#the way I crammed in all their symbols lmao

[ndostairlyrium]

Verses from Guido Cavalcanti's La forte e nova mia disaventura

[angerybabydino]

Did a 15+ hour road trip with my fam twice a little ago and I drove a good chunk of it. Used AA/DGS music to keep me awake bc music psych is a blessing sometimes. Anyway, just a roundabout way to say, I have discovered some fun things in the music that made me 👀👀👀 Idk if anyone else has noticed any of it (and I will say I have minimal music theory knowledge but I'm an English major with the tendency to read into symbolism way too much), but feel to keep reading if you're interested! Spoilers for DGS2 are in here, fair warning!

I'll try and include links to the songs when I can! It'll probably be a mix of Spotify and YouTube hyperlinks so bear with me. Fair warning, this is super long because I decided to cram everything in one post oops lmao

The Funky Time Signature

The first thing I really ever noticed was that Sholmes' "Dance of Deduction"s were weird in terms of keeping beat. It's not in common time aka 4/4 aka 8-count; I think it's in 7/8 time (so you count 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 etc. etc.) which is a struggle to maintain counting since people are so used to 3, 4, and 8-counts.

Dance of Deduction - Type A

I found sheet music for easier counting! It says it's in 7/4: https://youtu.be/51vTmoQzwI8

Originally, I thought it was just because he's Weird and Silly™, but I ended up listening to "Partners - The game is afoot" which plays when Sholmes and Yuujin are on the S.S. Grouse trying to deduce where Jigoku is.

Partners - The game is afoot!

This one is surprisingly in 4/4 aka common time (you count 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 etc. etc. [though I have seen sheets put it in 12/8, which is close-ish, but it still has an even counting pattern WHICH IS WHAT MATTERS]). So in actuality, Shomles' Dance of Deductions aren't in a weird time signature because he's our favorite eccentric boy (okay, it might be part that too); it's because he's missing his partner after he left and investigating never felt quite right without him. Once he and Yuujin get to investigate together again, he's whole and happy. And it's just so fucking gay I can't.

Harpsichord

The big thing I noticed while I was driving (because there was nothing else interesting on the road) was the use of harpsichords in certain Londoner themes, specifically Stronghart, van Zieks, Iris, and Kazuma's prosecutor theme, as well as some of the final songs during 2-4&5.

If you don't know, this is what a harpsichord sounds like! Yes, I know I'm a nerd for being able to pick it out and name it while driving lmao

You can hear it a lot in Stronghart's theme, specifically around 0:38-0:49 (it's pretty in the background so you kinda have to strain your ears but it's there), but it's also pretty present throughout his theme.

Lord Chief Justice Stronghart - Time-Keeper of the Law

There's also a lot of it in van Zieks' theme as well; it's right off the bat and it's one of the prominent instruments throughout the piece.

Barok van Zieks - The Reaper of the Bailey

You have to really be listening for it, but it pops up occasionally in Iris' theme as well! You kinda have to strain your ears during 0:16-0:30 to hear it, but it's definitely there. It's more hidden compared to van Zieks'.

Iris Wilson - Young Biographer

I know Kazuma is Japanese, however, since he became a prosecutor in Britain, it still counts and it makes more sense once I tell you why it's all related (if you haven't guessed yet). ANYWAY, his theme also has a lot of harpsichord in it, even in the parts that were from his original theme.

A Prosecutor, Reborn

This could all just be a stylistic choice too, but do you see it yet? All the people who correspond with these themes are directly related to the Professor killings. van Zieks and Kazuma have the most prominent because we know by 2-4 the obvious connections they both hold. Iris and Stronghart's are more in the background since both of their involvements are big reveal-type deals by the end of the game.

Bonus points: the actual theme that plays when anything related to the Professor is mentioned also has some background harpsichord to connect it all.

The Professor - A Spectre Revived

I will note that I didn't notice anything in Gregson's theme, even though he played a big part in the false conviction. Courtney Sythe's theme also has some harpsichord, but I can't remember how she's related to it other than the fact that she helped with the autopsy (which probably means I should replay the games again lol).

Other game music that proves the connection:

Enoch Drebber - Rondo of Science and Magic

The Great Gateway to the Truth

The Prison Warders

The Great Closed Trial - Court is Now in Session

Reminiscences - The Fruits of Ambition

Others I probably completely missed

A Prosecutor, Reborn

Speaking of Kazuma's prosecutor theme, one of the really cool things about its composition is the warring back and forth between itself. It starts with the completely new theme, blending his usual string accompaniment with drums/cymbals, singular bell tolls, and harpsichord. When it gets to around 0:47, you hear the bells and then it switches back to his original theme from Adventures, though it's a lot grander now and lacking a lot of the traditional Japanese elements it once had.

A Prosecutor, Reborn

Kazuma Asougi - Samurai on a Mission

And it bounces back and forth like that until the end of the song, the bells signifying the shifting. It goes to show this internal struggle Kazuma is having between finding the truth even if it's something he won't like (his original theme) and following his emotions to falsely convict van Zieks as revenge (the beginning chunk of his prosecutor theme).

I also think it's interesting how dominating the harpsichord is, again especially over the chunks of his original theme from Adventures. In connection to it being related to the Professor, aside from the obvious connection to his father, it also shows how much influence and manipulation Stronghart had over him, with him being the BBEG.

Siblings

One of my favorite things I noticed was Susato and Kazuma's connections through themes, though not the one you're thinking. Kazuma's official theme I'm sure has a few connections to Susato's (but I haven't listened closely enough to hear them), however I really noticed how intertwined the two were when I listened to Kazuma's unused theme they provided in Chronicles.

Susato Mikotoba - A New Bloom in the New World

Kazuma Asougi (Unused)

Many of the same instruments are used, as well as note and chord progressions. They have the same peaceful/serene vibes too, which is understandable in why Kazuma's was scrapped (even if I do like it a lot). But if this ended up being Kazuma's actual theme, I would've noticed the familial relationship they share instead of my initial thoughts of it purely just being professional.

That's all I've really noticed for now, but I'm sure I'll come across more things as I listen to the soundtrack to study. I will, however, shut up now and let you get back with you day/night/whatever time of day it is for you because this is getting l o n g. If you did read this far, thank you for indulging me and listening to me be a complete nerd ^w^ And definitely feel free to share your thoughts too; I love talking about this stuff if you couldn't tell!

[3centsofbutter]

Things I’ve missed about the sun - Bakugo Katsuki

Bakugo katsuki x reader

You used to be my sun, that’s what I always saw you as. 

A bright blistering star that blinded me if I ever dared to look upon you. You were dangerous to the touch but I basked in your warmth nonetheless. I missed that about you, how you were always there for me even if it wasn’t intentional.

“Oi Baka, you gonna keep starin’ at the window or are we gonna have a conversation like regular people do?”

Hatsume waved her hand in front of your face in an attempt to pull you from your thoughts. It was a humid Sunday afternoon and you had joined your friend for tea at the mall. College exams were finally over and done with so you both decided to celebrate before you were thrown back into the busy rhythm of life. 

“Since when did they have Bakugo collectables at Toyco?”

An all too familiar face stared back at you aggressively on a giant poster advertising the new line of hero collectables plastered outside the Toyco opposite the cafe. It seemed like his presence always found its way into your life no matter how far away he was. 

“Hm, Ground Zero merch, never thought it would be this quick before that bastard had his branding stuck all over the shirt’s of kids.” She lifted the straw out of her iced tea and pointed it at your face. “You’re not still hung up over that sack of trash, right?”

You sheepishly smiled and rubbed the back of your neck, a light blush dancing on the apples of your cheeks. It had been a while since you had talked to the hot-headed blonde but your high school crush on him had persisted. You were in the support class F and frequently interacted with hero studies class A for support items and general classes which coincidentally made you form an odd friendship with Bakugo. You were both really close at one point but fell off once the school year had ended. You really missed him even though he was just a phone call away, you could never bring yourself to make an excuse to call. 

“Well, it’s really hard when his face is every third news story on TV!”

Hatsume threw her head back and laughed. 

Bakugo was strange, obviously, and was infamous amongst the school for having the worst temper and the many incidents Class A somehow found themselves in, and by default, you found yourself in the midst of the chaos. 

“Bakugo! You know my workbench is not a bed, right?”

It was after Bakugo’s kidnapping fiasco that you found him lying on your workbench in the shared support facility. It was 5:30 in the morning and he knew that only you’d be there. 

“I want you to upgrade my gear, all of it.”

His voice was soft, almost a whisper, a rarity you had never heard from him before. You decided to entertain him. 

“Gotta be more specific, Sir.” You picked up his gauntlets and ran your fingers over the minor scuffs and scratches on its surface. “You can’t level up your gear like you evolve pokemon, tell me what you want done.”

His voice was still quiet. “I just want it to be better, got anything for that?”

You placed the gauntlet down on the table next to him and pulled out a wheely chair from underneath the table. 

“Is everything alright Blasty? Things have been rough for you recently but it’s not your fault, y’know?”

He sighed and raised his arms towards the overhead lamp and stared at the scars and burns that decorated his forearms. You had never paid much attention to them before but now in the light, it almost seemed like a work of art, you remembered that Hatsume once said that each uneven patch of skin and scar that marked a hero’s body was like a war trophy, a symbol of their resilience and hardships that they faced to get where they were today. 

“I hate these scars,” He said, as he dropped his arms back onto the table. “Those bastard villains gave me 6 more to hate.”

You carefully took one of his arms and held it in your hands. His silence was enough for you to know that he didn’t mind the invasion of personal space. You lightly traced the scars with your fingertips in silence, some had faded but some were more prominent than others. 

“Your hands are rough, you know that?”

You chuckled and lifted one hand into the light, fully showing the callouses that marked them. 

“You gotta have this many when you’re working with metal all the time.”

He grunted in agreement, not saying a thing more. 

“I like your scars y’know.” You placed his arm back on the table. “They show how hard you worked to get here.”

Your eyes met for a second in which it felt like an eternity. He was the one to break it. 

“Thanks.”

You both sat in silence as you watched the sunrise from the UA windows, relishing in each other’s company. It was such a simple interaction that was forever ingrained into your memory and probably the first time you ever fully realised your feelings for the boy. 

“Maa how long has it been, 5 years you’ve liked him?” Hatsume teased as she stole a forceful of your cake. “Maybe you should call him, would be a lot better than daydreaming about him all the time.” 

You furiously shook your head. “He’s probably busy doing hero stuff y’know, he doesn’t have time for a lowlife like me.”

You pointed to the poster that almost felt as if it was constantly eavesdropping on your conversation. “He’s got bigger things to worry about, Hatsume.”

She sighed and propped her chin on her hand. 

“Mmm, maybe if you didn’t leave so early at the reunion night last month then maybe you wouldn’t be in this position.”

“You know how I am with parties! If it’s past 10 I gotta go home, not all of us are night owls like you!”

