#ok two nil i understand

[zee-has-commitment-issues]

Alright besties, I have finished the season, and it is time to release my episode notes. I would like to call this my

Season Three Wrapped (Spoilers, duh)

I cried a whopping 25 times this season. I cried the most as Episode Six with 11 times sobbed I mentioned Nilcent a total of 4 times I asked where Walter was 3 times I said "I can't handle this" 12 times

Episode notes below the cut

Episode One:

I cried: three times

-Oh Kristina won’t even look at him.  -Oh she’s sick’ -Well Linda’s fired up.  -“You are a piss person” YES -TAKE HIS MONEY SIMON  -boyfriend time omg  -COZY OMG  -THEY’RE SO CUTE I’M GONNA DIE  -Oh shit they’re just exposing everything damn  -No but I actually hate Linda rn tho  -No but Kristina’s problem is that she needs Erik’s death to mean something and it never will.  -STEDRIKA  -Aw poor Felice is depressed  -FINALLY SOMEONE WANTS TO MODERNIZE THE MONARCHY  -Literally fuck you Linda  -angry Simon FINALLY  -NILCENT  -KISSING IN PUBLIC  -BOYFRIEND. THEY SAID THE WORD BOYFRIEND  -OOH THEY KNEW ABOUT SARA  -FUCKING MARCUS  -PICTURES OF SIMON IN HIS ROOM OMG  -THE HEART STILL ON HIS HAND I’M DYING  -NILS MY BELOVED  -SARA STILL HAS STELLAS SWEATER IM GONNA BE SICK  -NO NOT MICKE STOP NO OMG EW NO  -I love them for having an intervention for her  -HE’S SMILING FINALLY OH MY GOD  -HES TRACING OVER THE TATTOO IM GONNA DIE  -Oh shit  -Oh shit they’re blaming wilhelm  -WHERE THE FUCK IS WALTER?  -THEY X’D ANETTE OH HELL NO  -NOT CLOSING DOWN HOLY SHIT  -my candle just blew out and I don’t think that’s a good thing.  -Why do I feel like it was Nils that came forward? 

Episode 2

I cried: two times

Are they about to have phone sex? 

Oh my god they’re having phone sex 

Jk 

Oh homophobia 

Oh Jesus these reporters keep dragging Wilhelm into this 

Oh damn Kristina is REALLY sick 

And she really doesn’t want to talk to Wille damn 

Farima is more of a mother to Wilhelm than Kristina is 

Stop talking about Simon on the bus I will fight you 

Oh this bitch is racist 

THEY GET TO HIKE 

YES YOU WILL GET TO SLEEP TOGETHER 

I am once again asking where the hell Walter is 

Micke good father arc? Excuse me? 

Okay driving Queen 

Wilhelm get out of choir 

I literally hate this 

NOT A SINGING ARC STOP 

OH THEY’RE MAKING OUT NOW 

I literally can’t tell if I hate this or not. Wilhelm please quit choir everyone is begging you 

Fredrika being so depressed because she doesn’t have a cellphone is peak comedy 

I THINK IT WAS NILS. OH THEY KNEW HE WAS GAY BECAUSE OF HIS INITIATION 

NO NOT NILS CRYING OMG 

Oh my god. Oh my god. 

Damn didn’t think I’d feel bad for August but let the bitch run you know? 

August please don’t electrocute yourself it’s not worth it 

Oh he’s just gonna call Sara never mind 

AUGUST OMG STOP MAKING ME FEEL BAD FOR YOU 

OH THEY’RE GONNA FIGHT 

NO LET THEM FIGHT MORE PLEASE IM BEGGING 

DID SOMEONE SEND HIM CONVERSION CAMP SHIT?! 

I’m gonna murder someone actually 

Praying Simon sends this to Wilhelm and doesn’t post it because I can’t handle him getting into more public debate rn I will combust it is episode two 

Don’t post it Simon don’t post it Simon don’t post it Simon

Well fuck 

I TOLD YOU NOT TO POST IT SIMON 

oh maybe it was ok 

oh no it wasn’t 

Damn 

Well that was short lived. 

I literally can’t handle this rn 

Fuck. 

SAY IT BACK 

THANK GOD 

Simon deserves to stand up to his mom and I love him for it 

I need stedrika to be together instead of just acting like they are 

I love them so much and I love them for trying even though they don’t understand what Felice is going through 

FIRST WALTER SIGHTING 

The big three sharing a tent I’m in heaven 

ROSH AND AYUB SAVE THE PARTY SCENE 

Oh my god Rosh and Stella is real 

OH MY GOD FREDRIKA IS JEALOUS 

OH MY GOOD GOD 

JEALOUS FREDRIKA 

THIS IS SO AWKWARD I’M GONNA DIE 

Oh shit we’re fighting 

Oh fucking hell NO PLEASE NO 

OH THE QUEEN IS REALLY SICK OK 

Episode 3

I cried: two times

Oh damn she’s like… suicidal 

Wilhelm honey you don’t need everything on your shoulders omg 

Oh he looks so small 

STOP I HATE PEOPLE 

I hate Linda the most rn

Wait the year is wrong on their hats isn’t it? 

Never mind.

Oh damn Vincent called out 

Oh damn August called out 

People are gonna call Wilhelm selfish for this but I think it’s totally valid for him to be upset that Simon doesn’t care about his feelings rn I also think it’s valid for Simon to be distracted as he’s thrown into a world he doesn’t understand yet. I think they’re both selfish in this moment. 

WILHELM QUIT CHOIR IM BEGGING YOU 

YES TRICK AUGUST INTO THERAPY I’M BEGGING 

Malte’s ability to shapeshift into this shitbag needs to be studied

Linda begging you to read the room 

Literally fuck these guys leave Wilhelm alone 

Simon cry baby. Do it. Cry. 

YES THANK GOD LET IT OUT 

FUCK NOW IM CRYING 

I LIKE YOU SIMON. I DO. 

WILHELM LIKES YOU. ROSH LIKES YOU. AYUB LIKES YOU 

Simon’s no longer grounded and they’re gonna have sex 

Are they gonna get caught making out by the school inspector because I literally cannot handle that 

LMFAO 

Henry and Walter shut your mouths you’re undoing all your hard fandom work

CAN VINCENT SHUT THE FUCK UP PLEASE 

I love Felice getting to interact with her dad 

Oh I’m sobbing again 

Oh damn I’m nervous 

FELICE I SWEAR IF YOUR THE REASON THIS SCHOOL GETS SHUT DOWN ISTG

Valborg is back, baby! 

Sara’s gonna crash this car 

Augusts gotta a little crazy in his eye lowkey and I don’t like it 

Oh god he went to Micke’s 

MICKE ERIKSSON OF BJÄRSTAD I'M SCREAMING 

August…. Redemption arc??? 

No he made it about himself again never mind 

THEY'RE BAKING OMG 

Stedrika baking gfs

Sara and Felice be acting a little fruity ngl 

No because Micke is kinda slaying this season by being the best parent and I was NOT prepared for that 

WILHELM IN THE CHOIR WILL NEVER FAIL TO SEND ME LIKE BESTIE WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE 

HE'S NOT EVEN PAYING ATTENTION HE DOESN'T KNOW WHAT HE'S DOING AND HE DOESN'T KNOW HOW TO SING BESTIE I AM BEGGING YOU TO FIND ANOTHER HOBBY ANY OTHER HOBBY 

SARA’S BACK THINGS ARE GONNA GET WEIRD 

YESSSSS WILHELM’S GONNA FIND ANOTHER HOBBY MAYBE 

aw baby Simon doesn’t enjoy singing anymore 

THEY’RE GONNA FUCK 

OMG THEY’RE GONNA FUCK 

oh the girls are not happy about Sara being back 

Wilmon only stopped for a second they are ON A MISSION 

damn Micke why’d you let her down so soon 

OH DAMN OH DAMN OH THEY'RE ON THEIR KNEES FOR EACH OTHER OK THEN 

OH THIS IS EXPLICIT OH MY GOD 

OH MY GOD OH 

Wilhelm is a top confirmed I guess damn 

WILHELM IS NOT A TOP CONFIRMED I GUESS

If Micke is drunk or high I swear to god 

Ok we’re good I think 

They’re nakey 

Aw a little boy wants his picture. Like I know it’s gonna bite him in the ass later but it’s super cute rn 

HAPPY BABY SIMON 

Literally shut up Vincent stop making me hate you 

And it bit him in the ass 

Fuck. Simon go live at Hillerska I can’t handle this rn 

Episode 4

I cried: three times

FUCK HE’S CRYING ALREADY

I know this isn’t the point but them calling each other boyfriend makes me want to giggle like a child every time because OMG 

oh they’re taking a test and they’re all cheating 

VINCENT SHUT UP 

NO WILHELM NOT THE PRIVILEGE NOT A PUNISHMENT LINE PLEASE THATS YOUR MOTHER’S PLEASE I’M BEGGING YOU 

Simon and Wilhelm both having a crisis about their future because they don’t have a choice is gonna make me hurl I can’t do this 

August around Sara season 3 has Wilhelm around Simon season 1 energy and I can’t 

Oh did something happen to the Queen? Why are they acting like he’s the king right now? 

OH SHE’S SO SICK OMG 

Farima knows how to handle him and and that’s amazing 

Fuck they’re erasing him 

She passed! 

Again Micke is running away with the parent Olympics and that is BAD 

He deleted his accounts 😭

WILHELM STOP THIS NOW. YOU DO REPRESENT QUEER PEOPLE LET IT BE KNOWN JESUS CHRIST 

That poor dude shaved his head for no reason 

Nilcent moment 

HENRY AND WALTER 

I simply love Henry 

August is a good leader and I hate it so much 

WHERE IS ANETTE LILJA BRING HER BACK. 

Vincent, you look ridiculous. Stand up. 

Wilhelm you’re a hypocrite don’t make me mad at you I am BEGGING. 

Stop clapping for him. He doesn’t deserve this. 

DRAG HER ASS SIMON 

Vincent I’m so mad at you but that was kind of a slay 

They really said “we might give up because we don’t have dinner” and that is the most privileged accurate thing that could have happened 

Henry and Walter offering 300 for a half eaten lollipop is SO ME 

August just admitted to being anorexic and no one batted an eye like???! 

VINCENT ADHD CONFIRMED THANK GOD 

Oh shit the boys are fighting 

Henry spent 2500 on a bag of chips I’m CRYING 

“Show your dick for Hillerska” I’M SCREAMING 

FELICE IS YOU GET THIS SCHOOL SHUT DOWN ISTFG 

THEM WAKING UP ON THE FLOOR TOGETHER I’M NOT OK 

THEY DID IT BOYS! SUCCESS 

Nilcent moment 

FUCK Sara I hate you I love you I’m mad at you 

I love Rosh and Ayub and I know they’re trying to be good friends but like… yall gotta support him at some point 

Oh god oh no. Erik did it. Erik did the homophobic initiation. Oh this is gonna break him. Oh god 

No ERIK I TRUSTED YOU ERIK I BELIEVED IN YOU ERIK I WROTE A BOOK ABOUT YOU OMG PLEASE I CAN'T OMG NO ERIK PLEASE ERIK 

But who got beaten up? Who got the boner? Was it Nils? Was it Vincent? WAS IT AUGUST? It had to have been Nils, right? 

Episode 5

I cried: four times

They’re absolutely going to break up this episode. I can feel it. 

Oh he’s having a nightmare right? 

they’re passing notes and no one is ok 

Vincent you can’t be mean and gay and homophobic and racist. I need you to pick a struggle. 

Fredrika gf era 

Don’t be drunk don’t be drunk don’t be drunk don’t be drunk 

Don’t be high don’t be high don’t be high don’t be high 

What the hell is in August's letter I need to know 

I’m literally not okay with the fact that Wilhelm is raising himself right now 

Wilhelm’s idol being crushed in between his fingers and having no one to talk to about it is making me want to kill someone

NO DON'T IGNORE SIMON PLEASE OMG 

Please tell me Wilhelm has chosen another hobby 

NO WILHELM PLEASE FIND ANOTHER HOBBY YOU LITERALLY HATE SINGING 

don’t lie don’t lie 

Wilhelm stop projecting i’m begging 

The music room is homophobic I can’t take this anymore they couldn’t even get off in there like please 

WHAT'S IN THE LETTER 

WHAT'S IN THE LETTER SARA PLEASE 

Micke you were doing so well 

Micke please 

Stop comparing Simon and Felice, Wilhelm it never landed you anywhere good 

WILHELM PURPLE NAILS 

MICKE NO 

MICKE PLEASE YOU WERE DOING SO WELL 

MICKE 

MICKE NO 

Linda literally fuck you you don’t know anything I hate you so much take a break please I used to love you so much I’m going to scream

Simon can’t take care of everyone all the time please give him a break 

HIS PURPLE NAILS I CAN'T 

NO SWEETHEART DON'T TAKE IT OFF NO PLEASE 

Them all dressed as waiters is sending me into orbit 

WILHELM BIRTHDAY SIMON SINGING STOP THIS IS SO CUTE 

SIMON MADE THE SANDWICH THIS SEASON I'M LOSING IT 

August and Wilhelm should not be able to sit in the same car in case of another Erik situation. That is the entire Swedish line of succession in one vehicle. 

Wilhelm got one good dick and suddenly started liking kids 

WILHELM WHY WOULD YOU TALK ABOUT POISON RIGHT NOW 

the breakup is coming I can feel it 

Nilcent moment 

This is the most awkward thing I’ve ever seen in my life I can’t hand this 

HIS BIRTHDAY SONG IS ABOUT A FROG I CAN'T HANDLE THIS 

Sara and August things are weird 

NO NOT A NEW WATCH LET HIM KEEP THE OLD ONE OMG 

I HATE THIS I HATE THIS I HATE THIS 

oh August is chugging wine 

On a chair no less 

What have they done to Felice? No actually what did they do to Felice this season? I’m not okay with it. 

The birthday dinner is so uncomfortable that I actually can’t handle it like I will have to actively skip it every time 

I’m convinced they’re reading fanfic at this point I’m not able to think of any other explanation for some of this 

“Class Bad Boy” is August. Oh god if they only knew 

They call him Agge I hate August but omf that is so cute 

If they get back together and Felice sees it all hell will break loose and I am sure that is what is going to happen 

WHAT'S IN THE LETTER 

August’s letter just made me sob wtf 

OH 

fucking Fredrika 

Fuck Wilhelm stop. Stop sabotaging yourself 

Welp he’s popping off and Simon’s gonna dip 

Oh god

Oh 

Oh my good god 

Oh I can’t handle this 

Simon can’t either 

If Linda is the reason Wilmon breaks up and I will murder someone 

THEY JUST BROKE UP AND THE SHOW ENDED LIKE 

OH MY FUCKING GOD 

Episode 6

I cried: ELEVEN TIMES

No they’re so sad omg 

“It feels like you two are never really over” she’s right 

WILHELM TAKES RESPONSIBILITY FOR HIS OWN PROBLEMS I CAN'T I’M SO PROUD 

Has that one extra been a 3rd year this whole time? 

Walty moment 

MICKE? 

Not Micke just a car

Sara better be the reason they get back together 

Walter’s outfit slays 

HOLY SHIT HILLERSKA STOPS MID DAY JUST LIKE THAT 

Oh August broke 

The third year trio breaking down together I literally cannot take this I will break 

Rosh and Ayub I need you to take a chill pill 

NO THE BOOK OMG 

POOR ONE OUT FOR HILLERSKA 

August coming clean omg 

Can’t believe Vincent is the voice of reason 

OMG CHESS HAS ACTUALLY BEEN A METAPHOR I’M NOT MAKING SHIT UP

Oop library

Panic attack 

HENRY FUCK OFF 

“WE’RE LIKE BROTHERS” OK I'LL FORGIVE YOU HENRY BUT ONLY BECAUSE OF THAT 

HUSFAR DOING SHOTS OMG 

emo Wille is killing me. Like same. 

PLEASE HE ATE THAT 

PARTY PRINCE 

I love Malin being in on it 

PARTY PRINSEN 

FAKE GRASS 

REVOLUTION PLAYING 

August and wille???? 

Understanding 

Oh god I’m not surviving this conversation 

Oh fuck that HURT 

Fruity? 

Not fruity ok 

Yay Sara 

Felice and Sara made me cry

ROSH AND STELLA OMG 

NILS CAME OUT OMG OMG 

VINCENT IS THE BEST ALLY OMG OMG  

SAUGUST BREAKUP OMG 

“YOU ARE IN LOVE WITH THE PERSON YOU BECOME WITH ME” OMFG 

“IT'LL PASS” OMFG SHE SAID THE THING 

The boys’ immediate “we should leave” they’re learning slowly but surely

OH THE LAKE 

IT TAKES A FOOL TO REMAIN SANE OMFG 

I’m shaking 

Oh their breakup is killing me entirely I am sobbing like a child 

THOSE ARE BARE BUTTS OMFG 

STEDRIKA 

Henry and Walter OMFG 

THE LIGHTS 

his song omg 

WE HAD SIMON’S SONG AND NOW WE HAVE WILLE’S SONG AND I LITERALLY CAN’T TAKE THIS RN 

MIN REVOLUTION

SNOWGLOBE IN THE TRASH OH HE’S ABDICATING. OH SHIT HE’S ABDICATING. I DON’T NEED TO SEE THE REST I KNOW HE’S ABDICATING

THEY HAVE LAST NAMES 

WILHELM QUIT CHOIR THANK GOD 

HILLERSKA’S FIGHT IS FAR FROM OVER 

THEY’RE SINGING SIMONS VERSION I CAN'T HANDLE THIS I CAN'T HANDLE THIS I CAN'T HANDLE THIS 

BORIS AND WILLE 

MAMMA OCH PAPPA ÄR HÄR 

KRISTINA APOLOGY 

Nothing was in vain and I never gave up 

I HOPE YOU HAVE A GOOD SUMMER OMFG 

NEW YORK 

Oh he’s talking about not wanting it 

HE DOESN'T WANT THIS 

SHES GONNA GIVE IT TO AUGUST 

OMG HE'S GONNA DO IT 

Oh August just realized he’s gonna be king 

ALL THAT RUNNING PAYING OFF BABES 

He’s in the backseat 

Felice is in the front 

She didn’t go to new York 

ENDGAME BITCHES 

No I can’t handle a fucking montage rn 

THE FINAL WALL BREAK

[imaginespazzi]

Thank you 😊 As long as I survive the night out on the town in DC the evening before should be great ha. (Manifesting a good performance already Washington..). I just hope that the squad is mostly healthy at that point.

