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honeyhotteoks · 1 year ago

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this night together - chapter nine (j.yh + s.mg)

chapter nine: too little too late

chapter summary: you probably would have preferred the cold shoulder. yunho and mingi find out about your heat, and things get harder.

warnings: this chapter is a pain train. no other warnings except angst and consistent references to heat and all that goes with that.

notes: i'm SO glad you all enjoyed chapter eight!! it was a fun one. please enjoy the moment many of you have been waiting for..... yungi's return and everything that comes with that. good luck because oof our y/n is going through it.

pairings: alpha!yunho x alpha!mingi x omega!reader

genre: smut, a/b/o/omegaverse, angst, fluff, romance, polyamory

word count: 6.3k

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You expect to see them immediately when you walk into the studio a little early on Monday but it’s painfully empty. The back office door is shut and locked tight, so you know Yunho hasn’t been in yet and if he’s not here, neither is Mingi. It feels familiar, and you’re starting to wonder if every heat is going to end with them throwing a tantrum.

“You just going to stand there?” Wooyoung’s voice nearly knocks you sideways and you jump in your shoes.

“Don’t do that!” You spin on your heel and smack his shoulder.

“You’re literally staring at a door,” Wooyoung levels you with a look, “I’m trying to pull you back down to reality so you can make it through this stupid day,”

“Fine,” You sigh, “I guess… I don’t know, do I look okay?”

He rolls his eyes, “You know you do,”

“I just don’t want,” You start but the sound of the heavy back door to the studio startles you once again and your heart lands squarely in your throat when you see them.

They barely look at you. A swift, fast glance, just enough for you to know they’ve seen you. Your hands suddenly feel slick and clammy and your stomach starts churning immediately.

“Hey,” Wooyoung steps around you to grab their attention and break the sudden awkward tension in the hall, “did anyone ever call to get the lights in Studio 3 fixed?”

Yunho blinks, almost confused by his words but then he recovers, “Uh, no, I thought they were fixed already,”

“Out again,” Wooyoung shakes his head, “I think it’s electrical if the bulbs keep blowing,”

Mingi listens for a moment, but the moment he’s sure this conversation has nothing for him he simply says, “I’ll catch you guys later,” and then he’s pushing past the two of them to cut down the hallway.

He doesn’t look at you at all.

Yunho watches him go and then refocuses on Wooyoung, “I’ll call someone,” he says, “is it the whole back panel again?”

“I’ll show you,” Wooyoung gestures down the hall, throwing a fast glance at you that communicates so much with just one flick of his eyes - Don’t follow, you’re welcome, you owe me.

As Yunho turns away from you to follow Wooyoung down the hallway you mouth a thank you and watch them go. The cold shoulder you can deal with, you’re almost too practiced with that at this point, so at least you can breathe a little easier and get back to work.

You bottle it all right back up, and even though the day has been terrible and long and awkward, you know that San’s right. It’s your studio too. You’ve missed things being out for your leave and you have to catch up quickly to stay an unshakeable member of this group. All you have to do is focus on the work.

You know you probably have to talk to them at some point, but you really didn’t think it would be today of all days. You thought they’d go back to the way it was before, an entire day of their tense glances communicated that clearly. But suddenly Mingi’s in front of you while you’re tucked up on the computer in the corner of one of the studios rewatching a cut of today’s practice and you know it’s going to be now, now or never.

“So, you’re good?” He asks suddenly, a little starting since you had expected him to just pass you by without a word, just like the rest of the day behind you.

“What?” You manage, swiveling around in your chair.

“You’re good?” He asks again, but his face is blank, passive.

You open your mouth to answer but Yunho’s voice from the side has your head snapping towards it.

“Mingi,” Yunho’s voice is firm, “let’s go.”

“One sec,” Mingi doesn’t look away from you.

“I said let’s go,” Yunho shakes his head.

“Hey,” Mingi starts and then Yunho looks at you.

“Can you lock up if you’re not leaving?” He asks, jaw tightening as soon as the words are out of his mouth.

“Sure,” You manage.

“Mingi, let’s go.” Yunho’s attention leaves you instantly, and you’ve never felt more invisible to him.

“Bro,” Mingi shakes his head, “can you fuck off for one second?”

“No, I’m getting in the car, do you want a ride or not?” Yunho’s jaw jumps in frustration.

Mingi mutters something under his breath and then meets your eyes again, “y/n,”

“Yeah?” You’re so overwhelmingly confused.

“I said, are you good?”

“Why wouldn’t I be good?” Your brows draw together.

Mingi shuts his mouth tightly, his hands forming loose fists and then he nods once, “Fine,”

“What’s going on with you two?” Your eyes dart between them, the anger in the room so palpable. They’ve been cold, they’ve been passive, but they’ve never, ever been angry with you. Not like this.

There’s a long beat of silence and then finally Yunho speaks, “Are you serious?”

“What?”

“You disappear for three days,” Yunho drops his gym bag and looks to you, “and you can’t even answer a single fucking text message, and you want to know what’s going on with us?”

Your stomach clenches hard, his dark eyes boring into you now and you need him to look away. “I was on heat leave,” You say clearly, “you got the paperwork, I know you did.”

They’re both silent.

“Look,” You sigh, and it’s already harder to maintain the wall than you thought it would be, “I’m sorry I didn’t text you back, that was shitty, but I was a little preoccupied,”

Yunho grimaces.

“Yunho, jesus,” You push yourself up off the chair and take a few steps towards them, “I don’t know what you want from me,”

“We were worried,” Mingi offers, and his voice is still low and firm, but his words at least are a little kinder.

“Well, I appreciate that, but I was fine.”

Yunho huffs, and you can almost see him fighting an eye roll. Anger bubbles inside you at their entitlement over you and your time and you can’t stop your mouth or your hot head now.

“Seriously,” You square your shoulders towards him, “Yunho, we’re friends so I feel like I can say this, but you’re acting like an asshole right now.”

“I’m acting like an asshole?” His voice gets sharp at the end, anger radiating in him.

“Yes!” You push farther into his space, “Sharing a heat together doesn’t mean I owe you something,”

His jaw jumps at your words.

“No one’s saying that,” Mingi cuts in immediately, physically pushing between you both and holding his hands up.

“Tell that to him,” You nod towards Yunho.

Yunho stays silent.

Mingi keeps his hands up, “Listen,” he catches your eyes, “no one’s angry. We just didn’t hear from you for three days, we didn’t know if you were somewhere safe. That’s all.”

“Well, I was,” You assure him, “I had everything handled, I’m back on my suppressants,”

“I know,” Mingi nods, and you suppose he would be able to tell, with your scent dampened.

“What about onboarding?” Yunho pipes in and you crane around Mingi to see him. His cheeks are flushed pink, and you can see how frustrated he is, but he tries to ask this question a bit more softly.

“What about it?” You give him one more chance, just one.

Yunho clears his throat and says again, “Onboarding. Mingi said it can be a lot, like before,”

“I had it covered,” You assure him.

“I just thought,” Yunho shifts from foot to foot, trying to find his words, “I thought maybe if it was as hard as before you’d be out of it, and I, I don’t know,”

You want to be mad at him, you really do, but that part of his fear makes sense to you. When you think about your time with them and how much you don’t quite remember perfectly, how hard it was to make it home, you get it.

“Honestly,” You exhale, relaxing the tension a bit, “I am sorry I didn’t text you back. I can understand why you were worried,”

His shoulders relax with yours, “I’m sorry too,”

You can’t say it’s okay, but you nod, glancing up to Mingi who’s seemed to soften up a bit too. There’s a long beat between you and finally Mingi asks, “So, we’re good?”

“Yeah,” You nod, “we’re good,”

Yunho nods and agrees, “I am really sorry, I really was just worried about you,”

“I know,” You nod, “I think I should have just texted you, but I didn’t know what to say,”

“Yeah,” Mingi laughs a little, just a huff and he runs his hand through his short hair, “that’s fair,”

You smile too and press your hands to your cheeks for a little cool relief, letting out a long sigh as the tension starts to release. It could end here, they could say goodbye and goodnight and you could finish up and then it would be over, but when Yunho shifts and glances between the two of you, you know immediately it won’t be so simple.

“Well,” Yunho clears his throat, “next time if you’d rather not be alone, you know, I think we’ve done pretty good at staying friends,”

“Oh,” Your heart feels like it might just fall straight out of your chest, “Yunho, I,”

“It was weird for a couple of weeks,” He adds, “but,”

You know you just have to say it, you have to get it out of your mouth before you can’t, and the words bubble up sharp and sudden, “I wasn’t alone,”

“You weren’t?” Mingi’s brows shoot up.

Yunho falls silent, ears running dark pink.

“No,” You shake your head, “I wasn’t,”

“Of course you weren’t,” Yunho manages, “sorry, that was… I don’t know why I assumed,”

“Probably because I told you that’s what I normally do,” You soften, “so I understand why you were worried, but I’m telling you that I was fine, taken care of,”

He asks it like he can’t help himself, the word falling right off his tongue, “Who?”

You take a half step back, shaking your head, “Yunho, no,”

“Why not? We’re friends,” Mingi rationalizes.

They suddenly look so much like jealous lovers you can’t breathe. Something deep in your gut must have been right all along about them, and you don’t know why you can’t stop making this same mistake over and over again. Your biology must really want you to fall for a guy like this but as harsh as the twist in your gut feels, you push it back, refusing to submit.

“No,” You turn on your heel, “I’m leaving,”

Hands on your arms pull you back and twist you around in Mingi’s hold, “Fuck,” he says, “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, that was so out of line,”

“You don’t get to ask, okay?” You push him off, putting a foot of distance between you.

“I know that, we know that,” Mingi nods, holding your gaze and trying to diffuse whatever this conversation has become, “it was stupid, forget it,”

Yunho moves closer, stopping by Mingi’s side to give you the same distance, “Completely stupid, I’m sorry,”

You’re already so sick of them apologizing, but you swallow tightly and try to let it go, “Okay,”

“Only,” Yunho pauses, debating on whether or not he should say this and your breath catches in your throat, “only, why didn’t you call us?”

“What?” You can barely believe him.

“You don’t have to tell us anything,” Yunho says, looking quickly at Mingi who nods, “I just… I thought you would have called us, and when I saw the paperwork and you didn’t answer I thought maybe something happened.”

The stretching silence between you is crushing you. A flare of anger bubbles in your belly, “You said my heat before was a one time thing.”

“I never said that.”

“You did,” You shake your head, and now you just can’t stop the words, “and you know what, Yunho? Maybe this wouldn’t have been so hard and confusing if you didn’t treat me like I was invisible for weeks after we had sex,”

“You were avoiding me too,” His tongue is quick when he’s angry and you can almost see the regret in his eyes but he doubles down, “both of us.”

“I’m not going to listen to this,” You cheeks flare with angry blush, “I’m done. We work together, that’s it. I don’t know what you want from me, I’ll get whiplash if you keep-”

Your words die on your tongue, your back connecting with the hard studio wall behind you. You don’t see Mingi coming, your eyes steady on Yunho and you’re about to throw up your hands and leave again when Mingi collides into you, his lips on yours.

“Mingi!” You squeak against his mouth.

“Please,” He pleads, shaking his head.

His body feels so good you might lose your mind entirely. His plush mouth stays on yours, tongue dipping between your lips to flick along yours. His scent envelops you, his hot hands holding you against him, and you melt into him as your body responds to him. He kisses like you’re his only lifeline, messy and hungry and pouring desperation into you ounce by ounce. Your hand tightens on his back. He hitches your leg up onto his hip, pressing your body open for him to slot between your legs.

Your eyes stay shut as he kisses his way down your jaw, nipping along your skin until his mouth is on your throat, ghosting softly over your pulsepoint. Your mind is spinning, flooded hot, everything falling away and then it all stops.

Mingi stiffens, body locking up and you hear him take a deep inhale of breath. He rocks back away from you, “Seonghwa?”

“What?” Yunho’s voice re-enters the mix.

Mingi steps away from you and you brace your body against the wall, finding your feet under you and trying to catch your breath, “Don’t,”

“I’m right,” Mingi’s face knits up in confusion, his fists tighten, “fuck,”

Yunho looks stricken.

“You slept with Seonghwa?” Mingi repeats.

“Don’t,” You repeat, anger curling inside you and you push off the wall, “we’re friends and maybe I should have texted you, but that’s all we are, you made that perfectly fucking clear after my heat. You don’t get to treat me like I cheated or try to mark your fucking territory,” You scrub your hand across your throat where Mingi kissed you, where he let his tongue linger.

“We’re not together,” You reiterate, “we’re not in love, or soulmates, or scent matches, or whatever the fuck else people say. We had sex, that’s it.”

The words are out there, dropped between you like lead and you realize coldly somewhere in the back of your mind, you can never take that back.

Yunho and Mingi stand stock still at the grenade dropped between you, but then Yunho shifts forwards one step with a tight inhalation of breath.

“That’s not all it was for me,” He manages, and when you meet his eyes your resolve nearly, nearly crumbles.

“Whatever you feel for me isn’t real, it’s biology,” You shake your head, trying to catch your breath and keep your words straight. If they loved you before they would have come to you then, you just have to hold onto that truth.