It was honestly a terrible night. There were over 30 people crammed into Yaoyorozu’s penthouse apartment and there was too much going on to have any meaningful interactions with anyone. Sure it was nice to see everyone again but it was more like small clusters of people in their own conversations and you didn’t really seem to fit in anywhere. You had talked to Bakugo that night, but only briefly before he was dragged off by Kirishima to greet some other people. You had learnt that he was currently stationed in Kyoto in a partner agency with Kirishima. 

You sighed and stared at the empty plate in front of you. Hatsume had taken the liberty to finish off the rest of your blueberry yoghurt slice while you were lost in your thoughts. 

“Why don’t you make some support gear for him?” She asked. “He always liked the stuff you made anyways.”

You drummed your fingers on the table, you guessed that was true. 

“He probably has some big shot designers working for him right now, he wouldn’t want anything a college student is making.”

“Maa, you’re so annoying you know that?”

You simply laughed at her, even you could acknowledge you were a piece of work. 

“Mum, Mum! Look it’s the real Ground Zero!”

You looked outside the window once again to see a child pointing excitedly at that stupid poster. Every time you looked at it, it seemed to infuriate you even more. 

“Can you please sign my lunchbox, Mr Hero? Pretty please!”

You did a double-take at the Toyco and noticed a very familiar blonde headed boy, albeit his hair a little shorter since the last time you saw him. He was dressed casually in a pair of shorts and a graphic tee, different from how you usually saw him on the news. You watched him as he bent down and signed the kid’s red lunchbox and ruffled his hair with an encouraging smile. It looked like the public relations training worked wonders on him. 

He noticed your staring from the across the mall and you quickly turned away. Hatsume was nowhere in sight and a napkin with the words ‘GOOD LUCK!’ messily scrawled onto it was there in her place. You began to panic as you felt the heat rising to your face. 

The bell on the cafe door tinkled. 

“Is that you?”

You sheepishly looked up at him. 

“I thought you were in Kyoto, Bakugo. What brings you here?”

He rubbed the back of his neck, “I missed home so I thought about setting up an agency around here. I guess I’ll be around a whole lot more now.”

His face was a slight tinge pink and the awkwardness hung in the air like a thick blanket. 

Hatsume hadn’t bullied you about this for all those years for you to let him slip away from you again. Maybe it was time for you to pull up your bootstraps and act upon your feelings for once. 

“Are you free tonight?”

That caught him by surprise. “I guess I am.”

“Wanna grab a bite to eat?”

The widest smile stretched across his face. 

“Is this a date?”

Your face was heating up to an unreasonable degree. “It is if you want it to be.”

He laughed. 

“I’d be honoured.”

Your sun was back to stay. 

Master list of all my stuff

A/N Getting a bit inspirational by posting 2 in a day after leaving the site for like what, a month or so? lmao.

[leximitchells]

If they did the angsty stuff a bit better it'd be less frustrating too, I think? It really is beginning to feel like their stories are shortchanged by being crammed into brief time periods and piled on top of each other. Phil and the wedding, Callum's PTSD and Ben's trauma from the homophobic attack and Paul's death are all huge topics which have had/will have really good moments, but where they're being turned into 2 week angst stories in quick succession, it means there's not enough depth and space to really explore what's happening for the characters rather than the plot.

That's partly why I'm nervous about next week I guess. Simon and his actions have been a huuuuuge source of trauma for Ben for 5 years and I'm apprehensive that they're going to tie it up in a nice little bow then have no mention of it afterwards. I do understand that it's a chance for Ben to have closure but there's a difference between closure and wrapping it all up so it can be put to one side.

When you look at how they've handled Isaac's story since what, February? You can see they're capable of letting important issues breathe and work through them over a longer time period, so it's strange that they're doing the polar opposite for Callum/Ben by making trauma into a bi-weekly spectacle?

Also I get that Ben and Callum have various traumas so ofc they should be shown on the show. But... not like this lmao. There are better ways of showing their trauma than the approach taken right now. I'll repeat what someone else said a few weeks back: they should tone it down with Ben until the start of next year and put effort into a Heather story. That would have more impact than him kicking off, seeking revenge or falling out with someone on a near weekly basis. As for Callum, just give the lad a nice story about retraining to be a youth support worker or something, tie it into his childhood and/or conversations he's had with Ben about boys in young offenders, sorted.

yessss!!!! all of this!!! these quick lil stories should have been spread out over weeks and months bc they are dealing with SO MUCH TRAUMA like HEAVY TRAUMA and then it's just done two weeks later???? callum's ptsd ended so horribly that i'm still in denial that it's actually over bc it was so abrupt. and i'm excited for next week but ben's paul trauma is so much heavier than just bringing it up around the anniversary of his death. i will once again reiterate that it was so dumb for him not to have a big moment of taking off his paul ring before the wedding bc that would've been SO powerful and then that leading into next week and the 5 year anniversary would've had such a strong impact on who ben is as a character, especially if he ends up not actually hurting simon, symbolizing that the old ben is gone and he's genuinely trying to be better now that he's married to callum. sigh. oh my god callum as a youth support worker.... oh my god. i never thought about that before. that's so perfect for him ahhhh

[thegirlyouknow]

Skam France season 6 review 

Listen.

I came into this season expecting nothing… then expecting a lot after that killer trailer… then back to expecting nothing lmao. Overall, my feelings about the season are mixed. I'm impressed by how much they made me love the new characters after how sceptical I was. There were things I loved and things I hated. Of course, warning for mentions of assault, loss, grief, eating disorder, substance abuse & mental illness  

Negatives

The biggest issue with this season was the unnecessary plethora of plotlines, much like seasons 4&5. Why are they trying to cram every bad thing that can happen to someone into a 10 episode show? All the plotlines they included were individually interesting in their own way, however, because there was so much going on already, there are some that should've been cut or heavily altered. Such as: 

-Tiff: This plotline felt realistic and it was both infuriating and funny. But what was the point? At first, it seemed like it got resolved easily and amounted to nothing. Then they decided to bring it back right when we didn't have time to deal with more shit. Who asked? I think it was an excuse to have school scenes, but they could've used those to develop the ed plot sooner and showed Lola's troubled behaviour since we know she was a regular in detention, but not anymore apparently. I wanted to see the hijinks that made her a frequent detention visitor. An explanation as to why the principle didn't like her. Oh what could have been. Nothing but a waste of screen time.

-Char: I just. Why? What was the reason? She was there for 2 seconds and then disappeared forever. Lola didn't need to see Maya with someone else to realise her feelings for her, she was already aware of them. So were lamifex ffs. They easily could've portrayed Maya pulling away from her of fear without bringing in a micro love triangle. We are tired.

-Max x Maya being exes: Again, what was the point? We thought this might create some drama, but it amounted to nothing at all. Just Max being a bit cold to Lola before warming up to her and accepting her as part of the group. This could've easily worked without making him Maya's ex. I know this is a small detail, but the story could've done without it

-Thierry hardly workin': Daphné's family struggling financially was alluded to a few times in previous seasons but here, they decided it was because Thierry hadn't been going to work. Okay, I'm interested. Then the plotline went nowhere. We never found out where he was going when he was pretending to go to work for a whole month. The girls couldn't buy groceries or lunch once and then the power went out, so we thought it might be a big thing. But after the truth comes out, Thierry is back at work, the power is back on and it never gets mentioned again. I love consistency 

-Lola's biological father: I did like the symbolic aspect of Lola feeling like an outsider with no family, but Daphné and Thierry made it clear she is their family and she ended up choosing them :') This could have been accomplished without literally giving her a different father. Her backstory gives enough to support her feeling rejected and neglected. The biological father added another sideplot the overall season just did not have time for. Especially since we only saw him once. Why. We only have 10 short episodes, please stop

-On that note, Thierry being a c*nt: He certainly wasn't the worst parent on this show (beep beep p*trick), but oh man was he unlikable. There were moments I truly felt for him. It's tough losing a loved one. It's tough being a single parent. It's tough when you can't protect the people you love. But this man seemed so fucking incompetent, it was infuriating. He was so neglectful, no wonder both his daughters have so many struggles. They were in charge of the housework and groceries because he has a night job, but the whole thing of kids taking care of their parent/s pisses me off to no end. He's their father. He's the adult. He's supposed to be the one taking care of them. Forgetting Daphné's birthday hurt, but with everything that was going on, it was a forgivable offense. Plus, storywise, it shows he's not solely shitty to Lola. Even though there was a clear difference in the way he treated them both. Constantly yelling at her instead of having a proper conversation. And slapping your kid is never okay. Since they never even had him apologise for it, I can't forgive the audacity of this bitch ass boy. Nor the writers because it wasn't necessary at all. Next.

-Eliott's movie: I loved seeing Eliott in director mode and that he was finally able to make his film. The movie itself is cute, I guess. But the circumstances around how it got made makes no sense. I get that le grew had the bac going on, but considering Eliott made the film in one night, the fact that NONE of them could help out is totally unbelievable. You're telling me they couldn't give up ONE Friday night to help him do this really important thing? With how much they all seem to worship him? That don't make sense, luv. This whole plotline was ultra-contrived since it didn't actually add anything to Lola's story. The mayla kiss could've happened anywhere. Or they could have developed the movie sideplot better. Like making one or a few of lamefix Eliott's uni friends so it would make some kind of sense. Disappointing. Also the k*ss, which was blown waaaaay out of proportion since it didn't directly create any drama, but it was still weird and gross and why did they make us look at that lmao. I'm convinced it was put in there to piss us off lol. Also why was the script so big when the movie was like 2 minutes long? Who tf were all those people at the screening?

-The assault plotline: so I actually didn't mind this being included in itself. It displayed a powerful reality many addicts find themselves in. And I don't believe it was only put in there so Eliott could be a hero. The next morning, he says to her "maybe you haven't found the right reason [to want to get clean/better]". And afterwards, she takes active steps to improve herself. She doesn't drink or take drugs again (until her relapse but we'll get to that). She makes amends with her sister and Maya. She eventually ends the feud with Tiff. She begins seeking healthy coping mechanisms. She started communicating and opening up to people. So ultimately, I think it was put in as a catalyst for her starting to take charge of her recovery. Not to reveal too much on main, but I know sometimes that takes hitting rock bottom (sometimes over and over). HOWEVER. The plotline was majorly underdeveloped and unaddressed, which isn't great when it's a serious issue. This traumatic thing happens and they just never mention it again? I can buy that Lola didn't go to the police. She doesn't seem like the kind of person to trust cops 🐷. But to completely forget about it like it wasn't a big deal? After s2, they should know better. They either should have made this more important, or cut it out completely. Not a fan.

-Lola's relapse: I didn't have an issue with the relapse itself. As I alluded to earlier, this shit happens. Recovery is not linear and relapsing in various ways is common. This is for those of us dealing with substance use issues: relapsing isn't the end of the world, and it isn't shameful. Recovery is a long, difficult journey. In Lola's case, her reasoning for relapsing made sense because she felt so rejected by people who are supposed to love her unconditionally :(. But leaving it til episode 9, giving barely any time to resolve it was not it for me. They very easily could have put this in right after the assault and then focused on her recovering. Especially since there were sooo many other storylines going on. That would've told a much more coherent narrative. Who am I to ask for that, though? 