Yes for the love of God Indy please start pulling off some wins. Lots of season to go, hoping for the best 🤞. (Also hey Liberty are my other team! 🙌)

Ok, Full Court Press highlight thoughts:

I always just love little behind the scenes looks! Seeing insight to NIL stuff was cool. And I get they dont really have to, but it always slays me that these athletes cant really cook!And I thought it was a really good mix of players with them all being prominent but very different individuals. CC bias was predictable but also logical given Iowa had another run to the title game. I was mostly bothered by the amount of time we had her bf on screen. Like I get thats a significant other, but why are we hearing from this dude constantly? He just didnt really offer anything for the audience as a narrator imo. Also the others just may not be in relationships, but it seemed an odd choice given that just family members were featured otherwise for everyone. Cardoso's journey was really interesting to me. I wasnt aware of all of her tough family circumstances back home. Makes me feel good for her success. And Kiki.. honestly kinda just blindsided by how attractive she is and realization of who her aunt was! (Really brought home the fact that I dont get to watch enough west coast bball lol)

Oh and from your other recent asks - I sincerely hope, as someone who is half Irish, that no one here has ever thought Im British! (Kidding everyone, Ive got a total soft spot for the English and who doesnt adore a pub)

Died laughing at your last tag replying to my ask btw. Not wrong 😅

Best - ☕️

LMAO here's to you having a memorable (in the best way possible) night babe!

AHHH TWIN! The Liberty (please don't embarrass me against the Sky again) and Sun are my two main teams this season so tbh I very much was not rooting for Indiana at all but now? We are Fever fans on this page (that hurt to write actually).

Yes I love the BTS we got and seeing them in their day to day lives out of the court was really refreshing, like they're all so much more than just players and I think we forget that sometimes.

Ugh in general I don't understand why CC's boyfriend gets the attention he does like who the hell is that man even? Literally as plain as toast and just bad vibes all around tbh.

I think Kamilla's part was my favorite tbh. I knew a little bit about her background but really getting into the BTS of it made me feel so much for her. Her reunion with her family was everything and she deserves the whole world.

Kiki really is beautiful. I'm really glad they chose to do UCLA who honestly maybe didn't get the coverage they deserved last year. And getting a little into the Betts stuff, damn.

I'm really hoping we get Paige, Juju and Flau'jae next year, that'll feed families for years to come!

I cackled a little bit writing that tag so I'm glad you enjoyed it!

[nil-the-glitch]

Nil! Ratboy is actually letting me see Luke tomorrow! I am so excited!!! He's almost a year old and I haven't seen him for almost two months (last time I got to physically see him was January 24th) so I am basically kicking my legs and giggling with excitement!

We're going to the mall, so a nice public place where my anxiety about being alone with Ratboy will be near nonexistent!

Fingers crossed Ratboy doesn't cancel just to be an ass, because that seems like something he'd do.

But anyways, I get to see Luke tomorrow and that's all I care about! He's gonna get so many kisses and loves.

Ok that's great and good and I'm happy for you but I want to make sure you understand my bafflement at the information that your son has been kept away from you for 1/6th of his life so far. Like for a newborn that is A LOT OF TIME and I'm concerned about the effects that could have on him.

Wishing Ratboy a very Loses The Lawsuit.

[liverpool-enjoyer]

dad you GOTTA STOP USING VOICE TO TEXT

[berry-tsukki]

SUGAR FAIRY.

🧁: I forgot to answer and did it separately :( I’m tagging bc I didn’t answer <3 @pickfordsmount “I SQUEALED when I saw this ! ive been debating a yan Cris 🥺 and now I have the chance!! thank you for your request, lovely ! For one of my favourite players. Scoring 2 nil during the Manchester United match xx”

🍰: tw, violence, mentions of murder, overprotective!ronaldo. basically ronaldo worships you !! 🥺 (his kid doesn’t exist in this !!) fem!reader

I’m not saying this man is a worshipper, I’m saying he’s a overprotective worshipper. ok but honestly, Cristiano thinks the absolute world of you.

You are the reason of his existence even when he has to go to practice and tries getting a day off sick. Just so he can spend the day eating cream coated strawberries and - oh - when he kisses you. 🥺

“Dear, I’m just saying he deserved it.” Cue him hitting a man for no reason - okay but in Cristiano’s defence he did look at you weird </3

His team members and many other groups of footballers believe you’re out of his league. Which is true I’m gonna be honest! You’re so cute 🥺

And the way he holds onto your waist and glares at everybody makes his ego go up just a little bit bigger! but other than that the moment he sees you uncomfortable blood is being spilt he doesn’t care who sees.

How many red cards and assault cases he has because of you. When the enemy team on the pitch use your name as a joke and he ends up being taken off :(. and when he throws a whiskey glass against somebody’s head because they just wouldn’t leave you alone :(.

The man thrives off you, seeing you have such a good time makes him feel so joyful. Midnight car rides are a very big thing for you two, when you both scream your favourite lady gaga songs and then kiss under the stars <3

The way you clutch onto his hands when he decides to go to fancy stores with you makes his heart clench in anger >:( he understands and he accepts when they won’t leave him alone but when they won’t leave you alone he gets feral. The bodyguards he orders to stand around you and not him.

Cristiano is also very accepting that at first you didn’t really like him in a romantic way. At first it was all platonic and when he saw you with somebody else he’d get angry yes, but he’d leave you both be. Until it’s three am and your loving boyfriend goes missing and suddenly Cristiano’s number is the only one you can dial <3

And when he scores in his matches - he ran up to you as you were always in the front row and he kisses you 🥺 he does this a lot— he’s willing to get a yellow, red, taken off and everything just for you.

he’s selfless, he can also be very selfish. You’re so sweet, his sugar fairy but at the end of the day, he is yours. And that is final.

- 🍓

[lochnessies]

ok i have a rant. mittelfrank-divas is becoming the fandom police and its ruining the fandom. like every time someone makes a post (not even necessarily in the main tags) that is remotely related to their brloved waifu (hell even ionius) they start vague posting about it in a super manipulative way. it annoys me how manipulative they are and how huge of a following they have. i wish more people could call them out but they hide behind their little "I'm just an innocent littol fan uwu" persona and it's so manipulative AHHHHHH

i was just talking to nils about her in private when i got this. mittlefrank-divas is… uh… an interesting presence in the fandom imo though i wouldn’t say a good one.

i simply don’t understand what her main goal is. she seems to have an almost all encompassing need to make edelgard a victim (which she is in some regards) in any situation that could paint her negatively. like she talks about how thales groomed her and has her on a leash like a puppy or something and says that him saying duscur was done for her benefit was just him being abusive? bc if that’s true then why was the tragedy done? what was its purpose other than to help pave the way for edelgard? did he just do it for shits and giggles?

yet despite this she gets so defensive over ionius for some fucking reason. like don’t you want edel to be a victim? well there you go. conquest was all daddy’s idea and edel was groomed to follow what he said. and tbh i don’t think she has actually read the theory bc she seems to be under the impression that we think ionius was behind the insurrection??? which no… nobody thinks that bc it’s stupid. the insurrection and the experiments were two different events with the opposite end goals.

the insurrection was done bc daddy hresvelg wanted to hold all power in the empire and destroyed house hrym for trying to leave for the alliance and sent twsitd mages to house ordelia since he was the only one in charge at that time. the other nobles are rightfully scared and stage a coup for the end goal of disposing the emperor’s power.

the experiments were done for the explicate purpose in creating a peerless emperor that could gain all the power. why on fucking earth would the nobility take power away from the emperor and then immediately give power to the emperor? besides the nobility have no ties to twsitd only ionius does as stated earlier.

like… those goals are in complete separate directions… and if the writers came out today and said that ionius was not involved at all and it was all on the nobility, ionius is still a weird guy bc he goes to garreg mach as an adult man and picks up a student to be his sex doll bc that’s literally what a concubine is. like at the bare minimum in canon he’s a weird adult who fell in love with an underage girl, killed an entire bloodline, wanted to be a tyrant, and allowed children as young as two be tortured and killed at ordelia. why would you even want to defend him in the first place?

and none of this is touching on diva’s weird habit of using false equivalencies and apparently not knowing what imperialism is since she claimed dimitri did it was well by taking the alliance which isn’t that at all. there was no political or military post in the alliance from the kingdom there to take autonomy from the nation. they went there to help preserve that right to independent rule and was just given the alliance by unanimous vote.

and like you said she has this persona of being a fan girl who just likes meta but gets defensive when you tell her that something she said goes directly against canon. if it goes against canon then it’s fanfic not meta. if you don’t abide by the laws of the game’s universe then you can’t make serious takes on it since it has to be founded in the games text. i just don’t understand how her mind works.

[gryphis-eyes]

Hello!! I hope you’re doing well!! Congrats on your milestone :>> This game honestly seems like soo much fun 😭 i hope its not yet closed :’) my initials are cd 💫 i wanted to ask for my vibe and i wanted to know what my main guide is like :)) Thank you soo much!!

For the exchange for you, i wanted to do what you need to know right now, so its more on the general side :)) pls tell me if it resonates or not:

I heard continue working hard/ work hard. I saw someone carrying something on their shoulders as well. Also someone taking pictures. Okay for me this kinda means like, continue doing what you’re doing or even start doing that thing you’ve been thinking of, and even when it may seem hard i guess capture the moments that make the work worth it for you. Romanticize it a little bit more and see the bigger picture of these things you are working toward. I feel like there are many people really rooting for you, so don’t worry, you’re spirit team has got your back. I pulled some cards for you too, they’re ace of cups, the world, the fool in rx. Back of the deck is 4 of wands. I have a feeling this has a similar message to what i have said earlier, you’re giving your all to something and working toward that fulfillment, but it won’t be as much fun if you don’t have fun along with it. Don’t forget how the simple things may make things all the more better :)) i just heard haha this line from business proposal, the kdrama it is “fighting girl” good luck!!

For the kind of reading i’d like to see:

I’m honestly not very sure 😭

In addition to pacs, what can you do?

I honestly think you can do like information posts about what you said in your post like witchcraft and deity work! I would definitely read it :> you can also do journal type stuff if your into that and share your experinces with deities or just spirituality in general! i love those!

The vibes you give me

You give me a lot of like dark retro style (also very retro punk rock[?])idk why but yeah :>> there’s like the absence of more diverse colors

Hello 🌹 thank you for the reading it really help i’m in that work hard period but I struggle to be more optimistic/care free but at least I love what I do even if it’s not easy :') that Aesthetic remind me of ghost in the shell that’s very cool ! I do use journal but I don’t really follow stuff I just use it to calm my mind lol

Your vibes

◇ Seshat, Khonshu, Sphinx

You seem to be the master of yourself wow, those 3 deities are about introspection and wisdom ! I don’t know if you’re a book worm but you’re definitly into writing haha I understand when you asked for journal stuff because those 3 togheter remind me of those journal prompt about discovering yourself etc. The night doesn’t scare you and you probably gone through it many time with all of this introspection, that’s amazing ! You often question yourself before acting, you probably tamed your ”inner beast” Your vibe are so comforting damn you’re really made of gold ! I got introverted vibe but at the same time you don’t mind people’s presence ? I saw someone sitting under a tree while reading a book on a spring afternoon I think this image truly match your vibe. You hold a lot of wisdom and people might come to you to ask for advice while you’re in your comfy corner. This picture really match your vibe :

Your main guide

◇ Neith and Sobek

Only 2 cards seemed to be enough to describe your guide but honestly since it’s two very powerful deities that’s enough. The word ”berserk” came to my mind and I think it describe them very well, Neith is a goddess of war hunting and wisdom while Sobek’s card talks about the inner beast. Ok it’s just a fun fact but since Sobek is a crocodile sometimes egyptian would take a crocodile from the Nil and worship him like if it was Sobek’s incarnation i think it’s very cool. But back to the reading there might be an animal that your guide use to represent themselves and it might be a good idea to keep representation of that animal around you in order to feel more close to your guide. I really got the image of a very calm and kind person and behind them there is a big intimidating shadow (that looked a bit like an armor) your guide really remind me of Guts’s armor. You can mind your business at peace because if someone ever try to mess with you they will have to face the wrath of your guide, what a great ally to have here.

[terramythos]

OK so my general thoughts on Nirvana Initiative. Major spoilers for the entire game.

Looking purely at story, I think the original was tighter/more well executed, but I ENJOYED this one more overall I guess? Things I Liked

I LOVED the protagonists. Obviously I'm (like many others) obsessed with Ryuki, he completely defied my expectations. The choice to make him canon bi and mentally ill was awesome, as someone who is both. I also liked both Mizukis and their snark. The relationship/dynamic between the two after the reveal is cute. I like Mizuki Date, who's been deprived of affection most of her life, getting a loving and caring sister. They're similar but there are subtle differences between them. Boss being second Mizuki’s mom is really funny. Definitely my favorite set of leads from any Uchikoshi game.

I also liked the supporting cast in this game more than in the previous one. Tokiko is a definite favorite-- she's a fascinating character. I really dug both Shoma and Amame and their struggles as well.

the English voice acting was absolutely fucking incredible, I literally could not stop praising it. Every actor did a phenomenal job. Honestly it's one of the best English dubs I've ever heard, hands down. Shout out to Corina Boettger as Mizuki, especially after the reveal.

Heavier lean into horror my beloved

Gameplay improvements were nice, I like that they added the crime scene investigation sequences so there was a little more "active" gameplay outside the Somniums. It's also nice to play the protags directly for those parts.

The Somniums were top notch overall, head and shoulders over the last game. They introduced a lot of variety and unexpected mechanics to them. My favorite was probably the Masked Woman's Somnium. Genuinely scared the crap out of me in multiple ways. But honorable mentions go to Tokiko, Amame (especially the first one), and Iris.

Lots of little extra details that weren't necessary but flesh out the game, like that tamagotchi mini game, the therapy/dressup games with Aiba and Tama, Wink Psyncs, etc. It shows that a lot of care was put into the game.

Character animations are great, and this is especially evident in the action scenes. They're totally insane for a visual novel and very entertaining to watch. It's just leagues better than the clunky mess that was ZTD.

Great soundtrack with a mix of old and new tracks. There's an impressive variety of songs and tones.

I like details/gags from the last game playing a more prominent role in this one. Naixatloz is the obvious one. Mizuki's super strength having an actual cause is another. It's a connection that doesn't feel gratuitous, unlike some others.

I... like the twist lol. I COMPLETELY understand why some people don't. It's contrived as fuck. But personally I found it fun as a player, even if it doesn't directly affect the plot. I liked picking up on the hints that something was off with the timeline and felt very satisfied when the official reveal happens. I like the reveal with the Masked Woman’s identity. I'm interested to see how replaying the game feels knowing the actual order of events.

I like that plot details are straight up just... in some of the character bios. Most obvious examples are Amame (with the right/left side thing) and Boss (literally says Mizuki is her daughter). Like... they play to one's assumptions and then read much different after certain reveals.

Making Amame the person who murdered Uru is incredibly based, I'm sorry. Love making a background joke character important later.

I thought the secret nil ending was fucking incredible. Seriously. It might be one of my favorite Uchikoshi endings. The strange and surreal tone to it... which comes off in different ways. Like the moment you realize you can walk through the wall. Then Ryuki feeling almost uneasy that everything just... worked out in this timeline. It's good everyone survived, but that also means a lot of meaningful things never happened. Everything is beautiful and nothing hurts... but it feels off. Tama assuming Ryuki's knowledge is just a product of his hallucinationatory episodes rather than the player telling him what will happen. And then Tokiko's closing lines... the butterfly dream... I think it'll haunt me for a while.

Things I'm Critical Of

Honestly, including (close to) the entire original cast was unnecessary and I think the story suffers for it. I understand why characters like Mizuki and Aiba are here, since they're literal protags. And ultimately I understand Date, Boss, and Pewter's roles in the story. But just about everyone else could have been cut. Did we really need MULTIPLE scenes with the fucking... cab driver from the first game? As funny as it is, did So really need a SECOND illegitimate serial killer child? I don't mind some fanservice here and there (like, I ate up the ZE references), but it was way too much.

Integrated with the above, the obsession with leaving the first game unspoiled also hurts the story. Date obviously suffers the most here since he's thrown back into Saito's body for the entire game JUST to hide the Falco spoiler. If someone jumps into a sequel they should expect at least some spoilers, imo. I think VLR's approach of spoiling some details of the previous game but not all would have been much better. AI is far from the only piece of media guilty of this, but I think the trend of avoiding spoilers NO MATTER WHAT is stupid at best and actively harms ongoing series/stories at worst.

Some of the puzzles sucked; there's a few crime scene ones that are very obtuse. It's frustrating because these are the only puzzles where characters actually insult you for not knowing the answer. Aiba, if you know the fucking solution, just tell me, or give me a hint or something! Clearly I don't get it!

Dear fucking God did they beat some jokes into the ground. Please stop with the porno mag thing. I found it funny in the first game and MAYBE the first time it came up here. After that I wanted to jump out the window.

Resolution End is ultimately too silly for me. I don't mind the big dance number-- I expected it-- but like... the Mizukis launching after the rocket on their bikes? Come on, lol. I know these games get silly at parts but that was a bit much.

I think some characters were underutilized, like Gen. Kizuna's character ends up revolving around her relationship with Lien, which I really didn't give a shit about, lol.

[gimmesumsuga]

Sweeter than Sweet (88)

AO3 Link

Pairings: Jimin x reader, Yoongi x reader, Jimin x Yoongi, Namjoon x reader, Taehyung x reader, Jungkook x reader, Jin x reader, Hoseok x reader.

