#because it makes more sense in this scene

[mcmansionhell]

new jersey "19th century" "eclecticism"

It's always funny to me when new wealth tries to imitate old wealth, but in a very specific way: by trying to reproduce old ways of building that are no longer viable via mass produced building materials and contractors who are better than average but still not quite in the legion of the bespoke. It's rarely the case that houses are fully "custom" these days -- the amalgamation of all the different parts in a new formation is the "customization" at work. As we can see in this example, this is a truth that is often covered up by excessive decorating.

This 5 bedroom, 6.5 bathroom house, built in 1997 (shocker) will run you an extremely reasonable $3.5 million big ones, but I say extremely reasonable because it wants to be a $10 million house but doesn't quite get there - after all, it's made with drywall. The architectural style is not really anything in particular -- though the front entrance would like to recall the Tudors. Really it is trying to emulate an existing pastiche style, namely the eclecticism of the 19th century. It also doesn't do this well.

No stately manor is complete without dueling staircases. Also, I don't know how to explain it, but every room in this house longs to be a bathroom. Or a powder room. A really big one. It's probably the floor, and the wallpaper. This is just the appetizer for the main attraction:

Jules Verne larping is so rare in McMansion Hell that you have to commend them for trying. I'm kind of obsessed.

This room is so important to me. It's like if an Olin Mills (dating myself here) set was an entire room. A sense of watching someone in one's own house, performing "dinner." Also I would slay as the swan knight, I have to say, so I get it.

What happened to baskets hanging from the ceiling and powder blue walls and porcelain lined up on the picture rail?

I have seen columns terminating into soffits that would make Scamozzi cry.

In Big America bathing and lavishing is a spectator sport.

Ok, again, the palette of this house is basically The Polar Express mixed with a very bizarre hotel lobby.

The chimney hole is sending me because that does appear to be a working chimney. Like, can you see the smoke come out? Who knows!

Anyway, happy Thanksgiving to everyone, and I'm especially thankful to the folks who sponsor me on Patreon! If you want to see more scenes from this house, that's the place to do it!

If you like this post and want more like it, support McMansion Hell on Patreon for as little as $1/month for access to great bonus content including a discord server, extra posts, and livestreams.

Not into recurring payments? Try the tip jar! Student loans just started back up!

[maybebitterxox]

This scene from “The Yoko Factor” is so funny to me. Bc like

First of all, it cements that the antagonists of Buffy have the best gaydar bc they’re gay, because Faith (in the body swap episode) and Spike were literally the ONLY PEOPLE who NATURALLY noticed that Willow and Tara had a thing going without being told about it. It’s so fucking funny that Spike just immediately susses it out. Like yeah, they’re not hiding it, but he doesn’t even consider that it could be casual intimacy or anything, just like “yeah they’re lesbians, makes sense”

Second of all, the fact that he uses witchcraft as a metaphor for lesbianism. It’s just really funny

Third, how when he tells them that their friends are being judgy (a.k.a homophobic) about it, Willow just fucking believes him 😭 Like yes girl, this evil soulless vampire was definitely allowed to participate in a personal conversation between people who hate him about your relationship, makes total sense. She’s so upset about it too, bless her.

And then just Spike throwing in “I think it’s fine btw. If you wanna be a witch, be a witch, you know?” Like it’s just so fucking funny in retrospect. ‘Yeah, I’m an evil dude who cares about none of you, and I’m actively trying to convince you that your friends are homophobic so that it will cause a rift between you, but I just gotta let you know that I support gay people.’ It was probably so they’d trust his word more, but it’s still just so funny that he threw that in there. Just letting them know they have the Spike seal of approval.

Spike supports lesbians. Even when he wants them and their friends dead

[majosullivan]

After watching Mastermind, this scene from the trailer makes so much more sense and hits soooo much more differently now.

I have been wondering what must have happened here for Blitz to be protecting Stolas like this while Stolas looks so scared. He seems to be fine, so why couldn’t he defend both him and Blitz from Andreaphus? They should theoretically be evenly matched. That’s not even going into the questions about why Andreaphus would even escalate to attacking Stolas in the first place, and at Stolas’s house no less. With him planning to strip Stolas of everything he has, attacking him seemed to go against his entire plans.

Now we know though. Andreaphus’s plan was successful. Stolas has been stripped of his powers, title, everything. He can’t defend himself, not like he used to. His home isn’t his anymore, Andreaphus has taken everything over since Octavia is still 17.

And Blitz here, oh my god. He has now watched as Stolas sacrificed himself for him. Watched him willingly give up his life to save Blitz. He has screamed and begged while struggling to get to Stolas as he was dragged away. Trying to pry open the door to get back to him. Thinking that was the last time he was going to see Stolas. Thinking that another person he loved was going to die because of him. But Stolas came back to him alive. Stripped of his power and not doing well but he is alive. After this, what do you think he’s going to do if Stolas is in danger? After he didn’t go to save him from Striker? After he thought Stolas was going to die to keep him safe? He is never going to let him go again. Even if it’s a hopeless situation, he is going to do what he can to protect Stolas or die trying.

My guess here is that next episode, Stolas is going to try and see Octavia with Blitz’s help, and when Andreaphus finds out, he is not going to hesitate to attack Stolas now that he is powerless. Sinsmas is going to make me feral

[k1tty5]

I would like to make it clear that I do NOT want anyone’s firstborns, but I will ramble. for you.

rambles about the process and other thoughts under the cut! I talk a LOT, so… view at your own risk?

I originally had this idea a couple months ago, I think when I first heard the song. I had made a little test for it, which I didn’t end up doing anything with because I thought it didn’t really make much sense. Which, I’m not sure I did that great of a job making this make sense, but you know. Whatever.

this is the original drawing i made for it back in early august, very rushed and not a big fan of it.

I liked the black background & grayscale palette, as well as the way the string kind of . Twirls around the text? BUT, I went into this without any planning, mostly just me doodling and then threw the lyrics on for fun. No plot or whatever, very short.

After I made this, I was kind of just keeping this idea in mind for later, but I held back on trying to do it as I just wasn’t really sure where I wanted to go with it. I’m very bad at planning and tend to rush into things a lot, which ends up hindering the quality of a lot of my art. and since this was something I actually liked the idea of, I wanted to give it my all.

There was also the fact that because I liked the idea, I wanted the best outcome. This kind of ends up in a sort of paralysis where I don’t want to work on something because I’m not good enough for it, but I did realize that I will likely never consider myself good enough for it, so why not just go for it?

Anyway ,

I did not end up keeping the black background for the reason that I decided that this time around I wanted it to have a more traditional vibe/look? Like perhaps it was scrawled over some roughed up paper, hence the sketchy style and limited palette.

And as for why I didn’t keep the string looping around the pages, I just thought that would add too much red to the pages, sort of ruining the vibe. So I instead just kept it inside the panels!

these are the original thumbnails/sketches! most of them I kept the same, but I did end up pretty much entirely changing the third page, because I decided there was already too many panels of just their faces with somewhat unsettled expressions .

thoughts on individual pages - don’t expect me to be organized or this to be well thought out, by the way,,

on page 1 ,

I started with a shot of the relationship, mostly to just… set the scene. I am NOT an expert on comics, and went into this with very minimal planning, so this work in general is more of the vibes than it is a storyline, but I did try to vaguely get it to resemble something comprehensible.

the second panel of Etho brushing Joel’s cheek is very much no thoughts for me lol, not very happy with how it looks. I do picture Etho as the more openly affectionate one (though i can see it both ways). BUT, to match with the lyrics, you could say that the first panel paired with “it’s hard to tell which elements of this are real” could be resembling that the boat is something tangible and physical, whereas the second panel paired with “and which are chemically enhanced” is referring to whatever feelings they have. Asking themselves if this is really real, or if it’s just the game.

no notes on the third panel lol. like i say this was not well thought out, the story is somewhat there, but it’s VERY much up to interpretation and I did intend it to be that way. I have ideas about what is happening, but I want to keep it up to the viewer.

on page 2,

“But it’s not easy to tell what I want from what I need” OH BOY !!! manic red joel. blinded by the bloodlust and rage and adrenaline. he needs this. he needs it, doesn’t he?

“I am more scared of myself than I am of anyone else” okay okay okay. I don’t headcanon he has any real remorse for killing anyone. this is a death game, you’re not meant to be a good person, this is built on lies and manipulation and blood and hurt. headcanon they’re all insane people doing bad things (with a forced hand or not). BUT !!! big fan of “i break everything i touch” kind of thing (its kind of a pattern in ships i like OOPS). so much angst. regretful of your violent nature, wishing to be gentler so that you can cradle his face without digging your nails into his skin, unwanting to break the only thing you’ve learnt to love.

but. etho doesn’t care !!! he doesnt care. his hands are just as bloody as yours, don’t you see?

on page 3,

panel one is just a continuation of the last scene which i just talked about blah blah blah

panel 2!! thats a portal. we all know what happened in the portal :)

on page 4.

ending the mini comic thing with the ship burning, while it started with a shot of the ship in its prime. before and after, how it started and how it ended.

all in all, I !! AM !!! INSANE!!! about them. I could ramble for hours probably but this is already long so ending with a couple final thoughts.

this is definitely meant to be set after they’ve gone red, when in that timeframe is up to you, though. in my vision the lyrics are kind of correlating to c!joel’s thoughts/feelings/whatevers, but it can definitely go both ways - or neither way lol. This song is really just like. THEM. To me.

anywho, thank you to anyone who has put the augh’s and ough’s in the tags, they’re very gratifying haha <3

the simplest words

[sorryiliketoscreenshot]

[worrywrite]

Let me just...

I don't think I've seen anyone say this about Harrow the Ninth and it has been bothering me.

The bit about Harrow being insane. The way people talk about this, they make it sound like she actually is/was insane. Sometimes people even act like she always has been insane. But there are two things happening outside of Harrow's scope of knowledge during the book that make it clear she is and always has been perfectly sane.