Bringing Eliott into it was fucking annoying. Someone very cleverly said that doing something inexcusable is not the same as doing something unforgivable. Because, yeah, what Lola did was selfish as fuck. She called Eliott there because she was feeling down and wanted someone who she could relate to and wouldn't feel judged by. But calling Eliott was a terrible decision. What she said was not a direct attack on Lucas, she was projecting all her hurt onto that situation because idk, she was off her nut and being an asshole. It was very unfair because it hit Eliott's insecurities but I also don't think it was her intention to hurt him. Like I said, she was projecting. But she clearly struck a chord with her harsh words. It's not far-fetched Eliott would listen to her, seeing as he and Lucas were having communication issues at that time and he's a sensitive person. So, Lola messed up. She acted like a jerk. That's inarguable. But Jesus fucking Christ, the hate on her was way too incompassionate and extreme. 

Fucking up a few times does not erase a whole year of growth and healing (for her or Eliott). When it comes to mental illness and addiction, down periods are inevitable. This is a fact. Thinking that having one erases all previous progress is incredibly harmful. Do you have any idea how devastating it is to read that addicts are nothing but toxic, and everyone should stay away from them at all costs? Would any of you who said that dare say that about Eliott? This is when it becomes about more than just fictional characters. Be gentle with others and yourselves, please. I am in no way saying having an MI excuses wrong doings, don't twist it, I'm saying to use some compassion and to think with nuance instead of always looking for someone to be the villain. Yes, people should be held accountable for when they fuck up, and she was. I did like that when Lola fucks up, she admits it. Right away, she felt terrible about what happened. She didn't try to make excuses for herself, or misplace the blame. Which shows growth. It genuinely blows my mind that some people saw her wanting to apologise as manipulative and selfish. She does the wrong thing, she's a toxic bitch. She tries to make amends, she's a toxic bitch. Please, dear Christ, think of the ramifications of what you're saying. Taking absolute sides in this situation is a shallow, cruel and rather boring approach. 

I wasn't mad at the characters because… they're not real. I was mad at the writers because this storyline was fucking awful. They gave barely any time to resolve it, and the conversation Lola & Eliott had later on was not enough. I knew he would forgive her easily because that's who he is, but it would have been nicer if the writers let her say, "It doesn't matter that I was drunk, I was an asshole and I'm sorry" and then have Eliott say, "thank you." That's all they needed. Seriously, they should hire us to write their shit for them.

-Lola & Lucas: starting this off by saying I am both a Lucas and a Lola fan, so there we go. Defending either of them is not saying they're an angel who can do no wrong. We know that couldn't be further from the truth lol. On one hand, I love drama, give me all the spicy drama! On the other, why did they think putting the main between the fan's 2 favourite characters was a good idea? She didn't come between them as a couple, but Lucas thought she was a bad influence for Eliott and the relapse plotline proved him right. Which was fucking annoying. Not all mentally ill people are bad for each other, sometimes they can be great confidants and supportive friends. Do you get that, skam france? It's annoying that they villainized Lucas with this whole plotline. He did not become Lucille at all, but he did come across as babying Eliott. Especially since surely he knows Eliott doesn't have friends. So to try to prevent him from being friends with Lola in the beginning came across as… icky. Although, he did have a right to be mad at her about episode 9, which SHOULD HAVE OCCURRED SOONER OR NOT AT FUCKING ALL WHHYYYYYY. Their interactions became repetitive and then they just told us they made up over text instead of showing that to us. Lazy as fuck. I'm bored.

Other negatives included: 

-Rushed conclusions: this is what happens when you refuse to wrap up storylines as the season progresses in favour of dumping in more and more drama right at the tail end of the season. The conclusion itself was cute I guess. With how long all the issues festered, however, it was very rushed and therefore disappointing. After everything they got put through, the characters deserved better than that. I really wish they spent the first half of the season building up the drama, and then used the second half to focus on healing, recovery and making amends. That's what makes a compelling, complete arc in which the resolution feels earned. So much was left unresolved, or done hastily so and we didn't get a proper goodbye to the og gen who we're never seeing again. Escape while you can!  

-Short episodes: I'll say this for every season. I know this is because the network granted them a limited amount of time and they used what they could, but it's a shame because just think of what could've been if we got 30-40 full minutes of content per week. All that potential lost because of a shit rule. Boo.

-Mini hiatuses between clips: There were a few times when we went 3 days without anything and the fandom went bananas. They really could've posted insta stories of something, anything, because it did come across as bad pacing. The full episodes make more sense when you watch it all together, but the people in charge really need to remember the point of the real-time format, otherwise, why are they doing this at all?

-Instagram: Some of the posts were great. Lola's Instagram reflecting her mood. Lamifex posting chaotic good content. Le grew studying together. But they seemed to forget some of the characters existed entirely. Yann who? Call me a ding dong, but I miss the s3&4 content that was obviously mostly taken in one weekend because at least it was posted often and gave more life to the characters. The s1&2 content was a lot more realistic for dumb teenagers, too. Seems like they got really lazy with it the last two seasons, which is disappointing because we know they can do better than this. Our expectations were low, but goddammit. What is the point of having this medium if you're going to neglect it? 

-Promo pics: I don't think I have to explain this one

-Lack of Idriss and Sofiane: I get the point of isolating Eliott and giving him no friends was so he would connect with Lola easily, but these two fine dudes are right there and they didn't even use them. Why did we barely get any cute background sofimane :'( Why did Idriss disappear entirely? Maybe I should be grateful for that rip. 

-Promising shit they knew they weren't going to deliver on: "Arthur's journey will continue on" Bitch where? When he kissed his ex, making that whole love triangle completely redundant? "You're going to see Eliott like you've never seen him" Because he wore gray once? "Lola is going to come between Daphné & Basile" Whenith did this occur? "Elu are going to learn the real meaning of minute to minute" Nope. I do think we need to stop taking their interviews about upcoming seasons at face value because it always seems to turn out like this. This also goes for fandom rumours off Instagram and Twitter 🙈 The show needs to speak for itself, even when it fails.

-We had to see ch*rles again: Terrible and bad.

-Misogynistic attitudes within the fandom: criticising a female character does not automatically mean a person hates women, no one has ever said that. The issue is the way female characters get treated compared to the male characters. The guys often get forgiven easily, whereas the girls seem to get a lot more shit when they fuck up. Example: people were falling over themselves to defend Lucas being an ass to Chloé, but were so quick to cancel Maya for wanting some space from Lola. Food for thought. We also need to examine our language when speaking about these characters. Calling a female character a bitch and a skank with venom is gross. Criticise them without using misogynistic insults.

-This is also about the fandom rather than the show but some people were so, so mean to each other and I just,,, why? It's fiction. This is a show. It's supposed to be fun. Not to be the mum friend, but some of ya need to learn how to disagree with others via amicable discussion rather than petty vague posts, hate anons and snarky responses under the guise of a "joke". If you're going to spread the "be kind" message, try actually meaning it. Now here's a virtual hug 

Mixed feelings

-Depiction of addiction: ignore that sick rhyme. I think they managed to portray addiction in a very real, relatable and at times uncomfortable manner. They didn't sugar coat, romanticise or sensationalise it, like many other shows do (ahem, sk*ns). Relapsing is common, so it makes sense for them to show that and I like that Lola was told it's not shameful. I do think the writers tried to use it as a pass for Lola fucking up a few times, which was not a good look. And that weak link to Tiff's social media addiction was distasteful. I have mixed feelings about this because I really wish they spent more time on the recovery aspect. This let the season down. I am very glad they ended the arc with Lola deciding to get professional help. You cannot begin to heal unless you want to. And Lola finally decided she was worth saving :') 

-benny.taxi: dragged on for way too long. At times, I even forgot benny existed. Tbh I liked this detail, it was chaotic and funny at times. They gave us something fun to theorize about, which we haven't gotten since s3. Even though it was so obvious benny was Daphné (she's looking over Lola's shoulder while holding a phone in a promo pic, she posted a selfie with a painting of taxis beside her, the username is similar to her main account, benny's messages reflected Daphné's feelings and her changing relationship with Lola). It is a bit weird to sort of cat fish your sister, but Lola didn't mind. Which was confusing since they decided to leave the reveal to the very end. I do think it was clever to use benny to find Lola when she ran away, even though it was kind of predictable. Idk Daphné's explanation for why she created the benny account was 🤧❤. Many thoughts. 

-Eliott & Lola: At times, their relationship seemed contrived, but I don't think it was to the extent that I've seen others say. Eliott saw her all alone at her mother's funeral, so he went to say hi to be nice. Then he saw her at that urbex party and he doesn't really have friends anyway (why tf not bro, I mean I get he's a loner, but he hangs out with so many people and you're telling me he doesn't have any close friends of his own? hmm), so he went to say hi. He was at her house at Daphné's party, so he said hi because she was there. Then she was the one to reach out and went to his store that night when she was sad and lonely and they became friends. A bit contrived, yes. But I really don't think it's as weird as some people made it out to be. He didn't seem obsessed with her at all, he was just being kind to someone who clearly needed some kindness. Basile & Lola gave me stronger brother/sister vibes than these two, but I still really liked their friendship at first. It was shaping up to be that soft 'I see you, I understand you, I accept you' kind of friendship. They're similar enough that their connection makes sense and they're different enough that it was interesting to watch. It just needed more development. Like maybe linking Eliott more closely with lamifex. I truly think this wouldn't have been such a huge topic of contention had the season not been tainted by that out of context sp*iler, but what can you do. Touched on this above, but the relapsing plotline also tainted their friendship, which is why they're going in the mixed feelings section. They have the potential to be really good friends to each other but they also have the potential to bring out the worst in each other. Which was unnecessary. Why did the writers have to do that.

-Eliott: Imma say this right now; I am an Eliott apologist. He's not creepy, mates, he was a fkn 19 year old dude in his first year of uni this season, not a 40 year old man with a house and mortgage. It's not weird for teenagers to be friends with other teenagers. Please. People were being all "he's an adult" while my 22 year old self was sittin' here like 👶. (He's also a massive loser and it's fun to bully him in a lighthearted way lol) Many people thought he was used a plot device, which… yes. That's what characters are. They 'exist' entirely to serve a story. However, it does frustrate me that Eliott gets treated like a trophy. "He can't be there just to hand over a glass of water", bitch why tf not? Let him vibe in peace. Still, I did feel like they went deeper into his character in an interesting way. His characterization fit with what we've seen of him previously and we got to see his artsy, nerdy side on a deeper level. We saw his love for Lucas from his perspective. We got to hear about his mental health and past from him. We saw him be able to use this to help another lonely kid. We saw his insecurities and flaws from a new perspective. He's not perfect by any means and that's okay. Didn't like that he was still lying so much but it does fit with previous seasons, so it's not ooc. Just annoying. He's not badly written just because his canon self doesn't match up with the idolized image some people built up of him. People say they want flawed characters until they realise that means actual flaws and not surface level quirkiness. It got worded it wrong when they said we'd see him like never before. What we did do is delve deeper into what we already kind of knew, which I thought was nice. The problem is, his role this season felt forced. I mentioned above how easy it would have been to make his involvement more natural (lamifex). Disappointed but not surprised.  