“Don’t tell me what I feel,” Yunho looks away from you, his hands tight, “don’t patronize me.”

“This is why we should have never,” You shake your head, looking at Mingi like you might see a scrap of reason in his eyes, but you see nothing, pure passive inattention like he’s shut down and left the conversation.

“y/n,” Yunho shakes his head, “I’m not some lovesick virgin,”

“I know that,” You sigh, “I didn’t mean,”

“You did,” Yunho interrupts, “and if you don’t feel the same about us, just say it.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” You feel like you’ve entered an entirely different narrative, “You said you wanted to be friends, isn’t that what we are?”

“Friends don’t kiss like that,” Mingi admits gruffly.

“You kissed me,” You manage.

“y/n,” Mingi says softly, “I felt it, the way you kissed me back, touched me… there’s something there,”

“Is that what this is about?” Your jaw tightens, “You think I’m yours?”

Mingi’s jaw snaps shut, muscles jumping.

Yunho shakes his head, bringing you back to his eyes, “No,” he sighs, “but,”

“But what?” You won’t cry, not here, “You’re perfectly fine treating me like I’m invisible until another alpha gets a little too close? I’m a person! A whole entire person, I’m not an omega for you to… to…”

“I know that!” Yunho exclaims, “I like you. We like you, it has nothing to do with designation,”

“That’s the most naive sentence I’ve ever heard,” You take a step back, away, closer to the mirrored wall, “if that were true why didn’t you say anything weeks ago?”

“I didn’t know then,” He insists, looking to Mingi for help but finding none in his vacant eyes.

“That’s what I’m saying,” You sigh, exasperated, “you’re just realizing it now? Right when I spend my heat with another alpha? You’re confused.”

“It’s not confusion,” Mingi says simply, “we’re not stupid.”

“So, you both have feelings for me? Is that what you’re saying?” You bite back, and you clench your fist tight. You won’t cry.

They say nothing, silence filling the room like smoke and you need to get out.

“After we spent that time together,” You take a steadying breath, “I missed you both so much it hurt. All the time. I would convince myself not to come to your place and knock on the door and… and I don’t know what I wanted. I thought about you all the time, and the things you said and did for me. I missed you so much it made me sick,”

“Then,” Yunho starts, his voice small but you shake your head.

“But you didn’t want me,” You insist, “you spent weeks making sure I knew it. Every day you wouldn’t look at me, you wouldn’t talk to me, I’ve never felt so small.”

Mingi’s eyes cloud and he drops his head.

“And it was hard, but the things I felt for you went away,” You press, despite the tightness in your chest, “with a little time and space, it went away. I know you both care about me, and I care about you, but you don’t love me.”

“I don’t accept that,” Yunho shakes his head, moving forwards before you can process it, his arms around you as he tucks you into his chest, “how can you say that when this feels the way it does?”

Your head throbs with the scent of him, washing through you and making your limbs go soft and your heartbeat slow to a stutter instead of a pounding thump, but your brain clicks back into place and you wriggle in his arms, “Let me go,”

He leans away, cupping your cheek in his hand to draw your face up to his gaze, “Don’t you?” He manages, voice cracking gently.

You’re dizzy, mind flooded and confused, but you try, “I don’t,”

His thumb strokes a gentle line over your cheekbone, shifting just a little closer, “y/n,”

“Yunho,” You manage, your voice shaking as you try to stay level, “if you kiss me now, there’s nothing for us.”

His brow creases as he studies your eyes, exhaling an unsteady breath.

“I’ll go, I’ll find another studio.” You grip your hand tight and let your nails dig into your soft palm, “I need you to let me go, please, let me go,”

His arms fall away, and he takes two sizable steps back, running a hand through his hair, “After everything, that’s it?”

“It has to be,” Your eyes feel prickly, “I’ve moved on. I need you both to do the same. Find someone else, another omega. I know you think you want me, but it’s just your alphas talking. And maybe we could have been more than this, but you hurt me, you both did, and I’ve moved on.”

“I shouldn’t have kissed you,” Mingi manages.

“No,” You shake your head, “you shouldn’t have.”

“I’m sorry,” His voice is small.

“This,” Yunho tries to say something, but his voice is thick with emotion and he clears his throat, words dying on his lips.

“I’m sorry too,” You finally add, “and I thought we could go back to being friends, but this, it hurts too much.”

“What do we do?” Yunho asks, voice hollow.

“I need some space,” You swallow tightly, “we’ll do the work, but that’s it. If we ever have a shot at being friends someday, at feeling like this isn’t always there… that’s what I need, and maybe we can fix this.”

“Okay,” Mingi says.

“Tour,” Yunho takes a deep breath, and you realize now that he has tears flooding his eyes that he’s doing his best to blink away, “we’ll be gone for months,”

He’s right, in a matter of weeks they’ll be gone with a small group of the BB Trippin dance crew to Europe. You have your focus here with the newly debuting group alongside Dahan and Yujin, but they don’t, they’re leaving with New World and it would be almost three full months until they’d be back in Korea.

“Good,” You breathe, ignoring the pit forming in your stomach at the thought of not seeing them, “then let’s just get through the next few weeks, but after that you go. Don’t text me, don’t call me, just… move on.”

Silence stretches, but Yunho nods.

If you stay here for one more minute you’re going to cry, “I have to go,”

He nods again.

There’s more to say, you can feel it, but you can’t do it now and you have to push yourself to get out the door. You push past them as quickly as you can, eyes on the door in front of you, but Yunho follows behind and catches you once more in the hall.

“y/n,” He doesn’t touch you, but calls after you in the hall, but you don’t turn around you can’t. If you look at him one more time you’ll cry, you’ll go back, you’ll throw all the things you said to the side just to feel his arms around you one more time or Mingi’s lips on yours and you can’t. You have to be better than this, for yourself.

You stop though and turn your head just a little to let him know you’re listening.

“I’m,” His voice tightens and hitches, “I’m really fucking sorry we lost you,”

Hot tears overflow at his words, spilling over down your cheeks and you drop your head and nod. You grip your hands tighter and steady yourself and hope to god that your voice will hold up, “Me too,”

He takes a tight, wet inhale and you have to move, one more second in this hallway and you’ll want nothing more than to comfort him, to soothe your alpha and smooth this moment over, but the latent thought of him as yours strikes panic in your chest and you push forward down the hall.

You round the corner at the end by the office, and the image of him coming out of the doorway that first night won’t leave you alone, the way he softened when he saw you in heat, the way he took you in his arms.

You stifle a sob with your hand over your lips, and then you’re running. Out of here, away from this, and you don’t know where you’re going until you get there, every step a blur.

You knock fast on San’s door, and you feel bad about crashing their night, but you can barely breathe and you need to see a friendly face or you just might fall apart. You had gotten your tears under control on your way over, out of sheer embarrassment that you were crying in the middle of the street, but tightness gathers in your throat now as you wait for an answer to the door and pins prick the back of your eyes.

You hear shuffling on the opposite side of the door, a hand on the knob, and tears spill over already.

San’s smiling when he opens the door, looking over his shoulder back into the main living space and finishing saying something to Wooyoung who’s inside, and your breath hitches.

His eyes settle on you, “y/n?” His face falls as he sees your tears, “What?”

“S-San,” Your tears rush faster, your words cut off in a sob and you launch yourself forwards to collide with his chest, wrapping your arms around his neck and burying your face in his shoulder, sobs wracking yours.

“Hey, hey, hey,” He stumbles back, wrapping his arms around you, “what’s going on?”

“y/n’s here?” Wooyoung’s voice comes from the side and you can’t stop yourself from crying harder.

“I need you to breathe,” San soothes you, his voice low, “I need you to tell me what happened,”

You shake your head into his neck, hiccuping as you do.

“Are you hurt?” He presses, one of his hands sliding up your sides to search your body, “I need you to talk to me,”

You drag in a shaky breath, but Wooyoung sees you now and jumps forwards, “Is she hurt?”

“Woo,” San interrupts him, “hang on, okay, just,”

“I’m,” You clear your throat, “I’m not hurt,”

San exhales heavily, relieved at your words and nods, cupping the back of your head, “Alright, just breathe,”

“What the hell happened?” Wooyoung says.

“I know as much as you do,” San says, “just grab her stuff and let’s get inside,”

“Yeah,” You hear Wooyoung moving, picking up your bag from the floor outside his apartment door, and then you hear it click shut.

“y/n,” San tries again as you try to get your breathing under control, “can you tell me what happened?”

“I t-talked to Yunho and Mingi,” You murmur wetly into his shirt.

“What the fuck did those idiots do?” Wooyoung’s hand settles between your shoulder blades as he shifts closer to try and catch your eyes.

“It’s a mess,” You manage.

“Woo,” San says softly, “get her a glass of water,”

“But,” Wooyoung starts.

“Go.” San insists.

Wooyoung’s hand leaves you.

“y/n,” San says, “come inside and sit down,”

You peel yourself away from him, covering your face immediately as tears continue to roll down your cheeks, but San steers you inside with a warm arm until you’re sinking down onto the couch.

“Water,” Wooyoung says, holding an icy cold glass in his hand and taking his spot on the extended length of the sectional so he can angle towards you and see your face, “drink this,”

He presses the glass into your hands and you take a shaky sip, the cold shocking your brain a little as you try to get a little more down.

San tugs the coffee table a little closer and takes a seat on the wood top and then leans forward to catch your eyes, elbows resting on his knees, “Can you tell us what happened?”

You sigh deeply and then recover your breath, wiping your eyes with the sleeve of your sweater, “They know,”

“About this weekend?” San surmises.

“Just Seonghwa,” You clarify, taking another sip of water, “they were so angry, I didn't want to tell them the rest,”

“Fucking assholes,” Wooyoung curses, his jaw tightening as he looks away.

“What else?” San’s voice is gentle, so unlike confident alpha tone you had gotten used to, “You can tell us,”

“They… I mean, Yunho… he said that they,” The words get jumbled in your mind as you flash back to the studio room, “it’s all so fucked, they’re acting like this is…”

“Babe,” Wooyoung plucks the glass from your hands and passes it to San, returning his hands to yours so he can steady your shakes, “you’re not making a lot of sense, and I’m about two seconds from driving over to their place and castrating them. I need you to please tell me they didn’t do anything stupid,”

“Youngie,” San sighs, exasperated.

You shake your head, “No,” you manage, “they have feelings for me, they said… when they found out about my heat they were so…”

“Now?” Wooyoung’s eyebrows go high, “Now they have feelings for you?”

“That’s basically what I said,” Your lips turn up in the smallest smile.

“What else?” San cuts through the commentary.

“If they had said something, anything weeks ago,” You trail off.

“They didn’t though,” San reminds you, “and that’s on them. Not on you.”

“So you fought?” Wooyoung surmises.

You wipe your eyes again and nod, “It was awful,”

“I’m sorry,” Wooyoung takes your hands in his, smoothing his thumbs over the back of your knuckles, “We all knew they might be upset, we shouldn’t have left you alone,”

“I handled it,” You shake your head, the telltale feeling of a migraine coming on in the back of your skull from how many tears you’ve shed, “I… just - I don’t know why this is so hard,”

San shifts forwards, cupping your cheek in his hand and soothing you, “How about you stay over tonight? We can order some takeout and just forget about this for now,”

“I’ve got soju if you need a drink,” Wooyoung adds, “whatever you need, we’re here,”

“I just want to know what to do,” You push San’s hands away and drag your fingers through your hair, “it shouldn’t be this hard,”

“How did you leave it?” Wooyoung asks gently, hand on your knee.

Yunho’s words in the hallway strike back through your chest, but you shake your head, “Kind of terribly,”

“Okay,” He prompts you for a little more.

“I told them to go on tour and to not contact me so we can get some space,” You say it in a single breath and then you duck your head in your hands again.

“Damn,” Wooyoung grimaces.

“I know,” You sniff back fresh tears, “maybe I should have stayed, but, I just… I couldn’t,”

“y/n,” San pulls your hands down and takes them in his, smoothing his thumbs over the soft hollows of your palms, “you did the right thing. Space is good,”

“Is it?” You said it, and in the moment you believed it, but months without speaking to them feels like torture.

“It’s good,” He nods, wiping away your tears, “you need time to figure out how you feel and they need time to do the same. You’re never going to be able to get it if you’re working on top of each other every day,”

You let San’s words sink in and you know he’s right. All of the talking and the not talking with them up to this point had just left your relationship a jumbled mess. Time away could fix this. You knew it deep in your gut in the studio as you backed out the door and you know it now.

With a deep breath you scrub your hands under your eyes to clear away the last remnants of tears and any smudged mascara and you nod, “Woo,” you face him, “where’s that soju?”

“On it,” He grins, “I know exactly what you need,”

“Yeah?”

“Mhm,” Wooyoung hops up and heads for San’s kitchen, “Beer, soju, and junk food. I’m making chapagetti,”

You groan, knowing exactly what your body is going to feel like tomorrow.

“At least put some protein on it,” San calls back, “for the love of god,”

“Sannie,” Wooyoung says, his head clearly in the fridge at the muffled tone, “just let me work my magic,”

“Mhm,” San shakes his head.