1) the body. It is unclear whether she's actually seeing Alecto or she's hallucinating. But I'm inclined to believe that it's really just Alecto reaching out to her through the river. During this book Harrow is tuned in to the river because she's stuck part of her brain in a bubble there without really knowing it. And I'd be willing to bet Alecto can just do that, just astral project in a way where she can observe anything she wants undetected and has been following John around like that for who knows how long. And then suddenly she comes across Harrow, who can see and hear her projection and who knows who she is (which should not be possible). I'd say this makes even more sense, considering this is the book where Harrow actually reaches out to Alecto to the point where they can swap souls around for a bit (so Nona can happen).

2) Harrow's primary manifestation of insanity in the "is this how it happened" scenes is that she can't read. And so she believes she is insane because she keeps trying to read and she's seeing the wrong things. But these aren't memories like she seems to think they are. These are dreams, a safety mechanism she's accidentally created so she can fend off Wake and prevent herself from remembering Gideon. She's pulled out part of her brain and that bit of her mind and soul is in a massive bubble in the river. When she experiences these scenes, she's asleep. And what can't people do when they're asleep? Process language correctly. This is made more clear when she's able to read correctly while awake; in particular she's able to read her letters to herself as well as the recipes in the cookbooks on the Mithreum (information she couldn't possibly hallucinate because she would have no precedent for it).

Tldr Harrow isn't actually insane. She was just being melodramatic because she couldn't figure out what was really going on.

[suzukiblu]

Day twenty-eight of “obligatory sugar baby Kon” ( and the start of a new scene! ) behind the cut. prev: (( chrono || non-chrono ))

“How’s school?” Tim asks, since how’s your mom and are you still living AT school due to her being who she is as a person? is both a loaded question and too obvious an approach. Cissie raises an eyebrow at him anyway. Tim is reminded that Dick did not in any way make an illogical leap by assuming that she was the kind of person he’d be attracted to, but also is not quite there. 

No, he’s apparently just into their other resident child-star/teen-idol superhero (and HOW do they have TWO of those and WHY did he not think about how actually insane that concept actually is sooner?), or maybe he’s just into loud braggy attention-hog assholes who look unbearably good in leather pants and unbearably cute when they blush and can also put away a straight-up inadvisable amount of grilled cheese sandwiches and can’t do an ollie to save his life. 

“It’s fine, Dad, did my homework and everything,” Cissie replies dryly, still eyeing him with a faint note of suspicion in her expression. They’re both sitting at the kitchen table, which in retrospect was definitely the wrong place to do this; obviously she’s going to get suspicious if he not only sits down at the table with her but makes small talk without a plausible-deniability excuse to hand. “How’s your school?” 

“. . . did my homework and everything,” Tim lies, and Cissie snorts.

Bart zips past them in a rush of wind and zips back the way he came a moment later; Cissie just covers the top of her Soder can to make sure nothing he’s kicked up ends up in it. Tim isn’t drinking anything, so just has to worry about not ending up with his cape flipped over his head again. 

He might’ve started wearing weighted capes to the Justice Cave lately. Just because. Definitely not for any reasons related to preserving his image as team leader in order to keep being seen as the thinly-allowed authority figure that said leader needs to be in emergencies and crisis situations or anything like that. 

Look, just because that level of subtle social manipulation of his teammates and sort-of-friends is questionable at best doesn’t mean it’s not occasionally necessary. Especially in relation to preparing for life-or-death situations where those teammates all need to know that they can trust their leader and he needs to know none of them are going to decide to take things into their own hands and run off on their own, which is definitely a concern in a group with this many vigilantes who’ve done more solo work than partnered or teamed-up and just about all have very strong personalities, even if some of them are quieter about it. 

. . . he’s doing his best so far as limiting the “running off on their own” issue, alright? 

The team’s meeting up for the weekend, and they’re all just supposed to be hanging out for it–or at least that’s the plan, anyway. Admittedly something might blow up or a natural disaster might happen or a supervillain might attack Happy Harbor and then “hanging out” will once again turn into “badly-controlled highly-public chaos” he needs to avoid cameras during and they also might have to worry about more nuns or Hugga-Tugga-Thugees or another Nina Dowd incident happening to them, and then have to worry about explaining all those things to Red Tornado later, but Tim’s pretty sure that’s just gonna be team SOP at this point. 

Bart zips by again and leaves a trail of streamers and glitter and mahjong tiles scattered all over the kitchen and down the hall, and somewhere a set of speakers goes off with a burst of loud static and blaring heavy metal music and then immediately cuts out again. Tim decides to just not ask this time. The answer isn’t gonna make any sense to anyone outside of Bart’s head anyway, except maybe Suzie, and that’s frankly being optimistic. 

Definitely the badly-controlled chaos is team SOP though, yeah. Very, very much is it team SOP.

[ohrandomfandom]

I kinda really love “Robiin II: Becoming the Monster” because it contrasts the brightness and excitement that “becoming the magic!” encompasses. But what I really like about it is how if there’s an emphasis throughout about his view of himself and how others see him.

Wasn’t he buried next to Sheila? Bruce focuses so hard on how Jason died(does he even know that Sheila led Jason to the joker? That he was just trying to help his mom, that he didn’t just run off recklessly and confront the joker? That at the last moment Sheila, instead of immediately running off tried to help Jason because of how selfless and brave he was but it was too late for them?) that what he remembers of Jason becomes almost warped by every small interaction that could have been a “warning sign” of what was to come. Every close call, every disagreement, every expression of anger from his child is now overshadowing who he actually was. And tbh he still loves Jason dearly and cares for him and his light and hope but after Jason’s death he becomes especially unforgiving, most of all to himself, so he’s remembering what he thinks he should have seen

From growing up in crime alley, people who don’t even know him hear that and just assume he’s violent or destined to become a criminal(probably something he hears a fair amount after he gets adopted by Bruce from higher society members and the media). Maybe he learns from Talia’s sources about how his entire memory has basically been moulded into this tragic thing. The words that travel far enough to reach him are the cruelest. Talking about how he was reckless, how him dying was inevitable, maybe about the memorial in the cave. There’s this one panel set where Talia tells catatonic!Jason that Bruce misses him and that Jason(and dick) gave him hope as Robin and he cries

How he views himself, with his going against some of the rules Batman ingrained in him. How it feels right but also like a betrayal even though he’s so angry with Bruce.

Even physically too ! Dying at 15, losing more than a year of time, did his revival or the Lazarus pit reduce the effects of any malnutrition as a kid? Did he have a growth spurt? Does his body even feel like his? It must be incredibly disorienting and dysphoria inducing to die in one state and basically emerge from that water in a body he can’t remember growing in to. Muscle memory and habits that are unfamiliar.

Becoming the monster is just him learning how to exist. How to help in a way he thinks can actually work. The joker got out and he died, he grew up seeing people get hurt after the system failed to protect them again and again and so his training and returning to Gotham was part of a plan to show that to Batman. To make a Statement that he doesn’t think that things can stay the same and get better.

Him seeing Tim in all that armour could be reinforcing his view that he wasn’t as valued/ was more disposable. Or maybe he takes this as Batman caring enough to add more protection to this new kid but not enough to get blood on his hands and stop the major threats that would endanger him the most.

Ok I’ve gone off on a super tangent and was trying to pay attention to a conversation at the same time so maybe this doesn’t make any sense or is relevant at all but I just really like “Robin 2: becoming the monster.” Jason embodying the whole “I may be a terrible person but at least I’m taking a bunch more down with me and proving a point while I do”(or at least trying to! He thinks he’s making a very good and reasonable point and this is about him so that’s what matters). And I just love imagining talias support of him through all of this being portrayed as mostly background or insignificant in the face of how much he’s Feeling except for a few small moments where like maybe it’s a flash back or a v/o of a line of her supporting him would be like <33 especially if it happens during like a scene with Bruce to set her as a contrast adult/parental figure in his new second life. Or when he’s killing someone Talias line from lost days where Jason’s like “[blah if I kill this person] don’t tell me the world isn’t better off. Why are you smiling?” And talias like “you’re learning” and he’s all intense like “yea guess I am”

Idk just Jason not thinking he’s a good person but still thinking the terrible and even monstrous things he’s doing aren’t necessarily wrong and are even good is just such an important part of his character and I love that for him and that title was just yesssss and I could talk about Jason for hrs and I’m not going to edit this so I’m so sorry if it doesn’t make sense but your brain is so big and this thread is wonderful

There's a post about wanting a story about Jason's time as Robin. I made a reblog of it so long ago, but I can't stop thinking about it.

I want to watch Jason's flight as Robin, but the entire story he's haunted by the future we all know is going to come.

When he first grabs his tire iron, he has the choice of taking a crowbar instead.

Subtle purples or greens pop up when he's in danger (but not necessarily the Joker).

He frees a bird trapped inside a warehouse.

He rescues a kid who was kidnapped by their mom and returns them to their dad.

So many dead or injured birds

While helping Alfred with gardening, he breaks a nail

Gun magazines at many scenes

Motorcyclists wearing red helmets

Someone's bubbling jacuzzi has a green light on

Duffle bags

He helps hold a bandage to someone's neck until paramedics arrive

Jason reads Frankenstein while at the Manor

An ad proclaims their coffins to be the sturdiest

Just his Robin story being jammed packed with foreshadowing.

It'd also be rad to have Easter Eggs:

Someone makes a comment about assassin kids

When talking to Bruce about something, on the batscreen is a very short file about "One Who is All"

Someone at a gala mentions the Drakes' newest archeology find

Kids at Jason's school chat about meta powers and how cool controlling light is

When visiting the hospital, the nurse introduces herself as Crystal

The buildup of the audience watching Jason, who's unaware of his future, continuously face sign after sign after sign? The irrational hope that maybe someone will notice the universe basically screaming about the future? Nobody notices as more and more signs pop up. It's maddening but so intriguing.

Jason's story of Robin would follow him as he goes from being desperate to survive to thriving. His paranoia that it's too good to be true thrums in his veins, but he learns to ignore it. He's fed, loved, and flies over Gotham every night. There's conflict, sure, but he's figuring out. It's okay.

