#i don't know what they've got going on but it compels me

[saphushia]

worst gen vs kaido has got me thinking abt. the swordsmen devoted to a certain strawhatted fool

[fuckyeahgoodomens]

David and Michael talk about the S2 Finale 🥺

David and Michael interview with Kim Roots from TVLine, about the S2 finale. July 2023 [S2 Promo: C: I could always rely on you. You could always rely on me. We're a team, a grou p. And we spend our existence pretending that we aren't.]

KR: What happens in the finale between Crowley and Aziraphale is something that some fans have been yearning for a very long time. Was there a pressure? Did you have any conversations about what this might mean to the fandom? Talk to me a little bit about like when you found out this was going to happen and kind of your initial reactions.

Michael: Well, you know, the relationship between Aziraphale and Crowley, obviously, is something that the audience seemed to really warm to, and obviously was part of why the idea of doing Season 2, you know, seemed like it could be something that could work. Following how that relationship develops has been something that the audiences have really got into. So we've taken that very seriously, and Neil takes it incredibly seriously. So tracking that relationship and that journey between them, because obviously on the surface, they seem like they're complete opposites, and yet clearly, they're kind of compelled towards each other in all kinds of ways. And now that they've been being cut off from their respective head offices, they only have each other, so that pulls them together a lot more, doesn't it? And the stakes are always high around them, and they sort of end up going on a journey together, but it takes them to different places and where we leave things at the end..

David: Well, that's the thing. Nothing is resolved. So whatever happens and whatever you may have seen at the end of Episode 6, it's also important to note that that doesn't finish the story. In fact, that just sor of ruptures things.

Michael: It's the start of another story.

[S2 Promo: A: I forgive. C: Don't bother.]

David:I think you have to be careful if there is something delicate that has generated a lot of excitement about where will that end up. As soon as you end up there, as soon as you finish that story, it's all over, isn't it?

Michael: You don't really want to find out who killed Laura Palmer. [Twin Peaks series plot]

David: Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

KR Like you said, David, there is no resolution, which made me very happy because this feels primed for a third go-around at some point. Have you had any conversations about that with Neil about possibly keeping the story going?

David: Well, if you've seen where Series 2 ends, there's certainly the teasing of further tales to come, isn't there? Whether we will ever find out what those tales are is in the lap of... well, certainly not on our lap.

Michael: No, it's on the laps of the audience.

David: Laps of the audience, yes.

Michael: We are sitting firmly...

David: In the tops of the audience as it streaming.

Michael: Yeah, it's not in my lap. I know that. When we first started Series 1, we always knew that the story went a lot further because Neil and Terry had talked about it. They just hadn't written it down, but we knew there were ideas, and we have not yet reached the end of those ideas.

David: No.

Michael: You know, if we get a chance to tell more of this story, it does already exist.

David: Yes.

[edoro]

Big dunmeshi finale spoilers but like

The handful of "Thistle lives post-canon" fics I've seen have him and Yaad avoiding each other, which is understandable, but like... give it to me. I want to see it. Making them interact is so much juicier.

It's the fact that Yaad is more of a real member of the family than Thistle (visually depicted in how Yaad took Thistle's place at the family dinner table) but Thistle knows the Melinis better. Thistle knew Delgal as a boy and as a man with his whole life ahead of him, not as the helpless revenant of himself wracked with regret that Yaad grew up with. Thistle knew Freinag, the great-grandfather whose death planted the seed of fear in Delgal that led Thistle to the lion, who Yaad would have only ever heard stories about. Not only did Thistle know Eodio, the father who 'died' when Yaad was too young to remember him, but Thistle is the only reason Eodio lived long enough to father Yaad in the first place AND the reason Yaad never got to know him.

It's the way that Thistle was brother, best friend, caretaker, confidante, protector, advisor to Delgal and a force of nature to Yaad. How Thistle's reality was shaped and dictated by Freinag and Delgal's needs and Thistle in turn shaped and controlled Yaad's reality.

It's the fact that they have been in each other's lives for one! thousand!! years!!! but they don't actually know each other at all. Yaad has never met the boy his grandfather grew up with. Thistle has been so out of touch with reality for so long that he has never really understood Yaad or Yaad's relationship to him or to anyone else.

Post-canon, assuming a recovery from the initial catatonia of having been consumed, will be the first time Thistle has been fully lucid ever in Yaad's entire life. It will be the first time he and Yaad can actually have a conversation with each other. It will in a certain sense be the first time they've actually met.

One thousand years. And this will be the very first time that Thistle can engage with reality enough to actually see and hear and understand and respond to Yaad, and the first time that Yaad can approach him in any manner other than that of a man praying for a storm to pass him by. How can you not be compelled by that?

Imagine Thistle, aware enough to know he's being taken care of, aware enough to know that Delgal is dead and it's Yaad wearing his face - and how could he not, when he knew Delgal from birth - asking why Yaad is going to all the trouble after what he did, and Yaad telling him, "I want the chance to get to know you."

[humdrummoloch]

Here's an exercise to apply to your story: pick any scene and build up its stakes.

Most scenes should have at least a tiny bit of tension. Not every scene has to drip with artificial melodrama, but if the audience doesn't see a good reason to care about what's happening, they probably won't.

Using this 3-part exercise I just made up, just with a few quick bullet lists, you can dissect that scene's stakes and make them mean something.

PART 1: THE TELLING

Take a moment to focus on the stakes in your scene. What's the worst that could happen? List them.

Here's the rule: if a stake is obvious, don't count it.

Wrong: "If he kills me, I die."

Wrong: "If the villain fails to get the artefact, he fails."

Wrong: "If I lose this match, I lose."

Sure, yeah. But what ELSE?

Correct: "If I die, there'll be no one to protect my family."

Correct: "If I don't get this magical artefact before the hero stops me, my plans to take over the world will be sabotaged."

Correct: "If I lose this match, I'll never make it to the championships and show the world what I can do."

The stronger these stakes are, the better (within reason). "So-and-so might die" isn't a compelling (as it could be) narrative stake even in stories where people do die.

Even in low-stakes stories, the characters care about those low stakes. If it's important to them that they impress that client or get that job, tell us WHY they care. Is it their lifelong dream, or the promise they made to their dying mother, or the job that'll take them away from a horrible living situation? Will failure embarrass them in front of their crush?

PART 2: THE SHOWING

Now you know what could go bad, let the audience feel it. Just take things that matter and tweak them so that they're tangible.

"If I don't join the fight, my friend might die!" -> Show us an enemy raising a sword about to strike their friend down if the character doesn't rush in to save them NOW.

"If I drop out, I'll be a bad daughter!" -> Show us her parents bragging about their kid's academic performance and telling her they're happy they have a good kid with a bright future instead of some "no-good delinquent."

"If I don't pay by next week the bank's gonna take our house!" -> Show us the character begging for just a few more days, show their reaction to overhearing someone talking about buying the house from the bank to bulldoze the property. Show what the house means to them and how they made it their home.

PART 3: THE HAPPENING

Remember, a bullet seems a whole lot deadlier when it doesn't literally miss every time. But it would be strange if every scifi involved the whole planet blowing up, right? Or if the main characters all died? So, you have to show us you're not kidding by employing a secret third thing. Here's the trick to this: divide up the stakes into pieces and make one of the pieces happen.

If the protag's team is in actual danger, just one of them can die. Maybe even someone "essential" -- the climax will be boosted from the team overcoming this setback, the story becoming more clutch and unpredictable to the audience.

A marriage on the rocks? Show that their previously happy kid is suddenly hiding things from them and failing in school.

The city in danger? Show us buildings being knocked over.

Hell, the protag themselves in danger? They've got a leg they might not be using.

If a stake can't be split down like this, it might be better to have the bulldozers show up at the house during the climax. Maybe even let the house fall.

After this exercise, your scene should now feel a whole lot more weighty, whether it's a job application or a final battle to the death. Again, not every scene needs tension and it can go too far and become silly, but I hope this exercise helps you the way it helps me.

[lakesbian]

What was he doing?  Why was he so focused on getting Bitch to admit it was over? Reputation, yet again.  He needed to salvage this situation, and the surest way to do that, to recoup his losses and come out of this looking okay, would be to get the meanest, toughest, most notorious of us to bend at the knee and concede defeat. He really didn’t know Bitch, though. She pulled her cheap plastic dog mask off and threw it to one side.  It was only a formality, really, since her face and identity were public knowledge.  Her smile, as it spread across her face, wasn’t the most attractive.  Too many teeth showing. “Lung underestimated her, too,” she told him, looking at me.

okay, continued forcing myself to spend time analyzing rachel lindt instead of letting her live in my worm blindspot for no reason. to recap: at this point in the story, she's gone on the ABB raid with rachel & had that gay little moment where rachel gave her her jacket when she was cold walking back home + got so close to taylor to inspect her injuries from lung that taylor thought she was going to kiss her. it had deep connotations of blossoming romance and taylor narrated some shit about still kind of being cold despite the jacket but the warmth in her core keeping her warm all the way back to the loft. now, although taylor is still only consciously ranking rachel at "i don't hate her" in her mind, rachel has now started doing shit like this.

one of the primary rachel/taylor theses is that taylor isn't rachel's dog, rachel is taylor's dog. it's established over the course of the worm that she trusts taylor completely implicitly. there's the part in the behemoth fight where the entire world is falling apart around them and rachel is still smug and happy about taylor having a plan. there's the part at the end that makes all of us want to smash our heads into the wall:

she trusts taylor in the same way a dog would trust their owner even on the table for euthanasia. she sees taylor as smarter than she is not in a self-deprecatory way--there are plenty of people who you might call smarter than rachel that she'll happily call morons--but because consistently, time and time again, taylor goes up against smart pieces of shit who are trying to fuck the undersiders over and figures out what to do about it. and this scene here, where she's responding to armsmaster's attempt to put her down by insisting that he's underestimating taylor, seems to be the first instance of rachel's trust in taylor shining through. in fact, this happens even before taylor considers them to be friends, before they've had any significant bonding. one of the very first positive things rachel feels about taylor--maybe even the first positive thing--is that, when people are putting her and her team down, when odds look grim, taylor can be trusted to solve it. it's actually, like, kind of bonkers compelling that rachel's first seed of positive response to taylor isn't "well, actually, i guess she seems nice" but "my teammate taylor could beat up this dickhole armsmaster."

it's worth explicitly noting, by the way, that rachel interprets smiles as like dog growls. the reason her smile is a little too wide with too many teeth is because it's not actually a proper smile. it's rachel being a growling dog, placing all of her trust in taylor. I Love You Rachel Lindt

[infinizero]

Ok so

There is this trope about ghosts not reaching maturity until they've been ghosts for several centuries

There is ALSO the trope that ghosts fight as a sort of way to communicate

With the power of these two tropes combined-- I give you this strange headcanon:

Ghosts become mature adult ghosts after 500 years.