“I’m going to be so hungover tomorrow aren’t I?”

“Definitely,” San laughs, “but you can crash here, we’ll take care of you.”

You nod, knowing they absolutely will.

When Wooyoung hands you the cold glass of beer and the shot you clink your glass with him and knock it back in sync and for a little while you put it all out of your mind.

It isn’t until later, in the safe darkness of San’s bedroom with your best friends on either side of you, that you feel like the words might make it out of your mouth without it all ending around you. The alcohol in your system has started to dissipate, leaving you exhausted and a little heavy feeling, but your thoughts are starting to stitch back together and you just have to tell them.

You’re snuggled tight to Wooyoung’s chest, your forehead pressed to his sternum, San behind you but not really touching you, just laying on his back and staying close enough to give you the comfort of another body. You can’t stop replaying it, seeing them when they realized you had been with not just someone else but someone they knew.

You don’t know what possesses you, but in the darkness you murmur, “Mingi kissed me,”

Wooyoung’s breathing hitches for just a moment as he registers your words, but he recovers cleanly, his fingers just running over your hair again and again, “When?”

“Tonight,” You shift, pushing yourself to lie on your back between the two of them, “I think he was trying to show me he meant it,”

They let your words sit there for a moment, and then Wooyoung turns to look at you, “How do you feel about it?”

“Stupid,” You exhale, answering honestly, “really fucking stupid,”

“Why?” San props up on one arm, hand on his cheek and brow furrowed as he looks down at you.

You feel the outline of his mouth on yours again, his hands and how they held you, how much he poured into one moment just to get you to understand. “Because,” You answer, “all I could think about was how much I missed him,”

“y/n,” Wooyoung murmurs, “do you think they meant it? That their feelings are real?”

“Maybe,” You say, “but the timing,”

“Yeah,”

“And besides,” You shake your head, “I said some things I shouldn’t have,”

“Like?” San asks.

“I told them they fucked it up,” You blink back tears, “and that we weren’t soulmates and that they’re wrong,”

“Oh,” San says, “that’s direct,”

“I know,” You groan, dropping your hands over your eyes, “I was just so angry,”

“Space will be good then,” Wooyoung offers, “you all need a breather.”

“There’s no easy way to work together when that’s how you left it,” San points out, “so time away gives you all a chance to rethink some things and get some clarity,”

“What if,” The words die in your throat.

“What?” San nudges you.

“What if they come back and nothing’s fixed,” You sigh, “what if it’s worse?”

“You won’t know it until it happens,” San takes your hand in his, lacing your fingers together, “you can’t control everything, y/n, sometimes you just have to let things work out.”

You nod, and then you ask the question you’ve been afraid of since you walked out the studio door, “Should I have just stayed? If… if they do have feelings for me, and they’re real, should I have just stayed?”

“It would have been easier,” Wooyoung murmurs, “but babe, you’d still have the same questions,”

��Yeah,” You breathe, stomach in knots.

“Tour is soon,” San reminds you, “you got through weeks of the cold shoulder last time, you can do this,”

You nod.

“It’s late,” Wooyoung comments.

“I know,” You murmur.

“It’s going to be okay,” San says, “I know it will.”

“You’re right,” You breathe, “I just think it shouldn’t be this hard, if we were meant to work out, shouldn’t it be easier than this?”

They’re quiet for a moment and then San sighs, “Probably,”

Wooyoung turns and looks at him, his lips closing before he shrugs and rolls towards you, snuggling up to your side.

“What?” You nudge him, reading through his silence.

“Nothing,” He says.

“Woo,” You nudge him harder.

“I just think you shouldn’t close any doors,”

“Mm,”

“I’m just saying,” He wraps an arm around your middle, “take the break from them, see how you feel later. You’re overthinking this,”

San drags his thumb over your knuckles and Wooyoung shifts closer, resting his head on your shoulder. The quiet stretches around you as you take in his words. He might be right, but you can’t think about that now. Not with the day you’ve had and the headache behind your eyes.

The fight plays over and over again in your mind every time you close your eyes, a loop of Mingi’s mouth on yours and Yunho’s eyes shining with tears. The feeling of their hands on you, begging you to stay. The look on their faces when they realized you had sought out another alpha for your heat, and not just any, but one of their best friends. You wonder what might have changed had you texted them back, who you might have met at the studio today instead.

That’s not all it was for me.

A little piece of you wishes you could take back everything you said.

#honeyhotteoks fics #honeyhotteoks updates #this night together fic #yunho x reader #mingi x reader #yungi x reader #yunho #mingi #ateez fic #ateez series #ateez ff

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ornii · 11 months ago

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|| My Kind of Crazy ||

Harley Quinn X Male Reader

So after Binge Watching Barbie, rewatching Suicide Squad, Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn), don’t forget that part, and The Suicide Squad, my appreciation For Morgot Robbie has increased more than it already has. Adore her. So, here’s part one of ?

(Any Tags I forgot please let me know.)

The Stench of rotting carpet, old wood and the tinge of blood was in the air. But this was all a part of the plan. Inside that old decrepit apartment you had your pistol Aimed at a man standing before you, Batman. Yes, The, Batman. A series of choices lead to this moment, but it wasn’t always like this. You were his Robin, his Boy wonder. Now you’re the shadow hiding within Gotham. Your foot was placed on the chest of another man, who’s cold and chilling laugher echoes though the room, Joker. It was on this same day, that you were Abducted; tortured, and subsequently Killed by the Very man. A Trip in the Lazuras pit changed you for the worst. But to your surprise after your revival, Joker was still alive, and Batman hadn’t sunk revenge for your murder, and all you could ask was…

“Why?” You as under your Helmet.. “Why him?” You said, Batman was stoic, silent.

“Who are you..?” He grumbles, his voice modulated to avoid detection, “You don’t know? I’m hurt.” You say with much sarcasm, you grip your helmet and tear it off, showing your face to Batman, even with the small J scar under your eye, it’s obvious who you were. Out of all the people he thought, he never expected his old Sidekick..

To be under the Red Hood.

Jokers eyes lock with the scar and he laughs much harder.

“Wow, now THAT, is funny!” He has his grilled toothy grin, and you placed your foot higher right on his throat. The wheezing laughter continues slowly.

“You don’t get to talk.” You growl at him, and then turnt your attention back to Batman.

“You know, I forgive you for not saving me, you can’t save everyone. But why, why is HE still alive?!” You scream, the rage and trauma building up in you finally. “After everything he’s done, he’s crippled, broken, murdered people! Why, why is he still here?!”

“You don’t understand… you never understood.” He said to you, and you scoff.

“What? That you can’t do it? That you don’t have the spine to! It’s too hard isn’t it?” You ask, Bruce shakes his head.

“No, I know it’s easy, he deserves to die a thousand times over, but if I killed him, i wouldn’t stop myself… I’d justify it, then I’d justify killing someone else, and it’ll keep going.. and I’ll sink further, and further into the dark.” Bruce said, you shook your head.

“You can’t control yourself… I’m not talking about Dent, or Penguin, Even Harley!” You toss the gun, Bruce instinctively catches it but, obviously isn’t capable of holding a gun.

“Do it, shoot him. Kill one, and save millions of lives… you’re the Batman right! You save people, don’t you? So save them! And kill him!” You demand, Bruce stares at you, both of you unwavering in your convictions. But he simply dropped the gun.

“No… I’m sorry, (Y/n).” He said in a solemn whisper.

“Fine!” You yell, revealing one last trick up your sleeve. an explosive set in the entire apartment block, revealing the dead man’s switch in your other hand. Joker laughs as he looks around it all beeping. He turns to Batman, and just smiles

“You, you found a way to win! But to lose everything! AHAHAHAHAHA—“ he laughs, reveling in the chaos as you let go of the switch, Batman made a choice, and now all three of you had to live with it, and in a flash, an explosion, it all faded to black for you.

You’ve been playing that in your mind for the past year you’ve been in Belle Reeve. Sitting in your orange room, captive. The 4x4 room kept you isolated, only for a bang at the door.

“Inmate. You’ve got a visitor! Stand up, face the wall.” He yells, you weren’t keen to listen to others. You stood up, facing the door, cracking your neck.

“Any of your men step in, I’m sending ten of them to the ICU.” You said, very calmly, the door opens and they rush in, training with the Batman made fighting multiple enemies a breeze, punches, kicks and knees flew all though the room as you delivered counters, combos and ruthless tactics. But all fun even came at an end as you were apprehended and locked into a chair. Struggling like a dog you strained to get out, you were wheels around Belle Reeve as you see eleven stretchers head to your cell.

“Told you..” you mutter, struggling in the binds. Being wheeled into an interrogation room, you kept your lips purse until you saw your visitor, she wore a women’s suit and skirt, her eyes deep brown like mud drowning you in muck. Amanda Waller. You looked around and saw that the room was being monitored by a single camera. She gave one officer the nod and he presses a button, the red light on the camera fades off.

“You’re not as scary as I expected.” She said, holding a file she sat down across from you. You knew about Waller, working with the Batman gave you some intel on contacts. And she was the nastiest one of all.

“Waller?” You ask.

“In the flesh.” She responded and opened your file, reading it off.

“(Y/n) Todd, Father was a factory worker, died due to Gang related activity. Mother was an addict, died years ago, leaving you alone, but you see.. that’s where it ends, as if you faded off the planet of the earth. Until you resurface a year later.” She said, all of that was true.

“What’s your point?” You ask. And she reads off another page.

“Peak Physical fitness, durability, speed, Agility, Strenght. Master Of Arms and a Genius level intellect… you are a dangerous and powerful individual, so I’m offering you a chance to cut your sentence down..” she offers

“You’re bluffing..” you struggle in the binds more, but Waller keeps her dead stare.

“Do I look like I’m bluffing?” She said, you stop and she looks you in the eye. “you complete your task, you get years off your sentence, you fail.. you die. Fairly simple.” She said, a million thoughts raced though your mind, but one did.

“Get out, Find Joker.. Kill, Joker.”

“…Im in.” You said, Waller takes her file and closes it. “Good, get his bomb in and relay with the others.” She says, your attitude shifts pretty quickly, “bomb?” You ask, “What do you mean bomb?!” You yell, but nobody said anything, being wheeled away you were held down by officers and a needle injected right into the base of your skull. Granted it wasn’t the worse thing that’s been done to you, still hurt. Finally reaching the breaking point you were wheeled outside, the sun finally hitting your skin and you found yourself surrounded by soldiers, many wounded, others preparing for what seems to be a war.

You turn your head left to spot someone you know too well, Deadshot. Seems he was also canned to Belle Reeve, and to your left was a woman you knew too well, Harley Quinn, also a prisoner. Your blood began to boil even more than before and you were ready to throttle her, but with all these soldiers here, you doubt you’d be able to do it without getting filled with lead. So you bid your time as any Hunter would. A Soldier approached them, and looked them up and down.

“Unlock 'em.” He orders, the soldiers obliged and your restraints are removed, you sit up from yoyr bindings and look further down your line. You even spot Killer Croc, in all his, Lizardy goodness. Harley Stretches and keeps her off putting smile. Closest to Harley was a man adorned with Tattoos, ElDiablo was his name, you heard a few reports about him from Batman.

“Mmm! Hi, boys! Harley Quinn. How do you do?” She said, obviously no one said anything. It was dead silence until she looks around. “Huh? What was that? I should kill everyone and escape? Sorry. It's the voices…” she said, but laughs, “I'm kidding! Jeez!…That's not what they really said.”

The soldiers aren’t done assembling their Squad, more soldiers drag over a sack that’s fighting pretty furiously.

“What do we got here? Twelve pounds of shit in a 10-pound sack. Welcome to the party, Captain Boomerang.” He watches them cut it open, Captain immediately swings on the first person he sees. The Soldiers pin him to a wall.

“Hey, what's going on, man? Hey, one minute I'm playing Mahjong with me nanna, then this red streak hits me outta nowhere.” Boomerang pleads.

“Shut up! You were caught robbing a diamond exchange.”

“I was not!”

He Totally Was.

There was one last member, Slipknot, the man who could climb anything, which was an odd ability set, it nonetheless he was here. The man before them all was Colonel Rick Flag.

“Listen up! In your necks, injection you got, it's a nanite explosive. It's the size of a rice grain, but it's powerful as a hand grenade. You disobey me, you die. You try to escape, you die. You otherwise irritate or vex me, and guess what? You die.” He says, which throws a wrench in your plans to escape, Harley obnoxiously puts her hand up.

“I'm known to be quite vexing. I'm just forewarning you.”

“Lady, shut up!” Flag yells, and then composed himself, “This is the deal. You're going somewhere very bad, to do something that'll get you killed. But until that happens, - you're my problem.” He explains, Deadshot looks him up and down.

“Mmm. So was that like a, uh, pep talk?” He asks.

“Yeah. That was a pep talk. There's your shit. Grab what you need for a fight. We're wheels up in 10.” He said, crates of gear was brought in for you and your “Teammates.”

