#my brain loves patterns so much which makes me really good at explaining many different ways

[i-like-gay-books]

im in a class teaching kids about creative writing (poetry specifically) and ive realized that you have to trick them into being interested in things like specificity or metaphors, etc. and also its not that hard to trick them into because they want to do it they jus dont have the right motivation in a regular english class just learning about similes and thinking back ive realized that fanfiction so hardcore tricked me into so many things. description, analogies, allegory, even grammar rules like it made me such a nerd and it makes sense with my personality that i would end up a writer but jesus tell that to little cloudy and she’d dig her heel in and say ew writing i hate it

[bestworstcase]

Hi, just joined Tumblr earlier today as part of an unrelated thing, thought I'd check your page out on a friend's rec, and... wow. Just, wow. This is practically the nine-dimensional chess of media literacy. I would have so many question, but everything you discuss is promptly explained in such great detail that I can't even say that. One question remains, though: *how?* Where do you get the absurd amount information and brainpower required to connect the show's many, many dots at this high of a level? It's something I struggle with myself (though that may be due to there being over a year between watching V1-V8 and seriously starting to reflect on the show beyond "well, that was a fun sequence of events"—thank you, newish fanfic writing brain—but that's besides the point), and I was wondering if you had any tips for expanding one's thinking in this direction, as the show still means a *lot* to me—there's a reason, however unexplainable, that I stuck with it so long before the reflections started—and I'd love it if the deepest parts of my brain could reflect it as such.

...Unless that's too much to ask, in which case, whoops! Either way, thank you.

really fundamentally the most effective thing you can do to practice is make a deliberate effort to cultivate a sense of curiosity toward the text. and what i mean by that is, get in the habit of asking yourself questions as if you’re in a high school english lit class: what happened in this scene? why did this character say or do that? does this conversation remind you of anything that happened in an earlier scene, and if so, what’s similar? what’s different? what did you learn about the characters from this scene? what did you learn about the world they live in? why do you think this scene was important enough to be in the story? what changed in this scene (something will always have changed)?

it may feel a bit patronizing at first BUT over time if you’re consistent about it, doing this will train you to approach reading or watching as an active participant. analytical interpretation is a skill and like any skill it takes sustained effort and practice.

after that it’s sort of just pattern recognition. this is true of all stories but it’s especially true of theme-driven stories like rwby because they tend to be very deliberate about repeating and refracting their ideas and often develop rich symbolic vocabularies. so you identify a pattern and then examine the text until you can develop a compelling argument for what it means.

one thing to keep in mind if you’re generally familiar with fandom is that fandom encourages a lot of practices that are cool and fun in fannish contexts but will poison analysis because they are (by nature of being transformative) untethered from the text. headcanon, for example, is things held to be true irrespective of the text—one could have as a headcanon that ruby is allergic to bee stings or that qrow is her father or whatever and it doesn’t matter that there’s no textual evidence or that the text says otherwise because the text is not relevant—but analytically, you must be able to back every part of your argument with textual evidence. so it is useful to practice compartmentalizing to keep headcanon strictly separated from the text in your mind.

(that’s also a practice i recommend in general because being able to say “i like this idea and i have it in mind when i create fanworks, but it isn’t canonical” is healthy)

a good habit to get into is arguing against yourself and holding yourself to a high standard of proof. the reason my argumentation tends to be so thorough is that i try to be as skeptical of my own theories as i am of other people’s. if i have an idea that seems right but doesn’t withstand textual scrutiny, i discard it. (or i might toss it into the headcanon/au idea pile, if i’m very fond of it.) i will often develop more than one argument about a given subject and then lay them all against the text before i commit to one. being skeptical will push you to pay closer attention.

cultivate curiosity about your own emotional reactions, too. what did this scene make you feel? why? how do you feel about this or that character? what draws you to your favorite characters? what distances you from the characters you don’t like? what ideas come to mind when you think about the story and what it means to you? if you have a strong reaction to something—good or bad—try to trace that feeling to its root. what sparked it and why?

once you start digging into that you’ll find that your intuitive reactions to the story are non-arbitrary—you’re subconsciously picking up on certain patterns or themes that resonate with you. so paying attention to what the story makes you feel and asking how and why it incites those feelings will guide you to conscious discovery of things you’ve already noticed without noticing.

and another good point of entry is to look for recurring symbols / imagery—for example, silver-eyes get associated with death and reincarnation through a combination of harvest/reaper imagery (scythe, sickle, ‘the grimm reaper’) and butterflies (ruby’s first glare resembles wings, butterflies everywhere when she and maria discuss her eyes, butterflies symbolizing ascension in the ever after). adding this pattern together with the white light in the liminal void between realms (the threshold of life and death!), the implication that silver-eyes came from ozma (who dies and reincarnates cyclically), the stated purpose of the glare (to preserve and protect life), ruby hearing pyrrha’s final words in her dreams (which she didn’t hear in reality), and the glare having destroyed the hand cinder used to kill pyrrha, is how i got to “silver-eyes are psychopomps,” because both the symbolism and the narrative facts about the power line up in that direction.

the one thing to be careful with in relation to symbolism is not to treat it like a secret code! symbolic meaning isn’t universal so you should always consider symbolism in context with the narrative. the first question should always be “what idea does this image appear in connection to, when it appears?” i.e. the burning rose in rwby symbolizes mourning. think of symbols as more like trail markers that the narrative has placed to help you understand the story by connecting dots. we see the burning rose on summer’s grave and then we see it on ruby; she carries her mother’s absence with her. she gives the brooch away in the ever after right after the blacksmith shows her a glimpse of summer, and then in the storm her reflection is summer but ruby doesn’t look, doesn’t see: she’s avoiding her grief, trying to pretend it isn’t there. and then the brooch returns to her once she faces what the blacksmith wanted to show her about her mom: now it’s a symbol for acceptance of loss.

and with a story like rwby that uses allusion to develop its thematic narrative it’s really helpful to read the texts it alludes to! the core narrative allusions are the marvelous land of oz, maiden in tower fairytales (petrosinella, persinette, rapunzel), cinderella, and the little prince, plus alice’s adventures in wonderland & through the looking glass for the ever after. and then every major character has a specific character allusion. both kinds of allusion are symbolic/thematic (you can’t use allusions to predict specific plot events but they help tie together emotional arcs and character relationships cohesively, and the narrative allusions are pretty good weather vanes for very broad-strokes things like ozma’s symbolic blindness being ‘healed’ in the end).

rewatching the show a couple of times will also help, especially if you take notes. i’m not sure how many times i’ve rewatched v1-8 but it’s a lot and i’ve watched v9 in full twice, plus rewatching a lot of specific episodes or scenes for reference. rewatching will help you spot patterns that you missed before and increase your familiarity with the text in general, both of which help tremendously.

[crossstitchbossbitch-blog]

Storytime: Believing in Santa, or "I bet you were a delight"

Yesterday on a lunch outing with 5 work colleagues, 3 of whom are parents of kids under 10, plus myself and another young-ish woman who are childless but have enough dealings with sprogs... the conversation turns to Christmas and belief in things like Father Christmas/ Santa, the Tooth Fairy and whatnot.

After general sharing of stories including the parents talking about when their kid stopped believing, or had it told to them by an older kid, I shared my story of having a debate in primary school (y5 or y6, so age 9 or 10) about whether Father Christmas was real.

I had read the Hogfather by Terry Pratchett by that age and shared his solution to the conundrum: that many of these beings can be described as an anthropomorphic personification, and the more belief people have in it, the more real it becomes.

I really like this notion: it gives strength to magic, superstition, beliefs and faith alike. This is how religions rise and fall, how supernatural phenomena won't occur around skeptics and how some things are just ingrained into our collective psyche, because somewhere in our subconscious there is a grain of memory or residual belief about it. It waxes and wanes with the power of collective thought and storytelling, and for those that have time for it, it is as real as you make it.

I didn't say any of that following paragraph, just said the first bit about using it in a primary school debate and it being from Terry Pratchett and the Hogfather; to which the other young woman retorted, "Oh, I bet you were a delight".

I don't know whether I'm meant to be offended. At the time I laughed, and the conversation moved on.

But honestly, I worry that it was meant in a mean way and that kind of upsets me. I have always treasured being able to circumvent the breaking of the illusion and the loss of innocence. I love the fact that reading, an activity always pleasing to grownups, had given me that gift of knowledge and terminology for something I wanted to understand.

Sir Pratchett's influence on the nerdy, the neurodivergent and the not-very-cool is profound and far reaching even after his death. Of course, he was a bestselling author and millions of people have read his works, so I assume neurotypical people have also read his books!

I don't know if I should be sad that this person who called me sarcastically, "a delight", just never got the memo about the wholesome quirky cool that is Pratchett's worldview.

Maybe I am taking offence where none was intended - I guess having a 9 year old use big words could be annoying to adults, but I think it's a good thing. I really wish I could read half as voraciously as I did when I was a child. I miss getting lost in fantasy worlds of literature and by gosh I miss Terry Pratchett. It's it just nostalgia? Maybe. But also if I lose this shit, I probably lose even more of my identity and continue down the slope of depression and anxiety that began around that age. I keep getting told I look so young (I'm 31) and I know that ADHDers do grow up slower than their neurotypical peers. It takes longer for our brains to develop. The ADHD / Autistic brain doesn't "prune" neural pathways and the overlap can contribute to positive and negative elements of cognitive differences. E.g. improved pattern recognition vs sensory overload. I would cite the studies I have looked at, but I can't be bothered digging through my browsing history.

This is one of those times where I overthink the interaction and realise I'm possibly at fault for being "too much", or reflect on a childhood memory and have it reframed as another example of me being neurodivergent and not fitting in. But at that point in time, age 9 or 10, the other kids on my debate team seemed fine with me sharing my point and explaining it, as a means to an end in completing the class debate. I thought I was welcomed.

It's only with this comment, I find myself wondering how much of my past conduct was actually too much or too weird or too different for other people.

Ironically, this lunch came after we had an hour long presentation from the EDI (Equality, Diversity and Inclusion) team at work... where they specifically outlined how feeling "othered" can negatively affect behaviour.

Cool. Cool Cool Cool.

[pdaliceliveblogs]

So.

That was a hell of a thing.

I’m honestly impressed by how many times that managed to punch me in the heart, in different ways— with love, with fear, with fury, with achy mourning.

This wrap-up post is super belated, and some of it was written right after I first watched the ep, and some a good two months later, so I apologize if it’s a little scattered. What an episode, though.

There are definitely places where you can feel the pain of the compression. Both montages felt like they could have filled whole episodes on their own, and the map in a box under the floorboards is weirdly convenient— I’d love to know why it’s there, who put it there, why it’s encoded as a rebus, why there are apparently a bunch of rebuses in Old Gravesfield, and I know that stuff is all going to be left up to speculation. Speculation is fun, and I don’t think everything ever needs an explicit explanation— in fact, it’s a pet peeve of mine when people treat “wasn’t spelled out explicitly” as equivalent to “plot hole”— but this does feel like something they could have gone into more deeply if they’d had time.

That said, damn it was good. They didn’t just make the best of what they had, they made something genuinely fantastic. The kids settling in— everything from Amity’s awkward tea attempt to Willow becoming a Polaroid nerd (hey, didn’t I have in my headcanons/designs post that she’d keep a meticulous journal to show her dads when they got back?) was fantastic, Gus’s conflicting joy at seeing the realm he’d been so curious about and achy sadness missing his dad, there’s so much rich loam there for both wacky shenanigans and angsty character exploration and they managed to hit on both at least a little in the time, which, damn. Kudos.

Luz is such a good protagonist, such a good character, I really love her. Her depression throughout this episode hurt in a really accurate way; she was spiraling and hating herself while at the same time loving her family and her friends, she was struggling to work up the energy to be excited about a couples’ cosplay that would have had her bouncing off the walls a couple months before, she was trying to do what she thought was right even though that was dramatically warped by where her brain was at that point. It would have helped no one for her to stay in the Human Realm. If she was thinking clearly, she’d have known that, and she was very obviously not thinking clearly. It’s, uh, relatable. Not to put too fine a point on it, but the belief that the ones you love will be better off without you is one that’s really hard to shake.

The whole possession thing with Hunter… god. It’s such a visceral horror, being taken over from the inside out, dragged forcibly back into the old you even after you worked so hard to become someone better, someone you like to be. That Little Blond Puritan Clone Boy Cannot Catch a Break, except that he did, for most of the episode, and it was really wonderful to watch him being happy. Let the boy nerd out and cosplay and wear a homemade three wolf moon tee and and cherish the fuck out of his pet bird and fuck around at a thrift store wearing a goofy cardinal kigurumi and pick up a hobby. He’s a seventeen year old kid, he’s spent most of his life as a child soldier for his abusive uncle, and he got to flourish, for a bit. He got to thrive. He got friends, and a family, and a break.

Gus was awesome with him all episode, by the way. Repeatedly dropping hints that he already knows about the Grimwalker thing, not pushing him to explain, just being there for him and encouraging him. What a good friend.

(Side note, I love it when characters who have spent a lot of time together have similar speech patterns, so even though it’s painful as hell when that’s not a healthy relationship it was kind of amazing to hear Hunter go “up-bup-bup-bup spoileeeers!!” and think about Belos doing the dismissive “up-bup-bup” back in YB,OS)

The possession itself (ha, I got off track, sorry) was so well handled to build the slow dread, the pierced finger, the eyes, the creep up the back of his jaw, the layering of the voice. I mentioned it as I was blogging, but the fact that Hunter’s voice remained present the whole time was a fantastically terrifying choice. The whole battle was so gorgeously done, not just the sequence with the incredible animation (though that was definitely a highlight) but the way Belos gloated, his skill at saying exactly the right thing at the right time to fuck with his opponents, and Hunter’s desperate push to tell him exactly what he wanted and try to get rid of him, his own safety notwithstanding.

Honestly, Camila was the MVP of the episode. I loved the deeper dive into her character, the fact that she’s so much more like her daughter than we thought, the issues she had in school and how they were used to manipulate her with her desire to give Luz a better life… but more than her backstory, what made her so wonderful is the woman she is now. Her immediate acceptance of the witchlings, her steady research to try and figure out how to best care for them and for her queer daughter, putting in the work, the coupons, oh ow the coupons, her blasé willingness to find some blood if that’s what they need, her fierce protectiveness, her strong will. It was honestly a delight to get to know her better, and I’m so glad she’ll be there for what comes next.

I think that’s all I have to say right now— one of the side effects of it taking me so dang long to write a proper wrap-up is that I’ve made posts (and written fic) about several of the other things I was thinking about, ha.

I was holding out on checking with my screener about asks until I made myself write this up, so I’ll do that now; if y’all sent me any, I’ll answer them soon <3

[possessionisamyth]

Given what Lily Gao has said about Ada, do you think Capcom is becoming aware of the criticisms regarding Ada's "dragon lady" persona and is working to correct it?

I'm going to preface this with I am not Chinese nor Chinese-American. I'm black, I taught english in Japan, and knowledge on this kind of racial stereotyping is growing at the same rate as my knowledge on antisemitism, AKA I know some but am still learning. So sorry again for this being long, but my answer will focus on how I look at writing/story analysis.

To be honest, for me when it comes to critically thinking about and analyzing media, I don't really care about what people say in interviews. I don't even look for them. The first exception I make to this is if someone has made enough of something that I can catch the patterns in their story-telling/depiction, and I have a desire to know where that comes from. That desire to know is also extremely rare, because there isn't a piece of written work (sans music) I don't analyze to some extent, and I've gotten great at guessing where ideas sprout from. Too good actually.

I say this not because the information is irrelevant, but because if what they're saying is true it will be executed well in the piece. If what they're saying is true, it will have met the goal whether or not they explicitly tell me what their goal is. I don't look at voice actor interviews, screenwriter interviews, or director interviews, and I haven't since my university classes. The other exception to this are blooper reels and director cuts with commentary. It's a shame many pieces no longer do these because they do highlight the goals of the movie better due to being in the moment with reels or by explaining why things were removed instead of why things were there, which is also more valuable to me.

I'm much less inclined to take Resident Evil voice actor opinions because I do not know how long they'll have that job. On top of that, IF we get Separate Ways DLC, I want how they took her lines in RE4R to make more sense as a result. I have a voice acting friend who loves Ada's new voice, but had problems with the direction they took her lines in. I didn't really hear it. I'm not experienced in that avenue. Me and my friend already have proven to have different opinions since I like when VAs voices crack or sound weak or warbly because it makes the scene feel more real to me. Voices aren't always perfectly practiced sounding without error because it veers too far into the uncanny which is why I stopped listening to ENG dubs of anime.

I love Ada talking to Luis and Leon like they're her subs. I love how bored and uninterested she sounds. It's a million times better than the "don't you want to fuck me" voice because anime has rotted the brains of many, and I'm a stupid gay who think women with deep voices can say anything so there's clearly a bias here! Yet until we see that DLC, which I'm praying we get, I can't tell you if Gao's words are true or not. Japan has a nasty history of being super xenophobic towards chinese people, and their xenophobia has been horribly normalized to this day. (I lived there, and I'm going back, and how nonchalant people were about it made me sick.)

As long as the DLC doesn't half focus on Luis, who Leon/Luis shippers are doing their own "latino papi" racist takes on link included check out the article, we'll have to see. I want to see the Remake Separate Ways DLC put in the work of departing Ada from the dragon lady stereotype. I want to know the writers and directors behind it realized how bad the original RE4 made it via making the remake DLC simply showing Ada as a woman who puts herself and her beliefs first no matter how gray those beliefs are. If it accomplishes that goal narratively, then I can assume whatever Lily Gao said is correct because other people will be talking about it. If it doesn't, then it doesn't regardless of the actor's interpretation of the piece.

Personally (this is related to the racist stereotype topic though veering off topic) If they do RE5 Remake, I will be flooding the tags with either praise or vitrol because jesus fucking christ the african stereotypes in the original? Painful. Physically painful for me. If they don't fix it, you all will know. In the meantime, praying we get that Separate Ways DLC. Really hoping to hear chinese voices who either enjoyed or felt neutral about Gao's acting on the DLC if it drops.

[celestialrry]

stood up

3.5k

hello everyone!!!! I've been awol for literally weeks because i had absolutely NO motivation to write but i finally finished this piece ˊᗜˋ so YAY. ALSOO thank you for following me, liking, and reblogging my pieces (it encourages me somuchsothankyouireallyappreciateit-- and remember reblogging really helps us writers :))) )  here’s a hug for all ur patience and feel free to send me asks or requests i love talking to you guys! ε(♡'-')з

summary: Harry keeps standing Y/N up. (request from @ballerinrry! thank u love)

warnings: cursing, mentions of alcohol and sex, angsty but with a happy ending cause for some reason i can never let them end on a bad note

Y/N was excited.

It had been a while since Harry had asked her to go on a date, it was always the other way around recently. She couldn’t blame him though, Y/N knew just how busy Harry always was, and it wasn’t like he was purposefully not asking her to go do things, he just had a lot on his plate.

That’s what she kept telling herself anyways. 

It’s what she told herself when it had been 2 weeks since they had even eaten a meal together, and given the fact that just a few months ago Harry had come back to London for a while, that was rare. So, Y/N asked him to grab lunch on a Saturday while they were lying in bed together, and when he agreed, but failed to show up, leaving Y/N sitting at the cafe, her lips morphed into a frown and her eyes not focusing on the phone in front of her, she told herself he was simply booked up with meetings and studio time and such. 

Thats what he told her when he got into bed that night to apologize for accidentally standing her up. She forgave him, of course, and suggested they could just get dinner the next week. He agreed, even walked around to his calander her to show her he was marking the date off in his calendar with a heart, her first initial, and 7:00 PM etched into the little box with red sharpie. 

So, the week passed with quick kisses of good mornings and good nights, and while Harry was gone Y/N had on a black dress she had been excited to wear for a while now, with those little mini silver heels and a coat strung over her shoulders as she sat on her couch waiting for Harry to swing by to pick her up. She shot him a text that simply asked “You otw? xx”

He was not.