The signs start out slow and subtle. As he starts to reach towards the end, they get more and more obvious. They occur more often.

Jason doesn't know when it all goes wrong, but he's figured it out before.

We don't see him lose hope until the very end.

EDIT:

Here's the og post I was referencing

[violetwolfraven]

The one thing that I would change about the wicked movie is I would have included a detail from the Wizard of Oz book that was referenced but not explicitly stuck to in the stage musical. The movie didn’t keep it but I wish they did because it lowkey makes no one looking twice at Elphaba in the Emerald City make more sense

In the Wizard of Oz, when Dorothy’s little posse gets to the gates of the Emerald City and a guard gives them these special glasses and locks them onto their faces, because supposedly the glasses protect them from the bright sunlight that reflects off the emerald buildings in the Emerald City, which would blind them otherwise.

They later find out that these glasses are a total sham. They’re just glasses with green lenses. Dorothy buys a green dress while they’re there that magically turns white the second she steps outside the city? It was never green in the first place. The Emerald City itself is not actually green. The Wizard just started mandating these glasses, told everyone the city was green, and they believed him. It really establishes just how much power the Wizard has, even after they realize he has no real magic.

If everyone was wearing these in the Emerald City in Wicked, I just think it would have added another layer to the whole scene when they visit. Elphaba would think everyone in the city is so much more openminded, and it’s actually that they can’t really see her at all. She’d think she’s in a safe place where for the first time in her life she can blend into a crowd, but it’s all an illusion. She and Glinda could get out on that balcony and look down and realize the city is not actually green. This is the one detail I would have changed about the movie.

[javierpena-inatacvest]

Chapter 6- Undeniable

Summary: when your car breaks down, you’re forced to ask Frankie for help. You’re not sure what you hate more- that you have to ask him for help, or that there’s a part of you that maybe can tolerate him

Word count: 6.2k

Pairing: Frankie Morales x f!reader (reader has a name/nickname, no use of y/n)

Warnings: Angst, tension (in a good way??!!), yearning (AHHH), teenage Frankie (and current day Frankie, for that matter) are down so bad, Santi and Benny play Dr. Phil

A/N: okay I said there would be smut this chapter, but I am a liar, and I am sorry 🤥 I flip flopped some scenes around and it ended up making more sense for some ✨things✨ to happen next chapter instead 🤷🏼‍♀️ I seriously love these two more and more every chapter, and this may have been my favorite one to write so far!! Thank you SO much for all the kind things you’ve had to say about this story- it really means more to me than you know 🥺💛 (sorry for any errors, I didn't have time to edit this chapter as well as I should have!)

All The Things We Never Said Masterlist

Previous Chapter Next Chapter

Frankie, Age 18, Summer of 2007

“Jesus Christ, Morales, you got bricks for feet, or what?”

The Garcia’s newly installed basketball hoop had been a welcome addition to the neighborhood rotation of afterschool hangouts. Santi knows just as well as Frankie and Benny that it’s really nothing but a ploy to keep the boys occupied and out their parent’s hair, but the three have gladly accepted the olive branch Santi’s parents have extended to them, regardless of motive.

Now that the heat of late May has begun to sear off the pavement of Everett Street and the dwindling motivation of senior year is in full force, basketball has quickly taken over as the new after school activity.

Benny and Santi love it because it gives them a chance to get out the competitive angst they’ve had locked away since football season has come to a close.

Frankie loves it because it gives him something to keep him occupied until you come home from soccer practice.

Even then, he still finds himself anxiously counting down the minutes until your car pulls into the driveway, stepping out of the driver’s seat to give him that same goofy wave of approval that frees him from his friends’ constant bickering about where the three point line lays on the cement.

Ever since he told you he was leaving, there’s a part of him that debates forgoing basketball all together, just so he can make it to your house that much quicker when you get home. Now more than ever, he’s hyper aware of every second he has left with you, the internal countdown constantly nagging in the back of his mind before it’s four hundred miles that separate the two of you, not four houses.

Because now, not only does he have 74 days left to figure out how to say goodbye to his best friend, he has 74 days left to figure out how to tell her that he’s head over heels in love with her.

That’s what’s on Frankie’s mind as the pass Santi’s thrown at him rolls right past his shoes and down the driveway.

No shit, he’s got bricks for feet.

“Helloooooo? Earth to Frankie? You gonna get the fuckin’ ball, or what?” Santi shouts, wildly waving his arms, trying to snap his friend out of whatever weird daydream he’s stuck in.

“Oh, y-yeah. Yeah, sorry.” Frankie stammers, half jogging for the bouncing ball, tossing it back to Benny, also barely paying attention enough to keep the rubber from smacking him upside the head.

“Fuck, dude, you tryin’ to kill me, or somethin’? A heads up would be nice next time!” Benny scoffs, trying to downplay the fact he’s nearly just shit his pants from the ball that came out of nowhere and almost took him out.

“S-sorry. My bad.” Frankie grimaces, sheepishly running his hand through his thick, messy curls before rubbing the back of his neck.

Santi and Benny exchange confused glances with each other before turning their attention back to their clearly pre-occupied friend.

“Hey, you good, man?” Santi asks, scrunching his brow at Frankie’s tortured scowl.

“Yeah dude, you’ve been like, super out of it the past couple of days. Everything okay?” Benny adds. He tries to discreetly nudge Santi, givinging him a look that’s meant to ask if there’s something he’s missing. The best Santi can give him back is an ambivalent shrug, just as lost as his friend as to why Frankie’s mentally residing on another planet.

“Yeah. I’m- I’m fine.”

Sure, Santi and Benny aren’t as emotionally mature as their friend, but they also aren’t stupid. It’s obvious there’s something he’s keeping from them, and they’re far too relentless to let it go until they find out.

“Dude… C’mon.” Santi prods, taking a step towards Frankie to poke him on the shoulder.

“Yeah, spill the fuckin’ beans, Frank. What the hell’s goin’ on?” Benny chimes in, following Santi’s lead with another forceful poke.

“It’s nothing! Jesus, will you drop it?”

Santi smirks at how agitated Frankie’s become, spending enough years with his friend to know there’s one thing, and one thing only that’s got him this worked up.

“Is this about Kenz?”

Frankie’s eyes dart rapidly between his friends, the sky and his feet, too afraid to settle in one place as he’s consumed by his own silence, crossing his arms over his chest as he braces himself to defend against the onslaught he’s about to be faced with.

He could lie, say no, keep arguing with Santi and Benny until he’s blue in the face, but he knows it’s no use. Deep down, he has a feeling they already know what he’s going to say. He also has a feeling he’ll never go a day for the rest of his life where they won’t give him ten pounds of shit for it, but Frankie’s desperate. If he doesn’t figure out what to do, there’s a good chance he just may explode.

“You have to swear you won’t say anything about this to anyone.” Frankie sternly sighs, eyeing down his friends with a deathly glare, “Swear you won’t.”

“We swear, man.”

“Yeah, we swear.”

Benny and Santi nod in agreement, too shocked at his agreement to tell them anything rather than asking them to fuck off and leave him alone. They wait in patient silence as Frankie takes a long, shaky deep breath in.

“I um- fuck. Fuck.” He stammers, terrified to hear himself admit what he’s had locked away in his brain for years out loud for the first time, “I’m uh- I think I’m in love with MacKezie. I think I’m in love with her and I don’t know what to do.”

Frankie’s mortified by the silence from his friends in the seconds that follow. He’s even more mortified by their howling laughter that comes after that.

“That’s it? Oh, thank God!” Santi cackles, him and Benny clutching their chests to try and keep themselves standing, “Dude, I thought you were gonna say something fucking crazy. You looked like you were gonna fucking throw up.”

“W-what? Santi, did you not just hear what I fucking said? I literally just told you-”

��That you’re in love with MacKenzie? News flash, Morales, we’ve known you’ve been in love with her since like, the eighth grade. Holy shit, I can’t believe you finally fucking admitted it!”

Frankie’s face grows hotter by the second, his cheeks ablaze with bright reds and pinks, not sure if he’s more embarrassed by what he’s admitted, or the fact that he’s worked himself up for weeks to finally tell his friends something they’ve already known for years and Frankie was too blind to realize it.

“Well, okay- I just- what am I- what am I gonna do?” Frankie stutters, throwing his hands up to the sky, very aware that the admittance of his love for you is only a small part to his greater problem.

“Whatta you mean, what are you gonna do?” Benny questions, he and Santi still giggling over how frantic and flustered Frankie still was.

“It’s not fuckin’ rocket science, Frank.” Santi smirks, giving him a playful nudge, “Just tell her that you love her.”

“Are you out of your fucking mind, Santi?! I can’t just tell her I love her, that’s- fuck, that’s crazy!” Frankie’s all but shouting at his friend for what feels like the most outrageous idea he’s ever heard, crazily pacing up and down the driveway, as if he’s asking his friends for advice on where to hide the body he’s just killed.

“And that would be crazy because….?” Santi teases, anxiously awaiting whatever ridiculous answer Frankie has to finish off the rest of his sentence.

“Because?!” Frankie asks, storming so fast up and down the driveway, he’s about to make fresh cracks in the concrete, “Because, b-because- fuck, Santi, what if I tell her that I love her and she doesn’t feel the same way? What if I ruin our friendship forever and then I get my fuckin’ heart broken and lose my best friend? Jesus Christ, that’s why.”

“You wanna tell him or should I?” Benny proposes, shrugging at Santi.

In a silent agreement, Santi gives Benny a nod, taking a step towards Frankie to grab him by the shoulders, forcing him to stand still enough to capture his full attention.

“Frankie, lemme ask you this.” Santi pauses, bringing Frankie’s gaze from his feet up to his friend, thinking for once in his life, he may actually be willing to give him some serious advice.

“Yeah?”

“Are you blind, or are you stupid? ‘Cause I think you may be both.”

“What the fuck, dude?!” Frankie scoffs over Santi and Benny’s snickering, outstretching his arms to push Santi off of him.