“You might wanna work on your team motivation thing. You heard of Phil Jackson? He's like the gold standard, okay? Triangle, bitch. Study.” Deadshot, with those very inspiring words to flag suits up with everyone. You open your crate to see the old gear you had, still in damn good condition, and you suit up, Your body armor and jacket lined with shuriken, explosives and throwing knives, a combat knife strapped to your leg. Twin M1911 Dual Handguns, mint condition. And your helmet, still holding one scar on it, you take the helmet out of its case and stare at it. Your eyes waver for a moment to your other teammates, everyone seems to have some dumb gimmick, but your eyes dressed down Harley, not by your choice of course, you’ve been cramped in a hole for nearly a year, and the first woman you see was stripping down in front of you. An urge came over you and you knew exactly what it was, she finally gets her shirt on and sees almost every guy staring.

“What?” She said, they all quickly go back to doing what they were supposed to do, you as well, pushing those feelings down. You keep looking at your mask, Deadshot does the same thing with his.

“What? Won't fit anymore? Too much junk in the trunk?” Harley said to him.

“Nah. Every time I put this on, somebody dies.” He tried to shake it off, but couldn’t that.. this wouldn’t be a normal contracts

“And?” Harley said.

“I like putting it on.” He admits, she smirks and grabs her mallet, “Goody. Somethin' tells me a whole lotta people are about to die!” She sounds so giddy.

“Yeah. It's us. We're being led to our deaths.” Diablo said.

“I don’t plan on it.” You said, looking down the barrels of one of your 1911’s.

“You know something we don’t Mate?” Boomerang asks, “No.” You reply. “I just don’t plan on dying again.” You mutter.

“What you a zombie or something?” Deadshot looks unimpressed. “Something like that… point is; Been dead, done that… I plan on getting out of here..” you say, and turn to Harley.

“I’ve got business to take care of.” You made your claim pretty obvious but it didn’t matter to you, escape is the only plan, and getting this explosive disabled. “You don’t seem to giddy like these guys..” you ask El Diablo, “I’m not here to hurt anyone man.” He said. Deadshot was the first to let them all know.

“Y'all might wanna leave old boy alone. He could torch this whole joint. Ain't that right, ese?” He looks at Diablo, who calmly shows his hands, flames emitting from them, but low ones:

“Ain't got nothing to worry about from me. I'm cool, homie.” He says, Flag returns to them, holding a tablet with Amanda on screen.

“Behold the voice of God.” He said, and she gives them the rundown. “For those of you who don't know me officially, my name is Amanda Waller. There's an active terrorist event in Midway City. I want you to enter the city, rescue HVT-1, and get them to safety.” She orders.

“I'm sorry. Uh... For those of us who don't speak good guy, what is HVT-1?” Deadshot asks.

“HVT.. High Value Target.” You say, “It’s like a bounty, Basically a rescue mission.” You explain, Deadshot nods, admitting you made it sound much less cool. “The only person that matters in the city, the one person you can't kill. Complete the mission, you get time off your prison sentence. Fail the mission, you die. Anything happens to Colonel Flag, I'll kill every single one of you. Remember, I'm watching. I see everything.” Waller ends the communication and Flag turns to Deadshot

There's your pep talk.”

“Compared to your shit, she killed it. So that's it? What, we some kind of Suicide Squad?” He asks, Flag ignores his question and leaves.

“I'll notify your next of kin. Alpha, Bravo team. Mount up!” He orders, you look around to the team you’ll be forced to work with. All of them, criminals in their own right, but for now they’re the thing between success, or all of you dying painful deaths. You put on your helmet and the detective mode still works, turning it off. You load your guns and walk to the helicopter.

Task Force X, has been activated.

#male reader #harley quinn #harley quinzel #harley x reader #harley quinn x reader #harley quinn x male reader #suicide squad #dc #dc comics #Ornii #angst #we simp

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tapwater118 · 4 months ago

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The Post-Split Rant, Part 2

a.k.a.: Grown Adult somehow whines about Baby Cartoon for even longer

Part 1

BFB Post-Split is my least favorite season, so I’m gonna keep whinging on about it. As a reminder to all who bother to read this, this is my opinion. It is fine if you disagree with me about something, and you probably will. This is a good thing! Disagreement invites discussion, as long as all involved are willing to discuss.

Ok let’s just get right into it.

BFB 22

THE LEAFY PLUSH IS NOW AVAILABLE!!!!! I don’t have really anything to say about the ad intro other than it’s become a vocal stim for me. Moving on.

erm taco got out and she was my favortie character so this js the wrost epistioe

Ok, but seriously.

Overall, this is a pretty fun episode! “Court case” doesn’t really sound like it would make for that good of a challenge, but they make it work! A lot of funny moments all around. Jet-flying class is a top tier bit.

That being said, I have two VERY BIG ISSUES with this episode that keep it out of my favorites list. The second one I want to save for later (after BFB 24), so let’s talk about that first one.

This episode, and the resulting elimination segment in the following episode, is the biggest middle finger to Bubble Post-Split ever pulls. She is killed off very early into the challenge, and is not recovered until the next episode. I believe this is directly responsible for her elimination. Leafy gets her moment with Firey (more on that later), Lollipop and Gelatin form their Newbie Alliance, and Teardrop has some cute moments with the typewriter. Every Have Cotter gets to do something intriguing or endearing this episode, except for Bubble. She is, quite literally, written out of the show. It’s not even like she did nothing because she’s a boring character; Bubble is a very interesting character! She was just killed off. (Honestly reminds me of how in season 1 they were pretty obviously trying to get people to vote Ice Cube out near the end, only this time they didn’t have to resort to a contestant vote to do so.)

Like I said, we’ll get to that second issue in a bit.

BFB 23

One last one-two combo on Bubble for really no reason or payoff here. Pretty much nobody remembers she even died last episode, and her elimination is by far one of the most anticlimactic in the entire series. No drum roll or anything, and she barely even gets to say bye. Spongy, the character everyone always seems to point to when people talk about characters being mistreated by the writers (rightfully so imo), had a more impactful elimination.

This episode is just bland. Challenge-wise it’s the exact opposite of BFB 22; the premise for the challenge is really interesting (A jailbreak! That’s exciting!), but they execute it in probably the most boring way possible. One team spends the whole time jumping on boxing gloves, and the other basically has a repeat of BFB 21. The Flower and Purple Face stinger is the best part of the episode.

Just wanted to mention Flower here because I’ll probably forget to do this later; she’s actually written pretty well, by Post-Split standards. I’ve seen people say she wasn’t done well by Post-Split, but I honestly don’t really see it. Post continues her character quite cleanly from Pre-Split; she wants to make friends and make amends for her past behavior, while also still being a bit rude and off-putting. Don’t really see where the issue is here. (As for why she’s like this versus her BFDI/A self, we’ll probably have to wait for IDFB to pick back up.)

BFB 24

Unless something really dumb happens in BFB 28-30 that I’m forgetting (haven’t got there on my rewatch yet), this is probably the worst episode in all of Post-Split, and maybe even the whole series. I know this is the worst episode because it was the only one during my rewatch where I checked how much time was left, saw I still had half the episode to go, and audibly groaned. Nothing happens the entire challenge except for people shitting around and talking, and the overall payoff for most of the contestants not doing the challenges is like one and a half kinda funny jokes. We barely get to see any of them getting the supplies for their parties, or setting them up, or even anything related to the parties until it comes time to judge. The intro/Cake at Stake are so much more engaging than the actual challenge portion. The best part is the Flower and Leafy team-up and even then barely anything happens. Definitely up there with the likes of BFDI 16, BFDIA 1, and BFB 5 for the “real stinker challenge segment” award.

Purple Face becomes a mainstay here, so I guess I’ll comment on him. He’s whatever. He has some good bits, but overall feels like he doesn’t bring anything new to the table. Kinda unnecessary for what Post-Split goes for (or at least tries to go for).

I’ll be completely honest and say I completely forgot about this Gelatin-Teardrop “arc” before this rewatch. It kinda comes out of nowhere too; their moments of “conflict” are not brought up as such (not even any subtle insinuation) until this point. But hey, maybe if they expand on it, Post-Split could really have something intere—aaaaaand it’s over. The same episode this “arc” is established, it gets entirely resolved. Glad that that conflict totally got fleshed out and developed to its full potential. Yup.

Ok, I said we would talk about it after BFB 24, so here we go. My second main reason for making this rant:

I do not like how Post-Split resolved Firey and Leafy’s arc

If you’re gonna disagree with me on anything in this rant, it’ll probably be this.

Let’s start with BFB 22.

First off, bozo, she DID try to talk with you, you just slammed the (soundproof) door in her face before she could get a point across. Ok time to talk about the actual writing.

As a whole, this whole scene comes off as extremely biased towards Firey. Yes, Leafy never apologized for stealing Dream Island, but Firey never apologized for both excluding her for an extremely petty reason and for ignoring her in the years since. This SHOULD have been a mutual make-up between the two. Both apologize for their misdeeds towards the other, and both promise to do better with each other moving forward.

Instead, we this one-sided argument wherein Firey is given much more pity than Leafy by the show. He isn’t even all that remorseful about how he’s treated Leafy, he’s more distraught over potentially being eliminated for stealing the diary. And Leafy, of course, offers to throw the challenge to make sure he isn’t up for elimination. Ok. Sure. Maybe that is in Leafy’s character, to help save Firey from elimination when he’s done something the viewers won’t like; she is the super nice one after all.

Anyway here’s a completely unrelated screenshot from BFB 15. Just putting this here for no particular reason.

Episode ends with them being friends again, and Firey’s only punishment for stealing the diary is to clean the railway. Yippee.

Fast forward to BFB 24: Lollipop snarks in Leafy’s direction, and Leafy tells Firey she’s upset about him not standing up for her, as well as all the time he spent ignoring her. And Firey apologizes! Great!

THIS SHOULD NOT HAVE TAKEN 2 MORE EPISODES TO GET TO!!! THIS SHOULD HAVE BEEN IN BFB 22 WITH THE REST OF THE MAKE-UP SCENE (aside from the ferris wheel probably)!!!!! I can only imagine the crew realized how one-sided BFB 22 was to Firey, so they decide to shoehorn in this scene into BFB 24 to try and fix it. It doesn’t, and this moment feels so phoned in.

Overall, my main issue with how Post-Split handles this reconciliation is that it feels sloppy. It’s too biased towards one side, and they try and correct for that too little too late. It feels like rather than something they wanted to write, it was something they had to write, as they (correctly) predicted Firey didn’t have much more time in the game left, and if they didn’t do this now they wouldn’t get a chance to later.

Anyway, Firey gets eliminated so no more of this arc for a bit. Let’s move on.

BFB 25

Just want to mention it here, because this episode has a perfect example of it, but Four has definitely changed from Pre to Post-Split. Here Gelatin slaps Four, and instead of Four giving him a face full of zappies like Four most certainly would have in Pre-Split, Four just kinda insults him and then the episode moves on. I won’t really say whether this is a good or a bad change, but I will say I like Four much more in TPOT than in Post-Split.

SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP

Meme-slop aside, this is a very whatever episode. More just walking and talking, you know how I feel about these already. I do like both the detail of how Flower’s vomit-repelling sweater was what was causing the vomit-filled totem to run away from her, as well as the fact this detail goes pretty much unspoken. Certainly a nice change of pace from the amount of over-explaining characters tend to do (COUGH COUGH LOLLIPOP COUGH).

The best part of the episode happens near the very end. You know what part I’m talking about.

i need her

BFB 26

It’s the Profily episode! I guess I’ll touch on them a bit. They’re a pretty funny joke character! I can’t decide whether it’s funnier for them to have been there all along and nobody noticed, or for them to straight up be lying about everything. This is a good thing. Past that though, they’re just ok. Some good bits here and there, but after this episode they just become another face in BFDI’s minor character menagerie with nothing to really set them apart.

Nothing really to complain about here. Fun episode! Lots of silly things, and nothing stays still for too long. This and BFB 20 really show how good Post-Split could have been, I think. I do prefer 20 a good bit more, but I’d rank this one above 22.

Time to ditch the Pillary Ruins.

BFB 27

The thumbnail is the worst thing about this episode. Just look at it. Why is there just an ugly chartreuse slab on the side. Why are the characters arranged so haphazardly. What even is this composition. It barely even fits with the rest of the Post-Split thumbnails. I hate it.

What gets me is that there was a scrapped thumbnail that looked a lot better! No clue why they switched it.

I do like the desert as a setting more than the Pillary Ruins, which might be an uncommon opinion idk. The ruins always felt too cluttered to be good default backdrops, so going to something simpler is nice.

Yeah I don’t have much to say about this one, another “whatever talky bluh bluh” episode, but this does have some more funny moments than others like it so there’s that. The Flower and TD montage was silly, and it seems like they kinda set Leafy up for elimination solely because they didn’t want her in the top 3 again. Nothing really much else to say.

Actually, come to think of it, this is the last “regular” challenge before the final all-in-one challenge. Maybe escaping the oven was a callback to BFDI 22’s escaping the volcano? If so, BFDI 22 did it better.

This seems like a good time to stop for now. They’re about to bring back all of the eliminated contestants, so I’ll be touching on both Taco and Firey/Leafy again in the next and final part of this rant. We’ll also get to the third main reason I’m making this rant: BFB 30.