Warnings: Nil of note

Word count: 9.3k

Previous / Epilogue 

So.  The final chapter.  It’s finally here.  It’s been a long time coming and honestly, it’s been so nerve-wracking writing this and hoping that people will like it and GOD I HOPE YOU’RE OK WITH THIS ENDING.  After two and a half years, trying to find a way to tie this all together has been... quite the task.  But anyway, enough rambling from me.  

There’ll be an epilogue after this - just a short one - so we don’t have to say goodbye quite yet but... yeah.  I hope you enjoy.  

“Whatcha making, hyungie? ”  To your right, Jimin’s eyes remain fixed on his phone as he calls out to the elder vampire pottering to and fro between the kitchen counters and the stove.  With one of Jimin’s thumbs caressing the side of your knee and his other scrolling through whatever Korean article he happens to be reading, you’re surprised Yoongi even realises his young lover is addressing him, so casual is his tone.  

“ Kimchi-jjigae ,” Yoongi murmurs in reply as his knife rhythmically thunks against the chopping board, and to your left you hear Hoseok longingly sigh at the mention of food. 

You can empathise with the feeling that spurred him to make such a sound.  You’ve been a vampire for less than a month and already you’ve started to miss the taste of real food, unable to imagine what it must be like for those around you for whom it's been so much longer.  It’s all too easy to understand why they sometimes give in and indulge despite the inevitable gastric upset that it brings. You’d done the very same just last week, unable to resist sneaking a slice of Jin’s vanilla bean cheesecake only to lament its vengeful return back up your oesophagus just a few minutes later - an experience unpleasant enough to sufficiently silence any cravings you might’ve had since; the smell of broth wafting over to you now no more tempting than that of cut grass or fragrant shampoo. 

And anyway, it’s not as though Yoongi is cooking with the intention of the meal he’s making actually being eaten.  He’s cooking because it gives his restless hands something to do - a task on which to concentrate and thereby silence the anxious thoughts that would otherwise occupy his mind - and Yoongi isn’t alone in his attempt to keep pre-occupied.  

One by one you’d gathered together in the kitchen as the day had drawn into night, some having woken early and some having not yet slept at all.  Namjoon’s imminent arrival has everyone on edge, and rather than remain in bed tossing and turning to and fro, all seven of you had ended up gravitating towards one another instead, seeking the reassurance found in numbers.  

Jin had already been here, in the kitchen, when you, Jimin and Yoongi had arrived here together, his brows furrowed in concentration as he furiously tapped away at the keys of his laptop - yelling when he’d lost at whichever game had him so engrossed.  Alarmed, Nova has been giving him a wide berth every since, hiding under the legs of the furthest possible bench and glaring reproachfully each and every time Jin dares make a sound. 

It was Jungkook and Taehyung who had joined you next, and they continue to occupy one another now, some hours later; Jungkook with his sketchpad in hand and tongue poking against the inside of his cheek as he tries to capture Taehyung’s likeness from where he sits posed across the other side of the table, a sleeping Yeontan in his arms.  

Hoseok arrived last of all, completing the set  He's been strangely quiet ever since he joined you, yet still seems to have trouble keeping his limbs from wanting to dance as he watches various choreography videos on his phone, volume turned down low.  It seems as though even in times of stress he’s unable to keep that innate sense of rhythm he’s blessed with at bay.  

You can’t help but note the subtle sense of guilt that settles in your stomach as you observe them all.  If it weren’t for you and your wanting to do this, Jin’s eyes might not be marred by such dark circles, nor Yoongi’s thumb-nail so thoroughly well-chewed as he stands gnawing on it in front of the stove.  Jimin’s knee wouldn’t be bobbing up and down so restlessly, the two youngest might still be in bed, sleeping in as late they usually do, and Hoseok…. Well, there are a lot of things that might be different for Hoseok if it weren’t for your arrival into their lives, but the less you dwell on that the better, you suppose.  

“Princess?” As if somehow sensing your need for distraction, Yoongi’s voice calls out to you.  “Fetch me the pork belly from the fridge?” 

“Sure,” you agree quickly, flashing Jimin a smile as he’s forced to relinquish his grip on your bracelet so that you’re able to move.  He smiles back having ceased his fiddling, though you can’t help but worry it looks a little strained, very aware of the soft sigh he releases as you make your way over to the refrigerator as instructed.  Inside, on the bottom shelf in a large glass bowl, is the meat Yoongi had left to marinate in there some half an hour or so earlier, and as he takes it from your hands and pulls back the covering film, the scent of rice wine is so pungent it almost makes you cough.  

“Thank you,” he wishes you softly, brushing a kiss to your temple as he passes on his way to the stove where he tips the pork into an awaiting pot, fat sizzling as it meets the heat.

“Do you need anything else?” Wanting to make yourself as useful as possible, you hover at his side as he resumes his place at the chopping board, slicing through mushrooms.  

“I’m almost done,” he assures, not taking his eyes away from the task at hand, “But thank you,” he says again, the corners of his lips curling into the smallest of smiles as he briefly glances your way.  

Dismissed, you wander back towards the group in hopes of finding further diversion.  You don’t dare disturb Jin - the last time you did he looked as though he might throw his laptop at you for having interrupted whatever kill-streak he was in the middle of.   Glancing up from where you’d been absent-mindedly watching Jin’s pink-haired avatar run across the screen, your eyes meet Jungkook’s, a smile tugging at your lips when he beckons you over.  

“What do you think, noona ?” he asks as you come to peer over his shoulder at his sketchbook.  He holds it at just enough of an angle to keep his drawings hidden from Taehyung’s view as the blonde-haired vampire squirms from side to side to try and take a peek.   

“He hasn’t given me boobs again, has he?” Taehyung pouts, and whilst you try to stifle a laugh a wicked grin appears on Jungkook’s face.  His muse groans, slumping forward till his head rests on the dining table and his torso hides Yeontan completely from view.  

“No, Tae, he hasn’t given you boobs,” you reassure, smiling just as hard as Jungkook at the thought of it, “Though, I’d really like to get a look at that sometime.”  

“ Jagi! ” Taehyung whines all the more, sitting up straight to hit you full-force with the adorable full pout of his lips and wide-openness of his eyes.  

"I’m only playing,” you grin whilst still sneaking in a side-glance to Jungkook that tells him you’re really anything but.  “It’s really good, baby,” you say, running your fingers absently through the ever-lengthening tresses of Jungkook’s hair to feel him preen at both your praise and his pet-name.  “Looks just like you, Tae.” 

And honestly, it does.  Even if he were to bestow Taehyung with some additional assets , the likeness would still be uncanny.  Jungkook has captured both him and Yeontan perfectly; from the delicateness of Taehyung’s long fingers carding through his playmate’s fur to the softness of his expression as he gazes down at the perfectly shaded puppy curled up in his lap.  

“You’re sure?” Taehyung checks, doubt seeping into his tone as he watches the way the youngest vampire curls his arm around your waist and coaxes you down to sit on his knee, adoration in his eyes.  It wouldn’t be the first time you and Jungkook have been partners in crime when it comes to playing pranks, so you can’t blame him for being suspicious, but when Jungkook finally relents and flashes the drawing Taehyung’s way, you can’t help but smile at the genuine delight you see written across the blonde vampire’s face.  

“Can I keep it when you’re done, gguk?” he asks, that boxy grin of his making an appearance when Jungkook swiftly nods, putting pencil to paper to continue shading the strong angle of Taehyung’s jaw.  You smile fondly at them both, placing an arm across Jungkook’s shoulder to keep yourself steady when Hoseok suddenly lets out a disgruntled sound from beside you. Nose wrinkled, he’s busy shoving Jimin back up off of his lap from where the younger vampire has flopped down in hopes of using his hyung’s thighs as a pillow.  Jimin’s grinning, his whole body going purposefully limp as Hoseok struggles to sit such a dead weight back up again (pun intended) and it only makes you smile more to see it, laughing when Hoseok finally gives up with a loud ‘yah!’ of frustration as Jimin’s head falls back into his lap.  

For someone who so freely lavishes affection on others, it never fails to amuse you just how unwilling Hoseok can sometimes be to being on the receiving end of it.  

“Hey Kookie?” You press a kiss to his temple to gain his attention.  “Can you do me next?” He looks up at you, one eyebrow raised and a dirty smirk twisting his mouth.  

“You want me to do you, noona ?”  A light smack to his shoulder has him laughing, eyes twinkling with mischief.

“I meant draw me, you perv.”    

“Like one of my french girls?” he persists, smiling all the more lewdly when Yoongi starts to chuckle along like some dirty old man from where he’s stood stirring the contents of the pot now bubbling away on the stove.  

“Have you even seen Titanic, Jungkook?” you laugh, just about to reach down and tweak one of his nipples through his shirt as punishment when Jin suddenly throws his arms wide and exclaims, “I’m flying, Jack!” and sends the whole room into peals of laughter.  

And that’s it, then.  Once Jimin sits up and starts to belt out a somewhat pitchy rendition of ‘My Heart Will Go On’, any remaining tension left in the room is well and truly broken.  Jin joins in, Taehyung does too, and then Jungkook, Hoseok, Yoongi - or at least, he tries, bless him - until finally even you’re singing your lungs out with tears of laughter leaking from the corners of your eyes.  

And as sappy as it sounds, it almost does feel as though you’re flying as you’re sat here amongst them - heart soaring whilst you’re surrounded by these silly, wonderful men that you love so very much.  

The seven of you are singing so loud that if it weren’t for the exceptional hearing you’ve so recently been blessed with, you might not have heard the resounding knock that suddenly echoes through the manor.  You do, though - all of you do - and as another knock comes, somehow even louder than the last, the whole room falls silent, bodies tensing and eyes wide in time for the third and final knock to sound.  

“He’s here.”  

Eyes narrow and breaths are held.  Your gaze meets Jimin's as he sits up straight, on high alert, and there's an emotion written on his face that you can't quite put a name to right now.  Not whilst you're so preoccupied with how strange the absence of a furiously beating heart feels. All the same feelings Namjoon usually inspires in you are still there; your body just lacks the means to properly express them, now that you're dead.  

There's no clammy hands.  No quickening of breath. It's disconcerting and yet reassuring all at once, reminding you of just how different of a person - how different a creature - you are since you and Namjoon last met.  Now, even if he wanted to hurt you (though, you're sincerely hoping he doesn't) you doubt he'd be able to.  

You're a lot more than just the 'family pet' these days, that's for certain.  

You stand from your seat on Jungkook's lap quicker than you realise, body moving before your mind has the chance to catch up.  You're nervous - undoubtedly so - but part of you is just eager to finally go and lay to rest all the history between you. To settle things once and for all.  That eagerness gives you the courage to straighten your spine and square your shoulders; a tentative smile on your face as you turn to the others. 

Before you have the chance to speak, however, Jin promptly snapping his laptop shut mid-game completely derails whatever it was you were just about to say.  

"What're you doing?" you ask as almost perfectly in sync, the vampires around you abandon their various pastimes to join you on your feet, beautifully poised for action.  

"We could never let you do this on your own, jagi. " Taehyung's impossibly long fingers slip between your own, squeezing your hand in his as Jimin comes to your side and claims the other - stoic and silent as his gaze meets yours.  The weight of his hand in yours feels like an anchor; solid and grounding. It's comforting - just as comforting as the sweet kiss Taehyung brushes across your knuckles before placing your hand into Yoongi's waiting, open palm.  

"You can always change your mind," Yoongi reminds you, searching your gaze for any sign that you may want to turn back.  You appreciate the offer, and you're sure that deep down, some of them may wish that you would, but it's too late now. You need to see this through.  

"No.  I'm sure," you reply with as much confidence as you can muster, and out of the corner of your eye you see Hoseok nod to himself with a look of grim determination.  

"OK," Jimin says in that sweet, melodic voice of his, "Then let's go." 

The short journey from the kitchen to the entrance hall has never felt longer than it does now, with a heart so full of trepidation.  You can only recall one other occasion where you felt such dread whilst taking these same steps; back when rather than walking side by side with your lovers you had run towards them instead, drawn by the sounds of Jimin’s frantic cries.  It’s a memory that enters unbidden into your mind, pulled to the surface by Namjoon’s arrival, and you squeeze Yoongi’s hand as you attempt to push away the image of his delicate body cradled limp and bloody in Jimin’s arms. It’s not something you want to think about when you’re about to come face to face with the man responsible for having made that happen - can only hope that the vampire waiting outside your front door is now very different from the one who was forced out of it the last time the two of you met within these walls.  

You hesitate as the manor’s solid wooden doors come into sight, a lump in your throat as your footsteps falter.   It’s not that you’re scared, per se - it’s just that you’ve never been very good with confrontation even at the best of times.  You want this to go as smoothly as possible - if such an outcome is even possible at all. You just hope that - 

“Allow me.”  Sweeping past you in all his handsome glory, Jin approaches the front door with nary a hint of nervousness.  There’s a formidable expression on his face, one that sits totally at odds with the soft, over-sized sweater he’s wearing.  On his stomach, an adorable cartoon whale swims amongst fluffy sky-blue fabric - far too cute a fashion choice for someone who looks as though he's just one wrong move away from kicking serious ass.  

You murmur your thanks regardless of whether Jin might hear you over the sound of him unbolting the front door with deft, graceful hands.  Him having taken charge removes the chance for you to hesitate even more than you already have, and before you know it - before you've even had a chance to take whatever bracing breath you'd imagined you'd take before coming face to face - the door is swinging open.  

The weather has gotten more mild since last you and Namjoon met.  Rather than the howling wind and freezing rain that accompanied his sudden exit from your home some weeks ago, the breeze that ruffles through your hair now is by far a more pleasant one; the sun's warmth lingering despite its absence.  

"Evening, hyung, " Namjoon greets in that deep voice of his, little more than the tips of his hair visible over the top of the elder vampire's head.  Even with the door wide open, Jin's shoulders are so broad that even at Namjoon's greater height, he's almost entirely hidden from view.  Without loosening your grip on either of the hands you hold, you find yourself rocking forward onto the balls of your feet to try and get a better look, but to no avail.  Jin seems determined to shield you, one of his hands planted firmly on the door frame to block Namjoon's entrance.  

"Hello, Namjoon," he replies, and though his tone may sound pleasant, there's a tightness to it that puts you on edge.  "Before you come in, I just wanted to remind you-" Namjoon laughs wryly, cutting Jin off mid-sentence as he places one of his large atop his elder's shoulder and pats.  

"I know, hyung, " he assures, and even without being able to see his face, you can hear the smile he’s wearing, "I'll be on my best behaviour."  His hand slips down onto Jin's bicep as your protector lets his arm slowly fall back down to his side, opening up the way for Namjoon to come inside.  "Promise."  

Realising what it was that Jin had intended to remind him of - his promise to kill Namjoon himself should he ever dare to cause trouble again - you really hope that Namjoon is sincere about keeping his vow.  You'd rather not witness any more blood spilt between these brothers; you've seen enough to last a lifetime as it is.  

Jin steps back from the doorway, a furrow in his brow as Namjoon steps forward to take his place.  Dressed in a burnt orange sweater that's at least a size or two too large, he looks marginally better than the last time you met - though that's hardly an achievement given how back then he'd intentionally tried to appear weak and sickly for the sake of his rouse.  

"It's good to see you all."  With his hands clasped together neatly in front of him, Namjoon almost looks contrite as you all stand and stare at one another, at a loss for what to say.  Silent and stiff, the atmosphere is unmistakably awkward.

Perhaps you should be the one to speak first?  You’re the one that asked him to come, after all, so it’s no good just standing here like the cat’s got your tongue.  

Mustering up your courage, you lift your gaze from his chest and meet Namjoon’s eyes for the first time since his arrival.  They’re just as golden as you remember, and as he looks back at you, you swear his gaze softens - a tentative smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.  Almost as if by reflex, you feel your own lips curving into shy, answering smile, and just as they’re about to part to speak -

“Thank you for coming.”  They’re four words that you never would’ve expected to hear Jimin say, but you’re thankful that he has.  As if him having spoken somehow grants his blessing on Namjoon’s arrival, the vampires around you seem to collectively relax; rounding of shoulders and softly exhaled sighs of breaths no longer held.  

“Thank you for inviting me.”  Even Namjoon looks relieved as he unclasps his hands, slotting them inside the pockets of his pants.  

“I didn’t,” Jimin retorts somewhat sharply, and as you glance to the side you note the way his jaw clenches despite your gentle squeeze of his hand.  

“What the lady wants, the lady gets,” Namjoon chortles in spite of Jimin’s hostility, “It’s good to know at least one thing hasn’t changed.”  

Pursing your lips, you almost feel mildly affronted by Namjoon’s insinuation that you’re spoilt until you quickly realise that he likely has a point, and from the smirk Yoongi’s wearing you’d be willing to bet he silently agrees.  

Well, whatever.  It’s not as though you getting your own way turned out to be a bad thing where he’s concerned.  

“So,” Namjoon continues, taking another step forward to finally allow Jin to close the door behind them, “For what purpose have I been summoned?  I have to say I was surprised to have Taehyung go to the trouble of tracking me down.” Nervousness has you clearing your throat as your hands slip from those of the vampires beside you, not quite able to look Namjoon in the eyes as you break away from the group to approach him.  

“Should we... go to the garden to talk?” you suggest, very aware of the many sets of ears and eyes focused on the two of you.  You’ll never be able to say all the things you need to say with this many people listening in so intently.  

“Lead the way.”  With a slight nod of his head, Namjoon comes forward with intent to follow after you, but when you turn around you find you’ve nowhere to go.  Jimin blocks your path, arms folded, eyes narrowed and jaw so tight that the veins on his neck are popping.  

“You haven’t forgotten what you promised?” he asks, one eyebrow rising ever so slightly as he peers down the gentle slope of his nose at you.  

“No…”  Looking around the group, your gaze lands on Hoseok just as his falls on you.  Easy-going and yet fiercely protective; sweet but firm when he needs to be. Out of all of your options, Namjoon’s successor seems the preferable one to have loitering nearby should this all turn to shit.  

