#he’s literally just an abandoned teenager ugh crying

[barrenceallence]

fletcher renn deserved so so so much better

[foryoufics]

A Shore Thing

Author's Note: I have the time and motivation to write and no coherent ideas so I'm going with a tried and true tested classic overused ass cliche mermaid trope, we all love them there is no point lyin' and denying. This should be done in chapters but I always abandon those so it will be a one shot.

Summary: Jungkook has come to a bridge he never wanted to have to cross, explaining to your daughter why she's never known you and why she can't go on a trip with her boyfriend; in her case, he could literally lose his babygirl if she goes

Characters: Y/N, Jungkook, Y/N and Jungkook's daughter Alara, mention of her bf but he's irrelevant to the plot honestly lol

Warnings: tbh idk if this one will have any, some fluff, some angst, a teenager being well a teenager, corny jokes on Jungkook's part, some physical grabbing and momentary choking in a non-sexual way/almost abusive way, mermaid suicide?

"I hate you!! I hate you so much-ugh- you don't even understand dad! You have no idea! I'm probably never going to forgive you for this!!" Alara, better known as Ally, shouts to Jungkook as she's storms ahead of him back to the car.

"ALARA, Don't walk ahead of me....please," Jungkook pleads. He wanted to shout back at her for the disrespect but he was hurting too much at her words and in this moment, he was telling himself this was not the moment to let her see him cry, and willing himself not to was taking all of his willpower. He wanted nothing more than to turn off his hearing aid

"WHY? Why shouldn't I? This is what you did to mom!! Remember that!? Huh!? Did you forget!? Well, I didn't!!! It must've been about the same time too-," she looked to the darkness of the night sky, then checked the time on her phone, "yeah...exactly, 9:30-just because you can't be happy, I can't be!! It's not fair!!" Her anger boils over and she shoves his chest.

He grips her arm, "Get in, Alara," he says, all sorts of emotions boiling inside of him as he eyes her neck. He wipes his mouth, "please....please," his hand forms a fist and the one gripping her arm tightens, "tell me that isn't what I fucking think it is," he swallows a lump in his throat. "Well, yeah, you kinda interrupted something. You're hurting me, let go...," she mumbles. "I showed up just in time, get in the truck." He opens the door and lets her arm go when she's sitting in the passenger seat, to her angry screaming, he had no choice but to turn his aid down and pound on and close her window, lock it as well. He shouts for her to 'Stop yelling', more pleads as he grips her boyfriends ears and cradles his head when he sees him doubling over behind them, gripping his bleeding ears. She watches the scene and reads Jungkook's lips and stops shouting at the sight; watching her dad check on her boyfriend and then come back to the truck and slam the door and readjust the volume settings on his hearing device. "W-What happened?" She stutters crying, "what happened just now!? Was that because of me? Damn it, I want answers!!" She once again stops shouting when she sees Jungkook painfully try to shield his ears, the way his face grimaced

"Are you done?" Jungkook asks her, his voice as if he had swallowed gravel and she nods. For a moment, he only starts driving, saying nothing

"What the fuck were you thinking?" He asks calmly, staring dead ahead at the road, he couldn't bear to look at her skin marked with those damn hickeys until he asked, reaching over to gently rub the back of his finger over them

"I was thinking I am almost a grown woman and it felt good, I trust him and I like him and I thought you did too..."

"Almost....I do...I'm not mad at you, I am not mad at either of you, have to admit what you said back there did tick me off a smidge.....it's time we had a conversation I was hoping we would never have to have, admittedly it was silly of me to think that-"

"Dad, I don't need that talk, I know everything I need to know and then some-"

"God, Ew, no, no, please no, just shush stop. I clearly can see you know--you left with a bag packed, I told you can't go on that beach trip"

"Yeah, I know, which is really stupid, and what you didn't tell me was why," she crosses her arms in a pout

"Alright, little miss almost grown ass woman, I'll give you the answers. You can't go on that trip because I don't want to lose you....same reason we never went to the ocean when you were growing up"

"Yeah, I've always wanted to see the ocean-and what do you mean you'd lose me? I can swim and I wouldn't be alone, I'd be with someone we both trust and what the hell happened back there? I was hurting you both-his ears were bleeding dad! You were both in pain! I need more than that!"

"I'm getting there baby," Jungkook takes a deep breath, "I'm going to need you to listen....please"

She nods, hearing the seriousness in his tone, "okay"

"It is a long story, I should start with, that woman that left, storming off, at 9:30 that night all those years ago, as you so very vividly remember and didn't fail to mention earlier-," she opens her mouth to speak and he cuts her off with a hand in her face, "listening." "That woman wasn't your mother, you never referred to her as such when she was in our lives and I will not allow you to start now; she was my ex wife and that's it....and yes, his ears were bleeding, he might have some damage done but he will be okay, and yes, it was because of you....you have to be careful....now, I have to tell you about your mother to answer all of these questions and to explain-"

"Just a ex wife," she scoffs, "hmph, is that all my mom was?"

"No, your mom and I were never married. Never even together romantically or otherwise"

"Dad, we just established I know better than that, so what she wasn't even worthy of being with you huh? So what? A one night stand? Fuck buddy?"

"SHUT UP! SHUT UP!!" Before he could stop himself to think he was reacting, slamming on the breaks and reaching over to grab her throat, "DON'T YOU EVER DISRESPECT MY BEST FRIEND LIKE THAT! YOU HEAR ME!?!" He had completely blacked out, he very quickly comes back to when he feels his baby girl's hand tapping his arm and her gasping. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry baby. I'm so sorry.....please, just don't talk about your mother like that, and please listen...," she was scared, he had never reacted this way to anything. She nods and accepts the water bottle he was offering her from the cooler in the back, drinking some as he stroked her hair and finally was bursting into tears and stroking her hair, apologizing through his sobs. After taking the time to calm him down and leaning over to let him hold her for a bit he was able to start driving again and telling her the story. "I'm sorry, I will never do that again I swear; and I won't tell you that you can't go on that trip, I'll let you make that decision....but if you go, he and I both lose you....and I want you to be able to experience life and love and....what I interrupted," he shivers at the thought

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Gguk!! It's so good to have you out man!!" Namjoon says as he and all of Jungkook's brothers ran to meet him at the gates and bombard him with welcomed hugs.

"Hi guys, hey, I-I met someone"

"Look at you smiling!" Yoongi laughs and pats his shoulder. "Yeah, she must be great!" Hope adds laughing and they all start asking questions.

"Guys," Jungkook laughs, "I met her....at the beach...in the water....this is going to sound crazy but...she's a mermaid," there is a long pause before the guys burst into laughing. "Man, the military really broke you huh?" Taeyhung messes his hair. "No, no really, I'm serious....guys, I'm serious"

Namjoon gestures for the guys to stop, "Jungkook....," he says, his voices lace with worry

"I'm serious. I have proof," Jungkook reaches behind him into his bag for something and shows them two glass potion jars, the kind you could buy at a craft store, one containing water that was white and glowed like the sun, the other was water with what looked like a pearl and what appeared to be glass beads; they weren't sure. "This is water, it's from her hair, she dripped into here," he says about the smaller jar, "and....this one is...I'm not sure....after she gave me the other one she climbed onto a rock, she said that she wanted me to have what was going to be there and if I ever missed her to add a piece of myself and to never let it go to the ocean or I would lose it forever, so, she...she climbed out and asked to hold my hand and she became a few scales and this pearl thing.....and she held my hand, she was in so much pain, the sun, outside of the water, her human flesh seemed to...to...melt into a pile of boiling blood a wave crashed onto and immediately washed a away....I was left in shock, she wasn't holding my hand anymore.....but she didn't even scream or anything as it happened.....she just looked at me and I looked at her, and it was quiet....then as the wave came, I quickly grabbed the pearl and the scales like she said and I put them in here with some water; I couldn't leave it bloody....it's been a few days and I have missed her but I haven't done anything"

The silence went on for a very long moment as all of the guys stared at the bottles and their contents, Jungkook's eyes were locked on them but the guys glanced between each other.

"C-Comeon, let's get you out of the heat," Namjoon says as if he's speaking to a fragile child, wrapping a arm around Jungkook as they walk him to the van to leave the base. "You believe me right guys?" He looks at all of them and they all nod and give a "yeah, sure~" "totally~" in that same condescending voice as Namjoon had, "Listen we are going to be here for you buddy, you should stay with Tae and I for a while," Namjoon added. Yet Jungkook didn't relent on his stories, he went on for months after that, they didn't relent on treating him as if he had lost his mind either; they played along thinking he was in a fragile mental state, asked him questions and listened to what he would say.

'Hey, Gguk, how did you meet your fish girlfriend? You were sweating in your sleep last night, twitching....want to talk about that? Was it what happened-what you said when you were leaving the service?'

Jungkook nods to the part of the question addressing what specifically caused him to do that in his sleep, and shakes his head, "no, I don't want to talk about that," he picks at his cuticles and looks down at them then looks up and smiles, "but I do want to talk about her. She was just my friend, I met her during a break, I took a trip to a private beach and she was in the water. Obviously I swam to her, I said hi," he shrugs

"You saw a mermaid," Namjoon cleared his throat, to try and not give away his true thoughts, "and you just...swam up and said hi?" He asked

"What? So you are a therapist now and think I'm crazy?" Jungkook asks defensively. Namjoon had become a therapist but also was being a complete ass

"I...I just want to hear the story, may I hear the story please?"