Part 3

#bfdi #bfb #bfdi firey #bfdi leafy #bfb post split #bfb post split rant #bfdi flower #bfdi gelatin #bfdi teardrop #bfdi four #bfdi profily #bfdi purple face #bfdi bubble #bfdi lollipop #ultra yap fest

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aceofthyme · 3 months ago

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List of Things in the Back to the Future Musical That Have Made Me Cry (for one reason or another)

First off: if the title alone doesn’t imply it, this post will contain some spoilers for the minutiae of the Back to the Future musical! If that doesn’t bother you, cruise right on ahead, but if it does then you’d best hit the brakes here!

As of writing this, I have been lucky enough to see the BTTF musical three times (!!)—once on Broadway and twice on the North American tour. Each show has been different, with little quirks and interactions changing night to night, which makes it even more enjoyable to rewatch. There’s so much heart to this show, and so many moments that add to each character. Some things have moved me to tears, and others have made me laugh so hard I’ve actually cried. Below is a collection of moments that have had me tearing up, in no particular order or organizational format:

(Musical spoilers below the cut!!)

Doc talking about how people took advantage of him and actually getting choked up

Doc holding up the model car at the end of For the Dreamers, like it’s flying amongst the stars

Marty handing Doc the ‘thank you note’, and Doc being incredibly touched and going on for several moments about how kind of Marty it was to write him a thank you note (to the point of sounding teary) before pausing and his expression dropping when he realizes it’s actually future information

Doc’s side table getting destroyed (unintentionally) at the tail end of Future Boy, and Doc only noticing it about thirty seconds later and staring at it before howling “THAT’S AN ANTIQUE! THAT WAS MY GRANDMOTHER’S!”

and then “I know times are hard on dancers, but there’s no need to steal furniture!”

in the same show, following the table’s untimely demise, Doc waking up (after 21st Century) and being startled by Marty’s presence and responding with “oh, hey, Marty, I—I was confused ‘cause there was a table there” to roaring audience laughter (plus Marty’s follow up of “you can buy a new one when I leave”)

Doc hugging Marty in the square after Marty returns to 1985, and Marty beginning to cry, and Doc comforting him and gently patting his back and holding onto him for a few moments longer than usual

Doc and Marty tapping their microphones together during Back in Time like a microphone fist bump

Doc and the flyswatter. Truly the only valid reaction to watching your (new) friend be hit on by his mother, retching and slapping a flyswatter back and forth and then managing a “there’s a—a bug, I’ll get it—“ while you continue to smack the flyswatter back and forth, and eventually going “got it” because ya gotta at least pretend there’s continuity and you can catch a bug

The fire extinguisher flavors!

“Doc!” “Aah!” “Whoa, whoa—are you all right?” “What?” “Are you all right?” “Left?” “What??”

George waving goodbye to the bird

Doc waking up startled and immediately calling for his mother 😭

“Sirius is the brightest star in the night sky, why are we talking about astronomy??”

“Profanity not necessary.” “The hell it isn’t!”

Doc on the clock tower genuinely panicking and hyperventilating but giving it his all (look I don’t blame him for wailing I would not want to be up on a collapsing edge especially with a fear of heights!)

“Safety first, Marty, it’s so important, I always say that!” “When do you say that?” “I say it every time!” “Do you?” “Remember the time you burned your eyebrows off…”

“We’ll put the red one here like Rudolph—aw, he’s so cute!!”

The entire fire extinguisher bit. Every time. The perfect cut into yelling and the cut back into the same exact word. Gold.

Doc revealing the model, Marty complimenting it, and Doc putting a hand to his chest and then leaning his head against Marty’s, clearly incredibly touched

“you’ll be fine, you’ve had coke” *incredibly loud sniff*

Doc struggling with the projector screen, turning (with one arm still up) to see Lorraine, extending a leg and bowing with an “enchanté”

Doc’s German accent!! Truly a moment

Every *single* time there’s a “you mean the future” type joke, the note of suspense from the brass section and the double fourth wall break look by Marty and Doc out at the audience (especially when they look back at each other and then look out again, often multiple times)

“Brown.” “Strickland.” “It’s…been a long time.” “Not long enough. BYE!” *featuring Doc well and truly sprinting away*

#this truly is mostly about doc and marty’s friendship i cannot lie #back to the future the musical #bttf musical #bttf #back to the future #doc brown #marty mcfly #george mcfly #also there are absolutely other moments circulating in my brain but i tried to pare this down #i will say though. every single show has been different. it is a new experience each time #so none of these bits were ever repeated identically in any show #which i love because it’s like getting new content every time. it’s good soup!!#is it obvious yet that i adore this musical #the cast has started recognizing me at the stage door that’s how serious we’re getting dhfjfhdjjd #alyssa speaks

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giggly-squiggily · 5 months ago

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(Headcanons to Dabbles: OFFICIALLY CLOSED)

Heyo! So given the grand total of headcanons this event was an odd number, I decided to throw in my own for an even 70! It was a hard choice, but given I'm rewatching it and also the recent amount of tickle content I've seen in the community lately- I bring you my first watched anime ever (technically that was Naruto but shhh): Death Note! :D (Lee!L to be exact- hehehe)

This takes place during the Yotusba arc, so spoilers ahead! (Also cause like- that's the only arc I could realistically make them have tickle fights in- if you know you know)

“Ryuzaki…” Light didn’t know where to even begin with his question. He knew the answer, but a part of him wanted to believe otherwise.

“Yes?” L turned that obsidian gaze at him, half of his face luminated by his computer screen. The sight would have been more intimidating had he not been fighting off a yawn. “What is it?”

“I..” Light shook his head, steeling his nerves. “Have you been drinking water? Like- at all? I swear since we’ve been cuffed together, I’ve never seen you consume anything beyond tea and coffee.” And sweets- but that would have sent them off a different tangent.

L stared at him, nearly motionless. His eyes widened a fraction, the only indication he was surprised. Light raised a brow at him, waiting.

A stare down. Finally…

“Coffee has water in it.” L offered, voice somewhat sheepish. Light nearly fell out of his chair with how hard he rolled his eyes.

“You’re getting water. Now.” He got up from his chair, making his way towards the office kitchen with little luck. “You’re probably so dehydrated, Kira could make you spontaneously combust!”

“Interesting theory. Is this your way of saying you’re Kira?”

“I’m not-” No. Don’t play into his game. “Water. Now.”

“I’m not thirsty, though.” L remained, an unshakable stone despite Light’s insistent pulling. “Besides, if I drink anything now, I’ll need to use the bathroom.”

“Good- it’ll give you a reason to stretch.” Frustrated, he walked over and grabbed the back of L’s chair, dragging it behind him on his way. “You should consider investing in a chair with better wheels.”

“Maybe I’ll get a chair with no wheels at all.” L- the little bastard- hung onto the desk like a stubborn child. Light felt his temper rise at how ridiculous it was. Wasn’t he older than him? Why did Light- a freshly graduated college student have more sense of self-preservation than this blockhead of a detective? “Really, you worry too much.”

“I’ll give you five seconds.” Light glared, hands on his hips.

“35 less than usual?”

Screw it. “Come here!” Light didn’t know why- maybe it was the hour, his frustration, or just because the other day he saw Watari do it and now he wanted to see it for himself, but he proceeded to grab L’s sides from behind, drilling into his ribs rapidly.

The reaction was surprising and instantaneous and utterly perfect.

“Gah! Aheahahhahahah! Dohohon’t, thihihihs is stuhuhuhupid! Gheahahahah, ghehehet oohohohff!” L cried, unlatching from the desk as he curled up in a ball in his chair. Somehow, the damn thing didn’t fall over- giving Light the chance he needed. Still tickling, he dragged him far enough from his computer until he could comfortably walk to the sink.

L gasped and groaned, hands on his sides and mind suddenly fuzzy with overstimulation. Residue giggles and laughs broke through his slow deep breaths, his eyes closed and his face pressed into his knees.

Something chilly pressed into his hand, making him look up. Light stood before him with a glass of ice water.

“Drink.” He ordered, even when L frowned. “Ryuzaki.”

“Fine, fine.” He took the cup, frowning the entire time he drank from it. Finishing it off, he showed it to the other boy with a pout- very much like a child made to eat his vegetables. “Happy?”

“Very much so.” Light refilled the cup before returning to the desks, forcing L to stand up and walk back. “And you even stretched. See? Was that so hard?”

L’s sharp jab to his ribs before sitting down was all the answer he got, sputtering water everywhere while the other man smiled.

Petty bastard.

#Puffs #headcanons to dabbles #Squiggily's pick hehehe #I love L so much y'all-#We actually found a really cool figure of him at Books a Million on my mom's birthday #We got it for her as a birthday gift #She also loves death note #anyway- life stuff aside BOOM!#tickle #tickle dabble #death note #L lawlit #Light Yamagi #spoilers #death note spoilers #death note anime spoilers #they're technically not really spoilers but you know #new fandom reveal???

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ridiasfangirlings · 17 days ago

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ridia, what's your opinion about k series (starting from season 1) being rated quite low by many people due to the fact that they feel like the story is lacking and poorly created? (i disagree with this but most of the reviews in google about this anime said so) :D

Obviously I don’t fully agree either, though I can kinda see where those reviews come from. For one thing I think the real meat of K is and has always been in the side materials, the anime works as a standalone but most of what makes the series really good is in the novels, manga, short stories, etc. So from that standpoint I can see why people feel the anime is lacking, because there’s a lot of character work and even worldbuilding that gets shunted off to the side materials (quick, anime only people, tell me exactly what Anna’s powers are!).

Starting with season one specifically, I think that season is hampered by the in media res opening and the fact that it does take a while to get going. I know on my first watch I was confused by various things throughout the season, and because it’s so hard to grasp the basics of the setting and what exactly is happening at any given moment it means you miss a lot of the good stuff that the season is doing. There’s some definite chaff that could have been trimmed here and there — episode four comes most to mind, where we spend a lot of the time with the Silvers establishing Shiro’s alibi that almost immediately gets thrown out the window right afterward, or how the first couple episodes spend a good bit of time on Homra trying to hunt down the gun that killed Totsuka even though that plot thread ultimately goes nowhere. I personally found that season one works a lot better on rewatch, when you’re not hampered by trying to figure out things like ‘so is Neko actually a cat or actually a girl’ (which is a notable issue, I distinctly remember when I saw Missing Kings in the theater the girl behind me was explaining the series to her companion and incorrectly called Neko a cat that turns into a girl instead of the other way around). One of my favorite things on rewatch is seeing how they laid the clues for the mystery of Shiro’s identity and how you can see various characters figuring things out, Munakata in particular I didn’t even realize on my first watch is slowly piecing together what exactly is going on with Colorless and the Silver King for most of the latter half of the season. But reviewers generally only watch the season once, so it’s easy to miss the best parts of the mystery and feel ultimately like the show is lacking.

Missing Kings is short enough that I think it’s basically fine just as it is, it does what it needs to for the story and I don’t have much room for complaint on that one. Return of Kings on the other hand I can definitely see why the reviews are meh on that one because even I’m pretty meh on that season. The pacing issues for ROK are honestly just really killer. I mentioned this even when I was reviewing the season as it aired, I feel like the plot of ROK was mostly brainstormed as ‘x episode needs to end on y moment,’ and a lot of the early episodes especially feel like they’re stalling for time in order to end on a particular beat. I think it just really kills the pacing and makes the first half feel overly slow and the second half too rushed, the season does its job in closing out the series but I can see why people find the story lacking in this one (I actually think the novelization did a good job of correcting some of these issues oddly enough, it even gives Neko a proper storyline instead of the weird half-aborted one she gets in the season proper).

I’ll also touch on the Seven Stories movies too, I think these have the pacing problems you’d expect out of trying to make longer novels into short movies. LSW especially is just really disappointing, it cuts out the entire back half of the novel (when that back half is basically the whole point of the novel) and trims down a lot of the early stuff too, LSW the novel has issues with sidelining Yata for Fushimi and the movie version just does that tenfold. R:B I also think really speeds through things in a way that it feels a lot flatter than thinner than the novel. Side Blue kinda works (and is deeply weird and kinda horny for some reason) I think owing to the novel itself being a bit uneven due to how early it was written, the movie actually streamlines a lot of the time spent on side characters like Hidaka in order to focus on the more important Munakata/Zenjoh dynamic. Memory of Red is I think by far the best of the Seven Stories movies precisely because it picks a story that fits perfectly in the runtime it’s given, it doesn’t feel stretched but doesn’t feel rushed either. In general I feel like you can kinda see how Gora is a team made up largely of light novel writers, because they shine more when they have time to really focus on the story they want to tell and don’t have to be bound to the pacing of an animated series/movie.