As if reading your mind, Hoseok half raises one hand awkwardly into the air, shuffling his weight from foot to foot.  

“I could go with them if you like.”  Jimin’s gaze flickers back and forth across your face to gauge your reaction to his hyung’s suggestion, and on seeing your hopeful little smile, he subtly nods his head and takes a step back, clearing your path.  

“Alright.  We’ll be right here, ok?”  His glances over your shoulder towards Namjoon.  “In case you need us.”  

“I know,” you reply softly, closing the gap between you and placing on hand on his folded arms to give a squeeze for reassurance, your eyes fluttering closed for just a second as you brush your lips across his. “I’ll be fine.” 

“I’ll hold you to that,” declares another voice as hands find your hips and a similarly fleeting kiss skims the tender junction where your shoulder meets your neck.  You know it’s Yoongi not only from his tone but the delicate pout of his lips where they press against your skin.  

“Please do.”  Twisting, you smile as you and Yoongi come face to face.  He smiles back in return, content to let you take his hand and place it into Jimin’s until you should return.  Together, they’ll keep each other strong.  

“Shall we?”  Namjoon’s sudden arrival at your side pulls your focus back to the matter at hand - body tensing in response to his close proximity.  

“Sure.”  At your nod, Hoseok turns to lead the way, walking ahead as you and Namjoon follow on behind through the rest of the group towards the corridor from whence you came.  

“ Jagiya .”  A tentative touch of fingertips to your wrist makes you pause, and it’s with a sweet, reassuring smile that you try to communicate to Taehyung not to worry without having to actually say the words.  The concerned furrow of his brow remains, unfortunately, but when Jungkook slings his arm around his hyung’s shoulder and pulls him close, you know that they, too, will take care of one another.  

They all will, as they always do.  

Namjoon’s smiling somewhat wistfully as you fall back into step but remains silent.  His footsteps seem so loud compared to yours as you walk the hallway together; Namjoon in shoes that are scuffed at the heel and you in a comfy pair of rubber-soled slippers.  

“Hoseok was a good choice as my replacement,” he comments, lifting your gaze from where you’d been staring down at the motion of your feet.  Your eyes travel the length of his imposing stature to his face - still just as handsome as the first time you met despite all that has taken place between you.  He looks ahead in spite of your appraisal, his focus solely on the back of the vampire that has been filling his shoes since having left; undoing all the wrongs Namjoon had made, trying to make them right.  

Hoseok chooses not to reply to Namjoon’s compliment.  You know he’ll have heard it - Namjoon had said it more than loud enough.  

“He’s done a really good job.  Kept the guys in work and our stores well-stocked.”  Namjoon ‘mms’ along, nodding his head. “Don’t know what we’d have done without him, really.”  

You wish you were better able to read Namjoon’s expression but it seems as though he’s keeping his cards close to his chest, for now.  Whether or not that’s intentional you’re not sure, but either way, it doesn’t keep you from wishing. Is he feeling proud of Hoseok, you wander?  Resentful? Apathetic?  

When you reach the double doors to the garden, Hoseok holds them open for the both of you. You expect him to follow as you begin down the fairy-light lit path that winds deeper into the night, but he hangs back instead, loitering beside the hedgerow.  

“You’re not coming?” you ask, turning to see him standing there once you realise you can no longer hear his footsteps crunching along the gravel with yours.  

“Unless you want me to?” he offers, cocking one eyebrow, and at first, you’re really not sure.  You look to Namjoon and once again he seems unconcerned, shoulders shrugging, his hands still deep in his pockets.  

“Your call.  I won’t be offended, either way.”  In some strange way, Namjoon’s nonchalance is somewhat reassuring.  If he had any bad intentions, surely he’d be pushing for the two of you to be alone rather than leaving it all up to you?  

“I think we’ll be ok,” you say, and your stomach does something a little funny at the small, grateful smile that tugs at the corners of Namjoon’s mouth.  

“Ok.”  Hoseok leans back against the wall of the manor, folding his arms across his chest as he fixes Namjoon with a stern look despite addressing you.  “You know where I am. Just shout, and I’ll be there.”  

“Thanks, Hobi,” you smile, and then you and Namjoon take your leave.  

The garden, as always, remains tranquil despite the worry in your heart.  Now that spring is on its way, the night-blooming flowers you’d planted last year are starting to thrive, releasing their sweet scent into the evening air.  Ahead, you can hear the faint trickle of the fountain and beyond it, the gentle creaking of a swing in the breeze - your final destination.  

In silence, you sit side by side.  The swing’s slatted seat is only made for two, forcing you to cosy up far more than you’d originally planned.  You’d been aware of Namjoon’s scent - far more than ever before thanks to your newly enhanced sense of smell - but now, sat so close, it’s almost overwhelming.  Warmly spiced and fragrant, it- 

“You’re not scared of me anymore, are you?”  Namjoon’s sudden observation interrupts your runaway thoughts, and when you sharply look up from where you’d been staring at his lap, you’re surprised by the crooked smile you find him wearing.  You hesitate under his scrutinising gaze, unsure of what to say, and Namjoon laughs at your lack of reply. “I mean, it would make sense.” Taking his hands out of his pockets, he uses one to hold onto the chain suspending the bench on which you sit as he begins to rock his weight back and forth - heel, toe, heel, toe, heel, toe - to gently move the swing.  “You’re even stronger than I am right now.”  

Is Namjoon right?  Are you really not so afraid of him anymore?  Taking a moment to examine how you’re feeling as the two of you quietly swing back and forth, you realise what he’s said is true.  You’ve been nervous, certainly. You’re still nervous, in fact. But scared? Not so much. You know, now, that should you ever need to defend yourself you’d be more than capable of doing so.  Your training sessions with Jin and Jungkook have certainly helped in that department, even without your added strength taken into account.  

“I guess you’re right,” you admit and again Namjoon smiles, looking down at his feet as he exhales a short, breathy laugh.  “And while we’re on the subject,” you continue, playing with the hem of your top where it lays across your lap, “Part of the reason I wanted you to come tonight was so that I could thank you… for that.”  Namjoon looks up and meets your gaze, brow furrowing slightly as his feet fall still and the swing's momentum ceases. “For saving me, again. For turning me.”  

He stares back at you, blinking once, twice, then thrice - like he can't quite figure out what he's meant to say.  

"... They told you it was me?" he finally asks, "Can't say I expected that." 

"I mean, they didn't so much tell me.  More like Jin and Jungkook just blurted it right out."  Namjoon laughs at your admission, fondly shaking his head. "But they didn't deny it when I confronted them, either.  And don't get me wrong, it's not as though this just-" You gesture vaguely with your hands, hoping he'll gather your meaning. "-Just… Makes up for everything that happened before."  

Namjoon's expression looks pained at the mere mention of his former transgressions.  He twists in his seat to face you more directly, clasping his hands together. 

 "I know-" he begins urgently.  

"But-" You interrupt his interruption, "-But I'm still grateful.  You didn't have to come back here and help the others find me. Could've just stood back and watched me die rather than turn me.  But you didn't." Namjoon straightens in his seat, glancing down at his feet and wringing his hands. "So yeah… thank you. Really." 

Namjoon releases his hands only to rub awkwardly at the arm of his sweater; a gesture far more human than you've ever seen from him before.  It's disarming - endearing, almost.  

"Well… you're welcome."  He meets your gaze, smiling cautiously.  

You get the feeling that this is one of the last things Namjoon had expected when Taehyung had invited them here, and if you're honest, you find it somewhat strangely satisfying to catch him so off guard.  You examine his face; the earnestness in his golden eyes and the shallow dimples of his cheeks - smile not quite broad enough yet to bring them out in full force. He looks well - better than you expected him to - and he scoffs a laugh when you tell him so.  

"I've looked better," he dismisses, leaning back into the swing's seat to restart it's slow back and forth motion. 

"Well, I can't imagine you've had it easy these past few weeks…" You shift in your seat, eyes cast down to watch your fingers busily playing with your bracelet. "Where've you been staying, anyway?" Just as you look up, Namjoon looks away, scratching distractedly at the side of his face. 

"Here and there," he answers, and you wonder if the evasiveness of his reply means he's been sleeping rough more often than not.  You hope that's not the case, despite all the bad things he's done.  

"Fair enough," you say when he offers no further explanation. "To be honest, I was surprised Tae even managed to find you.  I'd kind of expected you to have moved on already." Namjoon looks at you, thoughtful.  

"I thought about leaving. Finding a new place, a new life." 

"Why didn't you?" He pauses, smiling faintly before offering an answer.  

"I guess there was just something still holding me back," he says, and as self-absorbed as it might be, your mind can't help but jump to the conclusion that that means his reason for staying was you .  Whether you're happy or concerned about that, you can't quite figure out. "I've had… A lot of time to think since I left." Namjoon opens up his hands as he speaks and stares down at the lines etched in his palms. "A lot of time alone.  Done a lot of self-reflection." 

He pauses but you remain silent, realising that he probably has a lot more to say.  Somewhere off in the distance, you hear the sound of a small animal darting through the undergrowth, its little feet scurrying between the bushes under the cover of darkness.  

"You were right about what you said."  Your head whips round to face Namjoon when he finally speaks again, eyebrows rising in curiosity. "Before, when you said that I didn't love you, you were right." He looks up at you, a deep furrow between his brows. "At least, not in the way I should have done.  The way I treated you was… despicable. The things I did? Unforgivable."  

For a moment, Namjoon seems to forget himself - moves as if to reach out and take your hands but stops himself at the last moment and keeps them clenched in his lap, instead.  

"I never meant for it to go so far or to get so bad, but once I had that first taste of you… I… I just couldn’t stop," he explains, and now that he's opening it up it seems as though the words are tumbling over one another in their haste to come out. "I was so certain I was beyond saving.  Beyond capable of being loved even if I were deserving of it…" Namjoon's expression turns into one of pain, a sadness in his eyes as he looks back at you with the golden glow of fairy lights illuminating his face. The sight puts pain in your chest; an ache where your beating heart used to be.  “But then you came and I thought… maybe…” 

“There were already people here willing to love you, Namjoon,” you interject, shuffling closer, “Long before I ever arrived.”  He smiles ruefully.

“I realise that, now, but I took too long.  The damage is already done.” Namjoon shrugs his shoulders in defeat, still wearing that same sad smile as he leans forward to rest his forearms on his thighs, rubbing his palms together.  

You wish you knew what to say - wish you could offer him some comfort regardless of his worthiness of it - but you find yourself at a loss for words.  You can’t pretend as though his former relationships aren’t as in poor shape as he says. If he were to try to make amends, it would certainly be a long and difficult road - for all of them, not just Namjoon.  

“Back when I came to the bar to warn you, you asked me what I wanted,” he says suddenly, hair ruffling in the breeze as he turns his head to look up at you, “Do you remember?”  You recall the memory easily enough - there had only been that one occasion Namjoon had ever visited you at your workplace, invited or otherwise.  

“I haven’t come to start a fight.”

“Then what do you want?” 

“The same thing I’ve always wanted.” Is it vanity that makes you presume that he means you when he says that? 

“You said what you wanted the same thing you always do,” you recall aloud, embarrassment making you drop your gaze as you admit, “To be honest, I assumed you meant me.”  You hear Namjoon softly chuckle, and then suddenly he’s touching you - lifting your chin with the curl of his index finger to bring your gaze back to his. It doesn’t startle you as much as you’d anticipated it would; doesn’t inspire the fear you’d expected should his hands ever lay on you again.  

“A reasonable assumption,” he smiles, eyes crinkling at the corners until his expression becomes sombre once more.  Sighing, he lets his hand fall, linking his hands together where they dangle off the end of his lap. “But what I really meant was… family.  First, I lost my sister, then my parents. My friends - my brothers .  You.”  He falls silent again for a moment, shaking his head as it drops forward, obscuring his face from your view.  

“Namjoo-” 

“I’ve lost everyone.”  Namjoon sits up abruptly, and when he turns his face your way you swear you see a glassiness to his eyes. “And all through my own fault.”  

Looking back at him now, you realise Namjoon really was right - you’re not afraid of him at all anymore.  If anything, you feel sorry for him.  No one deserves to spend an entire eternity alone, whether or not their exile was somewhat… self-inflicted.  Maybe… maybe if...

He shifts in his seat, seemingly uncomfortable under the intensity of your gaze.  

“I don’t expect you to say anything,” he says when the silence has gone on too long, “I know I don’t deserve-”  

“I can’t speak for the others-” You stop him mid-sentence, and Namjoon settles back down into his seat having almost stood up to leave, his expression one of cautious curiosity.  “-But I’d like to believe no one is ever totally beyond redemption.”   

Redemption.  The word is like kindling to the fragile ember of hope that flickers in Namjoon’s eyes at the mere mention of it.  

“I still want to think that somewhere inside you, deep down, is the Namjoon who cared for his sister so much that he did everything he could to save her.  Who offered his brothers immortality rather than face losing them, too.” You smile meekly. “Who saved me, knowing that to do so he would be putting his own life at risk.”  

Namjoon’s eyes search yours, though you’re not certain what it is he’s looking for.  The trace of a lie, maybe? That you’re just humouring him out of pity? Giving him false hope?  You hope he knows you better than to think you’re the sort of person that would.  

Finally, after what feels like minutes have gone by, he sighs.  

“I want to believe you.” There’s a raw, vulnerable edge to his voice when he speaks, twisting his body to better face you.  “I want… to be better. I want to… to be a man who’s deserving of your love, even if… even if I never have it.”  

“Namjoon…” 

It’s instinctive, the way you reach out - the way you gently place your hand on his cheek.  Namjoon leans into it, eyes closing for just a moment, and you just can’t help it, how your heart bleeds for him.  You should be less affected - should feel colder and more apathetic towards this man who betrayed you so badly - but you just… can’t.  There are many unflattering things people could call you, many faults that they could name, but they could never accuse you of being cold or unfeeling.  It’s just not in your nature. Perhaps some might say that’s a fault in itself, but here you are regardless.  

You wish, in another life - one where less mistakes were made and fewer hearts were broken - that you were able to hold him.  Promise to give Namjoon all the love he so sorely needs to be so that maybe, one day, he might be able to heal. 

But there’s too much water under the bridge.  Even if Namjoon were one day to come back into all of your lives, it could never be the way it was before.  You can’t be that person for him anymore. It’s time for you to both move on, once and for all.  

“Joonie,” you say again, ever so softly, and when he opens his eyes it makes your chest hurt all the more to see how desperately hopeful he looks.  “I can forgive you for what you did. I need to, for both our sakes.” Namjoon smiles, lifting his hand to place it over yours where it lingers on his cheek, but when you start to pull away his expression falters, brow creasing in confusion.  “But I can’t just forget it. Not yet.”  

You hope the implication that maybe one day that might change helps to soften the blow as you fold your hands together in your lap, offering him a sympathetic smile that at first, he turns away from.  Closing his eyes, he takes a deep breath as though to collect himself, and you find yourself on edge, wondering if your rejection will be taken as badly as it was once before.  

“I understand.”  Turns out, you needn’t of worried.  Namjoon looks sad, certainly, but there’s a resignedness about him that you find reassuring - especially when he huffs a laugh and admits, “I’d probably think you were a fool if you’d said differently.”  You laugh as well, knowing he’s right, and it feels as though a weight has been lifted as you sit up straight and run both hands through your hair, breathing out a sigh.  

“Can I be honest with you?” Namjoon asks and instantly you nod, giving him your full attention.  “For the first time in almost thirty years… I have no idea what to do. I wasn’t happy before, but at least looking after the others kept me busy.  Now there’s just… nothing.” He licks his lips, wetting them. “It’s freeing, but it’s also really fucking terrifying.”  

“I get that.”  And you do. Without the others to keep you company, you’re not sure what on earth you’d do to pass the time for the rest of all eternity.  “I know it’s pretty vague advice, but personally? I’d really like to see you start living again. Find something good , something for you to pour all that passion into.”  You smile as you playfully knock your thigh against his, pleased when Namjoon does the same back.  “You’ve got too bright a mind to dwell on such dark thoughts all the time, Joon.”  

“I’m not sure where I’d even start…  But something good sounds…” He shrugs his shoulders, offering you a lopsided grin. “... good, I guess.” 

“And there’s something else I wanted to speak to you about, as well.”  You call out loudly to summon Hosoek, and within seconds he comes running towards you, eyes wild and fists already raised in preparation to fight.  “Hobi, it’s ok,” you reassure quickly as Namjoon puts hands up in surrender - a gesture that for some reason has you holding back the urge to giggle.  Hesitantly, Hoseok lets his arms fall back to his sides and relaxes his posture, all the while his gaze flitting between you and Namjoon as though to doubly make sure that everything is as ok as you say it is. 

“Everything alright?”  

“Do you remember that talk we had yesterday?  About my old apartment?” Eyebrows furrowing slightly, he nods. “Turns out, Jimin never stopped paying the lease, just in case I ever changed my mind and wanted to leave,” you explain, turning to Namjoon, and it makes you smile to see the way his eyes start to widen as it dawns on him what you’re about to offer. “It’s yours, if you want it, and so is your share of the manor's wealth.”  Namjoon’s head turns to look at Hoseok, incredulous. “Hobi and I have already spoken about it. It’s only fair."  

"You don't have to do this," Namjoon says quickly, eyes flitting rapidly back and forth between you and Hoseok. "Really. I'll be fine." 

"We know we don't have to," Hoseok smiles, folding his arms across his chest.  

"But we want to," you correct, pleased when Hoseok nods his agreement. "You saved my life, now we're giving you an opportunity to turn things around and save yours.  We can call it even." 

"I'm not sure that's right." Despite his disagreement with your sentiment Namjoon can't seem to help but smile. "I think I still owe you rather a lot more than you do me." 

"Most likely," you grin in return.  Standing, you reach down into your back pocket to retrieve the keys you'd stashed away earlier; a silver pair that jingle against the penguin engraved disc of your keyring as they're dropped into Namjoon's open, waiting hand. "Just to warn you, there'll be an awful lot of plushies waiting for you. You might want to redecorate." 