-Lucas x Eliott: I'm conflicted because they inserted drama concerning the series favourites, which occurred mostly off screen since they weren't mains, but knowing how much people care about them, this was annoying. It distracted from the actual story going on because, hello, these 2 are the reason people fought for more seasons. Let's not be naive. If something's happening with them, people are gonna wanna know. They very easily could have not inserted any relationship drama at all. Not because it doesn't happen, but because it took away from Lola's story.

I saw a couple posts that summed up my feelings about the relationship issues themselves. Summing it up as: Their s5&6 problems seemed to be caused by the stress of moving in together and the bac, instead of them having unhealthy communication their whole relationship. That, I would find hard to believe. So I don't think this ruined elu, it was a bump in the road, which isn't the end of the world. I don't think the relationship issues were that bad on their own, but I do think the show did a terrible job at portraying them because they clearly made them seem worse than they were. As evidenced by many fan reactions. If they weren't going to address and resolve all the shit on screen, why include it at all? How are we supposed to interpret that?

Positives

I thought the characterization (mostly rip) and acting was fabulous. As usual, the visuals, symbolism and editing was fantastic. Now let's get into individual stuff:

-Lola: She. Hun. Elle. Oh I was not prepared for how much I would love her. Not only did she feel very real, but she felt consistent throughout her story, even when she screwed up and did bad shit. Like I said, she always owned up to it and took steps to make amends. Messy characters are interesting characters. We all have to applaud Flavie. Skam France's best feature is it's actors and I think Flavie is the absolute best (sorry Axel). The Academy awards are cancelled forever and every actor on earth should quit because this girl has got IT. I felt every emotion she had. Lola herself is cool, sad, loving, tough and bratty, and I adore her. She was raw and relatable. Every time we saw her happy was so emotional since we know all the bad shit she's been through and how she pushed people away. I cheered for her the whole way through. Even when she messed up. It just made me want her to be happy even more. So proud of her deciding to get help :')

-Lola & Daphné: Forget romance, nothing fucks me up more than familial relationships and these girls nailed it. Lula did a wonderful job and the girls had such believable chemistry as sisters. They really made us root for them ❤ Their dynamic was on point: fighting and pettiness, playful silliness, loyalty and love. And the way their relationship developed, omg. The way they gradually opened up to each other. Become each other's confidants, their number one fans. The tenderness. I'm getting emotional just thinking about it. I don't think there's a single thing to fault about them and I wish they'd spent more time on them instead of shit like Tiff. I really liked Daphné's characterization here after her crap behaviour in s4. And her being all 'lesbian rights'. We love to see it 

-ED plotline: I'm so, so thankful they included this. Every single Vilde across every single skam appeared to suffer with eating and body image but none of the other versions got the chance to dive too deep into it. Only from a distance. So when they announced Daphné's sister was the s6 main, many of us were hoping they would address Daphné's obvious eating disorder, and they did it well. It was realistic in a way that was hard to watch, but not overdramatised (which is hard for skamfr lol). I do think they could've incorporated the plotline sooner since it's been something that's plagued her since s1, but I'm glad they did devote lengthy clips to it. Thank gods she said she's seeking professional help because good food from a sweet boyfriend is not going to cure her. I'm glad they treated this storyline with respect instead of overplaying it for cheap drama. 

-Maya: Say what you want about Skam France, but they gave us Maya. Thank you and congrats to Ayumi for her brilliant portrayal. We finally added one more canon lesbian to the skamverse (rip shay 😔). Maya is so different to any of the other characters in the entire skamverse but she fits in so well. She's cool as hell and super kind. Her style is amazing. Tired mum friend vibes. Her backstory is interesting and heart breaking and makes me love her more because she's suffered so much but is still such a loving person. And she's tough when she wants to be. They let her make mistakes and correct them, too. I think she makes a great counterpart to Lola. I can also see her getting along with le grew. Wish we got to see her more because they under used her. 

-Lola x Maya: Speaking of, AHHH WE GOT ANOTHER WLW SEASON! I can hardly believe it but I'm happy. Sort of. I like that the love story wasn't the main focus because Lola had so many other things going on (too much). Yet they actually gave us a friends to lovers slow(ish) burn. The only problem is that their development was lacking and we barely got to see them actually be together. Sigh. When they were together, however. Wow. Their chemistry is off the charts. The way they look at each other. The way their personalities complement each other. They were sweet and patient when they needed to be, but they were also tough and straight forward when needed. Being real, it is too soon for Lola to be developing a relationship while still trying to get clean, but who says Maya can't support her through it? This is a story, afterall. I just wish they would've had a big, long conversation about it all. I feel like their relationship will go through ups and downs, but they do give me soulmate energy. Gays for the win 🏳️‍🌈

-Basile: The biggest plot twist in tv history is Basile becoming one of the most beloved Skam France characters. Truly astounding. That character development is immaculate. He seemed to change for himself rather than Daphné 'fixing' him, which is a nice break away from some outdated tropes. His dynamic with the boys 👌 With Daphné 👌 With Lola 👌 He's a good friend, a good boyfriend and a good dad brother in law. He cooks. And he looks like he gives great hugs. Husband material. Dad material. He went from being a seedy little loser to a total sweetheart who is still a chaotic idiot. And Paul did a great job. Love it. 

-Discussions about mental health: Alright so I mentioned this in the Eliott section, but I have to mention again. They let him share his own past, his own struggles and feelings, and I 🤧. When you've struggled with your mental health, there's something so comforting about talking to someone who can relate. You feel heard, you feel seen, you feel safe to speak your truth. That conversation was exactly what Lola needed to hear at that moment. And it gave the viewers more insight into who they both are.

-Lamifex: Without a doubt, one of the best things to come out of 2020 (but that's not hard with how the year has been going rip stay safe out there). They're chaotic and so much fun. Every character has a different personality that complements each other so well. And each of them is so lovable. Jo, that amazing manifestation of the 🗡🔥🎉 emojis. Sekou, that pristine little genius. Max, that sassy bastard. Their dynamic was amazing and it was fun to see them interact with others. I'd love to see their personalities be more developed in the later seasons, because that was a bit lacking. Also disappointed we never saw their reaction to Mayla. Oh well, Lola couldn't ask for better friends. 

-The Nurse: making another iconic appearance, we love to see it. I appreciated that she told Lola recovery takes time and that relapsing does not mean failure. Was this clip random and cracky as fuck? Absolutely. But I am easily entertained. 

-Loss and grief: depicted very raw, real, relatable responses to loss and grief. Daphné broke my heart so many times. Seeing Lola wear her mum's blouse, and use her old camera, and bring her favourite flowers to the cemetery on mother's day 🤧 Makes me very sad they never made up before maman died. I do have a few complaints: Lola ruining the funeral was unnecessary, and the grief plotline was often overshadowed by all the other shit that went on. Kind of like what happened in Arthur's season. When they were paying attention to this theme, it was well done.

-POV: Showed Daphné and Eliott's issues through Lola's POV in a way that didn't detract from her story. It was done in a way that connected her to them cleverly. I feared they might overshadow her, but it never felt like they did. The pov switch at the end of episode 9 was very cool. However, I was disappointed we never got a full Daphné clip about her ed, or a full Eliott clip showing elu have a much needed chat. They gave us those useless little clips in 5x08 but none when we actually needed them. Bah. The pov was done well for Lola, I just wish they delivered on their promises regarding other characters, you know? 

-Visuals: the locations were cool and the lighting was pretty. Thank you for that, we like actually being able to fucking see what's going on (looking at you, vendredi 20:27 😉). All those buildings were a welcome change from the boring school. Loved how they used lots of purple and pink light around Lola and Maya. They used few slomos this season, but when they did, they were iconic. Eliott's film was also shot beautifully if we ignore everything else lmao. I really liked the visual representations of Lola being isolated versus being supported and loved. The aesthetic do be on point doe. 

-Easter eggs: "Life is now" 😭😭. Every time Lola wore or used something of her mother's. Arthur & Alexia confirming they're weebs. The nurse wearing an engagement ring. The lines in Eliott's film. The return of light/dark themes. Those fucking dandelions 🤧 Also in the last clip, Sekou’s outfit was very similair to one of Noora’s iconic looks. Legends only.

In conclusion, the world is a darker place when we’re not in Lucas’ POV. Just kidding. Maybe. Anyway, a huge thank you to the cast for their enjoyable portrayals. Wish them all the best and I’ll see the rest of you clowns for more chaos next year ;) Let me know if you wanna hear my extensive thoughts about the others seasons and well done if you read all this junk.

[katrinawritesthings]

Jonghyun/Taemin; Flashbabe; PG

happy Pride fellow gays here’s superhero Jonghyun going to Pride. He has light super powers it’s like Flashbang except he’s a babe

hey I wrote this last year and put it in the queue in like December so I definitely apologize that he's not 7000% more anti-pig lmao

One shirt is covered with diagonal rainbow stripes, including the black and brown stripes, and says, in big, bold letters, “Pride was and is a riot.” The other one is pink and just says simply, “fuck cops” in all black caps.

“The back of this one says cops don't belong at Pride, too,” Jonghyun says brightly, turning it to demonstrate.

“Hey boo—which one?”

Taemin looks up from his laptop, at Jonghyun walking in from the bedroom holding up two shirts. Taemin assumes that he's going to put them on over his superhero outfit, because otherwise he probably wouldn't already be wearing the stylish black and white and aqua accented suit. He never wears it at home unless he's planning to go out in it. His mask and shades are both tucked into the collar of his suit’s long sleeve shirt as well, which further leads to that conclusion. Taemin raises his eyebrows.

“You're going in the suit?” he asks. This whole time when Jonghyun was talking about going to Pride, Taemin thought he meant like, as a normal average mild-mannered citizen. Not as Flashbabe. Jonghyun nods, though, wiggling his booty in his comfy super suit skinny’s and flexing one arm to show off his beefy bicep.

“Yeah,” he says. “all of my little queers out there need to know that I'm fighting for them specifically.” he winks at the end of that sentence and Taemin rolls his eyes. That's true, he guesses, and also cute. Jonghyun holds up the shirts again, wiggling them insistently. “Which one?” he asks again.

This time Taemin actually looks them over. One is covered with diagonal rainbow stripes, including the black and brown stripes, and says, in big, bold letters, “Pride was and is a riot.” The other one is pink and just says simply, “fuck cops” in all black caps.

“The back of this one says cops don't belong at Pride, too,” Jonghyun says brightly, turning it to demonstrate. Taemin nods in approval. Both are good, but. Hmm.

“You're going to be on the news when you go,” he says slowly. “They'll censor that fuck in the pictures.” He knows that they will. They'll probably even censor the whole shirt. Jonghyun frowns, looking at the shirt with disappointment.