Danny and his usual troublemakers are all in the same "daycare".

He's just the youngest + most unique ghost so they like playing around with him the most. In other words, it's the ghost version of older siblings ordering their younger siblings around

As far as ghosts go,

There are blobs, ghost animals, shades (those are ghosts as we know it) and ghosts (aka Infinite Realms Beings) etc etc

The blobs and etc are, well, blobs and etc

But ghosts need a while to fully grow up and be considered adult

And so, if these ghosts are children, they need guardians or caretakers at the daycare right?

Correct

Baby ghosts are under the care of the nearest authority (Ancient or Leader or etc etc)

Except baby ghosts usually stay near where they were born and Danny and Co just so happen to be near Pariah Dark

Pariah Dark is asleep

But Fright Knight is there!

Except Fright Knight is also sealed

And it's one thing to wake up the ultra powerful megalomaniac tyrant kinda parent figure but not really you're supposed to have and another to drag your oldest adult sibling out of their room to touch grass

In other words, the surrounding authorities just went eh the babies can contact fright Knight if anything happens

But then Danny defeats Pariah and inherits his authority

So he technically becomes the caretaker of baby ghosts in the area while being the youngest baby ghost himself

Hence the other ancients visiting and *playing* with him to see if it's ok to leave the babies with this other baby

And since they're ghosts who don't have human guidelines or morals, decide that since he's that strong it should be fine to leave it alone

Besides he has Fright Knight! Good 'ol Frighty will definitely help out this new baby kid ghost with doing everything!

Meanwhile, Fright Knight waiting for Danny to come claim the crown and ring: ...

Cue Danny's rogues coming up to him to show him shit they accomplished

Youngblood : Phantom look at this cool baking soda volcano that spews out real lava!!

Danny: It does WHAT

Youngblood: Look!

Danny: NO

Ember: Hey Babybop wanna listen to the new song I wrote? It compels humans to start cults based on my name!

Danny: Ember, no

Ember: I think you mean Ember YES

Skulker: Ghost boy I have skinned an alien and brought you a pelt turned into a coat

Danny: ...you did WHAt

Skulker: It is nearing winter time and one must always be ready for winter time

Danny, having an existential meltdown after seeing his parents and Vlad get it on together: Desiree what the actual fuck??? Did you do????

Desiree: I merely fulfilled a wish

Johnny: Hey Phantom look we got matching tattoos to celebrate our anniversary!

Kitty: Wait what did you just say?

Johnny: uh, we got tattoos for our anniversary?

Kitty: ...our anniversary is in TWO MONTHS. THAT was for my DEATHDAY.

Johnny: ...oh shit

Danny, about to soup them both: Man, get good

Lunch Lady: Phantom have you eaten your proteins today?!

Danny: uh... Yeah?

Lunch Lady, already throwing meat at him: EAT MORE

Danny:

Box ghost: WITNESS! THE GREAT BOX MECHA!

Danny: oh come on seriously

And on the other hand,

Walker, dumping ten piles of paper in Danny's room: Phantom, here are the latest forms that need revisions

Spectra: What do you MEAN you're not allowing me to open a beauty salon in order to dig into other girls' insecurities and maintain my own beauty?! That's why it's called a beauty salon!!

Cujo and Wulf who are both the best boys and favorites, with smug faces:

Fright Knight still waiting for Danny to accept the ring and crown:

Plasmius: What the heck is this weird feeling my ghost side keeps making me feel??

Plasmius: is it... Is there perhaps a ghostly way I can adopt the little badger??

[cringefailvox]

overlord husk aus are very interesting to me in part because they present such a radically different vision of the huskerdust dynamic that is very compelling to me. present-day husk and angel are exhausted. these are people genuinely at rock bottom, who have been so worn down and chipped away at by the long, dragging stalemate of their circumstances that they have nothing left to give but their bare minimum selves. which is okay, and it's enough for them; a lot of what makes their dynamic so interesting is that it's about two people at their lowest rediscovering what it feels like to not be alone down there, to even begin thinking about the possibility of climbing out of the deep dark hole they've made their peace with now that they won't be doing it by themselves.

in contrast, overlord husk aus imagine a version of husk and angel before they were losers together. they imagine versions of them that haven't been beaten down all the way just yet: husk at the height of his greed and power and reckless addictions, angel riding the high of his stardom while adamantly refusing to peel back the surface and acknowledge the rot. both of them still digging the hole and saying to themselves, "i've got a ladder, i'm not going to get stuck. i can always climb back out."

and having these two meet at this stage in their lives, i think they would really, really not make each other better. husk's consideration for the souls on his chain had to have been close to zero for him to use them as gambling chips the way he did, especially the recklessly self-destructive way he did that ended with his own soul in alastor's pocket. and i imagine that for a long time, angel lived in total willful denial about val's escalating abuse and the toll his increasingly demanding job was taking on him, because acknowledging it would be tantamount to making it real, making it something that could actually hurt him and not just be rationalized away, and so of course he'd put off doing that for as long as he could.

if husk had actually won angel's soul, it wouldn't have been any different from all the other people he traded back and forth across his table just for the illicit thrill of the game. angel probably would've had a whole sunk-cost freakout about it (what was the point of all that pain and suffering and lack of autonomy if all the consequences are coming from a stranger now and not val? when it isn't personal? and now he can't even claim a little bit of power back by saying he chose it, because he didn't.) angel knows full well what it looks like when someone is going to kill themselves with their addictions, but what obligation does he have to the guy who would just as quick give him up to somebody else if it gave him an adrenaline rush? nothing, that's what, and he has enough of his own problems anyway.

crucially, they're both INCREDIBLY self-absorbed. not even in a conceited or vain way, but just in that they're so wrapped up in their own mess that they can't see beyond it, they don't have any space for empathy, and furthermore, they have no reason to even try.

it's why the version of their dynamic we get in canon works so well—they're in the same place now, at just the right time to finally start opening up their worlds to how they affect other people (angel watching charlie interact with val at the studio; husk being forced by alastor to engage with the hotel's residents as the bartender). there's space for empathy in their lives now, because they've finally been brought so low that they can't hide anymore, can't look away, can't deny how completely and totally fucked they are. it's a kind of brutal honesty that can only really come from confronting your absolute worst-case scenario. but for them to even begin connecting with each other in any authentic sense, they needed to have the ladder taken away so they could finally bring themselves to stop digging, look up, and realize there's been someone down here with them all along.

[7waystreet]

dirty confessions | jeon jungkook

This BTS 18+ explicit series will include 7 diary entries (one from each of the bangtan boys) confessing to the dirty thoughts they have about (y/n) and the sinful sexual acts they've part taken in during their lives.

I kindly ask the reader to start with pt.1 and end with pt.7 since it's a series and will contain overlapping scenarios and characters ♡

✬ foreword pt. 1 — seokjin pt. 2 — yoongi pt. 3 — namjoon pt. 4 — hoseok pt. 5 — jimin pt. 6 — taehyung pt. 7 — jungkook

pt. 7 — jungkook

Dear diary,

I have a confession to make. I fucked Namjoon hyung's sister, Hobi hyung's ex gf, and Yoongi hyung's gf all together in our dorm while the boys were out. I'm the golden maknae after all, bitches.

Now let me write out the events of my sexcapade one by one on these pages like I dumped my cum in each of their holes.

It was late into the night when I took off my headphones after hours of playing Overwatch by myself in my bedroom, my hand mindlessly scratching my balls while I walked over to the kitchen for a quick snack. It's then when I heard a few girls whispering in the dimly lit living room of our dorm, my ears perking up at once when I recognized Namjoon hyung's sister's voice. I remember hyung saying she was going to visit so it wasn't really a big deal seeing her in the boys' apartment, but I held in my breath when I noticed Hobi hyung's ex gf and Yoongi hyung's gf both on the couch too, all of the girls talking shit about the hyung line together.

"Thanks so much for inviting us girls so we can all confront the boys tonight!"

Fuck. I knew they were up to no good, but I had the advantage of hiding and listening to their plan without their knowledge while I blended behind a curtain in the hallway. The tea was SPILLED.

I found out Namjoon hyung's sister and Jin hyung were fucking and actually ended up catching feelings for each other, but they were too terrified to come out and tell Namjoon hyung about it. No shit... hooking up with a member's sister is fucked up, but we all know Jin hyung has no morals. She wanted to confess the truth to her brother tonight... Goodluck dealing with his wrath, I thought in silence.

I also found out the two other girls were cheating and hooking up with each other's bfs... What in the fucking world? And the fact that they were cuddling on the couch and saying sorry to one another?! I'll never understand the female species. This is why I stay away from chicks and stick to my video games. I don't even know how I got lucky bagging my gf, who's much more sane compared to these lot.

That's when I decided to call V hyung and update him on this gossip for some light bit of entertainment. I opened our location sharing app on my phone just to check if he was also at home just locked up in his bedroom, and that's when my heart fell out of my chest... Why was his location at my gf's apartment this late into the night? I decided to inspect and give him a call, but he never picked up.

Sorry Jungkookie. Out with friends. Will call you tmrw.

This stupid fucking bastard had the audacity to text me that big of a lie when I have his location? At least Jimin hyung answered my call even when the poor guy was half asleep. An anger unlike I've known ruptured my insides, a mixture of plunging sadness poising my mind when my gf replied back to my sweet goodnight text with "Cuddling a big bear to bed right now wishing it was you."

This bitch was definitely fucking V hyung behind my back. That's it, I lost my cool.

"ALL YOU GIRLS ARE DISGUSTING!"

Overwhelmed with emotions, I stomped into the living room and revealed myself to the noonas, my upset state of mind compelling me into lashing out at them, who realistically didn't deserve to endure my sudden outburst at all. It wasn't really them who I was upset at, it was just girls who cheat in general. But never did I think the night would end up the way it did based off of that aching awkward silence followed my grand entrance.

"Kook... Please don't tell the boys anything you heard. Please. You can't. They've to hear it from us otherwise it'll ruin the entire friend group. It could ruin Bangtan" Namjoon hyung's sister pleaded with puppy eyes.