"I'm sure it'll all be very… you," Namjoon laughs, joining you on your feet.  Falling silent, he looks down at the keys in his hand and you see his shoulders move with the weight of the breath he takes.  "Thank you." He looks so sincere as he meets your gaze again, closing his fist and then pressing it to his chest as his other hand reaches for yours.  He squeezes when you grant it to him, smiling once more as you squeeze back just as tight. 

"We should probably head back inside," you say after a beat or two have passed - sufficient enough time to memorise the feel of Namjoon's hand wrapped around yours. "The others are probably going out of their minds by now." 

"Are you kidding?" Hoseok laughs as he falls into step with you as the three of you head back towards the house, "I can hear Jimin's teeth grinding from here." 

You re-enter the house together, a seed of hope taking root in your heart at the amenable way Namjoon and Hoseok are able to converse back and forth, almost as if the last few weeks had never happened.

"Once you're settled, I'll call you to discuss the finer details, and when-"  You're distracted from their talk of practicalities by Nova’s sudden high-pitched meowing, and on looking to your right you see her coming towards you down the hall with her sleek black tail swaying gently behind her as she walks, her intelligent eyes glinting as they catch the light.  

“Hi Nova,” you greet, stopping the other vampires in their tracks when they hear you speak.  Meowing again, she winds her way between your ankles as you smile down at her, brushing against your legs with each turn of her limber body until finally, you bend to pick her up, scooping her into your arms.  Namjoon approaches her with a fond smile, waiting for you to nod before reaching out to give her the fussing she truly desires, and you laugh at the sheer volume of her purrs as she rubs the side of her face against every part of him she can reach, nibbling at the tips of his outstretched fingers.  

“I think she’s missed you,” you comment and Namjoon chuckles, giving a firm scratch to the underside of her chin.  

“The feelings mutual,” he purrs back at her, lavishing her in affection for just a few moments longer before finally dragging himself away - fingers restless at his sides you make your way back to the entrance hall, as though he almost wishes they were still in amongst her fur.  

The others seem to barely have moved since you left them.  They linger at the bottom of the staircase, chatting amongst themselves, but when Yeontan barks at having spotted Nova from across the room, silence abruptly falls. 

“Is everything ok?” Urgently, Jimin comes toward you with hands outstretched, laying both on your shoulders to keep you at arm’s length while he surveys your wellbeing, a furrow in his brow.  

“I’m fine, Jimin,” you reassure softly, offering him a small smile as he meets your eyes, searching them for confirmation.  “Really. We’re fine.” He nods, still looking somewhat uncertain, yet he releases you nonetheless, stepping back so that Namjoon is able to step forward and address the group.  

It’s sad how suspiciously they regard him, though you completely understand why they do.  You’re sure Namjoon understands, too, and to his credit, he appears to be doing his best to ignore the stony silence he’s met with - or at least not let it bother him.  

“I know it’ll never be enough to make up for all the things I’ve done,” he begins, gesticulating restlessly with his hands as he talks, “But… nonetheless, I wanted to say I’m sorry.  To all of you. For everything.” Shuffling their feet, the group as a whole looks unsure of how to respond to Namjoon’s apology. Taehyung’s focusing all his attention on Yeontan whilst Jungkook avoids eye contact altogether; Jimin’s stony faced whilst Jin’s is impossible to read.  It’s only Yoongi who meets Namjoon eye for eye and nods his head in acknowledgement. Yoongi, who almost died at the younger vampire’s hands, and yet has remained kind enough - soft-hearted enough - to at least hear his apology out.  

Namjoon’s smiles gratefully, bobbing his head in return, and when Yoongi glances your way you mouth a ‘thank you’ that the dark-haired vampire shrugs his shoulders to, feigning nonchalance.  

“I should go,” Namjoon declares when no one volunteers any further reply, recognising that at least for now, reconciliation remains a lost cause.  You follow after him as he heads towards the door, Nova still cradled in your arms, and as he reaches for the handle you quickly call out,

“Don’t be a stranger, ok?”  He pauses, twisting to look back at you and the vampires stood at your rear.  “I mean… it’ll take time for things to get better but…” You glance at the others around you before looking back to Namjoon, smiling kindly, “That’s something we’ve all got plenty of.”  Namjoon chuckles fondly and in the small of your back you feel a hand being placed, rubbing gently up and down.  

“That we have, little one,” he smiles, and even after all this time - all that’s happened - that nickname still stirs something within you.  It’s not lust, and it’s certainly not love, but a feeling of… nostalgia, almost.   

With one final parting look, Namjoon turns to leave, pulling open the heavy front doors and stepping out into the night.  Before he can disappear into the dark, however, Nova begins to squirm restlessly in your arms, letting out a loud series of meows more akin to wails. 

Namjoon stops in his tracks.  

Looking down, you see Nova peering up you imploringly with those green, intelligent eyes of hers, and you’re sure it’s just your imagination, but you feel almost as if she’s trying to tell you something as she meows again, tail swishing.  

“Joon?”  You go after him, not stopping until he’s within arms reach - close enough to allow the wriggling Nova to gracefully leap out of your grasp and into the embrace of a very startled Namjoon.  

“W-what-?” he stammers as he hastily rearranges his arms to accommodate the feline form curling up against his chest.  The sight of him so flustered and caught off guard is so endearing that you can’t help but start to grin, pressing your lips together in an attempt to stifle the laughter bubbling up inside your lungs.  

“I think the lady hath spoken,” you observe as Nova rubs her face against Namjoon’s jaw, her meows now deep, rumbling purrs of contentment.  He strokes her despite his utter bewilderment, long fingers carding through her fur, and watching the two of them you know for certain that letting her go is the right idea.  What better way to slowly soften Namjoon’s heart and give him purpose than for him to have something to care for all of his own? “Look after her, ok?” He looks up from the cat cradled in his arms.  

“Are you sure?” he asks and when you nod, he smiles so hard that for the first time since he got here, you finally get a flash of Namjoon’s infamous dimples.  “Thank you. Really,” he says earnestly, and as Namjoon wishes you goodbye, his golden eyes take one long, last lingering look up and down your form before he turns, takes his leave, and you softly close the door.  

Turning the key in the lock, a heavy exhale leaves your lungs, and for a moment you stand with one hand pressed to the door and eyes closed to gather yourself.  You’re so relieved that it’s impossible not to smile despite the nagging worry at the back of your mind that Jimin might be upset at you just having given away what was originally his gift to you, but just as it starts to push to the forefront and cause your smile to falter, Jimin’s voice rings soft in your ear.  

“That was really kind, what you just did.”  You turn in the embrace of his arms as they settle around your waist, looking up into eyes that await you.  

“Really?  You’re not upset?”   

“No, kitten,” he assures, leaning down to rest his forehead on yours, a smile tugging at his lips, “I’m not upset.  Though, you’re awfully pious for the creature of the night, you know.”

“You make it sound like a bad thing.”  Smiling, you circle your arms around him too and Jimin begins to sway almost as if the two of you are dancing, hips swinging side to side.  

“Aside from making the rest of us look bad... of course not.”  Jimin’s lips find yours in a sweet, fleeting kiss, and when he pulls away his eyes are practically glowing with affection, cheeks full and rounded with happiness.  “If anything, it only makes me love you more.”  

Yoongi appears at your side, nuzzling into the crook of your neck with a low hum of agreement.  

“What about you, oppa ?” you ask teasingly, tilting your head in order to find his lips and speak against them.  

“You already know how we feel, princess.”  Yoongi nips at your bottom lip when you whine, chuckling deep down low.  Yes, of course you know - but that doesn’t mean you don’t like to hear it out loud.  “You know we adore you,” he whispers as Jimin assaults the other side of your neck with soft, lingering kisses.  “We cherish you, all of us.”  

Your two lovers pull away to reveal the rest of the group watching on; fond smiles on their faces, Jin’s chest puffed up with pride beneath the arms he’s folded across them.  Seeing them all there safe, happy and smiling - your family, your friends, your lovers, your everythings - it’s almost enough to bring you to tears.  Never would you have thought yourself capable of being able to love someone so much, or be so blessed as to receive so much love in return.

You’re so lucky.  So, so lucky.  

“Careful,” you say, blinking back the sting in your eyes, “You’re going to make me cry in a minute.”  

“Well we wouldn’t want that, would we, kitten?” Jimin teases, taking your hand in his and squeezing it tight as Yoongi claims your other, linking his fingers with yours.  “Anyone up for some pool?”  

Almost in perfect unison, your beloved vampires throw their hands up in the air - Jungkook shouting his enthusiasm with a ‘let’s get it!’ so loud that it almost makes you jump.  

“Dibs not with Jin-hyungie, ” Hoseok sing-songs up ahead as you make your way towards the hall, cue indignant shrieking from the eldest of the group and laughter from the rest.  

God, you love them.  You love them, you love them, you love them .  

“I love you,” you call out to them, unable to contain the affection that’s overflowing within you, tugging on your lover’s hands to pull them ever closer to your sides.  You can’t imagine anywhere else they should ever be - anywhere else that you could ever belong.  

“We love you!” Taehyung shouts back, and in his arms, Yeontan yelps his wholehearted agreement.  Up ahead, Jungkook throws his arms around Jin’s shoulders to drag him down low enough to ruffle his hair as they walk, insisting,

“But I’m still her favourite, you know?” 

****************************************************************************************

*deep breath*

Oh, I hope you liked it...

Please, it would mean so much to me to hear your thoughts. Whether it just be about the ending or maybe you've been a silent reader all this time, I'd so love to know what you've made of all of this. I've been writing this fic for two and a half years and finally drawing it to a close has me feeling... pretty emotional to say the least.

Stay tuned for the short epilogue that I'll hopefully be posting once I return from my vacation.

I love you guys. I really do. Thank you for all your unending support - whether you've only just found this fic or whether you've been here since the start. Love you <3

[squidproquoclarice]

In one of your chapters there is a paragraph in which Sadie mentions about getting a peek into Arthur's journal's one day. He says he expects that both she and the children will one day once he's gone. I wonder if you have an idea as to how that would go? How the kids and Sadie (if she herself is indeed still around) react to getting a closer look at the person the knew so well?

So Arthur is operating under the assumption he’ll die first.  Which admittedly is statistically a bit more likely given male life expectancy is usually slightly shorter, he’s five years older than Sadie, and he probably lost a few more years of life expectancy due to the TB.  Although he’s stubborn, and has such a tendency to need to be sure everyone else is OK before he’ll let himself rest, so who knows.  ;)  I do think whichever of them dies first, many years down the road from 1911, the other wouldn’t stick around that long.  They’ve both been the ones left behind enough that after a long, happy life they’d be ready to go and see whatever possible reunion there would be. For either of them, I think the kids would of course want to let the surviving parent read those journals first in privacy.  For Sadie, since I wrote Arthur getting his RDR2-span journal back in 1907 from John, she’d have that all the way through the rest of his life.  For Arthur, he’d still have Sadie’s thoughts from roughly December 1899 onward. I tend to think it would be a good thing to help deal with the grief.  Getting to relive those years and see even more closely those thoughts and feelings in this person they loved so much.  Especially those earliest years with so much growth and change.  That means the good, the bad, and the ugly, so there would be some “Oh, really now,” some moments of annoyance, and some laughter alongside the fond memories and the tears.   It’d probably help them make more peace with the loss to be able to hear them again through those writings. For the kids, they’d probably wait a few years after both Arthur and Sadie were gone, and at that point feel more free to read those journals from both of them.  I’d probably see Sue as the most likely to initiate it since expressing things and emotions in writing is more her style than Bea (art), Matt (in caring for others), or Andy (verbal).  Plus she also might want to read the journals for any further mention of Nils and Margit, her biological parents, and the events that led to Arthur and Sadie rescuing and adopting her.  They haven’t hidden that from her at all, but the journals were understandably private. They wouldn’t have hidden things from the kids like their outlaw past, Jake, Eliza and Isaac, Arthur’s terrible childhood, etc., along with the happiness.  And I suppose they’d probably also want to read because as much of a generally open book as the two of them were, there would always be that vague fear that they didn’t say some things, that the worst of it stayed secret.  So reading the journals would help. They’d get more in depth thoughts and feelings about some stuff they know happened but which didn’t get discussed much.  Things like Sadie’s long process of grief for Jake and slowly coming to terms with the idea of owing him love, but not being wedded to his memory, and that she wasn’t destroyed by what happened to her.  Things like Arthur’s guilt about Eliza and Isaac and coming to terms with his fear of leaving the gang making him more of a babydaddy than a father, but accepting that their deaths were likely something he couldn’t have prevented, even if he'd married Eliza and left the gang.  And his thoughts about being a father again and the lessons learned from how he feels he failed Isaac.     I tend to doubt either of them wrote much about their sex life, being as they would have considered that something private and intimate that didn’t need to be described. So the kids won’t run into that particular awkwardness.  About the closest they’d get would be an allusion or two (e.g., like the very brief journal entries after their first times together where it’s not explicit, but a reader knowing they’re engaged and getting married very soon might be able to guess.)  They’ll see some bits of temporary frustration and uncertainty that are normal for spouses and parents, but they’ll come out of it knowing their love for each other and their children was as real as they always imagined it to be.  And they’ll see there aren’t any hidden dark secrets to be uncovered there.   I do think all of them loved and admired both their parents.  But while things weren’t hidden, they also weren’t discussed at length--it’s not like Arthur wanted to tell tales about his outlaw days in a way that might make them seem idyllic or a point of pride.  It was different to reminisce about the best parts of those days with Sadie, being as she shared some of that life.  So getting to see their writings about all of it would help the Griffith kids feel like they understand them even better as people, both good and bad.  

[neon-junkie]

In story mode do you ever wish you could have got more out of a character?

Like ok so, I absolutely love Sean. He’s my favourite NPC next Flaco and Kieran. And don’t get me wrong I loved his death, it was quick and over in a second. No sob story and you had to go into a gunfight so you don’t have time to dwell on it.

I just wish I could have seen more from him, he’s such a fun character, but in story mode I wish I had at least one more side quest/interaction with him. I would have liked it if I could meet him in Valintine’s saloon and you could get drunk with him. Like no side quest marker it’s just a random encounter you could stumble upon.

Kieran, I’ll admit I miss him. But I would have liked a side quest/random encounter where you could take him into valintine to get his hair and beard cut because no one trusts him to be let out of camp on his own. I think it would have made a player still dwelling on the ‘he was an O’Driscolls, still is’ mindest see that he isn’t such a bad guy. Or if you miss that encounter you could just have a horse race with him, I’d love to race against Branwen.

I understand with Flaco and online makes up for his lack in story mode so he gets a free pass from me. In online I’m glad you can do jobs for Sean, it just makes me miss his character so much more in story though. I do wish you could encounter Kieran in online though :[

Any characters you wish were utilised a little bettter?

bruh. I went off on this.... it’s long so I’ll add it all under the cut lmao

I agree with ALL of this, I would have loved more of those mini-missions, but It think R* could easily add a few more characters to online!! Kieran - You can meet him up in the O'Driscoll camp where we first find him in story. He's in the barn or whatever, and when you first stumble across him, he insists you get out of here because "this is O'Driscoll territory! y-you don't wanna get hurt, so go on, get goin'!" Kieran then realizes you're here for work, and says he can't pay much, but he can offer you a few jobs. He asks for hunting around the area, maybe there's wolves nearby that keep getting too close to the camp? he'll also ask for herb collecting missions, like collecting some burdock root for him because "I can't leave the camp, but you can! you mind gettin' some for me?" Charlotte & her husband - These two are in their home, maybe sitting on the porch when they see you approach. They greet you with a little bit of caution at first, but realize you're just another traveller who's looking to make some cash. They offer you jobs where you hunt around the area for them, maybe taking out some of the Murdfree Brood and rescuing their friends from them. Like Sadie&Jakey, one of them will be in the house at a time, and we'll get to see what their relationship was like before Charlottes husband passed. Albert and Marko - They can both have missions similar to how we see them in story mode. Albert asks you to protect him whilst he does photography, and Marko asks you to collect items here and there for his robot build. Shit, maybe Charles Chantenty could be found running around Saint Denis? and asks you to take out people he doesn't like? or steal art supplies for him? I'm also gonna add that I want MORE content for Marshal Davies. It would make sense if you randomly bump into him at the Sheriffs Office, and he explains that he switches between them to ensure the Sheriffs are all doing their job? It'd be nice to add mini cut scenes for the bounties, rather than just taking their poster off a board, so Marshal Davies could do that?! idk just gimme more of him!!!!!! We need a stranger at Manzanita Post, idc who it is, just give me a Manzanita stranger!! maybe Nils? and he gives you your missions on a slip of paper since all he can say is 'okay.' (oh and 'beechers hope?? okkayy...') Gavins friend? I'm surprised we don't see him walking around towns, but I guess it's because people would try and grief him cause they're arseholes. Anyway... story mode.... I'm REALLY surprised that R* didn't make it a thing where you can bump into other camp members out in the wild. Apparently you can sometimes see them riding about? but I've never had that pop up in my game... I'd also love to have drinks with them, or have a blip appear on my map to show they're in danger, to find that one of them has got into a bar fight looool As for your ideas of Kieran, YES. A lot of people don't even mourn Kieran because there's not much of him, and you don't see his character develop, not unless you hang around camp a lot. I think more people would have fallen for him if you 'helped him get back on his feet', so like you said, taken him out for a haircut and some new clothes, helped him build himself back up after being beaten down by the O'Driscolls. I think the women should have had more missions too. I'm surprised that Karen and Susan aren't brought out onto the odd heist, Karen especially seeing as shes so eager. It would have been nice to see more camp interactions with them, especially ones where maybe they're all playing with Jack, or ranking all the camp guys xD

There needs to be a filler encounter between Micah and Javier. I know we see them drinking together, but Javier suddenly trusts Micah enough in Chapter 6? I need more of Micah sucking up to him, along with most of the other camp members, as a lot of them just suddenly take his side when it all kicks off.

Trelawny magic tricks. That's all I need to say.