"Okay....," Jungkook comes around and sits, "I swam to her, her back was turned so I scared her," he giggles, "she jumped back and she looked shocked, so I apologized...," he smiles as he drifts into the story

~~~~~~~

"Hi," you jumped, feeling a finger tap the back of your shoulder as you turned to see another merperson. You had never witnessed a human nor merperson before, only known stories you would hear through the water of both. This one, was breathtaking, whichever it was. "Hi, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to scare you....you uh, you have a tail"

You nod. "May want to keep that hidden," he whispers and smiles to you.

"D-Do you have a tail?" You had no idea how you were able to communicate with him. "No, I'm human. I don't have a tail, I have legs, see?" He flipped to be as if he were standing on his head in the water, his legs sticking out of the top

"So....what brings you out here?" He asks laughing

"I.....was.....," you look around, "I was....alone"

"Because it's a private beach? You aren't alone, don't want anything happening to you, so...I'm Jungguk, what's your name?"

"Name?"

"Yeah, what do your kind call you? By the way did you sing to lure me here?" He replies, laughing at your very confused expression, "I didn't hear any"

"I didn't ...sing.....I don't have a kind?"

"oh......so you really meant.....you're all by yourself?" You nod to his question, "Only me, this kind"

"oh.....well the ocean is a big place, that has to be lonely....I've been missing my brothers too and lonely myself....how about let's be friends, yeah? And you need a name, how's......Y/N?"

"Yes," you agree, smiling and nodding. He was at least someone something like you

"So....I'm guessing you're not like the TV mermaids that can switch back and forth?"

"No," you shake your head and he laughs

"I see, well, I spend most of my time on land but I'm a really good swimmer so I'll came and see you here on my breaks, okay?" You nod, all you understand is that he will see you and it will be here

And Jungkook did, for many months he came to see you there often, he showed you all sorts of human things. When he came at night, the thing he called the sky was dark and it had these things he called stars; that was a third world neither of you could touch. He showed you things of the human world, and told you about life there, and these things called dad jokes that he got from his big brother Seokjin. He always spoke of his big brothers and he had many of them, Seokjin seemed to be his favorite. You found yourself wanting to meet them all, you actually thought someday you might meet Seokjin, he was a fisherman, but Jungkook assured you you had no reason to be afraid of him. He said that Seokjin cooked the fish really well too, he said he cooked everything well, and you could imagine tasting and enjoying a happy meal with his family. You admired how he said Seokjin had learned to cook because their brother Jimin wasn't eating. In his stories, they were never alone, you much preferred this feeling you got listening to Jungkook and being with him than your time before you knew him. You trusted him and you felt like part of his family, you could sense how he felt much like you did then not being with them and you very much hated that.

"Jungkook, I found this on a ship wreck, what is it?" You ask him one day

"oh, that, that's a very damaged book cover"

"What is a book?"

"A book is something that humans use to share knowledge and stories for entertainment. My brother's really like the Harry Potter ones"

"Can you tell me about it?" You listened as the sun set and he told you these stories of Harry Potter that his brothers liked

Many of his visits went this way, talking for hours and hours, until one day, he came and he didn't seem to want to speak much at all

He sat by a rock and leaned on it appearing defeated, he didn't even get in the water with you to swim. He looked only at his hands, "Y/N.....I came to say, this is my last visit....my military service is going to end really soon...and I'm going home, I wanted to say goodbye because you have been such a great friend to me the past few years"

"I will miss you very much, I don't want to be alone again....when does your service end?"

"Two weeks..."

"May I see you one more time? Please?"

"Yeah, I can come one more time..... tomorrow?"

"Yes, and could you please bring me some of those.....Harry Potter potion bottles?"

He chuckles, "Yeah, I can do that," and the next day he came then as he promised

"The small one please?" He hands it to you and you ring your hair into it before passing it back, "don't drink it, it's just to not forget me," you laugh and he smiles then you take the other bottle, "I am going to come out to that rock, can you hold my hand and maybe you can tell your family stories about me? I want you to take what's left there in this and if you miss me you can just add a little bit of yourself, just don't let it go to the water or you will lose it forever...."

"Yeah....a shore thing...," he jokes and you alright and take his hand, using your upper body strength to lift yourself up onto the rock. It happens immediately, the sun burning your human flesh and boiling you but you just focus on Jungkook holding your hand

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Jungkook, hey!!!" Jungkook comes to his senses and sees Namjoon tapping his face and wiping it on his sweater sleeve, "what?" He asks as he's pulled into the larger man's shoulder, "I've got you, I've got you, it's okay....it's over....."

Namjoon narrowed this whole mermaid thing down to traumatic experience Jungkook must've seen on the field and was using it to cope with the PTSD. Nothing seems to change after that and one day he comes home to Jungkook, holding a sleeping baby in his arms while he was on the floor, on his knees, blood pouring from his ears.

"JUNGKOOK!" He rushes over when his friend didn't respond to him screaming, he tries to take the child but Jungkook's grip was like a boa constrictor around it's prey but he was protecting the child like a mother lioness. Namjoon tries to explain to Jungkook that he was trying to help, they needed to clean the little one and get them both to the hospital. He manages to call Seokjin over to help and together they get them both to the hospital. The child appeared to be a perfectly normal and healthy little girl, two legs, two feet, ten toes. They did lab work and learned she was Jungkook's but didn't understand how when they had been keeping close watch on him because of his mental state and he hadn't been with anyone; either Namjoon, Seokjin, or Taeyhung would have known. That was also the night Jungkook had lost his hearing and was almost completely and entirely deaf. The next week's they spent adjusting to Jungkook now being hearing impaired and all pitched in to help him with the baby, no one asked for a while how the hell she came to be until eventually they did. One night when she was a few weeks old and they could no longer stand it they brought it up.

Jungkook tells them the truth, the night that Alara was born, the night he never wanted to relive ever, he had been missing you intensely and just wanted to talk to you when he was finally alone. So he plucked a strand of his hair and placed it into the jar, thinking nothing would happen he gave it a shake and stared at it but something did happen. He heard you screaming, he heard what he should have heard the last time he saw you and the jar shattered leaving Ally there where it was, screaming just as intensely, he was telling you that you were going to be okay for what felt like eternity while the glass shattered which didn't happen quickly. When you finally stopped screaming the baby was crying and he felt the pain but didn't care, he was cooing and trying to get her to feel safe. Eventually Namjoon came home

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"So......if I go on this trip.....what did she mean you will lose me forever?"

"I don't know.....," he answers honestly

"Daddy, I'm scared....," she was crying now, quietly

He was pulling in the drive at this point and parking, he comes around and when she gets out and hugs his neck, he lifts her up like she's a baby again and carries her up to tuck her in, "me too.....just.....think about it before you do it.....please"

"shore thing.....," and he wipes her tears with his thumb and kisses her forehead

[bugeyedfreaks]

About your ppgxrrb post, as someone who’s in the shipdom for years but now only like it because of certain famous fic, I agree.

Pretty sure some of the shippers would agree with it too but a lot of them are excusing their toxic behaviors as just the boys being toddlers + doesn’t know any better since most of the fics takes place when they’re teenagers/older. I disagree with the whole “they’re kids they don’t know any better” excuse cause they’re fictional characters and they’re just born bad/evil, and its not that deep

…I ended up writing a whole lot and I’m gonna cut it just so I don’t clog up everyone’s dash with my Deep PPG/RRB Opinions. 😆

Yeah, ugh, it wouldn’t bring me down so much if what you said wasn’t such a prevalent line of thought, but if there are some shippers who would agree with what I wrote before… I don’t understand what would compel them to ship the characters in the first place! I can’t understand it! I’m not saying, “You’re a bad fan/person if you ship [XYZ]!” I know people who genuinely love the original PPG series, people who I also genuinely love and cherish and think are amazing and wonderful and yet… they ship it, to my constant confusion. For years and years. 😂 I’ve even read that one fic and… I swear, I tried, I wanted to like it, I was told it was written true to the show and I Wanted To Believe… but how can the main premise be “true to the show” when it’s already 100% antithetical to who the characters are in canon in the first place? I sadly could not enjoy it. Like I said in my post, they would never be the redeemable bad boys because they’re literally pure evil. And I get suspension of belief in fan creations, I understand that fanfic is people’s way of… I dunno, indulging their fantasies in their favorite media or whatever, and I’m not vilifying anyone for daring to commit the ~atrocious~ sin of… wanting their faves to find true love. 🤣 …but what’s the point if the characters you write just turn out to be shells of how they actually act? At that point you should just go for it and make up your own original characters. Embrace the cringe!

A while ago I got really inspired and wanted to write a PPG fanfic for the first time in a million years, and since most of the story in my head included the villains in a large way, I felt kind of forced to try to add the boys (because, speaking of things that get me down, you will never get any substantial visibility on AO3 or whatever if you don’t at least include them in the tags, no matter how creative or novel your fanfic may possibly be) so I started thinking about this whole idea of how they’d really act towards the girls all grown up. I never wrote down anything substantial because I abandoned the fic, but I came to a general conclusion that 1) Brick would be complaining that the girls weren’t following traditional gender roles (i.e. the ones made up by creeps involving sandwiches and ladies making them in the kitchen for him), 2) Butch would be foaming at the mouth to sex up any girl that moved (wham, bam, thank ya ma’am… his love of carnage and leave ‘em for dead mentality would get reflected in his mixed up hormones in the worst possible way), and 3) Boomer would be the white knight who would complain and cry and eventually flip out Bubblevicious style about why none of the girls were dating himmmmmm and whyyyyy oh my goddddd he was so niiiiice to themmmmm so because of that THE THOTS MUST PAY! 🤣 They are the examples of “toxic masculinity,” like… true toxic masculinity. They canonically thrive on the toxicity. That’s why attacks against it weaken them! It‘s never suddenly changed their bad behavior for good ever. They could be beaten again and again and, instead of accepting that maybe their worldviews are bad, maybe applying some self-introspection to their awful ways and adopt any sort of good behavior, they would always ultimately double down. In the fic world, they’re grown guys, and they should know better, but it would be against their basic canon nature to want to.

…again, I’m not trying to be a downer on anyone who indulges in it, this is just an explanation of why I really can’t gel with it and just my thought process behind why that is/how I think they’d actually act. The popular depiction of them as ultra hottie bad bois who secretly have true hearts of gold under all the blatant misogyny just feels so untrue to canon to me that suspending my disbelief whenever I see the kajillion fics and fanart out there of them successfully winning the girls’ hearts is… tough.

TL;DR:

[moonchild-in-blue]

Okay, so I'm finally caught up with The Witcher 3 and as expected, most of the discourse here is about our favourite bard Jaskier and his hot lover. And while I LOVE him and Radovid, I really wanna see more discussion about the rest of show. So here's some of my favourite points/moments/whatever before vol. 2 comes out:

Yennefer genuinely trying to make amends with everyone, and becoming a better person. Her letters to Geralt?? Love them.

Ciri being not very great at magic - very refreshing to see a Chosen One™ teenage girl actually struggling and being clumsy and imperfect, and seeing her abilities improve realistically. Very tired of seeing the "trains for one week and instantly becomes a master at magic/whatever skill" trope.

On that same note, I really love that she gets to be a badass fighter, dirty and scruffy, but also still enjoys her pretty dresses and other traditionally feminine things. Girls are both, one doesn't excuse the other, and I just find that very neat.

Domestic Geralt and Yen. The dinners, the anniversary celebration, co-parenting Ciri. Hella cute 🥺

VERY interesting to see Nilfgaard seeking yet another truce with Francesca and the elves. Literally one of my favourite plot points of season 2 - Nilfgaard are the supposed "evil" ones, and yet so far are the only ones actively helping out the elves, even if with an agenda.

Emhyr burning his portraits and Pavetta's, erasing his past as Dunny. I'm very interested to see how the father dynamic parallels between him, Geralt and Ciri will play out.

Cahir, my skrunkly boy. ✨Him✨ Is he evil? Is he kinda okay? Is he actually disgusted with himself for murdering his elf boyfriend, and thus securing his position in the Nilfgaardian court, knowing that he's simply sinking deeper into Emhyr's grasp as merely a pawn, or is he just a cold-blooded army blorbo, and truly believes that the White Flame is the answer? Who knows!

Fringilla?? Living her best life as a free woman, dancing and drinking the trauma away? We love to see. Her hair looked AMAZING in the tavern scene. But please, someone give her something to do, girlie was NOT made for the streets.

Yarpen (his that his name?) is such a sweetheart, I love him 🥺

RIP Fern and her husband (am bad at names), and all that Library of Alexandria worth of knowledge and literature.

Love love love the gay uncle/rebel teenager relationship between Jaskier and Ciri. They're so funny together. Them spying on Geralt and Yen?? Fabulous.

YEN FINALLY BECAME A MOTHER. Listen, I almost teared up when Tissaia said that because, ugh. I love their friendship. And Tissaia is one of the very few people who really knows Yennefer, and how much having a child meant for her. And now she is, and she gets to be a parent with Geralt. And she's so awesome. I love that she, unlike Triss, isn't always kind and gentle with Ciri. She knows how much Ciri is struggling for control, she gets it. And she allows herself to be vulnerable and truthful with her - something that even Geralt struggles to do at times [with Ciri].

Geralt learning that his mother has died, and genuinely crying, less because of her passing, but more because he never understood why she abandoned him, and how much that hurt. Especially now that he's a father himself, and knows what true love and care and fear for a child means. Because he could never, ever hurt or endanger Ciri the way Visenna hurt him. Because there's always another way, it has to be. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this like the first time we see him cry? I don't remember if he actually shed any tears after Sodden, or when Roach died. Crazy to think he's been alive for so many decades, and yet still carries so much hurt and saddens towards his mother.

Jaskier having a crush is so cute hahaha. But also, I love the way he talks about his love for Geralt. Because sure, he's a slut (affectionately), and sure, him and Radovid? Their chemistry and connection is off the charts. But Geralt? His love for Geralt is so genuine, it runs so much deeper than people realise. It's unfair to say it's purely platonic or romantic or whatever because how can you even label a love that profound? "Family goat", AS IF BURN BUTCHER BURN ISN'T THE MOST HEART-WRENCHING, ANSTY BREAKUP SONG EVER, like okay, we all know how you really feel about Mr. Grumpy Pants. Honestly, big thank you Joey Batey, he really brings that romantic artist energy to life.

Philippa and Djikstra being in a bdsm relationship was NOT on my bingo cards. We love a dominatrix witch.

Tissaia's hair. She looks superb.

In comparison, someone please give my girl Triss some hair conditioner. Why did they let her walk around like that like, bestie, define your curls, please I'm begging you.

Vengefortz being the Big Bad - I did have a suspicion but didn't really want to believe it. What he did to those girls was atrocious and messed up, I was legitimately horrified. But also, bravo, whatever his purpose is, he pulled it off quite well.

Istred with that hair and eyeliner. Weirdly hot. Kinda wanted to see more of him.

Jaskier x Valdo Marx beef was EVERYTHING. I cackled when his trope appeared on the boat like fucking glee club. Their song on the conclave was extremely annoying tho, I did not love the constant replay of scenes.

GERALT SAID I LOVE YOU. Geralt said I love you. To Yennefer. Out loud. In public nonetheless. Gasping, clutching my pearls, screaming, crying, throwing up. I love them so much.

Yennefer serving looks 24/7 like the total boss babe she is.

Also, side note but, have you noticed that this season (so far) has had much less ~spicy~ scenes, or just generally less hyper-sexualised content, especially when it came to Yen/Geralt? Even the others, all of the sex scenes felt a lot more "plot relevant", and less "fan-servicey" than in previous seasons, which I for one really appreciate. I feel like before, especially s1, every other scene was an opportunity to show Yen's boobs or Geralt shirtless. Now it feels more, respectful? reigned in? Not that there's anything wrong with it - I'll never say no to a nice titty shot of Henry Cavill - but it can definitely take away the focus from the story, which is a shame because the plot is so rich and there's so much happening.

[earthingoddity]

so you know how y’all are constantly like: “what’s there to like about season five???”. i decided to make a list *-*

1. the discussion of disability in a teenage show. how many teenage shows can you name featuring disabled characters? and how many of those feature a character becoming disabled in the course of the show and having to adapt to that? i was very surprised when i realized this was the route they were going to take this season and i think it was very well done.

so let’s break that down:

1.1 they actually made sure to talk about other disabilities. i know some people will say they were just doing the bare minimum, but i disagree. that is such a complex theme, they could’ve easily said representing other disabilities respectfully would be a lot of work for only ten episodes, but they did their best with the limited amount of time they had.

1.2 the representation of the deaf community wasn’t limited to their disability. it actually pisses me off hearing people say “wow, for a while there, i even forgot arthur was deaf!” as if he *has* to let you know everytime he’s on screen. disabled people are more than their disabilities, thank you very much.

1.3 overall, it was a positive representation. they could’ve spent so much time going through all the things that would be too hard for arthur, but they actually had an entire episode where arthur was completely deaf - he took his hearing aids off - and it was a very happy and positive episode. he was having fun, clubbing, dancing, laughing with others, and i think we took a lot of that for granted in the midst of everything that was going on, but that was a really positive representation that didn’t limit itself to stereotypes around deaf/disabled people. i actually expected that they’d drag a lot longer the feeling of loneliness and discomfort of the first couple of episodes, but they quickly changed that rhythm, so that instead of focusing on what arthur was “losing”, they focused on everything that arthur was gaining - new friends, a new love interest and a new way to see the world. also, in relation to the whole implants thing, they delivered very in depth opposite perspectives on the matter and never felt like they were shaming one group or the other.