It took about 30 minutes of waiting on their couch to realize he was standing her up, again. And it took until the next morning for Harry to see her text (his phone had been on do not disturb while he was at the studio and he ended up spending the night at Sarah and Mitch’s after a few beers), and for the guilt to seep through his veins. 

He apologized, again. And Y/N forgave him, again. 

Only until it got to the point where Y/N no longer remembered the amount of times Harry had stood her up, for being at the studio, or sleeping after a meeting, or simply just not paying attention to his phone, she knew there was a problem. 

Harry was fully aware of the problem too. He knew that this was no way to ever treat a partner, and if someone was doing this to him, he’d dump them— well, he’s never been one to end a relationship unless it was necessary, so that’s an exaggeration, but it’s the principle of the thing. 

Which is why when he got home one day around 11 PM, gave her a kiss to the forehead after she sat up in their bed to give him a hug, and a soft  “Can we talk?” escaped her lips, he knew he had to fix this. So he asked her if they could talk over dinner the next night, he just wanted to sleep but also wanted to fix things with his girl, asking her if she was free of course, before telling her he’s gonna make a reservation at that nice restaurant the two of them used to go to quite often, because “it’s been a while since I’ve taken my favorite girl out”.

A grin broke out on her face because he had asked her! And if Harry was planning it, there’s no way he’d cancel or stand her up. 

 So yeah, Y/N was excited.

She woke up that morning with a smile on her face, and something akin to a what she thinks a rainbow would feel like running through her veins. It had only been a few months since she’d last been on a date with her boyfriend of almost 2 years and a half in person, and she was going to make the most of it. Because after this date, things would change. They’d spend more time together again and it would be like this little bump (that neither had acknowledged) never happened.

Y/N did, well, everything to prepare. Took a long shower, shaved, put on that coconut lotion Harry likes— he tended to dig his face in her neck when he smelled it while holding her—, brushed her teeth more than 3 times, dug in her closet to find that one patterned soft purple dress she bought ages ago but never had a change to wear it, until now, put on those really cute heels Harry said he liked once (“Looks like something you’d wear on a runway pet, I love ‘em.”), and even styled her hair differently than normal.

He had told her he would swing by at 8 on the dot after the studio, and soon enough, it was 8, with no sign from the man who made the promise himself. Y/N thought maybe there was traffic, he was just running late, texted him a quick, “Can’t wait to see you!! xxx” and put her phone on the coffee table, waiting on their couch. 

8 turned to 9, 9 turned to 10, 10 turned to 11, and soon it was midnight. Y/N doesn’t think she’d ever felt more empty than how she felt then, walking to their shared room of a year, slipping off her heels and tossing them towards the closet, as well as pulling her dress over herself and letting it fall to the floor behind her, grabbing that one t-shirt she always wears when she needs comfort (which just happened to an extra 2018 Live on Tour shirt Harry had laying around that she snatched just 3 months into them dating), and flopping into bed.  

She couldn’t fall asleep, and instead spent her time curled up in their bedsheets, a steady flow of tears making their way down her blush covered cheeks.

。:°ஐ

Harry usually didn’t make mistakes.

Sure, he had his moments, grabbing the wrong coffee off the counter when his name was called at the cafe, forgetting to text Jeff that he actually couldn’t make it to a meeting that was scheduled in a few hours. Just little things, things that didn’t matter that much, and could always be fixed. He didn’t usually make mistakes that weren’t easy to fix. He just wasn’t that kind of guy.

Until, he was.

Harry loved Y/N. He loved having her around, loved spending time with her, loved loving on her, loved kissing her, loved touching her, loved the way she went about almost everything. He was so in love with her, that hurting her was out of the question. He never wanted to be the one to make her cry, make her bottom lip quiver before the tears rushed out like he’d seen many times before, due to movies, his songs (which as sadistic as it sounds was an ego builder to have someone so close to him so affected by the music he wrote), her school work, or even her friends that weren’t being so nice.

In fact, he was so in love with her, even being so afraid of commitment (it took him over a year of them dating to ask her to move in), all he wanted to do was blurt out those 4 dreaded words. “Will you marry me?” It was a bond for life, and he was terrified of that, but with Y/N all he wanted to do was spend the rest of his living days with her.

When Harry had come back from being in L.A. for so long and finally being in the same city as his girlfriend back at their home, all they did was spend time together. Every time he saw Y/N all he wanted to do was say those 4 words that he hadn’t even fully come to terms with himself. It was dangerous, and Harry’s self control when it came to Y/N was lacking, so he simply did was every normal person would do in his situation.

He stood her up. 

Many more times than he could count, and of course he felt like the shittiest person in the world— shittiest boyfriend in the world—but at least now she can’t possibly be under the impression that he wanted to marry her, which is what he wanted. Or thought he wanted, until Sarah called him up one day after he had stood Y/N up for dinner the night before and told him off. Told Harry just how fucking terrible he made Y/N feel, how unwanted she thought she was, how she felt like they were loosing their relationship, and Harry didn’t know what to do with himself. (Of course Y/N had sobbed to Sarah about it over the phone while she was drunk off the wine she opened 40 minutes after Harry said he would be there, so she really didn’t even remember the conversation).

And later that day Harry had come home, heard her wavering voice asking if they could talk, and decided in his head he would tell her how he felt, how sorry he was, and how he wanted to be with her forever and love her forever if she allowed him. He had a few expectations for their dinner, that Y/N would probably tell him how he’s made her feel, and Harry would apologize, tell her why he did it, explain he thought it was no excuse, then tell her he plans on marrying her (obviously not proposing just yet, but finally bringing up the conversation they had never had even though they were in a serious committed relationship) and they’d go back home, have the most amazing sex ever, and forget about the whole thing. 

What Harry didn’t expect was to get a call from Jeff around 5 asking him to come to the studio to fix few vocals, then end up nailing down 2 songs in one night, go to a bar with the band to celebrate, get drunk, then pass out at Mitch and Sarahs flat. 

But that’s what happened, according to Mitch, who woke Harry up the very next morning. 

“Good morning man, wakey wakey,” Mitch’s teasing tone echoed through Harry’s (what felt like full of vodka) brain as he groaned and squinted his eyes. “Why are you waking me up at this hour in the morning?” Harry asked drearily, sighing and simultaneously regretting last night as a whole because the last thing he wanted to do while hungover was be up before at least 9 AM.

“We’ve gotta go to meet with Jeff about tour in like a hour, H” Mitch stated .

At Mitch’s words Harry sat up on their couch, eyes wide in fear. “Wait mate, I thought tha’ meeting was on Wednesday.”

“It is Wednesday H, god how drunk did we let you get last night…” Mitch said, beginning to recount some of Harry’s antics the night before. Harry however, couldn’t hear a thing with the blood pumping through his ears. If today was Wednesday, that meant yesterday was Tuesday, and he went and got trashed at a bar with his friends Tuesday night when— when he was supposed to be on a date with Y/N, when he was supposed to confess his intentions, when he was supposed to apologize for standing her up over and over, yet instead he went and did it again.

Now this, this was a mistake.

“…H. H. Harry? Are you there?” Mitch’s voice came back into focus and Harry shook his head. “I- fuck, I was supposed to take Y/N out last night.” Harry said, his voice trembling.

‘I’m sure she’ll forgive you, it’s just one night.” Mitch tried to make Harry feel better. He knew Y/N was a very forgiving person, she would get over this in no time.

“No, she won’t. I-I’ve stood her up for the past month and a half, Mitch.”

At these words, Mitch stands straight up  making pained eye contact with Sarah in the kitchen who was overhearing most of this conversation with her eyes wide. She had no idea it was this bad. “Month and a half? I thought it was just that one time a few weeks ago, Harry what the hell is wrong with you?” Harry simply shook his head and didn’t reply. He had absolutely no idea how to make it up to her. “I-fuck, I don’t know Mitch!” Harry raised his voice. “I need to see her and apologize, now.” Harry said, standing up and rushing over to the front door and slipping on his shoes. 

“This meeting is mandatory Harry, as much as I want you to see her too, she’d probably still asleep, and I don’t think this can be solved in under an hour.” Mitch said calmly, already knowing Harry was close to walking out his door. Harry stayed silent for a moment, weighing the options. Either go apologize to his girlfriend, or prioritize himself over her again. 

“We can do it another day, I’m sorry, but I have to go see her, tell Jeff I feel sick.” And he walked out without another word.

。:°ஐ

The morning after Harry stood Y/N up again was brutal. 

She stayed up all night, replaying moments with Harry in her head, analyzing if he wanted to be there with her, wondering if maybe he felt like he had to stay with her out of pity. It was torture, and the pain seemed to turn into numbness as time went by, and eventually the sun came up, and she stayed in bed, her motivation lost.

A loud crash and “Fuck!” woke her up, swollen eyes fluttering open to the invasive noise. Y/N furrowed her brows, her mind connecting everything that happened yesterday and unfortunately reminding her of the unbearable pain she went through the night before. A groan escaped her lips as she sat up and flung her legs out of her bed sheets that had been flung off the bed in the middle of the night.  She began grumbling to herself as she made her way downstairs, ready to tell Harry off for making so much noise.

Her mouth stopped moving, and instead remained in limbo as her eyes met Harry’s. His mouth opened to speak, but his words were caught in his throat as he saw the state she was in. It was when her mouth pressed into a line that he could begin talking. “Y/N, baby, please I know you don’t wanna see me or talk t’me right now but I’m so fuckin’ sorry, love. So so sorry, it was an accident, I went t’ the studio to fix a few things then got hung up on the songs and by the time we went to celebrate I completely lost track of time, and I was too drunk to drive home so I crashed at Mitch’s.”

Her mouth fell open at his words. Everything was happening too fast. Hearing that he stood her up to drink at a fucking bar to celebrate himself, then coming home and accidentally knocking over a glass in their kitchen (which she put together was the crash earlier after seeing the shards of broken glass on the floor) frustrated her to no end. She couldn’t bring herself to look at him any longer, and Harry had stopped talking after realizing what he just admitted to her. Without another glance, instead of looking at Y/N’s tear stained face, all he saw was her back, walking up the stairs to their room. 

“Fuck,” He said to himself before following her up the pink stairs. “Y/N, love wait-please, I’m so sorry, I just need to talk to you, I need to explain myself, please.” He begged as she shut their bedroom door in his face, his voice turning into a desperate whine at the end. 

。:°ஐ

It’s been 3 days since then, and she hasn’t spoken to him. He would leave in the mornings, kissing her forehead and mumbling an “I love you” and telling her exactly what time he’d be home, before leaving and coming back on time to find an empty plate in the sink and her lying in their bed, whether it be reading, scrolling on her phone, or typing on her laptop. He would apologize many times, reaching his hand out for hers and she would simply situate herself in their bed and lay down, back turned to him. 

Harry just couldn’t take it anymore. 

It was when she had finally let him kiss her forehead goodnight that he decided to take his chance. “Y/N.” He spoke softly, with no response or anything to indicate she heard him. “Baby, can we please talk- or I’ll talk and you listen, I just- I really need to say some things.” 

She was still faced away from him when he leaned against their headboard and he decided to keep going. 

“I- um. I’m sure you know how sorry I am, but I really am- sorry I mean. Not just for tonight but for every other time I’ve stood you up. I’m so sorry for not showing you how much you matter to me, and how much the things you do matter to me.”

It was then that she slowly sat up next to him and looked at him, eyes begging him to continue. He blushed at her intense eye-contact that he had barely gotten over the past few days and took a breath, opting to look at his hands fidgeting in his lap.

“We’ve been together for 2 and almost a half years, which is the longest relationship I’ve been in, and it’s no excuse to treat you this way, but I had just been thinking about how things progress even further than now,” He coughs. “Which is marriage, and when I finally came home, all I wanted to do was ask you to marry me- I don’t- m’not proposing right now, I just- I got really scared because wanting to spend the rest of your life with someone is crazy to me,

I’ve never thought that way about anyone else until you, I didn’t even really want to get married before you, and I started to distance myself before I ended up telling you this, but obviously that blew up in my face.” He chuckled a bit, locking eyes with her unreadable ones for a moment and lifting a hand to run through his hair. “What I’m trying to say, is that I love you, so so much, and I plan on marrying you— obviously if you want to too, of course— and I’m so sorry for trying to make you think that I didn’t care about you anymore or love you any less, because it’s the complete opposite of that.”

His eyes were watery now, as he started down at his interlocked fingers, and his eyes widened when her hand was gently placed over his own. “Harry,” Y/N began. “Look at me, please.” 

His head lifted to see her facing him, her brows knitted and a small smile on her face. “I forgive you, okay? I could tell you were kind of scared of commitment when we first started dating, and I wish I could say your reason for standing me up is surprising but it’s not.” They both chuckled a bit at this. “I- I’m still upset at you, I need you to know that, because 2 months of thinking the love of your life is avoiding you doesn’t feel all too great, so you suck for that,” she said, planting a quick kiss to his cheek which quickly turned pink. “But Harry, even if you asked me to marry you a year ago I would have said yes. I love you, so much, and I plan on spending the rest of my life with you as well. I’m sorry for giving you the silent treatment, it was… unnecessary and immature. So, thank you for apologizing. I love you.” She confessed again.

“S’okay, I deserved it, and I love you too. Maybe even more. So um, we’re okay?” Harry asked, a hopeful smile on his face. 

She nodded with a smile and pulled him into a much needed hug and pulled away only for him to bring her into an even more needed kiss. “If you ever try to pull that shit again, I’m breaking up with you.” She laughed and he tackled her into the sheets hiding his face in her neck.

“Duly noted, love. Duly noted.”

[jawllines]

miss jaws !!!! pretty pls could you soon give us that witchrry catch up you promised us ???? 💟☹️

OH YES! IM SORRY HERE YOU GO

i.

“I do not like this form, human! Change me back at once!”

When Y/N said she wanted to try the spell that could give a familiar a human body for a little while, she really had not expected it to go over like this.

How she did imagine it was something cute and simple. She and Harry having nothing to do on a Saturday night bored out of their whits and looking for some mild entertainment. Y/N would remember that she’d seen this spell flipping through one of the books that her Nan sent her in the mail, she’d tell him they should try it, and Harry would agree, of course, because who didn’t want to see an animal as a human? It would be fun, they would get to see what Thumper and Oat would be like as something other than furry little mammals, and then they would change them back and that would be that.

However, when you’re a witch, things rarely go as planned or even think about being as easy. Maybe it was Y/N’s fault (it definitely was), but she had sort of jumped the gun on waiting for a Saturday night that she and Harry were both bored. Instead, on a Thursday night when Harry is supposed to come over after doing some business at one of the bars here, Y/N thought she should just go ahead and make the concoction now. That’s all it was -- some special herbs and mixes that the familiar would consume. She thought it would be easy to just make it, set up somewhere high that Thumper and Oat (who she watched while Harry was working) wouldn’t be able to reach it, and then surprise Harry with the fact that she had made it once he got back.

But of course, just as soon as she’s turned her back to get the lid for the bowl she’d made it in, she turns around to see Thumper with his face buried in the mix, “Hey!” She cried out, but it was already much too late; Thumper’s little nose twitched as it was covered in the pink substance, and there is a flash of light so blinding that Y/N has to close her eyes. When she opens them. . .well, she made the potion correctly. In the place of her grumpy little bunny there is a grumpy looking guy with his arms crossed and his brows furrowed. He had hair as white as Thumper’s fur, very dark colored eyes, and stark naked.

Y/N squealed, covering her eyes but before she could she saw him cover his ears, “Loud! Stop that!”

“I’m sorry,” she rushed to say, a little quieter, “Cover your -- cover your bits!”

“My what?” He sounded irritated, Y/N could only huff -- even if she hadn’t witnessed it happening, there would be no doubt in her mind that this attitude was coming from her bunny.

“The dangly thing between your legs,” she urges, “Cover it!”

There is a disgruntled sigh, “You are so rude! Why am I human? I want to be a bunny again!”

Y/N peeked her eyes open a little to make sure he had something over him, and she sees he’d settled with his hand, “Well if you would have just waited instead of sticking your nose in something that wasn’t yours, I could have explained what it was before you went and eat it! You’re such a naughty bunny.”

“I am not! You are a naughty witch. Who wants to be human anyway?” He plucked Oat up when had come around to sniff the bowl, “Don’t eat this Oat, it tastes like oranges, limes, and lemons all wrapped into one.”

Squinting, Y/N is about to scold him for being mean when the sound of a throat clearing drags their attention away from glaring at each other. He looks confused, his head tilted and his mouth had fallen open just slightly, “Who is the naked guy?” He inquired casually and said naked guy, turns his nose up at him.

“I am Thumper, can’t you see?” He sneered.

“Thumper, be nice!”

Harry hums low, “I could have sworn Thumper was about 60 centimeters tall and also a rabbit.”

“I made that -- the potion thingy, to give the familiar a human form, remember? And I was going to cover it and wait until you got home so that we could try it but someone immediately went over and started eating it!” Y/N looked back over to Thumper who is still scowling, and this is around the time he would usually stomp his foot then hop away to a different room. Seeing as he can’t hop, he stomps his foot and storms out of the room instead, still clutching Oat to his chest.

When they were out of the room, Y/N turned to face Harry with a deep pout on her mouth. He chuckled warmly, opening his arms for her, and she crosses the room to him quickly. She buries her face in his neck (he smelled like cold air and pine needles) and melts into the hug, “You’re silly, d’ya know that?” He rubbed up and down her back in large circles, “You know Thumper never minds his business when you make something that looks edible. And can I be honest? I really didn’t expect him to look. . .”

“Cute?” Y/N fills in for him, and Harry hums in agreement, “Yeah, I always imagined him as a grumpy old sod in his 70s, so you can say I’m also a little shocked.”

He laughs again, only this time he slipped away from her, looping his fingers around her wrist, “C’mon,” he murmured, “Let’s go see what they’re up to before he burns the flat down out of spite.”

. . .

As always, for some reason or another, Thumper takes better to Harry despite literally being Y/N’s familiar. He eventually calms down but only because Harry offered him the whole bag of carrot chips in the fridge, and asks him what he would like to watch on TV. When he choose animal planet, both Y/N and Harry hold back a snicker so they wouldn’t piss him off all over again. And despite not being happy about it, he does put on the boxers Harry gives him.

And like always, while Y/N and Harry are snuggled together on the couch watching the telly and waiting out for Thumper to relax enough to stop grumbling and grousing about how much this form stinks. He was always grumpy for a time but then relaxed after a while and usually crawled his way into Y/N or Harry’s lap to sleep. They figured he would alter it some since now he was about 160lbs at 6ft, but Thumper was not one to conform to anything with others in mind. If he wanted in a lap, he was getting in a lap, which is how Harry and Y/N both ended up with him stretched out across their thighs with his head resting on the couch pillow.

It was odd, but objectively, weirder things had happened.

He told them Oat didn’t want to be a human and kept her cuddled against him so he could “protect her from you rotten humans” and they both allowed it to happen, so she was snuggled up too. It was just a big cuddle pile, much how they usually are only with more human legs and arms than usual. Ultimately, he did calm down enough that they could pick his brain a little bit, and learn more about him than what was usually permitted between he and Y/N’s thought transference. Even then, at his calmest, it was like pulling teeth to get much of anything out of him.

“How long have you been around?”

“A very long time.”

“Well, yeah, but in years --”

“Many years.”

Y/N sighed, and Harry would squeeze her shoulder, chewing hard on his lip to stop himself from giggling, “Alright,” she continued, “Where were you born?”

“Earth.”

“Thumper,” Harry plucked Oat up from where she’d been sitting on his shoulder, “Oat wants to know too, she said! You wouldn’t keep her from knowing, would you?”

Thumper, whose eyes had been closed (they were completely black, which was a little startling to say the least, but nobody brings it up), blinks one of them open and peeks over at Oat who is looking at him with her head tilted. With a small huff, he readjusted himself, closing his eyes once more, “I have been around for 980 years,” he answered, and a small smile twitches at his mouth when they both gasp, “I was born in the Netherlands, and my first owner called me Finn. I hate this name, but she was not a witch and often fed me many good plants from her garden, so I suffered through it.”