More of Bill and Javier, some nice camp interactions? or maybe we see them drinking at the Saloon and Javiers like "yeah Bill's an arse but he apologized so I'm giving him a second chance." Since Javier is find bailing Bills ass in RDR1, so I'd like to see how they got to that point.

It would have been nice if R* did decide to keep the camp member buddy thing, you know where you were able to pick somebody to come out into the open world with you? I think that would have helped show each camp members personality a LOT.

Okay. I'll stop rambling now, but these are my suggestions<3

[amitds]

ok but anyone who watches boruto or even read naruto gaiden can understand that sasuke is not emotionally repressed um idk but if we headcanon him like that it literally puts all his development to nil because what even was the point of his character if he wouldn't finally let the others love him and himself love others and in all of the uchiha bonding episodes his character is layered and shows various emotions he's literally smiling in family portrait drew by kishi and even in the recent episode when sakura and sarada hugged why do people even stan a character if they don't want him to emotionally grow unless it's with their favourite I mean I personally don't like naruhina but I'd be lying if I said that the family is miserable sure everyone has their low moments nothing can be sunshine and rainbows but why pretend one is positive and other negative and abusive I truly do not understand the west and it's logic of what makes a family

so the only positive moments from sasuke to k*rin is acknowledgement of her abilities so he could get her on the team(to me it was done by kishi to hype up the team and nothing else),him stopping suigetsu from insulting her(thought when he does it again sasuke has no reaction) and that team taka slowly reminded him of team 7..oh and the driest apology you could give someone after you have almost succeeding in killing them..am I missing any moment where he didn't throw her under the bus right after??(not counting the two page asspull of a backstory where it is highly debatable what even happened)

They are dumb. lol. If they can’t understand a series for literal children then that’s on them. In no way has Sasuke ever shown that he doesn’t care for his wife and kid or that he somehow loves Karin and Taka more than team 7 and Sarada. 

ALL of these people are mad because of Sakura getting Sasuke. That’s why she’s bashed and he isn’t. They all wanted him for their ships and they have some weird attachment to him since he’s hot and cool, which is ironically what they claim is Sakura’s reason for liking him, so Sakura getting with him ruins their shit. Also, Sakura and Sasuke are more poweful, popular and interesting than Naruto and Hinata as a couple so they’re jealous. They’ve always been that’s why they need to cling to the Western Fandumb’s anti Sakura/SS whining. They used Sakura and SS to ‘fight’ NS and now they’re using the Western fandumb’s anti sakura obsession to ‘fight’ SS. 

I just laugh because Sakura’s still more relevant than Hinata and Karin even in Boruto and Sasuke loving his family is always shown hence theie constant whining and think pieces about how he hates them. Sad. 

[lampoest]

by request from @yeessha

Mission Impossible Fallout Thoughts

Like before: cursing and spoilers !!

short logos nice !!

oop starts with lane talking, always a win 😼😼

why does lane have a beard in this dream?

ooh dramatic nice !!

probably one of my favorite openings

this is badass

hhh its my favorite anarchist:)))

ooh cool name

ofc it's about nuclear warfare why not ??

nervous benji = win

sjshsjsgs

that man reminds me of elon musk :\

cant tell if that was tryna be a pg way to say 'fuck off'

where dat money luther ✋🙄🙄

what was that scream !?!

*throws plutonium*

cool car

ooh the shadows on that guys face

man this scene is really good

BENJI STAY WITH THE FUCKING PLUTONIUM WHAT-

well shit-

oh hey that news guy

pulling a sneaky on him

i also love this scene sm

literally everything about the nils delbruuk scene

:0 so cool

benji got to wear a mask >:))))

sjshsjsgsjs they made a bet on it i love that

ethan is very cool

HELL YEAH THEME SONG !!

i can never take hunley seriously

ooh she pretty :))

this movie has great lines

i also love how it goes in depth about moral choices

WALKER YESS :)))))))))) HE SO PRETTY😳😳

also she pretty too :))))

i just realized why former presidents still are protected

i like how they curse more

bro why is walker so :)))))))

btw this is just gonna be me simping literally everyone

the height difference

HALO JUMP HALO JUMP HALO JUMP

ugh fuck off walker you may be pretty but replying with 'crystal' naw fam✋😬😬

yes because we can die

oop they be falling

i dont think that would work but ok if you say so

not even worth it

i couldnt tell what they were saying until i put on captions

although i dont need any captions to understand the french 😼😼

the faint beat in the background v cool

reflexes

breaking things

chekhovs gun

shdhgdhshdjdhdjs why-

dis why you use the needle

damn he beating the shit out of them

ooh its ilsa

ethan why-

ooh she pretty too 😳😳

alright uh badass female is great

that man reminds me of a toddler

strong accusation coming from a terrorist

shsjdgsjs he wearing arm pads like the toddler whos mom is overprotective

WALKER TOO PRETTY:)))))

oop change of plans

LANE LANE LANE LANE

YES MY MAN :))))))))))

motorcycle chase pog

BENJI IN SUSPENDERS BENJI IN SUSPENDERS !!!

well shit-

eyy he killed some dudes

again walker, no one cares

oh dang she has to be careful, her aim is not the best

R U N

vrrm vrrrm

LOVE THIS SCENE YES

you can tell ethan is trying so hard not to punch lane rn

dang lane really flipped the interrogation hats off man

also i lowkey agree with his message. not his method though-

oop pretty ladies

also ethan killed 4 of your men maam

telepathy

SKDHJSJSJSHS YES THIS SCENE LANE SO PRETTY :)))))))))

i love how lane is just standing there vibing while they talk to hunley

benji dont worry youre great

wait i just noticed that benji's outfit is so cool-

skdgdjshs

walker is cool tbh

ILSA !??

this seems awfully familiar

im working on it

its a trap !!!

benjis wtf face there

oop tea ????

im paying attention to outfits so i can recreate their styles

oop i love how it focuses on walker there

true true

sticking up for your friend

no hes just here because they needed more pretty men

waiting for a diversion

in because HE IS LARK MY GOD ETHAN

ALSO THE LITTLE HEAD NOD I CANT-

stole han solos line there

matching jackets😼😼

how did they swap them ??

and how did lane go along ??

chekhovs......knife ??

wow he really fell for it

also more cursing pog

my two favorite characters together :)))))

CHGJFGSJ I CHOKED ON MY WATER KESUS CRISP

....oop i done fucked up

hunley being all cool and shit

benji being all cool and shit

lanes look of dissapointment is 🤌🤌

like damn bro you fell for that !??

lark

he really tryna lie out of it

ooh her-

whyd he say that-

oop betrayal

i love how benji is the first to drop his weapon

so cool

yeah wait where the hell is lane ??

rip hunley

whyd they treat his death like the death of a lover or smth

first wedding crashers, then funeral crashers, what next ?? birth crashers ??

the most tom cruisey sequence ive ever seen. some comedy some crazy stunts and a broken ankle but still finishing the take

chair theft pog

also i love how not just in this scene but before you see helicopters flying around

hes just hanging onto the elevator and the look walker gives him is top notch

ooh blackmail

this feels like the glass box scene. his foes are getting away and there is nothing he can do

its mission impossible for a reason

tea time with luther

ilsa is a good friend

benji is the mvp here

dang im just realizing how pretty ethan is 😳😳

keep your eyes on the road

luther is great, this is all just a luther appreciation post

they-

they-

they all just copied walker's beard

oh no its julia

ah yes one of the bombs

i like how it actually does take about 15 minutes

uhh no❤️ tom cruise why must you feel the need to do this

LANE :)))))

again why does he feel the need-

walker :)))))))

julia is pretty cool

hes just like: what the fuck how- why-

airspeed ah yes the most important part of not dying

this is a julia appreciation post

what was your plan after that? the detonator would just be at the bottom of that lake

the expressions walker makes :))))

hehe bitch

well shit he has a gun

his hair !!!!!

some star wars level action here

bro benji listen to ilsa

sjsgsjgsjsvsjs this shouldn't be so funny

bro ilsa listen to benji

benji stop wasting time

probably last time but, lane !!!!!

found the other bomb

very true statements from walker

other ? bomb ??

no personal space

ooh uhm lane maybe please dont-

the way he just pops his head into frame like: what the fuck was that ?

no sir you didn't survive that. that is false

i love how she clearly has the same fighting style as before

no benji no smooth brain move

mr lane do your shoes need shining ?!?

dey see me rollin-

ofc he gets burnt why the fuck not

uuuhm what✋😀😀 when the hot oil started spraying i felt a drop of what felt like hot oil on my finger. i am in my room and there isnt even water in here. im scared

also how tf is that holding his weight

chekhovs hook

team work makes the dream work

dang keep believing lane keep thinking that ✋🙄🙄

hes still pretty

so close oh no

why do things just magically stop at the edge of cliffs

kesus crisp ethan not again

i love his shoes though -

what if the hook missed though ??

esploded

thats a no from me dawg

his meniachal little smile shdgsjsgsj

its an action film he'll have it

aww lane so sad :((( oh yeah and 1/3 of the world is saved too. good job ig.

THEY PUT MY MAN IN A TRUNK NOOO >:000000

i like how they end as friends not as romantic interests. v nice

i love how this movie highlights the importance of friends but not in a childish way. even as adults friends are important. they are there for you when no one else did. i like that message.

alright thats pretty much it. sorry that its just me simping pretty much. in conclusion this is my favorite movie 14/10 but i can't wait for the 7th movie.

[bananaofswifts]