2. SyMbOLisM! skam france is very good at it and they nailed this aspect in season three. but there was a lot of it in season five as well. like the 7am clips in episode 2, that were used to show the lack of progression in arthur’s hearing and his growing frustration and how those clips were incredibly dark, to match his mood. episode 7 also had such an interesting meaning. with arthur taking the chance to explore the world without his hearing aids, he got to explore a whole *new* world, and not a lacking one, which ties very well with what i just said about being a positive rep, but also shows that the entire episode wasn’t about arthur finding a new layer of himself, but rather him just uncovering one that was already there.

3. use of music/sound effects. it can be hard to represent deafness in a media like a tv show, but skam france did it so well. the use of music is always very conscious in this remake; while others really go hard in the soundtrack, skam france hardly ever has background music, unless it means something. another small thing but that i loved was whenever arthur was taking off/putting on his hearing aids, if he was to put the left one first for example, the sound on the left side of your headphone would start first. it was such a small thing but made the experience a lot more immersive imo, as well as the use of muffled sounds, pitching, etc.

4. Arthur. i am always surprised whenever i hear people say that they liked arthur better when they were not in his pov. i completely disagree, but then again, i feel like this fandom has very unhealthy expectations on their mains, as if they haven’t watched already 4 seasons of the main making mistakes over and over again, lol. i loved getting to know more of arthur - he’s loyal AF and protective of the people he loves. he struggles in letting people in, though, and never wants to be a burden or worry others. he’s perceptive and quick to notice when his friends need help. he is also short-tempered and when he gets mad, it is explosive, but he doesn’t hold grudges for long. he was a much more complexed character than i imagined and he totally made this season for me.

5. le gang. this boysquad is the best, sorry. they’ve always been the funniest and warmest, but it was really nice how s5 explored all the sides of that relationship, including the not so pretty ones. they were the relationship i wanted the most angst from, and i am so happy i got it. i loved seeing how chaotic, but supportive they were of arthur though and they brought so many laughs this season.

5.1 the lack of toxic masculinity. i think this ties well with arthur, because it is amazing to me that even though we were following a straight white boy as a main this season, we had no moments of unhealthy masculine competition; le gang could actually talk about other things rather than just porn stars and jerking off (other boysquads Wish!); and arthur would literally flirt with anyone without a care in the world, because he’s certain of his sexuality like that. it was *refreshing* for once not to be confronted with these tropes that have become so common in teenage shows.

7. alexia. i have to talk about alexia separately here, because that’s the most we’ve ever seen from a chris character (not counting eskam cris, ofc), and i loved her so much. she wants to be a videogame designer and she’s creative and adorable. she always knew how to make arthur laugh, but also knew when he needed words of affirmation and she was never shy in telling him how much she loved him. it was also amazing seeing her open up about some of her insecurities, and that her confidence is something she had to work on as well. she was such a great friend & girlfriend and just ugh the best.

7.1 the female characters are badass and unapologetic. i am aware that the love triangle was unnecessary and a mess. but i am not mad about the way both characters were represented, because they were both great characters. i liked alexia more simply because i was already attached to her from previous seasons, but noée was badass as well and teaches arthur so much, and not only about her experience as a deaf person, but about life/love in general.

8. arthur’s relationship with his mom. we LOVE and STAN parents in the skamverse. arthur and his mom had the best relationship ever; i loved how they truly became a team by the end of the season. but since the moment she showed up, it meant so much that arthur could have at least one supportive and loving parent, no matter how much he screwed up or felt lost. his mom was really trying her best and i adored her.

9. *actual* adult advice. i understand why all the adults in the skamverse are a bit cringey and weird, but i feel like this results in these characters relying on each other’s poor advice throughout an entire season before they realize what they actually should do. and the talk with the school’s nurse and his doctor by the end of the season was meaningful AF and i wish something the remakes would explore more often, because it could resolve so many of their issues just talking to someone who knows better, lol.

10. the relationships with the girlsquad. i know this is actually very intentional of skam france - to build a specific kind of dynamic between the main and all the side characters. we saw that in season 3, and i think it’s a lot more evident here, but it still made a lot of sense and warmed my heart so much. arthur and imane were the purest - she was the first one to notice that something was wrong with him and also reached out to give him advice on how medical school could still be a possibility even with his disability when she absolutely didn’t have to, but she’s just a sweetheart like that. arthur and daphné had a lot more tension, which is understandable, because both are protective of their own best friends (bas and alexia) and would defend them to the ends of the earth. i think they honestly have a lot more in common than they think. but my favorite dynamic was arthur and emma. i totally did not expect for emma to have such a part in this season, but every single one of their interactions was Gold. emma could see a lot of herself in arthur and i think that’s why she was so quick to notice that he wasn’t interested in becoming a surgeon at all. that scene when she says it would’ve been nice to have arthur as a brother was the sweetest thing Ever.

11. i’ll finish with the acting. y’all, the guy who plays arthur literally CARRIED this season and i hope his back is doing fine. he was So powerful - he made me cry, and laugh, and feel frustrated. he delivered every single emotion perfectly. i also think that the fact these actors are friends irl (i assume? lol but i think i’ve seen them in each other’s personal IG stories) really helps their chemistry on camera. le gang feels like a group of brothers/best friends and they were always so natural and effortless in their interactions. the new actors also Rocked and delivered so much emotion even if they were using a completely different language and it was awesome.

(also, this just literally applies to *me*, a lucas lallemant HOE, but it was so nice seeing lucas up close from a different perspective. the fact we could still see so many layers of him: his emotional self, his bratty self, his supportive self, even a touch on his abandonment issues and everything made me so happy. i think sometimes i forget the lucas character was real and not something i made up because he feels too good to be true, and it was really interesting seeing him from arthur’s POV).

i’m not here defending the mistakes they made in s5, i don’t think it’s a perfect season either, but tbh i have yet to find what i consider to be a perfect season in the skamverse, so here’s just some things i liked about this season that i feel like y’all should take into consideration as well. thx

[autisticallyfeisty]

SBSK Reviews Volume #1

So I’m doing a new thing. 

I’ve spent a few months watching Special Books for Special Kids (SBSK) videos. For those of you who don’t know, SBSK is a Youtube channel where Chris Ulmer (a former special ed teacher) interviews disabled people (usually children). The videos are highly praised by disabled and nondisabled people alike, to the point where I can’t seem to find any criticism of them on the entire Internet.

And I don’t think the videos are without merit. They’re usually less condescending and “inspirational” than most other documentaries about disabled people. And a lot of his interviews are with people who have the kind of stigmatized disabilities that most of society, including a lot of the disabled community, often don’t like to acknowledge or include. And all the ones I’ve watched seem like pretty cool people. So I think all of that is good and important, and I can see why a lot of people might really like it for those reasons.

...but there are also a lot of things that bug me about the channel, most of which I struggle to put into words when I try to explain them to other people. So I’m going to try writing these reviews, I guess you’d call them, to try and sort my thoughts out. I think I’ll do a few at a time (in no particular order). In these reviews, I will mostly be focusing on Chris’ interview style and the way he interacts with his subjects. I will not be critiquing the interviewees (unless one of them, like, says something offensive. but I haven’t seen that happen yet), I will probably criticise their parents sometimes, but since I know these videos only show a small snippet of their lives, and it’s usually hard to tell what someone’s really like from that, I will try to give them the benefit of the doubt, unless it’s really obvious that something is off.

The Family that Adopted Six Children with Down Syndrome (And One with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome)

(that title sounds like it came from a fanfic on LiveJournal circa 2010)

The first thing he says during the Asher interview segment is “I came here to be your friend.” No, you didn’t. You came here to interview him, supposedly to educate the world about people with Down syndrome, and also because you have chosen to make this channel your job. Therefore you have a business relationship with the people you interview. Just like with any other job, friendships can form over time, but you don’t just walk up to someone on your first day of work and say “I came here to be your friend.” Especially not to a kid, ew. 

(yes, I know this is something Chris does a lot. and yes, I am going to point it out every single time.)

Asher (who looks maybe 12 or 13? definitely not a little kid in any case) pulls himself into Chris’ lap, and instead of politely redirecting him to some other way of showing friendship and hanging out (because they’ve just met and Asher is at an age where he really needs to be learning about physical boundaries, especially with strangers) Chris says “I think I made a new best friend today.”

And then his parents talk about how it’s a coping mechanism for him. Which I get, but...he’s getting older. He could land in some serious danger if he doesn’t learn safer coping mechanisms soon. And I don’t want to judge his parents too harshly; the interview with them isn’t very long and it’s entirely possible that’s this is something they’re working on teaching him. But I do blame Chris. Especially since they’re telling him all about Asher’s trauma around abandonment. Like how can you do that to a kid who you know has that kind of history, just walk into his life for a day and tell him he’s your best friend and then leave? smh

It’s good that the mom acknowledges how her children help each other learn things, instead of painting herself as a saint taking care of completely helpless disabled children.

ok but then she says “He was what is commonly referred to as a ‘feral child’“ and, like, maybe don’t say that right in front of the kid you’re talking about??

“He’s got a lot of information in his head that we don’t always know is there, because he gets stuck on certan topics. Like treadmills, and food. And trains.” See this is why I always laugh/cry when other autistic people talk about people with Down syndrome/intellectual disabilities like they’re a different species from us. How can you not notice the similarities (both in how we are and how people talk about us)?

Why can’t he watch Polar Express today? Do you think nondisabled teenagers seek permission from their parents every time they want to watch something? (I knew I said I would try to refrain from criticizing the parents too much, but yeesh.)

It’s valid to feel sad your adopted kids spent the first few years of their lives in orphanages and to wonder what other abilities they might have developed if they hadn’t been neglected. BUT YOU DON’T NEED TO SAY THAT IN FRONT OF THEM! There is literally no reason to do that. Your daughter is clearly doing her best, just shut up.

When he introduces himself to Audrey, he says “I came here today. I really want to be your friend. What should I do so I can be your friend?” And while I think that’s still too forward of a way to introduce yourself to someone, I do think it’s a bit more respectful and less presumptuous than how in introduced himself to Asher. 

When interviewing Abel, who has Down syndrome and communicates through sign language, Chris kept his questions straightforward and concrete (mostly about things Abel liked). But then when interviewing Roman, who has FAS and is capable of speaking, but has trouble with language processing, Chris asks much more vague and abstract questions, to which Roman, predictably, replies “I don’t know.” I don’t know why Chris took such a different approach to interviewing these two. I would really like to think it’s not because Roman is the only one without Down syndrome, but I’m having trouble thinking of another reason. A lot of times, the less someone “looks” disabled, the more other people will expect the person to act like whatever most people would consider “normal”.

Or maybe Chris figured that since Roman can use his mouth to talk, he must be more capable of communicating complex ideas than someone who signs. Either way, it’s a great illustration of why high-functioning/low-functioning and verbal/noverbal are not very useful as binaries.

I have no idea how old any of these kids(?) are. This is something that’s consistent throughout most of SBSK and I think it’s a problem. Because there are a lot of times, in a lot of videos, where Chris or the parents will be talking to a disabled person in a way that’s fine when talking to a child, but not remotely ok when talking to an adult. And I won’t know what age the person is, so I can’t tell whether people are being condescending to them or not.

At the end of the video, the mom is talking about how Abel likes to pretend he knows less than he does so he can play jokes on people. This made me really happy, because earlier in the video, there were a couple of moments that made me wonder if that’s what was going on. First, when Chris tried to do his usual “I came here to be your friend” * routine, Abel responded by signing “I’m waiting for lunch”. And then later when Chris asks if Abel had a good time today, Abel signs “loud”. And I wondered both times if Abel was being snarky, but I didn’t want to assume because I don’t know him or his communication style. But after what his mom said, I’m pretty sure my first impression was correct.

(*and yes, that is the phrasing Chris used. Compare how he phrased it when talking to Audrey (who can speak fluently) to what he said to Asher and Abel, who seem to be mostly nonspeaking.)

That took a long time. I’m going to review some shorter videos now. (Back when Chris first started the channel, a lot of the interviews were only a minute or two long.)

A***** ***** (Doctors Advised Parents Not to Adopt Her)

Just think, for the rest of her life, whenever someone searches her name, this video, with that title, is going to pop up (probably one of the first results too, since this is such a popular channel). That’s why I blanked out her name; I don’t want to contribute to the problem.

The video opens with her crying while Chris holds her. He hugs her and says “It’s ok. I’m here for you.” Now, I don’t know about you, but if I was holding a young child who I’d never met before and they suddenly started crying, my first thought would be that maybe they were crying because they weren’t comfortable being held by a stranger, not that they were suddenly upset about something unrelated and wanted to be comforted by a stranger. 

The parts where he was singing to her and playing with her seemed alright. I kind of wish he would do stuff like that more. It seems more natural than his usual interview format and conveys a better sense of the children’s personalities, and most importantly, it seems like it’s a lot more comfortable for the children.

Corwin the Man (Down syndrome)

This kid is adorable. And i feel fine about saying that, because unlike most of Chris’ videos, they say what age Corwin is at the beginning, so I don’t have to wonder “wait, is Chris/am I infantilizing a teenager/adult?”

Ugh, there’s Chris asking “I feel like we’re best friends, do you feel like we’re best friends?” and Corwin says “yes” because what else are you going to do when you’re a kid in that situation and you have multiple adults looking at you expectantly.

Chris asks what makes him sad, and Corwin replies, “I’m not happy when Mom pressures me.” And I loved that, because the more recent SBSK videos are so generic, with interviewees rarely being encouraged to talk about anything unhappy, Or if they are, they’re expected to talk about bullying and the like, never about anything happening at home. So that was surprising and refreshing that he was allowed to say that.

But then Chris ruins it by saying, super condescendingly, “Moms pressure you because they love you.”

Aaaaaaand I’m done for now. This was interesting though. I’ll do another batch soon.

[mittensmorgul]

9.06, Heaven Can't Wait.

YAY! BOBO!

so I neglected to mention Buddy Boyle and Bartholomew the fallen angel, and all the angel factions forming in the 9.03 report because I was trying to get through it as fast as possible, but ugh... guess I gotta mention them eventually. There, I mentioned them, just about as much as this episode did. :P

But this is directly relevant to Cas's current state of mind, which is relevant to the overall plot of this episode, because of Rit Zien angel and why he's come to this town where Cas has tried to make a life for himself as Sales Associate Steve. The Rit Zien seeks out pain-- originally mortal wounds on battlefields-- and either heals or else "humanely puts down" angels he cannot heal. Except, as Cas will explain in this episode, he doesn't understand human emotions, and that emotional pain is temporary... and then we learn that the Rit Zien was drawn to this town by the magnitude of Cas's suffering specifically. Which, if that's not a statement on Cas's current emotional state, I don't know what is.

The first victim we see is a man who literally hangs up on a suicide prevention hotline because he lost his wife. He even has a gun, but changes his mind when faced with the Rit Zien, but he gets exploded into pink goo anyway.

The next is a high school girl suffering a normal level of teenage angst, telling a friend she could just die of embarrassment because her boyfriend broke up with her in the cafeteria in front of everyone but in no way meaning it literally, and poof... pain disintegrated.

Despite his own pain having been kicked out of the bunker and feeling completely abandoned by Dean, Cas still calls Dean to alert him to the strange cases in town, but tells Dean he won't participate in the hunt. Dean manages to track Cas down working at the Gas N Sip anyway (Cas never told him where he worked), and pulls Cas into working the case with him.

There's the whole Nora thing, which Cas thought was a date but was actually a babysitting job... When the Rit Zien shows up for Cas, he thinks it's for the baby, running a fever and crying. But he's actually there for Cas.

CASTIEL: How'd you find me? EPHRAIM: Because you're warded? The same way I find all my patients – I just followed the sound of your pain. You have no idea how loud it is. I could hear you for miles.

And then the question we've been waiting on an answer for ever since:

EPHRAIM: Shh-shh-shhh. It'll be over soon. I'll take the pain away. CASTIEL: I want to live. EPHRAIM: But as what, Castiel? As an angel? or a man?

Because back in s9, this question remains directly tied to PAIN. To SUFFERING.

CASTIEL (to the baby): Nobody told you. Nobody explained. You're just … shoved out kicking and screaming into this human life, without any idea why any of it feels the way it feels, or why this confusion, which feels like it's … a hair's breadth (The baby stops crying.) from terror or pain. You know, just when you think you do understand, it'll turn out you're wrong. You didn't understand anything at all. Guess that's just how it is when you're new at this.

He thought he understood, and he's only just beginning to truly understand (and I mean, Crowley as almost-human this season too, despite having been human originally long ago, still suffers with the burden of human emotions, equating what demons and angels are capable of feeling even way back here, long before 10.03 when Cas will make that same comparison).

Cas is feeling the guilt of what's happened to the angels, and he's already hurting over it. So when Sam and Kevin discover (with Crowley's help) that the angel fall spell is irreversible, Dean doesn't tell Cas that fact thinking he's protecting Cas from even worse guilt. But meanwhile, it's still a major source of Cas's pain (and Dean's pain, because hell if he doesn't want to bring Cas back to the bunker here, but can't as long as Sam isn't healed enough...)

EVERYBODY'S SUFFERING! Lies all around. Dean specifically tells Sam that he won't be seeing Cas on this hunt, and yet he spends the entire time pretty much with Cas. But also Dean, lying to everyone, trying to manage his mounting lies in the name of protecting (or in the language of 14.08, "not wanting to burden them") or just out of pure FEAR because this situation is officially so far above his pay grade and he can't even talk to ANYONE about how bad it actually is without the whole thing crumbling down around him... and that's not even considering the Fallen Angels Fighting Amongst Themselves situation on top of all his personal shit...

Which interestingly is paralleled in the experiences of young Dean in the flashbacks in the next episode...

spn 9.07, Bad Boys.

Dean's put in a situation way above his pay grade, having been left to "rot" by John after getting in trouble for shoplifting enough for him and Sam to eat while John was off somewhere else on a hunt and Dean had been left in charge again. John had demanded that Dean tell Sam a very different story, one that not only covered Dean's "shame" at having been caught shoplifting and abandoned by John for several months while Sam was "shipped off to Bobby's" (and remember, Sam would've been about 11 years old at the time, ie old enough to have understood the truth of the situation, but maybe not why John refused to get Dean from Sonny's, that to John this was a form of punishment for Dean-- both isolation from everything he's ever known AND forced separation from Sam, like John was punishing him for failing to take care of Sam by isolating him completely...), but also was about John hiding his OWN culpability in any of this happening in the first place. Child abandonment, neglect, the fact he regularly left the boys on their own and disappeared for weeks or months at a time leaving them to fend for themselves on whatever meager sum he left them. Which, I mean, YIIIIIKES.

And this episode was really the start of my "sanitized for sammy" and "the story became the story" tags, of how fundamental to their codependency these small lies have always been, since they were children (and yeah, we saw that going all the way back to s1, with 1.18, 3.08, 4.13... pretty much all the flashback episodes, but this is where Dean gave that calculated deception a name-- "the story became the story.")

We really see the extent of Dean's lifelong struggle with managing all these secrets begins to break down, which exactly parallels his "bigger story arc" issues in early s9. With all that in mind, it's no wonder he breaks and feels his ultimate failure connected with the collapse of the tower of lies that all started with the best of intentions, and just spiraled out of his control. All in the name of protecting his loved ones.

Kinda like Dean trying to keep John's horrific final words from Sam back in s2 (even though that only lasted a few episodes), kinda like Sam hiding the truth back in s4, kinda like Cas hiding the truth in s6. So now they all will have this fun little problem in common (less dumb, less ass...)

But more interesting to me than the actual circumstances of this episode specifically, is how these lies begin to slowly unravel throughout the episode, and how the truth finally coming out affects everything going forward.

First Sam begins to learn the truth about that time, but it's still not really the whole truth. Dean plays it off as his own fault, shrugging the experience off. Sam also can't figure out why Dean's not only kept in touch with Sonny all these years, but also actually told him the truth about the hunting. The deeper truth slowly comes out in bits and pieces. And then there's Robin, who Dean never told the truth to in the past who learns it all in a shocking way... seeing it first-hand.

This had been Dean's one real "escape to normalcy" of the sort that Sam had spent most of his life running away toward (and which Dean's being forced by circumstance now to push Cas toward... let's not forget that the original airing order of these episodes put 9.06 AFTER this episode... which is why I've smooshed the two of these into one way-too-long post). And let's remember that it was only Dean's need to make sure Sam was safe that got him to leave Sonny's and return to John. He talked about his interest in fixing cars in this episode, and he could've had that life if he'd chosen to stay, because Sonny agreed to fight for him if he wanted that.

But even by the end of the episode, Sam only knows part of the truth, and Dean's still trying to protect himself with that tiny shard of a lie:

Sam: You just got lucky? Kind of like you did with this place. I mean, here I was thinking this was the worst part of your life, and it turns out it was the best. Why'd you ever leave? Dean: Never felt right. Sam: Really? Dean: It was two months, Sam, okay? And I couldn't wait to get out of here. I don't know what to tell you. It wasn't me.

And he can't bring himself to burden Sam with the truth, that it was literally Sam himself and his duty to protect him that made him choose to leave.

Then there's Timmy, losing his mother in a fire, Dean thinking it's the "I Clobber Evil" action figure that the mother's ghost is tied to, when in fact it was Timmy himself. Because it's not exactly that Dean sees himself in Timmy-- repeatedly running away from foster homes, clinging to "imaginary friends" -- It's SAM. He talks to Timmy like we have to imagine 16-year-old Dean would've talked to SAM. And doesn't that just say it all here.

And using this “decoder ring” of a couple episodes to help us unravel what happens when these dudes try to protect each other, to “not burden each other” with these sorts of secrets, things almost universally go sideways. Because this is, yes, what Cas was thinking in hiding his deal with the Empty to trade himself for Jack, but it’s also the sort of smaller concerns from each other regarding Jack’s behavior after 14.14. Each of them were worried for Jack, each of them had noticed small things in Jack, but NONE of them wanted to admit the truth to themselves, let alone to each other. Each of them held their tongues, not wanting to worry each other over Jack, or unfairly burden each other for nothing when all they really have are their individual suspicions and no actual concrete evidence that Jack’s soul is actually gone, you know? But the consequences of trying to protect each other are far more grave in s14...

[vaguely-concerned]

Temeraire let’s read: Crucible of Gold AHOY!

- lol I’m glad hammond is back, he is phenomenally funny. I do love me a bureaucrat character who won’t let trifling things like dignity, morality, politeness or common sense get in the way of their job 

- it is a CRIME that Tharkay had to leave before he got to see Laurence all sun-bronzed and casually dressed and golden haired and relaxed, I wish to petition the universe itself on his behalf to correct this injustice 

- hahaha shen li is the best; a buddhist dragon would be the greatest party pooper among her own kind 

shen li, serenely: attachment to material things can only bring suffering

literally every other dragon, dripping bling from every available surface: um actually

- . . . without the clinging stink of murder and treachery which seemed to have by slow octopoid measures attached itself to his life. laurence I understand where you’re coming from on this but you have served colonial britain since you were like twelve. this has been an extremely slow process of waking up to smelling dem roses (fatherhood changes your perspective on your life situation I guess)

- awwwwww laurence finally studying some more chinese while temeraire helps him... no no this is just rain on my face yes I know I’m indoors it’s just me and lady allendale sitting here with our arms around each other crying about our boy reading poetry of his own freeish will

- oooh I really like how novik writes the way hammond talks -- it can be hard to write a character who constantly breaks up their own dialogue and interrupts themselves and continually couches their words without it being hard to read and annoying, but she really nails communicating that he’s a) completely graceless and with no dignity but also undeniably intelligent, b) definitely a Diplomat but not a total weasel, if only by a hair, c) hilarious

- pour one out for laurence’s civilian beard with me guys, gone too soon and dearly missed (and again tharkay didn’t even get to see it! this continues to be the greatest tragedy of these books let’s hope he grows it out again later when they’re all settled down.) 

- . . . These were distinguished from the others mainly for their having had less time in their careers to demonstrate a lack of initiative or skill, so he could have some small hope of uncovering some previously hidden talent. OH MY GOD LAURENCE the straight up savagery 

- DAD!LAURENCE!!! DAD!LAURENCE!!!!!!! (aaah it’s so interesting that when he gets a bit more stern you can definitely see sides of his father peeking out, but he deeply remains his mother’s son -- he’s acting from a place of affection, feeling of responsibility and concern for their futures, not the weird controlling shit lord allendale routinely pulls)

roland is such a teenager at this point oh my god. also laurence’s whole speech to demane about respecting her boundaries and agency... *chef kiss emoji* and ALSO demane is so sympathetic in this still because who HASN’T wanted to dangle some asshole over a cliff for being a creep to your friend/crush... they’re all good and perfect and I love them actually

- ...I’ve managed to put it out of my mind in the last few books but with the allegiance going down like that I keep remembering there were so many actual children onboard and now I feel ill

being an adult and realizing the full fuckedupedness of these things sucks haha

- 1) the description of seeing the ship sinking from underwater is hauntingly beautiful and 2) as I have said many a time before, thank god for demane

- see this is the other side of the coin of these books making you care so deeply about the characters; I know that no important characters die in this book but I am still so fucking stressed out by all of this D:D:D:

- well well well if gong su’s ludicrous competency wasn’t suspicious before it certainly is now, I guess china trains its spies well in the culinary arts haha

- I mean uh. what a way to symbolically and literally sever laurence from his former life and former self, I guess. you’d be hard pressed to do so more explosively at least

 - something extremely bad happened to granby, we can tick that off the list

- I feel like the prose and writing in general is super improved in this one? it feels sharp and purposeful in a way the last few haven’t quite been

- He hoped Riley would be mourned; Riley deserved to be mourned ahfksahsdajklhsajkfhaslkjfhsakjdfhdaslkfhakj pain :(:(:( I’m so sorry laurence and I didn’t even like the guy. I can’t believe that the first thing this madman does after trying to secure their survival as best he could is writing letters -- on dragonback!!! hands stiff from cold so he can only work in five minute increments!!! -- to make sure riley’s memory isn’t blackened how can he be like this

- emily roland is so smart and capable and amazing my heart is blooming with pride

- iridescent feathered dragons... holy shit this is awesome

temeraire has a little feather envy tho and also maila casually eavesdropping so he can chat up (literally) hot babes... I know they’re prisoners of war and everything but this is all pure unadulterated gold

- oh temeraire darling no have no fear hammond has no self respect whatsoever, that will not be what stops him

- I can’t believe laurence is actually taking time to tie himself in knots over not following perfect procedure around his officers’ future career options while they’re FUCKING MAROONED with a bunch of asshole sailors fkdfhsjdh

- GET YOUR DIRTY FUCJING HANDS OFF DEMANE OR I’LL CHOP THEM OFF FOR YOU YOU SWINE

sipho is like eleven and a nerd and ready to run at all these grown men armed just with a branch PAIN

- granby’s unending exasperation at laurence not knowing all the stuff that seems self-evident to him having grown up with dragons fksjdhfskajd

- aw laurence finally having a little dad talk with roland ;____; and demane has proposed to her repeatedly and she would agree in a moment under other circumstances ;________________; and it never even occurred to me that that’s why she was so upset about him taking on his own dragon but of course that would fuck everything up if that’s what she was planning OH NO ;_________________________________________________;

laurence confirmed for boytoy & hideously embarrassed about it flasdfsdkjhfksd 

“But I don’t want someone I want, if I can’t be sure of seeing him one week in the year” crack crack goes the sound of my heart breaking

I hope they find a way to solve this eventually :(

- really interesting what a clear view emily has of roland and laurence’s relationship tho, considering he’s basically her father figure -- like there’s clear affection, physical attraction and camaraderie there but it never feels particularly romantic & they both have other shit to do. (and laurence knows it too on some level, considering his main emotion when she refuses his proposal is relief lol. it really shows off this central conflict he has where like... he has a very clear idea of who he feels he should be and managed to convince himself he was for a long time, and what that man wants and needs (namely very little, emotionally) and is loyal to. aaaand then there’s the person he actually is, who’s been fighting his way to the surface since temeraire showed up in the very first book and sort of woke him up by giving him something he actually loves and values with all of himself and can’t compromise on. proper gentleman/navy!laurence feels like he has to do what society deems decent and marry roland to be a good person, actual!laurence seems to know that what they already have isn’t wrong or immoral in any way as long as they’re both happy with it. ugh I love him and I hope his last remaining character development includes realizing that who he really is is not only acceptable but actually a better man than that imagined perfect self ever could be and how many people love him for who he is already A N Y W A Y onwards)

- the incan dragons continue to be dope as hell

it’s super interesting how they’ve grown to value people -- and not just one special person, like british dragons, but whole groups of people -- over gold and jewels. like the tendency is there in dragons from other cultures; temeraire loves The Bling but would still easily prioritize laurence and his crew over it. presumably some of it is cultural and some of it must stem from the sheer trauma of losing so many people within a few centuries, which is basically living memory for a dragon (which makes it equal parts sympathetic/heartwarming and juuuuust on the edge of being too creepy and possessive haha).

- jeez this book is doing a good job at showing what a haunting fucking sight it must be to enter a land where like. 90% of the people are dead in plague and their cities stand abandoned

- fhasdklhfaskljfhs hammond going full diplomat on the dragons squabbling... he truly is something

and laurence apologizing to demane because he was out of line and he is a fellow captain now T_____T lord allendale could never

- haven’t had a lot to say for a while because I’m just so entranced with the world building and stuff haha, I find the irl history of this area super interesting as well

- ambassador iskierka........ what a time to be alive

poor poor poor granby hahahaha

- if these books were named harry potter style this one would be ‘william laurence and that time he tried to put off wearing his ceremonial robes for as long as humanly possible’

- granby being good at drawing but having atrocious handwriting is such a good little character detail, novik is just so expert at nonchalantly plopping them in 

- temeraire is being haunted by a green-eyed monster the size of a continent huh lol fair play to maila tho, he’s given it his sleazy all right from the start

I can’t believe gong su invented dragon ice cream solely so temeraire could eat it out of a tub over this... the real mvp

- awwww granby <3 I’m glad there’s some actual canonical queer rep in this series as well (as for the technically not stated straight(heh) out in canon... listen my friends if you can come up with any kind of heterosexual explanation for normally extremely sensible tenzing tharkay gazing at his friend and thinking shit like ‘in the fading light he was a statue gilded by sunlight’ and ‘it was a pang not unmixed with pleasure to look on him, as ever’, you are free to try to come at me with it but I won’t believe you lol. also laurence has the most potent disaster bisexual energy of any man in modern media even if he hasn’t quite caught on to it himself) 

tbh I know it’s mostly in desperation but they should come up with some new kind of medal to give granby for having this particular Talk with william laurence, one of the most awkward men to ever walk this earth... braver than any us marine etc.

- temeraire and iskierka in this scene STRONGLY evoke dirtbag teens sneaking off to make out in the backseat of a car or something god bless

- ...I guess you can’t fault the empress for siding with the dude already crashing like a natural catastrophe over his own home continent and who is eyeing the other six like a starving eagle would a pack of mice. all the europeans suck but I guess it’s sort of her best bet to ally herself with the biggest bully on the playground, especially since forces in her own court would be hard pressed to do anything about the situation. respect sister & congratulations granby lol

- hahahahahahaha leave it to hammond to be forcibly adopted by a dragon 

poor churki tho she’s a grownass adult and she only has one weird coke-addled diplomat and three basically adolescent dragons to work with here

- GRANBY SETTING SOME BOUNDARIES FINALLY I’m so proud of him ;__; this book really does have a lot to say about dragon/human relations huh

- LETHABO!!!!!!!!!!! man i’m so happy she’s doing well, she fucking deserves it and she’s doing good work

- laurence has evolved to his ultimate form of give-no-fucks-do-some-good laurence and hammond was not prepared lol 

“You forget yourself, Captain Laurence,” Hammond said . . . 

“I forget nothing,” Laurence answered . . . 

im crying b/c he literally has forgotten before but remembers himself at the end of victory of eagles b/c of tharkay and and aaaaaaaaaaaaaugh here he is refusing to do the dirty work he’s handed once more 

- lily and maximus! this is not a drill it’s the good good kids back at it again. also temeraire’s phenomenally misplaced sense of superiority re: his reaction to kulingile growing bigger than any of them fkshdfksahdfkj

- berkely <3

- poor harcourt :( ah well she’ll survive it tho he wasn’t that important it’s not like she lost her dragon lol (I honestly can’t feel that bad about riley considering y’know how he was not only chill with but actively for the institution of slavery)

- YOOOOOOO GONG SU! and temeraire is so happy they’re going back to china aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah I love this (laurence’s stammering outrage at this reveal is also highly entertaining “he STAYED in my father’s HOUSE!!!!!!!”)