Under the guise of Oat wanting to know, Thumper tells them plenty about himself, and it becomes quite clear why he was such a grumpy guy. He’d been around for years upon years and constantly switched owners, more often than not because they did something to upset him. Sometimes they would forget about him, sometimes they would step on his paw, other times they would call him mean names, and the worst of it -- they would punish him for nibbling on things. “I always wait for you to do something to upset me, but you have done nothing yet.”

“Shouldn’t you give me the benefit of the doubt at this point?” She patted at his full belly and he swatted her hand, “You did come to my doorstep didn’t you? S’not even like I stole you from the woods.”

“I smelled fresh fruit and plants, how was I to know I’d find a gardening witch? The imprinting was unintentional!”

Y/N pouted, Harry tugged her closer to him though and traced looping patterns into her arm, “You know he loves you,” Harry tells her, then takes a turn to poke at Thumper’s belly -- he swats him away too which makes Y/N feel a little better, “Oat tells me all the time how much nice stuff he says about you. He even comforts you when you’re sad! I think this grumpy stuff is all an act.”

Thumper’s brows furrow but he does not deny it, instead, he crosses his arms and turns his face away.

She smiles.

He eventually changes back after five hours and it was while they all had fallen asleep. One moment there was a very heavy presence with their arms circled around Y/N’s waist, with their head on her belly -- the next there’s a furry little body sat in her lap. He curled up in a tighter ball and snuggled nearer -- he didn’t even nip her when she pulled him up to sleep in her arms. Y/N maneuvers them both, and in doing so stirs Harry, who accommodates her. Her back to his chest, his arm flopped over her body, Thumper in her arms, and Oat sleeping at the top of Harry’s head.

Y/N wonders how she ever got to sleep without being like this.

[kenzeltosis]

MLB S5 Episode Titles Analysis

RIGHT okay so this is insane all the s5 ep titles are out already- i’m still in shock from strike back too, same as the OP for this post, where I figured this out from. But now I have so many ideas and so many questions and so many theories all jumbled into the mess of my brain so I gotta get them all out RN. it’s late and all the ideas for this WILL be jumbled so just bare with me.

So CLEARLY there’s a pattern here, and the pattern I see is that most of the titles relate to a power that a certain miraculous holds (i’ll do them one by one later). Which makes it clear that each ep will be centered around an individual miraculous. I have two theories for this-

One: Gabriel unifies the various miraculous with the peacock miraculous for some specific added power that the akuma will get. This makes a lot of sense, cuz I mean- we all know he’s insane, but he’d have to be COMPLETELY bonkers to try to use every miraculous at once. I don’t know how marinette did it but if the story it true to it’s plotlines and lore, then gabriel will die if he attempts to wear them all at once. Thus he goes through the line of them, unifying each one with Nooroo until he gets the ultimate power combination that he desires. Which is plausible, but… how would Maribug and Adrichat ever get the miraculous back (assuming that they’ll be retrieving them at a consistent pace). Which, leads me into my second theory;

Two: Hawkmoth akumatized a person as per usual, and delivers a miraculous to them to help make them stronger and harder to defeat. This one definitely isn’t as strong as the first, but it would explain how Maribug and Adrichat get all the miraculous back. However, this would make for kinda lazy writing, cuz if they’re getting one miraculous back every ep, then it’s the same as defeating one villain per ep. It can get really boring super quick unless there are a lot of good subplots. Which s4 has made the perfect segway for, with the sentimonster theories, the Lila Rossi situation, Maribug and Adrichat’s make up, Luka knowing their identity, Adrien pulling away from his supermodel life, and so much more that I can’t think of right now. They have the cast and setup to make for interesting subplots- let’s hope they do it. Course, this theory is still lacking, because if Gabriel realizes that he’s losing a miraculous every time he entrusts one with an akumatized person, then he should stop after the first two or three. Though Gabe is insane, and one of the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result, so… maybe he would continue doing that? This would support Maribug and Adrichat getting the miraculous’ back at a consistent pace, but that would be pretty boring, so I hope this isn’t it.

What I’m hoping for is that the first theory happens, even though it’s still a bit boring with how similar each episode will be. “Hawkmoth chooses a different power to assist him and LB and CN will have to deal with it all by themselves.” I mean, it follows the train of the show, but I just hoped for a bit more. But I’m not here to criticize right now, I’m just here to analyze and theorize. Cuz that’s how the writer’s set the show up.

So what will each ep be about? I’m gonna make some educated guesses and using the help of the trusty MLB wiki, I’m gonna pinpoint what each episode will be about, and try to make some inferences of my own.

(Individual title analysis’ below the cut)

Ep 1, Evolution: This is gonna feature the Bunny Miraculous. I think I heard somewhere that the first ep will be what happens directly after the finale of s4? I think. So, going off of that… I’m not sure what’s gonna happen, but I think either Bunnix will make an appearance, (which, as much as I love Alix, would suck. BORING! tbh the whole concept of having Bunnix turns every single risk into 0, which is not good but anyway-), Maribug and Adrichat will attempt a desperate chance at changing what happened through time travel by some coincidental means, or Hawkmoth will immediately attack Paris using the Butterfly and Bunny miraculous. Can’t say for sure.

Ep 2, Multiplication: Obviously this is the work of the Mouse Miraculous, I don’t have too much to say about this one.

Ep 3, Destruction: Again, obviously, this is relating to the Cat Miraculous. This is an Adrichat centered episode. Maybe he finds out he’s a sentimonster and goes beserk? He could ger akumatized, no more “what ifs?”. Maybe it’s not about Adrichat- but instead, Plagg, and he finds all of the kwamis living in his house? Though I doubt it’s that because then there wouldn’t be much of a need for the rest of the season or any of the future seasons at all- because all Plagg would have to do is tell Adrien, have him call the police (after the shock and despair settle in ofc), and bam wam Hawkmoth would be gone ma’am. I don’t know, but it’s interesting to theorize about. Something I’m pretty sure could happen is that CN could start to unlock/discover/create some new powers for himself. Maribug has already done this, so I think it’ll be super cool to figure out what else Adrichat could do.

Ep 4, Jubilation: This would be centered around the Pig Miraculous, and this power in itself is a very interesting plot device. If you want some funny self-indulgent comics about the pig miraculous then you can look here and here.

Ep 5, Illusion: Obviously the work of the Fox Miraculous. Hopefully, we can have a quality Lila episode, because just in the s4 finale we could see she was scheming something- it’d be great to find out what it is.

Ep 6, Determination: This is the power of the ox Miraculous, which hasn’t been touched upon very much except for Ivan’s appearances. If I’m remembering correctly then the power you gain from this is immunity to all other powers. This will probably be difficult for Maribug and Adrichat to handle.

Ep 7, Passion: The work of the Goat Miraculous. Not expecting too much from this one ngl.

Ep 8, Reunion: So from what I know this isn’t one of the powers of ANY of the miraculous, so it has to relate to an actual reunion between characters. The first thing anyone would think of is that Maribug and Adrichat will get some of the miraculous back, though… some unknown way. I’m not sure how they could possibly get any of them back unless they knew who Hawkmoth was or Hawkmoth sent some of the miraculous out into the open- Who knows? Maybe it could be referring to Felix and Adrien, and in this ep, they finally meet again, and Adrien knows exactly what Felix did. Why Felix wouldn’t have been arrested and detained up to this point baffles me, but idk it just sounds very Miraculous, yaknow? Not touching upon super important subplots until ages later. Personally, I hope this is a Felix episode, I absolutely love his character and I think it’ll be really interesting to watch. Maybe in this episode is the official announcement that Adrien and Felix are sentimonsters? But… it makes the most sense that it will be about the kwamis.

Ep 9, Exaltation: This is the power of the Tiger Miraculous, which really is just low budget Cat Miraculous. Punch make thing break. How tragic.

Ep 10, Transmission, The Kwami’s Choice; Part 1: Okay so this is part of a two-part episode saga, and this is the power of the Butterfly Miraculous. Definitely the start of a turning point in the season, maybe the kwamis try to revolt? This is definitely going to be a very important episode, but I highly doubt that all the kwamis are going to escape. In future episodes we still see that there are eps directed towards certain kwamis, so yeah, they didn’t all escape. No way. But obviously something big goes down in the Agreste house. Maybe they all got fed up and just used their powers to… do something? Dunno. Alternatively, I think it makes sense for the group to come up with a plan for the majority of the  kwamis to escape and others to sacrifice themselves to stay behind and hold down the fort or something. Which, with the line up of kwami/miraculous episodes after this, would makes sense. Wayzz, Longg, Xuppu, and Barkk all have episodes after this. Wayzz, literally the kwami of protection. Barkk has shown disinterest in group activities before and has stayed behind as a guard for Maribug. Longg has that old wise responsible vibe, so it also makes sense for him to stay behind. I don’t really know too much about Xuppu, but I’m sure it’ll make sense in some regard. But I think there was this whole thing with how kwamis couldn’t disobey their holders? So I don’t know how well that theory will hold up, but since when does MLB keep up with its subplots?

Ep 11, Deflagration, The Kwami’s Choice; Part 2: So this title doesn’t relate to a miraculous, but this, by definition means, “The act of heating a substance until it burns away rapidly.” I honestly don’t know how this is gonna play out, but I’m sensing a lot of emotional manipulation and maybe torture. Will fs be intense.

Ep 12, Perfection: This relates to the Dragon Miraculous, and even though I know it’s the power of that miraculous, I still feel like this could become a Adrien centered episode. Maybe the “perfect” villain really resonates with him negatively and he starts trying to break out from under his father’s command. This might be a stretch, and could very well be about Kagami and her growth, but I’d love more “Adrien getting away from his deadbeat dad” content. Maybe he just completely quits being a model. Maybe he gets kicked out. Who knows.

Ep 13, Migration: So… remember how I just mentioned that maybe Adrien gets kicked out for not being the perfect little son anymore? Yeah, this title doesn’t have anything to do with one of the Miraculous, so that’s a possibility. I doubt it’ll happen, but maybe Adrien will just need a break from his house and sneaks out to a friend. Maybe that friend is Marinette. And their relationship can continue to flourish, because in Risk, Adrien shared his struggles about his model life with Marinette, and only she seems to understand, and maybe since she’s the only one who understands him, he’s the first person he thinks of when needing help. MAYBE IT’S A MARICHAT EPISODE- Maybe… Or, since there’s no episode with the title, “Teleportation”, maybe this has something to do with the Horse Miraculous. Kinda lame. But I expect that more than the whole Adrien spiel I was going on about.

Episode 14, Derision; This is the power of the Monkey Miraculous. Was kinda forgettable, I forgot what the actual power is, but I’m not expecting very much from this one either.

Episode 15, Intuition; On the other hand, this episode better be quality content. This is the power of the Snake Miraculous, and ISTG IF THE WHOLE SUBPLOT ABOUT LUKA KNOWING THEIR SECRET IDENTITIES DOESN’T SHOW UP- I’m gonna be pissed like oh my gosh how dare they not do anything with this sooner. But anyway I’m expecting this ep to be a banger, to have a whole thing regarding Luka, and to be a very eye-opening experience for Maribug, no matter what happens.

Ep 16, Protection: Turtle Miraculous! I’m not really sure what’s gonna be going on here, but unless Nino gets a more important role in s5, I’m just expecting this to be a good ep. Not a banger but not boring either.

Ep 17, Adoration: Oh boy… the Dog Miraculous. This could either be an ep completely for Felix, or the most trauma-inducing fight Maribug has ever been in. I’m expecting BIG things from this one and there’s so many directions they could go with this one that I’m not even gonna bother naming all my theories. But, it should be a staple episode of the season.

Ep 18, Emotion: Here we have it folks!! The Peacock Miraculous!! I know I’ve been super intent on Felix episodes, but honestly who wouldn’t?? The Dog Miraculous from the last ep could lead into this ep, it makes a ton of sense. Felix has the Peacock Miraculous (assuming he’s not in juvy), and if the twin sentimonster isn’t revealed by this episode then I’m rioting. There’s no way it can’t be about Felix. shamelessly begs for Felix content. Maybe it’s this ep that Adrien uses the glass that he found on the floor of his father’s office that he dropped, and learns that his mother is underground in a coma? Gosh- this episode could be SO intense in SO many ways, I have really high hopes for it.

Ep 19, Pretension: This is the Rooster Miraculous, which grants the user the power to choose any superpower they want. Ridiculously overpowered, I don’t know how it’s gonna play out but shit’s definitely gonna hit the fan here.

Ep 20, Revelation: Not too much to say about this one. It’s a grandeur title for an entire season of plot that I don’t know, so I’m kinda dry on this one.

Ep 21, Confrontation: This could mean?? So many things?? It’s not a power but it’s describing what goes down in the episode- so what is it. Adrien confronting his dad about being a sentimonster? Adrien confronting his dad about being Hawkmoth? Ladybug confronting Nino about telling Adrien they were superheroes? LB and CN confronting Hawkmoth? Felix confronting Gabriel? Maribug confronting Lila about her possible antics through the season? Did a big fight happen between LB and CN? Or Adrien and Marinette? All of it at once?? Or- AAA it could be anything. I’m really excited for this one.

Ep 22, Collusion: So again, not a miraculous-related power. The definition for this is, “Secret or illegal cooperation or conspiracy, especially in order to cheat or deceive others.” Hmmmm. I think this is gonna have something to do with Hawkmoth and Lila officially teaming up. The part about the deceit really caught my attention, cuz Lila is clearly a pathological liar, and it’s been hinted and speculated for a long time that Garbiel has taken a liking to her and her schemes. I think the team-up is gonna happen here.

Ep 23, Revolution: Not too much to say about this one. It’s a grandeur title for an entire season of plot that I don’t know, so I’m kinda dry on this one.

Ep 24, Representation: I… I want to say a new miraculous holder is gonna appear, maybe from the Native American box? There’s the possibility that the guardian of the Native box has been in contact with Maribug and Adrichat and they’ve been working together, but the Native Miraculous in the shadows, like Rena Furtive did. So in this ep, they finally come to light and face Hawk Moth head on, as a lead into the next ep, which is a two-part ep. I know this is SUPER far fetched but the idea kinda just smacked me across the face and I have nothing else so here we are.

Ep 25, Conformation, The Last Day Part 1: The last day?? The last day?!? All I know is that if we learned anything from the S4 finale, it’s gonna be insane and we’re all gonna be left shocked. I don’t know what’s gonna happen

Ep 26, Re- Creation, The Last Day Part 2: This episode title intrigues me. It’s Maribug’s power, obviously. But… the “Re”? Hear me out. Maribug got stripped of her role as leader of a team, her role of guardian, the team she ‘masterfully’ crafted to be the ultimate superhero group. So in Re-Creation, I think it’s all coming back. Maribug and Adrichat somehow get most, if not all of the miraculous that they lost back. Maribug reassembles her team, except this time, it’s select. She doesn’t readily hand out the Miraculous anymore, she picks only the best and then if she needs any extra power, she’ll unify them and Tikki. This episode will be absolutely insane.

Ep 27, Action: Shit hits the fan.

So, from this, I think we can all have hope that the majority of these episodes are gonna be insane. But what irks me the most is that… The power of the Bee Miraculous is never mentioned. Subjection. So, what’s going on with Chloe? Are they just completely nerfing her now? That’s rude. Chloe has the potential to be SUCH a great character and honestly a good person too, if the writer’s would just let her be. But since we don’t hear anything about the Bee Miraculous, I’m kinda getting the feeling that Hawkmoth asked Chloe to assist him in Nathalie’s place. That’s why he supposedly never unifies Pollen with Nooroo, because Chloe is the holder. Honestly, I can’t see Chloe really being on Hawkmoth’s side, she’s still a loyal Ladybug fan at heart. I think that’s she’s gonna be an inside spy for Ladybug, trying to get all the information out of Hawkmoth she can to give to Ladybug. And since Gabriel is stupid asf, he won’t know a thing.

That would be SO cool to see play out, especially if Chloe finally gets the character redemption arc she deserves. I know Thomas Astruc hates her for some self-indulgent reason, so she might genuinely be on Hawkmoth’s side and not Ladybug’s. I dunno. But I think there’s definitely something to be said about the fact that the Bee Miraculous was never mentioned in the episode lineup.

What I’m hoping for is the most melodrama season we’ve seen so far. The set-up is there, the foreshadowing is there, and the stakes are real- so this HAS to be the most intense season so far, I don’t want it to just be getting back one miraculous per episode (even though Adrichat said “we’ll get them back, one by one” or sum), that’ll be boring, anti-climatic, predictable. These are all just my theories, though, hopefully the writing crew will be able to do something much fantastic with everything. Let’s hope season five is extravagant.

[storytellerofuntoldlegends]

gods and the mortals they worship

A/N: honestly this idea started out due to the fact that scott and jack are gonna be housemates, and a friend and i were like "haha what if c!scott moved into Innit Hotel with jack" which turned into "haha what if c!scott was the god of mcc but he just seemed like a Dude to everyone else" which made my brain go brrr and think "haha what if god!scott and goddess!kristin met for tea" and then this fic happened. it got much angstier than i intended it to whoops

Warnings: implied/referenced temporary character death, grief/mourning, hugs, emotional hurt/comfort

Summary: Kristin, the goddess of death. Scott, the god of champions. Two deities that at first glance, have nothing to do with the other. But all the same, the two deities are close friends, meeting for tea and talking about the mortals they adore. However, some conversations painfully remind them of the mortality of their loved ones.

-

Kristin rather enjoyed it when a fellow deity joined her for tea. Not many would, XD was a little wary of her, being her opposite in a sense. And his sister Drista visited her often enough, but the young goddess was a bit on the rambunctious side, which was expected for the trickster. But the deity's whose visits pleased her the most were Scott's. The god of champions was always lovely to chat with, and she looked forward to each event he organized- always rooting for her husband's team, of course.

They met for tea weekly, but this visit... something seemed off about Scott. He seemed cheery enough, talking about how he had recently moved into the Innit Hotel with Jack and the other servers he was drifting between. But there was a melancholy expression on his face for a brief moment as he traced the flower pattern on his teacup, and a lost, faraway expression would come over his face from time to time. These were expressions Kristin recognized all too well- grief. She saw it in the faces of many mortals when she called their loved ones to her side- and it was unnerving to say the least to see such an expression on a god's face.

"Who are you mourning?" she asked, startling Scott slightly. The god's ever color-shifting eyes refused to meet her.

"The loss of my mcc team, of course," Scott countered with a half-hearted smirk. Kristin gave him an expression of disbelief, and the smirk melted away to something more downcast as he fiddled with something on a chain around his neck. A ring.

"Oh Scott," she said softly.

"Tried the married life thing. It was nice, for a bit. But it was a modified hardcore world, and it didn't end well. For him... or for me," Scott said, hand drifting to his throat with a grimace. Kristin set down her tea, placing a comforting hand on Scott's shoulder. Scott had a unique position as a god- he was one of the few who felt the sting of death. As he willingly lived among mortals most of the time, his godly power had to be diminished to do so. Which meant he could die- but it would never truly stick for him. Granted, death didn't really stick for most of the crowd he stuck around with. They would be reborn into other servers, maybe retaining impressions of the ones before- but Scott was the only one who truly remembered each server he had been on.

"I'm so sorry. Is he..." Kristin trailed off, unsure if she wanted to know if Scott's husband had been reborn into a different server.

"He's on another server with me now. Empires SMP. Calls himself the Codfather these days. I keep hoping he'll remember... but I don't know if I want him to," Scott said, eyes watery.

"Why not?" Kristin asked. If she was in a similar situation with Phil, she absolutely would want him to remember her.

"Because what kind of god can't even keep his husband alive?! I couldn't protect him before, who says I could do it now. Besides with my luck, by the time he'd remember me, I'd only lose him again. Why waste the effort on more heartbreak," Scott said, something vengeful in his tone. The aura around him tinged red, and Kristin drew her hand back with a jolt. Scott took notice of his surroundings, and with a sheepish smile his aura shifted to something more neutral and warm.

"That's why you're hiding in the Dream SMP with Jack, isn't it? You don't want to risk him remembering," Kristin asked softly. Scott let out a sigh.