“You're right,” he says sadly. He tosses in the shirt over the back of the couch, and then puts the other shirt on right there. “I can just say fuck cops out loud when I get there anyway,” he says, voice muffled as he struggles to get his head through it. When he pops his head out of the collar, his wide grin is lopsided and dazzling. “They can beep me out but everyone will still know what I said.” he says.

“Hell yeah,” Taemin grins. Jonghyun throws him a finger pistol as he fishes his mask and sunglasses out from his collar.

“Sure you don't want to come, boo?” he asks. His voice is a little hopeful but not so much that Taemin feels guilty for shaking his head. It's too loud and crowded and hot out there and he knows his feet will hurt after like twenty minutes. And Jonghyun knows this, because he nods back with an accepting little shrug.

“I was going to watch the livestream when BoA starts performing, though,” Taemin says, tapping the screen of his laptop. No fucking way would he miss that. Jonghyun nods again, looking at his mask as he fumbles with it and tries to figure out which way is the right way to put it on.

“When is that, like an hour?” he asks, pulling the mask over his head so it covers his hair down to his nose, still showing off his mouth and perfectly framing his lovely jaw. Even though his mask has custom sunglass lenses built into it, he also pulls out a neon aqua pair of regular sunglasses and crams those onto his face as well. When Taemin makes an affirming little noise he makes a clicky noise with his mouth and ticks up an okay symbol with both hands.

“I gotta go hit up Kibs soon, then,” he says, “so I can bug him to draw me pan stripes and gender-fluid stripes on my cheeks before she starts so I can get there on time. Fuck, and Minho has my glittery high heel boots also, they were going on about tinkering with their armor to make them like bouncier or something?” Taemin can't see his eyes roll, but he rolls his whole head so Taemin knows that he did it. “You know how it takes them forever to do anything,” he mutters. Taemin giggles. He does. Or, well, he knows that Jonghyun thinks that Minho takes forever. He also knows that Jonghyun has approximately three seconds of patience before he starts getting annoyed.

“Are you leaving now then?” he asks. He looks like he's ready. Jonghyun hums, fixes his shirt around his waist, rocks back on his heels and then forward onto his toes.

“One more thing I gotta do,” he smiles. He flounces to the couch that Taemin is laying on, bends over the back of it, leans close, and presses a gross, slobbery, wet smooch to his forehead. “Love you, boo,” he chirps. Taemin makes his most disgruntled noise and turns to wipe his head on the couch cushion. He also reaches up to hold Jonghyun’s hand for a few seconds fondly.

“Have fun, lovey,” he says, tacking on the nickname just to watch Jonghyun’s cheeks literally glow pink. He sees it for just a few seconds before Jonghyun hides his face in his hands and stands up, but it's enough.

“Oh my gosh,” Jonghyun whispers. “Bye boo. I'll see you later.” And with that, he disassembles into a sparky ball of light, zapping into the lamp next to the couch, and then to the night light by the front door, and then outside into the closest street light, which Taemin assumes he's going to follow all the way up to Kibum’s apartment. He is incredibly certain that by the time he zaps himself unannounced into Key’s living room he'll be glowing pink all over.

The next time Taemin sees Jonghyun, it's when Flashbabe appears at Pride by zapping himself on top of a street lamp right over the stage float. He sits there, extremely visible in the livestream camera, faintly glowing through a cycle of soft rainbow colors and waving around at the crowd. He ignores all of the news reporters that catch wind of him and try to grab him for an interview, but when BoA, mid performance set, notices him and calls him to the stage, he zaps himself directly into one of the stage lights and drops down easily.

BoA hands him the mic and he gives a nice little speech about Pride and his identity and how he'll always do his best to protect his favorite little queers and wraps It up by zapping to sit on top of the stage float, pointing over at a group of cops on the sidelines, and saying, “Fuck y'all.”

Then he drops the mic down to BoA and teleports away, zipping from street lamp to street lamp, from float to float, to some of the marchers’ glow up accessories and outfits. Taemin just watches the concert . He doesn't have the energy to check all the news and the social media sites and whatever to keep himself updated on where exactly Jonghyun is right at every moment. He knows that his babe is out there having fun and supporting himself and protecting people. And he knows that Jonghyun will be back later to flop on top of him and give him just as much love and attention as he does everyone else.

[ceasarslegion]

alright, alright. Maybe I’m reading too much into things here, but from what I’ve seen before from GO, everyone involved in the show crammed so much symbolism and double-meanings into things that you’ll be hard-pressed to find something in its diegesis that wasn’t completely intentional. It’s like a little game they’re playing with us to see how much us observant fuckers can notice. 

That being said, I noticed this little bit from the start of episode 2:

It’s the book Gabriel pretends is “pornography! :)” in order to speak to Aziraphale alone during his shop hours, and he sets it down hard on a side table, but for some reason, they chose to put it in-frame. They didn’t have to do that, there was no reason to have a separate, 2-second shot just of Gabriel slamming down a book, especially when the title is in-focus, and nothing else is (I forgot my technical film terms for that kind of focus, and I’m not digging out and rifling through my study flash cards for a tumblr post lol). Maybe aesthetics? It would go nicely with the general theme of the show, but it’s still extra work, at the end of the day. I mean, unless you wanted audiences to notice it

Aaaaaand here I go into a hyperfocused rampage down wikipedia

Let’s start with some canonical facts, some of which I yoinked from the novel:

-Aziraphale is a bibliophile of biblical (lmao) terms. If you subscribe to the theory that he’s on the autism spectrum, you could reasonably say that books are one of his hyperfixations/special interest.

-He also loves food. To the point where you could say that food’s one of them, too.

-However, Aziraphale has a clear preference to first edition books. He collects first editions in particular, and a great many of which are signed by their authors and addressed to him. His bookshop is advertised as selling first editions, but if anyone actually tries to buy them off of him, he will not hesitate to pull every ounce of angelic magic in his being out to keep them away from his precious dust catchers. C’mon, he has special reading gloves to make sure he doesn’t mess up the pages. Like smeogol with the one ring, this bastard angel. So why is it a new edition (which was the third edition published, of I’d estimate about 50 from the size of that list, that currently exist today), and not a first?

It’s not like Aziraphale wouldn’t have been around at the time. The guy’s immortal, he’s been on Earth since the literal Beginning. And it’s established in the episode 3 cold open that he was in England when that book was first published (1861), so it’s not like he was tied up somewhere else. He was in the area, he was already running his bookshop for a decade or two short of a century by that point (if the dialogue from the Reign of Terror scene is to be believed), and I can’t imagine that he didn’t have the means to get it, being able to perform miracles at will, and all that. Maybe it got popular later? Nah, apparently it had already taken London by storm and sold millions of copies before the author died in 1865. Would have been a hot ticket item for a man like Aziraphale, hm?

Which is why I gotta bring it back to his fixation with food.

We always see him at some kind of restaurant, and it’s established in episode 1 that he regulars some of them enough that they not only know him by name, but also an assortment of his favourite things to order from them. I mean, how much does this boy eat out? JFC, Aziraphale (but me too if I could afford to)

Apparently, only around 20 pages of this book were dedicated to keeping a house, and the rest were tried and true recipes and a discussion about cooking; over 900 pages worth of them. My main man Aziraphale’s out here expanding his culinary horizons even more than he already has. So why not a first edition cook book? 

Well, the first edition was stuffed full of a whole lot of bullshit. If google’s to be believed, she recommended boiling pasta for an hour and forty-five minutes, said mangoes tasted like turpentine, that garlic was offensive, potatoes were “suspicious,” (hey mrs. beeton what the FUCK does that mean) cheese could only be consumed by sedentary people, and she couldn’t even take a side on tomatoes. One minute, they were the best things ever, and the next, they’re actual hellspawn. She also didn’t like branching out into unfamiliar dishes, and it was very much written from the nobility’s perspective, so lower classes didn’t find it as accessible. Later editions heavily edited all of that out and replaced it with actual useful information. The first edition is very much not something Aziraphale would be pleased with, so he’s gotta reconcile his unquenchable desire for first editions with his love of food.

And in the end, it seems practicality won out. This wasn’t a purchase for his collection, that was something for him, despite it going against our previous image of him. And maybe putting that in frame with “new edition” clearly visible was meant to show how Aziraphale isn’t as stubborn and stuck in his ways as we’ve been led to believe up to this point in the story, and the change in him jst depends on where the pull is coming from. Hence, Crowley vs. Gabriel. 

Briefly tying into that, the immediate next thing that happens is Sandelphon saying that something smells evil, and in a moment of panic, Aziraphale blurts out “oh, that’ll be the Jeffrey Archer books, I’m afraid!” and like, okay. Yeah, that was probably for comedic intent over anything else, since GO’s also a comedy by genre, but that’s still quite a niche joke even by British comedy standards, dependent on a working knowledge of British politicians-turned-novelists. Aziraphale’s supposed to be an angel; an agent of total, infallible good, isn’t he? Why would he even know that Jeffrey Archer also writes books that would in turn be a suitable and believable placeholder for “yeah, my demon boyfriend best friend hangs out here enough for it to faintly smell like a demon” if he hadn’t, at some point, perused those books himself? 

Or maybe I’m reading WAY too into things, it meant nothing, and it was just for the “oh the old bookseller sells old books!” effect of it all. Then again, Neil Gaiman did confirm that the piano in the last shot with them was supposed to mimick Aziraphale’s wing shielding Crowley from the rain in the Garden of Eden, so this show does have a tendency to go a lot deeper than the surface level. I don’t know, it’s still more fun to deconstruct things regardless of original intent, IMO.

[seoulscenarios]

College AU! Han Jisung

i may have gotten a little carried away with the linguistics part,,, i studied a linguistics module and poured my own damn feelings into this lmao

-Major: Linguistics with TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages)

-Minor: Lyrical Composition,, though he kept pretty quiet about it

-Sports: none,,, he tried joining Hyunjin’s basketball team but he got cut from the team during tryouts for Naruto running across the court which was apparently against the rules

-Clubs: Jisung joined the dance club but gave up after two weeks bc Minho kept making him do all the difficult stuff lmao, is a part of the art club bc he likes to draw, esp characters, and design artwork for 3RACHAs posters/mixtape covers,,,, all the posters you see advertised around campus for the next 3RACHA gig, yeah those were designed by J.One lmao

-So,,, linguistics???

-Jisung honestly couldn’t tell you why he ended up majoring in linguistics when he first got to college bc it’s such a weird niche subject

-9 times out of 10 he ends up having to explain what the hell linguistics is to people bc they have no clue

-It’s the study of language

-So like you’re learning a language??

-No,,, I study how language is formed and used and structured

-……. So no actual language??