- man that entire last battle scene was so cool in the context of the rest of the series; the sheer effort and ingenuity that went into avoiding a bigger battle and slyly aiding the only worthy cause in the situation (the tswana and freeing the slaves) is so satisfying, especially after VoE

- holy shit I really enjoyed this one! It had a good balance of travelling/character moments and giving us time with the culture and characters of the Inca and their dragons, as well as driving the overall plot forward splendidly! I also feel like we got some more meat to the laurence POV (in hindsight it feels like it was mostly temeraire POV in tongues of serpents, which is fine but I do love our golden boy and his slow burn character development too)

on to blood of tyrants! I don’t know anything about this one except a) amnesia and b) some Very Important Lines I’ve already picked up along the way, I’m not sure I’m prepared (as a trope amnesia can be pretty hit or miss for me, so it’ll be interesting at least!)

[koganeirou]

Ikemen Revolution - Fenrir’s Route

Aaaand here’s one for Fenrir’s route!

My main comments are: FUCK those avatar challenges. It took me five thousand years to finish this damn route because I was stuck grinding for Lin for five thousand years because according to cybird, I can’t get the good ending w ma man unless I look cute smh.

The night that Alice lands in Cradle, she pretty much goes out to the garden to sob her eyes out because of the stress of being killed (oh honey don’t worry this game doesn’t have any bad ends. If you were in a game like Amnesia then I’d start crying LMAO). Fenrir happens to see her and wipes her tears away (*๓´╰╯`๓). He decides to spend the month with Alice to make her have as much fun as possible, and makes her promise that so there will be no regrets, the two will not fall in love.

But we all know that’s not gonna happen.

I guess because the boys finally learned from Lancelot’s route to never send a nameless faceless nobody with Alice, Ray assigns Fenrir as her personal bodyguard. 

Fenrir takes it upon himself to be Alice’s personal tour guide, so they go on a date around the Central Quarter eating all kinds of sweets like a bunch of dorks D’AWW. Of course the red army are full of party poopers who crashes their alone time.

@Red army boys, I LOVE YOU ALL BUT YOUR SOLDIERS NEEDA CHILL. Like my grievances from Lancelot’s route carry over in twofold because the nameless red soldiers are once again, STILL a bunch of blood thirsty hooligans who are clearly letting “may glory flow crimson through our veins” slogan get to their heads WAYY too much. 

(☪̤̆_̆ ☪̤̆) THAT’S SO SPECIFIC LMAO.

But anyhoo I guess having a body guard with actual plot armor was really beneficial because Fenrir drives off all of the Red soldiers! And as it turns out, they were sent by Edgar (but of course why am I not surprised smh).

They return home and a few black army soldiers comes out shitting their pants because apparently there’s a ghost, and when Fenrir hears that HE shits his pants. 

Luka has his priorities straight.

Fenrir pussyfoots outside the army headquarters for a few minutes because GHOST but then big bear Sirius comes out RURL pissed because everyone keeps making a ruckus.

WHY DO I FIND THIS SO FUCKING FUNNY. LIKE IT’S PICTURE PERFECT. I CAN IMAGINE HIM DOING THIS IN MY HEAD FRAME BY FRAME.

So the ghost was actually a magic cult goon creeping around like a lech looking for women's’ underwear, whom Seth covered for. I had zero interest in Seth before but I do find it interesting that more hints about Seth’s connection to the magic cult goons are being dropped, and if anything it makes me want to play his route now.

I’d love to be your friend!!! But unfortunately Fenrir is a giant stick in the mud and won’t let me! But never fear because your route is coming out soon so soon I’ll be more than just your friend LOL!

 Fenrir gets news that some of their soldiers got cornered on the Red Bridge. Well what do you know, turns out the nameless red soldiers are still mad that they busted a nut in anticipation for nothing because they didn’t get to skewer any soldiers in Lancelot’s route, so now they’re taking out their pent up frustration here.

Luka hears the news as well and rushes to the red bridge just in time to see Jonah and the rest of the red soldiers man handling the black army soldiers (wtf Jonah I expected better of you). Luka goes from simmering with rage to boiling with rage and charges at the red soldiers. Obviously the red soldiers don’t care (or... they just can’t comprehend) that Luka is their superior’s freaking brother because all they can think about is reaping the reward for unnecessary stabbing and so they go into Ultimate Shish Kabobing Mode and decide to kill Luka.

Jesus christ... these fucking red soldiers. I am so sorry but I think the only people in this clown of an army that has any shred of honor or self control are the red army love interests LOL.

Anyway Fenrir drags Luka’s delirious bloody corpse back to the black army and the scene ain’t pretty. But it’s okay because we all know that this game doesn’t have the balls to actually kill anyone so it’s not like there’s any need to be worried.

See even Alice acknowledges it lol. This game’s too soft (not that that’s necessarily a bad thing... if I want angst I’ll just read fanfiction ¯\_(ツ)_/¯)

Apparently the one who actually made swiss cheese of Luka was Jonah. At first I was just SO CONFUSION?? JONAH WOULD NEVER DO THAT! until this bomb dropped and my only reaction was honestly just “...yikes”.

CRIES @ MY HEART

Jonah sneaks into Black Territory unarmed and Fenrir decides to arrange for him to see Luka like a the great wingbro he is. Alice’s left awkwardly keeping Jonah company but the ice quickly breaks and they end up spending the day talking about Luka ♡(.◜ω◝.)♡.

Fenrir successfully sneaks Jonah into Luka’s room but the two end up just having a screaming match and Luka boots Jonah out of his room. Understandable, considering how all the red soldiers are like little kids that you needa put those backpack straps on because who knows what the fuck they’ll do if left to their own devices.

me whenever I have any kind of guests over.

eat my ass @ Sirius 

When it’s decided that the Black and Red army are gonna go to war for realsies, Alice requests to go onto the battle field with Fenrir so she can repel magic. Sirius freaks out going all like “ojou-chan, you mustn’t! It’s not a walk in the park!!” but Alice ain’t having any of that and essentially tells Sirius to eat her ass. Fenrir being the amazing bro he is sticks up for Alice and asks Ray if he can take her with him, swearing he’ll protect her. Ray’s like sigh fine. This scene was honestly my favourite because I loved how much confidence Fenrir had in Alice and how he respected her desire to help. Unlike a certain someone ੧| ‾́ェ ‾́ |੭ (totally not throwing shade at Sirius LMAO).

CRIES SOME MORE THAT’S SUCH A CUTE NICKNAME.

I could have asked the exact same thing of you Sirius.

The rest of the Black Army can clearly see sparks flying between Fenrir and Alice but unfortunately, Fenrir has to join Sirius in the emotional constipation of “what is this feeling in my chest?! Definitely not love!” Granted Fenrir has an excuse because of the promise he made her, but it’s still frustrating nonetheless.

oh my god can you shut up about this dumbass slogan for one minute. 

Ngl despite the heart warming moment of resolve when Fenrir decides to take Alice into battle, it’s pretty damn hard to take the war seriously because it feels like a bunch of 14 year old teenagers doing a play-war considering of how almost comedic it is. Again, I’m not saying that this game needs to be an angst fest where everyone dies, but for a story about two armies on the brink of war, it does a pretty bad job at building any real tension or showing this war as a source of any real conflict with any real stakes or any real consequences.

I totally *do not* dislike that nickname 👀

We cut back to the red army who are all quite frazzled because they all had that “oh fuck” moment when they realized that they’re getting their asses whooped by the black army.  Lancelot decides to stay his hand, whereas Jonah rages at Edgar’s incompetence but Edgar’s ultimately like “¯\_(ツ)_/¯ King’s orders”.

Alice you’re doing amazing, sweetie.

Alice continues to fight with Fenrir on the front lines but she realizes that she really loves him and she doesn’t want to go home anymore! UNFORTUNATELY FOR HER, our lovely gentleman Fenrir “this feeling in my chest is totally love but I WON’T ADMIT IT!” Godspeed repeatedly dodges her attempts at confessing (¬_¬). GOOD SIR I KNOW WHAT YOU’RE DOING. You’re just trying to put off having a heart to heart about your feelings until the full moon so you can boot Alice back to her world without ever having to talk about it (ლಠ益ಠ)ლ.

Alice tries once again for the nth time to confess her feelings to Fenrir but this time they’re interrupted by the magic cult goons who are hell bent on capturing Alice. This plays out exactly as you’d predict and the two get cornered at a cliff LOL. Alice gets blown off the cliff and Fenrir jumps after her to save her.

This, my friends, is what we call: plot armor.

They miraculously (and conveniently) survive their fall and end up in the castle ruins in the forbidden forest. I guess being lost in an abandoned forest with a totally not haunted castle next to them sets the mood for sexy time because they end up making out like their life depends on it. Conveniently, without actually saying they love each other ლ(ಠ_ಠლ). 

GUYS... THE DRIVER IS LITERALLY RIGHT THERE.... GUYS....

They make it back to Black Territory in one piece with the help of Loki and Harr and Ray loses his shit because he thought they died T T T.  Fenrir is sent back to the front lines and Alice is totally ready to go back and kick some ass but I guess all the fire and confidence in this power couple completely deflated because Fenrir becomes Sirius 2.0 and refuses to take Alice SMH. 

Alice finds Fenrir boarding a carriage to leave, and she stops him and tries to tell him that she loves him. Fenrir responds by pulling Alice into the carriage with him and at this point I was HYPED because “is he actually gonna take her with him?!?!” but my hopes are quickly dashed when he shoves her into the carriage, initiates round 2 of INTENSE MAKE OUT SESSION LIKE YOUR LIFE DEPENDS ON IT..... then throws Alice’s sad ass back out of the carriage and leaves her behind once he’s finished (┛ಠДಠ)┛彡┻━┻.

UGH! FENRIR! JUST--- AGHHHHHHH. 

YOU CAN SAY THAT AGAIN. Like yea sex is great, but have you ever heard of proper verbal communication??

(I also find it funny how the driver was just sitting there the entire time they were making out doing a big boi sweat).

me with group assignments in school.

Fenrir comes back on the night of the full moon and Alice for the 100TH DAMN TIME IN THIS ROUTE, tries to tell him that she doesn’t want to go home, but Fenrir, again, dashes her hopes and tells her she has to go back he won’t be able to protect her all the time. Which we all know is bullshit, but nevertheless Alice decides to listen to him. 

Ha ha ha you are so full of shit.

And so Alice once again goes to the gates of hell garden portal which I officially dub as “The Hole Where Bad Things Happen” or more accurately, “The Hole That No Player Ever Wants To See”. 

Anyhoo Alice leaps back home and spends about a month moping in London until one day a black army soldier comes to London and begs Alice to go back with him because Fenrir’s in danger! Alice, having literally zero self preservation because I guess her time on the battle field taught her jack shit, blindly follows this fellow back to Cradle and the moment she arrives, the guy reveals himself to be a magic cult goon and so she’s kidnapped and taken to Amon’s sex dungeon.

Look. I’m not gonna accuse Alice of “dumb mc syndrome” and I don’t necessarily blame her for falling for it but at the same time, COME ON. THIS IS THE DUMBEST PLOT POINT EVER. Of all the possible reasons she comes back to Cradle, THIS IS THE ONLY THING THEY COULD THINK OF? What makes it so aggravating is that it’s stated multiple times that any person from Reason can repel magic, so if that’s the case, the cult goons could have just kidnapped any random off the street instead of wasting time and energy looking for Alice. And if they could conveniently stroll into the land of Reason, why didn’t they do that ages ago?!

You know that writing rule “make your villains smarter, not your protagonists dumber”, or something like that? Well in this case, everyone is dumb!

Anyway during the month Alice was gone, Lancelot finally decides to stop going radio silent and consults the Black Army about Amon and his weed stash. This felt really convenient and almost inconsistent with Lancelot’s character because in the other routes he was hell bent on not talking unless 100% cornered, but in Fenrir’s route he spills the beans like it’s no big deal. 

Fenrir hears the news of Alice being kidnapped by Amon and the Black army pretty much storms into the Magic Tower and fishes Alice out. Amon finally reveals himself but honestly he doesn’t put up much of a fight because Fenrir shoots him with one of those hiccuping guns and that’s enough to deflate all of Amon’s fighting spirit lmao so he gets arrested in the end. Talk about anti climatic as hell. This entire thing just felt really stupid because if all they had to do with storm the damn tower, they should have done so ages ago.

Admittedly I do like the resolution to this whole fiasco. Fenrir is totally ready to get down and dirty, but before that Fenrir and Alice actually, finally, and at long last, properly talk about their feelings and sort out their relationship mess. 

Dramatic End:

Alice officially joins the Black Army, and they hold her enrollment ceremony. Hosting it is usually Ray’s job since he’s king but since Alice is his best friend’s babe, he decides to let Fenrir take over. Unfortunately, Fenrir can’t keep his excitement in check and ends up picking Alice up and spinning her around in joy ╭(๑ ॔ㅂ ਂ ॓)و ̑̑. THIS WAS SO CUTE I LOVE THIS ENDING.

-----

Honestly I have a lot of mixed feelings about this route. There’s the good, the bad, and the ugly, but since I don’t wanna end this post on a salty note so I’ll just start with the ugly and work my way up.

The Ugly: The route starts losing momentum their promise of not falling in love morphs into the source for Fenrir’s self cockblock fest for the rest of the route and him repeatedly rebuffing Alice’s attempts to tell him she wants to stay in Cradle became unbearable frustrating. Playing Sakuya’s route in Norn9 alongside Fenrir’s route did not help at all because his route also had a “promise of not falling in love” premise and had the exact same problems as Fenrir’s route so honestly my frustration was just doubled at this point.

The Bad: The plot is balls off the rail in the second half if it isn’t obvious enough from my complaints earlier. The Hole That No Player Ever Wants to See making a reappearance in Fenrir’s route kills a lot of the build up between Alice and Fenrir and there was honestly no point of having Alice go back to London. The circumstances that lead her to returning were so stupid it had me head banging against the wall.

The Good: I think Fenrir and Alice have a very strong “friends to lovers” romance going on and it was honestly really sweet and wholesome. I loved how their friendship and subsequent romance builds them both up and makes them better people-- they’re both stronger together, they’re equals, they’re partners. You really get a sense of camaraderie between the two and their relationship is founded on mutual respect, understanding, trust, and confidence in each other which I’m 100% on board with. Fenrir taking Alice onto the battle field with him is a testament of the rock solid trust between them. They have a very strong partner in crime vibe that I love! 

I adore how Fenrir refers to Alice as his “best friend” or his “best buddy” and it was just so cute, it made my heart swell because I’m a firm believer that your s/o SHOULD be your best friend.

Overall imo, Fenrir’s route is about on par with Lancelot’s, though it has higher highs and lower lows than Lancelot’s route did.

Anyway, I’m making my way through Edgar’s route currently (♥ω♥*).

[keeloves]

MY Top 10 Worst Male Characters

 Keep in mind this just my personal opinion! I would love to hear your thoughts but please keep them civil and respectful. Kicking off the list at number 10

10 Jake Salt (Famous in Love)

Don’t get me wrong he is super cute/hot but ugh he freaking irks me! First of all he treats girls like crap, he is emotionally needy and as Paige put “Nothing is ever his fault” He slept with Lexi to try and get his script published into a movie. He slept with her for several days and when once he realized that wasn’t happening he got pissed off blamed her and then he ghosted Lexi. Yeah, I know what an asshole. He confesses his “love” for Paige at a press conference right after Rainer had a severe melt down. Then once he gets with Paige he treats her like crap and is emotionally abusive. He doesn’t move into the house she bought, he didn’t stick up for her when she said no to shots but instead helped pressured her into doing shots of tequila and she ended up getting so drunk that she ended up missing her screen test and he didn’t defend her when she was being ripped to shreds by a producer guy. Skip to like 5:28 and watch until 7:16. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYMVnvjcfpY&t=7s This video was made by my dear friend @disneyfanforever3 This clip pretty much sums up why I can’t stand Jake. I am so happy Paige called him out on his bullshit.

9. Sinbad (Sinbad from Legends of the Seven Seas) 

First of all he doesn’t deserve to have this movie named after him because he is a terrible protagonist. He speaks disrespectfully to women, and just ugh! He is okay letting his friend Proteus die for a crime he did not commit and and Sinbad would run off to Fiji fully knowing his friend Proteus that he has known since CHILDHOOD would be dead as long as he can run off to Fiji. Proteus said to Sinbad while taking his place “I know you would do the same for me” and Sinbad’s reply is “No I wouldn’t” like ugh dude you aren’t that loyal! So Marina is the real hero of the movie. In fact I go a little more into detail on why I hate Sinbad. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhD6mbhLJpY&lc=z23iz1vpsv3kyla3xacdp430q55un5sqk3m3zmlonvhw03c010c

8.Oliver Queen (Arrow)

I have ranted on him several times so I will try to keep this brief! He is a womanizing manwhore. He serial cheated on his girlfriend Laurel with basically every woman including her sister Sara. He did nothing to make the situation better. This pic I used of him is him flirting with Sara at the Lance family dinner and this is the moment where I wanted to punch him in the face! Ugh god he is the worst. He cheated so much that he fathered a child. He abandon Thea after she got out of the Lazurus pit all so he could play house with Felicity and he constantly goes back and forth on his no kill rule. Oh and this Oliver is a knock off version of Bruce Wayne and he is a complete 180 of who he should be.

7. Mon El (Supergirl)

I hate Mon El so much! He lied to Kara about who he was on Daxam yes I know Kara was judgmental at first but Mon El just planned to keep her in the dark the entire time of their relationship. He owned slaves and did nothing to correct the issue he just chose to stay with Kara. He called Kara his kryptonite which is something that can kill her literally so bleh! He disrespected Kara at every moment she tried to help him. He beat up another Aileen for money and he is so selfish. In fact how here is Kara chewing out Mon El’s ass out! Its very satisfying like “Paige Townsen Nothing’s ever your fault speech to Jake.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnHZInGzQ4w

6. Moses Puloki Dance Teacher (Lilo and Stitch)

A while back I made a list of my most annoying cartoon characters and he is number one on the most annoying cartoon characters list. I put him on this list because he is an adult who lets Mrytle get away with bullying Lilo. He sees it happening before his very eyes and he does nothing to stop it and instead it always Lilo’s fault. He never asks for Lilo’s side of the story and he just assumes Lilo is at fault when she beats up Mrytle. At least that is how it feels. I have never once seen him say anything to Mrytle or her possy that follow her around. To me he is my least favorite character from Lilo and Stitch and it makes me wonder why he is a teacher in the first place.

5. Thomas Humprey aka Humps (Orange is the New Black