IT’S A SUNDAY AFTERNOON in Tribeca, and I’m in Taylor Swift’s loft, inside a former printing house that she has restored and fortified into a sanctuary of brick, velvet, and mahogany. The space is warm and cozy and vaguely literary—later, when we pass through her bedroom en route to her garden, 10 percent of my brain will believe her wardrobe might open up to Narnia. Barefoot in a wine-colored floral top and matching flowy pants, Swift is typing passwords into a laptop to show me the video for “You Need to Calm Down,” eight days before she unleashes it on the world. I have a sliver of an idea what to expect. A few weeks earlier, I spent a day at the video shoot, in a dusty field-slash-junkyard north of Los Angeles. Swift had made it a sort of Big Gay Candy Mountain trailer park, a Technicolor happy place. The cast and crew wore heart-shaped sunglasses—living, breathing lovey-eyes emoji—and a mailbox warned, LOVE LETTERS ONLY. Swift and a stream of costars filmed six scenes over about a dozen hours. The singer-songwriter Hayley Kiyoko, known to her fans as “Lesbian Jesus,” shot arrows at a bull’s-eye. The YouTube comedian-chef Hannah Hart danced alongside Dexter Mayfield, the plus-size male model and self-described “big boy in heels.” The Olympic figure skater Adam Rippon served up icy red snow cones. Swift and her close friend Todrick Hall, of Kinky Boots and RuPaul’s Drag Race, sipped tea with the cast of Queer Eye. The mood was joyous and laid-back. But by the end of the day, I wasn’t sure what the vignettes would add up to. There were shoot days and cameos I wouldn’t observe. For security reasons, the song was never played aloud. (The cast wore ear buds.) Even the hero shot, in which Swift and Hall sauntered arm in arm through the dreamscape at golden hour, was filmed in near-total silence. For weeks afterward, I tried to sleuth out a theory. I started casually. There was a “5” on the bull’s-eye, so I did a quick search to figure out what that number might mean. Immediately I was in over my head. Swift has a thing for symbols. I knew she had been embedding secret messages in liner notes and deploying metaphors as refrains since her self-titled debut in 2006—long before her megafame made her into a symbol of pop supremacy. But I hadn’t understood how coded and byzantine her body of work has become; I hadn’t learned, as Swift’s fans have, to see hidden meanings everywhere. For instance: In the 2017 video for “Look What You Made Me Do,” a headstone in a graveyard scene reads NILS SJOBERG, the pseudonym Swift used as her writing credit on Rihanna’s hit “This Is What You Came For,” a Swedish-sounding nod to that country’s pop wizards. After an excessive amount of ad hoc scholarship—a friend joked that I could have learned Mandarin in the time I spent trying to unpack Swift’s oeuvre—I was no closer to a theory. Pop music has become so layered and meta, but the Taylor Swift Universe stands apart. Apprehending it is like grasping quantum physics. My first indication of what her new album, Lover, would be about came just after midnight on June 1, the beginning of Pride Month, when Swift introduced a petition in support of the federal Equality Act. This legislation would amend the Civil Rights Act to outlaw discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation. (It has passed the House, but prospects in Mitch McConnell’s Senate are unclear.) Swift also posted a letter to Senator Lamar Alexander, Republican of Tennessee, asking him to vote yes. The request, on her personal letterhead (born in 1989. LOVES CATS.), denounced President Trump for not supporting the Equality Act. “I personally reject the president’s stance,” Swift wrote. Back in the kitchen, Swift hits play. “The first verse is about trolls and cancel culture,” she says. “The second verse is about homophobes and the people picketing outside our concerts. The third verse is about successful women being pitted against each other.” The video is, for erudite Swifties, a rich text. I had followed enough clues to correctly guess some of the other cameos—Ellen DeGeneres, RuPaul, Katy Perry. I felt the satisfaction of a gamer who successfully levels up—achievement unlocked! The video’s final frame sends viewers to Swift’s change.org petition in support of the Equality Act, which has acquired more than 400,000 signatures—including those of Cory Booker, Elizabeth Warren, Beto O’Rourke, and Kirsten Gillibrand—or four times the number required to elicit an official response from the White House. “Maybe a year or two ago, Todrick and I are in the car, and he asked me, What would you do if your son was gay?” We are upstairs in Swift’s secret garden, comfortably ensconced in a human-scale basket that is sort of shaped like a cocoon. Swift has brought up an ornate charcuterie board and is happily slathering triple-cream Brie onto sea-salt crackers. “The fact that he had to ask me … shocked me and made me realize that I had not made my position clear enough or loud enough,” she says. “If my son was gay, he’d be gay. I don’t understand the question.” I have pressed Swift on this topic, and her answers have been direct, not performative or scripted. I do sense that she enjoys talking to me about as much as she’d enjoy a root canal—but she’s unfailingly polite, and when we turn to music, her face will light up and she will add little melodic phrases to her speech, clearly her preferred language. “If he was thinking that, I can’t imagine what my fans in the LGBTQ community might be thinking,” she goes on. “It was kind of devastating to realize that I hadn’t been publicly clear about that.” I understand why she was surprised; she has been sending pro-LGBTQ signals since at least 2011. Many have been subtle, but none insignificant—especially for a young country star coming out of Nashville. In the video for her single “Mean” (from 2010’s Speak Now), we see a boy in a school locker room wearing a lavender sweater and bow tie, surrounded by football players. In “Welcome to New York,” the first track on 1989, she sings, “And you can want who you want. Boys and boys and girls and girls.” Two years later, she donated to a fund for the newly created Stonewall National Monument and presented Ruby Rose with a GLAAD Media Award. Every night of last year’s Reputation tour, she dedicated the song “Dress” to Loie Fuller, the openly gay pioneer of modern dance and theatrical lighting who captured the imagination of fin-de-siècle Paris. Swift, who has been criticized for keeping her politics to herself, first took an explicit stance a month before the 2018 midterms. On Instagram, she endorsed Democrats for the Tennessee Legislature and called out the Republican running for Senate, Marsha Blackburn. “She believes businesses have a right to refuse service to gay couples,” Swift wrote. “She also believes they should not have the right to marry. These are not MY Tennessee values.” Swift says the post was partly to help young fans understand that if they wanted to vote, they had to register. To tell them, as she puts it, “Hey, just so you know, you can’t just roll up.” Some 65,000 new voters registered in the first 24 hours after her post, according to Vote.org. Trump came to Blackburn’s defense the following day. “She’s a tremendous woman,” he told reporters. “I’m sure Taylor Swift doesn’t know anything about her. Let’s say I like Taylor’s music about 25 percent less now, OK?” In April, spurred by a raft of anti-LGBTQ bills in Tennessee, Swift donated $113,000 to the Tennessee Equality Project, which advocates for LGBTQ rights. “Horrendous,” she says of the legislation. “They don’t call it ‘Slate of Hate’ for nothing.” Swift especially liked that the Tennessee Equality Project had organized a petition of faith leaders in opposition. “I loved how smart it was to come at it from a religious perspective.” Meanwhile, the “Calm Down” video provoked a Colorado pastor to call Swift “a sinner in desperate need of a savior” and warn that “God will cut her down.” It also revived heated debate within LGBTQ communities about the politics of allyship and corporatization of Pride. Some critics argued Swift’s pro-LGBTQ imagery and lyrics were overdue and out of the blue—a reaction the new Swift scholar in me found bewildering. Had they not been paying attention? Nor did it strike me as out of character for Swift to leverage her power for a cause. She pulled her catalog from Spotify in 2014 over questions of artist compensation. She stared down Apple in 2015, when the company said it would not pay artists during the launch of its music service. (Apple reversed itself immediately.) As a condition of her record deal with Universal Music Group last year, the company promised that it would distribute proceeds from any sale of its Spotify shares to all of its artists. And this summer, Swift furiously called out Scott Borchetta, founder of Big Machine Label Group, for selling her master recordings to the music manager Scooter Braun. (When I ask Swift if she tried to get her masters from Big Machine, her whole body slumps with a palpable heaviness. “It was either investing in my past or my and other artists’ future, and I chose the future,” she says of the deal she struck with Universal.) Swift’s blunt testimony during her 2017 sexual-assault case against a radio DJ—months before the #MeToo reckoning blew open—felt deeply political to me and, I imagine, many other women. Swift accused the DJ, David Mueller, of groping her under her skirt at a photo session in 2013. Her camp reported the incident to his employer, who fired him. Mueller denied the allegation, sued Swift for $3 million, and his case was thrown out. Swift countersued for a symbolic $1 and won. In a Colorado courtroom, Swift described the incident: “He stayed latched onto my bare ass cheek” as photos were being snapped. Asked why photos of the front of her skirt didn’t show this, she said, “Because my ass is located at the back of my body.” Asked if she felt bad about the DJ’s losing his job, she said, “I’m not going to let you or your client make me feel in any way that this is my fault. Here we are years later, and I’m being blamed for the unfortunate events of his life that are the product of his decisions—not mine.” When Time included Swift on the cover of its “Silence Breakers” issue that year, the magazine asked how she felt during the testimony. “I was angry,” she said. “In that moment, I decided to forgo any courtroom formalities and just answer the questions the way it happened…I’m told it was the most amount of times the word ass has ever been said in Colorado Federal Court.” Mueller has since paid Swift the dollar—with a Sacagawea coin. “He was trolling me, implying that I was self-righteous and hell-bent on angry, vengeful feminism. That’s what I’m inferring from him giving me a Sacagawea coin,” Swift says. “Hey, maybe he was trying to do it in honor of a powerful Native American woman. I didn’t ask.” Where is the coin now? “My lawyer has it.” I ask her, why get louder about LGBTQ rights now? “Rights are being stripped from basically everyone who isn’t a straight white cisgender male,” she says. “I didn’t realize until recently that I could advocate for a community that I’m not a part of. It’s hard to know how to do that without being so fearful of making a mistake that you just freeze. Because my mistakes are very loud. When I make a mistake, it echoes through the canyons of the world. It’s clickbait, and it’s a part of my life story, and it’s a part of my career arc.” I’d argue that no heterosexual woman can listen to “You Need to Calm Down” and hear only a gay anthem. “Calm down” is what controlling men tell women who are angry, contrary, or “hysterical,” or, let’s say, fearing for their physical safety. It is what Panic! at the Disco singer Brendon Urie says to Swift in the beginning of the “ME!” music video, prompting her to scream, “Je suis calme!” I cannot believe it is a coincidence that Swift, a numbers geek with an affinity for dates, dropped the single—whose slow, incessant bass is likely to be bumping in stadiums across the world in 2020 if she goes on tour—on June 14, a certain president’s birthday. It’s enlightening to read 13 years of Taylor Swift coverage—all the big reviews, all the big profiles—in one sitting. You notice things. How quickly Swift went from a “prodigy” (The New Yorker) and a “songwriting savant” (Rolling Stone) to a tabloid fixture, for instance. Or how suspect her ambition is made to seem once she acquires real power. Other plot points simply look different in the light of #MeToo. It is hard to imagine that Swift’s songs about her exes would be reviewed as sensationally today. I wonder if, in 2019, any man would dare grab the microphone out of a young woman’s hands at an awards show. I stared into space for a good long while when I was reminded that Pitchfork did not review Taylor Swift’s 1989 but did review Ryan Adams’s cover album of Taylor Swift’s 1989. I ask Swift if she had always been aware of sexism. “I think about this a lot,” she says. “When I was a teenager, I would hear people talk about sexism in the music industry, and I’d be like, I don’t see it. I don’t understand. Then I realized that was because I was a kid. Men in the industry saw me as a kid. I was a lanky, scrawny, overexcited young girl who reminded them more of their little niece or their daughter than a successful woman in business or a colleague. The second I became a woman, in people’s perception, was when I started seeing it. “It’s fine to infantilize a girl’s success and say, How cute that she’s having some hit songs,” she goes on. “How cute that she’s writing songs. But the second it becomes formidable? As soon as I started playing stadiums—when I started to look like a woman—that wasn’t as cool anymore. It was when I started to have songs from Red come out and cross over, like ‘I Knew You Were Trouble’ and ‘We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together.’ ” Those songs are also more assertive than the ones that came before, I say. “Yeah, the angle was different when I started saying, I knew you were trouble when you walked in. Basically, you emotionally manipulated me and I didn’t love it. That wasn’t fun for me.” I have to wonder if having her songwriting overlooked as her hits were picked apart and scrutinized wasn’t the biggest bummer of all. Swift: “I wanted to say to people, You realize writing songs is an art and a craft and not, like, an easy thing to do? Or to do well? People would act like it was a weapon I was using. Like a cheap dirty trick. Be careful, bro, she’ll write a song about you. Don’t stand near her. First of all, that’s not how it works. Second of all, find me a time when they say that about a male artist: Be careful, girl, he’ll use his experience with you to get—God forbid—inspiration to make art.” Without question the tenor of the Taylor Swift Narrative changed most dramatically in July 2016, when Kim Kardashian West called her a “snake” on Twitter, and released video clips of Swift and Kanye West discussing the lyrics to his song “Famous.” (No need to rehash the details here. Suffice it to say that Swift’s version of events hasn’t changed: She knew about some of the lyrics but not others; specifically, the words that bitch.) The posts sparked several hashtags, including #TaylorSwiftIsASnake and #TaylorSwiftIsCanceled, which quickly escalated into a months-long campaign to “cancel” Swift. To this day Swift doesn’t think people grasp the repercussions of that term. “A mass public shaming, with millions of people saying you are quote-unquote canceled, is a very isolating experience,” she says. “I don’t think there are that many people who can actually understand what it’s like to have millions of people hate you very loudly.” She adds: “When you say someone is canceled, it’s not a TV show. It’s a human being. You’re sending mass amounts of messaging to this person to either shut up, disappear, or it could also be perceived as, Kill yourself.” I get a sense of the whiplash Swift experienced when I notice that, a few months into this ordeal, while she was writing the songs that an interpolation of a ’90s camp classic, Right Said Fred’s “I’m Too Sexy.”) Nonetheless, most critics read it as a grenade lobbed in the general direction of Calabasas. One longtime Nashville critic, Brian Mansfield, had a more plausible take: She was writing sarcastically as the “Taylor Swift” portrayed in the media in a bid for privacy. “Yeah, this is the character you created for me, let me just hide behind it,” she says now of the persona she created. “I always used this metaphor when I was younger. I’d say that with every reinvention, I never wanted to tear down my house. ’Cause I built this house. This house being, metaphorically, my body of work, my songwriting, my music, my catalog, my library. I just wanted to redecorate. I think a lot of people, with Reputation, would have perceived that I had torn down the house. Actually, I just built a bunker around it.” In March, the snakes started to morph into butterflies, the vampire color palette into Easter pastels. When a superbloom of wildflowers lured a mesmerizing deluge of Painted Lady butterflies to Los Angeles, Swift marked it with an Instagram post. She attended the iHeartRadio Music Awards that night in a sequin romper and stilettos with shimmery wings attached. Swift announced the single “ME!” a month later, with a large butterfly mural in Nashville. In the music video for the (conspicuously) bubblegum song, a hissing pastel-pink snake explodes into a kaleidoscope of butterflies. One flutters by the window of an apartment, where Swift is arguing in French with Urie. A record player is playing in the background. “It’s an old-timey, 1940s-sounding instrumental version of ‘You Need to Calm Down,’ ’’ Swift says. Later, in the “Calm Down” video, Swift wears a (fake) back tattoo of a snake swarmed by butterflies. We are only two songs in, people. Lover, to be released on August 23, will have a total of 18 songs. “I was compiling ideas for a very long time,” Swift says. “When I started writing, I couldn’t stop.” (We can assume the British actor Joe Alwyn, with whom Swift has been in a relationship for nearly three years, provided some of the inspiration.) Swift thinks Lover might be her favorite album yet. “There are so many ways in which this album feels like a new beginning,” she says. “This album is really a love letter to love, in all of its maddening, passionate, exciting, enchanting, horrific, tragic, wonderful glory.” I have to ask Swift, given how genuinely at peace she seems, if part of her isn’t thankful, if not for the Great Cancellation of 2016, then for the person she now is—knowing who her friends are, knowing what’s what. “When you’re going through loss or embarrassment or shame, it’s a grieving process with so many micro emotions in a day. One of the reasons why I didn’t do interviews for Reputation was that I couldn’t figure out how I felt hour to hour. Sometimes I felt like: All these things taught me something that I never could have learned in a way that didn’t hurt as much. Five minutes later, I’d feel like: That was horrible. Why did that have to happen? What am I supposed to take from this other than mass amounts of humiliation? And then five minutes later I’d think: I think I might be happier than I’ve ever been.” She goes on: “It’s so strange trying to be self-aware when you’ve been cast as this always smiling, always happy ‘America’s sweetheart’ thing, and then having that taken away and realizing that it’s actually a great thing that it was taken away, because that’s extremely limiting.” Swift leans back in the cocoon and smiles: “We’re not going to go straight to gratitude with it. Ever. But we’re going to find positive aspects to it. We’re never going to write a thank-you note.” Though people will take the Perry-Swift burger-and-fries embrace in the “You Need to Calm Down” video as a press release that the two have mended fences, Swift says it’s actually a comment on how the media pits female pop stars against one another. After Perry sent Swift an (actual) olive branch last year, Swift asked her to be in the video: “She wrote back, This makes me so emotional. I’m so up for this. I want us to be that example. But let’s spend some time together. Because I want it to be real. So she came over and we talked for hours. “We decided the metaphor for what happens in the media,” Swift explains, “is they pick two people and it’s like they’re pouring gasoline all over the floor. All that needs to happen is one false move, one false word, one misunderstanding, and a match is lit and dropped. That’s what happened with us. It was: Who’s better? Katy or Taylor? Katy or Taylor? Katy or Taylor? Katy or Taylor? The tension is so high that it becomes impossible for you to not think that the other person has something against you.“ Meanwhile, the protesters in the video reference a real-life religious group that pickets outside Swift’s concerts, not the white working class in general, as some have assumed. “So many artists have them at their shows, and it’s such a confounding, confusing, infuriating thing to have outside of joyful concerts,” she tells me. “Obviously I don’t want to mention the actual entity, because they would get excited about that. Giving them press is not on my list of priorities.” At one point, Swift asks if I would like to hear two other songs off the new album. (Duh.) First she plays “Lover,” the title track, coproduced by Jack Antonoff. “This has one of my favorite bridges,” she says. “I love a bridge, and I was really able to go to Bridge City.” It’s a romantic, haunting, waltzy, singer-songwritery nugget: classic Swift. “My heart’s been borrowed and yours has been blue,” she sings. “All’s well that ends well to end up with you.” Next, Swift cues up a track that “plays with the idea of perception.” She has often wondered how she would be written and spoken about if she were a man, “so I wrote a song called ‘The Man.’ ” It’s a thought experiment of sorts: “If I had made all the same choices, all the same mistakes, all the same accomplishments, how would it read?” Seconds later, Swift’s earpods are pumping a synth-pop earworm into my head: “I’d be a fearless leader. I’d be an alpha type. When everyone believes ya: What’s that like?” Swift wrote the first two singles with Joel Little, best known as one of Lorde’s go-to producers. (“From a pop-songwriting point of view, she’s the pinnacle,” Little says of Swift.) The album is likely to include more marquee names. A portrait of the Dixie Chicks in the background of the “ME!” video almost certainly portends a collaboration. If fans are correctly reading a button affixed to her denim jacket in a recent magazine cover, we can expect one with Drake, too. Lover. “We met at one of her shows,” says McCartney, “and then we had a girls’ night and kind of jumped straight in. In London we’ll go on walks and talk about everything—life and love.” (Swift has no further fashion ambitions at the moment. “I really love my job right now,” she tells me. “My focus is on music.”) Oh, and that “5” on the bullseye? Track five is called “The Archer.” Yet something tells me the most illuminating clue for reading both Lover and Reputationmay be Loie Fuller, the dancer to whom Swift paid homage on tour. As Swift noted on a Jumbotron, Fuller “fought for artists to own their work.” Fuller also used swirling fabric and colored lights to metamorphose onstage, playing a “hide-and-seek illusionist game” with her audience, as one writer has put it. She became a muse to the Symbolists in Paris, where Jean Cocteau wrote that she created “the phantom of an era.” The effect, said the poet Stéphane Mallarmé, was a “dizziness of soul made visible by an artifice.” Fuller’s most famous piece was “Serpentine Dance.” Another was “Butterfly Dance.” Swift has had almost no downtime since late 2017, but what little she does have is divided among New York, Nashville, Los Angeles, and Rhode Island, where she keeps homes—plus London. In an essay earlier this year, she revealed that her mother, Andrea Swift, is fighting cancer for a second time. “There was a relapse that happened,” Swift says, declining to go into detail. “It’s something that my family is going through.” Later this year, she will star in a film adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Cats as Bombalurina, the flirtatious red cat. “They made us the size of cats by making the furniture bigger,” she says. “You’d be standing there and you could barely reach the seat of a chair. It was phenomenal. It made you feel like a little kid.” But first, she will spend much of the summer holding “secret sessions”—a tradition wherein Swift invites hundreds of fans to her various homes to preview her new music. “They’ve never given me a reason to stop doing it,” she says. “Not a single one.” Speaking of: Inquiring fans will want to know if Swift dropped any more clues about how to decode Lover during this interview. For you I reviewed the audio again, and there were a few things that made my newly acquired Swifty sense tingle. At one point she compared superstardom in the digital age to life in a dollhouse, one where voyeurs “can ‘ship’ you with who they want to ‘ship’ you with, and they can ‘favorite’ friends that you have, and they can know where you are all the time.” The metaphor was precise and vivid and, well, a little too intricately rendered to be off the cuff. (Also, the “ME!” lyric: “Baby doll, when it comes to a lover. I promise that you’ll never find another like me.”) Then there was the balloon—a giant gold balloon in the shape of a numeral seven that happened to float by while we were on her roof, on this, the occasion of her seventh album. “Is it an L’?” I say. “No, because look, the string is hanging from the bottom,” she says. It might seem an obvious symbolic gesture, deployed for this interview, except for how impossible that seems. Swift let me control the timing of nearly everything. Moreover, the gold seven wasn’t floating up from the sidewalk below. It was already high in the sky, drifting slowly toward us from down the street. She would have had to control the wind, or at least to have studied it. Would Taylor Swift really go to such elaborate lengths for her fans? This much I know: Yes, she would.

[365days365movies]

March 11, 2021: The Seventh Seal (1957) (Part One)

Well, I did Cocteau this month already, so...time for another big boi director, I guess.

I’m sorry for me, too, because this one scares me a little more than Cocteau.

Ingmar Bergman. One of the greatest directors of all time, and the only prominent Swedish director that I’ve ever heard of. Also someone whom I’m DEFINITELY not qualified to judge, but here we are anyway.

Best known for Persona, Fanny and Alexander, and...one more movie, Bergman was an EXTREMELY prolific director, and far more influential on global film than you or I know. Seriously, dude influenced everyone from Martin Scorcese to Terry Jones to Peter Hewitt in one way or another. He’s passed away, as of 2007, at the age of 89. And speaking of Death...

There have been a LOT of incarnations of Death in media. Hell, we literally looked at one two movies ago, in Orpheus. You could argue that Ugetsu also revolved around death, but I’m talking about Death, the physical embodiment of the concept.

Now, the most common incarnation seen is the Grim Reaper (pictured above), but there are MANY other well-known versions. Here, have a few different versions, just for taste.

Yeah, that’s a lot. Kudos if you knew all of them! But that last one...I mentioned Peter Hewitt earlier. He directed Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey, and in it, the two meet that films version of Death, a Swedish-accented ghoul. And if you’ve ever wondered about that, or about this joke from the opening song of Muppets: Most Wanted:

...Well, keep reading. Like I said, Bergman was influential, and perhaps NONE of his films was quite as influential as The Seventh Seal or Det sjunde ingelet. Welcome to a show about Death.

SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

Recap (1/2)

ONCE AGAIN, The Criterion Collection logo brings us in, followed by the opening credits and music from that should accompany a Dark Souls boss, followed by a quote from Revelation 8:1-6, about the opening of the Seventh Seal. Roll credits?

Well, no. Instead, on the shore of the Atlantic Ocean, we meet a knight, resting there and praying to God, as his horses drink from the salt water. This is Antonius Block (Max von Sydow), a knight who is resting here with his squire, Jöns (Gunnar Björnstrand). As Block takes out his chess set, he is joined by...

ALREADY?

Holy shit, I didn’t expect this scene to happen FOUR MINUTES IN??? Dear Lord, if this is happening now, what the hell is the rest of this movie? I am afraid of that answer now.

Anyway, yes, this is Death (Bengt Ekerot). And yeah, dude is indeed a CREEPY motherfucker. He’s been at Block’s side for a long time, but has now finally come for him, at last.

However, Block, ever clever knight that he is, capitalizes on rumors that he’s heard about the character, and challenges him to a game of chess. They start, with Block playing white and Death playing black.

But as they’re about to begin, we cut to Block and Jöns leaving the beach. Huh. OK then, I guess we’ll get back to that, huh? Jöns speaks of ill omens, and they see a pair of corpses, rotted after a long time dead. As their journey continues, we shift focus from them to a small group of actors in a caravan.

One of these actors - Jof (Nils Poppe) - sees a vision of a woman walking with her infant child, as angelic music plays in the background. He runs back to the caravan, where he wakes the sleeping Mia (Bibi Andersson), his wife. He tells her that this was the Virgin Mary and her baby boy, Jesus. Um...wow. Holy shit, my man.

Mia takes her husband’s vision as his active imagination, while he takes it as pure fact. Apparently, he’s very prone to having these kinds of visions. Mia warns him to tamp those visions down, or people will think him a fool. All of this rouses both fellow actor Jonas Skat (Erik Strandmark), and Jöns and Mia’s infant son Mikael (a cute chubby baby).

The troupe is on their way to Einsmore, performing for a group of priests. They will perform in a play about Death, once again making me think about Beetlejuice the Musical, which is really need to watch.

Block and Jöns arrive at a church, where real-world painter Albertus Pictor (Gunnar Olsson) is painting a Danse Macabre. Jöns asks why paint something so...well, macabre, and Pictor notes that it’s not a bad thing to remind people that they will die. This is especially as the Black Plague sweeps across Europe. YUP. IT’S THAT TIME PERIOD.

The two speak more on the absolute HORROR of the Bubonic Plague, a topic that clearly bothers Jöns. Meanwhile, Block goes to pray in a confessional, where he reveals that he doesn’t truly understand the point of prayer in this world. He’s clearly struggling with his faith, which must be HELL for a knight. And he delivers these confessions to his ever-present companion: Death.