"I'm not... hiding, exactly. Just lying low, somewhere where I don't have to pretend I'm not a god," Scott explained with a faraway glance.

“What if you were to tell this... Codfather," Kristin suggested. Scott wrinkled his nose in disgust in the name.

"Jimmy. His name is Jimmy," Scott corrected, sounding reverent as he murmured his name the second time. It was almost silly, a god worshipping the ground a mortal walked on- not that Kristin was one to talk. But then again, Phil wasn't exactly mortal.

"Then why don't you tell Jimmy the truth about who you are," Kristin prodded. Few knew the truth about Scott's godly status- Phil, most notably, and Wilbur. And now, she supposed, all who were on the Dream SMP. Otherwise, most knew Scott as someone who had a connection to the god of champions, and carried out his invitations to the games- not that Scott himself was the god in question.

"I... I don't know. Maybe it's safer for him if he never knows," Scott said with a sigh. Kristin squinted at him suspiciously.

"Scott, I've known you for centuries. Tell me the real reason you don't want to tell him," she said pointedly. Scott laughed nervously, rubbing the back of his neck. With a deep breath, his expression settled into something more solemn.

"I don't want things to be different between us. I liked the way it was, on that modified hardcore world. We had a flower valley, with a pond and overgrowth and- and his silly insistence on wanting to protect me, like I was the fragile one, not him. I even experienced a brief afterlife with him, after we had lost all our lives on that world. And that... that was beautiful. But then things reset, and he was reincarnated. And how could I not follow him?" Scott said wistfully. His eyes shone with bittersweet tears, a fond smile on his face.

"You truly have the heart of a mortal, my friend," Kristin said with a soft smile. Scott chuckled, shaking his head.

"Well I certainly can't let anyone know that, think of my reputation," he joked. Kristin laughed.

"Oh please, we all know how much you cherish your champions," she teased.

"Don't tell a soul," Scott said in a mock-serious tone.

"Oh please, the only souls I know are dead ones," Kristin replied with a chuckle. Scott laughed too, but it fell short as his eyes landed on the flowers that decorated the teacups.

"I think the worst part is that he sees me as an enemy. I guess rightfully so, I pushed him away because I was afraid of letting him back in. I don't think I'll be able to look him in the eyes if we end up on the opposite sides of a battle," Scott said, voice fragile as the delicate teacups on the table before them.

"Maybe there's still time to make amends. You could extend some token of peace towards him?" Kristin suggested gently.

"Maybe. I just..." Scott trailed off.

"You just want to mope around in a world of constant hardship and destruction?" Kristin teased lightly, smirking. Scott laughed.

"I guess the Dream SMP isn't the greatest place to hide out," he said, still chuckling. Kristin was relieved to see her friend back to his more genuine smiley self, multicolored eyes glinting with amusement.

"Maybe not. Are Phil and Wilbur staying out of trouble?" Kristin asked, picking her tea back up to sip at. Scott laughed again.

"Staying out of trouble is asking a lot for your family. But I think Phil has forced Wilbur to make friends with Ranboo," he replied, picking up his tea as well.

"Oh? How did that go?" Kristin asked.

"Not sure, honestly. I think they opened a burger place? I've mostly been keeping to myself in the Innit Hotel," Scott said with a shrug.

"I'm sure Tommy loves that," Kristin said dryly.

"Oh yes, cussed me out until I threatened to not let him on mcc anymore. He changed his tune pretty quickly," Scott laughed.

"Doesn't Jack actually own the hotel now?" Kristin asked.

"Yes, but Tommy doesn't seem to know that," Scott answered with a sigh, shaking his head.

"I'm sure he'll get over it. Probably still a little jumbled from being brought back," Kristin muttered, unable to help looking miffed at that. She wasn't exactly fond of people being torn from her domain, especially by an overzealous mortal and the god who he eerily resembled. Although she couldn't exactly blame XD, the book had called him and he was forced to answer.

“Maybe life and death shouldn’t be toyed with anymore,” Scott said softly, after a few beats of silence. Kristin thought of Scott’s struggles with death and rebirth, then thought of her own family. Her husband who survived and lived, never dying- and her son, who fought and died, but ended up living.

“You wouldn’t see me complaining,” Kristin replied, voice coming out more melancholy than she meant it to. Scott looked to her with brows creased in sympathy.

“What a pair we make,” he said with a humorless laugh. Kristin laughed too, just as bleak as Scott’s own laugh.

“The goddess of death whose loved ones live, and the god of champions whose loved ones lose,” she said, voice forlorn. Scott set down his tea, dropping his gaze from Kristin’s.

“I do tend to be drawn towards the lost ones, don’t I?” he said with a weak smile.

“Nothing wrong with rooting for the underdog,” Kristin pointed out with a shrug. Scott looked at the flowers on the teacups, and his smile was a bit brighter this time around, less sad and bittersweet.

“I guess not. Maybe you’re right, maybe there is time to smooth things out with Jimmy,” Scott said, looking back up at Kristin.

“Good! Being mopey doesn’t suit you. And telling him the truth couldn’t hurt either,” Kristin insisted brightly. Scott rolled his eyes with a chuckle.

“Okay Mumza, no need to get on my case. I said I’d try and smooth things over, not reveal that I’m an all-powerful god that was married to him once because I like playing mortal,” he replied, dragging out her nickname with a teasing grin. Kristin grinned back.

“I guess your situation is a little different than when I told Phil I was a goddess,” she said semi-sheepishly.

“Phil was also hopelessly head-over-heels for you when you told him. Jimmy is decidedly not,” Scott pointed out with a laugh.

“Oh Jimmy will come around eventually. If he knows what’s good for him,” Kristin said, sipping at her tea. Scott blinked at her in confusion.

“Are you threatening my ex-husband?” he asked, tone so adorably baffled that Kristin couldn’t help but laugh.

“All I meant was that he doesn’t know what he’s missing. Any man would be lucky to have captured your attention," she clarified with a teasing grin. Scott flushed in embarrassment, the aura around him tinging pink.

“You’re acting like an embarrassing mum trying to convince her son to get out there and start dating,” Scott huffed, trying to play off his flusteredness.

“You’re the one who called me ‘Mumza,’” Kristin pointed out, still grinning.

“This is rude, I’m being attacked and you’re twisting my words against me now-” Scott cut off with a laugh, unable to keep up the mock-offended act as his aura shifted back to being a neutral warm color. Scott finally looked the most himself that he had been all day- aura full of warmth, a smile on his face, and color-shifting eyes sparkling.

“Oh, whatever will you do?” Kristin teased. Scott shook his head, picking up his tea and finishing it off with one last sip before standing from the table.

“I think I’m gonna leave, actually. It’s about time I head out anyway,” Scott said. Kristin looked at how low her own tea had gotten, and sighed before standing with a gentle smile.

“Well as always, it was wonderful to have you. I hope everything works out,” she said softly, holding out her arms. Scott hugged her without hesitation, and Kristin got the feeling he was silently thanking her for her advice through the hug.

“See you next week?” Scott asked after he pulled away.

“I look forward to it,” Kristin replied. Scott smiled, giving a two-fingered salute before disappearing in a burst of color. The lightshow faded, leaving Kristin in her rather gloomy domain. The loneliness after a fellow deity left was always the worst, and the heavy conversation from before didn’t help matters much. Scott and Kristin were very similar beings for two deities that ruled over extremely different things- both of their hearts were too big, too smitten with mortals. Scott could at least compete alongside mortals if he so chose, but Kristin was in a plane of existence that her loved ones could only reach through tragedy. Perhaps Scott had it worse- Kristin could at least distance herself from mortals, while Scott stubbornly refused to. But all the same, Kristin was hopeful that things would work out for the god of champions. And maybe, things would work out for her family as well.

-

MCYT Taglist: @corazon10000 @damiensaidno @franticfandomfanatic @hetapeep41 @space-ace123

[faeriejukyung]

True Beauty’s Gaping Mother Wound

*disclaimer*: I understand that all the listed traits are things which are often very common in Asian households, and it may seem that rather than being concerning, these are just a part of Asian culture. That is why, I feel that it’s necessary for me to make it clear that I am, in fact, Asian (Indian to be specific), and parental abuse is something that is extremely normalized here. As someone who has experienced it firsthand, I want to say that just because something is common/normal, doesn’t necessarily mean that it is correct. If you or anyone you know is in a situation like that, it’s very very important to speak out. And it’s not your fault, i know it’s easier to believe that way but it’s really not. We deserve to be in a loving environment, regardless of what culture we are born in.

Throughout the drama, Jukyung’s mother shows many traits of an abusive mother. I have been able to outline 4 of them. I don’t mean to write her off as an evil character,, because overall she is well intentioned, and just like any other mom, she does love Jukyung. This is shown in episode 8 too, where she shows remorse for her actions. That however, doesn’t justify her abusive behavioral patterns in any way. Because we can see how badly it affects Jukyung, her self esteem and her overall view of herself.

-

Act 1: “I’m going to kill you today and go to jail” -- Physical Violence.

Throughout the series, we see Jukyung's mother being very violent. But one scene which particularly stood out to me was the scene where she finds out about Jukyung's dad getting scammed. (in episode 1). While it is true that her dad caused a huge financial loss to the family, and anyone would feel angry in a situation like that, it is also true that there is never a good reason to physically abuse someone.

After hearing the news, Jukyung's mom is overcome by anger. It's completely okay to feel frustrated, but the way she violently jumped at her husband, clearly intentioned to hurt him, and the way she needed to be held back by juyoung and heekyung highlights her abusive nature. And this isn't a one time thing where she momentarily lost control of herself. She constantly shows similar behavioural traits throughout the drama.

In the scene where we see Jukyung's mom and dad together properly for the first time, their relationship dynamic is established. He's meekly massaging her shoulders while she orders him around. Their is an obvious power imbalance in the relationship, and the way Jukyung's dad cowers in fear around Jukyung's mom is a proof of that.

-

Act 2: "Why would you kill my precious son?" -- Conditional Love.

We see examples of Jukyung’s Mom’s conditional love in the kdrama AND in the webtoon. Conditional love is when a parent or a parental figure makes their child compete for love. They withhold their affection until the kid acts in ways that are desirable to them, and if the kid fails to do so, the parent often punishers them through different methods. This is their way of maintaining control over their children.

Jukyung’s Mom’s conditional love manifests itself in the form of favoritism towards her eldest daughter Heekyung, who’s not only conventionally beautiful but also very smart and has a high paying job, and towards her youngest child and only son, Juyoung, who is also written to be very attractive. Both Juyoung and Heekyung have gifts that Jukyung does not posses -- beauty and brains. The conditions that are established in order to attain their mother’s affection are getting good grades at school, and being conventionally attractive, which is why Jukyung often gets the shorter end of the stick

In the scene where we are first meet Heekyung is the drama, their mom’s affection towards her is very evident.

This is shown in the webtoon too.

She displays this favoritism towards Juyoung too, and even more so. In episode 1 where Jukyung tries makeup for the first time, and gets ridiculed by him for doing a bad job at it, she naturally feels angry and yells at him, “do you want to die?!”, but instead of telling Juyoung to stop, their mother yells at Jukyung for yelling at Juyoung (”why would you kill my precious son? why?”). It’s already very evident that Juyoung has picked up the habit of constantly taunting Jukyung for her face from his mom. In the webtoon, when Jukyung decides that she wants to pursue makeup arts and asks for her mom’s support and fees for academy, her mom flat-out refuses, saying that they don’t have enough money. However as we find out later, money wasn’t the problem, because she had enough money to send Juyoung to a cram school for acting.

I find it hard to believe that any good parent would constantly compare their children and pit them against each other like this. In the webtoon and the kdrama, it is made clear that Juyoung doesn’t have particularly good grades either, but he doesn’t have to face his mother’s wrath by the virtue of being good looking. Jukyung on the other hand, does not have any redeeming qualities.

-

Act 3: “I’m going to throw all your makeup away” --Excessive Anger.

Another sign of parental abuse is display of excessive anger. It’s usually used as an intimidation tactic to keep the child in line. Sometimes, it can simply happen because they lose control of themselves. Either way, parents who get angry more often than what is supposed to be normal, and hurt their children (physically or verbally) in the midst of their anger, repeatedly, are abusive. I feel like I don’t even need to elaborate on this one. Jukyung’s Mom is angry during half of her scenes. And the way she acts upon that anger crosses the limit too. Don’t get me wrong, it’s important to express your the way you feel, but the way Jukyung’s Mom does it, is extremely unhealthy and hurtful to others around her. Whether she’s jumping on Jukyung’s dad or talking down on Im Jukyung, she’s very inconsiderate of how her anger affects others. She almost always expresses herself in an extremely volatile way.

Jukyung described makeup as a hopeful light opening up a new life for her. There’s even a whole music segment of her discovering the powers of makeup, characterized by pastel and bubblegum tones, and the segment has a magical feel to it. Suffice to say that makeup brought an almost magical kind of hope and optimism to her life. In episode 6, Jukyung's Mom goes to her school to get her report card. When she sees her low grades, she gets so angry that she threatens to throw away her makeup, without once considering why Jukyung is so attached to it. In my eyes, she's actually very similar to Soojin's dad who also uses intimidation and physical violence to keep his daughter in line. If we put the same background music for the scenes where we see Jukyung's Mom threatening her, as the ones where Soojin's dad abuses her, they'd practically be identical. The only difference is that the show often plays Jukyung's Mom's behavior as a joke.

In episode 7, after seeing that Jukyung didn't improve as much as she wanted her to, she actually threw away all her makeup. Even though Jukyung did try, and did improve, it still wasn't enough for her mom. Jukyung's restlessness after not seeing her makeup on her table was palpable through the screen. Finding out that her mother threw all her makeup away sort became her breaking point. We see her yell at her mother and express her feelings for the first time.

I think it's important to note that Jukyung, who's already finds it very tough to reach out to her courageous side, was inspired by this incident to stand up to her mom, to express her outrage. Saying that makeup meant a lot to her is an understatement.

-

Act 4: "What's the point of looking beautiful with all that makeup on if you're ugly underneath?" -- Verbal Abuse.

We all get into arguments with our parents from time to time, and I’m sure we’ve all been yelled at by them at some point. Verbal abuse however, is not something that is normal, and the two shouldn’t be confused. A parent who constantly humiliates their child, yells and screams at them, talks down on them is in simple terms, an abuser. 

In episode 1, when Jukyung tries makeup on for the first time and goes to school, she gets ridiculed by her bullies and her classmates. Crestfallen, she returns back home after school and goes to her mother for reassurance. Instead of providing that, her mother ridicules her even more and calls her makeup “Ghost Makeup”. This is something abusers often do. Under the guise of teasing the victim, they often attack the victim’s self esteem, appearance etc, to make them feel insecure and to maintain their position of power over them. Jukyung’s mother isn’t very different from those bullies who told Jukyung that she was ugly and made her feel like she could never amount to anything. 

Another example that irks me a lot is from episode 3, when Jukyung’s Mom is chewing her out for being late, and suddenly the conversation turns to cosmetics and makeup. This is also one of the traits of verbal abuse. Instead of arguments surrounding the basic issue, they branch out and turn into character assassination. Her mom accuses Jukyung of wasting all her time on makeup instead of studying, even when Jukyung clarifies that she got late because she missed her bus, not because she was out buying cosmetics. But her mom doesn't listen and says to her, “What’s the point of looking beautiful with all that makeup on when you’re still ugly underneath?” 

Jukyung’s face after hearing her own mother say that was heartbreaking. Unfortunately, this type of mother-daughter relationship dynamic isn’t something  that is rare. Mothers frequently project their own insecurities on their daughters and put them down. Jukyung’s Mother’s behavior explains her self esteem issues, it gives an insight about where her insecurities really stem from. Sometimes our abuser’s thoughts and image of us start maligning our own self image. Frequently hearing them tell us that we are worthless, and that no one will ever marry us or love us, makes us believe that we are in fact, worthless and incapable of being loved unless we change something about ourselves. We frequently get an insight into how Jukyung thinks of herself throughout the drama. 

“It’s not my fault that I was born dumb” (In episode 7, after finding out that her mother threw away her makeup.)

“You know that I’m messed up” (In episode 2, referring to her face, while asking Lee Suho to keep her bare face a secret)

The drama is yet to end so I don’t want to completely write Jukyung’s Mother off as an abuser. I hope she becomes a better mom in the show, I really do. Because Jukyung deserves a loving mother. And Jukyung's mom does in fact have a few redeeming qualities, however, simply love and caring isn’t enough, you need mutual respect, reassurance and effort in each every relationship. We know that Jukyung’s mother is also often labelled as an ugly woman, and she believes that she could only get by through studying well. (“It’s going to be okay as long as you study well” - episode 1). In a world where a woman either has to a exceptionally beautiful to be considered worthy, or be exceptionally intelligent and professional lest she isn’t blessed by beauty, it’s very easy to internalize self hatred and direct it on to other individuals (especially if those individuals are your children). That is why i genuinely find myself rooting for Jukyung’s mother and hoping for a character development arc -- because i understand where she comes from, and because i can empathize with her. 

-

Fin.

[airplanned]

Trill AU part 4

Sad times on the bridge, and I get to write technobabble

***

Part 1

They hurried down three corridors before Zelda said, "Does it seem strangely quiet to you?"

It did.  In the dim light, Link was trying not to ask himself the obvious question of where everyone was.  He made a sorry attempt to explain it.  "It's late and this deck is all personal quarters."

"But no one's reporting to emergency stations but us?"

So of course they turned the last corner to find a body on the floor. 

Ensign Bogts.  Zelda checked his pulse and rolled him over while Link popped open a nearby locker and pulled out a tricorder.  She took it out of his hands before he could start taking readings.  Lifting an eyebrow, he let her rudeness pass. 

"He's...fine?  His vitals are all normal."

His body did look relaxed, his face at ease and his chest softly rising and falling.

"He just passed out here?"

Her eyebrows pinched together as she continued to scan.  "He has an abnormal delta wave pattern.  It looks like a kind of artificial sleep."

"Is everyone on the ship like this?"

She looked up at him in concern.

He swallowed, looking down at Ensign Bogts as all the hair on the back of his neck stood on end. 

"So why not us?"

*

The bridge crew was passed out at their stations, and Link went straight to check the commander's pulse where he was slumped back in his chair.  Ensign Xik had fallen out of his seat at ops, and Zelda stepped over him neatly to take his seat.  "I should be able to get main power up," she said.  Link headed for the con, removing Lt Tate from his chair as gently as possible and laying him out on the floor.

A low hum built under their feet and the lights blinked back on.  Link took a relieved breath and pulled up a status report.  

"I have thrusters," he said.

"Bringing the main engine back online."

"We need shields and sensors."

"Give me one...you've got sensors."

He immediately ran a sweep.   "Sensor report coming in."

"On screen."

It was as if a sheen of oil was draped over the ship, a shimmer of green and pink dancing like the northern lights.  Zelda pulled up an image on her console and turned the whole thing so he could see.  It was as if the ship had run into a flat sheet, dragging it with them until it wrapped around the ship's nose and trailed behind them.  "It's giving off delta wave pulses.  That's what's putting everyone to sleep.  At a higher amplitude it could have knocked out main power.  Probably when we first hit it."

"We're caught in a net," he said.

She nodded.  "It doesn't look natural."

He turned back to the con.  "Let's not stick around and find out who caught us.  Can we get the shields back up?"

"Raising shields."

The lights went out.  The gentle, omnipresent rumble of the floor stilled as the engine shut down again.

Link tried to bring up a status report.  "Well, that didn't work.  Main power's back out."

She sighed.  "Bringing it back online."

Lights turned back on and they both held their breath, waiting for power to fail once more.

"No sudden moves," he said.

He checked the sensor's image of the phenomena.  "If we use minimal thrusters, it looks like we can back out of it."

"Decrease thrusters to quarter power."

That made it slow going, but there wasn't really a rush.  He eased the ship back, back, watching the power read outs and the sensor image on the side of his console.

"Down two degrees," she said, and he adjusted course, hissing as the edge of the net caught around the port nacell, sending a tremor through the ship.