He is an abliest piece of shit. He caused a fight all for a stupid bet. He gas lit Suzanne Warren aka Crazy Eyes and she said repeatitly she didn’t want to fight. The other gaurds are terrible because they went along with is bullshit and because of him this Suzanne beat the hell out of this other woman who also appeared to be mentally unstable because the other woman was insulting Suzanne. Suzanne beat up this other woman so much that this girl was bleeding and her face was bruised up. Two other inmates had to get Suzanne off of this other inmate. Yet all Humps did was laugh and said “Well I just made $20 bucks” Suzanne is left to cry and feel ashamed for something he started! He is so terrible he makes Pornstache look like a saint.

4. Pablo Money (Famous in Love)

He is emotionally and phyically abusive He stole Jordan’s IPad and accused Tangey of cheating. He treats Tangey like an object to be had and he kicked the door of the room where Tangey was hiding. He is possessive,manipulative and ugh! I also put him on the list because he treats my favorite character on the show like shit.

3. Every Itteration of Harrison Wells (The Flash)

I have gone on ar ant about why I hate this character so I will kep this brief as I can. The only Wells I will put up with are The original Earth 1 Wells Eowells (Season1) and Harry Wells. This character is boring, he is played out and he is just there to take up space and be a boring whtie character that Cisco has to play glorified baby sitter too. EoWells is terrible because he killed Barry’s mom, he killed Cisco and when Cisco remembers EoWells laughs in his face. Harry is awful, he faked an illness to guilt Wally into not moving in with Jesse knowing full Well that is how Francine West (Wally and Iris’s mother) died. He chokes Cisco, he also breaks Cisco’s things and never offers to fix them and he is just an ass wipe. The rest of the Wells are annoying because we don’t need anymore Wells and Sherloque Wells has annoying accent.

2. Ezra Fitz (Pretty Little Liars)

I have also ranted on him a lot as well so bare with me. He stalked teenage girls, he got with Aria knowing full well she was going to be his student and knowing she was underage. He framed Spencer for something she didn’t do and because she was on to him. He stole her files and gave it to Aria which by the way is illegal to do. Then again what does this man care about what law he breaks he is all ready guilty of statutory rape, stalking and violating privacy. He hooked up with Alison and he should have gone to prison but instead he gets to live happily ever after with Aria. He ends up marrying Aria. Yeap that’s right folks he married the girl he groomed and stalked and manipulated. He even trapped her on a Ferris wheel. 

1. Damon Salvotore (The Vampier

Ugh just thinking about him makes nauseated. He is abusive, manipulative and he ruined hi brother’s life and stole his girl and he is part of the reason why I have a hard time getting into the show. Damon is a serial rapist and serial killer. He raped Caroline, fed off of her and terrified her. He kills people Elena cares about just because she isn’t giving him what he wants. Man if Damon wants something he better get it now or else. I bet he is terrible in bed because three girls have bragged about how good Stephan is in bed and Damon only brags about himself. I say he is terrible because if he wasn’t he wouldn’t have to compel girls to sleep with him. He killed a pregnant woman this means he also killed a baby. He has no remorse for any of these things and he just relies on Elena to change him. The only time I can deal with him is when he is around Bonnie! Ugh I hate this character! He needs to trade places with Stephan and now the fact that Delena have kids together make me want to throw up my insides because it makes my skin crawl knowing Damon would father a child. Plus I think Ian Somerholder though he seems nice is not all that great of an actor.

[bts-svt-mx]

Maid For You (Part 3) Taehyung x Reader

Author: bts-svt-mx

Taehyung x Reader

Jungkook x Reader

Rating: Fluff, M, eventual smut if i get to it lol

Tags: Slow burn, Enemies to Lovers AU, Idol! Taehyung, Taehyung x Reader, Jungkook x Reader, Hoseok, mentions of other members

Chapters: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 (M), 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

Word Count: 2,400

Description: Wanting to get out of your parents house and experience what the world had to offer is way more expensive than people tell you it will be. So when your glamorous “manager to the stars” cousin Hoseok hooks you up with a  job as the live-in maid for a hillside, massive mansion, you feel as though life might actually be looking up. That is until the mansion’s absentee high profile celebrity owner surprises you by moving back in leaving you to wonder if this mansion is big enough for you and his huge ego. 

>>>

Chapter 3:

“Now if you’ll excuse me,” You push yourself away from in front of the refrigerator putting the mop in the small cleaning supply closet a few steps away. Taehyung hasn’t moved an inch. Now it’s his turn to be speechless. “I have a job to continue doing seeing as I’m the main person making sure your house doesn’t end up looking like an abandoned dump with all the dust the piling up from no one EVER USING ANYTHING HERE,” You practically scream the last part in his direction, words still reverberating off the walls as you turn swiftly on your heel to head rather quickly to your room on the West side of the mansion.

You had a phone call to make.

>>>

“Yo, yo, yo Y/N-o! What can I do for my awesome cousin on this beautiful day?” Hoseok’s sing song voice just made this situation a whole lot more annoying to you for some reason. Steam was practically coming out of your ears, you were so pissed off. As you plop yourself on your large bed, little Hodu immediately jumps up to snuggle with you.

“What the hell Hoseok?!” You screech through the phone at a half yelling, half whispering level. Hodu being the only thing stopping you from making a bigger fuss since you didn’t want to scare the puppy. And besides, Taehyung could have followed you to your side of the mansion so you didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of hearing you go crying to your cousin (and his manager) after what he said to you. Or rather, what you said to each other.

“Woah, Y/N. Calm down. I’m sensing some hostility here!” The ever smiling boy laughed from the other side of the phone. God knows where he could be right now. Brazil? Hong Kong? Tokyo? LA? Judging by the loud chatter in the background it seems as though whatever city he’s in right now, he’s definitely somewhere with a lot of people.

“How could you not tell me that I am the live-in maid for Kim Taehyung, the most famous pop star in the world?!” A year ago you would have asked that question with excitement and happiness, but now it’s spilling out of your mouth with fire and anger. “And that he didn’t know he even had a live-in maid?!”

A loud round of laughter along with some glasses clinking comes from the background of Hoseok’s side but fades as it sounds like he is walking away from the main source of the noise. “Well this definitely isn’t the reaction I was expecting from you,” He chuckles. “I thought you would be way happier about this. Jumping up and down- Thanking me even... Little miss Future Mrs. Kim Taehyung,” He teases. 

At that your cheeks turn red with embarrassment. Damn Hoseok for reading your personal journal from your lovesick fangirl days! You didn’t have any siblings so Hoseok had gladly taken the role as your older brother, doing all the annoying things an older brother would do growing up. Like reading through your diary for example.

A scoff leaves your mouth. What a naive little teenager you were. “Well, that was before I found out he’s actually the biggest douchebag in the entire world!” You can’t help but yell that part a little bit. Seriously, how does Hoseok manage him? You would want to tear your hair out every time you even so much as looked at him.

“Oh come on Cuz’. He’s really not that bad. The fame just got to his head a little! Trust me, there’s a great guy underneath that front he puts on for everyone,” Hoseok explains, his voice a little muffled with the sound of crunching of chips in between some of his words.

You sigh. Of course Hoseok has a different opinion on him, he’s his manager. “Well he might be like that with you, but you should have heard wha-”

Hoseok’s infectious laughter bursts through the phone. He’s clearly not listening to you anymore. “Oh there’s no way in hell you can beat me at Pool, Jeon Jungkook!”

This is a serious issue! Why can’t Hoseok ever just- Wait. 

Did I hear that name right? Jeon Jungkook? The up-and-coming singer/dancer/heartthrob Jeon Jungkook? 

You’ve got to be kidding, he is so hot! How does Hoseok know literally every freaking famous person ever!

Ugh. Focus up Y/N. You have a different pop star to deal with right now.

“Seriously, Hoseok, listen to me!” It comes out as more of a plea then you would like it to but really, how are you supposed to work for this guy? What if Taehyung fires you? What are you going to do about your new life in the city if that happens? You finally had a good group of friends and really fun hobbies... You couldn’t move back home. You still needed to find your calling here.

“Yah! Wait for me kid! Look, Y/N, I gotta go,” His voice sounds rushed and shallow as if he’s just started to jog somewhere. “Just trust me on this, ok Y/N? You’re the best-”

 And click.

“Hoseok? Hoseok!! Hobi!” You pull the phone away from your ear to reveal your home screen once again lighting up your cell phone. He hung up on you. Great.

Obviously you were on your own in this situation.

The remainder of your frustration exits your body in a good old fashioned muffled scream into your pillow.

How did you end up here? What happened to the amazing set up of being a maid living in a humongous mansion, not having to worry about rent or bills, only truly cleaning up after yourself and Hodu every day on top of the light cleaning and other miscellaneous tasks you did weekly to upkeep the place?

Oh yeah. Kim Taehyung happened.

Looking back, you may have overreacted in the situation with Taehyung. You can usually keep your mouth shut well enough but once it crosses a certain point of disrespect, you always tend to snap. You just had such little tolerance for anyone who thought they could treat another human being with such a superiority complex as that that boy had.

So what now? Obviously you still were going to live and work here if you could. You needed this job and a place to live. As much as you loved your parents, going to live back home, leaving the beginning of a life that you made for yourself in the city just wasn’t an option.

You’ll just have to endure it. Living here while simultaneously working around Taehyung and his huge ass ego.

And you hoped. Maybe, maybe you just caught him on a bad day. Maybe he wasn’t the egotistical douchebag he made himself out to be.

Maybe if he apologized, you could actually be his friend.

---

Yeah, you weren’t getting that apology any time soon.

Thankfully you hadn’t seen Taehyung for the rest of the day. Only venturing out of your wing of the mansion to tiptoe to the backyard avoiding ‘Taehyung Territory’ (which you had officially decided to call it) to that much needed sauna before rushing back to your side making yourself dinner in your own kitchen and tucking yourself and Hodu into bed early.

But the next day, barely even a step out of the white marbled hallway leading out of your wing, you collided with a hard, tall body, so hard it almost knocked you to the ground.

Inwardly you cringed. You didn’t even need to look up to figure out who you had just body checked. There goes your plan to approach him casually and try to make amends.  Truly, could your luck get any worse with this dude?

Bracing yourself for the worst, slowly you lift your head to meet his gaze. His features sat stone cold, clearly unaffected by your unfortunate clumsiness. He didn’t even make a move to catch you in case you fell.. That douchebag..

The stare you two share goes on for a couple of seconds too long, his expression never changing. Well clearly he isn’t going to say anything so you guess it’s up to you.

“Hi... Um- I mean I’m sorry. I should have watched where I was going..” Ugh. Getting that out was difficult. Wow the ground is so fascinating! And it definitely isn’t as scary as the death stare Taehyung is giving you right now.

Well at least you’re dressed in presentable clothes today, with your usual look of slightly wavy hair and enough makeup to make you actually look kind of nice. Not that you really cared what he thought about how you looked but honestly, what was the boy doing over here?

“You’re up early.” Is all he says back to you. Morning voice apparent in the raspiness of his speech.

Wow, thanks Captain Obvious. Your painting class this morning starts at 9:00am and the drive there could take a while depending on traffic. It was currently 8:00am and honestly if you’re going to be stuck with him for a while beating around the bush like this you were definitely going to be late.

A realization hits you. Crap, this is the first time you’ve seen him since you blew up on him yesterday. What if he walked all the way over here from his side of the mansion to fire you as soon as he woke up?

Oh no, oh no, oh no. Please don’t fire me. He can’t do this. You can’t lose this job.

You need to do some damage control. Plastering on a polite smile onto your face to hide your fear, you look up at him once again. “What can I do for you, Taehyung?”

Why did we have to start off on the wrong foot like this? There are so many things you’re going to miss out on once you’re forced to move back home. No more karaoke nights with your city friends, no more painting and dance classes, no more fun nights out drinking-

“I believe you have something of mine.” His low voice breaks you out of your downward spiral.

What? You have something of his? What could you possibly have that is his? He didn’t even get here until yesterday.

The small sounds of yipping behind you answers your question and the realization hits you.

How could you forget about little Hodu? He must have heard Taehyung’s voice from the other side of the door. Nodding your head and trying to hide your look of surprise that his first conversation with you hasn’t yet turned to him firing you, you turn and head back down the hallway to open your door.

Aww, you really loved Hodu… He was one of the only things to keep you company in this huge house. But Hodu was Taehyung’s and even though you’ve practically been his mother for the past couple of months, Hodu did belong to him...

Taking a deep breath and mentally saying goodbye to your little friend, you open the door slowly before it pushes against you as Hodu happily comes charging out of your hallway and directly into Taehyung’s arms.

Your gaze follows Hodu as Taehyung happily sweeps little Hodu up into his arms with ease and rises him up in the air Lion King style.

The brightest smile you’ve ever seen on Taehyung covers his face and he looks genuinely... Happy. You didn’t realize before, but this is the first time you have seen an authentic smile on his face since you met him.

It kind of reminds you of how Taehyung was when you first started liking him at the beginning of his career. Carefree, loving, unapologetically happy, boy-ish, silly. Later in the years that you had liked him you had noticed a change in the way he acted in interviews and fan meets. Of course he still put on a happy face but something had changed as he grew up in the industry. You chalked it up to him just being more used to the celebrity life, that he was just a little tired maybe… But maybe it was because you now knew him in real life without any need to put on a happy face for a camera that you realized that Taehyung may have just been pretending to be this perfect angel for a really long time now.

Or maybe you were reading too deeply into this.

But honestly, ever since yesterday you weren’t really sure if the boy in front of you had any capability of being able to be nice to anyone or anything. Well at least he was capable of showing real emotion even if it was towards a dog.

Taehyung’s gaze returns back to you and his expression instantly goes cold again.

Glad to see that lasted.

“You’re dismissed.” Taehyung snaps turning on his heel to head towards the direction of his own wing of the mansion.

His curt words left you confused. “I’m sorry what? I’m dismissed?” The words come out before you can stop them. Seriously Y/N when did it become so hard for you to keep your thoughts to yourself?

Taehyung slowly turns back halfway towards you, cocking his head. Hodu still happily panting from excitement in his arms. “I said, you’re dis-missed.” He says, overly annunciating each part. 

“Unless you care to stay in that same spot all day long. Which I personally wouldn’t care to do but, be my guest.” He purrs, talking so nonchalantly it bothers you in an indescribable way. 

Suddenly, he snaps the hand that’s not holding Hodu up quickly like he’s just remembered something important. “Wait I’m sorry, I misspoke. I meant to say..” Taehyung slowly leans towards you, his face close enough for you to be able to see the faint scar near his lips. “Be my maid,” He pulls back as his lips curve into that taunting smirk of his, his words laced with malice and mockery.

You’re dumbfounded. Stuck in place. You try to come up with a witty comeback but you just... go blank. How could someone be so blatantly rude like that?

You try your best not to look surprised by his correction. That’s what he wants. He wants to get a rise out of you. He wants to make you angry and upset. But you wouldn’t give him that satisfaction. Not today, not ever. 

“What, so you’re not going to fire me?” Is all you can retort. You didn’t care if this was the worst time to bring it up. You didn’t care if he was going to throw you out on your butt in two seconds after asking. You had to know if he was going to do it. You just couldn’t leave this fear hanging over your head without an answer.

Taehyung arches his eyebrow as if to acknowledge your courage but his expression remains cold as ice. “I can’t fire you. Trust me I tried. Turns out Hoseok is the one who hired you and controls your pay. Technically he’s the only one who can fire you. So I guess I’m stuck with you.” And with that he stalks back into Taehyung Territory with little Hodu in his arms.

You don’t know whether to feel relieved or not. Yes, you were happy that you still had a place to stay and you didn’t have to move back in with your parents leaving your beginnings of a life behind. 

But on the other hand, Taehyung was right. You were stuck with him. 

This mansion might be big, but Taehyung’s ego was already suffocating you.

<-- Previous Chapter | Next Chapter -->

[ellaofoakhill]

Allmom AU Update #9: ...And Falling Apart

“So,” Mitsuki asked as she sat down, “how are things?”

Inko grinned, and held up three fingers.

Mitsuki’s eyebrows shot up. “You feel like a teenager right now, don’t you?” Inko squealed, nearly upsetting the table. “Third base, and you’re over the moon. You kind of opened the throttle after the one-month mark, didn’t you?”

Inko shrugged. “It just… felt right, I guess.”

“So,” Mitsuki said, leaning closer, “is he a nibbler?”

Inko tried to be affronted. “A licker, actually.”

Mitsuki only looked shocked for a moment. “I think I like the new Inko. Incidentally, have you lost weight?”

Inko nodded. “I’m doing a bit of jogging. You know, to keep the lungs running smoothly.”

“So, have you told him yet?” Inko resisted the urge to roll her eyes; Mitsuki asked literally every time.

“No, not yet.” She brightened. “But I think I’ll do it tonight. I’ve got it all planned out—”

“That sounds like my Inko,” Mitsuki said. “I was starting to think we’d have to form a search party.”

“Ha ha,” Inko said. “I really think he’s going to love it.”

“He’d better,” Mitsuki said. “He’s dating a pop idol after all.” Her expression changed. “You realize Paradise isn’t going to last forever, right Inko?”

“Huh?”

“You two are eventually going to fight about something,” she continued, “and the dream will end, and he’ll be a normal guy.” She hesitated. “Sort of.”

Inko gave her a quizzical look. “We’ve fought. About how he should stop pushing himself so hard with his ill-health. About how not having everything exactly perfect isn’t going to end in total disaster.” She smiled, her eyes looking into the distance. “About how that one plate he dropped and the extra pounds I’ve put on over the years don’t matter in the slightest.” Her tea came, and Inko stirred in some milk. “He’s learning to be normal again, after a lifetime as something more and less.”

 (that night)

 “So the villain basically got what he wanted at the end,” Toshinori said as he waited for Inko to unlock the door.