#k project #Talking K #I do think the anime is probably the weakest part of K #side materials are where all the best stuff is at #but S1 at least really rewards rewatching #it's so much more interesting when you know what's happening and can focus on the characters #ROK has bad pacing problems unfortunately #and Seven Stories has even worse ones alas #oh the stages are nice too love the stages the stages manage the pacing well

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cyanoticfireflies · 5 months ago

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Hazbin Hotel - Rewatch Thoughts (Episode 1, Part 1)

Notes: As I’ve been re-reading some of my favorite things (as in, not necessarily just fanfics, but other stuff that I enjoy) I got part of the way through @canary3d-obsessed’s “Restless Rewatch: The Untamed” and thought to myself that I should do one of these for Hazbin Hotel! I can’t do a first time reacting to, because by this point I’ve watched it a good eight times -_- But this way I can point out some of the things that I’ve noticed on multiple rewatches, some of which prove just how clever the team behind this show is! Also, you will get unapologetic Huskerdust shipping. This is just my life now.

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Episode 1

So we start off with Charlie giving us the background story on Heaven, Hell, daddy Lucy, mama Lili, and all of that. Heaven was “good,” Lucifer was a dreamer who thought of free will, the elders of Heaven said “nah,” Lucifer said “but what if yea,” and shit went sideways.

As someone who likes watching reaction videos on YouTube, I’ve been surprised by the number of people who have watched this intro and gone “Who’s Lilith?” And then there are the ones who say they heard about her from Diablo 4. I feel like Lilith isn’t… rare lore? I don’t know where or when I first heard about Lilith, but that kind of supports my stance of surprise?

(I tried to show my religious friend Hazbin – leaning on the “it’s about redemption” point – and it was actually the mention of Lilith that first triggered her? Because “you have to get really deep into things to find out about Lilith”? I am confused.)

I won’t go into my theories too heavily at this point – I’ll put up a final chapter for those so I can take it down in humiliation when the show laughs in my face later – but Eve looks very, very evil when she gets that fruit…

Anyway, Luci and Lili got exiled, Luci developed depression, Lili developed magic song powers then fluffed off seven years ago. Don’t worry, Charlie – your mom just went to go get some milk and cigarettes.

Genuinely, is Lilith being a song demon why everyone in Hell has pre-choreographed musical numbers? If she “empowered demon-kind” with her songs, does that include giving them all baby song powers? We know that these songs aren’t reality breaks because at the end of “Loser, Baby” the sharks comment on the song. (There’s also Vaggie and Angel’s discussion in “Happy Day in Hell” but since that’s in-song it feels like a less-strong argument.)

So it turns out that Charlie has been speaking this whole prolog bit aloud to herself. Relatable, girl – me dictating to myself the entire course of actions it takes to get through my email inbox. My officemate wears headphones so she won’t think I’m talking to her when I start talking to myself.

Also, poof – kitty!

I love KeeKee (pronounced “key-key” because, and this is true, she’s a key). But I also don’t know what the point of KeeKee is? If it’s just to give Charlie a pet, that’s totally fine. She also has Razzle and Dazzle, but Charlie could be one of those people with two cats, a full fishtank, a canary, and a husky and that’s totally chill.

(Why yes, my in-laws’ place is a zoo, why do you ask?)

I think I saw somewhere that KeeKee is the key to the hotel? But when Lucifer pops up later he immediately coos over KeeKee like Charlie has had her forever, so she obviously didn’t come with the hotel. Did Charlie change the locks on the hotel to KeeKee-compatible locks after she bought the place? I assume this is a metaphorical key?

(Lucifer and KeeKee in episode 5.)

Vivienne has said that KeeKee is a “physical manifestation of the hotel” but even that doesn’t make a lot of sense with the timeline… *Shrugs*

Charlie and Vaggie talk, and I honestly get so much amusement out of people who are like “Is that her sister? Are they best friends?” And I know that they didn’t, like, make out in their opening scene. But I didn’t ever suspect that they weren’t girlfriends? Maybe it’s just because I read into pretty much all media from a queer lens.

(Right here, ma’am.)

Charlie will go on to call Vaggie her girlfriend much later in episode 5 and make it official-official, but if you don’t go into everything with a straight-is-default mindset I’m not sure how you miss it.

We blip into Alastor’s take on a commercial for a hotel. Which is thoroughly enticing to exactly… Alastor.

(Quick question on the sinner designs – and I won’t stop every time we see a cluster of sinners to do this. But everyone’s design has something to do with how they lived or died, right? Angel is from a “web of crime” family, Husk is an unlucky black cat [I know, he’s a tuxedo cat not a fully black cat], Alastor was shot by a hunter like a deer… was grenade man some type of bomber? A war criminal? What is his story???)

His little hand-drawn picture is kind of cute, but it also makes me laugh because we actually see another character do something similar later on: Vox!

(And, yeah, Charlie obviously.)

I want someone to write the fic where Alastor and Vox’s relationship started in an introductory art class before descending into the chaos we see in episodes 2 and 8.

Vaggie does not like Alastor’s sense of humor and starts yelling at him. Charlie tries the *kindergarten teacher* nice feedback. “I love your use of color,” she says, staring at his construction paper covered in scribbled blobs of blue and orange. “Very creative.”

(“Maybe if you crumpled your drawing into a little ball like this, it would look better in the trashcan, honey!”)

Alastor doesn’t see the problem here. Alastor seems to have exactly zero capacity to accept anything that isn’t Alastor’s way, so this is unsurprising.

And then, with the sultry wail of a saxophone, we’re introduced to the bestest spider (and the only spider this horrifically arachnophobia author actually adores:) Angel Dust

Angel is totally willing to shoot an amateur porno right there on the sofa if it will help draw sinners to the hotel for Charlie.

And this would actually probably work in Hell, honestly. The horniest sinners actually would be knocking the walls down if they thought that with every night’s stay you got a free round with Hell’s most famous porn star. “Cum to the Hazbin Hotel for some ‘quality time’ with our singular resident.”

I am curious what Angel’s concept for his porno commercial was. Just him and Alastor banging dirty on the coffee table in the foyer? Night in the life of the brothel that is Angel’s bedroom?

(Also, I know Val owns Angel in the studio and Angel has some freedom outside of it, but does that include shooting his own pornos? Is it okay if they’re not for money? Or is it still not okay because Angel doesn’t own rights to his own image? Would Angel have to charge so Val could get his cut?)

Charlie doesn’t want to exploit Angel that way, but Angel starts listing off all of his highly exploitable attributes. He lists the legs twice, which is hilarious, but I’m immediately zeroed in on “the gag reflex.”

You’d think that for someone who makes a significant amount of his living sucking dick that it should be “the lack of a gag reflex” but the thing about Angel is that he’s not exactly sucking dick for the nicest guys around. Honestly, the fact that he does have a gag reflex and therefore will be gagging and choking and drooling is probably a turn-on for his usual partners.

We’re interrupted from Angel attempting to “keep going all night, baby,” by Lucifer calling, and the fact that his contact image in Charlie’s phone is a rubber duck in Lucifer’s top hat is honestly too cute?

Angel wants to know why Alastor can’t just make people stay in the hotel. And the timing on this animation is actually a little weird. After he says that he can, Husk chimes in with “Why do you think I’m here?” but Alastor is already moving to see around Vaggie as Husk starts talking. Has he primed Husk to be his hype man if someone starts asking questions like this?

Here's Alastor, looking at Husk before Angel and Vaggie even turn their heads – and Alastor had to move his whole *torso* to see around Vaggie.

A: “Now, remember. If anyone starts asking if I’m big and bad, you say yes.”

H: “Sure, Alastor.”

A: “I mean, I’ll say so first. But then you jump in and talk me up.”

H: “Yeah, all right.”

A: “But, like, right away.”

H: “Uh-huh.”

A: “Should we practice? We should practice.”

I do find it funny that we know the timeline – Alastor, Husk, and Niffty have been at the hotel a week per Vaggie’s words earlier. But Husk is already grousing about them bitching and moaning all the time. It’s been seven days?! How much bitching and moaning are you guys doing?! And it’s not just listening to, like, Angel bitch and moan. It’s “you fucks.”

(Or “you fuck’s” because Amazon doesn’t know how to pluralize a swear word?)

Vaggie didn’t even want a bar, but I’m betting it took her about two piscos on the rocks to be over that.

We also get our official series intro to Niffty here when she says “I like being forced!” in her happy little voice with a wide smile.

(God, I want the Niffty episode.)

Angel starts hitting on Husk, but (YMMV) I feel like at this point Angel isn’t trampling all over Husk’s boundaries the way he does later. He’s just throwing passes and Husk is kind of engaging him? By responding? He threatens Angel, making it clear that the flirting is unwelcome, absolutely.

But I kind of want to see where the conversation would have gone if Vaggie hadn’t stepped in. At some point it might have gotten snappier, but Angel wasn’t in meltdown mode like he is in “Masquerade” so they probably could have kept bickering for a bit.

Vaggie and Angel start talking about the core premise of the show. Is Hell the end of the road? Maybe, but also maybe not. Charlie thinks that it’s worth trying so that’s what Vaggie is going to do.

We as rewatchers know that where you end up in the afterlife isn’t as permanent of an assignment as the show makes it sound. And Vaggie I’m sure highly suspects so as well. This conversation is literally happening with one person who was in Heaven and now lives in Hell.

Though I do have to wonder if there’s a teeny tiny part of Vaggie that hopes the hotel fails, though? If Sinners really can be redeemed into Heaven, then she has to double/triple/quadruple think about what she’s done as an Exorcist. If the Sinners prove irredeemable, it doesn’t *justify* what she did or anything, but it could potentially relieve some of the guilt for her.

(Blake Roman’s delivery on “crack is expensive” is my favorite moment from episode 1.)

If we didn’t know that Charlie was drowning in daddy issues, I feel like we get a good demonstration at the end of her phone call. Yes, she’s excited and happy and hopeful. But she also says “Okay” and hangs up.

Maybe Lucifer said, “I’ll talk to you soon” or something and she said “okay” back. But I never hang up after a call with my dad without a “love you, bye.”

IDK why Charlie calls Vaggie over except to show her hyperactive squirrel brain going wild. Alastor and Angel are staring at them and seem like they can hear every word even after Charlie had Vaggie come around the corner.

Vaggie knows that Charlie means Adam, right? She has to. Charlie says “the leader of the angel army” and as of now, I mean… that’s Adam.

Also, initially I missed the detail that Adam was the one to call the meeting.

Was he going to inform Lucifer face-to-(virtual)-face that they were moving up the next extermination? Do Lucifer and Adam meet regularly? I think not from some of the dialogue in episode 8, but then what is the Heaven Embassy for?

(We'll pick up in Episode 1, Part 2 due to Tumblr's 30 images-per-post limit.)

#hazbin hotel #recap #images #randomness #musings #meta #analysis #charlie morningstar #vaggie #angel dust #husk #alastor #niffty #adam #lute

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oceanic-sunsets · 2 years ago

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S4 and Its Role Storytelling Wise: The GA’s (lack of) Understanding of The Show

[Warning: long post ahead]

So I stumbled across two videos on youtube about season 4 of Stranger Things, analyzing it from a storytelling standpoint. As one does, I watched them, because I was intrigued about what people thought outside our bubble or places like reddit and fb. And I wanna talk about it because it’s intriguing how the answers are right in front of us, but most people, even people with knowledge about storytelling and media analysis, don’t consider more possibilities, too blinded by heteronormativity and how we’re used to the same formulas, the way most stories unfold.

The first video, “Why Stranger Things 5 (Probably) Won’t be Good”, considers that the show is dragging on too long because all the characters have solved their conflicts and the entire main cast of characters are perfectly fine with each other, which means s5 won’t be a compelling story because you can’t separate the character development and inner conflicts from the plot. And I was genuinely surprised because this is the complete opposite of how most of us perceive s4.

If anything, I don’t like rewatching s4 for this reason, because everything feels too open, too unresolved, with some clues and some key reveals but no real answers.

Mike and El are far from okay, they ended up the season not talking to each other. Will lied to Mike about the painting. Nancy and Jonathan haven’t had a real conversation about their future and how they really feel about it. Dustin is grieving Eddie and Mike isn’t even aware of his death. Lucas and El are grieving Max but not giving up on her.

And the most important one that upset me to no end for a while after I finished s4, before I sit down and analysed it: the characters come together to try to save Max, and Mike and Will do the same for El, and then they reunite… But they don’t have any real moment that reminds us that they’re friends, or why they are. This is hard to do when there’s so much action going on, but there’s always time to show us where these characters stand with each other. And this hurts me to write, but they don’t feel like a group of friends anymore, haven’t, for a while, since s3 probably. And this is intentional because they purposefully show us the party drifting apart in the beginning of s4, as soon as the first episode.

The fact that they’re all back in Hawkins and working together again isn’t enough to show us that they’re back to being best friends. We need moments that show us why these characters are friends and stick together because they love and care for each other, choosing each other, not only because the circumstances force them back together.

And in that sense, s4 lays the foundation for it to be something touched upon next season, but these characters are far from completely fine with each other. It’s going to be good and rewarding to have them all reunited and working together again and rebuilding their friendship at the same time, but it has not happened yet.

To say there’s no more “personal drama” to add on is a complete misunderstanding of where our main characters stand. When I heard that I was just thinking, did we just forget Will lied to Mike about the painting and he was only able to say “I love you” when he was pushed by Will, and we got no explanation for his weird behavior?!