They froze.  He let the net settle, then tried again, pulling up and forward, only to strain against part of the net draped over the saucer section.

"It's tightening," she said.  And sure enough where before it looked like they were dragging an inanimate sheet behind them, that sheet was now tangled, adhering to the hull.

He lifted his hands from the console in surrender.

Zelda had out her tricorder again, this time running it over herself.  "I think it's the symbionts."

"Their brains aren't affected by delta waves."

"They must be keeping us conscious."

Link looked down at his terminal, running through his options.  Then he narrowed his eyes at her. 

She straightened.  "What?"

"You come aboard and the ship gets attacked by something that doesn't affect bonded Trills."

Her brief anxiety melted into annoyance.  "You think I did this."

He gave her a blank stare.

"Why would I do this?"

"Handing over a Federation vessel could be profitable.  Risky.  But you've gotten away with worse."

She folded her arms over her chest, giving him a scathing look.  "Everyone on board is asleep and you're still going to pretend that it was me that gave away the defense codes."

"Only two people knew those codes."

"That's right.  And of those two people, one of us vanished in the night.  The other stuck around and cleaned up your mess."

"The mess of my dead body?  That mess?  Tell me, how much blood was there?  Did you cut Fi out yourself or did you get someone like Groose to do it for you?"

Her change in expression was subtle--a barely noticeable stiffening, a faint drain of the color in her cheeks. She looked horrified. Haunted. She turned away, and tapped out some new controls on the console.

"What are you doing?"

"There's no point explaining myself to you."  Her voice shook.  "You're..."  Her fingers faltered.  She covered her mouth with a hand and took a shaking breath.  "You're just going to torment me until whoever comes to collect us shows up.  You're just going to blame me for everything you've done until I feel like I'm going crazy."

Link frowned.  When a tear skipped down her cheek he started to panic.

"Wait."

She shook her head, her trembling hands back at work.

"Zelda."  He reached for her, and she jerked away, spinning to glare at him, her arms gripping the console as if ready to run, her jaw set in a way that looked so much like Sheik--Sheik when she tried to look threatening to hide her fear.

He lifted his hands in surrender, searching her face.  

He couldn't see the lie.  He'd never been able to see the lie.  

But it must be there.  Right?

"What...what do you think happened?"

He didn’t have to specify when, which of the many incidents in their shared past was at the forefront of both their minds.

She stared at him for a long moment, gathering all her righteous indignation to power herself through her speech.  "Ravio vanished.  Everyone searched for days.  We didn't know what had happened.  And then suddenly...Suddenly the defense grid just dropped.  And one little shuttlecraft flew past.  Up and away toward the warship.  What I think happened was that Ravio sold us out so Fi could return to Trill."

Return to Trill.

He stared at her, shaking his head over and over as if that would make it stop.  

He had to fight to find his voice.  "Tetra sent Ravio a message to meet at tower 2.  She said she had good news, and he thought...  He was looking out the window, and the door opened behind me and I saw your shape in the reflection of the glass.  And then you shot me in the back. I woke up four months later in an asteroid mining facility in a different host. It took me days to get news and by then it was too late."

"Tetra never sent you any message."

"Ravio didn’t cut a deal to go back to Trill."

Her eyebrows pinched together.  "Fi wouldn't have survived for four months without a host."

"Yeah, but Pipit was a hot mess of a host.  It was an unstable bond.  He started off in a comma and then he was confused and panicky for more than a year before he calmed down.  He'd think it was the wrong year, that he was the wrong host.  He had disordered episodes for the rest of his life.  He lost time so often that four months is nothing."  Link caught himself.  "I say all that with love.  He went through a lot."

It startled a croak of a laugh from her.

And then they were staring at each other again.  

"I would never have killed you," she said.  “Please don’t make me think about his body.”

He quirked a sad smile.  "I want to believe that."

"I want to believe you, but...that might be me who wants that. It might be someone else.  Someone younger. Less wise. Someone who still looks at you and feels..." 

Warmth lit in his chest, and he hated it and loved it, and maybe it wasn't so messed up after all that he wanted so badly to trust someone who had hurt him so thoroughly.

"Yeah," he said.  "That about sums it up."

They stared at their consoles.  She wiped her eye with her wrist in a way she thought was discreet and he thought was endearing.

Carefully, he asked, "What's your next plan?" and gestured at the tricorder.

She cleared her throat.  "The EM pulses from the symbionts neutralize the delta waves, so if I can adjust the deflector beam to the same frequency modulation--"

"--With a wide enough confinement beam, we can neutralize the delta wave net."  He was already on it, his fingers flying over the console.

"We need to lower the power so we don't cause another blackout."

"It we adjust the--" 

Something dinged on his console.  Proximity alert.

He shared a look with her, trying to tell if this was the moment she'd shoot him again.  It was that same fierce look to protect herself, and who knew what that meant.

Another ding, and her voice turned tight as she said, "They're hailing us."

"Putting them on screen," he said.

A pair of Trils stared back at them.  "Oh," one of them said.  "We were wondering how you had power, but this makes sense."

Link tried to sound calm as he said, "This is the Federation Starship Naboris.  How can we help you?"

The Trills scoffed.  "I don't think you're in any position to help anyone."

Part 5

[disneylanddilettante]

The Disney Renaissance Killed the Disneyland Star

This post has been brewing and stewing in my brain for some time.

We here in the Disney theme park fandom are prone to lament the modern attraction design philosophy that says everything must be based on a movie. Aside from spectacularly clueless comments about “a random mountain in India or whatever” and misuse of the term “barrier to entry,” the reason behind it seems to boil down to: That’s what guests want. On the one hand, this is very clearly an excuse to do what Marketing wants (because film IPs are proprietary in a way that broad concepts are not, and can be merchandised accordingly), but on the other hand…it seems to be…kind of…true? The vast majority of the public, in my experience, does think of Disneyland (which I am going to use as synecdoche for all Disney parks, because it’s the one I grew up with, it’s easy to say, and because I can) as a place where you see Disney characters walking around as if they were real, and go on rides based on Disney movies, and anything else there is just to, idk, fill space until they can think of a cool movie makeover for it.

I have spoken to people online who quite enjoy Disneyland, but also think the Enchanted Tiki Room should become a Moana attraction, Tom Sawyer Island should be something to do with The Princess and the Frog, and the Matterhorn should be turned into Frozen. When I challenged them as to why, they didn’t seem to understand the question—what did I mean, “why?” Isn’t it self-evident? A couple years ago, one of the Super Carlin Brothers (I don’t remember which one; anyway I couldn’t tell them apart if you put a gun to my head) made a video expressing bafflement over the use of Figment as a mascot in Epcot because “He’s not from anything.” As if a ride in that very parkwere nothing.

So there is something to the assertion that film IP tie-ins are what regular guests expect and want. But the question remains as to why they want that—after all, it didn’t used to be that way. Costumed characters and rides based on movies have always been part of Disneyland, of course, but in past decades, the most elaborate and promoted attractions were the ones based on unique concepts that had nothing to do with the movies. The reasons to love Disneyland were things like the Haunted Mansion and the Mark Twain and Space Mountain…not so much the chance to meet Mickey Mouse. So what gave the public the idea that it was all about movies and characters? I’m sure there are several reasons, but I’m going to focus on one that I don’t see brought up that often.

I’m going to blame the Disney Renaissance.

Let me give you some personal background. I’m a young Gen-Xer, born in 1977. I was a child of the 80s…and in the 80s, Disney wasn’t doing so hot. Feature Animation had dropped to a cinematic release about once every four years, the live-action division was even less productive, and the corporate raiders were pawing at the door. In those days, when I saw a Disney movie in theaters, probably four times out of five it was a re-release of an older classic. (Anyone else remember when that was a thing?) There wasn’t much new at Disneyland either. The biggest thing to happen in the first half of the decade was the remodel of Fantasyland, which added one new ride—based on Pinocchio, a 43-year-old film—and otherwise just rearranged and refined what had always been there. On the other hand, the big Imagineering projects of the 60s and 70s were mostly still going strong.

The upshot is that if you were a Disney fan in those days (there weren’t many of us, even in my age cohort), you were a fan of the older movies and/or the parks. And for all its genuine quality, that stuff was showing its age. It was made in decades past, and there was a corniness and a quaintness to much of it. Most of the kids my age considered Disney “baby stuff” and were eager to put it behind them. It seems to have been a widespread phenomenon, because I don’t remember the park being very crowded when I was a young kid. Queues for even the roller coasters tended to top out around 45 minutes and it was very rare that we didn’t have time to do everything we wanted on a given visit.

And then, the year I turned 12—the year my age bracket hit puberty and could definitively be said to have outgrown cartoons altogether (except for the weirdos like me)—The Little Mermaid hit theaters.

Two years later, we got Beauty and the Beast.

And the hits kept coming. Suddenly, Disney was the hottest thing in entertainment again. Not just kids—by this time the generation that would come to be known as Millennials—but their parents watched these movies and went wow, this is really good. Disney is better than I thought. Maybe we should rent some of those older movies that I remember from when I was a kid. Maybe we should go to Disneyland… Unlike in the past, when families went to Disneyland because it was advertised and known as a family destination, families went to Disneyland because the kids were going gaga over the new Disney movies and the parents wanted to make them happy.

So a whole new generation of fans flocked to the parks, most probably never having been before, or not recently. They didn’t know what to expect. They just knew they loved these new movies with their endearing lead characters (so much more full of personality than Snow White or Alice or Pinocchio) and their big bombastic Broadway-style musical numbers (so much more in line with current musical tastes than the Tin Pan Alley ditties from Cinderella or Peter Pan or The Jungle Book). That’s what they wanted from Disney, whether they were paying six bucks a head plus popcorn, or fifty bucks a head plus lodging.

And that would have been fine but for the fact that endearing characters and big bombastic musical numbers are really hard to build traditional dark rides around. What you can do, though, for people who want to meet their favorite characters, is build dedicated character meet-and-greet spots. What you can do for people who want to sing along with Academy Award-winning songs is create huge colorful parades and stage shows that feature those songs. Best of all, if you are certain people who shall go unnamed, these sorts of things are much cheaper to create and operate than rides. Corporate was more than happy to meet, rather than try to exceed, the expectations of this new wave of fans.

The newer guests got used to seeing more-or-less verbatim (condensed) film content in the form of these shows and parades. The classic dark rides began to look decidedly odd to them—why are the movie events out of order? Why doesn’t the main character show up more? Why don’t we get to hear all the songs? And no one was there to explain it to them, because the older generations of fans had largely drifted away and the internet wasn’t quite a household staple yet. Rides that weren’t even based on a movie seemed even odder—what does a Wild West roller coaster have to do with Disney? What does a submarine ride have to do with Disney? I thought this park was supposed to be for kids, but my kids don’t recognize this stuff! They should build a Lion King ride! They should build a Toy Story ride! That Snow White ride isn’t suitable for kids; they should do something about that! I didn’t pay all this money to stand in line for an hour and a half and go on a ride that my kids don’t get!

The pattern was set. IP tie-ins were what the people wanted, and they closer they hewed to their source material, the more guest approval they got, simply because people didn’t know any different. And it has snowballed from there. The Disney Renaissance was amazing for the art of animation, but I think it was a net negative for the art of theme parks.

Tl;dr The Disney Renaissance changed guest expectations for Disney entertainment products in ways that were incompatible with classic Imagineering principles.

[btxtreads]

run away | extra

RUN AWAY: EXTRA

It is so much easier to get people to hate something than to believe. Part of the Grimoire Series

➴ Pairing: Choi Soobin x Reader ➴ Rating: R-16 ➴ Word Count: 2.7k ➴ Genre: Twisted Fairytales, Yandere, Smut ➴ Trigger Warning: Graphic murder, Y/N AND SOOBIN ARE DOING THE DIDDLY DO 😭😭😭, Kai is very babie but will also kill u, Taehyun is just bored, Y/N is psychotic part 4

man idk it was just stuck in the brain rip. not much romance in this part other than some kisses and a very detailed :)))) smut scene between Y/N and Soobin, but this is only in Sungho’s POV. Mostly focused on Kai and Tae rather than Soobin and Y/N whoops. Kinda badly written i just wanted to write murder im sorry.

Sungho never thought he’d see the day where he’d sit on a log on the floor on front of a campfire—eyes locked onto his older sister as she walked around in a beautiful pink dress with a smile on her face. But, here he was.

He sighed, spoon digging into the bowl in his hands silently as he chewed on his food. It was in this moment when a boy sat next to him.

“Hey, I’m Hangyeol. I wasn’t able to introduce myself to you last night!” The cheery boy grinned as he waved over to the king. “I’m kind of the oldest kid here right now.”

“Hi,” the king introduced himself softly with a nod. “I’m Sungho. I’m Y/N’s little brother.”

At this, Hangyeol laughed and shook his head.

“No, you’re not.”

Sungho furrowed his eyebrows as he set his bowl down, tilting his head at the boy.

“Yes, I am?”

“Where did you sleep last night?”

Sungho blinked, wondering why the question was important. Immediately, his eyes flew over to the direction of the Lost Boy camp—remembering the hammock he slept in the night before, and where he’ll sleep again tonight.

“Hammocks? Yeah, you’re not her brother.” Hangyeol snorted, patting Sungho’s back. “it’s okay, though! We’re lost boys, Soobin and Y/N-ie is there not to take care of us, but to lead us to our best selves—our free selves.”

“Wait, wait,” Sungho shook his head, turning to the older boy. “What does the hammocks have to do with whether I’m Y/N’s brother or not?”

Before Hangyeol can reply, a boy with wide eyes and a bright grin plopped down next to them. He wore a thin white shirt that was almost loose on his frame, his blonde hair tousled as if he was somewhere windy—perfect, clean and completely different from the lost boys who almost seemed as if they wore rags.

“Oh, hi Tae.” Hangyeol greeted. “Where were you?”

“I had a race with Kai.” the boy, Tae, snorted as he raised a cup to his lips. “As usual, I was faster.”

“No, you weren’t!” came a loud voice.

Sungho jumped as another body plopped down next to Tae. This time, it was a tall boy with dark brown hair and chubby cheeks. His lips were in a small pout as he clutched a chicken leg in his hands. He wore a fluffy blue sweater that was perfectly clean and spotless—which was also a stark difference from the lost boys’ dirty, patched, dark-colored clothes.

“If I didn’t trip over that rock you put in the middle of the field, I would have won.”

“This is Taehyun and Kai,” Hyangyeol introduced. “Guys, this is Sungho. I’ll leave you guys be.”

As the older left, Taehyun’s gaze flew over to the boy with raised eyebrows, eyes raking him up and down apprehensively.

“So, you’re Sungho?” Taehyun asked slowly, as Hueningkai tilted his head.

“Ah, we were told this morning you were here.” Kai nodded.

Sungho furrowed his eyebrows.

“I didn’t see you two yesterday at the hammocks, though.” Sungho explained, making Taehyun laugh.

“Well, we don’t live there.”

Sungho furrowed his eyebrows, but before he can respond, Y/N arrived—hands on both Kai and Taehyun’s shoulders.

“Hey, sweetheart.” Y/N greeted placing a soft kiss on the crown of Hueningkai’s head. “Where have you two been?”

Kai’s eyes sparkled as he turned over to the girl, almost shaking in excitement as he gasped.

“Tae taught me how to fly today!”

“He barely floated.” Taehyun snorted.

Sungho saw his sister’s eyes light up in curiosity as he reached out to the other boy and running her hands affectionately through his hair.

“That’s still progress, Kai. I’m so proud of you, sweetheart!” Y/N cheered before her eyes fell on Taehyun. “Your hair’s not red anymore. You’re blonde.”

“Do you like it?” Taehyun asked, a smile on his face as he gasped excitedly. “Soobin-hyung helped me with it earlier!”

“I love it, you look really good.” Y/N chuckled as she leaned down to fix his hair properly. “My little prince.”

“You two can fly by yourselves?” Sungho gasped in surprise as he regarded the two teens and his sister. “When can I learn how to fly by myself, sis?”

Y/N’s eyes danced with amusement as he turned to Sungho.

“You… want to fly by yourself?” Hueningkai asked, eyes turning confused as he turned to Taehyun. “He’s not allowed to do magic, though?”

Y/N’s lips tilted to a grin as Soobin approached them.

“Did you see my gifts to you two?” Soobin asked the two as he came, ruffling both of their hairs. “I got them earlier.”

“No, we have gifts? Where?” Kai asked.

“I left it on your beds.” Y/N explained.

“Bed?” Sungho asked his sister. “How come they get a bed? I have to sleep in a hammock.”

“Well, they’re my—“

“I’m your little brother!” Sungho complained, making Taehyun turn to him with an irritated sigh.

“No, you’re not.”

Sungho turned over to him with a glare.

“Yes, I am. You aren’t!”

At Sungho’s raised voice, Kai looked shocked. Taehyun only pursed his lips as he gave Sungho a once-over before turning to Y/N with a sigh.

“Kai, Tae,” Y/N said, a forced smile on her lips. “Maybe we should get back to the house, okay?”

“House?” Sungho asked incredulously. “You guys have a house?”

“Sungho,” Y/N sighed as she turned to the young king with an annoyed tone. “Drop it.”

Sungho watched as she whispered to the two boys, who looked at each other with bright smiles before excitedly running towards the forest hand-in-hand. Then, his sister gave him one last annoyed glance before turning her back to him, following the two young boys into the forest. It was only then when Sungho noticed the tall boy—Soobin, Peter Pan, whoever he was—smirk and pat his back.

“In here, you aren’t her brother—that would be Taehyun and Kai. They’re the princes of this island, and we’re the king and queen. Your status means nothing here.” Soobin instructed. “A little tip to help you, since you really don’t want to see her angry: don’t be rude to Taehyun or Kai at all. She doesn’t like that.”

“Who are they?” Sungho asked angrily, turning to his sister’s husband. “I’m her brother—I’m her only brother! Me and Junseo!”

Soobin tilted his head, mirth in his eyes as he stood up, crossing his arms with a smirk.

“Not anymore.”

Before he can reply, Soobin flicked his wrist and the campfire died suddenly. The tall boy turned back to the lost boys, calling out.

“Go to your hammocks. Call it a night.”

Sungho frowned as Soobin patted his shoulder.

“Get some rest.”

The young king glared at the tall boy’s back as he walked in the direction where his sister and the two boys disappeared.

That same night, Sungho found himself walking the path where his sister, Soobin and the two boys went to. He couldn’t believe his eyes when the muddy path he was walking turned into concrete, beautiful patterns etched onto the path and lights draped on the trees leading up to a gigantic white house.

The area in front was littered with purple and pink pansies, and he can see the door into the house slightly ajar. Sungho made his way in, mouth dropping open at the marble steps leading up to the many levels above. To his left, he can see a big kitchen area—fruits and pastries set in a basket, plates and utensils neatly stacked in a shelf.

Sungho made his way up, furrowing his eyebrows at the portrait hung at the top of the stairs. It was a portrait of his sister and Soobin, with the two boys from earlier—only Tae had red hair and Kai had longer hair. Sungho frowned as he saw expensive looking decor on the table in front of it.

He made his way down the hallway, fingers brushing books from shelves lining the corridors. he finally ended up in front of a door that’s slightly open. 

He peeked in to see Y/N’s shaking figure on the bed, supporting herself on her hands and knees as Soobin’s tall figure loomed over her, a hand covering her breast and the other pulling on her hair. His head was head buried on her neck as his hips moved against hers, the headboard slamming against the wall rapidly as Y/N cries started to get louder and louder—sobs falling from her lips.

“Soobin, keep going, fuck.” Y/N groaned. “Fucking ruin me, please. God.”

Soobin suddenly stopped his thrusts and lifted his head from Y/N’s neck, smirking as he turned his head over to the door with raised eyebrows. Y/N whimpered as she clutched the sheets underneath her tighter, pleading falling out of her mouth as she begged Soobin to continue.

Sungho gasped silently as he pressed his back against the wall next to the door—hiding himself out of plain view. Sweat pooled on his forehead as he waited. He was expecting Soobin to call him out for walking into their house without permission and walking in while the elder was being intimate with his sister.