Hah. Manipulation at it's finest. You're the one who's gonna screw up and then put it all on me? You think I'm a dumbass not able to see the way you're trying to coax me? Baby, please don't embarrass yourself.

"What do I get in return for keeping quiet?" I was willing to play their dirty little tricks, not giving them any satisfaction whatsoever.

"How about we... come to an agreement between the four of us?"

I didn't understand what she meant by her words until she got up and slowly walked towards me, wrapping her arms around my shoulders before suddenly pulling me in for a kiss on the lips. My mind immediately yelled S T O P but my dick felt a tingle when her tits pushed into mine, the taste of her cherry chapstick and the scent of her floral perfume numbing out my brain for the brief couple of seconds we kept kissing.

"If you girls love fucking people who you shouldn't be fucking, then show me a good time. I'll only keep quiet this way" my pulsing cock spoke for itself without my permission...

The smirk on the girls' faces mimicked the one devising on mine when I dropped on the couch and manspread, waiting for the big show to get started. The thrill of it was like no other I've experienced, even topping the high I feel everytime I get a new tattoo. The hyungs were all out at the club tonight and could walk into the living room any given moment, but I didn't give a fuck. I'm lowkey the wildest — no cap.

All three noonas got naked within the blink of an eye, the vibes immaculate with the dim mood lighting, the way they helped me out of my sweats one by one giving me goosebumps while an unbearable heat began running through my blood. It was like I was in a porno getting pleasured by a bunch of chicks, Hobi hyung's ex gf and Yoongi hyung's gf both opting to suck my dick in turns on their knees while Namjoon hyung's sister stayed up on the couch and made out with me. Shit, no wonder the members were fucking these three girls in turns, their mouths like pros gagging on my cock and coughing up spit, getting me even more aroused as they panted and jerked me off with their hands to breathe in some air in between.

The two girls kept playing with my dick, their spits mixing and slobbering all over my boner as they deep throated it in turns, a set of lips lightly sucking on my balls at times to get me moaning from the pleasure. Namjoon hyung's sister and I shared more of a bond since we've been family friends for a while, and I'd be lying if I said I didn't have a crush on her when I first moved to Seoul and met her, but here I was now with my tongue down her throat, the way she slid down and sucked on my neck prickling a shiver to run down my spine.

I couldn't take it any longer and busted a nut for the first time that night, my money cum shot spurting all over the girls' pretty faces. They shyly giggled as they looked me in the eyes, my chest panting from reaching my high, although my lip curling in a smile when I said "Eat it off of each other." The two baddies did as I told them without hesitation, their tongues licking off my cum from one another's faces, eventually leading them into making out and moaning while naked right in front of me. Holy fuck, I felt myself getting hard again. Both me and noona just watched the two girls getting down with each other for a long time, the way they squeezed each other's tits and kissed one another a total turn on, noona then slowly whispering in my ear "Please fuck me, Jungkook."

Happily.

As I got on top of her on the couch, I couldn't help but think Jin hyung fucks her hard just like this too, but what kind of a maknae would I be if I didn't take anything and everything of Jin hyung's? I live to make him suffer. In fact, it's my birth right.

My attention was mostly on Namjoon hyung's sister as I stuck my cock roughly inside of her without notice, stretching out her walls with my girth, watching her eyes shut close as she adjusted to my length, but the loud moaning of one of the girls eating the other one out on the carpet right next to us was peaking my arousal at a finest. Watching two chicks hook up like that while my cock was pounding such a sweet pussy was an experience I'll never forget. My chest felt a burn that rose up to my throat when I heard the front door's handle rattle, but it was a false alarm as some drunk neighbors were coming home from a bar and stumbled to the wrong apartment... Hah. That didn't stop me from ruining noona's pussy though. I just kept slamming her throughout the incident, half hoping the hyungs walked in during this fuck fest. Fear is not a word in my dictionary.

The screams of all three of the bitches made the walls shake to say the least, my grunts barely audible as I lifted noona's legs up to angle myself even deeper into her pussy, smashing into her g-spot while she clenched tighter and tighter, making it such a gripping fit that I was ready to cum another time. Her face was turning pale as she contracted her muscles and held her breath in, her moans freezing up when she came around my cock allowing me to slid in an out better as she let go, my orgasm following shortly and my cum creaming her up and dripping onto the couch in a slop when I pulled out.

I happened to look down and caught Yoongi hyung's gf cumming into Hobi hyung's ex gf's mouth from a mind blowing eating out job, the wild chick appearing quite talented with her tongue. It was her who needed a reward for the hard work now, so I got on the floor and pinned her down while the other girl was catching her breath post orgasm.

I just stuck my fingers into her wet pussy which was just throbbing and waiting to be filled, pumping in and out with varying speeds and angles to get her whimpering in no time, not breaking our smoldering eye contact whatsoever. It took just a couple of minutes to get her cumming, the way she was already so aroused from tasting pussy a turn on for me too as I gave her what she needed, which was a hot fingering session that'd change her life.

That's when the hyung line walked in on all four of us butt ass naked on the floor in the dorm living room, their feet freezing up in their steps and faces turning ghost pale at the crazy sight.

"Oh, right hyungs... We're all fucking each other's girls if y'all hadn't caught on already. Bangtan for life, am I right?" 

a/n ♡

i imagined jungkook being a key player to tie up all loose ends in this series, the way he disapproves of the hyungs dirty behavior but ends up doing the same exact thing an ode to his bratty maknae side and how he's "allowed" to get away with things being the youngest

— using gen z words: "no cap", "baddie", "tea spilt" reflects his age as he throws in more slang than others

— his fearlessness: jungkook is as brave as it gets in bts, none of the other members being on this level despite their dirty confessions

— feelings towards members: even in his diary he's quarreling with seokjin like irl (calling him out for "no morals", saying he lives to make jin suffer). meanwhile, he seems to view namjoon as an authoritative figure like irl, and his closeness with tae and jimin shows when he decides to call them to gossip about the drama

[badgerhuan]

two weeks ago i made this post after i finished playing gs1 and then got informed that one of my favorite scenes in Yomigaeru Gyakuten (Rise from the Ashes) had been altered. i'm sorry that i didn't respond to anyone on that post, but now i'm here to present the full scene, with screenshots.

this scene is triggered when you go to Mitsurugi's office for the first time, and you choose to inspect the bookcase. (i fucked up my timing for the first screenshot rip. sorry Akane-chan)

Akane: Uwa...are all of these case files!? Akane: They're slotted tightly all the way to the ceiling! There's even a ladder here. Naruhodou: ...that's weird. Since that guy is supposed to have a fear of earthquakes... Naruhodou: I really can't imagine him using such a dangerous bookcase like this one. Akane: It's no problem! Akane: There are really gigantic bolts fixing it firmly to the wall! Akane: What great power. I wonder if Mitsurugi-kenji-san did that? The screen flashes to Itonokogiri's laughing sprite for an instant. Naruhodou: (...for some reason. Itonoko-keiji's face came to mind...)

when i got to this scene playing the game, it meant everything to me. on top of checking up on Mitsurugi after earthquakes, Itonokogiri also took measures into his own hands to make sure his office would be a safe place for him in case of earthquakes...it made their relationship even more compelling to me.

it's also very important to me that it's Naruhodou picking up on this. playing through the game i always got the vibe that he noticed how close Mitsurugi and Itonokogiri are. this is just one more piece of evidence for that.

it had been made known to me, that in the English localization, they, for some reason, decided to erase Mitsurugi's known fear of earthquakes (which Naruhodou only knows bc he learned it from Itonokogiri!) and swap it for a...fear of heights? that has never existed in the original version of the games? and also the only time it was brought up in the English version at all??

i really don't understand why they did that. what was wrong with the original?? why invent a new fear out of thin air instead of using what's established?? what was the goal here???

there are numerous slight changes that the English localization has made that, when compiled together, really alters the vibe of the characters and how they interact with each other. but this is by far the most egregious change they've made that i've encountered (i've only played from gs1 and gs2, and i wasn't really paying attention to possible changes when playing through gs1).

maybe one day i'll make another post about the small changes they made (that are almost all at the expense of Itonokogiri...), but for now, here is the change that left me the most baffled.

[purpurussy]

what is all of this like for post-hiatus phannies?

I've been trying to figure out how to phrase this for a minute. The most obvious comparison would be that it's like starting a TV show 10 seasons in, but that doesn't come remotely close to the amount of required reading necessary to understand even 5% of the references. This has not been a problem for me, as I love nothing more than a good all-consuming hyperfixation rabbit hole, but something I'm realizing is that you really just had to be there to fully Understand.

I got into d&p properly in December of 2023, when gamingmas appealed to my emotionally curious nature and then gave me some kind of irreversible brain damage which I'm still trying to process. Since then I've been consuming their back catalogue as though it's laced with cocaine, and obsessively lurking on phannie tumblr until I finally made this blog a few weeks ago.

-

I actually watched Dan's videos for a little while back in roughly 2013/2014, but something about his content back then just wasn't working for me like it does now (I have such a clear memory of watching Reasons Why Dan’s A Fail and thinking "aw man why does this cute little twink hate himself so much 😔" and then going back to watching Jenna Marbles lmao. Funnily enough it did make me change my negative self-talk a little bit). I was very much a brief casual viewer who went off them pretty much after watching a few videos, and after that I was sort of vaguely aware of them as the cultural icons of the 2010s that they were, but I wasn't keeping up with them at all. 

I don't even remember BIG coming out, which is insane because I've always been extremely chronically online and it definitely broke containment as a cultural moment (although I think I was trying to minimize my social media use at that point in my life, so maybe that's why it went over my head). I feel like I must have heard something about it at the time, though, because I knew they were gay when I started watching them last year. What's really strange is that a lot of this stuff is kinda timeless to me. I don't remember it happening 5, 10 or 15 years ago - I just witnessed it very recently. For a lot of you guys, BIG happened 5 years ago, but I just watched it for the first time a few months ago. At the same time, in my mind they've just always been gay, since I wasn't in the trenches of the unhinged online culture surrounding them in the early/mid 2010s. It's so confusing to balance my weird temporal perception of these events with the impressions that I get from you guys. Oftentimes I have to judge roughly when something would have happened based on their appearances - it's not actually a *memory* for me, like it is for you. I absolutely love the dynamic and branding they have now, and the deep dives into their past are more of a curious exploration of how they got here, rather than actually nostalgic (or, I suppose, mildly traumatic) for me. It’s still very interesting and compelling to me, but because I love the current iteration of Dan and Phil, not because I’m emotionally invested in who they used to be. 