The second video (Stranger Things 5 is NOT the Redemption You Think It Is) analyses several aspects of the show and brings up very important points about what makes a story feel real and compelling. This is a very good video, however, I found myself disagreeing once more with most of it. I’ll divide it into sections so it’s more organized, and I’ll talk about their arguments and my counterarguments. Keep in mind this is how most people perceive the show, and this person in the video is someone who does have some sort of knowledge about storytelling.

*They see the Cali plot as useless.

It is a fact that Mike, Will and Jonathan have been sidelined this season. While I don’t like this or agree with the amount of screen time they were given this season compared to other characters, they are far from useless. A lot of people seem to think they didn’t know what to do with them, so they put Mike and Will together in a van with Jonathan in Argyle just for funsies, and gave Will a crush on Mike as a last-minute decision. They perceive Will’s plot as simply being the “sad gay best friend who is obviously getting rejected”.

Their reasoning is quite simple: They aren’t looking at the bigger picture, failing to consider how these characters all have a purpose and how the Duffers always say that each scene adds something to the story. Even seemingly insignificant moments have weight in the story and are used to help us understand the how and why’s, or as callbacks, parallels, or even to reveal future plot points.

So what IS the purpose of the Cali plot? First I’m going to say what is NOT their ONLY purpose: saving El.

Yeah, that’s what we see them doing the entire time, but it’s not like El had an issue getting out of there by herself. I’m sure she would’ve been fine, ultimately doing the same thing we see her do: find a way to try to save Max when she’s miles away from Hawkins.

So, if their purpose (storytelling-wise) is not to save El and help her get to Hawkins… What does the Cali plot add?

CHARACTER CONFLICT that is going to BE IMPORTANT LATER. It’s, again, part of the FOUNDATION for the climax. Even with their little screen time, the Cali plot is KEY for future events. It builds lies upon lies that ended up inadvertently killing Max.

Mike wasn’t being himself, incapable of having an honest, open conversation with El, not being able to tell her I love you. Mike’s inner conflict, his tumultuous relationship with El, isolation from his friends, and awkward behavior towards Will drove Will to lie to him, presenting his feelings as El’s. Will’s lie pushed Mike to rush a love confession in a life-or-death situation and instead of helping, it contributed to Max’s death and Vecna not being defeated.

It serves the purpose to show the audience:

The characters are lying. They’re not being honest with each other, and this has BIG consequences.

They’re acting that way for a reason, but we don’t know why yet. It’ll be important later.

Mike and El do not understand each other and don’t work as a couple.

It sets Mike and Will’s relationship apart from the rest. They’re not just our usual friendship story, because if they were, their conflict would’ve been solved when they made up in s3. But their story is not over. This is the writers telling the audience: look here, we’ve established this pair and dynamic, it’ll be important.

And the thing is, if Will was supposed to be your usual “gay best friend in love with the straight guy” story, why bother with the points we just went over? It was a choice to have Mike act that way, not being able to hug Will and tell El I love you, it was a choice to have Will lie about the painting making it impossible for the truth not to reveal itself eventually, it was a choice to establish them as a pair who has multiple hearts to hearts, and it was a choice to have El not speaking to Mike by the end of the season.

It was a choice to have THIS as the final shot of the season.

*Mike’s Character

Next, let’s talk about Mike, one of the least liked characters by the general audience right now.

To be honest, it’s easy to understand why, and even some of us were worried about how they’ve been handling his character. The GA perceives Mike as a supporting role, El’s incompetent boyfriend who went from this smart kid that acted as a leader, to an oblivious, mean character. He feels DUMB to the audience, because how could he not notice El acting weird and how upset Will was in the van scene? They think it’s a shame because he used to be a perceptive kid and now he apparently lost his perception.

But this isn’t true at all.

Even in s4, when Mike is not his best and focuses too hard in pretending to be someone he’s not… He has shown us

Again

And again

That he is still his smart, perceptive self. He just struggles when it comes to emotional awareness and communicating his feelings, which, you know what? it’s completely fair for a teen boy whose best friend went missing, discovered an alternative dimension, saw multiple people die, and… Do I have to keep going? And he still managed to figure out the number was inside the pen, that Nina was a computer, and had the idea to ask Suzie for help. But they don’t read him as a three dimensional character, which brings me to the next point.

*Mike being “The Heart” feels undeserved

Honestly, my first reaction right after finishing s4 was the same. I thought they had murdered his character, and how could someone who is a bad boyfriend, a bad friend, and mean be the heart of the group, the leader? (I’m so sorry, he’s my favorite character now and my resentment lasted like two days)

I get them. This is what happens when you don’t consider the bigger picture and the clues for the character arc they’re clearly setting up for him.

In the video, it is said that “S4 doesn’t do a good job of conveying his emotional growth”. This is true. That’s why the monologue doesn’t feel genuine, it’s unsatisfying and just overall weird. Not to mention the deathly (literally) consequences. But that’s the thing. S4 doesn’t try to make his love confession a sudden, magic solution for his individual issues and his relationship with El.

Because it’s not a resolution. It’s not growth. There’s nothing in S4 that made him suddenly realize how much he loved El, nothing that inspired him to want to tell her those words. It’s the opposite: he has to be pushed by Will, who lied to him and put words and feelings in El’s mouth that weren’t hers. The grand love confession that saves the day was prompted by a lie.

So again, they DON’T try to fit into the “love confession saves the day” trope. They make a POINT of showing us the indirect consequences.

And while this season Mike was distant for both the audience and the characters (for a reason), we have to remember the role he has always played: he’s the friend that cares too much, who doesn’t give up on the people he loves, who is always there supporting and trying to protect others (mainly Will and El).

And this season finally has him as the one receiving emotional support, it shows us someone else looking out for Mike the way he always does for other people. This was said by Finn Wolfhard himself! and the Duffers, I’m sure, I don’t remember where right now, but if someone knows, please link me:).

Besides, these are Will’s feelings. His words show us how beautiful and intense they are. It’s how he sees Mike, despite their fights and the tension that seems to follow them everywhere. And Will has a lot of reasons to feel that way: Mike has always been kind and a good friend to him, it’s only recently that the complexity of growing up and feelings shifting into something new changed their dynamic.

*”Max mourning Billy feels undeserved”

I’m gonna be honest, this is what annoyed me the most. It completely brushes over the real message and the source of a lot of Max’s trauma and the reason why she’s the one who got cursed: Max isn’t suddenly sad because she lost her step-brother who sacrificed himself to save them. She isn’t sad because the bad guy turned good in the end and died to redeem himself. She feels guilty because she wanted him to die, wanted him gone, and when it actually happened she feels like it was her fault. Billy didn’t redeem himself, one single good action resulting in his death doesn’t absolve him of all the bad. And Max knows this, that’s why she feels so guilty. It’s the mixed feelings of sadness, relief, and guilt.

The last thing the video touches upon that I’ll address brings me again to something I mentioned before:

*"Even in the same town, the characters feel a mile apart"

This is something I agree with. No counterargument here, because it’s true. What tends to be overlooked, however, it’s the fact that it’s intentional. The Duffers themselves have said that you’re supposed to feel like the characters lost, like it’s hopeless.

This is because Stranger Things as a whole is written using the Five Act Structure. You can read a post by @dinitride-art that explains this better here, but in summary, this is how stories are structured if you divide them in five acts:

That’s why s4 feels the way it does. I love what it adds to the overall story that is unfolding, but I really don’t like it is as its own season. That’s because you’re meant to interpret the show as a whole, and yeah, last seasons tried to sort of give us a good and satisfying ending, but as we’re nearing the end of the show, s4 couldn’t do that.

It’s the second to last act, the moment we feel everything is lost and can’t be fixed. That’s why the characters even back together in Hawkins do not feel like a group of friends again (yet). That’s why the truth about the painting hasn’t come out. That’s why El and Mike aren’t talking. That’s why Mike and Will still have unresolved tension despite being friends again and a team. That’s why Max is in a coma. That’s why the Jonathan/Nancy/Steve love triangle was left unclear. That’s why Hawkins is falling apart, Vecna is getting strong again, and the Upside Down is starting to leak into the real world.

There are many things I didn’t like about s4. There are things I think could’ve been done better and clearer to the entire audience. But I’m excited about what’s to come, and after seeing the effort and details put into the show, and how much care and love they put into their characters, I’m choosing to trust we’ll get a good, satisfying ending for the characters we love.

And with that, I’m done here! If you made it this far all I have left to say is thank you and sorry lol.

#byler #stranger things #mike wheeler #will byers #analysis #st analysis #max mayfield #anti m*leven #this is a monster of a post #i just cant shut up #i'm just really passionate about storytelling okay #and when i watched these videos i became too aware of how most people dont interpret the show the same way we do #anyway #stranger things meta #stranger thing s4 #byler proof #byler is endgame #mike wheeler is gay

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ohh-fiddlesticks · 4 months ago

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pinned post thingo… pt 3 !

hiii my name is 💥 micah 💥 and this is my selfship sideblog! i use he/him and im a certified transsexual 🔥 aroace and gay as well. its a complex and wondrous thing yk how it is ‼️ i’m also australian 🎉

i tend to see my selfships as more on the fictional side; i like to explore the relationships like any other relationship in fiction, meaning that it wont always be the healthiest, so… keep that in mind i guess 👍

i dont like to associate this blog too closely with my main but if you get notifs from a blog with a url starting with d and a rainbow pfp of castiel, thats almost definitely me! if u wanna know the exact url feel free to ask and i’ll let you know 👍

you can also check out my strawpage for some general info about me and an f/o list, etc. :^)

i draw sometimes ‼️ i tag all my art with “#my art”

my main f/os are dave s.trider & c.handler bing but ive also got a couple more in the bag!

proship and closely associated please kindly don’t follow 🙏 strictly nsfw or 18+ blogs preferably dni too closely also . generally tho i’ll just block people i don’t want interacting

f/o list, sharing boundaries, etc. below the cut!

for romantic f/os, my general policy is that i’m not particularly comfortable with sharing and while you’re free to follow or interact if we share f/os, keep in mind i’m less likely to follow back— this ofc does not apply if i follow first. platonic, familial, etc. f/os im totally fine with sharing, in fact i think thats awesome

also! i have no tagging system— that being said, if you want me to tag a certain ship for filtering purposes or similar, i’d be happy to do so

characters i talk about in a romantic manner (some are f/os, some not, it’s complicated):

dave strider (homestuck) — f/o. thats my boyf riend . basically my first proper f/o i heart him lots 💗

chandler bing (friends) — f/o. thats also my boyf riend. my beloved sarcastic repressed boring yet not boring guy. this may come as a surprise but i also love him lots

hitch (ruby redfort) — f/o. i dont talk about him as much but i do love him. middle aged secret agent who’s afraid of crocodiles and is secretly silly :-)

prismo (adventure time) — f/o. also dont talk about him as much but i love him i prommy. idc that he’s 2D i will find a way to give him a kiss 🫡

jonny goodman (friday night dinner) — fictional crush or something i dont even know. i was briefly obsessed with him during my fnd interest period and i still hold him dearly and sometimes rewatch some fnd episodes and think of him

bernard black (black books) — i truly dont know tbh i just love black books and am a little obsessed with him. manny & fran too but i dont have gay little crushes on them so

jeremy usbourne (peep show) — practically an f/o atp but im in denial. side effect of my recent peep show obsession was developing a secondary obsession with this freak

characters i have some sort of weird little qpr situation with

foxy (fnaf) — idk how to explain it he was one of the first characters i started selfshipping with in some variety and i like him :-)

the nice cream guy (deltarune) — he’s a developed character 2 meeee. we’re gayass boy best friends

red guy (dhmis) — who knows but it’s not a normal friendship folks

characters that are my friendssss my familyyy etc. you get the idea

toriel & asgore dreemurr (deltarune) — my parents:)

kris & asriel dreemurr (deltarune) — my siblings:)

basically the entire rest of the main characters from the other medias ive already mentioned — my friends:)

THAT’S ALL FOLKS!! THANK YOU FOR READING :^)

#pinned #intro post

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serpentinearchitect17 · 4 months ago

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I figured it was time to do another rewatch of ATLA, and I’m so glad I did! Going through all the episodes re-ignited my love for the series and sparked my interest in writing again. Zutara always has, and always will, hold all of my heart. They have me in a chokehold like no other. But, can we take a moment to appreciate Zuko and Jet’s little moment of friendship? We were ROBBED of more scenes of the two of them 😭

Anyway, I went back to one of my unfinished fanfics on my computer. It’s a Zutara adaptation based on the Netflix show, Dash & Lily (with Zuko taking the role of Dash and Katara taking the role of Lily). Maybe I’ll continue it someday. I’d like to, since I think it has the potential to be a cute and fun story to write. Let me know if this is something you’d like to read in the future.

There’s one scene that I partially completed. It’s between Zuko, who’s a grad student at Ba Sing Se University, and Jet, his best friend and roommate, who’s a bartender in a restaurant. It’s a modern AU fic with no bending.

I thought I’d share the scene here, just for fun. Otherwise, it’ll keep gathering dust 😅 Enjoy this platonic Jetko banter!

*****

Pushing open the set of double doors to the restaurant, Zuko shivered from the sudden blast of warm air. As soon he stepped inside, he stamped his feet against the mat, dislodging any remnants of the snow and ice from his boots.