However, he only heard soft shuffles as Soobin’s husky voice spoke up.

“Get on top of me, princess.”

Sungho almost gagged when he heard his sister whimper once more just a few seconds later, the bed’s headboard hitting the wall again. At this, Sungho declared himself in the clear and padded back down the stairs—going towards another hallway opposite the kitchen.

He saw another door, silently pushing it open to see two large beds and two forms sleeping peacefully on them.

On one bed was a sleeping figure—Tae, the blonde he met earlier. The one his sister called “little prince.” On the desk next to the boy was a thick novel and a half-eaten bar of milk chocolate. There was also a box of twin daggers with patterned hilts made of gold and silver, a note reading “from Binnie and Y/N-ie” stuck to the package.

With a frown on his face, Sungho’s eyes trailed over to the other sleeping boy in the other bed. This time, it was the other boy—Kai. The boy wore a loose white shirt, hands clutching a soft pillow tightly in his arms.The boy’s table laid a beautiful crossbow with patterns engraved on the wood—a tag still tied to the item with a ribbon, reading “from Binnie and Y/N-ie” on it.

Sungho scoffed as he turned back to the giant door connected to the room—entering a big room full of a variety of clothes and shoes, even more than what he had at home—and he was a king. The items were designed with various different styles and colors, the room divided into sections labelled “Tyunie” and “Ningie.” Sungho made his way further into the room, finding his way onto a big shelf of weapons—knives, arrows, swords, and axes. Sungho frowned, his hands closing in on a dagger—beautifully made with a wooden hilt, engraved with “Kai” on the blade.  He pulled it out of the container, feet making his way back to the two boys sleeping on the beds.

Sungho padded his way over to Taehyun—the little prince and held the dagger over the blonde’s chest. The king pursed his lips angrily, glaring at the young boy’s peaceful face.

Him and this other kid, Kai—they’re the reason why his sister would barely acknowledge him now. “Little princes”—they’re frauds with no title. They aren’t princes at all. Yet his sister, who he hasn’t seen in two years, still chose these strangers over him. It was ridiculous. They had to go.

With red in his gaze, Sungho lifted his hands up—clutch tight on the dagger as he prepared to stab the blonde. However, his eyes flicked over to the blonde boy’s face at the last minute, shocked to see his amused eyes set on him.

Sungho gasped, body stumbling back as he dropped the dagger. Taehyun only reached his hand out, hands catching the dagger and flipping it in his hands expertly.

“What are you doing?” an angry voice asked, making him turn to see Kai sitting up on his bed—sharp eyes trained on Sungho’s form on the floor. “Why do you have my dagger? You’re going to hurt Tae, aren’t you?”

Sungho opened his mouth to try to explain, but nothing came out due to nervousness as Kai pushed his blanket off of him and pulled himself out of bed.

“You were, were you?” Kai asked. “You’re so ungrateful. Y/N and Soobin brought you here to be free, to never grow up—but you try to destroy our family?”

“I-I’m her real brother.” Sungho managed to respod under Kai’s angry glare. “You’re nothing to her—you’re not bound by blood.”

“How stupid of you to say that, especially in our house.” Taehyun drawled lazily, sitting up and propping his head in his palm. “We’re her brothers.”

“And you tried to hurt Tae, my best friend, my brother.” Kai said angrily. “I can’t forgive that.”

Immediately, Sungho felt his body freeze—his limbs stuck in place and he couldn’t move. Tae only flipped the dagger in his hands, nonchalantly hilding it up and offering the hilt to Hueningkai, who snatched the dagger from his hands.

“Can you do it?” Tae asked lazily, yawning—as if waiting for it to finish so he can collapse back to bed.

“I can.” Hueningkai said angrily.

“Then do it.”

Hueningkai didn’t answer or move, only glowering at Sungho.

Sungho didn’t know what to do, or what they were talking about exactly. However, Hueningkai’s grip on the dagger made him nervous. He didn’t know what to plead for.

“I don’t tolerate people trying to hurt my family.” Hueningkai said gruffly. “They’re the only thing that matters.”

The door opened, showing Y/N decked in a loose white shirt and a shirtless Soobin entering with raised eyebrows.

“Oh, what’s happening?” Soobin asked, hands encircling Y/N’s waist, chin resting on her shoulder as he allowed his amused eyes to fall onto Sungho. “You’re still here?”

“He’s about to go.” Hueningkai said angrily before his hands lifted up, swiping a clean, deep line on Sunghoon’s neck.

Sunghoon’s eyes widened as he choked on blood, eyes darting over to Taehyun who yawned and climbed out of his bed—whining about bloodstains on his sheets. Kai only scoffed, setting the dagger on his bedside table, padding over to Y/N’s open arms. Y/N and Soobin had proud smiles on their faces as Hueningkai grinned at them.

“Did you know he was going to come?”

“No, but I knew he came here,” Soobin snorted. “I knew you could handle it.”

“I’ll make some food, then, since we’re all awake. Tae, Kai, can you guys boil some water?” Y/N hummed, pulling the door open as Taehyun and Kai left the room to do as they were told—followed by Soobin who kissed Y/N’s neck happily before he left. “I’ll be right out.”

Sungho laid on the floor, choking and dying slowly as Y/N walked over to him.

“Well,” Y/N sighed, tracing the slit on his throat. “this is interesting. I thought you’d last longer.”

Sungho tried his hardest to reply, but his vision was turning dark.

“You should’ve known your entitled attitude won’t pass here, you’re not the prince here—Soobin already told you it’s Kai and Tae’s turf here. Still, you didn’t listen.” Y/N shrugged. “So, I guess you got just what was coming for you.”

Y/N stood back up, waving her hand and Sungho found himself on Taehyun’s bed.

“There’s the bed you were so desperate for. Try to die faster, though. Taehyun gets cranky when he doesn’t get enough sleep.” Y/N snorted as she checked the clock. “We still have to clean the bed up after you die. Thank God for magic, I guess.”

Tears pooled in his eyes as Sungho felt his body start to fail on him.

“Thanks for helping us train Kai. He was so scared to kill people back then, but he did it so easily now. I’m really proud of him. ” Y/N said with a lilting tone, a smirk in her face as she turned and closed the door. “Sweet dreams, Sungho. I have to go to my husband and my brothers.”

Sungho closed his eyes, and the king was no more.

[fa-by]

Hi babies and dear Anons 👋🏼🤗 Back with a new 'Q&A' post. Enjoy 🙃

Hello to you too, dear Anon 👋🏼😄 and yes, I did. You can find it here, dear: https://fa-by.tumblr.com/post/648192029691691008/camren-timeline-tittle-edited.

Yes, I heard about that rumor, dear Anon, and veeery false.

I knoooow 😍😍😍 Let's cry in joy and queerness 🥺😭🌈🏳‍🌈

Yep, dear Anon. And unfortunately for us, they will continue to do so for a veeeery long time 😒🙄😔

No, dear Anon, I highly doubt it's another duet. They'd be really, but really stupid if they do 🤦🏻‍♀‍

No, dear Anon, these are just people who want attention. People who have problems in their lives and talk shit about others to feel better. This is just the work of those people who believe in black magic and want to involve as many people as possible to think like them, and if they fail, they attack you because you didn't agree with them and you didn't go to their side. They can get so desperate they even get to the point of, oh I don't know, since you've blocked them, sending an anonymous ask to your girlfriend with a death wish for you:

The funny thing for me besides thinking that maybe this person believes they're a witch and imagining them with a voodoo doll with a needle in my stomach, is that I was kind to them the first time 🤷🏻‍♀‍ I tried to make them reason, I really tried to meet them halfway, but sometimes that's not enough with people like that.

But anyway. My point is that no, management has nothing to do with it. Thank you for your ask, dear 🤗

It's okay, dear Anon, don't worry 😄 In last time’s ask you wanted my opinion on the song, right? Well, Not Killin' It Today simply talks about how not every day is a good day. It can happen to all of us not to feel 100%, and Mila says just that. For us girls it can happen even more during or just before the red sea period, if you know what I mean, and indeed, she herself sings “I'm PMSing” = PMS: premenstrual syndrome. If that's why, I think she wrote this song precisely around that period 🤣

Hello to you too, dear Anon 👋🏼😄 Don't worry, dear, I can understand you, and if I hadn't, we would have found a way to do it. English is not my first language either.

1) Yes, I do think that.

2) (I knew all this) I know she did; she's been doing it for years if that's why because Taylor is one of Camila's mentors. Taylor is what can be defined as the celebrity master with PRs. She’s always done what she was asked to do and she’s always fulfilled her PRs duties of her contracts, and indeed, look where she is now, as well as being a great songwriter. So yeah, who better than her?

Hope you're great too, dear 🤗

Hello to you too, dear Anon 👋🏼😄 I'm sorry I'm bad with general questions like this 😅 I'm so much better when I'm asked a more specific question, and usually, when I have something in mind, I write it and create a post with my opinion about it. I'm not kidding about how bad I am at this, believe me. It’s the same thing as when I get the typical “tell me something about yourself” phrase. It's like my brain suddenly switches off 😅🤣 Can you take a look at all my posts from my archive to see which ones I’ve already responded to and maybe come back with a question? I'm really sorry, dear 😖🥺

I'm sorry but Camila can't stop anything, dear Anon. Not Camila, not Roger, and not even Shoo. I understand your frustration, believe me, I do, but you, and anyone else to which this is still not clear, need to understand that it's a contract. A contract called a relationship contract, and it's a legally binding document. I know it's hard, but the advice I can give you is to ignore the 12-year-old SS and their fantasies, and wait for it to finish without wasting your energy on the bullshit they say. Don't let them get to you and unleash your anger. You make them win this way. Rather, have a laugh at their ignorance.

Hey dear Anon, I'm good, thanks, and I hope you're doing well too 😊 They broke up for a little while, for about a month before, so more than a breakup I would call it a little break. And to answer the rest of your questions, dear, I'll sum it all up by telling you that when they're not together, or they're on a break, they have a different way of acting than when they're together. And I speak in general. It shows in the way they behave in general. Now it's much harder to see since they're no longer in the group and you could clearly see when it happened, and it’s also hard since the pandemic, but there are patterns. I’ve spent so much time analyzing them that they're quite predictable in my eyes 🤣 Forgive me if I'm not going into details, but these are personal observations that not everyone can agree on, you know? Maybe I'll do it in the future, who knows 🤷🏻‍♀‍ We'll see 😉 Have a good day/night too 😄

Hello to you too, dear Anon 👋🏼 and thank you very much 😄 and yes, of course. To answer the rest of your questions, I'll summarize everything by telling you that you have to take into account that I entered the fandom at the Work from Home's time, so they were all just rumors to me initially. Camren themselves were just a rumor to me. I had to search, analyze, and find the proofs on my own to prove to myself which ones were true or not. The first example that comes to mind and that I can give you is the kiss in the van in London that I recently explained in my ‘Inauguration’ post.

I'm sorry you think this way, dear Anon. I honestly think she doesn't even know. She has said many times that she tries to stay away from social media, and I really believe that. She did it before already, but I'm convinced that she does that even more since she was going through that bad time and she was about to give it all up. Besides, it's known that she doesn't manage her accounts, just as it's known that she doesn't even control how they’re used I would say 90% of the time. I don't know if she'll find out and eventually will say something about it. We don't even know if she has the freedom to do so. So, I'm really sorry you're making a decision based on something she didn't do.

Hey to you too, dear Anon 😄 Yeah, it's nothing new. I'd already debunked the whole Laucy story with my very first post (https://fa-by.tumblr.com/post/648191757219250176/there-is-a-light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel), so as far as I'm concerned, she can say what she wants in future podcasts/interviews as well, but she'll never be able to convince me that she's not actually talking about Camila. This was simply a much more chill, fun, with no tears, and no mention of Camila repetition. The first podcast served to plant the seed. We know that Lucy is her main narrative and we know that she will continue to use her for a very long time. I mean, it’s convenient for her. It's the perfect cover for our Mila. But if people want to keep believing they (Laucy) were real, that's honestly their problem 🤣 Let them be convinced of their beliefs, dear, and have a laugh 😉

Hello to you too, dear Anon 👋🏼😄 Here's the thing……… Yes, to everything you said 🤣 but let me explain why.

1&2) Yes, Laur is like ‘part’ of their contract but for simple narrative, as you yourself said too. If that's why, so are 5H and all the rest of the people who are or have been involved with them. I'll give you an example. You know the bullshit they said about the Austin Mahone tour? That Sunsilk was always isolated in his bus playing guitar? That no one spoke to him outside of Camila when there are actually plenty of videos showing him spending time with the rest of 5H and the other people on the tour too? Certainly none of those people can call him out on that bullshit today and say it wasn't true. They'd blow his cover. They'd make him not credible in the general public's eyes. So everyone needs to be quiet for what they know (that's how it works in that world for every damn thing), and that's Lauren's involvement in their PR. Be quiet. Be quiet and go along with the game. Just as Camila had to during hers with Tymbal.

3) They have to, dear, or all the farces told so far would go to shit for the GP too. 4) 100%, dear Anon, 100% 😏😉 but it must also be said that they'll remain connected forever anyway because of the group.

Hello to you too, dear Anon 👋🏼😄 Welcome and thank you very much 🤗

1) Everything she's been doing lately leads us to think that the first single for the EP will arrive shortly. I think and hope it will arrive for the summer, but as far as the actual EP is concerned, it will depend on the release of the single. So if the single is out this summer, it's very likely that the EP will follow its course by arriving towards the beginning of autumn. We'll see, dear, we'll see 🤞🏼 🤞🏼 🤞🏼

2) I know that many people get upset and that they're disappointed, and while I too would like her to interact with us more, I also know and understand that it's not just up to her. Although she's much but much freer than before, she still has contracts, people, and patterns to follow.

Take it from someone who's waiting for Rihanna's new album for 5 years 😅🤣 It takes patience, and I have a lot of patience, dear. I fall into the category of those who don't mind waiting simply because I'll always support Lauren.

People forget this: we have to consider ourselves lucky that after what she went through, she decided to pursue with music.

If you love her, if you stan her, then be patient. Stay metaphorically speaking by her side no matter what. That’s what I think, dear Anon.

Do you mean the first breakup they had that lasted from late November 2014 to late December/very first days of January 2015, or do you mean the bad one that took place in October 2015? But in any case, both of your questions rejoin only one event, dear Anon: the real breakup of the group that happened in mid-October 2015. But answering you more specifically:

1) You can see with your own eyes the videos of the interviews of that period by starting with this one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WqOb9qBQ_M&t=11s.

2) Camila’s unofficial departure from the group at the time was the icing on the cake, but you have to consider a lot of things, dear. The fact that they were young. The fact that they were in the spotlight and were being monitored by both fans and management. The fact that they had those same people controlling them and telling them what to do all the time. The fact that they were constantly under pressure. The fact that they couldn't be together freely as a couple. The fact that they were forced to pretend they didn't love each other. The fact that they were forced to do PRs, despite being much lighter than now. I could go on with the list, dear Anon, but I think you get the point. It's a lot of stress and a lot to digest, especially considering how young they were and the environment around them.

Have a nice day too, dear 😄

Of course I can answer you, dear Anon 😊 So, in my opinion, and always keep in mind that I could be wrong, she told every person in her clique at different times. I think Mila knew about her attraction to girls back in school, but she didn't say anything to anyone because she didn't have a reason to. In the sense that she hasn't had the opportunity to approach another girl and therefore have a reason to tell someone about her queerness. After her first kiss with Lauren on New Year's Eve, I'm willing to bet that the first person she came out to was her mom. Camila's number one best friend is and always has been Sinu, so I can feel it in my bones that she was the first one to know. Oh and, we're in early 2013 here, so Mila was still 15.

After Sinu, there were the girls (DNA) who obviously lived their story with them step by step and therefore I don't think it was a real coming out with them, and her best friends back at home, Sandra and Marielle Guzman (and maybe also Mariana Luna since she was the other one with whom she was very close immediately after the two sisters, but I'm not very convinced of it), and Jenny Runza, who despite being a little younger than Sinu, Mila has always regarded as one of her best friends.

In 2014, when Camren were official, there were more confirmations that led to her automatic coming out with the rest of her clique's friends since the word Camren had already spread around like wildfire for almost two years by then.

At the beginning of 2015, it was the moment when Laur came out to her family, so I strongly believe that that was also Alejandro's moment, although I'm convinced that like the Jaureguis, Ale knew about his daughter all along and that he was even more convinced at X-Factor. Sofi was last on the list simply for a matter of age and I'm talking about 2017. I can't tell you when she told her grandpas. I don't even know if she could have told Norberto because I don't know the kind of relationship she has with him, but Mercedes? Well, abuelita certainly knew this before 2018 because I laugh when I think about the way she looked and talked with Mattress during their PR.

It's not that simple, dear Anon. You're not considering the fact that they didn't communicate during that time. You're dwelling on only one thing and are not looking at the big picture of their relationship at the time. Okay. Let's do something. Picture a scenario that has nothing to do with Camren.

Picture a couple living together. A couple who often quarrel over even the most trivial things or who don't talk at all because they almost avoid each other. Their relationship is very unstable and they're basically at the end of it. Now picture a conversation between this couple in which the only exchanges spoken in a normal way are by then just daily information such as: “I'll be at work from 8 to 4” - “Okay. Will you come home right after?” - “Yeah, I think so” - and then that person comes home at 6 pm despite the worried calls and messages received.

They're so distant that the person who came home late didn't feel compelled to pick up the phone and tell them about the delay. Probably that person didn't even feel compelled to give an explanation and justify the delay once they got home because they're convinced that their partner doesn't really care and that they're just looking for yet another excuse to argue. That person will have felt even more trapped and suffocated by their partner who was really worried instead, but neither of them tells the other the truth because they're too busy arguing and blaming each other instead of meeting each other halfway and really talking about what they feel and makes them vulnerable. They will surely end up in bed with their backs to each other without saying a word to each other after the fight.

Now look at these phrases from the song itself and put Camren's faces in place of the couple in the example: “With no confrontation, I really wish we could talk about it instead” – “All I need from your side is for you to communicate”. Is it easier for you to understand the dynamic now, dear?

Hello to you too @camilalauren0327 👋🏼😄 [why can't I ever tag you in posts?]

No, no, no, dear. None of this happens. So. I'd like to start by saying that OCD begins when people misunderstand their own thoughts. We've all had unwelcome and intrusive thoughts at least once in our lives, right? Well, the importance of those thoughts becomes much more intense or sometimes even extreme for people with obsessive-compulsive disorder. Like, I'll give you a stupid example, okay?

Most of the time I park, I lock the car, and after I’ve taken a couple of steps, I ask myself: “Ma ho chiuso la macchina?” / “Did I lock the car?”. So, I turn around and lock it again with the keys' remote control even though I've already done it, but I do that anyway to be sure and because maybe I really didn't do it because it happened for real. Now. What would a person with OCD do? Most likely they would do like me, and after getting halfway, they would go back again to close it AGAIN. They would do it a couple of times, and most likely, they would do it a third time after they got home. They would leave the house to go lock the car they've already locked five times.

OCD can begin in adolescence, early adulthood, or even childhood. The onset of obsessive-compulsive disorder is typically gradual, but in some cases, it can begin suddenly. Symptoms vary in severity from time to time and this variation may be related to the occurrence of stressful events. Now. Doesn't all this rings a bell for you? No? Okay, let me explain. I'll copy a piece of my ‘Camren Timeline (Tittle edited)’ post for you: “Camila suffers from one of the variants of OCD since she was 8, and despite seeing a therapist since 2013, her OCD was diagnosed at the end of 2015. C also suffers from anxiety, panic attacks, mood disorders, and depression (all linked to her OCD).”

Why did she start suffering from it at the age of 8? Because little Mila moved back and forth between Havana and Mexico City until she was 5, almost 6, right? After that, she moved to Miami with her mom by leaving behind her family, her friends, basically everything she knew, and her dad. Her dad finally managed to rejoin them almost two years later when she was almost 8 years old. Although she had her family with her again, her little mind didn't relax. It didn’t bring peace to her. In fact, that sprang her first OCD symptoms, which gradually worsened and then fully erupted years later in the group.