Sometimes I’ll be aware that an event happened, but I won’t realize how monumental it was until I see people talking about it (I hate to say it but I genuinely don't fully understand why the BONCAs thing was so earth-shattering, but like I said, I've always lived in a post-BIG universe, and I think you just had to be there). There are also plenty of references to stuff that's just been lost to time, which I have to piece together with context clues, as well as the more unhinged demonic stuff that I just don't have any interest in exploring whatsoever (I think I might have watched the v-day video if I'd been there when it leaked and I was a stupid teenager, but at this point, I don't even feel any kind of morbid curiosity for it. I just feel really bad for them that it got leaked. Plus, unfortunately, I think I've learned all I need to know about it through internet osmosis here). I feel like a lot of these events have a real emotional meaning for you guys, when to me, they're just interesting/funny/insane anecdotes which give some context to everything. Some of the shit that you guys lived through back then is absolutely wild, and I love and appreciate all of you for meticulously archiving and documenting everything and for being so willing to answer the same questions over and over again! Otherwise I feel like I wouldn't be able to really be part of this community, and posting my silly little memes on this blog is so fucking fun. So thank you all for that.

It seems like this is one of the most ride-or-die fanbases I've ever seen. The fact that they could invent the concept of YouTubers doing world tours, successfully execute that multiple times, branch out into several other ventures, come out as gay not fully knowing how that would affect their careers, disappear for several years and then come back knowing that there would be a solid audience waiting for them even after their virality had died down, drop merch every 3 seconds - I don't know who else can really get away with that, for almost 15 years, in the extremely "live fast die young" culture of internet fame. And I think it's in no small part because you all have chronic "unconditionally supporting dan and phil" disease. (While we’re on the topic, I feel very lucky to have missed the hiatus era. There's kind of a compression in the timeline for me between the gaming channel going dark and Dan starting his WAD tour, where it's like that time just doesn't exist in the Dan and Phil cinematic universe for me. It took me a while to realize how insane it must have been when they came back in full force, I can't even imagine how that must have felt.)

Of course, there's a caveat in that I'm saying this only really knowing about the tip of the demon iceberg. I’m aware of people engaging in behaviours such as doxxing them, outing them and stalking their families, which is horrifying in and of itself, but I don’t know how long it went on for or how many people were involved. I think people are generally pretty well-behaved at this point, and most of the drama seems to be between different schools of thought within the fanbase itself. I assume a big part of the reason for that is people's varying degrees of involvement in (and remaining notion of guilt for) the boundary-crossing behaviour from the old days. Living with the spectre of this insanity is kind of strange - it makes me feel nervous sometimes that I’m gonna accidentally say something that hits a nerve, or cross a line I didn’t know existed, because there’s all this history that I don’t fully understand, beyond just the normal unwritten rules for interacting with fan spaces online. 

-

The topic that got me writing this in the first place was the orange heart incident, and everyone’s subsequent meltdown. For me, the excitement in them soft/hard/semi launching is more about me just getting excited about any open, proud expression of queer joy - it heals something inside me every time I hear a man referring to his husband or a woman referring to her wife (excuse the gendered terms, ykwim. gay shit). It's just that sentiment, combined with the fact that I'm parasocially invested in them: I'd love to see that energy from my fave little guys who live inside my computer. I am basically rooting for them to become more comfortable with just talking about gay stuff more openly and candidly, and I guess that would require a bit of a hard launch, although I can understand that they don't want to potentially open the door to excessive questioning regarding their relationship. I feel like it ✨hits different✨ for people who watched them for years before they came out. Like, you guys are rooting for people who you watched in real time struggling with their identities and internalized homophobia for years and years, while to me, they’re just some guys who I’m a fan of. Sometimes I get caught up in the emotional frenzy of their hard-launch breadcrumbs even though I don’t feel quite as insane about it as you guys (I said in some tags a few days ago that it’s like the base instinct to turn around and start running if you see a crowd of people running towards you and screaming in terror, even if you have no idea what’s going on). Anyway, I would love to see them being more gooey with each other, and I am gobbling up the breadcrumbs they're feeding us atm, because I love seeing gay people expressing gay love with no shame 🧡 

I think my perception of them as a couple, or of their sexualities independently, is just kind of an extension of everything Dan said in BIG. I really have no doubt that they're a couple, and I don't feel any kind of weird Catholic guilt in saying that, since I neither witnessed nor participated in the insanity back then. I interpreted (I'm paraphrasing) "obviously we were more than friends, but it was more than just romantic, we're like, actual soulmates" followed by "as for the situation now? we're private people and we'd like to keep that part of our lives private" as him essentially saying that obviously they're a couple, but that their relationship is not part of the Dan And Phil™ Brand. The brand is 2 guys who have great chemistry doing comedy together (5 feet apart even though clearly they are gay and in love). And I think that's a completely healthy decision to make, even irrespective of their history. I think a hard launch would be subtle, and it wouldn’t realistically change the nature of their content that much. 

With that being said, to me, it seems slightly wild for people to adamantly insist they're not a couple, or that it’s “invasive” to assume that they are one (not that that really applies to anyone here, but elsewhere on the internet). If they were a straight man and a straight woman, and there wasn't a huge chunk of people on the internet struggling with this oddly conditioned aversion to seeing them as a couple, then nobody on earth would be insisting that it's weird to assume they're together. Dan confirmed that they became romantically involved around the time they met, and building a forever home with your ex is crazy, that's all there is to it.

-

This is kind of a messy stream of thoughts (it ended up sort of becoming 2 essays for the price of 1) and I don't really know where I was going with it. In conclusion I think that day 1 phannies are braver than any US marine and you have all suffered more than Jesus on the cross, and I'm extremely thankful that I get to reap the rewards of your labour now without having lived through the dark ages myself. I also think some of you are holding onto a bit of unnecessary guilt for dumb shit you said on the internet when you were a kid. And Dan and Phil are gay and I love them and I reeeeaaaallllyyy want them to do a podcast so bad because this is all conjecture and I would parasocially love to hear their actual thoughts on it

[batneko]

it occurred to me that bowuigi would make for really good sentinel-and-guide AUs

(for those who don't know, The Sentinel was a 90's show about a guy with heightened senses and protective instincts, which make him a natural defender of humanity but can also be overwhelming. His nerdy partner who provided most of the exposition was eventually revealed to be a "guide" who has the power to soothe and support him. It had an extremely dedicated fandom and robust shipping community, which led to Sentinel AUs being super popular until A/B/O AUs eventually eclipsed them.

The basics are: Character A has super-senses and tends to be protective and territorial, but they have panic attacks/migraines/whatever because of their powers. Character B is a calming presence and often feels compelled to help Character A despite any personal differences they might have. It's important to note that the connection between sentinels and guides is not inherently sexual, though there's a lot of touching involved so if there's any attraction at all between the characters it can get awkward. Usually in the AU sentinel and guide powers are Known Abilities with support systems and sometimes even a matchmaking service in place, despite it being rare and unknown in the show.)

So for the obvious version we've got Sentinel Bowser and Guide Luigi. Bowser is an extremely powerful sentinel which means very few people can challenge him, but his instincts have driven him to conquer more and more territory over the years and he's starting to feel stretched thin. He's had guide partners before but his personality problems drive them away before too long, so he keeps a few in rotation and tries not to get attached.

He "fell in love" with Peach because her guide abilities are so strong he feels comfortable around her without either of them even trying. And since he only tends to see Luigi when Peach is also there (either kidnapped or at a group event) he doesn't notice that Luigi is a guide at all for a long time.

Until one day he has an attack in public, and since he's likely to lash out in that condition everyone keeps their distance - except Luigi. Who rushes to his side and holds his hand and rubs his brow until Bowser is able to come back to himself.

Bowser is stunned that someone he thought of as an enemy would help him so easily, as if it's the obvious thing to do. But he's also embarrassed that Mario's brother of all people had to take care of him in such a vulnerable position. He gets it into his head that the only way to save face here is if he acts like it's not embarrassing at all and that now he wants Luigi to be his full time guide partner.

This is definitely going to go great!

And then the reverse, Sentinel Luigi and Guide Bowser. Mario and Luigi are both sentinels, but they're so used to relying on and covering for each other that neither of them has ever needed a guide... Or at least they've convinced themselves they don't need one, until they're both falling at Princess Peach's feet as all the tension they've built up over the years drains away all at once.

Pretty soon it becomes clear that Peach and Mario have a connection that Peach and Luigi don't, and Luigi makes excuses to leave the two of them alone as often as he can. Which leaves him both without a guide and without his partner, putting up with all the stress and sensory stimulation on his own. He handled it before, right? He can handle it now.

Then he (literally) runs into Bowser and, just like with Peach, collapses to his knees at the sudden rush of relief. Bowser is like "not that I don't enjoy this kind of thing, but what the hell?" before he senses Luigi's distress and realizes he's a sentinel. It makes sense given how strong the brothers are, but he'd never really thought about how that kind of thing works for humans.

And, though he tells himself he shouldn't care if Luigi is struggling or not, he's not entirely heartless. Bowser scoops Luigi off the floor and lets him spend the rest of the day with him, eventually saying he's doing it because it'll be funny to have Luigi owe him a favor.

Luigi says okay. Bowser is baffled by how quickly he agreed. Either he was really really suffering, or he's so nice of a guy that he doesn't even fathom how easily Bowser can take advantage of him.

Well, it's not like it costs Bowser anything to keep him around. And it does actually feel good to be a guide instead of a king for once. Bowser decides to keep racking up "favors" until he thinks of the best way to use them, probably against Mario, or maybe to get into the Mushroom Kingdom.

Sure, once he gets that payoff Luigi will probably never forgive him and never want to see him again, but it'll be worth it... right?

[laenordeservedbetter]

For Samantha Carpenter x fem reader. (If you're doing requests, I'm not 100% sure if you are or not,please.)

Reader is Amber Freeman's half older sister (Sam Carpenter's age). Amber knows that Stu Macher is her sister's father, which she is jealous of. So after attacking Tara and luring Sam back to Woodsboro, Amber attacks Reader at Ambers and rs house. (Sam and Reader dated before Sam left, and once they've all moved to NYC, they get back together. R is also a little reliant on alcohol and weed after everything that happened.)