-NO

-Honestly Jisung is a bit sick of it tbh, like there’s only so many times he can explain what it is before he wants to explode with anger

-So whilst Jisung didn’t know why he chose linguistics at first, he soon realised that he loved learning about syntax, semantics and pragmatics behind language,,,, he just really loved it

-It also helped him when he was writing lyrics and more often than not, he ended up helping Chan and Changbin with their lyrics when they had an awkward phrase or there was no flow in the lyric

-It really did come in handy for the three of them when they were writing songs late at night and Jisung’s linguistic brain took over when he was checking lyrics

-However,,,, as much as he enjoyed linguistics he actually really despised it at the same time

-I mean,,, idk about you but linguistics is really really REALLY hard to learn and get your head around

-Like if you don’t get something, it makes learning and understanding literally everything else so difficult

-Jisung constantly had an IPA chart in his hand trying to learn the symbols for different consonants and vowels when he was trying to study

-Which,, was hardly ever bc linguistics revision made him want to CRY most of the time bc he couldn’t think of anything worse than writing out the correct pronunciation of sentences or annotate sentences with their different particle abbreviations or,,,, the actual worst which was learning the different phonological rules

-So yeah, Jisung was the literal definition of winging it when it came to his linguistic exams having crammed the night before and bouncing off the wall from 4 espresso shots he had just downed

-He wasn’t that stressed about the exam bc,,, well if everyone else finds it difficult they’ll just lower the grade boundary lmao

-Whilst Jisung seemed like a good kid during class,,,, most of the time was not

-Boy has a LOT of energy and spends most of class literally bouncing in his seat or constantly yelling to a friend across the room from him

-He was asked to leave a few times bc of class disruption and Jisung literally did the Naruto run out of class whilst everyone cheered him on bc of how distraught their teacher was at him

-They didn’t hate him, oh no, bc he was a kind hearted kid he just,,,, was a bit too much sometimes esp for a 9am linguistic class where everyone was literally dead on their feet and he was bouncing off the walls, yelling the answers out even if they were wrong

-He was a much appreciated addition to the class though bc otherwise,,, that class would be DEAD and no one would participate so they were just glad Jisung was there so they didn’t have to answer

-And you bet ur ass when he had to a presentation there were tons of anime references and bad slideshow transition bc that’s who Jisung is a person and he thought they were funny,,, tho the look on one of the examiners face made him slightly regret it but his other examiner was crying at the effects so u win some u lose some Jisung thought

-So alongside his linguistics major, he also took a TESOL path bc he learnt how to speak English so he wanted to help others learn how to

-He always tested out his methods on Jeongin bc,,, they lived together and Jisung literally locked him the living room so he could practice his teaching methods on him lmao

-Jeongin always protested and tried to run away to literally anyone’s house but Jisung just caught him in a hug,,,, and Jeongin could never refuse a hug even if it was from one of his most annoying hyungs

-Besides,,, it meant he got free English lessons without having to be taught by a stuffy professor

-Jisung was a very,, enigmatic teacher and the kind of teacher that would never make a class boring

-In fact, many of the students who signed up for English classes tried to request him despite the fact that u know,,, there were quite a few TESOL students who needed the students to teach as well

-But for the 1-1 sessions,,, Jisung was so oversubscribed that they literally had to redistribute the students so Jisung could get some damn rest,,,, I mean he tried to protest saying that it was fine but the professors were like JISUNG NO

-JISUNG YES he yelled, trying to redo his schedule so he could accommodate all the students before one of his classmates literally had to rip his planner out of his hands and another one grabbed his pen so he couldn’t write any of it down

-Poor baby,,, he just wanted to teach

-A lot of his students came out of their 1-1 classes extremely overwhelmed and had gone to his professor to ask if Jisung is always that enthusiastic and that maybe he should calm down on the coffee

-The gag? Jisung doesn’t even drink coffee unless he accidentally pulls an all nighter before an exam

-The professor just shook his head and was like,,, no that’s just Jisung

-O h

-Jisung wasn’t always the most well prepared for his classes though, preferring to have a very lax lesson plan and once he got called to the head of departments office bc apparently teaching the students English using Beyonce lyrics wasn’t appropriate no matter how much they seemed to enjoy it

-Jisung was offended bc,,, did she just insult Queen Bey just now?? He was going to argue but he didn’t want to get ANOTHER warning bc the last time he was called there was bc he showed his students The Bee Movie and one kid on the feedback form just quoted the opening monologue for his response to “what did you learn that helped improve your English skills?”

-Jisung just felt that learning English through academics wasn’t interesting and certainly wasn’t going to make anyone enjoy it or learn much from it so he liked to use a lot of songs and films and tv shows that had helped him learn English all those years ago

-He still went to Chan and Felix’s flat though just to make sure he could still understand English and that he was still able to English bc lbr here,,, English is extremely difficult

-Like even for Jisung, who lived in Malaysia in his childhood and could speak and understand English well, it’s still hard bc it’s not his native language

-Sometimes Chan had to look over his teaching notes and correct all the English on it bc Jisung had made them the night before and was clearly extremely tired bc it was a jumble of Korean and English that shouldn’t even be together and,,,, were those Zico lyrics in the corner???? JISUNG NO

-But yeah, Chan was very helpful towards Jisung bc of all the help Jisung gave to him when they wrote lyrics together so he was extremely willing to help Jisung with his English

-Heck, he even taught Jisung English once a week so Jisung would feel more comfortable speaking English with his students and his professors bc he wasn’t afraid of getting the answer wrong exactly,,, but still at the back of his mind was that lingering feeling of disappointment if he got it extremely wrong and everyone knew that it was wrong

-The English lessons chan gave to him was extremely useful and he felt even more confident when he went to teach bc he knew that Chan’s lessons would pay off

-You, however, were not a linguistics major

-You studied TESOL full time bc you really wanted to be an English teacher

-You used to volunteer at elementary schools whilst you were a high school student, giving out free English lessons to the kids

-Whilst you may not be as crazy as Jisung was when he taught English, you were still extremely charismatic and enthusiastic bc you had so much passion and love for it

-You met Jisung in a rather,,,, unusual fashion

-It was your first day of classes and you were running late bc you had a meeting with your academic advisor which should have only been a few minutes but ended up being way longer,,, you were polite enough to hear her out but honestly u just wanted to blast

-You didn’t want to miss your first TESOL class bc hello,, that was your damn major

-LUCKILY

-There was still a seat just by the door which you managed to grab before the professor could give you an evil glare for being late to class lmao

-You knew that this would be your spot for the duration of this module bc that’s just how seating arrangements worked,,, u choose one spot and suddenly it’s yours for the rest of the semester/year

-Unfortunately, you couldn’t make that class the next week bc you had doctors appointment during that particular class

-Which, fortunately, for Jisung meant there was one free space when he actually turned up to class that week

-He didn’t mean to not turn up the previous introduction class,, but honestly he kinda gathered he wouldn’t miss anything that he couldn’t find out from the information pack online or by talking to other students lmao

-So when he turned up the week and saw everyone else sat in their respective seats he sighed but spotted a spare one just by the door

-You weren’t there so, without thinking, he just went and sat in it pulling out his notes

-The third week of class comes round, and you arrive to class to see a boy sat in “your” seat and ur fuming bc hello,,,, did he not realise that the seat was already claimed by you

-You stalked up to it and placed your hands on the desk, tapping impatiently

-The boy looked up from his phone and pulled a headphone out, and you could hear a heavy beat with a melodic voice rapping over the top bleed out through the now free headphone

-“I believe you’re sat in my seat”

-The boy just looked at you confused from under his black bangs and beanie

-“But,,, I was sat here last week?”

-“And I was sat here in the first week which makes this MY seat so move it before I drop kick you outta this seat”

-The boy just laughed, before gathering his stuff and placing it on the empty seat next to you,,,, guess that person didn’t want to go to class this week

-(Plot twist: they did turn up albeit 10 minutes late and they realised,,, they lost their seat to Jisung forever and rumour has it the department had to steal a new table for the classroom)

-You just sighed, placing your bag heavily on the table whilst the other boy just sat there, tapping his fingers in time with the music

-Little did you know that this was going to be the beginning of your friendship with Jisung

-As the class started you couldn’t help but be drawn to the boy next to you as he bounced excitedly in his seat whilst your professor spouted some nonsense about how to teach the possessive case as easily as possible

-You couldn’t help but smile as Jisung yelled out nonsense answers to the questions asked by both professor and students, and you full on laughed as Jisung got into a friendly debate with the teacher and the teacher just gave up halfway through

-You caught Jisung’s eye as he sat back down in his seat once the teacher turned his attention elsewhere and he just grinned at you, seeing the smile that was playing around your mouth

-When the two of you were partnered up for a quiz that was going to happen next lesson and the class split off in order to delegate revision

-“I’m Jisung!” the boy, Jisung you now knew, burst out excitedly

-You laughed at his enthusiasm and he smiled at you, before introducing yourself

-“And I’m Y/N, pleasure to meet you Jisung”

-And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the beginning of a beautiful if slightly crazy friendship

-You see, Jisung brought out the loud, childish side in you especially during class whilst you had the ability to mellow him slightly when he got just a little too raucous when challenging a teacher or throwing out answers

-The two of you became extremely close friends, even hanging out with each other at the others flats

-You could be seen playing video games most days instead of studying or having Netflix binges when you should’ve been making lesson plans

-But it was all in good fun, considering you hadn’t failed any classes yet and you had a good social life as well

-Jisung introduced you to his friends and you were essentially one of them now

-Like, you frequently had the boys over in your flat even without Jisung being there

-You came back one day after class with Jisung in tow and found Seungmin and Hyunjin sat outside your door, pouting bc Changbin kicked them out of their apartment bc he “needed space to think for his new track and he couldn’t hear himself think over the sound of a law book being thrown at Hyunjin whilst he was playing overwatch so you NEED TO LEAVE BEFORE I DRAG YOU OUT” to which Hyunjin had replied with “can you even reach my neck?” and Changbin nearly tackled Hyunjin so Seungmin dragged him away before he would be looking for a new flatmate

-You just roll your eyes before unlocking your door and letting them in, knowing they feared the wrath of Changbin lmao

-I mean, they knew where everything was in the flat now so nothing was sacred

-But only Jisung knew where your secret stash of snacks were :’)

-True friendship

-Before you knew it, everyone but Changbin had turned up to your tiny flat for an impromptu movie night

-Chan and Woojin had brought along snacks and drinks, and a very disgruntled Jeongin who just wanted to sleep, whilst Felix and Minho brought more blankets and pillows and set up a pillow fort in front of your TV

-You watch in utter horror as popcorn ends up in every corner of the room before the film had even started bc Hyunjin was retelling his story of nearly being killed by Changbin that afternoon and they all retaliated by throwing popcorn at him

-The boys decided to watch a horror film, and you were less than thrilled

-You didn’t hate them,, you just hated the jump scares and sometimes you had to sleep with the light on just in case

-As you grabbed the drinks bottles from the kitchen, you navigated your way through the pile of boys that had accumulated on your sofa and floor placing the bottles on the floor next to the table

-Frowning, you couldn’t see any free spaces to sit on your sofa and you were slightly annoyed,,,, bc hello it’s your flat AND you sofa u didn’t care that you had guests they were your friends

-As you stood there trying to figure out where to sit, a hand wrapped itself around your wrist and you looked down to see Jisung staring up at you, gesturing to a space next to him

-Knowing there was nowhere else to sit, you begrudgingly sat next to him and Jisung smiled really widely as he felt the heat from your body next to his

-As the film progressed, you found yourself moving closer and closer to Jisung the more jump scares that occurred