Looking up from the ground, he found the place practically empty, except for a few stray customers who were either finishing up their dinners or were lingering, chatting with their dining partners. Considering that it was about an hour until closing on a Tuesday, he wasn’t surprised to see the slow pace of the restaurant. Still, a blend of spices – cardamom, coriander, and curry, if he had to guess – wafted around him, signaling that the kitchen hadn’t stopped making dishes for the night. He breathed in deeply, hoping the comforting aroma would center him as he made his way towards the bar.

From his vantage point, there was only one person in that area – the lone figure in a black t-shirt behind the bar. Thank Agni it was just him tonight. Zuko shuddered at the thought of having to share the space with other patrons when he was in such an awful mood.

Inching closer, Zuko could hear Jet whistling a jaunty tune, as he hung glasses on the rack above his head. Once Jet’s eyes landed on the bedraggled grad student, he flashed a bright grin.

Before Zuko could open his mouth to greet the bartender, Jet raised an eyebrow and drawled, “You look like you could use a drink.”

Sighing, Zuko nodded. “More like five,” he muttered, slumping into one of the large bar stools.

Chuckling lowly, Jet pointed a finger at Zuko. “I’m cutting you off after two. As your roommate and best friend, I say this with all the care in the world –” He paused dramatically before bluntly announcing, “You’re a fucking nightmare when you’ve had too much to drink, especially when you’re in public. At least I could have some fun if you were a handsy drunk or a reckless one. But, no, you just have to be the rudest, meanest drunk I’ve met in my entire life.” He shook his head, his lips curling into a smirk. “I mean, you’re always rude, but alcohol makes it twenty times worse.”

Narrowing his eyes, Zuko snarled through his teeth, “Fuck you.”

Unperturbed by his friend’s mood, Jet simply winked. “Maybe later, gorgeous.”

Instantly flushing at his words, Zuko crossed his arms and growled, “Just fix me a fucking drink. I don’t care what it is, as long as it’s strong and makes me forget about the day I’ve had.”

Jet raised both hands in surrender. “Fine. Here’s the deal, though – you’re gonna drink the whole damn thing without threatening to maim or murder me.”

A loud groan escaped Zuko, but he relented with a wave of his hand. “Whatever. If I were sane right now, I’d punch you and tell you to fuck off. But, I’m not, so just go for it.”

Jet pumped a victory fist in the air before rubbing his hands together, almost maniacally. “Bro, you’re in for a treat.”

Making an impatient gesture, Zuko shot a sharp glare at Jet. “Hurry it up, will you?”

Turning his back, Jet got to work. He grabbed two bottles of liquor and a handful of other ingredients, purposely shielding his actions from Zuko’s view, which in and of itself was highly disturbing. Of course, Zuko trusted his friend not to drug or poison him, but at the same time, his level of concern steadily increased as he watched Jet throw item after item into a cocktail shaker.

A minute later, the drink was poured, and a glass slid across the bar. Zuko caught it easily with his right hand, thankful for his quick reflexes.

“Drink up, Z.”

“Cheers.” Zuko knocked back a good portion of the concoction, which apparently was a huge mistake. His face immediately screwed into a look of utter disgust, as he coughed out violently, “What the fuck did you just give me, Jet?!”

Doubling over with laughter, Jet slapped the bar counter. “That’s my ‘Get Zuko to talk’ drink! I just made it up on the spot! Isn’t it awesome?”

Shoving the offending drink away, Zuko wheezed, “That, right there, is the foulest thing I’ve ever tasted. And that includes all the horrible drinks and foods Azula has made me try over the years just to torture me!”

After righting himself and taking a breath, Jet turned to Zuko with a snort. “Oh, lighten up. It’s not that bad.”

“You’re not the one who tasted it, you jackass!” Zuko argued, finally settling down from his coughing fit. “Seriously, what did you put in there?”

Shrugging, Jet listed the ingredients as if he were talking about something as mundane as the weather. “A blend of Maotai and the Earth Kingdom’s strongest whiskey, crushed ginger, crushed lychee, a few sliced Thai chili peppers, freshly squeezed mandarin juice, and carbonated coconut water.”

#avatar the last airbender #atla #zutara #zuko x katara #zuko #jet #platonic jetko #Zuko and Jet are friends #fanfic

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inconsistentlywrittensoul · 9 months ago

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Buffy Season One Review

I’m on my first Buffy rewatch in a long time - I think over a decade? I have watched the entire series enough times that the episodes are all still kind of burned into my brain, but I’m curious what my reaction will be now I’m a bit older.

Anyway, I’ve finished Season One, and I thought I might do a quick review of each season as I go. Can’t promise I’ll be able to keep it up, but I’ll give it a go. So…

Season One Review

S1 is… fine. It’s okay. It’s not as good as later seasons, but it’s not bad; it’s shallower than later seasons, but having expected that I found there’s a surprising amount of depth here. (Partly because I’m watching after reading @herinsectreflection’s excellent analyses, which inspired this most recent rewatch.)

I actually don’t think there are many bad episodes in S1 - the problem is, there’s hardly any good episodes either, and none that rise beyond just being ‘good’. They’re mostly just perfectly serviceable - the metaphors are a bit blunt, the humour’s a bit broad, the MIDI soundtrack kind of sucks, the vibes are kind of cheesy and immature, and overall, it’s just…

It’s Power Rangers. It’s a bit deeper and scarier, and the action scenes are worse, but basically, Season One is Power Rangers. And that’s not bad - I kind of like Power Rangers, and it’s not a bad season by those standards - but it’s not what Buffy is trying to be, or what it will become.

Season Score: 5/10 - It’s fine.

Big Bad - The Master:

In some ways, the Master is perfect. It makes sense that Buffy’s first villain is this kind of ancient and powerful vampire - he’s not as interesting as later villains, but it feels appropriate that Buffy has to beat this more generic Big Bad to move on to them. And he has a strong enough presence that he can actually bear the mythic weight that is placed upon him - it makes sense that he’s the one that killed Buffy, that he sired the Bisexual Vampire Squad; it never feels inappropriate that he has this important place in the mythology of the series, and he can carry that weight in his rare later appearances.

Unfortunately, in this season, he’s a Power Rangers villain. He sits in his lair, sending out minions and screaming in frustration when they fail. (Even finally facing the hero directly in the finale, beating them easily before they get a power up and return the favour - classic Power Rangers villain stuff.) He spends most of the season both trapped and sickly - while at full power he’s a compelling, intimidating presence, for most of the season he seems weak and kind of effete, like a homophobic Bond villain. At his best, he's montrous yet civilised, brutal but witty; in his weakened state, he lacks the contrasts that make him compelling.

Still, he is charming, he does work well in the finale, and he’s always a delight in his rare later appearances. So…

Big Bad Score: 5/10 - He’s fine. (... and not in that sense.)

Rewatch Reevaluations

The biggest change in my perspective since my last rewatch is around Angel. When I was younger, I didn’t really think much about the age difference between him and Buffy; now I’m older, I’m extremely aware of it, but also, it seems like the show is too. The episode where he shifts from ‘random mysterious stranger’ to ‘potential love interest’ is Teacher’s Pet - an episode about an older sexual predator preying on teenagers. Then in ‘Angel’, we don’t just see him creepily staring at Buffy, we see him lie to her about it afterwards, in an episode where the age difference is a major topic of discussion.

In general, his obsession with her comes across as way more creepy and pathetic than I remember, and while part of that is just my interpretation, I do think think the series is aware of it; I think him following her around and staring at her from afar is meant to be kind of offputting. I’m curious how I’ll feel about their romance going forward - I remember on previous watches I thought their breakup in Season 3 was unmotivated, and I suspect I’ll feel very differently about it this time around.

I’m also generally more aware of some things after reading @herinsectreflection’s essays. In particular, I’m noticing Buffy’s relationship to death - from her ‘seize the day, because tomorrow you might be dead’ philosophy in the first episode, to her rebelling against and accepting it in the last… and her Faith-like smile as she enjoys mortal combat with vampires at the beginning of ‘Prophecy Girl’. I’m also much more aware of Giles as a very flawed figure torn between paternal affection for Buffy and sending her to her death - which is explicit in a few episodes, but I’m more aware of it as an ongoing arc, rather than just some isolated emotional beats.

Other than that, one thing I’m noticing is how much weight the show gives to the death of minor characters. It’s easy for an action/horror show to start treating death casually or flippantly, but so far the show is careful to give each death an emotional impact, to make every death matter… at least ‘til the end of the episode, at which point they’ll be promptly forgotten about. Sorry Jesse.

And unsurprisingly for a 90s show, I am finding the sense of humour a little mean and kind of misogynistic, especially towards Cordelia. That said, though Xander is often the face of this meanness, I honestly don’t dislike him, even in S1. The thing is, either the show is aware that he’s being an asshole, in which case it’s an intentional character flaw, which is good; or it isn’t, in which case I tend to blame the show itself rather than the character. Maybe that’s a little generous, but it lets me enjoy the character, so I’m willing extend that generosity. I am curious how I’ll feel about him going forward. I'm glad at least Cordelia gets to be more of a character towards the end of the season - it does make the jokes around her feel a lot less mean.

Honourable Mention Award for Underrated or Forgotten Characters Who Deserve to be Mentioned Honourably

3. Zookeeper Furry from ‘The Pack’. Just a really solid one-off villain performance, in an era where performances tend towards the broad and cheesy side of the spectrum.

2. The Black Cat from ‘The Witch’. Looks like stock footage, never shares a shot or even a set with another character, and achieves nothing except slightly startling Giles, after which he just continues as if nothing happened. Yet despite doing basically nothing, it achieves greatness by earning a place in the opening credits. Truly an inspiration.

1. Principal Flutey. With how much he gets overshadowed by Principal Snyder, it’s easy to forget how great Flutey is as a character. From tearing up Buffy’s permanent record and taping it back together again in front of her, to being eaten by Hyena-possessed students, Flutey is a delight whenever he’s on screen - he’s genuinely a highlight of Season 1 for me. Principal Flutey, I salute you, and hearby mention you as honourably as I can.

Episode Rankings

Might not do this for every season, but hey, it’s a short season, so why not. Starting from the top:

'Prophecy Girl' - Obvious choice, needs no explanation.

'Angel' - Strong character work, introduces a bunch of ideas that’ll be important for the rest of the series, and solves the problem of making a single vampire a threat by giving her guns, which I respect.

'Welcome to the Hellmouth'/'The Harvest' - A solid introduction to the series; I wouldn’t call it great by most standards, but it competently introduces everything the setting, characters and the premise of the series, which is impressive in its own way. Luke is perfect in his role - he’s a compelling presence that feels like a genuine threat, but he’s not so interesting that he distracts from the important things.

'The Pack' - A solid guest performance from the zookeeper, Principal Flutey’s last stand, and some juicy thematic and character goodness makes leaves this Monster of the Week episode at the head of the pack. (… I am so terribly sorry.)

'Nightmares' - Character! Themes! Imagery! This episode has it all, at least by the standards of Season One.

'Out of Mind, Out of Sight' - The first episode that treats Cordelia like an actual character. Also, invisible assassin school! Everybody loves invisible assassin school.

'The Witch' - A perfectly competent MOTW episode, this gets a boost for featuring the cat that accomplishes nothing.

'I Robot, You Jane' - Yeah, the 90s hacker schtick is goofy, but this ep’s not bad - I like the goofy robot demon and the surprisingly good demon prosthetics for its non-robot body that barely appears in the episode. I like the idea that scanning a magic book can summon a demon into the internet itself. Also, Jenny’s here.

'Teacher’s Pet' - Another MOTW episode that does its job adequately. I’m inclined to think of this as the Most Typical Season 1 Episode - it perfectly represents the season at its baseline.

'Puppet Show' - I kind of like some of the ideas in this episode, but the puppet’s a creep and parts of the plot feel contrived. (Why are they sure the demon will leave as soon as it has the organs? Why would Giles get into a guillotine under any circumstances?) Overall… Eh, it’s fine.

'Never Kill A Boy on the First Date' - There’s some good stuff in here, especially around Buffy’s relationship to Giles and to her own Slayerhood. Unfortunately, the plot just doesn’t work - even this early on, one vampire just doesn’t feel like enough of a threat to build an episode around, and generic serial killer vamp is no exception - he's certainly no Luke. It’s a plot entirely concerned with setting up the larger arc around the Anointed One, and that would leave this episode feeling empty and boring even if it was for an arc that was actually, you know, good.

So that's Season One. I enjoyed it fine, but... I'm definitely looking forward to the series really getting good. If somehow you've actually read this far: Thank you for putting my words into your brain. I take it as a great compliment, and hope you liked them - or, failing that, that they invoked in you a great fury, such as only the worst opinions may conjure.

In any case - and regardless of whether I can be bothered to write any more of these - I will continue my rewatch into the Actually Good seasons of Buffy.

#i'm actually a couple of episodes into s2 #and honestly #even Some Assembly Required is a significant improvement #it's not great Buffy #but it IS Buffy #the show has arrived #it's become itself #btvs #btvs rewatch #review #meta #btvs S1 #long post #really long post #maybe went a little overboard on this one

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