Holding On To You

Words: 3.3k (I think)

Relationships: Samantha Carpenter x Fem!Reader, Sibling!Amber Freeman x Fem!Reader, Implied/Referenced Tara Carpenter x Amber Freeman, Chad Meeks-Martin x Tara Carpenter, Mindy Meeks-Martin x Anika Kayoko

I wrote this this fic in bits, so the timeline is kinda jumbled. I only arranged which part should go where when I finished writing and decided to imply Tamber last minute because why not? Also, Amber's dad raised r as his own, which is why r refers to them as her parents.

The ' * * *' means a long period of time has passed.

Warnings: (18+) this is definitely not my best work, poorly written fight scene, angst, violence, cussing, grief, suggestive themes, reader has problems with alcohol. lmk if I missed any! (I don't remember if the core four were drinking alcohol in Sam and Tara's apartment, so I put something else here)

A/N: I didn't intend for half the fic to focus on reader's dynamic with Amber, but I felt like it's important to show how torn she is by how she feels with what happened. Sorry if I made it too angsty and not what you (anon) asked for 😭

not my gif. || masterlist || previous work

-

Your phone buzzed at the same time you were about to go up the stairway leading to your room. Determining that whoever is texting you is more important than sleep, you unlock the cellular device to read the message.

(1:49 a.m.)

Amber: Tara was attacked.

Three words. Fifteen letters.

Your body turns stiff as if there was a supernatural force compelling you to stay still. Tara was attacked. The first thought that went to your mind was ‘is she okay?’ but for some reason you can’t explain, your fingers typed in different words.

(1:50 a.m.)

You: Does Sam know?

Is Tara in the hospital?

How is she?

(1:51 a.m.)

Amber: Such dumb questions. What you should be asking yourself is ‘who’s next?’

Your brows furrow and you frown. She shouldn’t be saying that, you thought. Amber was peculiar but if there was one thing you were sure she’s best at, it was being there for Tara - protecting her. The person on the other side of the screen that you’re talking to feels different from the Amber you know. Something is off.

(1:55 a.m.)

You: Don’t say shit like that, Amber. Tara got hurt. This is serious.

(1:55 a.m.)

Amber: Oh, this isn’t Amber.

(1:56 a.m.)

You: Then who are you?

(1:56 a.m.)

Amber: You’ll find out soon enough.

The chances of being given ample interval to question the sender of the text who is definitely not Amber reduces to zero the second a masked figure creeps behind you and slashes your arm. “What the fuck?!” Blood trickles down your skin, the wound deep enough to nearly make you see your bones. You have to look away from your own body or else you might collapse from the mere sight of it.

You’re panting, looking into the mask of your attacker. He tilts his head at you tauntingly. “And here I thought that the daughter of Stu Macher would put up more of a fight.”

You don’t react, but you run for the kitchen, grabbing the first breakable object you can find: the floral vase.

When Ghostface attempts to lunge forward, you aim the vase at his head, but he dodges swiftly, leaving the vase to smash against the newly-painted wall. You grimace. Your parents were gonna kill you the moment they decide to hop on their plane and get home. “They’re going to be so mad at me.” You complain while grabbing a kitchen knife.

This will do.

“What are you planning to do with that knife?” Ghostface wonders mockingly.

You make a face at him, “No more talking.”

And just like that, you got into a knife fight. You manage to stab Ghostface in the abdomen. He rolls over, his hand going over his stomach to assess the damage. Smiling triumphantly, you let your guard down, which proved to be an error of yours as Ghostface recovers enough to dig his knife near your chest. You drop your weapon, feeling your eyes flutter shut. Your attacker slowly removes his mask, shocking you, yet it was like the time you fade out of consciousness was also planned since you pass out way before you can see what he looks like.

* * *

“We’re waiting for you downstairs.”

You stop what you were doing to look up at Tara. She sends you a sympathetic look and you shoot her one back. “I’ll finish up in 5 minutes.” You say, motioning to the clothes that are yet to be packed into your suitcase.

“Okay.” Tara’s attention is drawn to the picture frame on the nightstand. It was of you and Amber when you were children. She was wearing a pirate costume while you wore a witch’s. “Are you bringing that with you?”

“Yes.” You reply, taking the frame in your hands, fingers ghosting over the photograph. “It was one of our happiest memories together. She was such a sweet kid. I’d like to remember her that way instead of…” You trail off, taking a sharp intake of breath. A month has passed since your sister attacked you and murdered people. You’d never know why she did it nor do you want to. Some things are better left unsaid. Tara, however, felt the opposite. She knew Amber differently and you can understand how she feels, to an extent. “You can keep it if you want. I have other photos in this room stored somewhere.”

Even though Tara shakes her head ‘no’, she is appreciative. “No, it’s fine. I have pictures of my own too.”

The two of you bask in the silence. No other words needed to be shared. Tara leaves you alone after that, but the space she formerly occupied isn’t left empty for long when Sam appears by the doorway.

You grin when you see her, “Hi.” It’s the first time in days that you managed to smile authentically. Going through the worst thing imaginable can dim someone’s light and you were in no position to pretend that everything was okay when circumstances proved the opposite. Although it pained you to think about that night, seeing Sam made you feel that you weren’t alone.

“Hey.” She replies. “Ready to go?”

“Most definitely.” You answer with the truth as you zip up your last bag, ready to leave this place behind and start anew.

Sam holds out her hand, “Come on.”

You don’t take one last look back. You’d be lying if you said you would miss this house. Everything direful that happened in Woodsboro began here, so it is fitting that this is also where it should end.

Or at least, that’s what you thought.

* * *

The bottle in your hand weighs lighter than your grief. That’s what you keep telling yourself during these types of moments. It’s a remedy. Ephemeral, maybe, but it helps you forget. That’s the one thing you could ask for.

You nurse your wounds at a bar stool. The time is a bit early for a Saturday for you to be drinking, just how you like it. You take a sip, then another, and another, making you finish your drink earlier than you’d like. “Fucking hell.” A new bottle slides over in front of you before you can ask the bartender for one more drink. Turning your attention to your side, you note a woman staring right at you, a sly smirk on her lips.

Once you give her a nod as a ‘thank you’ for the booze, you go back to the bottle, indicating you want to be left alone. Unfortunately for you, the woman does not take the hint. She moves to the stool next to yours, hoping to shoot her shot.

“Hey.” She says, her bright blue eyes shining in the dim light of the bar. Although you cannot deny that she’s attractive, you’d rather be gazing into a different pair of eyes, preferably brown ones on the face of the only girl you’ve ever loved. “I’m Jolene.”

“Hi, Jolene.” Putting down the bottle, you purse your lips, hoping that this exchange would end soon. You tense when Jolene places a hand on your right shoulder.

Jolene chuckles, unbothered by the signs that you were uneasy, “You’re a little tense.” She pauses, gauging your reaction, “I can help you relax.”

“Look, I appreciate the offer, but, uh. . . I’m kind of waiting for someone, so if you don’t mind. . .” You pull your arm away, pretending to look at the entrance to the bar as if you were meeting one of your friends. Truthfully, it should be a lost cause since you haven’t told anybody that you would be here, including Sam.

“Well, let me keep you company while they arrive.”

You internally groan. “Respectfully, Jolene, and I mean this in the nicest way possible since you seem like a good person, leave me alone.”

“Are you sure?”

“A hundred percent.”

Jolene smiles understandingly, about to get up and turn away, but then her mouth drops open as if she’s seen a movie star, “Wait, you’re one of the survivors of the murders at that one house in Woodsboro! Your sister tried to kill you and your biological father was a killer too, right?! Stu Macher, that’s what his name was.”

Of course. That’s why she approached you. She only pretended not to know who you were until you tried to convince her to piss off. Great. “Bye now.” You throw a fifty dollar bill on the counter, hastily running out of the place as if you were brought back to those nights spent in that house trying so desperately to get away. The feeling of tightness takes place in your chest. You see a stranger pass by with hair that looks exactly like Amber’s and you turn lugubrious. No matter what she did, she was still your sister. You want to hate her for everything she did to you, to Tara, to everyone you thought she cared for. However, missing her triumphs all the other emotions you have. Though that may not be an excuse for her wrongdoings, it makes you mourn what has and what would have been.

You wanted her to go to college. You wanted to be the one on the front row cheering her on as she accepts her diploma. You wanted to be the person she turns to for relationship advice. You would have wanted her there when both you and Sam began getting harassed online just because your fathers were serial killers. Amber would have fought anyone who attempted to cross a line. Sometimes it felt like she was your big sister even though you are technically older.

And then it hits you.

You’d always be stuck in that goddamn stupid, cursed house, persistently wishing that things had been different. That you hadn’t moved there, that your sister never met Richie, that you have the same biological father as Amber. Standing in the middle of the sidewalk, you realized that maybe you never left the place at all. You are in New York (You’re not deluded. You know that much.), but a piece of your heart would eternally be in Stu Macher’s house with Amber at the doorway while the other half is chasing after a love that might never be.

* * *

Sam drops by in your shared room to ask what you want for dinner. On Saturdays when neither of you are working, you and Sam order food and watch a movie that is preferably a romcom or fantasy. The unspoken rule being: watching horror is out of the equation.

She notices your swollen eyes and discards her phone on the table to comfort you. Sam climbs into your bed, arms circling around your waist in order to ground you. “I’m here. It’s okay.”

You don’t speak, fearing that your voice might crack and that it might show that you are as weak as you think you are.

But of course, Sam notices. “I know you don’t want to talk right now, so I’ll just hold onto you. If or when you want to talk, you can squeeze my hand. Is that okay?”

You shake your head in affirmation, locking your fingers with Sam’s, granting yourself the permission to crumble in her arms.

Once your heartbeat slows to a calm rhythm and the heartache subsides to a low wave that stays at your feet, you squeeze her hand three times.

“I’m listening.” Sam says, sensing your hesitance. Understanding where your diffidence comes from (she sees it in herself too), she adds, “I won’t judge you. I’m here to listen and if you want advice, I’ll try to give one. If you don’t want me to say anything, that’s fine too. Whatever works best for you.”

She is giving you the space to feel. Not a lot of people can say that and still stay after you’ve poured your heart out. Sam is different from most people because she cares. You are each other’s anchor. That’s why it doesn't take much convincing for you speak of your feelings bit by bit without worrying about falling into a rabbit hole. Knowing that Sam is there with you, listening, holding your hand, is more than enough motivation to keep going.