-Safe to say, you whimpered quite a lot and at one point you buried you face into Jisung’s chest trying to calm down

-Jisung,,, was pretty concerned with you bc he didn’t know that you were scared of horror films so rather than laughing at you like he would do with the boys,,, he grabbed your hand and rubbed circles onto the back of it soothingly in an attempt to calm you down

-By the end of the film you were basically sat in Jisung’s lap and he had one arm wrapped around your shoulders and his other hand holding yours uwu

-You didn’t realise the film was over until you heard someone, who sounded suspiciously like Seungmin, cough and you practically leapt out of Jisung’s lap

-You didn’t see the smirks Hyunjin and Minho sent Jisung’s way bc you were too embarrassed to admit the fact you were scared and needed Jisung to protect you lmao

-Deciding the night was still young, the boys picked another film and at this point,, you were extremely tired

-The last film had worn you out emotionally and you found yourself drifting off during the second one

-As you did, you shuffled closer to Jisung bc he was warm and soft and you missed the warmth to be quite honest

-As you rested your head on his shoulder, your hand found his and entangled your fingers together before getting comfortable to watch the film

-Jisung was a blushing MESS at your actions tbh,,, like who allowed you to be so cute and play with his heart like this

-The smirks on Hyunjin and Minho’s faces only grew wider as Jisung sent them a panicked look

-You’ll thank us later was what Minho mouthed at him, before turning his attention back to the film that was playing

-Jisung could not find it in him to concentrate on the film, instead choosing to take in your features one by one

-The way your eyelashes rested perfectly on your cheekbones, how your eyebrows would furrow as you shuffled trying to get comfier and the feel on your fingers intertwined with his made his heart rate pick up and left him breathless

-I mean, Jisung had always acknowledged that you were attractive and when you ended up spending more time with him and you got closer,,,, he began to notice everything about you, and whilst sometimes he had trouble recalling what his friends told him sometimes,, he managed to always remember everything you said so clearly

-He gasped,, realising that he had maybe developed a tiny crush on you

-On the opposite side of the room you could see the victory gleaming in Minho and Hyunjin’s eyes

-U see,,, they already knew Jisung had a crush on you and they were just trying to get him to realise it so they could see the two of you happy together bc,,,, boy did they know how much you liked him as well

-Out of all Jisung’s friends, you had grown the closest to Minho and it was to him that you had vented everything about Jisung to,,,, he was just trying to figure out a way to make you realise you had a crush on him too

-Luckily,,, Minho needn’t interfere at all bc after the movie had finished both you and Jisung had fallen asleep and the rest of the boys had left to two you asleep on your apartment floor

-You woke up the next day feeling incredibly warm and extremely uncomfortable

-You rolled over only to encounter an obstacle,,,, cracking an eye open it looked familiar and you realised that your hand was entangled with someone else’s and all of a sudden the images of last night came flooding back into your head

-You clinging onto Jisung, him rubbing soothing circles onto your hand, holding his hand,,,, and then falling asleep

-What you didn’t realise through all this was that Jisung too was waking up

-It wasn’t until you were observing Jisung’s face that you realised his eyes were in fact open and he was staring at you with a soft smile on his face

-Groaning, you reached for a pillow behind you and threw it at him

-Jisung’s laugh echoed loudly in your ears before he launched a pillow at you

-Well,,, it was just a full on pillow fight after that for a good ten minutes until you had all the pillows and Jisung pleaded mercy

-“Fine, I win and you get to make breakfast instead” you conceded, hugging one of the pillows and Jisung begrudgingly agreed, trudging to the kitchen

-10 minutes later, he served you a plate of toast with different toppings and you couldn’t help but laugh bc you forgot how incompetent Jisung was in the kitchen

-As the two of you ate the toast, your eyes kept drifting to Jisung

-His messy hair was almost comical but you found it endearing somehow, and his face was kind of puffy from just having woken up but there was something so intimate about the scene that you kind of wanted to take a photo of how domestic you felt

-As you finished your slice, you took a sip of water admiring Jisung’s features when all of a sudden he made his way over to you

-He leant in and kissed the corner of your lips, before pulling away and smiling at you

-“You had something there”

-Um Y/N.exe has stopped working

-You were literally dying right now,, like wtf

-Why was he being so smooth all of a sudden

-Your brain just went into overdrive and the only logical solution you could think of was pretty damn crazy

-Your head and heart were both in agreement at the solution

-So you just stand up to meet him and grab the collar of his t-shirt and planted a kiss right on his lips

-He was,,, shocked to say the least but goddamn relieved that you reciprocated his feelings

-The two of you pulled apart and sat in silence for a few minutes,,, no one daring to break the silence

-“Soooo,,,, you wanna go on a date?”

-“Sure, let me get dressed and let’s go”

-DATING JISUNG:

-So your relationship,, is definitely not unexpected and was met with great enthusiasm from the boys bc finally,, you had stopped pining

-We didn’t pine!!!

-Look,,, listening to both of you gushing about the other to me was SICKENING and can therefore be seen as pining good day to you

-You and Jisung was very high energy and mainly bc of Jisung bc he would not ! stop! Talking! 99% of the time and u were like,,, babe I love you but pls shut up

-And he would get all pouty which could only be solved if you kissed him

-One day Minho asked you how put up with Jisung being loud for so long and you were like,,, easy! There’s a trick, an off switch of sorts. Care to find out?

-Minho,,, was intrigued but also wary bc hello,,, this is Jisung we’re talking about

-You walked over to Jisung and tapped his shoulder whilst he was talking to Hyunjin about the killing streak he got on overwatch last night you just planted a kiss on his cheek and Jisung stopped talking and giggled shyly before kissing ur cheek back

-You sauntered back to Minho with a smug look on your face whilst Minho,,,, just had a very disgusted look on his face he knew he shouldn’t have trusted you to have a simple answer to his question

-One thing you didn’t know about Jisung was the fact he was part of 3RACHA

-Like you had heard of them,,, you just weren’t big on the campus social life tbh so most things like this kinda went straight past you

-You noticed, however, now you were dating Jisung was that twice a week would disappear for a few hours then occasionally on weekends he would go missing for the entire night

-Not that you were worried that he was doing anything bad bc you trusted Jisung wasn’t THAT stupid to get arrested or something (you hadn’t ruled it out entirely as this is Jisung we’re talking about, he would get arrested for disturbing the peace or something at 3am)

-You just wondered what Jisung was doing bc you were curious

-You waited a few weeks to see if he would tell you and when he hadn’t you just straight up asked him where he went

-He was a little startled, but rather than giving you an answer he just grabbed your hand and tugged you out of the door and towards campus

-“Jisung, babe, please tell me where we’re going” you panted as he weaved through the unfamiliar corridors of a building you had never been in before

-Without warning, he opened a door and pulled you into a,,,,

-Recording studio???

-“Babe,,, what is all this?”

-“I probably told you that I did lyrical composition alongside linguistics right??”

-“Briefly, you were pretty quiet about it to be honest”

-“Well, with Chan-hyung and Changbin-hyung, we uh, write songs and perform them sometimes”

-“Really?! That’s so cool”

-“You think so?” he asked you shyly, ruffling his hair nervously

-“HELL YEAH that’s amazing, could I maybe hear some of the stuff you’ve done?”

-Jisung smiled, slipping into a chair in front of the chair looking extremely professional and began clicking on stuff and bringing up a track

-He plugged in a pair of headphones and slipped them onto your ears, pressing play

-You heard his voice intertwine with the smooth melody and you were in awe at his sheer talent, like you were so shocked that your boyfriend could sing AND rap extremely well

-Jisung sat watching the expressions on your face as the song played, smiling as he saw the different emotions flash upon yourself

-When the song ended you flung yourself at him and began kissing him all over his face whilst he laughed at the sudden affection

-You leant in to kiss him deeply and he just leaned back in the chair pulling you closer to him

-The kiss probably would’ve got more intense if Chan and Changbin hadn’t walked in just in the moment and literally screamed at the fact their friends were tainting their recording studio (it wasn’t actually theirs but the music department graciously let them use it out of hours)

-You threw yourself off Jisung and were extremely red in the face, and Jisung had the audacity to grin at his hyungs

-Changbin just threw a pillow from one of the chairs at him, glaring at him as he took a seat in the other chair whilst Chan just glanced between the two of you

-“I’ll just get going” you said awkwardly, backing towards the door when Jisung shot up and pulled you from the door so he could walk you home

-I can’t believe I have to sit in this seat,,, it’s TAINTED changbin

-It’s your own fault

-???? How ????

-Idk,,, just your bad luck

-…….

-ANYWAY

-You and Jisung were an extremely clingy couple,,, like skinship central

-Jisung absolutely loved loved LOVED it when you would wrap him in a back hug bc it made him very happy and he just loved the feeling of your arms wrapped so securely around him and your hot breath tickling the back of his neck

-Seungmin had to have his law books confiscated whenever you hung out together bc he would just keep throwing them at Jisung whenever he would kiss you or show any affection

-SEUNGMIN IT’S JUST A KISS

-IT’S AFFECTION KEEP IT AWAY FROM ME

-Cue Jisung chasing after Seungmin to try and tackle him and plant a kiss on his cheek,,,, he succeeded but at what cost

-Seungmin nearly throttling him, that was the cost

-Despite the excessive skinship, you and Jisung wouldn’t change your relationship for the world

-You were just the loud, clingy couple that hyped each other up even in the most mundane thing

-Like,, you did a presentation for one of your classes and Jisung waited outside for your class to finish and when you left the class he threw confetti at you before screaming about how much his baby did him proud

-If this was literally any other couple the whole of campus would’ve been like wtf are they crazy but when they heard Jisung scream they were just like,,, ofc

-Hey Y/N u wanna go

-Yeah

-On a date with me./ OH YOU DO./ OHH

-YOU’RE SAYING THAT LIKE I FELL FOR A CUNNING PRANK WE’RE LITERALLY DATING YOU EGG

dating college jisung is just a big meme filled mess tbh

[stemcellee]

In this post, I’m going to talk about the study methods that have worked for me and that I learned during my time at UCLA!

(see another post like this about being healthy here)

Short Term Productivity

Use a stickynote/index card and write a couple goals for today only. Don’t write too many or you will feel overwhelmed! Stick it on your laptop or planner or notebook (somewhere you will see it)

Have a whiteboard at your desk and write down things you need to remember (like a simple equation or some vocab)

While waiting for something (the bus, your coffee, the shower to warm up) have something to recite in your head (probably something you already know, but would like to reALLY KNOW)

When you read, try to tie big concepts to things you would remember easily (like acronyms or symbols) like for example i remember gen chem oxidation as OIL RIG: Oxidation is Loss (of electrons) and Reduction is Gain (of electrons) and I remember the first four unordinary hydrocarbons from Me Eat Peanut Butter (lmao): Methane, Ethane, Propane, Butane

Longer Term Productivity

Plan out your weeks!!! Plan when you will study on each day of the week and keep track of due dates

Make it a habit to do homework/assignments AS SOON AS YOU CAN (like right after you snack or something after classes)

Try not to think about how long you will study and rather think about the number of topics you will study

Don’t stop until you feel confident in your knowledge OTHERWISE YOULL JUST LOSE IT IT ALL 

Keep your notes organized because you never know when something is gonna bite you in the butt again in the future

Review everyday. Like, Serioouslyyyy. It helps a lot.