“Damn, maybe he is.” Benny grimaces overdramatically, playing into Santi’s theatrics.

“Fuck off, Benny!” Frankie frowns, starting to regret asking his friends for help.

“Jesus Christ, I can’t believe I really have to spell this out for you.” Santi sighs, squeezing his temples between his thumb and index finger.

“What!?” Frankie presses, nearly fed up with his antics.

“Shit, you’re right Benny, he may be dumber than we thought.” Santi snorts before quickly turning his attention back to Frankie, “Frankie… You do realize MacKenzie’s in love with you too, right?”

Frankie feels his heart stop. He’s partly convinced it’s flatlined indefinitely. The only thing that’s keeping him alive is even the tiniest chance that what Santi has to say is actually true.

That maybe, just maybe, you love him, too.

“Santi, c’mon. Be- be fucking serious. There’s no way.”

Frankie won’t let himself believe anything yet, no matter how badly he wants to. Knowing Santi, he wouldn’t be shocked if he’s trying to pull him in to some sick sort of joke, but the looks on his, and Benny’s faces is all the earth shattering reassurance Frankie needs to know that Santi’s telling the truth.

“He’s being serious, I swear.” Benny chimes in, trying to aid in convincing Frankie.

“Think about it, Frank. The two of you spend every fucking second together. You’re basically already dating without actually dating. And not even just because of the fact you like, pretty much go on dates to the movies or ice cream, or whatever. Didn’t you say she cried for like, an hour when you told her you were leaving?”

“I- I mean, y- yeah, I guess.”

“Or the fact that she’s never dated anyone else and has had you locked in as her prom date since last year.” Benny adds.

“Don't even get me started on the fact you two cuddle every time we watch a movie together, because God forbid you’re not touching each other for an hour and a half.”

“I- I- I- don’t know. I mean, sure, yeah, but just because she does that doesn’t mean she’s in love with me!”

Frankie can feel his insides churn, like someone’s put them in a blender and cranked it on high. He’s not sure what’s more terrifying- that you do all those things but you’re not in love with him, or that you do all of them because you are.

He quickly comes to determine the second is much scarier than the first. Mostly because there’s a part of him that believes maybe you’re just as in love with him as he is with you.

“Fuck, I think I’m gonna throw up.”

Frankie’s knees wobble as he sinks to the ground, bottom hitting the pavement with a thud.

“Well shit, don’t do it on the driveway, my mom’s gonna kill me. If you gotta yak, at least do it on the grass.”

Santi and Benny settle in on either side of Frankie, the trio of boys squatting at the edge of the driveway. Frankie buries his head in his hands, scrunching his face so hard into his sweaty palms that maybe, some sort of reasonable idea will pop into his brain if he squeezes hard enough.

“You guys really think she likes me? Like, actually?” Frankie asks, peeking his head up to look back and forth between Santi and Benny.

“Uh, yeah.” The pair agree in unison, each giving their friend a pat on the back, trying to keep their all-knowing laughter at bay to soothe Frankie through his distress.

“Fuck. Holy shit. So- So what do I do? Just- Do I just tell her?”

“I mean, I’m no love guru, but you like, may wanna be a little more subtle than that.” Benny snickers, giving Frankie a little nudge, “I mean, do you wanna tell her?”

“Yeah. Fuck. Fuck, I wanna tell her so bad.” It spills out of Frankie’s mouth without any hesitation. The more he thinks about it, the more sure he is.

“Like, you’re already going with her to prom and stuff. You could do it then?” Santi suggests with a slight shrug of his shoulders.

“Damn, alright, Mr. Romance over here with the advice.”

“Shut up, Benny. You got any better advice? At least I’ve fuckin’ had a girlfriend before, you dingus, have you? Didn’t think so.”

Frankie’s completely blocked out their bickering, lost in his own train of thought, where all he can picture is you- Your smile, the little strand of hair that you tuck behind your ear when it falls in your face, the way your nose crinkles when you laugh, the little curl in your lips you get when you smirk at him when he tells a stupid joke.

How badly he wishes his lips could meet yours to feel that smirk pressed against his face.

“Do… Do you- Do you think I should kiss her?”

“Jesus Christ, Frankie, what are we, twelve?” Yeah, man, fuckin’ kiss her.” Santi snorts, Benny joining in with muffled laughter in his throat at the innocence of his question, “God, with how nervous you sounded, I thought you were gonna ask if you should like, have sex with her, or somethin’.”

It’s then his brain truly short circuits, his heart about to fall out of his ass and lump in his throat the size of a softball.

He has enough balls to admit he’s thought plenty of times about kissing you.

But right now, he certainly doesn’t have enough balls to confess to his friends, (or even to himself, for that matter) he’s spent just as much time thinking about doing a lot more than just kissing you.

He’s spent even more time thinking about just how badly he wants to.

One step at a time, Morales.

You, Present

“You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me…”

Turning over your ignition to the sound of empty rattles once wasn’t anything to worry about.

Turning it over twice to the sound of silence you could chalk up to bad luck.

But after six different attempts to start your car to no avail, you were fairly certain your issue wasn’t based solely on user error.

“Fuck…” You huff to yourself, yanking out your keys and slamming the driver’s side door behind you as you storm back into the house, now in a race against the clock to get your car not only started, but driveable enough to get you to work on time.

It’s the stupid things like this you haven’t mentally prepared yourself for when it comes to your father’s impending death- Not having a built in mechanic at your disposal to help solve your car issues when something goes awry. It seems selfish to take from the few precious moments you have left with him to pester your dad about your car troubles, but you know for a fact, your dying father has a better chance of diagnosing your issue from his bed than you do hands deep in the engine.

“Hey, Dad.” You grimace, gently rousing him from his half-awake state in front of the TV, “Dad, can I ask you something, or are you too busy dying?”

Your joke is enough to crack a sleepy smile in the corner of his lips, grunting as he turns his head over to see you hunched over the edge of his bed.

“Depends. Is it worth my time, or should I go back to decaying?” He fights with everything in him to let out the softest laugh, a sputtering cough following as his chest rises and falls, trying his best to not let his final days prevent him from being the helpful dad you’d always known.

“My car won’t start. Do you have any idea of what it could be?”

“You gonna wheel me out to the driveway to have me figure it out?”

You both know it’s ridiculous, what you’re asking him to do. You’re not sure what compelled you to think that he’d be able to help solve your problem, but your yearning for the normalcy that’s been absent in your life for so long seems to outweigh any logic.

“I think we could probably crank the bed high enough for you to look under the hood.” You shrug with a sad type of sarcasm, anxiously fiddling with your fingers to try and brainstorm a solution to your time-sensitive issue.

“You know there’s someone four houses down who is very capable of solving your problem who isn’t dying.”

For as hard as your dad fought for his half huffed laugher, he fights even harder for the smug smirk pinching the corner of his cheeks.

“Dad…” You let out a deep breath, trying to not let your eyes roll to the back of your skull from even pondering the idea of admitting to Frankie Morales that you need his help.

“Mackenzie Grace?” He questions back, pretending to be blissfully unaware of your reason for dramatic pause.

“Dad, you can’t be serious.”

“I am, actually. Dead serious. And right now, I’m at a point in my life where that statement can’t be any closer to the truth.”

Unfortunately, that’s an argument you can’t fight.

You sigh again, chewing at your lip to see if your brain can muster any other plausible solution before you admit defeat, but you know it’s no use. Your dad is kind enough to accept your silence as a white flag, sparing you the embarrassment of admitting he’s right. What he’s not kind enough to do, is to let you off without making sure he gets the last word.

“You can’t stay mad at him forever, honey.”

“I can, actually.”

Right now, your dad better thank his lucky stars he’s dying, because any other circumstance, and you would have already been halfway out the door before you put yourself through this conversation again.

“MacKenzie,” He pauses, the frail and wrinkled ends of his fingertips reaching out just enough to rest on the hand you have wrapped around the bar of his bed guard rails, “if I give you some dying words of wisdom, do you promise to listen, actually listen to what I have to say?”

You know he’s about to tell you something you have no intention of wanting to hear. You want so badly to lie, to say “yes”, just to appease him without really meaning it. But the guilty conscious eating you alive in the pit of your stomach won’t let you get off that easily.

“Yeah, I promise.”

It’s soft enough for only you and him, just quiet enough to keep the world out of your shared secret.

“Holding a grudge won’t make you any happier. It won’t change what happened, either. I’d be willing to bet he’s still holding one against you, too. There’s two sides to every story, MacKenzie Grace, and you can’t keep blaming him like you didn’t have a part in what happened, too. He’s already accepted he’s in the wrong for what he did. God bless the fact you ended up just as stubborn as your old man, but at some point, you have to get off your high horse and do the same.”

It’s unsettling, the feeling that washes over you- it makes every inch of your body twinge and wince in a strange sort of self-inflicted pain you can’t shake, the indescribable discomfort that makes you want to crawl out of your skin and evaporate into thin air. The tormented sensation stirring in your gut makes you want to scream and cry and run away, all at the same time.

Because it’s not the truth of your dad’s words alone that make you feel this way- you’ve come face to face with this truth more times than you’d like to count.

It’s the fact that for the first time, you’ve come face to face with the truth, and there’s a part of you that can accept it.

You stand there for another moment at the edge of his bed, eyes peeled to the ground, trying to find the words you’re too scared to admit. Maybe your silence is a loud enough confession.

“I’ll see you when I get back from work, okay?” You lean down and kiss his head, giving your dad’s hand a final, gentle squeeze before you’re halfway out the door, car keys in hand.

“I thought your car wasn’t working?”

Your dad has never been one for “I told you so’s” . The stifled smile and playful glisten in his tired eyes will do just fine.

“Bye, Dad.”

Your dad’s words echo in your brain as you begin your journey down the driveway, terrified by the tiniest amount of weight it’s lifted off your shoulders.

“Holding a grudge won’t make you any happier. It won’t change what happened, either.”

Maybe he’s got a point. But that’s easy to say when you’re only dealing with the idea of Frankie you’ve built up in your head, not when you’re about to come face to face with him in real time.