“. . . Sam, is it wrong? To miss Amber? The whole world tells me what she is. A murderer. But I- I saw it in her eyes that night at the party. Hesitation. Remorse. She told me that she was jealous that I got to be the one whose father was a serial killer but when she pointed the gun at my head, I saw something else flicker in her eyes. I don’t know. It’s probably just my brain making things up to make me feel better. Maybe I should just accept that my sister was a killer and move on. I shouldn’t even be feeling like this when I know she murdered people in cold blood — people I used to know. Am I crazy?” Once you started talking, you couldn’t stop. It was like you’ve been bottling this up to release it at the right moment. The memories of that night resurfaced in the forefront of your mind, acknowledging them for the first time. By now, you were laying on your back while Sam had an arm wrapped around your shoulder and the other still on your waist. For less than a minute, you were scared that she would push you away in a literal sense.

She didn’t.

“It’s not wrong, Y/n. She was your sister, of course you have the right to miss her. Now, I still don’t understand her motive and I won’t try to because she hurt Tara and you. But you knew her better than me or the people calling her names. You knew the kid that she was. You know what’s real. You are allowed to have your own opinion of Amber even if it isn’t what others want you to think. You’re not crazy for feeling these things. I’d be scared if you didn’t feel anything at all. It’s normal. You’re human. Don’t be too hard on yourself because of something you can’t control.” Sam says, soft but stern.

You take this opportunity to gaze into her eyes, seeing reverence, sympathy, and devotion all in one. She took the parts of yourself that you hated and treated them as if they were something sacred. When you have a person like that in your life - one who helps you accept your flaws instead of turning them away -, you start to see flowers bloom in the pieces you considered damaged. She loved the things about you that you execrated.

Before Sam, you gave love a definition: it is a thing that enfeebles you - yet that’s not all that there is to it. Love can be a chain, it can be suffocating, and there is no doubt that it can shatter you until the only thing you have left is a piece of a broken mirror to prove that it existed; but it can also be a tune (like the song you sung as a kid that you never paid much thought to), a soft bed, a dance, or a simple look a person gives that sends your heart fluttering no matter how many times you have been on the receiving end of it.

“Sam?” You call out, realizing that you’ve spent a while not responding.

“Yeah?”

“Thank you for listening,” You say quietly. “and for not becoming a stranger.”

She smiles gently.

Your heart flutters.

* * *

Tara lets out a deep breath. She’s laying down with a novel in her hand that became abandoned three minutes ago, her attention now focused on glaring at you and Sam from her position on the couch. “Just get back together already. I’m so tired of watching you two tiptoe around each other with your unresolved feelings!” She yells, roughly flipping a page of the book in order to prove her annoyance. Sam, who was currently on dish duty, dropped a plate upon hearing Tara’s comment. (It didn’t break, fortunately.)

“Are you talking about the book or…?” Of course, Chad would be the one to make the situation far more awkward than it needs to be. You don’t hate the kid, but he does get oblivious at times, which you normally wouldn’t mind if it doesn’t affect you. Mindy punches him in the shoulder. His mouth gapes. He looks at you, then at Sam. “Ohhhh.”

“Idiot.” Mindy mumbles.

“I agree with Tara though.” Anika comments, pointing her apple drink at Tara. (You and Sam don’t allow the kids to drink at the apartment, so the only beverages available are apple and orange juice boxes.)

“Me too, babe.” Mindy beams proudly as if Anika gave the answer to an unsolvable mathematical equation and gives her girlfriend a peck on the lips.

Chad makes gagging noises, averting his eyes away from the couple.

You see the scene unfold in front of you with a smile before you turn away to take the popcorn out of the microwave. “I think we’re driving Tara crazy with the suspense.” You joke, transferring the popcorn to a bowl and placing another bag inside the microwave. Sam shoots you a questioning glance, referring to the amount of popcorn bags that were already cooked. “I was thinking that each couple would have a bag or bowl each. Mindy and Anika, Chad and Tara. I wasn’t sure if you wanted to share with me, which is why I put another-”

Sam takes out the uncooked popcorn from the microwave, interrupting what would have been your rambling, “Of course I’d share with you. You’re my girlfriend.”

You look away, unable to keep a smile off your face. “I will never get tired of hearing that.” As you busy yourself with placing the popcorn on three separate bowls, Sam observes the group on the living room.

“I think we should tell them.”

“Huh?”

“About us. It’s time, don’t you think?”

“Yeah.” You take Sam’s hands in your own, pressing a kiss to her knuckles. “I’m ready.” You look at her lovingly. “How should we do it?”

Sam sports a mischievous smirk, “I know just the right way.” She ‘accidentally’ drops another plate (which, amazingly, didn’t break as well), drawing the attention of Tara, Chad, Mindy, and Anika. She gives you the go signal and you kiss her, bringing your bodies closer.

“TARA, SOMETHING’S HAPPENING IN THE KITCHEN!”

“WHAT ARE YOU- OH MY GOD!” Tara exclaims.

“CHAD, GIVE ME THE CAMERA!” Anika flails her arms chaotically for Chad’s phone, instantly snapping pictures of you and Sam the moment the device is handed to her.

Chad grins, giving you a thumbs up.

When you pull away from Sam for air, Tara runs up to you with questions at the ready. Sam did most of the talking. You added a few things here and there, looking back at how far you’ve come. The grief never went away. It’s still lingering. Except this time, you don’t feel the panic. You focus on the memories - the good and the bad. Those things are the reason why you’re where you're at right now. Although you’d have liked some of it to turn out differently, you can’t change the past, hence why you don’t shy away from what happened as much as you used to. You hold on to the memories the way you’d want to hold on to the love of your life.

“You okay?” Sam asks, rubbing a comforting hand on your shoulder.

You realize that you’ve been crying. “Yeah, they’re happy tears. It’s just. . .” You breathe out, feeling the weight of hopelessness on your shoulders disappear.

It felt like finally coming home after a long journey.

[klaineharmony]

Why We Ship: Neo/Trinity (The Matrix)

I have not felt compelled to write one of these posts for a long time, but I watched The Matrix: Resurrections again while I was working this afternoon, and Goddess, I have so many feelings about these two.

I think it's hard to convey how utterly capitating the original Matrix was, back in 1999. And I could not have said, then, everything I can say about it now, because I didn't have the knowledge of myself, or the vocabulary, or simply the experience to be able to articulate why Neo and Trinity (and Trinity especially, but that's a separate post) felt like everything. Even apart from the incredible worldbuilding and commentary on society that was The Matrix itself, they were something special.

A lot of people got really salty and irritated with Resurrections because they felt like it was "less about the Matrix" and "more just about Neo and Trinity." And god damn, if that doesn't say everything about two different audiences who watched the original trilogy. If you didn't see that the whole trilogy was about Neo and Trinity's love from the beginning, then we were not watching the same films. Neo is The One because Trinity loves him; that is established in the first movie. He cannot be The One without her; he cannot believe in himself as The One without her and her love. "The Oracle told me that I would fall in love, and that the man I loved would be The One. So you see, Neo, you can't be dead. You can't be . . . because I love you." She literally brings him back from the dead with her love; she makes him The One because she loves him. She is the driving force behind all of it. And it's not a coincidence that Neo does the same for her in Reloaded; he catches her in midair, he pulls a bullet out of her body and keeps her from dying because she is everything to him.

And here I am, still writing a post that is more about Trinity than about Neo and Trinity together. But this is what still strikes me about them after all of these years: their love is complete and beautiful and all-consuming, but it is also grounded very firmly in the grim reality they are living. They are not blind about the fact that they could die; they know that every minute of every day, and every minute the spend in The Matrix, could be the last one. They do everything they can to keep that from happening, and they train with everything they have to try and prevent it, but they know, all the time, that one of them could lose the other. They cherish every moment they have, because they are living in this terrible world where another day is never a certainty. But even with all of that, and all that they feel, they are willing to fight, to do whatever needs to be done to try and bring down the machines and the Matrix. They do not shy away from what they see as their mission and their duty to others, even while they are so anchored in each other.

And it's part of what makes Revolutions so tortorous (I hated that movie when it came out; it broke my heart). They know. They've known it's coming; they've been waiting for it, and they go to die together. They still hope that somehow, they will make it, but if they don't, their entire intent is to die together. Because they love each other, they have literally saved each other's lives and brought each other back from the dead, and they have spent their entire time together trying to dismantle the Matrix. If they have to give up their lives to do it, then they will. And I think the thing that hurt so much, when I watched Revolutions as a much younger person (and who am I kidding, it still hurts) is that they still died apart. Trinity died first, and then Neo, and while Neo was with Trinity when she died, he had already been blinded and couldn't see her, and he died alone. And it felt like a betrayal of everything they were in the most gut-wrenching, soul-destroying way. Their love not only changed the world, it saved the world and destroyed the Matrix and altered the relationship between the machines and humans - and they still died apart.

I remember being emotionally devastated by that last film, so much so that I couldn't watch the trilogy again for years. I was so shattered by the ending, it hurt so much, that I couldn't bear to revisit it. And again, I don't know that I could have said that at the time, but I felt it.

When the trailer for Resurrections came out, I was so emotional the first time I watched it that I felt a little blindsided. I had packed away everything Neo and Trinity meant, because their ending hurt so much - and then there they were, on my screen again, getting another chance. Getting the second chance and the ending they should have had - defying the odds with their love one more time, and in an even more epic way. Neither of them is living, in the Matrix. As Thomas and Tiffany, they're existing. They're brainwashed. They barely remember who they used to be - Thomas is convinced it's all in his head, and Tiff is only Trinity when she's working on and riding her bikes. It's only when they find each other that they start to find themselves again. And even when Neo escapes and he's back in the real world, the hope of Trinity and his love for her is the only thing that keeps him strong enough to keep fighting, the only thing that allows him to access his former powers as The One.

They help each other survive. And it's complicated and difficult and not always pretty, and it's always in the midst of a world that is against them and trying to destroy them - but they survive because their love survives. They love together and fight together and survive together, always.

[welcometothejianghu]

Welcome to another round of W2 Tells You What You Should See, where W2 (me) tries to sell you (you) on something you should be watching. Today's choice: 킹덤/Kingdom.

Kingdom is a 2019-2020 Netflix series set in Joseon-era Korea, following the collaborative adventures of an exiled prince, a country doctor, and a scrappy mercenary who's pretty much the only one in this entire zombie outbreak who has a damn gun.