“I think the way they set things up,” Inko said as she rummaged through her purse, “there’s going to be a—oh, there we go—sequel.” She unlocked the door. She turned and winked. “Won’t you come in, sir?”

Toshinori grinned. “I’d be delighted, provided my ingress impeaches not at all upon m’lady’s honour.”

Inko laughed, grabbed him by his collar, and pulled him down for a kiss. “The only one who should care about the impeaching of mine honour, good sir, is me.” Her voice, furry and soft, sent shivers down Toshinori’s spine. “Come in.”

He came in, her hands taking his, leading gently but firmly. She didn’t head for the couch, as was their custom. She let go with one hand to open the door to her bedroom. He gave her a questioning look. The grin Inko gave him was positively wolfish.

It turned slightly awkward as they sat on the bed, both facing the window.

“Inko—”

“Toshinori—”

They laughed as they interrupted each other, but there was a nervous tension in the air. “I’m sorry,” Toshinori said, “but I think I need to go first this time.”

“Is…” the laugh was fading from Inko’s voice, “is this what you’ve been quiet about all night?”

Toshinori nodded. “I need… I need to tell you the truth about my relationship with your son… and about my Quirk.”

“Your… Quirk?”

Toshinori kept going. “It emerged in the distant past, when Quirks were still quite new. A Quirk to gather strength combined with a Quirk that could be passed from one person to another. Its original holder wanted to use it to fight evil, but his body was frail, and he knew he would most likely die before this Quirk could come into its own. So he cultivated its strength and his own, and eventually, he found a worthy person, and passed it on. This Quirk was called ‘One For All’, the spinning together of the strength and will of many into one person.

“Each holder since has mastered this Quirk, built upon the foundations laid by others, and when the time came, passed it on. I was the eighth holder of One For All, and I fought the villain at Camino Ward twice, and narrowly defeated him both times.”

He stared at his hands, scarred from their years of loyal service. “But over a year ago now, I met Izuku. I could only maintain muscle-form for three hours a day by then, and was desperate to find someone I could pass on this Quirk to. When I saved Young Bakugou from that sludge villain, it was your son, Quirkless and terrified, not me, and not any other hero, who rushed at the villain to try and save him.” Toshinori clenched his hands, transforming without even really feeling it. “He inspired me to act when I was the lowest I’d been in many years.” He changed back. “He was brave to the point of foolishness, but also intelligent and driven, so I told him about my Quirk, and asked him if he would take it on. He accepted.”

Toshinori sighed. “But the power built up in One For All now is too great to be easily wielded. He needed to strengthen his body so it would not tear him apart. As it is, he can horribly injure himself if he goes too far with it. I am still an inexperienced teacher, but I am doing all I can, and he is learning so fast, that I do not believe this will be a danger for much longer.”

It took all his strength, but Toshinori turned to face Inko. “That isn’t why I’m telling you this. I should’ve told you this long ago, before I even passed One For All to Izuku. I should’ve understood that you of all people would be the least likely to betray his secret, and by extension mine. Inko,” he couldn’t keep the pleading out of his voice, “I am so, so sorry I didn’t tell you this before.”

He took a breath to regain his composure. “If you want me to leave, if you never want to see me again, I understand. I will still guide Izuku because I made him my responsibility, and won’t abandon him. But whether we continue together or not is your choice. I don’t blame you if you hate me.”

Toshinori’s eyes had drifted downward as he spoke. When no reply was forthcoming, he forced them back up.

Inko was running her hands through her hair. He couldn’t read her expression. After a moment, she took a breath. “I don’t know what to think right now.”

Toshinori nodded. “Should I leave then?”

Inko nodded. “I think you’d best.”

Toshinori raised himself off the bed. “If you have any questions at all, you have my number.” She nodded, not looking at him. As he left, Toshinori felt a cold dread in the pit of his stomach, and wished he had a coat.

 (three days later)

 “Rough patch?” Inko looked up as Mitsuki spoke. “You’ve hardly touched your jasmine.”

“Oh.” She sipped her tea. “I can’t say exactly, but… it’s bad.”

“Can’t say? Like,” Mitsuki scrunched her eyebrows together, “ ‘fate of Japan’ type stuff?”

“No.” Inko said. She thought about it. “Yes.” She put her head down. “Ugh… sort of.”

Mitsuki drummed her fingers on the table. She only did that when she was nervous. “So it’s something about him that you find… morally reprehensible?”

Inko picked up her head and put it in her hands. “It’s about us. He kept something secret he should’ve told me a long time ago. But… I understand why he kept it secret. But it’s the fact that he kept it secret that I find reprehensible.”

Mitsuki gave Inko a concerned, searching look for a while. “Can you tell me how he told you?”

“ ‘How’?”

“Did you find out yourself, or did he tell you? What was his expression or tone of voice? That sort of thing.”

“We were about to… you know.” In a detached way, Inko found it odd she wasn’t blushing at all in alluding to that intimate moment. “And I was just about to tell him about Kimeru-chan—” She paused when Mitsuki half-choked on her tea, “when he told me he had something important to say. He’d been quiet all night, so I half-expected it.

“And then he told me. He got it all out quickly, almost in one breath, like he’d been holding it so long he would to collapse if he didn’t. And most of it wasn’t bad, until… the end.” She twirled her stir-stick in her tea. “I don’t know if he noticed, but his voice broke a couple times, and the look on his face… he couldn’t meet my eye, he was so ashamed, and when he finally did he… he looked like he’d just handed me his heart and a knife.” Inko dimly noticed she was crying. “I’ve never seen anyone look so scared. He looked like I felt when Izuku kept breaking himself in the s-sports—”

Mitsuki was around the table in an instant, arms around her. Inko had told her about the nightmares she still had about that day. She heard Mitsuki growl, which meant someone had been staring in their direction longer than was polite. Inko half-sniffed, half-laughed. She pulled out a handkerchief and wiped her eyes and nose. Eventually, she regained her composure, and Mitsuki returned to her seat.

“Do you…” Mitsuki looked down at her drink, “do you know how you feel about this? About him?”

Inko took a deep, deep breath. “I only feel admiration and… and compassion or pity for the life he’s lived; most people would’ve broken under the strain he took upon himself, the demons he’s faced, alone. I… he broke my trust before he even knew me, Mitsuki, and I don’t know yet if I’m alright with that, and it was about something… important.” She looked out the window, at the busy street, at the people who had worries and problems so much smaller than they might have been.

“But I… I think I love him. Not for the Symbol of Peace he showed the world, but for the kind, intelligent, slightly oafish man he showed me.” She almost smiled at how much he’d stumbled, how much he’d fretted, how human it made him.

Another silence. “You don’t know if you can forgive him for what he didn’t tell you,” Mitsuki said. “Do you know if your feelings for him are stronger than that feeling of betrayal?”

Inko sighed. “Not yet.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Mitsuki nod. “Do you think, even with this, he could make you happy in the future?”

“Maybe.” Inko looked at Mitsuki. “What do you think I should do?”

Mitsuki’s eyebrows shot up. “We’ve been friends for ages, and for all your worrying you’ve never once asked me that.”

“Well?”

Mitsuki looked down at her tea. “There should always be something in the people we love that we admire.” She took a sip. “He broke your trust on an issue you care very much about, but he came to you and told you when he didn’t have to. He left what happens next in your hands, and he left when you told him you needed to think. This betrayal could be a wall between you for the rest of your lives, if you choose to spend them together. Or you could both use it as a chance to grow. And you, one of the most anxious, careful people I know, have time and again gone beyond your comfort zone with a man you’ve known for two or three months, and you’ve grown so much I hardly recognize you. You didn’t have to say you loved him a moment ago for me to know it, Inko.”

“So what should I do?”

Mitsuki sipped her tea again. “Whatever you decide, Inko, I’ll support, whether I think it’s a good idea or not. But this is your life, your betrayal, and your love. It has to be your decision.” Her expression softened. “Sorry, but I won’t make it for you.”

[tellywoodtrash]

ishqbaaz 22.11.17 lb

ever since @bengudill​ commented that anika looks like carrie, i can’t stop thinking about it. she does, she really does. makes it look rather morbid. 

luckily, anika’s about to get a HAPPY ENDING. GET IT, YOU GUYS? “HAPPY ENDING”? 😉😉😉😏😏😏😏 HEHEHEHE I’M HILARIOUSSSS 😆😆😆😆

billu ne phenka toh paanika kaise peeche reh sakti hai???? uska toh haq banta hai! 

i can’t help but feel devastated at all the effort it’s going to take cleaning this house. look at the pardeeee behindddd!!!!!! god, those stains are never coming outtttt!!! 😫😫😫😫😫😫 #adulthood 

also it looks like someone got fucking murdered in here... which considering this is oberoi mansion.... has probably already happened before.

daaaaaaaaaaamn, o jaana took on a whole other tune. not sure how i feel about it. it’s kiiiinda creepy???? 

out of context screencap: 

tell me this doesn’t look like something out a fucking horror movie. it does, it totally does. jesus christ, i’m kinda scaring MYSELF now. 

yo man i really feel this red paint was a bad idea. they look like some creepy ass murderer couple whose fetish is killing people and playing in the victim’s blood. like seriously.... this looks creepy as fuck. a different colour wouldn’t have made it look so ... dexter-y. 

this fuckall music isn’t helping. 

HAND SEX HAND SEX HAND SEX!!!!!! 

oh thank god the music changed to laal ishq. thank the lorddddddd. AND THE MOOD OF THE SCENE HAS ENTIRELY CHANGED TOO. BEHOLD THE POWER OF BG MUSIC, PPL!!!!!!!!!!! 

oh yaaaaaaaaaaaas anika, you get that boy nakey nakey nekkkid! 

i can’t help but giggle a little here at how turned on she’s getting by slathering paint on him. like... talk about being a lady in the streets but a freak in the sheets. 😜😜😜

oh well, whatever you’re into, girl. i’m just glad you’re getting some. 

A+ aesthetics wrt to framing and cinematography. 

oh god girl don’t get it on your faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaace. you’re gonna break out like fucccccccccck. 😩😩😩

i’m sorry, but hot husband and orgasms you can score once again in life, but once your skin is fucked, that’s it. one stupid orgasm isn’t worth killing your skin for!!!!!!!!! 😣😣😣😣

okay can’t stop giggling at the 80s-movie-style shot of the ~~SEXY LEGS~~~~~~~ 😂😂😂

.... are they attempting to clean up the mess by rolling around and using themselves as human sponges???? 😕😕😕

ok aesthetics and all theek, did they get beyond first base or not???? coz.... clothes still be on. and there was no suggestive dori opening either. (tellywood signal for sex. dori open = confirmation of 👉🏽👌🏽 👉🏽👌🏽 👉🏽👌🏽 ) I NEED SUGGESTIVE DORI OPENING FOR CONFIRMATION YOOOOOOO

YO MAN DID JUST KISSING HER TAKE IT OUTTA BILLU??????!?!!? ARE YOU KIDDING ME???? IS THERE ANY OF BULBUL’S BOOTI LYING AROUND, COZ UM... LOOKS LIKE THEY WERE 100% RIGHT TO ATTEMPT DRUGGING THIS FOOL. 

gosh, how disappointing for anika. poor girl. 

“is waale par.”

ugh ok this fucker is mad cute. fuck him. no i mean, LITERALLY, ANIKA. 

loook how happppppppppy she issssssssss. i’m crying happpy tearssssssss for my giiiiiiiiiirl. 😭😭😭😭😭

gosh, who’s at the door though? 

OH NO THE FAM’S BACK 😧😧😧😧

“yeh koi time hota hai aane ka????” “yeh koi time holi ka bhi nahi hai.”

hahahahahahahahahaha 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

LMAOOOOOOOOOOO ZERO DIALOGUE NEEDED. HAHAHAHAHA FUCKING AMAZINGGGGGGG. 😂😂😂😂😂😂

hahahahaha rudra’s satisfied exhale, as if he’s the one who did something. 

poor omRu volunteering to clean up their dirty paint-sex mess. height of bro-chaara only. 

guh. guess we’re supposed to take it that they did it. coz anika be ~*~*~*~*GLOWING*~*~*~*~*

oooop, girls are here to get the deeeeeeets. 

again, no dialogue necessary. post-orgasmic glow is a helllllll of a highlighter. it be telling them all they need to know.

bulbul looks so tearfully happy at anika’s joy. i’m cryingggggggggg. 😭😭😭😭😭😭

“I FINALLY GOT LAID YOU GUYS. FINALLY. AFTER ONE YEAR OF SEXUAL TENSION AND SHENANIGANS, YA GIRL FINALLY GOT HERS!!!!!!!!!!” 

ugh look at these stupid dorkssssssss holding hands under the table like a buncha teenagers. so cute. 

this is where being left handed helps me out! no one can ask me why i’m eating with ulta haath!

now to find a boy i don’t despise enough to hold my right hand. this is the hard part. oh well. 

*holds a cuteass kitten in right hand* 😸😸😸

LMAO RIKARA’S SMIRKS. BESTTTTTTTTTT. 😂😂😂😂

lol, shivaay’s going to fucking killlllllllllllll rudra. is ladke ke pait mein kuch bhi nahi rehta. 

LMAO GAURIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII ET TU BRUTUSSSSSSS

loving omki rollling his eyes at her. i knew that’s exactly how he’d react to her being silly and I LOVE ITTTTTTTTTT 😍😍😍😍

omki shomki taking a page out of bade bhaiyya’s book 😏😏😏

all the elders are like TF YOU IDIOTS ON???? 

gauriiiiiii’s been caught out toooooo. not giggling so much now, are ya, bulbul???? 

“mera nahi ho raha na....”

hahahahahahahahaha 😂😂😂😂😂

abbe idiot pehle apni harkatein sudhaar. phir tera bhi hoga. 

lolololol aniRi laughing while shivKara yell at rudra. UGH ALL MY KIDS ARE BEING EXTRA CUTE TODAY

ouff, dadi too. 

wow, ok. abhay knows to make AN ENTRANCE. 😐😐😐

i guess i should be grateful that pichli baar ki tarah ghar mein bike nahi ghusaaya.  😒😒😒

maybe clarify what you’re talking about, abhay, coz every single person in this house has a long list of sins, and no one knows which of those EXACTLY you’re talking about. 

chota billu is taking on bada billu. ladke mein dum hai. 😗😗😗

shivaay is sooooooo damn easy to provoke. just say “tum oberois...” and he’s foaming at the mouth. 

chill billu. like.... enjoy those post-sex endorphins for a bit longer. 

wow, rudra getting all high-and-mighty oberoi too. 

OUFF KYA SACH YAAAAAAAR KAUNSA SACH AB THOOOOK BHI DEEEE 420 EPISODE HOGAYE “SACH” KE BAARE MEIN SUNTE SUNTE 🙄🙄🙄🙄

ok what ghatiya editing, it’s making me dizzy. 

oufff abhay, all you saw was tej with a matchstick. how is that fucking proof? you’re such an idiot. 

i mean, i’m not doubting that tej has done some super fucked up things, and probably has something to do with this too (realistically), but that’s hella flimsy “PROOF”

oh suddenly om is allllllll about the oberoi name. pfffffft. fuck outta here.

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAS BB-BOY. DROP THAT BOMBBBBBBB!!! 

.... oh nooooo, abhay just abandoned svetlana. this is notttttttt gonnaaaa be goooooood. for him. 

jethji ka beta. meaningggggggg.... dadaji oberoi’s brother’s son. making abhay second cousin. hmm. 

lol why are anika and gauri shocked. they don’t know who the fuck vishal is. 🤔🤔🤔

man, they really shoulda cast this one to play a half-brother to shivaay. look how similar they look when they do the simul-turn! 😧😧😧

guarantee? the fuck guarantee you want? a dna test? coz those work sooooooooo well in your universe. 

on flip side, come the fuck on dadi, no one is someone’s kid just coz they KNOW of their existence. what nonsense logic???? i know of neil armstrong. does that make me his daughter?????? is ghar mein kisi ke bhi paas 2 paise ka dimaag nahi hai. 😒😒😒

shakti/tej are so fucking shady. i think i believe vishal, even though i just met him. 

i srsly think omkara might be vishal’s baby, with all the emphasis on truth and what not. what if the babies were switched?!!?!?!?!?

shivaay looks contrite. that’s a first. 

omfg he’s the opposite of angel (from buffy) - having sex AWAKENED his long-repressed soul! lololol enjoy the torment of having a conscience now, billu! 😁😁😁

ohnoe, allegations against vishal. he looked so nice and cuddly though.

for once, obros seem at a loss of wtf to do. 

ouff, anika ki bhaashanbaazi. seems like foaming-at-the-mouth-oberoi-defensiveness is an STD and shivaay’s given it to anika. ugh. 😒😒😒😒😒

of course the tape isn’t gonna work. like... OF COURSE IT ISN’T. 

[dcadmom]

-  ✦ :   「 betelgeuse 」

          HER REACHING out and hugging him was something he was NEVER going to get used to. once again, his arm is raised above her out of instinct. he blinks, glancing away. eyebrows hitched in a slight worried expression before his eyes look downwards at her.

            need him ? he’s never HAD anyone tell him that they needed him. HE was usually the one convincing others that THEY NEEDED him. this reversal – it was all HARD TO PROCESS. being seen and NEEDED, geniunely. he didn’t want to let this go. he was going to GRIP this with his horrible, CLAMMY hands.

          ❝ y – yeah. ❞ he speaks as his own arms wrap around her, giving her the bit of comfort he could give, despite being smelly AND cold. ❝ i won’t go – ❞ he clears his throat,  ❝ i… proomisse. ❞ the demon says, trying his best to SOUND supportive ; UGH, being GENUINE was disgusting, but it was worth it to cheer up lydia.

✦ ; .             his promise says a thousand words in of itself, nails gently biting into his suit as she wraps her embrace tighter. it’s a refreshing burst of support the deetz had been needing ever since charles went quiet on her again. not that they’re distant again — after all, they live together — it’s just that lyds had been desiring solitude a little too much, leaving her to crave attention from her only friend in the world. the teenage privilege : fuck family, depend on your friends. && after all that self-growth too, it almost blows one’s mind how lydia had technically regressed in her improvement.

             but to hear a dead guy, his adult age be damned, claim he’ll never abandon her. . . it’s unconventional, but surprisingly effective. a wrist moves from her grasp to wipe at her eyes, smearing slight streaks of mascara in its wake, puffy lips offering the slow break of a smile. ❛ - i promise too ; i won’t leave you again. - ❜ a shaky laugh echoes out to the dry humor of remembering how she literally jumped into hell to separate from him once before, their unorthodox marriage certainly bound in strange ways.

                               ❛ - i love ya, weirdo. - ❜ a strictly platonic quip that shows her gratitude for his emotional support regardless of his own questionable foundations. hand previously fussing with her eyes furls into a fist that promptly delivers a light paff to his pec, the back of it bumping / knocking at his suit while lydia starts her recovery from crying. it’s stupid to be this vulnerable with a demon, let alone one who you know used you at one point. ( classic bait && switch, oldest trick in the book. )

             with her nose clogged from her sorrowful sobbing, his stench never reaches her senses, leaving her to fully appreciate his comfort for the first time in what feels like the nearly two years they’ve known each other. another quick squeeze reminds him that she’s here for him if he ever wants to reciprocate the support system before lydia steps back, shaking out her shoulders && bringing hands up to brush back her messy hair from her tear stained face.

                               ❛ - . . . wanna go stuff our faces with food to dull the heavy after effects of an emotional breakdown ? - ❜

[writingconceptsandstupidshit]

Welcome to Insanity abandoned concepts #1

I sighed in contempt as I was laying underneath the oak tree in our backyard. Summer was no doubt the best season, no school, barely any responsibilities, and nice weather. I I felt the breeze glide onto my face. I wanted every day to be like this, then I started to think about it more. Then I would get bored, nothing to do except think.  

My sister was inside like usual, she was sketching away making her own worlds. I asked her if I could see her art and she said when I’m older. That didn’t make sense since we’re the same age, twins. I eventually let it go.  

“What’re you doing out here?”

“Can’t a man tan?”

It was my sister, Roxi. She was funny, kind, caring, but also very protective.

“Rix you don’t tan, I don’t even know If you know what that word means.”