There’s a part of you that debates just walking to work. Hell, the hour walk it would take you to get to work would probably be easier than the thirty second walk you’re about to take four houses down.

You’ll be lucky if you don’t gnaw off your entire thumbnail by the time you make it to the Morales’s doorstep, trying to clench your fists as tight as possible with every step you take towards their house to attempt to keep your nerves (and nails) intact.

You’re not sure you’ve ever walked this slow to his house. There was once a time that you couldn’t sprint there fast enough, legs leaping over cracks in the sidewalk to meet Frankie at his front door. Now, it feels like you might as well be crawling with the time you’re trying to waste before you ring his doorbell.

You practically tip toe up the steps to the porch, like it’s some sort of crime to be at his house and you’re terrified of being caught. Your finger hovers over the doorbell, outstretched and ready to press, too frozen in fear to move the extra inch it will take to press the rounded button.

“Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.” You curse under your breath, furrowing your brow at your inability to face his front door. You ball your free hand up to a fist, slamming your knuckles against your forehead with a sigh so heavy, you’d probably give that wolf from The Three Little Pigs a run for his money, “‘C’mon, MacKenzie, just ring the damn doorbell.”

Your heart stops as the tip of your index finger finally pushes hard enough to force the high pitched chime, forcing yourself to keep your feet planted on the doormat below you instead of booking it half way across town.

“One sec!”

The bellow of his voice from behind the door is enough to jumpstart the stand still of your heartbeat, so much so that in an instant, it’s gone from flatlining to nearly beating out of your chest.

At this point, even if you wanted to run, you’re not sure your body would let you.

As the knob turns and draws back towards the house, Frankie’s broad body fills the doorframe. He looks almost as frozen as you, so stunned by your presence, his tongue darts between his lips as a placeholder for the words he lacks.

“H-hey?” He asks it so cautiously, eyebrows scrunching in confusion while he looks you up and down, too scared to say anything else until he figures out why you’ve shown up at his front door.

“My um- My car won’t- I have to go to work and I can’t get my car to start.”

You don’t dare phrase it as anything other than a statement of fact. You’ll die before the words “Frankie, will you help me?” escape from your lips.

“O-oh. Shit.” He cocks his head, the pinch of his face immediately easing along with the rest of his body, standing up a little straighter as he leans against the doorframe.

“Sorry, i-if you’re busy or whatever, don’t feel like you-”

“No- No, I mean, yeah, no, I don’t- shit-” He stutters, pausing as he shakes his head with a little laugh at the ground, trying to compose himself before he trips over his words again, “Yes, I um- Yeah, I can help.”

“O-okay. Thank- Thanks.” You try to fight the tug you feel in your lips creeping towards the corner of your cheeks that mirrors the grin Frankie’s trying so desperately to hide on his face.

The two of you stand there for a moment, feet wriggling in the tips of your shoes and fingers twiddling in your pockets, using every ounce of strength you have to ignore the heat flushing through your cheeks that makes you want to hate him just a little bit less.

It’s hard to suppress when Frankie’s trying to keep up his facade with the world’s worst poker face as he’s beaming ear to ear.

“Let me just uh- Lemme grab some stuff and I’ll meet you over there?” He asks, tiptoeing around what seems too good to be true.

“Y-yeah. Yeah, sounds good.”

You give each other a little nod before he disappears behind his door. You tilt your head to the sky, eyes closed as the deepest sigh of relief you can take escapes your body. It feels like the first gasp you take when you peak above the surface after holding your breath underwater, remembering what it feels like to finally breathe again.

It takes everything in you to pretend you don’t feel the strange pang in your chest as you watch Frankie walk to your house after you’ve made it back to your driveway, his gray shirt clinging to his biceps as he carries over his bucket of tools and brown curls spilling out from under the worn, Standard Oil hat he’s obviously still refused to throw away.

You lean against the hood of your car, arms crossed over your chest, trying your best to seem ambivalent about the whole ordeal.

If you were nominated for an Oscar in the “Pretending to be aloof in front of Frankie Morales while he fixes your car” category, you most surely wouldn’t be winning.

“Hey, again.” He grins as he sets his tools down, mirroring your stance to cross his arms over his chest.

“Hey, again.” You parrot.

“So, uh… Your car?” Frankie asks, nodding over to the vehicle you’re leaning on.

“Yeah, uh- yeah, I don’t know what’s going on. I tried starting it like, five different times and it doesn’t do anything. I’ve never had this happen to me before and of course it’s when I’m trying to leave for work.” You shrug, trying to play into the fact you at least tried to do something before coming to find him.

“Huh. Alright, well, lemme see what I can do, okay?” He nods again, leaving your fingers to play with your sleeves to keep yourself occupied, instead of staring at him, mesmerized by the way you can still hear the gears turning in his brain as he processes. “Can I uh- is it okay if I have the keys?”

You fumble through your pockets, digging out your keys to place them in the palm of Frankie’s outstretched hand, the linger of your touch on his skin just long enough to make you subtly jerk your arm back in embarrassment.

You step back to let Frankie slide past you, watching him try to squeeze himself into the driver’s seat to start your car, half his body still hanging out the open door.

“Are you- are you not teaching anymore?”

“Wh- huh?” His question catches you off guard, the scowl of confusion painted across your face making him quickly elaborate before drawing his attention back to your car.

“You just uh- sorry, you said you were going to work. It’s 5 P.M. on a Thursday in June, so, ya know, figured you probably weren’t going to school.”

He gives the key one more turn before sliding out of the car, carefully passing your keys back off to you before making his way to open the hood. You cautiously follow behind him, arms still crossed against your chest as he props the front of the car up to reveal the engine.

“Oh. Uh- no, yeah. No, I’m uh- I’m still teaching. Normally I do summer school to make some extra money, but because of my dad and everything and not being home, it just, ya know, I just couldn’t. I still wanted something to do to make money and keep me busy, so um, Katie’s Dad still owns The Parrot’s Nest on 14th, so I asked him if I could just do some part time waitressing and bartending and stuff. It’s nice ‘cause he’s been really flexible with everything going on.”

Your eyes dart to the ground as Frankie shifts his view from the inside of the car back to you. The air fills with a heavy pause, like neither of you are really sure how to react to the fact you’re managing a semi-civil conversation that’s more than just one word responses.

Frankie lets out a quiet huff, trying to hide the soft smile curling in the corner of his scruff covered cheeks before turning back to the car, silently tinkering for a few moments before mustering up the courage to speak again.

“That’s nice of him. Didn’t even know that place was still around.” There’s a little grunt as he leans deeper into the car, reaching around to search for some sort of part he wants to check, “I’m uh- I’m glad you’re still teaching, though. That’s um, that’s good.”

“Yeah, thanks.”

Your hands have shifted from folded across your chest to in your pockets, a subconscious move you’ve made as a brick from the wall you’ve built between yourself and Frankie Morales seems to crumble without you realizing.

You let him work for a few more moments before he’s diagnosed your issue, carefully closing the hood and wiping the engine grime on the towel from the tool bucket he’s brought with him.

“So uh- good news is, you just need a new battery. Easy fix. Bad news is, your battery’s dead, and your car’s not gonna start without a new one.” Frankie shrugs, hoping he’s not pushing his luck with the little laugh he gives himself at his joke.

“Fuck. Okay, uh- shit, okay.” You mutter, not necessarily upset with Frankie for delivering the news of his discovery, but angry at the fact you need to buy a new car battery and have no way to get to work. “Um, sorry, give me a second, I’m gonna call Jim and let him know that I can’t make it in today.”

“I- I can drive you.”

You’re sure Frankie’s just as surprised as you when the offer comes out of his mouth, freezing your thumb over your boss’s contact you’re about to dial. Frankie clearly interprets the look on your face as one of skepticism about his idea, quickly trying to backpedal before he preemptively digs his own grave.

“No, I mean, um- if you want. I can- I can drop you off. So you, uh- that way you don’t have to miss work.”

“No, Frankie, it’s fine, you- you already helped figure out what’s wrong with my car, it’s not a big deal, don’t wo-”

“I want to.”

You don’t mean for your sigh to be as audible as it is. It only seems fair, considering there was no world in which you ever considered having to contemplate not only asking Frankie for help, but also spending a fifteen minute car ride together so he can drop you off at work. You chew at your bottom lip as you contemplate the lesser of two evils- be stuck in Frankie’s metal death trap of a car, forced within a 3 foot proximity of him for the entire ride, or miss out on the most hours you’ve been scheduled in the past two weeks for money you really do need.

Swallowing your pride is the toughest pill you’ve had to swallow in quite a long time.

“Fine.”

It’s not even your answer you think shocks him the most. It’s how little he had to argue with you to agree.

You want to roll your eyes at the little smirk of satisfaction he gives himself, knowing you’ve gone 0-2 on your hardened stance of despising Frankie’s guts since talking with your dad. It only stings more that you’re sure Frankie is getting endless amounts of satisfaction that you’ve given into him so quickly.

But fuck, if you didn’t miss that stupid, goofy grin of his when he knows he’s beaten you at your own game.

“Only if your car isn’t gonna kill us first before we get there.” You groan, eyeing down Frankie’s beater truck he’s been driving since he got his license. It was in questionable shape over a decade ago, you’re not sure what kind of deal Frankie made with the devil to keep the hunk of junk up and running.

“She’s fine. Haven’t managed to kill you in her yet, have I?” Frankie rebuttals, grabbing his tools as you follow behind him towards his car.

“Well, there’s a first time for everything.” You sigh, shaking your head in annoyance that Frankie’s still driving this damn thing on principle alone, “How the fuck is this thing even still running?”

“‘Cause you don’t give her enough credit. Got me here from North Carolina just fine.” Frankie scoffs, the two of you settling into your perspective seats inside his truck.

His comment makes you frown at your lap as you buckle your seatbelt, not because of the sass he’s inflicted, but because it reminds you that he’s moved himself states away just to further the distance between you two.