I have very complicated feelings about zombie media. See, in case you hadn't noticed, horror movies are never actually about what they're about. And a whole lot of modern zombie stories wind up being a) metaphors for fears of immigration by mindless subhuman hordes hell-bent on infecting the good, pure people, b) white male fantasies about how the downfall of civilization will put them back on top again and then all you DEI people will be sorry! and/or c) ways to let your protagonists just kill the shit out of a whole lot of humans but it's okay because they're not really human. Soooo yeah. A lot of zombie-flavored things I like, I have to like them despite all that.

But Korean zombie media tends to avoid a lot of these issues. (Maybe because Korea's experience with invasion is less Fox News Lies About Scary Brown Migrant Caravan Again and more [long list of actual historical incidents]? Who can say!) Kingdom is no exception. It's smart zombie fiction, where the zombies are mostly here to make the already-complicated mundane geopolitical situation just that much more of a fucking nightmare.

This is a bloody, violent, grimy, often downright gross drama, so if you're squeamish, you may want to pass on this. If you're into horror, though, and into zombie horror especially, go on and sink your teeth right into these five reasons I think you should watch it.

1. No one here has ever seen a zombie movie

You know how one of the frustrating things about watching a zombie property is seeing a bunch of otherwise competent, regular people act like they had all their cultural awareness of zombies surgically removed, down to making up cute words that aren't "zombie" to keep from saying the word "zombie"?

Everybody in this show has the excuse that they are living several centuries before even the possibility of zombie movies.

This story starts out pretty standard for a historical drama: a sick king, a pregnant queen, a crown prince in a precarious position, questions of succession, accusations of treason, wealth and class dynamics oppressing the poor, shady backroom politics -- you know, the usual stuff. And it never stops being about all that! It just also has zombies. Evil bastards don't stop being evil just because decomposing hordes are breaking down the door. In fact, that just makes them worse! And our heroes are at ends because they have no natural immunity to the genre they've walked into.

Sure, there are some moments of comic relief, but for the most part, Kingdom plays its premise absolutely straight-faced. How would 17th-century Koreans deal with a bunch of walking corpses? With period-appropriate tools, tactics, and mindsets!

In your standard modern zombie setup, everybody has guns, and then some special badass rolls in with a katana and everyone oohs and ahhs. In Kingdom, the wealthy have swords, the common folk maybe have farm implements, and there's one measly matchlock rifle in the party. For a few lucky headshots, you've got archers. For everyone else, things are about to get real up close and personal.

The characters also have period-appropriate worldviews that both inform their reactions to the problem and are frankly bizarre by modern standards. What if you had to deal with zombies in a place with cultural taboos against dismembering or burning dead bodies? What if people felt compelled to treat the corpses of peasants differently from corpses of nobles? What if the scholars won't act in their own defense because it's insulting to ask them to wield weapons? What if you can't ask certain important people certain questions because it's literally treason to do so?

The real moral of Kingdom is that there's not a situation so bad that devotion to Confucian principles can't make it worse.

2. That scrappy bastard

I'm not going to play favorites here-- Wait, what am I saying, of course I am. It's Yeongshin.

You know how, in any given zombie movie, your hapless protagonists survive because early on they find a party member who's about ten levels higher than they are? That's Yeongshin. He's cagey as hell about his shady past -- to the point where we don't even learn his actual name -- but he's going to come in real handy here, because he is also the aforementioned only guy with a gun, and he fucking knows how to use it.

And okay, I'm exaggerating about the gun shortage, but not by much. Firearms are rare, you need training to be able to operate them, and no matter how good you are, they still take time to reload after each shot -- if they even fire at all. (Also, ignore the part where everyone's aim is far better than shitty matchlock rifling should allow.) Guns are not the go-to weapon in this zombie situation. You can't just shove a bunch of pistols in everybody's hands and count on at least a few lucky shots. You could amass all the period-appropriate firepower you wanted, but without specialists, it'd be useless.

Yeongshin is fueled by some very reasonable guilt, since, uh, a nonzero amount of the shit that goes down is kiiiiiinda his fault. But I love that instead of giving him a death wish, it makes him even more determined to survive and do what he can to mitigate the fallout of his unintentionally terrible decisions. He knows he's far more useful alive, so to hell with taking the easy way out. Whether his opponents are living or undead, he's going to make them wish they hadn't messed with him.

This is a good place to note that the whole cast is great, from the thunder-voiced head of the evil family to the prince's wife-guy manservant to the doll-faced bitch queen. And obviously Ju Jihoon and Bae Doona are captivating every second they're on the screen, because they are absolute acting powerhouses and I love to watch them work. His Prince Lee Chang and her physician Seobi are compelling, memorable main characters who perform the important zombie-movie function of being the people you care about when they get put into dangerous situations.

But I walked away from this unable to stop thinking about Yeongshin. Bare-headed in a world of very meaningful (and often very silly) hats, he's feral and bitey and completely unfit for polite society. So of course he's going to wind up side-by-side with the second most you-need-to-be-respectful-to-him guy in the land.

More than anything, I love watching him work. He's a very physical character, but all his stats are in speed and agility, so he will just literally throw himself full-body against doors or into fights and let his momentum do the work. His actor, the handsomely exhausted-looking Kim Sungkyu, brings such a great physicality to the role. Yeongshin may be the Gun Guy, but he's not sniping from the back row. He's right there on the front lines, pulling off stunts none of the other characters would dream of trying. I cannot stress enough what a delight his action sequences are. It's such a good visual counterpart to the zombies, who also have no sense of bodily self-preservation.

And speaking of the zombies...

3. Zombie rules

I find that Korean zombie properties are the best in particular at zombie physics. Their directors seem very interested in pondering exactly what the weight of that many bodies would do. The answer is usually pretty gruesome and visually fascinating!

Kingdom's main use of zombies is by volume. While there are a few (memorable!) one-on-one scenes, the show delights in seeing just how many zombies it can fit in the frame. The danger is always from the sheer number of hostile bodies. You can use those numbers against them, if you're clever, but wait too long and you run the risk of being completely overwhelmed.

I've seen some people criticize the zombie extras by accusing them of not moving like zombies, which is the kind of nonsense you say when your only exposure to zombies is Slow Zombies. Kingdom's zombies are Fast Zombies -- they don't shamble, they swarm. They all just plow on full speed ahead until something stops them, and they definitely don't watch where they're going. Those extras do some incredible work flinging their bodies over obstacles and into solid objects. I sure hope one of the benefits of all that voluminous period-appropriate costuming is how much good padding you can probably stuff under there.

Continuing the thought exercise about what a 17th-century zombie outbreak would look like, Kingdom does some clever things with putting humans and zombies alike in situations you wouldn't find in the modern world, ones made possible only by the time period. I really like that it never forgets that part of the fun of this whole enterprise is making the best of the social and technological concepts that would have been present then. It doesn't feel like a modern zombie movie with incidental hanbok -- it actually makes the most of what a rural medieval setting both gives and takes away.

The rules Kingdom makes for its zombies are also an interesting take. You, the modern viewer, know how zombies work in general, but you don't know all the quirks of these zombies in particular, so you're learning at the same time the characters are. And sometimes you learn wrong! Sometimes you have to rewrite your whole strategy because you realize at a critical moment that both you and the characters misunderstood something very badly.

...And yeah, okay, it plays a little fast and loose with those rules sometimes, but so what? You know how this works! You know that the lead actors will dodge more and get bitten less than the random extras will. You know that named characters will last longer than their NPC counterparts. If you're going to hold that against it, maybe horror movies aren't the thing for you. Go do a Rubik's Cube or something.

4. The parts without zombies

Plenty, plenty of people have made the Game of Thrones comparison, which ... yeah, sure, I can see it. It wouldn't have been my first thought, but I get where people are coming from. And you know what, if you're a Game of Thrones enjoyer, you'll probably like this too. It hits a lot of the same beats and has a lot of the same vibes. It's kind of like if you shrunk Game of Thrones in the wash, until there were only two warring families and not a conlang in sight.

This show isn't historically accurate to the letter -- think of it more as AU Joseon-Era Korea, where specific people are fictional but the larger context is more or less the way things would have been. You never get given a specific year, but from technology and various context clues, you can kinda narrow it down to the 1600s. It never commits to a single year, though, which dodges a lot of nitpicks. Its fictional aspects are nice, too, because that means you don't have to know any real history at all. The show will give you all the information you need to understand the campaign setting, just in case your knowledge of medieval Korean dynasties is not up to snuff.

The conceit of the series is that some very specific devious political backstabbing and corruption has been happening since before the show began, making everything vulnerable to catastrophe. Unsurprisingly, the sudden appearance of zombies does not magically mend those rifts and make everyone come together! In fact, the reason the zombies are happening at all is related to these treasonous power plays, and while we never learn the full story (see my later note on the drama's ending), we get a whole lot of it. And it's a good, complicated reason! Here we return to the idea that zombie movies are always metaphors for something else. Set against the backdrop of multiple Japanese invasions during this period, Kingdom sure does have some things to say about the dangers of considering certain lives disposable in the service of the greater good.

I will be the first to say that IT TURNED OUT MAN WAS THE REAL MONSTER ALL ALONG storylines are tedious, so I'm glad Kingdom didn't decide it needed to beat that drum. The truth is, nobody's surprised when the bastards who have treated other people like shit all their lives continue being bastards in a crisis situation. It's the Joseon Dynasty. Everybody's locked into a rigid neo-Confucianist hierarchy. They don't need an apocalypse to reveal how much the people at the top would sell them all for a single corn chip. They've been clear on that one for a long time.

What this means is, if you're not traditionally someone who goes in for zombie horror, but you like a good political thriller and can roll with some supernatural elements, you might consider giving this one a shot anyway! It's not some hugely complicated and sophisticated plot, but it's still plenty to chew on. (See what I did there?)

5. Time to spend that Netflix money!

This show is gorgeous. It looks beautiful and it sounds beautiful. It's shot beautifully against beautiful sets and even more beautiful landscapes. Everyone's wearing beautiful costumes. What little CG there is is even beautiful. It's just visually a treat.

Light is such an important part of the show that I can't not comment on Kingdom's use of it, production-wise. The show is often shadowy as hell, but in a high-contrast way, as opposed to the awkward near-blackness of so much prestige TV. Even when it's dark enough that faces and details are obscured, there are still light sources that provide visual interest. Besides, I'll cut it some slack because it is a horror property. You should be watching it in a dark room anyway! And sure, there's some awkward day-for-night stuff, and transitions around sunset can be downright goofy, but if that's the worst of the jank we have to suffer through, it's fine.