Block wants God to speak to him directly, and questions whether or not God truly exists. He wants to do one last, meaningful thing before he meets his inevitable end. Block hasn’t yet realized that he’s speaking with Death, and openly talks about the chess game they began that morning. Death replies that they will continue their game in a nearby inn. This is how Block intends to prolong his own life.

He goes back out to meet Jöns, who’s still speaking with the painter, and the two leave the church. Directly outside, a woman is in the stocks, and is preparing to be burnt at the stake for learning carnal knowledge of Satan. She’s also being blamed for being the cause of the Black Plague itself. Just gotta say, big if true, goddamn. Black wants to know if she’s met the Devil himself, but she’s not quite all there.

Block and Jöns continue their journey, making their way from farmlands. Jöns goes into one of the barns in a village, where a dead body lies. He then hides as another man enters, and steals jewelry from the woman’s corpse. This is Raval (Bertil Anderberg), and he’s quickly caught in the act by a mute woman (Gunnel Lindblom).

However, before he can do anything to this poor girl, he’s stopped by Jöns, who recognizes him from the seminary, ten years prior. He tells him to shove off, and offers the mute woman a place as his housekeeper. And, uh...yeah, Jöns is kind of a dick, but more of a cad, y’know? He’s not likeable, but he also isn’t hateable.

In town, the actors’ troupe is performing, and the leader of the troupe - Skat - is seduced by a woman during the performance, and they have sex in the bushes behind the stage. As all of this is happening, the performance is interrupted by a group of flagellants, extremist priests that whip themselves and parade through the town, showing their extreme devotion to their faith. Fuckin’ yikes, this is a thing that ACTUALLY HAPPENED.

And as these people, devoted in their faith and pain, march through the town, the townspeople are moved to tears by this act. And this act has real blood, sweat, and tears poured into it. The head priest of the parade then gives a fatalist sermon to the townsfolk, noting that death will come for them all with the plague, and berating them for their seeming ignorance of their fate.

And dude is MEAN. He mocks people’s appearance, and screams to all of them that they’re doomed, and will die painful deaths. Watching on is not only the actors’ troupe, but also Block, Jöns, and the mute girl (yeah, she never gets a name, goddamn it). The pain parade moves on, singing their solemn hymns all the way. And I’m not gonna lie...it’s intense. Especially knowing that this shit actually HAPPENED? Damn.

Once they pass, Jöns notes his disbelief at this display, never believing how far people will go, or the stories that they’ll tell. He’s interrupted by blacksmith Plog (Åke Fridell), who’s looking for his wife. Meanwhile, inside, a group of townspeople talk about the spreading plague, and wonder if this is the end times indeed. Plog comes in and asks Jof where his wife is. He also doesn’t know, but it’s revealed that this is the woman that Skat ran off with in the bushes. The conversation is joined by thief Raval, who outs Jof as an actor, and a friend of Skat.

Raval and Plog both threaten him for information on Skat and Lisa’s whereabouts, and humiliate him in front of the entire tavern. It’s actually quite hard to watch as well. This poor, poor guy, who seems like a nice enough dude, is essentally tortured for the transgressions of his asshole friend. But it’s interrupted by Jöns, who stops Raval in his tracks, and slashes his face, which he said he’d do if he ever saw him again.

Excellent spot for Part 2, I think! See you there!

[yeats-infection]

@sqvalors tagged me in a lil writing meme... if you’d like to participate please do and tag me! 

ao3 name: fluorescentgrey but i also post some things as drglass (dr. glass is the second song on the fluorescent grey EP by deerhunter, so if i make another pseud it will be likenew, then washoff, etc.) 

fandoms: about two thirds of my fics are harry potter or star wars but there are a lot of random little goodies. currently i have shifted into the terror (2018) mode. 

number of fics: 59 right now... i will throw a party when i get to 69... 

fic i spent the most time on: this is funny because some of these technically took me like six months or more of working on them extremely intermittently... namely, bone machine. the series in the garden has taken me the most time generally... and in that, minuet did take me several months of working really hard while i had a schedule / commute that was not conducive to having a creative practice... 

fic i spent the least amount of time on: hilariously, literally my most popular fic by ninety miles, the witcher PWP that i wrote out of spite in two or three hours. 

longest fic: the source codes series... particularly heelstone which is 102k. i wrote these two stories in a single summer like a crazy person and i hate talking about them because i find them WAY too gooey. honestly, that’s why they are so long. it’s all the gooeyness!!!!!! 

shortest fic: yes, the answer is the witcher porn again (this silly thing is going to be the answer for many other questions in this little meme but i’m just going to stop talking about it while i’m ahead). the west end is just about 50 words longer and is much better and is a much better and more interesting story. 

most hits: we’re just going to pretend it’s sex and dying in high society, which has the second most hits. this is certainly due to the fact that @wolfstarwarehouse hypes this story a lot for which i am endlessly grateful! 

most kudos: recovery position has the second most kudos so let’s go with that one! i have been very touched by the response to this story, though i do personally like the sequel beachcoma a little more... i understand why not everyone wants to read it because it is a little more bittersweet. but it also comes from my soul. 

most comment threads: the two stories in the source codes series are leading here, because i only posted two chapters at a time so that i would get maximal validation, lol. 

most bookmarks: in order to talk about a story i haven’t talked about yet, the rosary has the fourth-most. i think this fic is truly my r/s swan song... i said everything i wanted to say and did everything i wanted to do. it’s a really good mystery/noir story that i didn’t think i could pull off until i did! and i love the OCs in it who have sort of manifested these secret headcanons for me that i may expostulate upon someday. thank you to @piovascosimo for the inspiration to write it. 

total word count: 1,000,478. lol! 

favorite fic i wrote: cannot possibly choose but probably the top five in order of date posted are: desperado, a handful of dust, doom town, beachcoma, jump into the fire

fic i’d rewrite / expand on: i already said all of source codes because it’s way too gooey, i also could make hard time killing floor blues a lot tighter, and a memoir of the flesh deserves a way better ending because i was rushing to make the yuletide deadline...

share a bit of a WIP: i was trying for a while to write a band of brothers AU where they are vietnam vets who start growing cannabis... based on the steve earle song “copperhead road.” this could have been SO good but the plot was too huge and unwieldy so i gave up. my roommate is obsessed with this idea and keeps asking me how it’s going so i may yet finish. but there’s a bit below the cut.

The knock at the door in the night was a sharp shock, bright as lightning, that sent them both back to Khe Sanh and before. Nix ducked. Dick went behind the doorframe. They kept low into the kitchen, where Nix took his old officer’s pistol out from where he kept it hidden behind the fridge. Then they went to the door, keeping to the edges of the hallways.

On the porch was Liebgott. He could have made his own way in likely right onto the couch without either of them noticing, so it was something that he had knocked on the goddamn door. It was particularly something given that none of the boys from Easy should have known about the grow operation, or even about Dick’s farm, being as Dick’s address on file at the V.A. was a post office box in town and Nix’s was still in Jersey. These considerations were nil to somebody who had spent the better part of five years in the bush of Vietnam. He took a last draw from his cigarette and put it out against the rubber sole of his boot, then he put the butt in his pocket. As far as Nix knew, he hadn’t said a word since January 1970.  

“Joe,” said Dick diplomatically. He put his hand out and Liebgott took it. Then he took Nix’s. He had handsome dark eyes, but they were full of a wall. You could tell he saw you, but it was like nothing followed the necessary channels to the brain to spur emotional response. It had been like this even while he was still talking, and after a while you got used to it.

“You comin' in,” said Nix, knowing he probably would even if he wasn’t invited.

Inside, they all three sat at the kitchen table in silence nobody was about to break. Finally Dick got up and went to the drawer where they kept the rollies and their share of the product. He passed a sheaf of papers and a film canister full of bud to Liebgott across the table. Nix understood as well as Dick apparently did that there would be no getting anything over on this kid, who had eyes in the back and sides of his head. He’d probably had a nice tour of the property before coming inside. “You hungry, son,” Dick said.

Liebgott shook his head. He extracted one of the buds from the canister and inspected it. They did look mighty good if Nix said so himself. They looked artful in Liebgott’s hand. There were black scabs across his knuckles and a dark rime of filth under those fingernails which still existed. He seemed satisfied enough with what he saw to take a paper out of the sheaf and start shredding the flower into it.

“Captain Nixon calls it Easy Diesel,” said Dick, like he was trying to pretend it wasn’t the funniest thing in the world.

Liebgott looked up and a smile flashed across his face like the savage golden light of a flare falling over the far hills. His smile was sort of brutal, like the edge of a knife in a barfight, or like a seething animal. Luckily it went away as quickly as it had come. He rolled the joint with a quick grace and lit the business end with his old silver Zippo Nixon hadn’t seen since the war. There was a skull engraved on one side and on the other it read IF YOU ARE RECOVERING MY BODY, FUCK YOU.

“I don’t know how you found us, Joe,” Dick said thoughtfully. “You don’t have to… tell us. But we ain’t exactly keen to have just anybody here.” He paused and looked quickly to Nix, who tried to make it abundantly clear by means of eyebrows that he wasn’t sure they ought to go down this road, wherever it was leading. Dick ignored him. Liebgott was watching them, fully understanding their attempted clandestine exchange. “We ain’t exactly keen to have the DEA here,” Dick said at last.

The cherry at the end of the joint atomized with a crackling hiss. Liebgott looked between Dick and Nix with extreme seriousness sullied only by his exhaling a dignified white cloud out his nose. Then he nodded, once, curtly, demonstrating he understood his orders as they had been relayed.

Nix flashed Dick what he thought was a what have you done type look. But Dick looked totally unbothered. He should have gone into this business years ago for how violently unflappable he was. He said to Liebgott, “I’ll get some blankets and you can make up the couch.”

Liebgott shook his head to say no need. He got up, careful not to scrape the chair against the floor, shook each of their hands again, and in less than a minute’s time he was back out the door with nothing more than what he’d come in with except the joint.

Nix and Dick, on the porch, listening to the crickets, watched him disappear into the darkness.

“Are we hallucinating,” said Nix eventually.

“I sure as hell hope not,” Dick replied. “We’ve got to ship all that product or we’ll starve.”

-

In the morning Nix was in the field, inspecting the plants. Liebgott was standing there at his quarter for god knew how long before he cleared his throat and Nix jumped about six feet in the air. There was a smirk shifting across Liebgott’s face that he would have been better about hiding when Nix had been his commanding officer. He looked like he hadn't slept. Back over there he had looked like that a lot, but it had been different, because of all the uppers they were taking. He cocked his head back over toward the long driveway and then he was off across the dew-wet grass which had already soaked through the hems of his canvas pants and his destroyed shoes.

Nix followed, like a duckling behind a hen. Liebgott still walked as though there were eyes in all sides of his head quickly processing information as he moved. Nix doubted you ever lost that kind of skill, even if in the real world it made you look like a mental patient. He caught up so they could walk side by side through the dew-wet grass. “What did you think,” he asked Liebgott.

Liebgott passed Nix the universal sign of furrowed brow that meant please clarify.

Nix gestured with pinched fingers to his own mouth as though Liebgott were also deaf. “The grass.”

He shaped his hand into an a-ok sign.

“You get any sleep?”

He nodded an infinitesimal nod, like the answer was a secret just for Nix to know.

“Well if you think it could be better just tell me how.”

Nix had had a high school friend whose sister was deaf from scarlet fever and whom he had watched on occasion communicate with her by means of sign language. Early on, back over there, he had sent off to command for a book, but by the time it came he understood it wasn’t that Liebgott couldn’t speak, he just didn’t want to. It was something like how people’s hair supposedly turned white if they witnessed some evil thing, or how people became ascetics in the name of god. If you were really fucked up on drugs or fear or otherwise, or if the natural magical thinking from childhood hadn’t been fully beaten out of you, you might have seen it as the sacrifice he had given to the forest for letting him out without a scratch so many goddamn times. It had been a bit of a trial to explain this to Spiers, who was practical almost to a fault, sometimes.

Liebgott showed another a-ok sign. Then he did a thumbs up which Nix knew meant it was good.

All in all it was smart. If he was still talking, Nix might have asked him, what have you been up to? You been sleeping on the street? You been to the V.A.? What did they tell you? And the answer would’ve been nothing good. Instead they just walked in the cool grass together in the sunshine and the morning was beautiful, and the air was sweet. It was all lovely until Liebgott had to physically stop him, laughing, somehow silently but also hysterically, from stepping right onto the razor-thin tripwire stretched invisibly across the dark gravel.

In the kitchen, Dick was doing the numbers. He took his glasses off when Nix came in and put the coffee on. “He learned a thing or two from Charlie,” Nix said, leaning against the counters.

“Who, Joe?”

“Our driveway is thoroughly ratfucked.”

“Hmm,” said Dick. He put the glasses back on and turned back to the accounting book. He was going to do this whole thing as above board as was humanly possible. The vivid daylight came through the window and struck the lens of his unstylish Ray-Bans and threw a kind of prism of color upon the white paper and the chicken-scratch sums. Nix felt like maybe this was something you would paint if you had the necessary implements and artistic ability. “Maybe we should see if we can get any more help.”

-

He was mildly ashamed to say it, but the doc had always kind of creeped Nix out. He imagined a hypothetical conversation with Dick, who he knew loved the kid, almost like a son: Listen, don’t get me wrong, he’s a good kid, I owe him my life, yadda yadda. But either he’s dropped the brown acid one too many times or the voodoo exorcism went FUBAR.

The doc had arrived on the farm on the heels of Sunshine and Rainbows, aka Mr. Bright Eyed and Bushy Tailed, aka one Edward “Babe” Heffron. Nix had written Babe in South Philly, being as he was a connoisseur of bud and once upon a time had been famed among their company for smoking anything anyone put in his hand, often to his own detriment. The operation was getting big enough that Nix needed another pair of hands, other than Liebgott, of course, who was still fortifying the long driveway whilst giving away his cover by playing Led Zeppelin IV as loudly as was possible. It was a tough calculation, because Babe was a genius of pot, but he couldn’t keep a damn secret, and lo and behold he had dragged along with him a dark shadow in the human form of Eugene Roe. They came up the driveway in a big old Ford pickup that rattled its rust off in the potholes. Liebgott had dismantled the traps specially for their arrival when they had called from Williamsport to say they were an hour out.

“I figured we could use a medical professional to lend some credibility to the operation,” said Babe thoughtfully, sparking a joint on the porch over sweating jam jars of iced tea.

Roe snorted or something but it wasn’t really a normal person’s self-effacing laugh. Winters clapped his back. Nixon knew Roe had dropped out of medical school after two years but there was no need to say anything. Everyone knew that. Now he was working construction and Babe claimed to be working as a mechanic in a garage, but this seemed suspect given the state of the car they had driven up in.

“Well we sure as hell are glad you boys are here,” said Dick magnanimously.

Babe exhaled an opaque cloud that rivaled Nix’s own father’s ability with a stogie. “Can we see the bush?”

They went out all together to the field and ducked between the rows of corn. Babe knelt in the soil. It was damp with dew and quiet in here. It would have been almost like over there except it smelled good. “What’s the cross,” Babe said, inspecting the plants.

“It’s an indica blend…”

“Well, I can tell that,” he said.

“So you’re an expert on the plant now too?”

“I’ve just smoked an awful lot of joints in my life, Captain Nixon.”

Roe snorted again. When they all looked to him he said, “You said in the letter there was some kind of altruistic reason for all this.”

“It’s medicine, Gene,” Babe said gently, but also like they had had this conversation thirty thousand times. Nix filed away for later the intimation that Roe had read the letter he’d sent Babe at home in South Philadelphia.

“I guess you don’t remember the psychic break you had at the Do Lung Bridge.”

Babe waved this remark off, even though Nix remembered it too. It threw a chill down his back, like a water balloon had hit him at the base of his neck. “That was laced,” Babe said.

“With what!”

“I don’t know! Something bad!” Babe turned to Dick and Nix. “Gene’s teetotal,” he said, like this was a big old point of contention.

So that counted out the bad acid. Maybe he was just like this. Maybe he had had those big sad bug eyes as a child or an infant or a fetus in the womb. “Good on you, Doc,” Nix said.

“I ain’t trying it,” Roe said, folding his arms over his narrow chest, “no matter what it does.”

The doc was a tough cookie. Babe had claimed, over there, about as high as the Byrds song, that the doc came from a long line of the kind of folks described in Dr. John’s “Gris-Gris Gumbo Ya Ya” and that, as such, he could heal wounds with his mind. When it didn’t work, as on the night when Jackson died, or the night when Hoobler died, or in the forest when Muck and Penkala died, or the night when Liebgott stopped speaking, he went to sit for a while on the edge of camp until Dick went over and made him eat something. Nix watched them in a state of confused envy, and then he went to write the letters to the families, so that Dick wouldn’t have to.

At dusk, after they ate a light dinner of corn on the cob and rice and beans, he took the boys up into the hayloft with an armful of blankets. “Sorry this is the best we got,” he said. He had said that about a hundred god damn times since they got here.

Roe looked like he wanted to say, you’ve got to stop apologizing for everything. Instead he said, “Where does Lieb sleep.”

Babe perked up. “Joe’s here?”

“You didn’t see him in the driveway?”

Nix sighed. “He’s gonna want to know what he did wrong that you saw him,” he said.

“Does he still — ”

Nix shook his head. “Not a peep.”

In a couple days time, he couldn’t take it anymore, and he was hot and tired and stoned, up to his elbows in earth in the field, showing Babe how to replant the hatchlings he’d grown from seed. “You guys room together or what?”

“Me and Gene?” Babe’s eyes were red in the corners from smoking and from the sun. “What about you and Dick?”

Dick, who had the radio on inside turned up as loud as it would go, so that they would hear it in the field, playing Crosby Stills and Nash doing “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes.” “What about me and Dick?” said Nix.

Babe was a smart kid. He realized this was going nowhere. With muddy hands he popped one of the seedlings out of its little pot and cradled it into the ground. “Well, I think he thinks he’s looking after me, but in actuality, I am looking after him.”