Read before going to bed instead of being on your phone for 400 hours :C I THINK ITS TRUE THAT THE STUFF YOU READ BEFORE BED STAYS WITH YOU BETTER BC YOU GET TO SLEEP ON IT

Try to keep your area quiet or have only white background noise because if someone is talking about the weather and you’re studying math, best believe you’ll only remember the weather

Reading a Textbook

Most of the time, you don’t need to read the introduction paragraphs.

Read the bolded titles to see what you will be getting into

Before class you can skim lightly!! It will help you not feel lost in class

AFTER CLASS you will now FOCUS YOUR READING ON WHAT WAS SAID IN CLASS because most of the time, class-covered topics ARE THE MOST IMPORTANT! save yoself some time!!

When reading after class, do NOT just read. If you go over something that makes you go ??? in even the slightest way, read it again to understand. Look it up. Do it in THAT moment because you’re gonna forget to do it later.

If you don’t wanna read the whole darn book because ur lazy (like me) or you are cramming, READ!! THE!! SUMMARY!!! 

The back of the book might have some seriously useful appendixes 

Try not to skip the diagrams and pictures lol they’re there for a reason

Taking Notes in Class

dont be on your phone or whatever during class time Like actually PAy attention because if you learn it now, you won’t have to try to learn it again later (you can be on your phone later)

Take down everything written on the boards FOR SURE because if the professor/teacher thinks it’s important to write it, you better think it’s important too

Be an engaged listener! Don’t let it slide straight thru ur head

Try not to scribble your notes so you can read it later

Make CLEAR HEADERS for the topics so you can find those notes quickly

Def make friends in class in case you miss something on the notes ://

Doing Practice Problems and Homework

Get yoUR HOMEWORK DONE FIRST OF ALL

Homework is seriously a great study tool because your instructor assigned that FOR A REASON (aka it’s prob gonna be tested on)

Try to know what you are doing before you start the homework so that you don’t feel lost as heck doing it

When doing practice problems, if you have the answers, don’t be afraid to look at the answer the first time around if you don’t know how to do it. IVE SELF TAUGHT MYSELF SOOOOO MUCH by just looking at the answer to a question.

DONT RELY ON THE ANSWERS THO

Don’t memorize how to do the practice problems, you should memorize the method of solving the problem and understand each step clearly (and understand WHY you do that step!!!) just in case the test pulls some funky stuff on you

The more you can do, the better. But don’t be sleepy and do them because you won’t really retain anything

Other Random Things

My organic chem professor actually did a funny study on sleep and test scores. He said on his final exam he asked “How many hours of sleep did you get last night?” 

and like obviously the more hours of sleep reported, generally the higher the student scored on the exam

SLEEEEPING IS GOOD FOR YOUR LEARNING

WHEN YOU SLEEP AND HIT THE REM CYCLE, YOUR BRAIN PROCESSES THE INFORMATION BETTER and it will really stay with you. So yall need to sleep. Don’t do the all nighters. You won’t remember anything

anyways like nike you should Just Do It

I hope you guys find this useful!! Remember that everyone has different needs and preferences, so take these tips as just tips and not rules!! Experiment with things, see what you like best, see what gives you the best scores. 

Good luck with everything~ thank you for reading!

[deheerkonijn]

@cacatuidaes Thank you very much!!! Well - I’m no designer, but I would be happy to talk about what I did and why. And then, whatever happens next is between you and your tattoo artist. :)

Please see above for very loosely drawn close-ups with quickly chosen colors, and please see below for explanations on what it all is!

Thinky-Thoughts on Jim’s Tats Below the Cut:

I numbered these just for the sake of proximity - more or less I imagine he gets them congruent with the chronology of events in the series … you’ll see what I mean!

1. The Enterprise - This one is obvi haha. His first command and first love. Inside of a vague rendition of the UFP logo, for placement. In my headcanon, this is his second-ever tattoo. 

2. Swallows - The only reason I did that original tats piece in the first place was because I wanted to take inspiration from traditional sailor’s tattoos - I think often about what it might be like if being on a starship were more navy-like (hence trying to get rid of Jim’s spacious captain’s suite and cram him into a tiny single bunk LOL sorry Jimby  *N S FW LINK*). Originally, each swallow signified 5,000 nautical miles that the sailor had traveled. Obviously Jim will have traveled vastly greater distances, so I’d imagine either the swallow has evolved to encompass starship-equivalent distances, or maybe Jim just has a personal interest in them, or maybe he even started keeping them with an intention of using them as markers, but then realized if he kept it up he’d be covered in birds and left them at a tasteful foursome. Maybe there is an old superstition about a captain’s first 20-x lightyears! 

3. Starburst - For luck. Placed on his shoulder just out of reach of being visible in a shirt, it has come to represent how frequently he gets out of trouble. Jim’s ink is all placed in areas that can’t be seen while in uniform. It is a good place for Spock to gently kiss. :3c 

4. Zinnias in Pink, Yellow and Orange - From the ep “Shore Leave” and inspired by that one post about a zinnia grown in space (as it turns out, it was not an homage to Star Trek, but I still wish that lovely space-flower all the best). Since then, as I’m sure many people have done, I headcanon zinnias as Jim’s fave flower - and as we know, he appreciates beautiful things, so he put them on his body.

5. A planetary system - I admit I didn’t think too hard about this one - not intended to be our system obvi - maybe a system where he had a very important encounter?

6. Tarsus IV - This was Jim’s first tattoo. He got it when he turned 18. Two sprigs of wheat on his ribs, a part of the body visually associated with famine, it’s in remembrance of everything that happened. He lies about its meaning to everyone who asks about it - until his encounter with Kodos on the Enterprise in his adult life.

7. Ashayam (with a smudge!) - Ashayam of course is “beloved” in Vulcan, my very favorite Vulcan endearment. :) He got it on his first anniversary of being bonded to Spock. Spock understood the sentiment and was dearly touched by it, so when Jim told him that he wanted the calligraphy to be in Spock’s own script, Spock painted it onto Jim. It got a little smudged cause they got handsy during, and Jim asked the tattoo artist to keep it as part of the final work.

8. Enemy Within - This box is meant to be a super super reduced interpretation of the gemini symbol, with the Command starburst inside. It’s about his two sides and how they come together to make him who he is, not too much beyond that. :)

9. The Conscience of the King - This one represents the end of Jim’s Tarsus ordeal, the end of his solitary burden, and the beginning of his healing. The mask is loosely based off of the ones the players use in this episode, and the dagger going through it is meant to both represent events in Macbeth as well as Kodos’ death. (10.) I linked the mask to the above “Enemy Within” tat with circles, which I find are very comforting shapes even as they are simultaneously a shape about change and movement. It seemed appropriate to associate the two, ‘cause it makes this section represent all the difficult and painful shit that makes Jim-Jam who he is.

11. Galaxy filler - Starts to feather out from the Kodos tattoo and goes all the way around the arm. Maybe it is a specific galaxy?

12. The Obelisk from “The Paradise Syndrome” - Honestly this ep is such a Mess, but in it Jim is stranded alone on a planet for three months with no memory of Starfleet, and takes a wife. That’s a pretty fucking notable event in one’s life lmao - esp when you consider the fact that he’s  committed to Spock (and I do, I always do ‘cause I’m a stan for established relationship hehehe) which is why I then put 13. on top of it.

13. The Nautical Star - The nautical star is another old sailor tattoo that represents a way home, when he is lost in life or in travel. :)

14. GSK - George Samuel Kirk

Soooo that’s my thinking, I hope I didn’t bore you to tears haha! I tried to go for things that weren’t “traditionally” Trek - like for example a phaser is cool but Jimby is soft and I don’t think he’d like to ink a weapon onto his body. Nor do I think he would ever under any circumstances ink a tribble onto his body hahaha even though they are beloved by all. There’re a ton of other really important events throughout TOS that I know Jim would want to commemorate, but these few were the first that came to mind so I just went with it.

His sleeve is very colorful. Not my personal taste, but I think it suits him! :)

[myowndarkcave]

It’s been more than a year since I last wrote here.

Let’s recap what has happened (and is currently) happening in my life right now. I feel like writing this lengthy shit. 

This time last year, I was having an anxiety crisis because of thesis, I was a (as usual) depressed bum who refused to work because I was always spouting the excuse of “I’m working on my thesis!” even though I was not making progress on it (unless “agonizing on it for hours on end while laying down reading fanficiton wondering why my life is like this” is progress, then pn that department, yeah, I was making a hecking lot of progress) and I was feeling somewhat productive and less of a useless case by earning money through online contests (which, in hindsight, was pretty impressive. I was actually able to earn around 5000 pesos from that).

Come April, I decided that maaaaybeeee there was a chance I could cram whatever script I can come up with then graduate? Cue meeting with my adviser (who, I have to let this out now: I deeply admire, but I must admit my fear and insecurity of him, and my lack of feeling any warmth and openness from him are part of the reason why I cannot make progress. Not to blame him though; it’s all on me) and surprise, surprise, he said no. LMAO. 

Still there was a ray of hope in me that, in a way, reignited my motivation. A few weeks (or months...I can’t remember) before that, I had a nice chat with another professor, and, long story short, he encouraged me to do what I have, deep inside, always wanted to do: fuck production, and do a written research. It spoke of my desperation to find validation and support that I immediately decided to go on that route, even though it meant I wouldn’t graduate..again. But well, after the meeting with my adviser, that’s where I’m heading anyway.

So fuck it, let’s do that. My adviser agreed, asked me to redefend again my proposal (my third time! I’m a veteran already). 

Around the same time, funnily enough, I came across a post from my friend who’s looking for a research assistant. Knowledge on popular music was a plus. I mean, I’m not an expert, but I am interested on the topic. Plus, I figured, I can work there until July (which was what the job post said) to earn money, then go back to school in August to finally finish. So that’s the start of a lengthy conversation and negotiation. Near the end, I wasn’t even supposed to accept the job, since my adviser wanted me to revise the proposal I sent him (which, lol, up to now, in 2020, I haven’t even touched) but they offered a part time position, so I agreed to go to the interview.

So, this is the funny part: my redefense and my interview were scheduled on the same day. Kind of symbolic in a way, since I was seeing that it was the start of a new chapter for me. In a way, that day marked the beginning of me finally moving forward, away from the stagnancy, and towards something novel and worthwhile. 

So here I am. March 2020. I am still working on that same job, which, despite the problems, I actually enjoy. The environment is so freeing. I have never felt that in whatever work I do in film shoots. I feel purposeful. It’s not the endgame for me, but I feel comfortable with it right now. 

(please, PLEASE let me not jinx this)

[there may be a part 2 to this kasi tinatamad na ako tapusin ito and also i forgot the point of this essay lmao]