“S-sorry, it was meant to be a joke.” Frankie mutters, looking over at you as he drives and noticing the way you’ve gone quiet, eyes peeled to the ground.

“No, I know.” You reply back, anxiously digging under your nails with your stare still locked on your feet. “How’s um- how’s North Carolina?”

“Oh. Um, It’s uh- It’s fine, I guess.”

It’s then you notice Frankie’s realized the reason for your silence, uncomfortably fidgeting in his seat and grip tightening around the steering wheel as he processes your disappointment.

It’s hard to decipher what he means by “fine.” Fine, like he’s more than fine and doesn't want to rub it in your face how well he’s doing? Fine, like actually a normal amount of fine and he just has nothing of interest to report? Fine, like he’s not fine at all, but doesn’t have the balls to admit it to you?

With the way he can’t bring himself to look at you, it has to be the first or third option. You’re not sure which one is worse.

You’re also not sure why you feel so compelled to find out.

“You still uh- doing um, mechanic stuff for the Army?” You ask, glancing over just enough to watch Frankie’s fingers drum against the steering wheel.

“Yeah. Helicopter maintenance, mostly.”

It’s still not enough to give you the definitive answer you’re looking for. You’re too stubborn for your own good to just quit while you’re ahead. Because of all the questions you could have asked him, the one you ask him next is like voluntarily putting a gun to your head and asking him to shoot.

“Are you, uh- you um, seeing anyone? Samantha, or whatever her name was?”

It’s the first time he locks eyes with you since you’ve gotten in the car. Frankie looks you up and down, tongue running across the top of his teeth under his lips and raising his brows just enough to let you know you’ve got his attention.

Every second of silence that lingers before his answer only leads you to believe he’s trying to let you down slowly before he has to pull the trigger. You brace yourself for the bullet.

“No. I uh, shit- I- Sarah and I broke up a while ago. After um, after Santi’s wedding, actually. No, I um, I’m not seeing anyone. Haven’t really been since then, I guess.”

Your body stays tense, still bracing yourself for the inevitable blow, but it never comes. Not only has Frankie taken his finger off the trigger, he’s put away the gun all together. You’re so stunned you’ve made it out of the question alive, you aren’t quite sure how to react.

“O-oh. I uh- I didn’t know.”

“Are- are you? S-seeing anyone?” He stutters, the words heavy in his throat as he gulps.

“No. After how things ended with Liam, I just- I haven’t either.”

It’s uncomfortable, the silence that fills the car and seeps between you. Not quite awkward, not quite upset, not quite relieved, either. It’s heavy, like a backpack full of bricks you’ve had strapped to your shoulders that you refuse to put down- you’d rather keep burdening yourself with the weight than just take it off, too used to the ache it spreads to every inch of your body.

Maybe, the silence is so uncomfortable because you’re starting to realize how stupid it is to let these types of things keep weighing you down.

Holding a grudge won’t make you any happier. It won’t change what happened, either.

You’ve been so lost in your own head, you’d barely even realized the car had come to a stop, the soft orange and pink glow of The Parrot’s Nest sign illuminating the inside of Frankie’s truck with muted neon snapping you back to reality.

Your hand wraps around the door handle, ready to break free into the parking lot before Frankie’s voice stops you.

“What time are you done?”

You look back over your shoulder, taken aback.

“Why?”

“So I can pick you up.”

It’s so matter of fact, like he had never contemplated any other option from the moment he’d offer to drive you, his soft, brown eyes sinking as you shake your head at him.

“Frankie, it’s fine. I can have someone else drive me ho-”

“Please?”

Your head wants to say no. It wants to push open the door with a half hearted “thanks for the ride” and pretend like the past 15 minutes had simply never existed, wiping the strange pang in your chest and swirling in your stomach from its memory.

Apparently, your heart’s decided it has other plans.

“I’m done at ten.”

“Then I promise to be back here at ten.”

Frankie Morales is a man who’s broken many things.

Your heart, your trust, your friendship.

But out of all the things Frankie has broken, he’s never broken a promise.

And that’s how you know at ten o’clock sharp, you’ll find his beat up Chevy in the parking lot of The Parrot’s Nest, waiting for you.

@chaotic-iguana @bbiophiliaa @pertinentpostmortem @angelofsmalldeath-codeine

@pedrobaby @fatima-marisa @beboldbebravethings @poodlebae @kittenlittle24

@3sriracha @jungchloee @perennialdoll247 @prettyinpunk85 @raspberrybesitos

@partyofone3413 @harriedandharassed @pedrohoe04 @theorganasolo

@endlessthxxghts @beware-my-thorns @missladym1981 @milly-louise

@jay-zzle @the-one-with-the-grey-color @persephone-girl @bitchesuntitled

@pedropascallvr @millennial-teenybopper @vee-bees-blog @itsokbbygrl

@hopplessilse @mxtokko @its-nebuleuse @mandoisapunk @msmorningstaarr

@amyispxnk @honeyedmiller @mountainsandmayhem @picketniffler @burningnerdchild

@copperhalfcent @theoraekenslover @bloodyinspirationaldemon @vee-bees-blog

@samgirl4life @pigeonmama @survivingandenduring @jolapeno @ovaryacted

@amanitacowboy @mystickittytaco @anoverwhelmingdin @greenwitchfromthewoods

@witchofthedeepwoods @ericamarie093 @readingiskeepingmegoing @whimsiwitchy @whoaitspascal87

@vickie5446 @katw474 @ravenpoe67 @inthedarkestnight @brittmb115

@harryscherrysugar @wonderpillar @sunnytuliptime @pasc4lfuzz @yesjazzywazzylove-blog

@kungfucapslock @vannabanana1995 @beezusvreeland

@javierpena-inatacvestnotifs

[cultural-marxism-official]

Its extremely bizarre how veilguard utterly ignores dalish elves, when the whole game is about their GODS coming back. E&G shouldnt even need to corrupt people, they would absolutely have countless dalish and elven slaves flocking to them if soley for the purpose of fucking up human shit.

You have innumerable tevinter slaves who wouldnt need any convincing to join them just to see the world burn after being abused all their life and seeing countless friends and family die at tevinter hands. How fucking morally interesting and heartwrenching would it be to have to fight freed slaves who willingly joined the gods because all this shit, lets burn this shit world down and all the shem with it.

You have so many dalish who have been waiting, PRAYING a day like this would come, a day their gods came to them and said now its time to take thedas back, to take their rightful place once more. To handwave it off as "oh the gods dont sctually care abt elves" is stupid and makes no sense. Theyre tryinf to amass a force to kill everyone, what do you mean they wouldnt cate about the tens of thousands of willing fighters they wouldnt even need to corrupt, in all corners of thedas. They'd use them just as any other tool or weapon at their disposal.

Also i can barely count the veil jumpers as dalish. Theyre not a single clan, they have no keepers, they dont act like dalish and neither does bellara. Ive never heard her mention her clan, her traditions beyond the veil jumpers. And to have the veil jumpers trust non elven, non dalish outsiders with their operations, their peoples deepest most sacret artifacts and secrets is BONKERS

Like dont get me started on how there is just no spirituality AT ALL in this game. The game about GODS. Nobody cares that the elven gods are REAL and the maker isnt. Theres a single scene about it and hardly any of your companions give a shit, because the writers forgot that most people of thedas are religious, andrastian specifically. Everyones just kinda agnostic or atheist now i fucking guess. Its not ljke there have been multiple crusades because of religion in thedas.

Whatever

[starmocha]

Part 2 of my third theory about Sylus' upcoming myth, and I'm speculating about their separation. But first, look at Sylus' beautiful smile, because this is gonna get sad real fast 😔

So we can infer from the trailer that Sylus and MC were in love with one another at some point, but then the Sylus we meet in the main story is very cold. His words sound cryptic when you first hear them, but after spending an afternoon lol reviewing some key Sylus memories and comparing them with the trailer, it kind of makes sense.

I made a theory months earlier before Sylus' official release about how I think Sylus and MC's story could bear some resemblance to the Greek myth of Cupid and Psyche.

Quick paraphrase:

Cupid, the god of love and desire, was originally tasked by his mother, the goddess of love and beauty, Aphrodite, to make a beautiful mortal princess, Psyche, fall in love with the most hideous being, simply because she was offended by Psyche's beauty. Instead, Cupid falls in love with Psyche upon sight. Through his own scheme, he arranges for Psyche to marry him, but his identity remains a secret for the duration of their marriage. Psyche was only told she was to wed a monster even the gods themselves feared. However, Cupid is kind and loving to her. She is only forbidden from viewing his face. One day, after noticing his wife is despondent, Cupid learns that Psyche misses her family. He allows her sisters to visit. The sisters are jealous of their youngest sister's seemingly perfect and luxurious life. Upon learning that Psyche is not allowed to view her husband's face, they plant a seed in her head that her husband could be hideous or a true monster. They persuaded her to kill him in his sleep with a dagger before he could kill her. Hesitant, Psyche starts to carry out the plan that night. However, when she holds a lamp to her husband's sleeping body in their bed, she sees the most beautiful man in her life. The lamp drips hot oil onto Cupid and he awakens, enraged by Psyche's violation of his trust and he leaves.

At the end of Long-Awaited Revelry, Sylus does ask if MC will give him a sincere apology if he admits that her cryptic visions did in fact happened.

If you recall, ever since Sylus triggered her "memories" in their first encounter in the main story, she starts hearing voices:

"Devour him." "He's yours for the taking." "Kill him."

Is it possible, similar to the myth of Cupid and Psyche, MC was coerced by "loved ones" to kill Sylus?

Sylus obviously knows the truth. He dances around this topic often, giving only terse responses. He admits that they do have a shared past together, but doesn't elaborate much on it. Whatever has happened, we the readers and MC herself, recognize that Sylus is deeply wounded by the events.

In one of MC's last visions in the main story, she sees a blurry scene full of destruction and confusion. She hears Sylus' voice.

