywhere he wanted to go. He is vastly different from a character like nacho, who has always been in a disadvantaged position and had to think on his feet as each step put him in yet another dangerous situation. 

I think the driving force behind Lalo’s character, that one thing that really makes Lalo who he is and informs his decisions and the things he does, is his skepticism and distrustful nature, which is btw not based on facts and evidence, but on the principle that everyone’s lying and everything's a lie unless proven otherwise. And so, when forced to re-evaluate his assumptions, he will either go to extreme lengths (bc he NEEDS to be right about this, goddammit) or he will just drop it if that need simply isn’t there. 

For the first case, just look at his whole business with fring. Lalo had no evidence to distrust fring. But he did it on the principle of distrusting everyone unless they proved to be trustworthy. I know people would just say lalo was so smart to “figure out” fring was behind the attack, but the truth is lalo had no evidence, so there really wasn’t any figuring out. He just arrived at that conclusion because he had this idea in his head that fring is behind everything. If there was any figuring out process involved in lalo’s head, he’d have figured out nacho as well. But he didn’t. Nacho had completely blindsided him bc lalo had decided not to distrust him on principle (why? What was about nacho that lalo liked so much to let go of his distrustful nature? God, these two.)

Also he thought he has no use for evidence until hector told him that he actually does. And remember how enraged he was that he had to go find evidence now? Why couldn’t things be simple? lol

For the second case, let's look at the jimmy incident. Even though I knew jimmy was lying, i was still baffled that Lalo thought he was lying. Bc to me, he wasn’t being rational. Being rational was how kim put things into perspective for him. Lalo was just being distrustful on principle. He didn’t have any proof and his way of thinking didn’t make sense. If he thought it was Fring who put him in prison and it was also him who attacked jimmy to steal the bail, (bc again, fring is behind everything, according to lalo) then how the hell did jimmy survive the attack and come back with the money? 

So yeah. I think what makes lalo’s character so interesting (and also a kind of antithesis to nacho) is how he fools everyone into thinking he’s so smart, but what’s really happening is that his decisions don’t really follow any logical thinking and piecing together clues and figuring things out. He just goes by his gut instincts and when he gets this idea in his head that someone’s the enemy, he becomes unhealthily obsessed. And when he decides someone’s trustworthy? 

Just look what happened with Nacho. 

[madamhatter]

having to handle unruly child servants or chaotic evil servants

send  me  this  or  that  questions  for  my  muse  / accepting. make  them  funny,  make  them  personal,  make  them  embarrassing.  anything  that  you  want,  just  make  them  choose!

With great hesitance, Sophie stares down at the folded piece of paper. She presses it between her thumb and index finger, careful not to crimp it. Lighter than a feather was that paper in her hands, but her body stiffened, locked to place like Atlas bearing the heavens on his shoulders.

A simple game is near-lethal to Sophie; disclosing personal opinion, no less partaking in vulnerability stretches thin her defenses. Brave is the face she places on, trying her most damn not to squirm at the thought.

Whoever convinced her to be in this position must have some unnaturally powerful gift.

Taking one deep breath, Sophie unfolds the paper. Her eyes narrow, scanning over the scrawled writing. The very question that will unhinge or hinge her composure is….!

Her brows crease. 'This question makes it sound like one is less hassle than the other.' 

"Well, this is certainly a way to start this," sighs Sophie.

"One may see that the child servants option is better than the chaotic evil servants," expresses Sophie with her hands flat and pulled away, adding visuals. "However," her hand close in distance," the reality is that these options aren't exclusive," she emphasizes as her palms then touch and clasp together.

"If I decide to spend even more time with the children, something I have already done outside of Chaldea, that doesn't exclude the avatars of destruction, madness enablers, and mass-murderers in the lot like Jack the Ripper and Van Gogh, to provide some examples."

"Despite mentioning my experience and the alignment's reputation, the Servants that are Chaotic Evil are much more manageable," she nods. 

"I apologize if that is any offense to them and the madness-inducing ways. They are much more forward in their intentions and personalities, leaving little room for any miscommunication and lack of clarity."

"In the work environment, they are wonderful. It is when personal space is involved that may bring some conflict. But, we are all working here as terminal coworkers until," she waves her wrist, "we resolve all of this."