What triggers OCD? Stressful life events.

Got it now? Were you able to put the pieces together, dear? I've also answered other questions on the same topic here if it may interest you: https://fa-by.tumblr.com/post/648194918161989633/%C9%9F.

Hello to you too, dear Anon 👋🏼😄 Don't worry, nobody’s asked me to do it yet.

So, as I think we all know, The Boy was originally titled Care About Me. Ed Sheeran wrote it and gave it to Mila for her self-titled album Camila. Mila almost completely rewrote it (Ed said 90% of it) and lastly discarded it because it didn't fit well with the rest of the songs on the album, and I totally understand that.

Intro:

“Yeah, he's messed up a couple times

But he's my glass of cherry wine

And I drink and I drink 'til I'm drunk off of him

I'm in love

(Ash:) He just hit me up to come over

He said what?”

So. The song begins with Mila trying to justify the boy by saying that even though he made mistakes, she's so into him to get past it. I know she used terms like drunk off of him and in love, but she doesn't mean that she's actually in love with him in this case. Just very into him. She's jokingly explaining the situation because she's talking to Ashlee, her friend, and I don't know about you, but my friends and I often use the term in love to make people laugh and to indicate interest in someone.

Like if we see someone for the first time and they're really hot, or if one of the celebrities we like posts like a selfie, we say “I'm in love”. Or, like, another kind of example: one of my best friends has been dating this guy for a few months, and last week he surprised her with some flowers (which he paid very much by the way) and with dinner just because. Hearing her happiness since she has always had only assholes so far, when she finished telling me everything, I made fun of her by laughing and saying: “Lost in love, huh?”. Not because she's actually in love with him, but because it was such a nice thing and she's into him.

So Mila used those phrases to indicate how much she liked him and not because she was actually in love. Also because if she had really been in love with him, she wouldn't have said she didn't care about him for the rest of the song.

Then ‘Ash’ receives the text, and this leads us to understand that the boy is a player and a cheater.

Verse 1:

“Momma said, ‘Always be kind, girl’ (Girl, what's on your mind?)

But I got something I should say (Say it, girl), uh

Boy, I'm sick and done and tired (There's something on my mind)

I'm not yours to manipulate, uh-huh (Tell him girl, tell hi)”

It explains itself quite well. She can't take it anymore.

Pre-Chorus:

“Oh boy, hold your tongue, I don't want no 'pology

‘Cause we both know you're thinking wit' was under your jeans”

Mila tells him not to waste his breath on justifications derived from his member because she doesn't need them. Tsk, Tsk. Typical male behavior. 80% of their thoughts are formulated based on how and where to put their tool in 🙄

“Sent your friends over to tell them you're missing me”

He even sends his friends to her to try to change her mind, but:

“But I don't care, so tell that boy that I am fine”

But she doesn't care. She doesn't care because she's fine this way. In fact, she's better off without him.

Chorus:

“I don't care about the day he decided to leave

I won't be there when he tells another lie so”

This makes us understand how many times she's had to forgive his bullshit.

“I'm gon' use all of my words for weapons”

We know how lethal words can be.

“'Cause the boy don't care about me, lemme say it again, now, babe

I don't care about the way he thinks it's so sweet (Ah)

All that sugar cone gon' be bad for me tomorrow (Ah)”

He can try to kiss her ass as much as he wants, but she won't change her mind. Talking sweet to try to win her back doesn't work because she doesn't want to deal with a player who lies to her and messes up every time.

“I'm gon' use all of my words for weapons

'Cause the boy don't care about me”

He doesn't really care about her, so it's even useless to her that he tries to fix it.

Verse 2:

“All my girls inside the place now (Say we don't need no man)

No wonder we switch sides sometimes (We got this)”

Camilita, Camilita, Camilita 😏 No wonder many girls prefer other girls, huh?

Switching sides can mean switching sides in the true sense of the word, that is for example going from one side of a room to the other. It can mean changing your mind about something or someone. And, most interesting of all in this case, it can mean switching sides in sexual orientation.

I've said many times that she's a fucking genius, and we know how sneaky she is with her songs. She was really smart at using this hidden meaning because a lot of people took it for granted that she meant the meaning of changing her mind since we girls have this nomination about often changing our minds about something.

“Wipe that good look off your face (Say we got better plans)

Ooh, you better not act surprised (For real)”

Exactly. What would be the point? A lot of guys do that 🙄

Bridge:

“Oh, oh, don't care about me

That's fine with me, babe

You don't care about me

And that's fine with me

Fine with me, fine with me (Don't care about)

It is what I need, oh (That's fine with)

Don't care about, care about

Care about, care about me, oh”

She's fine with it simply because she doesn't care about him either.

Outro:

(Ash:) “Girl, that's old, we're done with that”

Yep. She's definitely done with that/him.

And this is my interpretation, dear Anon 😄 In my opinion, if this song really ended up on the self-titled, it would've been used to give yet another proof of her light, old PR with Michael. People were supposed to remember her last, sure, Jan, flame before meeting the love guru Matrix. It was supposed to be like: “Hey, hey, guys, I'm straight, look! I was with a boy and now with another grandpa one!”.

It's just a different version of the Cinderella song for me: she doesn't need a guy in her life. Don't wrap your head around it too much, dear Anon. There's no deep meaning behind it at all. After all, this song was given to her by her idol, and she certainly couldn't refuse. She changed it in a sassy and fun way, she saw that she couldn't fit it with the others because it wouldn't have made sense, and she then discarded it. The end. She was like: it was funny, but I actually have a story to tell. Bye-bye.

Have a good day too, dear ❤️

Hello to you too, dear Anon 👋🏼😄 and yes of course I can do both, but for what purpose am I supposed to do All Again? I mean, I can give you my interpretation of that song without any problem, but it wasn't written by them. By none of them five. That's why I'm asking you for what purpose am I supposed to do that. And that should answer your second question as well. Like No Way and many other songs, the girls may have related to them, but they didn't write them. The only songs they wrote, and not alone but with other songwriters, are:

- Me & My Girls, Don't Wanna Dance Alone, and Who Are You for Better Together,

- All in My Head (Flex) for 7/27,

- and for the self-titled album we have Sauced Up: Arlen (+ other songwriters), Make You Mad: Normally (+ other songwriters), Lonely Night: Norminah (+ other songwriters), Messy: Normally (+ other songwriters), and Bridget: Alren (+ other songwriters).

It's like you ask me to give you my interpretation on for example Who Are You. I could do it without a problem, but that song was written by 8 different heads. With the exception of the bridge that we know Lauren wrote, I can't tell you who among Camila, Dinah, Normani, Ally, Julian Bunetta, PJ Bianco, and Nasri Atweh wrote which part. Analyzing a song sung by a single artist/songwriter is completely different because the idea and concept and feelings are based on a single person. The songwriters who co-write the song together with the artist adapt to them, or maybe the idea comes to one of them, but they modify the concept together with the artist based on their personal experience, as happened for example with Consequences.

Now that you know all this, do you still want me to analyze All Again? Let me know 😄

Let's move on to More Than That.

Lauren wrote four songs in 2016, two of them were meant to be for someone else, but one of them, as we all know well, she kept it to herself. She decided to keep More Than That to herself once she modified the original lyrics along with Prince Charlez and SoundzFire, aka Hue Wayne Strother.

Intro:

“M-M-M-Murda”

This small part of the initial effect intro we hear, is simply a shoutout to Murda Beatz, one of the two producers of the song.

Verse 1:

“I see you watching so I walked into your stare

'Cause I ain't in the position to be walking over there”

She's not in the position to go there simply because she's taken, but she likes to be watched. She likes the attention she's receiving, so she puts herself in plain sight so that this person can keep looking at her.

“I got a situation, I can tell you wanna know”

This guy must have wondered: ‘Why if she's looking back at me, then she won't approach me? Is she someone who likes playing hard to get? Is she a teasing sort? Is she waiting for me to go to her? Or maybe she's in a relationship?’ Typical questions you ask yourself in that situation, and Laur summarized them all in one simple sentence.

“How you can take an honest girl and turn her to a …

If I'ma take a gamble, then you better come correct

I need more than them diamonds that you got around your neck

Shit, anybody can flex, my baby do it best

If you come with somethin' better, then we might just take it there”

The stare, the fact that this guy has the money (diamond necklace), the physical appearance, are not enough for her to push her to cheat. Because if she has to take the risk of cheating, these are certainly not the things that would drive her to do it, but she could if he had something better to offer her. [And with that, please keep in mind that Lauren is a very loyal person and that she wouldn't have done it even if this guy had gone with something better]

Pre-Chrous:

“I know I ain't right for tempting you

But I just wanna see what you would do

If I gave you a taste of what I do

Just remember that I don't belong to you”

The fact that she returned his gaze, that she spoke to him and gave him just a little taste, doesn't mean that she’s no longer taken. As I said before, she likes the attention, and although she knows that it's wrong to instigate him, she does it anyway because she's playing with him. “It's kind of more like clowning him” as she said herself.

Chrous:

“You gon' have to come stronger than this liquor

Wanna take me home, better be more convincing

It'll take more than that to get to me

More than that to get your way

Boy, you better come stronger than this liquor

Wanna take me home, better be more convincing

It'll take more than that to get to me

More than that to get your way

I'm stronger than this liquor”

During the approach in which the guy tried to ‘take her home’ for the night, Lauren easily manages to reject him despite being drunk, because her loyalty is stronger than the attraction she may have felt for him and certainly stronger than what she was drinking.

Verse 2:

“If my man notice, there’ll be some issues”

🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣

I'm sorry but every time I listen to this part I can literally picture Camila turning into the Incredible Hulk as we've seen many times. And shit, despite her being tiny, Mila can be scary when she's pissed off.

“But take my number down, I just might hit you

No, I'm just playing, I'm so deep in love

But the way you talkin' might just have me actin' up”

Drunken thoughts mixed with attraction/arousal blocked by common sense and loyalty.

“The way you looking at me, boy, I know what's up

I can feel how you feel without even a touch”

Let's not fool ourselves, guys. You too will have felt when a person is ready to jump your bones. To feel it in the air. To perceive it from the way they look at you, talk to you, and yes, even using excuses to innocently touch for example your arm even if the intentions are far from innocent. These kinds of things, whether you're in a relationship or not, whether you're loyal or not, and especially if you're attracted to the person in question, make you feel appreciated. They make you feel good. But:

“But don't think that's gon' make me give it up

Boy, your time is up”

But that doesn't mean, however, that you take action on it. It doesn't mean you give in to temptation. It was nice, but no thanks. Bye-bye.

Outro:

“It'll take more”

It takes more than good looks, money, and fake, shiny people from L.A.

And that's it, dear Anon 🙃 This is just a funny song about a situation that happened in a club, in which Lauren shows her flirtatious side but also her loyal side. It wasn't that good for her image, but I have an explanation for that as well.

Remember how I initially said that Lauren wrote this song to give it to someone else and then decided to keep it for herself after modifying the original lyrics? Well, in my opinion, she ‘decided to keep it’ and was even chosen as a single, simply for the narrative. It was chosen to go along with the fake love square cheating bullshit [Lauren and Ty who cheated on Lucy and Alycia to be together]. People should have believed even more that Lauren was a person capable of cheating, and this song served the purpose.

🤸🏻‍♀‍🤸🏻‍♀‍🤸🏻‍♀‍

Aaand I'm done 😜 I hope I was helpful in this case too 😄 Thank you all for your asks and as usual, know that I'm available for those who have questions, so feel free to ask 😊

Always remember to be kind, to others and to yourselves. Be a good example. Be patient. Be safe and take care of yourselves. Don't let our ship sink. Keep shipping them, but please respectfully 🙏🏼 Sending you virtual love and hugs 🤗🤗🤗 I love you, babies. Always with love, F ❤️

[sanstropfremir]

kingdom episode 5 review!!! lets fucking go!!!!!

 look. was i insanely hyped for this episode? yes. was my hype justified? also yes. holy FUCKING SHIT. you’ll have to forgive me for going off the rails at some points because ateez and btob directly tapped into something primal in my brain and i am obsessed. i'm obsessed. there’s no other word for it I’m obsessed. 

 ok ok ok i'll focus. i'm focused. i'll do the stage breakdown first and then do my personal ranking at the end. i might do a quick runup comparison of the self and expert rankings for funsies but i'll see how i feel when i get there. instead of going in airing order i’m gonna reverse it, since that was the order i actually watched them in and also i will run out of brains if i talk about rhythm ta first.

skz

i feel for skz. i don't think this show is going to be as much of learning curve as it needs to be for them because the fan voting skews the rankings so much. I’ve said it so many times before, but letting something flop or getting a bad ranking is actually good, because it shows you that you need to improve. because skz keeps getting validated by the fan rankings and placing first in the last two stages, they aren't actually taking the time to evaluate what about their stages is or isn't working. and besides, we’ve now seen two very similar concepts in a row from them, just one is on a grander scale than the other. what they should be doing is what both ateez and btob did for this round, which was scale up production value, but scale down concept. i know this sounds weird but i'll explain. skz has done two very abstract and ‘grand’ concepts. first round we had ghosts/good self vs evil self, and this stage they just went straight for the throat with a deal with the devil type stage. now when you combine these very abstract concepts with an unclear narrative arc, you lose clarity of intent in the performance because there are no specifics that you’re playing off of. there’s a lot more places left up to personal interpretation and this is where people can get lost. btob and ateez both narrowed down their concepts to hyperspecific scenarios where they very clearly showing the audience the arc the stage is taking. audiences can be smart but also if you can lead them by the hand they like not thinking about highly conceptual ideas, and especially not so much in a pop song competition show.

 costume

this is so rare because generally stylists are pretty careful about this, but i genuinely think they got outshone by the backup dancers, especially in the ‘heaven’ sequence. those sash and skirt combos with the strapped white tops that look like straitjackets? the fucking angel wings?! these are some thematically fun costume designs and because they’re white they stand out so much more when skz are wearing black. i also think i've seen these tops on backup dancers before? i thought it was on the last stage but i might be going insane.

i am a sucker for beaded embroidery and the combined dyework on some of their sashes is beautiful. but again, thematically irrelevant? at least you can see the greco-roman inspiration in the backup dancers’ costumes. all this is telling me is that whoever the stitchers are at jype, they are fucking incredible, but they don’t actually have a good designer because the main costumes for all their stages have been both aesthetically similar and thematically irrelevant.

again, i applaud skz for trying more experimental makeup, but boys you have to go bigger, it has no impact right now.

set

well, i did ask for them to commit to the western art bit and they sort of delivered? the first space is not planned very well and combined with the wide wide camera shots instead of making the space seem grand and sweeping it just seems bare. the ‘heaven’ side was excellent though, there was much better control of the camera and the columns and altar scaled the space down so it was more believable. also the breakable columns were fun and corny and i love it when stuff gets destroyed onstage.

the child statue transformation into actual child was a neat trick that i think landed really well. i wish they had given that concept a little more grounding other than the flashback bit but it was still very readable.

i know using rodin's gates of hell is the easiest way to shortcut saying that like, “you are now entering hell,” but them being used SO literally feels a bit blunt when the last time we saw them used in kpop was by original blasphemous catholic lee taemin, who used them with such nuance and intelligence that i'm a bit put off by skz’s literalism.

on that note, i find it very interesting the conflation that happens between greco-roman/”classical” aesthetics and catholicism, because ideologically the two are opposed (see: the bible) and historically, they didn't exist at the same time. now i'm not going to go off on a tangent about neoclassicism because you are not here for an art history lecture but i thought i would make the observation about how catholics continued appropriation of greco-roman aesthetics without complete understanding or context of those aesthetics is as pervasive as it ever has been in the last several hundred years. 

lighting

generally the lighting is pretty good, but there’s an over-reliance on projections that cheapens the look of the stage but also devalues the intentions as well. at the core of it there’s a profound statement being made about trading away your innocence, but when you underscore that with like, clock graphics and a WoW looking demon, it loses that simplicity of message.

the thing about using this particular type of projection, which are actually screens and not typical projectors, is that screens always throw light. and due to where they are situated, this basically means that if you're using the screens at full capacity with a cool colour range, we are going to be able to see everything. this is another contributing factor to why the stage looks so empty; they’re lighting up everything and it exposes where the gaps are.

now i fully acknowledge that this possibly could have been a deliberate choice, since they do actually use some spot lighting at the beginning and end. however, if it was it did not land for me. 

i loved the intro of demon felix done in blue, that was a nice switchup from what we would usually see, but i wish there was more of a coherent colour arc. like the narrative it stutters around a bit.

sound

the arrangement was a miss for me. i found it a bit dissonant again, like their last stage, since the original i'll be your man has obvious lyrics about a good christian boy being sad about a girl. this gets a bit wonky conceptually as soon as you add a child self into it. i don’t know if they changed any of the lyrics in the singing to match this a little more because i don't speak korean, so i'll have to wait for episode subs for verification. 

i really applaud them for trying, and overall they didn't actually do that bad, but skz is not a vocal group. the most i'm going to say about it is that these boys don’t have the breath support. this is likely because they're trying to do choreographically complex movements, but also it's a training thing. you can hear the difference even just between eunkwang’s ‘vocal warmup’ at the beginning of back door, he’s not projecting full voice but he still has the breath support for his voice to sound full, whereas all skz boys sound thin in comparison, even when at full volume, because they’re trying to project from the throat and not the chest. that's all i'm gonna say about that. i don't think the cracked note was bad, i didn’t really clock it on first listen.

staging

thematically they could have had something really interesting here if they stuck to a more simple narrative arc. the genesis (i’m very funny) of the idea here is good, the whole mephistopheles deal with a devil + regret/loss of innocence is clear, but the arc isn't really an arc, and the colour story doesn't help. it kind of goes earth (green/blue) -> the gates of hell are opening (red) -> oh it's heaven now (blue) -> oh just kidding it's hell/lets destroy heaven (red) -> back to earth (blue). not necessarily a bad arc, just a bit complex for four minutes.

the choreo was a lot better this time, there was a lot more intention and relevance to theme and i didn’t feel like they were flailing for the sake of flailing as much as i have in their other stages. there was also a clarity in the overall blocking and movement patterns that was missing from their other stages. this stage has a really great handoff of each member playing the ‘main’ character, especially in the beginning. i especially liked the cut from falling off the stairs to laying centre stage. 

i think I’m right in assuming that it was a choice that the members were all playing the same character and demon felix was that character possessed rather than the actual devil, but personally i think it would have been a lot more fun if they had straight up just made him be the actual devil. there’s a bit of dissonance when you have a performer with such a specialized skillset that gets used in very specific instances, but then he shows up in the regular group choreo like any ol’ guy. they always put such emphasis on felix (as they should, he’s their most charismatic performer), but they never go the distance. i would have loved it if they had committed to the bit like TOO did in their magnolia stage from rtk, where they had a member just be blinded justice. that was literally the only thing he did and it worked so well. could have done the same here with felix and it would have been fun. that being said the felix parts were SO good. love love love him getting dragging in chains.

 btob

this hit every little one of the buttons in my tiny backstage crew brain. i'm in love with this stage. there’s so many true to life little details here that on repeat viewings you're still finding new things. i know i rag on and on about narrative every week but here is a good example of what i've been trying to get at this whole time: the stage needs a shape. an a to b. you don't need a whole pirates spiel or a game of thrones theme extended universe; all you need is a clear setting and a point a to point b. this stage has both those things perfectly. we have a hyperspecific setting, (american rockstars) and a basic arc (getting ready to perform -> performing). even though back door is outside of btob’s wheelhouse, they spun it in a way that played to their strengths and did a bit braggadocio, which is rightfully earned. i'm gonna be saying it every time but the experience shows!!!

 costume

good contemporary costume is SO difficult, i want to impress that here. because it's the the time period that we are currently living and seeing every day it's so easy for the audience to spot mistakes. although yes it's easier to source/shop for, to get it good enough that it doesn't pull people out of the immersion is surprisingly more difficult than you think. their stylists did an excellent job here. the backup dancers and btob are all in monochrome plus one and it adds a very clean unity to everything without visual clutter.