There's no animosity in his voice. He encourages her on. There is a dream MC has in the Tender Moments, Continuous Symphony, where past her is sharing a tensed moment with Sylus:

Even though he says he won't die, the way he speaks seem to infer otherwise. However, it is possible he could still live and the current Sylus we know is still the very same one as in the myth.

In the trailer, there is an interesting scene with the claymore:

It appears to be pierced into the ground in a field of red poppies. Poppies have throughout history been used as a symbol of sleep, peace, and death. It has also been used in remembrance of fallen soldiers. A sword placed into the ground can also serve as a gravestone for its master.

Originally, I had speculated in another post that this could be Sylus' grave, but perhaps it makes more sense to view it as MC's since in her new combat outfit, she is the one wielding the claymore.

Perhaps, in the end, MC is executed. Maybe Sylus placed the claymore there in remembrance, since presumably, he wouldn't have her body to give her a more proper grave. Placing it in a field of poppies could be symbolic of wishing her a peaceful slumber in death.

I don't have any caps, but I have mentioned before how Sylus shows disdain for humans. You can trigger a comment from him in the café where he seems very disgusted by human behavior. Likewise, he also seems to prefer animals more since they do not have any evil in their hearts. Could it possibly have stemmed from this time? Perhaps in the end, he is angered that MC is slain by her own people.

OK, I'll end it here. Gonna check back Monday to see how off I am lol

[quillandtea]

Tonight’s thought

Let’s talk about Nicola Coughlan, Jake Dunn, Luke Newton, and this whole messy situation. Because, honestly, I’m baffled, frustrated, and trying to make sense of what’s real versus what people want to be real.

First, let’s address the Lukola fans (myself included): there’s this belief among some fans that Nicola and Luke are secretly in a relationship. The proof? “Crumbs.” Literally crumbs. What are crumbs, you ask? They’re the little moments people cling to: behind-the-scenes clips, interviews, photos where they’re smiling at each other, or moments where their characters (Colin and Penelope) are obviously acting and showing their chemistry. And yes, their chemistry on Bridgerton is undeniable—it’s what makes Polin work. But let’s be real: they’re actors. Their job is to sell their attraction so people will watch the show. That’s the point of their work.

Outside of playing their characters, WT (walking and talking outside of work or being seen interacting) is also thrown in as “evidence,” but even then… they’re colleagues! Of course, they’re going to have some level of friendliness. So where’s the solid proof? Why is this idea of them being secretly together so persistent? Why do we cling to the crumbs but never acknowledge the lack of an actual loaf?

Now let’s flip the narrative to what everyone is actually talking about: Nicola and Jake Dunn (JD). There’s been so much speculation and, honestly, the evidence there is glaring. Pictures of them in Malta, NYC, concerts, dinners with friends—and not just casual group shots. There’s that one where they’re holding hands outside a restaurant, and you can’t convince me they were expecting paparazzi there. And her phone screensaver? Him. She even just posted a photo to her 6.5 million Instagram followers with him casually in the background. Are we really going to pretend she didn’t know what she was doing there? Isn’t that confirmation at this point?

Here’s where I’m stuck: if Nicola wants to keep her life private (which is absolutely her right), why is she feeding the narrative of being in a relationship with JD? She hasn’t done anything to deny it, and her actions seem to support it more and more. Posting a picture with him in the background, allowing herself to be seen holding hands with him in public, attending multiple events together—these aren’t the actions of someone trying to shut down rumors. If anything, it feels like she’s subtly confirming the relationship without outright saying the words. Why is she adding fuel to the fire if she doesn’t want people talking about it?

And let’s be honest, if she were doing all of this with Luke—public outings, dinners, intimate moments, social media posts—the fandom would absolutely lose its mind declaring them a couple. So why is the narrative different because it’s JD? Why is this relationship so downplayed by some fans when she’s doing all but holding up a neon sign that says, “Yes, I’m with him”?

Here’s where I’m torn. Do I want her to be with Luke? Absolutely. They’re adorable together, their chemistry is off the charts, and yes, it would be a fan dream come true. But… if she’s with JD, it’s honestly upsetting. Let’s address the elephant in the room: he’s 13 years younger. Thirteen. That’s not a small age gap, especially when she’s closer to 40 and he’s just barely into adulthood. It’s hard not to feel frustrated about it. The power dynamics, the life experience gap—it just doesn’t sit right with me.

And what if she comes out she’s actually with JD and confirms a long-term relationship? What excuse would fans have then? How would Lukola survive off these crumbs if the whole loaf is clearly JD? Would people still deny it or cling to some “oh, they’re just friends” narrative?

This whole situation is just confusing. I like Nicola and want her to be happy, but the mixed signals are maddening. If she’s with JD, I can’t help but feel disappointed for personal reasons (again, that age gap). If she’s not, why does it look so much like she is? Why is there so much effort in keeping it vague? And why does Lukola live off crumbs when there’s clearly no solid proof?

Maybe I should just leave and block anything related to Nicola and stick to reading Polin fanfiction. At least there, we know how the story ends. This is what happens when you ship real people—it’s exhausting, messy, and makes you question why you cared in the first place.

[beforetimes]

feel like this gets overshadowed by the fact that ekko saved jinx at her very lowest, but i think that their relationship 100% works both ways when it comes to helping the other. and the way jinx helps ekko would be in helping him to loosen up / free him of this massive sense of guilt and responsibility he carries himself with.

we see this thematically in s2ep7 and s2ep9 mostly. when ekko goes to the alternate timeline we get the line that it was his tip that lead to vi's death. which i've mentioned in a previous post as something that i think the og ekko would carry as a source of guilt that guided him to throwing himself into helping the people of zaun, a way to work through his remorse.

and in that deleted scene where ekko goes after powder only for her to say she doesn't want to be saved and that she's jinx now, i feel ekko would have blamed himself for that and internalized it both by using it to fuel his guilt complex but also by painting her as someone past saving. in essence he thinks he killed powder and created jinx. someone who only hurts the undercity by working as silco.

but after his dive into the alternate timeline where he sees and connects with powder and realizes all the potential she has when she grows up, i think he realizes that there is still someone to save back in his original world. that jinx couldn't possibly erase everything that made alternate timeline powder who she is because powder reminds him of their childhood and things left unsaid and how things could be different if they both chose forgiveness (sort of elaborated on here).

anyway, i think jinx's role in accepting ekko's proposal to help out with the war on piltover/zaun would be to show ekko a) that he didn't kill powder completely and that jinx was never truly 100% metamorphosized by this job that he sent them on that indirectly 'killed' her and b) shows that she (in his minds eye) chooses to forgive him, relieving a large part of his guilt, and build something better. which is what ekko has been all about. not necessarily forgiving, but building something better. its what he does with the firelights and their commune.

now, how is freeing him communicated in the show?

i think that they show the way jinx's character allows him to be more free in expressing himself through the change in wardrobe. it is more visually vibrant in comparison to his large jackets in the first season when we see him, but there's also less smoke-screening and secrecy. no more masks, no more gloves, no more large jackets that hide the form. everything is on display now! abdomen and face, skin exposed. and jinx's impact on this change from the first season is visually marked by the x on his shirt. she is directly involved in his evolution into this freer, unburdened self.

i felt in this, the artists were showing how jinx's refusal to stay within the lines would affect ekko in making him freer as well. not just physically revealing himself but also maybe through the way her acceptance of his offer to save her again (after the failed deleted scene mentioned) frees him of the guilt of failing the first time + guilt over what led to him thinking he killed powder.

so while timebomb does feel skewed in showcasing ekko primarly as her saviour and jinx as someone who needed saving, i think that there is a reciprocal nature to the type of healing they can offer each other. ekko through his belief that jinx can be good without needing her to be the way she was before and jinx through her relieving ekko of guilt that has ruled his life since he was a child.

[psychomusic]

okay i tried to write it in the tags but it got too messy and long. HI I STUDY ART HISTORY AND CULTURAL HERITAGE and i have an idea to interpret it but I'm not familiar with mando lore so i need someone to like review it lol

cubism aims (between many things + I'm generalizing because there are obv different phases and interpretations of it by diff artists) to show an object through different times. you can never see a "full" chair - you're always gonna see one side of it. you have to walk around it or move it around to see the entirety of the chair. cubists (or at least some of them) make you see all sides of the chair in one moment. it's a "distortion" of space and time. (obv it's a lot more than this and much more complex but this is what i wanna highlight for my interpretation)

so. cubism in star wars obv didn't arise in the context of 20th century avantguarde. if cubism is the style developed by their culture, maybe this way of dealing with the representation of time depends on how the mandalorians understand and narrate time. (again I'm not familiar with mando lore so tell me if it makes 0 sense) they could, for example, see time as something rather still, instead of moving on a line or a circle like we do: they could believe that in every moment there is everything that there will be and that already has been - everything that is present now was present back then and will be present in the future. in this context that sees "time as a capsule" the sacking represented is not one specific sacking, and debating on which sacking it was would be futile. what's more artistically interesting would be what "core truth" do mandos see and choose to represent on wall that the event stands for. it's more interesting to see what it says about how mandalorians see themselves.