"Meanwhile, while the child servants are the most eager to help, I admit that same curiosity that wants them to come to understand things can be quite distracting." She sighs. "Voyager and Taisui decided to spend a scouting trip mission exploring the 'fun sand' that ended up being a pond of quicksand that almost swallowed us whole after I had to jump in to save them-" 

Sophie stops speaking in a moment, glancing to the side. Despite the near-death memory, she isn't that distraught by the image. Instead, her mind seems to overwork in thinking about the topic.

'The child servants already have an advantage over me. Even I get distracted from my work and contribute to the trouble if they know how to twist my arm. Do they even need to twist it to get my help? I practically keel over like a weak-willed person with a brain of pudding if their happiness is on the line.' 

The seamstress shakes her head.

"To conclude, I would rather handle the Chaotic Evil servants because of our circumstances."

Sophie Hatter manages to grasp the game, but it seems that she feels it appropriate to provide thesis's length of a defense for her option.

[bimrwolf]

i have been a little MIA... apologies. currently taking 18hrs and one of those classes is my senior thesis which is writing a full length novel. i have not had time to even open any of my WIP

but also... i wanted to come on here to share that i have found my dream man. and maybe hopefully i can start sharing if things progress. i guess a little sneak peak is i literally wiped an eyelash off his cheek yesterday.... like yall.... that is straight up x reader fanfic written all over it

also my mom is really sick and im just stressed about it prayers please

[thebroccolination]

Hi! Do you answer asks in a specific order from when you get them? Or does it depend on how long it takes you to form an answer

Hi Anon! I hope I haven’t neglected one of yours!

And the answer is both, sort of!

Often I get an ask that I want to write a big, in-depth answer to and just don’t have the energy when it arrives in my notifications.

Other times I get an ask that I can answer in long-form, so I do, and then I have no energy for the others that just arrived.

I have a backlog, but I’m going to try to get to most of them! I apologize if I haven’t answered yours! (Odds are good that I saw it and fantasized about writing a long post in response and then got overwhelmed. 😂)

The asks are my favorite thing about Tumblr, and I’m sincerely happy that people send them to me! It’s just a matter of how many spoons I have and ADHD making it difficult for me to spend them wisely. Will I answer four asks with moderate-length answers, or will I answer one ask with a thesis and then exhaust my brain to the point where it can’t make any words?

Based on my ask history, the second always wins. \:D/

[rushingheadlong]

This is very late, but on the off chance that you’ll be bored at work again today, I’m just going to leave this here: thoughts on the Guild tank vs the di Marzio tank, YES this is important...which is your favourite? //tenderbri ✨

This ask is SO important thank you @tenderbri for not hesitating to bring up the tough subjects to discuss!

The DiMarzio tank is my favorite BUT the Guild tank is a more important landmark moment in the timeline of Brian Wearing Tanks. 

The DiMarzio tank just looks better on Brian. The wider straps and narrower neckline fit his body better - it makes him look broader and more a bit more muscled, something which I think @hammer-2-fall and I have discussed in the past? But I’m too lazy to go digging through my tags to find the exact post where this came up before. 

In contrast, the Guild tank actually makes Brian look scrawnier. The straps fall slightly higher on his shoulders so they don’t emphasize them the same, and the wider scoop of the neckline (while allowing for a lovely glimpse of his collarbones) means that when he moves the tank often bunches around his chest and arms and makes it look like it doesn’t quite fit him correctly. 

I also think Brian preferred the style of the DiMarzio tank over the Guild one - with the exception of one (1) picture from the One Vision photo shoot and a few very brief moments in the music video, Brian always wears the Guild tank underneath another shirt. In contrast the DiMarzio tank is always worn by itself and, as I continue to bring up every time the tanks get discussed, was also worn a full year later at Freddie’s 40th birthday party while the Guild tank seems to have vanished after the One Vision sessions. 

There is, of course, the very real possibility that Brian preferred the DiMarzio tank because it was originally a t-shirt that Brian cut the sleeves off of (like he did with the Elvira shirt on The Works tour the previous year) and if that’s true then, technically, the Guild tank is the first tank top that Brian wears that actually started out it’s life as a tank top. And for that reason alone I am contractually obligated to love it A Lot (even if the DiMarzio tank is still my Absolute Favorite, not just of the One Vision tanks but of any tank tops or fake tanks that Brian ever wore... with the exception of the Yale tank from ‘93 but yall already know how I feel about that ahfkldasjkl).

(Send me "Thoughts on...?” asks and I’ll ramble about whatever you want!)