As beautiful as it is, it's also very ugly. The story takes place over a period of time so short that barely anyone has time to change their clothes, much less take a bath. The grime just accumulates: sweat, dust, mud, sewage, smoke, spit, and all kinds of blood and viscera. By the time the story's done, everyone looks realistically beat to shit. (Bless those poor makeup artists, having to keep such close track of all the damage characters have suffered.)

I feel as though I should note for context that while I'm a horror movie fan, I'm still pretty squeamish when it comes to gore. I made it through Kingdom okay, but there were definitely parts I had to watch through my fingers. It hits the realism middle ground that gives me the wiggins, where it's neither absurdly chaste about bloodletting nor dumping comedic buckets of corn syrup on the actors. It suits the tone of the show perfectly! Just, you know, if you're a little tender (like I am), be ready to look away from the screen sometimes.

Korean historical dramas sure do have a real advantage on the wig front, in that most everyone is wearing some kind of historically appropriate hat or headband that covers the places their wig joins. And then you have Yeongshin, who looks so good all shaggy because that's clearly at least mostly Kim Sungkyu's real hair.

I've seen a lot of shitty low-budget horror in my day, sure -- but I've also seen a lot of shitty high-budget horror, where a production has a lot of money and spends it all on exactly the wrong things. Kingdom uses its funds wisely. It's not extravagant (except for the queen's amazing outfits). There are practical effects aplenty and some beautifully framed shots. It gets a little gimmicky with the camera work in season 2, but you know what? It's fun! The gimmicks are action-movie fun, and I will not criticize something for having fun in the midst of some otherwise grisly subject material.

It's also got great rewatch value. There are just enough secrets running throughout that going back for a second viewing makes a lot of things make more sense -- in, of course, a horrible way! But that's just the way we like it.

caveat: Beware of cliffhangers

The show is two seasons long, and it's clearly set up in expectation of a third season ... which never happened. What did happen was a separate, largely unsatisfying movie that tells the backstory of the cool character you meet in the last ten seconds of the last episode.

But that's it. There was also a prince-focused prequel planned, but that got scrapped before production even began, and that was four years ago. I'm not holding out much hope that we'll ever get anything more from the Kingdom universe.

I am not super-bothered by this, though, and here's why: The two seasons are enough to wrap up the main political plot. Most of what's left is zombie lore, and I am so bored by zombie lore. Still, would I have watched these characters roll around in that zombie lore for another six episodes? Without question! Are there loose ends I wish had gotten resolved? You better believe it! Do I want to know what the super-duper secret behind the zombies is? I sure do!

But I also don't feel like I got cheated out of an ending. Those two seasons hang on a story that's 90% the political succession crisis and 10% figuring out where on earth this whole zombie thing came from. That means what you get feels like 90% of an ending, which is pretty damn good by my standards.

Still, it's enough of a bummer that I feel I should give a little heads-up about it -- working, as I always do, on the principle that something can't disappoint you if you know it's coming. If you go in with the right mindset, you can be happy with what you get while not being sad about what you don't. And what you get in Kingdom is, in my little horror-loving opinion, worth it.

(Also, am I giving it extra credit points for how it did not sink my ship? Buddy, you better fucking believe I am.)

Ready to watch?

Netflix money means Netflix. It's got two seasons, and then you can make the decision about how much you care about the movie. I found it mostly disappointing with a few really cool moments, so it's your call if that's enough to justify your watching it.

The series itself is a pretty quick watch, too -- twelve episodes total, all 30-50 minutes long once you skip the opening and closing credits. You can blow through the whole thing easily in a single weekend, which is not something you can say about your standard Korean television season of sixteen hour-long episodes.

And then pretty please come back and do fan stuff for it! I couldn't find exactly what I wanted so I had to write my own. One Quiet Night remains one of my comfort fics that I self-soothe by rereading, which may be a weird thing to say about a smutty gay fanfic about a violent zombie drama, but hey, we all make our own fun.

Also, I know I usually end these with a cute behind-the-scenes photo, but this promo video is too adorable to leave out, so we're going with it instead. It's slightly spoilery for season 1, but not in a way that makes sense out of context. And if you didn't have a crush on Kim Sungkyu already, well, you will after this!

[mcflymemes]

PROMPTS FROM THE EXORCIST *  assorted dialogue from the 1973 film, adjust as necessary

they've found something. small pieces.

this is strange.

i wish you didn't have to go.

there is something i must do.

i sure do love you.

it's okay. i got it, thanks.

why are they tearing the building down?

has there been enough killing?

i think i'll walk home tonight, [name].

take that, and drop it by my house.

hi, how'd your day go?

what have we got here?

you got an invitation.

i'm so happy to see you.

you can't keep going up and down those stairs.

you are not happy. tell me. what is the matter?

hey. where'd this come from?

you've been playing with it?

maybe he's sleeping.

why are you reading that?

what are we going to do on your birthday?

what would you like to do? got any ideas?

you're not going to marry him, are you?

where'd you ever get an idea like that?

i want out of this job. it's wrong.

you're the best we've got.

why do people have to die?

my bed was shaking.

you should have called me the minute it happened.

do you have an appointment?

i'm gonna take you home.

i think that's the answer.

wait a minute. what are you talking about?

i'd say her vocabulary's rather extensive.

the best explanation is always the simplest one.

listen, if you ever go up there again, will you take me along?

bastard! i will kill you!

i think we have a guest.

what made you say that, [name]?

make it stop! what's wrong? i'm scared!

i don't want it!

you fucking bastard!

i suppose you've heard.

is there someone inside you?

if he talks to me, i think he'll leave you. do you want him to leave you?

yeah, it's true. you do look like a boxer.

is that a threat?

it has worked, in fact, although not for the reason they think.

please go away.

how do you go about getting an exorcism?

i'd like to help you.

now kindly undo these straps.

nothing you could do would make it any worse.

i thought you were supposed to be an expert.

what an excellent day for an exorcism.

it would bring us together.

you keep it away.

you're convinced that it's genuine.

i'll call you as soon as i know.

i cast you out! unclean spirit!

the power of christ compels you.

are you tired?

let's rest before we start again.

i think the point is to make us despair. to see ourselves as animal and ugly. to reject the possibility that god could love us.

will you excuse me, [name]?

somebody fell at the bottom of the steps here!

i'm gonna miss you.

i hope to see you again soon.

i came to say goodbye.

do you like films?

[destiel-wings]

I hope you don't mind me asking, but what are your thoughts on angel x buffy? :)

Hii i don't mind, thank you for asking 😊

So, I used to love bangel sooooo much when i first watched the show. I was 100% into it, (with a crush for Boreanaz too) and i cried so much for them in s2 and when Angel left the show in s3. And I truly, sincerely, unironically hated Spike too (I thought he was a great character but i just loved hating him, you know? Lol). When we saw Spike's dream of kissing Buffy I swear i felt nauseous.

... and then they aired Fool for love.

By the end of that episode I was left in utter existential crisis in front of my tv because i felt my whole world shift. There was a part of me that still liked Angel and Buffy, but there was also this new part that wanted her to be with Spike now.

So anyway, that's when i decided to switch teams and i became team spuffy, and for as much as i had been obsessed with bangel before, it was nothing compared to how deep i was caught into the Buffy and Spike relationship. I never looked back. They were just much more complex and real and compelling. And it made me reevaluate Angel and her relationship with him too. Angel never really knew Buffy, always treated her like a child, and let's be honest--and that's something that hit me only years later when I got older--she was a child when they were together. He was spying on her and falling in love with her when she was just fifteen years old and he was a 240-year-old vampire who had been sired at like 26 years old, and they got together when she was 16/17 and he broke up with her when she turned 18... I don't think that's something the writers did intentionally of course, because (as everything else in buffy) it's just meant to be taken as a metaphor for the ideals and struggles and the intensity of drama of a girl's first love, but it still comes off as icky.

And before anyone comes at me, I know spuffy isn't healthy either, but that's kinda the point and the appeal. First of all, it's fiction and a metaphor, and secondly, it's about two broken people that are supposed to be mortal enemies but are actually two sides of the same coin, so different and yet so much the same, who can understand each other as a whole, light and darkness, in a way that no one else ever could, who yes, hurt each other along the way, but whose love saved them from the deepest darkness, ultimately bringing them into the light.

This is what spuffy is to me, and this is why i think it's not only the superior ship, but one of the best ships of all time (thee best, until i saw destiel, now they're sharing the podium).

So anyway, to get back to your question, the moment i became obsessed with Buffy and Spike (and i have been ever since 2005, lmao, they've been my first real obsession, alongside btvs, until spn and destiel) Angel sort of became the enemy 😅. And I hated him so so so so so much when he appeared in 7x21 and kissed Buffy (pure fanservice, but okay) and brought the medallion that ultimately killed Spike. So i spent years very maturely holding my vendetta against Angel (like, rooting for every demon that fought against him when I watched Angel, lmaoo). In most recent years, I've (sort of) made my peace with the character, after rewatching Angel. I mean he's still the enemy (of course, duh!! Who am i if not eternally petty??) but i appreciate him in his own show.

So i don't ship Angel and Buffy anymore, but I can understand why someone would (as i myself used to), and more importantly, i respect other people's right to ship them.

If we're joking, I'm going to insult Angel and keep saying he's the enemy. But on a mature serious note, I think Buffy and Angel were a great first love (for Buffy), but they were supposed to be just that, the impossible teenage girl's dream of a first love, eternal but doomed to end and break your heart.

I think Angel was much more well paired with Cordelia (which is something I'd never think I'd say), and i found myself shipping them so much when I rewatched the show. It felt so much more mature and profound than what we saw with Buffy and Angel (and that's probably due to the fact that we got slow burn for them - as we did for Buffy and Spike- and could actually see the feelings growing, while Buffy crushed on Angel in the pilot and she was madly in love (as teenagers do) in 0.5 seconds for no apparent reason than the fact that he was hot and mysterious.

So when I say the kiss in btvs 7x21 makes zero sense, I'm not just talking about spuffy, but also about cangel. I feel like both characters parted ways and lived on in their own shows to grow and become their own persons, developing other relationships that were more adult and meaningful, and that kiss was just disrespectful for both (but anyways, it doesn't change anything).

I have so many thoughts about all this honestly, and I hope I haven't gone too much off the tangent with my reply, but i couldn't just give you a simple reply because that would've had to be something like "angel is the enemy and i don't like bangel" but as you can see my thoughts are a little more complex than that 😅