(also just. fyi, this idea of trying to figure out what specifically a painting or an art in general is representing is an idea that is deeply rooted into western's understanding of art - the idea of copying and representing reality, in this sense, is not common in places where the greeks' understanding of art didn't arrive)

in the case of this painting, the center is taken by a giant mandalorian towering even higher than the biggest ecumenopolis in the galaxy, towering over defeated enemies that stand for some of the biggest institutions of their time (jedi and republic). this speaks tons on how mandalorians see themselves - they're literally the biggest in the galaxy, the strongest, the best, the most powerful and fearful. it's interesting though that there isn't a bunch of mandalorians in group that tower over everything but one big mando. this showcases of how tight their sense of community and identity are. they represent themselves as one. they're so connected with each other that they have no problem in representing themselves as just one individual. maybe, but it's a stretch, it's them acting as one big individual that made them so bigger than everyone and everything else.

on the topic of halos and christian imagery, i'd like to point out that in some art history spaces it's believed that halos are an evolution of some tactics to distinguish people (specifically emperors) in big and messy roman narrative reliefs like Trajan's triumphal column or Marcus Aurelius's: they're so full of people it's hard to distinguish the scenes and characters. (I'll put some images to make it clearer)

this was the average complexity of a scene. these columns are like 30 meters high. it'd be impossible to distinguish the emperor from a soldier (even with the original colors) at such distance. so they decided that the emperor would be isolated from the rest of the people, who were "pressed together" - he'd be on the foreground with no one behind him (because if there was, their head would pop out from behind his shoulders) and no one pressed on his sides (or just their successor or someone that needed to be "praised" on the side). this left a sort of void around the emperor, especially the head. as this need to distinguish the emperor from the rest grew (with time, roman emperors became more and more autocratic and at some point they introduced the divine right to reign) this void started to be emphasized with colors like gold (used often for divine or important beings). when christians started to make their art, they "copy-pasted" many of this pagan systems to resematicize them (it must've had a big effect back then) and then, gradually, with time, we started to associate these symbols with christianity. MAYBE mandalorians had a similar story (or have similar story)

like. maybe they have clan or family based art that uses these tactics to highlight the leader that guides the clan (if i remember correctly, sabine's mom was the leader of her clan and pre visla was a sort of head figure for death watch, so, i figured mandos do have quite the sense of hierarchy that they'd highlight in art) and this got translated into identitary paintings to highlight their greatness even further.

if anything is going to move me to watch the clone wars it's finding out there's a goddamn star wars version of picasso's gernika painting. i am going to lose my mind. what the fuck could this possibly mean in the context of star wars

[constantfragmentation]

Arcane S2 Thoughts

I've had a week to digest this season and well, I guess I have the unpopular opinion of being very disappointed. After the initial flash of gorgeous animation and some ooo's and awe's.... I was left with a bitter aftertaste. I can rewatch S1 loads of time. I don't think I can watch S2 again.

I'm happy for the fans that loved it and got what they wanted or the shippers that got what they wanted. I'm happy for you. Do your thing.

Me? Not so much. Even as a Silco fan (and I admit to squeeing for any footage of him at first), I'm not pleased. Yeah, my young Silco is a nerd, man-bun hottie, but that's where it ended for me. His entire characterization was nothing like the character I fell head over heels for in S1.

Vander's Flashback: I honestly don't find Felicia's inclusion necessary at all. In fact, I think it waters down everything between Silco and Vander. Their knowing her and the kids creates more questions, plotholes, and problems than it supposedly solves.

Why is Vander only in those memories with the kids? It's before the fallout with Silco. Why don't the kids know or remember nice Silco? Why do they only fear him (obv that's from Vander and Benzo, yes?)?

Why doesn't Silco seem to know Powder at Vander's dead body? Why would he kill Felicia's kids? None of it makes any fucking sense if he cared about Felicia. He hates Vander so much, he hates the kids too because he adopted them?

How the hell does S2 Young Silco turn into S1 Silco? Riot really messed this one up. Vander's attempted murder didn't change his entire personality.

It was a rebellion battle. People were going to get hurt and killed. They had to know this. So, whether Silco accidentally killed Felicia (as some fans are debating) or she died, is so damn dumb for Vander to solely blame Silco. Takes the kids, becomes a pacifist FIRST and then decides to (shave and grow younger) kill his brother for the greater good. Doesn't make one lick of sense narratively.

The narrative, characterization and animation inconsistencies don't help from S1 either. The drowning scene doesn't fit the S2 explanation. They're too young. Vander had a beard and appears much older on the bridge. Hell, S2 Young!Silco looks older than S1 Young!Silco. Sloppy, sloppy, sloppy. If people want to kiss Riot's ass, fine, but there was too much that was straight up lazy writing.

Silco's death is just glossed over considering how important he is. Silco did what Vander couldn't. Even without Shimmer, the Underground was thriving. Cait's mother's death/burial/statue gets more screen time and Silco gets dumped in the river. No one seems to question his death or what happened? Yeah, ok.

I'll use this moment to complain about the excessive music video montages this season too. I watched S1 again and the writing and use of music worked in unison and enhanced scenes. S2 felt like scenes in between music videos and it was irritating.

There was so much screentime wasted that could have been good dialogue heavy scenes that S1 was great at. Instead, time wasted on poorly executed plotlines that needed way more time to flesh out (Mel, Ekko and Viktor) and we have slowmo music videos and MCU fight scenes. Hermie's guitar song and Mission Impossible jokster crap was laughable and not in a good way.

Riot tried to pack too much into one season, and it was a mess. This season felt like watching a Marvel movie. Cool action sequences with little to no substance. All the nuance and grit from last season were gone in favor of the 'good vs. bad' trope. All the political-societal issues in S1 were abandoned that were far more fascinating to explore.

Mel has superpowers now? It feels all out of place. Her, Ambessa, and the Black Rose plot have zero time to make it interesting and plausible. She was introduced as this master manipulator/politician and her sage persona feels so forced.

Jesus Demigod Viktor was too much. I was excited for the Machine Herald and the psychedelic Arcane magical multiverse took me out. Making him to be the big baddie and timeloop it around to Jayce felt like a big cop out. Viktor deserved better. Hell, Jayce deserved better.

So much was sacrificed to make the whole Arcane magic THE point of the series when it was one of the least interesting aspects of the show. Hextech for weapons and the continuing problems between Piltover and Zaun was RIPE for storytelling. It seems each act needed several episodes to cover.

Ekko sure as fuck deserved better than that half assed time warp with Hermie. The AU really bothered me. Everything felt wrong. EVERYTHING. Nothing was explained well at all. It felt like complete fan service at the expense of the characters. Before people rip me saying "well duh! It was an AU!". You don't assassinate characters and plot to have a happy ending that insults your viewers.

They turned Zaun (its own cool character) into the bargain basement of Piltover. How is it sunny and pretty? Really? Mirror tricks? Everyone just forgave Piltover after years of oppression?

You're telling me Vi's death saved humanity? Fuck that shit right now. Piltover just stopped because a kid died? Suddenly everything became better? What happened to Jayce? Viktor? Hell, Hermie after decades didn't give two shits about Zaun, so what changed with the Council? Where's Singed? I don't buy it.

I don't buy Jinx/Powder being super normal smart girl. I LOVE JInx, but I believe she had mental issues prior breaking into Jayce's apartment. I don't think Vi's death made that go away (as I don't believe Silco's death did either). As someone who battles with mental health, this is insulting to me as a viewer.

I hated AU Silco. There. I said it. He just forgave Vander? Really? Bullshit. The reason Vander tried to kill him is stupid. A simple letter changed Silco? That fluffy-haired softy is not Silco. I can't imagine that Silco being the one who fought a rebellion. He probably would not have become a mob boss peddling drugs but this AU softboi dad feels so wrong. I never would have stanned AU Silco. Not in a million years.

S1 Silco's traits didn't magically appear because Vander betrayed him. The young S1 Silco had to be similar in many ways to older S1 Silco. Drive, ambition, ruthlessness, willing to die for a cause. I don't see Felicia's death changing that. I certainly don't see Vi's death changing that.

If Vander needed to kill Silco to stop the violence, etc, it's because he saw Silco as a threat to him or society as a whole. S1 Vander is known as The Hound. So, he seems to be violent as well. He takes credit for building the Underground when Felicia credits both 'bozos' for it. So Vander being upset she died and blaming Silco to the point of murder is a slap in the face to fans' intelligence.

I do hate that by Vi's death, everything is magically better. I can't express how much I hate that. AU Powder was irritating and was nothing like my Jinx that I love. Again so much wasted time that could have been better spent on good character driven scenes that actually advance the plot.

Pointless characters. Introduce Isha (who I adored). Make her seem important to Jinx. Kill her and never mention her again. So what was the point of her inclusion this season? Just to make Jinx suicidal? I hated that also. Again WASTED SCREENTIME.

Oh, and Caitvi was a disgrace. I think shippers deserved better here, too. Caitlyn goes crazy dictator because of guilt over her mom. Granted, Caitvi only knew each other for a week-ish? Not a lot of time to make their relationship serious past an infatuation. Cait turns from all her good points last season to Ambessa's padawan.

Don't get me started on that side piece Maddie. Really? Cait you were that hard up? And that long awaited sex scene was a big eye roll. Vi goes to her sister, and shit goes to hell, and a few minutes later, she's fucking Cait in the same cell. Vi was reduced to shit this season.

I mean, these characters just got shafted in every way for a high speed train wreck ending that we've seen a million times in Disneyfied stories. Action sequences were more important than actual character development and plot.

You can't make me believe that one speech from Jayce 'seeing a possible future' suddenly got Zaun to work with and dress up as Piltover soldiers? Really?

I had high hopes for Sevika, and the girl got shit nothing to do except in two episodes. Her seat on the Council feels like a last-minute decision and not worthy enough to expand on.

What made S1 so great was the class divide between Zaun and Piltover and how it affected the characters. S2 decided to scrap that and go with the easy good vs evil trope instead. Even the parallels didn't have the same hit as last season.

I did like Jinx talking to her 'ghost' Silco in the jail cell. He was calming to her in contrast to Milo/Claggor except the implication that she should die (that's what I got out of that).

We didn't even get much from Singed. Yeah, he got his daughter back (in some form) but his story was so blah. We didn't get nearly enough of him and Warwick and what made Warwick.

I guessed a few years ago it was going to be Vander but I didn't like how it was handled.

Too many plotlines all rushed together without getting any decent screentime and explanations that don't confuse or insult viewers intelligence. OR you have to be a LOL fan/player to understand. I never played LOL before S1 and wasn't confused as to the main plot.

I loved all the characters in S1 and felt they were pretty much watered down or assassinated in S2 for an apocalyptical Demigod villain vs humanity battle done to death finale.

The Zaun/Piltover political-societal problems, parallels, corruption, science going wrong, pathway to hell paved with good intentions themes from S1 was so much better in every single aspect.

I'm still a fan of S1 and the characters and frankly, I'm going to ignore 95% of S2.