“Ok fair, but what brings you outside lil sis?”

“I’m not your ‘lil sis’” she did air quotes to enhance the sarcasm. “And I’m out here because I wanted to sketch outside for once.”  

“Did dad fart next to you again?”

Roxi ignored me and sat down next to me.

“I know you’re gonna ask what I’m drawing again Rix.” she smiled, glancing at me.

“Well no shit, you never let me see your art! I want to be able to brag about you and your fabulous talent!” I whined.

Roxi groaned and then slid the sketchbook to me.

I opened to the first page; it was a realistic sketch of me. I think it was the time we had gone to the new café downtown.  

“Is it that bad?” Roxi seemed on edge now

“No, not at all! It’s beautiful! You got all the proportions right and even the values! I’m impressed.”

“Since when did you know jack-shit about art?” “Since you were my sister” She bopped me in the head with her other sketchbook.

“Can I look at the other ones?”

“Well you’re already holding them idiot.”

“Ow”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean it.”

“I know.” I stuck my tongue out at her.

I flipped to the next page, this piece was fully finished, I asked who it was, and she said it was an OC, or original character. She planned on making a comic but since school is keeping her busy and summer is only so long, she might have to wait till graduation.  

“I like it. You have amazing talent.”

“Thank you, I really appreciate it.”

After that we just chilled, the only noise was cars passing by, the gentle breeze and Roxi’s imagination being taken out on paper.

“Hey Rix, we have to go back to school in a month.”

“Ugh, don’t remind me.”

“it’s weird, we won't know anyone because we just moved here as soon as the school year ended.”

“Yeah, it is weird. Let’s just hope kids are nice here.”

“yeah” I shifted my gaze back to the sky. The sun was setting already, to be fair it was already 7.

“What should we do when we get outta school?”

I thought for a minute.

“Maybe a YouTuber or Livestreamer on Twitch”

“I meant REAL job”

“Technically it is a real job, you do get paid afterall.” I defended my dream.

“Well I’m gonna be either a singer, or an artist.” She waved her sketchbook in front of her as if she knew it was her destiny.

“Well when I think about it more, like about jobs and stuff; I think I might want to be an astrologist.”

Roxi sat up and looked and me puzzled.

“You realize you have to go to college for that right?”

“Yeah, but I’m gonna need to do something with my life.”

“That sounded more depressing then I think you meant it to be.”

“Well yes and no.”

“This is gonna be a weird year.”

“Yeah, it is.”

-----------

Chapter 1

Now it’s the first day of school in 2019. Of course, I’m a freshman and so that means being terrified of literally everyone you meet. I was already dressed and already ate breakfast, so I went ahead and waited outside for the bus.

Kumo’s car pulled out of the driveway, cluttering the clean road with rocks. I waved but he didn’t see me.

“You excited? You got ready really quick.” I jumped and quickly turned around.

“Christ almighty Roxi! You almost game me a heart attack!”  

“Sorry, I thought you’d heard me or something.”

Before I could say anything else, Lide forced themselves out the door. They were younger than us, so they went to the middle school that was next to the high school. It was quite convenient.

“Li-”

“Shut your fucking mouth, both of you. I swear to god if I hear one more word out of you two, I’m actually going to snap your guys’ necks.”

Roxi and I were shocked, the words made Roxi tear up. I wasn’t affected because I’ve heard them talk like this before, I didn’t know why. I assumed it was because they were in a bad mood.

When the bus arrived at its scheduled time, we all took a harmonious breath.

Summer was over, now we must deal with hell.

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

Chapter 2

There were signs directing students where to go, such as ‘schedules are here’ or something like that. The staff make school seem like such an innocent place, who are we kidding we’re teenagers, dumb and stupid.  

I followed the extremely glittery signs and eventually got to the staff who hands out the schedules.

“Last name?”

“Stjerne.”

“Okay, that’ll be right over there!”

She pointed across the room. I hate this already.

I get my schedule, finally, and head to my first class.

Okay room...125. Didn’t the lady say that was in the freshman hallway?

I wander aimlessly through the labyrinth that was now my school, I finally lose hope and try to ask a staff member. I got attention of a tall, light-haired woman.

“Hello, miss, I’m looking for room... 125? Do you know where that is?”

She glanced at me, and then laughed.

“You think I’m a staff member?” she looked like she was about to lose it.

“Yeah, are you not?”

“I’m a freshman, assuming how lost you are, you are too?”

I panicked “I’m so sorry! I didn’t me-”

“shrimp it’s okay, it happened all the time last year.”

That didn’t help, but okay.

“You okay?”

SHIT SHE SAW MY INTERNAL SCREAMING- “Ya I’m aight.”

“Mhm, well I should introduce myself. I’m Cloud, Cloud Musikk.”

“I’m Rix Stjerne. Nice to meet you.” I made a vurnabural move and stuck my hand out to shake her hand.

“...Rix what’re you doing..?” That’s when realization hit me that I had stuck my hand right into her boobs. I didn’t know what else so I just broke down and started crying.

“imsorryimsorryimsorryimsorryididntmeantodoitpleaseforgiveme” I was a mumbling mess.

Cloud hushed me and brought me to the office, where she asked about something but I was drowned in my tears to hear her. I was being slow and people were starting to stare, or at least that’s what it felt like. Cloud picked me up bridal style and carried me to a private room. She said it was someone else’s but I thought that meant we stole it, thus more tears.

“It’s okay Rix, I’m here.” She started shushing me again and slowly but surely I stopped crying. When I was able to finally respond it was shaky.

“I-I’m s-sorr-ry"

“Rix it’s okay, I know you weren’t trying to do that. Plus, not trying to offend you, but height difference is a thing. Social interaction is difficult, I get that. Hell I’m a loner, I only have a few aquaintances here and there.”

I was surprised, I couldn’t see Cloud as a loner. She seemed so nice and caring.

“You okay to tell me what’s wrong?”

I nodded and told Cloud everything that happened.  

[pie-and-shotguns-blog]

Title Lyric from “Patience” by Guns and Roses

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We really aren’t sure what to do with this ep. (I vote cry, rage, and then pick up the pieces and move forward.—Marge) On the one hand, it was a really good episode, beautifully written by Robert Berens and a perfect setup for the backdoor pilot to Wayward Sisters, the much anticipated SPN spin-off. On the other hand, they fucking killed one of our favorite BAMF WOC characters, and they did it off-screen AGAIN, and they kinda fridged her AGAIN. Yes, her death was noble and she was bad ass to the very end, but it still felt a lot like we—and she—got screwed.

Anyway. So apparently there is a wraith (one of those creepy-ass human-looking things with the stabby-spiky-appendage that descends from their wrist so they can eat your brains. Remember the ‘Pudding’ episode – 5×11?) and he eats nothing but psychics. Real psychics, mind you, not the ones that litter every major thoroughfare of every street from the suburbs to the big cities, with the neon hands of fate and TAROT CARDS and quite often “for rent” signs, which always make us wonder how they didn’t see that coming, hahaha. But this is Supernatural, so there are real psychics, and he eats them.

DAWN: How many REAL psychics can there be, though, even in SPN-land? That wraith looks pretty well-fed for someone whose only food source is relatively rare. MARGE: I wondered about that too but then I thought about how many we’ve seen in comparison to how many we’ve seen of other creatures… Seems like psychics might be plentiful? Possible, not probable? ERICA: Y’all think of things much differently than I do. My main thought was “what happens when he runs out?” MARGE: I mean, I think it’s just a taste he’s acquired. He can go back to eating us regular old humans, I guess. It just won’t be as satisfying for him. Poor little-dissatisfied wraith… Ugh. ERICA: I don’t know though…the way he phrased it, it struck me as an addiction thing, sooo…. MARGE: Wraith rehab? No? lol

Back at the bunker, Dean is isolated in his room, listening to music, drinking lots of beer, and being sad in general. Sam is checking on Jack, who hasn’t left his room since they got there and he got settled in. Sam gives Jack the video message that Kelly recorded for him while she was still pregnant. Just as Jack begins watching his mom, which was so very sad, Sam’s phone rings.

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This psychic-eating-wraith from the opening scene is the lead-in for the return of our favorite BAMF-but-soon-to-be-dead character who is also our backdoor for the Wayward Sisters spin-off: none other than Missouri Moseley, folks, played by the inimitable Loretta Devine (yas queen). We’ve missed her and we’ve always wanted her back so the fandom was THRILLED to learn that she was going to re-appear this season. She tells Sammy she’s been out of the life for a while but now she needs some help on a case with which she has a personal connection.

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We’re just gonna come right out and say it. No point in teasing this one out. Missouri comes back for this one episode, y’all, and they kill her ass off in the first 20 minutes without breaking a sweat, breaking the hearts of the entire fandom and enraging more than a few, us included.

MARGE: I actually threatened to riot on Twitter… It was an emotional moment. DAWN: I am displeased. Very displeased. ERICA: “Displeased”….such a gentle word for the rage that consumes me. MARGE: I also scream-tweeted at Robert Berens. Oops. Sorry, sir… ERICA: Ditto, fam.  

So it was awful, it hurt, but did she go out like the badass that she is? Yes. Yes, did she ever. She chose her death, in order to save her son and granddaughter from the wraith because she saw that it was the only way they would live—literally she saw that, because Missouri is psychic AF, and she checked to make sure. And then she sends Dean into the fray, with the directive to save her family. So, he did. Kinda. Really, her family sort of saved her family, with Dean’s assistance, but we’ll get there in a minute.

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Missouri sent Dean and Jody to find her son James Turner (played by Adrian Holmes), and granddaughter, Patience (played by Clark Backo), and to protect them while she stayed behind at the murder scene of her protege, Dede, knowing that she was going to die. Then she basically told the wraith to get fucked:

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DAWN: Their last name is Turner, not Mosely. Rufus’ last name was Turner. Headcanon accepted. MARGE: Definitely! I LOVE the idea that Missouri and Rufus were a thing… Maybe that’s why Rufus was such a hateful old cuss. He had an awesome thing with someone as badass as Missouri and lost it?… I wanna feel like they had the kind of love folks write fairytales about. Ok, enough speculation on that or I’m gonna get all misty-eyed. DAWN: Yeah, I’m going to need that fanfic in a hurry. Somebody get on that. MARGE: We should add it to our ever-growing list of things we want to write… LOL

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SO, Jody and Dean run off, find James and Patience, who Missouri believed was psychic before James cut her out of their lives (initially because Missouri ‘incorrectly’ predicted that James’ wife would survive an illness but also for fear that Missouri would ‘influence or poison’ Patience).

MARGE: Total speculation, but I think Missouri probably told her boy his wife was gonna live because she didn’t want to break his heart… maybe that was it. Geez.

Patience dreams of being attacked by the wraith and then goes to school, which is where she was attacked in the dream, and just so happens to be… guess what… attacked by a wraith. Everything looked a little deja-vu-ish, of course. Who would’ve thought? Channeling a little of granny’s badassery, Patience knees the wraith in the dangly-bits and then breaks off his stabby-spiky-thing. Signs of spunk—we like it. Patience is pretty cool so far. The acting could use a little bolstering, but we definitely believe she’ll get there. It’s hard to judge based on first appearances but who are we kidding, we do it anyway. Dean and Jody show up just in time to confront the wraith but he manages to elude them and almost hits Dean with his van while escaping.

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Cut to the Turner home where Dean, Jody, and Patience break the news to James about the attack and the likelihood that Patience is, in fact, possibly psychic (DUH! Missouri Moseley is like never wrong.—Marge) He decides it’s time to run, sends Patience to her room to collect her things, and then, gee, what do you know, the fucking wraith is hiding in the closet. Cue – classic-horror-genre-girl-scream and Dean, Dad, and Jody scrambling upstairs to find an open window. The wraith has kidnapped Patience so Dad uses a little divination he learned from his mama to find her… yes… the skeptical father who cut MISSOURI MOSELY out of her granddaughter’s life is like, meh, desperate times… let’s do some magic real fast to find my girl. Which is reasonable… but still. What an asshole.

Patience is in what appears to be an abandoned warehouse, tied up, and the wraith is being a total fucking creep—talking about how he’s going to feed on her over and over and really draw it out… just…ewwwww. And then, what a shock, Patience has a vision… in which her father, Jody, and Dean all get stabbed to death. It doesn’t look like a vision at the time though, so yano, we think everyone just died horribly painful deaths. It was sort of awful but then we realize quickly it was actually a vision and Dean, Jody, and Dad are just arriving on the scene to save the day. This is the part about how Missouri’s family actually saved themselves with Dean’s assistance. Because of her vision, even though she is tied up and can’t fight, Patience is able to warn her Dad, Dean, and Jody all before the wraith can land the stabbing blows that supposedly killed each of them earlier. Dean manages to take the wraith out and Patience is freed. Hooray for happy endings… except MISSOURI IS STILL DEAD.

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Meanwhile, back at the Bunker, Sam is trying to “train” Jack to use his powers and Jack is basically a surly teenager who doesn’t want to do his homework. Sam pressures him; Jack freaks out; Sam leaves him alone to cool off.

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And then we see Sam, reading a book about parenting gifted children while surveilling Jack via his laptop, which honestly was the cutest thing ever and very likely caused the entire fandom to spontaneously ovulate. Even the men.

MARGE: That takes talent.

Sam is distracted by his reading, so it takes him a few minutes to notice that Jack is no longer on-camera. Cue Dad-panic at it’s finest from Sam Winchester. He runs to the library and finds Jack hiding in the corner.

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They have a heartbreaking talk about being different and misunderstood, how hard it is, and why Dean can’t deal, and honestly, Sam would have been such an amazing daddy and it’s horrible that he will (probably) never get that chance. *SOBS* Jack confesses that he already believes he is probably evil because his powers have never presented unless something negative was happening. Sammy gives him a little bit more sunshine and rainbows and Jackieboy seems to be feeling better about things.

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MARGE: Seriously folks, we talk a lot about Jensen Ackles’ award-worthiness, but for real Jared Padalecki deserves just as many accolades. He is just as capable of an amazing emotional portrayal of Sam Winchester and it hits us in the feels just as hard as Jensen’s Dean. This scene was so incredibly well done.  Also, while we’re throwing praise, Alexander Calvert, is absolutely killing it as Jack so far! Excellent casting choice, for sure! ERICA: I think this is the point in our live-tweeting that I thought about what a good dad Sammy would’ve made if only JOHN WINCHESTER HADN’T DISAPPEARED DURING A FUCKING HUNT. GodDAMNIT John. MARGE: I tweeted something about how Sammy and Jessica’s kids would have turned out. *crying in the corner*

Back to Dean, Jody, James, and Patience. They’re back at the Turner house and discussing the future, of course, because Patience has just found out she’s psychic… Dad tells her to bury her gift (proving that he has learned NOTHING from all of this), Dean gives the typical ‘this life is nothing but “pain, horror, and death” so if you’ve got a shot at normal you better take it’ speech, and Jody, (ALWAYS mother of the year even when they aren’t her kids) drops some truth about what happens when you try to suppress some part of yourself to please others. She lets Patience know if she ever needs anything, Jody is just a phone call away.

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And this is how you set up a spin-off folks! We are SO PUMPED about Wayward Sisters. Dean and Jody head out and we are left to wonder what will come of Patience Turner.

Dean returns to the bunker, he and Sammy briefly discuss the case and Missouri’s death. Then Dean asks Sam if Jack’s gone dark yet, of course. Sam confronts Dean about telling Jack he would kill him if need be and then we have another emotional brotherly battle because Dean lets loose about his animosity towards Jack. He tears into Sam about how he shouldn’t pretend to care about Jack since he only cares about what he can use him for. He says Sam just wants to use Jack as a “can-opener” to the dimension where Mary is trapped with Lucifer. Dean screams at Sammy about how he can’t even look at Jack because when he does “all he sees is everyone they’ve lost”. Sam remarks that their Mom took her shot—she chose her path. Dean replies with “What about Cas?”. Ouch. This is where we see broken-boy Dean Winchester at his finest. He lets Sammy know that the reason he can’t get on board with being Jack’s care-taker is because Jack is the reason they lost Castiel. That Jack made Cas promises, Cas believed everything he said, and what did it get him?

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ERICA: Let me preface this next comment by saying that I love Jensen Ackles and his acting–it’s exceptional. But I’m not gonna lie–I’m having a REALLY hard time with Dean this season. Like. We get it. You’re pissed at the world. We get it. Guess what, booboo, this is the life you signed up for. This is the life you dragged Sammy into 13 years ago. You flat out told Patience that it’s all death and horror and blah blah, and yet here you are, acting like you DIDN’T drag your brother into that life. Time to stop acting like a child. I expected this 13 years ago, but you’ve grown from here. Time to act like it. (Addendum: I’m also super salty lately, so there’s that.) MARGE: I’m with you on a lot of that. I just wanna scream STOP BEING MEAN TO SAMMY in order to process your grief. I know it’s a normal psychological response, and that he doesn’t have anyone but Sam to take his frustrations out on, but come on man, Sam loves Cas too… Sam just lost his mom too, AGAIN! What makes your pain more important, Dean? End rant.

Jack is in the hallway, listening to every single word of this heated exchange of course and somehow, through his powers that are yet to be determined, he reaches out to Castiel. Final scene: CASTIEL IS ALIVE! We actually get to see Cas alive (at least he appears to be). We don’t know where he is, but he looks relatively normal, if a bit confused. At first he’s on the floor looking dead, but evidently, he is actually asleep, knocked out, or ???, and as Jack whispers his name, he wakes.

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We didn’t get to see any apocalypse world action in this episode, which made us sad since that is what we’ve been living for so far this season. We did, however, get the promise that it is coming via a few interactions on Twitter (Fan-girl Squeal!):

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Roll credits. I guess there’s some hope left from this episode after all.

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“All we need is just a little Patience” Supernatural recap 13×3, “Patience” Title Lyric from “Patience” by Guns and Roses Courtesy canonspngifs.tumblr.com We really aren’t sure what to do with this ep.