each of btob’s costumes have enough to give indication of character, along with the member’s acting, which i'll get more into in the staging section. regardless, never underestimate the power of a good fitting shirt and statement belt. oh and minhyuk in the stirrup motorcycle boots with the skinny jeans and the supreme boxers and the red satin robe? good bye.

i love love love a dyed buzz this was such a good aesthetic choice for peniel, 10/10 i have no complaints about the costumes.

set

oh my god i’m gonna french kiss this set designer. this is such a simple set but it’s executed so well. there’s the ‘backstage’ area, the corridor with four dressing rooms, and then the ‘stage’ that’s pretty much just velvet ropes. so simple, but all the detail is in the set decoration and props. the road cases, the monitor, the subtle flex of the posters of them on the walls, the clothing racks, all the booze. although this is not the actual layout of any theatre (they're normally much weirder than this), there’s so many little details here that really make the experience.

there’s a very straightforward path here and it works so well. i think this might be the best use of the gates so far? it appropriately suited the drama of the moment and they didn't have to do anything to them because they're already in a theatre. bada bing bada boom.

lighting

love the setup and continuation through the amber ‘BRRRMM.’ like with sf9 it gives a smooth transition into the stage. also loved no blackout. it's a general rule in current theatrical practice that you only use blackouts when they are absolutely necessary, because they can stop the pacing of a play dead in the water. so the lack of one here at the start of the stage was a really smart choice and makes the transition feel less jarring.

i will say that actual backstage areas are very rarely lit with amber because it travels far and it's bright. it's much more common to see running lights (the lights on during a performance) to be deep red or blue.

those blasting wash lights as the gates open? the DRAMA. such a seemingly innocuous choice that really cements the atmosphere of ‘we are about to perform.’

really smart use of the projections to accentuate the already existing stage facilities. it's pretty much unnoticable because it's very well done but i appreciate it.

sound

this ARRANGEMENT!!!! it's so good!!! back door has this premise essentially built into the song so it was so smart of them to put this gimmicky spin on it. loved the literal interpretation of the knocks into the structure of the stage, it makes the blend between the sound design and the staging that much more effective.

more rock versions of everything please and thank you. 

btob is just stunting at this point and i love it. i'll have to wait for subs but judging by the hands in front of the camera bit and the ‘your super high note’ i’m pretty confident the added rap lyrics are full of shots at the other groups and honestly? valid.

staging

there's some really sharp camera control here with the one take first half. It’s up very close and personal because there’s a lack of space but it really works for the ‘intimacy’ of seeing backstage at a venue. also this is such a simple movement track but it’s so effective. it backs over a couple spots but it doesn't feel repetitive because there’s a sense of urgency and drive.

there are so many good little details in here that are true to life and unnecessary to include but sell the performance as a whole. peniel flinging water onstage, minhyuk stripping down twice and flinging his clothes around, minhyuk closing the door on the standby’s face, the backup dancer as a dresser with the laundry basket, peniel stealing the hat off her but then not going on stage with it these are all things that I’ve either had directly happen to me or something very similar has happened. but the best one and the one that sets off the tone amazingly for the whole stage is eunkwang’s intro. that ‘vocal warmup’ with the quiet okay at the end? with the little jump? i see that moment of vulnerability before the transition between person and actor every time i watch someone go onstage for the first time and there’s no way to describe it other than magic. 

the luxury of only having four members, there was actually time in this stage to establish character. it also speaks to the performing strength of btob that they can establish clear character in this short amount of time. obviously it’s pretty one dimensional; there’s serious eunkwang, typical rocker minhyuk, fuckboy peniel (how many licks does it take to make your tootsie pop, anyone?), and comedian changsub. i’ve seen and met and worked with these exact dudes many, many times. ugh i love this stage

 ateez

the utter euphoria i felt at the proof that last round’s stage wasn't a fluke. this stage is so good. it's so good. i'm obsessed with how good this stage. as an unreformed pop punk teen who played a LOT of latin jazz i am LIVING. if you’ve only seen the episode cut and not the full version here i'll make it easy and link it for you because oh my GOD mnet destroyed the pacing by cutting in a full minute and a half of reaction shots. actually mnet fucked up the pacing for all of these stages but this one was the worst. and look. i know this is the closest these boys are going to get to being real punks and this is a carefully curated and artificial facade for narrative purposes only but oh the pandering tastes so sweet. regardless of that, i am IN AWE of the level of storytelling happening here. the narrative is so clear on just the first viewing even though there is so much going on and they use every possible element they can to further enhance that narrative. repeat viewings just add more and more little details. i’ll probably miss some things because there's so much but i'll try my best.

 costume

look, hanya and i were joking that my notes for this stage were just gonna be ‘san dog collar’ for a thousand words and i was so tempted to just leave it at that because.....woof. so here is a short list of things i am the most obsessed with:

san dog collar

san smeared lipstick

wooyoung cruella deville ponytail

hongjoong terrible blond crewcut

san crushed velvet cargo pants?!

seonghwa cropped fur jacket

yunho arm sleeve

hongjoong sockless in red derbys

but in all seriousness the costumes are so good. none of these are truly authentic punk looks but they capture the spirit right and that's what matters. all the right trappings are there; safety pins, patches, plaid, leather, and a lot of diy type looks. i love the painted masks, especially as a callback to the comedy/tragedy theatre masks. it was a thematic choice to have the backup dancers in black and the tac vests are a super simple contextual device.

also hongjoong’s quickchange hat/jacket combo is super fun and i hope that’s intentionally a preview of the next stage.

set

if you weren't convinced before that whoever is designing the ateez stages is a stage designer, i don't know what to tell you. it's hard to tell because there is so much environmental storytelling happening, but there is NO large scale set here. like with their last stage, kq smartly put money into two highlight pieces; the anarchist blimp and the van/wall, and the rest of the stage atmosphere is established solely through propwork and lighting. just think about that for a bit. every other group has some kind of large scale room or wall build. ateez has a bunch of tables, flyers, and a podium. i don’t know if i can accurately communicate just how difficult this kind of coordination is to pull off but holy fucking shit this is so hard to pull off. these are theatre people i see you and i see your work and i love you!!!

they fully used the gilt mnet stage as their pseudo government building and it works. everything about this (lack of) set is so smart i wish i could be more articulate about it but there’s so only so many ways i can say the same thing over and over again. 

lighting

the laser scopes. the LASER SCOPES!!! god this lighting designer is so good. whoever you are, i'm acknowledging your effort because you deserve it. there’s some really wonderful contrast and directional lighting: the van light, the pinlights/lasers/smoke as searchlights. a lot of atmospheric red lighting but it makes sense for the theme (alarm lights) and they offset it well (unlike in the other two predominantly red stages we’ve seen) by fill lighting the faces with blue or amber; this is what actually makes us able to see what’s happening on stage

the projections are used to augment the stage action in without being overpowering, they're at relatively low tonal value so they aren't lighting up the stage at full brightness like in the skz stage. 

the big brother eye on the tv screens (it's just a projection, not actual screens) combined with the government ban notice and the broadcast has to be the record for fastest visual explanation of fascist totalitarian state. 

sound

i love it. they really successfully made rhythm ta into an ateez song and it’s cool as fuck. i love that it isn't sonically very loud. a lot of the chorus is actually quite level tone and quiet, which is a bold choice and they pull it off. this is very comfortably in their range (excluding jongho) and they went more for style than range and that's exactly what every group should be doing. singing high does not equal singing good. yes i am looking at you jongho you should have stopped at that penultimate note, it was fine!!

using rhythm ta as a pseudo protest song against a fascist government that’s banned all music and art? galaxy brain. that intro of hongjoong whispering “hey hey hey hey, this is just a song so get on the rhythm” after gunning down military police/guards? king fucking shit.

staging

i will eat all five pairs of my fluevog boots if kq hasn't hired a bunch of theatre professionals to direct and design these stages because now it's been proven that last stage wasn't a fluke. the level of execution at work here is absolutely incredible. oh the gesamtkunstwerk of it all!!!  there is SO much happening so quickly in this four minute stage and it still manages to convey exactly the correct amount of information that it needs to on the first go round, and it only gets better on repeat viewings.

they use a really classic theatre perspective trick with san climbing the rope, and they absolutely didn’t have to do that. san probably could have actually climbed that himself, but here they made a choice for aesthetic artistry over tricking/other feats of skills we’ve seen the 4th gen groups do. instead of going with the more technically difficult and ‘impressive’ option, they chose the simple way that allows for more character to shine through. there’s actually very little tricking in this stage as whole, they're putting trust in the design of the stage and the raw performance abilities of the members to carry the stage and they stick the landing again. san has some breakdancing and so do the backup dancers, but it’s window dressing in the same way that the flyers are window dressing.

there’s a lot of really good little moments of acting that really sell the performance and dedication of the group as a whole to giving their all. hongjoong overall in his cocky aspirational leader role, seonghwa’s first verse and malfunctioning earpiece bit, san’s falsetto hostage interrogation bit. also i'm obsessed with how far yunho just hucks that mask. he gets like fifteen feet of air with that thing. also props to hongjoong barehanding that glass break.

the paper props are impeccable. the first notice sets up the situation right away, and then we get some further exposition with the newspaper wooyoung is holding (which says ‘the central government has defined the black pirates as a terrorist’ but honestly you don't really need to know what it says to get the point), and then we have raining anarchist flyers from the anarchist blimp. great atmospheric touches.

the blackout crash-to-mask transition is just so good. this is an example of a good use of a blackout. nothing else to add i just thought i would point it out because it's dope.

like with btob there's some really tight camera control here, that along with the lighting and the way they've laid out the space make it easy to follow the trajectory of where they're going and also make the space seem smaller than it is. this is a really big stage and if you don't control how you want it to be seen you end up like with what happened to the first part of skz’s stage. i wish they had tracked some of the one takes a bit better, but the end of that take where the camera followed the group movement laterally and then the formation swung around to face front? sexy. surprisingly the editing is pretty ok.

there’s probably still so much i could talk about but this is already so long so if i missed something just let me know.

ok finally lets do some rankings

personal ranking

this round wasn't as tough to rank because there were two clear top tier stages for me. i actually went back and looked at my ranking from last round and this is identical except the top two spots are switched, which i find extremely funny. however in contrast to last round, these stages were all leagues better than their predecessors. all the groups are improving, just some at greater speed than others.

ateez - i'm not even gonna explain this one.

btob - i won't explain this one either since i just did that.

sf9 - this would have been first if ateez and btob hadnt blow everyone out of the water.i still think they made all the right choices and played to their strengths.

ikon - this stage is so fun to watch but the others offer me more. that’s it.

skz - i like the idea behind it and i loved felix; i'm always down for some good catholic fuckery but like last round it just wasn't played out far enough.

tbz - double ding on the moulin rouge and the continued game of thrones references for me. there were a lot of strong elements here but when compared to every other stage it just doesn't have the same gravitas.

the self rankings i thought were fairly accurate, but again, what the fuck is up with these expert rankings? who are these experts? what stages are they watching?? i won't go more into it than that because then you'll be here even longer but i don't trust these experts who consistently rank btob at the bottom, do you have eyes??? ears????

 ok i'm done for real now im so sorry this 4.6k words......if you make it this far do something nice for yourself like eat a cookie or something. this is way too long you deserve a reward for making it through my nonsense. as always if you’ve got questions or want to share your opinions feel free to send me an ask!

[justapoet]

you are the future, and the future looks good

I never wrote anything like this before and, also, English isn’t my first language. If anyone gets to read this, just ignore any mistakes, please. And I don’t really know how to use Tumblr so if this gets messy, I apologize.

The door wasn't entirely closed, but TK shut it completely once he was inside the moonlit room, sighing quietly when his eyes finally rested on his boyfriend's face, calm and just as beautiful as a person could ever be. Carlos was laying on his back, one of his arms spread over the right side of the bed ― TK's side of the bed ― and the other over his naked stomach, his chest calmly indicating his steady breaths.

TK smiled, his heart pounding against his ribcage for the thought that Carlos was waiting for him. After almost a year together, that man, sweet, incredible, and patient Carlos was still waiting for him to come home. How did he get so lucky?

+

Or TK has late night thoughts and a lazy morning beside Carlos.

1.8k

The silver glimmer of the moon creeping through the window was the only light over them, late in the night. It had been a long day, both of them getting out of a forty-eight-hour shift together, after oh-so-many-weeks none of their shift aligned.

TK got home after Carlos, though, because, of course, he ended his shift at the hospital. It was nothing but a few stitches in his arm, just because a completely freaked-out lady bumped into him as he tried to help her husband, causing his fall over broken glass on the street.

His team worried for just a minute before bursting into a laugh, just for TK had an incredible ability of always ending up needing an ambulance himself instead of only working on one. He laughed too, but he knew that someone, Carlos, would not take it as a joke and would want to meet him at the hospital, which TK fiercely denied when he could tell how tired his boyfriend was through the phone. It took him a few minutes to convince the cop, but he managed it well.

After being stitched up, then ― by a sweet nurse that he had befriended at this point ―, he just put himself into an Uber and messaged his father and Judd saying that everything was fine. He also replied to Nancy, who messaged before asking for him to keep her updated. They'd grown closer after those few first weird days, and, now, Nancy and Tommy were both just as much family as any other member of the 126 ― and Carlos.

Not longer than twenty minutes and TK could already see the familiar Camaro on its usual spot in front of the condo. He smiled involuntarily with the sight, just happy to get home after such a busy couple of days. In a leap and he was out of the car when the driver ― who seemed to have had a hell of a day ― killed the engine and waited for him to get out of the vehicle. He thanked politely and watched as the car disappeared in the night before turning around and letting himself smile once more by seeing the familiar place.

He took the key from his front pocket, something that could never not make him smile silly to himself. Carlos gave it to him after about four months of dating and, although he used TK's parents not getting along as an excuse, the paramedic just knew and could see in those beautiful brown eyes that Carlos just really wanted him there whenever TK felt like being on his apartment. Just the memory, so sweet in the back of his mind, was capable of making his heart melt.

When he stepped into the house, the darkness and silence were there to welcome him home, weirdly making him feel calm and safe. His steps were quiet, his first move into the condo being to toss his shoes off and carefully put his bag close to the couch before moving to the stairs and going up quickly, suddenly anxious to be in the bedroom and see Carlos.

The door wasn't entirely closed, but TK shut it completely once he was inside the moonlit room, sighing quietly when his eyes finally rested on his boyfriend's face, calm and just as beautiful as a person could ever be. Carlos was laying on his back, one of his arms spread over the right side of the bed ― TK's side of the bed ― and the other over his naked stomach, his chest calmly indicating his steady breaths.

TK smiled, his heart pounding against his ribcage for the thought that Carlos was waiting for him. After almost a year together, that man, sweet, incredible, and patient Carlos was still waiting for him to come home. How did he get so lucky?

After staring for what could be considered a long time, TK made a move to take his clothes off, careful with his arm, and keeping just his briefs before sliding to his side of the bed, taking Carlos' hand in his and kissing his fingers and palm, just so he could wrap his boyfriend's arm around his shoulders and take the covers to put over their bodies.

Carlos murmured, bringing TK's body closer to his, still asleep ― and TK doubted Carlos would be awake soon ―, and sighed when TK rested his head over his shoulder. The paramedic could see the shadow of a smile creep over Carlos' lips, wrapping his injured arm around his boyfriend's waist and stretching his body so he could lightly press a kiss to the crook of his neck.

Just a few minutes and TK was sure Carlos wouldn't wake up so soon, just as he doubted he could fall asleep himself. He could feel his body aching and the exhaustion taking over him, but he definitely couldn't help but staring at the angelic face by his side or running his fingers through the warm skin of the man he loved.

It was just too much, the thoughts inside his head and the feeling inside his chest. And, as they seemed to grow every minute spent by Carlos' side, there was no "I love you's" in the world enough to explain just everything he felt. It could be overwhelming, and TK was used to this feeling, but it was light. It took over his whole body, all his thoughts, and all the seconds of his days; but it was just as light and just as soft as the moonlight dancing around the room.

"I sometimes wonder if you have any idea of how happy you make me", he said, his voice so low that it was barely a whisper. His eyes followed his finger movements as he drew invisible and nonsense patterns over Carlos' chest. "It's almost ridiculous, sometimes".

He chuckled, his soft breath right to Carlos' neck before turning his head and pressing a kiss to the skin he could reach of the arm around his shoulders. TK sighed, closing his eyes and opening them again, staring at the ceiling.

"It's pretty funny to think about everything that happened", he continued. "When I said everything was grey and I felt numb I wasn't counting on brown becoming my favorite color, nor on feeling so much towards just one person" his voice was just as low as it was when he began, and he knew for sure that Carlos couldn't hear him at all. But it was good just to talk his feelings out.

"Sometimes I think I'll wake up from this dream and, oh, I'd be just so depressed. Sometimes I think that my brain just could never make up such a pretty view as you are" a sweet smile took over his lips as he turned his head again to look at the sleeping face beside him. "Most times I wonder how did you end up loving me. In those, I get scared because I've never been loved in a way I didn't doubt it for even a second."

He stared at Carlos' face for a few more seconds ― maybe minutes, if not hours ―, before speaking again, his voice with even more emotion than before.

"Sometimes you make me so happy I just want to ask you to marry me" he leaned forward, his nose touching Carlos' cheek. "Sometimes you make me so mad I just want to ask you to marry me, too" he chuckled. "All these times you make me feel so loved and worthy, and all I want to do is to ask you to marry me"

His eyes were closed now, and the soft movements over the man's skin stopped so he could use his arm to hold tight to Carlos' waist, pulling him even closer, as if it was possible. TK took a deep breath, his nose now getting back to the crook of his boyfriend's shoulder as he tried to put every thought in order again.

It was messy, just like everything about him, but it was comforting to have all those thoughts circling his brain and heart every time he thought about the future and Carlos was in it, as if there's nowhere else he could ever be if not just like he was, holding tight to Carlos after a long shift.

His heart could explode with all those feelings, but its pace was calm and steady as he pictured years from now. Because there was no rush, no one to tell them no, and absolutely no doubts about what he wanted.

TK had a smile on his face as he fell asleep, murmuring a few more of his feelings against the soft skin of his boyfriend's neck. How cliché it was to say that a dreamless night only meant all his heart's wishes were already true?

.

He woke up being showered by light kisses all over his face.

Laying on his back, TK could feel the strong hands softly touching his side, close to his ribs, and the warm lips touching different spots on his face, neck, and clavicle. He chuckled, murmuring "morning" as his hands touched Carlos's shoulders, neck and reached his face, holding carefully. The cop held the paramedic's wrist and brought his hand to his lips, kissing softly.

"Morning" he answered, smiling sweetly. His eyes, always warm and welcoming, fell to the bandages on TK's other arm, being instantaneously filled with worry. TK caressed his thumbs over the man's cheekbones, trying to get that look out of his face.

"Just a few stitches. I'm fine, babe" he whispered, smiling gently. Carlos was still worried, though, and TK knew he always would worry as his fingers ghosted over the bandage. The paramedic passed his thumb over the other's cheekbones again and watched as he leaned to the touch.

Carlos moved, resting his head on TK's chest and hugging him tightly, sighing as TK's fingers went to his curls and gently scratched his head. TK felt his boyfriend's body relax all over again, and his heart could almost burst with the same giant and unbelievable feeling only Carlos could cause him. It was even stronger than it was the day before, and he knew that, in the next morning, it would be even bigger.

The sun was gentle as sneaking through the curtains, touching their bare skin as a reminder that the world was still out there. At that moment, the world could wait, TK thought. It could, because in that room, in that bed ― their bed ―, there was no one to tell them they should get up and get ready to have lunch at Judd and Grace's house.

There was nothing but them, their steady hearts and their love in its purest shape.

And there was no one to stop TK from asking, as well.

"Will you marry me?"

And there was no doubt in Carlos' voice, not even a thought that that might have been a joke in his mind when he just kissed TK's jawline and smiled against his skin.

"Yes".